Page:The Adventure at Heath Crest.pdf/6

144 Mrs. Walland being unfavourable to reflection, I made a détour in the opposite direction, and striding across the Heath, sat for a little time by the Vale of Health to think seriously over the situation. Here was the procuring of quantities of a dangerous drug, its employment with a fatal result, then hurried funeral preparations, a refusal to allow any examination of the body, and lastly, the hurried interment—of course, to effectually destroy all evidence of foul play. Even the sordid motive was not lacking in the insurance which poor Fahbwerker had just effected on his life. As the full horror of the crime burst upon me I set off homeward at a run. I felt I could not rest until I had set an inquiry going. Suddenly I recalled Mrs. Fahbwerker's statement that Walland had predicted the fatal termination. Could I have judged her too hastily? I hurried to the consulting room the moment I got in, and hunted through the case-book; there was not a word of Fahbwerker since the entry concerning the life insurance. I turned up the day-book and then the visiting list, with equal unsuccess. Could Walland—methodical and careful as I knew him to be—have omitted all reference to such a matter? Incredible! Then this, too, could only be one more in the long string of falsehoods uttered by Mrs. Fahbwerker, whom I now regarded as a callous assassin.

I was too much worried and upset to have any appetite for lunch, so, leaving an apology to Mrs. Walland with the servant, I started for the coroner's office. I calculated to reach there about three, and in order to lose no time, I took some paper with me, and busied myself while in the train by writing a full and complete statement with the aid of my fountain-pen. As I feared, both the coroner and his deputy were engaged at inquests, but I left my statement with an official, who promised to bring it to the coroner's notice as soon as possible, and to let me know the result by the evening. It was a great relief when I had got this disagreeable business over, and satisfied that I had now put a substantial spoke in Mrs. Fahbwerker's wheel, I spent a busy afternoon in picking up the loose threads of the day's work which she and her affairs had somewhat disorganised.

As was only natural, the coroner quite took my view of the case, and in the course of the evening I was waited on by one of his officers with a summons to the inquest he would hold the day after next, and an authority for me to make a post-mortem examination. The officer told me he was on his way to serve a similar summons on Mrs. Fahbwerker, with an order to deliver up the body for removal to the mortuary forthwith. I knew I had a very busy day before me, so I took the opportunity of sending word by the officer that I would hold the post-mortem the next morning at eight. I felt that I had now done all that was possible to assist the ends of justice, and seized an early opportunity of going to bed after a day that had certainly not been the least harassing one of my life.

I rose early, and, snatching a hasty breakfast, cycled down to the coroner's court. It was a little before eight when I arrived, but although the mortuary keeper had everything in readiness, there was no corpse. However, just as eight struck, it arrived in charge of the coroner’s officer and the undertaker.

"Wouldn't Mrs. Fahbwerker give up possession?" I asked him.

"Why, no, sir; she never gave herself the chance," said he, with a grin.

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Why, when I left you, sir, I went and served Mrs. Fahbwerker with the notice, and said I should want to take charge of the body this morning. She gave me the address of the undertaker here, and I went and arranged with him. Well, it seems that I had hardly got out of the house before she took and packed up all her boxes, and sent out for a cab and drove away, and no one's set eyes on her since."

"Where did she go to?" I was profoundly interested in this new development, which simply confirmed my worst suspicions.

"The maids say she told the cabman to go to Hampstead Station, but that must have been a blind, for she couldn't take all her luggage by that line, and when they got there she must have told the cabman to drive somewhere else."

"What time was that?"

"About half-past ten, they said."

Scarcely time, I reflected, to get to the Continent; she would have to wait until this morning.

"And you found the body all right?" I asked.

For answer he slapped his hand on the coffin.

"Well, I suppose it will save a lot of scandal if she manages to get away," I observed. "After all, it's the affair of the police."