The magic casket
we have to answer are, What was he doing in Essex? Why did he make
that strange journey? Did he make it alone? and, if not, Who
accompanied him?
“Now, obviously, the first thing to do is to locate that place in
Essex; and when we have done that, to go down there and see if we can
pick up any traces of the dead man.”
“That sounds like a pretty vague quest,” said I; “but if we fail, the
police may be able to find out something. By the way, we want a new
_Bradshaw_.”
“An excellent suggestion, Jervis,” said he. “I will get one as we go
into the station.”
A few minutes later, as we sat on a bench waiting for our train, he
passed to me the open copy of _Bradshaw_, with the crumpled railway
receipt.
“You see,” said he, “it was apparently ‘G.B.Hlt.’ and the fare from
London was four and ninepence. Here is Great Buntingfield Halt, the
fare to which is four and ninepence. That must be the place. At any
rate, we will give it a trial. May I take it that you are coming to
lend a hand? I shall start in good time to-morrow morning.”
I assented emphatically. Never had I been more completely in the dark
than I was in this case, and seldom had I known Thorndyke to be more
positive and confident. Obviously, he had something up his sleeve; and
I was racked with curiosity as to what that something was.
On the following morning we made a fairly early start, and half-past
ten found us seated in the train, looking out across a dreary waste of
marshes, with the estuary of the Thames a mile or so distant. For the
first time in my recollection Thorndyke had come unprovided with his
inevitable “research case,” but I noted that he had furnished himself
with a botanist’s vasculum--or tin collecting-case--and that his
pocket bulged as if he had some other appliances concealed about his
person. Also that he carried a walking-stick that was strange to me.
“This will be our destination, I think,” he said, as the train slowed
down; and sure enough it presently came to rest beside a little
makeshift platform on which was displayed the name “Great Buntingfield
Halt.” We were the only passengers to alight, and the guard, having
noted the fact, blew his whistle and dismissed the little station with
a contemptuous wave of his flag.
Thorndyke lingered on the platform after the train had gone, taking a
general survey of the country. Half a mile away to the north a small
village was visible; while to the south the marshes stretched away to
the river, their bare expanse unbroken save by a solitary building
whose unredeemed hideousness proclaimed it a factory of some kind.
Presently the station-master approached deferentially, and as we
proffered our tickets, Thorndyke remarked:
“You don’t seem overburdened with traffic here.”
“No, sir. You’re right,” was the emphatic reply. “’Tis a dead-alive
place. Excepting the people at the Golomite Works and one now and then
from the village, no one uses the halt. You’re the first strangers
I’ve seen for more than a month.”
“Indeed,” said Thorndyke. “But I think you are forgetting one. An
acquaintance of mine came here last Tuesday--and by the same token, he
hadn’t got a ticket and had to pay his fare.”
“Oh, I remember,” the station-master replied. “You mean a gentleman
with a scar on his cheek. But I don’t count him as a stranger. He has
been here before; I think he is connected with the works, as he always
goes up their road.”
“Do you happen to remember what time he came back?” Thorndyke asked.
“He didn’t come back at all,” was the reply. “I am sure of that,
because I work the halt and level crossing by myself. I remember
thinking it queer that he didn’t come back, because the ticket that he
had lost was a return. He must have gone back in the van belonging to
the works--that one that you see coming towards the crossing.”
As he spoke, he pointed to a van that was approaching down the factory
road--a small covered van with the name “Golomite Works” painted, not
on the cover, but on a board that was attached to it. The
station-master walked towards the crossing to open the gates, and we
followed; and when the van had passed, Thorndyke wished our friend
“Good morning,” and led the way along the road, looking about him with
lively interest and rather with the air of one looking for something
in particular.
We had covered about two-thirds of the distance to the factory when
the road approached a wide ditch; and from the attention with which my
friend regarded it, I suspected that this was the something for which
he had been looking. It was, however, quite unapproachable, for it was
bordered by a wide expanse of soft mud thickly covered with rushes and
trodden deeply by cattle. Nevertheless, Thorndyke followed its margin,
still looking about him keenly, until, about a couple of hundred yards
from the factory, I observed a small decayed wooden staging or quay,
apparently the remains of a vanished footbridge. Here Thorndyke
halted, and unbuttoning his coat, began to empty out his pockets,
producing first the vasculum, then a small case containing three
wide-mouthed bottles--both of which he deposited on the ground--and
finally a sort of miniature landing-net, which he proceeded to screw
on to the ferrule of his stick.
“I take it,” said I, “that these proceedings are a blind to cover some
sort of observations.”
“Not at all,” he replied. “We are engaged in the study of pond and
ditch natural history, and a most fascinating and instructive study it
is. The variety of forms is endless. This ditch, you observe, like the
one at Bantree, is covered with a dense growth of duck-weed: but
whereas that ditch was swarming with succineæ, here there is not a
single succinea to be seen.”
I grunted a sulky assent, and watched suspiciously as he filled the
bottles with water from the ditch and then made a preliminary sweep
with his net.
“Here is a trial sample,” said he, holding the loaded net towards me.
“Duck-weed, horn-weed, Planorbis nautileus, but no succineæ. What do
you think of it, Jervis?”
I looked distastefully at the repulsive mess, but yet with attention,
for I realized that there was a meaning in his question. And then,
suddenly, my attention sharpened. I picked out of the net a strand of
dark green, plumy weed and examined it.
“So this is horn-weed,” I said. “Then it was a piece of horn-weed that
Cyrus Pedley held grasped in his hand; and now I come to think of it,
I don’t remember seeing any horn-weed in the ditch at Bantree.”
He nodded approvingly. “There wasn’t any,” said he.
“And these little ammonite-like shells are just like those that I
noticed at the bottom of Dr. Parton’s jar. But I don’t remember seeing
any in the Bantree ditch.”
“There were none there,” said he. “And the duck-weed?”
“Oh, well,” I replied, “duck-weed is duck-weed, and there’s an end of
it.”
He chuckled aloud at my answer, and quoting:
“_A primrose by the river’s brim_
_A yellow primrose was to him_,”
bestowed a part of the catch in the vasculum, then turned once more to
the ditch and began to ply his net vigorously, emptying out each
netful on the grass, looking it over quickly and then making a fresh
sweep, dragging the net each time through the mud at the bottom. I
watched him now with a new and very lively interest; for enlightenment
was dawning, mingled with some self-contempt and much speculation as
to how Thorndyke had got his start in this case.
But I was not the only interested watcher. At one of the windows of
the factory I presently observed a man who seemed to be looking our
way. After a few seconds’ inspection he disappeared, to reappear
almost immediately with a pair of field-glasses, through which he took
a long look at us. Then he disappeared again, but in less than a
minute I saw him emerge from a side door and advance hurriedly towards
us.
“We are going to have a notice of ejectment served on us, I fancy,”
said I.
Thorndyke glanced quickly at the approaching stranger but continued to
ply his net, working, as I noticed, methodically from left to right.
When the man came within fifty yards he hailed us with a brusque
inquiry as to what our business was. I went forward to meet him and,
if possible, to detain him in conversation; but this plan failed, for
he ignored me and bore straight down on Thorndyke.
“Now, then,” said he, “what’s the game? What are you doing here?”
Thorndyke was in the act of raising his net from the water, but he now
suddenly let it fall to the bottom of the ditch while he turned to
confront the stranger.
“I take it that you have some reason for asking,” said he.
“Yes, I have,” the other replied angrily and with a slight foreign
accent that agreed with his appearance--he looked like a Slav of some
sort. “This is private land. It belongs to the factory. I am the
manager.”
“The land is not enclosed,” Thorndyke remarked.
“I tell you the land is private land,” the fellow retorted excitedly.
“You have no business here. I want to know what you are doing.”
“My good sir,” said Thorndyke, “there is no need to excite yourself.
My friend and I are just collecting botanical and other specimens.”
“How do I know that?” the manager demanded. He looked round
suspiciously and his eye lighted on the vasculum. “What have you got
in that thing?” he asked.
“Let him see what is in it,” said Thorndyke, with a significant look
at me.
Interpreting this as an instruction to occupy the man’s attention for
a few moments, I picked up the vasculum and placed myself so that he
must turn his back to Thorndyke to look into it. I fumbled awhile with
the catch, but at length opened the case and began to pick out the
weed strand by strand. As soon as the stranger’s back was turned
Thorndyke raised his net and quickly picked out of it something which
he slipped into his pocket. Then he advanced towards us, sorting out
the contents of his net as he came.
“Well,” he said, “you see we are just harmless naturalists. By the
way, what did you think we were looking for?”
“Never mind what I thought,” the other replied fiercely. “This is
private land. You have no business here, and you have got to clear
out.”
“Very well,” said Thorndyke. “As you please. There are plenty of other
ditches.” He took the vasculum and the case of bottles, and having put
them in his pocket, unscrewed his net, wished the stranger “Good
morning,” and turned back towards the station. The man stood watching
us until we were near the level crossing, when he, too, turned back
and retired to the factory.
“I saw you take something out of the net,” said I. “What was it?”
He glanced back to make sure that the manager was out of sight. Then
he put his hand in his pocket, drew it out closed, and suddenly opened
it. In his palm lay a small gold dental plate with four teeth on it.
“My word!” I exclaimed; “this clenches the matter with a vengeance.
That is certainly Cyrus Pedley’s plate. It corresponds exactly to the
description.”
“Yes,” he replied, “it is practically a certainty. Of course, it will
have to be identified by the dentist who made it. But it is a foregone
conclusion.”
I reflected as we walked towards the station on the singular sureness
with which Thorndyke had followed what was to me an invisible trail.
Presently I said:
“What is puzzling me is how you got your start in this case. What gave
you the first hint that it was homicide and not suicide or
misadventure?”
“It was the old story, Jervis,” he replied; “just a matter of
observing and remembering apparently trivial details. Here, by the
way, is a case in point.”
He stopped and looked down at a set of tracks in the soft, earth
road--apparently those of the van which we had seen cross the line. I
followed the direction of his glance and saw the clear impression of a