The straw hat murders, p.8
The Straw Hat Murders, page 8
“Well, Huntoon, if hate or jealousy were involved, I could understand it. Otherwise not.”
“Oh, they found out. A book of his best true crime stories had been turned down by scores of publishers. He was infuriated by it. But was still more so when he came across, later, a book of mine which I’d got published—with 12 unsolved ones. That was what just burned him up. A book of stories of crimes—without even the solutions. So when in Chicago, changing over from one rail line to another, he decided, almost on the spur of the moment—while near the Phone Building—to call me up in London—spoof me—but make me part with my precious $20 American goldpiece, and thus get satisfaction for himself.
“Incidentally,” said Cambourne, with a chuckle, “I’d rushed downstairs after the call, and paid Blind Tom 5 pounds for the coin. And have it yet. But the blighter’s call did cost me the 5 pounds.”
“Well are you sure, at that, Huntoon, there was nothing to his confession?”
“Absolutely. There was nothing. A comparison of dates showed he was in an iron lung over a period containing two of those murders. And at a track meet, 3000 miles away, judging events, during another. Was in some school, studying some course, at another, and gave a speech that very day in his class. And he was in Hawaii, at the other. Not one of those killings but that he had a 100-percent alibi for.”
“Well,” said Guy Standidge of Africa, “resentment can do it. His resentment should, it seems to me, to have been at a publisher. Not you.”
“Resentment doesn’t always go in the direction we surmise it should. It takes strange paths, like lightning.”
There was a pause.
“But you say, Huntoon,” asked Guy Standidge, “that the murders were—well—illumined eventually?”
“Yes, quite and exactly indeed! Though nothing is known of this officially, yet. Yes, a flood of illumination was at last thrown upon them which was so great and so bedazzling that—well, I can tell you now, and you only of all persons in the world, that the Straw Hat Murders—are solved.”
“Solved? Well, well! And by whom—if I may ask?”
“We-ell,” said Cambourne, a bit embarrassedly, “by me. Huntoon Cambourne. After 20 trying and sterile years. Yes, by me!”
CHAPTER XX
“A New Technique”
Guy Standidge, of Kenya, Africa, facing his old friend of lower school days, now high up in Scotland Yard, but stared helplessly.
“You mean, Huntoon, you solved them over here—by—by ratiocination?—and by deduction?—and by—”
“No, Guy, I didn’t. I solved them, strange to relate, by applying a strange new technique which itself is applicable to crime only, to those crimes. It was set forth in full detail, with many examples culled from old crimes of record, in the Criminological Review of London, of some time back. The technique has to be applied, however, at the site of the crime.”
“How interesting! To think that some bright newcomer to the trade of criminal catching should have written an article that you—old war dog in the field!—should have—who may he have been?”
“Oh, he—oh by the way, may I ask a question, Guy? Your oldest daughter? Whom did she marry?”
“Oh, she married a chap out at home named Basil Broadhurst, who got himself killed by the Mau Maus. She still runs the ranch. Has three children. What has that to do with the Criminological Review or—”
“Well—ah—nothing. Nothing, I confess.”
“Good. Evidently you feared you’d forgotten to ask me that before I settled down here in this chair. Well, once again, who was the new bright young man in your field who cooked up something that could apply to those old American cases?”
“Well, his name was—but Guy, wait! I have one question to ask you. Did your brother ever recover the $50,000 he had in that bank in New York that failed?”
“Well, yes. Yes. He had fortunately put it into a trust fund, payable to himself, prior to the failure. Trust funds are inviolate, you know. The bank could guarantee $50,000 placed thuswise, whereas $10,000 was the limit on United States Federal insurance of accounts, both savings and checking. So he got all of it back.”
“Oh, I am so glad to hear that! Drury was such a fine chap. So—”
“So am I glad to hear it! Well, now—back again. Who was the bright young criminologist who perfected a new technique of criminological analysis—or something—and made it possible for you to somehow apply it—or have it applied for you in Chicago—to the Straw Hat Murders?”
Huntoon Cambourne had thrown up his hands. His face was beet red.
“Well—ah—his name was Cambourne. Like mine. Huntoon, yes. Yes, Guy, I used my own fool method—almost reluctantly and practically without any faith in it—and brought home—the bacon!”
CHAPTER XXI
“Re-Play!”
“Well now!” said the man from Africa with a laugh. “Whose method, after all, is better than one’s own? I’m all ears, Huntoon.”
“Thank you,” said Cambourne, his red fading a bit—or so he hoped! “Well, Guy, I have been impressed, during recent years, after studying and analyzing scores—even hundreds—of solved crime cases in our files, by the fact that the criminal in most cases invariably betrayed his—now what shall I call it?—his category—social, financial, or any of 99 other ‘categories’—by the pattern of the way he performed the steps in his crime.”
“A thing,” said Guy Standidge dryly, “somewhat facilely elicitable, I take it, after the case was closed, and the criminal had confessed or been convicted?”
“Alas, yes! Those things come up beautifully when the thing is an accomplished fact, and all the facts are in, and you can analyze the whole. When, however, one is confronted with a crime enigma—and doesn’t know Mr. Criminal—doesn’t know Mr. Criminal’s steps—it’s purely academic. It’s—
“But nevertheless,” went on Cambourne, “there are countless cases where a considerable number of the steps the criminal has to take, and participate in, are known—have to be known—by the very things he did. It began to be evident to me that had someone—particularly one not of his category—aye, that’s important!—done the steps, there would have been a differentiation in the ‘doing’ due to ‘category’. And—but perhaps I don’t make myself clear, Guy. But I shall.
“Yes, it occurred to me that, given a series of known steps in the committing of a crime, they should be faithfully re-played by an observer or analyst—by two, even—three, perhaps, so as not to accidentally use one in the same category as the criminal—and find the ‘differential’ that set the category of the crime. For there are 7,000,000 people in London, don’t you know, and if we even cut the unknown criminal down to brown-eyed people, we have cut him down to, say one in 3,500,000!—not quite true at that, is it, Guy, considering the so-many people of English extraction that are blue-eyed—but you get the example, I’m sure—well, if we cut him down also to somebody worth 2,000,000 pounds, we cut him down to perhaps one in 70—there are, I happen to know, about 70 persons of great wealth in London, possessing brown eyes—how that has come out, I won’t go into, nor—well, if we cut him down into a limited category, we get rid of, sometimes, millions of possible persons—we—
“Oh,” qualified Cambourne, “such ‘re-playing’ could not be done—cannot be done—in the case of many criminal operations. Because the steps in the operations are just not known! Now take the case of, say, a girl found shot dead by a roadside. Yes, thrown out of a car. We cannot play out the steps in that crime. Cannot even, from the two steps known, find out even the sex of her killer. Who could have been a woman. The girl could have been given a lift—she could have been riding with a lover—she could have been riding with her husband—she could even have been riding in either direction—at any time of day, or even night, perhaps—we just have nothing, in such a case, but two steps—the pressure of a gun to her head, the heave-ho over onto the road side edge. Two steps! Of almost no utility for ‘re-play’.
“But, given a good series of steps, the thing begins to be—different. By studying countless cases, I found that the chance of the ‘differential’ coming up—yes, the ‘differential’ being the difference in the carrying-out of the steps that revealed the ‘category’ of the original carrier-outer!—the chance of the differential coming up was some sort of—of exponential power involving the number of steps, or near-consecutive steps, that could be re-played. Oh, not the square, no. The square wasn’t involved. For, given the square, there would be about 64 times the chance to catch the ‘differential’ in 8 steps than in 2. It was some power, however. Call it, if you like, 11/10th! Or what you want. But, given many steps, the chance grew great, very great. And—again, Guy, given a shorter time-sequence of the steps, or shall I better put it, a short time run for a series of steps that could take longer, the less certain it is a differential could be elicited. Or at least correctly so. For the very simple reason that the carrying-out of the steps under high-pressure may leave out steps that are definitely required for the elicitation of the differential.
“As, say,” drove on Cambourne, “if a man has enough leisure time during commission of a crime inside, say, a residence to straighten out, from a number of paintings on a wall which have been all knocked awry by a boxing match, and not put to rights again since, or by the vibration outside of a heavy motor lorry or whatnot—to straighten out a quiet little thing by some master—he’s at least—an art connoisseur; if he neglects to touch it, but does right some 3-shilling nude, he’s a lusty wretch, or a roué or something. But if he’s so hard-pressed for time he does neither, we get neither categorization. But I think you get the point of the time element having much to do with the ‘re-play’ accuracy. And—
“But now you would, I am sure, like some example of all this. Well, to recount many examples would take considerable time. And to cite them in detail would take forever. But I will try to give you one example anyway. To at least illustrate the point.
“Now there was a case of burglary in a house in Vine Place, Swallow Street. Directly broken into was a study in which was concealed, not too artfully, a diamond necklace, which was purloined.
“Now at the hour this was occurring, the study was ‘bugged’. That means that neither its door—nor its window—could be opened—without a signal being given at some distant watch quarters. This the criminal plainly knew. That meant—well, you tell me?”
“Oh, it meant the culprit knew he must operate very swiftly—once he was in. For it would be then but a matter of a minute or so before a car would be there, with armed men in it—is that the case?”
“Quite so. The distance factor here permitted a few minutes in the place, rather than just one. As a matter of fact, the entrance, by use of duplicate key, and exit, were timed. From a distance. A man, working late in a house rearward of this house but facing on another street, seeing lights go on in this place, timed them. Seeing them go off very quickly, he timed them, too. Then, knocking over of a faience clock on the way out by the prowler confirmed the hour of ‘out’, in another way. Yes, the whole entrance, and emergence out of the place, was a matter of less than a minute.
“A great many things, however, were done inside the study. One of the things being, as you can now surmise, the putting on of light by a push-button wall switch. Another, the drawing down of shade, by a cord carrying a polished copper ball. The outstanding thing was the removal of an ornamental platter in the middle of a library table composed of parquetry work, and the removal of a small 2-inch square mahogany block, covering a repository. Yes, a repository in which the diamond necklace was secreted. A pendulum wall-clock in the room was stopped—yes, its pendulum brought to a stop—its hour hand re-set to a new position to indicate a different ‘entering time’. For an alibi, yes. A wall-switch over a radio cabinet turned on. The radio set for police calls. The inner bolt of the door was shot. In the event of ambuscade—a chance to shoot things out maybe, who knows? A tiny violin on the floor, between two points, was picked up and tossed out of the way. A ceiling light directly over the table was put on, by a cord holding a nickel-plated ball.
“A number of operations, yes. In all—on all described, and others—he left the fingerprints of his right hand, or thumb and fingers. The prints were not of record. He wasn’t worried about this at all. He didn’t use rubber gloves. Wasn’t afraid of any ‘police record’.
“Well, that was one case where I decided to do ‘re-play’. And ordered it done. Had to watch another do it. For I was burned in my own hands at the time by a small oil explosion at home. My hands were in gauze. I had to watch things.
“Though we were handicapped there by the short time-space of the sequence of the action that had been employed—yes, by the fact that the operator had had to work swiftly—that very thing—helped us! We didn’t know the exact sequence of operations, no. But we could estimate different possible—or probable—sequences. Knowing at least Operation I, the main one, the entrance, and the final one, the emergence from the place. Yes, we had several hypothetical sequences. And re-played them all. But do you know, Guy, what came outstandingly out in the re-play of every sequence?”
“Heavens, no. What?”
“Inevitably it came up, that in any pattern of operations of his, carried out in that short time, a perpetrator doing a job with his right hand, would have done another job almost simultaneously with his left. A fact! The most flagrant was in closing the door. And snapping on the room lights. To do both of his operations in his way, he would have had to reach over a wall cabinet, across himself—and turn them on. Again, the clock. He should, by rights, have set the clock hand with his right hand—brought the bob of the pendulum to a stop with his left—or, conversely, set the clock with his left, and brought the bob to a stop with his right. No matter what his pattern of actions selected, some of his operations would have had to be left-handed, given right-handedness of the operator or criminal. And given, also, the short 60 seconds or so of time he had available. Given a longer time, he could have strolled around leisurely, done this, done that, using yes, his convenient and practiced right hand. But, in that short time, he must have worked at high speed.
“Well, it simply meant—that he had only one arm! In short, his category—and in this case in a physical sense—was ‘one-armedness’. Now there are many one-armed people in London—but, believe me, no seven million of them! And the identity of all can be elicited, more or less, by one means or another—clinic and hospital records—artificial arm makers—aid or assistance to the incapacitated records. Believe me, a one-armedness really cuts down the search. There was, however, in the case, one more differential elicited. Which, combined with the fact of—Well, the fellow who had entered had poured himself a drink of whisky from a bottle on a tray, with soda and wineglasses on it. He had not mixed it. No, the soda bottle had not had its spigot pushed—nor was the soda down one iota. No mixing glass had the fellow used. Just the whisky glass.
“Even when replaying it all out, in virtual sequence, and now even knowing that our man was one-armed, and having to extract the whisky bottle cork with his teeth, as must have been the original case, my assistant just could not play that operation without pouring the whisky into a new glass and then shooting in some soda. When I ordered him to re-play it—exactly as the one fingerprint-marred glass showed it had been played originally—he still couldn’t do it without shooting in some soda into the drinking glass, small though it was. He couldn’t down it, otherwise!
“Well the play as it had been originally could then only mean a barfly, with a red nose from inflammation of the stomach lining. There are thousands of so-called bar-flies down in the east end of London. Thousands!
“But ah me! A ‘one-armed barfly’—now that really cut the search—down. We found such a one easily. One, Loudmouth Bill Tewks, a one-time bricklayer living on the end of a huge settlement awarded him for injury on the job—injury which had cost him his arm. Yes, and pulling him in, we soon got the story of the tipoff of the diamond being in the table recess—plus an imprint of the study key—having been given him by a maid in that house who had died after she gave it to him.
“So there you are! I’m sure you have the idea now. ‘Re-play’ gave a double categorization. The one phase of it, only, gave the most vital part of the double-categorization, viz, the ‘one-armedness’. Re-play of any crime, however,—given a knowledge of some of its steps—can well give a categorization that can narrow down, tremendously, the search for the guilty person involved. And—
“But that, in short, was the theme of my article in the Criminological Review. The necessity of one reasonably normal-in-all-respects person re-playing the whole crime, if possible, or as much of it as can be. With the extraction, of course, of the original perpetrator’s category. Re-playing it, yes. To find the point—or rather points—at which the criminal deviated, in method of its commission—or even more, in—in sequence of its various steps!—from what we ourselves, normal persons, will give to it. I emphasized strongly in my article that, given an unusually large number of steps—steps, I mean, absolutely known to have been followed, or having had to be followed, and even better, known to have taken place in some assured sequence based on cause and effect, or by urgency, or what-have-you—re-play was a ‘must’. And—
“So this brings me, Guy, to my trip to America a month ago. Yes, to Chicago itself. On business. For one thing, I was to give an address over there, to a certain society, on certain records-keeping employed by Scotland Yard. Also, to get a deposition accusing a man we had under lock and key, from a man who had said he would give it only to me—and in person. I went too because, confound it, I needed a holiday.
“Well, the famous city hadn’t changed very much in 20 years, I must say! There were quite a number of all-glass skyscrapers up. And the great Prudential Insurance Building, carrying a slab from our Rock of Gibraltar imbedded in its front, was truly a most stupendous sight. Dining in the evening in the Skytower Room there, it was quite a thrill—yes, to see ‘London of the West’ down there, twinkling in the form of myriads of lights.
