Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 7

by R. Austin Freeman

  With this, he took his departure, and, as Polton had now got his apparatus packed up, we followed him and made our way to what the papers described as "the Scene of the Conflagration".

  It was a rather melancholy scene, with a tinge of squalor. The street was still wet and muddy, but a small crowd stood patiently, regardless of the puddles, staring up at the dismal shell with its scorched walls and gaping windows—the windows that I had seen belch forth flames but which now showed only the cold light of day. A rough hoarding had been put up to enclose the ground floor, and at the wicket of this a Salvage Corps officer stood on guard. To him Thorndyke addressed himself, producing his authority to inspect the ruins.

  "Well, sir," said the officer, "you'll find it a rough job, with mighty little to see and plenty to fall over. And it isn't over-safe. There's some stuff overhead that may come down at any moment. Still, if you want to look the place over, I can show you the way down."

  "Your people, I suppose," said Thorndyke, "have made a pretty thorough inspection. Has anything been discovered that throws any light on the cause or origin of the fire?"

  The officer shook his head. "No, sir," he replied. "Not a trace. There wouldn't be. The house was burned right out from the ground upwards. It might have been lighted in a dozen places at once and there would be nothing to show it. There isn't even part of a floor left. Do you think it is worth while to take the risk of going down?"

  "I think I should like to see what it looks like," said Thorndyke, adding, with a glance at me, "but there is no need for you and Polton to risk getting a brick or a chimney-pot on your heads."

  Of course, I refused to be left out of the adventure, while, as to Polton, wild horses would not have held him back.

  "Very well, gentlemen," said the officer, "you know your own business," and with this he opened the wicket and let us through to the brink of a yawning chasm which had once been the cellars. The remains of the charred beams had been mostly hauled up out of the way, but the floor of the cellars was still hidden by mountainous heaps of bricks, tiles, masses of charred wood and all-pervading white ash, amidst which three men in leather, brass-bound helmets were working with forks and shovels and with their thickly-gloved hands, removing the larger debris such as bricks, tiles, and fragments of boards and joists, while a couple of large sieves stood ready for the more minute examination of the dust and small residue.

  We made our way cautiously down the ladder, becoming aware of a very uncomfortable degree of warmth as we descended and noting the steam that still rose from the wet rubbish. One of the men stopped his work to look at us and offer a word of warning.

  "You'd better be careful where you are treading," said he. "Some of this stuff is still red underneath, and your boots aren't as thick as mine. You'd do best to stay on the ladder. You can see all there is to see from there, which isn't much. And mind you don't touch the walls with your hands."

  His advice seemed so reasonable that we adopted it, and seated ourselves on the rungs of the ladder and looked about the dismal cavern as well as we could through the clouds of dust and steam.

  "I see," said Thorndyke, addressing the shadowy figure nearest to us, "that you have a couple of sieves. Does that mean that you are going to sift all the small stuff?"

  "Yes," was the reply. "We are going to do this job a bit more thoroughly than usual on account of the dead man who was found here. The police want to find out all they can about him, and I think the insurance people have been asking questions. You see, the dead man seems to have been a stranger, and he hasn't been properly identified yet. And I think that the tenant of the house isn't quite satisfied that everything was according to Cocker."

  "And I suppose," said Thorndyke, "that whatever is found will be kept carefully and produced at the inquest?"

  "Yes. Everything that is recovered will be kept for the police to see. The larger stuff will be put into a box by itself, and the smaller things which may be important for purposes of identification are to be sifted out and put into a separate box so that they don't get mixed up with the other things and lost sight of. But our instructions are that nothing is to be thrown away until the police have seen it."

  "Then," Thorndyke suggested, "I presume that some police officer is watching the case. Do you happen to know who he is?"

  "We got our instructions from a detective sergeant—name of Wills, I think—but an inspector from Scotland Yard looked in for a few minutes this morning; a very pleasant-spoken gentleman he was. Looked more like a dissenting minister than a police officer."

  "That sounds rather like Blandy," I remarked; and Thorndyke agreed that the description seemed to fit our old acquaintance. And so it turned out; for when, having finished our survey of the cellars, we retired up the ladder and came out of the wicket, we found Sergeant Wills and Inspector Blandy in conference with the officer who had admitted us. On observing us, Blandy removed his hat with a flourish and made demonstrations of joy.

  "Well, now," he exclaimed, "this is very pleasant. Dr. Jervis, too, and Mr. Polton with photographic apparatus. Quite encouraging. No doubt there will be some crumbs of expert information which a simple police officer may pick up."

  Thorndyke smiled a little wearily. Like me, he found Blandy's fulsome manner rather tiresome. But he replied amiably enough: "I am sure, Inspector, we shall try to be mutually helpful, as we always do. But at present I suspect that we are in much the same position: just observers waiting to see whether anything significant comes into sight."

  "That is exactly my position," Blandy admitted. "Here is a rather queer-looking fire and a dead man in the ruins. Nothing definitely suspicious, but there are possibilities. There always are when you find a dead body in a burned house. You have had a look at the ruins, sir. Did you find anything suggestive in them?"

  "Nothing whatever," Thorndyke replied; "nor do I think anyone else will. The most blatant evidences of fire-raising would have been obliterated by such total destruction. But my inspection was merely formal. I have no expert knowledge of fires, but, as I am watching the case for the Griffin Company, I thought it best to view the ruins."

  "Then," said Blandy with a slightly disappointed air, "you are interested only in the house, not in the body?"

  "Officially, that is so; but, as the body is a factor in the case, I have made an examination of it, with Dr. Robertson, and if you want copies of the photographs that Polton has just taken at the mortuary, I will let you have them."

  "But how good of you!" exclaimed Blandy. "Certainly, Doctor, I should like to have them. You see," he added, "the fact that this dead man was not the ordinary resident makes one want to know all about him and how he came to be sleeping in that house. I shall be most grateful for the photographs; and if there is anything that I can do—"

  "There is," Thorndyke interrupted. "I learn that you are, very wisely, making a thorough examination of the debris and passing the ashes through a sieve."

  "I am," said Blandy, "and what is more, the sergeant and I propose to superintend the sifting. Nothing from a pin upwards will be thrown away until it has been thoroughly examined. I suppose you would like to see the things that we recover."

  "Yes," replied Thorndyke, "when you have finished with them, you might pass them on to me."

  Blandy regarded Thorndyke with a benevolent and slightly foxy smile, and, after a moment's pause, asked deferentially:

  "Was there anything in particular that you had in your mind, Doctor? I mean, any particular kind of article?"

  "No," Thorndyke replied. "I am in the same position as you are. There are all sorts of possibilities in the case. The body tells us practically nothing, so we can only pick up any stray facts that may be available, as you appear to be doing."

  This brought the interview to an end. Blandy and the sergeant disappeared through the wicket, and we went on our way homewards to see what luck Polton would have with his photographs.

  XII. LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY

  For the reader of this narrative, th
e inquest on the body that had been recovered from the burnt house will serve, as it did to me, to present the known facts of the case in a coherent and related group—a condition which had been made possible by the stable and mummified state of the corpse. For, as the body was now virtually incorruptible, it had been practicable to postpone the inquiry until the circumstances had been investigated by the police and the principal facts ascertained, at least sufficiently for the purpose of an inquest.

  When we arrived, the preliminaries had just been completed; the jury, having viewed the body, had taken their places and the coroner was about to open the proceedings. I need not report his brief address, which merely indicated the matters to be inquired into, but will proceed to the evidence. The first witness was Mr. Henry Budge, and he deposed as follows: "On the 19th of April, about a quarter to three in the morning, I started with my neighbour, James Place, to walk home from the house of a friend in Noel Street, where we had been spending the previous evening playing cards. My way home to Macclesfield Street lay through Billington Street, and Mr. Place walked that way with me. All the houses that we passed were in darkness with the exception of one in Billington Street in which we noticed a light showing through the Venetian blinds of two of the windows. Mr. Place pointed them out to me, remarking that we were not the only late birds. That would be about three o'clock."

  "Was the light like ordinary lamp, or electric light? the coroner asked.

  "No. It looked more like fire-light—rather red in colour and not very bright. Only just enough to make the windows visible."

  "Will you look at this photograph of the house, in which the windows are marked with numbers, and tell us which were the ones that were lighted up?"

  The witness looked at the photograph and replied that the lighted windows were those marked 8 and 9, adding that the one marked 7 seemed to be quite dark.

  "That," said the coroner, "is important as showing that the fire broke out in the bed-sitting room on the first floor. Number seven is the window of the store or workroom. Yes?"

  "Well, we didn't take any particular notice. We just walked on until we came to Little Pulteney Street, where Place lives, and there we stopped at a corner talking about the evening's play. Presently, Place began to sniff, and then I noticed a smell as if there was a chimney on fire. We both crossed the road and looked up over the tops of the houses, and then we could see smoke drifting across and we could just make out the chimney that it seemed to be coming from. We watched it for a few minutes, and then we saw some sparks rising and what looked like a reddish glow on the smoke. That made us both think of the house with the lighted window, and we started to walk back to have another look. By the time we got into Billington Street we could see the chimney quite plain with lots of sparks flying out of it, so we hurried along until we came opposite the house, and then there was no mistake about it. All three windows on the first floor were brightly lighted up, and in one of them the Venetian blinds had caught; and now small flames began to show from the top of the chimney. We consulted as to what we should do, and decided that Place should run off and find a policeman while I tried to knock up the people of the house. So Place ran off, and I crossed the road to the front door of the house at the side of the shop."

  "And did you make a considerable noise?"

  "I am afraid I didn't. There was no proper knocker, only one of these new things fixed to the letter-box. I struck that as hard as I could and I pressed the electric bell, but I couldn't tell whether it sounded or not. So I kept on with the silly little knocker."

  "Did you hear any sounds of any kind from within the house?"

  "Not a sign, though I listened at the letter-box."

  "How long were you there alone?"

  "Three or four minutes, I should think. Perhaps a little more. Then Place came running back with a policeman, who told me to go on knocking and ringing while he and Place roused up the people in the houses next door. But by this time the house was fairly alight, flames coming out of all three first-floor windows and a light beginning to show in the windows of the floor above. And then it got too hot for me to stay at the door, and I had to back away across the street."

  "Yes," said the coroner, glancing at the jury, "I think the witness has given us a very clear and vivid description of the way and the time at which the fire broke out. The rest of the story can be taken up by other witnesses when we have heard Mr. Place."

  The evidence of James Place, given quite briefly, merely confirmed and repeated that of Mr. Budge, with the addition of his description of his meeting with the policeman. Then the latter, Edwin Pearson by name, was called and, having been sworn, deposed that on the 19th of April at about 3.14 a.m. he was accosted at the corner of Meard Street, Soho, by the last witness, who informed him that there was a house on fire in Billington Street. He immediately ran off with Place to the nearest fire alarm and sent off the warning. That was at 3.16 a.m. by his watch. Then he and the last witness hurried off to Billington Street, where they found the house alight as Mr. Budge had described it, and had endeavoured to rouse the inmates of the burning house and the two adjoining houses, and were still doing so when the first of the engines arrived. That would be about 3.24 a.m.

  Here the narrative passed to the officer in charge of the engine which had been the first on the scene; and, when he had been sworn, the coroner remarked: "You realize that this is an inquiry into the death of the man whose body was found in the burnt house. The information that we want is that which is relevant to that death. Otherwise, the burning of the house is not specially our concern."

  "I understand that," replied the witness—whose name had been given as George Bell. "The principal fact bearing on the death of deceased is the extraordinary rapidity with which the fire spread, which is accounted for by the highly inflammable nature of the material that the house contained. If deceased was asleep when the fire broke out, he might have been suffocated by the fumes without waking up. A mass of burning cellulose would give off volumes of poisonous gas."

  "You have made an examination of the ruins. Did you find any evidence as to how the fire started?"

  "No. The ruins were carefully examined by me and by several other officers, but no clue to the origin of the fire could be discovered by any of us. There was nothing to go on. Apparently, the fire started in the first-floor rooms, and it would have been there that the clues would be found. But those rooms were completely destroyed. Even the floors had been carried away by the fall of the roof; so that there was nothing left to examine."

  "Does it appear to you that there is anything abnormal about this fire?"

  "No. All fires are, in a sense, abnormal. The only unusual feature in this case is the great quantity of inflammable material in the house. But the existence of that was known."

  "You find nothing to suggest a suspicion of fire-raising? The time, for instance, at which it broke out?"

  "As to the time, there is nothing remarkable or unusual in that. The beginning of a fire may be something which makes no show at first: a heap of soot behind a stove or a spark on some material which will smoulder but not burst into flame. It may go on smouldering for quite a long time before it reaches some material that is really inflammable. A spark on brown paper, for instance, might smoulder slowly for an hour or more; then, if the glowing part spread and came into contact with a celluloid film, there would be a burst of flame and the fire would be started; and in such a house as this, the place might be well alight in a matter of minutes."

  "Then you have no suspicion of incendiarism?"

  "No, there is nothing positive to suggest it. Of course, it can't be excluded. There is simply no evidence either way."

  "In what way might the fire have originated?"

  The witness raised his eyebrows in mild protest, but he answered the rather comprehensive question without comment.

  "There are a good many possibilities. It might have been started by the act of some person. That is possible in this case, as there was a person i
n the house, but there is no evidence that he started the fire. Then there is the electric wiring. Something might have occurred to occasion a short circuit—a mouse or a cockroach connecting two wires. It is extremely uncommon with modern wiring, and in this case, as the fuses were destroyed, we can't tell whether it happened or not. And then there is the possibility of spontaneous combustion. That does occur occasionally. A heap of engineer's cotton waste soaked with oil will sometimes start burning by itself. So will a big bin of sawdust or a large mass of saltpetre. But none of these things are known to have been in this house."

  "As to human agency. Suppose this person had been smoking in bed?"

  "Well, that is a dangerous habit; but, after all, it would be only guess-work in this case. I have no evidence that the man was smoking in bed. If there is such evidence, then the fire might have been started in that way, though, even then, it would not be a certainty."

  This concluded Mr. Bell's evidence, and, when he had been allowed to retire, the coroner commented: "As you will have observed, members of the jury, the expert evidence is to the effect that the cause of the fire is unknown; that is to say that none of the recognized signs of fire-raising were found. But possibly we may get some light on the matter from consideration of the circumstances. Perhaps we had better hear what Mr. Green can tell us before we take the medical evidence."

  Accordingly, Mr. Walter Green was called, and, having been sworn, deposed: "I am the lessee of the premises in which the fire occurred, and I carried on in them the business of a dealer in films of all kinds: kine films, X-ray films and the ordinary films for use in cameras. I do not manufacture but I am the agent for several manufacturers; and I also deal to some extent in projectors and cameras, both kine and ordinary. I always kept a large stock of films. Some were kept in the ground-floor shop for immediate sale, and the reserve stock was stored in the rooms on the second and third floors."