EXPLANATIONS
“The investigation of this case,” Thorndyke began, “falls naturally
into two separate inquiries: that relating to the crime and that which
is concerned with what we may conveniently call the personation. They
make certain contacts, but they are best considered separately. Let us
begin with the crime.
“Now, to a person having experience of real crime, there was, in this
case, from the very beginning, something rather abnormal. A woman of
good social position had disappeared. There was a suggestion that she
had been murdered; and the murder had apparently been committed in
some public place, that is to say, not in a house. But in such cases,
normally, the first evidence of the crime is furnished by the
discovery of the body. It is true that, in this case, there was a
suggestion that the body had been flung into the river, and this, at
first, masked the abnormality to some extent. But even then there was
the discrepancy that the brooch, which was attached to the person,
appeared to have been found on land, while the bag, which was not
attached to the person, was picked up at the water’s edge. The bag
itself, and the box which had been in it, presented several
inconsistencies.
“They had apparently been lying unnoticed for eleven days on a piece
of shore that was crowded with small craft and frequently by numbers
of seamen and labourers, and that formed a play-ground for the
waterside children. The clean state of the box when found showed that
it had neither been handled nor immersed, and as the wrapping-paper
was intact, the person who had taken it out of the bag must have
thrown it away without opening it to see what it contained. The bag
was found under some light rubbish. That rubbish had not been thrown
on it by the water, or the bag would have been soaked; and no one
could have thrown the rubbish on it without seeing the bag, which was
an article of some value. Again, the bag had not been carried to this
place by the water, as was proved by its condition.
“Therefore, either this was the place where the crime had been
committed, or someone had brought the bag to this place and thrown it
away. But neither supposition was reasonably probable. It was
inconceivable that a person like Mrs. Frood should have been in this
remote, inaccessible, disreputable place at such an hour. The bag
could not have been brought here by an innocent person, for no such
person would have thrown it away. It was quite a valuable bag. And a
guilty person would have thrown it in the river, and probably put a
stone in it to sink it. So you see that these first clues were
strikingly abnormal. They prepared one to consider the possibility of
false tracks. Even the brooch incident had a faint suggestion of the
same kind when considered with the other clues. The man who pawned the
brooch had a mole on his nose. Such an adornment can be easily
produced artificially. It is highly distinctive of the person who
possesses it, and it is equally distinctive--negatively--of the person
who does not possess it. Then there was the character of the person
who had disappeared. She was a woman who was seeking to escape from
her husband; and hitherto she had not succeeded because she had not
hidden herself securely enough. She was a person of a somewhat
disappearing tendency. She had an understandable motive for
disappearing.
“From the very beginning, therefore, the possibility of voluntary
disappearance had to be borne in mind. And when it was, each new clue
seemed to support it. There was the scarf, for instance. It was found
under a fish-trunk; an unlikely place for it to have got by chance,
but an excellent one for a ‘plant.’ The scarf was not baldly exposed,
but someone was sure to turn the trunk over and find it. And at this
point another peculiarity began to develop. There was a noticeable
tendency for the successive ‘finds’ to creep up the river from Chatham
towards Rochester Bridge. It was not yet very remarkable, but I
noticed it, as I entered each find on my map. The brooch was
associated with Chatham, the bag and box with the Chatham shore a
little farther up, the scarf with the Rochester shore at Blue Boar
Head. As I say, it attracted my attention; and when the first shoe was
found above Blue Boar Head, the second shoe farther up still, and the
hat-pin yet farther up towards the bridge, it became impossible to
ignore it. There was no natural explanation. Whether the body were
floating or stationary, the constancy of direction was inexplicable;
for the tide sweeps up and down twice daily, and objects detached from
the body would be carried up or down stream, according to the
direction of the tide when they became detached. This regular order
was a most suspicious circumstance. Later, when the objects were found
in Black Boy-lane, it became absurd. It was a mere paper-chase. Just
look at my map.”
He exhibited the large-scale map, on which each “find” was marked by a
small circle. The series of circles, joined by a connecting line,
proceeded directly from near Sun Pier, Chatham, along the shore, and
up Black Boy-lane to the gate of the waste ground, and across it to
the wall.
Angelina giggled. “You can’t say I didn’t make it as easy as I could
for poor old Cobbledick,” she said. “Of course, I never reckoned on
anyone bringing up the heavy guns. By the way, I wonder who your
private client was. Do you know, John?” she added, with a sudden
glance of suspicion; and, as I grinned sheepishly, she exclaimed:
“Well! I wouldn’t have believed it. It was a regular conspiracy. But I
am interrupting the expert. Proceed, my lord.”
“Well,” Thorndyke resumed, “we have considered the aspect of the crime
problem taken by itself, as it appeared to an experienced
investigator. From the first there was a suspicion that the clues were
counterfeit, and with each new clue this suspicion deepened. And you
will notice an important corollary. If the case was a fraud, that
fraud was being worked by someone on the spot. Keep that point in
mind, for it has a most significant bearing on the other problem, that
of the personation, to which we will now turn our attention. But
before we go into details, there are certain general considerations
that we ought to note, in order that we may understand more clearly
how the deception became possible.
“The subject of personation and disguise is often misunderstood. It is
apt to be supposed that a disguise effects a complete transformation
resulting in a complete resemblance to the individual personated--or,
as in this case, a complete disappearance of the identity of the
disguised person. But no such transformation is possible. All disguise
is a form of bluff. It acts by suggestion. And the suggestion is
effected by a set of misleading circumstances which produce in the
dupe a state of mind in which a very imperfect disguise serves to
produce conviction. That is the psychology of personation, and I can
only express my admiration of the way in which Angelina had grasped
it. Her conduct of this delicate deception was really masterly. Let us
consider it in more detail.
“Mr. Bundy was ostensibly a man. But if he had been put in a room with
a dozen moderately intelligent persons, and those persons had been
asked, ‘Is this individual a man? or is he a woman with short hair and
dressed in man’s clothing?’ they would probably have decided
unanimously that he was a woman. But the question never was asked. The
issue was never raised. He was Mr. Bundy. One doesn’t look at young
men to see if they are women in disguise.
“Then consider the position of Strangeways--the chosen victim. He
comes to a strange town to transact business with a firm of land
agents. He goes into the office, and finds the partners--whose names
are on the plate outside, and to whom he has been sent by his London
agent--engaged in their normal avocations. He transacts his business
with them in a normal way, and Mr. Bundy seems to be an ordinary,
capable young man. He goes back later and interviews Mr. Bundy, who is
just on the point of taking him to introduce him to Mrs. Frood, when
he is called away. Then, within a few minutes, he is taken to Mrs.
Frood’s house, where he finds that lady calmly engaged in needlework.
Supposing Mrs. Frood had been extremely like Bundy, could it possibly
have entered Strangeways’s head that they might be one and the same
person? Remember that he had left Bundy in another place only a few
minutes before; and here was Mrs. Frood in her own apartments, with
the appearance of having been there for hours. Obviously no such
thought could have occurred to any man. There was nothing to suggest
it.
“But, in fact, Angelina was not perceptibly like Bundy on cursory
inspection. They were markedly different in size. A woman always looks
bigger than a man of the same height. Bundy was a little man and
looked smaller than he was by reason of his very low heels; Angelina
was a biggish woman and looked taller than she was by reason of her
high heels and her hair. Disregarding her hair, she was fully two
inches taller than Bundy.
“Then the facial resemblance must have been slight. Angelina had a
mass of hair and wore it low down on her brows and temples; Bundy’s
hair was short and was brushed back from his forehead. Angelina had
strong, black eyebrows; Bundy’s eyebrows were thin, or rather, cut off
short. Angelina was pale, careworn, dark under the eyes, with drooping
mouth, melancholy expression and depressed in manner; Bundy was
fresh-coloured, smiling, gay and sprightly in manner and he wore an
eye-glass--which has a surprising effect on facial expression. Their
voices and intonation were strikingly different. Finally, Strangeways
never saw Angelina excepting in a very subdued light in which any
small resemblances in features would be unnoticeable.
“And now observe another effect of suggestion. Strangeways had made
the acquaintance of Mr. Bundy. Then he had made the acquaintance of
Mrs. Frood. They were two separate persons; they were practically
strangers to one another; they belonged to different sets of
surroundings. He would never think of them in connexion with one
another. They were two of his friends, mutually unacquainted. In this
condition of separateness they would become established in his mind,
and the conception of them as different persons would become confirmed
by habit. It would be a permanent suggestion that would offer an
obstacle to any future suggestion that they were the same. That was
the advantage of introducing Bundy first, for if he had appeared only
after Angelina had disappeared, there would have been no such opposing
suggestion. The resemblances might have been noticed, and he might
have been detected.
“In passing I may remark upon the tact and judgment that were shown in
the disguise. The troublesome make-up, the wig, the false eyebrows,
the grease-paint, the false voice, all were concentrated on the
temporary Mrs. Frood, who was to disappear. Bundy was not disguised at
all, excepting for the eye-glass. He was simply Angelina with her hair
cut short and dressed as a man. He hadn’t even an assumed voice; for
as Angelina is a contralto, and habitually speaks in the lower
register, her voice would pass quite well as a light tenor, so long as
she kept off the ‘head notes.’
“So much for the general aspects of the case. And now as to my own
position. As I had never seen Angelina, I naturally should not
perceive any resemblance to her in Bundy; but, equally with
Strangeways, I was subject to the suggestion that Bundy was a man. The
personal equation, however, was different. It is my professional habit
to reject all mental suggestion so far as is possible; to sift out the
facts and consider them with an open mind regardless of what they
appear to suggest. And then you are to remember that when I first met
Mr. Bundy, there was already in my mind a faint suspicion that this
was not a genuine crime; that things were not quite what they
appeared; and that if this were the case, the clues were being
manipulated by somebody on the spot.
“When I met Mr. Bundy, I looked him over as I look over every person
whom I meet for the first time; and that inspection yielded one or two
rather remarkable facts. I noticed that he wore exceptionally low
heels and that he had several physical characteristics that were
distinctively feminine. The very low heels puzzled me somewhat. If
they had been exceptionally high there would have been nothing in it.
But why should a noticeably short man wear almost abnormally low
heels? I could think of no reason, unless he wore them for greater
comfort, but I noted the fact and reserved it for further
consideration.
“Of his physical peculiarities, the first that attracted my attention
was the shape of his hands. They were quite of the feminine type. Of
course, hands vary, but still it was a fact to be noted, and the
observation caused me to look him over a little more critically; and
then I discovered a number of other feminine characteristics.
“Perhaps it may be useful to consider briefly the less obvious
differences between the sexes--the more obvious ones would, of course,
be provided for by the disguise. There are two principal groups of
such differences; the one has reference to the distribution of bulk,
the other to the direction of certain lines. Let us take the
distribution of bulk. This exhibits opposite tendencies in the two
sexes. In the female, the great mass is central--the hip region; and
from this the form diminishes in both directions. The whole figure,
including the arms, is contained in an elongated ellipse. And the
tendency affects the individual members. The limbs are bulky where
they join the trunk, they taper pretty regularly towards the
extremities, and they terminate in relatively small hands and feet.
The hands themselves taper as a whole, and the individual fingers
taper markedly from a comparatively thick base to a pointed tip.
“In the male figure the opposite condition prevails; it tends to be
acromegalous. The central mass is relatively small, the peripheral
masses is relatively large. The hip region is narrow, and there is a
great widening towards the shoulders. The limbs taper much less
towards the extremities, and they terminate in relatively large hands
and feet. So, too, with the hands; they tend to be square in shape,
and the individual fingers--excepting the index finger--are nearly as
broad at the tips as at the base.
“Of the second group of differences we need consider only one or two
instances. The general rule is that certain contour lines tend in the
male to be vertical or horizontal in direction and in the female to be
oblique. A man’s neck, at the back, is nearly straight and vertical; a
woman’s shows a sweeping oblique curve. The angle of a man’s lower jaw
is nearly a right angle; there is a vertical and a horizontal ramus. A
woman’s lower jaw has an open angle and its contour forms an oblique
line from the ear to the chin. But the most distinctive difference is
in the ear itself. A man’s ear has its long diameter vertical; a
woman’s has the long diameter oblique; and the obliquity is usually
very marked.
“Bearing these differences in mind, and remembering that they are
subject to variation in individual cases, let us now return to Mr.
Bundy. His hands, as I have said, had the feminine character. His feet
were small even for a small man; his ears were set obliquely and the
line of his jaw was oblique with an open angle. His shoulders had
evidently been made up by the tailor, and he seemed rather wide across
the hips for a man. In short, all those bodily characteristics which
were not concealed or disguised by the clothing were feminine. It was
a rather remarkable fact; so much so that I began to ask myself if it
were possible that he might actually be a woman in disguise.
“I watched him narrowly. There was nothing distinctive in his walk,
but there was in the movements of the arms. He flourished his stick
jauntily enough, but he had not that ‘nice conduct of a clouded cane’
that is as much a social cachet in our day as it was in the days of
good Queen Anne. It needs a skill born of years of practice to manage
a stick properly, as one realizes when one sees the working man taking
his Malacca for its Sunday morning walk. Mr. Bundy had not that skill.
His stick was a thing consciously carried; it was not a part of
himself. Then the movement of the free arm was feminine. When a woman
swings her arm she swings it through a large arc, especially in the
backward direction--probably to avoid her hip--and the palm of the
hand tends to be turned backward. A man’s free arm either hangs
motionless or swings slightly, unless he is walking very fast; it
swings principally forward, and the palm of his hand inclines inwards.
These are small matters, but their cumulative significance is great.
“Further, there was the mental habit. Bundy was jocose and playfully
ironic. But a gentleman of twenty-five doesn’t ‘pull the leg’ of a
gentleman of fifty whom he knows but slightly; whereas a lady of
twenty-five does. And very properly,” he added, seeing that Angelina
had turned rather pink. “That is a compliment in a young lady which
would be an impertinence in a young man. No doubt, when the equality
of the sexes is an accomplished fact, things will be different.”
“It will never be an accomplished fact,” said Angelina. “The equality
of the sexes is like the equality of the classes. The people who roar
for social equality are the under-dogs; and the women who shout for
sex equality are the under-cats. Normal women are satisfied with
things as they are.”
“Hearken unto the wisdom of Angelina,” said Thorndyke, with a smile.
“But perhaps she is right. It may be that the women who are so eager
to compete with men are those who can’t compete with women. I can’t
say. I have never been a woman: whereas Angelina has the advantage of
being able to view the question from both sides.
“The _prima facie_ evidence, then, suggested that Mr. Bundy was a
woman. But as this was a _prima facie_ improbability, the matter had
to be gone into further. On Mr. Bundy’s cheeks and chin was a faint
blue colouration, suggestive of such a growth of whiskers and beard as
would be appropriate to his age. Now if those whiskers and that beard
were genuine, the other signs were fallacious. Mr. Bundy must be a
man. But his cheeks looked perfectly smooth and clean; and it was
about seven o’clock in the evening. My own cheeks and Strangeways’
were by this time visibly prickly; and as he had been with us all day,
Mr. Bundy could not have shaved since the morning. I tried vainly to
get a closer view, and was considering how it could be managed when
Providence intervened.”
“I know,” said Angelina. “It was that beastly mosquito.”
“Yes,” agreed Thorndyke. “But even then I could not get a chance to
look at the skin closely. But when we got Mr. Bundy into the surgery,
and examined the bite through a lens, the murder was out.”
“You could see there were no whiskers?” said Angelina.
“It wasn’t that,” replied Thorndyke. “It was something much more
conclusive. You may know that the whole of the human body excepting
the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, and the eyelids, is
covered with a fine down, technically called the lanugo. It consists
of minute, nearly colourless hairs set quite closely together, and may
be seen as a sort of halo on the face of a woman or child when the
edge of the contour is against the light. On the face of a
clean-shaved man it is, of course, absent, as it is shaved off with
the whiskers. Now on Mr. Bundy’s face the lanugo was intact all over
the blue area. It followed that he had never been shaved. It further
followed that the blue colouration was an artificial stain. But this
made it practically a certainty that Mr. Bundy was a woman.
“The question now was: If Mr. Bundy was a woman, what woman was he?
The obvious answer seemed to be, Angelina Frood. She was missing; but
if the disappearance was an imposture, someone on the spot was
planting the clues. That someone would most probably be Mrs. Frood,
herself. But if she were lurking in the neighbourhood, she must be
disguised; and here was a disguised woman. Nevertheless, obvious as
the suggestion was, the thing suggested seemed to be impossible.
Strangeways knew both Angelina and Bundy and he had not recognized the
latter; and I had a vague impression that he had seen them together,
which, of course, would absolutely exclude their identity. A little
judicious conversation with him, however, showed that neither
objection had any weight. He had never seen them both at one time; and
his description of Mrs. Frood made it clear that she had appeared to
him totally unlike Bundy.
“The next thing was to ascertain definitely if this woman really was
Mrs. Frood, and fortunately I had the means of making a very simple
test. Strangeways had given me a photograph of Angelina bearing the
address of a theatrical photographer, and from him I obtained seven
different photographs in various poses. Then I received from
Strangeways the group-photograph that was taken of us by the city
wall, which contained an excellent portrait of Mr. Bundy. Out of this
photograph I cut a small square containing Bundy’s head, soaked it in
oil of bergamot, and mounted it in Canada balsam on a glass plate.
This made the paper quite transparent, so I now had a transparent
positive. I selected from the photographs of Angelina one that was in
a pose exactly similar to the portrait of Bundy--practically full
face--and treated it in the same way. Then I handed the two
transparencies to my assistant, and he, by means of our big copying
camera, produced two life-sized negatives, exactly alike in
dimensions. With prints from these negatives we were able to perform
some experiments. From Angelina’s portrait I carefully cut out the
face, leaving the hair and neck, and slipped Bundy’s portrait behind
it, so that his face appeared through the hole. We could now see how
Bundy looked with Angelina’s hair, and, on putting it beside an
untouched portrait of Angelina, it was obvious, in spite of the
eye-glass, that it was the same face. For you must remember that the
Angelina that we had was the real person, not the made-up Angelina
whom Strangeways had seen.
“This success encouraged us to take a little more trouble. My man,
Polton, made some black paper masks, with the aid of which he produced
two composite photographs, one of which had Bundy’s face and
Angelina’s hair, neck, and bust, while the other had Angelina’s face
and Bundy’s hair, forehead, neck, and bust. The eye-glass was the
disturbing factor, though it showed very little, and Bundy managed it
so skilfully that it hardly affected the shape of the eye and the set
of the brow. Still, it was necessary to eliminate it, and as painting
was out of our province, we invoked the aid of Mrs. Anstey, who is a
very talented portrait painter and miniaturist. She touched out the
joins in the composites, painted out the eye-glass in the one and
painted an eye-glass into the other. And now the identity was
complete. The Bundy-Angelina portrait was identical with the
photographer’s portrait, and the Angelina-Bundy photograph was Mr.
Bundy to the life.
“However, we made a final test. Polton reduced the Bundy-Angelina
portrait to cabinet size, and made a couple of carbon prints, which I
brought down here and exhibited; and as Strangeways accepted them as
portraits of Angelina, I considered the proof complete.”
Here Angelina interrupted: “But what about that brooch? I never had a
brooch like that.”
Thorndyke smiled a grim smile. “I asked Mrs. Anstey to paint in a
brooch of a characteristic design.”
“What for?” asked Angelina.
“Ah!” said Thorndyke, “thereby hangs a tale.”
“Oh! a serpent’s tail, I suppose,” said Angelina.
“You will be able to judge presently,” he replied. “The brooch had its
uses. Well, to continue: The identity of Mr. Bundy was now established
as a moral certainty. But it was not certain enough for legal
purposes. I wanted conclusive evidence; and I wanted to ascertain
exactly how the transformation effects were worked. I had noted that
Bundy and Angelina occupied adjoining houses which were virtually the
two moieties of a double house with a common covered passageway. I
assumed that the two houses communicated, but it was necessary to
ascertain if they really did. The only way to establish the facts was
to inspect the house in which Angelina had lived, and this I
determined to do, in the very faint hope that I might be able, at the
same time, to get one or more of Angelina’s finger-prints. I made a
pretext for visiting the house with Strangeways, and we had the
extraordinary good luck to find Mrs. Gillow just going out, so we had
the house to ourselves. But this was not the only piece of luck, for
we found that Angelina had taken a drink from the bedroom tumbler and
water-bottle before going out, and had left on them a complete set of
beautiful finger-prints, of which I secured a number of admirable
photographs.
“Examination of the basement showed that I was right as to the
communication. Both houses had a side door opening into the
passage-way, and both doors were fitted with Yale latches which looked
as if they were opened with the same key. The passage was little used,
but the gravel between the two doors was a good deal trodden, and
there were numerous finger-prints on Angelina’s side-door. In the
kitchen was a large cupboard fitted with a Yale lock on the door and
pegs inside. I assumed that when Angelina was at home that cupboard
contained a suit of Mr. Bundy’s clothes, and that when Mr. Bundy was
in the office it contained a wig and a dress and a pair of lady’s
shoes.
“Well, that made the evidence fairly complete with one exception. We
had to get a set of Bundy’s finger-prints to compare with Angelina’s.
That was where the brooch came in. I knew that when Mr. Bundy saw a
portrait of his former self with a brooch that he had never possessed,
his curiosity would be aroused, and he would examine that portrait
closely. And so he did. And on my asking him to compare the two
prints, he took the opportunity to pick them both up, one in each
hand, to scrutinize them more minutely, and find out who the
photographer was. When he put them down, they bore a complete, though
invisible, set of his finger-prints. Later, Mr. Bundy went home,
escorted by Strangeways. As soon as they were gone, I took the
photographs up to my room, developed up the finger-prints with powder,
and compared them minutely, line by line, with the photographs of
those on the tumbler and bottle. They were identical. The
finger-prints of Bundy were the finger-prints of Angelina Frood.
“That completed the case; and if I had known what Angelina’s
intentions were I should have notified Bundy that ‘the game was up.’
But I was in the dark. I could do nothing until I knew whether she was
going to produce a body, and if so, whose body it would be. The city
wall was in my mind as a possibility, since I had noted the curious
disappearance of the gate-key on that significant date and I had heard
of the story of Bill the bargee and knew that Bundy had heard it, and
apparently taken it seriously. But one can’t act on conjecture. I
could only watch Angelina play her game and try to follow the moves.
When the paper-chase turned up Black Boy-lane, I knew that the
wall-burial was intended to be discovered. But I didn’t know what was
in the wall, and I may say that I was rather alarmed. For if Angelina
had taken the story of Bill as a reliable precedent and had buried a
real body in quicklime, there was going to be a catastrophe. It was an
immense relief to me when I got Strangeways’ report that only a
skeleton had been found; for I knew then that only a skeleton had been
buried and that no crime had been committed. That is all I have to
tell; and now it is Angelina’s turn to enter the confessional.”
“You haven’t left me much to tell,” said Angelina. “I feel as if I had
been doing the thimble and pea trick with glass thimbles. However, I
will fill in a few details. This scheme first occurred to me when I
came down here to take over the property that had been left to me. I
put it confidentially to Uncle Japp, but he was so shocked that he has
never been able to get his hair to lie down since. He wouldn’t hear of
it. So I asked him to lunch with poor Nicholas; and after that he was
ready to agree to anything. Accordingly I made my preparations. I got
a theatrical wig-maker to cut off my hair and make it into a wig (I
told him I had a man’s part and it was expected to be a long run), got
a suit made by a theatrical costumier, and down I came as Mr. Bundy.
Uncle J. had already had the new plate put up. The next door offices
and basement were empty, so we got them furnished for Angelina, and as
soon as the wig was ready, down she came and took possession.
“Up to this time the third act was a bit sketchy. I had arranged the
disappearance, and the recovery of the clues from the river, and I had
a plan of buying a mummy, dressing it in my clothes, and burying it in
the marshes close to the shore, where I could discover it when it had
matured sufficiently. But I didn’t much like the plan. I didn’t know
enough about mummies, and some other people might know too much. It
looked as if I should have to do without a body, and leave my death to
mere rumour; which would be unsatisfactory. I did want a tombstone.
“About this time an angel of the name of Turcival--he lives in Adam
and Eve-street, Adelphi, bless him!--sent a Dr. Strangeways down here.
He was a regular windfall--a new doctor--and I gave him my entire
attention. I took him to his own proposed premises, and kept him in
conversation, to let my personality soak well in. That evening I
interviewed him in the office, and let him suppose that I was going to
take him to Mrs. Frood’s house and introduce him to her. Then, when I
suddenly remembered an engagement elsewhere, I went out, and as soon
as the office door was shut, down I darted into our basement, out at
the side door, in at the other side door, and into Mrs. Frood’s
kitchen. There I did a lightning change; slipped on my dress and wig,
stuck on my eyebrows, and made up my complexion; flew up the stairs,
lighted the lamp in the sitting-room, and spread myself out with my
needle-work. But I hadn’t been settled more than two or three minutes
when Uncle Japp arrived, leading the lamb to the slaughter.
“Then it turned out that I had struck a bit of luck that I hadn’t
bargained for. John had attended me in London and knew something of my
affairs; so I appointed him my physician in ordinary on the spot. It
was rare sport. The concern poor old John showed for my grease-paint
was quite touching. I sat there squeaking complaints to him and
receiving his sympathy until I was ready to screech with laughter. But
I felt rather a pig all the same, for John was so sweet, and he was
such a man and such a gentleman. However, I had to go on when once I
had begun.
“But it was a troublesome business, worse than any stage job I ever
had, to keep these two people going. I had to rush through from the
office into the kitchen and cook things that I didn’t want, just to
make a noise and a smell of cooking, and listen to Mrs. Gillow so that
I could pop up the stairs at the psychological moment and remind her
that I lived there; and then to fly down and change and dart through
into the office, so that people could see that I was occupied there.
It was frightfully hard work, and anxious, too. I can tell you, it was
a relief when I heard from Miss Cumbers that Nicholas was starting for
Brighton, and that I could disappear without implicating him. However,
there is no need for me to go into any more details. Your imaginations
can fill those in.”
“The man with the mole, I take it,” said Thorndyke, “was----”
“Yes. I got a suit of slops in the Minories. The mole, of course, was
built up, with toupee-paste.”
“By the way,” said Thorndyke, “was there any necessity for Bundy at
all?”
“Well, I had to be somebody, you know, and I had to stay on the spot
to work the clues and keep an eye on the developments. I couldn’t be a
woman because that would have required a heavy make-up that would
almost certainly have been spotted, and would have been an intolerable
bore; whereas Bundy, as you have pointed out, was not a disguise at
all. When once I had got my hair cut and had provided myself with the
clothes and eye-glass, there was no further trouble. I could have
lived comfortably as Bundy for the rest of my life.
“So that is my story,” Angelina concluded; “and,” she added, with a
sudden change of manner, “I am your grateful debtor for ever. You have
done far more for me even than you know. Only this morning, poor Peter
Bundy was a forlorn little wretch, miserably anxious about the present
and looking to a future that had nothing but empty freedom to offer.
And now I am the happiest of women--for I should be a hypocrite if I
pretended to have any regrets for poor Nicholas. I will say good-bye
to him in his coffin and give him a decent funeral, and try to think
of him as he was before he sank into the depths. But I am frankly glad
that he is gone; out of his own miserable life and out of mine. And
his going, which would never have been known but for the wisdom of the
benevolent serpent, has left me free, with a promise of a happiness
that even he does not guess.”
“I am not so sure of that,” said Thorndyke, with a sly smile.
“Well, neither am I, now you come to mention it,” said she, smiling at
him in return. “He is an inquiring and observant serpent, with a way
of nosing out all sorts of things that he is not supposed to be aware
of. And after all, perhaps he has a right to know. It is proper that
the giver should have the satisfaction of realizing the preciousness
of that which he has given.”
Here endeth the Mystery of Angelina Frood. And yet it is not quite the
end. Indeed, the end is not yet; for the blessed consequences still
continue to develop like the growth of a fair tree. The story has
dwindled to a legend whose harmless whispers call but a mischievous
smile to that face that, like the dial in our garden, acknowledges
only the sunshine. Mrs. Dunk, it is true, still wages public war, but
it is tempered by private adoration; and almost daily baskets of
flowers, and even tomatoes and summer cabbages, arrive at our house,
accompanied by the beaming smile and portly person of Inspector
Cobbledick.
[The End]
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ footfalls/foot-falls,
north-east/southwest, quicklime/quick-lime/quick lime, etc.) have
been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Abandon the use of drop-caps.
Adjust some quotation mark pairings and nestings.
Capitalize five instances of _doctor_ when used in direct addresses.
[Chapter II]
“threw a fresh light, if any were needed on the sinister events” add
comma after _needed_.
[Chapter III]
Change (“By _jove_!” he exclaimed, “I’m afraid I can’t.) to _Jove_.
[Chapter IV]
“and he began to chant in an _absurb_, Punch-like voice” to _absurd_.
[Chapter V]
“he had taken temporary charge of my uncle’s _practise_” to
_practice_.
[Chapter VIII]
“throw at least a glimmer of light on _his_ dreadful and baffling
mystery” to _this_.
[Chapter IX]
“We followed him, picking our way _daintly_, and, having” to
_daintily_.
[Chapter X]
(“that it seems perfectly _conceivable_ that Mrs. Frood could have”)
to _inconceivable_.
(“Don’t rub it.” said Thorndyke, as Bundy clapped his hand) change
the period to a comma.
[Chapter XI]
“The _sergant_ turned away with a sort of benevolent contempt” to
_sergeant_.
[Chapter XIII]
(“Yes, it _seem_ undeniable,” I answered.) to _seems_.
[Chapter XIV]
(“Let me see,” said _Thondyke_. “Isn’t that the lane that) to
_Thorndyke_.
[Chapter XVI]
“replied Polton, with a smile of _ladyrinthine_ wrinkliness” to
_labyrinthine_.
“It is a dreadful thought?” change question mark to an exclamation
mark.
[Chapter XVII]
“after a few _moment’s_ reflection with knitted brows, he stated” to
_moments’_.
[End of text]