A Narrow Escape
The statement that I had made to Thorndyke was perfectly true in
substance; but it was hardly as significant in fact as the words
implied. I had, it is true, in my journeyings abroad, restricted
myself to well-beaten thoroughfares. But then I had had no occasion to
do otherwise. Until Polton’s arrival on the scene my time had been
wholly taken up in keeping a watch on Marion; and so it would have
continued if I had followed my own inclination. But at the end of the
first day’s work she intervened resolutely.
“I am perfectly ashamed,” she said, “to occupy the time of two men,
both of whom have their own affairs to attend to, though I can’t tell
you how grateful I am to you for sacrificing yourselves.”
“We are acting under the doctor’s orders, Miss,” said Polton, thereby,
in his opinion, closing the subject.
“You mean Dr. Thorndyke’s?” said Marion, not realizing—or not choosing
to realize—that, to Polton, there was no other doctor in the world who
counted.
“Yes, Miss. The doctor’s orders must be carried out.”
“Of course they must,” she agreed warmly, “since he has been so very
good as to take all this trouble about my safety. But there is no need
for both of you to be here together. Couldn’t you arrange to take
turns on duty—alternate days or a half-day each? I hate the thought
that I am wasting the whole of both your times.”
I did not look on the suggestion with favour, for I was reluctant to
yield up to any man—even to Polton—the privilege of watching over the
safety of one who was so infinitely dear to me. Nor was Polton much
less unwilling to agree, for he loathed to leave a piece of work
uncompleted. However, Marion refused to accept our denials (as is the
way of women), and the end of it was that Polton and I had to arrange
our duties in half-day shifts, changing over at the end of each week,
the first spell allotting the mornings to me and the latter half of
the day—with the duty of seeing Marion home—to him.
Thus, during each of the following six working days, I found myself
with the entire afternoon and evening free. The former I usually spent
at the hospital, but in the evenings, feeling too unsettled for study,
I occupied myself very pleasantly with long walks through the
inexhaustible streets, extending my knowledge of the town and making
systematic explorations of such distant regions as Mile End,
Kingsland, Dalston, Wapping, and the Borough.
One evening I bethought me of my promise to look in on Usher. I did
not find myself yearning for his society, but a promise is a promise.
Accordingly, when I had finished my solitary dinner, I set forth from
my lodgings in Camden-square and made a bee-line for Clerkenwell: so
far, that is to say, as was possible, while keeping to the wider
streets. For in this respect, I followed Thorndyke’s instructions to
the letter, though, as to the other matter—that of keeping a bright
look-out—I was less attentive, my mind being much more occupied with
thoughts of Marion (who would, just now, be on her way home under
Polton’s escort) than with any considerations of my own personal
safety. Indeed, to tell the truth, I was inclined to be more than a
little sceptical as to the need for these extraordinary precautions.
I found Usher in the act of bowing out the last of the “evening
consultations,” and was welcomed by him with enthusiasm.
“Delighted to see you, old chap!” he exclaimed, shaking my hand
warmly. “It is good of you to drop in on an old fossil like me. Didn’t
much think you would. I suppose you don’t often come this way?”
“No,” I replied. “It is rather off my beat. I’ve finished with
Hoxton—for the present, at any rate.”
“So have I,” said Usher, “since poor old Crile went off to the better
land.”
“Crile?” I repeated. “Who was he?”
“Don’t you remember my telling you about his funeral, when they had
those Sunday-school kids yowling hymns round the grave? That was Mr.
Crile—Christian name, Jonathan.”
“I remember; but I didn’t realize that he was a Hoxton aristocrat.”
“Well, he was. Fifty-two, Field-street was his earthly abode. I used
to remember it by the number of weeks in the year. And glad enough I
was when he hopped off his perch, for his confounded landlady, a Mrs.
Pepper, would insist on fixing the times for my visits, and deuced
inconvenient times, too. Between four and six on Tuesdays and Fridays.
I hate patients who turn your visits into appointments. Upsets your
whole visiting-list.”
“It seems to be the fashion in Hoxton,” I remarked. “I had to make my
visits at appointed times, too. It would have been frightfully
inconvenient if I had been busy. Is it often done?”
“They will always do it if you let ’em. Of course, it is a convenience
to a woman who doesn’t keep a servant, to know what time the doctor is
going to call; but it doesn’t do to give way to ’em.”
I assented to this excellent principle, noting, however, that he
seemed to have “given way to ’em,” all the same.
As we had been talking, we had gradually drifted from the surgery up a
flight of stairs to a shabby, cosy little room on the first floor,
where a cheerful fire was burning and a copper kettle on a trivet
purred contentedly and breathed forth little clouds of steam. Usher
inducted me into a large easy chair, the depressed seat of which
suggested its customary use by an elephant of sedentary habits, and
produced from a cupboard a spirit decanter, a high-shouldered Dutch
gin-bottle, a sugar-basin, and a couple of tumblers and
sugar-crushers.
“Whisky or Hollands?” he demanded; and, as curiosity led me to select
the latter, he commented: “That’s right, Gray. Good stuff, Hollands.
Touches up the cubical epithelium—what! I am rather partial to a drop
of Hollands.”
It was no empty profession. The initial dose made me open my eyes; and
that was only a beginning. In a twinkling, as it seemed, his tumbler
was empty and the collaboration of the bottle and the copper kettle
was repeated. And so it went on for nearly an hour, until I began to
grow quite uneasy, though without any visible cause, so far as Usher
was concerned. He did not turn a hair (he hadn’t very many to turn,
for that matter, but I speak figuratively). The only effect that I
could observe was an increasing fluency of speech with a tendency to
discursiveness; and I must admit that his conversation was highly
entertaining. But his evident intention to “make a night of it” set me
planning to make my escape without appearing to slight his
hospitality. How I should have managed it, unaided by the direct
interposition of Providence, I cannot guess: for his conversation had
now taken the form of an interminable sentence punctuated by
indistinguishable commas; but in the midst of this steadily flowing
stream of eloquence the outer silence was rent by the sudden jangling
of a bell.
Usher stopped short, stared at me solemnly, deliberately emptied his
tumbler, and stood up.
“Night bell, ol’ chappie,” he explained. “Got to go out. But don’t you
disturb yourself. Back in a few minutes. Soon polish ’em off.”
“I’ll walk round with you as far as your patient’s house,” said I,
“and then I shall have to get home. It is past ten and I have a
longish walk to Camden-square.”
He was disposed to argue the point, but another violent jangling cut
his protests short and sent him hurrying down the stairs with me close
at his heels. A couple of minutes later we were out in the street,
following in the wake of a hurrying figure; and, looking at Usher as
he walked sedately at my side, with his top-hat, his whiskers, and his
inevitable umbrella, I had the feeling that all those jorums of
Hollands had been consumed in vain. In appearance, in manner, in
speech, and in gait, he was just his normal self, with never a hint of
any change from the status quo ante bellum.
Our course led us into the purlieus of St. John Street-road, where we
presently turned into a narrow, winding, and curiously desolate little
street, along which we proceeded for a few hundred yards, when our
“fore-runner” halted at a door into which he inserted a latch-key.
When we arrived at the open door, inside which a shadowy figure was
lurking, Usher stopped and held out his hand.
“Good night, old chap,” he said. “Sorry you can’t come back with me.
If you keep straight on and turn to the left at the cross-roads you
will come out presently into the King’s Cross-road. Then you’ll know
your way. So long.”
He turned into the dark passage, the door was closed, and I went on my
way.
The little meandering street was singularly silent and deserted; and
its windings cut off the light from the scanty street-lamps so that
stretches of it were in almost total darkness. As I strode forward,
the echoes of my footfalls resounded with hollow reverberations which
smote my ear—and ought to have smitten my conscience—causing me to
wonder, with grim amusement, what Thorndyke would have said if he
could have seen me thus setting his instructions at defiance. Indeed,
I was so far sensible of the impropriety of my being in such a place
at such an hour that I was about to turn to take a look back along the
street; but at the very moment that I halted within a few feet of a
street-lamp, something struck the brim of my hat with a sharp, weighty
blow like the stroke of a hammer, and I heard a dull thud from the
lamp-post.
In an instant I spun round, mighty fierce, whipping out my pistol,
cocking it, and pointing it down the street as I raced back towards
the spot from whence the missile had appeared to come. There was not a
soul in sight nor any sound of movement, and the shallow doorways
seemed to offer no possible hiding place. But some thirty yards back I
came suddenly on a narrow opening like an empty doorway, but actually
the entrance to a covered alley not more than three feet wide and as
dark as a pocket. This was evidently the ambush (which I had passed,
like a fool, without observing it), and I halted beside it, with my
pistol still pointed, listening intently and considering what I had
better do. My first impulse had been to charge into the alley, but a
moment’s reflection showed the futility of such a proceeding. Probably
my assailant had made off by some well-known outlet; but in any case
it would be sheer insanity for me to plunge into that pitch-dark
passage. For if he were still lurking there he would be invisible to
me, whereas I should be a clear silhouette against the dim light of
the street. Moreover, I had seen no one, and I could not shoot at any
chance stranger whom I might find there. Reluctantly I recognized that
there was nothing for it but to retreat cautiously and be more careful
in future.
My retirement would have looked an odd proceeding to an observer, if
there had been one, for I had to retreat crab-wise in order that I
might keep the entrance of the alley covered with my pistol and yet
see where I was going. When I reached the lamp-post I scanned the area
of lighted ground beneath it, and, almost at the first glance,
perceived an object like a largish marble lying in the road. It
proved, when I picked it up, to be a leaden ball, like an
old-fashioned musket-ball, with one flattened side, which had
prevented it from rolling away from the spot where it had fallen. I
dropped it into my pocket and resumed my masterly retreat until, at
length, the cross-roads came into view. Then I quickened my pace, and
as I reached the corner put away my pistol after slipping in the
safety catch.
Once more out in the lighted and frequented main streets, my thoughts
were free to turn over this extraordinary experience. But I did not
allow them to divert me from a very careful look-out. All my
scepticism was gone now. I realized that Thorndyke had not been making
mere vague guesses, but that he had clearly foreseen that something of
this kind would probably happen. That was, to me, the most perplexing
feature of this incomprehensible affair.
I turned it over in my mind again and again, and could make nothing of
it. I could see no adequate reason why this man should want to make
away with me. True, I was Marion’s protector; but that—even if he were
aware of it—did not seem an adequate reason. Indeed, I could not see
why he was seeking to make away with her—nor, even, was it clear to me
that there had been a reasonable motive for murdering her father. But
as to myself, I seemed to be out of the picture altogether. The man
had nothing to fear from me or to gain by my death.
That was how it appeared to me; and yet I saw plainly that I must be
mistaken. There must be something behind all this—something that was
unknown to me but was known to Thorndyke. What could it be? I found
myself unable to make any sort of guess. In the end, I decided to call
on Thorndyke the following evening, report the incident, and see if I
could get any enlightenment from him.
The first part of this programme I carried out successfully enough,
but the second presented more difficulties.
Thorndyke was not a very communicative man, and a perfectly impossible
one to pump. What he chose to tell he told freely; and beyond that, no
amount of ingenuity could extract the faintest shadow of a hint.
“I am afraid I am disturbing you, Sir,” I said in some alarm, as I
noted a portentous heap of documents on the table.
“No,” he replied. “I have nearly finished, and I shall treat you as a
friend, and keep you waiting while I do the little that is left.” He
turned to his papers and took up his pen, but paused to cast one of
his quick, penetrating glances at me.
“Has anything fresh happened?” he asked.
“Our unknown friend has had a pot at me,” I answered. “That is all.”
He laid down his pen, and leaning back in his chair, demanded
particulars. I gave him an account of what had happened on the
preceding night, and, taking the leaden ball from my pocket, laid it
on the table. He picked it up, examined it curiously, and then placed
it on the letter balance.
“Just over half an ounce,” he said. “It is a mercy it missed your
head. With that weight and the velocity indicated by the flattening,
it would have dropped you insensible with a fractured skull.”
“And then he would have come along and put the finishing touches, I
suppose. But I wonder how he shot the thing. Could he have used an air
gun?”
Thorndyke shook his head. “An air gun that would discharge a ball of
that weight would make quite a loud report, and you say you heard
nothing. You are quite sure of that, by the way?”
“Perfectly. The place was as silent as the grave.”
“Then he must have used a catapult; and an uncommonly efficient weapon
it is in skilful hands, and as portable as a pistol. You mustn’t give
him another chance, Gray.”
“I am not going to, if I can help it. But what the deuce does the
fellow want to pot at me for? It is a most mysterious thing. Do you
understand what it is all about, Sir?”
“I do not,” he replied. “My knowledge of the facts of this case is
nearly all second-hand knowledge, derived from you. You know all that
I know and probably more.”
“That is all very well, Sir,” said I; “but you foresaw that this was
likely to happen. I didn’t. Therefore you must know more about the
case than I do.”
He chuckled softly. “You are confusing knowledge and inference,” said
he. “We had the same facts, but our inferences were not the same. It
is just a matter of experience. You haven’t squeezed out of the facts
as much as they are capable of yielding. Come, now, Gray; while I am
finishing my work you shall look over my notes of this case, and then
you should take a sort of bird’s-eye view of the whole case, and see
if anything new occurs to you. And you must add to those notes that
this man has been at the enormous trouble of stalking you
continuously, that he shadowed you to Usher’s, that he waited
patiently for you to come out, that he followed you most skilfully,
and took instant advantage of the first opportunity that you gave him.
You might also note that he did not elect to overtake you and make a
direct attack on you, as he did on Miss D’Arblay. Note those facts,
and consider what their significance may be. And now just go through
this little dossier. It won’t take you many minutes.”
He took out of a drawer a small portfolio, on the cover of which was
written, “J. D’Arblay, dec’d.,” and, passing it to me, returned to his
documents. I opened it and found it to contain a number of separate
abstracts, each duly headed with its descriptive title, and an
envelope marked, “Photographs.” Glancing over the abstracts, I saw
that they dealt respectively with J. D’Arblay, The Inquest, The Van
Zellen Case, Miss D’Arblay, Dr. Gray, and Mr. Morris; the last
containing, somewhat to my surprise, all the details that I had given
Thorndyke respecting that rather mysterious person, together with an
account of my dealings with him and cross-references to the abstract
bearing my name. It was all very complete and methodical, but none of
the abstracts contained any information that was new to me. If this
represented all the facts that were known to Thorndyke, then he was no
better informed than I was. But he had evidently got a great deal more
out of the information than I had.
Returning the abstracts with some disappointment to the portfolio, I
turned to the photographs; and then I got a very thorough surprise.
There were only three, and the first two were of no great interest,
one representing the two casts of the guinea and the other the plaster
mask of Morris. But the third fairly took away my breath. It was a
very bad photograph, apparently an enlargement from a rather poor
snap-shot portrait; but, bad as it was, it gave a very vivid
presentment of one of the most evil-looking faces that I have ever
looked on; a lean, bearded face, with high cheek-bones, with heavy,
frowning brows that overhung deep-shadowed, hollow eye-sockets and an
almost grotesquely large nose, thin, curved, and sharp, that jutted
out like a great predatory beak.
I stared at the photograph in speechless amazement. At the first
glance I had been struck by the perfect way in which this crude
portrait realized Marion’s description of the man who had tried to
murder her. But that was not all. There was another resemblance which
I now perceived with even more astonishment; indeed, it was so
incredible that the perception of it reduced me to something like
stupefaction. I sat for fully a minute with the portrait in my hand,
and my thoughts surging confusedly in a vain effort to grasp the
meaning of this extraordinary likeness; then, happening to glance up
at Thorndyke, I found him quietly regarding me with undisguised
interest.
“Well,” he said, as he caught my eye.
“Who is he?” I demanded, holding up the photograph.
“That is what I want to know,” he replied. “The photograph came to me
without any description. The identity of the subject is unknown. Who
do you think he is?”
“To begin with,” I answered, “he exactly corresponds in appearance
with Miss D’Arblay’s description of her would-be murderer. Don’t you
think so?’
“I do,” he replied. “The correspondence seems complete in every
detail, so far as I can judge. That was why I secured the photograph.
But the actual resemblance will have to be settled by her. I suggest
that you take the portrait and let her see it; but you had better not
show it to her pointedly for identification. It would be better to put
it in some place where she will see it without previous suggestion or
preparation. But you said just now ‘to begin with.’ Was there anything
else that struck you about this photograph?”
“Yes,” I answered, “there was; a most amazing thing. You remember my
telling you about the patient I attended in Morris’ house?”
“The man who died of gastric cancer and was eventually cremated?”
“Yes. His name was Bendelow. Well, this photograph might have been a
portrait of Bendelow, taken with a beard and moustache before the
disease got hold of him. Excepting for the emaciation and the
beard—Bendelow was clean-shaved—I should think it would be quite an
excellent likeness of him.”
Thorndyke made no immediate reply or comment, but sat quite still,
looking at me with a very singular expression. I could see that he was
thinking rapidly and intensely, but I suspected that his thoughts were
in a good deal less confusion than mine had been.
“It is,” he remarked at length, “as you say, a most amazing affair.
The face is no ordinary face. It would be difficult to mistake it, and
one would have to go far to find another with which it could be
confused. Still, one must not forget the possibility of a chance
resemblance. Nature doesn’t take out letters-patent even for a human
face. But I will ask you, Gray, to write down and send to me all that
you know about the late Mr. Bendelow, including all the details of
your attendance on him, dead and alive.”
“I will,” said I, “though it is difficult to imagine what connexion he
could have had with the D’Arblay case.”
“It seems incredible that he could have had any,” Thorndyke agreed.
“But at present we are collecting facts, and we must note everything
impartially. It is a fatal mistake to select your facts in accordance
with the apparent probabilities. By the way, if Bendelow was like this
photograph he must have corresponded pretty exactly with Miss
D’Arblay’s very complete and lucid description. I wonder why you did
not realize that at the time.”
“That is what I have been wondering. But I suppose it was the beard
and the absence of any kind of association between Bendelow and the
D’Arblays.”
“Probably,” he agreed. “A beard and moustache alters very greatly even
a striking face like this. Incidentally, it illustrates the
superiority of a picture over a verbal description for purposes of
identification. No mere description will enable you to visualize
correctly a face which you have never seen. I shall be curious to hear
what Miss D’Arblay has to say about this photograph.”
“I will let you know without delay,” said I; and then, as he seemed to
have completed his work, and put the documents aside, I made a final
effort to extract some definite information from him.
“It is evident,” I said, “that the body of facts in your notes has
conveyed a good deal more to you than it has to me.”
“Probably,” he agreed. “If it had not, I should seem to have profited
little by years of professional practice.”
“Then,” I said persuasively, “may I ask if you have formed a really
satisfactory theory as to who this man is and why he murdered
D’Arblay?”
Thorndyke reflected for a few moments and then replied:
“My position, Gray, is this: I have arrived at a very definite theory
as to the motive of the murder, and a most extraordinary motive it is.
But there are one or two points that I do not understand. There are
some links missing from the chain of evidence. So with the identity of
the man. We know pretty certainly that he is the murderer of Van
Zellen, and we know what he is like to look at, but we can’t give him
a name and a definite personality. There are links missing there, too.
But I have great hopes of finding those missing links. If I find them
I shall have a complete case against this man, and I shall forthwith
set the law in motion. I can’t tell you more than that at present, but
I repeat that you are in possession of all the facts, and that if you
think over all that has happened and ask yourself what it can mean,
though you will not arrive at a complete solution any more than I
have, you will at least begin to see the light.”
This was all that I could get out of him, and as it was now growing
late I presently rose to take my departure. He walked with me as far
as the Middle Temple Gate and stood outside the wicket watching me as
I strode away westward.