The magic casket
back-streets it is still possible to hear oneself speak and forget the
march of progress.”
We turned into a narrow by-way with the confidence of the born and
bred Londoner in the impossibility of losing our direction, and began
to thread the intricate web of streets in the neighbourhood of a
canal.
“It is a remarkable thing,” Thorndyke resumed anon, “that every new
application of science seems to be designed to render the environment
of civilized man more and more disagreeable. If the process goes much
farther, as it undoubtedly will, we shall presently find ourselves
looking back wistfully at the Stone-age as the golden age of human
comfort.”
At this point his moralizing was cut short by a loud, sharp explosion.
We both stopped and looked about from the parapet of the bridge that
we were crossing.
“Quite like old times,” Thorndyke remarked. “Carries one back to 1915,
when friend Fritz used to call on us. Ah! There is the place; the top
story of that tall building across the canal.” He pointed as he spoke
to a factory-like structure, from the upper windows of which a lurid
light shone and rapidly grew brighter.
“It must be down the next turning,” said I, quickening my pace. But he
restrained me, remarking: “There is no hurry. That was the sound of
high explosive, and those flames suggest nitro compounds burning.
_Festina lente._ There may be some other packets of high explosives.”
He had hardly finished speaking when a flash of dazzling violet light
burst from the burning building. The windows flew out bodily, the roof
opened in places, and almost at the same moment the clang of a violent
explosion shook the ground under our feet, a puff of wind stirred our
hair, and then came a clatter of falling glass and slates.
We made our way at a leisurely pace towards the scene of the
explosion, through streets lighted up by the ruddy glare from the
burning factory. But others were less cautious. In a few minutes the
street was filled by one of those crowds which, in London, seem
mysteriously to spring up in an instant where but a moment before not
a person was to be seen. Before we had reached the building, a
fire-engine had rumbled past us, and already a sprinkling of policemen
had appeared as if, like the traditional frogs, they had dropped from
the clouds.
In spite of the ferocity of its outbreak, the fire seemed to be no
great matter, for even as we looked and before the fire-hose was fully
run out, the flames began to die down. Evidently, they had been dealt
with by means of extinguishers within the building, and the services
of the engine would not be required after all. Noting this flat ending
to what had seemed so promising a start, we were about to move off and
resume our homeward journey when I observed a uniformed inspector who
was known to us, and who, observing us at the same instant, made his
way towards us through the crowd.
“You remind me, sir,” said he, when he had wished us good evening, “of
the stories of the vultures that make their appearance in the sky from
nowhere when a camel drops dead in the desert. I don’t mean anything
uncomplimentary,” he hastened to add. “I was only thinking of the
wonderful instinct that has brought you to this very spot at this
identical moment, as if you had smelt a case afar off.”
“Then your imagination has misled you,” said Thorndyke, “for I haven’t
smelt a case, and I don’t smell one now. Fires are not in my
province.”
“No, sir,” replied the inspector, “but bodies are, and the fireman
tells me that there is a dead man up there--or at least the remains of
one. I am going up to inspect. Do you care to come up with me?”
Thorndyke considered for a moment, but I knew what his answer would
be, and I was not mistaken.
“As a matter of professional interest, I should,” he replied, “but I
don’t want to be summoned as a witness at the inquest.”
“Of course you don’t, sir,” the inspector agreed, “and I will see that
you are not summoned, unless an expert witness is wanted. I need not
mention that you have been here; but I should be glad of your opinion
for my own guidance in investigating the case.”
He led us through the crowd to the door of the building, where we were
joined by a fireman--whose helmet I should have liked to borrow--by
whom we were piloted up the stairs. Half-way up we met the
night-watchman, carrying an exhausted extinguisher and a big electric
lantern, and he joined our procession, giving us the news as we
ascended.
“It’s all safe up above,” said he, “excepting the roof; and that isn’t
so very much damaged. The big windows saved it. They blew out and let
off the force of the explosion. The floor isn’t damaged at all. It’s
girder and concrete. But poor Mr. Manford caught it properly. He was
fairly blown to bits.”
“Do you know how it happened?” the inspector asked.
“I don’t,” was the reply. “When I came on duty Mr. Manford was up
there in his private laboratory. Soon afterwards a friend of his--a
foreign gentleman of the name of Bilsky--came to see him. I took him
up, and then Mr. Manford said he had some business to do, and after
that he had got a longish job to do and would be working late. So he
said I might turn in and he would let me know when he had finished.
And he did let me know with a vengeance, poor chap! I lay down in my
clothes, and I hadn’t been asleep above a couple of hours when some
noise woke me up. Then there came a most almighty bang. I rushed for
an extinguisher and ran upstairs, and there I found the big laboratory
all ablaze, the windows blown out and the ceiling down. But it wasn’t
so bad as it looked. There wasn’t very much stuff up there; only the
experimental stuff, and that burned out almost at once. I got the rest
of the fire out in a few minutes.”
“What stuff is it that you are speaking of?” the inspector asked.
“Celluloid, mostly, I think,” replied the watchman. “They make films
and other celluloid goods in the works. But Mr. Manford used to do
experiments in the material up in his laboratory. This time he was
working with alloys, melting them on the gas furnace. Dangerous thing
to do with all that inflammable stuff about. I don’t know what there
was up there, exactly. Some of it was celluloid, I could see by the
way it burned, but the Lord knows what it was that exploded. Some of
the raw stuff, perhaps.”
At this point we reached the top floor, where a door blown off its
hinges and a litter of charred wood fragments filled the landing.
Passing through the yawning doorway, we entered the laboratory and
looked on a hideous scene of devastation. The windows were mere holes,
the ceiling a gaping space fringed with black and ragged lathing,
through which the damaged roof was visible by the light of the
watchman’s powerful lantern. The floor was covered with the fallen
plaster and fragments of blackened woodwork, but its own boards were
only slightly burnt in places, owing, no doubt, to their being
fastened directly to the concrete which formed the actual floor.
“You spoke of some human remains,” said the inspector.
“Ah!” said the watchman, “you may well say ‘remains.’ Just come here.”
He led the way over the rubbish to a corner of the laboratory, where
he halted and threw the light of his lantern down on a brownish,
dusty, globular object that lay on the floor half buried in plaster.
“That’s all that’s left of poor Mr. Manford; that and a few other odd
pieces. I saw a hand over the other side.”
Thorndyke picked up the head and placed it on the blackened remnant of
a bench, where, with the aid of the watchman’s lantern and the
inspection lamp which I produced from our research-case, he examined
it curiously. It was extremely, but unequally, scorched. One ear was
completely shrivelled, and most of the face was charred to the bone.
But the other ear was almost intact; and though most of the hair was
burned away to the scalp, a tuft above the less-damaged ear was only
singed, so that it was possible to see that the hair had been black,
with here and there a stray white hair.
Thorndyke made no comments, but I noticed that he examined the
gruesome object minutely, taking nothing for granted. The inspector
noticed this, too; and when the examination was finished, looked at
him inquiringly.
“Anything abnormal, sir?” he asked.
“No,” replied Thorndyke; “nothing that is not accounted for by fire
and the explosion. I see he had no natural teeth, so he must have worn
a complete set of false teeth. That should help in the formal
identification, if the plates are not completely destroyed.”
“There isn’t much need for identification,” said the watchman, “seeing
that there was nobody in the building but him and me. His friend went
away about half-past twelve. I heard Mr. Manford let him out.”
“The doctor means at the inquest,” the inspector explained. “Somebody
has got to recognize the body if possible.”
He took the watchman’s lantern, and throwing its light on the floor,
began to search among the rubbish. Very soon he disinterred from under
a heap of plaster the headless trunk. Both legs were attached, though
the right was charred below the knee and the foot blown off, and one
complete arm. The other arm--the right--was intact only to the elbow.
Here, again, the burning was very unequal. In some parts the clothing
had been burnt off or blown away completely; in others, enough was
left to enable the watchman to recognize it with certainty. One leg
was much more burnt than the other; and whereas the complete arm was
only scorched, the dismembered one was charred almost to the bone.
When the trunk had been carried to the bench and laid there beside the
head, the lights were turned on it for Thorndyke to make his
inspection.
“It almost seems,” said the police officer, as the hand was being
examined, “as if one could guess how he was standing when the
explosion occurred. I think I can make out finger-marks--pretty dirty
ones, too--on the back of the hand, as if he had been standing with
his hands clasped together behind him while he watched something that
he was experimenting with.” The inspector glanced for confirmation at
Thorndyke, who nodded approvingly.
“Yes,” he said, “I think you are right. They are very indistinct, but
the marks are grouped like fingers. The small mark near the wrist
suggests a little finger, and the separate one near the knuckle looks
like a fore-finger, while the remaining two marks are close together.”
He turned the hand over and continued: “And there, in the palm, just
between the roots of the third and fourth fingers, seems to be the
trace of a thumb. But they are all very faint. You have a quick eye,
inspector.”
The gratified officer, thus encouraged, resumed his explorations among
the debris in company with the watchman--the fireman had retired after
a professional look round--leaving Thorndyke to continue his
examination of the mutilated corpse, at which I looked on
unsympathetically. For we had had a long day and I was tired and
longing to get home. At length I drew out my watch, and with a
portentous yawn, entered a mild protest.
“It is nearly two o’clock,” said I. “Don’t you think we had better be
getting on? This really isn’t any concern of ours, and there doesn’t
seem to be anything in it, from our point of view.”
“Only that we are keeping our intellectual joints supple,” Thorndyke
replied with a smile. “But it _is_ getting late. Perhaps we had better
adjourn the inquiry.”
At this moment, however, the inspector discovered the missing
forearm--completely charred--with the fingerless remains of the hand,
and almost immediately afterwards the watchman picked up a dental
plate of some white metal, which seemed to be practically uninjured.
But our brief inspection of these objects elicited nothing of