THE FINAL PROBLEM
At exactly half-past eleven in the following forenoon, Professor
Woodfield arrived, bearing a massive cowhide bag which he deposited on
a chair as a preliminary to taking off his hat and wiping his
forehead. He was a big, burly, heavy-browed man, sparing of speech and
rather gruff in manner.
“Stuff arrived yet?” he asked when he had brought his forehead to a
satisfactory polish.
“I think it came yesterday morning,” replied Thorndyke.
“The deuce it did!” exclaimed Woodfield.
“Yes. Three parcels from Townley and Draper’s--”
“Oh, you’re talking of the chemicals. I meant the other stuff.”
“No; the officer hasn’t arrived yet, but I expect he will be here in a
few minutes. Superintendent Miller is a scrupulously punctual man.”
The professor strode over to the window and glared out in the
direction of Crown Office Row.
“That man of yours got everything ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered Thorndyke; “and I have looked over the laboratory
myself. Everything is ready. You can begin the instant the ashes are
delivered to us.”
Woodfield expressed his satisfaction--or whatever he intended to
express--by a grunt, without removing his eyes from the approach to
our chambers.
“Cab coming,” he announced a few moments later. “Man inside with a
parcel. That the officer?”
Jervis looked out over the professor’s shoulder.
“Yes,” said he, “that’s Miller; and, confound it! here’s Marchmont
with old Humperdinck. Shall we bolt up to the laboratory and send down
word that we’re all out of town?”
“I don’t see why we should,” said Thorndyke. “Woodfield won’t be
inconsolable if we have to leave him to work by himself for a while.”
The professor confirmed this statement by another grunt, and, shortly
afterwards, the clamour of the little brass knocker announced the
arrival of the first contingent, which, when I opened the door, was
seen to consist of the solicitor and his very reverend client.
“My dear Thorndyke!” exclaimed Marchmont, shaking our principal’s
hand; “what a shocking affair this is--this murder, I mean. I read
about it in the paper. A dreadful affair!”
“Yes, indeed,” Thorndyke assented; “a most callous and horrible
crime.”
“Terrible! Terrible!” said Marchmont. “So unpleasant for you, too, and
so inconvenient. Actually on your own stairs, I understand. But I hope
they’ll be able to catch the villain. Have you any idea who he is?”
“I have a very strong suspicion,” Thorndyke replied.
“Ah!” exclaimed Marchmont. “I thought so. The rascal brought his pigs
to the wrong market. What? Like doing a burglary at Scotland Yard. He
couldn’t have known who lived here. Hallo! why, here’s Mr. Miller.
Howdy-do, Superintendent?”
The officer, for whom I had left the door ajar, entered in his usual
brisk fashion, and, having bestowed a comprehensive salutation on the
assembled company, deposited on the table an apparently weighty
parcel, securely wrapped and decorated with a label bearing the
inscription “This side up.”
“There, sir,” said he, “there’s your box of mystery; and I don’t mind
telling you that I’m on tenterhooks of curiosity to see what you are
going to make of it.”
“Professor Woodfield is the presiding magician,” said Thorndyke, “so
we will hand it over to him. I suppose the casket is sealed?”
“Yes; it was sealed in my presence, and I’ve got to be present when
the seals are broken.”
“We’ll break the seals up in the laboratory,” said Woodfield, “but we
may as well undo the parcel here.”
He produced a solid-looking pocket-knife, fitted with a practicable
corkscrew, and, having cut the string, stripped off the wrappings of
the parcel.
“God bless my soul!” exclaimed Marchmont, as the last wrapping was
removed; “why, it’s a cremation urn! What in the name of Fortune are
you going to do?”
Miller tapped the lid of the urn with a dramatic gesture.
“Dr. Thorndyke,” said he, “is going, I hope, to extract from the ashes
in this casket an instrument of vengeance on the murderer of Mrs.
Samway.”
“Ach!” exclaimed Father Humperdinck, “do not speak of vengeance in ze
bresence of zese boor remains of a fellow greature. Chustice if you
laig, but not vengeance. ‘Vengeance is mine, saiz ze Lordt!’”
“M’yes,” agreed Miller, “that’s perfectly true, sir, and we quite
understand your point of view. Still, we’ve got our job to do, you
know.”
“But,” said Marchmont, “I don’t understand. What is the connection?
These appear to be the remains of Septimus Maddock, whoever he may
have been, and he seems to have died last November. What has he to do
with the murder of this poor woman, Samway?”
“The connection is this,” replied Thorndyke; “the man who murdered
Mrs. Samway murdered the man whose ashes are in this urn. That is my
proposition; and I hope, with the skilful aid of my friend Professor
Woodfield, to prove it.”
“Well,” said Marchmont, “it is a remarkable proposition and the proof
will be still more remarkable. I certainly thought that a body that
had been cremated was beyond the reach of any possible inquiry.”
“I am afraid that is so, as a rule,” Thorndyke admitted. “But I hope
to find an exception in this case. Shall we go upstairs and commence
the examination?”
Woodfield having agreed with gruff emphasis, Miller picked up the
casket and we all proceeded to the laboratory, where Polton, like a
presiding analytical demon, was discovered amidst his beloved
apparatus. The casket was placed on a table, the seals broken and the
cover removed by Woodfield, whereupon we all, with one accord, craned
forward to peer in at what looked like a mass of fragments of snowy
madrepore coral.
“Ach!” exclaimed Father Humperdinck, “bot it is a solemn zought zat
zese boor ashes vas vunce a living man chust like ourselves.”
“Yes,” said Marchmont, “it is, and I suppose we shall all be pretty
much alike by the time we reach this stage. Cremation is a leveller,
with a vengeance. Still, I will say this much, these remains are
perfectly unobjectionable in every way, in fact they are almost
agreeable in appearance; whereas, an ordinary disinterment after this
lapse of time would have been a most horrid business.”
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Thorndyke; “I have had to make a good many
examinations of exhumed bodies, and, as you say, they were very
different from this. If I were not a practitioner of legal
medicine--in which exhumation often furnishes crucial evidence--I
should say that this cleanly and decent method of disposing of the
dead was incomparably superior to any other. Unfortunately it has
serious medico-legal drawbacks. I think, Woodfield, that we will turn
the ashes out on that sheet of paper on the bench, and then, with your
permission, I will pick out the recognizable fragments and examine
them while you are working on the small, powdery portions.”
He took up the urn--which was an oblong, terracotta vessel some
fourteen inches in length--and very carefully inverted it over the
large sheet of clean white paper. Then, from the dazzling, snowy heap,
he picked out daintily the larger fragments, handling them with the
utmost tenderness--for, of course, they were excessively fragile--and
finally transferring them, one by one, to another sheet of paper at
the other end of the bench.
The appearance of the remains was not quite as I had expected. Among
the powdery debris was a quite considerable number of larger
fragments, most of which were easily recognizable by the anatomical
eye, while some of the larger long bones almost gave the impression of
having been broken to enable them to be placed in the urn, and
suggested that a partial reconstitution, for the purpose of
determining the stature or other peculiarities of the skeleton was by
no means as impossible as I had supposed. But, large and small alike,
the pieces were strangely light and attenuated, like the ghosts of
bones or artificial counterfeits in porous, spongy coral.
When Thorndyke had picked out such of the fragments as he wished to
examine, Professor Woodfield glanced casually over the collection, but
suddenly he paused and, stooping over a large piece of the right
innominate bone, narrowly inspected a somewhat shiny yellow stain on
its inner surface.
“Looks as if you were right, Thorndyke,” he said in his laconic way,
“qualitatively, at any rate. We shall see what the quantitative test
says.”
I pored over that dull yellow stain--as did Jervis also--but could
make no guess at its nature or conceive any explanation of its
presence. What interested me more was a small depression or cavity in
the bone at the centre of the stain. That it was not the result of
cremation was obvious from the fact that it was surrounded by a small
area of sclerosed or hardened bone, which was quite plainly
distinguishable on the spongy background, and which clearly pointed to
some inflammatory change that had occurred during life. But of its
cause, as of that of the stain itself, I could think of no
intelligible explanation.
“Have you enough of the small fragments to go on with for the present,
Woodfield?” Thorndyke asked.
“Plenty,” replied Woodfield.
“Then,” said Thorndyke, “I will get on with my side of the inquiry. I
shall want the whole-plate camera first, Polton.”
While his assistant was preparing the camera, he laid several of the
fragments on a baize-covered board and secured them in position by
threads attached to wooden-headed pins like diminutive brad-awls. When
the fragments were fixed immovably, he placed the board in a vertical
position on a stand in a good light, by which time Polton was ready to
make the exposure.
Meanwhile, Professor Woodfield was proceeding--under the horrified
supervision of Father Humperdinck,--with his part of the
investigation. He was a matter-of-fact man, a chemist to the backbone,
and to him it was evident that the late Septimus Maddock was simply
many pounds of animal phosphates. Quite composedly he shovelled up a
scoopful of the ashes, which he emptied into the pan of a
spring-balance, and, having weighed out a pound and a quarter, shot
the contents of the pan into a large mortar and forthwith began to
grind the fragments to a fine powder, humming a cheerful stave to the
ring of the pestle. But his next proceeding scandalized the worthy
Jesuit still more deeply. Having weighed out certain quantities of
charcoal, sodium carbonate and borax, he pulverized each in a second
mortar, mixed the whole together and shot the mixture into the first
mortar, which contained the ash, stirring the entire contents up into
a repulsive-looking grey powder.
“But, my dear sir!” exclaimed Father Humperdinck. “You are destroying
ze remains!”
Woodfield looked at him from under his beetling brows, but went on
stirring.
“Matter is indestructible,” he replied stolidly; and with this he
tipped the contents of the mortar on to a sheet of paper and
transferred them to a large fireclay crucible.
“Now, Polton,” said he, “is the furnace ready?”
Polton disengaged himself for a moment from the camera, and took up a
position by the side of the big fireclay drum with his hand on the gas
cock. Then Woodfield, having dropped three or four large iron nails
into the crucible, carried the latter over to the furnace and lowered
it into the central cavity. The cock was turned on by Polton and a
match applied, whereupon a great purplish flame shot up with a roar
from the mouth of the furnace; and even when this had been confined by
the dropping on of the massive cover, the iron-cased cylinder
continued to emit a muffled, sullen growl.
While the crucible was heating, I transferred my attention to
Thorndyke. The photographic operations were now concluded and the
moulding wax had just been produced from a warmed incubator. Polton’s
curiosity--and mine--was about to be satisfied.
Thorndyke began by laying a thick slab of the warm and pliable wax on
the middle of a smooth plate of varnished plaster, at each corner of
which was a small, hemispherical pit, and dusting powdered French
chalk sparingly over the level surface of the wax. Then he took the
large fragment of bone, which bore the mysterious yellow stain, and
laid it on the wax with the stained side uppermost, pressing it very
gently until it gradually sank into the soft, pasty mass. Next, he
took a somewhat smaller slab of wax and, having dusted its surface
with French chalk, laid it on the fragment of bone, pressing it on
gently but firmly, especially in the neighbourhood of the stain.
Having squeezed some irregular-shaped lumps of wax on the back of the
top slab, he fastened a strip of india-rubber round the edge of the
plaster plate, so that it formed an upright rim and turned to Polton.
“Now mix a bowl of plaster--and mix it extra stiff, so that it will
set quickly and hard.”
With a soft brush he painted a thin coat of oil on the exposed portion
of the plaster plate, up to the edges of the wax, and including the
little circular hollows. By the time he had done this, Polton
reappeared from the workshop with a basin of liquid plaster, which he
was beating up with a spoon as if preparing a custard or batter
pudding. As soon as the plaster began to thicken, he poured it on the
wax and the oiled slab until it formed a level mass, nearly flush with
the top of the india-rubber rim. In a surprisingly short time, the
smooth, creamy liquid solidified into a substance having the
appearance of icing-sugar, and when Polton had stripped away the
india-rubber rim, exposing the edge of the new plaster slab, this part
of the process was finished.
“We will put this mould aside for the plaster to harden while we make
the other mould,” said Thorndyke.
“Aren’t you going to make moulds of all the fragments?” asked Jervis.
“No,” Thorndyke answered; “the photographs of the rest will be
sufficient, and I don’t think we shall want even those; in fact, what
I am doing now is merely by way of extra precaution. We are obliged to
destroy the fragments in order to make the analysis, so I am just
putting their appearance on record. You never know what an ingenious
defending counsel may spring on you.”
As Polton produced a second plate of varnished plaster and Thorndyke
began to prepare the wax for the next mould, I turned my attention
once more to Professor Woodfield. He had now deserted the mortar--in
which he had been preparing a further supply of “the stuff”--and taken
up a position by the furnace, with a long pair of crucible tongs in
his hand. On the bench, hard by, was an iron plate, and on this an
oblong block of iron in which were six conical hollows.
Presently Woodfield glanced at his watch, turned off the gas-cock,
removed the cover of the furnace with his tongs, and, reaching down
into the glowing interior, lifted out the nearly white-hot crucible.
Instantly Marchmont, Humperdinck and Jervis gathered round to watch,
and even Thorndyke left his mould to come and see the result of the
first trial.
Having stood the crucible on the iron plate while he picked out the
large nails, one by one, Woodfield lifted it and steadily poured its
molten contents into the first hollow in the iron block, which they
soon filled, and overflowing ran along the iron plate in glowing
streams that soon grew dull from contact with the cold surface. I
noticed that, as the crucible was slowly tilted, Thorndyke kept his
eyes fixed on its interior, as also did Jervis and Woodfield; and,
watching closely, I saw just as the vessel was nearly empty, what
looked somewhat like a red-hot oil-globule floating in the last of the
glowing liquid. This passed out as the crucible was tilted further,
and disappeared into the iron mould; when Woodfield, having exchanged
a quick, significant glance with Thorndyke, proceeded forthwith, in
his matter-of-fact way to fill up the still red-hot vessel with
another pound and a quarter of the late Septimus Maddock.
“I suppose,” said Marchmont, “it is premature to ask you what is the
final object of these very interesting operations?”
“It’s no use asking me,” replied Woodfield, “because I don’t know. I
am searching for traces of a particular substance, but what may be the
significance of its presence, I haven’t the slightest idea. You’d
better ask Dr. Thorndyke--and he won’t tell you.”
“No, I know,” said Marchmont. “Thorndyke will never tell you anything
until he can tell you everything. By the way, will the remains be
completely destroyed or will it be possible to recover them?”
“They are not destroyed at all,” replied Woodfield. “They are all in
the slag that came out of the crucible. We shall simply put the slag
in the urn. There is a little charcoal, soda and borax added, but
nothing is taken away.”
I could see that to the unchemical mind of Father Humperdinck, this
was far from satisfactory, and I observed him poring, with obvious
disapproval, over the dark-coloured, glassy masses of slag on the iron
plate. “Ashes to Ashes” was an intelligible formula, but “ashes to
slag” was quite another matter, for which no provision had been made
in any known ritual.
After a rather hurried luncheon, the wax moulds were carefully opened
and the fragments of bone picked out, when it was seen that each
fragment had left a perfect impression on the wax surface into which
it had been pressed. These hollow impressions were now filled with
liquid plaster, and, when the latter had thickened sufficiently, the
two halves of each mould were quickly fitted together and kept in
close contact by a weight.
During the interval which was necessary to allow of the plaster
setting quite firmly, I had leisure to note that Professor Woodfield
had filled two more of the cavities in the iron mould. Now that the
furnace was thoroughly hot, he was able to work rather more quickly,
and he had economized time by leaving a crucible to heat while we were
at lunch. He was preparing to take the fourth charge from the furnace
when I observed Polton removing the weight from one of the moulds and
hurriedly transferred my patronage to his part of the entertainment.
The mould on which he was operating was the one bearing the
impressions of the stained fragment of the innominate bone, and when
he separated the two halves and exposed the newly-made cast inside one
might have thought that the actual bone had been left in, so perfectly
did the snowy plaster cast reproduce the dazzlingly-white calcined
bone. But, naturally, the stain did not appear in the cast, a defect
which Thorndyke proceeded at once to remedy by making a tracing of the
exact position and extent of the coloured patch and transferring it to
the cast. Then, and not till then, Thorndyke regretfully handed the
original fragment to Professor Woodfield, who impassively dropped it
into the mortar and pounded it into a mere characterless powder.
After the opening of the second mould and the removal of the casts,
the interest of the investigation lapsed for a time. Woodfield’s
operations were, doubtless, the most important part of the procedure,
but they were not thrilling to look on at. In fact, they became by
unvarying repetition, decidedly tedious, and when the last
charge--containing the uttermost crumb of ash--had been placed in the
furnace and there was nothing to do but stare at the great fireclay
drum, Marchmont and Humperdinck began to yawn in the most portentous
manner. I rather wondered that they did not go, for the investigation
was no business of theirs, and there was little entertainment in
gazing at the outside of the furnace or watching Polton and the
Superintendent gather up the masses of slag from the plate and drop
them into the casket. But I supposed that they, like myself, were
consoling themselves for the tedium of the chemist’s manipulations by
the prospect of satisfying their curiosity as to the final result of
the experiment.
When, at length, the last charge was ready, Woodfield withdrew the
white-hot crucible from the furnace and stood it on the iron plate.
But this time he did not pour out the contents. Instead, he tilted the
iron mould, and, picking out the conical masses of slag that it
contained, one by one, lowered them with his tongs into the hot
crucible. Then, having thrown in a little fresh flux, he returned the
crucible to the furnace.
“Why didn’t he pour out the melted stuff this time?” Marchmont asked.
“Because,” Thorndyke replied, “I want, for certain reasons, to have
the total result of the analysis in a single mass. Each of those
little cones of slag contains the result from a sixth part of the ash;
the crucible now contains the matter extracted from the whole of the
ashes. For my purposes this is more suitable, as you will see in a few
minutes--for we shall not have to leave the crucible in the furnace so
long this time.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Marchmont, “though this has been a most
interesting, and I may say, fascinating experience. I am delighted to
have had an opportunity of witnessing these most instructive
and--er--aw--”
The rest of the sentence was rendered somewhat obscure by a colossal
yawn; but very soon the interest of the proceedings was revived by
Woodfield, who approached the furnace with a determined air and
removed its cover with somewhat of a flourish.
“Now we shall see, Thorndyke,” said he, turning off the gas and
reaching down into the glowing cavity with his tongs. He lifted out
the crucible and, standing it on the iron plate, took out the nails,
tapping each on the side of the pot as he withdrew it.
“Do you want me to pour it out, or shall I break the pot?” asked
Woodfield.
“That rests with you,” replied Thorndyke.
“Better break the pot, then,” said Woodfield.
This entailed a further spell of expectant waiting, and we all stood
round, gazing impatiently at the crucible as it slowly faded from
bright red to dull red and from this to its natural dull drab. It was
quite a long time before Woodfield considered it cool enough to be
broken, indeed I half suspected him of prolonging our suspense with
deliberate malice. At length he took up a peculiarly-shaped hammer
which Polton had handed to him, and, laying the crucible on its side,
struck it sharply near the bottom with the pointed beak; then he
turned the pot over and struck a similar blow on the opposite side;
upon which the bottom of the crucible broke off cleanly, exposing the
mass of dark, glassy slag, and, embedded in it, a bright button of
metal.
“What metal is that?” Jervis demanded eagerly.
The professor struck the button smartly with the hammer, whereupon it
detached itself from the slag and rolled on to the plate.
“Lead,” said he. “I don’t vouch for its purity, but it is undoubtedly
lead.”
Jervis turned to Thorndyke with a puzzled look.
“You can’t be suggesting,” said he, “that this was a case of acute
lead poisoning. The circumstances didn’t admit of it, and besides, the
quantity of lead is impossibly large.”
“I should suppose,” interposed Miller, “that the doctor was suggesting
a most particularly acute form of lead poisoning, only that it is
impossible to imagine that a cremation certificate would be granted in
a case where a man had been killed by a pistol shot.”
“I am not so sure of that,” said Thorndyke; “though it is not likely
that a cremation certificate would be applied for under those
circumstances. But I am certainly not suggesting lead poisoning.”
“What do you say is the weight of this button, Thorndyke?” the
professor asked.
“That,” replied Thorndyke, “depends on its relation to the total
content of lead in the ashes. What percentage do you suppose has been
lost in the process of reduction?”
“Not more than ten per cent. I hope. You may take this button as
representing ninety per cent. of the total lead; perhaps a little
more.”
Thorndyke made a rapid calculation on a scrap of paper.
“I suggest,” said he, “that the total lead in the ashes was three
hundred and eighty-six grains. Deducting a tenth, say thirty-eight and
a half grains, we have three hundred and forty-seven and a half
grains, which should be the weight of this button.”
Woodfield picked up the button and striding over to the glass case
which contained the chemical balance, slid up the front, and, placing
the button in one pan, put the weight corresponding to Thorndyke’s
estimate, in the other. On turning the handle that released the
balance, it was seen that the button was appreciably heavier than
Thorndyke had stated, and Woodfield adjusted the weights with a small
pair of forceps until the index stood in the middle of the graduated
arc.
“The weight is three hundred and forty-nine and a half grains,” said
Woodfield. “That means that my assay was rather better than I thought.
You were quite right, Thorndyke, as you generally are. I wonder what
the object was that weighed three hundred and eighty-six grains. Are
you going to tell us?”
Thorndyke felt in his waistcoat pocket. “It was an object,” said he,
“very similar to this.”
As he spoke, he produced a rather large, dark-coloured bullet, which
he handed to Woodfield, who immediately placed it in the pan of the
balance and tested its weight.
“Just a fraction short of three hundred and eighty-seven grains,” said
he.
The Superintendent peered curiously into the balance-case, and, taking
the bullet out of the pan, turned it over in his fingers.
“That’s not a modern bullet,” said he. “They don’t make ’em that size
now, and they don’t generally make ’em of pure lead.”
“No,” Thorndyke agreed. “They don’t. This is an old French bullet; a
chassepôt of about 1870.”
“A chassepôt!” exclaimed Humperdinck, with suddenly-awakened
interest.
“Yes,” said Thorndyke; “and this button”--he picked it up from the
floor of the balance-case as he spoke,--“was once a chassepôt bullet,
too. This, Father Humperdinck,” he added, holding out the little mass
of metal towards the Jesuit, “was the bullet which struck your friend,
Vitalis Reinhardt, near Saarbrück more than thirty years ago.”
The priest was thunderstruck. For some seconds he gazed from
Thorndyke’s face to the button of lead, with his mouth agape and an
expression of utter stupefaction.
“But,” he exclaimed, at length, “it is impossible! How can it be, in
the ashes of a stranger?”
“I take it,” said Marchmont, “that Dr. Thorndyke is suggesting that
this was the body of Vitalis Reinhardt.”
“Undoubtedly I am,” said Thorndyke.
“It sounds a rather bold supposition,” Marchmont observed, a little
dubiously. “Isn’t it basing a somewhat startling conclusion upon
rather slender data? The presence of the lead is a striking fact, but
still, taken alone--”
“But it isn’t taken alone,” Thorndyke interrupted. “It is the final
link in a long chain of evidence. You will hear that evidence later,
but, as it happens, I can prove the identity of these remains from
facts elicited by the examination that we have just made. Let me put
the argument briefly.
“First, I will draw your attention to these plaster casts, which you
have seen me make from the original bones. Take, to begin with, these
small fragments. Dr. Jervis will tell you what bones they are.”
He handed the small casts to Jervis, who looked them over--not for the
first time--and passed them to me.
“I say that they represent two complete fingers and the first, or
proximal, joint of a right thumb. What do you say, Jardine?”
“That is what I had already made them out to be,” I replied.
“Very well,” said Thorndyke. “That gives us an important initial fact.
These remains contained two complete fingers and the first joint of a
thumb. But these remains profess to be those of a man named Septimus
Maddock. Now this man is known to have had deformed hands, of the kind
described as brachydactylous. In such hands all the fingers are
incomplete--they have only two joints instead of the normal three--and
the first, or proximal joint of the thumb is absent. Obviously, then,
these remains cannot be those of Septimus Maddock, as alleged.
“But, if not Maddock’s remains, whose are they? From certain facts
known to me, I had assumed them to be those of Vitalis Reinhardt. Let
us see what support that assumption has received. Reinhardt is known
to have been wounded in the right hip by a chassepôt bullet, and the
bullet was never extracted. Now I find, among these remains, a
considerable portion of the right hip-bone. In that bone is a mark
which plainly shows that it has been perforated and the perforation
repaired, and there is a cavity in which a foreign body of about the
size of a chassepôt bullet has been partly embedded. The chemical
composition of that foreign body is plainly indicated by a stain which
surrounds the cavity; which stain is evidently due to oxide of lead.
Clearly the foreign body was composed of lead, which will have melted
in the cremation furnace and run away, but left a small portion in the
cavity, which small portion, becoming oxidized, the oxide will have
liquefied and become soaked up by the absorbent bone-ash, thus
producing the stain.
“Finally, we find by assay, that this foreign body actually was
composed of lead and that its weight was--within a negligible amount
of error--three hundred and eighty-six grains, which is the weight of
a chassepôt bullet.
“I say that the evidence, from the ashes alone, is conclusive. But
this is only corroborative of conclusions that I had already formed on
a quite considerable body of evidence. Are you satisfied, Marchmont? I
mean, of course, only in respect of a _prima facie_ case.”
“Perfectly satisfied,” replied Marchmont. “And now I understand why
you insisted on my being present at this investigation and bringing
Father Humperdinck; which, I must admit, has been puzzling me the
whole day. By the way, I rather infer, from what you said, that there
has been foul play. Is that so?”
“I think,” replied Thorndyke, “there can hardly be a doubt that
Reinhardt was murdered by Septimus Maddock.”
Father Humperdinck’s face suddenly turned purple.
“And zis man Maddock,” he exclaimed fiercely, “zis murderer of my poor
friendt Vitalis, vere is he?”
“He is being sought by the police at this moment,” replied Thorndyke.
“He must be caught!” Father Humperdinck shouted in a furious voice,
“and ven he is caught he must be bunished as he deserves. I shall not
vun moment rest until he is hanged as high as Haman.” Here I caught a
quick glance from Marchmont’s eyes and seemed to hear a faint murmur
which framed the words “Vengeance is mine.” “But,” the Jesuit
continued, after a momentary pause, in the same loud, angry tone: “zis
villain has a double grime gommitted; he has murdered a goot, a
chenerous, a bious man; and he has robbed ze boor, ze suffering and ze
unfortunate.”
“How has he done that?” asked Marchmont.
“By murdering ze benefactor of our zoziety,” was the answer.
“Yes, to be sure,” agreed the solicitor. “I hadn’t thought of that. Of
course, the original will in favour of Miss Vyne probably stands
without modification.”
At this point Superintendent Miller interposed.
“You were saying, sir, that the man Maddock is now being sought by the
police. Do you mean under that name?”
“No,” answered Thorndyke. “I mean under the name of Samway. Septimus
Maddock, alias Isaac Van Damme, is written off as deceased. But
Samway, alias Maddock, alias Burton of Bruges, alias Gill, is his
reincarnation, and, as such, I commend him to your attention; and I
hope, Miller, you will be able to produce him shortly, in the flesh.
The evidence, as you see, is now ready, and all that is lacking is the
prisoner.”
“He shan’t be lacking long, sir, if any efforts of mine can bring him
to light. I see a case here that will pay for all the work that we can
put into it; and now, with your permission, doctor, I will take
possession of this urn and get off, to see that everything necessary
is being done.”
The Superintendent, as so often happens with departing guests,
infected our other two visitors with a sudden desire to be gone.
Father Humperdinck, especially, seemed unwilling to lose sight of the
police officer--who was correspondingly anxious to escape--and, having
wished us a very hasty adieu, hurried down the stairs in his wake,
followed, at a greater interval, by his legal adviser.