Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery
Page 26
All that next day Joan and Susan, terror-stricken, clung to each other in the latter’s cabin. The men were reasonably civil: told them they might get themselves food, and let them alone. But that night a further terrible quarrel burst out between, as they learnt afterwards, those who wished to murder the girls and go off with the treasure and those who feared murder more than the loss of the gold. Once again there were the reports of shots and the groans of wounded men. The fusillade went on at intervals all night, until next morning one of the divers—a superior man with whom the girls had often talked—had come in with his head covered with blood, and asked the girls to bandage it. Susan had some slight surgical knowledge, and did what she could for him. Then the man told them that of the entire ship’s company only themselves and seven others were alive, and that of these seven four were so badly wounded that they would probably not recover. Among these was Blessington. Sime and James Dangle were dead.
The slightly injured men threw the dead overboard and cleaned up the traces of the fighting, while the girls ministered to the seriously wounded. Of these, in the three days up till the arrival of the avengers—who had by a strange trick of fate become the rescuers—one man had died. Of the eight-and-twenty who sailed from Antwerp there were therefore left only nine: the two girls and four slightly and three seriously wounded men. None of those able to move understood either engineering or seamanship, so that they had luckily decided to remain at anchor in the hope of some ship picking up their flag of distress.
‘There is just one thing I should like to understand,’ said Cheyne to Joan, when later on that day a prize crew had been put aboard the L’Escaut and steam was being raised for the return to England, ‘and that is what happened to you on the night that we burgled Earlswood. You got back to your rooms, then left again with Sime and Blessington?’
‘There’s not much to tell about that,’ Joan answered, smiling happily up into her lover’s eyes. ‘I was, as you know, standing like a watchman before the door of Earlswood, when I saw Susan and her brother coming up. I rang and knocked and kept them talking as long as possible. Then when they opened the door I slipped away, but I heard your footsteps and realised that you had got out by the back way. I heard you run off down the lane with Dangle after you, then remembering your arrangement about throwing away the tracing, I climbed over the wall, picked it up and went back to my rooms. The first thing I did was to photograph it, then I hid it in my colour box. I had scarcely done so when Sime called. He said you had met with an accident—been caught between two motor-cars and knocked down by one of them—and that you were seriously injured. He said you were conscious and had given him my address and were calling for me. I went down to find Blessington driving a car, though I didn’t know then it was Blessington. As soon as we started Sime held a chloroformed cloth over my mouth, and I don’t remember much more till we were on the L’Escaut.’
‘But how did Sime find your rooms?’
‘Through Susan. Susan told me all about it afterwards. She went out after James and saw me climbing over the wall with the tracing. She followed me to my rooms and immediately telephoned to Sime. When Sime called she was with him, and while I changed my coat Sime let her into the studio and she hid behind an easel until we were gone. She searched till she found the tracing and then simply walked out. The gang had intended to go to Antwerp the following week in any case, but this business upset their plans and they decided to start immediately. Dangle went on and arranged for the L’Escaut to leave some days earlier. The rest of us put up at Ghent till she was ready to sail.’
But little further remains to be told. The few bars of gold still left on the Silurian were soon raised and the two ships set sail, reaching Chatham some five days later. All the bullion theoretically belonged to the Crown, but under the special circumstance a generous division was made whereby twenty-five per cent. was returned to the finders. As Price refused to accept the whole amount an amicable agreement was come to, whereby Cheyne, Joan and Price each received almost one-third, or £200,000 apiece. Of the balance of over £20,000, £10,000 was given to Susan Dangle by Joan’s imperative directions. She said that Susan was not a bad girl and had turned up trumps during the trouble on the L’Escaut. £1000 went to Inspector French—also Joan’s gift, and the remainder was divided among the officers and men of the Admiralty salvage boat.
A few days after landing Maxwell Cheyne and Joan Merrill had occasion to pay a short visit to the Church of St Margaret’s in the Fields, after which Cheyne whirled his wife away to Devonshire, so that she might make the acquaintance of his family and see the country where began that strange series of events which in the beginning of the story I alluded to as MAXWELL CHEYNE’S ADVENTURE.
By the same author
Inspector French’s Greatest Case
At the offices of the Hatton Garden diamond merchant Duke & Peabody, the body of old Mr Gething is discovered beside a now-empty safe. With multiple suspects, the robbery and murder is clearly the work of a master criminal, and requires a master detective to solve it. Meticulous as ever, Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard embarks on an investigation that takes him from the streets of London to Holland, France and Spain, and finally to a ship bound for South America …
‘Because he is so austerely realistic, Freeman Wills Croft is deservedly a first favourite with all who want a real puzzle.’
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
By the same author
Inspector French and the Starvel Hollow Tragedy
A chance invitation from friends saves Ruth Averill’s life on the night her uncle’s old house in Starvel Hollow is consumed by fire, killing him and incinerating the fortune he kept in cash. Dismissed at the inquest as a tragic accident, the case is closed—until Scotland Yard is alerted to the circulation of bank-notes supposedly destroyed in the inferno. Inspector Joseph French suspects that dark deeds were done in the Hollow that night and begins to uncover a brutal crime involving arson, murder and body snatching …
‘Freeman Wills Crofts is the only author who gives us intricate crime in fiction as it might really be, and not as the irreflective would like it to be.’
OBSERVER
By the same author
Inspector French and the Sea Mystery
Off the coast of Burry Port in south Wales, two fishermen discover a shipping crate and manage to haul it ashore. Inside is the decomposing body of a brutally murdered man. With nothing to indicate who he is or where it came from, the local police decide to call in Scotland Yard. Fortunately Inspector Joseph French does not believe in insoluble cases—there are always clues to be found if you know what to look for. Testing his theories with his accustomed thoroughness, French’s ingenuity sets him off on another investigation …
‘Inspector French is as near the real thing as any sleuth in fiction.’
SUNDAY TIMES
About the Author
Freeman Wills Crofts (1879–1957), the son of an army doctor who died before he was born, was raised in Northern Ireland and became a civil engineer on the railways. His first book, The Cask, written in 1919 during a long illness, was published in the summer of 1920, immediately establishing him as a new master of detective fiction. Regularly outselling Agatha Christie, it was with his fifth book that Crofts introduced his iconic Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Joseph French, who would feature in no less than thirty books over the next three decades. He was a founder member of the Detection Club and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1939. Continually praised for his ingenious plotting and meticulous attention to detail—including the intricacies of railway timetables—Crofts was once dubbed ‘The King of Detective Story Writers’ and described by Raymond Chandler as ‘the soundest builder of them all’.
Also in this Series
Inspector French’s Greatest Case
Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery
Inspector French and the Starvel Hollow Tragedy
Inspector French and the Sea
Mystery
Inspector French and the Box Office Murders
Inspector French and Sir John Magill’s Last Journey
By the same author
The Cask
The Ponson Case
The Pit-Prop Syndicate
The Groote Park Murder
Six Against the Yard*
The Anatomy of Murder*
*with other Detection Club authors
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