The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  “Has the third man come forward to give evidence?” Thorndyke asked.

  “No, he has not been found yet. He was a stranger to both the men; apparently a labourer or farm-hand on tramp. But nothing is known about him. So that is the case; and it is about as hopeless as it is possible to be. Of course, there is the known character of the accused; but against that is a perfectly intelligible motive and the evidence of two eye-witnesses. Do you think you would be disposed to undertake the defence, sir? I realise that it is asking a great deal of you.”

  “I should like to think the matter over,” said Thorndyke, “and make a few preliminary inquiries. And I should want to read over the depositions in full detail. Can you let me have them?”

  “I have a verbatim report of the police court proceedings and of the inquest. I will leave them with you now. And when may I hope to have your decision?”

  “By the day after tomorrow at the latest,” was the reply, on which the young solicitor produced a bundle of papers from his bag, and having laid them on the table, thanked us both and took his leave.

  “Well, Thorndyke,” I said when Mayfield had gone, “I am fairly mystified. I know you would not undertake a merely formal defence, but what else you could do is, I must confess, beyond my imagination. It seems to me that the prosecution have only to call the witnesses and the verdict of ‘Guilty’ follows automatically.”

  “That is how it appears to me,” said Thorndyke. “And if it still appears so when I have read the reports and made my preliminary investigations, I shall decline the brief. But appearances are sometimes misleading.”

  With this he took the reports and the notebook, in which he had made a few brief memoranda of Mayfield’s summary of the case, and drawing a chair to the table, proceeded, with quiet concentration, to read through and make notes on the evidence. When he had finished, he passed the reports to me and rose, pocketing his note book and glancing at his watch.

  “Read the evidence through carefully, Jervis,” said he,” and tell me if you see any possible way out. I have one or two calls to make, but I shall not be more than an hour. When I come back, I should like to hear your views on the case.”

  During his absence I read the reports through with the closest attention. Something in Thorndyke’s tone had seemed to hint at a possible flaw in the case for the prosecution. But I could find no escape from the conviction that these two persons were guilty. The reports merely amplified what Mayfield had told us; and the added detail, especially in the case of the eye witnesses, only made the evidence more conclusive. I could not see the material for even a formal defence.

  In less than an hour my colleague re-entered the room, and I was about to give him my impressions of the evidence when he said “It is rather early, Jervis, but I think we had better go and get some lunch. I have arranged to go down to Ditton this afternoon and have a look at the house. Mayfield has given me a note to the police sergeant, who has the key and is virtually in possession.”

  “I don’t see what you will gain by looking at the house,” said I.

  “Neither do I,” he replied. “But it is a good rule always to inspect the scene of a crime and o the evidence as far as possible.”

  “Well,” I said, “it is a forlorn hope. I have read through the evidence and it seems to me that the accused are as good as convicted. I can see no line of defence at all. Can you?”

  “At present I cannot,” he replied. “But there are one or two points that I should like to clear up before I decide whether or not to undertake the defence. And I have a great belief in first-hand observation.”

  We consumed a simplified lunch at one of our regular haunts in Fleet Street and from thence were conveyed by a taxi to Waterloo, where we caught the selected train to Lower Ditton. I had put the reports in my pocket, and during our journey I read them over again, to see if I could discover any point that would be cleared up by an inspection of the premises.

  For, in spite of the rather vague purpose implied by Thorndyke’s explanation, something in my colleague’s manner, coupled with long experience of his method made me suspect that he had some definite object in L view. But nothing was said by either of us during the journey, nor did we discuss the case; indeed, so far as 1 could see, there was nothing to discuss.

  Our reception at the Lower Ditton Police Station was something more than cordial. The sergeant recognised Thorndyke instantly—it appeared that he was an enthusiastic admirer of my colleague—and after a brief glance at Mayfield’s note, took a key from his desk and put on his helmet.

  “Lord bless you, sir,” said he, “I don’t need to be told who you are. I’ve seen you in court, and heard you. I’ll come along with you to the house myself.”

  I suspected that Thorndyke would have gladly dispensed with this attention, but he accepted it with genial courtesy, and we went forth through the village and along the quiet lane in which the ill-omened house was situated. And as we went, the sergeant commented on the case with curiously unofficial freedom.

  “You’ve got your work cut out, sir, if you are going to conduct the defence. But I wish you luck. I’ve known Miss Annesley for some years—she was well known in the village here—and a nicer, gentler, more pleasant lady you wouldn’t wish to meet. To think of her in connection with a murder—and such a murder, too—such a brutal, callous affair! Well, it’s beyond me. And yet there it is, unless those two men are lying.”

  “Is there any reason to suppose that they are?” I asked.

  “Well, no; there isn’t. They are good, sober, decent men. And it would be such an atrociously wicked lie. And they both knew the prisoners, and liked them. Everybody liked Mr. Bland and Miss Annesley, though their friendship for one another may not have been quite in order. But I can tell you, sir, these two men are frightfully cut up at having to give evidence. This is the house!”

  He opened a gate and we entered the garden, beyond which was a smallish, old-fashioned house, of which the ground-floor windows were protected by outside shutters. We walked round to the back of the house, where was another garden with a lawn and a path leading down to the river.

  “Is that a boat-house?” Thorndyke asked, pointing to a small gable that appeared above a clump of lilac bushes.

  “Yes, replied the sergeant. “And there is a boat in it; a good, beamy, comfortable tub that Miss Annesley and her friend used to go out picnicking in. This is the window that the men peeped in at, but you can’t see much now because the room is all dark.”

  I looked at the two French windows, which opened on to the lawn, and reflected on this new instance of the folly of wrong-doers. Each window was fitted with a pair of strong shutters, which bolted on the inside, and each shutter was pierced, about five feet from the sill, by a circular hole a little over an inch in diameter. It seemed incredible that two sane persons, engaged in the concealment of a murdered body, should have left those four holes uncovered for any chance eavesdropper to spy on their doings.

  But my astonishment at this lack of precaution was still greater when the sergeant admitted us and we stood inside the room, for both the windows, as well as the pair in the farther room, were furnished with heavy curtains.

  “Yes,” said the sergeant, in answer to my comment “it’s a queer thing how people overlook matters of vital importance. You see, they drew the drawing-room curtains all right, but they forgot these. Is there anything in particular that you want to see, sir?”

  “I should like to see where the body was hidden,’ said Thorndyke, “but I will just look round the rooms first.”

  He walked slowly to and fro, looking about him and evidently fixing the appearance of the rooms on his memory. Not that there was much to see or remember. The two nearly square rooms communicated through a wide arch, once closed by curtains, as shown by the brass curtain-rod. The back room had been completely dismantled with the exception of the window curtains, but the front room, although the floor and the walls, were bare, was not entirely unfurnished. The sideboard
was still in position and bore at each end a tall electric light standard, as did also the mantelpiece. There were three dining chairs and a good-sized gate-leg table stood closed against the wall.

  “I see you have not had the floor-boards nailed down,” said Thorndyke.

  “No, sir; not yet. So we can see where the body was hidden and where the electric main is. The electricians took up the wrong board at first—that is how they came to discover the body. And one of them said that the boards over the main had been raised recently, and he thought that the—er—the accused had meant to hide the body there, but when they got the floor up they struck the main and had to choose a fresh place.”

  He stooped, and lifting the loose boards, which he stood on end against the mantelpiece, exposed the joists and the earth floor about a foot below them. In one of the spaces the electric main ran and in the adjoining one the apparently disused gas main.

  “This is where we found poor Mrs. Bland,” said the sergeant, pointing to an empty space. “It was an awful sight. Gave me quite a turn. The poor lady was lying on her side jammed down between the joists and her nose flattened up against one of the timbers. They must have been brutes that did it, and I can’t—I really can’t believe that Miss Annesley was one of them.”

  “It looks a narrow place for a body to lie in,” said I.

  “The joists are sixteen inches apart,” said Thorndyke, laying his pocket rule across the space, “and two and a half inches thick. Heavy timber and wide spaces.”

  He stood up, and turning round, looked towards the windows of the back room. I followed his glance and noted, almost with a start, the two holes in the shutter of the left-hand window (the right-hand window, of course, from outside) glaring into the darkened room like a pair of inquisitive, accusing eyes. The holes in the other window were hardly visible, and the reason for the difference was obvious. The one window had small panes and thick muntins, or sash-bars, whereas the other was glazed, with large sheets of plate glass and had no muntins.

  “Of course it would be dark at the time,” I said in response to his unspoken comment, “and this room would be lighted up, more or less.”

  “Not so very dark in May,” he replied. “There is a furnished bedroom, isn’t there, sergeant?”

  “Two, sir,” was the reply; and the sergeant forthwith opened the door and led the way across the hall and up the stairs.

  “This is Miss Annesley’s room,” he said, opening a door gingerly and peering in.

  We entered the room and looked about us with vague curiosity. It was a simply-furnished room, but dainty and tasteful, with its small four-post bedstead, light easy-chair and little, ladylike writing-table.

  “That’s Mr. Bland,” said the sergeant, pointing to a double photograph-frame on the table, “and the lady is Miss Annesley herself.”

  I took up the frame and looked curio at the two portraits. For a pair of murderers they were certainly uncommonly prepossessing. The man, who looked about thirty-five, was a typical good-looking, middle-class Englishman, while the woman was distinctly handsome, with a thoughtful, refined and gentle cast of face.

  “She has something of a Japanese air,” said I, “with that coil on the top of the head and the big ivory hairpin stuck through it.”

  I passed the frame to Thorndyke, who regarded each portrait attentively, and then, taking both photograph out of the frame, closely examined each in turn, back and front, before replacing them.

  “The other bedroom,” said the sergeant as Thorndyke laid down the frame, “is the spare room. There’s nothing to see in it.”

  Nevertheless he conducted us into it, and when we I had verified his statement we returned downstairs.

  “Before we go,” said Thorndyke, “I will just see what is opposite those holes.”

  He walked to the window and was just looking out through one of the holes when the sergeant, who had followed him closely, suddenly slid along the floor and nearly fell.

  “Well, I never!” he exclaimed, recovering himself and stooping to pick up some small object. “There’s a dangerous thing to leave lying about the floor. Bit of slate pencil—at least, that is what it looks like.”

  He handed it to Thorndyke, who glanced at it and remarked “Yes, things that roll under the foot are apt to produce broken bones; but I think you had better take care of it. I may have to ask you something about it at the trial.”

  We bade the sergeant farewell at the bottom of the lane, and as we turned into the footpath to the station I said: “We don’t seem to have picked up very much more than Mayfield told us—excepting that bit of slate pencil. By the way, why did you tell the sergeant to keep it?”

  “On the broad principle of keeping everything, relevant or irrelevant. But it wasn’t slate pencil; it was a fragment of a small carbon rod.”

  “Presumably dropped by the electricians who had been working in the room,” said I, and then asked “Have you come to any decision about this case?”

  “Yes; I shall undertake the defence.”

  “Well,” I said, “I can’t imagine what line you will take. Strong suspicion would have fallen on these two persons even if there had been no witnesses; but the evidence of those two eye-witnesses seems to clench the matter.”

  “Precisely,” said Thorndyke. “That is my position. I rest my case on the evidence of those two men—as I hope it will appear under cross-examination.”

  This statement of Thorndyke’s gave me much food or reflection during the days that followed. But it was not very nourishing food, for the case still remained perfectly incomprehensible. To be sure, if the evidence of the two eye-witnesses could be shown to be false, the ease against the prisoners would break down, since it would bring another suspected person into view. But their evidence was clearly not false. They were men of known respectability and no one doubted the truth of their statements.

  Nor was the obscurity of the case lightened in any way by Thorndyke’s proceedings. We called together on the two prisoners, but from neither did we elicit any fresh facts. Neither could establish a clear alibi or suggest any explanation of the eye-witnesses’ statements. They gave a simple denial of having been in the house at that time or of having ever taken up the floor.

  Both prisoners, however, impressed me favourably. Bland, whom we interviewed at Brixton, seemed a pleasant, manly fellow, frank and straightforward though quite shrewd and business-like; while Miss Annesley, whom we saw at Holloway, was a really charming young lady—sweet-faced, dignified and very gracious and gentle in manner. In one respect, indeed, I found her disappointing. The picturesque coil had disappeared from the top of her head and her hair had been shortened (“bobbed” is, I believe, the correct term) into a mere fringe. Thorndyke also noticed the change, and in fact commented on it.

  “Yes,” she admitted, “it is a disimprovement in my case. It doesn’t suit me. But I really had no choice. When I was in Paris in the spring I had an accident. I was having my hair cleaned with petrol when it caught fire. It was most alarming. The hairdresser had the presence of mind to throw a damp towel over my head, and that saved my life. But my hair was nearly all burnt. There was nothing for it but to have it trimmed as evenly as possible. But it looked horrid at first. I had my photograph taken by Barton soon after I came home, just as a record, you know, and it looks awfully odd. I look like a Bluecoat boy.”

  “By the way,” said Thorndyke, “when did you return?”

  “I landed in England about the middle of April and went straight to my little flat at Paddington, where I have been living ever since.”

  “You don’t remember where you were on the eighteenth of May?

  “I was living at my flat, but I can’t remember what I did on that day. You don’t, as a rule, unless you keep a diary, which I do not.”

  This was not very promising. As we came away from the prison, I felt, on the one hand, a conviction that this sweet, gracious lady could have had no hand in this horrible crime, and on the other an utter despair o
f extricating her from the web of circumstances in which she had become enmeshed.

  From Thorndyke I could gather nothing, except that he was going on with his investigations—a significant fact, in his case. To my artfully disguised questions he had one invariable reply: “My dear Jervis, you have read the evidence, you have seen the house, you have all the facts. Think the case over and consider the possibilities of cross-examination.” And that was all I could get out of him.

  He was certainly very busy, but his activities only increased my bewilderment. He sent a well-known architect down to make a scale-plan of the house and grounds; and he dispatched Polton to take photographs of the place from every possible point of view. The latter, indeed, was up to his eyes in work, and enjoying himself amazingly, but as secret as an oyster. As he went about, beaming with happiness and crinkling with self-complacency, he exasperated me to that extent that I could have banged his little head against the wall. In short, though I had watched the development of the case from the beginning, I was still without a glimmer of understanding of it even when I took my seat in court on the morning of the trial.

  It was a memorable occasion, and every incident in it is still vivid in my memory. Particularly do I remember looking with a sort of horrified fascination at the female prisoner, standing by her friend in the dock, pale but composed and looking the very type and picture of womanly beauty and dignity; and reflecting with a shudder that the graceful neck—looking longer and more slender from the shortness of the hair—might very probably be, within a matter of days, encircled by the hangman’s rope. These lugubrious reflections were interrupted by the entrance of two persons, a man and a woman, who were apparently connected with the case, since as they took their seats they both looked towards the dock and exchanged silent greetings with the prisoners.

  “Do you know who those people are, Mayfield?” I asked.