I
Of the many problems upon which Malcolm Sage was engaged during the
early days of the Malcolm Sage Bureau, that concerning the death of
Professor James McMurray, the eminent physiologist, was perhaps the
most extraordinary. It was possessed of several remarkable features;
for one thing the murderer had disappeared, leaving no clue; for
another the body when found seemed to have undergone a strange
change, many of the professor's sixty-five years appearing to have
dropped from him in death as leaves from an autumn tree.
It was one of those strange crimes for which there is no apparent
explanation, consequently the strongest weapon the investigator has,
that of motive, was absent. As far as could be gathered the dead
professor had not an enemy in the world. He was a semi-recluse, with
nothing about him to tempt the burglar; yet he had been brutally
done to death in his own laboratory, and the murderer had made good
his escape without leaving anything likely to prove helpful to the
police.
One day as Gladys Norman, like "panting Time," toiled after her work
in vain, striving to tap herself up to date with an accumulation of
correspondence, the telephone-bell rang for what seemed to her the
umpteenth time that morning. She seized the receiver as a dog seizes
a rat, listened, murmured a few words in reply, then banged it back
upon its rest.
"Oh dear!" she sighed. "I wish they'd let him alone. The poor dear
looks tired out." She turned to William Johnson, who had just
entered. "Why don't you hurry up and become a man, Innocent," she
demanded, "so that you can help the Chief?"
William Johnson looked vague and shuffled his feet. His admiration
of Malcolm Sage's secretary rendered him self-conscious in her
presence.
"Sir John Dene and Sir Jasper Chambers to see the Chief," he
announced, obviously impressed by the social importance of the
callers.
"Sure it's not the Shah of Persia and Charlie Chaplin?" she asked
wearily as she rose from her table and, walking over to the door
marked "Private," passed into Malcolm Sage's room.
Reappearing a moment later she instructed William Johnson to show
the visitors in at once.
As the two men passed through Miss Norman's room, they formed a
striking contrast, Sir John Dene short, thick-set, alert, with the
stamp of the West-End upon all he wore; Sir Jasper Chambers tall,
gaunt arid dingy, with a forehead like the bulging eaves of an
Elizabethan house, and the lower portion of his face a riot of short
grizzled grey hair that seemed to know neither coercion nor
restraint. His neck appeared intent on thrusting itself as far as
possible out of the shabby frock-coat that hung despairingly from
his narrow shoulders.
"I wonder," murmured Gladys Norman, as she returned to her typing,
"how many geraniums he had to give for those clothes."
"Morning, Mr. Sage," cried Sir John Dene.
Malcolm Sage rose. There was an unwonted cordiality in the way in
which he extended his hand.
"This is Sir Jasper Chambers." Sir John Dene turned to his companion.
"You'll be able to place him," and he twirled the unlit cheroot
between his lips with bewildering rapidity.
Sir Jasper bowed with an old-world courtliness and grace that seemed
strangely out of keeping with his lank and unpicturesque bearing.
Malcolm Sage, however, held out his hand with the air of one wishing
to convey that a friend of Sir John Dene merited special
consideration.
He motioned the two men to seats and resumed his own. Both declined
the box of cigars he proffered, Sir John Dene preferring the
well-chewed cheroot between his lips, whilst Sir Jasper drew a pipe
from the tail-pocket of his frock-coat, which with long fleshless
fingers he proceeded to fill from a chamois-leather tobacco-pouch.
"I've brought Sir Jasper along," said Sir John Dene. "You've heard
about the murder of his friend Professor McMurray. He didn't want to
come; but I told him you'd be tickled to death, and that you'd get
it all figured out for him in two wags of a chipmunk's tail."
Malcolm Sage looked across at the eminent philanthropist, whose
whole attention seemed absorbed in the filling of his well-worn
briar.
Sir Jasper's wise charities and great humanitarianism were
world-famous. It was Will Blink, the Labour demagogue, who had said
that of all the honours conferred during the century, Sir Jasper
Chambers' O.M. had alone been earned, the others had been either
bought or wangled.
The McMurray Murder was the sensation of the hour. The newspapers
had "stunted" it, and the public, always eager for gruesome
sensation, had welcomed it as if it had been a Mary Pickford film.
Four days previously, Professor James McMurray of Gorling, in Essex,
had been found dead in his laboratory, his head fearfully battered
in by some blunt instrument.
It was the professor's custom, when engaged upon important research
work, to retire, sometimes for days at a time, to a laboratory he
had built in his own grounds.
Meals were passed through a small wicket, specially constructed for
that purpose in the laboratory wall, and the professor's servants
had the most explicit instructions on no account to disturb him.
A fortnight previously Professor McMurray had retired to his
laboratory to carry out an important series of experiments. He
informed his butler that Sir Jasper Chambers, his life-long friend,
would visit him on the third day, and that dinner for two was to be
supplied in the usual way, through the wicket.
On the evening in question, Sir Jasper Chambers had arrived and
stayed until a little past nine. He then left the laboratory and
proceeded to the house, where he told the butler that his master was
quite well, and that in all probability his researches would occupy
him another week.
Eight days later, when the butler took the professor's luncheon down
to the laboratory, he noticed that the breakfast-tray had not been
removed from the shelf just inside the wicket. Convinced that the
professor had been so absorbed in his researches that he had
forgotten the meal, the butler placed the luncheon-tray beside that
containing the breakfast, thinking it better to leave the earlier
meal as a reminder to the professor of his forgetfulness.
At dinner-time the butler was greatly surprised to find that both
breakfast and luncheon had remained as he had left them; still,
remembering how definite and insistent the professor had been that
he was not to be disturbed, the butler had, after consulting with
the housekeeper, decided to do nothing for the moment, and contented
himself with ringing several times the electric-bell that was the
signal of another meal.
An hour later he went once more to the wicket, only to discover that
nothing had been touched. Hurrying back to the house with all speed
he had conferred with Mrs. Graham, the housekeeper, and, on her
insistence, he had telephoned to the police.
Sergeant Crudden of the Essex County Constabulary immediately
bicycled over to "The Hollows," Professor McMurray's residence, and,
after hearing the butler's story, he had decided to force the door;
there are no windows, the laboratory being lighted from above, in
order to secure entire privacy.
To the officer's surprise the door yielded readily, having
apparently been previously forced. Entering the laboratory he was
horrified to discover the body of the professor lying in the centre
of the floor, his head literally smashed by a terrible blow that had
obviously been delivered from behind.
Acting on the instructions of the police-sergeant, the butler had
telephoned the news to the police-station at Strinton, with the
result that shortly afterwards Inspector Brewitt arrived with a
doctor.
The police had made no statement; but there were some extraordinary
rumours current in the neighbourhood. One was to the effect that it
was not Professor McMurray's body that had been discovered; but that
of a much younger man who bore a striking resemblance to him.
"You have seen the accounts of my friend's terrible end?" enquired
Sir Jasper, as he took the box of matches Malcolm Sage handed him
and proceeded to light his pipe.
Malcolm Sage nodded. His gaze was fixed upon Sir Jasper's grey
worsted socks, which concertinaed up his legs above a pair of
strangely-fashioned black shoes.
"He was about to enter upon a series of experiments with a serum he
had discovered, his object being to lengthen human life."
Sir Jasper spoke in a gentle, well-modulated voice, in which was a
deep note of sadness. He and Professor McMurray had been life-long
friends, their intimacy appearing to become strengthened by the
passage of years.
"You were the last to see him alive, I understand." Malcolm Sage
picked up his fountain-pen and began an elaborate stipple design of
a serpent upon the blotting-pad.
"Eight days before he was found I dined with him," said Sir Jasper,
his voice a little unsteady.
"What happened?" Malcolm Sage enquired without looking up.
"I arrived at seven o'clock," continued Sir Jasper. "From then until
half-past we talked upon things of general interest, after which we
dined. Later he told me he was about to enter upon a final series of
experiments, the result of which would, in all probability, either
be fatal to himself, or mean the lengthening of human life."
He paused, gazing straight in front of him, ejecting smoke from his
lips in staccatoed puffs. Then he continued:
"He said that he had recently made a will, which was lying with his
solicitor, and he gave me certain additional instructions as to the
disposal of his property."
"Did he seem quite normal?" enquired Malcolm Sage, adding a pair of
formidable fangs to his reptile.
"He was calm and confident. At parting he told me I should be the
first to know the result."
"Have you any reason to believe that Professor McMurray had
enemies?" Malcolm Sage enquired.
"None," was the reply, uttered in a tone of deep conviction,
accompanied by a deliberate wagging of the head.
"He was confident of the success of his experiments?"
"Absolutely."
"And you?"
"I had no means of knowing," was the reply.
"You were his greatest friend and his only confidant?" suggested
Malcolm Sage, adding the sixth pair of legs to his creation.
"Yes."
"And you were to be the first to be told of the result of the
experiments?"
"Those were his last words to me."
There was a suggestion of emotion in Sir Jasper's otherwise even
voice.
"Can you remember his actual words?"
"Yes; I remember them," he replied sadly. "As we shook hands he said,
'Well, Chambers, you will be the first to know the result.'"
Again there was silence, broken at length by Malcolm Sage, who
stroked the back of his head with his left hand. His eyes had
returned to Sir Jasper's socks.
"Do you think the professor had been successful in his experiments?"
he enquired.
"I cannot say." Again Sir Jasper shook his head slowly and
deliberately.
"Did you see the body?"
"I did."
"Is there any truth in the rumours that he looked much younger?"
"There was certainly a marked change, a startling change," was the
reply.
"But death plays odd tricks with years," suggested Malcolm Sage, who
was now feeling the lobe of his left ear as if to assure himself of
its presence.
"True," said Sir Jasper, nodding his head as if pondering the matter
deeply. "True."
"There was an article in last month's _The Present Century_ by Sir
Kelper Jevons entitled 'The Dangers of Longevity.' Did you read it?"
enquired Malcolm Sage.
"I did."
"I read it too," broke in Sir John Dene, who had hitherto remained
an interested listener, as he sat twirling round between his lips
the still unlit cheroot. "A pretty dangerous business it seems to me,
this monkeying about with people's glands."
"It called attention to the danger of any interference with Nature's
carefully-adjusted balances between life and death," continued
Malcolm Sage, who had returned to the serpent which now sported a
pair of horns, "and was insistent that the lengthening of human life
could result only in harm to the community. Do you happen to know if
Professor McMurray had seen this?"
"He had." Sir Jasper leaned forward to knock the ashes from his pipe
into the copper tray on Malcolm Sage's table. "We talked of it
during dinner that evening. His contention was that science could
not be constricted by utilitarianism, and that Nature would adjust
her balances to the new conditions."
"But," grumbled Sir John Dene, "it wouldn't be until there had been
about the tallest kind of financial panic this little globe of
misery has ever seen."
"The article maintained that there would be an intervening period of
chaos," remarked Malcolm Sage meditatively, as he opened a drawer
and took from it a copy of _The Present Century_. "I was
particularly struck with this passage," he remarked:
"'It is impossible to exaggerate the extreme delicacy of the
machinery of modern civilization,' he read. 'Industrialism, the
food-supply, existence itself are dependent upon the death-rate.
Reduce this materially and it will inevitably lead to an upheaval of
a very grave nature. For instance, it would mean an addition of
something like a million to the population of the United Kingdom
each year, over and above those provided for by the normal excess of
births over deaths, and _it would be years before Nature could
readjust_ her balances.'"
Malcolm Sage looked across at Sir Jasper, who for some seconds
remained silent, apparently deep in thought.
"I think," he said presently, with the air of a man carefully
weighing his words, "that McMurray was inclined to under-estimate
the extreme delicacy of the machinery of modern civilization. I
recall his saying that the arguments in that article would apply
only in the very unlikely event of someone meeting with unqualified
success. That is to say, by the discovery of a serum that would
achieve what the Spaniards hoped of the Fountain of Eternal Youth,
an instantaneous transformation from age to youth."
"A sort of Faust stunt," murmured Sir John Dene.
Sir Jasper nodded his head gravely.
For some minutes the three men sat silent, Sir Jasper gazing
straight in front of him, Sir John Dene twirling his cheroot between
his lips, his eyes fixed upon the bald dome-like head of Malcolm
Sage, whose eyes were still intent upon his horned reptile, which he
had adorned with wings. He appeared to be thinking deeply.
"It's up to you, Mr. Sage, to get on the murderer's trail," said Sir
John Dene at length, with the air of a man who has no doubt as to
the result.
"You wish me to take up the case, Sir John?" enquired Malcolm Sage,
looking up suddenly.
"Sure," said Sir John Dene as he rose. "I'll take it as a particular
favour if you will. Now I must vamoose. I've got a date in the
city." He jerked himself to his feet and extended a hand to Malcolm
Sage. Then turning to Sir Jasper, who had also risen, he added, "You
leave it to Mr. Sage, Sir Jasper. Before long you won't see him for
dust. He's about the livest wire this side of the St. Lawrence," and
with this enigmatical assurance, he walked to the door, whilst
Malcolm Sage shook hands with Sir Jasper.
II
"Johnnie," said Miss Norman, as William Johnson entered her room in
response to a peremptory call on the private-telephone, "Inspector
Carfon is to honour us with a call during the next few minutes. Give
him a chair and a copy of _The Sunday at Home_, and watch the clues
as they peep out of his pockets. Now buzz off."
William Johnson returned to his table in the outer office and the
lurid detective story from which Miss Norman's summons had torn him.
He was always gratified when an officer from Scotland Yard called;
it seemed to bring him a step nearer to the great crook-world of his
dreams. William Johnson possessed imagination; but it was the
imagination of the films.
A quarter of an hour later he held open the door of Malcolm Sage's
private room to admit Inspector Carfon, a tall man, with small
features and a large forehead, above which the fair hair had been
sadly thinned by the persistent wearing of a helmet in the early
days of his career.
"I got your message, Mr. Sage," he began, as he flopped into a chair
on the opposite side of Malcolm Sage's table. "This McMurray case is
a teaser. I shall be glad to talk it over with you."
"I am acting on behalf of Sir Jasper Chambers," said Malcolm Sage.
"It's very kind of you to come round so promptly, Carfon," he added,
pushing a box of cigars towards the inspector.
"Not at all, Mr. Sage," said Inspector Carfon as he selected a cigar.
"Always glad to do what we can, although we are supposed to be a bit
old-fashioned," and he laughed the laugh of a man who can afford to
be tolerant.
"I've seen all there is in the papers," said Malcolm Sage. "Are
there any additional particulars?"
"There's one thing we haven't told the papers, and it wasn't
emphasised at the inquest." The inspector leaned forward
impressively.
Malcolm Sage remained immobile, his eyes on his finger-nails.
"The doctor," continued the inspector, "says that the professor had
been dead for about forty-eight hours, whereas we _know_ he'd eaten
a dinner about twenty-six hours before he was found."
Malcolm Sage looked up slowly. In his eyes there was an alert look
that told of keen interest.
"You challenged him?" he queried.
"Ra-_ther_," was the response, "but he got quite ratty. Said he'd
stake his professional reputation and all that sort of thing."
Malcolm Sage meditatively inclined his head several times in
succession; his hand felt mechanically for his fountain-pen.
"Then there was another thing that struck me as odd," continued
Inspector Carfon, intently examining the end of his cigar. "The
professor had evidently been destroying a lot of old correspondence.
The paper-basket was full of torn-up letters and envelopes, and the
grate was choc-a-bloc with charred paper. That also we kept to
ourselves."
"That all?"
"I think so," was the reply. "There's not the vestige of a clue that
I can find."
"I see," said Malcolm Sage, looking at a press-cutting lying before
him, "that it says there was a remarkable change in the professor's
appearance. He seemed to have become rejuvenated."
"The doctor said that sometimes 'death smites with a velvet hand.'
He was rather a poetic sort of chap," the inspector added by way of
explanation.
"He saw nothing extraordinary in the circumstance?"
"No," was the response. "He seemed to think he was the only one who
had ever seen a dead man before. I wouldn't mind betting I've seen
as many stiffs as he has, although perhaps he's caused more."
Then as Malcolm Sage made no comment, the inspector proceeded.
"What I want to know is what was the professor doing while the door
was being broken open?"
"There were no signs of a struggle?" enquired Malcolm Sage, drawing
a cottage upon his thumbnail.
"None. He seems to have been attacked unexpectedly from behind."
"Was there anything missing?"
"We're not absolutely sure. The professor's gold watch can't be
found; but the butler is not certain that he had it on him."
For some time there was silence. Malcolm Sage appeared to be
pondering over the additional facts he had just heard.
"What do you want me to do, Mr. Sage?" enquired the inspector at
length.
"I was wondering whether you would run down with me this afternoon
to Gorling."
"I'd be delighted," was the hearty response. "Somehow or other I
feel it's not an ordinary murder. There's something behind it all."
"What makes you think that?" Malcolm Sage looked up sharply.
"Frankly, I can't say, Mr. Sage," he confessed a little shamefacedly,
"it's just a feeling I have."
"The laboratory has been locked up?"
"Yes; and I've sealed the door. Nothing has been touched."
Malcolm Sage nodded his head approvingly and, for fully five minutes,
continued to gaze down at his hands spread out on the table before
him.
"Thank you, Carfon. Be here at half-past two."
"The funeral's to-day, by the way," said the inspector as he rose
and, with a genial "good morning," left the room.
For the next hour Malcolm Sage was engaged in reading the newspaper
accounts of the McMurray Mystery, which he had already caused to be
pasted up in the current press-cutting book; he gathered little more
from them, however, than he already knew.
That afternoon, accompanied by Inspector Carfon, Malcolm Sage
motored down to "The Hollows," which lies at the easternmost end of
the village of Gorling.
The inspector stopped the car just as it entered the drive. The two
men alighted and, turning sharply to the right, walked across the
lawn towards an ugly red-brick building, screened from the house by
a belt of trees. Malcolm Sage had expressed a wish to see the
laboratory first.
It was a strange-looking structure, some fifty feet long by about
twenty feet wide, with a door on the further side. In the red-brick
wall nearer the house there was nothing to break the monotony except
the small wicket through which the professor's meals were passed.
Malcolm Sage twice walked deliberately round the building. In the
meantime the inspector had removed the seal from the padlock and
opened the door.
"Did you photograph the position of the body?" enquired Malcolm Sage,
as they entered.
"I hadn't a photographer handy," said the inspector apologetically,
as he closed the door behind him; "but I managed to get a man to
photograph the wound."
"Put yourself in the position of the body," said Malcolm Sage.
The inspector walked to the centre of the room, near a
highly-polished table, dropped on to the floor and, after a moment's
pause, turned and lay on his left side, with right arm outstretched.
From just inside the door Malcolm Sage looked about him. At the left
extremity a second door gave access to another apartment, which the
professor used as a bedroom.
A little to the right of the door, on the opposite side, stood the
fireplace. This was full of ashes, apparently the charred remains of
a quantity of paper that had been burnt. On the hearth were several
partially-charred envelopes, and the paper-basket contained a number
of torn-up letters.
"That will do, Carfon," said Malcolm Sage, as he walked over to the
fireplace and, dropping on one knee, carefully examined the ashes,
touching them here and there with the poker.
He picked up something that glittered and held it out to the
inspector who scrambled to his feet, and stood looking down with
keen professional interest.
"Piece of a test tube," remarked Malcolm Sage, as he placed the
small piece of glass upon the table.
"Moses' aunt!" gasped the inspector. "I missed that, though I saw a
lot of bits of glass. I thought it was an electric bulb."
"Somebody had ground it to powder with his heel, all except this
piece. Looks as if there might have been more than one," he added
more to himself than to the inspector.
"These are not letters," he continued without looking up.
"Not letters?"
"The paper is all of the same quality. By the way, has anyone
disturbed it?" He indicated the grate.
"No one," was the reply.
Malcolm Sage rose to his feet. For some minutes he stood looking
down at the fireplace, stroking the back of his head, deep in
thought.
Presently he picked up the poker, a massive steel affair, and
proceeded to examine the fire-end with great minuteness.
"It was done with the other end," said the inspector. "He must have
wiped it afterwards. There was no sign of blood or hair."
Malcolm Sage ignored the remark, and continued to regard the
business-end of the poker. Walking over to the door, he examined the
fastenings. Having taken a general survey, he next proceeded to a
detailed scrutiny of everything the place contained. From the
fireplace he picked up what looked like a cinder and placed it in a
small box, which he put in his pocket.
The polished surface of the table he subjected to a careful
examination, borrowing the inspector's magnifying-glass for the
purpose. On hands and knees he crawled round the table, still using
the magnifying-glass upon the linoleum, with which the floor was
covered. From time to time he would pick up some apparently minute
object and transfer it to another small box. At length he rose to
his feet as if satisfied.
"The professor did not smoke?" he queried.
"No; but the murderer did," was the rather brusque reply. Inspector
Carfon was finding the role of audience trying, alike to his nerves
and to his temper.
"Obviously," was Malcolm Sage's dry retort. "He also left his pipe
behind and had to return for it. It was rather a foul pipe, too," he
added.
"Left his pipe behind!" cried the inspector, his irritation dropping
from him like a garment. "How on earth----!" In his surprise he left
the sentence unfinished.
"Here," Malcolm Sage indicated a dark stain on the highly-polished
table, "and here," he pointed to a few flecks of ash some four or
five inches distant, "are indications that a pipe has remained for
some considerable time, long enough for the nicotine to drain
through the stem; it was a very foul pipe, Carfon."
"But mightn't that have trickled out in a few minutes, or while the
man was here?" objected Inspector Carfon.
"With a wet smoker the saliva might have drained back," said Malcolm
Sage, his eyes upon the stain, "but this is nicotine from higher up
the stem, which would take time to flow out. As to leaving it on the
table, what inveterate smoker would allow a pipe to lie on a table
for any length of time unless he left it behind him? The man smoked
like a chimney; look at the tobacco ash in the fireplace."
The inspector stared at Malcolm Sage, chagrin in his look.
"Now that photograph, Carfon," said Malcolm Sage.
Taking a letter-case from his breast-pocket, Inspector Carfon drew
out a photograph folded in half. This he handed to Malcolm Sage, who,
after a keen glance at the grim and gruesome picture, put it in his
pocket.
"I thought so," he murmured.
"Thought what, Mr. Sage?" enquired the inspector eagerly.
"Left-handed." When keenly interested Malcolm Sage was more than
usually economical in words.
"Clean through the left side of the occipital bone," Malcolm Sage
continued. "No right-handed man could have delivered such a blow.
That confirms the poker."
The inspector stared.
"The sockets of the bolts, and that of the lock, have been loosened
from the inside with the poker," explained Malcolm Sage in a
matter-of-fact tone. "The marks upon the poker suggest a left-handed
man. The wound in the head proves it."
"Then the forced door was a blind?" gasped the inspector.
"The murderer was let in by the professor himself, who was
subsequently attacked from behind as he stood with his back to the
fireplace. You are sure the grate has not been touched?" He suddenly
raised his eyes in keen interrogation.
Inspector Carfon shook his head. He had not yet recovered from his
surprise.
"Someone has stirred the ashes about so as to break up the charred
leaves into small pieces to make identification impossible. This man
has a brain," he added.
The inspector gave vent to a prolonged whistle. "I knew there was
something funny about the whole business," he said as if in
self-defence.
Malcolm Sage had seated himself at the table, his long thin fingers
outspread before him. Suddenly he gave utterance to an exclamation
of annoyance.
The inspector bent eagerly forward.
"The pipe," he murmured. "I was wrong. He put it down because he was
absorbed in something, probably the papers he burnt."
"Then you think the murderer burnt the papers?" enquired the
inspector in surprise.
"Who else?" asked Malcolm Sage, rising. "Now we'll see the butler."
Whilst the inspector was locking and re-sealing the door, Malcolm
Sage walked round the building several times in widening circles,
examining the ground carefully; but there had been no rain for
several weeks, and nothing upon its surface suggested a footprint.