Singing Bone or The Adventures of Dr. Thorndyke — The Echo of a Mutiny: Part Two

(_Related by Christopher Jervis, M. D.

_) To every kind of scientific work a certain amount of manual labour naturally appertains, labour that cannot be performed by the scientist himself, since art is long but life is short.

A chemical analysis involves a laborious “clean up” of apparatus and laboratory, for which the chemist has no time; the preparation of a skeleton--the maceration, bleaching, “assembling,” and riveting together of bones--must be carried out by some one whose time is not too precious.

And so with other Scientific activities.

Behind the man of science with his outfit of knowledge is the indispensable mechanic with his outfit of manual skill.

Thorndyke’s laboratory assistant, Polton, was a fine example of the latter type, deft, resourceful, ingenious and untiring.

He was somewhat of an inventive genius, too; and it was one of his inventions that connected us with the singular case that I am about to record.

Though by trade a watchmaker, Polton was, by choice, an optician.

Optical apparatus was the passion of his life; and when, one day, he produced for our inspection an improved prism for increasing the efficiency of gas-buoys, Thorndyke at once brought the invention to the notice of a friend at the Trinity House.

As a consequence, we three--Thorndyke, Polton and I--found ourselves early on a fine July morning making our way down Middle Temple Lane bound for the Temple Pier.

A small oil-launch lay alongside the pontoon, and, as we made our appearance, a red-faced, white-whiskered gentleman stood up in the cockpit.

“Here’s a delightful morning, doctor,” he sang out in a fine, brassy, resonant, seafaring voice; “sort of day for a trip to the lower river, hey?

Hallo, Polton!

Coming down to take the bread out of our mouths, are you?

Ha, ha!

” The cheery laugh rang out over the river and mingled with the throb of the engine as the launch moved off from the pier.

Captain Grumpass was one of the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House.

Formerly a client of Thorndyke’s he had subsided, as Thorndyke’s clients were apt to do, into the position of a personal friend, and his hearty regard included our invaluable assistant.

“Nice state of things,” continued the captain, with a chuckle, “when a body of nautical experts have got to be taught their business by a parcel of lawyers or doctors, what?

I suppose trade’s slack and ‘Satan findeth mischief still,’ hey, Polton?

” “There isn’t much doing on the civil side, sir,” replied Polton, with a quaint, crinkly smile, “but the criminals are still going strong.

” “Ha!

mystery department still flourishing, what?

And, by Jove!

talking of mysteries, doctor, our people have got a queer problem to work out; something quite in your line--quite.

Yes, and, by the Lord Moses, since I’ve got you here, why shouldn’t I suck your brains?

” “Exactly,” said Thorndyke.

“Why shouldn’t you?

” “Well, then, I will,” said the captain, “so here goes.

All hands to the pump!

” He lit a cigar, and, after a few preliminary puffs, began: “The mystery, shortly stated, is this: one of our lighthousemen has disappeared--vanished off the face of the earth and left no trace.

He may have bolted, he may have been drowned accidentally or he may have been murdered.

But I’d rather give you the particulars in order.

At the end of last week a barge brought into Ramsgate a letter from the screw-pile lighthouse on the Girdler.

There are only two men there, and it seems that one of them, a man named Barnett, had broken his leg, and he asked that the tender should be sent to bring him ashore.

Well, it happened that the local tender, the _Warden_, was up on the slip in Ramsgate Harbour, having a scrape down, and wouldn’t be available for a day or two, so, as the case was urgent, the officer at Ramsgate sent a letter to the lighthouse by one of the pleasure steamers saying that the man should be relieved by boat on the following morning, which was Saturday.

He also wrote to a new hand who had just been taken on, a man named James Brown, who was lodging near Reculver, waiting his turn, telling him to go out on Saturday morning in the coast-guard’s boat; and he sent a third letter to the coast-guard at Reculver asking him to take Brown out to the lighthouse and bring Barnett ashore.

Well, between them, they made a fine muddle of it.

The coast-guard couldn’t spare either a boat or a man, so they borrowed a fisherman’s boat, and in this the man Brown started off alone, like an idiot, on the chance that Barnett would be able to sail the boat back in spite of his broken leg.

“Meanwhile Barnett, who is a Whitstable man, had signalled a collier bound for his native town, and got taken off; so that the other keeper, Thomas Jeffreys, was left alone until Brown should turn up.

“But Brown never did turn up.

The coast-guard helped him to put off and saw him well out to sea, and the keeper, Jeffreys, saw a sailing-boat with one man in her making for the lighthouse.

Then a bank of fog came up and hit the boat, and when the fog cleared she was nowhere to be seen.

Man and boat had vanished and left no sign.

” “He may have been run down,” Thorndyke suggested.

“He may,” agreed the captain, “but no accident has been reported.

The coast-guards think he may have capsized in a squall--they saw him make the sheet fast.

But there weren’t any squalls; the weather was quite calm.

” “Was he all right and well when he put off?

” inquired Thorndyke.

“Yes,” replied the captain, “the coast-guards’ report is highly circumstantial; in fact, it’s full of silly details that have no bearing on anything.

This is what they say.

” He pulled out an official letter and read: “‘When last seen, the missing man was seated in the boat’s stern to windward of the helm.

He had belayed the sheet.

He was holding a pipe and tobacco-pouch in his hands and steering with his elbow.

He was filling the pipe from the tobacco-pouch.

’ There!

‘He was holding the pipe in his hand,’ mark you!

not with his toes; and he was filling it from a tobacco-pouch, whereas you’d have expected him to fill it from a coal scuttle or a feeding-bottle.

Bah!

” The captain rammed the letter back in his pocket and puffed scornfully at his cigar.

“You are hardly fair to the coastguard,” said Thorndyke, laughing at the captain’s vehemence.

“The duty of a witness is to give _all_ the facts, not a judicious selection.

” “But, my dear sir,” said Captain Grumpass, “what the deuce can it matter what the poor devil filled his pipe from?

” “Who can say?

” answered Thorndyke.

“It may turn out to be a highly material fact.

One never knows before hand.

The value of a particular fact depends on its relation to the rest of the evidence.

” “I suppose it does,” grunted the captain; and he continued to smoke in reflective silence until we opened Blackwall Point, when he suddenly stood up.

“There’s a steam trawler alongside our wharf,” he announced.

“Now what the deuce can she be doing there?

” He scanned the little steamer attentively, and continued: “They seem to be landing something, too.

Just pass me those glasses, Polton.

Why, hang me!

it’s a dead body!

But why on earth are they landing it on our wharf?

They must have known you were coming, doctor.

” As the launch swept alongside the wharf, the captain sprang up lightly and approached the group gathered round the body.

“What’s this?

” he asked.

“Why have they brought this thing here?

” The master of the trawler, who had superintended the landing, proceeded to explain.

“It’s one of your men, sir,” said he.

“We saw the body lying on the edge of the South Shingles Sand, close to the beacon, as we passed at low water, so we put off the boat and fetched it aboard.

As there was nothing to identify the man by, I had a look in his pockets and found this letter.

” He handed the captain an official envelope addressed to “Mr. J.

Brown, c/o Mr. Solly, Shepherd, Reculver, Kent.

” “Why, this is the man we were speaking about, doctor,” exclaimed Captain Grumpass.

“What a very singular coincidence.

But what are we to do with the body?

” “You will have to write to the coroner,” replied Thorndyke.

“By the way, did you turn out all the pockets?

” he asked, turning to the skipper of the trawler.

“No, sir,” was the reply.

“I found the letter in the first pocket that I felt in, so I didn’t examine any of the others.

Is there anything more that you want to know, sir?

” “Nothing but your name and address, for the coroner,” replied Thorndyke, and the skipper, having given this information and expressed the hope that the coroner would not keep him “hanging about,” returned to his vessel and pursued his way to Billingsgate.

“I wonder if you would mind having a look at the body of this poor devil, while Polton is showing us his contraptions,” said Captain Grumpass.

“I can’t do much without a coroner’s order,” replied Thorndyke; “but if it will give you any satisfaction, Jervis and I will make a preliminary inspection with pleasure.

” “I should be glad if you would,” said the captain.

“We should like to know that the poor beggar met his end fairly.

” The body was accordingly moved to a shed, and, as Polton was led away, carrying the black bag that contained his precious model, we entered the shed and commenced our investigation.

The deceased was a small, elderly man, decently dressed in a somewhat nautical fashion.

He appeared to have been dead only two or three days, and the body, unlike the majority of sea-borne corpses, was uninjured by fish or crabs.

There were no fractured bones or other gross injuries, and no wounds, excepting a rugged tear in the scalp at the back of the head.

“The general appearance of the body,” said Thorndyke, when he had noted these particulars, “suggests death by drowning, though, of course, we can’t give a definite opinion until a _post mortem_ has been made.

” “You don’t attach any significance to that scalp-wound, then?

” I asked.

“As a cause of death?

No. It was obviously inflicted during life, but it seems to have been an oblique blow that spent its force on the scalp, leaving the skull uninjured.

But it is very significant in another way.

” “In what way?

” I asked.

Thorndyke took out his pocket-case and extracted a pair of forceps.

“Consider the circumstances,” said he.

“This man put off from the shore to go to the lighthouse, but never arrived there.

The question is, where did he arrive?

” As he spoke he stooped over the corpse and turned back the hair round the wound with the beak of the forceps.

“Look at those white objects among the hair, Jervis, and inside the wound.

They tell us something, I think.

” I examined, through my lens, the chalky fragments to which he pointed.

“These seem to be bits of shells and the tubes of some marine worm,” I said.

“Yes,” he answered; “the broken shells are evidently those of the acorn barnacle, and the other fragments are mostly pieces of the tubes of the common serpula.

The inference that these objects suggest is an important one.

It is that this wound was produced by some body encrusted by acorn barnacles and serpulæ; that is to say, by a body that is periodically submerged.

Now, what can that body be, and how can the deceased have knocked his head against it?

” “It might be the stem of a ship that ran him down,” I suggested.

“I don’t think you would find many serpulæ on the stem of a ship,” said Thorndyke.

“The combination rather suggests some stationary object between tidemarks, such as a beacon.

But one doesn’t see how a man could knock his head against a beacon, while, on the other hand, there are no other stationary objects out in the estuary to knock against except buoys, and a buoy presents a flat surface that could hardly have produced this wound.

By the way, we may as well see what there is in his pockets, though it is not likely that robbery had anything to do with his death.

” “No,” I agreed, “and I see his watch is in his pocket; quite a good silver one,” I added, taking it out.

“It has stopped at 12. 13. ” “That may be important,” said Thorndyke, making a note of the fact;

“but we had better examine the pockets one at a time, and put the things back when we have looked at them.

” The first pocket that we turned out was the left hip-pocket of the monkey jacket.

This was apparently the one that the skipper had rifled, for we found in it two letters, both bearing the crest of the Trinity House.

These, of course, we returned without reading, and then passed on to the right pocket.

The contents of this were commonplace enough, consisting of a briar pipe, a moleskin pouch and a number of loose matches.

“Rather a casual proceeding, this,” I remarked, “to carry matches loose in the pocket, and a pipe with them, too.

” “Yes,” agreed Thorndyke; “especially with these very inflammable matches.

You notice that the sticks had been coated at the upper end with sulphur before the red phosphorous heads were put on.

They would light with a touch, and would be very difficult to extinguish; which, no doubt, is the reason that this type of match is so popular among seamen, who have to light their pipes in all sorts of weather.

” As he spoke he picked up the pipe and looked at it reflectively, turning it over in his hand and peering into the bowl.

Suddenly he glanced from the pipe to the dead man’s face and then, with the forceps, turned back the lips to look into the mouth.

“Let us see what tobacco he smokes,” said he.

I opened the sodden pouch and displayed a mass of dark, fine-cut tobacco.

“It looks like shag,” I said.

“Yes, it is shag,” he replied; “and now we will see what is in the pipe.

It has been only half-smoked out.

” He dug out the “dottle” with his pocket-knife onto a sheet of paper, and we both inspected it.

Clearly it was not shag, for it consisted of coarsely-cut shreds and was nearly black.

“Shavings from a cake of ‘hard,’” was my verdict, and Thorndyke agreed as he shot the fragments back into the pipe.

The other pockets yielded nothing of interest, except a pocket-knife, which Thorndyke opened and examined closely.

There was not much money, though as much as one would expect, and enough to exclude the idea of robbery.

“Is there a sheath-knife on that strap?

” Thorndyke asked, pointing to a narrow leather belt.

I turned back the jacket and looked.

“There is a sheath,” I said, “but no knife.

It must have dropped out.

” “That is rather odd,” said Thorndyke.

“A sailor’s sheath-knife takes a deal of shaking out as a rule.

It is intended to be used in working on the rigging when the man is aloft, so that he can get it out with one hand while he is holding on with the other.

It has to be and usually is very secure, for the sheath holds half the handle as well as the blade.

What makes one notice the matter in this case is that the man, as you see, carried a pocket-knife; and, as this would serve all the ordinary purposes of a knife, it seems to suggest that the sheath-knife was carried for defensive purposes: as a weapon, in fact.

However, we can’t get much further in the case with out a _post mortem_, and here comes the captain.

” Captain Grumpass entered the shed and looked down commiseratingly at the dead seaman.

“Is there anything, doctor, that throws any light on the man’s disappearance?

” he asked.

“There are one or two curious features in the case,” Thorndyke replied; “but, oddly enough, the only really important point arises out of that statement of the coastguard’s, concerning which you were so scornful.

” “You don’t say so!

” exclaimed the captain.

“Yes,” said Thorndyke; “the coast-guard states that when last seen deceased was filling his pipe from his tobacco pouch.

Now his pouch contains shag; but the pipe in his pocket contains hard cut.

” “Is there no cake tobacco in any of the pockets?

” “Not a fragment.

Of course, it is possible that he might have had a piece and used it up to fill the pipe; but there is no trace of any on the blade of his pocket-knife, and you know how this juicy black cake stains a knife-blade.

His sheath-knife is missing, but he would hardly have used that to shred tobacco when he had a pocket-knife.

” “No,” assented the captain; “but are you sure he hadn’t a second pipe?

” “There was only one pipe,” replied Thorndyke, “and that was not his own.

” “Not his own!

” exclaimed the captain, halting by a huge, chequered buoy to stare at my colleague.

“How do you know it was not his own?

” “By the appearance of the vulcanite mouthpiece,” said Thorndyke.

“It showed deep tooth-marks; in fact, it was nearly bitten through.

Now a man who bites through his pipe usually presents certain definite physical peculiarities, among which is, necessarily, a fairly good set of teeth.

But the dead man had not a tooth in his head.

” The captain cogitated a while, and then remarked: “I don’t quite see the bearing of this.

” “Don’t you?

” said Thorndyke.

“It seems to me highly suggestive.

Here is a man who, when last seen, was filling his pipe with a particular kind of tobacco.

He is picked up dead, and his pipe contains a totally different kind of tobacco.

Where did that tobacco come from?

The obvious suggestion is that he had met some one.

” “Yes, it does look like it,” agreed the captain.

“Then,” continued Thorndyke, “there is the fact that his sheath-knife is missing.

That may mean nothing, but we have to bear it in mind.

And there is another curious circumstance: there is a wound on the back of the head caused by a heavy bump against some body that was covered with acorn barnacles and marine worms.

Now there are no piers or stages out in the open estuary.

The question is, what could he have struck?

” “Oh, there is nothing in that,” said the captain.

“When a body has been washing about in a tide-way for close on three days----” “But this is not a question of a body,” Thorndyke interrupted.

“The wound was made during life.

” “The deuce it was!

” exclaimed the captain.

“Well, all I can suggest is that he must have fouled one of the beacons in the fog, stove in his boat and bumped his head, though, I must admit, that’s rather a lame explanation.

” He stood for a minute gazing at his toes with a cogitative frown and then looked up at Thorndyke.

“I have an idea,” he said.

“From what you say, this matter wants looking into pretty carefully.

Now, I am going down on the tender to-day to make inquiries on the spot.

What do you say to coming with me as adviser--as a matter of business, of course--you and Dr. Jervis?

I shall start about eleven; we shall be at the lighthouse by three o’clock, and you can get back to town to-night, if you want to.

What do you say?

” “There’s nothing to hinder us,” I put in eagerly, for even at Bugsby’s Hole the river looked very alluring on this summer morning.

“Very well,” said Thorndyke, “we will come.

Jervis is evidently hankering for a sea-trip, and so am I, for that matter.

” “It’s a business engagement, you know,” the captain stipulated.

“Nothing of the kind,” said Thorndyke; “it’s unmitigated pleasure;

the pleasure of the voyage and your high well-born society.

” “I didn’t mean that,” grumbled the captain, “but, if you are coming as guests, send your man for your nightgear and let us bring you back tomorrow evening.

” “We won’t disturb Polton,” said my colleague; “we can take the train from Blackwall and fetch our things ourselves.

Eleven o’clock, you said?

” “Thereabouts,” said Captain Grumpass; “but don’t put yourselves out.

” The means of communication in London have reached an almost undesirable state of perfection.

With the aid of the snorting train and the tinkling, two-wheeled “gondola,” we crossed and re-crossed the town with such celerity that it was barely eleven when we reappeared on Trinity Wharf with a joint Gladstone and Thorndyke’s little green case.

The tender had hauled out of Bow Creek, and now lay alongside the wharf with a great striped can buoy dangling from her derrick, and Captain Grumpass stood at the gang way, his jolly, red face beaming with pleasure.

The buoy was safely stowed forward, the derrick hauled up to the mast, the loose shrouds rehooked to the screw-lanyards, and the steamer, with four jubilant hoots, swung round and shoved her sharp nose against the incoming tide.

For near upon four hours the ever-widening stream of the “London River” unfolded its moving panorama.

The smoke and smell of Woolwich Reach gave place to lucid air made soft by the summer haze; the grey huddle of factories fell away and green levels of cattle-spotted marsh stretched away to the high land bordering the river valley.

Venerable training ships displayed their chequered hulls by the wooded shore, and whispered of the days of oak and hemp, when the tall three-decker, comely and majestic, with her soaring heights of canvas, like towers of ivory, had not yet given place to the mud-coloured saucepans that fly the white ensign now-a-days and devour the substance of the British taxpayer: when a sailor was a sailor and not a mere seafaring mechanic.

Sturdily breasting the flood tide, the tender threaded her way through the endless procession of shipping; barges, billy-boys, schooners, brigs; lumpish Black-seamen, blue-funnelled China tramps, rickety Baltic barques with twirling windmills, gigantic liners, staggering under a mountain of top-hamper.

Erith, Purfleet, Greenhithe, Grays greeted us and passed astern.

The chimneys of Northfleet, the clustering roofs of Gravesend, the populous anchorage and the lurking batteries, were left behind, and, as we swung out of the Lower Hope, the wide expanse of sea reach spread out before us like a great sheet of blue-shot satin.

About half-past twelve the ebb overtook us and helped us on our way, as we could see by the speed with which the distant land slid past, and the freshening of the air as we passed through it.

But sky and sea were hushed in a summer calm.

Balls of fleecy cloud hung aloft, motionless in the soft blue; the barges drifted on the tide with drooping sails, and a big, striped bell buoy--surmounted by a staff and cage and labelled “Shivering Sand”--sat dreaming in the sun above its motionless reflection, to rouse for a moment as it met our wash, nod its cage drowsily, utter a Solemn ding-dong, and fall asleep again.

It was shortly after passing the buoy that the gaunt shape of a screw-pile lighthouse began to loom up ahead, its dull red paint turned to vermilion by the early afternoon sun.

As we drew nearer, the name _Girdler_, painted in huge, white letters, became visible, and two men could be seen in the gallery around the lantern, inspecting us through a telescope.

“Shall you be long at the lighthouse, sir?

” the master of the tender inquired of Captain Grumpass; “because we’re going down to the North-East Pan Sand to fix this new buoy and take up the old one.

” “Then you’d better put us off at the lighthouse and come back for us when you’ve finished the job,” was the reply.

“I don’t know how long we shall be.

” The tender was brought to, a boat lowered, and a couple of hands pulled us across the intervening space of water.

“It will be a dirty climb for you in your shore-going clothes,” the captain remarked--he was as spruce as a new pin himself, “but the stuff will all wipe off.

” We looked up at the skeleton shape.

The falling tide had exposed some fifteen feet of the piles, and piles and ladder alike were swathed in sea-grass and encrusted with barnacles and worm tubes.

But we were not such town-sparrows as the captain seemed to think, for we both followed his lead without difficulty up the slippery ladder, Thorndyke clinging tenaciously to his little green case, from which he refused to be separated even for an instant.

“These gentlemen and I,” said the captain, as we stepped on the stage at the head of the ladder, “have come to make inquiries about the missing man, James Brown.

Which of you is Jeffreys?

” “I am, sir,” replied a tall, powerful, square-jawed, beetle-browed man, whose left hand was tied up in a rough bandage.

“What have you been doing to your hand?

” asked the captain.

“I cut it while I was peeling some potatoes,” was the reply.

“It isn’t much of a cut, sir.

” “Well, Jeffreys,” said the captain, “Brown’s body has been picked up and I want particulars for the inquest.

You’ll be summoned as a witness, I suppose, so come in and tell us all you know.

” We entered the living-room and seated ourselves at the table.

The captain opened a massive pocket-book, while Thorndyke, in his attentive, inquisitive fashion, looked about the odd, cabin-like room as if making a mental inventory of its contents.

Jeffreys’ statement added nothing to what we already knew.

He had seen a boat with one man in it making for the lighthouse.

Then the fog had drifted up and he had lost sight of the boat.

He started the fog-horn and kept a bright look-out, but the boat never arrived.

And that was all he knew.

He supposed that the man must have missed the lighthouse and been carried away on the ebb-tide, which was running strongly at the time.

“What time was it when you last saw the boat?

” Thorndyke asked.

“About half-past eleven,” replied Jeffreys.

“What was the man like?

” asked the captain.

“I don’t know, sir; he was rowing, and his back was towards me.

” “Had he any kit-bag or chest with him?

” asked Thorndyke.

“He’d got his chest with him,” said Jeffreys.

“What sort of chest was it?

” inquired Thorndyke.

“A small chest, painted green, with rope beckets.

” “Was it corded?

” “It had a single cord round, to hold the lid down.

” “Where was it stowed?

” “In the stern-sheets, sir.

” “How far off was the boat when you last saw it?

” “About half-a-mile.

” “Half-a-mile!

” exclaimed the captain.

“Why, how the deuce could you see that chest half-a-mile away?

” The man reddened and cast a look of angry suspicion at Thorndyke.

“I was watching the boat through the glass, sir,” he replied sulkily.

“I see,” said Captain Grumpass.

“Well, that will do, Jeffreys.

We shall have to arrange for you to attend the inquest.

Tell Smith I want to see him.

” The examination concluded, Thorndyke and I moved our chairs to the window, which looked out over the sea to the east.

But it was not the sea or the passing ships that engaged my colleague’s attention.

On the wall, beside the window, hung a rudely-carved pipe-rack containing five pipes.

Thorndyke had noted it when we entered the room, and now, as we talked, I observed him regarding it from time to time with speculative interest.

“You men seem to be inveterate smokers,” he remarked to the keeper, Smith, when the captain had concluded the arrangements for the “shift.

” “Well, we do like our bit of ‘baccy, sir, and that’s a fact,” answered Smith.

“You see, sir,” he continued, “it’s a lonely life, and tobacco’s cheap out here.

” “How is that?