The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  “I seem to detect a sort of mousy odour,” said he, glancing round inquisitively. “Do you notice it, Jervis?”

  I did; and with the obvious idea in my mind began I to prowl round the room in search of the source, Suddenly my eye lighted on a smallish box, in the top of which a number of gimlet-holes had been bored. I raised the lid and peered in. The interior was covered with filth and on the bottom lay a dead bat.

  We all stood for a few seconds looking in silence at the little corpse. Then Thorndyke closed the box and tucked it under his arm.

  “This completes the case, I think,” said he. “What time does Price return?”

  He is expected home about seven o’clock,” said Lumley. Then he added with a troubled expression: “I don’t understand all this. What does it mean?”

  It is very simple,” replied Thorndyke. “You have a sham ancient book containing an evidently fabulous story of supernatural events; and you have a series of appliances and arrangements for producing illusions which seem to repeat those events. The book was planted where it was certain to be found and read, and the illusions began after it was known that it actually had been read. It is a conspiracy.”

  “But why?” demanded Lumley. “What was the object?”

  “My dear Frank,” said Brodribb, “you seem forget that Price is the next of kin and the heir to your estate on your death.”

  Lumley’s eyes filled. He seemed overcome with grief and disgust. “It is incredible,” he murmured huskily. “The baseness of it is beyond belief.”

  Price and his wife arrived home at about seven o’clock. A meal had been prepared for them, and when they had finished, a servant was sent in to ask Mr. Price to speak with Mr. Brodribb in the study. There we all awaited him, Lumley being present by his own wish; and on the table were deposited the little book, the scrap of leather, the two finishing tools, the pot of radium paint and the box containing the dead bat. Presently Price entered, accompanied by his wife; and at the sight of the objects on the table they both turned deathly pale. Mr. Brodribb placed chairs for them, and when they were seated he began in a dry, stern voice:

  “I have sent for you, Mr. Price, to give you certain information. These two gentlemen, Dr. Thorndyke and Dr. Jervis, are eminent criminal lawyers whom I have commissioned to make investigations and to advise me in this matter. Their investigations have disclosed the existence of a forged manuscript, a dead bat, a pot of luminous paint and a concave mirror. I need not enlarge on those discoveries. My intention is to prosecute you and your wife for conspiracy to procure the suicide of Mr. Frank Lumley. But, at Mr. Lumley’s request, I have consented to delay the proceedings for forty-eight hours. During that period you will be at liberty to act as you think best.”

  For some seconds there was a tense silence. The two crestfallen conspirators sat with their eyes fixed on the floor, and Mrs. Price choked down a half-hysterical sob. Then they rose; and Price, without looking at any of us, said in a low voice: “Very well. Then I suppose we had better clear out.”

  “And the best thing, too,” remarked Brodribb, when they had gone; “for I doubt if we could have carried our bluff into court.”

  On the wall of our sitting-room in the Temple there hang, to this day, two keys. One is that of the postern gate of Burling Court, and the other belongs to the suite of rooms that were once occupied by Mr. Lewis Price; and they hang there, by Frank Lumley’s wish, as a token that Burling Court is a country home to which we have access at all hours and seasons as tenants in virtue of an inalienable right.

  THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR (1925)

  “So,” said Thorndyke, looking at me reflectively, “you are a full-blown medical practitioner with a practice of your own. How the years slip by! It seems but the other day that you were a student, gaping at me from the front bench of the lecture theatre.”

  “Did I gape?” I asked incredulously.

  “I use the word metaphorically,” said he, “to denote ostentatious attention. You always took my lecture very seriously. May I ask if you have ever found them of use in your practice?”

  “I can’t say that I have ever had any very thrilling medico-legal experiences since that extraordinary cremation case that you investigated—the case of Septimus Maddock, you know. But that reminds me that there is a little matter that I meant to speak to you about. It is of no interest, but I just wanted your advice, though it even my business, strictly speaking. It concerns a patient of mine, a man named Crofton, who has disappeared rather unaccountably.”

  “And do you call that a case of no medico-legal interest?” demanded Thorndyke.

  “Oh, there’s nothing in it. He just went away for a holiday and he hasn’t communicated with his friends very recently. That is all. What makes me a little uneasy is that there is a departure from his usual habits—he is generally a fairly regular correspondent—that seems a little significant in view of his personality. He is markedly neurotic and his family history is by means what one would wish.”

  “That is an admirable thumb-nail sketch, Jardine,” said Thorndyke “but it lacks detail. Let us have a full-size picture.”

  “Very well,” said I, “but you mustn’t let me bore you. To begin with Crofton: he is a nervous, anxious, worrying sort of fellow, everlastingly fussing about money affairs, and latterly this tendency has been getting worse. He fairly got the jumps about his financial position; felt that he was steadily drifting into bankruptcy and couldn’t get that out of his mind. It was all bunkum. I am more or less a friend of the family, and I know that there was nothing to worry about. Mrs. Crofton assured me that, although they were a trifle hard up, they could rub along quite safely.

  “As he seemed to be getting the hump worse and worse, I advised him to go away for a change and stay in a boarding-house where he would see some fresh faces. Instead of that, he elected to go down to a bungalow that he has at Seasalter, near Whitstable, and lets out in the season. He proposed to stay by himself and spend his time in sea-bathing and country walks. I wasn’t very keen on this, for solitude was the last thing that he wanted. There was a strong family history of melancholia and some unpleasant rumours of suicide. I didn’t like his being alone at all. However, another friend of the family, Mrs. Crofton’s brother in fact, a chap named Ambrose, offered to go down and spend a weekend with him to give him a start, and afterwards to run down for an afternoon whenever he was able. So off he went with Ambrose on Friday, the sixteenth of June, and for a time all went well. He seemed to be improving in health and spirits and wrote to his wife regularly two or three times a week. Ambrose went down as often as he could to cheer him up, and the last time brought back the news that Crofton thought of moving on to Margate for a further change. So, of course, he didn’t go down to the bungalow again.

  “Well, in due course, a letter came from Margate; it had been written at the bungalow, but the postmark was Margate and bore the same date—the sixteenth of July—as the letter itself. I have it with me. Mrs. Crofton sent it for me to see and I haven’t returned it yet. But there is nothing of interest in it beyond the statement that he was going on to Margate by the next train and would write again when he had found rooms there. That was the last that was heard of him. He never wrote and nothing is known of his movements excepting that he left Seasalter and arrived at Margate. This is the letter.”

  I handed it to Thorndyke, who glanced at the mark and then laid it on the table for examination later. “Have any inquiries been made?” he asked.

  “Yes. His photograph has been sent to the Margate police, but, of course—well, you know what Margate like in July. Thousands of strangers coming and gong every day. It is hopeless to look for him in that crowd and it is quite possible that he isn’t there now. But his disappearance is most inopportune, for a big legacy hats just fallen in, and, naturally, Mrs. Crofton is frantically anxious to let him know. It is a matter of about thirty thousand pounds.”

  “Was this legacy expected?” asked Thorndyke.

  “No. The Crofto
ns knew nothing about it. They didn’t know that the old lady—Miss Shuler—had made a will or that she had very much to leave; and they didn’t know that she was likely to die, or even that she was ill. Which is rather odd; for she was ill for a month or two and, as she suffered from a malignant abdominal tumour, it was known that she couldn’t recover.”

  “When did she die?”

  “On the thirteenth of July.”

  Thorndyke raised his eyebrows. “Just three days before the date of this letter,” he remarked; “so that if he should never reappear, this letter will be the sole evidence that he survived her. It is an important document. It may come to represent a value of thirty thousand pounds.”

  “It isn’t so important as it looks,” said I. “Miss Shuler’s will provides that if Crofton should die before the estatrix, the legacy should go to his wife. So whether he is alive or not, the legacy is quite safe. But we must hope that he is alive, though I must confess to some little anxiety on his account.”

  Thorndyke reflected a while on this statement. Presently he asked: “Do you know if Crofton has made a will?”

  “Yes, he has,” I replied; “quite recently. I was one of the witnesses and I read it through at Crofton’s request. It was full of the usual legal verbiage, but it might have been stated in a dozen words. He leaves practically everything to his wife, but instead of saying so it enumerates the property item by item.”

  “It was drafted, I suppose, by the solicitor?”

  “Yes; another friend of the family named Jobson, and he is the executor and residuary legatee.”

  Thorndyke nodded and again became deeply reflective. Still meditating, he took up the letter, and as he inspected it, I watched him curiously and not without a certain secret amusement. First he looked over the envelope, back and front. Then he took from his pocket powerful Coddington lens and with this examined the flap and the postmark. Next, he drew out the letter, held ii up to the light, then read it through and finally examined various parts of the writing through his lens. “Well,” I asked, with an irreverent grin, “I should think you have extracted the last grain of meaning from it.”

  He smiled as he put away his lens and handed the letter back to me.

  “As this may have to be produced in proof of survival,” said he,” it had better be put in a place of safety. I notice that he speaks of returning later to the bungalow. I take it that it has been ascertained that he did not return there?”

  “I don’t think so. You see, they have been waiting for him to write. You think that some one ought—”

  I paused; for it began to be borne in on me that Thorndyke was taking a somewhat gloomy view of the case.

  “My dear Jardine,” said he, “I am merely following your own suggestion. Here is a man with an inherited tendency to melancholia and suicide who has suddenly disappeared. He went away from an empty house and announced his intention of returning to it later. As that house is the only known locality in which he could be sought, it is obvious that it ought to have been examined. And even if he never came back there, the house might contain some clues to his present whereabouts.”

  This last sentence put an idea into my mind which I was a little shy of broaching. What was a clue to Thorndyke might be perfectly meaningless to an ordinary person. I recalled his amazing interpretations of most commonplace facts in the mysterious Maddock case and the idea took fuller possession. At length I said tentatively: “I would go down myself if I felt competent. To morrow is Saturday, and I could get a colleague to look after my practice; there isn’t much doing just now. But when you speak of clues, and when I remember what duffer I was last time—I wish it were possible for you to have a look at the place.”

  To my surprise, he assented almost with enthusiasm.

  “Why not?” said he. “It is a weekend. We can put up at the bungalow, I suppose, and have a little gipsy holiday. And there are undoubtedly points of interest in the case. Let us go down tomorrow. We can lunch in the train and have the afternoon before us. You had better get a key from Mrs. Crofton, or, if she hasn’t got one, an authority to visit the house. We may want that if we have to enter without a key. And we go alone, of course.”

  I assented joyfully. Not that I had any expectations as to what we might learn from our inspection. But something in Thorndyke’s manner gave me the impression that he had extracted from my account of the case some significance that was not apparent to me.

  The bungalow stood on a space of rough ground a little way behind the sea-wall, along which we walked towards it from Whitstable, passing on our way a ship-builder’s yard and a slipway, on which a collier brigantine was hauled up for repairs. There were one or two other bungalows adjacent, but a considerable distance apart, and we looked at them as we approached to make out the names painted on the gates.

  “That will probably be the one,” said Thorndyke, indicating a small building enclosed within a wooden fence and provided, like the others, with a bathing hut just above high-water mark. Its solitary, deserted aspect and lowered blinds supported his opinion, and when we reached the gate, the name “Middlewick” painted on it settled the matter.

  “The next question is,” said I, “how the deuce we are going to get in? The gate is locked, and there is no bell. Is it worth while to hammer at the fence?”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” replied Thorndyke. “The place is pretty certainly empty or the gate wouldn’t be locked. We shall have to climb over unless there is a back gate unlocked, so the less noise we make the better.”

  We walked round the enclosure, but there was no other gate, nor was there any tree or other cover to disguise our rather suspicious proceedings.

  “There’s no help for it, Jardine,” said Thorndyke, “so here goes.”

  He put his green canvas suitcase on the ground, grasped the top of the fence with both hands and went over like a harlequin. I picked up the case and handed it over to him, and, having taken a quick glance round, followed my leader.

  “Well,” I said,” here we are. And now, how are we to get into the house?”

  “We shall have to pick a lock if there is no door open, or else go in by a window. Let us take a look round.”—We walked round the house to the back door, but found it not only locked, but bolted top and bottom, as Thorndyke ascertained with his knifeblade. The windows were all casements and all fastened with their catches.

  “The front door will be the best,” said Thorndyke. “It can’t be bolted unless he got out by the chimney and I think my ‘smoker’s companion’ will be able to cope with an ordinary door-lock. It looked like a common builder’s fitting.”

  As he spoke, we returned to the front of the house and he produced the ‘smoker’s companion’ from his pocket (I don’t know what kind of smoker it was designed to accompany). The lock was apparently a simple affair, for the second trial with the ‘companion’ shot back the bolt, and when I turned the handle, the door opened. As a precaution, I called out to inquire if there was anybody within, and then, as there was no answer, we entered, walking straight into the living-room, as there was no hall or lobby.

  A couple of paces from the threshold we halted to look round the room, and on me the aspect of the place produced a vague sense of discomfort. Though it was early in a bright afternoon, the room was almost completely dark, for not only were the blinds lowered, but the curtains were drawn as well.

  “It looks,” said I, peering about the dim and gloomy apartment with sun-dazzled eyes, “as if he had gone away at night. He wouldn’t have drawn the curtains in the daytime.”

  “One would think not,” Thorndyke agreed; “but it doesn’t follow.”

  He stepped to the front window and drawing back the curtains pulled up the blind, revealing a half-curtain of green serge over the lower part of the window. As the bright daylight flooded the room, he stood with his back to the window looking about with deep attention, letting his eyes travel slowly over the walls, the furniture, and especially the floor. Presently he stooped to
pick up a short match-end which lay just under the table opposite the door, and as he looked at it thoughtfully, he pointed to a couple of spots of candle grease on the linoleum near the table. Then he glanced at the mantelpiece and from that to an ash-bowl on the table.

  These are only trifling discrepancies,” said he, “but they are worth noting. You see,” he continued in response to my look of inquiry, “that this room is severely trim and orderly. Everything seems to be in place. The matchbox, for instance, has its fixed receptacle above the mantelpiece, and there is a bowl for the burnt matches, regularly used, as its contents show. Yet there is a burnt match thrown on the floor, although the bowl is on the table quite handy. And the match, you notice, is not of the same kind as those in the box over the mantelpiece, which is a large Bryant and May, or as the burnt matches in the bowl which have evidently come from it. But if you look in the bowl,” he continued, picking it up, “you will see two burnt matches of this same kind—apparently the small size Bryant and May—one burnt quite short and one only half burnt. The suggestion is fairly obvious, but, as I say, there is a slight discrepancy.”

  I don’t know,” said I, “that either the suggestion or the discrepancy is very obvious to me.”

  He walked over to the mantelpiece and took the match box from its case.

  “You see,” said he, opening it, “that this box is nearly full. It has an appointed place and it was in that place. We find a small match, burnt right out, under the table opposite the door, and two more in the bowl under the hanging lamp. A reasonable inference is that some one came in in the dark and struck a match as he entered. That match must have come from a box that he brought with him in his pocket. It burned out and he struck another, which also burned out while he was raising the chimney of the lamp, and he struck a third to light the lamp. But if that person was Crofton, why did he need to strike a match to light the room when the matchbox was in its usual place; and why did he throw the match-end on the floor?”