‘’You mean a recently murdered body.”
“Indeed. Not many are brave enough — if ‘brave’ is quite the word — to do that.”
‘’Mrs. Paltrow’s murderer, of course.”
‘’Of course.”
Thus did we go through all the pages assembled by Mr. Marsden and saved by Sir John as one of his ‘failures.’ We found further discrepancies and similarities — and all simply by looking at this matter closely and studying the details. When we had, I supposed, concluded our review, I felt oddly troubled. I could not have said what it was that troubled me, for my difficulty was unfocused, and I felt something was amiss, rather than thought it. Perhaps it was only that I wished for sleep. Or perhaps it was my need for rest that prevented me from concentrating upon the difficulty at hand and seeing it plain, rather than as some shapeless, threatening, dark cloud brooding over me, Sir John seemed to sense my difficulty.
“What have you, lad?” he asked. “Toward the end of our exercise you seemed to grow dull.”
“That, I fear, is how I feel, sir.”
“Nothing more?”
‘’Well, that could be. I sense that there is something amiss, something overlooked by me in all this, but I cannot, for the life of me, think what it might be.”
“Perhaps if you were to read through it again?”
Unconsciously and certainly unwillingly, I must have let out a groan at that, yet Sir Johns response was not quite what I would have expected.
“Oh, I did not mean that you need read through it aloud,” said he. “We have accomplished a good deal this afternoon. There is no need for us to repeat the entire exercise again. You might take it back upstairs with you and look at it again after you have had a bit of rest. How far did you go today? You were gone quite some time.”
“All the way across the river to Bermondsey.” And before I quite knew what I was about, I had launched into the tale of my visit to the Ocean Rover and my interview with Captain Harrison. Yet I omitted details and told not quite all of it, for I omitted its abrupt and somewhat acrimonious ending.
“Why,” said Sir John, “what an extraordinary coincidence! Why did you not tell me of it sooner? “
Then, trapped, I was forced to do just that. I quoted to him what I had said to the captain and his angry response to it. Again Sir John surprised me, for he simply laughed at what I told him.
“Ah, it was that way, was it? The captain took offense, did he? Well, he had no right to. You were correct in ending discussion when you did. You might, however, have framed your refusal differently — something like this: ‘Much as I should like to answer that, Sir John never allows me to discuss such matters! Put the blame on me.”
At that, I started to rise, thinking to take my leave — then, of a sudden, I dropped back in my chair, for what had been vague was now clear, what had been amorphous had assumed a proper shape: I realized that I now had firmly in mind that which had eluded me until that very moment.
“Sir John,” said I, “you recall that in Mr. Marsden’s memorandum he mentioned that Mr. Mudge was found with his neck in a noose at the end of a leather rope?”
“Yes, of course I do. I remember that length of rope very well. It was put in my hand so that I might examine it. Leather, it was for certain but no mere great long thong. It was of two strands, thick and tightly woven. I recall the feel of it very well.”
I took a moment to confirm what I suspicioned by looking at Sir John’s account of his interview with the captain. Reassured, I spoke up with some measure of confidence.
“Sir, I know to whom that leather rope belonged, and I am quite amazed that nothing of it appears in your summary of your interview with Captain Harrison.”
“You do not mean to say it was the captain’s!”
“No, sir, nothing of the kind. But the captain, in recalling his two passengers, Mudge and Elison, went on at great length about Elison’s rope of woven leather and his skill with it.”
“Skill? What sort of skill?”
“He could use it as if it were almost an extension of his hand, according to Captain Harrison — by looping it over objects and giving them a good strong pull. Why, he could pick pockets, pull belaying pins from their places. He did tricks with it there on deck. But he told you nothing of all this when you interrogated him?”
“Nothing at all,” said Sir John, and then sat musing for near a minute without a word spoken. Then this: “In spite of the captain’s professed admiration of me, I recall him as a rather reluctant witness. He was within a day or two of setting sail for America and was no doubt busy with details of departure, but he gave me very little of his time. He addressed my main concern, which was whether Bolt — or Elison, or whatever his name — had known Mr. Mudge before the voyage. He had claimed they had met only on shipboard. He could not give me a definitive answer, though he said the two were constantly together on deck. I tried to open the inquiry a bit and have his impressions of them, but he would have none of it. He all but pushed me down the gangway to be rid of me. I confess I was not near as forceful in those days as I have since become.”
“That is strange, sir, for he gave to me the impression that he had discussed the matter at length with you, perhaps more than once. He said that you were certain of Elison’s guilt, but because you lacked evidence to support your conviction, you allowed Mr. Mudge’s death to stand as a suicide. He said he admired you for that.”
“Well, what he said was correct, as far as it goes. Nevertheless, I cannot suppose how he could have gotten such — “ He stopped then and nodded wisely. “Or perhaps I do know. As you found out, Alfred Humber has been Harrisons insurer for years. It could well be that at some later date the captain discussed the case with my friend, Mr. Humber, who imparted to him my beliefs and feelings in the matter.”
“But why would he have done such a thing?”
“Why indeed? All I can suppose is that because less than a year later I was knighted, he may have wished to seem on intimate terms with me and made Mr. Humbers conversation with me his own. I cannot account for it, but some are powerfully impressed by such honors.”
“But to tell it so to me, knowing that I might repeat his words to you. Surely — ”
“Perhaps,” Sir John interrupted, “Captain Harrison has told it this way often enough that he himself believes it. It happened years ago, after all.”
“Can one truly delude oneself in such a way?”
“Oh, indeed, Jeremy. A few do it in large matters and do so right often — many such are in Bedlam. All the rest of us are guilty of it from time to time in small ways. And that, my lad, is why a good witness is so hard to come by.”
In truth, there was not much of the day left when we completed our reading and discussion of the Mudge-Elison file. And at the end we could but sigh, for we had uncovered no detail, no bit of evidence that absolutely and beyond doubt fixed the man with three names (Bolt-Elison-Bolton) as the murderer of Mudge. Even the matter of the woven leather rope meant little, for if it existed still, which was doubtful, it was wrapped round some trunk in the cellar of the Globe and Anchor hostelry.
That evening at dinner, all four of us who had made the journey from Bath were still somewhat travel-weary. We made a few sorry attempts at table talk, all of which seemed to end in sighs and yawns. I fear we should all four have drifted off to sleep right there in the kitchen were it not for Annie Oakum, our cook. She had earlier that year begun a course of study in reading and writing under the supervision of Robert Burnham, tutor to Jimmie Bunkins, who was my friend and Black Jack Bilbo’s ward. Thus were we, from time to time, given reports on her progress, and occasionally proof of it, as well. It was occasioned in this instance by a polite inquiry by Lady Fielding as to whether Annie had managed well with her lessons in our absence. “Oh, yes, Lady Fielding, rest assured.”