 The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill. Chapter 1. On a memorable morning of early December London opened its eyes on a frigid grey mist. There are mornings when King Fogg masses his molecules of carbon in serious squadrons in the city, while he scatters them tenuously in the suburbs, so that your morning train may bear you from twilight to darkness. But today the enemy's manoeuvring was more monotonous. From bow even unto Hammersmith there dragged a dull like the wraith of an impecunious suicide come into a fortune immediately after the fatal deed. The barometers and thermometers had sympathetically shared its depression, and their spirits, when they had any, were low. The cold cut like a many-bladed knife. Mrs. Drabb-Dump of 11 Glover Street, Bow, was one of the few persons in London whom the Fogg did not depress. She went about her work quite as cheerlessly as usual. She had been among the earliest to be aware of the enemy's advent, picking out the strands of Fogg from the coils of darkness the moment she rolled up her bedroom blind and unveiled the somber picture of the winter morning. She knew that the Fogg had come to stay for the rest of the day at least, and that the gas bill for the quarter was going to beat the record in high-jumping. She also knew that this was because she had allowed her new gentleman lodger, Mr. Arthur Constant, to pay a fixed sum of a shilling a week for gas, instead of charging him a proportion of the actual amount for the whole house. The meteorologists might have saved the credit of their science if they had reckoned with Mrs. Drabb-Dump's next gas bill when they predicted the weather and made snow the favourite, and said that Fogg would be nowhere. Fogg was everywhere, yet Mrs. Drabb-Dump took no credit to herself for her prescience. Mrs. Drabb-Dump, indeed, took no credit for anything, paying her way along doggedly and struggling through life like a weird swimmer, trying to touch the bottom. The things always went as badly as she had foreseen, did not exhilarate her in the least. Mrs. Drabb-Dump was a widow. Widows are not born, but made, else you might have fancied Mrs. Drabb-Dump had always been a widow. Nature had given her that tall, spare form and that pale, thin-lipped, elongated, hard-eyed visage, that painfully precise hair, which are always associated with widowhood in low life. It is only in higher circles that women can lose their husbands and yet remain bewitching. The late Mr. Drabb-Dump had scratched the base of his thumb with a rusty nail, and Mrs. Drabb-Dump's foreboding that he would die of lock-jaw had not prevented her wrestling day and night with the shadow of death, as she had wrestled with it vainly twice before when Katie died of diphtheria and little Johnny of scarlet fever. Perhaps it is from overwork among the poor that death has been reduced to a shadow. Mrs. Drabb-Dump was lighting the kitchen fire. She did it very scientifically, as knowing the contrarity of coal and the anxiety of flaming sticks to ended smoke, unless rigidly kept up to the mark. Science was a success as usual, and Mrs. Drabb-Dump rose from her knees content, like a farsi princess who had duly paid her morning devotions to her deity. Then she started violently and nearly lost her balance. Her eye had caught the hands of the clock on the mantel. They pointed to fifteen minutes to seven. Mrs. Drabb-Dump's devotion to the kitchen fire invariably terminated at fifteen minutes past six. What was the matter with the clock? Mrs. Drabb-Dump had an immediate vision of Snoppet, the neighbouring horologist, keeping the clock in hand for weeks, and then returning it only superficially repaired and secretly injured more vitally for the good of the trade. The evil vision vanished as quickly as it came, exorcised by the deep boom of St. Dunstan's bells chiming the three quarters. In its place a great horror surged. Instinct had failed. Mrs. Drabb-Dump had risen at half past six. Instead of six, now she understood why she had been feeling so dazed and so strange and sleepy. She had over-slept herself. Shagrined and puzzled, she hastily set the kettle over the crackling coal, discovering a second later that she had over-slept herself because Mr. Constant wished to be woke three-quarters of an hour earlier than usual to have his breakfast at seven, having to speak at an early meeting of discontented tram-men. She ran at once, candle in hand, to his bedroom. It was upstairs. All upstairs was Arthur Constance's domain, for it consisted of but two mutually independent rooms. Mrs. Drabb-Dump knocked viciously at the door of the one he used for a bedroom, crying, Seven o'clock, sir. You'll be late, sir. You must get up at once. The usual slumbrous—all right—was not forthcoming. But as she herself had varied her morning salute, her ear was less expectant of the echo. She went downstairs, with no foreboding save that the kettle would come off second best in the race between its boiling and the lodger's dressing. For she knew there was no fear of Arthur Constance lying deaf to the call of duty, temporarily represented by Mrs. Drabb-Dump. He was a light sleeper, and the tram conductor's bells were probably ringing in his ears, summoning him to the meeting. Why, Arthur Constance, B.A., white-handed and white-shirted, and gentleman to the very purse of him, should concern himself with tram men, when Fortune had confined his necessary relations with drivers to cabmen at the least, Mrs. Drabb-Dump could not make out. He probably aspired to represent Beau in Parliament. But then it would surely have been wiser to lodge with a landlady who possessed the vote by having her husband alive. Nor was there much practical wisdom in his wish to black his own boots, an occupation in which he shone but little, and to live in every way like a Beau-working man. Beau-working men were not so lavish in their patronage of water, whether existing in drinking glasses and mourning tubs or laundresses' establishments. Nor did they eat the delicacies with which Mrs. Drabb-Dump supplied him, with the assurance that they were the artisan's appanage. She could not bear to see him eat things unbefitting his station. Arthur Constance opened his mouth and ate what his landlady gave him. Not first deliberately shutting his eyes according to the formula, the rather plumbing himself on keeping them wide open. But it is difficult for saints to see through their own halos, and in practice an areola about the head is often indistinguishable from a mist. The tea to be scalded in Mr. Constance's pot, when that cantankerous kettle should boil, was not the coarse mixture of black and green sacred to herself, and Mr. Mortlake of whom the thoughts of breakfast now reminded her. Paul, Mr. Mortlake, gone off without any to Devonport. Some were about four in the fog, thick and darkness of a winter night. Well, she hoped his journey would be duly rewarded, that his perks would be heavy, and that he would make as good a thing out of travelling expenses as rival labour-leaders roundly accused him of to other people's faces. She did not grudge him his gains, nor was it her business if, as they alleged, in introducing Mr. Constance to her vacant rooms, his idea was not merely to benefit his landlady. He had done her an uncommon good turn, queer as was the lodger thus introduced. His own apostleship to the Sons of Toil gave Mrs. Drabb-Dump no twinges of perplexity. Tom Mortlake had been a compositor, and apostleship was obviously a profession better paid and of a higher social status. Tom Mortlake, the hero of a hundred strikes, set up in print on a poster, was unmistakably superior to Tom Mortlake setting up other men's names at a case. Still the work was not all beer and skittles, and Mrs. Drabb-Dump felt that Tom's latest job was not enviable. She shook his door as she passed it on her way back to the kitchen, but there was no response. The street door was only a few feet off down the passage, and a glance at it dispelled the last hope that Tom had abandoned the journey. The door was unbolted and chained, and the only security was the latch-key lock. Mrs. Drabb-Dump felt a wit uneasy, though to give her her due she never suffered as much as most good housewives do from criminals who never come. Not quite opposite, but still only a few doors off on the other side of the street lived the celebrated ex-detective Grodman, and illogically enough his presence in the street gave Mrs. Drabb-Dump a curious sense of security, as of a believer living under the shadow of the Fane. That any human being of ill odour should consciously come within a mile of the scent of so famous a sleuth-hound seemed to her highly improbable. Grodman had retired with a competence and was only a sleeping dog now. Still even criminals would have sense enough to let him lie. So Mrs. Drabb-Dump did not really feel that there had been any danger, especially as a second glance at the street door showed that Mort Lake had been thoughtful enough to slip the loop that held back the bolt of the big lock. She allowed herself another throb of sympathy for the labour leader whirling on his dreary way towards Devonport Dockyard. Not that he told her anything of his journey beyond the town, but she knew Devonport had a dockyard because Jess Diamond, a Tom's sweetheart, once mentioned that her aunt lived near there and it lay on the surface that Tom had gone to help the dockers who were imitating their London brethren. Mrs. Drabb-Dump did not need to be told things to be aware of them. She went back to prepare Mr. Constance's superfine tea, vaguely wondering why people were so discontented nowadays. But when she brought up the tea and the toast and the eggs to Mr. Constance's sitting-room, which had joined his bedroom, though without communicating with it, Mr. Constance was not sitting in it. She lit the gas and laid the cloth. Then she returned to the landing and beat at the bedroom door with an imperative palm. Silence alone answered her. She called him by name and told him the hour, but hers was the only voice she heard and it sounded strangely to her in the shadows of the staircase. Then muttering, poor gentleman, he had the toothache last night and perhaps he's only just got a wink of sleep. Pity to disturb him for the sake of them grizzling conductors. I'll let him sleep his usual time. She boiled the teapot downstairs with a mournful, almost poetic consciousness. That soft-boiled eggs, like love, must grow cold. Half-past seven came and she knocked again, but Constance slept on. His letters all was a strange assortment. Arrived at eight and a telegram came soon after. Mrs. Drabb-Dump rattled his door, shouted, and at last put the wire under it. Her heart was beating fast enough now, though there seemed to be a cold, clammy snake curling around it. She went downstairs again and turned the handle of Mort Lake's room and went in without knowing why. The coverlet of the bed showed that the occupant had only laid down in his clothes, as if fearing to miss the early train. She had not for a moment expected to find him in the room, yet somehow the consciousness that she was alone in the house with the sleeping Constance seemed to flash for the first time upon her, and the clammy snake tightened its folds around her heart. She opened the street door, and her eye wandered nervously up and down. It was half-past eight. The little street stretched cold and still in the gray mist, blinking bleary eyes at either end where the street lamp smoldered on. No one was visible for the moment, though smoke was rising from many of the chimneys to greet its sister mist. At the house of the detective across the way the blinds were still down and the shutters up. Yet the familiar prosaic aspect of the street calmed her. The bleak air set her coughing. She slammed the door too, and returned to the kitchen to make fresh tea for Constance, who could only be in a deep sleep. But the canister trembled in her grasp. She did not know whether she dropped it or threw it down, but there was nothing in the hand that batted again a moment later at the bedroom door, no sound within answered the clamour without. She rained blow upon blow in a sort of spasm of frenzy, scarce remembering that her object was merely to wake her lodger, and almost staving in the lower panels with her kicks. Then she turned the handle and tried to open the door, but it was locked. The resistance recalled her to herself. She had a moment of shock decency at the thought that she had been about to enter Constance's bedroom. Then the terror came over her afresh. She felt that she was alone in the house with the corpse. She sank to the floor cowering with difficulty stifling at a desire to scream. Then she rose with a jerk and raced down the stairs without looking behind her, and threw open the door and ran out into the street, only pulling up with her hands violently agitating Grodman's door-knocker. In a moment the first floor window was raised. The little house was of the same pattern as her own, and Grodman's full, fleshy face loomed through the fog in sleepy irritation from under a nightcap. Despite its scowl the ex-detectives' face dawned upon her like the sun upon an occupant of the haunted chamber. What in the devil's a matter? He growled. Grodman was not an early bird, now that he had no worms to catch. He could afford to despise proverbs now, for the house in which he lived was his, and he lived in it because several other houses in the street were also his, and it is well for the landlord to be about his own estate in Bow where poachers often shoot the moon. Perhaps the desire to enjoy his greatness among his early cronies counted for something too, for he had been born and bred at Bow, receiving, when a youth, his first engagement from the local police quarters, whence he had drawn a few shillings a week as an amateur detective in his leisure hours. Grodman was still a bachelor. In the celestial matrimonial bureau a partner might have been selected for him, but he had never been able to discover her. It was his one failure as a detective. He was a self-sufficing person, who preferred a gas stove to a domestic, but in deference to Glover's street opinion he admitted a female factotum between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m., and equally in deference to Glover's street opinion excluded her between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m. I want you to come across at once, Mrs. drab dump gasped. Something has happened to Mr. Constant. What? Not bludgeoned by the police at the meeting this morning, I hope? No, no. He didn't go. He's dead. Dead? Grodman's face grew very serious now. Yes, murdered. What? Almost shouted the ex-detective. How? When? Where? Who? I don't know. I can't get to him. I've beaten at his door. He does not answer. Grodman's face lit up with relief. You silly woman, is that all? I shall have a cold in my head. Bitter weather. He's dog-tired after yesterday, processions, three speeches, kindergarten, lecture on the moon, article on cooperation. That's his style. It was also Grodman's style. He never wasted words. No! Mrs. drab dump breathed up at him solemnly. He's dead? All right. Go back. Don't alarm the neighbourhood unnecessarily. Wait for me. Down in five minutes. Grodman did not take this Cassandra of the kitchen too seriously. Probably he knew this woman. His small, bead-like eyes glittered with an almost amused smile as he withdrew them from Mrs. drab dump's ken and shut down the sash with a bang. The poor woman ran back across the road and through her door, which she could not close behind her. It seemed to shut her in with the dead. She waited in the passage. After an age, seven minutes by any honest clock, Grodman made his appearance, looking as depressed as usual, but with unkempt hair and with disconsolate side-whisker. He was not quite used to that side-whisker yet, for it had only recently come within the margin of cultivation. In active service Grodman had been clean-shaven, like all members of THE profession, for surely your detective is the most versatile of actors. Mrs. drab dump closed the street door quietly and pointed to the stairs, fear operating like a polite desire to give him precedence. Grodman ascended, amusement still glimmering in his eyes. Arrived on the landing, he knocked preemptually at the door, crying, Nine o'clock, Mr. Constant, nine o'clock! When he ceased there was no other sound or movement. His face grew more serious. He waited. Then knocked and cried louder. He turned the door handle, but the door was fast. He tried to peer through the keyhole, but it was blocked. He shook the upper panels, but the door seemed bolted as well as locked. He stood still, his face set and rigid, for he liked and esteemed the man. I knock your loudest! whispered the pale-faced woman, you'll not wake him now. The gray mist had followed them through the street door, and hovered about the staircase, charging the air with a moist, sepulchral odour. Locked and bolted, muttered Grodman, shaking the door afresh. Burst it open! breathed the woman, trembling violently all over and holding her hand before her as if to ward off the dreadful vision. Without another word, Grodman applied his shoulder to the door, and made a violent, muscular effort. He had been an athlete in his time, and the sap was yet in him. The door creaked. Little by little it began to give. The woodwork enclosing the bolt of the lock splintered. The panels bent inwards. The large upper bolt tore off its iron staple. The door flew back with a crash. Grodman rushed in. My God! he cried. The woman shrieked. The sight was too terrible. Within a few hours the jubilant newsboys were shrieking, horrible suicide in Bao! and the moon-poster added for the satisfaction of those two poor to purchase. A philanthropist cuts his throat. End of Chapter 1 The Big Boe Mystery by Israel Zangwill Read by Adrian Prezellas This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Big Boe Mystery by Israel Zangwill Chapter 2 But the newspapers were premature. Scotland Yard refused to prejudice the case despite the penny aligners. Several arrests were made so that the later additions were compelled to soften suicide into mystery. The people arrested were a nondescript collection of tramps. Most of them committed other offences for which the police had not arrested them. One bewildered looking gentleman gave himself up, as if he were a riddle, but the police would have none of him and withstored him forthwith to his friends and keepers. The number of candidates for each new opening and new gate is astonishing. The false significance of this tragedy of a noble young life cut short had hardly time to filter into the public mind when a fresh sensation absorbed it. Tom Mortlake had been arrested the same day at Liverpool on suspicion of being concerned in the death of his fellow lodger. The news fell like a bombshell upon a land in which Tom Mortlake's name was a household word. That the gifted artisan orator who had never shrunk upon occasion from launching red rhetoric at society should actually have shed blood seemed too startling, especially as the blood shed was not blue, but the property of a lovable young middle-class idealist who had now literally given his life to the cause. But this supplementary sensation did not grow to a head, and everyone save a few labour leaders was relieved to hear that Tom had been released almost immediately, being merely subpoenaed to appear at the inquest. In an interview which he accorded to the representative of a Liverpool paper the same afternoon, he stated that he put his arrest down entirely to the enmity and rancour entertained towards him by the police throughout the country. He had come to Liverpool to trace the movements of a friend about whom he was very uneasy, and he was making anxious inquiries at the docks to discover at what time steamers left for America when the detective stationed there had, in accordance with instructions from headquarters, arrested him as a suspicious looking character. Though, said Tom, they must very well have known my fears as I have been sketched and character-tured all over the shop. When I told them who I was, they had the decency to let me go. Though they thought they'd scored off me enough, I reckon. Yes, it certainly is a strange coincidence, though I might actually have had something to do with the poor fellow's death, which has cut me up as much as anybody, though if they had known I had just come from the scene of the crime and actually lived in their house, they would probably have let me alone. He laughed sarcastically. They are a queer lot of muddleheads of the police. Their motto is, first catch a man, then cook the evidence. If you're on the spot, you're guilty because you're there, and if you're elsewhere, you're guilty because you've gone away. Oh, I know them. If they could have seen their way to clap me in quad, they'd have done it. Luckily, I know the name of the cabman who took me to Houston before five this morning. If they capped you in quad, the interviewer reported himself as facetiously observing, the prisoners would be on strike in a week. Yes, but there would be so many blacklegs ready to take their places—mortleg flashed back—that I'm afraid it would be no go. But do excuse me, I'm so upset about my friend I'm afraid he has left England, and I have to make inquiries. And now there's the poor constant gone. Horrible, horrible. And I'm due in London at the inquest. I really must run away. Goodbye, tell your readers, it's all a police grudge. One last word, Mr. Maltlake, if you please. Is it true you were billed to preside at a great many of Clarks at St. James's hall between one and two today to protest against the German invasion? Phew, so I was. But the beggars arrested me just before one when I was going to wire, and then the news of poor constant's end drove it out of my head. What a nuisance, nor what troubles do come together. Well, goodbye, send me a copy of the paper. Tom Maltlake's evidence at the inquest added little beyond this to the public knowledge of his movements on the morning of the mystery. The cabman who drove him to Houston had written indignantly to the papers to say that he picked up his celebrated fare at Bow Railway Station at about half-past four a.m., and the arrest was a deliberate insult to democracy, and he offered to make an affidavit to that effect, leaving it dubious to which effect. But Scotland Yard betrayed no itch for the affidavit in question, and number 2138 subsided again into the obscurity of his rank. Maltlake, whose face was very pale below the black main brushed from his fine forehead, gave his evidence in low sympathetic tones. He had known the deceased for over a year, coming constantly across him in their common political and social work, and had found him the furnished rooms for him in Glover Street at his own request, just as being to let when constant resolve to leave his rooms at Oxford House in Bethnal Green and to share the actual life of the people. The locality suited the deceased as being near the people's palace. He respected and admired the deceased, whose genuine goodness had won all hearts. The deceased was an untiring worker, never grumbled, was always in fair spirits, regarded his life and wealth as a sacred trust to be used for the benefit of humanity. He had last seen him at a quarter-past nine p.m. on the day preceding his death. He, the witness, had received a letter by the last post which made him uneasy about a friend. He went up to consult deceased about it. Deceased was evidently suffering from toothache, and was fixing a piece of cotton wool in a hollow tooth, but he did not complain. Deceased seemed rather upset by the news he brought, and they both discussed it rather excitedly. Jury man. Did the news concern him? Mortlake. Only, impersonally, he knew my friend and was keenly sympathetic when one was in trouble. Coroner. Could you share the jury, the letter you received? Mortlake. I have mislaid it, and I can't make out where it has got to. If you so think it relevant or essential, I will state what the trouble was. Coroner. Was the toothache very violent? Mortlake. I cannot tell. I think not, though he told me it had disturbed his rest the night before. Coroner. What time did you leave him? Mortlake. About twenty to ten. Coroner. And what did you do then? Mortlake. I went out for an hour or so to make some inquiries. Then I returned and told my landlady I should be leaving by an early train for the country. Coroner. And that was the last you saw of the deceased? Mortlake. With emotion. The last. Coroner. How was he when you left him? Mortlake. Mainly concerned about my trouble. Coroner. Otherwise you saw nothing unusual about him? Mortlake. Nothing. Coroner. What time did you leave the house on Tuesday morning? Mortlake. About five and twenty minutes past four. Coroner. Are you sure you shut the street door? Mortlake. Quite sure. Knowing my landlady was rather a timid person, I even slipped the bolt of the big lock, which was usually tied back. It was impossible for anyone to get in, even with a latch key. Mrs. Drab dump's evidence, which of course proceeded his, was more important, and occupied a considerable time unduly eaked out by Drab Dumpy and Padding. Thus she not only deposed that Mr. Conston had the toothache, but that it was going to last about a week, in tragicomic indifference to the radical cure that had been effected. Her account of the last hours of the deceased tallied with Mortlakes, only that she feared Mortlake was quarrelling with him over something in the letter that had come by the Nine O'Cock Post. Deceased had left the house a little after Mortlake, and had returned before him, and had gone straight to his bedroom. She had not actually seen him come in, having been in the kitchen, but she heard his latch key followed by his light step up the stairs. A juryman. How did you know it was not somebody else? Sensation of which the juryman tries to look unconscious. He called down to me over the banisters, and said in his sweetest voice, be extra sure to wake me at a quarter to seven, Mrs. Drab Dump, or else I shan't get to my tram meeting. The juryman collapses. Coroner. And did you wake him? Mrs. Drab Dump, breaking down. Oh, my lord, how can you ask? Coroner, there, there, compels yourself. I mean, did you try to wake him? Mrs. Drab Dump. I've taken in and done for lodgers these seventeen years, my lord, and I've always gave satisfaction. And Mr. Mollake, he wouldn't have recommended me otherwise, though I wished to have in the poor gentleman and never. Coroner. Yes, yes, of course. You tried to rouse him? But it was some time before Mrs. Drab Dump was sufficiently calm to explain that, though she had overslept herself, and though it would have been all the same anyhow, she had come up to time. Bit by bit, the tragic story was forced from her lips. A tragedy that even her telling could not make tawdry. She told with superfluous detail how, when Mr. Grudman broke in the door, she saw her unhappy gentleman lodger lying on his back in bed, stone dead, with a gaping red wound in his throat. How her stronger-minded companion calmed her a little by spreading a handkerchief over the distorted face. How they then looked vainly about, and under the bed for any instrument by which the deed could have been done. The veteran detective carefully making a rapid inventory of the contents of the room, and taking notes of the precise position and condition of the body before anything was disturbed by the arrival of gapers or bungalars. And how she had pointed out to him that both the windows were firmly bolted to keep out the cold night air. How, having noted this down with a puzzled pitting shake of the head, he had opened the window to summon the police, and aspired, in the fog, one densil canticot, whom he called and told to run to the nearest police station, and asked them to send on an inspector and a surgeon. How they both remained in the room till the police arrived. Grodman pondering deeply the while, and making notes every now and again, as fresh points occurred to him, and asking her questions about the poor, weak-headed young man. Pressed as to what she meant by calling the deceased weak-headed, she replied that some of her neighbours wrote him begging letters, though heaven knew they were better off than herself, who had to scrape her fingers to the bone for every penny she earned. Under further pressure from Mr. Torbott, who was watching the inquiry on behalf of Arthur Constance's family, Mrs. Drabb-Dump admitted that the deceased had behaved like a human being. Nor was there anything externally eccentric or queer in his conduct. He was always cheerful and pleasant-spoken, though certainly soft, God rest his soul. No, he never shaved, but wore all the hair that heaven had given him. A juryman. She thought deceased was in the habit of locking his door when he went to bed. Of course, she couldn't say for certain. Laughter. There was no need to bolt the door as well. The bolt slid upwards, and was at the top of the door. When she first let lodgings, her reasons for which she seemed anxious to publish, there had only been a bolt, but a suspicious lodger, she would not call him a gentleman, had complained that he could not fasten his door behind him, and so she had been put to the expense of having a lock made. The complaining lodger went off soon after, without paying his rent. Laughter. She had always known he would. Coroner. Was the deceased at all nervous? Witness. No, he was a very nice gentleman. A laugh. Coroner. I mean, did he seem afraid of being robbed? Witness. No, he was always going to demonstrations. Laughter. I told him to be careful. I told him I lost a purse with three and tapped myself on Jubilee Day. Mrs. Drabdump resumed her seat, weeping vaguely. Coroner. Gentlemen, we shall have an opportunity of viewing the room shortly. The story of the discovery of the body was retold, though more scientifically, by Mr. George Grodman, whose unexpected resurgence into the realm of his early exploits excited as keen a curiosity as the reappearance for this occasional only of a retired prima donna. His book, Criminals I Have Caught, passed from the 23rd to the 24th edition merely on the strength of it. Mr. Grodman stated that the body was still warm when he found it. He thought the death was quite recent. The door he had had to burst was bolted as well as locked. He confirmed Mrs. Drabdump's statement about the windows. The chimney was very narrow. The cut looked as if it had been done by a razor. There was no instrument lying about the room. He had known the deceased about a month. He seemed a very earnest, simple-minded young fellow who spoke a great deal about the brotherhood of man. The hardened old man-hunter's voice was not free from a tremor as he spoke jerkily of the dead man's enthusiasm. He should have thought the deceased the last man in the world to commit suicide. Mr. Denzel Canticott was next called. Ah, he was a poet. Laughter. He was, ah, on his way to Mr. Grodman's house to tell him he may be unable to do some writing for him because he was, ah, suffering from writer's cramp when Mr. Grodman called to him from the window of number eleven and asked him to run for the police. No, he did not run. He was an philosopher. Laughter. He returned with them to the door, but did not go up. He had no stomach for crude sensations. Laughter. The gray fog was sufficiently unbeautiful for him for one morning. Laughter. Inspector Howlett said, About four forty-five on the morning of Tuesday, fourth December, from information received, he went with Sergeant Runnymede and Mr. Robinson to 11 Glover Street bow, and there found the dead body of a young man lying on his back with his throat cut. The door of the room had been smashed in, and the lock and the bolt evidently forced. The room was tidy. There were no marks of blood on the floor. A purse full of gold was on the dressing table beside a big book. A hip bath with cold water stood beside the bed, over which was a hanging bookcase. There was a large wardrobe against the wall next to the door. The chimney was very narrow. There were two windows, one bolted. It was about eighteen feet to the pavement. There was no way of climbing up. No one could possibly get out of the room, and then bolted the doors and windows behind them. And he had searched all parts of the room in which anyone might have been concealed. He had been unable to find any instrument in the room in spite of an exhaustive search. There being not even a penknife in the pockets of the clothes of the deceased, which lay on a chair. The house and the backyard and the adjacent pavement also had been fruitlessly searched. Sergeant Runnymede made an identical statement, saving only that he had gone with Dr. Robinson and Inspector Howlett. Dr. Robinson, divisional surgeon, said, The deceased was lying on his back with his throat cut. The body was not yet curled. The abdominal region was quite warm. Rigor mortis had set in in the lower jaw, neck and upper extremities. The muscles contracted when beaten. I inferred that life had been extinct, some two or three hours, probably not longer. It might have been less. The bed clothes would keep the lower part warm for some time. The wound, which was a deep one, was five and one-half inches from right to left across the throat to a point under the left ear. The upper portion of the windpipe was severed and likewise the jugular vein. The muscular coating of the carotid artery was divided. There was a slight cut as if in continuation of the wound on the thumb of the left hand. The hands were clasped underneath the head. There was no blood on the right hand. The wound could not have been self-inflicted. A sharp instrument had to have been used, such as a razor. The cut might have been made by a left-handed person. No doubt death was practically instantaneous. I saw no signs of a struggle about the body or the room. I noticed a purse on the dressing table next to Madame Velasquez's big book on Theosophy. Sergeant Runnymede drew my attention to the fact that the door had evidently been locked and bolted from within a juryman. I did not say the cuts could not have been made by a right-handed person. I can offer no suggestion as to how the inflictor of the wound got in or out. Extremely improbable that the cut was self-inflicted. There was a little trace of the outside fog in the room. Police Constable Williams said he was on duty in the early hours of the morning of the fourth inst. Glover Street lay within his beat. He saw or heard nothing suspicious. The fog was never very dense, though nasty to the throat. He had passed through Glover Street about half past four. He had not seen Mr. Mortley or anybody else leave the house. The court here adjourned. The coroner and the jury repairing in a body to 11 Glover Street to view the house and the bedroom of the deceased. And the evening posters announced, The Bow Mystery Thickens. End of Chapter 2 The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill. Read by Adrian Prezellus. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill. Chapter 3 Before the inquiry was resumed, all the poor wretches in custody had been released on suspicion that they were innocent. There was not a single case even for a magistrate. Clues, which at such seasons are gathered by the police like blackberries off the hedges, were scanty and unripe. Inferior specimens were offered them by bushels, but there was not a good one among the lot. The police could not even manufacture a clue. Other Constance's death was already the theme of every hearth, railway carriage and public house. The dead idealist had points of contact with so many spheres. The East End and the West End alike were moved and excited. The democratic leagues and the churches, the dust houses and the universities, the pity of it, and then the impenetrable mystery of it. The evidence given in the concluding portion of the investigation was necessarily less sensational. There were no more witnesses to bring the scent of blood over the coroner's table. Those who had yet to be heard were merely relatives and friends of the deceased who spoke of him as he had been in life. His parents were dead, perhaps happily for them. His relatives had seen little of him, and had scarce heard as much about him as the outside world. No man is a prophet in his own country, and even if he migrates it is advisable for him to leave his family at home. His friends were a motley crew. Friends of the same friend are not necessarily friends of one another, but their diversity only made the congruity of the tale they had to tell more striking. It was the tale of a man who had never made an enemy even by benefitting him, nor lost a friend even by refusing his favours. The tale of a man whose heart overflowed with peace and good will to all men all the year round. Of a man to whom Christmas came not once, but 365 times a year. It was the tale of a brilliant intellect who gave up to mankind what was meant for himself, and worked as a labourer in the vineyard of humanity, never crying that the grapes were sour, of a man uniformly cheerful, and of good courage, living in that forgetfulness of self which is the truest antidote to despair. And yet there was not quite wanting the note of pain to jar the harmony and make it all human. Richard Elton, his chum from boyhood and vicar of Summerton in Midlandshire, handed to the coroner a letter received from the deceased about ten days before his death, containing some passages which the coroner read aloud. Do you know anything of Schopenhauer? I mean anything beyond the current misconceptions. I have been making his acquaintance lately. He is an agreeable rattle of a pessimist. His essay on The Misery of Mankind is quite lively reading. At first his assimilation of Christianity and pessimism, it occurs in his essay on Suicide, dazzled me, as an audacious paradox. But there is truth in it. Verily the whole creation groaneth and trevally, and man is a degraded monster, and sin is all over. Ah, my friend, I have shed many of my illusions since I came to this seething hive of misery and wrongdoing. What shall one man's life, a million men's lives, avail against the corruption, the vulgarity, and the squalor of civilization? Sometimes I feel like a farthing rush-light in the halls of Eblis. Selfishness is so long and life so short. And the worst of it is that everybody is so beastly contented. The poor no more desire comfort than the rich culture. The woman to whom a petty school fee for her child represents an appreciable slice of her income is satisfied that the rich we shall always have with us. The real old Tories are the paupers in the work-house. The radical working-men are jealous of their own leaders, and the leaders are jealous of one another. Schopenhauer must have organised the Labour Party in his salad days, and yet one can't help feeling that he committed suicide as a philosopher by not committing it as a man. He claims kinship with Buddha too, though esoteric Buddhism at least seems spheres removed from the philosophy of the will and the idea. What a wonderful woman Madame Belatsky must be. I can't say I follow her, for she is up in the clouds nearly all the time, and I haven't as yet developed an astral body. Shall I send you on her book? It is fascinating, I am becoming quite a fluent orator. One soon gets into the way of it. The horrible thing is that you catch yourself saying things to lead up to cheers instead of sticking to the plain realities of the business. Lucy is still doing the galleries in Italy. It used to pain me sometimes to think of my darling's happiness when I came across a flat-chested factory girl. Now I feel her happiness is as important as a factory girl's. Lucy, the witness explained, was Lucy Brent, the betrothed of the deceased. The poor girl had been telegraphed for and had started for England. The witness stated that the outburst of despondency in this letter was almost a solitary one, most of the letters in his possession, being bright, buoyant and hopeful. Even this letter ended with a humorous statement of the writer's manifold plans and projects for the new year. The deceased was a good churchman. Coroner, was there any private trouble in his own life to account for the temporary despondency? Witness, not so far as I am aware, his financial position was exceptionally favourable. Coroner, there had been no quarrel with Miss Brent? Witness, I have the best authority for saying that no shadow of difference had ever come between them. Coroner, was the deceased left-handed? Witness, certainly not. He was not even an ambidextor. A juryman, isn't Schopenhauer one of those infidel writers published by the Free Thought Publication Society? Witness, I do not know who publishes his books. Juryman, a small grocer and big, raw-bone scotchman rejoicing in the name of Sandy Sanderson and the dignities of deaconry and membership of the Committee of the Boe Conservative Association. No equivocation, sir! Is he not a secularist who has lectured at the Hall of Science? Witness, no. He is a foreign writer. Mr. Sanderson was heard to thank heaven for this small mercy, who believes that life is not worth living. Juryman, what are you not shocked to feign the friend of a minister reading such impure literature? Witness, the deceased read everything. Schopenhauer is the author of a system of philosophy, and not what you seem to imagine. Perhaps you would like to inspect the book. Laughter. Juryman, I wouldn't dare touch it with a pitchfork. Such book should be burnt. And this Madame Balatsky's book, what is that? Is that also philosophy? Witness, no, it's theosophy. Laughter. Mr. Alan Smith, Secretary of the Tramman's Union, stated that he had had an interview with the deceased on the day before his death, when he, the deceased, spoke hopefully of the prospects of the movement, and wrote him out a check for ten guineas for his union. Deceased promised the speaker a meeting called for quarter-past seven a.m. the next day. Mr. Edward Wimp of the Scotland Jar Detective Department said that the letters and papers of the deceased threw no light upon the manner of his death, and that they would be handed back to the family. His department had not formed any theory on the subject. The coroner proceeded to sum up the evidence. We have to deal, gentlemen, he said, with a most incomprehensible and mysterious case, the details of which are yet astonishingly simple. On the morning of Tuesday the fourth inst, Mrs. Drab dump, a worthy hardworking widow who lets lodgings at 11 Glover Street, Bow, was unable to arouse the deceased, who occupied the entire upper floor of the house. Becoming alarmed she went across to fetch Mr. George Grodman, a gentleman known to us all by reputation, and to whose clear and scientific evidence we are much indebted, and got him to batter in the door. They'd found the deceased lying back in bed with a deep wound in his throat. Life had only recently become extinct. There was no trace of any instrument by which the cut could have been affected. There was no trace of any person who could have affected the cut. No person could apparently have got in or out. The medical evidence goes to show that the deceased could not have inflicted the wound himself. And yet, gentlemen, there are, in the nature of things, two and only two alternative explanations of his death. Either the wound was inflicted by his own hand, or it was inflicted by another's. I shall take each of these possibilities separately. First, did the deceased commit suicide? The medical evidence says deceased was lying with his hands clasped behind his head. Now, the wound was made from right to left, and terminated by a cut on the left thumb. If the deceased had made it, he would have had to do it with his right hand, while his left hand remained under his head a most peculiar and unnatural position to assume. Moreover, in making a cut with the right hand, one would naturally move the hand from left to right. It's unlikely that the deceased would move his right hand so awkwardly and unnaturally, unless, of course, his object was to baffle suspicion. Another point is that, on this hypothesis, the deceased would have had to replace his right hand beneath his head. But Dr. Robinson believes that death was instantaneous. If so, deceased could have had no time to pose so neatly. It is just possible the cut was made with the left hand, but then the deceased was right-handed. The absence of any signs of a possible weapon undoubtedly goes to corroborate the medical evidence. The police have made an exhaustive search of all places where the razor or other weapon or instrument might have had any possibility have been concealed, including the bed clothes, the mattress, the pillow, and the street into which it might have been dropped. But all theories involving the willful concealment of the fatal instrument have to reckon with the fact or probability that the death was instantaneous, also with the fact that there was no blood about the floor. Finally, the instrument used was in all likelihood a razor, and the deceased did not shave and was never known to be in possession of such an instrument. If then we were to confine ourselves to the medical and police evidence, there would, I think, be little hesitation in dismissing the idea of suicide. Nevertheless, it is well to forget the physical aspect of the case for a moment and to apply our minds to an unprejudiced inquiry into the mental aspect of it. Was there any reason why the deceased should wish to take his own life? He was young, wealthy, and popular, loving, and loved. Life stretched fair before him. He had no vices, plain living, high thinking, and noble doing were the three guiding stars of his life. If he had had ambition, an illustrious public career was within his reach. He was an orator of no mean power, a brilliant and industrious man. His outlook was always on the future. He was always sketching out ways in which he could be useful to his fellow men. His purse and his time were ever at the command of whomsoever should show fair claim upon them. If such a man were likely to end his own life, the science of human nature would be at an end. Still, some of the shadows of the picture have been presented to us. The man had his moments of despondency, which of us has not. But they seem to have been few in passing. Anyhow, he was cheerful enough on the day before his death. He was suffering too from toothache, but it does not seem to have been violent nor did he complain. Possibly, of course, the pain became very acute in the night, nor must we forget that he may have overworked himself and got his nerves into a morbid state. He worked very hard, never rising later than half-past-seven, and doing far more than the professional labour leader. He taught and wrote, as well as spoke and organised. But, on the other hand, all witnesses agreed that he was looking forward eagerly to the meeting of tram men on the morning of the Fourth Inst. His whole heart was in the movement. Is it likely that this was the night he would choose for quitting the scene of his usefulness? Is it likely that if he had chosen it he would not have left letters and a statement behind, or made a last will and testament? Mr. Wimp has found no possible clue to such conduct in his papers. Or is it likely that he would have concealed the instrument? The only positive sign of intention is the bolting of his door, in addition to the usual locking of it, but one cannot lay much stress on that. Regarding the mental aspects alone, the balance is largely against suicide. Looking at the physical aspects, suicide is well-nigh impossible. Putting the two together, the case against suicide is all but mathematically complete. The answer, then, to our first question, did the deceased commit suicide, is that he did not. The coroner paused and everybody drew a long breath. The lucid exposition had been followed with admiration. If the coroner had stopped now, the jury would have unhesitatingly returned a verdict of murder. But the coroner swallowed a mouthful of water and went on. We come now to the second alternative, was the deceased the victim of homicide. In order to answer that question in the affirmative, it is essential that we should be able to form some conception of the modus operandi. It is all very well for Dr. Robinson to say the cut was made by another hand, but in the absence of any theory as to how the cut could possibly have been made by that other hand, we should be driven back to the theory of self-infliction. However improbable, it may seem to a medical gentleman. Now what are the facts? When Mrs. Drabdom and Mr. Groedman found the body, it was yet warm, and Mr. Groedman, a witness fortunately qualified by special experience, states that the death had been quite recent. This tallies closely enough with the view of Dr. Robinson, who examining the body about an hour later put the time of death at two or three hours before, say at seven o'clock. Mrs. Drabdom had attempted to wake the deceased at a quarter of seven, which would put back the act to a little earlier. As I understand from Dr. Robinson that it is impossible to fix the time very precisely, death may very well have taken place several hours before Mrs. Drabdom's first attempt to wake the deceased. Of course, it may have taken place between the first and second calls, as he may merely have been sound asleep at first. It may also not impossibly have taken place considerably earlier than the first call, for all the physical data seem to prove. Nevertheless, on the whole I think we shall least likely to err if we assume the time of death to be half past six. Gentlemen, let us picture to ourselves Number 11 Glover Street at half past six. We have seen the house. We know exactly how it is constructed. On the ground floor, a front room teneted by Mr. Mortlake, with two windows giving on the street, both securely bolted, a back room occupied by the landlady, and a kitchen. Mrs. Drabdom did not leave her bedroom till half past six, so we may be sure all the various doors and windows have not yet been unfastened, while the season of the year is a guarantee that nothing had been left open. The front door through which Mr. Mortlake has gone out before half past four is guarded by the latch-key lock and big lock. On the upper floor are two rooms, a front room used by deceased for a bedroom, and a back room which he used as a sitting room. The back room has been left open with the key inside, but the window is fastened. The door of the front room is not only locked, but bolted. We have seen the splinted mortise and the staple of the upper bolt violently forced from the woodwork and resting on the pin. The windows are bolted, the fasteners being firmly fixed in the catches. The chimney is too narrow to admit of the passage of even a child. This room, in fact, is as firmly barred in as if besieged. It has no communication with any other part of the house. It is as absolutely self-centred and isolated as if it were a fort in the sea or a log hut in the forest. Even if any strange person is in the house, nay, in the very sitting room of the deceased, he cannot get into the bedroom, for the house is one built for the poor with no communication between the different rooms so that separate families, if need be, may inhabit each. Now, however, let us grant that some person has achieved the miracle of getting into the front room first floor, eighteen feet from the ground. At half-past six or thereabouts, he cuts the throat of the sleeping occupant. How is he then to get out without attracting the attention of the now-roused landlady? But let us concede him that miracle, too. How is he to go away and yet leave the doors and windows locked and bolted from within? This is a degree of miracle at which my credulity must draw the line. No, the room had been closed all night. There is scarce a trace of fog in it. No one could get in or out. Finally, murders do not take place without motive. Robbery and revenge are the only conceivable motives. The deceased had not an enemy in the world. His money and valuables were left untouched. Everything was in order. There were no signs of a struggle. The answer then to our second inquiry was the deceased killed by another person is that he was not. Gentlemen, I am aware that this sounds impossible and contradictory, but it is the facts that contradict themselves. It seems clear that the deceased did not commit suicide. It seems equally clear that the deceased was not murdered. There is nothing for it, therefore, gentlemen, to return a verdict tantamount to an acknowledgement of our incompetence, to come to any adequately grounded conviction, whatever, as to the means or the manner by which the deceased met his death. It is the most inexplicable mystery in all my experience. Sensation. The foreman, after a colloquy with Mr. Sandy Sanderson. We are not agreed, sir. One of the jurors insists on a verdict of death from visitation by the act of God, end of Chapter 3. The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill. Read by Adrian Prezellus. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill. But Sandy Sanderson's burning solicitude to fix the crime flickered out in the face of opposition, and in the end he bowed his head to the inevitable open verdict. Then the flood-gates of ink-land were opened, and the deluge patted for nine days on the deaf coffin where the poor idealist moulded. The tongues of the press were loosened, and the leader-writers reveled in recapitulating the circumstances of the Big Bow Mystery, though they could contribute nothing but adjectives to the solution. The papers teamed with letters. It was a kind of Indian summer of the silly season, but the editors could not keep them out nor cared to. The mystery was the one topic of conversation everywhere. It was on the carpet, and the bare boards alike, in the kitchen and the drawing-room. It was discussed with science or stupidity, with aspirants or without. It came up for breakfast with the rolls, and was swept off the supper-table with the last crumbs. Number eleven Glover Street bow remained for days a shrine of pilgrimage. The once sleepy little street buzzed from morning till night. From all parts of the town people came to stare up at the bedroom window and wonder with a foolish face of horror. The pavement was often blocked for hours altogether, and itinerant vendors of refreshment made it a new market-centre, while vocalists hastened thither to sing the delectable ditty of the deed without having any voice in the matter. It was a pity the government did not elect a toll-gate at either end of the street, but chancellors of the Exchequer rarely avail themselves of the more obvious expedience for paying the national debt. Finally familiarity bred contempt, and the wits grew facetious at the expense of the mystery. Jokes on the subjects appeared, even in the comic papers. To the proverb, you must not say boo to a goose, one added, or else she will explain you the mystery. The name of the gentleman who asked whether the bow mystery was not the name of the gentleman who asked whether the bow mystery was not arrowing, should not be divulged. There was one more point in Dragonet-Chermar that, if he had been one of the unhappy jurymen, he should have been driven to suicide. A professional paradox-monger pointed triumphantly to the somewhat similar situation in the Murder in the Rue Morgue, and said that nature had been plagiarizing again, like the monkey she was, and he recommended Poe's publishers to apply for an injunction. More seriously, Poe's solution was suggested by constant reader, as an original idea. He thought that a small organ grinder's monkey might have got down the chimney with its master's razor, and, after attempting to shave the occupant of the bed, have returned the way it came. This idea created considerable sensation, but a correspondent with a long train of letters draggling after his name pointed out that a monkey small enough to get down so narrow a flu would not be strong enough to inflict so deep a wound. This was disputed by a third writer, and the contest raged so keenly about the power of a monkey's muscles that it was almost taken for granted that a monkey was the guilty party. The bubble was pricked by the pen of common sense, who laconically remarked that no traces of soot or blood had been discovered on the floor or on the night-shirt or on the counter-pane. The Lancet's leader on the mystery was awaited with interest. It said, We cannot join in the praises that had been showered upon the coroner summing up. It shows again the evils resulting from having coroners who are not medical men. He seems to have appreciated but inadequately the significance of the medical evidence. He should certainly have directed the jury to return a verdict of murder on that. What was it to do with him that he could see no way by which the wound could have been inflicted by an outside agency? It was for the police to find out how that was done. Enough that it was impossible for the young man to have inflicted such a wound, and then have the strength and willpower enough to hide the instrument and to remove perfectly every trace of his having left the bed for the purpose. It is impossible to enumerate all the theories propounded by the amateur detectives, while Scotland Yard religiously held its tongue. Ultimately the interest in the subject became confined to a few papers which had received the best letters. Those papers that couldn't get interesting letters stopped the correspondence and sneered at the sensationalism of those that could. Among the mass of fantasy there were not a few notable solutions which failed brilliantly, like rockets posing as fixed stars. One was that in the obscurity of the fog the murderer had ascended the window of the bedroom by means of a ladder from the pavement. He had them with a diamond cut one of the panes away and affected an entry through the aperture. On leaving he fixed in the pain of the glass again or another which he had brought with him, and thus the room remained with its bolts and locks untouched. On its being pointed out that the panes were too small, a third correspondence showed that that didn't matter, as it was only necessary to insert a hand and undo the fastening when the entire window could be opened, the process being reversed by the murderer on leaving. This pretty edifice of glass was smashed by a glacier who wrote to say that a pain could hardly be fixed in from only one side of a window frame that it would fall out when touched, and that in any case the wet putty would not have escaped detection. A door panel sliced out and replaced was also put forward, and as many trapped doors and secret passages were ascribed to No. 11 Glover Street as if it were a medieval castle. Another of these clever theories was that the murderer was in the room the whole time the police were there, hidden in the wardrobe, or that he had got behind the door when Grodman broke it open, so that he was not noticed in the excitement of discovery and escaped with his weapon at the moment when Grodman and Mrs. Drab dump were examining the window fastenings. Scientific explanations were to hand to explain how the assassin locked and bolted the door behind him. Powerful magnets outside the door had been used to turn the key and push the bolt within. Murderers armed with magnets loomed on the popular imagination like a new microbe. There was only one defect in this ingenious theory. The thing could not be done. A physiologist recalled the conjurers who swallow swords by an anatomical peculiarity of the throat, and said that the deceased might have swallowed the weapon after cutting his own throat. This was too much for the police to swallow. As for the idea that the suicide had been effected with a pen knife or its blade or a bit of steel which had then got buried in the wound, not even the quotation of Shelley's line, make such a wound the knife is lost in it, could secure it a moment's acceptance. The same reception was accorded to the idea that the cut had been made with a candlestick or other harmless necessary bedroom article constructed like a sword-stick. Theories of this sort caused a humorous to explain that the deceased had hidden the razor in his hollow tooth. Some kind friends of Mrs. Masculine and Cook suggested that they were the only persons who could have done the deed, as no one else could have got out of a locked cabinet. But perhaps the most brilliant of these flashes of false fire was the facetious, yet probably half-seriously meant letter that appeared in the pale male press under the heading of The Big Boe Mystery Solved. Sir, you will remember that when the Whitechapel murders were agitating the universe, I suggested that the district coroner was the assassin. My suggestion has been disregarded. The coroner is still at large. So is the Whitechapel murderer. Perhaps this suggestive coincidence will incline the authorities to pay more attention to me this time. The problem seems to be this. The deceased could not have cut his own throat. The deceased could not have had his throat cut for him. As one of the two musts have happened, this is obvious nonsense. As this is obvious nonsense, I am justified in disbelieving it. As this obvious nonsense was primarily put into circulation by Mrs. Drab-Dump and Mr. Grodman, I am justified in disbelieving them. In short, sir, what guarantee have we that the whole tale is not a cock-and-ball story invented by the two persons who first found the body? What proof is there that the deed was not done by these persons themselves, who then went to work to smash the door and break the locks and the bolts and fasten up the windows before they called the police in? I enclose my card and answer yours truly, one who looks through his own spectacles. Note, our correspondence theory is not so audaciously original as he seems to imagine. Has he not looked through the spectacles of the people who had persistently suggested that the White Chapel murder was invariably the policeman who found the body? Somebody must find the body if it is to be found at all. Ed. P. M. P. The editor had reason to be pleased that he had inserted this letter, for it drew the following interesting communication from the great detective himself. The big-bow mystery solved. Sir, I do not agree with you that your correspondence theory lacks originality. On the contrary, I think it is a delightful original. In fact, it has given me an idea. What the idea is, I do not yet propose to say, but if one who looks through his own spectacles would favour me with his name and address, I shall be happy to inform him a little before the rest of the world whether his germ has borne any fruit. I feel he is a kindred spirit and take this opportunity of saying publicly that I was extremely disappointed at the unsatisfactory verdict. The thing was a palpable assassination, an open verdict as a tendency to relax the exertions of Scotland Yard. I hope I shall not be accused of immodesty or of making personal reflections when I say that the department has had several notorious failures of late. It is not what it used to be. Crime is becoming impertinent. It no longer knows its place, so to speak. It throws down the gauntlet where once it used to cower in its fastnesses. I repeat, I make these remarks solely in the interests of law and order. I do not for one moment believe that Arthur Constance killed himself, and if Scotland Yard satisfies itself with that explanation and turns on its other side and goes to sleep again, then, sir, one of the foulest and most horrible crimes of the century will forever go unpunished. My acquaintance with the unhappy victim was but recent. Still, I saw a new enough of the man to be certain, and I hope I have seen and known enough of other men to judge, that he was a man constitutionally incapable of committing an act of violence, whether against himself or anybody else. He would not hurt a fly, as the saying goes, and a man of that gentle stamp always lacks the active energy to lay hands on himself. He was a man to be esteemed in no common degree, and I feel proud to be able to say that he considered me a friend. I am hardly at the time of life at which a man cares to put on his hardest again, but, sir, it is impossible that I should ever know a day's rest till the perpetrator of this foul deed is discovered. I have already put myself in communication with the family of the victim, who, I am pleased to say, have every confidence in me, and look to me to clear the name of their unhappy relative from the semi-imputation of suicide. I should be pleased if anyone who shares my distrust of the authorities, and who has any clue whatever to this terrible mystery or any plausible suggestion to offer, if, in brief, anyone who looks through his own spectacles will communicate with me. If I were asked to indicate the direction in which new clues might be most usefully sought, I should say, in the first instance anything is valuable that helps us piece together a complete picture of the manifold activities of the man in the East End. He entered one way or another into the lives of a good many people. Is it true that he nowhere made enemies? With the best intentions a man may wound or offend. His interference may be resented. He may even excite jealousy. A young man like the late Mr. Constant could not have had as much practical sagacity as he had goodness. Whose corns did he tread on? The more we know of the last months of his life, the more we shall know of the manner of his death, thanking you by anticipation for the insertion of this letter in your valuable columns. I am, sir, yours truly George Grodman, 46 Glover Street, Bow. P.S. Since writing the above lines, I have, by the kindness of Miss Brent, been placed in possession of a most valuable letter, probably the last letter written by the unhappy gentleman. It is dated Monday 3 December, on the very eve of the murder, and was addressed to her at Florence, and as now after some delay, followed her back to London, where the sad news unexpectedly brought her. It is a letter couched on the whole in the most hopeful spirit, and speaks in details of his schemes. Of course, there are things in it not meant for the ears of the public, but there can be no harm in transcribing an important passage. You seem to have imbibed the idea that the East End is a kind of Golgotha, and this, despite the books out of which you probably got it, are carefully labeled fiction. Lam says somewhere that we think of the dark ages of literally without sunlight, and so I fancy like you, dear, think of the East End as a mixture of mire, misery and murder. How's that for alliteration? Why, within five minutes' walk of me there are the loveliest houses, with gardens back and front, inhabited by very fine people and furniture. Many of my university friends' mouths would water if they knew the income of some of the shopkeepers in the high road. The rich people about here may not be so fashionable as those in Kensington and Bayswater, but they are every bit as stupid and materialistic. I don't deny Lucy, I do have my black moments, and I do sometimes pine to get away from all this to the lands of sun and lotus-eating, but on the whole I'm too busy even to dream of dreaming. My real black moments are when I doubt that I'm really doing any good. But yet, on the whole, my conscience or my self-conceit tells me that I am. If one cannot do much with the mass, there is at least the consolation of doing good to the individual. And after all, is it not enough to have been an influence for good over one or two human souls? There are quite fine characters here about, especially in the women. Nature's capable not only of self-sacrifice, but of delicacy of sentiment. To have learned to know of such, to have been of service to one or two of such, is not that ample return. I could not get to St. James's Hall to hear your friend's symphony at the Henshel concert. I have been reading Madame Bavlatsky's latest book, and am getting quite interested in a cult philosophy. Unfortunately, I have to do all my reading in bed, and I don't find the book as soothing a soporific as most new books. For keeping one awake, I find theosophy as bad as toothache. Next, a subsequent letter to the Pelmal Press, titled The Big Bow Mystery Solved. Sir, I wonder if any one besides myself has been struck by the incredible bad taste of Mr. Grudman's letter in your last issue. That he, a former servant of the department, should publicly insult and run it down, can only be charitably explained by the supposition that his judgment is failing him in his old age. In view of this letter are the relatives of the deceased justified in entrusting him with any private documents? It is, no doubt, very good of him to avenge one whom he sees snobbishly anxious to claim as a friend. But all things considered should not this letter have been headed The Big Bow Mystery Solved. I enclose my card, and am, sir, your obedient servant, Scotland Yard. George Grudman read this letter with annoyance, and, crumpling up the paper, murmured scornfully, Edward Wimp. End of Chapter 4. The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwell Read by Adrian Predsellus This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwell Chapter 5 Yes, but what will become of the beautiful? said Denzil Canticott. Hang the beautiful! said Peter Crowell, as if he were on the committee of the academy. Give me the true! Denzil did nothing of the sort. He didn't happen to have it about him. Denzil Canticott stood smoking a cigarette in his landlord's shop, and imparting an air of distinction and an agreeable aroma to the close, leathery atmosphere. Crowell cobbled away, talking to his tenant without raising his eyes. He was a small, big-headed, sallow, sad-eyed man with a greasy apron. Denzil was wearing a heavy overcoat with a fur collar. He was never seen without it in public during the winter. In private he removed it and sat in his shirt sleeves. Crowell was a thinker, or thought he was, which seems to involve original thinking anyway. His hair was thinning rapidly at the top as if his brain was struggling to get as near as possible to the realities of things. He prided himself on having no fads. Few men are without some foible or hobby. Crowell felt almost lonely at times in his superiority. He was a vegetarian, a secularist, a blue ribbonite, a republican, and an anti-debatonist. Meat was a fad, drink was a fad, religion was a fad, monarchy was a fad, tobacco was a fad. A plain man like me, Crowell used to say, can live without fads. A plain man was Crowell's catchwood. When of a Sunday morning he stood on mylend waste, which was opposite his shop, and held forth to the crowds on the evils of kings, priests, and mutton chops. The plain man turned up at intervals like the theme of a symphonic movement. I'm only a plain man, and I want to know," was a phrase that sabred the spider webs of logical refinement, and held them up scornfully on the point. When Crowell went for a little recreation in Victoria Park on Sunday afternoons, it was with this phrase that he invariably routed the supernaturalists. Crowell knew his Bible better than most ministers, and always carried a miniature printed copy in his pocket, dog-eared to mark contradictions in the text. The second chapter of Jeremiah says one thing. The first chapter of Corinthians says another. Two contradictory statements may both be true, but I'm only a plain man, and I want to know. Crowell spent a large part of his time in setting the word against the word. Cockfighting affords its voter is no acuter pleasure than Crowell derived from setting two texts by the ears. Crowell had a metaphysical genius which sent his Sunday morning disciples frantic with admiration, and struck the enemy dumb with dismay. He had discovered, for instance, that the deity could not move, owing to already fitting up all space. He was also the first to invent for the confusion of the clerical the crucial case of a saint dying at the antipodes contemporaneously with another in London. Both went skyward to heaven, yet the two travelled in directly opposite directions. In all eternity they would never meet. Which then got to heaven, or was there no such place? I'm only a plain man, and I want to know. Preserve us our open spaces. They exist to testify to the incurable interest of humanity in the unknown and the misunderstood. Even Ari is capable of five minutes' attention to speculative theology if Ariut isn't inner Ari. Peter Crowell was not sorry to have a lodger like Denzil Canticott, who, though a man of parts and thus worth powder and shot, was so hopelessly wrong on all subjects under the sun. In only one point did Peter Crowell agree with Denzil Canticott. He admired a Denzil Canticott secretly. When he asked him for the true, which was about twice a day on the average, he didn't really expect to get it from him. He knew that Denzil was a poet. The beautiful, he went on, is a thing that only appeals to men like you. The true is for all men. The majority have the first claim, till you poets must stand aside. The true and the useful. That's what we want. The good of society is the only test of things. Everything stands or falls by the good of society. The good of society. Echo Denzil scornfully. What's the good of society? The individual is before all. The mass must be sacrificed to the great man, otherwise the great man will be sacrificed to the mass. Without great men there would be no art. Without art life would be a blank. Ah, but we should fill it up with bread and butter, said Peter Crowell. Yes, it is bread and butter that kills the beautiful, said Denzil Canticott bitterly. Many of us start by following the butterfly through the verdant meadows, but we turn aside to get the grub, chuckled Peter cobbling away. Peter, if you make a jest of everything, I'll not waste my time on you. Denzil's wild eyes flashed angrily. He shook his long hair. Life was very serious to him. He never wrote comic verse intentionally. There are three reasons why men of genius have long hair. One is that they forget it is growing. The second is that they like it. The third is that it comes cheaper. They wear it long for the same reason they wear their hats long. Owing to this peculiarity of genius you may get quite a reputation for lack of tuppence. The economic reason did not apply to Denzil, who could always get credit with the profession on the strength of his appearance. Therefore when street Arabs vocally commanded him to get his haircut, they were doing no service to barbers. Why does all the world watch over barbers and a conspire to promote their interests? Denzil would have told you it was not to serve the barbers, but to gratify the crowd's instinctive resentment of originality. In his palmy days Denzil had been an editor, but he no more thought of turning his scissors against himself than of swallowing his paste. The efficacy of hair was changed since the days of Sampson, otherwise Denzil would have been a Hercules instead of a long, thin, nervous man, looking too brittle and delicate to be used even for a pipe cleaner. The narrow oval of his face sloped to a pointed untrimmed beard. His linen was reproachable, his dingy boots were down at heel, and his cocked hat was drab with dust, such are the effects of a love for the beautiful. Peter Crowe was impressed with Denzil's condemnation of flippancy, and he hastened to turn off the joke. I'm quite serious, he said. Butterflies are no good to nothing or nobody. Caterpillars at least save the birds from starving. Just like your view of things, Peter, said Denzil. Good morning, madam! This to Mrs. Crowe, to whom he removed his hat with elaborate courtesy. Mrs. Crowe grunted and looked at her husband with a note of interrogation in each eye. For some seconds Crowe stuck to his last endeavouring not to see the question. He shifted uneasily on his stool. His wife coughed grimly. He looked up, saw her towering over him, and helplessly shook his head in a horizontal direction. It was wonderful how Mrs. Crowe towered over Mr. Crowe even when he stood up in his shoes. She measured half an inch less. It was quite an optical illusion. Mr. Crowe, said Mrs. Crowe, then I'll tell him. No, no, my dear, not yet. Faulted Peter helplessly. Leave it to me. I've left it to you long enough. You'll never do nothing. If it was a question of providing to a lot of chuckleheads that jolly gee and genesis are some other dead-and-gone scripture folk that don't concern no mortal soul used to contradict each other, your tongue had run thirteen to the dozen. But when it's a matter of taking the bread out of the mouths of your own children, you ain't got no more to say for yourself than a lamppost. Here's a man staying with you for weeks and weeks, eating and drinking the flesh off your bones without paying a f— Hush, hush, mother, it's all right, said poor Crowe, red as fire. Denzel looked at her dreamily. Is it possible you're alluding to me, Mrs. Crowe? he said. Ho, then, should I be alluding to, Mr. Cantacott? Here's seven weeks, come and gone, and not a blessed apneavi. My dear Mrs. Crowe, said Denzel, removing his cigarette from his mouth with a pained air. Why reproach me with your neglect? My neglect? I like that. I don't, said Denzel more sharply. If you had sent me in the bill, you would have had the money long ago. How do you expect me to think of these details? We ain't so grand down here. People pace their way. They go get no bills, said Mrs. Crowe, accentuating the word with infinite scorn. Peter hammered away at a nail as though to drown his spouse's voice. It's three pounds, fourteen and eight pence, if you're so anxious to know, Mrs. Crowe resumed. And there ain't a woman in the mile-end road that's done it cheaper, with bread at Fortom's, three farth in a quarton, and landlords clambering for rent every Monday morning, almost to four the sun's up, and folks dragging and slidering on till their shoes is only fit to throw after brides, and Christmas come in and seven pence a week for schooling. Peter winced under the last item. He had felt it coming like Christmas. His wife and he parted company on the question of free education. Peter felt that, having brought nine children into the world, it was only fair that he should pay a penny a week for each of those old enough to bear educating. His better half argued that, having so many children, they ought in reason to be exempted. Only people who had few children could spare the penny. But the one point on which the cobbler specific of the mile-end road got his way was this of the fees. It was a question of conscience, and Mrs. Crowell had never made application for their remission, though she often slapped her children in vexation instead. They were used to slapping, and when nobody else slapped them, they slapped one another. They were bright ill-mannered brats who pestered their parents and worried their teachers, and were as happy as the road was long. Oh, bother the school fees! Peter retorted, vexed. Mr. Cantacott's not responsible for your children. I should hope not indeed, Mr. Crowell. Mrs. Crowell said sternly. I'm ashamed of you. And with that she flounced out of the shop into the back parlor. It's all right, Peter called after her soothingly. The money'll be all right, mother. In lower circles it is customary to call your wife your mother. In somewhat superior circles it is the fashion to speak of her as the wife, as you speak of the stock exchange or the Thames, without claiming any particular property. Instinctively men are ashamed of being moral and domesticated. Denzel puffed his cigarette unembarrassed. Peter bent attentively over his work, making nervous stabs with his all. There was a long silence. An organ grinder played a waltz outside unregarded, and, failing to annoy anybody, moved on. Denzel lit another cigarette. The dirty-faced clock on the wall chimed twelve. What do you think, said Crowell, of republics? They are lale, Denzel replied. Without a monarch there is no visible incarnation of authority. What do you call Queen Victoria visible? Peter, do you want to drive me from the house? Leave frivolousness to women whose minds are only large enough for domestic difficulties. Republics are low. Plato mercifully kept the poets out of his. Republics are not congenial soil for poetry. What nonsense! If England dropped its fad of monarchy and became a republic tomorrow, do you mean to say that I mean to say there would be no poet laureate to begin with? Who's fibbing now you or me, Canticott? But I don't care a button-hook about poets, present company always accepted. I'm only a plain man, and I want to know, where's the sense of giving any one personal authority over everybody else? Ah, that's what Tom Mortlake used to say. Wait till you're in power, Peter, with trade union money to control, and working men bustling to give you flying angels, and to carry you aloft like a banner-hazaring. Ah, that's because he's head and shoulders above him already, said Crowell, with a flash in his sad grey eyes. Still, it don't prove that I talk any different, and I don't think you're quite wrong about his being spoilt. Tom's a fine fellow, a man every inch of him, and that's a good many. I don't deny he has his weaknesses, and there was a time when he stood in this very shop and denounced that poor dead constant. Crowell, he said, that man'll do mischief. I don't like these kid-glove philanthropists mixing themselves up in practical labour disputes they don't understand. Denzil whistled involuntarily. It was a piece of news. I daresay, continued Crowell, he's a bit jealous of anybody's interference with his influence. But in this case the jealousy did wear off, you see, for the poor fellow and he got quite pals as everybody knows. Tom's not the man to hug a prejudice. However, all that don't prove nothing against republics. Look at the Tsar and the Jews, now I'm only a plain man, and I wouldn't live in Russia, not for all the leather in it. An Englishman, taxed as he is to keep up his fad of monarchy, is at least a king in his own castle, whoever bosses it at Windsor. Excuse me a minute, the Mrs is calling. Excuse me a minute, I'm going, and I want to say before I go, I feel it only right, you should know at once, that after what has passed today, I can never be on the same footing here as in the, shall we say, pleasant days of yore. Oh no, Cantocock, don't say that, don't say that! pleaded the little cobbler. Well, shall I say unpleasant then? No, no, Cantocock, don't misunderstand me. Mother has been very much put to it lately to rub along. You see, she is such a growing family, it grows daily. But never mind her, you pay whenever you got the money. Denzil shook his head. It cannot be. You know when I came here first, I rented your top room and boarded myself, then I learned to know you. We talked together of the beautiful and the useful. I found you had no soul, but you were honest and I liked you. I went so far as to take my meals with your family, I made myself at home in your back parlor. But the vase has been shattered, I do not refer to that on the mantelpiece, and though the scent of the roses may cling to it still, it can be pieced together never more. He shook his hair sadly and shambled out of the shop. Crowell would have gone after him, but Mrs. Crowell was still calling, and ladies must have the precedents in all polite societies. Cantocock went straight or as straight as his loose gate permitted, two forty-sixth Glover Street, and knocked at the door. Groedman's factotum opened it. She was a pockmarked person, with a brick dust complexion and a coquettish manner. Oh, here we are again! she said vivaciously. Don't talk like a clown. Cantocock snapped. Is Mr. Groedman in? No, you've put him out. Groud the gentleman himself, suddenly appearing in his slippers. Come in! What the devil have you been doing with yourself since the inquest? Drinking again? I've swore off, haven't touched a drop since the murder. Said Denzel Cantocott, startled. What do you mean? What I say, since December four, I reckon everything from that murder now, as they reckon longitude from Greenwich. Oh! said Denzel Cantocott. Let me see. Nearly a fortnight. What a long time to keep away from drink. And me. I don't know which is worse. Said Denzel, irritated. You both steal away my brains. Indeed! said Groedman with an amused smile. Well, it's only petty pilfering after all. What's put salt on your wounds? The twenty-fourth edition of my book. Whose book? Well, your book. You must be making piles of money out of criminals I have caught. Criminals I have caught. Corrected, Groedman. My dear Denzel. How often am I to point out that I went through the experiences that made the backbone of my book, not you? In each case, I cooked the criminals goose. Any journalist could have supplied the dressing. The contrary. The journeymen of journalism would all have left the truth naked. You yourself could have done that. For there is no man to beat you at co-lucid, scientific statements. But I idealized the bare facts and lifted them into the realm of poetry and literature. The twenty-fourth edition of the book attests my success. Rot! The twenty-fourth edition was all owing to the murder. Did you know that? You take one up so sharply, Mr. Groedman, said Denzel, changing his tone. No, I've retired. Laughed Groedman. Denzel did not reprove the ex-detectives' flippancy. He even laughed a little. Well, give me another fiver, and I'll cry quits. I'm in debt. Not a penny. Why haven't you been to see me since the murder? I had to write that letter to the pale male press myself. You might have earned a crown. I've had a writer's cramp, and couldn't do your last job. I was coming to tell you on the morning of the murder. So you said at the inquest, it's true. Of course. Weren't you on your oath? It was very zealous of you to get up so early to tell me. In which hand did you have this cramp? Why, in the hour, right, of course. And you couldn't write with your left? I don't think I could even held a pen. Or any other instrument, may I? What had you been doing to bring it on? Writing too much. That's the only possible cause. Oh, I didn't know. Write him what? Denzel hesitated. An epic poem. Now, I wonder you're in debt. Will a sovereign get you out of it? No, it wouldn't be the least just to me. Here it is then. Denzel took the coin and his hat. Aren't you going to earn it, you beggar? Sit down and write something for me. Denzel got pen and paper and took his place. What do you want me to write? Your epic poem. Denzel started and flushed. But he set to work. Grudman leaned back in his armchair and laughed, studying the poet's grave face. Denzel wrote three lines and paused. Can't remember any more? Well, read me the start. Denzel read. Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree, whose morbid taste brought death into the world. Oh, dawn! cried Grudman. What morbid subjects you choose to be sure. Morbid? Why, Milton chose the same subject. Blow, Milton! Take yourself off, you and your epics. Denzel went. The pockmarked person opened the street door for him. When am I going to have that new dress, dear? She whispered coquettishly. I have no money, Jane. He said shortly. You have a sovereign. Denzel gave her the sovereign and slammed the door viciously. Grudman overheard their whispers and laughed silently. His hearing was acute. Jane had first introduced Denzel to his acquaintance about two years ago when he spoke of getting an eminences, and the poet had been doing odd jobs for him ever since. Grudman argued that Jane had her reasons. Without knowing them he got a hold over both. There was no one he felt he could not get a hold over. All men and women have something to conceal, and you only have to pretend to know what it is. Thus Grudman, who was nothing if not scientific, Denzel Canticott shambled home thoughtfully, and abstractly took his place at the crowd dinner table.