The mystery of Angelina Frood

“But how do you account for one of her buttons being here?” Bundy objected. “I don’t account for it,” retorted Cobbledick. “It’s a regular puzzle. Of course, someone--a child, for instance--might have picked it up on the shore and dropped it here. But that is a mere guess, and not a very likely one. The obvious thing to do is to search this lane thoroughly and see if there are any other traces; and that is what I am going to do now. But don’t let me detain you two gentlemen if you had rather not stay.” “I shall certainly stay and help you, Sergeant,” said I; and Bundy, assuming the virtue of enthusiasm, if he had it not, elected also to stay and join in the search. “We had better go back to the bottom of the lane,” said Cobbledick, “and go through the grass at the foot of the fence from end to end. I will take the right hand side and you take the left.” We retraced our steps to the bottom of the lane and began a systematic search, turning over the grass and weeds and exposing the earth inch by inch. It was a slow process and would have appeared a singular proceeding had any wayfarer passed through and observed us, but fortunately it was an unfrequented place, and no one came to spy upon us. We had traversed nearly half the lane when Bundy stood up and stretched himself. “I don’t know what your back is made of, John,” said he. “Mine feels as if it was made of broken bottles. How much more have we got to do?” “We haven’t done half yet,” I replied, also standing up and rubbing my lumbar region; and at this moment the sergeant, who was a few yards ahead, hailed us with a triumphant shout. We both turned quickly and beheld him standing with one arm raised aloft and the hand grasping a silver-topped hat-pin. “What do you say to that, Mr. Bundy?” he demanded as we hurried forward to examine the new “find.” “Shall we be jumping at conclusions if we say that this hat-pin is Mrs. Frood’s?” “No,” Bundy admitted after a glance at the silver poppy-head. “This seems quite distinctive, and, of course, it confirms the button. But I don’t understand it in the least. How can they have come here?” “We won’t go into that,” said the sergeant, in a tone of suppressed excitement that showed me pretty clearly that he had already gone into it. “They are here. And now the question arises, what became of the hat? It couldn’t have dropped off down at the wharf, or this hat-pin wouldn’t be here; but it must have fallen off when both hat-pins were gone. Now what can have become of it?” “It might have been picked up and taken possession of by some woman,” I suggested. “It was a good hat, and if the body was brought here soon after the crime, as it must have been, it wouldn’t have been much damaged. But why trouble about the hat? Appearances suggest that the body was either brought up or taken down this lane. That is the new and astonishing fact that needs explaining.” “We don’t want to do any explaining now,” said Cobbledick. “We are here to collect facts. If we can find out what became of the hat, that may help us when we come to consider the explanations.” “Well, it obviously isn’t here,” said I. “No,” he agreed, “and it wouldn’t have been left here. A murderer mightn’t have noticed the button, or even the hat-pin, on a dark, foggy night. But he’d have noticed the hat; and he wouldn’t have left it where it must have been seen, and probably led to inquiries. He might have taken it with him, or he might have got rid of it. I should say he would have got rid of it. What is on the other side of these fences?” We all hitched ourselves up the respective fences far enough to look over. On the one side was a space of bare, gravelly ground with thin patches of grass and numerous heaps of cinder; on the other was an area of old waste land thickly covered with thistles, ragwort, and other weeds. The sergeant elected to begin with the latter, as the less frequented and therefore more probably undisturbed. Setting his foot on the buttress of a post, he went over the fence with surprising agility, considering his figure, and was lost to view; but we could hear him raking about among the herbage close to the fence, and from time to time I stood on the buttress and was able to witness his proceedings. First he went to the bottom of the lane and from that point returned by the fence, searching eagerly among the high weeds. I saw him thus proceed, apparently to the top of the lane in the neighbourhood of the remains of the city wall. Thence he came back, but now at a greater distance from the fence, and as he was still eagerly peering and probing amongst the weeds, it was evident that he had had no success. Suddenly, when he was but a few yards away, he uttered an exclamation and ran forward. Then I saw him stoop, and the next moment he fairly ran towards me holding the unmistakable brown straw hat with the dull green ribbon. “That tells us what we wanted to know,” he said breathlessly, handing the hat to me as he climbed over the fence; “at least, I think it does. I’ll tell you what I mean--but not now,” he added in a lower tone, though not unheard by Bundy, as I inferred later. “I suppose we need hardly go on with the search any further?” I suggested, having had enough of groping amongst the grass. “Well, no,” he replied. “I shall go over it again later on, but we’ve got enough to think about for the present. By the way, Mr. Bundy, I’ve found something belonging to you. Isn’t this your property?” He produced from his pocket a largish key, to which was attached a wooden label legibly inscribed “Japp and Bundy, High-street, Rochester.” “By Jove!” exclaimed Bundy, “it is Japp’s precious key! Where on earth did you find it, Sergeant?” “Right up at the top,” was the reply. “Close to the old wall.” “Now, I wonder how the deuce it got there,” said Bundy. “Some fool must have thrown it over the fence from pure mischief. However, here it is. You know there was a reward of ten shillings for finding it, Sergeant. I had better settle up at once. You needn’t make any difficulties about it,” he added, as the sergeant seemed disposed to decline the payment. “It won’t come out of my pocket. It is the firm’s business.” On this understanding Cobbledick pocketed the proffered note and we walked on up the lane, the sergeant slightly embarrassed, as we approached the town, by the palpably unconcealable hat. Very little was said by any of us, for these new discoveries, with the amazing inferences that they suggested, gave us all abundant material for thought. The sergeant walked with eyes bent on the ground, evidently cogitating profoundly; my mind surged with new speculations and hypotheses, while Bundy, if not similarly preoccupied, refrained from breaking in on our meditations. When, at length, by devious ways, we reached the High-street in the neighbourhood of the Corn Exchange, we halted, and the sergeant looked at me as if framing a question. Bundy glanced up at the quaint old clock, and remarked: “It is about time I got back to the office. Mustn’t leave poor old Japp to do all the work, though he never grumbles. So I will leave you here.” I realized that this was only a polite excuse to enable the sergeant to have a few words with me alone, and I accepted it as such. “Good-bye, then,” said I, “if you must be off, and in case I don’t see you before, I shall expect you to dinner on Saturday if you’ve got the evening free. Dr. Thorndyke is coming down for the week-end, and I know you enjoy ragging him.” “He is pretty difficult to get a rise out of, all the same,” said Bundy, brightening up perceptibly at the invitation. “But I shall turn up with very great pleasure.” He bestowed a mock ceremonious salute on me and the sergeant, and, turning away, bustled off in the direction of the office. As soon as he was out of earshot Cobbledick opened the subject of the new discoveries. “This is an extraordinary development of our case, Doctor,” said he. “I didn’t want to discuss it before Mr. Bundy, though he is really quite a discreet gentleman, and pretty much on the spot, too. But he isn’t a party to the case, and it is better not to talk too freely. You see the points that these fresh finds raise?” “I see that they put a new complexion on the affair, but to me they only make the mystery deeper and more incomprehensible.” “In a way they do,” Cobbledick agreed, “but, on the other hand, they put the case on a more satisfactory footing. For instance, we understand now why the body has never come to light. It was never in the river at all. Then as to the perpetrator; he was a local man--or, at least, there was a local man in it; a man who knew the town and the waterside neighbourhood thoroughly. No stranger would have found Black Boy-lane. Very few Rochester people know it.” “But,” I asked, “what does the finding of these things suggest to you?” “Well,” he replied, “it suggests several questions. Let me just put these things away in my office, and then we can talk the matter over.” He went into his office, and shortly returned relieved--very much relieved--of the conspicuous hat. We turned towards the bridge, and he resumed: “The first question and the most important one is, which way was the body travelling? It is obvious that it was carried through Black Boy-lane. But in which direction? Towards the town or towards the river? When you think of the circumstances; when you recall that it was a foggy night when she disappeared; it seems at first more probable that the crime might have been committed in, or near, the lane, and the body carried down to the river. But when you consider all the facts, that doesn’t seem possible. There is that box of tablets, picked up dry and clean on Chatham Hard. That seems to fix the locality where the crime occurred.” “And there is the brooch,” said I. “I don’t attach much importance to that,” he replied. “It might have been picked up anywhere. But the box of tablets couldn’t have got from Black Boy-lane to Chatham except by the river, and it hadn’t been in the river. But the hat seems to me to settle the question. You see, one hat-pin was found on the shore and the other in the lane near the hat. Now, one hat-pin might have dropped out and left the hat still fixed on the head. But when the hat came off, the pins must have come off with it. The hat came off near the top of the lane. If both the pins had been in it they would both have come out there. But one pin was found on the shore; therefore when the body was at the shore the hat must have been still on the head, though it had probably got loosened by all the dragging about in the boat and in landing the body. You agree to that, Doctor?” “Yes, it seems undeniable,” I answered. “Very well,” said he. “Then the body was being carried up the lane. The next question is: was it being carried by one person or by more than one? Well, I think you will agree with me, Doctor, that it could hardly have been done by one man. It is quite a considerable distance from the shore to the top of the lane. She was a good-sized woman, and a dead body is a mighty awkward thing to carry at the best of times. I should say there must have been at least two men.” “It certainly does seem probable,” I admitted. “I think so,” said he. “Then we come to another question. Was it really a dead body? Or might the woman have been merely insensible?” “Good God, Sergeant!” I exclaimed. “You don’t think it possible that it could have been a case of forcible abduction, and that Mrs. Frood is still alive?” “I wouldn’t say it was impossible,” he replied, “but I certainly don’t think it is the case. You see, nearly three months have passed and there is no sign of her. But in modern England you can’t hide a