The Vanishing Man Part 44

"3. He might have been murdered by some stranger for the sake of his portable property. This was highly improbable for the same reason: his body could hardly have failed to be identified.

"These three explanations are what we may call the outside explanations.

They touched none of the parties mentioned; they were all obviously improbable on general grounds; and to all of them there was one conclusive answer--the scarab which was found in G.o.dfrey Bellingham's garden. Hence I put them aside and gave my attention to the fourth explanation. This was that the missing man had been made away with by one of the parties mentioned in the report. But, since the reports mentioned three parties, it was evident that there was a choice of three hypotheses, namely:

"(_a_) That John Bellingham had been made away with by Hurst; or (_b_) by the Bellinghams; or (_c_) by Mr. Jellicoe.

"Now, I have constantly impressed on my pupils that the indispensable question that must be asked at the outset of such an inquiry as this is, 'When was the missing person last undoubtedly seen or known to be alive?' That is the question that I asked myself after reading the newspaper report; and the answer was, that he was last certainly seen alive on the fourteenth of October, nineteen hundred and two, at 141 Queen Square, Bloomsbury. Of the fact that he was alive at that time and place there could be no doubt whatever; for he was seen at the same moment by two persons, both of whom were intimately acquainted with him, and one of whom, Doctor Norbury, was apparently a disinterested witness.

After that date he was never seen, alive or dead, by any person who knew him and was able to identify him. It was stated that he had been seen on the twenty-third of November following by the housemaid of Mr. Hurst; but as this person was unacquainted with him, it was uncertain whether the person whom she saw was or was not John Bellingham.

"Hence the disappearance dated, not from the twenty-third of November, as everyone seems to have a.s.sumed, but from the fourteenth of October; and the question was not, 'What became of John Bellingham after he entered Mr. Hurst's house?' but, 'What became of him after his interview in Queen Square?'

"But as soon as I had decided that that interview must form the real starting-point of the inquiry, a most striking set of circ.u.mstances came into view. It became obvious that if Mr. Jellicoe had had any reason for wis.h.i.+ng to make away with John Bellingham, he had such an opportunity as seldom falls to the lot of an intending murderer.

"Just consider the conditions. John Bellingham was known to be setting out alone upon a journey beyond the sea. His exact destination was not stated. He was to be absent for an undetermined period, but at least three weeks. His disappearance would occasion no comment; his absence would lead to no inquiries, at least for several weeks, during which the murderer would have leisure quietly to dispose of the body and conceal all traces of the crime. The conditions were, from a murderer's point of view, ideal.

"But that was not all. During that very period of John Bellingham's absence Mr. Jellicoe was engaged to deliver to the British Museum what was admittedly a dead human body; and that body was to be enclosed in a sealed case. Could any more perfect or secure method of disposing of a body be devised by the most ingenious murderer? The plan would have had only one weak point: the mummy would be known to have left Queen Square _after_ the disappearance of John Bellingham, and suspicion might in the end have arisen. To this point I shall return presently; meanwhile we will consider the second hypothesis--that the missing man was made away with by Mr. Hurst.

"Now, there seemed to be no doubt that some person, purporting to be John Bellingham, did actually visit Mr. Hurst's house; and he must either have left that house or remained in it. If he left, he did so surrept.i.tiously; if he remained, there could be no reasonable doubt that he had been murdered and that his body had been concealed. Let us consider the probabilities in each case.

"a.s.suming--as everyone seems to have done--that the visitor was really John Bellingham, we are dealing with a responsible, middle-aged gentleman, and the idea that such a person would enter a house, announce his intention of staying, and then steal away un.o.bserved is very difficult to accept. Moreover, he would appear to have come down to Eltham by rail immediately on landing in England, leaving his luggage in the cloak-room at Charing Cross. This pointed to a definiteness of purpose quite inconsistent with his casual disappearance from the house.

"On the other hand, the idea that he might have been murdered by Hurst was not inconceivable. The thing was physically possible. If Bellingham had really been in the study when Hurst came home, the murder could have been committed--by appropriate means--and the body temporarily concealed in the cupboard or elsewhere. But, although possible, it was not at all probable. There was no real opportunity. The risk and the subsequent difficulties would be very great; there was not a particle of positive evidence that a murder had occurred; and the conduct of Hurst in immediately leaving the house in possession of the servants is quite inconsistent with the supposition that there was a body concealed in it.

So that, while it is almost impossible to believe that John Bellingham left the house of his own accord, it is equally difficult to believe that he did not leave it.

"But there is a third possibility, which, strange to say, no one seems to have suggested. Supposing that the visitor was not John Bellingham at all, but someone who was personating him? That would dispose of the difficulties completely. The strange disappearance ceases to be strange, for a personator would necessarily make off before Mr. Hurst should arrive and discover the imposture. But if we accept this supposition, we raise two further questions: 'Who was the personator?' and 'What was the object of the personation?'

"Now, the personator was clearly not Hurst himself, for he would have been recognised by his housemaid; he was therefore either G.o.dfrey Bellingham or Mr. Jellicoe or some other person; and as no other person was mentioned in the newspaper reports I confined my speculations to these two.

"And, first, as to G.o.dfrey Bellingham. It did not appear whether he was or was not known to the housemaid, so I a.s.sumed--wrongly, as it turns out--that he was not. Then he might have been the personator. But why should he have personated his brother? He could not have already committed the murder. There had not been time enough. He would have had to leave Woodford before John Bellingham had set out from Charing Cross.

And even if he had committed the murder, he would have had no object in raising this commotion. His cue would have been to remain quiet and know nothing. The probabilities were all against the personator being G.o.dfrey Bellingham.

"Then could it be Mr. Jellicoe? The answer to this question is contained in the answer to the further question: What could have been the object of the personation?

"What motive could this unknown person have had in appearing, announcing himself as John Bellingham, and forthwith vanis.h.i.+ng? There could only have been one motive: that, namely, of fixing the date of John Bellingham's disappearance--of furnis.h.i.+ng a definite moment at which he was last seen alive.

"But who was likely to have had such a motive? Let us see.

"I said just now that if Mr. Jellicoe had murdered John Bellingham and disposed of the body in the mummy-case, he would have been absolutely safe for the time being. But there would be a weak spot in his armour.

For a month or more the disappearance of his client would occasion no remark. But presently, when he failed to return, inquiries would be set on foot; and then it would appear that no one had seen him since he left Queen Square. Then it would be noted that the last person with whom he was seen was Mr. Jellicoe. It might, further, be remembered that the mummy had been delivered to the Museum some time _after_ the missing man was last seen alive. And so suspicion might arise and be followed by disastrous investigations. But supposing it should be made to appear that John Bellingham had been seen alive more than a month after his interview with Mr. Jellicoe and some weeks after the mummy had been deposited in the Museum? Then Mr. Jellicoe would cease to be in any way connected with the disappearance, and henceforth would be absolutely safe.

"Hence, after carefully considering this part of the newspaper report, I came to the conclusion that the mysterious occurrence at Mr. Hurst's house had only one reasonable explanation, namely, that the visitor was not John Bellingham, but someone personating him; and that that someone was Mr. Jellicoe.

"It remains to consider the case of G.o.dfrey Bellingham and his daughter, though I cannot understand how any sane person can have seriously suspected either" (here Inspector Badger smiled a sour smile). "The evidence against them was negligible, for there was nothing to connect them with the affair save the finding of the scarab on their premises; and that event, which might have been highly suspicious under other circ.u.mstances, was robbed of any significance by the fact that the scarab was found on a spot which had been pa.s.sed a few minutes previously by the other suspected party, Hurst. The finding of the scarab did, however, establish two important conclusions; namely, that John Bellingham had probably met with foul play, and that of the four persons present when it was found, one at least had had possession of the body. As to which of the four was the one, the circ.u.mstances furnished only a hint, which was this: If the scarab had been purposely dropped, the most likely person to find it was the one who dropped it.

And the person who discovered it was Mr. Jellicoe.

"Following up this hint, if we ask ourselves what motive Mr. Jellicoe could have had for dropping it--a.s.suming him to be the murderer--the answer is obvious. It would not be his policy to fix the crime on any particular person, but rather to set up a complication of conflicting evidence which would occupy the attention of investigators and divert it from himself.

"Of course, if Hurst had been the murderer, he would have had a sufficient motive for dropping the scarab, so that the case against Mr.

Jellicoe was not conclusive; but the fact that it was he who found it was highly significant.

"This completes the a.n.a.lysis of the evidence contained in the original newspaper report describing the circ.u.mstances of the disappearance. The conclusions that followed from it were, as you will have seen:

"1. That the missing man was almost certainly dead, as proved by the finding of the scarab after his disappearance.

"2. That he had probably been murdered by one or more of four persons, as proved by the finding of the scarab on the premises occupied by two of them and accessible to the others.

"3. That, of those four persons, one--Mr. Jellicoe--was the last person who was known to have been in the company of the missing man; had had an exceptional opportunity for committing the murder; and was known to have delivered a dead body to the Museum subsequently to the disappearance.

"4. That the supposition that Mr. Jellicoe had committed the murder rendered all the other circ.u.mstances of the disappearance clearly intelligible, whereas on any other supposition they were quite inexplicable.

"The evidence of the newspaper report, therefore, clearly pointed to the probability that John Bellingham had been murdered by Mr. Jellicoe and his body concealed in the mummy-case.

"I do not wish to give you the impression that I, then and there, believed that Mr. Jellicoe was the murderer. I did not. There was no reason to suppose that the report contained all the essential facts, and I merely considered it speculatively as a study in probabilities. But I did decide that that was the only probable conclusion from the facts that were given.

"Nearly two years pa.s.sed before I heard anything more of the case. Then it was brought to my notice by my friend, Doctor Berkeley, and I became acquainted with certain new facts, which I will consider in the order in which they became known to me.

"The first new light on the case came from the will. As soon as I had read that doc.u.ment I felt convinced that there was something wrong. The testator's evident intention was that his brother should inherit the property, whereas the construction of the will was such as almost certainly to defeat that intention. The devolution of the property depended on the burial clause--clause two; but the burial arrangements would ordinarily be decided by the executor, who happened to be Mr.

Jellicoe. Thus the will left the disposition of the property under the control of Mr. Jellicoe, though his action could have been contested.

"Now, this will, although drawn up by John Bellingham, was executed in Mr. Jellicoe's office, as is proved by the fact that it was witnessed by two of his clerks. He was the testator's lawyer, and it was his duty to insist on the will being properly drawn. Evidently he did nothing of the kind, and this fact strongly suggested some kind of collusion on his part with Hurst, who stood to benefit by the miscarriage of the will.

And this was the odd feature in the case; for whereas the party responsible for the defective provisions was Mr. Jellicoe, the party who benefited was Hurst.

"But the most startling peculiarity of the will was the way in which it fitted the circ.u.mstances of the disappearance. It looked as if clause two had been drawn up with those very circ.u.mstances in view. Since, however, the will was ten years old, this was impossible. But if clause two could not have been devised to fit the disappearance, could the disappearance have been devised to fit clause two? That was by no means impossible: under the circ.u.mstances it looked rather probable. And if it had been so contrived, who was the agent in that contrivance? Hurst stood to benefit, but there was no evidence that he even knew the contents of the will. There remained only Mr. Jellicoe, who had certainly connived at the misdrawing of the will for some purpose of his own--some dishonest purpose.

"The evidence of the will, then, pointed to Mr. Jellicoe as the agent in the disappearance, and, after reading it, I definitely suspected him of the crime.

"Suspicion, however, is one thing and proof is another. I had not nearly enough evidence to justify me in laying an information, and I could not approach the Museum officials without making a definite accusation. The great difficulty of the case was that I could discover no motive. I could not see any way in which Mr. Jellicoe would benefit by the disappearance. His own legacy was secure, whenever and however the testator died. The murder and concealment apparently benefited Hurst alone; and, in the absence of any plausible motive, the facts required to be much more conclusive than they were."

"Did you form absolutely no opinion as to motive?" asked Mr. Jellicoe.

He put the question in a quiet, pa.s.sionless tone, as if he were discussing some _cause celebre_ in which he had nothing more than a professional interest. Indeed, the calm, impersonal interest that he displayed in Thornd.y.k.e's a.n.a.lysis, his unmoved attention, punctuated by little nods of approval at each telling point in the argument, were the most surprising features of this astounding interview.

"I did form an opinion," replied Thornd.y.k.e, "but it was merely speculative, and I was never able to confirm it. I discovered that about ten years ago Mr. Hurst had been in difficulties and that he had suddenly raised a considerable sum of money, no one knew how or on what security. I observed that this event coincided in time with the execution of the will, and I surmised that there might be some connection between them. But that was only a surmise; and, as the proverb has it, 'He discovers who proves.' I could prove nothing, so that I never discovered Mr. Jellicoe's motive, and I don't know it now."

"Don't you, really?" said Mr. Jellicoe, in something approaching a tone of animation. He laid down the end of his cigarette, and, as he selected another from the silver case, he continued: "I think that is the most interesting feature of your really remarkable a.n.a.lysis. It does you great credit. The absence of motive would have appeared to most persons a fatal objection to the theory of, what I may call, the prosecution.

Permit me to congratulate you on the consistency and tenacity with which you have pursued the actual, visible facts."

He bowed stiffly to Thornd.y.k.e (who returned his bow with equal stiffness), lighted the fresh cigarette, and once more leaned back in his chair with the calm, attentive manner of a man who is listening to a lecture or a musical performance.

"The evidence, then, being insufficient to act upon," Thornd.y.k.e resumed, "there was nothing for it but to wait for some new facts. Now, the study of a large series of carefully conducted murders brings into view an almost invariable phenomenon. The cautious murderer, in his anxiety to make himself secure, does too much; and it is this excess of precaution that leads to detection. It happens constantly; indeed, I may say that it always happens--in those murders that are detected; of those that are not we say nothing--and I had strong hopes that it would happen in this case. And it did.

"At the very moment when my client's case seemed almost hopeless, some human remains were discovered at Sidcup. I read the account of the discovery in the evening paper, and, scanty as the report was, it recorded enough facts to convince me that the inevitable mistake had been made."

"Did it, indeed?" said Mr. Jellicoe. "A mere, inexpert, hearsay report!

I should have supposed it to be quite valueless from a scientific point of view."

"So it was," said Thornd.y.k.e. "But it gave the date of the discovery and the locality, and it also mentioned what bones had been found. Which were all vital facts. Take the question of time. These remains, after lying _perdu_ for two years, suddenly come to light just as the parties--who have also been lying _perdu_--have begun to take action in respect of the will; in fact, within a week or two of the hearing of the application. It was certainly a remarkable coincidence. And when the circ.u.mstances that occasioned the discovery were considered, the coincidence became still more remarkable. For these remains were found on land actually belonging to John Bellingham, and their discovery resulted from certain operations (the clearing of the watercress-beds) carried out on behalf of the absent landlord. But by whose orders were those works undertaken? Clearly by the orders of the landlord's agent.

But the landlord's agent was known to be Mr. Jellicoe. Therefore these remains were brought to light at this peculiarly opportune moment by the action of Mr. Jellicoe. The coincidence, I say again, was very remarkable.