A silent witness
“I understand that something was said about some assay work in
connection with certain--or rather uncertain--mineral concessions. But
of course that was no affair of Highfield’s. His business was to get
the rent, and, having got it, his interest in Mr. Gill lapsed. But you
see the bearing of these facts. Gill’s connection with these works
does, as Jervis says, look a little queer, especially after what has
happened. But, seeing that he made his arrangements four months ago,
at a time when Jardine had no thought of coming into this
neighbourhood, it is clear that those arrangements could have no
connection with this particular attempt. Gill obviously did not take
those works with the intention of murdering Jardine. He took them for
some other purpose; quite possibly the purpose that he stated. And we
must not assume that Gill was the perpetrator of this outrage at all.
Could you identify the man who let you in?”
“No,” I replied. “Certainly not. I hardly saw him at all. The place
was pitch dark, and whenever he struck a match he was either behind me
or in front with his back to me. The only thing I could make out about
him was that he had some sort of coarse wash-leather gloves on.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Thorndyke. “Then we were right, Jervis.”
I looked in surprise from one to the other of my friends, and was on
the point of asking Thorndyke what he meant, when he continued.
“That closes another track. If you couldn’t identify the man, a
description of Gill, if we could obtain it, would not help us. We must
begin at some other point.”
“It seems to me,” said Jervis, “that we haven’t much to go upon at
all.”
“We haven’t much,” agreed Thorndyke, “but still we have something. We
find that the motive of this attempt was apparently not robbery, nor
the diversion of inheritable property, nor personal enmity. It must
have been premeditated, but yet it could not have been planned more
than a week in advance, for Jardine has only been in this
neighbourhood for that time, and his coming was unexpected. The
appearances very strongly suggest that the motive, whatever it was,
has been generated recently and probably locally. So we had better
make a start from that assumption.”
“Is it possible,” Jervis suggested, “that this man Gill may be some
sort of anarchist crank? Or a sort of thug? It is actually conceivable
that he may have taken these premises for the express purpose of
having a secure place where he could perpetrate murders and conceal
the bodies.”
“It is quite conceivable,” said Thorndyke, “and when we go and look
over the works--which I propose we do presently--we may as well bear
the possibility in mind. But it is merely a speculative suggestion. To
return to your affairs, Jardine, has your stay here been quite
uneventful?”
“Perfectly,” I replied.
“No unusual or obscure cases? No injuries?”
“No, nothing out of the common,” I replied.
“No deaths?”
“One. But the man died before I took over.”
“Nothing unusual about that? Everything quite regular?”
“Oh, perfectly,” I answered; and then with a sudden qualm, as I
recalled Batson’s uncertainty as to the actual cause of death, I
added, “At least I hope so.”
“You hope so?” queried Thorndyke.
“Yes. Because it’s too late to go into the question now. The man was
cremated.”
At this a singular silence fell. Both my friends seemed to stiffen in
their chairs, and both looked at me silently but very attentively.
Then Thorndyke asked, “Did you have anything to do with that case?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I went with Batson to examine the body.”
“And are you perfectly satisfied that everything was as it should be?”
I was on the point of saying “yes.” And then suddenly there arose
before my eyes the vision of Mrs. Samway looking at me over Batson’s
shoulder with that strange, inscrutable expression. And again, I
recalled her unexplained anger and then her sudden change of mood. It
had impressed me uncomfortably at the time, and it impressed me
uncomfortably now.
“I don’t know that I am, now that I come to think it over,” I replied.
“Why not?” asked Thorndyke.
“Well,” I said, a little hesitatingly, “to begin with, I don’t think
the cause of death was quite clear. Batson couldn’t find anything
definite when he attended the man, and I know that the patient’s death
came as quite a surprise.”
“But surely,” exclaimed Thorndyke, “he took some measures to find out
the cause of death!”
“He didn’t. He assumed that it was a case of fatty heart and certified
it as ‘Morbus cordis’; and a man named O’Connor confirmed his
certificate after examining the body.”
“After merely inspecting the exterior?”
“Yes.”
My two friends looked at one another significantly, and Thorndyke
remarked, with a disapproving shake of the head:
“And this is what all the elaborate precautions amount to in practice.
A case which might have been one of the crudest and baldest poisoning
gets passed with hardly a pretence of scrutiny. And so it will always
be. Routine precautions against the unsuspected are no precautions at
all. That is the danger of cremation. It restores to the poisoner the
security that he enjoyed in the old days when there were no such
sciences as toxicology and organic chemistry, when it was impossible
for him to be tripped up by an exhumation and an analysis.”
“You don’t think it likely that this was a case of poisoning, do you?”
I asked.
“I know nothing about the case,” he replied, “excepting that there was
gross neglect in issuing the certificates. What do you think about it
yourself? Looking back at the case, is there anything besides the
uncertainty that strikes you as unsatisfactory?”
I hesitated, and again the figure of Mrs. Samway rose before me with
that strange, baleful look in her eyes. Finally I described the
incident to my colleagues.
“Mrs. Samway!” exclaimed Jervis. “Is that the handsome Lucrezia Borgia
lady with the mongoose eyes who called here this morning? By Jove!
Jardine, you are giving me the creeps.”
“I understand,” said Thorndyke, “that you were making as if to feel
the dead man’s pulse?”
“Yes.”
“There is no doubt, I suppose, that he really was dead?”
“None whatever. He was as cold as a fish, and, besides there was quite
distinct _rigor mortis_.”
“That seems conclusive enough,” said Thorndyke, but he continued to
gaze at his open note-book with a profoundly speculative and
thoughtful expression.
“It certainly looks,” said Jervis, “as if Jardine had either seen
something or had been about to see something that he was not wanted to
see; and the question is what that something could have been.”
“Yes,” I agreed, gloomily; “that is what I have just been asking
myself. There might have been a wound or injury of some kind, or there
might have been the marks of a hypodermic needle on the wrist. I wish
I knew what she meant by looking at me in that way.”
“Well,” said Jervis, “we shall never know now. The grave gives up its
secrets now and again, but the crematorium furnace never. Whether he
died naturally or was murdered, Mr. Maddock is now a little heap of
ashes with no message for anyone this side of the Day of Judgment.”
Thorndyke looked up. “That seems to be so,” said he, “and really, we
have no substantial reasons for thinking that there was anything
wrong. So we come back to your own affairs, Jardine, and the question
is, What would you prefer to do?”
“In what respect?” I asked.
“In regard to this attempt on your life. You have told us that you
have not an enemy in the world. But it appears as if you had; and a
very dangerous one, too. Now would you like to put the case into the
hands of the police, or would you rather that we kept our own counsel
and looked into it ourselves?”
“I should like you to decide that,” said I.
“The reason that I ask,” said Thorndyke, “is this: the machinery of
the police is adjusted to professional crime--burglary, coining,
forgery, and so forth--and their methods are mostly based on
‘information received.’ The professional ‘crook’ is generally well
known to the police, and, when wanted for any particular ‘job,’ can be
found without much difficulty and the information necessary for his
conviction obtained from the usual sources. But in cases of obscure,
non-professional crime the police are at a disadvantage. The criminal
is unknown to them; there are no confederates from whom to get
information; consequently they have no starting-point for their
enquiries. They can’t create clues; and they, very naturally, will not
devote time, labour and money to cases in which they have nothing to
go on.
“Now this affair of yours does not look like a professional crime. No
motive is evident and you can give no information that would help the
police. I doubt if they would do much more than give you some rather
disagreeable publicity, and they might even suspect you of some kind
of imposture.”
“Gad!” I exclaimed. “That’s just what they would do. It’s what they
did last time, and this affair would write me down in their eyes a
confirmed mystery-monger.”
“Last time?” queried Thorndyke. “What last time is that? Have there
been any other attempts?”
“Not on me,” I replied. “But I had an adventure one night about six or
seven weeks ago that has made the Hampstead police look on me, I
think, with some suspicion”; and here I gave my two friends a
description of my encounter with the dead (or insensible) cleric in
Millfield Lane, and my discoveries on the following morning.
“But my dear Jardine!” Thorndyke exclaimed when I had finished, “what
an extraordinary man you are! It seems as if you could hardly show
your nose out of doors without becoming involved in some dark and
dreadful mystery.”
“Well,” said I, “I hope I have now exhausted my gifts in that respect.
I am not thirsting for more experiences. But what do you think about
that Hampstead affair? Do you think I could possibly have been
mistaken? Could the man have been merely insensible, after all, as the
police suggested?”
Thorndyke shook his head. “I don’t think,” he replied, “that it is
possible to take that view. You see the man had disappeared. Now he
could not have got away unassisted, in fact he could not have walked
at all. One would have to assume that some persons appeared directly
after you left and carried him away; and that they appeared and
retired so quickly as not to be overtaken by you on your return a few
minutes later with the police. That is assuming too much. And then
there are the traces which you discovered on the following day, which
seem to suggest strongly that a body had been carried away to Ken
Wood. It is a thousand pities that you encountered that keeper, if you
could have followed the tracks while they were fresh you might have
been able to ascertain whither it had been carried. But now, to return
to your latest experience, what shall we do? Shall we communicate with
the police, or shall we make a few investigations on our own account?”
“As far as I am concerned,” I replied eagerly, “a private
investigation would be greatly preferable. But wouldn’t it take up
rather a lot of your time?”
“Now, Jardine, you needn’t apologize,” said Jervis. “Unless I am much
mistaken, my respected senior has ‘struck soundings,’ as the nautical
phrase has it. He has a theory of your case, and he would like to see
it through. Isn’t that so, Thorndyke?”
“Well,” Thorndyke admitted, “I will confess that the case piques my
curiosity somewhat. It is an unusual affair and suggests some curious
hypotheses which might be worth testing. So, if you agree, Jardine,
that we make at least a few preliminary investigations, I suggest
that, as soon as Batson returns, we three go over to what the
newspapers would call ‘the scene of the tragedy’ and reconstitute the
affair on the spot.”