A Silent Witness

by R. Austin Freeman

  “Aren’t you going to inspect the body?” I asked.

  “Lord, no! Why should I! It isn’t necessary, you know. I’m not an undertaker. Wish I was. Dead people good deal more profitable than live ones.”

  “But surely,” I exclaimed, “the death ought to be verified. Why the man may not be dead at all.”

  “I know,” said Batson, scribbling away like a minor poet, “but that isn’t my business. Business of the Law. Law wastes your time with a heap of silly questions that don’t matter and leaves out the question that does. Asks exact time when I last saw him alive, which doesn’t matter a hang, and doesn’t ask whether I saw him dead. Bumble was right. Law’s an ass.”

  “But still,” I persisted, “leaving the legal requirements out of consideration, oughtn’t you for your own sake, and as a public duty, to verify the death? Supposing the man were not really dead?”

  “That would be awkward for him,” said Batson, “and awkward for me, too, if he came to life before they buried him. But it doesn’t really happen in real life. Premature burial only occurs in novels.”

  His easy-going confidence jarred on me considerably. How could he, or anyone else, know what happened? “I don’t see how you arrive at that,” I objected. “It could only be proved by wholesale disinterment. And the fact remains that, if you don’t verify a reported death you have no security against premature burial—or even cremation.”

  Batson started up and stared at me, his wide-open, pale-blue eyes looking ridiculously small through his deep, concave spectacles. “By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I am glad you mentioned that—about cremation, I mean, because that is what will probably happen. I witnessed the chappie’s will a couple of days ago, and I remember now that one of the clauses stipulated that his body should be cremated. So I shall have to verify the death for the purpose of the cremation certificate. We’d better pop round and see him at once.”

  With characteristic impulsiveness he sprang to his feet, snatched his hat from its peg, and started forth, leaving me to follow. “Beastly nuisance, these special regulations,” said Batson, as he ambled briskly up the street. “Give a lot of trouble and cause a lot of delay.”

  “Isn’t the ordinary death certificate sufficient in a case of cremation?” I asked.

  “For purposes of law it is, though there is some talk of new legislation on the subject, but the Company are a law unto themselves. They have made the most infernally stringent regulations, and, as there is no crematorium near London excepting the one at Woking, you have to abide by their rules. And that reminds me—” here Batson halted and scowled at me ferociously through his spectacles.

  “Reminds you?” I repeated.

  “That they require a second death certificate, signed by a man with certain special qualifications.” He stood awhile frowning and muttering under his breath and then suddenly turned and bounced off in a new direction. “Going to catch the other chappie and take him with us,” he explained, as he darted out into the Hampstead Road. “Be off my mind then. A fellow named O’Connor, Assistant Physician to the North London Hospital. He’ll do if we can catch him at home. If not, you’ll have to manage him.”

  Batson looked at his watch—holding it within four inches of his nose—and broke into a trot as we entered a quiet square. Halfway up he halted at a door which bore a modest brass plate inscribed “Dr. O’Connor,” and seizing the bell-knob, worked it vigorously in and out as if it were the handle of an air-pump. “Doctor in?” he demanded briskly of a startled housemaid; and, without waiting for an answer, he darted into the hall, down the whole length of which he staggered, executing a sort of sword-dance, having caught his toe on an unobserved door-mat.

  The doctor was in and he shortly appeared in evening dress with an overcoat on his arm, and apparently in as great a hurry as Batson himself. “Won’t it do to-morrow?” he asked, when Batson had explained his difficulties and the service required.

  “Might as well come now,” said Batson persuasively; “won’t take a minute and then I can go away in peace.”

  “Very well,” said O’Connor, wriggling into his overcoat. “You go along and I’ll follow in a few minutes. I’ve got to look in on a patient on my way up west, and I shall be late for my appointment as it is. Write the address on my card, here.”

  He held out a card to my principal, and when the latter had scribbled the address on it, he bustled out and vanished up the square. Batson followed at the same headlong speed, and, again overlooking the mat, came out on the pavement like an ill-started sprinter.

  Gayton Street, at which we shortly arrived, was a grey and dingy side-street exactly like a score of others in the same locality, and Number 23 differed from the rest of the seedy-looking houses in no respect save that it was perhaps a shade more dingy. The door was opened in answer to Batson’s indecorously brisk knock by a woman—or perhaps I should say a lady—who at once admitted us and to whom Batson began, without preface, to explain the situation. “I got your note, Mrs. Samway. Was going to bring my friend, here, round to see the patient. Very unfortunate affair. Very sad. Unexpected, too. Didn’t seem particularly bad yesterday. What time did it happen?”

  “I can’t say exactly,” was the reply. “He seemed quite comfortable when I looked in on him the last thing at night, but when I went in about seven this morning he was dead. I should have let you know sooner, but I was expecting you to call.”

  “H’m, yes,” said Batson, “very unfortunate. By the way, Mr. Maddock desired that his remains should be cremated, I think?”

  “Yes, so my husband tells me. He is the executor of the will, you remember, in the absence of any relatives. All Mr. Maddock’s relations seem to be in America.”

  “Have you got the certificate forms?” asked Batson.

  “Yes. My husband got all the papers from the undertaker this afternoon.”

  “Very well, Mrs. Samway, then we’ll just take a look at the body—have to certify that I’ve seen it, you know.”

  Mrs. Samway ushered us into a sitting-room where she had apparently been working alone, for an unfinished mourning garment of some kind lay on the table. Leaving us here, she went away and presently returned with a sheaf of papers and a lighted candle, when we rose and followed her to a back room on the ground floor. It was a smallish room, sparely furnished, with heavy curtains drawn across the window, and by one wall a bed, on which was a motionless figure covered by a sheet.

  Our conductress stood the candlestick on a table by the bed and stepped back to make way for Batson, who drew back the sheet and looked down on the body in his peering, near-sighted fashion. The deceased seemed to be a rather frail-looking man of about fifty, but, beyond the fact that he was clean shaven, I could form very little idea of his appearance, since, in addition to the usual bandage under the chin to close the mouth, a tape had been carried round the head to secure a couple of pads of cotton wool over the eyes to keep the eyelids closed.

  As Batson applied his stethoscope to the chest of the dead man, I glanced at our hostess not without interest. Mrs. Samway was an unusual-looking woman, and I thought her decidedly handsome though not attractive to me personally. She seemed to be about thirty, rather over the medium height and of fine Junoesque proportions, with a small head very gracefully set on the shoulders. Her jet-black hair, formally parted in the middle, was brought down either side of the forehead in wavy, but very smooth, masses and gathered behind in a neat, precisely-plaited coil. The general effect reminded me of the so-called “Clytie,” having the same reposefulness though not the gentleness and softness of that lovely head. But the most remarkable feature of this woman was the colour of her eyes, which were of the palest grey or hazel that I have ever seen; so pale in fact that they told as spots of light, like the eyes of some lemurs or those of a cat seen in the dusk; a peculiarity that imparted a curiously intense and penetrating quality to her glance.

  I had just noted these particulars when Batson, having finished his examination, held out the stet
hoscope to me. “May as well listen, as you’re here,” said he, and, turning to our hostess, he added: “Let us see those papers, Mrs. Samway.”

  As he stepped over to the table, I took his place on a chair by the bedside and proceeded to make an examination. It was, of course, only a matter of form, for the man was obviously dead; but having insisted so strongly on the necessity of verifying the death I had to make a show of becoming scepticism. Accordingly I tested, both by touch and with the stethoscope, the region of the heart. Needless to say, no heart-sounds were to be distinguished, nor any signs of pulsation; indeed, the very first touch of my hand on the chilly surface of the chest was enough to banish any doubt. No living body could be so entirely destitute of animal heat.

  I laid down the stethoscope and looked reflectively at the dead man, lying so still and rigid, with his bandaged jaws and blindfolded eyes, and speculated vaguely on his personality when alive and on the hidden disease that had so suddenly cut him off from the land of the living; and insensibly—by habit I suppose—my fingers strayed to his clammy, pulseless wrist. The sleeve of his night-shirt was excessively long, almost covering the fingers, and I had to turn it back to reach the spot where the pulse would normally be felt. In doing this, I moved the dead hand slightly and then became aware of a well-marked rigor mortis, or death stiffening in the arm of the corpse; a condition which I ought to have observed sooner.

  At this moment, happening to look up, I caught the eye of Mrs. Samway fixed on me with a very remarkable expression. She was leaning over Batson as he filled up the voluminous certificate, but had evidently been watching me, and the expression of her pale, catlike eyes left no doubt in my mind that she strongly resented my proceedings. In some confusion, and accusing myself of some failure in outward decorum, I hastily drew down the dead man’s sleeve and rose from the bedside. “You noticed, I suppose,” said I, “that there is fairly well-marked rigor mortis?”

  “I didn’t,” said Batson, “but if you did it’ll do as well. Better mention it to O’Connor when he comes. He ought to be here now.”

  “Who is O’Connor?” asked Mrs. Samway.

  “Oh, he is the doctor who is going to sign the confirmatory certificate.”

  Again a gleam of unmistakable anger flashed from our hostess’ eyes as she demanded: “Then who is this gentleman?”

  “This is Dr. Humphrey Jardine,” said Batson. “‘Pologize for not introducing him before. Dr. Jardine is taking my practice while I’m away. I’m off to-night for about a week.”

  Mrs. Samway withered me with a baleful glance of her singular eyes, and remarked stiffly: “I don’t quite see why you brought him here.”

  She turned her back on me, and I decided that Mrs. Samway was somewhat of a Tartar; though, to be sure, my presence was a distinct intrusion. I was about to beat a retreat when Batson’s apologies were interrupted by a noisy rat-tat at the street door. “Ah, here’s O’Connor,” said Batson, and, as Mrs. Samway went out to open the door, he added: “Seem to have put our foot in it, though I don’t see why she need have been so peppery about it. And O’Connor needn’t have banged at the door like that, with death in the house. He’ll get into trouble if he doesn’t look out.”

  Our colleague’s manner was certainly not ingratiating. He burst into the room with his watch in his hand protesting that he was three minutes late already, and, he added, “if there is one thing that I detest, it’s being late at dinner. Got the forms?”

  “Yes,” replied Batson, “here they are. That’s my certificate on the front page. Yours is overleaf.”

  Dr. O’Connor glanced rapidly down the long table of questions, muttering discontentedly. “‘Made careful external examination?’ H’m. ‘Have you made a post mortem?’ No, of course, I haven’t. What an infernal rigmarole! If cremation ever becomes general there’ll be no time for anything but funerals. Who nursed the deceased?”

  “I did,” said Mrs. Samway. “My husband relieved me occasionally, but nearly all the nursing was done by me. My name is Letitia Samway.”

  “Was the deceased a relation of yours?”

  “No; only a friend. He lived with us for a time in Paris and came to England with us.”

  “What was his occupation?”

  “He was nominally a dealer in works of art. Actually he was a man of independent means.”

  “Have you any pecuniary interest in his death?”

  “He has left us about seventy pounds. My husband is the executor of the will.”

  “I see. Well, I’d better have a few words with you outside, Batson, before I make my examination. It’s all a confounded farce, but we must go through the proper forms, I suppose.”

  “Yes, by all means,” said Batson. “Don’t leave any loop-hole for queries or objections.” He rose and accompanied O’Connor out into the hall, whence the sound of hurried muttering came faintly through the door.

  As soon as we were alone, I endeavoured to make my peace with Mrs. Samway by offering apologies for my intrusion into the house of mourning. “For the time being,” I concluded, “I am Dr. Batson’s assistant, and, as he seemed to wish me to come with him, I came without considering that my presence might be objected to. I hope you will forgive me.”

  My humility appeared entirely to appease her; in a moment her stiff and forbidding manner melted into one that was quite gracious and she rewarded me with a smile that made her face really charming. “Of course,” she said, “it was silly of me to be so cantankerous and rude, too. But it did look a little callous, you know, when I saw you playing with his poor, dead hand; so you must make allowances.” She smiled again, very prettily, and at this moment my two colleagues re-entered the room. “Now, then,” said O’Connor, “let us see the body and then we shall have finished.”

  He strode over to the bed, and, turning back the sheet, made a rapid inspection of the corpse. “Ridiculous farce,” he muttered. “Looks all right. Would, in any case though. Parcel of red tape. What’s the good of looking at the outside of a body? Post mortem’s the only thing that’s any use. What’s this piece of tape-plaster on the back?”

  “Oh,” said Batson, “that is a little cut that he made by falling on a broken bottle. I stuck the plaster on because you can’t get a bandage to hold satisfactorily on the back. Besides, he didn’t want a bandage constricting his chest.”

  “No, of course not,” O’Connor agreed. “Well, it’s all regular and straightforward. Give me the form and I’ll fill it up and sign it.” He seated himself at the table, looked once more at his watch, groaned aloud and began to write furiously. “The Egyptians weren’t such bad judges, after all,” he remarked as he laid down the pen and rose from his chair. “Embalming may have been troublesome, but when it was done it was done for good. The deceased was always accessible for reference in case of a dispute, and all this red tape was saved. Good-night, Mrs. Samway.” He buttoned up his coat and bustled off, and a minute or so later we followed.

  “By jove!” exclaimed Batson, “this business has upset my arrangements finely. I shall have to buck up if I’m going to catch my train. There’s all the medicine to be made up and sent out yet, to say nothing of dinner. But dinner will have to wait until the business is all settled up. Don’t you hurry, Jardine. I’ll just run on and get to work.” He broke into an elephantine trot and soon disappeared round a corner, and, when I arrived at the surgery, I found him posting up the day-book with the speed of a parliamentary reporter.

  Batson’s dexterity with medicine-bottles and wrapping paper filled me with admiration and despair. I made a futile effort to assist, but in the end, he snatched away the crumpled paper in which I was struggling to enswathe a bottle, dropped it into the waste-paper basket, snatched up a clean sheet and—slap! bang! in the twinkling of an eye, he had transformed the bottle into a neat, little white parcel as a conjuror changes a cocked hat into a guinea-pig. It was wonderful.

  My host was a cheerful soul, but restless. He got up from the table no less than six times to pack s
ome article that he had just thought of; and after dinner, when I accompanied him to his bedroom, I saw him empty his trunk no less than three times to make sure that he had forgotten nothing. He quite worried me. Your over-quick man is apt to wear out other people’s nerves more than his own. I began to look anxiously at the clock, and felt a real relief when the maid came to announce that the cab was at the door. “Well, good-bye. Doctor!” he sang out cheerily, shaking my hand through the open window of the cab. “Don’t forget to keep the stock-bottles filled up. Saves a world of trouble. And don’t take too long on your rounds. Ta! ta!”

  The cab rattled away and I went back into the house, a full-blown general practitioner.

  * * *

  V — THE LETHAL CHAMBER

  A YOUNG and newly-qualified doctor, emerging for the first time into private practice, is apt to be somewhat surprised and disconcerted by the new conditions. Accustomed to the exclusively professional and scientific atmosphere of the hospital, the sudden appearance of the personal element as the predominant factor rather takes him aback. He finds himself in a new and unexpected position. No longer a mere, impersonal official, a portion of a great machine, he is the paid servant of his patients: who are not always above letting him feel the conditions of his service. The hospital patient, drilled into a certain respectful submissiveness by the discipline of the wards, has given place to an employer, usually critical, sometimes truculent and occasionally addicted to a disagreeable frankness of speech.

  The locum tenens, moreover, is peculiarly susceptible to these conditions, especially if, as in my case, his appearance is youthful. Patients resent the substitution of a stranger for the familiar medical attendant and are at no great pains to disguise the fact. The “old woman with the liver” (to adopt Batson’s pellucid phrase) hinted that I was rather young, adding encouragingly that I should get the better of that in time; while the more morose typhoid bluntly informed me that he hadn’t bargained for being attended by a medical student.