‘Apparently they played late into the night, after everyone else but the servant had gone to bed, and the luck was with Reuben, though it seems probable that he gave luck some assistance. At any rate, when the play was finished and the chest handed over, Silas roundly accused him of cheating, and we may assume that a pretty serious quarrel took place. Exactly what happened is not clear, for when the quarrel began Reuben dismissed the servant, who retired to her bedroom in a distant part of the house. But in the morning it was discovered that Reuben and the chest of jewels had both disappeared, and there were distinct traces of blood in the room in which the two men had been playing. Silas professed to know nothing about the disappearance; but a strong – and probably just – suspicion arose that he had murdered his brother and made away with the jewels. The result was that Silas also disappeared, and for a long time his whereabouts was not known even by his wife.
‘Later it transpired that he had taken up his abode under an assumed name, in Egypt, and that he had developed an enthusiastic interest in the then new science of Egyptology – the Rosetta Stone had been deciphered only a few years previously. After a time he resumed communication with his wife, but never made any statement as to the mystery of his brother’s disappearance. A few months before his death he visited his home in disguise and he then handed to his wife a little sealed packet which was to be delivered to his only son, William, on his attaining the age of twenty-one. That packet contained the scarab and the letter which you have taken from the envelope.’
‘Am I to read it?’ asked Thorndyke.
‘Certainly, if you think it worth while,’ was the reply. Thorndyke opened the yellow sheet of paper and, glancing through the brown and faded writing, read aloud:
Cairo, 4 March, 1833.
MY DEAR SON,
I am sending you, as my last gift, a valuable scarab and a few words of counsel on which I would bid you meditate. Believe me, there is much wisdom in the lore of Old Egypt. Make it your own. Treasure the scarab as a precious inheritance. Handle it often but show it to none. Give your Uncle Reuben Christian burial. It is your duty, and you will have your reward. He robbed your father, but he shall make restitution.
Farewell!
Your affectionate father,
SILAS BLOWGRAVE.
As Thorndyke laid down the letter he looked inquiringly at our client.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘here are some plain instructions. How have they been carried out?’
‘They haven’t been carried out at all,’ replied Mr Blowgrave. ‘As to his son William, my grandfather, he was not disposed to meddle in the matter. This seemed to be a frank admission that Silas killed his brother and concealed the body, and William didn’t choose to reopen the scandal. Besides, the instructions are not so very plain. It is all very well to say, “Give your Uncle Reuben Christian burial,” but where the deuce is Uncle Reuben?’
‘It is plainly hinted,’ said Thorndyke, ‘that whoever gives the body Christian burial will stand to benefit, and the word “restitution” seems to suggest a clue to the whereabouts of the jewels. Has no one thought it worth while to find out where the body is deposited?’
‘But how could they?’ demanded Blowgrave. ‘He doesn’t give the faintest clue. He talks as if his son knew where the body was. And then, you know, even supposing Silas did not take the jewels with him, there was the question, whose property were they? To begin with, they were pretty certainly stolen property, though no one knows where they came from. Then Reuben apparently got them from Silas by fraud, and Silas got them back by robbery and murder. If William had discovered them he would have had to give them up to Reuben’s sons, and yet they weren’t strictly Reuben’s property. No one had an undeniable claim to them, even if they could have found them.’
‘But that is not the case now,’ said Miss Blowgrave.
‘No,’ said Mr Blowgrave, in answer to Thorndyke’s look of inquiry. ‘The position is quite clear now. Reuben’s grandson, my cousin Arthur, has died recently, and as he had no children, he has dispersed his property. The old farmhouse and the bulk of his estate he has left to a nephew, but he made a small bequest to my daughter and named her as the residuary legatee. So that whatever rights Reuben had to the jewels are now vested in her, and on my death she will be Silas’s heir, too. As a matter of fact,’ Mr Blowgrave continued, ‘we were discussing this very question on the night of the robbery. I may as well tell you that my girl will be left pretty poorly off when I go, for there is a heavy mortgage on our property and mighty little capital. Uncle Reuben’s jewels would have made the old home secure for her if we could have laid our hands on them. However, I mustn’t take up your time with our domestic affairs.’
‘Your domestic affairs are not entirely irrelevant,’ said Thorndyke. ‘But what is it that you want me to do in the matter?’
‘Well,’ said Blowgrave, ‘my house has been robbed and my premises set fire to. The police can apparently do nothing. They say there is no clue at all unless the robbery was committed by somebody in the house, which is absurd, seeing that the servants were all engaged in putting out the fire. But I want the robber traced and punished, and I want to get the scarab back. It may be intrinsically valueless, as M. Fouquet said, but Silas’s testamentary letter seems to indicate that it had some value. At any rate, it is an heirloom, and I am loath to lose it. It seems a presumptuous thing to ask you to investigate a trumpery robbery, but I should take it as a great kindness if you would look into the matter.’
‘Cases of robbery pure and simple,’ replied Thorndyke, ‘are rather alien to my ordinary practice, but in this one there are certain curious features that seem to make an investigation worth while. Yes, Mr Blowgrave, I will look into the case, and I have some hope that we may be able to lay our hands on the robber, in spite of the apparent absence of clues. I will ask you to leave both these letters for me to examine more minutely, and I shall probably want to make an inspection of the premises – perhaps tomorrow.’
‘Whenever you like,’ said Blowgrave. ‘I am delighted that you are willing to undertake the inquiry. I have heard so much about you from my friend Stalker, of the Griffin Life Assurance Company, for whom you have acted on several occasions.’
‘Before you go,’ said Thorndyke, ‘there is one point that we must clear up. Who is there besides yourselves that knows of the existence of the scarab and this letter and the history attaching to them?’
‘I really can’t say,’ replied Blowgrave. ‘No one has seen them but my cousin Arthur. I once showed them to him, and he may have talked about them in the family. I didn’t treat the matter as a secret.’
When our visitors had gone we discussed the bearings of the case.
‘It is quite a romantic story,’ said I, ‘and the robbery has its points of interest, but I am rather inclined to agree with the police – there is mighty little to go on.’
‘There would have been less,’ said Thorndyke, ‘if our sporting friend hadn’t been so pleased with himself. That typewritten letter was a piece of gratuitous impudence. Our gentleman overrated his security and crowed too loud.’
‘I don’t see that there is much to be gleaned from the letter, all the same,’ said I.
‘I am sorry to hear you say that, Jervis,’ he exclaimed, ‘because I was proposing to hand the letter over to you to examine and report on.’
‘I was only referring to the superficial appearances,’ I said hastily. ‘No doubt a detailed examination will bring something more distinctive into view.’
‘I have no doubt it will,’ he said, ‘and as there are reasons for pushing on the investigation as quickly as possible, I suggest that you get to work at once. I will occupy myself with the old letter and the envelope.’
On this I began my examination without delay, and as a preliminary I proceeded to take a facsimile photograph of the letter by putting it in a large printing frame with a sensitive plate and a plate of clear glass. The resulting negative showed not only the typewritten lettering
, but also the watermark and wire lines of the paper, and a faint grease spot. Next I turned my attention to the lettering itself, and here I soon began to accumulate quite a number of identifiable peculiarities. The machine was apparently a Corona, fitted with the small ‘Elite’ type, and the alignment was markedly defective. The ‘lower case’ – or small – ‘a’ was well below the line, although the capital ‘A’ appeared to be correctly placed; the ‘u’ was slightly above the line, and the small ‘m’ was partly clogged with dirt.
Up to this point I had been careful to manipulate the letter with forceps (although it had been handled by at least three persons, to my knowledge), and I now proceeded to examine it for fingerprints. As I could detect none by mere inspection, I dusted the back of the paper with finely powdered fuchsin, and distributed the powder by tapping the paper lightly. This brought into view quite a number of fingerprints, especially round the edges of the letter, and though most of them were very faint and shadowy, it was possible to make out the ridge pattern well enough for our purpose. Having blown off the excess of powder, I took the letter to the room where the large copying camera was set up, to photograph it before developing the fingerprints on the front. But here I found our laboratory assistant, Polton, in possession, with the sealed envelope fixed to the copying easel. ‘I shan’t be a minute, sir,’ said he. ‘The doctor wants an enlarged photograph of this seal. I’ve got the plate in.’
I waited while he made his exposure and then proceeded to take the photograph of the letter, or rather of the fingerprints on the back of it. When I had developed the negative I powdered the front of the letter and brought out several more fingerprints – thumbs this time. They were a little difficult to see where they were imposed on the lettering, but, as the latter was bright blue and the fuchsin powder was red, this confusion disappeared in the photograph, in which the lettering was almost invisible while the fingerprints were more distinct than they had appeared to the eye. This completed my examination, and when I had verified the make of typewriter by reference to our album of specimens of typewriting, I left the negatives for Polton to dry and print and went down to the sitting-room to draw up my little report. I had just finished this and was speculating on what had become of Thorndyke, when I heard his quick step on the stair and a few moments later he entered with a roll of paper in his hand. This he unrolled on the table, fixing it open with one or two lead paper-weights, and I came round to inspect it, when I found it to be a sheet of the Ordnance map on the scale of twenty-five inches to the mile.
‘Here is the Blowgraves’ place,’ said Thorndyke, ‘nearly in the middle of the sheet. This is his house – Shawstead Manor – and that will probably be the out-building that was on fire. I take it that the house marked Dingle Farm is the one that Uncle Reuben occupied.’
‘Probably,’ I agreed. ‘But I don’t see why you wanted this map if you are going down to the place itself tomorrow.’
‘The advantage of a map,’ said Thorndyke, ‘is that you can see all over it at once and get the lie of the land well into your mind; and you can measure all distances accurately and quickly with a scale and a pair of dividers. When we go down tomorrow, we shall know our way about as well as Blowgrave himself.’
‘And what use will that be?’ I asked. ‘Where does the topography come into the case?
‘Well, Jervis,’ he replied, ‘there is the robber, for instance; he came from somewhere and he went somewhere. A study of the map may give us a hint as to his movements. But here comes Polton “with the documents,” as poor Miss Flite would say. What have you got for us, Polton?’
‘They aren’t quite dry, sir,’ said Polton, laying four large bromide prints on the table. ‘There’s the enlargement of the seal – ten by eight, mounted – and three unmounted prints of Dr Jervis’s.’
Thorndyke looked at my photographs critically. ‘They’re excellent, Jervis,’ said he. ‘The fingerprints are perfectly legible, though faint. I only hope some of them are the right ones. That is my left thumb. I don’t see yours. The small one is presumably Miss Blowgrave’s. We must take her fingerprints tomorrow, and her father’s, too. Then we shall know if we have got any of the robber’s.’ He ran his eye over my report and nodded approvingly. ‘There is plenty there to enable us to identify the typewriter if we can get hold of it, and the paper is very distinctive. What do you think of the seal?’ he added, laying the enlarged photograph before me.
‘It is magnificent,’ I replied, with a grin. ‘Perfectly monumental.’
‘What are you grinning at?’ he demanded.
‘I was thinking that you seem to be counting your chickens in pretty good time,’ said I. ‘You are making elaborate preparations to identify the scarab, but you are rather disregarding the classical advice of the prudent Mrs Glasse.’
‘I have a presentiment that we shall get that scarab,’ said he. ‘At any rate we ought to be in a position to identify it instantly and certainly if we are able to get a sight of it.’
‘We are not likely to,’ said I. ‘Still, there is no harm in providing for the improbable.’
This was evidently Thorndyke’s view, and he certainly made ample provision for this most improbable contingency; for, having furnished himself with a drawing-board and a sheet of tracing-paper, he pinned the latter over the photograph on the board and proceeded, with a fine pen and hectograph ink, to make a careful and minute tracing of the intricate and bewildering hieroglyphic inscription on the seal. When he had finished it he transferred it to a clay duplicator and took off half-a-dozen copies, one of which he handed to me. I looked at it dubiously and remarked: ‘You have said that the medical jurist must make all knowledge his province. Has he got to be an Egyptologist, too?’
‘He will be the better medical jurist if he is,’ was the reply, of which I made a mental note for my future guidance. But meanwhile Thorndyke’s proceedings were, to me, perfectly incomprehensible. What was his object in making this minute tracing? The seal itself was sufficient for identification. I lingered awhile, hoping that some fresh development might throw a light on the mystery. But his next proceeding was like to have reduced me to stupefaction. I saw him go to the book-shelves and take down a book. As he laid it on the table I glanced at the title, and when I saw that it was Raper’s Navigation Tables I stole softly out into the lobby, put on my hat and went for a walk.
When I returned the investigation was apparently concluded, for Thorndyke was seated in his easy chair, placidly reading The Compleat Angler. On the table lay a large circular protractor, a straight-edge, an architect’s scale and a sheet of tracing-paper on which was a tracing in hectograph ink of Shawstead Manor.
‘Why did you make this tracing?’ I asked. ‘Why not take the map itself?’
‘We don’t want the whole of it,’ he replied, ‘and I dislike cutting up maps.’
By taking an informal lunch in the train, we arrived at Shawstead Manor by half-past two. Our approach up the drive had evidently been observed, for Blowgrave and his daughter were waiting at the porch to receive us. The former came forward with outstretched hand, but a distinctly woebegone expression, and exclaimed:
‘It is most kind of you to come down; but alas! you are too late.’
‘Too late for what?’ demanded Thorndyke.
‘I will show you,’ replied Blowgrave, and seizing my colleague by the arm, he strode off excitedly to a little wicket at the side of the house, and, passing through it, hurried along a narrow alley that skirted the garden wall and ended in a large meadow, at one end of which stood a dilapidated windmill. Across this meadow he bustled, dragging my colleague with him, until he reached a heap of freshly turned earth, where he halted and pointed tragically to a spot where the turf had evidently been raised and untidily replaced.
‘There!’ he exclaimed, stooping to pull up the loose turfs and thereby exposing what was evidently a large hole, recently and hastily filled in. ‘That was done last night or early this morning, for I walked over this meadow only yester
day evening and there was no sign of disturbed ground then.’
Thorndyke stood looking down at the hole with a faint smile. ‘And what do you infer from that?’ he asked.
‘Infer!’ shrieked Blowgrave. ‘Why, I infer that whoever dug this hole was searching for Uncle Reuben and the lost jewels!’
‘I am inclined to agree with you,’ Thorndyke said calmly. ‘He happened to search in the wrong place, but that is his affair.’
‘The wrong place!’ Blowgrave and his daughter exclaimed in unison. ‘How do you know it is the wrong place?’
‘Because,’ replied Thorndyke, ‘I believe I know the right place, and this is not it. But we can put the matter to the test, and we had better do so. Can you get a couple of men with picks and shovels? Or shall we handle the tools ourselves?’
‘I think that would be better,’ said Blowgrave, who was quivering with excitement. ‘We don’t want to take anyone into our confidence if we can help it.’
‘No,’ Thorndyke agreed. ‘Then I suggest that you fetch the tools while I locate the spot.’
Blowgrave assented eagerly and went off at a brisk trot, while the young lady remained with us and watched Thorndyke with intense curiosity.
Murder in Midsummer Page 11