Mr. Stalker smiled. “I thought you would say that—I know you of old, you see—so I slipped the papers in my pocket before coming here.”
He laid the documents on the table and asked: “Is there anything that you want to know about the case?”
“Yes,” replied Thorndyke. “I want to know all that you can tell me.”
“Which is mighty little,” said Stalker; “but such as it is, you shall have it.
“The oil-shop man’s name is Brattle and the dead man, Bland, was his lodger. Bland appears to have been a perfectly steady, sober man in general; but it seems that he had announced his intention of spending a jovial Christmas Night and giving himself a little extra indulgence. He was last seen by Mrs. Brattle at about half-past six, sitting by a blazing fire, with a couple of unopened bottles of port on the table and a box of cigars. He had a book in his hand and two or three newspapers lay on the floor by his chair. Shortly after this, Mr. and Mrs. Brattle went out on a visit to Hornsey, leaving him alone in the house.”
“Was there no servant?” asked Thorndyke.
“The servant had the day and night off duty to go to her mother’s. That, by the way, looks a trifle fishy. However, to return to the Brattles; they spent the evening at Hornsey and did not get home until past three in the morning, by which time their house was a heap of smoking ruins. Mrs. Brattle’s idea is that Bland must have drunk himself sleepy, and dropped one of the newspapers into the fender, where a chance cinder may have started the blaze. Which may or may not be the true explanation. Of course, an habitually sober man can get pretty mimsey on two bottles of port.”
“What time did the fire break out?” asked Thorndyke.
“It was noticed about half-past eleven that flames were issuing from one of the chimneys, and the alarm was given at once. The first engine arrived ten minutes later, but, by that time, the place was roaring like a furnace. Then the water-plugs were found to be frozen hard, which caused some delay; in fact, before the engines were able to get to work the roof had fallen in, and the place was a mere shell. You know what an oil-shop is, when once it gets a fair start.”
“And Mr. Bland’s body was found in the ruins, I suppose?”
“Body!” exclaimed Mr. Stalker; “there wasn’t much body! Just a few charred bones, which they dug out of the ashes next day.”
“And the question of identity?”
“We shall leave that to the coroner. But there really isn’t any question. To begin with, there was no one else in the house; and then the remains were found mixed up with the springs and castors of the chair that Bland was sitting in when he was last seen. Moreover, there were found, with the bones, a pocket knife, a bunch of keys and a set of steel waistcoat buttons, all identified by Mrs. Brattle as belonging to Bland. She noticed the cut steel buttons on his waistcoat when she wished him ‘good-night.’”
“By the way,” said Thorndyke, “was Bland reading by the light of an oil lamp?”
“No,” replied Stalker. “There was a two-branch gasalier with a porcelain shade to one burner, and he had that burner alight when Mrs. Brattle left.”
Thorndyke reflectively picked up the proposal form, and, having glanced through it, remarked: “I see that Bland is described as unmarried. Do you know why he insured his life for this large amount?”
“No; we assumed that it was probably in connection with some loan that he had raised. I learn from the solicitor who notified us of the death, that the whole of Bland’s property is left to a cousin—a Mr. Lindsay, I think. So the probability is that this cousin had lent him money. But it is not the life claim that is interesting us. We must pay that in any case. It is the fire claim that we want you to look into.”
“Very well,” said Thorndyke; “I will go round presently and look over the ruins, and see if I can detect any substantial evidence of fraud.”
“If you would,” said Mr. Stalker, rising to take his departure, “we should be very much obliged. Not that we shall probably contest the claim in any case.”
When he had gone, my colleague and I glanced through the papers, and I ventured to remark: “It seems to me that Stalker doesn’t quite appreciate the possibilities of this case.”
“No,” Thorndyke agreed. “But, of course, it is an insurance company’s business to pay, and not to boggle at anything short of glaring fraud. And we specialists too,” he added with a smile, “must beware of seeing too much. I suppose that, to a rhinologist, there is hardly such a thing as a healthy nose—unless it is his own—and the uric acid specialist is very apt to find the firmament studded with dumb-bell crystals. We mustn’t forget that normal cases do exist, after all.”
“That is true,” said I; “but, on the other hand, the rhinologist’s business is with the unhealthy nose, and our concern is with abnormal cases.”
Thorndyke laughed. “‘A Daniel come to judgement,’” said he. “But my learned friend is quite right. Our function is to pick holes. So let us pocket the documents and wend Bloomsbury way. We can talk the case over as we go.”
We walked at an easy pace, for there was no hurry, and a little preliminary thought was useful. After a while, as Thorndyke made no remark, I reopened the subject.
“How does the case present itself to you?” I asked.
“Much as it does to you, I expect,” he replied. “The circumstances invite inquiry, and I do not find myself connecting them with the shopkeeper. It is true that the fire occurred on quarter-day; but there is nothing to show that the insurance will do more than cover the loss of stock, chattels and the profits of trade. The other circumstances are much more suggestive. Here is a house burned down and a man killed. That man was insured for three thousand pounds, and, consequently, some person stands to gain by his death to that amount. The whole set of circumstances is highly favourable to the idea of homicide. The man was alone in the house when he died; and the total destruction of both the body and its surroundings seems to render investigation impossible. The cause of death can only be inferred; it cannot be proved; and the most glaring evidence of a crime will have vanished utterly. I think that there is a quite strong prima facie suggestion of murder. Under the known conditions, the perpetration of a murder would have been easy, it would have been safe from detection, and there is an adequate motive.
“On the other hand, suicide is not impossible. The man might have set fire to the house and then killed himself by poison or otherwise. But it is intrinsically less probable that a man should kill him self for another person’s benefit than that he should kill another man for his own benefit.
“Finally, there is the possibility that the fire and the man’s death were the result of accident; against which is the official opinion that the fire started in two places. If this opinion is correct, it establishes, in my opinion, a strong presumption of murder against some person who may have obtained access to the house.”
This point in the discussion brought us to the ruined house, which stood at the corner of two small streets. One of the firemen in charge admitted us, when we had shown our credentials, through a temporary door and down a ladder into the basement, where we found a number of men treading gingerly, ankle deep in white ash, among a litter of charred wood-work, fused glass, warped and broken china, and more or less recognisable metal objects.
“The coroner and the jury,” the fireman explained; “come to view the scene of the disaster.” He introduced us to the former, who bowed stiffly and continued his investigations.
“These,” said the other fireman, “are the springs of the chair that the deceased was sitting in. We found the body—or rather the bones—lying among them under a heap of hot ashes; and we found the buttons of his clothes and the things from his pockets among the ashes, too. You’ll see them in the mortuary with the remains.”
“It must have been