The incidents of my life while I was following the
Southeastern Circuit are no part of this
history, and I refer to this period merely by way of
marking the passage of time. Indeed, it was its
separateness, its detachment from the other and more personal
aspects of my life that specially commended it to me.
In the cheerful surroundings of the Bar Mess I could
forget the terrible experiences of the last few weeks,
and even in the grimmer and more suggestive
atmosphere of the courts, the close attention that the
proceedings demanded kept my mind in a state of
wholesome preoccupation.
Quite a considerable amount of work came my way,
and though most of the briefs were small—so small,
often, that I felt some compunction in taking them
from the more needy juniors—yet it was all experience
and what was more important just now, it was
occupation that kept my mind employed.
That was the great thing. To keep my mind busy
with matters that were not my personal concern. And
the intensity of my yearning for distraction was the
measure of the extent to which my waking thoughts
tended to be pervaded by the sinister surroundings of
Harold Monkhouse’s death. That dreadful event and
the mystery that encompassed it had shaken me more
than I had at first realized. Nor need this be a matter
for surprise. Harold Monkhouse had apparently been
murdered; at any rate that was the accepted view.
And who was the murderer? Evade the answer as I
would, the fact remained that the finger of suspicion
pointed at my own intimate friends—nay, even at me.
It is no wonder, then, that the mystery haunted me.
Murder has an ominous sound to any ears; but to a
lawyer practising in criminal courts the word has
connotations to which his daily experiences impart a
peculiarly hideous vividness and realism. Once, I
remember that, sitting in court, listening to the evidence
in a trial for murder, as my glance strayed to the dock
where the prisoner stood, watched and guarded like a
captured wild beast, the thought suddenly flashed on
me that it was actually possible—and to the police
actually probable—that thus might yet stand
Wallingford or Madeline, or even Barbara or myself.
It would have been possible for me to run home from
time to time at week-ends but I did not. There was
nothing that called for my presence in London and it
was better to stick close to my work. Still, I was not
quite cut off from my friends, for Barbara wrote
regularly and I had an occasional letter from Madeline. As
to Thorndyke, he was too busy to write unnecessary
letters and his peculiar circumstances made a secretary
impossible, so that I had from him no more than one
or two brief notes reporting the absence of any new
developments. Nor had Barbara much to tell excepting
that she had decided to let or sell the house in
Hilborough Square and take up her residence in a flat.
The decision did not surprise me. I should certainly
have done the same in her place; and I was only
faintly surprised when I learned that she proposed to
live alone and that Madeline had taken a small flat
near the school. The two women had always been
on excellent terms, but they were not specially devoted
to one another; and Barbara would now probably
pursue her own special interests. Of Wallingford I
learned only that, on the strength of his legacy he had
taken a set of rooms in the neighbourhood of Jermyn
Street and that his nerves did not seem to have
benefited by the change.
Such was the position of affairs when the Autumn
Assizes came to an end and I returned home. I
remember the occasion very vividly, as I have good
reason to do—indeed, I had better reason than I knew
at the time. It was a cold, dark, foggy evening, though
not densely foggy, and my taxicab was compelled to
crawl at an almost funereal pace (to the exasperation
of the driver) through the murky streets, though
the traffic was now beginning to thin out. We
approached the Temple from the east and eventually
entered by the Tudor Street Gate whence we crept
tentatively across King’s Bench Walk to the end of
Crown Office Row. As we passed Thorndyke’s
chambers I looked up and had a momentary glimpse of
lighted windows glimmering through the fog; then they
faded away and I looked out on the other side where
the great shadowy mass of Paper Buildings loomed
above us. A man was standing at the end of the narrow
passage that leads to Fig Tree Court—a tallish man
wearing a preposterous wide-brimmed hat and a long
overcoat with its collar turned up above his ears. I
glanced at him incuriously as we approached but had
no opportunity to inspect him more closely, if I had
wished—which I did not—for, as the cab stopped he
turned abruptly and walked away up the passage. The
suddenness of his retirement struck me as a little
odd and, having alighted from the cab, I stood for a
moment or two watching his receding figure. But he
soon disappeared in the foggy darkness, and I saw
him no more. By the time that I had paid my fare
and carried my portmanteau to Fig Tree Court, he
had probably passed out into Middle Temple Lane.
When I had let myself into my chambers, switched
on the light and shut the door, I looked round my little
domain with somewhat mixed feelings. It was very
silent and solitary. After the jovial Bar Mess and
the bright, frequented rooms of the hotels or the
excellent lodgings which I had just left, these chambers
struck me as just a shade desolate. But yet there were
compensations. A sense of peace and quiet pervaded
the place and all around were my household gods;
my familiar and beloved pictures, the little friendly
cabinet busts and statuettes, and, above all, the goodly
fellowship of books. And at this moment my glance
fell on the long range of my diaries and I noticed that
one of the series was absent. Not that there was
anything remarkable in that, since I had given Thorndyke
express permission to take them away to read. What
did surprise me a little was the date of the missing
volume. It was that of the year before Stella’s death.
As I noted this I was conscious of a faint sense of
annoyance. I had, it is true, given him the free use
of the diary, but only for purposes of reference. I had
hardly bargained for his perusal of the whole series
for his entertainment. However, it was of no
consequence. The diary enshrined no secrets. If I had, in
a way, emulated Pepys in respect of fulness, I had
taken warning from his indiscretions; nor, in fact,
was I quite so rich in the material of indiscreet records
as the vivacious Samuel.
I unpacked my portmanteau—the heavier impedimenta
were coming on by rail—lit the gas fire in my
bedroom, boiled a kettle of water, partly for a
comfortable wash and partly to fill a hotwater bottle
wherewith to warm the probably damp bed, and then,
still feeling a little like a cat in a strange house,
decided to walk along to Thorndyke’s chambers and
hear the news, if there were any.
The fog had grown appreciably denser when I turned
out of my entry, and, crossing the little quadrangle,
strode quickly along the narrow passage that leads to
the Terrace and King’s Bench Walk. I was approaching
the end of the passage when there came suddenly
into view a shadowy figure which I recognized at once
as that of the man whom I had seen when I arrived.
But again I had no opportunity for a close inspection,
for he had already heard my footsteps and he now
started to walk away rapidly in the direction of Mitre
Court. For a moment I was disposed to follow him,
and did, in fact, make a few quick steps towards
him—which seemed to cause him to mend his pace; but it
was not directly my business to deal with loiterers, and
I could have done nothing even if I had overtaken
him. Accordingly I changed my direction, and
crossing King’s Bench Walk, bore down on Thorndyke’s
entry.
As I approached the house I was a little disconcerted
to observe that there were now no lights in his
chambers, though the windows above were lighted. I ran
up the stairs, and finding the oak closed, pressed the
electric bell, which I could hear ringing on the floor
above. Almost immediately footsteps became audible
descending the stairs and were followed by the
appearance of a small gentleman whom I recognized as
Thorndyke’s assistant, artificer or familiar spirit, Mr.
Polton. He recognized me at the same moment and
greeted me with a smile that seemed to break out of
the corners of his eyes and spread in a network of
wrinkles over every part of his face; a sort of
compound smile inasmuch as every wrinkle seemed to have
a smile of its own.
“I hope, Mr. Polton,” said I, “that I haven’t missed
the doctor.”
“No, Sir,” he replied. “He is up in the laboratory.
We are just about to make a little experiment.”
“Well, I am in no hurry. Don’t disturb him. I
will wait until he is at liberty.”
“Unless, Sir,” he suggested, “you would like to come
up. Perhaps you would like to see the experiment.”
I closed with the offer gladly. I had never seen
Thorndyke’s laboratory and had often been somewhat
mystified as to what he did in it. Accordingly I
followed Mr. Polton up the stairs, at the top of which I
found Thorndyke waiting.
“I thought it was your voice, Mayfield,” said he,
shaking my hand. “You are just in time to see us
locate a mare’s nest. Come in and lend a hand.”
He led me into a large room around which I glanced
curiously and not without surprise. One side was
occupied by a huge copying camera, the other by a
joiner’s bench. A powerful back-geared lathe stood
against one window, a jeweller’s bench against the
other, and the walls were covered with shelves and
tool-racks, filled with all sorts of strange implements.
From this room we passed into another which I
recognized as a chemical laboratory, although most of the
apparatus in it was totally unfamiliar to me.
“I had no idea,” said I, “that the practice of Medical
Jurisprudence involved such an outfit as this. What
do you do with it all? The place is like a factory.”
“It is a factory,” he replied with a smile; “a place
where the raw material of scientific evidence is worked
up into the finished product suitable for use in courts
of law.”
“I don’t know that that conveys much to me,” said
I. “But you are going to perform some sort of
experiment; perhaps that will enlighten me.”
“Probably it will, to some extent,” he replied,
“though it is only a simple affair. We have a parcel
here which came by post this evening and we are going
to see what is in it before we open it.”
“The devil you are!” I exclaimed. “How in the
name of Fortune are you going to do that?”
“We shall examine it by means of the X-rays.”
“But why? Why not open it and find out what is
in it in a reasonable way?”
Thorndyke chuckled softly. “We have had our
little experiences, Mayfield, and we have grown wary.
We don’t open strange parcels nowadays until we are
sure that we are not dealing with a ‘Greek gift’ of some
sort. That is what we are going to ascertain now in
respect of this.”
He picked up from the bench a parcel about the
size of an ordinary cigar-box and held it out for my
inspection. “The overwhelming probabilities are,”
he continued, “that this is a perfectly innocent package.
But we don’t know. I am not expecting any such
parcel and there are certain peculiarities about this one
that attract one’s attention. You notice that the
entire address is in rough Roman capitals—what are
commonly called ‘block letters.’ That is probably for
the sake of distinctness; but it might possibly be done
to avoid a recognizable handwriting or a possibly
traceable typewriter. Then you notice that it is
addressed to ‘Dr. Thorndyke’ and conspicuously endorsed
‘personal.’ Now, that is really a little odd. One
understands the object of marking a letter ‘personal’—to
guard against its being opened and read by the
wrong person. But what does it matter who opens a
parcel?”
“I can’t imagine why it should matter,” I admitted
without much conviction, “but I don’t see anything in
the unnecessary addition that need excite suspicion.
Do you?”
“Perhaps not; but you observe that the sender was
apparently anxious that the parcel should be opened by
a particular person.”
I shrugged my shoulders. The whole proceeding
and the reasons given for it struck me as verging on
farce. “Do you go through these formalities with
every parcel that you receive?” I asked.
“No,” he replied. “Only with those that are
unexpected or offer no evidence as to their origin. But
we are pretty careful. As I said just now, we have
had our experiences. One of them was a box which,
on being opened, discharged volumes of poisonous
gas.”
“The deuce!” I exclaimed, rather startled out of
my scepticism and viewing the parcel with a new-born
respect, not unmixed with apprehension. “Then this
thing may actually be an infernal machine!
Confound it all, Thorndyke! Supposing it should have a
clockwork detonator, ticking away while we are
talking. Hadn’t you better get on with the X-rays?”
He chuckled at my sudden change of attitude. “It
is all right, Mayfield. There is no clockwork. I tried
it with the microphone as soon as it arrived. We
always do that. And, of course, it is a thousand to one
that it is just an innocent parcel. But we will just
make sure and then I shall be at liberty for a chat
with you.”
He led the way to a staircase leading to the floor
above where I was introduced to a large, bare room
surrounded by long benches or tables occupied by
various uncanny-looking apparatus. As soon as we
entered, he placed the parcel on a raised stand while
Polton turned a switch connected with a great coil; the
immediate result of which was a peculiar, high-pitched,
humming sound as if a gigantic mosquito had got into
the room. At the same moment a glass globe that
was supported on an arm behind the parcel became
filled with green light and displayed a bright red spot
in its interior.
“This is a necromantic sort of business, Thorndyke,”
said I, “only you and Mr. Polton aren’t dressed for
the part. You ought to have tall, pointed caps and
gowns covered with cabalistic signs. What is that
queer humming noise?”
“That is the interrupter,” he replied. “The green
bulb is the Crookes’s tube and the little red-hot disc
inside it is the anti-cathode. I will tell you about them
presently. That framed plate that Polton has is the
fluorescent screen. It intercepts the X-rays and makes
them visible. You shall see, when Polton has finished
his inspection.”
I watched Polton—who had taken the opportunity
to get the first innings—holding the screen between his
face and the parcel. After a few moments’
inspection he turned the parcel over on its side and once
more raised the screen, gazing at it with an expression
of the most intense interest. Suddenly he turned to
Thorndyke with a smile of perfectly incredible
wrinkliness and, without a word, handed him the screen;
which he held up for a few seconds and then silently
passed to me.
I had never used a fluorescent screen before and I
must confess that I found the experience most uncanny.
As I raised it before the parcel behind which was the
glowing green bulb, the parcel became invisible but
in its place appeared the shadow of a pistol the muzzle
of which seemed to be inserted into a jar. There were
some other, smaller shadows, of which I could make
nothing, but which seemed to be floating in the air.
“Better not look too long, Mayfield,” said
Thorndyke. “X-rays are unwholesome things. We will
take a photograph and then we can study the details
at our leisure; though it is all pretty obvious.”
“It isn’t to me,” said I. “There is a pistol and
what looks like a jar. Do you take it that they are
parts of an infernal machine?”
“I suppose,” he replied, “we must dignify it with
that name. What do you say, Polton?”
“I should call it a booby-trap, Sir,” was the reply.
“What you might expect from a mischievous boy of
ten—rather backward for his age.”
Thorndyke laughed. “Listen to the artificer,” said
he, “and observe how his mechanical soul is offended
by an inefficient and unmechanical attempt to blow us
all up. But we won’t take the inefficiency too much for
granted. Let us have a photograph and then we can
get to work with safety.”
It seemed that this part also of the procedure was
already provided for in the form of a large black
envelope which Polton produced from a drawer and
began forthwith to adjust in contact with the parcel;
in fact the appearance of preparedness was so striking
that I remarked:
“This looks like part of a regular routine. It must
take up a lot of your time.”
“As a matter of fact,” he replied, “we don’t often
have to do this. I don’t receive many parcels and
of those that are delivered, the immense majority come
from known sources and are accompanied by letters of
advice. It is only the strange and questionable
packages that we examine with the X-rays. Of course, this
one was suspect at a glance with that disguised
handwriting and the special direction as to who should
open it.”
“Yes, I see that now. But it must be rather
uncomfortable to live in constant expectation of having
bombs or poison-gas handed in by the postman.”
“It isn’t as bad as that,” said he. “The thing has
happened only three or four times in the whole of my
experience. The first gift of the kind was a poisoned
cigar, which I fortunately detected and which served
as a very useful warning. Since then I have kept my
weather eyelid lifting, as the mariners express it.”
“But don’t you find it rather wearing to be
constantly on the look-out for some murderous attack?”
“Not at all,” he answered with a laugh. “It rather
adds to the zest of life. Besides, you see, Mayfield,
that on the rare occasions when these trifles come my
way, they are so extremely helpful.”
“Helpful!” I repeated. “In the Lord’s name, how?”
“In a number of ways. Consider my position,
Mayfield. I am not like an Italian or Russian politician
who may have scores of murderous enemies. I am a
lawyer and an investigator of crime. Whoever wants
to get rid of me has something to fear from me; but
at any given time, there will not be more than one
or two of such persons. Consequently, when I receive
a gift such as the present one, it conveys to me certain
items of information. Thus it informs me that some
one is becoming alarmed by some proceedings on my
part. That is a very valuable piece of information,
for it tells me that some one of my inquiries is at least
proceeding along the right lines. It is virtually an
admission that I have made, or am in the way of
making a point. A little consideration of the cases that
I have in hand will probably suggest the identity of
the sender. But on this question the thing itself will,
in most cases yield quite useful information as well
as telling us a good deal about the personality of the
sender. Take the present case. You heard Polton’s
contemptuous observations on the crudity of the
device. Evidently the person who sent this is not an
engineer or mechanician of any kind. There is an
obvious ignorance of mechanism; and yet there is a
certain simple ingenuity. The thing is, in fact, as Polton
said, on the level of a schoolboy’s booby-trap. You
must see that if we had in view two or more possible
senders, these facts might enable us to exclude one and
select another. But here is Polton with the
photograph. Now we can consider the mechanism at our
leisure.”
As he spoke, Polton deposited on the bench a large
porcelain dish or tray in which was a very odd-looking
photograph; for the whole of it was jet-black excepting
the pistol, the jar, the hinges, and a small, elongated
spot, which all stood out in clear, white silhouette.
“Why,” I exclaimed as I stooped over it, “that is a
muzzle-loading pistol!”
“Yes,” Thorndyke agreed, “and a pocket pistol, as
you can tell by the absence of a trigger-guard. The
trigger is probably hinged and folds forward into a
recess. I daresay you know the kind of thing. They
were usually rather pretty little weapons—and useful,
too, for you could carry one easily in your waistcoat
pocket. They had octagon barrels, which screwed off
for loading, and the butts were often quite handsomely
ornamented with silver mounts. They were usually
sent out by the gunsmiths in little baize-lined
mahogany cases with compartments for a little powder-flask
and a supply of bullets.”
“I wonder why he used a muzzle-loader?” said I.
“Probably because he had it. It answers the
purpose as well as a modern weapon, and, as it was
probably made more than a hundred years ago, it would be
useless to go round the trade enquiring as to recent
purchases.”
“Yes, it was safer to use an old pistol than to buy
a new one and leave possible tracks. But how does the
thing work? I can see that the hammer is at full
cock and that there is a cap on the nipple. But what
fires the pistol?”
“Apparently a piece of string, which hasn’t come
out in the photograph except, faintly, just above that
small mark—string is not dense enough to throw a
shadow at the full exposure—but you see, about an
inch behind the trigger, an elongated shadow. That is
probably a screw-eye seen end-ways. The string is
tied to the trigger, passed through the screw-eye and
fastened to the lid of the box. I don’t see how. There
is no metal fastening, and you see that the lid is not
screwed or nailed down. As to how it works; you open
the lid firmly; that pulls the string tight; that pulls
back the trigger and fires the pistol into the jar, which
is presumably full of some explosive; the jar explodes
and—up goes the donkey. There is a noble simplicity
about the whole thing. How do you propose to
open it, Polton?”
“I think, Sir,” replied the latter, “we had better get
the paper off and have a look at the box.”
“Very well,” said Thorndyke, “but don’t take anything
for granted. Make sure that the paper isn’t part
of the joke.”
I watched Polton with intense—and far from
impersonal—interest, wishing only that I could have
observed him from a somewhat greater distance. But
for all his contempt for the “booby-trap,” he took no
unnecessary risks. First, with a pair of scissors, he
cut out a piece at the back and enlarged the opening so
that he could peer in and inspect the top of the lid.
When he had made sure that there were no pitfalls, he
ran the scissors round the top and exposed the box,
which he carefully lifted out of the remainder of the
wrapping and laid down tenderly on the bench. It
was a cigar-box of the flat type and presented nothing
remarkable excepting that the lid, instead of being
nailed or pinned down, was secured by a number of
strips of stout adhesive paper, and bore, near the
middle, a large spot of sealing-wax.
“That paper binding is quite a happy thought,”
remarked Thorndyke, “though it was probably put on
because our friend was afraid to knock in nails. But
it would be quite effective. An impatient man would
cut through the front strips and then wrench the lid
open. I think that blob of sealing-wax answers our
question about the fastening of the string. The end of
it was probably drawn through a bradawl hole in the
lid and fixed with sealing wax. But it must have
been an anxious business drawing it just tight enough
and not too tight. I suggest, Polton, that an inch
and-a-half centre-bit hole just below and to the right of the
sealing-wax would enable us to cut the string. But
you had better try it with the photograph first.”
Polton picked the wet photograph out of the dish
and carefully laid it on the lid of the box, adjusting
it so that the shadows of the hinges were opposite the
actual hinges. Then with a marking-awl he pricked
through the shadow of the screw-eye, and again about
two inches to the right and below it.
“You are quite right, Sir,” said he as he removed
the photograph and inspected the lid of the box. “The
middle of the wax is exactly over the screw-eye. I’ll
just get the centre-bit.”
He bustled away down the stairs and returned in
less than a minute with a brace and a large centre-bit,
the point of which he inserted into the second
awl-hole. Then, as Thorndyke grasped the box (and I
stepped back a pace or two), he turned the brace
lightly and steadily, stopping now and again to clear
away the chips and examine the deepening hole. A
dozen turns carried the bit through the thin lid and the
remaining disc of wood was driven into the interior
of the box. As soon as the hole was clear, he
cautiously inserted a dentist’s mirror, which he had
brought up in his pocket, and with its aid examined the
inside of the lid.
“I can see the string, Sir,” he reported; “a bit of
common white twine and it looks quite slack. I could
reach it easily with a small pair of scissors.”
He handed the mirror to Thorndyke, who, having
confirmed his observations, produced a pair of surgical
scissors from his pocket. These Polton cautiously
inserted into the opening, and as he closed them there
was an audible snip. Then he slowly withdrew them
and again inserted the mirror.
“It’s all right,” said he. “The string is cut clean
through. I think we can open the lid now.” With a
sharp penknife he cut through the paper binding-strips
and then, grasping the front of the lid, continued:
“Now for it. Perhaps you two gentlemen had better
stand a bit farther back, in case of accidents.”
I thought the suggestion an excellent one, but as
Thorndyke made no move, I had not the moral courage
to adopt it. Nevertheless, I watched Polton’s
proceedings with my heart in my mouth. Very slowly and
gently did that cunning artificer raise the lid until it
had opened some two inches, when he stooped and
peered in. Then, with the cheerful announcement that
it was “all clear,” he boldly turned it right back.
Of course, the photograph had shown us, in general,
what to expect, but there were certain details that had
not been represented. For instance, both the pistol
and the jar were securely wedged between pieces of
cork—sections of wine-bottle corks, apparently—glued
to the bottom of the box.
“How is it,” I asked, “that those corks did not
appear in the photograph?”
“I think there is a faint indication of them,”
Thorndyke replied; “but Polton gave a rather full exposure.
If you want to show bodies of such low density as
corks, you have to give a specially short exposure and
cut short the development, too. But I expect Polton
saw them when he was developing the picture, didn’t
you, Polton?”
“Yes,” the latter replied; “they were quite distinct
at one time, but then I developed up to get the pistol
out clear.”
While these explanations were being given, Polton
proceeded methodically to “draw the teeth” of the
infernal apparatus. First, he cut a little wedge of
cork which he pushed in between the threatening
hammer and the nipple and having thus fixed the former he
quietly removed the percussion-cap from the latter;
on which I drew a deep breath of relief. He next
wrenched away one of the corks and was then able to
withdraw the pistol from the jar and lift it out of the
box. I took it from him and examined it curiously,
not a little interested to note how completely it
corresponded with Thorndyke’s description. It had a
blued octagon barrel, a folding trigger which fitted
snugly into a recess, a richly-engraved lock-plate and
an ebony butt, decorated with numbers of tiny silver
studs and a little lozenge-shaped scutcheon-plate on
which a monogram had been engraved in minute letters,
which, however, had been so thoroughly scraped out
that I was unable to make out or even to guess what
the letters had been.
My investigations were cut short by Thorndyke,
who, having slipped on a pair of rubber gloves now
took the pistol from me, remarking: “You haven’t
touched the barrel, I think, Mayfield?”
“No,” I answered; “but why do you ask?”
“Because we shall go over it and the jar for finger-prints.
Not that they will be much use for tracing the
sender of this present, but they will be valuable
corroboration if we catch him by other means; for
whoever sent this certainly had a guilty conscience.”
With this he delicately lifted out the jar—a small,
dark-brown stoneware vessel such as is used as a
container for the choicer kinds of condiments—and
inverted it over a sheet of paper, upon which its
contents, some two or three tablespoonfuls of black
powder, descended and formed a small heap.
“Not a very formidable charge,” Thorndyke
remarked, looking at it with a smile.
“Formidable!” repeated Polton. “Why, it wouldn’t
have hurt a fly! Common black powder such as old
women use to blow out the copper flues. He must be
an innocent, this fellow—if it is a he,” he added
reflectively.
Polton’s proviso suddenly recalled to my mind the
man whom I had seen lurking at the corner of Fig Tree
Court. It was hardly possible to avoid connecting
him with the mysterious parcel, as Thorndyke agreed
when I had described the incident.
“Yes,” exclaimed Polton, “of course. He was
waiting to hear the explosion. It is a pity you didn’t
mention it sooner, Sir. But he may be waiting there
still. Hadn’t I better run across and see?”
“And suppose he is there still,” said Thorndyke.
“What would you propose to do?”
“I should just pop up to the lodge and tell the
porter to bring a policeman down. Why we should
have him red-handed.”
Thorndyke regarded his henchman with an
indulgent smile. “Your handicraft, Polton,” said he, “is
better than your law. You can’t arrest a man without
a warrant unless he is doing something unlawful.
This man was simply standing at the corner of Fig
Tree Court.”
“But,” protested Polton, “isn’t it unlawful to send
infernal machines by parcel post?”
“Undoubtedly it is,” Thorndyke admitted, “but we
haven’t a particle of evidence that this man has any
connection with the parcel or with us. He may have
been waiting there to meet a friend.”
“He may, of course,” said I, “but seeing that he ran
off like a lamp-lighter on both the occasions when I
appeared on the scene, I should suspect that he was
there for no good. And I strongly suspect him of
having some connection with this precious parcel.”
“So do I,” said Thorndyke. “As a matter of fact,
I have once or twice, lately, met a man answering to
your description, loitering about King’s Bench Walk
in the evening. But I think it much better not to
appear to notice him. Let himself think himself
unobserved and presently he will do something definite that
will enable us to take action. And remember that the
more thoroughly he commits himself the more
valuable his conduct will be as indirect evidence on
certain other matters.”
I was amused at the way in which Thorndyke sank
all considerations of personal safety in the single
purpose of pursuing his investigations to a successful
issue. He was the typical enthusiast. The possibility
that this unknown person might shoot at him from
some ambush, he would, I suspected, have welcomed
as offering the chance to seize the aggressor and compel
him to disclose his motives. Also, I had a shrewd
suspicion that he knew or guessed who the man was
and was anxious to avoid alarming him.
“Well,” he said when he had replaced the pistol and
the empty jar in the box and closed the latter, “I think
we have finished for the present. The further
examination of these interesting trifles can be postponed
until to-morrow. Shall we go downstairs and talk over
the news?”
“It is getting rather late,” said I, “but there is time
for a little chat, though, as to news, they will have
to come from you, for I have nothing to tell.”
We went down to the sitting room where, when he
had locked up the box, we took each an armchair and
filled our pipes.
“So you have no news of any kind?” said he.
“No; excepting that the Hilborough Square
household has been broken up and the inmates scattered into
various flats.”
“Then the house is now empty?” said he, with an
appearance of some interest.
“Yes, and likely to remain so with this gruesome
story attached to it. I suppose I shall have to make
a survey of the premises with a view to having them
put in repair.”
“When you do,” said he, “I should like to go with
you and look over the house.”
“But it is all dismantled. Everything has been
cleared out. You will find nothing there but empty
rooms and a litter of discarded rubbish.”
“Never mind,” said he. “I have occasionally picked
up some quite useful information from empty rooms
and discarded rubbish. Do you know if the police
have examined the house?”
“I believe not. At any rate, nothing has been said
to me to that effect.”
“So much the better,” said he. “Can we fix a time
for our visit?”
“It can’t be to-morrow,” said I, “because I must see
Barbara and get the keys if she has them. Would the
day after to-morrow do, after lunch?”
“Perfectly,” he replied. “Come and lunch with me;
and, by the way, Mayfield, it would be best not to
mention to any one that I am coming with you, and I
wouldn’t say anything about this parcel.”
I looked at him with sudden suspicion, recalling
Wallingford’s observations on the subject of mare’s
nests. “But, my dear Thorndyke!” I exclaimed, “you
don’t surely associate that parcel with any of the
inmates of that house!”
“I don’t associate it with any particular person,”
he replied. “I know only what you know; that it was
sent by some one to whom my existence is, for some
reason, undesirable, and whose personality is to some
extent indicated by the peculiarities of the thing itself.”
“What peculiarities do you mean?”
“Well,” he replied, “there is the nature and purpose
of the thing. It is an appliance for killing a human
being. That purpose implies either a very strong
motive or a very light estimate of the value of human
life. Then, as we have said, the sender is fairly
ingenious but yet quite unmechanical and apparently
unprovided with the common tools which ordinary men
possess and are more or less able to use. You notice
that the combination of ingenuity with non-possession
of tools is a rather unusual one.”
“How do you infer that the sender possessed no
tools?”
“From the fact that none were used, and that such
materials were employed as required no tools, though
these were not the most suitable materials. For
instance, common twine was used to pull the trigger,
though it is a bad material by reason of its tendency
to stretch. But it can be cut with a knife or a pair of
scissors, whereas wire, which was the really suitable
material, requires cutting pliers to divide it. Again,
there were the corks. They were really not very safe,
for their weakness and their resiliency might have led
to disaster in the event of a specially heavy jerk in
transit. A man who possessed no more than a common
keyhole saw, or a hand-saw and a chisel or two, would
have roughly shaped up one or two blocks of wood to
fit the pistol and jar, which would have made the thing
perfectly secure. If he had possessed a glue-pot, he
would not have used seccotine. But every one has
waste corks, and they can be trimmed to shape with an
ordinary dinner-knife; and seccotine can be bought
at any stationer’s. But, to return to what we were
saying. I had no special precautions in my mind. I
suggested that we should keep our own counsel merely
on the general principle that it is always best to keep
one’s own counsel. One may make a confidence to an
entirely suitable person; but who can say that that
person may not, in his or her turn, make a confidence?
If we keep our knowledge strictly to ourselves we
know exactly how we stand, and that if there has been
any leakage, it had been from some other source. But
I need not platitudinize to an experienced and learned
counsel.”
I grinned appreciatively at the neat finish; for
“experienced counsel” as I certainly was not, I was at
least able to realize, with secret approval, how adroitly
Thorndyke had eluded my leading question. And at
that I left it, enquiring in my turn:
“I suppose nothing of interest has transpired since
I have been away?”
“Very little. There is one item of news, but that
can hardly be said to have ‘transpired’ unless you can
associate the process of transpiration with a
suction-pump. Superintendent Miller took my advice and
applied the suctorial method to Wallingford with results
of which he possibly exaggerates the importance. He
tells me—this is, of course, in the strictest
confidence—that under pressure, Wallingford made a clean
breast of the cocaine and morphine business. He
admitted that he had obtained those drugs fraudulently
by forging an order in Dimsdale’s name, written on
Dimsdale’s headed note-paper, to the wholesale
druggists to deliver to bearer the drugs mentioned. He
had possessed himself of the note-paper at the time
when he was working at the account books in
Dimsdale’s surgery.”
“But how was it that Dimsdale did not notice what
had happened when the accounts were sent in?”
“No accounts were ever sent in. The druggists
whom Wallingford patronized were not those with
whom Dimsdale had an account. The order stated, in
every case, that bearer would pay cash.”
“Quite an ingenious little plan of Wallingford’s,”
I remarked. “It is more than I should have given him
credit for. And you say that Miller attaches undue
importance to this discovery. I am not surprised at
that. But why do you think he exaggerates its
importance?”
Thorndyke regarded me with a quizzical smile.
“Because,” he answered, “Miller’s previous experiences
have been repeated. There has been another discovery.
It has transpired that Miss Norris also had dealings
with a wholesale druggist. But in her case there
was no fraud or irregularity. The druggist with whom
she dealt was the one who used to supply her father
with materia medica and to whom she was well
known.”
“Then, in that case, I suppose she had an account
with him?”
“No, she did not. She also paid cash. Her
purchases were only occasional and on quite a small
scale; too small to justify an account.”
“Has she made any statement as to what she wanted
the drugs for?”
“She denies that she ever purchased drugs, in the
usual sense, that is substances having medicinal
properties. Her purchases were, according to her
statement, confined to such pharmaceutical and chemical
materials as were required for purposes of instruction
in her classes. Which is perfectly plausible, for, as
you know, academic cookery is a rather different thing
from the cookery of the kitchen.”
“Yes, I know that she had some materials in her
cupboard that I shouldn’t have associated with
cookery and I should accept her statement without
hesitation. In fact, the discovery seems to me to be of no
significance at all.”
“Probably you are right,” said he; “but the point is
that, in a legal sense, it confuses the issues hopelessly.
In her case, as in Wallingford’s, materials have been
purchased from a druggist, and, as no record of those
purchases has been kept, it is impossible to say what
those materials were. Probably they were harmless,
but it cannot be proved that they were. The effect is
that the evidential value of Wallingford’s admission is
discounted by the fact that there was another person
who is known to have purchased materials some of
which may have been poisons.”
“Yes,” said I, “that is obvious enough. But doesn’t
it strike you, Thorndyke, that all this is just a lot of
futile logic-chopping such as you might hear at a
debating club? I can’t take it seriously. You don’t
imagine that either of these two persons murdered
Harold Monkhouse, do you? I certainly don’t; and I
can’t believe Miller does.”
“It doesn’t matter very much what he believes, or,
for that matter, what any of us believe. ‘He discovers
who proves.’ Up to the present, none of us has proved
anything, and my impression is that Miller is
becoming a little discouraged. He is a genius in
following up clues. But where there are no clues to
follow up, the best of detectives is rather stranded.”
“By the way,” said I, “did you pick up anything
from my diary that threw any light on the mystery?”
“Very little,” he replied; “in fact nothing that gets
us any farther. I was able to confirm our belief that
Monkhouse’s attacks of severe illness coincided with
his wife’s absence from home. But that doesn’t help
us much. It merely indicates, as we had already
observed, that the poisoner was so placed that his or her
activities could not be carried on when the wife was at
home. But I must compliment you on your diary,
Mayfield. It is quite a fascinating work; so much so
that I have been tempted to encroach a little on your
kindness. The narrative of the last three years was so
interesting that it lured me on to the antecedents that
led up to them. It reads like a novel.”
“How much of it have you read?” I asked, my faint
resentment completely extinguished by his
appreciation.
“Six volumes,” he replied, “including the one that I
have just borrowed. I began by reading the last three
years for the purposes of our inquiry, and then I
ventured to go back another three years for the interest
of tracing the more remote causation of recent events.
I hope I have not presumed too much on the liberty
that you were kind enough to give me.”
“Not at all,” I replied, heartily. “I am only
surprised that a man as much occupied as you are should
have been willing to waste your time on the reading
of what is, after all, but a trivial and diffuse
autobiography.”
“I have not wasted my time, Mayfield,” said he. “If
it is true that ‘the proper study of mankind is man,’
how much more true is it of that variety of mankind
that wears the wig and gown and pleads in Court. It
seems to me that to lawyers like ourselves whose
professional lives are largely occupied with the study of
motives of human actions and with the actions themselves
viewed in the light of their antecedents and their
consequences, nothing can be more instructive than a
full, consecutive diary in which, over a period of years,
events may be watched growing out of those that went
before and in their turn developing their consequences
and elucidating the motives of the actors.
Such a diary is a synopsis of human life.”
I laughed as I rose to depart. “It seems,” said I,
“that I wrought better than I knew; in fact I am
disposed, like Pendennis, to regard myself with respectful
astonishment. But perhaps I had better not be too
puffed up. It may be that I am, after all, no more
than a sort of literary Strasburg goose; an unconscious
provider of the food of the gods.”
Thorndyke laughed in his turn and escorted me
down the stairs to the entry where we stood for a few
moments looking out into the fog.
“It seems thicker than ever,” said he. “However,
you can’t miss your way. But keep a look-out as you
go, in case our friend is still waiting at the corner.
Good night!”
I returned his farewell and plunged into the fog,
steering for the corner of the library, and was so
fortunate as to strike the wall within a few yards of it.
From thence I felt my way without difficulty to the
Terrace where I halted for a moment to look about and
listen; and as there was no sign, visible or audible of
any loiterer at the corner, I groped my way into the
passage and so home to my chambers without meeting
a single human creature.
