THE STORY OF THE OCCUPANT OF THE THIRTEENTH CELL

Having refreshed himself from the glass at his elbow, the Governor then began the story of the occupant of the thirteenth cell, while his visitor, beyond a glance at the clock, made no attempt to interrupt. The fact was that the visitor found this eccentric prison official very entertaining.

There is no doubt (said the Governor) that, of all crimes, murder is at once the most interesting and the most repellent. On the average we have about one hundred and fifty every year in Britain, and, though this may seem a large number, it is small compared with the record of some American cities—Chicago, for instance—where the average is about one per day. We are also in the happier position, if you will allow me to say so—I speak from the point of view of a representative of the law—of having a much smaller number of murders unsolved. Indeed, there are very few in Britain that have not been brought home to the culprits——

"I could name a few," cried the visitor triumphantly. "Since the year 1912 there has been a growing list of undiscovered killers, and most of them were killers of women. Take the case, in 1919, of Mrs. Ridgley, of Hitchin; of Miss Nellie Rault, at Bedford, a few months later; of Nurse Shore in a Hastings train the following year; of Mrs. Buxton, at Chelsea, shortly afterwards; of Henrietta Weightman, at Bushey, in 1921; of Miss Lawn, at Cambridge, and Violet Mansfield, at Farnham, both the same year; and there are others—Mrs. Luard, at Sevenoaks; Emily Dimmock at Camden Town, Lily Templeton at Brixton, a child named Bailes at the Elephant and Castle, the boy Willie Starchfield. There's a list to go on with."

I realise (replied the Governor) that you have taken great interest in those crimes to have them so glibly on your tongue, but it may be that there were exceptional circumstances at work in those instances which you do not take into account. I do not claim that the police, and the law, are always flawless and that they are without failure. But what have you proved? That out of, say one hundred and fifty, one person has succeeded in escaping. I think you have even here over-estimated the chances of escape, slender though they are on your own showing; but if I were to give you proof of this I might incur the penalty of infringing the Act which binds Governors, as well as the humblest of prison staffs, to secrecy in certain matters. I am not saying that such an Act is good, or that it is bad. I am a servant and carry out my orders.

As for those who have escaped, I could mention a dozen for your one of those who, by all the laws of chance and calculation, ought to have escaped, but did not. The man Bennett, who murdered his wife on Yarmouth sands a score or so years ago, was convicted because of a gold chain which he gave away to a girl in a moment of forgetfulness. Bodart, the Frenchman, who murdered a widow, was discovered because of the grease spot on his clothes, the dripping of a candle. The finding of a few brads was the cause of the conviction of a boot repairer named Lafargue, who murdered Madame du Bois. The famous Professor Webster was sent to the scaffold because he forgot that, while he might burn to ashes the body of his victim, Dr. Parkman, the latter's false teeth were made of a composition that resisted fire. Wainwright made a similar mistake when he tried to destroy traces of a murder by covering the body with chloride of lime, which preserves and does not destroy. The man who shot Mrs. Breaks at Blackpool had filed off the maker's name from the outside plate of the revolver, but did not know that the name was also printed on the backbone inside. A child's claim to the ownership of a toy lantern was the cause of Fowler being hanged for the Muswell Hill crime. In Buckinghamshire a cobweb on a man's shoulder took him to the condemned cell.

And what shall we say of those would-be assassins who, though they have thought out their schemes, have either erred at the crucial moment, or have been caught by a simple, unforeseen circumstance? I could tell you of cases wherein it might seem that the intended victims have a charm against violent deaths. The present King of Spain, who has come to London quite often, has a private collection of relics of incidents where he was saved from the assassin's murderous intent. Many monarchs have likewise escaped. Only recently we have had the most prominent man of Italy telling his friends, after an attempt on his life, that it was useless for enemies to try to kill him. What a faith!

All this, of course, leads us back to the primary question: Why do men commit murder? It was this question that Dr. Caffyn had considered for many years. As a matter of fact, Dr. Caffyn was writing a treatise on the subject when the ringing of his telephone bell interrupted his labours. Detective Carney was at the other end of the wire, telling him that a murder had been committed.

Dr. Caffyn was a man of method, not one to be easily thrown from his well-trained habits; and he was training his only son, Dick, to walk in his own footsteps. Both father and son were fine specimens of men; both were surgeons, both were pathologists, but the son was sufficiently independent not to accept every theory put forward by the parent without himself being convinced of its accuracy.

It was because he wished to put his theories to the test in front of his son that Dr. Caffyn was regretful that Richard was not present when the telephone message informed him of this new case.

The first thing that Dr. Caffyn did after having received the message was to sit down again at his desk and add a few sentences to the treatise he was writing. The sentences seemed to be singularly appropriate. Here are the sentences which the doctor wrote on that occasion:

"The answer to the question, why a man commits a murder, is to be found in the state of the man's mind. To understand this mental state we must analyse the mind's material counterpart—the brain. The problem becomes pathological. The lower forms of life are governed by instinct and rude emotion where self-control is practically absent. Self-control is gained by education."

There Dr. Caffyn stopped. He then pressed an electric button on his desk and waited. The door of his study opened, and his man appeared on the threshold.

"Jones, has Mr. Richard arrived yet?"

"No, sir," replied the man, "but he is expected any minute for dinner."

"I shall not be able to see him at dinner," said Dr. Caffyn, "but when he comes tell him that I hope to join him at the theatre. I am leaving a ticket for him in case I do not come back. There has been a murder and I am called away. You needn't wait up for us. We shall have supper in town. See that we are awakened early to-morrow, and that his things are packed. He is going to lecture at college to-morrow."

The man bowed and withdrew.

Dr. Caffyn fingered his watch-chain absently, his brows contracted. He had hoped to work much longer at the manuscript in development of his views on murder and the question of capital punishment. But he had to go where duty called, and in a few minutes he was walking rapidly along the street.

Let me here point out that Dr. Caffyn had held for many years the position of perhaps the most famous pathologist in London. His knowledge was so great that he was retained by the authorities to aid them with his evidence. He had for years been on practically every kind of murder case as soon as the police. He had been called to examine murderers as well as their victims. At the trials his voice was the voice of authority. He was as steeped in the science of psychology in relation to crime as he was steeped in the pathological knowledge of it. To those who advocated the abolition of the death sentence Dr. Caffyn was an opponent whose scientific reasoning could not be answered.

He was thinking of his manuscript when he reached the block of flats where this latest murder had been committed. It was a fashionable district, such as are becoming more and more common in London—blocks of flats with silent lifts to every floor and stairs carpeted with rich material. A policeman at the door saluted as Dr. Caffyn presented himself. He directed Dr. Caffyn to the flat where he was expected.

The victim was a woman. She lay on her settee, her head thrown back and her rounded arms stretched limply over the upholstery. She had been a very pretty girl; was, indeed, still beautiful even in death. Her age was about twenty-five or twenty-six. A bullet had caught her square in the forehead.

The weapon from which the bullet had been fired was in the hands of Carney, who stood on the other side of the settee. He was examining the revolver, which was one of service pattern.

Dr. Caffyn returned the greeting of Detective Carney with a curt nod. He was more interested in the dead woman than in the weapon with which she had been killed. A few drops of red stained her golden shaded semi-evening gown, turning the colour of the fabric to a strange and fascinating hue. Beyond a smear of blood half hidden by her wealth of bobbed hair there was nothing to mar her beauty. She had bled inwardly and had died at once.

"We thought it was suicide at first, sir," said Carney, "but the finding of this revolver on the rug and a man's glove puts that out of court. It's murder."

Dr. Caffyn nodded and slipped his sensitive fingers along the wrist of the dead woman. It was merely a formal matter. Her pulse had stopped when the bullet cut short her young life.

"She has been dead for about an hour," said the doctor quietly. "Yes, it is murder. The shot was fired from the chair on the other side of the fireplace."

There were no signs of a struggle, no agonising contortions of the victim's features. Her eyes were open, almost wide. The blue pupils were slightly turned upward, and seemed to express mild surprise. There was a hint of a smile on the well-moulded features. Her lips were parted, showing heavy traces of lipstick. Her teeth were white and dazzling. There were rings on her fingers. On her feet were a pair of small, green slippers, half buried in a thick woollen rug in front of the gas fire, which was burning.

There she lay, retaining her attractiveness, her pose suggesting the audacity and daring which even death could not subdue.

"Who was she?" asked Dr. Caffyn.

"An actress—a chorus girl. Gladys Crieff," replied Carney. "She lived in this flat with a maid. She was due at the theatre this evening. It was the maid who gave the alarm."

Carney gave his replies shortly because he did not want the specialist to begin theorising. He wanted to get on with the hunt for the criminal. He distrusted the intricacies of psychology and the conclusions of pathology. He got his men by team work, by inquiry, by elimination; which was the recognised method of the police.

"It is a crime passionnel, some love affair that has ended disastrously, I suspect," said the doctor. "I fancy you will find it so, Carney."

The officer was a little nettled at the swift conclusion.

"I'm not sure of that, sir. It may be that burglary is the cause. Of course, this girl could not afford to keep up a flat on her own. Chorus girls can't. But she was not an ordinary chorus girl. She had played parts, and was waiting to get a leading one in a new show."

"You know her, then?"

"Oh, no. The maid told me, and I verified it on the telephone. Of course, I didn't spill the news that she was dead. Then there is something else. The maid says that this girl had a very expensive necklace and was intending to wear it to-night at the theatre. The case is here, but the necklace has gone. And I found a small gold watch on the staircase, which the murderer must have dropped on his way down. Further, a locket which she had round her neck lay on the settee beside her. The chain was broken as if it had been snatched from her. A tiny fragment of a photograph remained in the locket."

"Then you have nothing very substantial as a clue?"

"Oh, we'll manage on what we have, Dr. Caffyn. The maid, whom I have questioned, is a new one, and did not see the visitor—she was out shopping; but she says that when she returned she heard voices in the room, one of them being a man's. The maid had to go out again, but before she went out she listened, as maids do. She heard the man say that this dead girl would never belong to anyone but him. And this dead girl seemed to be soothing his temper."

"Then the maid did not see the man?"

"No, she had to go out again. When she came back the door was open and she saw—this. I examined the stairs and found a glove. The man left that. It is a rubber glove. There isn't a finger-print anywhere."

"What about the revolver, Carney?"

"A common service one. No prints on it."

Dr. Caffyn was silent for a moment, looking at the dead woman. Her beauty was not the beauty of an intellectual woman. It was the beauty of physique.

"Had she many friends, Carney?"

"You mean men? They generally have. She was to be married soon, I know that. If she had other friends I'll soon round them up."

"Not a vampire, then?"

"Most likely a butterfly, sir."

Dr. Caffyn looked at his watch and began to button his coat.

"When you find the murderer, Carney, I should like to see him as well, for observation. There are points of similarity in all murders which I have noticed. This man, I suspect, is some poor, unbalanced individual whose brain has been overturned by a flood of jealousy. That is, if he was the girl's friend. If he was a common burglar, he must also be a degenerate. Only such an one would kill a woman. A hidden hereditary instinct suddenly flashed out, and he shot her. Lack of self-control. Lack of the necessary education. Don't you think so?"

"I don't worry about that. He shot her, and I have to get him. To my thinking, education has little to do with murder."

Dr. Caffyn raised his head and gazed piercingly at the detective who had dared to challenge his theories.

"Ah," he said, "I fancy you will agree with me later, Carney. In the meantime, if you have completed your examination, the body may be removed. I shall attend the mortuary later and let you have my report to-night."

"Very good, doctor."

Dr. Caffyn went out.

It was too late to return to his home for dinner and too early to go to the theatre, so he decided to dine at his club.

He dined alone, as was his custom at the club. He had a favourite seat by the window, and there he sat apart thinking over the crime. It seemed to prove to him once again that there was a cure for murder, just as there was a penalty for it.

So absorbed was he in his reflections that he sat longer than he intended; but he decided to go and see one act of the play before returning to the mortuary and making the examination so that his report would be accurate. A great deal depended on his report. The counsel for the accused would scrutinise his wording, searching for a loose expression or a hesitating phrase. He would be in the witness-box to be questioned and to explain the nature and cause of death. From the witness-box he would see the prisoner in the dock.

Dr. Caffyn smiled grimly as he thought of this. It was interesting to him to note the expressions on the faces of prisoners while he gave his medical testimony. He watched their varying emotions, the functioning of their brains, as he destroyed the hypotheses which the defending counsel laboured to erect. As a scientist, Dr. Caffyn was never embarrassed by the frightfulness of crime. His interest was in studying the men who had committed the crimes. He studied them in their cells, from his stand in the witness-box, when they waited for the verdict; and he had given certificates of their deaths when they had paid the penalty.

A taxicab drove him quickly to the theatre, where he met his son Richard. It was in the middle of an act when he arrived, but he did not hesitate to make his way to the empty stall. He and Richard nodded to each other, and then they turned to watch the play.

Richard Caffyn was one of the rising young surgeons of the day, heading straight for a fame, as his colleagues agreed, that would make history in his profession. But, then, he had his father at his back, a father who was very proud of his son.

When the curtain fell at the end of the act they sauntered out to the corridor to enjoy cigarettes. They had reached the doorway when a voice spoke at the father's elbow.

"Sorry to bother you, doctor, but have you finished the examination?"

Dr. Caffyn turned to see Carney at his side.

"Not yet, Carney, but I'll give you the report to-night. I want you to meet my son Richard. I think you have heard of him."

Carney shook hands with the young man, and they continued towards the bar. They sat down on a couch facing the counter.

"Found your degenerate yet, Carney?" asked Dr. Caffyn.

"Not yet, sir, but I'm hoping."

The doctor turned to his son and explained the case in a few sentences.

"Do you know, Dick," he said smilingly, "Carney is too polite to say he doesn't agree with me, but I know he holds antagonistic theories to mine generally. But that, I fancy, comes of the discipline and routine of police methods. I was telling him that undoubtedly all murderers are degenerates. Look here, Carney, when you are hunting a man, one of the best rules is to get at what makes him a criminal—for the time being, of course."

"Well, sir," replied Carney, "I have had some experience in hunting men, and I find all sorts of things make them bad; especially murderers. Fear, hate, love, lust, selfishness, greed—these are some, but there are others."

"I agree, and yet I have a notion that a cure for murder may be found."

"A cure?"

"Yes, a cure. Dick, my boy, you know my theories. Now, take this murder to-night. I told Jones to tell you why I had been called away——"

"He told me," replied Dick, who was looking absently towards the bar and listening to the orchestra. "Have you been trying to convert Carney to your point of view?"

"I have, but it takes some doing. Let us go into it again, Carney. The reasons you have named are but the forces that convert the thought of murder into the act. We must get behind that. The murder-plan has its origin in pathology in most cases. In a few one finds it in psychology."

"We do not deal in these sciences when we are after a man," said Carney doggedly.

"Perhaps not. You represent the material side. I represent the other. Yet it is material in the end. The mind governs the brain. We have two brains, an upper and a lower. The upper functions in thought. The lower functions in emotions and instincts which require no thought. This lower brain is in every animal that has a skull. It is this brain which functions when men commit murder. Civilisation has developed the upper brain; and murderers are men whose upper brain is primitive. That is what I mean by a degenerate."

"Does it matter much?" asked Carney.

"It matters a great deal. It supplies the key to the great mystery as to why men commit murder."

"How about your cure?"

"Ah, the cure. It is pathological."

The bell above the bar buzzed, signalling that the curtain was about to rise again, but the three men did not take notice of it.

"I'm not sure, father," said Richard Caffyn, "that I don't find sound sense in what Detective Carney says. Pathology can only apply to habitual criminals. Spasmodic acts are outside rules."

The detective glanced at Dick and nodded.

"My job is to get my man," he persisted. "I don't think we shall ever find a cure for murder, with all respect to your father's knowledge."

"Tut, tut," cried Dr. Caffyn. "There you are again, ignoring all I desire you to observe! Pathology is the science of the nature, cause, and remedy of disease. Murder is disease. It is degeneracy. The causes of degeneracy are several—among which are debauchery, depravity, poverty."

"Murderers are not always poor men," said the detective.

"No, but they are always degenerates. They have reverted to the primitive type. The animalism of their forebears clings to them. Dick, you and I have talked this over——"

"That is true, father, but still there is a lot in what the detective says. I cannot always agree with you, as you know. Let me put it this way."

He turned and spread out his hand as if he were delivering a lecture at his hospital.

"There are such things as uncontrollable impulses. Take the case of a mother who sacrifices herself to save her child. She does not think. It is her lower brain that is working—her instinct. She is not responsible, really, for the act, yet she is heroic——"

"But, Dick——"

"Wait a moment, father. I am trying to show that there is a force, or forces, against which we cannot fight. Pathology does not enter here. Psychology may. In any case, the law does not take much note of either, as Carney says. I could put up a good case for impulsive acts arising from instinctive and automatic feelings. Is a man responsible when urged to act under a wave of extreme emotion?"

"The law says," replied Carney, "that acts are irresponsible only when a person does not know the nature or quality of those acts."

"In that case, the best plan would be for a defence to put forward a suggestion of insanity. The truth is we are hard put to it to define responsibility. It is a tangle of conflicting emotions."

He yawned and strolled towards the bar to get a match for his cigarette.

"Dick will come round to my view after he has had experience," said the doctor to Carney, "and so will you. At present he does not distinguish between compulsive acts and obsessions, which are two different terms. They do not affect the result, however. Heredity—there you find the reason for most cases of degeneration. If we admit such arguments as my son has put forward we might as well abolish the death penalty."

"As for me," retorted Carney, "I have seen cases where the death penalty might have been better set aside—and I say that though I brought such men to the cells."

"There may be cases of persons who are utterly insane—raving lunatics—but for the others of man-kind the one law must remain. Society must be protected. I commend these views to you in the course of your labours—for instance, in the case of this girl who was shot this evening."

Detective Carney was silent for a few moments.

"What was your cure, doctor?" he asked quietly.

"My cure for murder lies in the future generations. If a man commits a murder there is no proof that he may not commit another. There is only one way to deal with him. He must be removed—painlessly if you like, but effectively."

The detective did not answer, and seemed to be pondering the standpoint of the specialist. The doctor went on.

"If we remove evil environment and substitute education for ignorance we shall have no more murders. That is a pathological fact, and when you have found your man in this case——"

"We'll find him, sir."

"Very well. When the trial comes off I shall certainly use all my influence to oppose the torrent of sympathy which seems to go out at every recent case towards the criminal in this country. Think of the dead girl! Is it safe for the community that a man who deliberately took her life should live? Is it wise that he should be kept alive?"

"Well, there may be the plea of insanity——"

"Bah, that has become a common plea! Murder by a proved maniac is an exception to the general rule. You know that as well as I do. The only safe cure for murder is to send the guilty into oblivion and educate the community."

Detective Carney got to his feet, gnawing at his moustache. He had spent more time than he had expected.

"Are you going to remain until the play is over, sir?" he asked.

"Oh, that report!"

"I really wanted to suggest, sir, that if you could let us have it immediately we should be obliged. I could get a taxi for you, right away. I was asked to see you about it and to suggest——"

Dr. Caffyn sighed and nodded. He was a slave to duty.

"Very well. I'll have the taxi. Shall I dismiss it at the mortuary?"

"Why, sir, you could just keep it and bring your report to the station, where it is expected. I may be there when you arrive, as I have a call to make on this case."

"All right, I'll tell my son."

He went out with Carney, and the latter obtained a cab and sent the doctor off. As he rode to the mortuary, the doctor wondered if he had been wasting his breath on Carney; he was, at least, sure that the detective did not fully appreciate all he had been saying.

The examination of the victim at the mortuary was not lengthy. When it was over Dr. Caffyn made his notes and ordered the driver to hurry to the police station.

As he entered the reception-room, he saw Detective Carney standing with his back to the fire. A frown was on Carney's face.

"There is the report, Carney," said the doctor. "What are you worried about? Have you been thinking over what I told you, or have you failed to get your man?"

"We have got him, sir," replied Carney, coughing.

"Got him? Congratulations. A degenerate, I'll wager, as I said. May I have a look at him—just a look, or a word, maybe, to support my theory? You promised."

The detective nodded and led the way to the cells. As he was about to put the key into a door, the surgeon touched him on the shoulder.

"A crime passionnel—and a primitive brain, I suppose? Or perhaps a burglar of the base type?"

"He has written a confession," said Carney, without looking at the doctor. "He shot her because she threw him over for another man."

He swung the door open. The prisoner, his face buried in his hands, was huddled in a corner of the cell.

He raised a haggard countenance to the visitors.

Dr. Caffyn looked into the face of his son.