The mystery of Angelina Frood
monocle. Then she went out; and with her disappeared for ever the
familiar figure of Peter Bundy.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE UNCONTRITE PENITENT
As the door closed on Angelina, a buzz of excited talk broke out.
The astonished jurymen put their heads together and eagerly discussed
the new turn of events, while the coroner sat with a deeply cogitative
expression, evidently thinking hard and casting an occasional
speculative glance in Thorndyke’s direction. Meanwhile Cobbledick
edged up to my side and presented his views in a soft undertone.
“This is a facer, Doctor, isn’t it? Regular do. My word! Just think of
the artfulness of that young woman, toting us round and helping us to
find the things that she had just popped down for us to find. I call
it a masterpiece.” He chuckled admiringly, and added in a lower tone,
“I hope she hasn’t got herself into any kind of mess.”
I looked at Cobbledick with renewed appreciation. I had always liked
the sergeant. He was a capable man and a kindly one; and now he was
showing a largeness of soul that won my respect and my gratitude, too.
A small man would have been furious with Angelina, but Cobbledick took
her performances in a proper sporting spirit. He was only amused and
admiring. Not for nothing had Nature imprinted on his face that
benevolent smile.
Presently Mr. Pilley, who seemed to have a special gift for the
expression of erroneous opinions, addressed himself to the coroner.
“Well, Mr. Chairman,” he said cheerfully, “I suppose we can consider
the inquest practically over.”
“Over!” exclaimed the astonished coroner.
“Yes. We were inquiring into the death of Angelina Frood. But if Mrs.
Frood is alive after all, why, there’s an end to the matter.”
“What about the body in the mortuary?” demanded the foreman.
“Oh, ah,” said Pilley. “I had forgotten about that.”
He looked owlishly at the coroner and then exclaimed: “But that is the
body of Mrs. Frood!”
“It can’t be if Mrs. Frood is alive,” the coroner reminded him.
“But it must be,” persisted Pilley. “It has been identified as her,
and it had her clothes and ring on. Mr. Bundy must have been pulling
our legs.”
“There is certainly something very mysterious about that body,” said
the coroner. “It was dressed in Mrs. Frood’s clothes, as Mr. Pilley
points out, and it appears that Mrs. Frood must be in some way
connected with it.”
“There’s no doubt about that,” agreed the foreman. “She must know who
that dead person is and how the body came to be in the place where it
was found, and she will have to give an account of it.”
“Yes,” said the coroner. “But it is a mysterious affair. I wonder if
Dr. Thorndyke could enlighten us. He seems to know more about the
matter than anybody else.”
But Thorndyke was not to be drawn into any statement. “It would be
merely a conjecture on my part,” he said. “Presumably Mrs. Frood knows
how the remains got into the wall, and I must leave her to give the
necessary explanations.”
“I don’t see what explanations she can give,” said the foreman. “It
looks like a clear case of wilful murder. And it is against her.”
To this view the coroner gave a guarded assent; and indeed it was the
obvious view. There was the body, in Angelina’s clothing, and
everything pointed clearly to Angelina’s complicity in the crime, if
there had really been a crime committed. And what other explanation
was possible?
As I reflected on the foreman’s ominous words, I was sensible of a
growing alarm. What if Angelina had been, as it were, snatched from
the grave only to be placed in the dock on a charge of murder? That
she could possibly be guilty of a crime did not enter my mind. But
there was evidently some sort of criminal entanglement from which she
might find it hard to escape. The appearances were sinister in the
extreme; her simulated disappearance, her disguise, her suspicious
silence during the inquiry; to any eye but mine they were conclusive
evidence of her guilt. And the more I thought about it, the more
deadly did the sum of that evidence appear, until, as the time ran on,
I became positively sick with terror.
The opening of a door and a sudden murmur of surprise caused me to
turn; and there was Angelina herself. But not quite the Angelina that
I remembered. Gone were the pallid complexion, the weary, dark-circled
eyes, the down-cast mouth, the sad and pensive countenance, the dark,
strong eye-brows. Rosy-cheeked, smiling, confident, and looking
strangely tall and imposing, she stepped composedly over to the head
of the table, and stood there gazing with calm self-possession, and
the trace of a smile at the stupefied jurymen.
“Your name is--?” said the coroner, gazing at her in astonishment.
“Angelina Frood,” was the quiet reply; and the voice was Bundy’s
voice.
Here Pilley rose, bubbling with excitement. “This isn’t the same
person!” he exclaimed. “Why, he was a little man, and she’s a tall
woman. And his hair was short, and just look at hers! You can’t grow a
head of hair like that in twenty minutes.”
“No,” Angelina agreed, suavely. “I wish you could.”
“The objection is not relevant, Mr. Pilley,” said the coroner,
suppressing a smile. “We are not concerned with the identity of Mr.
Bundy but with that of Angelina Frood. Can anyone identify this lady?”
“I can,” said I. “I swear that she is Angelina Frood.”
“And Mrs. Gillow?”
Mrs. Gillow could and did identify her late lodger, and furthermore,
burst into tears and filled the court-room with “yoops” of hysterical
joy. When she had been pacified and gently restrained by the coroner’s
officer from an attempt to embrace the witness, the coroner proceeded:
“Now, Mrs. Frood, the jury require certain explanations from you, in
regard to the body of a woman which is at present lying in the
mortuary and which was found buried in the city wall with certain
articles of clothing and jewellery which have been identified as your
property. Did you know that that body had been buried in the wall?”
“Yes,” replied Angelina.
“Do you know how it came to be in the wall?”
“Yes. I put it there.”
“You put it there!” roared Pilley, amidst a chorus of exclamations
from the jurymen. The coroner held up his hand to enjoin silence and
asked, as he gazed in astonishment at Angelina.
“Can you tell us who this deceased person was?”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” Angelina replied, apologetically. “I don’t think
her name was known.”
“But--er--” the astounded coroner inquired, “how did she come by her
death?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that either,” replied Angelina. “The fact
is, I never asked.”
“You never asked!” the coroner repeated, in a tone of bewilderment.
“But--er--are we to understand that--in short, did you or did you not
cause the death of this person by your own act? Of course,” he added
hastily, “you are not bound to answer that question.”
Angelina smiled at him engagingly. “I will answer with pleasure. I did
not cause the death of this person.”
“Then are we to understand that she was already dead when you found
her?”
“I didn’t find her. I bought her; at a shop in Great St.
Andrew-street. I gave four pounds, fourteen and three-pence for her,
including two and three-pence to Carter Paterson’s. I’ve brought the
bill with me.”
She produced the bill from her pocket and handed it to the coroner,
who read it with a portentous frown and a perceptible twitching at the
corners of his mouth.
“I will read this document to you, gentlemen,” he said in a slightly
unsteady voice. “It is dated the 19th of April, and reads: ‘Bought of
Oscar Hammerstein, Dealer in Human and Comparative Osteology, Great
St. Andrew-street, London, W.C., one complete set superfine human
osteology, disarticulated and unbleached (female), as selected by
purchaser, four pounds eight shillings and sixpence. Replacing and
cementing missing teeth, one shilling and sixpence. Packing case, two
shillings. Carriage, two and three pence. Total, four pounds, fourteen
and three-pence. Received with thanks, O. Hammerstein.’ Perhaps you
would like to see the bill, yourselves, gentlemen.”
He passed it to the foreman, taking a quick glance out of the corners
of his eyes at the bland and impassive Angelina, and the jury studied
it in a deep silence, which was broken only by a soft, gurgling sound,
from somewhere behind me, which, I discovered, on looking round, to
proceed from Sergeant Cobbledick, whose crimsoned face was partly
hidden by a large handkerchief and whose shoulders moved convulsively.
Presently the coroner addressed Thorndyke. “In continuation of your
evidence, Doctor, does Mrs. Frood’s explanation agree with any
conclusions that you had arrived at from your inspection of the
remains?”
“It agrees with them completely,” Thorndyke replied with a grim smile.
The coroner entered the answer in the depositions, and then turned
once more to Angelina.
“With regard to the objects that were found with the skeleton; did you
put them there?”
“Yes. I put in the metal things and a few pieces of scorched rag to
give a realistic effect--on account of the lime, you know.”
“And the articles that were recovered from the river, too, I suppose?”
“Yes, I put them down--with proper precautions, of course.”
“What do you mean by proper precautions?”
“Well, I couldn’t afford to waste any of the things, so I used to keep
a lookout with a telescope, and then, when I saw a likely person
coming along, I put one of the things down where it could be seen.”
“And were they always seen?”
“No. Some people are very unobservant. In that case I picked it up
when the coast was clear and saved it for another time.”
The coroner chuckled. “It was all very ingenious and complete. But
now, Mrs. Frood, we have to ask you what was the object of these
extraordinary proceedings. It was not a joke, I presume?”
“Oh, not at all,” replied Angelina. “It was a perfectly serious
affair. You have heard what sort of husband I had. I couldn’t possibly
live with him. I made several attempts to get away and live by myself,
but he always followed me and found me out. So I determined to
disappear altogether.”
“You could have applied for a separation,” said the coroner.
“I shouldn’t have got it,” replied Angelina, “and even if I had, of
what use would it have been? I should have been bound to him for life.
I couldn’t have married anyone else. My whole life would have been
spoilt. So I decided to disappear completely and for good, and start
life afresh in a new place and under a new name. And in order that
there should be no mistake about it, I thought I would leave
the--er--the material for a coroner’s inquest and a will directing
that a suitable monument should be put up over my grave. Then, if I
had ever married again, there would have been no danger of a charge of
bigamy. If anyone had made any such suggestion, I could have referred
them to the registrar of deaths and to the tombstone of Angelina Frood
in Rochester churchyard.”
“And as to a birth certificate under your new name?” the coroner asked
with a twinkle of his eye.
Angelina smiled a prim little smile. “I think that could have been
managed,” she said.
“Well,” said the coroner, “it was an ingenious scheme. But apparently
Dr. Thorndyke knew who Mr. Bundy was. How do you suppose he discovered
your identity?”
“That is just what I should like to know,” she replied.
“So should I,” said the coroner, with a broad smile; “but, of course,
it isn’t my affair or that of the jury. We are concerned with this
skeleton that you have planted on us. I suppose you can give us no
idea as to where it came from originally?”
“The dealer said it had been found in a barrow--not a wheel-barrow,
you know; an ancient burial-place. Of course, I don’t know whether he
was speaking the truth.”