“You surely don’t contemplate breaking into his chambers!” I
exclaimed.
“Certainly not,” he replied. “If the latch won’t yield to gentle
persuasion, I shall give it up. But don’t let me involve you, Jervis.
I admit that it is a slightly irregular proceeding.”
“Irregular!” I repeated. “It is housebreaking, pure and simple. I can
only hope that you won’t be able to get in.”
The hope turned out to be a vain one, as I had secretly feared. When
we had reconnoitred the stairs and established the encouraging fact
that the third floor was untenanted, we inspected the door above which
our victim’s name was painted; and a glance at the yawning
key-hole--diagnostic of an old-fashioned draw-latch--told me that the
deed was as good as done.
“Now, Jervis,” said Thorndyke, producing from his pocket the curious
instrument that he described as a “smoker’s companion”--it was an
undeniable picklock, made by Polton under his direction--“you had
better clear out and wait for me at our chambers.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” I replied. “I am an accessory before
the fact already, so I may as well stay and see the crime committed.”
“Then in that case,” said he, “you had better keep a look-out from the
landing window and call me if anyone comes to the house. That will
make us perfectly safe.”
I accordingly took my station at the window, and Thorndyke, having
knocked several times at the “oak” without eliciting any response, set
to work with the smoker’s companion. In less than a minute the latch
clicked, the outer door opened, and Thorndyke, pushing the inner door
open, entered, leaving both doors ajar. I was devoured by curiosity as
to what his purpose was. Obviously it must be a very definite one to
justify this most extraordinary proceeding. But I dared not leave my
post for a moment seeing that we were really engaged in a very serious
breach of the law, and it was of vital importance that we should not
be surprised in the act. I was therefore unable to observe my
colleague’s proceedings, and I waited impatiently to see if anything
came of this unlawful entry.
I had waited thus some ten minutes, keeping a close watch on the
pavement below, when I heard Thorndyke quickly cross the room and
approach the door. A moment later he came out on the landing, bearing
in his hand an object which, while it enlightened me as to the purpose
of the raid, added to my mystification.
“That looks like the missing sword from Herrington’s room!” I
exclaimed, gazing at it in amazement.
“Yes,” he replied. “I found it in a drawer in the bedroom. Only it
isn’t a sword.”
“Then, what the deuce is it?” I demanded, for the thing looked like a
broad-bladed sword in a soft leather scabbard of somewhat rude native
workmanship.
By way of reply he slowly drew the object from its sheath, and as it
came into sight, I uttered an exclamation of astonishment. To the
inexpert eye it appeared an elongated body about nine inches in length
covered with coarse, black leather, from either side of which sprang a
multitude of what looked like thick, black wires. Above, it was
furnished with a leather handle which was surmounted by a suspension
loop of plaited leather.
“I take it,” said I, “that this is an elephant’s tail.”
“Yes,” he replied, “and a rather remarkable specimen. The hairs are of
unusual length. Some of them, you see, are nearly eighteen inches
long.”
“And what are you going to do now?” I asked.
“I am going to put it back where I found it. Then I shall run down to
Scotland Yard and advise Miller to get a search warrant. He is too
discreet to ask inconvenient questions.”
I must admit that it was a great relief to me when, a minute later,
Thorndyke came out and shut the door; but I could not deny that the
raid had been justified by the results. What had, presumably, been a
mere surmise had been converted into a definite fact on which action
could confidently be taken.
“I suppose,” said I, as we walked down towards the Embankment en route
for Scotland Yard, “I ought to have spotted this case.”
“You had the means,” Thorndyke replied. “At your first visit you
learned that an object of some kind had disappeared from the wall. It
seemed to be a trivial object of no value, and not likely to be
connected with the crime. So you disregarded it. But it had
disappeared. Its disappearance was not accounted for, and that
disappearance seemed to coincide in time with the death of Herrington.
It undoubtedly called for investigation. Then you found on the floor
an object the nature of which was unknown to you. Obviously, you ought
to have ascertained what it was.”
“Yes, I ought,” I admitted, “though I am not sure that I should have
been much forrarder even then. In fact, I am not so very much
forrarder even now. I don’t see how you spotted this man Essien, and I
don’t understand why he took all this trouble and risk and even
committed a murder to get possession of this trumpery curio. Of course
I can make a vague guess. But I should like to hear how you ran the
man and the thing to earth.”
“Very well,” said Thorndyke. “Let me retrace the train of discoveries
and inferences in their order. First I learned that an object,
supposed to be a barbaric sword of some kind, had disappeared about
the time of the murder--if it _was_ a murder. Then we heard from
Carston that Sir Gilbert Herrington had appropriated the insignia and
ceremonial objects belonging to the King of Bekwè; that some had
subsequently been restored, but others had been given to friends as
curios. As I listened to that story, the possibility occurred to me
that this curio which had disappeared might be one of the missing
ceremonial objects. It was not only possible: it was quite probable.
For Giles Herrington was a very likely person to have received one of
these gifts, and his morose temper made it unlikely that he would
restore it. And then, since such an object would be of great value to
somebody, and since it was actually stolen property, there would be
good reasons why some interested person should take forcible
possession of it. This, of course, was mere hypothesis of a rather
shadowy kind. But when you produced an object which I at once
suspected, and then proved, to be an elephant’s hair, the hypothesis
became a reasonable working theory. For, among the ceremonial objects
which form what we may call the regalia of a West African king, is the
elephant’s tail which is carried before him by a special officer as a
symbol of his power and strength. An elephant’s tail had pretty
certainly been stolen from the king, and Carston said nothing about
its having been restored.
“Well, when we went to Herrington’s chambers just now, it was clear to
me that the thing which had disappeared was certainly not a sword. The
phantom shape on the wall did not show much, but it did show plainly
that the object had hung from the nail by a large loop at the end of
the handle. But the suspension loop of a sword or dagger is always on
the scabbard, never on the hilt. But if the thing was not a sword,
what was it? The elephant’s hair that you found on the floor seemed to
answer the question.
“Now, as we came in, I had noticed on the door-post the West African
name, Kwaku Essien. A man whose name is Kwaku is pretty certainly a
negro. But if this was an elephant’s tail, its lawful owner was a
negro, and that owner wanted to recover it and was morally entitled to
take possession of it. Here was another striking agreement. The
chambers over Herrington’s were occupied by a negro. Finally, you
found among the floor dust a negro’s hair. Then a negro had actually
been in this room. But from what we know of Herrington, that negro was
not there as an invited visitor. All the probabilities pointed to Mr.
Essien. But the probabilities were not enough to act on. Then we had a
stroke of sheer luck. We got the chance to explore Essien’s chambers
and seek the crucial fact. But here we are at Scotland Yard.”
That night, at about eight o’clock, a familiar tattoo on our knocker
announced the arrival of Mr. Superintendent Miller, not entirely
unexpected, as I guessed.
“Well,” he said, as I let him in, “the coloured nobleman has come
home. I’ve just had a message from the man who was detailed to watch
the premises.”
“Are you going to make the arrest now?” asked Thorndyke.
“Yes, and I should be glad if you could come across with me. You know
more about the case than I do.”
Thorndyke assented at once, and we set forth together. As we entered
Tanfield Court we passed a man who was lurking in the shadow of an
entry, and who silently indicated the lighted windows of the chambers
for which we were bound. Ascending the stairs up which I had lately
climbed with unlawful intent, we halted at Mr. Essien’s door, on which
the superintendent executed an elaborate flourish with his stick,
there being no knocker. After a short interval we heard a bolt
withdrawn, the door opened a short distance, and in the interval a
black face appeared, looking out at us suspiciously.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” the owner of the face demanded
gruffly.
“You are Mr. Kwaku Essien, I think?” said Miller, unostentatiously
insinuating his foot into the door opening.
“Yes,” was the reply. “But I don’t know you. What is your business?”
“I am a police officer,” Miller replied, edging his foot in a little
farther, “and I hold a warrant to arrest you on the charge of having
murdered Mr. Giles Herrington.”
Before the superintendent had fairly finished his sentence, the dusky
face vanished and the door slammed violently--on to the
superintendent’s massive foot. That foot was instantly reinforced by a
shoulder and for a few moments there was a contest of forces, opposite
but not equal. Suddenly the door flew open and the superintendent
charged into the room. I had a momentary vision of a flying figure,
closely pursued, darting through into an inner room, of the slamming
of a second door--once more on an intercepting foot. And then--it all
seemed to have happened in a few seconds--a dejected figure, sitting
on the edge of a bed, clasping a pair of manacled hands and watching
Miller as he drew the elephant’s tail out of a drawer in the dressing
chest.
“This--er--article,” said Miller, “belonged to Mr. Herrington, and was
stolen from his premises on the night of the murder.”
Essien shook his head emphatically.
“No,” he replied. “You are wrong. I stole nothing, and I did not
murder Mr. Herrington. Listen to me and I will tell you all about it.”
Miller administered the usual caution and the prisoner continued:
“This elephant-brush is one of many things stolen, years ago, from the
king of Bekwè. Some of those things--most of them--have been
restored, but this could not be traced for a long time. At last it
became known to me that Mr. Herrington had it, and I wrote to him
asking him to give it up and telling him who I was--I am the eldest
living son of the king’s sister, and therefore, according to our law,
the heir to the kingdom. But he would not give it up or even sell it.
Then, as I am a student of the Inn, I took these chambers above his,
intending, when I had an opportunity, to go in and take possession of
my uncle’s property. The opportunity came that night that you have
spoken of. I was coming up the stairs to my chambers when, as I passed
his door, I heard loud voices inside as of people quarrelling. I had
just reached my own door and opened it when I heard his door open, and
then a great uproar and the sound of a struggle. I ran down a little
way and looked over the banisters, and then I saw him thrusting a man
across the landing and down the lower stairs. As they disappeared, I
ran down, and finding his door ajar, I went in to recover my property.
It took me a little time to find it, and I had just taken it from the
nail and was going out with it when, at the door, I met Mr. Herrington
coming in. He was very excited already, and when he saw me he seemed
to go mad. I tried to get past him, but he seized me and dragged me
back into the room, wrenching the thing out of my hand. He was very
violent. I thought he wanted to kill me, and I had to struggle for my
life. Suddenly he let go his hold of me, staggered back a few paces,
and then fell on the floor. I stooped over him, thinking that he was
taken ill, and wondering what I had better do. But soon I saw that he
was not ill; he was dead. Then I was very frightened. I picked up the
elephant-brush and put it back into its case, and I went out very
quietly, shut the door, and ran up to my rooms. That is what happened.
There was no robbery and murder.”
“Well,” said Miller, as the prisoner and his escort disappeared
towards the gate, “I suppose, in a technical sense, it is murder, but
they are hardly likely to press the charge.”
“I don’t think it is even technically,” said Thorndyke. “My feeling is
that he will be acquitted if he is sent for trial. Meanwhile, I take
it that my client, Godfrey Herrington, will be released from custody
at once.”
“Yes, doctor,” replied Miller, “I will see to that now. He has had
better luck than he deserved, I suspect, in having his case looked
after by you. I don’t fancy he would have got an acquittal if he had
gone for trial.”
Thorndyke’s forecast was nearly correct, but there was no acquittal,
since there was no trial. The case against Kwaku Essien never got
farther than the Grand Jury.
VIII.
THE PATHOLOGIST TO THE RESCUE
“I hope,” said I, as I looked anxiously out of our window up King’s
Bench Walk, “that our friend, Foxley, will turn up to time, or I shall
lose the chance of hearing his story. I must be in court by half-past
eleven. The telegram said that he was a parson, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” replied Thorndyke. “The Reverend Arthur Foxley.”
“Then perhaps this may be he. There is a parson crossing from the Row
in this direction, only he has a girl with him. He didn’t say anything
about a girl, did he?”
“No. He merely asked for the appointment. However,” he added, as he
joined me at the window and watched the couple approaching with their
eyes apparently fixed on the number above our portico, “this is
evidently our client, and punctual to the minute.”
In response to the old-fashioned flourish on our little knocker, he
opened the inner door and invited the clergyman and his companion to
enter; and while the mutual introductions were in progress, I looked
critically at our new clients. Mr. Foxley was a typical and favourable
specimen of his class: a handsome, refined, elderly gentleman, prim as
to his speech, suave and courteous in bearing, with a certain engaging
simplicity of manner which impressed me very favourably. His companion
I judged to be a parishioner, for she was what ladies are apt to
describe as “not quite”; that is to say, her social level appeared to
appertain to the lower strata of the middle-class. But she was a fine,
strapping girl, very sweet-faced and winsome, quiet and gentle in
manner and obviously in deep trouble, for her clear grey eyes--fixed
earnestly, almost devouringly, on Thorndyke--were reddened and
swimming with unshed tears.
“We have sought your aid, Dr. Thorndyke,” the clergyman began, “on the
advice of my friend, Mr. Brodribb, who happened to call on me on some
legal business. He assured me that you would be able to solve our
difficulties if it were humanly possible, so I have come to lay those
difficulties before you. I pray to God that you may be able to help
us, for my poor young friend here, Miss Markham, is in a most terrible
position, as you will understand when I tell you that her future
husband, a most admirable young man named Robert Fletcher, is in the
custody of the police, charged with robbery and murder.”
Thorndyke nodded gravely, and the clergyman continued:
“I had better tell you exactly what has happened. The dead man is one
Joseph Riggs, a maternal uncle of Fletcher’s, a strange, eccentric
man, solitary, miserly, and of a violent, implacable temper. He was
quite well-to-do, though penurious and haunted constantly by an absurd
fear of poverty. His nephew, Robert, was apparently his only known
relative, and, under his will, was his sole heir. Recently, however,
Robert has become engaged to my friend, Miss Lilian, and this
engagement was violently opposed by his uncle, who had repeatedly
urged him to make, what he called a profitable marriage. For Miss
Lilian is a dowerless maiden--dowerless save for those endowments with
which God has been pleased to enrich her, and which her future husband
has properly prized above mere material wealth. However, Riggs
declared, in his brutal way, that he was not going to leave his
property to the husband of a shop-woman, and that Robert might look
out for a wife with money or be struck out of his will.
“The climax was reached yesterday when Robert, in response to a
peremptory summons, went to see his uncle. Mr. Riggs was in a very
intractable mood. He demanded that Robert should break off his
engagement unconditionally and at once, and when Robert bluntly
insisted on his right to choose his own wife the old man worked
himself up into a furious rage, shouting, cursing, using the most
offensive language and even uttering threats of personal violence.
Finally, he drew his gold watch from his pocket and laid it with its
chain on the table; then, opening a drawer, he took out a bundle of
bearer bonds and threw them down by the watch.
“‘There, my friend,’ said he, ‘that is your inheritance. That is all
you will get from me, living or dead. Take it and go, and don’t let me
ever set eyes on you again.’
“At first Robert refused to accept the gift, but his uncle became so
violent that eventually, for peace’ sake, he took the watch and the
bonds, intending to return them later, and went away. He left at
half-past five, leaving his uncle alone in the house.”
“How was that?” Thorndyke asked. “Was there no servant?”
“Mr. Riggs kept no resident servant. The young woman who did his
housework came at half-past eight in the morning and left at half-past
four. Yesterday she waited until five to get tea ready, but then, as
the uproar in the sitting-room was still unabated, she thought it best
to go. She was afraid to go in to lay the tea-things.
“This morning, when she arrived at the house, she found the front door
unlocked, as it always was during the day. On entering, her attention
was at once attracted by two or three little pools of blood on the
floor of the hall, or passage. Somewhat alarmed by this, she looked
into the sitting-room, and finding no one there, and being impressed
by the silence in the house, she went along the passage to a back
room--a sort of study or office, which was usually kept locked when
Mr. Riggs was not in it. Now, however, it was unlocked and the door
was ajar; so having first knocked and receiving no answer, she pushed
open the door and looked in; and there, to her horror, she saw her
employer lying on the floor, apparently dead, with a wound on the side
of his head and a pistol on the floor by his side.
“Instantly she turned and rushed out of the house, and she was running
up the street in search of a policeman when she encountered me at a
corner and burst out with her dreadful tidings. I walked with her to
the police station, and as we went she told me what had happened on
the previous afternoon. Naturally, I was profoundly shocked and also
alarmed, for I saw that--rightly or wrongly--suspicion must
immediately fall on Robert Fletcher. The servant, Rose Turnmill, took
it for granted that he had murdered her master; and when we found the
station inspector and Rose had repeated her statement to him, it was
evident that he took the same view.
“With him and a sergeant, we went back to the house; but on the way we
met Mr. Brodribb, who was staying at the ‘White Lion’ and had just
come out for a walk. I told him, rapidly, what had occurred and begged
him to come with us, which, with the inspector’s consent, he did; and
as we walked I explained to him the awful position that Robert
Fletcher might be placed in, and asked him to advise me what to do.
But, of course, there was nothing to be said or done until we had seen
the body and knew whether any suspicion rested on Robert.
“We found the man Riggs lying, as Rose had said. He was quite dead,
cold and stiff. There was a pistol wound on the right temple, and a
pistol lay on the floor at his right side. A little blood--but not
much--had trickled from the wound and lay in a small pool on the
oil-cloth. The door of an iron safe was open and a bunch of keys hung
from the lock; and on a desk one or two share certificates were spread
out. On searching the dead man’s pockets it was found that the gold
watch which the servant told us he usually carried was missing, and
when Rose went to the bedroom to see if it was there, it was nowhere
to be found.
“Apart from the watch, however, the appearances suggested that the man
had taken his own life. But against this view was the blood on the
hall floor. The dead man appeared to have fallen at once from the
effects of the shot, and there had been very little bleeding. Then how
came the blood in the hall? The inspector decided that it could not
have been the blood of the deceased; and when we examined it and saw
that there were several little pools and that they seemed to form a
track towards the street door, he was convinced that the blood had
fallen from some person who had been wounded and was escaping from the
house. And, under the circumstances, he was bound to assume that that
person was Robert Fletcher; and on that assumption, he despatched the
sergeant forthwith to arrest Robert.
“On this I held a consultation with Mr. Brodribb, who pointed out that
the case turned principally on the blood in the hall. If it was the
blood of deceased, and the absence of the watch could be explained, a
verdict of suicide could be accepted. But if it was the blood of some
other person, that fact would point to murder. The question, he said,
would have to be settled, if possible, and his advice to me, if I
believed Robert to be innocent--which, from my knowledge of him, I
certainly did--was this: Get a couple of small, clean, labelled
bottles from a chemist and--with the inspector’s consent--put in one a
little of the blood from the hall and in the other some of the blood
of the deceased. Seal them both in the inspector’s presence and mine
and take them up to Dr. Thorndyke. If it is possible to answer the
question, Are they or are they not from the same person? he will
answer it.
“Well, the inspector made no objection, so I did what he advised. And
here are the specimens. I trust they may tell us what we want to
know.”
Here Mr. Foxley took from his attaché-case a small cardboard box, and
opening it, displayed two little wide-mouthed bottles carefully packed
in cotton wool. Lifting them out tenderly, he placed them on the table
before Thorndyke. They were both neatly corked, sealed--with
Brodribb’s seal, as I noticed--and labelled; the one inscribed “Blood
of Joseph Riggs,” and the other “Blood of unknown origin,” and both
signed “Arthur Foxley” and dated. At the bottom of each was a small
mass of gelatinous blood-clot.
Thorndyke looked a little dubiously at the two bottles, and addressing
the clergyman, said:
“I am afraid Mr. Brodribb has rather overestimated our resources.
There is no known method by which the blood of one person can be
distinguished with certainty from that of another.”
“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Mr. Foxley. “How disappointing! Then these
specimens are useless, after all?”
“I won’t say that; but it is in the highest degree improbable that
they will yield any information. You must build no expectations on
them.”
“But you will examine them and see if anything is to be gleaned,” the
parson urged, persuasively.
“Yes, I will examine them. But you realize that if they should yield
any evidence, that evidence might be unfavourable?”
“Yes; Mr. Brodribb pointed that out, but we are willing to take the
risk, and so, I may say, is Robert Fletcher, to whom I put the
question.”
“Then you have seen Mr. Fletcher since the discovery?”
“Yes, I saw him at the police station after his arrest. It was then
that he gave me--and also the police--the particulars that I have
repeated to you. He had to make a statement, as the dead man’s watch
and the bonds were found in his possession.”
“With regard to the pistol. Has it been identified?”
“No. It is an old-fashioned derringer which no one has ever seen
before, so there is no evidence as to whose property it was.”
“And as to those share certificates which you spoke of as lying on the
desk. Do you happen to remember what they were?”
“Yes, they were West African mining shares; Abusum Pa-pa was the name,
I think.”
“Then,” said Thorndyke,” Mr. Riggs had been losing money. The Abusum
Pa-pa Company has just gone into liquidation. Do you know if anything
had been taken from the safe?”
“It is impossible to say, but apparently not, as there was a good deal
of money in the cash-box, which we unlocked and inspected. But we
shall hear more to-morrow at the inquest, and I trust we shall hear
something there from you. But in any case I hope you will attend to
watch the proceedings on behalf of poor Fletcher. And if possible, to
be present at the autopsy at eleven o’clock. Can you manage that?”
“Yes. And I shall come down early enough to make an inspection of the
premises if the police will give the necessary facilities.”
Mr. Foxley thanked him effusively, and when the details as to the
trains had been arranged, our clients rose to depart. Thorndyke shook
their hands cordially, and as he bade farewell to Miss Markham he
murmured a few words of encouragement. She looked up at him gratefully
and appealingly as she naïvely held his hand.
“You will try to help us, Dr. Thorndyke, won’t you?” she urged. “And
you will examine that blood very, very carefully. Promise that you
will. Remember that poor Robert’s life may hang upon what you can tell
about it.”
“I realize that, Miss Markham,” he replied gently, “and I promise you
that the specimens shall be most thoroughly examined; and further,
that no stone shall be left unturned in my endeavours to bring the
truth to light.”
At his answer, spoken with infinite kindliness and sympathy, her eyes
filled and she turned away with a few broken words of thanks, and the
good clergyman--himself not unmoved by the little episode--took her
arm and led her to the door.
“Well,” I remarked as their retreating footsteps died away, “old
Brodribb’s enthusiasm seems to have let you in for a queer sort of
task; and I notice that you appear to have accepted Fletcher’s
statement.”
“Without prejudice,” he replied. “I don’t know Fletcher, but the
balance of probabilities is in his favour. Still, that blood-track in
the hall is a curious feature. It certainly requires explanation.”
“It does, indeed!” I exclaimed, “and you have got to find the
explanation! Well, I wish you joy of the job. I suppose you will carry
out the farce to the bitter end as you have promised?”
“Certainly,” he replied. “But it is hardly a farce. I should have
looked the specimens over in any case. One never knows what
illuminating fact a chance observation may bring into view.”