Case with Ropes and Rings

by Bruce, Leo

  “Yes,” said Stute, “red and yellow, weren’t they?”

  “They were,” said Beef, “but they were nothing to do with Spain. Don’t you remember what Jones always had round his neck?”

  “Great heavens!” I exclaimed. “The Marylebone Cricket Club tie! Surely he wouldn’t have used that? The man must be an absolute cad!”

  “That’s what he did use,” said Beef, “sure as eggs is eggs. He got it round the young fellow’s neck from behind and strangled him. And that’s how you came to find those threads and to think it had been done by a follower of General Franco.”

  “What was the other clue?” I asked.

  “That scrap of paper which Seedy found on the floor.”

  “But that was in Spanish,” I pointed out.

  “Yes,” said Beef, “with a mistake in it, as they told us at the café. ‘La vita es sueño’ it said, and if the Spanish had been correct it would have been ‘La vida es sueño,’ or so they told me when I enquired. Now on the piece of paper we found the word which had been incorrectly spelt had been underlined in red. Why? Because it had been corrected. Because it was part of a boy’s exercise. Because,” Beef almost shouted, “Herbert Jones was a modern language master at Penshurst School.”

  I did not speak for a moment, but sat watching the boyish pleasure in the Sergeant’s face.

  “Easy when you’re told, isn’t it?” he went on more calmly. “But, of course, the crowning evidence was that key I found in one of his pockets.”

  “But you said that was the key of the gymnasium,” I ventured.

  “So it was,” agreed Beef, “but I didn’t say which gymnasium key, did I? It was you who jumped to conclusions. Why should you suppose that Jones had a key of the school gymnasium? No, he did it all right. Beecher’s sister saw him with her brother only a fortnight before, and that’s why I took Rosa along to identify Jones in Brixton Gaol. No wonder the man was going off his head. No wonder he could say how Lord Alan Foulkes had been strangled. No wonder he confessed to being guilty.”

  “Then you never suspected the Spaniards at all?”

  “No, of course not,” said Beef, “I guessed it was the boy’s father who came and spoke to us, and when I picked him out in the café, after seeing his wedding photo on the wall, I knew there was nothing in that. I dare say we shall pick up some more little odds and ends of evidence as time goes on, and Inspector Stute will get out his microscope, his finger-print experts and all his gadgets and contrivances they keep at Scotland Yard for finding out who’s done what. But there you are. Old Beef’s done it again, and you can write your book, Townsend. And you, Inspector”—he smiled in a friendly way to Stute—“have got your men under lock and key already. All you’ll have to do is to swop the charge sheets.”

  Stute nodded.

  “I must congratulate you again,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” said Beef. “I’ve enjoyed this case. Being a school porter and that. I like anything in the way of new experience.”

  And he shouted to Mrs. Beef to join us for a glass of beer.