Number 70, Berlin: A Story of Britain's Peril

“The doctor had never before, to my knowledge, locked this door,” he went on. “I heard him cheerily wishing Mr Trustram good-night as he came down the stairs, and I heard him say that he was not to fail to call to-morrow night at nine, as they would then carry the inquiry further.”

“What inquiry?” asked Sir Houston quickly.

“Ah! sir – that, of course, I don’t know,” was the servant’s response. “My master seemed in the highest of spirits. I just caught sight of him at the head of the stairs, smoking his pipe as usual after his day’s work.”

The great pathologist knit his brows and cast down his head thoughtfully. He was a man of great influence, the head of his profession – for, being the expert of the Home Office, his work, clever, ingenious, and yet cool and incisive, was to lay the accusing finger upon the criminal.

Hardly a session passed at the Old Bailey but Sir Houston Bird appeared in the witness box, spruce in his morning-coat, and presenting somewhat the appearance of a bank-clerk; yet, in his cold unemotional words, he explained to the jury the truth as written plainly by scientific investigation. Many murderers had been hanged upon his words, always given with that strange, deliberate hesitation, and yet words – that could never, for a moment, be shaken by counsel for the defence.

Indeed, long ago defending counsel had given up cross-examination on any evidence presented by Sir Houston Bird, who had at his service the most expert chemists and analysts which our time could produce.

“This is a mystery,” exclaimed the great expert, gazing upon the body of his friend with his big grey eyes. “Do you tell me that he was actually locked in here?”

“Yes, Sir Houston,” replied Thomasson. “Curious – most curious,” exclaimed the great pathologist, as though speaking to himself. Then, addressing Sainsbury, after the latter had been speaking, he said: “The poor fellow declared that he’d been shot. Is that so?”

“Yes. He said that he felt a sudden and very sharp pain, and the words he used were, ‘I’ve been shot! I know I have!’”

“And yet there appears no trace of any wound, or injury,” Sir Houston remarked, much puzzled.

“Both windows and door were secured from the inside, therefore no assassin could possibly escape, sir,” declared Thomasson. “I suppose there’s no one concealed here in the room?” he added, glancing apprehensively around.

In a few moments the three men had examined every nook and corner of the apartment – the two long cupboards, beneath the table, behind the heavy plush curtains and the chenille portière. But nobody was in concealment.

The whole affair was a profound mystery.

Sir Houston, dark-eyed and thoughtful, gazed down upon the body of his friend.

Sainsbury and Thomasson had already removed Jerrold’s coat, and were searching for any bullet-wound. But there was none. Again Sir Houston inquired what the dying man had actually said, and again Sainsbury repeated the disjointed words which the prostrate man had gasped with his dying breath.

To the pathologist it was quite clear first that Jerome Jerrold believed he had been shot; secondly that no second person could have entered the room, and thirdly that the theory of assassination might be at once dismissed.

“I think that poor Jerrold has died a natural death – sudden and painful, for if he had been shot some wound would most certainly show,” Sir Houston remarked.

“There will have to be an inquest, won’t there?” asked Sainsbury.

“Of course. And, Thomasson, you had better ring up the police at once and inform them of the facts,” urged Sir Houston, who, turning again to Sainsbury, added: “At the post-mortem we shall, of course, quickly establish the cause of death.”

Again he bent, and with his forefinger drew down the dead man’s nether lip.

“Curious,” he remarked, as though speaking to himself, as he gazed into the white, distorted face. “By the symptoms I would certainly have suspected poisoning. Surely he can’t have committed suicide!”

And he glanced eagerly around the room, seeking to discover any bottle, glass, or cup that could have held a fatal draught.

“I don’t see anything which might lead us to such a conclusion, Sir Houston,” answered Sainsbury.

“But he may have swallowed it in tablet form,” the other suggested.

“Ah! yes. I never thought of that!”

“His dying words were hardly the gasping remarks of a suicide.”

“Unless he wished to conceal the fact that he had taken his own life?” remarked Sainsbury.

“If he committed suicide, then he will probably have left some message behind him. They generally do,” Sir Houston said; whereupon both men crossed to the writing-table, which, neat and tidy, betrayed the well-ordered life its owner had led.

An electric lamp with a shade of pale green silk was burning, and showed that the big padded writing-chair had recently been occupied. Though nothing lay upon the blotting pad, there were, in the rack, three letters the man now dead had written and stamped for post. Sainsbury took them and glanced at the addresses.

“Had we not better examine them?” he suggested; and, Sir Houston consenting, he tore them open one after the other and quickly read their contents. All three, however, were professional letters to patients.

Next they turned their attention to the waste-paper basket. In it were a number of letters which Jerrold had torn up and cast away. Thomasson having gone to the telephone to inform the police of the tragic affair, the pair busied themselves in piecing together the various missives and reading them.

All were without interest – letters such as a busy doctor would receive every day. Suddenly, however, Sainsbury spread out before him some crumpled pieces of cartridge-paper which proved to be the fragments of a large strong envelope which had been torn up hurriedly and discarded.

There were words on the envelope in Jerrold’s neat handwriting, and in ink which was still blue in its freshness. As Sainsbury put them together he read, to his astonishment:

“Private. For my friend Mr John Sainsbury, of Heath Street, Hampstead. Not to be opened until one year after my death.”

Sir Houston, attracted by the cry of surprise which escaped Sainsbury’s lips, looked over his shoulder and read the words.

“Ah!” he sighed. “Suicide! I thought he would leave something!”

Chapter Five.

Certain Curious Facts

Both men searched eagerly through the drawers of the writing-table to see if the dead man had left another envelope addressed to his friend. Two of the drawers were locked, but these they opened with the key which they found upon poor Jerrold’s watch-chain which he was wearing.

Some private papers, accounts and ledgers, were in the drawers, but the envelope of which they were in search they failed to discover.

It seemed evident that Jerome Jerrold had written the envelope in which he had enclosed a letter, but, on reflection, he had torn it up. Though the crumpled fragments of the envelope were there, yet the letter – whatever it might have been – was missing. And their careful examination of the waste-paper basket revealed nothing, whereupon Sir Houston Bird remarked —

“He may, of course, have changed his mind, and burned it, after all!”

“Perhaps he did,” Jack agreed. “But I wonder what could have been the message he wished to give me a year after his death? Why not now?”

“People who take their own lives sometimes have curious hallucinations. I have known many. Suicide is a fascinating, if very grim study.”

“Then you really think this is a case of suicide?”

“I can, I fear, give no opinion until after the post-mortem, Mr Sainsbury,” was Sir Houston’s guarded reply, his face grave and thoughtful.

“But it is all so strange, so remarkable,” exclaimed the younger man. “Why did he tell me that he’d been shot, if he hadn’t?”

“Because to you, his most intimate friend, he perhaps, as you suggested, wished to conceal the fact that he had been guilty of the cowardly action of taking his own life,” was the reply.

“It is a mystery – a profound mystery,” declared Jack Sainsbury. “Jerome dined with Mr Trustram, and the latter came back here with him. Meanwhile, Mr Lewin Rodwell was very anxious concerning him. Why? Was Rodwell a friend of Jerome’s? Do you happen to know that?”

“I happen to know to the contrary,” declared the great pathologist. “Only a week ago we met at Charing Cross Hospital, and some chance remark brought up Rodwell’s name, when Jerrold burst forth angrily, and declared most emphatically that the man who posed as such a patriotic Englishman would, one day, be unmasked and exposed in his true colours. In confidence, he made an allegation that Lewin Rodwell’s real name was Ludwig Heitzman, and that he was born in Hanover. He had become a naturalised Englishman ten years ago in Glasgow, and had, by deed-poll, changed his name to Lewin Rodwell.”

Jack Sainsbury stared the speaker full in the face.

Lewin Rodwell, the great patriot who, since the outbreak of war, had been in the forefront of every charitable movement, who had been belauded by the Press, and to whom the Prime Minister had referred in the most eulogistic terms in the House of Commons, was a German!

“That’s utterly impossible,” exclaimed Jack. “He is one of the directors of the Ochrida Copper Corporation, in whose office I am. I know Mr Rodwell well. There’s no trace whatever of German birth about him.”

“Jerrold assured me that his real name was Heitzman, that he had been born of poor parents, and had been educated by an English shipping-agent in Hamburg, who had adopted him and sent him to England. On the Englishman’s death he inherited about two thousand pounds, which he made the nucleus of his present fortune.”

“That’s all news to me,” said Jack reflectively; “and yet – ”

“What? Do you know something regarding Rodwell then?” inquired Sir Houston quickly.

“No,” he replied. “Nothing very extraordinary. What you have just told me surprises me greatly.”

“Just as it surprised me. Yet, surely, his case is only one of many similar. Thousands of Germans have come here, and become naturalised Englishmen.”

“A German who becomes a naturalised Englishman is a traitor to his own country, while he poses as our friend. I contend that we have no use for traitors of any sort in England to-day,” declared Jack vehemently; both men being still engaged in searching the dead man’s room to discover the message which it appeared had been his intention to leave after his death. They had carefully examined the grate, but found no trace of any burnt paper. Yet, from the fact that a piece of red sealing-wax and a burnt taper lay upon the writing-table, it appeared that something had been recently sealed, though the torn envelope bore no seal.

If an envelope had been sealed, then where was it?

“We shall, no doubt, be able to establish the truth of Jerrold’s allegation by reference to the register of naturalised Germans kept at the Home Office,” Sir Houston said at last.

Jack was silent for a few moments, and then answered:

“That, I fear, may be a little difficult. Jerrold has often told me how it had been discovered that it was a favourite dodge of Germans, after becoming naturalised and changing their names by deed-poll, to adopt a second and rather similar name, in order to avoid any inquiry along the channel which you have just suggested. As an example, if Ludwig Heitzman became naturalised, then it is more than probable that when he changed his name by deed-poll he did not adopt the name of Lewin Rodwell, but something rather near it.”

“Very likely,” was the great doctor’s remark.

Suddenly Jack Sainsbury paused and, facing his companion, said:

“Look here, Sir Houston. In this tragic affair I believe there’s something more than suicide. That’s my firm opinion. Reflect for one moment, and follow my suspicions. Poor Jerome, in addition to his profession, has for some years been unofficially assisting the Intelligence Department of the War Office. He was one of the keenest and cleverest investigators in England. He scented acts of espionage as a terrier does a rat, and by his efforts half a dozen, or so, dangerous spies have been arrested and punished. In a modest way I have been his assistant, and have helped to watch and follow suspected persons. Together, we have traced cases of petrol-running to the coast, investigated night-signalling in the southern counties, and other things, therefore I happen to know that he was keen on the work. Curious that he never told me of his grave suspicions regarding Mr Rodwell.”

“Perhaps he had a reason for concealing them from you,” was the other’s reply.

“But he was always so frank and open with me, because I believe that he trusted in my discretion to say nothing.”

“Probably he had not verified his facts, and intended to do so before revealing the truth to you.”

“Yes, he was most careful always to obtain corroboration of everything, before accepting it,” was Jack’s reply. “But certainly what you have just told me arouses a grave suspicion.”

“Of what?”

“Well – that our poor friend, having gained knowledge of Lewin Rodwell’s birth and antecedents, may, in all probability, have probed further into his past and – ”

“Into his present, I think more likely,” exclaimed the great doctor. “Ah! I quite see the line of your argument,” he added quickly. “You suggest that Rodwell may have discovered that Jerrold knew the truth, and that, in consequence, death came suddenly and unexpectedly – eh?”

Jack Sainsbury nodded in the affirmative. “But surely Trustram, who was one of Jerrold’s most intimate friends, could not have had any hand in foul play! He was the last man who saw him alive. No,” he went on. “My own experience shows me that poor Jerrold has died of poisoning, and as nobody has been here, or could have escaped from the room, it must have been administered by his own hand.”

“But do you not discern the motive?” cried Sainsbury. “Rodwell has risen to a position of great affluence and notoriety. He is a bosom friend of Cabinet Ministers, and to him many secrets of State are confided. He, and his friend Sir Boyle Huntley, play golf with Ministers, and the name of Lewin Rodwell is everywhere to-day one to conjure with. He has, since the war, risen to be one of the most patriotic Englishmen – a man whose unselfish efforts are praised and admired from one end of Great Britain to another. Surely he would have become desperate if he had the least suspicion that Jerome Jerrold had discovered the truth, and intended to unmask him – as he had openly declared to you.”

“Yes, yes, I see,” Sir Houston replied dubiously. “If there were any traces of foul play I should at once be of the same opinion. But you see they do not exist.”

“Whether there are traces, or whether there are none, nothing will shake my firm opinion, and that is that poor Jerome has been assassinated, and the motive of the crime is what I have already suggested.”

“Very well; we shall clear it up at the post-mortem,” was the doctor’s reply, while at that moment Thomasson re-entered, followed by a police-officer in plain clothes and two constables in uniform.

On their entry, Sainsbury introduced Sir Houston Bird, and told them his own name and that of his dead friend.

Then the officer of the local branch of the Criminal Investigation Department sat down at the dead man’s writing-table and began to write in his note-book the story of the strange affair, as dictated by Jack.

Sir Houston also made a statement, this being followed by the man Thomasson, who detailed his master’s movements prior to his death – as far as he knew them.

His master, he declared, had seemed in excellent spirits all day. He had seen patients in the morning, had lunched frugally at home, and had gone down to Guy’s in the car to see the wounded, as was his daily round. At six he had returned, dressed, and gone forth in a taxi to meet his friend, Mr Trustram of the Admiralty. They having dined together returned, and afterwards Mr Trustram had left and the doctor, smoking his pipe, had retired to his room to write. Nothing further was heard, Thomasson said, till the arrival of Mr Sainsbury, when the door of the room was found locked.

“You heard no one enter the house – no sounds whatever?” asked the detective inspector, Rees by name, a tall, clean-shaven, fresh-complexioned man, with rather curly hair.

“I didn’t hear a sound,” was the servant’s reply. “The others were all out, and, as a matter of fact, I was in the waiting-room, just inside the door, looking at the newspapers on the table. So I should have heard anyone go up or down the stairs.”

Inspector Rees submitted Thomasson to a very searching cross-examination, but it was quite evident to all in the room that he knew nothing more than what he had already told. He and his wife had been in Dr Jerrold’s service for eight years. His wife, until her death, a year ago, had acted as cook-housekeeper.

“Did you ever know of Mr Lewin Rodwell visiting the doctor?” asked Sir Houston.

“Never, as far as I know, sir. He, of course, might have come to consult him professionally when I’ve been out, and the maid has sometimes opened the door and admitted patients.”

“Have you ever heard Mr Rodwell’s name?”

“Only on the telephone to-night – and of course very often in the papers,” replied the man.

“Your master was very intimate with Mr Trustram?” inquired the detective.

“Oh yes. They first met about three months ago, and after that Mr Trustram came here several times weekly. The doctor went to stay at his country cottage near Dorking for the week-end, about a fortnight ago.”

“Did you ever discover the reason of those conferences?” Jack Sainsbury asked. “I mean, did you ever overhear any of their conversations?”

“Sometimes, sir. But not very often,” was Thomasson’s discreet reply. “They frequently discussed the war, and the spy-peril, in which – as you know – the doctor was actively interesting himself.”

Upon Jack Sainsbury’s countenance a faint smile appeared. He now discerned the reason of the visits of that Admiralty official to the man who had been so suddenly and mysteriously stricken down.

He exchanged glances with Sir Houston, who, a moment before, had been searching a cigar cabinet which had hitherto escaped their notice.

At Rees’s suggestion, Jack Sainsbury went to the telephone and rang up Charles Trustram, to whom he briefly related the story of the tragic discovery.

Within twenty minutes Trustram arrived, and, to the detective, told the story of the events of the evening: how they had met by appointment at Prince’s Restaurant at half-past seven, had dined together, and then he had accompanied the doctor back to Wimpole Street about half-past nine, where they had sat smoking and chatting.

“Jerrold seemed in quite good spirits over the result of an inquiry he had been making regarding a secret store of petrol established by the enemy’s emissaries somewhere on the Sussex coast,” Mr Trustram explained. “He had, he told me, disclosed it to the Intelligence Department, and they were taking secret measures to watch a certain barn wherein the petrol was concealed, and to arrest those implicated in the affair. He also expressed some anxiety regarding Mr Sainsbury, saying that he wished he could see him to-night.” Then, turning to Jack, he added: “At his request I rang up your flat at Hampstead, but you were not in.”

“Why did he wish to see me?”

“Ah! that I don’t know. He told me nothing,” was the Admiralty official’s reply. “While I was sitting here with him I was rung up three times – twice from my office, and once by a well-known man I had met for the first time that afternoon – Mr Lewin Rodwell.”

At mention of Rodwell all present became instantly interested.

“How did Mr Rodwell know that you were here?” inquired the detective quickly. “That’s a mystery. I did not tell him.”

“He might have rung up your house, and your servant may possibly have told him that you were dining with Jerrold,” Sir Houston suggested.

“That may be so. I will ask my man.”

“What did Mr Rodwell want?” Rees asked.

“He told me that he had that evening been in consultation with his friend Sir Boyle Huntley, and that, between them they had resolved to commence a propaganda for the internment of all alien enemies – naturalised as well as unnaturalised – and he asked whether I would meet them at the club to-morrow afternoon to discuss the scheme. To this I readily consented. When I returned to this room I found the doctor in the act of sealing an envelope. After he had finished he gave the envelope to me, saying ‘This will be safer in your care than in mine, my dear Trustram. Will you please keep it in your safe?’ I consented, of course, and as I took it I saw that it was a private letter addressed to Mr Sainsbury, with instructions that it was not to be opened till a year after his death.”

“Then you have the letter!” cried Jack excitedly.

“Yes, I have it at home,” replied Mr Trustram; who, proceeding, said: “At first I was greatly surprised at being given such a letter, and chaffingly remarked that I hoped he wouldn’t die just yet; whereat he laughed, refilled his pipe and declared that life was, after all, very uncertain. ‘I want my friend Sainsbury to know something – but not before a year after I’m gone. You understand, Trustram. I give you this, and you, on your part, will give me your word of honour that, whatever occurs, you will safely guard it, and not allow it to be opened till a year has elapsed after my death.’ He seemed to have suddenly grown serious, and I confess I was not a little surprised at his curious change of manner.”

“Did it strike you at all that he might be contemplating suicide?”

“No, not in the least. Such an idea never entered my head. I regarded his action just as that of a man who makes his will – that’s all. I took the envelope and, about five minutes later, left him, as I had been called down to the Admiralty upon an urgent matter.”

“A quarter of an hour afterwards Mr Sainsbury called and we could not get into the room,” Thomasson remarked. “That is all we know.”

Chapter Six.

Reveals the Victim

Three days had passed.

The coroner’s inquiry had been duly held into the death of Dr Jerome Jerrold, and medical evidence, including that of the deceased’s friend, Sir Houston Bird, had been called. This evidence showed conclusively that Sir Houston had been right in his conjecture, from the convulsed appearance of the body and other signs, that poor Jerrold had died of poisoning by strychnine. Therefore the proceedings were brief, and a verdict was returned of “Suicide while temporarily insane.”

No mention was made of the sealed letter left with Mr Trustram, for in a case of that distressing nature the coroner is always ready to make the inquiry as short as possible.

Jack Sainsbury, who had been granted leave by Mr Charlesworth, the managing-director, to attend the inquest upon his friend, returned to the City in a very perturbed state of mind.

He sat at his desk on that grey December afternoon, unable to attend to the correspondence before him, unable to fix his mind upon business, unable to understand the subtle ramifications of the cleverly conceived and dastardly plot, the key of which he had discovered by those few words he had overheard between the Chairman of the Board and his close friend, the great Lewin Rodwell.

He was wondering whether his dead friend’s allegation that Rodwell was none other than Ludwig Heitzman was really the truth. Sir Houston Bird had promised to institute inquiry at the Alien department of the Home Office, yet, only that day he had heard that the official of whom inquiry must be made actually bore a German name. The taint of the Teuton seemed, alas! over everything, notwithstanding the public resentment apparent up and down the whole country, and the formation of leagues and unions to combat the activity of the enemy in our midst.

Jack Sainsbury disagreed with the verdict of suicide. Jerome Jerrold was surely not the man to take his own life by swallowing strychnine. Yet why had he left behind that puzzling and mysterious message which Charles Trustram, having given his word of honour to his friend, refused to be opened for another year?

The will had been found deposited with his solicitor – a will which left the sum of eighteen-odd thousand pounds to “my friend and assistant in many confidential matters, Mr John Sainsbury, of Heath Street, Hampstead.”