Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 7

by R. Austin Freeman

  Apparently he had; for as he stooped to peer into the keyhole, his hand came out of the pocket holding an object that looked somewhat like a rather unusual pocket corkscrew fitted with some stout angular wire levers. One of these he inserted into the keyhole and pried about the interior of the lock while Mrs. Mitchens gazed expectantly at his hand, which concealed both the keyhole and the instrument.

  "Yes," said he, "the very thing"; and, as he spoke, the lock clicked, the instrument was withdrawn (disappearing instantly into the pocket whence it had come), and Polton turned the handle and tried the door, shutting it again immediately.

  "It isn’t bolted, you see, madam," said he, stepping back to make way for her.

  She showed a natural reluctance to enter that mysterious and ominous room, but after a few moments’ hesitation she grasped the knob, turned it softly, opened the door and stepped in. But even as she entered she uttered a low scream and stood stock still with the doorknob in her hand, staring before her with an expression of horror.

  "Oh, the poor thing!" she exclaimed. "She has made away with herself. Do, please, come in and look at her."

  On this, Polton entered the room followed by Tom, and for a while both stood by the door gazing at the tragic figure sitting limply with dropped head in a little elbow chair that had been drawn up to the table. The right arm hung straight down while the left lay on the table, and, close to the discoloured hand was an empty tumbler, and, a few inches away, a small glass water-jug and a little bottle containing white tablets.

  "Poor creature!" moaned Mrs. Mitchens. "I wonder why she did it, so bright and cheerful as she always seemed. And how dreadful she looks, poor dear. I should never have recognized her."

  Polton, meanwhile, had cast a keen glance round the room, and now, stepping forward, leaned over the table to scrutinize the tumbler and the bottle of tablets.

  "What is in that bottle?" Tom asked.

  "Cyanide of potassium," was the reply.

  "That is a strong poison, isn’t it?"

  "A most deadly poison," Polton replied, "and extremely rapid in its action; quite easy to obtain, too, as you see from the label on this bottle—’Photographic Tablets’; easy to get and hard to trace."

  "The tracing of them won’t be of much importance in this case," remarked Tom, "as she poisoned herself. The question is, Why on earth did she do it?"

  From the poison Polton turned his attention to the corpse; and, as he stood gazing at the dead woman, an expression of surprise and perplexity stole over his face. At this moment a beam of pale autumn sunlight shone in through the window, lighting up the fair hair to the brightness of burnished gold. This appearance seemed further to surprise Polton, for, with a distinctly startled expression, he stepped close to the corpse, and, delicately picking up a small tress of the golden hair, held it close to his face and scrutinized it intently. Then as if still unsatisfied, he gently raised the bowed head and looked long and intently into the poor bloated, discoloured face. Tom and the landlady both watched him in astonishment, and the former demanded:

  "What is it, Polton?"

  Polton, still holding the head erect, replied impressively:

  "This woman, sir, is not Mrs. Schiller."

  "Not Mrs. Schiller!" the landlady echoed. "But she must be. Who else could she be, locked in here in Mrs. Schiller’s room?"

  "This is certainly not Mrs. Schiller," Polton persisted. "I ask you, sir, to come and see for yourself. You knew her better than I did. You will see that the hair is the wrong colour and the features are different."

  "I noticed the hair when the sun shone on it," said Tom, "and it struck me as being somehow changed. But as to the features, I should say that they are quite unrecognizable."

  "Not at all, sir," replied Polton. "The skin is bloated, but there is the nose. That is unchanged, and so, more or less, is the chin. And there are the ears; they are hardly affected at all. You had better come and have a look at her as the identification is most important."

  Thus urged, Tom plucked up courage to make a close inspection; and as Polton held the head up, he examined first the profile and then the ears. A very brief scrutiny satisfied him, for, as he backed away from the corpse, he announced:

  "Yes, Polton, you are right. This is not Lotta Schiller. The nose and chin look the wrong shape, but the ears are quite conclusive. They are of an entirely different type from Lotta’s, and differently set on the head."

  "You really think, sir," said the landlady, "that this poor creature is not Mrs. Schiller?"

  "I feel no doubt whatever," he replied; "and very much relieved I am that she is not."

  "So am I, for that matter," said Mrs. Mitchens. "But how on earth does she come to be here? Locked herself in, too. It’s an absolute mystery."

  "It certainly is," Tom agreed. "But it isn’t our mystery. It will be for the police to solve it."

  "That is true, sir," said Polton, "though perhaps it may be more of our mystery than you think. But, of course, the police will have to be informed at once, and it will be for them to find out who this poor woman is, and how she came to be here. But there is one question that I should like to settle now; that is whether she took the poison herself, or whether it was given to her by someone else."

  "But," Tom objected, "the police will deal with that question. It isn’t our affair."

  "It is not, sir," Polton admitted. "But I should like to know, just for my own satisfaction. Do you happen to have a piece of fairly stiff smooth paper about you?"

  With a rather puzzled air Tom brought out of his pocket the artist’s notebook that he always carried.

  "Will that do?" he asked. "If it will, you can tear a leaf out, but don’t take one with a drawing on it."

  "I won’t tear the leaf out," said Polton. "It will be handier in the book, and I shan’t want to keep it."

  He took the little canvas-bound volume, and, watched curiously by Tom and the landlady, went over to a small writing-table on which lay, beside the blotter, a rubber stamp and an inking-pad.

  Taking up the latter, he carried it across to the table at which the dead woman was sitting, when he once more examined the tumbler as well as he could without touching it.

  "The finger marks," he observed, "look like those of a left hand; and as the left hand is near the tumbler we will try that first."

  Very gently, to avoid disturbing the body, he raised the hand, and, grasping the thumb, pressed it on the inking-pad. Then, laying down the pad and taking up the book, he brought the inked thumb over a blank page, pressed it down lightly and withdrew it. In the same way he took an impression of each of the four fingers, the group of prints being arranged in a line in their correct order, and, as soon as he had finished, he carefully wiped the traces of ink from the fingertips with his handkerchief. Softly laying down the hand, he placed the open book by the side of the tumbler and carefully compared the prints on each.

  "Well," said Tom, "what do you make of it?"

  "The prints on the tumbler are her finger-prints all right," replied Polton. "Would you like to see them?"

  Tom’s principal desire now was to escape from the charnel-house atmosphere of this room, but, as Polton evidently wished him to see the prints, he went over to the table.

  "My prints are very poor, smeary impressions," said Polton, "but you can see the patterns quite well. Look at the thumb-print with that spiral whorl on it, and compare it with the one on the tumbler. You can see plainly that it is the same pattern."

  "Yes," Tom agreed, "I can make that out quite clearly; but the patterns of the fingers don’t seem so distinctive."

  "No," Polton admitted, "they are rather indistinct for some reason, especially in the middle of each print. But still, if you compare them with the tumbler, you can see that the patterns are the same."

  "I’ll take your word for it," said Tom, "as you know more about it than I do. And, after all, it isn’t our affair whether she took the poison herself or not. Of course, the police will settle that ques
tion, and if you take my advice, you will say nothing about these finger-prints. The authorities don’t much like outside interference."

  "I think Mr. Pedley is right," said Mrs. Mitchens. "We don’t want to appear officious or meddlesome, and we certainly don’t want to offend the police."

  "No, ma’am," Polton agreed, "we do not. It will be much better to keep our own counsel; which, in fact, is what I had intended to suggest. I made the trial just to satisfy my curiosity as to whether it was a case of suicide or murder."

  "Well," said Tom, edging towards the door, "now we know; and the next question is, who is to inform the police?"

  As he raised the question he looked significantly at Mrs. Mitchens, who replied gloomily, as they retired to the hall:

  "I suppose, as I am the householder and Mrs. Schiller’s landlady, I had better go. But I can’t tell them much, and I expect they will want to question you about Mrs. Schiller."

  "I expect they will," said Tom, "but, meanwhile, I think you are the proper person to give the information."

  With this view Polton agreed emphatically, and, by way of closing the discussion, softly drew the key out of the lock, closed the door, and, having locked it, withdrew the key and handed it to the landlady. Then he and Tom, after a few words of condolence with Mrs. Mitchens, took their leave and made their way to the studio.

  "Pah!" exclaimed Tom, taking several deep breaths as they emerged into the open air. "What a horrible affair! But I suppose you are used to this sort of thing."

  "To some extent, sir," replied Polton. "I have learned from the Doctor not to allow my attention to be distracted by mere physical unpleasantness. But what a mysterious affair this is. I can make nothing of it. Here is a woman, apparently a stranger, locked in Mrs. Schiller’s room with Mrs. Schiller’s key. All sorts of questions arise. Who is she? How did she get that key? Why did she come to that place to commit suicide—if she really did commit suicide? And where is Mrs. Schiller? The police will want to find answers to those questions, and some of them will take a good deal of answering, I fancy."

  "Yes," Tom agreed gloomily, "and they’ll look to us to find some of the answers. It is going to be an infernal nuisance."

  When they had washed—which Tom did with exhaustive thoroughness—in a big bowl in the studio sink, they resumed the discussion while they laid the table for tea and boiled the kettle. But nothing came of it beyond bringing to light, the curious difference in their points of view. To Tom, the tragedy was repulsively horrible and his connection with it profoundly distasteful. Interest in it or curiosity he had none.

  Polton, on the other hand, so far from being shocked or disgusted, seemed to savour the details with a sort of ghoulish relish and fairly to revel in the mystery and obscurity of the case; so much so that Tom’s repeated efforts to divert the conversation into more agreeable channels failed utterly, and, for the first time in his experience, he was almost relieved when the time came for Polton to return to his duties.

  "Well, sir," the departing guest remarked as he wriggled into his overcoat, "this has been an eventful afternoon. I have enjoyed it immensely." Here he paused suddenly in his wrigglings, gazing at Tom in ludicrous consternation. "God bless me, sir," he exclaimed, "I had nearly forgotten the pedometer. I have cleaned it up and put it in going order, and I have fitted a new regulator with a micrometer screw and attached a watch-key to turn it with. You will see at once how it works, but I have written down a few directions."

  He produced the instrument, wrapped in tissue paper, and laid it with the little document on the table. Then, deprecating Tom’s grateful acknowledgments, he shook hands and bustled away, en route for the Temple.

  VIII. REVELATIONS

  When Polton’s departure had left him to the peaceful enjoyment of his own society, Tom Pedley tried to dismiss from his mind the gruesome experience of the afternoon and settle down to his ordinary occupations. But try as he would to forget it, that dreadful figure, seated at the table, intruded constantly into his thoughts and refused to be dislodged; and when, later in the evening, the studio bell announced a visitor, he resigned himself to the inevitable, and went out to the gate, where, as he had expected, he found a police officer waiting on the threshold.

  "You’ll guess what I have come about, sir," the latter said, genially, as Tom conducted him to the studio; "just to make a few preliminary inquiries. I am the coroner’s officer and it is my job to find out what evidence is available for the inquest."

  "Well, Sergeant," said Tom, "I will give you all the help I can, though I am afraid it will be mighty little. However, if you will take a seat and tell me what you want to know, I’ll do my best. Perhaps a glass of beer might be helpful."

  The sergeant agreed that it might; and when he had been settled in an easy chair by the fire with a jug of beer and a couple of glasses on a small table by his side, and had—by invitation—filled and lighted his pipe, the inquisition began.

  But we know what Tom’s information amounted to. Of the material facts of the case he knew nothing. The dead woman was a stranger to him, and even Lotta Schiller was little more; indeed, as he strove vainly to answer the sergeant’s questions, he was surprised to find how completely ignorant he was of her antecedents, her position in the world, her friends and relations, of everything, in fact, concerning her except the little that he had gathered from direct observation.

  "Seems rather a mysterious sort of lady," the sergeant remarked as Tom refilled his glass. "Pretty discreet, too; not given to babbling. Is there anybody that knows more about her than you do?"

  Tom suggested Mr. Vanderpuye, but as the latter’s address was unknown to him, he referred the sergeant to Mr. Polton.

  "That’s the gentleman who unlocked the door from the outside," commented the sergeant. "Handy gentleman he must be. Yes, I’d like to have a word with him if you would tell me where to find him."

  "He is a laboratory assistant to Dr. Thorndyke of 5A King’s Bench Walk, and he lives on the premises."

  At the mention of "The Doctor’s" name the sergeant pricked up his ears.

  "Oh, that’s who he is," said he. "Would be a handy gentleman, naturally. I’ll just pop along and see what he can tell me. Do you think it is too late to call on him to-night?"

  Bearing in mind Polton’s intense interest in the case, Tom thought that it was not; whereupon the sergeant, having finished his beer and reloaded his pipe, prepared to depart.

  "We shall want his evidence," said he as he moved towards the door, "to prove that the door was really locked from the inside; and as to yourself, sir, although you don’t seem to have much to tell, I expect you’ll get a summons. Something new might arise which you could throw light on. However, the inquest won’t be opened for some days as time has to be allowed for the analysis after the post mortem."

  Events justified the sergeant’s forecast. In due course the summons was served, and, at the appointed place and time Tom presented himself to give evidence if called upon. He arrived a little before time and thereby secured a reasonably comfortable Windsor armchair, in which he sat at his ease and observed the arrival of the other witnesses, among whom were Mrs. Mitchens, his friend, Dr. Oldfield, Polton and Vanderpuye—who arrived together—and last, no less a person than his old acquaintance, Detective-inspector Blandy.

  "Hallo, Pedley," said the doctor, taking the adjoining chair, "sorry to see you mixed up in a disreputable affair like this. Extraordinary business, though, isn’t it? Ha, here comes the coroner and the jury; they’ve been to view the body, I suppose, and look as if they hadn’t enjoyed it. Well, how are you? I haven’t seen anything of you for quite a long time; not since you took up with that painted Judy that I have seen you gadding about with."

  Tom reddened slightly. He had, in fact, rather neglected his friends since Lotta had taken possession of him. However, there was no opportunity to rebut the accusation, for the coroner, having taken his seat and glanced round at the witnesses and the reporters, proceeded to open the inqui
ry with a brief address. It was a very brief address; no more than a simple statement that "we are here to inquire into the circumstances in which a woman, whose name appears to be Emma Robey, met with her death. I need not," he continued, "go into any particulars, as these will transpire in the depositions of the witnesses; and by way of introducing you to the circumstances I will begin by taking the evidence of Sergeant Porter."

  On hearing his name mentioned, Tom’s new acquaintance took up his position at the table and stood at attention while he disposed of the preliminaries with professional swiftness and precision and waited for the next question.

  "I think, Sergeant," said the coroner, "that you had better just tell us what you know about this affair"; whereupon the officer proceeded, with the manner of one reading from a document, to recite the facts.

  "On Thursday the 30th of December 1930 at 3.46 p.m., Mrs. Julia Mitchens came to the police station and reported that she had found in a room in her house the dead body of a woman who was a stranger to her, and who had apparently committed suicide by taking poison. She stated that the room had been let to, and was ordinarily occupied by, a Mrs. Schiller, but that the said tenant had been absent from her rooms for some time and that her present whereabouts was unknown. In answer to certain questions from me, she gave the following further particulars"—here the sergeant gave a more detailed account of the events, including the unlocking of the door by Mr. Polton "with some kind of instrument," which we need not report since they are already known to the reader.

  On receiving these particulars, he had accompanied Mrs. Mitchens to her house and had been admitted by her to the room, where he found the corpse and the other objects as she had described them. Having given a vivid and exact description of the room, the seated corpse, the tumbler and the poison bottle, he continued:

  "As the circumstances were very remarkable, I decided to make no detailed examination without further instructions, and, accordingly I came away, having locked the door and taken possession of the key, and returned to the station, where I made my report to the Superintendent. When he had heard it, he decided that it would be advisable to inform the authorities at headquarters of the facts so far known and directed me to telephone to the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, which I did, and was informed in reply that an officer was being dispatched immediately. I also telephoned to the Divisional surgeon, acquainting him with the facts and asking him to attend as soon as possible.