“I suppose,” he said reflectively, “the dustman must have used the side door. Do you happen to know?”
“I don’t,” said I, inwardly wondering what the deuce the dustman had to do with the case. “I understand that the door of the passage was not used.”
“But she couldn’t have had the dust-bin carried up the stairs and out at the front door,” he objected.
“I should think not,” said I. “Perhaps we could judge better if we had a look at the passage.”
He adopted the suggestion and we opened the side-door—which had a Yale night-latch—and went out into the covered passage that was common to the two houses. The door that opened on to the street was bolted on the inside, but the bolts were in good working order, as we ascertained by drawing them gently; so this gave no evidence one way or the other. Then Thorndyke carefully examined the hard gravel floor of the passage, apparently searching for dropped fragments, or the dustman’s footprints; but though there were traces suggesting that the side-doors had been used, there were no perceptible tracks leading to the street or in any way specifically suggestive of dustmen.
“Japp seems fond of Yale locks,” observed Thorndyke, indicating the second side-door, which was also fitted with one. “I wonder where he keeps his dust-bin.”
“Would it be worth while to ask him?” said I, more and more mystified by this extraordinary investigation.
“No,” he replied, very definitely. “A question often gives more information than it elicits.”
“It might easily do that in my case,” I remarked with a grin; upon which he laughed softly and led the way back into the house. There I gathered up the two boxes and the insufflator and made my way up to the bedroom, he following with the tumbler and the water-bottle. Then came the critical business of packing these two precious objects in the boxes in such a way as to protect the fingerprints from contact with the sides; which was accomplished very neatly with the aid of a number of balls or plasticine from the inexhaustible research-case.
“This is a little disappointing,” said Thorndyke, looking at the hair-brush and comb as he took off his gloves. “I had hoped to collect a useful sample of hair. But her excessive tidiness defeats us. There seems to be only one or two short hairs and one full length. However, we may as well have them. They won’t be of much use for comparison with the naked eye, but even a single hair can be used as a colour control under the microscope.”
He combed the brush until the last hair was extracted from it, and then drew the little collection from the comb and arranged it on a sheet of paper. There were six short hairs, from two to four inches long, and one long hair, which seemed to have been broken off, as it had no bulb.
“Many ladies keep a combing-bag,” he remarked, as; he bestowed the collection in a seed-envelope from the: research-case; “but I gather from your description that Mrs. Frood’s hair was luxuriant enough to render that economy unnecessary. At any rate, there doesn’t seem to be such a bag. And now I think we have finished, and we haven’t done so badly.”
“We have certainly got an excellent set of fingerprints,” said I. “But it seems rather doubtful whether there will ever be an opportunity of using them; and if there isn’t, we shan’t be much more forward for our exploration. Of course, there is the hair.”
“Yes,” said Thorndyke, “there is the hair. That may be quite valuable. And perhaps there are some other matters—but time will show.”
With this somewhat cryptic conclusion he proceeded with great care to pack the two boxes in his suitcase, wedging them with his pyjamas so that they should not get shaken in transit.
As we walked home I reflected on Thorndyke’s last remark. It seemed to contain a suggestion that the mystery of Angelina’s death was not so complete to him as it was to me. For my own part, I could see no glimmer of light in any direction. She seemed to have vanished without leaving a trace excepting those few derelict objects which had been washed ashore and which told us nothing. But was it possible that those objects bore some significance that I had overlooked? That they were charged with some message that I had failed to decipher? I recalled a certain reticence on the part of Cobbledick which had made me suspect him of concealing from me some knowledge that he held or some inferences that he had drawn; and now there was this cryptic remark of Thorndyke’s, offering the same suggestion. Might it possibly be that the profound obscurity was only in my own mind, the product of my inexperience, and that to these skilled investigators the problem presented a more intelligible aspect? It might easily be. I determined cautiously to approach the question.
“You seemed,” said I, “to imply, just now, that there are certain data for forming hypotheses as to the solution of this mystery that envelops the disappearance of Mrs. Frood. But I am not aware of any such data. Are you?”
“Your question, Strangeways,” he replied, “turns on the meaning of the word ‘aware.’ If two men, one literate and the other illiterate, look at a page of a printed book, both may be said to be aware of it; that is to say that in both it produces a retinal image which makes them conscious of it as a visible object having certain optical properties. In the case of the illiterate man the perception of the optical properties is the total effect. But the literate man has something in his consciousness already, and this something combines, as it were, with the optical perception, and makes him aware of certain secondary properties of the printed characters. To both, the page yields a visual impression; but to one only does it yield what we may call a psychical impression. Are they both aware of the page?”
“I appreciate your point,” said I, with a sour smile, “and I seem to be aware of a rather skilful evasion of my question.”
He smiled in his turn and rejoined: “Your question was a little indirect. Shall we have it in a more direct form?”
“What I wanted to know,” said I, “though I suppose I have no right to ask, is whether there appears to you to be any prospect whatever of finding any solution of the mystery of Mrs. Frood’s death.”
“The answer to that question,” he replied, “is furnished by my own proceedings. I am not a communicative man, as you may have noticed, but I will say this much: that I have taken, and am taking, a good deal of trouble with this case, and am prepared to take more, and that I do not usually waste my efforts on problems that appear to be unsolvable. I am not disposed to say more than that, excepting to refer you again to the instance of the printed page and to remind you that whatever I know I have either learned from you or from the observation, in your company, of objects equally visible to both of us.”
This reply, if not very illuminating, at least answered my question, as it conveyed to me that I was not likely to get much more information out of my secretive friend. Nevertheless, I asked: “About the man Frood: you were saying that you had some hopes of running him to earth.”
“Yes, I have made a start. I have ascertained that he did apparently set out for Brighton the day before Mrs. Frood’s disappearance, but he never arrived there. That is all I know at present. He was seen getting into the Brighton train, but he did not appear at the Brighton barrier—my informant had the curiosity to watch all the passengers go through—and he never made the visit which was the ostensible object of his journey. So he must have got out at an intermediate station. It may he difficult to trace him, but I am not without hope of succeeding eventually. Obviously, his whereabouts on the fatal day is a matter that has to be settled. At present he is the obvious suspect; but if an alibi should be proved in his case, a search would have to be initiated in some other direction.”
This conversation brought us to my house in time to relieve Mrs. Dunk’s anxieties on the subject of dinner; and as the daylight was already gone, the photographic operations were postponed until the following morning. Indeed, Thorndyke had thought of taking the objects to his chambers, where a more efficient outfit was available, but, on reflection, he decided to take the photographs in my presence so that I could, if necessary, attest thei
r genuineness on oath. Accordingly, on the following morning, we very carefully extracted the tumbler and the bottle from their respective boxes and set them up, with a black coat of mine for a background, at the end of a table. Then Thorndyke produced his small folding camera—which pulled out to a surprising length—and, having fitted it with a short-focus objective, made the exposures, and developed the plates in a dark cupboard by the light of a little red lamp from the research case. When the plates were dry we inspected them through a lens, and found them microscopically sharp. Finally, at Thorndyke’s suggestion, I scratched my initials with a needle in the corner of each plate.
“Well,” I said, when he had finished, “you have got the evidence that you wanted, and in a very complete form. It remains to be seen now whether you will ever get an opportunity to use it.”
“Don’t be pessimistic, Strangeways,” said he. “We have had exceptional luck in getting this splendid series of fingerprints. Let us hope that Fortune will not desert us after making us these gifts.”
“What is to be done with the originals?” I asked.
“Shall I put them back where we found them?”
“I think not,” he replied. “If you have a safe or a secure lock-up cupboard, where they could be put away, out of sight, and from whence they could be produced if necessary, I will ask you to take charge of them.”
There was a cupboard with a good lock in the old bureau that I had found in my bedroom, and to this I conveyed the precious objects and locked them in. And so ended—at least, for the present—the episode of our raid on poor Angelina’s abode.
CHAPTER XIII
The Discovery in Black Boy-Lane
On a fine, sunny afternoon, about ten days after our raid on Angelina’s rooms (it was Tuesday, the 14th of July, to be exact), I was sitting in my dining-room, from which the traces of lunch had just been removed, idly glancing over the paper, and considering the advisability of taking a walk, when I heard the doorbell ring. There was a short interval; then the door was opened, and the sounds of strife and wrangling that followed this phenomenon informed me that the visitor was Mr. Bundy, between whom and Mrs. Dunk there existed a state of chronic warfare. Presently the dining-room door opened—in time for me to catch a concluding growl of defiance from Mrs. Dunk—and that lady announced gruffly: “Mr. Bundy.”
My visitor tripped in smilingly, “all teeth and monocle,” as his inveterate enemy had once expressed it, holding a Panama hat, which had temporarily superseded the velour.
“Well, John,” said he, “coming out to play?” He had lately taken to calling me John; in fact, a very close and pleasant intimacy had sprung up between us. It dated from the occasion when I had confided to him my unfortunate passion for poor Angelina. That confidence he had evidently taken as a great compliment, and the matter of it had struck a sympathetic chord in his kindly nature. From that moment there had been a sensible change in his manner towards me. Beneath his habitual flippancy there was an undertone of gentleness and sympathy, and even of affection. Nor had I been unresponsive. Like Thorndyke, I found in his sunny temperament, his invariable cheerfulness and high spirits, a communicable quality that took effect on my own state of mind. And then I had early recognized that, in spite of his apparent giddiness, Bundy was a man of excellent intelligence and considerable strength of character. So the friendship had ripened naturally enough.
I rose from my chair and, dropping the paper, stretched myself. “You are an idle young dog,” said I. “Why aren’t you at work?”
“Nothing doing at the office except some specifications. Japp is doing them. Come out and have a roll round.”
“Well, Jimmy,” said I. “Your name is Jimmy, isn’t it?”
“No, it is not,” he replied with dignity. “I am called Peter—like the Bishop of Rumtifoo, and, by a curious coincidence, for the very same reason.”
“Let me see,” said I, falling instantly into the trap, “what was that reason?”
“Why, you see,” he replied impressively, “the Bishop was called Peter because that was his name.”
“Look here, young fellow my lad,” said I, “you’ll get yourself into trouble if you come up here pulling your elder’s legs.”
“It was only a gentle tweak, old chap,” said he. “Besides, you aren’t so blooming senile, after all. You are only cutting your first crop of whiskers. Are you coming out? I saw old Cobble dick just now, turning down Blue Boar Lane and looking as miserable as a wet cat.”
“What was he looking miserable about?”
“The slump in relics, I expect. He is making no head way with his investigation. I fancy he had reckoned on getting an inspectorship out of this case, whereas, if he doesn’t reach some sort of conclusion, he is likely to get his rapples knucked, as old Miss Barman would say. I suspect he was on his way to the Ark to confer with Mr. Noah. What do you say to a stroll in the direction of Mount Ararat?”
It was a cunning suggestion on the part of Bundy, for it drew me instantly. Repulsive as old Israel’s activities were to me, the presence of those fingerprints, securely locked up in my bureau, had created in me a fresh anxiety to see the first stage of the investigation completed so that the search for the murderer could be commenced in earnest. Not that my presence would help the sergeant, but that I was eager to hear the tidings of any new discovery.
Bundy’s inference had been quite correct. We arrived at the head of the Blue Boar pier just in time to see the sergeant slowly descending the ladder, watched gloomily by Israel Bangs. As the former reached terra firma he turned round and then observed us.
“Any news, Sergeant?” I asked, as he approached across the grass.
He shook his head discontentedly. “No,” he replied, “not a sign; not a vestige. It’s a most mysterious affair. The things seemed to be coming up quite regularly until that hatpin was found. Then everything came to an end. Not a trace of anything for nigh upon a month. And what, in the name of Fortune, can have become of the body? That’s what I can’t make out. If this goes on much longer, there won’t be any body: and then we shall be done. The case will have to be dropped.”
He took off his hat (he was in plain clothes as usual) and wiped his forehead, looking blankly first at me and then at Bundy. The latter also took off his hat and whisked out his handkerchief, bringing with it a little telescope which fell to the ground and was immediately picked up by the sergeant. “Neat little glass, this,” he remarked, dusting it with his handkerchief. “It’s lucky it fell on the turf.” He took off the cap, and pulling out the tubes, peered vaguely through it up and down the river. Presently he handed it to me. “Look at those craft down below the dockyard,” said he.
I took the little instrument from him and pointed it at the group of small, cutter-rigged vessels that he had indicated, of which the telescope, small as it was, gave a brilliantly sharp picture.
“What are they?” I asked. “Oyster dredgers?”
“No,” he replied. “They are bawleys with their shrimp-trawls down. But there are plenty of oyster dredgers in the lower river and out in the estuary, and what beats me is why none of them ever brings up anything in the trawls or dredges—anything in our line, I mean.”
“What did you expect them to bring up?” Bundy asked.
“Well, there are the things that have washed ashore, and there are the other things that haven’t washed ashore yet. And then there is the body.”
“Mr. Noah would have something to say if they brought that up,” said Bundy. “By the way, what had he got to say when you called on him?”
“Old Bangs? Why he is getting a bit shirty. Wants me to pay him for all the time he has lost on creeping and searching. Of course, I can’t do that, I didn’t employ him.”
“Did he find the hat-pin that you spoke of?” Bundy asked.
“Yes; and he has been grubbing round the place where he found it ever since, as if he thought hat-pins grew there.”
“Still,” said Bundy, “it is not so unreasonable. A
hatpin couldn’t have floated ashore. If the hat came off, the two hat-pins must have fallen out at pretty much the same time and place.”
“Yes,” the sergeant agreed, reflectively, “that seems to be common sense; and, if it is, the other hat-pin ought to be lying somewhere close by. I must go and have a look there myself.” He again reflected for a few moments and then asked: “Would you like to see the place where Israel found the pin?”
As I had seen the place already and had shown it to Thorndyke, I left Bundy to answer.
“Why not?” he assented, rather, I suspected, to humour the sergeant than because he felt any particular interest in the place. Thereupon Cobbledick, whose enthusiasm appeared to have been revived by Bundy’s remark, led the way briskly towards the wilderness by the coal-wharves, through that desolate region and along a cart-track that skirted the marshes until we came out into a sort of lesser wilderness to the west of Gas-House Road. Here the sergeant slipped through a large hole in a corrugated iron fence which gave access to a wharf littered with the unpresentable debris resulting from the activities of a firm of ship-knackers. Advancing to the edge of the wharf, Cobbledick stood for a while looking down wistfully at the expanse of unspeakable mud that the receding tide had uncovered.
“I suppose it is too dirty to go down,” he said in a regretful tone.
Bundy’s assent to this proposition was most emphatic and unqualified, and the sergeant had to content himself with a bird’s-eye view. But he made a very thorough inspection, walking along the edge of the wharf, scrutinizing its base, pile by pile, and giving separate attention to each pot, tin, or scrap of driftwood on the slimy surface. He even borrowed Bundy’s telescope to enable him to examine the more distant parts of the mud, until the owner of the instrument was reduced to the necessity of standing behind him, for politeness’ sake, to get a comfortable yawn.
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