"Yes," said the coroner, "I think you have made it clear that the death occurred in the neighbourhood of the barrow and that the body was not brought there from a distance. And that, I think, gives us all the evidence that we need."
He bowed to Thorndyke, and, as the latter returned to his seat, he began a brief and very sensible summing up.
"The disappearance of Mr. Daniel Penrose involves a long and complicated story. But with that story we are not concerned. This is a coroner's inquest; and the function of such an inquiry is to answer certain questions relating to a dead body which has been found within our jurisdiction. Those questions are: Who is the dead person? and where, when and by what means did deceased meet with his death? We are not concerned with the person, if any, who caused the death of deceased unless such person should be plainly and evidently in view. We have to decide whether or not a crime has been committed, but it is not our function to bring that crime home to any particular person. That duty appertains to the police.
"Now, in respect of those questions which I have mentioned, we have no difficulty. The evidence which we have heard enables us to answer them quite confidently. The body has been identified as that of a gentleman named Daniel Penrose; and it has been clearly proved that he met his death at a place called Julliberrie's Grave on the seventeenth of last October and that his death was caused by violence inflicted by some unknown person. These are matters of fact which have been proved; and the only question which you have to decide is that of the nature of the act by which the death was caused. Deceased was killed by a heavy blow on the head inflicted with a bronze pestle. The person who struck that blow killed deceased and, therefore, undeniably committed an act of homicide. But there are many kinds of homicide, varying in their degree of culpability. A man may justifiably kill another in defence of his own life. Then there is no crime. Or he may kill another quite accidentally, when, again, there is no crime. Or he may kill another in the course of a struggle, by violence which was not intended to cause death. Here the act of homicide amounts only to manslaughter; and the degree of criminality will depend on the particular circumstances. Again, a man may kill another with the deliberate and considered intention of killing him—that is with what the law calls malice. Such deliberate and premeditated killing constitutes wilful murder.
"Now, in the present case, we have to consider the circumstances in which the death of deceased occurred; and of those circumstances we have very imperfect knowledge. A striking fact is that the weapon with which deceased was killed was his own property and must, apparently, have been brought to the place by himself. We have learned, also, that he habitually carried this weapon for the purpose of self-defence. There is thus the suggestion that he may have so used it on the occasion when he was killed. That is to say, there is a distinct suggestion of a struggle, and the actual possibility that deceased may have been the aggressor, killed by the unknown in self-defence.
"On the other hand, the unknown, having killed deceased, buried the body secretly and hurried away from the place—incidentally killing another person on his way—and has since given no information and made no sign, unless we assume that the very mysterious letter that Mr. Kickweed received emanated from him. And it is, perhaps, worthwhile to give that letter a brief consideration, as it seems to have some bearing on the question which we are trying to decide.
"Who was the writer of that letter and for what purpose was the letter written? From Dr. Thorndyke we learn that the writer must have been some person who was well acquainted with deceased. That is an important matter, but we are not concerned with the actual identity of the writer. We are concerned with his connection with the death of deceased; and that connection seems to be suggested by the purpose of the letter. That purpose seems to be indicated quite clearly by Dr. Thorndyke. It was to create the belief that deceased was still alive. But nobody—excepting the doctor—had any doubt that he was alive. No suggestion had been made by anybody that he might be dead. Then why should the writer of this letter have sought to create a belief which was already universally held? The only possible answer seems to be that he, himself, knew that deceased was dead and he wished, in the interests of his own safety, to forestall any suspicions that might arise that deceased might be dead.
"Thus the consideration of this letter suggests to us, first, that the writer knew that deceased was dead, and, second, that he had reasons for desiring that the fact of the death should not become known or suspected. But the fact of the death could have been known only to the person who killed deceased; and his anxiety to conceal the fact suggests strongly that he had no reasonable defence if he should be charged with the murder of deceased.
"That, I think, is all that I need say. Deceased was evidently killed by some unknown person; and it is for you to decide whether the circumstances, so far as they are known to us, suggest excusable homicide, accidental homicide, manslaughter, or wilful murder."
On the conclusion of the summing up, the jury consulted together for a few minutes. Then the foreman announced that they had agreed on their finding.
"And what decision have you arrived at?" the coroner asked.
"We find that the deceased was murdered by some person unknown."
"Yes," said the coroner, "I think that it is the only reasonable conclusion at which you could have arrived. I will record a verdict of wilful murder by some person unknown, and we may hope that the police will presently be able to discover who that unknown person is and bring him to justice."
He entered the verdict in the depositions and this brought the proceedings to an end.
XVII. THORNDYKE RETRACES THE TRAIL
As the court rose and we all stood up, Miller turned on me fiercely.
"You never told me about that letter," he exclaimed; "and there was not a word about it in the synopsis that the doctor gave me."
"As to me," said I, "there is no question of reservations. I did not refer to it because I had not regarded it as having any particular bearing on the case."
"No bearing!" exclaimed Miller. "Why, it hits you in the face. But if you think it has no bearing, I'll warrant that is not the doctor's view."
"Naturally," I replied, "I don't know what his views are, but he is here and can answer for himself."
"Well," said Miller, "what about it, Doctor? You knew about that letter and you must know quite well who wrote it and why he wrote it."
"Now, Miller," said Thorndyke, "don't let us misuse words. We don't know who wrote that letter. We may have our opinions, and they may be right—or wrong. But in any case they will be pretty difficult to turn into evidence."
"I suspect you have done that already," grumbled Miller, "and you are keeping that evidence to yourself."
"You are quite wrong," Thorndyke replied. "I have no evidence beyond the facts which are known to you. Actually, I have given very little attention to the letter. It threw no light on the problem which I was trying to solve; whether Penrose was alive or dead, and, if he was dead, where we might look for his body."
"I should have thought it was highly relevant." Miller objected. "If it was good enough for some one to forge a letter to prove that Penrose was alive, when nobody supposed otherwise, that would suggest pretty strongly that the forger knew he was dead."
"So it would," Thorndyke agreed, "but that was of no use to me. I was not out for opinions or beliefs but for demonstrable facts."
"Well," said Miller, "you have produced your demonstrable facts all right, and you have solved your problem. And now, I suppose, you are going on to the next problem: Who murdered Daniel Penrose? And the solution of that problem is to be found in that letter; and as we are both working to the same end, I think you ought to put me in possession of any facts that are known to you."
"But, my dear Miller," Thorndyke protested, "I have no facts respecting this letter that are not known to you. I will hand you the photograph, and you can have an enlargement if you want to employ handwriting experts, or you can have the original. That is
all I can do for you."
He produced his letter-case, and, taking the photograph of the forged letter from it, handed it to Miller, who slipped it into his wallet and buried the latter in the depths of an internal pocket. As he did so he looked round sharply and exclaimed:
"What is the matter, Mr. Horridge? Are you not feeling well, sir?"
I looked at our friend, who seemed to be groping his way towards the door, and certainly the inquiry was justified. His aspect was ghastly. His face was blanched to a tallowy white, his hands trembled visibly, and he had the dazed, bewildered appearance suggestive of a severe mental shock.
"No," he replied unsteadily. "I am not feeling at all well. This awful affair has been too much for me. It was all so horrible and so unexpected."
"Yes," Miller agreed sympathetically. "I expect it has given you a bad shake-up. Better come along with me to the bar and have a good stiff whisky. Don't you think so, Doctor?"
"I think," replied Thorndyke, "that a hot meal and a glass of wine would be better, if Mr. Horridge is returning to town this evening."
"I am," said Horridge, "but I couldn't look at food just now. Besides, my train is due in less than half an hour."
"Well, then," urged Miller, "come along to the bar and have a good stiff drink. That will pick you up and fit you for the journey home. I happen to be going by that train, myself, so I can see you safely to Charing Cross, and into a cab if necessary."
I think Horridge would sooner have been without the proffered escort, but Miller left him no choice, and accordingly allowed himself passively to be led away in the direction of the bar.
Thorndyke watched the two men disapprovingly as they passed out, and when they had disappeared, he remarked:
"I am afraid Miller is going to be a nuisance to us. His activity is premature."
"Yes," I agreed, "he is in full cry after Horridge and he thinks that he is on a hot trail. Obviously, he is convinced that Horridge wrote that letter, and I think he is right."
"I have no doubt that he is," said Thorndyke. "The obvious purpose of that letter was to create evidence that Penrose was alive after Oliver's death, and so would inherit his property. But it would be impossible to prove that Horridge wrote it."
"So it may be," said I. "But Miller has got him at a disadvantage, and he is going to push his opportunity for all that it is worth. If he lets on that he is a police officer, Horridge will probably collapse altogether. He is in a fearful state of panic."
"And well he may be," Thorndyke rejoined, "if he wrote that letter. For, quite apart from the suggestion of guilty knowledge that it offers, the mere writing and uttering of that letter is a serious crime. It is a forgery in the fullest sense. It was done with intent to deceive, and the purpose of the deception was grossly fraudulent. If Miller can frighten him into an admission of having written the letter, he will be absolutely certain of securing a conviction."
"On the charge of forgery," said I. "But that is not Miller's objective. You heard what he said. He is all out on the capital charge."
"Yes, I realise that," said Thorndyke. "Which is why I say that he is going to be a nuisance to us. Because he won't be able to prove his case and he will have set up a disturbance just at the moment when what is needed is a little masterly inactivity combined with careful observation. It is a pity that Miller will not trust us more. He will butt in when the case is not ready for police methods. However, I am glad he is not travelling up with us. His eagerness to acquire knowledge becomes rather fatiguing."
"We are not going up by that train, then?"
"No. We may as well have a little early dinner and take the motor omnibus to Canterbury."
We adopted this plan, and, after a comfortable and restful meal, caught the omnibus and were duly deposited in the main street of Canterbury, not far from the cathedral. As we proceeded thence towards the station, we noticed an "antique" shop, the fascia of which bore the single word "Todd."
"This," I remarked, halting to glance at the antiquities—mostly of the prehistoric type—which were displayed in the window, "seems to be the shop that Horridge referred to as a favourite resort of poor Penrose. Probably some of the things that we saw in the collection came from here."
"One of them almost certainly did," said Thorndyke. "Don't you remember that Saxon brooch? The entry in the catalogue noted its origin as 'Sweeney's Resurrection.'"
"I remember the entry, now you mention it. Lockhart suggested that 'Sweeney' probably meant Todd, and apparently he was right."
We went on our way, discussing the late Daniel Penrose and his harmless oddities, of which I had been so intolerant, and eventually reached the station in time to select our compartment at our leisure. There were few passengers besides ourselves, so that we were able to secure a first-class smoking-compartment of which we were the sole occupants, a matter to which I attended with some anxiety. For the train ran through to Charing Cross without a stop, and the long, uninterrupted journey would afford an opportunity for certain explanations which I felt were now overdue. With this view Thorndyke apparently agreed, for, when I presently opened my examination with a tentative question, he replied quite freely, without a sign of his customary reticence and evasiveness.
"Of course," I began, "when Penrose's body was found, I realised at once, in general terms, how I had managed to miss the essential points of the case. The possibility that Penrose might be dead never occurred to me; and it ought. It looks obvious enough now. But still I don't quite see how you contrived to establish the fact of his death—which you evidently did—and locate the place of his burial."
"It was all very hypothetical," he replied, "even up to the last stage. Until Elmhurst reported the discovery I was not certain that my theory of the course of events might not contain some fallacy that I had overlooked. Hence my rather elaborate provisions to cover up a possible failure. But to come back to your own case; the initial mistake that you made was in disregarding the good old Spencerian principle that when certain facts are presented as proving a particular thesis, we should consider, not only that which is presented, but that, also, which is not presented. In other words, we should at once separate fact from inference.
"Now, when Brodribb gave us his narrative of the disappearance of Penrose, he honestly believed that his story was a recital of facts; whereas it was really a mixture of fact and inference. It had not occurred to him that the hospital patient might be some person other than Penrose, and he accordingly presented that patient as Penrose. And you accepted that presentation as a statement of fact, whereas it was only an inference. Hence you made a false start and got on the wrong track from the beginning.
"I was fortunate enough to avoid this pitfall; for even while Brodribb was telling us his story, I made a mental note that the identity of the patient had been taken for granted, and that it would have to be considered, before any action could be taken. But as soon as I began to consider the question, it became clear to me that the balance of probability was against the patient's being Penrose."
"Did it really?" I exclaimed. "Now, I should have said that all the known facts pointed to his being Penrose. And so it seems to me still."
"Then," said Thorndyke, "let us argue the question. We will take two hypotheses: A, that the patient was Penrose; and B, that he was some other person, and examine the evidence in support of each.
"Let us begin with hypothesis A. What evidence was there that the patient was Daniel Penrose?
"There were five principal items of evidence. 1. The car was certainly Penrose's car. 2. The patient had been in possession of that car. 3. The coat, which was undeniably the patient's coat, had Penrose's driving licence in its pocket. 4. The initials on the patient's collar were Penrose's initials. 5. A fragment of an ancient object was found in the pocket of the patient's coat. But Penrose was a collector of antiquities and there was reason to believe that he had gone out that day for the purpose of acquiring some such objects.
"Now, you will notice that the first t
hree items are what we may call extrinsic. They afford no evidence of personal identity. They merely prove that the patient was in possession of Penrose's property, and they are thus of very little weight. The other two items we may call intrinsic. They are connected with the actual personality of the patient.
"Of these, the initials on the collar furnished by far the more weighty evidence of identity."
"I should have assumed them to be quite conclusive," said I.
"Then you would have been wrong," he replied, "for you would have been assuming that Penrose was the only man in the world whose initials were D. P. Still, the fact that the patient's initials were D. P. established a very high probability that he was Daniel Penrose."
"I should have put it higher than that," said I. "It would have seemed to me as nearly as possible a certainty. For if he were not Penrose the coincidence would be, as it was, such an amazing one."
"I think you exaggerate the abnormality," he rejoined. "It was a very remarkable coincidence; but there are two things that we should bear in mind. First, the adverse chances were not so enormous as you seem to imply. There are great numbers of men whose initials are D. P. And, secondly, that the laws of probability relate to large numbers. They must be applied with great caution to particular cases. The tendency to assume that because a thing is improbable, it will not happen, is a mistake. Improbabilities and coincidences are constantly occurring, and we have to allow for that fact.
"Nevertheless, it had to be admitted that those initials made it, in a very high degree, probable that the patient was Daniel Penrose. But now let us take the alternative hypothesis and see what the probabilities were on the other side. And first, consider the conduct of the patient. Owing to his black eyes and contused face, he was completely unrecognisable. Nobody could form any idea what he was like. But when his injuries cleared up he would have been recognisable; and the extraordinary and determined way in which he absconded from the hospital at a carefully-chosen time, is very suggestive. Evidently, during his simulated unconsciousness, he had been watching for an opportunity to get away at night when his odd appearance would be less observed. His behaviour was like that of a man who sought to escape before recognition should be possible.
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