Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 4

by R. Austin Freeman

  "Yes, I see that," said Jervis; "but what I don't see is how you arrive at your inferences as to the object from which the dust was derived."

  It is a question of probabilities," replied Thorndyke. "First, as to the kind of wood. It is a red wood. It is pretty certainly not mahogany, as it is too light in colour and mahogany is very little liable to 'the worm.' But the abundance of dust suggests one of those woods which are specially liable to be worm eaten. Of these the fruit woods—walnut, cherry, apple, and pear—are the most extreme cases, cherry being, perhaps, the worst of all and therefore usually avoided by the cabinet-maker. But this dust is obviously not walnut. It is the wrong colour. But it might be either cherry, apple, or pear, and the probabilities are rather in favour of cherry; though, of course, it might be some other relatively soft and sappy red wood."

  "But how do you infer the nature of the object?"

  "Again, by the presence of the dust in these boxes, by the properties of that dust and the large quantity of it. Consider the case of ordinary room dust. You find it on all sorts of surfaces, even high up on the walls or on the ceiling. There is no mystery as to how it gets there. It consists of minute particles, mostly of fibres from textiles, so small and light that they float freely in the air. But this wood consists of relatively large and heavy bodies—over a hundredth of an inch long. From the worm-holes it will fall to the floor; and there it will remain even when the floor is being swept. It cannot rise in the air and become deposited like ordinary dust, and it must therefore have made its way into these boxes in some other manner."

  "Yes, I realize that; but still I don't see how that fact throws any light on the nature of the wooden object."

  "It is merely a suggestion," replied Thorndyke; "and the inference may be quite wrong. But it is a perfectly obvious one. Come now, Jervis, don't let your intellectual joints get stiff. Keep them lissom by exercise. Consider the problem of this dust. How did it get into these boxes and why is there so much of it? If you reason out the probabilities, you must inevitably reach a conclusion as to the nature of the wooden object. That conclusion may turn out to be wrong; but it will be logically justifiable."

  "Well, that is all that matters," Jervis retorted with a sour smile, as he rose and glanced at his watch. "The mere fact of its being wrong we should ignore as an irrelevant triviality; just as the French surgeon, undisturbed by the death of the patient, proceeded with his operation and finally brought it to a brilliantly successful conclusion. I will practise your logical dumb bell exercise, and if I reach no conclusion after all I shall still be comforted by the mental vision of my learned senior scouring the country in search of a hypothetical worm-eaten chest of drawers."

  Thorndyke chuckled softly. "My learned friend is pleased to be ironical. But nevertheless his unerring judgement leads him to a perfectly correct forecast of my proceedings. The next stage of the inquiry will consist in tracing this dust to its sources, and the goal of my endeavours will be the discovery and identification of this wooden object. If I succeed in that, there will be, I imagine, very little more left to discover."

  "No," Jervis agreed, "especially if the owner of the antique should happen to be the elusive Mr. Osmond. So I wish you success in your quest, and only hope it may not resemble too closely that of the legendary blind man, searching in a dark room for a black hat—that isn't there."

  With this parting shot and a defiant grin, Jervis took his departure, leaving Thorndyke to complete the examination of the remaining material.

  XV. MR. WAMPOLE IS HIGHLY AMUSED

  On a certain Saturday afternoon at a few minutes to three the door of Mr. Woodstock's office in High Street, Burchester, opened somewhat abruptly and disclosed the figures of the solicitor himself and his chief clerk.

  "Confounded nuisance all this fuss and foolery," growled the former, pulling out his watch and casting an impatient glance up the street. "I hope he is not going to keep us waiting."

  "He is not due till three," Hepburn remarked, soothngly; and then, stepping out and peering up the nearly empty street, he added: "Perhaps that may be he—that tall man with the little clerical-looking person."

  "If it is, he seems to be bringing his luggage with him," said Mr. Woodstock, regarding the pair, and especially the suit-cases that they carried, with evident disfavour; "but you are right. They are coming here."

  He put away his watch, and as the two men crossed the road, he assumed an expression of polite hostility.

  "Dr. Thorndyke?" he inquired as the new-comers halted opposite the doorway; and having received confirmation of his surmise, he continued: "I am Mr. Woodstock, and this is my colleague, Mr. Hepburn. May I take it that this gentleman is concerned in our present business?" As he spoke he fixed a truculent blue eye on Thorndyke's companion, who crinkled apologetically.

  "This is Mr. Polton, my laboratory assistant," Thorndyke explained, "who has come with me to give me any help that I may need."

  "Indeed," said Woodstock, glaring inquisitively at the large suit-case which Polton carried. "Help? I gathered from Mr. Penfield's letter that you wished to inspect the office, and I must confess that I found myself utterly unable to imagine why. May I ask what you expect to learn from an inspection of the premises?"

  "That," replied Thorndyke, "is a rather difficult question to answer. But as all my information as to what has occurred here is second- or third-hand, I thought it best to see the place myself and make a few inquiries on the spot. That is my routine practice."

  "Ah, I see," said Woodstock. "Your visit is just a matter of form, a demonstration of activity. Well, I am sorry I can't be present at the ceremony. My colleague and I have an engagement elsewhere; but my office-keeper, Mr. Wampole, will be able to tell you anything that you may wish to know and show you all there is to see excepting the strong-room. If you want to see that, as I suppose you do, I had better show it to you now, as I must take the key away with me."

  He led the way along the narrow hall, half-way down which he opened a door inscribed "Clerks' Office," and entered a large room, now unoccupied save by an elderly man who sat at a table with the parts of a dismembered electric bell spread out before him. Through this Mr. Woodstock passed into a somewhat smaller room furnished with a large writing-table, one or two nests of deed-boxes, and a set of book-shelves. Nearly opposite the table was the massive door of the strong-room, standing wide open with the key in the lock.

  "This is my private office," said Mr. Woodstock, "and here is the strong-room. Perhaps you would like to step inside. I am rather proud of this room. You don't often see one of this size. And it is absolutely fire-proof; thick steel lining, concrete outside that, and then brick. It is practically indestructible. Those confounded boxes occupied that long upper shelf."

  Thorndyke did not appear to be specially interested in the strong-room. He walked in, looked round at the steel walls with their ranks of steel shelves, loaded with bundles of documents, and then walked out

  "Yes," he said, "it is a fine room, as strong and secure as one could wish; though, of course, its security has no bearing on our case, since it must have been entered either with its own key or a duplicate. May I look at the key?"

  Mr. Woodstock withdrew it from the lock and handed it to him without comment, watching him with undisguised impatience as he turned it over and examined its blade.

  "Not a difficult type of key to duplicate," he remarked as he handed it back, "though these wardless pin-keys are more subtle than they look."

  "I suppose they are," Woodstock assented indifferently. "But really, these investigations appear to me rather pointless, seeing that the identity of the thief is known. And now I must be off; but first let me introduce you to my deputy, Mr. Wampole."

  He led the way back to the clerks' office, where his subordinate was busily engaged in assembling the parts of the bell.

  "This is Dr. Thorndyke, Wampole, who has come with his assistant, Mr.—er—Bolton, to inspect the premises and make a few inquiries. You can show hi
m anything that he wants to see and give him all the assistance that you can in the way of answering questions. And," concluded Mr. Woodstock, shaking hands stiffly with Thorndyke, "I wish you a successful issue to your labours."

  As Mr. Woodstock and his colleague departed, closing the outer door after them, Mr. Wampole laid down his screw-driver and looked at Thorndyke with a slightly puzzled expression.

  "I don't quite understand, sir, what you want to do," said he, "or what sort of inspection you want to make; but I am entirely at your service, if you will kindly instruct me. What would you like me to show you first?

  "I don't think we need interrupt your work just at present, Mr. Wampole. The first thing to be done is to make a rough plan of the premises, and while my assistant is doing that, perhaps I might ask you a few questions if it will not distract you too much."

  "It will not distract me at all," Mr. Wampole replied, picking up his screw-driver. "I am accustomed to doing odd jobs about the office—I am the handy man of the establishment—and I am not easily put out of my stride."

  Evidently he was not; for even as he was speaking his fingers were busy in a neat, purposive way that showed clearly that his attention was not wandering from his task. Thorndyke watched him curiously, not quite able to "place" him. His hands were the skilful, capable hands of a mechanic, and this agreed with Woodstock's description of him and his own. But his speech was that of a passably educated man and his manner was quite dignified and self-possessed.

  "By the way," said Thorndyke, "Mr. Woodstock referred to you as the office-keeper. Does that mean that you are the custodian of the premises?"

  "Nominally," replied Wampole. "I am a law-writer by profession; but when I first came here, some twenty years ago, I came as a caretaker and used to live upstairs. But for many years past the upstairs rooms have been used for storage—obsolete books, documents, and all sorts of accumulations. Nobody lives in the house now. We lock the place up when we go away at night. As for me, I am, as I said, the handy man of the establishment. I do whatever comes along—copy letters, engross leases, keep an eye on the state of the premises, and so on."

  "I see. Then you probably know as much of the affairs of this office as anybody."

  "Probably, sir. I am the oldest member of the staff, and I am usually the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night. I expect I can tell you anything that you want to know."

  "Then I will ask you one or two questions, if I may. You probably know that my visit here is connected with the robbery of Mr. Hollis's gems?"

  "The alleged robbery," Mr. Wampole corrected. "Yes, sir. Mr. Woodstock told me that."

  "You appear to be somewhat doubtful about the robbery."

  "I am not doubtful at all," Wampole replied in a tone of great decision. "I am convinced that the whole thing is a mare's nest. The gems may have been stolen. I suppose they were as Mr. Hollis says they were. But they weren't stolen from here."

  "You put complete trust in the strong-room?"

  "Oh no, I don't, sir. This is a solicitor's strong-room, not a banker's. It is secure against fire, not against robbery. It was designed for the custody of things such as documents, of great value to their owners but of no value to a thief. It was no proper receptacle for jewels. They should have gone to a bank."

  "Do I understand, then, that unauthorized persons might have obtained access to the strong-room?"

  "They might, during business hours. Mr. Woodstock unlocks it when he arrives and it is usually open all day; or if it is shut, the key is left hanging on the wall. But it has never been taken seriously as a bank strong-room is. Mr. Hepburn and Mr. Osmond kept their cricket-bags and other things in it, and we have all been in the habit of putting things in there if we were leaving them here over-night."

  "Then, really, any member of the staff had the opportunity to make away with Mr. Hollis's property?"

  "I wouldn't put it as strongly as that," replied Wampole, with somewhat belated caution. "Any of us could have gone into the strong-room; but not without being seen by some of the others. Still, one must admit that a robbery might have been possible; the point is that it didn't happen. I checked those boxes when I helped to put them in, and I checked them when we took them out. They were all there in their original wrappings with Mr. Hollis's handwriting on them and all the seals intact. It is nonsense to talk of a robbery in the face of those facts."

  "And you attach no significance to Mr. Osmond's disappearance?"

  "No, sir. He was a bachelor and could go when and where he pleased. It was odd of him, I admit, but he sometimes did odd things; a hasty, impulsive gentleman, quick to jump at conclusions and make decisions and quick to act. Not a discreet gentleman at all; rather an unreasonable gentleman, perhaps, but I should say highly scrupulous. I can't imagine him committing a theft."

  "Should you describe him as a nervous or timid man?"

  Mr. Wampole emitted a sound as if he had clockwork in his inside and was about to strike. "I never met a less nervous man," he replied with emphasis. "No, sir. Bold to rashness would be my description of Mr. John Osmond. A buccaneering type of man. A yachtsman, a boxer, a wrestler, a footballer, and a cricketer. A regular hard nut, sir. He should never have been in an office. He ought to have been a sailor, an explorer, or a big-game hunter."

  "What was he like to look at?"

  "Just what you would expect—a big, lean, square-built man, hatchet-faced, Roman-nosed, with blue eyes, light-brown hair, and a close-cropped beard and moustache. Looked like a naval officer."

  "Do you happen to know if his residence has been examined?"

  "Mr. Woodstock and the Chief Constable searched his rooms, but of course they didn't find anything. He had only two small rooms, as he took his meals and spent a good deal of his time with Mr. Hepburn, his brother-in-law. He seemed very fond of his sister and her two little boys."

  "Would it be possible for me to see those rooms?"

  "I don't see why not, sir. They are locked up now, but the keys are here and the rooms are only a few doors down the street."

  Here occurred a slight interruption, for Mr. Wampole, having completed his operations on the bell, now connected it with the battery—which had also been under repair—when it emitted a loud and cheerful peal. At the same moment, as if summoned by the sound, Polton entered holding a small drawing-board on which was a neatly executed plan of the premises.

  "Dear me, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Wampole, casting an astonished glance at the plan. "You are very thorough in your methods. I see you have even put in the furniture."

  "Yes," Thorndyke agreed, with a faint smile; "we must needs be thorough even if we reach no result."

  Mr. Wampole regarded him with a sly smile. "Very true, sir," he chuckled—"very true, indeed. A bill of costs needs something to explain the total. But, God bless us! what is this?"

  "This" was, in effect, a diminutive vacuum cleaner, fitted with a little revolving brush and driven by means of a large dry battery, which Polton was at the moment disinterring from his suit-case. Thorndyke briefly explained the nature of the apparatus while Mr. Wampole stared at it with an expression of stupefaction.

  "But why have you brought it here, sir?" he exclaimed. "The premises would certainly be the better for a thorough cleaning, but surely—"

  "Oh, we are not going to 'vacuum clean' you," Thorndyke reassured him. "We are going to take samples of dust from the different parts of the premises."

  "Are you, indeed, sir? And, if I may take the liberty of asking, what do you propose to do with them?"

  "I shall examine them carefully when I get home," Thorndyke replied, "and I may then possibly be able to judge whether the robbery took place here or elsewhere."

  As Thorndyke furnished this explanation, Mr. Wampole stood gazing at him as if petrified. Once he opened his mouth, but shut it again tightly as if not trusting himself to speak. At length he rejoined: "Wonderful! wonderful!" and then, after an interval, he continued meditatively: "I seem to have rea
d somewhere of a wise woman of the East who was able, by merely examining a hair from the beard of a man who had fallen downstairs, to tell exactly how many stairs he had fallen down. But I never imagined that it was actually possible."

  "It does sound incredible," Thorndyke admitted, gravely. "She must have had remarkable powers of deduction. And now, if Mr. Polton is ready, we will begin our perambulation. Which was Mr. Osmond's office?"

  "I will show you," replied Mr. Wampole, recovering from his trance of astonishment. He led the way out into the hall and thence into a smallish room in which were a writing-table and a large, old-fashioned, flap-top desk.

  "This table," he explained, "is Mr. Hepburn's. The desk was used by Mr. Osmond and his belongings are still in it. That second door opens into Mr. Woodstock's office."

  "Is it usually kept open or closed?" Thorndyke asked.

  "It is nearly always open; and as it is, as you see"—here he threw it open—"exactly opposite the door of the strong-room, no one could go in there unobserved unless Mr. Woodstock, Mr. Hepburn, and Mr. Osmond had all been out at the same time."

  Thorndyke made a note of this statement and then asked: "Would it be permissible to look inside Mr. Osmond's desk? Or is it locked?"

  "I don't think it is locked. No, it is not," he added, demonstrating the fact by raising the lid; "and, as you see, there is nothing very secret inside."

  The contents, in fact, consisted of a tobacco-tin, a couple of briar pipes, a ball of string, a pair of gloves, a clothes-brush, a pair of much-worn hair-brushes, and a number of loose letters and bills. These last Thorndyke gathered together and laid aside without examination, and then proceeded methodically to inspect each of the other objects in turn, while Mr. Wampole watched him with the faintest shadow of a smile.