Beaumont DuBois

Silent Witness Beaumont DuBois

Dr Humphrey Albreckt's narration treats of a strange chain of events that befell him when he was newly qualified, at a time when there were still horsedrawn cabs and the descent of dusk saw lamplighters at work. His adventures began late one evening when he went for a stroll along Millfield Lane on the edge of London's Hampstead Heath. He sees a corpse, a clerical gent going by his garments, lying further up the narrow thoroughfare but when he returns with police reinforcements a few minutes later the body has gone. Naturally enough, the chaps in blue are politely sceptical about what Albreckt saw or, as they see it, did not see. Albreckt returns next day to examine the lane and finds a suspicious stain on the fence near where the body had lain. He also picks up a tiny reliquary made of gold, its frayed silk cord suggesting it had been worn as a necklace or in some other way about its owner's person. Climbing up and looking over the fence, he sees obvious tracks leading away from the fence - taken all together, suggestive circumstances to say the least. Dr Waxman suggests Albreckt act as locum tenens for a doctor residing in Jacob Street, thus pitching the young medic into a positive whirlwind of odd goings on, including a particularly inventive effort at murdering Albreckt. Waxman's colleague Dr Kirby takes over Albreckt's position pro tem, and investigations get under way to find out who is assiduously trying to dispose of Albreckt, a man with, so far as he knows, no enemies and with no relatives liable to benefit by his death.