The blue scarab
Apparently he had been murdered and his corpse thrown into the river.
“This is very terrible,” said the coroner. “Does this second murder
throw any light on the case which we are investigating?”
“I think it does,” replied the officer, without any great conviction,
however, “but it is not advisable to go into details.”
“Quite so,” agreed the coroner. “Most inexpedient. But are we to
understand that you have a clue to the perpetrator of this
crime--assuming a crime to have been committed?”
“Yes,” replied Platt. “We have several important clues.”
“And do they point to any particular individual?”
The superintendent hesitated. “Well--” he began, with some
embarrassment, but the coroner interrupted him.
“Perhaps the question is indiscreet. We mustn’t hamper the police,
gentlemen, and the point is not really material to our inquiry. You
would rather we waived that question, Superintendent?”
“If you please, sir,” was the emphatic reply.
“Have any cheques from the deceased woman’s cheque-book been presented
at the bank?”
“Not since her death. I inquired at the bank only this morning.”
This concluded the evidence, and after a brief but capable summing-up
by the coroner, the jury returned a verdict of “wilful murder against
some person unknown.”
As the proceedings terminated, Thorndyke rose and turned round, and
then to my surprise I perceived Superintendent Miller, of the Criminal
Investigation Department, who had come in unperceived by me and was
sitting immediately behind us.
“I have followed your instructions, sir,” said he, addressing
Thorndyke, “but before we take any definite action I should like to
have a few words with you.”
He led the way to an adjoining room and, as we entered, we were
followed by Superintendent Platt and Dr. Foxton.
“Now, Doctor,” said Miller, carefully closing the door, “I have
carried out your suggestions. Mr. Macauley is being detained, but
before we commit ourselves to an arrest, we must have something to go
upon. I shall want you to make out a prima facie case.”
“Very well,” said Thorndyke, laying upon the table the small, green
suit-case that was his almost invariable companion.
“I’ve seen that prima facie case before,” Miller remarked with a grin,
as Thorndyke unlocked it and drew out a large envelope. “Now, what
have you got there?”
As Thorndyke extracted from the envelope Polton’s enlargements of my
small photographs, Platt’s eyes appeared to bulge, while Foxton gave
me a quick glance of reproach.
“These,” said Thorndyke, “are the full-sized photographs of the
footprints of the suspected murderer. Superintendent Platt can
probably verify them.”
Rather reluctantly Platt produced from his pocket a pair of
whole-plate photographs, which he laid beside the enlargements.
“Yes,” said Miller, after comparing them, “they are the same
footprints. But you say, Doctor, that they are Macauley’s footprints.
Now, what evidence have you?”
Thorndyke again had recourse to the green case, from which he produced
two copper plates mounted on wood and coated with printing ink.
“I propose,” said he, lifting the plates out of their protecting
frame, “that we take prints of Macauley’s feet and compare them with
the photographs.”
“Yes,” said Platt. “And then there are the finger-prints that we’ve
got. We can test those, too.”
“You don’t want finger-prints if you’ve got a set of toe-prints,”
objected Miller.
“With regard to those finger-prints,” said Thorndyke. “May I ask if
they were obtained from the bottle?”
“They were,” Platt admitted.
“And were there any other finger-prints?”
“No,” replied Platt. “These were the only ones.”
As he spoke he laid on the table a photograph showing the prints of
the thumb and fingers of a right hand.
Thorndyke glanced at the photograph and, turning to Miller, said:
“I suggest that those are Dr. Foxton’s finger-prints.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Platt, and then suddenly fell silent.
“We can soon see,” said Thorndyke, producing from the case a pad of
white paper. “If Dr. Foxton will lay the finger-tips of his right hand
first on this inked plate and then on the paper, we can compare the
prints with the photograph.”
Foxton placed his fingers on the blackened plate and then pressed them
on the paper pad, leaving on the latter four beautifully clear, black
finger-prints. These Superintendent Platt scrutinized eagerly, and as
his glance travelled from the prints to the photographs, he broke into
a sheepish grin.
“Sold again!” he muttered. “They are the same prints.”
“Well,” said Miller in a tone of disgust, “you must have been a mug
not to have thought of that when you knew that Dr. Foxton had handled
the bottle.”
“The fact, however, is important,” said Thorndyke. “The absence of any
finger-prints but Dr. Foxton’s not only suggests that the murderer
took the precaution to wear gloves, but especially it proves that the
bottle was not handled by the deceased during life. A suicide’s hands
will usually be pretty moist and would leave conspicuous, if not very
clear, impressions.”
“Yes,” agreed Miller, “that is quite true. But with regard to these
footprints. We can’t compel this man to let us examine his feet
without arresting him. Don’t think, Dr. Thorndyke, that I suspect you
of guessing. I’ve known you too long for that. You’ve got your facts
all right, I don’t doubt, but you must let us have enough to justify
our arrest.”
Thorndyke’s answer was to plunge once more into the inexhaustible
green case, from which he now produced two objects wrapped in tissue
paper. The paper being removed, there was revealed what looked like a
model of an excessively shabby pair of brown shoes.
“These,” said Thorndyke, exhibiting the “models” to Superintendent
Miller--who viewed them with an undisguised grin--“are plaster casts
of the interiors of a pair of slippers--very old and much too
tight--belonging to Mr. Macauley. His name was written inside them.
The casts have been waxed and painted with raw umber, which has been
lightly rubbed off, thus accentuating the prominences and depressions.
You will notice that the impressions of the toes on the soles and of
the ‘knuckles’ on the uppers appear as prominences; in fact we have in
these casts a sketchy reproduction of the actual feet.
“Now, first as to dimensions. Dr. Jervis’s measurements of the
footprints give us ten inches and three-quarters as the extreme length
and four inches and five-eighths as the extreme width at the heads of
the metatarsus. On these casts, as you see, the extreme length is ten
inches and five-eighths--the loss of one-eighth being accounted for by
the curve of the sole--and the extreme width is four inches and a
quarter--three-eighths being accounted for by the lateral compression
of a tight slipper. The agreement of the dimensions is remarkable,
considering the unusual size. And now as to the peculiarities of the
feet. You notice that each toe has made a perfectly distinct
impression on the sole, excepting the little toe, of which there is no
trace in either cast. And, turning to the uppers, you notice that the
knuckles of the toes appear quite distinct and prominent--again
excepting the little toes, which have made no impression at all. Thus
it is not a case of retracted little toes, for they would appear as an
extra prominence. Then, looking at the feet as a whole, it is evident
that the little toes are absent; there is a distinct hollow where
there should be a prominence.”
“M’yes,” said Miller dubiously, “it’s all very neat. But isn’t it just
a bit speculative?”
“Oh, come, Miller,” protested Thorndyke; “just consider the facts.
Here is a suspected murderer known to have feet of an unusual size and
presenting a very rare deformity; and here are a pair of feet of that
same unusual size and presenting that same rare deformity; and they
are the feet of a man who had actually lived in the same house as the
murdered woman and who, at the date of the crime, was living only two
doors away. What more would you have?”
“Well, there is the question of motive,” objected Miller.
“That hardly belongs to a prima facie case,” said Thorndyke. “But even
if it did, is there not ample matter for suspicion? Remember who the
murdered woman was, what her husband was, and who this Sierra Leone
gentleman is.”
“Yes, yes; that’s true,” said Miller somewhat hastily, either
perceiving the drift of Thorndyke’s argument (which I did not), or
being unwilling to admit that he was still in the dark. “Yes, we’ll
have the fellow in and get his actual footprints.”
He went to the door and, putting his head out, made some sign, which
was almost immediately followed by a trampling of feet, and Macauley
entered the room, followed by two large plain-clothes policemen. The
negro was evidently alarmed, for he looked about him with the wild
expression of a hunted animal. But his manner was aggressive and
truculent.
“Why am I being interfered with in this impertinent manner?” he
demanded in the deep, buzzing voice characteristic of the male negro.
“We want to have a look at your feet, Mr. Macauley,” said Miller.
“Will you kindly take off your shoes and socks?”
“No,” roared Macauley. “I’ll see you damned first.”
“Then,” said Miller, “I arrest you on a charge of having murdered----”
The rest of the sentence was drowned in a sudden uproar. The tall,
powerful negro, bellowing like an angry bull, had whipped out a large,
strangely shaped knife and charged furiously at the Superintendent.
But the two plain-clothes men had been watching him from behind and
now sprang upon him, each seizing an arm. Two sharp, metallic clicks
in quick succession, a thunderous crash and an ear-splitting yell, and
the formidable barbarian lay prostrate on the floor with one massive
constable sitting astride his chest and the other seated on his knees.
“Now’s your chance, Doctor,” said Miller. “I’ll get his shoes and
socks off.”
As Thorndyke re-inked his plates, Miller and the local superintendent
expertly removed the smart patent shoes and the green silk socks from
the feet of the writhing, bellowing negro. Then Thorndyke rapidly and
skilfully applied the inked plates to the soles of the feet--which I
steadied for the purpose--and followed up with a dexterous pressure of
the paper pad, first to one foot and then--having torn off the printed
sheet--to the other. In spite of the difficulties occasioned by
Macauley’s struggles, each sheet presented a perfectly clear and sharp
print of the sole of the foot, even the ridge-patterns of the toes and
ball of the foot being quite distinct. Thorndyke laid each of the new
prints on the table beside the corresponding large photograph, and
invited the two superintendents to compare them.
“Yes,” said Miller--and Superintendent Platt nodded his
acquiescence--“there can’t be a shadow of a doubt. The ink-prints and
the photographs are identical, to every line and skin-marking. You’ve
made out your case, Doctor, as you always do.”
“So you see,” said Thorndyke, as we smoked our evening pipes on the
old stone pier, “your method was a perfectly sound one, only you
didn’t apply it properly. Like too many mathematicians, you started on
your calculations before you had secured your data. If you had applied
the simple laws of probability to the real data, they would have
pointed straight to Macauley.”
“How do you suppose he lost his little toes?” I asked.
“I don’t suppose at all. Obviously it was a case of double ainhum.”
“Ainhum!” I exclaimed with a sudden flash of recollection.
“Yes; that was what you overlooked. You compared the probabilities of
three diseases either of which only very rarely causes the loss of
even one little toe and infinitely rarely causes the loss of both, and