The First Sexton Blake

by AnonYMous

“I’ll tell you when we’re in the cab,” said Sexton Blake.

  “But what—?”

  “Don’t ask questions,” said Sexton Blake. “Come with me, and I promise you that in half an hour from now yon shall see your son.”

  Mr. Beaumont gazed at him in stupefied bewilderment.

  “But I’ve seen him already,” he said. “He’s lying dead upstairs.”

  The detective shook his head.

  “He isn’t!” he said. “That baby—But I’ll tell you all about it later. Come along or her ladyship will have gone to bed.”

  Like a man in a dream, Mr. Beaumont followed the detective out of the house. A moment later they were seated in the cab and rattling down the mist-enshrouded road.

  III.

  “Now, before I explain my seemingly eccentric conduct tonight,” began Sexton Blake, “I’m going to give you an elementary lesson in medical jurisprudence.

  “As you may be aware,” he continued, “the normal temperature of a living human being is ninety-eight and a half degrees Fahrenheit. In fever a man’s temperature may rise to a hundred and three or four or five, and in states of collapse it may sink to ninety-seven, or even ninety-six. The ordinary temperature of a healthy living man, woman, or child is, however, as I have said, ninety-eight and a half. When a man dies the heat of his body gradually subsides until it reaches the same temperature as that of the surrounding air. As the rate of cooling is fairly regular—one and three-fifths of a degree per hour after death, a very simple calculation enables us to say that that particular man or woman has been dead six and a quarter hours. Do you follow me?”

  “Quite,” said Mr. Beaumont. “But what has all this; to do with the death of my child?”

  “That’s just what I’m going to explain,” said Sexton Blake. “When I examined that baby which was left on your doorstep, the first thing that struck me was that the body was, abnormally cold for a child that had been alive and well at a quarter-past eleven this morning. As you saw, I took the baby’s temperature with my thermometer. It was sixty-six and a half.

  “It was a quarter-past nine when I examined the baby. Your baby had been alive and well at a quarter-past eleven in the morning; therefore, if this was your baby, it could not have been dead more than ten hours at the very outside. But this baby’s temperature was sixty-six and a half, which proved that it had been dead twenty hours!

  “In other words,” he went on, “the baby which was left on your doorstep tonight died about one o’clock this morning. As your baby was alive and well at a quarter-past eleven, it follows, as a matter of course, that the baby I examined tonight was not yours.”

  “But—but it was dressed in my child’s clothes,” stammered Mr. Beaumont.

  The detective laughed.

  “That proves nothing,” he said. “It is easy to change a child’s clothes—to take them from a living child and place them on a dead one. And babies of three weeks old are very, much alike, as a rule.

  “However,” he continued, “whilst I was examining the baby I made an other discovery, which effectually settled the matter. As you doubtless know, it is not an uncommon thing for a baby to be born with an extra, or supernumerary, finger. The finger, as a rule, is merely attached to the outer side of the hand by a thin pedicle of skin, and a snip of the scissors is all that is required to remove it.

  “Whilst I was examining the baby in your dining-room I discovered a minute scar on the outer side of the right hand, which showed me at a glance that the child had had a supernumerary finger removed at that spot. I asked you if your child had been born with an extra finger, and you replied in the negative, which was all the further proof I heeded to convince me this was not your child.

  “To sum up the result of my examination,” he concluded: “it was obvious to me that somebody had stolen your child, had taken off his clothes, had put them on a dead child, had brought the dead child to your door under cover of the darkness and the mist, and had rung the bell and run away.”

  “But who could have done such an extraordinary thing?” said Mr. Beaumont, still only half-convinced. “What could anybody have to gain by exchanging a dead child for a living one?”

  “That’s just what I asked myself,” said Sexton Blake. “So when I left your house. I started on a round of visits to the local doctors. ‘Have you a patient,’ I asked, who recently gave birth to a male baby with a supernumerary finger on the right hand which you removed?”

  “The first five doctors I interviewed answered my question in the negative. The sixth said, ‘Yes: Lady Lingdale, of Hummersea Castle, gave birth to a son and heir three weeks ago. He had a supernumerary finger on his right hand, and I snipped it off with a pair of scissors before he was an hour old!”

  “Lady Lingdale!” gasped Mr. Beaumont.

  The detective nodded.

  “You know her?” he asked.

  “Well!” said Mr. Beaumont; “She’s the widow of the late Lord Lingdale. His lordship was killed in a motor accident two days before the baby was born.”

  “And it was her ladyship’s first child?”

  “Yes; so that the baby was the new Lord Lingdale the moment he was born.”

  “So the doctor told me. He also told me that so long as the little Lord Lingdale lived her ladyship would continue to enjoy a royal income, but if the child died before attaining the age of twenty-one Lady Lingdale would have to leave the castle—the rightful owner, a distant cousin would succeed—and she would only have a comparatively modest jointure as her portion.”

  Mr. Beaumont started and regarded the detective with eyes that glowed with suppressed excitement.

  “Yes,” said Sexton Blake, in reply to his unspoken question. “That’s the explanation, without a doubt. Lady Lingdale’s son evidently died—probably in a convulsion fit—at one o’clock this morning. She knew that you had a son the same age as her own, and either she or an accomplice stole your baby and exchanged it for her own.”

  “Then we are now going—?” said Mr. Beaumont.

  “To Hummersea Castle,” said Sexton Blake. “Where I hope to find your little son alive and well.”

  A quarter of an hour later they reached-the castle. Lady Lingdale—formerly known on the music-hall stage as Flossie Flower—happened to be crossing the entrance hall when the detective and-Mr. Beaumont were admitted by the butler.

  She recognised Sexton Blake at a glance, and obviously guessed the object of his visit, for she instantly turned pale, stumbled forward with a low moan of despair, and—but for the prompt action of Sexton Blake, who sprang forward and caught her in his arms—would have fallen to the ground.

  “I didn’t do it,” she protested, when the detective had seated her in a chair. “It was Celestine! It was her idea, and I told her it wouldn’t come off.”

  The butler gazed at this extraordinary scene with wide-open eyes. He was still, more amazed when Mr. Beaumont seized her ladyship by the wrist, and forced her to look at him.

  “My son,” he said, in a voice that vibrated with tense excitement. “Is he here? Is he safe?”

  There was no need for Lady Lingdale to reply, for at that moment the lusty cry of an infant was heard in an adjoining room.

  Half a dozen strides and Mr. Beaumont was in the room. The next instant the baby was in his arms and he was covering its wee pink face with hysterical kisses.

  THE rest is soon told; As Sexton Blake had surmised, Lady Lingdale’s baby had been seized with convulsions at one o’clock in the morning and had died within a few minutes. The only persons present in the bedroom at that time had been Lady Lingdale and her French maid, Celestine. Both of them were aware that Mrs. Beaumont had a baby the same age as the little Lord Lingdale, and both of them knew what a difference would be made to Lady Lingdale’s position by the death of her son.

  It was Celestine, as Lady Lingdale had said to Sexton Blake
, who had suggested the daring idea of stealing Mrs. Beaumont’s baby and passing it off as Lady Lingdale’s. And it was Celestine who had followed the nurse from the house, had pretended to fall and break her leg, and had made off with the child.

  How the plot was circumvented by the skill and acumen of Sexton Blake the reader already knows, and it only remains to add that, moved by the appeal of Lady Lingdale—who was undeniably pretty—Mr. Beaumont consented to hush the matter up. With the result that the infant, Lord Lingdale, was duly buried in the family vault, and Lady Lingdale, accompanied by Celestine, left the castle and went abroad—according to the papers—”for the good of their health.”

  THE SILVER CANDLESTICK

  Originally published September 19, 1908.

  It was a few commonplace words which Sexton Blake chanced to overhear whilst buying a toothbrush which furnished him with the clue that ultimately enabled him to solve the mystery of the burglary at Ugthorpe Lodge.

  He had gone down to Ugthorpe, a little seaside village in Lincolnshire, in order to examine the parish register for certain information in connection with a case he had on hand.

  On unpacking his bag, late in the afternoon, he discovered that he had come away without a toothbrush; and, accordingly, he strolled round to the village chemist’s to buy one. He was on the point of leaving, when a stylishly-dressed young woman, who would have been pretty but for a disfiguring patch of eczema on her right cheek, came into the shop.

  “Will you please make me up another box of ointment and another bottle of medicine?” she said.

  “The iron medicine or the sulphur medicine?” inquired the chemist.

  “The sulphur medicine,” she replied. “The same that I’ve been taking for the last fortnight. You have the prescription.”

  “Oh, yes,” said the chemist. “Shall I send them up to the lodge?”

  “I’ll call for them in about half an hour,” she said. And with that she left the shop.

  “That was Miss Flower,” said the chemist to Sexton Blake. “Her father is Lord Borrowby’s agent, you know.”

  The detective neither knew nor cared to know. He gathered up his change and returned to the inn, where he spent the night.

  Next morning, after breakfast, the detective was just setting out for the station to catch the half-past seven train to town, when a dogcart rattled up to the front door of the inn, and an elderly man, with iron-grey hair, sprang out.

  “Mr. Sexton Blake?” he inquired.

  “That’s me,” said the detective, who was just coming out of the door, bag in hand.

  “Thank goodness, I’ve caught you in time!” said the new arrival. “My name is Flower. I’m Lord Borrowby’s agent. A burglary has been committed at my house, and a bag containing nearly six hundred pounds has been stolen. I’ve communicated with the police, of course, but having heard that you were in the neighbourhood, I’ve decided to ask you to make an independent investigation. If you will, I’ll drive you to my house—which is about two miles from here—and I’ll give you all the details on the way.”

  The detective having expressed his willingness to undertake the case, he and Mr. Flower drove off in the direction of Ugthorpe Lodge.

  “Now, begin at the beginning, and tell me all about it, said Sexton Blake.

  “If I am to begin at the beginning,” said Mr. Flower, “I must first tell you that yesterday I drove to Kedmires, which is a village about seven miles from here, in order to receive the rents of those of Lord Borrowby’s tenants who have holdings on that portion of the estate. When I returned to Ugthorpe Lodge—the name of my house—I had over five hundred pounds—nearly six, as a matter of fact—in a small, black-leather handbag. About fifty pounds was in notes; the rest was in gold and Silver.

  “On arriving at my house, about half-past eleven last night, I placed the bag and its contents in a roll-top desk in my library, intending to bank the money today. I have locked money in that desk for the last twenty years, and never until now have I had reason to regret it.

  “I ought, perhaps, to explain that I am a widower. My household consists of myself, my daughter—who is just out of her teens—and a couple of female servants.”

  He stopped suddenly, seeming to find the detective’s keen glance disconcerting.

  “To resume my narrative,” he continued, “I went to bed soon after midnight, and by one o’clock was fast asleep. Two hours later I awoke—for no particular reason—and as I lay awake in bed I fancied I heard somebody in the library.

  “I slipped out of bed and stole downstairs. A feeble glimmer of light was streaming under the library door, and I distinctly heard two people talking. By that time, however, the burglars—for such they were, of course, had evidently heard me coming downstairs: for suddenly the light was extinguished.

  “With a ringing shout, by which I hoped to rouse the servants, I rushed to the library door, and flung it open. No sooner had I done so than one of the burglars—whom I could not see in the darkness, of course—sprang at me, and enveloped my head and shoulders in a rug.

  “‘Run—run!’ I heard him say to his confederate in a low, excited whisper.

  “I struck out wildly, and tried to free myself from the rug. In doing so I slipped and fell, and as I fell I struck my head against the corner of the table. The blow stunned me for a few minutes, and when I regained my senses the burglars had disappeared, and I was lying on the library floor, surrounded by my daughter and the two servants. I struggled to my feet, and told them briefly what had happened. I then proceeded to examine the room.

  “The first thing I discovered was that the burglars had had the impudence to raid my larder, and regale themselves on chicken and claret! Standing on the library table were a silver candlestick, which they had taken from the hall-stand, the remains of a cold chicken which they had found in the larder, some bread and butter, and a newly-opened bottle of claret.

  “Finally, I must tell yon,” he concluded, “that the library-window—which is a French window—was wide open—which showed how the scoundrels had gained admittance to the house, and how they had escaped.”

  “But when did you discover that the money had been stolen?” said Sexton Blake.

  “Not for several minutes,” said Mr. Flower. “In fact, after examining the room, I had come to the conclusion that I had surprised the burglars before they had time to steal anything, when it occurred to me to look in my desk. Then I found that it had been forced open, and closed again. The lock, in fact, had been smashed; and when I raised the roll-top. I saw at a glance that the bag had disappeared.

  “On bearing my announcement that the bag had been stolen, my daughter fainted. After I had, satisfied myself that nothing else had been stolen, I dressed, drove to the village, informed the constable of what had occurred, and then drove to the Towers and informed Lord Borrowby. It was at his suggestion that I decided to ask you to investigate the case. And now”—he heaved a sigh of relief—”I think I’ve told you everything.”

  A few minutes later they reached Ugthorpe Lodge.

  In accordance with Mr. Flower’s instructions, nothing had been disturbed in the library. Sexton Blake made a rapid examination of the room; then he turned to Mr. Flower.

  “You spoke of burglars in the plural number,” he said, pointing to the table. “As you see, however, only one of them must have been hungry. There is only one plate, one glass, and one knife and fork.”

  “Humph!” growled Mr. Flower. “I hadn’t noticed that before! It is, however, as you say. Only one of the scoundrels was regaling himself at my expense when I disturbed them.”

  The detective next examined the roll-top desk. The lock was of the most primitive description, and had been smashed open by main force.

  “Amateurish—very amateurish!” he murmured! “This is, not the work of a professional!”

  He examined the window. As already sta
ted, it was a French window, and was secured on the inside by a couple of bolts at the top and another pair at the bottom. Clearly, therefore, nothing outside the window could have unfastened these bolts without first making a breach in the panes; yet both the panes were intact.

  “You didn’t think, I suppose,” he said, “of examining the other windows of the house?”

  “Oh, yes, I did!” said Mr. Flower. “I carefully examined every door and window in the house, and all of them were securely fastened.”

  Sexton Blake made no remark on this statement: but, in his own mind, he registered it as a fact beyond all doubt that the burglars—or one of them, at any rate—had been admitted into the library by somebody inside the house.

  He examined the ground outside the window. To the untrained eye there was nothing to be seen; but, to Sexton Blake, a double track of footprints, one leading to the window and the other away from it, was as clear as the noonday sun. But the footprints were all alike; they were the footprints of one man, not two.

  This, of course, confirmed Sexton Blake’s theory. Somebody had walked up to the outside of the window; a second person, inside the house, had opened the window and admitted him; and, after Mr. Flower had been stunned the first man had stepped through the window and escaped, leaving the second person in the house.

  Who was the second person? Clearly it could only have been one of three people—Miss Flower or one of the two female servants.

  Whilst Sexton Blake was pondering over this discovery, he happened to glance at the silver candlestick, which was still standing on the table by the side of the remains of the burglar’s supper.

  He picked up the candlestick and closely examined it. A black stain which he had observed was apparently of recent origin, and was due to a deposit of sulphide of silver.

  To what was this deposit due? There was only one possible explanation. The silver—of which the candlestick was composed—had been brought in contact with sulphur in some form. But how? Again there was only one explanation. Sexton Blake, who had had a medical training, was well aware that persons who are taking medicine containing sulphur exude small quantities of the drug in their perspiration, with the result that any silver articles they handle, or any silver articles in their pockets—such as a silver watch, or silver coins—are tarnished and blackened by the sulphur, which combines with the silver to form silver sulphide. The explanation of the dark stain on the candlestick was, therefore, perfectly clear. Somebody who was taking sulphur medicine had recently handled the candlestick. In a flash the detective remembered the conversation he had overheard in the chemist’s shop the day before.