Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 3

by R. Austin Freeman

  'I promise you that it shall be delivered into your hand by a responsible person not later than nine o'clock,' said Thorndyke. 'I will now give you a receipt, which I will ask you to hand to my messenger in exchange for your property; and again, Mr. Simpson, I would suggest that we make no confidences to anyone concerning this transaction.'

  To this the manager assented with decided emphasis, and our business being now concluded, we thanked Mr. Simpson warmly for his courtesy and his very helpful attitude and took our departure.

  'You seem extraordinarily keen about that precious bone, Thorndyke,' I remarked as we walked back along the Marylebone Road, 'but I'm hanged if I see why. It won't tell you much about Halliburton. And if it would, I don't quite see what you want to know. He is obviously a fool. You don't need much investigation to ascertain that, and like most fools, he seems easily parted from his money. What more do you want to know?'

  'My learned friend,' replied Thorndyke, 'is not profiting sufficiently by his legal experience. One of the most vital principles that years of practice have impressed on me is that in the early stages of an inquiry, no fact, relevant or irrelevant, that is in any way connected with the subject of the inquiry should be neglected or ignored. Indeed, no such fact can be regarded as irrelevant, since, until all the data are assembled and collated, it is impossible to judge the bearing or value of any one of them.

  'Take the present case. Who is Mr. Halliburton? We don't know. Why did he want to examine Mr. Drayton's collection? We don't know. What passed between him and Mr. Drayton when he made his visit? Again we don't know. Perhaps there is nothing of any significance to know. The probability is that Halliburton has no connection with this case at all. But there is no denying that he is in the picture.'

  'Yes, as a background figure. His name has been mentioned as one of the visitors who had come to sec the collection. There were other visitors, you remember.'

  'Yes, and if we knew who they were we should want to know something about them, too. But Halliburton is the only one known to us. And your presentation of his position in relation to what has happened docs not state the case fairly at all. The position is really this: Halliburton—a complete stranger to Drayton—took considerable trouble to obtain an opportunity to examine the collection. Why did he do this? You have quoted Mrs. Benham as saying that he apparently knew nothing about jewellery, either ancient or modern. He was not a connoisseur. Then, why did he want to see the collection? Again, he wrote for the appointment, not from his own residence but from an hotel; and when we come to that hotel we find that he has left no verifiable address, and the vague locality that he gave may quite possibly be a false address. And further, that this apparent concealment of his place of abode coincides with a very excellent reason for giving a correct address, the fact that he has lost—and lost in the hotel, as he believes—certain property on which he sets a high value. And if you add to this the facts that within four days of his visit to Drayton the collection was robbed; that the robbers clearly knew exactly where it was kept and had some knowledge of the inmates of the house and their habits, you must admit that Halliburton is something more than a background figure in the picture.'

  I was secretly impressed by the way in which Thorndyke had 'placed' Mr. Halliburton in respect of the inquiry, but, of course, it wouldn't do to say so. It was necessary to assert my position.

  'That,' I replied, 'is the case for the prosecution, and very persuasively stated. On the other hand it might be said for the defence: "Here is a gentleman who lives in the country and who comes up to spend a few days in town—"'

  'For the apparent purpose,' Thorndyke interrupted, 'of practising the art of billiards, a sport peculiar to London.'

  'Exactly. And while he is in London he takes the opportunity of inspecting a collection which has been described in the Press. A few days after his visit the collection is robbed by some persons who have probably also seen the published description. There is no positive fact of any kind that connects him with those persons, and I assert that the assumption that any such connection exists is entirely gratuitous.'

  Thorndyke smiled indulgently. 'It seems a pity,' he remarked, 'that my learned friend should waste the sweetness of his jury flourishes on the desert air of Marylebone Road. But we needn't fash ourselves, as I believe they say in the North. There was a lady named Mrs. Glasse whose advice to cooks seems to be applicable to the present case. We had better catch our hare before we proceed to jug him—the word "jug" being used without any malicious intent to perpetrate a pun.'

  'And do I understand that the capture is to be accomplished by the agency of the rabbit-bone that my learned senior carries in his reverend pocket?'

  'If you do,' replied Thorndyke, 'your understanding is a good deal in advance of mine. I am taking this little object to examine merely on the remote chance that it may yield some information as to this man's antecedents, habits, and perhaps even his identity. The chance is not so remote as it looks. There are very few things which have been habitually carried on a man's person which will not tell you something about the person who has carried them. And this object, as you probably noticed, is in many respects highly characteristic.'

  'I can't say that I found the thing itself particularly characteristic. The fact that the man should have carried it and have set such a ridiculous value on it is illuminating. That writes him down a superstitious ass. But superstitious asses form a fairly large class. In what respects do you find this thing so highly characteristic, and what kind of information do you expect to extract from it?'

  'As to the latter question,' he replied, 'an investigator doesn't form expectations in advance; and as to the former, you will have an opportunity of examining the object for yourself and of forming your own conclusions.'

  I determined to make a minute and exhaustive inspection of our treasure trove as soon as we arrived home. For obviously I had missed something. It was clear to me that Thorndyke attached more importance to this object than would have been warranted by anything that I had observed. There was some point that I had overlooked and I meant to find out what it was.

  But the opportunity did not offer immediately, for, on our arrival at his chambers, Thorndyke proceeded straight up to the laboratory, where we found his assistant, Polton, seated at a jeweller's bench, making some structural alterations in a somewhat elaborate form of pedometer.

  'I've got a job for you, Polton,' said Thorndyke, laying the mascot on the bench. 'Quite a nice, delicate little job, after your own heart. I want a replica of this thing—as perfect as you can make it. And I have to return the original before nine o'clock tomorrow morning. And. he added, taking the camera and dark slides from his pocket, 'there is a photograph to be developed, but there is no particular hurry for that.'

  Polton picked the mascot up daintily, and laying it in the palm of his hand, stuck a watchmaker's glass in his eye and inspected it minutely.

  'It's a queer little thing, sir,' he remarked. 'Seems to have been made out of a small cervical vertebra. I suppose you want the copy of the same colour as this and as hard as possible?'

  'I want as faithful a copy as you can make, similar in all respects, excepting that the reproduction can scarcely be as hard as the original. Will there be time to make a gelatine mould?'

  'There'll have to be, sir. It couldn't be done any other way, with these undercuttings. But I shan't lose any time on that. If I have to match the colour I shall have to make some experiments, and I can do those while the gelatine is setting.'

  'Very well, Polton,' said Thorndyke. 'Then I'll leave the thing in your hands and consider it as good as done. Of course the original must not be damaged in any way.'

  'Oh, certainly not, sir'; and forthwith the little man, having carefully deposited the mascot in a small, glass-topped box on the bench, fell to work on his preparations beaming with happiness. I have never seen a man who enjoyed his work so thoroughly as Polton did.

  'I am going round to the College of Surgeons now,' sa
id Thorndyke. 'No callers are expected, I think, but if any one should come and want to see me, I shall be back in about an hour. Are you coming with me, Anstey?'

  'Why not? I've nothing to do, and if I keep an eye on you I may pick up a crumb or two of information.'

  Here I caught Polton's eye, and a queer, crinkly smile overspread that artificer's countenance. 'A good many people try to do that, sir,' he remarked. 'I hope you will have better luck than most of them have.'

  'It occurs to me' Thorndyke observed as we descended the stairs, 'that if the scribe who wrote the Book of Genesis had happened to look in on Polton he would have come to the conclusion that he had grossly overestimated the curse of labour.'

  'He was not much different from most other scribes,' said I. 'A bookish man—like myself, for instance—constantly fails to appreciate the joy of manual work. I find Polton an invaluable object lesson.'

  'So do I,' said Thorndyke. 'He is a shining example of the social virtues—industry, loyalty, integrity, and contentment—and as an artificer he is a positive genius.' With this warm appreciation of his faithful follower he swung round into Fleet Street and crossed towards the Law Courts.

  6. INTRODUCES AN ANT-EATER AND A DETECTIVE

  As we entered the hall of the College of Surgeons Thorndyke glanced at the board on which the names of the staff were painted and gave a little grunt of satisfaction.

  'I see,' he said, addressing the porter, 'that Mr. Saltwood hasn't gone yet.'

  'No, sir,' was the reply. 'He is working up at the top tonight. Shall I take you up to him?'

  'If you please,' answered Thorndyke, and the porter accordingly took us in charge and led the way to the lift. From the latter we emerged into a region tenanted by great earthenware pans and jars and pervaded by a curious aroma, half spirituous, half cadaveric, on which I commented unfavourably.

  'Yes; said Thorndyke, sniffing appreciatively, 'the good old museum bouquet. You smell it in all curators' rooms, and though, I suppose, it is not physically agreeable, I find it by no means unpleasant. The effects of odours are largely a matter of association.'

  'The present odour; said I, 'seems to suggest the association of a very overripe Duke of Clarence and a butt of shockingly bad malmsey.'

  Thorndyke smiled tolerantly as we ascended a flight of stairs that led to a yet higher storey, and abandoned the discussion. At the top, we passed through several long galleries, past ranges of tables piled up with incredible numbers of bones, apparently awaiting disposal, until we were finally led by our conductor to a room in which two men were working at a long bench, on which were several partially articulated skeletons of animals. They both looked up as we entered, and one of them, a keen-faced, middle-aged man, exclaimed: 'Well, this is an unexpected pleasure. I haven't seen you for donkey's years, Thorndyke. Thought you had deserted the old shop. And I wonder what brings you here now.'

  'The usual thing, Saltwood. Self-interest. I have come to negotiate a loan. Have you got any loose bones of the Echidna?'

  Saltwood stroked his chin and turned interrogatively to his assistant. 'Do you know if there are any, Robson?' he asked.

  'There is a set waiting to be articulated, sir. Shall I fetch them?'

  'If you would, please, Robson,' replied Saltwood. Then turning to my colleague, he asked: 'What bones do you want, Thorndyke?'

  'The middle cervical vertebrae—about the third or fourth,' was the reply, at which I pricked up my ears.

  In a few minutes Robson returned carrying a cardboard box on which was a label inscribed 'Echidna hystrix.'

  Saltwood lifted the lid, disclosing a collection of small bones, including a queer little elongated skull.

  'Here you are,' said he, picking out a sort of necklace formed of the joints of the backbone; 'here is the whole vertebral column, minus the tail, strung together. Will you take it as it is?'

  'No,' replied Thorndyke, 'I will just take the three vertebrae that I want—the third, fourth, and fifth cervical, and if I let you have them back in the course of the week, will that do?'

  'Perfectly. I wouldn't bother you to return them at all if it were not for spoiling the set.' He separated the three little bones from the string, and having wrapped them in tissue paper and handed them to Thorndyke, asked; 'How is Jervis? I haven't seen him very lately, either.'

  'Jervis,' replied Thorndyke, 'is at present enjoying a sort of professional holiday in New York. He is retained, in an advisory capacity, in the Rosenbaum case, of which you may have read in the papers. My friend Anstey here is very kindly filling his place during his absence.'

  'I'm glad to hear that I'm filling it,' said I, as Saltwood bowed and shook hands. 'I was afraid I was only half filling it, being but a mere lawyer destitute of medical knowledge.'

  'Well,' said Saltwood, 'medical knowledge is important, of course, but you've always got Thorndyke to help you out. Oh—and that reminds me, Thorndyke, that I've got some new preparations that I should like you to see, a series of tumours from wild animals. Will you come and have a look at them? They are in the next room.'

  Thorndyke assented with enthusiasm, and the two men went out of the room, leaving me to the society of Robson and the box of bones. Into the latter I peered curiously, again noting the odd shape of the skull; then I proceeded to improve the occasion by a discreet question or two.

  'What sort of beast in an Echidna?' I asked.

  'Echidna hystrix,' replied Robson in a somewhat pompously didactic tone, 'is the zoological name of the porcupine ant-eater.'

  'Indeed,' said I, and then tempted by his owlish solemnity to ask foolish questions, I inquired: 'Does that mean that he is an eater of porcupine ants?'

  'No, sir,' he replied gravely (he was evidently a little slow in the uptake). 'It is not the ants which are porcupines. It is the ant-eater.'

  'But,' I objected, 'how can an ant-eater be a porcupine? It is a contradiction in terms.'

  This seemed to floor him for a moment, but he pulled himself together and explained: 'The name signifies a porcupine which resembles an ant-eater, or perhaps one should say, an ant-eater, which resembles a porcupine. It is a very peculiar animal.'

  'It must be,' I agreed. 'And what is there peculiar about its cervical vertebrae?'

  He pondered profoundly, and I judged that he did not know but was not going to give himself away, a suspicion that his rather ambiguous explanation tended to confirm.

  'The cervical vertebrae,' he expounded, 'are very much alike in most animals. There are exceptions, of course, as in the case of the porpoise, which has no neck, and the giraffe, which has a good deal of neck. But in general, cervical vertebrae seem to be turned out pretty much to one pattern, whereas the tail vertebrae present great differences. Now, if you look at this animal's tail—' here he fished a second necklace out of the box and proceeded to expound the peculiarities of its constituent bones, to which exposition I am afraid I turned an inattentive ear. The Echidna's tail had no bearing on the identity of Mr. Halliburton.

  The rather windy discourse had just come to an end when my two friends reappeared and Saltwood conducted us down to the hall. As we stepped out of the lift he shook our hands heartily, and with a cheery adieu, pressed the button and soared aloft like a stage fairy.

  From the great portico of the College we turned eastward and walked homewards across Lincoln's Inn, each of us wrapped in his own reflections. Presently I asked:

  'Supposing this mascot of Halliburton's to be the neck bone of an Echidna, what is the significance of the fact?'

  'Ah!' he replied. 'There you have me, Anstey. At present I am concerning myself only with the fact, hoping that its significance may appear later. To us it may have no significance at all. Of course there is some reason why this particular bone should have been used rather than some other kind of bone, but that set of circumstances may have—probably has—no connection with our inquiry. It is quite probable that Halliburton himself has no such connection. On the other hand, the circumstances which determined
the use of an Echidna's vertebra as a mascot may have an important bearing on the case. So we can only secure the fact and wait for time and further knowledge to show whether it is or is not a relevant fact.'

  'And do you mean to say that you are taking all this trouble on the mere chance that this apparently trivial and meaningless circumstance may possibly have some bearing?'

  'That is so. But your question, Anstey, exhibits the difference between the legal and the scientific outlook. The lawyer's investigations tend to proceed along the line of information wanted: the scientists tend to proceed along the line of information available. The business of the man of science is impartially to acquire all the knowledge that is obtainable; the lawyer tends to concern himself only with that which is material to the issue.'

  'Then the scientist must accumulate a vast number of irrelevant facts.'

  'Every fact,' replied Thorndyke, 'is relevant to something, and if you accumulate a great mass of facts, inspection of the mass shows that the facts can be sorted out into related groups from which certain general truths can be inferred. The difference between the lawyer and the scientist is that one is seeking to establish some particular truth while the other seeks to establish any truth that emerges from the available facts.'

  'But; I objected 'surely even a scientist must select his facts to some extent. Every science has its own province. The chemist, for instance, is not concerned with the metamorphoses of insects.'

  'That is true; he admitted. 'But then, are we not keeping within our own province? We are not collecting facts indiscriminately, but are selecting those facts which make some sort of contact with the circumstances of this crime and which may therefore conceivably be relevant to our inquiry. But methinks I perceive another collector. Isn't that our friend Superintendent Miller crossing to King's Bench Walk and apparently bearing down on our chambers?'

  I looked at the tall figure, indistinctly seen by the light of a lamp, and even as I looked, it ascended the steps and vanished into our entry; and when, a couple of minutes later, we arrived on our landing, we found Polton in the act of admitting the Superintendent.