A silent witness
didn’t look a very likely hand for a first-class penman and engraver
of flash notes, but you can’t always judge by appearances. And now as
to your other questions: You ask what Maddock was like in appearance.
I can only give you the description which I gave to Batson and which
he recognized at once.”
“Had he noticed the peculiarity of the hands?” enquired Thorndyke.
“Yes. I asked him about it and he remembered having observed it when
he was attending Maddock. Well, then, our friend was about five feet
nine in height, fairly broad and decidedly strong, of a medium
complexion with grey eyes and darkish brown hair. That’s all I can
tell you about him.”
“You haven’t got his finger-prints, I suppose?”
“No. He was never in prison, so we had no chance of getting them.”
“Was he married?”
“He had been; but some years ago his wife divorced him, or he divorced
her. Latterly he has lived as a bachelor.”
“There is nothing else that you can think of as throwing light on his
personality or explaining his actions?”
“Nothing at all, doctor. I’ve told you all I know about him, and I
only hope the information may be more useful than it looks to me.”
“Thank you,” said Thorndyke; “your information is not only useful; I
expect to find it quite valuable. Reasoning, you know, Mr. O’Donnell,”
he continued, “is somewhat like building an arch. On a supporting
mould, the builder lays a number of shaped stones, or voussoirs; but
until all the voussoirs are there, it is a mere collection of stones,
incapable of bearing its own weight. Then you drop the last
voussoir--the keystone--into its place, and the arch is complete; and
now you may take away the supports, for it will not only bear its own
weight, but carry a heavy superstructure.”
“That’s so, doctor,” said O’Donnell. “But, if I may ask, is this all
gratuitous wisdom or has it any particular bearing?”
“It has this bearing,” replied Thorndyke. “I have myself been, for
some time past, engaged, metaphorically, in the building of an arch.
When you came here to-night, it was but a collection of shaped and
adjusted stones, supported from without. With your kind aid, I have
just dropped the keystone into its place. That is what I mean.”
The American thoughtfully arranged the papers in his case, casting an
occasional speculative glance at Thorndyke.
“I’d like to know,” he said presently, “what it was that I told you.
It doesn’t seem to me that I have produced any startling novelties.
However, I know it’s no use trying to squeeze you, so I’ll get back to
my hotel and have a chew at what you’ve told me.”
He shook hands with us all round, and, when Thorndyke had let him out,
we heard him bustling downstairs and away up King’s Bench Walk towards
Mitre Court.
For a minute or more after his departure none of us spoke. Thorndyke
was apparently ruminating on his newly-acquired information, and
Jervis and I on the statement that had so naturally aroused the
detective’s curiosity.
At length Jervis opened the inevitable debate.
“I begin to see a glimmer of daylight through the case of Septimus
Maddock, deceased,” said he; “but it is only a glimmer. Whereas, from
what you said to O’Donnell, I gather that you have the case quite
complete.”
“Hardly that, Jervis,” was the reply. “I spoke metaphorically, and
metaphors are sometimes misleading. Perhaps I overstated the case; so
we will drop metaphor and state the position literally in terms of
good, plain, schoolboy logic. It is this: we had certain facts
presented to us in connection with Maddock’s death. For instance, we
observed that the cause of death was obscure, that the body was
utterly destroyed by cremation and that Jardine, who was an unofficial
witness to some of the formalities, was subsequently pursued by some
unknown person with the unmistakable purpose of murdering him. Those
were some of the observed facts; and the explanation of those facts
was the problem submitted to us; that is to say, we had to connect
those facts and supply others by deduction and research, so that they
should form a coherent and intelligible sequence, of which the motive
for murdering Jardine should form a part.
“Having observed and examined our facts, we next propose a hypothesis
which shall explain them. In this case it would naturally take the
form of a hypothetical reconstruction of the circumstances of
Maddock’s death. That hypothesis must, of course, be in complete
agreement with all the facts known to us, including the attempts to
murder Jardine. Then, having invented a hypothesis which fits our
facts completely, the next stage is to verify it. If the circumstances
of Maddock’s death were such as we have assumed, certain antecedent
events must have occurred and certain conditions must have existed. We
make the necessary inquiries and investigations, and we find that
those events had actually occurred and those conditions had actually
existed. Then it is probable that our hypothesis is correct,
particularly if our researches have brought to light nothing that
disagrees with it.
“With our new facts we can probably amplify our hypothesis;
reconstruct it in greater detail; and then we have to test and verify
it afresh in its amplified and detailed form. And if such new tests
still yield an affirmative result, the confirmation of the hypothesis
becomes overwhelmingly strong. It is, however, still only hypothesis.
But perhaps we light on some final test which is capable of yielding a
definite answer, yes or no. If we apply that test--the ‘Crucial
Experiment’ of the logicians--and obtain an affirmative result, our
inquiry is at an end. It has passed out of the region of hypothesis
into that of demonstrative proof.”
“And are we to understand,” asked Jervis, “that you have brought
Maddock’s case to the stage of complete demonstration?”
“No,” answered Thorndyke. “I am still in the stage of hypothesis; and
when O’Donnell came here to-night there were two points which I had
been unable to verify. But with his aid I have been able to verify
them both, and I now have a complete hypothesis of the case which has
been tested exhaustively and has answered to every test. All that
remains to be done is to apply the touchstone of the final
experiment.”
“I suppose,” said Jervis, “you have obtained a good many new facts in
the course of your investigations?”
“Not a great many,” replied Thorndyke; “and what new data I have
obtained, I have, for the most part, communicated to you and Jardine.
I assure you, Jervis, that if you would only concentrate your
attention on the case, you have ample material for a most convincing
and complete elucidation of it.”
Jervis looked at me with a wry smile.
“Now, Jardine-Howard,” said he; “why don’t you brush up your wits and
tell us exactly what happened to the late Mr. Maddock and why some
person unknown is so keen on your vile body. You have all the facts,
you know.”
“So you tell me,” I retorted; “but this case of yours reminds me of
those elaborate picture puzzles that used to weary my juvenile brain.
You had a hatful of irregular-shaped pieces which, if you fitted them
together, made a picture. Only the beggars wouldn’t fit together.”
“A very apt comparison,” said Thorndyke. “You put the pieces together,
and, if they made no intelligible part of a picture, you knew you were
wrong, no matter how well they seemed to fit. On the other hand, if
they seemed to make parts of a picture you had to verify the result by
finding pieces of the exact shape and size of the empty spaces. That
is what I have been doing in this case; trying the data together and
watching to see if they made the expected picture. As I have told you,
O’Donnell’s visit found me with the picture entire save for two empty
spaces of a particular shape and size; and from him I obtained two
pieces that dropped neatly into those spaces and made the picture
complete. All I have to do now is to see if the picture is a true
representation or only a consistent work of imagination.”
“I take it that you have worked the case out in pretty full detail,”
said Jervis.
“Yes. If the final verification is successful I shall be able to tell
you exactly what happened in Maddock’s house, what was the cause of
death--and I may say that it was not that given in the
certificates--who the person is who has been pursuing Jardine and what
is his motive, together with a number of other very curious items of
information. And the mention of that person reminds me that our friend
has been disporting himself in public, contrary to advice and to what
I thought was a definite understanding.”
“But surely,” I said, “it doesn’t matter now. We have given that spy
chappie the slip, and, even if he hasn’t given up the chase as
hopeless, we know that he is quite harmless.”
“Harmless!” exclaimed Thorndyke. “Why, my dear fellow, he was your
guardian angel. Didn’t you realize that from Father Humperdinck’s
statement? He shadowed you so closely that no attack on you was
possible; in fact, he actually caught a rap on the head that was
apparently meant for you. You were infinitely safer with him at your
heels than alone.”
“But we’ve given the other fellow the slip, too,” I urged.
“We mustn’t take that for granted,” said Thorndyke. “The French
detective, you remember, came on the scene quite recently, whereas the
other man has been with us from the beginning. He probably saw Jervis
and me enter the mineral water works on the night of the fire, for he
was certainly there; and he may even have followed us home to
ascertain who we were. There are several ways in which he could have
connected you with us and traced you here; so I must urge you most
strongly not to venture out of the precincts of the Temple for the
next few days, in fact, it would be much wiser to keep indoors
altogether. It will be only a matter of days unless I get a quite
unexpected set back, for I hope to have the case finally completed in
less than a week; and when I do, I shall take such action as will give
your friend some occupation other than shadowing you.”
“Very well,” I said. “I will promise not to attempt again to escape
from custody. But, all the same, my little jaunt to-day has not been
entirely without result. I have picked up a new fact, and a rather
curious one, I think. What should you say if I suggested that Mrs.
Samway was the wife of that eccentric artist who used to paint on the
Heath? The man, I mean, who always worked in gloves?”
“I have assumed that she was in some such relation to him,” replied
Thorndyke, “but I should like to hear the evidence.”
“Mrs. Samway,” Jervis said in a reflective tone: “isn’t that the
handsome, uncanny-looking lady with the mongoose eyes, who reminded me
of Lucrezia Borgia?”
“That is the lady. Well, I met with a portrait of her to-day which was
evidently the work of the man with the gloves;” and here I gave them a
description of the portrait and an account of the odd way in which it
had been disinterred from the landscape that had been painted over it,
to which they both listened with close attention.
“It’s a queer incident,” said Thorndyke, “and quite dramatic. If one
were inclined to be superstitious one might imagine some invisible
agency uncovering the tracks that have been so carefully hidden and
working unseen in the interests of justice. But haven’t you rather
jumped to your conclusion? The existence of the portrait establishes a
connection, but not necessarily that of husband and wife.”
“I only suggested the relationship; but it seemed a likely one as the
portrait had been painted over and thrown into the rubbish box.”
Jervis laughed sardonically; and even Thorndyke’s impassive face
relaxed into a smile.
“Our young friend,” said the former, “doesn’t take as favourable a