to his professional methods was one on the matter of accumulative
probabilities. Often when I have remarked upon the apparently trivial
nature of the clews by which he allowed himself to be guided--sometimes,
to all seeming, in the very face of all likelihood--he has replied that
two trivialities, pointing in the same direction, became at once, by their
mere agreement, no trivialities at all, but enormously important
considerations. "If I were in search of a man," he would say, "of whom I
knew nothing but that he squinted, bore a birthmark on his right hand, and
limped, and I observed a man who answered to the first peculiarity, so far
the clue would be trivial, because thousands of men squint. Now, if that
man presently moved and exhibited a birthmark on his right hand, the
value of that squint and that mark would increase at once a hundred or
a thousand fold. Apart they are little; together much. The weight of
evidence is not doubled merely; it would be only doubled if half the men
who squinted had right-hand birthmarks; whereas the proportion, if it
could be ascertained, would be, perhaps, more like one in ten thousand.
The two trivialities, pointing in the same direction, become very strong
evidence. And, when the man is seen to walk with a limp, that limp
(another triviality), re-enforcing the others, brings the matter to the
rank of a practical certainty. The Bertillon system of identification--what
is it but a summary of trivialities? Thousands of men are of the same
height, thousands of the same length of foot, thousands of the same girth
of head--thousands correspond in any separate measurement you may name. It
is when the measurements are taken _together_ that you have your man
identified forever. Just consider how few, if any, of your friends
correspond exactly in any two personal peculiarities." Hewitt's dogma
received its illustration unexpectedly close at home.
The old house wherein my chambers and Hewitt's office were situated
contained, besides my own, two or three more bachelors' dens, in addition
to the offices on the ground and first and second floors. At the very top
of all, at the back, a fat, middle-aged man, named Foggatt, occupied a set
of four rooms. It was only after a long residence, by an accidental remark
of the housekeeper's, that I learned the man's name, which was not painted
on his door or displayed, with all the others, on the wall of the
ground-floor porch.
Mr. Foggatt appeared to have few friends, but lived in something as nearly
approaching luxury as an old bachelor living in chambers can live. An
ascending case of champagne was a common phenomenon of the staircase, and
I have more than once seen a picture, destined for the top floor, of a
sort that went far to awaken green covetousness in the heart of a poor
journalist.
The man himself was not altogether prepossessing. Fat as he was, he had a
way of carrying his head forward on his extended neck and gazing widely
about with a pair of the roundest and most prominent eyes I remember to
have ever seen, except in a fish. On the whole, his appearance was rather
vulgar, rather arrogant, and rather suspicious, without any very
pronounced quality of any sort. But certainly he was not pretty. In the
end, however, he was found shot dead in his sitting-room.
It was in this way: Hewitt and I had dined together at my club, and late
in the evening had returned to my rooms to smoke and discuss whatever came
uppermost. I had made a bargain that day with two speculative odd lots at
a book sale, each of which contained a hidden prize. We sat talking and
turning over these books while time went unperceived, when suddenly we
were startled by a loud report. Clearly it was in the building. We
listened for a moment, but heard nothing else, and then Hewitt expressed
his opinion that the report was that of a gunshot. Gunshots in residential
chambers are not common things, wherefore I got up and went to the
landing, looking up the stairs and down.
At the top of the next flight I saw Mrs. Clayton, the housekeeper. She
appeared to be frightened, and told me that the report came from Mr.
Foggatt's room. She thought he might have had an accident with the pistol
that usually lay on his mantel-piece. We went upstairs with her, and she
knocked at Mr. Foggatt's door.
There was no reply. Through the ventilating fanlight over the door it
could be seen that there were lights within, a sign, Mrs. Clayton
maintained, that Mr. Foggatt was not out. We knocked again, much more
loudly, and called, but still ineffectually. The door was locked, and an
application of the housekeeper's key proved that the tenant's key had been
left in the lock inside. Mrs. Clayton's conviction that "something had
happened" became distressing, and in the end Hewitt pried open the door
with a small poker.
Something _had_ happened. In the sitting-room Mr. Foggatt sat with his
head bowed over the table, quiet and still. The head was ill to look at,
and by it lay a large revolver, of the full-sized army pattern. Mrs.
Clayton ran back toward the landing with faint screams.
"Run, Brett!" said Hewitt; "a doctor and a policeman!"
I bounced down the stairs half a flight at a time. "First," I thought, "a
doctor. He may not be dead." I could think of no doctor in the immediate
neighborhood, but ran up the street away from the Strand, as being the
more likely direction for the doctor, although less so for the policeman.
It took me a good five minutes to find the medico, after being led astray
by a red lamp at a private hotel, and another five to get back, with a
policeman.
Foggatt was dead, without a doubt. Probably had shot himself, the doctor
thought, from the powder-blackening and other circumstances. Certainly
nobody could have left the room by the door, or he must have passed my
landing, while the fact of the door being found locked from the inside
made the thing impossible. There were two windows to the room, both of
which were shut, one being fastened by the catch, while the catch of the
other was broken--an old fracture. Below these windows was a sheer drop of
fifty feet or more, without a foot or hand-hold near. The windows in the
other rooms were shut and fastened. Certainly it seemed suicide--unless it
were one of those accidents that will occur to people who fiddle
ignorantly with firearms. Soon the rooms were in possession of the police,
and we were turned out.
We looked in at the housekeeper's kitchen, where her daughter was reviving
and calming Mrs. Clayton with gin and water.
"You mustn't upset yourself, Mrs. Clayton," Hewitt said, "or what will
become of us all? The doctor thinks it was an accident."
He took a small bottle of sewing-machine oil from his pocket and handed it
to the daughter, thanking her for the loan.
* * * * *
There was little evidence at the inquest. The shot had been heard, the
body had been found--that was the practical sum of the matter. No friends
or relatives of the dead man came forward. The doctor gave his opinion as
to the probability of suicide or an accident, and the police evidence
tended in the same direction. Nothing had been found to indicate that any
other person had been near the dead man's rooms on the night of the
fatality. On the other hand, his papers, bankbook, etc., proved him to be
a man of considerable substance, with no apparent motive for suicide. The
police had been unable to trace any relatives, or, indeed, any nearer
connections than casual acquaintances, fellow-clubmen, and so on. The jury
found that Mr. Foggatt had died by accident.
"Well, Brett," Hewitt asked me afterward, "what do you think of the
verdict?"
I said that it seemed to be the most reasonable one possible, and to
square with the common-sense view of the case.
"Yes," he replied, "perhaps it does. From the point of view of the jury,
and on their information, their verdict was quite reasonable.
Nevertheless, Mr. Foggatt did not shoot himself. He was shot by a rather
tall, active young man, perhaps a sailor, but certainly a gymnast--a young
man whom I think I could identify if I saw him."
"But how do you know this?"
"By the simplest possible inferences, which you may easily guess, if you
will but think."
"But, then, why didn't you say this at the inquest?"
"My dear fellow, they don't want any inferences and conjectures at an
inquest; they only want evidence. If I had traced the murderer, of course
then I should have communicated with the police. As a matter of fact, it
is quite possible that the police have observed and know as much as I
do--or more. They don't give everything away at an inquest, you know. It
wouldn't do."
"But, if you are right, how did the man get away?"
"Come, we are near home now. Let us take a look at the back of the house.
He _couldn't_ have left by Foggatt's landing door, as we know; and as he
_was_ there (I am certain of that), and as the chimney is out of the
question--for there was a good fire in the grate--he must have gone out by
the window. Only one window is possible--that with the broken catch--for
all the others were fastened inside. Out of that window, then, he went."
"But how? The window is fifty feet up."
"Of course it is. But why _will_ you persist in assuming that the only way
of escape by a window is downward? See, now, look up there. The window is
at the top floor, and it has a very broad sill. Over the window is nothing
but the flat face of the gable-end; but to the right, and a foot or two
above the level of the top of the window, an iron gutter ends. Observe, it
is not of lead composition, but a strong iron gutter, supported, just at
its end, by an iron bracket. If a tall man stood on the end of the
window-sill, steadying himself by the left hand and leaning to the right,
he could just touch the end of this gutter with his right hand. The full
stretch, toe to finger, is seven feet three inches. I have measured it. An
active gymnast, or a sailor, could catch the gutter with a slight spring,
and by it draw himself upon the roof. You will say he would have to be
_very_ active, dexterous, and cool. So he would. And that very fact helps
us, because it narrows the field of inquiry. We know the sort of man to
look for. Because, being certain (as I am) that the man was in the room, I
_know_ that he left in the way I am telling you. He must have left in some
way, and, all the other ways being impossible, this alone remains,
difficult as the feat may seem. The fact of his shutting the window behind
him further proves his coolness and address at so great a height from the
ground."
All this was very plain, but the main point was still dark.
"You say you _know_ that another man was in the room," I said; "how do you
know that?"
"As I said, by an obvious inference. Come, now, you shall guess how I
arrived at that inference. You often speak of your interest in my work,
and the attention with which you follow it. This shall be a simple
exercise for you. You saw everything in the room as plainly as I myself.
Bring the scene back to your memory, and think over the various small
objects littering about, and how they would affect the case. Quick
observation is the first essential for my work. Did you see a newspaper,
for instance?"
"Yes. There was an evening paper on the floor, but I didn't examine it."
"Anything else?"
"On the table there was a whisky decanter, taken from the tantalus-stand
on the sideboard, and one glass. That, by the by," I added, "looked as
though only one person were present."
"So it did, perhaps, although the inference wouldn't be very strong. Go
on!"
"There was a fruit-stand on the sideboard, with a plate beside it
containing a few nutshells, a piece of apple, a pair of nut-crackers, and,
I think, some orange peel. There was, of course, all the ordinary
furniture, but no chair pulled up to the table, except that used by
Foggatt himself. That's all I noticed, I think. Stay--there was an
ash-tray on the table, and a partly burned cigar near it--only one cigar,
though."
"Excellent--excellent, indeed, as far as memory and simple observation go.
You saw everything plainly, and you remember everything. Surely _now_ you
know how I found out that another man had just left?"
"No, I don't; unless there were different kinds of ash in the ash-tray."
"That is a fairly good suggestion, but there were not--there was only a
single ash, corresponding in every way to that on the cigar. Don't you
remember everything that I did as we went down-stairs?"
"You returned a bottle of oil to the housekeeper's daughter, I think."
"I did. Doesn't that give you a hint? Come, you surely have it now?"
"I haven't."
"Then I sha'n't tell you; you don't deserve it. Think, and don't mention
the subject again till you have at least one guess to make. The thing
stares you in the face; you see it, you remember it, and yet you _won't_
see it. I won't encourage your slovenliness of thought, my boy, by telling
you what you can know for yourself if you like. Good-by--I'm off now.
There's a case in hand I can't neglect."
"Don't you propose to go further into this, then?"
Hewitt shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not a policeman," he said. "The case
is in very good hands. Of course, if anybody comes to me to do it as a
matter of business, I'll take it up. It's very interesting, but I can't
neglect my regular work for it. Naturally, I shall keep my eyes open and
my memory in order. Sometimes these things come into the hands by
themselves, as it were; in that case, of course, I am a loyal citizen, and
ready to help the law. _Au revoir_!"
* * * * *
I am a busy man myself, and thought little more of Hewitt's conundrum for
some time; indeed, when I did think, I saw no way to the answer. A week
after the inquest I took a holiday (I had written my nightly leaders
regularly every day for the past five years), and saw no more of Hewitt
for six weeks. After my return, with still a few days of leave to run, one
evening we together turned into Luzatti's, off Coventry Street, for
dinner.
"I have been here several times lately," Hewitt said; "they feed you very
well. No, not that table"--he seized my arm as I turned to an unoccupied
corner--"I fancy it's draughty." He led the way to a longer table where a
dark, lithe, and (as well as could be seen) tall young man already sat,
and took chairs opposite him.
We had scarcely seated ourselves before Hewitt broke into a torrent of
conversation on the subject of bicycling. As our previous conversation had
been of a literary sort, and as I had never known Hewitt at any other time
to show the slightest interest in bicycling, this rather surprised me. I
had, however, such a general outsider's grasp of the subject as is usual
in a journalist-of-all-work, and managed to keep the talk going from my
side. As we went on I could see the face of the young man opposite
brighten with interest. He was a rather fine-looking fellow, with a dark,
though very clear skin, but had a hard, angry look of eye, a prominence of
cheek-bone, and a squareness of jaw that gave him a rather uninviting
aspect. As Hewitt rattled on, however, our neighbor's expression became
one of pleasant interest merely.
"Of course," Hewitt said, "we've a number of very capital men just now,
but I believe a deal in the forgotten riders of five, ten, and fifteen
years back. Osmond, I believe, was better than any man riding now, and I
think it would puzzle some of them to beat Furnivall as he was, at his
best. But poor old Cortis--really, I believe he was as good as anybody.
Nobody ever beat Cortis--except--let me see--I think somebody beat Cortis
once--who was it now? I can't remember."
"Liles," said the young man opposite, looking up quickly.
"Ah, yes--Liles it was; Charley Liles. Wasn't it a championship?"
"Mile championship, 1880; Cortis won the other three, though."
"Yes, so he did. I saw Cortis when he first broke the old 2.46 mile
record." And straightway Hewitt plunged into a whirl of talk of bicycles,
tricycles, records, racing cyclists, Hillier, and Synyer and Noel Whiting,
Taylerson and Appleyard--talk wherein the young man opposite bore an
animated share, while I was left in the cold.
Our new friend, it seems, had himself been a prominent racing bicyclist a
few years back, and was presently, at Hewitt's request, exhibiting a neat
gold medal that hung at his watch-guard. That was won, he explained, in
the old tall bicycle days, the days of bad tracks, when every racing
cyclist carried cinder scars on his face from numerous accidents. He
pointed to a blue mark on his forehead, which, he told us, was a track
scar, and described a bad fall that had cost him two teeth, and broken
others. The gaps among his teeth were plain to see as he smiled.
Presently the waiter brought dessert, and the young man opposite took an
apple. Nut-crackers and a fruit-knife lay on our side of the stand, and
Hewitt turned the stand to offer him the knife.
"No, thanks," he said; "I only polish a good apple, never peel it. It's a
mistake, except with thick-skinned foreign ones."
And he began to munch the apple as only a boy or a healthy athlete can.
Presently he turned his head to order coffee. The waiter's back was
turned, and he had to be called twice. To my unutterable amazement Hewitt
reached swiftly across the table, snatched the half-eaten apple from the
young man's plate and pocketed it, gazing immediately, with an abstracted
air, at a painted Cupid on the ceiling.
Our neighbor turned again, looked doubtfully at his plate and the
table-cloth about it, and then shot a keen glance in the direction of
Hewitt. He said nothing, however, but took his coffee and his bill,
deliberately drank the former, gazing quietly at Hewitt as he did it, paid
the latter, and left.
Immediately Hewitt was on his feet and, taking an umbrella, which stood
near, followed. Just as he reached the door he met our late neighbor, who
had turned suddenly back.
"Your umbrella, I think?" Hewitt asked, offering it.
"Yes, thanks." But the man's eye had more than its former hardness, and
his jaw muscles tightened as I looked. He turned and went. Hewitt came
back to me. "Pay the bill," he said, "and go back to your rooms; I will
come on later. I must follow this man--it's the Foggatt case." As he went
out I heard a cab rattle away, and immediately after it another.
I paid the bill and went home. It was ten o'clock before Hewitt turned up,
calling in at his office below on his way up to me.
"Mr. Sidney Mason," he said, "is the gentleman the police will be wanting
to-morrow, I expect, for the Foggatt murder. He is as smart a man as I
remember ever meeting, and has done me rather neatly twice this evening."
"You mean the man we sat opposite at Luzatti's, of course?"
"Yes, I got his name, of course, from the reverse of that gold medal he
was good enough to show me. But I fear he has bilked me over the address.
He suspected me, that was plain, and left his umbrella by way of
experiment to see if I were watching him sharply enough to notice the
circumstance, and to avail myself of it to follow him. I was hasty and
fell into the trap. He cabbed it away from Luzatti's, and I cabbed it
after him. He has led me a pretty dance up and down London to-night, and
two cabbies have made quite a stroke of business out of us. In the end he
entered a house of which, of course, I have taken the address, but I
expect he doesn't live there. He is too smart a man to lead me to his den;
but the police can certainly find something of him at the house he went in
at--and, I expect, left by the back way. By the way, you never guessed
that simple little puzzle as to how I found that this _was_ a murder, did
you? You see it now, of course?"
"Something to do with that apple you stole, I suppose?"
"Something to do with it? I should think so, you worthy innocent. Just
ring your bell; we'll borrow Mrs. Clayton's sewing-machine oil again. On
the night we broke into Foggatt's room you saw the nutshells and the
bitten remains of an apple on the sideboard, and you remembered it; and
yet you couldn't see that in that piece of apple possibly lay an important
piece of evidence. Of course I never expected you to have arrived at any
conclusion, as I had, because I had ten minutes in which to examine that
apple, and to do what I did with it. But, at least, you should have seen
the possibility of evidence in it.
"First, now, the apple was white. A bitten apple, as you must have
observed, turns of a reddish brown color if left to stand long. Different
kinds of apples brown with different rapidities, and the browning always
begins at the core. This is one of the twenty thousand tiny things that
few people take the trouble to notice, but which it is useful for a man in
my position to know. A russet will brown quite quickly. The apple on the
sideboard was, as near as I could tell, a Newtown pippin or other apple of
that kind, which will brown at the core in from twenty minutes to half an
hour, and in other parts in a quarter of an hour more. When we saw it, it
was white, with barely a tinge of brown about the exposed core. Inference,
somebody had been eating it fifteen or twenty minutes before, perhaps a
little longer--an inference supported by the fact that it was only partly
eaten.
"I examined that apple, and found it bore marks of very irregular teeth.
While you were gone, I oiled it over, and, rushing down to my rooms, where
I always have a little plaster of Paris handy for such work, took a mold
of the part where the teeth had left the clearest marks. I then returned
the apple to its place for the police to use if they thought fit. Looking
at my mold, it was plain that the person who had bitten that apple had
lost two teeth, one at top and one below, not exactly opposite, but nearly
so. The other teeth, although they would appear to have been fairly sound,
were irregular in size and line. Now, the dead man had, as I saw, a very
excellent set of false teeth, regular and sharp, with none missing.
Therefore it was plain that somebody _else_ had been eating that apple. Do
I make myself clear?"
"Quite! Go on!"
"There were other inferences to be made--slighter, but all pointing the
same way. For instance, a man of Foggatt's age does not, as a rule, munch
an unpeeled apple like a school-boy. Inference, a young man, and healthy.
Why I came to the conclusion that he was tall, active, a gymnast, and
perhaps a sailor, I have already told you, when we examined the outside of
Foggatt's window. It was also pretty clear that robbery was not the
motive, since nothing was disturbed, and that a friendly conversation had
preceded the murder--witness the drinking and the eating of the apple.
Whether or not the police noticed these things I can't say. If they had
had their best men on, they certainly would, I think; but the case, to a
rough observer, looked so clearly one of accident or suicide that possibly
they didn't.
"As I said, after the inquest I was unable to devote any immediate time to
the case, but I resolved to keep my eyes open. The man to look for was
tall, young, strong and active, with a very irregular set of teeth, a
tooth missing from the lower jaw just to the left of the center, and
another from the upper jaw a little farther still toward the left. He
might possibly be a person I had seen about the premises (I have a good
memory for faces), or, of course, he possibly might not.
"Just before you returned from your holiday I noticed a young man at
Luzatti's whom I remembered to have seen somewhere about the offices in
this building. He was tall, young, and so on, but I had a client with me,
and was unable to examine him more narrowly; indeed, as I was not exactly
engaged on the case, and as there are several tall young men about, I took
little trouble. But to-day, finding the same young man with a vacant seat
opposite him, I took the opportunity of making a closer acquaintance."
"You certainly managed to draw him out."