power of monkeys’ muscles that it was almost
taken for granted that a monkey was the guilty party.
The bubble was pricked by the pen of “Common
Sense,” who laconically remarked that no traces
of soot or blood had been discovered on the floor,
or on the nightshirt, or the counterpane. The
Lancet’s leader on the Mystery was awaited
with interest. It said: “We cannot
join in the praises that have been showered upon the
coroner’s summing up. It shows again the
evils resulting from having coroners who are not medical
men. He seems to have appreciated but inadequately
the significance of the medical evidence. He
should certainly have directed the jury to return
a verdict of murder on that. What was it to do
with him that he could see no way by which the wound
could have been inflicted by an outside agency?
It was for the police to find how that was done.
Enough that it was impossible for the unhappy young
man to have inflicted such a wound, and then to have
strength and will power enough to hide the instrument
and to remove perfectly every trace of his having left
the bed for the purpose.” It is impossible
to enumerate all the theories propounded by the amateur
detectives, while Scotland Yard religiously held its
tongue. Ultimately the interest on the subject
became confined to a few papers which had received
the best letters. Those papers that couldn’t
get interesting letters stopped the correspondence
and sneered at the “sensationalism” of
those that could. Among the mass of fantasy there
were not a few notable solutions, which failed brilliantly,
like rockets posing as fixed stars. One was that
in the obscurity of the fog the murderer had ascended
to the window of the bedroom by means of a ladder
from the pavement. He had then with a diamond
cut one of the panes away, and effected an entry through
the aperture. On leaving he fixed in the pane
of glass again (or another which he had brought with
him) and thus the room remained with its bolts and
locks untouched. On its being pointed out that
the panes were too small, a third correspondent showed
that that didn’t matter, as it was only necessary
to insert the hand and undo the fastening, when the
entire window could be opened, the process being reversed
by the murderer on leaving. This pretty edifice
of glass was smashed by a glazier, who wrote to say
that a pane could hardly be fixed in from only one
side of a window frame, that it would fall out when
touched, and that in any case the wet putty could not
have escaped detection. A door panel sliced out
and replaced was also put forward, and as many trap-doors
and secret passages were ascribed to No. 11 Glover
Street, as if it were a mediaeval castle. Another
of these clever theories was that the murderer was
in the room the whole time the police were there—hidden
in the wardrobe. Or he had got behind the door
when Grodman broke it open, so that he was not noticed
in the excitement of the discovery, and escaped with
his weapon at the moment when Grodman and Mrs. Drabdump
were examining the window fastenings.