CLUES FROM A DEAD BODY
At a point just off the road, and where the thick trees hid it, the big car waited, with lights hooded and Lennard on watch. Narkom was the first to wriggle through the broken palings and make his way to it; a short time afterward Cleek, who had lingered to make sure that everything was safe, came up and joined him.
"They'll eat the beggars out of house and home, that pair, and lead them the devil's own game of follow-my-leader to-morrow," laughed the Superintendent. "And now then—what next?"
"What I told you back there, Mr. Narkom—the beginning of action. The race now will be to the swift. Lennard, hand me out that bag of fullers' earth. Look sharp! Thanks. Mr. Narkom, take this letter; I think you must have understood that I was writing it to you. Read it, then hop into the car and act upon it at once. No questions now, please—there isn't time. Simply go. Arrange things—you can change back to your own dapper self on the way—and then get back here as soon as you can. I shall be waiting for you at this spot. That's all."
It was—it had to be; for in an instant he had swung the bag up over his shoulder, moved away, and disappeared in the darkness of the woodland.
When, at the end of half an hour, however, Narkom returned from his errand, there Cleek stood again, leaning against a tree, with arms folded, his chin on his breast, and his forehead puckered thoughtfully.
"You are just one minute too soon, Mr. Narkom," he said, with a sort of sigh as the limousine halted and the Superintendent jumped out. "I was just working out a little question in mental arithmetic, and in another sixty seconds I should have had the answer. Look here: Given a space of two hundred and eighty feet in length by about, say, three feet in breadth, and intervals of probably three and a half yards between each balk, how many cubic feet of timber, one and a half inches thick and six inches broad, do you think it would take to—— Oh! let it go! There isn't time at present. I'll work it out to-morrow. Come along—quick! We've plenty to do before those bells set up their peal to-night."
Here he sprang past the Superintendent and got briskly into the limousine. By the time Mr. Narkom joined him he was stripping off his coat.
"Now, then, down with the curtains and up with the light," he said, as Narkom shut the door and the car took the dark road at a lively clip. "Thanks very much. Sit this side, please, and let me get at the locker, and we'll dig up our old friend 'Mr. Philip Barch' for the rest of the game."
It still wanted some few minutes of ten o'clock when the limousine, panting up to the Valehampton almshouses, swung round the angle of the buildings and made its way to the small detached one which served the double purpose of isolation hospital and, when occasion demanded, morgue.
Here, in a small, brightly lighted anteroom, Cleek and Mr. Narkom found four persons waiting to receive them: Mr. Bevington Howard, the local justice of the peace; Mr. Hamish, the master of the almshouses; Mr. Naylor, the chief constable of the district; and a certain Dr. Alexander Forsyth.
They all rose as the Superintendent and his famous ally came in, and two of them at least—Mr. Howard and Mr. Naylor—regarded Cleek with deep-seated earnestness.
"Mr. Cleek, this is a pleasure and a privilege," said Howard. "I have long desired to meet you."
"Will you forget that you have done so, Mr. Howard, until after this Valehampton business is settled? It may hamper me somewhat if my identity is known too soon. I shall be obliged if you will think of me until then as one 'Philip Barch,' an ordinary civilian. And now, if you please, may I not see the body of Davis at once?"
Together the six men passed into the adjoining apartment, carrying with them the lamps which Mr. Hamish had supplied for the purpose, and in a minute's time all were standing round the bier upon which the dead man lay.
The body was that of a well-developed, muscular fellow, of about thirty years of age, big-framed, and in the very pink of physical condition, who in life must have been as strong as an ox and as difficult to handle in a rough-and-tumble fight as man could well be. Yet here he now lay, the whole back of his head crushed in, yet his face expressing no sign of any such agony as one would have thought must have convulsed it as the result of an injury so appalling. Instead, its expression was rather peaceful than otherwise. The features of a man who had died in his sleep could not have been more placid.
The curious, one-sided smile curved the corner of Cleek's mouth, and beckoning Mr. Narkom to hold the light closer, he bent down over the body, and with the aid of his lens minutely examined the ghastly wound. From that he went, in turn, to other points. With his thumb and forefinger he uncovered the dead eyes and studied the condition of cornea and pupil; from thence he turned to the lips—inspecting them with the glass, touching them, smelling them—then went to fingertips and the cuticular folds of the nails. At the end of five minutes he put his glass in his pocket and rose.
"Gentlemen," he said, gravely, "I think I shall be fairly correct in asserting that the wound on the back of this poor fellow's head was made by a sledge-hammer which had previously been used in demolishing an ordinary house wall of lath and plaster. There are distinct traces of both mortar and lime, and very minute particles of what, for want of a better term, one might call old wood dust, in the hair—those atoms which the blow of a heavy instrument upon wood that is in the primary stages of dry rot would cause to rise like dust. The man, having been addicted to the use of pomade for the hair, has furnished a very useful adhesive for the collection and retention of those particles.
"From the first, gentlemen, it has been a matter of great surprise to me that such an injury could be inflicted upon such a man without a terrific struggle and a very considerable uproar. It is a surprise to me no longer. I shall be something more than astonished if that blow was not delivered after death, and decidedly not at the place where the body was subsequently found."
"You think it was carried to the bell-tower, then?"
"Yes, Mr. Howard, I do. It was taken to that spot and left there for just such a purpose as it has served—namely, to divert every atom of suspicion from channels which might lead to the identification of the murderer and still further to strike terror into the minds of the ignorant and superstitious. If this man had carried into effect what he set out to accomplish last night, somebody stood to lose a pretty high stake. It was, therefore, to the interest of that somebody to prevent his doing it, and as this poor fellow was not the kind that could be coaxed or bribed or cajoled into a crooked course, the only preventive was the desperate one of death."
Here he turned to Doctor Forsyth and addressed him personally.
"Doctor," he said, "you may have wondered why the request was made to you to bring your surgical instruments and to meet these gentlemen here in the interests of science and the law. Let me confess that I made that request merely upon the off-chance of a theory of my own proving correct and requiring such services at your hands. I am now pretty thoroughly convinced that it is correct, and that this man's death is the direct result of poison."
"Poison, sir, poison?"
"Yes, Mr. Naylor, poison. Accepting, on the evidence of that fearful injury to the head, the cause of death as being the result of a blow, you would not, of course, look for any other in the face of a thing so apparent. It was quite natural. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the man was poisoned, and that that poison was administered through the medium of drink. There is a distinct odour of alcohol still clinging about the mouth, so there can hardly be a question that death must have ensued soon after the taking of a drink, and that the man neither smoked nor ate afterward. In the presence of these witnesses, Doctor Forsyth, have the goodness to perform an autopsy and to subject the contents of the stomach to chemical analysis. I'll lay my life that if you do—I know my man! That's all for the present, gentlemen. I will leave you to witness the autopsy, and will call for the result to-morrow. My compliments to you all; good-night!"
He turned and, beckoning Mr. Narkom to follow, walked out of the building and returned to the waiting limousine.
"Where now, sir?" questioned Lennard, as he appeared.
"To the River Colne," he replied. "Drive like the devil, and follow the river's course till I tell you to stop."
The limousine took the angle of the building with a rush and went racing off through the moonlight at a mile-a-minute clip.