CHAPTER XXIX.
THE POLICE ARE AT FAULT
Ambler Jevons read the letter, then handed it to me without comment.
It was written upon the note-paper I knew so well, stamped with the neat address “Neneford,” in black, but bearing no date. What I read was as follows: —
“Sir, – I fail to comprehend the meaning of your words when you followed me into the train at Huntingdon last night. I am in no fear of any catastrophe; therefore I can only take your offer of assistance as an attempt to obtain money from me. If you presume to address me again I shall have no other course than to acquaint the police.
”Yours truly
“Mary Courtenay.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed. “Then he warned her, and she misunderstood his intention.”
“Without a doubt,” said Ambler, taking the letter from my hand. “This was written probably only a few days before her death. That man,” and he glanced at the prostrate body, “was the only one who could give us the clue by which to unravel the mystery.”
But the dead man’s lips had closed, and his secret was held for ever. Only those letters remained to connect him with the river tragedy; or rather to show that he had communicated with the unfortunate Mrs. Courtenay.
In company we walked to Leman Street Police Station, one of the chief centres of the Metropolitan Police in the East End, and there, in an upper office, Ambler had a long consultation with the sergeant of the Criminal Investigation Department.
I described the appearance of the body, and stated my suspicions of poisoning, all of which the detective carefully noted before going forth to make his own examination. My address was taken, so that I might assist at the post-mortem, and then, shortly after midnight I drove back westward through the City with Ambler at my side.
He spoke little, and when in Oxford Street, just at the corner of Newman Street, he descended, wished me a hurried good-night, and disappeared into the darkness. He was often given to strange vagaries of erratic movement. It was as though some thought had suddenly occurred to him, and he acted at once upon it.
That night I scarcely closed my eyes. My brain was awhirl with thoughts of all the curious events of the past few months – the inexplicable presence of old Mr. Courtenay, and the subsequent death of Mary and of the only man who, according to Ambler, knew the remarkable secret.
Ethelwynn’s strange words worried me. What could she mean? What did she know? Surely hers could not be a guilty conscience. Yet, in her words and actions I had detected that cowardice which a heavy conscience always engenders. One by one I dissected and analysed the Seven Secrets, but not in one single instance could I obtain a gleam of the truth.
While at the hospital next day I was served with a notice to assist at the post-mortem of the unfortunate Lane, whose body was lying in the Shadwell mortuary; and that same afternoon I met by appointment Doctor Tatham, of the London Hospital, who, as is well known, is an expert toxicologist.
To describe in technical detail the examination we made would not interest the general reader of this strange narrative. The average man or woman knows nothing or cares less for the duodenum or the pylorus; therefore it is not my intention to go into long and wearying detail. Suffice it to say that we preserved certain portions of the body for subsequent examination, and together were engaged the whole evening in the laboratory of the hospital. Tatham was well skilled in the minutiæ of the tests. The exact determination of the cause of death in cases of poisoning always depends partly on the symptoms noted before death, and partly on the appearances found after death. Regarding the former, neither of us knew anything; hence our difficulties were greatly increased. The object of the analyst is to obtain the substances which he has to examine chemically in as pure a condition as possible, so that there may be no doubt about the results of his tests; also, of course, to separate active substances from those that are inert, all being mixed together in the stomach and alimentary canal. Again, in dealing with such fluids as the blood, or the tissues of the body, their natural constituents must be got rid of before the foreign and poisonous body can be reached. There is this difficulty further to contend with: that some of the most poisonous of substances are of unstable composition and are readily altered by chemical reagents; to this group belong many vegetable and most animal poisons. These, therefore, must be treated differently from the more stable inorganic compounds. With an inorganic poison we may destroy all organic materials mixed with it, trusting to find the poison still recognisable after this process. Not so with an organic substance; that must be separated by other than destructive means.
Through the whole evening we tested for the various groups of poisons – corrosives, simple irritants, specific irritants and neurotics. It was a long and scientific search.
Some of the tests with which I was not acquainted I watched with the keenest interest, for, of all the medical men in London, Tatham was the most up to date in such analyses.
At length, after much work with acids, filtration, and distillation, we determined that a neurotic had been employed, and that its action on the vasomotor system of the nerves was very similar, if not identical, with nitrate of amyl.
Further than that, even Tatham, expert in such matters, could not proceed. Hours of hard work resulted in that conclusion, and with it we were compelled to be satisfied.
In due course the inquest was held at Shadwell, and with Ambler I attended as a witness. The reporters, of course, expected a sensation; but, on the contrary, our evidence went to show that, as the poisonous substance was found in the “quartern” bottle on deceased’s table, death was in all probability due to suicide.
Some members of the jury took an opposite view. Then the letters we had found concealed were produced by the police, and, of course, created a certain amount of interest. But to the readers of newspapers the poisoning of a costermonger at Shadwell is of little interest as compared with a similar catastrophe in that quarter of London vaguely known as “the West End.” The letters were suspicious, and both coroner and jury accepted them as evidence that Lane was engaged upon an elaborate scheme of blackmail.
“Who is this Mary Courtenay, who writes to him from Neneford?” inquired the coroner of the inspector.
“Well, sir,” the latter responded, “the writer herself is dead. She was found drowned a few days ago near her home under suspicious circumstances.”
Then the reporters commenced to realize that something extraordinary was underlying the inquiry.
“Ah!” remarked the coroner, one of the most acute officials of his class. “Then, in face of this, her letter seems to be more than curious. For aught we know the tragedy at Neneford may have been wilful murder; and we have now the suicide of the assassin?”
“That, sir, is the police theory,” replied the inspector.
“Police theory be hanged!” ejaculated Ambler, almost loud enough to be heard. “The police know nothing of the case, and will never learn anything. If the jury are content to accept such an explanation, and brand poor Lane as a murderer, they must be allowed to do so.”
I knew Jevons held coroners’ juries in the most supreme contempt; sometimes rather unreasonably so, I thought.
“Well,” the coroner said, “this is certainly remarkable evidence,” and he turned the dead woman’s letter over in his hand. “It is quite plain that the deceased approached the lady ostensibly to give her warning of some danger, but really to blackmail her; for what reason does not at present appear. He may have feared her threat to give information to the police; hence his crime, and subsequent suicide.”
“Listen!” exclaimed Jevons in my ear. “They are actually trying the dead man for a crime he could not possibly have committed! They’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick, as usual. Why don’t they give a verdict of suicide and have done with it. We can’t afford to waste a whole day explaining theories to a set of uneducated gentlemen of the Whitechapel Road. The English law is utterly ridiculous where coroners’ juries are concerned.”
The coroner heard his whispering, and looked towards us severely.
“We have not had sufficient time to investigate the whole of the facts connected with Mrs. Courtenay’s mysterious death,” the inspector went on. “You will probably recollect, sir, a mystery down at Kew some little time ago. It was fully reported in the papers, and created considerable sensation – an old gentleman was murdered under remarkable circumstances. Well, sir, the gentleman in question was Mrs. Courtenay’s husband.”
The coroner sat back in his chair and stared at the officer who had spoken, while in the court a great sensation was caused. Mention of the Kew Mystery brought its details vividly back to the minds of everyone. Yes. After all, the death of that poor costermonger, Lanky Lane, was of greater public interest than the representatives of the Press anticipated.
“Are you quite certain of this?” the coroner queried.
“Yes, sir. I am here by the direction of the Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard to give evidence. I was engaged upon the case at Kew, and have also made inquiries into the mystery at Neneford.”
“Then you have suspicion that the deceased was – well, a person of bad character?”
“We have.”
“Fools!” growled Ambler. “Lane was a policeman’s ‘nose,’ and often obtained payment from Scotland Yard for information regarding the doings of a certain gang of thieves. And yet they actually declare him to be a bad character. Preposterous!”
“Do you apply for an adjournment?”
“No, sir. We anticipate that the verdict will be suicide – the only one possible in face of the evidence.”
And then, as though the jury were compelled to act upon the inspector’s suggestion, they returned a simple verdict. “That the deceased committed suicide by poisoning while of unsound mind.”
CHAPTER XXX.
SIR BERNARD’S DECISION
For fully a week I saw nothing of Ambler.
Sir Bernard was unwell, and remained down at Hove; therefore I was compelled to attend to his practice. There were several serious cases, the patients being persons of note; thus I was kept very busy.
My friend’s silence was puzzling. I wrote to him, but received no response. A wire to his office in the City elicited the fact that Mr. Jevons was out of town. Probably he was still pursuing the inquiry he had so actively taken up. Nevertheless, I was dissatisfied that he should leave me so entirely in the dark as to his intentions and discoveries.
Ethelwynn came to town for the day, and I spent several hours shopping with her. She was strangely nervous, and all the old spontaneous gaiety seemed to have left her. She had read in the papers of the curious connection between the death of the man Lane and that of her unfortunate sister; therefore our conversation was mainly upon the river mystery. Sometimes she seemed ill at ease with me, as though fearing some discovery. Perhaps, however, it was merely my fancy.
I loved her. She was all the world to me; and yet in her eyes I seemed to read some hidden secret which she was endeavouring, with all the power at her command, to conceal. In such circumstances there was bound to arise between us a certain reserve that we had not before known. Her conversation was carried on in a mechanical manner, as though distracted by her inner thoughts; and when, after having tea together in Bond Street, we drove to the station, and I saw her off on her return to Neneford, my mind was full of darkest apprehensions.
Yes. That interview convinced me more than ever that she was, in some manner, cognisant of the truth. The secret existence of old Mr. Courtenay, the man whom I myself had pronounced dead, was the crowning point of the strange affair; and yet I felt by some inward intuition that this fact was not unknown to her.
All the remarkable events of that moonlit night when I had followed husband and wife along the river-bank came back to me, and I saw vividly the old man’s face, haggard and drawn, just as it had been in life. Surely there could be no stranger current of events than those which formed the Seven Secrets. They were beyond explanation – all of them. I knew nothing. I had certainly seen results; but I knew not their cause.
Nitrate of amyl was not a drug which a costermonger would select with a view to committing suicide. Indeed, I daresay few of my readers, unless they are doctors or chemists, have ever before heard of it. Therefore my own conclusion, fully endorsed by the erratic Ambler, was that the poor fellow had been secretly poisoned.
Nearly a fortnight passed, and I heard nothing of Ambler. He was still “out of town.” Day by day passed, but nothing of note transpired. Sir Bernard was still suffering from a slight touch of sciatica at home, and on visiting him one Sunday I found him confined to his bed, grumbling and peevish. He was eccentric in his miserly habits and his hatred of society, beyond doubt; and the absurdities which his enemies attributed to him were not altogether unfounded. But he had, at all events, the rare quality of entertaining for his profession a respect nearly akin to enthusiasm. Indeed, according to his views, the faculty possessed almost infallible qualities. In confidence he had more than once admitted to me that certain of his colleagues practising in Harley Street were amazing donkeys; but he would never have allowed anyone else to say so. From the moment a man acquired that diploma which gave him the right over life and death, that man became, in his eyes, an august personage for the world at large. It was a crime, he thought, for a patient not to submit to his decision, and certainly it must be admitted that his success in the treatment of nervous disorders had been most remarkable.
“You were at that lecture by Deboutin, of Paris, the other day!” he exclaimed to me suddenly, while I was seated at his bedside describing the work I had been doing for him in London. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going there?”
“I went quite unexpectedly – with a friend.”
“With whom?”
“Ambler Jevons.”
“Oh, that detective fellow!” laughed the old physician. “Well,” he added, “it was all very interesting, wasn’t it?”
“Very – especially your own demonstrations. I had no idea that you were in correspondence with Deboutin.”
He laughed; then, with a knowing look, said:
“Ah, my dear fellow, nowadays it doesn’t do to tell anyone of your own researches. The only way is to spring it upon the profession as a great triumph: just as Koch did his cure for tuberculosis. One must create an impression, if only with a quack remedy. The day of the steady plodder is past; it’s all hustle, even in medicine.”
“Well, you certainly did make an impression,” I said, smiling. “Your experiments were a revelation to the profession. They were talking of them at the hospital only yesterday.”
“H’m. They thought me an old fogey, eh? But, you see, I’ve been keeping pace with the times, Boyd. A man to succeed nowadays must make a boom with something, it matters not what. For years I’ve been experimenting in secret, and some day I will show them further results of my researches – and they will come upon the profession like a thunderclap, staggering belief.”
The old man chuckled to himself as he thought of his scientific triumph, and how one day he would give forth to the world a truth hitherto unsuspected.
We chatted for a long time, mostly upon technicalities which cannot interest the reader, until suddenly he said:
“I’m getting old, Boyd. These constant attacks I have render me unfit to go to town and sit in judgment on that pack of silly women who rush to consult me whenever they have a headache or an erring husband. I think that very soon I ought to retire. I’ve done sufficient hard work all the years since I was a ‘locum’ down in Oxfordshire. I’m worn out.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “You mustn’t retire yet. If you did, the profession would lose one of its most brilliant men.”
“Enough of compliments,” he snapped, turning wearily on his pillow. “I’m sick to death of it all. Better to retire while I have fame, than to outlive it. When I give up you will step into my shoes, Boyd, and it will be a good thing for you.”
Such a suggestion was quite unexpected. I had never dreamed that he contemplated handing over his practice to me. Certainly it would be a good thing for me if he did. It would give me a chance such as few men ever had. True, I was well known to his patients and had worked hard in his interests, but that he intended to hand his practice over to me I had never contemplated. Hence I thanked him most heartily. Yes, Sir Bernard had been my benefactor always.
“All the women know you,” he went on in his snappish way. “You are the only man to take my place. They would come to you; but not to a new man. All I can hope is that they won’t bore you with their domestic troubles – as they have done me,” and he smiled.
“Oh,” I said. “More than once I, too, have been compelled to listen to the domestic secrets of certain households. It really is astonishing what a woman will tell her doctor, even though he may be young.”
The old man laughed again.
“Ah!” he sighed. “You don’t know women as I know them, Boyd. You’ve got your experience to gain. Then you’ll hold them in abhorrence – just as I do. They call me a woman-hater,” he grunted. “Perhaps I am – for I’ve had cause to hold the feminine mind and the feminine passion equally in contempt.”
“Well,” I laughed, “there’s not a man in London who is more qualified to speak from personal experience than yourself. So I anticipate a pretty rough time when I’ve had years of it, as you have.”
“And yet you want to marry!” he snapped, looking me straight in the face. “Of course, you love Ethelwynn Mivart. Every man at your age loves. It is a malady that occurs in the ’teens and declines in the thirties. I should have thought that your affection of the heart had been about cured. It is surely time it was.”
“It is true that I love Ethelwynn,” I declared, rather annoyed, “and I intend to marry her.”
“If you do, then you’ll spoil all your chances of success. The class of women who are my patients would much rather consult a confirmed bachelor than a man who has a jealous wife hanging to his coat-tails. The doctor’s wife must always be a long-suffering person.”
I smiled; and then our conversation turned upon his proposed retirement, which was to take place in six months’ time.
I returned to London by the last train, and on entering my room found a telegram from Ambler making an appointment to call on the following evening. The message was dated from Eastbourne, and was the first I had received from him for some days.
Next morning I sat in Sir Bernard’s consulting-room as usual, receiving patients, and the afternoon I spent on the usual hospital round. About six o’clock Ambler arrived, drank a brandy and soda with a reflective air, and then suggested that we might dine together at the Cavour – a favourite haunt of his.
At table I endeavoured to induce him to explain his movements and what he had discovered; but he was still disinclined to tell me anything. He worked always in secret, and until facts were clear said nothing. It was a peculiarity of his to remain dumb, even to his most intimate friends concerning any inquiries he was making. He was a man of moods, with an active mind and a still tongue – two qualities essential to the successful unravelling of mysteries.
Having finished dinner we lit cigars, and took a cab back to my rooms. On passing along Harley Street it suddenly occurred to me that in the morning I had left a case of instruments in Sir Bernard’s consulting-room, and that I might require them for one of my patients if called that night.
Therefore I stopped the cab, dismissed it, and knocked at Sir Bernard’s door. Ford, on opening it, surprised me by announcing that his master, whom I had left in bed on the previous night, had returned to town suddenly, but was engaged.
Ambler waited in the hall, while I passed along to the door of the consulting-room with the intention of asking permission to enter, as I always did when Sir Bernard was engaged with a patient.
On approaching the door, however, I was startled by hearing a woman’s voice raised in angry, reproachful words, followed immediately by the sound of a scuffle, and then a stifled cry. Without further hesitation I turned the handle.
The door was locked.