“What are you waiting for?” I asked.
“I am waiting for the inevitable,” he replied; “for the false move that the most artful criminal invariably makes. At present he is lying low; but presently he will make a move, and then I shall have him.”
“But he may go on lying low. What will you do then?”
“Yes, that is the danger. We may have to deal with the perfect villain who knows when to leave well alone. I have never met him, but he may exist, nevertheless.”
“And then we should have to stand by and see our friends go under.”
“Perhaps,” said Thorndyke; and we both subsided into gloomy and silent reflection.
The place was peaceful and quiet, as only a backwater of London can be. Occasional hoots from faraway tugs and steamers told of the busy life down below in the crowded Pool. A faint hum of traffic was borne in from the streets outside the precincts, and the shrill voices of newspaper boys came in unceasing chorus from the direction of Carmelite Street. They were too far away to be physically disturbing, but the excited yells, toned down as they were by distance, nevertheless stirred the very marrow in my bones, so dreadfully suggestive were they of those possibilities of the future at which Thorndyke had hinted. They seemed like the sinister shadows of coming misfortunes.
Perhaps they called up the same association of ideas in Thorndyke’s mind, for he remarked presently:
“The newsvendor is abroad tonight like a bird of ill-omen. Something unusual has happened; some public or private calamity, most likely, and these yelling ghouls are out to feast on the remains. The newspaper men have a good deal in common with the carrion-birds that hover over a battlefield.”
Again we subsided into silence and reflection. Then, after an interval, I asked:
“Would it be possible for me to help in any way in this investigation of yours?”
“That is exactly what I have been asking myself,” replied Thorndyke. “It would be right and proper that you should, and I think you might.”
“How?” I asked eagerly.
“I can’t say offhand; but Jervis will be going away for his holiday almost at once—in fact, he will go off actual duty tonight. There is very little doing; the long vacation is close upon us, and I can do without him. But if you would care to come down here and take his place, you would be very useful to me; and if there should be anything to be done in the Bellinghams’ case, I am sure you would make up in enthusiasm for any deficiency in experience.”
“I couldn’t really take Jervis’s place,” said I, “but if you would let me help you in any way it would be a great kindness. I would rather clean your boots than be out of it altogether.”
“Very well. Let us leave it that you come here as soon as Barnard has done with you. You can have Jervis’s room, which he doesn’t often use nowadays, and you will be more happy here than elsewhere, I know. I may as well give you my latchkey now. I have a duplicate upstairs, and you understand that my chambers are yours too from this moment.”
He handed me the latchkey and I thanked him warmly from my heart, for I felt sure that the suggestion was made, not for any use that I should be to him, but for my own peace of mind. I had hardly finished speaking when a quick step on the paved walk caught my ear.
“Here is Jervis,” said Thorndyke. “We will let him know that there is a locum tenens ready to step into his shoes when he wants to be off.” He flashed the lantern across the path, and a few moments later his junior stepped up briskly with a bundle of newspapers tucked under his arm.
It struck me that Jervis looked at me a little queerly when he recognized me in the dim light; also he was a trifle constrained in his manner, as if my presence were an embarrassment. He listened to Thorndyke’s announcement of our newly made arrangement without much enthusiasm and with none of his customary facetious comments. And again I noticed a quick glance at me, half curious, half uneasy, and wholly puzzling to me.
“That’s all right,” he said when Thorndyke had explained the situation. “I daresay you’ll find Berkeley as useful as me, and, in any case, he’ll be better here than staying on with Barnard.” He spoke with unwonted gravity, and there was in his tone a solicitude for me that attracted my notice and that of Thorndyke as well, for the latter looked at him curiously, though he made no comment. After a short silence, however, he asked: “And what news does my learned brother bring? There is a mighty shouting among the outer barbarians and I see a bundle of newspapers under my learned friend’s arm. Has anything in particular happened?”
Jervis looked more uncomfortable than ever. “Well—yes,” he replied hesitatingly, “something has happened—there! It’s no use beating about the bush; Berkeley may as well learn it from me as from those yelling devils outside.” He took a couple of papers from his bundle and silently handed one to me and the other to Thorndyke.
Jervis’s ominous manner, naturally enough, alarmed me not a little. I opened the paper with a nameless dread. But whatever my vague fears, they fell far short of the occasion; and when I saw those yells from without crystallized into scare headlines and flaming capitals I turned for a moment sick and dizzy with fear.
The paragraph was only a short one, and I read it through in less than a minute.
The Missing Finger
Dramatic Discovery at Woodford
The mystery that has surrounded the
