“On this, as you can guess, the police and the detective agencies got busy. They searched high and low for the missing man, but for a long time they could pick up no traces of him. At last they discovered that he and Crile had taken a passage nearly a year ago on a tramp steamer bound for England. Thereupon they sent a very smart, experienced detective over to work at the case in conjunction with our own detective department.
“But we didn’t have much to do with it. The American—Wilson was his name—had all the particulars, with the prison photographs and fingerprints of both the men, and he made most of the inquiries himself. However, there were two things that we did for him. We handed over to him the Van Zellen guinea and the particulars of the D’Arblay murder; and we were able to inform him that his friend, Bendelow, was dead.”
“How did you find that out?” Thorndyke asked.
“Oh, quite by chance. One of our men happened to be at Somerset House looking up some details of a will when in the list of wills he came across the name of Simon Bendelow, which he had heard from Wilson himself. He at once got out the will, copied out the address of the executrix and the names and addresses of the witnesses, and handed them over to Wilson, who was mightily taken aback, as you may suppose. However, he wasn’t taking anything for granted. He set off instantly to look up the executrix—a Mrs. Morris. But there he got another disappointment, for the Morrises had gone away and no one knew where they had gone.”
“I take it,” said Thorndyke, “that probate of the will had been granted.”
“Yes; everything in that way had been finished up. Well, on this, Wilson went off in search of the witnesses, and he had better luck this time. They were two elderly spinsters who lived together in a house in Turnpike Lane, Hornsey. They didn’t know much about Bendelow, for they had only made his acquaintance after he had taken to his bed. They were introduced to him by his friend and landlady, Mrs. Morris, who used to take them up to his room to talk to him and cheer him up a bit. However, they knew all about his death, for they had seen him in his coffin and they followed him to the Ilford Crematorium.”
“Ha!” said Thorndyke. “So he was cremated.”
“Yes,” chuckled the Superintendent, with a sly look at Thorndyke. “I thought that would make you prick up your ears, Doctor. Yes, there were no half measures for Mr. Bendelow. He had gone literally to ashes. But it was all right, you know. There couldn’t have been any hanky panky. These two ladies had not only seen him in his coffin; they actually had a last look at him through a little celluloid window in the coffin-lid, just before the coffin was passed through into the cremation furnace.”
“And there was no doubt as to his identity?”
“None whatever. Wilson showed the old ladies his photograph, and they recognized him instantly; picked his photograph out of a dozen others.”
“Where was Bendelow living when they made his acquaintance?”
“Not far from their house; in Abbey Road, Hornsey. But the Morrises moved afterwards to Market Street, Hoxton, and that is where he died and where the will was signed.”
“I suppose Wilson ascertained the cause of death?”
“Oh, yes. The old ladies told him that. But he went to Somerset House and got a copy of the death certificate. I haven’t got that, as he took it back with him; but the cause of death was cancer of the pylorus—that’s some part of the gizzard, I believe, but you’ll know all about it. At any rate, there was no doubt on the subject, as the two doctors made a postmortem before they signed the death certificate. It was all perfectly plain and straightforward.
“Well, so much for Mr. Bendelow. When Wilson had done with him, he turned his attention to Crile. And then he really did get a proper shakeup. When he was at Somerset House, looking up Bendelow’s death certificate, it occurred to him just to run his eye down the list and make sure that Crile was still in the land of the living. And there, to his astonishment, he found Crile’s name. He was dead, too! And not only was he dead: he, also, had died of cancer—it was the pancreas this time; another part of the gizzard—and he had died at Hoxton, too, and he had died just four days before Bendelow. The thing was ridiculous. It looked like a conspiracy. But here again everything was plain and aboveboard. Wilson got a copy of the certificate and called on the doctor who had signed it, a man named Usher. Of course, Dr. Usher remembered all about the case as it had occurred quite recently. There was not a shadow of doubt that Crile was dead. Usher had helped to put him in his coffin and had attended at his funeral; and he, too, had no difficulty in picking out Crile’s photograph, and he had no doubt at all as to what Crile died of. So there it was. Queer as it looked, there was no denying the plain facts. Those two crooks had slipped through the fingers of the law, so far as it was possible to see.
“But I must admit that I was not quite satisfied; the circumstances were so remarkably odd. I told Wilson so, and I advised him to look further into the matter. I reminded him of the D’Arblay murder and
