AMBLER JEVONS IS BUSY.
The sleepy-eyed tea-blender of Mark Lane remained plunged in a deep
reverie during the greater part of the journey to town, and on arrival
at King's Cross declined to allow me to accompany him. This
disappointed me. I was eager to pursue the clue, but no amount of
persuasion on my part would induce him to alter his decision.
"At present I must continue alone, old fellow," he answered kindly.
"It is best, after all. Later on I may want your help."
"The facts I've told you are of importance, I suppose?"
"Of the greatest importance," he responded. "I begin to see light
through the veil. But if what I suspect is correct, then the affair
will be found to be absolutely astounding."
"Of that I'm certain," I said. "When will you come in and spend an
hour?"
"As soon as ever I can spare time," he answered. "To-morrow, or next
day, perhaps. At present I have a very difficult task before me.
Good-bye for the present." And hailing a hansom he jumped in and drove
away, being careful not to give the address to the driver while within
my hearing. Ambler Jevons had been born with the instincts of a
detective. The keenness of his intellect was perfectly marvellous.
On leaving him I drove to Harley Street, where I found Sir Bernard
busy with patients, and in rather an ill-temper, having been worried
unusually by some smart woman who had been to consult him and had been
pouring into his ear all her domestic woes.
"I do wish such women would go and consult somebody else," he growled,
after he had been explaining her case to me. "Same symptoms as all of
them. Nerves--owing to indigestion, late hours, and an artificial
life. Wants me to order her to Carlsbad or somewhere abroad--so that
she can be rid of her husband for a month or so. I can see the reason
plain enough. She's got some little game to play. Faugh!" cried the
old man, "such women only fill one with disgust."
I went on to tell him of the verdict upon the death of Mrs. Courtenay,
and his manner instantly changed to one of sympathy.
"Poor Henry!" he exclaimed. "Poor little woman! I wonder that nothing
has transpired to give the police a clue. To my mind, Boyd, there was
some mysterious element in Courtenay's life that he entirely hid from
his friends. In later years he lived in constant dread of
assassination."
"Yes, that has always struck me as strange," I remarked.
"Has nothing yet been discovered?" asked my chief. "Didn't the police
follow that manservant Short?"
"Yes, but to no purpose. They proved to their own satisfaction that he
was innocent."
"And your friend Jevons--the tea-dealer who makes it a kind of hobby
to assist the police. What of him? Has he continued his activity?"
"I believe so. He has, I understand, discovered a clue."
"What has he found?" demanded the old man, bending forward in
eagerness across the table. He had been devoted to his friend
Courtenay, and was constantly inquiring of me whether the police had
met with any success.
"At present he will tell me nothing," I replied.
Sir Bernard gave vent to an exclamation of dissatisfaction, observing
that he hoped Jevons' efforts would meet with success, as it was
scandalous that a double tragedy of that character could occur in a
civilized community without the truth being revealed and the assassin
arrested.
"There's no doubt that the tragedy was a double one," I observed.
"Although the jury have returned a verdict of 'Found Drowned' in the
widow's case, the facts, even as far as at present known, point
undoubtedly to murder."
"To murder!" he cried. "Then is it believed that she's been wilfully
drowned?"
"That is the local surmise."
"Why?" he asked, with an eager look upon his countenance, for he took
the most intense interest in every feature of the affair.
"Well, because it is rumoured that she had been seen late one night
walking along the river-bank, near the spot where she was found,
accompanied by a strange man."
"A strange man?" he echoed, his interest increased. "Did anyone see
him sufficiently close to recognise him?"
"I believe not," I answered, hesitating at that moment to tell him all
I knew. "The local police are making active inquiries, I believe."
"I wonder who it could have been?" Sir Bernard exclaimed reflectively.
"Mrs. Courtenay was always so devoted to poor Henry, that the story of
the stranger appears to me very like some invention of the villagers.
Whenever a tragedy occurs in a rural district all kinds of absurd
canards are started. Probably that's one of them. It is only natural
for the rustic mind to connect a lover with a pretty young widow."
"Exactly. But I have certain reasons for believing the clandestine
meeting to have taken place," I said.
"What causes you to give credence to the story?"
"Statements made to me," I replied vaguely. "And further, all the
evidence points to murder."
"Then why did the jury return an open verdict?"
"It was the best thing they could do in the circumstances, as it
leaves the police with a free hand."
"But who could possibly have any motive for the poor little woman's
death?" he asked, with a puzzled, rather anxious expression upon his
grey brow.
"The lover may have wished to get rid of her," I suggested.
"You speak rather ungenerously, Boyd," he protested. "Remember, we
don't know for certain that there was a lover in the case, and we
should surely accept the rumours of country yokels with considerable
hesitation."
"I make no direct accusation," I said. "I merely give as my opinion
that she was murdered by the man she was evidently in the habit of
meeting. That's all."
"Well, if that is so, then I hope the police will be successful in
making an arrest," declared the old physician. "Poor little woman!
When is the funeral?"
"The day after to-morrow."
"I must send a wreath. How sad it is! How very sad!" And he sighed
sympathetically, and sat staring with fixed eyes at the dark green
wall opposite.
"It's time you caught your train," I remarked, glancing at the clock.
"No," he answered. "I'm dining at the House of Commons to-night with
my friend Houston. I shall remain in town all night. I so very seldom
allow myself any dissipation," and he smiled rather sadly.
Truly he led an anchorite's life, going to and fro with clockwork
regularity, and denying himself all those diversions in Society which
are ever at the command of a notable man. Very rarely did he accept an
invitation to dine, and the fact that he lived down at Hove was in
order to have a good excuse to evade people. He was a great man, with
all a great man's little eccentricities.
The two following days passed uneventfully. Each evening, about ten,
Ambler Jevons came in to smoke and drink. He stayed an hour,
apparently nervous, tired, and fidgety in a manner quite unusual; but
to my inquiries regarding the success of his investigations he
remained dumb.
"Have you discovered anything?" I asked, eagerly, on the occasion of
his second visit.
He hesitated, at length answering----
"Yes--and no. I must see Ethelwynn without delay. Telegraph and ask
her to meet you here. I want to ask her a question."
"Do you still suspect her?"
He shrugged his shoulders with an air of distinct vagueness.
"Wire to her to-night," he urged. "Your man can take the message down
to the Charing Cross office, and she'll get it at eight o'clock in the
morning. The funeral is over, so there is nothing to prevent her
coming to town."
I was compelled to agree to his suggestion, although loth to again
bring pain and annoyance to my love. I knew how she had suffered when,
a few days ago, I had questioned her, and I felt convinced by her
manner that, although she had refused to speak, she herself was
innocent. Her lips were sealed by word of honour.
According to appointment Jevons met me when I had finished my next
morning's work at Guy's, and we took a glass of sherry together in a
neighbouring bar. Then at his invitation I accompanied him along the
Borough High Street and Newington Causeway to the London Road, until
we came to a row of costermongers' barrows drawn up beside the
pavement. Before one of these, piled with vegetables ready for the
Saturday-night market, he stopped, and was immediately recognised by
the owner--a tall, consumptive-looking man, whose face struck me
somehow as being familiar.
"Well, Lane?" my companion said. "Busy, eh?"
"Not very, sir," was the answer, with the true cockney twang. "Trade
ain't very brisk. There's too bloomin' many of us 'ere nowadays."
Leaving my side my companion advanced towards the man and whispered
some confidential words that I could not catch, at the same time
pulling something from his breast-pocket and showing it to him.
"Oh, yes, sir. No doubt abawt it!" I heard the man exclaim.
Then, in reply to a further question from Jevons, he said:
"'Arry 'Arding used to work at Curtis's. So I fancy that 'ud be the
place to find out somethink. I'm keepin' my ears open, you bet," and
he winked knowingly.
Where I had seen the man before I could not remember. But his face was
certainly familiar.
When we left him and continued along the busy thoroughfare of cheap
shops and itinerant vendors I asked my friend who he was, to which he
merely replied:
"Well, he's a man who knows something of the affair. I'll explain
later. In the meantime come with me to Gray's Inn Road. I have to
make a call there," and he hailed a hansom, into which we mounted.
Twenty minutes later we alighted before a dingy-looking barber's shop
and inquired for Mr. Harding--an assistant who was at that moment
shaving a customer of the working class. It was a house where one
could be shaved for a penny, but where the toilet accessories were
somewhat primitive.
While I stood on the threshold Ambler Jevons asked the barber's
assistant if he had ever worked at Curtis's, and if, while there, he
knew a man whose photograph he showed him.
"Yes, sir," answered the barber, without a moment's hesitation.
"That's Mr. Slade. He was a very good customer, and Mr. Curtis used
always to attend on him himself."
"Slade, you say, is his name?" repeated my friend.
"Yes, sir."
Then, thanking him, we re-entered the cab and drove to an address in a
street off Shaftesbury Avenue.
"Slade! Slade!" repeated Ambler Jevons to himself as we drove along.
"That's the name I've been in search of for weeks. If I am successful
I believe the Seven Secrets will resolve themselves into one of the
most remarkable conspiracies of modern times. I must, however,
make this call alone, Ralph. The presence of a second person may
possibly prevent the man I'm going to see from making a full and
straightforward statement. We must not risk failure in this inquiry,
for I anticipate that it may give us the key to the whole situation.
There's a bar opposite the Palace Theatre. I'll set you down there,
and you can wait for me. You don't mind, do you?"
"Not at all, if you'll promise to explain the result of your
investigations afterwards."
"You shall know everything later," he assured me, and a few minutes
afterwards I alighted at the saloon bar he had indicated, a long
lounge patronised a good deal by theatrical people.
He was absent nearly half-an-hour, and when he returned I saw from his
face that he had obtained some information that was eminently
satisfactory.
"I hope to learn something further this afternoon," he said before we
parted. "If I do I shall be with you at four." Then he jumped into a
hansom and disappeared. Jevons was a strange fellow. He rushed hither
and thither, telling no one his business or his motives.
About the hour he had named he was ushered into my room. He had made a
complete change in his appearance, wearing a tall hat and frock coat,
with a black fancy waistcoat whereon white flowers were embroidered.
By a few artistic touches he had altered the expression of his
features too--adding nearly twenty years to his age. His countenance
was one of those round, flexible ones that are so easily altered by a
few dark lines.
"Well, Ambler?" I said anxiously, when we were alone. "What have you
discovered?"
"Several rather remarkable facts," was his philosophic response. "If
you care to accompany me I can show you to-night something very
interesting."
"Care to accompany you?" I echoed. "I'm only too anxious."
He glanced at his watch, then flinging himself into the chair opposite
me, said, "We've an hour yet. Have you got a drop of brandy handy?"
Then for the first time I noticed that the fresh colour of his cheeks
was artificial, and that in reality he was exhausted and white as
death. The difficulty in speaking that I had attributed to excitement
was really due to exhaustion.
Quickly I produced the brandy, and gave him a stiff peg, which he
swallowed at a single gulp. His eyes were no longer sleepy-looking,
but there was a quick fire in them which showed me that, although
suppressed, there burned within his heart a fierce desire to get at
the truth. Evidently he had learned something since I left him, but
what it was I could not gather.
I looked at the clock, and saw it was twenty minutes past six. He
noticed my action, and said:
"If we start in an hour we shall have sufficient time."
Ambler Jevons was never communicative. But as he sat before me his
brows were knit in deep thought, his hands chafed with suppressed
agitation, and he took a second brandy-and-soda, an unusual
indulgence, which betrayed an absent mind.
At length he rose, carefully brushed his silk hat, settled the hang of
his frock-coat before the glass, tugged at his cravat, and then,
putting on his light overcoat, announced his readiness to set out.
About half-an-hour later our cab set us down in Upper Street,
Islington, close to the Agricultural Hall, and, proceeding on foot a
short distance, we turned up a kind of court, over the entrance of
which a lamp was burning, revealing the words "Lecture Hall."
Jevons produced two tickets, whereupon we were admitted into a long,
low room filled by a mixed audience consisting of men. Upon the
platform at the further end was a man of middle age, with short fair
beard, grey eyes, and an alert, resolute manner--a foreigner by his
dress--and beside him an Englishman of spruce professional
appearance--much older, slightly bent, with grey countenance and white
hair.
We arrived just at the moment of the opening of the proceedings. The
Englishman, whom I set down to be a medical man, rose, and in
introducing the lecturer beside him, said:
"I have the honour, ladies and gentlemen, to introduce to you Doctor
Paul Deboutin--who, as most of you know, is one of the most celebrated
medical men in Paris, professor at the Salpetriere, and author of many
works upon nervous disorders. The study of the latter is not,
unfortunately, sufficiently taken up in this country, and it is in
order to demonstrate the necessity of such study that my friends and
myself have invited Doctor Deboutin to give this lecture before an
audience of both medical men and the laity. The doctor asks me to
apologise to you for his inability to express himself well in English,
but personally I have no fear that you will misunderstand him."
Then he turned, introduced the lecturer, and re-seated himself.
I was quite unprepared for such a treat. Deboutin, as every medical
man is aware, is the first authority on nervous disorders, and his
lectures have won for him a world-wide reputation. I had read all his
books, and being especially struck with "Nevroses et Idees Fixes," a
most convincing work, had longed to be present at one of his
demonstrations. Therefore, forgetful that I was there for some unknown
reason, I settled myself to listen.
Rapidly and clearly he spoke in fairly good English, with a decision
that showed him to be perfect master at once of his subject and of the
phrases with which he intended to clothe his thoughts. He briefly
outlined the progress of his experiments at the Salpetriere, and at
the hospitals of Lyons and Marseilles, then without long preliminary,
proceeded to demonstrate a most interesting case.
A girl of about twenty-five, with a countenance only relieved from
ugliness by a fine pair of bright dark eyes, was led in by an
assistant and seated in a chair. She was of the usual type seen in the
streets of Islington, poorly dressed with some attempt at faded
finery--probably a workgirl in some city factory. She cast an uneasy
glance upon the audience, and then turned towards the doctor, who drew
his chair towards the patient so that her knees nearly touched his.
It was a case of nervous "Hemianopsie," or one-eyed vision, he
explained.
Now the existence of this has always been denied, therefore the
experiment was of the most intense interest to every medical man
present.
First the doctor, after ordering the patient to look him straight in
the face, held a pencil on the left side of her head, and found that,
in common with most of us, she was conscious of its presence without
moving her eyes, even when it was almost at the level of her ear. Then
he tried the same experiment on the right side of the face, when it
was at once plain that the power of lateral vision had broken
down--for she answered, "No, sir. No, no," as he moved the pencil to
and fro with the inquiry whether she could see it. Nevertheless he
demonstrated that the power of seeing straight was quite unimpaired,
and presently he gave to his assistant a kind of glass hemisphere,
which he placed over the girl's head, and by which he measured the
exact point on its scale where the power of lateral vision ceased.
This being found and noted, Professor Deboutin placed his hand upon
the patient's eyes, and with a brief "You may sleep now, my girl," in
broken English, she was asleep in a few seconds.
Then came the lecture. He verbally dissected her, giving a full and
lucid explanation of the nervous system, from the spinal marrow and
its termination in the coccyx, up to the cortex of the brain, in which
he was of opinion that there was in that case a lesion--probably
curable--amply accounting for the phenomenon present. So clear,
indeed, were his remarks that even a layman could follow them.
At last the doctor awoke the patient, and was about to proceed with
another experiment when his quick eye noticed a hardly-perceptible
flutter of the eyelids. "Ah, you are tired," he said. "It is enough."
And he conducted her to the little side door that gave exit from the
platform.
The next case was one of the kind which is always the despair
of doctors--hysteria. A girl, accompanied by her mother, a
neatly-dressed, respectable-looking body, was led forward, but her
hands were trembling, and her face working so nervously that the
doctor had to reassure her. With a true cockney accent she said that
she lived in Mile End, and worked at a pickle factory. Her symptoms
were constant headache, sudden falls, and complete absence of
sensation in her left hand, which greatly interfered with her work.
Some of the questions were inconvenient--until, in answer to one
regarding her father, she gave a cry that "Poor father died last
year," and broke into an agony of weeping. In a moment the doctor took
up an anthropometric instrument from the table, and made a movement as
though to touch her presumably insensible hand.
"Ah, you'll hurt me!" she said. Presently, while her attention was
attracted in another direction, he touched the hand with the
instrument, when she drew it back with a yell of pain, showing that
the belief that her hand was insensible was entirely due to hysteria.
He analysed her case just as he had done the first, and declared that
by a certain method of treatment, too technical to be here explained,
a complete cure could be effected.
Another case of hysteria followed, and then a terrible exhibition of a
wild-haired woman suffering from what the lecturer described as a
"crise des nerfs," which caused her at will to execute all manner of
horrible contortions as though she were possessed. She threw herself
on the floor on her back, with her body arched so that it rested only
on her head and heels, while she delivered kicks at those in front of
her, not with her toes, but with her heels. Meanwhile her face was so
congested as to appear almost black.
The audience were, I think, relieved when the poor unfortunate woman,
calmed by Deboutin's method of suggestion, was led quietly away, and
her place taken by a slim, red-haired girl of more refined appearance
than the others, but with a strange stony stare as though unconscious
of her surroundings. She was accompanied by a short, wizened-faced old
lady, her grandmother.
At this juncture the chairman rose and said:
"This case is of great interest, inasmuch as it is a discovery made by
my respected colleague, whom we all know by repute, Sir Bernard
Eyton."
The mention of my chief's name was startling. I had no idea he had
taken any interest in the French methods. Indeed, he had always
declared to me that Charcot and his followers were a set of
charlatans.
"We have the pleasure of welcoming Sir Bernard here this evening,"
continued the chairman; "and I shall ask him to kindly explain the
case."
With apparent reluctance the well-known physician rose, after being
cordially welcomed to the platform by the French savant, adjusted his
old-fashioned glasses, and commenced to introduce the subject. His
appearance there was certainly quite unexpected, but as I glanced at
Ambler I saw a look of triumph in his face. We were sitting at the
back of the hall, and I knew that Sir Bernard, being short-sighted,
could not recognise us at the distance.
"I am here at Doctor Fulton's invitation to meet our great master,
Professor Deboutin, of whom for many years I have been a follower."
Then he went on to express the pleasure it gave him to demonstrate
before them a case which he declared was not at all uncommon, although
hitherto unsuspected by medical men.
Behind the chair of the new-comer stood the strange-looking old
lady--who answered for her grand-daughter, the latter being mute. Her
case was one, Sir Bernard explained, of absence of will. With a few
quick questions he placed the history of the case before his hearers.
There was a bad family history--a father who drank, and a mother who
suffered from epilepsy. At thirteen the girl had received a sudden
fright owing to a practical joke, and from that moment she gradually
came under the influence of some hidden unknown terror so that she
even refused to eat altogether. The strangest fact, however, was that
she could still eat and speak in secret, although in public she was
entirely dumb, and no amount of pleasure or pain would induce her to
utter a sound.
"This," explained Sir Bernard, "is one of the many cases of absence of
will, partial or entire, which has recently come beneath my notice. My
medical friends, and also Professor Deboutin, will agree that at the
age the patient received her fright many girls are apt to tend towards
what the Charcot School term 'aboulie,' or, in plain English, absence
of will. Now one of the most extraordinary symptoms of this is terror.
Terror," he said, "of performing the simplest functions of nature;
terror of movement, terror of eating--though sane in every other
respect. Some there are, too, in whom this terror is developed upon
one point only, and in such the inequality of mental balance can, as a
rule, only be detected by one who has made deep research in this
particular branch of nervous disorders."
The French professor followed with a lengthy discourse, in which he
bestowed the highest praise upon Sir Bernard for his long and patient
experiments, which, he said, had up to the present been conducted in
secret, because he feared that if it were known he had taken up that
branch of medical science he might lose his reputation as a lady's
doctor.
Then, just as the meeting was being brought to a conclusion, Jevons
touched me on the shoulder, and we both slipped out.
"Well," he asked. "What do you think of it all?"
"I've been highly interested," I replied. "But how does this further
our inquiries, or throw any light on the tragedy?"
"Be patient," was his response, as we walked together in the direction
of the Angel. "Be patient, and I will show you."