X. Jones—Of Scotland Yard

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  In a pure 4-dimensional continuum, Jones declares, the “preparation” for the crime, and the “guarding,” etc., present stress-wrinkles lying peripheral to the central disturbance and directly due to it: in a continuum of the same number of dimensions, only taken by an observer as “space and time,” the “wrinkles” are still there, only they manifest themselves as “deviations of conduct before the crime,” “deviations of conduct at the moment of the crime,” and “deviations of conduct after the crime.”

  It is particularly in the respect, Jones says, that the criminal or crime perpetrator, changing slightly his daily conduct—his regular habitual daily procedures, that is—before his crime—and also after—that the crime may well be termed an explosion in Space-Time (as well as a “stress” in 4 dimensions). And it is in this connection that Jones argues—and rightly so, it appears—that just as a stress in a 4-dimensional semi-elastic medium creates minor stresses, back of itself, on all sides of itself, and beyond itself, so does the “explosion” in Space-Time create “deviations” prior to itself—contemporaneous with itself—and subsequent to itself—in the semi-elastic medium filling all space-time; which semi-elastic medium may be said to be “matter”—both organic and inorganic, but able to contact itself at innumerable points through the “mobility” and “will” of the former!

  It is in the regarding of human activity 4-dimensionally, instead of 3-dimensionally, and the consequent upsetting of the time-honored conception—or relationship—of “cause and effect,” wherein Jones’ theory becomes somewhat difficult for the non-philosophically minded layman to accept. The idea that an incident happening upon January 13th caused an incident which occurred on January 12th to take place, is not easily graspable by the ordinary person, who has grown up to believe that the incident occurring on January 13th has to cause—or to help cause—only some incident happening on January 14th. However, argues Jones, to present a very clear-cut and elementary example: if a murderer A, cold-bloodedly, deliberately, and with malice aforethought, stabs to death his enemy B on January 13th, the murder has been the cause of A’s purchasing the death dagger which he purchased on January 12th. Certainly, at least, in a world where Time, instead of being a flowing sequence of changing 3-dimensional or space aspects, is itself a rigid 4th dimension. In such type of world, so-called “cause and effect,” separated in the 3-dimensional world by Time, become mutually interchangeable—and their relationship becomes a purely geometrical one, at most, based solely upon some higher geometrical pattern of which they are parts—and not upon mere “consecutiveness of appearance,” on which all laws of cause and effect are today postulated!

  Does one accept Jones’ radical conception thus far, the further elements of his system become a little more easy to grasp. As, for instance, Jones’ assertion that though it is Space-Time in which the “explosion”—let us take, for an example here, a “murder”—registers itself, it always registers itself upon objects or human beings in space-time who have more or less close contact with the murdered man—and, of course, the murderer; and, as it has been said, manifests itself by deviations in their regular daily procedures. Altered positions—or states—of objects. Alterations of daily habits—in the case of persons. These deviations are sometimes known, and sometimes unknown, says Jones, to the deviated human beings themselves and are in most instances involuntary, because “caused” by deviations in the conduct of people who contact them. Jones, in fact, calls the ring—or rather 4-dimensional sphere of activity, he terms it—of people who have (or had, or will have!) contact, or relationship—business, social, or otherwise—with a murdered man, the 1st Concentric Sphere. He terms the total of the groups which has contact and relationship with each of those in the first sphere, the 2nd Concentric Sphere—and points out, incidentally, that though the foregoing terms are adopted but for convenience in nomenclature and tabulation, and not as a picture of the true geometrical relationship of such persons, the particular activities under consideration here are, in Group 2, nevertheless usually displaced, with respect to the first group, in both space and time! It can easily be seen that the sphere termed Concentric Sphere 2 is much larger than that termed Concentric Sphere 1. Both as taken in a 3-dimensional sense—and as taken in a 4-dimensional one. Or merely in an arithmetical sense alone. Continuing, all those who have contact with the individuals in the second sphere, he calls the 3rd Concentric Sphere. And so forth. To carry investigations to those, say, in a hard Concentric Sphere—assuming an average close human contact of 10 people to an individual—would involve around a thousand persons.

  What Jones does therefore, in a criminal case, is to concentrate upon securing, by one means or another, all the contacts of persons forming part of any concentric sphere in the crime. Which accomplished, all Jones then does is to talk casually with each, eliciting such trivial deviations as can be obtained concerning habitual procedures and happenings in their life on, before, and right after the date of the crime. Jones prefers, he says, when possible, to work from without in, since often a deviation in an outer sphere helps to trace the deviation in an inner sphere which caused it, and which latter deviation is being deliberately concealed by the person in the inner sphere, or, mayhap, is being blocked completely from ascertainment as in, for instance, a case of sleeping sickness! Unfortunately, however, says Jones, one usually has to work from within out!—for only in that way does one determine the identities of the members of the next outer concentric sphere!

  It is to be kept clearly in mind, Jones affirms, that because of the complex pattern which life so often affords, an individual may properly belong in two different spheres; in which case the latter is simply assigned two separate places in the so-called table of contacts. As for the murderer, in a murder, he is usually, Jones claims, found ultimately to have been insufficiently or incorrectly scheduled in the table of contacts, for he may not have been listed up originally by the investigator in Concentric Sphere No. 1 at all! Where he indubitably belongs. For, says Jones, the murderer is the most intimate contact the victim has ever had. Or will have! However, prior to the discovery of the murderer’s identity, the latter may be either insufficiently placed in the concentric scheme of spheres—or not placed at all. At least until the recorded “deviations” are studied, and the so-called “true picture” of the concussion is elicited.

  Closer View Presented of Jones’ Theories

  For the basis of Jones’ method is a recording of all the “deviations” obtained by one means or another.

  Which total deviations—sequestrated to one side—and studied—co-ordinated—linked—invariably contain in themselves the entire picture of the crime, which picture naturally includes, of course, in the case of a murder, sufficient of motive or method of commission to point to the murderer! It is at this point—at least in certain cases—Jones says, that the necessity for the American ‘“Third Degree” would possibly be indicated—though he himself is not in favor of that method for obtaining a confession or a conviction.

  As the simplest and nearest possible explication of what Jones means in “studying the deviations” and finding the “true picture” of the crime, he renders a geometrical example in two dimensions—laid out, that is, solely upon a plane—the plane of the paper in which this newspaper article is printed. He likens the next-to-final findings of a case—its total ascertainable deviations, that is—to a group of apparently miscellaneously placed arrows, all pointing 45 degrees off the vertical or horizontal, but in hopelessly various ways. Each arrow, that is, on the diagram below—the oblong representing a sheet of paper—may be said to represent symbolically—in 2 dimensions—a “deviation” found in 4 dimensions. Thus:

  There appears, however, to be no relationship back of the arrows above; that is, they do not appear to hide within themselves any particular potential picture.

  But, says Jones, let us rule off this particular diagram into numbered squares, as below:

  and then revolve the various squares about on thei
r own respective centers to different degrees—and, lo and behold!—we find that they contain the possibility within them selves of a sort of picture—a picture more or less cubistic in its art-form, to be sure!—but nevertheless, in this case, a definite and decided “clock-wise spiral,” circling inward, if not actually pointing inward. As below:

  Reverting again, however, to deviations as pure deviations—and not as arrows!—Jones renders, for the sake of the non-geometrically minded reader, a very elementary example of his peculiar method of deduction based on “Explosion in Space-Time”; an example which also shows very simply his “concentric-sphere” classification of persons. For the reason that the “concentric spheres” in the example contain—purely for simplicity’s sake—but one character each!

  Let it be imagined, Jones says, that an old astronomer, Mr. A, who has been interested for years in Halley’s Comet, and who has collected a vast amount of fragmentary data upon it, has been killed in his observatory. His most intimate contact is Mr. B, a colleague, also an astronomer. Mr. B’s most intimate contact is his housekeeper, Mrs. C. Mrs. C’s nearest contact is her son, D, residing in a city 50 miles distant. While D’s closest contact is his sweetheart, E.

  Under such extremely simple case, let it be said that the following “deviations” have been found to appear with respect to the date of Mr. A’s murder.

  Center of the Spheres (The Explosion!): Mr. A changes from being alive to being dead!

  Sphere 1: Mr. B’s (Mr. B is the friend of Mr. A) new school textbook on astronomy was to be—and moreover was—published next day.

  Sphere 2: Mrs. C (B’s housekeeper) was given the day off after the murder to visit her son D.

  Sphere 3: D (Mrs. C’s son) was visited the day after the murder by his mother, Mrs. C.

  Sphere 4: Miss E (the sweetheart of D) was “stood up,” the day after the murder, on a regular “date” by her lover, for the first time.

  Were these deviations interpreted correctly, says Jones—though he points out that he has purposely left out, for sake of vivid example—a certain vital example of “contact”—Miss E was “stood up” only because her sweetheart D had a most important visitor from another city: i.e., his mother; that Mrs. C came to his town because she was given a day off by her employer, Mr. B; that she was given the day off by Mr. B so that she would not see Mr. B doing something surreptitious; i.e., B may have had some blood to clean from his clothing because he murdered someone. Who? The center of his sphere. Mr. A!

  And even though, Jones says, Mrs. C conceals altogether the leave of absence she received from her employer, the concussion of A’s murder has gone way out to Miss E—in the 4th Concentric Sphere—and can be traced back if and when Miss E innocently tells an investigator that nothing out of the way has happened in her life recently outside of the simple and relatively unimportant fact that on a certain day—that following our murder, let us say—her sweetheart for some reason “stood her up” on a “date”—a regular date, that is.

  It will be argued however here, Jones admits, that these “deviations” in the foregoing example have not truly presented the picture of the murder inasmuch as they present logical possibility, but no motive. He grants that; and this is because, he says, Halley’s Comet—an impersonal entity—has not also been set down as an intimate contact of the dead A—an entity lying therefore within Sphere No. 1: and that Halley’s Comet itself, on the night after the murder, became visible, in the particular hemisphere where Mr. A’s observatory was located, for the first time that year (and therefore, because of the vast period of that comet, for the first time in many decades!); a “deviation” from a hitherto regular state, on the part of Halley’s Comet, of invisibility—at least for Mr. A’s particular region.

  With this overlooked item included in the listing of “deviations,” it can be readily deduced, Jones points out, that B, whose new book makes an extremely dogmatic statement about Halley’s Comet, killed A to prevent A being alive when Halley’s Comet would appear, checking the statement objectively through his telescope, and, in conjunction with his accumulated and more or less theoretical data, proclaiming B’s statement publicly to be a misstatement of fact!

  Why Jones Requested Assignment to Mareeau Murder Case

  Jones was led to ask that the Marceau Case be assigned to him for study under his method because of the fact that he and he alone, though purely by chance, dug up additional data of value in solving it. That is to say, data valuable—Jones emphasizes—only in use with his own peculiar deductive method. For shortly after Jones joined Scotland Yard, it seems that in furnishing up a flat in Grey’s Inn Road in the West End of London where he might reside with his lone servant and sometimes criminological assistant, Radranath Sepoona, a Hindu from India—for Jones is not married—the young inspector was purchasing a number of second-handed furniture items in a shop in Woborn Place. Among various pieces offered to him was a writing desk, formerly owned by Marceau and sold with Marceau’s effects, around a year and a half ago, at Little Ivington. Jones purchased the desk, and had it moved into his Grey’s Inn Road flat. However, Jones’ uncle in Bombay had been a cabinet maker; and it did not take Jones long to see that a certain section must contain a secret recess. He could not find the spring-release by which this recess might be made to open itself, but simply took a sharpened poker and burst the section open. And, sure enough, found the recess—and in it, in company with six or seven photographs of different progenitors of Marceau, a small leather-covered address-book in which Marceau had meticulously and businesslike listed such of his business and social contacts as existed outside of his ménage. Thus bringing up, Jones says, obviously the entire personnel of Concentric Sphere No. 1. Though it should be mentioned, Jones also says, that none of the additional contacts thus uncovered are even under suspicion as to being either principals or accessories in the Marceau Case, for a subsequent investigation on his part revealed that two were not even in England at, or long before, the murder; one was in a wheelchair, paralyzed; another had died a year before the murder. But it is, says Jones today, their “deviations” which should build up the complete and ideal picture of which he already has, even now, built up a substantial part, merely by utilizing deviational data worked out in a study based on the tangible and available contacts of Marceau—chiefly those persons comprising the latter’s ménage and household staff.

  And it was solely because it appeared that he had—and personally owned—the complete roster of the personnel of Concentric Sphere No. 1, that Jones was emboldened to ask Scotland Yard to assign to him for study the dossier which it owned on the Marceau Murder Case.

  When asked, however, specifically as to whether delay in releasing the “picture”—fragmentary or complete—which he has obtained by deviational study of the Marceau Case, might not make it possible for certain human actors within the picture to effect an escape, Jones stated, with a dry laugh, that he was particularly curious to know whether certain individuals thought enough of his “theories” to pack up their bags and go some place!—after those “theories” were released. It was, he said, his firm conviction that not one person connected with the “picture” would move an inch—and, if that person did, he queried, where was there, in this new world of radio and cable and television pictures, that such person could conveniently go?

  No, Jones says, February 25th next—and not before—is the day he has selected for releasing to the press the full Marceau story; and he has, as has been stated, three very salient reasons for selecting that data.

  The first and most important one, he says, is a purely personal one. And he does not, he avers, choose to reveal it.

  The second and third reasons are personified in the names of two individuals found in Marceau’s notebook—and embodied in the fact that these two men are just now out of England, and even out of communication—so far as Jones is concerned. It is these two men, in fact, who Jones, by the significant gesture he made toward the map of Brazil on his living room,
and his previously quoted statement, indicates are deep today within the Brazilian jungles. Though he also qualified his statement by the further declaration that these men would not be within any part of Brazil on February 25th next, but on that day—even a day before—would be positively and definitely in England.

  A study of the case, Jones says, inaugurated upon his original expectation that these two men would form part of the deviative interpretive picture, now makes him believe that they will prove more confirmatory of the picture already delineated, than contributive to it. And so, pending their arrival, Jones expects to deposit, in a sealed lock-box in Chancery Lane, the keys to which lockbox will be entrusted to one of his own superiors at the Yard, a hypothetical and tentative solution of the Marceau Murder Case, with full data, to indicate the correctness of his method. Though if these men for any reason, do not reach England from the far reaches of civilization by or before February 25th, Jones promises nevertheless to render to the world-press a solution of the case on that date, subject to later confirmation, partial or total, from the two men in question, if and when received.

  Such solution, now scheduled definitely, as it appears, for February 25, 1937, if correct and complete to the point where arrests may be made upon it, will clear up, for all time to come, the murder of André Marceau, of Little Ivington, England—by the Flying Strangler-Baby!