Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 7

by R. Austin Freeman

  "During the rest of the voyage, he must have devoted himself to finding out everything that he could about Gillum and his affairs and establishing himself as Gillum's intimate friend. Perhaps Gillum may have commissioned him to find a residence for him in London. At any rate, when Gillum went ashore at Marseilles, the friendship was already established and the two men must have been in communication while Gillum was travelling in France. That is clear from the fact that Peck knew when he would arrive in England and was able to meet him and bring him to the Inn, either as a guest or as the actual tenant of the chambers.

  "As soon as Peck arrived in England, he set about the preparations to carry out his scheme; and he had the extraordinary good luck to find a set of chambers which contained an enormous coal-bin in an isolated room. When he had secured those chambers, his difficulties were practically over. He had merely to execute the necessary details; to have the bin made suitable for his purpose, to get a container to hold the body with the refrigerating material, to lay in a supply of slag-wool and solid carbon dioxide, to prepare the denture with the gold-filled teeth, and to obtain a suitable hair dye. All this he was able to do without committing himself in any way. If the scheme should prove impossible, he could simply call it off. He had done nothing unlawful or even irregular.

  "Then, when Gillum arrived, everything was ready, even to the refrigerating chamber lying on its bed of slag-wool, enclosed in the insulating material, and already charged with carbonic acid snow. The unsuspecting victim was led into the chambers, the oak was shut, and Peck proceeded quietly to convert the living man into a corpse. Probably he gave him food and as much liquor as he would take, with a moderate dose of morphia mixed in with it; and when this had taken effect and Gillum had fallen asleep, he administered the lethal dose with a hypodermic syringe."

  "No marks of an injection were found at the post mortem," Anstey remarked.

  "They were not looked for," replied Thorndyke. "But it would be easy for a doctor to give an injection to a sleeping man so that the marks would not be discovered. However, the point is not material. The poison was administered, and when this had been done, Gillum was, in effect, a dead man. Peck was now irrevocably committed. He had burned his boats; and the instant, pressing necessity, was to get rid of the corpse. For if he should be found there with the dead man, he was lost. Probably, he proceeded with the disposal as soon as Gillum was quite unconscious; he stripped the body, put it into the container with the carbonic acid snow, closed the lid, covered it with the slag-wool pads, fitted the false bottom over it, and emptied a scuttle or two of coal on to the false bottom."

  "Do you mean to suggest," Anstey exclaimed, "that he put the living man into the refrigerator?"

  "He wouldn't be a living man very long," replied Thorndyke, "in an atmosphere some fifty degrees below freezing-point. But that is what he must have done. As long as the dead body was visible in the chambers, he was in deadly peril; but as soon as it was put out of sight and covered up, he was safe. He could spend the rest of the night dyeing his hair and completing his arrangements for the morning. And when his hair was dry and his dental plate with the gold teeth substituted for the one that he had been wearing, he was ready to begin the personation and to carry it on as long as should be necessary in perfect safety, provided that he should never meet any person who knew Dr. Peck or John Gillum, or, still worse, both of them.

  "Moreover, you will note the completeness of his arrangements. Sooner or later, he would have to bring the personation to an end. What was he to do then? A simple disappearance would not answer at all. It would give rise to enquiries. But no disappearance would be necessary. At the appointed time, he could simply produce the body, properly staged for a suicide, and the exit of John Gillum would be perfectly natural. But he did not leave it even at that. He created in advance the expectation of suicide so as to forestall enquiries; and he prepared the blackmailing letters with such skill and foresight that they not only agreed with his drafts on the bank, but, if any suspicion should have arisen as to his connection with the murder of Abel Webb, they agreed with that, too. Actually, Jervis and I did, at first, connect the blackmail with that murder.

  "Then, finally, observe the forethought displayed in the production of the body. As it was managed, it was practically certain that the corpse would lie undiscovered for several days at the least. But in that time it would undergo such changes as would effectually cover up any traces of either the murder or the refrigeration. Looking at the case as a whole, one has to admit that it was a most masterly crime; amazingly ingenious in design and conception and still more astonishing in the forethought, the care and caution, combined with daring and resolution displayed in its execution."

  "That is true," said Anstey, "but what strikes me more is the callous villainy of the scheme and the way it was carried out. I am glad you told us the story, Thorndyke, because it has brought home to me what an inhuman monster we have to deal with. If he escapes the rope, it will not be from any lack of effort on my part."

  We continued for some time rather discursively to debate the various features of this extraordinarily villainous crime. At length, Miller, having looked at our clock and then at his watch, remarked that "time was getting on" and stood up; and the others, taking this as an indication that the proceedings were adjourned, rose also.

  "We will see you safely out of the precincts," said Thorndyke. "It has been a long sitting and we shall all be the better for a breath of fresh air."

  Accordingly we set forth together, and having discharged Anstey at his chambers, sauntered by way of Tanfield Court to the Inner Temple Gate, where we took leave of our guests. As we turned to retrace our steps, I noticed two men whom I had previously observed loitering opposite our chambers in the shade of Paper Buildings. Apparently they had followed us and seemed to be doing so still, for as we turned, they retired, and slipping round the corner of Goldsmith Building, moved away along the walk towards the cemetery. I drew Thorndyke's attention to them but, of course, he had already noticed them.

  "I wonder," said I, "whether that will be Snuper and one of his myrmidons."

  "It is quite possible," he replied. "I know that Snuper is keeping an eye on me. He divides his attention between me and Peck. But they may be a couple of Miller's men. The Superintendent is nearly as anxious about me as Snuper is."

  He had hardly finished speaking when two shots rang out—sharp, high-pitched reports, suggesting an automatic pistol. At the moment we were crossing Tanfield Court and the sound seemed to come from the direction of the covered passage that leads through to the Terrace.

  "That will be Peck," Thorndyke remarked quietly, and forthwith started off at a run towards the passage. It was extremely uncomfortable; for, though I would have much preferred to take cover and raise an alarm there was nothing for it but to keep close to Thorndyke. As we raced down the echoing passage, I caught, faintly, the sound of quick footsteps ahead, and almost at the same moment, similar but louder sounds from our rear, punctuated by the shrieks of a police whistle.

  At the moment when we emerged from the passage on to the Terrace, I had a fleeting glimpse of a man running furiously, but even as I looked, he shot round the corner into Fig Tree Court and was lost to view. Here I would very willingly have called a halt to discuss tactics; for Fig Tree Court, with its two covered passages, both leading into Elm Court, afforded perfect opportunities for an ambush. It was about as dangerous a place as could be imagined for the pursuit of a man armed with an automatic and evidently bent on murder. But there was no choice. Thorndyke was leading; and when another shot sounded from ahead, accompanied by the shattering of glass, he merely noted the direction and bore down straight on the left-hand passage.

  It was in Elm Court that the pursuit came to a sudden end. As we rushed out of the passage we saw two men sprawling on the pavement, engaged in a fierce and deadly struggle. One of them grasped a pistol and was trying to turn its muzzle towards his adversary, who, clinging tenaciously with bot
h hands to the wrist that controlled the pistol, concentrated his attention on the weapon. But it was an unequal contest, for, even as we emerged, the man with the pistol was groping with his free hand under the skirt of his coat.

  Thorndyke went straight for the pistol, and seizing it with both hands, wrenched it out of the holder's grasp; while I gripped the free arm at wrist and elbow and pinned it to the ground. And none too soon; for, as I straightened out the arm, I saw that the hand held one of those deadly, double-edged surgical knives known as Catlins.

  But the struggle was by no means over, for our prisoner seemed to have the strength of twenty men and the ferocity of a hundred. He writhed and twisted and kicked and even tried to bite. As I looked at his mouthing, distorted face in the dim lamplight—the face, it seemed, of a maniac or a wild beast—I found it difficult to connect it with the calm and dignified Dr. Peck of our Whitechapel interview, but easy enough to recognise the murderer of Abel Webb and poor, confiding John Gillum.

  The struggle ended as suddenly as the pursuit. It was only a matter of seconds, though it seemed an hour, before our two followers came flying out of the passage and instantly fell upon the prisoner. As one of them helped Thorndyke and me to drag the hands together—with an anxious eye upon the knife—the other produced a pair of handcuffs and expertly snapped them on to the wrists.

  "There," said he in a soothing, persuasive tone, "that's fixed you up. It's no use wriggling, and you'd better let me have that knife"; which, in fact, he took possession of by a method which caused the prisoner suddenly to drop it.

  Apparently, Peck realised the futility of further resistance, for he allowed his captors to raise him to his feet, when he stood glowering sullenly at Thorndyke, breathing hard but uttering not a word; while his original antagonist, who had risen unaided, regarded him with mild satisfaction and cast an occasional pensive glance at a ragged hole in his own sleeve through which issued a little oozing of blood. Noticing this, I exclaimed anxiously:

  "I hope you are not seriously hurt."

  "Oh, no," he replied, turning to me with a smile, "it's just a matter of sticking-plaster and a tailor," and as he spoke and looked at me, I suddenly realised who he was. It was Mr. Snuper.

  We accompanied the two officers and their prisoner up to the Inner Temple Gate and stood by until a police car arrived in response to a telephone call. Then as the door slammed and the car moved away, we turned back once more towards our chambers. Mr. Snuper would have said goodnight and faded away in his usual inscrutable fashion. But Thorndyke would have none of this.

  "No, no, Snuper," said he. "You come back with us. We owe it to you that we are still alive and you were very near to giving your own life for ours. Neither of us is likely to forget your courage and devotion. But now you have got to come and undergo the necessary repairs."

  The repairs were executed by me assisted by Polton (who positively grovelled at Snuper's feet when he heard the story) while Thorndyke attended to the hospitality; and, speaking as a surgeon, I am not sure that his methods were quite orthodox, even though it really was little more than a matter of sticking-plaster.

  XX. EPILOGUE

  The trial of Augustus Peck lies outside the scope of this narrative. To follow it in detail would be merely to repeat what the reader has already been told. For there was practically no defence; ingenious and convincing as the scheme of the crime had been, directly the alleged and presumed facts were challenged the whole edifice of deception collapsed. So overwhelming was the evidence for the prosecution that the jury agreed on their verdict of "Guilty" after less than ten minutes' deliberation.

  The case for the Crown was based mainly, as Thorndyke had predicted, on the complete train of circumstantial evidence. But his prediction turned out to be correct in another respect. No sooner had systematic enquiries been set afoot by the police than an imposing mass of confirmatory evidence was brought into view. Inquiries, for instance, at Copes and other manufacturers of refrigerating material elicited the fact that Peck had kept himself regularly supplied with blocks of solid carbon dioxide. And an examination by experts of the various documents, including Gillum's holograph will, showed that the will and the letters received from Australia were clearly distinguishable from the skilfully forged documents executed by Peck; and this examination (together with Thorndyke's sheet of blank paper) enabled the experts to testify that the blackmailer's letters had undoubtedly been written by Peck, himself.

  But perhaps the most striking corroborative evidence came from the three banks at which Peck had kept accounts. When Miller, armed with an order of the Court, called on them to make enquiries, it was revealed that Peck had been in the habit of paying into each bank some thirty pounds a week in cash—mostly old one-pound notes—ostensibly the receipts from his Whitechapel practice, though, in fact, it was proved that the said practice was a pure fiction. As the money accumulated at the banks, it was promptly converted into gilt-edged securities, which Peck retained in his own possession and which were found locked up in his writing-table at Whitechapel.

  But even more striking were the discoveries which were made in the strong-rooms of those banks; which included three large dispatch boxes, each crammed with old one-pound notes, evidently forced in under heavy pressure and forming a solid, compact mass. On counting them, the total amount contained in them was found to be just over ten thousand pounds; which, together with the securities and the combined credit balance, came near to accounting for the whole sum of thirteen thousand pounds which had been withdrawn from Gillum's bank.

  "If one were disposed to moralise," said Thorndyke, as he laid down the newspaper in which an account of Peck's execution was printed, "one would lament the misuse of the remarkable gifts with which Augustus Peck was undeniably endowed. He was a very unusual type of criminal. I do not recall any other quite like him. He was clearly a man of some culture; he was gifted with a constructive imagination of a high order and with inexhaustible ingenuity and resourcefulness. He avoided risks whenever they could be avoided, and when they could not be, he took them with a courage and resolution that would be admirable in any other circumstances. Consider his murder of Abel Webb. The risk of committing a murder in a public thoroughfare was enormous. But yet, as a matter of mere policy, the risk was justified. For when he had taken the immediate risk and escaped, the very publicity of the crime was a safeguard so complete that though we were certain that he had committed the crime, we could never have brought it home to him. And Abel Webb was silenced for ever.

  "Nevertheless, he suffered from the inherent folly that is characteristic of all criminals. The paltry thirteen thousand pounds was not worth the risk that he took; and his ridiculous attempt to murder you and me—when, I suppose, he had to some extent lost his nerve—was sheer imbecility. For he still had a sporting chance of escape.

  "But, at any rate, the world is better without him, and I am not dissatisfied to have been the means of his elimination."

  "No," I agreed. "You have done a brilliant piece of work, and as to the result of your labours, as Mr. Weech would express it: Finis coronat opus."

  THE END

  THE STONEWARE MONKEY

  First Published 1938

  CONTENTS

  Book One—Narrated by James Oldfield, M.D.

  I. Hue and Cry

  II.The Inquiry

  III. Peter Gannet

  IV. Dr. Thorndyke Takes a Hand

  V. A True Bill

  VI. Shadows In the Studio

  VII. Mrs. Gannet Brings Strange Tidings

  VIII. Dr. Oldfield Makes Surprising Discoveries

  IX. Inspector Blandy Investigates

  X. Inspector Blandy is Inquisitive

  XI. Mr. Bunderby Expounds

  XII. A Symposium

  XIII. The Inquiry

  Book Two—Narrated by Christopher Jervis, M.D.

  XIV. Dr. Jervis is Puzzled

  XV. A Modernist Collector

  XVI. At the Museum

  XVII. Mr.
Snuper

  XVIII. Mr. Newman

  XIX. The Monkey Reveals His Secret

  XX. Thorndyke Reviews the Evidence

  The Stoneware Monkey, as sculpted by the author, Dr. Freeman.

  Book One

  Narrated by James Oldfield, M.D.

  I. HUE AND CRY

  The profession of medicine has a good many drawbacks in the way of interrupted meals, disturbed nights and long and strenuous working hours. But it has its compensations, for a doctor's life is seldom a dull life. Compared, for instance, with that of a civil servant or a bank official, it abounds in variety of experience and surroundings, to say nothing of the intrinsic interest of the work in its professional aspects. And then it may happen at any moment that the medical practitioner's duties may lead him into the very heart of a drama or a tragedy or bring him into intimate contact with crime.

  Not that the incident which I am about to describe was, in the first place, directly connected with my professional duties. The initial experience might have befallen anyone. But it was my medical status that enlarged and completed that experience.

  It was about nine o'clock on a warm September night that I was cycling at an easy pace along a by-road towards the town, or village, of Newingstead, in which I was temporarily domiciled as the locum-tenens of a certain Dr. Wilson. I had been out on an emergency call to a small village about three miles distant and had taken my bicycle instead of the car for the sake of the exercise; and having ridden out at the speed that the occasion seemed to demand, was now making a leisurely return, enjoying the peaceful quiet of the by-way and even finding the darkness restful with a good headlight to show the way and a rear light to secure me from collisions from behind.