by John Rhode
‘Now, under the present system of civilisation, it is almost inconceivable that anyone could live so solitary a life that his complete disappearance should attract no attention, and the active advertisement of his characteristics should be unrecognised. For my own part, I am forced to conclude either that the deceased was known only to a limited circle, every member of which was interested in maintaining silence, or that his appearance in death was totally different from that which he presented in life, in other words, that when alive he wore a disguise, natural or artificial.’
‘By Jove, some Communist fellow who wanted to hide his identity!’ exclaimed Harold.
‘I am also of the opinion,’ continued the Professor, disregarding the interruption, ‘that the corpse was disguised, if I may use the expression. Not, of course, in essentials, for that is obviously impossible, but in just those respects by which men are commonly known from one another. I have already explained my theory that the second man changed clothes with the corpse. You will remember that the dead man’s clothes and boots were tightly fitting, that he seemed to possess no hat or overcoat. I think it quite possible that the second man decamped in the clothes which belonged to the dead man. These may have been thoroughly characteristic; did we know the nature of them, we should quite likely have abundant clues to the dead man’s identity. As it is, the clothes found on the body were carefully chosen to afford no clues whatever. I attach no importance to the trifles found in the pockets. As I have already stated, they seem to me to have been put there with the express purpose of creating a wrong impression.
‘Now, why should not the man who prepared these clothes have gone a step further? If, indeed, he were Isidore Samuels, and he contrived that the body should be conveyed by the innocent George to Riverside Gardens, it is almost certain that the man died at Inkerman Street, according to medical evidence, not later than that morning. George called about four o’clock, a fact which I ask you to bear in mind. Isidore had, therefore, the corpse in his possession some time before its removal, more than enough for him to pack it in the bale. We have seen that he was anxious to hide its identity. Why should he not have taken the most effective means possible to this end?’
‘Surely you can’t make up a dead body, Daddy?’ enquired April.
‘Not by any means which would escape detection,’ replied the Professor. ‘But you can carry out the reverse process. Now what was the description of the body circulated by the police? Indeed, you saw the body yourself, Harold. How would you describe it?’
‘Oh, yes, I saw quite enough of it,’ replied Harold feelingly. ‘Inspector Hanslet seemed determined that I should recognise it. It was that of an elderly man, clean shaven, hair recently cut—the experts said it was dyed in some way. Whoever it was, had obviously been very particular about his personal appearance.’
‘Exactly,’ said the Professor in a satisfied tone. ‘You, as everybody else, having seen the clothes and boots the man was wearing, were only too ready to see the corroborative evidence of the man’s care for his appearance. But I would ask you to answer this question. What if this care for his appearance began after his death?’
‘Why, what on earth do you mean, sir?’ exclaimed Harold.
‘It seems clear enough,’ replied the Professor. ‘What if all this shaving, this cutting and dyeing of the hair, was a device of Isidore Samuels’ to screen the identity of the corpse; if, between the man’s death and his removal from Inkerman Street, he had been so treated? Inspector Hanslet and everybody else connected with the case was so convinced that the man died in your rooms that such a possibility never occurred to them. Now you begin to appreciate fully the reasons for all those false tracks so carefully laid, and the ingenuity which underlay the whole drama. The man did not die at Riverside Gardens, but at Inkerman Street. Further, in life, he was probably the very antithesis of the body as found by you. I imagine him hirsute, slovenly, utterly careless of his appearance. Now then, I ask you, can you form any opinion as to his identity?’
‘Why, you can’t mean old Samuels, sir!’ replied Harold in a puzzled tone. ‘I heard him, about a week after the body was found, and at least two people saw him get into a four-wheeler and drive to Waterloo Station.’
‘Ah, yes, that brings us to the question of the disappearance of both Samuels and his nephew,’ replied the Professor. He was about to continue, when the study door opened and Mary entered.
‘There’s a lady to see you, sir,’ she said. ‘She gave no name, but said that you were expecting her.’
‘Ah, yes. Thank you, Mary. That is quite right,’ replied the Professor. ‘Please do not disturb yourselves. I will return very shortly.’
He rose and left the room. His audience, silent under the surprise of the unusual interruption, could hear the sound of voices in the hall without. In less than a minute the door opened once more, and Professor Priestley appeared, his hand upon the arm of a woman, whose face and form were indistinguishable in the dim light.
CHAPTER XIV
THE fire had fallen low in the grate, and it was impossible for those in the study to see more than the outline of the figure which accompanied Professor Priestley into the room. There was a general movement, as they rose from their chairs, but the Professor’s voice, sharp and authoritative, checked any words before they were spoken.
‘Please sit down!’ he exclaimed, and Harold heard again the note of sternness which had impressed itself upon him on that memorable day when they had discussed Aspasia. ‘This lady has kindly consented to attend our discussion. It is possible that she may be able to throw light upon certain phases of the matter which at present are obscure. Will you be good enough to take this chair?’
As the Professor led his guest to a seat in the corner of the room, remote from the glow of the fire or the reflection of the light cast upon his desk, Harold felt a dull wave of despair sweep through him. All had been going so well. He had complete faith in the Professor’s theory of the events of the fatal night; as each point was developed with relentless logic, he felt the burden of suspicion which had weighed him down lighten and vanish as a mist before the sun. His seat was close to April’s, he could hear the gladness in her voice as his innocence was made clear, knew for himself that she, too, rejoiced at the lifting of the cloud. And now, when all was clear, when the guilt was shifted from his shoulders to those of a remote stranger, the one person in the world who could blacken him in her eyes had descended between them like the dark mantle of fate.
For he could have no doubt that this was Vere. What her mission was he could guess only too well. She alone could tell of her dealings with Isidore Samuels, could provide the motive for the death of the old man, could clinch the matter to the satisfaction of all concerned. A valuable witness, certainly, from the Professor’s point of view. But, in the process, how could she fail to recount the whole story of her relations with himself? He checked a fervent desire to dash from the room, to escape from the ordeal of hearing the intimate details of his life revealed before April. He sank back into his chair, the victim of utter hopelessness. For a moment he had dreamed that even now it might not be too late, that perhaps April could forgive the past, even that the old friendship between them might ripen into love. But in the face of the evidence that Vere must give, what choice could April make between his degraded self and the favoured Denbigh?
The woman took her seat in silence; the Professor made his way to his desk, and continued his discourse as though there had been no interruption.
‘I come now to the evening, only a few days ago, when Harold and Mr Boost went to Camberwell to visit Mr Samuels’ shop,’ he began. ‘For the benefit of those of you who do not know what occurred on that occasion, I will explain that they found the place on fire. I have ascertained since that it was completely destroyed. On questioning various residents in the neighbourhood, they received two pieces of information, both of which are of considerable interest. The first of these was that Mr Samuels, or someone greatly resembling him,
had been seen to enter a cab, of which the driver was instructed to drive to Waterloo Station. The second was that, some time later, Isidore Samuels made his way out of the burning house.
‘Now, at first sight, this appears to dispose of the theory that the body found by Harold was that of Mr Samuels. A man who has been dead nearly a fortnight, and buried under the supervision of the authorities, cannot, in our experience, leave a house by his own volition and enter a cab. But, I would ask you, what evidence have we that the man who entered the cab was indeed Mr Samuels?’
There was no reply to the Professor’s rhetorical question. In the pause that ensued the only sound was that of the rapid breathing of his audience. The Professor, in a firm voice, continued:
‘The evidence is that of two neighbours, who, at first sight, seem not likely to have been mistaken. Mr Samuels was familiar to them; they were acquainted with his characteristic asthmatic symptoms, with his general appearance. At a distance, say, of thirty or forty paces they recognised him by these very signs. But put yourselves in an analogous position. You know, for example, the tenant of a given house. During the period in which you have been his neighbours, you have noticed his peculiarities, the various points which distinguish him in your minds from his fellow-beings. One day, a man, conforming in these respects to your ideas of your neighbour, comes out of the door of his house, enters a cab, calls out an instruction to the driver, and goes away. Such an event causes you no surprise, and very little interest. There is nothing in the incident arousing your critical powers. The event registers itself automatically upon your memory and, if questioned subsequently, you would declare that your neighbour had gone away in a cab; you knew it because you had seen and heard him.
‘The case of the eye-witnesses in Inkerman Street is exactly similar. They believed Mr Samuels was alone in his house, possibly from previous experience that he was in the habit of leaving in a cab. They naturally inferred that any man leaving the house must be Mr Samuels, an inference supported by the corroboration of his gait, his appearance, and his asthmatic symptoms. So ready were they to believe that this man was Mr Samuels, that I maintain that anybody sufficiently familiar with him to impersonate his chief characteristics, and to assume a rough disguise simulating his appearance, would have conveyed to them the impression that he was Mr Samuels himself.’
‘But, Daddy dear, that doesn’t account for the conversation overheard by Harold the first time he went into the shop to see Mr Samuels,’ objected April. And at the sound of her voice a faint movement could be heard from the corner where the strange woman sat.
‘If we allow that the impersonator of Mr Samuels in the incident of the cab could reproduce his voice sufficiently well to deceive the neighbours, who knew him, we can assume that he could do so easily enough to satisfy Harold, who had never heard him,’ rejoined the Professor. ‘My theory of the sequence of events on Harold’s first visit to Inkerman Street is this. When he first knocked at the door of Mr Samuels’ shop, the place was empty. Isidore Samuels arrived later, possibly by the back entrance, which we are informed existed in Balaclava Street. Indeed, Harold actually saw a man enter the passage leading to that entrance, who may or may not have been Isidore himself. At all events, when Harold knocked the second time, the nephew heard him, and from the back room began his imitation of his uncle’s speech and symptoms. Remember, again, that everything happened as Harold expected. He believed that Mr Samuels was in the house, and was therefore prepared to accept any, even the slightest, evidence of his presence without question. It is only when something happens which we do not expect that we begin to inquire into circumstances, that our suspicions are aroused, in fact.
‘Now, this is shortly my belief of what has occurred during the past fortnight. Mr Samuels died on the afternoon prior to Harold finding the body on his bed. This is in accordance with the medical evidence. This death was accurately forecasted by his nephew, for he had previously instructed George to collect the bale. Alternatively, for I am anxious to cast no unnecessary suspicion upon Isidore in the absence of confirmatory evidence, it had really been decided to send a clock-case to Mr Boost, and the body was only substituted at the last moment.
‘For some reason Isidore was anxious not to proclaim the fact of his uncle’s death. He was faced, therefore, with a double problem, the disposal of the body, and the accounting for the disappearance of Mr Samuels. This problem he solved in what, I am bound to admit, was a highly ingenious manner. I have already explained how he disposed of the body, after rendering it unidentifiable by anybody but himself, the only person, as far as we know, who knew his uncle really intimately. Once more, remember that at this time nobody but himself knew that Mr Samuels was dead. If they had, they might have searched more closely for marks which might identify the unknown body with Mr Samuels.’
Again the Professor paused, and a silence prevailed in the study. It seemed that the atmosphere was becoming tense, that forces were being brought into play which must eventually result in some strange outbreak. And as the Professor continued, a faint sigh, as of relief, fluttered into the stillness.
‘The essential thing, if all suspicion was to be avoided, was that Mr Samuels’ disappearance should not be connected with the discovery of the body. Isidore ensured this by maintaining the fiction of Mr Samuels’ presence at Inkerman Street for a full ten days after the body was found. If any enquiries were subsequently made, they would date from the time when Mr Samuels was last seen alive, that is to say, from the time that the supposed Mr Samuels was seen to drive away in a cab.
‘That it was actually Isidore who entered that cab I have no doubt. He had plenty of time to reach Waterloo Station, leave it again by some other exit, change his disguise, and return to Inkerman Street. His task was still unfinished. It was not safe for him to remain at Inkerman Street indefinitely; sooner or later enquiries were bound to be made for his uncle. Nor was it safe to abandon the place and leave it empty. Far better to destroy it, and with it every clue which could lead to the detection of his actions. He set fire to the house, remained until he was sure that it was well alight, and then vanished in a way which once more proved his resourcefulness. His escape in the stolen clothes through a crowd whose attention was riveted upon something else is a masterpiece, if only in its simplicity. He has only to avoid the neighbourhood of Camberwell, the society of his acquaintances there, and his safety is virtually assured.’
‘But what is the object of all this, Daddy?’ put in April. ‘Why hide the death of his uncle in this elaborate way?’
‘It is possible to imagine many reasons,’ replied the Professor gravely. ‘Perhaps he wished to secure his uncle’s money, which is said to have been kept in the shop. Perhaps, even, he was not altogether guiltless of his death. In the absence of any facts bearing upon these points we cannot say. But there is one very curious aspect of the matter, which I have not yet touched upon. That is the victimisation of Harold.
‘You will remember that my theory of the disposal of the body assumes that the nephew had access to Harold’s rooms, presumably by means of the possession of keys of the front door and the door of Harold’s sitting room. This may or may not have been fortuitous. Either Isidore Samuels, remembering that such keys were available, decided to use Harold’s rooms as a depository for his uncle’s body, or for some reason he had decided previously that these rooms were the most suitable place in London for such deposition, and had taken steps to secure the means of entrance to them. I think, on the whole, that there has been a subsequent attempt to saddle Harold with complicity in the matter. I refer, of course, to the remarkable article which appeared in The Weekly Record, and with which we are all familiar.
‘Now, this article is one of the most peculiar factors in the case. It was brilliantly written, and it revealed an extraordinary knowledge of Harold’s life. In addition to this, it was obviously framed with the object of concentrating upon Harold the search for the motive for the presence of the body in his rooms. Now, it might
be argued that Isidore had a reason for drawing attention to Harold, since attention directed upon Harold would be diverted from himself, and for that reason inspired the article. But there appear to me to be two or three circumstances which would seem to render these reasons insufficient. In the first place, I should have thought that Isidore ran more risk by associating himself with the matter than he would have acquired gain by its appearance. In the second place, the circumstances attending the reception of the article are peculiar. I must explain that I obtained an introduction to the editor of The Weekly Record through Lord Sevenoaks, its proprietor. From him I learnt that the article in question was sent by post, typewritten in the ordinary way, with a brief note written on the paper of the Hotel Gigantic, and signed with the name Ralph Tomlinson. It appears that a gentleman of that name is an occasional contributor to The Weekly Record of articles of a similar nature. The editor accepted the article in good faith, and was considerably astonished when he was informed later that Ralph Tomlinson had left England some months ago. On enquiry at the Hotel Gigantic, he was informed that there was no record of any person of that name having stayed there.
‘Now I think you will agree that this points to the writer being inspired with a desire to have the article printed, and at the same time to conceal his own identity. It is easy enough for anyone to acquire hotel note-paper; he has only to walk into the writing-room and take it. Whoever wrote the article guessed that the name of a contributor would incline the editor to publish it. A newspaper office was hardly likely to compare the handwriting of the note with that of previous communications from the real Ralph Tomlinson. Finally, if by any means his fraud were discovered, it would be practically impossible to trace the sender of the letter. On the whole, I am very much inclined to suspect Isidore Samuels of being the author of that article.’