The blue scarab
faltered. “I wouldn’t swear to it. It is like the one I lost.”
Thorndyke took it from him and passed it to the coroner. “I am putting
this tube in evidence, sir,” said he. Then, addressing the witness, he
said, “You stated that you did not go to the races. Did you go on the
course or inside the grounds at all?”
Baxfield moistened his lips and replied, “I just went in for a minute
or two, but I didn’t stay. The races were over, and there was a very
rough crowd.”
“While you were in that crowd, Mr. Baxfield, did you have your pocket
picked?”
There was an expectant silence in the Court as Baxfield replied in a
low voice:
“Yes. I lost my watch.”
Again Thorndyke opened the dispatch box, and taking out a watch (it
was the one that had been labelled 3), handed it to the witness. “Is
that the watch that you lost?” he asked.
Baxfield held the watch in his trembling hand and replied
hesitatingly, “I believe it is, but I won’t swear to it.”
There was a pause. Then, in grave, impressive tones, Thorndyke said,
“Now, Mr. Baxfield, I am going to ask you a question which you need
not answer if you consider that by doing so you would prejudice your
position in any way. That question is, When your pocket was picked,
were any articles besides this watch taken from your person? Don’t
hurry. Consider your answer carefully.”
For some moments Baxfield remained silent, regarding Thorndyke with a
wild, affrighted stare. At length he began falteringly, “I don’t
remember missing anything----” and then stopped.
“Could the witness be allowed to sit down, sir?” Thorndyke asked. And
when the permission had been given and a chair placed, Baxfield sat
down heavily and cast a bewildered glance round the Court. “I think,”
he said, addressing Thorndyke, “I had better tell you exactly what
happened and take my chance of the consequences. When I left my
uncle’s house on Monday, I took a circuit through the fields and then
entered Gilbert’s Copse to wait for my uncle and tell him what I
thought of his conduct in leaving the bulk of his property to a
stranger. I struck the path that I knew my uncle would take and walked
along it slowly to meet him. I did meet him--on the path, just above
where he was found--and I began to say what was in my mind. But he
wouldn’t listen. He flew into a rage, and as I was standing in the
middle of the path, he tried to push past me. In doing so he caught
his foot in a bramble and staggered back, then he disappeared through
the bushes and a few seconds after I heard a thud down below. I pulled
the bushes aside and looked down into the chalk-pit, and there I saw
him lying with his head all on one side. Now, I happened to know of a
short cut down into the pit. It was rather a dangerous climb, but I
took it to get down as quickly as possible. It was there that I
dropped the cigarette-tube. When I got to my uncle I could see that he
was dead. His skull was battered and his neck was broken. Then the
devil put into my head the idea of making away with the will. But I
knew that if I took the will only, suspicion would fall on me. So I
took most of his valuables--the wallet, his watch and chain, his purse
and his ring. The purse I emptied and threw away, and flung the ring
after it. I took the will out of the wallet--it had just been dropped
in loose--and put it in an inner pocket. Then I dropped the wallet and
the watch and chain into my outside coat pocket.
“I struck across country, intending to make for the race-course and
drop the things among the crowd, so that they might be picked up and
safely carried away. But when I got there a gang of pickpockets saved
me the trouble; they mobbed and hustled me and cleared my pockets of
everything but my keys and the will.”
“And what has become of the will?” asked Thorndyke.
“I have it here.” He dipped into his breast pocket and produced a
folded paper, which he handed to Thorndyke, who opened it, and having
glanced at it, passed it to the coroner.
That was practically the end of the inquest. The jury decided to
accept Baxfield’s statement and recorded a verdict of “Death by
Misadventure,” leaving Baxfield to be dealt with by the proper
authorities.
“An interesting and eminently satisfactory case,” remarked Thorndyke,
as we sat over a rather late dinner. “Essentially simple, too. The
elucidation turned, as you probably noticed, on a single illuminating
fact.”
“I judged that it was so,” said I, “though the illumination of that
fact has not yet reached me.”
“Well,” said Thorndyke, “let us first take the general aspect of the
case as it was presented by Marchmont. The first thing, of course,
that struck one was that the loss of the will might easily have
converted Baxfield from a minor beneficiary to the sole heir. But even
if the Court agreed to recognize the will, it would have to be guided
by the statements of the only two men to whom its provisions were even
approximately known, and Baxfield could have made any statement he
pleased. It was impossible to ignore the fact that the loss of the
will was very greatly to Baxfield’s advantage.
“When the stolen property was discovered in Fletcher’s possession it
looked, at the first glance, as if the mystery of the crime was
solved. But there were several serious inconsistencies. First, how
came Fletcher to be in this solitary wood, remote from any railway or
even road? He appeared to be a London pickpocket. When he was killed
he was travelling to London by train. It seemed probable that he had
come from London by train to ply his trade at the races. Then, as you
know, criminological experience shows that the habitual criminal is a
rigid specialist. The burglar, the coiner, the pickpocket, each keeps
strictly to his own special line. Now, Fletcher was a pickpocket, and
had evidently been picking pockets on the race-course. The
probabilities were against his being the original robber and in favour
of his having picked the pocket of the person who robbed Harewood. But
if this were so, who was that person? Once more the probabilities
suggested Baxfield. There was the motive, as I have said, and further,
the pocket-picking had apparently taken place on the race-course, and
Baxfield was known to be a frequenter of race-courses. But again, if
Baxfield were the person robbed by Fletcher, then one of the five
watches was probably Baxfield’s watch. Whether it was so or not might
have been very difficult to prove, but here came in the single
illuminating fact that I have spoken of.
“You remember that when Marchmont opened the case he mentioned that
Baxfield was a manufacturer of felt hats, and Crowhurst told us that
he was a sort of foreman or manager of the factory.”
“Yes, I remember, now you speak of it. But what is the bearing of the
fact?”
“My dear Jervis!” exclaimed Thorndyke. “Don’t you see that it gave us
a touchstone? Consider, now. What is a felt hat? It is just a mass of
agglutinated rabbits’ hair. The process of manufacture consists in
blowing a jet of the more or less disintegrated hair on to a revolving
steel cone which is moistened by a spray of an alcoholic solution of
shellac. But, of course, a quantity of the finer and more minute
particles of the broken hairs miss the cone and float about in the
air. The air of the factory is thus charged with the dust of broken
rabbit hairs; and this dust settles on and penetrates the clothing of
the workers. But when clothing becomes charged with dust, that dust
tends to accumulate in the pockets and find its way into the hollows
and interstices of any objects carried in those pockets. Thus, if one
of the five watches was Baxfield’s it would almost certainly show
traces where this characteristic dust had crept under the bezel and
settled on the dial. And so it turned out to be. When I inspected
those five watches through the Coddington lens, on the dial of No. 3
I saw a quantity of dust of this character. The electrified vulcanite
rod picked it all up neatly and transferred it to the slide, and under
the microscope its nature was obvious. The owner of this watch was
therefore, almost certainly, employed in a felt hat factory. But, of
course, it was necessary to show not only the presence of rabbit hair
in this watch, but its absence in the others and in Fletcher’s
pockets, which I did.
“Then with regard to Harewood’s watch. There was no rabbit hair on the
dial, but there was a small quantity on the fluff from the key barrel.
Now, if that rabbit-hair had come from Harewood’s pocket it would have
been uniformly distributed through the fluff. But it was not. It was
confined exclusively to the part of the fluff that was exposed. Thus
it had come from some pocket other than Harewood’s, and the owner of
that pocket was almost certainly employed in a felt hat factory, and
was most probably the owner of watch No. 3.
“Then there was the cigarette-tube. Its bore was loaded with rabbit
hair. But its owner had unquestionably been at the scene of the crime.
There was a clear suggestion that his was the pocket in which the
stolen watch had been carried and that he was the owner of watch No.
3. The problem was to piece this evidence together and prove
definitely who this person was. And that I was able to do by means of
a fresh item of evidence, which I acquired when I saw Baxfield at the
inquest. I suppose you noticed his boots?”
“I am afraid I didn’t,” I had to admit.
“Well, I did. I watched his feet constantly, and when he crossed his
legs I could see that he had iron toe-tips on his boots. That was what
gave me confidence to push the cross-examination.”
“It was certainly a rather daring cross-examination--and rather
irregular, too,” said I.
“It was extremely irregular,” Thorndyke agreed. “The coroner ought not
to have permitted it. But it was all for the best. If the coroner had
disallowed my questions we should have had to take criminal
proceedings against Baxfield, whereas now that we have recovered the
will, it is possible that no one will trouble to prosecute him.”
Which, I subsequently ascertained, is what actually happened.
V.
A FISHER OF MEN
“The man,” observed Thorndyke, “who would successfully practice the
scientific detection of crime must take all knowledge for his
province. There is no single fact which may not, in particular
circumstances, acquire a high degree of evidential value; and in such
circumstances, success or failure is determined by the possession or
non-possession of the knowledge wherewith to interpret the
significance of that fact.”
This _obiter dictum_ was thrown off apropos of our investigation of
the case rather magniloquently referred to in the press as “The Blue
Diamond Mystery”; and more particularly of an incident which occurred
in the office of our old friend, Superintendent Miller, at Scotland
Yard. Thorndyke had called to verify the few facts which had been
communicated to him, and having put away his notebook and picked up
his green canvas-covered research case, had risen to take his leave,
when his glance fell on a couple of objects on a side-table--a leather
handbag and a walking-stick, lashed together with string, to which was
attached a descriptive label.
He regarded them for a few moments reflectively and then glanced at
the Superintendent.
“Derelicts?” he inquired, “or jetsam?”
“Jetsam,” the Superintendent replied, “literally jetsam--thrown
overboard to lighten the ship.”
Here Inspector Badger, who had been a party to the conference, looked
up eagerly.
“Yes,” he broke in. “Perhaps the doctor wouldn’t mind having a look at
them. It’s quite a nice little problem, Doctor, and entirely in your
line.”
“What is the problem?” asked Thorndyke.
“It’s just this,” said Badger. “Here is a bag. Now the question is,