Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 7

by R. Austin Freeman

  This concluded the doctor's evidence. He was followed by Dr. Walter Sidney, who deposed that he was a pathologist and an analytical chemist, and that he had received from the preceding witness certain jars containing various organs from a human body which he was informed had been removed from the body of deceased. He had also received from Sergeant Waters a bottle containing a number of white tablets and labelled with a written label: "Morphine hydrochloride, gr. 1/2." He had analysed four of the tablets and found that they were composed of morphine hydrochloride and that each tablet contained half a grain of the drug. He had also made a chemical examination of the organs from the jars and had obtained from them a little over two and a quarter grains of morphine. He estimated the amount of morphine present in the whole body at, at least, four grains, but probably more.

  "What do you consider a poisonous dose of morphine?" the coroner asked.

  "It varies considerably in different persons," the witness replied. "Half a grain has been known to cause death, but that is very unusual. One grain would be very likely to cause death in a person who was not accustomed to the drug, and two grains would ordinarily be a lethal dose."

  "Then four grains is definitely a lethal dose?"

  "Yes. It would almost certainly cause death in a person who was not in the habit of taking the drug."

  "Did your examination enable you to form any opinion as to whether deceased had been in the habit of taking morphine?"

  "I should not like to give a very definite opinion. All the organs, including the liver, were quite healthy; which would hardly have been the case if deceased had been in the habit of dosing himself with morphine. I can only say that I found no signs that suggested the habitual taking of the drug. And Dr. Winsford's evidence, in which he stated that deceased appeared to be a strong, healthy man, is quite inconsistent with the idea that deceased was a morphine addict."

  "As a result of your examination, can you make any suggestion as to the cause of death?"

  "Inasmuch as a lethal dose of morphine was found in the body, and as no other cause of death was discoverable, I should say that there is no doubt that deceased died from poisoning by morphine."

  "Thank you," said the coroner; "that is what we want to know; and I think that, if you have nothing more to tell us, we need not detain you any longer."

  He glanced enquiringly at the jury, and, as neither the jury nor the witness volunteered any remark, the latter withdrew to his seat.

  The next witness was Mr. Alfred Bateman, a gentle man of typically legal aspect whose acquaintance I had already made. Having been sworn, he deposed that he was the managing clerk of Mr. Penfield, a solicitor and executor of the will of deceased, for whom he also acted as man of business.

  "Are you in possession of any facts that explain, or have any bearing on, the death of deceased?" the coroner asked.

  "I am in possession of certain facts which seem to me to be relevant to the subject of this inquiry," the witness replied. "In the first place, deceased had, in less than two years, got through a fortune, and was, at the time of his death, so far as I can ascertain, absolutely penniless and in debt. In the second place, he was, at the time of his death, being harassed by blackmailers."

  "Yes," said the coroner, "those facts certainly seem to be relevant to the subject of this inquiry. Perhaps you might give us a few particulars without going into unnecessary detail."

  "As to the financial question," said Bateman, "the facts, in outline, are these: Nearly two years ago—on the sixteenth of April, 1928, to be exact—deceased wrote to Mr. Penfield stating that he was coming to England to live and remitting a sum of three thousand pounds which he asked Mr. Penfield to deposit in a suitable bank in his, deceased's, name, five hundred to be placed to the current account and the remainder on deposit. I dealt with this matter myself, under Mr. Penfield's instructions, and placed the money in Perkins's Bank. Three months after the receipt of this letter, that is, on the eighteenth of September, deceased called at our office to announce his arrival. There were certain business transactions connected with the purchase of a partnership which I think I need not describe in detail as they seem to have no bearing on recent events. When these were concluded, and deceased had deposited his will with Mr. Penfield, I accompanied him to the bank and introduced him to the manager. Thereafter our contact with him practically ceased. He came to the office once or twice afterwards, and then, as we had finished with his affairs and he had kept the partnership deed in his own possession, we lost sight of him; and, excepting that his address in Clifford's Inn was known to us—he having given Mr. Penfield as a reference when he applied for the chambers—we knew nothing of what he was doing or how he lived.

  "He next came into view, so to speak, when his cousin, Mr. Benson, called at our office to ask if we could give him any information as to where he could find deceased. That was on the seventeenth of this month. As we knew nothing, we referred him to deceased's bank, and, as he has deposed, he went there. On the evening of the eighteenth, Mr. Benson called at the office and informed me—as Mr. Penfield had already left—of the discovery of the body in the chambers. He also informed me that the keys of the chambers were in the possession of Sergeant Waters. Thereupon, as I knew that Mr. Penfield was the executor of deceased's will, I thought it best to see the sergeant without delay and accordingly went forthwith to the police station where I was fortunate enough to find the sergeant. He suggested that we had better go to the chambers and see if there were any letters or papers which might throw any light on the motives for the assumed suicide.

  I agreed that it was desirable and we accordingly went together to the chambers and made the search. In a drawer in the writing-table we found a considerable number of letters and other documents, all neatly tied into bundles and docketed. There was one bundle tied with red tape and labelled 'Horse-leech' and this we examined first. It consisted of eleven letters, each enclosed in its envelope. They were all in a similar, and apparently disguised, handwriting, none of them bore any signature or contained any reference to any person by name, and none of them was dated, though the date could be inferred from the postmark on the envelope.

  "On reading them, we came to the conclusion that they were undoubtedly from a blackmailer. Ten of them were quite short and were simply reminders that a payment was due. The other one, which appeared to be the first of the series, plainly demanded money with menaces. I produce the letters for your inspection."

  Here the witness drew from his pocket a bundle of letters tied together with red tape and laid them on the table before the coroner.

  "I think," said the latter, "that it would be better for you to read them to us, or, at least, the first letter and one of the others. The jury can inspect them afterwards if they wish to."

  Accordingly, Mr. Bateman untied the bundle, and, taking the two outside letters, opened one of them and read its contents aloud: "'With reference to our little friendly talk last night, as you did not seem able to make up your mind, I will see if I can help you. To put the matter in a nutshell, I want £500 from you as a first instalment. The others we can arrange later, but I must have this at once; and I warn you that I am not going to stand any nonsense. If this is not handed over by Sunday night at the latest, the consequences which I mentioned to you will follow without further notice.

  "'The money is to be paid in pound notes (not new ones) and the parcel is to be handed personally either to me or to the party whom you know and whose name I mentioned to you.

  "'This is the final offer and I advise you to take it. You will be sorry if you don't.'"

  "I agree with you," said the coroner, "as to the character of that letter. It is a typical blackmailer's letter. What is the date on the envelope?"

  "The postmark is dated the sixteenth of September, 1929. Shall I read the last letter?"

  "If you please," the coroner replied, whereupon the witness drew the other letter from its envelope, and, glancing at the latter, said: "This is dated by the post-mark the fou
rth of this present month of July and the contents are as follows: 'In case you should forget to look at your calendar, as you did last time, I am sending you this little reminder. And don't forget that the notes must be old ones which have seen some service. There were several brand new notes in the last instalment which had to be kept for use on the turf. Don't let that happen again.'"

  As he finished reading, Bateman laid the two letters on the table and the coroner, after glancing through them, passed them to the foreman of the jury.

  "Beyond these blackmailing letters," said he, addressing the witness, "did you find anything that might throw light on what has happened?"

  "Not in the way of letters," Bateman replied. "All the others were just normal business correspondence and letters from his cousin, Mr. Benson, sent from Australia. But we found also in that drawer the pass-book from deceased's bank, and the entries in that were very significant. We began by looking up the entries corresponding to the dates of the blackmailing letters, and, from what we could see, it appeared that deceased had been paying out £500 every quarter, excepting the last. On the date corresponding to the last letter the amount drawn out was only £200. But when we looked through the entries other than those corresponding to the dates of the blackmailing letters, it was clear that a large number of sums of money had been drawn out in the form of cash, for what purpose we were, of course, unable to guess."

  "You found no evidence of any other blackmailers?" the coroner asked.

  "No evidence," Bateman replied, "but it looked highly suspicious. The 'self' cheques appeared at very frequent intervals and some of them were for considerable amounts. However, we could not make very much of the pass-book, but, from what we could see, it looked as if deceased had spent his money as fast as he received it; and the cheques that were entered to his credit were for quite large amounts.

  "But it was on the following day, the nineteenth, that I learned the full enormity of the affair. On that day I accompanied Mr. Penfield to the bank, where we had an interview with the manager. He presented us with a statement of his transactions with deceased and showed us how the account stood. I need not trouble you with details, but the position amounted to this; that deceased had drawn out every penny that he possessed and was actually in debt to the bank, though to only a small amount."

  "You say that deceased had received considerable sums of money. We don't want details, but, roughly speaking, about how much had he spent and how long had he been in spending it?"

  "The total amount that he had held to his credit, including the original deposit, was just over £13,000. And he had got through the whole of this between the end of September, 1928, and the middle of this present month; a period of one year and ten months."

  "Did you learn at the bank whether he appeared to have been operating on the Stock Exchange?"

  "I think we may definitely infer that he had not. Settlements on the Stock Exchange are made by cheque, and there were no records of any cheques payable to stockbrokers. The comparatively few cheques that appeared in the ledger were mostly small in amount and appeared to have been payable to tradesmen or other persons concerned with the ordinary, normal expenditure. What had exhausted the account was the large number of cheques payable to himself in cash."

  "Well," said the coroner, addressing the jury, "there is no object in our enquiring further into the details of this astonishing instance of reckless prodigality. We have the material fact that in less than two years this unfortunate man flung away what most of us would have regarded as a fortune. We also know that, at the time of his death, he was penniless and in debt, and that he was the victim of a particularly rapacious set of blackmailers. I think Mr. Bateman has given us some most illuminating information and that we might now thank him for the clear and lucid way in which he has given his evidence and not detain him any longer. Unless any member of the jury wishes for any further information."

  One member of the jury, apparently thrilled by the vast sums that had been mentioned, would have sought further details, but was politely suppressed by the coroner; whereupon Bateman was released and retired to his seat. There was a short interval during which the coroner glanced through the depositions, and then, as I had expected, my name was called.

  "You have heard Mr. Bateman's evidence," said the coroner, when the preliminaries had been disposed of. "As a member of the staff of the bank, you will probably consider yourself prohibited from giving any particulars of deceased's financial affairs. But can you tell us if you endorse what the last witness has stated?

  "I endorse it completely," I replied. "I was present with the manager when the particulars were given to him. And I may say that I am fully authorised by the executor—in whom the account is now vested—and the manager, to give any information that may be required as to our late customer's dealings with the bank."

  "Then," said the coroner, "as you, in your capacity of cashier, knew exactly what monies deceased received and what he drew out, and in what form, perhaps you can tell us what opinions you held as to his very unusual manner of conducting his affairs. Did you ever suspect that he was being blackmailed?"

  "I did."

  "What circumstances in particular led you to form that suspicion?

  "In the first place, there were the very large sums which he drew out in cash. It is very unusual for customers to draw out in cash more than quite modest amounts and these large drafts in cash were, in themselves, rather suggestive of some slightly irregular transactions. But what specially tended to arouse my suspicions was the fact that deceased usually asked expressly for old notes; notes that had been in circulation and were more or less soiled."

  "What did you infer from that?"

  "As the only possible advantage of a note that has been used is that it cannot be traced, I inferred that the notes were to be used for making payments of a secret, and possibly unlawful, character."

  "Is it unusual for customers to ask for used notes?"

  "It is rather unusual, though some customers prefer the used notes because they are less liable to stick together than the new. But usually, customers express a marked preference for new, clean notes."

  "But the new notes are more easy to trace?"

  "They are quite easy to trace. Usually, when a customer presents a bearer cheque for a considerable amount, he is paid in notes which have been newly issued and supplied direct to the bank. Such an issue is in the form of a series of notes of which the numbers are consecutive, and the numbers of the series are entered, not only in our own books but in the books of the bank of issue. Moreover, the numbers of the notes paid to the customer are also recorded; so that, if any question arises, it is possible to say with certainty that a particular note was paid to a particular person on a known date."

  "You inferred, then, that these notes were being used to make payments of a questionable kind? What led you to suspect blackmail in particular?"

  "It is common knowledge that blackmailers always refuse cheques and insist on being paid in cash; and their objection to cheques would equally apply to a series of newly issued notes. The only other kind of persons known to me who demand payment in untraceable cash are either thieves or receivers of stolen goods. But in the case of deceased, blackmailers were more probable than thieves or receivers. And there was another circumstance that strongly suggested a blackmailer. In addition to the smaller drafts which were presented at irregular intervals, there were certain larger drafts which were presented periodically and pretty regularly at intervals of three months. This suggested that someone was being paid a quarterly allowance; and, having regard to the mode of payment, I felt very little doubt that that person was a blackmailer."

  "You speak of a blackmailer. It has been suggested that there may have been more than one. What do you say to that?"

  "I can only say that I think it highly probable. I have always, from the first, suspected a blackmailer in the background, simply by reason of the large cash withdrawals. But I had nothing more definite than that
to go on until the large periodical drafts began last September. If there were any other blackmailers they must have been paid at irregular intervals, and, I should say, in smaller amounts. But it is possible that the irregular cash drafts merely represented what deceased spent on gambling. I know that his expenditure on betting and play was very large."

  "But would he have needed used notes for that purpose? Gambling is a foolish pursuit, but it is not usually unlawful."

  "No; but it may be associated with other acts which are unlawful. This was certainly the case in the one instance in which I accompanied him to one of his gambling resorts. It was a most disreputable place and the persons present seemed to me to be of the shadiest type. And drink was being sold freely on unlicensed premises and during prohibited hours. The place might have been, at any moment, raided by the police, and, in that case, deceased would not have wished that any evidence should exist that he had been associated with it, if he had happened not to be there at the time of the raid."

  "Is it actually known to you that deceased gambled to a really serious extent?"

  "Yes. I was present on two occasions; the one that I have mentioned and another at a horse-race. On the first occasion he played very little as he was merely showing me the place and the people. But at the race he plunged rather heavily and lost—as he informed me—about a hundred pounds. But he was quite unconcerned about it. He seemed to consider the dropping of a hundred pounds as quite a negligible loss."

  "Did he know that you were aware of the extent to which he gambled?"

  "Oh, yes. He made no secret of it. I spoke to him very seriously on several occasions and pointed out to him how his capital was wasting. But he was incorrigible. He took my lectures quite amiably, but he would promise no reform. He was quite confident that he would get all his losses back presently."