“No,” Jervis agreed, “though it makes one consider his position with more attention than one would otherwise.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Thorndyke. “A reckless gambler is a man whose conduct cannot be relied on. He is subject to sudden vicissitudes of fortune which may force him into other kinds of wrongdoing. Many an embezzlement has been preceded by an unlucky plunge on the turf.”
“Assuming the responsibility for this disappearance to lie between Hurst and—and the Bellinghams,” said I, with an uncomfortable gulp as I mentioned the name of my friends, “to which side does the balance of probability incline?”
“To the side of Hurst, I should say, without doubt,” replied Thorndyke. “The case stands thus—on the facts presented to us: Hurst appears to have had no motive for killing the deceased (as we will call him); but the man was seen to enter his house, was never seen to leave it, and was never again seen alive. Bellingham, on the other hand, had a motive, as he believed himself to be the principal beneficiary under the will. But the deceased was not seen at his house, and there is no evidence that he went to the house or to the neighbourhood of the house, excepting the scarab that was found there. But the evidence of the scarab is vitiated by the fact that Hurst was present when it was picked up, and that it was found on a spot over which Hurst had passed only a few minutes previously. Until Hurst is cleared, it seems to me that the presence of the scarab proves nothing against the Bellinghams.”
“Then your opinions on the case,” said I, “are based entirely on the facts that have been made public.”
“Yes, mainly. I do not necessarily accept those facts just as they are presented, and I may have certain views of my own on the case. But if I have, I do not feel in a position to discuss them. For the present, discussion has to be limited to the facts and inferences offered by the parties concerned.”
“There!” exclaimed Jervis, rising to knock out his pipe, “that is where Thorndyke has you. He lets you think you’re in the very thick of the ‘know’ until one fine morning you wake up and discover that you have only been a gaping outsider; and then you are mightily astonished—and so are the other side, too, for that matter. But we must really be off now, mustn’t we, reverend senior?”
“I suppose we must,” replied Thorndyke; and, as he drew on his gloves, he asked: “Have you heard from Barnard lately?”
“Oh, yes,” I answered. “I wrote to him at Smyrna to say that the practice was flourishing and that I was quite happy and contented, and that he might stay away as long as he liked. He writes by return that he will prolong his holiday if an opportunity offers, but will let me know later.”
“Gad,” said Jervis, “it was a stroke of luck for Barnard that Bellingham happened to have such a magnificent daughter—there! Don’t mind me, old man. You go in and win—she’s worth it, isn’t she, Thorndyke?”
“Miss Bellingham is a very charming young lady,” replied Thorndyke. “I am most favourably impressed by both the father and the daughter, and I only trust that we may be able to be of some service to them.” With this sedate little speech Thorndyke shook my hand, and I watched my two friends go on their way until their fading shapes were swallowed up in the darkness of Fetter Lane.
CHAPTER XII
A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY
It was some two or three mornings after my little supper-party that, as I stood in the consulting-room brushing my hat preparatory to starting on my morning round, Adolphus appeared at the door to announce two gentlemen waiting in the surgery. I told him to bring them in, and a moment later Thorndyke entered, accompanied by Jervis. I noted that they looked uncommonly large in the little apartment, especially Thorndyke, but I had no time to consider this phenomenon, for the latter, when he had shaken my hand, proceeded at once to explain the object of their visit.
“We have come to ask a favour, Berkeley,” he said; “to ask you to do us a very great service in the interests of your friends, the Bellinghams.”
“You know I shall be delighted,” I said warmly. “What is it?”
“I will explain. You know—or perhaps you don’t—that the police have collected all the bones that have been discovered and deposited them in the mortuary at Woodford, where they are to be viewed by the coroner’s jury. Now, it has become imperative that I should have more definite and reliable information about them than I can get from the newspapers. The natural thing would be for me to go down and examine them myself, but there are circumstances that make it very desirable that my connection with the case should not leak out. Consequently, I can’t go myself, and, for the same reason, I can’t send Jervis. On the other hand, as it is now stated pretty openly that the police consider the bones to be almost certainly those of John Bellingham, it would seem perfectly natural that you, as Godfrey Bellingham’s doctor, should go down to view them on his behalf.”
“I should like to go,” I said. “I would give anything to go; but how is it to be managed? It would mean a whole day off and leaving the practice to take care of itself.”
“I think that could be arranged,” said Thorndyke; “and the matter is really important for two reasons. One is that the inquest opens tomorrow, and someone certainly ought to be there to watch the proceedings on Godfrey’s behalf; and the other is that our client has received notice from Hurst’s solicitors that the application would be heard in the Probate Court in a few days.”
“Isn’t that rather sudden?” I asked.
“It certainly suggests that there has been a good deal more activity than we were given to understand. But you see the importance of the affair. The inquest will be a sort of dress rehearsal for the Probate Court, and it is quite essential that we should have a chance of estimating the management.”
“Yes, I see that. But how are we to manage about the practice?”
“We shall find you a substitute.”
“Through a medical agent?”
“Yes,” said Jervis. “Turcival will find us a man; in fact, he has done it. I saw him this morning; he has a man who is waiting up in town to negotiate for the purchase of a practice and who would do the job for a couple of guineas. Quite a reliable man. Only say the word, and I will run off to Adam Street and engage him definitely.”
“Very well. You engage the locum tenens, and I will be prepared to start for Woodford as soon as he turns up.”
“Excellent!” said Thorndyke. “That is a great weight off my mind. And if you could manage to drop in this evening and smoke a pipe with us we could talk over the plan of campaign and let you know what items of information we are particularly in want of.”
I promised to turn up at King’s Bench Walk as soon after half-past eight as possible, and my two friends then took their departure, leaving me to set out in high spirits on my scanty round of visits.
It is surprising what different aspects things present from different points of view; how relative are our estimates of the conditions and circumstances of life. To the urban workman—the journeyman baker or tailor, for instance, labouring year in year out in a single building—a holiday ramble on Hampstead Heath is a veritable voyage of discovery; whereas to the sailor the shifting panorama of the whole wide world is but the commonplace of the day’s work.
So I reflected as I took my place in the train at Liverpool Street on the following day. There had been a time when a trip by rail to the borders of Epping Forest would have been far from a thrilling experience; now, after vegetating in the little world of Fetter Lane, it was quite an adventure.
The enforced inactivity of a railway journey is favourable to thought, and I had much to think about. The last few weeks had witnessed momentous changes in my outlook. New interests had arisen, new friendships had grown up; and, above all, there had stolen into my life that supreme influence that, for good or for evil, according to my fortune, was to colour and pervade it even to its close. Those few days of companionable labour in the reading-room, with the homely hospitalities of the milk-shop and the pleasant walks homeward through the fr
iendly London streets, had called into existence a new world—a world in which the gracious personality of Ruth Bellingham was the one dominating reality. And thus, as I leaned back in a corner of the railway carriage with an unlighted pipe in my hand, the events of the immediate past, together with those more problematical ones of the impending future, occupied me rather to the exclusion of the business of the moment, which was to review the remains collected in the Woodford mortuary, until, as the train approached Stratford, the odours of the soap and bone-manure factories poured in at the open window and (by a natural association of ideas) brought me back to the object of my quest.
As to the exact purpose of this expedition, I was not very clear; but I knew that I was acting as Thorndyke’s proxy and thrilled with pride at the thought. But what particular light my investigations were to throw upon the intricate Bellingham case I had no very definite idea. With a view to fixing the course of procedure in my mind, I took Thorndyke’s written instructions from my pocket and read them over carefully. They were very full and explicit, making ample allowance for my lack of experience in medico-legal matters:—
1. Do not appear to make minute investigations or in any way excite remark.
2. Ascertain if all the bones belonging to each region are present, and if not, which are missing.
3. Measure the extreme length of the principal bones and compare those of opposite sides.
4. Examine the bones with reference to the age, sex, and muscular development of the deceased.
5. Note the presence or absence of signs of constitutional disease, local disease of bone or adjacent structures, old or recent injuries, and any other departures from the normal or usual.
6. Observe the presence or absence of adipocere and its position, if present.
7. Note any remains of tendons, ligaments, or other soft structures.
8. Examine the Sidcup hand with reference to the question as to whether the finger was separated before or after death.
9. Estimate the probable period of submersion and note any changes (as, e.g., mineral or organic staining) due to the character of the water or mud.
10. Ascertain the circumstances (immediate and remote) that led to the discovery of the bones and the names of the persons concerned in those circumstances.
11. Commit all information to writing as soon as possible, and make plans and diagrams on the spot, if circumstances permit.
12. Preserve an impassive exterior; listen attentively but without eagerness; ask as few questions as possible; pursue any inquiry that your observations on the spot may suggest.
These were my instructions, and, considering that I was going merely to inspect a few dry bones, they appeared rather formidable; in fact, the more I read them over the greater became my misgivings as to my qualifications for the task.
As I approached the mortuary it became evident that some, at least, of Thorndyke’s admonitions were by no means unnecessary. The place was in charge of a police-sergeant, who watched my approach suspiciously; and some half-dozen men, obviously newspaper reporters, hovered about the entrance like a pack of jackals. I presented the coroner’s order which Mr. Marchmont had obtained, and which the sergeant read with his back against the wall, to prevent the newspaper men from looking over his shoulder.
My credentials being found satisfactory, the door was unlocked and I entered, accompanied by three enterprising reporters, whom, however, the sergeant summarily ejected and locked out, returning to usher me into the presence and to observe my proceedings with intelligent but highly embarrassing interest.
The bones were laid out on a large table and covered with a sheet, which the sergeant slowly turned back, watching my face intently as he did so to note the impression that the spectacle made upon me. I imagine that he must have been somewhat disappointed by my impassive demeanour, for the remains suggested to me nothing more than a rather shabby set of “student’s osteology.” The whole collection had been set out (by the police-surgeon, as the sergeant informed me) in their proper anatomical order; notwithstanding which I counted them over carefully to make sure that none were missing, checking them by the list with which Thorndyke had furnished me.
“I see you have found the left thigh bone,” I remarked, observing that this did not appear in the list.
“Yes,” said the sergeant; “that turned up yesterday evening in a big pond called Baldwin’s Pond in the Sand-pit plain, near Little Monk Wood.”
“Is that near here?” I asked.
“In the forest up Loughton way,” was the reply.
I made a note of the fact (on which the sergeant looked as if he was sorry he had mentioned it), and then turned my attention to a general consideration of the bones before examining them in detail. Their appearance would have been improved and examination facilitated by a thorough scrubbing, for they were just as they had been taken from their respective resting-places, and it was difficult to decide whether their reddish-yellow colour was an actual stain or due to a deposit on the surface. In any case, as it affected them all alike, I thought it an interesting feature and made a note of it. They bore numerous traces of their sojourn in the various ponds from which they had been recovered, but these gave me little help in determining the length of time during which they had been submerged. They were, of course, encrusted with mud, and little wisps of pond-weed stuck to them in places; but these facts furnished only the vaguest measure of time.
Some of the traces were, indeed, more informing. To several of the bones, for instance, there adhered the dried egg-clusters of the common pond-snail, and in one of the hollows of the right shoulder-blade (the “infra-spinous fossa”) was a group of the mud-built tubes of the red river-worm. These remains gave proof of a considerable period of submersion, and since they could not have been deposited on the bones until all the flesh had disappeared, they furnished evidence that some time—a month or two, at any rate—had elapsed since this had happened. Incidentally, too, their distribution showed the position in which the bones had lain, and though this appeared to be of no importance in the existing circumstances, I made careful notes of the situation of each adherent body, illustrating their position by rough sketches.
The sergeant watched my proceedings with an indulgent smile.
“You’re making a regular inventory, sir,” he remarked, “as if you were going to put ’em up for auction. I shouldn’t think those snails’ eggs would be much help in identification. And all that has been done already,” he added as I produced my measuring-tape.
“No doubt,” I replied; “but my business is to make independent observations, to check the others, if necessary.” And I proceeded to measure each of the principal bones separately and to compare those of the opposite sides. The agreement in dimensions and general characteristics of the pairs of bones left little doubt that all were parts of one skeleton, a conclusion that was confirmed by the eburnated patch on the head of the right thigh bone and the corresponding patch in the socket of the right hip bone. When I had finished my measurements I went over the entire series of bones in detail, examining each with the closest attention for any of those signs which Thorndyke had indicated, and eliciting nothing but a monotonously reiterated negative. They were distressingly and disappointingly normal.
“Well, sir, and what do you make of ’em?” the sergeant asked cheerfully as I shut up my notebook and straightened my back. “Whose bones are they? Are they Mr. Bellingham’s, think ye?”
“I should be very sorry to say whose bones they are,” I replied. “One bone is very much like another, you know.”
“I suppose it is,” he agreed; “but I thought that, with all that measuring and all those notes, you might have arrived at something definite.” Evidently he was disappointed in me; and I was somewhat disappointed in myself when I contrasted Thorndyke’s elaborate instructions with the meagre result of my investigations. For what did my discoveries amount to? And how much was the inquiry advanced by the few entries in my notebook?
The bon
es were apparently those of a man of fair though not remarkable muscular development; over thirty years of age, but how much older I was unable to say. His height I judged roughly to be five feet eight inches, but my measurements would furnish data for a more exact estimate by Thorndyke. Beyond this the bones were quite uncharacteristic. There were no signs of disease either local or general, no indications of injuries either old or recent, no departures of any kind from the normal or usual; and the dismemberment had been effected with such care that there was not a single scratch on any of the separated surfaces. Of adipocere (the peculiar waxy or soapy substance that is commonly found in bodies that have slowly decayed in damp situations) there was not a trace; and the only remnant of the soft structures was a faint indication, like a spot of dried glue, of the tendon on the tip of the right elbow.
The sergeant was in the act of replacing the sheet, with the air of a showman who has just given an exhibition, when there came a sharp rapping on the mortuary door. The officer finished spreading the sheet with official precision, and having ushered me out into the lobby, turned the key and admitted three persons, holding the door open after they had entered for me to go out. But the appearance of the newcomers inclined me to linger. One of them was a local constable, evidently in official charge; a second was a labouring man, very muddy and wet, who carried a small sack; while in the third I thought I scented a professional brother.
The sergeant continued to hold the door open.
“Nothing more I can do for you, sir?” he asked genially.
“Is that the divisional surgeon?” I inquired.
“Yes. I am the divisional surgeon,” the newcomer answered. “Did you want anything of me?”
“This,” said the sergeant, “is a medical gentleman who has got permission from the coroner to inspect the remains. He is acting for the family of the deceased—I mean, for the family of Mr. Bellingham,” he added in answer to an inquiring glance from the surgeon.
The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others Page 61