Recalled to Life | Page 9

fairly took my breath
away.
"Well, where are the other ones?" he asked, pouncing down upon me
quite fiercely.
"The other WHAT?" I repeated, amazed; for I didn't really understand
him.
"Why, the other photographs!" he replied, as if trying to surprise me.
"There must have been more, you know. It held six plates. Except for
this one, the apparatus, when we found it, was empty."
His manner seemed to crush out the faint spark of recollection that just
flickered within me. I collapsed at once. I couldn't stand such
brusqueness.
"I don't know what you mean," I answered in despair. "I never saw the
plates. I know nothing about them."

CHAPTER IV.
THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS

The Inspector scanned me close for a few minutes in silence. He
seemed doubtful, suspicious. At last he made a new move. "I believe
you, Miss Callingham," he said, more gently. "I can see this train of
thought distresses you too much. But I can see, too, our best chance lies
in supplying you with independent clues which you may work out for
yourself. You must re-educate your memory. You want to know all
about this murder, of course. Well, now, look over these papers. They'll
tell you in brief what little we know about it. And they may succeed in
striking afresh some resonant chord in your memory."
He handed me a book of pasted newspaper paragraphs, interspersed
here and there in red ink with little manuscript notes and comments. I
began to read it with profound interest. It was so strange for me thus to
learn for the first time the history of my own life; for I was quite
ignorant as yet of almost everything about my First State, and my
father and mother.

The paragraphs told me the whole story of the crime, as far as it was
known to the world, from the very beginning. First of all, in the papers,
came the bald announcement that a murder had been committed in a
country town in Staffordshire; and that the victim was Mr. Vivian
Callingham, a gentleman of means, residing in his own house, The
Grange, at Woodbury. Mr. Callingham was the inventor of the
acmegraphic process. The servants, said the telegram to the London
papers, had heard the sound of a pistol-shot, about half-past eight at
night, coming from the direction of Mr. Callingham's library. Aroused
by the report, they rushed hastily to the spot, and broke open the door,
which was locked from within. As they did so, a horrible sight met
their astonished eyes. Mr. Callingham's dead body lay extended on the
ground, shot right through the heart, and weltering in its life-blood.
Miss Callingham stood by his side, transfixed with horror, and mute in
her agony. On the floor lay the pistol that had fired the fatal shot. And
just as the servants entered, for one second of time, the murderer who
was otherwise wholly unknown, was seen to leap from the window into
the shrubbery below. The gardener rushed after him, and jumped down
at the same spot. But the murderer had disappeared as if by magic. It
was conjectured he must have darted down the road at full speed,
vaulted the gate, which was usually locked, and made off at a rapid run
for the open country. Up to date of going to press, the Telegraph said,
he was still at large and had not been apprehended.
That was the earliest account--bald, simple, unvarnished. Then came
mysterious messages from the Central Press about the absence of any
clue to identify the stranger. He hadn't entered the house by any regular
way, it seemed; unless, indeed, Mr. Callingham had brought him home
himself and let him in with the latchkey. None of the servants had
opened the door that evening to any suspicious character; not a soul had
they seen, nor did any of them know a man was with their master in the
library. They heard voices, to be sure--voices, loud at times and
angry,--but they supposed it was Mr. Callingham talking with his
daughter. Till roused by the fatal pistol-shot, the gardener said, they
had no cause for alarm. Even the footmarks the stranger might have left
as he leaped from the window were obliterated by the prints of the
gardener's boots as he jumped hastily after him. The only person who
could cast any light upon the mystery at all was clearly Miss

Callingham, who was in the room at the moment. But Miss
Callingham's mind was completely unhinged for the present by the
nervous shock she had received as her father fell dead before her. They
must wait a few days till she recovered consciousness, and then they
might confidently hope that the murderer would be identified, or