“Yes, nearly three years ago. Prior to Harriman’s arrest, I went there with my friend Watts, of Scotland Yard, and on that evening a strange affair happened—an affair which is still a mystery. I’ll tell you all about it later,” he added. “At present I must go to Porchester Terrace and see what is in progress. I only arrived in London from Paris two hours ago.”
I begged him to take me along with him, and with some reluctance he consented. On the way, Guertin told me a strange story of a dead man exactly resembling himself at Middleton village on the night of Poland’s arrest. Arrived at the house of grim shadows, we found a constable idling outside the gate, but apparently nobody yet knew of what was transpiring in the garden behind the closed house. At first the man declined to allow us to enter, but, on Guertin declaring who he was, we passed through into the tangled, weedy place where the lights of lanterns were shining weirdly, and we could see men in their shirt-sleeves working with shovel and pick, while others were clearing away the dead rank herbage of autumn.
In the uncertain light I saw that a long trench some four feet in depth had been dug, and into this the men were flinging the soil they carefully removed in their progress in a line backwards.
Beneath a tree, close to where was an open trench—the one prepared for the reception of my body—lay something covered with a black cloth. From beneath there stuck out a hideous object—a man’s muddy patent-leather shoe!
Even while I stood amid that weird, never-to-be-forgotten scene, one of the excavators gave an ejaculation of surprise, and a lantern, quickly brought, revealed a human arm in a dark coat-sleeve embedded in the soil.
With a will, half-a-dozen eager hands were at work, and soon a third body—that of a tall, grey-haired man, whose face, alas! was awful to gaze upon—was quickly exhumed.
I could not bear to witness more, and left, gratified to know that the two fiends were already safely confined in a French prison.
Justice would, no doubt, be done, and they would meet with their well-merited punishment.