Final Proof Part 18

"You will hardly expect me to believe that Morgan gave up his position and left town without some better reason than a mere quarrel with his pal, and a petty theft?"

"Morgan did not give up his position, nor did he leave town of his own volition. He was sent away."

"Sent away? By whom?"

"By the princ.i.p.al in this case. I told you from the first that there were two in it. He has admitted to me what I did not know, but what I believe now because you tell me the same story. He confesses that he drugged the watchman at the stables and then drove the wagon away. But he denies that he either took Quadrant's body from the coffin, or indeed that he drove the wagon to the Quadrant house. In fact, he says he was paid to get the wagon unknown to the watchman, and that he was furnished with the powders with which he was to drug the man."

"Am I to understand that one of the dead man's brothers hired Morgan to do this?"

Mr. Barnes was thinking of his conversation with Amos Quadrant, during which that gentleman had suggested that an undertaker's wagon might approach the house at any hour without attracting attention. He was consequently astonished by the younger detective's reply.

"No," said Mr. Burrows; "he does not implicate either of the Quadrants.

He declares that it was old Berial who hired him to do his part of the job."

XI

New possibilities crowded into the thoughts of Mr. Barnes as he heard this unexpected statement. Berial hired Morgan to procure the wagon! Did it follow, then, that Berial was the princ.i.p.al, or was he in turn but the tool of another? Amos Quadrant had confessed that secretly it had not been his wish to have his brother cremated. Yet his was the authority which had engaged the undertaker and directed the funeral. Had he chosen to avoid the cremation without permitting the widow to know that his will accomplished her wish, how easy for him to engage the undertaker to carry out his purpose, oddly planned as it was! How readily might the poor undertaker have been bribed by this wealthy man to take the risk! After all, if this were the explanation, wherein lay the crime? By what name would it be designated in the office of the district attorney? Yet, even now, when all seemed known, two unexplained facts stood out prominently. How was it that the foot of the deceased Quadrant showed no scar? And what of the a.s.sertion made by Mr. Mitchel that a human body had been cremated? Could it be that Berial, taking advantage of the opportunity offered by his employer, had secretly disposed of some other body, while merely supposed to have removed Rufus Quadrant from his coffin? If so, whose body was it that had been cremated, and how could identification be looked for among the ashes in the urn at the cemetery? Mr. Barnes was chagrined to find such questions in his mind with no answer, when Mr. Mitchel might arrive with his promised surprise at any moment. Perhaps Morgan was lying when he accused the undertaker.

"Have you been able yet," asked Mr. Barnes, "to verify any part of this man's story?"

"Well, we only arrived at six this morning, but I may say yes, I have found some corroborative evidence."

"What?"

"I have the shroud in which Rufus Quadrant was dressed in his coffin."

"That is important. Where did you find it?"

"In quite a suggestive place. It was locked up in old Berial's private closet at the shop, which we searched this morning."

"That certainly is significant. But even so, Tom, how do we know that this Morgan, who robs the dead and has duplicate screw-drivers for opening patented coffin fastenings, would hesitate to place a shroud where it would seem to substantiate his accusation of another?"

"We do not know positively, of course. We have not fully solved this mystery yet, Mr. Barnes."

"I fear not, Tom," said Mr. Barnes, glancing at the clock as he heard a voice asking for him in the adjoining office; "but here comes a man who claims that he has done so."

Mr. Mitchel entered and saluted the two men cordially, after receiving an introduction to the younger.

"Well, Mr. Barnes," said Mr. Mitchel, "shall I surprise you with my story, or have you two gentlemen worked it all out?"

"I do not know whether you will surprise us or not," said Mr. Barnes.

"We do not claim to have fully solved this mystery; that much we will admit at once. But we have done a great deal of work, and have learned facts which must in the end lead to the truth."

"Ah, I see. You know some things, but not all. The most important fact, of course, would be the ident.i.ty of the body which is the centre of this mystery. Do you know that much?"

"I have no doubt that it has been correctly identified," said Mr.

Barnes, boldly, though not as confident as he pretended. "It was the corpse of Rufus Quadrant, of course."

"You are speaking of the body at the Morgue?"

"Certainly. What other?"

"I alluded to the body which was cremated," said Mr. Mitchel quietly.

"It has not been proven that any body was cremated," replied Mr. Barnes.

"Has it not? I think it has."

"Ah, you know that? Well, tell us. Who was the man?"

"The man in the coffin, do you mean?"

"Yes. The man who was cremated in place of Mr. Quadrant."

"Have you any suspicion?"

"I did have until an hour ago. I supposed that the criminal who managed this affair had thus disposed of the remains of a pal whom he had killed in a saloon row--a man called Tommy White."

"No, that is wrong. The body cremated was the corpse of a woman."

"Of a woman!" exclaimed both detectives in concert.

"Yes, gentlemen," said Mr. Mitchel, "it was a woman's body that was placed in the furnace. I think, Mr. Barnes, that I suggested such a possibility to you on the day when you first called my attention to this affair?"

"Yes. You said it might be a woman as well as a man. But that was merely a caution against hastily deciding as to the s.e.x of the victim, supposing that a murder had been committed and the criminal had thus proceeded to hide his crime. But subsequent investigations have not brought to us even a suspicion that any woman has been foully dealt with, who could have been placed in the coffin by any who had the opportunity."

"Which only proves," said Mr. Mitchel, "that as usual you detectives have worked in routine fashion, and consequently, by beginning at the wrong end, you have not reached the goal. Now I have reached the goal, and I venture the belief that I have not done one half of the work that either of you have been compelled to bestow upon your investigations."

"We cannot all be as intellectually brilliant as yourself," said Mr.

Barnes testily.

"Come, come, Mr. Barnes. No offense meant, I a.s.sure you. I am only upholding the argument, which I have advanced previously, that the very routine which gentlemen of your calling feel bound to follow often hampers if it does not hinder your work. I am merely a tyro, but not being professionally engaged on this case I was perhaps freer to see things with eyes unblinded by traditional methods of work. It is just as the onlooker often sees an opportunity to win, which the men playing a game of chess overlook. The player has his mind upon many combinations and sees much that the onlooker does not see. So here. You and Mr.

Burrows have probably discovered many things that I do not even suspect, but it has been my luck to get at the truth. If you care to hear it, I will describe in detail how I worked out the problem."

"Of course we wish to hear the truth," said Mr. Barnes reluctantly; "that is, if indeed you have learned what it is."

"Very good. As I have said, hampered by the seeming necessity of following your investigations along customary lines, you probably began with the body at the Morgue. I pursued the opposite course. The case seemed so unique that I was convinced that the motive would prove to be equally uncommon. If the body at the Morgue were really that of Mr.

Quadrant, as seemed probable from the identifications by the family and the doctor, I was sure that it had been taken from the coffin to make room for the corpse of another. No other motive occurred to my mind which appeared to be adequate. Consequently I thought that the first essential in unravelling the mystery would be the establishment of the fact that a human body had been cremated, and then, if possible, to discover the ident.i.ty of that body."

"In other words, to identify the ashes of a cremated body," interjected Mr. Barnes, with a slight sneer.

"Just so. That in itself was a problem so novel that it attracted my interest. It is usually considered that cremation has the objectionable feature that it offers a means of hiding the crime of murder. This idea has contributed not a little to thwart those who have endeavored to make this means of disposing of the dead popular. Would it not be an achievement to prove that incineration is not necessarily a barrier against identification?"

"I should say so," said Mr. Barnes.

"So thought I, and that was the task which I set myself. I visited the chief of the detective bureau, and soon interested him in my theories.

He even permitted me to be present at the examination of the ashes, which was undertaken at my suggestion, an expert chemist and his a.s.sistant going with us. At the cemetery the urn was brought forth and its contents spread out on a clean marble slab. It was not difficult to discern that a human being had been cremated."