So we advanced until we entered the gloomy shadow of the great yew tree. Here Thorndyke halted to look about him. “Somewhere in this neighbourhood,” said he, “would be the most probable place for a nocturnal operator to make his arrangements. That is the Manor wall in front of us. I can see the roof of the gallery wing through the trees. That big sarcophagus tomb will be nearly opposite the end of the wing.”
“Yes,” I said. “It seems to mark the position that would be most convenient for negotiating the wall; and if you notice the grass, there seems to be a faint, rather wide track, as if it had been walked over by someone who had been careful not to tread it down all in one place.”
“I think you are right,” said Woodburn. “Now you mention it, I think I can make out the track quite plainly. It seems to lead towards that tomb.”
“The grass has certainly been walked over,” Thorndyke agreed, “and I see no signs of its having been trodden anywhere else. But don’t let us confuse matters by walking over it ourselves. Let us strike across the graves and approach along the wall.”
We followed this course, keeping close to the wall as we approached the great tomb. The latter stood about ten feet from the wall, and, as we drew near, I was surprised to notice that the grass between the tomb and the wall appeared quite untrodden.
Thorndyke had also noticed this rather unexpected circumstance, and, when we were within a yard or two of the tomb, he halted and looked curiously along the ground at the foot of the wall.
“There is certainly no sign of the use of any ladder,” he remarked. “In fact, there is no indication of any one having approached close to the wall. The track, if it really is one, doesn’t appear to go beyond the tomb.”
“That is what it looks like to me,” agreed Woodburn, “though I am hanged if I can see any reason why it should. They couldn’t have jumped from the top of the tomb over the wall.”
“It looks,” I suggested, “as if this place had been used rather as a post of observation, or a lurking-place where the sportsman could keep out of sight until the coast was clear.” We approached the tomb from the direction of the wall and sauntered round it, idly reading the inscriptions, which recorded briefly the life-histories of a whole dynasty of Greenlees, “late of Hartsden Manor in this Parish,” beginning with one John Greenlees who died in 1611. At length he turned away and began to retrace his steps down the path towards the gate.
“They were a turbulent family, these Greenlees,” said Woodburn. “Always in hot water. Bigoted Papists in early days, and, of course, Jacobites after the Revolution. From what I have heard, Hartsden Manor House must have seen some stirring times.”
While he was speaking, I was glancing through the inscriptions on the back of the tomb. Happening to look down, I noticed a match in the grass at my feet, and stooped to pick it up. As I did so, I observed another; on which I made a search and ultimately salved no less than six.
“What have you found, Jervis?” Thorndyke asked, as I rose.
I held out my hand with the six matches in it. “All from the same place at the back of the tomb,” said I. “What do you make of that?”
“It might mean five failures on a windy day or night,” he replied, “or six separate cigarettes; and the operator may have come here to get a ‘lee side,’ or he may have got behind the tomb so that the light should not be seen from the road. But we must not let our imaginations run away with us. There is nothing to show that the person or persons who came to this tomb have any connection with our problem. We are looking for some means of access to the gallery, and, up to the present, we have not found any. The fact, if it were one, that some persons had been lurking about here, waiting for a chance to enter, wouldn’t help us. It would not tell us how they got in; which is what we want to know.”
Nevertheless, he continued, for some time, to browse round the tomb, dividing his attention between the inscriptions and the grass that bordered the low plinth.
“Well,” said Woodburn, “we seem to have exhausted the possibilities, unless there is anything else that you want to see.”
“No,” replied Thorndyke, “I don’t think it is of any use to prolong our search. I suspect that there is some way into the house; but, if there is, it is too well hidden to be discoverable without some guiding hint, which we haven’t got. So the answer to our first question is negative, and we must concentrate on the second—does anyone, in fact, effect an entrance to the gallery?”
“And how do you propose to solve that problem?” enquired Woodburn.
“I propose to install an automatic recorder which will give us a series of photographs of the interior of the room.”
“And catch ’em on the hop, eh?” said Woodburn. “But it doesn’t seem possible. Why, you would have to take a photograph every few minutes; and then you wouldn’t bring it off, because the beggars seem to come only at night.”
“I am not expecting to get photographs of the visitors themselves,” Thorndyke explained. “My idea is that, if any persons do frequent those rooms, they will almost certainly leave some traces of their visits. Even the moving of a chair would be conclusive evidence, if it could be proved, as it could be by the comparison of two photographs which showed it in different positions. I shall send my assistant, Mr. Polton, down to set up the apparatus, and perhaps you will give Mrs. Gibbins instructions to give him all necessary facilities, including the means of locking up the corridor when he has fixed the apparatus and set it going.”
To this Mr. Woodburn agreed, gleefully, and, as a train was due in a quarter of an hour, we embarked in his car without re-entering the house.
CHAPTER XII
The Unknown Coiner
From Charing Cross we walked home to the Temple, entering it by way of Pump Court and the Cloisters. As we were about to cross King’s Bench Walk, I glanced up at the laboratory window, and caught a momentary glimpse of Polton’s head, which, however, vanished even as I looked; and, when we arrived at our landing, the door of our chambers was open, and he was visible within, making a hypocritical pretence of laying the dinner-table, which had obviously been laid hours previously. But his pretended occupation did not conceal the fact that he was in a twitter of anxiety and impatience, which Thorndyke proceeded at once humanely to allay.
“It had to be a cold dinner, as I didn’t know what time you would be home,” Polton explained; but Thorndyke cut short his explanations and came to the essential matter.
“Never mind the dinner, Polton,” said he. “The important point is that your automatic watcher will be wanted, and as soon as you can get it ready.”
Polton beamed delightedly on his employer as he replied:
“It is ready now, sir, all except the objective. You see, the clock and the camera were really made already. They only wanted a little adaptation. And I have made an experimental objective, and done some trial exposures with it. So I am ready to go ahead as soon as I have the dimensions of the keyhole.”
“I can give you those at once,” said Thorndyke, opening the research case and taking out the wooden cylinders. “The keyhole will take a half-inch tube fairly easily.”
Polton slapped his thigh joyfully. “There’s a stroke of luck!” he exclaimed. “You said it would be about half an inch, so I used a half-inch tube for my experimental objective. But I never dared to hope that it would be the exact size. As it is, all I have got to do is to fix it on to the camera. I can do that tonight and give it a final trial. Then it will be ready to set up in place tomorrow. Perhaps, sir, you will come up presently and see if you think it will do. I shall have got it fixed by the time you have finished dinner.”
With this, having taken a last glance at the table, he retired in triumph, with the box of cylinders in his hand.
“What is this ‘automatic watcher’?” I asked, as we sat down to our meal. “I assume that it is some sort of automatic camera. But what is its special peculiarity?”
“In its original form,” replied Thorndyke, “it consisted of a clo
ck of the kind known as an English Dial, with a magazine camera fixed inside it. There was a simplified striking movement which released the shutter at any intervals previously arranged. It also had an arrangement for recording the time at which each exposure was made. It was quite a valuable appliance for keeping a watch on any particular place. It could be set up, for instance, opposite the door of a strong room or in any similar position.”
“But suppose the thief made his visit in the interval between two exposures?”
“That was provided for by a special attachment whereby the opening of the door was made to break an electric circuit and release the shutter. So that whenever the door was opened an exposure was made and the time recorded. But, for our present purpose, although we have retained the principle, we have had to modify the details considerably. For instance, we have separated the clock from the camera, so that it can be fixed far enough away from the door to prevent its tick from being heard in the gallery. The releasing mechanism of the clock is connected with an electromagnet in the camera which actuates the shutter and the film roller. The lens is in a tube five inches long, with a reflecting prism at the farther end, which will, of course, be passed through the keyhole, and the camera screwed on to the door. That is a rough sketch of the apparatus. You will see the details of it when we go up to make our inspection.”
“And how often do you propose to make an exposure?” I asked.
“One exposure every twenty-four hours would do for us,” he replied, “as we merely want a daily record of the positions of the various objects in the room. But that does not satisfy Polton. He would like an exposure every hour. So we have arrived at a compromise. There will be an exposure every six hours. Of course, those made at night will show nothing, and both of those made in daylight, when the room will be unoccupied, will, presumably, be alike. But I can see that Polton will not be happy if there is not a good string of exposures.”
“Supposing the exposures are all alike?” I suggested.
Thorndyke laughed grimly. “Don’t be a wet blanket, Jervis,” said he. “But I must admit that it would be something of an anticlimax and distinctly disappointing, though not entirely unexpected. For, if there are really visitors, it is quite possible that they do not go to the gallery at all. Their business, what ever it may be, is, quite conceivably, carried on in one of the rooms that open out of the gallery. So a negative result with the camera would not prove that no one ad entered the gallery wing.”
It was my turn to smile, and I did so. “It is my belief, Thorndyke,” said I, “that you don’t mean anything to disprove it. You are not approaching the investigation with an open mind.”
“Not very open,” he admitted. “The housekeeper’s statement, together with all the other circumstances of the case, make a very strong suggestion of something abnormal, so strong that, as you say, I am not prepared to be easily satisfied with a negative result. And now, if we have finished, we had better go up to the laboratory and have a look at Polton’s masterpiece.”
We rose, and were just moving towards the door when a firm tread became audible on the landing, and was followed by a familiar knock on the brass knocker of the inner door.
“Miller, by Jove!” I exclaimed. “How unfortunate! But I can entertain him while you go up to Polton.”
“Let us hear what he has to say, first,” replied Thorndyke; and he proceeded to throw open the door.
As the Superintendent entered, I was impressed by a certain curious mixture of jauntiness and anxiety in his manner. But the former predominated, especially as he made his triumphant announcement.
“Well, gentlemen, I thought you would be interested to hear that we have got our man.”
“Dobey?” asked Thorndyke.
“Dobey it is,” replied Miller. “We’ve got him, we’ve charged him, and he is committed for trial.”
“Come and sit down,” said Thorndyke, “and tell us all about it.”
He deposited the Superintendent in a comfortable arm-chair, placed on the little table at his elbow the whisky decanter, the siphon, and the box of the specially favoured cigars, and while the tumbler was being charged and the cigar lighted, he filled his pipe and regarded his visitor with a slightly speculative eye.
“Where did you catch him?” he asked, when the preliminary formalities were disposed of.
Miller removed the cigar from his mouth in order the more conveniently to smile.
“It was a quaint affair,” he chuckled. “We caught him in the act of picking the lock of his own front door. Rum position, wasn’t it? Of course, the key was at the police station at Maidstone. We had been keeping a watch on the flat, but it happened that day that one of our sergeants was going there with a search warrant to have another look over the premises in case anything should have been missed at the first search. When he got up to the landing, there was my nabs, angling at the keyhole with a piece of wire. He was mightily surprised when the sergeant introduced himself, and still more so when he was told what he was charged with.”
“Was he charged with the murder or the house breaking?”
“Both. Of course, the usual caution was administered, but, Lord, you might as well have cautioned an oyster.”
“Did he say nothing at all?”
“Oh, the usual thing. Expressed astonishment—that was real enough, beyond a doubt. Said he didn’t know what we were talking about, but was perfectly sure that he didn’t want to make any statement.”
“I suppose he pleaded ‘not guilty’ at the police court?”
“Yes. But he wouldn’t say anything in his defence, excepting that he knew nothing about the murder and had never heard of Inspector Badger, until he had got legal advice. So the magistrate adjourned the hearing for a couple of days, and Dobey got a lawyer to defend him—a chappie named Morris Coleman.”
“Of Kennington Lane?”
“That’s the man. Solicitor and advocate. Hebrew, of course. Downy bird, too, but quite a good lawyer.”
“Yes,” said Thorndyke, “I have seen him in court. A cut above the ordinary police-court advocate. And what did he have to say?”
“Reserved his defence, of course. They always do if the case is going for trial. That’s the worst of these police-court solicitors. But it usually means that they haven’t got any defence, and of course that is what it means now, so it doesn’t matter. But it is a time-wasting plan when they have got a defence, and the judge usually has something to say about it. Still, you can’t cure them. They think they get an advantage by springing a defence on the court that nobody expected.”
“You say you are proceeding on both the charges. Why are you bringing in the house-breaking?”
“Well, of course,” replied Miller, “it is the murder that he will actually be tried for. But we shall have to prove the facts of the house-breaking to explain how the stolen paper came to be found.”
As he gave this explanation, the Superintendent stole a slightly furtive glance at Thorndyke, which I understood when the latter remarked, dryly:
“True. And the evidence of the witnesses to the house-breaking may serve to supply the deficiencies of the station-master at Strood. I take it that they will be able to identify Dobey.”
“They have. Picked him out instantly from a crowd of thirty other men. And as to that station-master, it’s just a silly excess of caution and over-conscientiousness. He didn’t look at the man particularly, and so he won’t swear to him. But, as his description of the man agrees with that of the witnesses to the house breaking, and they are ready to swear to Dobey, it will, as you say, help matters a bit. But, of course, the finding of the paper in his possession is the really crucial piece of evidence.”
“It is more than that,” said Thorndyke. “It is the whole of the evidence in regard to the murder. Without it your bill would never get past the Grand Jury. And, as to the house-breaking, as it can’t be included in the indictment, I doubt whether the court will allow any reference to it. That, however, remains to be seen
.”
“Well,” rejoined Miller, “it doesn’t matter a great deal. The paper fixes the crime on him.”
With this, he dipped his nose into his glass and resumed his cigar with the air of having disposed of the subject; and I took the opportunity to raise another point.
“Did you say that Dobey was found picking his lock with a piece of wire?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered with a chuckle. “Quaint situation, wasn’t it?”
“It strikes me as more than quaint,” I replied. “It is most extraordinary that he should not have provided himself with a key of some sort.”
“It is,” Miller agreed. “But it was a simple latch, and I expect he was pretty handy with the wire. And I don’t suppose he often went to the flat. Still, as you say, he must have been a fool not to get a key.”
“He must,” said I. “It is a striking example of the criminal mentality.”
“Yes,” agreed Miller, “they are not a very bright lot.” He paused reflectively for a few moments, puffing at his cigar reflectively, and then resumed in a meditative tone: “And yet it doesn’t do to rate them too low. We say to ourselves that they are all fools. So they are, or they wouldn’t be crooks. Crime is never a really sound economic proposition. But there is one thing that we must bear in mind: there are two kinds of crooks—those that get caught, and those that don’t. And a crook that doesn’t get caught may never come into sight at all. If he manages well enough, his existence may never be even suspected. I have just heard of a case in which the existence of a man of this class has been disclosed by a mere chance. But we don’t know who he is, and we are not very likely to find out. I’ll tell you about the case. It’s a queer affair.
The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack Page 126
