PART II
THE SHIP OF THE DESERT
The case which I am now about to describe has always appeared to me a singularly instructive one, as illustrating the value and importance of that fundamental rule in the carrying out of investigations which Thorndyke had laid down so emphatically—the rule that all facts, in any way relating to a case, should be collected impartially and without reference to any theory, and each fact, no matter how trivial or apparently irrelevant, carefully studied. But I must not anticipate the remarks of my learned and talented friend on this subject which I have to chronicle anon; rather let me proceed to the case itself.
I had slept at our chambers in King’s Bench Walk—as I commonly did two or three nights a week—and on coming down to the sitting-room, found Thorndyke’s man, Polton, putting the last touches to the breakfast-table, while Thorndyke himself was poring over two photographs of finger-prints, of which he seemed to be taking elaborate measurements with a pair of hair-dividers. He greeted me with his quiet, genial smile and, laying down the dividers, took his seat at the breakfast-table.
“You are coming with me this morning, I suppose,” said he; “the Camberwell murder case, you know.”
“Of course I am if you will have me, but I know practically nothing of the case. Could you give me an outline of the facts that are known?”
Thorndyke looked at me solemnly, but with a mischievous twinkle. “This,” he said, “is the old story of the fox and the crow; you ‘bid me discourse,’ and while I ‘enchant thine ear,’ you claw to windward with the broiled ham. A deep-laid plot, my learned brother.”
“And such,” I exclaimed, “is the result of contact with the criminal classes!”
“I am sorry that you regard yourself in that light,” he retorted, with a malicious smile. “However, with regard to this case. The facts are briefly these: The murdered man, Caldwell, who seems to have been formerly a receiver of stolen goods and probably a police spy as well, lived a solitary life in a small house with only an elderly woman to attend him.
“A week ago this woman went to visit a married daughter and stayed the night with her, leaving Caldwell alone in the house. When she returned on the following morning she found her master lying dead on the floor of his office, or study, in a small pool of blood.