A Silent Witness | Page 3

me very ample exercise, and I caught his eye
from time to time, travelling over my person with obvious professional
interest. When we had nearly reached the bottom of the hill, there
appeared suddenly on the wet road ahead, a couple of figures in
waterproof capes. "Ha!" said the constable, "this is fortunate. Here is
the inspector and the sergeant. That will save us the walk to the
station."
He accosted the officers as they approached and briefly related what I
had told him. "You are sure the man was dead, sir?" said the inspector,
scrutinizing me narrowly; "but, there, we needn't stay here to discuss
that. You run down, Sergeant, and get a stretcher and bring it along as
quickly as you can. I must trouble you, sir, to come with me and show
me where the body is. Lend the gentleman your cape, sergeant; you can
get another at the station."

I accepted the stout cape thankfully, for the rain still fell with steady
persistency, and set forth with the inspector to retrace my steps. And as
we splashed along through the deep gloom of the lane, the officer plied
me with judicious questions. "How long did you think the man had
been dead?" he asked.
"Not long, I should think. The body was still quite limp."
"You didn't see any marks of violence?"
"No. There were no obvious injuries."
"Which way were you going when you came on the body?"
"The way we are going now, and, of course, I came straight back."
"Did you meet or see anyone in the lane?"
"Not a soul," I answered.
He considered my answers for some time, and then came the question
that I had been expecting. "How came you to be in the lane at this time
of night?"
"I was taking a walk," I replied, "as I do nearly every night. I usually
finish my evening's reading about eleven, and then I have some supper
and take a walk before going to bed, and I take my walk most
commonly in Millfield Lane. Some of your men must remember having
met me."
This explanation seemed to satisfy him for he pursued the subject no
farther, and we trudged on for awhile in silence. At length, as we
passed through the posts into the narrow part of the lane, the inspector
asked: "We're nearly there, aren't we?"
"Yes," I replied: "the body is lying in the bend just ahead."
I peered into the darkness in search of the foot that had first attracted
my notice, but was not yet able to distinguish it. Nor, to my surprise,

could I make it out as we approached more nearly; and when we
reached the corner, I stopped short in utter amazement.
The body had vanished! "What's the matter?" asked the inspector. "I
thought this was the place you meant."
"So it is," I answered. "This is the place where the body was lying; here,
across the path, with one foot projecting round the corner. Someone
must have carried it away."
The inspector looked at me sharply for a moment. "Well, it isn't here
now," said he, "and if it has been taken away, it must have been taken
along towards Hampstead Lane. We'd better go and see." Without
waiting for a reply, he started off along the lane at a smart double and I
followed.
We pursued the windings of the lane until we emerged into the road by
the lodge gates, without discovering any traces of the missing corpse or
meeting any person, and then we turned back and retraced our steps;
and as we, once more, approached the crook in the lane where I had
seen the body, we heard a quick, measured tramp. "Here comes the
sergeant with the stretcher," observed the inspector; "and he might have
saved himself the trouble." Once more the officer glanced at me sharply,
and this time with unmistakable suspicion. "There's no body here,
Robson," he said, as the sergeant came up, accompanied by two
constables carrying a stretcher. "It seems to have disappeared."
"Disappeared!" exclaimed the sergeant, bestowing on me a look of
extreme disfavour; "that's a rum go, sir. How could it have
disappeared?"
"Ah! that's the question!" said the inspector. "And another question is,
was it ever here? Are you prepared to make a sworn statement on the
subject, sir?"
"Certainly I am," I replied.
"Then," said the inspector, "we will take it that there was a body here.

Put down that stretcher. There is a gap in the fence farther along. We
will get through there and search the meadow."
The bearers stood the stretcher up against a tree and we all proceeded
up the lane to the place where the observant inspector had noticed the
opening in the fence. The gravel,