SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY JOHN H. DIRCKX Richard Austin Freeman (1862-1943) rose from humble origins to reach an exalted rank among writers of detective fiction contemporary with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The son of a London tailor, he was so poor when he completed his medical training that...
FICTION
DEPARTMENTS
DEPARTMENTS
MYSTERY CLASSIC
THE GREEN CHECK JACKET
R. AUSTIN FREEMAN
SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY
JOHN H. DIRCKX
Richard Austin Freeman (1862-1943) rose from humble origins to reach an exalted rank among writers of detective fiction contemporary with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The son of a London tailor, he was so poor when he completed his medical training that buying a practice was out of the question. Instead, he signed on as assistant colonial surgeon with a diplomatic mission to Accra on the Gold Coast of Africa. A second appointment followed as physician and naturalist on an exploratory expedition to Ashanti and Jáman.
Freeman returned to England in 1892 with his health permanently ruined as a result of blackwater fever, a complication of malaria associated with kidney damage. Unable to sustain the rigors of medical practice with its daily round of home visits and emergency calls at all hours, he filled a succession of salaried positions and tried his hand at writing to augment his income.
His first published work, an account of his experiences in Africa (1898), revealed a gift for narrative and descriptive writing. He went on to produce short stories of adventure and intrigue, some of them in collaboration with Dr. John Pitcairn under the penname of Clifford Ashdown. These are typical Edwardian fare—blithely amusing, archly clever, and largely forgettable.
With the creation of Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke in The Red Thumb Mark (1907), Freeman hit his artistic stride. Both physician and barrister, Thorndyke limits his practice to medical jurisprudence, a discipline that, renamed forensic science, figures among current obsessions of the American television-viewing public.
The handsome and genial Thorndyke, a model of integrity quite free of eccentricities, possesses a phenomenal store of scientific knowledge and a formidable range of technical skills. A fully equipped forensic laboratory occupies the upper floor of his chambers in London's Inner Temple.
In each of his cases he builds up, from apparently trivial clues, an unbreakable chain of physical evidence. Freeman never stooped to writing pseudoscience. Every one of the scientific minutiae that so abound in his fiction is firmly grounded in fact. Often he confirmed, by actual experiment, the practicability of his criminals' diabolical schemes and the soundness of his detective's analytic methods.
Dr. Thorndyke appeared in twenty-one novels and forty short stories. Six of the latter are "inverted," the first part of the story presenting a detailed account of a crime, clearly identifying murderer, motive, and method, and the second part recording the activities of the sleuth in assembling historical data, gathering physical evidence, forming and rejecting hypotheses, and ultimately identifying the guilty party and supplying the authorities with sufficient evidence for a conviction. No one disputes Freeman's claim to have invented the inverted story, but the format never caught on as a sub-genre of detective fiction.
Freeman aficionados will find "The Green Check Jacket" particularly satisfying. The tale is told in the first person by Dr. Christopher Jervis, Thorndyke's earliest and most faithful collaborator. Among the cast of characters we find such familiar figures as the solicitor Hector Brodribb, Thorndyke's laboratory technician Nathaniel Polton, and the sturdy if stolid Detective-Superintendent Miller. Incidentally, part of the action in this story takes place in Gravesend near the Thames estuary, where Freeman lived for forty years in fruitful semi-retirement.
The visits of our old friend, Mr. Brodribb, even when strictly professional, usually took the outward form of a friendly call. On the present occasion there was no such pretence. The old solicitor entered our chambers carrying a small suit-case (the stamped initials on which, "R. M.," I noticed, instantly attracted an inquisitive glance from Thorndyke, being obviously not Mr. Brodribb's own) which he placed on the table and then shook hands with an evident air of business.
"I have come, Thorndyke," he said, with unusual directness, "to ask your advice on a matter which is causing me some uneasiness. Do you know Reginald Merrill?"
"Slightly," was the reply. "I meet him occasionally in court; and, of course, I know him as the author of that interesting book on Prehistoric Flint-mines."
"Well," said Brodribb, "he has disappeared. He is missing. I don't like to use the expression; but when a responsible man is absent from his usual places of resort, when he apparently had no expectation of being so absent, and when he has made no provision for such absence, I think we may regard him as having disappeared in a legal sense. His absence calls for active inquiry."
"Undoubtedly," agreed Thorndyke, "and I take it that you are the person on whom the duty devolves?"
"I think so. I am his solicitor and the executor of his will—at least I believe so; and the only near relative of his whom I know is his nephew and heir, Ethelbert Crick, his sister's son. But Crick seems to have disappeared, too; and about the same time as Merrill. It is an extraordinary affair."
"You say that you believe you are Merrill's executor. Haven't you seen the will?"
"I have seen a will. I have it in my safe. But Merrill said he was going to draw up another, and he may have done so. But if he has, he will almost certainly have appointed me his executor, and I shall assume that he has and act accordingly."
"Was there any special reason for making a new will?" Thorndyke asked.
"Yes," replied Brodribb. "He has just come into quite a considerable fortune, and he was pretty well off before. Under the old will, practically the whole of his property went to Crick. There was a small bequest to a man named Samuel Horder, his cousin's son; and Horder was the alternative legatee if Crick should die before Merrill. Now, I understood Merrill to say that, in view of this extra fortune, he wished to do rather more for Horder, and I gathered that he proposed to divide the estate more or less equally between the two men. The whole estate was more than he thought necessary for Crick. And now, as we have cleared up the preliminaries, I will give you the circumstances of the disappearance.
"Last Wednesday, the 5th, I had a note from him saying that he would have some reports ready for me on the following day, but that he would be away from his office from 10.30 A.M. to about 6.30, and suggesting that I should send round in the evening if I wanted the papers particularly. Now it happened that my clerk, Page, had to go to a place near London Bridge on Thursday morning, and, oddly enough, he saw Mr. Merrill come out of Edington's, the ship-fitters, with a man who was carrying a largish hand bag. There was nothing in it, of course, but Page is an observant man and he noticed Merrill's companion so far as to observe that he was wearing a Norfolk jacket of a greenish shepherd's plaid and a grey tweed hat. He also noted the time by the big clock in the street near to Edginton's—1.46—and that Merrill looked up at it, and that the two men then walked off rather quickly in the direction of the station. Well, in the evening, I sent Page round to Merrill's chambers in Figtree Court to get the papers. He arrived there just after 6.30, but he found the oak shut, and though he rapped at the door on the chance that Merrill might have come in—he lives in the chambers adjoining the office—there was no answer. So he went for a walk round the Temple, deciding to return a little later.
"Well, he had gone as far as the cloisters and was loitering there to look in the window of the wig-maker's shop when he saw a man in a greenish shepherd's plaid jacket and a tweed hat coming up Pump Court. As the man approached Page thought he recognised him; in fact, he felt so sure that he stopped him and asked him if he knew what time Mr. Merrill would be home. But the man looked at him in astonishment. 'Merrill?' said he. 'I don't know anyone of that name.' Thereupon Page apologized and explained how he had been misled by the pattern and colour of the jacket.
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"After walking about for nearly half an hour, Page went back to Merrill's chambers; but the oak was shut and he could get no answer by rapping with his stick, so he scribbled a note and dropped it into the letterbox and came away. The next morning I sent him round again, but the chambers were still shut up, and they have been shut up ever since; and nothing whatever has been seen or heard of Merrill.
"On Saturday, thinking it possible that Crick might be able to give me some news of his uncle, I called at his lodgings; and then, to my astonishment, I learned that he also was missing. He had gone away early on Thursday morning, saying that he had to go on business to Rochester, and that he might not be home to dinner. But he never came home at all. I called again on Sunday evening, and, as he had still not returned, I decided to take more active measures.
"This afternoon, immediately after lunch, I called at the Porter's Lodge, and, having briefly explained the circumstances and who I was, asked the porter to bring the duplicate key—which he had for the laundress—and accompany me to Mr. Merrill's chambers to see if, by chance, the tenant might be lying in them dead or insensible. He assured me that this could not be the case, since he had given the key every morning to the laundress, who had, in fact, returned it to him only a couple of hours previously. Nevertheless, he took the key and looked up the laundress, who had rooms near the lodge, who was fortunately at home and who turned out to be a most respectable and intelligent elderly woman; and we went together to Merrill's chambers. The porter admitted us, and when we had been right through the set and ascertained definitely that Merrill was not there, he handed the key to the laundress, Mrs. Butler, and went away.
"When he was gone, I had a talk with Mrs. Butler, from which some rather startling facts transpired. It seemed that on Thursday, as Merrill was going to be out all day, she took the opportunity to have a grand clean-up of the chambers, to tidy up the lobby, and to look over the chests of drawers and the wardrobe and shake out and brush the clothes and see that no moth had got in. 'When I had finished,' she said, 'the place was like the inside of a band-box; just as he liked to see it.'
"'And, after all, Mrs. Butler,' said I, 'he never did see it.'
"'Oh, yes, he did,' says she. 'I don't know when he came in, but when I let myself in the next morning, I could see that he had been in since I left.'
"'How did you know that?' I asked.
"'Well,' says she, 'I left the carpet-sweeper standing against the wardrobe door. I remembered it after I left and would have gone back and moved it, but I had already handed the key in at the Porter's Lodge. But when I went in next morning it wasn't there. It had been moved into the corner by the fireplace. Then the looking-glass had been moved. I could see that, because, before I went away, I had tidied my hair by it, and being short, I had to tilt it to see my face in it. Now it was tilted to suit a tall person and I could not see myself in it. Then I saw that the shaving-brush had been moved, and when I put it back in its place, I found it was damp. It wouldn't have kept damp for twenty-four hours at this time of year,'—which was perfectly true, you know, Thorndyke."
"Perfectly," agreed Thorndyke, "that woman is an excellent observer."
"Well," continued Brodribb, "on this she examined the shaving soap and the sponge, and found them both perceptibly damp. It appeared practically certain that Merrill had been in on the preceding evening and had shaved; but by way of confirmation, I suggested that she should look over his clothes and see whether he had changed any of his garments. She did so, beginning with those that were hanging in the wardrobe, which she took down one at a time. Suddenly she gave a cry of surprise, and I got a bit of a start myself when she handed out a greenish shepherd's plaid Norfolk jacket.
"'That jacket,' she said, 'was not here when I brushed these clothes,' and it was obvious from its dusty condition that it could not have been; 'and,' she added, 'I have never seen it before to my knowledge, and I think I should have remembered it.' I asked her if there was any coat missing and she answered that she had brushed a grey tweed jacket that seemed to have disappeared.
"Well, it was a queer affair. The first thing to be done was to ascertain, if possible, whether that jacket was or was not Merrill's. That, I thought, you would be able to judge better than I; so I borrowed his suit-case and popped the jacket into it, together with another jacket that was undoubtedly his, for comparison. Here is the suit-case and the two jackets are inside."
"It is really a question that could be better decided by a tailor," said Thorndyke. "The differences of measurement can't be great if they could both be worn by the same person. But we shall see." He rose, and having spread some sheets of newspaper over the table, opened the suit-case and took out the two jackets, which he laid out side by side. Then, with his spring-tape, he proceeded systematically to measure the two garments, entering each pair of measurements on a slip of paper divided into two columns. Mr. Brodribb and I watched him expectantly and compared the two sets of figures as they were written down; and very soon it became evident that they were, at least, not identical. At length Thorndyke laid down the tape, and picking up the paper, studied it closely.
"I think," he said, "we may conclude that these two jackets were not made for the same person. The differences are not great, but they are consistent. The elbow creases, for instance, agree with the total length of the sleeves. The owner of the green jacket has longer arms and a bigger span than Merrill, but his chest measurement is nearly two inches greater and he has much more sloping shoulders. He could hardly have buttoned Merrill's jacket."
"Then," said Brodribb, "the next question is, did Merrill come home in some other man's coat or did some other man enter his chambers? From what Page has told us it seems pretty evident that a stranger must have got into those chambers. But if that is so, the questions arise: What the deuce was the fellow's object in changing into Merrill's clothes and shaving? How did he get into Merrill's chambers? What was he doing there? What has become of Merrill? And what is the meaning of the whole affair?"
"To some of those questions," said Thorndyke, "the answers are fairly obvious. If we assume, as I do, that the owner of the green jacket is the man whom Page saw at London Bridge and afterwards in the cloisters, the reason for the change of garments becomes plain enough. Page told the man that he had identified him by this very distinctive jacket as the person with whom Merrill was last seen alive. Evidently that man's safety demanded that he should get rid of the incriminating jacket without delay. Then, as to his having shaved: did Page give you any description of the man?"
"Yes; he was a tallish man, about thirty-five, with a large dark moustache and a torpedo beard."
"Very well," said Thorndyke; "then we may say that the man who went into Merrill's chambers was a moustached bearded man in a green jacket and that the man who came out was a clean-shaved man in a grey jacket, whom Page himself would probably have passed without a second glance. That is clear enough. And as to how he got into the chambers, evidently he let himself in with Merrill's key; and if he did, I am afraid we can make a pretty shrewd guess as to what has become of Merrill, and only hope that we are guessing wrong. As to what this man was doing in those chambers and what is the meaning of the whole affair, that is a more difficult question. If the man had Merrill's latch key, we may assume that he had the rest of Merrill's keys; that he had, in fact, free access to any locked receptacles in those chambers. The circumstances suggest that he entered the chambers for the purpose of getting possession of some valuable objects contained in them. Do you happen to know whether Merrill had any property of considerable value on the premises?"
"I don't," replied Brodribb. "He had a safe, but I don't know what he kept in it. Principally documents, I should think. Certainly not money, in any considerable amounts. The only thing of value that I actually know of is the new will; and that would only be valuable—under certain circumstances."
The abrupt and rather ambiguous conclusion of Mr. Brodribb's statement was not lost either on Thorndyke or on me
. Apparently the cautious old lawyer had suddenly realized, as I had, that if anything had happened to Merrill, those "certain circumstances" had already come into being. From what he had told us it appeared that, under the new will, Crick stood to inherit a half of Mr. Merrill's fortune, whereas under the old will he stood to inherit nearly the whole. And it was a great fortune. The loss or destruction of the new will would be worth a good many thousand pounds to Mr. Crick.
"Well," said Brodribb, after a pause, "what is to be done? I suppose I ought to communicate with the police."
"You will have to, sooner or later," said Thorndyke; "but meanwhile, leave these two jackets—or, at least, the green one—with me for the pres- ent and let me see if I can extract any further information from it."
"You won't find anything in the pockets but dirt. I've tried them."
"I hope you left the dirt," said Thorndyke.
"I did," replied Brodribb, "excepting what came out on my fingers. Very well; I'll leave the coats with you for to-day, and I will see if I can get any further news of Crick from his landlady."
With this the old solicitor shook hands and went off with such an evident air of purpose that I remarked:
"Brodribb is off to find out whether Mr. Crick was the proprietor of a green plaid Norfolk jacket."
Thorndyke smiled. "It was rather quaint," said he, "to see the sudden way in which he drew in his horns when the inwardness of the affair dawned on him. But we mustn't start with a preconceived theory. Our business is to get hold of some more facts. There is little enough to go on at present. Let us begin by having a good look at this green jacket."
He picked it up and carried it to the window, where we both looked it over critically.
"It is rather dusty," I remarked, "especially on the front, and there is a white mark on the middle button."
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 12/01/12 Page 12
