easiest cyclist to draw out is, of course, the novice, but the next
easiest is the veteran. When you see a healthy, well-trained-looking man,
who, nevertheless, has a slight stoop in the shoulders, and, maybe, a
medal on his watch-guard, it is always a safe card to try him first with a
little cycle-racing talk. I soon brought Mr. Mason out of his shell, read
his name on his medal, and had a chance of observing his teeth--indeed, he
spoke of them himself. Now, as I observed just now, there are several
tall, athletic young men about, and also there are several men who have
lost teeth. But now I saw that this tall and athletic young man had lost
exactly _two_ teeth--one from the lower jaw, just to the left of the
center, and another from the upper jaw, farther still toward the left!
Trivialities, pointing in the same direction, became important
considerations. More, his teeth were irregular throughout, and, as nearly
as I could remember it, looked remarkably like this little plaster mold of
mine."
He produced from his pocket an irregular lump of plaster, about three
inches long. On one side of this appeared in relief the likeness of two
irregular rows of six or eight teeth, minus one in each row, where a deep
gap was seen, in the position spoken of by my friend. He proceeded:
"This was enough at least to set me after this young man. But he gave me
the greatest chance of all when he turned and left his apple (eaten
unpeeled, remember!--another important triviality) on his plate. I'm
afraid I wasn't at all polite, and I ran the risk of arousing his
suspicions, but I couldn't resist the temptation to steal it. I did, as
you saw, and here it is."
He brought the apple from his coat-pocket. One bitten side, placed against
the upper half of the mold, fitted precisely, a projection of apple
filling exactly the deep gap. The other side similarly fitted the lower
half.
"There's no getting behind that, you see," Hewitt remarked. "Merely
observing the man's teeth was a guide, to some extent, but this is as
plain as his signature or his thumb impression. You'll never find two men
_bite_ exactly alike, no matter whether they leave distinct teeth-marks or
not. Here, by the by, is Mrs. Clayton's oil. We'll take another mold from
this apple, and compare _them_."
He oiled the apple, heaped a little plaster in a newspaper, took my
water-jug, and rapidly pulled off a hard mold. The parts corresponding to
the merely broken places in the apple were, of course, dissimilar; but as
to the teeth-marks, the impressions were identical.
"That will do, I think," Hewitt said. "Tomorrow morning, Brett, I shall
put up these things in a small parcel, and take them round to Bow Street."
"But are they sufficient evidence?"
"Quite sufficient for the police purpose. There is the man, and all the
rest--his movements on the day and so forth--are simple matters of
inquiry; at any rate, that is police business."
* * * * *
I had scarcely sat down to my breakfast on the following morning when
Hewitt came into the room and put a long letter before me.
"From our friend of last night," he said; "read it."
This letter began abruptly, and undated, and was as follows:
"TO MARTIN HEWITT, ESQ.
"SIR: I must compliment you on the adroitness you exhibited this evening
in extracting from me my name. The address I was able to balk you of for
the time being, although by the time you read this you will probably have
found it through the _Law List_, as I am an admitted solicitor. That,
however, will be of little use to you, for I am removing myself, I think,
beyond the reach even of your abilities of search. I knew you well by
sight, and was, perhaps, foolish to allow myself to be drawn as I did.
Still, I had no idea that it would be dangerous, especially after seeing
you, as a witness with very little to say, at the inquest upon the
scoundrel I shot. Your somewhat discourteous seizure of my apple at first
amazed me--indeed, I was a little doubtful as to whether you had really
taken it--but it was my first warning that you might be playing a deep
game against me, incomprehensible as the action was to my mind. I
subsequently reflected that I had been eating an apple, instead of taking
the drink he first offered me, in the dead wretch's rooms on the night he
came to his merited end. From this I assume that your design was in some
way to compare what remained of the two apples--although I do not presume
to fathom the depths of your detective system. Still, I have heard of many
of your cases, and profoundly admire the keenness you exhibit. I am
thought to be a keen man myself, but, although I was able, to some extent,
to hold my own to-night, I admit that your acumen in this case alone is
something beyond me.
"I do not know by whom you are commissioned to hunt me, nor to what extent
you may be acquainted with my connection with the creature I killed. I
have sufficient respect for you, however, to wish that you should not
regard me as a vicious criminal, and a couple of hours to spare in which
to offer you an explanation that will convince you that such is not
altogether the case. A hasty and violent temper I admit possessing; but
even now I can not forget the one crime it has led me into--for it is, I
suppose, strictly speaking, a crime. For it was the man Foggatt who made a
felon of my father before the eyes of the world, and killed him with
shame. It was he who murdered my mother, and none the less murdered her
because she died of a broken heart. That he was also a thief and a
hypocrite might have concerned me little but for that.
"Of my father I remember very little. He must, I fear, have been a weak
and incapable man in many respects. He had no business abilities--in fact,
was quite unable to understand the complicated business matters in which
he largely dealt. Foggatt was a consummate master of all those arts of
financial jugglery that make so many fortunes, and ruin so many others, in
matters of company promoting, stocks, and shares. He was unable to
exercise them, however, because of a great financial disaster in which he
had been mixed up a few years before, and which made his name one to be
avoided in future. In these circumstances he made a sort of secret and
informal partnership with my father, who, ostensibly alone in the
business, acted throughout on the directions of Foggatt, understanding as
little what he did, poor, simple man, as a schoolboy would have done. The
transactions carried on went from small to large, and, unhappily from
honorable to dishonorable. My father relied on the superior abilities of
Foggatt with an absolute trust, carrying out each day the directions given
him privately the previous evening, buying, selling, printing
prospectuses, signing whatever had to be signed, all with sole
responsibility and as sole partner, while Foggatt, behind the scenes
absorbed the larger share of the profits. In brief, my unhappy and foolish
father was a mere tool in the hands of the cunning scoundrel who pulled
all the wires of the business, himself unseen and irresponsible. At last
three companies, for the promotion of which my father was responsible,
came to grief in a heap. Fraud was written large over all their history,
and, while Foggatt retired with his plunder, my father was left to meet
ruin, disgrace, and imprisonment. From beginning to end he, and he only,
was responsible. There was no shred of evidence to connect Foggatt with
the matter, and no means of escape from the net drawn about my father. He
lived through three years of imprisonment, and then, entirely abandoned by
the man who had made use of his simplicity, he died--of nothing but shame
and a broken heart.
"Of this I knew nothing at the time. Again and again, as a small boy, I
remember asking of my mother why I had no father at home, as other boys
had--unconscious of the stab I thus inflicted on her gentle heart. Of her
my earliest, as well as my latest, memory is that of a pale, weeping
woman, who grudged to let me out of her sight.
"Little by little I learned the whole cause of my mother's grief, for she
had no other confidant, and I fear my character developed early, for my
first coherent remembrance of the matter is that of a childish design to
take a table-knife and kill the bad man who had made my father die in
prison and caused my mother to cry.
"One thing, however, I never knew--the name of that bad man. Again and
again, as I grew older, I demanded to know, but my mother always withheld
it from me, with a gentle reminder that vengeance was for a greater hand
than mine.
"I was seventeen years of age when my mother died. I believe that nothing
but her strong attachment to myself and her desire to see me safely
started in life kept her alive so long. Then I found that through all
those years of narrowed means she had contrived to scrape and save a
little money--sufficient, as it afterward proved, to see me through the
examinations for entrance to my profession, with the generous assistance
of my father's old legal advisers, who gave me my articles, and who have
all along treated me with extreme kindness.
"For most of the succeeding years my life does not concern the matter in
hand. I was a lawyer's clerk in my benefactors' service, and afterward a
qualified man among their assistants. All through the firm were careful,
in pursuance of my poor mother's wishes, that I should not learn the name
or whereabouts of the man who had wrecked her life and my father's. I
first met the man himself at the Clifton Club, where I had gone with an
acquaintance who was a member. It was not till afterward that I understood
his curious awkwardness on that occasion. A week later I called (as I had
frequently done) at the building in which your office is situated, on
business with a solicitor who has an office on the floor above your own.
On the stairs I almost ran against Mr. Foggatt. He started and turned
pale, exhibiting signs of alarm that I could not understand, and asked me
if I wished to see him.
"'No,' I replied, 'I didn't know you lived here. I am after somebody else
just now. Aren't you well?'
"He looked at me rather doubtfully, and said he was _not_ very well.
"I met him twice or thrice after that, and on each occasion his manner
grew more friendly, in a servile, flattering, and mean sort of way--a
thing unpleasant enough in anybody, but doubly so in the intercourse of a
man with another young enough to be his own son. Still, of course, I
treated the man civilly enough. On one occasion he asked me into his rooms
to look at a rather fine picture he had lately bought, and observed
casually, lifting a large revolver from the mantel-piece:
"'You see, I am prepared for any unwelcome visitors to my little den! He!
He!' Conceiving him, of course, to refer to burglars, I could not help
wondering at the forced and hollow character of his laugh. As we went down
the stairs he said: 'I think we know one another pretty well now, Mr.
Mason, eh? And if I could do anything to advance your professional
prospects, I should be glad of the chance, of course. I understand the
struggles of a young professional man--he! he!' It was the forced laugh
again, and the man spoke nervously. 'I think,' he added, 'that if you will
drop in to-morrow evening, perhaps I may have a little proposal to make.
Will you?'
"I assented, wondering what this proposal could be. Perhaps this eccentric
old gentleman was a good fellow, after all, anxious to do me a good turn,
and his awkwardness was nothing but a natural delicacy in breaking the
ice. I was not so flush of good friends as to be willing to lose one. He
might be desirous of putting business in my way.
"I went, and was received with cordiality that even then seemed a little
over-effusive. We sat and talked of one thing and another for a long
while, and I began to wonder when Mr. Foggatt was coming to the point that
most interested me. Several times he invited me to drink and smoke, but
long usage to athletic training has given me a distaste for both
practices, and I declined. At last he began to talk about myself. He was
afraid that my professional prospects in this country were not great, but
he had heard that in some of the colonies--South Africa, for
example--young lawyers had brilliant opportunities.
"'If you'd like to go there,' he said, 'I've no doubt, with a little
capital, a clever man like you could get a grand practice together very
soon. Or you might buy a share in some good established practice. I should
be glad to let you have £500, or even a little more, if that wouldn't
satisfy you, and----'
"I stood aghast. Why should this man, almost a stranger, offer me £500, or
even more, 'if that wouldn't satisfy' me? What claim had I on him? It was
very generous of him, of course, but out of the question. I was, at least,
a gentleman, and had a gentleman's self-respect. Meanwhile, he had gone
maundering on, in a halting sort of way, and presently let slip a sentence
that struck me like a blow between the eyes.
"'I shouldn't like you to bear ill-will because of what has happened in
the past,' he said. 'Your late--your late lamented mother--I'm afraid--she
had unworthy suspicions--I'm sure--it was best for all parties--your
father always appreciated----'
"I set back my chair and stood erect before him. This groveling wretch,
forcing the words through his dry lips, was the thief who had made another
of my father and had brought to miserable ends the lives of both my
parents! Everything was clear. The creature went in fear of me, never
imagining that I did not know him, and sought to buy me off--to buy me
from the remembrance of my dead mother's broken heart for £500--£500 that
he had made my father steal for him! I said not a word. But the memory of
all my mother's bitter years, and a savage sense of this crowning insult
to myself, took a hold upon me, and I was a tiger. Even then I verily
believe that one word of repentance, one tone of honest remorse, would
have saved him. But he drooped his eyes, snuffled excuses, and stammered
of 'unworthy suspicions' and 'no ill-will.' I let him stammer. Presently
he looked up and saw my face; and fell back in his chair, sick with
terror. I snatched the pistol from the mantel-piece, and, thrusting it in
his face, shot him where he sat.
"My subsequent coolness and quietness surprise me now. I took my hat and
stepped toward the door. But there were voices on the stairs. The door was
locked on the inside, and I left it so. I went back and quietly opened a
window. Below was a clear drop into darkness, and above was plain wall;
but away to one side, where the slope of the gable sprang from the roof,
an iron gutter ended, supported by a strong bracket. It was the only way.
I got upon the sill and carefully shut the window behind me, for people
were already knocking at the lobby door. From the end of the sill, holding
on by the reveal of the window with one hand, leaning and stretching my
utmost, I caught the gutter, swung myself clear, and scrambled on the
roof. I climbed over many roofs before I found, in an adjoining street, a
ladder lashed perpendicularly against the front of a house in course of
repair. This, to me, was an easy opportunity of descent, notwithstanding
the boards fastened over the face of the ladder, and I availed myself of
it.
"I have taken some time and trouble in order that you (so far as I am
aware the only human being beside myself who knows me to be the author of
Foggatt's death) shall have at least the means of appraising my crime at
its just value of culpability. How much you already know of what I have
told you I can not guess. I am wrong, hardened, and flagitious, I make no
doubt, but I speak of the facts as they are. You see the thing, of course,
from your own point of view--I from mine. And I remember my mother!
"Trusting that you will forgive the odd freak of a man--a criminal, let us
say--who makes a confidant of the man set to hunt him down, I beg leave to
be, sir, your obedient servant,
"SIDNEY MASON."
I read the singular document through and handed it back to Hewitt.
"How does it strike you?" Hewitt asked.
"Mason would seem to be a man of very marked character," I said.
"Certainly no fool. And, if his tale is true, Foggatt is no great loss to
the world."
"Just so--if the tale is true. Personally I am disposed to believe it is."
"Where was the letter posted?"
"It wasn't posted. It was handed in with the others from the front-door
letter-box this morning in an unstamped envelope. He must have dropped it
in himself during the night. Paper," Hewitt proceeded, holding it up to
the light, "Turkey mill, ruled foolscap. Envelope, blue, official shape,
Pirie's watermark. Both quite ordinary and no special marks."
"Where do you suppose he's gone?"
"Impossible to guess. Some might think he meant suicide by the expression
'beyond the reach even of your abilities of search,' but I scarcely think
he is the sort of man to do that. No, there is no telling. Something may
be got by inquiring at his late address, of course; but, when such a man
tells you he doesn't think you will find him, you may count upon its being
a difficult job. His opinion is not to be despised."
"What shall you do?"
"Put the letter in the box with the casts for the police. _Fiat justitia_,
you know, without any question of sentiment. As to the apple, I really
think, if the police will let me, I'll make you a present of it. Keep it
somewhere as a souvenir of your absolute deficiency in reflective
observation in this case, and look at it whenever you feel yourself
growing dangerously conceited. It should cure you."
* * * * *
This is the history of the withered and almost petrified half apple that
stands in my cabinet among a number of flint implements and one or two
rather fine old Roman vessels. Of Mr. Sidney Mason we never heard another
word. The police did their best, but he had left not a track behind him.
His rooms were left almost undisturbed, and he had gone without anything
in the way of elaborate preparation for his journey, and without leaving a
trace of his intentions.
IV.
THE CASE OF THE DIXON TORPEDO.
Hewitt was very apt, in conversation, to dwell upon the many curious
chances and coincidences that he had observed, not only in connection with
his own cases, but also in matters dealt with by the official police, with
whom he was on terms of pretty regular, and, indeed, friendly,
acquaintanceship. He has told me many an anecdote of singular happenings
to Scotland Yard officials with whom he has exchanged experiences. Of
Inspector Nettings, for instance, who spent many weary months in a search
for a man wanted by the American Government, and in the end found, by the
merest accident (a misdirected call), that the man had been lodging next
door to himself the whole of the time; just as ignorant, of course, as was
the inspector himself as to the enemy at the other side of the party-wall.
Also of another inspector, whose name I can not recall, who, having been
given rather meager and insufficient details of a man whom he anticipated
having great difficulty in finding, went straight down the stairs of the
office where he had received instructions, and actually _fell over_ the
man near the door, where he had stooped down to tie his shoe-lace! There
were cases, too, in which, when a great and notorious crime had been
committed, and various persons had been arrested on suspicion, some were
found among them who had long been badly wanted for some other crime
altogether. Many criminals had met their deserts by venturing out of their
own particular line of crime into another; often a man who got into
trouble over something comparatively small found himself in for a
startlingly larger trouble, the result of some previous misdeed that
otherwise would have gone unpunished. The ruble note-forger Mirsky might
never have been handed over to the Russian authorities had he confined his
genius to forgery alone. It was generally supposed at the time of his
extradition that he had communicated with the Russian Embassy, with a view
to giving himself up--a foolish proceeding on his part, it would seem,
since his whereabouts, indeed even his identity as the forger, had not
been suspected. He _had_ communicated with the Russian Embassy, it is
true, but for quite a different purpose, as Martin Hewitt well understood
at the time. What that purpose was is now for the first time published.
* * * * *
The time was half-past one in the afternoon, and Hewitt sat in his inner
office examining and comparing the handwriting of two letters by the aid
of a large lens. He put down the lens and glanced at the clock on the
mantel-piece with a premonition of lunch; and as he did so his clerk
quietly entered the room with one of those printed slips which were kept
for the announcement of unknown visitors. It was filled up in a hasty and
almost illegible hand, thus:
Name of visitor: _F. Graham Dixon_.
Address: _Chancery Lane_.
Business: _Private and urgent_.
"Show Mr. Dixon in," said Martin Hewitt.
Mr. Dixon was a gaunt, worn-looking man of fifty or so, well, although
rather carelessly, dressed, and carrying in his strong, though drawn, face
and dullish eyes the look that characterizes the life-long strenuous
brain-worker. He leaned forward anxiously in the chair which Hewitt
offered him, and told his story with a great deal of very natural
agitation.
"You may possibly have heard, Mr. Hewitt--I know there are rumors--of the
new locomotive torpedo which the government is about adopting; it is, in
fact, the Dixon torpedo, my own invention, and in every respect--not
merely in my own opinion, but in that of the government experts--by far
the most efficient and certain yet produced. It will travel at least four
hundred yards farther than any torpedo now made, with perfect accuracy of
aim (a very great desideratum, let me tell you), and will carry an
unprecedentedly heavy charge. There are other advantages--speed, simple
discharge, and so forth--that I needn't bother you about. The machine is
the result of many years of work and disappointment, and its design has
only been arrived at by a careful balancing of principles and means, which
are expressed on the only four existing sets of drawings. The whole thing,
I need hardly tell you, is a profound secret, and you may judge of my
present state of mind when I tell you that one set of drawings has been
stolen."
"From your house?"
"From my office, in Chancery Lane, this morning. The four sets of drawings
were distributed thus: Two were at the Admiralty Office, one being a
finished set on thick paper, and the other a set of tracings therefrom;
and the other two were at my own office, one being a penciled set,
uncolored--a sort of finished draft, you understand--and the other a set
of tracings similar to those at the Admiralty. It is this last set that
has gone. The two sets were kept together in one drawer in my room. Both
were there at ten this morning; of that I am sure, for I had to go to that
very drawer for something else when I first arrived. But at twelve the
tracings had vanished."
"You suspect somebody, probably?"
"I can not. It is a most extraordinary thing. Nobody has left the office
(except myself, and then only to come to you) since ten this morning, and
there has been no visitor. And yet the drawings are gone!"
"But have you searched the place?"
"Of course I have! It was twelve o'clock when I first discovered my loss,
and I have been turning the place upside down ever since--I and my
assistants. Every drawer has been emptied, every desk and table turned
over, the very carpet and linoleum have been taken up, but there is not a
sign of the drawings. My men even insisted on turning all their pockets
inside out, although I never for a moment suspected either of them, and it
would take a pretty big pocket to hold the drawings, doubled up as small
as they might be."
"You say your men--there are two, I understand--had neither left the
office?"
"Neither; and they are both staying in now. Worsfold suggested that it
would be more satisfactory if they did not leave till something was done
toward clearing the mystery up, and, although, as I have said, I don't
suspect either in the least, I acquiesced."
"Just so. Now--I am assuming that you wish me to undertake the recovery of
these drawings?"
The engineer nodded hastily.
"Very good; I will go round to your office. But first perhaps you can tell
me something about your assistants--something it might be awkward to tell
me in their presence, you know. Mr. Worsfold, for instance?"
"He is my draughtsman--a very excellent and intelligent man, a very smart
man, indeed, and, I feel sure, quite beyond suspicion. He has prepared
many important drawings for me (he has been with me nearly ten years now),
and I have always found him trustworthy. But, of course, the temptation in
this case would be enormous. Still, I can not suspect Worsfold. Indeed,
how can I suspect anybody in the circumstances?"
"The other, now?"