The shadow of the Wolf

by R. Austin Freeman

The physical resemblance between Purcell and the hypothetical Bromeswell was striking but not conclusive. Both were big, heavy men; but such men are not uncommon and the resemblance in the matter of the moustache had to be verified—or disproved. But the other points of agreement were very impressive—impressive alike by their completeness and by their number. Both men were connected with the making of paper, and of the same kind—hand-made paper. The banknote moulds had been stolen or lost at Maidstone about six years ago. But at that very time Purcell was at Maidstone and was then engaged in the paper industry. Bromeswell appeared to have a sailor’s knowledge and skill in respect of cordage. But Purcell was a yachtsman and had such knowledge and skill. Then the dates of the two disappearances coincided very strikingly. Bromeswell disappeared from London about the tenth of June; Purcell disappeared from Penzance on the twenty-third of June. Even in trivial circumstances there was curious agreement. For instance, it was a noticeable coincidence that Bromeswell’s pipe should have been bought at a shop within a minute’s walk of Purcell’s office.

But there was another coincidence that Thorndyke had noted, even while he was examining the premises at Clifford’s Inn. Those premises were concerned exclusively with the making of the paper blanks on which the notes would later be printed. Of the engraving and printing activities there was no trace. Bromeswell was a paper-maker, pure and simple; but somewhere in the background there must have been a confederate who was an engraver and a printer, to whom Bromeswell supplied the paper blanks, and who engraved the plates and printed the notes. But Purcell had one intimate friend; and that friend was a skilful engraver who was able to print from engraved plates. Moreover the rather vague description given by the Belgian police of the man who uttered the forged notes, while it obviously could not apply to Purcell, agreed very completely with Purcell’s intimate friend.

And there was yet another agreement, perhaps more striking than any. If it were assumed that Bromeswell and Purcell were one and the same person, the whole of the mystery connected with Mr. Penfield’s letter was resolved. Everything became consistent and intelligible—up to a certain point. If the mysterious “enclosures” were a batch of paper blanks with the Bank of England water-mark on them, it was easy to understand Mr. Penfield’s reticence; for he had made himself an accessory to a felony, to say nothing of the offence that he was committing by having these things in his possession. It would also account completely for Purcell’s sudden flight and his silence as to his whereabouts; for he would, naturally, assume that no lawyer would be such an imbecile as to accept the position of an accessory to a crime that he had no connection with. He would take it for granted that Penfield would forthwith hand the letter and enclosures to the police.

But there were one or two difficulties. In the first place the theory implied an incredible lack of caution on the part of Penfield, who was a lawyer of experience and would fully appreciate the risk he was running. Then it assumed an equally amazing lack of care and caution in the case of Purcell; a carelessness quite at variance with the scrupulous caution and well-maintained secrecy of the establishment at Clifford’s Inn. But the most serious discrepancy was the presence of the paper blanks in a letter. The letter into which they ought to have been put would be addressed to the confederate; and that confederate was assumed to be Varney. But why should they have been sent in a letter to Varney? On the very day on which the letter was posted, Varney and Purcell had been alone together for some hours on the yacht. The blanks could have been handed to Varney then, and naturally would have been. The discrepancy seemed to render the hypothesis untenable, or at any rate to rule out Varney as the possible confederate.

But it was impossible to dismiss the hypothesis as untenable. The agreements with the observed facts were too numerous; and as soon as the inquiry was transferred to a new field, a fresh set of agreements came into view. Very methodically Thorndyke considered the theory of the identity of Purcell with Bromeswell in connection with his interviews with Mr. Penfield and Mr. Levy.

Taking the latter first, what had it disclosed? It had shown that Purcell was a common money-lender; not an incriminating fact, for the business of a money-lender is not in itself unlawful. But it is a vocation to which little credit attaches, and its practice is frequently associated with very unethical conduct. It is rather on the outside edge of lawful industry.

But what of Levy? Apparently he was not a mere employé. He appeared to be able to get on quite well without Purcell and seemed to have the status of a partner. Was it possible that he was a partner in the other concern, too? It was not impossible. A money-lender has excellent opportunities for getting rid of good flash notes. His customers usually want notes in preference to cheques; and he could even get batches of notes from the Bank and number his forgeries to correspond, thus protecting himself in case of discovery. But even if Levy were a confederate, he would not exclude Varney, for there was no reason to suppose that he was an engraver, whereas Varney was both an engraver and an old and constant associate of Purcell’s. In short, Levy was not very obviously in the picture at all, and, for the time being, Thorndyke dismissed him and passed on to the other case. Taking now the interview with Penfield, there were the facts elicited by the examination of the envelope. That envelope had contained a rather bulky mass, apparently of folded paper, about five inches long, or a little more, and somewhat less than three inches wide. Thorndyke rose, and taking from the bookshelves a manuscript book labelled “Dimensions,” found in the index the entry “Bank-notes” and turned to the page indicated. Here the dimensions of a five-pound note were given as eight inches and three-eighths long by five inches and five thirty-seconds wide. Folded lengthwise into three it would thus be five inches and five thirty-seconds—or say five and an eighth long by two and three-quarters wide, if folded quite accurately, or a fraction more if folded less exactly. The enclosure in Penfield’s envelope was therefore exactly the size of a small batch of notes folded into three. It did not follow that the enclosures actually were banknotes. They might have been papers of some other kind but of similar size. But the observed facts were in complete agreement with the supposition that they were banknotes; and taken in conjunction with Penfield’s extraordinary secrecy and the wording of his letter to Margaret Purcell, they strongly supported that supposition.

Then there was the suggestion that the envelope had been steamed open and reclosed. It was only a suggestion; not a certainty. The appearances might be misleading. But to Thorndyke’s expert eye the suggestion had been very strong. The gum had smeared upwards on the inside, which seemed impossible if the envelope had been closed once for all; and the paper showed traces of cockling, as if it had been damped. Mr. Penfield had rejected the suggestion; partly for the excellent reasons that he had given, but also, perhaps, because Purcell’s flight implied that he had discovered the mistake and that therefore the mistake was presumably his own.

But there was one important point that Penfield seemed to have overlooked. The letter that he expected to receive would (presumably) have contained no enclosures. The letter that he did receive contained a bulky enclosure which bulged the envelope. The two letters must therefore have been very different in appearance. Now, ordinarily, when two letters are put each into the envelope of the other, when once the envelopes are closed the mistake is covered up. There is nothing in their exterior to suggest that any mistake has occurred. But in the present case the error was blatantly advertised by the appearance of the closed letters. Penfield’s envelope, which should have been flat, bulged with its contents. The other envelope—if there was one, as there almost certainly must have been—which should have bulged, was conspicuously flat. Of course, Penfield may have been wrong in assuming that no enclosures were to be sent to him. Both letters may have held enclosures. But taking the evidence as it was presented, it was to the effect that there were enclosures in only one of the letters. And if that were the case, the mistake appeared incredible. It became impossible to understand how Purcell could have handled the two letters and finally put them into the post without seeing that the enclosures were in the wrong envelope.

What was the significance of the point? Well, it raised the question whether Purcell could possibly have posted this letter himself, and this question involved the further question whether the envelope had been opened and reclosed. For if it had, the transposition of the contents must have taken place after the letters left Purcell’s hands. Against this was the fact of Purcell’s flight, which made it practically certain that he had become aware of the transposition. But it was not conclusive, and having noted the objection, Thorndyke proceeded to follow out the alternative theory. Accepting for the moment, the hypothesis that the letter had been opened and the transposition made intentionally, certain other questions arose. First, Who had the opportunity? Second, What could have been the purpose of the act? and, third, Who could have had such a purpose? Thorndyke considered these questions in the same methodical fashion, taking them one by one, in the order stated.