Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 5

by R. Austin Freeman

  But I had not allowed for Thorndyke's uncanny capacity for inferring what was passing in another person's mind. Very soon it became evident to me that he was fully alive to the possibility of some reservations on my part; and when one or two discreet questions had elicited some fact which I ought to have volunteered, he proceeded to something like definite cross-examination.

  "So the household has broken up and the inmates scattered?" he began, when I had told him that I had obtained possession of the keys. "And Mabel Withers seems to have vanished, unless the police have kept her in view Did you hear anything about Miss Norris?"

  "Not very much. Barbara and she have exchanged visits once or twice, but they don't seem to see much of each other."

  "And what about Wallingford? Does he seem to have been much disturbed by Miller's descent on him?"

  I had to admit that he was in a state bordering on panic.

  "And what did Mrs. Monkhouse think of the forged orders on Dimsdale's headed paper?"

  "He hadn't disclosed that. She thinks that he bought the cocaine at a druggist's in the ordinary way, and I didn't think it necessary to undeceive her."

  "No The least said the soonest mended. Did you gather that she sees much of Wallingford?"

  "Yes, rather too much. He was haunting her flat almost daily until she gave him a hint not to make his visits too noticeable."

  "Why do you suppose he was haunting her flat? So far as you can judge, Mayfield—that is in the strictest confidence, you understand—does there seem to be anything between them beyond ordinary friendliness?"

  "Not on her side, certainly, but on his—yes, undoubtedly. His devotion to her amounts almost to infatuation, and has for a long time past. Of course, she realizes his condition, and though he is rather a nuisance to her, she takes a very kindly and indulgent view of his vagaries."

  "Naturally, as any well-disposed woman would. I suppose you didn't see anything of him yesterday?"

  Of course I had to relate the meeting in Kensington Gardens, and I could see by the way Thorndyke looked at me that he was wondering why I had not mentioned the matter before.

  "It almost looks," said he, "as if he had followed you there. Was there anything in his manner of approach that seemed to support that idea?"

  "I think there was, for I saw him at some distance," and here I felt bound to describe Wallingford's peculiar tactics.

  "But," said Thorndyke, "why was he looking about behind him? He must have known that you were in front."

  "It seems," I explained, feebly, "that he has some ridiculous idea that he is being watched and followed."

  "Ha!" said Thorndyke. "Now I wonder who he supposes is watching and following him."

  "I fancy he suspects you," I replied. And so the murder was out, with the additional fact that I had not been very ready with my information.

  Thorndyke, however, made no comment on my reticence beyond a steady and significant look at me.

  "So," said he, "he suspects me of suspecting him. Well, he is giving us every chance. But I think, Mayfield, you would do well to put Mrs. Monkhouse on her guard. If Wallingford makes a public parade of his feelings towards her, he may put dangerous ideas into the head of Mr. Superintendent Miller. You must realize that Miller is looking for a motive for the assumed murder. And if it comes to his knowledge that Harold Monkhouse's secretary was in love with Harold Monkhouse's wife, he will think that he has found a motive that is good enough."

  "Yes, that had occurred to me; and in fact, I did give her a hint to that effect, but it was hardly necessary. She had seen it for herself."

  As we now seemed to have exhausted this topic, I ventured to make a few enquiries about the rather farcical infernal machine.

  "Did your further examination of it," I asked, "yield any new information?"

  "Very little," Thorndyke replied, "but that little was rather curious. There were no finger-prints at all. I examined both the pistol and the jar most thoroughly, but there was not a trace of a finger-mark, to say nothing of a print. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the person who sent the machine wore gloves while he was putting it together."

  "But isn't that a rather natural precaution in these days?" I asked.

  "A perfectly natural precaution, in itself," he replied, "but not quite consistent with some other features. For instance, the wadding with which the pistol-barrel was plugged consisted of a little ball of knitting-wool of a rather characteristic green. I will show it to you, and you will see that it would be quite easy to match and therefore possible to trace. But you see that there are thus shown two contrary states of mind. The gloves suggest that the sender entertained the possibility that the machine might fail to explode, whereas the wool seems to indicate that no such possibility was considered."

  He rose from the table—lunch being now finished—and brought from a locked cabinet a little ball of wool of a rather peculiar greenish blue. I took it to the window and examined it carefully, impressed by the curious inconsistency which he had pointed out.

  "Yes," I agreed, "there could be no difficulty in matching this. But as to tracing it, that is a different matter. There must have been thousands of skeins of this sold to, at least, hundreds of different persons."

  "Very true," said he. "But I was thinking of it rather as a corroborating item in a train of circumstantial evidence."

  He put the "corroborating item" back in the cabinet and as, at this moment a taxi was heard to draw up at our entry, he picked up a large attache case and preceded me down the stairs.

  During the comparatively short journey I made a few not very successful efforts to discover what was Thorndyke's real purpose in making this visit of inspection to the dismantled house. But his reticence and mine were not quite similar. He answered all my questions freely. He gave me a wealth of instances illustrating the valuable evidence obtained by the inspection of empty houses. But none of them seemed to throw any light on his present proceedings. And when I pointed this out, he smilingly replied that I was in precisely the same position as himself.

  "We are not looking for corroborative evidence," said he. "That belongs to a later stage of the inquiry. We are looking for some suggestive fact which may give us a hint where to begin. Naturally we cannot form any guess as to what kind of fact that might be."

  It was not a very illuminating answer, but I had to accept it, although I had a strong suspicion that Thorndyke's purpose was not quite so vague as he represented it to be, and determined unobtrusively to keep an eye on his proceedings.

  "Can I give you any assistance?" I enquired, craftily, when I had let him into the hall and shut the outer door.

  "Yes," he replied, "there is one thing that you can do for me which will be very helpful. I have brought a packet of cards with me"—here he produced from his pocket a packet of stationer's postcards. "If you will write on each of them the description and particulars of one room with the name of the occupant in the case of bedrooms, and lay the card on the mantelpiece of the room which it describes, I shall be able to reconstitute the house as it was when it was inhabited. Then we can each go about our respective businesses without hindering one another."

  I took the cards—and the fairly broad hint—and together we made a preliminary tour of the house, which, now that the furniture, carpets and pictures were gone, looked very desolate and forlorn; and as it had not been cleaned since the removal, it had a depressingly dirty and squalid appearance. Moreover, in each room, a collection of rubbish and discarded odds and ends had been roughly swept up on the hearth, converting each fireplace into a sort of temporary dust-bin.

  After a glance around the rooms on the ground floor, I made my way up to the room in which Harold Monkhouse had died, which was my principal concern as well as Thorndyke's.

  "Well, Mayfield," the latter remarked, running a disparaging eye round the faded, discoloured walls and the blackened ceiling, "you will have to do something here. It is a shocking spectacle. Would you mind roughly sketching out the
position of the furniture? I see that the bedstead stood by this wall with the head, I presume, towards the window, and the bedside table about here, I suppose, at his right hand. By the way, what was there on that table? Did he keep a supply of food of any kind for use at night?"

  "I think they usually put a little tin of sandwiches on the table when the night preparations were made."

  "You say 'they'. Who put the box there?"

  "I can't say whose duty it was in particular. I imagine Barbara would see to it when she was at home. In her absence it would be done by Madeline or Mabel."

  "Not Wallingford?"

  "No. I don't think Wallingford ever troubled himself about any of the domestic arrangements excepting those that concerned Barbara."

  "Do you know who made the sandwiches?"

  "I think Madeline did, as a rule. I know she did sometimes."

  "And as to drink? I suppose he had a water-bottle, at any rate."

  "Yes, that was always there, and a little decanter of whiskey. But he hardly ever touched that. Very often a small flagon of lemonade was put on the table with the sandwiches."

  "And who made the lemonade?"

  "Madeline. I know that, because it was a very special brand which no one else could make."

  "And supposing the sandwiches and the lemonade were not consumed, do you happen to know what became of the remainder?"

  "I have no idea. Possibly the servants consumed them, but more probably they were thrown away. Well-fed servants are not partial to remainders from a sick-room."

  "You never heard of any attacks of illness among any of the servants?"

  "Not to my knowledge. But I shouldn't be very likely to, you know."

  "No. You notice, Mayfield, that you have mentioned one or two rather material facts that were not disclosed at the inquest?"

  "Yes. I was observing that. And it is just as well that they were not disclosed. There were enough misleading facts without them."

  Thorndyke smiled indulgently. "You seem to have made up your mind pretty definitely, on the negative side, at least," he remarked; and then, looking round once more at the walls with their faded, loosened paper, he continued: "I take it that Mr. Monkhouse was not a fresh-air enthusiast."

  "He was not," I replied. "He didn't much care for open windows, especially at night. But how did you arrive at that fact?"

  "I was looking at the wallpaper. This is not a damp house, but yet the paper on the walls of this room is loosening and peeling off in all directions. And if you notice the distribution of this tendency you get the impression that the moisture which loosened the paper proceeded from the neighbourhood of the bed. The wall which is most affected is the one against which the bed stood; and the part of that wall that has suffered most is that which was nearest to the occupant of the bed, and especially to his head. That large piece, hanging down, is just where the main stream of his breath would have impinged."

  "Yes, I see the connection now you mention it; and yet I am surprised that his breath alone should have made the air of the room so damp. All through the winter season, when the window would be shut most closely, the gas was burning; and at night, when the gas was out, he commonly had his candle-lamp alight. I should have thought that the gas and the candle together would have kept the air fairly dry."

  "That," said Thorndyke, "is a common delusion. As a matter of fact they would have quite the opposite effect. You have only to hold an inverted tumbler over a burning candle to realize, from the moisture which immediately condenses on the inside of the tumbler, that the candle, as it burns, gives off quite a considerable volume of steam. But of course, the bulk of the moisture which has caused the paper to peel in this room came from the man's own breath. However, we didn't come here for debating purposes. Let us complete our preliminary tour, and when we have seen the whole house we can each make such more detailed inspection as seems necessary for our particular purposes."

  We accordingly resumed our perambulation (but I noticed that Thorndyke deposited his attache case in Monkhouse's room with the evident intention of returning thither), both of us looking about narrowly: Thorndyke, no doubt, in search of the mysterious "traces" of which he had spoken, and I with an inquisitive endeavour to ascertain what kind of objects or appearances he regarded as "traces."

  We had not gone very far before we encountered an object that even I was able to recognize as significant. It was in a corner of the long corridor that we came upon a little heap of rubbish that had been swept up out of the way; and at the very moment when Thorndyke stopped short with his eyes fixed on it, I saw the object—a little wisp of knitting-wool of the well-remembered green colour. Thorndyke picked it up, and, having exhibited it to me, produced from his letter-case a little envelope such as seedsmen use, in which he put the treasure trove, and as he uncapped his fountain pen, he looked up and down the corridor.

  "Which is the nearest room to this spot?" he asked.

  "Madeline's," I replied. "That is the door of her bedroom, on the right. But all the principal bedrooms are on this floor and Barbara's boudoir as well. This heap of rubbish is probably the sweepings from all the rooms."

  "That is what it looks like," he agreed as he wrote the particulars on the envelope and slipped the latter in his letter-case. "You notice that there are some other trifles in this heap—some broken glass, for instance. But I will go through it when we have finished our tour, though I may as well take this now."

  As he spoke, he stooped and picked up a short piece of rather irregularly shaped glass rod with a swollen, rounded end.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "It is a portion of a small glass pestle and it belongs to one of those little glass mortars such as chemists use in rubbing up powders into solutions or suspensions. You had better not touch it, though it has probably been handled pretty freely. But I shall test it on the chance of discovering what it was last used for."

  He put it away carefully in another seed-envelope and then looked down thoughtfully at the miniature dust-heap; but he made no further investigations at the moment and we resumed the perambulation, I placing the identification card on the mantelpiece of each room while he looked sharply about him, opening all cupboards and receptacles and peering into their, usually empty, interiors.

  When we had inspected the servants' bedrooms and the attics—leaving the indispensable cards—we went down to the basement and visited the kitchen, the scullery, the servants' parlour and the cellars; and this brought our tour to an end.

  "Now," said Thorndyke, "we proceed from the general to the particular. While you are drawing up your schedule of dilapidations I will just browse about and see if I can pick up any stray crumbs in which inference can find nourishment. It isn't a very hopeful quest, but you observe that we have already lighted on two objects which may have a meaning for us."

  "Yes, we have ascertained that someone in this house used a particular kind of wool and that someone possessed a glass mortar. Those do not seem to me very weighty facts."

  "They are not," he agreed; "indeed, they are hardly facts at all. The actual fact is that we have found the things here. But trifles light as air sometimes serve to fill up the spaces in a train of circumstantial evidence. I think I will go and have another look at that rubbish-heap."

  I was strongly tempted to follow him, but could hardly do so in face of his plainly expressed wish to make his inspection alone. Moreover, I had already seen that there was more to be done than I had supposed. The house was certainly not in bad repair, but neither did, it look very fresh nor attractive. Furniture and especially pictures have a way of marking indelibly the walls of a room, and the paintwork in several places showed disfiguring traces of wear. But I was anxious to let this house, even at a nominal rent, so that, by a few years' normal occupation its sinister reputation might be forgotten and its value restored.

  As a result, I was committed to a detailed inspection of the whole house and the making of voluminous notes on the repairs and re-decorations wh
ich would be necessary to tempt even an impecunious tenant to forget that this was a house in which a murder had been committed. For that was the current view, erroneous as I believed it to be. Note-book in hand, I proceeded systematically from room to room and from floor to floor, and became so engrossed with my own business that I almost forgot Thorndyke; though I could hear him moving about the house, and once I met him—on the first floor, with a couple of empty medicine bottles and a small glass jar in his hands, apparently making his way to Harold's room, where, as I have said, he had left his attache case.

  That room I left to the last, as it was already entered in my list and I did not wish to appear to spy upon Thorndyke's proceedings. When, at length, I entered the room I found that he, like myself, had come to the end of his task. On the floor his attache case lay open, crammed with various objects, several of which appeared to be bottles, wrapped in oddments of waste paper (including some pieces of wallpaper which he had apparently stripped off ad hoc when the other supplies failed) and among which I observed a crumpled fly-paper. Respecting this I remarked: "I don't see why you are burdening yourself with this. A fly-paper is in no sense an incriminating object, even though such things have, at times, been put to unlawful use."

  "Very true," he replied as he peeled off the rubber gloves which he had been wearing during the search. "A fly-paper is a perfectly normal domestic object. But, as you say, it can on occasion be used as a source of arsenic for criminal purposes; and a paper that has been so used will be found to have had practically the whole of the arsenic soaked out of it. As I happened to find this in the servants' parlour, it seemed worth while to take it to see whether its charge of arsenic had or ha not been extracted."