MUNERA PULVERIS
(_Related by Christopher Jervis, M.D._)
It is one of the drawbacks of medicine as a profession that one is
never rid of one’s responsibilities. The merchant, the lawyer, the
civil servant, each at the appointed time locks up his desk, puts on
his hat and goes forth a free man with an interval of uninterrupted
leisure before him. Not so the doctor. Whether at work or at play,
awake or asleep, he is the servant of humanity, at the instant
disposal of friend or stranger alike whose need may make the
necessary claim.
When I agreed to accompany my wife to the spinsters’ dance at
Raynesford, I imagined that, for that evening, at least, I was
definitely off duty; and in that belief I continued until the
conclusion of the eighth dance. To be quite truthful, I was not sorry
when the delusion was shattered. My last partner was a young lady of
a slanginess of speech that verged on the inarticulate. Now it is not
easy to exchange ideas in “pidgin” English; and the conversation of a
person to whom all things are either “ripping” or “rotten” is apt to
lack subtlety. In fact, I was frankly bored; and, reflecting on the
utility of the humble sandwich as an aid to conversation, I was about
to entice my partner to the refreshment room when I felt some one
pluck at my sleeve. I turned quickly and looked into the anxious and
rather frightened face of my wife.
“Miss Halliwell is looking for you,” she said. “A lady has been taken
ill. Will you come and see what is the matter?” She took my arm and,
when I had made my apologies to my partner, she hurried me on to the
lawn.
“It’s a mysterious affair,” my wife continued. “The sick lady is a
Mrs. Chater, a very wealthy American widow. Edith Halliwell and Major
Podbury found her lying in the shrubbery all alone and unable to give
any account of herself. Poor Edith is dreadfully upset. She doesn’t
know what to think.”
“What do you mean?” I began; but at this moment Miss Halliwell, who
was waiting by an ivy-covered rustic arch, espied us and ran forward.
“Oh, do hurry, please, Dr. Jervis,” she exclaimed; “such a shocking
thing has happened. Has Juliet told you?” Without waiting for an
answer, she darted through the arch and preceded us along a narrow
path at the curious, flat-footed, shambling trot common to most adult
women. Presently we descended a flight of rustic steps which brought
us to a seat, from whence extended a straight path cut like a
miniature terrace on a steep slope, with a high bank rising to the
right and declivity falling away to the left. Down in the hollow, his
head and shoulders appearing above the bushes, was a man holding in
his hand a fairy-lamp that he had apparently taken down from a tree.
I climbed down to him, and, as I came round the bushes, I perceived a
richly-dressed woman lying huddled on the ground. She was not
completely insensible, for she moved slightly at my approach,
muttering a few words in thick, indistinct accents. I took the lamp
from the man, whom I assumed to be Major Podbury, and, as he
delivered it to me with a significant glance and a faint lift of the
eyebrows, I understood Miss Halliwell’s agitation.
Indeed, for one horrible moment I thought that she was right--that
the prostrate woman was intoxicated. But when I approached nearer,
the flickering light of the lamp made visible a square reddened patch
on her face, like the impression of a mustard plaster, covering the
nose and mouth; and then I scented mischief of a more serious kind.
“We had better carry her up to the seat,” I said, handing the lamp to
Miss Halliwell. “Then we can consider moving her to the house.” The
major and I lifted the helpless woman and, having climbed cautiously
up to the path, laid her on the seat.
“What is it, Dr. Jervis?” Miss Halliwell whispered.
“I can’t say at the moment,” I replied; “but it’s not what you
feared.”
“Thank God for that!” was her fervent rejoinder. “It would have been
a shocking scandal.”
I took the dim lamp and once more bent over the half-conscious woman.
Her appearance puzzled me not a little. She looked like a person
recovering from an anaesthetic, but the square red patch on her face,
recalling, as it did, the Burke murders, rather suggested
suffocation. As I was thus reflecting, the light of the lamp fell on
a white object lying on the ground behind the seat, and holding the
lamp forward, I saw that it was a square pad of cotton-wool. The
coincidence of its shape and size with that of the red patch on the
woman’s face instantly struck me, and I stooped down to pick it up;
and then I saw, lying under the seat, a small bottle. This also I
picked up and held in the lamplight. It was a one-ounce phial, quite
empty, and was labelled “Methylated Chloroform.” Here seemed to be a
complete explanation of the thick utterance and drunken aspect; but
it was an explanation that required, in its turn, to be explained.
Obviously no robbery had been committed, for the woman literally
glittered with diamonds. Equally obviously she had not administered
the chloroform to herself.
There was nothing for it but to carry her indoors and await her
further recovery, so, with the major’s help, we conveyed her through
the shrubbery and kitchen garden to a side door, and deposited her on
a sofa in a half-furnished room.
Here, under the influence of water dabbed on her face and the
plentiful use of smelling salts, she quickly revived, and was soon
able to give an intelligible account of herself.
The chloroform and cotton-wool were her own. She had used them for an
aching tooth; and she was sitting alone on the seat with the bottle
and the wool beside her when the incomprehensible thing had happened.
Without a moment’s warning a hand had come from behind her and
pressed the pad of wool over her nose and mouth. The wool was
saturated with chloroform, and she had lost consciousness almost
immediately.
“You didn’t see the person, then?” I asked.
“No, but I know he was in evening dress, because I felt my head
against his shirt-front.”
“Then,” said I, “he is either here still or he has been to the
cloak-room. He couldn’t have left the place without an overcoat.”
“No, by Jove!” exclaimed the major; “that’s true. I’ll go and make
inquiries.” He strode away all agog, and I, having satisfied myself
that Mrs. Chater could be left safely, followed him almost
immediately.
I made my way straight to the cloak-room, and here I found the major
and one or two of his brother officers putting on their coats in a
flutter of gleeful excitement.
“He’s gone,” said Podbury, struggling frantically into his overcoat;
“went off nearly an hour ago on a bicycle. Seemed in a deuce of a
stew, the attendant says, and no wonder. We’re goin’ after him in our
car. Care to join the hunt?”
“No, thanks. I must stay with the patient. But how do you know you’re
after the right man?”
“Isn’t any other. Only one Johnnie’s left. Besides--here, confound
it! you’ve given me the wrong coat!” He tore off the garment and
handed it back to the attendant, who regarded it with an expression
of dismay.
“Are you sure, sir?” he asked.
“Perfectly,” said the major. “Come, hurry up, my man.”
“I’m afraid, sir,” said the attendant, “that the gentleman who has
gone has taken your coat. They were on the same peg, I know. I am
very sorry, sir.”
The major was speechless with wrath. What the devil was the good of
being sorry; and how the deuce was he to get his coat back?
“But,” I interposed, “if the stranger has got your coat, then this
coat must be his.”
“I know,” said Podbury; “but I don’t want his beastly coat.”
“No,” I replied, “but it may be useful for identification.”
This appeared to afford the bereaved officer little consolation, but
as the car was now ready, he bustled away, and I, having directed the
man to put the coat away in a safe place, went back to my patient.
Mrs. Chater was by now fairly recovered, and had developed a highly
vindictive interest in her late assailant. She even went so far as to
regret that he had not taken at least some of her diamonds, so that
robbery might have been added to the charge of attempted murder, and
expressed the earnest hope that the officers would not be foolishly
gentle in their treatment of him when they caught him.
“By the way, Dr. Jervis,” said Miss Halliwell, “I think I ought to
mention a rather curious thing that happened in connection with this
dance. We received an acceptance from a Mr. Harrington-Baillie, who
wrote from the Hotel Cecil. Now I am certain that no such name was
proposed by any of the spinsters.”
“But didn’t you ask them?” I inquired.
“Well, the fact is,” she replied, “that one of them, Miss Waters, had
to go abroad suddenly, and we had not got her address; and as it was
possible that she might have invited him, I did not like to move in
the matter. I am very sorry I didn’t now. We may have let in a
regular criminal--though why he should have wanted to murder Mrs.
Chater I cannot imagine.”
It was certainly a mysterious affair, and the mystery was in no wise
dispelled by the return of the search party an hour later. It seemed
that the bicycle had been tracked for a couple of miles towards
London, but then, at the cross-roads, the tracks had become
hopelessly mixed with the impressions of other machines and the
officers, after cruising about vaguely for a while, had given up the
hunt and returned.
“You see, Mrs. Chater,” Major Podbury explained apologetically, “the
fellow must have had a good hour’s start, and that would have brought
him pretty close to London.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” exclaimed Mrs. Chater, regarding the major
with hardly-concealed contempt, “that that villain has got off
scot-free?”
“Looks rather like it,” replied Podbury, “but if I were you I should
get the man’s description from the attendants who saw him and go up
to Scotland Yard tomorrow. They may know the Johnny there, and they
may even recognize the coat if you take it with you.”
“That doesn’t seem very likely,” said Mrs. Chater, and it certainly
did not; but since no better plan could be suggested the lady decided
to adopt it; and I supposed that I had heard the last of the matter.
In this, however, I was mistaken. On the following day, just before
noon, as I was drowsily considering the points in a brief dealing
with a question of survivorship, while Thorndyke drafted his weekly
lecture, a smart rat-tat at the door of our chambers announced a
visitor. I rose wearily--I had had only four hours’ sleep--and opened
the door, whereupon there sailed into the room no less a person than
Mrs. Chater, followed by Superintendent Miller, with a grin on his
face and a brown-paper parcel under his arm.
The lady was not in the best of tempers, though wonderfully lively
and alert considering the severe shock that she had suffered so
recently, and her disapproval of Miller was frankly obvious.
“Dr. Jervis has probably told you about the attempt to murder me last
night,” she said, when I had introduced her to my colleague. “Well,
now, will you believe it? I have been to the police, I have given
them a description of the murderous villain, and I have even shown
them the very coat that he wore, and they tell me that nothing can be
done. That, in short, this scoundrel must be allowed to go his way
free and unmolested.”
“You will observe, doctor,” said Miller, “that this lady has given us
a description that would apply to fifty per cent. of the middle-class
men of the United Kingdom, and has shown us a coat without a single
identifying mark of any kind on it, and expects us to lay our hands
on the owner without a solitary clue to guide us. Now we are not
sorcerers at the Yard; we’re only policemen. So I have taken the
liberty of referring Mrs. Chater to you.” He grinned maliciously and
laid the parcel on the table.
“And what do you want me to do?” Thorndyke asked quietly.
“Why sir,” said Miller, “there is a coat. In the pockets were a pair
of gloves, a muffler, a box of matches, a tram-ticket and a Yale key.
Mrs. Chater would like to know whose coat it is.” He untied the
parcel with his eye cocked at our rather disconcerted client, and
Thorndyke watched him with a faint Smile.
“This is very kind of you, Miller,” said he, “but I think a
clairvoyant would be more to your purpose.”
The superintendent instantly dropped his facetious manner.
“Seriously, sir,” he said, “I should be glad if you would take a look
at the coat. We have absolutely nothing to go on, and yet we don’t
want to give up the case. I have gone through it most thoroughly and
can’t find any clue to guide us. Now I know that nothing escapes you,
and perhaps you might notice something that I have overlooked;
something that would give us a hint where to start on our inquiry.
Couldn’t you turn the microscope on it, for instance?” he added, with
a deprecating smile.
Thorndyke reflected, with an inquisitive eye on the coat. I saw that
the problem was not without its attractions to him; and when the lady
seconded Miller’s request with persuasive eagerness, the inevitable
consequence followed.
“Very well,” he said. “Leave the coat with me for an hour or so and I
will look it over. I am afraid there is not the remotest chance of
our learning anything from it, but even so, the examination will have
done no harm. Come back at two o’clock; I shall be ready to report my
failure by then.”
He bowed our visitors out and, returning to the table, looked down
with a quizzical smile on the coat and the large official envelope
containing articles from the pockets.
“And what does my learned brother suggest?” he asked, looking up at
me.
“I should look at the tram-ticket first,” I replied, “and then--well,
Miller’s suggestion wasn’t such a bad one; to explore the surface
with the microscope.”
“I think we will take the latter measure first,” said he. “The
tram-ticket might create a misleading bias. A man may take a tram
anywhere, whereas the indoor dust on a man’s coat appertains mostly
to a definite locality.”
“Yes,” I replied; “but the information that it yields is excessively
vague.”
“That is true,” he agreed, taking up the coat and envelope to carry
them to the laboratory, “and yet, you know, Jervis, as I have often
pointed out, the evidential value of dust is apt to be
under-estimated. The naked-eye appearances--which are the normal
appearances--are misleading. Gather the dust, say, from a table-top,
and what have you? A fine powder of a characterless grey, just like
any other dust from any other table-top. But, under the microscope,
this grey powder is resolved into recognizable fragments of definite
substances, which fragments may often be traced with certainty to the
masses from which they have been detached. But you know all this as
well as I do.”
“I quite appreciate the value of dust as evidence in certain
circumstances,” I replied, “but surely the information that could be
gathered from dust on the coat of an unknown man must be too general
to be of any use in tracing the owner.”
“I am afraid you are right,” said Thorndyke, laying the coat on the
laboratory bench; “but we shall soon see, if Polton will let us have
his patent dust-extractor.”
The little apparatus to which my colleague referred was the invention
of our ingenious laboratory assistant, and resembled in principle the
“vacuum cleaners” used for restoring carpets. It had, however, one
special feature: the receiver was made to admit a microscope-slide,
and on this the dust laden air was delivered from a jet.
The “extractor” having been clamped to the bench by its proud
inventor, and a wetted slide introduced into the receiver, Thorndyke
applied the nozzle of the instrument to the collar of the coat while
Polton worked the pump. The slide was then removed and, another
having been substituted, the nozzle was applied to the right sleeve
near the shoulder, and the exhauster again worked by Polton. By
repeating this process, half-a-dozen slides were obtained charged
with dust from different parts of the garment, and then, setting up
our respective microscopes, we proceeded to examine the samples.
A very brief inspection showed me that this dust contained matter not
usually met with--at any rate, in appreciable quantities. There were,
of course, the usual fragments of wool, cotton and other fibres
derived from clothing and furniture, particles of straw, husk, hair,
various mineral particles and, in fact, the ordinary constituents of
dust from clothing. But, in addition to these, and in much greater
quantity, were a number of other bodies, mostly of vegetable origin
and presenting well-defined characters in considerable variety, and
especially abundant were various starch granules.
I glanced at Thorndyke and observed he was already busy with a pencil
and a slip of paper, apparently making a list of the objects visible
in the field of the microscope. I hastened to follow his example, and
for a time we worked on in silence. At length my colleague leaned
back in his chair and read over his list.
“This is a highly interesting collection, Jervis,” he remarked. “What
do you find on your slides out of the ordinary?”
“I have quite a little museum here,” I replied, referring to my list.
“There is, of course, chalk from the road at Raynesford. In addition
to this I find various starches, principally wheat and rice,
especially rice, fragments of the cortices of several seeds, several
different stone-cells, some yellow masses that look like turmeric,
black pepper resin-cells, one ‘port wine’ pimento cell, and one or
two particles of graphite.”
“Graphite!” exclaimed Thorndyke. “I have found no graphite, but I
have found traces of cocoa--spiral vessels and starch grains--and of
hops--one fragment of leaf and several lupulin glands. May I see the
graphite?”
I passed him the slide and he examined it with keen interest. “Yes,”
he said, “this is undoubtedly graphite, and no less than six
particles of it. We had better go over the coat systematically. You
see the importance of this?”
“I see that this is evidently factory dust and that it may fix a
locality, but I don’t see that it will carry us any farther.”
“Don’t forget that we have a touchstone,” said he; and, as I raised
my eyebrows inquiringly, he added, “The Yale latch-key. If we can
narrow the locality down sufficiently, Miller can make a tour of the
front doors.”
“But can we?” I asked incredulously. “I doubt it.”
“We can try,” answered Thorndyke. “Evidently some of the substances
are distributed over the entire coat, inside and out, while others,
such as the graphite, are present only on certain parts. We must
locate those parts exactly and then consider what this special
distribution means.” He rapidly sketched out on a sheet of paper a
rough diagram of the coat, marking each part with a distinctive
letter, and then, taking a number of labelled slides, he wrote a
single letter on each. The samples of dust taken on the slides could
thus be easily referred to the exact spots whence they had been
obtained.
Once more we set to work with the microscope, making, now and again,
an addition to our lists of discoveries, and, at the end of nearly an
hour’s strenuous search, every slide had been examined and the lists
compared.
“The net result of the examination,” said Thorndyke, “is this. The
entire coat, inside and out, is evenly powdered with the following
substances: Rice-starch in abundance, wheat-starch in less abundance,
and smaller quantities of the starches of ginger, pimento and
cinnamon; bast fibre of cinnamon, various seed cortices, stone-cells
of pimento, cinnamon, cassia and black pepper, with other fragments
of similar origin, such as resin-cells and ginger pigment--not
turmeric. In addition there are, on the right shoulder and sleeve,
traces of cocoa and hops, and on the back below the shoulders a few
fragments of graphite. Those are the data; and now, what are the
inferences? Remember this is not mere surface dust, but the
accumulation of months, beaten into the cloth by repeated
brushing--dust that nothing but a vacuum apparatus could extract.”
“Evidently,” I said, “the particles that are all over the coat
represent dust that is floating in the air of the place where the
coat habitually hangs. The graphite has obviously been picked up from
a seat and the cocoa and hops from some factories that the man passes
frequently, though I don’t see why they are on the right side only.”
“That is a question of time,” said Thorndyke, “and incidentally
throws some light on our friend’s habits. Going from home, he passes
the factories on his right; returning home, he passes them on his
left, but they have then stopped work. However, the first group of
substances is the more important as they indicate the locality of his
dwelling--for he is clearly not a workman or factory employee. Now
rice-starch, wheat-starch and a group of substances collectively
designated ‘spices’ suggest a rice-mill, a flour-mill and a spice
factory. Polton, may I trouble you for the Post Office Directory?”
He turned over the leaves of the “Trades” section and resumed: “I see
there are four rice-mills in London, of which the largest is
Carbutt’s at Dockhead. Let us look at the spice-factories.” He again
turned over the leaves and read down the list of names. “There are
six spice-grinders in London,” said he. “One of them, Thomas Williams
& Co., is at Dockhead. None of the others is near any rice-mill. The
next question is as to the flour-mill. Let us see. Here are the names
of several flour millers, but none of them is near either a rice-mill
or a spice-grinder, with one exception: Seth Taylor’s, St. Saviour’s
Flour Mills, Dockhead.”
“This is really becoming interesting,” said I.
“It has become interesting,” Thorndyke retorted. “You observe that at
Dockhead we find the peculiar combination of factories necessary to
produce the composite dust in which this coat has hung; and the
directory shows us that this particular combination exists nowhere
else in London. Then the graphite, the cocoa and the hops tend to
confirm the other suggestions. They all appertain to industries of
the locality. The trams which pass Dockhead, also, to my knowledge,
pass at no great distance from the black-lead works of Pearce Duff &
Co. in Rouel Road, and will probably collect a few particles of
black-lead on the seats in certain states of the wind. I see, too,
that there is a cocoa factory--Payne’s--in Goat Street, Horsleydown,
which lies to the right of the tram line going west, and I have
noticed several hop warehouses on the right side of Southwark Street,
going west. But these are mere suggestions; the really important data
are the rice and flour mills and the spice-grinders, which seem to
point unmistakably to Dockhead.”
“Are there any private houses at Dockhead?” I asked.
“We must look up the ‘Street’ list,” he replied. “The Yale latch-key
rather suggests a flat, and a flat with a single occupant, and the
probable habits of our absent friend offer a similar suggestion.” He
ran his eye down the list and presently turned to me with his finger
on the page.
“If the facts that we have elicited--the singular series of
agreements with the required conditions--are only a string of
coincidences, here is another. On the south side of Dockhead,
actually next door to the spice-grinders and opposite to Carbutt’s
rice-mills, is a block of workmen’s flats, Hanover Buildings. They
fulfil the conditions exactly. A coat hung in a room in those flats,
with the windows open (as they would probably be at this time of
year), would be exposed to the air containing a composite dust of
precisely the character of that which we have found. Of course, the
same conditions obtain in other dwellings in this part of Dockhead,
but the probability is in favour of the buildings. And that is all
that we can say. It is no certainty. There may be some radical
fallacy in our reasoning. But, on the face of it, the chances are a
thousand to one that the door that that key will open is in some part
of Dockhead, and most probably in Hanover Buildings. We must leave
the verification to Miller.”
“Wouldn’t it be as well to look at the tram-ticket?” I asked.
“Dear me!” he exclaimed. “I had forgotten the ticket. Yes, by all
means.” He opened the envelope and, turning its contents out on the
bench, picked up the dingy slip of paper. After a glance at it he
handed it to me. It was punched for the journey from Tooley Street to
Dockhead.
“Another coincidence,” he remarked; “and by yet another, I think I
hear Miller knocking at our door.”
It was the superintendent, and, as we let him into the room, the hum
of a motor-car entering from Tudor Street announced the arrival of
Mrs. Chater. We waited for her at the open door, and, as she entered,
she held out her hands impulsively.
“Say, now, Dr. Thorndyke,” she exclaimed, “have you gotten something
to tell us?”
“I have a suggestion to make,” replied Thorndyke. “I think that if
the superintendent will take this key to Hanover Buildings, Dockhead,
Bermondsey, he may possibly find a door that it will fit.”
“The deuce!” exclaimed Miller. “I beg your pardon, madam; but I
thought I had gone through that coat pretty completely. What was it
that I had overlooked, sir? Was there a letter hidden in it, after
all?”
“You overlooked the dust on it, Miller; that is all,” said Thorndyke.
“Dust!” exclaimed the detective, staring round-eyed at my colleague.
Then he chuckled softly. “Well,” said he, “as I said before, I’m not
a sorcerer; I’m only a policeman.” He picked up the key and asked:
“Are you coming to see the end of it, sir?”
“Of course he is coming,” said Mrs. Chater, “and Dr. Jervis too, to
identify the man. Now that we have gotten the villain we must leave
him no loophole for escape.”
Thorndyke smiled dryly. “We will come if you wish it, Mrs. Chater,”
he said, “but you mustn’t look upon our quest as a certainty. We may
have made an entire miscalculation, and I am, in fact, rather curious
to see if the result works out correctly. But even if we run the man
to earth, I don’t see that you have much evidence against him. The
most that you can prove is that he was at the house and that he left
hurriedly.”
Mrs. Chater regarded my colleague for a moment in scornful silence,
and then, gathering up her skirts, stalked out of the room. If there
is one thing that the average woman detests more than another, it is
an entirely reasonable man.
The big car whirled us rapidly over Blackfriars Bridge into the
region of the Borough, whence we presently turned down Tooley Street
towards Bermondsey.
As soon as Dockhead came into view, the detective, Thorndyke and I,
alighted and proceeded on foot, leaving our client, who was now
closely veiled, to follow at a little distance in the car. Opposite
the head of St. Saviour’s Dock, Thorndyke halted and, looking over
the wall, drew my attention to the snowy powder that had lodged on
every projection on the backs of the tall buildings and on the decks
of the barges that were loading with the flour and ground rice. Then,
crossing the road, he pointed to the wooden lantern above the roof of
the spice works, the louvres of which were covered with greyish-buff
dust.
“Thus,” he moralized, “does commerce subserve the ends of justice--at
least, we hope it does,” he added quickly, as Miller disappeared into
the semi-basement of the buildings.
We met the detective returning from his quest as we entered the
building.
“No go there,” was his report. “We’ll try the next floor.”
This was the ground-floor, or it might be considered the first floor.
At any rate, it yielded nothing of interest, and, after a glance at
the doors that opened on the landing, he strode briskly up the stone
stairs. The next floor was equally unrewarding, for our eager
inspection disclosed nothing but the gaping keyhole associated with
the common type of night-latch.
“What name was you wanting?” inquired a dusty knight of industry who
emerged from one of the flats.
“Muggs,” replied Miller, with admirable promptness.
“Don’t know ’im,” said the workman. “I expect it’s farther up.”
Farther up we accordingly went, but still from each door the artless
grin of the invariable keyhole saluted us with depressing monotony. I
began to grow uneasy, and when the fourth floor had been explored
with no better result, my anxiety became acute. A mare’s nest may be
an interesting curiosity, but it brings no kudos to its discoverer.
“I suppose you haven’t made any mistake, sir?” said Miller, stopping
to wipe his brow.
“It’s quite likely that I have,” replied Thorndyke, with unmoved
composure. “I only proposed this search as a tentative proceeding,
you know.”
The superintendent grunted. He was accustomed--as was I too, for that
matter--to regard Thorndyke’s “tentative suggestions” as equal to
another man’s certainties.
“It will be an awful suck-in for Mrs. Chater if we don’t find him
after all,” he growled as we climbed up the last flight. “She’s
counted her chickens to a feather.” He paused at the head of the
stairs and stood for a few moments looking round the landing.
Suddenly he turned eagerly, and, laying his hand on Thorndyke’s arm,
pointed to a door in the farthest corner.
“Yale lock!” he whispered impressively.
We followed him silently as he stole on tip-toe across the landing,
and watched him as he stood for an instant with the key in his land
looking gloatingly at the brass disc. We saw him softly apply the
nose of the fluted key-blade to the crooked slit in the cylinder,
and, as we watched, it slid noiselessly up to the shoulder. The
detective looked round with a grin of triumph, and, silently
withdrawing the key, stepped back to us.
“You’ve run him to earth, sir,” he whispered, “but I don’t think Mr.
Fox is at home. He can’t have got back yet.”
“Why not?” asked Thorndyke.
Miller waved his hand towards the door. “Nothing has been disturbed,”
he replied. “There’s not a mark on the paint. Now he hadn’t got the
key, and you can’t pick a Yale lock. He’d have had to break in, and
he hasn’t broken in.”
Thorndyke stepped up to the door and softly pushed in the flap of the
letter-slit, through which he looked into the flat.
“There’s no letter-box,” said he. “My dear Miller, I would undertake
to open that door in five minutes with a foot of wire and a bit of
resined string.”
Miller shook his head and grinned once more. “I am glad you’re not on
the lay, sir; you’d be one too many for us. Shall we signal to the
lady?”
I went out onto the gallery and looked down at the waiting car. Mrs.
Chater was staring intently up at the building, and the little crowd
that the car had collected stared alternately at the lady and at the
object of her regard. I wiped my face with my handkerchief--the
signal agreed upon--and she instantly sprang out of the car, and in
an incredibly short time she appeared on the landing, purple and
gasping, but with the fire of battle flashing from her eyes.
“We’ve found his flat, madam,” said Miller, “and we’re going to
enter. You’re not intending to offer any violence, I hope,” he added,
noting with some uneasiness the lady’s ferocious expression.
“Of course I’m not,” replied Mrs. Chater. “In the States ladies don’t
have to avenge insults themselves. If you were American men you’d
hang the ruffian from his own bedpost.”
“We’re not American men, madam,” said the superintendent stiffly. “We
are law-abiding Englishmen, and, moreover, we are all officers of the
law. These gentlemen are barristers and I am a police officer.”
With this preliminary caution, he once more inserted the key, and as
he turned it and pushed the door open, we all followed him into the
sitting-room.
“I told you so, sir,” said Miller, softly shutting the door; “he
hasn’t come back yet.”
Apparently he was right. At any rate, there was no one in the flat,
and we proceeded unopposed on our tour of inspection. It was a
miserable spectacle, and, as we wandered from one squalid room to
another, a feeling of pity for the starving wretch into whose lair we
were intruding stole over me and began almost to mitigate the
hideousness of his crime. On all sides poverty--utter, grinding
poverty--stared us in the face. It looked at us hollow-eyed in the
wretched sitting-room, with its bare floor, its solitary chair and
tiny deal table; its unfurnished walls and windows destitute of blind
or curtain. A piece of Dutch cheese-rind on the table, scraped to the
thinness of paper, whispered of starvation; and famine lurked in the
gaping cupboard, in the empty bread-tin, in the tea-caddy with its
pinch of dust at the bottom, in the jam-jar, wiped clean, as a few
crumbs testified, with a crust of bread. There was not enough food in
the place to furnish a meal for a healthy mouse.
The bedroom told the same tale, but with a curious variation. A
miserable truckle-bed with a straw mattress and a cheap jute rug for
bed-clothes, an orange-case, stood on end, for a dressing-table, and
another, bearing a tin washing bowl, formed the wretched furniture.
But the suit that hung from a couple of nails was well-cut and even
fashionable, though shabby; and another suit lay on the floor, neatly
folded and covered with a newspaper; and, most incongruous of all, a
silver cigarette-case reposed on the dressing-table.
“Why on earth does this fellow starve,” I exclaimed, “when he has a
silver case to pawn?”
“Wouldn’t do,” said Miller. “A man doesn’t pawn the implements of his
trade.”
Mrs. Chater, who had been staring about her with the mute amazement
of a wealthy woman confronted, for the first time, with abject
poverty, turned suddenly to the superintendent. “This can’t be the
man!” she exclaimed. “You have made some mistake. This poor creature
could never have made his way into a house like Willowdale.”
Thorndyke lifted the newspaper. Beneath it was a dress suit with the
shirt, collar and tie all carefully smoothed out and folded.
Thorndyke unfolded the shirt and pointed to the curiously crumpled
front. Suddenly he brought it close to his eye and then, from the
sham diamond stud, he drew a single hair--a woman’s hair.
“That is rather significant,” said he, holding it up between his
finger and thumb; and Mrs. Chater evidently thought so too, for the
pity and compunction suddenly faded from her face, and once more her
eyes flashed with vindictive fire.
“I wish he would come,” she exclaimed viciously. “Prison won’t be
much hardship to him after this, but I want to see him in the dock
all the same.”
“No,” the detective agreed, “it won’t hurt him much to swap this for
Portland. Listen!”
A key was being inserted into the outer door, and as we all stood
like statues, a man entered and closed the door after him. He passed
the door of the bedroom without seeing us, and with the dragging
steps of a weary, dispirited man. Almost immediately we heard him go
to the kitchen and draw water into some vessel. Then he went back to
the sitting-room.
“Come along,” said Miller, stepping silently towards the door. We
followed closely, and as he threw the door open, we looked in over
his shoulder.
The man had seated himself at the table, on which now lay a hunk of
household bread resting on the paper in which he had brought it, and
a tumbler of water. He half rose as the door opened, and as if
petrified remained staring at Miller with a dreadful expression of
terror upon his livid face.
At this moment I felt a hand on my arm, and Mrs. Chater brusquely
pushed past me into the room. But at the threshold she stopped short;
and a singular change crept over the man’s ghastly face, a change so
remarkable that I looked involuntarily from him to our client. She
had turned, in a moment, deadly pale, and her face had frozen into an
expression of incredulous horror.
The dramatic silence was broken by the matter-of-fact voice of the
detective.
“I am a police officer,” said he, “and I arrest you for----”
A peal of hysterical laughter from Mrs. Chater interrupted him, and
he looked at her in astonishment. “Stop, stop!” she cried in a shaky
voice. “I guess we’ve made a ridiculous mistake. This isn’t the man.
This gentleman is Captain Rowland, an old friend of mine.”
“I’m sorry he’s a friend of yours,” said Miller, “because I shall
have to ask you to appear against him.”
“You can ask what you please,” replied Mrs. Chater. “I tell you he’s
not the man.”
The superintendent rubbed his nose and looked hungrily at his quarry.
“Do I understand, madam,” he asked stiffly, “that you refuse to
prosecute?”
“Prosecute!” she exclaimed. “Prosecute my friends for offences that I
know they have not committed? Certainly I refuse.”
The superintendent looked at Thorndyke, but my colleague’s
countenance had congealed into a state of absolute immobility and was
as devoid of expression as the face of a Dutch clock.
“Very well,” said Miller, looking sourly at his watch. “Then we have
had our trouble for nothing. I wish you good afternoon, madam.”
“I am sorry I troubled you, now,” said Mrs. Chater.
“I am sorry you did,” was the curt reply; and the superintendent,
flinging the key on the table, stalked out of the room.
As the outer door slammed the man sat down with an air of
bewilderment; and then, suddenly flinging his arms on the table, he
dropped his head on them and burst into a passion of sobbing.
It was very embarrassing. With one accord Thorndyke and I turned to
go, but Mrs. Chater motioned us to stay. Stepping over to the man,
she touched him lightly on the arm.
“Why did you do it?” she asked in a tone of gentle reproach.
The man sat up and flung out one arm in an eloquent gesture that
comprehended the miserable room and the yawning cupboard.
“It was the temptation of a moment,” he said. “I was penniless, and
those accursed diamonds were thrust in my face; they were mine for
the taking. I was mad, I suppose.”
“But why didn’t you take them?” she said. “Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. The madness passed; and then--when I saw you lying
there---- Oh, God! Why don’t you give me up to the police?” He laid
his head down and sobbed afresh.
Mrs. Chater bent over him with tears standing in her pretty grey
eyes. “But tell me,” she said, “why didn’t you take the diamonds? You
could if you’d liked, I suppose?”
“What good were they to me?” he demanded passionately. “What did any
thing matter to me? I thought you were dead.”
“Well, I’m not, you see,” she said, with a rather tearful smile; “I’m
just as well as an old woman like me can expect to be. And I want
your address, so that I can write and give you some good advice.”
The man sat up and produced a shabby cardcase from his pocket, and,
as he took out a number of cards and spread them out like the “hand”
of a whist player, I caught a twinkle in Thorndyke’s eye.
“My name is Augustus Bailey,” said the man. He selected the
appropriate card, and, having scribbled his address on it with a
stump of lead pencil, relapsed into his former position.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Chater, lingering for a moment by the table.
“Now we’ll go. Good-bye, Mr. Bailey. I shall write tomorrow, and you
must attend seriously to the advice of an old friend.”
I held open the door for her to pass out and looked back before I
turned to follow. Bailey still sat sobbing quietly, with his hand
resting on his arms; and a little pile of gold stood on the corner of
the table.
“I expect, doctor,” said Mrs. Chater, as Thorndyke handed her into
the car, “you’ve written me down a sentimental fool.”
Thorndyke looked at her with an unwonted softening of his rather
severe face and answered quietly, “It is written: Blessed are the
Merciful.”
THE OLD LAG