No. IX.
The Alibi Problem
Lord Herngill read out the demand made by the editor of The Pig-Keepers’ Friend on the ingenuity of the members of the Problem Club. Members were required to produce evidence, that could be given in good faith, that at a certain hour, day or night, they had been in two places at once, the two places not being less than one hundred miles apart.
Lord Herngill said that he felt anxious and depressed. His manner and appearance, it may be added, hardly bore out the statement. He assigned his depression to two reasons. Firstly, other chairmen had had the simple task of adjudicating on a point of fact. He—a new member, a novice, a mere babe, as you might say—was required to undertake far more delicate and difficult work, and to base his decision on an estimate of evidence. Secondly, the secretary for the evening was Mr Wildersley. On the last occasion that Wildersley had acted as secretary he had adorned the minute-book with drawings of the chairman which were undoubtedly amusing and possessed of artistic merit, but at the same time were calculated to bring that chairman into ridicule and contempt.
‘So you see, gentlemen,’ Lord Herngill continued, ‘that this is nervous work for me. However, I will make the plunge. Towards the end of dinner a telegram was handed to Mr Feldane over which I noticed him to be chuckling. May I inquire if it had any bearing on the problem before us?’
‘Well, it had,’ Jimmy admitted. ‘Brainy work to have guessed it. But I’m not on in this act—I’m resting. The wire really concerns Hesseltine’s claim.’
‘You two generally hunt in couples. Perhaps Mr Hesseltine will let you put his case for him.’
‘Anything that pleases you and saves me trouble,’ said Hesseltine generously. ‘I can always correct Jimmy if he makes an ass of himself.’
‘Well,’ said Jimmy, ‘we can see for ourselves that Hesseltine is here to-night. I don’t want to dwell on his misfortunes, but he looks much as usual. Talks in the same silly way too. But that telegram is his evidence that he is really in Liverpool. It is signed with his name and was handed in at a Liverpool office. I’ll read it. “So sorry to be unable to be with you to-night, but have promised to remain here to act as judge at local baby-show.” Well, it isn’t for me to say anything, though I could.’
‘The evidence that Mr Hesseltine is here,’ said the chairman, ‘is good. The evidence that he is in Liverpool is less good. A telegram is not necessarily despatched by the man whose name is signed to it. Further, it seems to me improbable that a young bachelor would have been selected for the high office which Mr Hesseltine claims to have fulfilled. I think we shall do better than that. I will ask Mr Pusely-Smythe how far he has succeeded in being in two places at once.’
‘It is easier to be in one place at twice,’ said Pusely-Smythe. ‘But I have done what I could, considering how unversed I am in the arts of deception.’ The applause which greeted this statement was possibly of an ironical character. ‘On the morning of Tuesday last,’ Pusely-Smythe continued, ‘I was at the Rectory, Meldon Bois, where I had been spending the week-end. The village of Meldon Bois is one hundred and eight miles from London. It had been my intention to leave Meldon Bois by the 10.5 a.m. for London. I had been pressed to remain for one more night, as there was to be a performance of a pastoral play by distinguished amateurs in the grounds of the Rectory on Tuesday afternoon, and it would be a pity for me to miss it. I will not conceal it from you, sir, that the said pastoral play constituted the principal reason for my departure.
‘You have grasped these facts? Very good. Now, on the morning of Tuesday, by the first post, I received a letter from my one and only aunt, who resides in London, to say that as I was coming up to town that morning she hoped I would lunch with her in Grosvenor Street and accompany her afterwards to hear a lecture to be given by some eminent idiot on “The Future of Eugenics.” My aunt is one of the most strong-minded and wearisome women in existence. I had been reluctant to witness the amateur performance in the Rectory grounds, and I contemplated the idea of listening to a lecture on “The Future of Eugenics” with horror and loathing. That was the situation. I had to miss two birds with one stone.
‘My first step was to telegraph to my one and only aunt as follows: “Regret detained here. Am writing.” On the following morning she received a letter from me which I am able to produce in its envelope. The letter is in my own handwriting on paper stamped with the Rectory address. The letter is dated Tuesday evening, and the post-mark on the envelope shows that it was posted at Meldon Bois on that day. Now that letter not only states that I had remained so as not to miss the pastoral amateurs, but also makes several statements as to their performance, every one of which can be proved to be absolutely accurate. These statements are that Miss Sykes looked charming in some pale lilac-coloured contraption, that the comedian over-acted, that the weather was not entirely favourable, that some of the players seemed to find a difficulty in making themselves audible, that quite a nice sum was realised for the Cottage Hospital, and that the Rector in proposing a vote of thanks to the players said that where all were so good it would be invidious to differentiate. I have no doubt that on the strength of that letter and the details it contains, my aunt would give evidence in good faith that to her knowledge I must have been at Meldon Bois on Tuesday afternoon. Notwithstanding this, I left Meldon Bois on Tuesday morning by the train originally contemplated, and on Tuesday afternoon I was playing bridge at my club in London, as various members of the club who met me there would attest.’
‘On the face of it,’ said the chairman, ‘it looks like rather a good case. I presume that you wrote the letter to your aunt before leaving by train in the morning, and gave it to a servant with instructions to post it after the performance.’
‘Precisely so.’
‘But how did you manage to give an accurate account of the performance at which you were really not present?’
‘Well, Miss Sykes was staying at the Rectory and had told me what dress she would wear. The rest was intelligent anticipation. The glass was low, and, besides, the weather is always unfavourable for pastoral plays, and some of the players always fail to make their voices carry in the open. Given village amateurs, over-acting by the comedian is as certain as death. To put the receipts as a nice sum was quite safe. It was riskier to quote the Rector’s actual words, but he’s a kindly and tactful man with a circumscribed mind, so I thought I might chance it, and it came off.’
The next few members on whom the chairman called produced nothing of interest. Some, like Hesseltine, had thought of the bogus telegram. Some, like Feldane, were resting. Dr Alden had tried an idea of his own, and expressed the hope that the chairman would think better of it than he did himself.
Early one morning he had entered a tobacconist’s shop where he was not known and investigated the man’s stock of cigars. He found it difficult to make up his mind as to which of three different brands would suit him best. He took away with him a specimen of each, and said that he would try them after luncheon and let the tobacconist know. At three that afternoon Dr Alden’s man called at the tobacconist’s with a note from the doctor saying that the trial had been made and naming the brand selected. Five hundred of this brand were ordered, and a cheque for the exact sum was enclosed in payment. The tobacconist was to deliver the goods to the bearer of the note, as the doctor was leaving for the country at four and wished to take some of the cigars with him. This was done, and probably the tobacconist would have been willing to swear in consequence that Dr Alden was in London until four that day. As a matter of fact, the doctor had left for the North by express shortly after ten that morning.
‘Yes,’ said the chairman, ‘you convinced that tobacconist that you were in London when you were not, just as Pusely-Smythe convinced his aunt that he was not in London when he was. In each case it is the evidence of one person only. Have you done any better, Mr Wildersley?’
‘Better?’ said Wildersley cheerfully. ‘I should rather think I have. I should have made out the club cheque for the prize to my own order already but for the fact that I prefer the formal routine. Cast your chairmaniacal eye over this sketch-book. It is filled with pencil drawings made from time to time, if not oftener, by the eminent Wildersley. The last few pages were made at the political meeting at Glasgow last week. They are dated in my own hand. There are notes as to the colour also in my hand. They are in my sketch-book. If they are not proof positive that I was at that meeting, then what are they? All the same I was in London while that meeting was being held, and can produce countless witnesses who saw me and spoke to me.’
The chairman looked carefully at the drawings. ‘Not done from photographs, I suppose?’
‘No, m’lord,’ said Wildersley. ‘All genuine hand-work and done on the spot.’
Lord Herngill compared them with previous drawings in the book. ‘These look to me,’ he said, ‘as if they were done by somebody who was trying to imitate your technique but had not quite got it.’
‘Yes,’ said Wildersley, ‘that finishes us. You have it. The other artist member and I went into collaboration in this enterprise. Austin went to Glasgow, and made the sketches in the book with what he was pleased to call an imitation of the worst of the Wildersleian mannerisms. I remained in London giving my famous impersonation of myself. I added the date and manuscript notes afterwards. Still, if this book fell into the hands of somebody who had not the full use of his eyes—and very few people have—he might use it as evidence in good faith that I was at Glasgow at that date.’
‘Undoubtedly. I shall not forget your claim. Meanwhile, is there any other?’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Charles Bunford placidly, ‘I think my claim to have established an alibi is stronger than any you have heard yet. Birmingham is more than a hundred miles from London. A certain butler in Birmingham would swear that he saw me and spoke to me on a certain afternoon. A photographer in Birmingham would swear that he photographed me on that same afternoon, and would be able to produce the negative. Yet during the whole of that afternoon I was in London, as the evidence of many of my friends would show. And all the evidence would be given in good faith.’
‘And how was this miracle accomplished?’ the chairman asked.
‘I’ll tell you the story as briefly as I can. I went to stay for a fortnight with an old friend of mine, a bachelor named Fraser, who has a house outside Birmingham. He is a keen ornithologist. He employs in the preparation of specimens and so on a curious character called Mitten, who is just as keen on birds as Fraser himself. Fraser only has Mitten’s spare time. Mitten’s regular work is with a Birmingham photographer, for whom he does developing and also has charge of the stock of negatives. Fraser is quite unlike me in the face, except that we both have the same deficiency of colour in the hair, but we are of about the same height and build. There is also a slight similarity in our voices. That was the rough material that I had at my disposal, and no doubt you can guess how I got my results from it.’
‘You’d better continue,’ said the chairman, smiling.
‘On the day before I left I pointed out to Fraser that a similarity in mass often prevented a dissimilarity in detail from being noticed, and that the attitude of expectant attention is a frequent source of error. Fraser asked me, as I had thought he would, what I meant and what I was getting at. I replied that by taking advantage of two facts I had mentioned he could probably get himself mistaken for me. He said that nobody would make the mistake. I said that Hammond’s butler would make it on the following afternoon, if he cared to try the experiment.
‘ “I’d like to try it, but it’s impossible. That butler has known me for the last two years, and he has only seen you four or five times in the afternoon. How could he be taken in?”
‘ “He has always seen you in dark and chastened clothing, such as it is your custom to wear. He has always seen me with a gray bowler, a light suit, white spats, and a distinctive necktie. He expects to see me to-morrow afternoon, because I borrowed an umbrella there to-day, and said I would bring it back then. All you have to do is to wear my clothes, and hand in that umbrella. He will expect to see me. He will actually see my clothes on a man of about my figure. The hall at the Hammonds’ house is rather dark, and you will have the sun behind you. It’s quite certain the man will be mistaken.”
‘It was tried and happened as I had foretold. The butler addressed Fraser as Sir Charles.’
‘But how did you manage about the photograph?’
‘That was done by means of a bet. Old Mitten is a great believer in system, and has his own infallible method for cataloguing photographic negatives so that a mistake is impossible. I chaffed him about it and told him that I would cause him to enter two lots of negatives wrongly. I offered to bet a sovereign on it and he accepted with avidity. I then settled with Fraser what we would do. Fraser booked an appointment with the photographer for the morning that I left for London, and I booked another for myself in the afternoon, the appointments being made by post. I kept Fraser’s appointment just before I left for the station, and Fraser kept mine in the afternoon after he had finished with Hammond’s butler. Mitten found out what had been done, of course, catalogued the negatives correctly, and has collected his sovereign. But I understand that he has not informed his employer, on the ground that the employer dislikes larks. The entries in the appointment book remain as they were. So that it is on record that I was photographed in the afternoon, though the photographic negatives entered under my name are really those taken from me in the morning.’
‘This,’ said the chairman, ‘is the most elaborate attempt we have had. Nobody else claims to have been seen in two places at the same time. I do not say that the evidence is perfect, but then the evidence of an alibi must always have a hole in it somewhere. Does anybody claim to have beaten it? Nobody? Then I have no hesitation in deciding in Sir Charles’s favour, and I congratulate him on the distinction—which, so far, has been held by Mr Pusely-Smythe alone—of winning the prize on two successive occasions.’
The next problem was now read out. It was entitled ‘The Threepenny Problem,’ and ran as follows: ‘It is required to offer a half-crown for a threepenny bus-fare, and to receive the change wholly in threepenny bits. No gift or promise of a gift may be made to the conductor to induce him to give the change in this form.’
‘That’s the easiest we’ve ever had,’ grumbled Major Byles. ‘So, of course, it’s my turn to be in the chair, and I can’t compete.’