A SUSPICIOUS ACCIDENT
The Temple clock had announced in soft and confidential tones that it
was a quarter to seven, in which statement it was stoutly supported by
its colleague on our mantelpiece, and still there was no sign of
Thorndyke. It was really a little strange, for he was the soul of
punctuality, and moreover, his engagements were of such a kind as
rendered punctuality possible. I was burning with impatience to impart
my news to him, and this fact, together with the ghostly proceedings of
Polton, worked me up to a state of nervous tension that rendered either
rest or thought equally impossible. I looked out of the window at the
lamp below, glaring redly through the fog, and then, opening the door,
went out on to the landing to listen.
At this moment Polton made a silent appearance on the stairs leading
from the laboratory, giving me quite a start; and I was about to retire
into the room when my ear caught the tinkle of a hansom approaching from
Paper Buildings.
The vehicle drew nearer, and at length stopped opposite the house, on
which Polton slid down the stairs with the agility of a harlequin. A few
moments later I heard his voice ascending from the hall--
"I do hope, sir, you're not much hurt?"
I ran down the stairs and met Thorndyke coming up slowly with his right
hand on Polton's shoulder. His clothes were muddy, his left arm was in a
sling, and a black handkerchief under his hat evidently concealed a
bandage.
"I am not really hurt at all," Thorndyke replied cheerily, "though very
disreputable to look at. Just came a cropper in the mud, Jervis," he
added, as he noted my dismayed expression. "Dinner and a clothes-brush
are what I chiefly need." Nevertheless, he looked very pale and shaken
when he came into the light on the landing, and he sank into his
easy-chair in the limp manner of a man either very weak or very
fatigued.
"How did it happen?" I asked when Polton had crept away on tip-toe to
make ready for dinner.
Thorndyke looked round to make sure that his henchman had departed, and
said--
"A queer affair, Jervis; a very odd affair indeed. I was coming up from
the Borough, picking my way mighty carefully across the road on account
of the greasy, slippery mud, and had just reached the foot of London
Bridge when I heard a heavy lorry coming down the slope a good deal too
fast, considering that it was impossible to see more than a dozen yards
ahead, and I stopped on the kerb to see it safely past. Just as the
horses emerged from the fog, a man came up behind and lurched violently
against me and, strangely enough, at the same moment passed his foot in
front of mine. Of course I went sprawling into the road right in front
of the lorry. The horses came stamping and sliding straight on to me,
and, before I could wriggle out of the way, the hoof of one of them
smashed in my hat--that was a new one that I came home in--and
half-stunned me. Then the near wheel struck my head, making a dirty
little scalp wound, and pinned down my sleeve so that I couldn't pull
away my arm, which is consequently barked all the way down. It was a
mighty near thing, Jervis; another inch or two and I should have been
rolled out as flat as a starfish."
"What became of the man?" I asked, wishing I could have had a brief
interview with him.
"Lost to sight though to memory dear: he was off like a lamplighter. An
alcoholic apple-woman picked me up and escorted me back to the hospital.
It must have been a touching spectacle," he added, with a dry smile at
the recollection.
"And I suppose they kept you there for a time to recover?"
"Yes; I went into dry dock in the O. P. room, and then old Langdale
insisted on my lying down for an hour or so in case any symptoms of
concussion should appear. But I was only a trifle shaken and confused.
Still, it was a queer affair."
"You mean the man pushing you down in that way?"
"Yes; I can't make out how his foot got in front of mine."
"You don't think it was intentional, surely?" I said.
"No, of course not," he replied, but without much conviction, as it
seemed to me; and I was about to pursue the matter when Polton
reappeared, and my friend abruptly changed the subject.
After dinner I recounted my conversation with Walter Hornby, watching my
colleague's face with some eagerness to see what effect this new
information would produce on him. The result was, on the whole,
disappointing. He was interested, keenly interested, but showed no
symptoms of excitement.
"So John Hornby has been plunging in mines, eh?" he said, when I had
finished. "He ought to know better at his age. Did you learn how long he
had been in difficulties?"
"No. But it can hardly have been quite sudden and unforeseen."
"I should think not," Thorndyke agreed. "A sudden slump often proves
disastrous to the regular Stock Exchange gambler who is paying
differences on large quantities of unpaid-for stock. But it looks as if
Hornby had actually bought and paid for these mines, treating them as
investments rather than speculations, in which case the depreciation
would not have affected him in the same way. It would be interesting to
know for certain."
"It might have a considerable bearing on the present case, might it
not?"
"Undoubtedly," said Thorndyke. "It might bear on the case in more ways
than one. But you have some special point in your mind, I think."
"Yes. I was thinking that if these embarrassments had been growing up
gradually for some time, they might have already assumed an acute form
at the time of the robbery."
"That is well considered," said my colleague. "But what is the special
bearing on the case supposing it was so?"
"On the supposition," I replied, "that Mr. Hornby was in actual
pecuniary difficulties at the date of the robbery, it seems to me
possible to construct a hypothesis as to the identity of the robber."
"I should like to hear that hypothesis stated," said Thorndyke, rousing
himself and regarding me with lively interest.
"It is a highly improbable one," I began with some natural shyness at
the idea of airing my wits before this master of inductive method; "in
fact, it is almost fantastic."
"Never mind that," said he. "A sound thinker gives equal consideration
to the probable and the improbable."
Thus encouraged, I proceeded to set forth the theory of the crime as it
had occurred to me on my way home in the fog, and I was gratified to
observe the close attention with which Thorndyke listened, and his
little nods of approval at each point that I made.
When I had finished, he remained silent for some time, looking
thoughtfully into the fire and evidently considering how my theory and
the new facts on which it was based would fit in with the rest of the
data. At length he spoke, without, however, removing his eyes from the
red embers--
"This theory of yours, Jervis, does great credit to your ingenuity. We
may disregard the improbability, seeing that the alternative theories
are almost equally improbable, and the fact that emerges, and that
gratifies me more than I can tell you, is that you are gifted with
enough scientific imagination to construct a possible train of events.
Indeed, the improbability--combined, of course, with possibility--really
adds to the achievement, for the dullest mind can perceive the
obvious--as, for instance, the importance of a finger-print. You have
really done a great thing, and I congratulate you; for you have
emancipated yourself, at least to some extent, from the great
finger-print obsession, which has possessed the legal mind ever since
Galton published his epoch-making monograph. In that work I remember he
states that a finger-print affords evidence requiring no
corroboration--a most dangerous and misleading statement which has been
fastened upon eagerly by the police, who have naturally been delighted
at obtaining a sort of magic touchstone by which they are saved the
labour of investigation. But there is no such thing as a single fact
that 'affords evidence requiring no corroboration.' As well might one
expect to make a syllogism with a single premise." "I suppose they
would hardly go so far as that," I said, laughing.
"No," he admitted. "But the kind of syllogism that they do make is
this--
"'The crime was committed by the person who made this finger-print.
"'But John Smith is the person who made the finger-print.
"'Therefore the crime was committed by John Smith.'"
"Well, that is a perfectly good syllogism, isn't it?" I asked.
"Perfectly," he replied. "But, you see, it begs the whole question,
which is, 'Was the crime committed by the person who made this
finger-print?' That is where the corroboration is required."
"That practically leaves the case to be investigated without reference
to the finger-print, which thus becomes of no importance."
"Not at all," rejoined Thorndyke; "the finger-print is a most valuable
clue as long as its evidential value is not exaggerated. Take our
present case, for instance. Without the thumb-print, the robbery might
have been committed by anybody; there is no clue whatever. But the
existence of the thumb-print narrows the inquiry down to Reuben or some
person having access to his finger-prints."
"Yes, I see. Then you consider my theory of John Hornby as the
perpetrator of the robbery as quite a tenable one?" "Quite," replied
Thorndyke. "I have entertained it from the first; and the new facts that
you have gathered increase its probability. You remember I said that
four hypotheses were possible: that the robbery was committed either by
Reuben, by Walter, by John Hornby, or by some other person. Now, putting
aside the 'some other person' for consideration only if the first three
hypotheses fail, we have left, Reuben, Walter, and John. But if we leave
the thumb-print out of the question, the probabilities evidently point
to John Hornby, since he, admittedly, had access to the diamonds,
whereas there is nothing to show that the others had. The thumb-print,
however, transfers the suspicion to Reuben; but yet, as your theory
makes evident, it does not completely clear John Hornby. As the case
stands, the balance of probabilities may be stated thus: John Hornby
undoubtedly had access to the diamonds, and therefore might have stolen
them. But if the thumb-mark was made after he closed the safe and before
he opened it again, some other person must have had access to them, and
was probably the thief.
"The thumb-mark is that of Reuben Hornby, a fact that establishes a
_prima facie_ probability that he stole the diamonds. But there is no
evidence that he had access to them, and if he had not, he could not
have made the thumb-mark in the manner and at the time stated.
"But John Hornby may have had access to the previously-made thumb-mark
of Reuben, and may possibly have obtained it; in which case he is almost
certainly the thief.
"As to Walter Hornby, he may have had the means of obtaining Reuben's
thumb-mark; but there is no evidence that he had access either to the
diamonds or to Mr. Hornby's memorandum block. The _prima facie_
probabilities in his case, therefore, are very slight."
"The actual points at issue, then," I said, "are, whether Reuben had any
means of opening the safe, and whether Mr. Hornby ever did actually have
the opportunity of obtaining Reuben's thumb-mark in blood on his
memorandum block."
"Yes," replied Thorndyke. "Those are the points--with some others--and
they are likely to remain unsettled. Reuben's rooms have been searched
by the police, who failed to find any skeleton or duplicate keys; but
this proves nothing, as he would probably have made away with them when
he heard of the thumb-mark being found. As to the other matter, I have
asked Reuben, and he has no recollection of ever having made a
thumb-mark in blood. So there the matter rests."
"And what about Mr. Hornby's liability for the diamonds?"
"I think we may dismiss that," answered Thorndyke. "He had undertaken no
liability and there was no negligence. He would not be liable at law."
After my colleague retired, which he did quite early, I sat for a long
time pondering upon this singular case in which I found myself involved.
And the more I thought about it the more puzzled I became. If Thorndyke
had no more satisfactory explanation to offer than that which he had
given me this evening, the defence was hopeless, for the court was not
likely to accept his estimate of the evidential value of finger-prints.
Yet he had given Reuben something like a positive assurance that there
would be an adequate defence, and had expressed his own positive
conviction of the accused man's innocence. But Thorndyke was not a man
to reach such a conviction through merely sentimental considerations.
The inevitable conclusion was that he had something up his sleeve--that
he had gained possession of some facts that had escaped my observation;
and when I had reached this point I knocked out my pipe and betook
myself to bed.