The Perfect Crime: The Big Bow Mystery

by Israel Zangwill

  Tom Mortlake spoke. His face was set and stony. His tall figure was drawn up haughtily to its full height. He pushed the black mane back from his forehead with a characteristic gesture. The fevered audience hung upon his lips—the men at the back leaned eagerly forward—the reporters were breathless with fear lest they should miss a word. What would the great labour leader have to say at this supreme moment?

  ‘Mr Chairman and Gentlemen: It is to me a melancholy pleasure to have been honoured with the task of unveiling tonight this portrait of a great benefactor to Bow and a true friend to the labouring classes. Except that he honoured me with his friendship while living, and that the aspirations of my life have, in my small and restricted way, been identical with his, there is little reason why this honourable duty should have fallen upon me. Gentlemen, I trust that we shall all find an inspiring influence in the daily vision of the dead, who yet liveth in our hearts and in this noble work of art—wrought, as Mr Gladstone has told us, by the hand of one who loved him.’ The speaker paused a moment, his low vibrant tones faltering into silence. ‘If we humble working-men of Bow can never hope to exert individually a tithe of the beneficial influence wielded by Arthur Constant, it is yet possible for each of us to walk in the light he has kindled in our midst—a perpetual lamp of self-sacrifice and brotherhood.’

  That was all. The room rang with cheers. Tom Mortlake resumed his seat. To Wimp the man’s audacity verged on the Sublime; to Denzil on the Beautiful. Again there was a breathless hush. Mr Gladstone’s mobile face was working with excitement. No such extraordinary scene had occurred in the whole of his extraordinary experience. He seemed about to rise. The cheering subsided to a painful stillness. Wimp cut the situation by laying his hand again upon Tom’s shoulder.

  ‘Come quietly with me,’ he said. The words were almost a whisper, but in the supreme silence they travelled to the ends of the hall.

  ‘Don’t you go, Tom!’ The trumpet tones were Peter’s. The call thrilled an answering chord of defiance in every breast, and a low, ominous murmur swept through the hall.

  Tom rose, and there was silence again. ‘Boys,’ he said, ‘let me go. Don’t make any noise about it. I shall be with you again tomorrow.’

  But the blood of the Break o’ Day boys was at fever heat. A hurtling mass of men struggled confusedly from their seats. In a moment all was chaos. Tom did not move. Half-a-dozen men, headed by Peter, scaled the platform. Wimp was thrown to one side, and the invaders formed a ring round Tom’s chair. The platform people scampered like mice from the centre. Some huddled together in the corners, others slipped out at the rear. The committee congratulated themselves on having had the self-denial to exclude ladies. Mr Gladstone’s satellites hurried the old man off and into his carriage; though the fight promised to become Homeric. Grodman stood at the side of the platform secretly more amused than ever, concerning himself no more with Denzil Cantercot, who was already strengthening his nerves at the bar upstairs. The police about the hall blew their whistles, and policemen came rushing in from outside and the neighbourhood. An Irish M.P. on the platform was waving his gingham like a shillelagh in sheer excitement, forgetting his new-found respectability and dreaming himself back at Donnybrook Fair. Him a conscientious constable floored with a truncheon. But a shower of fists fell on the zealot’s face, and he tottered back bleeding. Then the storm broke in all its fury. The upper air was black with staves, sticks, and umbrellas, mingled with the pallid hailstones of knobby fists. Yells and groans and hoots and battle-cries blent in grotesque chorus, like one of Dvorák’s weird diabolical movements. Mortlake stood impassive, with arms folded, making no further effort, and the battle raged round him as the water swirls around some steadfast rock. A posse of police from the back fought their way steadily toward him, and charged up the heights of the platform steps, only to be sent tumbling backward, as their leader was hurled at them like a battering ram. Upon the top of the heap fell he, surmounting the strata of policemen. But others clambered upon them, escalading the platform. A moment more and Mortlake would have been taken, after being well shaken. Then the miracle happened.

  As when of old a reputable goddess ex machina saw her favourite hero in dire peril, straightway she drew down a cloud from the celestial stores of Jupiter and enveloped her fondling in kindly night, so that his adversary strove with the darkness, so did Crowl, the cunning cobbler, the much-daring, essay to insure his friend’s safety. He turned off the gas at the meter.

  An Arctic night—unpreceded by twilight—fell, and there dawned the sabbath of the witches. The darkness could be felt—and it left blood and bruises behind it. When the lights were turned on again, Mortlake was gone. But several of the rioters were arrested, triumphantly.

  And through all, and over all, the face of the dead man who had sought to bring peace on earth, brooded.

  Crowl sat meekly eating his supper of bread and cheese, with his head bandaged, while Denzil Cantercot told him the story of how he had rescued Tom Mortlake. He had been among the first to scale the height, and had never budged from Tom’s side or from the forefront of the battle till he had seen him safely outside and into a by-street.

  ‘I am so glad you saw that he got away safely,’ said Crowl, ‘I wasn’t quite sure he would.’

  ‘Yes; but I wish some cowardly fool hadn’t turned off the gas. I like men to see that they are beaten.’

  ‘But it seemed—easier,’ faltered Crowl.

  ‘Easier!’ echoed Denzil, taking a deep draught of bitter. ‘Really, Peter, I’m sorry to find you always will take such low views. It may be easier, but it’s shabby. It shocks one’s sense of the Beautiful.’

  Crowl ate his bread and cheese shamefacedly.

  ‘But what was the use of breaking your head to save him?’ said Mrs Crowl with an unconscious pun. ‘He must be caught.’

  ‘Ah, I don’t see how the Useful does come in, now,’ said Peter thoughtfully. ‘But I didn’t think of that at the time.’

  He swallowed his water quickly and it went the wrong way and added to his confusion. It also began to dawn upon him that he might be called to account. Let it be said at once that he wasn’t. He had taken too prominent a part.

  Meantime, Mrs Wimp was bathing Mr Wimp’s eye, and rubbing him generally with arnica. Wimp’s melodrama had been, indeed, a sight for the gods. Only, virtue was vanquished and vice triumphant. The villain had escaped, and without striking a blow.

  CHAPTER X

  THERE was matter and to spare for the papers the next day. The striking ceremony—Mr Gladstone’s speech—the sensational arrest—these would of themselves have made excellent themes for reports and leaders. But the personality of the man arrested, and the Big Bow Mystery Battle—as it came to be called—gave additional piquancy to the paragraphs and the posters. The behaviour of Mortlake put the last touch to the picturesqueness of the position. He left the hall when the lights went out, and walked unnoticed and unmolested through pleiads of policemen to the nearest police station, where the superintendent was almost too excited to take any notice of his demand to be arrested. But to do him justice, the official yielded as soon as he understood the situation. It seems inconceivable that he did not violate some red-tape regulation in so doing. To some this self-surrender was limpid proof of innocence; to others it was the damning token of despairing guilt.

  The morning papers were pleasant reading for Grodman, who chuckled as continuously over his morning egg, as if he had laid it. Jane was alarmed for the sanity of her saturnine master. As her husband would have said, Grodman’s grins were not Beautiful. But he made no effort to suppress them. Not only had Wimp perpetrated a grotesque blunder, but the journalists to a man were down on his great sensation tableau, though their denunciations did not appear in the dramatic columns. The Liberal papers said that he had endangered Mr Gladstone’s life; the Conservative that he had unloosed the raging elements of Bow blackguardism, and set in motion forces which might have easily swelled to a riot, involving severe destructi
on of property. But ‘Tom Mortlake’ was, after all, the thought swamping every other. It was, in a sense, a triumph for the man.

  But Wimp’s turn came when Mortlake, who reserved his defence, was brought up before a magistrate and, by force of the new evidence, fully committed for trial on the charge of murdering Arthur Constant. Then men’s thoughts centred again on the Mystery, and the solution of the inexplicable problem agitated mankind from China to Peru.

  In the middle of February, the great trial befell. It was another of the opportunities which the Chancellor of the Exchequer neglects. So stirring a drama might have easily cleared its expenses—despite the length of the cast, the salaries of the stars, and the rent of the house—in mere advance booking. For it was a drama which (by the rights of Magna Charta) could never be repeated; a drama which ladies of fashion would have given their earrings to witness, even with the central figure not a woman. And there was a woman in it anyhow, to judge by the little that had transpired at the magisterial examination, and the fact that the country was placarded with bills offering a reward for information concerning a Miss Jessie Dymond. Mortlake was defended by Sir Charles Brown-Harland, Q.C., retained at the expense of the Mortlake Defence Fund (subscriptions to which came also from Australia and the Continent), and set on his mettle by the fact that he was the accepted labour candidate for an East-end constituency. Their Majesties, Victoria and the Law, were represented by Mr Robert Spigot, Q.C.

  MR SPIGOT, Q.C., in presenting his case, said: ‘I propose to show that the prisoner murdered his friend and fellow-lodger, Mr Arthur Constant, in cold blood, and with the most careful premeditation; premeditation so studied, as to leave the circumstances of the death an impenetrable mystery for weeks to all the world, though fortunately without altogether baffling the almost superhuman ingenuity of Mr Edward Wimp, of the Scotland Yard Detective Department. I propose to show that the motives of the prisoner were jealousy and revenge; jealousy not only of his friend’s superior influence over the working-men he himself aspired to lead, but the more commonplace animosity engendered by the disturbing element of a woman having relations to both. If, before my case is complete, it will be my painful duty to show that the murdered man was not the saint the world has agreed to paint him, I shall not shrink from unveiling the truer picture, in the interests of justice, which cannot say nil nisi bonum even of the dead. I propose to show that the murder was committed by the prisoner shortly before half-past six on the morning of December 4th, and that the prisoner having, with the remarkable ingenuity which he has shown throughout, attempted to prepare an alibi by feigning to leave London by the first train to Liverpool, returned home, got in with his latchkey through the street-door, which he had left on the latch, unlocked his victim’s bedroom with a key which he possessed, cut the sleeping man’s throat, pocketed his razor, locked the door again, and gave it the appearance of being bolted, went downstairs, unslipped the bolt of the big lock, closed the door behind him, and got to Euston in time for the second train to Liverpool. The fog helped his proceedings throughout.’ Such was in sum the theory of the prosecution. The pale defiant figure in the dock winced perceptibly under parts of it.

  Mrs Drabdump was the first witness called for the prosecution. She was quite used to legal inquisitiveness by this time, but did not appear in good spirits.

  ‘On the night of December 3rd, you gave the prisoner a letter?’

  ‘Yes, your ludship.’

  ‘How did he behave when he read it?’

  ‘He turned very pale and excited. He went up to the poor gentleman’s room, and I’m afraid he quarrelled with him. He might have left his last hours peaceful.’ (Amusement.)

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Mr Mortlake went out in a passion, and came in again in about an hour.’

  ‘He told you he was going away to Liverpool very early the next morning.’

  ‘No, your ludship, he said he was going to Devonport.’ (Sensation.)

  ‘What time did you get up the next morning?’

  ‘Half-past six.’

  ‘That is not your usual time?’

  ‘No, I always get up at six.’

  ‘How do you account for the extra sleepiness?’

  ‘Misfortunes will happen.’

  ‘It wasn’t the dull, foggy weather?’

  ‘No, my lud, else I should never get up early.’ (Laughter.)

  ‘You drink something before going to bed?’

  ‘I like my cup o’ tea. I take it strong, without sugar. It always steadies my nerves.’

  ‘Quite so. Where were you when the prisoner told you he was going to Devonport?’

  ‘Drinkin’ my tea in the kitchen.’

  ‘What should you say if prisoner dropped something in it to make you sleep late?’

  WITNESS (startled): ‘He ought to be shot.’

  ‘He might have done it without your noticing it, I suppose?’

  ‘If he was clever enough to murder the poor gentleman, he was clever enough to try and poison me.’

  THE JUDGE: ‘The witness in her replies must confine herself to the evidence.’

  MR SPIGOT, Q.C.: ‘I must submit to your lordship that it is a very logical answer, and exactly illustrates the interdependence of the probabilities. Now, Mrs Drabdump, let us know what happened when you awoke at half-past six the next morning.’

  Thereupon Mrs Drabdump recapitulated the evidence (with new redundancies, but slight variations) given by her at the inquest. How she became alarmed—how she found the street-door locked by the big lock—how she roused Grodman, and got him to burst open the door—how they found the body—all this with which the public was already familiar ad nauseam was extorted from her afresh.

  ‘Look at this key’ (key passed to the witness). ‘Do you recognize it?’

  ‘Yes; how did you get it? It’s the key of my first-floor front. I am sure I left it sticking in the door.’

  ‘Did you know a Miss Dymond?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Mortlake’s sweetheart. But I knew he would never marry her, poor thing.’ (Sensation.)

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He was getting too grand for her.’ (Amusement.)

  ‘You don’t mean anything more than that?’

  ‘I don’t know; she only came to my place once or twice. The last time I set eyes on her must have been in October.’

  ‘How did she appear?’

  ‘She was very miserable, but she wouldn’t let you see it.’ (Laughter.)

  ‘How has the prisoner behaved since the murder?’

  ‘He always seemed very glum and sorry for it.’

  Cross-examined: ‘Did not the prisoner once occupy the bedroom of Mr Constant, and give it up to him, so that Mr Constant might have the two rooms on the same floor?’

  ‘Yes, but he didn’t pay as much.’

  ‘And, while occupying this front bedroom, did not the prisoner once lose his key and have another made?’

  ‘He did; he was very careless.’

  ‘Do you know what the prisoner and Mr Constant spoke about on the night of December 3rd?’

  ‘No; I couldn’t hear.’

  ‘Then how did you know they were quarrelling?’

  ‘They were talkin’ so loud.’

  SIR CHARLES BROWN-HARLAND, Q.C. (sharply): ‘But I’m talking loudly to you now. Should you say I was quarrelling?’

  ‘It takes two to make a quarrel.’ (Laughter.)

  ‘Was the prisoner the sort of man who, in your opinion, would commit a murder?’

  ‘No, I never should ha’ guessed it was him.’

  ‘He always struck you as a thorough gentleman?’

  ‘No, my lud. I knew he was only a comp.’

  ‘You say the prisoner has seemed depressed since the murder. Might not that have been due to the disappearance of his sweetheart?’

  ‘No, he’d more likely be glad to get rid of her.’

  ‘Then he wouldn’t be jealous if Mr Constant took her off his hands?’ (Sensation.)


  ‘Men are dog-in-the-mangers.’

  ‘Never mind about men, Mrs Drabdump. Had the prisoner ceased to care for Miss Dymond?’

  ‘He didn’t seem to think of her, my lud. When he got a letter in her handwriting among his heap he used to throw it aside till he’d torn open the others.’

  BROWN-HARLAND, Q.C. (with a triumphant ring in his voice): ‘Thank you, Mrs Drabdump. You may sit down.’

  SPIGOT, Q.C.: ‘One moment, Mrs Drabdump. You say the prisoner had ceased to care for Miss Dymond. Might not this have been in consequence of his suspecting for some time that she had relations with Mr Constant?’

  THE JUDGE: ‘That is not a fair question.’

  SPIGOT, Q.C.: ‘That will do, thank you, Mrs Drabdump.’

  BROWN-HARLAND, Q.C.: ‘No; one question more, Mrs Drabdump. Did you ever see anything—say when Miss Dymond came to your house—to make you suspect anything between Mr Constant and the prisoner’s sweetheart?’

  ‘She did meet him once when Mr Mortlake was out.’ (Sensation.)

  ‘Where did she meet him?’

  ‘In the passage. He was going out when she knocked and he opened the door.’ (Amusement.)

  ‘You didn’t hear what they said?’

  ‘I ain’t a eavesdropper. They spoke friendly and went away together.’

  MR GEORGE GRODMAN was called and repeated his evidence at the inquest. Cross-examined, he testified to the warm friendship between Mr Constant and the prisoner. He knew very little about Miss Dymond, having scarcely seen her. Prisoner had never spoken to him much about her. He should not think she was much in prisoner’s thoughts. Naturally the prisoner had been depressed by the death of his friend. Besides, he was overworked. Witness thought highly of Mortlake’s character. It was incredible that Constant had had improper relations of any kind with his friend’s promised wife. Grodman’s evidence made a very favourable impression on the jury; the prisoner looked his gratitude; and the prosecution felt sorry it had been necessary to call this witness.