Chapter 1

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_Title:_ The Aluminium Dagger
_Date of first publication:_ 1929
_Author:_ Richard Austin Freeman (1862-1943)
_Date first posted:_ July 22, 2018
_Date last updated:_ July 22, 2018
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[Cover Illustration]

12 THE ALUMINIUM DAGGER

The “urgent call”—the instant, peremptory summons to professional
duty—is an experience that appertains to the medical rather than the
legal practitioner, and I had supposed, when I abandoned the clinical
side of my profession in favour of the forensic, that henceforth I
should know it no more; that the interrupted meal, the broken leisure,
and the jangle of the night-bell were things of the past; but in
practice it was otherwise. The medical jurist is, so to speak, on the
borderland of the two professions, and exposed to the vicissitudes of
each calling, and so it happened from time to time that the professional
services of my colleague or myself were demanded at a moment’s notice.
And thus it was in the case that I am about to relate.

The sacred rite of the “tub” had been duly performed, and the
freshly-dried person of the present narrator was about to be insinuated
into the first instalment of clothing, when a hurried step was heard
upon the stair, and the voice of our laboratory assistant, Polton, arose
at my colleague’s door.

“There’s a gentleman downstairs, sir, who says he must see you instantly
on most urgent business. He seems to be in a rare twitter, sir——”

Polton was proceeding to descriptive particulars, when a second and more
hurried step became audible, and a strange voice addressed Thorndyke.

“I have come to beg your immediate assistance, sir; a most dreadful
thing has happened. A horrible murder has been committed. Can you come
with me now?”

“I will be with you almost immediately,” said Thorndyke. “Is the victim
quite dead?”

“Quite. Cold and stiff. The police think——”

“Do the police know that you have come for me?” interrupted Thorndyke.

“Yes. Nothing is to be done until you arrive.”

“Very well. I will be ready in a few minutes.”

“And if you would wait downstairs, sir,” Polton added persuasively, “I
could help the doctor to get ready.”

With this crafty appeal, he lured the intruder back to the sitting-room,
and shortly after stole softly up the stairs with a small
breakfast-tray, the contents of which he deposited firmly in our
respective rooms, with a few timely words on the folly of “undertaking
murders on an empty stomach.” Thorndyke and I had meanwhile clothed
ourselves with a celerity known only to medical practitioners and
quick-change artists, and in a few minutes descended the stairs
together, calling in at the laboratory for a few appliances that
Thorndyke usually took with him on a visit of investigation.

As we entered the sitting-room, our visitor, who was feverishly pacing
up and down, seized his hat with a gasp of relief. “You are ready to
come?” he asked. “My carriage is at the door”; and, without waiting for
an answer, he hurried out, and rapidly preceded us down the stairs.

The carriage was a roomy brougham which fortunately accommodated the
three of us, and as soon as we had entered and shut the door, the
coachman whipped up his horse and drove off at a smart trot.

“I had better give you some account of the circumstances, as we go,”
said our agitated friend. “In the first place, my name is Curtis, Henry
Curtis; here is my card. Ah! and here is another card, which I should
have given you before. My solicitor, Mr. Marchmont, was with me when I
made this dreadful discovery, and he sent me to you. He remained in the
rooms to see that nothing is disturbed until you arrive.”

“That was wise of him,” said Thorndyke. “But now tell us exactly what
has occurred.”

“I will,” said Mr. Curtis. “The murdered man was my brother-in-law,
Alfred Hartridge, and I am sorry to say he was—well, he was a bad man.
It grieves me to speak of him thus—_de mortuis_, you know—but, still,
we must deal with the facts, even though they be painful.”

“Undoubtedly,” agreed Thorndyke.

“I have had a great deal of very unpleasant correspondence with
him—Marchmont will tell you about that—and yesterday I left a note for
him, asking for an interview, to settle the business, naming eight
o’clock this morning as the hour, because I had to leave town before
noon. He replied, in a very singular letter, that he would see me at
that hour, and Mr. Marchmont very kindly consented to accompany me.
Accordingly, we went to his chambers together this morning, arriving
punctually at eight o’clock. We rang the bell several times and knocked
loudly at the door, but as there was no response, we went down and spoke
to the hall-porter. This man, it seems, had already noticed, from the
courtyard, that the electric lights were full on in Mr. Hartridge’s
sitting-room, as they had been all night, according to the statement of
the night-porter; so now, suspecting that something was wrong, he came
up with us, and rang the bell and battered at the door. Then, as there
was still no sign of life within, he inserted his duplicate key and
tried to open the door—unsuccessfully, however, as it proved to be
bolted on the inside. Thereupon the porter fetched a constable, and,
after a consultation, we decided that we were justified in breaking open
the door; the porter produced a crowbar, and by our united efforts the
door was eventually burst open. We entered, and—my God! Dr. Thorndyke,
what a terrible sight it was that met our eyes! My brother-in-law was
lying dead on the floor of the sitting-room. He had been
stabbed—stabbed to death; and the dagger had not even been withdrawn.
It was still sticking out of his back.”

He mopped his face with his handkerchief, and was about to continue his
account of the catastrophe when the carriage entered a quiet side-street
between Westminster and Victoria, and drew up before a block of tall,
new, red-brick buildings. A flurried hall-porter ran out to open the
door, and we alighted opposite the main entrance.