The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  I unbolted the door and, opening it, stepped out on the wide threshold and looked up and down the street. Thorndyke was right. The thoroughfare was undoubtedly Field Street, down which we had passed only a few minutes ago, and close by, on the right hand, was the canal bridge. Strongly impressed with the oddity of the affair, I turned to re-enter, and as I turned I glanced up at the number on the door. As my eye lighted on it, I uttered a cry of astonishment. For the number was fifty-two!

  “But this is amazing!” I exclaimed, re-entering the hall—where Thorndyke stood watching me with quiet amusement—and shutting the door. “It seems that Usher and I were actually visiting at the same house!”

  “Evidently,” said he.

  “But it almost looks as if we were visiting the same patient!”

  “There can be practically no doubt that you were,” he agreed. “It was on that assumption that I induced Miller to apply for the exhumation order; and the empty coffin seems to confirm it completely.”

  I was thunderstruck; not only by the incredible thing that had happened, but by Thorndyke’s uncanny knowledge of all the circumstances.

  “Then,” I said, after a pause, “if Usher and I were attending the same man, we were both attending Bendelow.”

  “That is certainly what the appearances suggest,” he agreed.

  “It was undoubtedly Bendelow who was cremated,” said I.

  “All the circumstances seem to point to that conclusion,” he admitted, “unless you can think of any that point in the opposite direction.”

  “I cannot,” I replied. “Everything points in the same direction. The dead man was seen and identified as Bendelow by those two ladies. Miss Dewsnep and Miss Bonnington; and they not only saw him here, but they actually saw him in his coffin just before it was passed through into the crematorium. And there is no doubt that they knew Bendelow by sight, for you remember that they recognized the photograph of him that the American detective showed them.”

  “Yes,” he admitted, “that is so. But their identification is a point that requires further investigation. And it is a vitally important point. I have my own hypothesis as to what took place, but that hypothesis will have to be tested; and that test will be what the logicians would call the Experimentum Crucis. It will settle one way or the other whether my theory of this case is correct. If my hypothesis as to their identification is true, there will be nothing left to investigate. The case will be complete and ready to turn over to Miller.”

  I listened to this statement in complete bewilderment. Thorndyke’s reference to the case conveyed nothing definite to me. It was all so involved that I had almost lost count of the subjects of our investigation.

  “When you speak of ‘the case’,” said I, “what case are you referring to?”

  “My dear Gray!” he protested. “Do you not realize that we are trying to discover who murdered Julius D’Arblay?”

  “I thought you were,” I answered; “but I can’t connect this new mystery with his death in any way.”

  “Never mind,” said he. “When the case is completed, we will have a general elucidation. Meanwhile there is something else that I have to show you before we go. It is through this side-door.”

  He led me out into a large neglected garden and along a wide path that was all overgrown with weeds. As we went I tried to collect and arrange my confused ideas, and suddenly a new discrepancy occurred to me. I proceeded to propound it.

  “By the way, you are not forgetting that the two alleged deaths were some days apart? I saw Bendelow dead on a Monday. He had died on the preceding afternoon. But Crile’s funeral had already taken place a day or two previously.”

  “I see no difficulty in that,” Thorndyke replied. “Crile’s funeral occurred, as I have ascertained, on a Saturday. You saw Bendelow alive for the last time on Thursday morning. Usher was sent for and saw Crile dead on Thursday evening, he having evidently died—with or without assistance—soon after you left. Of course, the date of death given to you was false, and you mention in your notes of the case that both you and Cropper were surprised at the condition of the body. The previous funeral offers no difficulty, seeing that we know that the coffin was empty. This is what I thought you might be interested to see.”

  He pointed to a flight of stone steps, at the bottom of which was a wooden gate set in the wall that enclosed the garden. I looked at the steps—a little vacantly, I am afraid—and inquired what there was about them that I was expected to find of interest.

  “Perhaps,” he replied, “you will see better if we open the gate.”

  We descended the steps and he inserted a key into the gate, drawing my attention to the fact that the lock had been oiled at no very distant date and was in quite good condition. Then he threw the gate open and we both stepped out on to the tow-path of the canal. I looked about me in considerable surprise, for we were within a few yards of the hut with the derrick and the little wharf from which I had been flung into the canal.

  “I remember this gate,” said I—“in fact, I think I mentioned it to you in my account of my adventure here. But I little imagined that it belonged to the Morrises’ house. It would have been a short way in, if I had known. But I expect it was locked at the time.”

  “I expect it was,” Thorndyke agreed, and thereupon turned and re-entered. We passed once more down the long passage, and came out into Market Street, when Thorndyke locked the door and pocketed the key.

  “That is an extraordinary arrangement,” I remarked; “one house having two frontages on separate streets.”

  “It is not a very uncommon one,” Thorndyke replied. “You see how it comes about. A house fronting on one street has a long back garden extending to another street which is not yet fully built on. As the new street fills up, a shop is built at the end of the garden. A small house may be built in connexion with it and cut off from the garden or the shop may be connected with the original house, as in this instance. But in either case, the shop belongs to the new street and has its own number. What are you going to do now?”

  “I am going straight on to the studio,” I replied.

  “You had better come and have an early lunch with me first,” said he. “There is no occasion to hurry. Polton is there and you won’t easily get rid of him, for I understand that Miss D’Arblay is doing the finishing work on a wax bust.”

  “I ought to see that, too,” said I.

  He looked at me with a mischievous smile. “I expect you will have plenty of opportunities in the future,” said he, “whereas Polton must make hay while the sun shines. And, by the way, he may have something to tell you. I have instructed him to make arrangements with those two ladies, Miss Dewsnep and her friend, to go into the question of their identification of Bendelow. I want you to be present at the interview, but I have left him to fix the date. Possibly he has made the arrangement by now. You had better ask him.”

  At this moment an eligible omnibus making its appearance, we both climbed on board and were duly conveyed to King’s Cross, where we alighted and lunched at a modest restaurant, thereafter separating to go our respective ways north and south.

  CHAPTER XVII

  A CHAPTER OF SURPRISE

  In answer to my knock, the studio door was opened by Polton; and as I met his eyes for a moment I was conscious of something unusual in his appearance. I had scanty opportunity to examine him, for he seemed to be in a hurry, bustling away after a few hasty words of apology and returning whence he had come. Following close on his heels, I saw what was the occasion of his hurry. He was engaged with a brush and a pot of melted wax in painting a layer of the latter on the insides of the moulds of a pair of arms, while Marion, seated on a high stool, was working at a wax bust, which was placed on a revolving modelling-stand, obliterating the seams and other irregularities with a steel tool which she heated from time to time at a small spirit-lamp.

  When I had made my salutations, I offered my help to Polton, which he declined—without looking up from his work—
saying that he wanted to carry the job through by himself. I sympathized with this natural desire, but it left me without occupation, for the work which Marion was doing was essentially a one-person job, and in any case was far beyond the capabilities of either of the apprentices. For a minute or two I stood idly looking on at Polton’s proceedings, but noticing that my presence seemed to worry him, I presently moved away—again with a vague impression that there was something unusual in his appearance—and drawing up another high stool beside Marion’s, settled myself to take a lesson in the delicate and difficult technique of surface finishing.

  We were all very silent. My two companions were engrossed by their respective occupations and I must needs refrain from distracting them by untimely conversation; so I sat, well content to watch the magical tool stealing caressingly over the wax surface, causing the disfiguring seams to vanish miraculously into an unbroken contour. But my own attention was somewhat divided; for even as I watched the growing perfection of the bust there would float into my mind now and again an idle speculation as to the change in Polton’s appearance. What could it be? It was something that seemed to have altered, to some extent, his facial expression. It couldn’t be that he had shaved off his moustache or whiskers, for he had none to shave. Could he have parted his hair in a new way? It seemed hardly sufficient to account for the change; and looking round at him cautiously, I could detect nothing unfamiliar about his hair.

  At this point he picked up his wax-pot and carried it away to the farther end of the studio, to exchange it for another which was heating in a water-bath. I took the opportunity to lean towards Marion and ask in a whisper:

  “Have you noticed anything unusual about Polton?”

  She nodded emphatically and cast a furtive glance over her shoulder in his direction.

  “What is it?” I asked in the same low tone.

  She took another precautionary glance and then, leaning towards me with an expression of exaggerated mystery, whispered:

  “He has cut his eyelashes off.”

  I gazed at her in amazement, and was about to put a further question, but she held up a warning fore-finger and turned again to her work. However, my curiosity was now at boiling-point. As soon as Polton returned to his bench, I slipped off my stool and sauntered over to it on the pretence of seeing how his wax cast was progressing.

  Marion’s report was perfectly correct. His eyelids were as bare of lashes as those of a marble bust. And this was not all. Now that I came to look at him critically, his eyebrows had a distinctly moth—eaten appearance. He had been doing something to them, too.

  It was an amazing affair. For one moment I was on the point of demanding an explanation, but good sense and good manners conquered the inquisitive impulse in time. Returning to my stool I cast an inquiring glance at Marion, from whom, however, I got no enlightenment but such as I could gather from a most alluring dimple that hovered about the corner of her mouth and that speedily diverted my thoughts into other channels.

  My two companions continued for some time to work silently, leaving me to my meditations—which concerned themselves alternately with Polton’s eyelashes and the dimple aforesaid. Suddenly Marion turned to me and asked:

  “Has Mr. Polton told you that we are all to have a holiday tomorrow?”

  “No,” I answered; “but Dr. Thorndyke mentioned that Mr. Polton might have something to tell us. Why are we all to have a holiday?”

  “Why, you see, sir,” said Polton, standing up and forgetting all about his eyelashes, “the Doctor instructed me to make an appointment with those two ladies. Miss Dewsnep and Miss Bonnington, to come to our chambers on a matter of identification. I have made the appointment for ten o’clock tomorrow morning; and as the Doctor wants you to be present at the interview and wants me to be in attendance, and we can’t leave Miss D’Arblay here alone, we have arranged to shut up the studio for tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” said Marion; “and Arabella and I are going to spend the morning looking at the shops in Regent Street, and then we are coming to lunch with you and Dr. Thorndyke. It will be quite a red-letter day.”

  “I don’t quite see what these ladies are coming to the chambers for,” said I.

  “You will see, all in good time, sir,” replied Polton; and as if to head me off from any further questions, he added: “I forgot to ask how your little party went off this morning.”

  “It went off with a bang,” I answered. “We got the coffin up all right, but Mr. Fox wasn’t at home. The coffin was empty.”

  “I rather think that was what the Doctor expected,” said Polton.

  Marion looked at me with eager curiosity. “This sounds rather thrilling,” she said. “May one ask who it was that you expected to find in that coffin?”

  “My impression is,” I replied, “that the missing tenant was a person who bore a strong resemblance to that photograph that I showed you.”

  “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “What a pity! I wish that coffin hadn’t been empty. But, of course, it could hardly have been occupied, under the circumstances. I suppose I mustn’t ask for fuller details?”

  “I don’t imagine that there is any secrecy about the affair, so far as you are concerned,” I answered; “but I would rather that you had the details from Dr. Thorndyke, or at least with his express authority. He is conducting the investigations, and what I know has been imparted to me in confidence.”

  This view was warmly endorsed by Polton (who had by now either forgotten his eyelashes or abandoned concealment as hopeless). The subject was accordingly dropped and the two workers resumed their occupations. When Polton had painted a complete skin of wax over the interior of both pairs of moulds, I helped him to put the latter together and fasten them with cords. Then into each completed mould we poured enough melted wax to fill it, and after a few seconds poured it out again, leaving a solid layer to thicken the skin and unite the two halves of the wax cast. This finished Polton’s job, and shortly afterwards he took his departure. Nor did we remain very much longer, for the final stages of the surface finishing were too subtle to be carried out by artificial light and had to be postponed until daylight was available.

  As we walked homewards we discussed the situation so far as was possible without infringing Thorndyke’s confidences.

  “I am very confused and puzzled about it all,” she said. “It seems that Dr. Thorndyke is trying to get on the track of the man who murdered my father. But whenever I hear any details of his investigations, they always seem to be concerned with somebody else or with something that has no apparent connexion with the crime.”

  “That is exactly my condition,” said I. “He seems to be busily working at problems that are totally irrelevant. As far as I can make out, the murderer has never once come into sight, excepting when he appeared at the studio that terrible night. The people in whom Thorndyke has interested himself are mere outsiders—suspicious characters, no doubt, but not suspected of the murder. This man, Crile, for instance, whose empty coffin was dug up, was certainly a shady character. But he was not the murderer, though he seems to have been associated with the murderer at one time. Then there is that Morris, whose mask was found at the studio. He is another queer customer. But he is certainly not the murderer, though he was also probably an associate. Thorndyke has taken an immense interest in him. But I can’t see why. He doesn’t seem to me to be in the picture, or at any rate, not in the foreground of it. Of the actual murderer we seem to know nothing at all—at least that is my position.”

  “Do you think Dr. Thorndyke has really got anything to go on?” she asked.

  “My dear Marion!” I exclaimed, “I am confident that he has the whole case cut and dried and perfectly clear in his mind. What I was saying referred only to myself. My ideas are all in confusion, but his are not. He can see quite clearly who is in the picture and in what part of it. The blindness is mine. But let us wait and see what tomorrow brings forth. I have a sort of feeling—in fact he hinted—that this interview is
the final move. He may have something to tell you when you arrive.”

  “I do hope he may,” she said earnestly, and with this we dismissed the subject. A few minutes later we parted at the gate of Ivy Cottage and I took my way (by the main thoroughfares) home to my lodgings.

  On the following morning I made a point of presenting myself at Thorndyke’s chambers well in advance of the appointed time in order that I might have a few words with him before the two ladies arrived. With the same purpose, no doubt, Superintendent Miller took a similar course, the result being that we converged simultaneously on the entry and ascended the stairs together. The ‘oak’ was already open and the inner door was opened by Thorndyke, who smilingly remarked that he seemed thereby to have killed two early birds with one stone.

  “So you have, Doctor,” assented the superintendent; “two early birds who have come betimes to catch the elusive worm—and I suspect they won’t catch him.”

  “Don’t be pessimistic. Miller,” said Thorndyke with a quiet chuckle. “He isn’t such a slippery worm as that. I suppose you want to know something of the programme?”

  “Naturally, I do; and so, I suppose, does Dr. Gray.”

  “Well,” said Thorndyke, “I am not going to tell you much—”

  “I knew it,’ groaned Miller.

  “Because it will be better for everyone to have an open mind—”

  “Well,” interposed Miller, “mine is open enough, wide open; and nothing inside.”

  “And then,” pursued Thorndyke, “there is the possibility that we shall not get the result we hope for; and in that case, the less you expect the less you will be disappointed.”

  “But,” persisted Miller, “in general terms, what are we here for? I understand that those two ladies, the witnesses to Bendelow’s will, are coming presently. What are they coming for? Do you expect to get any information out of them?”

  “I have some hopes,” he replied, “of learning something from them. In particular I want to test them in respect of their identification of Bendelow.”