The Spirit Murder Mystery

by Robin Forsythe

  “It doesn’t seem feasible, but anything can happen in Suffolk, if you ask me. As for being seen by someone in the village, as a matter of fact, he was seen in Yarham at about eleven o’clock.”

  “I’m glad I’ve squeezed that out of you. I hadn’t heard it. Who saw Thurlow, revolver in hand, in full cry after his man?”

  “Orton and his man, Joe Battrum, saw him get into a car on the road skirting the village green, at eleven o’clock on the night he disappeared.”

  “This is all very confusing, Heather. Was he wearing his cap?”

  “Yes, but he hadn’t got a revolver in his hand, and he wasn’t chasing anyone. He was apparently waiting for the car, because he was quietly pacing up and down the road just near the war memorial. He didn’t seem to be excited about anything. Battrum says he bade Mr. Thurlow good-night. Thurlow returned the greeting and said it looked as if the rain the farmers were praying for was as far away as ever. What do you make of that?”

  “It convinces me that he didn’t get out of the window at Old Hall Farm.”

  “What has the window got to do with it?” asked Heather.

  “Let me explain. If Thurlow was seen in the village, pacing up and down the road at eleven o’clock, it appears that he was waiting for the car that eventually picked him up. Therefore he had an appointment. Knowing that he had an appointment, he’d give himself time to keep it; and even if he’d cut things fine, he wouldn’t have left the house by the window. It also clearly shows that he heard no prowler outside while he was sitting in his study, and that there was, therefore, no chase.”

  “You’re improving, Mr. Vereker. That’s just how I’ve figured it out. He had plenty of time to get his revolver, put on his cap, and then walk straight through the wall of the house without bothering to unlock the door.”

  “Those locked doors are a bit of a snag, Heather!” exclaimed Vereker with a laugh. “Miss Thurlow, who is a spiritualist, gets round the difficulty with consummate ease. She hints that it’s possible for a human being to dematerialize, pass through a brick wall, and then re-assemble his component parts outside!”

  “Great Scott, and I’ve got to interview and question the young lady yet! Of all the damned nonsense...”

  “Now, now, Heather, don’t lose your wool. Try and get a prettier solution if you can. But to return to Mr. Clarry Martin; what does the doctor think he died of?”

  “He doesn’t know. Says the post mortem shows no sign, and nothing very characteristic except dark venous blood. It looks like apoplexy, but he wouldn’t be sure. To all appearances, the man died without a struggle, which seems extraordinary in conjunction with the fact that he was bound hand and foot.”

  “He might have died of shock, but I think we can rule that out. He was, as far as I can judge, a strong, healthy man. Miss Thurlow is again helpful on the subject. She thinks that an evil spirit may have killed her uncle. Possibly the spirit accounted for Martin, too. A spirit would kill a man in a mysterious way, I should say.”

  “Spirits be damned, Mr. Vereker!” exclaimed Heather.

  “I agree. Beer is best! But there’s one more point that’s intriguing. Thurlow disappeared on Monday night; Martin, the previous Friday. Their bodies were found at Cobbler’s Corner on Wednesday morning. What were the two men doing in the interval? I’m presuming that the bodies were not at Cobbler’s Corner on Tuesday morning.”

  “Mr. Ephraim Noy says he crossed that bit of waste land on Tuesday afternoon, and they were not there then. Again, when Martin left his parents’ house on Friday evening, he was carrying a small attaché case. That attaché case must be searched for as well as Thurlow’s cap.”

  “This fellow Ephraim Noy gets more important every moment. According to Miss Thurlow, her uncle evidently knew Noy before the latter came to Yarham. It was shortly after Noy’s arrival in the district that her uncle bought a revolver. This seems significant to me, Heather.”

  “Thank heaven, she didn’t drag out her spooks to explain that point,” remarked Heather with relief. “I was afraid you were going to give me another visitation. I don’t like this marked enthusiasm for spectres, Mr. Vereker; looks uncommonly like a red herring. Are you certain the lady isn’t anxious to mislead us?”

  “Almost certain. She’s genuine enough, I think, though certainly a strange mixture. But I’m going to keep my eye on Ephraim Noy.”

  “That’s advisable. He’s a dark horse. Nobody here seems to know much about him from what I can gather. But I’m not too comfortable about Miss Thurlow. She’s an enigma and I never trust enigmas.”

  For some minutes the two men sat in silence, and then Heather suddenly exclaimed in a tone of exasperation: “My memory’s going, Mr. Vereker. It’s about time I retired and settled down to breeding Rhode Island Reds.”

  “Perhaps another pint would help it,” suggested Vereker amiably.

  “Now, I’d even forgotten that!” remarked Heather as he rose and left the room. He returned with two mugs of beer.

  “What were you trying to remember?” asked Vereker, when the inspector had again settled down in his easy chair.

  “I was trying to recollect where and in what connection I’d met the man Runnacles before. I’ve been ransacking my brain ever since I set eyes on him.”

  “Runnacles? You’re surely not going to put Runnacles in your list of suspects?”

  “Ah, that’s where experience is so much better than intuition, Mr. Vereker. I’ve met the man Runnacles before, but where and how, I can’t remember. He has been through our hands. It’ll come back to me before to-morrow morning.”

  “In a detective yarn you could put your shirt on Runnacles as the villain, for he’s the Most Unlikely Person, but we’re not dealing with fiction, Heather. A simple, honest gardener, a prisoner of the flowers, a high priest in the temple of Flora!”

  “You mustn’t harbour any illusions about gardeners, Mr. Vereker. There’s the making of a villain in every good horticulturist. A man who can plant bulbs in the autumn and wait till the spring of the following year to see them bloom, is a determined and ruthless fellow. He can wait for revenge cunningly and patiently. And if you think a gardener’s boss eats the best melons and peaches, and that the boss’s vegetables can’t be conjured into cash on the quiet, you’re a harmless and credulous idealist!”

  “You’re not joking about Runnacles, Heather?” asked Vereker seriously.

  “No. When I remember his past connection with me, I’ll let you know so that you can keep your weather eye on him.”

  “Good. Now you’ve not said a word about the iron bar, or fold-drift, which was found between the dead bodies, and which was certainly used to smash Thurlow’s skull. The police will have examined it carefully.”

  “How d’you know it was the weapon used, Mr. Vereker?”

  “While I was in charge at Cobbler’s Corner, I examined it very carefully without touching it in any way. There was blood and hair adhering to one end of it. I should say the hair was Thurlow’s. But what I want to know is, were there any finger prints on it?”

  Inspector Heather allowed himself to smile as mysteriously as his good-natured face would permit.

  “No, not a finger print on it,” he replied.

  “This is dramatic evidence, Heather, most dramatic! Thanks for the information, and in return I must tell you that the business end of the bar was covered with chalk. It had certainly been thrust into chalk.”

  “I had taken a note of that, but don’t see where it leads to.”

  “I hope it’ll help to lead us to a solution of the crime, but perhaps that’s being a bit sanguine at the present moment. That iron bar drives me back to the subject of spirits, Heather. This afternoon, Miss Thurlow invited me to a stance with her. She wants to convince me that the spirit music she spoke of at our first meeting, was not sheer bunkum. I’ve promised to attend. At the same time, she suggested that perhaps you’d like to be present, too.”

  “What?” roared the inspector. “Spirit musi
c? I’d rather listen to a spoon slapper. Never, sir, never! The police attended a stance on one historic occasion in a south coast town. It was in connection with a murder. I heard all about it, and that was enough for me. I leave stances to people with more leisure than intelligence.”

  “I hinted that you were an unbeliever and might prove a hindrance to any manifestation, so Miss Thurlow left the invitation to my discretion.”

  “Then you can exercise it at once against me. No doubt you’ve done so already, because, if you’re going to sit and hold the charming medium’s hands, you don’t want me to start giggling when the lights are switched off. Dear, oh dear, this case is getting me down. At every turn of my investigation, I’m confronted with a gibbering spook!”

  “Then there’s something else about spooks that you haven’t divulged yet, Heather,” remarked Vereker. “Out with it like a man.”

  “There is, but knowing your weakness, I couldn’t for the life of me keep it to myself. In one of the pockets of Martin’s jacket was found a piece of paper. It was evidently part of a note written to him. The remainder of the note probably went to light his pipe. I made a rough drawing of the fragment. I’m sure you’d like to see it.”

  With these words, Inspector Heather produced from his pocket-book half a sheet of notepaper and handed it to his companion. On that half sheet of paper was the following sketch:

  Vereker examined the sketch carefully, read the inscription on it, and burst into hearty laughter.

  “It’s no use trying to dodge ’em, Heather. You can’t evade ghosts in any case, and it looks as if they’re going to play a big part in this mystery. The air here is full of them.”

  “What do you make of it, Mr. Vereker? It conveys absolutely nothing to me. Looks as if we’d wandered into Pandemonium instead of Suffolk.”

  “It’s a fragment of a note from a pal to Martin ...” commenced Vereker.

  “You don’t mean to say so,” interrupted Heather ironically.

  “A fragment of a note,” continued Vereker, “from a pal to Martin, telling him all about a spiritualistic séance that he had attended. Let’s reconstruct it at a venture. It strikes me as rather a simple exercise in guesswork.

  “‘Dear Clarry. The spirit taps at our séance began as soon as the lights were extinguished. The curtains of the cabinet blew out straight, though the windows and doors of the room were sealed. Finally a waste-paper basket, on the table near the cabinet, was lifted and thrown on the floor; a hand-bell was rung; and a soap box was broken over the head of an unsympathetic member of the circle!’”

  “God help us!” exclaimed the inspector.

  “That’s just a preliminary scamper, so to speak, Heather. I’ll be able to sub-edit that and fit it into a scheme of things.”

  “This is not criminal investigation; it’s a jig-saw puzzle,” commented Heather, and consoled himself with a draught of beer.

  “But you don’t mean to tell me that this fragment of paper hasn’t revealed something to you already?” asked Vereker seriously.

  “Nothing as yet. It may be in code. That’s my impression, and till we get hold of the code, it’ll simply remain damned nonsense.”

  “Of course it may be in code, Heather, but I don’t think so. A message between two persons would almost certainly follow one of the ordinary systems of what is called cryptography, or cipher writing. Most systems are based on two methods, namely, the transposition of letters, and the substitution of letters. A key-word is all that is necessary for the receiver to decipher the message. This note is in actual words and not in groups of letters without meaning, except to the initiated. It might, however, be in what is called lexicon cipher. The correspondents have copies of the same dictionary, of which the pages are divided into two columns of words. The key to a word in the letter is the word opposite it in the adjacent column of the dictionary,”

  “I don’t know anything about the subject, but what about Bentley’s code, which is used by commercial houses?”

  ‘‘Yes, Heather, I know, but Bentley’s is a code for saving telegraphic and cable expenses. Anyone with a Bentley in his pocket can decipher the message. No, I’m almost certain it’s a straightforward message in intelligible English. What we want is the remainder of the message.”

  “Well, that’s something to be thankful for. But what d’you make of it? You seem to be an expert in these matters.”

  “So far I can make nothing of it, except that there’s something shady about it.”

  “Shady’s the right word!” commented Heather with a twinkle in his eyes.

  “You’re brightening up under the effects of our Suffolk brew, Inspector. But I wasn’t punning. Apart from spirits, there’s something distinctly shady about that note, and we must bear it in mind.”

  “What is there about it that strikes you as peculiar?” asked Heather.

  “Before answering you, I must ask if your sketch of the fragment of paper and the writing is facsimile.”

  “Yes, as near as I could get it in a hurry.”

  “Well, even if it’s not in code, it shows that the writer wrote his note in block capitals. Either he was determined that there should be no difficulty about reading his message, or he was attempting to conceal his ordinary handwriting. I’m inclined to think the latter.”

  “That’s a toss-up. Why should he want to conceal his handwriting?”

  “I know no more than you; just an intuition again. But there are a few things I’d like to be clear about, Heather, before I start serious work to-morrow morning. First, has the doctor expressed his opinion about the times when death occurred to the two men?”

  “Not definitely, but he thinks that Martin had been dead about three days, and Thurlow about twenty-four hours prior to the alleged time of their discovery by Noy. Mark the word, alleged!”

  “Good. About the case Martin was carrying when he set out from home on the previous Friday; was the case empty? If not, do you know what it contained?”

  “No, and I don’t suppose we’ll find out till we find the case.”

  “His parents didn’t know where he was going?”

  “So they told Inspector Winter. Martin said he might be rather late returning home and they were not to sit up for him, but he didn’t say whom he was going to see, or what his business was. He was always rather secretive, and his parents never pressed him with questions.”

  “I must probe a little further into these details; they look promising. I’ve told you, Heather, about the chalk sticking to Thurlow’s shoes. Well, there was a considerable amount of clay adhering to Martin’s boots. The weather has been very dry, and yet that clay was certainly very moist when the man trod in it. I detached a small fragment from the arch of the boot, between heel and sole, and I’ve examined it very carefully.”

  “What secret did it give up?”

  “The fragment was composed of clay with traces of chalk, but imbedded in the mixture was one barley-corn.”

  “I hope you christened it ‘John,’” said Heather with a grin, “for there are acres of barley about.”

  “I certainly will; it would be appropriate. I’m glad to see you cheering up, Inspector. But to continue; was there anything about the state of the men’s clothes that struck you as remarkable?”

  “They were filthy. Anyone would think that both had been rolling about in pig-wash.”

  “Exactly, and there was no evading the curious smell of that pig-wash, or whatever it was. That fact might suggest that there had been a desperate struggle, but from the nature of the wounds and the absence of any other sign of a scuffle, I don’t think we can infer that either had struggled before being killed. On the elbow of Martin’s jacket, moreover, there was some yellowish substance which might be informative, if we could make out its nature.”

  “Come now, Mr. Vereker, own up. You’ve guessed what that stuff is.”

  “I’ve a shrewd idea, but your laboratories at Hendon will certainly put you wise on the point, unless you know alr
eady.”

  “No, I don’t, but talking of Martin, there’s one important thing I’ve forgotten to mention. The doctor says he had punished quite a lot of whisky, and may have been drunk when he passed out.”

  “Ah, that’s significant. It would account for the absence of any sign of a struggle before he died. It might also account for his getting his clothes in such a mess. The explanation doesn’t apply to Thurlow. He was, I hear, practically a teetotaller. But who was the last person to see Martin? I hear that he was seen with George Mobbs, the baker, outside this inn about ten o’clock at night. They had evidently met earlier, spent the evening here, and then Martin had gone about his business. Nobody seems to have seen him after that. Where did he go to?”

  “Don’t ask me,” murmured the inspector.

  “There’s only one explanation, Heather,” continued Vereker with a furtive smile. “He, too, must have vanished into thin air—dematerialized.”

  “What with spirit rapping and ghostly music and soap boxes smashed and decomposition, or whatever you call it, I’m getting tied up in knots!”

  “That’s because you’re a shocking materialist, Heather. You really must change your whole mental attitude to this business. The case is a special one, and you must adapt yourself to it. It would do you good to read my old friend Emerson’s essay, called ‘The Transcendentalism’. I always keep one of Ralph Waldo’s volumes in my pocket; it makes a splendid pillow book. Listen to what he says. ‘The materialist, secure in the certainty of sensation, mocks at fine-spun theories, at star-gazers and dreamers, and believes that life is solid... the idealist, in speaking of events, sees them as spirits...’”

  “One minute, Mr. Vereker, I’ll just finish my beer,” interrupted Heather, and putting his empty mug down on the table, added, “I’ll see you sometime to-morrow. Good-night!”