The D’Arblay Mystery

into the very heart of a drama so strange and incredible that in the recital of its events I am conscious of a certain diffidence and hesitation.

The picture that rises before me as I write is very clear and vivid. I see myself, a youngster of twenty-five, the owner of a brand-new medical diploma, wending my way gaily down Wood Lane, Highgate, at about eight o’clock on a sunny morning in early autumn. I was taking a day’s holiday, the last I was likely to enjoy for some time; for on the morrow I was to enter on the duties of my first professional appointment. I had nothing in view today but sheer, delightful idleness. It is true that a sketchbook in one pocket and a box of collecting-tubes in another suggested a bare hint of purpose in the expedition; but primarily it was a holiday, a pleasure jaunt, to which art and science were no more than possible sources of contributory satisfaction.

At the lower end of the lane was the entrance to Churchyard Bottom Wood, then open and unguarded save by a few hurdles (it has since been enclosed and renamed “Queen’s Wood”). I entered and took my way along the broad, rough path, pleasantly conscious of the deep silence and seeming remoteness of this surviving remnant of the primeval forest of Britain, and letting my thoughts stray to the great plague-pit in the haunted wood that gave the place its name. The foliage of the oaks was still unchanged despite the waning of the year.

“Were you able to ascertain what actually was the cause of death?”

“Yes. The cause of death was aconitine poisoning.”

At this reply a murmur of astonishment arose from the jury, and I heard Miss D’Arblay suddenly draw in her breath. The spectators sat up on their benches, and even the veiled lady was so far interested as to look up from her paper.

“How had the poison been administered?” the coroner asked.

“It had been injected under the skin by means of a hypodermic syringe.”

“Can you give an opinion as to whether the poison was administered to deceased by himself or by some other person?”

“It could not have been injected by deceased himself,” the witness replied. “The needle-puncture was in the back, just below the left shoulder-blade. It is, in my opinion, physically impossible for anyone to inject into his own body with a hypodermic syringe in that spot. And, of course, a person who was administering an injection to himself would select the most convenient spot⁠—such as the front of the thigh. But apart from the question of convenience, the place in which the needle-puncture was found was actually out of reach.” Here the witness produced a hypodermic syringe, the action of which he demonstrated with the aid of a glass of water; and having shown the impossibility of applying it to the spot that he had described, passed the syringe round for the jury’s inspection.

“Have you formed any opinion as to the purpose for which this drug was administered in this manner?”

“I have no doubt that it was administered for the purpose of causing the death of deceased.”

I stepped out on to the little quay and stood at the edge, looking across at the homely curtained windows and wondering what the interior of the deck-house looked like at this moment. Suddenly my ear caught an audible creak from behind me. I was in the act of turning to see whence it came when something struck me a heavy, glancing blow on the arm, crashed to the ground, and sent me flying over the edge of the quay.

Fortunately the water here was not more than four feet deep, and as I had plunged in feet first, and am a good swimmer, I never lost control of myself. In a moment I was standing up with my head and shoulders out of water, not particularly alarmed, though a good deal annoyed and much puzzled as to what had happened. My first care was to recover my hat, which was floating forlornly close by, and the next was to consider how I should get ashore. My left arm was numb from the blow and was evidently useless for climbing. Moreover, the face of the quay was of smooth concrete, as was also the wall below the towpath. But I remembered having passed a pair of boat-steps some fifty yards back, and decided to make for them. I had thought of hailing the sloop, but as the droning song still came from the deck-house, it was clear that the Dutchmen had heard nothing, and I did not think it worth while to disturb them. Accordingly, I set forth for the steps, walking with no little difficulty over the soft, muddy bottom, keeping close to the side and steadying myself with my right hand, with which I could just reach the edge of the coping.

I listened nervously, for I was a little unstrung. I heard her go into the lobby and open the outer door. I heard a low voice, apparently asking a question; the outer door closed, and then came a sudden scuffling sound and a piercing shriek. With a shout of alarm, I raced down the studio, knocking over a chair as I ran, and darted into the lobby just as the outer door slammed.

For a moment I hesitated. Miss D’Arblay had shrunk into a corner, and stood in the semidarkness with both her hands pressed tightly to her breast. But she called out excitedly: “Follow him! I am not hurt”; and on this I wrenched open the door and stepped out.

But the first glance showed me that pursuit was hopeless. The fog had now become so dense that I could hardly see my own feet. I dared not leave the threshold for fear of not being able to find my way back. Then she would be alone⁠—and he was probably lurking close by even now.

I stood irresolute, stock-still; listening intently. The silence was profound. All the natural noises of a populous neighbourhood seemed to be smothered by the dense blanket of dark yellow vapour. Not a sound came to my ear; no stealthy footfall, no rustle of movement. Nothing but stark silence.

Uneasily I crept back until the open doorway showed as a dim rectangle of shadow; crept back and peered fearfully into the darkness of the lobby.

The little meandering street was singularly silent and deserted; and its windings cut off the light from the scanty streetlamps so that stretches of it were in almost total darkness. As I strode forward, the echoes of my footfalls resounded with hollow reverberations which smote my ear⁠—and ought to have smitten my conscience⁠—causing me to wonder, with grim amusement, what Thorndyke would have said if he could have seen me thus setting his instructions at defiance. Indeed, I was so far sensible of the impropriety of my being in such a place at such an hour that I was about to turn to take a look back along the street; but at the very moment that I halted within a few feet of a streetlamp, something struck the brim of my hat with a sharp, weighty blow like the stroke of a hammer, and I heard a dull thud from the lamppost.