I think I have recorded in another place Hewitt's frequent aphorism that
"there is nothing in this world that is at all possible that has not
happened or is not happening in London." But there are many strange
happenings in this matter-of-fact country and in these matter-of-fact
times that occur far enough from London. Fantastic crimes, savage
revenges, mediaeval superstitions, horrible cruelty, though less in
sight, have been no more extinguished by the advent of the nineteenth
century than have the ancient races who practised them in the dark ages.
Some of the races have become civilized, and some of the savageries are
heard of no more. But there are survivals in both cases. I say these
things having in my mind a particular case that came under the personal
notice of both Hewitt and myself--an affair that brought one up standing
with a gasp and a doubt of one's era.
My good uncle, the Colonel, was not in the habit of gathering large
house parties at his place at Ratherby, partly because the place was
not a great one, and partly because the Colonel's gout was. But there
was an excellent bit of shooting for two or three guns, and even when he
was unable to leave the house himself, my uncle was always pleased if
some good friend were enjoying a good day's sport in his territory. As
to myself, the good old soul was in a perpetual state of offence because
I visited him so seldom, though whenever my scant holidays fell in a
convenient time of the year I was never insensible to the attractions of
the Ratherby stubble. More than once had I sat by the old gentleman when
his foot was exceptionally troublesome, amusing him with accounts of
some of the doings of Martin Hewitt, and more than once had my uncle
expressed his desire to meet Hewitt himself, and commissioned me with an
invitation to be presented to Hewitt at the first likely opportunity,
for a joint excursion to Ratherby. At length I persuaded Hewitt to take
a fortnight's rest, coincident with a little vacation of my own, and we
got down to Ratherby within a few days past September the 1st, and
before a gun had been fired at the Colonel's bit of shooting. The
Colonel himself we found confined to the house with his foot on the
familiar rest, and though ourselves were the only guests, we managed to
do pretty well together. It was during this short holiday that the case
I have mentioned arose.
When first I began to record some of the more interesting of Hewitt's
operations, I think I explained that such cases as I myself had not
witnessed I should set down in impersonal narrative form, without
intruding myself. The present case, so far as Hewitt's work was
concerned, I saw, but there were circumstances which led up to it that
we only fully learned afterwards. These circumstances, however, I shall
put in their proper place--at the beginning.
The Fosters were a fairly old Ratherby family, of whom Mr. John Foster
had died by an accident at the age of about forty, leaving a wife twelve
years younger than himself and three children, two boys and one girl,
who was the youngest. The boys grew up strong, healthy, out-of-door
young ruffians, with all the tastes of sportsmen, and all the qualities,
good and bad, natural to lads of fairly well-disposed character allowed
a great deal too much of their own way from the beginning.
Their only real bad quality was an unfortunate knack of bearing malice,
and a certain savage vindictiveness towards such persons as they chose
to consider their enemies. With the louts of the village they were at
unceasing war, and, indeed, once got into serious trouble for peppering
the butcher's son (who certainly was a great blackguard) with
sparrow-shot. At the usual time they went to Oxford together, and were
fraternally sent down together in their second year, after enjoying a
spell of rustication in their first. The offence was never specifically
mentioned about Ratherby, but was rumoured of as something particularly
outrageous.
It was at this time, sixteen years or thereabout after the death of
their father, that Henry and Robert Foster first saw and disliked Mr.
Jonas Sneathy, a director of penny banks and small insurance offices. He
visited Ranworth (the Fosters' home) a great deal more than the brothers
thought necessary, and, indeed, it was not for lack of rudeness on their
part that Mr. Sneathy failed to understand, as far as they were
concerned, his room was preferred to his company.
But their mother welcomed him, and in the end it was announced that Mrs.
Foster was to marry again, and that after that her name would be Mrs.
Sneathy.
Hereupon there were violent scenes at Ranworth. Henry and Robert Foster
denounced their prospective father-in-law as a fortune-hunter, a
snuffler, a hypocrite. They did not stop at broad hints as to the
honesty of his penny banks and insurance offices, and the house
straightway became a house of bitter strife. The marriage took place,
and it was not long before Mr. Sneathy's real character became generally
obvious. For months he was a model, if somewhat sanctimonious husband,
and his influence over his wife was complete. Then he discovered that
her property had been strictly secured by her first husband's will, and
that, willing as she might be, she was unable to raise money for her new
husband's benefit, and was quite powerless to pass to him any of her
property by deed of gift. Hereupon the man's nature showed itself.
Foolish woman as Mrs. Sneathy might be, she was a loving, indeed, an
infatuated wife; but Sneathy repaid her devotion by vulgar derision,
never hesitating to state plainly that he had married her for his own
profit, and that he considered himself swindled in the result. More, he
even proceeded to blows and other practical brutality of a sort only
devisable by a mean and ugly nature. This treatment, at first secret,
became open, and in the midst of it Mr. Sneathy's penny banks and
insurance offices came to a grievous smash all at once, and everybody
wondered how Mr. Sneathy kept out of gaol.
Keep out of gaol he did, however, for he had taken care to remain on the
safe side of the law, though some of his co-directors learnt the taste
of penal servitude. But he was beggared, and lived, as it were, a mere
pensioner in his wife's house. Here his brutality increased to a
frightful extent, till his wife, already broken in health in
consequence, went in constant fear of her life, and Miss Foster passed
a life of weeping misery. All her friends' entreaties, however, could
not persuade Mrs. Sneathy to obtain a legal separation from her husband.
She clung to him with the excuse--for it was no more--that she hoped to
win him to kindness by submission, and with a pathetic infatuation that
seemed to increase as her bodily strength diminished.
Henry and Robert, as may be supposed, were anything but silent in these
circumstances. Indeed, they broke out violently again and again, and
more than once went near permanently injuring their worthy
father-in-law. Once especially, when Sneathy, absolutely without
provocation, made a motion to strike his wife in their presence, there
was a fearful scene. The two sprang at him like wild beasts, knocked him
down and dragged him to the balcony with the intention of throwing him
out of the window. But Mrs. Sneathy impeded them, hysterically imploring
them to desist.
"If you lift your hand to my mother," roared Henry, gripping Sneathy by
the throat till his fat face turned blue, and banging his head against
the wall, "if you lift your hand to my mother again I'll chop it off--I
will! I'll chop it off and drive it down your throat!"
"We'll do worse," said Robert, white and frantic with passion, "we'll
hang you--hang you to the door! You're a proved liar and thief, and
you're worse than a common murderer. I'd hang you to the front door for
twopence!"
For a few days Sneathy was comparatively quiet, cowed by their violence.
Then he took to venting redoubled spite on his unfortunate wife, always
in the absence of her sons, well aware that she would never inform them.
On their part, finding him apparently better behaved in consequence of
their attack, they thought to maintain his wholesome terror, and
scarcely passed him without a menace, taking a fiendish delight in
repeating the threats they had used during the scene, by way of keeping
it present to his mind.
"Take care of your hands, sir," they would say. "Keep them to yourself,
or, by George, we'll take 'em off with a billhook!"
But his revenge for all this Sneathy took unobserved on their mother.
Truly a miserable household.
Soon, however, the brothers left home, and went to London by way of
looking for a profession. Henry began a belated study of medicine, and
Robert made a pretence of reading for the bar. Indeed, their departure
was as much as anything a consequence of the earnest entreaty of their
sister, who saw that their presence at home was an exasperation to
Sneathy, and aggravated her mother's secret sufferings. They went,
therefore; but at Ranworth things became worse.
Little was allowed to be known outside the house, but it was broadly
said that Mr. Sneathy's behaviour had now become outrageous beyond
description. Servants left faster than new ones could be found, and gave
their late employer the character of a raving maniac. Once, indeed, he
committed himself in the village, attacking with his walking-stick an
inoffensive tradesman who had accidentally brushed against him, and
immediately running home. This assault had to be compounded for by a
payment of fifty pounds. And then Henry and Robert Foster received a
most urgent letter from their sister requesting their immediate presence
at home.
They went at once, of course, and the servants' account of what occurred
was this. When the brothers arrived Mr. Sneathy had just left the house.
The brothers were shut up with their mother and sister for about a
quarter of an hour, and then left them and came out to the stable yard
together. The coachman (he was a new man, who had only arrived the day
before) overheard a little of their talk as they stood by the door.
Mr. Henry said that "the thing must be done, and at once. There are two
of us, so that it ought to be easy enough." And afterwards Mr. Robert
said, "You'll know best how to go about it, as a doctor." After which
Mr. Henry came towards the coachman and asked in what direction Mr.
Sneathy had gone. The coachman replied that it was in the direction of
Ratherby Wood, by the winding footpath that led through it. But as he
spoke he distinctly with the corner of his eye saw the other brother
take a halter from a hook by the stable door and put it into his coat
pocket.
So far for the earlier events, whereof I learned later bit by bit. It
was on the day of the arrival of the brothers Foster at their old home,
and, indeed, little more than two hours after the incident last set
down, that news of Mr. Sneathy came to Colonel Brett's place, where
Hewitt and I were sitting and chatting with the Colonel. The news was
that Mr. Sneathy had committed suicide--had been found hanging, in fact,
to a tree in Ratherby Wood, just by the side of the footpath.
Hewitt and I had of course at this time never heard of Sneathy, and the
Colonel told us what little he knew. He had never spoken to the man, he
said--indeed, nobody in the place outside Ranworth would have anything
to do with him. "He's certainly been an unholy scoundrel over those poor
people's banks," said my uncle, "and if what they say's true, he's been
about as bad as possible to his wretched wife. He must have been pretty
miserable, too, with all his scoundrelism, for he was a completely
ruined man, without a chance of retrieving his position, and detested by
everybody. Indeed, some of his recent doings, if what I have heard is to
be relied on, have been very much those of a madman. So that, on the
whole, I'm not much surprised. Suicide's about the only crime, I
suppose, that he has never experimented with till now, and, indeed, it's
rather a service to the world at large--his only service, I expect."
The Colonel sent a man to make further inquiries, and presently this man
returned with the news that now it was said that Mr. Sneathy had not
committed suicide, but had been murdered. And hard on the man's heels
came Mr. Hardwick, a neighbour of my uncle's and a fellow J. P. He had
had the case reported to him, it seemed, as soon as the body had been
found, and had at once gone to the spot. He had found the body
hanging--_and with the right hand cut off_.
"It's a murder, Brett," he said, "without doubt--a most horrible case of
murder and mutilation. The hand is cut off and taken away, but whether
the atrocity was committed before or after the hanging of course I can't
say. But the missing hand makes it plainly a case of murder, and not
suicide. I've come to consult you about issuing a warrant, for I think
there's no doubt as to the identity of the murderers."
"That's a good job," said the Colonel, "else we should have had some
work for Mr. Martin Hewitt here, which wouldn't be fair, as he's taking
a rest. Whom do you think of having arrested?"
"The two young Fosters. It's plain as it can be--and a most revolting
crime too, bad as Sneathy may have been. They came down from London
to-day and went out deliberately to it, it's clear. They were heard
talking of it, asked as to the direction in which he had gone, and
followed him--and with a rope."
"Isn't that rather an unusual form of murder--hanging?" Hewitt remarked.
"Perhaps it is," Mr. Hardwick replied; "but it's the case here plain
enough. It seems, in fact, that they had a way of threatening to hang
him and even to cut off his hand if he used it to strike their mother.
So that they appear to have carried out what might have seemed mere idle
threats in a diabolically savage way. Of course they _may_ have
strangled him first and hanged him after, by way of carrying out their
threat and venting their spite on the mutilated body. But that they did
it is plain enough for me. I've spent an hour or two over it, and feel I
am certainly more than justified in ordering their apprehension. Indeed,
they were with him at the time, as I have found by their tracks on the
footpath through the wood."
The Colonel turned to Martin Hewitt. "Mr. Hardwick, you must know," he
said, "is by way of being an amateur in your particular line--and a very
good amateur, too, I should say, judging by a case or two I have known
in this county."
Hewitt bowed, and laughingly expressed a fear lest Mr. Hardwick should
come to London and supplant him altogether. "This seems a curious case,"
he added. "If you don't mind, I think I should like to take a glance at
the tracks and whatever other traces there may be, just by way of
keeping my hand in."
"Certainly," Mr. Hardwick replied, brightening. "I should of all things
like to have Mr. Hewitt's opinions on the observations I have made--just
for my own gratification. As to his opinion--there can be no room for
doubt; the thing is plain."
With many promises not to be late for dinner, we left my uncle and
walked with Mr. Hardwick in the direction of Ratherby Wood. It was an
unfrequented part, he told us, and by particular care he had managed, he
hoped, to prevent the rumour spreading to the village yet, so that we
might hope to find the trails not yet overlaid. It was a man of his own,
he said, who, making a short cut through the wood, had come upon the
body hanging, and had run immediately to inform him. With this man he
had gone back, cut down the body, and made his observations. He had
followed the trail backward to Ranworth, and there had found the new
coachman, who had once been in his own service. From him he had learned
the doings of the brothers Foster as they left the place, and from him
he had ascertained that they had not then returned. Then, leaving his
man by the body, he had come straight to my uncle's.
Presently we came on the footpath leading from Ranworth across the field
to Ratherby Wood. It was a mere trail of bare earth worn by successive
feet amid the grass. It was damp, and we all stooped and examined the
footmarks that were to be seen on it. They all pointed one way--towards
the wood in the distance.
"Fortunately it's not a greatly frequented path," Mr. Hardwick said.
"You see, there are the marks of three pairs of feet only, and as first
Sneathy and then both of the brothers came this way, these footmarks
must be theirs. Which are Sneathy's is plain--they are these large flat
ones. If you notice, they are all distinctly visible in the centre of
the track, showing plainly that they belong to the man who walked alone,
which was Sneathy. Of the others, the marks of the _outside_ feet--the
left on the left side and the right on the right--are often not
visible. Clearly they belong to two men walking side by side, and more
often than not treading, with their outer feet, on the grass at the
side. And where these happen to drop on the same spot as the marks in
the middle they cover them. Plainly they are the footmarks of Henry and
Robert Foster, made as they followed Sneathy. Don't you agree with me
Mr. Hewitt?"
"Oh yes, that's very plain. You have a better pair of eyes than most
people, Mr. Hardwick, and a good idea of using them, too. We will go
into the wood now. As a matter of fact I can pretty clearly distinguish
most of the other footmarks--those on the grass; but that's a matter of
much training."
We followed the footpath, keeping on the grass at its side, in case it
should be desirable to refer again to the foot-tracks. For some little
distance into the wood the tracks continued as before, those of the
brothers overlaying those of Sneathy. Then there was a difference. The
path here was broader and muddy, because of the proximity of trees, and
suddenly the outer footprints separated, and no more overlay the larger
ones in the centre, but proceeded at an equal distance on either side of
them.
"See there," cried Mr. Hardwick, pointing triumphantly to the spot,
"this is where they overtook him, and walked on either side. The body
was found only a little farther on--you could see the place now if the
path didn't zigzag about so."
Hewitt said nothing, but stooped and examined the tracks at the sides
with great care and evident thought, spanning the distances between them
comparatively with his arms. Then he rose and stepped lightly from one
mark to another, taking care not to tread on the mark itself. "Very
good," he said shortly on finishing his examination. "We'll go on."
We went on, and presently came to the place where the body lay. Here
the ground sloped from the left down towards the right, and a tiny
streamlet, a mere trickle of a foot or two wide, ran across the path.
In rainy seasons it was probably wider, for all the earth and clay had
been washed away for some feet on each side, leaving flat, bare and very
coarse gravel, on which the trail was lost. Just beyond this, and to the
left, the body lay on a grassy knoll under the limb of a tree, from
which still depended a part of the cut rope. It was not a pleasant
sight. The man was a soft, fleshy creature, probably rather under than
over the medium height, and he lay there, with his stretched neck and
protruding tongue, a revolting object. His right arm lay by his side,
and the stump of the wrist was clotted with black blood. Mr. Hardwick's
man was still in charge, seemingly little pleased with his job, and a
few yards off stood a couple of countrymen looking on.
Hewitt asked from which direction these men had come, and having
ascertained and noticed their footmarks, he asked them to stay exactly
where they were, to avoid confusing such other tracks as might be seen.
Then he addressed himself to his examination. "_First_," he said,
glancing up at the branch, that was scarce a yard above his head, "this
rope has been here for some time."
"Yes," Mr. Hardwick replied, "it's an old swing rope. Some children used
it in the summer, but it got partly cut away, and the odd couple of
yards has been hanging since."
"Ah," said Hewitt, "then if the Fosters did this they were saved some
trouble by the chance, and were able to take their halter back with
them--and so avoid _one_ chance of detection." He very closely
scrutinised the top of a tree stump, probably the relic of a tree that
had been cut down long before, and then addressed himself to the body.
"When you cut it down," he said, "did it fall in a heap?"
"No, my man eased it down to some extent."
"Not on to its face?"
"Oh no. On to its back, just as it is now." Mr. Hardwick saw that Hewitt
was looking at muddy marks on each of the corpse's knees, to one of
which a small leaf clung, and at one or two other marks of the same
sort on the fore part of the dress. "That seems to show pretty plainly,"
he said, "that he must have struggled with them and was thrown forward,
doesn't it?"
Hewitt did not reply, but gingerly lifted the right arm by its sleeve.
"Is either of the brothers Foster left-handed?" he asked.
"No, I think not. Here, Bennett, you have seen plenty of their
doings--cricket, shooting, and so on--do you remember if either is
left-handed?"
"Nayther, sir," Mr. Hardwick's man answered. "Both on 'em's
right-handed."
Hewitt lifted the lapel of the coat and attentively regarded a small
rent in it. The dead man's hat lay near, and after a few glances at
that, Hewitt dropped it and turned his attention to the hair. This was
coarse and dark and long, and brushed straight back with no parting.
"This doesn't look very symmetrical, does it?" Hewitt remarked, pointing
to the locks over the right ear. They were shorter just there than on
the other side, and apparently very clumsily cut, whereas in every other
part the hair appeared to be rather well and carefully trimmed. Mr.
Hardwick said nothing, but fidgeted a little, as though he considered
that valuable time was being wasted over irrelevant trivialities.
Presently, however, he spoke. "There's very little to be learned from
the body, is there?" he said. "I think I'm quite justified in ordering
their arrest, eh?--indeed, I've wasted too much time already."
Hewitt was groping about among some bushes behind the tree from which
the corpse had been taken. When he answered, he said, "I don't think I
should do anything of the sort just now, Mr. Hardwick. As a matter of
fact, I _fancy_"--this word with an emphasis--"that the brothers Foster
may not have seen this man Sneathy at all to-day."
"Not seen him? Why, my dear sir, there's no question of it. It's
certain, absolutely. The evidence is positive. The fact of the threats
and of the body being found treated so is pretty well enough, I should
think. But that's nothing--look at those footmarks. They've walked along
with him, one each side, without a possible doubt; plainly they were the
last people with him, in any case. And you don't mean to ask anybody to
believe that the dead man, even if he hanged himself, cut off his own
hand first. Even if you do, where's the hand? And even putting aside all
these considerations, each a complete case in itself, the Fosters _must_
at least have seen the body as they came past, and yet nothing has been
heard of them yet. Why didn't they spread the alarm? They went straight
away in the opposite direction from home--there are their footmarks,
which you've not seen yet, beyond the gravel."
Hewitt stepped over to where the patch of clean gravel ceased, at the
opposite side to that from which we had approached the brook, and there,
sure enough, were the now familiar footmarks of the brothers leading
away from the scene of Sneathy's end. "Yes," Hewitt said, "I see them.
Of course, Mr. Hardwick, you'll do what seems right in your own eyes,
and in any case not much harm will be done by the arrest beyond a
terrible fright for that unfortunate family. Nevertheless, if you care
for my impression, it is, as I have said, that the Fosters have not seen
Sneathy to-day."
"But what about the hand?"
"As to that I have a conjecture, but as yet it is only a conjecture, and
if I told it you would probably call it absurd--certainly you'd
disregard it, and perhaps quite excusably. The case is a complicated
one, and, if there is anything at all in my conjecture, one of the most
remarkable I have ever had to do with. It interests me intensely, and I
shall devote a little time now to following up the theory I have formed.
You have, I suppose, already communicated with the police?"
"I wired to Shopperton at once, as soon as I heard of the matter. It's a
twelve miles drive, but I wonder the police have not arrived yet. They
can't be long; I don't know where the village constable has got to, but
in any case _he_ wouldn't be much good. But as to your idea that the
Fosters can't be suspected--well, nobody could respect your opinion, Mr.
Hewitt, more than myself, but really, just think. The notion's
impossible--fiftyfold impossible. As soon as the police arrive I shall
have that trail followed and the Fosters apprehended. I should be a fool
if I didn't."
"Very well, Mr. Hardwick," Hewitt replied; "you'll do what you consider
your duty, of course, and quite properly, though I _would_ recommend you
to take another glance at those three trails in the path. I shall take a
look in this direction." And he turned up by the side of the streamlet,
keeping on the gravel at its side.
I followed. We climbed the rising ground, and presently, among the
trees, came to the place where the little rill emerged from the broken
ground in the highest part of the wood. Here the clean ground ceased,
and there was a large patch of wet clayey earth. Several marks left by
the feet of cattle were there, and one or two human footmarks. Two of
these (a pair), the newest and the most distinct, Hewitt studied
carefully, and measured each direction.
"Notice these marks," he said. "They may be of importance or they may
not--that we shall see. Fortunately they are very distinctive--the right
boot is a badly worn one, and a small tag of leather, where the soul is
damaged, is doubled over and trodden into the soft earth. Nothing could
be luckier. Clearly they are the most recent footsteps in this
direction--from the main road, which lies right ahead, through the rest
of the wood."
"Then you think somebody else has been on the scene of the tragedy,
beside the victim and the brothers?" I said.
"Yes, I do. But hark; there is a vehicle in the road. Can you see
between the trees? Yes, it is the police cart. We shall be able to
report its arrival to Mr. Hardwick as we go down."
We turned and walked rapidly down the incline to where we had come from.
Mr. Hardwick and his man were still there, and another rustic had
arrived to gape. We told Mr. Hardwick that he might expect the police
presently, and proceeded along the gravel skirting the stream, toward
the lower part of the wood.
Here Hewitt proceeded very cautiously, keeping a sharp look-out on
either side for footprints on the neighbouring soft ground. There were
none, however, for the gravel margin of the stream made a sort of
footpath of itself, and the trees and undergrowth were close and thick
on each side. At the bottom we emerged from the wood on a small piece
of open ground skirting a lane, and here, just by the side of the lane,
where the stream fell into a trench, Hewitt suddenly pounced on another
footmark. He was unusually excited.
"See," he said, "here it is--the right foot with its broken leather, and
the corresponding left foot on the damp edge of the lane itself. He--the
man with the broken shoe--has walked on the hard gravel all the way down
from the source of the stream, and his is the only trail unaccounted for
near the body. Come, Brett, we've an adventure on foot. Do you care to
let your uncle's dinner go by the board, and follow?"
"Can't we go back and tell him?"
"No--there's no time to lose; we must follow up this man--or at least I
must. You go or stay, of course, as you think best."
I hesitated a moment, picturing to myself the excellent Colonel as he
would appear after waiting dinner an hour or two for us, but decided to
go. "At any rate," I said, "if the way lies along the roads we shall
probably meet somebody going in the direction of Ratherby who will take
a message. But what is your theory? I don't understand at all. I must
say everything Hardwick said seemed to me to be beyond question. There
were the tracks to prove that the three had walked together to the
spot, and that the brothers had gone on alone; and every other
circumstance pointed the same way. Then, what possible motive could
anybody else about here have for such a crime? Unless, indeed, it were
one of the people defrauded by Sneathy's late companies."
"The motive," said Hewitt, "is, I fancy, a most extraordinary--indeed, a
weird one. A thing as of centuries ago. Ask me no questions--I think you
will be a little surprised before very long. But come, we must move."
And we mended our pace along the lane.
The lane, by the bye, was hard and firm, with scarcely a spot where a
track might be left, except in places at the sides; and at these places
Hewitt never gave a glance. At the end the lane turned into a by-road,
and at the turning Hewitt stopped and scrutinised the ground closely.
There was nothing like a recognisable footmark to be seen; but almost
immediately Hewitt turned off to the right, and we continued our brisk
march without a glance at the road.
"How did you judge which way to turn then?" I asked.
"Didn't you see?" replied Hewitt; "I'll show you at the next turning."
Half a mile farther on the road forked, and here Hewitt stooped and
pointed silently to a couple of small twigs, placed crosswise, with the
longer twig of the two pointing down the branch of the road to the left.
We took the branch to the left, and went on.
"Our man's making a mistake," Hewitt observed. "He leaves his friends'
messages lying about for his enemies to read."
We hurried forward with scarcely a word. I was almost too bewildered by
what Hewitt had said and done to formulate anything like a reasonable
guess as to what our expedition tended, or even to make an effective
inquiry--though, after what Hewitt had said, I knew that would be
useless. Who was this mysterious man with the broken shoe? what had he
to do with the murder of Sneathy? what did the mutilation mean? and who
were his friends who left him signs and messages by means of crossed
twigs?
We met a man, by whom I sent a short note to my uncle, and soon after we
turned into a main road. Here again, at the corner, was the curious
message of twigs. A cart-wheel had passed over and crushed them, but it
had not so far displaced them as to cause any doubt that the direction
to take was to the right. At an inn a little farther along we entered,
and Hewitt bought a pint of Irish whisky and a flat bottle to hold it
in, as well as a loaf of bread and some cheese, which we carried away
wrapped in paper.
"This will have to do for our dinner," Hewitt said as we emerged.
"But we're not going to drink a pint of common whisky between us?" I
asked in some astonishment.
"Never mind," Hewitt answered with a smile. "Perhaps we'll find somebody
to help us--somebody not so fastidious as yourself as to quality."
Now we hurried--hurried more than ever, for it was beginning to get
dusk, and Hewitt feared a difficulty in finding and reading the twig
signs in the dark. Two more turnings we made, each with its silent
direction--the crossed twigs. To me there was something almost weird and
creepy in this curious hunt for the invisible and incomprehensible,
guided faithfully and persistently at every turn by this now
unmistakable signal. After the second turning we broke into a trot along
a long, winding lane, but presently Hewitt's hand fell on my shoulder,
and we stopped. He pointed ahead, where some large object, round a bend
of the hedge was illuminated as though by a light from below.
"We will walk now," Hewitt said. "Remember that we are on a walking
tour, and have come along here entirely by accident."
We proceeded at a swinging walk, Hewitt whistling gaily. Soon we turned
the bend, and saw that the large object was a travelling van drawn up
with two others on a space of grass by the side of the lane. It was a
gipsy encampment, the caravan having apparently only lately stopped, for
a man was still engaged in tugging at the rope of a tent that stood near
the vans. Two or three sullen-looking ruffians lay about a fire which
burned in the space left in the middle of the encampment. A woman stood
at the door of one van with a large kettle in her hand, and at the foot
of the steps below her a more pleasant-looking old man sat on an
inverted pail. Hewitt swung towards the fire from the road, and with an
indescribable mixture of slouch, bow, and smile addressed the company
generally with "_Kooshto bock, pals!_"[1]
[1] "Good luck, brothers!"
The men on the ground took no notice, but continued to stare doggedly
before them. The man working at the tent looked round quickly for a
moment, and the old man on the bucket looked up and nodded.
Quick to see the most likely friend, Hewitt at once went up to the old
man, extending his hand, "_Sarshin, daddo?_" he said; "_Dell mandy
tooty's varst._"[2]
[2] "How do you do, father? Give me your hand."
The old man smiled and shook hands, though without speaking. Then
Hewitt proceeded, producing the flat bottle of whisky, "_Tatty for
pawny, chals. Dell mandy the pawny, and lell posh the tatty._"[3]
[3] "Spirits for water, lads. Give me the water and take your share of
the spirits."
The whisky did it. We were Romany ryes in twenty minutes or less, and
had already been taking tea with the gipsies for half the time. The two
or three we had found about the fire were still reserved, but these, I
found, were only half-gipsies, and understood very little Romany. One or
two others, however, including the old man, were of purer breed, and
talked freely, as did one of the women. They were Lees, they said, and
expected to be on Wirksby racecourse in three days' time. We, too, were
_pirimengroes_, or travellers, Hewitt explained, and might look to see
them on the course.
Then he fell to telling gipsy stories, and they to telling others back,
to my intense mystification. Hewitt explained afterwards that they were
mostly stories of poaching, with now and again a horse-coping anecdote
thrown in. Since then I have learned enough of Romany to take my part in
such a conversation, but at the time a word or two here and there was
all I could understand. In all this talk the man we had first noticed
stretching the tent-rope took very little interest, but lay, with his
head away from the fire, smoking his pipe. He was a much darker man
than any other present--had, in fact, the appearance of a man of even a
swarthier race than that of the others about us.
Presently, in the middle of a long and, of course, to me unintelligible
story by the old man, I caught Hewitt's eye. He lifted one eyebrow
almost imperceptibly, and glanced for a single moment at his
walking-stick. Then I saw that it was pointed toward the feet of the
very dark man, who had not yet spoken. One leg was thrown over the
others as he lay, with the soles of his shoes presented toward the fire,
and in its glare I saw--that the right sole was worn and broken, and
that a small triangular tag of leather was doubled over beneath in just
the place we knew of from the prints in Ratherby Wood.
I could not take my eyes off that man with his broken shoe. There lay
the secret, the whole mystery of the fantastic crime in Ratherby Wood
centred in that shabby ruffian. What was it?
But Hewitt went on, talking and joking furiously. The men who were not
speaking mostly smoked gloomily, but whenever one spoke, he became
animated and lively. I had attempted once or twice to join in, though my
efforts were not particularly successful, except in inducing one man to
offer me tobacco from his box--tobacco that almost made me giddy in the
smell. He tried some of mine in exchange, and though he praised it with
native politeness, and smoked the pipe through, I could see that my
Hignett mixture was poor stuff in his estimation, compared with the
awful tobacco in his own box.
Presently the man with the broken shoe got up, slouched over to his
tent, and disappeared. Then said Hewitt (I translate):
"You're not all Lees here, I see?"
"Yes, _pal_, all Lees."
"But _he's_ not a Lee?" and Hewitt jerked his head towards the tent.
"Why not a Lee, _pal_? We be Lees, and he is with us. Thus he is a Lee."
"Oh yes, of course. But I know he is from over the _pawny_. Come, I'll
guess the _tem_[4] he comes from--it's from Roumania, eh? Perhaps the
Wallachian part?"
[4] Country.
The men looked at one another, and then the old Lee said:
"You're right, pal. You're cleverer than we took you for. That is what
they calls his _tem_. He is a petulengro,[5]and he comes with us to shoe
the _gries_[6] and mend the _vardoes_.[7] But he is with us, and so he
is a Lee."
[5] Smith.
[6] Horses.
[7] Vans.
The talk and the smoke went on, and presently the man with the broken
shoe returned, and lay down again. Then, when the whisky had all gone,
and Hewitt, with some excuse that I did not understand, had begged a
piece of cord from one of the men, we left in a chorus of _kooshto
rardies_.[8]
[8] Good-night.
By this time it was nearly ten o'clock. We walked briskly till we came
back again to the inn where we had bought the whisky. Here Hewitt, after
some little trouble, succeeded in hiring a village cart, and while the
driver was harnessing the horse, cut a couple of short sticks from the
hedge. These, being each divided into two, made four short, stout pieces
of something less than six inches long apiece. Then Hewitt joined them
together in pairs, each pair being connected from centre to centre by
about nine or ten inches of the cord he had brought from the gipsies'
camp. These done, he handed one pair to me. "Handcuffs," he explained,
"and no bad ones either. See--you use them so." And he passed the cord
round my wrist, gripping the two handles, and giving them a slight twist
that sufficiently convinced me of the excruciating pain that might be
inflicted by a vigorous turn, and the utter helplessness of a prisoner
thus secured in the hands of captors prepared to use their instruments.
"Whom are these for?" I asked. "The man with the broken shoe?"
Hewitt nodded.
"Yes," he said. "I expect we shall find him out alone about midnight.
You know how to use these now."
It was fully eleven before the cart was ready and we started. A quarter
of a mile or so from the gipsy encampment Hewitt stopped the cart and
gave the driver instructions to wait. We got through the hedge, and made
our way on the soft ground behind it in the direction of the vans and
the tent.
"Roll up your handkerchief," Hewitt whispered, "into a tight pad. The
moment I grab him, ram it into his mouth--_well_ in, mind, so that it
doesn't easily fall out. Probably he will be stooping--that will make it
easier; we can pull him suddenly backward. Now be quiet."
We kept on till nothing but the hedge divided us from the space whereon
stood the encampment. It was now nearer twelve o'clock than eleven, but
the time we waited seemed endless. But time is not eternity after all,
and at last we heard a move in the tent. A minute after, the man we
sought was standing before us. He made straight for a gap in the hedge
which we had passed on our way, and we crouched low and waited. He
emerged on our side of the hedge with his back towards us, and began
walking, as we had walked, behind the hedge, but in the opposite
direction. We followed.
He carried something in his hand that looked like a large bundle of
sticks and twigs, and he appeared to be as anxious to be secret as we
ourselves. From time to time he stopped and listened; fortunately there
was no moon, or in turning about, as he did once or twice, he would
probably have observed us. The field sloped downward just before us, and
there was another hedge at right angles, leading down to a slight
hollow. To this hollow the man made his way, and in the shade of the new
hedge we followed. Presently he stopped suddenly, stooped, and deposited
his bundle on the ground before him. Crouching before it, he produced
matches from his pocket, struck one, and in a moment had a fire of twigs
and small branches, that sent up a heavy white smoke. What all this
portended I could not imagine, but a sense of the weirdness of the whole
adventure came upon me unchecked. The horrible corpse in the wood, with
its severed wrist, Hewitt's enigmatical forebodings, the mysterious
tracking of the man with the broken shoe, the scene round the gipsies'
fire, and now the strange behaviour of this man, whose connection with
the tragedy was so intimate and yet so inexplicable--all these things
contributed to make up a tale of but a few hours' duration, but of an
inscrutable impressiveness that I began to feel in my nerves.
The man bent a thin stick double, and using it as a pair of tongs, held
some indistinguishable object over the flames before him. Excited as I
was, I could not help noticing that he bent and held the stick with his
left hand. We crept stealthily nearer, and as I stood scarcely three
yards behind him and looked over his shoulder, the form of the object
stood out clear and black against the dull red of the flame. It was a
_human hand_.
I suppose I may have somehow betrayed my amazement and horror to my
companion's sharp eyes, for suddenly I felt his hand tightly grip my arm
just above the elbow. I turned, and found his face close by mine and his
finger raised warningly. Then I saw him produce his wrist-grip and make
a motion with his palm toward his mouth, which I understood to be
intended to remind me of the gag. We stepped forward.
The man turned his horrible cookery over and over above the crackling
sticks, as though to smoke and dry it in every part. I saw Hewitt's hand
reach out toward him, and in a flash we had pulled him back over his
heels and I had driven the gag between his teeth as he opened his mouth.
We seized his wrists in the cords at once, and I shall never forget the
man's look of ghastly, frantic terror as he lay on the ground. When I
knew more I understood the reason of this.
Hewitt took both wristholds in one hand and drove the gag entirely into
the man's mouth, so that he almost choked. A piece of sacking lay near
the fire, and by Hewitt's request I dropped that awful hand from the
wooden twigs upon it and rolled it up in a parcel--it was, no doubt,
what the sacking had been brought for. Then we lifted the man to his
feet and hurried him in the direction of the cart. The whole capture
could not have occupied thirty seconds, and as I stumbled over the rough
field at the man's left elbow I could only think of the thing as one
thinks of a dream that one knows all the time _is_ a dream.
But presently the man, who had been walking quietly, though gasping,
sniffing and choking because of the tightly rolled handkerchief in his
mouth--presently he made a sudden dive, thinking doubtless to get his
wrists free by surprise. But Hewitt was alert, and gave them a twist
that made him roll his head with a dismal, stifled yell, and with the
opening of his mouth, by some chance the gag fell away. Immediately the
man roared aloud for help.
"Quick," said Hewitt, "drag him along--they'll hear in the vans. Bring
the hand!"
I seized the fallen handkerchief and crammed it over the man's mouth as
well as I might, and together we made as much of a trot as we could,
dragging the man between us, while Hewitt checked any reluctance on his
part by a timely wrench of the wristholds. It was a hard two hundred and
fifty yards to the lane even for us--for the gipsy it must have been a
bad minute and a half indeed. Once more as we went over the uneven
ground he managed to get out a shout, and we thought we heard a distinct
reply from somewhere in the direction of the encampment.
We pulled him over a stile in a tangle; and dragged and pushed him
through a small hedge-gap all in a heap. Here we were but a short
distance from the cart, and into that we flung him without wasting time
or tenderness, to the intense consternation of the driver, who, I
believe, very nearly set up a cry for help on his own account. Once in
the cart, however, I seized the reins and the whip myself and, leaving
Hewitt to take care of the prisoner, put the turn-out along toward
Ratherby at as near ten miles an hour as it could go.
We made first for Mr. Hardwick's, but he, we found, was with my uncle,
so we followed him. The arrest of the Fosters had been effected, we
learned, not very long after we had left the wood, as they returned by
another route to Ranworth. We brought our prisoner into the Colonel's
library, where he and Mr. Hardwick were sitting.
"I'm not quite sure what we can charge him with unless it's anatomical
robbery," Hewitt remarked, "but here's the criminal."
The man only looked down, with a sulkily impenetrable countenance.
Hewitt spoke to him once or twice, and at last he said, in a strange
accent, something that sounded like "_kekin jin-navvy._"
"_Keck jin?_"[9] asked Hewitt, in the loud, clear tone one instinctively
adopts in talking to a foreigner, "_Keckeno jinny?_"
[9] "Not understand?"
The man understood and shook his head, but not another word would he say
or another question answer.
"He's a foreign gipsy," Hewitt explained, "just as I thought--a
Wallachian, in fact. Theirs is an older and purer dialect than that of
the English gipsies, and only some of the root-words are alike. But I
think we can make him explain to-morrow that the Fosters at least had
nothing to do with, at any rate, cutting off Sneathy's hand. Here it is,
I think." And he gingerly lifted the folds of sacking from the ghastly
object as it lay on the table, and then covered it up again.
"But what--what does it all mean?" Mr. Hardwick said in bewildered
astonishment. "Do you mean this man was an accomplice?"
"Not at all--the case was one of suicide, as I think you'll agree, when
I've explained. This man simply found the body hanging and stole the
hand."
"But what in the world for?"
"For the HAND OF GLORY. Eh?" He turned to the gipsy and pointed to the
hand on the table: "_Yag-varst_,[10] eh?"
[10] Fire-hand.
There was a quick gleam of intelligence in the man's eye, but he said
nothing. As for myself I was more than astounded. Could it be possible
that the old superstition of the Hand of Glory remained alive in a
practical shape at this day?
"You know the superstition, of course," Hewitt said. "It did exist in
this country in the last century, when there were plenty of dead men
hanging at cross-roads, and so on. On the Continent, in some places, it
has survived later. Among the Wallachian gipsies it has always been a
great article of belief, and the superstition is quite active still. The
belief is that the right hand of a hanged man, cut off and dried over
the smoke of certain wood and herbs, and then provided with wicks at
each finger made of the dead man's hair, becomes, when lighted at each
wick (the wicks are greased, of course), a charm, whereby a thief may
walk without hinderance where he pleases in a strange house, push open
all doors and take what he likes. Nobody can stop him, for everybody the
Hand of Glory approaches is made helpless, and can neither move nor
speak. You may remember there was some talk of 'thieves' candles' in
connection with the horrible series of Whitechapel murders not long ago.
That is only one form of the cult of the Hand of Glory."
"Yes," my uncle said, "I remember reading so. There is a story about it
in the Ingoldsby Legends, too, I believe."
"There is--it is called 'The Hand of Glory,' in fact. You remember the
spell, 'Open lock to the dead man's knock,' and so on. But I think you'd
better have the constable up and get this man into safe quarters for the
night. He should be searched, of course. I expect they will find on him
the hair I noticed to have been cut from Sneathy's head."
The village constable arrived with his iron handcuffs in substitution
for those of cord which had so sorely vexed the wrists of our prisoner,
and marched him away to the little lock-up on the green.
Then my uncle and Mr. Hardwick turned on Martin Hewitt with doubts and
many questions:
"Why do you call it suicide?" Mr. Hardwick asked. "It is plain the
Fosters were with him at the time from the tracks. Do you mean to say
that they stood there and watched Sneathy hang himself without
interfering?"
"No, I don't," Hewitt replied, lighting a cigar. "I think I told you
that they never saw Sneathy."
"Yes, you did, and of course that's what they said themselves when they
were arrested. But the thing's impossible. Look at the tracks!"
"The tracks are exactly what revealed to me that it was _not_
impossible," Hewitt returned. "I'll tell you how the case unfolded
itself to me from the beginning. As to the information you gathered from
the Ranworth coachman, to begin with. The conversation between the
Fosters which he overheard might well mean something less serious than
murder. What did they say? They had been sent for in a hurry and had
just had a short consultation with their mother and sister. Henry said
that 'the thing must be done at once'; also that as there were two of
them it should be easy. Robert said that Henry, as a doctor, would know
best what to do.
"Now you, Colonel Brett, had been saying--before we learned these things
from Mr. Hardwick--that Sneathy's behaviour of late had become so bad as
to seem that of a madman. Then there was the story of his sudden attack
on a tradesman in the village, and equally sudden running away--exactly
the sort of impulsive, wild thing that madmen do. Why then might it not
be reasonable to suppose that Sneathy _had_ become mad--more especially
considering all the circumstances of the case, his commercial ruin and
disgrace and his horrible life with his wife and her family?--had become
suddenly much worse and quite uncontrollable, so that the two wretched
women left alone with him were driven to send in haste for Henry and
Robert to help them? That would account for all.
"The brothers arrive just after Sneathy had gone out. They are told in a
hurried interview how affairs stand, and it is decided that Sneathy must
be at once secured and confined in an asylum before something serious
happens. He has just gone out--something terrible may be happening at
this moment. The brothers determine to follow at once and secure him
wherever he may be. Then the meaning of their conversation is plain. The
thing that 'must be done, and at once,' is the capture of Sneathy and
his confinement in an asylum. Henry, as a doctor, would 'know what to
do' in regard to the necessary formalities. And they took a halter in
case a struggle should ensue and it were found necessary to bind him.
Very likely, wasn't it?"
"Well, yes," Mr. Hardwick replied, "it certainly is. It never struck me
in that light at all."
"That was because you believed, to begin with, that a murder had been
committed, and looked at the preliminary circumstances which you learned
after in the light of your conviction. But now, to come to my actual
observations. I saw the footmarks across the fields, and agreed with you
(it was indeed obvious) that Sneathy had gone that way first, and that
the brothers had followed, walking over his tracks. This state of the
tracks continued until well into the wood, when suddenly the tracks of
the brothers opened out and proceeded on each side of Sneathy's. The
simple inference would seem to be, of course, the one you made--that the
Fosters had here overtaken Sneathy, and walked one at each side of him.
"But of this I felt by no means certain. Another very simple explanation
was available, which might chance to be the true one. It was just at the
spot where the brothers' tracks separated that the path became suddenly
much muddier, because of the closer overhanging of the trees at the
spot. The path was, as was to be expected, wettest in the middle. It
would be the most natural thing in the world for two well-dressed young
men, on arriving here, to separate so as to walk one on each side of the
mud in the middle.
"On the other hand, a man in Sneathy's state (assuming him, for the
moment, to be mad and contemplating suicide) would walk straight along
the centre of the path, taking no note of mud or anything else. I
examined all the tracks very carefully, and my theory was confirmed. The
feet of the brothers had everywhere alighted in the driest spots, and
the steps were of irregular lengths--which meant, of course, that they
were picking their way; while Sneathy's footmarks had never turned aside
even for the dirtiest puddle. Here, then, were the rudiments of a
theory.
"At the watercourse, of course, the footmarks ceased, because of the
hard gravel. The body lay on a knoll at the left--a knoll covered with
grass. On this the signs of footmarks were almost undiscoverable,
although I am often able to discover tracks in grass that are invisible
to others. Here, however, it was almost useless to spend much time in
examination, for you and your man had been there, and what slight marks
there might be would be indistinguishable one from another.
"Under the branch from which the man had hung there was an old tree
stump, with a flat top, where the tree had been sawn off. I examined
this, and it became fairly apparent that Sneathy had stood on it when
the rope was about his neck--his muddy footprint was plain to see; the
mud was not smeared about, you see, as it probably would have been if
he had been stood there forcibly and pushed off. It was a simple, clear
footprint--another hint at suicide.
"But then arose the objection that you mentioned yourself. Plainly the
brothers Foster were following Sneathy, and came this way. Therefore, if
he hanged himself before they arrived, it would seem that they must have
come across the body. But now I examined the body itself. There was mud
on the knees, and clinging to one knee was a small leaf. It was a leaf
corresponding to those on the bush behind the tree, and it was not a
dead leaf, so must have been just detached.
"After my examination of the body I went to the bush, and there, in the
thick of it, were, for me, sufficiently distinct knee-marks, in one of
which the knee had crushed a spray of the bush against the ground, and
from that spray a leaf was missing. Behind the knee-marks were the
indentations of boot-toes in the soft, bare earth under the bush, and
thus the thing was plain. The poor lunatic had come in sight of the
dangling rope, and the temptation to suicide was irresistible. To people
in a deranged state of mind the mere sight of the means of
self-destruction is often a temptation impossible to withstand. But at
that moment he must have heard the steps--probably the voices--of the
brothers behind him on the winding path. He immediately hid in the bush
till they had passed. It is probable that seeing who the men were, and
conjecturing that they were following him--thinking also, perhaps, of
things that had occurred between them and himself--his inclination to
self-destruction became completely ungovernable, with the result that
you saw.
"But before I inspected the bush I noticed one or two more things about
the body. You remember I inquired if either of the brothers Foster was
left-handed, and was assured that neither was. But clearly the hand had
been cut off by a left-handed man, with a large, sharply pointed knife.
For well away to the _right_ of where the wrist had hung the knife-point
had made a tiny triangular rent in the coat, so that the hand must have
been held in the mutilator's right hand, while he used the knife with
his left--clearly a left-handed man.
"But most important of all about the body was the jagged hair over the
right ear. Everywhere else the hair was well cut and orderly--here it
seemed as though a good piece had been, so to speak, _sawn_ off. What
could anybody want with a dead man's right hand and certain locks of his
hair? Then it struck me suddenly--the man was hanged; it was the Hand of
Glory!
"Then you will remember I went, at your request, to see the footprints
of the Fosters on the part of the path _past_ the watercourse. Here
again it was muddy in the middle, and the two brothers had walked as far
apart as before, although nobody had walked between them. A final proof,
if one were needed, of my theory as to the three lines of footprints.
"Now I was to consider how to get at the man who had taken his hand. He
should be punished for the mutilation, but beyond that he would be
required as a witness. Now all the foot-tracks in the vicinity had been
accounted for. There were those of the brothers and of Sneathy, which we
have been speaking of; those of the rustics looking on, which, however,
stopped a little way off, and did not interfere with our sphere of
observation; those of your man, who had cut straight through the wood
when he first saw the body, and had come back the same way with you; and
our own, which we had been careful to keep away from the others.
Consequently there was _no_ track of the man who had cut off the hand;
therefore it was certain that he must have come along the hard gravel by
the watercourse, for that was the only possible path which would not
tell the tale. Indeed, it seemed quite a likely path through the wood
for a passenger to take, coming from the high ground by the Shopperton
road.
"Brett and I left you and traversed the watercourse, both up and down.
We found a footprint at the top, left lately by a man with a broken
shoe. Right down to the bottom of the watercourse where it emerged from
the wood there was no sign on either side of this man having left the
gravel. (Where the body was, as you will remember, he would simply have
stepped off the gravel on to the grass, which I thought it useless to
examine, as I have explained.) But at the bottom, by the lane, the
footprint appeared again.
"This then was the direction in which I was to search for a left-handed
man with a broken-soled shoe, probably a gipsy--and most probably a
foreign gipsy--because a foreign gipsy would be the most likely still to
hold the belief in the Hand of Glory. I conjectured the man to be a
straggler from a band of gipsies--one who probably had got behind the
caravan and had made a short cut across the wood after it; so at the end
of the lane I looked for a _patrin_. This is a sign that gipsies leave
to guide stragglers following up. Sometimes it is a heap of dead leaves,
sometimes a few stones, sometimes a mark on the ground, but more usually
a couple of twigs crossed, with the longer twig pointing the road.
"Guided by these _patrins_ we came in the end on the gipsy camp just as
it was settling down for the night. We made ourselves agreeable (as
Brett will probably describe to you better than I can), we left them,
and after they had got to sleep we came back and watched for the
gentleman who is now in the lock-up. He would, of course, seize the
first opportunity of treating his ghastly trophy in the prescribed way,
and I guessed he would choose midnight, for that is the time the
superstition teaches that the hand should be prepared. We made a few
small preparations, collared him, and now you've got him. And I should
think the sooner you let the brothers Foster go the better."
"But why didn't you tell me all the conclusions you had arrived at at
the time?" asked Mr. Hardwick.
"Well, really," Hewitt replied, with a quiet smile, "you were so
positive, and some of the traces I relied on were so small, that it
would probably have meant a long argument and a loss of time. But more
than that, confess, if I had told you bluntly that Sneathy's hand had
been taken away to make a mediaeval charm to enable a thief to pass
through a locked door and steal plate calmly under the owner's nose,
what _would_ you have said?"
"Well, well, perhaps I _should_ have been a little sceptical.
Appearances combined so completely to point to the Fosters as murderers
that any other explanation almost would have seemed unlikely to me, and
_that_--well no, I confess, I shouldn't have believed in it. But it is a
startling thing to find such superstitions alive now-a-days."
"Yes, perhaps it is. Yet we find survivals of the sort very frequently.
The Wallachians, however, are horribly superstitious still--the gipsies
among them are, of course, worse. Don't you remember the case reported a
few months ago, in which a child was drowned as a sacrifice in Wallachia
in order to bring rain? And that was not done by gipsies either. Even in
England, as late as 1865, a poor paralysed Frenchman was killed by being
'swum' for witchcraft--that was in Essex. And less atrocious cases of
belief in wizardry occur again and again even now."
Then Mr. Hardwick and my uncle fell into a discussion as to how the
gipsy in the lock-up could be legally punished. Mr. Hardwick thought it
should be treated as a theft of a portion of a dead body, but my uncle
fancied there was a penalty for mutilation of a dead body _per se_,
though he could not point to the statute. As it happened, however, they
were saved the trouble of arriving at a decision, for in the morning he
was discovered to have escaped. He had been left, of course, with free
hands, and had occupied the night in wrenching out the bars at the top
of the back wall of the little prison-shed (it had stood on the green
for a hundred and fifty years) and climbing out. He was not found again,
and a month or two later the Foster family left the district entirely.