The Complete Works of R. Austin Freeman: Action Thrillers, Murder Mysteries & Detective Stories (Illustrated) - R. Austin Freeman

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convinced; and equally so that the body of the unknown priest or clergyman had undoubtedly been spirited away. But whither had it been carried? Presumably to some sequestered spot in the wood. And what better hiding-place could be found? There, buried in the soft leaf-mould, it might lie undisturbed for centuries, covered only the deeper as each succeeding autumn shed its russet burden on the unknown grave.

      And what, I wondered, was the connection between this mysterious tragedy and the queer little object that I had picked up? Perhaps there was none. Its presence at that particular spot might be nothing but a coincidence. I took it from my handkerchief and examined it afresh. It was a very curious object. As to its use or meaning, I could only form vague surmises. Perhaps it was some kind of locket, enclosing a wisp of hair; the hair perhaps of some dead child or wife or husband or even lover. It was impossible to say. Of course, this question could be settled by taking it to pieces, but I was loth to injure the pretty little bauble; besides it was not mine. In fact, I felt that I ought to notify publicly that I had found it, though the circumstances did not make this very advisable. But if it had any connection with the tragedy, what was the nature of that connection? Had it dropped from the dead man or from the murderer—as I assumed the other man to be? Either was equally possible, though the two possibilities had very different values.

      Then the question arose as to what course I should pursue. Clearly it would be my duty to inform the police of the mark on the fence and the tracks through the grass. But should I hand over the mysterious trinket to them? It seemed the correct thing to do, and yet there might after all be no connection between it and the crime. In the end I left the matter to be decided by the attitude of the police themselves.

      I called at the station on my way home and furnished the inspector with an account of my new discoveries; of which he made a careful note, assuring me that the affair should be looked into. But his manner expressed frank disbelief, and was even a trifle hostile; and his emphatic request that I would abstain from mentioning the matter to anyone left me in no doubt that he regarded both my communications as wild delusions if not as a deliberate hoax. Consequently, though I frequently reproached myself afterwards with the omission, I said nothing about the trinket, and when I left the station I carried it in my pocket.

      No communication on the subject of this mysterious affair ever reached me from the police. That they did actually make some perfunctory investigations, I learned later, as will appear in this narrative. But they gave no publicity to the affair and they sought no further information from me. For my own part, I could, naturally, never forget so strange an experience; but time and the multitudinous interests of my opening life tended to push it farther into the background of memory, and there it might have remained for ever had not subsequent events drawn it once more from ita obscurity.

      III. "Who Is Sylvia?"

       Table of Contents

      The winter session had commenced at the hospital, but at Hampstead the month of October had set in with something like a return to summer. It is true that the trees had lost something of their leafy opulence, and that here and there, amidst the sober green, patches of russet and gold had made their appearance, as if Nature's colour-orchestra were tuning up for the final symphony. But, meanwhile, the sun shone brightly and with a genial heat, and if, day by day, he fell farther from the zenith, there was nothing to show it but the lengthening noonday shadows, the warmer blue of the sky and the more rosy tint of the clouds that sailed across it.

      Other and more capable pens than mine have set forth the charm of autumn and the beauties of Hampstead—queen of suburbs of the world's metropolis; therefore will I refrain, and only note, as relevant to the subject, the fact that on many a day, when the work of the hospital was in full swing, I might have been seen playing truant very agreeably on the inexhaustible Heath or in the lanes and fields adjacent thereto. In truth, I was taking the final stage of my curriculum rather lazily, having worked hard enough in the earlier years, and being still too young by several months to be admitted to the fellowship of the College of Surgeons; promising myself that when the weather broke I would settle down in earnest to the winter's work.

      I have mentioned that Millfield Lane was one of my favourite haunts; indeed, from my lodgings, it was the most direct route to the Heath, and I passed along it almost daily; and never, now, without my thoughts turning back to that rainy night when I had found the dead—or unconscious—man lying across the narrow footway. One morning, as I passed the spot, it occurred to me to make a drawing of the place in my sketch-book, that I might have some memorial of that strange adventure. The pictorial possibilities of the lane just here were not great, but by taking my stand at the turn, on the very spot where I had seen the body lying, I was able to arrange a simple composition which was satisfactory enough.

      I am no artist. A neat and intelligible drawing is the utmost that I can produce. But even this modest degree of achievement may be very useful, as I had discovered many a time in the wards or laboratories—indeed, I have often been surprised that the instructors of our youth attach such small value to the power of graphic expression; and it came in usefully now, though in a way that was unforeseen and not fully appreciated at the moment. I had dealt adequately with the fence, the posts, the tree-trunks and other well-defined forms and was beginning a less successful attack on the foliage, when I heard a light, quick step approaching from Hampstead Lane. Intuition—if there is such a thing—fitted the foot-step with a personality, and, for once in a way, was right; as the newcomer reached the sharp bend of the path, I saw a girl of about my own age, simply and serviceably dressed and carrying a pochade box and a small camp-stool. She was not an entire stranger to me. I had met her often in the lane and on the Heath—so often in fact that we had developed that profound unconsciousness of one another's existence that almost amounts to recognition—and had wondered vaguely who she was and what sort of work she did on the panels in that mysterious box.

      As I drew back to make way for her, she brushed past, with a single, quick, inquisitive glance at my sketchbook, and went on her way, looking very much alive and full of business. I watched her as she tripped down the lane and passed between the posts out into the suniight beyond, to vanish behind the trunks of the elms; then I returned to my sketch and my struggles to express foliage with a touch somewhat less suggestive of a birch-broom.

      When I had finished my drawing, I sauntered on rather aimlessly, speculating for the hundredth time on the meaning of those discoveries of mine in this very lane. Was it possible that the man whom I had seen was not dead, but merely insensible? I could not believe it. The whole set of circumstances—the aspect of the body, the blood-stain on the fence, the tracks through the high grass and the mysterious gold trinket—were opposed to any such belief. Yet, on the other hand, one would think that a man could not disappear unnoticed. This was no tramp or nameless vagrant. He was a clergyman or a priest, a man who would be known to a great number of persons and whose disappearance must surely be observed at once and be the occasion of very stringent enquiries. But no enquiries had apparently been made. I had seen no notice in the papers of any missing cleric, and clearly the police had heard nothing or they would have looked me up. The whole affair was enveloped in tho profoundest mystery. Dead or alive, the man had vanished utterly; and whether he was dead or alive, the mystery was equally beyond solution.

      These reflections brought me, almost unconsciously, to another of my favourite walks; the pretty footpath from the Heath to Temple Fortune. I had crossed the stile and stepped off the path to survey the pleasant scene, when my eye was attracted by a number of streaks of alien colour on the leaves of a burdock. Stooping down, I perceived that they were smears of oil-paint, and inferred that someone had cleaned a palette on the herbage; an inference that was confirmed a moment later by what looked like the handle of a brush projecting from a clump of nettles. When I drew it out, however, it proved to be not a brush, but a very curious knife with a blade shaped like a diminutive and attenuated trowel; evidently a painting-knife and also evidently home-made, at least in part, for the tang had been thrust into a short, stout brush-handle and secured with a whipping of waxed thread. I dropped it into my outside breast pocket and went on my way, wondering if by chance it might have been dropped by my fair acquaintance; and the thought was still in my mind when its object hove in

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