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AN UNSOLVED PROBLEM

AT a well-known commercial and family hotel, almost in the heart of grimy, busy Manchester, a gentleman arrived one evening by cab from Victoria Station. He had a foreign appearance, spoke with a foreign accent, but lacked that distinctive something in his bearing which so unmistakably proclaims the 'commercial.' In age he was under forty. He had a dark swarthy complexion, dark hair, dark eyes. He was very cheerful, and seemed to be in perfect health. He had no luggage with him, with the exception of a tolerably large handbag. The porter who carried it up to the gentleman's bedroom noted that it was extraordinarily heavy for so relatively small a bag, and the man mentioned the fact to the manager, who did not attach any importance to it, but, not knowing the stranger and in the absence of larger luggage, he requested him to pay for his room in advance, which he did cheerfully. He gave his name as Karl Reinhardt, and said he was from Dresden, but did not mention if he represented any firm. He intimated that he was expecting letters and telegrams, and that a lady would probably call upon him between seven and eight, and would dine with him. No letters or telegrams came, but the lady did. She was well dressed, and about Reinhardt's own age. They had dinner served to them at a private table, and drank a bottle of German white wine and a bottle of champagne. After dinner they both smoked cigarettes and drank coffee and cognac, and about nine o'clock drove in a cab to the Theatre Royal.

It was long past midnight when the man returned. He | | 182 came in a cab, and alone. He was somewhat under the influence of liquor, but quiet and orderly, although not very steady on his legs. In handing him his bedroom candle, the porter offered to help him upstairs, but he politely declined the man's proffered aid, put a shilling into his hand, wished him good-night, and mounted to the second floor by himself. Mr. Reinhardt did not put in an appearance during the following morning, but that aroused no suspicion. He had left no request the previous night to be called, and so no one thought of going to his room to disturb him.

When two o'clock had struck and Mr. Reinhardt had not been seen, the manager sent a servant up to ask if he required anything. His boots were still on the mat outside of his door. The servant knocked and knocked and knocked again, but got no response. So she turned the handle; the door wasn't locked, which surprised her. She peeped in and what she saw caused her to rush downstairs to the manager, who at once went to Reinhardt's room.

Reinhardt had taken off his boots and his coat, but nothing else, and he was found lying across the bed quite dead. He had been dead for hours, and was stiff and cold. In the fireplace some papers had been burnt. His bag was open and perfectly empty. There was nothing in his pockets, neither purse, money, pocket-book, nor watch. Not a letter or card of any kind likely to lead to identification. Some name had evidently been marked on his linen, but it was cut out.

As a matter of form, a doctor was of course sent for. The man was dead enough, but the doctor could not say how he had died. There was no wound anywhere, and the calm, placid appearance of the features and the absence of any indication of pain or struggle seemed to negative the suggestion of poison, at any rate of poison the doctor was familiar with.

Necessarily, the usual proceedings in such cases were followed. The coroner was notified, a post-mortem was ordered, and steps taken with a view to try and establish the dead man's identity. These steps resulted in nothing. | | 183 The post-mortem examination made it clear that the deceased had met his death by chloroform ; not taken internally, but by inhalation. There was reason to suppose a very large quantity had been inhaled, and, of course, the question that naturally arose to the mind of all who were interested in the case was, 'Is it murder or suicide?'

If murder, then it was one in which the clement of romance and mystery was very strong. If suicide, then it stood out as being without parallel, as there was no record case of a person having taken his own life by inhaling chloroform. In the dead man's room a careful search was made as soon after the notification of the death as possible. The faint characteristic odour of chloroform was detected on some of the bedclothes, on a sponge on the washstand, and on a towel that lay on the floor ; but no bottle or vessel of any kind that had contained the fluid could be found.

The legal investigation brought .nothing fresh to light. The result was that an open verdict was returned. Every effort was made to find the lady who accompanied the deceased to the theatre, but without success. The wide publicity given to the case could hardly have escaped her notice, and yet she did not come forward. And so the stranger—no money having been found on his person, and no one claiming his poor remains—was buried as a pauper, and in less than a week after probably the general public had forgotten him.

As may be supposed, the police were not altogether satisfied with the turn matters had taken. The failure to get any evidence of consequence to present to the coroner was very disappointing, and as the open verdict left them free to pursue their inquiries an intimation was sent to Tyler Tatlock to the effect that if he could make it convenient to journey to Manchester he might have the opportunity of exercising his talents on a case after his own heart. He accepted the invitation, and nine days after Reinhardt's body had been discovered in the hotel bedroom he was journeying to Cottonopolis, and as he hurried north by a strange coincidence Manchester was provided with another sensation. A | | 184 daring and dastardly attempt was made to blow up the jail in Strangeways. An infernal machine of some kind had been placed against the wall of one of the wings, and fired by clockwork. Although considerable damage of a kind was done, there was no great structural injury to the building, but the moral effect on the citizens was tremendous. There had been a good deal of Fenian agitation going on for some time, and many sinister threats uttered, but nobody believed these threats would result in anything.

When Tatlock reached the city it was in a state of red-hot excitement, and leather-lunged newsvendors were yelling 'Houtrage at Strangeways Jail! Hawful explosion!' Tatlock bought a paper, and read the first crude particulars of the outrage; but, of course, his business was with the case of the dead Reinhardt, and at a long interview with the chief of the police he was furnished with full details, and the following day he set to work, and as he studied the mystery he deemed it probable that between Reinhardt's death and the explosion at the Strangeways Jail there was some connection, but he kept that idea to himself. He turned his attention, first of all, to endeavouring to discover what were the chances of someone in the hotel having killed Reinhardt, and these inquiries elicited the following remarkable facts, which, singularly enough, no one had thought it worth while to mention before.

Two days prior to Reinhardt's arrival another traveller, supposed to be an Irishman by his brogue, came to the hotel, and gave the name of James Bingham. His luggage consisted of a leather portmanteau. He was a very quiet, reserved man, and associated with no one in the house. The only meal he took in the hotel was breakfast. After that he went out, and did not reappear until late at night. Three days after Reinhardt's mysterious death Bingham paid his bill, and took his departure. It was known that he drove in a cab with his portmanteau to London Road Station. But that was all that was known. To Tatlock it occurred that it might be advisable to refer to Bingham later on. In the meantime the inquisitive detective pottered about in the | | 185 bedroom lately occupied by James Bingham. It was a very ordinary room. There was a fireplace with the flue closed down, as is always the case, presumably with a view to preventing hotel guests from breathing too much air. The fireplace itself was screened by a fancy arrangement of tissue paper of divers colours. This fireplace was examined, but yielded nothing. Then there was the ordinary dressing-table, with a swing glass that wouldn't swing; the more than ordinary washstand, and the ditto chest of drawers. Into these drawers the prying Tatlock glanced, and fished from one of them a half-pint label-less bottle which had undoubtedly contained chloroform, and beside it was a large coloured handkerchief which as certainly had had chloroform upon it. It was roughly folded up. When unfolded, Tat-lock detected the faint, sweetish odour of the potent drug. It was much stained, too, especially the blue colour. Now, this was a startling discovery. The chambermaid whose duty it was to attend that particular room had not looked into the drawers. She knew that, as a rule, passing travellers, especially men, seldom used the drawers they found in their bedrooms at hotels.

The syllogism Tatlock propounded to himself when he started on this Manchester case was: First, Reinhardt had been murdered. Second, he had been murdered by someone in the hotel. The conclusion he drew from these premises was that Reinhardt was one of a band of conspirators; he had probably been suspected of being weak-kneed or treacherous, and so had been sacrificed. The bag which he had brought with him to the hotel, and the weight of which had attracted the attention of the porter, had contained something perhaps more deadly than wearing apparel—such, for example, as an infernal machine or machines.

Tatlock examined all the arguments for and against this line of theory, and concluded that if Reinhardt was murdered the murderer was either concealed in the room or came to the room after the arrival of Reinhardt. This justified the belief that the murderer was an occupant of the hotel. No one passed out of the hotel between | | 186 midnight and the opening hour in the morning. A night porter was on duty all night.

Now, James Bingham occupied a room only three doors removed from Reinhardt's room, and on the same landing. For three days after the crime Bingham remained on. Then he paid his bill, and left. A subsequent search in the room he had occupied brings to light a bottle that had contained chloroform, and a doubled-up coloured handkerchief reeking and stained with the same chemical production. If Bingham was the murderer, the question next suggested itself—why had he left these evidences of his crime behind him? In solving this question Tatlock reasoned thus: The crime completed, what was the most probable thing Bingham would do with the empty bottle and the saturated hand-kerchief? Thrust them into his pocket while he emptied the pockets and bag of his victim. That done, he would get back to his own room as soon as possible. Conscious of the instruments of death being in his pocket, he would pull them out. He would not put them amongst his clothes in his portmanteau, for there was the possibility that they might impart an odour to his things, so he placed them in the empty drawer, intending to take an early opportunity of destroying them, but from that moment they were effaced from the tablets of his memory. The sensational reports in the papers would absorb his attention, and no doubt also he had numerous other things to attend to of pressing urgency, so that when the time came for him to slip away he was too eagerly intent on his purpose to have a spare thought for such trivial items as the empty bottle and the stained handkerchief. And there they were, like handwriting on the wall for those who could read, and Tyler Tatlock read it.

The next stage he took up in his endeavour to get a second link was to ascertain, if possible, what connection there was between Reinhardt and the mysterious woman who dined with him at the hotel and then went to the theatre with him. She surely must have had some guilty knowledge, otherwise why did she not come forward and | | 187 state what she knew? The press beseeched her to declare herself, and placards had been posted all over Manchester and Salford. But the woman spoke not, nor did she give a sign. That. was ominous. She dare not speak, dare not show herself—that was the only logical conclusion one could come to. The cabman who drove her and Reinhardt to the theatre was found, but he had nothing to tell beyond that he had set them down at the door of the theatre, was paid his fare, and drove away. They occupied seats in the dress circle. The performance had commenced some time when they arrived. Being such late comers the money-taker observed them more closely than he would have done otherwise; so did the natty damsel who sold them a pro-gramme, and showed them to the seats they were entitled to occupy, which were at the back of the circle, as there was a pretty full house and the best places were taken.

A sharp-eyed barmaid in the saloon spotted them. They went in to refresh themselves between the acts, and sat at a little table in a corner, and both smoked cigarettes. The fact of the woman smoking was what first attracted the barmaid's attention. She could not gather anything they said, as they conversed in a foreign language, and they continued to sit there long after the act had commenced, so that the barmaid had exceptional opportunity of observing them. From their gestures and facial expression, the young lady came to the conclusion that they were having a heated discussion, and there were indications that the female was somewhat wroth and disgusted with her companion. Her manners and actions suggested that she was urging him to do something which was repugnant to him, and because he refused she reproached him. Of course, all this was conjecture. The barmaid could only base her opinion on looks and actions, but the conjecture was no doubt pretty near the truth. Where they went to when they left the theatre it was impossible to say.

There was yet one other channel in which Tatlock could push inquiries. It has been stated that when Reinhardt had been dead for three days, James Bingham | | 188 took his departure. He had with him as luggage a pretty large leather portmanteau, which was made conspicuous by having a red band painted round it. He engaged a cab from the hotel door, and was driven to the London Road railway station. All trace of this man would probably have been lost from that moment but for one fact—he placed his portmanteau in the left luggage office. The porter in charge gave him a ticket of receipt. The portmanteau was not reclaimed personally; but three days later a letter was received enclosing the receipt, and asking that the portmanteau should be sent off immediately, addressed to 'James Bingham, left luggage office, Lime Street station, Liverpool.' This was done, and both the attendant in charge of the office at London Road and the porter who conveyed the portmanteau to the Liverpool train were struck by the red band. A cross, a square, a diamond, a star, or flag was no uncommon distinguishing mark on a portmanteau, but it was not often a band was painted right round it.

At the Lime Street Station depot they remembered the receipt of the portmanteau, which was claimed the same day by a man who said he was James Bingham. The portmanteau was, by the owner's request, put on a four-wheeled cab. The porter who carried it out of the station noted that the number of the cab was 1313. The reason why he noticed it was a peculiar one—he was a very superstitious man, and had a horror of the number 13, and in this combination of figures there were two thirteens, a circumstance which fixed in his memory the fact of the peculiarly marked bag having been taken away on it. The cab was easily discovered, and the cabman related that on the day in question he took up a fare at the Lime Street station, and a portmanteau with a red band round it was placed on the top of his cab. He was ordered to drive to the landing-stage on the Mersey. On the way the wheels of his cab got into the points of one of the crossings of the dock railway, and was overturned. The portmanteau was hurled from the top of the cab, and, to the amazement of those who witnessed the accident, there was a loud explosion, and a volume of | | 189 smoke issued from the portmanteau. The traveller scrambled out of the overturned cab. He looked confused and frightened, and swore roundly at cabby for the mishap. The portmanteau was partially wrecked, and while Bingham guarded his damaged property he sent the cabman to a ship's chandler close by to obtain a box of some sort. He returned with a small packing-case, into which the remains of the portmanteau were stuffed. By this time the crowd had restored the cab, which was but little damaged, to its proper position. The case was hoisted to the roof, and the traveller, bidding cabby drive as fast as possible, got inside once more. He reached the landing-stage without further mishap, and went on hoard of a tender with his luggage, and was taken out with numerous other passengers to the Pennsylvania, which was on the point of starting for New York. Half an hour later she steamed down the Mersey, carrying the mysterious Bingham and his exploding portmanteau with her.

This incident was not known until it was too late to stop him, and unfortunately the Atlantic cable had not yet come into existence. As soon as possible, however, an intimation was sent to the New York police that it might be advisable to take charge of Mr. Bingham and subject him to an examination. But he had got a good start, and, alarmed no doubt by the explosion, he tarried not, and all trace of him was lost. It was much to be regretted that he was thus able to elude the attentions of those who were so anxious to be more intimately acquainted with him, but circumstances had played into his hands ; fortune, luck, or chance, whatever one likes to call it, had favoured him, and he was enabled to hide himself in the great crowd. The man known as Reinhardt remained in his pauper's grave. In spite of the world-wide publicity given to the case by the press, no one deemed it his business or duty to come forward and throw light where there was so much darkness. No man can achieve the impossible, but Tyler Tatlock did all that man can do, and by his skill and cleverness he was enabled to lift one little corner of the veil which shrouded | | 190 the mystery. The glimpse thus obtained made it tolerably certain that Reinhardt was a conspirator, and that he fell a victim to the jealousy or suspicion of his co-conspirators, and that between his death and the explosion at the jail there was some connection. Many years have passed, but to the present day that Manchester mystery remains a mystery still.