Recalled to Life | Page 6

why I've come. I'm an officer
from Scotland Yard, and I want to see Miss Callingham--alone--most
particularly."
Maria drew herself up and paused.
My heart stood still within me at this chance of enlightenment. I
guessed what he meant; so I called over the stairs to her, in a tremor of
excitement:
"Show the gentleman into the drawing-room, Maria. I 'll come down to
him at once."
For I was dying to know the explanation of the Picture that haunted me
so persistently; and as nobody at home would ever tell me anything
worth knowing about it, I thought this was as good an opportunity as I
could get for making a beginning towards the solution of the mystery.
Well, I ran into my own room as quick as quick could be, and set my
front hair straight, and slipped on a hat and jacket (for I was in my
morning dress), and then went down to the drawing-room to see the
Inspector.
He rose as I entered. He was a gentleman, I felt at once. His manner
was as deferential, as kind, and as considerate to my sensitiveness, as
anything it's possible for you to imagine in anyone.
"I'm sorry to have to trouble you, Miss Callingham," he said, with a
very gentle smile; "but I daresay you can understand yourself the object
of my visit. I could have wished to come in a more authorised way; but
I've been in correspondence with Miss Moore for some time past as to
the desirability of reopening the inquiry with regard to your father's
unfortunate death; and I thought the time might now have arrived when

it would be possible to put a few questions to you personally upon that
unhappy subject. Miss Moore objected to my plan. She thought it
would still perhaps be prejudicial to your health--a point in which Dr.
Wade, I must say, entirely agrees with her. Nevertheless, in the
interests of Justice, as the murderer is still at large, I've ventured to ask
you for this interview; because what I read in the newspapers about the
state of your health--."
I interrupted him, astonished.
"What you read in the newspapers about the state of my health!" I
repeated, thunderstruck. "Why, surely they don't put the state of MY
health in the newspapers!"
For I didn't know then I was a Psychological Phenomenon.
The Inspector smiled blandly, and pulling out his pocket-book, selected
a cutting from a pile that apparently all referred to me.
"You're mistaken," he said, briefly. "The newspapers, on the contrary,
have treated your case at great length. See, here's the latest report.
That's clipped from last Wednesday's Telegraph."
I remembered then that a paragraph of just that size had been carefully
cut out of Wednesday's paper before I was allowed by Aunt Emma to
read it. Aunt Emma always glanced over the paper first, indeed, and
often cut out such offending paragraphs. But I never attached much
importance to their absence before, because I thought it was merely a
little fussy result of auntie's good old English sense of maidenly
modesty. I supposed she merely meant to spare my blushes. I knew
girls were often prevented on particular days from reading the papers.
But now I seized the paragraph he handed me, and read it with deep
interest. It was the very first time I had seen my own name in a printed
newspaper. I didn't know then how often it had figured there.
The paragraph was headed, "THE WOODBURY MURDER," and it
ran something like this, as well as I can remember it:
"There are still hopes that the miscreant who shot Mr. Vivian
Callingham at The Grange, at Woodbury, some four years since, may
be tracked down and punished at last for his cowardly crime. It will be
fresh in everyone's memory, as one of the most romantic episodes in
that extraordinary tragedy, that at the precise moment of her father's
death, Miss Callingham, who was present in the room during the attack,
and who alone might have been a witness capable of recognising or

describing the wretched assailant, lost her reason on the spot, owing to
the appalling shock to her nervous system, and remained for some
months in an imbecile condition. Gradually, as we have informed our
readers from time to time, Miss Callingham's intellect has become
stronger and stronger; and though she is still totally unable to
remember spontaneously any events that occurred before her father's
death, it is hoped it may be possible, by describing vividly certain trains
of previous incidents, to recall them in some small degree to her
imperfect memory. Dr. Thornton, of Welbeck Street, who has visited
her from time to time on behalf of the Treasury, in conjunction with Dr.
Wade, her own medical attendant,