Thorndyke Disentangles the Threads
The days of my captivity at No. 5a, King’s Bench-walk passed with a
tranquillity that made me realize the weight of the incubus that had
been lifted. Now, in the mornings, when Polton ministered to me—until
Arabella arrived and was ungrudgingly installed in office—I could let
my untroubled thoughts stray to Marion, working alone in the studio
with restored security, free for ever from the hideous menace which
had hung over her. And later, when she, herself, released by her
faithful apprentice, came to take her spell of nursing, what a joy it
was to see her looking so fresh and rosy, so youthful and buoyant!
Of Thorndyke—the giver of these gifts—I saw little in the first few
days, for he had heavy arrears of work to make up. However, he paid me
brief visits from time to time, especially in the mornings and at
night, when I was alone, and very delightful those visits were. For he
had now dropped the investigator, and there had come into his manner
something new—something fatherly or elder-brotherly; and he managed to
convey to me that my presence in his chambers was a source of pleasure
to him: a refinement of hospitality that filled up the cup of my
gratitude to him.
It was on the fifth day, when I was allowed to sit up in bed—for my
injury was no more than a perforating wound of the outer side of the
calf, which had missed every important structure—that I sat watching
Marion making somewhat premature preparations for tea, and observed
with interest that a third cup had been placed on the tray.
“Yes,” Marion replied to my inquiry, “‘the Doctor’ is coming to tea
with us to-day. Mr. Polton gave me the message when he arrived.” She
gave a few further touches to the tea-set, and continued: “How sweet
Dr. Thorndyke has been to us, Stephen! He treats me as if I were his
daughter, and, however busy he is, he always walks with me to the
Temple gate and puts me into a cab. I am infinitely grateful to
him—almost as grateful as I am to you.”
“I don’t see what you have got to be grateful to me for,” I remarked.
“Don’t you?” said she. “Is it nothing to me, do you suppose, that in
the moment of my terrible grief and desolation, I found a noble,
chivalrous friend whom I trusted instantly? That I have been guarded
through all the dangers that threatened me, and that at last I have
been rescued from them and set free to go my ways in peace and
security? Surely, Stephen, dear, all this is abundant matter for
gratitude. And I owe it all to you.”
“To me!” I exclaimed in astonishment, recalling secretly what a
consummate donkey I had been. “But there, I suppose it is the way of a
woman to imagine that her particular gander is a swan.”
She smiled a superior smile. “Women,” said she, “are very intelligent
creatures. They are able to distinguish between swans and ganders,
whereas the swans themselves are apt to be muddle-headed and
self-depreciatory.”
“I agree to the muddle-headed factor,” I rejoined, “and I won’t be
unduly ostentatious as to the ganderism. But to return to Thorndyke,
it is extraordinarily good of him to allow himself to be burdened with
me.”
“With us,” she corrected.
“It is the same thing, sweetheart. Do you know if he is going to give
us a long visit?”
“I hope so,” she replied. “Mr. Polton said that he had got through his
arrears of work and had this afternoon free.”
“Then,” said I, “perhaps he will give us the elucidation that he
promised me some time ago. I am devoured by curiosity as to how he
unravelled the web of mystification that the villain, Bendelow, spun
round himself.”
“So am I,” said she; “and I believe I can hear his footsteps on the
stair.”
A few moments later Thorndyke entered the room, and having greeted us
with quiet geniality, seated himself in the easy chair by the table
and regarded us with a benevolent smile.
“We were just saying, Sir,” said I, “how very kind it is of you to
allow your chambers to be invaded by a stray cripple and his—his
belongings.”
“I believe you were going to say ‘baggage,’” Marion murmured.
“Well,” said Thorndyke, smiling at the interpolation, “I may tell you
both in confidence that you were talking nonsense. It is I who am the
beneficiary.”
“It is a part of your goodness to say so, Sir,” I said.
“But,” he rejoined, “it is the simple truth. You enable me to combine
the undoubted economic advantages of bachelordom with the satisfaction
of having a family under my roof; and you even allow me to participate
in a way, as a sort of supercargo, in a certain voyage of discovery
which is to be undertaken by two young adventurers, in the near
future—in the very near future, as I hope.”
“As I hope, too,” said I, glancing at Marion, who had become a little
more rosy than usual and who now adroitly diverted the current of the
conversation.
“We were also wondering,” said she, “if we might hope for some
enlightenment on things which have puzzled us so much lately.”
“That,” he replied, “was in my mind when I arranged to keep this
afternoon and evening free. I wanted to give Stephen—who is my
professional offspring, so to speak—a full exposition of this very
intricate and remarkable case. If you, my dear, will keep my cup
charged as occasion arises, I will begin forthwith. I will address
myself to Stephen, who has all the facts first-hand; and if, in my
exposition, I should seem somewhat callously to ignore the human
aspects of this tragic story—aspects which have meant so much in
irreparable loss and bereavement to you, poor child—remember that it
is an exposition of evidence, and necessarily passionless and
impersonal.”
“I quite realize that,” said Marion, “and you may trust me to
understand.”
He bowed gravely, and, after a brief pause, began:
“I propose to treat the subject historically, so to speak; to take you
over the ground that I traversed myself, recounting my observations
and inferences in the order in which they occurred. The inquiry falls
naturally into certain successive stages, corresponding to the
emergence of new facts, of which the first was concerned with the data
elicited at the inquest. Let us begin with them.
“First, as to the crime itself. It was a murder of a very distinctive
type. There was evidence, not only of premeditation in the bare legal
sense, but of careful preparation and planning. It was a considered
act, and not a crime of impulse or passion. What could be the motive
for such a crime? There appeared to be only two alternative
possibilities; either it was a crime of revenge or a crime of
expediency. The hypothesis of revenge could not be explored, because
there were no data excepting the evidence of the victim’s daughter,
which was to the effect that deceased had no enemies, actual or
potential; and this evidence was supported by the very deliberate
character of the crime.
“We were therefore thrown back on the hypothesis of expediency, which
was, in fact, the more probable one, and which became still more
probable as the circumstances were further examined. But having
assumed, as a working hypothesis, that this crime had been committed
in pursuit of a definite purpose which was not revenge, the next
question was: What could that purpose have been? And that question
could be answered only by a careful consideration of all that was
known of the parties to the crime: the criminal and the victim and
their possible relations to one another.
“As to the former, the circumstances indicated that he was a person of
some education, that he had an unusual acquaintance with poisons, and
such social position and personal qualities as would enable him to get
possession of them; that he was subtle, ingenious, and resourceful,
but not far-sighted, since he took risks that could have been avoided.
His mentality appeared to be that of the gambler, whose attention
tends to be riveted on the winning chances, and who makes insufficient
provision for possible failure. He staked everything on the chance of
the needle-puncture being overlooked and the presence of the poison
being undiscovered.
“But the outstanding and most significant quality was his profound
criminality. Premeditated murder is the most atrocious of crimes, and
murder for expediency is the most atrocious form of murder. This man,
then, was of a profoundly criminal type, and was most probably a
practicing criminal.
“Turning now to the victim, the evidence showed that he was a man of
high moral qualities: honest, industrious, thrifty, kindly and
amiable, and of good reputation—the exact reverse of the other. Any
illicit association between these two men was, therefore, excluded,
and yet there must have been an association of some kind. Of what kind
could it have been?
“Now, in the case of this man, as in that of the other, there was one
outstanding fact. He was a sculptor. And not only a sculptor, but an
artist in the highest class of wax-work. And not only this. He was
probably the only artist of this kind practicing in this country. For
wax-work is almost exclusively a French art. So far as I know, all the
wax figures and high-class lay figures that are made are produced in
France. This man, therefore, appeared to be the unique English
practitioner of this very curious art.
“The fact impressed me profoundly. To realize its significance we must
realize the unique character of the art. Wax-work is a fine art; but
it differs from all other fine arts in that its main purpose is one
that is expressly rejected by all those other arts. An ordinary work
of sculpture, no matter how realistic, is frankly an object of metal,
stone, or pottery. Its realism is restricted to truth of form. No
deception is aimed at but, on the contrary, is expressly avoided. But
the aim of wax-work is complete deception; and its perfection is
measured by the completeness of the deception achieved. How complete
that may be can be judged by incidents that have occurred at Madame
Tussaud’s. When that exhibition was at the old Baker-street Bazaar,
the snuff-taker—whose arms, head, and eyes were moved by
clock-work—used to be seated on an open bench; and it is recorded
that, quite frequently, visitors would sit down by him on the bench
and try to open conversation with him. So, too, the wax-work policeman
near the outer door was occasionally accosted with questions by
arriving visitors.
“Bearing this fact in mind, it is obvious that this art is peculiarly
adapted to employment in certain kinds of fraud, such as personation,
false alibi, and the like; and it is probable that the only reason why
it is not so employed is the great difficulty of obtaining first-class
wax-works.
“Naturally, then, when I observed this connexion of a criminal with a
wax-work artist, I asked myself whether the motive of the murder was
not to be sought in that artist’s unique powers. Could it be that an
attempt had been made to employ the deceased on some work designed for
a fraudulent purpose? If such an attempt had been made, whether it had
or had not been successful, the deceased would be in possession of
knowledge which would be highly dangerous to the criminal; but
especially if a work had actually been executed and used as an
instrument of fraud.
“But there were other possibilities in the case of a sculptor who was
also a medallist. He might have been employed to produce—quite
innocently—copies of valuable works which were intended for fraudulent
use; and the second stage of the investigation was concerned with
these possibilities. That stage was ushered in by Follett’s discovery
of the guinea; the additional facts that we obtained at the Museum,
and later, when we learned that the guinea that had been found was an
electrotype copy, and that deceased was an expert electrotyper, all
seemed to point to the production of forgeries as the crime in which
Julius D’Arblay had been implicated. That was the view to which we
seemed to be committed; but it did not seem to me satisfactory, for
several reasons. First, the motive was insufficient—there was really
nothing to conceal. When the forgeries were offered for sale, it would
be obvious that some one had made them, and that some one could be
traced by the purchaser through the vendor. The killing of the actual
maker would give no security to the man who sold the forgeries, and
who would have to appear in the transaction. And then, although
deceased was unique as a wax-worker, he was not as a copyist or
electrotyper. For those purposes, much more suitable accomplices might
have been found. The execution of copies by deceased appeared to be a
fact; but my own feeling was that they had been a mere by-product—that
they had been used as a means of introduction to deceased for some
other purpose connected with wax-work.
“At the end of this stage we had made some progress. We had identified
this unknown man with another unknown man, who was undoubtedly a
professional criminal. We had found, in the forged guinea, a possible
motive for the murder. But, as I have said, that explanation did not
satisfy me, and I still kept a look-out for new evidence connected
with the wax-works.
“The next stage opened on that night when you arrived at Cornishes’,
looking like a resuscitated ‘found drowned.’ Your account of your fall
into the canal and the immediately antecedent events made a deep
impression on me, though I did not, at the time, connect them with the
crime that we were investigating. But the whole affair was so abnormal
that it seemed to call for very careful consideration; and the more I
considered it the more abnormal did it appear.
“The theory of an accident could not be entertained, nor could the
dropping of that derrick have been a practical joke. Your objection
that no one was in sight had no weight, since there was a gate in the
wall by which a person could have made his escape. Some one had
attempted to murder you: and that attempt had been made immediately
after you had signed a cremation certificate. That was a very
impressive fact. As you know, it is my habit to look very narrowly at
cremation cases, for the reason that cremation offers great facilities
for certain kinds of crime. Poisoners—and particularly arsenic and
antimony poisoners—have repeatedly been convicted on evidence
furnished by an exhumed body. If such poisoners can get the corpse of
the victim cremated, they are virtually safe; for whatever suspicions
may thereafter arise, no conviction is possible, since the means of
proving the administration have been destroyed.
“Accordingly, I considered very carefully your account of the
proceedings, and as I did so strong suggestions of fraud arose in all
directions. There was, for instance, the inspection window in the
coffin. What was its object? Inspection windows are usually provided
only in cases where the condition of the body is such that it has to
be enclosed in a hermetically sealed coffin. But no such condition
existed in this case. There was no reason why the friends should not
have viewed the body in the usual manner in an open coffin. Again,
there was the curious alternation of you and the two witnesses. First
they went up and viewed deceased—through the window. Then, after a
considerable interval, you and Cropper went up and viewed deceased
through the window. Then you took out the body, examined it, and put
it back. Again, after a considerable interval, the witnesses went up a
second time and viewed the deceased—through the window.
“It was all rather queer and suspicious, especially when considered in
conjunction with the attempt on your life. Reflecting on the latter,
the question of the gate in the wall by the canal arose in my mind,
and I examined the map to see if I could locate it. It was not marked,
but the wharf was, and from this and your description it appeared
certain that the gate must be in the wall of the garden of Morris’
house. Here was another suspicious fact. For Morris—who could have let
you out by this side gate—sent you by a long, round-about route to the
tow-path. He knew which way you must be going—westward—and could have
slipped out of the gate and waited for you in the hut by the wharf. It
was possible, and there seemed to be no other explanation of what had
happened to you. Incidentally, I made another discovery. This map
showed that Morris’ house had two frontages, one on Field-street and
one on Market-street, and that you appeared to have been admitted by
the back entrance. Which was another slightly abnormal circumstance.
“I was very much puzzled by the affair. There was a distinct
suggestion that some fraud—some deception—had been practiced; that
what the spinsters saw through the coffin window was not the same
thing as that which you saw. And yet, what could the deception have
been? There was no question about the body. It was a real body. The
disease was undoubtedly genuine, and was, at least, the effective
cause of death. And the cremation was necessarily genuine; for though
you can bury an empty coffin, you can’t cremate one. The absence of
calcined bone would expose the fraud instantly.
“I considered the possibility of a second body; that of a murdered
person, for instance. But that would not do. For if a substitution had
been effected, there would still have been a redundant body to dispose
of and account for. Nothing would have been gained by the
substitution.
“But there was another possibility to which no such objection applied.
Assuming a fraud to have been perpetrated, here was a case adapted in
the most perfect manner to the use of a wax-work. Of course, a
full-length figure would have been impossible, because it would have
left no calcined bones. But the inspection window would have made it
unnecessary. A wax head would have done; or, better still, a wax mask,
which could have been simply placed over the face of the real corpse.
The more I thought about it the more was I impressed by the singular
suitability of the arrangements to the use of a wax mask. The
inspection window seemed to be designed for the very purpose—to
restrict the view to a mere face and to prevent the mask from being
touched and the fraud thus discovered—and the alternate inspections by
you and the spinsters were quite in keeping with a deception of that
kind.
“There was another very queer feature in the case. These people,
living at Hoxton, elected to employ a doctor who lived miles away at
Bloomsbury. Why did they not call in a neighbouring practitioner?
Also, they arranged the days and even the hours at which the visits
were to be made. Why? There was an evident suggestion of something
that the doctor was not to know—something or somebody that he was not
desired to see; that some preparations had to be made for his visits.
“Again, the note was addressed to Dr. Stephen Gray, not to Dr.
Cornish. They knew your name and address, although you had only just
come there, and they did not know Dr. Cornish, who was an old
resident. How was this? The only explanation seemed to be that they
had read the report of the inquest, or even been present at it. You
there stated publicly that your temporary address was at 61,
Mecklenburgh-square; that you were, in fact, a bird of passage; and
you gave your full name and your age. Now if any fraud was being
carried out, a bird of passage, who might be difficult to find later,
and a young one at that, was just the most suitable kind of doctor.
“To sum up the evidence at this stage: The circumstances, taken as a
whole, suggested in the strongest possible manner that there was
something fraudulent about this cremation. That fraud must be some
kind of substitution or personation with the purpose of obtaining a
certificate that some person had been cremated who had, in fact, not
been cremated. In that case it was nearly certain that the dead man
was not Simon Bendelow; for the certificates would be required to
agree with the false appearances, not with the true. There was a
suggestion—but only a speculative one—that the deception might have
been effected by means of a wax mask.
“There were, however, two objections. As to the wax mask, there was
the great difficulty of obtaining one. A perfect portrait mask could
have been obtained only either from an artist in Paris or from Julius
D’Arblay. The objection to the substitution theory was that there was
a real body—the body of a real person. If the cremation was in a name
which was not the name of that person, then the disappearance of that
person would remain unaccounted for.
“So you see that the whole theory of the fraud was purely conjectural.
There was not a single particle of direct evidence. You also see that
at two points there was a faint hint of a connexion between this case
and the murder of Mr. D’Arblay. These people seemed to have read of,
or attended at the inquest; and if a wax mask existed, it was quite
probably made by him.
“The next stage opens with the discovery of the mask at the studio.
But there are certain antecedent matters that must first be glanced
at. When the attempt was made to murder Marion, I asked myself four
questions: ‘1. Why did this man want to kill Marion? 2. What did he
come to the studio on the preceding night to search for? 3. Did he
find it, whatever it was? 4. Why did he delay so long to make the
search?’
“Let us begin with the second question. What had he come to look for?
The obvious suggestion was that he had come to get possession of some
incriminating object. But what was that object? Could it be the mould
of some forged coin or medal? I did not believe that it was. For since
the forgery or forgeries were extant, the moulds had no particular
significance; and what little significance they had applied to Mr.
D’Arblay, who was, technically, the forger. My feeling was that the
object was in some way connected with wax-work, and in all probability
with a wax portrait mask, as the most likely thing to be used for a
fraudulent purpose. And I need hardly say that the cremation case
lurked in the back of my mind.
“This view was supported by consideration of the third question. Did
he find what he came to seek? If he came for moulds of coins or
medals, he must have found them; for none remained. But the fact that
he came the next night and attempted to murder Marion—believing her to
be alone—suggested that his search had failed. And consideration of
the fourth question led—less decisively—to the same conclusion as to
the nature of the object sought.
“Why had he waited all this time to make the search? Why had he not
entered the studio immediately after the murder, when the place was
mostly unoccupied? The most probable explanation appeared to me to be
that he had only recently become aware that there was any
incriminating object in existence. Proceeding on the hypothesis that
he had commissioned Mr. D’Arblay to make a wax portrait mask, I
further assumed that he knew little of the process, and—perhaps
misunderstanding Mr. D’Arblay—confused the technique of wax with that
of plaster. In making a plaster mask from life—as you probably know by
this time—you have to destroy the mould to get the mask out. So when
the mask has been delivered to the client, there is nothing left.
“But to make a wax mask, you must first make one of plaster to serve
as a matrix from which to make the gelatine mould for the wax. Then,
when the wax mask has been delivered to the client, the plaster matrix
remains in the possession of the artist.
“The suggestion, then, was that this man had supposed that the mould
had been destroyed in making the mask, and that only some time after
the murder had he, in some way, discovered his mistake. When he did
discover it, he would see what an appalling blunder he had made; for
the plaster matrix was the likeness of his own face.
“You see that all this was highly speculative. It was all
hypothetical, and it might all have been totally fallacious. We still
had not a single solid fact; but all the hypothetical matter was
consistent, and each inference seemed to support the others.”
“And what,” I asked, “did you suppose was his motive for trying to
make away with Marion?”
“In the first place,” he replied, “I inferred that he looked on her as
a dangerous person who might have some knowledge of his transactions
with her father. This was probably the explanation of his attempt when
he cut the brake-wire of her bicycle. But the second, more desperate
attack, was made, I assume, when he had realized the existence of the
plaster mask, and supposed that she knew of it, too. If he had killed
her, he would probably have made another search with the studio fully
lighted up.
“To return to our inquiry. You see that I had a mass of hypothesis but
not a single real fact. But I still had a firm belief that a wax mask
had been made and that—if it had not been destroyed—there must be a
plaster mask somewhere in the studio. That was what I came to look for
that morning; and as it happens that I am some six inches taller than
Bendelow was, I was able to see what had been invisible to him. When I
discovered that mask, and when Marion had disclaimed all knowledge of
it, my hopes began to rise. But when you identified the face as that
of Morris, I felt that our problem was solved. In an instant, my
card-house of speculative hypothesis was changed into a solid edifice.
What had been but bare possibilities had now become so highly probable
that they were almost certainties.
“Let us consider what the finding of this mask proved—subject, of
course, to verification. It proved that a wax mask of Morris had been
made—for here was the matrix, varnished, as you will remember, in
readiness for the gelatine mould; and that mask was obviously obtained
for the purpose of a fraudulent cremation. And that mask was made by
Julius D’Arblay.
“What was the purpose of the fraud? It was perfectly obvious. Morris
was clearly the real Simon Bendelow, and the purpose of the fraud was
to create undeniable evidence that he was dead. But why did he want to
prove that he was dead? Well, we knew that he was the murderer of Van
Zellen, for whom the American police were searching, and he might be
in more danger than we knew. At any rate, a death certificate would
make him absolutely secure—on one condition—that the body was
cremated. Mere burial would not be enough; for an exhumation would
discover the fraud. But perfect security could be secured only by
destruction of all evidence of the fraud. Julius D’Arblay held such
evidence. Therefore Julius D’Arblay must be got rid of. Here, then,
was an amply sufficient motive for the murder. The only point which
remained obscure was the identity of your patient, and the means by
which his disappearance had been accounted for.
“My hypothesis, then, had been changed into highly probable theory.
The next stage was the necessary verification. I began with a rather
curious experiment. The man who tried to murder Marion could have been
no other than her father’s murderer. Then he must have been Morris.
But it seemed that he was totally unlike Morris, and the mask
evidently suggested to her no resemblance. But yet it was probable
that the man was Morris, for the striking features—the hook nose and
the heavy brows—would be easily ‘made up,’ especially at night. The
question was whether the face was Morris’s with these additions. I
determined to put that question to the test. And here Polton’s new
accomplishment came to our aid.
“First, with a pinch of clay, we built up on Morris’s mask a nose of
the shape described and slightly thickened the brows. Then Polton made
a gelatine mould, and from this produced a wax mask. He fitted it with
glass eyes and attached it to a rough plaster head, with ears which
were casts of my own painted. We then fixed on a moustache, beard, and
wig, and put on a shirt, collar, and jacket. It was an extraordinarily
crude affair, suggestive of the fifth of November. But it answered the
purpose, which was to produce a photograph; for we made the photograph
so bad—so confused and ill-focussed—that the crudities disappeared,
while the essential likeness remained. As you know, that photograph
was instantly recognized, without any sort of suggestion. So the first
test gave a positive result. Marion’s assailant was pretty certainly
Morris.”
“I should like to have seen Mr. Polton’s ’prentice effort,” said
Marion, who had been listening, enthralled by this description.
“You shall see it now,” Thorndyke replied with a smile. “It is in the
next room, concealed in a cupboard.”
He went out, and presently returned, carrying what looked like an
excessively crude hairdresser’s dummy, but a most extraordinarily
horrible and repulsive one. As he turned the face towards us, Marion
gave a little cry of horror and then tried to laugh—without very
striking success.
“It is a dreadful-looking thing!” she exclaimed; “and so hideously
like that fiend.” She gazed at it with the most extreme repugnance for
a while, and then said, apologetically: “I hope you won’t think me
very silly, but——”
“Of course I don’t,” Thorndyke interrupted. “It is going back to its
cupboard at once;” and with this he bore it away, returning in a few
moments with a smaller object, wrapped in a cloth, which he laid on
the table. “Another ‘exhibit,’ as they say in the courts,” he
explained, “which we shall want presently. Meanwhile we resume the
thread of our argument.
“The photograph of this wax-work, then, furnished corroboration of the
theory that Morris was the man whom we were seeking. My next move was
to inquire at Scotland Yard if there were any fresh developments of
the Van Zellen case. The answer was that there were; and
Superintendent Miller arranged to come and tell me all about them. You
were present at the interview and will remember what passed. His
information was highly important, not only by confirming my inference
that Bendelow was the murderer, but especially by disposing of the
difficulty connected with the disappearance of your patient. For now
there came into view a second man—Crile—who had died at Hoxton of an
abdominal cancer and had been duly buried; and when you were able to
give me this man’s address, a glance at the map and at the Post Office
Directory showed that the two men had died in the same house. This
fact, with the further facts that they had died of virtually the same
disease and within a day or two of the same date, left no reasonable
doubt that we were really dealing with one man, who had died and for
whom two death certificates, in different names, and two corresponding
burial orders, had been obtained. There was only one body, and that
was cremated in the name of Bendelow. It followed that the coffin
which was buried at Mr. Crile’s funeral must have been an empty
coffin. I was so confident that this must be so that I induced Miller
to apply for an exhumation, with the results that you know.
“There now remained only a single point requiring verification: the
question as to what face it was that those two ladies saw when they
looked into the coffin of Simon Bendelow. Here again Polton’s new
accomplishments came to our aid. From the plaster mask your apprentice
made a most realistic wax mask, which I offer for your critical
inspection.”
He unfolded the cloth and produced a mask of thin, yellowish wax and
of a most cadaverous aspect, which he handed to Marion.
“Yes,” she said approvingly, “it is an excellent piece of work; and
what beautiful eyelashes. They look exactly like real ones.”
“They are real ones,” Thorndyke explained with a chuckle.
She looked up at him inquiringly, and then, breaking into a ripple of
laughter, exclaimed: “Of course! They are his own! Oh! How like Mr.
Polton. But he was quite right, you know. He couldn’t have got the
effect any other way.”
“So he declared,” said Thorndyke. “Well, we hired a coffin and had an
inspection window put in the lid, and we got a black skull cap. We put
a dummy head in the coffin with a wig on it; we laid the mask where
the face should have been, and we adjusted the jaw-bandage and the
skull cap so as to cover up the edges of the mask, and we got the two
ladies here and showed them the coffin. When they had identified the
tenant as Mr. Bendelow, the verification was complete. The hypothesis
was now converted into ascertained fact, and all that remained to be
done was to lay hands on the murderer.”
“How did you find out where Morris was living?” I asked.
“Barber did that,” he replied. “When I learned that you were being
stalked, I employed Barber to shadow you. He, of course, observed
Morris on your track and followed him home.”
“That was what I supposed,” said I; and for a while we were all
silent. Presently Marion said: “It is all very involved and confusing.
Would you mind telling us exactly what happened?”
“In a direct narrative, you mean?” said he. “Yes, I will try to
reconstruct the events in the order of their occurrence. They began
with the murder of Van Zellen by Bendelow. There was no evidence
against him at the time, but he had to fly from America for other
reasons, and he left behind him incriminating traces which he knew
must presently be discovered, and which would fix the murder on him.
His friend, Crile, who fled with him, developed gastric cancer, and
had only a month or two to live. Then Bendelow decided that when Crile
should die, he would make believe to die at the same time. To this
end, he commissioned your father to make a wax mask—a portrait mask of
himself with the eyes closed. His wife must then have persuaded the
two spinsters to visit him—he, of course, taking to his bed when they
called, and being represented as a mortally sick man. Then he moved
from Hornsey to Hoxton, taking Crile with him. There he engaged two
doctors—Usher and Gray, both of whom lived at a distance—to attend
Crile, and to visit him on alternate days. Crile seems to have been
deaf, or, at least, hard of hearing, and was kept continuously under
the influence of morphia. Usher, who was employed by Mrs. Bendelow,
whom he knew as Mrs. Pepper, came to the front of the house, in
Field-street, to visit Mr. Crile, while Stephen—who was employed by
the Bendelows, whom he knew by the name of Morris—entered at the rear
of the house in Market-street, to visit the same man under the name of
Bendelow. About the time of the move Bendelow committed the murder in
order to destroy all evidence of the making of the wax mask.
“Eventually Crile died—or was finished off with an extra dose of
morphia—on a Thursday. Usher gave the certificate, and the funeral
took place on the Saturday. But previously—probably on the Friday
night—the coffin-lid was unscrewed by Bendelow, the body taken out and
replaced by a sack of sawdust with some lead pipe in it.
“On the Monday the body was again produced: this time as that of Simon
Bendelow, who was represented as having died on the Sunday afternoon.
It was put in a cremation coffin with a celluloid window in the lid.
The wax mask was placed over the face; the jaw-bandage and the skull
cap adjusted to hide the place where the wax face joined the real
face; and the two spinsters were brought up to see Mr. Bendelow in his
coffin. They looked in through the window, and, of course, saw the wax
mask of Bendelow. They then retired. The coffin-lid was taken off, the
wax mask removed, the coffin-lid screwed on again, and then the two
doctors were brought up. They removed the body from the coffin,
examined it, and put it back; and Bendelow—or Morris—put on the
coffin-lid.
“As soon as the doctors were gone, the coffin-lid was taken off again,
the wax mask was put back and adjusted, and the coffin-lid replaced
and screwed down finally. Then the two ladies were brought up again to
take a last look at poor Mr. Bendelow; not actually the last look,
for, at the funeral they peeped in at the window and saw the wax face
just before the coffin was passed through into the crematorium.”
“It was a diabolically clever scheme,” said I.
“It was,” he agreed. “It was perfectly convincing and consistent. If
you and those two ladies had been put in the witness-box, your
testimony and theirs would have been in complete agreement. They had
seen Simon Bendelow (whom they knew quite well) in his coffin. A few
minutes later, you had seen Simon Bendelow in his coffin, had taken
the body out, examined it thoroughly, and put it back, and had seen
the coffin-lid screwed down, and again a few minutes later, they had
looked in through the coffin-window and had again seen Simon Bendelow.
The evidence would appear to be beyond the possibility of a doubt.
Simon Bendelow was proved conclusively to be dead and cremated and was
doubly certified to have died from natural causes. Nothing could be
more complete.
“And yet,” he continued, after a pause, “while we are impressed by the
astonishing subtlety and ingenuity displayed, we are almost more
impressed by the fundamental stupidity exhibited along with it; a
stupidity that seems to be characteristic of this type of criminal.
For all the security that was gained by one part of the scheme was
destroyed by the idiotic efforts to guard against dangers that had no
existence. The murder was not only a foul crime; it was a technical
blunder of the most elementary kind. But for that murder, Bendelow
would now be alive and in unchallenged security. The cremation scheme
was completely successful. It deceived everybody. Even the two
detectives, though they felt vague suspicions, saw no loophole. They
had to accept the appearances at their face value.
“But it was the old story. The wrongdoer could not keep quiet. He must
be for ever making himself safer and yet more safe. And at each move,
he laid down fresh tracks. And so, in the end, he delivered himself
into our hands.”
He paused and for a while seemed to be absorbed in reflection on what
he had been telling us. Presently he looked up, and addressing Marion,
said in grave, quiet tones:
“We have ended our quest and we have secured retribution. Justice was
beyond our reach, for complete justice implies restitution; and to
attain that, the dead must have been recalled from the grave. But, at
least sometimes, out of evil cometh good. Surely it will seem to you,
when, in the happy years which I trust and confidently believe lie
before you, your thoughts turn back to the days of your mourning and
grief, that the beloved father, who, when living, made your happiness
his chief concern, even in dying, bequeathed to you a blessing.”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
This transcription follows the text of the 1926 edition published by
A. L. Burt Company in 1927. However, the following alterations have
been made to correct what are believed to be unambiguous errors in the
text:
* Four missing quotation marks have been restored.
* The word “addess” has been corrected to “address” (Ch. I).
* The word “precints” has been corrected to “precincts” (Ch. II).
* The word “herb-side” has been corrected to “kerb-side” (Ch. IV).
* The word “elphant” has been corrected to “elephant” (Ch. XIII).