MISSING!
Miss Marty had just finished watering her sweet-peas and mignonette;
had inspected each of the four standard roses beside the front gate
in search of green-fly; had caught a snail sallying forth to dine
late upon her larkspurs, and called to Cai Tamblyn to destroy it;
had, in short, performed all her ritual for the cool of the day; and
was removing her gardening gloves when a vehement knocking agitated
the front door, and Scipio hurried to announce that a caller--a
Mr. Basket--desired to see her on important business.
"Mr. Basket?" she echoed apprehensively, and made at once for the
parlour, where she found her visitor mopping his brow. Despite the
heat, he was pale. In his left hand he held a letter.
"You will pardon me," he began in a flutter. "Am I addressing Miss
Martha Hymen?"
"You are, sir." Miss Marty clasped her hands in alarm at his
demeanour. "Oh, tell me what has happened!"
"All the way from Plymouth on purpose," answered Mr. Basket.
"Most mysterious occurrence . . . ate a good dinner and retired to
his room apparently in the best of health and spirits. On our return
from the theatre he was gone."
"Gone?"
"Disappeared, vanished! We searched the house. His watch and
pocket-book lay on the bed, together with a certain amount of
loose change. His wig, too . . . you were aware?"
"I have gone so far as to suspect it. But what dreadful news is
this? Disappeared? Leaving no clue?"
"We are in hopes, my wife and I, that this may afford a clue.
A letter, and addressed to you; it lay upon his writing-table.
We did not feel ourselves at liberty to break the seal. I trust--I
sincerely trust--it may put a period to our suspense."
Miss Marty took the letter, glanced at the address and tore the paper
open with trembling hands. She perused the first few sentences with
a puckered, puzzled brow; then of a sudden her eyes grew wide and
round. Despite herself she uttered a little gasping cry.
"It contains a clue at least?" asked Mr. Basket, who had been
watching her face anxiously. "Dear lady, what does he say?"
"Nun--nothing," Miss Marty caught at the back of a Chippendale chair
for support.
"Nothing?" echoed Mr. Basket blankly.
"Nothing--That is to say I can't tell you. Oh, this is horrible!"
"But pardon me," Mr. Basket insisted. "After travelling all the way
from Plymouth!"
"I can't possibly tell you," she repeated.
"But, madam, consider my responsibility! I must really ask you to
consider my responsibility."
"If I could only realise it! Oh, give me time, sir!"
"Certainly, certainly; by all means take your time. Nevertheless,
when you consider my distress of mind, I appeal to you, madam, to be
merciful and relieve it. After travelling all this distance in the
dark--"
"In the dark?" queried Miss Marty, with a glance at the window.
"Tormented by a thousand speculations. In my house, too! In good
health, and apparently the best of spirits; and then without a word,
like the snuff of a candle!"
"His brain must be affected," Miss Marty murmured, gazing at the
letter again. The handwriting swam before her. "Excuse me, sir, I
will not detain you a minute."
She ran from the room and upstairs to her room, her knees shaking
beneath her. Heaven grant that the Doctor was at home! She agitated
her window-blind violently and drew it down to the third pane.
"You are wanted--urgent," was the message it conveyed.
Yes, he was at home. "I come, instantly," answered her lover's
window; and in less than a minute, to her infinite relief, the Doctor
emerged from his front doorway and came bustling up the street almost
at a trot.
She ran down and admitted him. In her face he read instantly that
something serious had happened; something serious if not
catastrophical: but with finger on lip she enjoined silence and led
the way to the parlour.
"This gentleman has just arrived from Plymouth, with serious news of
the Major."
"Serious? He is not ill, I trust?"
"Worse," said Mr. Basket.
"But first," interposed Miss Marty, "you must read this letter.
Yes, yes!"--blushing hotly, she thrust it into the Doctor's
unresisting hands--"you have the right. Forgive me if I seem
indecorous: but in such a situation you only can help me."
"Eh? Oh, certainly--h'm, h'm!--" The Doctor adjusted his glasses and
began to read in a low mumbling voice. By and by he paused, then
slowly looked up with pained, incredulous eyes.
"This is some horrible dream!" he groaned and, feeling his way to the
Major's armchair, sank into it heavily.
"He swoons!" exclaimed Miss Marty. "One moment--a glassful of the
Fra Angelico!"
She ran to the cupboard, found decanter and glasses, poured out a
dose and came hurrying back with it. He declined it, waving her off
with a feeble motion of the hand.
She appealed to Mr. Basket. "Will _you_, sir?"
Mr. Basket confessed afterwards that for the moment, excusably
perhaps, he lost his presence of mind. She had motioned to him to
administer the dose. He misunderstood. Taking the glass
distractedly, he drained it to the dregs, clapped a hand to his
windpipe, and collapsed, sputtering, in a chair facing the Doctor.
"Oh, what have I done?" wailed Miss Marty.
"He deserved it!"
The Doctor pulled himself together, stood erect, and, lurching
forward, gripped Mr. Basket by the shoulder.
"Sir, this lady is my affianced wife!"
"Would you--mind--tapping me in the back?" pleaded Mr. Basket,
between the catches of his breath.
"Not at all, sir." The Doctor complied. "As I was saying, this lady
is my affianced wife. Though Major Hymen were ten thousand times my
friend--by placing both hands on your stomach and bending forward a
little you will find yourself relieved--though Major Hymen were ten
thousand times my friend, it should be over my prostrate body, sir;
and so you may go back and tell him!"
"But I can't find him!" almost screamed Mr. Basket.
"He has disappeared!" quavered Miss Marty.
"It's the best thing he could do!" Dr. Hansombody folded his arms and
looked at Mr. Basket with fierce decision. "Disappeared? Where?"
They answered him in agitated duetto. "Where indeed?" The Major had
vanished, dissolved out of mortal ken, melted (one might say) into
thin air. "If one may quote the Bard, sir, in this connection"--Mr.
Basket wound up his recital--"like an insubstantial pageant faded he
has left not a rack behind; that is to say, unless the letter in your
hands may be considered as answering that description."
"There's only one explanation," the Doctor declared. "The man must
be mad."
Mr. Basket considered this for a moment and shook his head. "We left
him, sir, in the completest possession of his faculties. In all my
long acquaintance with him I never detected the smallest symptom of
mental aberration; and last night--good God! to think that this
happened no longer ago than last night!"--Mr. Basket passed a hand
over his brow--"Last night, sir, I recognised with delight the same
shrewd judgment, the same masculine intellect, the same large outlook
on men and affairs, the same self-confidence and self-respect--in
short, sir, all the qualities for which I ever admired my old
friend."
"Nevertheless," the Doctor insisted, "he must have been mad when he
penned this letter."
"Of the contents of which, let me remind you, I am still ignorant."
The Doctor glanced at Miss Marty, then handed the letter to Mr.
Basket with a bow. "You have a right to peruse it, sir. You will
see, however, that its contents are of a strictly private nature, and
will respect this lady's confidence."
"Certainly, certainly." Mr. Basket drew out his spectacles, and,
receiving Miss Marty's permission, seated himself at the table,
spread out the letter and slowly read it through. "Most
extraordinary! _Most_ extraordinary! But you'll excuse my saying
that while, unfortunately, it affords no clue, this seems to me as
far as possible removed from the composition of a madman." He gazed
almost gallantly over his spectacles at Miss Marty, who coloured.
"In any case," he went on, folding up the letter and returning it,
"the man must be found. I understand, madam, that you are a relative
of his? Has he any others with whom we can communicate?"
"So far as I know, sir, none."
"I have a chaise awaiting me on the other side of the ferry.
With all respect, dear madam, I suggest it; I am sorry indeed to put
you to inconvenience--"
"You propose that Miss Marty, here, should accompany you back to
Plymouth?"
"That was the suggestion in my mind. And you, too, sir--that is, if
you can make it square with your engagements. Mrs. Basket will be
happy to extend her hospitality. . . . Two heads are better than one,
sir. We will prosecute our investigations together . . . with the
help of the constabulary, of course. We should communicate with the
constabulary, or our position may eventually prove an awkward one."
"Yes, yes; the man having disappeared from your house."
"Quite so. Apart from that, I see no immediate necessity for making
the matter public; but am willing to defer to your judgment."
"That is a question we had better leave until we have seen the Chief
Constable at Plymouth. To publish the news here and now in Troy
would cause an infinite alarm, possibly an idle one. By the time we
reach Plymouth our friend may have reappeared, or at least disclosed
his whereabouts."
Alas! at Plymouth, where they arrived late that night, no news of the
missing one awaited them. Mrs. Basket, her face white as a sheet,
her ample body swathed in a red flannel dressing-gown, herself opened
the door to the travellers as soon as the chaise drew up. For hours
she had been expecting it, listening for the sounds of wheels.
Almost before the introductions were over she announced with tears
that she had nothing to tell.
For a while she turned her thoughts perforce from the disaster to the
business of making ready the bedrooms for her guests and preparing a
light supper. But the meal had not been in progress five minutes,
before, in the act of loading Miss Marty's plate, she sat back with a
gasp.
"Oh, and I was forgetting! Misfortunes, they say, never come singly,
and--would you believe it, my dear?--as I was walking in the garden
this afternoon, thinking to calm my poor brain, I happened to look at
the fish-pond and what do I see there but two of the gold-fish
floating with their chests uppermost!"
"Chests, madam?" queried Dr. Hansombody.
But sharp as his query was came a cry from Mr. Basket.
"The fish-pond?" He thrust back his chair, a terrible surmise
dawning in his eyes. "And the fish, you say, floating--"
"Chest uppermost," repeated Mrs. Basket, "and dead as dead."
"She _means_, on their backs," her husband explained parenthetically;
"a fashion de parlour, as the French would say. Did you examine the
pond? Heavens, Maria! did you examine the pond?"
"Elihu, you make my flesh creep! Why should I examine the pond?
You don't mean to tell me--"
"My shrimping-net! Don't sit shivering there, Maria, but bring me my
shrimping-net! And a lantern!" Mr. Basket caught up a
Sheffield-plated candle-sconce from the table, motioned the Doctor to
fetch along its fellow, and led the way out to the front garden.
The night outside was windless, but dark as the inside of a hat.
Their candles drew a dewy glimmer from the congregated statuary:
apparitions so ghostly that the Doctor scarcely repressed a cry of
terror. Mr. Basket advanced to the pond and set down his light on
the brink.
"A foot deep . . . only a foot deep," he murmured. "It could not
possibly cover him."
The two goldfish floated as Mrs. Basket had described them.
Mr. Basket, taking the shrimping-net from his wife, who shrank back
at once into darkness, plunged it beneath the water, deep into the
mud. Dr. Hansombody held a sconce aloft to guide him.
The two ladies cowered behind a pedestal supporting the Farnese
Hercules.
For a while nothing was heard in the garden but the splash of water
as Mr. Basket plunged his net again and again and drew it forth
dripping. Each time as he drew it to shore, he emptied the mud on
the brink and bent over it, the Doctor holding a candle close to
assist the inspection.
As he emptied his net for maybe the twentieth time, something jingled
on the pebbles. Mr. Basket stooped swiftly, plunged his hand in the
slime, and held it up to the light.
"Eh?" said the Doctor, peering close. "What? A latchkey?"
"My duplicate latchkey!" In spite of the heat engendered by his
efforts, Mr. Basket's teeth chattered. "My wife gave it to him the
last thing."
He turned and drove his net beneath the dark water with redoubled
energy. The very next haul brought to shore an even more convincing
piece of evidence--a silver snuff-box.
It was the Major's. Mr. Basket had seen his friend use it a thousand
times; and called Miss Marty forward to identify it. Yes, undeniably
it was the Major's snuff-box, engraved with "S.H.," his initials, in
entwined italics.
The two male searchers, regardless of their small-clothes, now
plunged knee-deep into the pond. For an hour they searched it;
searched it from end to end; searched it twice over.
No further discovery rewarded them.
Here was evidence--tangible evidence. Yet of what? The Major
had visited the pond during his hosts' absence at the theatre, and
had dropped these two articles into it. How, if accidentally?
If purposely, why? The mystery had become a deeper mystery.
A little after midnight the search was abandoned. Mrs. Basket
administered hot brandy-and-water to the two gentlemen, and the
household retired to rest--but not to sleep.
At breakfast next morning, before seeking the Chief Constable,
Mr. Basket and the Doctor compared notes. Each owned himself more
puzzled than ever.
As it turned out, their discoveries led them straight away from the
true explanation. The Chief Constable, when they interviewed him,
was disposed for a brief while to suspect the press-gang. There had,
in fact, on the night before last, been a "hot press," as it was
called. At least a score of bodies of the Royal Marines, in parties
of twelve and fourteen, each accompanied by a marine and a naval
officer, had boarded the colliers off the new quay, the ships in
Cattewater and the Pool, and had swept the streets and gin-shops.
A gang of seamen, too, had entered the theatre and cleared the whole
gallery except the women; had even descended upon the stage and
carried off practically the whole company of actors, including the
famous Mr. Sturge. (This Mr. Basket could confirm.) The whole town
was in a ferment. He had already received at least seventy visits
from inquirers after missing relatives.
But the discoveries in the fish-pond led him clean off the scent.
No press-gang would enter a private house or a private garden such as
Mr. Basket's. Even supposing that their friend had fallen a victim
to the press while walking the streets, they must admit it to be
inconceivable that he should return and cast a latchkey and a
snuff-box into Mr. Basket's fish-pond.
"_Cui bono?_" asked the Chief Constable.
"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Basket.
"Well, in other words, what do you suggest he did it for? It's an
expression we use in these cases."
The Doctor granted the force of the Chief Constable's reasoning, but
suggested that there could be no harm in rowing round the Fleet and
making inquiries.
The Chief Constable answered again that the squadron--it was no more
than a squadron--had taken precious good care to time the press for
the eve of sailing; had in fact weighed anchor in the small hours of
the morning, and by this time had probably joined Admiral
Cornwallis's fleet off Brest.
What was to be done?
"In my belief," said the Chief Constable, "it's a case of foul play.
Mind, I'm not accusing anyone," he went on; "but this person
disappeared from your house, Mr. Basket, and in your place I'd put
myself right with the public by getting out a handbill at once."
This dreadful possibility of coming under public suspicion had never
occurred to Mr. Basket. He begged to be supplied at once with pen,
ink and paper.
"'Lost, stolen or strayed'--is that how you begin?"
"If you ask me," said the Chief Constable, "I'd put him down as
'Missing.' It's more usual."
"'Missing,' then. 'On the night of May 2nd--'"
"From your house."
"Must that go in?" Mr. Basket pleaded.
"If you want to put yourself right with the public."
"Yes, yes--'from The Retreat, East Hoe, the residence of E. Basket,
Esq., on the night of May 2nd, between the hours of 7 and 11 p.m., a
Gentleman--'"
Mr. Basket paused.
"We must describe him," said the Doctor.
"I am coming to that. 'A Gentleman, answering to the name of
Hymen--'"
"Why 'answering'?"
Mr. Basket ran his pen through the word. "The fact is," he
explained, "I've only written out a thing of this sort once before in
my life; and that was when Mrs. Basket missed a black-and-tan
terrier. H'm, let me see. . . . Between the hours of 7 and 11 p.m.,
Solomon Hymen, Esquire, and Justice of the Peace, Major of the Troy
Volunteer Artillery. The missing gentleman was of imposing
exterior--"
"Height five feet, three inches," said the Doctor.
"Eh? Are you sure?"
"As medical officer of the Troy Artillery, I keep account of every
man in the corps; height, chest measurement, waist measurement, any
peculiarity of structure, any mole, cicatrix, birth-mark and so on.
I began to take these notes at the Major's own instance, for purposes
of identification on the field of battle. Little did I dream, as I
passed the tape around my admired friend, that _his_ proportions
would ever be the subject of this melancholy curiosity!"
"It reminds me," said Mr. Basket, "of a group in my garden entitled
_Finding the body of Harold_. Five feet three, you say? I had
better scratch out 'imposing exterior'; or, stay!--we'll alter it to
'carriage.'"
"Chest, thirty-six inches; waist, forty-three inches; complexion--
does that come next?" Doctor Hansombody appealed to the Chief
Constable, who nodded.
"Complexion, features, colour of hair, of eyes . . . any order you
please."
"We must leave out all allusion to his hair, I think," said Mr.
Basket; "and, by the way, I suppose the--er--authorities will desire
to take possession of any other little odds-and-ends our friend left
behind him? Complexion, clear and sanguine; strongly marked
features. His eye, sir, was like Mars, to threaten and command; but
I forget the precise colour at this moment. We might, perhaps,
content ourselves with 'piercing.' If I allow myself to be betrayed
into a description of his moral qualities--"
"Unnecessary," put in the Chief Constable.
"And yet, sir, it was by his moral qualities that my friend ever
impressed himself most distinctly on all who met him. Alas! that I
should be speaking of him in the past tense! He was a man, sir, as
Shakespeare puts it:
"Take him for all in all,
We shall not look upon his like again."
"A most happy description, Mr. Basket," the Doctor agreed.
"Would you mind saying it over again, that I may commit it to
memory?"
Mr. Basket obligingly repeated it.
"Most happy! Shakespeare, you say? Thank you." The Doctor copied
it into his pocket-book among the prescriptions.
"One might add, perhaps," Mr. Basket submitted respectfully, "that a
mere physical description, however animated, cannot do justice to my
friend's moral grandeur, which, indeed, would require the brush of a
Michael Angelo."
The Chief Constable inquired what reward they proposed to offer.
"Ah, yes; to be sure!" Taken somewhat unexpectedly, Mr. Basket and
the Doctor exchanged glances.
"On behalf of the relatives, now--" began Mr. Basket.
"So far as I know, Miss Martha was the one relative he had in the
world," answered the Doctor.
"So much the better, my friend, seeing that you have (as I
understand) her entire confidence."
"I was about to suggest that--circumstances having forced you into
prominence--to take the lead, so to speak, in this unhappy affair--"
"But why do we talk of price?" interposed Mr. Basket briskly,
"seeing that the loss, if loss it be, is nothing short of
irreparable? To my mind there is something--er--"
"Desecrating," suggested the Doctor.
"Quite so--desecrating--in this reduction of our poor friend to
pounds, shillings, and pence."
"Nevertheless it is usual to name a sum," the Chief Constable assured
them. "Shall we say fifty pounds?" Mr. Basket took off his
spectacles and wiped them with a trembling hand. Dr. Hansombody
stood considering, pulling thoughtfully at his lower lip.
"I think I can undertake," he suggested, "that the Town Council will
contribute a moiety of that sum. Something can be done by private
subscription."
Mr. Basket brightened visibly. "Put it at fifty pounds, then," he
commanded, with a wave of the hand. "Should Providence see fit to
restore him to us, our friend, as a reasonable man, will doubtless
discharge some part of the expenses."
Accordingly the bill was drafted, and the Chief Constable, after
running his blue pencil through some of its more monumental periods,
engaged to have it printed and distributed.
"Do you know," confessed Mr. Basket, as he and the Doctor walked
homewards, "I felt all the while as if we were composing our friend's
epitaph. I have a presentimen--"
"Do not utter it, my dear sir!" the Doctor entreated.
"He was a man--"
"Yes, yes; 'taking one thing with another, it is more than likely we
shall never see him again.' The words, sir, struck upon my spirit
like the tolling of a bell. But for Heaven's sake let us not
despair!"
"Life is precarious, Dr. Hansombody; as your profession, if any,
should teach. We are here to-day; we are gone--in the more sudden
cases--to-morrow. What do you say, sir, to a glass of wine at the
'Benbow'? To my thinking, we should both be the better for it."