The Vanishing Man Part 23

My credentials being found satisfactory, the door was unlocked and I entered, accompanied by three enterprising reporters, whom, however, the sergeant summarily ejected and locked out, returning to usher me into the presence and to observe my proceedings with intelligent but highly embarra.s.sing interest.

The bones were laid out on a large table and covered with a sheet, which the sergeant slowly turned back, watching my face intently as he did so to note the impression that the spectacle made upon me. I imagine that he must have been somewhat disappointed by my impa.s.sive demeanour, for the remains suggested to me nothing more than a rather shabby set of "student's osteology." The whole collection had been set out (by the police-surgeon, as the sergeant informed me) in their proper anatomical order; notwithstanding which I counted them over carefully to make sure that none were missing, checking them by the list with which Thornd.y.k.e had furnished me.

"I see you have found the left thigh-bone," I remarked, observing that this did not appear in the list.

"Yes," said the sergeant; "that turned up yesterday evening in a big pond called Baldwin's Pond in the Sand-pit plain, near Little Monk Wood."

"Is that near here?" I asked.

"In the forest up Loughton way," was the reply.

I made a note of the fact (on which the sergeant looked as if he was sorry he had mentioned it), and then turned my attention to a general consideration of the bones before examining them in detail. Their appearance would have been improved and examination facilitated by a thorough scrubbing, for they were just as they had been taken from their respective resting-places, and it was difficult to decide whether their reddish-yellow colour was an actual stain or due to a deposit on the surface. In any case, as it affected them all alike, I thought it an interesting feature and made a note of it. They bore numerous traces of their sojourn in the various ponds from which they had been recovered, but these gave me little help in determining the length of time during which they had been submerged. They were, of course, encrusted with mud, and little wisps of pond-weed stuck to them in places; but these facts furnished only the vaguest measure of time.

Some of the traces were, indeed, more informing. To several of the bones, for instance, there adhered the dried egg-cl.u.s.ters of the common pond-snail, and in one of the hollows of the right shoulder-blade (the "infra-spinous fossa") was a group of the mud-built tubes of the red river-worm. These remains gave proof of a considerable period of submersion, and since they could not have been deposited on the bones until all the flesh had disappeared, they furnished evidence that some time--a month or two, at any rate--had elapsed since this had happened.

Incidentally, too, their distribution showed the position in which the bones had lain, and though this appeared to be of no importance in the existing circ.u.mstances, I made careful notes of the situation of each adherent body, ill.u.s.trating their position by rough sketches.

The sergeant watched my proceedings with an indulgent smile.

"You're making a regular inventory, sir," he remarked, "as if you were going to put 'em up for auction. I shouldn't think those snails' eggs would be much help in identification. And all that has been done already," he added as I produced my measuring-tape.

"No doubt," I replied; "but my business is to make independent observations, to check the others, if necessary." And I proceeded to measure each of the princ.i.p.al bones separately and to compare those of the opposite sides. The agreement in dimensions and general characteristics of the pairs of bones left little doubt that all were parts of one skeleton, a conclusion that was confirmed by the eburnated patch on the head of the right thigh-bone and the corresponding patch in the socket of the right hip-bone. When I had finished my measurements I went over the entire series of bones in detail, examining each with the closest attention for any of those signs which Thornd.y.k.e had indicated, and eliciting nothing but a monotonously reiterated negative. They were distressingly and disappointingly normal.

"Well, sir, and what do you make of 'em?" the sergeant asked cheerfully as I shut up my note-book and straightened my back. "Whose bones are they? Are they Mr. Bellingham's, think ye?"

"I should be very sorry to say whose bones they are," I replied. "One bone is very much like another, you know."

"I suppose it is," he agreed; "but I thought that, with all that measuring and all those notes, you might have arrived at something definite." Evidently he was disappointed in me; and I was somewhat disappointed in myself when I contrasted Thornd.y.k.e's elaborate instructions with the meagre result of my investigations. For what did my discoveries amount to? And how much was the inquiry advanced by the few entries in my note-book?

The bones were apparently those of a man of fair though not remarkable muscular development; over thirty years of age, but how much older I was unable to say. His height I judged roughly to be five feet eight inches, but my measurements would furnish data for a more exact estimate by Thornd.y.k.e. Beyond this the bones were quite uncharacteristic. There were no signs of disease either local or general, no indications of injuries either old or recent, no departures of any kind from the normal or usual; and the dismemberment had been effected with such care that there was not a single scratch on any of the separated surfaces. Of adipocere (the peculiar waxy or soapy substance that is commonly found in bodies that have slowly decayed in damp situations) there was not a trace; and the only remnant of the soft structures was a faint indication, like a spot of dried glue, of the tendon on the tip of the right elbow.

The sergeant was in the act of replacing the sheet, with the air of a showman who has just given an exhibition, when there came a sharp rapping on the mortuary door. The officer finished spreading the sheet with official precision, and having ushered me out into the lobby, turned the key and admitted three persons, holding the door open after they had entered for me to go out. But the appearance of the new-comers inclined me to linger. One of them was a local constable, evidently in official charge; a second was a labouring man, very muddy and wet, who carried a small sack; while in the third I thought I scented a professional brother.

The sergeant continued to hold the door open.

"Nothing more I can do for you, sir?" he asked genially.

"Is that the divisional surgeon?" I inquired.

"Yes. I am the divisional surgeon," the new-comer answered. "Did you want anything of me?"

"This," said the sergeant, "is a medical gentleman who has got permission from the coroner to inspect the remains. He is acting for the family of the deceased--I mean, for the family of Mr. Bellingham," he added in answer to an inquiring glance from the surgeon.

"I see," said the latter. "Well, they have found the rest of the trunk, including, I understand, the ribs that were missing from the other part.

Isn't that so, Davis?"

"Yes, sir," replied the constable. "Inspector Badger says all the ribs is here, and all the bones of the neck as well."

"The inspector seems to be an anatomist," I remarked.

The sergeant grinned. "He's a very knowing gentleman, is Mr. Badger. He came down here this morning quite early and spent a long time looking over the bones and checking them by some notes in his pocket-book. I fancy he's got something on, but he was precious close about it."

Here the sergeant shut up rather suddenly--perhaps contrasting his own conduct with that of his superior.

"Let us have these new bones out on the table," said the police-surgeon.

"Take that sheet off, and don't shoot them out as if they were coals.

Hand them out carefully."

The labourer fished out the wet and muddy bones one by one from the sack, and as he laid them on the table the surgeon arranged them in their proper relative positions.

"This has been a neatly executed job," he remarked; "none of your clumsy hacking with a chopper or a saw. The bones have been cleanly separated at the joints. The fellow who did this must have had some anatomical knowledge, unless he was a butcher, which, by the way, is not impossible. He has used his knife uncommonly skilfully, and you notice that each arm was taken off with the scapula attached, just as a butcher takes off a shoulder of mutton. Are there any more bones in that bag?"

"No, sir," replied the labourer, wiping his hands with an air of finality on the posterior aspect of his trousers; "that's the lot."

The surgeon looked thoughtfully at the bones as he gave a final touch to their arrangement, and remarked:

"The inspector is right. All the bones of the neck are there. Very odd.

Don't you think so?"

"You mean--"

"I mean that this very eccentric murderer seems to have given himself such an extraordinary amount of trouble for no reason that one can see.

There are these neck vertebrae, for instance. He must have carefully separated the skull from the atlas instead of just cutting through the neck. Then there is the way he divided the trunk; the twelfth ribs have just come in with this lot, but the twelfth dorsal vertebra to which they belong was attached to the lower half. Imagine the trouble he must have taken to do that, and without cutting or hacking the bones about, either. It is extraordinary. This is rather interesting, by the way.

Handle it carefully."

He picked up the breast-bone daintily--for it was covered with wet mud--and handed it to me with the remark: "That is the most definite piece of evidence we have."

"You mean," I said, "that the union of the two parts into a single ma.s.s fixes this as the skeleton of an elderly man?"

"Yes, that is the obvious suggestion, which is confirmed by the deposit of bone in the rib-cartilages. You can tell the inspector, Davis, that I have checked this lot of bones and that they are all here."

"Would you mind writing it down, sir?" said the constable. "Inspector Badger said I was to have everything in writing."

The surgeon took out his pocket-book, and, while he was selecting a suitable piece of paper, he asked: "Did you form any opinion as to the height of the deceased?"

"Yes, I thought he would be about five feet eight" (here I caught the sergeant's eyes fixed on me with a knowing leer).

"I made it five eight and a half," said the police-surgeon; "but we shall know better when we have seen the lower leg-bones. Where was this lot found, Davis?"

"In the pond just off the road in Lord's Bushes, sir, and the inspector has gone off now to--"

"Never mind where he's gone," interrupted the sergeant. "You just answer questions and attend to your business."

The sergeant's reproof conveyed a hint to me on which I was not slow to act. Friendly as my professional colleague was, it was clear that the police were disposed to treat me as an interloper who was to be kept out of the "know" as far as possible. Accordingly I thanked my colleague and the sergeant for their courtesy, and bidding them adieu until we should meet at the inquest, took my departure and walked away quickly until I found an inconspicuous position from which I could keep the door of the mortuary in view. A few moments later I saw Constable Davis emerge and stride away up the road.

I watched his rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng figure until he had gone as far as I considered desirable, and then I set forth in his wake. The road led straight away from the village, and in less than half a mile entered the outskirts of the forest. Here I quickened my pace to close up somewhat, and it was well that I did so, for suddenly he diverged from the road into a green lane, where for a while I lost sight of him. Still hurrying forward, I again caught sight of him just as he turned off into a narrow path that entered a beech wood with a thickish undergrowth of holly, along which I followed him for several minutes, gradually decreasing the distance between us, until suddenly there fell on my ear a rhythmical, metallic sound like the clank of a pump. Soon after I caught the sound of men's voices, and then the constable struck off the path into the wood.

I now advanced more cautiously, endeavouring to locate the search party by the sound of the pump, and when I had done this I made a little detour so that I might approach from the opposite direction to that from which the constable had appeared.