Beyond the Squire’s own suggestion, that it must be someone whom he had offended, there was no imaginable motive for such an inhuman deed.
But it was difficult to accept the distracted father’s theory.
No sound had been heard during the night. The child had not uttered a cry, as it was almost certain that he would have done when he found himself being carried through the house in the dead of night by a stranger.
A dog was left loose in the grounds at night to protect the house, a lonely one, against burglars.
The dog had not barked.
The dining-room door, and the window that gave access to the grounds were found a little open when the servants came down. They had been carefully fastened the night before. But there was not the slightest evidence that the window had been forced from the outside.
The suspicion of the police was at once centred on the occupants of the house, but their first investigation failed to furnish them with a clue. It seemed impossible that any one of them could be guilty of such a deed.
“That,” said John Chance, as I returned the MS to him, “is as far as my friend had written. But that is just how matters stood when I accompanied one of the cleverest detectives of Scotland Yard to Farley Royal to assist him in unravelling the tangled thread.
“And tangled it certainly was.
“When we arrived on the scene we found not only the villagers but the people of the neighbouring town, had pretty well made up their minds.
“Some suspected the Squire, and others were strongly convinced that the maid, Alice Lee, was the guilty party.
“My superior officer—I was not an inspector then—took charge of the investigation in the house, and left me to ramble the village and make my own outside inquiries. But every night we met, and compared notes.
“Mr West had been married twice. His family consisted of his second wife and seven children—four by his first marriage. Of these, the two elder were not living at home. The two younger—Madeleine, a girl of sixteen, and Edward, a boy of fourteen—had just returned from boarding-school. The children of the second marriage were two little girls and Eric, the four-year-old boy with whose tragic fate all England was ringing.
“All the occupants of the house on the night of the tragedy, including even the unhappy mother had been subjected to a searching examination before we arrived. Not a trace of blood had been found on any particle of clothing in the possession of any member of the household.
“My Chief had made particular inquiries about a missing nightdress belonging to Miss Madeleine.
“But this had been accounted for. It was proved that this young lady and her mother had, before my Chief investigated the matter, been making inquiries of the laundress concerning its disappearance.
“A maid distinctly remembered putting it with the washing the day after the crime was committed and sending it to the laundress.
“It was in consequence of the laundress failing to return it that she was reprimanded by Mrs West for losing it.
“When we took charge of the case there was already a public clamour that Mr West and the nurse should be arrested.
“The conclusion at which certain people had arrived was that there was an intrigue between the Squire and the nurse, who was an attractive-looking girl, and that something had happened which might have led to the boy—who was alleged to have been in the habit of carrying tales to his mother—betraying their secret.
“The questions that were being asked to the Squire’s detriment were these:
“Why did he order his carriage and drive the long distance to Brentbridge when there was a policeman much nearer?
“The route taken by the carriage lay through open country. He might while driving—he drove a pony carriage and was alone—have disposed of the weapon and other incriminating evidence against himself.
“Why had he not shown the slightest indignation against the nurse, who had allowed the boy to be taken away from the room in which she slept?
“Why, instead of suspecting her, did he defend her when it was hinted that things looked black against her?
“The points urged against the nurse, Alice Lee, were these:
“How could the child have been taken from the bed without her knowledge?
“It was proved that the door-handle of the bedroom creaked. If a strange person entered the room in the silence of the night why did she not hear it?
“Why, when she acknowledged that she missed the child when she woke at six, did she wait till seven o’clock before she knocked at her mistress’s door to inquire ‘if Master Eric was with her’?
“My Chief, having certain ideas of his own, ignored the local theory, but his views were over-ruled. By order of the local superintendent, Alice Lee was arrested and taken before the magistrates.
“But beyond the suspicion entertained by the general public there was nothing to go upon. Not an atom of real evidence could be produced and the girl was discharged.
“The local police had blundered, and blundered badly. Scotland Yard was now upon its mettle.
“The arrest and discharge of the nurse had raised popular excitement to fever-heat. The whole country had taken up the mystery of a midsummer night, and our failure to furnish a clue to it was being hotly discussed in the Press. Into the London papers a torrent of correspondence was pouring, and the Times had a leader on the subject.
“That someone in the house was guilty I felt certain. No stranger to the place could have passed the dog who was loose in the grounds. It was a savage animal, and would bark fiercely even if it did not attack a midnight intruder. The only possible theory as to motive so far was the one that incriminated the Squire and the pretty nursemaid.
“‘Who will give us the clue?’ said the Brentbridge officer one day when we had all met together, discussing the situation.
“‘Chance,’ replied my Chief, looking at me encouragingly. He had enormous faith in me, you see—but it was a faith which up to that time I had unfortunately not justified.
“The local officer shrugged his shoulders. ‘Chance does not come into this case,’ he said; ‘I am convinced that I arrested the guilty party in Alice Lee. If the magistrates had been wise they would have given a long remand. As it is she is free, and has left the neighbourhood.’
“‘She has gone to stay with her father in London,’ I urged; ‘you can always arrest her again.’
“‘I shall,’ was the reply, ‘and at the first opportunity.’
***
“That evening I dropped into the village alehouse. I wanted to distract my thoughts by listening to the gossip of the village worthies.
“The talk, as I anticipated it would, soon turned upon the tragedy, and the villagers presently fell to discussing the different members of the family.
“‘Ay,’ said one old fellow, ‘it’s my belief as all the Wests be more or less mad.’
“‘What have they done,’ I asked, ‘to make you think that?’
“‘Well—the first Mrs West was in a ’sylum onst, I’ve heerd; and Miss Madeleine her daughter, ha’ done some queer things. Do you remember, Willum,’ he said, turning to the local butcher, ‘when her and Master Ed’ard run away dressed up, and went to a hotel at Bath?’
“‘Ran away,’ I said, ‘and dressed up?’
“‘Yes—you see, they didn’t hit it off somehows with their stepmother; leastways, Miss Madeleine didn’t—and she could always do as she liked with her brother. You wouldn’t believe as one fine day she got some of his clothes and dressed herself up as a boy. Then she cut off her long hair, and she and him run away and got to Bath, and went to the hotel and asked for rooms for the night, as bold as brass.’
“‘Really!’
“‘Yes, they did. But the landlord, he see as they hadn’t got no luggage, and he couldn’t make ’em out; so he calls the landlady in, a
nd she hadn’t looked at the young gentleman with the ’acked hair a minute afore she says, “Young gentleman, you’re a gal.”
“‘Then the boy got frightened, and he owned up as the other boy was his sister; and the landlord found out who they was, and he wired to Squire, and Squire went and fetched ’em back.’
“‘Yes,’ struck in the landlord of the inn, turning to me, ‘it’s gospel true, but there’s one thing as Mr Peters ain’t told you. When they was a-wondering what on earth Miss Madeleine could ha’ done with her hair as she’d cut off she owned up and told ’em. She’d put it into a tin and thrown it into the vault in that there disused outhouse in the shrubbery, the same place as the poor little chap’s body was found in.’
“I waited till the house closed at ten o’clock—I wanted to hear anything more that might be said—and then I went straight to my Chief’s lodgings.
“‘We’ve got it,’ I cried, as I entered his room.
“‘Got what?’
“The clue. Four years ago, Madeleine West ran away from home because she hated her stepmother. She dressed up as a boy, cut off her hair and hid it in the vault in the outhouse in the shrubbery. The murderer of little Eric West is his half-sister, Madeleine. She killed him because she hated her stepmother, and she concealed the body in the old hiding-place—the one she had used before.’
“My Chief grasped my hand. ‘Chance!’ he exclaimed. ‘I knew that sooner or later you would find the clue. And you have.’
“‘You accept it?’ I said gleefully.
“‘Accept it? Of course I do—it only strengthens my own suspicions of the girl. I’ve never been satisfied with her explanation of the missing nightdress.’
“‘Let us put the two things together,’ I said. ‘If Madeleine committed the crime her nightdress would be blood-stained. There’s a nightdress she cannot account for. It has been lost in the wash, she says—but the laundress denies ever having received it. The boy is found in an unfrequented part of the grounds in a vault the girl had used once before, to hide incriminating evidence—the evidence of her flight. The motive of the murder is the motive of that flight: Hatred of her stepmother and jealousy of the boy, who was her father’s favourite. That is motive enough for a girl whose mother was once in an asylum. What are you going to do?’
“‘Tomorrow I shall arrest Madeleine West.’
***
“My Chief was as good as his word. The next day he arrested Madeleine West and took her to Brentbridge.
“The clue that I had given him was not evidence, and he made no reference to it. His main point was the missing nightdress. Madeleine West was remanded for a week, during which time she was kept in jail. When she next appeared in court, the housemaid swore the missing nightdress was put in the basket, and the laundress swore that if it was, she never received it.
“But this time it was Scotland Yard that was credited with having made a false move. The magistrate, after hearing the evidence, discharged the girl on her father’s undertaking to bring her up again ‘if called upon.’ Then the Temperance Hall, in which the inquiry had been held, rang with the applause of the public.
“As I left the court, I saw my Chief. I turned to him anxiously, and said, ‘Do you still believe that I gave you the clue?’
“He looked me straight in the eyes, ‘I am sure,’ he answered.
“But I had done him a bad turn. The next day he paid the penalty for his ‘false move’ by being taken off the case and recalled to the Yard, and I returned with him.
***
“With the failure of the second arrest in the Farley Royal mystery, the task of the police was practically over. The inquiry was carried on by the Press and the public. In the last leading article written on the subject before the excitement died down, the writer thus summed up the situation:
“‘Mr West has explained all his actions that were suspicious; Madeleine West has told her story. The charge against her was an imprudence: that against the nurse, Alice Lee, an injustice. The truth concerning the murder of little Eric West is locked up in the conscience of its perpetrator and the judgment-book of Heaven.’
“It was the conscience of its perpetrator that revealed it at last.
“Four years later, Madeleine West made a voluntary confession.
“She had entered a religious retreat, and one day she laid her guilty soul bare to a priest. This is the story as she told it. She had taken one of her father’s razors from his drawer, some days before the date of the murder. Shortly after midnight she had stolen into the nurse’s room, taken the sleeping child from its bed, withdrawn the blanket to wrap it in, passed through the dining-room, opened the window, and gone out into the grounds with only her nightdress on, but with goloshes on her feet because they made no noise. She had remembered that she had once hidden her hair where nobody found it, till she told the searchers where to look. Remembering this, she had carried the boy to the disused outhouse, behind the shrubbery, and killed him there.
“While her father was away in search of the police she had cleaned the razor and replaced it in his case. The missing nightdress was not the one she wore. That she had burnt. But it left her with only five, and she knew she would have to account for six. So she put out the one she was wearing to go with the soiled linen to the laundress.
“When it had been entered on the washing-list, she managed to get it out of the basket again. In this way she was able to produce five out of her six nightdresses, and to rely on the evidence of the maid to prove that the sixth had gone to the wash.
“On the day that Madeleine West was found guilty—the capital sentence was afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life—my old Chief, then retired, was in court. As we came out together he grasped my hand.
“‘Chance,’ he said, ‘my belief in your clue was never shaken. I knew that you were right.’
***
“That,” said my friend Inspector Chance. “is the story of the tragedy at Farley Royal. The truth came to light at last, but one terrible idea has always haunted me in connection with it.
“If Madeleine West in putting back her father’s razor had left upon it a single mark that could have connected it with the deed, what might the end of my story have been?”
The Cleverest Clue
Laurence W. Meynell
The crime writing career of Leonard Walter Meynell (1899–1989) lasted for sixty years. He also wrote biographies, books about cricket and topography, and stories for children. Most of his work appeared under his own name, but he also used pseudonyms such as Valerie Baxter, Robert Eton, Geoffrey Ludlow, and A. Stephen Tring. His fiction was adapted for film half a dozen times, with the noted director Michael Powell responsible for The Crown versus Stevens, based on Third Time Unlucky (1935).
Meynell’s principal series character was not a police officer, but a private investigator, “Hooky” Heffernan. The critic H.R.F. Keating said that Heffernan was “a character so well-conceived that he lifts the works in which he appears into a class of their own”. Keating acknowledged that Meynell’s other books were more variable in quality and “apt to be either better or worse according to the effectiveness of their initial premise”. This brief story illustrates his ability to conjure up a simple yet pleasing plot twist.
***
A short, stocky man in rather disreputable sports coat and flannel trousers eased his back and rested on his spade. I knew who he was; but if I hadn’t known I should never have guessed that this was ex-Inspector Joseph Morton, late of the C.I.D., whose name, at one time, was almost a household one throughout England. Morton—the Pevensey murder; the extraordinary Bank of England blackmail case; the gruesome business at Ponder’s End; the “body in the boiler” affair—the names of his celebrated triumphs even now leap readily to the mind; and here he was, digging his tiny rose garden at the back of a villa in Barnes. I had been sent to get an article ou
t of him about clues. He was reputed to be pretty fierce with reporters as a rule, but I knew him a bit privately and he was all right with me.
***
“Clues?” He stretched his back wearily; I think he had done enough digging for a bit. “Here, what’s the time? Just after six? We’ll step down the road to the ‘Ship,’ unless you’ve joined one of these anti-everything leagues lately?”
I was able to reassure him on that point, and as soon as we had drunk one another’s health I prodded his memory with my cue word again.
“Clues?” he repeated, wiping his well-kept little moustache, which had more than a hint of grey in it. “Well, I suppose I’ve handled as many as most people; and, do you know, the very smartest, neatest clue I’ve ever seen in my life, I had in my hand and couldn’t make head or tail of it—didn’t know it existed even. Don’t try to hide your pencil and pad; I can see ’em. Keep your ears open, my lad, and have this pot of beer filled up for me occasionally, and I’ll tell you a yarn. Ten years ago you wouldn’t have been allowed to hear it—now it doesn’t matter. Funny how time takes the importance out of things.”
***
Well, ten years ago there was a chap called Marten Overbatch. He was a professor and had all the letters after his name you could think of. A neat, precise little man, with immaculately clean linen and pince-nez glasses. He always spoke just so, like a dictionary.
Of course, you must remember I am telling you this story the wrong way round. I am telling it to you as I subsequently found it out to be; but we can’t help that, and it’s the only way to make it intelligible, anyway.
Where were we? Marten Overbatch—yes. Well, there he was—neat, dapper, prim, precise. And, at that time, though nobody would have thought it, of the utmost importance to this country. Professor Overbatch had got an anti-aircraft device worked out in his laboratory which made all the then existing types of aeroplane worse than futile. He had a horror of war, particularly a horror of aerial warfare, and he had devoted all his extraordinary powers of research to the business of stopping it. He didn’t want to make money out of the thing; what he meant to do was to work on his invention until it was absolutely perfected and then present it holus-bolus to the Air Ministry. This country does occasionally breed lunatics like that, thank God.
The Long Arm of the Law Page 4
