THE UNHEEDED WARNING
Thorndyke’s warning, so emphatically expressed, ought to have been
alike unnecessary and effective. As a matter of fact, it was neither.
I suppose that to a young man, not naturally timorous, the idea of a
constantly lurking danger amidst the prosaic conditions of modern
civilization is one that is not readily accepted. At any rate, the
fact is that I continued to walk abroad by day and by night with as
much unconcern as if nothing unusual had ever befallen me. It was not
that the recollection of those horrible hours in the poisoned cellar
had in any way faded. That incident I could never forget. But I think,
that in the back of my mind, there still lingered the idea of a
homicidal lunatic; though that idea had been so scornfully rejected by
Thorndyke.
But before I describe the amazing experience by which I once more came
within a hair’s breadth of sudden and violent death, I must refer to
another incident; not because it seemed to be connected with that
alarming occurrence, but because it came first in the order of time,
and had its own significance later.
It was a couple of days after Thorndyke’s visit that I walked down the
Hampstead Road with the intention of fetching the sketch from the
artist’s-colourman’s. The shop was within a few hundred yards of Jacob
Street, and as I crossed the end of that street, I was just
considering whether I ought to look in on Batson, when a lady bowed to
me and made as if she would stop. It was Mrs. Samway. Of course, I
stopped and shook hands, and while I was making the usual polite
enquiries, I felt myself once more impressed with the unusualness of
the woman. Even in her dress she was unlike other women, though not in
the least eccentric or bizarre. At present, she was clothed from head
to foot in black; but a scarlet bird’s wing in the coquettish little
velvet toque, and a scarlet bow at her throat, gave an effect of
colour that, unusual as it was, harmonized completely and naturally
with her jet-black hair and her strange, un-English beauty.
“So you haven’t started for Paris yet,” I remarked.
“No,” she replied; “my husband has gone and may, perhaps, come back.
At any rate, I am staying in England for the present.”
“Then I may possibly have the pleasure of seeing you again,” I said,
and she graciously replied that she hoped it might be so, as we shook
hands and parted.
A few minutes later, in the artist’s-colourman’s shop, I had another
chance meeting and a more agreeable one. The proprietor had just
produced the sketch, now greatly improved in appearance by being
strained on a stretcher, when the glass door opened and a young lady
entered the shop. Imagine my surprise when that young lady turned out
to be none other than Miss Vyne.
“Well,” I exclaimed, as we mutually recognized each other, “what an
extraordinary coincidence!”
“I don’t see that it is very extraordinary,” she replied. “Most of the
Hampstead people come here because it’s the nearest place where you
can get proper artist’s materials. Is that the sketch you were telling
me about?”
“Yes,” I answered; “and it’s the pick of the loot. But it isn’t too
late to alter your mind. Say the word and it’s yours.”
“Well,” she replied, with a smile, “I am not going to say the word,
but I want to thank you for rescuing those other treasures for me.”
She had, as a matter of fact, already thanked me in a very pretty
little note, but I was not averse to her mentioning the subject again.
We stepped back to the door, and in the brighter light, looked at the
sketch together.
“It’s a pity,” she remarked, “that he handled it so carelessly before
the paint was hard. Those finger-marks wouldn’t matter a bit on a
brush-painted surface; but on the smooth knife-surface they are rather
a disfigurement.”
She placed the sketch in my hand, and I backed nearer to the glass
door to get a better light. Happening to glance up, I noticed that a
sudden and very curious change had come over her; a look of haughty
displeasure and even anger, apparently directed at somebody or
something outside the shop.
For a few moments I took no notice; then, half-unconsciously, I looked
round just as some person moved away from the door. I looked once more
at Miss Vyne. She was quite unmistakably angry. Her cheeks were
flushed and there was a resentful light in her eyes that gave her an
expression quite new to me.
I suppose she caught my enquiring glance for she exclaimed:
“Did you see that woman? I never heard of such impertinence in my
life.”
“What did she do?” I asked.
“She came right up to the doorway and looked over your shoulder; and
then stared at me in the most singular and insolent manner. I could
have slapped her face.”
“Not through the glass door,” I suggested; on which her anger subsided
in a ripple of laughter as quickly as it had arisen. “What was this
objectionable person like?” I asked. “Was she a char-woman or a
slavey?”
“Oh, not at all,” replied Miss Vyne. “Quite a ladylike looking person,
except for her manners. Rather tastefully dressed, too; a black and
vermilion scheme of colour.”
The reply startled me a little. “Had she a scarlet bird’s wing in her
hat?” I asked.
“Yes, and a scarlet bow at her throat. I hope you are not going to say
that you know her.”
It was a rather delicate situation. I could not actually disavow the
acquaintance, but I did not feel inclined to have a black and scarlet
fly introduced into the sweet-smelling ointment of my intercourse with
the fair Sylvia; so I explained with great care the exact scope of the
acquaintance; on which Miss Vyne remarked that “she supposed that
doctors could not be held responsible for the people they knew”; and
proceeded to make her purchases.
I did not take the sketch away with me after all, for it occurred to
me that I might as well leave it to be framed; but instead, I carried
forth with me the parcel containing Miss Vyne’s purchases. I had not
far to carry it, for she was returning at once to Hampstead. I was
tempted to return, for the sake of enjoying a chat with her, too, but
discreetly withstood the temptation, and, having escorted her to a
tram, I turned my face south and walked away at a leisurely pace into
the jaws of an all-unsuspected danger.
It was some hours, however, before anything remarkable happened.
My immediate objective was Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where, at the College
of Surgeons, a lecture on Epidermic Appendages was to be delivered by
the Hunterian Professor; and there, in the college theatre, I spent a
delightful hour while the genial professor took his hearers with him
on a personally-conducted tour among structures that ranged from the
plumage of the sun-bird to the dermal plates of the crocodile, from
the silken locks of beauty to the quills of the porcupine or the mail
of the armadillo.
When I came out, the dusk was just closing in. It was a slightly foggy
evening. The last glow of the sunset in the western sky lighted up the
haze into a rosy background, against which the shadowy buildings were
relieved in shapes of cloudy grey. It was a lovely effect; an effect
such as London alone can show, and fugitive as a breath on a mirror.
As I sauntered westward up the Strand I presently bethought me that,
before the light should have faded completely, I would see how the
effect looked by the riverside. Walking quickly down Buckingham
Street, I came out on to the Embankment and looked into the west. But
the light was nearly gone, the shadows of evening were closing in
fast, and the fog, creeping up the river, ushered in the night.
I leaned on the parapet and watched the last glimmer die away; watched
the darkness deepen on the river and the faint lights on the barges
moored on the southern shore at first twinkle pallidly and then fade
out as the fog thickened. I lit my pipe and looked down at the dark
water swirling past, and gradually fell into a train of half-dreamy
meditation.
Not for the first time since the occurrence, my thoughts turned to
Mrs. Samway. Why had she stared at Miss Vyne in that singular
manner--if indeed it was really Mrs. Samway, and if she really had
stared in the manner alleged? It was an odd affair; but, after all, it
did not very much matter. And with this, my thoughts rambled off in a
new direction.
It was to the cottage on the Heath that they wandered this time, and
the picture of Thorndyke’s cat-like prowlings and pryings arose before
me. That was very queer, too. Was it possible that this learned and
astute man habitually went about eagerly probing into the personal
habits and trivial actions of chance strangers? The apparently puerile
inquisitiveness that he had displayed seemed totally out of character
with all that I knew about the man; but then it often happens that the
private life of public men develops personal traits that are
surprising and disappointing to those who have only known them in
connection with their public activities.
I had become so completely immersed in my thoughts as to be almost
oblivious of what was happening around. Indeed, there was mighty
little happening. The gathering darkness and the thin fog limited my
view to a few square yards. Now and again, a muffled hoot from the
lower river spoke of life and movement on the water, and at long
intervals an occasional wayfarer would pass along the pavement behind
me.
My reflections had reached the point recorded above, when a person
emerged from the obscurity near to the parapet and approached as if to
pass close behind me. I only caught the dusky shape indistinctly with
the tail of my eye; so indistinctly that I could not say certainly
whether it was that of a man or a woman, for I was still gazing down
at the dark water. He or she approached quietly, swerving towards me
across the wide pavement, and was in the act of passing quite close to
me when the thing happened. Of a sudden, I felt my knees clasped in a
powerful grip, and at the same moment I was lifted off my feet and
thrust forward over the parapet. Instinctively, I clutched at the
stonework, but its flat surface offered nothing for my fingers to
grasp. Then my assailant let go, and the next instant I plunged
head-first into the icy water.
It was fortunate for me that the tide was nearly full, else must I,
almost certainly, have broken my neck. As it was, my head struck on
the firm mud at the bottom with such force, that for some moments I
was half-stunned. Nevertheless, I must have struck out automatically,
for when I began to recover my wits my head was above water, and I was
swimming as actively as my clinging garments would let me. But,
apparently, in those moments of dazed semi-consciousness, I must have
struck out towards the middle of the river, for now I was encompassed
by a murky void in which nothing was visible save one or two reddish,
luminous patches--presumably, the lamps on the Embankment.
Towards one of these I turned and struck out vigorously. The water was
desperately cold, and hampered as I was with my clothing, I felt that
I should not be able to keep myself afloat very long, strong swimmer
as I was. The dim, red nebulæ of the unseen lamps moved past slowly,
showing me that I was drifting down on the ebb-tide. Before me, I
knew, was the long, inhospitable wall of the Embankment. True, there
were some steps, if I was not mistaken, by Cleopatra’s Needle, but the
question was whether I had not drifted past them already. I had given
one or two lusty shouts as soon as I had cleared my chest of the
mouthful of water that I got in my first plunge, and I was now letting
off another yell, when, out of the darkness behind me, came a
prolonged hoot.
I looked round quickly in the direction whence the sound had come, and
then became aware of the churning of a propeller. Almost at the same
moment, a dim, ruddy smudge of light broke through the darkness over
the river, and began rapidly to brighten until it took the form of the
twin mast-head lights of a tug with a vessel in tow.
For a moment I hesitated. My first impulse was to avoid the danger of
being run down; but suddenly I altered my mind. For, as the tug bore
down on me, with a roaring of water and a loud clank of machinery, I
saw that she was not absolutely end-on, for her green starboard light,
which had been for a moment visible, suddenly disappeared. Of what
happened during the next few moments, I have but a confused
recollection. A splashing and churning, with the loud wash of water,
the throb of the engines and a glare of light which blazed before my
eyes for a moment, to vanish in an instant into pitchy darkness; a
huge, black object, felt rather than seen to sweep past before me; and
then my hand clutched a wooden projection, and I felt myself dragged
violently through the water. The projection that I had laid hold of
was the lee-board of a sailing barge, as I discovered when the rush of
the water banged me against it; and much ado I had to hold on, with
the water dragging at me and spouting up over my head. But, with what
strength was left to me, I reached out with the other hand and clawed
hold of the dwarf bulwark over which the water was lapping; and so,
with a last violent effort, contrived to drag myself up on to the
deck.
I essayed to stand up, and did, in fact, succeed, but as my sensations
suggested those of a leaden statue with india-rubber legs, I sat down
hastily on the hatch-cover to avoid going overboard. And there I sat
for a minute or two leaning against the lowered mast with my teeth
chattering, and seeming to grow more and more chilled and exhausted
every moment.
Numb as my mind was by this time, my medical instincts told me that
this would not do. Somehow I must get warmth and shelter, for I might
as well have been drowned at once as die of exposure and cold. I
looked round lethargically. There was no sign of anyone on board.
Another barge was towing alongside, and the bows of two others were
dimly visible astern. On those rear-most barges there must certainly
have been someone steering. But they were inaccessible to me, and I
had not the energy to shout; nor could anyone have got across to me if
I had.
Suddenly my eye fell on the little chimney that rose by the cabin
scuttle. A thin stream of smoke issued from it and blew away astern.
Perhaps, then, the crew were below, or, if not, at least there was a
fire. I crawled aft, holding on with my hands, and, pushing back the
scuttle, backed cautiously down the ladder closing the scuttle after
me.
There seemed to be nobody below, and the cabin was in darkness, save
for the glow of the fire that burned in the little grate. The air was
probably warm, though to me it felt icy; but, at least, there was no
wind to play on my wet clothes.
I sat down on the locker as near to the fire as I could, and rested my
elbows on the little triangular table. Chilled to the marrow and
utterly exhausted, I was sensible of a growing desire to sleep; a
desire which I repressed, as I believed, with noble resolution. But
apparently my efforts in this respect were not so successful as I had
supposed, for the next incident opened with suspicious suddenness.
A vigorous shake, which dislodged one of my elbows, introduced the
episode.
I looked up, blinking sulkily, at a bright and most objectionably
dazzling light, which further inspection showed to proceed from a
hurricane lamp held by a rather dirty hand.
“Here, wake up, mister,” said a hoarse voice, “this here ain’t the
Hotel Cecil, you know.”
I sat up and stared vaguely at the speaker, or at least, the holder of
the lamp, but could not think of anything appropriate to say. Then
another voice emerged from nowhere in particular.
“’E’s been overboard, that’s what ’e’s been.”
“Any fool can see that,” said the first man; “but the question is, who
is he and what’s he a-doin’ in my cabin? Who are yer, mister?”
Now, that would seem to be a perfectly simple and straightforward
question. But it is not so simple as it seems. To a complete stranger,
the bare mention of a name is unilluminating. Further explanations are
needed. And at that moment I did not feel equal to explanations.
Besides, I was not so very clear on the subject myself. Consequently,
I preserved a silence which, perhaps, was wooden rather than golden.
“D’ye ’ear?” persisted the first man. “I’m a-arskin’ you a question.”
“What’s the good of arskin’ questions of a man what’s been a-rammin’
’is crumpet aginst the bottom of the river?” protested the other man.
“What d’ye mean?” demanded the first mariner.
“Can’t you see?” retorted the other, “as ’e’s took the ground ’ard?
Look at ’is ’ed.”
Here the first mariner--Lucifer, or lamp-bearer--wiped his hand over
the top of my head and then examined the tip of his forefinger
critically as though it were the arming of a deep-sea lead.
“You’re right, Abel,” said he. “That’s mud off the bottom, that is. He
must have took a regular header. Sooicide perhaps, and altered his
mind. Found it a bit damper’n what he expected. Put the kittle on,
Abe.”
From this moment, the two mariners treated me as if I had been a
lay-figure. Silently, they peeled off my wet clothes, and dried my
skin with vigorous friction as if it had been a wet deck. They not
only asked no further questions, but when I would have spoken they
urged me to economize my wind. They inducted me into stiff and hairy
garments of uncouth aspect, and finally, Abe set before me on the
table a large earthenware mug, the contents of which steamed and
diffused through the cabin a strong odour of Dutch gin.
“You git outside that, mister,” said the luminiferous mariner (who
turned out subsequently to be the skipper), “and then you’d best turn
in.”
The treatment was not strictly orthodox, but I obeyed without demur.
Most people would have done the same under the circumstances. But the
process of “getting outside” it took time, for the grog was boiling
hot and had been brewed with a flexible wrist. By the time that I had
emptied the mug I was not only revived, but (so far as my memory
serves) rather disposed to be garrulously explanatory and facetious. I
even felt a slight inclination to sing. But my friends would stand no
nonsense. As soon as the mug was fairly empty, they bundled me, neck
and crop, into a sort of elongated cupboard and proceeded to pile on
me untold quantities of textile fabrics, including a complete suit of
oilskins. Then they commanded me to go to sleep; which I believe I
must have done almost instantly.