There was no lack of conjecture, you may be sure. Doctors cited dozens of instances of women—tailoresses and dressmakers, particularly—who had suddenly fallen dead through having needles embedded in various vital organs. Involuntary muscular contractions, it was demonstrated, could easily send an accidentally stuck in needle, or portion of a needle, working its way between the muscles for extraordinary distances, until it reached, for example, the heart. . . .
The coroner was inclined to accept this as a solution, and declare a verdict of death by misadventure. Only the doctor wouldn’t have that. Such cases, he said, had come to his attention, especially in the East End of London; and, in every case, the needle extracted had been in a certain way corroded, or calcified, as the case might be. In the case of Miss Lily Pantile, the crewel needle—upon the evidence of a noted pathologist —had been driven into the skull from the outside, with superhuman force. Part of the gold eye of the needle had been found protruding from the deceased’s scalp. . . . What did the coroner make of that? the doctor asked.
The coroner was not anxious to make anything of it.
In the opinion of the doctor, could an able-bodied man have driven a needle through a human skull with his fingers?
Definitely, no.
Might this needle, then, have been driven into Miss Pantile’s skull with some instrument, such as a hammer?
Possibly; but only by someone of “preternatural skill” in the use of instruments of exceptional delicacy. . . .
The doctor reminded the coroner that even experienced needlewomen frequently broke far heavier needles than this gold-headed crewel needle, working with cloth of close texture. The human skull, the doctor said—calling the coroner, with his forensic experience, to witness—was a most remarkably difficult thing to penetrate, even with a specially designed instrument like a trephine.
The coroner said that one had, however, to admit the possibility of a crewel needle being driven through a middle-aged woman’s skull with a hammer, in the hands of a highly skilled man.
. . . So it went on, d’you see. The doctor lost his temper and invited anyone to produce an engraver, say, or cabinet-maker, to drive a crewel needle through a human skull with a hammer “with such consummate dexterity”—they were his words, sir —as to leave the needle unbroken, and the surrounding skin unmarked, as was the case with Miss Pantile.
There, d’you see, the coroner had him. He said, in substance: “You have proved that this needle could not have found its way into the late Miss Pantile’s brain from inside. You have also proved that this needle could not have found its way into Miss Pantile’s brain from outside.”
Reprimanding somebody for laughing, then, he declared an open verdict.
So the case was closed. A verdict is a verdict, but coroners are only coroners, even though they may be backed by the Home Office pathologist. And somehow or other, for me, this verdict was not good enough. If I had been that coroner, I thought to myself, I would have made it: Willful murder by a person, or persons, unknown.
All fine and large. But what person, or what persons, known or unknown, with specialized skill enough to get into a sealed house, and into a locked room; hammer a fine needle into a lady’s skull, and get out again, locking all the doors behind him, or them, from the inside—all without waking up an eight-year-old girl by the side of the victim?
Furthermore there was the question of motive. Robbery? Nothing in the house had been touched. The old lady had nothing worth stealing. Revenge? Most unlikely: she had no friends and no enemies—lived secluded with her little niece, doing no harm to anyone. . . . You see, there was a certain amount of sense in the coroner’s verdict . . . Still . . .
“Only let me solve this mystery, and I’m made,” I said to myself.
I solved it, and I broke myself.
Now, as you must know, when you are in doubt you had better first examine yourself.
People get into a sloppy habit of mind. I once read a detective story called “The Invisible Man,” in which everybody swore he had seen nobody; yet there were footprints in the snow. “Nobody,” of course, was the postman, in this story; “invisible” simply because nobody ever bothers to consider a postman as a person.
I was quite sure that in the mystery of Miss Pantile there must have been something somebody overlooked. Not a clue, in the generally accepted sense of the term, but something.
And I was convinced that somehow, out of the corner of my mind’s eye, I had seen in Miss Pantile’s bedroom, a certain something-or-other that was familiar to me, yet very much out of place. Nothing bad in itself—but in the circumstances, definitely queer. Now what was it?
I racked my brains—Lord, but I racked my silly brains!—trying to visualize in detail the scene of that bedroom. I was pretty observant as a youngster—I tell you, I might have got to be detective-inspector if I’d had the sense to keep my mouth shut at the right time—and the scene came back into my mind quite clearly.
There was the room, about sixteen feet by fourteen. Main articles of furniture, a pair of little bedsteads with frames of stained oak; crewel-worked quilts. Everything neat as a pin. A little dressing-table, blue crockery with a pattern of pink roses. Wallpaper, white with a pattern of red roses. A little fire-screen, black, crewel-worked again with yellow roses and green leaves. Over the fireplace, on the mantel-shelf, several ornaments—one kewpie doll with a ribbon round its waist, one china cat with a ribbon round its neck, half a pair of cheap gift-vases with a paper rose stuck in it, and a pink velvet pin-cushion. At the end of the mantel-shelf nearest the little girl’s side of the room, several books—
“. . . Ah-ah! Hold hard, there!” my memory said to me. “You’re getting hot!” . . . You remember the old game of Hot-and-Cold, I dare say, in which you have to find some hidden object? When you’re close to it you’re hot; when you’re not, you’re cold. When my memory said “Hot,” I stopped at the mental image of those books, and all of a sudden the solution to the Spindleberry Road mystery struck me like a blow between the eyes.
And here, in my excitement, I made my big mistake. I wanted, d’you see, to get the credit, and the promotion, that would certainly come with it.
Being due for a weekend’s leave, I put on my civilian suit and went down to Luton, where the orphan girl Titania was staying in the care of some distant cousin, and by making myself pleasant I got to talking with the kid alone, in a tea-shop.
She got through six meringues before we were done talking. . . .
She was a pale-faced little girl, sort of pathetic in the reach-me-down black full mourning they’d dressed her in. One of those surprised-looking little girls with round eyes; mouth always part open. Bewildered, never quite sure whether to come or to go, to laugh or to cry. Devil of a nuisance to an officer on duty: he always thinks they’ve lost their way, or want to be taken across a street.
Her only truly distinguishing mark or characteristic was her hair, which was abundant and very pretty. Picture one of those great big yellow chrysanthemums combed back and tied with a bit of black ribbon.
I asked her was she happy in her new home? She said, “Oh yes. Auntie Edith says as soon as it’s decent I can go to the pictures twice a week.”
“Didn’t your Auntie Lily let you go to the pictures, then?” I asked.
Titania said, “Oh no. Auntie Lily wouldn’t go because picture houses are dangerous. They get burned down.”
“Ah, she was a nervous lady, your Auntie Lily, wasn’t she,” I said, “keeping the house all locked up like that at night?”