The magic casket
to arrest her on the bigamy charge, but she had got wind of their
intentions and cleared out. They made a search of the premises, but I
don’t think they found anything of interest except a number of rifle
cartridges; and I don’t know that they are of much interest either,
for she could hardly have shot him with a rifle.”
“What kind of cartridges were they?” Thorndyke asked.
Stalker put his hand in his pocket.
“The inspector let me have one to show you,” said he; and he laid on
the table a military cartridge of the pattern of some twenty years
ago. Thorndyke picked it up, and taking from a drawer a pair of pliers
drew the bullet out of the case and inserted into the latter a pair of
dissecting forceps. When he withdrew the forceps, their points grasped
one or two short strings of what looked like cat-gut.
“Cordite!” said I. “So Halbury was probably right, and this is how she
got her supply.” Then, as Stalker looked at me inquiringly, I gave him
a short account of the results of our investigations.
“Ha!” he exclaimed, “the plot thickens. This juggling with the death
certificates seems to connect itself with another kind of juggling
that I came to tell you about. You know that Ingle was Secretary and
Treasurer to a company that bought and sold land for building estates.
Well, I called at their office after I left you and had a little talk
with the chairman. From him I learned that Ingle had practically
complete control of the financial affairs of the company, that he
received and paid all moneys and kept the books. Of late, however,
some of the directors have had a suspicion that all was not well with
the finances, and at last it was decided to have the affairs of the
company thoroughly overhauled by a firm of chartered accountants. This
decision was communicated to Ingle, and a couple of days later a
letter arrived from his wife saying that he had had a severe heart
attack and asking that the audit of the books might be postponed until
he recovered and was able to attend at the office.”
“And was it postponed?” I asked.
“No,” replied Stalker. “The accountants were asked to get to work at
once, which they did; with the result that they discovered a number of
discrepancies in the books and a sum of about three thousand pounds
unaccounted for. It isn’t quite obvious how the frauds were carried
out, but it is suspected that some of the returned cheques are fakes
with forged endorsements.”
“Did the company communicate with Ingle on the subject?” asked
Thorndyke.
“No. They had a further letter from Mrs. Ingle--that is,
Huggard--saying that Ingle’s condition was very serious; so they
decided to wait until he had recovered. Then, of course, came the
announcement of his death, on which the matter was postponed pending
the probate of the will. I suppose a claim will be made on the estate,
but as the executrix has absconded, the affair has become rather
complicated.”
“You were saying,” said Thorndyke, “that the fraudulent death
certificates seem to be connected with these frauds on the company.
What kind of connexion do you assume?”
“I assume--or, at least, suggest,” replied Stalker, “that this was a
case of suicide. The man, Ingle, saw that his frauds were discovered,
or were going to be, and that he was in for a long term of penal
servitude, so he just made away with himself. And I think that if the
murder charge could be dropped, Mrs. Huggard might be induced to come
forward and give evidence as to the suicide.”
Thorndyke shook his head.
“The murder charge couldn’t be dropped,” said he. “If it was suicide,
Huggard was certainly an accessory; and in law, an accessory to
suicide is an accessory to murder. But, in fact, no official charge of
murder has been made, and at present there are no means of sustaining
such a charge. The identity of the ashes might be assumed to be that
stated in the cremation order, but the difficulty is the cause of
death. Ingle was admittedly ill. He was attended for heart disease by
three doctors. There is no evidence that he did not die from that
illness.”
“But the illness was due to cordite poisoning,” said I.
“That is what we believe. But no one could swear to it. And we
certainly could not swear that he died from cordite poisoning.”
“Then,” said Stalker, “apparently there is no means of finding out
whether his death was due to natural causes, suicide, or murder?”
“There is only one chance,” replied Thorndyke. “It is just barely
possible that the cause of death might be ascertainable by an
examination of the ashes.”
“That doesn’t seem very hopeful,” said I. “Cordite poisoning would
certainly leave no trace.”
“We mustn’t assume that he died from cordite poisoning,” said
Thorndyke. “Probably he did not. That may have masked the action of a
less obvious poison, or death might have been produced by some new
agent.”
“But,” I objected, “how many poisons are there that could be detected
in the ashes? No organic poison would leave any traces, nor would
metallic poisons such as mercury, antimony, or arsenic.”
“No,” Thorndyke agreed. “But there are other metallic poisons which
could be easily recovered from the ashes; lead, tin, gold, and silver,
for instance. But it is useless to discuss speculative probabilities.
The only chance that we have of obtaining any new facts is by an
examination of the ashes. It seems infinitely improbable that we shall
learn anything from it, but there is the bare possibility and we ought
not to leave it untried.”
Neither Stalker nor I made any further remark, but I could see that
the same thought was in both our minds. It was not often that
Thorndyke was “gravelled”; but apparently the resourceful Mrs. Huggard
had set him a problem that was beyond even his powers. When an
investigator of crime is reduced to the necessity of examining a
potful of ashes in the wild hope of ascertaining from them how the
deceased met his death, one may assume that he is at the very end of
his tether. It is a forlorn hope indeed.
Nevertheless, Thorndyke seemed to view the matter quite cheerfully,
his only anxiety being lest the Home Secretary should refuse to make
the order authorizing the examination. And this anxiety was dispelled
a day or two later by the arrival of a letter giving the necessary
authority, and informing him that a Dr. Hemming--known to us both as
an expert pathologist--had been deputed to be present at the
examination and to confer with him as to the necessity for a chemical
analysis.
On the appointed day Dr. Hemming called at our chambers and we set
forth together for Liverpool Street; and as we drove thither it became
evident to me that his view of our mission was very similar to my own.
For, though he talked freely enough, and on professional topics, he
maintained a most discreet silence on the subject of the forthcoming
inspection; indeed, the first reference to the subject was made by
Thorndyke himself just as the train was approaching Corfield, where
the crematorium was situated.
“I presume,” said he, “you have made all necessary arrangements,
Hemming?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “The superintendent will meet us and will
conduct us to the catacombs, and there, in our presence, will take the
casket from its niche in the columbarium, and have it conveyed to the
office, where the examination will be made. I thought it best to use
these formalities, though, as the casket is sealed and bears the name
of the deceased, there is not much point in them.”
“No,” said Thorndyke, “but I think you were right. It would be easy to
challenge the identity of a mass of ashes if all precautions were not
taken, seeing that the ashes themselves are unidentifiable.”
“That was what I felt,” said Hemming; and then, as the train slowed
down, he added: “This is our station, and that gentleman on the
platform, I suspect, is the superintendent.”
The surmise turned out to be correct; but the cemetery official was
not the only one present bearing that title; for as we were mutually
introducing ourselves, a familiar tall figure approached up the
platform from the rear of the train--our old friend Superintendent
Miller of the Criminal Investigation Department.
“I don’t wish to intrude,” said he, as he joined the group and was
presented by Thorndyke to the strangers, “but we were notified by the
Home Office that an investigation was to be made, so I thought I would
be on the spot to pick up any crumbs of information that you may drop.
Of course, I am not asking to be present at the examination.”
“You may as well be present as an additional witness to the removal of
the urn,” said Thorndyke; and Miller accordingly joined the party,
which now made its way from the station to the cemetery.
The catacombs were in a long, low arcaded building at the end of the
pleasantly-wooded grounds, and on our way thither we passed the
crematorium, a smallish, church-like edifice with a perforated
chimney-shaft partly concealed by the low spire. Entering the
catacombs, we were conducted to the “columbarium,” the walls of which
were occupied by a multitude of niches or pigeon-holes, each niche
accommodating a terra-cotta urn or casket. The superintendent
proceeded to near the end of the gallery, where he halted, and opening
the register, which he had brought with him, read out a number and the
name “Jonathan Ingle,” and then led us to a niche bearing that number
and name, in which reposed a square casket, on which was inscribed the
name and date of death. When we had verified these particulars, the
casket was tenderly lifted from its place by two attendants, who
carried it to a well-lighted room at the end of the building, where a
large table by a window had been covered with white paper. Having
placed the casket on the table, the attendants retired, and the
superintendent then broke the seals and removed the cover.
For a while we all stood looking in at the contents of the casket
without speaking; and I found myself contrasting them with what would
have been revealed by the lifting of a coffin-lid. Truly corruption
had put on incorruption. The mass of snow-white, coral-like fragments,
delicate, fragile, and lace-like in texture, so far from being
repulsive in aspect, were almost attractive. I ran my eye, with an
anatomist’s curiosity, over these dazzling remnants of what had lately
been a man, half-unconsciously seeking to identify and give a name to
particular fragments, and a little surprised at the difficulty of
determining that this or that irregularly-shaped white object was a
part of any one of the bones with which I had thought myself so
familiar.
Presently Hemming looked up at Thorndyke and asked: “Do you observe
anything abnormal in the appearance of these ashes? I don’t.”
“Perhaps,” replied Thorndyke, “we had better turn them out on to the
table, so that we can see the whole of them.”
This was done very gently, and then Thorndyke proceeded to spread out
the heap, touching the fragments with the utmost delicacy--for they
were extremely fragile and brittle--until the whole collection was
visible.
“Well,” said Hemming, when we had once more looked them over
critically, “what do you say? I can see no trace of any foreign
substance. Can you?”
“No,” replied Thorndyke. “And there are some other things that I can’t
see. For instance, the medical referee reported that the proposer had
a good set of sound teeth. Where are they? I have not seen a single
fragment of a tooth. Yet teeth are far more resistant to fire than
bones, especially the enamel caps.”
Hemming ran a searching glance over the mass of fragments and looked
up with a perplexed frown.
“I certainly can’t see any sign of teeth,” he admitted; “and it _is_
rather curious, as you say. Does the fact suggest any particular
significance to you?”