“The body of the judge was lifted out and carried into his own private room at the Law Courts.
“There is no mystery as to the cause of the death of Sir George Borgham, for, embedded in the chest up to the hilt, piercing his heart, was found a long thin piece of steel, of the shape and size of an ordinary knitting needle, and as sharp as a stiletto, with a sort of handle at the end of it made from a piece of cork.
“That, brother members, seems as far as we have got up to the present with information as to this case.”
Brinsley laid down the evening journal from which he had been reading, and looked at the members.
“It sounds like murder, doesn’t it?” said Eustace Golbourne, the professor of mathematics from Scotland. “Surely a man couldn’t kill himself by driving a thin piece of sharp steel into his heart?”
The president nodded.
“Yet men have done almost incredible things when determined to take their own lives,” he said. “I’ll ring up my office and see if anything further has come in from the police,” and he reached for the telephone at his side. “If there’s anything fresh Crimp will be at The Wire office by now.”
Brinsley spoke through to his office, and after listening to the answer, replaced the receiver.
“The only further scrap of news is,” he said, “that on the little finger of Sir George Borgham’s left hand there was tied a small piece of red tape.”
“The affair has a peculiar interest for me,” put in a round jolly-faced man about fifty-eight or sixty, the Rev. Thomas Bowen, of Cornwall, the greatest living authority on the mental and moral out-look of the criminal. “A sad interest, indeed, for only last night I saw Sir George at the Athelonian Club, of which I’m a country member, and we had quite a long chat together.”
“That’s interesting, Mr Bowen!” said Brinsley. “Did you know him well?”
“Not very well,” answered the clergyman. “Just well enough for us to be pleased to see each other when I happened to come into the club and find him there, and to enjoy a little chat together. A genial and a learned man was Sir George.”
“Yes,” agreed Brinsley. “Though I daresay, as a judge, he had a good many enemies. He has sent a lot of people to prison in his time, and hanged more than one. Revenge may have been the motive for the crime.”
There came a gentle knock at the door, and Brinsley’s manservant entered with a parcel, which the newspaper proprietor rapidly tore open.
“As I expected, gentlemen,” he said, “here is the official photograph of the weapon with which the crime was committed. One, of course, has gone to every newspaper office in the kingdom, circulated by the police, and as a special favour, I asked Scotland Yard to let me have one here.”
Just an ordinary plain, untouched photographic print showed a long strip of thin, flat steel, one end of which came to a sharp point, while the other was embedded in a long piece of cork.
“The steel is sharp at each edge,” went on Brinsley. “The police have notified us of that. And with that sharp point it would go through the flesh like a knife through butter. And the long piece of cork would make a splendid handle, so that anybody could use it as a dagger.”
There was silence for a few moments, while each member of the club in turn examined the photograph.
“And this is the latest news my men brought into the office,” said Brinsley. “Sir George Borgham’s chauffeur, Edward Morris, said that his master alighted from the car and stayed for a few minutes at Everton’s bookshop in Piccadilly. He was inside about two minutes, and returned to the car, which the chauffeur drove to the Law Courts by way of Garrick Street and the Strand, to avoid the Covent Garden traffic in Long Acre. The outside limit of time that the journey took from Piccadilly to the Law Courts was five minutes, so, in that time Sir George Borgham met his death. And now, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me,” Brinsley rose, “I’ve got to get back to The Wire. Don’t forget that the resources of The Wire are at your disposal, and £500 is my offer for anyone who brings me exclusive news of the identity of Sir George Borgham’s murderer.”
“Come and have a look at Everton’s, the bookshop,” said Mr Bowen, the clergyman from Cornwall, to his friend Eustace Golbourne, as they walked away from Brinsley’s house. “It might give us something to think about. That £500 would be rather useful to send my godson, your boy, to college with, wouldn’t it?”
Golbourne nodded, and they walked on to Everton’s, in Piccadilly.
“Now,” said Mr Bowen, “let’s reconstruct the incident. Sir George leaves the shop, jumps into his car, presumably shuts the door himself, and arrives a few minutes later at the Law Courts with a piece of steel in his heart. Now, Sir George couldn’t possibly have killed himself. The attitude in which he was found precludes all possibility of that. If he had stabbed himself, the body would have collapsed forward; it wouldn’t have been leaning back.”
“How do you know that?” put in Golbourne quickly.
“I was in the War, my friend,” said Bowen a little sadly. “One learnt a good deal there. Very well then, let us assume that Sir George was murdered. Now, he was lying in the corner, nearest to the kerb. Suppose that he was stabbed through the window, by somebody leaning in and striking the blow.”
“Impossible!” said Golbourne suddenly and firmly.
“Here’s an empty taxi. I just want to try an experiment. Hi! Just a moment,” he cried to the driver. “Stop still, will you? You’ll get your fare just the same. I only want to get in and out of the cab.”
Golbourne let down the window of the cab nearest the pavement, shut the door to again, and then, putting his hand and arm through the window, struck an imaginary blow, as if attempting to kill a man in the near-side corner. Then he opened the door, got inside the cab, and Bowen saw him, from various attitudes, bring his arm downwards, more than once, as if again endeavouring to strike a murderous blow.
“That’s all right!” Golbourne jumped out and handed the astonished driver half-a-crown. “I don’t want you any longer. Come on,” and he took the clergyman’s arm, “I’ve got an idea, a wild, freakish sort of idea, but I’m going to sleep on it and try an experiment in the morning. It’s too late to-night, the shops aren’t open.”
After breakfast the next morning, Golbourne said to his friend at the hotel where they were staying:
“I’m going down to Guildford Street, Tom. I shan’t be more than a few minutes. You wait here till I come back.”
In less than a quarter of an hour Golbourne returned, and, placing a small, square cardboard box on the table, asked Mr Bowen to take off his coat and roll up his shirt sleeves.
“Don’t look so surprised,” said the professor, smiling, “for here’s something else to make you still more puzzled. Hold out your arm, there’s a good fellow.”
From the cardboard box Golbourne took what at first sight appeared to be a wrist-watch, encased in the usual strap. This he proceeded to fasten round Bowen’s forearm, just below the elbow.
“I’ll tell you all about it in a minute,” he said, settling himself in his chair.
“Now take a penholder, or pencil, or ruler, or anything you like, off that side-table over there, and then stand over me and stab downwards at my heart. You needn’t dig the deadly weapon into me, let it just touch me, that’s all. Just stab downwards and then check it.”
Puzzled, Bowen did as he was directed. Then Golbourne got up and consulted the little round dial in the wrist-strap, and scribbled a figure or two on a scrap of paper.
“All right,” he said. “And now, Tom, you can help me if you’ll just go down to the hall and ring up The Wire office, and ask for Brinsley or Crimp if, with the influence of The Wire, they could communicate with Scotland Yard and ascertain the weight of that weapon which was found in Sir George’s body. Also, I want the height of Sir George’s car from the floor to the roof, and I should like to know whether all the windows in the car, which, I understand, was a large one, were open. Just a minute! What height are you, Tom?”