The Darrow Enigma by Melvin L. Severy (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📖

CHAPTER IV

Death speaks with the tongue of Memory, and his ashen hand reaches

out of the great unknown to seize and hold fast our plighted souls.

 

What Maitland’s reason was for spending the night with the dead body

of Darrow, or how he busied himself until morning, I do not know.

Perhaps he desired to make sure that everything remained untouched,

or, it may be, that he chose. this method of preventing Gwen from

performing a vigil by the body. I thought this latter view very

probable at the time, as I had been singularly impressed with the

remarkable foresight my friend had displayed in so quickly and

adroitly getting Gwen away from everything connected with her

father’s sad and mysterious death.

 

Arriving at my house my sister took an early opportunity to urge

upon Gwen a glass of wine, in which I had placed a generous sedative.

The terrible tension soon began to relax, and in less than half an

hour she was sleeping quietly. I dreaded the moment when she should

awake and the memory of all that had happened should descend like an

avalanche upon her. I told my sister that this would be a critical

moment, cautioning her to stay by Gwen and to give her, immediately

upon her arising, a draught I had prepared for the purpose of

somewhat deadening her sensibilities. I arose early, and went to

Maitland’s laboratory to collect the things he desired. When I

returned Gwen was awake, and to my intense gratification in even a

better condition than I had dared to hope.

 

It was quite late when we reached her house, and Maitland had

evidently been at work several hours. He looked sharply at Gwen

when she entered, and seemed much pleased at her condition. “You

have obeyed my instructions, I see, and slept,” he said, as he gave

her his hand. “Yes,” she replied, “I was very tired, and the

doctor’s cordial quite overcame me;” and she cast an inquiring

glance at the network of white string which Maitland had stretched

across the carpet, dividing it into squares like an immense

checker-board. In reply to her questioning look, he said: “French

detectives are the most thorough in the world, and I am about to

make use of their method of instituting an exhaustive search. Each

one of the squares formed by these intersecting strings is numbered,

and represents one square foot of carpet, the numbers running from

one to two hundred and eighty-eight. Every inch of every one of

these squares I shall examine under a microscope, and anything found

which can be of any possible interest will be carefully preserved,

and its exact location accurately marked upon this chart I have

prepared, which, as you will see, has the same number of squares as

the room, the area of each square being reduced from one square foot

to one square inch. You will note that I have already marked the

location of all doors, windows, and furniture. The weapon, if there

be one, may be very minute, but if it be on the floor we may be

assured the microscope will find it. The walls of the room,

especially any shelving projections, and the furniture, I shall

examine with equal thoroughness, though I have now some additional

reasons for believing the weapon is not here.”

 

“Have you discovered anything new?” Gwen exclaimed, unable to control

the excitement caused by this last remark. “You must pardon me,”

Maitland rejoined, “if I ask you and the Doctor a question before

replying.” She nodded assent, and he continued: “I wish to know if

you agree with me that we shall be more likely to arrive at a

solution of the problem before us if we keep our own counsel than

if we take the officers of the law, or, for that matter, anyone

else, into our confidence. You undoubtedly noticed how carefully M.

Godin kept his own counsel. Official methods, and the hasty

generalisations which form a part thereof - to say nothing of the

petty rivalries and the passion for notoriety - can do much to hinder

our own work, and, I believe, nothing to help it. What say you?”

“That we keep our work to ourselves,” Gwen quickly rejoined, and I

signified that I was of the same opinion. “Then,” Maitland continued,

“I may say this in answer to your question. I have ascertained

something which may bear upon the case in hand. You will remember

that part of the gravel for redressing the croquet ground was dumped

under the east window there. The painters, I learn, finished

painting that side of the house yesterday forenoon before the gravel

was removed and placed upon the ground, so that any footprints they

may have made in it while about their work were obliterated. As you

see, there was loose gravel left under the window to the depth of

about two inches. I carefully examined this gravel this morning -=20

there were no footprints.”

 

I glanced at Gwen; her face had a set expression, and she was deathly

pale. “There were, however,” he continued, “places where the gravel

had been tamped down as if by the pressure of a rectangular board.

I examined these minutely and, by careful measurement and close

scrutiny of some peculiar markings suggestive of the grain of wood,

satisfied myself that the depressions in the gravel were made by two,

and not, as I had at first thought, by one small piece of wood. I

found further that these two boards had always borne certain relative

relations to each other, and that when one had been turned around

the other had undergone a similar rotation. This last is, in my mind,

a most important point, for, when coupled with the fact that between

any two impressions of the same board the distance was sensibly

constant, and was that of a short stride, there could be no reasonable

doubt but these boards had been worn upon some person’s feet. They

could not have been thrown down merely to be stepped upon, for, in

that case, they would not have borne fixed relations to each other

- probably would not have been turned end for end at all - and

certainly, both would not always have happened to get turned at the

same time. I procured a board of the combined area of the two

supposed to have made the impressions in the gravel, and weighted it

down until, as nearly as I could measure, it impacted the soil to

the same extent the others had. The weight was one hundred and

thirty-five pounds, which is about right for a man five feet five

inches tall. The position of the depressions in the gravel indicated

a stride just about right for a man of that height.

 

“There was one other most important discovery which I made after I

had divided the impressions into two classes - according as they

were produced by the right or left board - which was that when the

right foot was thrown forward the stride was from three to four

inches longer than when the left foot led. Directly under the

window there was a deep impression in the sand. I took a plaster

cast of it, and here it is,” he said, producing an excellent

facsimile of a closed hand. “There can be little doubt,” he

continued, “from the position occupied by the depression, of which

this is a reverse copy, that it was either accidentally made by

someone who, stooping before the east window to avoid obstructing

its light, suddenly lost his balance and regained his equilibrium

by thus thrusting out his hand, or - and this seems far more likely

to me - that the hand was deliberately placed in the gravel in order

to steady its possessor while he performed some peculiar operation.”

 

At this point I ventured to ask why he regarded the latter view as

so much more tenable than the former. “There are several reasons,”

he replied, “which render the view I prefer to take all but certain.

First, the impression was made by the left hand. Second, it is the

impression of a closed hand, with the upper joints of the fingers

undermost. Did you ever know one to save himself from falling by

thrusting out a closed hand? Certainly not. There is a certain

amount of fear, however slight, invariably associated with losing

one’s balance. This sentiment, so far as the hand is concerned, is

expressed by opening it and spreading the fingers. This he would

instinctively have done, if falling. Then there is the position of

the impression relative to the window and some slight testimony upon

the sill and glass, for the thorough investigation of which I have

been obliged to await my microscope. I have worked diligently, but

that is all I have been able to accomplish.”

 

“All!” exclaimed Gwen, regarding him with ill-concealed admiration.

“It seems to me a very great deal. The thoroughness, the minuteness

of it all, overwhelms me; but, tell me, have your discoveries led

you to any conclusion?” “No,” he replied, “nothing definite yet; I

must not allow myself to become wedded to any theory, so long as

there is anything further to be learned. If I were to hazard a few

idle guesses, I should say your father was murdered in some

mysterious way - by a person about five feet five inches tall,

weighing, say, one hundred and thirty-five pounds, and having a lame

leg, or, perhaps, one limb shorter than the other, - at all events

having some deformity or ailment causing a variation in the length

of the strides. I should guess also that this person’s feet had some

marked peculiarity, since such pains had been taken to conceal the

footprints. Then the cast of the hand here encourages speculation.

Fingers