Inspector Blaikie directed his special attention to the papers lying on the dead man’s desk, which he seemed to have been working upon when he was disturbed. These, it did not take the inspector long to discover, related to the financial affairs of Walter Brooklyn who, as he soon ascertained later by a few questions, was the brother of Sir Vernon, a man about town of shady reputation, and known to be head over ears in debt. The papers seemed to contain some sort of abstract statement of his liabilities, with a series of letters from him to Sir Vernon asking for financial assistance.
“H’m,” said the inspector to himself, “these may easily have a bearing on the case.”
But there were other interesting discoveries to come. The inspector was now informed that the doctor had arrived. He ordered that he should be shown up immediately, and suspended his examination of the room to greet the newcomer. Dr. Manton had been for some years the dead man’s medical adviser; but no other member of the Brooklyn family had been under his care. Something in common with him had perhaps caused Prinsep to forsake the staid family physician in his favour; but this hardly appeared on the surface. Prinsep was heavily built and sullen in expression: Dr. Manton was slim built and rather jaunty, with a habit of wearing clothes far less funereal than the normal etiquette of the medical profession seems to dictate. He entered now, flung a rapid and seemingly quite cheerful “Good morning, inspector—bad business this, I hear,” to Blaikie, and went at once down on his knees beside the body. “Bad business—bad business,” he continued to repeat to himself, in a perfectly cheerful tone of voice, as he made his preliminary examination. He made a noise between his teeth as he touched the hilt of the knife still embedded in Prinsep’s chest: then, as he saw the contusion on the back of the head, he said “H’m, h’m.” Then he relapsed into silence, which he broke a moment later by whistling a tune softly to himself.
“Well,” said the inspector, “what’s the report?”
The doctor made no answer for a moment. Then he said, “Have him carried into the bedroom. I want to make a fuller examination. I’ll talk to you when I’ve done.”
“Very well,” said the inspector; and he went to the door and called to the sergeant to bring up the two constables to move the body. Heavily they marched into the room, lifted up the dead man, and bore him away, the doctor following. But, as they raised the body from the floor, an interesting object came to light. Underneath John Prinsep’s body had lain a crumpled pocket-handkerchief. The inspector pounced upon it. In the corner was plainly marked the name of George Brooklyn.
“Who’s George Brooklyn?” Inspector Blaikie called out to the doctor in the adjoining room. The doctor came to the door, and saw the handkerchief in the inspector’s hand. “Hallo, what’s that you’ve got?” he said. “George Brooklyn is Prinsep’s cousin, old Sir Vernon’s other nephew. An architect, I believe, by profession.”
“Thanks. This appears to be his handkerchief,” the inspector answered. “It was under the body.”
“H’m. Well, that’s none of my business,” said the doctor, and turned back into the bedroom.
There, a minute or two later, Inspector Blaikie followed him, leaving the sergeant on guard in the room where the tragedy had occurred. But first he carefully packed up and transferred to his handbag the handkerchief, the papers from the desk, and certain other spoils of his search.
“Well, what do you make of it now?” he asked Dr. Manton.
The doctor had by this time drawn the knife from the wound, and this he now handed silently to the inspector, who examined it curiously, felt its edge, and finally wrapped it up and put it away in his bag with the rest of his findings. Then he turned again to the doctor.
“A shocking business, inspector,” said the latter, still with his curiously cheerful air, “and, I may add, rather an odd one. The man was not killed with the knife, and the knife wound has not actually touched any vital part. He was killed, I have no doubt, by the blow on the back of the head—a far easier form of murder for anyone who is not an expert. It was a savage blow. The wound in the chest, I have little hesitation in saying, was inflicted subsequently, probably when the man was already dead. As I say, it would not have killed him, and there are also indications that it was inflicted after death—the comparative absence of bleeding and the general condition of the wound, for example.”
“H’m, you say the man was killed with a knock on the head, and the assassin then stabbed him in order to make doubly sure.”
“Pardon me, inspector, I say nothing of the sort. I say that the blow on the back of the head was the cause of death, and that the knife wound was, in all probability, subsequent. Anything about assassins and their motives and methods is your business and not mine.”
“I accept the correction,” said the inspector, smiling. “But the inference seems practically certain. Why else should the murderer have stabbed a dead man?”
“I have no theory, inspector. I simply give you the medical evidence, and leave you to draw the inferences for yourself.”
“But perhaps you can give me some valuable information. I believe you were Mr. Prinsep’s doctor.”
“Yes, and I think I may say a personal friend.”
“What sort of man was he? Anything wrong, physically?”
“No; there ought to have been, from the way he used his body. But he had the constitution of an ox. He limped, owing to an accident some years ago. But otherwise—oh, as
