02592cam a22003373u 450000100060000000300070000600500170001300600020003000700050003200800410003704000110007804100170008905000070010610000530011324500210016626400510018730000470023833600260028533700260031133800360033750000310037350800450040452014860044953400640193565300340199965300320203365300560206565300390212185600510216085600430221176796UtSlPG20260610134758.0mcr n260607r20251929utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d  aUtSlPG 7aen2iso639-1 4aPR1 aFreeman, R. Austinq(Richard Austin),d1862-194312aA silent witness 1aSalt Lake City, UT :bProject Gutenberg,c2025  a1 online resource :bmultiple file formats  atextbtxt2rdacontent  acomputerbc2rdamedia  aonline resourcebcr2rdacarrier  aRelease date is 2025-09-02  aan anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer  a"A Silent Witness" by R. Austin Freeman is a detective novel written in the early 20th century. The story follows young doctor Humphrey Jardine as he stumbles into a baffling mystery in Hampstead—first a vanished corpse and then a calculated attempt on his own life—before the renowned medical jurist Dr. John Thorndyke is drawn in. Expect an intricate, scientifically grounded investigation involving forensic clues, a strange reliquary, and unsettling encounters in London’s lanes and lodgings.  The opening of the novel finds Jardine discovering, on a rainy midnight walk through Millfield Lane, what appears to be the body of an elderly clergyman—only for it to vanish before he can return with the police. Next day he uncovers a bloodstain on a fence, footprint traces into Ken Wood, and a small octagonal gold reliquary marked with initials, but the authorities are sceptical. Between hospital duties and a chance meeting with an art student named Sylvia, he takes a temporary post with Dr. Batson, witnesses the certification and swift cremation of a “heart case” named Septimus Maddock, and meets Maddock’s intense landlady, Mrs. Letitia Samway. Soon after, Jardine is lured by a false emergency to a shuttered mineral-water works, trapped in a sealed cellar, and nearly asphyxiated by carbonic acid gas—surviving only by improvising an air hole in the door—setting the stage for the larger mystery to unfold. (This is an automatically generated summary.)  pOriginally published:cNew York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1929  aDetective and mystery stories  aLondon (England) -- Fiction  aThorndyke, Doctor (Fictitious character) -- Fiction  aMurder -- Investigation -- Fiction4 uhttps://books.google.com/books?id=avuHHNUgUuEC40uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76796