Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 7

by R. Austin Freeman

  "You may as well make two while you are about it," answered Thorndyke, "and I think you had better make them in every way similar to those that you have in your day book and of the same dimensions. They are quite suitable and I don't think they could be improved on. But I may say that this order is not urgent. You can take your own time over them."

  Mr. Crow thanked him for his consideration, and when he had booked the order in the current book and taken Thorndyke's name and address, we took our leave and made our way homeward. During our walk along Holborn and down Fetter Lane very little was said by either of us. Thorndyke appeared to be cogitating on the morning's experiences, and my own reflections were principally concerned with speculations on the nature of his. For, as far as I could see, the only tangible result of the expedition was that we had got Peck's address and had secured two bookcases which we did not want. In addition, we had picked up a number of rather trivial personal particulars relating to Peck and his comings and goings, none of which seemed to have the slightest bearing on the problem which we were endeavouring to solve. But I suspected that there was more in it than this; that, out of the porter's trifling reminiscences, Thorndyke had gathered some thing, the significance of which was evident to him although it had, for the present, escaped me.

  We entered the Temple by Mitre Court and, as we emerged into the upper end of King's Bench Walk, we observed a figure advancing up the pavement from the direction of our chambers, which, as we drew nearer, resolved itself into that of our friend Benson. He recognised us at the same moment and quickened his pace to meet us.

  "I have taken the liberty," said he, when he had shaken hands heartily, "to drop in at your rooms, as I was in the neighbourhood, not to detain you and waste your time, but just to ask if there were any news of our case.''

  "There is nothing definite to report," replied Thorndyke. "I am making various enquiries and picking up such facts as I can, but, so far, the result is a rather miscellaneous collection which will want a good deal of sorting out and collation. But I am by no means hopeless. Won't you come back and have a bit of lunch with us? There are one or two questions that I wanted to ask you, and we might discuss them over the lunch table."

  Benson looked at his watch. "I should like to," said he, "but I think I had better not. I have an appointment at half-past two, and I mustn't be late. Could I answer your questions now?"

  "I think so," replied Thorndyke. "It is just a matter of personal description. You see, as I never saw John Gillum and have only the vaguest idea as to what he was like, I shall be rather at a loss if I have occasion to trace his movements. I can give no description of him. Could you sketch out a few personal characteristics by which he could be described or identified?

  Benson reflected as we turned to walk slowly down the pavement.

  "Let me see," said he. "Now, what do you call personal characteristics? There is his height. He was rather a tall man; about five feet ten. In colour he was a mixture—dark and fair. His hair and beard were black, but his skin was fair and his eyes were blue; you know the type of black-haired blond. But probably the most striking and distinctive characteristic, and the most useful for identification would be the peculiarity of his teeth. You have heard, I think, that his upper front teeth were extensively filled with gold and as they showed a good deal, they were a very serious disfigurement."

  "Yes, I have heard of those teeth," said Thorndyke, "and I have rather wondered why a fairly good-looking man, as I understood him to be, should have allowed himself to be disfigured in that way. Were his other teeth filled extensively in the same way?"

  "No," replied Benson, "that was the exasperating feature of the case. He had an exceptionally fine, sound set of teeth; not a stopping among the whole lot, I believe. It was bad luck that the only unsound ones should have happened to be those that were constantly on view. And I have an impression that they were really sound; that the spots of decay on them were started by some kind of blow or injury. But I think the dentist might have done something better for him."

  "Yes," I agreed. "A competent man would not have used a gold filling at all. He would have put in a porcelain inlay."

  "To return to the hair," said Thorndyke. "You described it as black. Do you mean actually black, or very dark brown?"

  "I mean black. There was no tinge of brown in it, to the best of my belief. It seemed to be dead black, with just a tiny sprinkling of grey. But the grey was hardly noticeable, except, perhaps, on the temples above the ears. Otherwise, there was only a white hair here and there; single hairs that you would scarcely notice and that did not interfere with the general effect of black hair."

  "Thank you," said Thorndyke, "Your description is quite helpful. But what would be still more helpful would be a portrait. If you can show a portrait and say, 'Is this the man whom you saw?' the identification is much more definite. I suppose you don't happen to have a photograph of your cousin?"

  "Not here," Benson answered; and then, as with a sudden afterthought, he said, "Wait, though. I have got something that will possibly answer your purpose. You must know that I am an amateur in a small way. I run a pocket camera, and I have a sort of a book file for the film negatives. That file I have brought with me and it is in one of my trunks. Among the old films are one or two of Gillum, mostly in groups, but I don't suppose that will matter. They are not very good portraits—you know what snapshot portraits are like—and of course, they are rather small. But they could be enlarged. Do you think they would be of any use to you?"

  "They would be of the greatest use," Thorndyke replied. "They could not only be enlarged, but they could be retouched to get rid of the exaggerated shadows, which are the principal cause of the bad likeness in outdoor snapshots. Will you let me have one or two of them?"

  "Certainly," said Benson. "I will look them over and pick out a few of the best and clearest and send them to you. And I have got a photograph that the first officer gave me, which he took on the former voyage. It is a group of officers and passengers, including a fairly good portrait of Gillum. I will send that too. And now," he added, once more glancing at his watch, "I think I must really be running away. There wasn't anything more that you wanted to ask me, was there?"

  "No," replied Thorndyke, "I think that was all. If you send me the photographs and they are reasonably good ones, my difficulties in the matter of identification will be disposed of."

  With this we both shook hands with him and stood awhile, watching him as he strode away towards Crown Office Row, the picture of health and strength and energy. Then, as our fancies lightly turned to thoughts of lunch, we walked back to our entry and ascended to our chambers where we found the table already laid and Polton on the look-out for our arrival.

  XIII. DR. AUGUSTUS PECK

  Of certain men we are apt to say that once seen they are never forgotten. They are not mere samples of the human race, turned out from the common mould, but executed individually as special orders and never repeated. Such were Paganini and the great Duke of Wellington, recognisable by us all from their mere counterfeit presentments after the lapse of a century.

  Now Mr. Ethelbert Snuper was exactly the reverse. He might have been seen a thousand times and never remembered. So exactly was he like every other ordinary person that he might have come straight out of a text-book of "The Dismal Science "—the Economic Man, now for the first and only time enjoying a concrete existence. Often as I met him, I recognised him with doubt. And the worst of it was that when at last I thought that I had committed his impersonality to memory, behold! the very next time I met him he was somebody else. It was quite confusing. There was a sort of unreality about the man. His very name was incredible, so exactly did it define his status and his "place in Nature," (but one meets with these coincidences in real life. I once knew a ritualist clergyman named Mummery).

  For Mr. Snuper was a private inquiry agent and, especially, a professed and expert shadower; a vocation to which his personal peculiarities (or should I say, his impersona
l unpeculiarities?) adapted him with a degree of perfection usually met with only in the lower creation. Even as the cylindrical body of the mole answers to the form of his burrow, and the flatness of Cimex lectularius (Norfolk Howard) favours unostentatious movements beneath a wallpaper, so Mr. Snuper's total lack of individual character enabled him to walk the streets a mere unnoticed unit of the population.

  I had often met him about our premises, for Thorndyke had employed him from time to time to make such enquiries and observations as were obviously impossible to either of us; and now, the day after our visit to Staple Inn, I met him once more, descending our stairs, and should certainly have passed him if he had not stopped to wish me "good afternoon." As he had evidently just come from our chambers, I assumed that there was something afoot and was a little curious as to what it might be, and the more so as we had no case on hand which seemed to need Mr. Snuper's services.

  Of course, I could not put any questions to the gentleman himself, but I had no such delicacy with Thorndyke. As soon as I entered our chambers I proceeded to make a few private enquiries on my own account.

  "I met Snuper on the stairs," said I. "Is there anything doing in his line?"

  "It is just a matter of one or two enquiries," Thorndyke replied. "I have set him to collect a few data concerning Peck."

  "What sort of data?" I asked.

  "Oh, quite simple data," he replied; "what sort of practice he has, whether he lives on the premises, how he spends his time, what bank he patronises, and so on. You see, Jervis, we know nothing about Peck, and it would be useful to have a few facts in our possession when we call on him."

  "I don't see that the kind of facts that you mention have much relevance to our inquiry," I objected.

  He admitted the objection. "But," he added, "your experience in cross-examination will have taught you that an irrelevant question, to which you know the answer, may be a valuable means of testing the general truth of a witness's statements."

  To this I had to assent, but I was not satisfied. Such extremely vague enquiries would have suggested that Thorndyke was at a loose end, which I did not believe he was.

  "You are not connecting Peck with the blackmailing business, are you?" I asked.

  "Why not?" he demanded.

  "But the thing is impossible," I exclaimed. "The man was absent from England during the whole of the material time."

  "Which is a fact worth noting," said he. "But what do you call the material time? When we were discussing Abel Webb, we agreed that the clue to this business was to be sought in the events of the voyage from Australia. Peck was present then."

  "But he was on the other side of the world when the great blackmailing took place, after Abel Webb's death and apparently connected with it. However," I concluded, "it is of no use discussing the matter. I expect you have perfectly good reasons for what you are doing and are keeping them to yourself."

  He smiled blandly at this suggestion, and the subject dropped; and as we had several court cases which kept us employed during the fortnight which followed, the Gillum mystery fell into abeyance, or, at least, appeared to. Mr. Snuper made no further appearances (but then he never did in the course of an inquiry, reports by post being more safe from observation); and the case had nearly faded out of my mind when my interest in it was suddenly revived by Thorndyke's announcement that he proposed to call on Dr. Peck on the following day shortly before noon.

  "By the way," said I, "where is he carrying on his practice?

  "His premises are in Whitechapel High Street," Thorndyke replied.

  "Whitechapel High Street!" I repeated in astonishment. "What an extraordinary place to have pitched upon."

  "It does seem a little odd," he admitted, "but somebody must practise in Whitechapel; and there are some advantages in a poor neighbourhood. At any rate, that is where he is, and I hope we shan't find him too busy for an interview. I don't much think we shall, judging from Snuper's reports of the practice."

  How far Mr. Snuper's estimate was correct I was unable to judge when we arrived at the premises on the following morning. From a brass plate on a jamb of the side door of a tailor's trimming warehouse I learned that Augustus Peck, Physician and Surgeon, had consulting-rooms on the first floor and was to be found in them between the hours of 10.30 a.m. and 1, and in the afternoon from 2 to 6 p.m. Accordingly, it being then about 11.30 a.m., we entered the doorway and ascended a flight of rather shabby stairs to a landing on which two doors opened, one of which bore the doctor's name in painted lettering with the instruction: "Ring and enter"; which we did, and found ourselves in a large room covered with floor-cloth and provided with a considerable number of chairs, but otherwise almost unfurnished. However, we had no time to inspect this apartment—of which we were the sole occupants—for, almost as we entered, a communicating door opened and a rather tall, well-dressed man invited us to come through into the consulting-room. We followed him into the sanctuary, and, when he had shut the door and placed a couple of chairs for us, he seated himself at his writing-table, and, having bestowed on us a look of more than ordinary attention, asked:

  "Which of you is the patient?"

  Thorndyke smiled apologetically as he replied: "Neither of us is. We have not come for medical advice, but in the hope—rather a forlorn hope, I fear—that you may be able and willing to assist us in some inquiries that we have in hand."

  Dr. Peck smiled. "I was afraid," said he, "that you were too good to be true. My practice doesn't include many members of the aristocracy. But what kind of inquiries are you referring to? And, if you will pardon me, whom have I the honour of addressing?"

  Thorndyke took out his card-case, and, extracting a card, said, as he handed the latter to Peck: "This will introduce me. My friend is Dr. Jervis, who is collaborating with me."

  Dr. Peck took the card from him and glanced at it, at first rather casually; but then he looked at it again with such evidently awakened interest that I felt sure that he had recognised the name. Indeed, he said so when he had pondered over it a while, for, as I offered him my card and he took it from me, laying Thorndyke's down on the table, he asked: "Are you the Dr. Thorndyke who used to lecture at St. Margaret's on medical jurisprudence?"

  Thorndyke admitted that he was the person referred to. "But," he added, "I don't remember you. Were you ever at St. Margaret's?"

  "No," replied Peck, "I am a Bart's man. But I remember your name, as our lecturer used to quote you rather freely. And that brings us back to the question of your inquiry. What is its nature, and how do you think I can help you?"

  "Our inquiry," said Thorndyke, "is concerned with a man named John Gillum who came from Australia to England about two years ago. Do you remember him?

  "Oh, yes," replied Peck, "I remember him quite well. He was a passenger on the Port Badmington, of the Commonwealth and Dominions Line, of which I was medical officer. He came on board, I think, at Perth and travelled with us to Marseilles. What about him?"

  "Did you know that he is dead?"

  "Dead!" exclaimed Peck. "Good Lord, no. When did he die?"

  "He was found dead in his chambers in Clifford's Inn nearly three months ago. Apparently, he had committed suicide—at least, that was the verdict of the coroner's jury."

  "Dear, dear!" Peck exclaimed in a tone of deep concern. "What a dreadful affair! Poor old Gillum! A most shocking affair, and surprising, too. I can hardly believe it. He was such a cheerful soul, so gay and happy and so full of the high old times that he was going to have when he got to England. I suppose there is no doubt that he really did make away with himself?"

  "There seemed to be no doubt whatever," replied Thorndyke; "but I can speak only from hearsay. I had no connection with the case at the time."

  "And now that you are connected with the case," said Peck, "what is the nature of your inquiry? What do you want to know?"

  "The answer to that question," said Thorndyke, "involves a few explanations. From what transpired at the inquest, it appeared that
Gillum had been driven to suicide by the loss of his entire fortune. It was only a modest fortune—about thirteen thousand pounds—but he had got through every penny of it. Part of it he had wasted by betting and other forms of gambling, but a quite considerable portion of what had been lost appeared to have been paid away to blackmailers."

  "Blackmailers!" Peck repeated in a tone of the utmost astonishment. "It seems incredible. The gambling I can understand to some extent, though that surprises me. For, though he certainly did like a little flutter at cards, I should hardly have called him a gambler. But blackmail! I can't believe it. Who on earth could have blackmailed Gillum? And what possible chance could he have given them to do it?"

  "Precisely," said Thorndyke. "That is our problem. Gillum's relatives are convinced that it was the blackmail, and not the mere gambling losses, that was the determining cause of the suicide; and they have commissioned me to make such inquiries as may establish the identity of the blackmailers and bring them within reach of the law."

  "Very proper, too," said Peck, "but it doesn't look a very hopeful job. Have you anything to go on?"

  "Not very much," Thorndyke replied. "There is this and there are some other letters, but, as you will see, they are not very helpful."

  As he spoke he took from his pocket a little portfolio, from which he drew out a single sheet of paper and handed it to Peck; who read its contents slowly and with deep attention and then asked:

  "Is this the original letter?"

  "No," Thorndyke replied. "One doesn't hawk original documents about, which may have to be produced in court. This is a copy, but it is certified correct. The attestation is on the back."

  Peck turned the sheet over and glanced at the certificate; then he turned it back and once more read through the letter.

  "It's an astonishing thing," said he. "The blackmail works out at two thousand a year. Gillum must have had some pretty hefty secrets if he was prepared to pay that. But I don't quite see where I come in."