The suggestion met my views exactly. As soon as we had finished tea, we set forth, and in about ten minutes found ourselves in the bare and forbidding office attached to the station.
The presiding officer descended from a high stool, and, carefully laying down his pen, shook hands cordially.
“And what can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked, with an affable smile.
Stillbury proceeded to open our business.
“My friend here, Dr. Jervis, who has very kindly been looking after my work for a week or two, has had a most remarkable experience, and he wants to tell you about it.”
“Something in my line of business?” the officer inquired.
“That,” said I, “is for you to judge. I think it is, but you may think otherwise”; and hereupon, without further preamble, I plunged into the history of the case, giving him a condensed statement similar to that which I had already made to Stillbury.
He listened with close attention, jotting down from time to time a brief note on a sheet of paper; and, when I had finished, he wrote out in a black-covered notebook a short précis of my statement.
“I have written down here,” he said, “the substance of what you have told me. I will read the deposition over to you, and, if it is correct, I will ask you to sign it.”
He did so, and, when I had signed the document, I asked him what was likely to be done in the matter.
“I am afraid,” he replied, “that we can’t take any active measures. You have put us on our guard and we shall keep our eyes open. But I think that is all we can do, unless we hear something further.”
“But,” I exclaimed, “don’t you think that it is a very suspicious affair?”
“I do,” he replied. “A very fishy business indeed, and you were quite right to come and tell us about it.”
“It seems a pity not to take some measures,” I said. “While you are waiting to hear something further, they may give the poor wretch a fresh dose and kill him.”
“In which case we should hear something further, unless some fool of a doctor were to give a death certificate.”
“But that is very unsatisfactory. The man ought not to be allowed to die.”
“I quite agree with you, sir. But we’ve no evidence that he is going to die. His friends sent for you, and you treated him skilfully and left him in a fair way to recovery. That’s all that we really know about it. Yes, I know,” the officer continued as I made signs of disagreement, “you think that a crime is possibly going to be committed and that we ought to prevent it. But you overrate our powers. We can only act on evidence that a crime has actually been committed or is actually being attempted. Now we have no such evidence. Look at your statement, and tell me what you can swear to.”
“I think I could swear that Mr. Graves had taken a poisonous dose of morphine.”
“And who gave him that poisonous dose?”
“I very strongly suspect—”
“That’s no good, sir,” interrupted the officer. “Suspicion isn’t evidence. We should want you to swear an information and give us enough facts to make out a prima facie case against some definite person. And you couldn’t do it. Your information amounts to this: that a certain person has taken a poisonous dose of morphine and apparently recovered. That’s all. You can’t swear that the names given to you are real names, and you can’t give us any address or even any locality.”
“I took some compass bearings in the carriage,” I said. “You could locate the house, I think, without much difficulty.”
The officer smiled faintly and fixed an abstracted gaze on the clock.
“You could, sir,” he replied. “I have no doubt whatever that you could. I couldn’t. But, in any case, we haven’t enough to go upon. If you learn anything fresh, I hope you will let me know; and I am very much obliged to you for taking so much trouble in the matter. Good evening sir. Good evening, Dr. Stillbury.”
He shook hands with us both genially, and, accepting perforce this very polite but unmistakable dismissal, we took our departure.
Outside the station, Stillbury heaved a comfortable sigh. He was evidently relieved to find that no upheavals were to take place in his domain.
“I thought that would be their attitude,” he said, “and they are quite right, you know. The function of law is to prevent crime, it is true; but prophylaxis in the sense in which we understand it is not possible in legal practice.”
I assented without enthusiasm. It was disappointing to find that no precautionary measures were to be taken. However, I had done all that I could in the matter. No further responsibility lay upon me, and, as it was practically certain that I had seen and heard the last of Mr. Graves and his mysterious household, I dismissed the case from my mind. At the next corner Stillbury and I parted to go our respective ways; and my attention was soon transferred from the romance of crime to the realities of epidemic influenza.
The plethora of work in Dr. Stillbury’s practice continued longer than I had bargained for. Day after day went by and still found me tramping the dingy streets of Kennington or scrambling up and down narrow stairways; turning in at night dead tired, or turning out half awake to the hideous jangle of the night bell.
It was very provoking. For months I had resisted Thorndyke’s persuasion to give up general practice and join him. Not from lack of inclination, but from a deep suspicion that he was thinking of my wants rather than his own; that his was a charitable rather than a business proposal. Now that I knew this not to be the case, I was impatient to join him; and, as I trudged through the dreary thoroughfares of this superannuated suburb, with its once rustic villas and
