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

by R. Austin Freeman

  “I have,” Jervis replied, gloomily. “I have worked at this confounded case until I feel like a rat that has been trying to gnaw through a plate-glass window. Still, I’ll have another try. By the way, where are you going to make this examination?”

  “I think I shall do it here. I had thought of handing the ashes over to one of the more eminent analysts, but it will be only a small operation, well within the capacity of our own laboratory. I think of asking Professor Woodfield to come here and carry out the actual analysis. Polton will give him any help that he may want and, of course, we shall be here to give any further assistance if he should need it.”

  “Why not have made the analysis yourself?” asked Jervis. “Is there anything specially difficult or intricate about it?”

  “Not at all,” replied Thorndyke. “But, as the case will have to go into Court on a capital charge—that is, assuming that my hypothesis turns out to be correct—I thought it best to have the analysis made by a man whose name as an authority on chemistry will carry special weight. Neither the judge nor the jury are likely to have much special knowledge of chemistry, but they will be able to appreciate the fact that Woodfield is a man with a world-wide reputation, and they will respect his opinion accordingly.”

  “Yes,” agreed Jervis, “I think you are quite right. A well-known name goes a long way with a jury. I hope your experiment will turn out as you expect, and I hope, too, that some of Miller’s men will manage to lay that murderous devil by the heels. But I’m afraid they’ll have their work cut out. He is a clever scoundrel; one must admit that. How do you suppose he contrived to track Jardine here?”

  “I think,” replied Thorndyke, “that he must have seen us on one of the two occasions when we went to the mineral water works and followed us here. Then, when Jardine disappeared from his lodgings, he would naturally look for him here, this being, in fact, the only place known to him in connection with Jardine, excepting Batson’s house, on which he also probably kept a watch.”

  “But how would he have discovered that Jardine actually was here?”

  “There are a number of ways in which he might have ascertained the fact. A good many persons knew that we had a new resident. We could not conceal his presence here. Many of our visitors have seen him, and the porter and hangers-on of the inn will have noticed him taking his exercise in the morning. Samway, himself, even, may have seen him, and he would easily have penetrated the disguise if he saw him out of doors, for there is no disguising a man’s stature. He might have made enquiries of one of the porters or lamp-lighters, or he might have employed someone else to make enquiries. The fact that someone was staying here and that his name was Howard could not have been very difficult to discover, while, as for ourselves, we are as well known in the inn as the griffin at Temple Bar. From the circumstance that he knew of our attendance at the Maidstone Assizes, it seems likely that he had subsidized some solicitor’s clerk who would know our movements.”

  “And I suppose,” said I, “as he is gone now, I may as well go back to my lodgings.”

  “Not at all,” replied Thorndyke. “In the first place, we don’t know that he is gone, and we do know that he is now absolutely desperate and reckless. And you must not forget, Jardine, that whether we charge him with murder in the case of Maddock, with the murder of poor Mrs. Samway, or the attempted murder of yourself, in either case you are the chief witness for the prosecution. You are the appointed instrument of retribution in this man’s case, and you must take the utmost care of yourself until your mission is accomplished. He knows the value of your evidence better than you do, and it is still worth his while to get rid of you if he can. But you, I am sure, are at least as anxious as we are to see him hanged.”

  “I’d sooner twist his neck with my own hands,” said I.

  “I daresay you would,” said Thorndyke, “and it is perfectly natural that you should. But it is not desirable. This is a case for a few fathoms of good, stout, hempen rope, and the common hangman. The private vengeance of a decent man would be an undeserved honour for a wretch like this. So you must stay here quietly for a few days more and give us a little help when we need it.”

  Thorndyke’s decision was not altogether unwelcome. Shaken as I was by the shock of this horrible tragedy, I was in no state to return to the solitude of my lodgings. The quiet and tactful sympathy of my two friends—or I should rather say three, for Polton was as kind and gentle as a woman—was infinitely comforting and their sober cheerfulness and the interest of their talk prevented me from brooding morbidly over the catastrophe of which I had been the involuntary cause. And, dreadful as the associations of the place were, I could not but feel that those of my older resorts would be equally painful. For me, at present, the Heath would be haunted by the figure of poor Letitia, walking at my side, telling me her pitiful tale and so pathetically craving my sympathy and friendship. And the Highgate Road could not but wring my heart with the recollection of that evening when we had walked together up the narrow lane—all unconscious of a black-hearted murderer stealing after us and foiled only by that futile spy—when, as we said good-bye I had kissed her and she had run off blushing like a girl.

  Moreover, if Thorndyke’s chambers were fraught with terrible and gloomy associations, they were also pervaded by an atmosphere of resolute, relentless preparation which was itself a relief to me; for, as the first shock of horrified grief passed, it left me possessed by a fury of hatred for the murderer and consumed by an inextinguishable craving for vengeance. Nor by the time of suspense so long as we had anticipated, as the very next morning a letter arrived from the Home Office containing the necessary authority to make the proposed examination and informing Thorndyke that on the following day the police would take possession of the ashes, which would be delivered to him by an officer who would remain to witness the examination and to resume possession of the remains when it was concluded.

  I saw very little more of Thorndyke that day, but gathered that he was busy making the final arrangements for the important work of the morrow and clearing off various tasks so as to leave himself in from engagements. Nor did I enjoy much of Jervis’s society, for he, too, was anxious to have the day free for the “Crucial Experiment,” which was—we hoped—to solve the mystery of Septimus Maddock’s death and explain the villain Samway’s strange vindictiveness towards me.

  Left to myself, and by no means enamoured of my own society, I wandered up to the laboratory to see what Polton was doing and to distract my gloomy thoughts by a little gossip with him on the various technical processes of which he possessed so much curious information. I found him arrayed in a white apron, with his sleeves turned up, busily occupied with what I took to be a slab of dough, which he had spread on a pastry board and was levelling with a hard-wood rolling-pin. He greeted me, as I entered with his queer, crinkly smile, but made no remark; and I stood awhile in silence, watching him cut the paste in halves, sprinkle it with flour, fold it up and once more roll it out into a sheet with the wooden pin. “Is this going to be a meat pie, Polton?” I asked, at length.

  His smile broadened at my question—for which I suspect he had been waiting. “I don’t think you’d care much for the flavour of it, if it was, sir,” he answered. “But it does look like dough, doesn’t it. It’s moulding-wax; a special formula of the Doctor’s own.”

  “I thought that white powder was flour.”

  “So it is, sir; the best wheaten flour. It’s lighter than a mineral powder and more tenacious. You have to use some powder to reduce the stickiness of the wax, especially in a soft paste like this, which has a lot of lard in it.”

  “What are you going to use it for?” I asked.

  “Ah!” exclaimed Polton, pausing to give the paste a vicious whack with the rolling-pin, “there you are, sir. That’s just what I’ve been asking myself all the time I’ve been rolling it out. The Doctor, sir—God bless him—is the most exasperating gentleman in the world. He fairly drives me mad with curiosity, at times. He wi
ll give me a piece of work to do—something to make, perhaps—with full particulars—all the facts, you understand, perfectly clear and exact, with working drawings if necessary. But he never says what the thing is for. So I make a hypothesis for myself—whole bundles of hypotheses, I make. And they always turn out wrong. I assure you, sir,” he concluded with solemn emphasis, “that I spend the best part of my life asking myself conundrums and giving myself the wrong answers.”

  “I should have thought,” said I, “that you would have got used to his ways by now.”

  “You can’t get used to him,” rejoined Polton. “It’s impossible. He doesn’t think like any other man. Ordinary men’s brains are turned out pretty much alike from a single mould, like a batch of pottery. But the Doctor’s brain was a special order. If there was any mould at all, that mould was broken up when the job was finished.”

  “What you mean is,” said I, “that he has a great deal more intelligence than is given to the rank and file of humanity.”

  “No, I don’t,” retorted Polton. “It isn’t a question of quantity at all. It’s a different kind of intelligence. Ordinary men have to reason from visible facts. He doesn’t. He reasons from facts which his imagination tells him exists, but which nobody else can see. He’s like a portrait painter who can do you a likeness of your face by looking at the back of your head. I suppose it’s what he calls constructive imagination, such as Darwin and Harvey and Pasteur and other great discoverers had, which enabled them to see beyond the facts that were known to the common herd of humanity.”

  I was somewhat doubtful as to the soundness of Polton’s views on the transcendental intellect, though respectfully admiring of the thoughtfulness of this curious little handicraftsman; accordingly I returned to the more concrete subject of wax. “Haven’t you any idea what this stuff is going to be used for?”

  “Not the slightest,” he replied. “The Doctor’s instructions were to make six pounds of it, to make it soft enough to take a squeeze of a stiff feather if warmed gently, and firm enough to keep its shape in a half-inch layer with a plaster backing, and to be sure to have it ready by tomorrow morning. That’s all. I know there’s an important analysis on tomorrow and I suppose this wax has got something to do with it. But, as to what moulding wax can have to do with a chemical analysis, that’s a question that I can’t make head or tail of.”

  Neither could I, though I had more data than Polton appeared to possess. Nor could Jervis, to whom I propounded the riddle when he came in to tea. We went up to the laboratory together and inspected, not only the wax, but the exterior of three large parcels addressed to Professor Woodfield, care of Dr. Thorndyke, and bearing the labels of a firm of wholesale chemists. But neither of us could suggest any solution of the mystery; and the only result of our visit to the laboratory was that Polton was somewhat scandalized by the conduct of his junior employer, who consoled himself for his failure by executing with the wax, a life-sized and highly grotesque portrait of Father Humperdinck.

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE FINAL PROBLEM

  At exactly half-past eleven in the following forenoon, Professor Woodfield arrived, bearing a massive cowhide bag which he deposited on a chair as a preliminary to taking off his hat and wiping his forehead. He was a big burly, heavy-browed man, sparing of speech and rather gruff in manner. “Stuff arrived yet?” he asked when he had brought his forehead to a satisfactory polish.

  “I think it came yesterday morning,” replied Thorndyke.

  “The deuce it did!” exclaimed Woodfield.

  “Yes. Drapers—Three parcels from Townley and—”

  “Oh, you’re talking of the chemicals. I meant the other stuff.”

  “No; the officer hasn’t arrived yet, but I expect he will be here in a few minutes. Superintendent Miller is a scrupulously punctual man.”

  The professor strode over to the window and glared out in the direction of Crown Office Row. “That man of yours got everything ready?” he asked.

  “Yes,” answered Thorndyke; “and I have looked over the laboratory myself. Everything is ready. You can begin the instant the ashes are delivered to us.”

  Woodfield expressed his satisfaction—or whatever he intended to express—by a grunt, without removing his eyes from the approach to our chambers. “Cab coming,” he announced a few moments later. “Man inside with a parcel. That the officer?”

  Jervis looked out over the professor’s shoulder. “Yes,” said he, “that’s Miller; and, confound it! here’s Marchmont with old Humperdinck. Shall we bolt up to the laboratory and send down word that we’re all out of town?”

  “I don’t see why we should,” said Thorndyke. “Woodfield won’t be inconsolable if we have to leave him to work by himself for a while.”

  The professor confirmed this statement by another grunt, and, shortly afterwards, the clamour of the little brass knocker announced the arrival of the first contingent, which, when I opened the door, was seen to consist of the solicitor and his very reverend client. “My dear Thorndyke!” exclaimed Marchmont, shaking our principal’s hand; “what a shocking affair this is—this murder, I mean. I read about it in the paper. A dreadful affair!”

  “Yes, indeed,” Thorndyke assented; “a most callous and horrible crime.”

  “Terrible! Terrible!” said Marchmont. “So unpleasant for you, too, and so inconvenient. Actually on your own stairs, I understand. But I hope they’ll be able to catch the villain. Have you any idea who he is?”

  “I have a very strong suspicion,” Thorndyke replied.

  “Ah!” exclaimed Marchmont, “I thought so. The rascal brought his pigs to the wrong market. What? Like doing a burglary at Scotland Yard. He couldn’t have known who lived here. Hallo! why here’s Mr. Miller. Howdy-do, Superintendent!”

  The officer, for whom I had left the door ajar, entered in his usual brisk fashion, and, having bestowed a comprehensive salutation on the assembled company, deposited on the table an apparently weighty parcel, securely wrapped and decorated with a label bearing the inscription “This side up.”

  “There, sir,” said he, “there’s your box of mystery; and I don’t mind telling you that I’m on tenterhooks of curiosity to see what you are going to make of it.”

  “Professor Woodfield is the presiding magician,” said Thorndyke, “so we will hand it over to him. I suppose the casket is sealed?”

  “Yes; it was sealed in my presence, and I’ve got to be present when the seals are broken.”

  “We’ll break the seals up in the laboratory,” said Woodfield, “but we may as well undo the parcel here.”

  He produced a solid-looking pocket knife, fitted with a practicable corkscrew, and, having cut the string, stripped off the wrappings of the parcel. “God bless my soul!” exclaimed Marchmont, as the last wrapping was removed; “why, it’s a cremation urn! What in the name of Fortune are you going to do?”

  Miller tapped the lid of the urn with a dramatic gesture. “Dr. Thorndyke,” said he, “is going, I hope, to extract from the ashes in this casket an instrument of vengeance on the murderer of Mrs. Samway.”

  “Ach!” exclaimed Father Humperdinck, “do not speak of vengeance in ze bresence of zese boor remains of a fellow greature. Chustice if you laig, but not vengeance. ‘Vengeance is mine, saiz ze Lordt!’”

  “M’yes,” agreed Miller, “that’s perfectly true, sir, and we quite understand your point of view. Still, we’ve got our job to do, you know.”

  “But,” said Marchmont, “I don’t understand. What is the connection? These appear to be the remains of Septimus Maddock, whoever he may have been, and he seems to have died last November. What has he to do with the murder of this poor woman, Samway?”

  “The connection is this,” replied Thorndyke; “the man who murdered Mrs. Samway murdered the man whose ashes are in this urn. That is my proposition; and I hope, with the skilful aid of my friend Professor Woodfield, to prove it.”

  “Well,” said Marchmont, “it is a remarkable prop
osition and the proof will be still more remarkable. I certainly thought that a body that had been cremated was beyond the reach of any possible inquiry.”

  “I am afraid that is so, as a rule,” Thorndyke admitted. “But I hope to find an exception in this case. Shall we go upstairs and commence the examination?”

  Woodfield having agreed with gruff emphasis, Miller picked up the casket and we all proceeded to the laboratory, where Polton, like a presiding analytical demon, was discovered amidst his beloved apparatus. The casket was placed on a table, the seals broken and the cover removed by Woodfield, whereupon we all, with one accord, craned forward to peer in at what looked like a mass of fragments of snowy madrepore coral. “Ach!” exclaimed Father Humperdinck, “bot it is a solemn zought zat zese boor ashes vas vunce a living man chust like ourselves.”

  “Yes,” said Marchmont, “it is, and I suppose we shall all be pretty much alike by the time we reach this stage. Cremation is a leveller, with a vengeance. Still, I will say this much, these remains are perfectly unobjectionable in every way, in fact they are almost agreeable in appearance; whereas, an ordinary disinterment after this lapse of time would have been a most horrid business.”

  “Yes, indeed,” agreed Thorndyke; “I have had to make a good many examinations of exhumed bodies, and, as you say, they were very different from this. If I were not a practitioner of legal medicine—in which exhumation often furnishes crucial evidence—I should say that this cleanly and decent method of disposing of the dead was incomparably superior to any other. Unfortunately it has serious medico-legal drawbacks. I think, Woodfield, that we will turn the ashes out on that sheet of paper on the bench, and then, with your permission, I will pick out the recognizable fragments and examine them while you are working on the small, powdery portions.”

  He took up the urn—which was an oblong, terracotta vessel some fourteen inches in length—and very carefully inverted it over the large sheet of clean white paper. Then, from the dazzling, snowy heap, he picked out daintily the larger fragments—handling them with the utmost tenderness—for, of course, they were excessively fragile—and finally transferring them, one by one, to another sheet of paper at the other end of the bench.