The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  “By the way,” said I,” I noticed that you perked up rather suddenly when Miller mentioned the electric meter.”

  “Naturally,” he replied. “It seemed that there must be a small lamp switched on somewhere in the building, and the only place that had not been examined was the strong-room. But if there was a lamp alight there, someone had been in the strong-room. And, as, the only person who was known to be able to get in was missing, it seemed probable that he was in there still. But if he was, he was pretty certainly dead; and there was quite a considerable probability that some one else was in there with him, since his companion was missing, too, and both had disappeared at the same time. But I must confess that that spring drawer was beyond my expectations, though I suspected it as soon as I saw Miller pulling at it. Luttrell was an ingenious old rascal; he almost deserved a better fate. However, I expect his death will have delivered the gang into the hands of the police.”

  Events fell out as Thorndyke surmised. Mr. Luttrell’s little journal, in conjunction with the confession of the spy who had been captured on the premises, enabled the police to swoop down on the disconcerted gang before any breath of suspicion had reached them; with the result that they are now secured in strong-rooms of another kind whereof the doors are fitted with appliances as effective as, though less ingenious than, Mr. Luttrell’s puzzle lock.

  THE GREEN CHECK JACKET (1925)

  The visits of our old friend, Mr. Brodribb, even when strictly professional, usually took the outward form of a friendly call. On the present occasion there was no such pretence. The old solicitor entered our chambers carrying a small suitcase (the stamped initials on which, “R.M.,” I noticed, instantly attracted an inquisitive glance from Thorndyke, being obviously not Mr. Brodribb’s own) which he placed on the table and then shook hands with an evident air of business.

  “I have come, Thorndyke,” he said, with unusual directness, “to ask your advice on a matter which is causing me some uneasiness. Do you know Reginald Merrill?”

  “Slightly,” was the reply. “I meet him occasionally in court; and, of course, I know him as the author of that interesting book on Prehistoric Flint-mines.”

  “Well,” said Brodribb, “he has disappeared. He is missing. I don’t like to use the expression; but when a responsible man is absent from his usual places of resort, when he apparently had no expectation of being so absent, and when he has made no provision for such absence, I think we may regard him as having disappeared in a legal sense. His absence calls for active inquiry.”

  “Undoubtedly,” agreed Thorndyke; “and I take it that you are the person on whom the duty devolves?”

  I think so. I am his solicitor and the executor of his will—at least I believe so; and the only near relative of his whom I know is his nephew and heir, Ethelbert Crick, his sister’s son. But Crick seems to have disappeared, too; and about the same time as Merrill. It is an extraordinary affair.”

  “You say that you believe you are Merrill’s executor. Haven’t you seen the will?”

  “I have seen a will. I have it in my safe. But Merrill said he was going to draw up another, and he may have done so. But if he has, he will almost certainly have appointed me his executor, and I shall assume that he has and act accordingly.”

  “Was there any special reason for making a new will?” Thorndyke asked.

  “Yes,” replied Brodribb. “He has just come into quite a considerable fortune, and he was pretty well off before. Under the old will, practically the whole of his property went to Crick. There was a small bequest to a man named Samuel Horder, his cousin’s son; and Horder was the alternative legatee if Crick should die before Merrill. Now, I understood Merrill to say that, in view of this extra fortune, he wished to do rather more for Horder, and I gathered that he proposed to divide the estate more or less equally between the two men. The whole estate was more than he thought necessary for Crick. And now, as we have cleared up the preliminaries, I will give you the circum stances of the disappearance.

  “Last Wednesday, the 5th, I had a note from him saying that he would have some reports ready for me on the following day, but that he would be away from his office from 10.30 A.M. to about 6.30, and suggesting that I should send round in the evening if I wanted the papers particularly. Now it happened that my clerk, Page, had to go to a place near London Bridge on Thursday morning, and, oddly enough, he saw Mr. Merrill come out of Edginton’s, the ship-fitters, with a man who was carrying a largish handbag. There was nothing in it, of course, but Page is an observant man and he noticed Merrill’s companion so far as to observe that he was wearing a Norfolk jacket of a greenish shepherd’s plaid and a grey tweed hat. He also noted the time by the big clock in the street near to Edginton’s—11.46—and that Merrill looked up at it, and that the two men then walked off rather quickly in the direction of the station. Well, in the evening, I sent Page round to Merrill’s chambers in Fig-tree Court to get the papers. He arrived there just after 6.30, but he found the oak shut, and though he rapped at the door on the chance that Merrill might have come in—he lives in the chambers adjoining the office—there was no answer. So he went for a walk round the Temple, deciding to return a little later.

  “Well, he had gone as far as the cloisters and was loitering there to look in the window of the wig shop when he saw a man in a greenish shepherd’s plaid jacket and a tweed hat coming up Pump Court. As the man approached Page thought he recognised him; in fact, he felt so sure that he stopped him and asked him if he knew what time Mr. Merrill would be home. But the man looked at him in astonishment. ‘Merrill?’ said he. ‘I don’t know anyone of that name.’ Thereupon Page apologised and explained how be had been misled by the pattern and colour of the jacket.

  “After walking about for nearly half an hour, Page went back to Merrill’s chambers; but the oak was shut and he could get no answer by rapping with his stick, so he scribbled a note and dropped it into the letter-box and came away. The next morning I sent him round again, but the chambers were still shut up, and they have been shut up ever since; and nothing what ever has been seen or heard of Merrill.

  “On Saturday, thinking it possible that Crick might be able to give me some news of his uncle, I called at his lodgings; and then, to my astonishment, I learned that he also was missing. He had gone away early on Thursday morning, saying that he had to go on business to Rochester, and that he might not be home to dinner. But he never came home at all. I called again on Sunday evening, and, as he had still not returned, I decided to take more active measures.

  “This afternoon, immediately after lunch, I called at the Porter’s Lodge, and, having briefly explained the circumstances and who I was, asked the porter to bring the duplicate key—which he had for the laundress—and accompany me to Mr. Merrill’s chambers to see if, by chance, the tenant might be lying in them dead or insensible. He assured me that this could not be the case, since he had given the key every morning to the laundress, who had, in fact, returned it to him only a couple of hours previously. Nevertheless, he took the key and looked up the laundress, who had rooms near the lodge, who was fortunately at home and who turned out to be a most respectable and intelligent elderly woman; and we went together to Merrill’s chambers. The porter admitted us, and when we had been right I through the set and ascertained definitely that Merrill was not there, he handed the key to the laundress, Mrs. Butler, and went away.

  “When he was gone, I had a talk with Mrs. Butler, from which some rather startling facts transpired. It seemed that on Thursday, as Merrill was going to be out all day, she took the opportunity to have a grand clean-up of the chambers, to tidy up the lobby, and to look over the chests of drawers and the wardrobe and shake out and brush the clothes and see that no moths had got in. ‘When I had finished,’ she said, ‘the place was like the inside of a band-box; just as he liked to see it.’

  “‘And, after all, Mrs. Butler,’ said I, ‘he never did see it.’

  “‘Oh, yes, he did,’ says she. ‘I don’t
know when he came in, but when I let myself in the next morning, I could see that he had been in since I left.’

  “‘How did you know that?’ I asked.

  “‘Well,’ says she,’ I left the carpet-sweeper standing against the wardrobe door. I remembered it after I left and would have gone back and moved it, but I had already handed the key in at the Porter’s Lodge. But when I went in next morning it wasn’t there. It had been moved into the corner by the fireplace. Then the looking-glass had been moved. I could see that, because, before I went away, I had tidied my hair by it, and being short, I had to tilt it to see my face in it. Now it was tilted to suit a tall person and I could not see myself in it. Then I saw that the shaving had been moved, and when I put it back in its place, I found it was damp. It wouldn’t have kept damp for twenty-four hours at this time of year.’ That was perfectly true, you know, Thorndyke.”

  “Perfectly,” agreed Thorndyke, “that woman is an excellent observer.”

  “Well,” continued Brodribb, “on this she examined the shaving soap and the sponge and found them both perceptibly damp. It appeared practically certain that Merrill had been in on the preceding evening and had shaved; but by way of confirmation, I suggested that she should look over his clothes and see whether he had changed any of his garments. She did so, beginning with those that were hanging in the wardrobe, which she took down one at a time. Suddenly she gave a cry of surprise, and I got a bit of a start myself when she handed out a greenish shepherd’s plaid Norfolk jacket.

  “‘That,’ she said, ‘was not here when I brushed these clothes,’ and it was obvious from its dusty condition that it could not have been; ‘and,’ she added, ‘I have never seen it before to my knowledge, and I think I should have remembered it.’ I asked her if there was any coat missing and she answered that she had brushed a grey tweed jacket that seemed to have disappeared.

  “Well, it was a queer affair. The first thing to be done was to ascertain, if possible whether that jacket was or was not Merrill’s. That, I thought, you would be able to judge better than I; so I borrowed his suitcase and popped the jacket into it, together with another jacket that was undoubtedly his, for comparison. Here is the suitcase and the two jackets are inside.”

  “It is really a question that could be better decided by a tailor,” said Thorndyke. “The differences of measurement can’t be great if they could both be worn by the same person. But we shall see.” He rose, and having spread some sheets of newspaper over the table, opened the suitcase and took out the two jackets, which ho laid out side by side. Then, with his spring-tape, he proceeded systematically to measure the two garments, entering each pair of measurements on a slip of paper divided into two columns. Mr. Brodribb and I watched him expectantly and compared the two sets of figures as they were written down; and very soon it became evident that they were, at least, not identical. At length Thorndyke laid down the tape, and picking up the paper, studied it closely.

  “I think,” he said, “we may conclude that these two jackets were not made for the same person. The differences are not great, but they are consistent. The elbow creases, for instance, agree with the total length of the sleeves. The owner of the green jacket has longer arms and a bigger span than Merrill, but his chest measurement is nearly two inches greater and he has much more sloping shoulders. He could hardly have buttoned Merrill’s jacket.”

  “Then,” said Brodribb, “the next question is, did Merrill come home in some other man’s coat or did some other man enter his chambers? From what Page has told us it seems pretty evident that a stranger must have got into those chambers. But if that is so, the questions arise: What the deuce was the fellow’s object in changing into Merrill’s clothes and shaving? How did he get into Merrill’s chambers? What was he doing there? What has become of Merrill? And what is the meaning of the whole affair?”

  “To some of those questions,” said Thorndyke, “the answers are fairly obvious. If we assume, as I do, that the owner of the green jacket is the man whom Page saw at London Bridge and afterwards in the cloisters, the reason for the change of garments becomes plain enough. Page told the man that he had identified him by this very distinctive jacket as the person with whom Merrill was last seen alive. Evidently that man’s safety demanded hat he should get rid of the incriminating jacket without delay. Then, as to his having shaved: did Page give you any description of the man?”

  “Yes; he was a tallish man, about thirty-five, with a large dark moustache and a torpedo beard.”

  “Very well,” said Thorndyke; “then we may say that the man who went into Merrill’s chambers was a moustached bearded man in a green jacket and that he man who came out was a clean-shaved man in a grey jacket, whom Page himself would probably have passed without a second glance. That is clear enough. And as to how he got into the chambers, evidently he let himself in with Merrill’s key; and if he did, I am afraid we can make a pretty shrewd guess as to what has become of Merrill, and only hope that we are guessing wrong. As to what this man was doing in those chambers and what is the meaning of the whole affair, that is a more difficult question. If the man had Merrill’s latchkey, we may assume that he had the rest of Merrill’s keys; that he had, in fact, free access to any locked receptacles in those chambers. The circumstances suggest that he entered the chambers for the purpose of getting possession of some valuable objects contained in them. Do you happen to know whether Merrill had any property of considerable value on the premises?”

  “I don’t,” replied Brodribb. “He had a safe, but I don’t know what he kept in it. Principally documents, I should think. Certainly not money, in any considerable amounts. The only thing of value that I actually know of is the new will; and that would only be valuable in certain circumstances.”

  The abrupt and rather ambiguous conclusion of Mr. Brodribb’s statement was not lost either on Thorndyke or on me. Apparently the cautious old lawyer had suddenly realised, as I had, that if anything had happened to Merrill, those “certain circumstances” had already come into being. From what he had told us it appeared that, under the new will, Crick stood to inherit a half of Mr. Merrill’s fortune, whereas under the old will he stood to inherit nearly the whole. And it was a great fortune. The loss or destruction of the new will would be worth a good many thousand pounds to Mr. Crick.

  “Well,” said Brodribb, after a pause, “what is to be done? I suppose I ought to communicate with the police.”

  “You will have to, sooner or later,” said Thorndyke; “but meanwhile, leave these two jackets—or, at least, the green one—with me for the present and let me see if I can extract any further information from it.”

  “You won’t find anything in the pockets but dirt. I’ve tried them.”

  “I hope you left the dirt,” said Thorndyke.

  I did,” replied Brodribb, “excepting what came out on my fingers. Very well; I’ll leave the coats with you for today, and I will see if I can get any further news of Crick from his landlady.”

  With this the old solicitor shook hands and went off with such an evident air of purpose that I remarked: “Brodribb is off to find out whether Mr. Crick was the proprietor of a green plaid Norfolk jacket.”

  Thorndyke smiled. “It was rather quaint,” said he, “to see the sudden way in which he drew in his horns when the inwardness of the affair dawned on him. But we mustn’t start with a preconceived theory. Our business is to get hold of some more facts. There is little enough to go on at present. Let us begin by having a good look at this green jacket.”

  He picked it up and carried it to the window, where we both looked it over critically.

  “It is rather dusty,” I remarked, “especially on the front, and there is a white mark on the middle button.”

  “Yes. Chalk, apparently; and if you look closely, there are white traces on the other buttons and on the front of the coat. The back is much less dusty.”

  As he spoke, Thorndyke turned the garment round, and then, from the side of the skirt, picked
a small, hair-like object which he felt between his finger and thumb, looked at closely and handed to me.

  “A bit of barley beard,” said I, “and there are two more on the other side. He must have walked along a narrow path through a barley field—the state of the front of his coat almost suggests that he had crawled.”

  “Yes; it is earthy dust; but Polton’s extractor will give us more information about that. We had better hand it over to him; but first we will go through the pockets in spite of Brodribb’s discouragement.”

  “By Jove!” I exclaimed, as I thrust my hand into one of the side pockets, “he was right about the dirt. Look at this.” I drew out my hand with a quite considerable pinch of dry earth and one or two little fragments of chalk. “It looks as if he had been crawling in loose earth.”

  “It does,” Thorndyke agreed, inspecting his own “catch”—a pinch of reddish earth and a fragment of chalk of the size of a large pea. “The earth is very characteristic, this red-brown loam that you find overlying the chalk. All his outside pockets seem to have caught more or less of it. However, we can leave Polton to collect it and prepare it for examination. I’ll take the coat up to him now, and while he is working at it I think I will walk round to Edginton’s and see if I can pick up any further particulars.”

  He went up to the laboratory floor, where our assistant, Polton, carried on his curious and varied activities, and when he returned we sallied forth together. In Fleet Street we picked up a disengaged taxicab, by which we were whisked across Blackfriars Bridge and a few minutes later set down at the corner of Tooley Street. We made our way to the ship-chandler’s shop, where Thorndyke proceeded to put a few discreet questions to the manager, who listened politely and with sympathetic interest.