“And what did your friend the Inspector think of all this?” inquired Mr. Ludgrove.
“He didn’t say much,” confessed Mr. Copperdock. “But the police ain’t such fools as you might think. Young Wal Snyder will have to go through it, you mark my words. Well, I’d best be getting back home. You never know when I shan’t be wanted to give evidence or something.”
And with that he rose and stalked out of the back room, leaving Mr. Ludgrove with a thoughtful expression on his face.
III
The Inquest
The inquest upon Mr. Tovey, although it was reported at length in all the evening papers, did not throw any further light upon the identity of his murderer. The knife was produced and handed round for examination. There was, however, nothing extraordinary about it, except perhaps its inordinate length and the fact that it had no handle.
A cutler, called as an expert witness, identified it as the blade of a paper-cutter’s knife, carefully ground down so as to obliterate the maker’s name and also to produce an edge all the way up as well as at the point. Such blades were usually supplied with a wooden handle, into which they fitted loosely, being secured by means of a setscrew. This witness agreed that knives of this type were rarely seen in ordinary use, but that they were made in considerable quantities for use in certain trades. There would be no difficulty in purchasing one.
Wal Snyder, with a mixture of glibness and injured innocence, gave his version of the affair. But the atmosphere of the coroner’s court, so painfully reminiscent of the police court, reduced him in a very short time to stuttering incoherence. Yes, he had caught sight of somebody just as the dead man fell. Hadn’t never seen him before, biggish fellow with a lot of black hair, and an ugly-looking cut across his cheeks, like as if he’d been slashed with a knife. Asked why he thought he was a sailor, Wal replied that he wore a woollen cap and a coat and trousers like the sailors wear. He knew because he had got pals down the West India Dock Road. Asked again if he had any reason to suppose that this was the man who stabbed the deceased, Wal became more confused than ever. Well, then, had he seen him strike the blow? Wal had not, but incautiously advanced the opinion that he looked just the sort of cove who’d do a thing like that.
This brought the whole weight of the coroner’s displeasure upon his unlucky head. He was told to stand down and not talk nonsense. Then his appalled ear was assailed by an exact and monotonous catalogue of the misdemeanours committed by himself in particular and the Express Train gang in general; things which he fondly believed were known only to himself and a few chosen associates. They ranged from petty larceny to assault and battery, but the Inspector who recited them seemed to treat them with contempt. He smiled as he replied to the coroner’s questions.
“No, sir, I don’t believe any of them have the intelligence or the pluck to plan a murder like this,” he said, “nor do I think that they would be likely to play any of their games outside the Express Train, under the very eyes of the police. In fact, sir, we have no evidence that any of them was in any way connected with the crime.”
The constable who had been first on the scene proved an excellent witness, and earned the coroner’s commendation. He had been standing, at about half-past nine on the previous Sunday evening, on the pavement opposite the Express Train. There had been complaints of disorderliness in Praed Street at closing time. There had been a large number of people passing along the pavement, and the sudden surge of twenty or thirty men from the door of the public house caused a few moments confusion. He heard a lot of shouting, then saw a man fall on the pavement. A group immediately gathered round the fallen man and hid him from sight until he pushed them aside.
Asked if he could form any estimate of the time which elapsed between his seeing the man fall and his reaching his side, the constable said, it could not have been more than fifteen seconds. He did not see anybody resembling the black haired sailor described by a previous witness, but had there been such a man he would have had ample time to disappear in the crowd in the interval. He could not distinguish faces across the street, it was too foggy. His ambulance training had convinced him that the deceased was dead when he reached him.
A house-surgeon at St. Martha’s described the wound. It would not require the exercise of any great force to drive the knife in, but the location of the blow showed a certain knowledge of anatomy. The knife had passed right through the outer clothing of the deceased; it was only when the body was undressed that it was discovered. It seemed difficult to imagine how a man holding a blade without a handle could have driven it in so far. Death from such a wound would be practically instantaneous, but there would be no external hæmorrhage.
The coroner, addressing the jury, made it quite plain that although there was no doubt how deceased met his death there was no evidence as to how the blow was delivered. The jury, taking their clue from his remarks, found that the deceased had been murdered by some persons or persons unknown, and added a rider expressing their sympathy with his widow and daughter.
Mr. Samuel Copperdock, who had escorted Mrs. Tovey and Ivy to the court, brought them back to his place in Praed Street for tea. In Mr. Copperdock’s mind there still lingered a strong suspicion that Wal Snyder and the Express Train gang were
