VII.
THE AFFAIR OF THE TORTOISE.
Very often Hewitt was tempted, by the fascination of some particularly oddcase, to neglect his other affairs to follow up a matter that from abusiness point of view was of little or no value to him. As a rule, he hada sufficient regard for his own interests to resist such temptations, butin one curious case, at least, I believe he allowed it largely toinfluence him. It was certainly an extremely odd case--one of thoseaffairs that, coming to light at intervals, but more often remainingunheard of by the general public, convince one that, after all, there isvery little extravagance about Mr. R.L. Stevenson's bizarre imaginings ofdoings in London in his "New Arabian Nights." "There is nothing in thisworld that is at all possible," I have often heard Martin Hewitt say,"that has not happened or is not happening in London." Certainly he hadopportunities of knowing.
The case I have referred to occurred some time before my own acquaintancewith him began--in 1878, in fact. He had called one Monday morning at anoffice in regard to something connected with one of those uninteresting,though often difficult, cases which formed, perhaps, the bulk of hispractice, when he was informed of a most mysterious murder that had takenplace in another part of the same building on the previous Saturdayafternoon. Owing to the circumstances of the case, only the vaguestaccount 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 theNational Gallery. The whole row had been built by a speculator for thepurpose of letting out in flats, suites of chambers, and in one or twocases, on the ground floors, offices. The rooms had let very well, and todesirable tenants, as a rule. The least satisfactory tenant, theproprietor reluctantly admitted, was a Mr. Rameau, a negro gentleman,single, who had three rooms on the top floor but one of the particularbuilding that Hewitt was visiting. His rent was paid regularly, but hisbehavior had produced complaints from other tenants. He got uproariouslydrunk, and screamed and howled in unknown tongues. He fell asleep on thestaircase, and ladies were afraid to pass. He bawled rough chaff down thestairs and along the corridors at butcher-boys and messengers, and playedon errand-boys brutal practical jokes that ended in police-courtsummonses. 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 thebalusters had been built for different treatment, he had very soon andvery firmly been requested to stop it. He had plenty of money, and spentit freely; but it was generally felt that there was too much of thelight-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'sinformant said, was a matter of conjecture, for on the Saturday afternoonin question the tenancy had come to a startling full-stop. Rameau had beenmurdered 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 inshoveling and carrying coals, cleaning windows, and chopping wood forseveral of the buildings, and who had left that very Saturday. The crimehad, in fact, been committed with this man's chopper, and the man himselfhad been heard, again and again, to threaten Rameau, who, in his brutalfashion, had made a butt of him. This man was a Frenchman, Victor Goujonby name, who had lost his employment as a watchmaker by reason of aninjury to his right hand, which destroyed its steadiness, and so he hadfallen 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 tomadness. Rameau would often, after some more than ordinarily outrageousattack, contemptuously fling Goujon a shilling, which the littleFrenchman, although wanting a shilling badly enough, would hurl back inhis face, almost weeping with impotent rage. "Pig! _Canaille_!" he wouldscream. "Dirty pig of Africa! Take your sheelin' to vere you 'ave stoleit! _Voleur_! Pig!"
There was a tortoise living in the basement, of which Goujon had maderather 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 thetortoise struck the wall so forcibly as to break its shell, and thenGoujon seized a shovel and rushed at his tormentor with such blind furythat the latter made a bolt of it. These were but a few of the passagesbetween Rameau and the fuel-porter, but they illustrate the state offeeling between them.
Goujon, after correspondence with a relative in France who offered himwork, gave notice to leave, which expired on the day of the crime. Atabout three that afternoon a housemaid, proceeding toward Rameau's rooms,met Goujon as he was going away. Goujon bade her good-by, and, pointing inthe direction of Rameau's rooms, said exultantly: "Dere shall be no moreof 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 noreply. 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 lobbyand into the sitting-room, and there fell in a dead faint at the sightthat met her eyes. Rameau lay with his back across the sofa and hishead--drooping within an inch of the ground. On the head was a fearfulgash, and below it was a pool of blood.
The girl must have lain unconscious for about ten minutes. When she cameto her senses, she dragged herself, terrified, from the room and up to thehousekeeper's apartments, where, being an excitable and nervous creature,she only screamed "Murder!" and immediately fell in a fit of hystericsthat 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'srooms were again approached.
The blood still lay on the floor, and the chopper, with which the crimehad evidently been committed, rested against the fender; but the body hadvanished! A search was at once made, but no trace of it could be seenanywhere. It seemed impossible that it could have been carried out of thebuilding, for the hall-porter must at once have noticed anybody leavingwith 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, ofcourse, still in possession of Rameau's rooms. Inspector Nettings, Hewittwas told, was in charge of the case, and as the inspector was anacquaintance of his, and was then in the rooms upstairs, Hewitt went up tosee him.
Nettings was pleased to see Hewitt, and invited him to look around therooms. "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, wefound this piece of paper and pin on the floor. We showed it to thehousemaid, and then she remembered--she was too much upset to think of itbefore--that when she was in the room the paper was laying on the deadman's chest--pinned there, evidently. It must have dropped off when theyremoved 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 sentencein 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. "'Punishedby an avenger of the tortoise,' That seems odd."
"Well, rather odd. But you understand the reference, of course. Have theytold you about Rameau's treatment of Goujon's pet tortoise?"
"I think it was mentioned among his other pranks. But this is an extremerevenge 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," Nettingsanswered. "Anyway, this is a plain indication--plain as though he'd lefthis own signature. Besides, it's in his own language--French. And there'shis chopper, too."
"Speaking of signatures," Hewitt remarked, "perhaps you have alreadycompared 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 aboutthat. 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, whotwitched his eyebrows as he spoke, and spoke in short, jerky phrases.
"No news, eh, inspector, eh? eh? Found out nothing else, eh? Terriblething for my property--terrible! Who's your friend?"
Nettings introduced Hewitt.
"Shocking thing this, eh, Mr. Hewitt? Terrible! Comes of having anythingto do with these blood-thirsty foreigners, eh? New buildings andall--character ruined. No one come to live here now, eh? Tenants--noisyniggers--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 yourown?" 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 forthe police. Mischief's done. Police doing very well, I think--must beGoujon. But look about the place, certainly, if you like. If you seeanything likely to serve _my_ interests, tell me, and--and--perhaps I'llemploy you, eh, eh? Good-afternoon."
The landlord vanished, and the inspector laughed. "Likes to see what he'sbuying, does Mr. Styles," he said.
Hewitt's first impulse was to walk out of the place at once. But hisinterest in the case had been roused, and he determined, at any rate, toexamine the rooms, and this he did very minutely. By the side of the lobbywas a bath-room, and in this was fitted a tip-up wash-basin, which Hewittinspected with particular attention. Then he called the housekeeper, andmade inquiries about Rameau's clothes and linen. The housekeeper couldgive no idea of how many overcoats or how much linen he had had. He hadall a negro's love of display, and was continually buying new clothes,which, indeed, were lying, hanging, littering, and choking up the bedroomin all directions. The housekeeper, however, on Hewitt's inquiring aftersuch a garment in particular, did remember one heavy black ulster, whichRameau had very rarely worn--only in the coldest weather.
"After the body was discovered," Hewitt asked the housekeeper, "was anystranger observed about the place--whether carrying anything or not?"
"No, sir," the housekeeper replied. "There's been particular inquiriesabout 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'scertain no stranger came or went for half an hour or more before that--thetime about when the housemaid saw the body and fainted."
At this moment a clerk from the landlord's office arrived and handedNettings a paper. "Here you are," said Nettings to Hewitt; "they've founda specimen of Goujon's handwriting at last, if you'd like to see it. Idon't want it; I'm not a graphologist, and the case is clear enough for meanyway."
Hewitt took the paper. "This" he said, "is a different sort of handwritingfrom that on the paper. The red-ink note about the avenger of the tortoiseis in a crude, large, clumsy, untaught style of writing. This is small,neat, and well formed--except that it is a trifle shaky, probably becauseof the hand injury."
"That's nothing," contended Nettings. "handwriting clues are worse thanuseless, as a rule. It's so easy to disguise and imitate writing; andbesides, if Goujon is such a good penman as you seem to say, why, he couldall the easier alter his style. Say now yourself, can any fiddlingquestion of handwriting get over this thing about 'avenging thetortoise'--practically a written confession--to say nothing of thechopper, and what he said to the housemaid as he left?"
"Well," said Hewitt, "perhaps not; but we'll see. Meantime"--turning tothe landlord's clerk--"possibly you will be good enough to tell me one ortwo things. First, what was Goujon's character?"
"Excellent, as far as we know. We never had a complaint about him exceptfor little matters of carelessness--leaving coal-scuttles on thestaircases for people to fall over, losing shovels, and so on. He wascertainly a bit careless, but, as far as we could see, quite a decentlittle fellow. One would never have thought him capable of committingmurder for the sake of a tortoise, though he was rather fond of theanimal."
"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 goingup and down in it himself with coals, and so on; it goes into thebasement."
"And are the coals kept under this building?"
"No. The store for the whole row is under the next two houses--thebasements communicate."
"Do you know Rameau's other name?"
"Cesar 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 arow--he was a beastly tenant--and he said he was the best man in theplace, and his brother was Prime Minister, and all sorts of things. Meredrunken rant! I never heard of his saying anything sensible aboutrelations. We know nothing of his connections; he came here on a banker'sreference."
"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, andthe only paper is tinted and scented, too, with a monogram--characteristicof a negro with money. The paper that was pinned on Rameau's breast isin red ink on common and rather grubby paper, therefore it was writtensomewhere else and brought here. Inference, premeditation."
"Yes, yes. But are you an inch nearer with all these speculations? Can youget nearer than I am now without them?"
"Well, perhaps not," Hewitt replied. "I don't profess at this moment toknow 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 Ithink I know."
"Who was it, then?"
"Come, try and guess that yourself. It wasn't Goujon; I don't mind lettingyou know that. But it was a person quite within your knowledge of thecase. 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 ashaving 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 israther thick-headed. What will you do?"
"Interview the person who took away the body," Hewitt replied, with asmile.
"But, man alive, why? Why bother about the person if it isn't thecriminal?"
"Never mind--never mind; probably the person will be a most valuablewitness."
"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 simpleand direct enough for me. I prefer to deal with the heart of the case--themurder itself--when there's such clear evidence as I have."
"I shall look a little into that, too, perhaps," Hewitt said, "and, if youlike, 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 todo the same. Good-morning."
Nettings stared down the corridor after Hewitt, and continued staring fornearly 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 taileither. He's kidding us."
* * * * *
Nettings was better than his word, for within two hours of hisconversation with Hewitt, Goujon was captured and safe in a cab bound forBow Street. He had been stopped at Newhaven in the morning on his way toDieppe, and was brought back to London. But now Nettings met a check.
Late that afternoon he called on Hewitt to explain matters. "We've gotGoujon," he said, gloomily, "but there's a difficulty. He's got twofriends who can swear an _alibi_. Rameau was seen alive at half-past oneon Saturday, and the girl found him dead about three. Now, Goujon's twofriends, it seems, were with him from one o'clock till four in theafternoon, with the exception of five minutes when the girl saw him, andthen he left them to take a key or something to the housekeeper beforefinally leaving. They were waiting on the landing below when Goujon spoketo the housemaid, heard him speaking, and had seen him go all the way upto the housekeeper's room and back, as they looked up the wide well of thestaircase. They are men employed near the place, and seem to have goodcharacters. But perhaps we shall find something unfavorable about them.They were drinking with Goujon, it seems, by way of 'seeing him off.'"
"Well," Hewitt said, "I scarcely think you need trouble to damage thesemen's characters. They are probably telling the truth. Come, now, beplain. You've come here to get a hint as to whether my theory of the casehelps you, haven't you?"
"Well, if you can give me a friendly hint, although, of course, I may beright, after all. Still, I wish you'd explain a bit as to what you meantby looking at a map and all that mystery. Nice thing for me to be taking alesson in my own business after all these years! But perhaps I deserveit."
"See, now," quoth Hewitt, "you remember what map I told you to look at?"
"The West Indies."
"Right! Well, here you are." Hewitt reached an atlas from his book-shelf."Now, look here: the biggest island of the lot on this map, barring Cuba,is Hayti. You know as well as I do that the western part of that island ispeopled by the black republic of Hayti, and that the country is in adegenerate state of almost unexampled savagery, with a ridiculous show ofcivilization. There are revolutions all the time; the South Americanrepublics are peaceful and prosperous compared to Hayti. The state of thecountry is simply awful--read Sir Spenser St. John's book on it. Presidentafter president of the vilest sort forces his way to power and commits themost horrible and bloodthirsty excesses, murdering his opponents by thehundred and seizing their property for himself and his satellites, who areusually as bad, if not worse, than the president himself. Wholefamilies--men, women, and children--are murdered at the instance of theseruffians, and, as a consequence, the most deadly feuds spring up, and thepresidents and their followers are always themselves in danger ofreprisals from others. Perhaps the very worst of these presidents inrecent times has been the notorious Domingue, who was overthrown by aninsurrection, as they all are sooner or later, and compelled to fly thecountry. Domingue and his nephews, one of whom was Chief Minister, whilein power committed the cruellest bloodshed, and many members of theopposite party sought refuge in a small island lying just to the north ofHayti, but were sought out there and almost exterminated. Now, I will showyou that island on the map. What is its name?"
"Tortuga."
"It is. 'Tortuga,' however, is only the old Spanish name; the Haytiansspeak French--Creole French. Here is a French atlas: now see the name ofthat island."
"La Tortue!"
"La Tortue it is--the tortoise. Tortuga means the same thing in Spanish.But that island is always spoken of in Hayti as La Tortue. Now, do you seethe drift of that paper pinned to Rameau's breast?"
"Punished by an avenger of--or from--the tortoise or La Tortue--clearenough. It would seem that the dead man had something to do with themassacre there, and somebody from the island is avenging it. The thing'smost extraordinary."
"And now listen. The name of Domingue's nephew, who was Chief Minister,was _Septimus Rameau_."
"And this was Cesar Rameau--his brother, probably. I see. Well, this _is_a case."
"I think the relationship probable. Now you understand why I was inclinedto doubt that Goujon was the man you wanted."
"Of course, of course! And now I suppose I must try to get a nigger--thechap who wrote that paper. I wish he hadn't been such an ignorant nigger.If he'd only have put the capitals to the words 'La Tortue,' I might havethought a little more about them, instead of taking it for granted thatthey meant that wretched tortoise in the basement of the house. Well, I'vemade a fool of a start, but I'll be after that nigger now."
"And I, as I said before," said Hewitt, "shall be after the person thatcarried off Rameau's body. I have had something else to do this afternoon,or I should have begun already."
"You said you thought he saw the crime. How did you judge that?"
Hewitt smiled. "I think I'll keep that little secret to myself for thepresent," he said. "You shall know soon."
"Very well," Nettings replied, with resignation. "I suppose I mustn'tgrumble if you don't tell me everything. I feel too great a foolaltogether over this case to see any farther than you show me." AndInspector Nettings left on his search; while Martin Hewitt, as soon as hewas alone, laughed joyously and slapped his thigh.
* * * * *
There was a cab-rank and shelter at the end of the street where Mr.Styles' building stood, and early that evening a man approached it andhailed the cabmen and the waterman. Any one would have known the new-comerat once for a cabman taking a holiday. The brim of the hat, the bird's-eyeneckerchief, the immense coat-buttons, and, more than all, the rollingwalk and the wrinkled trousers, marked him out distinctly.
"Watcheer!" he exclaimed, affably, with the self-possessed nod onlypossible to cabbies and 'busmen. "I'm a-lookin' for a bilker. I'm told oneo' the blokes off this rank carried 'im last Saturday, and I want to knowwhere he went. I ain't 'ad a chance o' gettin' 'is address yet. Took a cabjust as it got dark, I'm told. Tallish chap, muffled up a lot, in a longblack overcoat. Any of ye seen 'im?"
The cabbies looked at one another and shook their heads; it chanced thatnone of them had been on that particular rank at that time. But thewaterman said: "'Old on--I bet 'e's the bloke wot old Bill Stammers took.Yorkey was fust on the rank, but the bloke wouldn't 'ave a 'ansom--wanteda four-wheeler, so old Bill took 'im. Biggish chap in a long black coat,collar up an' muffled thick; soft wide-awake 'at, pulled over 'is eyes;and he was in a 'urry, too. Jumped in sharp as a weasel."
"Didn't see 'is face, did ye?"
"No--not an inch of it; too much muffled. Couldn't tell if he 'ad a face."
"Was his arm in a sling?"
"Ay, it looked so. Had it stuffed through the breast of his coat, like asthough there might be a sling inside."
"That's 'im. Any of ye tell me where I might run across old Bill Stammers?He'll tell me where my precious bilker went to."
As to this there was plenty of information, and in five minutes MartinHewitt, who had become an unoccupied cabman for the occasion, was on hisway to find old Bill Stammers. That respectable old man gave him fullparticulars as to the place in the East End where he had driven hismuffled fare on Saturday, and Hewitt then begun an eighteen, or twentyhours' search beyond Whitechapel.
* * * * *
At about three on Tuesday afternoon, as Nettings was in the act of leavingBow Street Police Station, Hewitt drove up in a four-wheeler. Someprisoner appeared to be crouching low in the vehicle, but, leaving him totake care of himself, Hewitt hurried into the station and shook Nettingsby the hand. "Well," he said, "have you got the murderer of Rameau yet?"
"No," Nettings growled. "Unless--well, Goujon's under remand still, and,after all, I've been thinking that he may know something----"
"Pooh, nonsense!" Hewitt answered. "You'd better let him go. Now, I _have_got somebody." Hewitt laughed and slapped the inspector's shoulder. "I'vegot the man who carried Rameau's body away!"
"All right, don't be in a hurry; he won't bolt." And Hewitt stepped out tothe cab and produced his prisoner, who, pulling his hat farther over hiseyes, hurried furtively into the station. One hand was stowed in thebreast of his long coat, and below the wide brim of his hat a small pieceof white bandage could be seen; and, as he lifted his face, it was seen tobe that of a negro.
"Inspector Nettings," Hewitt said ceremoniously, "allow me to introduceMr. Cesar Rameau!"
Netting's gasped.
"What!" he at length ejaculated. "What! You--you're Rameau?"
The negro looked round nervously, and shrank farther from the door.
"Yes," he said; "but please not so loud--please not loud. Zey may be near,and I'm 'fraid."
"You will certify, will you not," asked Hewitt, with malicious glee, "notonly that you were not murdered last Saturday by Victor Goujon, but that,in fact, you were not murdered at all? Also, that you carried your ownbody away in the usual fashion, on your own legs."
"Yes, yes," responded Rameau, looking haggardly about; "but is notzis--zis room publique? I should not be seen."
"Nonsense!" replied Hewitt rather testily; "you exaggerate your danger andyour own importance, and your enemies' abilities as well. You're safeenough."
"I suppose, then," Nettings remarked slowly, like a man on whose mindsomething vast was beginning to dawn, "I suppose--why, hang it, you musthave just got up while that fool of a girl was screaming and faintingupstairs, and walked out. They say there's nothing so hard as a nigger'sskull, and yours has certainly made a fool of me. But, then, _somebody_must have chopped you over the head; who was it?"
"My enemies--my great enemies--enemies politique. I am a great man"--thiswith a faint revival of vanity amid his fear--"a great man in my countree.Zey have great secret club-sieties to kill me--me and my fren's; and oneenemy coming in my rooms does zis--one, two"--he indicated wrist andhead--"wiz a choppa."
Rameau made the case plain to Nettings, so far as the actual circumstancesof the assault on himself were concerned. A negro whom he had noticed nearthe place more than once during the previous day or two had attacked himsuddenly in his rooms, dealing him two savage blows with a chopper. Thefirst he had caught on his wrist, which was seriously damaged, as well asexcruciatingly painful, but the second had taken effect on his head. Hisassailant had evidently gone away then, leaving him for dead; but, as amatter of fact, he was only stunned by the shock, and had, thanks to theadamantine thickness of the negro skull and the ill-direction of thechopper, only a very bad scalp-wound, the bone being no more than grazed.He had lain insensible for some time, and must have come to his sensessoon after the housemaid had left the room. Terrified at the knowledgethat his enemies had found him out, his only thought was to get away andhide himself. He hastily washed and tied up his head, enveloped himself inthe biggest coat he could find, and let himself down into the basement bythe coal-lift, for fear of observation. He waited in the basement of oneof the adjoining buildings till dark and then got away in a cab, with theidea of hiding himself in the East End. He had had very little money withhim on his flight, and it was by reason of this circumstance that Hewitt,when he found him, had prevailed on him to leave his hiding-place, sinceit would be impossible for him to touch any of the large sums of money inthe keeping of his bank so long as he was supposed to be dead. With muchdifficulty, and the promise of ample police protection, he was at lastconvinced that it would be safe to declare himself and get his property,and then run away and hide wherever he pleased.
Nettings and Hewitt strolled off together for a few minutes and chatted,leaving the wretched Rameau to cower in a corner among several policemen.
"Well, Mr. Hewitt," Nettings said, "this case has certainly been ashocking beating for me. I must have been as blind as a bat when I startedon it. And yet I don't see that you had a deal to go on, even now. Whatstruck you first?"
"Well, in the beginning it seemed rather odd to me that the body shouldhave been taken away, as I had been told it was, after the written paperhad been pinned on it. Why should the murderer pin a label on the body ofhis victim if he meant carrying that body away? Who would read the labeland learn of the nature of the revenge gratified? Plainly, that indicatedthat the person who had carried away the body was _not_ the person who hadcommitted the murder. But as soon as I began to examine the place I sawthe probability that there was no murder, after all. There were any numberof indications of this fact, and I can't understand your not observingthem. First, although there was a good deal of blood on the floor justbelow where the housemaid had seen Rameau lying, there was none betweenthat place and the door. Now, if the body had been dragged, or evencarried, to the door, blood must have become smeared about the floor, orat least there would have been drops, but there were none, and this seemedto hint that the corpse might have come to itself, sat up on the sofa,stanched the wound, and walked out. I reflected at once that Rameau was afull-blooded negro, and that a negro's head is very nearly invulnerable toanything short of bullets. Then, if the body had been dragged out--as sucha heavy body must have been--almost of necessity the carpet and rugs wouldshow signs of the fact, but there were no such signs. But beyond thesethere was the fact that no long black overcoat was left with the otherclothes, although the housekeeper distinctly remembered Rameau'spossession of such a garment. I judged he would use some such thing toassist his disguise, which was why I asked her. _Why_ he would want todisguise was plain, as you shall see presently. There were no towels leftin the bath-room; inference, used for bandages. Everything seemed to showthat the only person responsible for Rameau's removal was Rameau himself.Why, then, had he gone away secretly and hurriedly, without makingcomplaint, and why had he stayed away? What reason would he have for doingthis if it had been Goujon that had attacked him? None. Goujon was goingto France. Clearly, Rameau was afraid of another attack from someimplacable enemy whom he was anxious to avoid--one against whom he fearedlegal complaint or defense would be useless. This brought me at once tothe paper found on the floor. If this were the work of Goujon and an openreference to his tortoise, why should he be at such pains to disguise hishandwriting? He would have been already pointing himself out by the meremention of the tortoise. And, if he could not avoid a shake in hisnatural, small handwriting, how could he have avoided it in a large,clumsy, slowly drawn, assumed hand? No, the paper was not Goujon's."
"As to the writing on the paper," Nettings interposed, "I've told you howI made that mistake. I took the readiest explanation of the words, sincethey seemed so pat, and I wouldn't let anything else outweigh that. As tothe other things--the evidences of Rameau's having gone off byhimself--well, I don't usually miss such obvious things; but I neverthought of the possibility of the _victim_ going away on the quiet and notcoming back, as though _he'd_ done something wrong. Comes of starting witha set of fixed notions."
"Well," answered Hewitt, "I fancy you must have been rather 'out of form,'as they say; everybody has his stupid days, and you can't keep up toconcert pitch forever. To return to the case. The evidence of the chopperwas very untrustworthy, especially when I had heard of Goujon's carelesshabits--losing shovels and leaving coal-scuttles on stairs. Nothing morelikely than for the chopper to be left lying about, and a criminal who hadcalculated his chances would know the advantage to himself of using aweapon that belonged to the place, and leaving it behind to divertsuspicion. It is quite possible, by the way, that the man who attackedRameau got away down the coal-lift and out by an adjoining basement, justas did Rameau himself; this, however, is mere conjecture. The would-bemurderer had plainly prepared for the crime: witness the previouspreparation of the paper declaring his revenge, an indication of his prideat having run his enemy to earth at such a distant place as this--althoughI expect he was only in England by chance, for Haytians are not apersistently energetic race. In regard to the use of small instead ofcapital letters in the words 'La Tortue' on the paper, I observed, in the
beginning, that the first letter of the whole sentence--the 'p' in'puni'--was a small one. Clearly, the writer was an illiterate man, and itwas at once plain that he may have made the same mistake with ensuingwords.
"On the whole, it was plain that everybody had begun with a too readydisposition to assume that Goujon was guilty. Everybody insisted, too,that the body had been carried away--which was true, of course, althoughnot in the sense intended--so I didn't trouble to contradict, or to saymore than that I guessed who _had_ carried the body off. And, to tell youthe truth, I was a little piqued at Mr. Styles' manner, and indisposed,interested in the case as I was, to give away my theories too freely.
"The rest of the job was not very difficult. I found out the cabman whohad taken Rameau away--you can always get readier help from cabbies if yougo as one of themselves, especially if you are after a bilker--and fromhim got a sufficiently near East End direction to find Rameau afterinquiries. I ventured, by the way, on a rather long shot. I described myman to the cabman as having an injured arm or wrist--and it turned out acorrect guess. You see, a man making an attack with a chopper is prettycertain to make more than a single blow, and as there appeared to havebeen only a single wound on the head, it seemed probable that another hadfallen somewhere else--almost certainly on the arm, as it would be raisedto defend the head. At Limehouse I found he had had his head and wristattended to at a local medico's, and a big nigger in a fright, with a longblack coat, a broken head, and a lame hand, is not so difficult to find ina small area. How I persuaded him up here you know already; I think Ifrightened him a little, too, by explaining how easily I had tracked him,and giving him a hint that others might do the same. He is in a greatfunk. He seems to have quite lost faith in England as a safe asylum."
The police failed to catch Rameau's assailant--chiefly because Rameaucould not be got to give a proper description of him, nor to do anythingexcept get out of the country in a hurry. In truth, he was glad to be quitof the matter with nothing worse than his broken head. Little Goujon madea wild storm about his arrest, and before he did go to France managed toextract twenty pounds from Rameau by way of compensation, in spite of theabsence of any strictly legal claim against his old tormentor. So that, onthe whole, Goujon was about the only person who derived any particularprofit from the tortoise mystery.
THE END.
Martin Hewitt, Investigator Page 7