Inside front cover:
A naked body left dangling on a fence, the victim of a strange murder, smashed the Sabbath morning peace of a small Quaker village. This gruesome object, all that was left of an apparently wealthy man, was found propped on a stile at the turn of a lonely country road. It seemed the perfect crime, for there was not the faintest clue as to the killer's identity.
Who had stuck the knife deep into the murdered man's throat, so that he bled to death slowly? Who had posed the nude body in such a grotesque manner that the general effect was that of a man set in the stocks? And why? Was it revenge? Or was it the bizarre gesture of a disordered mind?
Once more Lawyer Jellipot of mystery fiction fame was on the scene before the police arrived. He had his own ideas; the police proceeded on their own theories, collecting enough evidence to involve a dozen people. And Sydney Fowler takes his readers with Lawyer Jellipot and the police through a maze of strange circumstances, exciting events, and finally to a startling denouement in what Detective-Inspector Combridge terms: "The most fantastic murder case I have ever known."
The Jordans Murder
Chapter I
TUCKER EMM0LL came from New Mexico. He came to London with more money to spend than most men should have, and with an introduction to the secretary of a highly respectable London club.
It was an introduction that the secretary could not ignore, for it came from one who had given lavish hospitality in New Orleans to friends of his own recommendation. Mr. Emmoll was dined at the club. Certain members of the Committee, more or less accustomed to such ordeals, entertained and endured a man whom they could not like, and plied him with wine, until the need for endurance passed, and the entertainment was theirs. For Emmoll, being in liquor, talked.
He was not quite foolish enough to give his true name, nor to narrate how he had fled across the ocean thirty-five years before from the imminent shadow of a Manchester jail. But he told tales of lawless violences in Colorado camps, in which he had taken brutal, sometimes homicidal part, which he appeared to regard as matters for boast rather than shame.
He told, at the last, a tale of how he had been knocked down by another man, also of English origin, and how quickly the insult had been avenged. He had risen with his hand already upon the six-shooter which was, if his account was to be believed, the sole authority which that community knew, but found that his opponent had been quicker than he, so that he had gazed down the muzzle of a pistol levelled within a few feet of his own eyes.
Even then, he boasted, his nerve had not failed, nor had his wit been unable to bring him through the encounter with a reputation more feared than before. He had been quick to express his regret, to admit that he had deserved what he got, and as his apology had been accepted, and his opponent's weapon sunk, he had raised his own and shot the man who was so credulous a fool as to suppose that he would forgive the insult of such a blow.
"That," he said, with a complacent chuckle creasing cheeks which had become somewhat heavy from the good living in recent years, "was the end of Jim Hartlin. Not a bad fellow at all, but a bit too quick to quarrel, and a bit too soft for the habits of Slider's Creek."
"Did you say Hartlin - Jim Hartlin?" a quiet voice asked. It was that of a man in his early fifties. A barrister who was spoken of as likely to be Attorney-General if the next election should bring his political party to power.
"Yes," Emmoll said. "I'm not one to forget a name."
"It isn't a common name."
"No, I don't say that it is. I don't say that I've met with it since. But that's what it was."
The barrister appeared to check himself on the threshold of further speech. Then he said casually: "I only thought that it was an unusual name; and of course it was a long time ago."
"So it was, but Tuck Emmoll never forgets a name," the man replied, without meeting the speaker's eyes. The incident was no more to him than a dozen others which he had told to show these ineffectual fossils what real manhood was. But after that the talk halted, and was not freely resumed.
Mr. Emmoll may have observed this, or he may have been actuated by nothing more than a prudent thought that he would leave while he could still do so on steady legs. Anyhow, he departed shortly afterwards, thanking his hosts for the hospitality he had received, and with his wits insufficiently alert to observe that more than one of them avoided shaking his hand as he retired.
After he had gone, the barrister left, accompanied by a solicitor with whom he had associations both of professional and personal kinds.
"So," he said, "I have learned at last how Jim Hartlin died."
"He was your cousin?"
"Yes. He was also my dearest friend."
The solicitor made no answer. After a pause, his companion went on: "When you think that a swine like that can thrive, while better men - " He broke off abruptly, and then added: "I should enjoy killing him with my own hands!"
He spoke with a bitterness which caused the solicitor to look mildly surprised. He answered reasonably "I suppose there must be many who feel like that. The trouble is that the man who kills another, however much he may deserve it, usually bas a worse time than the man he killed."
"Usually. Not always. I don't need to tell you that most violent criminals are half-witted, which makes the work of detection about twice as easy as it would otherwise be. If a murder should be deliberately planned and committed, say by you or me, with all the caution and fore-thought that we are accustomed to use in our professional work, it might be a different matter."
The solicitor considered this, but was dubious in his reply: "Perhaps so; but was doubt whether it would work out very well for us. We should think of all the precautions we could, and a good detective, if he should begin to suspect us at all, would anticipate that we should have done so. His mind would move along the same lines, and the more carefully we had planned to divert suspicion from ourselves, the more easily he might reconstruct the crime."
"Yes," the barrister replied, "that's an idea. I should say that's a sound idea. . . which doesn't alter the fact that there's a murderous guzzling swine alive in London tonight, who won't get what he deserves, unless a better man be prepared to risk his life in a good cause."
"Yes. . . I see how you feel. . . I daresay he's got a good many enemies. You must hope that there's one with less judgment and self-restraint than your own, who'll give him something he ought to have. As he said this, they came to the entrance of the barrister's chambers, and the solicitor called a taxi for his own use.
Chapter II
EZRA BECKWITH, being conscious of advancing years, and a very troublesome cough, decided to make a will. He therefore wrote to his solicitor, Mr. Jellipot, asking him to visit him during the coming weekend to discuss the matter.
Mr. Beckwith lived at Seer Green, which is a pleasont village in the neighbourhood of the Chalfonts, about twenty-five miles from London. Mr. Jellipot, knowing his client to be a man of leisurely and discursive mind, surmised correctly that the document would not be completed without prolonged discussion, and replied that he would come on Saturday afternoon and return on Monday. Mr. Beckwith having responded suitably, Mr. Jellipot came.
Jellipot took an early walk at sunrise on Sunday morning, in the direction of Jordans, which he knew by repute as the burial-place of William Penn and other Quaker celebrities, but had not previously visited.
Mr. Jellipot had continued a rather embarrassing discussion upon the terms of the proposed will until a late hour of the previous night. At that time his elderly client had suggested that they should meet again at breakfast, which he had ordered for 10 a. m., saying that Mr. Jellipot would be glad of a good night after his legal labours during the week.
Mr. Jellipot had been too polite to reply that he preferred to breakfast at an earlier hour. But he was a man of fixed habits, and at 7 a. m., feeling his usual inclination to rise, he decided to visit the famous grave-yard, if opportunity should allow. He saw that he would have ample time to do this, and to return before breakfast would be served. So, having dressed, he went out through a silent house.
His walk lay through green undulating country, moderately wooded and sprinkled with the pleasant, unpretentious dwellings of London business men. He admired it absently, but he was already familiar with the general characteristics of the scenery of the Chiltern Hills, and his mind was inclined to dwell upon the will which would be his task to draw up.
Yet he was sufficiently conscious of outward things not to overlook the purpose for which he came. When he reached the Meeting-house beside which the founder of Pennsylvania lies in the quiet dignity of his turf-clad grave, he turned into the fieldlike burial-ground, beautiful in its ancient simplicity, with a thought that, if all men were of the disposition of those who lay buried there, the world would become a fairer and better place.
He continued his walk, musing. Here, in this peaceful place, which seemed quietly alive with a better spirit than that which stirred men of violence to crime and feud . . . Mr. Jellipot stopped abruptly, gazing at a most shocking monstrous, and impossible thing.
The centre of Jordans consists of a group of houses surrounding a village green, the approach to which is a broad semi-private avenue, leading off from the main road, and lying on the left hand as it was passed by Mr. Jellipot.
Farther on, there are foot-paths also approaching the green at different points. One of these paths is entered by a stile, slightly raised from the foot-path level, and constructed of two uprights, two cross-bars, and a flat plank crossing the lower bar at a slant, for the convenience of those whose legs are too short or stiff to mount it conveniently without this assisting step.
Mr. Jellipot might have passed this stile with no more attention than it deserved, had it been vacant, or ornamented only by a living person normally clothed. But the figure that met his gaze was naked, grotesquely postured, and quite certainly dead. Mr. Jellipot paused abruptly, gazed incredulously, and approached the apparition with a greater inclination to disbelieve his own eyes than he would have thought it possible to experience in his waking hours.
Closer inspection added detail, which did not dispel the marvel, nor make it less. Mr. Jellipot, puzzled at his own reaction, and analytic of mind, as his habit was, thought: "If it were less fantastically impossible, it would be more horrible than it is."
He looked on the body of a man, who had passed his youth, and, though still muscular, had become somewhat obese. His legs, before death or after, had been pushed through the stile, so that they rested upon the lower bar, and his heels were on the ground that sloped down from the stile to the road-level. His body was seated on the cross-plank, and his head and arms hung forward over the upper bar. The general effect was that of a man set in the stocks.
If he had come to a violent end, which was easy to think, its cause was not evident at a first view, unless it could be attributed to a penknife, the blade of which had been driven into his navel, so that only the small pearl-sided sheath projected therefrom.
Considering what he saw with a mind now widely alert, and convinced that he had come upon the result of bizarre crime or a madman's end, he reflected that the blade of the penknife could not be longer than the exposed sheath into which it must have closed. If that were so, it could not have inflicted a fatal wound. He observed that no bleeding had followed its insertion, and concluded that it must have been driven in some time after death had occurred. That might seem a small fact in itself, but it definitely indicated murder rather than suicide. Mr. Jellipot was not one to allow himself to be hurried in his conclusions, but he recognized it to be a matter with which the police should be promptly acquainted.
He looked round at a few houses scattered along the sides of the road, hurried to the nearest one and knocked on the door. A thin, elderly woman appeared, with a hand on the open door, waiting silently for Mr. Jellipot to explain his presence.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you," he said, "that there's been a - an accident up the road. There's a man dead. . . ."
"The roads aren't safe for anyone these days. You never know who it'll be next," said the woman.
"I don't think it's a motor accident," Mr. Jellipot replied. "It's a matter," he went on, "about which the police ought to be informed at once, but I don't think it - he ought to be left as he is. I suppose you haven't got a telephone here?"
"No, you'd find one at Miss Mendip's. That's the house with the white gate, down the road."
"Yes?" Jellipot answered doubtfully. "I suppose there isn't any man about here that I can ask - Or," with a sudden inspiration, "if you could lend me a sheet?"
"Yes, I could do that," she answered. "I'd better get George, my lodger, to come." She raised her voice slightly to call: "George," and a young man appeared at once from an inner room, wiping a full mouth.
George was stolid and large. He listened to Mr. Jellipot's severely restricted statement of the presence of a murdered man at the stile without visible emotion. Then he went with a slow but willing heaviness to bring the sheet from the double bed, as his landlady asked him to do.
The next moment George appeared with a clean sheet loosely folded over his arm, and walked at Jellipot's side the short distance to the stile without indulging in further speech.
His eyes became somewhat rounded at the sight of the grotesque posture and nudity of the murdered man. "Looks," he said laconically, "as though they crocked him to swipe his duds."
"It is," Jellipot admitted, "a possible but still inadequate explanation."
George, who had come from London three months before, when he had obtained a position as assistant to a Seer Green butcher, surveyed the dead body with the professional interest of a licensed slaughterman. He looked under the sagging chin. "Been bled," he explained, with the finality of one who knew; "bled slow." He looked on the ground, and added: "I'm satisfied that it wasn't done here. Wonder how they lugged him along."
"I suppose," Jellipot said reasonably, "that it must have been brought by car." He was unaware of George's professional qualifications, but recognized the tone of authority with which he spoke. He asked: "How long should you say he's been dead?"
"Might be a day, or perhaps two. You couldn't say nearer than that." Together they draped the sheet over the unseemly spectacle. "I wonder," Jellipot said, "that no one noticed this before I came along - that is, if it was put here during the night, as I suppose."
"Folks aren't over-early on Sundays round here. Not as I've seen There'd be the milkman. He must have come by."
"It seems scarcely possible that the milkman would not have observed it, if it were here when he passed."
"Don't know that I'd say that. Driving on a road he knows, and not much light at that hour."
"I expect you are right," Jellipot allowed, realizing that George's judgment was supported by the apparent fact. He proposed that he should telephone the police, while George would remain on guard till their arrival.
Jellipot, becoming aware that he would be late for a breakfast that he was beginning to need, set off briskly in search of Miss Mendip's telephone.
Chapter III
MR. JELLIPOT had further occasion to observe that the inhabitants of Jordans do not rise early on Sunday mornings during the winter months, while he pressed Miss Mendip's bell at reasonable intervals for four or five minutes. Finally a maid appeared and looked at him in a vacuous silence through the narrow gap of a quarter-opened door.
"Would you please ask Mendip if she would kindly allow me to use her telephone for a few minutes?" Mr. Jellipot inquired, and then added, as the girl still regarded him with dull eyes and a slack jaw: "I am sorry to trouble you at this early hour, but it is a matter of urgency. There has been a - an accident up the road."
"If you'll come this way, sir, if you please," said the girl, and led him upstairs to a bedroom from which its recent occupant had withdrawn.
"I want," he said, when he had picked up the receiver, and heard the operator's response, "to be put through to the nearest police station at once."
The call went through swiftly.
"Inspector Dutton speaking."
"There is a man murdered," Jellipot replied, "at the side of the road at Jordans, about a quarter of a mile from the Meeting-house."
"Why do you say murdered?"
"Because it is obvious that he has died from violence, and there are evidences that it has not been self-inflicted. The man is quite naked, and has been fixed on a stile at the side of the road."
"Naked?"
"Yes."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Jellipot. I am a London solicitor. I am staying for the weekend at the house of a client, Mr. Beckwith, at Seer Green."
The information slightly diminished the curtness of the next query, but there was still a sharp doubt in the inspector's voice. "Where are you speaking from?"
"In view of the urgency of the matter I have asked for the use of the telephone of a neighbouring resident."
"Name of?"
"Miss Mendip, I understand."
"Body been interfered with in any way?"
"No. A sheet has been put over it, and a young man named George, who lives near, has kindly undertaken to stay there till you arrive."
"Sure it isn't a car accident?"
"Yes, quite."
"I'll be there in ten minutes. Of course you'll wait till I come."
"I'm afraid not. I was taking a walk before breakfast, which I have not yet had, when I made this discovery. I am going back to get some."
"All the same, I must ask you to stay till I arrive. Miss Mendip will give you something, if you ask her. Or anyone else in Jordans. You'll find they're quite hospitable."
"All the same, I must decline. I have an appointment to breakfast with my host. You can get in touch with me at Mr. Beckwith's any time during the day, but I have already given you all the help I can."
Mr. Jellipot might have said more had he not become conscious that Inspector Dutton had rung off. That competent officer had understood that Mr. Jellipot meant what he said, and had wasted no further time in requesting that which he had no power to enforce.
Mr. Jellipot saw that if his meal were not to be further delayed it would be necessary to go before the police-inspector should arrive, and he rightly concluded that the interval would not be long.
Seven minutes later, Inspector Dutton arrived in a car from which a sergeant and two constables emerged after himself. He would have picked up the police-surgeon also but for a lurking fear that the telephone message he had received was no more than a practical joke.
A few words with George, and the sight of the sheeted stile, were sufficient to convince him that he was faced by no hoax, but one of those spectacular crimes which draw a whole nation's eyes as they become known, as this must do in the space of a few hours.
"Jones," he said, "phone Doctor Cartlidge to come at once. There's a house with a phone over there. Yes, Mendip's the name. Then phone for the Beaconsfield ambulance. No. The stretcher at St. Giles wouldn't do it. They must rush the ambulance here at once. We can't leave this here. There'll be the people coming along to church in less than an hour now. . . . No, Bellis, leave the sheet as it is till Doctor Cartlidge comes. . . . Here, come back, I haven't finished with you yet."
The last words were addressed to George, who had shown an inclination to retire modestly from the scene. He was to experience the diluted suspicion which spreads like a diffused light around those who are found by the police in the neighbourhood of a violent crime.
Dr. Cartlidge's car and the Beaconsfield ambulance arrived almost at the same moment. The two vehicles, by Inspector Dutton's order, were drawn close to the side of the road, partially screening the stile from the general view. This may have been well, in the interests of public propriety, concerning which Inspector Dutton felt a vague responsibility. but Dr. Cartlidge cared not at all.
"Take it off!" he said. "Do you think I can see through a linen sheet? Um! Dead enough now, and dead enough I should say when he was brought here." He looked at the protruding penknife without attempting to touch it. "Queer idea of a joke," he said. And then to Inspector Dutton: "Any lunatic at large round these parts?"
"No. I don't know that there is. This looks to me like the work of more than one man."
"Perhaps it is. But a madman's frenzy, you know! Wonderful what they can do." He was examining the puncture under the chin as he spoke. He looked up at George "You the one who was found with him?" he asked sharply.
Inspector Dutton, a just though sceptical man, would have explained, but the doctor went on rapidly: "You're the man who came to me from Seer Green with a poisoned finger, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir. But it's quite well now, sir. Thanks to you, sir, it is."
George's tone was propitiatory, but the doctor went on: "You're the new slaughterman at Bennett's, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir. That's me."
The doctor's eyes went back to that small, deep wound through which a man's life had been drained away. But he only added: "Well, it was a neat job," and shut his mouth on the words.
"I'm glad," he said to Dutton, "you thought of the ambulance. I think the best way would be to get him away, stile and all. I can't do anything here."
Inspector Dutton did not object. He wanted that unseemly object removed as soon as possible from the eyes of the Jordans children. He said: "Well, if we borrow a good saw - Bellis, see what you can do. Jones, keep those people back. Tell them to clear, or I'll run some of them in. I daresay they know a lot more about this than they'll be willing to tell. . . . What's that car stopping for? Tell them to move on, or they'll get a summons for blocking the road."
The voice of authority, sharply urged, made a partial clearance of the lane, which had been gradually filling up with a larger and closer crowd. A collection of three saws enabled a start to be made in the removal of the stile from its too-firm foundations. . . . Half an hour later the ambulance moved away at a walking pace, lest it should jolt its ghastly freight. After that the crowd gradually scattered to talk and wonder, while P. C. Bellis took a stolid stand by the shortened posts of the stile.
Chapter IV
MR JELLIPOT was no more than twenty minutes late for the breakfast hour which his host had mentioned the night before. Though Mr. Beckwith had waited for him, with a courtesy which some elderly gentlemen might not have exercised after being told that their guest had left the house without explanation two or three hours earlier, Mr. Jellipot felt that the exceptional narrative which he had to offer should be a sufficient apology.
When the meal was done, he accepted a proposal that he should retire to Mr. Beckwith's study, both to draft the body of the proposed will, and to prepare a schedule of charities which it would be intended to benefit, for his client's final approval. Having done this in the course of the following hour, he turned his thoughts again to consideration of the unusual spectacle of the morning hours.
He sat for over half an hour in motionless thought, debating a point upon which he found himself to be in an indecision very difficult to resolve. Then he reached for the telephone, and put through a call to Detective Inspector Combridge.
"That you, Combridge?" he said, as he heard a familiar voice at the other end of the wire. "Jellipot speaking. I'm at Seer Green. I suppose you know where that is. Yes, staying here for the weekend. But I've not called you to tell you that. You remember doing me a good turn once, when you brought Ada Hamilton in to see me? Well, it's my turn now. There's been rather an odd murder committed here. A least this is where they've dumped the body. It's a case where they'll be certain to call in the Yard. I thought you might like to be at hand to take up the case."
This information was received with five seconds' silence before a reply came, with no enthusiasm in the inspector's voice. "It's good of you to ring me up. But I'm not sure that six days a week isn't as much as I feel called on to do, unless they come after me."
"It is a point of view," Mr. Jellipot replied readily, "with which it is easy to sympathize." He would have hung up with no further remarks beyond those that courtesy required, had he not heard, in a curiously altered voice:
"But if you've learned anything on the spot, you might give me a few tips, all the same. If I do get put on it, it'll save time, and you may know something I couldn't get from the local police."
"No. I can't claim any special knowledge. I happened to take an early morning walk and saw a dead man with his head hanging over a tile, and his arms and legs stuck through it, and I just put the police on and came away."
"Sure he was murdered?"
"I was assured by George, which is the name of a young man who spoke in a professional tone, that he must have been bled slowly to death, and as that had not occurred at the spot where he was, he must have been taken there later. It may not follow that he was murdered, but you will agree that it is a probable deduction.
"What sort of a man was he?"
"Middle-aged. Rather heavy. The sort who would probably call himself a gentleman, though the opinion might not be unanimously sustained."
"Yes. I see. But - Was he the sort who might have been murdered for what he had on him, or one more likely to get killed in a row - racing-gangster type? You know what I mean."
"He hadn't anything on him whatever."
"You don't mean that literally? You mean they'd picked his pockets? It doesn't sound a particularly odd murder to me. Commonplace is the word I should use. But I suppose coming on it as you did - "
"I mean literally. He was quite naked. No clothes at all"
"That was certainly odd. Sorry I didn't appreciate it before. Anything else you can tell me I shall be glad to hear, and I won't interrupt again."
"I'm afraid there's no more to tell, except that Police-Inspector Dutton has been waiting in the hall for the last ten minutes."
"Never mind him. What's your address if I come down?" Jellipot gave this information, added that he was leaving by an early train on the following morning, and hung up the receiver.
Mr. Jellipot's work for the day was done. He had agreed with Mr. Beckwith that the will could not be completed without inquiries concerning the exact designations and activities of some of the charities which it was intended to benefit, and that it would be necessary for him to pay a second visit to Jordans on the following weekend for his client to approve and sign it. On this understanding, Mr. Beckwith retired immediately after an early dinner, as it was his custom to do, and Mr. Jellipot was left to indulge himself with the resources of an excellent library, or his own thoughts, as he might prefer.
He sat for a long time in apparent idleness while his mind reviewed the experience of the morning, and speculated upon its probable developments. Once he said aloud: "It has the appearance of a most unlikely coincidence." And then, more firmly, as though the cool sanity of his mind regained its control "Such coincidences do not occur."
Yet, he asked himself, if coincidence must be eliminated, what conclusion remained? It seemed that he built a superstructure of conjecture upon one tiny fact (if fact it could be called) grotesquely inadequate for the foundation of such an edifice. "Well," he said, after a further interval, "Combridge is a sound man." But there was neither confidence nor satisfaction in the tone in which these words were spoken, and he still sat silent and absorbed in his own thoughts, until he was roused by the information that Chief Inspector Combridge was in the hall, and had asked to see him.
"Show him in please, Edith," he said, and received him, when he appeared, with his usual cordiality. "You've not been long," he said, "in getting on the job."
"No," Inspector Combridge answered readily, "we don't loose much time in getting to work in such cases as this, and I've got to thank you that I was on the ground when I was. When I reached the Yard, I found that Davis had just tried to phone me. You must have saved me an hour."
"Then," Mr. Jellipot calculated, "you've been down here four or five hours already."
"Yes. About that."
"If you feel that the hint which I was able to give you, and our past acquaintance, justify me in asking, I shall be interested to know what progress you have made, and to hear your theory of what appears to me to be a most puzzling crime."
"Well," Inspector Combridge replied, "I came to learn what I could from you, rather than to tell you what we've been able to find; but I've no more that can be done before morning. And there's nothing I mind telling you - also I'd like to learn any ideas you may have about what certainly is, in some aspects, a puzzling case."
Mr. Jellipot smiled. "I can't remember," he said, "in the Hamilton case, that you gave any help to me."
"I don't remember that you needed much either. This is an altogether different position. We're both law-abiding citizens discussing how a particularly brutal and offensive murderer - or perhaps I should say murderers, as it could hardly have been done by one man - should be caught and hanged. You've got a wonderful faculty for thinking these things out, and, if you can help me with any ideas, you know whether we should fall out over that."
"Yes," Mr. Jellipot admitted, "I'm sure we shouldn't, though you may easily overrate my capacity. I suppose there may be difficulty in finding a natural explanation for some of the less usual circumstances of the murder. Why, for instance, had the murdered man been completely stripped? Was it done before or after death? Was the idea to render his identification more difficult?"
"I shouldn't say it was that," the inspector answered, concentrating his reply upon the last question, which had been the subject of some debate with the local officers just before he had set out on his present visit. "It seems inconsistent, for one thing, with the conspicuous way in which the body was set up. But if you say that that argument isn't sound, it still remains that it was an almost crazy thing to have done.
"In the first place, the clothes have got to be disposed of somehow or other - which isn't an easy thing to do so that no traces remain - and there's no simpler method than leaving them on the body to which they belong. As it is, they're very likely to be a clue that will lead us just where we want to get. "And in the second, I don't suppose their removal will cause any material difficulty in identification, or even delay."
"You think you know who the dead man was?"
"Not yet, but we soon shall. We know that he was an American who had lived a hard life, but become wealthy in recent years, and tomorrow we shall have his photograph in about twenty million newspapers here, and being copied, if necessary, into as many in his own country. How many wealthy Americans do you suppose will have disappeared in the last forty-eight hours? And how could such a man disappear suddenly without a number of those around him - apart from his immediate friends or foes - observing that he wasn't there?"
"I could imagine circumstances," Mr. Jellipot replied with some hesitation, "but I see the force of your argument, and having found out so much, I should think your confidence is well grounded that you will soon know who he was. May I ask how his nationality, and the other circumstances you mention, can be so definitely deduced?"
"He wore a dental plate that had been made in the United States, or Canada, and his mouth showed other evidences of American dentistry."
"And as to his wealth, and earlier conditions of life?"
"He was originally a powerful, muscular man and his body, though it had become flabby and overfed, had many evidences of rough living. A wound of some kind - probably from a knife-thrust - had grazed his ribs. You may have noticed that?"
"No. I can't say I did. I was less concerned to study the - the exhibit - than to arrange for it to be covered or removed."
"That was natural enough. But the scar was there. And there's another on his left hip, where he must have been shot from behind. Then there are signs of an old blow over the head that must have nearly fractured his skull. When you add that the top joint of one fingers gone, you may conclude that he's come through some lively times."
"But that hardly shows that he had become wealthy before he died."
"No. But when you find that such a man has come to grow a big paunch and has manicured hands? Hands that still show the rough uses they had for thirty or forty years, which no manicuring can altogether remove? And when you find that he's actually had his feet manicured too?"
"Pedicured," Mr. Jellipot suggested gently, "might be the more orthodox word," but beyond this correction of his visitor's less accurate vocabulary, he offered no dissent from the conclusions to which he had listened.
"I don't mind what you call it so that you know what I mean," the inspector replied with momentary irritation. "When we've had the post mortem and learn what he's like inside, we shall know a lot more than we do now."
"I have no doubt that you will. Your methods have a thoroughness which it is impossible not to admire. Any fingerprints anywhere? I suppose they wouldn't show - or would they? - on the body or on the stile?"
"There aren't any. Even the penknife handle hadn't a trace. It must have been held in a covered hand, or wiped after it was put in."
"I thought the fact that the knife was left, and the way in which it had been inserted in the dead body, were about the oddest parts of the crime."
"So it looked to me, though I suppose it was no more than the impulse of a man who had lost his mental balance from what he'd done already. Doctor Cartlidge says it appears to be the same weapon, small as it is, with which the murder was done."
"Then you regard it as the work of a single man?"
"I didn't say that. He'd have to be one of most exceptional strength. The murdered man wasn't a lightweight. I should say it was almost certainly the work of a gang, and probably done as it was for a warning to others who would be sure to hear of it, and understand."
"It is at least a plausible theory," Mr. Jellipot considered, "and it's evident that where large sums of money are handled, or where the possibility of betrayal arises, among men of unscrupulous character, and for whom the protection of the law does not apply, the discipline of violence is the only one by which their leaders can restrain them. . . . By the way, Inspector Dutton appeared to look with suspicion upon a young man who was introduced to me by the name of George, and whom I was instrumental in bringing upon the scene. I should be interested to know whether you've found reason to incline to the same view."
"No, I shouldn't like to say that, not beyond the degree to which we're suspicious of everyone till we find some positive reason to rule them out. He isn't a native here. He came from London a few months ago. We'll check up on that, and find out what his record is I'm told that he answered an advertisement for a slaughterman by a local butcher. He hasn't an alibi, as he happens to sleep in a ground-floor room which he could leave during the night without anyone knowing. But that's a long way from saying he did it. . . . His character's quite good locally. There's just the fact of his being on the scene, and I understand that's due to you."
"Yes. Entirely so. It would be unjust to put that against him in any way."
"So I understood. Apart from that, there's only the way the man was killed, which would be more likely to occur to a pork-butcher than the average murderer. I suppose you haven't any reason to suspect him yourself?"
"Not the least. I'm just interested to learn."
"Well, that's how it is. But I wish you'd tell me what happened this morning more fully than you did on the telephone. I heard it from Dutton since, but I'd rather have it from you direct."
Mr. Jellipot made no objection to this request, and the conversation continued until a late hour, but without settling upon any fact not already recorded, or any theory of more than a vaguely plausible kind.
Chapter V
WITH the unspectacular thoroughness that characterizes the highly
organized modern methods of detecting crime, the investigation proceeded, and bore its first fruits on Tuesday morning. At that
time the avid appetite of the public was fed, if not satisfied, with the
information that the body of the murdered man had been identified as that of James Tucker Emmoll, commonly known as Tuck Emmoll, a wealthy American, who had checked out of a London hotel and had forwarded his luggage to Southampton on the previous Friday, but had failed to board the liner by which he should have sailed on the following day.
With this expected success, Inspector Combridge felt that the path of investigation was opening smoothly before him. If the murderers of Tucker Emmoll have the means of identification when they stripped the body, they must have had a lesson, as they opened the Tuesday morning newspapers, of the futility of plans which are intended to flout the law.
Certainly, they had not destroyed the clothes; nor had they endeavoured to rid themselves of them in such a manner that they would be likely to remain undiscovered for any prolonged period. The news came in by telephone from the High Wycombe police that two boys, going to school by a path that led over one of the bare green uplands that are characteristic of the higher Chilterns, had come upon a neatly folded pile of clothes, somewhat sodden with morning rain. On top of the clothes was an envelope, addressed to Chief Inspector Combridge. Within this envelope was a sheet of white notepaper, on which was written a stanza of presumably original verse:
This information came to Inspector Combridge by telephone, and. cheeky as it appeared to be, it did nothing to depress his spirits.
"Well," he said to his informant at the High Wycombe police station, "that ought to land us a day's march nearer home, as the hymn says. But I must get off to the inquest now. . . . No, we shan't want it for that today. In fact, I shan't want it to get known to the public at all at present. We'd better leave the scoundrels guessing whether it's been found, or what we make of it, if it has. Do you think you can keep it out of the newspapers? . . . Well, do the best you can. I'll be with you as soon as the inquest's adjourned, and that shouldn't take more than couple of hours."
He spoke with knowledge of what to expect, and, in fact, it took less time than that. For when he arrived on the scene of inquiry Inspector Dutton was already giving evidence of the finding and removal of the murdered body. After that Mr. Jellipot narrated its discovery, and the steps he took to inform the police, and to insure that the more youthful eyes of the peaceful Quaker community should not be contaminated by such a sight. His account was accepted with brevity, and was not questioned in any particular. George Tipper was not called
Dr. Cartlidge said there could be no doubt that the man had bled to death through a wound in the throat which might have been, and almost certainly had been, inflicted with the penknife which was found inserted in a lower part of the body. The presence of the knife in that position made it almost certain that the man had not died by his own hand, but it was a curious fact that there was no indication that any struggle had preceded the murder. There were no minor injuries. No bruises. No signs that the man's hands or feet had been bound before he had been executed in such a manner.
"Which," the coroner commented, "suggests an anaesthetic?"
"Yes."
"But there was no sign of such having been used?"
"No. None at all. I shouldn't say that is conclusive; but there had certainly been no hypodermic injection."
He went on to describe the contents of the stomach, which indicated that death had occurred about four hours after a meal had been taken.
He was followed on the witness stand by a hotel porter who definitely identified the body as that of Mr. Tucker Emmoll, whom he had seen alive and well, jovial and properly clothed, on the Friday night before Mr. Jellipot had discovered it in a condition of unseemly nudity, grotesquely lolling upon the Jordans stile.
Having taken this evidence, the coroner said briefly that as the inquiry was in the hands of the police, he saw no advantage in carrying it beyond the point already reached. He then adjourned it sine die, leaving the public appetite stimulated rather than satisfied by the slight additional lifting of the curtain of homicidal drama, and without mention of the neatly folded, rain-sodden heap of clothes which had been placed during the previous night on the treeless High Wycombe hill.
Combridge returned to his office just in time to receive a phone call from Jellipot.
"The character of Jordans village," Mr. Jellipot said, "so far as my limited opportunities have enabled me to assess it, is friendly, peaceful and discreet. It's difficult to imagine a community less likely to be associated, however indirectly, with Emmoll's murder. But gossip there is certain to be. There's a lady - doubtless of excellent reputation - a Miss Manly, a member of the Management Committee by which the affairs of the village are controlled. Miss Prudence Manly. It may lead to nothing, and I am sure you will respect my wish that I should not be mentioned as the source from which the suggestion comes. You might ask her if there may be any information bearing upon the crime which she is able to give."
"You'd rather not say more than that?"
"No. . . . In fact," Mr. Jellipot added with increasecl animation, "I would rather have said less."
Inspector Combridge did not interview Miss Manly quite as promptly as he had expected to do. He found on inquiry that she was away for the weekend and was expected home on Tuesday morning. Besides, other developments had occurred which required his immediate attention and were of a more definitely promising kind.
The first of these was the discovery of the man who had driven Emmoll from the hotel. The explanation of his delayed appearance was simply that he had been away on a short holiday. He had spent a week in Paris, and, on reading the police circular when he returned, he had driven at once to Scotland Yard to report that he had picked up such a fare on the night in question. He explained that he had left the man at the Savoy, where he had seen him shake hands with another gentleman, whom he described rather vaguely but thought he would recognize if he should see him again.
And the value of this information was almost immediately discounted - except as needless corroboration - through a letter which came to Inspector Combridge by the midday delivery:
Dear Sir,
Re: Tucker Emmoll
If you can call at my once today at any time between 4 and 6 a. m., I shall be able to give you some information concerning the movements of the above during the earlier hours of the night on which his murder occurred.
?Yours faithfully,
Denis Hartlin.
It was punctually at four o'clock that the inspector called at Mr. Hartlin's offices in the Inner Temple, and found himself shown without delay into the room where the barrister was accustomed to give conferences to his clients.
Mr. Hartlin was a man of a lean muscularity, physically and intellectually alert, black of hair, and rather sallow-skinned, with very bright dark eyes that could intimidate a witness or woo a jury with equal ease and success.
He was an able advocate, both in civil and criminal causes, sound in law and subtle of wit, but his greatest asset may have been his voice. Now he received his visitor with a quiet cordiality. "Sit down, Inspector," he said. "I don't know that what I'm going to tell you will be very much use - you must judge that for yourself - but I feel that I owe you some apology for not having let you know earlier.
"The fact is that I was so closely engaged all last week on the Astill case that I didn't give the newspapers even a glance till it was finished on Friday night. I knew about the murder, of course. I'd read that during the previous weekend, and I believe I heard some talk subsequently about the body having been identified, but I wasn't particularly interested, being fully occupied, as I have said, with one of the most complicated cases which I have ever had to handle. The thought that the murdered man might be Tucker Emmoll never entered my mind.
"But I looked at one of the Sunday newspapers yesterday, and read that man's name, and that you were hunting for the taxi-driver who picked him up at the hotel. I can't give you the taxi-driver's name, but I can tell you something that makes it unimportant. Tucker Emmoll was driven to the Savoy, where he was dining with me on my invitation."
"Well," the inspector answered, "that certainly gets us a step forward; but what I shall be most anxious to know is where he went when he left you. If you can tell me that, we ought to be getting warm, for, by the medical evidence, within four hours of eating that dinner he was a dead man."
"Well, more or less, I can do that, though I can't say how much it will be. He told me he was going to Southampton by car - I don't know that that's of any importance, as it seems he didn't go - but before that he wanted to say good-bye to a friend. As I had my car there and was going in the same direction, I gave him a lift and put him down at the south end of Marsden Terrace."
Hearing this, Inspector Combridge realized that he would not go back to the office to report that he had drawn in no more than an empty net. It was, in fact, not the first time that he had heard the name of Marsden Terrace in the course of his inquiries concerning the movements and associations of the dead man. He asked: "I suppose you don't know the address any nearer than that?"
"No. But my chauffeur thinks he does. He's not definite, and you may prefer to question him rather than take a hearsay from me. But I may explain that it was at Emmoll's own request that I dropped him at the end of the road instead of taking him to the door, and when I told Blake to do that he asked which end of Marsden Terrace he meant - it's rather long as you probably know - and Emmoll didn't know London well enough to say north or south. So he mentioned the number of the house to which he was going, thinking that might be an indication, as in fact it was, for Blake, who knows more of London than I know of the law, says the numbers in that part of the West End all run the same way."
"It wasn't anything in the Forties?"
"Yes. I believe it was."
"Then I think I know it. But I'll have a word with your man all the same. You never know where you'll pick up something that helps. I suppose he didn't let anything out during dinner that might be a pointer to what happened during the night?"
"No. I can't say he did."
Feeling that there was no more to be learned here, Inspector Combridge got up to go. He had been frank to a point, yet economical of his own knowledge, which was a matter of habit rather than design. He had little doubt that he could walk straight to the door which had admitted Tusker Emmoll after he left Denis Hartlin's car, for he had not only that almost certain guess as to the identity of the woman on whom Emmoll called; he had the knowledge of that foolish stanza, which he had not mentioned to the barrister, and which connected her with the murder itself in a way that would at least justify close questioning.
He paused at the sight of a dark-blue car, unostentatiously expensive, which stood at the curb opposite to the entrance of the barrister's offices. He spoke to the chauffeur, who was sitting impassively at the wheel without appearing to regard his presence, even when he stepped up to the door.
"I suppose," he said, "this is Mr. Hartlin's car?"
The man, being directly addressed, turned his face, and answered civilly: "Yes, sir. Mr. Denis Hartlin's car."
"I am Chief Inspector Combridge," he said, coming to the point directly. "I understand from Mr. Hartlin that you drove Tucker Emmoll to Marsden Terrace on the night he was murdered. He said that you might possibly be able to tell me something helpful."
Blake opened the door of the car and invited the inspector to take the seat beside him. "There's no need to stand," he said easily, "though there isn't very much I can tell, and whether it's any use is for you to judge.
"Mr. Hartlin told me to be at the Savoy at 10 p.m. that night and wait for him till he came out. When he did - it must have been about 10.15 - he had a gentleman with him. He said: 'This gentleman's going to make a call in Marsden Terrace. I want you to go round that way and drop him at the end of the road,' or something like that. I asked which end he meant, and he wasn't clear, not knowing London well, but he gave me the number of the house he wanted - 46 I believe it was. I didn't attach any importance to it then, except as indicating the end of the road to which he wanted to get."
"I expect that was it," Inspector Combridge replied, and only his habit of reticence prevented him from adding that it was the number he had already had in his own mind. He saw that it not only made it practically certain that Tucker Emmoll had called that night on a lady who had emphatically denied that she had seen him since the previous week; it also confirmed both the accuracy of Blake's memory, and the good faith of the tale he told. But he showed no sign of this judgment, seeking to put the man on his own defense, as he added: "Still it sounds a bit queer that he should make a point of being put down at the end of the road, and at the same time be so free with the number of the house he wanted."
"Well, he made no bones about that, or the reason either. He said the lady was too particular about her reputation to like him to drive up to the door."
Inspector Combridge considered the resident who lived at No. 46 whom he had questioned with some severity three days before, and was now evidently going to question again in a grimmer manner. Marie Le Noir, as she called herself, or Minnie Black, as she was known to the police, belonged to a profession for which he had no respect, even when it was carried on with a discretion which had kept clear of the criminal law.
"And after that you drove Mr. Hartlin home?"
"Yes. We got back within ten minutes from then."
"And I suppose I needn't ask whether you saw or heard anything further of Tucker Emmoll?"
"Not till I heard you'd identified him as the murdered man." Inspector Combridge did not doubt that he heard the truth, but brought a new circumstance, slightly puzzling, to his notice. He asked: "When did you hear that?"
"When it came out in the papers last Tuesday."
"Then why didn't you let me know all this before now?"
Blake answered without appearing to notice the sharpness with which the question was put: "Perhaps I should have, but it was Mr. Hartlin's matter rather than mine, and I'd no reason to think you hadn't heard it from him."
"Hadn't you talked to him about it at all?"
"When Mr. Hartlin's got a case on like he had last week, he just gives orders; he doesn't chat."
"How many other people have you talked to about this?"
"I haven't spoken a word. I don't talk about what happens when I'm on duty unless I'm asked, as I am now, by someone who's got a right to know."
Inspector Combridge got out of the car, said good night, and boarded a passing bus with determination to interview Miss Minnie Black at once. There should be no lack of official curtness with her!
On the way to Marsden Terrace, Inspector Combridge recalled the incident of his previous visit to Miss Le Noir's flat, which was the first floor of No. 46. He remembered that the street door had been opened by a woman who came up from the basement, and whom he had judged to be caretaker of the house or an attendant upon more than one of its joint occupants. He had observed that she spoke with a foreign accent, and had given a nervous start on first seeing him, a reaction familiar to his profession from those who wished to avoid unpleasant contacts with the police. A woman of good conscience would most probably not have suspected that he was a police officer, or would have been indifferent if she had.
He was pleased therefore when her face appeared at the open door, and no less because he saw it to be a pleasure she did not share. He looked at her with a disconcerting intentness, as he asked curtly: "Miss Black in?"
The woman hesitated, as though disposed to deny knowledge of the name he used, lost courage for that, and said: "If you'll take a seat for a moment, I'll see whether Miss Le Noir's in."
"You needn't do that," he answered, without moving towards the hall-chair she indicated "You know she's in. I hope you haven't forgotten to register lately?"
It was a bold and random shot, but he saw by the change in the woman's face, that it had not failed. Evidently, she was one of those "undesirable aliens" who go in fear of a deportation order. He went on without pausing for her reply: "Well, you'd better get that straight, just as quick as you can. But I'm not concerned about your affairs now. All I want you to tell me is what time Emmoll called here on the night he was murdered, and what happened after that."
The woman looked far more frightened than before. "Murdered?" she echoed vaguely. "Emmoll? You mean the Jordans murder? He wasn't ever here in his life that I ever heard, and that's the truth as I'd take any oath that - "
"Never mind that. Just try to think. The Friday before last. Ever seen this man before?"
He produced a photograph of the murdered man, which the woman clearly recognized.
"Yes," she said, "that's Mr. Wilkinson. You don't mean - "
"I mean that's Emmoll. He may have called himself Wilkinson when he came here. I asked you what time he came on the night he got killed."
She appeared to think a moment, and answered straightly enough: "It must have been about ten, or perhaps a bit later than that. I was having supper when I came up to let him in."
"It was half-past ten. When did he go?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know that. Really, I don't. I have to come up to let people in when they haven't keys, but they let themselves out. I've no idea when he left. If it was much after eleven, I should be gone to bed, and I shouldn't hear."
That sounded likely enough, the inspector reasoned. And he had got the first point he required - the admission that Emmoll had been there, which the woman upstairs had denied when he had questioned her before. He felt that slowly, steadily, he moved on, step by step, to his goal.
"Very well," he said, "I'm going up now. I can find my own way."
On reaching the first floor he approached a door which bore the name MISS M. LE NOIR, on a small brass plate, and tapped sharply. Almost as he did so, his hand tried the knob, and, the door being unlocked, he entered without further ceremony.
The woman whose eyes met his as he entered the room was slatternly, as was the untidy, over-furnished room. From too much drink and food, and too little exercise, her figure was becoming slackly obese; her chin sagged. Her attractions, for those who could overlook the rest, were her bronze-gold hair, which, unlike her complexion, was of authentic colour, and her large brown spaniel-like eyes.
Inspector Combridge looked at her with a dislike he had no care to conceal. "Now, Miss Black," he said, "perhaps you'll tell me why you said Emmoll didn't come here last Friday week."
The woman, who had been writing a letter, drew the blotting paper across it, as she replied in an obstinate but wavering voice: "I said he hadn't because he hadn't, and you won't bully me into saying anything else."
"Nor Mr. Wilkinson?"
"It's nothing to do with me if he calls himself that. I suppose a gentleman can call-himself what he likes."
"And they usually call themselves something else when they come here?"
She made no answer to that, and after a tense pause he added: "Then if that's all you've got to say, I shall have to ask you to come with me."
"You can't do that!" She had risen now, and her shrill, frightened voice was near to a scream. "You can't do that, when I've done nothing at all! It's not my fault if he came here when he did."
"It's your fault if you tell lies to the police and try to hide what happened."
"I'm not trying to hide anything. I don't know what happened. I tell you it isn't true!"
"You told me he hadn't been here at all."
"And what if I did? No one wants to be mixed up in a thing like that. There wasn't anything happened here."
Inspector Combridge drew a chair to the other side of the table from which the woman had risen. He sat down and motioned to her to do the same.
"Now look here, Miss Black," he said seriously, but in a less threatening voice than before, "I don't want to take you to Scotland Yard, and I certainly don't want to charge you, if you're an innocent woman, as I'm not doubting that you are. If you spend the night there it will be your own fault, unless it's because you've really done something wrong. But you've got to understand what the position is.
"A man comes to you, late at night - we know that for a fact - and next thing he's dead. You'll say he was dead a good way from here, but we know one thing for sure. He wasn't killed where he was found. And when we come to you for what help you can give, you put us to a lot of needless trouble by saying that he hadn't been here at all.
"Now if that isn't being an accomplice before or after the fact, it's a bit too near to be pleasant for you; and if you persist in saying he wasn't here, it may be considered to justify us in detaining you while we make further investigations, on suspicion of having been concerned in the crime."
The woman looked scared, but still irresolute, as though she might yet resolve that the dangers of silence were less than those of speech, but in the end she asked sullenly: "What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to tell the truth. Perhaps I'd better ask a few questions. What time did he come?"
"I don't remember exactly. It might have been near eleven, or not much after ten."
"Very well. About how long did he stay?"
"About three or four hours."
"Until two or half-past?"
"It might have been that."
"Rather a long time, was it not? Rather late to leave?"
"He said he was going to Southampton by car. He didn't want to start before then."
"Do you know who was going with him?"
"I don't know that anyone was. There'd be the driver, of course."
"He didn't mention who was driving him?"
"No. He didn't say anything about that. He was going by taxi, I suppose."
"Was anyone with him when he left the house?"
"Not that I know of. I don't think so. It wasn't likely there was. He just let himself out in the usual way."
"And while he was here? Who else did you have here at the time?"
"No one at all."
"You're quite certain of that?"
"Yes. Quite. He wouldn't have stayed if there'd been anyone else here."
"He gave you some money before he left?"
The woman looked sullen again, but answered reluctantly: "He only gave me five pounds."
"I didn't ask how much it was. That doesn't matter to me. It was English money, of course?"
"Yes. It was pound notes."
"Did he take them out of his pocket loose, or out of a wallet?"
"Out of his pocketbook."
"Did you see whether there was other money there?"
"Yes. I saw there was a lot of American money. He didn't try to hide it at all."
"And that's all you can tell me?"
"Yes. I don't see what more I can. We just talked, and had supper, and then he went."
"You mean he had a meal here?"
"Yes. He always did when he came. There was nothing strange about that."
"I didn't suggest that there was anything strange, but it is a very important point, and in your favour rather than not. . . . Now there's one more thing I want you to do. I want you to make me a list of all the men who've been here during the last two months, and whom - perhaps quite accidentally, and even without your knowledge - Emmoll may have met."
"I don't think I can do that."
"I'm afraid you must. But if they're innocent men it isn't likely that either you or they will hear anything more about it. . . . I suppose there isn't one among them who makes up silly verses, especially when he's had too much to drink?"
"I wouldn't say that there's not."
"Well, I'll have him with the rest, and you must let me know which it is."
The list, with sufficient detail of descriptions attached to names of doubtful authenticity, took some time to extract from the woman's reluctant lips. When the inspector put it in his pocket at last, and rose to go, he was not sure whether he had obtained anything of value, or simply material on which a number of useful officers would be required to waste their time in the coming days. But, even so, he could not feel that the evening bad been uselessly spent. He had established beyond doubt where Emmoll had spent the earlier hours of the night, and, if it were true that he had consumed another meal there some hours after the dinner at the Savoy, it put forward the time of the murder to 5 or even 5:30 a.m.
He was yet far from sight of an arrest - far even from a guess of who the murderer could be - but he had still Miss Manly to question.
Chapter VI
THE home of Miss Prudence Manly was simple rather than luxurious in the details of its ordered regime, but it had the atmosphere of quiet sufficiency which settles upon the abodes of those to whom financial stringency is a remote condition far beyond the horizon of their own experience.
Miss Manly heard the inspector's name with a calmness of demeanour that showed no sign either of surprise or perturbation. She said, with a glance at the table on which lunch was already laid: "You'd better ask him in here, Ruth . . . and then lay another place.
Inspector Combridge, entering the room, encountered a tall spinster of middle age, with very blue eyes in a shrewd face.
"I have been," Miss Manly began, "in some doubt as to whether I should inform you of a discovery which I made last Friday. On reflection, I have decided that it is right to do so, and I should have rung you up after lunch, if you had not called."
"If it's anything to do with the Emmoll murder, I shouldn't think there could be much doubt about that," the inspector replied, in a tone which maintained the courtesy due to his hostess with some difficulty, as it strove with the indignation which such a remark must rouse in any normal official mind.
"Had it related to the murder alone," Miss Manly replied, with a smile that declined to resent the feeling she had aroused, "there wouldn't have been any doubt at all, though my decision would probably have been opposite to that which you would approve. The point was that it is a matter which - unless it be an absolute hoax, on which your opinion will be more valuable than mine - may be important to others who are innocent of any possible complicity with it. But I'd better tell you what it is, or you'll be expecting about ten times more than you're going to get."
Inspector Combridge's tense face showed new interest. "I should be obliged if you will," he said.
"There is a little wood at the foot of my garden - it is all within my property - and a footpath runs through it to the road. I don't mean the road you came on. It's another at right-angles to it.
"The path is a short cut to the Meeting-house, or to Jordans. I sometimes use it myself, and so do the servants, but on the average it mayn't be used more than once a week, at this time of year, when it's rather bad walking. There's a key to the gate that opens to the road, but it's not often locked.
"People seldom attempt to enter the wood from the road, especially at this season, and the gate's usually left secured by nothing more than a latch.
"It was like that last Thursday, when I went through the wood because I was short of time.
"Someone, quite recently, or I should have had it destroyed before now, had thrown an old umbrella over from the road, unless it had blown over the fence, which I don't think it would. Anyhow, it had been lying among the bracken, not far from the path, and I had seen it there, and meant to tell the gardener to dear it away.
"On Thursday it was lying across the path. It had been wide open, not in very bad condition, but the handle had been broken away from the stick. Now it stood like a big mushroom, raised a few inches from the ground. I had a walking stick in my hand, and I tried to push the umbrella out of the way, but it seemed stuck.
"I bent down, and put a hand to it to pull it way, and found that the broken stick had been driven into the ground. When I pulled it out and turned the umbrella over into the bracken, I found that a piece of paper had been put on the path under it, held down by two stones, and with some writing on it in a rather large hand.
"I am long-sighted, and I could read what was written without disturbing it, or stooping closely - indeed, I could read it more easily than if I had been closer to it - and when I saw what it was I put the umbrella back, and locked the gate as I went out."
"So it's all still there?"
"It was there ten minutes before you called."
"Can you tell me what the writing says?"
"Not word for word. But it is a kind of confession, signed in the name of Tucker Emmoll, about a marriage that he seems to have denied previously. It also suggests that he was on the point of committing suicide when he wrote it."
"He didn't do that."
"Which makes it more likely, it seems to me, that the paper is a silly forgery."
"Yes. It certainly does. But I must say, Miss Manly, that you should have let us know this at once."
"I am inclined to think you are right. But unfortunately, I was not instantly sure, and I was taught from childhood not to act precipitately when in doubt of the right course of action to follow. And I don't suppose the delay will make any vital difference, even if I am not wasting your time with a silly hoax, which I can see you are inclined to expect it to be."
The rain had ceased, and a pale effort of winter sunshine was diffuse in a clouded sky, as Miss Manly rose to lead the way to the discovery she had made. As she did so, she turned to Inspector Combridge, to ask with some abruptness of manner: "By the way, I have told you that you saved me trouble by calling, but you haven't told me why you appeared so opportunely."
"We have many sources of information," the inspector answered with the vagueness which the position required.
"No doubt you have. What I am interested to know is why you thought I should be one."
"There cannot be many people in Jordans we haven't questioned more or less during the last ten days. I should have called on you before, I can assure you, if I had not heard that you were away over the weekend."
Miss Manly shook her head, unconvinced. "You mean," she said, "that if servants talk, it's no reason why you should follow their example. Well, Ruth's a good girl on the whole. Perhaps it's better that I shouldn't know. But if it had got about, it might have led to people coming into the wood."
The inspector restrained himself from the obvious reply that it showed how wrong she had been to delay informing the police of what she had found. He surmised correctly that the confidence which Miss Manly's maid had given to her friend Ethel, and which had come from her to Mr. Jellipot's ears, had been of too vague a nature, even if it had been more widely distributed, to lead to invasion of the little wood. He followed Miss Manly through the door, and down the length of a very orderly garden. They entered a little woodland path that wound through the boles of beeches now in winter nakedness, and too closely grown for their natural development, so that they became slender and tall as they reached upward to find the light.
Inspector Combridge saw nothing of them. They might have been in full leaf for all he knew. His eyes were on the path, seeking an old umbrella to which they came almost at once, still spreading itself mush-roomlike with its outstretched ribs a few inches above the earth; for Miss Manly, thinking of the preservation of the document below, had planted the broken stick even more firmly than before. Carefully, Inspector Combridge lifted the umbrella aside, disclosing the document spread open upon the ground, held down by two stones of sufficient size, and showing little sign of weather damage Raising it in a gloved hand, he read:
The worst deed of my life was that I denied that I had married
Lucille Higgins. Now that I am about to end it, I admit that I married her on January 2nd, 1909, at Silver Springs, S. C., and that her son Edward Tucker Emmoll is my legitimate child.
Tucker Emmoll.
Inspector Combridge read this singular document, which was undated and unaddressed, and, remembering how the clothes had been similarly deposited, congratulated himself upon the discretion that had withheld that incident from public knowledge, so that the idea of an imitative hoax could be eliminated. He had decided that the document was genuine, even before he turned it over and discovered that it had been written on the back of the receipted hotel bill which Emmoll must have settled immediately before he left.
He turned to Miss Manly to say: "Yes, I've no doubt that this is genuine. I'm much obliged to you for reporting it. I don't suppose there'll be any need to say anything about the short delay that has occurred, especially if you'll do me the favour of not mentioning it to anyone."
"Yes, you can trust me for that. You couldn't do me a greater favour than by taking it away, so that I should not hear of it again."
"I don't know that you need hear of it again, unless circumstances should arise which would require you to give evidence of where it was found. But I would like to search a bit further round here, and to be sure that I shall be undisturbed. Could you open the gate at the end of this path for me, and send my car round into the other road when it arrives? I should be grateful if you'd tell the man, rather than give a message to the mud."
Miss Manly said she would open the gate herself, which she went on to do. She agreed as readily to send the car round into the other road. Beyond that, when she returned to the house, she gave such tasks to her household staff, as insured that the inspector would be undisturbed.
After that, she put the whole matter from her mind. It had become Inspector Combridge's problem, not hers - and a sufficiently difficult one he found it to be.
Chapter VII
IT WAS late in the evening when Chief Detective-Inspector Combridge returned to London, and made his way to Scotland Yard. He knew Superintendent Davis, with whom he had already been on the telephone to report his latest discovery, would be waiting to see him. But as he reviewed the latest development he did not feel himself to be a Chief Detective-Inspector. He felt only that he was a maddeningly baffled, bewildered man.
A thorough search of the little wood had disclosed no evidence that it had been the scene of Tucker Emmoll's death; nor had it supplied any clue either to the tragedy itself or to the deposit of the document, unless in the impression of a man's shoe at the side of the narrow path. This was at a place where a patch of liquid mud had caused its wearer to step aside, and the footprint, being partly overshadowed by a branch of low-growing yew, had remained undamaged by subsequent rain. It was a clear impression of a lightly-made shoe of medium size. A time might come when it would be evidence of a damning weight. But, at present, it was of no assistance at all. To compare it with the shoes of some millions of Englishmen, any one of whom might possibly have been in that little wood during the past week, was beyond even the imagination of Inspector Combridge's patient persistence.
Still, a time might come! Certainly, evidences continued to accumulate, which had the one satisfactory consequence that he could not be judged to be making no progress in the investigation. The trouble was that they appeared to lead nowhere. Indeed, they rather suggested further confusion than elucidation of the problem he had to solve.
The document that had now been found was almost certainly genuine - he would know definitely when it had been compared with authentic specimens of the dead man's handwriting, and when he had inquired concerning the existence of Lucille Higgins - but, if so, what was to be made of the suggestion that Tucker Emmoll had been about to end his own life? It was so utterly discordant with the other facts, such as the position in which the body had been found. And, if he had done so, how and with whom could he have arranged to place his clothes and this confession as they had been subsequently discovered?
Inspector Combridge's usual difficulty in such investigations had been that theories were easy to form, but facts were harder to find. Here he had facts, even to excess, but a single plausible theory was beyond his ingenuity to set up. He was confronted by an obvious murder. An identified victim. A plethora of dramatic fact. And he had no theory, and no suspect!
It was with this chastening realization that he entered the superintendent's room, and encountered an atmosphere of congratulatory approval which he had not anticipated. Superintendent Davis, a massive man, very keen of wit, but with a delusive slowness of speech and movement, was not easily stirred to excesses of optimism or depression. He had seen too many difficult cases solved, either by luck or skill; too many, that had looked simple at first, pass on to the quickly forgotten category of unsolved crimes. Now he saw evidence accumulate in a way which, to his experienced mind, was indication of final triumph. He had learned not to despond while any line of inquiry was incomplete. And here was Combridge not only with a further dramatic discovery, but such a one as pointed to new people and unsuspected facts - a new line of investigation which might lead straight to the criminal.
"I don't know how you got on the track of these," he said, as the inspector laid the hotel bill with its curious endorsement upon his desk alongside the old umbrella, "but you seem to be getting towards the solution of what's likely to rank as the most sensational murder of modern times. The public may think we're a bit slow, but they'll forget that when we pull all the tricks out of the hat. . . . But before we talk about these, you'll like to know that we've got some more information about that fellow George Tipper that's rather interesting, though I'm not going so far as to suppose he had anything to do with the case.
"You know that his last employer in London gave him a fairly good character - the sort that doesn't mean much either way. And the man he was with before was laid up with influenza, so it was only this morning that Richards was able to get to see him.
"He found him quite willing to tell us all he knew, and, as far as his own opinion went, he wasn't at all sure that Tipper's a bad sort. But he says that while he was with him he was prosecuted for cruelty to a dog. Though the case was dismissed through the evidence not being quite conclusive, he was unpopular in consequence. After he'd made a age assault upon one of his fellow-employees in consequence of something he heard said - he gave him a smashing blow on the face that broke his nose - the atmosphere was such that he was told he'd better leave, which he did.
"But, apart from that, there was nothing against him, except that he was apt to get drunk at the weekends. I understand he's a very capable man at superintending the decease of a pig and disjointing it subsequently, and he doesn't quarrel when he's sober and left to himself."
"It doesn't really amount to much, unless he makes verses when he gets drunk."
"It doesn't amount to anything."
"There's the fact that he could have been out during the night without anyone seeing him go or return."
"Which is no evidence that he did. The fact is that we shouldn't have given him two thoughts if we hadn't been up against a blank wall as to what really did happen."
Inspector Combridge did not dispute this, but it caused his mind to revert to the mood in which he had entered the room. He said: "And as far as I can see we're still at the same spot."
"You're never at a blank wall while you've got a line of inquiry that's not followed up. We've got to find out what this confession means, and by the time we've done that we may have let in some daylight on other things."
The event proved the soundness of Superintendent Davis' experienced prophecy. A long cable to the New York police was followed by two days during which no progress was made, beyond comparing the newly discovered document with authentic specimens of Tucker Emmoll's writing and arriving at a decided opinion that, although it was less firm in character - which was not surprising in view of the circumstances under which it purported to have been written - there was no reasonable doubt that it was in the hand of the dead man. And this received strong confirmation when a cable arrived from New York:
LUCILLE HIGGINS BROUGHT SUIT AGAINST EMMOLL THREE YEARS AGO TO ESTABLISH MARRIAGE WITH HIM AND PATERNITY OF HER CHILD EDWARD STOP SUIT WAS DISMISSED FOR LACK OF EVIDENCE AFTER EMMOLL HAD DENIED MARRIAGE ON OATH STOP LUCILLE RECENTLY PROSECUTED FOR PERSISTING IN USE OF EMMOLL'S NAME AND SENTENCED FOURTEEN DAYS DETENTION AFTER REFUSAL TO PAY FINE IMPOSED STOP EDWARD HIGGINS THREATENED REVENGE ON EMMOLL AND WAS ROUGHLY HANDLED BY EMMOLL'S BODYGUARD ON ATTEMPTING TO FORCE INTERVIEW STOP MADE SECOND ATTEMPT AND FOUND EMMOLL HAD LEFT FOR EUROPE STOP FURTHER CABLE FOLLOWS.
It was only a few hours after the receipt of this cable, and just as Combridge, who had been out when it arrived, was discussing it with Superintendent Davis, that a second one arrived from the same source:
EDWARD HIGGINS SAILED FOR LONDON ON AMERICAN BANKER TENTH DECEMBER LAST STOP LANDED TWENTIETH STOP IS LOOKED TO RETURN ON AMERICAN MERCHANT FEBRUARY SEVENTH.
"Which," Superintendent Davis remarked, "is today."
"The boats of the American Merchant line leave King George V dock,
Inspector Combridge added, "every Friday about midnight, I believe, varying somewhat according to the run of the tide." He glanced at a round clock on the wall as he concluded "So we've just got time.
"Time for what?"
"Time to ask him - Edward Higgins, or Emmoll - a few questions.
"Yes. You can do that. Getting him to answer them is another matter. What will you do to prevent him sailing, if he has sense enough to refuse?"
"He won't refuse. Not unless he can't answer without leading himself straight to the noose. He'll be too inclined to think of how they'd handle him in his own land. Third degree, and all that."
"That's likely enough."
"Besides, if he does sail, we shall know where he's to be found for the next week, and a bit more - they're ten-day boats."
"Or, if they call at Boston, a day less before he could land."
"Yes. We must watch that."
"You'll have to remember too that he's an American citizen, and they are American boats. He's out of our hands as soon as the three-mile limit is passed, if not before that, and you won't get him back without a lot more reason than we've got now."
"We may have that, when we've made a few inquiries about his movements during the last fortnight. But he hasn't sailed yet," the inspector answered, as he reached for the telephone, and called the Passenger Office of the United States Lines. He felt that he was on the right track at last.
Not that he had wasted his time till now. All the miscellaneous facts so patiently and laboriously accumulated would fall, one by one, into place, and would become meshes of the net by which the criminal would be caught.
Superintendent Davis heard him on the telephone two minutes later: "Yes. Edward Tucker Higgins. That's the name. . . . Yes. So I understood of course you have his London address? . . . Yes. Willing's Hotel. Bloomsbury Street. Yes, I've got that. . . . No, not unless you hear further from us, as it's quite likely you will."
He put down the receiver, saying: "They don't sail till eleven-thirty. Passengers can go on board this afternoon, if they like, but they seldom go much before nine. Higgins is intending to sail. He called in yesterday to select his cabin It's more likely than not that I shall find him at his hotel now. I've got the address. If I do, I'll bring him along and we'll question him where we've got some witnesses. It seems that he isn't as obstinate as his mother. He calls himself Higgins, not Emmoll. But that might be because he couldn't get a passport, except in his mother's name."
He ended with the realization that the superintendent's attention was not given to him, but concentrated upon a cable that had been brought in during the telephone conversation.
The superintendent gazed at it, rubbing his chin. He said: "Here's a bit more about your young friend Higgins. They're certainly hustling in New York. I suppose they're alive to the fact that he means to say good-bye to us tonight."
Inspector Combridge asked: "What is it? Is it any use?" with more impatience than was quite seemly in addressing his superior officer. But he was both curious to know what it was, and in some haste to get through to Willing's Hotel, to learn whether Mr. Higgins were still to be found there.
Not answering him directly, the superintendent said, with what appeared to be a maddening irrelevance: "You told me how Miss Prudence Manly impressed you. I wish you'd say it again."
Inspector Combridge stared, hesitated, and had the wit to see that there must be more reason in the request than he was able to understand. He answered with a controlled impatience: "I should describe her as a well-educated Quaker lady, in comfortable circumstances, with rather more conscience than most people would find exactly comfortable to carry about, but not a bad sort all the same."
"Age?"
"Anything between forty and fifty. I couldn't say more nearly than that. She's not the sort who tries to look young."
"You didn't think her a fool?"
"No. Quite the other way."
"And a woman of good character? I mean of integrity. One who wouldn't try to plant anything on you, or lead you a dance?"
"Yes. I should say there's no question of that."
"She didn't happen to mention that she'd ever been in the States?"
"No. The question didn't come up at all."
"Nor known anything of the Emmoll family, father or son?"
"No, she certainly didn't."
"Well, that's how I understood you before. It's some satisfaction to know that I'm not going deaf. And I used to think you could sum a woman up as well as most of us can!"
Superintendent Davis picked up the cablegram as he said this, and passed it across the desk. Inspector Combridge read:
LUCILLE HIGGINS STATES THAT HER SON IS VISITING LONDON ON BUSINESS REPRESENTING THE TEMPLAR ENGINGEERING COMPANY SOMERTON MICHIGAN STOP ALSO TO SEE MISS PRUDENCE MANLY WHOM HE MET HERE LAST YEAR AND IS ENGAGED TO MARRY STOP LUCILLE IS CONFIDENT THAT HER SON DID NOT INTEND TO MEET TUCKER EMMOLL AND HAD NO CONNECTION WITH THE MURDER HIS FOR YOUR INFORMATION WITHOUT OPINION FROM US STOP WE ARE MAKING FURTHER INQUIRIES.
"I assume," the superintendent asked presently, "that your opinion of Miss Manly is somewhat changed?"
"No," Inspector Combridge answered, with unusual obstinacy, "I don't know that it is."
"You see that the confession which she found in the wood is likely, if its genuineness can be sustained, to confer a fortune upon the much younger man whom she intends to marry?"
"Yes, that's evident."
"And you still think it was dumped in her wood by a mere chance, as she led you to believe?"
The inspector did not answer directly. He said: "I think it's the craziest case I was ever on." He added, as Superintendent Davis regarded him with a faintly humorous smile: "But that's no reason why I shouldn't get hold of Edward Higgins as soon as I can."
"No. I should say it's an additional reason why you should." He thought "And it mightn't be a bad idea to have the lady here too.'
But he did not mention this, because his opinion of Miss Manly had become radically different from that which the inspector had expressed and seemed so unwilling to yield. He thought he had better handle this in his own way.
Chapter VIII
INSPECTOR COMBRIDGE: had a few words on the telephone with P. G. Willing, hotel proprietor, and learned that Edward Higgins was in the writing room, evidently occupied in final correspondence before leaving England; and that he had just asked for tea to be brought to him there in half an hour's time.
The victim appeared to be unsuspicious, but the inspector had learned to trust no man more than was unavoidable. Though he received a rather nervously emphatic assurance from Willing that his inquiry would not be communicated to the gentleman whom it concerned, he took the precaution of implying that it might be an hour or more before he would arrive. "Don't hurry that tea, Mr. Willing. Make it a bit more than the half-hour rather than less," he said, and lost no time in entering the fastest car that was available at New Scotland Yard, reckoning that some minutes should be enough to cover the distance to Bloomsbury Street.
Superintendent Davis sat silent for a brief minute after he had gone, reviewing the singular development indicated by the discovery in Miss Manly's grounds, and the three cables upon his desk.
He appreciated the action of his New York colleagues in acquainting him so promptly with the ostensible reasons for Edward Higgins' - or Emmoll's - visit to England. Doubtless they had thought both to apprise him of the possibility of the young man's innocence, and to give information by which to check the veracity of whatever explanations he might offer. But the superintendent saw that the potential significance of the final cable was radically altered by the document to which Miss Manly ad led the way, and by the place and circumstances in which it was said to have been found.
Having considered these facts, which were of a separate innocence, but became sinister in combination, he proceeded to act with his usual promptness. He reached for the telephone and asked the operator to ring up Miss Prudence Manly.
A moment later he heard an unexcited, pleasantly modulated voice say: "Yes. Miss Manly speaking. Is that Chief Inspector Combridge?"
"No. This is Superintendent Davis. I have Inspector Combridge's report of the document, which you were good enough to bring to his notice, before me now. I should be glad to have an opportunity of talking it over with you before we do anything further. Could you come up to town this afternoon? I believe there are plenty of trains from Seer Green, but perhaps you'd prefer to come by your own car, or I could arrange for one to be sent from Beaconsfield that would bring you in."
"I'm afraid it wouldn't be convenient this afternoon. As a matter of fact, I have a social engagement this evening. But I could give you a call tomorrow or - no, that's Saturday - on Monday afternoon, if that's convenient to you."
"I'm afraid, Miss Manly, I must ask you to put the social engagement aside I think you'll see that this is the more important matter."
"Yes. I suppose it is. But actually I don't see that I can do anything further to help you if I come. I gave the inspector all the information I could at the time. And - pardon me, I don't mean to be rude - but if it's so important to see me at once, don't you think you could come to me?"
"No, Miss Manly, I don't. I don't want to be rude, either, but there may be someone here this afternoon whom I should like you to meet, and, in a matter of this importance, I think I must ask you to put other engagements aside."
There was a moment's pause, and then, in a voice changed only by a slight note of annoyance which could not be considered unnatural under the most innocent presumption, Miss Manly replied: "Well, if I can really be of any important assistance to you, I won't refuse. . . . I can get to Marylebone at five-ten. You want me to come to Scotland Yard? . . . No, I can't say I do; but I expect any policeman will tell me the way there!" There was a sound of light laughter, pleasant and unperturbed. "And I'm to ask for Superintendent Davis? Yes, I'll remember that."
Superintendent Davis left the telephone, with a feeling of satisfaction in having persuaded her to come, and a clearer understanding of his subordinate's report. Certainly the voice was consistent with the description which he had received. And there had been no sound of nervousness, even after the hint that he had given of the unnamed individual she was to meet. And incidentally it appeared evident that she had not been seeing her lover off on the boat. Or was that the "social engagement" she had been unwilling to put aside? Superintendent Davis, without any reason that he could formulate to his own satisfaction, was inclined to think not. But he thought again that when it should go into court, as he had no doubt that it was soon destined to do, it would be the most sensational trial of recent years. As it now stood, Combridge had hit the nail on the head squarely enough when he had described it as the craziest case he had ever known. But that aspect would be reduced as, one by one, the remaining facts were discovered, and fell into place. In the end, there would be no more than an experienced counsel could make plausible and clear to a normal jury, perhaps with illustrations of previous crimes of ferocity, or insanity. . . . He could imagine Denis Hartlin doing it with cold, dispassionate, analytical skill. He thought that a good deal that was puzzling now would be clear before he should go home tonight. He began to write down a series of questions to which one or the other of his expected visitors might find it difficult to give convincing answers - especially Miss Manly. He saw that if Edward Higgins did not convict himself by his own admissions it might not be easy to make much progress with him. But Miss Manly was in a different position. "Do you tell me seriously, Miss Manly - " he wrote. "Do you really ask me to believe - "
Yes, her replies should be very interesting to hear.
Thinking with some complaisance that, whatever might be said against his profession, it must be admitted that it was not dull, Superintendent Davis rang for his tea.
P. G. Willing, a plump, small-eyed man, known inevitably as Piggie Willing to his acquaintances, met Inspector Combridge at the reception desk with the assurance that Mr. Higgins was still in the writing room. His manner was such as to remind the inspector that Edward Higgins was not yet a convicted criminal. Combridge said rather sharply:
"Well, I've not come to arrest him, you know. I only want a few words with him, and wished to make sure that he would not have gone out when I called. How long has he been staying here?"
Now that he was sure there could be no escape, he felt in no haste to confront the probable son and almost equally probable murderer of Tucker Emmoll. He would proceed in his usual orderly manner, learning all he could of the man he was about to meet.
"He came just before Christmas."
The register lay at the hotel manager's hand, and was promptly opened and passed over the counter for Inspector Combridge's observation. He read the entry: "Edward Tucker Higgins, U.S.A. citizen," and a Brooklyn address, with less attention to the words themselves than to the handwriting in which they were entered.
As he did so, he put one interesting query out of his mind. Had the document which had been so curiously planted in Miss Manly's wood been forged by the son of the murdered man, to establish his own inheritance? It was a plausible idea, now that he knew of Edward Higgins' engagement. And he had known cases in which the handwriting of parent and child had shown close resemblances. This might be least likely when they had lived apart and educated in different ways, but the possibility remained. He saw that one of the strongest reasons which had led him to regard it as a genuine confession had been the resemblance between the way it, and the clothes, had been deposited. But if the murder had been committed by Edward Higgins, and the parcel of clothes left by him on the hillside path, might he not have forged the confession, and then put it where it would be found in similar manner? And did not this theory explain what had been the most puzzling feature of the document while it had been regarded as a genuine confession - the suggestion of self-destruction?
It was almost certain that Tucker Emmoll had not taken his own life, and, if not, why should he have expressed such an intention, or why should he have written in anticipation of death? But if the theory of forgery were admitted, what more natural than that the murderer should produce the idea of self-destruction, for his own protection if suspicion should subsequently approach him?
It was a theory that would explain much, and to which there was only one serious objection that Inspector Combridge observed and made no effort to minimize. He had no wish to persuade himself to a false conclusion. If Edward Higgins had forged that document with the intention of securing the fortune which, in all probability, was justly his, and from which he was only barred by a mistaken legal decision - a fortune the acquisition of which might have been as powerful a motive in urging him to the crime as the desire to avenge his mother's wrongs - would he have deposited the paper in his fiancée's grounds?
It seemed improbable, and yet it became less so on a closer examination. In the first place, it was of vital importance that the document should be found by someone who would report it to the police. Planted on a stranger's grounds, it might have fallen into hands which would not recognize its importance. It might be found, as the parcel of clothes had been, by children, who might destroy it or throw it aside. It might have been trodden down unregarded, or become sodden with rain or melting snow.
No If Edward Higgins depended upon that advice for securing the fortune he was determined to have, he would wish to make very sure that the document would be found in the right way.
Besides that, would the risk appear to him to be as great as in fact it was? He had no cause to think that suspicion of the murder would fall on himself, no reason to suppose that the police had any knowledge of his acquaintance with Prudence Manly. And, in fact, they would have had none but for the activities of the New York police, of which he could have no knowledge at all!
The patient ingenuity of Inspector Combridge's mind developed a further theory, which became plausible enough when he remembered that he was dealing with no ordinary criminal. Suppose the idea was that, to the eyes of the public and the police, Edward Higgins had intended it to appear that he would meet Prudence Manly for the first time in consequence of this confession having been found by her? That it would appear that their acquaintance, ripening into romance, arose from that cause alone? Who would think to look behind the event, on the improbable assumption that they had been acquainted previously?
He was not entirely satisfied with the probability of this idea, but he knew that even the most ingenious murderers are apt to do improbably foolish things. And the fact, more stubborn than any theory, remained. It was in Miss Manly's grounds that the document - so carefully protected by the old umbrella - had been found.
It was with these thoughts that he had looked with more interest at the handwriting of Edward Higgins than at the words written in the hotel register. But he had to accept the fact that what he saw gave no support to the theories which he had been formulating.
The writing he saw was small, neat, regular, and yet of a pronounce character, very different from the ill-formed emphatic hand of the older man.
It proved nothing, either way. Edward Higgins might be a most skillful forger. He might have accomplices. Indeed, he must have had them. How could the murder and the subsequent stripping and exposure of the body have been the work of one man? He might - But there were so many "mights"! Let the theories wait. It was facts he was seeking now.
He passed the register back to Willing with the question: "I suppose he's been here regularly all the time from that date?"
"Yes. At least, he's kept on his room here. He's been away for a night or more sometimes. Went to Glasgow once, or at least that's what he said."
"Have you learned anything of what business he's been doing here?"
"Not much. He's not one to talk. He's pleasant enough, but the kind who keeps to himself. I believe he represents some American firm that manufactures machines, though I don't know what kind they are. I daresay you know more than I do about that."
"Templar Engineering Co.?"
"Yes, that's the name."
"Well, that's all right. I've no doubt they're a good firm. Has he had many visitors here?"
"No. Not many. Not to notice, that is."
"Any ladies?"
"No. We don't allow that sort of thing here."
"I didn't suggest anything disreputable. We know nothing wrong goes on here. I wish all hotels were run the same way. But you don't remember any lady calling to see him, or perhaps ringing him up?"
"No, I can't say I do. But it might not have come under my notice. I'll make inquiries if it's important. The porter or the telephone operator would be most likely to know."
"It mayn't matter. If it does, I'll ask you again. . . . I suppose you'd have a record of any nights that he was away from the hotel?"
"Not necessarily. Not when a guest pays for his room. But I don't say there aren't ways we could find it out. We book the breakfasts, for one thing. Not by names, but by the numbers of the rooms, which comes to much the same."
"Well, you might let me have the dates when Mr. Higgins hasn't had breakfast here. And any occasions when he's come in during the night. I suppose you have a night-porter?"
"No, we don't. Not a regular one. We keep open until twelve-thirty, and anyone coming in after that has to make special arrangements."
"You mean tip the porter to wait up for him?"
"Yes. That's about it."
"Well, find out all you can for me in a discreet way. I just want the truth. I shan't thank anyone for remembering something that didn't happen. . . . Higgins is rather a heavy drinker, isn't he?"
Piggie Willing stared at the question in evident surprise. "I didn't think," he said, "that he drank at all. I wouldn't call him that kind."
Inspector Combridge concealed a natural disappointment at this reply. He said easily: "Oh, but most of us do, more or less. I suppose you'll think it's a sillier question still if I ask whether he makes up rhymes?"
"I wouldn't say but he does. . . . You could ask Bessie - that's the chambermaid - about that."
"You mean he makes up verses for her?"
"No. I didn't mean that." He added, with some hesitation: "If a man throws anything into the wastepaper basket, I don't see that he can complain."
"You mean if it's read by those who empty it?"
"Yes. It's what they're likely to do."
"Yes. I expect it is. I may have a word with Bessie before long. But please don't say anything to her till I do. I think I'll see Mr. Higgins now, and I'll trust you to keep this conversation confidential."
With these words Inspector Combridge passed into the writing-room, leaving Piggie Willing highly excited and very curious as to what manner of crime had drawn the attention of the law to his American guest. Willing was a little doubtful whether it had been wise to remember that Bessie sometimes giggled over the rhyming attempts which she fished out of the wastepaper basket of number forty, for the amusement of herself and her fellow-servants. How would it sound if it should come out in court that he allowed such spying upon his guests?
Chapter IX
INSPECTOR COMBRIDGE entered the writing-room, which was vacant except for one man who did not look up, but said irritably: "I've ordered some tea twice already. I thought you'd know what I meant when I rang again, without coming to ask."
"I m not the waiter," Inspector Combridge replied, and a young man looked up and said apologetically, with a perceptible American accent:
"Oh, I beg your pardon. The fact is that I've rung three times for some tea, and I'm wanting to get out in a few minutes. The service is so good here as a rule that it makes it seem more annoying when it goes lame on its legs."
At that moment the waiter entered and Mr. Higgins turned his attention to him, receiving a somewhat unconvincing apology with: "Well, don't waste any more time. Bring it along now, or I shan't have it at all."
Inspector Combridge observed a young man of slim, athletic build, but with the face of one who worked at a desk rather than in open air. Looking at him with the puzzled curiosity which he would often feel at the first sight of a criminal whom it was his duty to run to earth, he could see little to identify him with the perpetrator of that grotesquely indecent murder, or the ribald rhyme. Years ago, he would have said to himself that it was incredible that such a man should be concerned in so foul a crime. But he had learned since then how little in appearance and manner separates the murderer from his fellowmen, particularly so when he can be observed - as he observed Edward Higgins now - without knowledge that he is suspected, or being in any fear of arrest.
He knew that if this man should be convicted of his father's murder, there would be pictures of him in the newspapers, representing him as of a bestial depravity. It would all be done with a few skillful lines from the artist's pencil, while the portrait would still be there. It was what the public expected to have. It was hard on the relatives of a convicted man. Perhaps hard on the man himself. But would it be really false? Might not the artist see that which was truly there, though it was hidden from other eyes? All he could see in the face of Edward Higgins was a squareness of chin which could be made to look brutal with little change, and a hint of moroseness about the mouth. It was no more than the look of one who might take life hardly, who might make it hard for himself; who might not be easily compliant to the tempers or inclinations of those around him. To one who had no reason to suspect him of such a crime it would be no worse than that.
"I should like a few words with you, Mr. Higgins," he said. "I suppose we shall be sufficiently private here?"
Higgins looked slightly irritated, slightly surprised. He said, "Yes?" in a vague way. "As a matter of fact, I'm going out in a few minutes. What is it you want to say?"
Inspector Combridge produced a card. "Perhaps you'll understand better if you know who I am."
Higgins glanced at it, and then for the first time really looked at his visitor. He handed back the card - an action that the inspector inwardly resented, as though treating him as one who could be put aside with ease - and answered without emotion: "I understand who you are. I don't understand what you want, if you mean that. But there's no reason you shouldn't sit down. I see they're bringing me the tea I've been ordering for the last hour. Perhaps while I have that you can tell me what the trouble is?"
He had risen from the writing-desk as he spoke, and moved to a lower chair beside which the waiter had now drawn a little table on which he had deposited the tea-tray. Inspector Combridge waited till they were alone once more before he answered, as he sat down in a nearby chair: I don t think you can really be ignorant of the only business which would be likely to bring me here."
"I certainly am. I'm not aware of having done anything, or left anything undone, which would be of interest to the British police. But if you re anxious for me to guess, I should say - no, I don't see why I should. If you've got any business with me, I suppose you can say what it is yourself without any guessing from me."
"It's about the Emmoll murder."
"Then I should have made the right guess. But I can't give you any help about that, and I see no reason why I should go out of my way to try."
"Then why did you think it was that matter which brought me here?"
"Because I'm sorry to say that I am that man's son. It's not a thing that I'm likely to boast of, and the American law has decided that it isn't true. While that decision stands, I don't see that you've any claim on me to interest myself in the matter, and I tell you plainly I don't intend to lift a finger to help you. I don't think I would if I knew who the murderer is. As a matter of fact, you've come a bit late. I'm going back to New York tonight."
"Perhaps that's for us to say."
Higgins was roused by that. His face flushed with anger. He said: "You mean you might hold me as a witness? But I know nothing. I couldn't help you in any way."
"I didn't suggest anything of the kind. We don't hold witnesses m this country. If you can satisfy us that you had nothing to do with Tucker Emmoll's death, we've no more to say.
"Why should you suppose I have?"
"I didn't come here to answer questions. I came here to ask you to come with me to Scotland Yard. We've a few questions to ask you, and when they're answered we shall know where we stand."
"Do you mean that I'm under arrest?"
"No. We don't arrest anyone in this country until we feel sure we've got the right man, especially if they're willing to give us a plain answer to whatever questions we think it necessary to ask."
"And if I refuse to come with you? What do you propose to do then?"
"If you are innocent it would be a very foolish attitude to adopt."
"Perhaps it would, but that isn't what I asked."
"If you decline to come with me, I must ask for your passport, and an assurance that you will not leave the country without our permission."
"And who would pay my hotel bill for the next week?"
"I don't suppose there'd be any difficulty about that."
"Oh, but there would! I'm off home because I've spent all the money I brought."
"I understand that you are here as the representative of one of the leading engineering firms in America."
"I represent the Templar Engineering Co. They don't pay my expenses. I came to do business for them at my own risk."
"You must have been very anxious to come."
"So I was."
"And has the business proved to be worth the journey?"
"Yes, it sure has."
"And may I ask if this business was your only reason for coming here at your own risk."
"You may ask anything you like."
"And you refuse to reply?"
"Not at all. Most Americans are glad to have a look at this country."
"Nothing beyond that?"
"And of seeing friends here."
While he asked these questions the inspector's mind had been debating what course he should take if Higgins should refuse to go with him. He did not find him unwilling to answer questions now, but he knew that Superintendent Davis was expecting that he would be brought into the intimidating precincts of Scotland Yard - perhaps to be confronted by the woman to whom he was engaged, and who might have given answers at variance from his own.
He did not wish to be the first to mention Miss Manly, nor did he wish, at this point, to allude to the confession so strangely found on her premises. Probably Higgins knew that Miss Manly had handed the document to the police. Probably he was debating, at the back of his mind, what connection there might be between that event and his present interrogation. But he could not know. He could not know whether the fact of his engagement, or of his previous acquaintance with Prudence Manly, was known to the English police. It was better that he should continue to doubt.
But if he were obstinate - here was the difficulty - if he would neither say anything to incriminate himself nor consent to be conducted to police headquarters, it would be a course of very doubtful legality to attempt to force him to go. For however strong the vague suspicion against him might be, Inspector Combridge realized that legally there was no case against him. Of course, the position might soon be radically changed; even in a few hours. The result of inquiries as to his night absences from the hotel, the verses that the chambermaid had retrieved from the wastepaper basket, possible admissions by Prudence Manly - many things might come to light now that they were on the right track, of which he had little doubt. But the fact remained that there was a deplorable paucity of legal evidence on which to arrest or detain him now; little on which the most complaisant magistrate could be asked to approve the arrest and to grant a remand.
Being in this difficulty, and recognizing that he had met a man who would not be easy either to coax or drive, and who, in all probability, knew that his chance of freedom - perhaps of life - depended upon his courage and coolness now, Inspector Combridge went on with a determination to induce Edward Higgins to enter his waiting car.
"I want you to understand," he said, "that we are not making any accusation against you. If we intend to make a criminal charge, it is our custom to give a warning that anything that is said to us may be brought in evidence when the case is heard. But all men are innocent by English law until their guilt can be proved. It is our custom, when suspicion first points in their direction, to invite them to give any explanation they may desire, and to regard them as innocent men unless we know such explanation to be false, or until we have tested it and found it to be so. But if a suspected person declines to answer our inquiries we are disposed to assume - and in this we find we are rarely wrong - that he has been silent because he would have incriminated himself had he spoken freely."
"Well, I have not refused to answer you. But I tell you again that I have no knowledge of the crime."
"Still, I must ask you to listen for a moment while I - "
"Perhaps you'd like some tea while you talk?"
"No, thank you. I - "
"Well, you're the first I've met. I thought all Britishers were alike in that. In fact, I've got to like the custom myself. I score it up to the fog. Maybe you won't eat with a man when you've been set to frame him? Now one of our cops - "
"We don't frame anyone, as you call it, here."
"No? It's how you use the word. I don't see how you can miss doing it more or less at your game. And now let's hear the book of words."
"We have information, Mr. Higgins, that your mother brought an unsuccessful suit against Tucker Emmoll in which she alleged that she was his wife, and that you are his legitimate son. After that, he prosecuted her because she went on using his name, and she was fined, and then imprisoned because she refused to pay.
"I don't know who was right or wrong, but you took your mother's side, as it was quite natural you should, and - "
"You see I did."
"You mean you did know? Well, I'll not question that. As a matter of fact, it makes the motive all the stronger. But if we've got the tale right, you threatened to have revenge on your father - I don't mind calling him that, if you say he was - after he'd put your mother in jail. You tried to force an interview with him in such a manner that you were thrown out, and rather roughly handled by the bodyguard that I believe it is quite usual for men of his kind to keep for their own protection."
"Well, you've got it right, so far. You haven't lost much time digging things up. I'll hand you that. And you'll understand why I didn't order a wreath. But it doesn't follow that I had anything to do with the way he died."
"No. We don't say it does. But when we have to add that you followed him here, after you'd failed to get near him in your own country - well, you can't wonder that we feel we should like to know more than we do now."
"And that's all you've got?"
"No. It's a long way from that. There are other things which seem difficult to explain, but we wish to give you every opportunity of doing so. We don't wish to judge any man before we've heard what he's got to say."
"Other things? Such as - ?"
But this was the point at which Inspector Combridge wished to avoid reply. He knew that the element of surprise might be of decisive importance, and that it was a matter which Superintendent Davis - particularly if he had been successful in getting Miss Manly to come in - would wish to handle in his own way. Dealing a minor card from a thin hand, be said: "Well, there are certain absences from this hotel - absences during the night - "
He knew that "uncertain absences," the present state of his information, would have been t