Blood on the Tracks

by Martin Edwards

  ‘Yes,’ said Thorndyke; ‘the same combination of fibres as that which we found on the dead man’s teeth and probably from the same source. This bar has probably been wiped on that very curtain or rug with which poor Brodski was stifled. We will place it on the wall for future reference, and meanwhile, by hook or by crook, we must get into that house. This is much too plain a hint to be disregarded.’

  Hastily repacking the case, we hurried to the front of the house, where we found the two officials looking rather vaguely up the unmade road.

  ‘There’s a light in the house,’ said the inspector, ‘but there’s no one at home. I have knocked a dozen times and got no answer. And I don’t see what we are hanging about here for at all. The hat is probably close to where the body was found, and we shall find it in the morning.’

  Thorndyke made no reply, but, entering the garden, stepped up the path, and having knocked gently at the door, stooped and listened attentively at the key-hole.

  ‘I tell you there’s no one in the house, sir,’ said the inspector irritably; and, as Thorndyke continued to listen, he walked away, muttering angrily. As soon as he was gone, Thorndyke flashed his lantern over the door, the threshold, the path and the small flowerbeds; and, from one of the latter, I presently saw him stoop and pick something up.

  ‘Here is a highly instructive object, Jervis,’ he said, coming out to the gate, and displaying a cigarette of which only half-an-inch had been smoked.

  ‘How instructive?’ I asked. ‘What do you learn from it?’

  ‘Many things,’ he replied. ‘It has been lit and thrown away unsmoked; that indicates a sudden change of purpose. It was thrown away at the entrance to the house, almost certainly by someone entering it. That person was probably a stranger, or he would have taken it in with him. But he had not expected to enter the house, or he would not have lit it. These are the general suggestions; now as to the particular ones. The paper of the cigarette is of the kind known as the “Zig-Zag” brand; the very conspicuous water-mark is quite easy to see. Now Brodski’s cigarette book was a “Zig-Zag” book—so called from the way in which the papers pull out. But let us see what the tobacco is like.’ With a pin from his coat, he hooked out from the unburned end a wisp of dark, dirty brown tobacco, which he held out for my inspection.

  ‘Fine-cut Latakia,’ I pronounced, without hesitation.

  ‘Very well,’ said Thorndyke. ‘Here is a cigarette made of an unusual tobacco similar to that in Brodski’s pouch and wrapped in an unusual paper similar to those in Brodski’s cigarette book. With due regard to the fourth rule of the syllogism, I suggest that this cigarette was made by Oscar Brodski. But, nevertheless, we will look for corroborative detail.’

  ‘What is that?’ I asked.

  ‘You may have noticed that Brodski’s match-box contained round wooden vestas—which are also rather unusual. As he must have lighted the cigarette within a few steps of the gate, we ought to be able to find the match with which he lighted it. Let us try up the road in the direction from which he would probably have approached.’

  We walked very slowly up the road, searching the ground with the lantern, and we had hardly gone a dozen paces when I espied a match lying on the rough path and eagerly picked it up. It was a round wooden vesta.

  Thorndyke examined it with interest and having deposited it, with the cigarette, in his collecting-box, turned to retrace his steps. ‘There is now, Jervis, no reasonable doubt that Brodski was murdered in that house. We have succeeded in connecting that house with the crime, and now we have got to force an entrance and join up the other clues.’ We walked quickly back to the rear of the premises, where we found the inspector conversing disconsolately with the station-master.

  ‘I think, sir,’ said the former, ‘we had better go back now; in fact, I don’t see what we came here for, but—Here! I say, sir, you mustn’t do that!’ For Thorndyke, without a word of warning, had sprung up lightly and thrown one of his long legs over the wall.

  ‘I can’t allow you to enter private premises, sir,’ continued the inspector; but Thorndyke quietly dropped down on the inside and turned to face the officer over the wall.

  ‘Now, listen to me, Inspector,’ said he. ‘I have good reasons for believing that the dead man, Brodski, has been in this house—in fact, I am prepared to swear an information to that effect. But time is precious; we must follow the scent while it is hot. And I am not proposing to break into the house off-hand. I merely wish to examine the dust-bin.’

  ‘The dust-bin!’ gasped the inspector. ‘Well, you really are a most extraordinary gentleman! What do you expect to find in the dust-bin?’

  ‘I am looking for a broken tumbler or wine-glass. It is a thin glass vessel decorated with a pattern of small, eight-pointed stars. It may be in the dust-bin or it may be inside the house.’

  The inspector hesitated, but Thorndyke’s confident manner had evidently impressed him.

  ‘We can soon see what is in the dust-bin,’ he said, ‘though what in creation a broken tumbler has to do with the case is more than I can understand. However, here goes.’ He sprang up on to the wall, and, as he dropped down into the garden, the station-master and I followed.

  Thorndyke lingered a few moments by the gate examining the ground, while the two officials hurried up the path. Finding nothing of interest, however, he walked towards the house, looking keenly about him as he went; but we were hardly half-way up the path when we heard the voice of the inspector calling excitedly.

  ‘Here you are, sir, this way,’ he sang out, and, as we hurried forward, we suddenly came on the two officials standing over a small rubbish-heap and looking the picture of astonishment. The glare of their lanterns illuminated the heap, and showed us the scattered fragments of a thin glass, star-pattern tumbler.

  ‘I can’t imagine how you guessed it was here, sir,’ said the inspector, with a new-born respect in his tone, ‘nor what you’re going to do with it now you have found it.’

  ‘It is merely another link in the chain of evidence,’ said Thorndyke, taking a pair of forceps from the case and stooping over the heap. ‘Perhaps we shall find something else.’ He picked up several small fragments of glass, looked at them closely and dropped them again. Suddenly his eye caught a small splinter at the base of the heap. Seizing it with the forceps, he held it close to his eye in the strong lamplight, and, taking out his lens, examined it with minute attention. ‘Yes,’ he said at length, ‘this is what I was looking for. Let me have those two cards, Jervis.’

  I produced the two visiting-cards with the reconstructed lenses stuck to them, and, laying them on the lid of the case, threw the light of the lantern on them. Thorndyke looked at them intently for some time, and from them to the fragment that he held. Then, turning to the inspector, he said: ‘You saw me pick up this splinter of glass?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ replied the officer.

  ‘And you saw where we found these spectacle-glasses and know whose they were?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They are the dead man’s spectacles, and you found them where the body had been.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Thorndyke, ‘now observe’; and, as the two officials craned forward with parted lips, he laid the little splinter in a gap in one of the lenses and then gave it a gentle push forward, when it occupied the gap perfectly, joining edge to edge with the adjacent fragments and rendering that portion of the lens complete.

  ‘My God!’ exclaimed the inspector. ‘How on earth did you know?’

  ‘I must explain that later,’ said Thorndyke. ‘Meanwhile we had better have a look inside the house. I expect to find there a cigarette—or possibly a cigar—which has been trodden on, some wholemeal biscuits, possibly a wooden vesta, and perhaps even the missing hat.’

  At the mention of the hat, the inspector stepped eagerly to the back door, but, finding it bolted, he tried the window. This also was securely fastened and, on Thorndyk
e’s advice, we went round to the front door.

  ‘This door is locked too,’ said the inspector. ‘I’m afraid we shall have to break in. It’s a nuisance, though.’

  ‘Have a look at the window,’ suggested Thorndyke.

  The officer did so, struggling vainly to undo the patent catch with his pocket-knife.

  ‘It’s no go,’ he said, coming back to the door. ‘We shall have to—’ He broke off with an astonished stare, for the door stood open and Thorndyke was putting something in his pocket.

  ‘Your friend doesn’t waste much time—even in picking a lock,’ he remarked to me, as we followed Thorndyke into the house; but his reflections were soon merged in a new surprise. Thorndyke had preceded us into a small sitting-room dimly lighted by a hanging lamp turned down low.

  As we entered he turned up the light and glanced about the room. A whisky-bottle was on the table, with a siphon, a tumbler and a biscuit-box. Pointing to the latter, Thorndyke said to the inspector: ‘See what is in that box.’

  The inspector raised the lid and peeped in, the station-master peered over his shoulder, and then both stared at Thorndyke.

  ‘How in the name of goodness did you know that there were wholemeal biscuits in the house, sir?’ exclaimed the station-master.

  ‘You’d be disappointed if I told you,’ replied Thorndyke. ‘But look at this.’ He pointed to the hearth, where lay a flattened, half-smoked cigarette and a round wooden vesta. The inspector gazed at these objects in silent wonder, while, as to the station-master, he continued to stare at Thorndyke with what I can only describe as superstitious awe.

  ‘You have the dead man’s property with you, I believe?’ said my colleague.

  ‘Yes,’ replied the inspector; ‘I put the things in my pocket for safety.’

  ‘Then,’ said Thorndyke, picking up the flattened cigarette, ‘let us have a look at his tobacco-pouch.’

  As the officer produced and opened the pouch, Thorndyke neatly cut open the cigarette with his sharp pocket-knife. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘what kind of tobacco is in the pouch?’

  The inspector took out a pinch, looked at it and smelt it distastefully. ‘It’s one of those stinking tobaccos,’ he said, ‘that they put in mixtures—Latakia, I think.’

  ‘And what is this?’ asked Thorndyke, pointing to the open cigarette.

  ‘Same stuff, undoubtedly,’ replied the inspector.

  ‘And now let us see his cigarette papers,’ said Thorndyke.

  The little book, or rather packet—for it consisted of separated papers—was produced from the officer’s pocket and a sample paper abstracted. Thorndyke laid the half-burnt paper beside it, and the inspector having examined the two, held them up to the light.

  ‘There isn’t much chance of mistaking that “Zig-Zag” watermark,’ he said. ‘This cigarette was made by the deceased; there can’t be the shadow of a doubt.’

  ‘One more point,’ said Thorndyke, laying the burnt wooden vesta on the table. ‘You have his match-box?’

  The inspector brought forth the little silver casket, opened it and compared the wooden vestas that it contained with the burnt end. Then he shut the box with a snap.

  ‘You’ve proved it up to the hilt,’ said he. ‘If we could only find the hat, we should have a complete case.’

  ‘I’m not sure that we haven’t found the hat,’ said Thorndyke. ‘You notice that something besides coal has been burned in the grate.’

  The inspector ran eagerly to the fire-place and began, with feverish hands, to pick out the remains of the extinct fire. ‘The cinders are still warm,’ he said, ‘and they are certainly not all coal cinders. There has been wood burned here on top of the coal, and these little black lumps are neither coal nor wood. They may quite possibly be the remains of a burnt hat, but, lord! Who can tell? You can put together the pieces of broken spectacle-glasses, but you can’t build up a hat out of a few cinders.’ He held out a handful of little, black, spongy cinders and looked ruefully at Thorndyke, who took them from him and laid them out on a sheet of paper.

  ‘We can’t reconstitute the hat, certainly,’ my friend agreed, ‘but we may be able to ascertain the origin of these remains. They may not be cinders of a hat, after all.’ He lit a wax match and, taking up one of the charred fragments, applied the flame to it. The cindery mass fused at once with a crackling, seething sound, emitting a dense smoke, and instantly the air became charged with a pungent, resinous odour mingled with the smell of burning animal matter.

  ‘Smells like varnish,’ the station-master remarked.

  ‘Yes. Shellac,’ said Thorndyke; ‘so the first test gives a positive result. The next test will take more time.’

  He opened the green case and took from it a little flask, fitted for Marsh’s arsenic test, with a safety funnel and escape tube, a small folding tripod, a spirit lamp and a disc of asbestos to serve as a sand-bath. Dropping into the flask several of the cindery masses, selected after careful inspection, he filled it up with alcohol and placed it on the disc, which he rested on the tripod. Then he lighted the spirit lamp underneath and sat down to wait for the alcohol to boil.

  ‘There is one little point that we may as well settle,’ he said presently, as the bubbles began to rise in the flask. ‘Give me a slide with a drop of Farrant on it, Jervis.’

  I prepared the slide while Thorndyke, with a pair of forceps, picked out a tiny wisp from the table-cloth. ‘I fancy we have seen this fabric before,’ he remarked, as he laid the little pinch of fluff in the mounting fluid and slipped the slide on to the stage of the microscope. ‘Yes,’ he continued, looking into the eye-piece, ‘here are our old acquaintances, the red wool fibres, the blue cotton and the yellow jute. We must label this at once or we may confuse it with the other specimens.’

  ‘Have you any idea how the deceased met his death?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Thorndyke. ‘I take it that the murderer enticed him into this room and gave him some refreshments. The murderer sat in the chair in which you are sitting, Brodski sat in that small arm-chair. Then I imagine the murderer attacked him with that iron bar that you found among the nettles, failed to kill him at the first stroke, struggled with him, and finally suffocated him with the table-cloth. By the way, there is just one more point. You recognise this piece of string?’ He took from his collecting-box the little end of twine that had been picked up by the line. The inspector nodded. ‘If you look behind you, you will see where it came from.’

  The officer turned sharply and his eye lighted on a string-box on the mantelpiece. He lifted it down, and Thorndyke drew out from it a length of white twine with one green strand, which he compared with the piece in his hand. ‘The green strand in it makes the identification fairly certain,’ he said. ‘Of course the string was used to secure the umbrella and hand-bag. He could not have carried them in his hand, encumbered as he was with the corpse. But I expect our other specimen is ready now.’ He lifted the flask off the tripod, and, giving it a vigorous shake, examined the contents through his lens. The alcohol had now become dark-brown in colour, and was noticeably thicker and more syrupy in consistence.

  ‘I think we have enough here for a rough test,’ said he, selecting a pipette and a slide from the case. He dipped the former into the flask and, having sucked up a few drops of the alcohol from the bottom, held the pipette over the slide on which he allowed the contained fluid to drop.

  Laying a cover-glass on the little pool of alcohol, he put the slide on the microscope stage and examined it attentively, while we watched him in expectant silence.

  At length he looked up, and, addressing the inspector, asked: ‘Do you know what felt hats are made of?’

  ‘I can’t say that I do, sir,’ replied the officer.

  ‘Well, the better quality hats are made of rabbits’ and hares’ wool—the soft under-fur, you know—cemented together with shellac. N
ow there is very little doubt that these cinders contain shellac, and with the microscope I find a number of small hairs of a rabbit. I have, therefore, little hesitation in saying that these cinders are the remains of a hard felt hat; and, as the hairs do not appear to be dyed, I should say it was a grey hat.’

  At this moment our conclave was interrupted by hurried footsteps on the garden path and, as we turned with one accord, an elderly woman burst into the room.

  She stood for a moment in mute astonishment, and then, looking from one to the other, demanded: ‘Who are you? And what are you doing here?’

  The inspector rose. ‘I am a police officer, madam,’ said he. ‘I can’t give you any further information just now, but, if you will excuse me asking, who are you?’

  ‘I am Mr Hickler’s housekeeper,’ she replied.

  ‘And Mr Hickler; are you expecting him home shortly?’

  ‘No, I am not,’ was the curt reply. ‘Mr Hickler is away from home just now. He left this evening by the boat train.’

  ‘For Amsterdam?’ asked Thorndyke.

  ‘I believe so, though I don’t see what business it is of yours,’ the housekeeper answered.

  ‘I thought he might, perhaps, be a diamond broker or merchant,’ said Thorndyke. ‘A good many of them travel by that train.’

  ‘So he is,’ said the woman, ‘at least, he has something to do with diamonds.’

  ‘Ah. Well, we must be going, Jervis,’ said Thorndyke, ‘we have finished here, and we have to find an hotel or inn. Can I have a word with you, Inspector?’

  The officer, now entirely humble and reverent, followed us out into the garden to receive Thorndyke’s parting advice.

  ‘You had better take possession of the house at once, and get rid of the housekeeper. Nothing must be removed. Preserve those cinders and see that the rubbish-heap is not disturbed, and, above all, don’t have the room swept. The station-master or I will let them know at the police station, so that they can send an officer to relieve you.’

  With a friendly ‘good-night’ we went on our way, guided by the station-master; and here our connection with the case came to an end. Hickler (whose Christian name turned out to be Silas) was, it is true, arrested as he stepped ashore from the steamer, and a packet of diamonds, subsequently identified as the property of Oscar Brodski, found upon his person. But he was never brought to trial, for on the return voyage he contrived to elude his guards for an instant as the ship was approaching the English coast, and it was not until three days later, when a handcuffed body was cast up on the lonely shore by Orfordness, that the authorities knew the fate of Silas Hickler.