At this moment the sound of footsteps ascending our stairs became audible. It was late for business callers, but we were not unaccustomed to late visitors; and a familiar rat-tat of our little brass knocker seemed to explain the untimely visit.
“That sounds like Superintendent Miller’s knock,” said Thorndyke, as he strode across the room to open the door. And the superintendent it turned out to be. But not alone.
As the door opened the officer entered with two gentlemen, both natives of India, and one of whom was our friend Mr. Byramji.
“Perhaps,” said Miller,” I had better look in a little later.”
“Not on my account,” said Byramji. “I have only a few words to say and there is nothing secret about my business. May I introduce my kinsman, Mr. Khambata, a student of the Inner Temple?”
Byramji’s companion bowed ceremoniously. “Byramji came to my chambers just now,” he explained, “to consult me about this dreadful affair, and he chanced to show me your card. He had not heard of you, but supposed you to be an ordinary medical practitioner. He did not realise that he had entertained an angel unawares. But I, who knew of your great reputation, advised him to put his affairs in your hands—without prejudice to the official investigations,” Mr. Khambata added hastily, bowing to the superintendent.
“And I,” said Mr. Byramji, “instantly decided to act on my kinsman’s advice. I have come to beg you to leave no stone unturned to secure the punishment of my cousin’s murderer. Spare no expense. I am a rich man and my poor cousin’s property will come to me. As to the ruby, recover it if you can, but it is of no consequence. Vengeance—justice is what I seek. Deliver the wretch into my hands, or into the hands of justice, and I give you the ruby or its value, freely—gladly.”
“There is no need,” said Thorndyke, “of such extraordinary inducement. If you wish me to investigate this case, I will do so and will use every means at my disposal, without prejudice, as your friend says, to the proper claims of the officers of the law. But you under stand that I can make no promises. I cannot guarantee success.”
“We understand that,” said Mr. Khambata. “But we know that if you undertake the case, everything that is possible will be done. And now we must leave you to your consultation.”
As soon as our clients had gone, Miller rose from his chair with his hand in his breast pocket. “I dare say, doctor,” said he, “you can guess what I have come about. I was sent for to look into this Byramji case and I heard from Mr. Byramji that you had been there and that you had made a minute examination of the missing man’s hat. So have I; and I don’t mind telling you that I could learn nothing from it.”
“I haven’t learnt much myself,” said Thorndyke.
“But you’ve picked up something,” urged Miller, “if it is only a hint; and we have just a little clue. There is very small doubt that this is the same man—‘The New Jersey Sphinx,’ as the papers call him—that committed those other robberies; and a very difficult type of criminal he is to get hold of. He is bold, he is wary, he plays a lone hand, and he sticks at nothing. He has no confederates, and he kills every time. The American police never got near him but once; and that once gives us the only clues we have.”
“Finger-prints?” inquired Thorndyke.
“Yes, and very poor ones, too. So rough that you can hardly make out the pattern. And even those are not absolutely guaranteed to be his; but in any case, fingerprints are not much use until you’ve got the man. And there is a photograph of the fellow himself. But it is only a snapshot, and a poor one at that. All it shows is that he has a mop of hair and a pointed beard—or at least he had when the photograph was taken. But for identification purposes it is practically worthless. Still, there it is; and what I propose is this: we want this man and so do you; we’ve worked together before and can trust one another. I am going to lay my cards on the table and ask you to do the same.”
“But, my dear Miller,” said Thorndyke, “I haven’t any cards. I haven’t a single solid fact.”
The detective was visibly disappointed. Nevertheless, he laid two photographs on the table and pushed them towards Thorndyke, who inspected them through his lens and passed them to me.
“The pattern is very indistinct and broken up,” he remarked.
“Yes,” said Miller; “the prints must have been made on a very rough surface, though you get prints something like those from fitters or other men who use files and handle rough metal. And now, doctor, can’t you give us a lead of any kind?”
Thorndyke reflected a few moments. “I really have not a single real fact,” said he, “and I am unwilling to make merely speculative suggestions.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Miller replied cheerfully. “Give us a start. I shan’t complain if it comes to nothing.”
“Well,” Thorndyke said reluctantly, “I was thinking of getting a few particulars as to the various tenants of No. 51 Clifford’s Inn. Perhaps you could do it more easily and it might be worth your while.”
“Good!” Miller exclaimed gleefully. “He ‘gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.’”
“It is probably the wrong name,” Thorndyke reminded him.
“I don’t care,” said Miller. “But why shouldn’t we go together? It’s too late tonight, and I can’t manage tomorrow morning. But say tomorrow after noon. Two heads are better than one, you know, especially when the second one is yours. Or perhaps,” he added, with a glance at me, “three would be better still.”
Thorndyke considered for a moment or two and then looked at me.
“What do you say, Jervis?” he asked.
As my afternoon was unoccupied, I agreed with enthusiasm, being as curious as the superintendent to know how Thorndyke had connected this particular locality with the vanished criminal, and Miller departed in high spirits with an appointment for the morrow three o’clock in the afternoon.
For some time after the superintendent’s depart I sat wrapped in profound meditation. In some mysterious way the address, 51 Clifford’s Inn, had emerged from the formless data yielded by the derelict hat. But what had been the connection? Apparently the fragment of the addressed envelope had furnished the clue. But how had Thorndyke extended “—n” into “51, Clifford’s Inn”? It was to me a complete mystery.
Meanwhile, Thorndyke had seated himself at writing-table, and I noticed that of the two letters which he wrote, one was written on our headed paper and other on ordinary plain notepaper. I was speculating on the reason for this when he rose, and as he stuck on the stamps, said to me, “I am just going out to post these two letters. Do you care for a short stroll through the leafy shades of Fleet Street? The evening is still young.”
“The rural solitudes of Fleet Street attract me I all hours,” I replied, fetching my hat from the adjoining office, and we accordingly sallied forth together, strolling up King’s Bench Walk and emerging into Fleet Street by way of Mitre Court. When Thorndyke had dropped his letters into the post office box he stood awhile gazing up at the tower of St. Dunstan’s Church.”
“Have you ever been in Clifford’s Inn, Jervis?” he inquired.
“Never,” I replied (we passed through it together on an average a dozen times a week), “but it is not too late for an exploratory visit.”
We crossed the road, and entering Clifford’s Inn Passage, passed through the still half-open gate, crossed the outer court and threaded the tunnel-like entry by the hall to the inner court, in the middle of which Thorndyke halted, and lookj up at one of the ancient houses, remarked, “No. 51.”
“So that is where our friend hangs out his flag,” said I.
“Oh come, Jervis,” he protested, “I am surprised at you; you are as bad as Miller. I have merely suggested a possible connection between these premises and the hat that was left at Bedford Place. As to the nature of that connection I have no idea, and there may be no connection at all. I assure you, Jervis, that I am on the thinnest possible ice. I am working on a hypo thesis which is in the h
ighest degree speculative, and I should not have given Miller a hint but that he was so eager and so willing to help—and also that I wanted his fingerprints. But we are really only at the beginning, and may never get any farther.”
I looked up at the old house. It was all in darkness excepting the top floor, where a couple of lighted windows showed the shadow of a man moving rapidly about the room. We crossed to the entry and inspected the names painted on the door-posts. The ground floor was occupied by a firm of photo-engravers, the first floor by a Mr. Carrington, whose name stood out conspicuously on its oblong of comparatively fresh white paint, while the tenants of the second floor—old residents, to judge by the faded and discoloured paint in which their names were announced—were Messrs. Burt & Highley, metallurgists.
“Burt has departed,” said Thorndyke, as I read out the names; and he pointed to two red lines of erasure which I had not noticed in the dim light, “so the active gentleman above is presumably Mr. Highley, and we may take it that he has residential as well as business premises. I wonder who and what Mr. Carrington is—but I dare say we shall find out tomorrow.”
With this he dismissed the professional aspects of Clifford’s Inn, and, changing the subject to its history and associations, chatted in his inimitable, picturesque manner until our leisurely perambulations brought us at length to the Inner Temple Gate.
On the following morning we bustled through our work in order to leave the afternoon free, making several joint visits to solicitors from whom we were taking instructions. Returning from the last of these—a City lawyer—Thorndyke turned into St. Helen’s Place and halted at a doorway bearing the brass plate of a firm of assayists and refiners. I followed him into the outer office, where, on his mentioning his name, an elderly man came to the counter.
“Mr. Grayson has put out some specimens for you, sir,” said he. “They are about thirty grains to the ton—you said that the content was of no importance—I am to tell you that you need not return them. They are not worth treating.” He went to a large safe from which he took a canvas bag, and returning to the counter, turned out on it the contents of the bag, consisting of about a dozen good-sized lumps of quartz and a glittering yellow fragment, which Thorndyke picked out and dropped in his pocket.
“Will that collection do?” our friend inquired.
“It will answer my purpose perfectly,” Thorndyke replied, and when the specimens had been replaced the bag, and the latter deposited in Thorndyke’s handbag, my colleague thanked the assistant and we went on our way.
“We extend our activities into the domain of mineralogy,” I remarked.
Thorndyke smiled an inscrutable smile. “We also employ the suction pump as an instrument of research,” he observed. “However, the strategic uses of chunks of quartz—otherwise than as missiles—will develop themselves in due course, and the interval may be used for reflection.”
It was. But my reflection brought no solution. I noticed, however, that when at three o’clock we set forth in company with the superintendent, the bag went with us; and having offered to carry it and having had my offer accepted with a sly twinkle, its weight assured me that the quartz was still inside.
“Chambers and Offices to let,” Thorndyke read aloud as we approached the porter’s lodge. “That lets us in, I think. And the porter knows Dr. Jervis and me by sight, so he will talk more freely.”
“He doesn’t know me,” said the superintendent, “but I’ll keep in the background, all the same.”
A pull at the bell brought out a clerical-looking man in a tall hat and a frock coat, who regarded Thorndyke and me through his spectacles with an amiable air of recognition.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Larkin,” said Thorndyke. “I am asked to get particulars of vacant chambers. What have you got to let?
Mr. Larkin reflected. “Let me see. There’s a ground floor at No. 5—rather dark—and a small second-pair set at No. 12. And then there is—oh, yes, there is a good first-floor set at No. 51. They wouldn’t have been vacant until Michaelmas, but Mr. Carrington, the tenant, has had to go abroad suddenly. I had a letter from him this morning, enclosing the key. Funny letter, too.” He dived into his pocket, and hauling out a bundle of letters, selected one and handed it to Thorndyke with a broad smile.
Thorndyke glanced at the postmark (“London, E.”), and having taken out the key, extracted the letter, which he opened and held so that Miller and I could see it. The paper bore the printed heading, “Baltic Shipping Company, Wapping,” and the further written heading, “S.S. Gothenburg,” and the letter was brief and to the point:
DEAR SIR,
I am giving up my chambers at No. 51, as I have been suddenly called abroad. I enclose the key, but am not troubling you with the rent. The sale of my costly furniture will more than cover it, and the surplus can be expended on painting the garden railings,
Yours sincerely,
A. CARRINGTON.
Thorndyke smilingly replaced the letter and the key in the envelope and asked: “What is the furniture like?”
“You’ll see,” chuckled the porter, “if you care to look at the rooms. And I think they might suit. They’re a good set.”
“Quiet?”
“Yes, pretty quiet. There’s a metallurgist overhead—Highley—used to be Burt & Highley, but Burt has gone to the City, and I don’t think Highley does much business now.”
“Let me see,” said Thorndyke, “I think I used to meet Highley sometimes—a tall, dark man, isn’t he?”
“No, that would be Burt. Highley is a little, fairish man, rather bald, with a pretty rich complexion”—here Mr. Larkin tapped his nose knowingly and raised his little finger—“which may account for the falling off of business.”
“Hadn’t we better have a look at the rooms?” Miller interrupted a little impatiently.
“Can we see them, Mr. Larkin?” asked Thorndyke.
“Certainly,” was the reply. “You’ve got the key. Let me have it when you’ve seen the rooms; and whatever ever you do,” he added with a broad grin, “be careful of the furniture.”
“It looks,” the superintendent remarked as we crossed the inner court, “as if Mr. Carrington had done a mizzle. That’s hopeful. And I see,” he continued, glancing at the fresh paint on the door-post as we passed through the entry, “that he hasn’t been here long. That’s hopeful, too.”
We ascended to the first floor, and as Thorndyke unlocked and threw open the door, Miller laughed aloud. The “costly furniture” consisted of a small kitchen table, a Windsor chair and a dilapidated deck-chair. The kitchen contained a gas ring, a small saucepan and a frying-pan, and the bedroom was furnished with a camp-bed devoid of bed-clothes, a wash-hand basin on a packing-case, and a water can.
“Hallo!” exclaimed the superintendent. “He’s left a hat behind. Quite a good hat, too.” He took it down from the peg, glanced at its exterior and then, turning it over, looked inside. And then his mouth opened with a jerk.
“Great Solomon Eagle!” he gasped. “Do you see, doctor? It’s the hat.”
He held it out to us, and sure enough on the white silk lining of the crown were the embossed, gilt letters, D.B., just as Mr. Byramji had described them.
“Yes,” Thorndyke agreed, as the superintendent snatched up a greengrocer’s paper bag from the kitchen floor and persuaded the hat into it, “it is undoubtedly the missing link. But what are you going to do now?”
“Do!” exclaimed Miller. “Why, I am going to collar the man. These Baltic boats put in at Hull and Newcastle—perhaps he didn’t know that—and they are pretty slow boats, too. I shall wire to Newcastle to have the ship detained and take Inspector Badger down to make the arrest. I’ll leave you to explain to the porter, and I owe you a thousand thanks for your valuable tip.”
With this he bustled away, clasping the precious hat and from the window we saw him hurry across the court and dart out through the postern into Fetter Lane.
“I think Miller was rather precipitate,”
said Thorndyke. “He should have got a description of the man and some further particulars.”
“Yes,” said I. “Miller had much better have waited until you had finished with Mr. Larkin. But you can get some more particulars when we take back the key.”
“We shall get more information from the gentleman who lives on the floor above, and I think we will go up and interview him now. I wrote to him last night and made a metallurgical appointment, signing myself W. Polton. Your name, if he should ask, is Stevenson.”
As we ascended the stairs to the next floor, I meditated on the rather tortuous proceedings of my usually straightforward colleague. The use of the lumps of quartz was now obvious; but why these mysterious tactics? And why, before knocking at the door, did Thorndyke carefully take the reading of the gas meter on the landing?
The door was opened in response to our knock—a shortish, alert-looking, clean-shaved man in a white overall, who looked at us keenly and rather forbiddingly. But Thorndyke was geniality personified.
“How do you do, Mr. Highley?” said he, holding out his hand, which the metallurgist shook coolly. “You got my letter, I suppose?”
“Yes. But I am not Mr. Highley. He’s away and I am carrying on. I think of taking over his business if there is any to take over. My name is Sherwood. Have you got the samples?”
Thorndyke produced the canvas bag, which Mr. Sherwood took from him and emptied out on a bench, picking up the lumps of quartz one by one and examining them closely. Meanwhile Thorndyke took a rapid survey of the premises. Against the wall were two cupel furnaces and a third larger furnace like a small pottery kiln. On a set of narrow shelves were several rows of bone-ash cupels, looking like little white flower-pots, and near them was the cupel-press—an appliance into which powdered bone-ash was fed and compressed by a plunger to form the cupels—while by the side of the press was a tub of bone-ash—a good deal coarser, I noticed, than the usual fine powder. This coarseness was also observed by Thorndyke, who edged up to the tub and dipped his hand into the ash and then wiped his fingers on his handkerchief.
The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack Page 6
