CHAPTER XXI
THE FINAL PROBLEM
AT exactly half-past eleven in the following forenoon, Professor Woodfield arrived, bearing a massive cowhide bag which he deposited on a chair as a preliminary to taking off his hat and wiping his forehead. He was a big burly, heavy-browed man, sparing of speech and rather gruff in manner.
"Stuff arrived yet?" he asked when he had brought his forehead to a satisfactory polish.
"I think it came yesterday morning," replied Thorndyke.
"The deuce it did!" exclaimed Woodfield.
"Yes. Drapers—Three parcels from Townley and"
"Oh, you're talking of the chemicals. I meant the other stuff."
"No; the officer hasn't arrived yet, but I expect he will be here in a few minutes. Superintendent Miller is a scrupulously punctual man."
The professor strode over to the window and glared out in the direction of Crown Office Row.
"That man of yours got everything ready?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Thorndyke; " and I have looked over the laboratory myself. Everything is ready. You can begin the instant the ashes are delivered to us."
Woodfield expressed his satisfaction—or whatever he intended to express—by a grunt, without removing his eyes from the approach to our chambers.
"Cab coming," he announced a few moments later. "Man inside with a parcel. That the officer?"
Jervis looked out over the professor's shoulder.
"Yes," said he, "that's Miller; and, confound it! here's Marchmont with old Humperdinck. Shall we bolt up to the laboratory and send down word that we're all out of town?"
"I don't see why we should," said Thorndyke. "Woodfield won't be inconsolable if we have to leave him to work by himself for a while."
The professor confirmed this statement by another grunt, and, shortly afterwards, the clamor of the little brass knocker announced the arrival of the first contingent, which, when I opened the door, was seen to consist of the solicitor and his very reverend client.
"My dear Thorndyke!" exclaimed Marchmont, shaking our principal's hand; "what a shocking affair this is—this murder, I mean. I read about it in the paper. A dreadful affair!"
"Yes, indeed," Thorndyke assented; "a most callous and horrible crime."
"Terrible! Terrible!" said Marchmont. "So unpleasant for you, too, and so inconvenient. Actually on your own stairs, I understand. But I hope they'll be able to catch the villain. Have you any idea who he is?"
"I have a very strong suspicion," Thorndyke replied.
"Ah!" exclaimed Marchmont, "I thought so. The rascal brought his pigs to the wrong market. What? Like doing a burglary at Scotland Yard. He couldn't have known who lived here. Hallo! why here's Mr. Miller. Howdy-do, Superintendent!"
The officer, for whom I had left the door ajar, entered in his usual brisk fashion, and, having bestowed a comprehensive salutation on the assembled company, deposited on the table an apparently weighty parcel, securely wrapped and decorated with a label bearing the inscription "This side up."
"There, sir," said he, "there's your box of mystery; and I don't mind telling you that I'm on tenter-hooks of curiosity to see what you are going to make of it."
"Professor Woodfield is the presiding magician," said Thorndyke, "so we will hand it over to him. I suppose the casket is sealed?"
"Yes; it was sealed in my presence, and I've got to be present when the seals are broken."
"We'll break the seals up in the laboratory," said Woodfield, "but we may as well undo the parcel here."
He produced a solid-looking pocket knife, fitted with a practicable corkscrew, and, having cut the string, stripped off the wrappings of the parcel.
"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Marchmont, as the last wrapping was removed; "why, it's a cremation urn! What in the name of Fortune are you going to do?"
Miller tapped the lid of the urn with a dramatic gesture.
"Dr. Thorndyke," said he, "is going, I hope, to extract from the ashes in this casket an instrument of vengeance on the murderer of Mrs. Samway."
"Ach!" exclaimed Father Humperdinck, "do not speak of vengeance in ze bresence of zese boor remains of a fellow greature. Chustice if you laig, but not vengeance. 'Vengeance is mine, eaiz ze Lordt!'"
"M'yes," agreed Miller, "that's perfectly true, sir, and we quite understand your point of view. Still, we've got our job to do, you know."
"But," said Marchmont, "I don't understand. What is the connection? These appear to be the remains of Septimus Maddock, whoever he may have been, and he seems to have died last November. What has he to do with the murder of this poor woman, Samway?"
"The connection is this," replied Thorndyke; "the man who murdered Mrs. Samway murdered the man whose ashes are in this urn. That is my proposition; and I hope, with the skilful aid of my friend Professor Woodfield, to prove it."
"Well," said Marchmont, "it is a remarkable proposition and the proof will be still more remarkable. I certainly thought that a body that had been cremated was beyond the reach of any possible inquiry."
"I am afraid that is so, as a rule," Thorndyke admitted. "But I hope to find an exception in this case. Shall we go upstairs and commence the examination?"
Woodfield having agreed with gruff emphasis, Miller picked up the casket and we all proceeded to the laboratory, where Polton, like a presiding analytical demon, was discovered amidst his beloved apparatus. The casket was placed on a table, the seals broken and the cover removed by Woodfield, whereupon we all, with one accord, craned forward to peer in at what looked like a mass of fragments of snowy madrepore coral.
"Ach!" exclaimed Father Humperdinck, "bot it is a solemn zought zat zese boor ashes vas vunce a living man chust like ourselves."
"Yes," said Marchmont, "it is, and I suppose we shall all be pretty much alike by the time we reach this stage. Cremation is a leveler, with a vengeance. Still, I will say this much, these remains are perfectly unobjectionable in every way, in fact they are almost agreeable in appearance; whereas, an ordinary disinterment after this lapse of time would have been a most horrid business."
"Yes, indeed," agreed Thorndyke; "I have had to make a good many examinations of exhumed bodies, and, as you say, they were very different from this. If I were not a practitioner of legal medicine—in which exhumation often furnishes crucial evidence—I should say that this cleanly and decent method of disposing of the dead was incomparably superior to any other. Unfortunately it has serious medico-legal drawbacks. I think, Woodfield, that we will turn, the ashes out on that sheet of paper on the bench, and then, with your permission, I will pick out the recognizable fragments and examine them while you are working on the small, powdery portions."
He took up the urn—which was an oblong, terracotta vessel some fourteen inches in length—and very carefully inverted it over the large sheet of clean white paper. Then, from the dazzling, snowy heap, he picked out daintily the larger fragments—handling them with the utmost tenderness—for, of course, they were excessively fragile—and finally transferring them, one by one, to another sheet of paper at the other end of the bench.
The appearance of the remains was not quite as I had expected. Among the powdery débris was a quite considerable number of larger fragments, most of which were easily recognizable by the anatomical eye, while some of the larger long bones almost gave the impression of having been broken to enable them to be placed in the urn, and suggested that a partial reconstitution, for the purpose of determining the stature or other peculiarities of the skeleton was by no means as impossible as I had supposed. But, large and small alike, the pieces were strangely light and attenuated, like the ghosts of bones or artificial counterfeits in porous, spongy coral.
When Thorndyke had picked out such of the fragments as he wished to examine, Professor Woodfield glanced casually over the collection, but suddenly he paused and, stooping over a large piece of the right innominate bone, narrowly inspected a somewhat shiny yellow stain on its inner surface.
"Looks as if you were right, Thorndyke," he said in his laconic way, "qualitatively, at any rate. We shall see what the quantitative test says."
I pored over that dull yellow stain—as did Jervis also—but could make no guess at its nature or conceive any explanation of its presence. What interested me more was a small depression or cavity in the bone at the center of the stain. That it was not the result of cremation was obvious from the fact that it was surrounded by a small area of sclerosed or hardened bone, which was quite plainly distinguishable on the spongy background, and which clearly pointed to some inflammatory change that had occurred during life. But of its cause, as of that of the stain itself, I could think of no intelligible explanation.
"Have you enough of the small fragments to go on with for the present, Woodfield?" Thorndyke asked.
"Plenty," replied Woodfield.
"Then," said Thorndyke, "I will get on with my side of the inquiry. I shall want the whole-plate camera first, Polton."
While his assistant was preparing the camera, he laid several of the fragments on a baize-covered board and secured them in position by threads attached to wooden-headed pins like diminutive bradawls. When the fragments were fixed immovably, he placed the board in a vertical position on a stand in a good light, by which time Polton was ready to make the exposure.
Meanwhile, Professor Woodfield was proceeding—under the horrified supervision of Father Humperdinck—with his part of the investigation. He was a matter-of-fact man, a chemist to the backbone, and to him it was evident that the late Septimus Maddock was simply so many pounds of animal phosphates. Quite composedly he shoveled up a scoopful of the ashes, which he emptied into the pan of a spring-balance, and, having weighed out a pound and a quarter, shot the contents of the pan into a large mortar and forthwith began to grind the fragments to a fine powder, humming a cheerful stave to the ring of the pestle. But his next proceeding scandalized the worthy Jesuit still more deeply. Having weighed out certain quantities of charcoal, sodium carbonate and borax, he pulverized each in a second mortar, mixed the whole together and shot the mixture into the first mortar, which contained the ash, stirring the entire contents up into a repulsive-looking gray powder.
"But, my dear sir!" exclaimed Father Humperdinck. "You are destroying ze remains!"
Woodfield looked at him from under his beetling brows, but went on stirring.
"Matter is indestructible," he replied stolidly; and with this he tipped the contents of the mortar on to a sheet of paper and transferred them to a large fire-clay crucible.
"Now, Polton," said he, "is the furnace ready?"
Polton disengaged himself for a moment from the camera, and took up a position by the side of the big fire-clay drum with his hand on the gas cock. Then Woodfield, having dropped three or four large iron nails into the crucible, carried the latter over to the furnace and lowered it into the central cavity. The cock was turned on by Polton and a match applied, whereupon a great purplish flame shot up with a roar from the mouth of the furnace; and even when this had been confined by the dropping on of the massive cover, the iron-cased cylinder continued to emit a muffled, sullen growl.
While the crucible was heating, I transferred my attention to Thorndyke. The photographic operations were now concluded and the moulding wax had just been produced from a warmed incubator. Polton's curiosity—and mine—was about to be satisfied.
Thorndyke began by laying a thick slab of the warm and pliable wax on the middle of a smooth plate of varnished plaster, at each corner of which was a small, hemispherical pit, and dusting powdered French chalk sparingly over the level surface of the wax. Then he took the large fragment of bone, which bore the mysterious yellow stain, and laid it on the wax with the stained side uppermost, pressing it very gently until it gradually sank into the soft, pasty mass. Next, he took a somewhat smaller slab of wax and, having dusted its surface with French chalk, laid it on the fragment of bone, pressing it on gently but firmly, especially in the neighborhood of the stain. Having squeezed some irregular-shaped lumps of wax on the back of the top slab, he fastened a strip of india-rubber round the edge of the plaster plate, so that it formed an upright rim, and turned to Polton.
"Now mix a bowl of plaster—and mix it extra stiff, so that it will set quickly and hard."
With a soft brush he painted a thin coat of oil on the exposed portion of the plaster plate, up to the edges of the wax, and including the little circular hollows. By the time he had done this, Polton reappeared from the workshop with a basin of liquid plaster, which he was beating up with a spoon as if preparing a custard or batter pudding. As soon as the plaster began to thicken, he poured it on the wax and the oiled slab until it formed a level mass, nearly flush with the top of the india-rubber rim. In a surprisingly short time, the smooth, creamy liquid solidified into a substance having the appearance of icing-sugar, and when Polton had stripped away the india-rubber rim, exposing the edge of the new plaster slab, this part of the process was finished.
"We will put this mould aside for the plaster to harden while we make the other mould," said Thorndyke.
"Aren't you going to make moulds of all the fragments?" asked Jervis.
"No," Thorndyke answered; "the photographs of the rest will be sufficient, and I don't think we shall want even those; in fact, what I am doing now is merely by way of extra precaution. We are obliged to destroy the fragments in order to make the analysis, so I am just putting their appearance on record. You never know what an ingenious defending counsel may spring on you."
As Polton produced a second plate of varnished plaster and Thorndyke began to prepare the wax for the next mould, I turned my attention once more to Professor Woodfield. He had now deserted the mortar—in which he had been preparing a further supply of "the stuff"—and taken up a position by the furnace, with a long pair of crucible-tongs in his hand. On the bench, hard by, was an iron plate, and on this an oblong block of iron in which were six conical hollows.
Presently Woodfield glanced at his watch, turned off the gas-cock, removed the cover of the furnace with his tongs, and, reaching down into the glowing interior, lifted out the nearly white-hot crucible. Instantly Marchmont, Humperdinck and Jervis gathered round to watch, and even Thorndyke left his mould to come and see the result of the first trial.
Having stood the crucible on the iron plate while he picked out the large nails, one by one, Woodfield lifted it and steadily poured its molten contents into the first hollow in the iron block, which they soon filled, and overflowing, ran along the iron plate in glowing streams that soon grew dull from contact with the cold surface. I noticed that as the crucible was slowly tilted, Thorndyke kept his eyes fixed on its interior, as also did Jervis and Woodfield; and, watching closely, I saw just as the vessel was nearly empty, what looked somewhat like a red-hot oil-globule floating in the last of the glowing liquid. This passed out as the crucible was tilted further, and disappeared into the iron mould; when Woodfield, having exchanged a quick, significant glance with Thorndyke, proceeded forthwith, in his matter-of-fact way to fill up the still red-hot vessel with another pound and a quarter of the late Septimus Maddock.
"I suppose," said Marchmont, "it is premature to ask you what is the final object of these very interesting operations?"
"It's no use asking me," replied Woodfield," because I don't know. I am searching for traces of a particular substance, but what may be the significance of its presence, I haven't the slightest idea. You'd better ask Dr. Thorndyke—and he won't tell you."
"No, I know," said Marchmont. "Thorndyke will never tell you anything until he can tell you everything. By the way, will the remains be completely destroyed or will it be possible to recover them?"
"They are not destroyed at all," replied Woodfield. "They are all in the slag that came out of the crucible. We shall simply put the slag in the urn. There is a little charcoal, soda and borax added, but nothing is taken away."
I could see that to the unchemical mind of Father Humperdinck, this was far from satisfactory, and I observed him poring, with obvious disapproval, over the dark-colored, glassy masses of slag on the iron plate. "Ashes to Ashes" was an intelligible formula, but "ashes to slag" was quite another matter, for which no provision had been made in any known ritual.
After a rather hurried luncheon, the wax moulds were carefully opened and the fragments of bone picked out, when it was seen that each fragment had left a perfect impression on the wax surface into which it had been pressed. These hollow impressions were now filled with liquid plaster, and, when the latter had thickened sufficiently, the two halves of each mould were quickly fitted together and kept in close contact by a weight.
During the interval which was necessary to allow of the plaster setting quite firmly, I had leisure to note that Professor Woodfield had filled two more of the cavities in the iron mould. Now that the furnace was thoroughly hot, he was able to work rather more quickly, and he had economized time by leaving a crucible to heat while we were at lunch. He was preparing to take the fourth charge from the furnace when I observed Polton removing the weight from one of the moulds and hurriedly transferred my patronage to his part of the entertainment. The mould on which he was operating was the one bearing the impressions of the stained fragment of the innominate bone, and when he separated the two halves and exposed the newly-made cast inside one might have thought that the actual bone had been left in, so perfectly did the snowy plaster cast reproduce the dazzlingly white calcined bone. But, naturally, the stain did not appear in the cast, a defect which Thorndyke proceeded at once to remedy by making a tracing of the exact position and extent of the coloured patch and transferring it to the cast. Then, and not till then, Thorndyke regretfully handed the original fragment to Professor Woodfield, who impassively dropped it into the mortar and pounded it into a mere characterless powder.
After the opening of the second mould and the removal of the casts, the interest of the investigation lapsed for a time. Woodfield's operations were, doubtless, the most important part of the procedure, but they were not thrilling to look on at. In fact they became by unvarying repetition, decidedly tedious, and when the last charge—containing the uttermost crumb of ash—had been placed in the furnace and there was nothing to do but stare at the great fire-clay drum, Marchmont and Humperdinck began to yawn in the most portentous manner. I rather wondered that they did not go, for the investigation was no business of theirs, and there was little entertainment in gazing at the outside of the furnace or watching Polton and the Superintendent gather up the masses of slag from the plate and drop them into the casket. But I supposed that they, like myself, were consoling themselves for the tedium of the chemist's manipulations by the prospect of satisfying their curiosity as to the final result of the experiment.
When at length, the last charge was ready, Woodfield withdrew the white-hot crucible from the furnace and stood it on the iron plate. But this time he did not pour out the contents. Instead, he tilted the iron mould, and, picking out the conical masses of slag that it contained, one by one, lowered them with his tongs into the hot crucible. Then, having thrown in a little fresh flux, he returned the crucible to the furnace.
"Why didn't he pour out the melted stuff this time?" Marchmont asked.
"Because," Thorndyke replied, "I want, for certain reasons, to have the total result of the analysis in a single mass. Each of those little cones of slag contains the result from a sixth part of the ash; the crucible now contains the matter extracted from the whole of the ashes. For my purposes this is more suitable, as you will see in a few minutes—for we shall not have to leave the crucible in the furnace so long this time."
"I'm glad of that," said Marchmont, "though this has been a most interesting, and I may say, fascinating experience. I am delighted to have had an opportunity of witnessing these most instructive and—er—aw"
The rest of the sentence was rendered somewhat obscure by a colossal yawn; but very soon the interest of the proceedings was revived by Woodfield, who approached the furnace with a determined air and removed its cover with somewhat of a flourish.
"Now we shall see, Thorndyke," said he, turning off the gas and reaching down into the glowing cavity with his tongs. He lifted out the crucible and, standing it on the iron plate, took out the nails, tapping each on the side of the pot as he withdrew it.
"Do you want me to pour it out, or shall I break the pot?" asked Woodfield.
"That rests with you," replied Thorndyke.
"Better break the pot, then," said Woodfield.
This entailed a further spell of expectant waiting, and we all stood round, gazing impatiently at the crucible as it slowly faded from bright red to dull red and from this to its natural dull drab. It was quite a long time before Woodfield considered it cool enough to be broken, indeed I half suspected him of prolonging our suspense with deliberate malice. At length he took up a peculiarly shaped hammer which Polton had handed to him, and, laying the crucible on its side, struck it sharply near the bottom with the pointed beak; then he turned the pot over and struck a similar blow on the opposite side; upon which the bottom of the crucible broke off cleanly, exposing the mass of dark, glassy slag, and, embedded in it, a bright button of metal.
"What metal is that?" Jervis demanded eagerly.
The professor struck the button smartly with the hammer, whereupon it detached itself from the slag and rolled on to the plate.
"Lead," said he. "I don't vouch for its parity, but it is undoubtedly lead."
Jervis turned to Thorndyke with a puzzled look.
"You can't be suggesting," said he, "that this was a case of acute lead poisoning. The circumstances didn't admit of it, and besides, the quantity of lead is impossibly large."
"I should suppose," interposed Miller, "that the doctor was suggesting a most particularly acute form of lead poisoning, only that it is impossible to imagine that a cremation certificate would be granted in a case where a man had been killed by a pistol shot."
"I am not so sure of that," said Thorndyke; "though it is not likely that a cremation certificate would be applied for under those circumstances. But I am certainly not suggesting lead poisoning."
"What do you say is the weight of this button, Thorndyke?" the professor asked.
"That," replied Thorndyke, "depends on its relation to the total content of lead in the ashes. What percentage do you suppose has been lost in the process of reduction?"
"Not more than ten per cent, I hope. You may take this button as representing ninety per cent of the total lead; perhaps a little more."
Thorndyke made a rapid calculation on a scrap of paper.
"I suggest," said he, "that the total lead in the ashes was three hundred and eighty-six grains. Deducting a tenth, say thirty-eight and a half grains, we have three hundred and forty-seven and a half grains, which should be the weight of this button."
Woodfield picked up the button and striding over to the glass case which contained the chemical balance, slid up the front, and, placing the button in one pan, put the weight corresponding to Thorndyke's estimate, in the other. On turning the handle that released the balance, it was seen that the button was appreciably heavier than Thorndyke had stated, and Woodfield adjusted the weights with a small pair of forceps until the index stood in the middle of the graduated arc.
"The weight is three hundred and forty-nine and a half grains," said Woodfield. "That means that my assay was rather better than I thought. You were quite right, Thorndyke, as you generally are. I wonder what the object was that weighed three hundred and eighty-six grains. Are you going to tell us?"
Thorndyke felt in his waistcoat pocket. "It was an object," said he," very similar to this."
As he spoke, he produced a rather large, dark-colored bullet, which he handed to Woodfield, who immediately placed it in the pan of the balance and tested its weight.
"Just a fraction short of three hundred and eighty-seven grains," said he.
The Superintendent peered curiously into the balance-case, and, taking the bullet out of the pan, turned it over in his fingers. "That's not a modern bullet," said he. "They don't make 'em that size now, and they don't generally make 'em of pure lead."
"No," Thorndyke agreed. "They don't. This is an old French bullet; a chassepôt of about 1870."
"A chassepôt!" exclaimed Humperdinck, with suddenly-awakened interest.
"Yes," said Thorndyke; "and this button,"—he picked it up from the floor of the balance-case as he spoke,—"was once a chassepôt bullet, too. This, Father Humperdinck," he added, holding out the little mass of metal towards the Jesuit, "was the bullet which struck your friend, Vitalis Reinhardt, near Saarbrück more than thirty years ago."
The priest was thunderstruck. For some seconds, he gazed from Thorndyke's face to the button of lead, with his mouth agape and an expression of utter stupefaction.
"But," he exclaimed, at length, "it is impossible! How can it be, in the ashes of a stranger!"
"I take it," said Marchmont, "that Dr. Thorndyke is suggesting that this was the body of Vitalis Reinhardt."
"Undoubtedly I am," said Thorndyke.
"It sounds a rather bold supposition," Marchmont observed, a little dubiously. "Isn't it basing a somewhat startling conclusion upon rather slender data? The presence of the lead is a striking fact, but still, taken alone"
"But it isn't taken alone," Thorndyke interrupted. "It is the final link in a long chain of evidence. You will hear that evidence later, but, as it happens, I can prove the identity of these remains from facts elicited by the examination that we have just made. Let me put the argument briefly.
"First, I will draw your attention to these plaster casts, which you have seen me make from the original bones, Take, to begin with, these small fragments. Dr. Jervis will tell you what bones they are."
He handed the small casts to Jervis, who looked them over—not for the first time—and passed them to me.
"I say that they represent two complete fingers and the first, or proximal, joint of a right thumb. What do you say, Jardine?"
"That is what I had already made them out to be," I replied.
"Very well," said Thorndyke. "That gives us an important initial fact. These remains contained two complete fingers and the first joint of a thumb. But these remains profess to be those of a man named Septimus Maddock. Now this man is known to have had deformed hands, of the kind described as brachydactylous. In such hands all the fingers are incomplete—they have only two joints instead of the normal three—and the first, or proximal joint of the thumb is absent. Obviously, then, these remains cannot be those of Septimus Maddock, as alleged.
"But, if not Maddock's remains, whose are they? From certain facts known to me, I had assumed them to be those of Vitalis Reinhardt. Let us see what support that assumption has received. Reinhardt is known to have been wounded in the right hip by a chassepôt bullet, and the bullet was never extracted. Now I find, among these remains, a considerable portion of the right hip-bone. In that bone is a mark which plainly shows that it has been perforated and the perforation repaired, and there is a cavity in which a foreign body of about the size of a chassepôt bullet has been partly embedded. The chemical composition of that foreign body is plainly indicated by a stain which surrounds the cavity; which stain is evidently due to oxide of lead. Clearly the foreign body was composed of lead, which will have melted in the cremation furnace and run away, but left a small portion in the cavity, which small portion, becoming oxidized, the oxide will have liquefied and become soaked up by the absorbent bone-ash, thus producing the stain.
"Finally, we find by assay, that this foreign body actually was composed of lead and that its weight was—within a negligible amount of error—three hundred and eighty-six grains, which is the weight of a chassepôt bullet.
"I say that the evidence, from the ashes alone, is conclusive. But this is only corroborative of conclusions that I had already formed on a quite considerable body of evidence. Are you satisfied, Marchmont? I mean, of course, only in respect of a prima facie case."
"Perfectly satisfied," replied Marchmont. "And now I understand why you insisted on my being present at this investigation and bringing Father Humperdinck; which, I must admit, has been puzzling me the whole day. By the way, I rather infer, from what you said, that there has been foul play. Is that so?"
"I think," replied Thorndyke, "there can hardly be a doubt that Reinhardt was murdered by Septimus Maddock."
Father Humperdinck's face suddenly turned purple.
"And zis man Maddock," he exclaimed fiercely, "zis murderer of my poor friendt Vitalis, vere is he?"
"He is being sought by the police at this moment," replied Thorndyke.
"He must be caught!" Father Humperdinck shouted in a furious voice, "and ven he is caught he must be bunished as he deserves. I shall not vun moment rest until he is hanged as high as Haman." Here I caught a quick glance from Marchmont's eyes and seemed to hear a faint murmur which framed the words "Vengeance is mine." "But," the Jesuit continued, after a momentary pause, in the same loud, angry tone: "Zis villain has a double grime gommitted; he has murdered a goot, a chenerous, a bious man; and he has robbed ze boor, ze suffering and ze unfortunate."
"How has he done that?" asked Marchmont.
"By murdering ze benefactor of our zoziety," was the answer.
"Yes, to be sure," agreed the solicitor. "I hadn't thought of that. Of course, the original will in favor of Miss Vyne probably stands without modification."
At this point Superintendent Miller interposed.
"You were saying, sir, that the man Maddock is now being sought by the police. Do you mean under that name?"
"No," answered Thorndyke. "I mean under the name of Samway. Septimus Maddock, alias Isaac Van Damme, is written off as deceased. But Samway, alias Maddock, alias Burton of Bruges, alias Gill, is his re-incarnation, and as such I commend him to your attention; and I hope, Miller, you will be able to produce him shortly in the flesh. The evidence, as you see, is now ready, and all that is lacking is the prisoner."
"He shan't be lacking long, sir, if any efforts of mine can bring him to light. I see a case here that will pay for all the work that we can put into it; and now, with your permission, Doctor, I will take possession of this urn and get off, to see that everything necessary is being done."
The Superintendent, as so often happens with departing guests, infected our other two visitors with a sudden desire to be gone. Father Humperdinck, especially, seemed unwilling to lose sight of the police officer—who was correspondingly anxious to escape—and, having wished us a very hasty adieu, hurried down the stairs in his wake, followed, at a greater interval, by his legal adviser.