“I should expect it to be and I believe it is,” said Thorndyke. “But we shall be better able to judge from the casts. Pick up your rod. There are two men coming down the path.”
He closed his “research-case” and drawing the fishing-line from his pocket, began meditatively to unwind it.
“I could wish,” said I, “that our appearance was more in character with the part of the rustic angler; and for the Lord’s sake keep float out of sight, or we shall collect a crowd.”
Thorndyke laughed softly. “The float,” said he, “was intended for Polton. He would have loved it. And the crowd would have been rather an advantage—as you will appreciate when you come to use it.”
The two men—builder’s labourers, apparently—now passed us with a glance of faint interest at the fishing-tackle; and as they strolled by I appreciated the value of the burnt umber. If the casts had been made of the snow-white plaster they would have stared conspicuously from the ground and these men would almost certainly have stopped to examine them and see what we were doing. But the tinted plaster was practically invisible.
“You are a wonderful man, Thorndyke,” I said, as I announced my discovery. “You foresee everything.”
He bowed his acknowledgments, and having tenderly felt one of the casts and ascertained that the plaster had set hard, he lifted it with infinite care, exhibiting a perfect facsimile of the end of the stick, on which the worn boot-stud was plainly visible, even to the remains of the pattern. Any doubt that might have remained as to the identity of the stick was removed when Thorndyke produced his calliper-gauge.
“Twenty-three thirty-seconds was the diameter, I think,” said he as he opened the jaws of the gauge and consulted his notes. He placed the cast between the jaws, and as they were gently slid into contact, the index marked twenty-three thirty-seconds.
“Good,” said Thorndyke, picking up the other two casts and establishing their identity with the one which we had examined. “This completes the first act.” Dropping one cast into his case and throwing the other two into the river, he continued: “Now we proceed to the next and hope for a like success. You notice that he stuck his stick into the ground. Why do you suppose he did that?”
“Presumably to leave his hands free.”
“Yes. And now let us sit down here and consider why he wanted his hands free. Just look around and tell me what you see.”
I gazed rather hopelessly at the very indistinctive surroundings and began a bald catalogue. “I see a shabby-looking pollard willow, an assortment of suburban vegetation, an obsolete tin saucepan—unserviceable—and a bald spot where somebody seems to have pulled up a small patch of turf.”
“Yes,” said Thorndyke. “You will also notice a certain amount of dry, powdered earth distributed rather evenly over the bottom of the ditch. And your patch of turf was cut round with a large knife before it was pulled up. Why do you suppose it was pulled up?”
I shook my head. “It’s of no use making mere guesses.”
“Perhaps not,” said he, “though the suggestion is fairly obvious when considered with the other appearances. Between the roots of the willow you notice a patch of grass that looks denser than one would expect from its position. I wonder—”
As he spoke, he reached forward with his stick and prised vigorously at the edge of the patch, with the result that the clump of grass lifted bodily; and when I picked it up and tried it on the bald spot, the nicety with which it fitted left no doubt as to its origin.
“Ha!” I exclaimed, looking at the obviously disturbed earth between the roots of the willow, which the little patch of turf had covered; “the plot thickens. Something seems to have been either buried or dug up there; more probably buried.”
“I hope and believe that my learned friend is correct,” said Thorndyke, opening his case to abstract a large, powerful spatula.
“What do you expect to find there?” I asked.
“I have a faint hope of finding something wrapped in the half of a very dirty towel,” was the reply.
“Then you had better find it quickly,” said I, “for there is a man coming along the path from the Putney direction.”
He looked round at the distant figure, and driving the spatula into the loose earth stirred it up vigorously.
“I can feel something,” he said, digging away with powerful thrusts and scooping the earth out with his hands. Once more he looked round at the approaching stranger—who seemed now to have quickened his pace but was still four or five hundred yards distant. Then, thrusting his hands into the hole, he gave a smart pull. Slowly there came forth a package, about ten inches by six, enveloped in a portion of a peculiarly filthy towel and loosely secured with string. Thorndyke rapidly cast off the string and opened out the towel, disclosing a handsome morocco case with an engraved gold plate.
I pounced on the case and, pressing the catch, raised the lid; and though I had expected no less, it was with something like a shock of surprise that I looked on the glittering row and the dazzling cluster of steely-blue diamonds.
As I closed the casket and deposited it in the green canvas case, Thorndyke, after a single glance at the treasure and another along the path, crammed the towel into the hole and began to sweep the loose earth in on top of it. The approaching stranger was for the moment hidden from us by a bend of the path and a near clump of bushes, and Thorndyke was evidently working to hide all traces before he should appear. Having filled the hole, he carefully replaced the sod of turf and then, moving over to the little bare patch from whence the turf had been removed, he began swiftly to dig it up.
“There,” said he, flinging on the path a worm which he had just disinterred, “that will explain our activities. You had better continue the excavation with your pocket knife, and then proceed to the capture of the leviathans. I must run up to the police station and you must keep possession of this pitch. Don’t move away from here on any account until I come back or send somebody to relieve you. I will hand you over the float; you’ll want that.” With a malicious smile he dropped the gaudy monstrosity on the path, and having wiped the spatula and replaced it in the case, picked up the latter and moved away towards Putney.
At this moment the stranger reappeared, walking as if for a wager, and I began to peck up the earth with my pocket-knife.
As the man approached he slowed down by degrees until he came up at something like a saunter. He was followed at a little distance by Thorndyke, who had turned as if he had changed his mind, and now passed me with the remark that “Perhaps Hammersmith would be better.” The stranger cast a suspicious glance at him and then turned his attention to me.
“Lookin’ for worms?” he inquired, halting and surveying me inquisitively.
I replied by picking one up (with secret distaste) and holding it aloft, and he continued, looking wistfully at Thorndyke’s retreating figure: “Your pal seems to have had enough.”
“He hadn’t got a rod,” said I; “but he’ll be back presently.”
“Ah!” said he, looking steadily over my shoulder in the direction of the willow. “Well, you won’t do any good here. The place where they rises is a quarter of a mile farther down—just round the bend there. That’s a prime pitch. You just come along with me and I’ll show you.”
“I must stay here until my friend comes back,” said I. “But I’ll tell him what you say.”
With this I seated myself stolidly on the bank and, having flung the baited hook into the stream, sat and glared fixedly at the preposterous float. My acquaintance fidgeted about me uneasily, endeavouring from time to time to lure me away to the “prime pitch” round the bend. And so the time dragged on until three-quarters of an hour had passed.
Suddenly I observed two taxicabs crossing the bridge, followed by three cyclists. A minute or two later Thorndyke reappeared, accompanied by two other men, and then the cyclists came into view, approaching at a rapid pace.
“Seems to be a regular procession,” my friend remarked, viewing the new
arrivals with evident uneasiness. As he spoke, one of the cyclists halted and dismounted to examine his tyre, while the other two approached and shot past us. Then they, too, halted and dismounted, and having deposited their machines in the ditch, they came back towards us. By this time I was able—with a good deal of surprise—to identify Thorndyke’s two companions as Inspector Badger and Superintendent Miller. Perhaps my acquaintance also recognised them, or possibly the proceedings of the third cyclist—who had also laid down his machine and was approaching on foot—disturbed him. At any rate he glanced quickly from the one group to the other and, selecting the smaller one, sprang suddenly between the two cyclists and sped away along the path like a hare.
In a moment there was a wild stampede. The three cyclists, remounting their machines, pedalled furiously after the fugitive, followed by Badger and Miller on foot. Then the fugitive, the cyclists, and finally the two officers disappeared round the bend of the path.
“How did you know that he was the man?” I asked, when my colleague and I were left alone.
“I didn’t, though I had pretty strong grounds for suspicion. But I merely brought the police to set a watch on the place and arrange an ambush. Their encircling movement was just an experimental bluff; they might have been chary of arresting the fellow if he hadn’t taken fright and bolted. We have been fortunate all round, for, by a lucky chance, Badger and Miller were at Chiswick making inquiries and I was able to telephone to them to meet me at the bridge.”
At this moment the procession reappeared, advancing briskly; and my late adviser marched at the centre securely handcuffed. As he was conducted past me he glared savagely and made some impolite references to a “blooming nark.”
“You can take him in one of the taxis,” said Miller, “and put your bicycles on top.” Then, as the procession moved on towards the bridge he turned to Thorndyke. “I suppose he’s the right man, doctor, but he hasn’t got any of the stuff on him.”
“Of course he hasn’t,” said Thorndyke.
“Well, do you know where it is?”
Thorndyke opened his case and taking out the casket, handed it to the superintendent. “I shall want a receipt for it,” said he.
Miller opened the casket, and at the sight of the glittering jewels both the detectives uttered an exclamation of amazement, and the superintendent demanded: “Where did you get this, sir?
“I dug it up at the foot of that willow.”
“But how did you know it was there?”
“I didn’t,” replied Thorndyke; “but I thought I might as well look, you know,” and he bestowed a smile of exasperating blandness on the astonished officer.
The two detectives gazed at Thorndyke, then they looked at one another and then they looked at me; and Badger observed, with profound conviction, that it was a “knock-out.”
“I believe the doctor keeps a tame clairvoyant,” he added.
“And may I take it, sir,” said Miller, “that you can establish a prima facie case against this man, so that we can get a remand until Mr. Montague is well enough to identify him?”
“You may,” Thorndyke replied. “Let me know when and where he is to be charged and I will attend and give evidence.”
On this Miller wrote out a receipt for the jewels and the two officers hurried off to their taxicab, leaving us, as Badger put it, “to our fishing.”
As soon as they were out of sight, Thorndyke opened his case and mixed another bowlful of plaster. “We want two more casts,” said he; “one of the right foot of the man who buried the jewels and one of the right foot of the prisoner. They are obviously identical, as you can see by the arrangement of the nails and the shape of the new patch on the sole. I shall put the casts in evidence and compare them with the prisoner’s right boot.”
I understood now why Thorndyke had walked away towards Putney and then returned in rear of the stranger. He had suspected the man and had wanted to get a look at his footprints. But there was a good deal in this case that I did not understand at all.
* * * *
“There,” said Thorndyke, as he deposited the casts, each with its pencilled identification, in his canvas case, “that is the end of the Blue Diamond Mystery.”
“I beg your pardon,” said I, “but it isn’t. I want a full explanation. It is evident that from the house at Brentford you made a bee line to that willow. You knew then pretty exactly where the necklace was hidden. For all I know, you may have had that knowledge when we left Scotland Yard.”
“As a matter of fact, I had,” he replied. “I went to Brentford principally to verify the ownership of the wallet and the bag.”
“But what was it that directed you with such certainty to the Hammersmith towing-path?”
It was then that he made the observation that I have quoted at the beginning of this narrative.
“In this case,” he continued, “a curious fact, well known to naturalists, acquired vital evidential importance. It associated a bag, found in one locality, with another apparently unrelated locality. It was the link that joined up the two ends of a broken chain. I offered that fact to Inspector Badger, who, lacking the knowledge wherewith to interpret it, rejected it with scorn.”
“I remember that you gave him the name of that little shell that dropped out of the handful of grass.”
“Exactly,” said Thorndyke. “That was the crucial fact. It told us where the handful of grass had been gathered.”
“I can’t imagine how,” said I. “Surely you find shells all over the country?”
“That is, in general, quite true,” he replied, “but Clausilia biplicata is one of the rare exceptions. There are four British species of these queer little univalves (which are so named from the little spring door with which the entrance of the shell is furnished): Clausilia laminata, rolphii, rugosa and biplicata. The first three species have what we may call a normal distribution, whereas the distribution of biplicata is abnormal. This seems to be a dying species. It is in process of becoming extinct in this island. But when a species of animal or plant becomes extinct, it does not fade away evenly over the whole of its habitat, but it disappears in patches, which gradually extend, leaving, as it were, islands of survival. This is what has happened to Clausilia biplicata. It has disappeared from this country with the exception of two localities; one of these is in Wiltshire, and the other is the right bank of the Thames at Hammersmith. And this latter locality is extraordinarily restricted. Walk down a few hundred yards towards Putney, and you have walked out of its domain; walk up a few hundred yards towards the bridge, and again you have walked out of its territory. Yet within that little area it is fairly plentiful. If you know where to look—it lives on the bark or at the roots of willow trees—you can usually find one or two specimens. Thus, you see, the presence of that shell associated the handful of grass with a certain willow tree, and that willow was either in Wiltshire or by the Hammersmith towing-path. But there was nothing otherwise to connect it with Wiltshire, whereas there was something to connect it with Hammersmith. Let us for a moment dismiss the shell and consider the other suggestions offered by the bag and stick.
“The bag, as you saw, contained traces of two very different persons. One was a middle-class man, probably middle-aged or elderly, cleanly, careful as to his appearance and of orderly habits; the other, uncleanly, slovenly and apparently a professional criminal. The bag itself seemed to appertain to the former person. It was an expensive bag and showed signs of years of careful use. This, and the circumstances in which it was found, led us to suspect that it was a stolen bag. Now, we knew that the contents of a bag had been stolen. We knew that an empty bag had been picked up on the line between Barnes and Chiswick, and it was probable that the thief had left the train at the latter station. The empty bag had been assumed to be Mr. Montague’s, whereas the probabilities—as for instance, the fact of its having been thrown out on the line—suggested that it was the thief’s bag, and that Mr. Montague’s had been taken away with its contents.
“With this working hypothesis we were now able to take up the case from the other end. The Scotland Yard bag was Montague’s bag. It had been taken from Chiswick to the Hammersmith towpath, where—judging from the clay smears on the bottom—it had been laid on the ground, presumably close to a willow tree. The use of the grass as packing suggested that something had been removed from the bag at this place—something that had wedged the tools together and prevented them from rattling; and there appeared to be half a towel missing. Clearly, the towpath was our next field of exploration.
“But, small as this area was geographically, it would have taken a long time to examine in detail. Here, however, the stick gave us invaluable aid. It had a perfectly distinctive tip, and it showed traces of having been stuck about three inches into earth similar to that on the bag. What we had thus to look for was a hole in the ground about three inches deep, and having at the bottom the impression of a half-worn boot-stud. This hole would probably be close to a willow.
“The search turned out even easier than I had hoped. Directly we reached the towpath I picked up the track of the stick, and not one track only, but a double track, showing that our friend had returned to the bridge. All that remained was to follow the track until it came to an end and there we were pretty certain to find the hole in the ground, as, in fact, we did.”
“And why,” I asked, “do you suppose he buried the stuff?”
The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack Page 12
