Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 7

by R. Austin Freeman

  But even worse than this was the affair of "the decorated jar." To pass off as his own work a piece that had been made by another—though that other were but an incompetent beginner—was unspeakably shabby; to offer it for sale was sheer dishonesty. Not that I grudged the fifteen guineas, since they would benefit poor Mrs. Gannet, nor did I commiserate the "mug" who had paid that preposterous price. Probably, he deserved all he got—or lost. But it irked me to think that Gannet, whom I had assumed to be a gentleman, was no more than a common rogue.

  As to Bunderby, obviously, he was an arrant quack. An ignoramus, too, if he really believed my jar to have been hand-built, for a glance at its interior would have shown the most blatant traces of the wheel. But at this point my meditations were interrupted by the stopping of the taxi opposite my house. I hopped out, paid the driver, fished out my latch-key and had it in the keyhole at the very moment when the first—and, as it turned out, also the last—of the evening's patients arrived on the door-step.

  XII. A SYMPOSIUM

  To the ordinary housewife, the casual invitation to dinner of two large, able-bodied men would seem an incredible proceeding. But such is the way of bachelors; and perhaps it is not, after all, a bad way. Still, as I immured the newly-arrived patient in the waiting room, it did dawn on me that my housekeeper, Mrs. Gilbert, ought to be notified of the expected guests. Not that I had any anxiety, for Mrs. Gilbert appeared to credit me with the appetite of a Gargantua (and, in fact, I had a pretty good "twist"), and she seemed to live in a state of chronic anxiety lest I should develop symptoms of impending starvation.

  Having discharged my bombshell down the kitchen stairs, I proceeded to deal with the patient—fortunately, a "chronic" who required little more than a "repeat"—and having safely launched him, bottle in hand, from the door step, repaired to the little glory-hole, known as "the study," to make provision for my visitors. Of their habits I knew nothing; but it seemed to me that a decanter of whiskey, another of sherry, a siphon and a box of cigars would meet all probable exigencies; and I had just finished these preparations when my guests arrived.

  As they entered the study, Jervis looked at the table on which the decanters were displayed and grinned.

  "It's all right, Thorndyke," said he. "Oldfield has got the restoratives ready. You won't want your smelling salts. But he is evidently going to make our flesh creep properly."

  "Don't take any notice of him, Oldfield," said Thorndyke. "Jervis is a perennial juvenile. But he takes quite an intelligent interest in this case, and we are both all agog to hear your story. Where shall I put my note-book? I want to take rather full notes."

  As he spoke, he produced a rather large block of ruled paper and fixed a wistful eye on the table; whereupon, having, after a brief discussion, agreed to take the restoratives as read, we transferred the whole collection—decanters, siphon and cigar box—to the top of a cupboard and Thorndyke laid his block on the vacant table and drew up a chair.

  "Now, Oldfield," said Jervis, when we had all taken our seats and filled our pipes, "fire away. Art is long but life is short. Thorndyke is beginning to show signs of senile decay already, and I'm not as young as I was."

  "The question is," said I, "where shall I begin?"

  "The optimum place to begin," replied Jervis, "is at the beginning."

  "Yes, I know. But the beginning of the case was the incident of the arsenic poisoning, and you know all about that."

  "Jervis doesn't," said Thorndyke, "and I only came in at the end. Tell us the whole story. Don't be afraid of repetition and don't try to condense."

  Thus directed, I began with my first introduction to the Gannet household and traced the history of my attendance up to the point at which Thorndyke came into the case, breaking off at the cessation of my visits to the hospital.

  "I take it," said Jervis, "that full notes and particulars of the material facts are available if they should be wanted."

  "Yes," Thorndyke replied, "I have my own notes and a copy of Woodfield's, and I think Oldfield has kept a record."

  "I have," said I, "and I had intended to send you a copy. I must write one out and send it to you."

  "Don't do that," said Jervis. "Lend it to me and I will have a typewritten copy made. But get on with the story. What was the next phase?"

  "The next phase was the return home of Peter Gannet. He called on me to report and informed me that, substantially, he was quite fit."

  "Was he, by Jove?" exclaimed Jervis. "He had made a pretty rapid recovery, considering the symptoms. And how did he seem to like the idea of coming home? Seem at all nervous?"

  "Not at all. His view was that, as the attempt had been spotted and we should be on our guard, they wouldn't risk another. And apparently he was right—up to a certain point. I don't know what precautions he took—if he took any. But nothing further happened until—but we shall come to that presently. I will carry the narrative straight on."

  This I did, making a brief and sketchy reference to my visits to the studio and the activities of Gannet and Boles. But at this point Jervis pulled me up.

  "A little vague and general, this, Oldfield. Better follow the events more closely and in full detail."

  "But," I protested, "all this has really nothing to do with the case."

  "Don't you let Thorndyke hear you say that, my child. He doesn't admit that there is such a thing as an irrelevant fact, ascertainable in advance as such. Detail, my friend, detail; and again I say detail."

  I did not take him quite literally, but I acted as if I did. Going back to the beginning of the studio episode, I recounted it with the minutest and most tedious circumstantiality, straining my memory in sheer malice to recall any trivial and unmeaning incident that I could recover, and winding up with a prolix and exact description of my prentice efforts with the potter's wheel and the creation of the immortal jar. I thought I had exhausted their powers of attention, but to my surprise Thorndyke asked:

  "And what did your masterpiece look like when you had finished it?"

  "It was very thick and clumsy, but it was quite a pleasant shape. The wheel tends to produce pleasant shapes if you let it."

  "Do you know what became of it?"

  "Yes. Gannet fired it and passed it off as his own work. But I will tell you about that later. I only discovered the fraud this afternoon."

  He nodded and made a note on a separate slip of paper and I then resumed my narrative; and as this was concerned with the discovery of the crime, I was genuinely careful not to omit any detail, no matter how unimportant it might appear to me. They both listened with concentrated attention, and Thorndyke apparently took my statement down verbatim in shorthand.

  When I had finished with the gruesome discoveries in the studio, I paused and prepared to play my trump card, confident that, unlike Inspector Blandy, they would appreciate the brilliancy of my inspiration and its important bearing on the identity of the criminal. And I was not disappointed, at least as to the impression produced, for as I described how the "brain wave" had come to me, Thorndyke looked up from his note-book with an appearance of surprise and Jervis stared at me, open-mouthed.

  "But, my dear Oldfield!" he exclaimed, "what in the name of Fortune gave you the idea of testing the ashes for arsenic?"

  "Well, there had been one attempt," I replied, "and it was quuc possible that there might have been another. That was what occurred to me."

  "Yes, I understand," said he. "But surely you did not expect to get an arsenic reaction from incinerated bone?"

  "I didn't, very much. It was just a chance shot; and I must admit that the result came quite as a surprise."

  "The result!" he exclaimed. "What result?"

  "I will show you," said I; and forthwith I produced from a locked drawer the precious glass tube with its unmistakable arsenic mirror.

  Jervis took it from me and stared at it with a ludicrous expression of amazement, while Thorndyke regarded him with a quiet twinkle.

  "But," the former exclaime
d, when he had partially recovered from his astonishment, "the thing is impossible. I don't believe it!" Whereupon Thorndyke chuckled aloud.

  "My learned friend," said he, "reminds me of that German professor who, meeting a man wheeling a tall cycle—a thing that he had never before seen the like of—demonstrated conclusively to the cyclist that it was impossible to ride the machine for the excellent reason that, if you didn't fall off to the right, you must inevitably fall off to the left."

  "That's all very well," Jervis retorted, "but you don't mean to tell me that you accept this mirror at its face value?"

  "It is certainly a little unexpected," Thorndyke replied, "but you will remember that Soderman and O'Connell state definitely that it has been possible to show the presence of arsenic in the ashes of cremated bodies."

  "Yes. I remember noting their statement and finding myself unable to accept it. They cited no instances and they gave no particulars. A mere ipse dixit has no evidential weight. I am convinced that there is some fallacy in this case. What about your reagents, Oldfield? Is there a possibility that any of them might have been contaminated with arsenic?"

  "No," I replied, "it is quite impossible. I tested them exhaustively. There was no sign of arsenic until I introduced the bone ash."

  "By the way," Thorndyke asked, "did you use up all your material, or have you some left?"

  "I used only half of it, so if you think it worth while to check the analysis, I can let you have the remainder."

  "Excellent!" said Thorndyke. "A control experiment will settle the question whether the ashes do, or do not, contain arsenic. Meanwhile, since the mirror is an undeniable fact, we must provisionally adopt the affirmative view. I suppose you told the police about this?"

  "Yes, I showed them the tube. Inspector Blandy spotted the arsenic mirror at a glance, but he took a most extraordinary attitude. He seemed to regard the arsenic as of no importance whatever; quite irrelevant, in fact. He would, apparently, like to suppress it altogether; which appears to me a monstrous absurdity."

  "I think you are doing Blandy an injustice," said Thorndyke. "From a legal point of view, he is quite right. What the prosecution has to prove is, first, the fact that a murder has been committed; second, the identity of the person who has been murdered; and third, the identity of the person who committed the murder. Now the fact of murder is established by the condition of the remains and the circumstances in which they were found. The exact cause of death is, therefore, irrelevant. The arsenic has no bearing as proof of murder, because the murder is already proved. And it has no bearing on the other two questions."

  "Surely," said I, "it indicates the identity of the murderer, in view of the previous attempt to poison Gannet."

  "Not at all," he rejoined. "There was never any inquiry as to who administered that poison and there is no evidence. The court would not listen to mere surmises or suspicions. The poisoner is an unknown person, and at present the murderer is an unknown person. But you cannot establish the identity of an unknown quantity by proving that it is identical with another unknown quantity. No, Oldfield, Blandy is perfectly right. The arsenic would only be a nuisance and a complication to the prosecution. But it would be an absolute godsend to the defense."

  "Why?" I demanded.

  "Well," he replied, "you saw what Jervis's attitude was. That would be the attitude of the defense. The defending counsel would pass lightly over all the facts that had been proved and that he could not contest, and fasten on the one thing that could not be proved and that he could make a fair show of disproving. The element of doubt introduced by the arsenic might wreck the case for the prosecution and be the salvation of the accused. But we are wandering away from your story. Tell us what happened next."

  I resumed my narrative, describing my visit to the police station and Blandy's investigations at the studio, dwelling expecially on the interest shown by the Inspector in Boles's works and materials. They appeared to arouse a similar interest on the part of my listeners, for Jervis commented:

  "The plot seems to thicken. There is a distinct suggestion that the studio was the scene of activities other than pottery and the making of modernist jewelry. I wonder if those finger-prints will throw any light on the subject?"

  "I rather suspect that they have," said I, "judging by the questions that Blandy put to Mrs. Gannet. He had got some information from somewhere."

  "I don't want to interrupt the narrative," said Thorndyke, "but when we have finished with the studio, we might have Blandy's questions. They probably represent his views on the case, and as you say, they may enable us to judge whether he knows more about it than we do."

  "There is only one more point about the studio," said I, "but it is a rather important one, as it seems to bear on the motive for the murder." And with this I gave a detailed account of the quarrel between Gannet and Boles, an incident that, in effect, brought my connection with the place and the men to an end.

  "Yes," Thorndyke agreed, "that is important, for all the circumstances suggest that it was not a mere casual falling out but the manifestation of a deep-seated enmity."

  "That was what I thought," said I, "and so, evidently, did Mrs. Gannet; and it was on this point that Blandy's questions were so particularly searching. First, he elicited the fact that the two men were formerly quite good friends and that the change had occurred quite recently. He inquired as to the cause of the change, but she was quite unable to account for it. Then he wanted to know when the change had occurred, but she was only able to say that it occurred some time in the latter part of last year. The next questions related to Boles's movements about that time, and naturally, she couldn't tell him very much. And then he asked a most remarkable question, which was, could she remember where Boles was on the 19th of last September? And it happened that she could. For at that time Gannet had gone to spend a week-end with Boles and she had taken the opportunity to spend a week-end at Eastbourne. And as she remembered clearly that she was at Eastbourne on the 19th of September, it followed that on that date Boles and Gannet were staying together at a place called Newingstead."

  At the mention of Newingstead, Thorndyke looked up quickly, but he made no remark, and I continued:

  "This information seemed greatly to interest Inspector Blandy, especially the fact that the two men were at Newingstead together on that date; and he pressed Mrs. Gannet to try to remember whether the sudden change from friendship to enmity seemed to coincide with that date. The question naturally astonished her; but on reflection, she was able to recall that she first noticed the change when she returned from Eastbourne."

  "There is evidently something significant," said Jervis, "about that date and that place, but I can't imagine what it can be."

  "I think," said I, "that I can enlighten you to some extent, for it happens that I also was at Newingstead on the 19th of last September."

  "The deuce you were!" exclaimed Jervis. "Then it seems that you did not begin your story at the beginning, after all."

  "I take it," said Thorndyke, "that you are the Dr. Oldfield who gave evidence at the inquest on Constable Murray?"

  "That is so. But how do you come to know about that inquest? I suppose you read about it in the papers? But it is odd that you should happen to remember it."

  "It isn't, really," said Thorndyke. "The fact is that Mr. Kempster—the man who was robbed, you remember—consulted me about the case. He wanted me to trace the thief, and if possible, to trace the diamonds, too. Of course, I told him that I had no means of doing anything of the kind. It was purely a police case. But he insisted on leaving the matter in my hands and he provided me with a verbatim report of the inquest from the local paper. Don't you remember the case, Jervis? I know you read the report."

  "Yes," replied Jervis. "I begin to have a hazy recollection of the case. I remember now that a constable was murdered in a wood; killed with his own truncheon, wasn't he?"

  "Yes," I replied; "and some very distinct finger-prints were found on the truncheon—f
inger-prints from a left hand, with a particularly clear thumb-print."

  "Ha!" said Jervis. "Yes, of course, I remember; and I think I begin to 'rumble' Mr. Blandy, as Miller would say. Did you see those finger-prints on the gold plate?"

  "I just had a look at them, though I was not particularly interested. But they were extremely clear—they would be, on polished gold plate. There was a thumb on one side and a forefinger on the reverse."

  "Do you know whether they were left or right?"

  "I couldn't tell; but Blandy said they were from a left hand."

  "I expect he was right," said Jervis. "I am not fond of Blandy, but he certainly does know his job. It looks as if there were going to be some startling developments in this case. What do you think, Thorndyke?"

  "It depends," replied Thorndyke, "on what Blandy found at the studio. If the finger-prints on the gold plate were the same as those found on the truncheon, they can be assumed to be those of the man who murdered the constable; and as Blandy will have assumed—quite properly—that they were the finger-prints of Boles, we can understand his desire to ascertain where Boles was on the day of the murder, and his intense interest in learning from Mrs. Gannet that Boles was actually at Newingstead on that very day. Further, I think we can understand his disinclination to have any dealings with the arsenic."

  "I don't quite see why," said I.

  "It is partly a matter of legal procedure," he explained. "Boles cannot be charged with any crime until he is caught. But, if he is arrested, and his finger-prints are found to be the same as those on the truncheon, he will be charged with the murder of the constable. He may also be charged with the murder of Gannet. Thus when it comes to the trial, there will be two indictments. But, whereas—in the circumstances that we are assuming—the evidence against him in the matter of the murder at Newingstead appears to be conclusive and unanswerable, that relating to the murder of Gannet is much less convincing; in fact, there is hardly enough at present to support the charge.