Mr pottermacks oversight, p.26
Mr Pottermack's Oversight, page 26
“It was a harsh sentence, but that does not concern us, as Mr White did not serve the full term. After about a year of it, he escaped and made his way to the shore of an estuary, and there his clothes were found and a set of footprints across the sand leading into the water. Some six weeks later a nude body was washed up on the shore and was identified as his body. An inquest was held and it was decided that he had been accidentally drowned. Accordingly he was written off the prison books and the records at Scotland Yard as a dead man.
“But he was not dead. The body which was found was probably that of some bather whose clothes Mr White had appropriated in exchange for his own prison clothes. Thus he was able to get away without hindrance and take up a new life elsewhere, no doubt under an assumed name. Probably he went abroad, but this is only surmise. From the moment of his escape from prison he vanishes from our ken, and for the space of about fifteen years remains invisible, his existence apparently unknown to any of his former friends or acquaintances.
“This closes the first part of the history; the part which deals with the person whom my friend whimsically described as ‘the dead man who was alive.’ And now, perhaps, Mr Pottermack, you can tell me whether you have ever heard of a case in any way analogous to this one.”
Mr Pottermack reflected for a few moments. Throughout Thorndyke’s recital he had sat with the feeling of one in a dream. The sense of unreality had again taken possession of him. He had listened with a queer sort of incredulous curiosity to the quiet voice of this inscrutable stranger, relating to him with the calm assurance of some wizard or clairvoyant the innermost secrets of his own life; describing actions and events which he, Pottermack, felt certain could not possibly be known to any human creature but himself. It was all so unbelievable that any sense of danger, of imminent disaster, was merged in an absorbing wonder. But one thing was quite clear to him. Any attempt to deceive or mislead this mysterious stranger would be utterly futile. Accordingly he replied:
“By a most strange coincidence it happens that a case came to my knowledge which was point by point almost identical with yours. But there was one difference. In my case, the guilt of the person who corresponds to your Mr Black was not problematical at all. He admitted it. He even boasted of it and of the clever way in which he had set up Mr White as the dummy to take all the thumps.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Thorndyke. “That is extremely interesting. We must bear that point in mind when we come to examine the details. Now I go on to the second part of the narrative; the part that deals with the ‘live man who was dead.’
“After the lapse of some fifteen years, Mr White came to the surface, so to speak. He made his appearance in a small country town, and from his apparently comfortable circumstances he seemed to have prospered in the interval. But here he encountered a streak of bad luck. By some malignant chance, it happened that Mr Black was installed as manager of the branch bank in that very town, and naturally enough they met. Even then all might have been well but for an unaccountable piece of carelessness on Mr White’s part. He had, by growing a beard and taking to the use of spectacles, made a considerable change in his appearance. But he had neglected one point. He had, it appears, on his right ear a small birthmark. It was not at all conspicuous, but when once observed it was absolutely distinctive.”
“But,” exclaimed Pottermack, “I don’t understand you. You say he neglected this mark. But what could he possibly have done to conceal it?”
“He could have had it obliterated,” replied Thorndyke. “The operation is quite simple in the case of a small mark. The more widespread ‘port-wine mark’ is less easy to treat; but a small spot, such as I understand that this was, can be dealt with quite easily and effectively. Some skin surgeons specialize in the operation. One of them I happen to know personally: Mr Julian Parsons, the dermatologist to St Margaret’s Hospital.”
“Ha,” said Mr Pottermack.
“But,” continued Thorndyke, “to return to our story. Mr White had left his birthmark untreated, and that was probably his undoing. Mr Black would doubtless have been struck by the resemblance, but the birthmark definitely established the identity. At any rate, Mr Black recognized him and forthwith began to levy blackmail. Of course, Mr White was an ideal subject for a blackmailer’s operations. He was absolutely defenceless, for he could not invoke the aid of the law by reason of his unexpired sentence. He had to pay, or go back to prison – or take some private measures.
“At first, it appears that he accepted the position and paid. Probably he submitted to be bled repeatedly, for there is reason to believe that quite considerable sums of money passed. But eventually Mr White must have realized what most blackmailers’ victims have to realize: that there is no end to this sort of thing. The blackmailer is always ready to begin over again. At any rate, Mr White adopted the only practicable alternative to paying out indefinitely. He got Mr Black alone in a secluded garden in which there was a disused well. Probably Mr Black came there voluntarily to make fresh demands. But however that may have been, Mr Black went, dead or alive, down into the well.”
“In the case which came to my knowledge,” said Pottermack, “it was to some extent accidental. He had become rather violent, and in the course of what amounted to a fight he fell across the opening of the well, striking his head heavily on the brick coping, and dropped down in a state of insensibility.”
“Ah,” said Thorndyke, “that may be considered, as you say, to some extent accidental. But probably to a rather small extent. I think we may take it that he would have gone down that well in any case. What do you say?”
“I think I am inclined to agree with you,” replied Pottermack.
“At all events,” said Thorndyke, “down the well he went. And there seemed to be an end of the blackmailer. But it was not quite the end, and the sequel introduces a most interesting feature into the case.
“It appears that the path by which Mr Black approached Mr White’s premises was an earth path, and owing to the peculiar qualities of the soil in that locality, it took the most extraordinarily clear impressions of the feet that trod on it. Now, it happened that Mr Black was wearing shoes with rubber soles and heels of a strikingly distinctive pattern, which left on the earth path impressions of the most glaringly conspicuous and distinctive character. The result was a set of footprints, obviously and certainly those of Mr Black, leading directly to Mr White’s gate and stopping there. This was a most dangerous state of affairs, for as soon as the hue and cry was raised – which it would be immediately in the case of a bank manager – the missing Black would be traced by his footprints to Mr White’s gate. And then the murder would be out.
“Now what was Mr White to do? He could not obliterate those footprints in any practicable manner. So he did the next best – or even better – thing. He continued them past his gate, out into the country and across a heath, on the farther side of which he allowed them discreetly to fade away into the heather.
“It was an admirable plan, and it succeeded perfectly. When the hue and cry was raised, the police followed those tracks like bloodhounds until they lost them on the heath. A photographer with a special camera patiently took samples of the footprints along the whole route, from the place where they started to where they were lost on the heath. But no one suspected Mr White. He did not come into the picture at all. It seemed that he had now nothing to do but to lie low and let the affair pass into oblivion.
“But he did nothing of the kind. Instead, he embarked on a most unaccountable proceeding. Months after the disappearance of Mr Black, when the affair had become nearly forgotten, he proceeded deliberately to revive it. He obtained an Egyptian mummy, and having dressed it in Mr Black’s clothes, or in clothes that had been specially prepared to counterfeit those of Mr Black, he deposited it in a gravel-pit. His reasons for doing this are unknown to my legal friend and are difficult to imagine. But whatever the object may have been, it was attained, for in due course the mummy was discovered and identified as the body of Mr Black, an inquest was held and the mystery of the disappearance finally disposed of.
“That is a bare outline of the case, Mr Pottermack; just sufficient to enable us to discuss it and compare it with the one that you have in mind.”
“It is a very remarkable case,” said Pottermack, “and the most remarkable feature in it is its close resemblance to the one of which I came to hear. In fact, they are so much alike that –”
“Exactly,” interrupted Thorndyke. “The same thought had occurred to us both – that your case and the one related by my legal friend are in reality one and the same.”
“Yes,” agreed Pottermack, “I think they must be. But what is puzzling me is how your legal friend came by the knowledge of these facts, which would seem to have been known to no one but the principal actor.”
“That is what we are going to consider,” said Thorndyke. “But before we begin our analysis, there is one point that I should like to clear up. You said that Mr Black had explicitly admitted his guilt in regard to those forgeries. To whom did he make that admission?”
“To his wife,” replied Pottermack.
“His wife!” exclaimed Thorndyke. “But it was assumed that he was a bachelor.”
“The facts,” said Pottermack, “are rather singular. I had better fill in this piece of detail, which apparently escaped your legal friend’s investigations.
“Mr White, in the days before his troubles befell, was engaged to be married to a very charming girl to whom he was completely devoted and who was equally devoted to him. After Mr White’s reported death, Mr Black sought her friendship and later tried to induce her to marry him. He urged that he had been Mr White’s most intimate friend and that their marriage was what the deceased would have wished. Eventually she yielded to his persuasion and married him, rather reluctantly, since her feeling towards him was merely that of a friend. What his feeling was towards her it is difficult to say. She had some independent means, and it is probable that her property was the principal attraction. That is what the subsequent history suggests.
“The marriage was a failure from the first. Black sponged on his wife, gambled with her money and was constantly in debt and difficulties. Also he drank to an unpleasant extent. But she put up with all this until one day he let out that he had committed the forgeries, and even boasted of his smartness in putting the suspicion on White. Then she left him, and, assuming another name, went away to live by herself, passing herself off as a widow.”
“And as to her husband? How came he to allow this?”
“First, she frightened him by threatening to denounce him; but she also made him an allowance on condition that he should not molest her. He seems to have been rather scared by her threats and he wanted the money, so he took the allowance and as much more as he could squeeze out of her, and agreed to her terms.
“Later Mr White returned to England from America. As he had now quite shed his old identity and was a man of good reputation and comfortably off, he sought her out in the hopes of possibly renewing their old relations. That, in fact, was what brought him to England. Eventually he discovered her, apparently a widow, and had no difficulty in making her acquaintance.”
“Did she recognize him?”
“I think we must assume that she did. But nothing was said. They maintained the fiction that they were new acquaintances. So they became friends. Finally he asked her to marry him, and it was then that he learned, to his amazement, that she had married Mr Black.”
Thorndyke’s face had suddenly become grave. He cast a searching glance at Mr Pottermack and demanded: “When was this proposal of marriage made? I mean, was it before or after the incident of the well?”
“Oh, after, of course. No marriage could have been thought of by Mr White while he was under the thumb of the blackmailer, with the choice of ruin or the prison before him. It was only when the affair was over and everything seemed to be settling down quietly that the marriage seemed to have become possible.”
Thorndyke’s face cleared and a grim smile spread over it. “I see,” he chuckled. “A quaint situation for Mr White. Now, of course, one understands the mummy. His function was to produce a death certificate. Very ingenious. And now I gather that you would like an exposition of the evidence in this case?”
“Yes,” replied Pottermack. “Your legal friend seems to have had knowledge of certain actions of Mr White’s which I should have supposed could not possibly have been known to any person in the world but Mr White himself. I should like to hear how he came by that knowledge if you would be so kind as to enlighten me.”
“Very well,” said Thorndyke, “then we will proceed to consider the evidence in this case; and I must impress on you, Mr Pottermack, the necessity of discriminating clearly between what my legal friend knew and what he inferred, and of observing the point at which inference becomes converted into knowledge by verification or new matter.
“To begin with what my friend knew, on the authority of a director of Mr Black’s bank. He knew that Mr Black had disappeared under very mysterious circumstances. That he had received an urgent and threatening demand from a creditor for the payment of a certain sum of money. That before starting that night he had taken from the monies belonging to the bank a sum of money in notes exactly equal to the amount demanded from him. The reasonable inference was that he set out intending to call on that creditor and pay that money; instead of which, he appeared to have walked straight out of the town into the country, where all trace of him was lost.
“Then my friend learned from the director that, whereas the books of the bank showed Mr Black’s known income and ordinary expenditure, there was evidence of his having paid away large sums of money on gambling transactions, always in cash – mostly five-pound notes; that these sums greatly exceeded his known income, and that his account showed no trace of their having been received. Since he must have received that money before he could have paid it away, he must clearly have had some unknown source of income; and since he had paid it away in cash, and there was no trace of his having received any cheques to these amounts, the inference was that he had received it in cash. I need not remind you, Mr Pottermack, that the receipt of large sums of money in notes or specie is a very significant and rather suspicious circumstance.”
“Might not these sums represent his winnings?” Pottermack asked.
“They might, but they did not, for all the transactions that were traced resulted in losses. Apparently he was the type of infatuated gambler who always loses in the end. So much for Mr Black. Next, my friend learned from the director the circumstances of the forgeries, and he formed the opinion – which was also that of the director – that Mr White had been a victim of a miscarriage of justice and that the real culprit had been Mr Black. He also learned the particulars of Mr White’s escape from prison and alleged death. But he differed from the director in that, being a lawyer with special experience, he did not accept that death as an established fact, but only as a probability, reserving in his mind the possibility of a mistaken identity of the body and that Mr White might have escaped and be still alive.
“Thus, you see, Mr Pottermack, that my friend started with a good deal of knowledge of this case and the parties to it. And now we come to some facts of another kind which carry us on to the stage of inference. The director who furnished my friend with the information that I have summarized also put into his hands a long series of photographs of the footprints of Mr Black, taken by an employee of the bank on the second morning after the disappearance.”
“For what purpose?” asked Mr Pottermack.
“Principally, I suspect, to try a new camera of a special type, but ostensibly to help the investigators to discover what had become of the missing man. They were handed to my friend for his inspection and opinion as to their value for this purpose. Of course, at the first glance they appeared to be of no value at all, but as my friend happens to be deeply interested in footprints as material for evidence, he retained them for further examination in relation to a particular point which he wished to clear up. That point was whether a series of footprints is anything more than a mere multiple of a single footprint; whether it might be possible to extract from a series any kind of evidence that would not be furnished by an individual footprint.
“Evidently, those photographs offered an exceptional opportunity for settling this question. They were in the form of a long paper ribbon on which were nearly two hundred numbered photographs of footprints, and they were accompanied by a twenty-five inch ordnance map on which each footprint was indicated by a numbered dot. The row of dots started at the bank, and then, after a blank interval, entered and followed a footpath which passed along a wall in which was a gate, and which enclosed a large garden or plantation; beyond the wall the dots continued, still on the footpath, between some fields, through a wood and across a heath, on the farther side of which they stopped. A note at the end of the ribbon stated that here the missing man had turned off the path into the heather and that no further traces of him could be found.”
“Well,” remarked Pottermack, “the police could see all that for themselves. It doesn’t seem as if the photographs gave any further information.”
“It does not,” Thorndyke agreed. “And yet a careful examination of those photographs led my friend to the conviction that the missing man had entered the gate in the wall and had never come out again.”
“But,” exclaimed Pottermack, “I understood you to say that the footprints continued past the wall, through the wood and out across the heath.”
