Case with Ropes and Rings by Bruce Leo;

Author:Bruce, Leo;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2018-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

14

But any chance that Beef may have hoped to have for peaceful thinking was quickly dissipated by the news with which my brother met us at his house.

“Have you seen this?” he said, with an assumption of carelessness as he threw down on the table a copy of an evening paper. Beef picked it up and I looked over his shoulder. There was not a great deal of space devoted to the matter, and the headlines were not imposing, but to us the material was of the greatest interest.

It appeared that a young professional boxer called Stanley Beecher had been found hanged in a Camden Town gymnasium. What startled us were the points of similarity between this incident and the one we were examining. In the first place the two boys were of the same age; and though Beecher boxed lightweight under professional rules, and Lord Alan Foulkes had been a heavyweight at the school, there was not actually much difference in their weights. Then again, the thing had been done at night, and in each case had followed a boxing match. A gymnasium had been the scene of both tragedies. It was impossible not to conclude that the two cases had some connection, though the great difference in background and in the social status of the boys concerned made it difficult to guess what link there could possibly be. I pointed out this remarkable parallel to Beef.

“There mightn’t be anything in that,” he said rather sulkily. “Whenever you have one of these cases there’s always ten that follow it. When you read in the papers of some poor lad who has tied himself up with ropes and is found next morning by his father, there’s nearly always a lot more boys doing the same after they’ve read about it.”

“Why?” I said.

“Don’t ask me. You’re the psychologist,” returned Beef.

“So you think this is nothing more than a suicide by a young man who has read the case we’re investigating?”

“Well, that’s all it might be,” said Beef.

“Still, don’t you think you ought to look into it?” I suggested. “It looks to me as though it’s the same murderer in each case. Perhaps he’s a madman with an idée fixe about boxers.”

Beef hesitated.

“I’d far rather stay here and give more thought to this business. I haven’t finished working out one case yet, not by a long chalk.”

I rashly appealed to my brother.

“Don’t you think Beef ought to go up to London?”

I might have known that his attitude would be one of priggish respect for Beef’s opinion.

“I think he should know best,” he said. “I might mention, however, that Danvers will be well enough to come on duty next week, so that it will not be easy to account for the Sergeant’s presence after that.”

“There you are,” I said. “We ought to leave at once.”

Beef shook his head.

“All you’re worried about is your book. You think a boxer in Camden Town will make a nice contrast to what we’ve got already. I know you.

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