Plain as a Pikestaff
Inspector Blaikie, when he had done all that he could on the scene of
the double crime, went at once to report to his superiors and to hold
a consultation at Scotland Yard. The officer to whom he was
immediately responsible was the celebrated Superintendent Wilson—“the
Professor,” as his colleagues called him, in allusion to his scholarly
habits and his pre-eminently intellectualist way of reasoning out the
solution of his cases. “The Professor,” in his earlier days as
Inspector Wilson, had patiently found his way to the heart of a good
many murder mysteries by thinking them out as logical problems. He had
made his name by solving the great “Antedated Murder Mystery,” when
every one else had been hopelessly in fault; and a man’s life and a
great fortune had both depended on his skill in reasoning out the
truth. He was a small man, with quick, nervous movements, and a
curious way of closing his eyes and holding up his hands before him
with the tips of his fingers pressed tightly together when he was
discussing a case. He was reputed to have but a scant respect for most
of his colleagues at Scotland Yard; but he made an exception in favour
of Inspector Blaikie, whose pertinacity in following up clues worked
in excellently with his own skill at putting two and two together.
Blaikie, he would often say, could not reason; but he could find
things out. He, Wilson, stuck there in his office, could not go
hunting for clues; but he and Blaikie together were a first-class
combination. He was sitting at his desk, busy with a mass of papers,
when the inspector entered. He at once put his work aside and settled
down to discuss the new case. Word of the second murder had already
been sent to him over the telephone; and he had seen that the case was
certain to make a stir. The connection of the victims with Sir Vernon
Brooklyn and the Piccadilly Theatre was enough to ensure a first-class
newspaper sensation. There was an unusual note of eagerness in his
voice as he asked for the latest news.
“The trouble about this case, sir,” said Inspector Blaikie, “is that
it’s as plain as a pikestaff; but what the clues plainly indicate
cannot possibly be true. Perhaps I had better tell you the whole story
from the beginning.”
Superintendent Wilson nodded, put the tips of his fingers together,
leant back in his chair, and finally closed his eyes. He had composed
himself to listen.
“I went to Liskeard House shortly before half-past eight this morning,
on receipt of a telephone message stating that a murder had been
committed.”
“Who sent the message?”
“One of the servants. They had found the body when they went in to
clean the room in the morning. I went to the house, as I say. In a
room on the second floor, a study, I found the body, which the
servants identified as that of Mr. John Prinsep, by whom the second
floor was occupied. Mr. Prinsep was managing director of the Brooklyn
Corporation and nephew of Sir Vernon Brooklyn.”
The superintendent nodded.
“The body was lying on the floor with the face upwards. A knife, which
I have since found to be of a peculiar type used by architects and
draughtsmen, was protruding from the chest in the region of the heart.
On the side of the head was a very clearly marked contusion, obviously
caused by a heavy blow from some blunt instrument, which cannot have
been any object of furniture in the room. The dead man’s doctor, Dr.
Manton, and the police surgeon agree that this blow, and not the knife
wound, was the cause of death. The knife did not touch any vital part,
and the doctors believe that the wound in the chest was inflicted
after death.”
“You say ‘believe.’ Are they certain?”
“No; almost certain, but not so as to swear to it. I at once made an
examination of the room. The dead man had evidently been sitting at
his desk, and had fallen from his chair on being struck from behind on
the left-hand side. On the desk was a mass of papers relating to the
financial affairs of a Mr. Walter Brooklyn, a brother, I find, of Sir
Vernon Brooklyn, and therefore uncle to the deceased. I have the
papers here.”
The inspector handed over a bundle which the superintendent placed
beside him on the table. “Go on,” he said.
“Lying on the floor, at some distance from the body, was this
walking-stick, which may, or may not, have some connection with the
crime. There were at least thirty or forty walking-sticks standing in
a corner; but this was lying on the floor behind the study chair to
the left—that is, at the point from which the murderer seems to have
approached his victim. The servants say that they do not remember
seeing the stick before; but they cannot be certain, as the deceased
collected sticks. This is evidently a curio, made, I think, of
rhinoceros horn.”
The superintendent examined the stick for a moment, and then put it
down beside him.
“Dr. Manton then arrived, and, after a preliminary examination, asked
that the body should be removed to the adjoining bedroom. When it was
lifted up there was revealed, lying beneath it, this handkerchief
which, as you see, is marked in the corner with the name ‘G.
Brooklyn.’ Mr. George Brooklyn, I have ascertained, is also a nephew
of Sir Vernon Brooklyn. He is, moreover, an architect by profession,
and might therefore easily have been in possession of the knife found
embedded in the body. Winter, the butler at the house, has often seen
him using a knife of this precise pattern.”
“H’m,” said the superintendent.
“I made inquiries among the servants. The last of them to see Mr.
Prinsep alive was the butler, Winter, who collected from him his late
letters for the post. That was at 10.30 or thereabouts. The deceased
was sitting at his table, working at a lot of figures. He seemed in a
bad temper, but that, Winter says, was nothing unusual. But from the
same Winter I obtained a very valuable piece of evidence. At about a
quarter to eleven Mr. George Brooklyn called to see the deceased. He
said he would show himself upstairs, and did so. He was seen by Winter
and the other servants leaving the house by the front door at about
11.30. It was on receiving this information that I telephoned to you
asking for the immediate arrest of Mr. George Brooklyn, who was
believed to be staying at the Cunningham Hotel.”
“Yes,” said the superintendent. “I sent two men round there. They were
informed that Mr. Brooklyn had booked rooms, and that his wife had
spent the night in the hotel. He had not been there since the previous
day before dinner. I was about to take further steps when I received
your second message.”
“Quite so. Now I come, sir, to the really extraordinary part of the
case. Immediately before telephoning to you I had received an urgent
message to come down to the garden, where the sergeant was making
investigations. In the garden I found a body, which was identified by
a young lady who lives in the house—Sir Vernon Brooklyn’s ward, I
understand—as that of Mr. George Brooklyn himself. He was in evening
dress, without hat or coat, and the body was lying on the steps of a
curious sort of stone summer house—they call it the Grecian
temple—where it had been dragged. The cause of death—the doctors
confirm this—was a terrific blow on the back of the head, and the
weapon was lying a few yards from the body. I have it here in the
parcel.” The inspector lifted the heavy club with an effort on to the
table, and the superintendent gave an involuntary start of surprise as
he saw the strange weapon that had been employed in this sinister
tragedy.
“It is, as you see, sir, a heavy stone club. It is part of a group of
statuary—a Hercules, they tell me—which stands in the garden about
four yards from the summer-house or temple. It has obviously been
detached for some time from the rest of the statue. On it are some
bloodstains and hairs which correspond to those of the dead man. There
are also finger-prints, which I suppose you will have examined. I took
the precaution to secure finger-prints of both the dead men for
possible use. They are here.” The inspector handed over another
parcel.
“I studied carefully the scene of the crime. The deed was evidently
done almost at the foot of the statue, and the body was dragged from
there to the temple, presumably to remove it from casual notice. At
the foot of the statue I found this crushed cigar-holder, which Miss
Joan Cowper—the young lady to whom I referred—identifies as habitually
used by Mr. John Prinsep, and actually seen in his mouth at ten
o’clock last night, when a party then held in the house broke up. I
also found on the floor of the temple this crumpled piece of paper,
presumably a leaf from a memorandum book,” and the inspector handed
over the brief scrawled note in John Prinsep’s writing making an
appointment in the garden.
What he said, however, was not quite accurate; for it was not he, but
Carter Woodman, who had found the note.
“The writing of this note was identified by Miss Cowper as that of Mr.
Prinsep. It is one of the puzzles of this affair.”
“You mean that it would have fitted in better if John Prinsep’s body
had been found in the garden,” suggested the superintendent.
“Exactly; as things are it is confusing. About this time Mr. Carter
Woodman, Sir Vernon Brooklyn’s lawyer, arrived. At his suggestion we
went across to the theatre which overlooks the garden, although the
place where the crime was committed and the body found is completely
concealed by trees from both the house and the theatre. Our object was
to find if any one from the theatre had seen anything of what
happened. A caretaker stated that he had seen Mr. Prinsep walking in
the garden some time between eleven o’clock last night and a quarter
past. I made further inquiries, both in the house and at the theatre;
but that, I think, exhausts the discoveries I have made so far.” And
the inspector stopped and wiped his face with a green handkerchief.
“You have stated the case very plainly,” said Superintendent Wilson.
“Now tell me what you make of it?” And he gave what can best be
described as the ghost of a chuckle.
“Ah, that’s just where the troubles come in, sir,” replied the
inspector. “I don’t know what to make of it. As I said, it’s as plain
as a pikestaff, and yet it can’t be. When I examined Mr. Prinsep’s
room I found abundant evidence pointing to the conclusion that he was
murdered by Mr. George Brooklyn. But when I go into the garden, I find
Mr. George Brooklyn lying dead there, under circumstances which
strongly suggest that he was killed by Mr. Prinsep. Yet they can’t
possibly have killed each other. It’s simply impossible.”
“You say that there is strong ground for suspecting that Prinsep
killed Brooklyn. What is the ground?”
“Well, first there’s that cigar-holder. The second thing is the letter
in his writing, though I admit that raises a difficulty. The third
thing is that I’m practically certain the finger-prints on the club
correspond to those I took from Prinsep’s hands. Then Prinsep was
certainly seen walking in the garden.”
“In short, Inspector Blaikie,” said the superintendent, half smiling,
“you appear to hold very strong _prima facie_ evidence that each of
these two men murdered the other.”
The inspector groaned. “Don’t laugh at me, sir,” he said. “I’m doing
my best to puzzle it out. Of course they didn’t kill each other. At
least, both of them didn’t. They couldn’t. You know what I mean.”
“You mean, I take it, that they could only have killed each other and
left their bodies where they were found, on the assumption that at
least one corpse was alive enough to walk about and commit a murder
and then quietly replace itself where it had been killed. It will, I
fear, be difficult to persuade even a coroner’s jury that such an
account of the circumstances is correct.”
“Of course it isn’t correct, sir; but you’ll admit that’s what it
looks like. It is quite possible for a man who has committed a murder
to be murdered himself as he leaves the scene of his crime; but it’s
stark, staring nonsense for the man whom he has killed to get up, as
if he were alive and well, and come after his murderer with a club. To
say nothing of laying himself out again neatly afterwards. No, that
won’t wash. Yet the evidence both ways is thoroughly good evidence.”
“We can agree, inspector, that these two men did not kill each other.
But it remains possible, even probable, on the evidence you have so
far secured, that one of them did kill the other, and was then himself
killed by some third person unknown, possibly a witness of the first
crime bent on exacting retribution. How does that strike you?” The
superintendent thrust his hands deep into his pockets and leant back
in his chair with a satisfied look, as if he had scored a point.
Inspector Blaikie’s face, however, hardly became less doleful. “Yes,
that’s possible,” he said; “but unfortunately there is absolutely
nothing to show which set of circumstantial clues ought to be accepted
and which discarded in that case. We do not know which of the two men
was killed first. When Brooklyn went to see Prinsep, did he murder him
then and there in the study, or did Prinsep decoy his visitor into the
garden by means of the note we have found, and there kill him? Either
theory fits some of the facts: neither fits them all. I don’t know
which to think, or which to work on as a basis. The evidence we have
probably points in the right direction in one of the cases, and in the
wrong direction in the other; but how are we to tell which is right
and which is wrong? There is nothing to lay hold of.”
“What about the medical evidence as to the time of death? Does that
throw any light on the case?”
“None whatever, unfortunately. In both instances the doctors agree
that death almost certainly took place at some time between 10.30 and
12 o’clock. But they say it is impossible to time the thing any more
accurately than that.”
“Come, that seems at least to narrow the field of inquiry. When were
each of these men last seen alive?”
The inspector referred to his notes. “John Prinsep was seen at 10.30
by the servant, Winter, who went to fetch his letters for the post. He
was seen in the garden at some time between 11 o’clock and 11.15 by
the caretaker at the Piccadilly Theatre, Jabez Smith, and also, I have
since ascertained, by a dresser named Laura Rose about the same time.
No one seems to have seen him later than about 11.15. His body was
found in his study this morning at ten minutes past eight by the maid,
Sarah Plenty, and seen immediately afterwards by the household
servants, William Winter and Peter Morgan.”
“And George Brooklyn?”
“He was seen at about a quarter to eleven by Winter and other
servants, when he called at Liskeard House and went up by himself to
John Prinsep’s room. He was seen again, by Winter and two other
servants, leaving the house at about 11.30. He did not go home to his
hotel, and neither his wife nor any one else I have been able to
discover saw him again. His body was discovered at 9.30 this morning
in the garden of Liskeard House by his cousin, Joan Cowper.”
“That certainly does not seem to help us very much. In the case of
Prinsep, he may have died any time after 11.19. Brooklyn was still
alive at 11.30.”
“Yes; but, if Brooklyn killed Prinsep, it seems he must have done so
between 11.15, when Prinsep was still alive, and 11.30, when Brooklyn
was seen leaving the house.”
“That does not follow at all. We know he came back after 11.30, since
he was found dead in the grounds. The first question is, How and when
did he come back?”
“I have made every possible inquiry about that. The front door was
bolted at about 11.45, and Winter is positive that he did not come in
again that way. There are two other ways into the garden. One is
through the coach-yard. That was locked and bolted about 11, and was
found untouched this morning. The other is through the theatre. Nobody
saw him, and the caretaker says he could not have gone through that
way without being seen. But it appears that the door from the theatre
into the garden was not locked until nearly midnight, and it is just
possible he may have slipped through that way. He seems to have been
seen in the theatre earlier in the evening—before his call at Liskeard
House at 10.45.”
“Was it a usual thing for Prinsep to walk about the garden at night?”
“Yes, they tell me that he often took a stroll there on fine nights
before going to bed.”
The superintendent rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I can only see one
thing for it,” he said. “We have no evidence to show which of these
men died first, and therefore, which, if either of them, killed the
other. You must follow up both sets of clues until you get further
evidence to show which is the right one. But remember that, even if
one murder can be accounted for in that way, there is still another
murderer somewhere at large—unless another unexpected corpse turns up
with clear evidence of having been murdered by one of the other two.”
The inspector laughed. “Well,” he said, “it all seems a bit of a
puzzle. It seems to me the next thing is to find out whether either of
them had any special reason for murdering the other. If you agree, I
shall work up the antecedents of the case, and do a little research
into the family history.”
“Yes, that’s probably the best we can do for the present. But spread
the net wide. Find out all you can about the whole family and the
servants—every one who is known to have been in the house last
night—every one who could have any reason for desiring the death of
either or both of the murdered men.”
“I suppose one of them must have murdered the other,” said the
inspector reflectively.
“I see no sufficient reason for thinking that,” replied his superior.
“It looks to me more like a very carefully planned affair, worked out
by some third party. But we mustn’t take anything for granted. Your
immediate job is certainly to follow up the clues you have found. Even
if they do not lead where we expect them to lead, they will probably
lead somewhere. A deliberately laid false clue is often just as useful
as an ordinary straightforward clue in the long run.”
“Oh, I’ll keep my eyes open,” said the inspector, “and as there is a
third party involved in any case, it’s worth remembering that he could
not easily have got into the house after midnight at the latest, and
I’m blest if I see how he could have got out of it and left all the
doors properly fastened unless he had an accomplice inside.”
“That is certainly a point. Every one who slept in the house is
certainly worth watching. What about the men-servants?”
“Only two—Morgan and Winter—sleep in the house. Morgan says he came
back about 11.30, after spending the evening with friends in
Hammersmith. He and Winter went up to their rooms together soon after.
Morgan’s room can only be reached through Winter’s. Winter says he lay
awake for some hours—he is a bad sleeper—and heard Morgan snoring in
the next room all the time. He did not go to sleep until after he had
heard two o’clock strike. He says he is a light sleeper, and Morgan
could not have passed through his room without waking him.”
“That seems to clear Morgan, if Winter is speaking the truth. What
about Winter himself? A good deal seems to turn on his testimony.”
“Winter is a very old servant. He has been in the family since he was
a boy. He doesn’t strike me as at all the kind of man to be mixed up
in an affair of this sort. Morgan is rather a sly fellow—much more the
sort of man one would be inclined to suspect.”
“You are probably right; but we must not let Winter off too easily.
Suppose it is true that one of these two men did kill the other. Isn’t
an old devoted family servant, if he saw the crime, just the man to
take his revenge? There have been many crimes with far less strong a
motive.”
“I will certainly have Winter watched, and Morgan too. But I’m not at
all hopeful. It’s too well planned to be a sudden crime, and I’m sure
Winter’s not the man for a high-class job of this sort.”
“Do the best you can, and keep me fully informed about the case. If I
have a brain-wave, I’ll let you know. At present I can’t see light any
more than you.”
With that unsatisfactory conclusion the two detectives parted.
Superintendent Wilson, left alone, walked quickly up and down the
room, chuckling to himself, and every now and then marking off a point
on his fingers, or pausing in his walk to examine one of the clues
which the inspector had left in his keeping. He appeared to find it a
fascinating case.