The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  “If you agree with that conclusion, we have answered two of the three questions to which we had to find answers. We now turn to the third: How, and by what means, did deceased come by his death? It appears almost an idle question, for the body of deceased was burned to ashes in a kiln. By no conceivable accident could this have happened, and deceased could not have got into the kiln by himself. The body must have been put in by some other person and deliberately destroyed by fire. But such destruction of a body furnishes the strongest presumptive evidence that the person who destroyed the body had murdered the dead person. We can have no reasonable doubt that deceased was murdered.

  “That is as far as we are bound to go. It is not our function to fix the guilt of this crime on any particular person. Nevertheless, we are bound to take notice of any evidence that is before us which seems to point to a particular person as the probable perpetrator of the crime. And there is, in fact, a good deal of such evidence. I am not referring to the arsenic poisoning. We must ignore that, since we have no certain knowledge as to who the poisoner was. But there are several important points of evidence bearing on the probable identity of the person who murdered Peter Gannet. Let us consider them.

  “In the first place, there is the personality of the murderer. What do we know about him? Well, we know that he must have been a person who had access to the studio, and he must have had some acquaintance with its arrangements; knew where the various appliances were to be found, which of the bins was the bone-ash-bin, and so on. Then he must have known how to prepare and fire the kiln and where the fuel was kept; and he must have understood the use and management of the appliances that he employed—the grinding-mills and the cupel press, for instance.

  “Do we know of any person to whom this description applies? Yes, we know of one such person, and only one—Frederick Boles. He had free access to the studio, for it was also his own workshop and he had the key. He was familiar with all its arrangements, and some of the appliances, such as the cupel press, were his own. He knew all about the kiln, for we have it in evidence that he was accustomed to helping Gannet light and stoke it when pottery was being fired. He agrees completely with the description, in these respects, which we know must have applied to the murderer; and, I repeat, we know of no other person to whom it would apply.

  “Thus there is a prima facie probability that the murderer was Frederick Boles. But that probability is conditioned by possibility. Could Boles have been present in the studio when the murder was committed? Our information is that he had been staying at Burnham. But he came home one night and passed that night at his flat and then went away again. What night was it that he spent at the flat? Now, Mrs. Gannet came home on the 14th of May, and she called at Boles’s flat on the following day, the 15th. There she learned that he had come to the flat about a week previously, spent the night there and gone away the next day. Apparently, then, it would have been the night of the 8th that he spent at the flat; or it might have been the 7th or the 9th. But Gannet’s death occurred between the 7th or the 11th. Consequently, Boles would appear to have been in London at the time when the murder was committed.

  “But is there any evidence that he was actually on these premises at this time? There is. A walking-stick was found by Dr. Oldfield in the hall-stand on the night of the 15th. You have seen that stick and I pass it round again. On the silver mount of the handle you can see the initials ‘F. B.’—Boles’s initials. Mrs. Gannet had no doubt that it belonged to Boles, and indeed there is no one else to whom it could belong. But she has told us that it was not in the hall-stand when she went away. Then it must have been deposited there since. But there is only one day on which it could have been deposited; the day after Boles’s arrival at the flat. We thus have clear evidence that Boles was actually on the premises on the 8th, the 9th, or the 10th, that is to say, his presence on these premises seems to coincide in time with the murder of Peter Gannet; and we further note the significant fact that at the time when Boles came to the house, Gannet—if still alive—was there all alone.

  “Thus the circumstantial evidence all points to Boles as the probable murderer and we know of no other person against whom any suspicion could rest. Add to this the further fact that the two men—Boles and the deceased—are known to have been on terms of bitter enmity and actually, on at least one occasion, to have engaged in violent conflict; and that evidence receives substantial confirmation.

  “I think I need say no more than this. You have heard the evidence and I have offered you these suggestions as to its bearing. They are only suggestions. It is you who have to decide on your verdict; and I think you will have little difficulty in answering the three questions that I mentioned in opening this inquiry.”

  The coroner was right up to a certain point. The jury had apparently agreed on their verdict before he had finished speaking, but found some difficulty in putting it into words. Eventually, however, after one or two trials on paper, the foreman announced that he and his fellow jurors had reached a conclusion; which was that the ashes found in the studio were the remains of the body of Peter Gannet, and that the said Peter Gannet had been murdered by Frederick Boles at some time between the 7th and the 11th of May.

  “Yes,” said the coroner, “that is the only verdict possible on the evidence before us. I shall record a verdict of wilful murder against Frederick Boles.” He paused, and glancing at Inspector Blandy, asked the latter: “Is there any object in my issuing a warrant?”

  “No, sir,” Blandy replied. “A warrant has already been issued for the arrest of Boles on another charge.”

  “Then,” said the coroner, “that brings these proceedings to an end, and I can only hope that the perpetrator of this crime may shortly be arrested and brought to trial.”

  On this, the court rose. The reporters hurried away, intent on gorgeous publicity; the spectators drifted out into the street; and the four experts (including myself for this occasion only), after a brief chat with the coroner and the Inspector, departed also and went their respective ways. And here it is proper for me to make my bow to the reader and retire from the post of narrator. Not that the story is ended, but that the pen now passes into another, and I hope more capable, hand. My function has been to trace the antecedents and describe the intimate circumstances of this extraordinary crime, and this I have done to the best of my humble ability. The rest of the story is concerned with the elucidation, and the centre of interest is now transferred from the rather drab neighbourhood of Cumberland Market to the historic precinct of the Inner Temple.

  BOOK TWO

  Narrated by Christopher Jervis, M.D.

  CHAPTER 14

  Dr. Jervis Is Puzzled

  The stage which the train of events herein recorded had reached when the office of narrator passed to me from the hands of my friend Oldfield, found me in a state of some mental confusion. It seemed that Thorndyke was contemplating some kind of investigation. But why? The Gannet case was no concern of ours. No client had engaged us to examine it, and a mere academic interest in it would not justify a great expenditure of valuable time and effort.

  But further, what was there to investigate? In a medico-legal sense there appeared to be nothing. All the facts were known, and though they were lurid enough, they were of little scientific interest. Gannet’s death presented no problem, since it was a bald and obvious case of murder; and if his mode of life seemed to be shrouded in mystery, that was not our affair, nor, indeed, that of anybody else, now that he was dead.

  But it was precisely this apparently irrelevant matter that seemed to engage Thorndyke’s attention. The ostensible business of the studio had, almost certainly, covered some other activities, doubtful if not actually unlawful, and Thorndyke seemed to be set on ascertaining what they were; whereas, to me, that question appeared to be exclusively the concern of the police in their efforts to locate the elusive Boles.

  I had the first inkling of Thorndyke’s odd methods of approach to this problem on the day after our memora
ble dinner at Osnaburgh Street. On our way home, he had proposed that we should look in at the gallery where Gannet’s pottery was on view, and I had agreed readily, being quite curious as to what these remarkable works were really like. So it happened naturally enough that when, on the following day, we entered the temple of the fine arts, my attention was at first entirely occupied with the exhibits.

  I will not attempt to describe those astonishing works for I feel that my limited vocabulary would be unequal to the task. There are some things that must be seen to be believed, and Gannet’s pottery was one of them. Outspoken as Oldfield had been in his description of them, I found myself totally unprepared for the outrageous reality. But I need not dwell on them. Merely remarking that they looked to me like the throw-outs from some very juvenile handiwork class, I will dismiss them—as I did, in fact—and proceed to the apparent purpose of our visit.

  Perhaps the word “apparent” is inappropriate, for in truth, the purpose of our visit was not apparent to me at all. I can only record this incomprehensible course of events, leaving their inner meaning to emerge at a later stage of this history. By the time that I had recovered from the initial shock and convinced myself that I was not the subject of an optical illusion, Thorndyke had already introduced himself to the gallery proprietor, Mr. Kempster, and seemed to be discussing the exhibits in terms of the most extraordinary irrelevance.

  “Having regard,” he was saying, as I joined them, “to the density of the material and the thickness of the sides, I should think that these pieces must be rather inconveniently ponderous.”

  “They are heavy,” Mr. Kempster admitted, “but you see they are collector’s pieces. They are not intended for use. You wouldn’t want, for instance, to hand this one across the dinner table.”

  He picked up a large and massive bowl and offered it to Thorndyke, who took it and weighed it in his two hands with an expression of ridiculous earnestness.

  “Yes,” he said, as he returned it to Mr. Kempster, “it is extremely ponderous for its size. What should you say it weighs? I should guess it at nearly eight pounds.”

  He looked solemnly at the obviously puzzled Kempster, who tried it again and agreed to Thorndyke’s estimate. “But,” he added, “there’s no need to guess. If you are interested in the matter, we can try it. There is a pair of parcel scales in my office. Would you like to see what it really does weigh?”

  “If you would be so kind,” Thorndyke replied; whereupon Kempster picked up the bowl and we followed him in procession to the office, as if we were about to perform some sacrificial rite, where the uncouth pot was placed on the scale and found to be half an ounce short of eight pounds.

  “Yes,” said Thorndyke, “it is abnormally heavy even for its size. That weight suggests an unusually dense material.”

  He gazed reflectively at the bowl, and then, producing a spring tape from his pocket, proceeded carefully to measure the principal dimensions of the piece while Mr. Kempster looked on like a man in a dream. But not only did Thorndyke take the measurements. He made a note of them in his notebook together with one of the weight.

  “You appear,” said Mr. Kempster, as Thorndyke pocketed his notebook, “to be greatly interested in poor Mr. Gannet’s work.”

  “I am,” Thorndyke replied, “but not from the connoisseur’s point of view. As I mentioned to you, I am trying, on Mrs. Gannet’s behalf, to elucidate the very obscure circumstances of her husband’s death.”

  “I shouldn’t have supposed,” said Kempster, “that the weight of his pottery would have had much bearing on that. But of course you know more about evidence than I do; and you know—which I don’t—what obscurities you want to clear up.”

  “Thank you,” said Thorndyke. “If you will adopt that principle, it will be extremely helpful.”

  Mr. Kempster bowed. “You may take it, Doctor,” said he, “that, as a friend of poor Gannet’s, though not a very intimate one, I shall be glad to be of assistance to you. Is there anything more that you want to know about this work?”

  “There are several matters,” Thorndyke replied; “in fact, I want to know all that I can about his pottery, including its disposal and its economic aspects. To begin with, was there much of it sold? Enough, I mean, to yield a living to the artist?”

  “There was more sold than you might have expected, and the pieces realized good prices; ten to twenty guineas each. But I never supposed that Gannet made a living by his work. I assumed that he had some independent means.”

  “The next question,” said Thorndyke, “is what became of the pieces that were sold? Did they go to museums or to private collectors?”

  “Of the pieces sold from this gallery—and I think that this was his principal market—one or two were bought by provincial museums, but all the rest were taken by private collectors.”

  “And what sort of people were those collectors?”

  “That,” said Kempster, with a deprecating smile, “is a rather delicate question. The things were offered for sale in my gallery and the purchasers were, in a sense, my clients.”

  “Quite so,” said Thorndyke. “It was not really a fair question; and not very necessary as I have seen the pottery. I suppose you don’t keep any records of the sales or the buyers?”

  “Certainly I do,” replied Kempster. “I keep a Day Book and a ledger. The ledger contains a complete record of the sales of each of the exhibitors. Would you like to see Mr. Gannet’s account?”

  “I am ashamed to give you so much trouble,” Thorndyke replied, “but if you would be so very kind—”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” said Kempster, stepping across to a tall cupboard and throwing open the doors. From the row of books therein revealed, he took out a portly volume and laid it on the desk, turning over the leaves until he found the page that he was seeking.

  “Here,” he said, “is a record of all of Mr. Gannet’s works that have been sold from this gallery. Perhaps you may get some information from it.”

  I glanced down the page while Thorndyke was examining it and was a little surprised at the completeness of the record. Under the general heading, “Peter Gannet Esq.” was a list of the articles sold, with a brief description of each, and in separate columns, the date, the price and the name and address of each purchaser.

  “I notice,” said Thorndyke, “that Mr. Francis Broomhill of Stafford Square has made purchases on three occasions. Probably he is a collector of modernist work?”

  “He is,” replied Kempster, “and a special admirer of Mr. Gannet. You will observe that he bought one of the two copies of the figurine in stoneware of a monkey. The other copy, as you see, went to America.”

  “Did Mr. Gannet ever execute any other figurines?” Thorndyke asked.

  “No,” Kempster replied. “To my surprise, he never pursued that form of art, though it was a striking success. Mr. Bunderby, the eminent art critic, was enthusiastic about it, and as you see, the only copies offered realized fifty guineas each. But perhaps if he had lived he might have given his admirers some further examples.”

  “You speak of copies,” said Thorndyke, “so I presume that they were admittedly replicas, probably squeezed in a mould or possibly slip-casts? It was not pretended that they were original modellings?”

  “No, they couldn’t have been. A small pottery figure must be made in a mould, either squeezed or cast, to get it hollow. Of course it would be modelled in the solid in the first place and the mould made from the solid model.”

  “There was a third specimen of this figurine,” said Thorndyke, “I saw it in Gannet’s bedroom. Would that also be a squeeze, or do you suppose it might be the original? It was certainly stoneware.”

  “Then it must have been squeezed from a mould,” replied Kempster. “It couldn’t have been fired solid; it would have cracked all to pieces. The only alternative would have been to excavate the solid original; which would have been extremely difficult and quite unnecessary, as he certainly had a mould.”

 
“From your recollection of the figurines, should you say that they were as thick and ponderous as the bowls and jars?”

  “I can’t say, positively,” replied Kempster, “but they could hardly have been. A figure is more likely to crack in the fire than an open bowl or jar, but the thinner it is, in reason, the safer it is from fire cracks. And it is just as easy to make a squeeze thin as thick.”

  This virtually brought our business with Mr. Kempster to an end. We walked out into the gallery with him, when Thorndyke had copied out a few particulars from the ledger, but our conversation, apart from a brief discussion of Boles’s jewellery exhibits, obviously had no connection with the purpose of our visit—whatever that might be. Eventually, having shaken his hand warmly and thanked him for his very courteous and helpful treatment of us, we took our departure, leaving him, I suspect, as much puzzled by our proceedings as I was myself.

  “I suppose, Thorndyke,” said I, as we walked away down Bond Street, “you realize that you have enveloped me in a fog of quite phenomenal density?”

  “I can understand,” he replied, “that you find my approach to the problem somewhat indirect.”

  “The problem!” I exclaimed. “What problem? I don’t see that there is any problem. We know that Gannet was murdered and we can fairly assume that he was murdered by Boles. But whether he was or not is no concern of ours. That is Blandy’s problem; and in any case, I can’t imagine that the weight and density of Gannet’s pottery has any bearing on it, unless you are suggesting that Boles biffed deceased on the head with one of his own pots.”

  Thorndyke smiled indulgently as he replied:

  “No, Jervis. I am not considering Gannet’s pots as possible lethal weapons, but the potter’s art has its bearing on our problem, and even the question of weight may be not entirely irrelevant.”