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Library of

Princeton University.
Bequest of
Laurance F. Bower
Class of '96




















CHRONICLES
OF MARTIN HEWITT
BY
ARTHUR MORRISON
AUTHOR OF TALES OF MEAN STREETS, ETC.
NTER
OFRUCTUS
OLU
· NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1896


COPYRIGHT, 1895, 1896,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.


CONTENTS.
.
.
THE Ivy Cottage MYSTERY
THE NicoBar BULLION CASE
.
.
.
.
.
.
THE HOLFORD WILL CASE .
.
.
.
.
.
THE CASE OF THE Missing HAND .
.
.
.
THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED
.
.
.
.
THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER .
.
.
.
. 228
DEC 13:314 USB
3867
25





CHRONICLES
OF MARTIN HEWITT.
THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
I had been working double tides for a month :
at night on my morning paper, as usual; and in the
morning on an evening paper as locum tenens for an-
other man who was taking a holiday. This was an
exhausting plan of work, although it only actually
involved some six hours' attendance a day, or less,
at the two offices. I turned up at the head-quarters
of my own paper at ten in the evening, and by the
time I had seen the editor, selected a subject, writ-
ten my leader, corrected the slips, chatted, smoked,
and so on, and cleared off, it was very usually one
o'clock. This meant bed at two, or even three,
after supper at the club.
This was all very well at ordinary periods, when
any time in the morning would do for rising, but
when I had to be up again soon after seven, and
round at the evening paper office by eight, I natu-
rally felt a little worn and disgusted with things


2
. CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
by midday, after a sharp couple of hours' leader-
ette scribbling and paragraphing, with attendant
sundries.
But the strain was over, and on the first day of
comparative comfort I indulged in a midday break-
fast and the first undisgusted glance at a morning
paper for a month. I felt rather interested in an in-
quest, begun the day before, on the body of a man
whom I had known very slightly before I took to
living in chambers.
His name was Gavin Kingscote, and he was an
artist of a casual and desultory sort, having, I be-
lieve, some small private means of his own. As a
matter of fact, he had boarded in the same house in
which I had lodged myself for a while, but as I was
at the time a late homer and a fairly early riser,
taking no regular board in the house, we never be-
came much acquainted. He had since, I understood,
made some judicious Stock Exchange speculations,
and had set up house in Finchley.
Now the news was that he had been found one
morning murdered in his smoking-room, while the
room itself, with others, was in a state of confusion.
His pockets had been rifled, and his watch and chain
were gone, with one or two other small articles of
value. On the night of the tragedy a friend had
sat smoking with him in the room where the murder
took place, and he had been the last person to see


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
3
Mr. Kingscote alive. A jobbing gardener, who kept
the garden in order by casual work from time to
time, had been arrested in consequence of footprints
exactly corresponding with his boots, having been
found on the garden beds near the French window
of the smoking-room.
I finished my breakfast and my paper, and Mrs.
Clayton, the housekeeper, came to clear my table.
She was sister of my late landlady of the house
where Kingscote had lodged, and it was by this con-
nection that I had found my chambers. I had not
seen the housekeeper since the crime was first re-
ported, so I now said:
“This is shocking news of Mr. Kingscote, Mrs.
Clayton. Did you know him yourself ?”
She had apparently only been waiting for some
such remark to burst out with whatever information
she possessed.
“Yes, sir,” she exclaimed: “shocking indeed.
Pore young feller! I see him often when I was at
my sister's, and he was always a nice, quiet gentle-
man, so different from some. My sister, she's awful
cut up, sir, I assure you. And what d'you think
'appened, sir, only last Tuesday? You remember
Mr. Kingscote's room where he painted the wood-
work so beautiful with gold flowers, and blue, and
pink ? He used to tell my sister she'd always have
something to remember him by. Well, two young


CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
fellers, gentlemen I can't call them, come and took
that room (it being to let), and went and scratched
off all the paint in mere wicked mischief, and then
chopped up all the panels into sticks and bits! Nice
sort o' gentlemen them! And then they bolted in
the morning, being afraid, I s’pose, of being made
to pay after treating a pore widder's property like
that. That was only Tuesday, and the very next
day the pore young gentleman himself's dead, mur-
dered in his own 'ouse, and him going to be mar-
ried an'all! Dear, dear! I remember once he
said— ”
Mrs. Clayton was a good soul, but once she be-
gan to talk some one else had to stop her. I let her
run on for a reasonable time, and then rose and pre-
pared to go out. I remembered very well the panels
that had been so mischievously destroyed. They
made the room the show-room of the house, which
was an old one. They were indeed less than half
finished when I came away, and Mrs. Lamb, the
landlady, had shown them to me one day when
Kingscote was out. All the walls of the room were
panelled and painted white, and Kingscote had put
upon them an eccentric but charming decoration,
obviously suggested by some of the work of Mr.
Whistler. Tendrils, flowers, and butterflies in a
quaint convention wandered thinly from panel to
panel, giving the otherwise rather uninteresting


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
room an unwonted atmosphere of richness and ele-
gance. The lamentable jackasses who had de-
stroyed this had certainly selected the best feature
of the room whereon to inflict their senseless mis-
chief.
I strolled idly downstairs, with no particular plan
for the afternoon in my mind, and looked in at
Hewitt's offices. Hewitt was reading a note, and
after a little chat he informed me that it had been
left an hour ago, in his absence, by the brother of
the man I had just been speaking of.
“He isn't quite satisfied," Hewitt said, “ with the
way the police are investigating the case, and asks
me to run down to Finchley and look round. Yes-
terday I should have refused, because I have five
cases in progress already, but to-day I find that cir-
cumstances have given me a day or two. Didn't
you say you knew the man ?”.
“Scarcely more than by sight. He was a board-
er in the house at Chelsea where I stayed before I
started chambers.”
“Ah, well; I think I shall look into the thing.
Do you feel particularly interested in the case ? I
mean, if you've nothing better to do, would you
come with me?"
“I shall be very glad,” I said. "I was in some
doubt what to do with myself. Shall you start at
once ?”


CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“I think so. Kerrett, just call a cab. By the
way, Brett, which paper has the fullest report of the
inquest yesterday? I'll run over it as we go down.”
As I had only seen one paper that morning, I
could not answer Hewitt's question. So we bought
various papers as we went along in the cab, and I
found the reports while Martin Hewitt studied them.
Summarised, this was the evidence given-
Sarah Dodson, general servant, deposed that she
had been in service at Ivy Cottage, the residence of
the deceased, for five months, the only other regular
servant being the housekeeper and cook. On the
evening of the previous Tuesday both servants re-
tired a little before eleven, leaving Mr. Kingscote
with a friend in the smoking or sitting room. She
never saw her master again alive. On coming down-
stairs the following morning and going to open the
smoking-room windows, she was horrified to dis-
cover the body of Mr. Kingscote lying on the floor
of the room with blood about the head. She at
once raised an alarm, and, on the instructions of the
housekeeper, fetched a doctor, and gave information
to the police. In answer to questions, witness stated
she had heard no noise of any sort during the night,
nor had anything suspicious occurred.
Hannah Carr, housekeeper and cook, deposed
that she had been in the late Mr. Kingscote's service
since he had first taken Ivy Cottage-a period of


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
rather more than a year. She had last seen the de-
ceased alive on the evening of the previous Tuesday,
at half-past ten, when she knocked at the door of
the smoking-room, where Mr. Kingscote was sitting
with a friend, to ask if he would require anything
more. Nothing was required, so witness shortly
after went to bed. In the morning she was called
by the previous witness, who had just gone down-
stairs, and found the body of deceased lying as de-
scribed. Deceased's watch and chain were gone, as
also was a ring he usually wore, and his pockets ap-
peared to have been turned out. All the ground
floor of the house was in confusion, and a bureau,
a writing-table, and various drawers were open-a
bunch of keys usually carried by deceased being
left hanging at one keyhole. Deceased had drawn
some money from the bank on the Tuesday, for cur-
rent expenses; how much she did not know. She
had not heard or seen anything suspicious during
the night. Besides Dodson and herself, there were
no regular servants; there was a charwoman, who
came occasionally, and a jobbing gardener, living
near, who was called in as required.
Mr. James Vidler, surgeon, had been called by
the first witness between seven and eight on Wednes-
day morning. He found the deceased lying on his
face on the floor of the smoking-room, his feet
being about eighteen inches from the window, and


8
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT,
his head lying in the direction of the fireplace. He
found three large contused wounds on the head, any
one of which would probably have caused death.
The wounds had all been inflicted, apparently, with
the same blunt instrument-probably a club or life
preserver, or other similar weapon. They could not
have been done with the poker. Death was due to
concussion of the brain, and deceased had probably
been dead seven or eight hours when witness saw
him. He had since examined the body more closely,
but found no marks at all indicative of a struggle
having taken place; indeed, from the position of the
wounds and their severity, he should judge that the
deceased had been attacked unawares from behind,
and had died at once. The body appeared to be
perfectly healthy.
Then there was police evidence, which showed
that all the doors and windows were found shut and
completely fastened, except the front door, which,
although shut, was not bolted. There were shutters
behind the French windows in the smoking-room,
and these were found fastened. No money was
found in the bureau, nor in any of the opened draw-
ers, so that if any had been there, it had been stolen.
The pockets were entirely empty, except for a small
pair of nail scissors, and there was no watch upon
the body, nor a ring. Certain footprints were found
on the garden beds, which had led the police to take


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
certain steps. No footprints were to be seen on the
garden path, which was hard gravel.
Mr. Alexander Campbell, stockbroker, stated that
he had known deceased for some few years, and had
done business for him. He and Mr. Kingscote fre-
quently called on one another, and on Tuesday even-
ing they dined together at Ivy Cottage. They sat
smoking and chatting till nearly twelve o'clock,
when Mr. Kingscote himself let him out, the serv-
ants having gone to bed. Here the witness pro-
ceeded rather excitedly : “ That is all I know of this
horrible business, and I can say nothing else. What
the police mean by following and watching
me- "
The Coroner : “Pray be calm, Mr. Campbell. The
police must do what seems best to them in a case of
this sort. I am sure you would not have them
neglect any means of getting at the truth.”
Witness : “Certainly not. But if they suspect
me, why don't they say so? It is intolerable that
I should be— "
The Coroner : " Order, order, Mr. Campbell. You
are here to give evidence."
The witness then, in answer to questions, stated
that the French windows of the smoking-room had
been left open during the evening, the weather being
very warm. He could not recollect whether or not
deceased closed them before he left, but he certainly


10
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
did not close the shutters. Witness saw nobody near
the house when he left.
Mr. Douglas Kingscote, architect, said deceased
was his brother. He had not seen him for some
months, living as he did in another part of the coun-
try. He believed his brother was fairly well off, and
he knew that he had made a good amount by specu-
lation in the last year or two. Knew of no person
who would be likely to owe his brother a grudge,
and could suggest no motive for the crime except
ordinary robbery. His brother was to have been
married in a few weeks. Questioned further on this
point, witness said that the marriage was to have
taken place a year ago, and it was with that view
that Ivy Cottage, deceased's residence, was taken.
The lady, however, sustained a domestic bereave-
ment, and afterwards went abroad with her family:
she was, witness believed, shortly expected back to
England.
William Bates, jobbing gardener, who was brought
up in custody, was cautioned, but elected to give
evidence. Witness, who appeared to be much agi-
tated, admitted having been in the garden of Ivy
Cottage at four in the morning, but said that he had
only gone to attend to certain plants, and knew ab-
solutely nothing of the murder. He however ad-
mitted that he had no order for work beyond what
he had done the day before. Being further pressed,


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
II
witness made various contradictory statements, and
finally said that he had gone to take certain plants
away.
The inquest was then adjourned.
This was the case as it stood-apparently not a
case presenting any very striking feature, although
there seemed to me to be doubtful peculiarities in
many parts of it. I asked Hewitt what he thought.
“Quite impossible to think anything, my boy,
just yet; wait till we see the place. There are any
number of possibilities. Kingscote's friend, Camp-
bell, may have come in again, you know, by way of
the window-or he may not. Campbell may have
owed him money or something—or he may not.
The anticipated wedding may have something to do
with it—or, again, that may not. There is no limit
to the possibilities, as far as we can see from this
report-a mere dry husk of the affair. When we get
closer we shall examine the possibilities by the light
of more detailed information. One probability is that
the wretched gardener is innocent. It seems to me
that his was only a comparatively blameless ma-
næuvre not unheard of at other times in his trade.
He came at four in the morning to steal away the
flowers he had planted the day before, and felt rather
bashful when questioned on the point. Why should
he trample on the beds, else? I wonder if the police
thought to examine the beds for traces of rooting


12
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
up, or questioned the housekeeper as to any plants
being missing? But we shall see."
We chatted at random as the train drew near
Finchley, and I mentioned inter alia the wanton piece
of destruction perpetrated at Kingscote's late lodg-
ings. Hewitt was interested.
“That was curious,” he said, “very curious.
Was anything else damaged ? Furniture and so
forth ?”
“I don't know. Mrs. Clayton said nothing of it,
and I didn't ask her. But it was quite bad enough
as it was. The decoration was really good, and I
can't conceive a meaner piece of tomfoolery than
such an attack on a decent woman's property.”
Then Hewitt talked of other cases of similar
stupid damage by creatures inspired by a defective
sense of humour, or mere love of mischief. He had
several curious and sometimes funny anecdotes of
such affairs at museums and picture exhibitions,
where the damage had been so great as to induce
the authorities to call him in to discover the offender.
The work was not always easy, chiefly from the mere
absence of intelligible motive; nor, indeed, always
successful. One of the anecdotes related to a case
of malicious damage to a picture, the outcome of
blind artistic jealousy—a case which had been hushed
up by a large expenditure in compensation. It
would considerably startle most people, could it be


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
13
printed here, with the actual names of the parties
concerned.
Ivy Cottage, Finchley, was a compact little
house, standing in a compact little square of garden,
little more than a third of an acre, or perhaps no
more at all. The front door was but a dozen yards
or so back from the road, but the intervening space
was well treed and shrubbed. Mr. Douglas Kings-
cote had not yet returned from town, but the house-
keeper, an intelligent, matronly woman, who knew
of his intention to call in Martin Hewitt, was ready
to show us the house.
“ First,” Hewitt said, when we stood in the
smoking-room, “I observe that somebody has
shut the drawers and the bureau. That is un-
fortunate. Also, the floor has been washed and
the carpet taken up, which is much worse. That,
I suppose, was because the police had finished
their examination, but it doesn't help me to make
one at all. Has anything—anything at all_been left
as it was on Tuesday morning ?”.
“Well, sir, you see everything was in such a
muddle,” the housekeeper began, “and when the
police had done- ".
“ Just so. I know. You 'set it to rights,' eh ?
Oh, that setting to rights! It has lost me a for-
tune at one time and another. As to the other
rooms, now, have they been set to rights ?”.


CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
. “ Such as was disturbed have been put right,
· sir, of course."
“Which were disturbed ? Let me see them.
But wait a moment."
He opened the French windows, and closely ex-
amined the catch and bolts. He knelt and in-
spected the holes whereinto the bolts fell, and
then glanced casually at the folding shutters. He
opened a drawer or two, and tried the working of
the locks with the keys the housekeeper carried.
They were, the housekeeper explained, Mr. Kings-
cote's own keys. All through the lower floors
Hewitt examined some things attentively and
closely, and others with scarcely a glance, on a
system unaccountable to me. Presently, he asked
to be shown Mr. Kingscote's bedroom, which had
not been disturbed, “ set to rights,” or slept in since
the crime. Here, the housekeeper said, all drawers
were kept unlocked but two-one in the wardrobe
and one in the dressing-table, which Mr. Kingscote
had always been careful to keep locked. Hewitt
immediately pulled both drawers open without
difficulty. Within, in addition to a few odds and
ends, were papers. All the contents of these
drawers had been turned over confusedly, while
those of the unlocked drawers were in perfect
order.
“ The police,” Hewitt remarked, “may not have


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
15
observed these matters. Any more than such an
ordinary thing as this,” he added, picking up a bent
nail lying at the edge of a rug.
The housekeeper doubtless took the remark as
a reference to the entire unimportance of a bent
nail, but I noticed that Hewitt dropped the article
quietly into his pocket.
We came away. At the front gate we met
Mr. Douglas Kingscote, who had just returned
from town. He introduced himself, and expressed
surprise at our promptitude both of coming and
going.
“ You can't have got anything like a clue in this
short time, Mr. Hewitt ?” he asked.
“Well, no," Hewitt replied, with a certain dry-
ness, “ perhaps not. But I doubt whether a month's
visit would have helped me to get anything very
striking out of a washed floor and a houseful of
carefully cleaned-up and 'set-to-rights' rooms.
Candidly, I don't think you can reasonably expect
much of me. The police have a much better
chance—they had the scene of the crime to ex-
amine. I have seen just such a few rooms as any
one might see in the first well-furnished house he
might enter. The trail of the housemaid has over-
laid all the others.”
“ I'm very sorry for that; the fact was, I ex-
pected rather more of the police; and, indeed, I


16
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
wasn't here in time entirely to prevent the clear-
ing up. But still, I thought your well-known
powers— "
“ My dear sir, my well-known powers' are
nothing but common sense assiduously applied and
made quick by habit. That won't enable me to see
the invisible."
“But can't we have the rooms put back into
something of the state they were in ? The cook
will remember— ".
“No, no. That would be worse and worse ; that
would only be the housemaid's trail in turn over-
laid by the cook’s. You must leave things with me
for a little, I think.”
“Then you don't give the case up?" Mr. Kings-
cote asked anxiously.
“Oh, no! I don't give it up just yet. Do you
know anything of your brother's private papers—as
they were before his death ?”
“I never knew anything till after that. I have
gone over them, but they are all very ordinary
letters. Do you suspect a theft of papers ?”
Martin Hewitt, with his hands on his stick
behind him, looked sharply at the other, and
shook his head. “No,” he said, “I can't quite say
that.”
We bade Mr. Douglas Kingscote good-day, and
walked towards the station. “Great nuisance, that


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
setting to rights,” Hewitt observed, on the way.
“ If the place had been left alone, the job might
have been settled one way or another by this
time. As it is, we shall have to run over to your
old lodgings."
“My old lodgings?" I repeated, amazed. “Why
my old lodgings ? "
Hewitt turned to me with a chuckle and a wide
smile. “Because we can't see the broken panel-
work anywhere else,” he said. “Let's see—Chelsea,
isn't it?”
“Yes, Chelsea. But why-you don't suppose the
people who defaced the panels also murdered the
man who painted them ?”
“Well," Hewitt replied, with another smile, “that
would be carrying a practical joke rather far,
wouldn't it? Even for the ordinary picture dam-
ager.”
“ You mean you don't think they did it, then?
But what do you mean?”
“My dear fellow, I don't mean anything but
what I say. Come now, this is rather an interesting
case despite appearances, and it has interested me:
so much, in fact, that I really think I forgot to
offer Mr. Douglas Kingscote my condolence on his
bereavement. You see a problem is a problem,
whether of theft, assassination, intrigue, or anything
else, and I only think of it as one. The work very


18
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
often makes me forget merely human sympathies.
Now, you have often been good enough to express
a very flattering interest in my work, and you shall
have an opportunity of exercising your own common
sense in the way I am always having to exercise
mine. You shall see all my evidence (if I'm lucky
enough to get any) as I collect it, and you shall
make your own inferences. That will be a little ex-
ercise for you; the sort of exercise I should give a
pupil if I had one. But I will give you what infor-
mation I have, and you shall start fairly from this
moment. You know the inquest evidence, such as
it was, and you saw everything I did in Ivy Cot-
tage?”
“Yes; I think so. But I'm not much the wiser."
“Very well. Now I will tell you. What does
the whole case look like? How would you class the
crime?”
“I suppose as the police do. An ordinary case
of murder with the object of robbery."
“It is not an ordinary case. If it were, I shouldn't
know as much as I do, little as that is; the ordinary
cases are always difficult. The assailant did not
come to commit a burglary, although he was a
skilled burglar, or one of them was, if more than one
were concerned. The affair has, I think, nothing to
do with the expected wedding, nor had Mr. Camp-
bell anything to do in it—at any rate, personally-


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
19
nor the gardener. The criminal (or one of them)
was known personally to the dead man, and was
well-dressed: he (or again one of them, and I think
there were two) even had a chat with Mr. Kingscote
before the murder took place. He came to ask for
something which Mr. Kingscote was unwilling to
part with, perhaps hadn't got. It was not a bulky
thing. Now you have all my materials before you.”
“But all this doesn't look like the result of the
blind spite that would ruin a man's work first and
attack him bodily afterwards."
“ Spite isn't always blind, and there are other
blind things besides spite ; people with good eyes in
their heads are blind sometimes, even detectives.”
“But where did you get all this information ?
What makes you suppose that this was a burglar
who didn't want to burgle, and a well-dressed man,
and so on?”
Hewitt chuckled and smiled again.
“I saw it-saw it, my boy, that's all,” he said.
“But here comes the train.”
On the way back to town, after I had rather
minutely described Kingscote's work on the board-
ing-house panels, Hewitt asked me for the names
and professions of such fellow lodgers in that house
as I might remember. “When did you leave your-
self ?” he ended.
“ Three years ago, or rather more. I can re-,


20
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
CHRONICI
member Kingscote himself; Turner, a medical stu-
dent-James Turner, I think; Harvey Challitt, dia-
mond merchant's articled pupil—he was a bad egg
entirely, he's doing five years for forgery now; by
the bye he had the room we are going to see till he
was marched off, and Kingscote took it—a year be-
fore I left; there was Norton-don't know what he
was; "something in the City,' I think; and Carter
Paget, in the Admiralty Office. I don't remember
any more at this moment; there were pretty fre-
quent changes. But you can get it all from Mrs.
Lamb, of course.”
“Of course ; and Mrs. Lamb's exact address is—
what?”
I gave him the address, and the conversation be-
came disjointed. At Farringdon station, where we
alighted, Hewitt called two hansoms. Preparing to
enter one, he motioned me to the other, saying,
“You get straight away to Mrs. Lamb's at once.
She may be going to burn that splintered wood, or
to set things to rights, after the manner of her kind,
and you can stop her. I must make one or two
small inquiries, but I shall be there half an hour
after you."
“Shall I tell her our object ?"
“Only that I may be able to catch her mischiev-
ous lodgers—nothing else yet.” He jumped into
the hansom and was gone.


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
21
I found Mrs. Lamb still in a state of indignant
perturbation over the trick served her four days be-
fore. Fortunately, she had left everything in the
panelled room exactly as she had found it, with an
idea of the being better able to demand or enforce
reparation should her lodgers return. “ The room's
theirs, you see, sir,” she said, “ till the end of the
week, since they paid in advance, and they may
come back and offer to make amends, although I
doubt it. As pleasant-spoken a young chap as you
might wish, he seemed, him as come to take the
rooms. 'My cousin,' says he, 'is rather an invalid,
havin' only just got over congestion of the lungs,
and he won't be in London till this evening late.
He's comin' up from Birmingham,' he ses, “and I
hope he won't catch a fresh cold on the way, al-
though of course we've got him muffled up plenty.'
He took the rooms, sir, like a gentleman, and men-
tioned several gentlemen's names I knew well, as
had lodged here before; and then he put down on
that there very table, sir ”—Mrs. Lamb indicated
the exact spot with her hand, as though that made
the whole thing much more wonderful—“he put
down on that very table a week's rent in advance,
and ses, “That's always the best sort of reference,
Mrs. Lamb, I think,' as kind-mannered as anything
-and never 'aggled about the amount nor nothing.
He only had a little black bag, but he said his cous-


22
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
in had all the luggage coming in the train, and as
there was so much p'r'aps they wouldn't get it here
till next day. Then he went out and came in with
his cousin at eleven that night—Sarah let 'em in her
own self—and in the morning they was gone—and
this!” Poor Mrs. Lamb, plaintively indignant,
stretched her arm towards the wrecked panels.
“If the gentleman as you say is comin' on,
sir," she pursued, “ can do anything to find 'em,
I'll prosecute 'em, that I will, if it costs me ten
pound I spoke to the constable on the beat, but
he only looked like a fool, and said if I knew where
they were I might charge 'em with wilful damage,
or county court 'em. Of course I know I can do
that if I knew where they were, but how can I find
'em ? Mr. Jones he said his name was; but how
many Joneses is there in London, sir ?”.
I couldn't imagine any answer to a question like
this, but I condoled with Mrs. Lamb as well as I
could. She afterwards went on to express herself
much as her sister had done with regard to Kings-
cote's death, only as the destruction of her panels
loomed larger in her mind, she dwelt primarily on
that. “It might almost seem,” she said, “that
somebody had a deadly spite on the pore young
gentleman, and went breakin' up his paintin' one
night, and murderin' him the next!”
I examined the broken panels with some care,


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
23
having half a notion to attempt to deduce some-
thing from them myself, if possible. But I could
deduce nothing. The beading had been taken out,
and the panels, which were thick in the centre but
bevelled at the edges, had been removed and split
up literally into thin firewood, which lay in a tumbled
heap on the hearth and about the floor. Every
panel in the room had been treated in the same way,
and the result was a pretty large heap of sticks, with
nothing whatever about them to distinguish them
from other sticks, except the paint on one face,
which I observed in many cases had been scratched
and scraped away. The rug was drawn half across
the hearth, and had evidently been used to deaden
the sound of chopping. But mischief-wanton and
stupid mischief—was all I could deduce from it all.
Mr. Jones's cousin, it seemed, only Sarah had
seen, as she admitted him in the evening, and then
he was so heavily muffled that she could not dis-
tinguish his features, and would never be able to
identify him. But as for the other one, Mrs. Lamb
was ready to swear to him anywhere.
Hewitt was long in coming, and internal symp-
toms of the approach of dinner-time (we had had no
lunch) had made themselves felt before a sharp ring
at the door-bell foretold his arrival. “I have had
to wait for answers to a telegram," he said in ex-
planation, “but at any rate I have the information I


24
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
wanted. And these are the mysterious panels, are
they?"
Mrs. Lamb's true opinion of Martin Hewitt's be-
haviour as it proceeded would have been amusing to
know. She watched in amazement the antics of a
man who purposed finding out who had been split-
ting sticks by dint of picking up each separate stick
and staring at it. In the end he collected a small
handful of sticks by themselves and handed them to
me, saying, “ Just put these together on the table,
Brett, and see what you make of them.”
I turned the pieces painted side up, and fitted
them together into a complete panel, joining up the
painted design accurately. “It is an entire panel," I
said.
“Good. Now look at the sticks a little more
closely, and tell me if you notice anything peculiar
about them—any particular in which they differ
from all the others."
I looked. “Two adjoining sticks,” I said, “ have
each a small semi-circular cavity stuffed with what
seems to be putty. Put together it would mean a
small circular hole, perhaps a knot-hole, half an inch
or so in diameter, in the panel, filled in with putty, or
whatever it is.”
“A knot-hole ?” Hewitt asked, with particular
emphasis.
“Well, no, not a knot-hole, of course, because


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
25
that would go right through, and this doesn't. It is
probably less than half an inch deep from the front
surface.”
“ Anything else ? Look at the whole appearance
of the wood itself. Colour, for instance."
“It is certainly darker than the rest.”
“So it is.” He took the two pieces carrying the
puttied hole, threw the rest on the heap, and ad-
dressed the landlady. “The Mr. Harvey Challitt
who occupied this room before Mr. Kingscote, and
who got into trouble for forgery, was the Mr. Har-
vey Challitt who was himself robbed of diamonds a
few months before on a staircase, wasn't he?”
“Yes, sir,” Mrs. Lamb replied in some bewilder-
derment. “He certainly was that, on his own office
stairs, chloroformed.”
“ Just so, and when they marched him away be-
cause of the forgery, Mr. Kingscote changed into
his rooms ?”
“Yes, and very glad I was. It was bad enough
to have the disgrace brought into the house, without
the trouble of trying to get people to take his very
rooms, and I thought-"
“Yes, yes, very awkward, very awkward !”
Hewitt interrupted rather impatiently. “The man
who took the rooms on Monday, now—you'd never
seen him before, had you ?”.
“No, sir.”


26
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“ Then is that anything like him?" Hewitt held
a cabinet photograph before her.
“Why-why-law, yes, that's him ! ”
Hewitt dropped the photograph back into his
breast pocket with a contented “Um,” and picked
up his hat. “I think we may soon be able to find
that young gentleman for you, Mrs. Lamb. He is
not a very respectable young gentleman, and per-
haps you are well rid of him, even as it is. Come,
Brett," he added, “the day hasn't been wasted, after
all."
We made towards the nearest telegraph office.
On the way I said, “That puttied-up*hole in the
piece of wood seems to have influenced you. Is it
an important link ?”.
“Well-yes,” Hewitt answered, “it is. But all
those other pieces are important, too.”
“But why ?”
“ Because there are no holes in them." He
looked quizzically at my wondering face, and laughed
aloud. “Come,” he said, “ I won't puzzle you much
longer. Here is the post-office. I'll send my wire,
and then we'll go and dine at Luzatti's.”
He sent his telegram, and we cabbed it to Lu-
zatti's. Among actors, journalists, and others who
know town and like a good dinner, Luzatti's is well
known. We went upstairs for the sake of quietness,
and took a table standing alone in a recess just in-


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
27
side the door. We ordered our dinner, and then
Hewitt began :
“Now tell me what your conclusion is in this
matter of the Ivy Cottage murder.”
“ Mine? I haven't one. I'm sorry I'm so very
dull, but I really haven't.”
“Come, I'll give you a point. Here is the news-
paper account (torn sacrilegiously from my scrap-
book for your benefit) of the robbery perpetrated on
Harvey Challitt a few months before his forgery.
Read it.”
“ Oh, but I remember the circumstances very
well. He was carrying two packets of diamonds
belonging to his firm downstairs to the office of
another firm of diamond merchants on the ground-
floor. It was a quiet time in the day, and half-way
down he was seized on a dark landing, made insen-
sible by chloroform, and robbed of the diamonds-
five or six thousand pounds' worth altogether, of
stones of various smallish individual values up to
thirty pounds or so. He lay unconscious on the
landing till one of the partners, noticing that he had
been rather long gone, followed and found him.
That's all, I think.”
“Yes, that's all. Well, what do you make
of it?”
“ I'm afraid I don't quite see the connection with
this case.”


28 CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“Well, then, I'll give you another point. The
telegram I've just sent releases information to the
police, in consequence of which they will probably
apprehend Harvey Challitt and his confederate,
Henry Gillard, alias Jones, for the murder of Gavin
Kingscote. Now, then."
“Challitt! But he's in gaol already."
“Tut, tut, consider. Five years' penal was his
dose, although for the first offence, because the
forgery was of an extremely dangerous sort. You
left Chelsea over three years ago yourself, and you
told me that his difficulty occurred a year before.
That makes four years, at least. Good conduct in
prison brings a man out of a five years' sentence in
that time or a little less, and, as a matter of fact,
Challitt was released rather more than a week ago.”
“Still, I'm afraid I don't see what you are driv-
ing at.”
“Whose story is this about the diamond robbery
from Harvey Challitt ?"
“ His own."
“ Exactly. His own. Does his subsequent
record make him look like a person whose stories are
to be accepted without doubt or question ?"
“Why, no. I think I see—no, I don't. You
mean he stole them himself ? I've a sort of dim
perception of your drift now, but still I can't fix it.
The whole thing's too complicated.”


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
29
.
“It is a little complicated for a first effort, I admit,
so I will tell you. This is the story. Harvey Challitt
is an artful young man, and decides on a theft of
his firm's diamonds. He first prepares a hiding-
place somewhere near the stairs of his office, and
when the opportunity arrives he puts the stones
away, spills his chloroform, and makes a smell—
possibly sniffs some, and actually goes off on the
stairs, and the whole thing's done. He is carried
into the office—the diamonds are gone. He tells of
the attack on the stairs, as we have heard, and he is
believed. At a suitable opportunity he takes his
plunder from the hiding-place, and goes home to his
lodgings. What is he to do with those diamonds ?
He can't sell them yet, because the robbery is pub-
licly notorious, and all the regular jewel buyers
know him.
“Being a criminal novice, he doesn't know any
regular receiver of stolen goods, and if he did would
prefer to wait and get full value by an ordinary sale.
There will always be a danger of detection so long
as the stones are not securely hidden, so he proceeds
to hide them. He knows that if any suspicion were
aroused his rooms would be searched in every likely
place, so he looks for an unlikely place. Of course,
he thinks of taking out a panel and hiding them be-
hind that. But the idea is so obvious that it won't
do; the police would certainly take those panels out


CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
to look behind them. Therefore he determines to
hide them in the panels. See here”—he took the
two pieces of wood with the filled hole from his tail
pocket and opened his penknife—“the putty near
the surface is softer than that near the bottom of
the hole; two different lots of putty, differently
mixed, perhaps, have been used, therefore, presum-
ably, at different times.
“But to return to Challitt. He makes holes with
a centre-bit in different places on the panels, and in
each hole he places a diamond, embedding it care-
fully in putty. He smooths the surface carefully
flush with the wood, and then very carefully paints
the place over, shading off the paint at the edges so
as to leave no signs of a patch. He doesn't do the
whole job at once, creating a noise and a smell of
paint, but keeps on steadily, a few holes at a time,
till in a little while the whole wainscoting is set with
hidden diamonds, and every panel is apparently
sound and whole."
“But, then—there was only one such hole in the
whole lot.”
“ Just so, and that very circumstance tells us the
whole truth. Let me tell the story first-I'll explain
the clue after. The diamonds lie hidden for a few
months—he grows impatient. He wants the money,
and he can't see a way of getting it. At last he de-
termines to make a bolt and go abroad to sell his


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
plunder. He knows he will want money for ex-
penses, and that he may not be able to get rid of
his diamonds at once. He also expects that his sud-
denly going abroad while the robbery is still in peo-
ple's minds will bring suspicion on him in any case,
so, in for a penny in for a pound, he commits a bold
forgery, which, had it been successful, would have
put him in funds and enabled him to leave the coun-
try with the stones. But the forgery is detected,
and he is haled to prison, leaving the diamonds in
their wainscot setting.
“Now we come to Gavin Kingscote. He must
have been a shrewd fellow—the sort of man that
good detectives are made of. Also he must have
been pretty unscrupulous. He had his suspicions
about the genuineness of the diamond robbery, and
kept his eyes open. What indications he had to
guide him we don't know, but living in the same
house a sharp fellow on the look-out would prob-
ably see enough. At any rate, they led him to the
belief that the diamonds were in the thief's rooms,
but not among his movables, or they would have
been found after the arrest. Here was his chance.
Challitt was out of the way for years, and there was
plenty of time to take the house to pieces if it were
necessary. So he changed into Challitt's rooms.
“How long it took him to find the stones we
shall never know. He probably tried many other
was


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
33
fully over every part of the surface-experience had
taught him by this that all the holes were of the
same sort—and found one diamond. He took it
out, refilled the hole with putty, painted the old
panel and put it back. These are pieces of that old
panel—the only old one of the lot.
“Nine men out of ten would have got out of the
house as soon as possible after the thing was done,
but he was a cool hand and stayed. That made the
whole thing look a deal more genuine than if he had
unaccountably cleared out as soon as he had got his
room nicely decorated. I expect the original capi-
tal for those Stock Exchange operations we heard of
came out of those diamonds. He stayed as long as
suited him, and left when he set up housekeeping
with a view to his wedding. The rest of the story
is pretty plain. You guess it, of course ?”
“ Yes," I said, “I think I can guess the rest, in
a general sort of way-except as to one or two
points."
“It's all plain-perfectly. See here! Challitt,
in gaol, determines to get those diamonds when he
comes out. To do that without being suspected it
will be necessary to hire the room. But he knows
that he won't be able to do that himself, because the
landlady, of course, knows him, and won't have an
ex-convict in the house. There is no help for it; he
must have a confederate, and share the spoil. So


34
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
he makes the acquaintance of another convict, who
seems a likely man for the job, and whose sentence
expires about the same time as his own. When they
come out, he arranges the matter with this confeder-
ate, who is a well-mannered (and pretty well-known)
housebreaker, and the latter calls at Mrs. Lamb's
house to look for rooms. The very room itself
happens to be to let, and of course it is taken, and
Challitt (who is the invalid cousin) comes in at night
muffled and unrecognisable.
“ The decoration on the panel does not alarm
them, because, of course, they suppose it to have
been done on the old panels and over the old paint.
Challitt tries the spots where diamonds were left-
there are none—there is no putty even. Perhaps,
think they, the panels have been shifted and inter-
changed in the painting, so they set to work and
split them all up as we have seen, getting more des-
perate as they go on. Finally they realize that they
are done, and clear out, leaving Mrs. Lamb to mourn
over their mischief.
“ They know that Kingscote is the man who has
forestalled them, because Gillard (or Jones), in his
chat with the landlady, has heard all about him and
his painting of the panels. So the next night they
set off for Finchley. They get into Kingscote's gar-
den and watch him let Campbell out. While he is
gone, Challitt quietly steps through the French win-


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY. 35
dow into the smoking-room, and waits for him, Gil-
lard remaining outside.
“Kingscote returns, and Challitt accuses him of
taking the stones. Kingscote is contemptuous-
doesn't care for Challitt, because he knows he is
powerless, being the original thief himself; besides,
knows there is no evidence, since the diamonds are
sold and dispersed long ago. Challitt offers to di-
vide the plunder with him— Kingscote laughs and
tells him to go; probably threatens to throw him
out, Challitt being the smaller man. Gillard, at the
open window, hears this, steps in behind, and quietly
knocks him on the head. The rest follows as a mat-
ter of course. They fasten the window and shutters,
to exclude observation; turn over all the drawers,
etc., in case the jewels are there; go to the best bed-
room and try there, and so on. Failing (and possi-
bly being disturbed after a few hours' search by the
noise of the acquisitive gardener), Gillard, with the
instinct of an old thief, determines they shan't go
away with nothing, so empties Kingscote's pockets
and takes his watch and chain and so on. They go
out by the front door and shut it after them. Voilà
tout."
I was filled with wonder at the prompt ingenuity
of the man who in these few hours of hurried in-
quiry could piece together so accurately all the ma-
terials of an intricate and mysterious affair such as


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY. 37
ordinary burglary were not disturbed. Notably, it
was to be observed that no doors or windows were
broken, or had been forcibly opened; therefore, it
was plain that the thieves had come in by the French
window of the smoking-room, the only entrance left
open at the last thing. Therefore, they came in, or
one did, knowing that Mr. Kingscote was up, and
being quite willing—presumably anxious—to see
him. Ordinary burglars would have waited till he
had retired, and then could have got through the
closed French window as easily almost as if it were
open, notwithstanding the thin wooden shutters,
which would never stop a burglar for more than five
minutes. Being anxious to see him, they—or again,
one of them—presumably knew him. That they had
come to get something was plain, from the ransack-
ing. As, in the end, they did steal his money and
watch, but did not take larger valuables, it was plain
that they had no bag with them—which proves not
only that they had not come to burgle, for every
burglar takes his bag, but that the thing they came
to get was not bulky. Still, they could easily have
removed plate or clocks by rolling them up in a
table-cover or other wrapper, but such a bundle, car-
ried by well-dressed men, would attract attention-
therefore it was probable that they were well dressed.
Do I make it clear?”
“Quite—nothing seems simpler now it is
.


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY..
39
lard—I keep as many of these things as I can collect.
What I did at Chelsea you know. I saw that one
panel was of old wood and the rest new. I saw the
hole in the old panel, and I asked one or two ques-
tions. The case was complete."
We proceeded with our dinner. Presently I said:
“It all rests with the police now, of course ?"
“Of course. I should think it very probable that
Challitt and Gillard will be caught. Gillard, at any
rate, is pretty well known. It will be rather hard on
the surviving Kingscote, after engaging me, to have
his dead brother's diamond transactions publicly ex-
posed as a result, won't it? But it can't be helped.
Fiat justitia, of course."
“How will the police feel over this?” I asked.
“You've rather cut them out, eh?”
“Oh, the police are all right. They had not the
information I had, you see; they knew nothing of
the panel business. If Mrs. Lamb had gone to Scot-
land Yard instead of to the policeman on the beat,
perhaps I should never have been sent for."
The same quality that caused Martin Hewitt to
rank as mere “common-sense” his extraordinary
power of almost instinctive deduction, kept his re-
spect for the abilities of the police at perhaps a
higher level than some might have considered jus-
tified.
We sat some little while over our dessert, talking


CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
as we sat, when there occurred one of those curious
conjunctions of circumstances that we notice again
and again in ordinary life, and forget as often, unless
the importance of the occasion fixes the matter in
the memory. A young man had entered the dining-
room, and had taken his seat at a corner table near
the back window. He had been sitting there for
some little time before I particularly observed him.
At last he happened to turn his thin, pale face in my
direction, and our eyes met. It was Challitt—the
man we had been talking of!
I sprang to my feet in some excitement.
“ That's the man !" I cried. “Challitt !”
Hewitt rose at my words, and at first attempted
to pull me back. Challitt, in guilty terror, saw that
we were between him and the door, and turning,
leaped upon the sill of the open window, and dropped
out. There was a fearful crash of broken glass be-
low, and everybody rushed to the window.
Hewitt drew me through the door, and we ran
downstairs. “Pity you let out like that,” he said,
as he went. “If you'd kept quiet we could have
sent out for the police with no trouble. Never mind
-can't help it."
Below, Challitt was lying in a broken heap in
the midst of a crowd of waiters. He had crashed
through a thick glass skylight and fallen, back
downward, across the back of a lounge. He was


THE IVY COTTAGE MYSTERY.
41
taken away on a stretcher unconscious, and, in fact,
died in a week in hospital from injuries to the spine.
During his periods of consciousness he made a
detailed statement, bearing out the conclusions of
Martin Hewitt with the most surprising exactness,
down to the smallest particulars. He and Gillard
had parted immediately after the crime, judging it
safer not to be seen together. He had, he affirmed,
endured agonies of fear and remorse in the few days
since the fatal night at Finchley, and had even once
or twice thought of giving himself up. When I so
excitedly pointed him out, he knew at once that the
game was up, and took the one desperate chance of
escape that offered. But to the end he persistently
denied that he had himself committed the murder, or
had even thought of it till he saw it accomplished.
That had been wholly the work of Gillard, who,
listening at the window and perceiving the drift of
the conversation, suddenly beat down Kingscote
from behind with a life-preserver. And so Harvey
Gillard was never taken. He doubtless left the
country, and has probably since that time become
“known to the police" under another name abroad.
Perhaps he has even been hanged, and if he has been,
there was no miscarriage of justice, no matter what
the charge against him may have been.


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
1.
The whole voyage was an unpleasant one, and
Captain Mackrie, of the Anglo-Malay Company's
steamship Nicobar, had at last some excuse for the
ill-temper that had made him notorious and unpopu-
lar in the company's marine staff. Although the
fourth and fifth mates in the seclusion of their berth
ventured deeper in their search for motives, and
opined that the “old man” had made a deal less out
of this voyage than usual, the company having lately
taken to providing its own stores; so that “mak-
ings” were gone clean and “cumshaw" (which
means commission in the trading lingo of the China
seas) had shrunk small indeed. In confirmation
they adduced the uncommonly long face of the stew-
ard (the only man in the ship satisfied with the skip-
per), whom the new regulations hit with the same
blow. But indeed the steward's dolor might well be
credited to the short passenger list, and the unprom-
ising aspect of the few passengers in the eyes of a
man accustomed to gauge one's tip-yielding capac-


44.
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
out to him that this wasn't the first shipment of bul-
lion the world had ever known, by a long way, nor
the largest. Also that every usual precaution was
taken, and the keys were in the captain's cabin; so
that he might reasonably be as easy in his mind as
the few thousand other second officers who had had
charge of hatches and special cargo since the world
began. But this did not comfort Brasyer. He
fidgeted about when off watch, considering and puz-
zling out the various means by which the bullion-
room might be got at, and fidgeted more when on
watch, lest somebody might be at that moment put-
ting into practice the ingenious dodges he had
thought of. And he didn't keep his fears and spec-
ulations to himself. He bothered the first officer
with them, and when the first officer escaped he ex-
plained the whole thing at length to the third officer.
“Can't think what the company's about," he said
on one such occasion to the first mate, “ calling a
tin-pot bunker like that a bullion-room."
"Skittles !” responded the first mate, and went
on smoking.
“Oh, that's all very well for you who aren't re-
sponsible,” Brasyer went on, “but I'm pretty sure
something will happen some day; if not on this voy-
age on some other. Talk about a strong room !
Why, what's it made of ?”
“ Three-eighths boiler plate.”


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
45
“Yes, three-eighths boiler plate—about as good
as a sixpenny tin money box. Why, I'd get through
that with my grandmother's scissors!”
“ All right; borrow 'em and get through. I
would if I had a grandmother.”
“There it is down below there out of sight and
hearing, nice and handy for anybody who likes to
put in a quiet hour at plate cutting from the coal
bunker next door—always empty, because it's only
a seven-ton bunker, not worth trimming. And the
other side's against the steward's pantry. What's to
prevent a man shipping as steward, getting quietly
through while he's supposed to be bucketing about
among his slops and his crockery, and strolling
away with the plunder at the next port? And then
there's the carpenter. He's always messing about
somewhere below, with a bag full of tools. Nothing
easier than for him to make a job in a quiet corner,
and get through the plates.”
“But then what's he to do with the stuff when
he's got it? You can't take gold ashore by the hun-
dredweight in your boots.”
“Do with it. Why, dump it, of course. Dump
it overboard in a quiet port and mark the spot.
Come to that, he could desert clean at Port Said-
what easier place ?—and take all he wanted. You
know what Port Said's like. Then there are the
firemen-oh, anybody can do it !” And Brasyer


46
CHRONICLES ( F MARTIN HEWITT.
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
moved off to take another peep under the hatch-
way.
The door of the bullion-room was fastened by
one central patent lock and two padlocks, one above
and one below the other lock. A day or two after
the conversation recorded above, Brasyer was care-
fully examining and trying the lower of the padlocks
with a key, when a voice immediately behind him
asked sharply, “Well, sir, and what are you up to
with that padlock ?”
Brasyer started violently and looked round. It
was Captain Mackrie.
“There's—that is—I'm afraid these are the same
sort of padlocks as those in the carpenter's stores,"
the second mate replied, in a hurry of explanation.
“I—I was just trying, that's all; I'm afraid the keys
fit."
“Just you let the carpenter take care of his own
stores, will you, Mr. Brasyer? There's a Chubbs
lock there as well as the padlocks, and the key of
that's in my cabin, and I'll take care doesn't go out
of it without my knowledge. So perhaps you'd best
leave off experiments till you're asked to make 'em,
for your own sake. That's enough now," the cap-
tain added, as Brasyer appeared to be ready to re-
ply; and he turned on his heel and made for the
steward's quarters.
Brasyer stared after him ragefully. “Wonder


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE. 47
what you want down here,” he muttered under his
breath. “Seems to me one doesn't often see a
skipper as thick with the steward as that." And he
turned off growling towards the deck above.
“Hanged if I like that steward's pantry stuck
against the side of the bullion-room,” he said later
in the day to the first officer. “And what does a
steward want with a lot of boiler-maker's tools
aboard? You know he's got them.”
“In the name of the prophet, rats!” answered
the first mate, who was of a less fussy disposition.
“What a fatiguing creature you are, Brasyer!
Don't you know the man's a boiler-maker by regu-
lar trade, and has only taken to stewardship for the
last year or two ? That sort of man doesn't like
parting with his tools, and as he's a widower, with
no home ashore, of course he has to carry all his
traps aboard. Do shut up, and take your proper
rest like a Christian. Here, I'll give you a cigar;
it's all right-Burman; stick it in your mouth, and
keep your jaw tight on it."
But there was no soothing the second officer.
Still he prowled about the after orlop deck, and
talked at large of his anxiety for the contents of the
bullion-room. Once again, a few days later, as he
approached the iron door, he was startled by the
appearance of the captain coming, this time, from
the steward's pantry. He fancied he had heard


48
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
tapping, Brasyer explained, and had come to investi-
gate. But the captain turned him back with even
less ceremony than before, swearing he would give
charge of the bullion-room to another officer if
Brasyer persisted in his eccentricities. On the first
deck the second officer was met by the carpenter, a
quiet, sleek, soft-spoken man, who asked him for the
padlock and key he had borrowed from the stores
during the week. But Brasyer put him off, promis-
ing to send it back later. And the carpenter trot-
ted away to a job he happened to have, singularly
enough, in the hold, just under the after orlop deck,
and below the floor of the bullion-room.
As I have said, the voyage was in no way a
pleasant one. Everywhere the weather was at its
worst, and scarce was Gibraltar passed before the
Lascars were shivering in their cotton trousers, and
the Seedee boys were buttoning tight such old tweed
jackets as they might muster from their scanty kits.
It was January. In the Bay the weather was tre-
mendous, and the Nicobar, banged and shook and
pitched distractedly across in a howling world of
thunderous green sea, washed within and without,
above and below. Then, in the Chops, as night fell,
something went, and there was no more steerage-
way, nor, indeed, anything else but an aimless wal-
lowing. The screw had broken.
The high sea had abated in some degree, but it


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
49
was still bad. Such sail as the steamer carried, in-
adequate enough, was set, and shift was made some-
how to worry along to Plymouth-or to Falmouth if
occasion better served—by that means. And so the
Nicobar beat across the Channel on a rather better,
though anything but smooth, sea, in a black night,
made thicker by a storm of sleet, which turned
gradually to snow as the hours advanced.
The ship laboured slowly ahead, through a uni-
versal blackness that seemed to stifle. Nothing but
a black void above, below, and around, and the
sound of wind and sea; so that one coming before
a deck-light was startled by the quiet advent of the
large snowflakes that came like moths as it seemed
from nowhere. At four bells—two in the morning
-a foggy light appeared away on the starboard
bow—it was the Eddystone light—and an hour or
two later, the exact whereabouts of the ship being a
thing of much uncertainty, it was judged best to lay
her to till daylight. No order had yet been given,
however, when suddenly there were dim lights over
the port quarter, with a more solid blackness be-
neath them. Then a shout and a thunderous crash,
and the whole ship shuddered, and in ten seconds
had belched up every living soul from below. The
Nicobar's voyage was over-it was a collision.
The stranger backed off into the dark, and the
two vessels drifted apart, though not till some from


CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
the Nicobar had jumped aboard the other. Captain
Mackrie's presence of mind was wonderful, and
never for a moment did he lose absolute command
of every soul on board. The ship had already be-
gun to settle down by the stern and list to port.
Life-belts were served out promptly. Fortunately
there were but two women among the passengers,
and no children. The boats were lowered without a
mishap, and presently two strange boats came as
near as they dare from the ship (a large coasting
steamer, it afterwards appeared) that had cut into
the Nicobar. The last of the passengers were being
got off safely, when Brayser, running anxiously to
the captain, said :-
“ Can't do anything with that bullion, can we,
sir? Perhaps a box or two- "
“Oh, damn the bullion!” shouted Captain Mack-
rie. “Look after the boat, sir, and get the passen-
gers off. The insurance companies can find the bul-
lion for themselves.”
But Brasyer had vanished at the skipper's first
sentence. The skipper turned aside to the steward
as the crew and engine-room staff made for the re-
maining boats, and the two spoke quietly together.
Presently the steward turned away as if to execute
an order, and the skipper continued in a louder
tone:-
“ They're the likeliest stuff, and we can but drop


52
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
on the morrow to get out the bullion as a com-
mencement.
Just at this time Martin Hewitt happened to be
engaged on a case of some importance and delicacy
on behalf of Lloyd's Committee, and was staying
for a few days at Plymouth. He heard the story of
the wreck, of course, and speaking casually with
Lloyd's agent as to the salvage work just beginning,
he was told the name of the salvage company's rep-
resentative on the tug, Mr. Percy Merrick-a name
he immediately recognised as that of an old ac-
quaintance of his own. So that on the day when
the divers were at work in the bullion-room of the
sunken Nicobar, Hewitt gave himself a holiday, and
went aboard the tug about noon.
Here he found Merrick, a big, pleasant man of
thirty-eight or so. He was very glad to see Hewitt,
but was a great deal puzzled as to the results of the
morning's work on the wreck. Two cases of gold
bars were missing.
“There was £200,000 worth of bullion on
board,” he said, “ that's plain and certain. It was
packed in forty cases, each of £5,000 value. But
now there are only thirty-eight cases ! Two are
gone clearly. I wonder what's happened ?"
“I suppose your men don't know anything about
it?” asked Hewitt.
“No, they're all right. You see, it's impossible


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE. 53
for them to bring anything up without its being ob-
served, especially as they have to be unscrewed from
their diving-dresses here on deck. Besides, bless
you, I was down with them.”
“Oh! Do you dive yourself, then ?”
“Well, I put the dress on sometimes, you know,
for any such special occasion as this. I went down
this morning. There was no difficulty in getting
about on the vessel below, and I found the keys of
the bullion-room just where the captain said I
would, in his cabin. But the locks were useless, of
course, after being a couple of days in salt water.
So we just burgled the door with crowbars, and then
we saw that we might have done it a bit more easily
from outside. For that coasting-steamer cut clean
into the bunker next the bullion-room, and ripped
open the sheet of boiler-plate dividing them.”
“The two missing cases couldn't have dropped
out that way, of course ?”
“Oh, no. We looked, of course, but it would
have been impossible. The vessel has a list the
other way—to starboard—and the piled cases didn't
reach as high as the torn part. Well, as I said, we
burgled the door, and there they were, thirty-eight
sealed bullion cases, neither more nor less, and
they're down below in the after-cabin at this mo-
ment. Come and see.”
Thirty-eight they were; pine cases bound with


54.
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
hoop-iron and sealed at every joint, each case about
eighteen inches by a foot, and six inches deep.
They were corded together, two and two, apparently
for convenience of transport.”
"Did you cord them like this yourself ?” asked
Hewitt.
“No, that's how we found 'em. We just hooked
'em on a block and tackle, the pair at a time, and
they hauled 'em up here aboard the tug."
“What have you done about the missing two-
anything ?”
“ Wired off to headquarters, of course, at once.
And I've sent for Captain Mackrie-he's still in the
neighbourhood, I believe—and Brasyer, the second
officer, who had charge of the bullion-room. They
may possibly know something. Anyway, one thing's
plain. There were forty cases at the beginning
of the voyage, and now there are only thirty-
eight.”
There was a pause; and then Merrick added,
“By the bye, Hewitt, this is rather your line, isn't
it? You ought to look up these two cases."
Hewitt laughed. “All right,” he said; “I'll be-
gin this minute if you'll commission me.”
“Well,” Merrick replied slowly, “of course I
can't do that without authority from headquarters.
But if you've nothing to do for an hour or so there
is no harm in putting on your considering cap, is


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE. 55
there ? Although, of course, there's nothing to go
upon as yet. But you might listen to what Mackrie
and Brasyer have to say. Of course I don't know,
but as it's a £10,000 question probably it might pay
you, and if you do see your way to anything I'd wire
and get you commissioned at once."
There was a tap at the door and Captain Mackrie
entered. “Mr. Merrick ?” he said interrogatively,
looking from one to another.
“ That's myself, sir,” answered Merrick.
“ I'm Captain Mackrie, of the Nicobar. You
sent for me, I believe. Something wrong with the
bullion I'm told, isn't it ?”
Merrick explained matters fully. “I thought
perhaps you might be able to help us, Captain
Mackrie. Perhaps I have been wrongly informed
as to the number of cases that should have been
there?”
“No; there were forty right enough. I think
though—perhaps I might be able to give you a
sort of hint ”—and Captain Mackrie looked hard at
Hewitt.
“ This is Mr. Hewitt, Captain Mackrie,” Merrick
interposed. “You may speak as freely as you please
before him. In fact, he's sort of working on the
business, so to speak.”
“Well,” Mackrie said, “ if that's so, speaking be-
tween ourselves, I should advise you to turn your


56
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
C
attention to Brasyer. He was my second officer,
you know, and had charge of the stuff.”
“Do you mean," Hewitt asked, “that Mr. Bras-
yer might give us some useful information ?"
Mackrie gave an ugly grin. “Very likely he
might,” he said, “jf he were fool enough. But I
don't think you'd get much out of him direct. I
meant you might watch him."
“What, do you suppose he was concerned in any
way with the disappearance of this gold ? ”
“ I should think-speaking, as I said before, in
confidence and between ourselves—that it's very
likely indeed. I didn't like his manner all through
the voyage.”
“Why?”
“Well, he was so eternally cracking on about his
responsibility, and pretending to suspect the stokers
and the carpenter, and one person and another, of
trying to get at the bullion cases—that that alone
was almost enough to make one suspicious. He pro-
tested so much, you see. He was so conscientious
and diligent himself, and all the rest of it, and every-
body else was such a desperate thief, and he was so
sure there would be some of that bullion missing
some day that-that-well, I don't know if I express
his manner clearly, but I tell you I didn't like it a
bit. But there was something more than that. He
was eternally smelling about the place, and peeping


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
57
in at the steward's pantry—which adjoins the bul-
lion-room on one side, you know—and nosing about
in the bunker on the other side. And once I actu-
ally caught him fitting keys to the padlocks_keys
he'd borrowed from the carpenter's stores. And
every time his excuse was that he fancied he heard
somebody else trying to get in to the gold, or some-
thing of that sort; every time I caught him below
on the orlop deck that was his excuse-happened to
have heard something or suspected something or
somebody every time. Whether or not I succeed in
conveying my impressions to you, gentlemen, I can
assure you that I regarded his whole manner and
actions as very suspicious throughout the voyage,
and I made up my mind I wouldn't forget it if by
chance anything did turn out wrong. Well, it has,
and now I've told you what I've observed. It's for
you to see if it will lead you anywhere.”
“ Just so,” Hewitt answered. “But let me fully
understand, Captain Mackrie. You say that Mr.
Brasyer had charge of the bullion-room, but that he
was trying keys on it from the carpenter's stores.
Where were the legitimate keys then ?”
“In my cabin. They were only handed out
when I knew what they were wanted for. There
was a Chubb's lock between the two padlocks, but a
duplicate wouldn't have been hard for Brasyer to
get. He could easily have taken a wax impression


58
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
of my key when he used it at the port where we took
the bullion aboard.”
“Well, and suppose he had taken these boxes,
where do you think he would keep them?"
Mackrie shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
“Impossible to say,” he replied. “He might have
hidden 'em somewhere on board, though I don't
think that's likely. He'd have had a deuce of a job
to land them at Plymouth, and would have had to
leave them somewhere while he came on to London.
Bullion is always landed at Plymouth, you know,
and if any were found to be missing, then the ship
would be overhauled at once, every inch of her; so
that he'd have to get his plunder ashore somehow
before the rest of the gold was unloaded—almost
impossible. Of course, if he's done that it's some-
where below there now, but that isn't likely. He'd
be much more likely to have .dumped’it-dropped
it overboard at some well-known spot in a foreign
port, where he could go later on and get it. So that
you've a deal of scope for search, you see. Any-
where under water from here to Yokohama;” and
Captain Mackrie laughed.
· Soon afterward he left, and as he was leaving a
man knocked at the cabin door and looked in to say
that Mr. Brasyer was on board. “You'll be able
to have a go at him now," said the captain. “Good-
day."


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE. 59
“There's the steward of the Nicobar there too,
sir," said the man after the captain had gone, " and
the carpenter."
“Very well, we'll see Mr. Brasyer first,” said
Merrick, and the man vanished. “ It seems to have
got about a bit,” Merrick went on to Hewitt. “I
only sent for Brasyer, but as these others have
come, perhaps they've got something to tell us.”
Brasyer made his appearance, overflowing with
information. He required little assurance to encour-
age him to speak openly before Hewitt, and he said
again all he had so often said before on board the
Nicobar. The bullion-room was a mere tin box, the
whole thing was as easy to get at as anything could
be, he didn't wonder in the least at the losshe had
prophesied it all along.
The men whose movements should be carefully
watched, he said, were the captain and the steward.
“Nobody ever heard of a captain and a steward be-
ing so thick together before,” he said. “The stew-
ard's pantry was next against the bullion-room, you
know, with nothing but that wretched bit of three-
eighths boiler plate between. You wouldn't often
expect to find the captain down in the steward's
pantry, would you, thick as they might be. Well,
that's where I used to find him, time and again.
And the steward kept boiler-makers' tools there!
That I can swear to. And he's been a boiler-maker,


60
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
so that, likely as not, he could open a joint some-
where and patch it up again neatly so that it
wouldn't be noticed. He was always messing about
down there in his pantry, and once I distinctly heard
knocking there, and when I went down to see, whom
should I meet ? Why, the skipper, coming away from
the place himself, and he bullyragged me for being
there and sent me on deck. But before that he bul.
lyragged me because I had found out that there
were other keys knocking about the place that fitted
the padlocks on the bullion-room door. Why should
he slang and threaten me for looking after these
things and keeping my eye on the bullion-room, as
was my duty ? But that was the very thing that he
didn't like. It was enough for him to see me anx-
ious about the gold to make him furious. Of course
his character for meanness and greed is known all
through the company's service—he'll do anything to
make a bit.”
“But have you any positive idea as to what has
become of the gold ?"
“Well,” Brasyer replied, with a rather knowing
air, “ I don't think they've dumped it."
“Do you mean you think it's still in the vessel-
hidden somewhere?”.
“No, I don't. I believe the captain and the
steward took it ashore, one case each, when we came
off in the boats.”


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
61
“But wouldn't that be noticed ?”
“It needn't be, on a black night like that. You
see, the parcels are not so big-look at them, a foot
by a foot and a half by six inches or so, roughly.
Easily slipped under a big coat or covered up with
anything. Of course they're a bit heavy-eighty
or ninety pounds apiece altogether—but that's not
much for a strong man to carry-especially in such
a handy parcel, on a black night, with no end of
confusion on. Now you just look here—I'll tell you
something. The skipper went ashore last in a boat
that was sent out by the coasting steamer that ran
into us. That ship's put into dock for repairs and
her crew are mostly having an easy time ashore.
Now I haven't been asleep this last day or two, and
I had a sort of notion there might be some game of
this sort on, because when I left the ship that night
I thought we might save a little at least of the stuff,
but the skipper wouldn't let me go near the bullion-
room, and that seemed odd. So I got hold of one
of the boat's crew that fetched the skipper ashore,
and questioned him quietly-pumped him, you know
—and he assures me that the skipper did have a
rather small, heavy sort of parcel with him. What
do you think of that? Of course, in the circum-
stances, the man couldn't remember any very distinct
particulars, but he thought it was a sort of square
wooden case about the size I've mentioned. But


62
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
there's something more.” Brasyer lifted his fore-
finger and then brought it down on the table before
him—"something more. I've made inquiries at the
railway station and I find that two heavy parcels
were sent off yesterday to London-deal boxes
wrapped in brown paper, of just about the right
size. 'And the paper got torn before the things were
sent off, and the clerk could see that the boxes in-
side were fastened with hoop-iron-like those!” and
the second officer pointed triumphantly to the boxes
piled at one side of the cabin.
“Well done!” said Hewitt. “You're quite a
smart detective. Did you find out who brought the
parcels, and who they were addressed to ?”.
“No, I couldn't get quite as far as that. Of
course the clerk didn't know the names of the senders,
and not knowing me, wouldn't tell me exactly where
the parcels were going. But I got quite chummy
with him after a bit, and I'm going to meet him pres-
ently-he has the afternoon off, and we're going for
a stroll. I'll find something more, I'll bet you!”
“Certainly,” replied Hewitt, "find all you can
it may be very important. If you get any valuable
information you'll let us know at once, of course.
Anything else, now?”.
“No, I don't think so; but I think what I've told
you is pretty well enough for the present, eh? I'll
let you know some more soon."


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE. 63
Brasyer went, and Norton, the steward of the old
ship, was brought into the cabin. He was a sharp-
eyed, rather cadaverous-looking man, and he spoke
with sepulchral hollowness. He had heard, he said,
that there was something wrong with the chests of
bullion, and came on board to give any information
he could. It wasn't much, he went on to say, but
the smallest thing might help. If he might speak
strictly confidentially he would suggest that observa.
tion be kept on Wickens, the carpenter. He (Norton)
didn't want to be uncharitable, but his pantry hap-
pened to be next the bullion-room, and he had heard
Wickens at work for a very long time just below-
on the under side of the floor of the bullion-room, it
seemed to him, although, of course, he might have
been mistaken. Still, it was very odd that the car-
penter always seemed to have a job just at that
spot. More, it had been said—and he (Norton) be-
lieved it to be true—that Wickens, the carpenter,
had in his possession, and kept among his stores,
keys that fitted the padlocks on the bullion-room
door. That, it seemed to him, was a very suspicious
circumstance. He didn't know anything more defi-
nite, but offered his ideas for what they were worth,
and if his suspicions proved unfounded nobody
would be more pleased than himself. But-but-
and the steward shook his head doubtfully.
“Thank you, Mr. Norton," said Merrick, with a


64
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
twinkle in his eye; “we won't forget what you say.
Of course, if the stuff is found in consequence of
any of your information, you won't lose by it."
The steward said he hoped not, and he wouldn't
fail to keep his eye on the carpenter. He had
noticed Wickens was in the tug, and he trusted that
if they were going to question him they would do it
cautiously, so as not to put him on his guard. Mer-
rick promised they would.
"By the bye, Mr. Norton," asked Hewitt, “sup-
posing your suspicions to be justified, what do you
suppose the carpenter would do with the bullion ?”.
“Well, sir," replied Norton, “I don't think he'd
keep it on the ship. He'd probably dump it some-
where."
The steward left, and Merrick lay back in his
chair and guffawed aloud. “This grows farcical,”
he said, “ simply farcical. What a happy family
they must have been aboard the Nicobar! And now
here's the captain watching the second officer, and
the second officer watching the captain and the
steward, and the steward watching the carpenter !
It's immense. And now we're going to see the car-
penter. Wonder whom he suspects?”.
Hewitt said nothing, but his eyes twinkled with
intense merriment, and presently the carpenter was
brought into the cabin.
“Good-day to you, gentlemen," said the car-


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
65
penter in a soft and deferential voice, looking from
one to the other. “ Might I ’ave the honour of ad-
dressin' the salvage gentlemen ?"
“That's right,” Merrick answered, motioning him
to a seat. “This is the salvage shop, Mr. Wickens.
What can we do for you ?”.
The carpenter coughed gently behind his hand.
“ I took the liberty of comin', gentlemen, consekins
o''earin' as there was some bullion missin'. P'raps
I'm wrong."
“Not at all. We haven't found as much as we
expected, and I suppose by this time nearly every-
body knows it. There are two cases wanting. You
can't tell us where they are, I suppose ?”
“Well, sir, as to that—no. I fear I can't exactly
go as far as that. But if I am able to give vallable
information as may lead to recovery of same, I pre-
soom I may without offence look for some reason-
able small recognition of my services ?”.
“Oh, yes,” answered Merrick, “that'll be all
right, I promise you. The company will do the
handsome thing, of course, and no doubt so will the
underwriters."
“Presoomin' I may take that as a promise-
among gentlemen ”—this with an emphasis—“ I'm
willing to tell something."
“It's a promise, at any rate as far as the com-
pany's concerned,” returned Merrick. “I'll see it's


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
The carpenter was not satisfied till an exact
note had been made of the captain's words. Then
after Merrick's promise on behalf of the company
had been renewed, Wickens took himself off.
“Well,” said Merrick, grinning across the table
at Hewitt, “ this is a queer go, isn't it? What that
man says makes the skipper's case look pretty fishy,
doesn't it? What he says, and what Brasyer says,
taken together, makes a pretty strong case–I
should say makes the thing a certainty. But what
a business! It's likely to be a bit serious for some
one, but it's a rare joke in a way. Wonder if Bras-
yer will find out anything more? Pity the skipper
and steward didn't agree as to whom they should
pretend to suspect. That's a mistake on their
part.”
“Not at all,” Hewitt replied. “If they are
conspiring, and know what they're about, they
will avoid seeming to be both in a tale. The
bullion is in bars, I understand ?”.
“ Yes, five bars in each case; weight, I believe,
sixteen pounds to a bar.”
“Let me see,” Hewitt went on, as he looked at
his watch; “it is now nearly two o'clock. I must
think over these things if I am to do anything in
the case. In the meantime, if it could be managed,
I should like enormously to have a turn under
water in a diving-dress. I have always had a


68
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
curiosity to see under the sea. Could it be man-
aged now ?”
“Well,” Merrick responded, “there's not much
fun in it, I can assure you; and it's none the
pleasanter in this weather. You'd better have a
try later in the year if you really want to—unless
you think you can learn anything about this busi-
ness by smelling about on the Nicobar down
below ?”
Hewitt raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.
“ I might spot something," he said ; "one never
knows. And if I do anything in a case I always
make it a rule to see and hear everything that can
possibly be seen or heard, important or not. Clues
lie where least expected. But beyond that, prob-
ably I may never have another chance of a little
experience in a diving-dress. So if it can be man-
aged I'd be glad.”
“Very well, you shall go, if you say so. And
since it's your first venture, I'll come down with you
myself. The men are all ashore, I think, or most of
them. Come along."
Hewitt was put in woollens and then in india-
rubbers. A leaden-soled boot of twenty pounds'
weight was strapped on each foot, and weights were
hung on his back and chest.
“ That's the dress that Gullen usually has,"
Merrick remarked. “He's a very snart fellow;


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
we usually send him first to make measurements
and so on. An excellent man, but a bit too fond
of the diver's lotion.”
“What's that?” asked Hewitt.
“Oh, you shall try some if you like, afterwards.
It's a bit too heavy for me; rum and gin mixed, I
think.”
A red nightcap was placed on Martin Hewitt's
head, and after that a copper helmet, secured by
a short turn in the segmental screw joint at the
neck. In the end he felt a vast difficulty in mov-
ing at all. Merrick had been meantime invested
with a similar rig-out, and then each was provided
with a communication cord and an incandescent
electric lamp. Finally, the front window was
screwed on each helmet, and all was ready.
Merrick went first over the ladder at the side,
and Hewitt with much difficulty followed. As the
water closed over his head, his sensations altered
considerably. There was less weight to carry; his
arms in particular felt light, though slow in motion.
Down, down they went slowly, and all round about
it was fairly light, but once on the sunken vessel
and among the lower decks, the electric lamps were
necessary enough. Once or twice Merrick spoke,
laying his helmet against Hewitt's for the purpose,
and instructing him to keep his air-pipe, life-line,
and lamp connection from fouling something at


70
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
every step. Here and there shadowy swimming
shapes came out of the gloom, attracted by their
lamps, to dart into obscurity again with a twist of
the tail. The fishes were exploring the Nicobar.
The hatchway of the lower deck was open, and
down this they passed to the orlop deck. A little
way along this they came to a door standing open,
with a broken lock hanging to it. It was the door
of the bullion-room, which had been forced by the
divers in the morning.
Merrick indicated by signs how the cases had
been found piled on the floor. One of the sides of
the room of thin steel was torn and thrust in the
length of its whole upper half, and when they backed
out of the room and passed the open door they stood
in the great breach made by the bow of the strange
coasting vessel. Steel, iron, wood, and everything
stood in rents and splinters, and through the great
gap they looked out into the immeasurable ocean.
Hewitt put up his hand and felt the edge of the
bullion-room partition where it had been torn. It
was just such a tear as might have been made in
cardboard.
They regained the upper deck, and Hewitt, plac-
ing his helmet against his companion's, told him that
he meant to have a short walk on the ocean bed.
He took to the ladder again, where it lay over the
side, and Merrick followed him.


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
71
The bottom was of that tough, slimy sort of clay-
rock that is found in many places about our coasts,
and was dotted here and there with lumps of harder
rock and clumps of curious weed. The two divers
turned at the bottom of the ladder, walked a few
steps, and looked up at the great hole in the Nico-
bar's side. Seen from here it was a fearful chasm,
laying open hold, orlop, and lower deck.
Hewitt turned away, and began walking about.
Once or twice he stood and looked thoughtfully at
the ground he stood on, which was fairly flat. He
turned over with his foot a whitish, clean-looking
stone about as large as a loaf. Then he wandered
on slowly, once or twice stopping to examine the
rock beneath him, and presently stooped to look at
another stone nearly as large as the other, weedy on
one side only, standing on the edge of a cavity in the
claystone. He pushed the stone into the hole, which
it filled, and then he stood up.
Merrick put his helmet against Hewitt's, and
shouted
“Satisfied now? Seen enough of the bot-
tom?"
“In a moment!” Hewitt shouted back; and he
straightway began striding out in the direction of
the ship. Arrived at the bows, he turned back to
the point he started from, striding off again from
there to the white stone he had kicked over, and from


72
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
there to the vessel's side again. Merrick watched
him in intense amazement, and hurried, as well as he
might, after the light of Hewitt's lamp. Arrived for
the second time at the bows of the ship, Hewitt
turned and made his way along the side to the lad-
der, and forthwith ascended, followed by Merrick.
There was no halt at the deck this time, and the two
made there way up and up into the lighter water
above, and so to the world of air.
On the tug, as the men were unscrewing them
from there waterproof prisons, Merrick asked
Hewitt-
“Will you try the 'lotion' now ?”
“No,” Hewitt replied, “I won't go quite so far
as that. But I will have a little whisky, if you've
any in the cabin. And give me a pencil and a piece
of paper.”
These things were brought, and on the paper
Martin Hewitt immediately wrote a few figures and
kept it in his hand.
“I might easily forget those figures," he ob-
served.
Merrick wondered, but said nothing.
Once more comfortably in the cabin, and clad in
his usual garments, Hewitt asked if Merrick could
produce a chart of the parts thereabout.
“Here you are," was the reply, “coast and all.
Big enough, isn't it? I've already marked the posi-


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
23
tion of the wreck on it in pencil. She lies pointing
north by east as nearly exact as anything.”
“As you've begun it,” said Hewitt, “I shall take
the liberty of making a few more pencil marks on
this.” And with that he spread out the crumpled
note of figures, and began much ciphering and
measuring. Presently he marked certain points on
a spare piece of paper, and drew through them two
lines forming an angle. This angle he transferred
to the chart, and, placing a ruler over one leg of
the angle, lengthened it out till it met the coast-line.
“There we are,” he said musingly. “And the
nearest village to that is Lostella—indeed, the only
coast village in that neighbourhood.” He rose.
“ Bring me the sharpest-eyed person on board,” he
said; “ that is, if he were here all day yesterday.”
“But what's up? What's all this mathematical
business over? Going to find that bullion by rule
of three?"
· Hewitt laughed. “Yes, perhaps,” he said, “but
where's your sharp look-out? I want somebody who
can tell me everything that was visible from the deck
of this tug all day yesterday.”
"Well, really I believe the very sharpest chap is
the boy. He's most annoyingly observant some-
times. I'll send for him.”
He came—a bright, snub-nosed, impudent-look-
ing young ruffian.


74
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“See here, my boy,” said Merrick, “polish up
your wits and tell this gentleman what he asks.”
“ Yesterday,” said Hewitt, “no doubt you saw
various pieces of wreckage floating about ?”.
“ Yessir.”
“What were they?”
“ Hatch-gratings mostly — nothin' much else.
There's some knockin' about now.”
“I saw them. Now, remember. Did you see a
hatch-grating floating yesterday that was different
from the others ? A painted one, for instance-
those out there now are not painted, you know.”
“ Yessir, I see a little white ’un painted, bobbin'
about away beyond the foremast of the Nicobar.”
“You're sure of that ?”.
“Certain sure, sir—it was the only painted thing
floatin'. And to-day it's washed away somewheres.”
“So I noticed. You're a smart lad. Here's a
shilling for you-keep your eyes open and perhaps
you'll find a good many more shillings before you're
an old man. That's all.”
The boy disappeared, and Hewitt turned to Mer-
rick and said, “I think you may as well send that
wire you spoke of. If I get the commission I think
I may recover that bullion. It may take some little
time, or, on the other hand, it may not. If you'll
write the telegram at once, I'll go in the same boat
as the messenger. I'm going to take a walk down


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE. 75
to Lostella now—it's only two or three miles along
the coast, but it will soon be getting dark.”
“But what sort of a clue have you got? I
didn't- "
“Never mind,” replied Hewitt, with a chuckle.
“Officially, you know, I've no right to a clue just
yet— I'm not commissioned. When I am I'll tell
you everything."
Hewitt was scarcely ashore when he was seized
by the excited Brasyer. “Here you are,” he said.
"I was coming aboard the tug again. I've got
more news. You remember I said I was going out
with that railway clerk this afternoon, and meant
pumping him ? Well, I've done it and rushed away
-don't know what he'll think's up. As we were
going along we saw Norton, the steward, on the
other side of the way, and the clerk recognised him
as one of the men who brought the cases to be sent
off; the other was the skipper, I've no doubt, from
his description. I played him artfully, you know,
and then he let out that both the cases were ad-
dressed to Mackrie at his address in London! He
looked up the entry, he said, after I left when I
first questioned him, feeling curious. That's about
enough, I think, eh? I'm off to London now-I
believe Mackrie's going to-night. I'll have him!
Keep it dark!” And the zealous second officer
dashed off without waiting for a reply. Hewitt


76
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
looked after him with an amused smile, and turned
off towards Lostella.
III.
It was about eleven the next morning when
Merrick received the following note, brought by a
boatman:-
“ DEAR MERRICK,-Am I commissioned ? If not,
don't trouble, but if I am, be just outside Lostella,
at the turning before you come to the Smack Inn, at
two o'clock. Bring with you a light cart, a police-
man-or two perhaps will be better-and a man
with a spade. There will probably be a little cab-
bage-digging. Are you fond of the sport ?—Yours,
MARTIN HEWITT.
“P.S.-Keep all your men aboard; bring the spade
artist from the town."
Merrick was off in a boat at once. His princi-
pals had replied to his telegram after Hewitt's de-
parture the day before, giving him a free hand to do
whatever seemed best. With some little difficulty
he got the policemen, and with none at all he got a
light cart and a jobbing man with a spade. To-
gether they drove off to the meeting-place.
It was before the time, but Martin Hewitt was
there, waiting. “You're quick,” he said, “but the
sooner the better. I gave you the earliest appoint-


78
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
a group. These were drooping, yellow, and wilted,
and towards these Hewitt straightway walked.
“ Dig up those wilted cabbages,” he said to the
jobbing man. “They're really useless now. You'll
probably find something else six inches down or
so.”
The man struck his spade into the soft earth,
wherein it stopped suddenly with a thud. But at
this moment a gaunt, slatternly woman, with a black
eye, a handkerchief over her head, and her skirt
pinned up in front, observing the invasion from the
back door of the cottage, rushed out like a maniac
and attacked the party valiantly with a broom. She
upset the jobbing man over his spade, knocked off
one policeman's helmet, lunged into the other's face
with her broom, and was making her second attempt
to hit Hewitt (who had dodged), when Merrick
caught her firmly by the elbows from behind,
pressed them together, and held her. She screamed,
and people came from other cottages and looked on.
“ Peter! Peter !” the woman screamed, “come 'ee,
come'ee here! Davey! They're come!”
A grimy child came to the cottage door, and see-
ing the woman thus held, and strangers in the gar-
den, set up a piteous howl. Meantime the digger
had uncovered two wooden boxes, each eighteen
inches long or so, bound with hoop-iron and sealed.
One had been torn partly open at the top, and the


79
8.
broken wood roughly replaced. When this was
lifted, bars of yellow metal were visible within.
The woman still screamed vehemently, and strug-
gled. The grimy child retreated, and then there ap-
peared at the door, staggering hazily and rubbing
his eyes, a shaggy, unkempt man, in shirt and trou-
sers. He looked stupidly at the scene before him,
and his jaw dropped.
“Take that man,” cried Hewitt. “He's one!”
And the policeman promptly took him, so that he
had handcuffs on his wrists before he had collected
his faculties sufficiently to begin swearing.
Hewitt and the other policeman entered the cot-
tage. In the lower two rooms there was nobody.
They climbed the few narrow stairs, and in the
front room above they found another man, younger,
and fast asleep. “He's the other," said Hewitt.
“ Take him.” And this one was handcuffed before
he woke.
Then the recovered gold was put into the cart,
and with the help of the village constable, who
brought his own handcuffs for the benefit and adorn-
ment of the lady with the broom, such a procession
marched out of Lostella as had never been dreamed
of by the oldest inhabitant in his worst nightmare,
nor recorded in the whole history of Cornwall.
“Now," said Hewitt, turning to Merrick, “we
must have that fellow of yours—what's his name-
ours
name-


80
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
Gullen, isn't it? The one that went down to meas-
ure the hole in the ship. You've kept him aboard,
of course ?"
“What, Gullen ?” exclaimed Merrick. “Gul-
len? Well, as a matter of fact he went ashore last
night and hasn't come back. But you don't mean to
say- " .
“I do," replied Hewitt. “And now you've lost
him."
IV.
“But tell me all about it now we've a little time
to ourselves," asked Merrick an hour or two later,
as they sat and smoked in the after-cabin of the
salvage tug. “We've got the stuff, thanks to you,
but I don't in the least see how they got it, nor how
you found it out."
“Well, there didn't seem to be a great deal either
way in the tales told by the men from the Nicobar.
They cancelled one another out, so to speak, though
it seemed likely that there might be something in
them in one or two respects. Brasyer, I could see,
tried to prove too much. If the captain and the
steward were conspiring to rob the bullion-room,
why should the steward trouble to cut through the
boiler-plate walls when the captain kept the keys in
his cabin? And if the captain had been stealing the


THE NICOBAR . BULLION CASE. 81
bullion, why should he stop at two cases when he
had all the voyage to operate in and forty cases to
help himself to? Of course the evidence of the
carpenter gave some colour to the theory, but I
think I can imagine a very reasonable explanation
of that.
“You tuld me, of course, that you were down
with the men yourself when they opened the bullion-
room door and got out the cases, so that there could
bė no suspicion of them. But at the same time you
told me that the breach in the Nicobar's side had
laid open the bullion-room partition, and that you
might more easily have got the cases out that way.
You told me, of course, that the cases couldn't have
fallen out that way because of the list of the vessel,
the position of the rent in the boiler-plate, and so on.
But I reflected that the day before a diver had been
down alone—in fact, that his business had been with
the very hole that extended partly to the bullion-
room: he had to measure it. That diver might
easily have got at the cases through the breach.
But then, as you told me, a diver can't bring things
up from below unobserved. This diver would know
this, and might therefore hide the booty below. So
that I made up my mind to have a look under water
before I jumped to any conclusion.
“ I didn't think it likely that he had hidden the
cases, mind you. Because he would have had to


82
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
dive again to get them, and would have been just
as awkwardly placed in fetching them to the light
of day then as ever. Besides, he couldn't come
diving here again in the company's dress without
some explanation. So what more likely than that
he would make some ingenious arrangement with an
accomplice, whereby he might make the gold in some
way accessible to him ?
“We went under water. I kept my eyes open,
and observed, among other things, that the vessel
was one of those well-kept swell'ones on which
all the hatch gratings and so on are in plain oak
or teak, kept holystoned. This (with the other
things) I put by in my mind in case it should be
useful. When we went over the side and looked
at the great gap, I saw that it would have been
quite easy to get at the broken bullion-room par-
tition from outside.”
“Yes," remarked Merrick, “it would be no
trouble at all. The ladder goes down just by the
side of the breach, and any one descending by that
might just step off at one side on to the jagged
plating at the level of the after orlop, and reach
over into the bullion safe.”
“ Just so. Well, next I turned my attention to
the sea-bed, which I was extremely pleased to see
was of soft, slimy claystone. I walked about a
little, getting farther and farther away from the


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
83
vessel as I went, till I came across that clean stone
which I turned over with my foot. Do you remem-
ber?”
“Yes."
“Well, that was noticeable. It was the only
clean, bare stone to be seen. Every other was cov-
ered with a green growth, and to most clumps of
weed clung. The obvious explanation of this was
that the stone was a new-comer—lately brought from
dry land—from the shingle on the sea-shore, prob-
ably, since it was washed so clean. Such a stone
could not have come a mile out to sea by itself.
Somebody had brought it in a boat and thrown it
over, and whoever did it didn't take all that trouble
for nothing. Then its shape told a tale; it was
something of the form, rather exaggerated, of a loaf
—the sort that is called a "cottage'—the most con-
venient possible shape for attaching to a line and
lowering. But the line had gone, so somebody must
have been down there to detach it. Also it wasn't
unreasonable to suppose that there might have been
a hook on the end of that line. This, then, was a
theory. Your man had gone down alone to take his
measurement, had stepped into the broken side, as
you have explained he could, reached into the bul-
lion-room, and lifted the two cases. Probably he
unfastened the cord, and brought them out one at
a time for convenience in carrying. Then he car-


84
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
ried the cases, one at a time, as I have said, over to
that white stone which lay there sunk with the hook
and line attached by previous arrangement with
some confederate. He detached the rope from the
stone-it was probably fixed by an attached piece
of cord, tightened round the stone with what you
call a timber-hitch, easily loosened-replaced the
cord round the two cases, passed the hook under the
cord, and left it to be pulled up from above. But
then it could not have been pulled up there in broad
daylight, under your very noses. The confederates
would wait till night. " That meant that the other
end of the rope was attached to some floating ob-
ject, so that it might be readily recovered. The
whole arrangement was set one night to be carried
away the next."
“ But why didn't Gullen take more than two
cases ?"
“He couldn't afford to waste the time, in the
first place. Each case removed meant another jour-
ney to and from the vessel, and you were waiting
above for his measurements. Then he was probably
doubtful as to weight. Too much at once wouldn't
easily be drawn up, and might upset a small boat.
“Well, so much for the white stone. But there
was more ; close by the stone I noticed (although
I think you didn't) a mark in the claystone. It was
a triangular depression or pit, sharp at the bottom-


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
85
just the hole that would be made by the sharp im-
pact of the square corner of a heavy box, if shod
with iron, as the bullion cases are. This was one
important thing. It seemed to indicate that the
boxes had not been lifted directly up from the sea-
bed, but had been dragged sideways—at all events
at first-so that a sharp corner had turned over and
dug into the claystone! I walked a little farther
and found more indications—slight scratches, small
stones displaced, and so on, that convinced me of
this, and also pointed out the direction in which the
cases had been dragged. I followed the direction,
and presently arrived at another stone, rather
smaller than the clean one. The cases had evi-
dently caught against this, and it had been displaced
by their momentum, and perhaps by a possible
wrench from above. The green growth covered
the part which had been exposed to the water,
and the rest of the stone fitted the hole beside it,
from which it had been pulled. Clearly these
things were done recently, or the sea would have
wiped out all the traces in the soft claystone. The
rest of what I did under water of course you under-
stood.”
"I suppose so: you took the bearings of the
two stones in relation to the ship by pacing the
distances.”
“ That is so. I kept the figures in my head


86
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
till I could make a note of them, as you saw, on
paper. The rest was mere calculation. What I
judged had happened was this. Gullen had ar-
ranged with somebody, identity unknown, but
certainly somebody with a boat at his disposal,
to lay the line, and take it up the following night.
Now anything larger than a rowing boat could not
have got up quite so close to you in the night
(although your tug was at the other end of the
wreck) without a risk of being seen. But no row-
ing boat could have dragged those cases forcibly
along the bottom; they would act as an anchor to
it. Therefore this was what had happened. The
thieves had come in a large boat—a fishing smack,
lugger, or something of that sort—with a small
boat in tow. The sailing boat had lain to at a
convenient distance, in the direction in which it was
afterwards to go, so as to save time if observed, and
a man had put off quietly in the small boat to
pick up the float, whatever it was. There must
have been a lot of slack line on this for the pur-
pose, as also for the purpose of allowing the float
to drift about fairly freely, and not attract atten-
tion by remaining in one place. The man pulled off
to the sailing boat, and took the float and line
aboard. Then the sailing boat swung off in the
direction of home, and the line was hauled in with
the plunder at the end of it.”


88
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
fittings are almost always painted—they can't
afford to be such holystoning swells as those on
the Nicobar. So I judged the grating might be
painted, and this would possibly have been noticed
by some sharp person. I made the shot, and hit.
The boy remembered the white grating, which had
gone—washed away,' as he thought. That was
useful to me, as you shall see.
“I made off toward Lostella. The tide was low
and it was getting dusk when I arrived. A number
of boats and smacks were lying anchored on the
beach, but there were few people to be seen. I
began looking out for smacks with white-painted
fittings in them. There are not so many of these
among fishing vessels—brown or red is more likely,
or sheer colourless dirt over paint unrecognisable.
There were only two that I saw last night. The
first might have been the one I wanted, but there
was nothing to show it. The second was the one.
She was half-decked and had a small white-painted
hatch. I shifted the hatch and found a long line,
attached to the grating at one end and carrying a
hook at the other! They had neglected to unfasten
their apparatus—perhaps had an idea that there
might be a chance of using it again in a few days.
I went to the transom and read the inscription,
* Rebecca. Peter and David Garthew, Lostella.'
Then my business was to find the Garthews.


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
89
“I wandered about the village for some little
time, and presently got hold of a boy. I made a
simple excuse for asking about the Garthews-
wanted to go for a sail to-morrow. The boy, with
many grins, confided to me that both of the Garthews
were on the booze.' I should find them at the
Smack Inn, where they had been all day, drunk as fid-
dlers. This seemed a likely sort of thing after the
haul they had made. I went to the Smack Inn, de-
termined to claim old friendship with the Garthews,
although I didn't know Peter from David. There
they were—one sleepy drunk, and the other loving
and crying drunk. I got as friendly as possible
with them under the circumstances, and at closing
time stood another gallon of beer and carried it
home for them, while they carried each other. I
took care to have a good look round in the cot-
tage. I even helped Peter's old woman '--the
lady with the broom—to carry them up to bed.
But nowhere could I see anything that looked like
a bullion-case or a hiding-place for one. So I came
away, determined to renew my acquaintance in the
morning, and to carry it on as long as might be
necessary; also to look at the garden in the day-
light for signs of burying. With that view I
fixed that little gimlet in my walking-stick, as you
saw.
“This morning I was at Lostella before ten, and


90
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
took a look at the Garthews' cabbages. It seemed
odd that half a dozen, all in a clump together,
looked withered and limp, as though they had been
dug up hastily, the roots broken, perhaps, and then
replanted. And altogether these particular cab-
bages had a dissipated, leaning-different-ways look,
as though they had been on the loose with the
Garthews. So, seeing a grubby child near the back
door of the cottage, I went towards him, walking
rather unsteadily, so as, if I were observed, to
favour the delusion that I was not yet quite got
over last night's diversions. “Hullo, my b-boy,' I
said, 'hullo, li'l b-boy, look here,' and I plunged my
hand into my trousers' pocket and brought it out
full of small change. Then, making a great business
of selecting him a penny, I managed to spill it all
over the dissipated cabbages. It was easy then, in
stooping to pick up the change, to lean heavily on
my stick and drive it through the loose earth. As I
had expected, there was a box below. So I gouged
away with my walking-stick while I collected my
coppers, and finally swaggered off, after a few civil
words with the old woman, carrying with me evi-
dent proof that it was white wood recently buried
there. The rest you saw for yourself. I think you
and I may congratulate each other on having dodged
that broom. It hit all the others.”
“What I'm wild about," said Merrick, “is having


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
91
let that scoundrel Gullen get off. He's an artful
chap, without a doubt. He saw us go over the side,
you know, and after you had gone he came into the
cabin for some instructions. Your pencil notes and
the chart were on the table, and no doubt he put
two and two together (which was more than I could,
not knowing what had happened), and concluded to
make himself safe for a bit. He had no leave that
night—he just pulled away on the quiet. Why didn't
you give me the tip to keep him ?"
“ That wouldn't have done. In the first place,
there was no legal evidence to warrant his arrest,
and ordering him to keep aboard would have aroused
his suspicions. I didn't know at the time how many
days, or weeks, it would take me to find the bullion,
if I ever found it, and in that time Gullen might
have communicated in some way with his accom-
plices, and so spoilt the whole thing. Yes, certainly
he seems to have been fairly smart in his way. He
knew he would probably be sent down first, as usual,
alone to make measurements, and conceived his plan
and made his arrangements forthwith.”
“But now what I want to know is what about
all those Nicobar people watching and suspecting
one another ? More especially what about the cases
the captain and the steward are said to have fetched
ashore ?"
Hewitt laughed. “Well,” he said, “as to that,


THE NICOBAR BULLION CASE.
93
grabbed a passing policeman, and rushed with him
into the shop. There they found the captain and
the steward with two small packing cases opened
before them, trying to sell—a couple of very ancient-
looking Japanese bronze figures, of that curious old
workmanship and varied colour of metal that in
genuine examples mean nowadays high money
value.
Brasyer vanished: there was too much chaff for
him to live through in the British mercantile marine
after this adventure. The fact was, the steward had
come across the bargain, but had not sufficient spare
cash to buy, so he called in the aid of the captain,
and they speculated in the bronzes as partners.
There was much anxious inspection of the prizes on
the way home, and much discussion as to the proper
price to ask. Finally, it was said, they got three
hundred pounds for the pair.
Now and again Hewitt meets Merrick still.
Sometimes Merrick says, “Now, I wonder after all
whether or not some of those Nicobar men who were
continually dodging suspiciously about that bullion-
room did mean having a dash at the gold if there
were a chance ?” And Hewitt replies, “ I wonder."


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
At one time, in common, perhaps, with most
people, I took a sort of languid, amateur interest
in questions of psychology, and was impelled there-
by to plunge into the pages of the many curious and
rather abstruse books which attempt to deal with
phenomena of mind, soul and sense. Three things
of the real nature of which, I am convinced, no man
will ever learn more than we know at present-
which is nothing.
From these I strayed into the many volumes
of Transactions of the Psychical Research Society,
with an occasional by-excursion into mental telep-
athy and theosophy; the last, a thing whereof my
Philistine intelligence obstinately refused to make
head or tail.
It was while these things were occupying part
of my attention that I chanced to ask Hewitt
whether, in the course of his divers odd and out-
of-the-way experiences, he had met with any such
weird adventures as were detailed in such profusion
94


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
:
95
in the books of "authenticated” spooks, doppel-
gangers, poltergeists, clairvoyance, and so forth.
“Well,” Hewitt answered, with reflection, “I
haven't been such a wallower in the uncanny as
some of the worthy people who talk at large in
those books of yours, and, as a matter of fact, my
little adventures, curious as some of them may
seem, have been on the whole of the most solid
and matter-of-fact description. One or two things
have happened that perhaps your "psychical'
people might be interested in, but they've mostly
been found to be capable of a disappointingly
simple explanation. One case of some genuine
psychological interest, however, I have had; al-
though there's nothing even in that which isn't a
matter of well-known scientific possibility.” And
he proceeded to tell me the story that I have set
down here, as well as I can, from recollection.
I think I have already said, in another place,
that Hewitt's professional start as a private inves-
tigator dated from his connection with the famous
will case of Bartley v. Bartley and others, in which
his then principals, Messrs. Crellan, Hunt & Crellan,
chiefly through his exertions established their ex-
tremely high reputation as solicitors. It was ten
years or so after this case that Mr. Crellan senior
—the head of the firm—retired into private life,
and by an odd chance Hewitt's first meeting with


CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
him after that event was occasioned by another
will difficulty.
These were the terms of the telegram that
brought Hewitt again into personal relations with
his old principal:-
“Can you run down at once on a matter of private
business ? I will be at Guildford to meet eleven thirty-
five from Waterloo. If later or prevented please wire.
Crellan."
The day and the state of Hewitt's engagements
suited, and there was full half an hour to catch
the train. Taking, therefore, the small travelling-
bag that always stood ready packed in case of any
sudden excursion that presented the possibility of
a night from home, he got early to Waterloo, and
by half-past twelve was alighting at Guildford
Station. Mr. Crellan, a hale, white-haired old gen-
tleman, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, was wait-
ing with a covered carriage.
“How d'ye do, Mr. Hewitt, how d'ye do?” the
old gentleman exclaimed as soon as they met,
grasping Hewitt's hand, and hurrying him toward
the carriage. “I'm glad you've come, very glad.
It isn't raining, and you might have preferred
something more open, but I brought the brough-
am because I want to talk privately. I've been
vegetating to such an extent for the last few
years down here that any little occurrence out of


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE. 97
the ordinary excites me, and I'm sure I couldn't
have kept quiet till we had got indoors. It's
been bad enough, keeping the thing to myself, al-
ready."
The door shut, and the brougham started. Mr.
Crellan laid his hand on Hewitt's knee, “ I hope,”
he said, “ I haven't dragged you away from any im-
portant business ?”
“No,” Hewitt replied, “you have chosen a most
excellent time. Indeed, I did think of making a
small holiday to-day, but your telegram— "
“Yes, yes. Do you know, I was almost
ashamed of having sent it after it had gone. Be-
cause, after all, the matter is, probably, really a
very simple sort of affair that you can't possibly
help me in. A few years ago I should have thought
nothing of it, nothing at all. But as I have told
you, I've got into such a dull, vegetable state of
mind since I retired and have nothing to do that
a little thing upsets me, and I haven't mental
energy enough to make up my mind to go to din-
ner sometimes. But you're an old friend, and I'm
sure you'll forgive my dragging you all down here
on a matter that will, perhaps, seem ridiculously
simple to you, a man in the thick of active busi-
ness. If I hadn't known you so well I wouldn't
have had the impudence to bother you. But
never mind all that I'll tell you.


98
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“Do you ever remember my speaking of an in- .
timate friend, a Mr. Holford ? No. Well, it's a
long time ago, and perhaps I never happened to
mention him. He was a most excellent man-old
fellow, like me, you know; two or three years older,
as a matter of fact. We were chums many years
ago; in fact, we lodged in the same house when
I was an articled clerk and he was a student at
Guy's. He retired from the medical profession
early, having come into a fortune, and came down
here to live at the house we're going to; as a mat-
ter of fact, Wedbury Hall.
“When I retired I came down and took up my
quarters not far off, and we were a very excellent
pair of old chums till last Monday—the day before
yesterday—when my poor old friend died. He was
pretty well in years—seventy-three-and a man
can't live for ever. But I assure you it has upset
me terribly, made a greater fool of me than ever, in
fact, just when I ought to have my wits about me.
“The reason I particularly want my wits just
now, and the reason I have requisitioned yours, is
this: that I can't find poor old Holford's will. I
drew it up for him years ago, and by it I was ap-
pointed his sole executor. I am perfectly convinced
that he cannot have destroyed it, because he told
me everything concerning his affairs. I have always
been his only adviser, in fact, and I'm sure he would


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
99
have consulted me as to any change in his testa-
mentary intentions before he made it. Moreover,
there are reasons why I know he could not have
wished to die intestate.”
.“ Which are- ?” queried Hewitt as Mr. Crel-
lan paused in his statement.
"Which are these : Holford was a widower, with
no children of his own. His wife, who has been
dead nearly fifteen years now, was a most excellent
woman, a model wife, and would have been a model
mother if she had been one at all. As it was she
adopted a little girl, a poor little soul who was left
an orphan at two years of age. The child's father,
an unsuccessful man of business of the name of
Garth, maddened by a sudden and ruinous loss, com-
mitted suicide, and his wife died of the shock occa-
sioned by the calamity.
“The child, as I have said, was taken by Mrs.
Holford and made a daughter of, and my old friend's
daughter she has been ever since, practically speak-
ing. The poor old fellow couldn't possibly have
been more attached to a daughter of his own, and
on her part she couldn't possibly have been a better
daughter than she was. She stuck by him night and
day during his last illness, until she became rather
ill herself, although of course there was a regular
nurse always in attendance.
“Now, in his will, Mr. Holford bequeathed rather


100
'
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
more than half of his very large property to this
Miss Garth; that is to say, as residuary legatee, her
interest in the will came to about that. The rest
was distributed in various ways. Holford had
largely spent the leisure of his retirement in scien-
tific pursuits. So there were a few legacies to learned
societies; all his servants were remembered; he left
me a certain number of his books; and there was a
very fair sum of money for his nephew, Mr. Cranley
Mellis, the only near relation of Mr. Holford's still
living. So that you see what the loss of this will
may mean. Miss Garth, who was to have taken the
greater part of her adoptive father's property, will
not have one shilling's worth of claim on the estate
and will be turned out into the world without a cent.
One or two very old servants will be very awkwardly
placed, too, with nothing to live on, and very little
prospect of doing more work.”
“Everything will go to this nephew,” said Hewitt,
“of course ?"
“Of course. That is unless I attempt to prove a
rough copy of the will which I may possibly have by
me. But even if I have such a thing and find it,
long and costly litigation would be called for, and
the result would probably be all against us."
“ You say you feel sure Mr. Holford did not de-
stroy the will himself ?”.
“I am quite sure he would never have done so


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
101
without telling me of it; indeed, I am sure he would
have consulted me first. Moreover, it can never
have been his intention to leave Miss Garth utterly
unprovided for; it would be the same thing as dis-
inheriting his only daughter."
: “Did you see him frequently ?”
“There's scarcely been a day when I haven't
seen him since I have lived down here. During
his illness—it lasted a month–I saw him every
day."
“And he said nothing of destroying his will ?”
“Nothing at all. On the contrary, soon after his
first seizure-indeed, on the first visit at which I
found him in bed—he said, after telling me how he
felt, ‘Everything's as I want it, you know, in case I
go under.' That seemed to me to mean his will was
still as he desired it to be."
“Well, yes, it would seem so. But counsel on
the other side (supposing there were another side)
might quite as plausibly argue that he meant to die
intestate, and had destroyed his will so that every-
thing should be as he wanted it, in that sense. But
what do you want me to do—find the will ?”
“Certainly, if you can. It seemed to me that
you, with your clever head, might be able to form a
better judgment than I as to what has happened and
who is responsible for it. Because if the will has
been taken'away, some one has taken it.”


102
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“ It seems probable. Have you told any one of
your difficulty ?”
“Not a soul. I came over as soon as I could
after Mr. Holford's death, and Miss Garth gave me
all the keys, because, as executor, the case being a
peculiar one, I wished to see that all was in order,
and, as you know, the estate is legally vested in the
executor from the death of the testator, so that I
was responsible for everything; although, of course,
if there is no will I'm not executor. But I thought
it best to keep the difficulty to myself till I saw
you.”
“Quite right. Is this Wedbury Hall ?”
The brougham had passed a lodge gate, and
approached, by a wide drive, a fine old red brick
mansion carrying the heavy stone dressings and
copings distinctive of early eighteenth century do-
mestic architecture.
“Yes,” said Mr. Crellan, “this is the place. We
will go straight to the study, I think, and then I
can explain details.”
The study told the tale of the late Mr. Holford's
habits and interests. It was half a library, half a
scientific laboratory-pathological curiosities in
spirits, a retort or two, test tubes on the writ-
ing-table, and a fossilized lizard mounted in a case,
balanced the many shelves and cases of books
disposed about the walls. In a recess between two


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
103
book-cases stood a heavy, old-fashioned mahogany
bureau.
“Now it was in that bureau," Mr. Crellan ex-
plained, indicating it with his finger, " that Mr. Hol-
ford kept every document that was in the smallest
degree important or valuable. I have seen him at it
a hundred times, and he always maintained it was as
secure as any iron safe. That may not have been
altogether the fact, but the bureau is certainly a tre-
mendously heavy and strong one. Feel it.”
Hewitt took down the front and pulled out a
drawer that Mr. Crellan unlocked for the purpose.
“Solid Spanish mahogany an inch thick,” was his
verdict, “heavy, hard, and seasoned; not the sort of
thing you can buy nowadays. Locks, Chubb's pat-
ent, early pattern, but not easily to be picked by
anything short of a blast of gunpowder. If there
are no marks on this bureau it hasn't been tampered
with.”
“Well,” Mr. Crellan pursued, “as I say, that was
where Mr. Holford kept his will. I have often seen
it when we have been here together, and this was
the drawer, the top on the right, that he kept it in.
The will was a mere single sheet of foolscap, and
was kept, folded of course, in a blue envelope."
“When did you yourself last actually see the
will ? "
“I saw it in my friend's hand two days before he


104
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
took to his bed. He merely lifted it in his hand to
get at something else in the drawer, replaced it, and
locked the drawer again.”
“Of course there are other drawers, bureaux, and
so on, about the place. You have examined them
carefully, I take it ?”.
“I've turned out ever possible receptacle for that
will in the house, I positively assure you, and there
isn't a trace of it.”
“ You've thought of secret drawers, I suppose ?"
“ Yes. There are two in the bureau which I
always knew of. Here they are.” Mr. Crellan
pressed his thumb against a partition of the pigeon-
holes at the back of the bureau and a strip of
mahogany flew out from below, revealing two shal-
low drawers with small ivory catches in lieu of
knobs.' “ Nothing there at all. And this other, as
I have said, was the drawer where the will was kept.
The other papers kept in the same drawer are here
as usual.”.
“ Did anybody else know where Mr. Holford
kept his will ?"
“ Everybody in the house, I should think. He
was a frank, above-board sort of man. His adopted
daughter knew, and the butler knew, and there was
absolutely no reason why all the other servants
shouldn't know; probably they did."
“ First,” said Hewitt, “ we will make quite sure


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
105
there are no more secret drawers about this bureau.
Lock the door in case anybody comes."
Hewitt took out every drawer of the bureau, and
examined every part of each before he laid it aside.
Then he produced a small pair of silver callipers and
an ivory pocket-rule and went over every inch of
the heavy framework, measuring, comparing, tap-
ping, adding, and subtracting dimensions. In the
end he rose to his feet satisfied. “There is most
certainly nothing concealed there," he said.
The drawers were put back, and Mr. Crellan
suggested lunch. At Hewitt's suggestion it was
brought to the study.
“So far,” Hewitt said, “we arrive at this : either
Mr. Holford has destroyed his will, or he has most
effectually concealed it, or somebody has stolen it.
The first of these possibilities you don't favour.”
“I don't believe it is a possibility for a mo-
ment. I have told you why; and I knew Holford
so well, you know. For the same reasons I am sure
he never concealed it.”
“Very well, then. Somebody has stolen it. The
question is, who ?”
“ That is so.”
“It seems to me that every one in this house had
a direct and personal interest in preserving that
will. The servants have all something left them,
you say, and without the will that goes, of course.


106
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
Miss Garth has the greatest possible interest in the
will. The only person I have heard of as yet who
would benefit by its loss or destruction would be the
nephew, Mr. Mellis. There are no other relatives,
you say, who would benefit by intestacy ?"
“ Not one."
“Well, what do you think yourself, now ? Have
you any suspicions ?”
Mr. Crellan shrugged his shoulders. “I've no
more right to suspicions than you have, I suppose,”
he said. “Of course, if there are to be suspicions
they can only point one way. Mr. Mellis is the only
person who can gain by the disappearance of this
will.”
“ Just so, Now, what do you know of him ?”
“I don't know much of the young man,” Mr.
Crellan said slowly. “I must say I never particu-
larly took to him. He is rather a clever fellow, I
believe. He was called to the bar some time ago,
and afterwards studied medicine, I believe, with the
idea of priming himself for a practice in medical
jurisprudence. He took a good deal of interest in
my old friend's researches, I am told—at any rate
he said he did; he may have been thinking of his
uncle's fortune. But they had a small tiff on some
medical question. I don't know exactly what it was,
but Mr. Holford objected to something—a method
of research or something of that kind—as being


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
107
dangerous and unprofessional. There was no actual
rupture between them, you understand, but Mellis's
visits slacked off, and there was a coolness.”
“Where is Mr. Mellis now?” .
“In London, I believe."
“Has he been in this house between the day you
last saw the will in that drawer and yesterday, when
you failed to find it ?".
"Only once. He came to see his uncle two days
before his death-last Saturday, in fact. He didn't
stay long."
“ Did you see him?".
“ Yes."
“What did he do ?”
“Merely came into the room for a few minutes-
visitors weren't allowed to stay long-spoke a little
to his uncle, and went back to town.”
“ Did he do nothing else, or see anybody
else ? "
" Miss Garth went out of the room with him as
he left, and I should think they talked for a little
before he went away, to judge by the time she was
gone; but I don't know.”
“You are sure he went then?”
“ I saw him in the drive as I looked from the
window.”
"Miss Garth, you say, has kept all the keys since
the beginning of Mr. Holford's illness ?”


108
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“Yes, until she gave them up to me yesterday.
Indeed, the nurse, who is rather a peppery customer,
and was jealous of Miss Garth's presence in the sick
room all along, made several difficulties about hav-
ing to go to her for everything."
“ And there is no doubt of the bureau having
been kept locked all the time?"
“None at all. I have asked Miss Garth that-
and, indeed, a good many other things—without say-
ing why I wanted the information."
“How are Mr. Mellis and Miss Garth affected
toward one another—are they friendly ?".
“Oh, yes. Indeed, some while ago I rather
fancied that Mellis was disposed to pay serious
addresses in that quarter. He may have had a
fancy that way, or he may have been attracted by
the young lady's expectations. At any rate, noth-
ing definite seems to have come of it as yet. But I
must say—between ourselves, of course—I have
more than once noticed a decided air of agitation,
shyness perhaps, in Miss Garth when Mr. Mellis has
been present. But, at any rate, that scarcely mat-
ters. She is twenty-four years of age now, and can
do as she likes. Although, if I had anything to say
in the matter-well, never mind."
“You, I take it, have known Miss Garth along
time?"
“Bless you, yes. Danced her on my knee


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
109
twenty years ago. I've been her · Uncle Leonard'
all her life.”
“Well, I think we must at least let Miss Garth
know of the loss of the will. Perhaps, when they
have cleared away these plates, she will come here
for a few minutes.”
“ I'll go and ask her,” Mr. Crellan answered, and
having rung the bell, proceeded to find Miss Garth.
Presently he returned with the lady. She was a
slight, very pale young woman; no doubt rather
pretty in ordinary, but now not looking her best.
She was evidently worn and nervous from anxiety
and want of sleep, and her eyes were sadly inflamed.
As the wind slammed a loose casement behind her
she started nervously, and placed her hand to her
head.
“Sit down at once, my dear,” Mr. Crellan said ;
“sit down. This is Mr. Martin Hewitt, whom I
have taken the liberty of inviting down here to help
me in a very important matter. The fact is, my
dear,” Mr. Crellan added gravely, “I can't find your
poor father's will."
Miss Garth was not surprised. “I thought so,”
she said mildly, “when you asked me about the
bureau yesterday.”
“Of course I need not say, my dear, what a seri-
ous thing it may be for you if that will cannot be
found. So I hope you'll try and tell Mr. Hewitt


110
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
here anything he wants to know as well as you can,
without forgetting a single thing. I'm pretty sure
that he will find it for us if it is to be found.”
“I understand, Miss Garth,” Hewitt asked, “that
the keys of that bureau never left your possession
during the whole time of Mr. Holford's last illness,
and that the bureau was kept locked ?"
“Yes, that is so."
“ Did you ever have occasion to go to the bureau
yourself? ”
"No, I have not touched it.”
“ Then you can answer for it, I presume, that
the bureau was never unlocked by any one from the
time Mr. Holford placed the keys in your hands
till you gave them to Mr. Crellan ?"
“Yes, I am sure of that."
“ Very good. Now is there any place on the
whole premises that you can suggest where this will
may possibly be hidden ?”.
“ There is no place that Mr. Crellan doesn't
know of, I'm sure.”
“ It is an old house, I observe," Hewitt pursued.
“Do you know of any place of concealment in the
structure—any secret doors, I mean, you know, or
sliding panels, or hollow door frames, and so
forth ?" .
Miss Garth shook her head. “There is not a
single place of the sort you speak of in the whole


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
Ι
building, so far as I know," she said, " and I have
lived here almost all my life.”
“You knew the purport of Mr. Holford's will, I
take it, and understand what its loss may mean to
yourself ? ”
“Perfectly."
“ Now I must ask you to consider carefully.
Take your mind back to two or three days before
Mr. Holford's illness began, and tell me if you can
remember any single fact, occurrence, word, or hint
from that day to this in any way bearing on the will
or anything connected with it ? ”
Miss Garth shook her head thoughtfully. “I
can't remember the thing being mentioned by any-
body, except perhaps by the nurse, who is rather a
touchy sort of woman, and once or twice took it
upon herself to hint that my recent anxiety was
chiefly about my poor father's money. And that
once, when I had done some small thing for him,
my father—I have always called him father, you
know—said that he wouldn't forget it, or that I
should be rewarded, or something of that sort.
Nothing else that I can remember in the remotest
degree concerned the will."
“ Mr. Mellis said nothing about it, then ? "
Miss Garth changed colour slightly, but an-
swered, “ No, I only saw him to the door.”
“ Thank you, Miss Garth, I won't trouble you


12
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
any further just now. But if you can remember
anything more in the course of the next few hours
it may turn out to be of great service."
Miss Garth bowed and withdrew. Mr. Crellan
shut the door behind her and returned to Hewitt.
“ That doesn't carry us much further,” he said.
“ The more certain it seems that the will cannot
have been got at, the more difficult our position
is from a legal point of view. What shall we do
now ?"
“Is the nurse still about the place ? "
“Yes, I believe so.”
“ Then I'll speak to her.”
The nurse came in response to Mr. Crellan's
summons: a sharp-featured, pragmatical woman of
forty-five. She took the seat offered her, and
waited for Hewitt's questions.
“ You were in attendance on Mr. Holford, I be-
lieve, Mrs. Turton, since the beginning of his last
illness ? ”
“ Since October 24th.”
“Were you present when Mr. Mellis came to see
his uncle last Saturday ?"
“ Yes.”
“Can you tell me what took place ?”
“As to what the gentleman said to Mr. Hol-
ford,” the nurse replied, bridling slightly, “ of
course I don't know anything, it not being my


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
113
went
business and not intended for my ears. Mr.
Crellan was there, and knows as much as I do,
and so does Miss Garth. I only know that Mr.
Mellis stayed for a few minutes and then went
out of the room with Miss Garth."
“How long was Miss Garth gone ?”
“I don't know, ten minutes or a quarter of an
hour, perhaps.”
“Now Mrs. Turton, I want you to tell me in
confidence—it is very important—whether you, at
any time, heard Mr. Holford during his illness say
anything of his wishes as to how his property was
to be left in case of his death ?”
The nurse started and looked keenly from Hewitt
to Mr. Crellan and back again.
“ Is it the will you mean ?" she asked sharply.
“Yes. Did he mention it ?”
“ You mean you can't find the will, isn't that
it ?"
“Well, suppose it is, what then ? "
“Suppose won't do," the nurse answered
shortly; “I do know something about the will,
and I believe you can't find it.”
" I'm sure, Mrs. Turton, that if you know any.
thing about the will you will tell Mr. Crellan in the
interests of right and justice.”
“And who's to protect me against the spite of
those I shall offend if I tell you ? "


114.
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
Mr. Crellan interposed.
“Whatever you tell us, Mrs. Turton,” he said,
“ will be held in the strictest confidence, and the
source of our information shall not be divulged.
For that I give you my word of honour. And, I
need scarcely add, I will see that you come to no
harm by anything you may say.”
: “ Then the will is lost. I may understand
that ? ”
Hewitt's features were impassive and impene-
trable. But in Mr. Crellan's disturbed face the
nurse saw a plain answer in the affirmative.
“ Yes,” she said, “I see that's the trouble.
Well, I know who took it.”
“ Then who was it ?”.
.“ Miss Garth!”
“ Miss Garth! Nonsense !” cried Mr. Crellan,
starting upright. “Nonsense!”.
“ It may be nonsense,” the nurse replied slowly,
with a monotonous emphasis on each word. “It
may be nonsense, but it's a fact. I saw her
take it.”
Mr. Crellan simply gasped. Hewitt drew his
chair a little nearer...
“ If you saw her take it,” he said gently, closely
watching the woman's face the while, “then, of
course, there's no doubt."
“I tell you I saw her take it," the nurse re-


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
115
peated. “What was in it, and what her game was
in taking it, I don't know. But it was in that
bureau, wasn't it ?”.
“ Yes-probably.”
“In the right hand top. drawer ? ”
“ Yes.”
“ A white paper in a blue envelope ?”
“ Yes.”
“ Then I saw her take it, as I said before. She
unlocked that drawer before my eyes, took it out,
and locked the drawer again.”
Mr. Crellan turned blankly to Hewitt, but
Hewitt kept his eyes on the nurse's face.
“When did this occur ?” he asked, “and
how ?"
“It was on Saturday night, rather late. Every-
body was in bed but Miss Garth and myself, and
she had been down to the dining-room for some-
thing. Mr. Holford was asleep, so as I wanted to
re-fill the water-bottle, I took it up and went. As
I was passing the door of this room that we are in
now, I heard a noise, and looked in at the door,
which was open. There was a candle on the table
which had been left there earlier in the evening.
Miss Garth was opening the top right hand drawer
of that bureau ”—Mrs. Turton stabbed her finger
spitefully toward the piece of furniture, as, though
she owed it a personal grudge_" and I saw her


116
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
take out a blue foolscap envelope, and as the flap
was open, I could see the enclosed paper was white.
She shut the drawer, locked it, and came out of the
room with the envelope in her hand.”
“And what did you do ?'
. “I hurried on, and she came away without see-
ing me, and went in the opposite direction—toward
the small staircase.”
“ Perhaps,” Mr. Crellan ventured at a blurt,
“perhaps she was walking in her sleep?"
“ That she wasn't !” the nurse replied, “ for she
came back to Mr. Holford's room almost as soon
as I returned there, and asked some questions
about the medicine—which was nothing new, for I
must say she was very fond of interfering in things
that were part of my business.”
“ That is quite certain, I suppose," Hewitt
remarked — “that she could not have been
asleep?"
“Quite certain. She talked for about a quarter
of an hour, and wanted to kiss Mr. Holford, which
might have wakened him, before she went to bed.
In fact, I may say we had a disagreement.”
Hewitt did not take his steady gaze from the
nurse's face for some seconds after she had finished
speaking. Then he only said, “Thank you, Mrs.
Turton. I need scarcely assure you, after what Mr.
Crellan has said, that your confidence shall not


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
117
be betrayed. I think that is all, unless you have
more to tell us."
Mrs. Turton bowed and rose. “ There is noth-
ing more," she said, and left the room.
As soon as she had gone, “ Is Mrs. Turton at all
interested in the will,” Hewitt asked.
“No, there is nothing for her. She is a new-
comer, you see. Perhaps,” Mr. Crellan went on,
struck by an idea, “ she may be jealous, or some-
thing. She seems a spiteful woman—and really, I
can't believe her story for a moment.”
“ Why?"
“Well, you see, it's absurd. Why should Miss
Garth go to all this secret trouble to do herself
an injury—to make a beggar of herself? And
besides, she's not in the habit of telling barefaced
lies. She distinctly assured us, you remember,
that she had never been to the bureau for any
purpose whatever.”
“But the nurse has an honest character, hasn't
she?”
“Yes, her character is excellent. Indeed, from
all accounts, she is a very excellent woman, except
for a desire to govern everybody, and a habit of
spite if she is thwarted. But, of course, that sort
of thing sometimes leads people rather far.”
“So it does,” Hewitt replied. “But consider
now. Is it not possible that Miss Garth, com-


118
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
pletely infatuated with Mr. Mellis, thinks she is
doing a noble thing for him by destroying the
will and giving up her whole claim to his uncle's
property ? Devoted women do just such things,
you know.”
Mr. Crellan stared, bent his head to his hand,
and considered. “So they do, so they do,” he
said. “Insane foolery. Really, it's the sort of
thing I can imagine her doing—she's honour and
generosity itself. But then those lies," he re-
sumed, sitting up and slapping his leg; “I can't
believe she'd tell such tremendous lies as that for
anybody. And with such a calm face, too—I'm
sure she couldn't.”
“Well, that's as it may be. You can scarcely
set a limit to the lengths a woman will go on be-
half of a man she loves. I suppose, by the bye,
Miss Garth is not exactly what you would call a
'strong-minded' woman ?”
“No, she's not that. She'd never get on in the
world by herself. She's a good little soul, but
nervous—very; and her month of anxiety, grief,
and want of sleep seems to have broken her up."
“Mr. Mellis knows of the death, I suppose ? ”
“I telegraphed to him at his chambers in Lon-
don the first thing yesterday—Tuesday-morning,
as soon as the telegraph office was open. He came
here (as I've forgotten to tell you as yet) the first


120
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
examined fruitlessly. It was not until after dinner
that Mr. Crellan saw a favourable opportunity of
sounding Miss Garth as he had promised. Half an
hour later he came to Hewitt in the study, more
puzzled than ever.
“There's no engagement between them,” he re-
ported, “ secret or open, nor ever has been. It
seems, from what I can make out, going to work
as diplomatically as possible, that Mellis did pro-
pose to her, or something very near it, a time ago,
and was point-blank refused. Altogether, Miss
Garth's sentiment for him appears to be rather
dislike than otherwise.”
“ That rather knocks a hole in the theory of
self-sacrifice, doesn't it ?” Hewitt remarked. “I
shall have to think over this, and sleep on it. It's
possible that it may be necessary to-morrow for you
to tax Miss Garth, point-blank, with having taken
away the will. Still, I hope not.”
“I hope not, too,” Mr. Crellan said, rather
dubious as to the result of such an experiment.
“She has been quite upset enough already. And,
by the bye, she didn't seem any the better or more
composed after Mellis' visit this morning."
“Still, then the will was gone."
“ Yes.”
And so Hewitt and Mr. Crellan talked on late
into the evening, turning over every apparent possi-


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
121
can
bility and finding reason in none. The household
went to bed at ten, and, soon after, Miss Garth
came to bid Mr. Crellan good-night. It had been
settled that both Martin Hewitt and Mr. Crellan
should stay the night at Wedbury Hall.
Soon all was still, and the ticking of the tall
clock in the hall below could be heard as distinctly
as though it were in the study, while the rain
without dropped from eaves and sills in regular
splashes. Twelve o'clock struck, and Mr. Crellan
was about to suggest retirement, when the sound
of a light footstep startled Hewitt’s alert ear.
He raised his hand to enjoin silence, and stepped
to the door of the room, Mr. Crellan following
him.
There was a light over the staircase, seven or
eight yards away, and down the stairs came Miss
Garth in dressing gown and slippers; she turned at
the landing and vanished in a passage leading to
the right..
“Where does that lead to ?” Hewitt whispered
hurriedly.
"Toward the small staircase—other end of
house,” Mr. Crellan replied in the same tones.
“Come quietly,” said Hewitt, and stepped lightly
after Miss Garth, Mr. Crellan at his heels.
She was nearing the opposite end of the passage,
walking at a fair pace and looking neither to right


122
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
nor left. There was another light over the smaller
staircase at the end. Without hesitation Miss Garth
turned down the stairs till about half down the
flight, and then stopped and pressed her hand
against the oak wainscot.
Immediately the vertical piece of framing against
which she had placed her hand turned on central
pivots top and bottom, revealing a small recess,
three feet high and little more than six inches
wide. Miss Garth stooped and felt about at the
bottom of this recess for several seconds. Then
with every sign of extremne agitation and horror she
withdrew her hand empty, and sank on the stairs.
Her head rolled from side to side on her shoulders,
and beads of perspiration stood on her forehead.
Hewitt with difficulty restrained Mr. Crellan from
going to her assistance.
Presently, with a sort of shuddering sigh, Miss
Garth rose, and after standing irresolute for a mo-
ment, descended the flight of stairs to the bottom.
There she stopped again, and pressing her hand to
her forehead, turned and began to re-ascend the
stairs.
Hewitt touched his companion's arm, and the
two hastily but noiselessly made their way back
along the passage to the study. Miss Garth left
the open framing as it was, reached the top of the
landing, and without stopping proceeded along the


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
123
passage and turned up the main staircase, while
Hewitt and Mr. Crellan still watched her from the
study door.
At the top of the flight she turned to the right,
and up three or four more steps toward her own
room. There she stopped, and leaned thoughtfully
on the handrail.
“Go up,” whispered Hewitt to Mr. Crellan, “as
though you were going to bed. Appear surprised
to see her; ask if she isn't well, and, if you can,
manage to repeat that question of mine about
secret hiding-places in the house."
Mr. Crellan nodded and started quickly up the
stairs. Half-way up he turned his head, and, as
he went on, “Why, Nelly, my dear,” he said,
“what's the matter? Aren't you well?”
Mr. Crellan acted his part well, and waiting be-
low, Hewitt heard this dialogue :
“No, uncle, I don't feel very well, but it's noth-
ing. I think my room seems close. I can scarcely
breathe."
“Oh, it isn't close to-night. You'll be catching
cold, my dear. Go and have a good sleep; you
mustn't worry that wise little head of yours, you
know. Mr. Hewitt and I have been making quite
a night of it, but I'm off to bed now.”
“I hope they've made you both quite comfort-
able, uncle ?"


124
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“Oh, yes; capital, capital. We've been talking
over business, and, no doubt, we shall put that
matter all in order soon. By the bye, I suppose
since you saw Mr. Hewitt you haven't happened
to remember anything more to tell him ?”
“ No.”
“You still can't remember any hiding-places or
panels, or that sort of thing in the wainscot or
anywhere ?"
“No, I'm sure I don't know of any, and I don't
believe for a moment that any exist.”
“Quite sure of that, I suppose ? "
“Oh yes."
“ All right. Now go to bed. You'll catch such
a cold in these draughty landings. Come, I won't
move a step till I see your door shut behind you.
Good-night.”
“ Good-night, uncle."
Mr. Crellan came downstairs again with a face
of blank puzzlement.
“I wouldn't have believed it,” he assured Mar-
tin Hewitt ; “positively I wouldn't have believed
she'd have told such a lie, and with such con-
fidence, too. There's something deep and horrible
here, I'm afraid. What does it mean?”.
.“ We'll talk of that afterwards,” Hewitt replied.
“Come now and take a look at that recess.”
They went, quietly still, to the small staircase,


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
125
and there, with a candle, closely examined the re-
cess. It was a mere box, three feet high, a foot or
a little more deep, and six or seven inches wide.
The piece of oak framing, pivoted to the stair at
the bottom and to a horizontal piece of framing
at the top, stood edge forward, dividing the open-
ing down the centre. There was nothing whatever
in the recess.
Hewitt ascertained that there was no catch, the
plank simply remaining shut by virtue of fitting
tightly, so that nothing but pressure on the
proper part was requisite to open it. He had
closed the plank and turned to speak to Mr.
Crellan, when another interruption occurred.
On each floor the two staircases were joined
by passages, and the ground-floor passage, from the
foot of the flight they were on, led to the entrance
hall. Distinct amid the loud clicking of the hall
clock, Hewitt now heard a sound, as of a person's
foot shifting on a stone step.
Mr. Crellan heard it too, and each glanced at
the other. Then Hewitt, shading the candle with
his hand, led the way to the hall. Theſe they lis-
tened for several seconds—almost an hour—it
seemed—and then the noise was repeated. There
was no doubt of it. It was at the other side of
the front door.
In answer to Hewitt's hurried whispers, Mr.


126
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
Crellan assured him that there was no window
from which, in the dark, a view could be got of a
person standing outside the door. Also that any
other way out would be equally noisy, and would en-
tail the circuit of the house. The front door was
fastened by three heavy bolts, an immense old-
fashioned lock, and a bar. It would take nearly a
minute to open at least, even if everything went
easily. But, as there was no other way, Hewitt
determined to try it. Handing the candle to his
companion, he first lifted the bar, conceiving that
it might be done with the least noise. It went
easily, and, handling it carefully, Hewitt let it hang
from its rivet without a sound. Just then, glancing
at Mr. Crellan, he saw that he was forgetting to
shade the candle, whose rays extended through the
fanlight above the door, and probably through the
wide crack under it. But it was too late. At the
same moment the light was evidently perceived
from outside; there was a hurried jump from the
steps, and for an instant a sound of running on
gravel. Hewitt tore back the bolts, flung the
door open, and dashed out into the darkness,
leaving Mr. Crellan on the doorstep with the
candle.
Hewitt was gone, perhaps, five or ten minutes,
although to Mr. Crellan-standing there at the
open door in a state of high nervous tension, and


128
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“Yes, he's gardener and carpenter and carpet-
beater, and so on.”
“Good! Where's his sanctum ? Where does he
keep his shovels and carpet sticks?"
“ In the shed by the coach house, I believe. I
think it's generally unlocked.”
“Very good. We've earned a night's rest, and
now we'll have it.”
The next morning, after breakfast, Hewitt took
Mr. Crellan into the study.
“Can you manage,” he said, “to send Miss
Garth out for a walk this morning—with some-
body?”
“I can send her out for a ride with the groom
-unless she thinks it wouldn't be the thing to go
riding so soon after her bereavement.”
“Never mind, that will do. Send her at once,
and see that she goes. Call it doctor's orders; say
she must go for her health's sake—anything.”
Mr. Crellan departed, used his influence, and in
half an hour Miss Garth had gone.
“I was up pretty early this morning," Hewitt
remarked on Mr. Crellan's return to the study,
“and, among other things, I sent a telegram to
London. Unless my eyes deceive me, a boy with
a peaked cap—a telegraph boy, in fact—is coming
up the drive this moment. Yes, he is. It is prob-
ably my answer.”


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
129
In a few minutes a telegram was brought in.
Hewitt read it and then asked,
“ Your friend Mr. Mellis, I understand, was
going straight to town yesterday morning ?”
“ Yes.”
“ Read that, then."
Mr. Crellan took the telegram and read :
“ Mellis did not sleep at chambers last night. Been
out of town for some days past. Kerrett."
Mr. Crellan looked up.
“Who's Kerrett ?” he asked.
“ Lad in my office; sharp fellow. You see,
Mellis didn't go to town after all. As a matter of
fact, I believe he was nearer this place than we
thought. You said he had a disagreement with
his uncle because of scientific practices which the
old gentleman considered dangerous and unpro-
fessional,' I think ?".
“ Yes, that was the case.”
“Ah, then the key to all the mystery of the will
is in this room."
" Where?”
“ There.” Hewitt pointed to the book-cases.
“Read Bernheim's Suggestive Therapeutics, and
one or two books of Heidenhain's and Björn-
ström's and you'll see the thing more clearly
than you can without them; but that would be
rather a long sort of job, so— but why, who's


130
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
this? Somebody coming up the drive in a fly,
isn't it?"
“Yes,” Mr. Crellan replied, looking out of the
window. Presently he added, “It's Cranley Mellis.”
“Ah,” said Hewitt, “he won't trouble us for a
little. I'll bet you a penny cake he goes first by
himself to the small staircase and tries that secret
recess. If you get a little way along the passage
you will be able to see him; but that will scarcely
matter-I can see you don't guess now what I am
driving at.”
“I don't in the least.”
“I told you the names of the books in which
you could read the matter up; but that would be
too long for the present purpose. The thing is
fairly well summarised, I see, in that encyclopædia
there in the corner. I have put a marker in volume ·
seven. Do you mind opening it at that place and
seeing for yourself ?”
Mr. Crellan, doubtful and bewildered, reached
the volume. It opened readily, and in the place
where it opened lay a blue foolscap envelope. The
old gentleman took the envelope, drew from it
a white paper, stared first at the paper, then at
Hewitt, then at the paper again, let the volume
slide from his lap, and gasped, -
“Why—why—it's the will!”
“Ah, so I thought," said Hewitt, catching the


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
131
book as it fell. “But don't lose this place in the
encyclopædia. Read the name of the article.
What is it?"
Mr. Crellan looked absent-mindedly at the title,
holding the will before him all the time. Then, me-
chanically, he read aloud the word, “ Hypnotism.”
“ Hypnotism it is,” Hewitt answered. “A dan-
gerous and terrible power in the hands of an un-
scrupulous man.”
“But—but how? I don't understand it. This-
this is the real will, I suppose ?”
“ Look at it; you know best.”
Mr. Crellan looked.
“Yes,” he said, “this certainly is the will. But
where did it come from?' It hasn't been in this book
all the time, has it?”
“No. Didn't I tell you I put it there myself as
a marker ? But come, you'll understand my explana-
tion better if I first read you a few lines from this
article. See here now :-
“Although hypnotism has power for good when
properly used by medical men, it is an exceedingly
dangerous weapon in the hands of the unskilful or
unscrupulous. Crimes have been committed by per-
sons who have been hypnotised. Just as a person
when hypnotised is rendered extremely impression-
able, and therefore capable of receiving beneficial
suggestions, so he is nearly as liable to receive sug-


132
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
gestions for evil; and it is quite possible for an
hypnotic subject, while under hypnotic influence, to
be impressed with the belief that he is to commit
some act after the influence is removed, and that act
he is safe to commit, acting at the time as an autom-
aton. Suggestions may be thus made of which
the subject, in his subsequent uninfluenced moments,
has no idea, but which he will proceed to carry out
automatically at the time appointed. In the case of
a complete state of hypnotism the subject has sub-
sequently no recollection whatever of what has hap-
pened. Persons whose will or nerve power has been
weakened by fear or other similar causes can be
hypnotised without consent on their part.'
“ There now, what do you make of that?"
“Why, do you mean that Miss Garth has been
hypnotised by_by_Cranley Mellis ?”
“I think that is the case; indeed, I am pretty
sure of it. Notice, on the occasion of each of his
last two visits, he was alone with Miss Garth for
some little time. On the evening following each of
those visits she does something which she afterwards
knows nothing about—something connected with
the disappearance of this will, the only thing stand-
ing between Mr. Mellis and the whole of his uncle's
property. Who could have been in a weaker nerv-
ous state than Miss Garth has been lately? Re-
member, too, on the visit of last Saturday, while


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
133
Miss Garth says she only showed Mellis to the door,
both you and the nurse speak of their being gone
some little time. Miss Garth must have forgotten
what took place then, when Mellis hypnotised her,
and impressed on her the suggestion that she should
take Mr. Holford's will that night, long after he-
Mellis—had gone, and when he could not be sus-
pected of knowing anything of it. Further, that
she should, at that time when her movements would
be less likely to be observed, secrete that will in a
place of hiding known only to himself.”
“Dear, dear, what a rascal! Do you really think
he did that ?"
“Not only that, but I believe he came here
yesterday morning while you were out to get the
will from the recess. The recess, by the bye, I ex-
pect he discovered by accident on one of his visits
(he has been here pretty often, I suppose, altogether),
and kept the secret in case it might be useful.
Yesterday, not finding the will there, he hypnotised
Miss Garth once again, and conveyed the suggestion
that, at midnight last night, she should take the will
from wherever she had put it and pass it to him
under the front door.”
“What, do you mean it was he you chased across
the grounds last night ?”.
“ That is a thing I am pretty certain of. If we
had Mr. Mellis's boot here we could make sure by


134 CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
comparing it with the piece of paper I cut out, as
you will remember, in the entrance hall. As we
have the will, though, that will scarcely be necessary.
What he will do now, I expect, will be to go to
the recess again on the vague chance of the .
will being there now, after all, assuming that his
second dose of mesmerism has somehow miscar-
ried. If Miss Garth were here he might try his
tricks again, and that is why I got you to send
her out."
“And where did you find the will ?”.
“Now you come to practical details. You will
remember that I asked about the handyman's tool-
house? Well, I paid it a visit at six o'clock this
morning, and found therein some very excellent
carpenter's tools in a chest. I took a selection of
them to the small staircase, and took out the tread
of a stair—the one that the pivoted framing-plank
rested on.”
“ And you found the will there?”.
“ The will, as I rather expected when I examined
the recess last night, had slipped down a rather wide
crack at the end of the stair timber, which, you
know, formed, so to speak, the floor of the recess.
The fact was, the stair-tread didn't quite reach as
far as the back of the recess. The opening wasn't
very distinct to see, but I soon felt it with my fin-
gers. When Miss Garth, in her hypnotic condition


THE HOLFORD WILL CASE.
135
re
on Saturday night, dropped the will into the recess,
it shoť straight to the back corner and fell down the
slit. That was why Mellis found it empty, and why
Miss Garth also found it empty on returning there
last night under hypnotic influence. You observed
her terrible state of nervous agitation when she
failed to carry out the command that haunted her.
It was frightful. Something like what happens to a
suddenly awakened somnambulist, perhaps. Any-
way, that is all over. I found the will under the end
of the stair-tread, and here it is. If you will come
to the small staircase now you shall see where the
paper slipped out of sight. Perhaps we shall meet
Mr. Mellis.”
“He's a scoundrel,” said Mr. Crellan. “It's a
pity we can't punish him.”
“That's impossible, of course. Where's your
proof? And if you had any I'm not sure that a
hypnotist is responsible at law for what his sub-
ject does. Even if he were, moving a will from
one part of the house to another is scarcely a
legal crime. The explanation I have given you
accounts entirely for the disturbed manner of Miss
Garth in the presence of Mellis. She merely felt
an indefinite sense of his power over her. Indeed,
there is all the possibility that, finding her an easy
subject, he had already practised his influence by
way of experiment. A hypnotist, as you will see


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
139
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 stub-
ble. More than once had I sat by the old gentle-
man 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 ist,
and before a gun had been fired at the Colonel's bit
of shooting. The Colonel himself we found con-
fined to the house with his foot on the familiar rest,
and though ourselves were the only guests, we man-
aged to do pretty well together. It was during this
short holiday that the case I have mentioned arose.


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
141
ford together, and were fraternally sent down to
gether in their second year, after enjoying a spell of
rustication in their first. The offence was never
specifically mentioned about Ratherby, but was ru-
moured of as something particularly outrageous.
It was at this time, sixteen years or thereabout
after the death of their father, that Henry and Rob-
ert 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 neces-
sary, 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 Ran-
worth. Henry and Robert Foster denounced their
prospective father-in-law as a fortune-hunter, a snuf-
fler, 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


142
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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 hus-
band'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


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
143
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 infatu-
ation that seemed to increase as her bodily strength
diminished.
Henry and Robert, as may be supposed, were
anything but silent in these circumstances. In-
deed, 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


144.
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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 un-
observed 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 exas-
peration to Sneathy, and aggravated her mother's


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
145
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 immedi-
ately running home. This assault had to be com-
pounded for by a payment of fifty pounds. And
then Henry and Robert Foster received a most
urgent letter from their sister requesting their im-
mediate 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
new


146
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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 in-
cident 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 foot-
path.
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 Ran-
worth 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


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
147
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 re-
trieving 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 sup-
pose, 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 in-
quiries, 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 hang-
ing—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


148
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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 or-
dering their apprehension. Indeed, they were with


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
140
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, judg-
ing 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 sup-
plant 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 unfre-
quented 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


150
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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 coạch-
man, 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 ascer-
tained that they had not then returned. Then, leav-
ing 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 foot-
marks 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


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
151
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 hap-
pen to drop on the same spot as the marks in the
middle they cover them. Plainly they are the foot-
marks 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 foot-marks—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 over-


CHRONICLES
T MARTIN HEWITT.
took 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 stream-
let, 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 be-
yond this, and to the left, the body lay on a grassy
knoll under the limb of a tree, from which still de-
pended 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,


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
153
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 examina-
tion. “ 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


154.
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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 for-
ward, 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 lappel of the coat and atten-
tively 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 con-
sidered that valuable time was being wasted over
irrelevant trivialities.


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
155
he spokedy, is thering them to
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 al-
ready.”
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. Hard-
wick. 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 evi-
dence 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; plain-
ly 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 con-
siderations, each a complete case in itself, the Fos-
ters 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
II


156 CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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 proba-
bly 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 communi-
cated with the police?"
"I wired to Shopperton at once, as soon as I
heard of the matter. It's a twelve miles drive, but


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
157
I wonder the police have not arrived yet. They
can't be long; I don't know where the village con-
stable 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 im-
possible. 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.” Ard
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 foot-
marks. Two of these (a pair), the newest and the
most distinct, Hewitt studied carefully, and meas.
ured each direction.
“Notice these marks,” he said. “They may be


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
150
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


160
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
161
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 fat bottle to hold it in, as well as a
loaf of bread and some cheese, which we carried
away wrapped in paper.


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND. 163
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 hav-
ing 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 !”*
The men on the ground took no notice, but con-
tinued to stare doggedly before them. The man
working at the tent looked round quickly for a mo-
ment, 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.” |
The old man smiled and shook hands, though
*“Good luck, brothers !”
+ “How do you do, father? Give me your hand.”


166
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
change, and though he praised it with native polite-
ness, and smoked the pipe through, I could see that
my Hignett mixture was poor stuff in his estima-
tion, 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* he comes
from—it's from Roumania, eh? Perhaps the Wal-
lachian part ?"
: 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,t and he comes with us to shoe the gries I
and mend the vardoes.# But he is with us, and so he
is a Lee.”
The talk and the smoke went on, and presently
* Country.
+ Smith.
Horses.
# Vans.


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
167
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 under-
stand, had begged a piece of cord from one of the
men, we left in a chorus of kooshto rardies.*
By this time it was nearly ten o'clock. We
where we had bought the whisky. Here Hewitt,
after some little trouble, succeeded in hiring a vil-
lage 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 suffi.
ciently 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 instru-
ments,
* Good-night.


168
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
"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 back-
ward. 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


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
169
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 de-
posited 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


170
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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 stealth-
ily 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 warn-
ingly. 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


172
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“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 Aung him without
wasting time or tenderness, to the intense consterna-
tion 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 my-
self 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,


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
173
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 re-
marked, “ but here's the criminal.”
The man only looked down, with a sulkily im-
penetrable 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 ?”* asked Hewitt, in the loud, clear
tone one instinctively adopts in talking to a foreigner,
“ Keckeno jinny ?"
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
*“Not understand ?”


174.
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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,* eh ?”
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 cen-
tury, 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
* Fire-hand.


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND. 175
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 ap-
proaches 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 hand-
cuffs 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:


176
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“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 over-
heard 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-be-
fore 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


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
179
“On the other hand, a man in Sneathy's state
(assuming him, for the moment, to be mad and con-
templating suicide) would walk straight along the
centre of the path, taking no note of mud or any-
thing 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 foõtmarks were almost un-
discoverable, although I am often able to dis-
cover 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


CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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-an-
other hint at suicide.
“But then arose the objection that you men-
tioned 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—


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
181
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 remem-
ber 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 re-


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND. 183
“Brett and I left you and traversed the water-
course, 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


184.
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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 super-
stition 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. Hard-
wick.
“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 mediæval 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


THE CASE OF THE MISSING HAND.
185
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 atro-
cious 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 de-
cision, 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


186
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
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.


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
There were several of the larger London banks
and insurance offices from which Hewitt held a sort
of general retainer as detective adviser, in fulfil-
ment of which he was regularly consulted as to the
measures to be taken in different cases of fraud,
forgery, theft, and so forth, which it might be the
misfortune of the particular firms to encounter.
The more important and intricate of these cases
were placed in his hands entirely, with separate
commissions, in the usual way. One of the most
important companies of the sort was the General
Guarantee Society, an insurance corporation which,
among other risks, took those of the integrity of
secretaries, clerks, and cashiers. In the case of a
cash-box elopement on the part of any person
guaranteed by the society, the directors were natu-
rally anxious for a speedy capture of the culprit,
and more especially of the booty, before too much
of it was spent, in order to lighten the claim upon
their funds, and in work of this sort Hewitt was at
187
13


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
189
quickly be taken for the man's apprehension, and in
the recovery, at any rate, of as much of the booty
as possible.
A smart hansom brought Hewitt to Thread-
needle Street in a bare quarter of an hour, and there
a few minutes' talk with the manager, Mr. Lyster,
put him in possession of the main facts of the case,
which appeared to be simple. Charles William Laker
was twenty-five years of age, and had been in the
employ of Messrs. Liddle, Neal & Liddle for some-
thing more than seven years—since he left school,
in fact--and until the previous day there had been
nothing in his conduct to complain of. His duties
as walk-clerk consisted in making a certain round,
beginning at about half-past ten each morning.
There were a certain number of the more important
banks between which and Messrs. Liddle, Neal &
Liddle there were daily transactions, and a few
smaller semi-private banks and merchant firms act-
ing as financial agents, with whom there was busi-
ness intercourse of less importance and regularity;
and each of these, as necessary, he visited in turn,
collecting cash due on bills and other instruments of
a like nature. He carried a wallet, fastened securely
to his person by a chain, and this wallet contained
the bills and the cash. Usually at the end of his
round, when all his bills had been converted into
cash, the wallet held very large sums. His work


CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
and responsibilities, in fine, were those common to
walk-clerks in all banks.
On the day of the robbery he had started out as
usual-possibly a little earlier than was customary-
and the bills and other securities in his possession
represented considerably more than £15,000. It
had been ascertained that he had called in the usual
way at each establishment on the round, and had
transacted his business at the last place by about a
quarter-past one, being then, without doubt, in pos-
session of cash to the full value of the bills nego-
tiated. After that, Mr. Lyster said, yesterday's re-
port was that nothing more had been heard of him.
But this morning there had been a message to the
effect that he had been traced out of the country,
to Calais, at least, it was thought. The directors of
the society wished Hewitt to take the case in hand
personally and at once, with a view of recovering
what was possible from the plunder by way of sal-
vage; also, of course, of finding Laker, for it is an
important moral gain to guarantee societies, as an
example, if a thief is caught and punished. There-
fore Hewitt and Mr. Lyster, as soon as might be,
made for Messrs. Liddle, Neal & Liddle's, that the
investigation might be begun.
The bank premises were quite near—in Leaden-
hall Street. Having arrived there, Hewitt and Mr.
Lyster made their way to the firm's private rooms.


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
101
As they were passing an outer waiting-room, Hewitt
noticed two women. One, the elder, in widow's weeds,
was sitting with her head bowed in her hand over a
small writing-table. Her face was not visible, but
her whole attitude was that of a person overcome
with unbearable grief; and she sobbed quietly. The
other was a young woman of twenty-two or twenty-
three. Her thick black veil revealed no more than
that her features were small and regular, and that
her face was pale and drawn. She stood with a
hand on the elder woman's shoulder, and she quickly
turned her head away as the two men entered.
Mr. Neal, one of the partners, received them in
his own room. “Good-morning, Mr. Hewitt,” he
said, when Mr. Lyster had introduced the detective.
“ This is a serious business—very. I think I am
sorrier for Laker himself than for anybody else, our-
selves included—or, at any rate, I am sorrier for his
mother. She is waiting now to see Mr. Liddle, as
soon as he arrives—Mr. Liddle has known the family
for a long time. Miss Shaw is with her, too, poor
girl. She is a governess, or something of that sort,
and I believe she and Laker were engaged to be
married. It's all very sad.”
“Inspector Plummer, I understand,” Hewitt re-
marked, “has the affair in hand, on behalf of the
police ?”
“Yes,” Mr. Neal replied; "in fact, he's here


192
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
now, going through the contents of Laker's desk,
and so forth; he thinks it possible Laker may have
had accomplices. Will you see him ?”
“Presently. Inspector Plummer and I are old
friends. We met last, I think, in the case of the
Stanway cameo, some months ago. But, first, will
you tell me how long Laker has been a walk-
clerk ?”
“Barely four months, although he has been with
us altogether seven years. He was promoted to the
walk soon after the beginning of the year.”
“Do you know anything of his habits—what he
used to do in his spare time, and so forth ?”.
“Not a great deal. He went in for boating, I
believe, though I have heard it whispered that he
had one or two more expensive tastes-expensive,
that is, for a young man in his position,” Mr. Neal
explained, with a dignified wave of the hand that he
peculiarly affected. He was a stout old gentleman,
and the gesture suited him.
“You have had no reason to suspect him of dis-
honesty before, I take it ?"
“Oh, no. He made a wrong return once, I be-
lieve, that went for some time undetected, but it
turned out, after all, to be a clerical error—a mere
clerical error.”
“Do you know anything of his associates out of
the office ?"


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
193
“ No, how should I ? I believe Inspector Plum-
mer has been making inquiries as to that, however,
of the other clerks. Here he is, by the bye, I ex-
pect. Come in!”
It was Plummer who had knocked, and he came
in at Mr. Neal's call. He was a middle-sized, small-
eyed, impenetrable-looking man, as yet of no great
reputation in the force. Some of my readers may
remember his connection with that case, so long a
public mystery, that I have elsewhere fully set forth
and explained under the title of “The Stanway
Cameo Mystery." Plummer carried his billy-cock
hat in one hand and a few papers in the other.
He gave Hewitt good-morning, placed his hat on a
chair, and spread the papers on the table.
“ There's not a great deal here,” he said, “but
one thing's plain-Laker had been betting. See
here, and here, and here "-he took a few letters
from the bundle in his hand—“two letters from a
bookmaker about settling-wonder he trusted a
clerk—several telegrams from tipsters, and a letter
from some friend-only signed by initials—asking
Laķer to put a sovereign on a horse for the friend
with his own.' I'll keep these, I think. It may
be worth while to see that friend, if we can find
him. Ah, we often find it's betting, don't we,
Mr. Hewitt ? Meanwhile, there's no news from
France yet.”


194
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“ You are sure that is where he is gone ?” asked
Hewitt.
“Well, I'll tell you what we've done as yet.
First, of course, I went round to all the banks.
There was nothing to be got from that. The
cashiers all knew him by sight, and one was a
personal friend of his. He had called as usual,
said nothing in particular, cashed his bills in the
ordinary way, and finished up at the Eastern
Consolidated Bank at about a quarter-past one.
So far there was nothing whatever. But I had
started two or three men meanwhile making in-
quiries at the railway stations, and so on. I had
scarcely left the Eastern Consolidated when one of
them came after me with news. He had tried Palm-
er's Tourist Office, although that seemed an un-
likely place, and there struck the track.”
“ Had he been there ? "
“ Not only had he been there, but he had taken
a tourist ticket for France. It was quite a smart
move, in a way. You see it was the sort of
ticket that lets you do pretty well what you like;
you have the choice of two or three different routes
to begin with, and you can break your journey
where you please, and make all sorts of variations.
So that a man with a ticket like that, and a few
hours' start, could twist about on some remote
branch route, and strike off in another direction


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
195
altogether, with a new ticket, from some out-of-the-
way place, while we were carefully sorting out and
inquiring along the different routes he might have
taken. Not half a bad move for a new hand; but
he made one bad mistake, as new hands always do
-as old hands do, in fact, very often. He was
fool enough to give his own name, C. Laker!
Although that didn't matter much, as the descrip-
tion was enough to fix him. There he was, wallet
and all, just as he had come from the Eastern
Consolidated Bank. He went straight from there
to Palmer's, by the bye, and probably in a cab.
We judge that by the time. He left the Eastern
Consolidated at a quarter-past one, and was at
Palmer's by twenty-five-past-ten minutes. The
clerk at Palmer's remembered the time because he
was anxious to get out to his lunch, and kept look-
ing at the clock, expecting another clerk in to
relieve him. Laker didn't take much in the way
of luggage, I fancy. We inquired carefully at the
stations, and got the porters to remember the pas-
sengers for whom they had been carrying luggage,
but none appeared to have had any dealings with
our man. That, of course, is as one would expect.
He'd take as little as possible with him, and buy
what he wanted on the way, or when he'd reached
his hiding-place. Of course, I wired to Calais (it
was a Dover to Calais route ticket) and sent a


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
197
had called during the morning, as they did every
morning, and the only circumstances of the visit
that he could say anything definite about were those
recorded in figures in the books. He did not know
Laker's name till Plummer had mentioned it in mak-
ing inquiries on the previous afternoon. As far as ·
he could remember, Laker behaved much as usual,
though really he did not notice much; he looked
chiefly at the bills. He described Laker in a way
that corresponded with the photograph that Hewitt
had borrowed from the bank; a young man with a
brown moustache and ordinary-looking, fairly regular
face, dressing much as other clerks dressed—tall hat,
black cutaway coat, and so on. The numbers of the
notes handed over had already been given to Inspect-
or Plummer, and these Hewitt did not trouble about.
The next bank was in Cornhill, and here the
cashier was a personal friend of Laker's—at any
rate, an acquaintance—and he remembered a little
more. Laker's manner had been quite as usual, he
said ; certainly he did not seem preoccupied or ex-
cited in his manner. He spoke for a moment or
two—of being on the river on Sunday, and so on-
and left in his usual way.
“ Can you remember everything he said ?” Hewitt
asked. “ If you can tell me, I should like to know
exactly what he did and said to the smallest par-
ticular.”


200
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
two turnings, opened the lid above Hewitt's head,
and said, “ That there other keb is a-follerin' us, sir,
an' keepin' about even distance all along."
“All right; that's what I wanted to know. Pal-
mer's now.”
At Palmer's the clerk who had attended to Laker
remembered him very well, and described him. He
also remembered the wallet, and thought he remem-
bered the umbrella—was practically sure of it, in
fact, upon reflection. He had no record of the
name given, but remembered it distinctly to be
Laker. As a matter of fact, names were never asked
in such a transaction, but in this case Laker ap-
peared to be ignorant of the usual procedure, as
well as in a great hurry, and asked for the ticket
and gave his name all in one breath, probably as-
suming that the name would be required.
Hewitt got back to his cab, and stated for Char-
ing Cross. The cabman once more lifted the lid and
informed him that the hansom with the veiled wom-
an in it was again following, having waited while
Hewitt had visited Palmer's. At Charing Cross
Hewitt discharged his cab and walked straight to
the lost property office. The man in charge knew
him very well, for his business had carried him there
frequently before.
“I fancy an umbrella was lost in the station
yesterday,” Hewitt said. “It was a new umbrella,


202
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
side and out, he handed it back to the man, who had
not observed the incident of the scrap of paper.
“That will do, thanks," he said. “I only wanted
to take a peep at it—just a small matter connected
with a little case of mine. Good-morning.”
He turned suddenly and saw, gazing at him with
a terrified expression from a door behind, the face
of the woman who had followed him in the cab.
The veil was lifted, and he caught but a mere glance
of the face ere it was suddenly withdrawn. He
stood for a moment to allow the woman time to re-
treat, and then left the station and walked toward
his office, close by.
Scarcely thirty yards along the Strand he met
Plummer.
" I'm going to make some much closer inquiries
all down the line as far as Dover,” Plummer said.
“ They wire from Calais that they have no clue as
yet, and I mean to make quite sure, if I can, that
Laker hasn't quietly slipped off the line somewhere
between here and Dover. There's one very peculiar
thing," Plummer added confidentially. “Did you
see the two women who were waiting to see a mem-
ber of the firm at Liddle, Neal & Liddle's ?”.
“Yes. Laker's mother and his fiancée, I was
told.”
“That's right. Well, do you know that girl-
Shaw her name is—has been shadowing me ever


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
205
once, because the Chronicle columns are rather nar-
row.”
“Never mind—I'll send for them all.” He rang,
and sent Kerrett for a copy of each morning paper
of the previous day. Then he took from a large
wardrobe cupboard a decent but well-worn and
rather roughened tall hat. Also a coat a little worn
and shiny on the collar. He exchanged these for his
own hat and coat, and then substituted an old neck-
tie for his own clean white one, and encased his legs
in mud-spotted leggings. This done, he produced a
very large and thick pocket-book, fastened by a
broad elastic band, and said, “Well, what do you
think of this? Will it do for Queen's taxes, or
sanitary inspection, or the gas, or the water-sup-
ply?"
“Very well indeed, I should say,” I replied.
“What's the case ?”
“Oh, I'll tell you all about that when it's over-
no time now. Oh, here you are, Kerrett. By the
bye, Kerrett, I'm going out presently by the back
way. Wait for about ten minutes or a quarter of
an hour after I am gone, and then just go across the
road and speak to that lady in black, with the veil,
who is waiting in that little foot-passage opposite.
Say Mr. Martin Hewitt sends his compliments, and
he advises her not to wait, as he has already left his
office by another door, and has been gone some


206
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
little time. That's all; it would be a pity to keep
the poor woman waiting all day for nothing. Now
the papers. Daily News, Standard, Telegraph, Chron-
icle—yes, here it is, in the Chronicle."
The whole advertisement read thus:-
VOB.-H.R. Shop roast. You ist. Then to-
1 night. 02. 2nd top 3rd L. No. 197 red bl.
straight mon. One at a time.
“What's this,” I asked, “a cryptogram?"
“I'll see,” Hewitt answered. “But I won't tell
you anything about it till afterwards, so you get
your lunch. Kerrett, bring the directory.”
This was all I actually saw of this case myself,
and I have written the rest in its proper order from
Hewitt's information, as I have written some other
cases entirely.
To resume at the point where, for the time I lost
sight of the matter. Hewitt left by the back way
and stopped an empty cab as it passed. “ Abney
Park Cemetery” was his direction to the driver. In
little more than twenty minutes the cab was branch-
ing off down the Essex Road on its way to Stoke
Newington, and in twenty minutes more Hewitt
stopped it in Church Street, Stoke Newington. He
walked through a street or two, and then down
another, the houses of which he scanned carefully
as he passed. Opposite one which stood by itself


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
207
he stopped, and, making a pretence of consulting
and arranging his large pocket-book, he took
a good look at the house. It was rather larger,
neater, and more pretentious than the others in
the street, and it had a natty little coach-house
just visible up the side entrance. There were
red blinds hung with heavy lace in the front
windows, and behind one of these blinds Hew-
itt was able to catch the glint of a heavy gas chan-
delier.
He stepped briskly up the front steps and
knocked sharply at the door. “Mr. Merston ?” he
asked, pocket-book in hand, when a neat parlour-
maid opened the door.
“ Yes."
“Ah!” Hewitt stepped into the hall and pulled
off his hat; “it's only the meter. There's been
a deal of gas running away somewhere here, and
I'm just looking to see if the meters are right.
Where is it?”
The girl hesitated. “ I'll—I'll ask master," she
said.
“Very well. I don't want to take it away,
you know_only to give it a tap or two, and so
ICLCIS dl
on."
. The girl retired to the back of the hall, and
without taking her eyes off Martin Hewitt, gave
his message to some invisible person in a back


208
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
room, whence came a growling reply of “All
right.”
Hewitt followed the girl to the basement, ap-
parently looking straight before him, but in reality
taking in every detail of the place. The gas meter
was in a very large lumber cupboard under the
kitchen stairs. The girl opened the door and lit
a candle. The meter stood on the floor, which was
littered with hampers and boxes and odd sheets of
brown paper. But a thing that at once arrested
Hewitt's attention was a garment of some sort of
bright blue cloth, with large brass buttons, which
was lying in a tumbled heap in a corner, and ap-
peared to be the only thing in the place that was
not covered with dust. Nevertheless, Hewitt took
no apparent notice of it, but stooped down and
solemnly tapped the meter three times with his
pencil, and listened with great gravity, placing his
ear to the top. Then he shook his head and tapped
again. At length he said :-
“It's a bit doubtful. I'll just get you to light
the gas in the kitchen a moment. Keep your hand
to the burner, and when I call out shut it off at
once; see?"
The girl turned and entered the kitchen, and
Hewitt immediately seized the blue coat-for a coat
it was. It had a dull red piping in the seams, and
was of the swallow-tail pattern-a livery coat, in
a mon


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
200
fact. He held it for a moment before him, examin-
ing its pattern and colour, and then rolled it up and
flung it again into the corner.
“ Right!” he called to the servant. “ Shut
off !”
The girl emerged from the kitchen as he left
the cupboard.
“Well,” she asked, “ are you satisfied now?"
“Quite satisfied, thank you,” Hewitt replied.
“ Is it all right?" she continued, jerking her
hand toward the cupboard.
“Well, no, it isn't; there's something wrong
there, and I'm glad I came. You can tell Mr.
Merston, if you like, that I expect his gas bill will
be a good deal less next quarter.” And there was
a suspicion of a chuckle in Hewitt's voice as he
crossed the hall to leave. For a gas inspector is
pleased when he finds at length what he has been
searching for.
Things had fallen out better than Hewitt had
dared to expect. He saw the key of the whole
mystery in that blue coat; for it was the uniform
coat of the hall porters at one of the banks that he
had visited in the morning, though which one he
could not for the moment remember. He en-
tered the nearest post-office and despatched a
telegram to Plummer, giving certain directions
and asking the inspector to meet him; then he


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
211
nearer the bank, which was fairly clean, and seemed
to have been quite lately washed. The door, too, of
this house was cleaner than that of the other, though
the paint was worn. Hewitt reached and fingered a
hook driven into the left-hand doorpost about six
feet from the ground. It was new, and not at all
rusted; also a tiny splinter had been displaced when
the hook was driven in, and clean wood showed at
the spot.
Having observed these things, Hewitt stepped
back and read at the bottom of the big board the
name, “Winsor & Weekes, Surveyors and Auction-
eers, Abchurch Lane." Then he stepped into Lom-
bard Street.
Two hansoms pulled up near the post-office, and
out of the first stepped Inspector Plummer and
another man. This man and the two who alighted
from the second hansom were unmistakably plain-
clothes constables—their air, gait, and boots pro-
claimed it.
“What's all this?” demanded Plummer, as Hewitt
approached.
“You'll soon see, I think. But, first, have you
put the watch on No. 197, Hackworth Road?”
“Yes; nobody will get away from there alone."
“Very good. I am going into Abchurch Lane
for a few minutes. Leave your men out here, but
just go round into the court by Buller, Clayton &


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
213
immediately produced the key and accompanied
Hewitt to the spot.
“ I think you'd better have your men handy,"
Hewitt remarked to Plummer when they reached
the door, and a whistle quickly brought the men over.
The key was inserted in the lock and turned, but
the door would not open; the bolt was fastened at the
bottom. Hewitt stooped and looked under the door.
“It's a drop bolt,” he said. “Probably the man
who left last let it fall loose, and then banged the
door, so that it fell into its place. I must try my
best with a wire or a piece of string."
A wire was brought, and with some maneuvring
Hewitt contrived to pass it round the bolt, and lift
it little by little, steadying it with the blade of a
pocket-knife. When at length the bolt was raised
out of the hole, the knife-blade was slipped under
it, and the door swung open.
They entered. The door of the little office just
inside stood open, but in the office there was noth-
ing, except a board a couple of feet long in a corner.
Hewitt stepped across and lifted this, turning its
downward face toward Plummer. On it, in fresh
white paint on a black ground, were painted the
words-
* BULLER, CLAYTON, LADDS & Co.,
TEMPORARY ENTRANCE."


214.
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
Hewitt turned to Winsor & Weekes's clerk and
asked, “ The man who took this room called himself
Westley, didn't he ?”
“Yes.”
“Youngish man, clean-shaven, and well-dressed ?”
“Yes, he was."
“I fancy,” Hewitt said, turning to Plummer, “I
fancy an old friend of yours is in this—Mr. Sam
Gunter."
“What, the ‘Hoxton Yob'?"
“I think it's possible he's been Mr. Westley for a
bit, and somebody else for another bit. But let's
come to the cellar."
Winsor & Weekes's clerk led the way down a
steep flight of steps into a dark underground corri-
dor, wherein they lighted their way with many suc-
cessive matches. Soon the corridor made a turn to
the right, and as the party passed the turn, there
came from the end of the passage before them a
fearful yell.
“ Help! help! Open the door! I'm going mad
-mad! O my God!”
And there was a sound of desperate beating
from the inside of the cellar door at the extreme
end. The men stopped, startled.
“Come," said Hewitt, “more matches !” and he
rushed to the door. It was fastened with a bar and
padlock.


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
215
“Let me out, for God's sake!” came the
voice, sick and hoarse, from the inside. “Let me
out!"
“All right!” Hewitt shouted. “We have come
for you. Wait a moment."
The voice sank into a sort of sobbing croon, and
Hewitt tried several keys from his own bunch on
the padlock. None fitted. He drew from his
pocket the wire he had used for the bolt of the
front door, straightened it out, and made a sharp
bend at the end.
“Hold a match close," he ordered shortly, and
one of the men obeyed. Three or four attempts
were necessary, and several different bendings of the
wire were effected, but in the end Hewitt picked the
lock, and flung open the door.
From within a ghastly figure fell forward among
them fainting, and knocked out the matches.
“Hullo!” cried Plummer. “Hold up! Who
are you?”
“Let's get him up into the open,” said Hewitt.
“He can't tell you who he is for a bit, but I be-
lieve he's Laker.”
“ Laker! What, here?”
“ I think so. Steady up the steps. Don't bump
him. He's pretty sore already, I expect.”
Truly the man was a pitiable sight. His hair
and face were caked in dust and blood, and his


216
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
finger-nails were torn and bleeding. Water was sent
for at once, and brandy.
“Well,” said Plummer hazily, looking first at the
unconscious prisoner and then at Hewitt, “but what
about the swag?"
“You'll have to find that yourself,” Hewitt re-
plied. “I think my share of the case is about fin-
ished. I only act for the Guarantee Society, you
know, and if Laker's proved innocent— "
“Innocent! How?”.
“ Well, this is what took place, as near as I can
figure it. You'd better undo his collar, I think”-
this to the men. “What I believe has happened is
this. There has been a very clever and carefully
prepared conspiracy here, and Laker has not been
the criminal, but the victim."
“Been robbed himself, you mean? But how ?
Where ?"
“Yesterday morning, before he had been to more
than three banks—here, in fact."
“But then how? You're all wrong. We know
he made the whole round, and did all the collection.
And then Palmer's office, and all, and the umbrella ;
why- "
The man lay still unconscious. “Don't raise his
head,” Hewitt said. “And one of you had best
fetch a doctor. He's had a terrible shock.” Then
turning to Plummer he went on, “As to how they


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
217
managed the job I'll tell you what I think. First it
struck some very clever person that a deal of money
might be got by robbing a walk-clerk from a bank.
This clever person was one of a clever gang of
thieves-perhaps the Hoxton Row gang, as I think
I hinted. Now you know quite as well as I do that
such a gang will spend any amount of time over a
job that promises a big haul, and that for such a job
they can always command the necessary capital.
There are many most respectable persons living in
good style in the suburbs whose chief business lies
in financing such ventures, and taking the chief
share of the proceeds. Well, this is their plan, care-
fully and intelligently carried out. They watch
Laker, observe the round he takes, and his habits.
They find that there is only one of the clerks with
whom he does business that he is much acquainted
with, and that this clerk is in a bank which is com-
monly second in Laker's round. The sharpest man
among them—and I don't think there's a man in
London could do this as well as young Sam Gunter
-studies Laker's dress and habits just as an actor
studies a character. They take this office and cel-
lar, as we have seen, because it is next door to a bank
whose front entrance is being altered—a fact which
Laker must know from his daily visits. The smart
man-Gunter, let us say, and I have other reasons
for believing it to be he—makes up precisely like


218
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT,
Laker, false moustache, dress, and everything, and
waits here with the rest of the gang. One of the
gang is dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons,
like a hall-porter in Buller's bank. Do you see?”
“ Yes, I think so. It's pretty clear now.”
“A confederate watches at the top of the court,
and the moment Laker turns in from Cornhill-
having already been, mind, at the only bank where
he was so well known that the disguised thief would
not have passed muster—as soon as he turns in
from Cornhill, I say, a signal is given, and that
board ”-pointing to that with the white letters,
“is hung on the hook in the doorpost. The sham
porter stands beside it, and as Laker approaches
says, “This way in, sir, this morning. The front
way's shut for the alterations.' Laker, suspecting
nothing, and supposing that the firm have made a
temporary entrance through the empty house, en-
ters. He is seized when well along the corridor,
the board is taken down and the door shut. Proba-
bly he is stunned by a blow on the head-see the
blood now. They take his wallet and all the cash
he has already collected. Gunter takes the wallet
and also the umbrella, since it has Laker's initials,
and is therefore distinctive. He simply completes
the walk in the character of Laker, beginning with
Buller, Clayton & Ladds's just round the corner. It
is nothing but routine work, which is quickly done,


220
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
so
they'll never desert him. They've been following
us about with a feeble, vague sort of hope of
being able to baffle us in some way or help him
if we caught him, or something, poor things.
Did you ever hear of a real woman who'd desert
a son or a lover merely because he was a crim-
inal ? But here's the doctor. When he's attended
to him will you let your men take Laker home?
I must hurry and report to the Guarantee Society,
I think.”
“But,” said the perplexed Plummer, “where
did you get your clue? You must have had a tip
from some one, you know—you can't have done it
by clairvoyance. What gave you the tip ?"
“ The Daily Chronicle."
“ The what ?"
“The Daily Chronicle. Just take a look at the
'agony column' in yesterday morning's issue, and
read the message to “Yob'—to Gunter, in fact.
That's all."
By this time a cab was waiting in Lombard
Street, and two of Plummer's men, under the
doctor's directions, carried Laker to it. No sooner,
however, were they in the court than the two
watching women threw themselves hysterically
upon Laker, and it was long before they could be
persuaded that he was not being taken to gaol.
The mother shrieked aloud, “My boy—my boy!


THE CASE OF LAKER, ABSCONDED.
221
Don't take him! Oh, don't take him! They've
killed my boy! Look at his head-oh, his head!”
and wrestled desperately with the men, while
Hewitt attempted to soothe her, and promised to
allow her to go in the cab with her son if she
would only be quiet. The younger woman made
no noise, but she held one of Laker's limp hands
in both hers.
Hewitt and I dined together that evening, and
he gave me a full account of the occurrences which
I have here set down. Still, when he was finished
I was not able to see clearly by what process of
reasoning he had arrived at the conclusions that
gave him the key to the mystery, nor did I
understand the “ agony column" message, and I
said so.
“In the beginning,” Hewitt explained, “the
thing that struck me as curious was the fact that
Laker was said to have given his own name at
Palmer's in buying his ticket. Now, the first
thing the greenest and newest criminal thinks of
is changing his name, so that the giving of his
own name seemed unlikely to begin with. Still,
he might have made such a mistake, as Plummer
suggested when he said that criminals usually
make a mistake somewhere—as they do, in fact.
Still, it was the least likely mistake I could think
of—especially as he actually didn't wait to be


222
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
asked for his name, but blurted it out when it
wasn't really wanted. And it was conjoined with
another rather curious mistake, or what would have
been a mistake if the thief were Laker. Why
should he conspicuously display his 'wallet-such
a distinctive article—for the clerk to see and
note? Why rather had he not got rid of it before
showing himself ? Suppose it should be some-
body personating Laker ? In any case I deter-
mined not to be prejudiced by what I had heard
of Laker's betting. A man may bet without being
a thief.
“But, again, supposing it were Laker? Might
he not have given his name, and displayed his
wallet, and so on, while buying a ticket for
France, in order to draw pursuit after himself
in that direction while he made off in another,
in another name, and disguised ? Each supposi-
tion was plausible. And, in either case, it might
happen that whoever was laying this trail would
probably lay it a little farther. Charing Cross
was the next point, and there I went. I already
had it from Plummer that Laker had not been
recognised there. Perhaps the trail had been
laid in some other manner. Something left be-
hind with Laker's name on it, perhaps? I at
once thought of the umbrella with his monogram,
and, making a long shot, asked for it at the lost


224
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
was the number, 197, and red bl.,' which would be
extremely likely to mean ‘red blinds,' by way of
clearly distinguishing the house. And then the plan
of the thing was plain. You have noticed, probably,
that the map of London which accompanies the Post
Office Directory is divided, for convenience of refer-
ence, into numbered squares ?”.
“Yes. The squares are denoted by letters along
the top margin and figures down the side. So that
if you consult the directory, and find a place marked
as being in D 5, for instance, you find vertical divi-
sions D, and run your finger down it till it intersects
horizontal division 5, and there you are.”
“Precisely. I got my Post Office Directory, and
looked for‘O 2.' It was in North London, and took
in parts of Abney Park Cemetery and Clissold Park;
6 and top' was the next sign. Very well, I counted
the second street intersecting the top of the square
-counting, in the usual way, from the left. That
was Lordship Road. Then, '3rd L. From the
point where Lordship Road crossed the top of the
square, I ran my finger down the road till it came
to 3rd L,' or, in other words, the third turning on
the left-Hackworth Road. So there we were, un-
less my guesses were altogether wrong. 'Straight
mon' probably meant straight moniker '—that is to
say, the proper name, a thief's real name, in contra-
distinction to that he may assume. I turned over


226
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
up, on the evening after the robbery, doubtless by
the thief who had used it, and flung carelessly into
the handiest cupboard. That was this gang's mis-
take."
“Well, I congratulate you,” I said. “I hope
they'll catch the rascals.”
“I rather think they will, now they know where
to look. They can scarcely miss Merston, anyway.
There has been very little to go upon in this case,
but I stuck to the thread, however slight, and it
brought me through. The rest of the case, of
course, is Plummer's. It was a peculiarity of my
commission that I could equally well fulfil it by
catching the man with all the plunder, or by proving
him innocent. Having done the latter, my work was
at an end, but I left it where Plummer will be able
to finish the job handsomely.”
Plummer did. Sam Gunter, Merston, and one
accomplice were taken—the first and last were well
known to the police—and were identified by Laker.
Merston, as Hewitt had suspected, had kept the
lion's share for himself, so that altogether, with
what was recovered from him and the other two,
nearly £11,000 was saved for Messrs. Liddle, Neal
& Liddle. Merston, when taken, was in the act of
packing up to take a holiday abroad, and there cash
his notes, which were found, neatly packed in sepa-
rate thousands, in his portmanteau. As Hewitt had


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER.
I HAVE already said in more than one place that
Hewitt's personal relations with the members of the
London police force were of a cordial character.
In the course of his work it has frequently been
Hewitt's hap to learn of matters on which the police
were glad of information, and that information was
always passed on at once; and so long as no
infringement of regulations or damage to public
service were involved, Hewitt could always rely on
a return in kind.
It was with a message of a useful sort that
Hewitt one day dropped into Vine Street police-
station and asked for a particular inspector, who
was not in. Hewitt sat and wrote a note, and by
way of making conversation said to the inspector on
duty, “ Anything very startling this way to-day?”.
“Nothing very startling, perhaps, as yet,” the
inspector replied. “But one of our chaps picked up
rather an odd customer a little while ago. Lunatic
of some sort, I should think-in fact, I've sent for
228


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 229
the doctor to see him. He's a foreigner—a French-
man, I believe. He seemed horribly weak and
faint; but the oddest thing occurred when one of the
men, thinking he might be hungry, brought in some
bread. He went into fits of terror at the sight of it,
and wouldn't be pacified till they took it away
again.”
“That was strange.”
“Odd, wasn't it? And he was hungry too.
They brought him some more a little while after,
and he didn't funk it a bit,-pitched into it, in fact,
like anything, and ate it all with some cold beef.
It's the way with some lunatics—never the same five
minutes together. He keeps crying like a baby,
and saying things we can't understand. As it hap-
pens, there's nobody in just now who speaks
French.”
“I speak French," Hewitt replied. “Shall I try
him?"
“Certainly, if you will. He's in the men's room
below. They've been making him as comfortable as
possible by the fire until the doctor comes. He's a
long time. I expect he's got a case on."
Hewitt found his way to the large mess-room,
where three or four policemen in their shirt-sleeves
were curiously regarding a young man of very dis-
ordered appearance who sat on a chair by the fire.
He was pale, and exhibited marks of bruises on his


230
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
face, while over one eye was a scarcely healed cut.
His figure was small and slight, his coat was torn,
and he sat with a certain indefinite air of shivering
suffering. He started and looked round apprehen-
sively as Hewitt entered. Hewitt bowed smilingly,
wished him good-day, speaking in French, and asked
him if he spoke the language.
The man looked up with a dull expression, and
after an effort or two, as of one who stutters, burst
out with, “ Je le nie!”
“That's strange,” Hewitt observed to the men.
“ I ask him if he speaks French, and he says he de-
nies it-speaking in French.”
“He's been saying that very often, sir,” one of
the men answered, “ as well as other things we can't
make anything of.”
Hewitt placed his hand kindly on the man's
shoulder and asked his name. The reply was for a
little while an inarticulate gurgle, presently merging
into a meaningless medley of words and syllables—
“ Qu'est ce qu'—il n'a—Leystar Squarr—sacré nom-
not spik it—quel chemin-sank you ver' mosh-je le
nie! je le nie!' He paused, stared, and then, as
though realizing his helplessness, he burst into tears.
“He's been a-cryin' two or three times,” said the
man who had spoken before. “He was a-cryin'
when we found him."
Several more attempts Hewitt made to communi.


232
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
with it the more he yelled, so I took it away an' left
it outside, an' then he calmed down. An' s'elp me,
when I cut some bits off that there very loaf an'
brought 'em in, with a bit o' beef, he just went for
’em like one o'clock. He wasn't frightened o'no
bread then, you bet. Rum thing, how the fancies
takes 'em when they're a bit touched, ain't
it ? All one way one minute, all the other the
next.”
“Yes, it is. By the way, have you another un-
cut loaf in the place ?”
“Yes, sir. Half a dozen if you like."
. “One will be enough. I am going over to speak
to the doctor. Wait awhile until he seems very
quiet and fairly comfortable; then bring a loaf in
quietly and put it on the table, not far from his el-
bow. Don't attract his attention to what you are
doing.”
The doctor stood looking thoughtfully down on
the Frenchman, who, for his part, stared gloomily,
but tranquilly, at the fire-place. Hewitt stepped
quietly over to the doctor and, without disturbing
the inan by the fire, said interrogatively, “ Apha-
sia ?”
The doctor tightened his lips, frowned, and
nodded significantly. “Motor," he murmured, just
loudly enough for Hewitt to hear ; "and there's a
general nervous break-down as well, I should say.


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 233
By the way, perhaps there's no agraphia. Have
you tried him with pen and paper ? "
Pen and paper were brought and set before the
man. He was told, slowly and distinctly, that he
was among friends, whose only object was to restore
him to his proper health. Would he write his name
and address, and any other information he might
care to give about himself, on the paper before him ?
The Frenchman took the pen and stared at the
paper; then slowly, and with much hesitation, he
traced these marks :-
Monny mogfem
quer
cu
The man paused after the last of these futile
characters, and his pen stabbed into the paper with
a blot, as he dazedly regarded his work. Then with
a groan he dropped it, and his face sank again into
the bend of his arm.
The doctor took the paper and handed it to
Hewitt. “Complete agraphia, you see,” he said.
“He can't write a word. He begins to write Mon-
sieur' from sheer habit in beginning letters thus;
but the word tails off into a scrawl. Then his at-
tempts become mere scribble, with just a trace of
some familiar word here and there—but quite mean-
ingless all."


234
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
Although he had never before chanced to come
across a case of aphasia (happily a rare disease),
Hewitt was acquainted with its general nature. He
knew that it might arise either from some physical
injury to the brain, or from a break-down consequent
on some terrible nervous strain. He knew that in
the case of motor aphasia the sufferer, though fully
conscious of all that goes on about him, and though
quite understanding what is said to him is entirely
powerless to put his own thoughts into spoken
words-has lost, in fact, the connection between
words and their spoken symbols. Also that in most
bad cases agraphia—the loss of ability to write
words with any reference to their meaning—is com-
monly an accompaniment.
“ You will have him taken to the infirmary, I
suppose ?” Hewitt asked.
“ Yes,” the doctor replied. “I shall go and see
about it at once."
The man looked up again as they spoke. The
policeman had, in accordance with Hewitt's request,
placed a loaf of bread on the table near him, and
now as he looked up he caught sight of it. He
started visibly and paled, but gave no such signs of
abject terror as the policeman had previously ob-
served. He appeared nervous and uneasy, however,
and presently reached stealthily toward the loaf.
Hewitt continued to talk to the doctor, while closely


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 235
watching the Frenchman's behaviour from the
corner of his eye.
The loaf was what is called a “plain cottage,” of
solid and regular shape. The man reached it and
immediately turned it bottom up on the table.
Then he sank back in his chair with a more con-
tented expression, though his gaze was still directed
toward the loaf. The policeman grinned silently at
this curious manoeuvre.
The doctor left, and Hewitt accompanied him to
the door of the room. “He will not be moved just
yet, I take it ?” Hewitt asked as they parted.
“It may take an hour or two," the doctor re-
plied. “Are you anxious to keep him here?”
“Not for long; but I think there's a curious in-
side to the case, and I may perhaps learn something
of it by a little watching. But I can't spare very
long."
At a sign from Hewitt the loaf was removed.
Then Hewitt pulled the small table closer to the
Frenchman and pushed the pen and sheets of paper
toward him. The manoeuvre had its result. The
man looked up and down the room vacantly once or
twice and then began to turn the papers over.
From that he went to dipping the pen in the inkpot,
and presently he was scribbling at random on the
loose sheets. Hewitt affected to leave him entirely
alone, and seemed to be absorbed in a contemplation
16


236
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
of a photograph of a police-division brass band that
hung on the wall, but he saw every scratch the man
made.
At first there was nothing but meaningless
scrawls and attempted words. Then rough sketches
appeared, of a man's head, a chair or what not. On
the mantelpiece stood a small clock-apparently a
sort of humble presentation piece, the body of the
clock being set in a horse-shoe frame, with crossed
whips behind it. After a time the Frenchman's eyes
fell on this, and he began a crude sketch of it. That
he relinquished, and went on with other random
sketches and scribblings on the same piece of paper,
sketching and scribbling over the sketches in a half-
mechanical sort of way, as of one who trifles with a pen
during a brown study. Beginning ať the top left-
hand corner of the paper, he travelled all round it
till he arrived at the left-hand bottom corner. Then
dashing his pen hastily across his last sketch he
dropped it, and with a great shudder turned away
again and hid his face by the fireplace.
Hewitt turned at once and seized the papers on
the table. He stuffed them all into his coat-pocket,
with the exception of the last which the man had
been engaged on, and this, a facsimile of which is
subjoined, he studied earnestly for several minutes.
Hewitt wished the men good-day, and made his
way to the inspector.


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 237
“Well,” the inspector said, “not much to be got
out of him, is there? The doctor will be sending
for him presently."
9
"I fancy,” said Hewitt, “ that this may turn out
a very important case. Possibly-quite possibly—I
may not have guessed correctly, and so I won't tell
you anything of it till I know a little more. But
what I want now is a messenger. Can I send some-


228
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
body at once in a cab to my friend Brett at his ..
chambers ?”
“ Certainly. I'll find somebody. Want to write
a note?”
Hewitt wrote and despatched a note, which
reached me in less than ten minutes. Then he
asked the inspector, “Have you searched the
Frenchman ?"
“Oh, yes. We went all over him, when we
found he couldn't explain himself, to see if we
could trace his friends or his address. He didn't
seem to mind. But there wasn't a single thing in
his pocket—not a single thing, barring a rag of a
pocket-handkerchief with no marking on it."
“You noticed that somebody had stolen his
watch, I suppose ?”
“Well, he hadn't got one.”
“But he had one of those little vertical button-
holes in his waistcoat, used to fasten a watchguard
to, and it was much worn and frayed, so that he
must be in the habit of carrying a watch; and it
is gone."
“Yes, and everything else too, eh? Looks like
robbery. He's had a knock or two in the face-
notice that ?"
“I saw the bruises and the cut, of course;
and his collar has been broken away, with the
back button; somebody has taken him by the


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 239
collar or throat. Was he wearing a hat when he
was found ?"
“ No.”
“That would imply that he had only just left
a house. What street was he found in ?”
“Henry Street—a little off Golden Square.
Low street, you know.”
“Did the constable notice a door open near
by?”
The inspector shook his head. “Half the doors
in the street are open,” he said, “pretty nearly all
day."
“Ah, then there's nothing in that. I don't think
he lives there, by the bye. I fancy he comes from
more in the Seven Dials or Drury Lane direction.
Did you notice anything about the man that gave
you a clue to his occupation—or at any rate to his
habits ?”
“Can't say I did.”
“Well, just take a look at the back of his coat
before he goes away-just over the loins. Good-
day.”
As I have said, Hewitt's messenger was quick.
I happened to be in—having lately returned
from a latish lunch—when he arrived with this
note :-
“My dear B., -I meant to have lunched with
you to-day, but have been kept. I expect you are


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 245
your ears open in case anybody comes down the
yard.”
The part of the shed that we stood in was used
as a coach-house, and was occupied by a rather
shabby tradesman's cart, the shafts of which rested
on the ground. From the stall adjoining came the
sound of the shuffling and trampling of an impa-
tient horse.
We turned to the cart. On the name-board at
the side were painted in worn letters the words,
“Schuyler, Baker.” The address, which had been
below, was painted out.
Hewitt took out the pins and let down the tail-
board. Within the cart was a new bed-mattress
which covered the whole surface at the bottom. I
felt it, pressed it from the top, and saw that it was
an ordinary spring mattress—perhaps rather unusu-
ally soft in the springs. It seemed a curious thing
to keep in a baker's cart.
Hewitt, who had set the candle on a convenient
shelf, plunged his arm into the farthermost re-
cesses of the cart and brought forth a very long
French loaf, and then another. Diving again he
produced certain loaves of the sort known as the
“plain cottage”—two sets of four each, each set
baked together in a row. “Feel this bread,” said
Hewitt, and I felt it. It was stale—almost as hard
as wood.


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 247
Before I could reply there was a sound of foot-
steps in the yard outside, approaching. Hewitt
lifted his finger instantly for silence and whispered
hurriedly, “ There's only one. If he comes here, we
grab him.”
The steps came nearer and stopped outside the
door. There was a pause, and then a slight draw-
ing in of breath, as of a person suddenly surprised.
At that moment the door was slightly shifted ajar
and an eye peeped in.
“ Catch him!” said Hewitt aloud, as we sprang
to the door. “ He mustn't get away !”
I had been nearer the doorway, and was first
through it. The stranger ran down the yard at his
best, but my legs were the longer, and half-way to
the street I caught him by the shoulder and swung
him round. Like lightning he whipped out a knife,
and I flung in my left instantly on the chance of
flooring him. It barely checked him, however, and
the knife swung short of my chest by no more than
two inches; but Hewitt had him by the wrist and
tripped him forward on his face. He struggled
like a wild beast, and Hewitt had to stand on his
forearm and force up his wrist till the bones were
near breaking before he dropped his knife. But
throughout the struggle the man never shouted,
called for help, nor, indeed, made the slightest
sound, and we on our part were equally silent.


248
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
It was quickly over, of course, for he was on his
face, and we were two. We dragged our prisoner
into the stable and closed the door behind us. So
far as we had seen, nobody had witnessed the cap-
ture from the street, though, of course, we had been
too busy to be certain.
“ There's a set of harness hanging over at the
back," said Hewitt ; “I think we'll tie him up with
the traces and reins-nothing like leather. We
don't need a gag; I know he won't shout.”
While I got the straps Hewitt held the prisoner
by a peculiar neck-and-wrist grip that forbade him
to move except at the peril of a snapped arm.
He had probably never been a person of pleasant
aspect, being short, strongly and squatly built,
large and ugly of feature, and wild and dirty of
hair and beard. And now, his face flushed with
struggling and smeared with mud from the stable-
yard, his nose bleeding and his forehead exhibiting
a growing bump, he looked particularly repellent.
We strapped his elbows together behind, and as he
sullenly ignored a demand for the contents of his
pockets Hewitt unceremoniously turned them out.
Helpless as he was, the man struggled to prevent
this, though, of course, ineffectually. There were
papers, tobacco, a bunch of keys, and various odds
and ends. Hewitt was glancing hastily at the
papers when, suddenly dropping them, he caught


252
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
“The name of the helpless Frenchman the police
found this morning,” he said, “ appears to be Gér-
ard—at least I am almost certain of it. Among the
papers found on the prisoner—whose full name
doesn't appear, but who seems to be spoken of as
Luigi (he is Italian)-among the papers, I say, is a
sort of notice convening a meeting for this evening
to decide as to the final punishment’to be awarded
the 'traitor Gérard, now in charge of comrade Pin-
gard.'
: “The place of meeting is not mentioned, but it
seems more than probable that it will be at the
Bakunin Club, not five minutes' walk from this
place. The police have all these places under quiet
observation, of course, and that is the club at which
apparently important Anarchist meetings have been
held lately. It is the only club that has never been
raided as yet, and, it would seem, the only one they
would feel at all safe in using for anything impor-
tant.
“Moreover, Luigi just now simply declined to
open his mouth when asked where the meeting was
to be, and said nothing when the names of several
other places were suggested, but suddenly found his
tongue at the mention of the Bakunin Club, and de-
nied vehemently that the meeting was to be there-
it was the only thing he uttered. So that it seems
pretty safe to assume that it is to be there. Now,


254
.CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
of anything like a ring of policemen, and said so.
Hewitt chuckled. “Of course not,” he said; "they
don't go about a job of this sort with drums beating
and flags flying. But they are all there, and some
are watching us. There is the house. I'll nego-
tiate.”
The house was one of the very shabby passé sort
that abound in that quarter. The very narrow area
was railed over, and almost choked with rubbish.
Visible above it were three floors, the lowest indi-
cated by the door and one window, and the other two
by two windows each—mean and dirty all. A faint
light appeared in the top floor, and another from
somewhere behind the refuse-heaped area. Every-
where else was in darkness. Hewitt looked intently
into the area, but it was impossible to discern any-
thing behind the sole grimy patch of window that
was visible. Then we stepped lightly up the three
or four steps to the door and rang the bell.
We could hear slippered feet mounting a stair
and approaching. A latch was shifted, a door
opened six inches, an indistinct face appeared, and
a female voice asked, “Qui est là ? ”
“ Deux camarades," Hewitt grunted testily.
“ Ouvrez vite."
I had noticed that the door was kept from open-
ing further by a short chain. This chain the woman
unhooked from the door, but still kept the latter


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 255
merely ajar, as though intending to assure herself
still further. But Hewitt immediately pushed the
door back, planted his foot against it, and entered,
asking carelessly as he did so, “ Où se trouve Luigi ?”
I followed on his heels, and in the dark could
just distinguish that Hewitt pushed the woman in-
stantly against the wall and clapped his hand to her
mouth. At the same moment a file of quiet men
were suddenly visible ascending the steps at my
heels. They were the police.
The door was closed behind us almost noiselessly,
and a match was struck. Two men stood at the bot-
tom of the stairs, and the others searched the house.
Only two men were found—both in a top room.
They were secured and brought down. .
The woman was now ungagged, and she used
her tongue at a great rate. One of the men was a
small, meek-looking slip of a fellow, and he appeared
to be the woman's husband. “Eh, messieurs le
police,” she exclaimed vehemently, “it ees not of
'im, mon pauvre Pierre, zat you sall rrun in. 'Im
and me—we are not of the clob—we work only—we
housekeep."
Hewitt whispered to an officer, and the two men
were taken below. Then Hewitt spoke to the
woman, whose protests had not ceased. “You say
you are not of the club," he said, “ but what is there
to prove that? If you are but housekeepers, as you


256
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
say, you have nothing to fear. But you can only
prove it by giving the police information. For in-
stance, now, about Gérard. What have they done
with him ?”
“Jean Pingard—'im you 'ave take downstairs—'e
'ave lose 'im. Jean Pingard get last night all
a-boosa—all dronk like zis "_she rolled her head
and shoulders to express intoxication—"and he
sleep too much to-day, when Émile go out, and
Gérard, he go too, and nobody know. I will tell
you anysing. We are not of the clob—we house-
keep, me and Pierre.”
“But what did they do to Gérard before he went
away?”.
The woman was ready and anxious to tell any.
thing. Gérard had been selected to do something-
what it was exactly she did not know, but there was
a horse and cart, and he was to drive it. Where the
horse and cart was also she did not know, but
Gérard had driven a cart before in his work for a
baker, and he was to drive one in connection with
some scheme among the members of the club. But
le pauvre Gérard at the last minute disliked to drive
the cart; he had fear. He did not say he had fear,
but he prepared a letter-a letter that was not
signed. The letter was to be sent to the police, and
it told them the whereabouts of the horse and cart,
so that the police might seize these things, and then


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 250
stepped in one after another, and the door was
immediately shut behind them—they were pris-
oners.
We left quietly, and although we, of course, ex-
pected it, it was not till the next morning that we
learned absolutely that the largest arrest of Anarch-
ists ever made in this country was made at the
Bakunin Club that night. Each man as he came
was admitted—and collared.
We made our way to Luzatti's, and it was over
our dinner that Hewitt put me in full possession of
the earlier facts of this case, which I have set down
as impersonal narrative in their proper place at the
beginning
“But,” I said, “what of that aimless scribble you
spoke of that Gérard made in the police station ?
Can I see it ?"
Hewitt turned to where his coat hung behind
him and took a handful of papers from his pocket.
“Most of these,” he said, “mean nothing at all.
That is what he wrote at first,” and he handed me
the first of the two papers which were presented in
facsimile in the earlier part of this narrative.
“You see,” he said, " he has begun mechanically
from long use to write monsieur '—the usual be-
ginning of a letter. But he scarcely makes three
letters before tailing off into sheer scribble. He


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 261
term. As far as I could judge it seemed to be a
case of aphasia.
“Then when the doctor came I had a chat (as I
have already told you) with the policeman who
found the man. He told me about the incident of
the bread with rather more detail than I had had
from the inspector. Thus it was plain that the man
was terrified at the bread only when it was in the
form of a loaf, and ate it eagerly when it was cut
into pieces. That was one thing to bear in mind.
He was not afraid of bread, but only of a loaf.
“Very well. I asked the policeman to find
another uncut loaf, and to put it near the man when
his attention was diverted. Meantime the doctor
reported that my suspicion as to aphasia was right.
The man grew more comfortable, and was assured
that he was among friends and had nothing to fear,
so that when at length he found the loaf near his
elbow he was not so violently terrified, only very
uneasy. I watched him and saw him turn it bottom
up—a very curious thing to do; he immediately
became less uneasy—the turning over of the loaf
seemed to have set his mind at rest in some way.
This was more curious still. I thought for some
little while before accepting the bomb theory as the
most probable.
“The doctor left, and I determined to give the
man another chance with pen and paper. I felt


262
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
pretty certain that if he were allowed to scribble
and sketch as he pleased, sooner or later he would
do something that would give me some sort of a
hint. I left him entirely alone and let him do as he
pleased, but I watched.
“ After all the futile scribble which you have
seen, he began to sketch, first a man's head, then a
chair-just what he might happen to see in the
room. Presently he took to the piece of paper you
have before you. He observed that clock and
began to sketch it, then went on to other things,
such as you see, scribbling idly over most of them
when finished. When he had made the last of the
sketches he made a hasty scrawl of his pen over it
and broke down. It had brought his terror to his
mind again somehow.
“I seized the paper and examined it closely.
Now just see. Ignore the clock, which was merely
a sketch of a thing before him, and look at the
three things following. What are they? A horse-
shoe, a captive balloon, and a Highlander. Now,
can't you think of something those three things in
that order suggest ?”
I could think of nothing whatever, and I con-
fessed as much.
“Think, now. Tottenham Court Road!”
I started. “Of course," I said. “That never
struck me. There's the Horse-shoe Hotel, with the


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 265
A little examination, however, shows it to be in-
tended for a chimney-pot partly covered with a
basket. Now an old basket, stuck sideways on a
chimney by way of cowl, is not an uncommon thing
in parts of the country, but it is very unusual in
London. Probably, then, it would be in some by-
street or alley. Next and last, there is a horse's
head, and it was at this that the man's trouble re-
turned to him.
“Now, when one goes to a place and finds a
horse there, that place is not uncommonly a stable;
and, as a matter of fact, the basket-cowl would
be much more likely to be found in use in a
range of back stabling than anywhere else. Sup-
pose, then, that after taking the direction in-
dicated in the sketches—the direction of Fitz-
roy Square, in fact-one were to find a range
of stabling with a basket-cowl: visible about it?
I know my London pretty well, as you are aware,
and I could remember but two likely stable-yards
in that particular part-the two we looked at, in
the second of which you may possibly have no-
ticed just such a basket-cowl as I have been speak-
ing of.
“Well, what we did you know, and that we found
confirmation of my conjecture about the loaves you
also know. It was the recollection of the horse and
cart, and what they were to transport, and what the


266
CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT.
end of it all had been, that upset Gérard as he drew
the horse's head. You will notice that the sketches
have not been done in separate rows, left to right-
they have simply followed one another all round
the paper, which means preoccupation and uncon-
sciousness on the part of the man who made
them.”
“But," I asked, “supposing those loaves to con-
tain bombs, how were the bombs put there ? Bak-
ing the bread round them would have been risky,
wouldn't it?"
“ Certainly. What they did was to cut the
loaves, each row, down the centre. Then most of the
crumb was scooped out, the explosive inserted, and
the sides joined up and glued. I thought you had
spotted the joins, though they certainly were
neat.”
“No, I didn't examine closely. Luigi, of course,
had been told off for a daily visit to feed the horse,
and that is how we caught him.'
“One supposes so. They hadn't rearranged
their plans as to going on with the outrages after
Gérard's defection. By the way, I noticed that he
was accustomed to driving when I first saw him.
There was an unmistakable mark on his coat, just at
the small of the back, that drivers get who lean
against a rail in a cart.”
The loaves were examined by official experts,


THE CASE OF THE LOST FOREIGNER. 267
and, as everybody now knows, were found to con-
tain, as Hewitt had supposed, large charges of
dynamite. What became of some half-dozen of the
men capured is also well known: their sentences
were exemplary.
THE END,
18





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30. Lace. A Berlin Romance. By PAUL LINDAU.
301. The Black Poodle. By F. ANSTEY.
31. American Coin. A Novel. By the author of Aristocracy.
32. Won by Waiting. By EDNA LTALL.
33. The Story of Helen Davenant. By VIOLET FANE.
34. The Light of Her Countenance. By H. H. BOYESEN.
35. Mistress Beatrice Cope. My M. E. LE CLERC.
86. The Knight-Errant. By EDNA LYALL,
37. In the Golden Days. By EDNA LYALL.
38. Giraldi ; or, The Curse of Love. By Ross GEORGE DERING.
9. A Hardy Norseman. By EDNA LYALL.
40. The Romance of Jenny Harlowe, and Sketches of Maritime Life. By W.
CLARK RUSSELL.
Passion's Slave. By RICHARD ASHE-KING.
The Awakening of Mary Fenwick. By BEATRICE WHITBY.
43. Countess Loreley. Translated from the German of RUDOLF MENGER.
. Blind Love. By WILKIE COLLINS.
The Dean's Daughter. By SOPHIE F. F. VEITCH.
46. Countess Irene. A Romance of Austrian Life. By J. FOGERTY.
Robert Browning's Principal Shorter Poems.
Frozen Hearts. By G. WEBB APPLETON.
Djambek the Georgian. By A. G. VON SUTTNER.
50. The Craze of Christian Engelhart. By HENRY FAULKNER DARNELL.
51. Lal. By WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, M. D.
52. Aline. A Novel. By HENRY GRÉVILLE.
53. Joost Avelingh. A Dutch Story. By MAARTEN MAARTENS.
54. Katy of Catoctin. By GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND.
55. Throckmorton. A Novel By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.
56. Expatriation. By the author of Aristocracy.
57. Geoffrey Hampstead. By T. S. JARVIS.


APPLETONS' TOWN AND COUNTRY LIBRARY.—(Continued.)
58. Dmitri. A Romance of Old Russia. By F. W. Bain, M. A.
59 Part of the Property. By BEATRICE WHITBY.
60. Bismarck in Private Life. By a Fellow-Student.
61. In Low Relief. By MORLEY ROBERTS.
62. The Canadians of Old. A Historical Romance. By PHILIPPE GASPÉ.
63. A Squire of Low Degree. By LILY A. LONG.
„64. A Fluttered Dovecote. By GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
65. The Nugents of Carriconna. An Irish Story. By TIGHE HOPKINS.
66. A Sensitive Plant. By E. and D. GERARD.
67. Doña Luz. By JUAN VALERA. Translated by Mrs. MARY J. SERRANO.
68. Pepita Ximenez. By JUAN VALERA. Translated by Mrs. MARY J. SERRANO.
69. The Primes and their Neighbors. By RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON.
70. The Iron Game. By HENRY F. KEENAN.
71. Stories of Old New Spain. By THOMAS A. JANVIER.
72. The Maid of Honor. By Hon. LEWIS WINGFIELD.
73. In the lleart of the Storm. By MAXWELL GRAY.
774. Consequences. By EGERTON CASTLE.
5. The Three Miss Kings. By ADA CAMBRIDGE,
76. A Matter of Skill. By BEATRICE WHITBY.
77. Maid Marian, and Other Stories. By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.
78. One Woman's Way. By EDMUND PENDLETON.
79. A Merciful Divorce. By F. W. MAUDE.
80. Stephen Elicott's Daughter. By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL.
81. One Reason Why. By BEATRICE WHITBY.
82. The Tragedy of Ida Noble. By W. CLARK RUFSELL.
83. The Johnstown Stage, and other Stories. By ROBERT H. FLETCHER.
84. A Widower Indeed. By RHODA BROUGHTON and ELIZABETH LISLAND.
85. The Flight of a Shadow. By GEORGE MACDONALD.
86. Love or Money. By KATHARINE LEE.
87. Not All in Vain. By ADA CAMBRIDGE.
88. It Happened Yesterday. By FREDERICK MARSHALL.
. My Guardian. By ADA CAMBRIDGE.
90. The Story of Philip Methuen. By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL.
91. Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty. By CHRISTABEL R. COLERIDGE.
92. Don Braulio. By JUAN VALERA. Translated by CLARA BELL.
93. The Chronicles of Mr. Bill Williams. By RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON.
94. A Queen of Curūs and Cream. By DOROTHEA GERARD.
95. “ La Bella" and Others. By EGERTON CASTLE.
96. “ December Roses." By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED.
67. Jean de Kerdren. By JEANNE SCHULTZ.
98. Etelka's Vow. By DOROTHEA GERARD.
99. Cross Currents. By MARY A. DICKENS.
100. His Life's Magnet. By THEODORA ELMBLIE.
101. Passing the Love of Women. By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL.
102. In old St. Stephen's. By JEANIE DRAKE.
103. The Berkeleys and their Neighbor'8. By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.
104. Mona Maclean, Medical Student. By GrAHAM TRAVERS.
105. Mrs. Bligh. By RHODA BROUGHTON.
106. A Stumble on the Threshold. By JAMES PAYN.
107. Hanging M088. By PAUL LINDAU.
108. A Comedy of Elopement. By CHRISTIAN REID.
109. In the Suntime of her Youth. By BEATRICE WHITBY.
110. Stories in Black and White. By THOMAS HARDY and Others.
110%. An Englishman in Paris. Notes and Recollections,
111. Commander Mendoza. By JUAN VALERA.
112. Dr. Paull's Theory. By Mrs. A. M. DIEHL.
113. Children of Destiny. By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.
114. A Little Minx. By ADA CAMBRIDGE.
115. Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon. By HALL CAINE.
116. The Voice of a Flower. By E. GERARD.
117. Singularly Deluded. By SARAH GRAND.
118. Suspected By LOUISA STRATENUS.
119. Lucia, Hugh, and Another. By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL.
120. The Tutor's Secret. By VICTOR CHERDULIEZ.


APPLETONS' TOWN AND COUNTRY LIBRARY.-(Continued.)
121. From the Five Rivers. By Mrs. F. A. STEEL.
122. An Innocent Impostor, and Other Stories. By MAXWELL GRAY.
123. Ideala. By SARAI GRAND.
124. A Comedy of Masks. By ERNEST Dowson and ARTHUR MOORE.
125. Relics. By FRANCES MĀCNAB.
126. Dodo: A Detail of the Day By E. F. BENSON.
* 127. A Woman of Forty. By EsMÈ STUART.
128. Diana Ternpest. By MARY CHOLMONDELEY.
123. The Recipe for Diamonds. By C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE.
130. Christina Chard. By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED.
131. A Gray Eye or So. By FRANK FRANKFORT MOORE.
132. Earlscourt. By ALEXANDER ALLARDYCE.
133. A Marriage Ceremony. By ADA CAMBRIDGE.
134. A Ward in Chancery. By Mrs. ALEXANDER.
135. Lot 13. By DOROTHEA GERARD.
136. Our Manifold Nature. By SARAH GRAND.
137. A Cost'y Freak. By MAXWELL GRAY.
138. A Beginner. By RHODA BROUGHTON.
139. A Yelow Aster. By Mrs. MANNINGTON CAFFYN (“TOTA").
140. The Rubicon. By E. F. BENSON.
141. The Trespasser. By GILBERT PARKER.
142. The Rich Miss Riddell. By DOROTHEA GERARD.
143. Mary Fenwick's Daughter. By LEATRICE WHITBY.
144. Red Diamonds. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY.
145. A Daughter of Music. By G. COLMORE.
143. Outlaw and Lawmaker. By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED.
147. Dr. Janet of Harley Street. By ARABELLA KENEALY.
148. George Mandeville's Husband. By C. E. RAIMOND.
149. Vashti and Esther.
50. Timar's Two Worlds. By M. JOKAI.
151. A Victim of Good Luck. By W. E. NORRIS.
152. The Trail of the Sword. By GILBERT PARKER.
153. A Mild Barbarian. By EDGAR FAWCETT.
154. The God in the car. By ANTHONY HOPE.
155. Children of Circumstance. By Mrs. M. CAFFYN.
156. At the Gate of Samaria.. By WILLIAM J. LOCKE.
157. The Justification of Andrew Lebrun. By FRANK BARRETT.
158. Dust and Laurels. By MARY L. PENDERED.
159. The Good Ship Mohock. By W. CLARK RUSSELL.
160. Noémi By S. BARING-GOULD.
161. The Honour of Savelli. By S. LEVETT YEATS.
162. Kitty's Engagement. By FLORENCE WARDEN.
163. The Mermaid. By L. DOUGALL.
164. An Arranged Marriage. By DOROTHEA GERARD.
165. Eve's Ransom. By GEORGE GISSING.
166. The Marriage of Esther. By GUY BOOTHBY.
167. Fidelis. By ADA CAMBRIDGE
168. Into the Highways and Hedges. By F. F. MONTRÉSOR.
169. The Vengeance of James Vansittart. By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL.
170. A Study in Prejudices. By GEORGE PASTON.
171. The Mistress of Quest. By ADELINE SERGEANT.
172. In the Year of Jubilee. By GEORGE GISSING.
173. In Old New England. By HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.
174. Mrs. Musgrave and Her Husband. By R. MARBH.
175. Not Counting the Cost. By TASMA,
176. Out of Due Season. By ADELINE SERGEANT.
177. Scylla or Charybdis ? By RHODA BROUGHTON.
178. In Defiance of the King. By C. C. HOTCHKISS.
179. A Bid for Fortune. By GUY BOOTHBY.
180. The King of Andaman. By J. MACLAREN COBBAN.
181. Mrs. Tregaskirs. By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED.
182. The Desire of the Moth. By CAPEL VANE.
183. A Self-Denying Ordinance. By M. HAMILTON.
184. Successors to the Title. By Mrs. L. B. WAL.FORD.
APEL VA
dinance."
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"A story of remarkable interest and point."-New York Observer.
YOOST AVELINGH. By MAARTEN MAARTENS.
12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
“So unmistakably good as to induce the hone that an acquaintance with the Dutch
literature of fiction may soon become more general among us."-London Morning
Post.
“In scarcely any of the sensational novels of the day will the reader find more
nature or more human nature.”- London Standard.
"A novel of a very high type. At once strongly realistic and powerfully id-al-
istic.”—London Literary World. -
“Full of local color and rich in quaint phraseology and suggestion."-London
Telegraph.
“Maarten Maartens is a capital story-teller."-Pall Mall Gazette.
“Our English writers of fiction will have to look to their laurels."-Birmingham
Daily Post.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenuo.