Circumstantial Evidence Read Online

Circumstantial Evidence

Circumstantial Evidence and Other Stories

by

Edgar Wallace

    Circumstantial Evidence

    Fighting Snub Reilly

    A Romance in Brown

    Discovering Rex

    The Man in the Golf Hut

    A Tryst with Ghosts

    The Child of Chance

    The Dear Liar

    The Christmas Princess

    Findings are Keepings

    The Little Green Man

    Colonel Chartres Dane lingered irresolutely in the broad and pleasant lobby. Other patients had lingered awhile in that agreeable vestibule. In wintry days it was a cozy place; its polished panelled walls reflecting the gleam of logs that burnt in the open fireplace. There was a shining oak settle that invited gossip, and old prints, and blue china bowls frothing over with the flowers of a belated autumn or advanced spring-tide, to charm the eye.

    In summer it was cool and dark and restful. The mellow tick of the ancient clock, the fragrance of roses, the soft breeze that came through an open casement stirring the lilac curtains uneasily, these corollaries of peace and order had soothed many an unquiet mind.

    Colonel Chartres Dane fingered a button of his light dust-coat and his thin patrician face was set in thought. He was a spare man of fifty-five; a man of tired eyes and nervous gesture.

    Dr. Merriget peered at him through his powerful spectacles and wondered.

    It was an awkward moment, for the doctor had murmured his sincere, if conventional, regrets and encouragements, and there was nothing left but to close the door on his patient.

    "You have had a bad wound there, Mr. Jackson," he said, by way of changing a very gloomy subject and filling in the interval of silence. This intervention might call to mind in a soldier some deed of his, some far field of battle where men met death with courage and fortitude. Such memories might be helpful to a man under sentence.

    Colonel Dane fingered the long scar on his cheek.

    "Yes," he said absently, "a child did that—my niece. Quite my own fault."

    "A child?" Dr. Merriget appeared to be shocked. He was in reality very curious.

    "Yes… she was eleven… my own fault. I spoke disrespectfully of her father. It was unpardonable, for he was only recently dead. He was my brother-in-law. We were at breakfast and she threw the knife… yes…"

    He ruminated on the incident and a smile quivered at the corner of his thin lips.

    "She hated me. She hates me still… yes…"

    He waited.

    The doctor was embarrassed and came back to the object of the visit.

    "I should be ever so much more comfortable in my mind if you saw a specialist, Mr.—er—Jackson. You see how difficult it is for me to give an opinion? I may be wrong. I know nothing of your history, your medical history I mean. There are so many men in town who could give you a better and more valuable opinion than I. A country practitioner like myself is rather in a backwater. One has the usual cases that come to one in a small country town, maternity cases, commonplace ailments… it is difficult to keep abreast of the extraordinary developments in medical science…"

    "Do you know anything about Machonicies College?" asked the colonel unexpectedly.

    "Yes, of course." The doctor was surprised. "It is one of the best of the technical schools. Many of our best doctors and chemists take a preparatory course there. Why?"

    "I merely asked. As to your specialists… I hardly think I shall bother them."

    Dr. Merriget watched the tall figure striding down the red-tiled path between the banked flowers, and was still standing on the doorstep when the whine of his visitor's machine had gone beyond the limits of his hearing.

    "H'm," said Dr. Merriget as he returned to his study. He sat awhile thinking.

    "Mr.