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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Mr. Pottermack's Oversight," R. Austin Freeman intricately weaves a tale of mystery and moral complexity, emblematic of early 20th-century detective fiction. Through the lens of Dr. John Thorndyke, a pioneering forensic scientist, Freeman explores themes of justice and ethics as the narrative unfolds around a seemingly innocuous oversight that spirals into a gripping investigation. The author's signature style combines meticulous detail with a focus on scientific reasoning, allowing readers to engage actively in the detection process while unveiling the psychological intricacies of human behavior. This novel stands as a testament to Freeman's innovative contributions to the genre, blending literary sophistication with a compelling plot structure that challenges both characters and readers alike. R. Austin Freeman, a noted British writer and early proponent of the genre, was influenced by his background in medicine and legal practice, which informed his detailed portrayal of forensic science. These elements not only enhance the realism of his narratives but also serve to facilitate a deeper exploration of ethical dilemmas faced by individuals caught in the throes of crime and investigation. Freeman's works resonate with societal concerns of his time, particularly the emerging intersection of science and law. "Mr. Pottermack's Oversight" is highly recommended for readers who appreciate a thoughtful blend of mystery, psychology, and forensic science. Freeman's deft storytelling will captivate both avid detectives and those interested in moral quandaries, making this novel a timeless exploration of the human condition within the context of crime. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Mr Pottermack's Oversight
Table of Contents
Introduction
In Mr Pottermack's Oversight, a meticulously engineered solution to a desperate problem encounters the inescapable law of detection: the smallest overlooked detail, stubborn and unglamorous, can unseat the cleverest design, and under the steady, humane pressure of rational inquiry the fragile distance between what we intend and what we actually do collapses into a trace, a pattern, a footprint of mind that no amount of planning can erase, reminding us that in a world governed by cause and effect, it is often the unintended and the infinitesimal that decide the largest human gambles.
R. Austin Freeman’s novel Mr Pottermack's Oversight belongs to the classic canon of British detective fiction and features his celebrated medical jurist, Dr. John Thorndyke. First published in the early 1930s, during the interwar Golden Age, it unfolds in England, where urban order and provincial quiet alike become theatres for the patient examination of evidence. Freeman, a pioneer of scientifically grounded mysteries and a key figure in the development of the inverted detective story, writes with a craftsman’s exactitude, situating the case within social respectability and procedural rigor, and inviting readers to measure intellect against circumstance in an era entranced by forensic modernity.
At its outset, the novel presents a man of outward probity confronted by an intolerable threat to his secure life, who responds with a plan as cautious as it is daring. Freeman’s narrative does not rely on melodrama; it proceeds with a lucid, almost clinical calm, and the tension grows from the friction between design and the stubborn character of material facts. The reading experience is one of intellectual immersion: the voice is measured, the style crisp and meticulous, the mood quietly charged, as the possibility of a perfect solution is tested, inch by inch, against the grain of reality.
Central to that experience is Dr. Thorndyke, whose method embodies Freeman’s faith in reasoned inquiry. A physician and barrister, he treats clues as symptoms and procedures as disciplines, building explanations from instruments, observations, and the strict logic of cause and effect. The novel gives space to the slow accumulation of small particulars—textures, timings, sequences—so that understanding arrives not with fireworks but with the satisfying click of pieces falling into place. Readers who enjoy the patient, procedural side of mystery fiction will find the craft on display here exemplary, a model of how narrative can mirror the laboratory’s precise, replicable steps.
Beyond its mechanics, the book explores fallibility: how a mind intent on control can be waylaid by habit, haste, or the blind spot that self-justification creates. The titular oversight is more than a plot device; it is a meditation on the limits of mastery, the reach of chance, and the ethical stakes of expediency. Freeman also probes the relationship between appearance and truth, suggesting that respectability is a delicate veneer tested by stress. The legal-medical lens keeps moral questions clear without sermonizing, letting readers consider responsibility, intention, and consequence as interlocking parts of a single, rigorously examined human event.
Contemporary readers may recognize in this interwar novel concerns that feel distinctly modern: the power of minute data to destabilize confident narratives, the allure and danger of technical cleverness, and the uneasy balance between empathy and justice. In an age saturated with forensic media, Mr Pottermack's Oversight offers an early, elegant case study in how scientific attention can illuminate character as well as crime. Its disciplined pacing serves as a corrective to spectacle, rewarding patience with clarity, and its emphasis on tiny, persistent facts resonates with our own information-rich world, where the small and the overlooked often determine the outcome.
For newcomers to Freeman and admirers of the Golden Age alike, this novel offers a distinctive blend of ingenuity and restraint: an investigation that values comprehension over surprise, and atmosphere over theatrics, yet never relinquishes suspense. It will appeal to readers who relish fair play puzzles, procedural detail, and the quiet drama of deduction performed scrupulously and humanely. Without disclosing its secrets, one can say that the journey from problem to proof is both exacting and humane, leaving an aftertaste of inevitability. Read attentively, it becomes not just a case to be solved, but a study in how people misread themselves.
Synopsis
Mr. Pottermack0s Oversight opens with a portrait of a quiet, orderly man who has built a modest life in a provincial English town. He lives by routine, values discretion, and keeps his circle small. Though apparently inconspicuous, he carries the residue of a past he would prefer to keep buried. Freeman establishes the setting and tone with attention to ordinary detail, contrasting a placid surface with the potential for disruption. The narrative invites readers to notice small particulars, preparing the ground for a story in which minor facts matter. Against this backdrop, an unforeseen intrusion threatens the stability Pottermack has carefully maintained.
The inciting disturbance arrives in the form of a connection to earlier, less reputable days. A man from that past reappears, armed with knowledge that could ruin Pottermack0s reputation and security. The pressure is immediate and personal, entangling money, secrecy, and fear. As the demands grow, Pottermack0s anxiety hardens into resolve. He begins to consider ways of neutralizing the threat without public scandal. Freeman0s narrative remains restrained, showing the gradual progression from worry to design. The situation frames the central tension: a conventional life placed under extraordinary stress, and a protagonist who contemplates measures he would never have imagined in calmer times.
Faced with an escalating predicament, Pottermack constructs a meticulous plan. He rehearses movements, rehearses explanations, and accounts for documents, timing, and appearances. The scheme hinges on control of small, verifiable facts: who is seen where, when letters are posted, and which physical traces might remain. Freeman presents this process with methodical clarity, letting readers observe careful preparations without endorsing them. The emphasis is practical rather than emotional, focusing on logistics, tools, and contingencies. Throughout, the question of uncertainty remains. However thorough the design, life contains variables. The stage is set for a carefully engineered event and its unanticipated consequences.
An encounter occurs under conditions Pottermack has tried to manage. Actions follow quickly, and a disappearance is registered shortly afterward. In the aftermath, he works to align appearances with his story, arranging objects and accounts to direct attention away from himself. He navigates official routines and social expectations, hoping that ordinary plausibility will suffice. Freeman avoids sensationalism, presenting the critical occurrence as one episode within a broader chain of decisions. The reader0s view remains close to practical steps: conveyance, timing, and the choreography of evidence. Amid this activity, the narrative leaves room for doubt about whether every contingency was truly covered.
For a time, Pottermack0s life returns to a semblance of normal, sustained by routine and careful self-control. He maintains a calm exterior, responds to inquiries, and monitors public talk. Yet the story underlines the fragility of this calm. In the intricate apparatus of concealment, a minor element has gone unattended. The title signals the presence of an overlooked detail, and the narrative begins to circle around small irregularities that might otherwise pass unnoticed. Freeman plants understated indications that something does not fit precisely, inviting readers to appreciate how everyday facts, once examined closely, can assume unexpected significance.
Local authorities engage with the case in a standard way, collecting statements, examining objects, and drawing tentative conclusions. Their work yields partial clarity but leaves essential points unresolved. The ambiguity of the situation calls for a more specialized approach, and Dr. John Thorndyke is consulted. Known for his rigorous methods and scientific discipline, Thorndyke brings a different lens to the same material. He reviews the record, re-inspects the scene, and insists on the measurable and reproducible. The shift in perspective marks a turning point in the narrative, moving from lay impressions to analytic scrutiny grounded in physical evidence.
Thorndyke0s investigation proceeds through patient observation, experiment, and comparison. He tests times and distances, studies residues and impressions, and contrasts testimony with trace evidence. What appeared plausible at a glance reveals small inconsistencies under magnification. Freeman describes these inquiries with clarity, showing how modest facts0a stain, a sequence, a tool mark, a pattern of correspondence0assemble into a coherent account. The story emphasizes process over sensation: hypotheses checked against artifacts, probabilities weighed, and conclusions withheld until the facts align. Gradually, the overlooked element emerges as a hinge on which the larger explanation turns.
As analysis narrows the possibilities, the atmosphere tightens. Thorndyke0s reasoning brings him into quiet conflict with appearances, and the human dimensions of the case come forward. Conversations are frank but restrained, and choices must be made. The resolution balances legal expectation with an understanding of motive and circumstance, consistent with Thorndyke0s measured character. Freeman avoids melodrama, allowing the facts themselves to compel acknowledgment. The denouement follows naturally from the evidence, closing the circle opened by the initial intrusion from the past. While crucial particulars are revealed within the story, this synopsis preserves them, emphasizing the progression rather than the specific outcome.
Overall, Mr. Pottermack0s Oversight presents an inverted-leaning detective narrative in which planning and deduction are placed side by side. It underscores how a single, small omission can unravel an elaborate design when subjected to objective inquiry. The book0s central message concerns the authority of fact: appearances yield to evidence, and intention cannot cancel trace. Within that framework, Freeman also acknowledges human complexity, depicting fear, prudence, and consequence without editorial comment. The sequence0from threat, to plan, to act, to analysisreflects the story0s structure and purpose, offering readers a clear view of cause and effect while preserving the essential discoveries for the text itself.
Historical Context
Mr Pottermack’s Oversight is set in interwar England, chiefly in London and provincial locales that embody the era’s blend of tradition and modernity. The legal quarter, with chambers, courts, and hospitals within walking distance, anchors the story in a city where law and science intersect. Electric lighting, telephones, rail travel, and efficient postal services facilitate swift movement and communication, while suburban fringes provide quieter spaces that can conceal or reveal crucial traces. The time frame, around the late 1920s to early 1930s, follows the First World War and precedes the Second, capturing a society adjusting to technological change, new professional standards, and persistent anxieties about class, employment, and respectability.
The professionalization of forensic science between 1900 and 1930 profoundly shaped British criminal investigation. Scotland Yard adopted the Henry fingerprint classification system in 1901; the first British conviction based primarily on fingerprints, the Stratton brothers case, occurred in 1905. Blood science advanced through Karl Landsteiner’s ABO blood groups (1901) and Paul Uhlenhuth’s precipitin test for human blood (1901). Edmond Locard founded his Lyon laboratory in 1910, articulating the exchange principle. In Britain, expert medical witnesses like pathologist Bernard Spilsbury established the authority of laboratory evidence in court. The novel reflects this culture by making minute, reproducible traces and medico-legal reasoning the decisive tools that expose Pottermack’s singular oversight.
A series of headline-making murder trials in 1910–1924 embedded forensic method in the public imagination. Hawley Harvey Crippen’s 1910 case involved tissue identification and the dramatic use of wireless telegraphy to effect arrest aboard SS Montrose. In 1915, the Brides in the Bath case against George Joseph Smith turned on anatomical and bathtub simulation experiments that convinced the jury. Patrick Mahon’s 1924 Sussex case deployed pathology in reconstructing dismemberment and disposal. These proceedings, often featuring Bernard Spilsbury, trained readers to expect scientific explanations in crime. Freeman’s narrative aligns with this expectation: Dr Thorndyke’s evidential chain mirrors the courtroom logic that had recently gripped Britain’s newspapers and juries.
The social landscape after the First World War (1914–1918) was marked by loss and economic volatility. Britain suffered approximately 886,000 military deaths; demobilization in 1919 flooded the labor market. Unemployment spiked in 1921 and again after the 1929 Wall Street Crash, reaching about 2.5 million in 1931. The 1918 Representation of the People Act expanded the electorate, reshaping politics as Labour rose. The lower-middle and professional classes faced precarious incomes, debt, and the fear of social disgrace. The novel’s premise of a respectable man compromised by pressure, tempted into elaborate self-protection, resonates with this environment, where the specter of unemployment, scandal, and blackmail could drive extreme measures to defend status and livelihood.
Industrial strife culminated in the General Strike of 3–12 May 1926, a nationwide stoppage in solidarity with locked-out coal miners, followed by a protracted coal dispute into 1927. Earlier, police strikes in 1918 and 1919 prompted the Police Act 1919, which banned police unionization and formed the Police Federation, reinforcing discipline and central oversight. These episodes sharpened public concerns about order, authority, and the reliability of institutions. The novel’s portrayal of a methodical, coordinated investigative apparatus—linking metropolitan expertise with provincial policing—echoes a period when the state sought efficiency and steadiness, projecting an image of calm, fact-driven law enforcement amid recurrent social and industrial unrest.
Interwar housing policy and suburban growth reshaped English space. The Housing, Town Planning, etc. Act 1919 (Addison Act) subsidized local authority building, and the Housing Act 1924 (Wheatley Act) expanded provision. Between 1919 and 1939, roughly four million homes were built, many in outer London and provincial suburbs. Garden cities such as Letchworth (1903) and Welwyn (1920) set planning ideals, while improved roads and commuter rail widened daily mobility. These new margins created ambiguities—sheds, allotments, gravel pits, and half-developed plots—where objects might be lost or found and identities blurred. Freeman leverages such liminal spaces, letting careful concealment confront the reality that modern networks and trained observers can unravel local secrets.
R. Austin Freeman’s medical and imperial background connected him to broader currents in late Victorian and Edwardian professional culture. Trained at the Middlesex Hospital, he served as a colonial surgeon on the Gold Coast in the late 1880s, part of a British system that prized empirical observation, specimen handling, and hygienic discipline. The imperial medical service, alongside burgeoning bacteriology and hospital laboratory work, reinforced habits of controlled experiment and precise record-keeping. Mr Pottermack’s Oversight channels these practices into civilian criminology: Thorndyke’s procedures mimic clinical method—collect, culture, compare—transforming the detective’s chambers into a quasi-laboratory. The book thus mirrors Britain’s elevation of specialist expertise as a cornerstone of governance and justice.
As a social and political critique, the book exposes the fragility of interwar respectability and the limits of self-fashioning in a system increasingly ruled by expertise. It interrogates class privilege by showing how an educated, outwardly decent man imagines himself beyond ordinary accountability, only to be caught by impersonal standards of evidence. The narrative critiques informal coercions—gossip, debt, and the threat of scandal—that policed behavior as effectively as statutes. At the same time, it questions whether justice depends on impartial science or on social knowledge, highlighting tensions between humane judgment and technocratic certainty. In presenting oversight as moral failure as well as technical error, the novel indicts an era’s complacent faith in appearances.
Mr Pottermack's Oversight
PROLOGUE
THE afternoon of a sultry day near the end of July was beginning to merge into evening. The crimson eye of the declining sun peered out through chinks in a bank of slaty cloud as if taking a last look at the great level of land and water before retiring for the night; while already, in the soft, greenish grey of the eastern sky, the new-risen moon hung like a globe of pearl.
It was a solitary scene; desolate, if you will, or peaceful. On the one hand the quiet waters of a broad estuary; on the other a great stretch of marshes; and between them the sea wall, following faithfully the curves and indentations of the shore and fading away at either end into invisibility.
A great stillness brooded over the place.[1q] On the calm water, far out beyond the shallows, one or two coasting craft lay at anchor, and yet farther out a schooner and a couple of barges crept up on the flood tide. On the land side in the marshy meadows a few sheep grazed sedately, and in the ditch that bordered the sea wall the water-voles swam to and fro or sat on the banks and combed their hair. Sound there was none save the half-audible wash of the little waves upon the shore and now and again the querulous call of a sea-gull.
In strange contrast to the peaceful stillness that prevailed around was the aspect of the one human creature that was visible. Tragedy was written in every line of his figure; tragedy and fear and breathless haste. He was running—so far as it was possible to run among the rough stones and the high grass—at the foot of the sea wall on the seaward side; stumbling onward desperately, breathing hard, and constantly brushing away with his hand the sweat that streamed down his forehead into his eyes. At intervals he paused to scramble up the slope of the wall among the thistles and ragwort, and with infinite caution, to avoid even showing his head on the skyline, peered over the top backwards and forwards, but especially backwards where, in the far distance, the grey mass of a town loomed beyond the marshes.
There was no mystery about the man's movements. A glance at his clothing explained everything. For he was dressed in prison grey, branded with the broad arrow and still bearing the cell number. Obviously, he was an escaped convict.
Criminologists of certain Continental schools are able to give us with remarkable exactness the facial and other characteristics by which the criminal may be infallibly recognized. Possibly these convenient "stigmata" may actually occur in the criminals of those favoured regions. But in this backward country it is otherwise; and we have to admit the regrettable fact that the British criminal inconsiderately persists in being a good deal like other people. Not that the criminal class is, even here, distinguished by personal beauty or fine physique. The criminal is a low-grade man; but he is not markedly different from other low-grade men.
But the fugitive whose flight in the shelter of the sea wall we are watching did not conform even to the more generalized type. On the contrary, he was a definitely good-looking young man rather small and slight yet athletic and well-knit, with a face not only intelligent and refined but, despite his anxious and even terrified expression, suggestive of a courageous, resolute personality. Whatever had brought him to a convict prison, he was not of the rank and file of its inmates.
Presently, as he approached a bluff which concealed a stretch of the sea wall ahead, he slowed down into a quick walk, stooping slightly and peering forward cautiously to get a view of the shore beyond the promontory, until, as he reached the most projecting point of the wall, he paused for a moment and then crept stealthily forward, alert and watchful for any unexpected thing that might be lurking round the promontory.
Suddenly he stopped dead and then drew back a pace, craning up to peer over the high, rushy grass, and casting a glance of intense scrutiny along the stretch of shore that had come into view. After a few moments he again crept forward slowly and silently, still gazing intently along the shore and the face of the sea wall that was now visible for nearly a mile ahead. And still he could see nothing but that which had met his eyes as he crept round the bluff. He drew himself up and looked down at it with eager interest.
A little heap of clothes; evidently the shed raiment of a bather[1], as the completeness of the outfit testified. And in confirmation, just across the narrow strip of "saltings", on the smooth expanse of muddy sand the prints of a pair of naked feet extended in a line towards the water. But where was the bather? There was only a single set of footprints, so that he must be still in the water or have come ashore farther down. Yet neither on the calm water nor on the open, solitary shore was any sign of him to be seen.
It was very strange. On that smooth water a man swimming would be a conspicuous object, and a naked man on that low, open shore would be still more conspicuous. The fugitive looked around with growing agitation. From the shore and the water his glance came back to the line of footprints; and now, for the first time, he noticed something very remarkable about them. They did not extend to the water. Starting from the edge of the saltings, they took a straight line across the sand, every footprint deep and distinct, to within twenty yards of the water's edge; and there they ended abruptly. Between the last footprint and the little waves that broke on the shore was a space of sand perfectly smooth and untouched.
What could be the meaning of this? The fugitive gazed with knitted brows at that space of smooth sand; and even as he gazed, the explanation flashed upon him. The tide was now coming in, as he could see by the anchored vessels. But when these footprints were made, the tide was going out. The spot where the footprints ended was the spot where the bather had entered the water. Then—since the tide had gone out to the low-water mark and had risen again to nearly half-tide—some five hours must have passed since that man had walked down into the water.
All this flashed through the fugitive's brain in a matter of seconds. In those seconds he realized that the priceless heap of clothing was derelict. As to what had become of the owner, he gave no thought but that in some mysterious way he had apparently vanished for good. Scrambling up the slope of the sea wall, he once more scanned the path on its summit in both directions; and still there was not a living soul in sight. Then he slid down, and breathlessly and with trembling hands stripped off the hated livery of dishonour and, not without a certain incongruous distaste, struggled into the derelict garments.
A good deal has been said—with somewhat obvious truth—about the influence of clothes upon the self-respect of the wearer. But surely there could be no more extreme instance than the present one, which, in less than one brief minute, transformed a manifest convict into a respectable artisan. The change took effect immediately. As the fugitive resumed his flight he still kept off the skyline; but he no longer hugged the base of the wall, he no longer crouched nor did he run. He walked upright out on the more or less level saltings, swinging along at a good pace but without excessive haste. And as he went he explored the pockets of the strange clothes to ascertain what bequests the late owner had made to him, and brought up at the first cast a pipe, a tobacco-pouch, and a box of matches. At the first he looked a little dubiously, but could not resist the temptation; and when he had dipped the mouthpiece in a little salt pool and scrubbed it with a handful of grass, he charged the bowl from the well-filled pouch, lighted it and smoked with an ecstasy of pleasure born of long deprivation.
Next, his eye began to travel over the abundant jetsam that the last spring-tide had strewn upon the saltings. He found a short length of old rope, and then he picked up from time to time a scrap of driftwood. Not that he wanted the fuel, but that a bundle of driftwood seemed a convincing addition to his make-up and would explain his presence on the shore if he should be seen. When he had made up a small bundle with the aid of the rope, he swung it over his shoulder and collected no more.
He still climbed up the wall now and again to keep a look-out for possible pursuers, and at length, in the course of one of these observations, he espied a stout plank set across the ditch and connected with a footpath that meandered away across the marshes. In an instant he decided to follow that path, whithersoever it might lead. With a last glance towards the town, he boldly stepped up to the top of the wall, crossed the path at its summit, descended the landward side, walked across the little bridge and strode away swiftly along the footpath across the marshes.
He was none too soon. At the moment when he stepped off the bridge, three men emerged from the waterside alley that led to the sea wall and began to move rapidly along the rough path. Two of them were prison warders, and the third, who trundled a bicycle, was a police patrol.
"Pity we didn't get the tip a bit sooner", grumbled one of the warders. "The daylight's going fast, and he's got a devil of a start."
"Still", said the constable cheerfully, "it isn't much of a place to hide in. The wall's a regular trap; sea one side and a deep ditch the other. We shall get him all right, or else the patrol from Clifton will. I expect he has started by now."
"What did you tell the sergeant when you spoke to him on the 'phone?"
"I told him there was a runaway coming along the wall. He said he would send a cyclist patrol along to meet us."
The warder grunted. "A cyclist might easily miss him if he was hiding in the grass or in the rushes by the ditch. But we must see that we don't miss him. Two of us had better take the two sides of the wall so as to get a clear view."
His suggestion was adopted at once. One warder climbed down and marched along the saltings, the other followed a sort of sheep-track by the side of the ditch, while the constable wheeled his bicycle along the top of the wall. In this way they advanced as quickly as was possible to the two men stumbling over the rough ground at the base of the wall, searching the steep sides, with their rank vegetation, for any trace of the lost sheep, and making as little noise as they could. So for over a mile they toiled on, scanning every foot of the rough ground as they passed but uttering no word. Each of the warders could see the constable on the path above, and thus the party was enabled to keep together.
Suddenly the warder on the saltings stopped dead and emitted a shout of triumph. Instantly the constable laid his bicycle on the path and slithered down the bank, while the other warder came scrambling over the wall, twittering with excitement. Then the three men gathered together and looked down at the little heap of clothes, from which the discoverer had already detached the jacket and was inspecting it.
"They're his duds all right", said he. "Of course, they couldn't be anybody else's. But here's his number. So that's that."
"Yes", agreed the other, "they're his clothes right enough. But the question is, Where's my nabs himself?"
They stepped over to the edge of the saltings and gazed at the line of footprints. By this time the rising tide had covered up the strip of smooth, unmarked sand and was already eating away the footprints, winch now led directly to the water's edge.
"Rum go", commented the constable, looking steadily over the waste of smooth water. "He isn't out there. If he was, you'd see him easily, even in this light. The water's as smooth as oil."
"Perhaps he's landed farther down", suggested the younger warder.
"What for?" demanded the constable.
"Might mean to cross the ditch and get away over the marshes."
The constable laughed scornfully. "What, in his birthday suit? I don't think. No, I reckon he had his reasons for taking to the water, and those reasons would probably be a barge sailing fairly close inshore. They'd have to take him on board, you know; and from my experience of bargees, I should say they'd probably give him a suit of togs and keep their mouths shut."
The elder warder looked meditatively across the water.
"Maybe you are right", said he, "but barges don't usually come in here very close. The fairway is right out the other side. And, for my part, I should be mighty sorry to start on a swim out to a sailing vessel."
"You might think differently if you'd just hopped out of the jug", the constable remarked as he lit a cigarette.
"Yes, I suppose I should be ready to take a bit of a risk. Well", he concluded, "if that was his lay, I hope he got picked up. I shouldn't like to think of the poor beggar drifting about the bottom of the river. He was a decent, civil little chap."
There was silence for a minute or two as the three men smoked reflectively. Then the constable proposed, as a matter of form, to cycle along the wall and make sure that the fugitive was not lurking farther down. But before he had time to start, a figure appeared in the distance, apparently mounted on a bicycle and advancing rapidly towards them. In a few minutes he arrived and dismounted on the path above them glancing down curiously at the jacket which the warder still held.
"Those his togs?" he asked.
"Yes", replied the constable. "I suppose you haven't seen a gent bathing anywhere along here?"
The newcomer shook his head. "No", said he. "I have patrolled the whole wall from Clifton to here and I haven't seen a soul excepting old Barnett, the shepherd."
The elder warder gathered up the rest of the clothes and handed them to his junior. "Well", he said, "we must take it that he's gone to sea. All that we can do is to get the Customs people to give us a passage on their launch to make the round of all the vessels anchored about here. And if we don't find him on any of them, we shall have to hand the case over to the police."
The three men climbed to the top of the wall and turned their faces towards the town; and the Clifton patrol, having turned his bicycle about, mounted expertly and pedalled away at a smart pace to get back to his station before the twilight merged into night.
At that very moment, the fugitive was stepping over a stile that gave access from the marshes to a narrow, tree-shaded lane. Here he paused for a few moments to fling away the bundle of driftwood into the hedge and refill and light his pipe. Then, with a springy step, be strode away into the gathering moonlit dusk.
CHAPTER I. — MR. POTTERMACK MAKES A DISCOVERY
A CONSCIENTIOUS desire on the part of the present historian to tell his story in a complete and workmanlike fashion from the very beginning raises the inevitable question. What was the beginning? Not always an easy question to answer offhand; for if we reflect upon certain episodes in our lives and try to track them to their beginnings, we are apt, on further cogitation, to discover behind those beginnings antecedents yet more remote which have played an indispensable part in the evolution of events.
As to this present history the whole train of cause and consequence might fairly be supposed to have been started by Mr. Pottermack's singular discovery in his garden. Yet, when we consider the matter more closely, we may doubt if that discovery would ever have been made if it had not been for the sun-dial. Certainly it would not have been made at that critical point in Mr. Pottermack's life; and if it had not—but we will not waste our energies on vain speculations. We will take the safe and simple course. We will begin with the sun-dial.
It stood, when Mr. Pottermack's eyes first beheld it, in a mason's yard at the outskirts of the town. It was obviously of some age, and therefore could not have been the production of Mr. Gallett[2], the owner of the yard; and standing amidst the almost garishly new monuments and blocks of freshly hewn stone, it had in its aspect something rather downfallen and forlorn. Now Mr. Pottermack had often had secret hankerings for a sun-dial. His big walled garden seemed to cry out for some central feature: and what more charming ornament could there be than a dial which like the flowers and trees amidst which it would stand lived and had its being solely by virtue of the golden sunshine?
Mr. Pottermack halted at the wide-open gate and looked at the dial (I use the word, for convenience to include the stone support). It was a graceful structure with a twisted shaft like that of a Norman column, a broad base and a square capital. It was nicely lichened and weathered, and yet in quite good condition. Mr. Pottermack found something very prepossessing in its comely antiquity. It had a motto, too, incised on the sides of the capital; and when he had strolled into the yard, and, circumnavigating the sun-dial, had read it, he was more than ever pleased. He liked the motto. It struck a sympathetic chord. Sole orto: spes: decedente pax[3]. It might have been his own personal motto. At the rising of the sun; hope: at the going down thereof, peace. On his life the sun had risen in hope: and peace at eventide was his chief desire. And the motto was discreetly reticent about the intervening period. So, too, were there passages in the past which he was very willing to forget so that the hope of the morning might be crowned by peace when the shadows of life were lengthening.
"Having a look at the old dial, Mr. Pottermack?" said the mason, crossing the yard and disposing himself for conversation. "Nice bit of carving, that, and wonderful well preserved. He's counted out a good many hours in his time, he has. Seventeen thirty-four. And ready to count out as many again. No wheels to go rusty. All done with a shadder. No wear and tear about a shadder. And never runs down and never wants winding up. There's points about a sun-dial."
"Where did it come from?"
"I took it from the garden of Apsley Manor House, what's being rebuilt and brought up to date. New owner told me to take it away. Hadn't any use for sun-dials in these days, he said. More hasn't anybody else. So I've got him on my hands. Wouldn't like him for your garden, I suppose? He's going cheap."
It appeared, on enquiry, that he was going ridiculously cheap. So cheap that Mr. Pottermack closed with the offer there and then,
"You will bring it along and fix it for me?" said he.
"I will, sir. Don't want much fixing. If you will settle where he is to stand, I'll bring him and set him up. But you'd better prepare the site. Dig well down into the subsoil and make a level surface. Then I can put a brick foundation and there will be no fear of his settling out of the upright."
That was how it began. And on the knife-edge of such trivial chances is human destiny balanced. From the mason's yard Mr. Pottermack sped homeward with springy step, visualizing the ground-plan of his garden as he went; and by the time that he let himself into his house by the front door within the rose-embowered porch he was ready to make a bee-line for the site of his proposed excavation.
He did not, however; for, as he opened the door, he became aware of voices in the adjacent room and his housekeeper came forth to inform him that Mrs. Bellard had called to see him, and was waiting within. Apparently the announcement was not unwelcome, for Mr. Pottermack's cheerfulness was in nowise clouded thereby. We might even go far as to say that his countenance brightened.
Mrs. Bellard was obviously a widow. That is not to say that she was arrayed in the hideous "weeds" with which, a generation ago, women used to make their persons revolting and insult the memory of the deceased. But she was obviously a widow. More obviously than is usual in these latter days. Nevertheless her sombre raiment was well-considered, tasteful and becoming; indeed the severity of her dress seemed rather to enhance her quiet, dignified comeliness. She greeted Mr. Pottermack with a frank smile, and as they shook hands she said in a singularly pleasant, musical voice:
"It is too bad of me to come worrying you like this. But you said I was to."
"Of course I did", was the hearty response; and as the lady produced from her basket a small tin box, he enquired: "Snails?"
"Snails", she replied; and they both laughed.
"I know", she continued, "it is very silly of me. I quite believe that, as you say, they die instantaneously when you drop them into boiling water. But I really can't bring myself to do it."
"Very natural, too", said Pottermack. "Why should you, when you have a fellow conchologist[4] to do it for you? I will slaughter them this evening and extract them from their shells, and you shall have their empty residences to-morrow. Shall I leave them at your house?"
"You needn't trouble to do that. Give them to your housekeeper and I will call for them on my way home from the shops. But I really do impose on you most shamefully. You kill the poor little beasts, you clean out the shells, you find out their names and you leave me nothing to do but stick them on card, write their names under them, and put them in the cabinet. I feel a most horrid impostor when I show them at the Naturalists' Club as my own specimens."
"But, my dear Mrs. Bellard", protested Pottermack, "you are forgetting that you collect them, that you discover them in their secret haunts and drag them out to the light of day. That is the really scientific part of conchology. The preparation of the shells and their identification are mere journeyman's work. The real naturalist's job is the field work;[2q] and you are a positive genius in finding these minute shells—the pupas and cochlicopas and such like."
The lady rewarded him with a grateful and gratified smile, and, opening the little box, exhibited her "catch" and recounted some of the thrilling incidents of the chase, to which Pottermack listened with eager interest. And as they chatted, but half seriously, an observer would have noted that they were obviously the best of friends, and might have suspected that the natural history researches were, perhaps, somewhat in the nature of a plausible and convenient pretext for their enjoying a good deal of each other's society. These little precautions are sometimes necessary in a country district where people take an exaggerated interest in one another and tongues are apt to wag rather freely.
But a close observer would have noted certain other facts. For instance, these two persons were curiously alike in one respect: they both looked older to the casual stranger than they appeared on closer inspection. At a first glance, Mr. Pottermack, spectacled, bearded, and grave, seemed not far short of fifty. But a more critical examination showed that first impression to be erroneous. The quick, easy movements and the supple strength that they implied in the rather small figure, as well as the brightness of the alert, attentive eyes behind the spectacles, suggested that the lines upon the face and the white powdering of the hair owed their existence to something other than the mere effluxion of time. So, too, with Mrs. Bollard. On a chance meeting she would have passed for a well-preserved middle-aged woman. But now, as she chatted smilingly with her friend, the years dropped from her until, despite the white hairs that gleamed among the brown and a faint hint of crow's-feet, she seemed almost girlish.
But there was something else; something really rather odd. Each of the two cronies seemed to have a way of furtively examining the other. There was nothing unfriendly or suspicious in these regards. Quite the contrary, indeed. But they conveyed a queer impression of curiosity and doubt, differently manifested, however, in each. In Mr. Pottermack's expression there was something expectant. He had the air of waiting for some anticipated word or action; but the expression vanished instantly when his companion looked in his direction. The widow's manner was different, but it had the same curious furtive quality. When Pottermack's attention was occupied, she would cast a steady glance at him; and then the lines would come back upon her forehead, her lips would set, and there would steal across her face a look at once sad, anxious, and puzzled. Especially puzzled. And if the direction of her glance had been followed, it would have been traced more particularly to his profile and his right ear. It is true that both these features were a little unusual. The profile was almost the conventional profile of the Greek sculptors—the nose continuing the line of the forehead with no appreciable notch—a character very seldom seen in real persons. As to the ear, it was a perfectly well-shaped, proportionate ear. It would have been of no interest to Lombroso. But it had one remarkable peculiarity: on its lobule was what doctors call a "diffuse naevus" and common folk describe as a "port-wine mark". It was quite small, but very distinct; as if the lobule had been dipped into damson juice. Still, it hardly seemed to justify such anxious and puzzled consideration.
"What a dreadful pair of gossips we are!" Mrs. Bellard exclaimed, taking her basket up from the table. "I've been here half an hour by the clock, and I know I have been hindering you from some important work. You looked full of business as you came up the garden path."
"I have been full of business ever since—land and fresh-water mollusca. We have had a most instructive talk."
"So we have", she agreed, with a smile. "We are always instructive; especially you. But I must really take myself off now and leave you to your other business."
Mr. Pottermack held the door open for her and followed her down the hall to the garden path, delaying her for a few moments to fill her basket with roses from the porch. When he had let her out at the gate, he lingered to watch her as she walked away towards the village; noting how the dignified, matronly bearing seemed to contrast with the springy tread and youthful lissomness of movement.
As he turned away to re-enter the house he saw the postman approaching; but as he was not expecting any letters, and his mind was still occupied with his late visitor, he did not wait. Nor when, a minute later, he heard the characteristic knock, did he return to inspect the letter-box; which was, just as well in the circumstances. Instead, he made his way out by the back door into the large kitchen garden and orchard and followed the long, central path which brought him at length to a high red brick wall, in which was a door furnished with a knocker and flanked by an electric bell. This he opened with a latchkey of the Yale pattern, and, having passed through, carefully shut it behind him.
He was now in what had probably been originally the orchard and kitchen garden of the old house in which he lived, but which had since been converted into a flower garden, though many of the old fruit trees still remained. It was a large oblong space, more than a quarter of an acre in extent, and enclosed on all sides by a massive old wall nearly seven feet high, in which were only two openings: the door by which he had just entered and another door at one side, also fitted with a Yale lock and guarded, in addition, by two bolts.
It was a pleasant place if quiet and seclusion were the chief desire of the occupant—as they apparently were, to judge by Mr. Pottermack's arrangements. The central space was occupied by a large, smooth grass plot, surrounded by well-made paths, between which and the wall were wide flower borders. In one corner was a brick-built summer-house; quite a commodious affair, with a good tiled roof, a boarded floor, and space enough inside for a couple of armchairs and a fair-sized table. Against the wall opposite to the summer-house was a long shed or outhouse with glass lights in the roof, evidently a recently built structure and just a little unsightly—but that would be remedied when the yew hedge that had been planted before it grew high enough to screen it from view. This was the workshop, or rather a range of workshops; for Mr. Pottermack was a man of many occupations, and, being also a tidy, methodical man, he liked to keep the premises appertaining to those occupations separate.
On the present occasion he made his way to the end compartment, in which were kept the gardening tools and appliances, and having provided himself with a spade, a mallet, a long length of cord, and a half-dozen pointed stakes, walked out to the grass plot and looked about him. He was quite clear in his mind as to where the sun-dial was to stand, but it was necessary to fix the spot with precision. Hence the stakes and the measuring-line, which came into use when he had paced out the distances approximately and enabled him, at length, to drive a stake into the ground and thereby mark the exact spot which would be occupied by the centre of the dial.
From this centre, with the aid of the cord, he drew a circle some four yards in diameter and began at once to take up the turf, rolling it up tidily and setting it apart ready for relaying. And now he came to the real job. He had to dig right down to the subsoil. Well, how far down was that? He took off his coat, and, grasping the spade with a resolute air, gave a vigorous drive into the soil at the edge of the circle. That carried him through the garden mould down into a fine, yellowish, sandy loam, a small quantity of which came up on the spade. He noted its appearance with some interest but went on digging, opening up a shallow trench round the circumference of the circle.
By the time that he had made a second complete circuit and carried his trench to a depth of some eight inches, the circle was surrounded by a ring of the yellow loam, surprisingly bulky in proportion to the shallow cavity from which it had been derived. And once more his attention was attracted by its appearance. For Mr. Pottermack amongst his various occupations included occasionally that of sand-casting. Hitherto he had been in the habit of buying his casting-sand by the bag. But this loam, judging by the sharp impressions of his feet where he had trodden in it, was a perfect casting-sand, and to be had for the taking at his very door. By way of testing its cohesiveness, he took up a large handful and squeezed it tightly. When he opened his hand the mass remained hard and firm and showed the impressions of his fingers perfectly to the very creases of the skin.
Very pleased with his discovery, and resolving to secure a supply of the loam for his workshop, he resumed his digging, and presently came down to a stratum where the loam was quite dense and solid and came up on the spade in definite coherent lumps like pieces of a soft rock. This, he decided, was the true subsoil and was as deep as he need go; and having decided this, he proceeded to dig out the ret of the circle to the same depth.
The work was hard and, after a time, extremely monotonous. Still Mr. Pottermack laboured steadily with no tendency to slacking. But the monotony exhausted his attention, and while he worked on mechanically with unabated vigour his thoughts wandered away from his task; now in the direction of the sun-dial, and now—at, perhaps, rather more length—in that of his pretty neighbour and her spoils, which were still awaiting his attentions in the tin box.
He was getting near the centre of the circle when his spade cut through and brought up a piece of spongy, fungus-eaten wood. He glanced at it absently, and having flung it outside the circle, entered his spade at the same spot and gave a vigorous drive. As the spade met with more than usual resistance, he threw a little extra weight on it. And then, suddenly, the resistance gave way; the spade drove through, apparently into vacant space. Mr. Pottermack uttered a startled cry, and after an instant's precarious balancing saved himself by a hair's breadth from going through after it.
For a moment he was quite shaken—and no wonder. He had staggered back a pace or two and now stood, still grasping the spade, and gazing with horror at the black, yawning hole that had so nearly swallowed him up. But as, after all, it had not, he presently pulled himself together and began cautiously to investigate. A very little tentative probing with the spade made everything clear. The hole which he had uncovered was the mouth of an old well: one of those pernicious wells which have no protective coping but of which the opening, flush with the surface of the ground, is ordinarily closed by a hinged flap. The rotten timber that he had struck was part of this flap, and he could now see the rusty remains of the hinges. When the well had gone out of use, some one, with incredible folly, had simply covered it up by heaping earth on the closed flap.
