Читать книгу The Indian Bangle - Fergus Hume - Страница 9

Extract from The Morning Planet, July 1, 1891--:--

"Despite the triteness of the proverb, We are constrained to remark with regard to the Athelstane Place murder that once again truth is stranger than fiction. Had one of our writers of detective stories imagined so extraordinary a crime as having taken place in the heart of a busy neighbourhood, within hearing, almost within sight of hundreds of people, he would have been scoffed at for exceeding the bounds of probability. It would, we assert, have been termed exaggeration of the wildest order. But it has been proved possible in fact, and No. 64A, Athelstane Place, Bloomsbury, now enjoys the distinction, albeit no enviable one, of having provided London with a mystery so unfathomable that it is extremely doubtful whether it will ever be plumbed by the keenest of detectives. For the unravelling of so complex a riddle we need the Sergeant Cuff of Wilkie Collins, or the Monsieur Dupin of Edgar Allen Poe--in a word, a fabulous detective such as we have not at the present time amongst us.

"Plainly stated, the facts are these:--A house is taken by a man who calls himself by the, to us, obviously false name of Francis Hain. Beyond the fact that he wore a pair of smoked-glass spectacles, there appears to have been little about him to cause remark. The payment of a quarter's rent in advance appears to have answered satisfactorily those questions which the landlord would otherwise surely have felt it incumbent upon him to ask; at all events, the usual formalities with respect to references were in this case entirely dispensed with. Ostensibly, the house was rented with the object of carrying out certain experiments of a scientific nature. A nameless woman, calling herself the housekeeper, is the active agent between Mr. Hain, so called, and the local tradesmen. Observe, the butcher and the baker see no one but this woman; they neither of them see the tenant of 64A or the deceased. By chance a domestic servant sees both, but naturally enough takes small notice of either. Up to June 26th the housekeeper herself receives the food from the tradesmen, and pays them for it in cash. This, of itself, might or might not be indicative of a preconceived intention to leave the house suddenly. After the 26th the housekeeper is seen no more, and on the 28th the house is broken into, and the dead man's body is discovered. The medical evidence goes to prove that he was done to death on the 26th, and it is from that day also that we lose sight of Mr. Hain. Both tenant and housekeeper vanish as completely as if the earth had swallowed them up. Thus we are deprived of the only two persons who at this time seem to have had any connection with the dead man. Their disappearance, coincident as it is, of itself arouses suspicion. Moreover, by the careful removal of all marks from the linen of the deceased, we are left without what otherwise might have lent an important clue to his identity.

"Here, then, is the problem with which our detective force is confronted. For ourselves, in a case like this, where the elementary facts are so completely concealed, we can at most theorise and surmise. For some reason, impossible to guess, the victim would seem to have been inveigled into the Athelstane Place house. As his right hand was diseased, it is not impossible that he went there, or, as we think, is more likely, was taken there by some accomplice ostensibly to have an operation performed. That a surgical instrument was used we may safely conclude from the evidence of Dr. Rayner. Mr. Hain called himself a scientist, and he may have been that, and that only; but at all events he, if he it was, was evidently skilled in surgery so far as to be able to accomplish an amputation at the wrist neatly. Let us then assume that Mr. Hain was to operate upon the hand of the deceased. The first thing he would do would be to administer an anæsthetic. This in all probability would be chloroform, for as the body was not discovered until two days after death, and as the air was warm during the interval, it is likely that the chloroform would evaporate. We take it, therefore, that the deceased was choloroformed by Mr. Hain with his own consent, since he was about to undergo a painful operation.

"Up to this point our assumption is comparatively clear; but, when we are asked to say why this Mr. Hain should have preferred a knitting-needle to either of the two means which were at his disposal for the accomplishment of his end (we refer, of course, to the instruments which he must have had at hand, and to the chloroform), and further, why the diseased hand, when amputated, should have been thrown into the grate, we confess ourselves absolutely in the dark.

"In short, our assumption, such as it is, becomes hopelessly worthless when separated from evidence wholly circumstantial; and circumstantial evidence is, as we know, frequently misleading. Before we can hope to obtain data more reliable it is necessary first that the deceased be identified, and further, that one, if not both of the persons who were known to be occupants of the house, be traced. We presume that in the ordinary course a full and sufficiently minute description of the deceased man will be disseminated by the police. He is apparently a gentleman, and may be said, therefore, to have occupied a certain social position. It is fair to assume that he has friends and acquaintances who will recognize some, if not all, of the characteristics put forth in the description. Further, he probably has a home if not relatives somewhere in the kingdom, and if he does not return within a reasonable time, inquiries will doubtless be made. It is probably by some such means as this that the deceased will be identified. Once that is done, there may be some chance of capturing his murderer.

"It is remarkable that the deceased's clothes smelled of sandal-wood. This is essentially an Eastern perfume, and a man, especially a gentleman living in England, would hardly be in the habit of using it. We are not aware, indeed, if it is used even in the East as a scent, though many nations of the Far East, such as the Indians and the Chinese--particularly the latter--make chests of sandal-wood. If, then, this unknown man had at any time lived in the East, it is possible he might have been in the habit of keeping his clothes in such a chest, which would account for the odour detected by Inspector Jain.

"This clue is slight; still it is tangible, and it is moreover possible to assume from it that the unknown man came from the East, and further, that his arrival in England must have been comparatively recent, since, had he been here for any length of time he would surely have exchanged this cumbersome box for the portmanteau of Western civilization. We suggest, therefore, to the police that, supposing, of course, nothing be forthcoming from the deceased's relatives or friends, a thorough search be made through the shipping offices and the neighbourhood of the docks for the existence of any passenger answering to the description of the deceased, who might recently have disembarked from one of our great liners.

"Again, we say, the clue is a slight one; but in such a case as this no fact, however insignificant, is unimportant, and the most slender circumstance may, if rigorously followed up, ultimately lead to results wholly unlooked for and disproportionate to it.

"Here, then, is a splendid opportunity for our detectives to cover themselves with glory, and, by the capture of the perpetrator, to prevent this--one of the most terrible crimes of recent days--from being relegated to the already too well-filled limbo of unfathomable mysteries."