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On reaching headquarters, Clarke found Inspector Vandam closeted with the Chief in the latter’s room. He was asked for a detailed report of what he had learned, which he gave as briefly as he could.
‘It looks suspicious right enough,’ said the great man after he had finished. ‘I think, Vandam, you had better look into the thing yourself. If you find it’s all right you can drop it.’ He turned to Clarke with that kindliness which made him the idol of his subordinates. ‘We’ve had some news, Clarke. Mr Segboer, the curator of the Groote Park, has just telephoned to say that one of his men has discovered that a potting shed behind the range of glass-houses and beside the railway has been entered during the night. Judging from his account, some rather curious operations must have been carried on by the intruders, but the point of immediate interest is that he found under a bench a small engagement book with the name Albert Smith on the flyleaf.’
Clarke stared.
‘Good gracious, sir,’ he ejaculated, ‘but that’s extraordinary!’ Then, after a pause, he went on, ‘So that’s what he was crossing the railway for.’
‘What do you mean?’ the Chief asked sharply.
‘Why, sir, he was killed at ten minutes past eleven, and it must have been when he was leaving the park. Across the railway would be a natural enough way for him to go, for the gates would be shut. They close at eleven. There are different places where he could get off the railway to go into the town.’
The Chief and Vandam exchanged glances.
‘Quite possibly Clarke is right,’ the former said slowly. ‘All the same, Vandam, I think you should look into it. Let me know the result.’
The Chief turned back to his papers, and Inspector Vandam and Sergeant Clarke left the room. Though none of the three knew it, Vandam had at that moment embarked on the solution of one of the most baffling mysteries that had ever tormented the brains of an unhappy detective, and the issue of the case was profoundly to affect his whole future career, as well as the careers of a number of other persons at that time quite unknown to him.
CHAPTER II (#ulink_f377ccca-7265-53c5-8a21-b0d53b1cefa1)
THE POTTING SHED (#ulink_f377ccca-7265-53c5-8a21-b0d53b1cefa1)
OF all the attractions of the city of Middeldorp, that of which the inhabitants are most justly proud is the Groote Park. It lies to the west of the town, in the area between city and suburb. Its eastern end penetrates like a wedge almost to the business quarter, from which it is separated by the railway. On its outer or western side is a residential area of tree-lined avenues of detached villas, each standing, exclusive, within its own well-kept grounds. Here dwell the élite of the district.
The park itself is roughly pear-shaped in plan, with the stalk towards the centre of the town. In a clearing in the wide end is a bandstand, and there in the evenings and on holidays the citizens hold decorous festival, to the brazen strains of the civic band. Beneath the trees surrounding are hundreds of little marble-topped tables, each with its attendant pair of folding galvanised iron chairs, and behind the tables in the farther depths of the trees are refreshment kiosks, arranged like supplies parked behind a bivouacked army. Electric arc lamps hang among the branches, and the place on balmy summer evenings after dusk has fallen is alive with movement and colour from the crowds seeking relaxation after the heat and stress of the day.
The narrow end nearest the centre of the city is given over to horticulture. It boasts one of the finest ranges of glass-houses in South Africa, a rock garden, a Dutch garden, an English garden, as well as a pond with the rustic bridges, swans and water lilies, without which no ornamental water is complete.
The range of glass-houses runs parallel to the railway and about fifty feet from its boundary wall. Between the two, and screened from observation at the ends by plantations of evergreen shrubs, lies what might be called the working portion of the garden—tool sheds, potting sheds, depots of manure, leaf mould and the like. It was to this area that Inspector Vandam and Sergeant Clarke bent their steps when they left headquarters.
Waiting for them at the end of the glass-houses were two men, one an old gentleman of patriarchal appearance, with a long white beard and semitic features, the other younger and evidently a labourer. As the police officers approached, the old gentleman hailed Vandam.
‘’Morning, Inspector,’ he called in a thin, high-pitched voice. ‘You weren’t long coming round. I hope we have not brought you on a fool’s errand. As I told your people, I would not have troubled you at all only for the name in the book being the same as that of the poor gentleman who was killed. It seemed such a curious coincidence that I thought you ought to know.’
‘Quite right, Mr Segboer,’ Vandam returned. ‘We are much obliged to you, sir.’
The curator turned to his companion.
‘This is Hoskins, one of our gardeners,’ he explained. ‘It was he who found the book. If you are ready, let us go to the shed.’
The four men passed round the end of the glass-houses and followed a path which led behind the belt of evergreen shrubs to the building in question. It was a small place, about eight feet by ten only, built close up to the boundary, in fact, the boundary wall, raised a few feet for the purpose, formed one of its sides. The other three walls were of brick, supporting a lean-to roof of reddish brown tiles. There was no window, light being obtained only from the door. The shed contained a rough bench along one wall, a few tools and flowerpots, and a bag or two of artificial manure. The place was very secluded, being hidden from the gardens by the glass-houses and the evergreen shrubs.
‘Now, Hoskins,’ Mr Segboer directed, as the little party stopped on the threshold, ‘explain to Inspector Vandam what you found.’
‘This morning about seven o’clock I had to come to this here shed for to get a line and trowel for some plants as I was bedding out,’ explained the gardener, whose tongue betrayed the fact of his Cockney origin, ‘and when I looked in at the door I saw just at once that somebody had been in through the night, or since five o’clock yesterday evening anyhow. The floor seemed someway different, and then, after looking a while, I saw that it had been swept clean, and then mould sprinkled over it again. You can see that for yourselves if you look.’
The floor was of concrete, brought to a smooth surface, though dark coloured from the earth which had evidently lain on it. This earth had certainly been brushed away from the centre, and was heaped up for a width of some eighteen inches round the walls. A space of about seven feet by five had thus been cleared, and the marks of the brush were visible round the edges. But the space had been partly re-covered by what seemed to be handfuls of earth, and here and there round the walls it looked as if the brush had been used for scattering back some of the swept-up material.
Vandam turned to the man.
‘You say this was done since five o’clock last night,’ he said. ‘Were you here at that time?’
‘Yes, I left in the line and trowel when I quit work last night.’
‘And what was the floor like then?’
‘Like it always was before. There was leaf mould and sand and loam on it; just a little, you know, that had fallen from the bench. But it was all over it.’
‘You found something else?’
The man pointed to the corner opposite the bench.
‘Them there ashes were not there before.’
In the corner was a little heap of burnt paper, and now that the idea was suggested to Vandam, he believed he could detect the smell of fire. Still standing outside the door, he nodded slowly and went on:
‘Anything else?’
‘Ay, there was the pocketbook. When I was coming out with the line and trowel, I saw something sticking out of a heap of sand just there. I picked it up and found it was a pocketbook, and when I looked in the front of it I saw the name was Albert Smith. I wondered who had been in the shed, for I didn’t know anyone of that name, and I slipped the book into my pocket, saying to myself as how I’d give it to the boss here first time I saw him. Well, then, after a while I heard that a man called Albert Smith had been found dead on the railway just back of the wall here, so I thinks to myself there’s maybe something more in it than what meets the eye, and I had better give the book to the boss at once, and so I did.’
‘And here it is,’ Mr Segboer added, taking a small notebook bound in brown leather from his pocket and handing it to Vandam.
There was no question of the identity of the owner, for the same address—that of Messrs. Hope Bros. of Mees Street—followed the name on the flyleaf. The book was printed in diary form, each two pages showing a week. Vandam glanced quickly over it. The notes seemed either engagements, or reminders about provision business. There was nothing in the space for the previous evening.
Vandam questioned the gardener closely on his statement, but without gaining additional details. Mr Segboer could give no helpful information, and Vandam dismissed both after thanking them and, more by force of habit than of deliberate purpose, warning them not to repeat what they had told him.
To Inspector Vandam the circumstances were far from clear. From what he had just learned, it seemed reasonable to conclude that Smith had visited the shed some time between five and eleven on the previous evening, probably near eleven, as the sergeant’s suggestion that he had been killed while leaving the Park after the gates were closed was likely enough. But was there not, at least, a suggestion of something more? Did the visit to the shed not mean an interview with someone, a secret meeting, and, therefore, possibly for some shady purpose. For a secret interview probably no better place could have been found in the whole of Middeldorp. If it were approached and quitted by the railway after dark, as it might have been in this instance, the chances of discovery would be infinitesimal. What could Smith have been doing there?
At first Vandam thought of a mere vulgar intrigue, that he was meeting some girl with whom he did not wish to be seen. But the sweeping of the floor seemed to indicate some more definite purpose. What ever could it have been?
It was fairly clear, Vandam imagined, that the scattering of the earth over the floor was done to remove the traces of its having been swept. If so, it had been badly done and it had failed in its object. Was this, he wondered, due to lack of care, or to haste, or to working in the dark?
He could not answer any of these questions, but the more he thought over them, the more likely he thought it that Smith had been engaged with another or others in some secret and perhaps sinister business.
Inspector Vandam was mildly intrigued by the whole affair, but it did not seem of passing importance. He decided that after taking a general look round, he would return to headquarters and consult his Chief as to whether the matter should be further followed up. He therefore turned from the shed to its immediate surroundings.
At the end of the shed, between the path and the boundary wall, the ground was covered with low heaps of leaf mould. The stuff had evidently lain there for a considerable time, for the surface had grown smooth, almost like soil. Across this smooth surface and close to the end of the shed passed two lines of footsteps, one coming and the other going.
Vandam stood looking at the marks. They were vague and blurred and quite useless as prints, and yet there was something peculiar about them. At first he had assumed—without reason, as he now realised—that they were Smith’s tracks approaching and leaving the shed. But now he saw they had been made by different persons. Those receding were closer together and much deeper than the others, and he began to picture a tall, thin man arriving, and a short, stout one going away.
And there he would probably have left it, had not Sergeant Clarke at that moment walked across the leaf-mould to look over the wall. Almost subconsciously Vandam noticed that his steps made comparatively little impression, about the same, indeed, as those of his hypothetic thin man. But Clarke was not thin. He was a big man, tall, broad and well developed.
‘I say, Clarke,’ Vandam looked up suddenly, ‘what do you weigh?’
‘Just turn the scale at sixteen stone,’ returned the other stolidly, no trace of surprise at the question showing on his wooden countenance.
‘I thought so,’ Vandam muttered, turning his eyes again on the footprints. Somewhat puzzled, he walked across the strip himself, and turned to see what marks he had made. Vandam was a small man, thin though wiry, and his weight, he knew, was just under twelve stone. The prints he had left were considerably lighter than Clarke’s.
At first he wondered whether atmospheric conditions might not have rendered the leaf-mould softer on the previous night than it was now, but he immediately realised that no such change in the weather had taken place. No, there seemed to be no way of escaping the obvious suggestion. The man who had left the gardens had been carrying a heavy weight.
And this, if true, would account for the outward-bound prints being closer together than the others, so that they might well have been made by the same man. What could Smith have been carrying?
Vandam turned and looked over the wall. Below him was the railway cutting, and his eyes followed the curving line of rails until about fifty yards to the right it disappeared into the black mouth of the Dartie Avenue tunnel. From where he stood, it was just possible to see the place where the body had lain, and Clarke lost no time in pointing it out.
Inspector Vandam nodded absently as he scrutinised the grassy slope below him. Yes, he was not mistaken; a weight had been dragged down the bank. The bent grasses showed a slightly different colour when looked at parallel to the surface. He crossed the wall.
‘Stay where you are a minute,’ he called to Clarke, as he stooped to examine the ground.
Immediately along the base of the wall, between it and the top edge of the slope, was a flat strip about three feet wide. On it, just opposite the deep footmarks on the park side, the grass was beaten down as if a weight had lain on it, and from this the marks of descent to the rails were unmistakable.
Vandam moved slowly down the slope, noting every indication that he could find. The object appeared to have been something under two feet in width, and at one point it seemed to him that a halt had been made, though of this he was not certain. At the bottom of the bank there were further traces. Vaguely-marked footsteps showed at the edge of the offset, and two faint tracks or scrapes were visible coming on to the offset and turning in the direction of the tunnel. These scrapes were each about an inch wide and ran parallel, a foot apart. They were lost to view almost at once when they passed from the soft ground at the edge of the offset on to the beaten track at its centre.
Calling to Clarke to follow him down and to keep clear of the traces, Vandam scrutinised the ground to the tunnel, but without finding further marks. Then, having reached the scene of the tragedy, he listened to the other’s detailed description of what had been found.
‘Not much blood about,’ he commented, as he stood looking down at the traces which still remained.
‘That’s so,’ Clark admitted. ‘I noticed that. It would all be the way he was struck.’
Vandam did not reply. A terrible possibility had suddenly flashed into his mind, and he stood silently considering how far the various points he had learned would fit in with it. At last he turned once more to his companion.
‘I take it that body is still at the station?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir. I have done nothing yet about getting it shifted.’
‘I’d like to have a look at it.’
Twenty minutes later the two men stood gazing down on all that was mortal of the late Albert Smith. But the Inspector did not delay there long.
‘Where are the clothes?’ he demanded.
Clarke took him to the next room. Instantly the Inspector picked up the shoes, and turning them over, glanced at the backs of the heels. For a moment he stood staring, then laid them down again very deliberately.
‘Clarke,’ he said slowly, ‘it’s well that gardener found the notebook. This is neither accident nor suicide. Albert Smith has been murdered by a carefully thought out scheme. How did you come to miss that? You should have spotted it.’
For once the sergeant’s face became expressive. Blank amazement amounting almost to awe was stamped on its every feature. He gasped, speechless.
‘Let it be a warning to you about taking things for granted,’ went on Vandam gravely. ‘Here, look at this.’
Once more he picked up the shoes, pointing to the backs of the heels. They were marked with a number of slight scratches, running up at right angles to the tread.
‘You see, he’s been dragged down the bank with his legs trailing on the ground. The track of the body is quite clear on the slope, and I found where the two heels dropped on the offset and were dragged along towards the tunnel. He was carried over that leaf-mould and dropped on the bank over the wall. And do you know the reason there was so little blood on the railway?’
Clarke recovered himself with an effort.
‘He was dead, sir?’ he suggested in somewhat shaky tones.
‘Of course, because he was dead. You might have thought of that, even if you saw nothing else. And there was another thing that you might have thought of, too, if you hadn’t been so darned sleepy; the way the body was torn up. How do you think that happened?’
‘I don’t quite follow, sir,’ the unhappy man stammered.
‘No, because you won’t use your brains. Think a minute. If the man had been struck when he was standing or walking he would have been thrown clear by the cowcatcher. But if the body was lying on the ground—laid across the rails in all probability—why, it could hardly have escaped the kind of damage it got. See what I mean?’
Clarke murmured incoherently.
‘I don’t say it would always happen that way,’ the Inspector went on after a pause, ‘but the thing might have let you smell a rat. Yes, there’s no doubt the man was murdered. Murdered, I should think, in that shed, but of that I’m not yet sure.’
‘I never thought to doubt—’ Clarke was beginning when the other interrupted him.
‘Well, you’ll know better next time. That’ll be all about it, only you’ve lost your scoop. Now, let us get ahead. We’ll go down and examine that ground again while the traces are fresh.’
They retraced their steps down the railway, halting opposite the potting shed.
‘Let’s see,’ Vandam thought aloud. ‘We may assume the murderer carried the body down from the shed and left it on the line there, so as to make the thing look like an accident. Then he cleared off. Now, how? Where did he leave the railway?’
He stood for a moment humming a tune, then went on:
‘It’s unlikely that he would go through the Ballat Road bridge, because the station yard starts at its far end and he would fear being seen by a shunter or signalman. And it’s even less likely that he would go in the opposite direction, out of the far end of the tunnel, for about a hundred yards farther on is the Edward Street level crossing, well lighted and with a gatekeeper in charge. Where, then, would he go?’
Sergeant Clarke had recovered from his confusion.
‘Over there, sir, I should think. There’s a passage for getting to the yards of those houses runs along back of the wall. A man could dodge over there without being seen, and slip out at the end into Craven Street when the coast was clear.’
‘Exactly what I think,’ Vandam agreed. ‘Let us walk along and see if we can’t find tracks going up the slope.’
A moment later, Clarke gave a hail.
‘Here you are, sir,’ he called. ‘Plain as you’d wish.’
Stretching up the bank were similar though fainter traces to these leading to the park on the opposite side. Vandam spent several minutes examining them, and at last was satisfied that someone had passed in each direction, up and down.
He worked gradually up the bank and was about to climb the wall to look for traces on the other side when, glancing down, he stopped suddenly. At the foot of the wall, embedded in the grass, lay a few scattered stones. His sharp eye had seen that one of these had been recently moved. Though it was still in its bed, it was not fitting properly, and instead of the grass growing up to it there was a trace of fresh brown earth round its edges. Vandam stooped and with an effort lifted it. As he looked into the hole which it uncovered he whistled.
Beneath the stone lay two objects, either of which would have filled him with interest. One was an ordinary two-pound joiner’s hammer, almost new, judging by the varnish on the handle. But it was not on the varnish that Vandam’s eyes were fixed. On the head was a dull stain of blood!
The other object looked harmless enough in comparison, and yet to Vandam it seemed even more sinister. It was a tiny roll of stout canvas, not unlike a belt. Vandam picked it up and it resolved itself into a little bag about three inches in diameter and two feet six long. Both ends were sewn up tightly, but near one of them the canvas had been gashed with a knife. Vandam held his hand under the hole and shook the little tube. Some grains of sand fell out.
‘Just so,’ he thought. ‘Sandbagged in that shed. But what in all this earthly world was done with the hammer?’ He turned to his subordinate. ‘Here, Clarke, bring along that hammer. But don’t touch the clean part of the handle; there might be a fingerprint on it somewhere.’
Postponing consideration of his treasure-trove, Vandam continued his search. He climbed the wall and found himself in the lane leading into Craven Street. But its surface was hard, and though he examined it carefully from end to end, he could find no trace of anyone having passed.
Having sent Clarke for an acetylene lamp, Vandam returned to the potting shed and began one of his painstaking examinations. Every inch of the floor and shelf was scrutinised, every grain of the little heaps of soil which lay scattered about was sifted through his fingers. But his discoveries were negligible. One thing only he found, and that a triviality. The ashes in the corner were the remains of newspapers. Beyond that there was nothing.
He stood motionless, pondering over the tragic business.
First of all he wondered at what time the murder had taken place. Before 11.10 on the previous evening obviously, because the body had been struck by a train at that hour. But how much before? The murderer would want some margin of time to get the body into position and to allow for unexpected checks. But he would make this margin as short as possible, to reduce to a minimum the risk of the remains being found before the train passed. It seemed to Vandam that the meeting in the shed must have taken place about half-past ten or a little later. This, of course, was guesswork, but he could hardly picture even so cold-blooded a criminal as this ruffian must be, despatching his victim at an early hour in the evening and then sitting in the shed with the corpse, waiting until it should be time to drag it down to the line.
A further point struck him. It would, of course, be dark at this hour. Would a light not therefore have been necessary in the shed? The burning of the papers, if that had been done at the same time, would certainly have made a light. What chance would there be of that light having been seen.
Quite a good chance, Vandam decided. Though the majority of the evening visitors to the park kept down at the other end near the electric arcs and the bandstand, isolated strollers might penetrate as far as the gardens. And the screen of evergreens, though thick, could not be depended on to prevent a light showing through. Therefore, if the affair was to be kept secret before those papers could have been burned or a light used, the door must have been shut. There was, of course, no window.
