The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  Some twenty minutes later, as we were strolling past the door of a coffee-shop, a man came out, and began to fill his pipe with an air of leisurely satisfaction. His hat and clothes were powdered with white like those of the workmen whom we had seen come out of the factory. Thorndyke accosted him.

  “Is that a flour-mill up the road there?”

  “No, sir; pearl-shell. I work there myself.”

  “Pearl-shell, eh?” said Thorndyke. “I suppose that will be an industry that will tend to attract the aliens. Do you find it so?”

  “No, sir; not at all. The work’s too hard. We’ve only got one foreigner in the place, and he ain’t an alien—he’s a Jap.”

  “A Jap!” exclaimed Thorndyke. “Really. Now, I wonder if that would chance to be our old friend Kotei—you remember Kotei?” he added, turning to me.

  “No, sir; this man’s name is Futashima. There was another Jap in the works, a chap named Itu, a pal of Futashima’s, but he’s left.”

  “Ah! I don’t know either of them. By the way, didn’t there used to be a cab-yard just about here?”

  “There’s a yard up Rankin Street where they keep vans and one or two cabs. That chap Itu works there now. Taken to horseflesh. Drives a van sometimes. Queer start for a Jap.”

  “Very.” Thorndyke thanked the man for his information, and we sauntered on towards Rankin Street. The yard was at this time nearly deserted, being occupied only by an ancient and crazy four-wheeler and a very shabby hansom.

  “Curious old houses, these that back on to the yard,” said Thorndyke, strolling into the enclosure. “That timber gable, now,” pointing to a house, from a window of which a man was watching us suspiciously, “is quite an interesting survival.”

  “What’s your business, mister?” demanded the man in a gruff tone.

  “We are just having a look at these quaint old houses,” replied Thorndyke, edging towards the back of the hansom, and opening his pocket-book, as though to make a sketch.

  “Well, you can see ’em from outside,” said the man.

  “So we can,” said Thorndyke suavely, “but not so well, you know.”

  At this moment the pocket-book slipped from his hand and fell, scattering a number of loose papers about the ground under the hansom, and our friend at the window laughed joyously.

  “No hurry,” murmured Thorndyke, as I stooped to help him to gather up the papers—which he did in the most surprisingly slow and clumsy manner. “It is fortunate that the ground is dry.” He stood up with the rescued papers in his hand, and, having scribbled down a brief note, slipped the book in his pocket.

  “Now you’d better mizzle,” observed the man at the window.

  “Thank you,” replied Thorndyke, “I think we had;” and, with a pleasant nod at the custodian, he proceeded to adopt the hospitable suggestion.

  * * * *

  “Mr. Marchmont has been here, sir, with Inspector Badger and another gentleman,” said Polton, as we entered our chambers. “They said they would call again about five.”

  “Then,” replied Thorndyke, “as it is now a quarter to five, there is just time for us to have a wash while you get the tea ready. The particles that float in the atmosphere of Limehouse are not all mother-of-pearl.”

  Our visitors arrived punctually, the third gentleman being, as we had supposed, Mr. Solomon Löwe. Inspector Badger I had not seen before, and he now impressed me as showing a tendency to invert the significance of his own name by endeavouring to “draw” Thorndyke; in which, however, he was not brilliantly successful.

  “I hope you are not going to disappoint Mr. Löwe, sir,” he commenced facetiously. “You have had a good look at that hat—we saw your marks on it—and he expects that you will be able to point us out the man, name and address all complete.” He grinned patronizingly at our unfortunate client, who was looking even more haggard and worn than he had been on the previous morning.

  “Have you—have you made any—discovery?” Mr. Löwe asked with pathetic eagerness.

  “We examined the hat very carefully, and I think we have established a few facts of some interest.”

  “Did your examination of the hat furnish any information as to the nature of the stolen property, sir?” inquired the humorous inspector.

  Thorndyke turned to the officer with a face as expressionless as a wooden mask.

  “We thought it possible,” said he, “that it might consist of works of Japanese art, such as netsukes, paintings, and such like.”

  Mr. Löwe uttered an exclamation of delighted astonishment, and the facetiousness faded rather suddenly from the inspector’s countenance.

  “I don’t know how you can have found out,” said he. “We have only known it half an hour ourselves, and the wire came direct from Florence to Scotland Yard.”

  “Perhaps you can describe the thief to us,” said Mr. Löwe, in the same eager tone.

  “I dare say the inspector can do that,” replied Thorndyke.

  “Yes, I think so,” replied the officer. “He is a short strong man, with a dark complexion and hair turning grey. He has a very round head, and he is probably a workman engaged at some whiting or cement works. That is all we know; if you can tell us any more, sir, we shall be very glad to hear it.”

  “I can only offer a few suggestions,” said Thorndyke, “but perhaps you may find them useful. For instance, at 13, Birket Street, Limehouse, there is living a Japanese gentleman named Futashima, who works at Badcomb and Martin’s mother-of-pearl factory. I think that if you were to call on him, and let him try on the hat that you have, it would probably fit him.”

  The inspector scribbled ravenously in his notebook, and Mr. Marchmont—an old admirer of Thorndyke’s—leaned back in his chair, chuckling softly and rubbing his hands.

  “Then,” continued my colleague, “there is in Rankin Street, Limehouse, a cab-yard, where another Japanese gentleman named Itu is employed. You might find out where Itu was the night before last; and if you should chance to see a hansom cab there—number 22,481—have a good look at it. In the frame of the number-plate you will find six small holes. Those holes may have held brads, and the brads may have held a false number card. At any rate, you might ascertain where that cab was at 11.30 the night before last. That is all I have to suggest.”

  Mr. Löwe leaped from his chair. “Let us go—now—at once—there is no time to be lost. A thousand thanks to you, doctor—a thousand million thanks. Come!”

  He seized the inspector by the arm and forcibly dragged him towards the door, and a few moments later we heard the footsteps of our visitors clattering down the stairs.

  “It was not worth while to enter into explanations with them,” said Thorndyke, as the footsteps died away—“nor perhaps with you?”

  “On the contrary,” I replied, “I am waiting to be fully enlightened.”

  “Well, then, my inferences in this case were perfectly simple ones, drawn from well-known anthropological facts. The human race, as you know, is roughly divided into three groups—the black, the white, and the yellow races. But apart from the variable quality of colour, these races have certain fixed characteristics associated especially with the shape of the skull, of the eye-sockets, and the hair.

  “Thus in the black races the skull is long and narrow, the eye-sockets are long and narrow, and the hair is flat and ribbon-like, and usually coiled up like a watch-spring. In the white races the skull is oval, the eye-sockets are oval, and the hair is slightly flattened or oval in section, and tends to be wavy; while in the yellow or Mongol races, the skull is short and round, the eye-sockets are short and round, and the hair is straight and circular in section. So that we have, in the black races, long skull, long orbits, flat hair; in the white races, oval skull, oval orbits, oval hair; and in the yellow races, round skull, round orbits, round hair.

  “Now, in this case we had to deal with a very short round skull. But you cannot argue from races to individuals; there are many short-skulled Englishmen. But when I found, ass
ociated with that skull, hairs which were circular in section, it became practically certain that the individual was a Mongol of some kind. The mother-of-pearl dust and the granules of rice starch from the inside of the hat favoured this view, for the pearl-shell industry is specially connected with China and Japan, while starch granules from the hat of an Englishman would probably be wheat starch.

  “Then as to the hair: it was, as I mentioned to you, circular in section, and of very large diameter. Now, I have examined many thousands of hairs, and the thickest that I have ever seen came from the heads of Japanese; but the hairs from this hat were as thick as any of them. But the hypothesis that the burglar was a Japanese received confirmation in various ways. Thus, he was short, though strong and active, and the Japanese are the shortest of the Mongol races, and very strong and active.

  “Then his remarkable skill in handling the powerful caretaker—a retired police-sergeant—suggested the Japanese art of ju-jitsu, while the nature of the robbery was consistent with the value set by the Japanese on works of art. Finally, the fact that only a particular collection was taken, suggested a special, and probably national, character in the things stolen, while their portability—you will remember that goods of the value of from eight to twelve thousand pounds were taken away in two hand-packages—was much more consistent with Japanese than Chinese works, of which the latter tend rather to be bulky and ponderous. Still, it was nothing but a bare hypothesis until we had seen Futashima—and, indeed, is no more now. I may, after all, be entirely mistaken.”

  He was not, however; and at this moment there reposes in my drawing-room an ancient netsuke, which came as a thank-offering from Mr. Isaac Löwe on the recovery of the booty from a back room in No. 13, Birket Street, Limehouse. The treasure, of course, was given in the first place to Thorndyke, but transferred by him to my wife on the pretence that but for my suggestion of shell-dust the robber would never have been traced. Which is, on the face of it, preposterous.

  THE BLUE SEQUIN (1909)

  Thorndyke stood looking up and down the platform with anxiety that increased as the time drew near for the departure of the train.

  “This is very unfortunate,” he said, reluctantly stepping into an empty smoking compartment as the guard executed a flourish with his green flag. “I am afraid we have missed our friend.” He closed the door, and, as the train began to move, thrust his head out of the window.

  “Now I wonder if that will be he,” he continued. “If so, he has caught the train by the skin of his teeth, and is now in one of the rear compartments.”

  The subject of Thorndyke’s speculations was Mr. Edward Stopford, of the firm of Stopford and Myers, of Portugal Street, solicitors, and his connection with us at present arose out of a telegram that had reached our chambers on the preceding evening. It was reply-paid, and ran thus:

  “Can you come here tomorrow to direct defence? Important case. All costs undertaken by us.—STOPFORD AND MYERS.”

  Thorndyke’s reply had been in the affirmative, and early on this present morning a further telegram—evidently posted overnight—had been delivered:

  “Shall leave for Woldhurst by 8.25 from Charing Cross. Will call for you if possible.—EDWARD STOPFORD.”

  He had not called, however, and, since he was unknown personally to us both, we could not judge whether or not he had been among the passengers on the platform.

  “It is most unfortunate,” Thorndyke repeated, “for it deprives us of that preliminary consideration of the case which is so invaluable.” He filled his pipe thoughtfully, and, having made a fruitless inspection of the platform at London Bridge, took up the paper that he had bought at the bookstall, and began to turn over the leaves, running his eye quickly down the columns, unmindful of the journalistic baits in paragraph or article.

  “It is a great disadvantage,” he observed, while still glancing through the paper, “to come plump into an inquiry without preparation—to be confronted with the details before one has a chance of considering the case in general terms. For instance—”

  He paused, leaving the sentence unfinished, and as I looked up inquiringly I saw that he had turned over another page, and was now reading attentively.

  “This looks like our case, Jervis,” he said presently, handing me the paper and indicating a paragraph at the top of the page. It was quite brief, and was headed “Terrible Murder in Kent,” the account being as follows:

  “A shocking crime was discovered yesterday morning at the little town of Woldhurst, which lies on the branch line from Halbury Junction. The discovery was made by a porter who was inspecting the carriages of the train which had just come in. On opening the door of a first-class compartment, he was horrified to find the body of a fashionably-dressed woman stretched upon the floor. Medical aid was immediately summoned, and on the arrival of the divisional surgeon, Dr. Morton, it was ascertained that the woman had not been dead more than a few minutes.

  “The state of the corpse leaves no doubt that a murder of a most brutal kind has been perpetrated, the cause of death being a penetrating wound of the head, inflicted with some pointed implement, which must have been used with terrible violence, since it has perforated the skull and entered the brain. That robbery was not the motive of the crime is made clear by the fact that an expensively fitted dressing-bag was found on the rack, and that the dead woman’s jewellery, including several valuable diamond rings, was untouched. It is rumoured that an arrest has been made by the local police.”

  “A gruesome affair,” I remarked, as I handed back the paper, “but the report does not give us much information.”

  “It does not,” Thorndyke agreed, “and yet it gives us something to consider. Here is a perforating wound of the skull, inflicted with some pointed implement—that is, assuming that it is not a bullet wound. Now, what kind of implement would be capable of inflicting such an injury? How would such an implement be used in the confined space of a railway-carriage, and what sort of person would be in possession of such an implement? These are preliminary questions that are worth considering, and I commend them to you, together with the further problems of the possible motive—excluding robbery—and any circumstances other than murder which might account for the injury.”

  “The choice of suitable implements is not very great,” I observed.

  “It is very limited, and most of them, such as a plasterer’s pick or a geological hammer, are associated with certain definite occupations. You have a notebook?”

  I had, and, accepting the hint, I produced it and pursued my further reflections in silence, while my companion, with his notebook also on his knee, gazed steadily out of the window. And thus he remained, wrapped in thought, jotting down an entry now and again in his book, until the train slowed down at Halbury Junction, where we had to change on to a branch line.

  As we stepped out, I noticed a well-dressed man hurrying up the platform from the rear and eagerly scanning the faces of the few passengers who had alighted. Soon he espied us, and, approaching quickly, asked, as he looked from one of us to the other:

  “Dr. Thorndyke?”

  “Yes,” replied my colleague, adding: “And you, I presume, are Mr. Edward Stopford?”

  The solicitor bowed. “This is a dreadful affair,” he said, in an agitated manner. “I see you have the paper. A most shocking affair. I am immensely relieved to find you here. Nearly missed the train, and feared I should miss you.”

  “There appears to have been an arrest,” Thorndyke began.

  “Yes—my brother. Terrible business. Let us walk up the platform; our train won’t start for a quarter of an hour yet.”

  We deposited our joint Gladstone and Thorndyke’s travelling-case in an empty first-class compartment, and then, with the solicitor between us, strolled up to the unfrequented end of the platform.

  “My brother’s position,” said Mr. Stopford, “fills me with dismay—but let me give you the facts in order, and you shall judge for yourself. This poor creature who has been mur
dered so brutally was a Miss Edith Grant. She was formerly an artist’s model, and as such was a good deal employed by my brother, who is a painter—Harold Stopford, you know, A.R.A. now—”

  “I know his work very well, and charming work it is.”

  “I think so, too. Well, in those days he was quite a youngster—about twenty—and he became very intimate with Miss Grant, in quite an innocent way, though not very discreet; but she was a nice respectable girl, as most English models are, and no one thought any harm. However, a good many letters passed between them, and some little presents, amongst which was a beaded chain carrying a locket, and in this he was fool enough to put his portrait and the inscription, ‘Edith, from Harold.’

  “Later on Miss Grant, who had a rather good voice, went on the stage, in the comic opera line, and, in consequence, her habits and associates changed somewhat; and, as Harold had meanwhile become engaged, he was naturally anxious to get his letters back, and especially to exchange the locket for some less compromising gift. The letters she eventually sent him, but refused absolutely to part with the locket.

  “Now, for the last month Harold has been staying at Halbury, making sketching excursions into the surrounding country, and yesterday morning he took the train to Shinglehurst, the third station from here, and the one before Woldhurst.

  “On the platform here he met Miss Grant, who had come down from London, and was going on to Worthing. They entered the branch train together, having a first-class compartment to themselves. It seems she was wearing his locket at the time, and he made another appeal to her to make an exchange, which she refused, as before. The discussion appears to have become rather heated and angry on both sides, for the guard and a porter at Munsden both noticed that they seemed to be quarrelling; but the upshot of the affair was that the lady snapped the chain, and tossed it together with the locket to my brother, and they parted quite amiably at Shinglehurst, where Harold got out. He was then carrying his full sketching kit, including a large holland umbrella, the lower joint of which is an ash staff fitted with a powerful steel spike for driving into the ground.