The D’Arblay Mystery
by R. Austin Freeman
CONTENTS
I. The Pool in the Wood
II. A Conference with Dr. Thorndyke
III. The Doctor’s Revelations
IV. Mr. Bendelow
V. Inspector Follett’s Discovery
VI. Marion D’Arblay at Home
VII. Thorndyke Enlarges His Knowledge
VIII. Simon Bendelow, Deceased
IX. A Strange Misadventure
X. Marion’s Peril
XI. Arms and the Man
XII. A Dramatic Discovery
XIII. A Narrow Escape
XIV. The Haunted Man
XV. Thorndyke Proposes a New Move
XVI. A Surprise for the Superintendent
XVII. A Chapter of Surprises
XVIII. The Last Act
XIX. Thorndyke Disentangles the Threads
CHAPTER I.
The Pool in the Wood
There are certain days in our lives which, as we recall them, seem to
detach themselves from the general sequence as forming the
starting-point of a new epoch. Doubtless, if we examined them
critically, we should find them to be but links in a connected chain.
But in a retrospective glance their continuity with the past is
unperceived, and we see them in relation to the events which followed
them rather than to those which went before.
Such a day is that on which I look back through a vista of some twenty
years; for on that day I was, suddenly and without warning, plunged
into the very heart of a drama so strange and incredible that in the
recital of its events I am conscious of a certain diffidence and
hesitation.
The picture that rises before me as I write is very clear and vivid. I
see myself, a youngster of twenty-five, the owner of a brand-new
medical diploma, wending my way gaily down Wood-lane, Highgate, at
about eight o’clock on a sunny morning in early autumn. I was taking a
day’s holiday, the last I was likely to enjoy for some time; for on
the morrow I was to enter on the duties of my first professional
appointment. I had nothing in view to-day but sheer, delightful
idleness. It is true that a sketch-book in one pocket and a box of
collecting-tubes in another suggested a bare hint of purpose in the
expedition; but primarily it was a holiday, a pleasure jaunt, to which
art and science were no more than possible sources of contributory
satisfaction.
At the lower end of the lane was the entrance to Church-yard Bottom
Wood, then open and unguarded save by a few hurdles (it has since been
enclosed and re-named “Queen’s Wood”). I entered and took my way along
the broad, rough path, pleasantly conscious of the deep silence and
seeming remoteness of this surviving remnant of the primeval forest of
Britain, and letting my thoughts stray to the great plague-pit in the
haunted wood that gave the place its name. The foliage of the oaks was
still unchanged despite the waning of the year. The low-slanting
sunlight spangled it with gold and made rosy patterns on the path,
where lay a few prematurely fallen leaves; but in the hollows among
the undergrowth traces of the night-mists lingered, shrouding
tree-bole, bush, and fern in a mystery of gauzy blue.
A turn of the path brought me suddenly within a few paces of a girl
who was stooping at the entrance to a side-track, and seemed to be
peering into the undergrowth as if looking for something. As I
appeared, she stood up and looked round at me with a startled,
apprehensive manner that caused me to look away and pass as if I had
not seen her. But the single glance had shown me that she was a
strikingly handsome girl—indeed, I should have used the word
“beautiful”; that she seemed to be about my own age, and that she was
evidently a lady.
The apparition, pleasant as it was, set me speculating as I strode
forward. It was early for a girl like this to be afoot in the woods,
and alone, too. Not so very safe, either, as she had seemed to
realize, judging by the start that my approach seemed to have given
her. And what could it be that she was looking for? Had she lost
something at some previous time and come to search for it before any
one was about? It might be so. Certainly she was not a poacher, for
there was nothing to poach, and she hardly had the manner or
appearance of a naturalist.
A little farther on I struck into a side path which led, as I knew, in
the direction of a small pond. That pond I had had in my mind when I
put the box of collecting-tubes in my pocket, and I now made my way to
it as directly as the winding track would let me; but still it was not
the pond or its inmates that occupied my thoughts, but the mysterious
maiden whom I had left peering into the undergrowth. Perhaps if she
had been less attractive I might have given her less consideration.
But I was twenty-five; and if a man at twenty-five has not a keen and
appreciative eye for a pretty girl, there must be something radically
wrong with his mental make-up.
In the midst of my reflections I came out into a largish opening in
the wood, at the centre of which, in a slight hollow, was the pond: a
small oval piece of water, fed by the trickle of a tiny stream, the
continuation of which carried away the overflow towards the invisible
valley.
Approaching the margin, I brought out my box of tubes and, uncorking
one, stooped and took a trial dip. When I held the glass tube against
the light and examined its contents through my pocket lens I found
that I was in luck. The “catch” included a green hydra, clinging to a
rootlet of duckweed, several active water-fleas, a scarlet water-mite,
and a beautiful sessile rotifer. Evidently this pond was a rich
hunting ground.
Delighted with my success, I corked the tube, put it away, and brought
out another, with which I took a fresh dip. This was less successful,
but the naturalist’s ardour and the collector’s cupidity being
thoroughly aroused, I persevered, gradually enriching my collection
and working my way slowly round the margin of the pond, forgetful of
everything—even of the mysterious maiden—but the objects of my search;
indeed, so engrossed was I with my pursuit of the minute denizens of
this watery world that I failed to observe a much larger object which
must have been in view most of the time. Actually, I did not see it
until I was right over it. Then, as I was stooping to clear away the
duckweed for a fresh dip, I found myself confronted by a human face,
just below the surface and half-concealed by the pond-weed.
It was a truly appalling experience. Utterly unprepared for this awful
apparition, I was so overcome by astonishment and horror that I
remained stooping, with motion arrested, as if petrified, staring at
the thing in silence and hardly breathing. The face was that of a man
of about fifty or a little more: a handsome, refined, rather
intellectual face, with a moustache and Vandyke beard, and surmounted
by a thickish growth of iron-grey hair. Of the rest of the body little
was to be seen, for the duckweed and water-crowfoot had drifted over
it, and I had no inclination to disturb them.
Recovering somewhat from the shock of this sudden and fearful
encounter, I stood up and rapidly considered what I had better do. It
was clearly not for me to make any examination or meddle with the
corpse in any way; indeed, when I considered the early hour and the
remoteness of this solitary place, it seemed prudent to avoid the
possibility of being seen there by any chance stranger. Thus
reflecting, with my eyes still riveted on the pallid, impassive face,
so strangely sleeping below the glassy surface and conveying to me
somehow a dim sense of familiarity, I pocketed my tubes, and, turning
back, stole away along the woodland track, treading lightly, almost
stealthily, as one escaping from the scene of a crime.
Very different was my mood, as I retraced my steps, from that in which
I had come. Gone was all my gaiety and holiday spirit. The dread
meeting had brought me into an atmosphere of tragedy, perchance even
of something more than tragedy. With death I was familiar enough;
death as it comes to men, prefaced by sickness or even by injury. But
the dead man who lay in that still and silent pool in the heart of the
wood had come there by none of the ordinary chances of normal life. It
seemed barely possible that he could have fallen in by mere
misadventure, for the pond was too shallow and its bottom shelved too
gently for accidental drowning to be conceivable. Nor was the strange,
sequestered spot without significance. It was just such a spot as
might well be chosen by one who sought to end his life—or another’s.
I had nearly reached the main path when an abrupt turn of the narrow
track brought me once more face to face with the girl whose existence
I had till now forgotten. She was still peering into the dense
undergrowth as if searching for something; and again, on my sudden
appearance, she turned a startled face towards me. But this time I did
not look away. Something in her face struck me with a nameless fear.
It was not only that she was pale and haggard, but that her expression
betokened anxiety and even terror. As I looked at her I understood in
a flash the dim sense of familiarity of which I had been conscious in
the pallid face beneath the water. It was her face that it had
recalled.
With my heart in my mouth, I halted and, taking off my cap, addressed
her.
“Pray pardon me; you seem to be searching for something. Can I help
you in any way or give you any information?”
She looked at me a little shyly and, as I thought, with slight
distrust, but she answered civilly enough, though rather stiffly:
“Thank you, but I am afraid you can’t help me. I am not in need of any
assistance.”
This, under ordinary circumstances, would have brought the interview
to an abrupt end. But the circumstances were not ordinary, and as she
made as if to pass me I ventured to persist.
“Please,” I urged, “don’t think me impertinent, but would you mind
telling me what you are looking for? I have a reason for asking, and
it isn’t curiosity.”
She reflected for a few moments before replying, and I feared that she
was about to administer another snub. Then, without looking at me, she
replied:
“I am looking for my father” (and at these words my heart sank). “He
did not come home last night. He left Hornsey to come home, and he
would ordinarily have come by the path through the wood. He always
came that way from Hornsey. So I am looking through the wood in case
he missed his way, or was taken ill, or——”
Here the poor girl suddenly broke off, and, letting her dignity go,
burst into tears. I huskily murmured a few indistinct words of
condolence, but, in truth, I was little less affected than she was. It
was a terrible position, but there was no escape from it. The corpse
that I had just seen was almost certainly her father’s corpse. At any
rate, the question whether it was or not had to be settled now, and
settled by me—and her. That was quite clear; but yet I could not screw
my courage up to the point of telling her. While I was hesitating,
however, she forced the position by a direct question.
“You said just now that you had a reason for asking what I was
searching for. Would it be——?” She paused and looked at me inquiringly
as she wiped her eyes.
I made a last, frantic search for some means of breaking the horrid
news to her. Of course there was none. Eventually I stammered:
“The reason I asked was—er—the fact is that I have just seen the body
of a man lying——”
“Where?” she demanded. “Show me the place!”
Without replying, I turned and began quickly to retrace my steps along
the narrow track. A few minutes brought me to the opening in which the
pond was situated, and I was just beginning to skirt the margin,
closely followed by my companion, when I heard her utter a low,
gasping cry. The next moment she had passed me and was running along
the bank towards a spot where I could now see the toe of a boot just
showing through the duckweed. I stopped short and watched her with my
heart in my throat. Straight to the fatal spot she ran, and for a
moment stood on the brink, stooping over the weedy surface. Then, with
a terrible, wailing cry, she stepped into the water.
Instantly I ran forward and waded into the pond to her side. Already
she had her arms round the dead man’s neck and was raising the face
above the surface. I saw that she meant to bring the body ashore, and,
useless as it was, it seemed a natural thing to do. Silently I passed
my arms under the corpse and lifted it; and as she supported the head
we bore it through the shallows and up the bank, where I laid it down
gently in the high grass.
Not a word had been spoken, nor was there any question that need be
asked. The pitiful tale told itself only too plainly. As I stood
looking with swimming eyes at the tragic group, a whole history seemed
to unfold itself; a history of love and companionship, of a happy,
peaceful past made sunny by mutual affection, shattered in an instant
by the hideous present, with its portent of a sad and lonely future.
She had sat down on the grass and taken the dead head on her lap,
tenderly wiping the face with her handkerchief, smoothing the grizzled
hair and crooning or moaning words of endearment into the insensible
ears. She had forgotten my presence: indeed, she was oblivious of
everything but the still form that bore the outward semblance of her
father.
Some minutes passed thus. I stood a little apart, cap in hand, more
moved than I had ever been in my life, and, naturally enough,
unwilling to break in upon a grief so overwhelming and, as it seemed
to me, so sacred. But presently it began to be borne in on me that
something had to be done. The body would have to be removed from this
place, and the proper authorities ought to be notified. Still, it was
some time before I could gather courage to intrude on her sorrow; to
profane her grief with the sordid realities of everyday life. At last
I braced myself up for the effort, and addressed her.
“Your father,” I said gently—I could not refer to him as “the
body”—“will have to be taken away from here; and the proper persons
will have to be informed of what has happened. Shall I go alone, or
will you come with me? I don’t like to leave you here.”
She looked up at me, and to my relief answered me with quiet
composure:
“I can’t leave him here all alone. I must stay with him until he is
taken away. Do you mind telling whoever ought to be told”—like me, she
instinctively avoided the word “police”—“and making what arrangements
are necessary?”
There was nothing more to be said; and loath as I was to leave her
alone with the dead, my heart assented to her decision. In her place,
I should have had the same feeling. Accordingly, with a promise to
return as quickly as I could, I stole away along the woodland track.
When I turned to take a last glance at her before plunging into the
wood, she was once more leaning over the head that lay in her lap,
looking with fond grief into the impassive face and stroking the dank
hair.
My intention had been to go straight to the police-station, when I had
ascertained its whereabouts, and make my report to the officer in
charge. But a fortunate chance rendered this proceeding unnecessary,
for, at the moment when I emerged from the top of Wood-lane, I saw a
police-officer, mounted on a bicycle—a road patrol, as I assumed him
to be—approaching along the Archway-road. I hailed him to stop, and as
he dismounted and stepped on to the footway I gave him a brief account
of the finding of the body and my meeting with the daughter of the
dead man. He listened with calm, business-like interest, and, when I
had finished, said:
“We had better get the body removed as quickly as possible. I will run
along to the station and get the wheeled stretcher. There is no need
for you to come. If you will go back and wait for us at the entrance
to the wood that will save time. We shall be there within a quarter of
an hour.”
I agreed gladly to this arrangement, and when I had seen him mount his
machine and shoot away along the road, I turned back down the Lane and
re-entered the wood. Before taking up my post, I walked quickly down
the path and along the track to the opening by the pond. My new friend
was sitting just as I had left her, but she looked up as I emerged
from the track and advanced towards her. I told her briefly what had
happened and was about to retire when she asked: “Will they take him
to our house?”
“I am afraid not,” I replied. “There will have to be an inquiry by the
coroner, and until that is finished his body will have to remain in
the mortuary.”
“I was afraid it might be so,” she said with quiet resignation; and as
she spoke she looked down with infinite sadness at the waxen face in
her lap. A good deal relieved by her reasonable acceptance of the
painful necessities, I turned back and made my way to the rendezvous
at the entrance to the wood.
As I paced to and fro on the shady path, keeping a look-out up the
Lane, my mind was busy with the tragedy to which I had become a party.
It was a grievous affair. The passionate grief which I had witnessed
spoke of no common affection. On one life at least this disaster had
inflicted irreparable loss, and there were probably others on whom the
blow had yet to fall. But it was not only a grievous affair; it was
highly mysterious. The dead man had apparently been returning home at
night in a customary manner and by a familiar way. That he could have
strayed by chance from the open, well-worn path into the recesses of
the wood was inconceivable, while the hour and the circumstances made
it almost as incredible that he should have been wandering in the wood
by choice. And again, the water in which he had been lying was quite
shallow; so shallow as to rule out accidental drowning as an
impossibility.
What could the explanation be? There seemed to be but three
possibilities, and two of them could hardly be entertained. The idea
of intoxication I rejected at once. The girl was evidently a lady, and
her father was presumably a gentleman, who would not be likely to be
wandering abroad drunk; nor could a man who was sober enough to have
reached the pond have been so helpless as to be drowned in its shallow
waters. To suppose that he might have fallen into the water in a fit
was to leave unexplained the circumstance of his being in that remote
place at such an hour. The only possibility that remained was that of
suicide; and I could not but admit that some of the appearances seemed
to support that view. The solitary place—more solitary still at
night—was precisely such as an intending suicide might be expected to
seek; the shallow water presented no inconsistency; and when I
recalled how I had found his daughter searching the wood with evident
foreboding of evil, I could not escape the feeling that the dreadful
possibility had not been entirely unforeseen.
My meditations had reached this point when, as I turned once more
towards the entrance and looked up the Lane, I saw two constables
approaching, trundling a wheeled stretcher, while a third man,
apparently an inspector, walked by its side. As the little procession
reached the entrance, and I turned back to show the way, the latter
joined me and began at once to interrogate me. I gave him my name,
address, and occupation, and followed this with a rapid sketch of the
facts as known to me, which he jotted down in a large notebook, and he
then said:
“As you are a doctor, you can probably tell me how long the man had
been dead when you first saw him.”
“By the appearance and the rigidity,” I replied, “I should say about
nine or ten hours; which agrees pretty well with the account his
daughter gave of his movements.”
The inspector nodded. “The man and the young lady,” said he, “are
strangers to you, I understand. I suppose you haven’t picked up
anything that would throw any light on the affair?”
“No,” I answered; “I know nothing but what I have told you.”
“Well,” he remarked, “it’s a queer business. It is a queer place for a
man to be in at night, and he must have gone there of his own accord.
But there, it is no use guessing. It will all be thrashed out at the
inquest.”
As he reached this discreet conclusion, we came out into the opening
and I heard him murmur very feelingly, “Dear, dear! Poor thing.” The
girl seemed hardly to have changed her position since I had last seen
her, but she now tenderly laid the dead head on the grass and rose as
we approached; and I saw with great concern that her skirts were
soaked almost from the waist downwards.
The officer took off his cap and as he drew near looked down gravely
but with an inquisitive eye at the dead man. Then he turned to the
girl and said in a singularly gentle and deferential manner:
“This is a very terrible thing, Miss. A dreadful thing. I assure you
that I am more sorry for you than I can tell; and I hope you will
forgive me for having to intrude on your sorrow by asking questions. I
won’t trouble you more than I can help.”
“Thank you,” she replied quietly. “Of course I realize your position.
What do you want me to tell you?”
“I understand,” replied the inspector, “that this poor gentleman was
your father. Would you mind telling me who he was and where he lived
and giving me your own name and address?”
“My father’s name,” she answered, “was Julius D’Arblay. His private
address was Ivy Cottage, North Grove, Highgate. His studio and
workshop, where he carried on the profession of a modeller, is in
Abbey-road, Hornsey. My name is Marion D’Arblay, and I lived with my
father. He was a widower and I was his only child.”
As she concluded, with a slight break in her voice, the inspector
shook his head, and again murmured, “Dear, dear,” as he rapidly
entered her answers in his notebook. Then, in a deeply apologetic
tone, he asked:
“Would you mind telling us what you know as to how this happened?”
“I know very little,” she replied. “As he did not come home last
night, I went to the studio this morning quite early to see if he was
there. He sometimes stayed there all night when he was working very
late. The woman who lives in the adjoining house and looks after the
studio, told me that he had been working late last night, but that he
left to come home soon after ten. He always used to come through the
wood because it was the shortest way and the most pleasant. So when I
learned that he had started to come home, I came to the wood to see if
I could find any traces of him. Then I met this gentleman, and he told
me that he had seen a dead man in the wood, and——” Here she suddenly
broke down, and, sobbing passionately, flung out her hand towards the
corpse.
The inspector shut his notebook and, murmuring some indistinct words
of sympathy, nodded to the constables, who had drawn up the stretcher
a few paces away and lifted off the cover. On this silent instruction
they approached the body, and, with the inspector’s assistance and
mine, lifted it on to the stretcher without removing the latter from
its carriage. As they picked up the cover the inspector turned to Miss
D’Arblay and said gently but finally: “You had better not come with
us. We must take him to the mortuary, but you will see him again after
the inquest, when he will be brought to your house if you wish it.”
She made no objection; but as the constables approached with the cover
she stooped over the stretcher and kissed the dead man on the
forehead. Then she turned away; the cover was placed in position; the
inspector and the constables saluted reverently, and the stretcher was
wheeled away along the narrow track.
For some time after it had gone, we stood in silence at the margin of
the pond with our eyes fixed on the place where it had disappeared. I
considered in no little embarrassment what was to be done next. It was
most desirable that Miss D’Arblay should be got home as soon as
possible, and I did not at all like the idea of her going alone, for
her appearance, with her drenched skirts and her dazed and rather wild
expression, was such as to attract unpleasant attention. But I was a
total stranger to her, and I felt a little shy of pressing my company
on her. However, it seemed a plain duty, and, as I saw her shiver
slightly, I said:
“You had better go home now and change your clothes. They are very
wet. And you have some distance to go.”
She looked down at her soaked dress and then she looked at me.
“You are rather wet, too,” she said. “I am afraid I have given you a
great deal of trouble.”
“It is little enough that I have been able to do,” I replied. “But you
must really go home now; and if you will let me walk with you and see
you safely to your house, I shall be much more easy in my mind.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “It is kind of you to offer to see me home,
and I am glad not to have to go alone.”
With this, we walked together to the edge of the opening, and
proceeded in single file along the track to the main path, and so out
into Wood-lane, at the top of which we crossed the Archway Road into
Southwood-lane. We walked mostly in silence, for I was unwilling to
disturb her meditations with attempts at conversation, which could
only have seemed banal or impertinent. For her part, she appeared to
be absorbed in reflections the nature of which I could easily guess,
and her grief was too fresh for any thought of distraction. But I
found myself speculating with profound discomfort on what might be
awaiting her at home. It is true that her own desolate state as an
orphan without brothers or sisters had its compensation in that there
was no wife to whom the dreadful tidings had to be imparted, nor any
fellow orphans to have their bereavement broken to them. But there
must be some one who cared; or, if there were not, what a terrible
loneliness would reign in that house!
“I hope,” I said, as we approached our destination, “that there is
some one at home to share your grief and comfort you a little.”
“There is,” she replied. “I was thinking of her, and how grievous it
will be to have to tell her: an old servant and a dear friend. She was
my mother’s nurse when the one was a child and the other but a young
girl. She came to our house when my mother married, and has managed
our home ever since. This will be a terrible shock to her, for she
loved my father dearly—every one loved him who knew him. And she has
been like a mother to me since my own mother died. I don’t know how I
shall break it to her.”
Her voice trembled as she concluded and I was deeply troubled to think
of the painful homecoming that loomed before her; but still it was a
comfort to know that her sorrow would be softened by sympathy and
loving companionship, not heightened by the empty desolation that I
had feared.
A few minutes more brought us to the little square—which, by the way,
was triangular—and to a pleasant little old-fashioned house, on the
gate of which was painted the name, “Ivy Cottage.” In the bay window
on the ground floor I observed a formidable-looking elderly woman, who
was watching our approach with evident curiosity; which, as we drew
nearer and the state of our clothing became visible, gave place to
anxiety and alarm. Then she disappeared suddenly, to reappear a few
moments later at the open door, where she stood viewing us both with
consternation and me in particular with profound disfavour.
At the gate Miss D’Arblay halted and held out her hand. “Good-bye,”
she said. “I must thank you some other time for all your kindness;”
and with this she turned abruptly, and, opening the gate, walked up
the little paved path to the door where the old woman was waiting.