The mystery of Angelina Frood
“You have inspected the remains of deceased in the mortuary. Can you
identify them as the remains of any particular person?”
“No. They are quite unrecognizable.”
“Have you any doubt as to whose remains they are?” asked the juryman
who had spoken before.
“That question, Mr. Pilley,” said the coroner, “is not quite in order.
The witness has said that he was not able to identify the remains.
Inferences as to the identity of deceased, drawn from the evidence,
are for the jury. We must not ask witnesses to interpret the evidence.
When did you last see Mrs. Frood alive, Doctor?”
“On the 26th of April,” I replied; and here I described that last
interview, recalling our conversation almost verbatim. When I came to
her expressions of uneasiness and foreboding, the attention of the
listeners became more and more intense, and it was evident that they
were deeply impressed. Particularly attentive was the foreman of the
jury, a keen-faced, alert-looking man, who kept his eyes riveted on
me, and, when I had finished this part of my evidence, asked: “So far
as you know, Doctor, had Mrs. Frood any enemies? Was there anyone whom
she had reason to be afraid of?”
This was a rather awkward question. It is one thing to entertain a
suspicion privately, but quite another thing to give public expression
to it. Besides, I was giving sworn evidence as to facts actually
within my knowledge.
“I can’t say, positively,” I replied after some hesitation, “that I
know of any enemy or anyone whom she had reason to fear.”
The coroner saw the difficulty, and interposed with a discreet
question.
“What do you know of her domestic affairs, of her relations with her
husband, for instance?”
This put the matter on the basis of fact, and I was able to state what
I knew of her unhappy married life in Rochester and previously in
London; and further questions elicited my personal observations as to
the character and personality of her husband. My meeting with him at
Dartford Station, the incidents in the Poor Travellers’ rest-house,
the meeting with him on the bridge; all were given in full detail and
devoured eagerly by the jury. And from their questions and their
demeanour it became clear to me that they were in full cry after
Nicholas Frood.
The conclusion of my evidence brought us to the luncheon hour. I had,
of course, to take Mr. Anstey back to lunch with me, and a certain
wistfulness in Bundy’s face made me feel that I ought to ask him, too.
I accordingly presented them to one another and issued the invitation.
“I am delighted to meet you, Mr. Bundy,” Anstey said heartily. “I have
heard of you from my friend Thorndyke, who regards you with respectful
admiration.”
“Does he?” said Bundy, blushing with pleasure, but looking somewhat
surprised. “I can’t imagine why. But are you an expert, too?”
“Bless you, no,” laughed Anstey. “I am a mere lawyer, and, on this
occasion, what is known technically as a devil--technically, you
understand. I am watching this case for Thorndyke.”
“But I didn’t know that Dr. Thorndyke was interested in the case,”
said Bundy, in evident perplexity.
“He is interested in everything of a criminal and horrid nature,”
replied Anstey. “He never lets a really juicy crime mystery pass
without getting all the details, if possible. You see, they are his
stock in trade.”
“But he never would discuss this case--not seriously,” objected Bundy.
“Probably not,” said Anstey. “Perhaps there wasn’t much to discuss.
But wait till the case is finished. Then he will tell you all about
it.”
“I see,” said Bundy. “He is one of those prophets who predict after
the event.”
“And the proper time, too,” retorted Anstey. “It is no use being
premature.”
The conversation proceeded on this plane of playful repartee until we
arrived at my house, where Mrs. Dunk, having bestowed a wooden glance
of curiosity at Anstey and a glare of defiance at Bundy, handed me a
telegram addressed to R. Anstey, K.C., care of Dr. Strangeways. I
passed it to Anstey, who opened it and glanced through it.
“What shall I say in answer?” he asked, placing it in my hand.
I read the message and was not a little puzzled by it. “Ask
Strangeways come back with you to-night. Very urgent. Reply time and
place.”
“What do you suppose he wants me for?” I asked.
“I never suppose in regard to Thorndyke,” he replied. “But if he says
it is urgent, it is urgent. Can you come up with me?”
“Yes, if it is necessary.”
“It is. Then I’ll say yes. And you had better arrange to stay the
night--there is a spare bedroom at his chambers--and come down with
him in the morning. Can you manage that?”
“Yes,” I replied; “and you can say that we shall be at Charing Cross
by seven-fifteen.”
I could see that this transaction was as surprising to Bundy as it was
to me. But, of course, he asked no questions, nor could I have
answered them if he had. Moreover, there was not much time for
discussion as we had to be back in the court room by two o’clock, and
what talk there was consisted mainly of humorous comments by Anstey on
the witnesses and the jury.
Having sent off the telegram on our way down, we took our places once
more, and the proceedings were resumed punctually by the calling of
the foreman of the repairing gang; who deposed to the date on which
the particular patch of rubble was commenced and finished and its
condition when the men knocked off work on Saturday, the 26th of
April. He also mentioned the loss of the key, but could give no
particulars. The cross-examination elicited the facts that he had
communicated to Cobbledick and me as to the state of the loose
filling.
“How many men,” the coroner asked, “would it have taken to bury the
body in the way in which it was buried; and how long?”
“One man could have done it easily in one night, if he could have got
the body there. The stuff in the wall was all loose, and it was small
stuff, easy to handle. No building had to be done. It was just a
matter of shovelling the lime in and then chucking the loose stuff in
on top. And the lime was handy to get at in the shed, and one of the
barrels was open.”
“Can you say certainly when the body was buried?”
“It must have been buried on the night of the 26th of April or on the
27th, because on Monday morning, the 28th, we ran the mortar in, and
by that evening we had got the patch finished.”
The next witness was the labourer, Thomas Evans, who had lost the key.
His account of the affair was as follows:
“On the morning of Saturday, the 26th of April, the foreman gave me
the key, because he had to go to the office. I took the key and opened
the gate, and I left the key in the lock for him to take when he came.
Then I forgot all about it, and I suppose he did, too, because he
didn’t say anything about it until we had knocked off work and were
going out. Then he asks me where the key was, and I said it was in the
gate. Then he went and looked but it wasn’t there. So we searched
about a bit in the grounds and out in the lane; but we couldn’t see
nothing of it nowhere.”
“When you let yourself in, did you leave the gate open or shut it?”
“I shut the gate, but, of course, it was unlocked. The key was
outside.”
“So that anyone passing up the lane could have taken it out without
your noticing?”
“Yes. We was working the other side of the grounds, so we shouldn’t
have heard anything if anybody had took it.”
That completed the evidence as to the key, and when Evans was
dismissed the matron of the Poor Travellers was called. As she took
her place, a general straightening of backs and air of expectancy on
the part of the jury suggested that her evidence was looked forward to
with more than common interest. And so it turned out to be. Her
admirably clear and vivid presentment of the man, Nicholas Frood; his
quarrelsome, emotional temperament, his shabby condition, his abnormal
appearance, the evidences of his addiction to drink and drugs, his
apparently destitute state, and, above all, the formidable
sheath-knife that he wore under his coat; were listened to with
breathless attention, and followed by a fusilade of eager, and often
highly improper, questions. But the coroner was a wise and tactful
man, and he unobtrusively intervened to prevent any irregularities;
as, for instance, “It is not permissible,” he observed, blandly, “to
ask a witness if a certain individual seemed to be a likely person to
commit a crime. And a coroner’s court is not a criminal court. It is
not our function to establish any person’s guilt, but to ascertain how
deceased met with her death. If the evidence shows that she was
murdered, we shall say so in our verdict. If the evidence points
clearly to a particular person as the murderer, we shall name that
person in the verdict. But we are not primarily investigating a crime;
we are investigating a death. The criminal investigation is for the
police.”
This reminder cooled the ardour of the criminal investigators
somewhat, but there were signs of a fresh outbreak when Mrs. Gillow
gave her evidence, for that lady having a somewhat more lively
imagination than the matron, tended to lure enterprising jurymen on to
fresh indiscretions. She certainly enjoyed herself amazingly, and
occupied a most unnecessary amount of time before she at length
retired, dejected but triumphant, to the manifest relief of the
coroner.
This brought the day’s proceedings to a close. There were a few more
witnesses on the list, and the coroner hoped to take their evidence
and complete the inquiry on the following day. As soon as the court
rose, Anstey and I with Bundy proceeded to a tea-shop hard by and,
having refreshed ourselves with a light tea, set forth to catch our
train at Strood Station. Thither Bundy accompanied us at my
invitation, but though I suspected that he was bursting with curiosity
as to the object of my mysterious journey, he made no reference to it,
nor did I or Anstey.
At the barrier at Charing Cross we found Thorndyke awaiting us, and
Anstey, having delivered me into his custody and seen us into a
taxi-cab that had already been chartered, wished us success and took
his leave. Then the driver, who apparently had his instructions,
started and moved out of the station.
“I don’t know,” said I, “whether I may now ask what I am wanted for.”
“I should rather not go into particulars,” he replied. “I want your
opinion on something that I am going to show you, and I especially
want it to be an impromptu opinion. Previous consideration might
create a bias which would detract from the conclusiveness of your
decision. However, you have only a few minutes to wait.”
In those few minutes I could not refrain from cudgelling my brains,
even at the risk of creating a bias, and was still doing so--quite
unproductively--when the cab approached the hospital of St. Barnabas
and gave me a hint. But it swept past the main entrance, and, turning
up a side street, slowed down and stopped opposite the entrance of the
medical school. Here we got out, and, leaving the cab waiting, entered
the hall, where Thorndyke inquired for a person of the name of Farrow.
In a minute or two this individual made his appearance in the form of
a somewhat frowsy, elderly man, whom, from the multitude of warts on
his hands, I inferred to be the post-mortem porter or dissecting-room
attendant. He appeared to be a taciturn man, and he, too, evidently
had his instructions, for he merely looked at us and then walked away
slowly, leaving us to follow. Thus silently he conducted us down a
long corridor, across a quadrangle beyond which rose the conical roof
of a theatre, along a curved passage which followed the wall of the
circular building and down a flight of stone steps which let into a