The mystery of Angelina Frood
moments. At length I asked, huskily: “Where did you get it?”
“I found it,” said the sergeant, gazing fondly at the little trinket,
“where I hardly hoped to find it--in a pawnbroker’s shop in Chatham.”
“Did you discover who pawned it?” I asked.
“In a sense, yes,” the sergeant replied with a bland smile.
“How do you mean--in a sense?” I inquired.
“I mean that his name was John Smith--only, of course, it wasn’t; and
that his address was 26, Swoffer’s-alley, Chatham--only he didn’t live
there, because there is no such number. You see, Doctor, John Smith is
the name of nearly every man who gives a false description of himself;
and I went straight off to Swoffer’s-alley--it was close by--and found
that there wasn’t any number 26.”
“Then you really don’t know who pawned it?”
“We won’t exactly say that,” he replied. “I got a fair description of
the man from the pawnbroker’s wife, who made out the ticket and says
she could swear to the man if she saw him. He was a seafaring man,
dressed in sailor’s clothes--a peaked cap and pea-jacket--a shortish
fellow, rather sunburnt, with a small, stubby, dark moustache and dark
hair, and a mole or wart on the left side of his nose, near the tip.
She asked him where he had got the brooch, and he said it had belonged
to his old woman. I should say he probably picked it up.”
“Why do you think so?” I asked.
“Well, if he had--er--got it in any other way, he would hardly have
popped it in Chatham forty-eight hours after the--after it was lost,
with the chance that the pawnbrokers had already been notified--he
pawned it on Monday night.”
“Then,” said I, “if he picked it up, he isn’t of much importance; and
in any case you don’t know who he is.”
“Oh, but he is of a good deal of importance,” said the sergeant. “I’ve
no doubt he picked it up, but that is only a guess. He may have got it
the other way. But at any rate, he had it in his possession and he
will have to give an account of how he obtained it. The importance of
it is this: taken with the disappearance, the finding of this brooch
raises a strong suspicion that a crime has been committed, and if we
could find out where it was picked up, we should have a clue to the
place where the affair took place. I want that man very badly, and I’m
going to have a good try to get him.”
“I don’t quite see how,” said I. “You haven’t much to go on.”
“I’ve got his nose to go on,” replied the sergeant.
“But there must be plenty of other men with moles on their noses.”
“That’s their look-out,” he retorted. “If I come across a man who
answers the description, I shall hang on to him until Mrs. Pawnbroker
has had a look at him. Of course, if she says he’s not the man, he’ll
be released.”
“But she won’t,” said I. “If he has a mole on his nose, she will be
perfectly certain that he is the man.”
The sergeant smiled benignly. “There’s something in that,” he
admitted. “Ladies are a bit cock-sure when it comes to identification.
But you can generally check ’em by other evidence. And if this chap
picked the brooch up, he would be pretty certain to tell us all about
it when he heard where it came from. Still, we haven’t got him yet.”
For a while we sat without speaking, each pursuing his own thoughts.
To me, this dreadful discovery, though it did but materialize the
vague fears that had been surging through my mind, had fallen like a
thunderbolt. For, behind those fears, I now realized that there had
lurked a hope that the mystery might presently be resolved by the
return of the lost one. Now that hope had suddenly become extinct. I
knew that she had gone out of my life for ever. She was dead. This
poor little waif that had drifted back into our hands brought the
unmistakable message of her death, with horrible suggestions of
hideous and sordid tragedy. I shuddered at the thought; and in that
moment, from the grief and horror that possessed my soul, there was
born a passion of hatred for the wretch who had done this thing and a
craving for revenge.
“There’s another queer thing that has come to light,” the sergeant
resumed at length. “There may be nothing in it, but it’s a little
queer. About the husband, Nicholas Frood.”
“What about him?” I asked, eagerly.
“Why, he seems to have disappeared, too. Of course, you understand,
Doctor, that what I’m telling you is confidential. We are not talking
about this affair outside, and we aren’t telling the Press much, at
present.”
“Naturally,” said I. “You can trust me to keep my own counsel, and
yours, too.”
“I’m sure I can. Well, about this man, Frood. It seems that last
Friday he went away from his lodgings for a couple of days; but he
hasn’t come back, and nobody knows what has become of him. He was
supposed to be going to Brighton, where he has some relatives from
whom he gets a little assistance occasionally, but they have seen or
heard nothing of him. Quaint, isn’t it? You said you saw him here on
the Monday.”
“Yes, and I haven’t seen him since, though I have kept a look-out for
him. But he may have been here, all the same. It looks decidedly
suspicious.”
“It is queer,” the sergeant agreed, “but we’ve no evidence that he has
been in this neighbourhood.”
“Have you made any other inquiries?” I asked.
“We looked up that lady, Miss Cumbers, but we got nothing out of her.
She had had a letter from Mrs. Frood on the 24th--yesterday
week--quite an ordinary letter, giving no hint of any intention to go
away from Rochester. So there you are. The mystery seems to be
concerned entirely with this neighbourhood, and I expect we shall have
to solve it on the spot.”
This last observation impressed me strongly. The sergeant’s view of
the case was the same as Thorndyke’s, and expressed in almost the same
words.
“Have you any theory as to what has actually happened?” I asked.
The sergeant smiled in his benignant fashion. “It isn’t much use
inventing theories,” said he. “We’ve got to get the facts before we
can do anything. Still, looking at the case as we find it, there are
two or three things that hit us in the face. There is a strong
suspicion of murder, there is no trace of the body, and there is a big
tidal river close at hand. On Saturday night it was high water at
half-past eleven, so there wouldn’t have been much of the shore
uncovered at, say, half-past nine, and there would have been plenty of
water at any of the piers or causeways.”
“Then you think it probable that she was murdered and her body flung
into the river?”
“It is the likeliest thing, so far as we can judge. There is the
river, and there is no sign of the body on shore. But, as I say, it is
no use guessing. We’ve got people watching the river from Allington
Lock to Sheerness, and that’s all we can do in that line. The body is
pretty certain to turn up, sooner or later. Of course, until it does,
there is no real criminal case; and even when we’ve got the body, we
may not be much nearer getting the murderer. Excepting the man Frood,
there is no one who seems to have had any motive for making away with
her; and if it was just a casual robbery with murder it is unlikely
that we shall ever spot the man at all.”
Having given expression to this rather pessimistic view, the sergeant
rose, and, picking up his helmet, took his departure, after promising
to let me know of any further developments.
As soon as he was gone, I wrote down the substance of what he had
said, and then embodied it in a report for Thorndyke. While I was thus
occupied, the afternoon post was delivered, and included a packet from
the London photographer, to whom I had written, enclosing two copies
of the photograph of Angelina that Mr. Japp had handed to the
sergeant. Of these, I enclosed one copy in my communication to
Thorndyke, on the bare chance that it might be of some assistance to
him, and, having closed up the large envelope and stamped it, I went
forth to drop it into the post-box.
CHAPTER IX.
JETSAM
That portion of Chatham High-street which lies adjacent to the River
Medway presents a feature that is characteristic of old riverside
towns in the multitude of communications between the street and the
shore. Some of these are undisguised entrances to wharves, some are
courts or small thoroughfares lined with houses and leading to
landing-stages, while others are mere passages or flights of steps,
opening obscurely and inconspicuously on the street by narrow
apertures, unnoticed by the ordinary wayfarer and suggesting the
burrows of some kind of human water-rat.
In the days that followed the sergeant’s visit to me I made the
acquaintance of all of them. Now I would wander down the cobbled
cartway that led to a wharf, there to cast a searching eye over the
muddy fore-shore or scan the turbid water at high tide as it eddied
between the barges and around the piles. Or I would dive into the
mouths of the burrows, creeping down slimy steps and pursuing the
tortuous passages through a world of uncleanness until I came out upon
the shore, where the fresh smell of seaweed mingled with odours
indescribable. I began to be an object of curiosity--and perhaps of
some suspicion--to the denizens of the little, ruinous, timber houses
that lined these alleys, and of frank interest to the children who
played around the rubbish heaps or dabbled in the grey mud. But never
did my roving eye light upon that which it sought with such dreadful
expectation.
One afternoon, about a week after the sergeant’s visit, when I was
returning home from one of these explorations, I observed a man on my
doorstep as I approached the house. His appearance instantly aroused
my attention, for he was dressed in the amphibious style adopted by
waterside dwellers, and he held something in his hand at which he
looked from time to time. Before I reached the door it had opened and
admitted him, and when I arrived I found him in the hall nervously
explaining his business to Mrs. Dunk.
“Here _is_ the doctor,” said the latter; “you’d better tell him about
it.”
The man turned to me and held out an amazingly dirty fist. “I’ve got
something here, sir,” said he, “what belongs to you, I think.” Here he
unclosed his hand and exhibited a little cardboard box bearing one of
Dr. Partridge’s labels. It was smeared with mud and grime, but I
recognized it instantly; indeed, when I took it with trembling fingers
from his palm and looked at it closely, the name, “Mrs. Frood,” was
still decipherable under the smears of dirt.
“Where did you find this?” I asked.
“I picked it up on the strand,” he replied, “about halfway betwixt the
Sun Pier and the end of Ship Alley, and just below spring tide
high-water mark. Is it any good?”
“Yes,” I answered; “it is very important. I will get you to walk along
with me to the police station.”
“What for?” he demanded suspiciously. “I don’t want no police
stations. If it’s any good, give us what you think it’s worth, and
have done with it.”
I gave him half-a-crown to allay his suspicions, and then said: “You
had better come with me to the station. I expect the police will want
you to show them exactly where you found this box and help them to
search the place; and I will see that you are paid for your trouble.”
“But look ’ere, mister,” he objected; “what’s the police got to do
with this ’ere box?”
I explained the position to him briefly, and then, suddenly, his face
lit up. “I know,” he said excitedly. “I seen the bills stuck up on the
dead-’ouse door. And d’you mean to say as this ’ere box was ’ers? ’Cos
if it was it’s worth more’n ’arf-a-crown.”
“Perhaps it is,” said I. “We will hear what the sergeant thinks,” and
with this I opened the door and went out, and my new acquaintance now
followed with the greatest alacrity, taking the opportunity, as we