little cunning must seem very transparent to you, I fear. I spent hours of
thought over the question of the trap-door--how to break it open so as to
leave a genuine appearance, and especially how to bolt it inside after I
had reached the roof. I thought I had succeeded beyond the possibility of
suspicion; how you penetrated the device surpasses my comprehension. How,
to begin with, could you possibly know that the cameo was a forgery? Did
you ever see it?"
"Never. And, if I had seen it, I fear I should never have been able to
express an opinion on it; I'm not a connoisseur. As a matter of fact, I
_didn't_ know that the thing was a forgery in the first place; what I knew
in the first place was that it was _you_ who had broken into the house. It
was from that that I arrived at the conclusion, after a certain amount of
thought, that the cameo must have been forged. Gain was out of the
question. You, beyond all men, could never sell the Stanway Cameo again,
and, besides, you had paid back Lord Stanway's money. I knew enough of
your reputation to know that you would never incur the scandal of a great
theft at your place for the sake of getting the cameo for yourself, when
you might have kept it in the beginning, with no trouble and mystery.
Consequently I had to look for another motive, and at first another motive
seemed an impossibility. Why should you wish to take all this trouble to
lose five thousand pounds? You had nothing to gain; perhaps you had
something to save--your professional reputation, for instance. Looking at
it so, it was plain that you were _suppressing_ the cameo--burking it;
since, once taken as you had taken it, it could never come to light again.
That suggested the solution of the mystery at once--you had discovered,
after the sale, that the cameo was not genuine."
"Yes, yes--I see; but you say you began with the knowledge that I broke
into the place myself. How did you know that? I can not imagine a
trace----"
"My dear sir, you left traces everywhere. In the first place, it struck me
as curious, before I came here, that you had sent off that check for five
thousand pounds to Lord Stanway an hour or so after the robbery was
discovered; it looked so much as though you were sure of the cameo never
coming back, and were in a hurry to avert suspicion. Of course I
understood that, so far as I then knew the case, you were the most
unlikely person in the world, and that your eagerness to repay Lord
Stanway might be the most creditable thing possible. But the point was
worth remembering, and I remembered it.
"When I came here, I saw suspicious indications in many directions, but
the conclusive piece of evidence was that old hat hanging below the
trap-door."
"But I never touched it; I assure you, Mr. Hewitt, I never touched the
hat; haven't touched it for months----"
"Of course. If you _had_ touched it, I might never have got the clue. But
we'll deal with the hat presently; that wasn't what struck me at first.
The trap-door first took my attention. Consider, now: Here was a
trap-door, most insecurely hung on _external_ hinges; the burglar had a
screwdriver, for he took off the door-lock below with it. Why, then,
didn't he take this trap off by the hinges, instead of making a noise and
taking longer time and trouble to burst the bolt from its fastenings? And
why, if he were a stranger, was he able to plant his jimmy from the
outside just exactly opposite the interior bolt? There was only one mark
on the frame, and that precisely in the proper place.
"After that I saw the leather case. It had not been thrown away, or some
corner would have shown signs of the fall. It had been put down carefully
where it was found. These things, however, were of small importance
compared with the hat. The hat, as you know, was exceedingly thick with
dust--the accumulation of months. But, on the top side, presented toward
the trap-door, were a score or so of _raindrop marks_. That was all. They
were new marks, for there was no dust over them; they had merely had time
to dry and cake the dust they had fallen on. _Now, there had been no rain
since a sharp shower just after seven o'clock last night_. At that time
you, by your own statement, were in the place. You left at eight, and the
rain was all over at ten minutes or a quarter past seven. The trap-door,
you also told me, had not been opened for months. The thing was plain.
You, or somebody who was here when you were, had opened that trap-door
during, or just before, that shower. I said little then, but went, as soon
as I had left, to the police-station. There I made perfectly certain that
there had been no rain during the night by questioning the policemen who
were on duty outside all the time. There had been none. I knew everything.
"The only other evidence there was pointed with all the rest. There were
no rain-marks on the leather case; it had been put on the roof as an
after-thought when there was no rain. A very poor after-thought, let me
tell you, for no thief would throw away a useful case that concealed his
booty and protected it from breakage, and throw it away just so as to
leave a clue as to what direction he had gone in. I also saw, in the
lumber-room, a number of packing-cases--one with a label dated two days
back--which had been opened with an iron lever; and yet, when I made an
excuse to ask for it, you said there was no such thing in the place.
Inference, you didn't want me to compare it with the marks on the desks
and doors. That is all, I think."
Mr. Claridge looked dolorously down at the floor. "I'm afraid," he said,
"that I took an unsuitable rôle when I undertook to rely on my wits to
deceive men like you. I thought there wasn't a single vulnerable spot in
my defense, but you walk calmly through it at the first attempt. Why did I
never think of those raindrops?"
"Come," said Hewitt, with a smile, "that sounds unrepentant. I am going,
now, to Lord Stanway's. If I were you, I think I should apologize to Mr.
Woollett in some way."
Lord Stanway, who, in the hour or two of reflection left him after parting
with Hewitt, had come to the belief that he had employed a man whose mind
was not always in order, received Hewitt's story with natural
astonishment. For some time he was in doubt as to whether he would be
doing right in acquiescing in anything but a straightforward public
statement of the facts connected with the disappearance of the cameo, but
in the end was persuaded to let the affair drop, on receiving an assurance
from Mr. Woollett that he unreservedly accepted the apology offered him by
Mr. Claridge.
As for the latter, he was at least sufficiently punished in loss of money
and personal humiliation for his escapade. But the bitterest and last blow
he sustained when the unblushing Hahn walked smilingly into his office two
days later to demand the extra payment agreed on in consideration of the
sale. He had been called suddenly away, he exclaimed, on the day he should
have come, and hoped his missing the appointment had occasioned no
inconvenience. As to the robbery of the cameo, of course he was very
sorry, but "pishness was pishness," and he would be glad of a check for
the sum agreed on. And the unhappy Claridge was obliged to pay it, knowing
that the man had swindled him, but unable to open his mouth to say so.
The reward remained on offer for a long time; indeed, it was never
publicly withdrawn, I believe, even at the time of Claridge's death. And
several intelligent newspapers enlarged upon the fact that an ordinary
burglar had completely baffled and defeated the boasted acumen of Mr.
Martin Hewitt, the well-known private detective.
VII.
THE AFFAIR OF THE TORTOISE.
Very often Hewitt was tempted, by the fascination of some particularly odd
case, to neglect his other affairs to follow up a matter that from a
business point of view was of little or no value to him. As a rule, he had
a sufficient regard for his own interests to resist such temptations, but
in one curious case, at least, I believe he allowed it largely to
influence him. It was certainly an extremely odd case--one of those
affairs that, coming to light at intervals, but more often remaining
unheard of by the general public, convince one that, after all, there is
very little extravagance about Mr. R.L. Stevenson's bizarre imaginings of
doings in London in his "New Arabian Nights." "There is nothing in this
world that is at all possible," I have often heard Martin Hewitt say,
"that has not happened or is not happening in London." Certainly he had
opportunities of knowing.
The case I have referred to occurred some time before my own acquaintance
with him began--in 1878, in fact. He had called one Monday morning at an
office in regard to something connected with one of those uninteresting,
though often difficult, cases which formed, perhaps, the bulk of his
practice, when he was informed of a most mysterious murder that had taken
place in another part of the same building on the previous Saturday
afternoon. Owing to the circumstances of the case, only the vaguest
account had appeared in the morning papers, and even this, as it chanced,
Hewitt had not read.
The building was one of a new row in a partly rebuilt street near the
National Gallery. The whole row had been built by a speculator for the
purpose of letting out in flats, suites of chambers, and in one or two
cases, on the ground floors, offices. The rooms had let very well, and to
desirable tenants, as a rule. The least satisfactory tenant, the
proprietor reluctantly admitted, was a Mr. Rameau, a negro gentleman,
single, who had three rooms on the top floor but one of the particular
building that Hewitt was visiting. His rent was paid regularly, but his
behavior had produced complaints from other tenants. He got uproariously
drunk, and screamed and howled in unknown tongues. He fell asleep on the
staircase, and ladies were afraid to pass. He bawled rough chaff down the
stairs and along the corridors at butcher-boys and messengers, and played
on errand-boys brutal practical jokes that ended in police-court
summonses. He once had a way of sliding down the balusters, shouting: "Ho!
ho! ho! yah!" as he went, but as he was a big, heavy man, and the
balusters had been built for different treatment, he had very soon and
very firmly been requested to stop it. He had plenty of money, and spent
it freely; but it was generally felt that there was too much of the
light-hearted savage about him to fit him to live among quiet people.
How much longer the landlord would have stood this sort of thing, Hewitt's
informant said, was a matter of conjecture, for on the Saturday afternoon
in question the tenancy had come to a startling full-stop. Rameau had been
murdered in his room, and the body had, in the most unaccountable fashion,
been secretly removed from the premises.
The strongest possible suspicion pointed to a man who had been employed in
shoveling and carrying coals, cleaning windows, and chopping wood for
several of the buildings, and who had left that very Saturday. The crime
had, in fact, been committed with this man's chopper, and the man himself
had been heard, again and again, to threaten Rameau, who, in his brutal
fashion, had made a butt of him. This man was a Frenchman, Victor Goujon
by name, who had lost his employment as a watchmaker by reason of an
injury to his right hand, which destroyed its steadiness, and so he had
fallen upon evil days and odd jobs.
He was a little man of no great strength, but extraordinarily excitable,
and the coarse gibes and horse-play of the big negro drove him almost to
madness. Rameau would often, after some more than ordinarily outrageous
attack, contemptuously fling Goujon a shilling, which the little
Frenchman, although wanting a shilling badly enough, would hurl back in
his face, almost weeping with impotent rage. "Pig! _Canaille_!" he would
scream. "Dirty pig of Africa! Take your sheelin' to vere you 'ave stole
it! _Voleur_! Pig!"
There was a tortoise living in the basement, of which Goujon had made
rather a pet, and the negro would sometimes use this animal as a missile,
flinging it at the little Frenchman's head. On one such occasion the
tortoise struck the wall so forcibly as to break its shell, and then
Goujon seized a shovel and rushed at his tormentor with such blind fury
that the latter made a bolt of it. These were but a few of the passages
between Rameau and the fuel-porter, but they illustrate the state of
feeling between them.
Goujon, after correspondence with a relative in France who offered him
work, gave notice to leave, which expired on the day of the crime. At
about three that afternoon a housemaid, proceeding toward Rameau's rooms,
met Goujon as he was going away. Goujon bade her good-by, and, pointing in
the direction of Rameau's rooms, said exultantly: "Dere shall be no more
of the black pig for me; vit 'im I 'ave done for. Zut! I mock me of 'im!
'E vill never _tracasser_ me no more." And he went away.
The girl went to the outer door of Rameau's rooms, knocked, and got no
reply. Concluding that the tenant was out, she was about to use her keys,
when she found that the door was unlocked. She passed through the lobby
and into the sitting-room, and there fell in a dead faint at the sight
that met her eyes. Rameau lay with his back across the sofa and his
head--drooping within an inch of the ground. On the head was a fearful
gash, and below it was a pool of blood.
The girl must have lain unconscious for about ten minutes. When she came
to her senses, she dragged herself, terrified, from the room and up to the
housekeeper's apartments, where, being an excitable and nervous creature,
she only screamed "Murder!" and immediately fell in a fit of hysterics
that lasted three-quarters of an hour. When at last she came to herself,
she told her story, and, the hall-porter having been summoned, Rameau's
rooms were again approached.
The blood still lay on the floor, and the chopper, with which the crime
had evidently been committed, rested against the fender; but the body had
vanished! A search was at once made, but no trace of it could be seen
anywhere. It seemed impossible that it could have been carried out of the
building, for the hall-porter must at once have noticed anybody leaving
with so bulky a burden. Still, in the building it was not to be found.
When Hewitt was informed of these things on Monday, the police were, of
course, still in possession of Rameau's rooms. Inspector Nettings, Hewitt
was told, was in charge of the case, and as the inspector was an
acquaintance of his, and was then in the rooms upstairs, Hewitt went up to
see him.
Nettings was pleased to see Hewitt, and invited him to look around the
rooms. "Perhaps you can spot something we have overlooked," he said.
"Though it's not a case there can be much doubt about."
"You think it's Goujon, don't you?"
"Think? Well, rather! Look here! As soon as we got here on Saturday, we
found this piece of paper and pin on the floor. We showed it to the
housemaid, and then she remembered--she was too much upset to think of it
before--that when she was in the room the paper was laying on the dead
man's chest--pinned there, evidently. It must have dropped off when they
removed the body. It's a case of half-mad revenge on Goujon's part,
plainly. See it; you read French, don't you?"
The paper was a plain, large half-sheet of note-paper, on which a sentence
in French was scrawled in red ink in a large, clumsy hand, thus:
_puni par un vengeur de la tortue_.
"_Puni par un vengeur de la tortue_," Hewitt repeated musingly. "'Punished
by an avenger of the tortoise,' That seems odd."
"Well, rather odd. But you understand the reference, of course. Have they
told you about Rameau's treatment of Goujon's pet tortoise?"
"I think it was mentioned among his other pranks. But this is an extreme
revenge for a thing of that sort, and a queer way of announcing it."
"Oh, he's mad--mad with Rameau's continual ragging and baiting," Nettings
answered. "Anyway, this is a plain indication--plain as though he'd left
his own signature. Besides, it's in his own language--French. And there's
his chopper, too."
"Speaking of signatures," Hewitt remarked, "perhaps you have already
compared this with other specimens of Goujon's writing?"
"I did think of it, but they don't seem to have a specimen to hand, and,
anyway, it doesn't seem very important. There's 'avenger of the tortoise'
plain enough, in the man's own language, and that tells everything.
Besides, handwritings are easily disguised."
"Have you got Goujon?"
"Well, no; we haven't. There seems to be some little difficulty about
that. But I expect to have him by this time to-morrow. Here comes Mr.
Styles, the landlord."
Mr. Styles was a thin, querulous, and withered-looking little man, who
twitched his eyebrows as he spoke, and spoke in short, jerky phrases.
"No news, eh, inspector, eh? eh? Found out nothing else, eh? Terrible
thing for my property--terrible! Who's your friend?"
Nettings introduced Hewitt.
"Shocking thing this, eh, Mr. Hewitt? Terrible! Comes of having anything
to do with these blood-thirsty foreigners, eh? New buildings and
all--character ruined. No one come to live here now, eh? Tenants--noisy
niggers--murdered by my own servants--terrible! _You_ formed any opinion,
eh?"
"I dare say I might if I went into the case."
"Yes, yes--same opinion as inspector's, eh? I mean an opinion of your
own?" The old man scrutinized Hewitt's face sharply.
"If you'd like me to look into the matter----" Hewitt began.
"Eh? Oh, look into it! Well, I can't commission you, you know--matter for
the police. Mischief's done. Police doing very well, I think--must be
Goujon. But look about the place, certainly, if you like. If you see
anything likely to serve _my_ interests, tell me, and--and--perhaps I'll
employ you, eh, eh? Good-afternoon."
The landlord vanished, and the inspector laughed. "Likes to see what he's
buying, does Mr. Styles," he said.
Hewitt's first impulse was to walk out of the place at once. But his
interest in the case had been roused, and he determined, at any rate, to
examine the rooms, and this he did very minutely. By the side of the lobby
was a bath-room, and in this was fitted a tip-up wash-basin, which Hewitt
inspected with particular attention. Then he called the housekeeper, and
made inquiries about Rameau's clothes and linen. The housekeeper could
give no idea of how many overcoats or how much linen he had had. He had
all a negro's love of display, and was continually buying new clothes,
which, indeed, were lying, hanging, littering, and choking up the bedroom
in all directions. The housekeeper, however, on Hewitt's inquiring after
such a garment in particular, did remember one heavy black ulster, which
Rameau had very rarely worn--only in the coldest weather.
"After the body was discovered," Hewitt asked the housekeeper, "was any
stranger observed about the place--whether carrying anything or not?"
"No, sir," the housekeeper replied. "There's been particular inquiries
about that. Of course, after we knew what was wrong and the body was gone,
nobody was seen, or he'd have been stopped. But the hall-porter says he's
certain no stranger came or went for half an hour or more before that--the
time about when the housemaid saw the body and fainted."
At this moment a clerk from the landlord's office arrived and handed
Nettings a paper. "Here you are," said Nettings to Hewitt; "they've found
a specimen of Goujon's handwriting at last, if you'd like to see it. I
don't want it; I'm not a graphologist, and the case is clear enough for me
anyway."
Hewitt took the paper. "This" he said, "is a different sort of handwriting
from that on the paper. The red-ink note about the avenger of the tortoise
is in a crude, large, clumsy, untaught style of writing. This is small,
neat, and well formed--except that it is a trifle shaky, probably because
of the hand injury."
"That's nothing," contended Nettings. "handwriting clues are worse than
useless, as a rule. It's so easy to disguise and imitate writing; and
besides, if Goujon is such a good penman as you seem to say, why, he could
all the easier alter his style. Say now yourself, can any fiddling
question of handwriting get over this thing about 'avenging the
tortoise'--practically a written confession--to say nothing of the
chopper, and what he said to the housemaid as he left?"
"Well," said Hewitt, "perhaps not; but we'll see. Meantime"--turning to
the landlord's clerk--"possibly you will be good enough to tell me one or
two things. First, what was Goujon's character?"
"Excellent, as far as we know. We never had a complaint about him except
for little matters of carelessness--leaving coal-scuttles on the
staircases for people to fall over, losing shovels, and so on. He was
certainly a bit careless, but, as far as we could see, quite a decent
little fellow. One would never have thought him capable of committing
murder for the sake of a tortoise, though he was rather fond of the
animal."
"The tortoise is dead now, I understand?"
"Yes."
"Have you a lift in this building?"
"Only for coals and heavy parcels. Goujon used to work it, sometimes going
up and down in it himself with coals, and so on; it goes into the
basement."
"And are the coals kept under this building?"
"No. The store for the whole row is under the next two houses--the
basements communicate."
"Do you know Rameau's other name?"
"César Rameau he signed in our agreement."
"Did he ever mention his relations?"
"No. That is to say, he did say something one day when he was very drunk;
but, of course, it was all rot. Some one told him not to make such a
row--he was a beastly tenant--and he said he was the best man in the
place, and his brother was Prime Minister, and all sorts of things. Mere
drunken rant! I never heard of his saying anything sensible about
relations. We know nothing of his connections; he came here on a banker's
reference."
"Thanks. I think that's all I want to ask. You notice," Hewitt proceeded,
turning to Nettings, "the only ink in this place is scented and violet, and
the only paper is tinted and scented, too, with a monogram--characteristic
of a negro with money. The paper that was pinned on Rameau's breast is
in red ink on common and rather grubby paper, therefore it was written
somewhere else and brought here. Inference, premeditation."
"Yes, yes. But are you an inch nearer with all these speculations? Can you
get nearer than I am now without them?"
"Well, perhaps not," Hewitt replied. "I don't profess at this moment to
know the criminal; you do. I'll concede you that point for the present.
But you don't offer an opinion as to who removed Rameau's body--which I
think I know."
"Who was it, then?"
"Come, try and guess that yourself. It wasn't Goujon; I don't mind letting
you know that. But it was a person quite within your knowledge of the
case. You've mentioned the person's name more than once."
Nettings stared blankly. "I don't understand you in the least," he said.
"But, of course, you mean that this mysterious person you speak of as
having moved the body committed the murder?"
"No, I don't. Nobody could have been more innocent of that."
"Well," Nettings concluded with resignation, "I'm afraid one of us is
rather thick-headed. What will you do?"
"Interview the person who took away the body," Hewitt replied, with a
smile.
"But, man alive, why? Why bother about the person if it isn't the
criminal?"
"Never mind--never mind; probably the person will be a most valuable
witness."
"Do you mean you think this person--whoever it is--saw the crime?"
"I think it very probable indeed."
"Well, I won't ask you any more. I shall get hold of Goujon; that's simple
and direct enough for me. I prefer to deal with the heart of the case--the
murder itself--when there's such clear evidence as I have."
"I shall look a little into that, too, perhaps," Hewitt said, "and, if you
like, I'll tell you the first thing I shall do."
"What's that?"
"I shall have a good look at a map of the West Indies, and I advise you to
do the same. Good-morning."
Nettings stared down the corridor after Hewitt, and continued staring for
nearly two minutes after he had disappeared. Then he said to the clerk,
who had remained: "What was he talking about?"
"Don't know," replied the clerk. "Couldn't make head nor tail of it."
"I don't believe there _is_ a head to it," declared Nettings; "nor a tail
either. He's kidding us."
* * * * *