The mystery of Angelina Frood
they could be produced if necessary, I will ask you to take charge of
them.”
There was a cupboard with a good lock in the old bureau that I had
found in my bedroom, and to this I conveyed the precious objects and
locked them in. And so ended--at least, for the present--the episode
of our raid on poor Angelina’s abode.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DISCOVERY IN BLACK BOY-LANE
On a fine, sunny afternoon, about ten days after our raid on
Angelina’s rooms (it was Tuesday, the 14th of July, to be exact), I
was sitting in my dining-room, from which the traces of lunch had just
been removed, idly glancing over the paper, and considering the
advisability of taking a walk, when I heard the door-bell ring. There
was a short interval; then the door was opened, and the sounds of
strife and wrangling that followed this phenomenon informed me that
the visitor was Mr. Bundy, between whom and Mrs. Dunk there existed a
state of chronic warfare. Presently the dining-room door opened--in
time for me to catch a concluding growl of defiance from Mrs.
Dunk--and that lady announced gruffly: “Mr. Bundy.”
My visitor tripped in smilingly, “all teeth and eyeglass,” as his
inveterate enemy had once expressed it, holding a Panama hat, which
had temporarily superseded the velour.
“Well, John,” said he, “coming out to play?” He had lately taken to
calling me John; in fact, a very close and pleasant intimacy had
sprung up between us. It dated from the occasion when I had confided
to him my unfortunate passion for poor Angelina. That confidence he
had evidently taken as a great compliment, and the matter of it had
struck a sympathetic chord in his kindly nature. From that moment
there had been a sensible change in his manner towards me. Beneath his
habitual flippancy there was an undertone of gentleness and sympathy,
and even of affection. Nor had I been unresponsive. Like Thorndyke, I
found in his sunny temperament, his invariable cheerfulness and high
spirits, a communicable quality that took effect on my own state of
mind. And then I had early recognized that, in spite of his apparent
giddiness, Bundy was a man of excellent intelligence and considerable
strength of character. So the friendship had ripened naturally enough.
I rose from my chair and, dropping the paper, stretched myself.
“You are an idle young dog,” said I. “Why aren’t you at work?”
“Nothing doing at the office except some specifications. Japp is doing
them. Come out and have a roll round.”
“Well, Jimmy,” said I. “Your name is Jimmy, isn’t it?”
“No, it is not,” he replied with dignity. “I am called Peter--like the
Bishop of Rumtifoo, and, by a curious coincidence, for the very same
reason.”
“Let me see,” said I, falling instantly into the trap, “what was that
reason?”
“Why, you see,” he replied impressively, “the Bishop was called Peter
because that was his name.”
“Look here, young fellow my lad,” said I, “you’ll get yourself into
trouble if you come up here pulling your elder’s legs.”
“It was only a gentle tweak, old chap,” said he. “Besides, you aren’t
so blooming senile, after all. You are only cutting your first crop of
whiskers. Are you coming out? I saw old Cobbledick just now, turning
down Blue Boar Lane and looking as miserable as a wet cat.”
“What was he looking miserable about?”
“The slump in relics, I expect. He is making no headway with his
investigation. I fancy he had reckoned on getting an inspectorship out
of this case, whereas, if he doesn’t reach some sort of conclusion, he
is likely to get his rapples knucked, as old Miss Barman would say. I
suspect he was on his way to the Ark to confer with Mr. Noah. What do
you say to a stroll in the direction of Mount Ararat?”
It was a cunning suggestion on the part of Bundy, for it drew me
instantly. Repulsive as old Israel’s activities were to me, the
presence of those finger-prints, securely locked up in my bureau, had
created in me a fresh anxiety to see the first state of the
investigation completed so that the search for the murderer could be
commenced in earnest. Not that my presence would help the sergeant,
but that I was eager to hear the tidings of any new discovery.
Bundy’s inference had been quite correct. We arrived at the head of
the Blue Boar pier just in time to see the sergeant slowly descending
the ladder, watched gloomily by Israel Bangs. As the former reached
terra firma he turned round and then observed us.
“Any news, Sergeant?” I asked, as he approached across the grass.
He shook his head discontentedly. “No,” he replied, “not a sign; not a
vestige. It’s a most mysterious affair. The things seemed to be coming
up quite regularly until that hatpin was found. Then everything came
to an end. Not a trace of anything for nigh upon a month. And what, in
the name of Fortune, can have become of the body? That’s what I can’t
make out. If this goes on much longer, there won’t be any body: and
then we shall be done. The case will have to be dropped.”
He took off his hat (he was in plain clothes as usual) and wiped his
forehead, looking blankly first at me and then at Bundy. The latter
also took off his hat and whisked out his handkerchief, bringing with
it a little telescope which fell to the ground and was immediately
picked up by the sergeant. “Neat little glass, this,” he remarked,
dusting it with his handkerchief. “It’s lucky it fell on the turf.” He
took off the cap, and pulling out the tubes, peered vaguely through it
up and down the river. Presently he handed it to me. “Look at those
craft down below the dockyard,” said he.
I took the little instrument from him and pointed it at the group of
small, cutter-rigged vessels that he had indicated, of which the
telescope, small as it was, gave a brilliantly sharp picture.
“What are they?” I asked. “Oyster dredgers?”
“No,” he replied. “They are bawleys with their shrimp-trawls down. But
there are plenty of oyster-dredgers in the lower river and out in the
estuary, and what beats me is why none of them ever brings up anything
in the trawls or dredges--anything in our line, I mean.”
“What did you expect them to bring up?” Bundy asked.
“Well, there are the things that have washed ashore, and there are the
other things that haven’t washed ashore yet. And then there is the
body.”
“Mr. Noah would have something to say if they brought that up,” said
Bundy. “By the way, what had he got to say when you called on him?”
“Old Bangs? Why he is getting a bit shirty. Wants me to pay him for
all the time he has lost on creeping and searching. Of course, I can’t
do that, I didn’t employ him.”
“Did he find the hat-pin that you spoke of?” Bundy asked.
“Yes; and he has been grubbing round the place where he found it ever
since, as if he thought hat-pins grew there.”
“Still,” said Bundy, “it is not so unreasonable. A hat-pin couldn’t
have floated ashore. If the hat came off, the two hat-pins must have
fallen out at pretty much the same time and place.”
“Yes,” the sergeant agreed, reflectively, “that seems to be common
sense; and, if it is, the other hat-pin ought to be lying somewhere
close by. I must go and have a look there myself.” He again reflected
for a few moments and then asked: “Would you like to see the place
where Israel found the pin?”
As I had seen the place already and had shown it to Thorndyke, I left
Bundy to answer.
“Why not?” he assented, rather, I suspected, to humour the sergeant
than because he felt any particular interest in the place. Thereupon
Cobbledick, whose enthusiasm appeared to have been revived by Bundy’s
remark, led the way briskly towards the wilderness by the
coal-wharves, through that desolate region and along a cart-track that
skirted the marshes until we came out into a sort of lesser wilderness
to the west of Gas-House Road. Here the sergeant slipped through a
large hole in a corrugated iron fence which gave access to a wharf
littered with the unpresentable debris resulting from the activities
of a firm of ship-knackers. Advancing to the edge of the wharf,
Cobbledick stood for a while looking down wistfully at the expanse of
unspeakable mud that the receding tide had uncovered.
“I suppose it is too dirty to go down,” he said in a regretful tone.
Bundy’s assent to this proposition was most emphatic and unqualified,
and the sergeant had to content himself with a bird’s-eye view. But he
made a very thorough inspection, walking along the edge of the wharf,
scrutinizing its base, pile by pile, and giving separate attention to
each pot, tin, or scrap of driftwood on the slimy surface. He even
borrowed Bundy’s telescope to enable him to examine the more distant
parts of the mud, until the owner of the instrument was reduced to the
necessity of standing behind him, for politeness’ sake, to get a
comfortable yawn.
“Well,” said Cobbledick, at long last, handing back the telescope, “I
suppose we must give it up. But it’s disappointing.”
“I don’t quite see why,” said Bundy. “You have found enough to prove
that the body is in the river, and no number of further relics would
prove any more.”
“No, there’s some truth in that,” Cobbledick agreed. “But I don’t like
the way that everything seems to have come to a stop.” He crawled
dejectedly through the hole in the fence and walked on for a minute or
two without speaking. Presently he halted and looked about him. “I
suppose Black Boy-lane will be our best way,” he remarked.
“Which is Black Boy-lane?” I asked.
“It is the lane we came down after we left Japp and Willard that day,”
Bundy explained.
“I remember,” said I, “but I didn’t know it had a name.”
“It was named after a little inn that used to stand somewhere near the
top; but it was pulled down years ago. Here’s the lane.”
We entered the little, tortuous alley that wound between the high,
tarred fences, and as it was too narrow for us to walk abreast, Bundy
dropped behind. A little way up the lane I noticed an old hat lying on
the high grass at the foot of the fence. Bundy apparently noticed it,
too, for just after we had passed it I heard the sound of a kick, and
the hat flew over my shoulder. At the same moment, and impelled by the
same kick, a small object, which I at first thought to be a pebble,
hopped swiftly along the ground in front of us, then rolled a little
way, and finally came to rest, when I saw that it was a button. I
should probably have passed it without further notice, having no use
for stray buttons. But the more thrifty sergeant stooped and picked it
up; and the instant that he looked at it he stopped dead.
“My God! Doctor,” he exclaimed, holding it out towards me. “Look at
this!”
I took it from him, though I had recognized it at a glance. It was a
small bronze button with a Tudor Rose embossed on it.
“This is a most amazing thing,” said Cobbledick. “There can’t be any
doubt as to what it is.”
“Not the slightest,” I agreed. “It is certainly one of the buttons
from Mrs. Frood’s coat. The question is, how on earth did it get
here?”
“Yes,” said the sergeant, “that is the question; and a very difficult
question, too.”
“Aren’t you taking rather a lot for granted?” suggested Bundy, to whom
I had passed the little object for inspection. “It doesn’t do to jump
at conclusions too much. Mrs. Frood isn’t likely to have had her
buttons made to order. She must have bought them somewhere. She might
even have bought them in Rochester. In any case, there must be
thousands of others like them.”
“I suppose there must be,” I admitted, “though I have never seen any
buttons like them.”
“Neither have I,” said Cobbledick, “and I am going to stick to the
obvious probabilities. The missing woman wore buttons like this, and I
shall assume that this is one of her buttons unless someone can prove
that it isn’t.”