The mystery of Angelina Frood
“What do you think, Dr. Thorndyke?” the coroner asked.
“I think it is an ancient skeleton, though very well preserved. Some
of the teeth--the original ones--show more wear than one expects to
find in a modern skull. But I only made a cursory inspection.”
“I think the evidence is sufficient for our purpose,” said the
coroner; “and that really concludes the case, so we need not detain
you any longer, Mrs. Frood. I don’t know exactly what your legal
position is; whether you have committed any legal offence. If you
have, it is not our business; and I think I am expressing the
sentiments of the jury if I say that I hope that the authorities will
not make it their business. No one has been injured, and no action
seems to be called for.”
With these sentiments the jury concurred warmly, as also did Sergeant
Cobbledick, who was heard, very audibly and regardless of the
proprieties, to murmur “Hear, hear.” We waited to learn the nature of
the verdict, and when this had been pronounced (to the effect that the
skeleton was that of an unknown woman, concerning the circumstances of
whose death no evidence was available), the court rose and we prepared
to depart.
“You are coming back to lunch with us, Angelina?” said I.
“I should love to,” she replied, “but there is Mr. Japp. Do you think
you could ask him, too?”
“Of course,” I replied, with a sudden perception of the advantage of
even numbers. “We shouldn’t be complete without him.”
Japp accepted with enthusiasm, and, after a hasty farewell to
Cobbledick, we went forth into the High Street, by no means unobserved
of the populace. As we approached the neighbourhood of the office
Angelina said: “I must run into my rooms for a few moments just to
tidy myself up a little. It was such a very hurried toilette. I won’t
be more than a few minutes. You needn’t wait for me.”
“I suggest,” said Thorndyke, “that Mr. Japp and I go on and break the
news to Mrs. Dunk that there is a lady guest, and that Strangeways
remains behind to escort the prisoner.”
I fell in readily with this admirable suggestion, and as the two men
walked on, I followed Angelina up the steps and waited while she plied
her latch-key. We entered the hall together and then went into the
sitting-room, where she stood for a moment, looking round with deep
satisfaction.
“It’s nice to be home again,” she said, “and to feel that all that
fuss is over.”
“I daresay it is,” said I. “But now that you are home, what have you
got to say for yourself? You are a nice little baggage, aren’t you?”
“I am a little beast, John,” she replied. “I’ve been a perfect pig to
you. But I didn’t mean to be, and I really couldn’t help it. You’ll
try to forgive me, won’t you?”
“The fact is, Angelina,” I said, “I am afraid I am in love with you.”
“Oh, I hope to goodness you are, John,” she exclaimed. “If I thought
you weren’t I should wish myself a skeleton again. Do you think you
really are?”
She crept closer to me with such a sweet, wheedlesome air that I
suddenly caught her in my arms and kissed her.
“It does seem as if you were,” she admitted with a roguish smile; and
then--such unaccountable creatures are women--she laid her head on my
shoulder and began to sob. But this was only a passing shower. Another
kiss brought back the sunshine and then she tripped away to spread
fresh entanglements for the masculine heart.
In a few minutes she returned, further adorned and looking to my eyes
the very picture of womanly sweetness and grace. When I had given
confirmatory evidence of my sentiments towards her, we went out, just
in time to encounter Mrs. Gillow and acquaint her with the program.
“I suppose,” said Angelina, glancing furtively at a little party of
women who were glancing, not at all furtively, at her, “one should be
gratified at the interest shown by one’s fellow towns-people; but
don’t you think the back streets would be preferable to the
High-street?”
“It is no use, my dear,” I replied. “We’ve got to face it. Take no
notice. Regard these bipeds that infest the footways as mere samples
of the local fauna. Let them stare and ignore them. For my part, I
rather like them. They impress on me the admirable bargain that I have
made in swapping Peter Bundy for a beautiful lady.”
“Poor Peter,” she said, pensively. “He was a sad boy sometimes when he
looked at his big, handsome John and thought that mere friendship was
all that he could hope for when his poor little heart was starving for
love. Your deal isn’t the only successful one, John, so you needn’t be
so conceited. But here we are home--really home, this time, for this
has been my real home, John, dear. And there--Oh! Moses!--there is
Mrs. Dunk, waiting to receive us!”
“What used you to do to Mrs. Dunk,” I asked, “to make her so furious?”
“I only used to inquire after her health,” Angelina replied
plaintively. “But mum’s the word. She’ll spot my voice as soon as I
speak.”
Mrs. Dunk held the door open ceremoniously and curtsied as we entered.
She was a gruff old woman, but she had a deep respect for
“gentlefolk,” as is apt to be the way with old servants. Angelina
acknowledged her salutation with a gracious smile and followed her
meekly up the stairs to the room that Mrs. Dunk had allotted to her.
I found Thorndyke and Japp established in the library--Dr. Partridge
had dispensed with a drawing-room and I followed his excellent
example--and here presently Angelina joined us, sailing majestically
into the room and marching up to Thorndyke with an air at once hostile
and defiant.
“Serpent,” said Angelina.
“Not at all,” Thorndyke dissented with a smile. “You should be
grateful to me for having rescued you from your own barbed-wire
entanglements.”
“Serpent, I repeat,” persisted Angelina. “To let me sit in that
court-room watching all the innocents walking into my trap one after
another, and then, just as I thought they were all inside, to hand me
a thing like that!” and she produced, dramatically, a small sheet of
paper, which I recognized as the remainder of Thorndyke’s note. I took
it from her, and read: “You see whither the evidence is leading. The
deception cannot be maintained, nor is there any need, now that your
husband is dead. Explanations must be given either by you or by me.
For your own sake I urge you to explain everything and clear yourself.
Let me know what you will do.”
“This is an extraordinary document,” I said, passing it to Japp. “How
in the name of Fortune did you know that Bundy was Angelina?”
“Yes, how did you?” the latter demanded. “It is for you to give an
explanation now.”
“We will have the explanations after lunch,” said he; “mutual
explanations. I want to hear how far I was correct in details.”
“Very well,” agreed Angelina, “we will both explain. But you will have
the first innings. You are not going to listen to my explanation and
then say you knew all about it. And that reminds me, John, that you
had better tell Mrs. Dunk. She is sure to recognize my voice.”
I quite agreed with Angelina and hurried away to intercept Mrs. Dunk
and let her know the position. She was at first decidedly shocked, but
a vivid and detailed description of the late Mr. Frood produced a
complete revulsion; so complete, in fact, as to lead me to speculate
on the personal characteristics of the late Mr. Dunk. But her
curiosity was aroused to such an extent that, while waiting at table,
she hardly removed her eyes from Angelina, until the latter, finding
the scrutiny unbearable, suddenly produced the hated eye-glass, and,
sticking it in her eye, directed a stern glance at the old woman, who
instantly backed towards the door with a growl of alarm, and then
sniggered hoarsely.
It was a festive occasion, for we were all in exuberant spirits,
including Mr. Japp, who, if he said little, made up the deficiency in
smiles of forty-wrinkle power, which, together with his upstanding
tuft of white hair, made him look like a convivial cockatoo.
“Do you remember our last meeting at this table?” said Angelina, “when
I jeered at the famous expert and pulled his reverend leg, thinking
what a smart young fellow I was, and how beautifully I was bamboozling
him? And all the while he knew! He knew! And ‘Not a word said the
hard-boiled egg.’ Oh, serpent! serpent!”
Thorndyke chuckled. “You didn’t leave the hard-boiled egg much to
say,” he observed.
“No. But why were you so secret? Why didn’t you let on, just a little,
to give poor Bundy a hint as to where he was plunging?”
“My dear Mrs. Frood----”
“Oh, call me Angelina,” she interrupted.
“Thank you,” said he. “Well, my dear Angelina, you are forgetting that
I didn’t know what was in the wall.”
“My goodness!” she exclaimed. “I had overlooked that. Of course, it
might have been-- Good gracious! How awful!” She paused with her eyes
fixed on Thorndyke, and then asked: “Supposing it had been?”
“I refuse to suppose anything of the kind,” he replied. “My
explanations will deal with the actual, not with the hypothetical.”
There was silence for a minute or two. Like Angelina, I was
speculating on what Thorndyke would have done if the remains had been
real remains--and those of a man. He had evidently sympathized warmly
with the hunted wife; but if her defence had taken the form of a
crime, would he have exposed her? It was useless to ask him. I have
often thought about it since, but have never reached a conclusion.
“You will have to answer questions better than that presently,” said
Angelina; “but I won’t ask you any more now. You shall finish your
lunch in peace, and then--into the witness-box you go. I am going to
have satisfaction for that note.”
The little festival went on, unhurried, with an abundance of cheerful
and rather frivolous talk. But at last, like all fugitive things, it
came to an end. The table was cleared, and garnished with the port
decanter and the coffee service, and Mrs. Dunk, with a final glower,
half-defiant and half-admiring, at Angelina, took her departure.
“Now,” said Angelina, as I poured out the coffee, “the time has come
to talk of many things, but especially of expert investigations into
the identity of Peter Bundy. Your lead, Sir.”
CHAPTER XIX.
EXPLANATIONS
“The investigation of this case,” Thorndyke began, “falls naturally
into two separate inquiries: that relating to the crime and that which
is concerned with what we may conveniently call the personation. They
make certain contacts, but they are best considered separately. Let us
begin with the crime.
“Now, to a person having experience of real crime, there was, in this
case, from the very beginning, something rather abnormal. A woman of
good social position had disappeared. There was a suggestion that she
had been murdered; and the murder had apparently been committed in
some public place, that is to say, not in a house. But in such cases,
normally, the first evidence of the crime is furnished by the
discovery of the body. It is true that, in this case, there was a
suggestion that the body had been flung into the river, and this, at
first, masked the abnormality to some extent. But even then there was
the discrepancy that the brooch, which was attached to the person,
appeared to have been found on land, while the bag, which was not
attached to the person, was picked up at the water’s edge. The bag
itself, and the box which had been in it, presented several
inconsistencies.
“They had apparently been lying unnoticed for eleven days on a piece
of shore that was crowded with small craft and frequently by numbers
of seamen and labourers, and that formed a play-ground for the
waterside children. The clean state of the box when found showed that
it had neither been handled nor immersed, and as the wrapping-paper