“So you have, Doctor,” assented the Superintendent—“two early birds who have come betimes to catch the elusive worm—and I suspect they won’t catch him.”
“Don’t be pessimistic, Miller,” said Thorndyke with a quiet chuckle. “He isn’t such a slippery worm as that. I suppose you want to know something of the programme?”
“Naturally, I do, and so, I suppose, does Dr. Gray.”
“Well,” said Thorndyke, “I am not going to tell you much—”
“I knew it,” groaned Miller.
“Because it will be better for everyone to have an open mind—”
“Well,” interposed Miller, “mine is open enough. Wide open, and nothing inside.”
“And then,” pursued Thorndyke, “there is the possibility that we shall not get the result we hoped for, and in that case the less you expect the less you will be disappointed.”
“But,” persisted Miller, “in general terms, what are we here for? I understand that those two ladies, the witnesses to Bendelow’s will, are coming presently. What are they coming for? Do you expect to get any information out of them?”
“I have some hopes,” he replied, “of learning something from them. In particular, I want to test them in respect of their identification of Bendelow.”
“Ha! Then you have got a photograph of him?”
Thorndyke shook his head. “No,” he replied. “I have not been able to get a photograph of him.”
“Then you have an exact description of him?”
“No,” was the reply. “I have no description of him at all.”
The Superintendent banged his hat on the table. “Then what the deuce have you got, sir?” he demanded distractedly. “You must have something, you know, if you are going to test these witnesses on the question of identification. You haven’t got a photograph, you haven’t got a description, and you can’t have the man himself because he is at present reposing in a little terra-cotta pot in the form of bone-ash. Now, what have you got?”
Thorndyke regarded the exasperated Superintendent with an inscrutable smile and then glanced at Polton, who had just stolen into the room and was now listening with an expression of such excessive crinkliness that I wrote him down an accomplice on the spot.
“You had better ask Polton,” said Thorndyke. “He is the stage manager on this occasion.”
The Superintendent turned sharply to confront my fellow apprentice, whose eyes thereupon disappeared into a labyrinth of crow’s-feet.
“It’s no use asking me, sir,” said he. “I’m only an accessory before the fact, so to speak. But you’ll know all about it when the ladies arrive—and I rather think I hear ’em coming now.”
In corroboration, light footsteps and feminine voices became audible, apparently ascending our stairs. We hastily seated ourselves while Polton took his station by the door and Thorndyke said to me in a low voice:
“Remember, Gray, no comments of any kind. These witnesses must act without any sort of suggestion from anybody.”
I gave a quick assent, and at that moment Polton threw open the door with a flourish and announced majestically:
“Miss Dewsnep, Miss Bonington.”
We all rose, and Thorndyke advanced to receive his visitors, while Polton placed chairs for them.
“It is exceedingly good of you to take all this trouble to help us,” said Thorndyke. “I hope it was not in any way inconvenient to you to come here this morning.”
“Oh, not at all,” replied Miss Dewsnep; “only we are not quite clear as to what it is that you want us to do.”
“We will go into that question presently,” said Thorndyke. “Meanwhile, may I introduce to you these two gentlemen, who are interested in our little business—Mr. Miller and Dr. Gray?”
The two ladies bowed; and Miss Dewsnep remarked:
“We are already acquainted with Dr. Gray. We had the melancholy pleasure of meeting him at Mrs. Morris’ house on the sad occasion when he came to examine the mortal remains of poor Mr. Bendelow, who is now with the angels.”
“And no doubt,” added Miss Bonington, “in extremely congenial society.”
At this statement of Miss Dewsnep’s the Superintendent turned and looked at me sharply with an expression of enlightenment; but he made no remark, and the latter lady returned to her original inquiry.
“You were going to tell us what it is that you want us to do.”
“Yes,” replied Thorndyke. “It is quite a simple matter. We want you to look at the face of a certain person who will be shown to you, and to tell us if you recognize and can give a name to that person.”
“Not an insane person, I hope!” exclaimed Miss Dewsnep.
“No,” Thorndyke assured her, “not an insane person.”
“Nor a criminal person in custody, I trust,” added Miss Bonington.
“Certainly not,” replied Thorndyke. “In short, let me assure you that the inspection of this person need not cause you the slightest embarrassment. It will be a perfectly simple affair, as you will see. But perhaps we had better proceed at once. If you two gentlemen will follow Polton, I will conduct the ladies upstairs myself.”
On this we rose, and Miller and I followed Polton out on to the landing, where he turned and began to ascend the stairs at a slow and solemn pace, as if he were conducting a funeral. The Superintendent walked at my side and muttered as he went, being evidently in a state of bewilderment fully equal to my own.
“Now, what the blazes,” he growled, “can the Doctor be up to now? I never saw such a man for springing surprises on one. But who the deuce can he have up there?”
At the top of the second flight we came on to a landing and, proceeding along it, reached a door which Polton unlocked and opened.
“You understand, gentlemen,” he said, halting in the doorway, “that no remarks or comments are to be made until the witnesses
