William Le Queux - The Seven Secrets

“You have your friend, Mr. Jevons, with you, I hear. Nurse has just returned and told me so.”

“Yes,” I responded. “He is making an independent inquiry.”

“And what has he found?” she inquired breathlessly.

“Nothing.”

Then, as I watched her closely, I saw that she breathed again more freely. By the manner in which she uttered Ambler’s name I detected that she was not at all well-disposed towards him. Indeed, she spoke as though she feared that he might discover the truth.

After half-an-hour I left, and more puzzled than ever, returned to the house in Richmond Road. Sometimes I felt entirely convinced that my love was authoress of the foul deed; yet at others there seemed something wanting in the confirmation of my suspicions. Regarding the latter I could not overlook the fact that Short had told a story which was false on the face of it, while the utter absence of any motive on my love’s part in murdering the old gentleman seemed to point in an entirely opposite direction.

Dr. Diplock, the coroner, had fixed the inquest for eleven o’clock on the morrow; therefore I assisted Dr. Farmer, of Kew, the police surgeon, to make the post-mortem.

We made the examination in the afternoon, before the light faded, and if the circumstances of the crime were mysterious, the means by which the unfortunate man was murdered were, we found, doubly so.

Outwardly, the wound was an ordinary one, one inch in breadth, inflicted by a blow delivered from left to right. The weapon had entered between the fourth and fifth ribs, and the heart had been completely transfixed by some sharp cutting instrument. The injuries we discovered within, however, increased the mystery ten-fold, for we found two extraordinary lateral incisions, which almost completely divided the heart from side to side, the only remaining attachment of the upper portion to the lower being a small portion of the anterior wall of the heart behind the sternum.

Such a wound was absolutely beyond explanation.

The instrument with which the crime had been committed by striking between the ribs had penetrated to the heart with an unerring precision, making a terrible wound eight times the size within, as compared with the exterior puncture. And yet the weapon had been withdrawn, and was missing!

For fully an hour we measured and discussed the strange discovery, hoping all the time that Sir Bernard would arrive. The knife which the man Short confessed he had taken down in self-defence we compared with the exterior wound and found, as we anticipated, that just such a wound could be caused by it. But the fact that the exterior cut was cleanly done, while the internal injuries were jagged and the tissues torn in a most terrible manner, caused a doubt to arise whether the Indian knife, which was double-edged, had actually been used. To be absolutely clear upon this point it would be necessary to examine it microscopically, for the corpuscles of human blood are easily distinguished beneath the lens.

We were about to conclude our examination in despair, utterly unable to account for the extraordinary wound, when the door opened and Sir Bernard entered.

He looked upon the body of his old friend, not a pleasing spectacle indeed, and then grasped my hand without a word.

“I read the evening paper on my way up,” he said at last in a voice trembling with emotion. “The affair seems very mysterious. Poor Courtenay! Poor fellow!”

“It is sad – very sad,” I remarked. “We have just concluded the post-mortem;” and then I introduced the police surgeon to the man whose name was a household word throughout the medical profession.

I showed my chief the wound, explained its extraordinary features, and asked his opinion. He removed his coat, turned up his shirt-cuffs, adjusted his big spectacles, and, bending beside the board upon which the body lay, made a long and careful inspection of the injury.

“Extraordinary!” he ejaculated. “I’ve never known of such a wound before. One would almost suspect an explosive bullet, if it were not for the clean incised wound on the exterior. The ribs seem grazed, yet the manner in which such a hurt has been inflicted is utterly unaccountable.”

“We have been unable to solve the enigma,” Dr. Farmer observed. “I was an army surgeon before I entered private practice, but I have never seen a similar case.”

“Nor have I,” responded Sir Bernard. “It is most puzzling.”

“Do you think that this knife could have been used?” I asked, handing my chief the weapon.

He looked at it, raised it in his hand as though to strike, felt its edge, and then shook his head, saying: “No, I think not. The instrument used was only sharp on one edge. This has both edges sharpened.”

It was a point we had overlooked, but at once we agreed with him, and abandoned our half-formed theory that the Indian dagger had caused the wound.

With Sir Bernard we made an examination of the tongue and other organs, in order to ascertain the progress of the disease from which the deceased had been suffering, but a detailed account of our discoveries can have no interest for the lay reader.

In a word, our conclusions were that the murdered man could easily have lived another year or more. The disease was not so advanced as we had believed. Sir Bernard had a patient to see in Grosvenor Square; therefore he left at about four o’clock, regretting that he had not time to call round at the neighbour’s and express his sympathy with the widow.

“Give her all my sympathies, poor young lady,” he said to me. “And tell her that I will call upon her to-morrow.” Then, after promising to attend the inquest and give evidence regarding the post-mortem, he shook hands with us both and left.

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