“Sir Henry was boiling full of the mystery. He got us all excited by the
time we arrived at Benton Court. I think Mr. Meadows was as keen about
the thing as Sir Henry. They were both immensely worked up. It was an
amazing thing!”
“You see, Benton Court is a little house of the Georgian period. It
has been closed up for ages, and now, all at once, the most mysterious
things began to happen in it.
“A local inspector, a very reliable man named Millson, passing that way
on his bicycle, saw a man lying on the doorstep. He also saw some one
running away. It was early in the morning, just before daybreak.
“Millson saw only the man's back, but he could distinguish the color
of his clothes. He was wearing a blue coat and reddish-brown trousers.
Millson said he could hardly make out the blue coat in the darkness, but
he could distinctly see the reddish brown color of the man's trousers.
He was very positive about this. Mr. Meadows and Sir Henry pressed him
pretty hard, but he was firm about it. He could make out that the
coat was blue, and he could see very distinctly that the trousers were
reddish-brown.
“But the extraordinary thing came a little later. Millson hurried to a
telephone to get Scotland Yard, then he returned to Benton Court; but
when he got back the dead man had disappeared.
“He insists that he was not away beyond five minutes, but within that
time the dead man had vanished. Millson could find no trace of him.
That's the mystery that sent us tearing up there with Mr. Meadows and
Sir Henry transformed into eager sleuths.
“We found the approaches to the house under a patrol from Scotland Yard.
But nobody had gone in. The inspector was waiting for Sir Henry.”
The old man stood like an image, and the aged woman sat in her chair
like a figure in basalt.
But the girl ran on with a sort of eager unconcern: “Sir Henry and Mr.
Meadows took the whole thing in charge. The door had been broken open.
They examined the marks about the fractures very carefully; then they
went inside. There were some naked footprints. They were small, as of a
little, cramped foot, and they seemed to be tracked in blood on the hard
oak floor. There was a wax candle partly burned on the table. And that's
all there was.
“There were some tracks in the dust of the floor, but they were not very
clearly outlined, and Sir Henry thought nothing could be made of them.
“It was awfully exciting. I went about behind the two men. Sir Henry
talked all the time. Mr. Meadows was quite as much interested, but he
didn't say anything. He seemed to say less as the thing went on.
“They went over everything--the ground outside and every inch of the
house. Then they put everybody out and sat down by a table in the room
where the footprints were.
“Sir Henry had been awfully careful. He had a big lens with which to
examine the marks of the bloody footprints. He was like a man on the
trail of a buried treasure. He shouted over everything, thrust his glass
into Mr. Meadows' hand and bade him verify what he had seen. His ardor
was infectious. I caught it myself.
“Mr. Meadows, in his quiet manner, was just as much concerned in
unraveling the thing as Sir Henry. I never had so wild a time in all
my life. Finally, when Sir Henry put everybody else out and closed the
door, and the three of us sat down at the table to try to untangle the
thing, I very nearly screamed with excitement. Mr. Meadows sat with
his arms folded, not saying a word; but Sir Henry went ahead with his
explanation.”
The girl looked like a vivid portrait, the soft colors of her gown and
all the cool, vivid extravagancies of youth distinguished in her. Her
words indicated fervor and excited energy; but they were not evidenced
in her face or manner. She was cool and lovely. One would have thought
that she recounted the inanities of a curate's tea party.
The aged man, in the khaki uniform of a major of yeomanry, remained in
his position at the window. The old woman sat with her implacable face,
unchanging like a thing insensible and inorganic.
This unsympathetic aspect about the girl did not seem to disturb her.
She went on:
“The thing was thrilling. It was better than any theater--the three of
us at the old mahogany table in the room, and the Scotland Yard patrol
outside.
“Sir Henry was bubbling over with his theory. 'I read this riddle like a
printed page,' he said. 'It will be the work of a little band of expert
cracksmen that the Continent has kindly sent us. We have had some
samples of their work in Brompton Road. They are professional crooks
of a high order--very clever at breaking in a door, and, like all the
criminal groups that we get without an invitation from over the Channel,
these crooks have absolutely no regard for human life.'
“That's the way Sir Henry led off with his explanation. Of course he had
all that Scotland Yard knew about criminal groups to start him right.
It was a good deal to have the identity of the criminal agents selected
out; but I didn't see how he was going to manage to explain the mystery
from the evidence. I was wild to hear him. Mr. Meadows was quite as
interested, I thought, although he didn't say a word.
“Sir Henry nodded, as though he took the American's confirmation as a
thing that followed. 'We are at the scene,' he said, 'of one of the most
treacherous acts of all criminal drama. I mean the “doing in,” as our
criminals call it, of the unprofessional accomplice. It's a regulation
piece of business with the hard-and-fast criminal organizations of the
Continent, like the Nervi of Marseilles, or the Lecca of Paris.
“'They take in a house servant, a shopkeeper's watchman, or a bank guard
to help them in some big haul. Then they lure him into some abandoned
house, under a pretense of dividing up the booty, and there put him out
of the way. That's what's happened here. It's a common plan with these
criminal groups, and clever of them. The picked-up accomplice would be
sure to let the thing out. For safety the professionals must “do him
in” at once, straight away after the big job, as a part of what the
barrister chaps call the res gestae.'
“Sir Henry went on nodding at us and drumming the palm of his hand on
the edge of the table.
“'This thing happens all the time,' he said, 'all about, where
professional criminals are at work. It accounts for a lot of mysteries
that the police cannot make head or tail of, like this one, for example.
Without our knowledge of this sinister custom, one could not begin or
end with an affair like this.
“'But it's simple when one has the cue--it's immensely simple. We
know exactly what happened and the sort of crooks that were about the
business. The barefoot prints show the Continental group. That's the
trick of Southern Europe to go in barefoot behind a man to kill him.'
“Sir Henry jarred the whole table with his big hand. The surface of the
table was covered with powdered chalk that the baronet had dusted over
it in the hope of developing criminal finger prints. Now under
the drumming of his palm the particles of white dust whirled like
microscopic elfin dancers.
“'The thing's clear as daylight,' he went on: 'One of the professional
group brought the accomplice down here to divide the booty. He broke the
door in. They sat down here at this table with the lighted candle as you
see it. And while the stuff was being sorted out, another of the band
slipped in behind the man and killed him.
“'They started to carry the body out. Millson chanced by. They got in a
funk and rushed the thing. Of course they had a motor down the road,
and equally of course it was no trick to whisk the body out of the
neighborhood.'
“Sir Henry got half up on his feet with his energy in the solution of
the thing. He thrust his spread-out fingers down on the table like a
man, by that gesture, pressing in an inevitable, conclusive summing up.”
The girl paused. “It was splendid, I thought. I applauded like an
entranced pit!
“But Mr. Meadows didn't say a word. He took up the big glass we had used
about the inspection of the place, and passed it over the prints Sir
Henry was unconsciously making in the dust on the polished surface of
the table. Then he put the glass down and looked the excited baronet
calmly in the face.
“'There,' cried Sir Henry, 'the thing's no mystery.'
“For the first time Mr. Meadows opened his mouth. 'It's the profoundest
mystery I ever heard of,' he said.
“Sir Henry was astonished. He sat down and looked across the table at
the man. He wasn't able to speak for a moment, then he got it out: 'Why
exactly do you say that?'
“Mr. Meadows put his elbows on the table. He twiddled the big reading
glass in his fingers. His face got firm and decided.
“'To begin with,' he said, 'the door to this house was never broken by
a professional cracksman. It's the work of a bungling amateur. A
professional never undertakes to break a door at the lock. Naturally
that's the firmest place about a door. The implement he intends to use
as a lever on the door he puts in at the top or bottom. By that means
he has half of the door as a lever against the resistance of the lock.
Besides, a professional of any criminal group is a skilled workman. He
doesn't waste effort. He doesn't fracture a door around the lock. This
door's all mangled, splintered and broken around the lock.'”
“He stopped and looked about the room, and out through the window at the
Scotland Yard patrol. The features of his face were contracted with
the problem. One could imagine one saw the man's mind laboring at the
mystery. 'And that's not all,' he said. 'Your man Millson is not telling
the truth. He didn't see a dead body lying on the steps of this house;
and he didn't see a man running away.'
“Sir Henry broke in at that. 'Impossible,' he said; 'Millson's a
first-class inspector, absolutely reliable. Why do you say that he
didn't see the dead man on the steps or the assassin running away?'
“Mr. Meadows answered in the same even voice. 'Because there was never
any dead man here,' he said, 'for anybody to see. And because Millson's
'description of the man he saw is scientifically an impossible feat of
vision.'
“Impossible?' cried Sir Henry.
“'Quite impossible,' Mr. Meadows insisted. 'Millson tells us that the
man he saw running away in the night wore a blue coat and reddish-brown
trousers. He says he was barely able to distinguish the blue coat, but
that he could see the reddish-brown trousers very clearly. Now, as a
matter of fact, it has been very accurately determined that red is the
hardest color to distinguish at night, and blue the very easiest. A
blue coat would be clearly visible long after reddish-brown trousers had
become indistinguishable in the darkness.'
“Sir Henry's under jaw sagged a little. 'Why, yes,' he said, 'that's
true; that's precisely true. Gross, at the University of Gratz,
determined that by experiment in 1912. I never thought about it!'
“'There are some other things here that you have not, perhaps, precisely
thought about,' Mr. Meadows went on.
“'For example, the things that happened in this room did not happen in
the night. They happened in the day.'
“He pointed to the half-burned wax candle on the table. 'There's a
headless joiner's nail driven into the table,' he said, 'and this candle
is set down over the nail. That means that the person who placed it
there wished it to remain there--to remain there firmly. He didn't put
it down there for the brief requirements of a passing tragedy, he put it
there to remain; that's one thing.
“'Another thing is that this candle thus firmly fastened on the table
was never alight there. If it had ever been burning in its position on
the table, some of the drops of melted wax would have fallen about it.
“'You will observe that, while the candle is firmly fixed, it does not
set straight; it is inclined at least ten degrees out of perpendicular.
In that position it couldn't have burned for a moment without dripping
melted wax on the table. And there's none on the table; there has never
been any on it. Your glass shows not the slightest evidence of a wax
stain.' He added: 'Therefore the candle is a blind; false evidence to
give us the impression of a night affair.'
“Sir Henry's jaw sagged; now his mouth gaped. 'True,' he said. 'True,
true.' He seemed to get some relief to his damaged deductions out of the
repeated word.
“The irony in Mr. Meadows' voice increased a little. 'Nor is that all,'
he said. 'The smear on the floor, and the stains in which the naked
foot tracked, are not human blood. They're not any sort of blood. It
was clearly evident when you had your lens over them. They show no
coagulated fiber. They show only the evidences of dye--weak dye--watered
red ink, I'd say.'
“I thought Sir Henry was going to crumple up in his chair. He seemed to
get loose and baggy in some extraordinary fashion, and his gaping jaw
worked. 'But the footprints,' he said, 'the naked footprints?' His voice
was a sort of stutter-the sort of shaken stutter of a man who has come
a' tumbling cropper.
“The American actually laughed: he laughed as we sometimes laugh at a
mental defective.
“'They're not footprints!' he said. 'Nobody ever had a foot cambered
like that, or with a heel like it, or with toes like it. Somebody made
those prints with his hand--the edge of his palm for the heel and the
balls of his fingers for the toes. The wide, unstained distances
between these heelprints and the prints of the ball of the toes show the
impossible arch.'
“Sir Henry was like a man gone to pieces. 'But who--who made them?' he
faltered.
“The American leaned forward and put the big glass over the prints that
Sir Henry had made with his fingers in the white dust on the mahogany
table. 'I think you know the answer to your question,' he said. 'The
whorls of these prints are identical with those of the toe tracks.'
“Then he laid the glass carefully down, sat back in his chair, folded
his arms and looked at Sir Henry.
“'Now,' he said, 'will you kindly tell me why you have gone to the
trouble of manufacturing all these false evidences of a crime?”'
The girl paused. There was intense silence in the drawing-room. The aged
man at the window had turned and was looking at her. The face of the old
woman seemed vague and uncertain.
The girl smiled.
“Then,” she said, “the real, amazing miracle happened. Sir Henry got on
his feet, his big body tense, his face like iron, his voice ringing.
“'I went to that trouble,' he said, 'because I wished to demonstrate--I
wished to demonstrate beyond the possibility of any error--that Mr.
Arthur Meadows, the pretended American from St. Paul, was in fact the
celebrated criminologist, Karl Holweg Leibnich, of Bonn, giving us the
favor of his learned presence while he signaled the German submarines
off the east coast roads with his high-powered motor lights.'”
Now there was utter silence in the drawing-room but for the low of the
Highland cattle and the singing of the birds outside.
For the first time there came a little tremor in the girl's voice.
“When Sir Henry doubted this American and asked me to go down and make
sure before he set a trap for him, I thought--I thought, if Tony could
risk his life for England, I could do that much.”
At this moment a maid appeared in the doorway, the trim, immaculate,
typical English maid. “Tea is served, my lady,” she said.
The tall, fine old man crossed the room and offered his arm to the girl
with the exquisite, gracious manner with which once upon a time he had
offered it to a girlish queen at Windsor.
The ancient woman rose as if she would go out before them. Then
suddenly, at the door, she stepped aside for the girl to pass, making
the long, stooping, backward curtsy of the passed Victorian era.
“After you, my dear,” she said, “always!”