*CHAPTER VI.*
*A BIT OF THE ROPE.*
Sir James Brownsmith thought that on the whole he would walk home fromPiccadilly to Harley Street. The chauffeur touched his hat, and the carmoved on. The eminent surgeon had ample food for reflection; it seemedto him that he was on the verge of a great discovery. Somebody accostedhim two or three times before he came back to earth again.
"That you, Townsend?" he asked, abruptly. "You want to speak to me?Certainly. Only as I am rather tired to-night if you will cut it asshort as possible, I shall be glad."
"I am afraid I can't, Sir James," Inspector Townsend replied. "Indeed Iwas going to suggest that I walked as far as your house and had a chatover matters."
Sir James shrugged his shoulders, and Harley Street was reached almostin silence. In the small consulting-room the surgeon switched on abrilliant light and handed over cigars and whisky and soda.
"Now go on," he said. "It's all about to-night's business, I suppose?"
"Precisely, sir. You've helped us a good many times with your wonderfulscientific knowledge, and I dare say you will again. This Piccadillymystery is a queer business altogether. Do you feel quite sure that thepoor fellow was really murdered, after all?"
Brownsmith looked fixedly at the speaker. He had considerable respectfor Townsend, whose intellect was decidedly above the usual ScotlandYard level. Townsend was a man of imagination and a master of theory.He went beyond motive and a cast of a footmark--he was no rule-of-thumbworkman.
"On the face of it I should say there can be no possible doubt," saidSir James.
"Murdered by strangulation, sir? The same as that man at Streatham. Asyou have made a careful examination of both bodies you ought to know?"
"Is there any form of murder unknown to me, Townsend?" Sir James asked."Is there any trick of the assassin's trade that I have not mastered?"
"Oh, I admit your special knowledge, sir! But it's a trick of mine tobe always planning new crimes. I could give you three ways ofcommitting murder that are absolutely original. And I've got a theoryabout this business that I don't care to disclose yet. Still, we candiscuss the matter up to a certain point. Both those men weredestroyed--or lost their lives--in the same way."
"Both strangled, in fact. It's the Indian Thug dodge. But you know allabout that, Townsend?"
"We'll admit for the moment that both victims have been destroyed byThugee. But isn't it rather strange that both bodies were found inclose juxtaposition to valuable orchids? We know, of course, that SirClement's orchids are almost priceless. The Streatham witness,Silverthorne, says that a very rare orchid was recently placed in theLennox conservatory. Now, isn't it fair to argue that both murdered menlost their lives in pursuit of those orchids?"
Sir James nodded thoughtfully. He had forgotten the Cardinal Moth forthe moment.
"I see you have pushed your investigations a long way in thisdirection," he said. "This being so, have you ascertained for a factthat the Lennox nursery really contained nothing out of the common inthe way of Orchidacae? You know what I mean."
"Quite so, sir. That I have not been able to ascertain because theproprietor of the Lennox nursery has no special knowledge of his trade.His great line is cheap ferns for the London market. But he says agentleman whom he could easily recognise left him an orchid to lookafter--a poor dried-up stick it seemed to be--with instructions to keepit in a house not too warm, where it might remain at a small rent tillwanted."
"Oh, indeed! You are interesting me, Townsend. Pray go on."
"Well, Sir James, I wanted to see the flowers after the murder, not thatI expected it to lead to anything at that time. Seeing what hashappened this evening, it becomes more interesting. Would you believeit, sir, that the flower in question was gone?"
"You mean that it had been stolen? Really, Townsend, we seem to be onthe track of something important."
"Yes, Sir James, the flower had gone. Now, what I want to know isthis--has Sir Clement Frobisher added anything special to his collectionlately?"
Sir James shot an admiring glance at his questioner. Seeing that he wasworking almost entirely in the dark, Townsend had developed his theorywith amazing cleverness.
"It's a treat to work with you," the great surgeon said. "As a matterof fact, Sir Clement had got hold of something that struck me asabsolutely unique. It's a flower called the Cardinal Moth. A flower ona flower, so to speak; a large cluster of whitey-pink blossoms withlittle red blooms hovering over like a cloud of scarlet moths. SirClement is very pleased about it."
"From what you say I gather that he has not had it long, sir?"
"Oh, I should say quite recently! But you are not going to tell me thatyou suspect Frobisher?"
"At present, I don't suspect anybody, though Sir Clement is anunmitigated rascal who would not stop at any crime to serve his ownends. I don't go so far as to say that he had a hand in the business,but I do say that he could tell us exactly how the tragedy took place."
Sir James shot an admiring glance in the direction of the speaker.Frobisher's elfish interest in the crime, and his amazing _sang-froid_under the circumstances, had struck the surgeon unpleasantly. Townsendlooked reflectively into the mahogany depths of his whisky and soda.
"It's one thing to know that, and quite another to make a man like SirClement speak," he said. "I am more or less with you, sir, over theThugee business, but was the crime committed with a rope? I shall notbe surprised to find that it was done with a bramble, something likehoneysuckle or the like. But at the same time as you seemed so certainabout the rope, why----"
Townsend waved his hand significantly. Sir James rose and unlocked asafe from which he produced an envelope with some fibrous brown strandsin it. These he placed under a powerful microscope.
"Now, these I took from the throat of the poor fellow who was killed atStreatham," he explained. "I was rather bored by the case when youcalled me in first, and even up to the time I gave my evidence at theinquest. After the inquest was over I examined the body over again, andI confess that my interest increased as I proceeded. After what youhave just told me I am completely fascinated. I made a most carefulexamination of the dead man's neck once, and had discovered that he haddied of strangulation, and bit by bit I collected these. They arefibres of the rope with which the crime was done."
Townsend nodded so far as Sir James had proved his case.
"Have you done as much with the poor fellow at Sir Clement's residence?"he asked.
"No, but I shall do so in the morning. This is a curious sort of stuff,Townsend, and certainly not made in England. It is not rope or cord inour commercial sense of the word, but a strong Manilla twist of nativefibre. Thus we are going to introduce a foreign element into thesolution."
Townsend smiled as he produced a little packet from his pocket and laidit on the table.
"You are building up my theory for me, wonderfully, sir," he said. "Ialso have something of the same sort here, only I have more than youseem to have collected. Here is the same sort of fibre from Mr.Manfred's collar-stud, so that he must have been strangled over hiscollar, which means a powerful pressure. I didn't think it possible forhuman hands to put a pressure like that, but there it is."
"My word, we've got a powerful assassin to look for!" Sir Jamesexclaimed. "Like you, I should not have deemed it possible. Did youfind all that on Manfred's collar-stud?"
"Not all of it, sir. The collar-stud was bent up as if it had been abit of tinfoil. But I found the bulk of this under the dead man'sfinger-nails. They are long nails, and doubtless in the agony ofstrangulation they clutched frantically at the cord. I am quite surethat you will find this fibre to be identical with that which you tookfrom the neck of the Streatham victim."
"And this caretaker you speak of. Is he a respectable man?Silverthorne you said his name was, I fancy."
"That's the man, sir. He has been in his present employ fo
rone-and-twenty years, a hard-working, saving man, with a big family. Oh,I should take his word for most things that he told me!"
Sir James revolved the problem slowly in his mind, as he inhaled hiscigarette smoke. If the Lennox nursery had been deliberately made thecentre of a puzzling murder mystery, it was quite sure that neither thenursery proprietor nor his man knew anything whatever about it. And yetit had been necessary, for some reason, that a glass-house should playan important part, for both murders had taken place under glass, andboth suggested that the orchid was at the bottom of it. Again, Townsendwas not the kind of man to make reckless statements, and when he boldlyaverred that Sir Clement Frobisher could tell all about it if he liked,he had assuredly some very strong evidence to go upon. A great dealdepended upon the analysis of the red, liquid stain on the fibre takenby Townsend from the body of Manfred.
"If these little bits of stuff could speak what tales they could tell,"Sir James said, as he carefully locked up both packets of fibre. I'llget up an hour earlier in the morning and have a dig at these, Townsend.And meanwhile as my days are busy ones, and it's past one o clock, Ishall have to get you to finish your drink and give me your room insteadof your company.
Townsend took the hint and his hat and retired. But though Sir James hadexpressed his intention of retiring almost immediately, he stretched outhis hand for another cigarette and lighted it thoughtfully. Was itpossible, he wondered, if Sir Clement Frobisher really could solve themystery? And had he anything to do with it? Not directly, Sir Jamesfelt sure; Frobisher was not that kind of man. He was much more likelyto get the thing done for him. He was secretive, too, over the CardinalMoth; he had behaved so queerly over that business of Count Lefroy andhis insult of Frobisher's guest. Brownsmith pitched his cigarette intothe grate, and switched off the electric light impatiently.
"Why should I worry my head about it?" he muttered. "I'll go to bed."
The Cardinal Moth Page 6
