As they approached the camp, Jimmy was amused to see the
occupation with which Matthews was employed. He was still teaching
young Thomas Van Orden how to dive. From a distance Jimmy saw with
approval that Tommy had progressed rather well in the art. The
youngster made a fairly creditable dive. Matthews was lifting him
aboard the cruiser, when the youngster saw the approaching boat.
"Hey, Pop!" he yelled, his shrill treble ringing across the water.
"Lookit me dive." He jumped, landing in a flat "belly whopper"
causing a splash grossly disproportionate to his small form.
Matthews, with a grin dove after him and the lesson for the time
being was over. Tommy was sent into the house, where he was
followed by his adoring mother.
Matthews jerked his thumb toward the porch and said to Professor
Brierly:
"You've got company, sir. He had to see you, so he's waiting. You
can hear him from here."
The "him," they could hear was Detective Brasher, slumped in a
deep wicker chair, head thrown back, sound asleep, his snores
causing a discordant note on the peaceful scene.
At the touch of Jimmy's hand on his shoulder, he awakened. He
smiled sheepishly as his eyes fell on the group standing about him
and dragged himself out of his chair.
"'Scuse me, Professor; I been busy with this and ain't had much
sleep. I found something that'll interest you. Mr. Matthews said
you'd be along pretty soon, so I waited. Here, Professor--" He
leaned over and, from behind the chair he had occupied on their
arrival, he took a coiled rope. He dropped it with a soft plop at
Professor Brierly's feet.
"What do you think of this, Professor?"
Professor Brierly almost pounced on the loose coils at his feet.
He carefully unwound it. There was nearly a hundred yards of wash
line. Tied securely to the end of this there was an equal length
of twine. Tied to the end of the latter, there was a long length
of fish line, at the end of which there was a fairly heavy sinker.
There was no gut or hook, just the sinker.
Professor Brierly looked approvingly at the unkempt, red-eyed
detective.
"Good work, Mr. Brasher! Splendid! Where did you find it?"
"I'm not as clever as you think, Professor, or I would 'a' had
this yesterday. I looked around after you left Miller's Folly. I
found tracks of a motorcycle on the ground a short distance away.
We're pretty careful about smuggling any booze around here, you
know, Professor, so I asked around, thinking maybe a trooper on
our side or mebbe one of the Mounties on this side would have seen
or heard a motorcycle.
"A trooper on our side of the line heard a motorcycle about two
o'clock yesterday morning. I figgered that if it had bumped off
Miller, I wouldn't want to be carting around with me, any longer
than I had to, several hundred yards of rope and twine, like you
said he had to have. Not with troopers snoopin' around and asking
questions mebbe that might be hard to answer.
"I asks myself what would I do with it? I snooped around and about
a quarter mile from the Folly there is a gully with weeds growin'
over it so you can't see it unless you know it's there or you fall
into it. The motorcycle tracks lead right up to this gully. Mebbe
the bird who bumps off Miller rides into it at night. About
twenty, thirty yards from the place he rides into it, I find
this." He nodded toward the rope which Professor Brierly was
carefully examining as he was uncoiling it.
Professor Brierly looked up, a trace of anxiety in his deep eyes.
"Was there water in the gully, Brasher?"
"A little, not to amount to anything."
The anxiety in Professor Brierly's eyes deepened. "Running water,
Brasher?"
"Oh, no, not that. Just a little water in the bottom from some
rain mebbe, or, mebbe it was seepage."
Professor Brierly's features cleared. There was no hesitation in
his manner. He turned briskly to Matthews.
"Did the microscope and slides come, John?" When Matthews answered
in the affirmative, he continued:
"A large vessel, John, and some clear cold water."
He turned to the detective.
"Lie down on the hammock there, Brasher, while I am making some
tests. I'll wake you when--"
"Do you mind, Professor, if I watch you--if I watch you make your
tests?"
"Certainly not, but you will not find it very interesting."
Matthews brought out to the porch an infant's bathtub of enameled
metal ware. He poured water in it from the well and asked the old
man:
"Won't there be complications, Professor? This water is not
distilled and--"
"You will make a microscopic examination of the water, John, and
make a careful record, while I wash the rope and twine."
While Matthews went indoors to do his mentor's bidding, the old
scientist uncoiled the three sections of rope, twine and fish
line. He swirled first one of them violently in the clear water of
the bathtub. Then, he siphoned off the water. The water was then
subjected to a careful filtering process. The solids resulting
from this were subjected to the microscope.
This was done in turn with each section of the coil of rope and
twine that Brasher brought. Toward the end of his examination,
Professor Brierly had Matthews' help. Jimmy wondered at the
smoothness and celerity with which the two men worked. They must
have done this many times in the past. There seemed perfect
understanding. Without a word being uttered, each man's hands did
their appointed task as though one brain dominated them. There was
no fumbling, false motions or getting in one another's way.
Each man's movements were carefully checked. The results of the
examination of each microscopic slide were carefully noted. They
worked with machine-like precision. Jimmy could understand now why
Matthews was rapidly attaining a reputation as a scientist second
only to his beloved chief. Gone now was the habitual good humored
grin with which Matthews treated most things and people. Neither
man dominated; both worked as one; there was perfect coordination.
During the tests, Martha came out to call them to lunch; Professor
Brierly shook his head impatiently. At the second call he snapped
irascibly at the old housekeeper. Turning to the others, he said:
"Go on in and have lunch, all of you; this must be finished." His
audience did not budge; their absorption in his task was matched
only by his own. Martha shrugged her ample shoulders in
resignation and with a snort of disgust left Professor Brierly and
his adopted son to their task.
At last it was finished. Professor Brierly spoke to Brasher:
"Bits of brick and mortar on the fish line, twine and rope show
that this was in all probability the means used by Miller's
murderer. This is probably from the chimney. There is also some
roof paint, from the edge of the roof of Miller's Folly."
He looked at the notes he and Matthews had made. He continued:
"Mr. Brasher, the rope prior to its use around the chimney of
Miller's Folly was for a considerable time at a farm or farmyard,
where you will find the following:
"A boxwood hedge, of the species _B. sempervirens_, the common box.
"One or more pear trees.
"You will find these shrubs," handing him a list.
"On that farm there are two horses, a bay and sorrel.
"There is a black and white cow.
"There are some leghorn chickens.
"There is a collie dog."
McCall, Jimmy and Brasher were startled. They stared at the old
man in disbelief. McCall said:
"Oh, I say, Professor, see here--" He stopped. He saw Matthews grin
and wink at Jimmy. Professor Brierly was oblivious to the
interruption. He continued:
"The fish line contains all the characteristics of the rope, but
was not at that place for so long a time." He looked once more at
his slip of paper.
"I forgot to mention that a stream of water runs through or
adjacent to the place where these ropes were kept."
He looked once more at his notes and shook his head.
"The twine," he said slowly, "was also at that place for a
considerable length of time. In addition, it appears to have been
for some time in a hat factory, where felt hats are made; in a
part of a hat factory where a good deal of the fur from the felt
hats is in constant motion. I am not familiar with hat factories,
but it must be in a branch of the factory, where the hat is worked
after it has been dyed."
He caught the detective's look of astonishment.
"Really, Mr. Brasher, there is nothing remarkable about this. Your
feat of finding the rope was far more meritorious, both the
reasoning and the actual finding of the rope. What John and I did
just now was absurdly simple.
"All you need do now, Mr. Brasher, is find a man, probably a
left-handed man, who lives on a place such as I described, who owns a
motorcycle who cannot account for the time in which we know Mr.
Miller was killed; who either worked in or had access to a hat
factory; a man who has a pair of climbing irons and you have the
murderer."
"Oh, yeah, is that all?"
Professor Brierly bristled.
"What is there difficult about that? That should be simple. Surely
there are not a great many farms or farmyards that comply with all
the conditions I enumerated. Surely that should be merely detail,
just the work the police ought to be able to do. Ex-Police
Commissioner McGuire thinks that too."
He waved his hands with a gesture of finality and Brasher knew
that he was dismissed. With a look of awe and reverence he
departed, shaking his head wonderingly.
Professor Brierly was also shaking his head. There was a puzzled
frown on his fine features. He said:
"I shall have to recast my opinion about the man or men who are
responsible for these two murders. I said he or they are clever
but not subtle. I was wrong, there is a subtlety about it, a
devilish ingenuity about it." He shook his head once more, the
puzzled frown becoming deeper. "There are things about these two
murders that do not fit and it seems hard to make them fit. I
wonder--" He shook his head violently as if to clear it of an
unpleasant or hazy thought.
Hale began, slowly, not knowing how to broach the subject:
"Was there something, Professor, that you were holding back in
Justice Higginbotham's camp, something you knew, that you did not
care to tell."
Professor Brierly looked at him quizzically.
"You _are_ an acute young man, Hale--or, was I so obvious?"
He sat for a long time thoughtfully tearing to bits the small
sheets on which he had made his notes of the examination of the
ropes and twine. He continued slowly:
"What the microscope showed me this morning increased my doubts
about the matter. The trail left by the murderer in Miller's Folly
seemed clear enough. Finding the rope, however, instead of
clarifying the case makes it more puzzling. What we found on the
rope and twine does not at all accord with the rope itself and its
implication.
"I find an analogous situation in New York. Everything seemed
clear enough. Someone entered Schurman's apartment. That person
was either rather skilled in human anatomy or he was told how to
hit Schurman. The victim was struck in such a way that it could
easily have been mistaken for simple asphyxia or the kind of
asphyxia that you would find in a body that has been hung by the
neck. Everything seemed simple enough until I found the apple."
"The apple?" queried McCall.
"Yes, the apple of which the murderer almost took a bite. It was a
green apple. The murderer was about to take a bite, but he changed
his mind. It was too hard, or too bitter, or too sour." He changed
the subject abruptly. "And what will the District Attorney of New
York County do about August Schurman's murder? That, at least, is
in your jurisdiction, Mr. McCall."
"Yes, that is in my jurisdiction. I have wired orders and my
office is doing all it can right now to cooperate with the police.
We should hear something shortly."
Professor Brierly turned to the reporter.
"Obviously, Mr. Hale, the ends of justice will not be well served
if you should publish in your paper what we discovered today by
means of the microscope. The police may be seriously hampered in
its work if too much or any publicity is given this matter."
"But Professor--"
The old man snapped at him. "But nothing. If you were not here you
would know nothing about it. Certainly, if the police discovered
what I discovered they would be very careful to withhold it from
reporters. Surely you have enough in this story to satisfy even
your insatiable appetite for news."
Jimmy gulped. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Here he had a juicy
bit of news that would delight Hite and he could not publish it.
What a swell new lead for the story. Acting contrary to the old
man's wishes in the matter was, of course, out of the question.