Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

“Better stick to the law,” smiled Magnum. “You can make a successful lawyer even if you have ten thumbs to your hands. Now what’s this trouble about the insurance policy?”

Stacey answered him seriously with a résumé of the case. Abel Jonasson, a somewhat eccentric recluse, a man of fifty-four and a bachelor, had insured his life for fifty thousand pounds with the Empire Assurance Company six months previously. On a railway journey through the Sevenoaks tunnel he had been alone in a second-class compartment. In some way he had fallen out of the moving train; had been killed possibly by the fall; and had certainly been run over by a train passing on the other line of metals. A coroner’s jury had returned an open verdict. On the advice of their doctors and counsel, the Empire Company, a firm of first-class reputation, had decided to fight the claim up to the House of Lords if necessary.

They contended that, for a man of his limited income, a fifty thousand pound policy was far too heavy, unless he deliberately intended to take his life in order to secure a large sum of money for his relatives. Such cases had cropped up before.

“Then they shouldn’t have insured for such a heavy amount,” interrupted Magnum.

“Well, they did,” answered Stacey. “They took his premium, and now they fight the claim. Miss Gerard, his niece and next-of-kin, has very slender means, and so-”

Something in Stacey’s tone gave Magnum the clue to this unusual interest in a client of slender means.

“Another wedding present to buy!” he interjected cynically.

Stacey took the remark on the half-volley, and flicked it neatly over the net:

“Help us, and we’ll consider it as the wedding-present.”

“I don’t see that the case lies in my province. Try Scotland Yard.”

“I have. No satisfaction. A scientist is wanted. Scotland Yard can’t tell me why the dead man carried in his pocket a phial of atoxyl.”

“Specific against sleeping sickness.”

“A Central African disease. It’s unknown in England. Why should he carry the antidote about with him?”

“Have his serum examined.”

“That’s been done. No trace of the disease has been found. But the Empire doctor claims that Jonasson must have thought he had the disease, and therefore committed suicide. A book on the subject was found at his country cottage. Our side will have to prove some other reason for his carrying that phial of atoxyl. That’s one point on which I want your help.”

Magnum pulled out a disgracefully malodorous pipe from his baggy, shapeless working-jacket, and proceeded to stuff it with a smoking mixture of his own blending, strong to the point of rankness.

Meredith hastened to their library above the office, and returned with one of the twenty bulky volumes of Watts’s Dictionary of Chemistry. His chief took it, and turned thoughtfully to the half-column description of the chemical properties of the drug, one of the arsenic derivatives. Presently he remarked:

“Have you considered the possibility of foul play?”

“That was one of our first thoughts,” returned Stacey. “But Jonasson was seen alone in the compartment at Tonbridge Junction, only five miles from the tunnel, and there were no traces on the footboard of anyone clambering along from one compartment to another.”

“Windows?”

“All shut.”

“A man under the seat?”

“No traces.”

“When was the discovery made?”

“As soon as the train came out of the tunnel into Sevenoaks Station. The door of Jonasson’s compartment was open, and banging to and fro… All the evidence goes to show that he was entirely alone in the compartment; that he opened the door himself – fingerprints on the handle – and fell out. We claim that he must have become suddenly frightened – he was a nervous old man – and that he lost his head, opened the door to call for help, and was thrown out by the rush of wind against the open door.”

“Sounds very probable.”

“The Empire Company say that if he wanted help he could have pulled the alarm-cord. There was no one else in the compartment – that’s certain from the footprints in the dust. He had nothing to be afraid of, they claim.”

“Equally plausible.”

“Can you tell me why he carried that atoxyl with him?”

Magnum was not a man to confess openly to ignorance. He replied curtly:

“I’m not a theorist. Ask me practical questions.”

For reply, Stacey produced from his pocket a blank manuscript-size envelope, and from the envelope a much-creased sheet of folded paper – blank.

“I found this in Jonasson’s study while hunting for his will. I have a strong feeling that it contains a message written in invisible ink. Miss Gerard tells me that he was the kind of eccentric who would do that. Will you try to get the message out?”

“Suppose,” asked Magnum shrewdly, “it were to say that he intended to commit suicide?”

“In that case,” laughed the lawyer, “I shouldn’t call you as a witness.”

“You young scoundrel!”

“But it won’t do that,” answered Stacey, returning to seriousness. “Miss Gerard knew him well – he was very fond of her in his queer, angular way – and she is perfectly certain that he had no intention of committing suicide.”

“If you prove wrong,” warned Magnum, “don’t count on me to keep silent in a case of fraud.”

He passed the sheet of paper to Meredith, who examined it eagerly, his eyes alight at the thought of pitting his chemical knowledge against the secret of the apparently blank paper.

Meredith’s first move was to cut the sheet into four quarters, so as to avoid the risk of spoiling the whole of it in the course of experimenting.

The heat test gave no result, nor did the iodide test, nor the sulphuretted hydrogen test.

Magnum, suspecting that they were in for a long session, looked at his watch, found it marking seven o’clock and sent out for three porterhouse steaks, a Stilton cheese and bread, and lager beer.

“I should prefer oysters, a fried sole, and a bottle of claret,” suggested Stacey.

“You’ll have what’s good for you,” retorted Magnum, who had unæsthetic views on food.

It was close on nine o’clock before Meredith at length triumphed. Fitting together three-quarters of the sheet of paper – the other quarter had become spoilt in the course of testing – the following wording stood out in roughly written capital letters:

Magnum turned to Stacey.

“There’s your wedding present,” said he grimly.

All Stacey’s pose of flippancy had dropped from him. Staring at the paper, he asked, in a hushed voice:

“What does it mean?”

“A warning,” returned Magnum. “A warning that must have put Jonasson’s nerves on edge. In that railway compartment, alone, passing through the long Sevenoaks tunnel, something happened to terrify him into trying to escape.”

“If we could prove it! But what exactly happened?”

“The last words of the warning were, judging on the first two lines, ‘ FROM THE SKY! ’”

“Yes, yes!” cried Stacey eagerly.

“That railway-carriage – of course it’s been sealed and shunted into a siding?”

“Naturally.”

“Tomorrow morning we’ll go and examine it.”

“Yes, but what’s your theory?”

Magnum’s temperament included a strong dash of human vanity. He liked to have his achievements bulk large. He liked to display his results against an effective background. Having arrived at a simple explanation of a puzzling mystery, he preferred to keep silent about it until the morning should bring the glowing moment for the revelation.