by E.
“But only up to August, Harry,” pointed out Merry. “Then we get him fading out, and J.P. coming on the scene. Who is J.P?”
Doctor Manson considered the question. He sat back with closed eyes, and the fingers of his right hand beating a tattoo on the arm of his chair. That was a habit of his concentration. Suddenly he sat up. “It is pure theory, Jim, but I think we are entitled to assume that the two sets of initials belong to one and the same person. I think it may be purely a psychological matter. I suggest that Canley came face to face with the man he had been in partnership with at Paignton, and at once proceeded to blackmail him under threat of revealing his name and address to the police as being the other man wanted for the burglary. Edwins, of course, had taken some other name when he knew he was wanted; he would know that from the newspaper reports at the trial of Canley. I think it most probable that for some months Canley thought of his partner by the old name of Edwins, and thus marked in his notebook the payments as coming from J.E.
“Then, familiarity of some months with Edwins in his new name led him, unconsciously, to think of him no longer as Edwins, but as the man he now knew under the name beginning with ‘P.’ And, just as unconsciously, he changed the initials to Jack P—. That would explain the two sets of initials.”
CHAPTER XXVI
The Assistant Commissioner heard of the new development discovery without elation. In fact, something of a soporific atmosphere descended on him, on Doctor Manson, Merry and Inspector Kenway. Sir Edward put the gist of it in a nutshell space.
“Well, Doctor, you’ve worked out the modus operandi of the crime, and dashed clever working out it was. You’ve followed the johnny who did it in every detail of movement. You’ve found the motive, or think you have—and I agree that it sounds 100 per cent likely. You’ve worked down the lines until you’ve seized on Jack Edwins as the blackmailed who became tired of the demands made on him, and removed the blackmailer.
“All this is well and good. But we still are no nearer to putting our hands on the man. I’ve a certain sympathy with anybody blackmailed, but the law is the law, and he can’t be allowed to get away with murder. We don’t know a Jack Edwins, who now seems to have become J.P. Who, Doctor, is J.P. and how do we get our hands on him? That is the question?”
The scientist smiled. “To be perfectly candid, Sir Edward, I have not the faintest idea,” he conceded. His voice had an apologetic note.
Sir Edward sighed.
“Certain specific things remain to be investigated,” added Manson. “Possibly they may provide a clue that will lead us to the mysterious J.P. I don’t know.”
The Assistant Commissioner cheered up slightly under the tonic of this assertion.
“What do you mean, Doctor, by certain specific things?” he demanded.
“Well, I mean that though the J.P. did not leave any traces of his identity in the cottage, although he left plenty concerning his actions there, he may possibly have left some in the things that we have taken away from the cottage, and which still require expert examination. You never can tell. I am not going to say that he did, but hope springs eternal in the human breast, you know.”
“Fingerprints?”
“No. You can take it definitely that we will never catch J.P. by his fingers. He was the most careful man I have ever come across, in that way. He would undoubtedly have gone through the papers in Canley’s desk to make sure that there was nothing likely in his opinion to incriminate him, but so far, we have failed to find a single print.
“Either he wore gloves, or he used some other device for tinning over the sheets of paper. And when he locked the door on leaving the cottage, he was still as careful as ever not to do so with his bare hands.”
“He must have taken the shoes of Canley off his own feet and replaced them on the dead man, but still, he did not touch them with his bare hands,[IX] though he would have been justified in considering himself quite safe at that final stage of his plan. Nevertheless, Merry and I will continue with our examination of the remains of the evidence.”
He rose, and with Merry walked off to the laboratory. Wilkins, the chief assistant was hovering round the middle bench which was the doctor’s own domain.
“Any fortune, Wilkins?” asked Manson.
“Not much. Doctor. I sent the bottle and the glass to Prints, and they confirm that the fingerprints came from Canley. They say that they were rolled on.”
“Yes, Baxter telephoned me to that effect. It was, however, certain before that.”
“I’ve been trying to identify the iridescence on the outside and inside of the glass that came from the sideboard, Doctor,” the assistant continued.
“Paraffin?” asked Doctor Manson.
“I don’t think so. There is not enough really to be able to test it—it is only the slightest of film—but I have a feeling that it is something heavier than paraffin, and definitely of a vegetable nature.”
“I’ll have a go at it, Wilkins.”
The doctor settled down to the examination.
“Hubl’s test, Harry?” asked Merry.
The scientist shook his head regretfully. “There is not sufficient to give any result, Jim,” he replied.
“Tissue paper?”
“We can try it, but I have no great hopes of it.”
A piece of tissue paper placed against the surface of the tumbler, and heated, produced a stain. The attempt to identify it by a solvent of ether, however, proved abortive.
Half an hour later Doctor Manson gave up the experiment. “I agree with Wilkins that it is not paraffin,” he said, “but I cannot identify it. It is, I think vegetable, and it gives a slight alkali reaction. Beyond that I cannot go.”
“Then there seems to remain only the fragments of fibres that came from the boot of Canley and from the splinter in the table,” said Merry. “And dashed if I can see how they are going to give us any clue to the fellow’s name.”
“Neither do I, Jim. But we’ll try it.”
The deputy scientist extracted from its envelope the strand that had been garnered from Canley’s boot. He fixed it on to a slide with a dab of wax, and placed it underneath the eyepiece of the microscope. At twenty magnifications the substance of the thread stood out clearly. Merry, after a prolonged inspection crinkled his brows, and shook his head. “I don’t get it, Harry,” he announced. “Do you?”
“No. I can’t place it at all,” was the reply.
He crossed the room and from a glass-covered cabinet took a drawer of slides. Each contained a specimen of thread or fibre of material gathered for the purpose of comparative examination. But an hour later, no decision had been reached as to the identity of the Canley exhibit.
“It does not appear to be cotton, and it certainly is not linen,” said Doctor Manson.
“Nor is it fibre,” propounded Merry.
“Neither worsted.”
Doctor Manson looked worried. He called to Wilkins, and motioned to the comparison instrument.
The laboratory assistant, after a spell at the eyepiece, inspected the array of slides. “None of these, sir?” he queried.
“None.” The scientist supplied the answer.
“There is an iridescence about it which suggests oil,” decided Wilkins. “And it looks a little stiff which also would seem to spell oil that has dried. I should say it has been a soft material but not wool.”
“Oil, and soft,” mused Merry. “Could it be engineer’s waste?”
“No, Merry. Engineer’s waste is hard and cottony. Soft and oily—soft and oily—” Doctor Manson stared blankly into thought. “What soft material could habitually get oil on it in the ordinary way of business?” he asked.
“The only thing I can think of, sir, is mutton-cloth,” said Wilkins, who was a car owner and did his own repairs. “That is sufficiently soft to polish cellulose without scratching—it’s about the only thing that would do the trick, and a car owner might well wipe his hands on a piece, because most car owners use it.”
“That is a most valuable contribution, Wilkins,” said the doctor, enthusiastically. “It sounds probable.”
“I’ll slip down to the garage and get a piece, sir,” volunteered Wilkins, and returned five minutes later with a handful of soiled material.
Doctor Manson took it. After a scrutiny he pulled out two of the threads, mounted them on a slide and placed them under the comparison microscope. No more than moments were necessary to identify the elusive thread. It was beyond question from a piece of mutton-cloth.
“And oily, too,” said the doctor. “That looks as though the oil on our exhibit might well be motor oil.”
“And if that is so, Harry, then we can go a stage farther, can’t we.”
Doctor Manson looked inquiry.
“I mean that if the oil on the thread is motor oil, then it is a thousand to one that the same piece of mutton-cloth was used by Canley’s visitor to wipe and polish the glass and the bottle of whisky. And that makes our film of oil on the glass. It isn’t likely he’d have a collection of polishing cloths in his pocket, is it?”
The scientist nodded, gravely. “I think you are probably correct, Jim,” he agreed.
“And that means that the visitor is one who habitually carries mutton-cloth around in his pockets, has a car, or works with cars which he attends to himself.”
“All of which makes up to what?” came a voice. The Assistant Commissioner had come into the laboratory unheard. “What is all this about, Doctor?” he demanded.
He listened to the results of the examination, and nodded his satisfaction. “We seem to be getting a little nearer to the man we want, Doctor,” he said.
“We have, at any rate, established the class of man, Edward,” retorted Doctor Manson. “And that means eliminating about 25,000,000 of the population.”
“So there are only 25,000,000 suspects left, eh, Harry?” He grinned delightedly at the joke, for Doctor Manson always held that the best way of investigating crime was to eliminate the innocent, thus leaving only the guilty.
“Possibly a few less, Edward. For we can cut out everyone outside a ten-mile radius of Thames Pagnall.”
“And everyone in that area who doesn’t mess about with a motor car,” suggested Merry.
“That, if I may say so, reduces the number to a few thousand,” said the Assistant Commissioner.
“We can, I think, go a little farther than even that.” Doctor Manson spoke quietly, and when he spoke deliberately and quietly the Assistant Commissioner and the Yard officers looked at him with a lively interest, for the quietness of his voice was a sign that the doctor was getting nearer to the heart of the problem upon which he was engaged. Sir Edward now looked at him.
“What do you mean by that, Harry?” he asked.
“That of the few thousand people to which we have now reduced the suspects, Edward, you can take away all those whose Christian name and surname do not make up the initials J.P. For those are the initials of the man who visited Canley on the night that he was killed.”
“Eh! What’s that?” The Assistant Commissioner looked staggered at the news.
Doctor Manson revealed the results of the investigations into the bank pass book and the account book found in the desk of the dead man.
“God bless me soul,” ejaculated Sir Edward. “Well, that ought to reduce the number to hundreds,” he opined.
“I should have said about fifty,” suggested the scientist. “And that is about as far as we can go, I think. I have now exhausted all the materials out of which I can screw any information.”
“There is just one more, Doctor.” The interruption came from Wilkins, who had been busy at a bench near one of the sinks.
Doctor Manson looked up inquiringly. The laboratory assistant was kneading a small piece of something between two pieces of damp rag. “What have you there, Wilkins?” Manson inquired.
“The piece of dirt which Mr. Merry said had been picked up from the floor of the cottage, Doctor. I thought we might as well find out what it is.”
He came forward with the exhibit. “Look at it,” he urged.
Doctor Manson took the piece of soil. Under the influence of the kneading in damp cloth it had become converted into a gluey knob which could be moulded into any shape, and retain that form.
“Looks like a bit of the soil from my confounded garden after a wet day,” said Merry. “That means it is clay.”
“Clay it certainly is,” agreed the doctor. He lapsed into thought. “I don’t recall any clay in the lane round about Canley’s cottage,” he said. “Do you, Merry?”
Merry shook his head. “The earth was moist and soft, Doctor, but I should not have thought it clay. It didn’t hold water in the footprints, though it left excellent impressions.”
“That would mean a fine sand, rather than clay.” The doctor lifted his telephone receiver and asked for Inspector Mackenzie at Thames Pagnall.
“What kind of soil is that in the lane, and neighbourhood of Canley’s house, Mackenzie?” he asked.
The inspector thought for a few moments. “I reckon it’s sand on gravel mostly, Doctor Manson,” he replied. “The kind that goes flat after rain and then dries under the sun like concrete. At least that’s what it’s like in my bit of garden, which is in the same area. But I’ll ask Constable Jenkins. He lives not far away from Canley’s place.”
He went away, to return after a minute or two. “Yes, that’s right, sir,” he announced. “Sand it is, just like my garden.”
“No clay?” demanded Manson.
“No, sir. There’s very little clay round these parts. All sand, and fine sand at that.”
“It is the little bits of white that interest me, Doctor,” interrupted Wilkins. “They look to me like chalk, or something.”
Doctor Manson cut off a segment of the soil, and with a knife separated a number of the white particles. These he placed in a shallow porcelain dish and carried them over to the sink. There, with a fine brush he gently brushed all traces of the clay away. The water in the dish which had at first become a pale yellow from the clay gradually assumed a dirty milky colour.
“Looks like lime,” said Merry.
“I think it is unquestionably lime, Jim. But the microscope will settle it.”
It did. Limestone is composed of microscopic shells—foraminefera is the scientific name—and under the microscope these were plainly visible in the sediment of the white particles from the clay segment.
“The piece undoubtedly came from the visitor’s boots, Harry, and we know that there is no clay round Thames Pagnall. Therefore, it is likely to have come from—where?”
“Argument on that does not seem difficult,” retorted Doctor Manson. “The soil must have been picked up by the boot while it was wet. It would not dry while the person was walking on that damp and foggy night. It must, therefore, have dried while he was in the cottage where, of course, it became detached from the instep. The natural conclusion, therefore, is that it was picked up on the visitor’s native heath, so to speak. That interests me, because I can think of only one circumstance under which a person would walk through a mixture of lime.”
“And what would that be?” inquired the Assistant Commissioner.
Doctor Manson did not answer the question. Instead, he said, “I think, perhaps, we had better have another chat with the Thames Pagnall people. The remainder of the case seems to me to be merely a matter of local routine.”
CHAPTER XXVII
Colonel Mainforce, the Chief Constable, and Inspector Mackenzie were waiting for the doctor and Sir Edward in the police station at Thames Pagnall. Manson had driven down in his big black car.
He took the long-about route which reached, first of all, the junction down the line. Twice, for no apparent reason, he called at roadside garages and had a supply of petrol put into the tank, while he carefully walked round the garage inspecting the premises, and the men at work there on repairs to vehicles in various stages of age and breakdown. He apparent
ly saw nothing to interest him further, for he made no remarks.
At Thames Pagnall he drove into the police station yard, and the company foregathered in the inspector’s office. Inspector Mackenzie eyed his London visitors hopefully; and expressed the hope verbally.
“Yes, I think we may have something to comfort you in your tribulation, Mackenzie,” the scientist said, soothingly. “We have, in all probability, narrowed the suspects down to a comparatively small number. Since we started out this morning the number has been further reduced by two,” he added, inconsequently.
The Assistant Commissioner, who did not know quite all the views in the mind of his scientific investigator, scratched a puzzled head.
“We, in fact, know the name of the visitor to Canley on that night,” added Doctor Manson.
The Chief Constable jumped. “The devil you do?” he said. “Who was, or rather, is he?”
“A man named Jack Edwins.”
The Chief Constable looked at his inspector. “Know a Jack Edwins, Mackenzie?” he demanded.
Mackenzie thought through the names of his flock. “Can’t recall the name, Colonel,” he replied.
Doctor Manson relayed the facts concerning the Paignton robbery, and his conclusions that the uncaptured man, Edwins, was the man who had rid himself of Canley.
“Blackmail, eh?” said the Chief Constable. “Nasty business, I don’t like blackmailers.”
“Neither do I, Mainforce. But then, neither do I like murderers. And there are ways of getting rid of blackmailers without killing. Since it seemed that Edwins had made retribution for his jewel haul, he would not have had a great deal to fear from the police.”
“Anyway, we don’t apparently know an Edwins round here, Doctor,” said the Colonel.
“No, I supposed not, Mainforce,” retorted Manson. “He would hardly be likely to retain that name since the police force of the country were looking for him, and, of course, would still pull him in if they found him. He has some other name, of course. Edwins died on that night at Paignton.”
