The Perfect Crime: The Big Bow Mystery

by Israel Zangwill

  ‘THE BIG BOW MYSTERY SOLVED

  ‘Sir—You will remember that when the Whitechapel murders were agitating the universe, I suggested that the district coroner was the assassin. My suggestion has been disregarded. The coroner is still at large. So is the Whitechapel murderer. Perhaps this suggestive coincidence will incline the authorities to pay more attention to me this time. The problem seems to be this. The deceased could not have cut his own throat. The deceased could not have had his throat cut for him. As one of the two must have happened, this is obvious nonsense. As this is obvious nonsense I am justified in disbelieving it. As this obvious nonsense was primarily put in circulation by Mrs Drabdump and Mr Grodman, I am justified in disbelieving them. In short, sir, what guarantee have we that the whole tale is not a cock-and-bull story, invented by the two persons who first found the body? What proof is there that the deed was not done by these persons themselves, who then went to work to smash the door and break the locks and the bolts, and fasten up all the windows before they called the police in?

  ‘I enclose my card, and am, sir, yours truly

  ‘One Who Looks Through His Own Spectacles.’

  ‘[Our correspondent’s theory is not so audaciously original as he seems to imagine. Has he not looked through the spectacles of the people who persistently suggested that the Whitechapel murderer was invariably the policeman who found the body? Somebody must find the body, if it is to be found at all.—ED. P.M.P.]’

  The editor had reason to be pleased that he inserted this letter, for it drew the following interesting communication from the great detective himself:

  ‘THE BIG BOW MYSTERY SOLVED

  ‘Sir—I do not agree with you that your correspondent’s theory lacks originality. On the contrary, I think it is delightfully original. In fact it has given me an idea. What that idea is I do not yet propose to say, but if “One Who Looks Through His Own Spectacles” will favour me with his name and address I shall be happy to inform him a little before the rest of the world whether his germ has borne any fruit. I feel he is a kindred spirit, and take this opportunity of saying publicly that I was extremely disappointed at the unsatisfactory verdict. The thing was a palpable assassination; an open verdict has a tendency to relax the exertions of Scotland Yard. I hope I shall not be accused of immodesty, or of making personal reflections, when I say that the Department has had several notorious failures of late. It is not what it used to be. Crime is becoming impertinent. It no longer knows its place, so to speak. It throws down the gauntlet where once it used to cower in its fastnesses. I repeat, I make these remarks solely in the interest of law and order. I do not for one moment believe that Arthur Constant killed himself, and if Scotland Yard satisfies itself with that explanation, and turns on its other side and goes to sleep again, then, sir, one of the foulest and most horrible crimes of the century will for ever go unpunished. My acquaintance with the unhappy victim was but recent; still, I saw and knew enough of the man to be certain (and I hope I have seen and known enough of other men to judge) that he was a man constitutionally incapable of committing an act of violence, whether against himself or anybody else. He would not hurt a fly, as the saying goes. And a man of that gentle stamp always lacks the active energy to lay hands on himself. He was a man to be esteemed in no common degree, and I feel proud to be able to say that he considered me a friend. I am hardly at the time of life at which a man cares to put on his harness again; but, sir, it is impossible that I should ever know a day’s rest till the perpetrator of this foul deed is discovered. I have already put myself in communication with the family of the victim, who, I am pleased to say, have every confidence in me, and look to me to clear the name of their unhappy relative from the semi-imputation of suicide. I shall be pleased if anyone who shares my distrust of the authorities, and who has any clue whatever to this terrible mystery, or any plausible suggestion to offer, if, in brief, any “One who looks through his own spectacles” will communicate with me. If I were asked to indicate the direction in which new clues might be most usefully sought, I should say, in the first instance, anything is valuable that helps us to piece together a complete picture of the manifold activities of the man in the East End. He entered one way or another into the lives of a good many people; is it true that he nowhere made enemies? With the best intentions a man may wound or offend; his interference may be resented; he may even excite jealousy. A young man like the late Mr Constant could not have had as much practical sagacity as he had goodness. Whose corns did he tread on? The more we know of the last few months of his life the more we shall know of the manner of his death.

  ‘Thanking you by anticipation for the insertion of this letter in your valuable columns, I am, sir, yours truly,

  ‘George Grodman.

  ‘46 Glover Street, Bow.

  ‘P.S.—Since writing the above lines I have, by the kindness of Miss Brent, been placed in possession of a most valuable letter, probably the last letter written by the unhappy gentleman. It is dated Monday, 3rd December, the very eve of the murder, and was addressed to her at Florence, and has now, after some delay, followed her back to London where the sad news unexpectedly brought her. It is a letter couched, on the whole, in the most hopeful spirit, and speaks in detail of his schemes. Of course, there are things in it not meant for the ears of the public, but there can be no harm in transcribing an important passage:

  ‘“You seem to have imbibed the idea that the East End is a kind of Golgotha, and this despite that the books out of which you probably got it are carefully labelled ‘Fiction’. Lamb says somewhere that we think of the ‘Dark Ages’ as literally without sunlight, and so I fancy people like you, dear, think of the ‘East End’ as a mixture of mire, misery and murder. How’s that for alliteration? Why, within five minutes’ walk of me there are the loveliest houses, with gardens back and front, inhabited by very fine people and furniture. Many of my university friends’ mouths would water if they knew the income of some of the shopkeepers in the High Road.

  ‘“The rich people about here may not be so fashionable as those in Kensington and Bayswater, but they are every bit as stupid and materialistic. I don’t deny, Lucy, I do have my black moments, and I do sometimes pine to get away from all this to the lands of sun and lotus-eating. But, on the whole, I am too busy even to dream of dreaming. My real black moments are when I doubt if I am really doing any good. But yet on the whole my conscience or my self-conceit tells me that I am. If one cannot do much with the mass, there is at least the consolation of doing good to the individual. And, after all, is it not enough to have been an influence for good over one or two human souls? There are quite fine characters hereabout—especially in the women—natures capable not only of self-sacrifice, but of delicacy of sentiment. To have learnt to know of such, to have been of service to one or two of such—is not this ample return? I could not get to St James’ Hall to hear your friend’s symphony at the Henschel concert. I have been reading Mme Blavatsky’s latest book, and getting quite interested in occult philosophy. Unfortunately I have to do all my reading in bed, and I don’t find the book as soothing a soporific as most new books. For keeping one awake I find Theosophy as bad as toothache…”’

  ‘THE BIG BOW MYSTERY SOLVED

  ‘Sir—I wonder if anyone besides myself has been struck by the incredible bad taste of Mr Grodman’s letter in your last issue. That he, a former servant of the Department, should publicly insult and run it down can only be charitably explained by the supposition that his judgment is failing him in his old age. In view of this letter, are the relatives of the deceased justified in entrusting him with any private documents? It is, no doubt, very good of him to undertake to avenge one whom he seems snobbishly anxious to claim as a friend; but, all things considered, should not his letter have been headed “The Big Bow Mystery Shelved”?

  ‘I enclose my card, and am, sir, your obedient servant,

  ‘Scotland Yard.’

  George Grodman read this letter with annoyance, and, c
rumpling up the paper, murmured scornfully, ‘Edward Wimp!’

  CHAPTER V

  ‘YES, but what will become of the Beautiful?’ said Denzil Cantercot.

  ‘Hang the Beautiful!’ said Peter Crowl, as if he were on the committee of the Academy. ‘Give me the True.’

  Denzil did nothing of the sort. He didn’t happen to have it about him.

  Denzil Cantercot stood smoking a cigarette in his landlord’s shop, and imparting an air of distinction and an agreeable aroma to the close leathery atmosphere. Crowl cobbled away, talking to his tenant without raising his eyes. He was a small, big-headed, sallow, sad-eyed man, with a greasy apron. Denzil was wearing a heavy overcoat with a fur collar. He was never seen without it in public during the winter. In private he removed it and sat in his shirt sleeves. Crowl was a thinker, or thought he was—which seems to involve original thinking anyway. His hair was thinning rapidly at the top, as if his brain was struggling to get as near as possible to the realities of things. He prided himself on having no fads. Few men are without some foible or hobby; Crowl felt almost lonely at times in his superiority. He was a Vegetarian, a Secularist, a Blue Ribbonite, a Republican, and an Anti-tobacconist. Meat was a fad. Drink was a fad. Religion was a fad. Monarchy was a fad. Tobacco was a fad. ‘A plain man like me,’ Crowl used to say, ‘can live without fads.’ ‘A plain man’ was Crowl’s catchword. When of a Sunday morning he stood on Mile-end Waste, which was opposite his shop—and held forth to the crowd on the evils of kings, priests and mutton chops, the ‘plain man’ turned up at intervals like the ‘theme’ of a symphonic movement. ‘I am only a plain man and I want to know.’ It was a phrase that sabred the spider-webs of logical refinement, and held them up scornfully on the point. When Crowl went for a little recreation in Victoria Park on Sunday afternoons, it was with this phrase that he invariably routed the supernaturalists. Crowl knew his Bible better than most ministers, and always carried a minutely-printed copy in his pocket, dogs’-eared to mark contradictions in the text. The second chapter of Jeremiah says one thing; the first chapter of Corinthians says another. Two contradictory statements may both be true, but ‘I am only a plain man, and I want to know’. Crowl spent a large part of his time in setting ‘the word against the word’. Cock-fighting affords its votaries no acuter pleasure than Crowl derived from setting two texts by the ears. Crowl had a metaphysical genius which sent his Sunday morning disciples frantic with admiration, and struck the enemy dumb with dismay. He had discovered, for instance, that the Deity could not move, owing to already filling all space. He was also the first to invent, for the confusion of the clerical, the crucial case of a saint dying at the Antipodes contemporaneously with another in London. Both went skyward to Heaven, yet the two travelled in directly opposite directions. In all eternity they would never meet. Which, then, got to Heaven? Or was there no such place? ‘I am only a plain man, and I want to know.’ Preserve us our open spaces; they exist to testify to the incurable interest of humanity in the Unknown and the Misunderstood. Even ’Arry is capable of five minutes’ attention to speculative theology, if ’Arriet isn’t in a ’urry.

  Peter Crowl was not sorry to have a lodger like Denzil Cantercot, who, though a man of parts and thus worth powder and shot, was so hopelessly wrong on all subjects under the sun. In only one point did Peter Crowl agree with Denzil Cantercot—he admired Denzil Cantercot secretly. When he asked him for the True—which was about twice a day on the average—he didn’t really expect to get it from him. He knew that Denzil was a poet.

  ‘The Beautiful,’ he went on, ‘is a thing that only appeals to men like you. The True is for all men. The majority have the first claim. Till then you poets must stand aside. The True and the Useful—that’s what we want. The Good of Society is the only test of things. Everything stands or falls by the Good of Society.’

  ‘The Good of Society!’ echoed Denzil, scornfully. ‘What’s the Good of Society? The Individual is before all. The mass must be sacrificed to the Great Man. Otherwise the Great Man will be sacrificed to the mass. Without great men there would be no art. Without art life would be a blank.’

  ‘Ah, but we should fill it up with bread and butter,’ said Peter Crowl.

  ‘Yes, it is bread and butter that kills the Beautiful,’ said Denzil Cantercot bitterly. ‘Many of us start by following the butterfly through the verdant meadows, but we turn aside—’

  ‘To get the grub,’ chuckled Peter, cobbling away.

  ‘Peter, if you make a jest of everything, I’ll not waste my time on you.’

  Denzil’s wild eyes flashed angrily. He shook his long hair. Life was very serious to him. He never wrote comic verse intentionally.

  There are three reasons why men of genius have long hair. One is, that they forget it is growing. The second is, that they like it. The third is, that it comes cheaper; they wear it long for the same reason that they wear their hats long.

  Owing to this peculiarity of genius, you may get quite a reputation for lack of twopence. The economic reason did not apply to Denzil, who could always get credit with the profession on the strength of his appearance. Therefore, when street arabs vocally commanded him to get his hair cut, they were doing no service to barbers. Why does all the world watch over barbers and conspire to promote their interests? Denzil would have told you it was not to serve the barbers, but to gratify the crowd’s instinctive resentment of originality. In his palmy days Denzil had been an editor, but he no more thought of turning his scissors against himself than of swallowing his paste. The efficacy of hair has changed since the days of Samson, otherwise Denzil would have been a Hercules instead of a long, thin, nervous man, looking too brittle and delicate to be used even for a pipe-cleaner. The narrow oval of his face sloped to a pointed, untrimmed beard. His linen was reproachable, his dingy boots were down at heel, and his cocked hat was drab with dust. Such are the effects of a love for the Beautiful.

  Peter Crowl was impressed with Denzil’s condemnation of flippancy, and he hastened to turn off the joke.

  ‘I’m quite serious,’ he said. ‘Butterflies are no good to nothing or nobody; caterpillars at least save the birds from starving.’

  ‘Just like your view of things, Peter,’ said Denzil. ‘Good morning, madam.’ This to Mrs Crowl, to whom he removed his hat with elaborate courtesy. Mrs Crowl grunted and looked at her husband with a note of interrogation in each eye. For some seconds Crowl stuck to his last, endeavouring not to see the question. He shifted uneasily on his stool. His wife coughed grimly. He looked up, saw her towering over him, and helplessly shook his head in a horizontal direction. It was wonderful how Mrs Crowl towered over Mr Crowl, even when he stood up in his shoes. She measured half an inch less. It was quite an optical illusion.

  ‘Mr Crowl,’ said Mrs Crowl, ‘then I’ll tell him.’

  ‘No, no, my dear, not yet,’ faltered Peter helplessly; ‘leave it to me.’

  ‘I’ve left it to you long enough. You’ll never do nothing. If it was a question of provin’ to a lot of chuckleheads that Jollygee and Genesis, or some other dead and gone Scripture folk that don’t consarn no mortal soul, used to contradict each other, your tongue ’ud run thirteen to the dozen. But when it’s a matter of takin’ the bread out o’ the mouths o’ your own children, you ain’t got no more to say for yourself than a lamp-post. Here’s a man stayin’ with you for weeks and weeks—eatin’ and drinkin’ the flesh off your bones—without payin’ a far—’

  ‘Hush, hush, mother; it’s all right,’ said poor Crowl, red as fire.

  Denzil looked at her dreamily. ‘Is it possible you are alluding to me, Mrs Crowl?’ he said.

  ‘Who then should I be alludin’ to, Mr Cantercot? Here’s seven weeks come and gone, and not a blessed ’aypenny have I—’

  ‘My dear Mrs Crowl,’ said Denzil, removing his cigarette from his mouth with a pained air, ‘why reproach me for your neglect?’

  ‘My neglect! I like that!’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Denzil, more
sharply. ‘If you had sent me in the bill you would have had the money long ago. How do you expect me to think of these details?’

  ‘We ain’t so grand down here. People pays their way—they don’t get no bills,’ said Mrs Crowl, accentuating the word with infinite scorn.

  Peter hammered away at a nail, as though to drown his spouse’s voice.

  ‘It’s three pounds fourteen and eightpence, if you’re so anxious to know,’ Mrs Crowl resumed. ‘And there ain’t a woman in the Mile End Road as ’ud a-done it cheaper, with bread at fourpence threefarden a quartern and landlords clamorin’ for rent every Monday morning almost afore the sun’s up and folks draggin’ and slidderin’ on till their shoes is only fit to throw after brides, and Christmas comin’ and sevenpence a week for schoolin’!’

  Peter winced under the last item. He had felt it coming—like Christmas. His wife and he parted company on the question of Free Education. Peter felt that, having brought nine children into the world, it was only fair he should pay a penny a week for each of those old enough to bear educating. His better half argued that, having so many children, they ought in reason to be exempted. Only people who had few children could spare the penny. But the one point on which the cobbler-sceptic of the Mile End Road got his way was this of the fees. It was a question of conscience, and Mrs Crowl had never made application for their remission, though she often slapped her children in vexation instead. They were used to slapping, and when nobody else slapped them they slapped one another. They were bright, ill-mannered brats, who pestered their parents and worried their teachers, and were happy as the Road was long.