The Eye of Osiris Page 11

  CHAPTER XI

  THE EVIDENCE REVIEWED

  "So the game has opened," observed Thorndyke, as he struck a match."The play has begun with a cautious lead off by the other side. Verycautious and not very confident."

  "Why do you say 'not very confident'?" I asked.

  "Well, it is evident that Hurst--and, I fancy, Jellicoe too--is anxiousto buy off Bellingham's opposition, and at a pretty long price, underthe circumstances. And when we consider how very little Bellingham hasto offer against the presumption of his brother's death, it looks as ifHurst hadn't much to say on his side."

  "No," said Jervis, "he can't hold many trumps or he wouldn't be willingto pay four hundred a year for his opponent's chance; and that is justas well, for it seems to me that our own hand is a pretty poor one."

  "We must look through our hand and see what we do hold," saidThorndyke. "Our trump card at present--a rather small one, I'mafraid--is the obvious intention of the testator that the bulk of theproperty should go to his brother."

  "I suppose you will begin your inquiries now?" I said.

  "We began them some time ago--the day after you brought us the will, infact. Jervis has been through the registers and has ascertained thatno interment under the name of John Bellingham has taken place sincethe disappearance; which was just what we expected. He has alsodiscovered that some other person has been making similar inquiries;which, again, is what we expected."

  "And your own investigations?"

  "Have given negative results for the most part. I found DoctorNorbury, at the British Museum, very friendly and helpful; so friendly,in fact, that I am thinking whether I may not be able to enlist hishelp in certain private researches of my own, with reference to thechange effected by time in the physical properties of certainsubstances."

  "Oh; you haven't told me about that," said Jervis.

  "No; I haven't really commenced to plan my experiments yet, and theywill probably lead to nothing when I do. It occurred to me that,possibly, in the course of time, certain molecular changes might takeplace in substances such as wood, bone, pottery, stucco, and othercommon materials, and that these changes might alter their power ofconducting or transmitting molecular vibrations. Now, if this shouldturn out to be the case, it would be a fact of considerable importance,medico-legally and otherwise; for it would be possible to determineapproximately the age of any object of known composition by testing itsreactions to electricity, heat, light and other molecular vibrations.I thought of seeking Doctor Norbury's assistance because he can furnishme with materials for experiment of such great age that the reactions,if any, should be extremely easy to demonstrate. But to return to ourcase. I learned from him that John Bellingham had certain friends inParis--collectors and museum officials--whom he was in the habit ofvisiting for the purpose of study and exchange of specimens. I havemade inquiries of all these, and none of them had seen him during hislast visit. In fact, I have not yet discovered anyone who had seenBellingham in Paris on this occasion. So his visit there remains amystery for the present."

  "It doesn't seem to be of much importance, since he undoubtedly cameback," I remarked; but to this Thorndyke demurred.

  "It is impossible to estimate the importance of the unknown," said he.

  "Well, how does the matter stand," asked Jervis, "on the evidence thatwe have? John Bellingham disappeared on a certain date. Is thereanything to show what was the manner of his disappearance?"

  "The facts in our possession," said Thorndyke, "which are mainly thoseset forth in the newspaper report, suggest several alternativepossibilities; and in view of the coming inquiry--for they will, nodoubt, have to be gone into in Court, to some extent--it may be worthwhile to consider them. There are five conceivable hypotheses"--hereThorndyke checked them on his fingers as he proceeded--"First, he maystill be alive. Second, he may have died and been buried withoutidentification. Third, he may have been murdered by some unknownperson. Fourth, he may have been murdered by Hurst and his bodyconcealed. Fifth, he may have been murdered by his brother. Let usexamine these possibilities seriatim.

  "First, he may still be alive. If he is, he must either havedisappeared voluntarily, have lost his memory suddenly and not beenidentified, or have been imprisoned--on a false charge or otherwise.Let us take the first case--that of voluntary disappearance.Obviously, its improbability is extreme."

  "Jellicoe doesn't think so," said I. "He thinks it quite on the cardsthat John Bellingham is alive. He says that it is not a very unusualthing for a man to disappear for a time."

  "Then why is he applying for a presumption of death?"

  "Just what I asked him. He says that it is the correct thing to do;that the entire responsibility rests on the Court."

  "That is all nonsense," said Thorndyke. "Jellicoe is the trustee forhis absent client, and, if he thinks that client is alive, it is hisduty to keep the estate intact; and he knows that perfectly well. Wemay take it that Jellicoe is of the same opinion as I am: that JohnBellingham is dead."

  "Still," I urged, "men do disappear from time to time, and turn upagain after years of absence."

  "Yes, but for a definite reason. Either they are irresponsiblevagabounds who take this way of shuffling off their responsibilities,or they are men who have been caught in a net of distastefulcircumstances. For instance, a civil servant or a solicitor or atradesman finds himself bound for life to a locality and an occupationof intolerable monotony. Perhaps he has an ill-tempered wife, whoafter the amiable fashion of a certain type of woman, thinking that herhusband is pinned down without a chance of escape, gives a free rein toher temper. The man puts up with it for years, but at last it becomesunbearable. Then he suddenly disappears; and small blame to him. Butthis was not Bellingham's case. He was a wealthy bachelor with anengrossing interest in life, free to go whither he would and to dowhatsoever he wished. Why should he disappear? The thing isincredible.

  "As to his having lost his memory and remained unidentified, that,also, is incredible in the case of a man who had visiting-cards andletters in his pocket, whose linen was marked, and who was beinginquired for everywhere by the police. As to his being in prison, wemay dismiss that possibility, inasmuch as a prisoner, both before andafter conviction, would have full opportunity of communicating with hisfriends.

  "The second possibility, that he may have died suddenly and been buriedwithout identification, is highly improbable; but, as it is conceivablethat the body might have been robbed and the means of identificationthus lost, it remains as a possibility that has to be considered,remote as it is.

  "The third hypothesis, that he may have been murdered by some unknownperson, is, under the circumstances, not wildly improbable; but, as thepolice were on the lookout and a detailed description of the missingman's person was published in the papers, it would involve the completeconcealment of the body. But this would exclude the most probable formof crime--the casual robbery with violence. It is therefore possible,but highly improbable.

  "The fourth hypothesis is that Bellingham was murdered by Hurst. Nowthe one fact which militates against this view is that Hurst apparentlyhad no motive for committing the murder. We are assured by Jellicoethat no one but himself knew the contents of the will, and if this isso--but mind, we have no evidence that it is so--Hurst would have noreason to suppose that he had anything material to gain by his cousin'sdeath. Otherwise the hypothesis presents no inherent improbabilities.The man was last seen alive at Hurst's house. He was seen to enter itand he was never seen to leave it--we are still taking the facts asstated in the newspapers, remember--and it now appears that he standsto benefit enormously by that man's death."

  "But," I objected, "you are forgetting that, directly the man wasmissed Hurst and the servants together searched the entire house."

  "Yes. What did they search for?"

  "Why, for Mr. Bellingham, of course."

  "Exactly; for Mr. Bellingham. That is, for a living man. Now how doyou search a house for a
living man? You look in all the rooms. Whenyou look in a room if he is there, you see him; if you do not see him,you assume that he is not there. You don't look under the sofa orbehind the piano, you don't pull out large drawers or open cupboards.You just look into the rooms. That is what these people seem to havedone. And they did not see Mr. Bellingham. Mr. Bellingham's corpsemight have been stowed away out of sight in any one of the rooms thatthey looked into."

  "That is a grim thought," said Jervis; "but it is perfectly true.There is no evidence that the man was not lying dead in the house atthe very time of the search."

  "But even so," said I, "there was the body to be disposed of somehow.Now how could he possibly have got rid of the body without beingobserved?"

  "Ah!" said Thorndyke, "now we are touching on a point of crucialimportance. If anyone should ever write a treatise on the art ofmurder--not an exhibition of literary fireworks like De Quincey's, buta genuine working treatise--he might leave all other technical detailsto take care of themselves if he could describe some really practicableplan for disposing of the body. That is, and always has been, thegreat stumbling-block to the murderer: to get rid of the body. Thehuman body," he continued, thoughtfully regarding his pipe, just as, inthe days of my pupilage, he was wont to regard the black-board chalk,"is a very remarkable object. It presents a combination of properties,that make it singularly difficult to conceal permanently. It is bulkyand of an awkward shape, it is heavy, it is completely incombustible,it is chemically unstable, and its decomposition yields great volumesof highly odorous gases, and it nevertheless contains identifiablestructures of the highest degree of permanence. It is extremelydifficult to preserve unchanged, and it is still more difficultcompletely to destroy. The essential permanence of the human body iswell shown in the classical case of Eugene Aram; but a still morestriking instance is that of Sekenen-Ra the Third, one of the lastkings of the seventeenth Egyptian dynasty. Here, after a lapse of fourthousand years, it has been possible to determine not only the cause ofdeath and the manner of its occurrence, but the way in which the kingfell, the nature of the weapon with which the fatal wound wasinflicted, and even the position of the assailant. And the permanenceof the body under other conditions is admirably shown in the case ofDoctor Parkman, of Boston, U. S. A., in which identification wasactually effected by means of remains collected from the ashes of afurnace."

  "Then we may take it," said Jervis, "that the world has not yet seenthe last of John Bellingham."

  "I think we may regard that as almost a certainty," replied Thorndyke."The only question--and a very important one--is as to when thereappearance may take place. It may be to-morrow or it may becenturies hence, when all the issues involved have been forgotten."

  "Assuming," said I, "for the sake of argument, that Hurst did murderhim and that the body was concealed in the study at the time the searchwas made. How could it have been disposed of? If you had been inHurst's place, how would you have gone to work?"

  Thorndyke smiled at the bluntness of my question.

  "You are asking me for an incriminating statement," said he, "deliveredin the presence of a witness too. But, as a matter of fact, there isno use in speculating _a priori_; we should have to reconstruct apurely imaginary situation, the circumstances of which are unknown tous, and we should almost certainly reconstruct it wrong. What we mayfairly assume is that no reasonable person, no matter how immoral,would find himself in the position that you suggest. Murder is usuallya crime of impulse, and the murderer a person of feeble self-control.Such persons are most unlikely to make elaborate and ingeniousarrangements for the disposal of the bodies of their victims. Even thecold-blooded perpetrators of the most carefully planned murders appearas I have said, to break down at this point. The almost insuperabledifficulty of getting rid of the human body is not appreciated untilthe murderer suddenly finds himself face to face with it.

  "In the case you are suggesting, the choice would seem to lie betweenburial on the premises or dismemberment and dispersal of the fragments;and either method would be pretty certain to lead to discovery."

  "As illustrated by the remains of which you were speaking to Mr.Bellingham," Jervis remarked.

  "Exactly," Thorndyke answered, "though we could hardly imagine areasonably intelligent criminal adopting a watercress-bed as a hidingplace.

  "No. That was certainly an error of judgment. By the way, I thoughtit best to say nothing while you were talking to Bellingham, but Inoticed that, in discussing the possibility of those being the bones ofhis brother, you made no comment on the absence of the third finger ofthe left hand. I am sure you didn't overlook it, but isn't it a pointof some importance?"

  "As to identification? Under the present circumstances, I think not.If there were a man missing who had lost that finger it would, ofcourse, be an important fact. But I have not heard of any such man.Or, again, if there were any evidence that the finger had been removedbefore death, it would be highly important. But there is no suchevidence. It may have been cut off after death, and that is where thereal significance of its absence lies."

  "I don't see quite what you mean," said Jervis.

  "I mean that, if there is no report of any missing man who had lostthat particular finger, the probability is that the finger was removedafter death. And then arises the interesting question of motive. Whyshould it have been removed? It could hardly have become detachedaccidentally. What do you suggest?"

  "Well," said Jervis, "it might have been a peculiar finger; a finger,for instance, with some characteristic deformity such as an ankylosedjoint, which would be easy to identify."

  "Yes; but that explanation introduces the same difficulty. No personwith a deformed or ankylosed finger has been reported as missing."

  Jervis puckered up his brows, and looked at me.

  "I'm hanged if I see any other explanation," he said. "Do you,Berkeley?"

  I shook my head.

  "Don't forget which finger it is that is missing," said Thorndyke."The third finger of the left hand."

  "Oh, I see!" said Jervis. "The ring-finger. You mean that it may havebeen removed for the sake of a ring that wouldn't come off."

  "Yes. It would not be the first instance of the kind. Fingers havebeen severed from dead hands--and even from living ones--for the sakeof rings that were too tight to be drawn off. And the fact that it isthe left hand supports the suggestion; for a ring that wasinconveniently tight would be worn by preference on the left hand, asthat is usually slightly smaller than the right. What is the matter,Berkeley?"

  A sudden light had burst upon me, and I suppose my countenance betrayedthe fact.

  "I am a confounded fool!" I exclaimed.

  "Oh, don't say that," said Jervis. "Give your friends a chance."

  "I ought to have seen this long ago and told you about it. JohnBellingham did wear a ring, and it was so tight that, when once he hadgot it on, he could never get it off again."

  "Do you happen to know on which hand he wore it?" Thorndyke asked.

  "Yes. It was on the left hand; because Miss Bellingham, who told meabout it, said that he would never have been able to get the ring on atall but for the fact that his left hand was slightly smaller than hisright."

  "There it is, then," said Thorndyke. "With this new fact in ourpossession, the absence of the finger furnishes the starting-point ofsome very curious speculations."

  "As, for instance," said Jervis.

  "Ah, under the circumstances, I must leave you to pursue thosespeculations independently. I am now acting for Mr. Bellingham."

  Jervis grinned and was silent for a-while, refilling his pipethoughtfully; but when he had got it alight he resumed.

  "To return to the question of the disappearance; you don't consider ithighly improbable that Bellingham might have been murdered by Hurst?"

  "Oh, don't imagine I am making an accusation. I am considering thevarious probabilities merely in the abstract. The same reasoningapplies to the Bellinghams.
As to whether any of them did commit themurder, that is a question of personal character. I certainly do notsuspect the Bellinghams after having seen them, and with regard toHurst, I know nothing, or at least very little, to his disadvantage."

  "Do you know anything?" asked Jervis.

  "Well," Thorndyke said, with some hesitation, "it seems a thoughtunkind to rake up the little details of a man's past, and yet it has tobe done. I have, of course, made the usual routine inquiriesconcerning the parties to this affair, and this is what they havebrought to light:

  "Hurst, as you know, is a stockbroker--a man of good position andreputation; but, about ten years ago, he seems to have committed anindiscretion, to put it mildly, which nearly got him into ratherserious difficulties. He appears to have speculated rather heavily andconsiderably beyond his means, for when a sudden spasm of the marketsupset his calculations, it turned out that he had been employing hisclients' capital and securities. For a time it looked as if there wasgoing to be serious trouble; then, quite unexpectedly, he managed toraise the necessary amount in some way and settle all claims. Whencehe got the money has never been discovered to this day, which is acurious circumstance, seeing that the deficiency was rather over fivethousand pounds; but the important fact is that he did get it and thathe paid up all that he owed. So that he was only a potentialdefaulter, so to speak; and discreditable as the affair undoubtedlywas, it does not seem to have any direct bearing on this present case."

  "No," Jervis agreed, "though it makes one consider his position withmore attention than one would otherwise."

  "Undoubtedly," said Thorndyke. "A reckless gambler is a man whoseconduct cannot be relied on. He is subject to vicissitudes of fortunewhich may force him into other kinds of wrong-doing. Many anembezzlement has been preceded by an unlucky plunge on the turf."

  "Assuming the responsibility for this disappearance to lie betweenHurst and--and the Bellinghams," said I, with an uncomfortable gulp asI mentioned the names of my friends, "to which side does the balance ofprobability incline?"

  "To the side of Hurst, I should say, without doubt," replied Thorndyke."The case stands thus--on the facts presented to us: Hurst appears tohave had no motive for killing the deceased (as we will call him); butthe man was seen to enter the house, was never seen to leave it, andwas never again seen alive. Bellingham, on the other hand, had amotive, as he had believed himself to be the principal beneficiaryunder the will. But the deceased was not seen at his house, and thereis no evidence that he went to the house or to the neighborhood,excepting the scarab that was found there. But the evidence of thescarab is vitiated by the fact that Hurst was present when it waspicked up, and that it was found on a spot over which Hurst had passedonly a few minutes previously. Until Hurst is cleared, it seems to methat the presence of the scarab proves nothing against the Bellinghams."

  "Then your opinions on the case," said I, "are based entirely on thefacts that have been made public?"

  "Yes, mainly. I do not necessarily accept those facts just as they arepresented, and I may have certain views of my own on the case. But ifI have, I do not feel in a position to discuss them. For the present,discussion has to be limited to the facts and inferences offered by theparties concerned."

  "There!" exclaimed Jervis, rising to knock his pipe out, "that is whereThorndyke has you. He lets you think you're in the thick of the 'know'until one fine morning you wake up and discover that you have only beena gaping outsider; and then you are mightily astonished--and so are theother side, too, for that matter. But we must really be off now,mustn't we, reverend senior?"

  "I suppose we must," replied Thorndyke; and, as he drew on his gloves,he asked: "Have you heard from Barnard lately?"

  "Oh, yes," I answered. "I wrote to him at Smyrna to say that thepractise was flourishing and that I was quite happy and contented, andthat he might stay away as long as he liked. He writes by return thathe will prolong his holiday if an opportunity offers, but will let meknow later."

  "Gad," said Jervis, "it was a stroke of luck for Barnard thatBellingham happened to have such a magnificent daughter--there! don'tmind me, old man. You go in and win--she's worth it, isn't she,Thorndyke?"

  "Miss Bellingham's a very charming young lady," replied Thorndyke. "Iam most favorably impressed by both the father and the daughter, and Ionly trust that we may be able to be of some service to them." Withthis sedate little speech Thorndyke shook my hand, and I watched my twofriends go on their way until their fading shapes were swallowed up inthe darkness of Fetter Lane.