THE EVIDENCE REVIEWED
"So the game has opened," observed Thorndyke, as he struck a match. "The
play has begun with a cautious lead off by the other side. Very
cautious, and not very confident."
"Why do you say 'not very confident'?" I asked.
"Well, it is evident that Hurst--and, I fancy, Jellicoe too--is anxious
to buy off Bellingham's opposition, and at a pretty long price, under
the circumstances. And when we consider how very little Bellingham has
to offer against the presumption of his brother's death, it looks as if
Hurst hadn't much to say on his side."
"No," said Jervis, "he can't hold many trumps or he wouldn't be willing
to pay four hundred a year for his opponent's chance; and that is just
as well, for it seems to me that our own hand is a pretty poor one."
"We must look through our hand and see what we do hold," said Thorndyke.
"Our trump card at present--a rather small one, I am afraid--is the
obvious intention of the testator that the bulk of the property should
go to his brother."
"I suppose you will begin your inquiries now," said I.
"We began them some time ago--the day after you brought us the will, in
fact. Jervis has been through the registers and has ascertained that no
interment under the name of John Bellingham has taken place since the
disappearance; which was just what we expected. He has also discovered
that some other person has been making similar inquiries; which, again,
is what we expected."
"And your own investigations?"
"Have given negative results for the most part. I found Doctor Norbury,
at the British Museum, very friendly and helpful; so friendly, in fact,
that I am thinking whether I may not be able to enlist his help in
certain private researches of my own, with reference to the changes
effected by time in the physical properties of certain substances."
"Oh; you haven't told me about that," said Jervis.
"No: I haven't really commenced to plan my experiments yet, and they
will probably lead to nothing when I do. It occurred to me that,
possibly, in the course of time, certain molecular changes might take
place in substances such as wood, bone, pottery, stucco, and other
common materials, and that these changes might alter their power of
conducting or transmitting molecular vibrations. Now, if this should
turn out to be the case, it would be a fact of considerable importance,
medico-legal and otherwise; for it would be possible to determine
approximately the age of any object of known composition by testing its
reactions to electricity, heat, light and other molecular vibrations. I
thought of seeking Doctor Norbury's assistance because he can furnish me
with materials for experiment of such great age that the reactions, if
any, should be extremely easy to demonstrate. But to return to our case.
I learned from him that John Bellingham had certain friends in
Paris--collectors and museum officials--whom he was in the habit of
visiting for the purpose of study and exchange of specimens. I have
made inquiries of all of these, and none of them had seen him during his
last visit. In fact, I have not yet discovered anyone who had seen
Bellingham in Paris on this occasion. So his visit there remains a
mystery for the present."
"It doesn't seem to be of much importance, since he undoubtedly came
back," I remarked; but to this Thorndyke demurred.
"It is impossible to estimate the importance of the unknown," said he.
"Well, how does the matter stand," asked Jervis, "on the evidence that
we have? John Bellingham disappeared on a certain date. Is there
anything to show what was the manner of his disappearance?"
"The facts in our possession," said Thorndyke, "which are mainly those
set forth in the newspaper report, suggest several alternative
possibilities; and in view of the coming inquiry--for they will, no
doubt, have to be gone into in Court, to some extent--it may be worth
while to consider them. There are five conceivable hypotheses"--here
Thorndyke checked them on his fingers as he proceeded--"First, he may
still be alive. Second, he may have died and been buried without
identification. Third, he may have been murdered by some unknown person.
Fourth, he may have been murdered by Hurst and his body concealed.
Fifth, he may have been murdered by his brother. Let us examine these
possibilities seriatim.
"First, he may still be alive. If he is, he must either have disappeared
voluntarily, have lost his memory suddenly and not been identified, or
have been imprisoned--on a false charge or otherwise. Let us take the
first case--that of voluntary disappearance. Obviously, its
improbability is extreme."
"Jellicoe doesn't think so," said I. "He thinks it quite on the cards
that John Bellingham is alive. He says that it is not a very unusual
thing for a man to disappear for a time."
"Then why is he applying for a presumption of death?"
"Just what I asked him. He says that it is the correct thing to do; that
the entire responsibility rests on the Court."
"That is all nonsense," said Thorndyke. "Jellicoe is the trustee for his
absent client, and, if he thinks that client is alive, it is his duty to
keep the estate intact; and he knows that perfectly well. We may take it
that Jellicoe is of the same opinion as I am: that John Bellingham is
dead."
"Still," I urged, "men do disappear from time to time, and turn up again
after years of absence."
"Yes, but for a definite reason. Either they are irresponsible vagabonds
who take this way of shuffling off their responsibilities, or they are
men who have been caught in a net of distasteful circumstances. For
instance, a civil servant or a solicitor or a tradesman finds himself
bound for life to a locality and an occupation of intolerable monotony.
Perhaps he has an ill-tempered wife, who, after the amiable fashion of a
certain type of woman, thinking that her husband is pinned down without
a chance of escape, gives a free rein to her temper. The man puts up
with it for years, but at last it becomes unbearable. Then he suddenly
disappears; and small blame to him. But this was not Bellingham's case.
He was a wealthy bachelor with an engrossing interest in life, free to
go whither he would and to do whatsoever he wished. Why should he
disappear? The thing is incredible.
"As to his having lost his memory and remained unidentified, that, also,
is incredible in the case of a man who had visiting-cards and letters in
his pocket, whose linen was marked, and who was being inquired for
everywhere by the police. As to his being in prison, we may dismiss that
possibility, inasmuch as a prisoner, both before and after conviction,
would have full opportunity of communicating with his friends.
"The second possibility, that he may have died suddenly and been buried
without identification, is highly improbable; but, as it is conceivable
that the body might have been robbed and the means of identification
thus lost, it remains as a possibility that has to be considered, remote
as it is.
"The third hypothesis, that he may have been murdered by some unknown
person, is, under the circumstances, not wildly improbable; but, as the
police were on the look out and a detailed description of the missing
man's person was published in the papers, it would involve the complete
concealment of the body. But this would exclude the most probable form
of the crime--the casual robbery with violence. It is therefore
possible, but highly improbable.
"The fourth hypothesis is that Bellingham was murdered by Hurst. Now the
one fact which militates against this view is that Hurst apparently had
no motive for committing the murder. We are assured by Jellicoe that no
one but himself knew the contents of the will, and if this is so--but,
mind, we have no evidence that it is so--Hurst would have no reason to
suppose that he had anything material to gain by his cousin's death.
Otherwise the hypothesis presents no inherent improbabilities. The man
was last seen alive at Hurst's house. He was seen to enter it and he was
never seen to leave it--we are still taking the facts as stated in the
newspapers, remember--and it now appears that he stands to benefit
enormously by that man's death."
"But," I objected, "you are forgetting that, directly the man was
missed, Hurst and the servants together searched the entire house."
"Yes. What did they search for?"
"Why, for Mr. Bellingham, of course."
"Exactly; for Mr. Bellingham. That is, for a living man. Now how do you
search a house for a living man? You look in all the rooms. When you
look in a room, if he is there, you see him; if you do not see him, you
assume that he is not there. You don't look under the sofa or behind the
piano, you don't pull out large drawers or open cupboards. You just look
into the rooms. That is what these people seem to have done. And they
did not see Mr. Bellingham. But Mr. Bellingham's corpse might have been
stowed away out of sight in any one of the rooms that they looked into."
"That is a grim thought," said Jervis; "But it is perfectly true. There
is no evidence that the man was not lying dead in the house at the very
time of the search."
"But even so," said I, "there was the body to be disposed of somehow.
Now how could he possibly have got rid of the body without being
observed?"
"Ah!" said Thorndyke, "now we are touching on a point of crucial
importance. If anyone should ever write a treatise on the art of
murder--not an exhibition of literary fireworks like De Quincey's, but a
genuine working treatise--he might leave all other technical details to
take care of themselves if he could describe some really practicable
plan for disposing of the body. That is, and always has been, the great
stumbling-block to the murderer: to get rid of the body. The human
body," he continued, thoughtfully regarding his pipe, just as, in the
days of my pupilage, he was wont to regard the black-board chalk, "is a
very remarkable object. It presents a combination of properties that
makes it singularly difficult to conceal permanently. It is bulky and of
an awkward shape, it is heavy, it is completely incombustible, it is
chemically unstable, and its decomposition yields great volumes of
highly odorous gases, and it nevertheless contains identifiable
structures of the highest degree of permanence. It is extremely
difficult to preserve unchanged, and it is still more difficult
completely to destroy. The essential permanence of the human body is
well shown in the classical case of Eugene Aram; but a still more
striking instance is that of Seqenen-Ra the Third, one of the last kings
of the seventeenth Egyptian dynasty. Here, after a lapse of some four
thousand years, it has been possible to determine, not only the cause of
death and the manner of its occurrence, but the way in which the king
fell, the nature of the weapon with which the fatal wound was inflicted,
and even the position of the assailant. And the permanence of the body
under other conditions is admirably shown in the case of Doctor Parkman,
of Boston, U.S.A., in which identification was actually effected by
means of remains collected from the ashes of a furnace."
"Then we may take it," said Jervis, "that the world has not yet seen
the last of John Bellingham."
"I think we may regard that as almost a certainty," replied Thorndyke.
"The only question--and a very important one--is as to when the
reappearance may take place. It may be to-morrow or it may be centuries
hence, when all the issues involved have been forgotten."
"Assuming," said I, "for the sake of argument, that Hurst did murder him
and that the body was concealed in the study at the time the search was
made. How could it have been disposed of? If you had been in Hurst's
place, how would you have gone to work?"
Thorndyke smiled at the bluntness of my question.
"You are asking me for an incriminating statement," said he, "delivered
in the presence of a witness too. But, as a matter of fact, there is no
use in speculating _a priori_; we should have to reconstruct a purely
imaginary situation, the circumstances of which are unknown to us, and
we should almost certainly reconstruct it wrong. What we may fairly
assume is that no reasonable person, no matter how immoral, would find
himself in the position that you suggest. Murder is usually a crime of
impulse, and the murderer a person of feeble self-control. Such persons
are most unlikely to make elaborate and ingenious arrangements for the
disposal of the bodies of their victims. Even the cold-blooded
perpetrators of the most carefully planned murders appear, as I have
said, to break down at this point. The almost insuperable difficulty of
getting rid of a human body is not appreciated until the murderer
suddenly finds himself face to face with it.
"In the case that you are suggesting, the choice would seem to lie
between burial on the premises or dismemberment and dispersal of the
fragments; and either method would be pretty certain to lead to
discovery."
"As illustrated by the remains of which you were speaking to Mr.
Bellingham," Jervis remarked.
"Exactly," Thorndyke answered, "though we could hardly imagine a
reasonably intelligent criminal adopting a watercress-bed as a
hiding-place."
"No. That was certainly an error of judgment. By the way, I thought it
best to say nothing while you were talking to Bellingham, but I noticed
that, in discussing the possibility of those being the bones of his
brother, you made no comment on the absence of the third finger of the
left hand. I am sure you didn't overlook it, but isn't it a point of
some importance?"
"As to identification? Under the present circumstances, I think not. If
there were a man missing who had lost that finger it would, of course,
be an important fact. But I have not heard of any such man. Or, again,
if there were any evidence that the finger had been removed before
death, it would be highly important. But there is no such evidence. It
may have been cut off after death, and there is where the real
significance of its absence lies."
"I don't quite see what you mean," said Jervis.
"I mean that, if there is no report of any missing man who had lost that
particular finger, the probability is that the finger was removed after
death. And then arises the interesting question of motive. Why should it
have been removed? It could hardly have become detached accidentally.
What do you suggest?"
"Well," said Jervis, "it might have been a peculiar finger; a finger,
for instance, with some characteristic deformity, such as an ankylosed
joint, which would be easy to identify."
"Yes; but that explanation introduces the same difficulty. No person
with a deformed or ankylosed finger has been reported as missing."
Jervis puckered up his brows and looked at me.
"I'm hanged if I see any other explanation," he said. "Do you,
Berkeley?"
I shook my head.
"Don't forget which finger it is that is missing," said Thorndyke. "The
third finger on the left hand."
"Oh, I see!" said Jervis. "The ring-finger. You mean it may have been
removed for the sake of a ring that wouldn't come off."
"Yes. It would not be the first instance of the kind. Fingers have been
severed from dead hands--and even from living ones--for the sake of
rings that were too tight to be drawn off. And the fact that it is the
left hand supports this suggestion; for a ring that was inconveniently
tight would be worn by preference on the left hand, as that is usually
slightly smaller than the right. What is the matter, Berkeley?"
A sudden light had burst upon me, and I suppose my countenance betrayed
the fact.
"I am a confounded fool!" I exclaimed.
"Oh, don't say that," said Jervis. "Give your friends a chance."
"I ought to have seen this long ago and told you about it. John
Bellingham did wear a ring, and it was so tight that, when once he had
got it on, he could never get it off again."
"Do you happen to know on which hand he wore it?" Thorndyke asked.
"Yes. It was the left hand; because Miss Bellingham, who told me about
it, said that he would never have been able to get the ring on at all
but for the fact that his left hand was slightly smaller than his
right."
"There it is, then," said Thorndyke. "With this new fact in our
possession, the absence of this finger furnishes the starting-point of
some very curious speculations."
"As, for instance?" said Jervis.
"Ah, under the circumstances, I must leave you to pursue those
speculations independently. I am now acting for Mr. Bellingham."
Jervis grinned and was silent for a while, refilling his pipe
thoughtfully; but when he had got it alight he resumed.
"To return to the question of the disappearance; you don't consider it
highly improbable that Bellingham might have been murdered by Hurst?"
"Oh, don't imagine that I am making an accusation. I am considering the
various probabilities merely in the abstract. The same reasoning applies
to the Bellinghams. As to whether any of them did commit the murder,
that is a question of personal character. I certainly do not suspect the
Bellinghams after having seen them, and with regard to Hurst, I know
nothing, or at least very little, to his disadvantage."
"Do you know anything?" asked Jervis.
"Well," Thorndyke said, with some hesitation, "it seems a thought unkind
to rake up the little details of a man's past, and yet it has to be
done. I have, of course, made the usual routine inquiries concerning
the parties to this affair, and this is what they have brought to
light:
"Hurst, as you know, is a stockbroker--a man of good position and
reputation; but, about ten years ago, he seems to have committed an
indiscretion, to put it mildly, which nearly got him into rather serious
difficulties. He appears to have speculated rather heavily and
considerably beyond his means, for when a sudden spasm of the market
upset his calculations, it turned out that he had been employing his
clients' capital and securities. For a time it looked as if there was
going to be serious trouble; then, quite unexpectedly, he managed to
raise the necessary amount in some way and settle all claims. Whence he
got the money has never been discovered to this day, which is a curious
circumstance, seeing that the deficiency was rather over five thousand
pounds; but the important fact is that he did get it and that he paid up
all that he owed. So that he was only a potential defaulter, so to
speak; and, discreditable as the affair undoubtedly was, it does not
seem to have any direct bearing on this present case."
"No," Jervis agreed, "though it makes one consider his position with
more attention than one would otherwise."
"Undoubtedly," said Thorndyke. "A reckless gambler is a man whose
conduct cannot be relied on. He is subject to sudden vicissitudes of
fortune which may force him into other kinds of wrongdoing. Many an
embezzlement has been preceded by an unlucky plunge on the turf."
"Assuming the responsibility for this disappearance to lie between Hurst
and--and the Bellinghams," said I, with an uncomfortable gulp as I
mentioned the name of my friends, "to which side does the balance of
probability incline?"
"To the side of Hurst, I should say, without doubt," replied Thorndyke.
"The case stands thus--on the facts presented to us: Hurst appears to
have had no motive for killing the deceased (as we will call him); but
the man was seen to enter his house, was never seen to leave it, and was
never again seen alive. Bellingham, on the other hand, had a motive, as
he believed himself to be the principal beneficiary under the will. But
the deceased was not seen at his house, and there is no evidence that he
went to the house or to the neighbourhood of the house, excepting the
scarab that was found there. But the evidence of the scarab is vitiated
by the fact that Hurst was present when it was picked up, and that it
was found on a spot over which Hurst had passed only a few minutes
previously. Until Hurst is cleared, it seems to me that the presence of
the scarab proves nothing against the Bellinghams."
"Then your opinions on the case," said I, "are based entirely on the
facts that have been made public."
"Yes, mainly. I do not necessarily accept those facts just as they are
presented, and I may have certain views of my own on the case. But if I
have, I do not feel in a position to discuss them. For the present,
discussion has to be limited to the facts and inferences offered by the
parties concerned."
"There!" exclaimed Jervis, rising to knock out his pipe, "that is where
Thorndyke has you. He lets you think you're in the very thick of the
'know' until one fine morning you wake up and discover that you have
only been a gaping outsider; and then you are mightily astonished--and
so are the other side, too, for that matter. But we must really be off
now, mustn't we, reverend senior?"
"I suppose we must," replied Thorndyke; and, as he drew on his gloves,
he asked: "Have you heard from Barnard lately?"
"Oh, yes," I answered. "I wrote to him at Smyrna to say that the
practice was flourishing and that I was quite happy and contented, and
that he might stay away as long as he liked. He writes by return that he
will prolong his holiday if an opportunity offers, but will let me know
later."
"Gad," said Jervis, "it was a stroke of luck for Barnard that Bellingham
happened to have such a magnificent daughter--there! don't mind me, old
man. You go in and win--she's worth it, isn't she, Thorndyke?"
"Miss Bellingham is a very charming young lady," replied Thorndyke. "I
am most favourably impressed by both the father and the daughter, and I
only trust that we may be able to be of some service to them." With this
sedate little speech Thorndyke shook my hand, and I watched my two
friends go on their way until their fading shapes were swallowed up in
the darkness of Fetter Lane.