A SILENT
WITNESS
BY R. AUSTIN FREEMAN
_Author of_ The Red Thumb Mark,
The Eye of Osiris, _etc._
_New York_
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1929
[COPYRIGHT]
Published in U.S.A., 1929
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
CONTENTS
I. The Beginning of the Mystery
II. The Finding of the Reliquary
III. “Who is Sylvia?”
IV. Septimus Maddock, Deceased
V. The Lethal Chamber
VI. A Council of War
VII. An Unseen Enemy
VIII. “It’s an Ill Wind--”
IX. Thorndyke Takes up the Scent
X. The Unheeded Warning
XI. A Chapter of Accidents
XII. Miss Vyne
XIII. A Mysterious Stranger
XIV. A Lonely Woman
XV. Exit Dr. Jardine
XVI. Enter Father Humperdinck
XVII. The Palimpsest
XVIII. A Visitor from the States
XIX. Tenebrae
XX. The Hue and Cry
XXI. The Final Problem
XXII. Thorndyke Reviews the Case
A SILENT WITNESS
CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNING OF THE MYSTERY
The history upon which I am now embarking abounds in incidents so
amazing that, as I look back on them, a something approaching to
scepticism contends with my vivid recollections and makes me feel
almost apologetic in laying them before the reader. Some of them
indeed are so out of character with the workaday life in which they
happened that they will appear almost incredible; but none is more
fraught with mystery than the experience that befell me on a certain
September night in the last year of my studentship and ushered in the
rest of the astounding sequence.
It was past eleven o’clock when I let myself out of my lodgings at
Gospel Oak; a dark night, cloudy and warm and rather inclined to rain.
But, despite the rather unfavourable aspect of the weather, I turned
my steps away from the town, and walking briskly up the Highgate Road,
presently turned into Millfield Lane. This was my favourite walk and
the pretty winding lane, meandering so pleasantly from Lower Highgate
to the heights of Hampstead, was familiar to me under all its aspects.
On sweet summer mornings when the cuckoos called from the depths of
Ken Wood, when the path was spangled with golden sunlight, and saucy
squirrels played hide and seek in the shadows under the elms (though
the place was within earshot of Westminster and within sight of the
dome of St. Paul’s); on winter days when the Heath wore its mantle of
white and “the ring of gliding steel” came up from the skaters on the
pond below; on August evenings, when I would come suddenly on
sequestered lovers (to our mutual embarrassment) and hurry by with
ill-feigned unconsciousness. I knew all its phases and loved them all.
Even its name was delightful, carrying the mind back to those more
rustic days when the wits foregathered at the Old Flask Tavern and
John Constable tramped through this very lane with his colour-box
slung over his shoulder.
It was very dark after I had passed the lamp at the entrance to the
lane. Very silent and solitary too. Not a soul was stirring at this
hour, for the last of the lovers had long since gone home and the
place was little frequented even in the daytime. The elms brooded over
the road, shrouding it in shadows of palpable black, and their leaves
whispered secretly in the soft night breeze. But the darkness, the
quiet and the solitude were restful after the long hours of study and
the glare of the printed page, and I strolled on past the ghostly pond
and the little thatched cottage, now wrapped in silence and darkness,
with a certain wistful regret that I must soon look my last on them.
For I had now passed all my examinations but the final “Fellowship,”
and must soon be starting my professional career in earnest.
Presently a light rain began to fall. Foreseeing that I should have to
curtail my walk, I stepped forward more briskly, and, passing between
the posts, entered the narrowest and most secluded part of the lane.
But now the rain suddenly increased, and a squall of wind drove it
athwart the path. I drew up in the shelter of one of the tall oak
fences by which the lane is here inclosed, and waited for the shower
to pass. And as I stood with my back to the fence, pensively filling
my pipe, I became for the first time sensible of the utter solitude of
the place.
I looked about me and listened. The lane was darker here than
elsewhere; a mere trench between the high fences. I could dimly see
the posts at the entrance and a group of large elms over-shadowing
them. In the other direction, where the lane doubled sharply upon
itself, was absolute, inky blackness, save where a faint glimmer from
the wet ground showed the corner of the fence and a projecting stump
or tree-root jutting out from the corner and looking curiously like a
human foot with the toes pointed upward.
The rain fell steadily with a soft, continuous murmur; the leaves of
the elm-trees whispered together and answered the falling rain. The
Scotch pines above my head stirred in the breeze with a sound like the
surge of the distant sea. The voices of Nature, hushed and solemn,
oblivious of man like the voices of the wilderness; and over all and
through all, a profound, enveloping silence.
I drew up closer to the fence and shivered slightly, for the night was
growing chill. It seemed a little lighter now in the narrow,
trench-like lane; not that the sky was less murky but because the
ground was now flooded with water. The posts stood out less vaguely
against the back-ground of wet road, and the odd-looking stump by the
corner was almost distinct. And again it struck me as looking
curiously like a foot--a booted foot with the toe pointing upwards.
The chime of a church clock sounded across the Heath, a human voice,
this, penetrating the desolate silence. Then, after an interval, the
solemn boom of Big Ben came up faintly from the sleeping city.
Midnight! and time for me to go home. It was of no use to wait for the
rain to cease. This was no passing shower, but a steady drizzle that
might last till morning. I re-lit my pipe, turned up my collar, and
prepared to plunge into the rain. And as I stepped out, the
queer-looking stump caught my eye once more. It was singularly like a
foot; and it was odd, too, that I had never noticed it before in my
many rambles through the lane.
A sudden, childish curiosity impelled me to see what it really was
before I went, and the next moment I was striding sharply up the
sodden path. Of course, I expected the illusion to vanish as I
approached. But it did not. The resemblance increased as I drew
nearer, and I hurried forward with something more than curiosity.
It _was_ a foot! I realized it with a shock while I was some paces
away; and, as I reached the corner, I came upon the body of a man
lying in the sharp turn of the path; and the limp, sprawling posture,
with one leg doubled under, told its tale at a glance.
I laid my finger on his wrist. It was clammy and cold, and not a
vestige of a pulse could I detect. I struck a wax match and held it to
his face. The eyes were wide-open and filmy, staring straight up into
the reeking sky. The dilated pupils were insensitive to the glare of
the match, the eyeballs insensitive to the touch of my finger.
Beyond all doubt the man was dead.
But how had he died? Had he simply fallen dead from some natural
cause, or had he been murdered? There was no obvious injury, and no
sign of blood. All that the momentary glimmer of the match showed was
that his clothes were shiny with the wet; a condition that might
easily, in the weak light, mask a considerable amount of bleeding.
When the match went out, I stood for some moments looking down on the
prostrate figure as it lay with the rain beating down on the upturned
face, professional interest contending with natural awe of the tragic
presence. The former prompted me to ascertain without delay the cause
of death; and, indeed, I was about to make a more thorough search for
some injury or wound when something whispered to me that it is not
well to be alone at midnight in a solitary place with a dead
man,--perchance a murdered man. Had there been any sign of life, my
duty would have been clear. As it was, I must act for the best with a
due regard to my own safety. And, reaching this conclusion, I turned
away, with a last glance at the motionless figure and set forth
homeward at a rapid pace.
As I turned out of Millfield Lane into Highgate Rise I perceived a
policeman on the opposite side of the road standing under a tree,
where the light from a lamp fell on his shining tarpaulin cape. I
crossed the road, and, as he civilly touched his helmet, I said: “I am
afraid there is something wrong up the lane, Constable; I have just
seen the body of a man lying on the pathway.”
The constable woke up very completely. “Do you mean a dead man, sir?”
he asked.
“Yes, he is undoubtedly dead,” I replied.
“Whereabouts did you see the body?” enquired the constable.
“In the narrow part of the lane, just by the stables of Mansfield
House.”
“That’s some distance from here,” said the constable. “You had better
come with me and report at the station. You’re sure the man was dead,
sir?”
“Yes, I have no doubt about it. I am a medical man,” I added, with
some pride (I had been a medical man about three months, and the
sensation was still a novel one).
“Oh, are you, sir?” said the officer, with a glance at my half-fledged
countenance; “then, I suppose you examined the body?”
“Sufficiently to make sure that the man was dead, but I did not stay
to ascertain the cause of death.”
“No, sir; quite so. We can find that out later.”
As we talked, the constable swung along down the hill, without hurry,
but at a pace that gave me very ample exercise, and I caught his eye
from time to time, travelling over my person with obvious professional
interest. When we had nearly reached the bottom of the hill, there
appeared suddenly on the wet road ahead, a couple of figures in
waterproof capes.
“Ha!” said the constable, “this is fortunate. Here is the inspector
and the sergeant. That will save us the walk to the station.”
He accosted the officers as they approached and briefly related what I
had told him.
“You are sure the man was dead, sir?” said the inspector, scrutinizing
me narrowly; “but, there, we needn’t stay here to discuss that. You
run down, sergeant and get a stretcher and bring it along as quickly
as you can. I must trouble you, sir, to come with me and show me where
the body is. Lend the gentleman your cape, sergeant; you can get
another at the station.”
I accepted the stout cape thankfully, for the rain still fell with
steady persistency, and set forth with the inspector to retrace my
steps. And as we splashed along through the deep gloom of the lane,
the officer plied me with judicious questions.
“How long did you think the man had been dead?” he asked.
“Not long, I should think. The body was still quite limp.”
“You didn’t see any marks of violence?”
“No. There were no obvious injuries.”
“Which way were you going when you came on the body?”
“The way we are going now, and, of course, I came straight back.”
“Did you meet or see anyone in the lane?”
“Not a soul,” I answered.
He considered my answers for some time, and then came the question
that I had been expecting.
“How came you to be in the lane at this time of night?”
“I was taking a walk,” I replied, “as I do nearly every night. I
usually finish my evening’s reading about eleven, and then I have some
supper and take a walk before going to bed, and I take my walk most
commonly in Millfield Lane. Some of your men must remember having met
me.”
This explanation seemed to satisfy him for he pursued the subject no
farther, and we trudged on for awhile in silence. At length, as we
passed through the posts into the narrow part of the lane, the
inspector asked: “We’re nearly there, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” I replied: “the body is lying in the bend just ahead.”
I peered into the darkness in search of the foot that had first
attracted my notice, but was not yet able to distinguish it. Nor, to
my surprise, could I make it out as we approached more nearly; and
when we reached the corner, I stopped short in utter amazement.
The body had vanished!
“What’s the matter?” asked the inspector. “I thought this was the
place you meant.”
“So it is,” I answered. “This is the place where the body was lying;
here, across the path, with one foot projecting round the corner.
Someone must have carried it away.”
The inspector looked at me sharply for a moment. “Well, it isn’t here
now,” said he, “and if it has been taken away, it must have been taken
along towards Hampstead Lane. We’d better go and see.” Without waiting
for a reply, he started off along the lane at a smart double and I
followed.
We pursued the windings of the lane until we emerged into the road by
the lodge gates, without discovering any traces of the missing corpse
or meeting any person, and then we turned back and retraced our steps;
and as we, once more, approached the crook in the lane where I had
seen the body, we heard a quick, measured tramp.
“Here comes the sergeant with the stretcher,” observed the inspector;
“and he might have saved himself the trouble.” Once more the officer
glanced at me sharply, and this time with unmistakable suspicion.
“There’s no body here, Robson,” he said, as the sergeant came up,
accompanied by two constables carrying a stretcher. “It seems to have
disappeared.”
“Disappeared!” exclaimed the sergeant, bestowing on me a look of
extreme disfavour; “that’s a rum go, sir. How could it have
disappeared?”
“Ah! that’s the question!” said the inspector. “And another question
is, was it ever here? Are you prepared to make a sworn statement on
the subject, sir?”
“Certainly I am,” I replied.
“Then,” said the inspector, “we will take it that there was a body
here. Put down that stretcher. There is a gap in the fence farther
along. We will get through there and search the meadow.”
The bearers stood the stretcher up against a tree and we all proceeded
up the lane to the place where the observant inspector had noticed the
opening in the fence. The gravel, though sodden with the wet, took but
the faintest impressions of the feet that trod it, and, though the
sergeant and the two constables threw the combined light of their
lanterns on the ground, we were only able to make out very faintly the
occasional traces of our own footsteps.
We scrutinized the break in the fence and the earth around with the
utmost minuteness, but could detect no sign of anyone having passed
through. The short turf of the meadow, on which I had seen sheep
grazing in the daytime, was not calculated to yield traces of anyone
passing over it, and no traces of any kind were discoverable. When we
had searched the meadow thoroughly and without result, we came back
into the lane and followed its devious course to the “kissing-gate” at
the Hampstead Lane entrance. And still there was no sign of anything
unusual. True, there were obscure footprints in the soft gravel by the
turnstile, but they told us nothing; we could not even be sure that
they had not been made by ourselves on our previous visit. In short,
the net result of our investigations was that the body had vanished
and left no trace.
“It’s a very extraordinary affair,” said the inspector, in a tone of
deep discontent, as we walked back. “The body of a full-grown man
isn’t the sort of thing you can put in your pocket and stroll off with
without being noticed, even at midnight. Are you perfectly sure the
man was really dead and not in a faint?”
“I feel no doubt whatever that he was dead,” I replied.
“With all respect to you, sir,” said the sergeant, “I think you must
be mistaken. I think the man must have been in a dead faint, and after
you came away, the rain must have revived him so that he was able to
get up and walk away.”
“I don’t think so,” said I, though with less conviction; for, after
all it was not absolutely impossible that I should have been mistaken,
since I had discovered no mortal injury, and the sergeant’s suggestion
was an eminently reasonable one.
“What sized man was he?” the inspector asked.
“That I couldn’t say,” I answered. “It is not easy to judge the height
of a man when he is lying down and the light was excessively dim. But
I should say he was not a tall man and rather slight in build.”
“Could you give us any description of him?”
“He was an elderly man, about sixty, I should think, and he appeared
to be a clergyman or a priest, for he wore a Roman collar with a
narrow, dark stripe up the front. He was clean shaven, and, I think,
wore a clerical suit of black. A tall hat was lying on the ground
close by and a walking-stick which looked like a malacca, but I
couldn’t see it very well as he had fallen on it and most of it was
hidden.”
“And you saw all this by the light of one wax match,” said the
inspector. “You made pretty good use of your eyes, sir.”
“A man isn’t much use in my profession if he doesn’t,” I replied,
rather stiffly.
“No, that’s true,” the inspector agreed. “Well, I must ask you to give
us the full particulars at the station, and we shall see if anything
fresh turns up. I’m sorry to keep you hanging about in the wet, but it
can’t be helped.”
“Of course it can’t,” said I, and we trudged on in silence until we
reached the station, which looked quite cheerful and homelike despite
the grim blue lamp above the doorway.
“Well, Doctor,” said the inspector, when he had read over my statement
and I had affixed my signature, “if anything turns up, you’ll hear
from us. But I doubt if we shall hear anything more of this. Dead or
alive, the man seems to have vanished completely. Perhaps the
sergeant’s right after all, and your dead man is at this moment
comfortably tucked up in bed. Good-night, Doctor, and thank you for
all the trouble you have taken.”
By the time that I reached my lodgings I was tired out and miserably
cold; so cold that I was fain to brew myself a jorum of hot grog in my
shaving pot. As a natural result, I fell fast asleep as soon as I got
to bed and slept on until the autumn sunshine poured in through the
slats of the Venetian blind.