The Starvel Hollow Tragedy

learn if their numbers were known; he had murdered Simon Averill; he had stolen the notes from the safe; he had murdered his wife; he had burned the house. All was now clear⁠—except the one point at which French, trembling with exasperation, was again brought up. What had happened to Roper? What blunder had he made? How had he died? And again; where was the money? Was it hidden or was it destroyed?

As French went down to the police station to tell Sergeant Kent he might withdraw his observation on Whymper, he determined that next morning he would begin a meticulous and detailed search of the ground surrounding the ruins in the hope of finding the answer to his last question.

But next morning French instead found himself contemplating with a growing excitement a new idea which had leaped into his mind and which bade fair to change the whole future course of his investigation.

XI

A Startling Theory

Inspector French’s change of plans was due to a new idea which suddenly, like the conventional bolt from the blue, flashed across the horizon of his vision.

For some reason he had been unable to sleep on that night on which he had completed his proof that the Whymper incident had been engineered by Roper. French, as a rule, was a sound sleeper: he was usually too tired on getting to bed to be anything else. But on the rare occasions when he remained wakeful he nearly always turned the circumstance to advantage by concentrating on the difficulty of the moment. His brain at such times seemed more active than normally, and more than one of his toughest problems had been solved during the hours of darkness. It was true that he frequently reached conclusions which in the sober light of day appeared fantastic and had to be abandoned, but valuable ideas had come so often that when up against a really difficult case he had thankfully welcomed a sleepless night in the hope of what it might bring forth.

On this occasion, when he had employed all the conventional aids to slumber without effect, he turned his attention to the one problem in the Starvel Hollow tragedy which up to now had baffled him: the cause of Roper’s fate. How had the man come to lose his life? What terrible mistake had he made? How had Nemesis overtaken him? French felt he could see the whole ghastly business taking place, excepting always this one point. And the more he thought of it, the more difficult it appeared. It seemed almost incredible that so clever a man should have blundered so appallingly.

He had asked himself these questions for the hundredth time when there leaped into his mind an idea so startling that for a moment he could only lie still and let his mind gradually absorb it. Roper’s death seemed the incredible feature of the case, but was this a feature of the case at all? Had Roper died? What if his death was a fake, arranged to free him from the attentions of the police so that he might enjoy without embarrassment the fruits of his crime?

French lay trying to recall the details of a paragraph he had read in the paper a year or two previously and wondering how he had failed up to the present to draw a parallel between it and the Starvel Hollow affair. It was the account of the burning of a house in New York. After the fire it was found that a lot of valuable property had disappeared and further search revealed the remains of two human bodies. Two servants were believed to have been in the house at the time, and these bodies were naturally assumed to have been theirs. Afterwards it was proved⁠—French could not remember how⁠—that the two left in the house had planned the whole affair so as to steal the valuables. They had visited a cemetery, robbed a grave of two bodies, conveyed these to the house, set the place on fire and made off with the swag. Had Roper seen this paragraph and determined to copy the Americans? Or had the same idea occurred to him independently?

How Roper might or might not have evolved his plan was however, a minor point. The question was⁠—had he evolved and carried out such a plan? Was he now alive and in possession of the money?

It was evident there were two possible lines of inquiry, either of which might give him his information.

The first was the definite identification of the body which had been found in the position of Roper’s bed. Was there any physical peculiarity about Roper which would enable a conclusion to be reached as to whether this body was or was not his? It was true that the remains had been examined by Dr. Emerson and unhesitatingly accepted as Roper’s, but the doctor had had no reason for doubt in the matter and might therefore have overlooked some small point which would have led to a contrary conclusion.

The second line of inquiry was more promising. If Roper had carried out such a fraud he must have provided a body to substitute for his own. Had he done so, and if he had, where had this body been obtained?

Here was an act which, French felt, could not have been done without leaving traces. Roper had proved himself a very skilful man, but the secret acquisition of a dead body in a country like England was an extraordinarily difficult undertaking, and of course the more difficult an action was to carry out, the greater were the chances of its discovery. Proof or disproof of his theory would be quickly forthcoming.

Hour after hour French lay pondering the matter, and when shortly before daylight he at last fell asleep, he had laid his plans for the prosecution of his new inquiry.

He began by calling on Dr. Emerson. The doctor was writing in his consulting room when French was shown