The magic casket
“I have asked Miller to look in this evening--he is due now. I have
been working at this Chapman case, and as it is now complete, I
propose to lay my cards on the table.”
“Is that safe?” said I. “Supposing the police still go for a
conviction and try to forestall your evidence?”
“They won’t,” he replied. “They couldn’t. And it would be most
improper to let the case go for trial on a false theory. But here is
Miller; and a mighty twitter he is in, I have no doubt.”
He was. Without even waiting for the customary cigar, he plumped down
into the chair, and dragging a letter from his pocket, fixed a glare
of astonishment on my placid colleague.
“This letter of yours, sir,” said he, “is perfectly incomprehensible
to me. You say that you are prepared to put us in possession of the
facts of this Chapman case. But we are in possession of the facts
already. We are absolutely certain of a conviction. Let me remind you,
sir, of what those facts are. We have got a dead body which has been
identified beyond all doubt. Part of that body was found in a box
which is the property of Samuel Chapman, which was brought by him and
deposited by him at the ‘Red Lion’ Hotel. Another part of that body
was found in his dwelling-house. A supply of poison--an uncommon
poison, too--similar to that which killed the dead person, has also
been found in his house; and the dead body is that of a woman with
whom Chapman was known to be on terms of enmity and whom he has
threatened, in the presence of witnesses, to kill. Now, sir, what have
you got to say to those facts?”
Thorndyke regarded the agitated detective with a quiet smile. “My
comments, Miller,” said he, “can be put in a nut-shell. You have got
the wrong man, you have got the wrong box, and you have got the wrong
body.”
The superintendent was thunderstruck, and no wonder. So was I. As to
Miller, he drew himself forward until he was sitting on the extreme
edge of the chair, and for some moments stared at my impassive
colleague in speechless amazement. At length he burst out:
“But, my dear sir! This is sheer nonsense--at least, that’s what it
sounds like, though I know it can’t be. Let’s begin with the body. You
say it’s the wrong one.”
“Yes. Rebecca Mings was a biggish woman. Her height was
five-feet-seven. This woman was not more than five-feet-four.”
“Bah!” exclaimed Miller. “You can’t judge to an inch or two from parts
of a dismembered body. You are forgetting the tattoo-mark. That
clenches the identity beyond any possible doubt.”
“It does, indeed,” said Thorndyke. “That is the crucial evidence.
Rebecca Mings had a certain tattoo-mark on her left forearm. This
woman had not.”
“Had not!” shrieked Miller, coming yet farther forward on his chair.
(I expected, every moment, to see him sitting on the floor.) “Why, I
saw it; and so did you.”
“I am speaking of the woman, not of the body,” said Thorndyke. “The
mark that you saw was a post-mortem tattoo-mark. It was made after
death. But the fact that it was made after death is good evidence that
it was not there during life.”
“Moses!” exclaimed the superintendent. “This is a facer. Are you
perfectly sure it was done after death?”
“Quite sure. The appearance, through a powerful lens, is unmistakable.
Tattoo-marks are made, as you know, of course, by painting Indian ink
on the skin and pricking it in with fine needles. In the living skin
the needle wounds heal up at once and disappear, but in the dead skin
the needle-holes remain unclosed and can be easily seen with a lens.
In this case the skin had been well washed and the surface pressed
with some smooth object; but the holes were plainly visible and the
ink was still in them.”
“Well, I’m sure!” said Miller. “I never heard of tattooing a dead body
before.”
“Very few people have, I expect,” said Thorndyke. “But there is one
class of persons who know all about it: the persons who deal in Maori
heads.”
“Indeed?” queried Miller. “How does it concern them?”
“Those heads are usually elaborately tattooed, and the value of a head
depends on the quality of the tattooing. Now, when those heads became
objects of trade, the dealers conceived the idea of touching up
defective specimens by additional tattooing on the dead head, and from
this they proceeded to obtain heads which had no tattoo-marks, and
turn them into tattooed heads.”
“Well, to be sure,” said the superintendent, with a grin, “what wicked
men there are in the world, aren’t there, Dr. Jervis?”
I murmured a vague assent, but I was principally conscious of a desire
to kick myself for having failed to pick this invaluable clue out of
George Chapman’s statement.
“And now,” said Miller, “we come to the box. How do you know it is the
wrong one?”
“That,” replied Thorndyke, “is proved even more conclusively. The
original box was made by Fletchers, in Holborn. It was sold to
Chapman, and his initials painted on it, on the 9th of last April. I
have seen the entry in the day-book. The locks of these boxes are made
by Burden Brothers of Queen Victoria Street, and as they are quite
high-class locks each is given a registered number, which is stamped
on the lock. The number on the lock of the box that you have is 5007,
and Burden’s books show that it was made and sold to Fletchers about
the middle of July--the sale was dated the 13th. Therefore this cannot
be Chapman’s box.”
“Apparently not,” Miller agreed. “But whose box is it? And what has
become of Chapman’s box?”
“That,” replied Thorndyke, “was presumably taken away in Mrs.
Murchison’s dress-basket.”
“Then who the deuce is Mrs. Murchison?” demanded the superintendent.
“I should say,” replied Thorndyke, “that she was formerly known as
Rebecca Mings.”
“The deceased!” exclaimed Miller, falling back in his chair with a
guffaw. “My eye! What a lark it is! But she must have some sauce, to
walk off with the jewellery and leave her own dismembered remains in
exchange! By the way, whose remains are they?”
“We shall come to that presently,” Thorndyke answered. “Now we have to
consider the man you have in custody.”
“Yes,” agreed Miller, “we must settle about him. Of course if it isn’t
his box, and the body isn’t Mings’ body, that puts him out of it so
far. But there are those remains that we dug up in his cellar. What
about them?”
“That question,” replied Thorndyke, “will, I think, be answered by a
general review of the case. But I must remind you that if the box is
not Chapman’s, it is some other person’s; that is to say, that if
Chapman goes out of the case, as to the Stoke Varley incidents,
someone else comes in. So, if the body is not Mings’ body, it is some
other woman’s, and that other woman must have disappeared. And now let
us review the case as a whole.
“You know about the pocket-picking charge. It was obviously a false
charge, deliberately prepared by ‘planting’ the purse; that is, it was
a conspiracy. Now what was the object of this conspiracy? Clearly it
was to get Chapman out of the way while the boxes were exchanged at
Stoke Varley, and the remains deposited in the river and elsewhere.
Then who were the conspirators--other than the agent who planted the
purse?
“They--if there were more than one--must have had access to Mings,
dead or alive, in order to make the exact copy, or tracing, of her
tattoo-mark. They must have had some knowledge of the process of
post-mortem tattooing. They must have had access to Chapman’s house.
And, since they had in their possession the dead body of a woman, they
must have been associated with some woman who has disappeared.
“Who is there who answers this description? Well, of course, Mings had
access to herself, though she could hardly have taken a tracing from
her own arm, and she had access to Chapman’s house, since she had
possession of the latch-key. Then there is a man named Gamble, with
whom Mings was on terms of great intimacy. Now Gamble was formerly a
dealer in tattoed Maori heads, so he may be assumed to know something
about post-mortem tattooing. And I have ascertained that Gamble’s wife
has disappeared from her usual places of resort. So here are two
persons who, together, agree with the description of the conspirators.
And now let us consider the train of events in connexion with the
dates.
“On July the 29th Chapman came to town from Stoke Varley. On the 30th
he was arrested as a pickpocket. On the 31st he was committed for
trial. On the 2nd of August Mrs. Gamble went away to the country. No
one seems to have seen her go, but that is the date on which she is
reported to have gone. On August the 5th Mrs. Murchison deposited at
Stoke Varley a box which must have been purchased between the 13th of
July and the 4th of August, and which contained a woman’s arm. On the
14th of August that box was opened by the police. On the 18th human
remains were discovered in Chapman’s house. On the 27th Chapman was
released from Brixton. On the 28th he was arrested for murder at Stoke
Varley. I think, Miller, you will agree that that is a very striking
succession of dates.”
“Yes,” Miller agreed. “It looks like a true bill. If you will give me
Mr. Gamble’s address, I’ll call on him.”
“I’m afraid you won’t find him at home,” said Thorndyke. “He has gone
into the country, too; and I gather from his landlord, who holds a
returned cheque, that Mr. Gamble’s banking account has gone into the
country with him.”
“Then,” said the superintendent, “I suppose I must take a trip into
the country, too.”
“Well, Thorndyke,” I said, as I laid down the paper containing the
report of the trial of Gamble and Mings for the murder of Theresa
Gamble, one morning about four months later, “you ought to be very
highly gratified. After sentencing Gamble to death and Mings to
fifteen years’ penal servitude, the judge took the opportunity to
compliment the police on their ingenuity in unravelling this crime,
and the Home Office experts on their skill in detecting the
counterfeit tattoo-marks. What do you think of that?”
“I think,” replied Thorndyke, “that his lordship showed a very proper
and appreciative spirit.”
VII.
THE TRAIL OF BEHEMOTH
Of all the minor dissipations in which temperate men indulge there
is none, I think, more alluring than the after-breakfast pipe. I had
just lit mine and was standing before the fire with the unopened paper
in my hand when my ear caught the sound of hurried footsteps ascending
the stair. Now experience has made me somewhat of a connoisseur in
footsteps. A good many are heard on our stair, heralding the advent of
a great variety of clients, and I have learned to distinguish those
which are premonitory of urgent cases. Such I judged the present ones
to be, and my judgment was confirmed by a hasty, importunate tattoo on
our small brass knocker. Regretfully taking the much-appreciated pipe
from my mouth, I crossed the room and threw the door open.
“Good morning, Dr. Jervis,” said our visitor, a barrister whom I knew
slightly. “Is your colleague at home?”
“No, Mr. Bidwell,” I replied. “I am sorry to say he is out of town. He
won’t be back until the day after to-morrow.”
Mr. Bidwell was visibly disappointed.
“Ha! Pity!” he exclaimed; and then with quick tact he added: “But
still, you are here. It comes to the same thing.”
“I don’t know about that,” said I. “But, at any rate, I am at your
service.”
“Thank you,” said he. “And in that case I will ask you to come round
with me at once to Tanfield Court. A most shocking thing has happened.
My old friend and neighbour, Giles Herrington, has been--well, he is
dead--died suddenly, and I think there can be no doubt that he was
killed. Can you come now? I will give you the particulars as we go.”
I scribbled a hasty note to say where I had gone, and having laid it