The magic casket
to give you such details as would enable you to put a stop to the
nuisance. You couldn’t come to-night, I suppose? It is a beast of a
night, but I would take you there in a taxi--it is only to Tooting
Bec. What do you say?” he added eagerly, as Thorndyke made no
objection. “We are sure to find her in, because her maid is away on a
visit to her home and she is alone in the house.”
Thorndyke looked reflectively at his watch.
“Half-past eight,” he remarked, “and half an hour to get there. These
threats are probably nothing but ill-temper. But we don’t know. There
may be something more serious behind them; and, in law as in medicine,
prevention is better than a post-mortem. What do you say, Jervis?”
What could I say? I would much sooner have sat by the fire with a book
than turn out into the murk of a November night. But I felt it
necessary, especially as Thorndyke had evidently made up his mind.
Accordingly I made a virtue of necessity; and a couple of minutes
later we had exchanged the cosy room for the chilly darkness of Inner
Temple Lane, up which the gratified parson was speeding ahead to
capture a taxi. At the top of the Lane we perceived him giving
elaborate instructions to a taxi-driver as he held the door of the cab
open; and Thorndyke, having carefully disposed of his
research-case--which, to my secret amusement, he had caught up, from
mere force of habit, as we started--took his seat, and Meade and I
followed.
As the taxi trundled smoothly along the dark streets, Mr. Meade filled
in the details of his previous sketch, and, in a simple, manly,
unaffected way dilated upon his good fortune and the pleasant future
that lay before him. It was not, perhaps, a romantic marriage, he
admitted; but Miss Fawcett and he had been faithful friends for years,
and faithful friends they would remain till death did them part. So he
ran on, now gleefully, now with a note of anxiety, and we listened by
no means unsympathetically, until at last the cab drew up at a small,
unpretentious house, standing in its own little grounds in a quiet
suburban road.
“She is at home, you see,” observed Meade, pointing to a lighted
ground-floor window. He directed the taxi-driver to wait for the
return journey, and striding up the path, delivered a characteristic
knock at the door. As this brought no response, he knocked again and
rang the bell. But still there was no answer, though twice I thought I
heard the sound of a bolt being either drawn or shot softly. Again Mr.
Meade plied the knocker more vigorously, and pressed the push of the
bell, which we could hear ringing loudly within.
“This is very strange,” said Meade, in an anxious tone, keeping his
thumb pressed on the bell-push. “She can’t have gone out and left the
electric light on. What had we better do?”
“We had better enter without more delay,” Thorndyke replied. “There
were certainly sounds from within. Is there a side gate?”
Meade ran off towards the side of the house, and Thorndyke and I
glanced at the lighted window, which was slightly open at the top.
“Looks a bit queer,” I remarked, listening at the letter-box.
Thorndyke assented gravely, and at this moment Meade returned,
breathing hard.
“The side gate is bolted inside,” said he; and at this I recalled the
stealthy sound of the bolt that I had heard. “What is to be done?”
Without replying, Thorndyke handed me his research-case, stepped
across to the window, sprang up on the sill, drew down the upper sash
and disappeared between the curtains into the room. A moment later the
street door opened and Meade and I entered the hall. We glanced
through the open doorway into the lighted room, and I noticed a heap
of needlework thrown hastily on the dining table. Then Meade switched
on the hall light, and Thorndyke walked quickly past him to the
half-open door of the next room. Before entering, he reached in and
switched on the light; and as he stepped into the room he partly
closed the door behind him.
“Don’t come in here, Meade!” he called out. But the parson’s eye, like
my own, had seen something before the door closed: a great, dark stain
on the carpet just within the threshold. Regardless of the admonition,
he pushed the door open and darted into the room. Following him, I saw
him rush forward, fling his arms up wildly, and with a dreadful,
strangled cry, sink upon his knees beside a low couch on which a woman
was lying.
“Merciful God!” he gasped. “She is dead! Is she dead, doctor? Can
nothing be done?”
Thorndyke shook his head. “Nothing,” he said in a low voice. “She is
dead.”
Poor Meade knelt by the couch, his hands clutching at his hair and his
eyes riveted on the dead face, the very embodiment of horror and
despair.
“God Almighty!” he exclaimed in the same strangled undertone. “How
frightful! Poor, poor Millie! Dear, sweet friend!” Then
suddenly--almost savagely--he turned to Thorndyke. “But it can’t be,
doctor! It is impossible--unbelievable. That, I mean!” and he pointed
to the dead woman’s right hand, which held an open razor.
Our poor friend had spoken my own thought. It was incredible that this
refined, pious lady should have inflicted those savage wounds that
gaped scarlet beneath the waxen face. There, indeed, was the razor
lying in her hand. But what was its testimony worth? My heart rejected
it; but yet, unwillingly, I noted that the wounds seemed to support
it; for they had been made from left to right, as they would have been
if self-inflicted.
“It is hard to believe,” said Thorndyke, “but there is only one
alternative. Someone should acquaint the police at once.”
“I will go,” exclaimed Meade, starting up. “I know the way and the cab
is there.” He looked once more with infinite pity and affection at the
dead woman. “Poor, sweet girl!” he murmured. “If we can do no more for
you, we can defend your memory from calumny and call upon the God of
Justice to right the innocent and punish the guilty.”
With these words and a mute farewell to his dead friend, he hurried
from the room, and immediately afterwards we heard the street door
close.
As he went out, Thorndyke’s manner changed abruptly. He had been
deeply moved--as who would not have been--by this awful tragedy that
had in a moment shattered the happiness of the genial, kindly parson.
Now he turned to me with a face set and stern.
“This is an abominable affair, Jervis,” he said in an ominously quiet
voice.
“You reject the suggestion of suicide, then?” said I, with a feeling
of relief that surprised me.
“Absolutely,” he replied. “Murder shouts at us from everything that
meets our eye. Look at this poor woman, in her trim nurse’s dress,
with her unfinished needlework lying on the table in the next room and
that preposterous razor loose in her limp hand. Look at the savage
wounds. Four of them, and the first one mortal. The great bloodstain
by the door, the great blood-stain on her dress from the neck to the
feet. The gashed collar, the cap-string cut right through. Note that
the bleeding had practically ceased when she lay down. That is a group
of visible facts that is utterly inconsistent with the idea of
suicide. But we are wasting time. Let us search the premises
thoroughly. The murderer has pretty certainly got away, but as he was
in the house when we arrived, any traces will be quite fresh.”
As he spoke he took his electric lamp from the research-case and
walked to the door.
“We can examine this room later,” he said, “but we had better look
over the house. If you will stay by the stairs and watch the front and
back doors, I will look through the upper rooms.”
He ran lightly up the stairs while I kept watch below, but he was
absent less than a couple of minutes.
“There is no one there,” he reported, “and as there is no basement we
will just look at this floor and then examine the grounds.”
After a rapid inspection of the ground-floor rooms, including the
kitchen, we went out by the back door, which was unbolted, and
inspected the grounds. These consisted of a largish garden with a
small orchard at the side. In the former we could discover no traces
of any kind, but at the end of the path that crossed the orchard we
came on a possible clue. The orchard was enclosed by a five-foot
fence, the top of which bristled with hooked nails; and at the point
opposite to the path, Thorndyke’s lantern brought into view one or two
wisps of cloth caught on the hooks.
“Someone has been over here,” said Thorndyke, “but as this is an
orchard, there is nothing remarkable in the fact. However, there is no
fruit on the trees now, and the cloth looks fairly fresh. There are
two kinds, you notice: a dark blue and a black and white mixture of
some kind.”
“Corresponding, probably, to the coat and trousers,” I suggested.
“Possibly,” he agreed, taking from his pocket a couple of the little
seed-envelopes of which he always carried a supply. Very delicately he
picked the tiny wisps of cloth from the hooks and bestowed each kind
in a separate envelope. Having pocketed these, he leaned over the
fence and threw the light of his lamp along the narrow lane or alley
that divided the orchard from the adjoining premises. It was
ungravelled and covered with a growth of rank grass, which suggested
that it was little frequented. But immediately below was a small patch
of bare earth, and on this was a very distinct impression of a foot,
covering several less distinct prints.
“Several people have been over here at different times,” I remarked.
“Yes,” Thorndyke agreed. “But that sharp footprint belongs to the last
one over, and he is our concern. We had better not confuse the issues
by getting over ourselves. We will mark the spot and explore from the
other end.” He laid his handkerchief over the top of the fence and we
then went back to the house.
“You are going to take a plaster cast, I suppose?” said I; and as he
assented, I fetched the research-case from the drawing-room. Then we
fixed the catch of the front-door latch and went out, drawing the door
to after us.
We found the entrance to the alley about sixty yards from the gate,
and entering it, walked slowly forwards, scanning the ground as we
went. But the bright lamp-light showed nothing more than the vague
marks of trampling feet on the grass until we came to the spot marked
by the handkerchief on the fence.
“It is a pity,” I remarked, “that this footprint has obliterated the
others.”
“On the other hand,” he replied, “this one, which is the one that
interests us, is remarkably clear and characteristic: a circular heel
and a rubber sole of a recognizable pattern mended with a patch of
cement paste. It is a footprint that could be identified beyond a
doubt.”
As he was speaking, he took from the research-case the water-bottle,
plaster-tin, rubber mixing-bowl and spoon, and a piece of canvas with
which to “reinforce” the cast. Rapidly, he mixed a bowlful--extra
thick, so that it should set quickly and hard--dipped the canvas into
it, poured the remainder into the footprint, and laid the canvas on
it.
“I will get you to stay here, Jervis,” said he, “until the plaster has
set. I want to examine the body rather more thoroughly before the
police arrive, particularly the back.”
“Why the back?” I asked.
“Did not the appearance of the body suggest to you the advisability of
examining the back?” he asked, and then, without waiting for a reply,
he went off, leaving the inspection-lamp with me.
His words gave me matter for profound thought during my short vigil. I
recalled the appearance of the dead woman very vividly--indeed, I am
not likely ever to forget it--and I strove to connect that appearance
with his desire to examine the back of the corpse. But there seemed to
be no connexion at all. The visible injuries were in front, and I had