Chapter II: Part 2

We all had a glorious bathe and a scamper on the sands, and then trooped up to the cottage to dress. As we came up over the lawn I was surprised to see a great heap of luggage, and two bicycles, lying around, evidently all just discharged from a couple of retreating carriages.

I am an unusually modest man, and it was rather over-facing. There were several ladies in the party and an elderly gentleman. They all turned and watched our advent. The ladies looked put out at something. I feared it might be at myself in my bathing costume. However, my foot was on my native heath, so to speak, which was more than could be said of theirs, so I put on as bold a face as could legitimately be expected of a modest man in nothing but a bathing costume, and went forward. The old gentleman also seemed disturbed, but he disguised his feelings to the best of his power, and addressed me suavely.

"Been enjoying a last bathe?" he asked.

There was just a hint of "What the deuce do you mean by it, sir?" in his tone.

"I beg your pardon?" I said.

"Couldn't refrain from one more dip, I suppose?" he said again, with a forced smile. "Might I ask what time you are leaving? We understood--"

"Leaving?" I said, with some force. "Why, we only got here yesterday."

He gazed at me in blank astonishment, the ladies also.

"Oh," he said, soothingly, "there must be some mistake."

"I am not aware of any," I answered, somewhat brusquely.

It was ludicrous, standing there in a bathing suit, discussing the matter under the gaze of three pairs of outraged female eyes, and a blazing sun.

"But, my good sir," said the old gentleman, "I have taken this cottage--it is Sandybank Cottage, is it not?" he asked.

"It is."

"Mr. Joseph Scorer's?"

"Yes."

I was getting angry and the sun was blistering my neck.

"Well, I have taken it for four weeks from August 13, and have paid a deposit on it."

"And I have taken it for four weeks from August 12, and have paid a deposit and half the rent," I said. "We came in yesterday, and we go out September 9."

"And you have an agreement with Mr. Scorer?"

"Certainly I have, but I have not got it on me."

"Well, I'll be hanged," said the old gentleman, very red in the face, and turned to his women folk.

"My dears, there is evidently some mistake. An infernal nuisance, but this gentleman is evidently not to blame. Would you mind my seeing your agreement?" he asked, turning again to me.

"Certainly I would mind. My agreement has nothing to do with you, sir, and I am not in the habit of having my word doubted. Now perhaps you will permit me to go in and dress, before my neck is absolutely raw."

They hung around for a time, talking unpleasantly among themselves, and finally the old gentleman stalked off to the town, and came back with a cart for their belongings. They were loaded up, and the party disappeared in a cloud of dust on the way to Eastnor.

"That is rather a curious thing," said my wife, when I detailed the experiences of the morning to her on her return from her shopping. "I hope--"

"Oh, we're all right," I said, lightly. "They can't put us out. Possession, you know--"

"Yes, I know. I wasn't thinking of that," she said, with a far-away look in her eyes.

By evening the raw edge of the annoyance of the morning had worn off. We sat in the porch enjoying the evening breeze, and counted ourselves for the time being among the fortunate ones of the earth. Our charity even extended at odd moments to the disappointed would-be occupants of our shoes--and bedrooms, and we devoutly hoped they had found rooms somewhere, and were not occupying airy apartments in bathing machines.

"It was a stupid mistake of Mr. Joseph Scorer's," we said, "and he ought to be more careful."

"I shall write when I have time," I said, "and tell him so."

But I never had time. I was much too fully occupied with other things.

Next day, after a morning bathe and paddle on the sands and early dinner, we started for a long afternoon's ramble round Eastnor, to get some idea of the place, leaving the two youngest children with the servant, with strict injunctions not to get drowned, and to get their tea whenever they felt like it.

We did Eastnor thoroughly, and then, noticing that there was a concert on the pier that night, my wife suggested tea at a confectioner's, and an adjournment to the pier afterwards for the concert. This was carried with acclaim. We enjoyed the tea, the concert, and the stroll home, and arrived at Sandybank Cottage about ten o'clock, fully satisfied with our day's outing.

Amelia met us at the door. She was in a state of extreme nervous excitement.

"Thank goodness you come 'ome!" she burst out.

She was unfortunate in the place of her birth and up-bringing, was Amelia. To judge from her accent she must have been born right up in the steeple of Bow Church. Otherwise she was a sterling girl. I will tone down her vernacular: it does not spell easily.

"Sich a dye I never had. Seems to me we'd better git away 'ome's quick's we can," she began.

"Why, Amelia, what's the matter?" asked her mistress.

"Matter?" said Amelia, with rising inflection. "Well, there's been a party of three old maiden ladies, with three dawgs, and two kinaries, and a parrick in a cage, all a-settin' cryin' on their boxes outside here all day long since half an hour after you left, a-waitin' for you to come back and go out of this 'ouse and let 'em come in. They say they took it from August 14 for a month, and paid a dee-posit, and they was to come in to-day. And the kitching fire was to be ready lighted, an'--"

"And there was to be coal, and bread, and milk in the house, and oil for the lamps, and they'd paid for them," said I.

"My! Did you hear 'em?"

"No," I said, "I didn't."

"And what did you do, Amelia?" asked my wife, anxiously.

"I just told 'em straight that we was 'ere for a month, and there must be some mistake, seein' as we wasn't a-goin' out till our time was up, and then they just set down and cried, and the parrick swore awful till they covered him up. He belonged to a nevew what was a sailor man, they said, when he begun to swear, and I told the children to run inside lest they'd catch it. Then they was so misrable settin' there, dabbin' of their poor little red noses, that I made 'em some tea, and they could 'ave kissed me, and they wanted me to take pay for it, but I wouldn't."

"You're a good girl, Amelia, and you did quite right," said her mistress, and turning to me--

"This is really very trying and very uncomfortable. What do you suppose is the meaning of it?"

She looked a little bit as though she thought it was my fault.

"I don't know what's the meaning of it," I said, feeling angry. "I'm afraid Mr. Joseph Scorer has a very short memory. If I had him here I'd try if screwing his neck round would lengthen it."

Next day being Sunday we had a genuine day of rest, and enjoyed it with quite a novel sense of freedom from the cares and worries of life.

On Monday, by the morning train and the station omnibus, arrived a family much like our own--father, mother, four children, servant, and innumerable boxes.

I had had my bathe, and was sitting in the porch armed with a pipe and my stamped agreement with Mr. Scorer, prepared to repel all intruders. So, before the grinning omnibus-man had time to dump down the baggage, I took the father on one side, showed him my agreement, and explained the situation, telling him his was the third party I had had to turn empty away.

He was very wroth, and swore, I should say, as lustily as the old maids' nephew's parrot could have done. He was a lawyer, too, and wanted to go into the legal aspects of the case. I assured him that they did not interest me, unless I had some ground of action against Mr. Joseph Scorer for the disturbance of my peaceful possession of his much-let habitation.

He was a good fellow on the whole, and he left me his name and business address, and made me promise to let him know if I ever found out where Mr. Scorer had gone to, and also to refer to him any of the outraged claimants to the cottage who wished to take legal action in the matter.

His wife and the youngsters had been peering out anxiously at us from the back windows of the bus while this colloquy was taking place. The father explained the matter to them, and, with a wave of his hand to me, they drove crestfallen back to Eastnor.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, variously-composed parties arrived with their baggage, and I turned them all away, and sent them to find lodgings in Eastnor, suffering much in the doing of it from their unnatural ill-humours and chagrin.

On Saturday there arrived a rollicking reading-party of students from Oxford with a coach. I explained my painful situation and experiences, and informed them that they made the eighth party I had had to repulse.

They were merry, good-humoured fellows, and they lay flat on my patch of lawn and fairly screamed with delight at the cuteness of Mr. Joseph Scorer. "He was born an Oxford gyp," they averred.

They enjoyed the affair so much that I could hardly get rid of them. My wife gave them tea and cakes, and they sat and smoked, and laughed, and joked, till the stars were up, and then they got a carriage and drove off to the hotel, after promising to come up every day about noon to assist me in my hateful task of holding the fort against all comers.

And they did it, too, and enjoyed it immensely.

On the pier, on Sunday morning after church, we met at intervals all the families who ought to have been stopping in Sandybank Cottage.

The irate first old gentleman stopped me to ask, "Well, how are you getting on? Say, that was the nastiest trick I ever was served. If I could find Mr. Scorer I would jolly well like to wring his nasty little neck."

I said I felt that way myself, but I feared there was not much chance of laying hands on it.

I told him I had now had to send away eight different parties who all claimed the cottage, and at that he felt very much better.

My lawyer friend was just passing, and I introduced him to the old gentleman, and, catching sight of my young friends from Oxford, I introduced them all to one another, and they all had a very lively time together, and enjoyed themselves extremely.

On Monday I bethought me to go to the station, and acquaint the cabmen with the true state of matters, and beg them not to bring any more parties to Sandybank Cottage. They listened with broad grins to all I had to say, but absolutely refused to comply with my wishes. It all meant double fares for them, and all was grist that came to their mills, and it wasn't in human nature to refuse a fare when it was offered, and in fact any such refusal might invalidate their licences, and would certainly lose them their places. So, much as they regretted the annoyance it caused me, they felt in duty bound to go on dumping would-be tenants and their baggage on my front lawn as fast as they came along.

I could find no arguments to advance against all this, and so the game went merrily on.

That day two separate parties arrived within ten minutes of one another. The Oxford contingent was sitting on the lawn, and revelled in the disgust of the heads of the families when they were made acquainted with the state of affairs.

Paterfamilias number two, who I think from his manner must have been a performing Strong Man, threatened to pitch me and my belongings bodily into the sea. Young Oxford, however, came to the rescue, and Mr. Strong Man and family eventually retired amid the hootings of the crowd.

For the curious situation of matters at Sandybank Cottage could no longer be hidden under a bushel. The news had got abroad, and numbers of people came up each day now, and sat round our house to enjoy the fun. In fact we had become one of the centres of attraction of Eastnor, and the folks travelled up to Sandybank Cottage as at other places they would have gone to a switchback or a nigger minstrel show.

Perhaps the funniest thing was to see the three old maiden ladies come straggling up every day in single file, each with a wheezy waddling pug dog in a lead, which was fastened round its body lest undue pressure on its neck should induce the inevitable apoplectic fit a day sooner than was assigned for it. They came panting up, and gazed mournfully at the cottage, and reproachfully at me whenever I appeared, and they looked sadly at the gradually disappearing supply of potatoes and cabbages for which they had paid, and which I was eating. For Mr. Joseph Scorer had sold and been paid for that garden produce no less than sixteen times over. It needs a genius of that kind to run a garden profitably.

In the natural course of things the local paper gave a humorous account of the affair, which was copied into one of the London dailies, and this it was that eventually brought about the climax.

Among the would-be occupants this week was a well-known actress, who came with her maid and a companion and a white poodle. We had rejoiced in her exceedingly, at a distance, for many a year, and both my wife and myself were delighted to make her more intimate acquaintance--much more delighted, in fact, than, under the circumstances, she was to make ours. We invited her in, and gave her tea, and apologised for the annoyance she was being put to through no fault of ours, and did our best to make her comfortable.

When young Oxford saw her they were with difficulty restrained from chairing her to an hotel, and on the whole I think, when the first annoyance had passed off, she rather enjoyed herself.

By Saturday night we had repelled sixteen different attempts on our tenancy of Sandybank Cottage and, by this time, if a single day, except Sunday, had passed without the arrival of one or more claimants we would have begun to suspect something had gone wrong.

There was one thing, however, that puzzled me exceedingly, and no amount of thoughtful consideration of the subject cast any light upon it. What on earth had made Mr. Joseph Scorer act in this way? If he had let the cottage in the usual manner he could have made at least £22 or £23 all told in the two months. As it was I reckoned he had made about £37 by his monstrous duplicity, and it was the utter inadequacy of the plunder which puzzled me so much.

Why would a man want to hang sixteen indictments for fraud around his neck for such a very small reward? It seemed inconceivable, especially in such a smart and far-seeing man as Mr. Joseph Scorer. It was the action of a fool; and whatever else he was, Mr. Joseph Scorer could hardly be called a fool, except in this one point of utter inadequacy of motive.

However, my eyes were to be opened, and in a somewhat unpleasant fashion--the process is not, as a rule, an enjoyable one.

On Sunday the 29th, being the third Sunday of our visit, when we returned from church and the usual augmented Sabbath meeting of malcontents on the pier, we found a gentleman sitting on the bench in the porch awaiting our arrival.

Sunday had hitherto been an off day with us, and we rather resented this infraction of the rules of the game.

I went up to him and addressed him somewhat curtly.

"Well, sir, and what can I do for you?"

He looked at me whimsically, and said--

"Your name is Oxenham?"

"It is."

"Mine is Sawyer."

"Not Mr. William Henry Sawyer, Esquire, of the Home Office?"

"Yes," he said, smiling at the evidently recognised formula.

"I understood you only came down in May and October."

"So I do generally; but, seeing that the cottage is mine, I suppose I have the privilege of coming whenever I choose."

"The cottage is yours?" I said, in surprise.

"Undoubtedly. I bought it and its contents five years ago, and I run down whenever the spirit moves me."

I sat silent, looking at him.

"But if the cottage is yours," I said, at last, "how came that little scoundrel----"

"That's just what I have come down to find out," he said. "Now, tell me, Mr. Oxenham, from whom did you take the cottage?"

"From Mr. Joseph Scorer."

"William, you mean; but that is a detail."

"Joseph," said I. "Stay! I'll show you my agreement," and I went inside and got it.

"Joseph?" he said, with knitted brow, as he perused the document; and, after a pause, "Then what the deuce has become of William? What kind of a man was he?"

"Small, sharp, brown man, with one club foot."

He nodded.

"Which foot?" he asked.

I had to cast back my thoughts.

"Left," I said, at last.

"No, right," said he.

"Left; I am quite sure of it."

He tapped the folded paper against his hand, and said--

"One of us is wrong. Scorer has been in my service for fifteen years, and I ought to know."

"Suppose we ask my wife if she remembers?"

I called her and put the question.

"His left foot was the lame one," she said, after a thoughtful pause. "I can see him standing there"--she said it so decidedly that we involuntarily turned to look, but he was not there, except in her memory--"and it was his right shoulder that humped up. Yes, I am quite sure of it."

"This is very curious," said Mr. Sawyer. "I am afraid there is something wrong. Besides, Scorer never could have done such a thing. He was as honest as the day."

"And yet he let this cottage sixteen times over to sixteen different parties, and I have had the privilege, such as it is, of holding the fort against them all."

"I can't believe William Scorer would do such a thing," he said, looking at us with eyes full of puzzled suspicion, as though he were not quite sure whether I had told him all I knew of the matter.

"Joseph," said I.

He tapped his foot impatiently, and we lapsed into silence. An idea struck me suddenly.

"Is there a Joseph Scorer as well as a William?" I asked.

He looked at me abstractedly.

"There was a brother," he said at last, "and, if I remember rightly, a twin brother, but I have not heard of him for years. I do not think I ever saw him. I have an idea he went to the bad." Our eyes met and held one another, and my thought crossed his.

"What do you suspect, Mr. Oxenham?" he asked.

"I suspect that I met Joseph and you know William," I said.

"But I left William in charge here."

"And I found Joseph."

"Then where is William?"

"William is the missing link. Find him, and we get to the bottom of the matter."

"Yes, that sounds common sense. Now, where is William?"

That was by no means an easy question to answer. Mr. Joseph Scorer could probably have told us, but as the discovery of William was but the first step towards the discovery of Joseph, that fact did not advance us.

The puzzle, however, solved itself in the simplest manner possible, and without any assistance from us.

As there was a spare bedroom in the cottage, the least we could do was to put it at Mr. Sawyer's disposal if he cared to make use of it. So we invited Mr. Sawyer to occupy it for a day or two, and he consented to do so, and turned out to be a very pleasant and genial companion.

The tide next morning did not serve well for bathing till about an hour after breakfast. Then Sawyer and I and some of the youngsters went in.

It was one of those absolutely still mornings when the water is as smooth as oil, and you can hear the beat of the steamers' paddles miles away, and when you shout it is like shouting inside a bell.

We were all swimming and paddling about, enjoying ourselves immensely, when I saw the three little fat pugs and the three old ladies coming along the beach path to take their regular wistful morning look at the cottage, where they ought to have been living, and were not.

Then from behind the cottage came a great tumult--the noise of many voices, mingled with groans and laughter, and there swept round the side of it a mob of people, who came to a stand on the little green plot in front.

We were still wondering what was the meaning of it, when Amelia Blatt, our servant, came tearing down the sands towards us, holding on to her square inch of cap with one hand, and to her flying skirts with the other.

"They want you up there," she panted.

"Who are they, and what do they want?"

"It's all them folks he let the house to, and they've got 'im----"

And as we made for the shore, Amelia, who was a very modest girl, fled precipitately up the slope.

"Hey, Milly!" I shouted, "bring us down a couple of those big bath towels."

Amelia made no answer, but presently the big bath-towels met us under the arms of a small boy. We twisted our ordinary towels apron-wise over our dripping bathing-suits, and draped the big bath-towels gracefully over our shoulders, and then stalked as majestically as circumstances permitted towards the noisy crowd, which resolved itself into its component elements as we drew near.

The outer fringe consisted of excited and irrepressible small boys of the town, who scampered round and round, shouting and dancing, and cuffing one another, in sheer enjoyment of living and the knowledge that something unusual was on foot. Inside them stood a number of the town loafers, all facing in towards the centre of the ring, and laughing and making jocular remarks to one another. Closer in still, came an excited circle of our friends who, like the old ladies, ought to have been living in the cottage, but were not. The irascible old gentleman was there, purple in the face and swearing frightfully; the solicitor was there, with a slightly anticipatory look in his face; the Strong Man was there, and looked as if he wanted to break something; and closer in than all these, forming a solid bodyguard of white flannels and laughing faces and briar pipes, were our young friends from Oxford.

The three little old ladies, with their pugs in their arms, crept round the revolving outskirts of the crowd, and joined my wife, who stood wondering in the doorway, and began timidly questioning her as to the meaning of the uproar.

Mr. Sawyer and I elbowed our way through the crowd, and the bodyguard opened to let us into the circle.

In the centre stood a little, trembling meek, brown-eyed, crooked man.

"Scorer!" said I, "by all that's wonderful!"

"William!" said Sawyer.

"Jos---! No, by Jove! it is the other leg!"

"Now, William," said Mr. Sawyer, "what is the meaning of all this?"

The crooked little man's eyes brightened when he saw Mr. Sawyer.

"Mr. Sawyer, sir, I know no more than a babe unborn. I come in by the 10.30, and no sooner hadn't my foot touched the ground than these young gentlemen they gathered round me and began a arskin' what I meant by it, and then all them others came along. I dunno what's matter wi' em. Seems to me they're all gone crazy."

"Where's Joseph?"

"Why, ain't he 'ere? I left him 'ere when I went into h--orspital; and 'e said 'e'd keep things all shipshape till I come out."

"Where did you find him? I thought he was away."

"He come to see me just when I were sickening, Mr. Sawyer, sir, and he promised to keep things all straight and shipshape till I were right again. So I sent off the wife to her folks--for her trouble--you know, and then Joe he took me along to the h--orspital, and he said he'd keep things all--"

"I see," said Mr. Sawyer; "and how's the wife?"

"She's A1, Mr. Sawyer, sir."

"And the baby?"

"He's a reg'lar little ripper, sir, and as straight as a lath."

There was more ingenuous pride packed into those last five words than any five words ever held before; but the meek brown eyes shone suddenly moist.

One of the Oxford boys started, "Three cheers for the baby! Hip, hip, hurrah!--rah!!--rah!!!" And then they fell naturally into "He's a jolly good fellow!" and yelled it at top of their voices, while they all joined hands and danced round us till their faces were all on fire, and all their pipes were out for want of breath to keep them going, and William Scorer's eyes were like to fall out of his head. They did not quite understand matters, but they saw there had been some mistake, and they were all very healthy and very happy. They could not forget Joseph, but they heartily forgave William for his brother's sins, and they vowed they would not have missed the fun for three times the amount of Joseph's little peculations.

"What's it all mean, Mr. Sawyer, sir?" asked the bewildered William.

"It means this, William, that that scamp of a brother of yours has let this house of mine some sixteen times over to sixteen different people, and all for about the same date, and that most of them have paid him a deposit. Hence----" and he waved his hand comprehensively over the throng.

"Nay,--sure--ly!" said the little man, and it seemed to me that his stricken wonder was not absolutely untinged with admiration.

There was nothing more to be said or done. Everybody recognised that fact. Joseph was not to be found, and William was not to blame.

The stout little gentleman vowed he'd be something'd if he'd ever heard of such a something'd queer business before. The Strong Man looked regretfully at William, and wished he was Joseph just for five minutes or so. The solicitor recognised the fact that a case would not lie against little "Dot-and-carry-one," as he called him, so he put it in his pipe and smoked it, and by degrees the crowd thinned away, and left us in peaceable possession. The last to go were the three little old ladies, and from their manner I should say they were by no means convinced of the existence of William's brother Joseph.

The Oxford boys, by the way, insisted on chairing little William to the "Blue Pig," down the Wilborough Road, and tried to induce him to enjoy himself, but as he declined to touch anything stronger than gingerbeer, there was no great harm done.

Mr. Sawyer stayed a couple of days with us, and offered us the cottage free for next August, to make up for the annoyances we had suffered; and, unless we hear that William Scorer has been taken ill again, and that his brother Joseph has come to nurse him, we shall accept the invitation.

THE MEDICAL DETECTIVE AND HIS WORK.

CRIMINALS CONVICTED BY THE MICROSCOPE.

BY T. F. MANNING.

Owing to the fact that they often flatly contradict one another, medical experts do not stand very high in popular repute; nevertheless, it is a positive fact that a single medical expert is worth half Scotland Yard in the detection and prevention of crime. Thousands of rivals in love, disagreeable husbands, dangerous political agitators, harsh masters and mistresses, rich uncles, and people of that sort, would be popped off with a few grains of arsenic, or a drop of prussic acid, only that it is well known the doctor has the eyes of a hawk for poison. And, on the other hand, many and many a family is saved from the suspicion attaching to the sudden death of a member, and even many an innocent man from the scaffold, by the proof of natural death which the doctor supplies.

Although great poisoning, shooting, stabbing, and other homicidal trials have a wonderful fascination for all newspaper readers, very few fully appreciate the medical evidence, which is usually the most important link in the chain. The evidence is of three kinds--that of the ordinary medical man, who sees the patient dying, perhaps, and performs the post-mortem; that of the chemist, who, in his quiet laboratory, traces the poison or identifies the blood stain; and that of the expert, who gives his inference from the facts stated by the first two. It is these experts who often differ from one another.

In a large number of cases the _post-mortem_ examination is the first step in unravelling a mystery.

The man who performs it is not to be envied, for the smallest scratch on his hand may admit a dose of deadly poison.

Many medical men, indeed, wear rubber gloves, and those less careful generally cover their hands with a layer of sticky ointment. It takes from two to four hours to do the job thoroughly.

But it is not all cutting up, as most people think. The first thing done is to notice the position of the body, and whether there are any weapons, bottles, or glasses near.

Then it is examined from head to toe for scratches, cuts, bruises, moles, tattoo marks. Everything about the hair, eyes, teeth, nose, ears, and other parts, is written down. The height, the age, the muscular development, are all noted.

Of course, this inspection alone often reveals the cause of death. Suppose, however, that no external injury is found and no organ is diseased, the suspicion of poisoning naturally arises. In that case, the doctor looks for certain marks that the commonest poisons make, and then he places the stomach and other parts in glass jars, which are securely covered, sealed, labelled, and handed to the analyst.

Poisoning is not much favoured by the Briton as a means of killing either himself or anybody else. He generally does the deed in a more open, if more brutal, way. But it is to be feared that a great many more people get rid of undesirable contemporaries in this manner than is popularly supposed.

Probably, in most cases, the ordinary medical attendant is able to tell whether a person is dying a natural death or is being carried off by some deadly drug. His position, however, is not a pleasant one. It is impossible to be certain; and, in order to make a full investigation, he must suggest either that the victim is committing suicide, or that someone else, perhaps his wife or son, is committing murder. And, after all, the signs in the living are very obscure. Of course, if a person is foolish enough (as many are) to drink sulphuric or nitric acid, his mouth and throat are burned as if he swallowed coals of fire, the former leaving black and the latter yellow stains; but when the poison is arsenic, or opium, or strychnine, the symptoms are very like those of certain diseases.

When the cholera was last in London, a father, mother, son, and daughter dined together. Immediately after dinner, all, except the son, became suddenly ill, and died in a few hours, with the symptoms of arsenic poisoning.

The son, who was always quarrelling with the rest of the family, was arrested on the doctor's report and charged with murder. But a _post-mortem_ examination showed that cholera was the real cause of death.

Apoplexy, in the same way, is very like opium poisoning; and hydrophobia, lock-jaw, and even some cases of hysteria, closely resemble poisoning by strychnine.

Still, when a healthy man grows suddenly ill soon after a meal, the doctor keeps his eyes open, and if death follows he has a pretty shrewd idea of what caused it.

At all events, he feels perfectly justified in assuming that the case is not a normal one. He therefore hands over to the analyst the jars and other receptacles containing the portions of the subject's body likely to bear traces of the poison, knowing full well that if any poison is there the analyst will infallibly detect it.

The analyst begins by making a series of what may be called "brews," mincing, pounding, boiling, cooling, filtering, decanting, and distilling, over and over again. In these operations various solvents are used in succession, plain water separating out one class of poisons, alcohol dissolving out another group, benzol taking up a third, naphtha a fourth, ammonia a fifth, and so on. This preliminary work takes, not hours, but days to perform. At an early stage in it the operator discovers such volatile poisons as prussic acid, chloroform, carbolic acid, and phosphorus, if any of them be present. Later on he comes across the alkaloids, such as strychnine, digitalin, cantharidin, and other terrible poisons of that class.

Finally, the residue of the animal matter with which we have supposed the medical detective to be experimenting is mixed with hydrochloric acid, and distilled once again, after which it can contain no poison except one of the metals.

Thus, in the course of his examination, the analyst has made a number of decoctions, in one of which the poison is certain to be. In each decoction there may be any one of several groups of poisons.

In which is it, and what is it? After all this patient labour the solution is still far off. It may be a ptomaine from poisonous fish or decayed meat, a deadly berry, or leaf, or root, a small quantity of morphia, or phosphorus, or lead, or arsenic, or antimony.

Each brew is tested in turn. But, as illustrating the general procedure, take the last, which contains whatever metal may have had the fatal result. First, the chemist tests with "group reagents." He knows that if he puts into the glass containing the last brew certain bodies in succession, some metals, if they are there, cannot be kept from rushing into the arms of one, others will as passionately embrace another, others still will unite with a third, while some will always repudiate any alliance. There are in all cases signs of the union, when it takes place, such as a blue or white or red colour, or a powder falling to the bottom, or a fizzing of escaping gas.

In practice the analyst puts a little of the brew in a small glass test-tube, pours in some distilled water, and carefully drops in some hydrochloric acid. Now, if there is either silver, mercury, or lead, in the brew, down goes a white powder; if none of these things is there, no change follows.

Next he adds some sulphuretted hydrogen water, a sort of aerated water smelling of rotten eggs. If tin, platinum, bismuth, cadmium, arsenic, or one of several other metals, is in the brew, a coloured powder falls to the bottom. Should nothing occur, he adds other things, until he has tested for five groups of metals.

When he finds a poison belonging to a certain group, he has still to ascertain which of five or six bodies it is.

For instance, after adding the first two test-liquors, if he sees a yellow coloration or precipitate, he knows that he has either arsenic or tin or cadmium. He then adds some strong ammonia, after boiling the liquid till the smell of rotten eggs has disappeared. If the powder dissolves, and the colour goes, he is quite sure he has found arsenic.

In this business-like way the murderer is convicted.

But now arises the necessity for making doubly sure, and another kind of test altogether is employed. Life and death hanging on the result, the test must be beyond all doubt. But arsenic is one of those self-assertive things about whose presence there cannot be the most infinitesimal doubt. Give a man a particle the size of a mustard-seed, and let him swallow it. When he dies bury him, and let him lie under the earth for a quarter of a century. Then gather the few remnants, give them to a chemist, and he will return you a considerable portion of the poison in the same state as that in which it was administered.

Probably the most famous special test for arsenic is Marsh's, the invention of a Woolwich chemist, and equally famous is Reinsch's, which is performed as follows: The suspected liquid is put in a little glass test-tube with some hydrochloric acid. Then a small bit of bright copper is dropped in, and the test-tube is held over a flame.

Now, arsenic has the wildest love for copper, and every trace of it in the tube flies to the slip of copper and covers it with a grey coat. Another metal does the same, certainly, but they can be distinguished subsequently.

Presently the copper is removed, washed, dried, and placed in a tough glass tube, very narrow at one end. This is held over a flame and carefully heated, and then a phenomenon, not unknown, either, in the loves of mortals, occurs. The arsenic abandons the copper, and clings in crystals to the sides of the glass tube, where it can be recognised by the aid of a magnifying-glass or microscope; and if the crystals are heated with a bit of acetate of potash the odour drives the chemist from the room.

To this curious fact, that arsenic loves copper when it is wet with warm hydrochloric acid, and hates it when it is hot and dry, is due the discovery of many a crime.

It is already plain to the reader that the analyst's task is not an easy one. Sometimes the analytical examination is of vast extent; sometimes it is greatly narrowed by hints from the family doctor. These hints are interesting, and show that the doctor is, when he knows his business, a real and a very skilful detective.

The doctor's eye is a wonderful one. When he enters a room, he not only measures the patient from head to toe, notes the colour of his face, the posture of his body, the signs of pain, stupor, or perhaps sham; but observes the manner of the other people present, and sees every bottle, glass, and cup in the place.

Now, although sudden death is usually from natural causes, when it occurs soon after food there is always suspicion, as we have said. So, if the doctor perceives great pain and nausea, he thinks of arsenic, antimony, tinned meats, mushrooms, toadstools, and other things; if the pupil of the eye is as small as a pin-head, and the sick man is drowsy, he thinks of opium; if something seems to have caught hold of the patient's heart, and to be squeezing it like a sponge, he thinks of digitalis; if the poor victim is being worked like a puppet, and his pupils are large with fear, he thinks of strychnine; if there is great thirst, colic, and cramps in the legs, he thinks of lead.

He knows that prussic acid kills like a bullet in the brain--a glass of cold water taken while hot from exercise may do the same--and he smells for it. He can also tell if it is phosphorus or carbolic acid, by the smell.

He knows that relatives usually kill each other by means of particular poisons; that other poisons are used for suicidal purposes; that the photographer takes cyanide of potassium, the medical man and chemist prussic acid or morphia, the poor man vermin-killer or oxalic acid, or carbolic acid, or some such agonising destroyer of life. And thus, though all poisons lead to the same end--stoppage of the breathing and blood circulation--yet each has its own particular way of sending the soul to eternity. He can therefore often tell the analyst detective how to take a short cut.

By the way, there is no such thing as a slow poison--that is, a poison which, taken to-day, does not show its effects for weeks. This is a fiction of the novelists. On the other hand, there is--except in the case of prussic acid and nicotine--no death straight away after taking poison, as one sees it on the stage, Shakespeare notwithstanding.

An actual case will show that the discovery of murder by the doctor and analyst is not always plain sailing.

A good many years ago, a Mr. Sprague was tried for the murder of the Walker family by means of the well-known poison of the deadly nightshade. The medical evidence showed clearly that they all died from belladonna poisoning, and belladonna was found in the rabbit-pie they had for dinner. A common-sense jury, however, acquitted the prisoner; and only recently have medical men solved the mystery by discovering that rabbits can eat any quantity of this plant without suffering harm, while their flesh becomes fatally poisonous.

A second case shows what wonders the chemists can work. A surgeon's wife died from corrosive sublimate, given in a draught by her husband. He said that, in making up the draught, he mistook a bottle of mixture, which he had prepared for a sailor, for the water-bottle, and had poured some of it into his wife's draught. The sailor's mixture was analysed, and it certainly contained corrosive sublimate; but, not content with finding the poison, the analyst measured the quantity present, and, while the sailor's mixture contained only ten grains to an ounce of liquid, the wife's draught contained fifteen grains, showing that the surgeon's ingenious explanation was a lie!

Blood is so characteristic a fluid that it might be supposed a skilful analyst could never have any difficulty in recognising it. Of course, if he were given, say, a cupful in its ordinary state, he could not make a mistake. But he never gets a chance of earning his fee so easily.

When the police seek his assistance they give him, perhaps, a suit of dirty clothes, which may be stained by two or three small dark spots that might be anything.

Or perhaps he is given a rusty knife, or a perfectly clean hatchet, and is asked to say if there is blood on it. And when he comes into court he is expected to tell the jury whether the blood is human or animal, how old it is, was it spilled from a living blood vessel, and in what part of the body was this blood vessel.

Take an actual case. Years ago a celebrated murder was committed in Eltham, and in the report of Dr. Letheby, the analyst, is the following note:--

"On the evening of May 3rd I received from Mr. Mulvaney" (of the police) "a brown paper parcel containing a pair of dark trousers, a man's shirt, and a man's wide-awake hat. On the following evening I received from Mr. Mulvaney a brown paper parcel containing a lock of hair, a pair of men's boots, and a plasterer's hammer."

These were all very dirty, but that did not prevent the analyst from finding a number of blood stains and hairs, and giving valuable and decisive evidence at the trial.

What the analyst first does, when he receives such an article as a pair of trousers, is to scrutinise every inch of its surface with a magnifying glass. If he finds a little lump of dark-coloured stuff he scrapes it off and puts it into a watch glass. If he discovers merely a dark stain, he cuts out the piece of cloth and puts it into a small quantity of distilled water.

Now he has to find out whether the suspicious-looking thing is really blood, or whether it is merely red paint, or logwood, or cochineal, or madder, or iron-mould. There are three ways of doing this, and he nearly always utilises them all.

First, there is the marvellous spectroscope test. This test will reveal the presence of the minutest trace of blood, and it is practically infallible. It depends on the curious property, possessed by nearly all bodies, of absorbing certain parts of the light that passes through them. Sunlight passing through a prism is split up into the familiar seven colours of the rainbow. But if a little blood dissolved in water is placed in a glass tube, and if the light is made to pass through it on its way to the prism, the blood takes something out of it; for now among the seven bright colours are seen two dark bands near the middle of the yellow ray. Nothing but blood gives these two bands in that particular place, with the exception of two or three substances that are not likely to be found on criminals' clothes. These are cochineal, mixed with certain chemicals, hot purpurin sulphuric acid, and the red dye of the banana-eater.

Blood, however, changes after it is shed. In stains a few weeks old the colouring matter changes from what is technically called hæmoglobin to methæmoglobin, and, later still, to hæmatin. All of these give different spectra. The analyst has standard spectra already mounted, and he invariably looks at the mounted or standard specimen and the suspected liquid at the same time, placing them side by side, so that a mistake is impossible. All the red colours in the world, in fact, have been tried, and, with the exceptions named above, none of them gives a spectrum like the colouring matter of blood in any of its forms.

But though the spectroscope is a certain discoverer of blood, it can draw no distinction between human and animal blood. That duty remains to the microscope.

Man. Mouse. Horse. Camel.
Toad. Pike. Pheasant. Pigeon.]

With the microscope can be seen those red corpuscles which, in some mysterious manner, seize on the oxygen of the air as it passes into the lungs, shoulder it, so to speak, and rush away with it, like so many ants, to the remotest parts of the body. Unfortunately, they can only be seen in blood that has not been very long shed--that is to say, some weeks or months. To see these, the analyst scrapes the little clot from the piece of cloth, or wood, or iron, and places it on a slip of glass; over this he carefully lays the little film called a cover-glass; and then he gently places, at the edge of the latter, the tiniest possible drop of water. This gradually insinuates itself, and soon dissolves the blood clot; and, when the mixture is placed under a microscope magnifying from 300 to 500 diameters, he sees one of several pictures. The various shapes and arrangements taken by these little bodies are illustrated on the following page. Small as they are--it would take 12-1/4 millions to cover a square inch--they have the most peculiar way of behaving, and only the practised eye of the microscopist can recognise them in all their disguises.

Individually, the blood corpuscle is just like a tiny round biscuit, and measures 1/3200 to 1/4000 of an inch across its face. It is these two factors, the shape and measurement, which enable the medical man to say whether the blood is human. The picture above shows how a corpuscle looks under the microscope. Looking at its face, it is like a thick-edged biscuit, with a dark depression in the centre. Some are turned sideways in our illustration. These exist in blood and nothing but blood, so that, when the spectroscope fails, the microscope succeeds.

But it is not always that the analyst can get sufficient blood to place under the microscope. Perhaps he gets a piece of cloth saturated with a trifle of red fluid which he cannot scrape off, or perhaps he gets a stain some months or years old (Dr. Tidy identified a blood stain one hundred and one years old), in which the corpuscles are destroyed. Or perhaps he gets a garment which has been carefully washed, on which there is only the faintest trace of colouring matter. Even then the microscope tells whether the stain is blood.

Our detective mixes the particle of blood-stained wood, or earth, or dust, or cloth fibres, with water and caustic potash, and filters it. Then he takes a drop of the liquid and places it in the useful watch-glass. Into this he puts some glacial acetic acid and a crystal of ordinary table salt. He heats the mixture and lets it cool. And, if it is blood, he gets peculiar crystals visible under the microscope. These, by the way, differ to some extent in different animals.

Another test is so new that it has not yet been given a fair trial. It is as follows:--If a fairly large quantity of blood can be got, it is burned, and the ash is analysed. Now, there are two salts always in blood--sodium and potassium salts. But, while the quantity of the former in human blood is usually twice that of the latter, it is six times as great in the sheep's blood, eight times as great in the cow's blood, and sixteen times as great in the blood of a fowl. Very important results are expected from this principle.

Reliable as are the microscope and spectroscope, the analyst always uses the third means at his disposal--the chemical test. For instance, he gets a knife covered with dark red stains. Are they blood, or are they only the rust formed by vinegar or the juice of a lemon that has deceived so many people? Assuming that he has removed the stain, he places the matter in any kind of tiny vessel, and drops in some tincture of galls. If the thing is only rust, he has some excellent blue ink; if it is blood, he finds that a reddish powder makes its appearance.

Perhaps he gets a handkerchief with a red stain. If the cloth is white he can apply a test direct to it, but as a rule he prefers to dissolve the stain out. Now, a handkerchief may be stained with a number of different reddish things--Condy's fluid, jam, cochineal log-wood, or red paint. He puts a drop of ordinary ammonia on the cloth. If the stain is caused by currant, gooseberry, or other fruit juice it turns blue or green; if it is Condy's fluid it becomes blue; if it is cochineal it becomes crimson, and so on. But if it is blood, it does not change in the least. Other tests might be described, but we have not the space.

Probably the most interesting of all his duties to the analyst is that of judging from what animal the blood stains came. This can be done only in some cases; that is, when the blood is not quite so old that the red corpuscles have entirely lost their shape.

Of course this is a matter of the greatest importance when a man is on his trial; for, in the first place, every spot of blood found on his belongings is supposed to have come from his victim, although it may be nothing more than the blood of a fish; and, in the second place, the stock explanation of blood stains on his clothing offered by a prisoner is that they came from some animal he killed. The plan is to ask him what animal. Five times out of six he will say a domestic fowl or some kind of bird especially if he is a poacher who has killed a gamekeeper--and then he is done for.

Look at the pictures on page 149 and you have the whole thing in a nutshell. It will be seen that the red corpuscles of the blood of birds, reptiles, and fishes (with the exception of the cyclostomata) are oval, while those of mammalian blood are round. Here is, at once, a sure way of differentiating mammalian blood from that of the other three great classes of animals. The only difficulty is that blood corpuscles get out of shape, under certain circumstances, and are no longer either oval or round. But there is another difference. A mammalian corpuscle is of uniform substance throughout: that of a fish, bird, or reptile has a small, dense spot near the centre, called a nucleus. Snails, slugs, worms, and other low forms of animal life do not come into the question at all, for their blood is generally colourless, and, if not, it is blue-green, violet, brown, being scarcely ever red, and then not from the presence of corpuscles.