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

by R. Austin Freeman

  “Are you acquainted with the evidence which has been given in this inquiry?”

  “I have read a verbatim report of the first proceedings, and I have heard your summary of the whole case.”

  “You have, then, read the evidence relating to the anonymous letters. What opinion did you form as to the purpose of those letters?”

  “I formed the opinion that their purpose was to impel deceased to commit suicide.”

  “Do you consider that, in the case of a person predisposed to suicide, they would be likely to produce that effect?”

  “I should say that they would have a tendency to induce a suicidal state of mind.”

  “And suppose such a person, having received a series of such letters, and being greatly depressed by them, should be engaged—in his bedroom, the last thing at night—in a conversation on suicide, his own suicide, and that of relatives who had killed themselves, what would you expect to be the effect of such conversation?”

  “It would not be possible to predict the effect, but the tendency would be to reinforce the influence of the letters.”

  “And what would be the condition of such a person in regard to his susceptibility to further suggestion?

  “His susceptibility to further suggestion would probably be increased.”

  “Looking at this case as a whole, by the light of your experience of suicide, do you regard the death of deceased as the result of his own spontaneous act or as due in part to the acts of some other person or persons?

  “I regard his death as due entirely to the acts of some other person or persons.”

  At these terrible words my heart seemed to stand still. There was a fearful certainty and confidence in Dr. Thorndyke’s tone that chilled my very blood. He did not guess. He knew. In the short pause that followed, I set my teeth and waited for my condemnation.

  “You consider that the suggestion conveyed in the letters and in that conversation and by other possible means operated so as to convert deceased into an automaton? Is that what you mean?”

  “No. I do not consider that the letters or the conversation had any effect in causing his death.”

  The coroner frowned, perplexedly. “I don’t think I quite understand,” said he. “There seems to be—if you will pardon me—some self-contradiction. You state that the letters and the conversation would tend to produce a suicidal state of mind; but yet, though the letters were actually received and the conversation occurred, neither had any effect in causing the death which followed them. Do I state the case correctly?”

  “Yes; quite correctly.”

  “Then I do not understand you in the least. You appear to be flatly contradicting yourself. I think you will agree that we are not making much progress.”

  “We are not making any progress at all. The examination has not elicited a single, relevant fact.”

  “Indeed, sir!” exclaimed the coroner. “And, pray, whose fault is that?

  “I suggest,” Dr. Thorndyke replied, suavely, “that it is due to the method of examination.”

  The coroner turned purple. “This is insufferable!” he exclaimed; “that a witness should presume to instruct an experienced officer of justice in the duties of his office! But I suppose we must be humble in the presence of an expert. May I ask, sir, what you object to in my methods of examination?”

  “The lack of result,” Dr. Thorndyke replied, “is due to the fact that your examination has been conducted to support a particular theory; and that theory happens to be the wrong theory.”

  “Again, I don’t understand you,” the coroner said, angrily. “No theory has been advanced by me. Will you be good enough to explain what theory you are alluding to?”

  “I allude to the theory, which you seem to have adopted, that the deceased Lewis Otway committed suicide by hanging himself from a peg on the bedroom wall. That theory is erroneous. It is practically certain that Lewis Otway did not commit suicide; and it is quite certain that he never hung from that peg on the bedroom wall.”

  “But,” exclaimed the coroner, “we have the evidence of a witness who saw deceased hanging from that peg; and not only saw him, but cut him down and found him to be dead.”

  “As a witness,” said Dr. Thorndyke, “I am not concerned with the testimony of other witnesses, but only with the facts as ascertained by me.”

  “No doubt,” retorted the coroner. “But we are concerned with the testimony of all the witnesses; and the statement of this witness that she saw the body hanging from the peg, and that she cut it down from the peg, is a clear statement on a question of fact. If that statement is true, deceased hung from that peg. If he did not hang from that peg the statement is false. You say that he never hung from that peg. On what facts do you base that statement?

  “On the strength of the peg and the weight of the body of deceased. The strength of the peg—that is, the maximum weight it was capable of supporting—was under 175 pounds. But the body of deceased weighed 231 pounds—that is half a hundredweight in excess of the greatest weight that the peg was capable of supporting.”

  “What method did you employ to measure the strength of the peg?”

  “I used simple weights, which I thought preferable to a dynamometer for purposes of evidence. These weights I had conveyed to the chambers, and I carried out the experiment in the presence of Mr. Anstey, K.C., and my assistant, Francis Polton. I hung from the peg a wooden tray, slung by a chain, the total weight of which was ten pounds. On this tray I placed—with great care to avoid shocks—two half-hundredweights. I then added weights, five pounds at a time, until the total weight, including that of the tray and chain, reached 170 pounds. This was evidently very near the limit of what the peg would bear, for it was bending noticeably under the weight; and when I added another five pounds the peg doubled under, breaking half-way through. I have brought it with me for your inspection.” He opened the green suitcase and produced the peg, which he handed to the coroner.

  “You see,” he said, “that, in spite of its massive appearance, it had very little strength. It is merely a piece of thinnish, brass tube.”

  The coroner was impressed, but puzzled. “You consider,” said he, as he handed the peg to the foreman of the jury, “that the test is conclusive?”

  “Quite,” replied Dr. Thorndyke. “Clearly, a peg which breaks under a weight of 175 pounds could not have supported a body weighing 231 pounds.”

  “Yes,” agreed the coroner, “that appears to be undeniable.” He again reflected for a few moments, and then said: “I notice that you went to the chambers provided with this apparatus. The suggestion is that you had already a definite suspicion in your mind. Is that the case?

  “Yes; I had already come to the conclusion that deceased had never hung from that peg.”

  “Will you tell us what led you to that conclusion?”

  “When I received instructions to investigate the case I proceeded to make an inspection of the body, and it struck me, at once, that the appearances were not quite in agreement with the alleged facts, which I had learned from a verbatim report of the evidence. The amount of injury to the structures of the neck was much less than I should have expected in the case of so heavy a man, and the characteristic signs of death by hanging were absent. It is my invariable rule, in all cases of suspicious death, no matter what the apparent cause of the death may be, to examine the contents of the stomach and the secretions. In this case the procedure appeared to be necessary, and I made a careful examination of the contents of the stomach. The examination disclosed the presence of small quantities of veronal and alcohol, but when I tested for alkaloids, I obtained from the stomach and its contents no less than twenty-three minims of nicotine, the alkaloid of tobacco.

  “Now nicotine—which differs from all other alkaloids but conein, the alkaloid of hemlock, in being a liquid—is an intensely poisonous substance. The fatal dose has not been exactly ascertained, but it may be stated at not more: than five minims; that is, roughly, five drops. So that the
quantity of this virulent poison actually obtained from the stomach of deceased was about four times the fatal dose. But this was only a part of the quantity that had been swallowed, for the examination was made ten days after death, by which time an appreciable amount of the poison would have been lost by post-mortem diffusion. I also examined the liver and other organs and the secretions, and in these I detected minute quantities of nicotine. The evidence afforded by these minute quantities is very important. Nicotine is a poison that acts with great rapidity—in fact, with the exception of hydrocyanic acid (prussic acid) it is probably the most rapidly-acting poison known. The importance, therefore, of these minute traces of the poison in remote organs is this: their existence proves that the poison entered the stomach during life—while the blood was still circulating; and the minuteness of the quantity absorbed proves that death occurred very rapidly—practically instantaneously.

  “But the very large quantity of the poison and the evidence of its almost instantaneous effect created this dilemma: a witness had stated that she saw deceased hanging from the peg; but since death was practically instantaneous, he could not have hanged himself after taking the poison; and obviously he could not have taken the poison after he had hanged himself. This discrepancy, coupled with the absence of appreciable injury to the neck, raised a doubt as to whether deceased had ever hung from the peg at all. That doubt was increased by certain other circumstances. There were, for instance, post-mortem lacerations of the hamstring muscles and other muscles of the thighs, which could not be accounted for in the case of a body which had hung vertically, fully extended. There were faint impressions below the knees of some coarse-textured fabric, not part of his clothing, and there was the condition of a length of red, worsted rope by which deceased was said to have been suspended. Both ends of this rope—which had formed part of a loop—had been cut through with a very sharp instrument; and both ends were cut cleanly right through. But this could not possibly have happened in the alleged circumstances. If a body of this great weight had been suspended by two thicknesses of a flimsy, woollen rope, and an attempt had been made to cut that rope, the cutting instrument would not have passed right through, but would have divided the rope until the remaining portion was too weak to sustain the weight, and then that portion would have broken, leaving a ragged end. Having regard to the great evidential importance of the question, I decided to clear up the doubt, if possible, by examining the peg itself. There are not many pegs which could carry this great weight without either bending, breaking or pulling out of the woodwork, and I thought it probable that an actual test with weights would settle the question. I accordingly obtained the keys from Mrs. Otway, went to the chambers and applied the tests as I have stated.”

  “If the deceased was not suspended at all,” the coroner objected, “how do you account for the marks of the rope on his neck?”

  “He was suspended—or rather partially suspended. I looked about the chambers for the probable means of suspension, and decided that this was the knob of the bedpost at the right-hand side of the head of the bed. On this side of the bed was a hard jute matting, the texture of which corresponded exactly with the impressions on the knees, the faintness of which is accounted for by the partial protection furnished by the pyjamas. The procedure seems to have been this: the rope was secured to the neck of deceased immediately after death, while he was lying on the bed. It was then hitched over the knob of the bedpost and the body drawn off the bed so that it was supported against the bedpost in a kneeling position. This would account for the shallowness of the marks on the neck, the impressions of the matting on the knees, and the post-mortem lacerations of the muscles. With regard to these latter, it is evident that the body was left suspended in an approximately kneeling position for a good many hours—probably for the purpose of producing as deep an indentation as possible on the neck—and that during that time cadaveric rigidity became well established; so that when the rope was cut and the body allowed to fall to the floor, the legs were found to have stiffened and to be firmly set in the kneeling posture. As deceased was to be represented as having hanged himself from the peg, it would be necessary to straighten out the legs by force; but as the muscles were already rigid, the forcible extension would tend to produce such lacerations as were found. These lacerations were, of course, under the skin and would not be noticeable excepting on close examination.”

  “Is that the whole of your evidence?” the coroner asked, as Dr. Thorndyke paused.

  “It is the whole of my evidence concerning the immediate circumstances of the death of Lewis Otway. I have certain other information, but you will probably not consider it of much importance to the enquiry. I have examined the two hairs that were found adhering to Mr. Vardon’s stick. They were not his hairs. As a matter of fact, the wound on his head was on a part in which there was no hair; but in any case, these were not his hairs. One of these was apparently a hair of Lewis Otway’s—probably taken from his hair brush. His hair was white, but was dyed with a stain containing sulphide of lead. This hair was of a similar character and stained with the same material. The other was white and appeared to be a woman’s hair. It was cut at both ends, and was evidently part of a much longer hair. I have also made some enquiries concerning the anonymous letters. Mrs. Otway consulted me about them a month or two back, and I promised her to look into the matter, and did so. I collected very few facts, but if I may look at the letters, I can tell you at once whether those facts throw any light on the authorship of these letters.”

  “It really is not of much importance to us,” said the coroner, ‘though it may be important evidence in another place. Still, you may as well look at the letters.” He handed the bundle of letters to Dr. Thorndyke, who examined each of them closely, holding them up to the light to inspect the watermark and comparing them with some other letters which he produced from his pocket.

  “I think,” said he, as he returned the letters to the coroner, “there is no doubt that all these letters were written by Morris Goldstein. I have several letters which were received from and signed by him, which are identically similar in character. All are typed on the same foreign paper—made in Sweden—with an old Calligraph machine which had three type-bars slightly bent—the lower-case ‘g’ and ‘s’ and the capital ‘O.’ I have further evidence on the subject, if you care to hear it.”

  The foreman of the jury interposed at this point. “We don’t want to hear any more about those letters. If deceased did not commit suicide, the letters don’t matter.”

  “They will matter a good deal in another court,” said, the coroner, “but I agree with you that they do not affect our probable verdict; but there is one question to which we may as well have a definite answer, and then we need not detain Dr. Thorndyke any longer. You have told us, sir, that the immediate cause of Lewis Otway’s death was nicotine poisoning. Can you say whether the poison was taken by deceased himself, or whether it was administered by some other person?”

  “The medical evidence proper furnishes no answer to that question, but from the attendant circumstances I infer that the poison was administered by some other person—probably while deceased was asleep. But that is only an opinion, based on the circumstantial evidence.”

  “Exactly. It is really a question for the jury. And now I don’t think we need trouble you any further.” The coroner bowed, a little stiffly, and as Dr. Thorndyke walked back to his chair, he once more faced the jury.

  “Well, gentlemen,” said he, “you have heard Dr. Thorndyke’s very remarkable evidence, and you will see that it compels us completely to revise our views of the case. The suicide by hanging, which we have been considering at such length, is seen to be an illusion, carefully, elaborately and ingeniously prepared. The question now is, was there a suicide at all? The cause of death was poisoning by nicotine, and death was almost instantaneous. Is this, then, a case of suicidal poisoning or of homicide?

  “It is unnecessary for me to dwell on the suggested probabili
ties. You have heard a witness swear, in the most circumstantial manner, that she saw deceased hanging from a peg, and that she cut the body down. You now know that deceased could never have hung from that peg. That statement was false. But what was the object of that false statement? Its object must be considered in conjunction with the illusory appearances produced by an elaborate set of preparations—the cord-marks on the neck, the overturned chair, the end of the rope fastened to the peg—a set of preparations, the only intelligible object of which seems to be the concealment of the real cause of death. And then there is a further series of preparations revealed by the anonymous letters. These we now have reason to believe were written and sent by Morris Goldstein. Our reason for connecting Mrs. Otway with those letters was based on Rachel Goldstein’s statement that no one was in the house at Maidstone but Mrs. Otway, and her husband and father. But we can no longer accept that statement. The suggested probability is that she was in the house, and that she either saw, or heard enough to gather what had taken place. In that case we seem to detect a carefully-laid plan to procure the suicide of the deceased, and throw suspicion on his wife; and when the suicide failed to occur, the alternative of poison would seem to have been adopted.

  “I must draw your attention to the circumstances existing at the time of the tragedy. In deceased’s chambers were precious stones to the value of over four thousand pounds. Possibly there were stolen gems of a somewhat greater aggregate value. It is highly probable that Rachel Goldstein knew of the deceased’s letter to his wife, for as he was bed-ridden at the time, the letter would have been posted by her, and could easily have been opened and read. The time of the interview was arranged by her so that Mrs. Otway should be the last visitor.

  “Here then is a group of circumstances furnishing a perfect opportunity for the carrying out of the plan. The gems were within reach, and a visitor was expected on whom could be thrown the suspicion of the theft, and the responsibility of the apparent suicide.