At first Highamson saw neither of us, so that the first intimation that he had of our presence was November’s “Hello!”
Down crashed the lantern, and its bearer started back with a quick hoarse gasp.
“Who’s there?” he cried, “who—”
“Them as is sent by Hal Lyon.”
Never have I seen words produce so tremendous an effect. Highamson gave a bellow of fury, and the next instant he and November were struggling together. I sprang to my companion’s aid, and even then it was no easy task for the two of us to master the powerful old man. As we held him down I caught my first sight of his ash-grey face. His mouth grinned open, and there was a terrible intention in his staring eyes. But all changed as he recognized his visitor.
“November! November Joe!” cried he.
“Get up!”’ And as Highamson rose to his feet, “Whatever for did you do it?” asked November in his quiet voice. But now its quietness carried a menace.
“Do what? I didn’t—I—t.” Highamson paused, and there was something unquestionably fine about the old man as he added, “No, I won’t lie. It’s true I shot Hal Lyon. And, what’s more, if it was to do again, I’d do it again! It’s the best deed I ever done; yes, I say that, though I know it’s written in the book: ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’”
“Why did you do it?” repeated November.
Highamson gave him a look.
“I’ll tell you. I did it for my little Janey’s sake. He was her husband. See here! I’ll tell you why I shot Hal Lyon. Along of the first week of last month I went away back into the woods trapping musk-rats. I was gone more’n the month, and the day I come back I did as I did to-night, as I always do first thing when I gets in—I went over to see Janey. Hal Lyon weren’t there; if he had been, I shouldn’t never ’a needed to travel so far to get even with him. But that’s neither here nor there. He’d gone to his bear traps above Big Tree; but the night before he left he’d got in one of his quarrels with my Janey. Hit her, he did—there was one tooth gone where his fist fell.”
Never have I seen such fury as burned in the old man’s eyes as he groaned out the last words.
“Janey, that had the prettiest face for fifty miles around. She tried to hide it from me—she didn’t want me to know—but there was her poor face all swole, and black and blue, and the gap among her white teeth. Bit by bit it all came out. It weren’t the first time Lyon’d took his hands to her. No, nor the third, nor the fourth. There on the spot, as I looked at her, I made up my mind I’d go after him and I’d make him promise me, aye, swear to me on the Holy Book, never to lay hand on her again. If he wouldn’t swear I’d put him where his hands couldn’t reach her. I found him camped away up alongside a backwater near his traps and I told him I’d seen Janey and that he must swear…He wouldn’t! He said he’d learn her to tell on him, he’d smash her in the mouth again. Then he lay down and slep’. I wonder now he weren’t afraid of me, but I suppose that was along of me being a quiet, God-fearing chap. He didn’t expect no violence from me. Hour after hour I lay awake, and then I couldn’t stand it no more, and I got up and pulled a bit of candle I had from my pack, fixed up a candlestick and looked in my Bible for guidance. And the words I lit on were, ‘Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.’ That was the gun clear enough.… Then I blew out the light, and I think I slep’, for I dreamed.
“Next morning Lyon was up early. He had two or three green skins that he’d took off the day before, and he said he was going straight home to smash Janey. I lay there and I said nothing, black nor white. His judgment was set. I knew he couldn’t make all the distance in one day, and I was pretty sure he’d camp at Big Tree. I arrived there just after him, as I could travel faster by canoe than him walking, and so kep’ near him all day. It was nigh sunset, and I bent down under the bank so he couldn’t see me. He went into the old shack. I called out his name. I heard him cursing at my voice, and when he showed his face I shot him dead. I never landed, I never left no tracks, I thought I was safe, sure. You’ve took me; yet only for Janey’s sake I wouldn’t care. I did right, but she won’t like them to say her father’s a murderer.…That’s all.”
November sat on the edge of the table. His handsome face was grave. Nothing more was said for a good while. Then Highamson stood up.
“I’m ready, November, but one favour. Let me see Janey again before you give me over to the police.”
November looked him in the eyes. “Expect you’ll see a good deal of Janey yet. She’ll be lonesome over there now that her brute husband’s gone. She’ll want you to live with her,” he said.
“D’ye mean…”
November nodded. “If the police can catch you for themselves, let ’em. And you’d lessen the chance of that a wonderful deal if you was to burn them moose-shank moccasins you’re wearing. When did you kill your moose?”
“Tuesday’s a week. And my boots were wore out, so I fixed ’em up woods fashion.”
“I know. The hair on them is slipping. I found some of it in your tracks in the camp, away above Big Tree. That’s how I knew you’d killed a moose. I found your candle-stick too. Here it is.” He took from his pocket the little piece of spruce stick, which had puzzled me so much, and turned toward me.
“This end’s sharp to stick into the earth, that end’s slit and you fix the candle in with a bit o’ birch bark. Now it can go into the stove along of the moccasins.” He opened the stove door and thrust in the articles.
“Only three know your secret, Highamson, and if I was you I wouldn’t make it four, not even by adding a woman to it.”
Highamson held out his hand.
“You always was a white man, Nov.,” said he.
Hours later, as we sat drinking a final cup of tea at the camp fire, I said: “After you examined Lyon’s upper camp, you told me seven things about the murderer. You’ve explained how you knew them, all but three.”
“What are the three?”
“First, how did you know that Highamson had been a long time in the woods without visiting a settlement?”
“His moccasins was wore out and patched with raw moose-hide. The tracks of them was plain,” replied November.
I nodded. “And how could you tell that he was religious and spent the night in great trouble of mind?”
November paused in filling his pipe. “He couldn’t sleep,” said he, “and so he got up and cut that candle-stick. What’d he want to light a candle for but to read by? And why should he want to read in the middle of the night if he was not in trouble? And if he was in trouble, what book would he want to read? Besides, not one trapper in a hundred carries any book but the Bible.”
“I see. But how did you know it was in the middle of the night?”
“Did you notice where he cut his candle-stick?”
“No,” said I.
“I did, and he made two false cuts where his knife slipped in the dark. You’re wonderful at questions.”
“And you at answers.”
November stirred the embers under the kettle and the firelight lit up his fine face as he turned with a yawn.
“My!” said he, “but I’m glad Highamson had his reasons. I’d ’a hated to think of that old man shut in where he couldn’t see the sun rise. Wouldn’t you?”
The Case of Oscar Brodski
R. Austin Freeman
If Hesketh Prichard grounded Holmes’s observational skills in terms of the tracker and woodsman, R. Austin Freeman brought Holmes’s analytical skills into the twentieth century by the application of rigorous scientific analysis. These he presented in the stories featuring Dr. John Thorndyke, who was not only a medical doctor but a forensic scientist and lawyer. He first appeared in the novel The Red Thumb Mark in 1907 followed by a series of stories starting with “The Blue Sequin” in Pearson’s Magazine (December 1908). Thorndyke, inseparable from his “green case” research kit, is accompanied by his colleague, Christopher Jervis, who narrates the stories. Thorndy
ke’s skills are best seen in an approach to crime fiction that Freeman invented, the “inverted” detective story. Here the reader witnesses the crime, so knows exactly what happened, and then sees how Thorndyke pieces together the evidence. It was a form that became most popular with the Columbo television series, featuring Peter Falk, but has been used only sparingly in crime fiction. The first published story was “The Willowdale Mystery” (Novel Magazine, August 1910), subsequently collected in The Singing Bone in 1912 as “A Wastrel’s Romance.” It was notable for Thorndyke’s ability to locate a criminal based on the evidence of dust particles on his coat. However, that wasn’t the first that Freeman wrote. That was the story presented here, “The Case of Oscar Brodski” (Pearson’s Magazine, December 1910), which shows in remarkable clarity how the physical evidence that arises as a result of a crime, despite efforts by the criminal to disguise them, can be read like a book. Although Holmes used occasional scientific techniques in his investigations, they were seldom explained in detail. Thorndyke, though, explains everything and was, without doubt, the first scientific detective.
Richard Austin Freeman (1862–1943) was a qualified doctor and surgeon and, like Arthur Conan Doyle, served as a doctor in West Africa. However his health suffered and after returning to England he was unable to continue regularly in practice and so turned to writing. He produced a formidable body of work, but it is his 22 novels and 40 short stories about Dr. Thorndyke that established his reputation and brought scientific rigour into crime fiction.
PART I. THE MECHANISM OF CRIME
A surprising amount of nonsense has been talked about conscience. On the one hand remorse (or the “again-bite,” as certain scholars of ultra-Teutonic leanings would prefer to call it); on the other hand “an easy conscience”: these have been accepted as the determining factors of happiness or the reverse.
Of course there is an element of truth in the “easy conscience” view, but it begs the whole question. A particularly hardy conscience may be quite easy under the most unfavourable conditions—conditions in which the more feeble conscience might be severely afflicted with the “again-bite.” And, then, it seems to be the fact that some fortunate persons have no conscience at all; a negative gift that raises them above the mental vicissitudes of the common herd of humanity.
Now, Silas Hickler was a case in point. No one, looking into his cheerful, round face, beaming with benevolence and wreathed in perpetual smiles, would have imagined him to be a criminal. Least of all, his worthy, high-church housekeeper, who was a witness to his unvarying amiability, who constantly heard him carolling light-heartedly about the house and noted his appreciative zest at meal-times.
Yet it is a fact that Silas earned his modest, though comfortable, income by the gentle art of burglary. A precarious trade and risky withal, yet not so very hazardous if pursued with judgment and moderation. And Silas was eminently a man of judgment. He worked invariably alone. He kept his own counsel. No confederate had he to turn King’s Evidence at a pinch; no one he knew would bounce off in a fit of temper to Scotland Yard. Nor was he greedy and thriftless, as most criminals are. His “scoops” were few and far between, carefully planned, secretly executed, and the proceeds judiciously invested in “weekly property.”
In early life Silas had been connected with the diamond industry, and he still did a little rather irregular dealing. In the trade he was suspected of transactions with I.D.B.’s, and one or two indiscreet dealers had gone so far as to whisper the ominous word “fence.” But Silas smiled a benevolent smile and went his way. He knew what he knew, and his clients in Amsterdam were not inquisitive.
Such was Silas Hickler. As he strolled round his garden in the dusk of an October evening, he seemed the very type of modest, middle-class prosperity. He was dressed in the travelling suit that he wore on his little continental trips; his bag was packed and stood in readiness on the sitting-room sofa. A parcel of diamonds (purchased honestly, though without impertinent questions, at Southampton) was in the inside pocket of his waistcoat, and another more valuable parcel was stowed in a cavity in the heel of his right boot. In an hour and a half it would be time for him to set out to catch the boat train at the junction; meanwhile there was nothing to do but to stroll round the fading garden and consider how he should invest the proceeds of the impending deal. His housekeeper had gone over to Welham for the week’s shopping, and would probably not be back until eleven o’clock. He was alone in the premises and just a trifle dull.
He was about to turn into the house when his ear caught the sound of footsteps on the unmade road that passed the end of the garden. He paused and listened. There was no other dwelling near, and the road led nowhere, fading away into the waste land beyond the house. Could this be a visitor? It seemed unlikely, for visitors were few at Silas Hickler’s house. Meanwhile the footsteps continued to approach, ringing out with increasing loudness on the hard, stony path.
Silas strolled down to the gate, and, leaning on it, looked out with some curiosity. Presently a glow of light showed him the face of a man, apparently lighting his pipe; then a dim figure detached itself from the enveloping gloom, advanced towards him and halted opposite the garden. The stranger removed a cigarette from his mouth and, blowing out a cloud of smoke, asked—
“Can you tell me if this road will take me to Badsham Junction?”
“No,” replied Hickler, “but there is a footpath farther on that leads to the station.”
“Footpath!” growled the stranger. “I’ve had enough of footpaths. I came down from town to Catley intending to walk across to the junction. I started along the road, and then some fool directed me to a short cut, with the result that I have been blundering about in the dark for the last half-hour. My sight isn’t very good, you know,” he added.
“What train do you want to catch?” asked Hickler.
“Seven fifty-eight,” was the reply.
“I am going to catch that train myself,” said Silas, “but I shan’t be starting for another hour. The station is only three-quarters of a mile from here. If you like to come in and take a rest, we can walk down together and then you’ll be sure of not missing your way.”
“It’s very good of you,” said the stranger, peering, with spectacled eyes, at the dark house, “but—I think—?”
“Might as well wait here as at the station,” said Silas in his genial way, holding the gate open, and the stranger, after a momentary hesitation, entered and, flinging away his cigarette, followed him to the door of the cottage.
The sitting-room was in darkness, save for the dull glow of the expiring fire, but, entering before his guest, Silas applied a match to the lamp that hung from the ceiling. As the flame leaped up, flooding the little interior with light, the two men regarded one another with mutual curiosity.
“Brodski, by Jingo!” was Hickler’s silent commentary, as he looked at his guest. “Doesn’t know me, evidently—wouldn’t, of course, after all these years and with his bad eyesight. Take a seat, sir,” he added aloud. “Will you join me in a little refreshment to while away the time?”
Brodski murmured an indistinct acceptance, and, as his host turned to open a cupboard, he deposited his hat (a hard, grey felt) on a chair in a corner, placed his bag on the edge of the table, resting his umbrella against it, and sat down in a small arm-chair.
“Have a biscuit?” said Hickler, as he placed a whisky-bottle on the table together with a couple of his best star-pattern tumblers and a siphon.
“Thanks, I think I will,” said Brodski. “The railway journey and all this confounded tramping about, you know—?”
“Yes,” agreed Silas. “Doesn’t do to start with an empty stomach. Hope you don’t mind oat-cakes; I see they’re the only biscuits I have.”
Brodski hastened to assure him that oat-cakes were his special and peculiar fancy, and in confirmation, having mixed himself a stiff jorum, he fell to upon the biscuits with evident gusto.
Brodski was a deliberate feeder, and at present
appeared to be somewhat sharp set. His measured munching being unfavourable to conversation, most of the talking fell to Silas; and, for once, that genial transgressor found the task embarrassing. The natural thing would have been to discuss his guest’s destination and perhaps the object of his journey; but this was precisely what Hickler avoided doing. For he knew both, and instinct told him to keep his knowledge to himself.
Brodski was a diamond merchant of considerable reputation, and in a large way of business. He bought stones principally in the rough, and of these he was a most excellent judge. His fancy was for stones of somewhat unusual size and value, and it was well known to be his custom, when he had accumulated a sufficient stock, to carry them himself to Amsterdam and supervise the cutting of the rough stones. Of this Hickler was aware, and he had no doubt that Brodski was now starting on one of his periodical excursions; that somewhere in the recesses of his rather shabby clothing was concealed a paper packet possibly worth several thousand pounds.
Brodski sat by the table munching monotonously and talking little. Hickler sat opposite him, talking nervously and rather wildly at times, and watching his guest with a growing fascination. Precious stones, and especially diamonds, were Hickler’s specialty. “Hard stuff”—silver plate—he avoided entirely; gold, excepting in the form of specie, he seldom touched; but stones, of which he could carry off a whole consignment in the heel of his boot and dispose of with absolute safety, formed the staple of his industry. And here was a man sitting opposite him with a parcel in his pocket containing the equivalent of a dozen of his most successful “scoops”; stones worth perhaps—? Here he pulled himself up short and began to talk rapidly, though without much coherence. For, even as he talked, other words, formed subconsciously, seemed to insinuate themselves into the interstices of the sentences, and to carry on a parallel train of thought.
Toward the Golden Age Page 5
