The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  As I approached the premises of Japp and Bundy, I was assailed by a sudden doubt as to whether Mr. Japp lived there; and this doubt increased when I had executed two loud knocks at the door without eliciting any response. I was just raising my hand to make a third attack when I became aware of Bundy’s head rising above the curtain of the office window; and even in my agitation I could not but notice its extremely dishevelled state. His hair—usually “smarmed” back neatly from the forehead and brushed over the crown of his head—now hung down untidily over his face like a bunch of rat’s tails, and the unusualness of his appearance was increased by the fact that he wore neither spectacles nor the indispensable monocle. The apparition, however, was visible but for a moment, for even as I glanced at him he made a sign to me to wait and forthwith vanished.

  There followed an interval of about a minute, at the end of which the door opened and I entered, discovering Bundy behind it in a dressing-gown and pyjamas, but with his hair neatly brushed and his monocle duly adjusted.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Doc,” said he. “Fact is, your knock woke me. The early bird catches the worm in his pyjamas.”

  “I apologize for disturbing your slumbers,” said I, “but I wanted to see Japp. Isn’t he in?”

  “Japp doesn’t live here,” said Bundy, motioning to me to follow him upstairs. “He used to, but the house began to fill up with the business stuff and we had to make a drawing office and a store-room, so he moved off to a house on Boley Hill, and now I live here like Robinson Crusoe.”

  “Do you mean that you do your own cooking and housework?”

  “Lord, no,” he replied. “I get most of my meals at Japp’s place. Prepare my own breakfast sometimes—I’m going to now: and I make tea for us both. Got a little gas-stove in the kitchen. And a charlady comes in every day to wash up and do my rooms. If you are not in a hurry, I’ll walk round with you to Japp’s house.”

  “I am in rather a hurry,” said I; “at least—well, I don’t know why I should be; but I am rather upset. The fact is, a very alarming thing has happened. I have just heard of it from Mrs. Gillow. It seems that Mrs. Frood went out last evening and has not come back.”

  Bundy whistled. “She’s done a bolt,” said he. “I wonder why. Do you think she can have run up against hubby in the town?”

  “I don’t believe for a moment that she has gone away voluntarily,” said I. “She came to see me last night to get a sedative because she couldn’t sleep, and she said that she was going home as soon as she had been to Chatham, and that she was going to take her medicine and go to bed early.”

  “That might have been a blind,” suggested Bundy; “or she might have run up against her husband in Chatham.”

  I shook my head impatiently. “That is all nonsense, Bundy. A woman doesn’t walk off into space in that fashion. Something has happened to her, I feel sure. I only hope it isn’t something horrible; one doesn’t dare to think of the possibilities that the circumstances suggest.”

  “No,” said Bundy, “and it’s better not to. Great mistake to let your imagination run away with you. Don’t you worry, Doc. She’ll probably turn up all right, or send Japp a line to say where she has gone to.”

  “Devil take it, Bundy!” I exclaimed irritably, “you are talking as if she were just a cat that had strayed away. If you don’t care a hang what becomes of her, I do. I am extremely alarmed about her. How soon will you be ready?”

  “I’ll run and get on my things at once,” he replied, with a sudden change of manner. “You must excuse me, old chap. I didn’t realize that you were so upset. I’ll be with you in a few minutes and then we will start. Japp will be able to give me some breakfast.”

  He bustled off—to the next room, as I gathered from the sound—and left me to work off my impatience by gazing out of the window and pacing restlessly up and down the barely-furnished sitting-room. But, impatient as I was, the rapidity with which he made his toilet surprised me, for in less than ten minutes he reappeared, spick and span, complete with hat, gloves, and stick, and announced that he was ready.

  “I am not usually such a sluggard,” he said, as we walked quickly along the street, “but yesterday evening I got a novel. I ought not to read novels. When I do, I am apt to make a single mouthful of it; and that is what I did last night. I started the book at nine and finished it at two this morning; and the result is that I am as sleepy as an owl even now.”

  In illustration of this statement he gave a prodigious yawn and then turned up the steep little thoroughfare, where be presently halted at the door of a small, old-fashioned house and rang the bell. The door was opened by a middle-aged servant, from whom he learned that Mr. Japp was at home, and to whom Bundy communicated his needs in the matter of breakfast. We found Mr. Japp seated by the dining-room window, studying a newspaper with the aid of a large pipe, and Bundy proceeded to introduce me and the occasion of my visit in a few crisp sentences.

  Mr. Japp’s reception of the news was very different from his partner’s. Starting up from his chair and taking his pipe from his mouth, he gazed at me for some seconds in silent dismay.

  “I suppose,” he said at length, “there is no mistake. It is really certain that she did not come back last night?”

  “I am afraid there is no doubt of the fact,” I replied, and I gave him the details with which Mrs. Gillow had furnished me.

  “Dear! dear!” he exclaimed. “I don’t like the look of this at all. What the deuce can have happened to her?”

  Here Bundy repeated the suggestion that he had made to me, but Japp shook his head. “She wouldn’t have gone off without letting me or the doctor know. Why should she? We are friends, and she knew she could trust us. Besides, the thing isn’t possible. A middle-class woman can’t set out like a tramp without any luggage or common necessaries. There’s only one possibility,” he added after a pause. “She might have seen Nicholas prowling about and gone straight to the station and taken a train to London. One of her woman friends would have been able to put her up for the night.”

  “Or,” suggested Bundy, “she might even have gone up to town with Nick himself if he met her and threatened to make a scene.”

  “Yes,” said Japp doubtfully, “that is, I suppose, possible. But it isn’t in the least likely. For that matter, nothing is likely. It is a most mysterious affair, and very disturbing, very disturbing, indeed.”

  “The question is,” said I, “what is to be done? Do you think we ought to communicate with the police?”

  “Well, no,” he replied; “not immediately. If we don’t hear anything, say tomorrow, I suppose we shall have to. But we had better not be precipitate. If we go to the police, we shall have to tell them everything. Let us give her time to communicate, in case she has had to make a sudden retirement—a clear forty-eight hours, as it is a weekend. But we had better make some cautious inquiries meanwhile. I suggest that we walk up to the hospital. They know me pretty well there, and I could just informally ascertain whether any accidents had been admitted, without giving any detailed reasons for the inquiry. Are you coming with us, Bundy?”

  “Yes,” replied Bundy, who, having been provided with a light breakfast, was despatching it with lightning speed; “I shall be ready by the time you have got your boots on.”

  A few minutes later we set forth together, and made our way straight to the hospital. Bundy and I waited outside while Japp went in to make his inquiries; and, as we walked up and down, my imagination busied itself in picturing the hideous possibilities suggested by a somewhat extensive experience of the casualty department of a general hospital. Presently Japp emerged, shaking his head.

  “She is not there,” said he. “There were no casualties of any kind admitted last night or since.”

  “Is there no other hospital?” I asked.

  “None but the military hospital,” he replied. “All the casualties from the district would be brought here. So we seem to be at the end of our resources, short of inquiring at the police
-station; and even if that were advisable, it would be useless, for if—anything had happened—anything, I mean, that we hope has not happened—Mrs. Gillow would have heard. She will be sure to have had something about her by which she could have been identified.”

  “She had,” said I. “The little box that I gave her had her name and my address on it.”

  “Then,” said Japp. “I don’t see that we can do anything more. We can only wait until tomorrow evening or Tuesday morning, and if we don’t get any news of her by then, notify the police.”

  Unwillingly I had to admit that this was so; and when I had walked back with the partners to Mr. Japp’s house, I left them and proceeded to report to Mrs. Gillow and to ascertain whether, in the meantime, she had received any tidings of her missing tenant.

  It was with more of fear than hope that I plied the familiar knocker, but the eager, expectant face that greeted me when the door opened, while it relieved the one, banished the other. She had heard nothing, and when I had communicated my own unsatisfactory report she groaned and shook her head.

  “You are quite sure,” I said, after an interval of silence, “that she did not return from Chatham?”

  “I don’t see how she could have done,” was the reply.

  “You see, it was like this: I was going to see my sister at Frindsbury, and as I came down to the hall, Mrs. Frood opened her door and spoke to me. She had her hat on then, and she told me she was coming to you, and then going on to Chatham, but that she would be back pretty soon, and was going to bed early. I went out, leaving her at her room door, and took the tram to Frindsbury, and I got back home about a quarter to ten. Her sitting-room door was open, and I could see that she hadn’t gone to bed, because her lamp was alight and her supper tray was on the table and hadn’t been touched. I knocked at her bedroom door, but there was no answer, so I went upstairs and sat up listening for her, and before I went to bed I went down again, as I told you.”

  “What time was it when you went out?” I asked.

  “About a quarter past eight. I told her I was going to Frindsbury, and that I should be home before ten, and I asked her not to bolt the door if she came in before me.”

  “Then,” said I, “she must have gone out directly after you, because it was only a little after half-past eight when she called on me; and presumably she went straight on to Chatham. If we only knew what she was going there for we might be able to trace her. Did she know anybody at Chatham?”

  “So far as I know,” replied Mrs. Gillow, “she didn’t know anybody here but you and Mr. Japp. I can’t imagine what she could have been going to Chatham for.”

  After a little further talk, I took my leave and walked homeward in a very wretched frame of mind. Tormented as I was with a gnawing anxiety, inaction was intolerable. Yet there was nothing to be done; nothing but to wait in the feeble hope that the morning might bring some message of relief, and with a heavy foreboding that the tidings, when they came, would be evil tidings. But I found it impossible to wait passively at home. At intervals during the day I went forth to wander up and down the streets; and some impulse which I hardly dared to recognize directed my steps again and again to the wharves and foreshore that lie by the bend of the river between Rochester and Chatham.

  On the following morning I betook myself as early as I decently could to the office of Japp and Bundy. No letter had arrived by the early post, nor, when I repeated my visit later, was there any news, either by post or telegram, or from Mrs. Gillow. I paid a furtive visit to the police-station and glanced nervously over the bills on the notice-board, and I made another perambulation of the waterside districts, which occupied me until it was time for me to repair to the station to meet the train by which my friends were expected to arrive, and did, in fact, arrive.

  As we walked from the station to my house Jervis looked at me critically from time to time. After one of these inspections he remarked:

  “I don’t know whether it is my fancy, Strangeways, but it seems to me that the cares of medical practice are affecting your spirits. You look worried.”

  “I am worried,” I replied. “There has been a very disturbing development of that case that I was telling you about.”

  “The doper, you mean?”

  “His wife. She has disappeared. She went out on Saturday night and has not been seen since.”

  “That sounds rather ominous,” said Jervis. “I presume the circumstances—if you know them—could be communicated without any breach of confidence.”

  “They will have to be made fully public if she doesn’t turn up by this evening,” I replied, “and I am only too glad of the chance to talk the matter over with you,” and forthwith I proceeded to give a circumstantial account of the events connected with the disappearance, not omitting any detail that seemed to have the slightest bearing. And I now felt justified in relating my experience when I was acting for Dr. Pumphrey. The narrative was interrupted by our arrival at my house, but when we had taken our places at the table it was continued and listened to with intense interest by my two friends.

  “Well,” said Jervis, when I had finished, “it has an ugly look, especially when one considers it in connexion with that affair in London. But there is something to be said for your friend Bundy’s suggestion. Don’t you think so, Thorndyke?”

  “Something, perhaps,” Thorndyke agreed, “but not much; and if no letter arrives tonight or tomorrow morning, I should say it is excluded. This lady seems to have had complete confidence in Strangeways and in Mr. Japp. She could depend on their secrecy if she had to move suddenly to a fresh locality; and she seems to have been a responsible person who would not unnecessarily expose them to anxiety about her safety. Moreover, she would know that, if she kept them in the dark, they must unavoidably put the police on her track, which would be the last thing that she would wish.”

  “Can you make any suggestion as to what has probably happened?” I asked.

  “It is not of much use to speculate,” replied Thorndyke.

  “If we exclude a voluntary disappearance, an accident or sudden illness, as we apparently can, there seems to remain only the possibility of crime. But to the theory of crime—of murder, to put it bluntly—there is a manifest objection. So far as the circumstances are known to us, a murder, if it had occurred, would have been an impromptu murder, committed in a more or less public place. But the first indication of a murder of that kind is usually—the discovery of the body. Here, however, thirty-six hours have elapsed, and no body has come to light. On the other hand, we have to bear in mind that there is a large, tidal river skirting the town. Into that river the missing lady might have fallen accidentally, or have been thrown, dead or alive. But it is not very profitable to speculate. We can neither form any opinion nor take any action until we have some further facts.”

  I must confess that, as I listened to Thorndyke thus calmly comparing the horrible possibilities, I experienced a dreadful sinking of the heart, but yet I realized that this passionless consideration of the essential evidence was more to the point, and promised more result than any amount of unskilful groping under the urge of emotion and personal feeling. And, realizing this, I formed the bold resolution of enlisting Thorndyke’s aid in a regular, professional capacity, and began to cast about for the means of introducing the rather delicate subject. But while I was reflecting, the opportunity, was gone, at least for the present. Lunch had virtually come to an end, for Mrs. Dunk had silently and with iron visage just placed the port and the coffee on the table and retired, when, Jervis, who had observed her with evident interest, inquired: “Does that old Sphinx do the cooking, Strangeways?”

  “She does everything,” I answered. “I have suggested that she should get some help, but she just growled and ignored the suggestion.”

  “Well,” said Jervis, “she doesn’t give you much excuse for growling. She has turned out a lunch that would have done credit to Delmonico’s. Are you coming to the inquest with us? We shall have to be starting in
a few minutes.”

  “I may as well,” said I. “Then I can bring you back to tea. And I want to make a proposal, which we can discuss as we go along. It is with regard to the case of Mrs. Frood.”

  As my two friends looked at me inquiringly but made no remark, I poured out the coffee and continued: “You see, Mrs. Frood was my patient, and, in a way, my friend; in fact, with the exception of Japp, I was the only friend she had in the place. Consequently I take it as my duty to ascertain what has happened to her, and, if she has come to any harm, to see that the wrongdoers are brought to account. Of course, I am not competent to investigate the case myself, but I am in the position to bear any costs that the investigation would entail.”

  “Lucky man,” said Jervis. “And what is the proposal?”

  “I was wondering,” I replied, a little nervously, “whether I could prevail on you to undertake the case.”

  Jervis glanced at his senior, and the latter replied:

  “It is just a little premature to speak of a ‘case.’ The missing lady may return or communicate with her friends. If she does not, the inquiry will fall into the hands of the police; and there is no reason to suppose that they will not be fully competent to deal with it. They have more means and facilities than we have. But if the inquiry should become necessary, and the police should be unsuccessful, Jervis and I would be prepared to render you any assistance that we could.”