The Canterbury Puzzles, and Other Curious Problems

All agreed that Lady Marksford was right—that it is impossible to determine whether the man is walking with the lady or not.

"Her ladyship is wrong," said Baynes, after everybody had made a close scrutiny. "I find there is important evidence in the picture. Look at it carefully."

"Of course," said Melville, "we can tell nothing from the frock-coat. It may be the front or the tails. Blessed if I can say! Then he has his overcoat over his arm, but which way his arm goes it is impossible to see."

"How about the bend of the legs?" asked Churton.

"Bend! why, there isn't any bend," put in Wilson, as he glanced over the other's shoulder. "From the picture you might suspect that his lordship has no knees. The fellow took his snapshot just when the legs happened to be perfectly straight."

"I'm thinking that perhaps–" began Macdonald, adjusting his eye-glasses.

"Don't think, Mac," advised Wilson. "It might hurt you. Besides, it is no use you thinking that if the dog would kindly pass on things would be easy. He won't."

"The man's general pose seems to me to imply movement to the left," Tomkins thought.

"On the contrary," Melville declared, "it appears to me clearly to suggest movement to the right."

"Now, look here, you men," said Russell, whose opinions always carried respect in the club. "It strikes me that what we have to do is to consider the attitude of the lady rather than that of the man. Does her attention seem to be directed to somebody by her side?"

Everybody agreed that it was impossible to say.

"I've got it!" shouted Wilson. "Extraordinary that none of you have seen it. It is as clear as possible. It all came to me in a flash!"

"Well, what is it?" asked Baynes.

"Why, it is perfectly obvious. You see which way the dog is going—to the left. Very well. Now, Baynes, to whom does the dog belong?"

"To the detective!"

The laughter against Wilson that followed this announcement was simply boisterous, and so prolonged that Russell, who had at the time possession of the photo, seized the opportunity for making a most minute examination of it. In a few moments he held up his hands to invoke silence.

"Baynes is right," he said. "There is important evidence there which settles the matter with certainty. Assuming that the gentleman is really Lord Marksford—and the figure, so far as it is visible, is his—I have no hesitation myself in saying that—"

"Stop!" all the members shouted at once.

"Don't break the rules of the club, Russell, though Wilson did," said Melville. "Recollect that 'no member shall openly disclose his solution to a puzzle unless all present consent.'"

"You need not have been alarmed," explained Russell. "I was simply going to say that I have no hesitation in declaring that Lord Marksford is walking in one particular direction. In which direction I will tell you when you have all 'given it up.'"

63 (#pgepubid00199).—The Cornish Cliff Mystery

Though the incident known in the Club as "The Cornish Cliff Mystery" has never been published, every one remembers the case with which it was connected—an embezzlement at Todd's Bank in Cornhill a few years ago. Lamson and Marsh, two of the firm's clerks, suddenly disappeared; and it was found that they had absconded with a very large sum of money. There was an exciting hunt for them by the police, who were so prompt in their action that it was impossible for the thieves to get out of the country. They were traced as far as Truro, and were known to be in hiding in Cornwall.

Just at this time it happened that Henry Melville and Fred Wilson were away together on a walking tour round the Cornish coast. Like most people, they were interested in the case; and one morning, while at breakfast at a little inn, they learnt that the absconding men had been tracked to that very neighbourhood, and that a strong cordon of police had been drawn round the district, making an escape very improbable. In fact, an inspector and a constable came into the inn to make some inquiries, and exchanged civilities with the two members of the Puzzle Club. A few references to some of the leading London detectives, and the production of a confidential letter Melville happened to have in his pocket from one of them, soon established complete confidence, and the inspector opened out.

He said that he had just been to examine a very important clue a quarter of a mile from there, and expressed the opinion that Messrs. Lamson and Marsh would never again be found alive. At the suggestion of Melville the four men walked along the road together.

"There is our stile in the distance," said the inspector. "This constable found beside it the pocket-book that I have shown you, containing the name of Marsh and some memoranda in his handwriting. It had evidently been dropped by accident. On looking over the stone stile he noticed the footprints of two men—which I have already proved from particulars previously supplied to the police to be those of the men we want—and I am sure you will agree that they point to only one possible conclusion."

Arrived at the spot, they left the hard road and got over the stile. The footprints of the two men were here very clearly impressed in the thin but soft soil, and they all took care not to trample on the tracks. They followed the prints closely, and found that they led straight to the edge of a cliff forming a sheer precipice, almost perpendicular, at the foot of which the sea, some two hundred feet below, was breaking among the boulders.

"Here, gentlemen, you see," said the inspector, "that the footprints lead straight to the edge of the cliff, where there is a good deal of trampling about, and there end. The soil has nowhere been disturbed for yards around, except by the footprints that you see. The conclusion is obvious."

"That, knowing they were unable to escape capture, they decided not to be taken alive, and threw themselves over the cliff?" asked Wilson.

"Exactly. Look to the right and the left, and you will find no footprints or other marks anywhere. Go round there to the left, and you will be satisfied that the most experienced mountaineer that ever lived could not make a descent, or even anywhere get over the edge of the cliff. There is no ledge or foothold within fifty feet."

"Utterly impossible," said Melville, after an inspection. "What do you propose to do?"

"I am going straight back to communicate the discovery to headquarters. We shall withdraw the cordon and search the coast for the dead bodies."

"Then you will make a fatal mistake," said Melville. "The men are alive and in hiding in the district. Just examine the prints again. Whose is the large foot?"

"That is Lamson's, and the small print is Marsh's. Lamson was a tall man, just over six feet, and Marsh was a little fellow."

"I thought as much," said Melville. "And yet you will find that Lamson takes a shorter stride than Marsh. Notice, also, the peculiarity that Marsh walks heavily on his heels, while Lamson treads more on his toes. Nothing remarkable in that? Perhaps not; but has it occurred to you that Lamson walked behind Marsh? Because you will find that he sometimes treads over Marsh's footsteps, though you will never find Marsh treading in the steps of the other."

"Do you suppose that the men walked backwards in their own footprints?" asked the inspector.

"No; that is impossible. No two men could walk backwards some two hundred yards in that way with such exactitude. You will not find a single place where they have missed the print by even an eighth of an inch. Quite impossible. Nor do I suppose that two men, hunted as they were, could have provided themselves with flying-machines, balloons, or even parachutes. They did not drop over the cliff."

Melville then explained how the men had got away. His account proved to be quite correct, for it will be remembered that they were caught, hiding under some straw in a barn, within two miles of the spot. How did they get away from the edge of the cliff?

64 (#pgepubid00200).—The Runaway Motor-Car

The little affair of the "Runaway Motor-car" is a good illustration of how a knowledge of some branch of puzzledom may be put to unexpected use. A member of the Club, whose name I have at the moment of writing forgotten, came in one night and said that a friend of his was bicycling in Surrey on the previous day, when a motor-car came from behind, round a corner, at a terrific speed, caught one of his wheels, and sent him flying in the road. He was badly knocked about, and fractured his left arm, while his machine was wrecked. The motor-car was not stopped, and he had been unable to trace it.

There were two witnesses to the accident, which was beyond question the fault of the driver of the car. An old woman, a Mrs. Wadey, saw the whole thing, and tried to take the number of the car. She was positive as to the letters, which need not be given, and was certain also that the first figure was a 1. The other figures she failed to read on account of the speed and dust.

The other witness was the village simpleton, who just escapes being an arithmetical genius, but is excessively stupid in everything else.

He is always working out sums in his head; and all he could say was that there were five figures in the number, and that he found that when he multiplied the first two figures by the last three they made the same figures, only in different order—just as 24 multiplied by 651 makes 15,624 (the same five figures), in which case the number of the car would have been 24,651; and he knew there was no 0 in the number.

"It will be easy enough to find that car," said Russell. "The known facts are possibly sufficient to enable one to discover the exact number. You see, there must be a limit to the five-figure numbers having the peculiarity observed by the simpleton. And these are further limited by the fact that, as Mrs. Wadey states, the number began with the figure 1. We have therefore to find these numbers. It may conceivably happen that there is only one such number, in which case the thing is solved. But even if there are several cases, the owner of the actual car may easily be found.

"How will you manage that?" somebody asked.

"Surely," replied Russell, "the method is quite obvious. By the process of elimination. Every owner except the one in fault will be able to prove an alibi. Yet, merely guessing offhand, I think it quite probable that there is only one number that fits the case. We shall see."

Russell was right, for that very night he sent the number by post, with the result that the runaway car was at once traced, and its owner, who was himself driving, had to pay the cost of the damages resulting from his carelessness. What was the number of the car?

65 (#pgepubid00201).—The Mystery of Ravensdene Park

The mystery of Ravensdene Park, which I will now present, was a tragic affair, as it involved the assassination of Mr. Cyril Hastings at his country house a short distance from London.

On February 17th, at 11 p.m., there was a heavy fall of snow, and though it lasted only half an hour, the ground was covered to a depth of several inches. Mr. Hastings had been spending the evening at the house of a neighbour, and left at midnight to walk home, taking the short route that lay through Ravensdene Park—that is, from D to A in the sketch-plan. But in the early morning he was found dead, at the point indicated by the star in our diagram, stabbed to the heart. All the seven gates were promptly closed, and the footprints in the snow examined. These were fortunately very distinct, and the police obtained the following facts:—

The footprints of Mr. Hastings were very clear, straight from D to the spot where he was found. There were the footprints of the Ravensdene butler—who retired to bed five minutes before midnight—from E to EE. There were the footprints of the gamekeeper from A to his lodge at AA. Other footprints showed that one individual had come in at gate B and left at gate BB, while another had entered by gate C and left at gate CC.