The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  “The duck-weed in this ditch is, of course, the Greater Duck-weed?”

  “Yes. I have taken some specimens as well as the horn-weed and shells.”

  He opened the vasculum and picked out one of the tiny plants, exhibiting the characteristic tassel of roots.

  “I shall write to Parton and tell him to preserve the jar and the horn-weed if it has not been thrown away. But the duck-weed alone, produced in evidence, would be proof enough that Pedley was not drowned in the Bantree ditch; and the dental plate will show where he was drowned.”

  “Are you going to pursue the case any farther?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied. “I shall call at Scotland Yard on my way home and report what I have learned and what I can prove in court. Then I shall have finished with the case. The rest is for the police, and I imagine they won’t have much difficulty. The circumstances seem to tell their own story. Pedley was employed by the Foreign Office, probably on some kind of secret service. I imagine that he discovered the existence of a gang of evil-doers—probably foreign revolutionaries, of whom we may assume that our friend the manager of the factory is one; that he contrived to associate himself with them and to visit the factory occasionally to ascertain what was made there besides Golomite—if Golomite is not itself an illicit product. Then I assume that he was discovered to be a spy, that he was lured down here; that he was pinioned and drowned some time on Tuesday night and his body put into the van and conveyed to a place miles away from the scene of his death, where it was deposited in a ditch apparently identical in character with that in which he was drowned. It was an extremely ingenious and well-thought-out plan. It seemed to have provided for every kind of inquiry, and it very narrowly missed being successful.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “But it didn’t provide for Dr. John Thorndyke.”

  “It didn’t provide for a searching examination of all the details,” he replied; “and no criminal plan that I have ever met has done so. The completeness of the scheme is limited by the knowledge of the schemers, and, in practice, there is always something overlooked. In this case, the criminals were unlearned in the natural history of ditches.”

  Thorndyke’s theory of the crime turned out to be substantially correct. The Golomite Works proved to be a factory where high explosives were made by a gang of cosmopolitan revolutionaries who were all known to the police. But the work of the latter was simplified by a detailed report which the dead man had deposited at his bank and which was discovered in time to enable the police to raid the factory and secure the whole gang. When once they were under lock and key, further information was forthcoming; for a charge of murder against them jointly soon produced King’s Evidence sufficient to procure a conviction of the three actual perpetrators of the murder.

  MR. PONTING’S ALIBI (1927)

  Thorndyke looked doubtfully at the pleasant-faced athletic-looking clergyman who had just come in, bearing Mr. Brodribb’s card as an explanatory credential.

  “I don’t quite see,” said he, “why Mr. Brodribb sent you to me. It seems to be a purely legal matter which he could have dealt with himself, at least as well as I can.”

  “He appeared to think otherwise,” said the clergyman. (“The Revd. Charles Meade” was written on the card.)

  At any rate,” he added with a persuasive smile, “here I am, and I hope you are not going to send me away.”

  “I shouldn’t offer that affront to my old friend Brodribb,” replied Thorndyke, smiling in return; “so we may as well get to business, which, in the first place, involves the setting out of all the particulars. Let us begin with the lady who is the subject of the threats of which you spoke.”

  “Her name,” said Mr. Meade, “is Miss Mlillicent Fawcett. She is a person of independent means, which she employs in works of charity. She was formerly a hospital sister, and she does a certain amount of voluntary work in the parish as a sort of district nurse. She has been a very valuable help to me and we have been close friends for several years; and I may add, as a very material fact, that she has consented to marry me in about two months’ time. So that, you see, I am properly entitled to act on her behalf.”

  “Yes,” agreed Thorndyke. “You are an interested party. And now, as to the threats. What do they amount to?”

  “That,” replied Meade,” I can’t tell you. I gathered quite by chance, from some words that she dropped, that she had been threatened. But she was unwilling to say more on the subject, as she did not take the matter seriously. She is not at all nervous. However, I told her I was taking advice; and I hope you will be able to extract more details from her. For my own part, I am decidedly uneasy.”

  “And as to the person or persons who have uttered the threats. Who are they? and out of what circumstances have the threats arisen?”

  “The person is a certain William Ponting, who is Miss Fawcett’s step-brother—if that is the right term. Her father married, as his second wife, a Mrs. Ponting, a widow with one son. This is the son. His mother died before Mr. Fawcett, and the latter, when he died, left his daughter, Millicent, sole heir to his property. That has always been a grievance to Ponting. But now he has another. Miss Fawcett made a will some years ago by which the bulk of her rather considerable property is left to two cousins, Frederick and James Barnett, the sons of her father’s sister. A comparatively small amount goes to Ponting. When he heard this he was furious. He demanded a portion at least equal to the others, and has continued to make this demand from time to time. In fact, he has been extremely troublesome, and appears to be getting still more so. I gathered that the threats were due to her refusal to alter the will.”

  “But,” said I, “doesn’t he realise that her marriage will render that will null and void?”

  “Apparently not,” replied Meade; “nor, to tell the truth, did I realise it myself. Will she have to make a new will?”

  “Certainly,” I replied. “And as that new will may be expected to be still less favourable to him, that will presumably be a further grievance.”

  “One doesn’t understand,” said Thorndyke, “why he should excite himself so much about her will. What are their respective ages?”

  “Miss Fawcett is thirty-six and Ponting is about forty.”

  “And what kind of man is he?” Thorndyke asked.

  “A very unpleasant kind of man, I am sorry to say. Morose, rude, and violent-tempered. A spendthrift and a cadger. He has had quite a lot of money from Miss Fawcett—loans, which, of course, are never repaid. And he is none too industrious, though he has a regular job on the staff of a weekly paper. But he seems to be always in debt.”

  “We may as well note his address,” said Thorndyke.

  “He lives in a small flat in Bloomsbury—alone now, since he quarrelled with the man who used to share it with him. The address is 12 Borneo House, Devonshire Street.”

  “What sort of terms is he on with the cousins, his rivals?”

  “No sort of terms now,” replied Meade. “They used to be great friends. So much so that he took his present flat to be near them—they live in the adjoining flat, number 12 Sumatra House. But since the trouble about the wills he is hardly on speaking terms with them.”

  “They live together, then?”

  “Yes, Frederick and his wife and James, who is unmarried. They are rather a queer lot, too. Frederick is a singer on the variety stage, and James accompanies him on various instruments. But they are both sporting characters of a kind, especially James, who does a bit on the turf and engages in other odd activities. Of course, their musical habits are a grievance to Ponting. He is constantly making complaints of their disturbing him at his work.”

  Mr. Meade paused and looked wistfully at Thorndyke, who was making full notes of the conversation.

  “Well,” said the latter, “we seem to have got all the facts excepting the most important—the nature of the threats. What do you want us to do?”

  “I want you to see Miss Fawcett—with me, if possible—and induce her to gi
ve you such details as would enable you to put a stop to the nuisance. You couldn’t come tonight, I suppose? It is a beast of a night, but I would take you there in a taxi—it is only to Tooting Bec. What do you say?” he added eagerly, as Thorndyke made no objection. “We are sure to find her in, because her maid is away on a visit to her home and she is alone in the house.”

  Thorndyke looked reflectively at his watch.

  “Half-past eight,” he remarked, “and half an hour to get there. These threats are probably nothing but ill-temper. But we don’t know. There may be some thing more serious behind them; and, in law as in medicine, prevention is better than a post-mortem. What do you say, Jervis?”

  What could I say? I would much sooner have sat by the fire with a book than turn out into the murk of a November night. But I felt it necessary, especially as Thorndyke had evidently made up his mind. Accordingly I made a virtue of necessity; and a couple of minutes later we had exchanged the cosy room for the chilly darkness of Inner Temple Lane, up which the gratified parson was speeding ahead to capture a taxi. At the top of the Lane we perceived him giving elaborate instructions to a taxi-driver as he held the door of the cab open; and Thorndyke, having carefully disposed of his research-case—which, to my secret amusement, he had caught up, from mere force of habit, as we started—took his seat, and Meade and I followed.

  As the taxi trundled smoothly along the dark streets, Mr. Meade filled in the details of his previous sketch, and, in a simple, manly, unaffected way dilated upon his good fortune and the pleasant future that lay before him. It was not, perhaps, a romantic marriage, he admitted; but Miss Fawcett and he had been faithful friends for years, and faithful friends they would remain till death did them part. So he ran on, now gleefully, now with a note of anxiety, and we listened by no means unsympathetically, until at last the cab drew up at a small, unpretentious house, standing in its own little grounds in a quiet suburban road.

  “She is at home, you see,” observed Meade, pointing to a lighted ground-floor window. He directed the taxi-driver to wait for the return journey, and striding up the path, delivered a characteristic knock at the door. As this brought no response, he knocked again and rang the bell. But still there was no answer, though twice I thought I heard the sound of a bolt being either drawn or shot softly. Again Mr. Meade plied the knocker more vigorously, and pressed the push of the bell, which we could hear ringing loudly within.

  “This is very strange,” said Meade, in an anxious tone, keeping his thumb pressed on the bell-push. “She can’t have gone out and left the electric light on. What had we better do?”

  “We had better enter without more delay,” Thorndyke replied. “There were certainly sounds from within. Is there a side gate?”

  Meade ran off towards the side of the house, and Thorndyke and I glanced at the lighted window, which was slightly open at the top.

  “Looks a bit queer,” I remarked, listening at the letter-box.

  Thorndyke assented gravely, and at this moment Meade returned, breathing hard.

  “The side gate is bolted inside,” said he; and at this I recalled the stealthy sound of the bolt that I had heard. “What is to be done?”

  Without replying, Thorndyke handed me his research-case, stepped across to the window, sprang up on the sill, drew down the upper sash and disappeared between the curtains into the room. A moment later the street door opened and Meade and I entered the hall. We glanced through the open doorway into the lighted room, and I noticed a heap of needlework thrown hastily on the dining-table. Then Meade switched on the hall light, and Thorndyke walked quickly past him to the half-open door of the next room. Before entering, he reached in and switched on the light; and as he stepped into the room he partly closed the door behind him.

  “Don’t come in here, Meade!” he called out. But the parson’s eye, like my own, had seen something before the door closed: a great, dark stain on the carpet just within the threshold. Regardless of the admonition, he pushed the door open and darted into the room. Following him, I saw him rush forward, fling his arms up wildly, and with a dreadful, strangled cry, sink upon his knees beside a low couch on which a woman was lying.

  “Merciful God!” he gasped. “She is dead! Is she dead, doctor? Can nothing be done?”

  Thorndyke shook his head. “Nothing,” he said in a low voice. “She is dead.”

  Poor Meade knelt by the couch, his hands clutching at his hair and his eyes riveted on the dead face, the very embodiment of horror and despair.

  God Almighty!” he exclaimed in the same strangled undertone. “How frightful! Poor, poor Millie! Dear, sweet friend!” Then suddenly—almost savagely—he turned to Thorndyke. “But it can’t be, doctor! It is impossible—unbelievable. That, I mean!” and he pointed to the dead woman’s right hand, which held an open razor.

  Our poor friend had spoken my own thought. It was incredible that this refined, pious lady should have inflicted those savage wounds, that gaped scarlet beneath the waxen face. There, indeed, was the razor lying in her hand. But what was its testimony worth? My heart rejected it; but yet, unwillingly, I noted that the wounds seemed to support it; for they had been made from left to right, as they would have been if self-inflicted.

  “It is hard to believe,” said Thorndyke, “but there is only one alternative. Someone should acquaint the police at once.”

  “I will go,” exclaimed Meade, starting up. “I know the way and the cab is there.” He looked once more with infinite pity and affection at the dead woman. “Poor, sweet girl!” he murmured. “If we can do no more for you, we can defend your memory from calumny and call upon the God of Justice to right the innocent and punish the guilty.”

  With these words and a mute farewell to his dead friend, he hurried from the room, and immediately afterwards we heard the street door close.

  As he went out, Thorndyke’s manner changed abruptly. He had been deeply moved—as who would not have been—by this awful tragedy that had in a moment shattered the happiness of the genial, kindly parson. Now he turned to me with a face set and stern. “This is an abominable affair, Jervis,” he said in an ominously quiet voice.

  “You reject the suggestion of suicide, then?” said I, with a feeling of relief that surprised me.

  “Absolutely,” he replied. “Murder shouts at us from everything that meets our eye. Look at this poor woman, in her trim nurse’s dress, with her unfinished needlework lying on the table in the next room and that preposterous razor loose in her limp hand. Look at the savage wounds. Four of them, and the first one mortal. The great bloodstain by the door, the great bloodstain on her dress from the neck to the feet. The gashed collar, the cap-string cut right through. Note that the bleeding had practically ceased when she lay Idown. That is a group of visible facts that is utterly inconsistent with the idea of suicide. But we are wasting time. Let us search the premises thoroughly. The murderer has pretty certainly got away, but as he was in the house when we arrived, any traces will be quite fresh.”

  As he spoke he took his electric lamp from the research-case and walked to the door.

  “We can examine this room later,” he said, “but we had better look over the house. If you will stay by the stairs and watch the front and back doors, I will look through the upper rooms.”

  He ran lightly up the stairs while I kept watch below, but he was absent less than a couple of minutes.

  “There is no one there,” he reported, “and as there is no basement we will just look at this floor and then examine the grounds.”

  After a rapid inspection of the ground-floor rooms, including the kitchen, we went out by the back door, which was unbolted, and inspected the grounds. These consisted of a largish garden with a small orchard at the side. In the former we could discover no traces of any kind, but at the end of the path that crossed the orchard we came an a possible clue. The orchard was enclosed by a five-foot fence, the top of which bristled with hooked nails; and at the point opposite to the path, Thorndyke’s lantern b
rought into view one or two wisps of cloth caught on the hooks.

  “Someone has been over here,” said Thorndyke, but as this is an orchard, there is nothing remarkable in the fact. However, there is no fruit on the trees now, and the cloth looks fairly fresh. There are two kinds, you notice: a dark blue and a black and white mixture of some kind.”

  “Corresponding, probably, to the coat and trousers,” I suggested.

  “Possibly,” he agreed, taking from his pocket a couple of the little seed-envelopes of which he always carried a supply. Very delicately he picked the tiny wisps of cloth from the hooks and bestowed each kind in a separate envelope. Having pocketed these, he leaned over the fence and threw the light of his lamp along the narrow lane or alley that divided the orchard from the adjoining premises. It was ungravelled and covered with a growth of rank grass, which suggested that it was little frequented. But immediately below was a small patch of bare earth, and on this was a very distinct impression of a foot, covering several less distinct prints.

  “Several people have been over here at different times,” I remarked.

  “Yes,” Thorndyke agreed. “But that sharp foot print belongs to the last one over, and he is our concern. We had better not confuse the issues by getting over ourselves. We will mark the spot and explore from the other end.” He laid his handkerchief over the top of the fence and we then went back to the house.

  “You are going to take a plaster cast, I suppose?” said I; and as he assented, I fetched the research-case from the drawing-room. Then we fixed the catch of the front-door latch and went out, drawing the door to after us.