The D'Arblay mystery

by R. Austin Freeman

“The next stage opened on that night when you arrived at Cornishes’, looking like a resuscitated ‘found drowned.’ Your account of your fall into the canal and the immediately antecedent events made a deep impression on me, though I did not, at the time, connect them with the crime that we were investigating. But the whole affair was so abnormal that it seemed to call for very careful consideration; and the more I considered it the more abnormal did it appear.

“The theory of an accident could not be entertained, nor could the dropping of that derrick have been a practical joke. Your objection that no one was in sight had no weight, since there was a gate in the wall by which a person could have made his escape. Some one had attempted to murder you: and that attempt had been made immediately after you had signed a cremation certificate. That was a very impressive fact. As you know, it is my habit to look very narrowly at cremation cases, for the reason that cremation offers great facilities for certain kinds of crime. Poisoners—and particularly arsenic and antimony poisoners—have repeatedly been convicted on evidence furnished by an exhumed body. If such poisoners can get the corpse of the victim cremated, they are virtually safe; for whatever suspicions may thereafter arise, no conviction is possible, since the means of proving the administration have been destroyed.

“Accordingly, I considered very carefully your account of the proceedings, and as I did so strong suggestions of fraud arose in all directions. There was, for instance, the inspection window in the coffin. What was its object? Inspection windows are usually provided only in cases where the condition of the body is such that it has to be enclosed in a hermetically sealed coffin. But no such condition existed in this case. There was no reason why the friends should not have viewed the body in the usual manner in an open coffin. Again, there was the curious alternation of you and the two witnesses. First they went up and viewed deceased—through the window. Then, after a considerable interval, you and Cropper went up and viewed deceased through the window. Then you took out the body, examined it, and put it back. Again, after a considerable interval, the witnesses went up a second time and viewed the deceased—through the window.

“It was all rather queer and suspicious, especially when considered in conjunction with the attempt on your life. Reflecting on the latter, the question of the gate in the wall by the canal arose in my mind, and I examined the map to see if I could locate it. It was not marked, but the wharf was, and from this and your description it appeared certain that the gate must be in the wall of the garden of Morris’ house. Here was another suspicious fact. For Morris—who could have let you out by this side gate—sent you by a long, round-about route to the tow-path. He knew which way you must be going—westward—and could have slipped out of the gate and waited for you in the hut by the wharf. It was possible, and there seemed to be no other explanation of what had happened to you. Incidentally, I made another discovery. This map showed that Morris’ house had two frontages, one on Field-street and one on Market-street, and that you appeared to have been admitted by the back entrance. Which was another slightly abnormal circumstance.

“I was very much puzzled by the affair. There was a distinct suggestion that some fraud—some deception—had been practiced; that what the spinsters saw through the coffin window was not the same thing as that which you saw. And yet, what could the deception have been? There was no question about the body. It was a real body. The disease was undoubtedly genuine, and was, at least, the effective cause of death. And the cremation was necessarily genuine; for though you can bury an empty coffin, you can’t cremate one. The absence of calcined bone would expose the fraud instantly.

“I considered the possibility of a second body; that of a murdered person, for instance. But that would not do. For if a substitution had been effected, there would still have been a redundant body to dispose of and account for. Nothing would have been gained by the substitution.

“But there was another possibility to which no such objection applied. Assuming a fraud to have been perpetrated, here was a case adapted in the most perfect manner to the use of a wax-work. Of course, a full-length figure would have been impossible, because it would have left no calcined bones. But the inspection window would have made it unnecessary. A wax head would have done; or, better still, a wax mask, which could have been simply placed over the face of the real corpse. The more I thought about it the more was I impressed by the singular suitability of the arrangements to the use of a wax mask. The inspection window seemed to be designed for the very purpose—to restrict the view to a mere face and to prevent the mask from being touched and the fraud thus discovered—and the alternate inspections by you and the spinsters were quite in keeping with a deception of that kind.

“There was another very queer feature in the case. These people, living at Hoxton, elected to employ a doctor who lived miles away at Bloomsbury. Why did they not call in a neighbouring practitioner? Also, they arranged the days and even the hours at which the visits were to be made. Why? There was an evident suggestion of something that the doctor was not to know—something or somebody that he was not desired to see; that some preparations had to be made for his visits.

“Again, the note was addressed to Dr. Stephen Gray, not to Dr. Cornish. They knew your name and address, although you had only just come there, and they did not know Dr. Cornish, who was an old resident. How was this? The only explanation seemed to be that they had read the report of the inquest, or even been present at it. You there stated publicly that your temporary address was at 61, Mecklenburgh-square; that you were, in fact, a bird of passage; and you gave your full name and your age. Now if any fraud was being carried out, a bird of passage, who might be difficult to find later, and a young one at that, was just the most suitable kind of doctor.

“To sum up the evidence at this stage: The circumstances, taken as a whole, suggested in the strongest possible manner that there was something fraudulent about this cremation. That fraud must be some kind of substitution or personation with the purpose of obtaining a certificate that some person had been cremated who had, in fact, not been cremated. In that case it was nearly certain that the dead man was not Simon Bendelow; for the certificates would be required to agree with the false appearances, not with the true. There was a suggestion—but only a speculative one—that the deception might have been effected by means of a wax mask.