The Case of the Vanishing Corpse

by Robert Newman

  They came towards him, the policeman, tall and helmeted, not appearing to hurry but forcing Sara to trot to keep up with him.

  “Now then,” said the officer, looking down at Andrew, “Who’s this?”

  “The boy I told you about,” said Sara. “Andrew Tillett.”

  “Ho yus,” said the constable. “And where’s this body you found?”

  “There,” said Sara.

  “Where?”

  “There,” said Andrew, turning and pointing. He could have found the place with his eyes closed; about fifteen feet from where their hedge ended and the wall of Three Oaks made a right angle. He stiffened, leaned forward a little as Sara was doing. The pavement was empty. There was no sign of a body.

  8

  Finch’s Fury

  “You’re sure this is where he was standing?” asked Finch.

  Andrew looked at Sara. “Yes,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do. I told you, I saw him first from my room—”

  “Thought you saw him, saw someone.”

  “All right—thought I saw someone. It couldn’t have been much further up the street because the wall of Three Oaks would have cut off my view. Then when Sara and I came downstairs—”

  “Just a second. Did she see him, too—this man—from upstairs in your house?”

  “No. Something woke her. When she heard my door open, she came out into the hall. And when I told her what I’d seen, she said we should go down and see who it was. So we did.”

  It was a little after nine the next morning, and they were gathered there on Rysdale Road; Sara, Andrew, Inspector Finch, Peter Wyatt and Verna. Verna had awakened when the constable walked Sara and Andrew back to the house. He had been obviously incredulous and rather annoyed, and it’s doubtful whether he would even have reported the occurrence if Verna, after a quick glance at Sara and Andrew, had not insisted on it. As a result, Finch, accompanied by Wyatt, had appeared at the house at a little before nine, and when he questioned the young people Verna, though she kept to the background, stayed with them.

  “What time did you say this was?”

  “Three thirty.”

  “What time did you get to bed?”

  “About twelve thirty.”

  “Do you usually go to bed that late?”

  “No. But I told you we’d been to theatre first and to Bentley’s afterward for a late supper.”

  It was clear to Andrew that these questions of Finch’s were not casual—that they were leading somewhere—but he was not sure where.

  “Ah, yes. And exactly what did you eat?”

  Wyatt, standing behind Finch and taking notes, looked at Finch and then at Andrew. Andrew had a feeling that he was trying to tell him something, but he wasn’t sure what.

  “Oysters and lobster.”

  Finch had looked even more harried than usual when he arrived. Now, for the first time, he relaxed a little.

  “Lobster is not easy to digest,” he said. “Especially at that hour.”

  Verna stirred. “Are you suggesting that Andrew imagined it?” she asked quietly.

  “Imagined it or dreamed it. Don’t you think that’s possible?”

  “That he and Sara both imagined or dreamed exactly the same thing? No.”

  “But did Sara see anything at all?” asked Finch with exaggerated and exasperating patience. “Your son wakes from a sleep that has not been very restful. Like many boys his age he reads penny dreadfuls that are full of mystery and murder—and such things are more in his thoughts now than ever because of the theft of your jewels. So he thinks he sees a man lurking in the street, thinks he sees him murdered. And Miss Sara, younger than he is and therefore easily influenced, sees whatever he thinks he sees. As a matter of fact,” he concluded with obvious satisfaction, “the thing that convinced me that what they described did not happen is the fact that their stories are so exactly alike, with none of the slight differences one expects from two independent witnesses.”

  “If you’ll forgive me, Inspector,” said Wyatt with a polite cough. “There was one small difference in their stories.”

  Finch turned and looked at him with more surprise than annoyance. “What was that?”

  “Master Andrew thought he saw someone come across the road. Miss Sara didn’t.”

  “What of it?”

  “Possibly nothing, sir. But I thought … There’s a large tree there. If someone was waiting here—near the wall—and someone else was hiding there behind the tree …”

  “If!” said Finch, his face suddenly flushed. “What are you suggesting? That someone slipped across the street, killed the mysterious lurker and then disappeared into thin air, taking the body with him?”

  “No, sir,” said Wyatt. “It couldn’t have happened that way because the body didn’t disappear right away.”

  “It couldn’t have happened that way because there was no body!” Suddenly aware of Verna’s gaze, he checked himself. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I suppose I shouldn’t lose my patience and my temper, but I’ve been under a great deal of pressure from the press, the insurance companies and the commissioner. After all, we’ve had a disappearance and five major robberies during the past few days. And while I’m not convinced there’s any connection between them, there are some who think there is. As for the young people’s story, I’m not saying that they don’t believe what they’ve told us. And if there’d been any evidence at all to back it up, any signs of a struggle or any blood here on the pavement …”

  Andrew stiffened. “Could you come back to the house for a moment, Inspector?” he asked.

  “What? What for?”

  “I just remembered something—something I’d like to show you.”

  Finch looked at Andrew, then at Verna. This was his opportunity to make amends for his burst of temper.

  “Of course,” he said. And stepping back politely, he let Verna precede him up the street. Sara and Andrew fell in behind him, one on each side of Wyatt.

  “What are you going to show him?” asked Sara quietly.

  “You’ll see,” said Andrew.

  Wyatt, walking between them, had closed his notebook and was looking straight ahead of him. Andrew felt a tap on his wrist and, looking down, saw that Wyatt was holding out a folded piece of paper. He took it—it was a page from Wyatt’s notebook—unfolded it and read: “As soon as possible, search around tree across street for clues. P.W.”

  Andrew looked up at him, but Wyatt was still looking straight ahead with no particular expression on his face. Andrew hesitated. He wouldn’t be able to do what Wyatt wanted for some time. Reaching around behind Wyatt, he tapped Sara’s arm as Wyatt had tapped his, passed her the note. She frowned as she read it, glanced at Wyatt, at Andrew and nodded. She stepped aside and bent down apparently to fasten a button on one of her shoes. As Andrew turned in at the driveway, he looked back and saw her hurrying across the street to the tree.

  Matson opened the front door for them. Finch followed Verna in, then said, “All right, young man. What did you want to show me?”

  “I’ll get it,” said Andrew.

  He ran up the stairs to his room. He had never really examined it, and if he was wrong he was going to look like an awful fool. He went into his room, picked up his bathrobe and glanced inside the right-hand pocket. Then he ran down the stairs again. Verna and Wyatt looked at him with interest, Finch with a patronizing smile.

  “I only remembered this when you said you might believe us if there’d been any blood or signs of a struggle,” said Andrew. “I told you there was blood on the back of the body. What I didn’t tell you was that I touched it, got some of the blood on my fingers and wiped it off on the inside of my pocket.”

  He pulled out the pocket, turning it inside out, and there were several distinct darkish streaks.

  “Well, Inspector?” said Verna.

  Finch took the bathrobe from Andrew, studied the stains, felt them and then said, “Let me se
e your hand, your right hand.”

  Andrew held it out. “If you’re looking for traces of blood there,” he said, “I not only wiped it on the bathrobe, I’ve washed my hands since then.”

  “I don’t think that’s what Inspector Finch was looking for, darling,” said Verna in a neutral voice. “I think he wanted to see if you’d cut your hand somehow, got blood in the pocket that way.”

  Finch shot a quick glance at her. “I didn’t think he’d done that. I just wanted to rule it out. Because I’m sure you’ll admit that even if what he told us is true, there’s still something very odd about it. According to their story, they were only gone a few minutes. The girl, Sara, went east until she met Constable Dignam, but she didn’t leave Rysdale Road and neither she nor the constable saw any kind of vehicle go up or down the street. Well, if that’s true, what happened to the body? Who took it away, where and how?”

  Andrew knew that this was the weak spot in their story, and he had no answer to it. He glanced at Finch, then at Wyatt. Catching his eye, Wyatt looked down, then up to a point well above Andrew’s head. Andrew stared at him. Again he knew Wyatt was trying to tell him something, but he wasn’t sure what. Then it came to him.

  “The wall!” he said. “The wall around Three Oaks!”

  “What about it?” asked Finch.

  “I think what Master Andrew was wondering,” said Wyatt, “was whether it wasn’t possible that the body was put over the wall.”

  “Put over it how?”

  “Perhaps pulled over it with a rope.”

  “Are you saying,” said Finch to Andrew, “that there was not only a murder, but that the murderer had an accomplice at Three Oaks?”

  “I’ve no idea,” said Andrew. “I just thought that maybe that’s what had happened to the body.”

  Finch looked at him as if he wished he didn’t exist.

  “The marchioness isn’t going to like it,” he said. “She’s annoyed enough already because we haven’t recovered Mrs. Van Gelder’s jewels. And I don’t expect to find anything, but I suppose I’d better go over there and look.”

  “I certainly think you should,” said Verna. “And I think you and Sara should go too, Andrew. You not only know where the body was—you also know the grounds at Three Oaks.” And without giving Finch a chance to object, she told Matson to have Fred bring the carriage around as quickly as possible. It was only then that she said, “Where is Sara?”

  “She’ll be along in a minute,” said Andrew evasively.

  And she was. Though it only took Fred a few minutes to bring the landau around to the porte-cochere, when they went out Sara was coming up the driveway.

  “We’re going over to Three Oaks,” said Andrew, and he told her why. She nodded, and she and Andrew got into the carriage.

  “Are you coming too, ma’am?” Finch asked Verna.

  “I don’t think you need me,” she said.

  “Probably not,” he said. And bowing to her, he and Wyatt got into the landau, too. Fred shook the reins, and the horses trotted off. Finch, frowning, was grim and silent until the carriage drew up in front of the door at Three Oaks.

  “Stay here,” he said to Wyatt, getting out and ignoring Sara and Andrew. “I’ll tell the marchioness we’re here and what we want to do.”

  Wyatt saluted. He, Sara and Andrew got out also, and when Finch had disappeared inside, he said to Sara, “That was a difficult assignment I gave you. I didn’t even have a chance to tell you what to look for.”

  “Did you know what you wanted me to look for?”

  “Not really,” he said with a smile. “Did you find anything?”

  “This,” she said, taking something out of her pocket and giving it to him. “If it is anything.”

  In some ways it looked like a cigarette butt and in some ways it didn’t. For while it consisted of tobacco and paper, the tobacco was very fine and loose, not packed tightly as most cigarettes are. And when it was stepped on—as it had apparently been—instead of becoming a flattened tube, it had opened up so that the paper was merely folded over the tobacco.

  “Yes, it certainly is something,” said Wyatt, studying it. “You found it near the tree?”

  “Yes,” said Sara. “Behind it.”

  “What is it?” asked Andrew.

  “What does it look like?”

  “A cigarette stub, but a funny one.”

  “Right,” said Wyatt. He had been writing something in his notebook. He tore out the page, wrapped the paper and tobacco in it, and gave it to Andrew. “I don’t have any safe place to keep it over at the section-house. Would you keep it for me?”

  “Of course,” said Andrew. He looked at the paper before he put it in his pocket, saw that Wyatt had dated it and stated where it had been found. He knew that Sherlock Holmes had been a great expert on tobacco, able to identify over a hundred different kinds by their ash alone, and he wondered if Wyatt was just as knowledgeable and what he had made of this particular clue.

  Finch came out of the house, still looking bad-tempered.

  “All right,” he said. “The marchioness was just as irritated as I thought she’d be, but she gave me permission to go where I want, talk to anyone I want. Now it’s your idea that this corpus of yours was put over the wall?” he said to Andrew.

  “Yes, sir. Put over or pulled over with a rope.”

  “And you know where?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, but I think I can find the place inside here that’s nearest to where we saw it outside.”

  “All right. Show us.”

  With Sara and Andrew leading the way, they went down through the terraces and the formal gardens. Still grim and busy with his own thoughts, Finch did not notice the grotto or the whitewashed cottage, or if he did, did not comment. But though the others glanced at them as they went by, they did not see any sign of Brother Ibrahim.

  When they were almost at the wall, Andrew and Sara paused for a brief conference, then went on to a point some fifteen or twenty feet from the corner where the wall made a right angle and ran back from the road.

  “We think it was right about here, Inspector,” said Andrew.

  “What? Oh, yes,” said Finch, and leaving the gravel path, he started to cross the flower bed that lay between the path and the wall.

  “Wait!” said Sara, shocked. “What are you doing?”

  She looked at Andrew, who frowned at her, then at Wyatt who shrugged. Andrew knew why she was upset. If there were any footprints or signs that the body had been dragged through there, Finch was effectively destroying them. If Finch heard Sara, however, he gave no sign of it.

  “Well?” he said, looking around. “Where did the body go from here, if it ever was here?”

  Andrew didn’t think that anything would be gained by pointing out that Finch had made it impossible for anyone to find or read any clues in the ground, so he said, “Don’t you think there might be something on top of the wall?”

  “On top of the wall?”

  “Yes. I saw the head gardener in one of the greenhouses. If you asked him, I’m sure he’d get you a ladder. Or …” He turned to Wyatt. “If you gave me a leg up, I could take a look.”

  “Of course,” said Wyatt. And before Finch could protest, he clasped his hands together, Andrew placed one foot in them, and Wyatt lifted him up high enough so that he could scramble to the top of the wall.

  “Do you see anything?” asked Sara as he kneeled there, studying the top of the wall.

  “I’m not sure,” said Andrew.

  “You mean there are no bloody handprints?” said Finch ironically. “No trails of blood?”

  “No,” said Andrew, crawling a few feet to the right, “but there are a few scrapes on top of the wall—as if something had been dragged over it—and … Hello!” He picked something up.

  “What is it?” asked Sara.

  “I’ll show you when I get down.” Swinging his feet over, he lowered himself as far as he could and dropped to the ground. “Look at t
his,” he said, holding up some brownish filaments.

  “It looks as if it came off a rope,” said Sara.

  “That’s what I think,” said Andrew. “That it’s hemp that was rubbed off and caught in cracks in the bricks.”

  “And that’s all you can tell us?” said Finch.

  “Well, in any case it does prove that something was pulled over the wall,” said Andrew patiently.

  “Of course. Your famous corpse that disappeared once from Rysdale Road and then disappeared again here.” He turned as footsteps crunched on the gravel path behind him. “Who the devil’s this?”

  “Salaam, effendi” said Brother Ibrahim, bowing to Wyatt. “Salaam, my young friends.”

  “His name is Ibrahim, Brother Ibrahim,” said Wyatt. “He came here from Egypt with the marchioness, lives in that cottage back there.”

  “What does he do?” asked Finch. “Sell rugs?”

  “No, sir. He’s a priest of the Temple of Ageless Wisdom.”

  “What’s that? Never mind, don’t tell me. And tell him to go away. He can’t help us.”

  “I wonder,” said Wyatt, slowly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “His cottage is quite close to the road, and I gather he’s a light sleeper. Don’t you think it might be useful to find out if he heard or saw anything?”

  “Heard or saw what? The corpse that never was?” Turning to Brother Ibrahim, he said, “Spik English?”

  “Yes, effendi. A little.”

  “Well, these two claim that a murder was committed around here last night,” said Finch, raising his voice as if that would make him easier to understand. “You savvy murder?” and he drew his finger across his throat.

  “I understand,” said Brother Ibrahim.

  “They also think that the body was pulled over the wall and may be around here somewhere.”

  “It’s not just around,” said Andrew. “If it is here anywhere—and I’m sure it is—it’s been hidden or buried. Did you hear or see anything that could help us find it?” Then as the Egyptian hesitated, “The other day, when Mrs. Van Gelder’s jewels were stolen, you said you knew something bad had happened because the evil god Seth came to you in your sleep and made a snake noise. Did anything like that happen last night?”