‘Well, dear, is the ten per cent reward to make us rich beyond the dreams of avarice?’ asked Zena.
‘It is impossible to say.’
‘Then you haven’t found the money?’
‘We haven’t counted it yet,’ was the answer. ‘Let us consider the points. The first is this: Nine years before his death, Mr Ottershaw made his will, frankly expressing a wish that he could take his money with him. Therefore, I think we may assume that he was not in love with his relatives, and was not delighted that his death should profit them. The next sentence in the will seems to express a doubt as to whether the treasure could be taken or not, and I suggest that something occurred about that time to make it appear feasible. So we get a riddle, and if it is to be read literally, as I believe it is meant to be, there can apparently be only one possible hiding-place – somewhere in the ground underneath the house. This is so obvious that one would hardly expect it to be the solution, and so there is particular significance in his statement that he didn’t send it out of the house. He hid it, he says, when he was alone in one of the rooms. Let us suppose it was his bedroom. From there he certainly could not bury his treasure in the ground. We have decided that the hiding-place could not be in any part of the brickwork or in the woodwork, therefore we are driven to the conclusion that it was placed in some piece of furniture or some receptacle made for the purpose. Since I believe he thought it possible to take his wealth with him, the latter supposition seems to me the more probable.’
‘In banknotes a large sum would only occupy a small space,’ I said.
‘I don’t think the treasure was in money,’ said Quarles. ‘The fact that a diamond was given to Sims and not money suggests that the treasure was in precious stones. If he spent everything he could in this way, giving hard cash for a gem, and thus doing away with the necessity for inquiry and references, the lack of evidence regarding his wealth is partly explained. Great wealth can be sunk in a very small parcel of gems, and if he hoped to take his wealth with him it must be small in bulk.’
‘So that it could be placed in his coffin, you mean,’ said Zena.
‘Sims declares nothing was placed in his coffin,’ said Quarles; ‘he is most definite upon the point.’
‘And I have already pointed out that, since he wished to be cremated, Mr Ottershaw would hardly make any such arrangement,’ I said.
‘He may have wished to be cremated, but he may not have expected to be,’ said Quarles. ‘As a matter of fact, he left certain instructions which point to a doubt. Sims was to lay him out and see that he was decently cared for. So anxious was Mr Ottershaw about this that he left a letter for Sims to show to the Bryants. This is a most significant fact.’
‘Then you suspect the man Sims,’ said Zena.
‘We will go a step further before I answer that question. Today, Wigan, we have made a curious discovery. All Mr Ottershaw’s walking-sticks were very stout ones, and that he really used them, not merely carried them, the condition of the ferrules proves. Moreover, there was a curious fact about his boots. They were large, the right one being a little larger than the other, and the right boot in every pair was the least trodden down – indeed, showed little wear either inside or out. I wonder if Sims could explain this?’
Zena was leaning forward, her eyes fixed upon the professor, and I was thinking of a boot with a hollow heel.
‘Let’s go back to the will for a moment,’ said Quarles. ‘Although Mr Ottershaw desired to be cremated, he did not put it in the form of a condition, as he might reasonably have done. He even mentions the expense, and, in fact, gives his relatives quite a good excuse for not doing as he desires. It seems to me he didn’t care much one way or the other, and that his object was to make the relatives suffer for their greed, and suffer all the more because he didn’t actually leave the money away from them. It was Zena’s absurd question, Wigan, and her anger that the Bryants had not carried out the old man’s wish, which gave me the germ of a theory. I believe if they had had him cremated they would have found the treasure. He gave them a chance which they lost by burying him.’
‘Then you believe Sims carried out his master’s wishes?’ I said.
‘I do.’
‘And managed to have the treasure buried with him?’
‘I do not believe Sims knows anything about a treasure,’ said Quarles; ‘and I think he speaks the truth when he says that nothing but the body was buried. But Sims knew more about his master than anyone else. He could tell us something about their doings in Switzerland and Germany, for instance. He was very fond of his master, and was trusted by him.’
‘We want to know what happened just after Mr Ottershaw’s death,’ I said. ‘To know what occurred abroad will not help us much.’
‘I think it will,’ Quarles returned. ‘Supposing Mr Ottershaw had an accident abroad which necessitated the amputation of his right leg, and supposing, in Germany perhaps, he got the very best artificial limb money could purchase?’
‘A wooden leg!’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes, not of the old sort, but the very best the instrument makers could devise. Mr Ottershaw became proud of that leg and told no one about it. Only his man knew. His right boot showed less sign of wear, because he helped that leg with a stout stick. The wooden foot would not stain the inside of a boot with moisture as a real foot does. When the Bryants went to see him he complained of gout, an excuse for not walking, and so giving them a chance of discovering the leg. Then came the idea of secreting the treasure, and I suggest that it consists of gems concealed in that wooden leg. He didn’t want the leg removed after his death, so Sims laid him out. Probably the leg is fitted with a steel, fire-resisting receptacle which would have been found among the débris had the body been cremated.’
‘Then the treasure is buried with him,’ said Zena. ‘Will they open the grave?’
‘I am not sure whether the old man succeeded in carrying his wealth with him after all,’ said Quarles. ‘Sims was fond of and sentimental about his master, and as we talked to him, Wigan, it seemed to me there was something he had no intention of telling us. He was particularly insistent that nothing but the body had been buried, and appeared almost morbidly anxious to tell nothing but the exact truth. Tomorrow we will go to Fulham and ask him whether he removed the wooden leg before the coffin was screwed down.’
Quarles’s conjecture proved to be right. Sims had been sentimental about the leg because his master was so proud of it, and the night before the coffin was fastened down had crept silently into the room and taken it off, placing a thick shawl rolled up under the shroud, so that the corpse would appear as it was before. It had not occurred to him at the time that his master was so anxious that the leg should be buried with him, but since that night he had wondered whether he had done wrong. The wooden leg was hidden in his bedroom. When he was told that it probably contained the treasure, his fear and amazement were almost painful to witness. He was evidently quite innocent of any idea of robbery.
Ingeniously concealed in the top part of the leg we found a steel cylinder, full of gems. Mr Ottershaw must have made a lot of money while he was in India, for Quarles’s ten per cent of the value obtained for the jewels came to over twelve thousand pounds.
‘Half of it goes to Zena as a wedding present,’ he said on the day he banked the money. ‘I shouldn’t wait long if I were you, Wigan.’
‘But, grandfather, I –’
‘My dear, I’m not always thinking only of myself. You have your life before you and I want you to be happy. My only condition is that there shall always be a place at your fireside for me.’
The tears were in Zena’s eyes as she kissed him, but she looked at me and I knew my waiting time was nearly over.
‘Now I shall rest on my laurels, Wigan, and trouble no more about mysteries,’ said Quarles.
He meant it, but I very much doubt whether a ruling passion is so easily
controlled. We shall see.
JOHN THORNDYKE
Created by R Austin Freeman (1862-1943)
Dr John Thorndyke was a medical practitioner turned detective who was one of the earliest forensic scientists in crime fiction. He appeared in a series of novels and collections of short stories, beginning with The Red Thumb Mark in 1907, a tale that highlights the then fledgling science of fingerprints, and ending with The Jacob Street Mystery in 1942. He was the creation of Richard Austin Freeman who, like his character, had trained as a doctor and then turned, not to detective work, but to writing. Invalided home from Africa’s Gold Coast, where he had been working for the Colonial Service, he supplemented his income with short stories for the late Victorian magazine press. His first real success came with stories written in collaboration with another medic and published in 1902 under the pseudonym of ‘Clifford Ashdown’ about a gentlemanly conman named Romney Pringle. Thorndyke arrived on the scene five years later and Freeman continued to write about him until shortly before his death. Freeman’s fiction is not to everyone’s taste – Julian Symons once described reading him as ‘very much like chewing dry straw’ – but he was admired by many fellow writers from Raymond Chandler to George Orwell. He is often described as the inventor of the ‘inverted detective story’ in which the crime and its perpetrator are shown at the beginning and the author then unfolds the detective’s method of discovering them. His earlier stories, such as ‘The Mandarin’s Pearl’ below, are very much in the Holmes tradition and show Thorndyke meticulously using his wide-ranging knowledge of all kinds of sciences to reveal the truth.
THE MANDARIN’S PEARL
Mr Brodribb stretched out his toes on the kerb before the blazing fire with the air of a man who is by no means insensible to physical comfort.
‘You are really an extraordinarily polite fellow, Thorndyke,’ said he.
He was an elderly man, rosy-gilled, portly, and convivial, to whom a mass of bushy, white hair, an expansive double chin, and a certain prim sumptuousness of dress imparted an air of old-world distinction. Indeed, as he dipped an amethystine nose into his wine glass, and gazed thoughtfully at the glowing end of his cigar, he looked the very type of the well-to-do lawyer of an older generation.
‘You are really an extraordinarily polite fellow, Thorndyke,’ said Mr Brodribb.
‘I know,’ replied Thorndyke. ‘But why this reference to an admitted fact?’
‘The truth has just dawned on me,’ said the solicitor. ‘Here am I, dropping in on you, uninvited and unannounced, sitting in your own armchair before your fire, smoking your cigars, drinking your Burgundy – and deuced good Burgundy, too, let me add – and you have not dropped a single hint of curiosity as to what has brought me here.’
‘I take the gifts of the gods, you see, and ask no questions,’ said Thorndyke.
‘Devilish handsome of you, Thorndyke – unsociable beggar like you, too,’ rejoined Mr Brodribb, a fan of wrinkles spreading out genially from the corners of his eyes; ‘but the fact is I have come, in a sense, on business – always glad of a pretext to look you up, as you know – but I want to take your opinion on a rather queer case. It is about young Calverley. You remember Horace Calverley? Well, this is his son. Horace and I were schoolmates, you know, and after his death the boy, Fred, hung on to me rather. We’re near neighbours down at Weybridge, and very good friends. I like Fred. He’s a good fellow, though cranky, like all his people.’
‘What has happened to Fred Calverley?’ Thorndyke asked, as the solicitor paused.
‘Why, the fact is,’ said Mr Brodribb, ‘just lately he seems to be going a bit queer – not mad, mind you – at least, I think not – but undoubtedly queer. Now, there is a good deal of property, and a good many highly interested relatives, and, as a natural consequence, there is some talk of getting him certified. They’re afraid he may do something involving the estate or develop homicidal tendencies, and they talk of possible suicide – you remember his father’s death – but I say that’s all bunkum. The fellow is just a bit cranky, and nothing more.’
‘What are his symptoms?’ asked Thorndyke.
‘Oh, he thinks he is being followed about and watched, and he has delusions; sees himself in the glass with the wrong face, and that sort of thing, you know.’
‘You are not highly circumstantial,’ Thorndyke remarked.
Mr Brodribb looked at me with a genial smile.
‘What a glutton for facts this fellow is, Jervis. But you’re right, Thorndyke; I’m vague. However, Fred will be here presently. We travel down together, and I took the liberty of asking him to call for me. We’ll get him to tell you about his delusions, if you don’t mind. He’s not shy about them. And meanwhile I’ll give you a few preliminary facts. The trouble began about a year ago. He was in a railway accident, and that knocked him all to pieces. Then he went for a voyage to recruit, and the ship broke her propeller-shaft in a storm and became helpless. That didn’t improve the state of his nerves. Then he went down the Mediterranean, and after a month or two, back he came, no better than when he started. But here he is, I expect.’
He went over to the door and admitted a tall, frail young man whom Thorndyke welcomed with quiet geniality, and settled in a chair by the fire. I looked curiously at our visitor. He was a typical neurotic – slender, fragile, eager. Wide-open blue eyes with broad pupils, in which I could plainly see the characteristic ‘hippus’ – that incessant change of size that marks the unstable nervous equilibrium – parted lips, and wandering taper fingers, were as the stigmata of his disorder. He was of the stuff out of which prophets and devotees, martyrs, reformers, and third-rate poets are made.
‘I have been telling Dr Thorndyke about these nervous troubles of yours,’ said Mr Brodribb presently. ‘I hope you don’t mind. He is an old friend, you know, and he is very much interested.’
‘It is very good of him,’ said Calverley. Then he flushed deeply, and added: ‘But they are not really nervous, you know. They can’t be merely subjective.’
‘You think they can’t be?’ said Thorndyke.
‘No, I am sure they are not.’ He flushed again like a girl, and looked earnestly at Thorndyke with his big, dreamy eyes. ‘But you doctors,’ he said, ‘are so dreadfully sceptical of all spiritual phenomena. You are such materialists.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Brodribb; ‘the doctors are not hot on the supernatural, and that’s the fact.’
‘Supposing you tell us about your experiences,’ said Thorndyke persuasively. ‘Give us a chance to believe, if we can’t explain away.’
Calverley reflected for a few moments; then, looking earnestly at Thorndyke, he said:
‘Very well; if it won’t bore you, I will. It is a curious story.’
‘I have told Dr Thorndyke about your voyage and your trip down the Mediterranean,’ said Mr Brodribb.
‘Then,’ said Calverley, ‘I will begin with the events that are actually connected with these strange visitations. The first of these occurred in Marseilles. I was in a curio-shop there, looking over some Algerian and Moorish tilings, when my attention was attracted by a sort of charm or pendant that hung in a glass case. It was not particularly beautiful, but its appearance was quaint and curious, and took my fancy. It consisted of an oblong block of ebony in which was set a single pear-shaped pearl more than three-quarters of an inch long. The sides of the ebony block were lacquered – probably to conceal a joint – and bore a number of Chinese characters, and at the top was a little gold image with a hole through it, presumably for a string to suspend it by. Excepting for the pearl, the whole thing was uncommonly like one of those ornamental tablets of Chinese ink.
‘Now, I had taken a fancy to the thing, and I can afford to indulge my fancies in moderation. The man wanted five pounds for it; he assured me that the pearl was a genuine one of fine quality, and obviously did not believe it himself. To me, however, it looked like a real
pearl, and I determined to take the risk; so I paid the money, and he bowed me out with a smile – I may almost say a grin – of satisfaction. He would not have been so well pleased if he had followed me to a jeweller’s to whom I took it for an expert opinion; for the jeweller pronounced the pearl to be undoubtedly genuine, and worth anything up to a thousand pounds.
‘A day or two later, I happened to show my new purchase to some men whom I knew, who had dropped in at Marseilles in their yacht. They were highly amused at my having bought the thing, and when I told them what I had paid for it, they positively howled with derision.
‘“Why, you silly guffin,” said one of them, a man named Halliwell, “I could have had it ten days ago for half a sovereign, or probably five shillings. I wish now I had bought it; then I could have sold it to you.”
‘It seemed that a sailor had been hawking the pendant round the harbour, and had been on board the yacht with it.
‘“Deuced anxious the beggar was to get rid of it, too,” said Halliwell, grinning at the recollection. “Swore it was a genuine pearl of priceless value, and was willing to deprive himself of it for the trifling sum of half a jimmy. But we’d heard that sort of thing before. However, the curio man seems to have speculated on the chance of meeting with a greenhorn, and he seems to have pulled it off. Lucky curio man!”
‘I listened patiently to their gibes, and when they had talked themselves out I told them about the jeweller. They were most frightfully sick; and when we had taken the pendant to a dealer in gems who happened to be staying in the town, and he had offered me five hundred pounds for it, their language wasn’t fit for a divinity students’ debating club. Naturally the story got noised abroad, and when I left, it was the talk of the place. The general opinion was that the sailor, who was traced to a tea-ship that had put into the harbour, had stolen it from some Chinese passenger; and no less than seventeen different Chinamen came forward to claim it as their stolen property.
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