The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  “What struck me,” said Bundy, “was that it doesn’t seem to have been in the water.”

  “It hadn’t,” said Hooper. “The outside paper was quite clean when I picked it up.”

  “It looks,” observed the sergeant, “as if they had turned out the bag and thrown away what they didn’t want; and then they probably threw away the bag, too. It is ten chances to one that it has been picked up, but if it hasn’t it will probably be somewhere along the high-water mark. How are the tides, Hooper?”

  “Just past the bottom of the nips,” was the reply; and a few moments later our guide added; “It’s down here,” and plunged into what looked like an open doorway. We followed, one at a time, cautiously descending a flight of very filthy stone steps and stooping to avoid knocking our heads against the overhanging story of an ancient timber house. At the bottom we proceeded, still in single file, along a narrow, crooked passage between grimy walls and ruinous tarred fences until, after many twistings and turnings, we came to a flight of rough wooden steps, thickly coated with yellow mud and slimy sea-grass, which led down to the shore.

  “Now,” said the sergeant, turning up the bottoms or his trousers, “show us exactly where you picked the box up.”

  “It was just oppersight that there schooner,” said our guide, taking his way along the muddy streak between the two lines of jetsam that corresponded to the springtide and neap-tide high-water marks; “betwixt her and the wharf.”

  We followed him, picking our way daintly, and, having inspected the spot that he indicated, squeezed in between the schooner’s bilge and the piles and raked over the rubbish that the tide had deposited on the shore.

  “Was you looking for anything in partickler?” Hooper asked.

  “We are looking for a small leather handbag,” replied the sergeant, “or anything else we can find.”

  “A ’andbag wouldn’t ’ave been ’ere long,” Hooper remarked. “Somebody would ’ave twigged it pretty quick, unless it got hidden under something big.” He straightened himself up and gave a searching look up and down the shore; and then suddenly he started off with an air of definite purpose. Glancing in the direction towards which he was shaping his course, I observed, in the corner of a stage that jutted out from the quay, a heap of miscellaneous rubbish surmounted by the mortal remains of a large hamper. It looked a likely spot and we all followed, though not at his pace, being somewhat more fastidious as to where we stepped. Consequently he arrived considerably before us, and having flung away the hamper, began eagerly to grub among the underlying raffle. Just as we had come within a dozen yards of him, anxiously making the perilous passage over a stretch of peculiarly slimy mud, he stood up with a howl of triumph, and we all stopped to look at him. His arm was raised above his head, and from his hand hung by its handle a little morocco bag.

  “There’s no need to ask you to identify it, Doctor,” said the sergeant, as he despoiled the water-rat of his prize. “It fits your description to a T.”

  Nevertheless, he handed it to me, drawing my attention to the initials “A. F.” stamped on the leather. I turned it over gloomily, noting that it showed signs of having been in the water—though not, apparently, for any considerable time—and that none of its contents remained excepting a handkerchief tucked into an inner pocket, and returned it to him without remark.

  “Now, look here, Hooper,” said he, “I want you to stay down here and keep an eye on this shore until I send some of our men up, and then you can stay and help them, if you like. And remember that anything that you find—no matter what it is—you keep and hand over to me or my men; and you will be paid the full value and a reward for finding it as well. Do you understand that?”

  “I do,” replied Hooper. “That’s a fair orfer, and you can depend on me to do the square thing. I’ll stay down here until your men come.”

  Thereupon we left him, pursuing our way along the shore and keeping an attentive eye on all the rubbish and litter that we passed, until we came to a set of rough wooden steps by the Ship Pier.

  “I had no authority to offer to pay that chap,” said the sergeant, as we walked up Ship Alley, “but the superintendent has put me on to work at this case, and I’m not going to lose any chances for the sake of a few shillings. It is well to keep in with these waterside people.”

  “Have you published a list of things that are likely to turn up?” Bundy asked.

  “We’ve posted up a description of the missing woman with full details of her dress and belongings,” replied the sergeant. “But perhaps a list of the things that might be washed up would be useful. People are such fools. Yes, it’s a good idea. I’ll have a list printed of everything that might get loose and be picked up, and stick it up on the wharves and waterside premises. Then there will be nothing left to their imagination.”

  At the top of Ship Alley he halted, and having thanked me warmly for my prompt and timely information, turned towards Chatham Town, leaving me and Bundy to retrace our steps westward.

  “That was a bit of luck,” the latter remarked, “finding that bag; and he hardly deserved it. He ought to have had that piece of shore under observation from the first. But he was wise to make an acceptable offer to that bodysnatcher, Hooper. I expect he lives on the shore, watching for derelict corpses and any unconsidered trifles that the river may throw up. I see there is a reward of two pounds for the body.”

  “You have seen the bills, then?”

  “Yes. We have got one to stick up in the office window. Rather gruesome, isn’t it?”

  “Horrible,” I said; and for a while we walked on in silence. Presently Bundy exclaimed: “By Jove! I had nearly forgotten. I have a message for you. It is from Japp. He is taking a distinguished American archaeologist for a personally conducted tour round the town to show him the antiquities, and he thought you might like to join the party.”

  “That is very good of him,” said I. “It sounds as if it should be rather interesting.”

  “It will be,” said Bundy. “Japp is an enthusiast in regard to architecture and ancient buildings, and he is quite an authority on the antiquities of this town. You’d better come. The American—his name is Willard—is going to charter a photographer to come round with us and take records of all the objects of interest, and we shall be able to get copies of any photographs that we want. What do you say?”

  “When does the demonstration take place?”

  “The day after tomorrow. We shall do the Cathedral in the morning and the castle and the town in the afternoon. Shall I tell Japp you will join the merry throng?”

  “Yes, please; and convey my very warm thanks for the invitation.”

  “I will,” said he, halting as we arrived at the office, “unless you would like to come in and convey the joyful tidings yourself.”

  “No,” he replied, “I won’t come in now. I will get home and change my boots.”

  “Yes, by Jingo!” Bundy agreed, with a rueful glance at his own delicate shoes. “Mudlarking calls for a special outfit. And I clean my own shoes; but I’d rather do that than face Mrs. Dunk.”

  With this he retired up the steps, and I turned homeward, deciding to profit by his last remark and forestall unfavourable comment by shedding my boots on the doormat.

  CHAPTER X

  Which Deals with Ancient Monuments and a Blue Boar

  On arriving home, I found awaiting me a letter from Dr. Thorndyke suggesting—in response to a general invitation that I had given him some time previously—that he should come down on Saturday to spend the weekend with me. Of course, I adopted the suggestion with very great pleasure, not a little flattered at receiving so distinguished a guest; and now I was somewhat disposed to regret my engagement to attend Mr. Japp’s demonstration. However, as Thorndyke was not due until lunch time, I should have an opportunity of modifying my arrangement, if necessary.

  But, as events turned out, I congratulated myself warmly on not having missed the morning visit to the Cathedral. It was a really remarkabl
e experience; and not the least interesting part of it to me was the revelation of the inner personality of my friend, Mr. Japp. That usually dry and taciturn man of business was transfigured in the presence of the things that he really loved. He glowed with enthusiasm; he exhaled the very spirit of mediaeval romance; at every pore he exuded strange and recondite knowledge. Obedient to his behest, the ancient building told the vivid story of its venerable past, presented itself in its rude and simple beginnings; exhibited the transformations that had marked the passing centuries; peopled itself with the illustrious departed, whose heirs we were and whose resting-places we looked upon; and became to us a living thing whose birth and growth we could watch, whose vicissitudes and changing conditions we could trace until they brought us to its august old age. Under his guidance we looked down the long vista of the past, from the time when simple masons scalloped the Norman capitals within, while illustrious craftsmen fashioned the wonderful west doorway, to that last upheaval that swept away the modern shoddy and restored to the old fabric its modest comeliness.

  Architectural antiquities, however, are not the especial concern of this history, though they were not without a certain influence in its unfolding. Accordingly, I shall not follow our progress—attended by the indispensable photographic recording angel—through nave and aisles, form choir to transepts, and from tower to undercroft. At the close of a delightful morning I betook myself homeward, charged with new and varied knowledge, and with a cordial invitation to my guest to join the afternoon’s expedition if he were archaeologically inclined.

  Apparently he was, for when, shortly after his arrival, I conveyed the invitation to him he accepted at once.

  “I always take the opportunity,” said he, “of getting what is practically first-hand information. Your friend, Mr. Japp, is evidently an enthusiast; he has expert technical knowledge, and he has apparently filled in his detail by personal investigation. A man like that can tell you more in an hour than guidebooks could tell you in a lifetime. We had better get a large-scale map of the town to enable us to follow the description, unless you have one.”

  “I haven’t,” said I, “but we can get one on the way to the rendezvous. You got my report, I suppose?”

  “Yes,” he replied, “I got it yesterday. That, in fact, was what determined me to come down. The discovery of that bag upon the shore dispels to some extent the ambiguity of our data. The finding of the brooch did not enlighten us much. It might simply have been dropped and picked up by some casual wayfarer. In fact, that is what the appearances suggested, for it is manifestly improbable that a person who had committed a crime would take the risk of pawning the product of robbery with violence in the very neighbourhood where the crime had been committed, and after an interval of time which would allow of the hue and cry having already been raised. Your sergeant is probably right in assuming that the man with the mole had nothing to do with the affair. But the finding of this bag is a different matter. It connects that disappearance with the river and it offers a strong suggestion of crime.”

  “Don’t you think it possible that she might have fallen into the river accidentally?” I asked.

  “It is possible,” he admitted. “But that is where the significance of the brooch comes in. If she had fallen into the river from some wharf or pier, there does not seem to be any reason why the brooch should have become detached and fallen on land—as it apparently did. The finding of the bag where it had been thrown up by the river, and of the brooch on shore, suggests a struggle on land previous to the fall into the water. You don’t happen, I suppose, to know what the bag contained?”

  “I don’t—excepting the packet of tablets that I gave her. When the bag was found, it was empty; at least, it contained only the handkerchief, as I mentioned in my report.”

  “Yes,” he said reflectively. “By the way, I must compliment you on those reports. They are excellent, and with regard to this one, there are two or three rather curious circumstances. First, as to the packet of tablets. You mention that it had not been unwrapped and that, when it was found, the paper was quite clean. Therefore it had never been in the water. Therefore it had been taken out of the bag—by somebody with moderately clean hands—before the latter was dropped into the river; and it must have been thrown away on the shore above highwater mark. Incidentally, since the disappearance occurred—presumably—on the evening of the 26th of April, and the packet was found on the 7th of May, it had been lying on the shore for a full ten days. Perhaps there is nothing very remarkable in that; but the point is that Mrs. Frood was carrying the bag in her hand and she would almost certainly have dropped it if there had been any struggle. How, then, did the bag come to be in the river, and how came some of its contents to be found on the shore clean and free from any traces of submersion?”

  “We can only suppose,” said I, with an inward shudder—for the discussion of these hideous details made my very flesh creep—“that the murderer picked up the bag when he had thrown the body into the river, took out any articles of value, if there were any, and threw the rest on the shore.”

  “Yes,” agreed Thorndyke, a little doubtfully, “that would seem to be what happened. And in that case, we should have to assume that the place where the packet was found was, approximately, the place where the crime was committed. For, as the packet was never immersed, it could not have been carried to that place by the tide, and one cannot think of any other agency by which it could have been moved. Its clean and unopened condition seems to exclude human agency. The question then naturally arises, Is the place where the packet was found, a place at, or near, which the tragedy could conceivably have occurred? What do you say to that?”

  I considered for a few moments, recalling the intricate and obscure approach of the shore and the absence of anything in the nature of a public highway.

  “I can only say,” I replied at length, “that it seems perfectly inconceivable that Mrs. Frood could have been at that place, or even near it, unless she went there for some specific purpose—unless, for instance, she were lured there in some way. It is a place that is, I should say, unknown to any but the waterside people.”

  “We must go there and examine the place carefully,” said he, “for if it is, as you say, a place to which no one could imaginably have strayed by chance, that fact has an important evidential bearing.”

  “Do you think it quite impossible that the package could have been carried to that place and dropped there?”

  “Not impossible, of course,” he replied, “but I can think of no reasonably probable way in which it could have happened, supposing the murderer to have pocketed it, and afterwards to have thrown it away. That would be a considered and deliberate act; and it is almost inconceivable that he should not have opened the packet to see what was inside, and that he should have dropped it on the dry beach when the river was close at hand. Remember that the bag was found quite near, and that it had been in the water.”

  “And assuming the crime to have been committed at that place, what would it prove?”

  “In the first place,” he replied, “it would pretty definitely exclude the theory of accidental death. Then it would suggest at least a certain amount of premeditation, since the victim would have had, as you say, to be enticed to that unlikely spot. And it would suggest that the murderer was a person acquainted with the locality.”

  “One of the waterside people,” said I. “They are a pretty shady lot, but I don’t see why any of them should want to murder her.”

  “It is not impossible,” said he. “She was said to be shopping in Chatham, and she might have had a well-filled purse and allowed it to be seen. But that is mere speculation. The fact is that we have no data at present. We know practically nothing about Mrs. Frood. We can’t say if she had any secret enemies, or if there was anyone who might have profited by her death or have had any motive for making away with her.”

  “We know something about her husband,” said I, “and that he has disappeared in a rather
mysterious fashion; and that his disappearance coincides with that of his wife.”

  “Yes,” Thorndyke agreed, “those are significant facts. But we mustn’t lose sight of the legal position. Until the body is recovered, there is no evidence of death. Until the death is proved, no charge of murder can be sustained. When the body is found it will probably furnish some evidence as to how the death occurred, if it is recovered within a reasonable time. As a matter of fact, it is rather remarkable that it has not yet been found. The death occurred—presumably—nearly a fortnight ago. Considering how very much frequented this river is, it is really rather unaccountable that the body has not come to light. But I suppose it is time that we started for the rendezvous.”

  I looked at my watch and decided that it was, and we accordingly set forth in the direction of the office, which was the appointed meeting-place, calling at a stationer’s to provide ourselves each with a map. We chose the six inch town plan, which contained the whole urban area, including the winding reaches of the river, folding them so as to show at an opening the peninsula on which the city of Rochester is built.

  “A curious loop of the river, this,” said Thorndyke, scanning the map as we went along. “Rather like that of the Thames at the Isle of Dogs. You notice that there are quite a number of creeks on the low shore at both sides. Those will be places to watch. A floating body has rather a tendency to get carried into shallow creeks and to stay there. But I have no doubt the longshoremen are keeping an eye on them as a reward has been offered. Perhaps we might be able to go down and have a look at the shore when we have finished our perambulation of the town.”

  “I don’t see why not,” I replied, though, to tell the truth, I was not very keen on this particular exploration. To Thorndyke this quest was just an investigation to be pursued with passionless care and method. To me it was a tragedy that would colour my whole life. To him, Angelina was but a missing woman whose disappearance had to be explained by patient inquiry. To me she was a beloved friend whose loss would leave me with a life-long sorrow. Of course, he was not aware of this; he had no suspicion of the shuddering horror that his calm, impersonal examination of the evidential details produced in me. Nor did I intend that he should. It was my duty and my privilege to give him what assistance I could, and keep my emotions to myself.