The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack. R. Austin Freeman
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the inspector made his way and piloted Thorndyke to the fatal spot.
“Looks a pretty bad case, sir,” said he, casting a perturbed eye down at the motionless form, which lay where it had fallen. “Will you just have a glance at him?”
Thorndyke stooped over the prostrate figure and made a brief—a very brief—inspection. Then he stood up and announced curtly: “He is dead. The blow dislocated his neck.”
“Ha!” the inspector exclaimed, “I was afraid he was—though perhaps it is all for the best. At any rate, we’ve done with him now.”
“I haven’t,” said Miller. “I’ve got a search warrant; and I shall want his keys. We will come along with you to the mortuary. Can’t very well get them here.”
At this moment the carman presented himself, wiping his pale face with a large red handkerchief.
“Shockin’ affair, this, Inspector,” he said, huskily. “Pore old chap. I couldn’t do no more than what I done. You could see that for yourself. He was down almost as soon as I see ’im.”
“Yes,” the inspector agreed, “he ran straight at the pole. It was no fault of yours. At least, that’s my opinion,” he added with official caution. “Just help me and the constable here to lift the body on to your lorry and then he will show you the way to the mortuary. You understand, Borman,” he continued, addressing the constable. “You are to take the body to the mortuary, and wait there with the lorry until I come. I shall be there in a minute or two.”
The constable saluted, and the inspector, having made a note of the carman’s name and address, stood by while the ghastly passenger was lifted up on to the rough floor. Then, as the lorry moved off, he turned to Miller and remarked: “Your friend Mr. Lambert looks rather poorly, Superintendent. It has been a bit of a shock for him. Hadn’t you better take him somewhere and give him a little pick-me-up? We shall want him and his assistant at the mortuary, you know, for a regular identification.”
“Yes,” agreed Miller, glancing sympathetically at the white-faced, shaking lapidary, “he does look pretty bad, poor old chap. Thinks it’s all his doing, I expect. Well, you show us the way to a suitable place.”
“The Blue Lion Hotel is just round the corner,” said the inspector, “and it is on our way.”
To the Blue Lion he accordingly led the way, while Thorndyke followed, assisting and trying to comfort the shaken and self-reproachful Lambert. From the hotel they proceeded to the mortuary, where Lambert having, almost with tears, identified the body of ‘Mr. Scofield,’ and the dead man’s keys having been handed to Superintendent Miller, the latter departed with Thorndyke, leaving the inspector to conduct the carman to the police-station.
“You seem to be pretty confident,” said Miller as they set forth, guided by Polton’s written directions, “that the stuff is still there.”
“Not confident, Miller,” was the reply, “but I think it is there. At any rate, it is worth while to make the search. There may be other things to see besides the stones.”
“Ah!” Miller agreed doubtfully. “Well, I hope you are right.”
They walked on for some five minutes when Thorndyke, having again referred to his notes, halted before a pleasant little house in a quiet street on the outskirts of the town, and entering the front garden, knocked at the door. It was opened by a motherly-looking, middle-aged woman to whom Miller briefly but courteously explained his business and exhibited his warrant.
“Good gracious!” she exclaimed. “What on earth makes you think the missing property is here?”
“I can’t go into particulars,” replied Miller. “Here is the search-warrant.”
“Yes, I see. But couldn’t you wait until Mr. Wampole comes home? He is due now, and his tea is waiting for him in his sitting-room.”
Miller cleared his throat. Then, hesitatingly and with manifest discomfort, he broke the dreadful news.
The poor woman was thunderstruck. For a few moments she seemed unable to grasp the significance of what Miller was telling her; then, when the horrid reality burst upon her, she turned away quickly, flinging out her hand towards the staircase, ran into her room, and shut the door.
The two investigators ascended the stairs in silence with an unconsciously stealthy tread. On the landing they paused, and as he softly opened the three doors and peered into the respective apartments, Miller remarked in an undertone: “Rather gruesome, Doctor, isn’t it? I feel like a tomb-robber. Which one shall we go in first?”
“This one on the left seems to be the workshop,” replied Thorndyke. “Perhaps we had better take that first, though it isn’t likely that the gems are in there.”
They entered the workshop, and Thorndyke looked about it with keen interest. On a small table, fitted with a metal-worker’s bench-vice, stood the “sparrow-hawk,” like a diminutive smith’s anvil, in its worm-eaten block, surrounded by a ring of pinkish-yellow dust. A Windsor chair, polished by years of use, was evidently the one on which the workman had been accustomed to sit at his bench; and close inspection showed a powdering of the pink dust on the rails and other protected parts. On the right-hand side of the room was a small woodworker’s bench, and on the wall above it a rack filled with chisels and other small tools. There was a tool cabinet ingeniously made from grocer’s boxes, and a set of shelves on which the glue-pot and various jars and small appliances were stowed out of the way.
“Seems to have been a pretty handy man,” remarked Miller, pulling out one of the drawers of the cabinet and disclosing a set of files.
“Yes,” Thorndyke agreed; “he appears to have been quite a good workman. It is all very neat and orderly. This is rather interesting,” he added, reaching down from the shelf a box containing two earthen ware cells filled with a blue liquid, and a wide jar with similar contents.
“Electric battery, isn’t it?” said Miller. “What is the point of interest about it?”
“It is a two-cell Daniell’s battery,” replied Thorndyke, “the form of battery most commonly used for making small electrotypes. And in evidence that it was used for that purpose, here is the jar filled with copper sulphate solution, forming the tank, with the copper electrode in position. Moreover, I see on the shelf what look like some gutta-percha moulds.” He reached one down and examined it. “Yes,” he continued, “this is a squeeze from a coin. Apparently he had been making electrotype copies of coins; probably some that had been lent to him.”
“Well,” said Miller, “what about it?”
“The point is that whoever stole those gems made an electrotype copy of Hollis’s seal. We now have evidence that Wampole was able to make electrotypes and did actually make them.”
“It would be more to the point if we could find the gems themselves,” rejoined Miller.
“Yes, that is undoubtedly true,” Thorndyke admitted; “and as we are not likely to find them here, perhaps we had better examine the sitting-room. That is much the most probable place.”
“I don’t quite see why,” said Miller. “But I expect you do,” and with this he followed Thorndyke across the landing to the adjoining room.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed, stopping to gaze at the neatly-arranged tea-service on the table, “just look at this! Uncanny, isn’t it? Teapot under the cosy—quite hot still. And what’s under this cover? Crumpets, by gum! And him lying there in the mortuary! Fairly gives one the creeps. Don’t you feel a bit like a ghoul, Doctor?”
“I might, perhaps,” Thorndyke replied, dryly, “if there had been no such person as John Osmond.”
“True,” said Miller. “He did do the dirty on Osmond, and that’s the fact—unless Osmond was in it, too. Looks rather as if he was; but you don’t seem to think so.”
“As a mere guess, I do not; but it is