The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  In the course of the next few minutes two more buttons came to light, and almost immediately afterwards I saw the labourer stoop suddenly and stare down at the lime with an expression that made my flesh creep, as he pointed something out to the foreman.

  “Ah!” the latter exclaimed. “Here she is! But, my word! There ain’t much left of her. Look at this, Sergeant.”

  Very gingerly, and with an air of shuddering distaste, he picked something out of the lime and held it up; and even at that distance I could see that it was a human ulna. Cobbledick took it from him with the same distasteful and almost fearful manner, and held it towards me for inspection. I glanced at it and looked away. “Yes,” I said. “It is a human arm bone.”

  On this, Cobbledick beckoned for the labourer to come down, and, taking out his official notebook, wrote something in pencil and tore out the leaf.

  “Take this down to the station and give it to Sergeant Brown. He will tell you what else to do.” He gave the paper to the man, and having let him out of the gate, came back and climbed up to the exposed surface of the excavation, where I saw him draw on a pair of gloves and then stoop and begin to pick over the lime.

  “This is a horrid business, isn’t it?” said Bundy. “Why the deuce couldn’t Cobbledick carry on by himself? I don’t see that it is our affair. Do you think we need stay?”

  “I don’t see why you need. You have finished your part of the business. You have seen the wall opened. I am afraid I must stay a little longer, as Cobbledick may want me to identify some of the other objects that may be found. But I shan’t stay very long. There is really no question of the identity of the body, and there is no doubt now that the body is there. Detailed identification is a matter for the coroner.”

  As we were speaking, we walked slowly away from the wall among the mounds of rubbish, now beginning to be hidden under a dense growth of nettles, ragwort and thistles. It was a desolate, neglected place, sordid of aspect and contrasting unpleasantly in its modern squalor with the dignified decay of the ancient wall. We had reached the further fence and were just turning about, when the sergeant hailed me with a note of excitement in his voice. I hurried across and found him standing up with his eyes fixed on something that lay in the palm of his gloved hand.

  “This seems to be the ring that you described to me, Doctor,” said he. “Will you just take a look at it?”

  He reached down and I received in my hand the little trinket of deep-toned, yellow gold that I remembered so well. I turned it over in my palm, and as I looked on its mystical signs, its crude, barbaric workmanship and the initials “A. C.” scratched inside, the scene in that dimly lighted room—years ago, it seemed to me now—rose before me like a vision. I saw the gracious figure in the red glow of the lamp and heard the voice that was never again to sound in my ears, telling the story of the little bauble, and for a few moments, the dreadful present faded into the irredeemable past.

  “There isn’t any doubt about it, is there, Doctor?” the sergeant asked anxiously.

  “None, whatever,” I replied. “It is unquestionably Mrs. Frood’s ring.”

  “That’s a mercy,” said Cobbledick; “because we shall want every atom of identification that we can get. The body isn’t going to help us much. This lime has done its work to a finish. There’s nothing left, so far as I can see, but the skeleton and the bits of metal belonging to the clothing. Would you like to come up and have a look, Doctor? There isn’t much to see yet, but I have uncovered some of the bones.”

  “I don’t think I will come up, Sergeant, thank you,” said I. “When you have finished, I shall have to look over what has been found, as I shall have to give evidence at the inquest. And I think I need hardly stay any longer. There is no doubt now about the identity, so far as we are concerned, at any rate.”

  “No,” he agreed. “There is no doubt in my mind, so I need not keep you any longer if you want to be off. But, before you go, there is one little matter that I should like to speak to you about.” He climbed down to the ground, and, walking away with me a little distance, continued:

  “You see, Doctor, some medical man will have to examine the remains, so as to give evidence before the coroner. If it is impossible to identify them as the remains of Mrs. Frood, it will have to be given in evidence that they are the remains of a person who might have been Mrs. Frood; that they are the remains of a woman of about her size and age, I mean. Of course, the choice of the medical witness doesn’t rest with the police, but if you would care to take on the job, our recommendation would have weight with the coroner. You see, you are the most suitable person to make the examination, as you actually knew her.”

  I shook my head emphatically. “For that very reason, Sergeant, I couldn’t possibly undertake the duty. Even doctors have feelings, you know. Just imagine how you would feel, yourself, pawing over the bones of a woman who had once been your friend.”

  Cobbledick looked disappointed. “Yes,” he admitted, “I suppose there is something in what you say. But I didn’t think doctors troubled about such things very much; and you have got such an eye for detail—and such a memory. However, if you’d rather not, there is an end of the matter.”

  He climbed back regretfully to the opening in the wall, and I rejoined Bundy. “I have finished here now,” said I. “That was a ring of hers that Cobbledick had found. Are you staying any longer?”

  “Not if you are going away,” he replied. “I am not wanted now, and I can’t stick this charnel-house atmosphere; it is getting on my nerves. Let us clear out.”

  We walked towards the entrance with a feeling of relief at escaping from the gruesome place, and had arrived within a few yards of it when there came a loud knocking at the gate, at which Bundy started visibly.

  “Good Lord!” he exclaimed, “it’s like Macbeth. Here, take my key and let the beggars in, whoever they are.”

  I unlocked the gate and threw it open, when I saw, standing in the lane, two men, bearing on their shoulders a rough, unpainted coffin, and accompanied by the labourer, who carried a large sieve. I stood aside to let them pass in, and when they had entered, Bundy and I walked out, shutting and locking the gate after us. We made our way up the lane in silence, for there was little to say but much to think about; indeed, I would sooner have been alone, but the gruesome atmosphere of the place we had come from seemed to have affected Bundy’s spirits so much that I thought it only kind to ask him to come back to lunch with me; an invitation that he accepted with avidity.

  During lunch we discussed the tragic discovery, and Bundy, now that he had escaped from physical contact with the relics of mortality, showed his usual shrewd common sense.

  “Well;” he said, “the mystery of poor Angelina Frood is solved at last—at least, so far as it is ever likely to be.”

  “I hope not,” I replied, “for the essential point of the mystery is not solved at all. It has only just been completely propounded. We now know beyond a doubt that she was murdered, and that the murder was a deliberate crime, planned in advance. What we want to know—at least, what I want to know, and shall never rest until I do know—is, who committed this diabolical crime?”

  “I am afraid you never will know, John,” said he. “There doesn’t seem to be the faintest clue.”

  “What do you mean?” I demanded. “You seem to have forgotten Nicholas Frood.”

  Bundy shook his head. “You are deluding yourself, John. Nicholas seems, from your account of him, to be quite capable of having murdered his wife. But is there anything to connect him with the crime? If there is, you have never told me of it. And the law demands positive evidence. You can’t charge a man with murder because he seems a likely person and you don’t know of anybody else. What have you got against him in connexion with this present affair?”

  “Well, for instance, I know that he was prowling about this town, and that he was trying to find out where she lived.”

  “But why not?” demanded Bundy. “She was a runaway wife, and he
was her husband.”

  “Then I happen to have noticed that he carried a sheath-knife.”

  “But do you know that she was killed with a sheath-knife?”

  “No, I don’t,” I answered savagely. “But I say again that I shall never rest until the price of her death has been paid. There must be some clue. The murder could not have been committed without a motive, and it must be possible to discover what that motive was. Somebody must have stood to benefit in some way by her death; and I am going to find that person, or those persons, if I give up the rest of my life to the search.”

  “I am sorry to hear you say that, John,” he said as he rose to depart. “It sounds as if you were prepared to spend the rest of your life chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. But we are premature. The inquest may bring to light some new evidence that will put the police on the murderer’s track. You must remember that they have been engaged in tracing the body up to now. When the inquest has been held and the facts are known they will be able to begin the search for the murderers. And I wish them and you good luck.”

  I was rather glad when he was gone, for his dispassionate estimate of the difficulties of the case only served to confirm my own secret hopelessness. For I could not deny that these wretches seemed to have covered up their tracks completely. In the three months that had passed no whisper of any suspicious circumstance had been heard.

  From the moment when poor Angelina had faded from my sight into the fog to that of her dreadful reappearance in the old wall, no human eye seemed to have seen her. And now that she had come back, what had she to tell us of the events of that awful night? The very body, on which Thorndyke had relied for evidence, at least, of the manner of the crime, had dwindled to a mere skeleton such as might have been exhumed from some ancient tomb. The cunning of the murderer had outwitted even Thorndyke.

  The thought of my friend reminded me that I had to report to him the results of the opening of the wall; results very different from what he had anticipated when he had given the sergeant the too-fruitful hint. I accordingly wrote out a detailed report, so far as my information went; but I held it back until the last post in case anything further should come to my knowledge. And it was just as well that I did; for about eight o’clock, Cobbledick called to give me the latest tidings.

  “Well, Doctor,” he said, with a smile of concentrated benevolence, “I have got everything in going order. I have seen the coroner and made out a list of witnesses. You are one of them, of course; in fact, you are the star witness. You were the last person to see her alive, and you were present at the exhumation. Dr. Baines—he’s rather a scientific gentleman—is to make the post-mortem examination, and tell us the cause of death, if he can. He won’t have much to go on. The lime has eaten up everything—it would, naturally, after three months—but the bones look quite uninjured, so far as I could judge.”

  “When does the inquest open?” I asked.

  “The day after tomorrow. I’ve got your summons with me, and I may as well give it to you now.”

  I looked at the little blue paper and put it in my pocketbook. “Do you think the coroner will get through the case in one day?” I asked.

  “No, I am sure he won’t,” replied Cobbledick. “It is an important case, and there will be a lot of witnesses. There will be the evidence as to the building of the wall; then the opening of it and the description of what we found in it; then the identification of the remains—that is you, principally; and then there will be all the other evidence, the pawnbroker, Israel Bangs, Hooper, and the others. And then, of course, there will be the question as to the guilty parties. That is the most important of all.”

  “I didn’t know you had any evidence on that subject,” said I.

  “I haven’t much,” he replied. “From the time when she disappeared nobody saw her alive or dead, and, of course, nothing has ever been heard of any occurrence that might indicate a crime. All we have to go on—and it is mighty little—is the fact that she was hiding from her husband, and that he was trying to find her. Also that he had made one attempt on her life. That is where your evidence will come in, and that of the matron at the ‘Poor Travellers.’ I’ve had a talk with her.”

  “Do you know anything of Frood’s movements about the time of the disappearance?”

  “Practically nothing, excepting that he went away from his lodgings the day before. You see, we were not in a position to start tracing possible criminals. We had no real evidence of any crime. We knew that the woman had disappeared, and she appeared to have got into the river. But there was nothing to show how. It looked suspicious, but it wasn’t a case. So long as no body was forthcoming there was no evidence of death, and nobody could have been charged. Even if we had found the body in the river, unless there had been distinct traces of violence, it would have been merely a case of ‘found dead,’ or ‘found drowned.’ But now the affair is on a different footing entirely. The body has been discovered under conditions which furnish prima facie evidence of murder, whatever the cause of death may turn out to have been. There is sure to be a verdict of wilful murder—not that the police are dependent on the coroner’s verdict. So now we can get a move on and look for the murderer.”

  “What chance do you think there is of finding him?” I asked.

  “Well,” said Cobbledick with a benevolent smile, “we mustn’t be too cock-sure. But, leaving the husband out of the question and taking the broad facts, it doesn’t look so unpromising. This wasn’t a casual crime—fortunately. There’s nothing so hopeless as a casual crime, done for mere petty robbery. But this crime was thought out. The place of burial was selected in advance. The key of the place was obtained, so that the murderer could not only get in but could lock himself—or more probably themselves—in and work secure from chance disturbance. And the time seems to have been selected; a weekend, with two whole nights to do the job in. All this points to very definite premeditation; and that points to a very definite motive. The person who planned this crime had something considerable to gain by Mrs. Frood’s death; it may have been profit or it may have been the satisfaction of revenge.

  “Well, that is a pretty good start. When we know what property she had, who comes into it at her death, if any of it is missing, and if so, what has become of it; we can judge concerning the first case. And if we find that she had any enemies besides her husband; anyone whom she had injured or who owed her a grudge; then we can judge of the second case.

  “Then there is another set of facts. This murderer couldn’t have been a complete stranger to the place. He knew about the wall and what was going on there. He knew the river and he possessed, or had command of, a boat. He knew the waterside premises and he knew his way—or had someone to show him the way—across the marshes and up Black Boy-lane. One, at least, of the persons concerned in this affair was a local man who knew the place well. So you see, Doctor, we have got something to go on, after all.”

  I listened to the sergeant’s exposition with deep interest and no little revival of my drooping hopes. It was a most able summary of the case, and I felt that I should have liked Thorndyke to hear it; in fact, I determined to embody it in the amplification of my report. With the facts thus fully and lucidly collated, it did really seem as though the perpetrator of this foul crime must inevitably fall into our hands. Having refreshed the sergeant with a couple of glasses of port, I shook his hand warmly and wished him the best of success in the investigation that he was conducting with so much ability.

  When he had gone I wrote a full account of our interview to add to my previous report, and expressed the hope that Thorndyke would be able to be present at the inquest, when I myself should “be and appear” at the appointed place to give evidence on the day after the morrow.

  CHAPTER XVI

  The Inquiry and a Surprise

  On the morning of the inquest I started from my house well in advance of time, and in a distinctly uncomfortable frame of mind. Perhaps it was that the formal inquiry brought home to me with extr
a vividness the certainty that my beloved friend was gone from me for ever, and that she had died in circumstances of tragedy and horror. Not that I had ever had any doubt, but now the realization was more intense. Again, I should have to give evidence. I should have to reconstitute for the information of strangers scenes and events that had for me a certain sacred intimacy. And then, above all, I should have to view—and that not cursorily—the decayed remains of the woman who had been so much to me. That would be naturally expected from a medical man and no one would guess at what it would cost me to bring myself to this last dreadful meeting.

  Walking down the High-street thus wrapped in gloomy reflections, it was with mixed feelings that I observed Bundy advancing slowly towards me, having evidently awaited my arrival. In some respects I would sooner have been alone, and yet his kindly, sympathetic companionship was not altogether unwelcome.

  “Good morning, John,” said he. “I hope I am not de trop. It is a melancholy errand for you, poor old chap, and I can’t do much to make it less so, but I thought we might walk down together. You know how sorry I am for you, John.”

  “Yes, I know and appreciate, and I am always glad to see you, Peter. But why are you going there! Have you had a summons?”

  “No, I have no information to give. But I am interested in the case, of course, so I am going to attend as a spectator. So is Japp, though he is really a legitimately interested party. In fact, I am rather surprised they didn’t summon him as a witness.”

  “So am I. He really knows more about the poor girl than I do. But, of course, he knows nothing of the circumstances of her death.”

  By this time we had arrived at the Guildhall, and here we encountered Sergeant Cobbledick, who was evidently on the lookout for me.

  “I am glad you came early, Doctor,” said he. “I want you just to pop round to the mortuary. You know the way. There’s a tray by the side of the coffin with all her belongings on it. I’ll get you to take a careful look at them, so that you can tell the jury that they are really her things. And you had better run your eye over the remains. You might be able to spot something of importance. At any rate, they will expect you to have viewed the body, as you are the principal witness to its identity. I’ve told the constable on duty to let you in. And, of course, you can go in, too, Mr. Bundy, if you want to.”