‘Shall you be long at the lighthouse, sir?’ the master of the tender inquired of Captain Grumpass; ‘because we’re going down to the North-East Pan Sand to fix this new buoy and take up the old one.’
‘Then you’d better put us off at the lighthouse and come back for us when you’ve finished the job,’ was the reply. ‘I don’t know how long we shall be.’
The tender was brought to, a boat lowered, and a couple of hands pulled us across the intervening space of water.
‘It will be a dirty climb for you in your shore-going clothes,’ the captain remarked—he was as spruce as a new pin himself, ‘but the stuff will all wipe off.’ We looked up at the skeleton shape. The falling tide had exposed some fifteen feet of the piles, and piles and ladder alike were swathed in sea-grass and encrusted with barnacles and worm-tubes. But we were not such town-sparrows as the captain seemed to think, for we both followed his lead without difficulty up the slippery ladder, Thorndyke clinging tenaciously to his little green case, from which he refused to be separated even for an instant.
‘These gentlemen and I,’ said the captain, as we stepped on the stage at the head of the ladder, ‘have come to make inquiries about the missing man, James Brown. Which of you is Jeffreys?’
‘I am, sir,’ replied a tall, powerful, square-jawed, beetle-browed man, whose left hand was tied up in a rough bandage.
‘What have you been doing to your hand?’ asked the captain.
‘I cut it while I was peeling some potatoes,’ was the reply. ‘It isn’t much of a cut, sir.’
‘Well, Jeffreys,’ said the captain, ‘Brown’s body has been picked up and I want particulars for the inquest. You’ll be summoned as a witness, I suppose, so come in and tell us all you know.’
We entered the living-room and seated ourselves at the table. The captain opened a massive pocket-book, while Thorndyke, in his attentive, inquisitive fashion, looked about the odd, cabin-like room as if making a mental inventory of its contents.
Jeffreys’ statement added nothing to what we already knew. He had seen a boat with one man in it making for the lighthouse. Then the fog had drifted up and he had lost sight of the boat. He started the fog-horn and kept a bright look-out, but the boat never arrived. And that was all he knew. He supposed that the man must have missed the lighthouse and been carried away on the ebb-tide, which was running strongly at the time.
‘What time was it when you last saw the boat?’ Thorndyke asked.
‘About half-past eleven,’ replied Jeffreys.
‘What was the man like?’ asked the captain.
‘I don’t know, sir: he was rowing, and his back was towards me.’
‘Had he any kit-bag or chest with him?’ asked Thorndyke.
‘He’d got his chest with him,’ said Jeffreys.
‘What sort of chest was it?’ inquired Thorndyke.
‘A small chest, painted green, with rope beckets.’
‘Was it corded?’
‘It had a single cord round, to hold the lid down.’
‘Where was it stowed?’
‘In the stern-sheets, sir.’
‘How far off was the boat when you last saw it?’
‘About half-a-mile.’
‘Half-a-mile!’ exclaimed the captain. ‘Why, how the deuce could you see what the chest was like half-a-mile away?’
The man reddened and cast a look of angry suspicion at Thorndyke. ‘I was watching the boat through the glass, sir,’ he replied sulkily.
‘I see,’ said Captain Grumpass. ‘Well, that will do, Jeffreys. We shall have to arrange for you to attend the inquest. Tell Smith I want to see him.’
The examination concluded, Thorndyke and I moved our chairs to the window, which looked out over the sea to the east. But it was not the sea or the passing ships that engaged my colleague’s attention. On the wall, beside the window, hung a rudely-carved pipe-rack containing five pipes. Thorndyke had noted it when we entered the room, and now, as we talked, I observed him regarding it from time to time with speculative interest.
‘You men seem to be inveterate smokers,’ he remarked to the keeper, Smith, when the captain had concluded the arrangements for the ‘shift.’
‘Well, we do like our bit of ’baccy, sir, and that’s a fact,’ answered Smith. ‘You see, sir,’ he continued, ‘it’s a lonely life, and tobacco’s cheap out here.’
‘How is that?’ asked Thorndyke.
‘Why, we get it given to us. The small craft from foreign shores, especially the Dutchmen, generally heave us a cake or two when they pass close. We’re not ashore, you see, so there’s no duty to pay.’
‘So you don’t trouble the tobacconists much? Don’t go in for cut tobacco?’
‘No, sir; we’d have to buy it, and then the cut stuff wouldn’t keep. No, it’s hard tack to eat out here and hard tobacco to smoke.’
‘I see you’ve got a pipe-rack, too, quite a stylish affair.’
‘Yes,’ said Smith, ‘I made it in my off-time. Keeps the place tidy and looks more ship-shape than letting the pipes lay about anywhere.’
‘Someone seems to have neglected his pipe,’ said Thorndyke, pointing to one at the end of the pipe-rack which was coated with green mildew.
‘Yes; that’s Parsons, my mate. He must have left it when we went off near a month ago. Pipes do go mouldy in the damp air out here.’
‘How soon does a pipe go mouldy if it is left untouched?’ Thorndyke asked.
‘It’s according to the weather,’ said Smith. ‘When it’s warm and damp they’ll begin to go in about a week. Now here’s Barnett’s pipe that he’s left behind—the man that broke his leg, you know, sir—it’s just beginning to spot a little. He couldn’t have used it for a day or two before he went.’
‘And are all these other pipes yours?’
‘No, sir. This here one is mine. The end one is Jeffreys’, and I suppose the middle one is his too, but I don’t know it.’
‘You’re a demon for pipes, doctor,’ said the captain, strolling up at this moment; ‘you seem to make a special study of them.’
‘“The proper study of mankind is man,”’ replied Thorndyke, as the keeper retired, ‘and “man” includes those objects on which his personality is impressed. Now a pipe is a very personal thing. Look at that row in the rack. Each has its own physiognomy which, in a measure, reflects the peculiarities of the owner. There is Jeffreys’ pipe at the end, for instance. The mouth-piece is nearly bitten through, the bowl scraped to a shell and scored inside and the brim battered and chipped. The whole thing speaks of rude strength and rough handling. He chews the stem as he smokes, he scrapes the bowl violently, and he bangs the ashes out with unnecessary force. And the man fits the pipe exactly: powerful, square-jawed and, I should say, violent on occasion.’
‘Yes, he looks a tough customer, does Jeffreys,’ agreed the captain.
‘Then,’ continued Thorndyke, ‘there is Smith’s pipe, next to it; “coked” up until the cavity is nearly filled and burnt all round the edge; a talker’s pipe, constantly going out and being relit. But the one that interests me most is the middle one.’
‘Didn’t Smith say that that was Jeffreys’ too?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ replied Thorndyke, ‘but he must be mistaken. It is the very opposite of Jeffreys’ pipe in every respect. To begin with, although it is an old pipe, there is not a sign of any toothmark on the mouth-piece. It is the only one in the rack that is quite unmarked. Then the brim is quite uninjured: it has been handled gently, and the silver band is jet-black, whereas the band on Jeffreys’ pipe is quite bright.’
‘I hadn’t noticed that it had a band,’ said the captain. ‘What has made it so black?’
Thorndyke lifted the pipe out of the rack and looked at it closely. ‘Silver sulphide,’ said he, ‘the sulphur no doubt derived from something carried in the pocke
t.’
‘I see,’ said Captain Grumpass, smothering a yawn and gazing out of the window at the distant tender. ‘Incidentally it’s full of tobacco. What moral do you draw from that?’
Thorndyke turned the pipe over and looked closely at the mouth-piece. ‘The moral is,’ he replied, ‘that you should see that your pipe is clear before you fill it.’ He pointed to the mouth-piece, the bore of which was completely stopped up with fine fluff.
‘An excellent moral too,’ said the captain, rising with another yawn. ‘If you’ll excuse me a minute I’ll just go and see what the tender is up to. She seems to be crossing to the East Girdler.’ He reached the telescope down from its brackets and went out on to the gallery.
As the captain retreated, Thorndyke opened his pocket-knife, and, sticking the blade into the bowl of the pipe, turned the tobacco out into his hand.
‘Shag, by Jove!’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes,’ he answered, poking it back into the bowl. ‘Didn’t you expect it to be shag?’
‘I don’t know that I expected anything,’ I admitted. ‘The silver band was occupying my attention.’
‘Yes, that is an interesting point,’ said Thorndyke, ‘but let us see what the obstruction consists of.’ He opened the green case, and, taking out a dissecting needle, neatly extracted a little ball of fluff from the bore of the pipe. Laying this on a glass slide, he teased it out in a drop of glycerine and put on a cover-glass while I set up the microscope.
‘Better put the pipe back in the rack,’ he said, as he laid the slide on the stage of the instrument. I did so and then turned, with no little excitement, to watch him as he examined the specimen. After a brief inspection he rose and waved his hand towards the microscope.
‘Take a look at it, Jervis,’ he said, ‘and let us have your learned opinion.’
I applied my eye to the instrument, and, moving the slide about, identified the constituents of the little mass of fluff. The ubiquitous cotton fibre was, of course, in evidence, and a few fibres of wool, but the most remarkable objects were two or three hairs—very minute hairs of a definite zigzag shape and having a flat expansion near the free end like the blade of a paddle.
‘These are the hairs of some small animal,’ I said; ‘not a mouse or rat or any rodent, I should say. Some small insectivorous animal, I fancy. Yes! Of course! They are the hairs of a mole.’ I stood up, and, as the importance of the discovery flashed on me, I looked at my colleague in silence.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they are unmistakable; and they furnish the keystone of the argument.’
‘You think that this is really the dead man’s pipe, then?’ I said.
‘According to the law of multiple evidence,’ he replied, ‘it is practically a certainty. Consider the facts in sequence. Since there is no sign of mildew on it, this pipe can have been here only a short time, and must belong either to Barnett, Smith, Jeffreys, or Brown. It is an old pipe, but it has no tooth-marks on it. Therefore it has been used by a man who has no teeth. But Barnett, Smith, and Jeffreys all have teeth and mark their pipes, whereas Brown had no teeth. The tobacco in it is shag. But these three men do not smoke shag, whereas Brown had shag in his pouch. The silver band is encrusted with sulphide; and Brown carried sulphur-tipped matches loose in his pocket with his pipe. We find hairs of a mole in the bore of the pipe; and Brown carried a moleskin pouch in the pocket in which he appears to have carried his pipe. Finally, Brown’s pocket contained a pipe which was obviously not his and which closely resembled that of Jeffreys; it contained tobacco similar to that which Jeffreys smokes and different from that in Brown’s pouch. It appears to me quite conclusive, especially when we add to this evidence the other items that are in our possession.’
‘What items are they?’ I asked.
‘First there is the fact that the dead man had knocked his head heavily against some periodically submerged body covered with acorn barnacles and serpulae. Now the piles of this lighthouse answer to the description exactly, and there are no other bodies in the neighbourhood that do: for even the beacons are too large to have produced that kind of wound. Then the dead man’s sheath-knife is missing, and Jeffreys has a knife-wound on his hand. You must admit that the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.’
At this moment the captain bustled into the room with the telescope in his hand. ‘The tender is coming up towing a strange boat,’ he said. ‘I expect it’s the missing one, and, if it is, we may learn something. You’d better pack up your traps and get ready to go on board.’
We packed the green case and went out into the gallery, where the two keepers were watching the approaching tender; Smith frankly curious and interested, Jeffreys restless, fidgety and noticeably pale. As the steamer came opposite the lighthouse, three men dropped into the boat and pulled across, and one of them—the mate of the tender—came climbing up the ladder.
‘Is that the missing boat?’ the captain sang out.
‘Yes, sir,’ answered the officer, stepping on to the staging and wiping his hands on the reverse aspect of his trousers, ‘we saw her lying on the dry patch of the East Girdler. There’s been some hanky-panky in this job, sir.’
‘Foul play, you think, hey?’
‘Not a doubt of it, sir. The plug was out and lying loose in the bottom, and we found a sheath-knife sticking into the kelson forward among the coils of the painter. It was stuck in hard as if it had dropped from a height.’
‘That’s odd,’ said the captain. ‘As to the plug, it might have got out by accident.’
‘But it hadn’t, sir,’ said the mate. ‘The ballast-bags had been shifted along to get the bottom boards up. Besides, sir, a seaman wouldn’t let the boat fill; he’d have put the plug back and baled out.’
‘That’s true,’ replied Captain Grumpass; ‘and certainly the presence of the knife looks fishy. But where the deuce could it have dropped from, out in the open sea? Knives don’t drop from the clouds—fortunately. What do you say, doctor?’
‘I should say that it is Brown’s own knife, and that it probably fell from this staging.’
Jeffreys turned swiftly, crimson with wrath. ‘What d’ye mean?’ he demanded. ‘Haven’t I said that the boat never came here?’
‘You have,’ replied Thorndyke; ‘but if that is so, how do you explain the fact that your pipe was found in the dead man’s pocket and that the dead man’s pipe is at this moment in your pipe-rack?’
The crimson flush on Jeffreys’ face faded as quickly as it had come. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he faltered.
‘I’ll tell you,’ said Thorndyke. ‘I will relate what happened and you shall check my statements. Brown brought his boat alongside and came up into the living-room, bringing his chest with him. He filled his pipe and tried to light it, but it was stopped and wouldn’t draw. Then you lent him a pipe of yours and filled it for him. Soon afterwards you came out on this staging and quarrelled. Brown defended himself with his knife, which dropped from his hand into the boat. You pushed him off the staging and he fell, knocking his head on one of the piles. Then you took the plug out of the boat and sent her adrift to sink, and you flung the chest into the sea. This happened about ten minutes past twelve. Am I right?’
Jeffreys stood staring at Thorndyke, the picture of amazement and consternation; but he uttered no word in reply.
‘Am I right?’ Thorndyke repeated.
‘Strike me blind!’ muttered Jeffreys. ‘Was you here, then? You talk as if you had been. Anyhow,’ he continued, recovering somewhat, ‘you seem to know all about it. But you’re wrong about one thing. There was no quarrel. This chap, Brown, didn’t take to me and he didn’t mean to stay out here. He was going to put off and go ashore again and I wouldn’t let him. Then he hit out at me with his knife and I knocked it out of his hand and he staggered backwards and went overboard.’
‘And did you try to pick him up?’ asked the cap
tain.
‘How could I,’ demanded Jeffreys, ‘with the tide racing down and me alone on the station? I’d never have got back.’
‘But what about the boat, Jeffreys? Why did you scuttle her?’
‘The fact is,’ replied Jeffreys, ‘I got in a funk, and I thought the simplest plan was to send her to the cellar and know nothing about it. But I never shoved him over. It was an accident, sir; I swear it!’
‘Well, that sounds a reasonable explanation,’ said the captain. ‘What do you say, doctor?’
‘Perfectly reasonable,’ replied Thorndyke, ‘and, as to its truth, that is no affair of ours.’
‘No. But I shall have to take you off, Jeffreys, and hand you over to the police. You understand that?’
‘Yes, sir, I understand,’ answered Jeffreys.
‘That was a queer case, that affair on the Girdler,’ remarked Captain Grumpass, when he was spending an evening with us some six months later. ‘A pretty easy let off for Jeffreys, too—eighteen months, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, it was a very queer case indeed,’ said Thorndyke. ‘There was something behind that “accident,” I should say. Those men had probably met before.’
‘So I thought,’ agreed the captain. ‘But the queerest part of it to me was the way you nosed it all out. I’ve had a deep respect for briar pipes since then. It was a remarkable case,’ he continued. ‘The way in which you made that pipe tell the story of the murder seems to me like sheer enchantment.’
‘Yes,’ said I; ‘it spoke like the magic pipe—only that wasn’t a tobacco-pipe—in the German folk-story of the “Singing Bone.” Do you remember it? A peasant found the bone of a murdered man and fashioned it into a pipe. But when he tried to play on it, it burst into a song of its own—
‘My brother slew me and buried my bones, Beneath the sand and under the stones.’
‘A pretty story,’ said Thorndyke, ‘and one with an excellent moral. The inanimate things around us have each of them a song to sing to us if we are but ready with attentive ears.’
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