Contents
CHAPTER.
I THE MYSTERIOUS PATIENT
II THORNDYKE DEVISES A SCHEME
III "A CHIEL'S AMANG YE TAKIN' NOTES"
IV THE OFFICIAL VIEW
V JEFFREY BLACKMORE'S WILL
VI JEFFREY BLACKMORE, DECEASED
VII THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTION
VIII THE TRACK CHART
IX THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY
X THE HUNTER HUNTED
XI THE BLACKMORE CASE REVIEWED
XII THE PORTRAIT
XIII THE STATEMENT OF SAMUEL WILKINS
XIV THORNDYKE LAYS THE MINE
XV THORNDYKE EXPLODES THE MINE
XVI AN EXPOSITION AND A TRAGEDY
Chapter I
The Mysterious Patient
As I look back through the years of my association with John Thorndyke,
I am able to recall a wealth of adventures and strange experiences such
as falls to the lot of very few men who pass their lives within hearing
of Big Ben. Many of these experiences I have already placed on record;
but it now occurs to me that I have hitherto left unrecorded one that
is, perhaps, the most astonishing and incredible of the whole series; an
adventure, too, that has for me the added interest that it inaugurated
my permanent association with my learned and talented friend, and marked
the close of a rather unhappy and unprosperous period of my life.
Memory, retracing the journey through the passing years to the
starting-point of those strange events, lands me in a shabby little
ground-floor room in a house near the Walworth end of Lower Kennington
Lane. A couple of framed diplomas on the wall, a card of Snellen's
test-types and a stethoscope lying on the writing-table, proclaim it a
doctor's consulting-room; and my own position in the round-backed chair
at the said table, proclaims me the practitioner in charge.
It was nearly nine o'clock. The noisy little clock on the mantelpiece
announced the fact, and, by its frantic ticking, seemed as anxious as I
to get the consultation hours over. I glanced wistfully at my
mud-splashed boots and wondered if I might yet venture to assume the
slippers that peeped coyly from under the shabby sofa. I even allowed my
thoughts to wander to the pipe that reposed in my coat pocket. Another
minute and I could turn down the surgery gas and shut the outer door.
The fussy little clock gave a sort of preliminary cough or hiccup, as if
it should say: "Ahem! ladies and gentlemen, I am about to strike." And
at that moment, the bottle-boy opened the door and, thrusting in his
head, uttered the one word: "Gentleman."
