In Which Mr. Penfield Receives a Shock
Mr. Penfield greeted Thorndyke with a little stiff bow and bestowed
upon the extended hand a formal and somewhat rheumatic shake.
“I must apologize,” he said, as his host ushered him into the room,
“for disturbing you by this visit, but I had a little matter to
communicate to you and thought it better to make that communication
personally rather than by correspondence.”
“You are not disturbing me at all,” Thorndyke replied. “On the
contrary, I expect that your visit will save me the necessity of
writing a letter.”
“To me?” asked Penfield.
“No; to Mrs. Purcell. I was on the point of writing to her to ask for
a description of her husband. As I have never met him I thought it as
well that I should get from her such details of his appearance as
might be necessary for purposes of identification.”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Penfield. “Very desirable indeed. Well, I think I
can tell you all you want to know, unless you want very minute
details. And it happens that your inquiry comes rather opportunely in
respect of the matter that I have to communicate. Shall we dispose of
your question first?”
“If you please,” replied Thorndyke. He took from a drawer a pad of
ruled paper, and, uncapping his fountain pen, looked at Mr. Penfield,
whom he had inducted into an easy chair.
“May I offer you a cigar, Mr. Penfield?” he asked.
“I thank you,” was the reply, “but I am not a smoker. Perhaps—” Here
he held out his snuff-box tentatively. “No? Well, it is an obsolete
vice, but I am a survivor from an obsolete age.” He refreshed himself
with a substantial pinch and continued: “With regard to Purcell: his
person is easy to describe and should be easy to identify. He is a big
lump of a man; about six feet or a fraction over. Massive, heavy, but
not fat; just elephantine. Rather slow in his movements but strong,
active and not at all clumsy. As to his face, I would call it beefy; a
full, red face with thick, bright red, crinkly ears and full lips.
Eyes, pale blue; hair, yellowish or light brown, cropped short. No
beard or whiskers but a little, bristly, pale-reddish moustache cut
short like a sandy toothbrush. Expression surly; manner, short,
brusque, taciturn and rather morose. Big, thick, purple hands that
look, in spite of their size, capable, neat and useful hands. In fact
the hands are an epitome of Purcell; a combination of massive strength
and weight with remarkable bodily efficiency. How will that do for
you?”
“Admirably,” replied Thorndyke, inwardly somewhat surprised at the old
solicitor’s powers of observation. “It is a very distinctive picture
and quite enough for what we may call _prima facie_ identification. I
take it that you know him pretty well?”
“I have seen a good deal of him since his marriage, when his wife
introduced him to me, and I have managed his legal business for some
years. But I know very little of his private affairs. Very few people
do, I imagine. I never met a less communicative man. And now, if we
have done with his appearance, let us come to the question of his
present whereabouts. Have you any information on the subject?”
“There is a vague report that he was seen some months ago at Ipswich.
It is quite unconfirmed and I attach no importance to it.”
“It is probably correct, though,” said Penfield. “I have just had a
letter from him and the post-mark shows that it came from that very
locality.”
“There is no address on the letter, then?”
“No; and I am invited to reply by advertisement. The occasion of the
letter was this: a client of mine, a Mrs. Catford, who is a relative
of Mrs. Purcell’s, had recently died, leaving a will of which I am the
executor and residuary legatee. By the terms of that will, Mrs.
Purcell and her husband each benefits to the extent of a thousand
pounds. Now as Mrs. Catford’s death occurred subsequently to Purcell’s
disappearance it became necessary to establish his survival of the
testatrix—or the contrary—in order that the will might be
administered. As his whereabouts were unknown, the only method that I
could think of was to put an advertisement in the ‘personal’ column of
_The Times_ on the bare chance that he might see it, asking him to
communicate with me. By a lucky chance, he did see it and did
communicate with me. But he gave no address; and any further
communication from me will have to be by advertisement, as he
suggests. That, however, is of no importance to me. His letter tells
me all I want to know; that he is alive at a date subsequent to the
death of the testatrix and that the bequest in his favour can
consequently take effect. I am not concerned with his exact
whereabouts. That matter is in your province.”
As he concluded, punctuating his conclusion with a pinch of snuff, the
old lawyer looked at Thorndyke with a sly and slightly ironical smile.
Thorndyke reflected rapidly on Mr. Penfield’s statement. The
appearance of this letter was very remarkable, and the more so coming
as it did on top of the confirmatory evidence respecting the moustache
hair. It was now highly probable—almost certain—that Bromeswell and
Purcell were one and the same person. But if that were so, all the
probabilities went to show that Purcell must be dead. And yet here was
a letter from him, not to a stranger but to one who knew his
handwriting well. It was very remarkable.
Again, the report of Purcell’s voyage from Falmouth to Ipswich was
certainly untrue. But if it was untrue, there was no reason for
supposing that Purcell had ever been at Ipswich at all. Yet here was a
letter sent by Purcell from that very locality. That was very
remarkable, too. Clearly, the matter called for further investigation;
and that involved, in the first place, an examination of this letter
that had come so mysteriously to confirm a report that was certainly
untrue. He returned Mr. Penfield’s smile and then asked:
“You accept this letter, then, as evidence of survival?”
Mr. Penfield looked astonished. “But, my dear sir, what else could I
do? I may be insufficiently critical, and I have not your great
special knowledge of this subject, but to my untrained intelligence it
would appear that the circumstance of a man’s having written a letter
affords good presumptive evidence that he was alive at the date when
it was written. That is my own view and I propose to administer the
will in accordance with it. Do I understand that you dissent from it?”
Thorndyke smiled blandly. He was beginning rather to like Mr.
Penfield.
“As you state the problem,” said he, “you are probably right. At any
rate the administration of the will is your concern and not mine. As
you were good enough to remark, my concern is with the person and the
whereabouts of Mr. Purcell and not with his affairs. Were you
proposing to allow me to inspect the envelope of this letter?”
“It was for that very purpose that I came,” replied Penfield with a
smile and a twinkle of mischief in his eyes; “but I will not restrict
you to the envelope this time. You shall inspect the letter as well,
if a mere letter will not be superfluous when the envelope has given
up its secrets.”
He produced a wallet from his pocket and, opening it, took out a
letter which he gravely handed to Thorndyke. The latter took it from
him, and as he glanced at the jet-black writing of the address, said:
“I take it that you are satisfied that the handwriting is Purcell’s?”
“Certainly,” was the reply. “But whose else should it be? The question
does not seem to arise. However, I may assure you that it is
undoubtedly Purcell’s writing, and also Purcell’s ink, though that is
less conclusive. Still, it is a peculiar ink. I have never seen any
quite like it. My impression is that he prepares it himself.”
As Penfield was speaking, Thorndyke examined the envelope narrowly.
Presently he rose and, taking a reading-glass from the mantel-shelf,
went over to the window, where, with the aid of the glass, he
scrutinized the envelope inch by inch on both sides. Then, laying down
the reading-glass, he took from his pocket a powerful doublet lens
through which he examined certain parts of the envelope, particularly
the stamp and the London post-mark. Finally he took out the letter,
opened the envelope and carefully examined its interior, and then
inspected the letter itself before unfolding it, holding it so that
the light fell on it obliquely and scrutinizing each of the four
corners in succession. At length he opened the letter, read it
through, again examined the corners, and compared some portions of the
writing with that on the envelope.
These proceedings were closely observed by Mr. Penfield, who watched
them with an indulgent smile. He was better able than on the last
occasion to appreciate the humour of Thorndyke’s methods. There was
nothing about this letter that he had need to conceal. He could afford
to let the expert find out what he could this time; and Mr. Penfield,
from a large and unfavourable experience of expert witnesses,
suspected that the discovery would probably take the form of a mare’s
nest.
“Well,” he said, as Thorndyke returned to his chair with the letter in
his hand, “has the oracle spoken? Have we made any startling
discoveries?”
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘discoveries,’” replied Thorndyke, “which
seems to imply facts definitely ascertained; but there are certain
appearances which suggest a rather startling inference.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Penfield, taking snuff with great enjoyment. “I
somehow expected that they would when I decided to show you the
letter. What is the inference that is suggested?”
“The inference is,” replied Thorndyke, “that this letter has never
been through the post.”
Mr. Penfield paused with his hand uplifted, holding a minute pinch of
snuff, and regarded Thorndyke in silent astonishment.
“That,” he said, at length, “is certainly a startling inference; and
it would be still more startling if there were any possibility that it
could be true. Unfortunately the letter bears a post-mark showing that
it was posted at Woodbridge, and another showing that it was sorted at
the London office. But no doubt you have observed and allowed for
those facts.”
“The appearances,” said Thorndyke, “suggest that when the post-marks
were made, the envelope was empty and probably unaddressed.”
“But, my dear sir,” protested Penfield, “that is a manifest
impossibility. You must see that for yourself. How could such a thing
possibly have happened?”
“That is a separate question,” replied Thorndyke. “I am now dealing
only with the appearances. Let me point them out to you. First, you
will notice that the words ‘Personal and Confidential’ have been
written at the top of the envelope. Apparently the word ‘Personal’ was
first written alone and the words ‘and Confidential’ added as an
afterthought. That is suggested by the change in the writing and the
increasingly condensed form of the letters towards the end due to the
want of space. But in spite of the squeezing up of the letters, the
tail of the final l has been forced onto the stamp and actually
touches the circle of the post-mark; and if you examine it through
this lens, you can see plainly that the written line is on top of the
post-mark. Therefore the post-mark was already there when that word
was written.”
He handed the envelope and the lens to Mr. Penfield, who, after some
ineffectual struggles, rejected the lens and had recourse to his
spectacles.
“It has somewhat the appearance that you suggest,” he said at length;
“but I have not your expert eye and therefore not your confidence. I
should suppose it to be impossible to say with certainty whether one
written mark was on top of or underneath another.”
“Very well,” said Thorndyke; “then we will proceed to the next point.
You will notice that both of the post-marks are deeply indented;
unusually so. As a matter of fact, post-marks are usually not visibly
indented at all; and it is a noticeable coincidence that this envelope
should bear two different post-marks, each unusually indented.”
“Still,” said Penfield, “that might easily have happened. The laws of
chance are not applicable to individual cases.”
“Quite so,” Thorndyke agreed. “But now observe another point. These
post-marks are so deeply indented that, in both cases, the impression
is clearly visible on the opposite side of the envelope, especially
inside. That is rather remarkable, seeing that, if the letter was
inside, the impression must have penetrated four thicknesses of
paper.”
“Still,” said Penfield, “it is not impossible.”
“Perhaps not,” Thorndyke admitted. “But what does seem impossible is
that it should have done so without leaving any trace on the letter
itself. But that is what has happened. If you will examine the letter
you will see that there is not a vestige of an indentation on any part
of it. From which, you must agree with me that the only reasonable
inference is that when the indentations were made, the letter was not
in the envelope.”
Mr. Penfield took the letter and the envelope and compared them
carefully. There was no denying the obvious facts. There was the
envelope with the deeply indented post-marks showing plainly on the
reverse sides, and there was the letter with never a sign of any mark
at all. It was certainly very odd. Mr. Penfield was a good deal
puzzled and slightly annoyed. To his orthodox legal mind this prying
into concrete facts and physical properties was rather distasteful. He
was accustomed to sworn testimony, which might be true or might be
untrue (but that was the witnesses’ lookout) but which could be
accepted as admitted evidence. He could not deny that the facts were
apparently as Thorndyke had stated. But that unwilling admission
produced no conviction. He was a lawyer, not a scientific observer.
“Yes,” he agreed, reluctantly, “the appearances are as you say. But
they must be in some way illusory. Perhaps some difference in the
properties of the paper may be the explanation. At any rate, I cannot
accept your inference, for the simple reason that it predicates an
impossibility. It assumes that this man, or some other, posted a
blank, empty envelope, got it back, put a letter in it, addressed it,
and then delivered it by hand, having travelled up from Woodbridge to
do so. That would be an impossibility, unless the person were a
post-office official; and then, what on earth could be the object of
such an insane proceeding? Have you asked yourself that question?”
As a matter of fact, Thorndyke had; and he had deduced a completely
sufficient answer. But he did not feel called upon to explain this. It
was not his concern to convince Mr. Penfield. That gentleman’s beliefs
were a matter of perfect indifference to him. He had considered it
fair to draw Mr. Penfield’s attention to the observed facts and even
to point out the inferences that they suggested. But if Mr. Penfield
chose to shut his eyes to the facts, or to reject the obvious
inferences, that was his affair.
“At the moment,” he replied, “I am concerned with the appearances and
the immediate inferences from them. When I am sure of my facts I shall
go on to consider their bearing; those questions of motive, for
instance, to which you have referred. That would be premature until I
have verified the facts by a more searching examination. Would it be
convenient for you to leave this letter with me for a few hours, that
I might examine it more completely?”
Mr. Penfield would have liked to refuse. But there was no pretext for
such refusal. He therefore made a virtue of necessity and replied
graciously:
“Certainly, certainly. By all means. I will just take a copy and then
you can do as you please with the original, short of destroying it.
But don’t, pray don’t let it lead you astray.”
“In what respect?”
“Well,” said Penfield, taking a deprecating pinch of snuff, “it has
sometimes seemed to me that the specialist has a tendency—just a
tendency, mark you—to mislead himself. He looks for a certain thing,
which might be there, and—well, he finds it. I cannot but remark your
own unexpected successes in your search for the—ha—the unusual, shall
we say. On two occasions I have shown you an envelope. On both
occasions you have made most surprising discoveries, involving the
strangest aberrations of conduct on the part of Purcell and others.
To-day you have found unheard-of anomalies in the post-marks, from
which you infer that Purcell or another has exerted immense ingenuity
and overcome insuperable obstacles in order to behave like a fool. On
the previous occasion you discovered that Purcell had been at the
trouble of ungumming the envelope which he had undoubtedly addressed
with his own hand, for the express purpose of taking out the right
contents which were already in it, and putting in the wrong ones.
Perhaps you have made some other discoveries which you did not
mention,” Mr. Penfield added after a slight pause, and as Thorndyke
only bowed slightly—which was not very explicit—he further added:
“Would it be indiscreet or impertinent to enquire whether you did, in
fact, make any further discoveries? Whether, for instance, you arrived
at any opinion as to the nature of the enclosures, which were, I
think, the objects of your investigations?”
Thorndyke hesitated. For a moment he was disposed to take the old
solicitor into his confidence. But experience had taught him, as it
teaches most of us, that when the making or withholding of confidences
are alternatives, he chooses the better part who keeps his own
counsel. Nevertheless he gave Penfield a cautionary hint.
“Those enclosures,” said he, “have ceased to interest me. Any opinions
that I formed as to their nature had be better left unstated. I seek
no verification of them. Opinions held but not disclosed commit the
holder to nothing; whereas actual knowledge has its responsibilities.
I do not know what those enclosures were and I do not want to know.”
For some moments after Thorndyke finished speaking there was a
slightly uncomfortable silence. Mr. Penfield’s dry facetiousness
evaporated rather suddenly, and he found himself reading a somewhat
alarming significance into Thorndyke’s ambiguous and even cryptic
reply. ‘He did not know and he did not want to know.’ Now Mr. Penfield
did know and would have given a good deal to be without that
knowledge; for to possess the knowledge was to be an accessory. Was
that what Thorndyke meant? Mr. Penfield had a dark suspicion that it
was.
“Probably you are right,” he said presently. “You know what opinions
you formed and I do not. But there is one point that I should like to
have made clear. We are both acting in Mrs. Purcell’s interest, but
her husband is also my client. Is there any conflict in our purposes
with regard to him?”
“I think not,” replied Thorndyke. “At any rate, I will say this much:
that I should under no circumstances take any action that might be
prejudicial to him without your concurrence, or at least, without
placing you in possession of all the facts. But I feel confident that
no such necessity will arise. We are dealing with separate aspects of
the case, but it would be foolish for us to get at cross purposes.”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Penfield. “That is my own feeling. And with regard
to this letter; if it should yield any further suggestions and you
should consider them as being of any interest to me, perhaps you would
be so good as to inform me of them.”
“I will, certainly,” Thorndyke replied; “and, by the way, what are you
going to do? Shall you issue any further advertisement?”
“I had not intended to,” said Penfield; “but perhaps it would be well
to try to elicit a further reply. I might ask Purcell to send a
receipt for the legacy, which I shall pay into his bank. He knows the
amount, so that I need not state it.”
“I think that would be advisable,” said Thorndyke; “but my impression
is that there will be no reply.”
“Well, we shall see,” said Penfield, rising and drawing on his gloves.
“If an answer comes, you shall see it, and if there is no answer, I
will advise you to that effect. You will agree with me that we keep
our own counsel about the matters that we have discussed;” and as
Thorndyke assented, he added: “of course the actual receipt of the
letter is no secret.”
With this and a stiff handshake Mr. Penfield took his departure,
cogitating profoundly as he wended his way eastward, wondering how
much Thorndyke really knew about those unfortunate enclosures and how
he came by his knowledge.
Meanwhile Thorndyke, as soon as he was alone, resumed his examination
of the letter, calling in now the aid of more exact methods. Placing
on the table a microscope specially constructed for examining
documents, he laid the envelope on the stage and inspected the
post-mark at the point where the tail of the l touched it. The higher
magnification at once resolved any possible uncertainty. The written
line was on top of the post-mark beyond all doubt. But it also brought
another anomaly into view. It was now evident that the indentation of
the post-mark did not coincide with the whole width of the printed
line. The indented line was somewhat narrower. It consisted of a
furrow, deepest in the middle, which followed the printed line but did
not completely occupy it, and in one or two places strayed slightly
outside it. On turning the envelope over and testing the other
post-mark, the same peculiarity was observable. The indentation was a
thing separate from the printed mark and had been produced by a
separate operation; apparently with a bluntly-pointed tool; which
would account for its excessive depth.
It was an important discovery in two respects. First it confirmed the
other evidence that the letter had never been posted; and, secondly,
it threw some light on the means by which the post-mark had been
produced. What was the object of the indentation? Evidently to imitate
the impression of metal types and disguise the method that had
actually been used.
What was that method? It was not photography, for the marks were in
printers’ ink. It was not copperplate, for the engraved plate throws
up a line in relief, whereas these lines were flat like the lines of a
lithograph. In fact lithography appeared to be the only alternative;
and with this view the appearances agreed completely, particularly the
thick, black ink, quite different from the rather fluid ink used by
the Post Office.
From the post-marks Thorndyke now transferred his attention to the
writing. He had been struck by the exact resemblance of the name
“Penfield” on the envelope to the same name in the letter. Each was a
perfect facsimile of the other. Placing them together, he could not
see a single point of difference or variation between them. With a
delicate caliper-gauge he measured the two words, taking the total
length, the height of each letter and the distance between various
points. In all cases the measurements were practically identical. Now
such perfect repetition as this does not happen in natural writing. It
is virtually diagnostic of forgery; of a forgery by means of a careful
tracing from an original. And Thorndyke had no doubt that this was
such a forgery.
Confirmation was soon forthcoming. An exploration with the microscope
of the surfaces of the envelope and the letter showed in both a number
of minute spindle-shaped fragments of rubber. Something had been
rubbed out. Then, on examining the words by transmitted light powerful
enough to turn the jet-black writing into a deep purple, there could
be seen through the ink a broken grey line—the remains of a pencil
line which the ink had partly protected from the rubber. Similar
remains of a pencil tracing were to be seen in other parts of the
letter, especially in the signature. In short there was no possible
doubt that the whole production, letter and post-marks alike, was a
forgery.
The next question was: Who was the forger? But the answer to that
seemed to be contained in the further question: What was the purpose
of the forgery? For the evident purpose of this letter was to furnish
evidence that Purcell was still alive; and as such it had been
accepted by Mr. Penfield. That distinctly pointed to Varney, who had
already made two false—or at least incorrect—statements, apparently
with the same object. The skill with which the forgery had been
executed also pointed to him, for an engraver must needs be a skilful
copyist. There was only one doubtful point. Whoever had prepared this
letter was a lithographer; not a mere draughtsman but a printer as
well. Now was Varney a lithographer? It was extremely probable. Many
etchers and mezzotinters work also on the stone. But until it had been
ascertained that he was, the authorship of the letter must be left in
suspense. But assuming the letter to be Varney’s work, it was evident
that Mr. Penfield’s visit had added materially to the body of
circumstantial evidence. It had established that Purcell had worn a
moustache apparently identical in character with that of the elusive
Bromeswell; which, taken in conjunction with all the other known
facts, made it nearly a certainty that Bromeswell and Purcell were one
and the same person. But that assumption had been seen to lead to the
inference that Purcell was dead and that Varney was responsible for,
or implicated in, the circumstances of his death. Then there was this
letter. It was a forged letter, and its purpose was to prove that
Purcell was alive. But the fact that it was necessary to forge a
letter to prove that he was alive, was in itself presumptive evidence
that he was not alive. Subject to proof that Varney was a lithographer
and therefore capable of producing this forgery, the evidence that Mr.
Penfield had brought furnished striking confirmation of the hypothesis
that Thorndyke had formed as to what had become of Daniel Purcell.