Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 4

by R. Austin Freeman

  "I felt sure it must be," said Polton, "when I had been round to those other lapidaries. He seems to be the only one who specializes in cutting strass gems. But did you find out who the customer was, sir?"

  "I found out who he was not," replied Thorndyke, "and that was as far as it seemed wise to go. The rest of the inquiry—the actual identification—will be better carried out by the police. I think, if we give Mr. Lambert's address, with certain other particulars, to Mr. Superintendent Miller, we can safely leave him to do what is necessary."

  XVIII. THE END OF THE CLUE

  It was nearing the hour of six in the evening when five men made their appearance on the stretch of pavement on which Mr. Woodstock's office door opened. They did not, however, arrive in a solid body, but in two groups—of two and three, respectively—which held no mutual communication, but kept within easy distance of one another. The larger group consisted of Dr. Thorndyke, Mr. Lambert, the lapidary, and a tall, powerful man of distinctly military appearance and bearing; the smaller group consisted of a uniformed inspector of the local police and Mr. Lambert's assistant "Fred."

  "I hope our friends are punctual in coming out," Thorndyke remarked as he stood with his two companions ostensibly inspecting the stock in a bookseller's window. "If we have to wait about long, we are likely to attract notice. Even a bookseller's window won't explain our presence indefinitely."

  "No," the tall man agreed. "But there is a good deal of traffic in this street to cover us up and prevent us from being too conspicuous. All I hope is that he will take things quietly—that is, if he is the right man. You are sure you would know him again, Mr. Lambert?"

  "Perfectly sure, Superintendent," was the confident reply. "I remember him quite well. I have a good memory for faces, and so has my man, Fred. But I tell you frankly that neither of us relishes this job."

  "I sympathize with you, Mr. Lambert," said Thorndyke. "I don't relish it myself. We are both martyrs to duty. Ah! Here is somebody coming out. That is Mr. Woodstock. I mustn't let him see me."

  He turned to the shop-window, presenting his back to the street, and the solicitor walked quickly past without noticing him. A few moments later Mr. Hepburn emerged and walked away in the opposite direction, furtively observed by Fred, who, with his companion, occupied a position on the farther side of the office door. He was followed after a short interval by two young men, apparently clerks, who walked away together up the street and were narrowly inspected by Fred as they passed. Close on their heels came an older man, who emerged with an air of business and, turning towards the three watchers, approached at a brisk walk.

  "That the man, Mr. Lambert?" the superintendent asked in a low, eager tone, as the new-comer drew near.

  "No," was the reply. "Not a bit like him."

  Two more men came out, at both of whom Mr. Lambert shook his head. Then came a youth of about eighteen, and after his emergence an interval of several minutes, during which no one else appeared.

  "That can't be the lot," said the superintendent, with a glance of anxious inquiry at Thorndyke.

  "It isn't unless some of them are absent," the latter replied. "That would be rather a disaster."

  "It would, indeed," the superintendent replied. "What do you say, Doctor, to going in—that is, if the door isn't locked?

  "Not yet, Miller," Thorndyke replied. "Of course we can't wait indefinitely, but, if possible—Ah! here is someone else."

  As he spoke, an elderly man came out and stood for a few moments looking up and down the street. Then he turned and very deliberately locked the door behind him.

  "That's the man!" Lambert exclaimed. "That is Mr. Scofield."

  "You are quite sure?" demanded Miller.

  "Positive," was the reply. "I recognized him instantly"; and in confirmation, Fred was signalling with a succession of emphatic nods.

  Superintendent Miller cast an interrogative glance at Thorndyke. "Your man, too?" he asked.

  "Yes," replied Thorndyke. "Mr. Wampole."

  The unconscious subject of these observations, having locked the door, slowly pocketed the key and began to walk at a leisurely pace and with a thoughtful air towards the three observers, closely followed by Fred and the inspector. Suddenly he became aware of Thorndyke; and the beginnings of a smile of recognition had appeared on his face when he caught sight of Mr. Lambert. Instantly, the smile froze; and as Superintendent Miller bore down on him with evident purpose, he halted irresolutely and cast a quick glance behind him. At the sight of Fred—whom he evidently recognized at once—and the inspector, his bewilderment changed to sheer panic, and he darted out into the road close behind a large covered van that was drawn up at the kerb.

  "Look out!" roared Miller, as Wampole passed the rear of the van; but the only effect of the warning was to cause the fugitive to cast a terrified glance backward over his shoulder as he ran. And then, in an instant, came the catastrophe. An empty lorry was coming up the street at a brisk trot, but its approach had been hidden from Wampole by the van. As the unfortunate man ran out from behind the latter, still looking back, he charged straight in front of the horses. The driver uttered a yell of dismay and tugged at the reins; but the affair was over in a moment. The pole of the lorry struck Wampole at the side of the neck with the force of a battering-ram and flung him violently down on the road, where he lay motionless as the ponderous vehicle swerved past within an inch of his head.

  A number of bystanders immediately gathered round, and the carman, having pulled up the lorry, climbed down from his high perch and came hurrying, white-faced and breathless, across the road. Through the gathering crowd the inspector made his way and piloted Thorndyke to the fatal spot.

  "Looks a pretty bad case, sir," said he, casting a perturbed eye down at the motionless form, which lay where it had fallen. "Will you just have a glance at him?"

  Thorndyke stooped over the prostrate figure and made a brief—a very brief—inspection. Then he stood up and announced curtly: "He is dead. The blow dislocated his neck."

  "Ha!" the inspector exclaimed, "I was afraid he was—though perhaps it is all for the best. At any rate, we've done with him now."

  "I haven't," said Miller. "I've got a search warrant; and I shall want his keys. We will come along with you to the mortuary. Can't very well get them here."

  At this moment the carman presented himself, wiping his pale face with a large red handkerchief.

  "Shockin' affair, this, Inspector," he said, huskily. "Pore old chap. I couldn't do no more than what I done. You could see that for yourself. He was down almost as soon as I see 'im."

  "Yes," the inspector agreed, "he ran straight at the pole. It was no fault of yours. At least, that's my opinion," he added with official caution. "Just help me and the constable here to lift the body on to your lorry and then he will show you the way to the mortuary. You understand, Borman," he continued, addressing the constable. "You are to take the body to the mortuary, and wait there with the lorry until I come. I shall be there in a minute or two."

  The constable saluted, and the inspector, having made a note of the carman's name and address, stood by while the ghastly passenger was lifted up on to the rough floor. Then, as the lorry moved off, he turned to Miller and remarked: "Your friend Mr. Lambert looks rather poorly, Superintendent. It has been a bit of a shock for him. Hadn't you better take him somewhere and give him a little pick-me-up? We shall want him and his assistant at the mortuary, you know, for a regular identification."

  "Yes," agreed Miller, glancing sympathetically at the white-faced, shaking lapidary, "he does look pretty bad, poor old chap. Thinks it's all his doing, I expect. Well, you show us the way to a suitable place."

  "The Blue Lion Hotel is just round the corner," said the inspector, "and it is on our way."

  To the Blue Lion he accordingly led the way, while Thorndyke followed, assisting and trying to comfort the shaken and self-reproachful Lambert. From the hotel they proceeded to the mortuary, where Lambert having, almost with tears
, identified the body of "Mr. Scofield," and the dead man's keys having been handed to Superintendent Miller, the latter departed with Thorndyke, leaving the inspector to conduct the carman to the police-station.

  "You seem to be pretty confident," said Miller as they set forth, guided by Polton's written directions, "that the stuff is still there."

  "Not confident, Miller," was the reply, "but I think it is there. At any rate, it is worth while to make the search. There may be other things to see besides the stones."

  "Ah!" Miller agreed doubtfully. "Well, I hope you are right."

  They walked on for some five minutes when Thorndyke, having again referred to his notes, halted before a pleasant little house in a quiet street on the outskirts of the town, and entering the front garden, knocked at the door. It was opened by a motherly-looking, middle-aged woman to whom Miller briefly but courteously explained his business and exhibited his warrant.

  "Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "What on earth makes you think the missing property is here?"

  "I can't go into particulars," replied Miller. "Here is the search-warrant."

  "Yes, I see. But couldn't you wait until Mr. Wampole comes home? He is due now, and his tea is waiting for him in his sitting-room."

  Miller cleared his throat. Then, hesitatingly and with manifest discomfort, he broke the dreadful news.

  The poor woman was thunderstruck. For a few moments she seemed unable to grasp the significance of what Miller was telling her; then, when the horrid reality burst upon her, she turned away quickly, flinging out her hand towards the staircase, ran into her room, and shut the door.

  The two investigators ascended the stairs in silence with an unconsciously stealthy tread. On the landing they paused, and as he softly opened the three doors and peered into the respective apartments, Miller remarked in an undertone: "Rather gruesome, Doctor, isn't it? I feel like a tomb-robber. Which one shall we go in first?"

  "This one on the left seems to be the workshop," replied Thorndyke. "Perhaps we had better take that first, though it isn't likely that the gems are in there."

  They entered the workshop, and Thorndyke looked about it with keen interest. On a small table, fitted with a metal-worker's bench-vice, stood the "sparrow-hawk," like a diminutive smith's anvil, in its worm-eaten block, surrounded by a ring of pinkish-yellow dust. A Windsor chair, polished by years of use, was evidently the one on which the workman had been accustomed to sit at his bench; and close inspection showed a powdering of the pink dust on the rails and other protected parts. On the right-hand side of the room was a small woodworker's bench, and on the wall above it a rack filled with chisels and other small tools. There was a tool cabinet ingeniously made from grocer's boxes, and a set of shelves on which the glue-pot and various jars and small appliances were stowed out of the way.

  "Seems to have been a pretty handy man," remarked Miller, pulling out one of the drawers of the cabinet and disclosing a set of files.

  "Yes," Thorndyke agreed; "he appears to have been quite a good workman. It is all very neat and orderly. This is rather interesting," he added, reaching down from the shelf a box containing two earthenware cells filled with a blue liquid, and a wide jar with similar contents.

  "Electric battery, isn't it?" said Miller. "What is the point of interest about it?"

  "It is a two-cell Daniell's battery," replied Thorndyke, "the form of battery most commonly used for making small electrotypes. And in evidence that it was used for that purpose, here is the jar filled with copper sulphate solution, forming the tank, with the copper electrode in position. Moreover, I see on the shelf what look like some gutta-percha moulds." He reached one down and examined it. "Yes," he continued, "this is a squeeze from a coin. Apparently he had been making electrotype copies of coins; probably some that had been lent to him."

  "Well," said Miller, "what about it?"

  "The point is that whoever stole those gems made an electrotype copy of Hollis's seal. We now have evidence that Wampole was able to make electrotypes and did actually make them."

  "It would be more to the point if we could find the gems themselves," rejoined Miller.

  "Yes, that is undoubtedly true," Thorndyke admitted; "and as we are not likely to find them here, perhaps we had better examine the sitting-room. That is much the most probable place."

  "I don't quite see why," said Miller. "But I expect you do," and with this he followed Thorndyke across the landing to the adjoining room.

  "Good Lord!" he exclaimed, stopping to gaze at the neatly-arranged tea-service on the table, "just look at this! Uncanny, isn't it? Teapot under the cosy—quite hot still. And what's under this cover? Crumpets, by gum! And him lying there in the mortuary! Fairly gives one the creeps. Don't you feel a bit like a ghoul, Doctor?"

  "I might, perhaps," Thorndyke replied, dryly, "if there had been no such person as John Osmond."

  "True," said Miller. "He did do the dirty on Osmond, and that's the fact—unless Osmond was in it, too. Looks rather as if he was; but you don't seem to think so."

  "As a mere guess, I do not; but it is a puzzling case in some respects."

  He stood for a while looking about the room, letting his eye travel slowly along the papered walls as if in search of a possible hiding-place. From the general survey he proceeded to the consideration of details, turning the door-key—which was on the inside and turned smoothly and silently—and examining and trying a solid-looking brass bolt.

  "You notice, Miller," he said, "that he seems to have been in the habit of locking and bolting himself in; and that the bolt has been fixed on comparatively recently. That is somewhat significant."

  "It seems to suggests that the swag was hidden here at one time, if it isn't here now. I suppose we may as well look through these cabinets, just as a matter of form, for he won't have hidden the stuff in them."

  He produced the dead man's bunch of keys, and having unlocked the hinged batten which secured the drawers of one, pulled out the top drawer.

  "Coins," he announced; "silver coins. No! By jingo, they're copper, plated, and no backs to them. Just look at that!"

  "Yes," said Thorndyke, taking the specimen from him, "a silver-faced copper electro, taken, no doubt, from a borrowed coin. Not a bad way of forming a collection. Probably, if he had been skilful enough to join the two faces and make a complete coin, it would have been the original owner who would have had the electrotype, and Wampole would have kept the genuine coin. While you are going through the cabinets, I think I will explore those two cupboards. They seem to me to have possibilities."

  The cupboards in question filled the recesses on either side of the fireplace. Each cupboard was built in two stages—a lower about three feet in height, and an upper extending nearly to the ceiling. Thorndyke began with the right-hand one, throwing open both its pairs of folding doors, after unlocking them with the keys, handed to him by Miller. Then he cleared the shelves of their contents—principally stamp albums and back numbers of The Connoisseur—until the cupboard was completely empty, when he proceeded to a systematic survey of the interior, rapping with his knuckles on every part of the back and sides and testing each shelf by a vigorous pull. Standing on a chair, he inspected the top and ascertained, by feeling it simultaneously from above and below, that it consisted of only a single board.

  Having thoroughly explored the upper stage with no result, he next attacked the lower story, rapping at the back, sides, and floor and pulling at the solitary shelf, which was as immovable as the others. Then he tested the ceiling or top by feeling it with one hand while the other was placed on the floor of the upper story.

  Meanwhile, Miller, who had been systematically examining the row of home-made cabinets, shut the last of the multitudinous drawers and stood up.

  "Well," he announced, "I've been right through the lot, Doctor, and there's nothing in any of them—nothing, I mean, but trash. This last one is full of buttons—brass buttons, if you'll believe it. How are you getting on? Had any luck?"


  "Nothing definite, so far," replied Thorndyke, who was, at the moment, taking a measurement of the height of the lower story with a tape-measure; "but there is something here that wants explaining. The internal height of the lower part of this cupboard is two feet ten inches; but the height from the floor of the lower part to the floor of the top part is three feet one inch. So there seems to be a space of three inches, less the thickness of two boards, between the ceiling of the lower part and the floor of the top part. That is not a normal state of affairs."

  "No, by jingo!" exclaimed the superintendent. "Ordinarily, the floor of the top part would be the ceiling of the bottom part. Carpenters don't waste wood like that. Either the floor or the ceiling is false. Let us see if we can get a move on the floor. That is the most likely, as it would be the lid of the space between the two."

  He passed his hands over the board, feeling for a yielding spot, and craned in, searching for some indication of a joint, as he made heavy pressure on the edges and corners. But the floor showed no sign whatever of a tendency to move. He was about to transfer his attention to the ceiling underneath when Thorndyke stopped him.

  "Wait," said he. "Here is another abnormal feature. This moulding along the front of the door is fastened on with three screws. They have been painted over with the rest of the moulding, but you can make out the slots quite plainly."

  "Well?" queried Miller.

  "Carpenters don't fix mouldings on with screws. They use nails and punch them in with a 'nail-set' and stop the holes with putty. Moreover, if you look closely at these screw-heads, you can see that they have been turned at some time since the moulding was painted."