I had been working double tides for a month: at night on my morning
paper, as usual; and in the morning on an evening paper as _locum
tenens_ for another man who was taking a holiday. This was an exhausting
plan of work, although it only actually involved some six hours'
attendance a day, or less, at the two offices. I turned up at the
headquarters of my own paper at ten in the evening, and by the time I
had seen the editor, selected a subject, written my leader, corrected
the slips, chatted, smoked, and so on, and cleared off, it was very
usually one o'clock. This meant bed at two, or even three, after supper
at the club.
This was all very well at ordinary periods, when any time in the morning
would do for rising, but when I had to be up again soon after seven, and
round at the evening paper office by eight, I naturally felt a little
worn and disgusted with things by midday, after a sharp couple of
hours' leaderette scribbling and paragraphing, with attendant sundries.
But the strain was over, and on the first day of comparative comfort I
indulged in a midday breakfast and the first undisgusted glance at a
morning paper for a month. I felt rather interested in an inquest, begun
the day before, on the body of a man whom I had known very slightly
before I took to living in chambers.
His name was Gavin Kingscote, and he was an artist of a casual and
desultory sort, having, I believe, some small private means of his own.
As a matter of fact, he had boarded in the same house in which I had
lodged myself for a while, but as I was at the time a late homer and a
fairly early riser, taking no regular board in the house, we never
became much acquainted. He had since, I understood, made some judicious
Stock Exchange speculations, and had set up house in Finchley.
Now the news was that he had been found one morning murdered in his
smoking-room, while the room itself, with others, was in a state of
confusion. His pockets had been rifled, and his watch and chain were
gone, with one or two other small articles of value. On the night of the
tragedy a friend had sat smoking with him in the room where the murder
took place, and he had been the last person to see Mr. Kingscote alive.
A jobbing gardener, who kept the garden in order by casual work from
time to time, had been arrested in consequence of footprints exactly
corresponding with his boots, having been found on the garden beds near
the French window of the smoking-room.
I finished my breakfast and my paper, and Mrs. Clayton, the housekeeper,
came to clear my table. She was sister of my late landlady of the house
where Kingscote had lodged, and it was by this connection that I had
found my chambers. I had not seen the housekeeper since the crime was
first reported, so I now said:
"This is shocking news of Mr. Kingscote, Mrs. Clayton. Did you know him
yourself?"
She had apparently only been waiting for some such remark to burst out
with whatever information she possessed.
"Yes, sir," she exclaimed: "shocking indeed. Pore young feller! I see
him often when I was at my sister's, and he was always a nice, quiet
gentleman, so different from some. My sister, she's awful cut up, sir, I
assure you. And what d'you think 'appened, sir, only last Tuesday? You
remember Mr. Kingscote's room where he painted the woodwork so beautiful
with gold flowers, and blue, and pink? He used to tell my sister she'd
always have something to remember him by. Well, two young fellers,
gentlemen I can't call them, come and took that room (it being to let),
and went and scratched off all the paint in mere wicked mischief, and
then chopped up all the panels into sticks and bits! Nice sort o'
gentlemen them! And then they bolted in the morning, being afraid, I
s'pose, of being made to pay after treating a pore widder's property
like that. That was only Tuesday, and the very next day the pore young
gentleman himself's dead, murdered in his own 'ouse, and him going to be
married an' all! Dear, dear! I remember once he said----"
Mrs. Clayton was a good soul, but once she began to talk some one else
had to stop her. I let her run on for a reasonable time, and then rose
and prepared to go out. I remembered very well the panels that had been
so mischievously destroyed. They made the room the show-room of the
house, which was an old one. They were indeed less than half finished
when I came away, and Mrs. Lamb, the landlady, had shown them to me one
day when Kingscote was out. All the walls of the room were panelled and
painted white, and Kingscote had put upon them an eccentric but charming
decoration, obviously suggested by some of the work of Mr. Whistler.
Tendrils, flowers, and butterflies in a quaint convention wandered
thinly from panel to panel, giving the otherwise rather uninteresting
room an unwonted atmosphere of richness and elegance. The lamentable
jackasses who had destroyed this had certainly selected the best feature
of the room whereon to inflict their senseless mischief.
I strolled idly downstairs, with no particular plan for the afternoon in
my mind, and looked in at Hewitt's offices. Hewitt was reading a note,
and after a little chat he informed me that it had been left an hour
ago, in his absence, by the brother of the man I had just been speaking
of.
"He isn't quite satisfied," Hewitt said, "with the way the police are
investigating the case, and asks me to run down to Finchley and look
round. Yesterday I should have refused, because I have five cases in
progress already, but to-day I find that circumstances have given me a
day or two. Didn't you say you knew the man?"
"Scarcely more than by sight. He was a boarder in the house at Chelsea
where I stayed before I started chambers."
"Ah, well; I think I shall look into the thing. Do you feel particularly
interested in the case? I mean, if you've nothing better to do, would
you come with me?"
"I shall be very glad," I said. "I was in some doubt what to do with
myself. Shall you start at once?"
"I think so. Kerrett, just call a cab. By the way, Brett, which paper
has the fullest report of the inquest yesterday? I'll run over it as we
go down."
As I had only seen one paper that morning, I could not answer Hewitt's
question. So we bought various papers as we went along in the cab, and I
found the reports while Martin Hewitt studied them. Summarised, this was
the evidence given--
_Sarah Dodson_, general servant, deposed that she had been in service at
Ivy Cottage, the residence of the deceased, for five months, the only
other regular servant being the housekeeper and cook. On the evening of
the previous Tuesday both servants retired a little before eleven,
leaving Mr. Kingscote with a friend in the smoking or sitting room. She
never saw her master again alive. On coming downstairs the following
morning and going to open the smoking-room windows, she was horrified to
discover the body of Mr. Kingscote lying on the floor of the room with
blood about the head. She at once raised an alarm, and, on the
instructions of the housekeeper, fetched a doctor, and gave information
to the police. In answer to questions, witness stated she had heard no
noise of any sort during the night, nor had anything suspicious
occurred.
_Hannah Carr_, housekeeper and cook, deposed that she had been in the
late Mr. Kingscote's service since he had first taken Ivy Cottage--a
period of rather more than a year. She had last seen the deceased alive
on the evening of the previous Tuesday, at half-past ten, when she
knocked at the door of the smoking-room, where Mr. Kingscote was sitting
with a friend, to ask if he would require anything more. Nothing was
required, so witness shortly after went to bed. In the morning she was
called by the previous witness, who had just gone downstairs, and found
the body of deceased lying as described. Deceased's watch and chain were
gone, as also was a ring he usually wore, and his pockets appeared to
have been turned out. All the ground floor of the house was in
confusion, and a bureau, a writing-table, and various drawers were
open--a bunch of keys usually carried by deceased being left hanging at
one keyhole. Deceased had drawn some money from the bank on the Tuesday,
for current expenses; how much she did not know. She had not heard or
seen anything suspicious during the night. Besides Dodson and herself,
there were no regular servants; there was a charwoman, who came
occasionally, and a jobbing gardener, living near, who was called in as
required.
_Mr. James Vidler_, surgeon, had been called by the first witness
between seven and eight on Wednesday morning. He found the deceased
lying on his face on the floor of the smoking-room, his feet being about
eighteen inches from the window, and his head lying in the direction of
the fireplace. He found three large contused wounds on the head, any one
of which would probably have caused death. The wounds had all been
inflicted, apparently, with the same blunt instrument--probably a club
or life preserver, or other similar weapon. They could not have been
done with the poker. Death was due to concussion of the brain, and
deceased had probably been dead seven or eight hours when witness saw
him. He had since examined the body more closely, but found no marks at
all indicative of a struggle having taken place; indeed, from the
position of the wounds and their severity, he should judge that the
deceased had been attacked unawares from behind, and had died at once.
The body appeared to be perfectly healthy.
Then there was police evidence, which showed that all the doors and
windows were found shut and completely fastened, except the front door,
which, although shut, was not bolted. There were shutters behind the
French windows in the smoking-room, and these were found fastened. No
money was found in the bureau, nor in any of the opened drawers, so that
if any had been there, it had been stolen. The pockets were entirely
empty, except for a small pair of nail scissors, and there was no watch
upon the body, nor a ring. Certain footprints were found on the garden
beds, which had led the police to take certain steps. No footprints
were to be seen on the garden path, which was hard gravel.
_Mr. Alexander Campbell_, stockbroker, stated that he had known deceased
for some few years, and had done business for him. He and Mr. Kingscote
frequently called on one another, and on Tuesday evening they dined
together at Ivy Cottage. They sat smoking and chatting till nearly
twelve o'clock, when Mr. Kingscote himself let him out, the servants
having gone to bed. Here the witness proceeded rather excitedly: "That
is all I know of this horrible business, and I can say nothing else.
What the police mean by following and watching me----"
_The Coroner_: "Pray be calm, Mr. Campbell. The police must do what
seems best to them in a case of this sort. I am sure you would not have
them neglect any means of getting at the truth."
_Witness_: "Certainly not. But if they suspect me, why don't they say
so? It is intolerable that I should be----"
_The Coroner_: "Order, order, Mr. Campbell. You are here to give
evidence."
The witness then, in answer to questions, stated that the French windows
of the smoking-room had been left open during the evening, the weather
being very warm. He could not recollect whether or not deceased closed
them before he left, but he certainly did not close the shutters.
Witness saw nobody near the house when he left.
_Mr. Douglas Kingscote_, architect, said deceased was his brother. He
had not seen him for some months, living as he did in another part of
the country. He believed his brother was fairly well off, and he knew
that he had made a good amount by speculation in the last year or two.
Knew of no person who would be likely to owe his brother a grudge, and
could suggest no motive for the crime except ordinary robbery. His
brother was to have been married in a few weeks. Questioned further on
this point, witness said that the marriage was to have taken place a
year ago, and it was with that view that Ivy Cottage, deceased's
residence, was taken. The lady, however, sustained a domestic
bereavement, and afterwards went abroad with her family: she was,
witness believed, shortly expected back to England.
_William Bates_, jobbing gardener, who was brought up in custody, was
cautioned, but elected to give evidence. Witness, who appeared to be
much agitated, admitted having been in the garden of Ivy Cottage at four
in the morning, but said that he had only gone to attend to certain
plants, and knew absolutely nothing of the murder. He however admitted
that he had no order for work beyond what he had done the day before.
Being further pressed, witness made various contradictory statements,
and finally said that he had gone to take certain plants away.
The inquest was then adjourned.
This was the case as it stood--apparently not a case presenting any very
striking feature, although there seemed to me to be doubtful
peculiarities in many parts of it. I asked Hewitt what he thought.
"Quite impossible to think anything, my boy, just yet; wait till we see
the place. There are any number of possibilities. Kingscote's friend,
Campbell, may have come in again, you know, by way of the window--or he
may not. Campbell may have owed him money or something--or he may not.
The anticipated wedding may have something to do with it--or, again,
_that_ may not. There is no limit to the possibilities, as far as we can
see from this report--a mere dry husk of the affair. When we get closer
we shall examine the possibilities by the light of more detailed
information. One _probability_ is that the wretched gardener is
innocent. It seems to me that his was only a comparatively blameless
manoeuvre not unheard of at other times in his trade. He came at four
in the morning to steal away the flowers he had planted the day before,
and felt rather bashful when questioned on the point. Why should he
trample on the beds, else? I wonder if the police thought to examine the
beds for traces of rooting up, or questioned the housekeeper as to any
plants being missing? But we shall see."
We chatted at random as the train drew near Finchley, and I mentioned
_inter alia_ the wanton piece of destruction perpetrated at Kingscote's
late lodgings. Hewitt was interested.
"That was curious," he said, "very curious. Was anything else damaged?
Furniture and so forth?"
"I don't know. Mrs. Clayton said nothing of it, and I didn't ask her.
But it was quite bad enough as it was. The decoration was really good,
and I can't conceive a meaner piece of tomfoolery than such an attack on
a decent woman's property."
Then Hewitt talked of other cases of similar stupid damage by creatures
inspired by a defective sense of humour, or mere love of mischief. He
had several curious and sometimes funny anecdotes of such affairs at
museums and picture exhibitions, where the damage had been so great as
to induce the authorities to call him in to discover the offender. The
work was not always easy, chiefly from the mere absence of intelligible
motive; nor, indeed, always successful. One of the anecdotes related to
a case of malicious damage to a picture--the outcome of blind artistic
jealousy--a case which had been hushed up by a large expenditure in
compensation. It would considerably startle most people, could it be
printed here, with the actual names of the parties concerned.
Ivy Cottage, Finchley, was a compact little house, standing in a compact
little square of garden, little more than a third of an acre, or perhaps
no more at all. The front door was but a dozen yards or so back from the
road, but the intervening space was well treed and shrubbed. Mr. Douglas
Kingscote had not yet returned from town, but the housekeeper, an
intelligent, matronly woman, who knew of his intention to call in Martin
Hewitt, was ready to show us the house.
"_First_," Hewitt said, when we stood in the smoking-room, "I observe
that somebody has shut the drawers and the bureau. That is unfortunate.
Also, the floor has been washed and the carpet taken up, which is much
worse. That, I suppose, was because the police had finished their
examination, but it doesn't help me to make one at all. Has
_anything_--anything _at all_--been left as it was on Tuesday morning?"
"Well, sir, you see everything was in such a muddle," the housekeeper
began, "and when the police had done----"
"Just so. I know. You 'set it to rights,' eh? Oh, that setting to
rights! It has lost me a fortune at one time and another. As to the
other rooms, now, have they been set to rights?"
"Such as was disturbed have been put right, sir, of course."
"Which were disturbed? Let me see them. But wait a moment."
He opened the French windows, and closely examined the catch and bolts.
He knelt and inspected the holes whereinto the bolts fell, and then
glanced casually at the folding shutters. He opened a drawer or two, and
tried the working of the locks with the keys the housekeeper carried.
They were, the housekeeper explained, Mr. Kingscote's own keys. All
through the lower floors Hewitt examined some things attentively and
closely, and others with scarcely a glance, on a system unaccountable to
me. Presently, he asked to be shown Mr. Kingscote's bedroom, which had
not been disturbed, "set to rights," or slept in since the crime. Here,
the housekeeper said, all drawers were kept unlocked but two--one in the
wardrobe and one in the dressing-table, which Mr. Kingscote had always
been careful to keep locked. Hewitt immediately pulled both drawers open
without difficulty. Within, in addition to a few odds and ends, were
papers. All the contents of these drawers had been turned over
confusedly, while those of the unlocked drawers were in perfect order.
"The police," Hewitt remarked, "may not have observed these matters.
Any more than such an ordinary thing as _this_," he added, picking up a
bent nail lying at the edge of a rug.
The housekeeper doubtless took the remark as a reference to the entire
unimportance of a bent nail, but I noticed that Hewitt dropped the
article quietly into his pocket.
We came away. At the front gate we met Mr. Douglas Kingscote, who had
just returned from town. He introduced himself, and expressed surprise
at our promptitude both of coming and going.
"You can't have got anything like a clue in this short time, Mr.
Hewitt?" he asked.
"Well, no," Hewitt replied, with a certain dryness, "perhaps not. But I
doubt whether a month's visit would have helped me to get anything very
striking out of a washed floor and a houseful of carefully cleaned-up
and 'set-to-rights' rooms. Candidly, I don't think you can reasonably
expect much of me. The police have a much better chance--they had the
scene of the crime to examine. I have seen just such a few rooms as any
one might see in the first well-furnished house he might enter. The
trail of the housemaid has overlaid all the others."
"I'm very sorry for that; the fact was, I expected rather more of the
police; and, indeed, I wasn't here in time entirely to prevent the
clearing up. But still, I thought your well-known powers----"
"My dear sir, my 'well-known powers' are nothing but common sense
assiduously applied and made quick by habit. That won't enable me to see
the invisible."
"But can't we have the rooms put back into something of the state they
were in? The cook will remember----"
"No, no. That would be worse and worse; that would only be the
housemaid's trail in turn overlaid by the cook's. You must leave things
with me for a little, I think."
"Then you don't give the case up?" Mr. Kingscote asked anxiously.
"Oh, no! I don't give it up just yet. Do you know anything of your
brother's private papers--as they were before his death?"
"I never knew anything till after that. I have gone over them, but they
are all very ordinary letters. Do you suspect a theft of papers?"
Martin Hewitt, with his hands on his stick behind him, looked sharply at
the other, and shook his head. "No," he said, "I can't quite say that."
We bade Mr. Douglas Kingscote good-day, and walked towards the station.
"Great nuisance, that setting to rights," Hewitt observed, on the way.
"If the place had been left alone, the job might have been settled one
way or another by this time. As it is, we shall have to run over to your
old lodgings."
"My old lodgings?" I repeated, amazed. "Why my old lodgings?"
Hewitt turned to me with a chuckle and a wide smile. "Because we can't
see the broken panel-work anywhere else," he said. "Let's see--Chelsea,
isn't it?"
"Yes, Chelsea. But why--you don't suppose the people who defaced the
panels also murdered the man who painted them?"
"Well," Hewitt replied, with another smile, "that would be carrying a
practical joke rather far, wouldn't it? Even for the ordinary picture
damager."
"You mean you _don't_ think they did it, then? But what _do_ you mean?"
"My dear fellow, I don't mean anything but what I say. Come now, this is
rather an interesting case despite appearances, and it _has_ interested
me: so much, in fact, that I really think I forgot to offer Mr. Douglas
Kingscote my condolence on his bereavement. You see a problem is a
problem, whether of theft, assassination, intrigue, or anything else,
and I only think of it as one. The work very often makes me forget
merely human sympathies. Now, you have often been good enough to express
a very flattering interest in my work, and you shall have an opportunity
of exercising your own common sense in the way I am always having to
exercise mine. You shall see all my evidence (if I'm lucky enough to get
any) as I collect it, and you shall make your own inferences. That will
be a little exercise for you; the sort of exercise I should give a pupil
if I had one. But I will give you what information I have, and you shall
start fairly from this moment. You know the inquest evidence, such as it
was, and you saw everything I did in Ivy Cottage?"
"Yes; I think so. But I'm not much the wiser."
"Very well. Now I will tell you. What does the whole case look like? How
would you class the crime?"
"I suppose as the police do. An ordinary case of murder with the object
of robbery."
"It is _not_ an ordinary case. If it were, I shouldn't know as much as I
do, little as that is; the ordinary cases are always difficult. The
assailant did not come to commit a burglary, although he was a skilled
burglar, or one of them was, if more than one were concerned. The affair
has, I think, nothing to do with the expected wedding, nor had Mr.
Campbell anything to do in it--at any rate, personally--nor the
gardener. The criminal (or one of them) was known personally to the dead
man, and was well-dressed: he (or again one of them, and I think there
were two) even had a chat with Mr. Kingscote before the murder took
place. He came to ask for something which Mr. Kingscote was unwilling to
part with,--perhaps hadn't got. It was not a bulky thing. Now you have
all my materials before you."
"But all this doesn't look like the result of the blind spite that would
ruin a man's work first and attack him bodily afterwards."
"Spite isn't always blind, and there are other blind things besides
spite; people with good eyes in their heads are blind sometimes, even
detectives."
"But where did you get all this information? What makes you suppose that
this was a burglar who didn't want to burgle, and a well-dressed man,
and so on?"
Hewitt chuckled and smiled again.
"I saw it--saw it, my boy, that's all," he said. "But here comes the
train."
On the way back to town, after I had rather minutely described
Kingscote's work on the boarding-house panels, Hewitt asked me for the
names and professions of such fellow lodgers in that house as I might
remember. "When did you leave yourself?" he ended.
"Three years ago, or rather more. I can remember Kingscote himself;
Turner, a medical student--James Turner, I think; Harvey Challitt,
diamond merchant's articled pupil--he was a bad egg entirely, he's doing
five years for forgery now; by the bye he had the room we are going to
see till he was marched off, and Kingscote took it--a year before I
left; there was Norton--don't know what he was; 'something in the City,'
I think; and Carter Paget, in the Admiralty Office. I don't remember any
more at this moment; there were pretty frequent changes. But you can get
it all from Mrs. Lamb, of course."
"Of course; and Mrs. Lamb's exact address is--what?"
I gave him the address, and the conversation became disjointed. At
Farringdon station, where we alighted, Hewitt called two hansoms.
Preparing to enter one, he motioned me to the other, saying, "You get
straight away to Mrs. Lamb's at once. She may be going to burn that
splintered wood, or to set things to rights, after the manner of her
kind, and you can stop her. I must make one or two small inquiries, but
I shall be there half an hour after you."
"Shall I tell her our object?"
"Only that I may be able to catch her mischievous lodgers--nothing else
yet." He jumped into the hansom and was gone.
I found Mrs. Lamb still in a state of indignant perturbation over the
trick served her four days before. Fortunately, she had left everything
in the panelled room exactly as she had found it, with an idea of the
being better able to demand or enforce reparation should her lodgers
return. "The room's theirs, you see, sir," she said, "till the end of
the week, since they paid in advance, and they may come back and offer
to make amends, although I doubt it. As pleasant-spoken a young chap as
you might wish, he seemed, him as come to take the rooms. 'My cousin,'
says he, 'is rather an invalid, havin' only just got over congestion of
the lungs, and he won't be in London till this evening late. He's comin'
up from Birmingham,' he ses, 'and I hope he won't catch a fresh cold on
the way, although of course we've got him muffled up plenty.' He took
the rooms, sir, like a gentleman, and mentioned several gentlemen's
names I knew well, as had lodged here before; and then he put down on
that there very table, sir."--Mrs. Lamb indicated the exact spot with
her hand, as though that made the whole thing much more wonderful--"he
put down on that very table a week's rent in advance, and ses, 'That's
always the best sort of reference, Mrs. Lamb, I think,' as kind-mannered
as anything--and never 'aggled about the amount nor nothing. He only had
a little black bag, but he said his cousin had all the luggage coming
in the train, and as there was so much p'r'aps they wouldn't get it here
till next day. Then he went out and came in with his cousin at eleven
that night--Sarah let 'em in her own self--and in the morning they was
gone--and this!" Poor Mrs. Lamb, plaintively indignant, stretched her
arm towards the wrecked panels.
"If the gentleman as you say is comin' on, sir," she pursued, "can do
anything to find 'em, I'll prosecute 'em, that I will, if it costs me
ten pound. I spoke to the constable on the beat, but he only looked like
a fool, and said if I knew where they were I might charge 'em with
wilful damage, or county court 'em. Of course I know I can do that if I
knew where they were, but how can I find 'em? Mr. Jones he said his name
was; but how many Joneses is there in London, sir?"
I couldn't imagine any answer to a question like this, but I condoled
with Mrs. Lamb as well as I could. She afterwards went on to express
herself much as her sister had done with regard to Kingscote's death,
only as the destruction of her panels loomed larger in her mind, she
dwelt primarily on that. "It might almost seem," she said, "that
somebody had a deadly spite on the pore young gentleman, and went
breakin' up his paintin' one night, and murderin' him the next!"
I examined the broken panels with some care, having half a notion to
attempt to deduce something from them myself, if possible. But I could
deduce nothing. The beading had been taken out, and the panels, which
were thick in the centre but bevelled at the edges, had been removed and
split up literally into thin firewood, which lay in a tumbled heap on
the hearth and about the floor. Every panel in the room had been treated
in the same way, and the result was a pretty large heap of sticks, with
nothing whatever about them to distinguish them from other sticks,
except the paint on one face, which I observed in many cases had been
scratched and scraped away. The rug was drawn half across the hearth,
and had evidently been used to deaden the sound of chopping. But
mischief--wanton and stupid mischief--was all I could deduce from it
all.
Mr. Jones's cousin, it seemed, only Sarah had seen, as she admitted him
in the evening, and then he was so heavily muffled that she could not
distinguish his features, and would never be able to identify him. But
as for the other one, Mrs. Lamb was ready to swear to him anywhere.
Hewitt was long in coming, and internal symptoms of the approach of
dinner-time (we had had no lunch) had made themselves felt before a
sharp ring at the door-bell foretold his arrival. "I have had to wait
for answers to a telegram," he said in explanation, "but at any rate I
have the information I wanted. And these are the mysterious panels, are
they?"
Mrs. Lamb's true opinion of Martin Hewitt's behaviour as it proceeded
would have been amusing to know. She watched in amazement the antics of
a man who purposed finding out who had been splitting sticks by dint of
picking up each separate stick and staring at it. In the end he
collected a small handful of sticks by themselves and handed them to me,
saying, "Just put these together on the table, Brett, and see what you
make of them."
I turned the pieces painted side up, and fitted them together into a
complete panel, joining up the painted design accurately. "It is an
entire panel," I said.
"Good. Now look at the sticks a little more closely, and tell me if you
notice anything peculiar about them--any particular in which they differ
from all the others."
I looked. "Two adjoining sticks," I said, "have each a small
semi-circular cavity stuffed with what seems to be putty. Put together
it would mean a small circular hole, perhaps a knot-hole, half an inch
or so in diameter, in the panel, filled in with putty, or whatever it
is."
"A _knot-hole_?" Hewitt asked, with particular emphasis.
"Well, no, not a knot-hole, of course, because that would go right
through, and this doesn't. It is probably less than half an inch deep
from the front surface."
"Anything else? Look at the whole appearance of the wood itself. Colour,
for instance."
"It is certainly darker than the rest."
"So it is." He took the two pieces carrying the puttied hole, threw the
rest on the heap, and addressed the landlady. "The Mr. Harvey Challitt
who occupied this room before Mr. Kingscote, and who got into trouble
for forgery, was the Mr. Harvey Challitt who was himself robbed of
diamonds a few months before on a staircase, wasn't he?"
"Yes, sir," Mrs. Lamb replied in some bewilderment. "He certainly was
that, on his own office stairs, chloroformed."
"Just so, and when they marched him away because of the forgery, Mr.
Kingscote changed into his rooms?"
"Yes, and very glad I was. It was bad enough to have the disgrace
brought into the house, without the trouble of trying to get people to
take his very rooms, and I thought----"
"Yes, yes, very awkward, very awkward!" Hewitt interrupted rather
impatiently. "The man who took the rooms on Monday, now--you'd never
seen him before, had you?"
"No, sir."
"Then is _that_ anything like him?" Hewitt held a cabinet photograph
before her.
"Why--why--law, yes, that's _him_!"
Hewitt dropped the photograph back into his breast pocket with a
contented "Um," and picked up his hat. "I think we may soon be able to
find that young gentleman for you, Mrs. Lamb. He is not a very
respectable young gentleman, and perhaps you are well rid of him, even
as it is. Come, Brett," he added, "the day hasn't been wasted, after
all."
We made towards the nearest telegraph office. On the way I said, "That
puttied-up hole in the piece of wood seems to have influenced you. Is it
an important link?"
"Well--yes," Hewitt answered, "it is. But all those other pieces are
important, too."
"But why?"
"Because there are no holes in them." He looked quizzically at my
wondering face, and laughed aloud. "Come," he said, "I won't puzzle you
much longer. Here is the post-office. I'll send my wire, and then we'll
go and dine at Luzatti's."
He sent his telegram, and we cabbed it to Luzatti's. Among actors,
journalists, and others who know town and like a good dinner, Luzatti's
is well known. We went upstairs for the sake of quietness, and took a
table standing alone in a recess just inside the door. We ordered our
dinner, and then Hewitt began:
"Now tell me what _your_ conclusion is in this matter of the Ivy Cottage
murder."
"Mine? I haven't one. I'm sorry I'm so very dull, but I really haven't."
"Come, I'll give you a point. Here is the newspaper account (torn
sacrilegiously from my scrap-book for your benefit) of the robbery
perpetrated on Harvey Challitt a few months before his forgery. Read
it."
"Oh, but I remember the circumstances very well. He was carrying two
packets of diamonds belonging to his firm downstairs to the office of
another firm of diamond merchants on the ground-floor. It was a quiet
time in the day, and half-way down he was seized on a dark landing, made
insensible by chloroform, and robbed of the diamonds--five or six
thousand pounds' worth altogether, of stones of various smallish
individual values up to thirty pounds or so. He lay unconscious on the
landing till one of the partners, noticing that he had been rather long
gone, followed and found him. That's all, I think."
"Yes, that's all. Well, what do you make of it?"
"I'm afraid I don't quite see the connection with this case."
"Well, then, I'll give you another point. The telegram I've just sent
releases information to the police, in consequence of which they will
probably apprehend Harvey Challitt and his confederate, Henry Gillard,
_alias_ Jones, for the murder of Gavin Kingscote. Now, then."
"Challitt! But he's in gaol already."
"Tut, tut, consider. Five years' penal was his dose, although for the
first offence, because the forgery was of an extremely dangerous sort.
You left Chelsea over three years ago yourself, and you told me that his
difficulty occurred a year before. That makes four years, at least. Good
conduct in prison brings a man out of a five years' sentence in that
time or a little less, and, as a matter of fact, Challitt was released
rather more than a week ago."
"Still, I'm afraid I don't see what you are driving at."
"Whose story is this about the diamond robbery from Harvey Challitt?"
"His own."
"Exactly. His own. Does his subsequent record make him look like a
person whose stories are to be accepted without doubt or question?"
"Why, no. I think I see--no, I don't. You mean he stole them himself?
I've a sort of dim perception of your drift now, but still I can't fix
it. The whole thing's too complicated."
"It is a little complicated for a first effort, I admit, so I will tell
you. This is the story. Harvey Challitt is an artful young man, and
decides on a theft of his firm's diamonds. He first prepares a
hiding-place somewhere near the stairs of his office, and when the
opportunity arrives he puts the stones away, spills his chloroform, and
makes a smell--possibly sniffs some, and actually goes off on the
stairs, and the whole thing's done. He is carried into the office--the
diamonds are gone. He tells of the attack on the stairs, as we have
heard, and he is believed. At a suitable opportunity he takes his
plunder from the hiding-place, and goes home to his lodgings. What is he
to do with those diamonds? He can't sell them yet, because the robbery
is publicly notorious, and all the regular jewel buyers know him.
"Being a criminal novice, he doesn't know any regular receiver of stolen
goods, and if he did would prefer to wait and get full value by an
ordinary sale. There will always be a danger of detection so long as the
stones are not securely hidden, so he proceeds to hide them. He knows
that if any suspicion were aroused his rooms would be searched in every
likely place, so he looks for an unlikely place. Of course, he thinks of
taking out a panel and hiding them behind that. But the idea is so
obvious that it won't do; the police would certainly take those panels
out to look behind them. Therefore he determines to hide them _in_ the
panels. See here--he took the two pieces of wood with the filled hole
from his tail pocket and opened his penknife--the putty near the surface
is softer than that near the bottom of the hole; two different lots of
putty, differently mixed, perhaps, have been used, therefore,
presumably, at different times."
"But to return to Challitt. He makes holes with a centre-bit in
different places on the panels, and in each hole he places a diamond,
embedding it carefully in putty. He smooths the surface carefully flush
with the wood, and then very carefully paints the place over, shading
off the paint at the edges so as to leave no signs of a patch. He
doesn't do the whole job at once, creating a noise and a smell of paint,
but keeps on steadily, a few holes at a time, till in a little while the
whole wainscoting is set with hidden diamonds, and every panel is
apparently sound and whole."
"But, then--there was only one such hole in the whole lot."
"Just so, and that very circumstance tells us the whole truth. Let me
tell the story first--I'll explain the clue after. The diamonds lie
hidden for a few months--he grows impatient. He wants the money, and he
can't see a way of getting it. At last he determines to make a bolt and
go abroad to sell his plunder. He knows he will want money for
expenses, and that he may not be able to get rid of his diamonds at
once. He also expects that his suddenly going abroad while the robbery
is still in people's minds will bring suspicion on him in any case, so,
in for a penny in for a pound, he commits a bold forgery, which, had it
been successful, would have put him in funds and enabled him to leave
the country with the stones. But the forgery is detected, and he is
haled to prison, leaving the diamonds in their wainscot setting.
"Now we come to Gavin Kingscote. He must have been a shrewd fellow--the
sort of man that good detectives are made of. Also he must have been
pretty unscrupulous. He had his suspicions about the genuineness of the
diamond robbery, and kept his eyes open. What indications he had to
guide him we don't know, but living in the same house a sharp fellow on
the look-out would probably see enough. At any rate, they led him to the
belief that the diamonds were in the thief's rooms, but not among his
movables, or they would have been found after the arrest. Here was his
chance. Challitt was out of the way for years, and there was plenty of
time to take the house to pieces if it were necessary. So he changed
into Challitt's rooms.
"How long it took him to find the stones we shall never know. He
probably tried many other places first, and, I expect, found the
diamonds at last by pricking over the panels with a needle. Then came
the problem of getting them out without attracting attention. He decided
not to trust to the needle, which might possibly leave a stone or two
undiscovered, but to split up each panel carefully into splinters so as
to leave no part unexamined. Therefore he took measurements, and had a
number of panels made by a joiner of the exact size and pattern of those
in the room, and announced to his landlady his intention of painting her
panels with a pretty design. This to account for the wet paint, and even
for the fact of a panel being out of the wall, should she chance to
bounce into the room at an awkward moment. All very clever, eh?"
"Very."
"Ah, he was a smart man, no doubt. Well, he went to work, taking out a
panel, substituting a new one, painting it over, and chopping up the old
one on the quiet, getting rid of the splinters out of doors when the
booty had been extracted. The decoration progressed and the little heap
of diamonds grew. Finally, he came to the last panel, but found that he
had used all his new panels and hadn't one left for a substitute. It
must have been at some time when it was difficult to get hold of the
joiner--Bank Holiday, perhaps, or Sunday, and he was impatient. So he
scraped the paint off, and went carefully over every part of the
surface--experience had taught him by this that all the holes were of
the same sort--and found one diamond. He took it out, refilled the hole
with putty, painted the old panel and put it back. _These_ are pieces of
that old panel--the only old one of the lot.
"Nine men out of ten would have got out of the house as soon as possible
after the thing was done, but he was a cool hand and stayed. That made
the whole thing look a deal more genuine than if he had unaccountably
cleared out as soon as he had got his room nicely decorated. I expect
the original capital for those Stock Exchange operations we heard of
came out of those diamonds. He stayed as long as suited him, and left
when he set up housekeeping with a view to his wedding. The rest of the
story is pretty plain. You guess it, of course?"
"Yes," I said, "I think I can guess the rest, in a general sort of
way--except as to one or two points."
"It's all plain--perfectly. See here! Challitt, in gaol, determines to
get those diamonds when he comes out. To do that without being suspected
it will be necessary to hire the room. But he knows that he won't be
able to do that himself, because the landlady, of course, knows him, and
won't have an ex-convict in the house. There is no help for it; he must
have a confederate, and share the spoil. So he makes the acquaintance
of another convict, who seems a likely man for the job, and whose
sentence expires about the same time as his own. When they come out, he
arranges the matter with this confederate, who is a well-mannered (and
pretty well-known) housebreaker, and the latter calls at Mrs. Lamb's
house to look for rooms. The very room itself happens to be to let, and
of course it is taken, and Challitt (who is the invalid cousin) comes in
at night muffled and unrecognisable.
"The decoration on the panel does not alarm them, because, of course,
they suppose it to have been done on the old panels and over the old
paint. Challitt tries the spots where diamonds were left--there are
none--there is no putty even. Perhaps, think they, the panels have been
shifted and interchanged in the painting, so they set to work and split
them all up as we have seen, getting more desperate as they go on.
Finally they realize that they are done, and clear out, leaving Mrs.
Lamb to mourn over their mischief.
"They know that Kingscote is the man who has forestalled them, because
Gillard (or Jones), in his chat with the landlady, has heard all about
him and his painting of the panels. So the next night they set off for
Finchley. They get into Kingscote's garden and watch him let Campbell
out. While he is gone, Challitt quietly steps through the French window
into the smoking-room, and waits for him, Gillard remaining outside.
"Kingscote returns, and Challitt accuses him of taking the stones.
Kingscote is contemptuous--doesn't care for Challitt, because he knows
he is powerless, being the original thief himself; besides, knows there
is no evidence, since the diamonds are sold and dispersed long ago.
Challitt offers to divide the plunder with him--Kingscote laughs and
tells him to go; probably threatens to throw him out, Challitt being the
smaller man. Gillard, at the open window, hears this, steps in behind,
and quietly knocks him on the head. The rest follows as a matter of
course. They fasten the window and shutters, to exclude observation;
turn over all the drawers, etc., in case the jewels are there; go to the
best bedroom and try there, and so on. Failing (and possibly being
disturbed after a few hours' search by the noise of the acquisitive
gardener), Gillard, with the instinct of an old thief, determines they
shan't go away with nothing, so empties Kingscote's pockets and takes
his watch and chain and so on. They go out by the front door and shut it
after them. _Voila tout._"
I was filled with wonder at the prompt ingenuity of the man who in these
few hours of hurried inquiry could piece together so accurately all the
materials of an intricate and mysterious affair such as this; but more,
I wondered where and how he had collected those materials.
"There is no doubt, Hewitt," I said, "that the accurate and minute
application of what you are pleased to call your common sense has become
something very like an instinct with you. What did you deduce from? You
told me your conclusions from the examination of Ivy Cottage, but not
how you arrived at them."
"They didn't leave me much material downstairs, did they? But in the
bedroom, the two drawers which the thieves found locked were
ransacked--opened probably with keys taken from the dead man. On the
floor I saw a bent French nail; here it is. You see, it is twice bent at
right angles, near the head and near the point, and there is the faint
mark of the pliers that were used to bend it. It is a very usual
burglars' tool, and handy in experienced hands to open ordinary drawer
locks. Therefore, I knew that a professional burglar had been at work.
He had probably fiddled at the drawers with the nail first, and then had
thrown it down to try the dead man's keys.
"But I knew this professional burglar didn't come for a burglary, from
several indications. There was no attempt to take plate, the first thing
a burglar looks for. Valuable clocks were left on mantelpieces, and
other things that usually go in an ordinary burglary were not
disturbed. Notably, it was to be observed that no doors or windows were
broken, or had been forcibly opened; therefore, it was plain that the
thieves had come in by the French window of the smoking-room, the only
entrance left open at the last thing. _Therefore_, they came in, or one
did, knowing that Mr. Kingscote was up, and being quite
willing--presumably anxious--to see him. Ordinary burglars would have
waited till he had retired, and then could have got through the closed
French window as easily almost as if it were open, notwithstanding the
thin wooden shutters, which would never stop a burglar for more than
five minutes. Being anxious to see him, they--or again, _one_ of
them--presumably knew him. That they had come to _get_ something was
plain, from the ransacking. As, in the end, they _did_ steal his money,
and watch, but did _not_ take larger valuables, it was plain that they
had no bag with them--which proves not only that they had not come to
burgle, for every burglar takes his bag, but that the thing they came to
get was not bulky. Still, they could easily have removed plate or clocks
by rolling them up in a table-cover or other wrapper, but such a bundle,
carried by well-dressed men, would attract attention--therefore it was
probable that they were well dressed. Do I make it clear?"
"Quite--nothing seems simpler now it is explained--that's the way with
difficult puzzles."
"There was nothing more to be got at the house. I had already in my mind
the curious coincidence that the panels at Chelsea had been broken the
very night before that of the murder, and determined to look at them in
any case. I got from you the name of the man who had lived in the
panelled room before Kingscote, and at once remembered it (although I
said nothing about it) as that of the young man who had been
chloroformed for his employer's diamonds. I keep things of that sort in
my mind, you see--and, indeed, in my scrap-book. You told me yourself
about his imprisonment, and there I was with what seemed now a hopeful
case getting into a promising shape.
"You went on to prevent any setting to rights at Chelsea, and I made
enquiries as to Challitt. I found he had been released only a few days
before all this trouble arose, and I also found the name of another man
who was released from the same establishment only a few days earlier. I
knew this man (Gillard) well, and knew that nobody was a more likely
rascal for such a crime as that at Finchley. On my way to Chelsea I
called at my office, gave my clerk certain instructions, and looked up
my scrap-book. I found the newspaper account of the chloroform business,
and also a photograph of Gillard--I keep as many of these things as I
can collect. What I did at Chelsea you know. I saw that one panel was of
old wood and the rest new. I saw the hole in the old panel, and I asked
one or two questions. The case was complete."
We proceeded with our dinner. Presently I said: "It all rests with the
police now, of course?"
"Of course. I should think it very probable that Challitt and Gillard
will be caught. Gillard, at any rate, is pretty well known. It will be
rather hard on the surviving Kingscote, after engaging me, to have his
dead brother's diamond transactions publicly exposed as a result, won't
it? But it can't be helped. _Fiat justitia_, of course."
"How will the police feel over this?" I asked. "You've rather cut them
out, eh?"
"Oh, the police are all right. They had not the information I had, you
see; they knew nothing of the panel business. If Mrs. Lamb had gone to
Scotland Yard instead of to the policeman on the beat, perhaps I should
never have been sent for."
The same quality that caused Martin Hewitt to rank as mere
"common-sense" his extraordinary power of almost instinctive deduction,
kept his respect for the abilities of the police at perhaps a higher
level than some might have considered justified.
We sat some little while over our dessert, talking as we sat, when
there occurred one of those curious conjunctions of circumstances that
we notice again and again in ordinary life, and forget as often, unless
the importance of the occasion fixes the matter in the memory. A young
man had entered the dining-room, and had taken his seat at a corner
table near the back window. He had been sitting there for some little
time before I particularly observed him. At last he happened to turn his
thin, pale face in my direction, and our eyes met. It was Challitt--the
man we had been talking of!