Taking the facts separately there were those that related to technique and method and those that related to motive. The technique in the present crime included the use of a poisoned cigar and of counterfeit fingerprints. But this was the technique employed, years ago, by Walter Hornby; and it was not only a peculiar and distinctive technique; it was absolutely unique. No other criminal, so far as I had ever heard, had employed it. Then the method of employing it was the same in both cases. In the Hornby case—the case of the Red Thumb Mark—an original fingerprint (in the Thumbograph) had been obtained from the victim, Reuben Hornby, from which to make, by photo mechanical process, the stamps for the counterfeits. In the Badger case, a sheet of fingerprints had been stolen, evidently for the same purpose. Again, in both cases, the forged fingerprints had been “planted” at the scene of the crime. In short, the technique and method in the Badger case repeated, in the main, those of the Red Thumb Mark case.
Then the motive showed a like similarity in the two cases. When Walter Hornby had tried to murder Thorndyke (by means of a poisoned cigar) his motive was to get rid of the only person who suspected him. As to the motive for the murder of Badger, Miller was almost certainly right, although he had guessed wrong as to the identity of the murderer. Badger’s uncanny memory for faces had made him a dangerous enemy. And we had Miller’s statement that Badger was the only officer who was able to identify Walter Hornby.
Finally, taking the whole set of facts together, the similarity of the two cases was very striking. In each crime, the criminal act had been preceded by a careful preparation to incriminate an innocent person. There had been a systematic scheme of false evidence, thought out and arranged in advance with remarkable completeness and ingenuity, before the criminal had committed himself. Thus, as a whole and in detail, the murder of Inspector Badger virtually repeated a crime which was known to me, and which was utterly unlike any other crime of which I had ever heard. Reluctantly, I had to admit that I had been distinctly “slow in the uptake.”
I had just reached this rather unsatisfactory conclusion when I heard a latchkey inserted in the outer door. A moment later, Thorndyke entered, and, as his eye lighted on the open portfolio, be greeted me with the enquiry:
“Well, what says my learned friend? Has he reached any conclusion?”
By way of answer, I wrote on a scrap of paper: “x=Walter Hornby,” and pushed it along the table towards him.
“Yes,” he said, when he had glanced at it, “history repeats itself. We had this equation once before, you remember.”
“I remember,” said I, “and I ought to have remembered sooner. But, tell me, Thorndyke, when did you first suspect Hornby in this case?”
“The word ‘suspect,’” he replied, “is a little indefinite. But I may say that when we established the fact of a poisoned cigar, the name of Walter Hornby inevitably floated into my mind, especially as the cigar was associated with a stolen sheet of fingerprints which were pretty evidently not those of the person who stole them. In fact, I adopted, provisionally, the hypothesis that the murderer was Walter Hornby, but only as a mere possibility which had to be borne in mind while further developments were being watched for. I argued that if the hypothesis was correct, certain events might be confidently expected to follow. There would be some crime, probably committed in daylight by a man with red hair and a red nose, who would leave Frederick Smith’s fingerprints at the scene of the crime; and the stolen paper would be found in some place connected with Frederick Smith.
“As you know, these events occurred exactly according to plan. Thereupon, the mere hypothesis became a very weighty probability. But the experimentum crucis was made possible by Juliet. When the Thumbograph had spoken the hypothesis passed into the domain of established fact.”
“Yes,” I said; “you have established the murderer’s identity beyond any reasonable doubt. The next thing is to ascertain his whereabouts. At present he is no more than a name.”
“That,” he replied, “is Miller’s problem. The police have all the facilities for finding a wanted man. We have none. By the way, have, you seen Polton?”
“No,” I replied, “but I expect you will see him before long. He always knows, in some occult way, when you come in. In fact, I think I hear him approaching at this moment.”
Almost as I spoke, the door opened and Polton entered, bearing a large vulcanite dish and a long strip of cinematograph film. There was no need to ask for his news, for his face was one large and incredibly crinkly smile of triumph and satisfaction.
“We’ve brought it off, sir,” he announced, gleefully, “first shot. I went down to the Manor House this morning, and I waited by the camera until I heard the twelve-o’clock exposure go off. Then I took out the roll-holder and put in a fresh one. But I don’t think you will want it. I have developed the strip—nine exposures, altogether, but only two of them matter, and those two I have enlarged to half-plate. They are those made at twelve o’clock on Tuesday and twelve o’clock today.”
He laid the dish on the table, and watched Thorndyke ecstatically as the latter stooped over it to examine the enlargements.
“The top one is the Tuesday exposure,” he explained. “Shows the room just as you saw it, with the box on the table. The bottom one is today’s. You see there’s no box there, and the arm-chair has been moved about a couple of inches, as you can see by the sash of the case behind it.”
“Yes,” Thorndyke agreed, “it is a true bill, Polton. The box is gone from the table; and boxes don’t fly away of themselves. By the way, Polton, what do you make of that box?”
“Well, sir,” was the reply, “if it didn’t seem so unlikely, I should have said that it looked like a casting-box; one of those biggish flasks that silversmiths use for casting the blanks of things like spoons. It is certainly a metal box, and those things at the side look very much like pin-lugs.”
“So I thought,” said Thorndyke; “but we shall probably know all about it, before long. At any rate, Polton, you have solved our problem for us, and now we can go ahead with confidence. I shall send Mr. Woodburn a letter and a telegram. He will probably get the letter tomorrow morning, but the telegram will make it safer.”
“There’s the telephone, sir,” Polton suggested.
“Yes, I know,” said Thorndyke “but when I whisper secrets, I like to know whose ear they are going into.”
“What are you going to say to him?” I asked.
“I shall ask him to meet us tomorrow morning and bring the key of the gallery door. That is what we arranged.”
“Then you are going to break the seals and explore the rooms?”
“Certainly. There is now no doubt that someone visits those rooms; and as the next visit seems to be due tomorrow night, we may as well be there to give the visitor a hospitable reception.”
“Shall you want me to come with you, sir?” Polton enquired, anxiously.
My impression was that Thorndyke did not particularly want him. But the wistfulness of the little man’s face proved irresistible.
“I think you had better come, Polton,” he said, “and bring a few tools with you. But it would be as well if you went on ahead of us, so that we don’t make too large a party. We mustn’t be too noticeable.”
“No, sir,” Polton agreed, undisguisedly jubilant at being included in the expeditionary party; “I will go down by the early train. Are there any tools in particular that you wish me to bring?”
“Well, Polton,” Thorndyke replied, “you know what our problem is. Someone has got into these rooms by some means other than an ordinary door. We may have to pick one or two locks, and they may be rather unusual locks. I would not suggest burglars’ tools, because, of course, you haven’t any. If you had, they might be useful.”
Polton crinkled knowingly as he protested “There is nothing improper about burglars’ tools in themselves. It is the use that is made of them. The tools are quite innocent if they are used for a lawful purpose.”
Having deli
vered himself of this slightly questionable legal dictum, he departed, leaving the photographs for us to examine at our leisure.
Very curious productions they were. I took up the strip of film and examined the tiny negatives through my pocket lens. Small as they were—barely an inch and a half square—they were full of minute detail, and the enlargements, magnified about four diameters, were as clear as if they had been taken with a full-sized camera. The “Automatic Watcher” had turned out, in respect of its efficiency, far beyond my expectations.
“Yes,” said Thorndyke, in reply to my admiring comments, “with first-class lenses, you can get surprising results; in fact, the only limit to enlargement is the grain of the film. But we had better put the photographs away for the present, as I am expecting Miller to drop in at any moment. He is dreadfully disgruntled at the result of the trial, though the fiasco is very largely of his own producing. Still, we shall have to try to comfort him, and it had occurred to me that we might take him into this Hartsden adventure. What do you think? We really ought to have a police officer with us.”
“Yes, I think it is rather necessary,” I agreed. “We don’t want a search warrant, as we are acting with Woodburn’s authority, but, as we may have to make an arrest, it would be more regular to have a police officer to direct that part of the business. Besides, we don’t know how many we may have to deal with. It looks like a one-man job, but we don’t know. It may turn out to be a gang. Let us have Miller’s beef and experience, by all means.”
On this, Thorndyke took the photographs and retired to the laboratory to write and dispatch his letter and telegram. When he returned, he brought in with him the Superintendent, whom he had encountered on the landing.
“Well,” growled Miller, as I placed an arm-chair for him, with the usual creature comforts, “we’ve brought our pigs to a pretty fine market.”
Thorndyke chuckled, but refrained from pointing out that the market was of his own choosing.
“What I can’t understand,” the Superintendent continued, “is why that fool couldn’t have trotted out his infernal alibi when we charged him. Then there needn’t have been any trial.”
Again we refrained from the obvious answer to this question. Instead, Thorndyke proceeded at once to the “comforting” operation.
“Well, Miller,” said he, “now that we have cleared Dobey off the stage, we can give our attention to realities. I suppose you will now agree with me that the man who gave Badger that poisoned cigar is the man who murdered him.”
“Yes,” Miller admitted, “I’ll agree to that much. But it doesn’t get us a great deal forrarder. The fellow is a mere abstraction. He isn’t even a name. He is just a fingerprint that we haven’t got on our files.”
“Not at all,” said Thorndyke. “We can tell you who he is. It will then be for you to find out where he is.”
The Superintendent laid down a match that he had just struck, and stared at Thorndyke, open-mouthed.
“You can tell me who he is!” he exclaimed. “Do you mean that you can give him a name?”
“I do,” replied Thorndyke. “His name is Walter Hornby.”
The Superintendent was thunderstruck. “Walter Hornby!” he gasped in amazement. Then, suddenly, he brought his large hand down heavily on the little table, causing it to rock visibly, to the imminent peril of the whisky decanter. “Now,” he exclaimed, “I understand how it happened. Badger told me, himself, that he thought he had seen Walter Hornby, and he was mighty pleased with himself for having spotted him. I gathered that Hornby was either very much changed or else disguised, though Badger didn’t actually say so. But I have no doubt that poor old Badger, in his secretive way, kept an eye on him, and probably shadowed him a bit too openly. Then Hornby got alarmed and, in his turn, shadowed Badger, and finally enticed him into that first-class carriage with the cigar all ready in his pocket. But, if you knew, Doctor, why on earth didn’t you tell me?”
“My dear Miller,” protested Thorndyke, “of course I didn’t know in time to prevent the prosecution. I have only just completed the case.”
“By the way, Doctor,” said Miller, “I suppose I can take it that there is no mistake this time? You are quite sure of your man?”
“I am prepared to sign a sworn information,” Thorndyke replied, “and I will undertake to present a convincing case for the prosecution. Naturally, I cannot promise a conviction.”
“Of course you can’t,” said Miller. “But a sworn information from you is good enough for me, to start with. We can go into the evidence another time. But I am hanged if I know how to go about looking for the beggar. I suppose you have no idea what he looks like nowadays?”
“I can only guess,” replied Thorndyke. “We can safely assume that he has not red hair or a red nose. Probably he has shaved off his beard and moustache, and, judging from what Badger told you and from the fact that he has certainly worn a wig when personating Dobey, it is likely that he habitually wears a wig of a colour different from the lightish brown of his own hair. But I must admit that those assumptions are not very helpful. Still, you have the fingerprints that I handed to you, so, if you make an arrest on suspicion you will know, at once, whether you have or have not got the right man. And now let us dismiss this case, and have a few words about another one that we want you to help us to work at.”
Here Thorndyke gave the Superintendent a brief outline of the mystery of Hartsden Manor House, dwelling principally on the testimony of the servants and, characteristically, keeping his own counsel about the “Automatic Watcher.” Consequently, Miller, though deeply interested, was a little disposed to be sceptical.
“It sounds a tall story,” he remarked, “though it is by no means impossible. At any rate, it is worth looking into. Of course, if a party of crooks have managed to get in there, they have got ideal premises for some kinds of jobs. Just think of a bank-note forger, for instance, getting the use of a set of sealed rooms where he could work in perfect safety, and leave all his incriminating stuff about with the certainty that no one would stumble on it by chance! Or a maker of bombs, or any other kind of illicit artisan. Yes, I certainly think it is worth looking into. And you think the sportsmen are likely to turn up tomorrow night?”
“That is merely a matter of probability,” said Thorndyke. “Apparently, the visitor or visitors keep to regular days for their calls, and Friday is one of those days. So we shall take the chance and spend the night there. I think you had better come, Miller,” he added, persuasively “Even if nobody turns up, it will be worth your while to look over the premises. You may be able to spot something that we might miss.”
“I don’t think you are likely to miss much, Doctor,” said Miller, with a faint grin. “However, I’d like to come with you; in fact, the more I think of the job, the more it takes my fancy. There are all sorts of possibilities in it. But, if you don’t mind, I think I will bring a couple of spare men, or let them come on later. You see, we may want to post them in some cover outside, in case our sportsmen should happen to spot us first and nip off. They would know the place better than we should, and they might easily get away while we were trying to find the way out. In that case it would be very handy to have a couple of men outside who could hear the alarm and pounce on them as they came out.”
We both agreed heartily to this excellent arrangement; and, when we had discussed a few further details and settled the time for starting in the morning, Miller lighted a fresh cigar and took his departure quite revived in spirits by the prospect of the morrow’s adventure.
CHAPTER XV
The Breaking of the Seals
During our journey down to Hartsden on the following morning, Superintendent Miller’s state of mind seemed to alternate between a rather extravagant optimism and a haunting fear of an anticlimax that might expose him to the derision of his subordinates. And such was his condition when we introduced him to Mr. Woodburn at Hartsden Station.
“Well, sir,” said he, “this is a very remarkable affai
r—if it isn’t a mare’s nest. I hope it isn’t.”
“I rather hope it is,” replied Woodburn, “though that is not my expectation. But we shall soon know.”
He held open the door of the car, and, when we had taken our places, he drove off at a smart pace and soon covered the short distance between the station and the Manor House. There, at the open door, we found Mrs. Gibbins awaiting us, supported by Polton, who seemed to have established himself as the master of ceremonies, and who conveyed to Thorndyke, in a conspiratorial whisper, that the “Automatic Watcher” had been removed and put out of sight. Evidently, he did not intend that his patent should be infringed by the official investigators.
“We may as well go straight to the gallery,” said Woodburn. “I’ve got the key. Shall I show the way?”
Without waiting for an answer, he passed through the narrow doorway that led into the corridor and the rest of the party followed, with the exception of the housekeeper, whose good manners were even greater than her curiosity, and who contented herself with a wistful observation of our departure, following us with her eyes until we were lost in the darkness of the corridor.
“Now,” said Woodburn, as we drew up before the massive door of the gallery, “we are going to clear up the mystery, if there is one. And, if there isn’t, we are going to catch it from Mr. Toke. At any rate, here goes.”
He opened his pocket knife and deliberately cut the stout tape that connected the two seals. Then he inserted the little flat key into the modern lock, grasped the handle of the door, and turned them both together. The door moved slightly, far enough to disengage both the latches, but no farther. He gave one or two vigorous pushes and then looked round at us with a somewhat mystified expression.
The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack Page 130
