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

by R. Austin Freeman

  “By whom?”

  “By Doctor Thorndyke.”

  “Indeed,” said Mr. Jellicoe. “Is he here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ha! And you wish to arrest me, I presume?”

  “Yes. That is what I am here for.”

  “Well, I will agree to surrender myself subject to certain conditions.”

  “I can’t make any conditions, Mr. Jellicoe.”

  “No. I will make them, and you will accept them. Otherwise you will not arrest me.”

  “It’s no use for you to talk like that,” said Badger. “If you don’t let me in I shall have to break in. And I may as well tell you,” he added mendaciously, “that the house is surrounded.”

  “You may accept my assurance,” Mr. Jellicoe replied calmly, “that you will not arrest me if you do not accept my conditions.”

  “Well, what are your conditions?” demanded Badger impatiently.

  “I desire to make a statement,” said Mr. Jellicoe.

  “You can do that, but I must caution you that anything you say may be used in evidence against you.”

  “Naturally. But I wish to make the statement in the presence of Doctor Thorndyke, and I desire to hear a statement from him of the method of investigation by which he discovered the whereabouts of the body. That is to say, if he is willing.”

  “If you mean that we should mutually enlighten one another, I am very willing indeed,” said Thorndyke.

  “Very well. Then my conditions, Inspector, are that I shall hear Doctor Thorndyke’s statement and that I shall be permitted to make a statement myself, and that until those statements are completed, with any necessary interrogation and discussion, I shall remain at liberty and shall suffer no molestation or interference of any kind. And I agree that, on the conclusion of the said proceedings, I will submit without resistance to any course that you may adopt.”

  “I can’t agree to that,” said Badger.

  “Can’t you?” said Mr. Jellicoe coldly; and, after a pause, he added: “Don’t be hasty. I have given you full warning.”

  There was something in Mr. Jellicoe’s passionless tone that disturbed the inspector exceedingly, for he turned to Thorndyke and said in a low tone:

  “I wonder what his game is? He can’t get away, you know.”

  “There are several possibilities,” said Thorndyke.

  “M’yes,” said Badger, stroking his chin perplexedly.

  “After all, is there any objection? His statement might save trouble, and you’d be on the safe side. It would take you some time to break in.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Jellicoe, with his hand on the window, “do you agree—yes or no?”

  “All right,” said Badger sulkily. “I agree.”

  “You promise not to molest me in any way until I have quite finished?”

  “I promise.”

  Mr. Jellicoe’s head disappeared and the window closed. After a short interval we heard the jar of massive bolts and the clank of a chain, and, as the heavy door swung open, Mr. Jellicoe stood revealed, calm and impassive, with an old-fashioned office candlestick in his hand.

  “Who are the others?” he inquired, peering out sharply through his spectacles.

  “O, they are nothing to do with me,” replied Badger.

  “They are Doctor Berkeley and Doctor Jervis,” said Thorndyke.

  “Ha!” said Mr. Jellicoe; “very kind and attentive of them to call. Pray come in, gentlemen. I am sure you will be interested to hear our little discussion.”

  He held the door open with a certain stiff courtesy, and we all entered the hall led by Inspector Badger. He closed the door softly and preceded us up the stairs and into the apartment from the window of which he had dictated the terms of surrender. It was a fine old room, spacious, lofty, and dignified, with panelled walls and a carved mantelpiece, the central escutcheon of which bore the initials “J.W.P.” with the date “1671.” A large writing-table stood at the farther end, and behind it an iron safe.

  “I have been expecting this visit,” Mr. Jellicoe remarked tranquilly as he placed four chairs opposite the table.

  “Since when?” asked Thorndyke.

  “Since last Monday evening, when I had the pleasure of seeing you conversing with my friend Doctor Berkeley at the Inner Temple gate, and then inferred that you were retained in the case. That was a circumstance that had not been fully provided for. May I offer you gentlemen a glass of sherry?” As he spoke he placed on the table a decanter and a tray of glasses, and looked at us interrogatively with his hand on the stopper.

  “Well, I don’t mind if I do, Mr. Jellicoe,” said Badger, on whom the lawyer’s glance had finally settled. Mr. Jellicoe filled a glass and handed it to him with a stiff bow; then, with the decanter still in his hand, he said persuasively: “Doctor Thorndyke, pray allow me to fill you a glass?”

  “No, thank you,” said Thorndyke, in a tone so decided that the inspector looked round at him quickly. And as Badger caught his eye, the glass which he was about to raise to his lips became suddenly arrested and was slowly returned to the table untasted.

  “I don’t want to hurry you, Mr. Jellicoe,” said the inspector, “but it’s rather late, and I should like to get this business settled. What is it that you wish to do?”

  “I desire,” replied Mr. Jellicoe, “to make a detailed statement of the events that have happened, and I wish to hear from Doctor Thorndyke precisely how he arrived at his very remarkable conclusion. When this has been done I shall be entirely at your service; and I suggest that it would be more interesting if Doctor Thorndyke would give us his statement before I furnish you with the actual facts.”

  “I am entirely of your opinion,” said Thorndyke.

  “Then in that case,” said Mr. Jellicoe, “I suggest that you disregard me, and address your remarks to your friends as if I were not present.”

  Thorndyke acquiesced with a bow, and Mr. Jellicoe, having seated himself in his elbow-chair behind the table, poured himself out a glass of water, selected a cigarette from a neat silver case, lighted it deliberately, and leaned back to listen at his ease.

  “My first acquaintance with this case,” Thorndyke began without preamble, “was made through the medium of the daily papers about two years ago; and I may say that, although I had no interest in it beyond the purely academic interest of a specialist in a case that lies in his particular specialty, I considered it with deep attention. The newspaper reports contained no particulars of the relations of the parties that could furnish any hints as to motives on the part of any of them, but merely a bare statement of the events. And this was a distinct advantage, inasmuch as it left one to consider the facts of the case without regard to motive—to balance the prima facie probabilities with an open mind. And it may surprise you to learn that those prima facie probabilities pointed from the very first to that solution which has been put to the test of experiment this evening. Hence it will be well for me to begin by giving the conclusions that I reached by reasoning from the facts set forth in the newspapers before any of the further facts came to my knowledge.

  “From the facts as stated in the newspaper reports it is obvious that there were four possible explanations of the disappearance.

  “1. The man might be alive and in hiding. This was highly improbable, for the reasons that were stated by Mr. Loram at the late hearing of the application, and for a further reason that I shall mention presently.

  “2. He might have died by accident or disease, and his body failed to be identified. This was even more improbable, seeing that he carried on his person abundant means of identification, including visiting cards.

  “3. He might have been murdered by some stranger for the sake of his portable property. This was highly improbable for the same reason: his body could hardly have failed to be identified.

  “These three explanations are what we may call the outside explanations. They touched none of the parties mentioned; they were all obviously improbable on general grounds; an
d to all of them there was one conclusive answer—the scarab which was found in Godfrey Bellingham’s garden. Hence I put them aside and gave my attention to the fourth explanation. This was that the missing man had been made away with by one of the parties mentioned in the report. But, since the reports mentioned three parties, it was evident that there was a choice of three hypotheses, namely (a) That John Bellingham had been made away with by Hurst; or (b) by the Bellinghams; or (c) by Mr. Jellicoe.

  “Now, I have constantly impressed on my pupils that the indispensable question that must be asked at the outset of such an inquiry as this is, ‘When was the missing person last undoubtedly seen or known to be alive?’ That is the question that I asked myself after reading the newspaper report; and the answer was, that he was last certainly seen alive on the fourteenth of October, nineteen hundred and two, at 141 Queen Square, Bloomsbury. Of the fact that he was alive at that time and place there could be no doubt whatever; for he was seen at the same moment by two persons, both of whom were intimately acquainted with him, and one of whom, Doctor Norbury, was apparently a disinterested witness. After that date he was never seen, alive or dead, by any person who knew him and was able to identify him. It was stated that he had been seen on the twenty-third of November following by the housemaid of Mr. Hurst; but as this person was unacquainted with him, it was uncertain whether the person whom she saw was or was not John Bellingham.

  “Hence the disappearance dated, not from the twenty-third of November, as everyone seems to have assumed, but from the fourteenth of October; and the question was not, ‘What became of John Bellingham after he entered Mr. Hurst’s house?’ but, ‘What became of him after his interview in Queen Square?’

  “But as soon as I had decided that that interview must form the real starting-point of the inquiry, a most striking set of circumstances came into view. It became obvious that if Mr. Jellicoe had had any reason for wishing to make away with John Bellingham, he had such an opportunity as seldom falls to the lot of an intending murderer.

  “Just consider the conditions. John Bellingham was known to be setting out alone upon a journey beyond the sea. His exact destination was not stated. He was to be absent for an undetermined period, but at least three weeks. His disappearance would occasion no comment; his absence would lead to no inquiries, at least for several weeks, during which the murderer would have leisure quietly to dispose of the body and conceal all traces of the crime. The conditions were, from a murderer’s point of view, ideal.

  “But that was not all. During that very period of John Bellingham’s absence Mr. Jellicoe was engaged to deliver to the British Museum what was admittedly a dead human body; and that body was to be enclosed in a sealed case. Could any more perfect or secure method of disposing of a body be devised by the most ingenious murderer? The plan would have had only one weak point: the mummy would be known to have left Queen Square after the disappearance of John Bellingham, and suspicion might in the end have arisen. To this point I shall return presently; meanwhile we will consider the second hypothesis—that the missing man was made away with by Mr. Hurst.

  “Now, there seemed to be no doubt that some person, purporting to be John Bellingham, did actually visit Mr. Hurst’s house; and he must either have left that house or remained in it. If he left, he did so surreptitiously; if he remained, there could be no reasonable doubt that he had been murdered and that his body had been concealed. Let us consider the probabilities in each case.

  “Assuming—as everyone seems to have done—that the visitor was really John Bellingham, we are dealing with a responsible, middle-aged gentleman, and the idea that such a person would enter a house, announce his intention of staying, and then steal away unobserved is very difficult to accept. Moreover, he would appear to have come down to Eltham by rail immediately on landing in England, leaving his luggage in the cloak-room at Charing Cross. This pointed to a definiteness of purpose quite inconsistent with his casual disappearance from the house.

  “On the other hand, the idea that he might have been murdered by Hurst was not inconceivable. The thing was physically possible. If Bellingham had really been in the study when Hurst came home, the murder could have been committed—by appropriate means—and the body temporarily concealed in the cupboard or elsewhere. But, although possible, it was not at all probable. There was no real opportunity. The risk and the subsequent difficulties would be very great; there was not a particle of positive evidence that a murder had occurred; and the conduct of Hurst in immediately leaving the house in possession of the servants is quite inconsistent with the supposition that there was a body concealed in it. So that, while it is almost impossible to believe that John Bellingham left the house of his own accord, it is equally difficult to believe that he did not leave it.

  “But there is a third possibility, which, strange to say, no one seems to have suggested. Supposing that the visitor was not John Bellingham at all, but someone who was personating him? That would dispose of the difficulties completely. The strange disappearance ceases to be strange, for a personator would necessarily make off before Mr. Hurst should arrive and discover the imposture. But if we accept this supposition, we raise two further questions: ‘Who was the personator?’ and ‘What was the object of the personation?’

  “Now, the personator was clearly not Hurst himself, for he would have been recognised by his housemaid; he was therefore either Godfrey Bellingham or Mr. Jellicoe or some other person; and as no other person was mentioned in the newspaper reports I confined my speculations to these two.

  “And, first, as to Godfrey Bellingham. It did not appear whether he was or was not known to the housemaid, so I assumed—wrongly, as it turns out—that he was not. Then he might have been the personator. But why should he have personated his brother? He could not have already committed the murder. There had not been time enough. He would have had to leave Woodford before John Bellingham had set out from Charing Cross. And even if he had committed the murder, he would have had no object in raising this commotion. His cue would have been to remain quiet and know nothing. The probabilities were all against the personator being Godfrey Bellingham.

  “Then could it be Mr. Jellicoe? The answer to this question is contained in the answer to the further question: What could have been the object of the personation?

  “What motive could this unknown person have had in appearing, announcing himself as John Bellingham, and forthwith vanishing? There could only have been one motive: that, namely, of fixing the date of John Bellingham’s disappearance—of furnishing a definite moment at which he was last seen alive.

  “But who was likely to have had such a motive? Let us see.

  “I said just now that if Mr. Jellicoe had murdered John Bellingham and disposed of the body in the mummy-case, he would have been absolutely safe for the time being. But there would be a weak spot in his armour. For a month or more the disappearance of his client would occasion no remark. But presently, when he failed to return, inquiries would be set on foot; and then it would appear that no one had seen him since he left Queen Square. Then it would be noted that the last person with whom he was seen was Mr. Jellicoe. It might, further, be remembered that the mummy had been delivered to the Museum some time after the missing man was last seen alive. And so suspicion might arise and be followed by disastrous investigations. But supposing it should be made to appear that John Bellingham had been seen alive more than a month after his interview with Mr. Jellicoe and some weeks after the mummy had been deposited in the Museum? Then Mr. Jellicoe would cease to be in any way connected with the disappearance, and henceforth would be absolutely safe.

  “Hence, after carefully considering this part of the newspaper report, I came to the conclusion that the mysterious occurrence at Mr. Hurst’s house had only one reasonable explanation, namely, that the visitor was not John Bellingham, but someone personating him; and that that someone was Mr. Jellicoe.

  “It remains to consider the case of Godfrey Bellingham and his daughter, th
ough I cannot understand how any sane person can have seriously suspected either” (here Inspector Badger smiled a sour smile). “The evidence against them was negligible, for there was nothing to connect them with the affair save the finding of the scarab on their premises; and that event, which might have been highly suspicious under other circumstances, was robbed of any significance by the fact that the scarab was found on a spot which had been passed a few minutes previously by the other suspected party, Hurst. The finding of the scarab did, however, establish two important conclusions; namely, that John Bellingham had probably met with foul play, and that of the four persons present when it was found, one at least had had possession of the body. As to which of the four was the one, the circumstances furnished only a hint, which was this: If the scarab had been purposely dropped, the most likely person to find it was the one who dropped it. And the person who discovered it was Mr. Jellicoe.

  “Following up this hint, if we ask ourselves what motive Mr. Jellicoe could have had for dropping it—assuming him to be the murderer—the answer is obvious. It would not be his policy to fix the crime on any particular person, but rather to set up a complication of conflicting evidence which would occupy the attention of investigators and divert it from himself.

  “Of course, if Hurst had been the murderer, he would have had a sufficient motive for dropping the scarab, so that the case against Mr. Jellicoe was not conclusive; but the fact that it was he who found it was highly significant.

  “This completes the analysis of the evidence contained in the original newspaper report describing the circumstances of the disappearance. The conclusions that followed from it were, as you will have seen:

  “1. That the missing man was almost certainly dead, as proved by the finding of the scarab after his disappearance.

  “2. That he had probably been murdered by one or more of four persons, as proved by the finding of the scarab on the premises occupied by two of them and accessible to the others.

  “3. That, of those four persons, one—Mr. Jellicoe—was the last person who was known to have been in the company of the missing man; had had an exceptional opportunity for committing the murder; and was known to have delivered a dead body to the Museum subsequently to the disappearance.