"It is through the edge of a rib!" I exclaimed.
"Yes; it must have been used with extraordinary force. And you notice
that the clothing is screwed up slightly, as if the blade had been
rotated as it was driven in. That is a very peculiar feature, especially
when taken together with the violence of the blow."
"It is singular, certainly," said Dr. Egerton, "though I don't know that
it helps us much. Shall we withdraw the dagger before moving the body?"
"Certainly," replied Thorndyke, "or the movement may produce fresh
injuries. But wait." He took a piece of string from his pocket, and,
having drawn the dagger out a couple of inches, stretched the string in
a line parallel to the flat of the blade. Then, giving me the ends to
hold, he drew the weapon out completely. As the blade emerged, the twist
in the clothing disappeared. "Observe," said he, "that the string gives
the direction of the wound, and that the cut in the clothing no longer
coincides with it. There is quite a considerable angle, which is the
measure of the rotation of the blade."
"Yes, it is odd," said Dr. Egerton, "though, as I said, I doubt that it
helps us."
"At present," Thorndyke rejoined dryly, "we are noting the facts."
"Quite so," agreed the other, reddening slightly; "and perhaps we had
better move the body to the bedroom, and make a preliminary inspection
of the wound."
We carried the corpse into the bedroom, and, having examined the wound
without eliciting anything new, covered the remains with a sheet, and
returned to the sitting-room.
"Well, gentlemen," said the inspector, "you have examined the body and
the wound, and you have measured the floor and the furniture, and taken
photographs, and made a plan, but we don't seem much more forward.
Here's a man murdered in his rooms. There is only one entrance to the
flat, and that was bolted on the inside at the time of the murder. The
windows are some forty feet from the ground; there is no rain-pipe near
any of them; they are set flush in the wall, and there isn't a foothold
for a fly on any part of that wall. The grates are modern, and there
isn't room for a good-sized cat to crawl up any of the chimneys. Now,
the question is, How did the murderer get in, and how did he get out
again?"
"Still," said Mr. Marchmont, "the fact is that he did get in, and that
he is not here now; and therefore he must have got out; and therefore it
must have been possible for him to get out. And, further, it must be
possible to discover how he got out."
The inspector smiled sourly, but made no reply.
"The circumstances," said Thorndyke, "appear to have been these: The
deceased seems to have been alone; there is no trace of a second
occupant of the room, and only one half-emptied tumbler on the table. He
was sitting reading when apparently he noticed that the clock had
stopped--at ten minutes to twelve; he laid his book, face downwards, on
the table, and rose to wind the clock, and as he was winding it he met
his death."
"By a stab dealt by a left-handed man, who crept up behind him on
tiptoe," added the inspector.
Thorndyke nodded. "That would seem to be so," he said. "But now let us
call in the porter, and hear what he has to tell us."
The custodian was not difficult to find, being, in fact, engaged at that
moment in a survey of the premises through the slit of the letter-box.
"Do you know what persons visited these rooms last night?" Thorndyke
asked him, when he entered looking somewhat sheepish.
"A good many were in and out of the building," was the answer, "but I
can't say if any of them came to this flat. I saw Miss Curtis pass in
about nine."
"My daughter!" exclaimed Mr. Curtis, with a start. "I didn't know that."
"She left about nine-thirty," the porter added.
"Do you know what she came about?" asked the inspector.
"I can guess," replied Mr. Curtis.
"Then don't say," interrupted Mr. Marchmont. "Answer no questions."
"You're very close, Mr. Marchmont," said the inspector; "we are not
suspecting the young lady. We don't ask, for instance, if she is
left-handed."
He glanced craftily at Mr. Curtis as he made this remark, and I noticed
that our client suddenly turned deathly pale, whereupon the inspector
looked away again quickly, as though he had not observed the change.
"Tell us about those Italians again," he said, addressing the porter.
"When did the first of them come here?"
"About a week ago," was the reply. "He was a common-looking man--looked
like an organ-grinder--and he brought a note to my lodge. It was in a
dirty envelope, and was addressed 'Mr. Hartridge, Esq., Brackenhurst
Mansions,' in a very bad handwriting. The man gave me the note and asked
me to give it to Mr. Hartridge; then he went away, and I took the note
up and dropped it into the letter-box."
"What happened next?"
"Why, the very next day an old hag of an Italian woman--one of them
fortune-telling swines with a cage of birds on a stand--came and set up
just by the main doorway. I soon sent her packing, but, bless you! she
was back again in ten minutes, birds and all. I sent her off again--I
kept on sending her off, and she kept on coming back, until I was
reg'lar wore to a thread."
"You seem to have picked up a bit since then," remarked the inspector
with a grin and a glance at the sufferer's very pronounced bow-window.
"Perhaps I have," the custodian replied haughtily. "Well, the next day
there was a ice-cream man--a reg'lar waster, _he_ was. Stuck outside as
if he was froze to the pavement. Kept giving the errand-boys tasters,
and when I tried to move him on, he told me not to obstruct his
business. Business, indeed! Well, there them boys stuck, one after the
other, wiping their tongues round the bottoms of them glasses, until I
was fit to bust with aggravation. And _he_ kept me going all day.
"Then, the day after that there was a barrel-organ, with a mangy-looking
monkey on it. He was the worst of all. Profane, too, _he_ was. Kept
mixing up sacred tunes and comic songs: 'Rock of Ages,' 'Bill Bailey,'
'Cujus Animal,' and 'Over the Garden Wall.' And when I tried to move him
on, that little blighter of a monkey made a run at my leg; and then the
man grinned and started playing, 'Wait till the Clouds roll by.' I tell
you, it was fair sickening."
He wiped his brow at the recollection, and the inspector smiled
appreciatively.
"And that was the last of them?" said the latter; and as the porter
nodded sulkily, he asked: "Should you recognize the note that the
Italian gave you?"
"I should," answered the porter with frosty dignity.
The inspector bustled out of the room, and returned a minute later with
a letter-case in his hand.
"This was in his breast-pocket," said he, laying the bulging case on the
table, and drawing up a chair. "Now, here are three letters tied
together. Ah! this will be the one." He untied the tape, and held out a
dirty envelope addressed in a sprawling, illiterate hand to "Mr.
Hartridge, Esq." "Is that the note the Italian gave you?"