Chapter 3

“Freddy! Freddy-boy! Mummy’s here, darling!” The wailing cry sounded
through the leafy solitude; but no answer came save the whirr of wings
or the chatter of startled birds. But even more shocking than that
terrible cry—more disturbing and eloquent with dreadful suggestion—was
the way in which she peered, furtively, but with fearful expectation,
among the roots of the bushes, or halted to gaze upon every molehill and
hummock, every depression or disturbance of the ground.

So we stumbled on for a while, with never a word spoken, until we came
to a beaten track or footpath leading across the wood. Here I paused to
examine the footprints, of which several were visible in the soft earth,
though none seemed very recent; but, proceeding a little way down the
track, I perceived, crossing it, a set of fresh imprints, which I
recognised at once as Miss Haldean’s. She was wearing, as I knew, a pair
of brown golf-boots, with rubber pads in the leather soles, and the
prints made by them were unmistakable.

“Miss Haldean crossed the path here,” I said, pointing to the
footprints.

“Don’t speak of her before me!” exclaimed Mrs. Haldean; but she gazed
eagerly at the footprints, nevertheless, and immediately plunged into
the wood to follow the tracks.

“You are very unjust to your niece, Mrs. Haldean,” I ventured to
protest.

She halted, and faced me with an angry frown.

“You don’t understand!” she exclaimed. “You don’t know, perhaps, that if
my poor child is really dead, Lucy Haldean will be a rich woman, and may
marry to-morrow if she chooses?”

“I did not know that,” I answered, “but if I had, I should have said the
same.”

“Of course you would,” she retorted bitterly. “A pretty face can muddle
any man’s judgment.”

She turned away abruptly to resume her pursuit, and I followed in
silence. The trail which we were following zigzagged through the
thickest part of the wood, but its devious windings eventually brought
us out on to an open space on the farther side. Here we at once
perceived traces of another kind. A litter of dirty rags, pieces of
paper, scraps of stale bread, bones and feathers, with hoof-marks, wheel
ruts, and the ashes of a large wood fire, pointed clearly to a gipsy
encampment recently broken up. I laid my hand on the heap of ashes, and
found it still warm, and on scattering it with my foot a layer of
glowing cinders appeared at the bottom.

“These people have only been gone an hour or two,” I said. “It would be
well to have them followed without delay.”

A gleam of hope shone on the drawn, white face as the bereaved mother
caught eagerly at my suggestion.

“Yes,” she exclaimed breathlessly; “she may have bribed them to take him
away. Let us see which way they went.”

We followed the wheel tracks down to the road, and found that they
turned towards London. At the same time I perceived the dogcart in the
distance, with Mrs. Hanshaw standing beside it; and, as the coachman
observed me, he whipped up his horse and approached.

“I shall have to go,” I said, “but Mrs. Hanshaw will help you to
continue the search.”

“And you will make inquiries about the gipsies, won’t you?” she said.

I promised to do so, and as the dogcart now came up, I climbed to the
seat, and drove off briskly up the London Road.

The extent of a country doctor’s round is always an unknown quantity. On
the present occasion I picked up three additional patients, and as one
of them was a case of incipient pleurisy, which required to have the
chest strapped, and another was a neglected dislocation of the shoulder,
a great deal of time was taken up. Moreover, the gipsies, whom I ran to
earth on Rebworth Common, delayed me considerably, though I had to leave
the rural constable to carry out the actual search, and, as a result,
the clock of Burling Church was striking six as I drove through the
village on my way home.

I got down at the front gate, leaving the coachman to take the dogcart
round, and walked up the drive; and my astonishment may be imagined
when, on turning the corner, I came suddenly upon the inspector of the
local police in earnest conversation with no less a person than John
Thorndyke.

“What on earth has brought you here?” I exclaimed, my surprise getting
the better of my manners.

“The ultimate motive-force,” he replied, “was an impulsive lady named
Mrs. Haldean. She telegraphed for me—in your name.”

“She oughtn’t to have done that,” I said.

“Perhaps not. But the ethics of an agitated woman are not worth
discussing, and she has done something much worse—she has applied to
the local J.P. (a retired Major-General), and our gallant and unlearned
friend has issued a warrant for the arrest of Lucy Haldean on the charge
of murder.”

“But there has been no murder!” I exclaimed.

“That,” said Thorndyke, “is a legal subtlety that he does not
appreciate. He has learned his law in the orderly-room, where the
qualifications to practise are an irritable temper and a loud voice.
However, the practical point is, inspector, that the warrant is
irregular. You can’t arrest people for hypothetical crimes.”

The officer drew a deep breath of relief. He knew all about the
irregularity, and now joyfully took refuge behind Thorndyke’s great
reputation.

When he had departed—with a brief note from my colleague to the
General—Thorndyke slipped his arm through mine, and we strolled towards
the house.

“This is a grim business, Jervis,” said he. “That boy has got to be
found for everybody’s sake. Can you come with me when you have had some
food?”

“Of course I can. I have been saving myself all the afternoon with a
view to continuing the search.”

“Good,” said Thorndyke. “Then come in and feed.”

A nondescript meal, half tea and half dinner, was already prepared, and
Mrs. Hanshaw, grave but self-possessed, presided at the table.

“Mabel is still out with Giles, searching for the boy,” she said. “You
have heard what she has done?”

I nodded.

“It was dreadful of her,” continued Mrs. Hanshaw, “but she is half mad,
poor thing. You might run up and say a few kind words to poor Lucy while
I make the tea.”

I went up at once and knocked at Miss Haldean’s door, and, being bidden
to enter, found her lying on the sofa, red-eyed and pale, the very ghost
of the merry, laughing girl who had gone out with me in the morning. I
drew up a chair, and sat down by her side, and as I took the hand she
held out to me, she said:

“It is good of you to come and see a miserable wretch like me. And Jane
has been so sweet to me, Dr. Jervis; but Aunt Mabel thinks I have killed
Freddy—you know she does—and it was really my fault that he was lost.
I shall never forgive myself!”

She burst into a passion of sobbing, and I proceeded to chide her
gently.