“You never know,” said Thorndyke, with an enigmatical smile.
The Superintendent gave him a quick, inquisitive look and agreed: “No, you don’t, especially when you are dealing with Dr. John Thorndyke.” He pulled out his watch, and, staring at it anxiously, exclaimed: “What a confounded nuisance! I’ve got an appointment at the Law Courts in five minutes. It is quite a small matter. Won’t take me more than half an hour. May I come back when I have finished? I should like to hear what you think of this extraordinary story.”
“Come back, by all means,” said Thorndyke, “and I will turn over the facts in my mind while you are gone. Possibly some suggestion may present itself in the interval.”
He let the officer out, and when the hurried footsteps had died away on the stairs he closed the door and turned to me with a smile.
“Well, Gray,” he said, “what do you think of that? Isn’t it a very pretty puzzle for a medical jurist?”
“It is a hopeless tangle to me,” I replied. “My brain is in a whirl. You can’t dispute the facts, and yet you can’t believe them. I don’t know what to make of the affair.”
“You note the fact that, whoever may be dead, there is somebody alive—very much alive, and that that somebody is the murderer of Julius D’Arblay.”
“Yes, I realize that. But obviously he can’t be either Crile or Bendelow. The question is: Who is he?”
“You note the link between him and the Van Zellen murder; I mean the electrotype guinea?”
“Yes, there is evidently some connection, but I can’t imagine what it can be. By the way, you noticed that the American police had got muddled about the personal appearance of these two men. The description of that man who was seen coming away from Van Zellen’s house, and who was said to be quite unlike Bendelow, actually fitted him perfectly. They had evidently made a mistake of some kind.”
“Yes, I noticed that. But the description may have fitted Crile better. We must get into touch with this man, Usher. I wonder if he will be the Usher who used to attend at St. Margaret’s.”
“He is; and I am in touch with him already. In fact, he was telling me about this very patient, Jonathan Crile.”
“Indeed! Can you remember the substance of what he told you?”
“I think so. It wasn’t very thrilling.” And here I gave him, as well as I could remember them, the details with which Usher had entertained me of his attendance on the late Jonathan Crile, his dealings with the landlady, Mrs. Pepper, and the incidents of the funeral, including Usher’s triumphant return in the mourning coach. It seemed a dull and trivial story, but Thorndyke listened to it with the keenest interest, and when I had finished he asked: “He didn’t happen to mention where Crile lived, I suppose?”
“Yes, curiously enough, he did. The address, I remember, was 52, Field Street, Hoxton.”
“Ha!” said Thorndyke. “You are a mine of information, Gray.”
He rose and, taking down from the bookshelves Phillip’s Atlas of London, opened it and pored over one of the maps. Then, replacing the Atlas, he got out his notes of the D’Arblay case and searched for a particular entry. It was evidently quite a short one, for when he had found it he gave it but a single glance and closed the portfolio. Then, returning to the bookshelves, he took out the Post Office Directory and opened it at the “streets” section. Here also his search was but a short one though it appeared to be concerned with two separate items; for, having examined one, he turned to a different part of the section to find the other. Finally he closed the unwieldy volume and, having replaced it on the shelf, turned and once more looked at me inquiringly.
“Reflecting on what Miller has told us,” he said, “does anything suggest itself to you? Any sort of hypothesis as to what the real facts may be?”
“Nothing whatever,” I replied. “The confusion that was already in my mind is only the worse confounded. But that is not your case, I take it.”
“Not entirely,” he admitted. “The fact is that I had already formed a hypothesis as to the motives and circumstances which lay behind the murder of Julius D’Arblay, and I find this new matter not inconsistent with it. But that hypothesis may, nevertheless, turn out to be quite wrong when we put it to the test of further investigation.”
“You have some further investigation in view, then.”
“Yes. I am going to make a proposal to Superintendent Miller—and here he comes, before his time; by which I judge that he, also, is keen on the solution of this puzzle.”
Thorndyke’s opinion seemed to be justified, for the Superintendent entered all agog, and opened the subject at once.
“Well, Doctor, I suppose you have been thinking over Wilson’s story? How does it strike you? Have you come to any conclusion?”
“Yes,” replied Thorndyke. “I have come to the conclusion that I can’t accept that story at its face value as representing the actual facts.”
Miller laughed with an air of mingled amusement and vexation. “That is just my position,” said he. “The story seems incredible, but yet you can’t raise any objection. The evidence in support of it is absolutely conclusive at every point. There isn’t a single weak spot in it—at least, I haven’t found one. Perhaps you have?” And
