“Still,” said Badger, “you can give us some sort of description of it, I suppose?”
“I don’t know that I can,” she replied. “It had a leather case, and the handle was covered with leather, I think, and it had a sort of loop, and it used to hang on that nail.”
“Yes, you said that before,” Badger commented sourly. “When you say it had a case, do you mean a sheath?”
“You can call it a sheath if you like,” she retorted, evidently ruffled by the inspector’s manner, “I call it a case.”
“And how big was it? How long, for instance?”
Mrs. Runt held out her hands about a yard apart, looked at them critically, shortened the interval to a foot, extended it to two, and still varying the distance, looked vaguely at the inspector.
“I should say it was about that,” she said.
“About what?” snorted Badger. “Do you mean a foot or two feet or a yard? Can’t you give us some idea?”
“I can’t say no clearer than what I have,” she snapped. “I don’t go round gentlemen’s chambers measuring the things.”
It seemed to me that Badger’s questions were rather unnecessary, for the wall-paper below the nail gave the required information. A coloured patch on the faded ground furnished a pretty clear silhouette of a broad bladed sword or large dagger, about two feet six inches long, which had apparently hung from the nail by a loop or ring at the end of the handle. But it was not my business to point this out. I turned to Bidwell and asked:
“Can you tell us what the thing was?”
“I am afraid I can’t,” he replied. “I have very seldom been in these chambers. Herrington and I usually met in mine and went to the club. I have a dim recollection of something hanging on that nail, but I have not the least idea what it was or what it was like. But do you think it really matters? The thing was almost certainly a curio of some kind. It couldn’t have been of any appreciable value. It is absurd, on the face of it, to suppose that this man came to Herrington’s chambers, apparently by appointment, and murdered him for the sake of getting possession of an antique sword or dagger. Don’t you think so?”
I did, and so, apparently, did the inspector, with the qualification that the thing seemed to have disappeared, and its disappearance ought to be accounted for; which was perfectly true, though I did not quite see how the “accounting for” was to be effected. However, as the laundress had told all that she knew, Badger gave her her dismissal and she retired to the landing, where I noticed that the night porter was still lurking. Mr. Bidwell also took his departure, and happening, a few moments later, to glance out of the window, I saw him walking slowly across the court, apparently conferring with the laundress and the porter.
As soon as we were alone, Badger assumed a friendly and confidential manner and proceeded to give advice.
“I gather that Mr. Bidwell wants you to investigate this case, but I don’t fancy it is in your line at all. It is just a matter of tracing that stranger and getting hold of him. Then we shall have to find out what property there was on these premises. The laundress says that there is nothing missing, but of course no one supposes that the man came here to take the furniture. It is most probable that the motive was robbery of some kind. There’s no sign of anything broken open; but then, there wouldn’t be, as the keys were available.”
Nevertheless he prowled round the room, examining every receptacle that had a lock and trying the drawers of the writing-table and of what looked like a file cabinet.
“You will have your work cut out,” I remarked, “to trace that man. The porter’s description was pretty vague.”
“Yes,” he replied; “there isn’t much to go on. That’s where you come in,” he added with a grin, “with your microscopes and air-pumps and things. Now if Dr. Thorndyke was here he would just sweep a bit of dust from the floor and collect any stray oddments and have a good look at them through his magnifier, and then we should know all about it. Can’t you do a bit in that line? There’s plenty of dust on the floor. And here’s a pin. Wonderful significant thing is a pin. And here’s a wax vesta; now, that ought to tell you quite a lot. And here is the end of a leather boot-lace—at least, that is what it looks like. That must have come out of somebody’s boot. Have a look at it, doctor, and see if you can tell me what kind of boot it came out of and whose boot it was.”
He laid the fragment, and the match, and the pin on the table and grinned at me somewhat offensively. Inwardly I resented his impertinence—perhaps the more so since I realised that Thorndyke would probably not have been so completely gravelled as I undoubtedly was. But I considered it politic to take his clumsy irony in good part, and even to carry on his elephantine joke. Accordingly, I picked up the three “clues,” one after the other, and examined them gravely, noting that the supposed boot-lace appeared to be composed of whalebone or vulcanite.
“Well, inspector,” I said. “I can’t give you the answer off-hand. There’s no microscope here. But I will examine these objects at my leisure and let you have the information in due course.”
With that 1 wrapped them with ostentatious care in a piece of note and bestowed them in my pocket, a proceeding which the inspector watched with a sour smile.
“I’m afraid you’ll be too late,” said he. “Our men will probably pick up the tracks while you are doing the microscope stunt. However, I mustn’t stay here any longer. We can’t do anything until we know what valuables there were on the premises; and I must have the body removed and examined by the police surgeon.”
He moved towards the door, and as I had no further business in the rooms, I followed, and leaving him to lock up, I took my way back to our chambers.
When Thorndyke returned to town a couple of days later, I mentioned the case to him. But what Badger had said appeared to be true. It was a case of ascertaining the identity of the stranger who had visited the dead man on that fatal night, and this seemed to be a matter for the police rather than for us. So the case remained in abeyance until the evening following the inquest, when Mr. Bidwell called on us, accompanied by a Mr. Carston, whom he introduced as an old friend of his and of Herrington’s family.
“I have called,” he said, “to bring you a full report of the evidence at the inquest. 1 had a shorthand writer there, and this is a typed transcript of his notes. Nothing fresh transpired beyond what Dr. Jervis knows and has probably told you, but I thought you had better have all the information in writing.”
“There is no clue as to who the suspicious visitor was, I suppose?” said Thorndyke.
Not the slightest,” replied Bidwell. “The porter’s description is all they have to go on, and of course it would apply to hundreds of persons. But, in connection with that, there is a question on which I should like to take your opinion. Poor Herrington once mentioned to me that he was subjected to a good deal of annoyance by a certain person who from time to time applied to him for financial help. I gathered that some sort of claim was advanced, and that the demands for money were more or less of the nature of blackmail. Giles didn’t say who the person was, but I got the impression that he was a relative. Now, my friend Carston, who attended the inquest with me, noticed that the porter’s description of the stranger would apply fairly well to a nephew of Giles’s, whom he knows slightly and who is a somewhat shady character; and the question that Carston and I have been debating is whether these facts ought to be communicated to the police. It is a serious matter to put a man under suspicion on such very slender data; and yet—”
“And yet,” said Carston, “the facts certainly fit the circumstances. This fellow—his name is Godfrey Herrington—is a typical ne’er-do-weel. Nobody knows how he lives. He doesn’t appear to do any work. And then there is the personality of the deceased. I didn’t know Giles Herrington very well, but I knew his brother, Sir Gilbert, pretty intimately, and if Giles was at all like him, a catastrophe might easily have occurred.”
“What was Sir Gilbert’s special characteristic?” Thorndyke a
sked.
“Unamiability,” was the reply. “He was a most cantankerous, overbearing man, and violent at times. I knew him when I was at the Colonial Office with him, and one of his official acts will show the sort of man he was. You may remember it, Bidwell—the Bekwè affair. There was some trouble in Bekwè, which is one of the minor kingdoms bordering on Ashanti, and Sir Gilbert was sent out as a special commissioner to settle it. And settle it he did with a vengeance. He took up an armed force, deposed the king of Bekwè, seized the royal stool, message stick, state sword, drums, and the other insignia of royalty, and brought them away with him. And what made it worse was that he treated these important things as mere loot kept some of them himself and gave away others as presents to his friends.
“It was an intolerably high-handed proceeding, and it caused a rare outcry. Even the Colonial Governor protested, and in the end the Secretary of State directed the Governor to reinstate the king and restore the stolen insignia, as these things went with the royal title and were necessary for the ceremonies of reinstatement or the accession of a new king.”
“And were they restored?” asked Bidwell.
“Most of them were. But just about this time Gilbert died, and as the whereabouts of one or two of them were unknown, it was impossible to collect them then. I don’t know if they have been found since.”
Here Thorndyke led Mr. Carston back to the point from which he had digressed.
“You are suggesting that certain peculiarities of temper and temperament on the part of the deceased might have some bearing on the circumstances of his death.”
“Yes,” said Carston. “If Giles Herrington was at all like his brother—I don’t know whether he was—” here he looked inquiringly at Bidwell, who nodded emphatically.
“I should say he was, undoubtedly,” said he. “He was my friend, and I was greatly attached to him; but to others, I must admit, he must have appeared a decidedly morose, cantankerous, and irascible man.”
“Very well,” resumed Carston. “If you imagine this cadging, blackmailing wastrel calling on him and trying to squeeze him, and then you imagine Herrington refusing to be squeezed and becoming abusive and even violent, you have a fair set of antecedents for—for what, in fact, did happen.”
“By the way,” said Thorndyke, “what exactly did happen, according to the evidence?”
The medical evidence,” replied Bidwell, “showed that the immediate cause of death was heart failure. There were marks of fingers on the throat, as you know, and various other bruises. It was evident that deceased had been violently assaulted, but death was not directly due to the injuries.”
“And the finding of the jury?” asked Thorndyke.
“Wilful murder, committed by some person unknown.”
It doesn’t appear to me,” said I, that Mr. Carston’s suggestion has much present bearing on the case. It is really a point for the defence. But we are concerned with the identity of the unknown man.”
“I am inclined to agree with Dr. Jervis,” said Bidwell. “We have got to catch the hare before we go into culinary details.”
My point is,” said Carston, “that Herrington’s peculiar temper suggests a set of circumstances that would render it probable that his visitor was his nephew Godfrey.”
“There is some truth in that,” Thorndyke agreed. It is highly speculative, but a reasonable speculation cannot be disregarded when the known facts are so few. My feeling is that the police ought to be informed of the existence of this man and his possible relations with the deceased. As to whether he is or is not the suspected stranger, that could be settled at once if he were confronted with the night porter.”
Yes, that is true,” said Bidwell “I think Carston and I had better call at Scotland Yard and give the Assistant Commissioner a hint on the subject. It will have to be a very guarded hint, of course.”
Was the question of motive raised?” Thorndyke asked. “As to robbery, for instance.”
“There is no evidence of robbery,” replied Bidwell. “I have been through all the receptacles in the chambers, and everything seems intact. The keys were in poor Giles’s pocket and nothing seems to have been disturbed; indeed, it doesn’t appear that there was any portable property of value on the premises.”
“Well,” said Thorndyke, “the first thing that has to be done is to establish the identity of the nocturnal visitor. That is the business of the police. And if you call and tell them what you have told us, they will, at least, have something to investigate. They should have no difficulty in proving either that he is or is not the man whom the porter let in at the gate; and until they have settled that question, there is no need for us to take any action.”
“Exactly,” said Bidwell, rising and taking up his hat. “If the police can complete the case, there is nothing for us to do. However, I will leave you the report of the inquest to look over at your leisure, and will keep you informed as to how the case progresses.”
When our two friends had gone, Thorndyke sat for some time turning over the sheets of the report and glancing through the depositions of the witnesses. Presently he remarked: “If it turns out that this man, Godfrey Herrington, is not the man whom the porter let in, the police will be left in the air. Apart from Bidwell’s purely speculative suggestion, there seems to be no clue whatever to the visitor’s identity.”
“Badger would like to hear you say that,” said I. “He was very sarcastic respecting our methods of research,” and here I gave him an account of my interview with the inspector, including the “clues” with which he had presented me.
“It was like his impudence,” Thorndyke commented smilingly, “to pull the leg of my learned junior. Still, there was a germ of sense in what he said. A collection of dust from the floor of that room, in which two men had engaged in a violent struggle, would certainly yield traces of both of them.”
“Mixed up with the traces of a good many others,” I remarked.
“True,” he admitted. “But that would not affect the value of a positive trace of a particular individual. Supposing, for instance, that Godfrey Herrington were known to have dyed hair; and suppose that one or more dyed male hairs were found in the dust from the floor of the room. That would establish a probability that he had been in that room, and also that he was the person who had struggled with the deceased.”
“Yes, I see that,” said I. “Perhaps I ought to have collected some of the dust. But it isn’t too late now, as Bidwell has locked up the chambers, Meanwhile, let me present you with Badger’s clues. They came off the floor.”
I searched in my pocket and produced the paper packet, the existence of which I had forgotten, and having opened it, offered it to him with an ironical bow. He looked gravely at the little collection, and, disregarding the pin and the match, picked out the third object and examined it curiously.
“That is the alleged boot-lace end,” he remarked. “It doesn’t do much credit to Badger’s powers of observation. It is as unlike leather as it could well be.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “it is obviously whalebone or vulcanite.”
“It isn’t vulcanite,” said he, looking closely at the broken end and getting out his pocket lens for a more minute inspection.
“What do you suppose it is?” I asked, my curiosity stimulated by the evident interest with which he was examining the object.
“We needn’t suppose,” he replied. “I fancy that if we get Polton to make a cross section of it, the microscope will tell us what it is. I will take it up to him.” As he went out and I heard him ascending to the laboratory where our assistant, Polton, was at work, I was conscious of a feeling of vexation and a sense of failure. It was always thus. I had treated this fragment with the same levity as had the inspector, just dropping it into my pocket and forgetting it. Probably the thing was of no interest or importance; but whether it was or not, Thorndyke would not be satisfied until he knew for certain what it was. And that habit of examining everything, of letting nothing pass without t
he closest scrutiny, was one of the great secrets of his success as an investigator.
When he came down again I reopened the subject. It has occurred to me,” I said, “that it might be as well for us to have a look at that room. My inspection was rather perfunctory, as Badger was there.”
“I have just been thinking the same,” he replied. “If Godfrey is not the man, and the police are left stranded, Bidwell will look to us to take up the inquiry, and by that time the room may have been disturbed. I think we will get the key from Bidwell tomorrow morning and make a thorough examination. And we may as well adopt Badger’s excellent suggestion respecting the dust. I will instruct Polton to come over with us and bring a full-sized vacuum-cleaner, and we can go over what he collects at our leisure.”
Agreeably to this arrangement, we presented ourselves on the following morning at Mr. Bidwell’s chambers, accompanied by Polton, who, however, being acutely conscious of the vacuum-cleaner, which was thinly disguised in brown paper, sneaked up the stairs and got out of sight. Bidwell opened the door himself, and Thorndyke explained our intentions to him.
“Of course you can have the key,” he said, “but I don’t know that it is worth your while to go into the matter. There have been developments since I saw you last night. When Carston and I called at Scotland Yard we found that we were too late. Godfrey Herrington had come forward and made a voluntary statement.”
“That was wise of him,” said Thorndyke, “but he would have been wiser still to have notified the porter of what had happened and sent for a doctor. He claims that the death was a misadventure, of course?”
“Not at all,” replied Bidwell. “He states that when be left, Giles was perfectly well; so well that he was able to kick him—Godfrey—down the stairs and pitch him out on to the pavement. It seems, according to his account, that he called to try to get some financial help from his uncle. He admits that he was rather importunate and persisted after Giles had definitely refused. Then Giles got suddenly into a rage, thrust him out of the chambers, ran him down the stairs, and threw him out into Tanfield Court. It is a perfectly coherent story, and quite probable up to a certain point, but it doesn’t account for the bruises on Giles’s body or the finger-marks on his throat.”
The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack Page 19
