The blue scarab
none of which conditions is confined to any definite class of persons;
and you ignored ainhum, a disease which attacks almost exclusively the
little toe, causing it to drop off, and quite commonly destroys both
little toes--a disease, moreover, which is confined to the
black-skinned races. In European practice ainhum is unknown, but in
Africa, and to a less extent, in India, it is quite common. If you
were to assemble all the men in the world who have lost both little
toes, more than nine-tenths of them would be suffering from ainhum; so
that, by the laws of probability, your footprints were, by nine
chances to one, those of a man who had suffered from ainhum, and
therefore a black-skinned man. But as soon as you had established a
black man as the probable criminal, you opened up a new field of
corroborative evidence. There was a black man on the spot. That man
was a native of Sierra Leone and almost certainly a man of importance
there. But the victim’s husband had deadly enemies in the native
secret societies of Sierra Leone. The letters of the husband to the
wife probably contained matter incriminating certain natives of Sierra
Leone. The evidence became cumulative, you see. Taken as a whole, it
pointed plainly to Macauley, apart from the new fact of the murder of
Toussaint in Liverpool, a city with a considerable floating population
of West Africans.”
“And I gather from your reference to the African poison, strophanthus,
that you fixed on Macauley at once when I gave you my sketch of the
case?”
“Yes; especially when I saw your photographs of the footprints with
the absent little toes and those characteristic chigger-scars on the
toes that remained. But it was sheer luck that enabled me to fit the
key-stone into its place and turn mere probability into virtual
certainty. I could have embraced the magician Wardale when he brought
us the magic slippers. Still, it isn’t an absolute certainty, even
now, though I expect it will be by to-morrow.”
And Thorndyke was right. That very evening the police entered
Macauley’s chambers in Tanfield Court, where they discovered the dead
woman’s attaché case. It still contained Toussaint’s letters to his
wife, and one of those letters mentioned by name, as members of a
dangerous secret society, several prominent Sierra Leone men,
including the accused David Macauley.
III.
THE NEW JERSEY SPHINX
“A rather curious neighbourhood this, Jervis,” my friend Thorndyke
remarked as we turned into Upper Bedford Place; “a sort of temporary
aviary for cosmopolitan birds of passage, especially those of the
Oriental variety. The Asiatic and African faces that one sees at the
windows of these Bloomsbury boarding-houses almost suggest an overflow
from the ethnographical galleries of the adjacent British Museum.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “there must be quite a considerable population of
Africans, Japanese and Hindus in Bloomsbury; particularly Hindus.”
As I spoke, and as if in illustration of my statement, a dark-skinned
man rushed out of one of the houses farther down the street and began
to advance towards us in a rapid, bewildered fashion, stopping to look
at each street door as he came to it. His hatless condition--though he
was exceedingly well dressed--and his agitated manner immediately
attracted my attention, and Thorndyke’s too, for the latter remarked,
“Our friend seems to be in trouble. An accident, perhaps, or a case of
sudden illness.”
Here the stranger, observing our approach, ran forward to meet us and
asked in an agitated tone, “Can you tell me, please, where I can find
a doctor?”
“I am a medical man,” replied Thorndyke, “and so is my friend.”
Our acquaintance grasped Thorndyke’s sleeve and exclaimed eagerly:
“Come with me, then, quickly if you please. A most dreadful thing has
happened.”
He hurried us along at something between a trot and a quick walk, and
as we proceeded he continued excitedly, “I am quite confused and
terrified; it is all so strange and sudden and terrible.”
“Try,” said Thorndyke, “to calm yourself a little and tell us what has
happened.”
“I will,” was the agitated reply. “It is my cousin, Dinanath
Byramji--his surname is the same as mine. Just now I went to his room
and was horrified to find him lying on the floor, staring at the
ceiling and blowing--like this,” and he puffed out his cheeks with a
soft blowing noise. “I spoke to him and shook his hand, but he was
like a dead man. This is the house.”
He darted up the steps to an open door at which a rather scared
page-boy was on guard, and running along the hall, rapidly ascended
the stairs. Following him closely, we reached a rather dark
first-floor landing where, at a half-open door, a servant-maid stood
listening with an expression of awe to a rhythmical snoring sound that
issued from the room.
The unconscious man lay as Mr. Byramji had said, staring fixedly at
the ceiling with wide-open, glazy eyes, puffing out his cheeks
slightly at each breath. But the breathing was shallow and slow, and
it grew perceptibly slower, with lengthening pauses. And even as I was
timing it with my watch while Thorndyke examined the pupils with the
aid of a wax match, it stopped. I laid my finger on the wrist and
caught one or two slow, flickering beats. Then the pulse stopped too.
“He is gone,” said I. “He must have burst one of the large arteries.”
“Apparently,” said Thorndyke, “though one would not have expected it
at his age. But wait! What is this?”
He pointed to the right ear, in the hollow of which a few drops of
blood had collected, and as he spoke he drew his hand gently over the
dead man’s head and moved it slightly from side to side.
“There is a fracture of the base of the skull,” said he, “and quite
distinct signs of contusion of the scalp.” He turned to Mr. Byramji,
who stood wringing his hands and gazing incredulously at the dead man,
and asked:
“Can you throw any light on this?”
The Indian looked at him vacantly. The sudden tragedy seemed to have
paralyzed his brain. “I don’t understand,” said he. “What does it
mean?”
“It means,” replied Thorndyke, “that he has received a heavy blow on
the head.”
For a few moments Mr. Byramji continued to stare vacantly at my
colleague. Then he seemed suddenly to realize the import of
Thorndyke’s reply, for he started up excitedly and turned to the door,
outside which the two servants were hovering.
“Where is the person gone who came in with my cousin?” he demanded.
“You saw him go out, Albert,” said the maid. “Tell Mr. Byramji where
he went to.”
The page tiptoed into the room with a fearful eye fixed on the corpse,
and replied falteringly, “I only see the back of him as he went out,
and all I know is that he turned to the left. P’raps he’s gone for a
doctor.”
“Can you give us any description of him?” asked Thorndyke.
“I only see the back of him,” repeated the page. “He was a shortish
gentleman and he had on a dark suit of clothes and a hard felt hat.
That’s all I know.”
“Thank you,” said Thorndyke. “We may want to ask you some more
questions presently,” and having conducted the page to the door, he
shut it and turned to Mr. Byramji.
“Have you any idea who it was that was with your cousin?” he asked.
“None at all,” was the reply. “I was sitting in my room opposite,
writing, when I heard my cousin come up the stairs with another
person, to whom he was talking. I could not hear what he was saying.
They went into his room--this room--and I could occasionally catch the
sound of their voices. In about a quarter of an hour I heard the door
open and shut, and then some one went downstairs, softly and rather
quickly. I finished the letter that I was writing, and when I had
addressed it I came in here to ask my cousin who the visitor was. I
thought it might be some one who had come to negotiate for the ruby.”
“The ruby!” exclaimed Thorndyke. “What ruby do you refer to?”
“The great ruby,” replied Byramji. “But of course you have not----” He
broke off suddenly and stood for a few moments staring at Thorndyke
with parted lips and wide-open eyes; then abruptly he turned, and
kneeling beside the dead man he began, in a curious, caressing,
half-apologetic manner, first to pass his hand gently over the body at
the waist and then to unfasten the clothes. This brought into view a
handsome, soft leather belt, evidently of native workmanship, worn
next to the skin and furnished with three pockets. Mr. Byramji
unbuttoned and explored them in quick succession, and it was evident
that they were all empty.
“It is gone!” he exclaimed in low, intense tones. “Gone! Ah! But how
little would it signify! But thou, dear Dinanath, my brother, my
friend, thou art gone, too!”
He lifted the dead man’s hand and pressed it to his cheek, murmuring
endearments in his own tongue. Presently he laid it down reverently,
and sprang up, and I was startled at the change in his aspect. The
delicate, gentle, refined face had suddenly become the face of a
Fury--fierce, sinister, vindictive.
“This wretch must die!” he exclaimed huskily. “This sordid brute who,
without compunction, has crushed out a precious life as one would
carelessly crush a fly, for the sake of a paltry crystal--he must die,
if I have to follow him and strangle him with my own hands!”
Thorndyke laid his hand on Byramji’s shoulder. “I sympathize with you
most cordially,” said he. “If it is as you think, and appearances
suggest, that your cousin has been murdered as a mere incident of
robbery, the murderer’s life is forfeit, and Justice cries aloud for
retribution. The fact of murder will be determined, for or against, by
a proper inquiry. Meanwhile we have to ascertain who this unknown man
is and what happened while he was with your cousin.”
Byramji made a gesture of despair. “But the man has disappeared, and
nobody has seen him! What can we do?”
“Let us look around us,” replied Thorndyke, “and see if we can judge
what has happened in this room. What, for instance, is this?”
He picked up from a corner near the door a small leather object, which
he handed to Mr. Byramji. The Indian seized it eagerly, exclaiming:
“Ah! It is the little bag in which my cousin used to carry the ruby.
So he had taken it from his belt.”
“It hasn’t been dropped, by any chance?” I suggested.
In an instant Mr. Byramji was down on his knees, peering and groping
about the floor, and Thorndyke and I joined in the search. But, as
might have been expected, there was no sign of the ruby, nor, indeed,
of anything else, excepting a hat which I picked up from under the
table.
“No,” said Mr. Byramji, rising with a dejected air. “It is gone--of
course it is gone, and the murderous villain----”
Here his glance fell on the hat, which I had laid on the table, and he
bent forward to look at it.
“Whose hat is this?” he demanded, glancing at the chair on which
Thorndyke’s hat and mine had been placed.
“Is it not your cousin’s?” asked Thorndyke.
“No, certainly not. His hat was like mine--we bought them both
together. It had a white silk lining with his initials, D.B., in gold.
This has no lining and is a much older hat. It must be the murderer’s
hat.”
“If it is,” said Thorndyke, “that is a most important fact--important
in two respects. Could you let us see your hat?”
“Certainly,” replied Byramji, walking quickly, but with a soft tread,
to the door. As he went out, shutting the door silently behind him,
Thorndyke picked up the derelict hat and swiftly tried it on the head
of the dead man. As far as I could judge, it appeared to fit, and this
Thorndyke confirmed as he replaced it on the table.
“As you see,” said he, “it is at least a practicable fit, which is a
fact of some significance.”
Here Mr. Byramji returned with his own hat, which he placed on the