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Read Ebook: Christopher Quarles: College Professor and Master Detective by Brebner Percy James
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Ebook has 2118 lines and 79402 words, and 43 pages
d, that his hands proved he was used to manual labor, but there was no mark either on his body or on his clothing, nor any papers in his pockets to lead to his identification. So far as could be ascertained, nobody was missing in Withan or Medworth. It seemed probable that the murderer had come upon his victim secretly, that the foul deed had been committed with horrible expedition, otherwise the victim, although not a strong man, would have made some struggle for his life, and apparently no struggle had taken place.
Footprints, nearly obliterated, were traceable to a wood on the opposite side of the road, but no one seemed to have left the wood in any direction. From this fact it was argued that the murder had been committed early in the afternoon, soon after the storm began, and that snow had hidden the murderer's tracks from the wood. That snow had drifted on to the dead body seemed to establish this theory.
Why had the murderer taken the head with him? There were many fantastic answers to the question. Some of the country folk, easily superstitious, suggested that it must be the work of the devil, others put it down to an escaped lunatic, while others again thought it might be the work of some doctor who wanted to study the brain.
The authorities believed that it had been removed to prevent identification, and would be found buried in the wood. It was not found, however, and the countryside was in a state bordering on panic.
For a few days the Withan murder seemed unique in atrocities, and then came a communication from the French police. Some two years ago an almost identical murder had been committed outside a village in Normandy. In this case also the head was missing, and nothing had been found upon the body to identify the victim. He was well dressed, and a man who would be likely to carry papers with him, but nothing was found, and the murder had remained a mystery.
These were the points known and conjectured when the case came into my hands, and my investigations added little to them.
One point, however, impressed me. I felt convinced that the man's clothes, which were shown to me, had not been made in England. They were poor, worn almost threadbare, but they had once been fairly good, and the cut was not English. That it was French I could not possibly affirm, but it might be, and so I fashioned a fragile link with the Normandy crime.
On this occasion I went to Quarles with the object of interesting him in the Withan case, and he forestalled me by beginning to talk about it the moment I entered the room.
Here I may mention a fact which I had not discovered at first. Whenever he was interested in a case I was always taken into his empty room; at other times we were in the dining-room or the drawing-room. It was the empty room on this occasion, and Zena remained with us.
I went carefully through the case point by point, and he made no comment until I had finished.
"The foreign cut of the clothes may be of importance," he said. "I am not sure. Is this wood you mention of any great extent?"
"No, it runs beside the road for two or three hundred yards."
"Toward Withan?"
"No; it was near the Withan end of it that the dead man was found."
"Any traces that the head was carried to the wood?"
"A good point, Wigan. And where would that ditch lead him?"
"Eventually to the high road, which runs almost at right angles to the Withan road."
"Much water in the ditch?" asked Quarles.
"Half a foot when I went there. It may have been less at the time of the murder. The early part of January was dry, you will remember."
"There was a moon that night, wasn't there?"
"Full, or near it," I returned.
"And how soon was the alarm raised along the countryside?"
"That night. It was about eight o'clock when the body was found, and after going to the village the farmer returned to Medworth for the police."
"A man who had walked a considerable distance in a ditch would be wet and muddy," said Zena, "and if he were met on the road carrying a bag he would arrest attention."
"Why carrying a bag?" asked Quarles.
"With the head in it," she answered.
"That's another good point, Wigan," chuckled Quarles.
"Of course, the head may be buried in the wood," said Zena.
Quarles looked at me inquiringly.
"I searched the wood with that idea in my mind," I said. "One or two doubtful places I had dug up. I think the murderer must have taken the head with him."
"To bury somewhere else?" asked Quarles.
"Perhaps not," I answered.
"A mad doctor bent on brain experiments--is that your theory, Wigan?"
"Not necessarily a doctor, but some homicidal maniac who is also responsible for the Normandy murder. The likeness between the two crimes can hardly be a coincidence."
"What was the date of the French murder?"
"January the seventeenth."
"Nearly the same date as the English one," said Zena.
"Two years intervening," I returned.
"Wigan, it would be interesting to know if a similar murder occurred anywhere in the intervening year at that date," said Quarles.
"You have a theory, professor?"
"An outlandish one which would make you laugh. No, no; I do not like being laughed at. I never mention my theories until I have some facts to support them. I am interested in this case. Perhaps I shall go to Withan."
There was nothing more to be got out of the professor just then, and I departed.
I took the trouble to make inquiry whether any similar crime had happened in England in the January of the preceding year, and had the same inquiry made in France. There was no record of any murder bearing the slightest resemblance to the Withan tragedy.
A few days later Quarles telegraphed me to meet him at Kings Cross, and we traveled North together.
"Wait," he said when I began to question him. "I am not sure yet. My theory seems absurd. We are going to find out if it is."
We took rooms at a hotel in Medworth, Quarles explaining that our investigations might take some days.
Next morning, instead of going to Withan as I had expected, he took me to the police court, and seemed to find much amusement in listening to some commonplace cases, and was not very complimentary in his remarks about the bench of magistrates. The next afternoon he arranged a drive. I thought we were going to Withan, but we turned away from the village, and presently Quarles stopped the carriage.
"How far are we from Withan?" he asked the driver.
"Five or six miles. The road winds a lot. It's a deal nearer as the crow flies."
"You need not wait for us, driver. My friend and I are going to walk back."
The coachman pocketed his money and drove away.
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