The mystery of Angelina Frood
dim, cement-floored basement, lighted by sparse electric bulbs and
pervaded by a faint, distinctive odour that memory associated with the
science of anatomy. From the main basement room Farrow turned into a
short passage, where he stopped at a door, and, having unlocked it,
threw it open and switched on the light, when we entered and I looked
around. It was a large, cellar-like room, lighted by a single powerful
electric bulb fitted with a basin-like metal reflector and attached to
a long, movable arm. The activities usually carried on in it were
evident from the great tins of red lead on the shelves, from a large
brass syringe fitted with a stop-cock and smeared with red paint, and
from a range of oblong slate tanks or coffers furnished with massive
wooden lids.
Still without uttering a word, the taciturn Farrow swung the powerful
lamp over one of the coffers, and then drew off the lid. I stepped
forward and looked in. The coffer was occupied by the body of a man,
evidently--from the shaven head and the traces of red paint--prepared
as an anatomical “subject.” I looked at it curiously, thinking how
unhuman, how artificial it seemed; how like to a somewhat dingy
waxwork figure. But as I looked I was dimly conscious of some sense of
familiarity stealing into my mind. Some chord of memory seemed to be
touched. I stooped and looked more closely; and then, suddenly, I
started up.
“Good God!” I exclaimed. “It is Nicholas Frood!”
“Are you sure?” asked Thorndyke.
“Yes, quite,” I answered. “It was the shaved head that put me off: the
absence of that mop of hair. I have no doubt at all. Still--let us
have a look at the hands.”
Farrow lifted up the hands one after the other; and then, if there
could have been any doubt, it was set at rest. The mahogany-coloured
stain was still visible; but much more conclusive were the bulbous
finger-tips and the mis-shapen, nutshell-like nails. There could be no
possible doubt.
“This is certainly the man I saw at Rochester,” said I. “I am fully
prepared to swear to that. But oughtn’t he to have been identified by
somebody who knew him better?”
“The body has been identified this afternoon by his late landlady,”
replied Thorndyke, “but I wanted your confirmation, and I wanted you
as a witness at the inquest. The identification is important in
relation to the inquiry and the possible verdict.”
“Yes, by Jove!” I agreed, with a vivid recollection of the questions
put to Mrs. Gillow. “This will come as a thunder-bolt to the jury. But
how, in the name of Fortune, did he come here?”
“I’ll tell you about that presently,” replied Thorndyke. He tendered a
fee to the exhibitor, and when the latter had replaced the lid of the
coffer, he conducted us back to our starting-point, and saw us into
the waiting cab.
“5a, King’s Bench Walk,” Thorndyke instructed the driver, and as the
cab started, he began his explanation.
“This has been a long and weary search, with a stroke of unexpected
good luck at the end. We have had to go through endless records of
hospitals, police-courts, poor-houses, infirmaries, and inquests. It
was the records of an inquest that put us at last on the track; an
inquest on an unknown man, supposed to be a tramp. Roughly, the
history of the affair is this:
“Frood seems to have started for Brighton on the 25th of April, but
for some unexplained reason, he broke his journey and got out at
Horwell. What happened to him there is not clear. He may have
over-dosed himself with cocaine; but at any rate, he was found dead in
a meadow, close to a hedge, on the morning of the 26th. He was
therefore dead before his wife disappeared. The body was taken to the
mortuary and there carefully examined. But there was not the faintest
clue to his identity. His pockets were searched, but there was not a
vestige of property of any kind about him, not even the knife of which
you have spoken. The probability is that he had been robbed by some
tramp of everything that he had about him, either while he was
insensible or after he was dead. In any case he appeared to be
completely destitute, and this fact, together with his decidedly dirty
and neglected condition, led naturally to the conclusion that he was a
tramp. An inquest was held, but of course, no expensive and
troublesome measures were taken to trace his identity. Examinations
showed that he had not died from the effects of violence, so it was
assumed that he had died from exposure, and a verdict to that effect
was returned. He was about to be given a pauper’s funeral when
Providence intervened on our behalf. It happened that the Demonstrator
of Anatomy at St. Barnabas resides at Horwell; and it happened that
the presence of an unclaimed body in the mortuary came to his
knowledge. Thereupon he applied to the authorities, on behalf of his
school, for the use of it as an anatomical subject. His application
was granted and the body was conveyed to St. Barnabas, where it was at
once embalmed and prepared and then put aside for use during the next
winter session.”
“Was that quite in order--legally, I mean?”
“That is not for us to ask,” he replied. “It was not in any way
contrary to public policy, and it has been our salvation in respect of
our particular inquiry.”
“I suppose it has,” I said, not, however, quite seeing it in that
light. “Of course, it disposes of the question of his guilt.”
“It does a good deal more than that as matters have turned out,” said
he. “However, here we are in the precincts of the Temple. Let us
dismiss Nicholas Frood from our minds for the time being, and turn our
attention to the more attractive subject of dinner.”
The cab stopped opposite a tall house with a fine carved-brick
portico, and, when Thorndyke had paid the driver, we ascended the
steps and made our way up a couple of flights of oaken stairs to the
first floor. Here, at the door of my friend’s chambers, we encountered
a small, clerical-looking gentleman with an extremely wrinkly, smiling
face, who reminded me somewhat of Mr. Japp.
“This is Mr. Polton, Strangeways,” said Thorndyke, presenting him to
me, “who relieves me of all the physical labour of laboratory work. He
is a specialist in everything, including cookery, and if my nose does
not mislead me--ha! Does it, Polton?”
“That depends, sir, on which way you follow it,” replied Polton, with
a smile of labyrinthine wrinkliness. “But you will want to wash, and
Dr. Strangeways’s room is ready for him.”
On this hint, Thorndyke conducted me to an upper floor, and to a
pleasant bedroom with an outlook on plane trees and ancient, red-tiled
roofs, where I washed and brushed up, and from whence I presently
descended to the sitting-room, whither Thorndyke’s nose had already
led him--and to good purpose, too.
“Mr. Polton has missed his vocation,” I remarked, as I attacked his
productions with appreciative gusto. “He ought to have been the
manager of a West End club or a high-class restaurant.”
Thorndyke regarded me severely. “I am shocked at you, Strangeways,” he
said. “Do you suggest that a man who can make anything from an
astronomical clock to a microscope objective, who is an expert in
every branch of photographic technique, a fair analytical chemist, a
microscopist, and general handicraftsman, should be degraded to the
office of a mere superintendent cook? It is a dreadful thought!”
“I didn’t understand that he was a man of so many talents and
accomplishments,” I said apologetically.
“He is a most remarkable man,” said Thorndyke, “and I take it as a
great condescension that he is willing to prepare my meals. It is his
own choice--an expression of personal devotion. He doesn’t like me to
take my food at restaurants or clubs. And, of course, he does it well
because he is incapable of doing anything otherwise than well. You
must come up and see the laboratories and workshop after dinner.”
We went up when we had finished our meal and discovered Polton in the
act of cutting transverse sections of hairs and mounting them to add
to the great collection of microscopic objects that Thorndyke had
accumulated. He left this occupation to show me the great standing
camera for copying, enlarging, reducing and microphotography, to
demonstrate the capabilities of a fine back-geared lathe and to
exhibit the elaborate outfit for analysis and assay work.
“I had no idea,” said I, as we returned to the sitting-room, “that
medico-legal practice involved the use of all these complicated
appliances.”
“The truth is,” Thorndyke replied, “that Medical Jurisprudence is not
a single subject, concerned with one order of knowledge. It represents
the application of every kind of knowledge to the solution of an
infinite variety of legal problems. And that reminds me that I haven’t
yet looked through Anstey’s abstract of the evidence at the inquest,
which I saw that he had left for me. Shall we go through it now? It
won’t take us very long. Then we can have a stroll round the Temple or
on the Embankment before we turn in.”
“You are coming down to Rochester to-morrow?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “The facts concerning Nicholas Frood will have to
be communicated to the coroner; and it is possible that some other
points may arise.”
“Now that Frood is definitely out of the picture,” said I, “do you see
any possibility of solving the mystery of this crime? I mean as to the
identity of the guilty parties?”
He reflected awhile. “I am inclined to think,” he replied, at length,
“that I may be able to offer a suggestion. But, of course, I have not
yet seen the remains.”
“There isn’t much to be gleaned from them, I am afraid,” said I.
“Perhaps not,” he answered. “But we shall be able to judge better when
we have read the evidence of the medical witness.”
“He wasn’t able to offer any opinion as to the cause of death,” I
said.
“Then,” he replied, “we may take it that there are no obvious signs.
However, it is useless to speculate. We must suspend our judgment
until to-morrow”; and with this he opened Anstey’s summary, and read
through it rapidly, asking me a question now and again to amplify some
point. When he had finished the abstract--which appeared to be very
brief and condensed--he put it in his pocket and suggested that we
should start for our proposed walk; and, though I made one or two
attempts to reopen the subject of the inquiry, he was not to be drawn
into any further statements. Apparently there was some point that he
hoped to clear up by personal observation, and meanwhile he held his
judgment in suspense.
CHAPTER XVII.
THORNDYKE PUTS DOWN HIS PIECE
The journey down to Rochester would have been more agreeable and
interesting under different circumstances. Thorndyke kept up a flow of
lively conversation to which I should ordinarily have listened with
the keenest pleasure. But he persistently avoided any reference to the
object of our journey; and as this was the subject that engrossed my
thoughts and from which I was unable to detach them, his
conversational efforts were expended on somewhat inattentive ears. In
common politeness I tried to make a show of listening and even of some
sort of response; but the instant a pause occurred, my thoughts flew
back to the engrossing subject and the round of fruitless speculation
begun again.
What was it that Thorndyke had in his mind? He was not making this
journey to inform the coroner of Frood’s death. That could have been
done by letter; and, moreover, I was the actual witness to the dead
man’s identity. There was some point that he expected to be able to
elucidate; some evidence that had been overlooked. And that evidence
seemed to be connected with that dreadful, pitiful thing that lay in
the coffin--crying out, indeed, to Heaven for retribution, but crying