it appeared that thorndyke was correct in his estimate of the superintendent’s state of mind, for that officer managed to dispose in a very short space of time of the formalities necessary for the obtaining of an exhumation license from the home office. it was less than a week after the interview that i have recorded when i received a note from thorndyke asking me to join him and miller at king’s bench-walk on the following morning at the unholy hour of half-past six. he offered to put me up for the night at his chambers, but i declined this hospitality, not wishing to trouble him unnecessarily; and after a perfunctory breakfast by gaslight, a ride on an early tram, and a walk through the dim, lamp-lit streets, i entered the temple just as the subdued notes of an invisible clock bell announced a quarter past six. on my arrival at thorndyke’s chambers i observed a roomy hired carriage drawn up at the entry, and, ascending the stairs, found “the doctor” and miller ready to start, each provided with a good-sized hand-bag.
“this is a queer sort of function,” i remarked as we took our way down the stairs; “a sort of funeral the wrong way about.”
“yes,” thorndyke agreed; “it is what lewis carroll would have called an unfuneral—and very appropriately, too. i didn’t give you any particulars in my note, but you understand the object of this expedition?”
“i assume that we are going to resurrect the late jonathan crile,” i replied. “it isn’t very clear to me what i have to do with the business, as i never knew mr. crile, though i am delighted to have this rather uncommon experience. but i should have thought that usher would be the proper person to accompany you.”
“so the superintendent thought,” said thorndyke, “and quite rightly; so i have arranged to pick up usher and take him with us. he will be able to identify the body as that of his late patient, and you and i will help the superintendent to take the finger-prints.”
“i am taking your word for it, doctor,” said miller, “that the finger-prints will be recognizable, and that they will be the wrong ones.”
“i don’t guarantee that,” thorndyke replied, “but still, i shall be surprised if you get the right ones.”
miller nodded with an air of satisfaction, and nothing more was said on the subject until we drew up before dr. usher’s surgery. that discreet practitioner was already waiting at the open door, and at once took his place in the carriage, watched curiously by observers from adjacent windows.
“this is a rum go,” he remarked, diffusing a vinous aroma into the atmosphere of the carriage. “i really did think i had paid my last visit to mr. crile. but there’s no such thing as certainty in this world.” he chuckled softly and continued: “a bit different this journey from the last. no hatbands this time, and no sunday-school children. lord! when i think of those kids piping round the open grave, and that our dear departed brother was wanted by the police so badly that they were actually going to dig him up, it makes me smile, it does, indeed.”
in effect, it made him cackle; and as miller had not heard the account of the funeral, it was repeated for his benefit in great detail. then the anecdotal ball was set rolling in a fresh direction by one or two questions from thorndyke, with the result that the entire history of usher’s attendance on the deceased, including the misdeeds of mrs. pepper, was retailed with such a wealth of circumstance that the narration lasted until we stopped at the cemetery gate.
our arrival was not unexpected, for as we got out of the carriage, two gentlemen approached the entrance, and one of them unlocked a gate to admit us. he appeared to be the official in charge of the cemetery, while the other, to whom he introduced us, was no less a person than dr. garroll, the medical officer of health.
“the home office license,” the latter explained, “directs that the removal shall be carried out under my supervision and to my satisfaction; very necessary in a populous neighbourhood like this.”
“very necessary,” thorndyke agreed gravely.
“i have provided a supply of fresh ground lime, according to the directions,” dr. garroll continued; “and as a further precaution, i have brought with me a large formalin spray. that, i think, should satisfy all sanitary requirements.”
“it should certainly be sufficient,” thorndyke agreed, “to meet the requirements of the present case. has the excavation been commenced yet?”
“oh, yes,” replied the cemetery official. “it was started quite early, and has been carried down nearly to the full depth; but i thought that the coffin had better not be uncovered until you arrived. i have had a canvas screen put up round the grave so that the proceedings may be quite private. we can send the labourers outside before we unscrew the coffin-lid. you said, superintendent, that you were anxious to avoid any kind of publicity; and i have warned the men to say nothing to any one about the affair.”
“quite right,” said miller. “we don’t want this to get into the papers, in case—well, in any case.”
“exactly, sir,” agreed the official, who was evidently bursting with curiosity himself. “exactly. here is the screen. if you will step inside, the excavation can be proceeded with.”
we passed inside the screen, where we found four men reposefully contemplating a coil of stout rope, a basket, attached to another rope, and a couple of spades. the grave yawned in the middle of the enclosure, flanked on one side by the mound of newly dug earth and on the other by a tub of lime and a winchester quart bottle fitted with a spray nozzle and a large rubber bellows.
“you can get on with the digging now,” said the official; whereupon one of the men was let down into the grave, together with a spade and the basket, and fell to work briskly. then dr. garroll directed one of the other men to sprinkle in a little lime; which he did, with a pleased smile and so little discretion that the man below was seen to stop digging, and after looking up indignantly, take off his cap, shake it violently and ostentatiously dust his shoulders with it.
when about a dozen basketfuls of earth had been hoisted up, a hollow, woody sound accompanying the thrusts of the spade announced that the coffin had been reached. thereupon more lime was sprinkled in, and dr. garroll, picking up the formalin bottle, sprayed vigorously into the cavity until a plaintive voice from below—accompanied by an unnaturally loud sneeze—was heard to declare that “he’d ’ave brought his umbrella if he’d knowed he was goin’ to be squirted at.” a few minutes’ more work exposed the coffin and enabled us to read the confirmatory inscription on the plate. then the rope slings were let down and with some difficulty worked into position by the excavator below; who, when he had completed his task, climbed to the surface and grasped one end of a sling in readiness to haul on it.
“it’s a good deal easier letting ’em down than hoisting ‘em up,” usher remarked, as the final shower of lime descended and the men began to haul; “but poor old crile oughtn’t to take much lifting. there was nothing of him but skin and bone.”
however this might be, it took the united efforts of the four men to draw the coffin up to the surface and slew it round clear of the yawning grave. but at last this was accomplished, and it was lifted, for convenience of inspection, on to one of the mounds of newly dug earth.
“now,” said the presiding official, “you men had better go outside and wait down at the end of the path until you are wanted again:” an order that was received with evident disfavour and complied with rather sulkily. as soon as they were gone, our friend produced a couple of screw-drivers, with which he and miller proceeded in a very workmanlike manner to extract the screws, while dr. garroll enveloped them in a cloud of spray, and thorndyke, usher, and i stood apart to keep out of range. it was not a long process; indeed, it came to an end sooner than i had expected, for the first intimation that i received of its completion was a loud exclamation (consisting of the single word “snakes!”) in the voice of superintendent miller. i turned quickly and saw that officer standing with the raised coffin-lid in his hand, staring into the interior with a look of perfectly indescribable amazement. instantly i rushed forward and looked into the coffin; and then i was no less amazed. for in place of the mortal remains of the late jonathan crile, was a portly sack oozing sawdust from a hole in its side, through which coyly peeped a length of thick lead pipe.
for a sensible time we all stood in breathless silence gazing down at that incredible sack. suddenly miller looked up eagerly at thorndyke, whose sphinx-like countenance showed the faintest shadow of a smile.
“you knew this coffin was empty, doctor?” said he.
thorndyke shook his head. “if i had known,” he replied, “i should have told you.”
“well, you suspected that it was empty.”
“yes,” thorndyke admitted, “i don’t deny that.”
“i wonder why you did, and why it never occurred to me.”
“it did not occur to you, perhaps, because you were not in possession of certain suggestive facts which are known to me. still, if you consider that the circumstances surrounding the alleged deaths of these two men were so incredible as to make us both feel certain that there was some fallacy or deception in regard to the apparent facts, you will see that this was a very obvious possibility. two men were alleged to have died, and one of them was certainly cremated. it followed that either the other man had died, as alleged, or that his funeral was a mock funeral. there was no other alternative. you must admit that, miller.”
“i do, i do,” the superintendent replied ruefully. “it is always like this. your explanations are so obvious when you have given them, and yet no one thinks of them but yourself. all the same, this isn’t so very obvious, even now. there are some extraordinary discrepancies that have yet to be explained. but we can discuss them on the way back. the question now is, what is to be done with this coffin?”
“the first thing to be done,” replied thorndyke, “is to screw on the lid. then we can leave the cemetery authorities to deal with it. but those men must be sworn to absolute secrecy. that is vitally important, for if this exhumation should get reported in the press, we should probably lose the whole advantage of this discovery.”
“yes, by jove!” the superintendent agreed, emphatically. “it would be a disaster. at present, the late mr. crile is at large, perfectly happy and secure and entirely off his guard. we can just follow him up at our leisure and take him unawares. but if he got wind of this, he would be out of reach in a twinkling—that is, if he is alive, which i suppose⸺” and here the superintendent suddenly paused, with knitted brows.
“exactly,” said thorndyke. “the advantage of surprise is with us, and we must keep it at all costs. you realize the position,” he added, addressing the cemetery official and the medical officer.
“perfectly,” the latter replied, a little glumly, i thought, “and you may rely on us both to do everything that we can to keep the affair secret.”
with this we all emerged from the screen and walked back slowly towards the gate; and as we went, i strove vainly to get my ideas into some kind of order. but the more i considered the astonishing event which had just happened the more incomprehensible did it appear. and yet i saw plainly that it could not really be incomprehensible since thorndyke had actually arrived at its probability in advance. the glaring discrepancies and inconsistencies which chased one another through my mind could not be real. they must be susceptible of reconciliation with the observed facts. but by no effort was i able to reconcile them.
nor, evidently, was i alone the subject of these difficulties and bewilderments. the superintendent walked with corrugated brows and an air of profound cogitation, and even usher—when he could detach his thoughts from the juvenile choir at the funeral—was obviously puzzled. in fact, it was he who opened the discussion as the carriage moved off.
“this job,” he observed with conviction, “is what the sporting men would call a fair knock-out. i can’t make head nor tail of it. you talk of the late mr. crile being at large and perfectly happy. but the late mr. crile died of cancer of the pancreas. i attended him in his illness. there was no doubt about the cancer, though i wouldn’t swear to the pancreas. but he died of cancer all right. i saw him dead; and, what is more, i helped to put him into that coffin. what do you say to that, dr. thorndyke?”
“what is there to say?” was the elusive reply. “you are a competent observer, and your facts are beyond dispute. but inasmuch as mr. crile was not in that coffin when we opened it, the unavoidable inference is that after you had put him in, somebody else must have taken him out.”
“yes, that is clear enough,” rejoined usher. “but what has become of him? the man was dead; that i am ready to swear to. but where is he?”
“yes,” said miller. “that is what is bothering me. there has evidently been some hanky-panky. but i can’t follow it. it isn’t as though we were dealing with a supposititious body. there was a real dead man. that isn’t disputed—at least, i take it that it isn’t.”
“it certainly is not disputed by me,” said thorndyke.
“then what the deuce became of him? and why, in the name of blazes, was he taken out of the coffin? that’s what i want to know. can you tell me, doctor? but there! what is the good of asking you? of course you know all about it! you always do. but it is the same old story. you have got the ace of trumps up your sleeve, but you won’t bring it out until it is time to take the trick. now isn’t that the position, doctor?”
thorndyke’s impassive face softened with a faint, inscrutable smile.
“we hold a promising hand, miller,” he replied quietly; “but if the ace is there, it is you who will have the satisfaction of playing it. and i hope to see you put it down quite soon.”
miller grunted. “very well,” said he. “i can see that i am not going to get any more out of you than that; so i must wait for you to develop your plans. meanwhile i am going to ask dr. usher for a signed statement.”
“yes, that is very necessary,” said thorndyke. “you two had better go on together and set down gray and me in the kingsland-road, where he and i have some other business to transact.”
i glanced at him quickly as he made this astonishing statement—for we had no business there, or anywhere else that i knew of. but i said nothing. my recent training had not been in vain.
a few minutes later, near to dalston junction, he stopped the carriage, and, having made our adieux, we got out. then thorndyke strode off down the kingsland-road but presently struck off westward through a bewildering maze of seedy suburban streets and shabby squares in which i was as completely lost as if i had been dropped into the midst of the sahara.
“what is the nature of the business that we are going to transact?” i ventured to ask as we turned yet another corner.
“in the first place,” he replied, “i wanted to hear what conclusions you had reached in view of this discovery at the cemetery.”
“well, that won’t take long,” i said, with a grin. “they can be summed up in half a dozen words: i have come to the conclusion that i am a fool.”
he laughed good-humouredly. “there is no harm in thinking that,” he said, “provided you are not right—which you are not. but did that empty coffin suggest no new ideas to you?”
“on the contrary,” i replied, “it scattered the few ideas that i had. i am in the same condition as superintendent miller: an inextricable muddle.”
“but,” he objected, “you are not in the same position as the superintendent. if he knew all that you and i know, he wouldn’t be in a muddle at all. what is your difficulty?”
“primarily the discrepancies about this man crile. there seems to be no possible doubt that he died. but apparently he was never buried; and you and miller seem to believe that he is still alive. further, i don’t see what business crile is of ours at all.”
“you will see that presently,” said he, “and meanwhile you must not confuse miller’s beliefs with mine. however,” he added, as we crossed a bridge over a canal—presumably the regent’s canal—“we will adjourn the discussion for the moment. do you know what street that is ahead of us?”
“no,” i answered; “i have never been here before, so far as i know.”
“that is field-street,” said he.
“the street that the late mr. crile lived in?”
“yes,” he answered; and as we passed on into the street from the foot of the bridge, he added, pointing to a house on our left hand: “and that is the residence of the late mr. crile—empty, and to let, as you observe.”
as we walked past i looked curiously at the house, with its shabby front and its blank, sightless windows, its desolate condition emphasized by the bills which announced it; but i made no remark until we came to the bottom of the street, when i recognized the cross road as the one along which i used to pass on my way to the morrises’ house. i mentioned the fact to thorndyke, and he replied: “yes. that is where we are going now. we are going to take a look over the premises. that house also is empty, and i have got a permit from the agent to view it and have been entrusted with the keys.”
in a few minutes we turned into the familiar little thoroughfare, and as we took our way past its multitudinous stalls and barrows i speculated on the object of this exploration. but it was futile to ask questions, seeing that i had but to wait a matter of minutes for the answer to declare itself. soon we reached the house and halted for a moment to look through the glazed door into the empty shop. then thorndyke inserted the key into the side door and pushed it open.
there is always something a little melancholy in the sight of an empty house which one has known in its occupied state. nothing, indeed, could be more cheerless than the morris household; yet it was with a certain feeling of depression that i looked down the long passage (where cropper had bumped his head in the dark) and heard the clang of the closing door. this was a dead house—a mere empty shell. the feeble life that i had known in it was no more. so i reflected as i walked slowly down the passage at thorndyke’s side, recalling the ungracious personalities of mrs. morris and her husband and the pathetic figure of poor mr. bendelow.
when from the passage we came out into the hall, the sense of desolation was intensified, for here not only the bare floor and vacant walls proclaimed the untenanted state of the house. the big curtain that had closed in the end of the hall, and to a great extent furnished it, was gone, leaving the place very naked and chill. incidentally, its disappearance revealed a feature of whose existence i had been unaware.
“why,” i exclaimed, “they had a second street door. i never saw that. it was hidden by a curtain. but it can’t open into market-street.”
“it doesn’t,” replied thorndyke. “it opens on field-street.”
“on field-street!” i repeated in surprise. “i wonder why they didn’t let me in that way. it is really the front of the house.”
“i think,” answered thorndyke, “that if you open the door and look out, you will understand why you were admitted at the back.”
i unbolted the door, and, opening it, stepped out on the wide threshold and looked up and down the street. thorndyke was right. the thoroughfare was undoubtedly field-street, down which we had passed only a few minutes ago, and close by, on the right hand, was the canal bridge. strongly impressed with the oddity of the affair, i turned to re-enter, and as i turned i glanced up at the number on the door. as my eye lighted on it i uttered a cry of astonishment. for the number was fifty-two!
“but this is amazing!” i exclaimed, re-entering the hall—where thorndyke stood watching me with quiet amusement—and shutting the door. “it seems that usher and i were actually visiting at the same house.”
“evidently,” said he.
“but it almost looks as if we were visiting the same patient!”
“there can be practically no doubt that you were,” he agreed. “it was on that assumption that i induced miller to apply for the exhumation order, and the empty coffin seems to confirm it completely.”
i was thunderstruck, not only by the incredible thing that had happened, but by thorndyke’s uncanny knowledge of all the circumstances.
“then,” i said, after a pause, “if usher and i were attending the same man, we were both attending bendelow.”
“that is certainly what the appearances suggest,” he agreed.
“it was undoubtedly bendelow who was cremated,” said i.
“all the circumstances seem to point to that conclusion,” he admitted, “unless you can think of any that point in the opposite direction.”
“i cannot,” i replied. “everything points in the same direction. the dead man was seen and identified as bendelow by those two ladies, miss dewsnep and miss bonington, and they not only saw him here, but they actually saw him in his coffin just before it was passed through into the crematorium. and there is no doubt that they knew bendelow by sight, for you remember that they recognized the photograph of him that the american detective showed them.”
“yes,” he admitted, “that is so. but their identification is a point that requires further investigation. and it is a vitally important point. i have my own hypothesis as to what took place, but that hypothesis will have to be tested; and that test will be what the logicians would call the experimentum crucis. it will settle one way or the other whether my theory of this case is correct. if my hypothesis as to their identification is true, there will be nothing left to investigate. the case will be complete and ready to turn over to miller.”
i listened to this statement in complete bewilderment. thorndyke’s reference to “the case” conveyed nothing definite to me. it was all so involved that i had almost lost count of the subject of our investigation.
“when you speak of ‘the case,’ ” said i, “what case are you referring to?”
“my dear gray!” he protested. “do you not realize that we are trying to discover who murdered julius d’arblay?”
“i thought you were,” i answered; “but i can’t connect this new mystery with his death in any way.”
“never mind,” said he. “when the case is completed we will have a general elucidation. meanwhile there is something else that i have to show you before we go. it is through this side door.”
he led me out into a large neglected garden and along a wide path that was all overgrown with weeds. as we went, i tried to collect and arrange my confused ideas, and suddenly a new discrepancy occurred to me. i proceeded to propound it.
“by the way, you are not forgetting that the two alleged deaths were some days apart? i saw bendelow dead on a monday. he had died on the preceding afternoon. but crile’s funeral had already taken place a day or two previously.”
“i see no difficulty in that,” thorndyke replied. “crile’s funeral occurred, as i have ascertained, on a saturday. you saw bendelow alive for the last time on thursday morning. usher was sent for, and saw crile dead on thursday evening, he having evidently died—with or without assistance—soon after you left. of course, the date of death given to you was false; and you mention in your notes of the case that both you and cropper were surprised at the condition of the body. the previous funeral offers no difficulty, seeing that we know that the coffin was empty. this is what i thought you might be interested to see.”
he pointed to a flight of stone steps, at the bottom of which was a wooden gate set in the wall that enclosed the garden. i looked at the steps—a little vacantly, i am afraid—and inquired what there was about them that i was expected to find of interest.
“perhaps,” he replied, “you will see better if we open the gate.”
we descended the steps, and he inserted a key into the gate, drawing my attention to the fact that the lock had been oiled at no very distant date and was in quite good condition. then he threw the gate open, and we both stepped out on to the tow-path of the canal. i looked about me in considerable surprise, for we were within a few yards of the hut with the derrick and the little wharf from which i had been flung into the canal.
“i remember this gate,” said i; “in fact, i think i mentioned it to you in my account of my adventure here. but i little imagined that it belonged to the morris’ house. it would have been a short way in, if i had known. but i expect it was locked at the time.”
“i expect it was,” thorndyke agreed, and thereupon turned and re-entered. we passed once more down the long passage, and came out into market-street, when thorndyke locked the door and pocketed the key.
“that is an extraordinary arrangement,” i remarked; “one house having two frontages on separate streets.”
“it is not a very uncommon one,” thorndyke replied. “you see how it comes about. a house fronting on one street has a long back garden extending to another street which is not yet fully built on. as the new street fills up, a shop is built at the end of the garden. a small house may be built in connexion with it and cut off from the garden, or the shop may be connected with the original house, as in this instance. but in either case the shop belongs to the new street and has its own number. what are you going to do now?”
“i am going straight on to the studio,” i replied.
“you had better come and have an early lunch with me first,” said he. “there is no occasion to hurry. polton is there and you won’t easily get rid of him, for i understand that miss d’arblay is doing the finishing work on a wax bust.”
“i ought to see that, too,” said i.
he looked at me with a mischievous smile. “i expect you will have plenty of opportunities in the future,” said he, “whereas polton must make hay while the sun shines. and, by the way, he may have something to tell you. i have instructed him to make arrangements with those two ladies, miss dewsnep and her friend, to go into the question of their identification of bendelow. i want you to be present at the interview, but i have left him to fix the date. possibly he has made the arrangement by now. you had better ask him.”
at this moment, an eligible omnibus making its appearance, we both climbed on board and were duly conveyed to king’s cross, where we alighted and lunched at a modest restaurant, thereafter separating to go our respective ways north and south.
