X. Jones—Of Scotland Yard Read online

  Mr. Jones: Handout? I fear I do not—

  Mr. Whittimore: Oh that, Mr. Jones, is what an American ’bo gets—when he batters a private! Either that, or a “private set-down”! However, by handout here I mean—could I get a big load of fakealoo—about your methods? Your past history—in India? Why you undertook the Marceau Case? And so forth—and so on? Stuff to tack on to a re-narration of the old case, to liven it up—and inject a human-interest angle to it?

  Mr. Jones: Well, if you can find anything in me that will interest your American readers, that’s quite up to you. Surely, if you want to interrogate me, I’ll be happy to give you a special appointment aside from the brief one that the other journalists will probably run in on.

  Mr. Whittimore: Good! I’ll hold you to that! And I’ll ring you—but say, where will I—

  Mr. Jones: I go back to London on the afternoon train. You can get me on Kings Cross 4453 tonight and tomorrow—for I’ll not be at the Yard.

  Mr. Whittimore: Good. And say, Mr. Jones, I of course picked up a little bit more info, in that “mere” rumor, than just that you had the solution of this old murder practically in your mitt. For I heard that you unearthed a pack of rare photos on the Marceau family. Anything good?

  Mr. Jones: Oh—interesting, I think I could say. A curious tribe, that Marceau tribe—both in the marked tendency of the men in it to marry foundlings—or women with no available history—and in the matter of some old—but I think I’ll use your own term: we’ll “skip it”!

  Mr. Whittimore: Oh, come on, Mr. Jones! You were just about to spill something?

  Mr. Jones: Perhaps. Though nothing, I assure you, having any bearing on the case.

  Mr. Whittimore: You didn’t unearth—some old scandal—in André Marceau’s life, did you?

  Mr. Jones: No. Not in his life. Nor his father’s.

  Mr. Whittimore: Then we wouldn’t be interested, I guess. Scandals atween people who are moldering in their graves ain’t news, alas!

  Mr. Jones: No, I presume not.

  Mr. Whittimore: However, Mr. Jones, would you care to sell these pics—exclusive to the All-America?

  Mr. Jones: Well—no. No. They wouldn’t do you any good.

  Mr. Whittimore: Oh—I don’t know. Now one good pic of André Marceau, never published before, might be worth the whole lot. What would you want for ’em?

  Mr. Jones: I’m sorry—but to make unnecessary any further arguments, let me say that I have already sent the photos away—a long, long distance —

  Mr. Whittimore: India, eh? Where you came from?

  Mr. Jones: Well, whatever seems a long way—we’ll call it that, eh? However, I haven’t the photos—and if I did have them, I wouldn’t feel I had a right to release them. After all, you know, they’re the pictures of once living people—who have some rights after their death. The only right I might have to release one of them for publication would be, for instance—to state a more or less hypothetical example!—if he—or she—were connected in some definite manner with what happened here—in 1935—in Little Ivington. Yes. And—but let us say the pictures are quite “out”—with respect to all releases.

  Mr. Whittimore: I see. I see. Well, Mr. Jones, I’ll cable your refusal of my offer to Mr. Erks—the man who empowered me to make it—and I’ll line up with the rest of the boys tomorrow with my tin plate—for the old handout—except that—well—if Erks decides to—well, I may call you there for a special appointment, where I can make you talk about yourself—your methods—for a full hour.

  Mr. Jones: As you wish. Glad to help in that way, of course.

  Mr. Whittimore: All right, Mr. Jones. I’ll hang up. And I’ll be seeing you!

  Mr. Jones: Yes. Good-by. And thank you—for calling. (Pause.) You there, Radranath—on that extension wire? Well come back to my room now. For I think we’ll take that next train—going back to London in 30 minutes. We’re more or less checkmated now, till the middle of the month, with respect to further work on the Marceau Case.

  DOCUMENT XX

  Excerpts from night-letter cablegram (as decoded) from Gus Erks, General Manager of the All-America News Service, Empire State Building, New York City, received at Trafalgar Square Postal-Union Cable and Telegraph Station, London, 8 a.m. November 4, 1936, addressed to Gilbert Whittimore, London Correspondent of the All-American News Service, Ludgate Circus, London.

  “Ladle the soft soap and draw him out smoothly on every detail, for we actually will play up all the story you can get. But have him decoyed out of his diggings for ten or fifteen minutes, while you’re there, by a phoney phone call; or, if you’re too dumb to cook up any expedient, set fire to the House of Parliament just before you go there—pinken up the sky a bit!—anything to get him out onto the street for a few minutes... take one of those all-comprehensive lucky ‘looksee’s’ you’re famed for. In all the usual spots. And the unusual ones. And the fool spots where only your allegedly lucky nose tells you something will be. And if you catch a single lead to what’s in Jones’ mitt, no matter how small or unimportant, get hold of one Aleck Snide, now at Hotel St. Giles, Brussels, with a passport viséd for every country in Europe, which he’s been using on a case he’s just completed for the Cutterman Detective Agency here. For I just talked on the phone to Bill Cutterman, whom I’ve known for years, and he tells me that if I’ve a crime story to work out for the A-A service, and have any kind of a single good inside lead, Aleck Snide is positively my man. And what’s more important, he assures me absolutely... that Snide is one man who will never turn the story nor any of its inside facts over to a rival syndicate, once he hooks on with us... So if you catch that one lead, then get this Snide and jerk him to London. And put him on the payroll immediately at $100 a week and any necessary side expenses, and give him a contract in writing that if he can solve the Marceau Case for us ahead of Jones’ release by even one hour, he catches a bonus of...”

  DOCUMENT XXI

  Headlines and by-lines of feature newspaper story, written by Gilbert Whittimore, London Correspondent of the All-America News Service, appear­ing November 13, 1936, on Page 1, Section II, of the “Chicago Star-Graphic.”1

  Famous English Marceau

  Murder Case to Be Re-Opened

  * * * *

  Solution Promised for World-Wide

  Enigma Known as “The Mystery

  of the Flying Strangler-Baby”

  * * * *

  Baffling Case of André Marceau, Garroted Presumably

  by an “Infant” Brought to the Site of the Killing

  by an Autogiro, Now Under Study by New

  Investigator

  * * * *

  Scotland Yard Man from Bombay

  Police Force Brings New

  Deductive Method to Apply

  * * * *

  Young Inspector Xenius Jones Announces That He Is Close

  to Solution of Famous Case In Which 190-pound Victim was

  Strangled to Death by 35-pound Midget, Evidently Disguised as an

  Infant, and Whisked Away After Murder in Stolen Flying Device.

  BY GILBERT WHITTIMORE

  (London correspondent for the All-America News Service, Allied with the Inter-World News Syndicate.)

  Copyright, 1936, All-America News Service. Reproduction forbidden except to newspapers of All-America and Inter-World News Service Groups.

  DOCUMENT XXII

  Advertising bulletin, written by Sam Sing of Sam Sing Hand Laundry, 4664 South Halsted Street, Chicago, Illinois.

  More Better than Snow—What you like best—Swissy steak, Irish stewy, corns and beef? All taste better from tablecloth wash ironed white as pear blossom by Sam Sing. Last January we lay tablecloth beside snowfall. Our table-cloth more better whiter than snow.

  DOCUMENT XXIII

  An abstract, by Sam Sing Jr., son of Sam Sing of Sam Sing Hand Laundry, 4664 South Halsted Street, Chicago, Illinois, of a portion of a feature news story appearing on Page 1, Section II, of the “Chicago Star-Graphic�
� of November 13, 1936, submitted by registered mail to the Dean of the School of Journalism of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, on November 13, 1936.

  In exact compliance with one of several graduation requirements of the Course of Journalism, in which I have the honor to be enrolled, I desire to submit the following careful abstraction of the salient facts of the Marceau Murder Case of Great Britain, as fully set forth in an elaborate newspaper feature story appearing in the Chicago Star-Graphic of today’s date, id. est., November 13, 1936, in connection with the theories and personality of a new investigator, X. Jones, who had resuscitated this case. Since all the facts of the case are set forth on Page 1 of Section II of this morning’s Star-Graphic, this paper is therefore an abstraction of Page 1, Section II. By a comparison of the wordage of this paper with that of the said story—at least such of it as appears on Page 1, Section II of the Star-Graphic—it will be perceived that I have condensed the facts set forth in the latter to 1/10th of their original space; and, as indicated by the postmark on this letter, affixed by the All-Night Registry Division of the Chicago Main Post-office, I have accomplished this condensation within 3½ hours of the first publication of the original story, which can be ascertained to have been on the streets at 5 minutes after 12 midnight. My ratio of condensation, the adequacy thereof, and my rate of accomplishing of same will, I trust, confirm my ability to qualify upon any newspaper as a re-write man. Inasmuch, moreover, as this abstract contains, at its end, a hypothetical and tentative solution of my own as to the individual guilty of Marceau’s murder, coupled with new facts uncovered solely by myself, I have taken the liberty of retaining the carbon copy and submitting same to my instructor in Criminology-B as my required mid-semester exercise in Deductive Theory.

  Samuel Sing, Junior.

  André Marceau, bachelor, aged 62, and stone deaf—at least without his ear trumpet, which he was without when he was killed—was murdered on May 10, 1935. He was found, by his butler Tedro Grimes, and his house guest, an Inspector Claude Sheringham of Scotland Yard, the victim of strangulation, two hours after dark had set in, upon a huge area of finely rolled loam, at the rear of his residence on the outskirts of Little Ivington, Kent County, London—some 40 or 50 miles southeast of the great British metropolis. It might also be said that he lay within a veritable “ring” or “moat” of rolled but untrodden loam, the width of which “moat” was—with respect to his body!—as great, in its greatest direction, as 60 feet; and not less, in the direction in which, for him, it was least wide, than 31 feet; and that “moat” is an apropos expression for this annulus of rolled but untrodden lawn about him is emphasized by the fact that the entire area of loam on which he was found terminated at all of its outer edges in various paths, driveways, etc., made of hard material and incapable, for the most part, of showing footprints.

  The diagram below, with attached caption, cut from the newspaper story of which this paper is an abstract, and pasted to this sheet, shows the area of land where André Marceau was killed—most particularly, the nature of the terrain surrounding it on all four sides.

  Bird’s-eye view map of Marceau’s great 125-foot-square croquet lawn showing sides of buildings, fields, driveways, etc. facing it on all four sides. Made, to exact scale, November 5, 1936, by Sir Reginald Rigby, Surveyor and Mapmaker of London, and Gilbert Whittimore, London correspondent of the All-America News Service.

  Marceau’s body lay, in fact, just 15 feet south of a small circular area of yet-unrolled loam in the middle of the above square of ground, on the western edge of which unrolled circle stood the heavy lawnroller with which, working from the outside periphery of his freshly seeded lawn around, he had brought himself gradually to the interior, expecting no doubt that when he had completed the last square foot in the middle, he would take up the simple pointed stick and handkerchief by which he had previously marked the center of his huge lawn, and walk out backwards with his roller, obliterating his own footsteps as he did so. He never got so far as this stage, unfortunately, for he was murdered before quite completing the central rolling. His empurpled face, his protruding tongue, and bulging eyeballs proclaimed plainly the cause of his death to have been forcible asphyxia: and this was confirmed, moreover, by the subsequent autopsy which eliminated not only such possibilities as foreign bodies in his throat, but of ruptures of either heart blood vessels or brain blood vessels, so frequently found in sudden deaths. Indeed, the classical sign of asphyxia was presented by the autopsy: complete engorgement of the right side of the victim’s heart and systemic veins, the left side emptied by rigor mortis. His death was, furthermore, set down as “forcible asphyxiation by strangulation,” the total period of which strangulation was set at 5 minutes through certain microscopic tests of the superficial epithelial cells found in a thin but livid raised ring entirely encircling his neck. The period of his strangulation, up to his death, was set at not less than 4 minutes, through tests on the degree of deoxygenation of his blood, and the fact that strangulation over that period of time, in a man of Marceau’s age, produces complete and permanent cessation of the heart beat. Though it was testified to, at the inquest, by Doctor Hanyard Balmerton, the local physician of the town of Little Ivington who, at Marceau’s own request, had made a complete physical examination of him a month before these incidents took place, and had found him to be in the pink of condition, that Marceau’s heart, despite his 62 years of age, may even have persisted in beating up to the 4th and ½ minute after the commencement of his strangulation. As to this livid ring which completely encircled Marceau’s neck, and proclaimed the existence of the forcible asphyxiation, it was apparently made by a wire—No. 11 or 12 Birmingham gauge—whose insulation either had been strongly impregnated with high-proof—or anhydrous—nitric acid, or, if uninsulated, had been merely covered with a fine grease which had contained the acid; and the extreme measure of its constriction was evidenced beautifully by the complete degree of the superficial skin cell destruction over the width of the ring, at all points. A search of the entire lawn—calling an area in which no grass as yet has sprouted, a lawn!—by four men—one of them an official footprint recorder—in the brilliant illumination from a powerful floodlight focused fully upon it, this lawn already meticulously mapped and recorded as to all footprints found upon it, and “solidometer” tests thereof, and by observers, moreover, who themselves had walked solely upon carefully laid plank bridges, elicted no clews such as buttons, fragments of clothing, garrote, anything. Marceau’s ascot tie was missing, but was found in his side coat pocket, showing that he had removed it when rolling down his soft shirt due to perspiring.

  With regards to the aforesaid footprints, there were three sets—or so-called “trails.” A diagram of the trails, with caption attached, cut from the newspaper story of which this paper is an abstract, and, like the previous diagram, pasted to this sheet of stationery, is presented on the next page.

  Two of the sets of footprints, all of which are shown in this diagram, proved to have been made by Marceau’s own feet. The strange set of prints—E-F-I-J—or Trail II-IV, as it was called, in keeping with the obvious chronology of the production of the trails—was made, as deduced from the average depth of impression, and the average of the so-called “solidometer” readings, by a human being who weighed perhaps 35 or 40 pounds, more or less, since complete and perfect exactitude it seems, is not obtainable from either of these two kinds of measurements; but the approximately deduced weight—plus the size of the foot—indicated an “oversized” infant of about 2½ years of age—more or less. Or, of course, a Lilliputian.

  The layout of each trail, and the manner in which all converged at the body—or, as it may equally be logically said, at a point where Marceau had been kneeling, examining the slightly protruding top an imbedded boulder which had obviously worked upward in the ground since the preceding year, told a curious—and, in connection with scores of other bizarre facts—incontrovertible story.

  Trail I (B-C) showed that
Marceau, spotting in the moonlight, in the rolled area around his as-yet-unrolled middle area of dirt—or else, as is more probably the case, troubledly remembering that his roller had shortly previously gone over such, at just that point—had relinquished his lawnroller on the western edge of that circle of unrolled loam of 4 feet or so radius, and had walked straight out southward and slightly eastward to the point in question—which lay just 20 feet south of the center of the unrolled circle, and 3 feet eastward of it—the center having been, happily for all measurements on the part of observers, marked by an improvised handkerchief flag marker. There Marceau had turned completely about—kneeled (position shown at I-C-D-G) with his left hand in the dirt—and surveyed that boulder tip. And which was bathed in the moonlight falling full upon it from the northwest. Toe prints, 20½ inches back of kneeprints—left handprint 9½ inches in front of left kneeprint—actual boulder tip at the point in question—known position of the moon—all told the story very beautifully and concisely.

  While kneeling there, however, something happened! Something to cause, when considered in the light of the undoubted chronology of the footprint trails, a deeply imbedded pair of footprints, from the feet of a small being no larger than an oversized infant, to appear some 12 feet to the east of Marceau’s kneeling body—at E, in short; but, considering the direction Marceau was facing in kneeling, quite out of his view—almost in back of him, it might be said. Segment II (E-F-I) of the trail known as Trail II-IV, showed that the maker of this pair of prints then crept silently up on Marceau. Silently, not because Marceau could hear anything—for he was, when without his ear trumpet, stone deaf!—but presumably in order that Marceau might not “feel” the tread of small feet.