As we entered the sitting-room, our visitor, who was feverishly pacing up and down, seized his hat with a gasp of relief. ‘You are ready to come?’ he asked. ‘My carriage is at the door;’ and, without waiting for an answer, he hurried out, and rapidly preceded us down the stairs.
The carriage was a roomy brougham, which fortunately accommodated the three of us, and as soon as we had entered and shut the door, the coachman whipped up his horse and drove off at a smart trot.
‘I had better give you some account of the circumstances, as we go,’ said our agitated friend. ‘In the first place, my name is Curtis, Henry Curtis; here is my card. Ah! And here is another card, which I should have given you before. My solicitor, Mr. Marchmont, was with me when I made this dreadful discovery, and he sent me to you. He remained in the rooms to see that nothing is disturbed until you arrive.’
‘That was wise of him,’ said Thorndyke. ‘But now tell us exactly what has occurred.’
‘I will,’ said Mr. Curtis. ‘The murdered man was my brother-in-law, Alfred Hartridge, and I am sorry to say he was—well, he was a bad man. It grieves me to speak of him thus—de mortuis, you know—but, still, we must deal with the facts, even though they be painful.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ agreed Thorndyke.
‘I have had a great deal of very unpleasant correspondence with him—Marchmont will tell you about that—and yesterday I left a note for him, asking for an interview, to settle the business, naming eight o’clock this morning as the hour, because I had to leave town before noon. He replied, in a very singular letter, that he would see me at that hour, and Mr. Marchmont very kindly consented to accompany me. Accordingly, we went to his chambers together this morning, arriving punctually at eight o’clock. We rang the bell several times, and knocked loudly at the door, but as there was no response, we went down and spoke to the hall-porter. This man, it seems, had already noticed, from the courtyard, that the electric lights were full on in Mr. Hartridge’s sitting-room, as they had been all night, according to the statement of the night-porter; so now, suspecting that something was wrong, he came up with us, and rang the bell and battered at the door. Then, as there was still no sign of life within, he inserted his duplicate key and tried to open the door—unsuccessfully, however, as it proved to be bolted on the inside. Thereupon the porter fetched a constable, and, after a consultation, we decided that we were justified in breaking open the door; the porter produced a crowbar, and by our united efforts the door was eventually burst open. We entered, and—my God! Dr. Thorndyke, what a terrible sight it was that met our eyes! My brother-in-law was lying dead on the floor of the sitting-room. He had been stabbed—stabbed to death; and the dagger had not even been withdrawn. It was still sticking out of his back.’
He mopped his face with his handkerchief, and was about to continue his account of the catastrophe when the carriage entered a quiet side-street between Westminster and Victoria, and drew up before a block of tall, new, red-brick buildings. A flurried hall-porter ran out to open the door, and we alighted opposite the main entrance.
‘My brother-in-law’s chambers are on the second-floor,’ said Mr. Curtis. ‘We can go up in the lift.’
The porter had hurried before us, and already stood with his hand upon the rope. We entered the lift, and in a few seconds were discharged on to the second-floor, the porter, with furtive curiosity, following us down the corridor. At the end of the passage was a half-open door, considerably battered and bruised. Above the door, painted in white lettering, was the inscription, ‘Mr. Hartridge’; and through the doorway protruded the rather foxy countenance of Inspector Badger.
‘I am glad you have come, sir,’ said he, as he recognised my colleague. ‘Mr. Marchmont is sitting inside like a watch-dog, and he growls if any of us even walks across the room.’
The words formed a complaint, but there was a certain geniality in the speaker’s manner which made me suspect that Inspector Badger was already navigating his craft on a lee shore.
We entered a small lobby or hall, and from thence passed into the sitting-room, where we found Mr. Marchmont keeping his vigil, in company with a constable and a uniformed inspector. The three rose softly as we entered, and greeted us in a whisper; and then, with one accord, we all looked towards the other end of the room, and so remained for a time without speaking.
There was, in the entire aspect of the room, something very grim and dreadful. An atmosphere of tragic mystery enveloped the most commonplace objects; and sinister suggestions lurked in the most familiar appearances. Especially impressive was the air of suspense—of ordinary, every-day life suddenly arrested—cut short in the twinkling of an eye. The electric lamps, still burning dim and red, though the summer sunshine streamed in through the windows; the half-emptied tumbler and open book by the empty chair, had each its whispered message of swift and sudden disaster, as had the hushed voices and stealthy movements of the waiting men, and, above all, an awesome shape that was but a few hours since a living man, and that now sprawled, prone and motionless, on the floor.
‘This is a mysterious affair,’ observed Inspector Badger, breaking the silence at length, ‘though it is clear enough up to a certain point. The body tells its own story.’
We stepped across and looked down at the corpse. It was that of a somewhat elderly man, and lay, on an open space of floor before the fireplace, face downwards, with the arms extended. The slender hilt of a dagger projected from the back below the left shoulder, and, with the exception of a trace of blood upon the lips, this was the only indication of the mode of death. A little way from the body a clock-key lay on the carpet, and, glancing up at the clock on the mantelpiece, I perceived that the glass front was open.
‘You see,’ pursued the inspector, noting my glance, ‘he was standing in front of the fireplace, winding the clock. Then the murderer stole up behind him—the noise of the turning key must have covered his movements—and stabbed him. And you see, from the position of the dagger on the left side of the back, that the murderer must have been left-handed. That is all clear enough. What is not clear is how he got in, and how he got out again.’
‘The body has not been moved, I suppose,’ said Thorndyke.
‘No. We sent for Dr. Egerton, the police-surgeon, and he certified that the man was dead. He will be back presently to see you and arrange about the post-mortem.’
‘Then,’ said Thorndyke, ‘we will not disturb the body till he comes, except to take the temperature and dust the dagger-hilt.’
He took from his bag a long, registering chemical thermometer and an insufflator or powder-blower. The former he introduced under the dead man’s clothing against the abdomen, and with the latter blew a stream of fine yellow powder on to the black leather handle of the dagger. Inspector Badger stooped eagerly to examine the handle, as Thorndyke blew away the powder that had settled evenly on the surface.
‘No finger-prints,’ said he, in a disappointed tone. ‘He must have worn gloves. But that inscription gives a pretty broad hint.’
He pointed, as he spoke, to the metal guard of the dagger, on which was engraved, in clumsy lettering, the single word, ‘Traditore.’
‘That’s the Italian for “traitor,”’ continued the inspector, ‘and I got some information from the porter that fits in with that suggestion. We’ll have him in presently, and you shall hear.’
‘Meanwhile,’ said Thorndyke, ‘as the position of the body may be of importance in the inquiry, I will take one or two photographs and make a rough plan to scale. Nothing has been moved, you say? Who opened the windows?’
‘They were open when we came in,’ said Mr. Marchmont. ‘Last night was very hot, you remember. Nothing whatever has been moved.’
Thorndyke produced from his bag a small folding camera, a telescopic tripod, a surveyor’s measuring-tape, a boxwood scale, and a sketch-block. He set up the camera in a corner, and exposed a plate, taking a genera
l view of the room, and including the corpse. Then he moved to the door and made a second exposure.
‘Will you stand in front of the clock, Jervis,’ he said, ‘and raise your hand as if winding it? Thanks; keep like that while I expose a plate.’
I remained thus, in the position that the dead man was assumed to have occupied at the moment of the murder, while the plate was exposed, and then, before I moved, Thorndyke marked the position of my feet with a blackboard chalk. He next set up the tripod over the chalk marks, and took two photographs from that position, and finally photographed the body itself.
The photographic operations being concluded, he next proceeded, with remarkable skill and rapidity, to lay out on the sketch-block a ground-plan of the room, showing the exact position of the various objects, on a scale of a quarter of an inch to the foot—a process that the inspector was inclined to view with some impatience.
‘You don’t spare trouble, Doctor,’ he remarked; ‘nor time either,’ he added, with a significant glance at his watch.
‘No,’ answered Thorndyke, as he detached the finished sketch from the block; ‘I try to collect all the facts that may bear on a case. They may prove worthless, or they may turn out of vital importance; one never knows beforehand, so I collect them all. But here, I think, is Dr. Egerton.’
The police-surgeon greeted Thorndyke with respectful cordiality, and we proceeded at once to the examination of the body. Drawing out the thermometer, my colleague noted the reading, and passed the instrument to Dr. Egerton.
‘Dead about ten hours,’ remarked the latter, after a glance at it. ‘This was a very determined and mysterious murder.’
‘Very,’ said Thorndyke. ‘Feel that dagger, Jervis.’
I touched the hilt, and felt the characteristic grating of bone.
‘It is through the edge of a rib!’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes; it must have been used with extraordinary force. And you notice that the clothing is screwed up slightly, as if the blade had been rotated as it was driven in. That is a very peculiar feature, especially when taken together with the violence of the blow.’
‘It is singular, certainly,’ said Dr. Egerton, ‘though I don’t know that it helps us much. Shall we withdraw the dagger before moving the body?’
‘Certainly,’ replied Thorndyke, ‘or the movement may produce fresh injuries. But wait.’ He took a piece of string from his pocket, and, having drawn the dagger out a couple of inches, stretched the string in a line parallel to the flat of the blade. Then, giving me the ends to hold, he drew the weapon out completely. As the blade emerged, the twist in the clothing disappeared. ‘Observe,’ said he, ‘that the string gives the direction of the wound, and that the cut in the clothing no longer coincides with it. There is quite a considerable angle, which is the measure of the rotation of the blade.’
‘Yes, it is odd,’ said Dr. Egerton, ‘though, as I said, I doubt that it helps us.’
‘At present,’ Thorndyke rejoined dryly, ‘we are noting the facts.’
‘Quite so,’ agreed the other, reddening slightly; ‘and perhaps we had better move the body to the bedroom, and make a preliminary inspection of the wound.’
We carried the corpse into the bedroom, and, having examined the wound without eliciting anything new, covered the remains with a sheet, and returned to the sitting-room.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ said the inspector, ‘you have examined the body and the wound, and you have measured the floor and the furniture, and taken photographs, and made a plan, but we don’t seem much more forward. Here’s a man murdered in his rooms. There is only one entrance to the flat, and that was bolted on the inside at the time of the murder. The windows are some forty feet from the ground; there is no rain-pipe near any of them; they are set flush in the wall, and there isn’t a foothold for a fly on any part of that wall. The grates are modern, and there isn’t room for a good-sized cat to crawl up any of the chimneys. Now, the question is, How did the murderer get in, and how did he get out again?’
‘Still,’ said Mr. Marchmont, ‘the fact is that he did get in, and that he is not here now; and therefore he must have got out; and therefore it must have been possible for him to get out. And, further, it must be possible to discover how he got out.’
The inspector smiled sourly, but made no reply.
‘The circumstances,’ said Thorndyke, ‘appear to have been these: The deceased seems to have been alone; there is no trace of a second occupant of the room, and only one half-emptied tumbler on the table. He was sitting reading when apparently he noticed that the clock had stopped—at ten minutes to twelve; he laid his book, face downwards, on the table, and rose to wind the clock, and as he was winding it he met his death.’
‘By a stab dealt by a left-handed man, who crept up behind him on tiptoe,’ added the inspector.
Thorndyke nodded. ‘That would seem to be so,’ he said. ‘But now let us call in the porter, and hear what he has to tell us.’
The custodian was not difficult to find, being, in fact, engaged at that moment in a survey of the premises through the slit of the letter-box.
‘Do you know what persons visited these rooms last night?’ Thorndyke asked him, when he entered, looking somewhat sheepish.
‘A good many were in and out of the building,’ was the answer, ‘but I can’t say if any of them came to this flat. I saw Miss Curtis pass in about nine.’
‘My daughter!’ exclaimed Mr. Curtis, with a start. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘She left about nine-thirty,’ the porter added.
‘Do you know what she came about?’ asked the inspector.
‘I can guess,’ replied Mr. Curtis.
‘Then don’t say,’ interrupted Mr. Marchmont. ‘Answer no questions.’
‘You’re very close, Mr. Marchmont,’ said the inspector; ‘we are not suspecting the young lady. We don’t ask, for instance, if she is left-handed.’
He glanced craftily at Mr. Curtis as he made this remark, and I noticed that our client suddenly turned deathly pale, whereupon the inspector looked away again quickly, as though he had not observed the change.
‘Tell us about those Italians again,’ he said, addressing the porter. ‘When did the first of them come here?’
‘About a week ago,’ was the reply. ‘He was a common-looking man—looked like an organ-grinder—and he brought a note to my lodge. It was in a dirty envelope, and was addressed “Mr. Hartridge, Esq., Brackenhurst Mansions,” in a very bad handwriting. The man gave me the note and asked me to give it to Mr. Hartridge; then he went away, and I took the note up and dropped it into the letter-box.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Why, the very next day an old hag of an Italian woman—one of them fortune-telling swines with a cage of birds on a stand—came and set up just by the main doorway. I soon sent her packing, but, bless you! She was back again in ten minutes, birds and all. I sent her off again—I kept on sending her off, and she kept on coming back, until I was reg’lar wore to a thread.’
‘You seem to have picked up a bit since then,’ remarked the inspector with a grin and a glance at the sufferer’s very pronounced bow-window.
‘Perhaps I have,’ the custodian replied haughtily. ‘Well, the next day there was a ice-cream man—a reg’lar waster, he was. Stuck outside as if he was froze to the pavement. Kept giving the errand-boys tasters, and when I tried to move him on, he told me not to obstruct his business. Business, indeed! Well, there them boys stuck, one after the other, wiping their tongues round the bottoms of them glasses, until I was fit to bust with aggravation. And he kept me going all day.
‘Then, the day after that there was a barrel-organ, with a mangy-looking monkey on it. He was the worst of all. Profane, too, he was. Kept mixing up sacred tunes and comic songs: “Rock of Ages,” “Bill Bailey,” “Cujus Animal,” and “Over the Garden Wall.” And when I tri
ed to move him on, that little blighter of a monkey made a run at my leg; and then the man grinned and started playing “Wait Till the Clouds Roll By.” I tell you, it was fair sickening.’
He wiped his brow at the recollection, and the inspector smiled appreciatively.
‘And that was the last of them?’ said the latter; and as the porter nodded sulkily, he asked: ‘Should you recognise the note that the Italian gave you?’
‘I should,’ answered the porter with frosty dignity.
The inspector bustled out of the room, and returned a minute later with a letter-case in his hand.
‘This was in his breast-pocket,’ said he, laying the bulging case on the table, and drawing up a chair. ‘Now, here are three letters tied together. Ah! This will be the one.’ He untied the tape, and held out a dirty envelope addressed in a sprawling, illiterate hand to ‘Mr. Hartridge, Esq.’ ‘Is that the note the Italian gave you?’
The porter examined it critically. ‘Yes,’ said he; ‘that is the one.’
The inspector drew the letter out of the envelope, and, as he opened it, his eyebrows went up.
‘What do you make of that, Doctor?’ he said, handing the sheet to Thorndyke.
Thorndyke regarded it for a while in silence, with deep attention. Then he carried it to the window, and, taking his lens from his pocket, examined the paper closely, first with the low power, and then with the highly magnifying Coddington attachment.
‘I should have thought you could see that with the naked eye,’ said the inspector, with a sly grin at me. ‘It’s a pretty bold design.’
‘Yes,’ replied Thorndyke; ‘a very interesting production. What do you say, Mr. Marchmont?’
The solicitor took the note, and I looked over his shoulder. It was certainly a curious production. Written in red ink, on the commonest notepaper, and in the same sprawling hand as the address, was the following message: ‘You are given six days to do what is just. By the sign above, know what to expect if you fail.’ The sign referred to was a skull and cross-bones, very neatly, but rather unskilfully, drawn at the top of the paper.
Miraculous Mysteries Page 9