THE MYSTERY OF THE THICKET
"You know my ideas on modern detective work," Garrick remarked to me,
reflectively, when they had gone.
I nodded assent, for we had often discussed the subject.
"There must be something new in order to catch criminals, nowadays," he
pursued. "The old methods are all right--as far as they go. But while
we have been using them, criminals have kept pace with modern science."
I had met Garrick several months before on the return trip from abroad,
and had found in him a companion spirit.
For some years I had been editing a paper which I called "The
Scientific World," and it had taxed my health to the point where my
physician had told me that I must rest, or at least combine pleasure
with business. Thus I had taken the voyage across the ocean to attend
the International Electrical Congress in London, and had unexpectedly
been thrown in with Guy Garrick, who later seemed destined to play such
an important part in my life.
Garrick was a detective, young, university bred, of good family, alert,
and an interesting personality to me. He had travelled much, especially
in London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, where he had studied the amazing
growth abroad of the new criminal science.
Already I knew something, by hearsay, of the men he had seen, Gross,
Lacassagne, Reiss, and the now immortal Bertillon. Our acquaintance,
therefore, had rapidly ripened into friendship, and on our return, I
had formed a habit of dropping in frequently on him of an evening, as I
had this night, to smoke a pipe or two and talk over matters of common
interest in his profession.
He had paused a moment in what he was saying, but now resumed, less
reflectively, "Fortunately, Marshall, the crime-hunters have gone ahead
faster than the criminals. Now, it's my job to catch criminals. Yours,
it seems to me, is to show people how they can never hope to beat the
modern scientific detective. Let's strike a bargain."
I was flattered by his confidence. More than that, the idea appealed to
me, in fact was exactly in line with some plans I had already made for
the "World," since our first acquaintance.
And so it came about that the case brought to him by McBirney and young
Warrington was responsible for clearing our ideas as to our mutual
relationship and thus forming this strange partnership that has existed
ever since.
"Tom," he remarked, as we left the office quite late, after he had
arranged affairs as if he expected to have no time to devote to his
other work for several days, "come along and stay with me at my
apartment to-night. It's too late to do anything now until to-morrow."
I accepted his invitation without demur, for I knew that he meant it,
but I doubt whether he slept much during the night. Certainly he was up
and about early enough the following morning.
"That's curious," I heard him remark, as he ran his eye hastily over
the first page of the morning paper, "but I rather expected something
of the sort. Read that in the first column, Tom."
The story that he indicated had all the marks of having been dropped
into place at the last moment as the city edition went to press in the
small hours of the night.
It was headed:
GIRL'S BODY FOUND IN THICKET
The despatch was from a little town in New Jersey, and, when I saw the
date line, it at once suggested to me, as it had to Guy, that this was
in the vicinity that must have been traversed in order to reach the
point from which had come the report of the bloody car that had seemed
to tally with the description of that which Warrington had lost. It
read:
"Hidden in the underbrush, not ten feet from one of the most travelled
automobile roads in this section of the state, the body of a murdered
girl was discovered late yesterday afternoon by a gang of Italian
labourers employed on an estate nearby.
"Suspicion was at first directed by the local authorities at the
labourers, but the manner of the finding of the body renders it
improbable. Most of them are housed in some rough shacks up the road
toward Tuxedo and were able to prove themselves of good character.
Indeed, the trampled condition of the thicket plainly indicates,
according to the local coroner, that the girl was brought there,
probably already dead, in an automobile which drew up off the road as
far as possible. The body then must have been thrown where it would be
screened from sight by the thick growth of trees and shrubbery.
"There was only one wound, in the chest. It is, however, a most
peculiar wound, and shows that a terrific force must have been exerted
in order to make it. A blow could hardly have accomplished it, so
jagged were its edges, and if the girl had been struck by a passing
high-speed car, as was at first suggested, there is no way to account
for the entire lack of other wounds which must naturally have been
inflicted by such an accident.
"Neither is the wound exactly like a pistol or gunshot wound, for,
curiously enough, there was no mark showing the exit of a bullet, nor
was any bullet found in the body after the most careful examination.
The local authorities are completely mystified at the possible problems
that may arise out of the case, especially as to the manner in which
the unfortunate girl met her death.
"Until a late hour the body, which is of a girl perhaps twenty-three or
four, of medium height, fair, good looking, and stylishly dressed, was
still unidentified. She was unknown in this part of the country."
Almost before I had finished reading, Garrick had his hat and coat on
and had shoved into his pocket a little detective camera.
"Strange about the bullet," I ruminated. "I wonder who she can be?"
"Very strange," agreed Garrick, urging me on. "I think we ought to
investigate the case."
As we hurried along to a restaurant for a bite of breakfast, he
remarked, "The circumstances of the thing, coming so closely after the
report about Warrington's car, are very suspicious--very. I feel sure
that we shall find some connection between the two affairs."
Accordingly, we caught an early train and at the nearest railroad
station to the town mentioned in the despatch engaged a hackman who
knew the coroner, a local doctor.
The coroner was glad to assist us, though we were careful not to tell
him too much of our own connection with the case. On the way over to
the village undertaker's where the body had been moved, he volunteered
the information that the New York police, whom he had notified
immediately, had already sent a man up there, who had taken a
description of the girl and finger prints, but had not, so far at
least, succeeded in identifying the girl, at any rate on any of the
lists of those reported missing.
"You see," remarked Garrick to me, "that is where the police have us at
a disadvantage. They have organization on their side. A good many
detectives make the mistake of antagonizing the police. But if you want
results, that's fatal."
"Yes," I agreed, "it's impossible, just as it is to antagonize the
newspapers."
"Exactly," returned Garrick. "My idea of the thing, Marshall, is that I
should work with, not against, the regular detectives. They are all
right, in fact indispensable. Half the secret of success nowadays is
efficiency and organization. What I do believe is that organization
plus science is what is necessary."
The local undertaking establishment was rather poorly equipped to take
the place of a morgue and the authorities were making preparations to
move the body to the nearest large city pending the disposal of the
case. Local detectives had set to work, but so far had turned up
nothing, not even the report which we had already received from
McBirney regarding the blood-stained car that resembled Warrington's.
We arrived with the coroner fortunately just before the removal of the
body to the city and by his courtesy were able to see it without any
trouble.
Death, and especially violent death, are at best grewsome subjects, but
when to that are added the sordid surroundings of a country
undertaker's and the fact that the victim is a woman, it all becomes
doubly tragic.
She was a rather flashily dressed girl, but remarkably good looking, in
spite of the rouge and powder which had long since spoiled what might
otherwise have been a clear and fine complexion. The roots of her hair
showed plainly that it had been bleached.
Garrick examined the body closely, and more especially the jagged wound
in the breast. I bent over also. It seemed utterly inexplicable. There
was, he soon discovered, a sort of greasy, oleaginous deposit in the
clotted blood of the huge cavity in the flesh. It interested him, and
he studied it carefully for a long time, without saying a word.
"Some have said she was wounded by some kind of blunt instrument," put
in the coroner. "Others that she was struck by a car. But it's my
opinion that she was killed by a rifle bullet of some kind, although
what could have become of the bullet is beyond me. I've probed for it,
but it isn't there."
Garrick finished his minute examination of the wound without passing
any comment on it of his own.
"Now, if you will be kind enough to take us around to the place where
the body was discovered," he concluded, "I think we shall not trespass
on your time further."
In his own car, the coroner drove us up the road in the direction of
the New York state boundary to the spot where the body had been found.
It was a fine, well-oiled road and I noticed the number and high
quality of the cars which passed us.
When we arrived at the spot where the body of the unfortunate girl had
been discovered, Garrick began a minute search. I do not think for a
moment that he expected to find any weapon, or even the trace of one.
It seemed hopeless also to attempt to pick out any of the footprints.
The earth was soft and even muddy, but so many feet had trodden it down
since the first alarm had been given that it would have been impossible
to extricate one set of footprints from another, much less to tell
whether any of them had been made by the perpetrators of the crime.
Still, there seemed to be something in the mud, just off the side of
the road, that did interest Garrick. Very carefully, so as not to
destroy anything himself which more careless searchers might have left,
he began a minute study of the ground.
Apparently he was rewarded, for, although he said nothing, he took a
hasty glance at the direction of the sun, up-ended the camera he had
brought, and began to photograph the ground itself, or rather some
curious marks on it which I could barely distinguish.
The coroner and I looked on without saying a word. He, at least, I am
sure, thought that Garrick had suddenly taken leave of his senses.
That concluded Garrick's investigation, and, after thanking the
coroner, who had gone out of his way to accommodate us, we started back
to town.
"Well," I remarked, as we settled ourselves for the tedious ride into
the city in the suburban train, "we don't seem to have added much to
the sum of human knowledge by this trip."
"Oh, yes, we have," he returned, almost cheerfully, patting the black
camera which he had folded and slipped into his pocket. "We'll just
preserve the records which I have here. Did you notice what it was that
I photographed?"
"I saw something," I replied, "but I couldn't tell you what it was."
"Well," he explained slowly as I opened my eyes wide in amazement at
the minuteness of his researches, "those were the marks of the tire of
an automobile that had been run up into the bushes from the road. You
know every automobile tire leaves its own distinctive mark, its thumb
print, as it were. When I have developed my films, you will see that
the marks that have been left there are precisely like those left by
the make of tires used on Warrington's car, according to the
advertisement sent out by McBirney. Of course, that mere fact alone
doesn't prove anything. Many cars may use that make of tires. Still, it
is an interesting coincidence, and if the make had been different I
should not feel half so encouraged about going ahead with this clew. We
can't say anything definite, however, until I can compare the actual
marks made by the tires on the stolen car with these marks which I have
photographed and preserved."
If any one other than Garrick had conceived such a notion as the "thumb
print" of an automobile tire, I might possibly have ventured to doubt
it. As it was it gave food enough for thought to last the remainder of
the journey back to town.