The Big Bow Mystery
Page 4
"Gentlemen, I am aware that this sounds impossible and contradictory. But it is the facts that contradict themselves. It seems clear that the deceased did not commit suicide. It seems equally clear that the deceased was not murdered. There is nothing for it, therefore, gentlemen, but to return a verdict tantamount to an acknowledgment of our incompetence to come to any adequately grounded conviction whatever as to the means or the manner by which the deceased met his death. It is the most inexplicable mystery in all my experience." (Sensation.)
The Foreman (after a colloquy with Mr. Sandy Sanderson): "We are not agreed, sir. One of the jurors insists on a verdict of "Death from visitation by the act of God.""
CHAPTER IV.
But Sandy Sanderson's burning solicitude to fix the crime flickered out in the face of opposition, and in the end he bowed his head to the inevitable "open verdict." Then the floodgates of inkland were opened, and the deluge pattered for nine days on the deaf coffin where the poor idealist moldered. The tongues of the Press were loosened, and the leader writers reveled in recapitulating the circumstances of "The Big Bow Mystery," though they could contribute nothing but adjectives to the solution. The papers teemed with letters-it was a kind of Indian summer of the silly season. But the editors could not keep them out, nor cared to. The mystery was the one topic of conversation everywhere-it was on the carpet and the bare boards alike, in the kitchen and the drawing-room. It was discussed with science or stupidity, with aspirates or without. It came up for breakfast with the rolls, and was swept off the supper table with the last crumbs.
No. 11 Glover Street, Bow, remained for days a shrine of pilgrimage. The once sleepy little street buzzed from morning till night. From all parts of the town people came to stare up at the bedroom window and wonder with a foolish look of horror. The pavement was often blocked for hours together, and itinerant vendors of refreshment made it a new market center, while vocalists hastened thither to sing the delectable ditty of the deed without having any voice in the matter. It was a pity the Government did not erect a toll-gate at either end of the street. But Chancellors of the Exchequer rarely avail themselves of the more obvious expedients for paying off the National debt.
Finally, familiarity bred contempt, and the wits grew facetious at the expense of the Mystery. Jokes on the subject appeared even in the comic papers.
To the proverb, "You must not say Boo to a goose," one added, "or else she will explain you the Mystery." The name of the gentleman who asked whether the Bow Mystery was not 'arrowing shall not be divulged. There was more point in "Dagonet's" remark that, if he had been one of the unhappy jurymen, he should have been driven to "suicide." A professional paradox-monger pointed triumphantly to the somewhat similar situation in "the murder in the Rue Morgue," and said that Nature had been plagiarizing again-like the monkey she was-and he recommended Poe's publishers to apply for an injunction. More seriously, Poe's solution was re-suggested by "Constant Reader" as an original idea. He thought that a small organ-grinder's monkey might have got down the chimney with its master's razor, and, after attempting to shave the occupant of the bed, have returned the way it came. This idea created considerable sensation, but a correspondent with a long train of letters draggling after his name pointed out that a monkey small enough to get down so narrow a flue would not be strong enough to inflict so deep a wound. This was disputed by a third writer, and the contest raged so keenly about the power of monkeys' muscles that it was almost taken for granted that a monkey was the guilty party. The bubble was pricked by the pen of "Common Sense," who laconically remarked that no traces of soot or blood had been discovered on the floor, or on the nightshirt, or the counterpane. The "Lancet's" leader on the Mystery was awaited with interest. It said: "We cannot join in the praises that have been showered upon the coroner's summing up. It shows again the evils resulting from having coroners who are not medical men. He seems to have appreciated but inadequately the significance of the medical evidence. He should certainly have directed the jury to return a verdict of murder on that. What was it to do with him that he could see no way by which the wound could have been inflicted by an outside agency? It was for the police to find how that was done. Enough that it was impossible for the unhappy young man to have inflicted such a wound and then have strength and will power enough to hide the instrument and to remove perfectly every trace of his having left the bed for the purpose." It is impossible to enumerate all the theories propounded by the amateur detectives, while Scotland Yard religiously held its tongue. Ultimately the interest on the subject became confined to a few papers which had received the best letters. Those papers that couldn't get interesting letters stopped the correspondence and sneered at the "sensationalism" of those that could. Among the mass of fantasy there were not a few notable solutions, which failed brilliantly, like rockets posing as fixed stars. One was that in the obscurity of the fog the murderer had ascended to the window of the bedroom by means of a ladder from the pavement. He had then with a diamond cut one of the panes away, and effected an entry through the aperture. On leaving he fixed in the pane of glass again (or another which he had brought with him), and thus the room remained with its bolts and locks untouched. On its being pointed out that the panes were too small, a third correspondent showed that that didn't matter, as it was only necessary to insert the hand and undo the fastening, when the entire window could be opened, the process being reversed by the murderer on leaving. This pretty edifice of glass was smashed by a glazier, who wrote to say that a pane could hardly be fixed in from only one side of a window frame, that it would fall out when touched, and that in any case the wet putty could not have escaped detection. A door panel sliced out and replaced was also put forward, and as many trap-doors and secret passages were ascribed to No. 11 Glover Street as if it were a medieval castle. Another of these clever theories was that the murderer was in the room the whole time the police were there-hidden in the wardrobe. Or he had got behind the door when Grodman broke it open, so that he was not noticed in the excitement of the discovery, and escaped with his weapon at the moment when Grodman and Mrs. Drabdump were examining the window fastenings.
Scientific explanations also were to hand to explain how the assassin locked and bolted the door behind him. Powerful magnets outside the door had been used to turn the key and push the bolt within. Murderers armed with magnets loomed on the popular imagination like a new microbe. There was only one defect in this ingenious theory-the thing could not be done. A physiologist recalled the conjurers who swallowed swords-by an anatomical peculiarity of the throat-and said that the deceased might have swallowed the weapon after cutting his own throat. This was too much for the public to swallow. As for the idea that the suicide had been effected with a penknife or its blade, or a bit of steel, which had got buried in the wound, not even the quotation of Shelley's line:
"Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it,"
could secure it a moment's acceptance. The same reception was accorded to the idea that the cut had been made with a candlestick (or other harmless article) constructed like a sword-stick. Theories of this sort caused a humorist to explain that the deceased had hidden the razor in his hollow tooth! Some kind friend of Messrs. Maskelyne and Cook suggested that they were the only persons who could have done the deed, as no one else could get out of a locked cabinet. But perhaps the most brilliant of these flashes of false fire was the facetious, yet probably half-seriously meant, letter that appeared in the "Pell Mell Press" under the heading of
THE BIG BOW MYSTERY SOLVED.
"Sir-You will remember that when the Whitechapel murders were
agitating the universe, I suggested that the district coroner was
the assassin. My suggestion has been disregarded. The coroner is
still at large. So is the Whitechapel murderer. Perhaps this
suggestive coincidence will incline the authorities to pay more
attention to me this time. The problem seems to be this. The
deceased
could not have cut his own throat. The deceased could not
have had his throat cut for him. As one of the two must have
happened, this is obvious nonsense. As this is obvious nonsense I
am justified in disbelieving it. As this obvious nonsense was
primarily put in circulation by Mrs. Drabdump and Mr. Grodman, I am
justified in disbelieving them. In short, sir, what guarantee have
we that the whole tale is not a cock-and-bull story, invented by
the two persons who first found the body? What proof is there that
the deed was not done by these persons themselves, who then went to
work to smash the door and break the locks and the bolts, and
fasten up all the windows before they called the police in? I
enclose my card, and am, sir, yours truly, One Who Looks Through
His Own Spectacles."
("Our correspondent's theory is not so audaciously original as he
seems to imagine. Has he not looked through the spectacles of the
people who persistently suggested that the Whitechapel murderer was
invariably the policeman who found the body? Somebody must find the
body, if it is to be found at all.-Ed. P. M. P.")
The editor had reason to be pleased that he inserted this letter, for it drew the following interesting communication from the great detective himself:
"THE BIG BOW MYSTERY SOLVED.
"Sir-I do not agree with you that your correspondent's theory
lacks originality. On the contrary, I think it is delightfully
original. In fact it has given me an idea. What that idea is I do
not yet propose to say, but if 'One Who Looks Through His Own
Spectacles' will favor me with his name and address I shall be
happy to inform him a little before the rest of the world whether
his germ has borne any fruit. I feel he is a kindred spirit, and
take this opportunity of saying publicly that I was extremely
disappointed at the unsatisfactory verdict. The thing was a
palpable assassination; an open verdict has a tendency to relax the
exertions of Scotland Yard. I hope I shall not be accused of
immodesty, or of making personal reflections, when I say that the
Department has had several notorious failures of late. It is not
what it used to be. Crime is becoming impertinent. It no longer
knows its place, so to speak. It throws down the gauntlet where
once it used to cower in its fastnesses. I repeat, I make these
remarks solely in the interest of law and order. I do not for one
moment believe that Arthur Constant killed himself, and if Scotland
Yard satisfies itself with that explanation, and turns on its other
side and goes to sleep again, then, sir, one of the foulest and
most horrible crimes of the century will forever go unpunished. My
acquaintance with the unhappy victim was but recent; still, I saw
and knew enough of the man to be certain (and I hope I have seen
and known enough of other men to judge) that he was a man
constitutionally incapable of committing an act of violence,
whether against himself or anybody else. He would not hurt a fly,
as the saying goes. And a man of that gentle stamp always lacks the
active energy to lay hands on himself. He was a man to be esteemed
in no common degree, and I feel proud to be able to say that he
considered me a friend. I am hardly at the time of life at which a
man cares to put on his harness again; but, sir, it is impossible
that I should ever know a day's rest till the perpetrator of this
foul deed is discovered. I have already put myself in communication
with the family of the victim, who, I am pleased to say, have every
confidence in me, and look to me to clear the name of their unhappy
relative from the semi-imputation of suicide. I shall be pleased if
anyone who shares my distrust of the authorities, and who has any
clue whatever to this terrible mystery, or any plausible suggestion
to offer, if, in brief, any 'One who looks through his own
spectacles' will communicate with me. If I were asked to indicate
the direction in which new clues might be most usefully sought, I
should say, in the first instance, anything is valuable that helps
us to piece together a complete picture of the manifold activities
of the man in the East End. He entered one way or another into the
lives of a good many people; is it true that he nowhere made
enemies? With the best intentions a man may wound or offend; his
interference may be resented; he may even excite jealousy. A young
man like the late Mr. Constant could not have had as much practical
sagacity as he had goodness. Whose corns did he tread on? The more
we know of the last few months of his life the more we shall know
of the manner of his death. Thanking you by anticipation for the
insertion of this letter in your valuable columns, I am, sir, yours
truly,
"George Grodman.
"46 Glover Street, Bow."
"P. S.-Since writing the above lines I have, by the kindness of
Miss Brent, been placed in possession of a most valuable letter,
probably the last letter written by the unhappy gentleman. It is
dated Monday, 3 December, the very eve of the murder, and was
addressed to her at Florence, and has now, after some delay,
followed her back to London where the sad news unexpectedly brought
her. It is a letter couched, on the whole, in the most hopeful
spirit, and speaks in detail of his schemes. Of course, there are
things in it not meant for the ears of the public, but there can be
no harm in transcribing an important passage:
"'You seem to have imbibed the idea that the East End is a kind of
Golgotha, and this despite that the books out of which you probably
got it are carefully labeled "Fiction." Lamb says somewhere that we
think of the "Dark Ages" as literally without sunlight, and so I
fancy people like you, dear, think of the "East End" as a mixture
of mire, misery and murder. How's that for alliteration? Why,
within five minutes' walk of me there are the loveliest houses,
with gardens back and front, inhabited by very fine people and
furniture. Many of my university friends' mouths would water if
they knew the income of some of the shop-keepers in the High Road.