K heeft mulat Lane Weber How do you do? You heard me speak of Percy Hoskins, the crime reporter. Well, this time I brought him along, and if he wasn't standing here listening, I'd tell you that he's probably the greatest crime reporter we've ever had in this country. Not that you'd get it by his appearance, but big, genial terror doesn't even be at all depressed by his life with crime. Percy, if I hadn't known you, I might have taken you for, let me see, say, a lawyer. No, you look too happy for a lawyer. Not quite. I know, an actor, a character actor. You would, client? Yes, I think so, that's right, a character actor. Now, if you hadn't known me, what would you say I was? A crime reporter. You would? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Thanks very much. Now, dearly said, oh, Percy, is there anything in physiognomy? Does Scotland Yard take any account of, let us say, criminal types? They used to, hence the collection of death masks of murderers in the Black Museum. Scotland Yard had these made in the hope of discovering some common feature or similarity, but it didn't work out. No, I don't quite agree with that. When I see a picture of a murderer, he always looks like a criminal to me. Of course he does, that's because you know he's a murderer. No, I don't, not always, but what you say is a great relief. You know, I often find myself looking for my friends and wondering. Well, don't look at me. Ah, sorry. Then, if you're right, and type an appearance, Aunt Guides, Scotland Yardman faces search on the belief that no crime is perfectly committed. Some true is always there to be found. Not quite. I have no doubt the perfect murder can and has been committed, but the only time the criminal can safely relax is after the doctor has certified death from natural causes. The body has been cremated and all possibilities of suspicion removed. Fortunately, most murders fail to reach such a state of self-assurance without making some tiny slip. And with crime detection developed to the pitch it is, one tiny slip is enough for Scotland Yard to develop a chain of evidence from which a criminal simply cannot escape. I've often heard them say, if it hadn't been for that, I'd have got away with it. Now such a tiny slip occurred in the case we're going to tell you about. Smoke clings to the hair, we call it. A simple fact to remember, but the tiny slip had brought a criminal to justice. Our scene is the lobby of one of the better known commercial hotels in the seaside town of Margate, England. At times, at around 11 o'clock at night, the wife of the hotel manager, Mrs. Harding, is chatting with one of her guests, a commercial traveler named Dickon. I'm glad we were able to make you comfortable. Oh, I always look forward to my stay at the Metropole. Not like summer tales I could tell you about. Well, we always do try and take a personal interest in our guests. It's just so much pleasanter all around, I think. You're quite right there, Mrs. Harding. As I was saying to your husband only yesterday, what we need in the world today is more genuine friendliness. If there was more of that, we wouldn't have half the trouble to be doing. Well, it costs nothing, does it? A pleasant word and a smile. Oh, good evening, Mr. Dickie. Good evening to you, Mr. Harding. Do you know what Mr. Dickens has just been saying, dear? That he always looks forward to his stay at the Metropole. Well, that's very nice of you, I'm sure. Friendly place. That's what I like about it. And a nice class of people who stay here. Well, we do try and be careful. We've got a good name and we can afford to pick and choose a bit. Well, that reminds me. How's the old lady who had the fainting fit? Mrs. Fox, you mean? Oh, she's much better. I went up to see her this afternoon. The doctor says it wasn't anything serious. Oh, I'm glad to hear it. Poor dear. Well, she's lucky in one thing. That son of hers. I don't know when I've ever seen a young man so devoted. You may well say that. Never let her out of his sight if it didn't help it. I really don't know what she'd do without him. She can hardly walk herself, you know. Talking about Mr. Fox, a funny thing happened. Yes? I happened to meet him around half an hour ago just as he was coming out of the bar. You know how he is, ordinarily. Always ready with a smile and a word or two. Yes, very friendly young fellow. Well, would you believe it? He stared at me. Or rather, threw me more like, just as if he'd seen a ghost. Then he ran down the passage into the lobby and up the stairs. Oh, that's funny. Not like him at all, that. You really might find the bar, you say. Had he been drinking? That's the first thing that came into my mind. Fact is, I hopped into the bar and asked Ellen. She said all she'd served him with was a glass of beer. That's a lot for the strength of your beer. Well, I get up into funny things sometimes. I don't suppose there's anything in it. Fire! Oh, what's that? Fire! Fire! Fire! Someone was shouting! Did you hear what he was shouting for? Help! Sounded like upstairs. Oh, I'm so sorry! Hurry, do something! Go, carry on, right? He sounded like Mr. Fowl! Oh, my God! Wait! Lady, isn't it downstairs? Which room is it? What? My mother's room. Six to six and I can't get in there. What, the door locked? No, the room's full of smoke. And I couldn't get in. My mother's in there. She'll be suffocated. Ooh, I can smell smoke. This is it. In there. Mother! Mother! Oh, do try and get her out here. Get out of the way and let me get that door open. Look out for the smoke! Look out! Oh, good heavens! Look at it! We've got to get in there! The old lady! You can't get through it! Take it easy, my lamb. We'll have a good try. Let me, Mr. Dickens. No, I've had some experience with this sort of thing during the war. Help tie this handkerchief over my nose. There you are, that's got it. Now look, I've got a cover on the floor. Yes, but... The smoke isn't for dent faire. Yes, but... If I'm not out in two or three minutes, come and get me! Or you'll never make it! But Dickens did make it. Choking, blinded, tortured by the dense clouds of thick, acrid smoke, he battled his way across the room until he came to the bed. Spalled across it, he found Mrs. Fox, and somehow summoning up reserves of strength and deterrence. He didn't know he possessed. He managed to drag the heavy body back out of the room into the corridor before finally collapsing. By this time, other guests in the hotel had been aroused, and volunteers from amongst them fought their way through the burrowing smoke and put out the flames. A doctor was sent for on every available means used to revive Mrs. Fox, but no spark of light appeared. Word was brought to Sidney Fox that his mother was dead. My mother. My mother. She's gone. There, there, Mr. Fox. You must try and bear up. Poor young fellow. He was so devoted to her. I left her, reading her papers by the fire. I shouldn't have done it. I only went out for a moment before going to bed. She must have left the gas fire on when she went to bed. Something caught fire. The gas fire was on when I went into the room. I noticed it. Why did I leave her? Why did I leave her? Oh, you poor boy. I don't know what to say to comfort you. It was a cruel thing to happen. But it wasn't your fault. It was just a terrible accident. I came back. I went in to say good night. It was all smoke. Here comes the doctor. Well, doctor, you better do something for Mr. Fox. He's taking it very hard. The smoke was so sick, I couldn't get any other help. My poor mother. I couldn't even get into the room. I think she's gone. I couldn't get into the room. I couldn't get past the door. He couldn't get into the room. If he had, he would probably have been overcome. You remember Dickens was a big, powerful man, and he only managed it because he had sufficient experience to tie a handkerchief over his face and keep close down on the floor where the smoke was less thick. If you feel that Fox is to blame for not even trying, all I can assure you is that no one who was present on that tragic occasion felt that he was in any way to blame for acting as he did. Even the coroner in returning a verdict of accidental death felt imperiled to express his great sympathy for the bereaved son. His sentiments were shared by everybody in the hotel who had observed the devoted care Fox lavished on his crippled mother. But as you can readily understand, there would be a vast difference between personally witnessing an event of this kind and reading a report that gave nothing more than the cold facts. Mr. William Charles Crocker had only cold facts to deal with. He was a solicitor at the insurance company with which Fox had insured his mother's life. A brief account of the circumstances of Mrs. Fox's death came to him, accompanied by an insurance claim for £3,000, payable to devoted son, Sidney Harry Fox. Mr. Crocker felt he had a good and sufficient reason to call in the firm's private investigator, an ex-Scotland yard man, and discuss the matter with him. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. What in particular strikes you as fishy about this business, Mr. Crocker? A good many things. But the chief one is this. See this entry? Fox came here on Monday, the 21st of October, to extend the policies on his mother's death by accident by two days, just two days, until midnight the 23rd of October. She is discovered dead by an accident on the night of the 23rd of October, 20 minutes before the policies expire. Hmm. In that case, if he did go in, what I can say is that he's a fool, is one of the names. Yes, but that's not all. I've been looking into Mrs. Fox's file pretty carefully. I'll show you one or two other things that might be well worth considering. Mr. Crocker had no difficulty in convincing the investigator that it would be well worthwhile to pay a visit to Margaret. That he was justified was proved a few days later when he had a cryptically worded telegram from the seaside resort reading, bathing good but water very muddy. He might have added, and fishy, but it shows even an ex-fleetsman may have a sense of humor. Mr. Crocker's immediate move was to get in touch with Chief Inspector Hamburg of Scotland Yard. When did Fox take off his policy on his mother's life, Mr. Crocker? In May this year, Inspector. There's the file. Interesting, isn't it? A daily policy on no fewer than 167 days out of a possible total of 176. Hmm. In other words, not a regular life insurance policy, just the kind that's normally sold to people at railway stations and on board ships to cover them during the trip. That's it. No medical examination required? No, just sign on the dotted line. Wasn't you suspicious when he kept on having the policy renewed day after day? Not particularly. Insurance companies often have to deal with eccentric customers of this kind. But there's a more interesting point. Fox asked all kinds of questions about the correct definition of the clause referring to accidental death. Oh, did he, Blyjo? Wanted to know, for instance, if his mother was drowned in her bath, would that be an accident within the meaning of the policy? What was the position if she was poisoned by food served in a restaurant? Evidently wanted to make sure of his drunks. And remember, on top of everything else, Mrs. Fox was pronounced dead only 20 minutes before the policy was due to expire. Yes. Now I've got some information for you. I've had dealings with Sidney Fox before. Made a copy of his record before coming along here. Take a look at it. Starts when he was 11 or 12, defrauded a greengrocer at Brighton. Matter put into the hands of the police and Sidney was burged. It doesn't seem to have made much of an impression on him. No. Couple of years later, he had to do three months hard labor. Year later, eight months of forgery. Year later, six months of victimizing London stores. Two years more and then 12 months for obtaining credit from a London hotel by fraud. Out of prison a year, then 12 months hard labor for last-near fraud. Stays out of trouble for three years and then back to prison for 15 months for stealing jewelry. Well, I haven't blown. He's a bad ape. He is indeed. Well, our investigator down at Margate says that in the beginning Fox had everybody's sympathy. Well, it just shows you how easily people are taken in, huh? Yes, I think a visit to the seaside is clearly indicated for me. I thought you'd feel that way about it. Meantime, Mr. Harding, the manager of the Metropole Hotel, you remember, and his wife, had done a lot of careful thinking. They talked things over with the result that their opinion of Mr. Sidney Fox had changed completely. When Chief Inspector Hambrook arrived in Margate and got in touch with the chief constable, he was amazed to find that as a result of a warrant worn out by Mr. Harding, Fox was already under arrest. She said that after sightings of the eight men, the party members had discovered that Ms. Carpenter had been stolen jewelry. post was較 soon sent to a police station called Bagg니児 tribe who madness was that your father sold다든را the jewelry maltbsp notламesh opponents' immediately so then So Sydney Fox, the young man who at first has aroused everybody's sympathy as a devoted son suffering a terrible bereavement, has been unmasked as a petty criminal. And if I may say so, an extremely foolish one at that. To make a claim on a daily policy twenty minutes before it expired and hope to escape suspicion seems sheer lunacy to me. Don't you think so, Hoskins? But that didn't happen. No, no, the tiny slip which might have been made by a far more intelligent man did that. Now, as I told you, Fox was under arrest when Inspector Hamburg arrived at Nugget, and he immediately called the conference of Harding, the hotel manager, his wife, and chief constable. I'd better explain how I came into the picture, Inspector. You see, just after the inquest, I had a call at my headquarters from a landlady who had recently left rooms to Mrs. Fox and her son. Well, here in Margathton. That's right. She couldn't understand how they could afford to take accommodation at a place like the Metropole when they hadn't been able to pay her bill. Oh, Edward Keller got them. Hadn't paid her a penny piece. But Fox paid your bill, Mr. Harding. No, he hasn't. Matter of fact, that's why he's in jail. Although at first, my husband, I didn't like to press about the money he owed us because of what he'd been through. No, he didn't seem right. Particularly when he tells us that story about all his money being lost in the fire. Oh, that was a neat one. Oh, he's plausible, all right. Said his money was in his mother's purse, which got burned. Well, I looked at that purse. I've got it back at the station. You can see it for yourself. It was burnt on the outside, all right, but the inside is intact. Call him out on that one, all right. Still, it wasn't because of the money we agreed to have him arrested. No, it wasn't because of the money. It was another thing. You see, while the doctor was trying to revive Mrs. Fox, the young man was with me, and I was doing my best to try and calm him. Oh, he's in a terrible state. Was real or pretended? Oh, seemed real enough at the time. And you know how it is when you try to, well, comfort a person. I found myself stroking his hair. Very big, bushy hair he has. Sometime later, I smelt smoke on my hand. I was there when she found out about it. It was quite strong. We just looked at each other and we could feel the same awful suspicion growing in each of our minds. I don't quite understand why it should impress you like that. Oh, probably you didn't drill eyes and smoke things to the hair. Well, but that's just it. He hadn't been into the room. Oh, how do you know? He said so in front of all of us. Not once, but several times. Oh, he was quite clear about it. Said he opened the door, saw the smoke, closed the door, and ran for help. The door was closed when we got there. While Mr. Dickens was rescuing Mrs. Fox, the sun was with me on the opposite side of the corridor. I've got a good head of hair. And for the short time it took to get the old lady out of there, I was in the smoke much more than he was. But the smell of it wasn't in my hair as thick as that, was it dear? No, it certainly was not. Oh, I see now. It can only mean one thing. Young Fox must have been in that smoke-filled room for some considerable time before he came running out calling for help. It seems to me it would be best to put Mr. Fox where I could lay my hands on him at any time. So that's how it came about, as my request, Mr. Heidling took out a warrant against him for obtaining food and accommodation, and the Fox was emptied. Oh, good work. Now, first of all, I'd like to have a look at that room in which Mrs. Fox met with her unfortunate accident. If it was an accident? Yes, well, it's the trouble. Why? Everything's been left as it was, hasn't it? I'm afraid not, Inspector. Two or three of the guests helped me to get the damaged stuff out. All of it? Well, there was only the chair and the carpet and most of the clothing that had been hung on the chair. We took it down the yard at the back of the hotel. Simply couldn't leave it inside the place. Oh, it was still smoldering. I see. Yeah, of course, no, you couldn't. Yes, well, what happened to all those bits and pieces? Well, they sent the dustman around next day and took it away. It is all sent to the corporation rubbish heap. We've got to get that room back into as nearly as possible the same state that it was immediately after the fire. What about that rubbish, sir? Can it be traced? We can try. It's been some time now, we don't let that stuff lie around long, no. I'm going to find it if we have to upturn every rubbish dump in the town and search it from top to bottom. The rubbish was traced to a dump which was a form part of the foundation of a new promenade road from Margate to the neighboring town of Westcott. I say you never know what you're stepping on, do you? Tons of other rubbish has already been deposited along with it. There was no indication in what spot that debris from Mrs. Fox's room had been buried. The locate it seemed obviously a hopeless task. To me the incredible thing is that it was found. Yes, nearly everything was recovered and replaced in Mrs. Fox's room until it closely resembled the scene on the night of the fatal fire. The armchair in which her son said the old lady had sat reading before she hobbled to bed was back in its original position upon a large patch of the burnt, smoked, blackened carpet. The suitable remnants of her clothing, even a large pile of charred newspapers, were back in place. One thing has been proved beyond a doubt, a fact that justifies all the work we've undertaken. That fire began underneath the armchair. There's no possible way it could have spread from the gas fire as it supposed without charring the carpet and the floorboards in between, which would have been the case if the paper the old lady had dropped had been the source of the blaze. Right sir. Point two. It has been proved that paper alone could not have set fire to the chair and the carpet. And the volumes of dense oily smoke all the witnesses state fill this room could not have been caused unless some insolvent substance had been added to the blaze. We now know that Fox was in a habit of keeping a bottle of petrol with which to clean the one duty possessed. To sum up, it was no accident. I believe we can provide even further proof of that. Do? Yes. I don't believe the old lady was breathing before the fire started. What? She was already dead. There's only one way to find out for sure. A postmortem, eh? Yes. All right. I'll arrange for it. I regret having to do this. But if she died as a result of smoke suffocation, there'll be soot in her breathing organs and traceable quantities of carbon monoxide in the blood. And so the coffin was lifted from his resting place and carried to the mortuary where the pathologist made their examination. Not a sign of soot or any other effects of smoke. Nor is there any trace of carbon monoxide in the blood. Oh, then Mrs. Fox was definitely dead before the fire started. No, I can't do as far as that. What I can say definitely is that before the smoke reached her, she had ceased breathing. Ah, there's a point there. In other words, it's remotely possible that she could have died of, say, heart failure from the shock of seeing that her room was on fire. Not impossible, but extremely unlikely. Furthermore, there are bruises on the laddings and the tongue. What? You mean strangulation? Looks like it. I'm pretty sure the marks on her tongue were caused by her false teeth. By the way, where are they? Well, haven't you got them? No, I imagined that they would have been on your exhibit. Yeah, but after what you've told me, I'll make it my business to recover them. The inspector hurried back to the hotel. Neither the manager nor his wife knew anything about the missing set of false teeth, but they immediately started inquiries among the staff. The inspector and chief constable waited impatiently. Almost anything might have happened to them. Oh, it's always the same when you get started on a case late. Valuable evidence gets scattered and as often as not, never recovered. Good news, inspector! They've been found. They have, Mrs. Hoddy? Yes, one of the maids who helped clear up Mrs. Fox's room found them on the wash basin. On the wash basin? Wait a minute, is she sure of that? Absolutely. Not knowing what to do with them, she put them away in a cupboard, meaning to ask me. But although she's a very reliable girl, she forgot. Can we depend on her testimony? Oh, I'm sure of it, and she's quite definite that they were on that wash basin immediately after the fire. Now that clinches my case. How could a woman who could barely walk unaided go across the room and put her false teeth on the wash basin when the marks on her tongue proved that she was wearing them at the time of her death? Couldn't be done. No, sir. So you can make out another warrant for our friend, Mr. Fox. This time the charge is murder. And so Sidney Fox was brought up for trial, trial for his life. To remember the bruises on the throat mentioned by the pathologist. Medical men all over the country skilled in forensic medicine gave their interpretations of the cause for these bruises. And as so often happened, hardly any two of them agreed. Fox had his own alibi for the bruises. A few days before the fire, he had thoughtfully taken occasion to tell some of the hotel staff about what he eerily described as a sham fight he'd had with his mother. Apparently he hoped that this childish subterfuge might counter any suspicions the bruises would arouse if they were discovered after his mother's death. What credulous, false criminals must think the rest of us are. And in spite of Fox's opinion of his own cleverness, the passage in the trial most damaging to his chance of acquittal came when he was caught in a verbal trap by the attorney general who was conducting the cross examination for the prosecution. Now Fox, we come to the moment when you opened the door to your mother's room and discovered the fire. I want you to be very careful about this. Was it full of smoke when you opened the door? So sick that I couldn't possibly have gone in there without suffocating. I knew I couldn't live in there. So you closed the door and immediately ran for help. That's exactly what I did. So you knew your mother was already dead. No. No. How could I know that? You closed the door. I didn't want the smoke to spread through the hotel. But if you didn't know your mother was already dead, closing that door meant you condemned her to certain death by suffocation. Why, you ran for help. I went for help to get her out. You overlooked the fact that the natural thing to do would be to fling-wipe the door so that the smoke would escape. You overlooked that, didn't you? That wasn't it. No. Fox, you closed that door. I don't know that I did close it. I wasn't thinking when I said that. Both Mr. Harding and Mr. Dickens have testified that the door was closed when you returned them. No one was there to close it if you didn't. Closing the door shows you knew the smoke would no longer hurt your mother. No. You knew your mother would never breathe again, didn't you? You've trapped me into this. It's a trap. I couldn't think of an explanation if I'm given time. But the sands of time had almost run out for Sidney Fox. No word uttered by a man on trial for his life could have acknowledged his guilt more clearly. Sidney Fox paid the extreme penalty for the murder of his mother. To me, the most interesting character in the case is the victim, Mrs. Fox. What sort of a woman was she? Or rather, what sort of a mother was she? You can't be rather inclined to condemn a poorer, wretched creature like her son and not look for the cause. My dear Clive, if we started doing that, how would the law work? You're right, though. Mrs. Fox was a weak, lazy woman and shut her eyes to thoughts she must have seen of her son. Worse than that, when he was a kid, she did her best to spoil him. Spoil him? My goodness. He certainly succeeded in that all right. Yes, he sounds like a mother's boy, going to Mrs. Harding for comfort and letting her stroke his hair. You know, that's rather ironic. A tiny slip that brought his downfall. There's no doubt of that. If the Harding suspicions had not been aroused, Fox would have been free to escape and would have been delayed to debris from the room of the murder would have been buried beyond recovery. So it comes about that in Scotland Yard's grim black museum there is no memento of this famous case. For how can you capture a thing so ephemeral, although in this case so deadly, as the smell of smoke pinging to a kindly woman's hand?
