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August 23, 2025 26 mins
12 - Thorndyke Challenges The Evidence. As A Thief In The Night by R. Austin Freeman.  
As one of the many stories written by R. Austin Freeman this book includes the most interesting character of Dr. Thorndyke. He commands the skills of a doctor, a lawyer and an investigator all rolled up into one remarkable man. In this case he must solve a murder mystery perpetrated by a most unusual criminal. There is also love and intrigue at play involving the other main characters
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter twelve of As a Thief in the Night by R.
Austin Freeman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Thorndyke challenges the evidence. My relations with Thorndyke were rather
peculiar and a little inconsistent. I had commissioned him somewhat
against his inclination to investigate the circumstances connected with the

(00:23):
death of Harold moncos I was in fact his employer,
and yet in a certain subtle sense, I was his antagonist.
For I held certain beliefs which I have unconsciously looked
to him to confirm, but apparently he did not share
those beliefs. As his employer, it was clearly my duty
to communicate to him any information which he might think

(00:44):
healthful or significant, even if I considered it irrelevant. He
had in fact explicitly pointed this out to me, and
he had specially warned me to refrain from sifting or
selecting facts which might become known to me according to
my view of their possible bearing on the case. But
yet this was precisely what I felt myself constantly tempted

(01:05):
to do, and as we sat at lunch in his
chambers on the day after my visit to Barbara, I
found myself consciously suppressing certain facts which had then come
to my knowledge. And it was not that those facts
appeared to me insignificant. On the contrary, I found them
rather surprising. Only I had the feeling that they would
probably convey to Thorndyke a significance that would be erroneous

(01:28):
and misleading. There was, for instance, the appearance of Wallingford
and Kensington Gardens. Could it have been sheer chance? If so,
it was a most remarkable coincidence, and one naturally tends
to look askance at remarkable coincidences. In fact, I did
not believe it to be coincidence at all. I felt

(01:48):
little doubt that Wallingford had been lurking about the neighborhood
of Barbara's flat and had followed us, losing sight of
us temporarily when we turned into the bypath. But knowing
Wallingford as I did, I attached no importance to the incident.
It was merely a freak of an unstable, emotional man
impelled by jealousy to make a fool of himself. Again,

(02:10):
there was Wallingford's terror of Thorndyke and his ridiculous delusions
on the subject of the shadowings. How easy it would
be for a person unacquainted with Wallingford's personality to read
into them a totally misleading significance. Those were the thoughts
that drifted half consciously through my mind as I sat
opposite my friend at the table. So, not without some

(02:31):
twinges of conscience, I held my peace. But I had
not allowed for Thorndyke's uncanny capacity for inferring what was
passing in another person's mind. Very soon it became evident
to me that he was fully alive to the possibility
of some reservations on my part, And when one or
two discreet questions had elicited some fact which I ought

(02:51):
to have volunteered, he proceeded to something like definite cross examination.
So the household is broken up and the inmates scattered.
He began when I had told him that I had
obtained possession of the keys. And Mabel Withers seems to
have vanished unless the police have kept her in view.
Did you hear anything about miss Norris? Not very much.

(03:13):
Barber and she have exchanged visits once or twice, but
they don't seem to see much of each other. And
what about Wallingford? Does he seem to have been much
disturbed by Miller's descent on him? I had to admit
that he was in a state bordering on panic. And
what did missus Munkhouse think of the forged orders on
Dimmesdale's headed paper? He hadn't disclosed that she thinks that

(03:36):
he bought the cocaine at a druggist in the ordinary way,
And I didn't think it necessary to undeceive her, no,
police said the soonest mended. Did you gather that she
sees much of Wallingford? Yes, rather too much? He was
haunting her flat almost daily until she gave him a
hint not to make his visits too noticeable. Why do

(03:58):
you suppose he was haunting her flat? So far as
you can judge, Mayfield, that is in the strictest confidence,
you understand. Does there seem to be anything between them
beyond ordinary friendliness? Not on her side, certainly, but on
his Yes, undoubtedly. His devotion to her amounts almost to infatuation,
and has for a long time passed. Of course, she

(04:20):
realizes his condition, and though he is rather a nuisance
to her, she takes a very kindly and indulgent view
of his vagaries naturally, as any well disposed woman would.
I suppose you didn't see anything of him yesterday? Of
course I had to relate the meeting in Kensington Gardens,
and I could see by the way Thorndyke looked at
me that he was wondering why I had not mentioned

(04:42):
the matter before. It almost looks, said he, as if
he had followed you. There was there anything in his
manner of reproach that seemed to support that idea. I
think there was, for I saw him at some distance,
and here I felt bound to describe Wallingford's peculiar tactics.
But said Thorndyke, why was he looking about behind him?

(05:03):
He must have known that you were in front, it seems,
I explained feebly, that he has some ridiculous idea that
he is being watched and followed. Humph said Thorndyke. Now
I wonder who he supposes watching and following him. I
fancy he suspects you, I replied, and so the murder
was out, with the additional fact that I had not

(05:24):
been very ready with my information. Thorndyke, however, made no
comment on my reticence. Beyond the steady and significant look
at me, so said he. He suspects me of suspecting him. Well,
he is giving us every chance. But I think Mayfield,
you would do well to put missus Munkhouse on her guard.

(05:44):
If Wallingford makes a public parade of his feelings towards her,
he may put dangerous ideas into the head of mister
Superintendent Miller. You must realize that Miller was looking for
a motive for the assumed murder, and if it comes
to his knowledge that Harold Monkhouse's secretary was in love
with Harold Moncous's wife, he will think that he has
found a motive that is good enough. Yes, that had

(06:07):
occurred to me, and in fact I did give her
a hint to that effect, but it was hardly necessary.
She had seen it for herself. As we now seem
to have exhausted this topic, I venture to make a
few inquiries about the rather farcical infernal machine. Did your
further examination of it, I asked, yield any new information?

(06:28):
Very little, Thorndyke replied, But that little was rather curious.
There were no finger prints at all. I examined both
the pistol and the jar most thoroughly, But there was
not a trace of a finger mark, to say nothing
of a print. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion
that the person who sent the machine wore gloves while
he was putting it together. But isn't that a rather

(06:50):
natural precaution in these days? I asked, a perfectly natural
precaution in itself, he replied, but not quite consistent with
some other features. For instance, the wadding with which the
pistol barrel was plug consisted of a little ball of
ninning wool of a rather characteristic green. I will show
it to you, and you will see that it would
be quite easy to match, and therefore possible to trace.

(07:13):
But you see that there are thus shown two contrary
states of mind. The gloves suggest that the sender entertained
the possibility that the machine might fail to explode, whereas
the wolf seems to indicate that no such possibility was considered.
He rose from the table, lunch being now finished, and
brought from a locked cabinet a little ball of wool

(07:34):
of a rather peculiar greenish blue. I took it to
the window and examined it carefully. Impressed by the curious
inconsistency which he had pointed out. Yes, I agreed there
could be no difficulty in matching this, but as to
tracing it, that is a different matter. There must have
been thousands of skeins of this soul to at least
hundreds of different persons. Very true, said he, But I

(07:58):
was thinking of it rather as a corroborating item in
a train of circumstantial evidence. He put the corroborating item
back in the cabinet, and as at this moment a
taxi was heard to draw up at our entry, he
picked up a large attache case and preceded me down
the stairs. During the comparatively short journey, I made a
few not very successful efforts to discover what was Thorndyke's

(08:21):
real purpose in making this visit of inspection to the
dismantled house, But his reticence and mind were not quite similar.
He answered all my questions freely. He gave me a
wealth of instances illustrating the valuable evidence obtained by the
inspection of empty houses, but none of them seemed to
throw any light on his present proceedings. And when I

(08:42):
pointed this out, he smilingly replied that I was in
precisely the same position as himself. We are not looking
for corroborative evidence, said he, that belongs to a later
stage of the inquiry. We are looking for some suggestive
fact which may give us a hint where to begin. Naturally,
we cannot form any guests as to what kind of
fact that might be. It was not a very illuminating answer,

(09:06):
but I had to accept it, although I had a
strong suspicion that Thorndyke's purpose was not quite so vague
as he represented it to be, and determined unobtrusively to
keep an eye on his proceedings. Can I give you
any assistance, I inquired craftily, when I had led him
into the hall and shut the outer door. Yes, sir,
replied there is one thing that you can do for

(09:27):
me which will be very helpful. I have brought a
packet of cards with me. Here. He produced from his
pocket a packet of stationers post cards. If you will
write on each of them the description, in particulars of
one room, with the name of the occupant in the
case of bedrooms, and laid the card on the mantelpiece
of the room which it describes, I shall be able
to reconstitute the house as it was when it was inhabited.

(09:51):
Then we can each go about our respective businesses without
hindering one another. I took the cards and the fairly
broad hint, and together we meet a pro preliminary tour
of the house, which, now that the furniture, carpets and
pictures were gone, looked very desolate and forlorn, and as
it had not been cleaned since the removal, it had

(10:11):
a depressingly dirty and squalid appearance. Moreover, in each room
a collection of rubbish and discarded odds and ends had
been roughly swept up on the hearth, converting each fireplace
into a sort of temporary dust bin. After a glance
around the rooms on the ground floor, I made my
way up to the room in which Harold Monkhouse had died,

(10:32):
which was my principal concern, as well as Thorndike's. Well Mayfield.
The latter remarked, running a disparaging eye round the faded,
discolored walls and the blackened ceiling, you will have to
do something here. It is a shocking spectacle. Would you
mind roughly sketching out the position of the furniture. I
see that the bedstead stood by this wall, with the

(10:53):
head I presumed towards the window, and the bedside table
about here, I suppose at his right hand, by the
way way. What was there on that table? Did he
keep a supply of food of any kind for use
at night? I think they usually put a little tin
of sandwiches on the table when the night preparations were made.
You say they who put the box there? I can't

(11:15):
say whose duty it was in particular. I imagine Barbara
would see to it when she was at home in
her absence. It would be done by Madeline or Mabel,
not Wallingford. No, I don't think Wallingford ever troubled himself
about any of the domestic arrangements, excepting those that concerned Barbara.
Do you know who made the sandwiches? I think Madeleine

(11:38):
did as a rule, I know she did sometimes. And
as to drink, I suppose he had a water bottle
at any rate, Yes, that was always there, and a
little decanter of whiskey, but he hardly ever touched that.
Very often a small flagon of lemonade was put on
the table with the sandwiches. And who made the lemonade?

(11:58):
Madeleine I know that because it was a very special
brand which no one else could make. And supposing the
sandwiches and the lemonade were not consumed, do you happen
to know what became of the remainder? I have no idea.
Possibly the servants consumed them, but more probably they were
thrown away. Well fed servants are not partial to remainders

(12:19):
from a sick room. You never heard of any attacks
of illness among any of the servants, not to my knowledge,
but I shouldn't be very likely to you know. No,
you notice may feel that you have mentioned one or
two rather material facts that were not disclosed at the inquest. Yes,
I was observing that, and it is just as well

(12:41):
that they were not disclosed. There were enough misleading facts
without them. Thorndyke smiled indulgently. You seem to have made
up your mind pretty definitely on the negative side, at least,
he remarked, and then, looking round once more at the
walls with their faded, loosened paper, he continued, I take
it that mister Monkhouse was not a fresh air enthusiast.

(13:02):
He was not, replied. He didn't much care for open windows,
especially at night. But how did you arrive at that fact.
I was looking at the wall paper. This is not
a damp house. But yet the paper on the walls
of this room is loosening and peeling off in all directions.
And if you notice the distribution of this tendency, you
get the impression that the moisture which loosened the paper

(13:24):
proceeded from the neighborhood of the bed. The wall which
is most affected is the one against which the bed stood,
And the part of that wall that has suffered most
is that which was nearest to the occupant of the bed,
and especially to his head. That large piece hanging down
is just where the main stream of his breath would
have impinged. Yes, I see the connection now you mention it.

(13:47):
And yet I am surprised that his breath alone should
have made the air of the room so damp. All
through the winter season, when the window would be shut
most closely, the gas was burning, and at night, when
the gas was out, he commonly had his candle lamp alight.
I should have thought that the gas and the candle
together would have kept the air fairly dry. That said,

(14:07):
Thorndyke is a common delusion. As a matter of fact,
they would have quite the opposite effect. You have only
to hold an inverted tumbler over a burning candle to
realize from the moisture which immediately condenses on the inside
of the tumbler, that the candle, as it burns, gives
off quite a considerable volume of steam. But of course,
the bulk of the moisture which has caused the paper

(14:29):
to peel in this room came from the man's own breath. However,
we didn't come here for debating purposes. Let us complete
our preliminary tour, and when we have seen the whole house,
we can each make such more detailed inspection as seems
necessary for our particular purposes. We accordingly resumed our perambulation.
But I noticed that Thorndyke deposited his attache case in

(14:52):
Monkhouse's room, with the evident intention of returning thither. Both
of us looking about narrowly, Thorndyke, no doubt, in search
of the misteref various traces of which he has spoken,
and I, with an inquisitive endeavor to ascertain what kind
of objects or appearances he regarded as traces. We had
not gone very far before we encountered an object that

(15:12):
even I was able to recognize as significant. It was
in a corner of the long corridor that we came
upon a little heap of rubbish that had been swept
up out of the way. And at the very moment
when Thorndyke stopped short with his eyes fixed on it,
I saw the object, a little wisp of knitting wool
of the well remembered green color. Thorndyke picked it up, and,

(15:33):
having exhibited it to me, produced from his letter case
a little envelope such as seesmen use, in which he
put the treasure trove. And as he uncapped his fountain pen,
he looked up and down the corridor. Which is the
nearest room to this spot, he asked Madelin's. I replied,
that is the door of her bedroom on the right.

(15:53):
But all the principal bedrooms are on this floor, and
barbarous boudoirs. Well, this heap of rubbish is probably the
sweepings from all the rooms. That is what it looks like,
he agreed, as he wrote the particulars on the envelope
and slipped the ladder in his letter case. You notice
that there are some other trifles in this heap some
broken glass, for instance. But I will go through it

(16:15):
when we have finished our tour, though I may as
well take this now. As he spoke, he stooped and
picked up a short piece of rather irregularly shaped glass
rod with a swollen, rounded end. What is it? I asked?
It is a portion of a small glass pestle, and
it belongs to one of those little glass mortars, such
as chemists use in rubbing up powders into solutions or suspensions.

(16:39):
You had better not touch it, though it has probably
been handled pretty freely, but I shall test it on
the chance of discovering what it was last used for.
He put it away carefully in another seat envelope, and
then looked down thoughtfully at the miniature dust heap. But
he made no further investigations at the moment, and we
resumed the perambulation, I placing the identification card on the

(17:01):
mantelpiece of each room while he looked sharply about him,
opening all cupbeards and receptacles and peering into their usually
empty interiors. When we had inspected the servants bedrooms and
the attics, leaving the indispensable cards, we went down to
the basement, and visited the kitchen, the scullery, the servants parlor,
and the cellars. And this brought our tour to an end. Now,

(17:24):
said Thorndyke, we proceed from the general to the particular.
While you are drawing up your schedule of dilapidations, I
will just browse about and see if I can pick
up any stray crumbs in which inference can find nourishment.
It isn't a very hopeful quest. But you observe that
we have already lighted on two objects which may have
a meaning for us. Yes, we have ascertained that someone

(17:47):
in this house used a particular kind of wool, and
that someone possessed the glass mortar. Those do not seem
to me very weighty facts. They are not, he agreed. Indeed,
they are hardly facts at all. The actual fact is
that we have found the things here, but trifles light
as air, sometimes served to fill up the spaces in
a train of circumstantial evidence. I think I will go

(18:10):
and have another look at that rubbish, heape. I was
strongly tempted to follow him, but could hardly do so
in face of his plainly expressed wish to make his
inspection alone. Moreover, I had already seen that there was
more to be done than I had supposed. The house
was certainly not in bad repair, but neither did it
look very fresh nor attractive. Furniture, and especially pictures of

(18:32):
a way of marking indelibly the walls of her room,
and the paintwork in several places showed disfiguring traces of wear.
But I was anxious to let this house, even at
a nominal rent, so that by a few years normal occupation,
its sinister reputation might be forgotten and its value restored.
As a result, I was committed to a detailed inspection

(18:54):
of the whole house, and the making of aluminous notes
on the repairs and redecorations, which we be necessary to
tempt even an impecunious tenant to forget that this was
a house in which a murder had been committed, For
that was the current view, erroneous as I believed it
to be. No book in hand, I proceeded systematically from

(19:15):
room to room and from floor to floor, and became
so engrossed with my own business that I almost forgot Thorndyke,
though I could hear him moving about the house, and
once I met him on the first floor with a
couple of empty medicine bottles and a small glass jar
in his hands, apparently making his way to Harold's room,
where as I have said, he had left his attache case.

(19:37):
That room I left to the last, as it was
already entered in my list, and I did not wish
to appear to spy upon Thorndyke's proceedings. When at length
I entered the room, I found that he, like myself,
had come to the end of his task. On the floor,
his attache case lay open, croanned with various objects, several
of which appeared to be bottles, wrapped in oddments of

(19:59):
waste paper, including some pieces of wall paper which he
had apparently stripped off ad Hawk when the other supplies failed,
and among which I observed a crumpled fly paper. Respecting this,
I remarked, I don't see why you were burden in
yourself with this. A fly paper is in no sense
an incriminating object, even though such things have at times

(20:19):
been put to unlawful use. Very true, he replied, as
he peeled off the rubber gloves which he had been
wearing during the search. A fly paper is a perfectly
normal domestic object, but as you say, it can on
occasion be used as a source of arsenic for criminal purposes.
And a paper that has been so used will be
found to have had practically the whole of the arsenic

(20:41):
soaked out of it. As I happened to find this
in the servant's parlor, it seemed worth while to take
it to see whether his charge of arsenic had or
had not been extracted. But I objected, why on earth
should the poisoner, if there really is such a person,
have been at the trouble of soaking out fly paper one.
Apparently he was able to command an unlimited supply of

(21:03):
Fowler solution. Quite a pertinent question, Mayfield, he rejoined, But
may I ask my learned friend whether he found the
evidence relating to the Fowler solution perfectly satisfactory. But surely,
I exclaimed, you had the evidence of two expert witnesses
on the point. What more would you require? What is
the difficulty? The difficulty is this. There were several witnesses

(21:28):
who testified that when they saw the bottle of medicine,
the Fowler solution had not yet been added, But there
was none who saw the bottle after the addition had
been made. But it must have been added before Mabel
gave the patient the last dose, That is the inference.
But Mabel said nothing to that effect. She was not
asked what color the medicine was when she gave the

(21:49):
patient that dose. But what are the analysts and the
post mortem. As to the post's mortem, the arsenic which
was found in the stomach was not recognized as being
in the form of Fowler's solution. And as to the annalists,
they made their examination three days after the man died.
Still the medicine that the analyzed was the medicine that

(22:12):
deceased had taken. You don't deny that, do you. I
neither deny it nor affirm it. I merely say that
no evidence was given that proved the presence of Fowler's
solution in that bottle before the man died, and that
the bottle which was handed to the annalists was one
that had been exposed for three days in a room
which had been visited by a number of persons, including

(22:33):
Missus Moncouse, Wallingford, Miss Norris, Mabel Withers, Amos Monkouse, Doctor Dimsdale,
and yourself. You mean to suggest that the bottle might
have been tampered with or changed for another. But my
dear Thorndyke, why in the name of gaud did any
one want to change the bottle? I am not suggesting

(22:54):
that the bottle actually was changed. I am merely pointing
out that the evidence of the analists is mature. You'll
only subject to the conditions that the bottle which they
examined was the bottle from which the last dose of
medicine was given, and that its contents were the same
as on that occasion, and that no conclusive proof exists
that it was the same bottle or that the contents

(23:15):
were unchanged. But what reason could there be for supposing
that it might have been changed? There is no need
to advance any reason. The burden of proof lies on
those who affirmed that it was the same bottle with
the same contents. It is for them to prove that
no change was possible. But obviously a change was possible.

(23:36):
But still I persisted, there seems to be no point
in this suggestion. Who could have had any motive for
making a change, And what could the motive have been?
It looks to me like mere logic chopping and hair splitting.
You wouldn't say that if you were for the defense,
chuckle Thorndyke, You would not let a point of first
great importance pass on a mere assumption, no matter how probable.

(23:59):
And as to a possible motive, surely a most obvious
one is staring us in the face. Supposing some person
in this household had been administering arsenic in the food,
if it could be arranged that a poisonous dose could
be discovered in the medicine, you must see that the
issue would be at once transferred from the food to
the medicine, and from those who control the food to

(24:20):
those who control the medicine, which is in fact what happened.
As soon as the jury heard about the medicine, their
interest in the food became extinct. I listened to this
exposition with a slightly skeptical smile. It was all very ingenious,
but I found it utterly unconvincing. You ought to be
pleading in court, Thorndyke, I said, instead of grubbing about

(24:42):
in empty houses and raking over rubbish heaps. By the way,
have you found anything that seems likely to yield any suggestions?
It is a little difficult to say, he replied. I
have taken possession of a number of bottles and small
jars for examination as to their contents, but I have
no grace, expectation, and respect of them. I also found

(25:03):
some fragments of the glass mortar and ahounce mortar, it
appears to have been. Where did you find those, I asked,
in Missus Norris's bedroom, in a little pile of rubbish
under the grate. They are only tiny fragments, but the
curvature enables one to reconstruct the vessel pretty accurately. It
seemed to me a rather futile proceeding, but I made

(25:24):
no comment, nor did I give utterance to a suspicion
which I just flashed into my mind, that it was
the discovery of these ridiculous fragments of glass that had
set my learned friends splitting straws on the subject of
the medicine bottle. I had not much like to suggestion
as to the possible motive of that hypothetical substitution, and
I liked it less now that he had discovered the

(25:45):
remains of the mortar in Madeleine's room, there was no
doubt that Thorndyke had a remarkable constructive imagination, and as
I followed him down the stairs and out into the square,
I found myself faintly uneasy, lest that lively imagination should
carry him into deeper waters than I was prepared to
navigate in his company. End of Chapter twelve.
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