THE RED THUMB MARK
BY R. AUSTIN FREEMAN
PREFACE
In writing the following story, the author has had in view no purpose
other than that of affording entertainment to such readers as are
interested in problems of crime and their solutions; and the story
itself differs in no respect from others of its class, excepting in that
an effort has been made to keep within the probabilities of ordinary
life, both in the characters and in the incidents.
Nevertheless it may happen that the book may serve a useful purpose in
drawing attention to certain popular misapprehensions on the subject of
finger-prints and their evidential value; misapprehensions the extent of
which may be judged when we learn from the newspapers that several
Continental commercial houses have actually substituted finger-prints
for signed initials.
The facts and figures contained in Mr. Singleton's evidence, including
the very liberal estimate of the population of the globe, are, of
course, taken from Mr. Galton's great and important work on
finger-prints; to which the reader who is interested in the subject is
referred for much curious and valuable information.
In conclusion, the author desires to express his thanks to his friend
Mr. Bernard E. Bishop for the assistance rendered to him in certain
photographic experiments, and to those officers of the Central Criminal
Court who very kindly furnished him with details of the procedure in
criminal trials.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
MY LEARNED BROTHER
CHAPTER II
THE SUSPECT
CHAPTER III
A LADY IN THE CASE
CHAPTER IV
CONFIDENCES
CHAPTER V
THE "THUMBOGRAPH"
CHAPTER VI
COMMITTED FOR TRIAL
CHAPTER VII
SHOALS AND QUICKSANDS
CHAPTER VIII
A SUSPICIOUS ACCIDENT
CHAPTER IX
THE PRISONER
CHAPTER X
POLTON IS MYSTIFIED
CHAPTER XI
THE AMBUSH
CHAPTER XII
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
CHAPTER XIII
MURDER BY POST
CHAPTER XIV
A STARTLING DISCOVERY
CHAPTER XV
THE FINGER-PRINT EXPERTS
CHAPTER XVI
THORNDYKE PLAYS HIS CARD
CHAPTER XVII
AT LAST
CHAPTER I
MY LEARNED BROTHER
"Conflagratam An° 1677. Fabricatam An° 1698. Richardo Powell Armiger
Thesaurar." The words, set in four panels, which formed a frieze beneath
the pediment of a fine brick portico, summarised the history of one of
the tall houses at the upper end of King's Bench Walk and as I, somewhat
absently, read over the inscription, my attention was divided between
admiration of the exquisitely finished carved brickwork and the quiet
dignity of the building, and an effort to reconstitute the dead and gone
Richard Powell, and the stirring times in which he played his part.
I was about to turn away when the empty frame of the portico became
occupied by a figure, and one so appropriate, in its wig and obsolete
habiliments, to the old-world surroundings that it seemed to complete
the picture, and I lingered idly to look at it. The barrister had halted
in the doorway to turn over a sheaf of papers that he held in his hand,
and, as he replaced the red tape which bound them together, he looked up
and our eyes met. For a moment we regarded one another with the
incurious gaze that casual strangers bestow on one another; then there
was a flash of mutual recognition; the impassive and rather severe face
of the lawyer softened into a genial smile, and the figure, detaching
itself from its frame, came down the steps with a hand extended in
cordial greeting.
"My dear Jervis," he exclaimed, as we clasped hands warmly, "this is a
great and delightful surprise. How often have I thought of my old
comrade and wondered if I should ever see him again, and lo! here he is,
thrown up on the sounding beach of the Inner Temple, like the proverbial
bread cast upon the waters."
"Your surprise, Thorndyke, is nothing to mine," I replied, "for your
bread has at least returned as bread; whereas I am in the position of a
man who, having cast his bread upon the waters, sees it return in the
form of a buttered muffin or a Bath bun. I left a respectable medical
practitioner and I find him transformed into a bewigged and begowned
limb of the law."
Thorndyke laughed at the comparison.
"Liken not your old friend unto a Bath bun," said he. "Say, rather, that
you left him a chrysalis and come back to find him a butterfly. But the
change is not so great as you think. Hippocrates is only hiding under
the gown of Solon, as you will understand when I explain my
metamorphosis; and that I will do this very evening, if you have no
engagement."
"I am one of the unemployed at present," I said, "and quite at your
service."
"Then come round to my chambers at seven," said Thorndyke, "and we will
have a chop and a pint of claret together and exchange autobiographies.
I am due in court in a few minutes."
"Do you reside within that noble old portico?" I asked.
"No," replied Thorndyke. "I often wish I did. It would add several
inches to one's stature to feel that the mouth of one's burrow was
graced with a Latin inscription for admiring strangers to ponder over.
No; my chambers are some doors further down--number 6A"--and he turned
to point out the house as we crossed towards Crown Office Row.
At the top of Middle Temple Lane we parted, Thorndyke taking his way
with fluttering gown towards the Law Courts, while I directed my steps
westward towards Adam Street, the chosen haunt of the medical agent.
The soft-voiced bell of the Temple clock was telling out the hour of
seven in muffled accents (as though it apologised for breaking the
studious silence) as I emerged from the archway of Mitre Court and
turned into King's Bench Walk.
The paved footway was empty save for a single figure, pacing slowly
before the doorway of number 6A, in which, though the wig had now given
place to a felt hat and the gown to a jacket, I had no difficulty in
recognising my friend.
"Punctual to the moment, as of old," said he, meeting me half-way. "What
a blessed virtue is punctuality, even in small things. I have just been
taking the air in Fountain Court, and will now introduce you to my
chambers. Here is my humble retreat."
We passed in through the common entrance and ascended the stone stairs
to the first floor, where we were confronted by a massive door, above
which my friend's name was written in white letters. "Rather a
forbidding exterior," remarked Thorndyke, as he inserted the latchkey,
"but it is homely enough inside."
The heavy door swung outwards and disclosed a baize-covered inner door,
which Thorndyke pushed open and held for me to pass in.
"You will find my chambers an odd mixture," said Thorndyke, "for they
combine the attractions of an office, a museum, a laboratory and a
workshop."
"And a restaurant," added a small, elderly man, who was decanting a
bottle of claret by means of a glass syphon: "you forgot that, sir."
"Yes, I forgot that, Polton," said Thorndyke, "but I see you have not."
He glanced towards a small table that had been placed near the fire and
set out with the requisites for our meal.
"Tell me," said Thorndyke, as we made the initial onslaught on the
products of Polton's culinary experiments, "what has been happening to
you since you left the hospital six years ago?"
"My story is soon told," I answered, somewhat bitterly. "It is not an
uncommon one. My funds ran out, as you know, rather unexpectedly. When I
had paid my examination and registration fees the coffer was absolutely
empty, and though, no doubt, a medical diploma contains--to use
Johnson's phrase--the potentiality of wealth beyond the dreams of
avarice, there is a vast difference in practice between the potential
and the actual. I have, in fact, been earning a subsistence, sometimes
as an assistant, sometimes as a _locum tenens_. Just now I've got no
work to do, and so have entered my name on Turcival's list of
eligibles."
Thorndyke pursed up his lips and frowned.
"It's a wicked shame, Jervis," said he presently, "that a man of your
abilities and scientific acquirements should be frittering away his
time on odd jobs like some half-qualified wastrel."
"It is," I agreed. "My merits are grossly undervalued by a stiff-necked
and obtuse generation. But what would you have, my learned brother? If
poverty steps behind you and claps the occulting bushel over your thirty
thousand candle-power luminary, your brilliancy is apt to be obscured."
"Yes, I suppose that is so," grunted Thorndyke, and he remained for a
time in deep thought.
"And now," said I, "let us have your promised explanation. I am
positively frizzling with curiosity to know what chain of circumstances
has converted John Evelyn Thorndyke from a medical practitioner into a
luminary of the law."
Thorndyke smiled indulgently.
"The fact is," said he, "that no such transformation has occurred. John
Evelyn Thorndyke is still a medical practitioner."
"What, in a wig and gown!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, a mere sheep in wolf's clothing," he replied. "I will tell you how
it has come about. After you left the hospital, six years ago, I stayed
on, taking up any small appointments that were going--assistant
demonstrator--or curatorships and such like--hung about the chemical and
physical laboratories, the museum and post mortem room, and meanwhile
took my M.D. and D.Sc. Then I got called to the bar in the hope of
getting a coronership, but soon after this, old Stedman retired
unexpectedly--you remember Stedman, the lecturer on medical
jurisprudence--and I put in for the vacant post. Rather to my surprise,
I was appointed lecturer, whereupon I dismissed the coronership from my
mind, took my present chambers and sat down to wait for anything that
might come." "And what has come?" I asked.
"Why, a very curious assortment of miscellaneous practice," he replied.
"At first I only got an occasional analysis in a doubtful poisoning
case, but, by degrees, my sphere of influence has extended until it now
includes all cases in which a special knowledge of medicine or physical
science can be brought to bear upon law."
"But you plead in court, I observe," said I.
"Very seldom," he replied. "More usually I appear in the character of
that _bête noir_ of judges and counsel--the scientific witness. But in
most instances I do not appear at all; I merely direct investigations,
arrange and analyse the results, and prime the counsel with facts and
suggestions for cross-examination."
"A good deal more interesting than acting as understudy for an absent
g.p.," said I, a little enviously. "But you deserve to succeed, for you
were always a deuce of a worker, to say nothing of your capabilities."
"Yes, I worked hard," replied Thorndyke, "and I work hard still; but I
have my hours of labour and my hours of leisure, unlike you poor devils
of general practitioners, who are liable to be dragged away from the
dinner table or roused out of your first sleep by--confound it all! who
can that be?"
For at this moment, as a sort of commentary on his self-congratulation,
there came a smart rapping at the outer door.
"Must see who it is, I suppose," he continued, "though one expects
people to accept the hint of a closed oak."
He strode across the room and flung open the door with an air of by no
means gracious inquiry.
"It's rather late for a business call," said an apologetic voice
outside, "but my client was anxious to see you without delay."
"Come in, Mr. Lawley," said Thorndyke, rather stiffly, and, as he held
the door open, the two visitors entered. They were both men--one
middle-aged, rather foxy in appearance and of a typically legal aspect,
and the other a fine, handsome young fellow of very prepossessing
exterior, though at present rather pale and wild-looking, and evidently
in a state of profound agitation.
"I am afraid," said the latter, with a glance at me and the dinner
table, "that our visit--for which I am alone responsible--is a most
unseasonable one. If we are really inconveniencing you, Dr. Thorndyke,
pray tell us, and my business must wait."
Thorndyke had cast a keen and curious glance at the young man, and he
now replied in a much more genial tone--
"I take it that your business is of a kind that will not wait, and as to
inconveniencing us, why, my friend and I are both doctors, and, as you
are aware, no doctor expects to call any part of the twenty-four hours
his own unreservedly."
I had risen on the entrance of the two strangers, and now proposed to
take a walk on the Embankment and return later, but the young man
interrupted me.
"Pray don't go away on my account," he said. "The facts that I am about
to lay before Dr. Thorndyke will be known to all the world by this time
to-morrow, so there is no occasion for any show of secrecy."
"In that case," said Thorndyke, "let us draw our chairs up to the fire
and fall to business forthwith. We had just finished our dinner and were
waiting for the coffee, which I hear my man bringing down at this
moment."
We accordingly drew up our chairs, and when Polton had set the coffee on
the table and retired, the lawyer plunged into the matter without
preamble.