An Eye for an Eye Part 12

"I'm utterly at a loss to know," the doctor answered. "Yet it is very curious that upon one of these cards we found beneath the plates there is a circle drawn, while it also seemed that snakes were kept in the house as pets. To my mind all three circ.u.mstances have some connecting significance."

The jury bent together and conversed in whispers. This theory of the doctor's seemed to possess a good deal of truth, even though the mystery was increased rather than diminished.

Many more questions were put to the doctor, after which his colleague, Dr. Lynes, was called, and corroborated the police surgeon's evidence.

He, too, was utterly unable to ascribe any fatal cause. The tattoo marks had puzzled him, but he suggested that the man and woman might be husband and wife, and that in a freak of caprice, to which women of some temperaments are subject, she had caused the device on her husband's arm to be copied upon her own. Opinions were, however, divided as to whether the pair were husband and wife. For my own part I did not regard his theory as a sound one.

"You did not overlook the contents of the stomach, of course?" the Coroner exclaimed.

"No, we sent them in sealed bottles to Dr. Marston, the a.n.a.lyst of the Home Office."

"And have we his report?" inquired the Coroner.

"Dr. Marston is here himself, sir. He has come to give evidence,"

Patterson answered from the back of the room, while at the same time an old grey-haired gentleman in gold-rimmed spectacles rose, and walking forward took the oath.

"You received from the previous witnesses two bottles?" suggested the Coroner. "Will you please tell us the result of your a.n.a.lysis?"

"I tested carefully with group reagents for every known poison, and also for ptomaine," he said, "but all the solvents--alcohol, benzol, naphtha, ammonia and so forth--failed. I tested for the alkaloids, such as strychnine, digitalin, and cantharidin, and used hydrochloric acid to find either silver, mercury or lead, and also ammonia in an endeavour to trace tin, cadmium or a.r.s.enic. To none of the known groups does the poison--if poison there be--belong. Therefore I have been utterly unable to arrive at any definite conclusion."

"Is there no direct trace of any poison?"

"None," was the answer. "Yet from the result of certain group reagents it would appear that death was due to the virulence of some azotic substance."

"You cannot, we take it, decide what that substance was?"

"Unfortunately, no," the renowned a.n.a.lyst answered, apparently annoyed at having to thus publicly acknowledge his failure. "The state of the stomach of either person was not such as might cause death. Indeed, there was only a secondary and most faint trace of the unknown substance to which I have referred."

"Then, to put it quite plainly," said the Coroner, "it is your opinion that they were poisoned?"

"I can scarcely go so far as that," the witness responded. "All I can say in evidence is that I found a slight trace of some deleterious substance which all tests refused to clearly reveal. Whether it were an actual poison which resulted in death I hesitate to say, as the result of my a.n.a.lysis is not sufficiently clear to warrant any direct allegation."

"Do you suggest that this substance, whatever it was, must have been baneful and injurious to the human system?"

"I think so. Even that, however, is not absolutely certain. As you know, certain poisons in infinitesimal quant.i.ties are exceedingly beneficial."

"Then we must take it that, presuming these two persons actually died of poison, it must have been by a poison unknown in toxicology?" observed the Coroner.

"Exactly," the a.n.a.lyst responded, standing with his hands behind his back and peering through his spectacles at the expectant jury.

The Coroner invited the jury to ask any questions of the a.n.a.lyst, but the twelve Kensington tradesmen feared to put any query to the man who had the science of poisoning thus at his fingers' ends, and whose a.n.a.lyses were always thorough and absolutely beyond dispute. He was the greatest authority on poisons, and they could think of nothing further to ask him. Therefore the Coroner politely invited him to sign his depositions.

After he had withdrawn, the Coroner, placing down his pen, sighed, leaned back in his chair with a puzzled expression, and once more addressed the twelve men who had been "summoned and warned" before him.

They had heard the evidence, he said, and it was now for them to decide whether the two persons had died from natural causes, or whether they had met with foul play. In the circ.u.mstances he acknowledged that a decision was extremely difficult on account of the many mysterious side issues connected with the affair, yet he pointed out that if they were in real doubt whether to return a verdict of natural death or of wilful murder, there was still a third course, namely, to return an open verdict of "Found dead," and thus leave the matter in the hands of the police. He was ready, of course, to adjourn the inquiry, but from what he knew of the matter, together with the evidence which had just been given, it was his honest opinion that no object could be obtained in an adjournment, and further by closing the inquest at once they would prevent any inexpedient facts leaking out to the newspapers.

The jury retired to consult in an adjoining room, and in ten minutes returned, giving an open verdict of "Found dead." Thus ended the inquiry, and while the law had been complied with, public curiosity remained unaroused, and the police were enabled to work on in secret.

With Cleugh I lingered behind, chatting with Patterson and Boyd.

"We're keeping observation at Upper Phillimore Place," Boyd explained, in response to my inquiry. "Funny thing that n.o.body else calls there, and that the servants have never come back."

"Have you found the snake that was in the garden?" Cleugh asked of Patterson, with a significant glance at me.

"No," he responded, rather confused. "You see any search there might arouse suspicion. Therefore we are compelled to be content with watching for the return of any one to the house."

"But you haven't yet succeeded in establishing the ident.i.ty of the pair," d.i.c.k observed.

"No. That's the queerest part of it," Boyd exclaimed. "The owner of the house, a builder who has an office in Church Street, close by, says that the place was taken furnished by a Mrs. Blain, who gave her address at Harwell, near Didcot. She paid six months' rent in advance."

"Harwell!" echoed Cleugh, turning to me. "Isn't that your home, Urwin?"

"Yes," I gasped. The name of Blain caused me to stand immovable.

"Why," d.i.c.k exclaimed, noticing my agitation, "what's the matter, old fellow? Do you know the Blains?"

"Yes," I managed to reply. "They must be the Blains of Shenley Court.

If so, they are friends of my family."

I had never told my companion of my bygone love affair, because it had been a thing of the past before we had gone into diggings together.

"Who are they?" inquired Boyd quickly. "Tell me all you know concerning them, as we are about to prosecute inquiries in their direction."

"First, tell me the statement of the house owner," I said.

"Well, he describes Mrs. Blain as a middle-aged, rather pleasant lady, who came to his office about a year ago in response to an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Morning Post_. She appeared most anxious to have the house, and one fact which appears to strike the old fellow as peculiar is that she took it and paid a ten-pound note as deposit without ever seeing the interior of the premises. She told him that it was for some friends of hers from abroad, and that they not having arrived she would sign the agreement and accept all responsibility."

"Anything else?"

"Yes," the detective replied. "She was accompanied by a young lady, whom old Tritton, the landlord, took to be her daughter. Now, tell me what you know."

I paused, looking at him fixedly. The disclosure that Mrs. Blain was the actual holder of that house of mystery was certainly startling. It was remarkable, too, that on the very night of the crime I should receive a letter from Mary, the woman who had so long lingered in my memory. Was that, I wondered, anything more than a mere coincidence?

"I don't know that I can tell you very much about the family," I answered, determined to put him off the scent and make inquiries myself.

"They were much respected when at Shenley, where they kept up a fine country house, and entertained a great deal. They were parishioners of my father, therefore I went there very often."

"Do you know Mrs. Blain well?"

"Quite well."

"And her daughter?" suggested d.i.c.k, much interested. "What's she like?

Pretty?"

"Pa.s.sable," I answered, with affected indifference.

"Then they are not a shady family at all?" suggested the detective.

"Not in the least. That is why the fact of Mrs. Blain having taken the house is so surprising."

"It may have been sub-let," Cleugh observed. "Her friends from abroad may not have arrived after all, and she might have re-let it, a circ.u.mstance which seems most likely, as no one appears to have seen her enter the place."