“Very well, Doctor,” said Miller, rising and picking up his hat, “that is good enough for me. I won’t ask you for your reasons because I know you won’t give them. But I have known you long enough to feel sure that you wouldn’t give a definite opinion like that unless you had got something pretty solid to go on. And I don’t think we shall have any difficulty about the exhumation order after what you have said.”
With this the Superintendent took his leave, and very shortly afterwards Thorndyke carried me off to lunch at his club before dismissing me to take up my duties at the studio.
CHAPTER XVI.
A Surprise for the Superintendent
It appeared that Thorndyke was correct in his estimate of the Superintendent’s state of mind, for that officer managed to dispose in a very short space of time of the formalities necessary for the obtaining of an exhumation license from the Home Office. It was less than a week after the interview that I have recorded when I received a note from Thorndyke asking me to join him and Miller at King’s Bench-walk on the following morning at the unholy hour of half-past six. He offered to put me up for the night at his chambers, but I declined this hospitality, not wishing to trouble him unnecessarily; and after a perfunctory breakfast by gaslight, a ride on an early tram, and a walk through the dim, lamp-lit streets, I entered the Temple just as the subdued notes of an invisible clock bell announced a quarter past six. On my arrival at Thorndyke’s chambers I observed a roomy hired carriage drawn up at the entry, and, ascending the stairs, found “the Doctor” and Miller ready to start, each provided with a good-sized hand-bag.
“This is a queer sort of function,” I remarked as we took our way down the stairs; “a sort of funeral the wrong way about.”
“Yes,” Thorndyke agreed; “it is what Lewis Carroll would have called an unfuneral—and very appropriately, too. I didn’t give you any particulars in my note, but you understand the object of this expedition?”
“I assume that we are going to resurrect the late Jonathan Crile,” I replied. “It isn’t very clear to me what I have to do with the business, as I never knew Mr. Crile, though I am delighted to have this rather uncommon experience. But I should have thought that Usher would be the proper person to accompany you.”
“So the Superintendent thought,” said Thorndyke, “and quite rightly; so I have arranged to pick up Usher and take him with us. He will be able to identify the body as that of his late patient, and you and I will help the Superintendent to take the finger-prints.”
“I am taking your word for it, Doctor,” said Miller, “that the finger-prints will be recognizable, and that they will be the wrong ones.”
“I don’t guarantee that,” Thorndyke replied, “but still, I shall be surprised if you get the right ones.”