The Red Thumb Mark

by R. Austin Freeman

  CHAPTER VI

  COMMITTED FOR TRIAL

  Thorndyke's hint as to the possible danger foreshadowed by my growingintimacy with Juliet Gibson had come upon me as a complete surprise, andhad, indeed, been resented by me as somewhat of an impertinence.Nevertheless, it gave me considerable food for meditation, and Ipresently began to suspect that the watchful eyes of my observant friendmight have detected something in my manner towards Miss Gibsonsuggestive of sentiments that had been unsuspected by myself.

  Of course it would be absurd to suppose that any real feeling could havebeen engendered by so ridiculously brief an acquaintance. I had only metthe girl three times, and even now, excepting for business relations,was hardly entitled to more than a bow of recognition. But yet, when Iconsidered the matter impartially and examined my own consciousness, Icould not but recognise that she had aroused in me an interest whichbore no relation to the part that she had played in the drama that wasso slowly unfolding. She was undeniably a very handsome girl, and herbeauty was of a type that specially appealed to me--full of dignity andcharacter that gave promise of a splendid middle age. And herpersonality was in other ways not less attractive, for she was frank andopen, sprightly and intelligent, and though evidently quiteself-reliant, was in nowise lacking in that womanly softness that sostrongly engages a man's sympathy.

  In short, I realised that, had there been no such person as ReubenHornby, I should have viewed Miss Gibson with uncommon interest.

  But, unfortunately, Reuben Hornby was a most palpable reality, and,moreover, the extraordinary difficulties of his position entitled him tovery special consideration by any man of honour. It was true that MissGibson had repudiated any feelings towards Reuben other than those ofold-time friendship; but young ladies are not always impartial judges oftheir own feelings, and, as a man of the world, I could not but have myown opinion on the matter--which opinion I believed to be shared byThorndyke. The conclusions to which my cogitations at length brought mewere: first, that I was an egotistical donkey, and, second, that myrelations with Miss Gibson were of an exclusively business character andmust in future be conducted on that basis, with the added considerationthat I was the confidential agent, for the time being, of Reuben Hornby,and in honour bound to regard his interests as paramount.

  "I am hoping," said Thorndyke, as he held out his hand for my teacup,"that these profound reflections of yours are connected with the Hornbyaffair; in which case I should expect to hear that the riddle is solvedand the mystery made plain."

  "Why should you expect that?" I demanded, reddening somewhat, I suspect,as I met his twinkling eye. There was something rather disturbing inthe dry, quizzical smile that I encountered and the reflection that Ihad been under observation, and I felt as much embarrassed as I shouldsuppose a self-conscious water-flea might feel on finding itself on theilluminated stage of a binocular microscope.

  "My dear fellow," said Thorndyke, "you have not spoken a word for thelast quarter of an hour; you have devoured your food with the relentlessregularity of a sausage-machine, and you have, from time to time, madethe most damnable faces at the coffee-pot--though there I'll wager thecoffee-pot was even with you, if I may judge by the presentment that itoffers of my own countenance."

  I roused myself from my reverie with a laugh at Thorndyke's quaintconceit and a glance at the grotesquely distorted reflection of my facein the polished silver.

  "I am afraid I _have_ been a rather dull companion this morning," Iadmitted apologetically.

  "By no means," replied Thorndyke, with a grin. "On the contrary, I havefound you both amusing and instructive, and I only spoke when I hadexhausted your potentialities as a silent entertainer."

  "You are pleased to be facetious at my expense," said I.

  "Well, the expense was not a very heavy one," he retorted. "I have beenmerely consuming a by-product of your mental activity--Hallo! that'sAnstey already."

  A peculiar knock, apparently delivered with the handle of awalking-stick on the outer door, was the occasion of this exclamation,and as Thorndyke sprang up and flung the door open, a clear, musicalvoice was borne in, the measured cadences of which proclaimed at oncethe trained orator.

  "Hail, learned brother!" it exclaimed. "Do I disturb you untimely atyour studies?" Here our visitor entered the room and looked roundcritically. "'Tis even so," he declared. "Physiological chemistry andits practical applications appears to be the subject. A physico-chemicalinquiry into the properties of streaky bacon and fried eggs. Do I seeanother learned brother?"

  He peered keenly at me through his pince-nez, and I gazed at him in someembarrassment.

  "This is my friend Jervis, of whom you have heard me speak," saidThorndyke. "He is with us in this case, you know."

  "The echoes of your fame have reached me, sir," said Anstey, holding outhis hand. "I am proud to know you. I should have recognised youinstantly from the portrait of your lamented uncle in GreenwichHospital."

  "Anstey is a wag, you understand," explained Thorndyke, "but he haslucid intervals. He'll have one presently if we are patient."

  "Patient!" snorted our eccentric visitor, "it is I who need to bepatient when I am dragged into police courts and other sinks of iniquityto plead for common thieves and robbers like a Kennington Laneadvocate."

  "You've been talking to Lawley, I see," said Thorndyke.

  "Yes, and he tells me that we haven't a leg to stand upon."

  "No, we've got to stand on our heads, as men of intellect should. ButLawley knows nothing about the case."

  "He thinks he knows it all," said Anstey.

  "Most fools do," retorted Thorndyke. "They arrive at their knowledge byintuition--a deuced easy road and cheap travelling too. We reserve ourdefence--I suppose you agree to that?"

  "I suppose so. The magistrate is sure to commit unless you have anunquestionable _alibi_."

  "We shall put in an _alibi_, but we are not depending on it."

  "Then we had better reserve our defence," said Anstey; "and it is timethat we wended on our pilgrimage, for we are due at Lawley's athalf-past ten. Is Jervis coming with us?"

  "Yes, you'd better come," said Thorndyke. "It's the adjourned hearing ofpoor Hornby's case, you know. There won't be anything done on our side,but we may be able to glean some hint from the prosecution."

  "I should like to hear what takes place, at any rate," I said, and weaccordingly sallied forth together in the direction of Lincoln's Inn, onthe north side of which Mr. Lawley's office was situated.

  "Ah!" said the solicitor, as we entered, "I am glad you've come; I wasgetting anxious--it doesn't do to be late on these occasions, you know.Let me see, do you know Mr. Walter Hornby? I don't think you do." Hepresented Thorndyke and me to our client's cousin, and as we shookhands, we viewed one another with a good deal of mutual interest.

  "I have heard about you from my aunt," said he, addressing himself moreparticularly to me. "She appears to regard you as a kind of legalMaskelyne and Cooke. I hope, for my cousin's sake, that you will be ableto work the wonders that she anticipates. Poor old fellow! He lookspretty bad, doesn't he?"

  I glanced at Reuben, who was at the moment talking to Thorndyke, and ashe caught my eye he held out his hand with a warmth that I found verypathetic. He seemed to have aged since I had last seen him, and waspale and rather thinner, but he was composed in his manner and seemed tome to be taking his trouble very well on the whole.

  "Cab's at the door, sir," a clerk announced.

  "Cab," repeated Mr. Lawley, looking dubiously at me; "we want anomnibus."

  "Dr. Jervis and I can walk," Walter Hornby suggested. "We shall probablyget there as soon as you, and it doesn't matter if we don't."

  "Yes, that will do," said Mr. Lawley; "you two walk down together. Nowlet us go."

  We trooped out on to the pavement, beside which a four-wheeler was drawnup, and as the others were entering the cab, Thorndyke stood closebeside me for a moment.

  "Don't let him pump you," he said in a low voice, without
looking at me;then he sprang into the cab and slammed the door.

  "What an extraordinary affair this is," Walter Hornby remarked, after wehad been walking in silence for a minute or two; "a most ghastlybusiness. I must confess that I can make neither head nor tail of it."

  "How is that?" I asked.

  "Why, do you see, there are apparently only two possible theories of thecrime, and each of them seems to be unthinkable. On the one hand thereis Reuben, a man of the most scrupulous honour, as far as my experienceof him goes, committing a mean and sordid theft for which no motive canbe discovered--for he is not poor, nor pecuniarily embarrassed nor inthe smallest degree avaricious. On the other hand, there is thisthumb-print, which, in the opinion of the experts, is tantamount to theevidence of an eye-witness that he did commit the theft. It ispositively bewildering. Don't you think so?"

  "As you put it," I answered, "the case is extraordinarily puzzling."

  "But how else would you put it?" he demanded, with ill-concealedeagerness.

  "I mean that, if Reuben is the man you believe him to be, the thing isincomprehensible."

  "Quite so," he agreed, though he was evidently disappointed at mycolourless answer.

  He walked on silently for a few minutes and then said: "I suppose itwould not be fair to ask if you see any way out of the difficulty? Weare all, naturally anxious about the upshot of the affair, seeing whatpoor old Reuben's position is."

  "Naturally. But the fact is that I know no more than you do, and as toThorndyke, you might as well cross-examine a Whitstable native as putquestions to him."

  "Yes, so I gathered from Juliet. But I thought you might have gleanedsome notion of the line of defence from your work in the laboratory--themicroscopical and photographic work I mean."

  "I was never in the laboratory until last night, when Thorndyke took methere with your aunt and Miss Gibson; the work there is done by thelaboratory assistant, and his knowledge of the case, I should say, isabout as great as a type-founder's knowledge of the books that he ishelping to produce. No; Thorndyke is a man who plays a single-handedgame and no one knows what cards he holds until he lays them on thetable."

  My companion considered this statement in silence while I congratulatedmyself on having parried, with great adroitness, a rather inconvenientquestion. But the time was not far distant when I should have occasionto reproach myself bitterly for having been so explicit and emphatic.

  "My uncle's condition," Walter resumed after a pause, "is a prettymiserable one at present, with this horrible affair added to his ownpersonal worries."

  "Has he any special trouble besides this, then?" I asked.

  "Why, haven't you heard? I thought you knew about it, or I shouldn'thave spoken--not that it is in any way a secret, seeing that it ispublic property in the city. The fact is that his financial affairs area little entangled just now."

  "Indeed!" I exclaimed, considerably startled by this new development.

  "Yes, things have taken a rather awkward turn, though I think he willpull through all right. It is the usual thing, you know--investments, orperhaps one should say speculations. He appears to have sunk a lot ofcapital in mines--thought he was 'in the know,' not unnaturally; but itseems he wasn't after all, and the things have gone wrong, leaving himwith a deal more money than he can afford locked up and the possibilityof a dead loss if they don't revive. Then there are these infernaldiamonds. He is not morally responsible, we know; but it is a questionif he is not legally responsible, though the lawyers think he is not.Anyhow, there is going to be a meeting of the creditors to-morrow."

  "And what do you think they will do?"

  "Oh, they will, most probably, let him go on for the present; but, ofcourse, if he is made accountable for the diamonds there will be nothingfor it but to 'go through the hoop,' as the sporting financierexpresses it."

  "The diamonds were of considerable value, then?"

  "From twenty-five to thirty thousand pounds' worth vanished with thatparcel."

  I whistled. This was a much bigger affair than I had imagined, and I waswondering if Thorndyke had realised the magnitude of the robbery, whenwe arrived at the police court.

  "I suppose our friends have gone inside," said Walter. "They must havegot here before us."

  This supposition was confirmed by a constable of whom we made inquiry,and who directed us to the entrance to the court. Passing down a passageand elbowing our way through the throng of idlers, we made for thesolicitor's box, where we had barely taken our seats when the case wascalled.

  Unspeakably dreary and depressing were the brief proceedings thatfollowed, and dreadfully suggestive of the helplessness of even aninnocent man on whom the law has laid its hand and in whose behalf itsinexorable machinery has been set in motion.

  The presiding magistrate, emotionless and dry, dipped his pen whileReuben, who had surrendered to his bail, was placed in the dock and thecharge read over to him. The counsel representing the police gave anabstract of the case with the matter-of-fact air of a house-agentdescribing an eligible property. Then, when the plea of "not guilty" hadbeen entered, the witnesses were called. There were only two, and whenthe name of the first, John Hornby, was called, I glanced towards thewitness-box with no little curiosity.

  I had not hitherto met Mr. Hornby, and as he now entered the box, I sawan elderly man, tall, florid, and well-preserved, but strained and wildin expression and displaying his uncontrollable agitation by continualnervous movements which contrasted curiously with the composed demeanourof the accused man. Nevertheless, he gave his evidence in a perfectlyconnected manner, recounting the events connected with the discovery ofthe crime in much the same words as I had heard Mr. Lawley use, though,indeed, he was a good deal more emphatic than that gentleman had been inregard to the excellent character borne by the prisoner.

  After him came Mr. Singleton, of the finger-print department at ScotlandYard, to whose evidence I listened with close attention. He produced thepaper which bore the thumb-print in blood (which had previously beenidentified by Mr. Hornby) and a paper bearing the print, taken byhimself, of the prisoner's left thumb. These two thumb-prints, hestated, were identical in every respect.

  "And you are of opinion that the mark on the paper that was found in Mr.Hornby's safe, was made by the prisoner's left thumb?" the magistrateasked in dry and business-like tones.

  "I am certain of it."

  "You are of opinion that no mistake is possible?"

  "No mistake is possible, your worship. It is a certainty."

  The magistrate looked at Anstey inquiringly, whereupon the barristerrose. "We reserve our defence, your worship."

  The magistrate then, in the same placid, business-like manner, committedthe prisoner for trial at the Central Criminal Court, refusing to acceptbail for his appearance, and, as Reuben was led forth from the dock, thenext case was called.

  By special favour of the authorities, Reuben was to be allowed to makehis journey to Holloway in a cab, thus escaping the horrors of thefilthy and verminous prison van, and while this was being procured, hisfriends were permitted to wish him farewell.

  "This is a hard experience, Hornby," said Thorndyke, when we three were,for a few moments, left apart from the others; and as he spoke thewarmth of a really sympathetic nature broke through his habitualimpassivity. "But be of good cheer; I have convinced myself of yourinnocence and have good hopes of convincing the world--though this isfor your private ear, you understand, to be mentioned to no one."

  Reuben wrung the hand of this "friend in need," but was unable, for themoment, to speak; and, as his self-control was evidently strained to thebreaking point, Thorndyke, with a man's natural instinct, wished him ahasty good-bye, and passing his hand through my arm, turned away.

  "I wish it had been possible to save the poor fellow from this delay,and especially from the degradation of being locked up in a jail," heexclaimed regretfully as we walked down the street.

  "There is surely no degradation in being merely accused of a cri
me," Ianswered, without much conviction, however. "It may happen to the bestof us; and he is still an innocent man in the eyes of the law."

  "That, my dear Jervis, you know, as well as I do, to be mere casuistry,"he rejoined. "The law professes to regard the unconvicted man asinnocent; but how does it treat him? You heard how the magistrateaddressed our friend; outside the court he would have called him _Mr_.Hornby. You know what will happen to Reuben at Holloway. He will beordered about by warders, will have a number label fastened on to hiscoat, he will be locked in a cell with a spy-hole in the door, throughwhich any passing stranger may watch him; his food will be handed to himin a tin pan with a tin knife and spoon; and he will be periodicallycalled out of his cell and driven round the exercise yard with a mobcomposed, for the most part, of the sweepings of the London slums. If heis acquitted, he will be turned loose without a suggestion ofcompensation or apology for these indignities or the losses he may havesustained through his detention."

  "Still I suppose these evils are unavoidable," I said.

  "That may or may not be," he retorted. "My point is that the presumptionof innocence is a pure fiction; that the treatment of an accused man,from the moment of his arrest, is that of a criminal. However," heconcluded, hailing a passing hansom, "this discussion must be adjournedor I shall be late at the hospital. What are you going to do?"

  "I shall get some lunch and then call on Miss Gibson to let her know thereal position."

  "Yes, that will be kind, I think; baldly stated, the news may seemrather alarming. I was tempted to thrash the case out in the policecourt, but it would not have been safe. He would almost certainly havebeen committed for trial after all, and then we should have shown ourhand to the prosecution."

  He sprang into the hansom and was speedily swallowed up in the traffic,while I turned back towards the police court to make certain inquiriesconcerning the regulations as to visitors at Holloway prison. At thedoor I met the friendly inspector from Scotland Yard, who gave me thenecessary information, whereupon with a certain homely little Frenchrestaurant in my mind I bent my steps in the direction of Soho.