Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/463

 And one resolve I made was to look upon David Brinsley, alive or dead. Of course if, as Mr. Trelawney said, he was dead and buried, I could not see him alive. But, anyway, I wanted to see that he was as dead as he ought to be if he was really buried.

Necessarily there were certain legal formalities to comply with before my resolve could be put into practical shape. But certain information having been lodged, and all the forms of law been duly observed, an order was issued from the Home Office for the exhumation of the body of David Brinsley, who in the death certificate was described as a native of Australia; aged forty; and his decease was attributed to "pericardiac inflammation."

The disinterment took place at night after the cemetery gates were closed for the day. A small tent had been put up near the grave, and the oak coffin having been hoisted from the grave, was placed on trestles in the tent; and the undertaker's men proceeded to remove the lid and expose the face of the corpse, which proved to be in a remarkably good state of preservation. I had taken care to have several persons present who had been acquainted with David Brinsley, and as the lid of the coffin was taken off, I said collectively to these people as they crowded round:—

"Look well at the face of that dead man, and tell me if it is David Brinsley's face."

In reply to this question there arose a unanimous chorus of "Noes."

Perhaps I smiled a little to myself in spite of the "solemn presence of the dead," but a man may be pardoned for smiling, even under such circumstances, when he knows that he has achieved a triumph. Although the plot had apparently thickened, I had picked up some important clues, and diligently set to work to follow them up. Remembering what took place between Mr. Trelawney and his sister on the occasion of my visit to the "Dingle," I felt certain that his secrets were her secrets, and believing, rightly or wrongly, that in her I should find more pliable material to work upon than in him, I decided to seek an interview with her in her brother's absence, and made my plans accordingly. I went down to the "Dingle" one night, when, as I had previously ascertained would be the case, Mr. Trelawney was absent, and I sent word to Miss Trelawney that I desired to see her on a matter of urgent importance. She received me in the dining-room; a large, heavily-wainscoted and somewhat gloomy chamber, looking very gloomy and very ghostly on this occasion, for the fire had smouldered down to a handful of glowing ashes; and as a current of air that entered from some unseen aperture caused the flame of the large suspended lamp, by which the room was lighted, to flicker and flare, shadows moved to and fro, and chased each other over the table and up the walls, and dived and disappeared into recesses and corners only to immediately reappear again. It was a chamber of shadows, weird and suggestive, and it brought to my mind the line:—

What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!

As I stood dreaming dreams, a door at the