Boscovitch pored over the case and its contents, fingering the instruments delicately and asking questions innumerable about their uses; indeed, his curiosity was but half appeased when, half-an-hour later, the train began to slow down.
‘By Jove!’ he exclaimed, starting up and seizing his bag. ‘Here we are at the junction already. You change here too, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ replied Thorndyke. ‘We take the branch train on to Warmington.’
As we stepped out on to the platform, we became aware that something unusual was happening or had happened. All the passengers and most of the porters and supernumeraries were gathered at one end of the station, and all were looking intently into the darkness down the line.
‘Anything wrong?’ asked Mr Boscovitch, addressing the station-inspector.
‘Yes, sir,’ the official replied; ‘a man has been run over by the goods train about a mile down the line. The station-master has gone down with a stretcher to bring him in, and I expect that is his lantern that you see coming this way.’
As we stood watching the dancing light grow momentarily brighter, flashing fitful reflections from the burnished rails, a man came out of the booking-office and joined the group of onlookers. He attracted my attention, as I afterwards remembered, for two reasons: in the first place his round, jolly face was excessively pale and bore a strained and wild expression, and, in the second, though he stared into the darkness with eager curiosity, he asked no questions.
The swinging lantern continued to approach, and then suddenly two men came into sight bearing a stretcher covered with a tarpaulin, through which the shape of a human figure was dimly discernible. They ascended the slope to the platform and proceeded with their burden to the lamp-room, when the inquisitive gaze of the passengers was transferred to a porter who followed carrying a hand-bag and umbrella and to the station-master who brought up the rear with his lantern.
As the porter passed, Mr Boscovitch started forward with sudden excitement.
‘Is that his umbrella?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ answered the porter, stopping and holding it out for the speaker’s inspection.
‘My God!’ ejaculated Boscovitch; then, turning sharply to Thorndyke, he exclaimed: ‘That’s Brodski’s umbrella. I could swear to it. You remember Brodski?’
Thorndyke nodded, and Boscovitch, turning once more to the porter, said: ‘I identify that umbrella. It belongs to a gentleman named Brodski. If you look in his hat, you will see his name written in it. He always writes his name in his hat.’
‘We haven’t found his hat yet,’ said the porter; ‘but here is the station-master.’ He turned to his superior and announced: ‘This gentleman, sir, has identified the umbrella.’
‘Oh,’ said the station-master, ‘you recognise the umbrella, sir, do you? Then perhaps you would step into the lamp-room and see if you can identify the body.’
Mr Boscovitch recoiled with a look of alarm. ‘Is it—is he—very much injured?’ he asked nervously.
‘Well, yes,’ was the reply. ‘You see, the engine and six of the trucks went over him before they could stop the train. Took his head clean off, in fact.’
‘Shocking! Shocking!’ gasped Boscovitch. ‘I think—if you don’t mind—I’d—I’d rather not. You don’t think it necessary, doctor, do you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ replied Thorndyke. ‘Early identification may be of the first importance.’
‘Then I suppose I must,’ said Boscovitch; and, with extreme reluctance, he followed the station-master to the lamp-room, as the loud ringing of the bell announced the approach of the boat train. His inspection must have been of the briefest, for, in a few moments, he burst out, pale and awe-stricken, and rushed up to Thorndyke.
‘It is!’ he exclaimed breathlessly. ‘It’s Brodski! Poor old Brodski! Horrible! Horrible! He was to have met me here and come on with me to Amsterdam.’
‘Had he any—merchandise about him?’ Thorndyke asked; and, as he spoke, the stranger whom I had previously noticed edged up closer as if to catch the reply.
‘He had some stones, no doubt,’ answered Boscovitch, ‘but I don’t know what they were. His clerk will know, of course. By the way, doctor, could you watch the case for me? Just to be sure it was really an accident or—you know what. We were old friends, you know, fellow townsmen, too; we were both born in Warsaw. I’d like you to give an eye to the case.’
‘Very well,’ said Thorndyke. ‘I will satisfy myself that there is nothing more than appears; and let you have a report. Will that do?’
‘Thank you,’ said Boscovitch. ‘It’s excessively good of you, doctor. Ah, here comes the train. I hope it won’t inconvenience you to stay and see to the matter.’
‘Not in the least,’ replied Thorndyke. ‘We are not due at Warmington until tomorrow afternoon, and I expect we can find out all that is necessary to know and still keep our appointment.’
As Thorndyke spoke, the stranger, who had kept close to us with the evident purpose of hearing what was said, bestowed on him a very curious and attentive look; and it was only when the train had actually come to rest by the platform that he hurried away to find a compartment.
No sooner had the train left the station than Thorndyke sought out the station-master and informed him of the instructions that he had received from Boscovitch. ‘Of course,’ he added, in conclusion, ‘we must not move in the matter until the police arrive. I suppose they have been informed?’
‘Yes,’ replied the station-master; ‘I sent a message at once to the Chief Constable, and I expect him or an inspector at any moment. In fact, I think I will slip out to the approach and see if he is coming.’ He evidently wished to have a word in private with the police officer before committing himself to any statement.
As the official departed, Thorndyke and I began to pace the now empty platform, and my friend, as was his wont when entering on a new inquiry, meditatively reviewed the features of the problem.
‘In a case of this kind,’ he remarked, ‘we have to decide on one of three possible explanations: accident, suicide or homicide; and our decision will be determined by inferences from three sets of facts: first, the general facts of the case; second, the special data obtained by examination of the body, and, third, the special data obtained by examining the spot on which the body was found. Now the only general facts at present in our possession are that the deceased was a diamond merchant making a journey for a specific purpose and probably having on his person property of small bulk and great value. These facts are somewhat against the hypothesis of suicide and somewhat favourable to that of homicide. Facts relevant to the question of accident would be the existence or otherwise of a level crossing, a road or path leading to the line, an enclosing fence with or without a gate, and any other facts rendering probable or otherwise the accidental presence of the deceased at the spot where the body was found. As we do not possess these facts, it is desirable that we extend our knowledge.’
‘Why not put a few discreet questions to the porter who brought in the bag and umbrella?’ I suggested. ‘He is at this moment in earnest conversation with the ticket collector and would, no doubt, be glad of a new listener.’
‘An excellent suggestion, Jervis,’ answered Thorndyke. ‘Let us see what he has to tell us.’ We approached the porter and found him, as I had anticipated, bursting to unburden himself of the tragic story.
‘The way the thing happened, sir, was this,’ he said, in answer to Thorndyke’s question: ‘There’s a sharpish bend in the road just at that place, and the goods train was just rounding the curve when the driver suddenly caught sight of something lying across the rails. As the engine turned, the head-lights shone on it and then he saw it was a man. He shut off steam at once, blew his whistle, and put the brakes down hard, but, as you know, sir, a goods train takes some stopping; before they could bring her up, the engine and half-a-dozen trucks had go
ne over the poor beggar.’
‘Could the driver see how the man was lying?’ Thorndyke asked.
‘Yes, he could see him quite plain, because the head-lights were full on him. He was lying on his face with his neck over the near rail on the down side. His head was in the four-foot and his body by the side of the track. It looked as if he had laid himself out a-purpose.’
‘Is there a level crossing thereabout?’ asked Thorndyke.
‘No, sir. No crossing, no road, no path, no nothing,’ said the porter, ruthlessly sacrificing grammar to emphasis. ‘He must have come across the fields and climbed over the fence to get on to the permanent way. Deliberate suicide is what it looks like.’
‘How did you learn all this?’ Thorndyke inquired.
‘Why, the driver, you see, sir, when him and his mate had lifted the body off the track, went on to the next signal-box and sent in his report by telegram. The station-master told me all about it as we walked down the line.’
Thorndyke thanked the man for his information, and, as we strolled back towards the lamp-room, discussed the bearing of these new facts.
‘Our friend is unquestionably right in one respect,’ he said; ‘this was not an accident. The man might, if he were near-sighted, deaf or stupid, have climbed over the fence and got knocked down by the train. But his position, lying across the rails, can only be explained by one of two hypotheses: either it was, as the porter says, deliberate suicide, or else the man was already dead or insensible. We must leave it at that until we have seen the body, that is, if the police will allow us to see it. But here comes the station-master and an officer with him. Let us hear what they have to say.’
The two officials had evidently made up their minds to decline any outside assistance. The divisional surgeon would make the necessary examination, and information could be obtained through the usual channels. The production of Thorndyke’s card, however, somewhat altered the situation. The police inspector hummed and hawed irresolutely, with the card in his hand, but finally agreed to allow us to view the body, and we entered the lamp-room together, the station-master leading the way to turn up the gas.
The stretcher stood on the floor by one wall, its grim burden still hidden by the tarpaulin, and the hand-bag and umbrella lay on a large box, together with the battered frame of a pair of spectacles from which the glasses had fallen out.
‘Were these spectacles found by the body?’ Thorndyke inquired.
‘Yes,’ replied the station-master. ‘They were close to the head and the glass was scattered about on the ballast.’
Thorndyke made a note in his pocket-book, and then, as the inspector removed the tarpaulin, he glanced down on the corpse, lying limply on the stretcher and looking grotesquely horrible with its displaced head and distorted limbs. For fully a minute he remained silently stooping over the uncanny object, on which the inspector was now throwing the light of a large lantern; then he stood up and said quietly to me: ‘I think we can eliminate two out of the three hypotheses.’
The inspector looked at him quickly, and was about to ask a question, when his attention was diverted by the travelling-case which Thorndyke had laid on a shelf and now opened to abstract a couple of pairs of dissecting forceps.
‘We’ve no authority to make a post-mortem, you know,’ said the inspector.
‘No, of course not,’ said Thorndyke. ‘I am merely going to look into the mouth.’ With one pair of forceps he turned back the lip and, having scrutinised its inner surface, closely examined the teeth.
‘May I trouble you for your lens, Jervis?’ he said; and, as I handed him my doublet ready opened, the inspector brought the lantern close to the dead face and leaned forward eagerly. In his usual systematic fashion, Thorndyke slowly passed the lens along the whole range of sharp, uneven teeth, and then, bringing it back to the centre, examined with more minuteness the upper incisors. At length, very delicately, he picked out with his forceps some minute object from between two of the upper front teeth and held it in the focus of the lens. Anticipating his next move, I took a labelled microscope-slide from the case and handed it to him together with a dissecting needle, and, as he transferred the object to the slide and spread it out with the needle, I set up the little microscope on the shelf.
‘A drop of Farrant and a cover-glass, please, Jervis,’ said Thorndyke.
I handed him the bottle, and, when he had let a drop of the mounting fluid fall gently on the object and put on the cover-slip, he placed the slide on the stage of the microscope and examined it attentively.
Happening to glance at the inspector, I observed on his countenance a faint grin, which he politely strove to suppress when he caught my eye.
‘I was thinking, sir,’ he said apologetically, ‘that it’s a bit off the track to be finding out what he had for dinner. He didn’t die of unwholesome feeding.’
Thorndyke looked up with a smile. ‘It doesn’t do, Inspector, to assume that anything is off the track in an inquiry of this kind. Every fact must have some significance, you know.’
‘I don’t see any significance in the diet of a man who has had his head cut off,’ the inspector rejoined defiantly.
‘Don’t you?’ said Thorndyke. ‘Is there no interest attaching to the last meal of a man who has met a violent death? These crumbs, for instance, that are scattered over the dead man’s waistcoat. Can we learn nothing from them?’
‘I don’t see what you can learn,’ was the dogged rejoinder.
Thorndyke picked off the crumbs, one by one, with his forceps, and, having deposited them on a slide, inspected them, first with the lens and then through the microscope.
‘I learn,’ said he, ‘shortly before his death, the deceased partook of some kind of wholemeal biscuits, apparently composed partly of oatmeal.’
‘I call that nothing,’ said the inspector. ‘The question that we have got to settle is not what refreshments had the deceased been taking, but what was the cause of his death: Did he commit suicide? Was he killed by accident? Or was there any foul play?’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Thorndyke, ‘the questions that remain to be settled are, who killed the deceased and with what motive? The others are already answered as far as I am concerned.’
The inspector stared in sheer amazement not unmixed with incredulity.
‘You haven’t been long coming to a conclusion, sir,’ he said.
‘No, it was a pretty obvious case of murder,’ said Thorndyke. ‘As to the motive, the deceased was a diamond merchant and is believed to have had a quantity of stones about his person. I should suggest that you search the body.’
The inspector gave vent to an exclamation of disgust. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘It was just a guess on your part. The dead man was a diamond merchant and had valuable property about him; therefore he was murdered.’ He drew himself up, and, regarding Thorndyke with stern reproach, added: ‘But you must understand, sir, that this is a judicial inquiry, not a prize competition in a penny paper. And, as to searching the body, why, that is what I principally came for.’ He ostentatiously turned his back on us and proceeded systematically to turn out the dead man’s pockets, laying the articles, as he removed them, on the box by the side of the hand-bag and umbrella.
While he was thus occupied, Thorndyke looked over the body generally, paying special attention to the soles of the boots, which, to the inspector’s undissembled amusement, he very thoroughly examined with the lens.
‘I should have thought, sir, that his feet were large enough to be seen with the naked eye,’ was his comment; ‘but perhaps,’ he added, with a sly glance at the station-master, ‘you’re a little near-sighted.’
Thorndyke chuckled good-humouredly, and, while the officer continued his search, he looked over the articles that had already been laid on the box. The purse and pocket-book he naturally left for the inspector to open, but the reading-glasses, pocket-knife and
card-case and other small pocket articles were subjected to a searching scrutiny. The inspector watched him out of the corner of his eye with furtive amusement; saw him hold up the glasses to the light to estimate their refractive power, peer into the tobacco pouch, open the cigarette book and examine the watermark of the paper, and even inspect the contents of the silver match-box.
‘What might you have expected to find in his tobacco pouch?’ the officer asked, laying down a bunch of keys from the dead man’s pocket.
‘Tobacco,’ Thorndyke replied stolidly; ‘but I did not expect to find fine-cut Latakia. I don’t remember ever having seen pure Latakia smoked in cigarettes.’
‘You do take an interest in things, sir,’ said the inspector, with a side glance at the stolid station-master.
‘I do,’ Thorndyke agreed; ‘and I note that there are no diamonds among this collection.’
‘No, and we don’t know that he had any about him; but there’s a gold watch and chain, a diamond scarf-pin, and a purse containing’—he opened it and tipped out its contents into his hand—‘twelve pounds in gold. That doesn’t look much like robbery, does it? What do you say to the murder theory now?’
‘My opinion is unchanged,’ said Thorndyke, ‘and I should like to examine the spot where the body was found. Has the engine been inspected?’ he added, addressing the station-master.
‘I telegraphed to Bradfield to have it examined,’ the official answered. ‘The report has probably come in by now. I’d better see before we start down the line.’
We emerged from the lamp-room and, at the door, found the station-inspector waiting with a telegram. He handed it to the station-master, who read it aloud.
‘The engine has been carefully examined by me. I find small smear of blood on near leading wheel and smaller one on next wheel following. No other marks.’ He glanced questioningly at Thorndyke, who nodded and remarked: ‘It will be interesting to see if the line tells the same tale.’
The station-master looked puzzled and was apparently about to ask for an explanation; but the inspector, who had carefully pocketed the dead man’s property, was impatient to start and, accordingly, when Thorndyke had repacked his case and had, at his own request, been furnished with a lantern, we set off down the permanent way, Thorndyke carrying the light and I the indispensable green case.
Blood on the Tracks Page 13