by E.
The man confessed himself as quite unable to think of any explanation. He could not remember any occasion on which one had been sold to a customer.
“Did you ever have a customer named Grey—Miss Norma de Grey?” asked Manson.
“Norma de Grey?” The man thought hard for a few moments. “No, I can’t recall the name. What kind of looking woman would she be?”
He failed, however, to recognize from the description supplied to him of the pantomime star any customer in the shop. Nor could he say that the proprietors of the business, Mr. James Barford and Mr. Andre Bessing, had any particular lady friend whom they supplied with goods from the premises.
Asked how trade had been with the firm, he said that he had been looking for another job for some time, as he did not think the firm could last very much longer. He would be surprised to hear, he said, that the fire damage was settled for £21,000. He thought that the owners had been trying to sell the business before the fire, and had failed. A tall, rather flaxen-haired gentleman had paid several visits, and had been shown round the premises by Mr. Bessing. He had come on several occasions, the last about a week before the fire. The cause of the outbreak, he said, was put down as due to an electric iron being left on an ironing board in the pressing department. This was rather a shock to him, because he had been quite sure that he followed his usual custom of turning off the electric current at the main switch before he left the place. That he always did because of the combustible nature of the contents of the premises, and because he had once before had a fire caused by that very means.
Pressed to think carefully, he said that he distinctly remembered walking out of the shop in the light of his torch—or thought he did. That was the reason he had been surprised to hear the official theory of the outbreak.
“That flaxen-haired gentleman, can you recall his name?” asked Doctor Manson.
“It was never given to me by the bosses,” was the reply, “but I do remember Mr. Bessing on one occasion calling him Mr. Onslow. At least, what he said was, ‘Shall I send it to Mr. Onslow?’ ”
With that, Doctor Manson had to be satisfied. Back at the Yard he spent the next hour in studying the results of his two days’ visits. Finally, after telephoning Superintendent Jones at Burlington, he called it a day, and walked to his flat, and an evening meal.
CHAPTER XII
THE HAIRS OF A CAT
Doctor Manson, arriving at the Yard next morning, went at once to his Laboratory, slipped on a white coat, and set up a microscope on the large middle table.
He whistled for Sergeant Merry, the deputy scientist.
* * * * *
At the same time Superintendent Jones, in a first-class compartment in the Burlington-Waterloo train, was eyeing Inspector Kenway in perplexity.
“What . . . suppose . . . he wants . . . a thing . . . like that . . . for?” he asked.
“Who’s he?” asked Kenway.
“The doctor.”
“And what is it he wants, anyway?”
“Some . . . Enora’s . . . hairs.”
Inspector Kenway said nothing, but just ruminated. The superintendent added to his wailing.
“Don’t cut ’em,” he says. “Pull ’em out. And put ’em in envelope. What’s ruddy difference? . . . Hair’s . . . hair cut or yanked.”
“Point is, old fat man, have you got them?” asked Kenway.
The superintendent produced a white and labelled envelope. “In here,” he announced.
Kenway chuckled.
The superintendent glared. “What’s funny about it?” he demanded.
“Just thought of a joke.” The inspector waited a moment for the inevitable question.
“Perhaps the doctor’s started a hare,” he explained.
* * * * *
Sergeant Merry and the scientist unwrapped together the cat skin of Enora and laid it out on the table. The fastening was unzipped and the skin opened out. Together, the two men examined the netted interior through their lenses. Now and then they extracted with tweezers one or two small fragments of fluff, each piece of which was carefully put under a watch-glass on a porcelain tile.
From the inside of the mask of the skin some dozen or so hairs were similarly retrieved and preserved. The outside of the skin was next examined, but seemingly without result.
The failure was not unexpected, for Doctor Manson, at the end of the examination, comforted himself with the reflection: “Well, I didn’t expect we would get much from there. It does not, as you know, lend itself to results.”
With his exhibits safely housed under separate watch-glasses Doctor Manson drew his microscope forward, fitted an appropriate eyepiece and prepared to make a detailed examination.
First taking the fragments of fluff he submitted each to a careful scrutiny.
“Seems to be a mixture of silk and wool,” he said of the first two or three pieces, and made way for Merry. The deputy scientist, after peering through the instrument, agreed. At the next piece, however, the scientist, after what started with a cursory glance, developed a close attention. Twice he looked, and then, fitting another eyepiece stared at the exhibit again. He shot an inquiring glance at Merry. The sergeant, after himself examining the fluff, pronounced it as a mixture of cotton and wool.
“Exactly what I put it down as myself,” said Manson. He took from the parcel which he had brought from Burlington the undergarment found in Enora’s room, and examined it.
“This, too, is cotton and wool,” he observed. “Now that is rather a curious circumstance.”
Merry, who knew the signs, promptly proceeded to fix a mica slide over the exhibits, each on a separate microscope slide, and the Doctor prepared for his next examination.
This concerned the hairs that he had taken from the mask of the skin. With a diluted solution of glycerine he mounted each of them on a glass slide. When eight of these had been completed he called the Laboratory assistant.
“Now, Wilkins,” he announced, “you may as well learn how to examine the hairs found on scene of any suspicious circumstance.”
Wilkins was one of the men chosen by Doctor Manson for training in the Laboratory. The men were to form the nucleus of a body of skilled police scientific investigators to be distributed among the police forces all over the country. Wilkins stood by, expectantly.
“Firstly,” said the scientist, “you should know that the examination of hairs in criminal investigation was made for the first time when the Duchesse de Praslin was murdered in Paris in 1847. An examination was made of a hair which was found clinging to the pistol used.” He turned to the slides which he had prepared, and slipped one under the instrument.
“Now, the first thing we have to find out about a hair is whether it is animal or man. In this case, however, we need not worry; there is no animal involved. The next thing is to decide from which part of the body it has come. Look through the microscope and tell me what shape is the cross-cut section of the hair you see?”
“Round,” replied Wilkins.
“Then it comes from the scalp,” said Doctor Manson. “Only in very exceptional cases are head hairs anything but round. Hair taken from the beard is generally triangular, and from the torso kidney-shaped.
“Now,” he went on, “we will measure the hair.” He slipped a micrometer eyepiece on to the instrument. “This hair is 1/350 inch,” he announced, “which means that in all probability it is from the head of a male. That, we can check by the medullary index.” The scientist did so, and announced the result as 0.132. “In a woman,” he explained, “the size would have been 0.148. We are now certain that the hair we are examining came from the forehead of a man. That is a scientific check, which would be accepted as expert evidence of the facts as we already knew them; the hairs were found on the inside of the head of a skin which is used by a man impersonating a cat in pantomime.
“It is necessary next to note the colour of the hair, which is light, or flaxen. Then we take the condition of the root, if there is one att
ached. In this particular hair there is a root. Now, where hairs are shown to have a dry root they have mostly fallen out by themselves. Not always, because, should they be mixed together with hairs with living roots, it means that hair has been pulled out by force, the live hairs taking the dead ones with them. But in this case we need not worry over that, because this particular hair has a living root. Also, if you look carefully, you will see that its sheath has been torn, indicating that the hair has been pulled by force out of the head. The probability is that the hair became caught in the netting base of the Cat skin, and was pulled out either when the head was forced into the mask, or withdrawn.
“Finally, Wilkins, we will examine the other end of the hair—the tip.” The scientist looked through the microscope.
“Mark the fact that the tip of the hair, although seemingly cut straight across, is becoming rounded along the edges. We are entitled to say from this that in all probability the owner of the hair visited the barber some two days before this hair came out. A hair cut across by the barber’s scissors begins to ‘heal’ within twenty-four hours, and is more or less rounded again within twenty days.
“Now, Wilkins, you test with Merry the remainder of the hairs in the slides, and be sure to mark each slide as you go along. In the meantime we will try to prove one of the probabilities we have arrived at. The hair we have just examined is a live one.”
He telephoned the Burlington hospital and requested the matron to ask Enora if he had visited a barber a short time before he was taken ill, and if so, how long before?
The answer came within a couple of minutes. “Mr. Enora says he had his hair trimmed on the morning of the day previous to his illness,” the matron announced.
“Which shows you what a microscope and a little investigation can tell you,” the scientist announced to Wilkins. “How are you getting along?”
For reply Sergeant Merry handed the scientist a slip of paper on which was written the measurements of the hairs examined. The entries read:
1/350, 1/350, 1/350, 1/450, 1/450, 1/350, 1/350
1/450, 1/350, 1/350, 1/450, 1/350.
The sergeant made no comment on the tests, but watched the face of his chief. Doctor Manson read them through, and then, as if thinking that he had misread, went back again to the beginning. At the end of the two rows he looked at the face of his deputy, surprise written in his eyes.
“That is an extraordinarily interesting point, Merry,” he said.
“So I thought,” was the reply.
Before any further comment could be passed, the door opened and Superintendent Jones and Inspector Kenway entered. The fat superintendent passed over an envelope. “In here,” he announced.
Doctor Manson passed it over to Merry, who took from it the hairs which Jones had acquired from the head of Enora, at once mounted them on slides and examined them. The newcomers watched the operation in silence. There were six separate hairs, and the slip on which Wilkins recorded the report of Sergeant Merry read 1/350.
Doctor Manson himself then checked up by a personal examination, and then examined carefully the roots of the hairs, and the medulas.
“You can mark the medullary index as 0.132,” he announced. “I do not think there is any doubt, all things considered, that the hairs from the mask of the cat skin are those of Enora. In any case, we can say that there are no hairs from any other man to be found in the skin.”
Inspector Kenway chuckled, and turned to the scientist. “All along in the train, Doctor, the super has been moaning about plucking the hairs of the Cat. He says what’s the difference between a cut hair and one yanked out by the roots.”
“None, Kenway,” was the reply. “But no scientist worthy of the name will take other than a plucked human hair for the purpose of comparison, which is the reason I wanted Enora’s hair. Besides, I wanted to see the roots of the hairs, because I have two or three hairs with roots here.”
The superintendent subsided. “Got . . . go, now,” he announced. “Got . . . Bradley . . . he’s downstairs . . . Got . . . see A.C.”
“I’ll come along with you, old fat man,” said Manson.
The main reason for the visit of Jones and Kenway was that they had been asked to report progress to the Assistant Commissioner at the Yard. The bringing by them of Inspector Bradley had been an afterthought of the two men, principally because the inspector could corroborate several things they had to report, and also because he had asked to come in order that he might be able to see the interior of the great headquarters. The A.C., always willing to welcome executive officers of the outside force, had agreed.
He now greeted his officers and their guest in the room where such conferences always took place; but noted with surprise the appearance of the scientist.
“Hello, Doctor,” he announced. “Are you in on this, too? I thought you were busily engaged elsewhere?”
“So I was, Sir Edward,” was the rueful reply, “but I’m deeply involved, I fear.”
The Assistant Commissioner looked up sharply. He was about to ask the inevitable question, when he caught a warning glance from the scientist, and lapsed into silence.
The four men seated themselves in easy chairs in front of the desk of the Assistant Commissioner. The latter adjusted his ornamental monocle in his perfectly good left eye, and surveyed them.
“Now, let me have it!” he demanded.
For upwards of twenty minutes Superintendent Jones, with interjections from Inspector Kenway, and additional help from Inspector Bradley, detailed the results of the local and Yard inquiries into the death of Miss Norma de Grey. In his staccato, quick-firing phrases he took Sir Edward through the positions on the stage at the time of the death, through the investigations, and on to his conclusions. The Assistant Commissioner listened silently through to the end, and then commented:
“So you plump for Enora, in spite of his denials that he was on the stage, Jones?”
“I do, sir,” was the reply. “Alibi . . . other Cat . . . too strong . . . couldn’t do it. . . Doctor here admits . . . murder . . . done by Cat,” he ended triumphantly.
The A.C. looked across at the scientist. Doctor Manson smiled, rather grimly.
“I did say so—and I still say that there is no possible doubt that the poison was injected into Miss de Grey by the Cat at her feet,” he announced slowly, and very distinctly.
“Have you taken Enora into custody, Jones?” asked the A.C.
Before any reply could come from the superintendent, Doctor Manson broke in again.
“I was saying that there is no possible doubt that the poison was injected into Miss de Grey by the Cat at her feet,” he said, “but I did not say that that Cat was Enora. Nor, in fact, was it Enora.”
A startled silence followed the scientist’s emphatic announcement. Superintendent Jones sat forward at a precarious angle for a man of his bulk, as though mesmerized. Inspector Kenway was cudgelling his brains in an effort to recall the details of the case they had made against Enora. Inspector Bradley looked as though he could not believe his ears. The Assistant Commissioner looked only at the scientist. He was under no illusions as regards the doctor’s ability to justify to the full his pronouncement. He knew from past experience that the statement would not have come was he not able to prove it.
“Why is he not the man who administered the poison, Doctor?” he inquired.
“Were I Sherlock Holmes, Sir Edward, I should say the answer is perfectly simple,” he began. “But, in point of fact it is not quite so simple. Enora’s story is that he broke off a row with Dick Whittington, and went to his room for a drink, which he knew would be waiting there. The dresser tells us that he always took a drink to the room for Enora to have during that brief wait, and that he did so on this occasion. We checked up with the bar that the drink was fetched.
“So far we are all in agreement. Now, then, Enora says that after taking the drink he felt dizzy, went queer, and the next he knew was waking up and finding himself in hospital. The doc
tor and the police surgeon say that the man took the dose of poison in his drink, almost certainly in beer, the surgeon added, and that he would be unconscious within two minutes of taking it. Are you all with me, up to this stage?”
There was a chorus of “yes” from the company.
“Right.” He turned to the A.C. “Would you ask your sergeant to fetch for me the cat skin from the Laboratory? Merry will know what I mean.”
Sir Edward gave the necessary orders, and the scientist continued:
“Next, I want you to recall the things that were found in the dressing-room of Enora—the skin, his day clothes, an under-vest, vaseline, cold cream, a watch—and nothing else. I told Jones and Kenway that there were two things missing from the dressing-room, and that they worried me.” He looked across at the officers. “Have you decided what are missing?” he asked.
There was a shaking of heads. At the same time the door opened and a sergeant walked in with the cat skin of Enora. Doctor Manson took it.
“I don’t want to have to get into the thing. I think if I can just put it over my back loosely and slip into the head, that will be sufficient.”
He did so. The mask came down to the nose and round the cheek-bones, leaving the mouth and lower part of the face of the scientist bare.
“You see,” he said, “that in order to allow the wearer to breathe, and to speak distinctly, the mouth and that part of his face below the mouth has to be uncovered. Therefore, the wearer, that is Enora, has to make up his face to imitate the lower part of the face of a cat. He paused, momentarily, and then went on, quietly:
“There was no make-up in the dressing-room. The make-up box, or materials if he did not use a box, were missing. Yet they must have been there at the start, for Enora was made-up. I am not blaming Jones or Kenway, much less Inspector Bradley, for not realizing this; they are not, perhaps, conversant with the requirements of a stage artiste, particularly of the cat tribe.
“But that is not all that was missing. And I think all three of you ought to have seen the other articles. Enora has a drink. Within two minutes he is unconscious, and during those two minutes he is dizzy and lightheaded. Yet, there was no sign when we examined that dressing-room of either the bottle or the glass from which he had drunk the beer. Who removed the bottle, glass and the make-up from the room of Enora? And why?
