The Collected Works of R. Austin Freeman (Illustrated Edition). R. Austin Freeman

us?"

      "It is all; unless there is anything that you wish to ask me."

      "I think," said Thorndyke, " that it would be well for us to have a description of Mr. Reinhardt; and, as we have to trace him, if possible, a photograph would be exceedingly useful."

      "I have not a photograph with me," said Father Humperdinck, "but I will obtain one and send it to you. Meanwhile I will tell you what my friend Vitalis is like. He is sixty-two years of age, spare, upright, rather tall—his height is a hundred and seventy-three centimetres—"

      "Roughly five feet nine," interposed Thorndyke.

      "His hair is nearly white, he is, of course, clean shaven, he has grey eyes, a straight nose, not very prominent, and remarkably good teeth for his age, which he shows somewhat when he talks. I think he is a little vain about his teeth and he well may be, for there are not many men of sixty-two who have not a single false tooth, nor even one that has been stopped by the dentist. As to his clothing, he wears the ordinary dress of a lay brother, which you are probably familiar with, and he nearly always wears gloves, even indoors."

      "Is there any reason for his wearing gloves?" Thorndyke asked.

      "Not now. The habit began when he had some affliction of the skin, which made it necessary for him to keep his hands covered with gloves which contained some ointment or dressing, and afterwards for a time to conceal the disagreeable appearance of the skin. The habit having been once formed, he continued it, saying that his hands were more comfortable covered up than when exposed to the air."

      "Was he dressed in this fashion when he called at your office, Marchmont?" asked Thorndyke.

      "Yes. Even to the gloves. I noticed, with some surprise, that he did not take them off even when he wrote and signed the note of which I told you."

      "Was he then wearing the reliquary and crucifix as Father Humperdinck has described, on the front of his waistcoat?"

      "He may have been, but I didn't notice them, as I fancy I should have done if they had been there."

      "And you have nothing more to tell us, Father Humperdinck, as to your friend's personal appearance?"

      "No. I will send you the photograph and write to you if I think of anything that I have forgotten. And now, perhaps you can tell me if you think that you will be able to answer those questions that Mr. Marchmont put to you."

      "I cannot, of course, answer them now," replied Thorndyke. "The facts that you have given us will have to be considered and compared, and certain enquiries will have to be made. Are you staying long in England?"

      "I shall be here for at least a month; and I may as well leave you my address, although Mr. Marchmont has it."

      "In the course of a month," Thorndyke said, as he took the proffered card, "I think I may promise you that we shall have settled definitely whether your friend is alive or dead; and if we find that he is alive, we shall, no doubt, be able to ascertain his whereabouts."

      "That is very satisfactory," said Father Humperdinck. "I hope you shall be able to make good your promise."

      With this he rose, and, having shaken hands stiffly with Thorndyke, bestowed on Jervis and me a ceremonious bow and moved towards the door. I thought that Marchmont looked a little wistful, as if he would have liked to stay and have a few words with us alone; indeed, he lingered for a moment or two after the door was open, but then, apparently altering his mind, he wished us "good-night" and followed his client.

      XVII. The Palimpsest

       Table of Contents

      It was getting late when our friends left us, but nevertheless, as soon as they were gone, we all drew our chairs up to the fire with the obvious intention of discussing the situation and began, with one accord, to fill our pipes. Jervis was the first to get his tobacco alight, and, having emitted a voluminous preliminary puff, he proceeded to open the debate. "That man, Jardine, seems to be a pretty desperate character. Just think of his actually wallowing in the mire—not merely rolling, mind you, but wallowing—and of his repulsive habit of consorting with females; one after the other, too, in rapid succession. It's a shocking instance of depravity."

      "Our reverend friend," said Thorndyke, " reaches his conclusions by a rather short route—in some cases, at least; in others, his methods seem a little indirect and roundabout."

      "Yes," agreed Jervis, "he's a devil at guessing. But he didn't get much food for the imagination out of the man, Thorndyke. Why were you so extraordinarily secretive? With what he told you and what you knew before, you could surely have suggested a line of inquiry. Why didn't you?"

      "Principally because of the man's personality. I could not have answered his questions; I could, only have suggested one or two highly probable solutions of the problem that he offered and partial solutions at that. But I am not much addicted to giving partial solutions—to handing over the raw material of a promising inquiry. Certainly, not to a man like this, who seems incapable of a straight forward action."

      "The reverend father," said Jervis, "does certainly seem to be a rather unnecessarily downy bird. And he doesn't seem to have got much by his excessive artfulness, after all."

      "No," agreed Thorndyke; "nothing whatever. Quite the contrary, in fact. Look at his ridiculous conduct in respect of 'the man Jardine'. I don't complain of his having taken the precaution to obtain that malefactor's address; but, when he had got it, if he had not been tortuous, so eager to be cunning; if, in short, he had behaved like an ordinary sensible man, he would have got, at once, all the information that Jardine had to give. He could have called on Jardine, written to him, employed a lawyer or applied to the police. Either of these simple and obvious plans would have been successful; instead of which, he must needs go to the trouble and expense of engaging this absurd spy."

      "Who found a mare's nest and got his head thumped," remarked Jervis.

      "Then," continued Thorndyke, "look at his behaviour to Marchmont. Evidently he put the case into Marchmont's hands, but, equally evident, he withheld material facts and secretly tinkered at the case himself. No, Jervis, I give no information to Father Humperdinck until I have this case complete to the last rivet. But, all the same, I am greatly obliged to him, and especially to Marchmont for bringing him here. He has given us a connected story to collate with our rather loose collection of facts and, what is perhaps more important, he has put our investigation on a business footing. That is a great advantage. If I should want to invoke the aid of the powers that be, I can do so now with a definite locus standi as the legal representative of interested parties."

      "I can't imagine," said I, "in what direction you are going to push your inquiries. Father Humperdinck has given us, as you say, a connected story, but it is a very unexpected one, to me, at least, and does not fall into line at all with what we know—that is, if you are assuming, as I have been, that the man whom I saw lying in Millfield Lane was Vitalis Reinhardt."

      "It is difficult," replied Thorndyke, "to avoid that assumption, though we must be on our guard against coincidences; but the man whom you saw agreed with the description that has been given to us, we know that Reinhardt was in the neighbourhood on that day, and you found the reliquary on the following morning in the immediate vicinity. We seem to be committed to the hypothesis that the man was Reinhardt unless we can prove that he was someone else, or that Reinhardt was in some other place at the time; which at present we cannot."

      "Then," said I, "in that case, the bobby must have been right, after all. The man couldn't have been dead, seeing that he called on Marchmont the following day and was afterwards traced to Paris. But I must say that he looked as dead as Queen Anne. It just shows how careful one ought to be in giving opinions."

      "Some authority has said," remarked Jervis," that the only conclusive proof of death is decomposition. I believe it was old Taylor who said so, and I am inclined to think that he wasn't far wrong."

      "But," said Thorndyke, "assuming that the man whom you