“How did you find out where Morris was living?” I asked.
“Barber did that,” he replied. “When I learned that you were being stalked, I employed Barber to shadow you. He, of course, observed Morris on your track and followed him home.”
“That was what I supposed,” said I; and for a while we were all silent. Presently Marion said: “It is all very involved and confusing. Would you mind telling us exactly what happened?”
“In a direct narrative, you mean?” said he. “Yes, I will try to reconstruct the events in the order of their occurrence. They began with the murder of Van Zellen by Bendelow. There was no evidence against him at the time, but he had to fly from America for other reasons, and he left behind him incriminating traces which he knew must presently be discovered, and which would fix the murder on him. His friend, Crile, who fled with him, developed gastric cancer, and had only a month or two to live. Then Bendelow decided that when Crile should die, he would make believe to die at the same time. To this end, he commissioned your father to make a wax mask—a portrait mask of himself with the eyes closed. His wife must then have persuaded the two spinsters to visit him—he, of course, taking to his bed when they called, and being represented as a mortally sick man. Then he moved from Hornsey to Hoxton, taking Crile with him. There he engaged two doctors—Usher and Gray, both of whom lived at a distance—to attend Crile, and to visit him on alternate days. Crile seems to have been deaf, or, at least, hard of hearing, and was kept continuously under the influence of morphia. Usher, who was employed by Mrs. Bendelow, whom he knew as Mrs. Pepper, came to the front of the house, in Field Street, to visit Mr. Crile, while Stephen—who was employed by the Bendelows, whom he knew by the name of Morris—entered at the rear of the house in Market Street, to visit the same man under the name of Bendelow. About the time of the move Bendelow committed the murder in order to destroy all evidence of the making of the wax mask.
“Eventually Crile died—or was finished off with an extra dose of morphia—on a Thursday. Usher gave the certificate, and the funeral took place on the Saturday. But previously—probably on the Friday night—the coffin-lid was unscrewed by Bendelow, the body taken out and replaced by a sack of sawdust with some lead pipe in it.
“On the Monday the body was again produced: this time as that of Simon Bendelow, who was represented as having died on the Sunday afternoon. It was put in a cremation coffin with a celluloid window in the lid. The wax mask was placed over the face; the jaw-bandage and the skull cap adjusted to hide the place where the wax face joined the real face; and the two spinsters were brought up to see Mr. Bendelow in his coffin. They looked in through the window, and, of course, saw the wax mask of Bendelow. They then retired. The coffin-lid was taken off, the wax mask removed, the coffin-lid screwed on again, and then the two doctors were brought up. They removed the body from the coffin, examined it, and put it back; and Bendelow—or Morris—put on the coffin-lid.
“As soon as the doctors were gone, the coffin-lid was taken off again, the wax mask was put back and adjusted, and the coffin-lid replaced and screwed down finally. Then the two ladies were brought up again to take a last look at poor Mr. Bendelow; not actually the last look, for, at the funeral they peeped in at the window and saw the wax face just before the coffin was passed through into the crematorium.”
“It was a diabolically clever scheme,” said I.
“It was,” he agreed. “It was perfectly convincing and consistent. If you and those two ladies had been put in the witness-box, your testimony and theirs would have been in complete agreement. They had seen Simon Bendelow (whom they knew quite well) in his coffin. A few minutes later, you had seen Simon Bendelow in his coffin, had taken the body out, examined it thoroughly, and put it back, and had seen the coffin-lid screwed down, and again a few minutes later, they had looked in through the coffin-window and had again seen Simon Bendelow. The evidence would appear to be beyond the possibility of a doubt. Simon Bendelow was proved conclusively to be dead and cremated and was doubly certified to have died from natural causes. Nothing could be more complete.
“And yet,” he continued, after a pause, “while we are impressed by the astonishing subtlety and ingenuity displayed, we are almost more impressed by the fundamental stupidity exhibited along with it; a stupidity that seems to be characteristic of this type of criminal. For all the security that was gained by one part of the scheme was destroyed by the idiotic efforts to guard against dangers that had no existence. The murder was not only a foul crime; it was a technical blunder of the most elementary kind. But for that murder, Bendelow would now be alive and in unchallenged security. The cremation scheme was completely successful. It deceived everybody. Even the two detectives, though they felt vague suspicions, saw no loophole. They had to accept the appearances at their face value.
“But it was the old story. The wrongdoer could not keep quiet. He must be forever making himself safer and yet more safe. And at each move,
