Miraculous Mysteries

by Martin Edwards

  He was shown in. He was about thirty-five, well dressed, and of pleasant appearance—until you looked at his eyes, and they were about the most evil that I had ever seen in a human face.

  ‘Your name, sir?’ I asked.

  ‘Mr. Tremayne. Charles Tremayne,’ he said, giving the name of the murdered man.

  ‘Please, don’t joke on unpleasant subjects,’ I said.

  ‘I was never more serious in my life,’ he went on. ‘I’ve just been reading your excellent account of the Wireless Murder. I can tell you something else now. Charles Tremayne was not murdered at all. Here he is. I am he.’

  I simply gaped at him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, with an evil smile. ‘I had an idea that those two were anxious to get rid of me, but I honestly never thought that they were going to do it so crudely as that. When I went to Stanport that day, I had decided never to return. I saw a lawyer there to arrange for a divorce, and I had asked him to call on my wife that night and lay the situation before her. When I got her telegram I asked him to get the train she mentioned, so as to let her know why I was not returning. In fact, he kept my appointment. And, moreover, he was bearing the news that my wife would soon be free and that the two turtle doves would be free to be married. I’m very much afraid it was the lawyer who was killed in my place. He was about my build and they must have got the sack over him in the dark. Just like that scene from Rigoletto.’

  ‘Good Heavens!’ I gasped. ‘What irony! He was actually carrying those two the message that they would be free to marry, and they killed him. And now they will both have to die.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘It’s all very amusing, isn’t it?’

  And that was the last I saw of a very unpleasant gentleman. He was quite right. They had murdered the wrong man, and within a month they were both hanged for their crime. I wonder if they obtained any grain of consolation from the fact that ‘in death they were not divided’?

  The Music-Room

  Sapper

  ‘Sapper’ was the pen-name taken by Herman Cyril McNeile M.C. (1888–1937) when, during the First World War, he began to write stories for the Daily Mail which drew on his experience as a soldier. After leaving the army, he found success in 1920 with the publication of Bull-Dog Drummond, a thriller about a heroic officer who found life in peacetime intolerably dull. Drummond’s principal adversary was Carl Peterson, a master-criminal as devilish as Fu Manchu, and the Drummond thrillers remained enormously popular until the time of McNeile’s early death from cancer, which may have been attributable to his being gassed in the trenches.

  Sapper’s work fell out of favour after his death. His thrillers are characteristically flawed by jingoistic attitudes, and the poet, detective novelist, and critic Cecil Day-Lewis dismissed Drummond as ‘an unspeakable public school bully’. That said, Sapper’s occasional ventures into detective fiction are perhaps unjustly forgotten. He wrote three impossible crime mysteries, all of which feature his second-string sleuth, Ronald Standish. They include ‘The Horror at Staveley Grange’, included in the British Library anthology Murder at the Manor, as well as this story.

  ***

  ‘I’m afraid I must be terribly materialistic and dull, my dear Anne. I quite agree with you that the house ought to have a ghost, and if I could I’d order one from Harridges. But the prosaic fact remains that so far as I know we just aren’t honoured.’

  Sir John Crawsham smiled at the girl on his right and helped himself to a second glass of port.

  ‘We’ve got, I believe, a secret passage of sorts,’ he continued. ‘I’ve never bothered to look for it myself, but the legend goes that Charles the First lay hidden in it for two or three days. The only trouble about that is, that if His Majesty had hidden in all the secret rooms he is reputed to have stayed in he’d never have had time to do anything else.’

  ‘We must have a hunt for it one day, Uncle John,’ sang out his nephew David from the other end of the table.

  ‘With all the pleasure in the world, my dear boy. I’ve got a bit of doggerel about it somewhere, which I’ll look up after dinner.’

  ‘How long have you had the house, Sir John?’ asked Ronald Standish.

  ‘Two months. Incidentally, Standish, though I can’t supply a ghost, I can put up a very strange story which is more or less in your line of country.’

  ‘Really,’ said Ronald. ‘What is it?’

  Sir John pushed the decanter to his left.

  ‘It happened about forty years ago,’ he began. ‘At the time the house was empty; the tenants were abroad, the servants had either been dismissed or put on board wages. The keys were with the lodge-keeper, and two or three times a week he used to come up to open the windows and generally see that everything was all right. Well, one morning he arrived as usual and proceeded to unlock the doors of all the rooms, according to his ordinary routine. Until, to his great surprise, he came to the music-room and found that the key was missing. The door was locked but there was no key.

  ‘He searched on the floor, thinking it might have fallen out of the keyhole; no sign of it. And so after a while he went outside, got a ladder, and climbed up to look through the mullioned windows. And there, lying in the middle of the floor, he saw the body of a man.

  ‘The windows in that room are of the small diamond-paned type and are not easy to see through. But Jobson—that was the lodge-keeper’s name—realised at once that something was badly amiss and got hold of the police, who proceeded to break open the door. And there an appalling sight confronted them.

  ‘Stretched on his back in the middle of the room was a dead man. But it was the manner of his death that made the sight so terrible. The lower part of his face had literally been battered into a pulp; the assault must have been one of unbelievable ferocity. I say assault advisedly, since it was obvious at once that there could be no question of suicide or accident. It was murder, and a particularly brutal one at that. But when they’d got that far, they found things weren’t so easy.

  ‘From the doctor’s examination it appeared that the man had been dead for about thirty-six hours. Jobson had not been to the house the preceding day, and so it was clear that the crime had been committed two nights before the body was found. But how had the murderer escaped? The door, as I’ve told you, was locked on the inside, which showed that the key had been deliberately taken from the outside and placed on the in. The windows were all bolted, and a very short examination proved that it was impossible to fasten them from outside the house. Therefore the murderer could not have escaped through a window and shut it after him. How, then, had he escaped?

  ‘Wait a moment!’ Sir John laughed. ‘I know what you’re all going to say. Through the secret passage, of course. All I can tell you is that the most exhaustive search failed to reveal one. Short of actually pulling down the walls, they did everything they possibly could, so I gathered from the man who told me the yarn.’

  ‘And no trace of any weapon was found?’ remarked Ronald.

  ‘Not a sign. But apparently, from the injuries sustained, it must have been something like a crowbar.’

  ‘Was the dead man identified?’ I asked.

  ‘No. That was another strange feature of the case. He had no letters or papers on him, and his clothes proved to have been bought in a big ready-made shop in Birmingham. They found the assistant who had served him some weeks previously, but he was of no help. The man had paid on the spot and taken the clothes away with him. And that, I’m afraid, is all that I can do for you in the ghost line,’ he finished with a smile.

  ‘Did the police have no theory at all?’ asked Ronald.

  ‘They had a theory right enough,’ said Sir John. ‘Burglary was at the bottom of it; there is some vague rumour that a lot of old gold plate is hidden somewhere in the house. At any rate, the police believed that two men broke in to look for it, bringing with them a crowbar in case it sho
uld be necessary to smash down the walls. They then quarrelled, and one of them bashed the other in the face with it, killing him on the spot. And then somehow or other the murderer got away.’

  Sir John pushed back his chair.

  ‘After which gruesome contribution to the evening’s hilarity,’ he remarked, ‘who is for a game of slosh?’

  There were a dozen of us altogether in the house-party, and everyone knew everyone else fairly intimately. Our host, a good-looking man in the early fifties, was a bachelor, and his sister Mary Crawsham kept house for him. He was a man of considerable wealth, being one of the partners in Crawsham’s Cable Works. The other two were his nephews, David and Michael, sons of the late Sir Wilfred Crawsham, John’s elder brother. He had died of pneumonia five years previously, and when his will was read it was found that he had left his share of the business equally to his two sons, who were to be automatically taken into partnership with their uncle.

  As a result, the two young men found themselves at a comparatively early age in the pleasant possession of a very large income. Wilfred’s share had been considerably larger than his brother’s, and so, even when it was split into two, each half was but little less than Sir John’s portion. Fortunately, neither of them was of the type that is spoiled by wealth, and two nicer fellows it would have been hard to meet. David was the elder and quieter of the two! Michael—a harum-scarum youth, though quite shrewd when it came to business—spent most of his spare time proposing to Anne Horley, who had started the ghost conversation at dinner.

  The party was by way of being a house warming. Though Sir John had actually had the house for two months, the decorators had only just moved out finally. Extra bathrooms had been installed and the whole place had been modernised. But the work had been done well and the atmosphere of the place had been kept—particularly on the ground floor, where, so far as was possible, everything was as it had been when the house was built.

  And especially was this true of the room of the mysterious murder—the music-room, into which everyone had automatically trooped after dinner. It possessed a lofty ceiling from which there hung in the centre a large and immensely heavy chandelier. Personally, I thought it hideous, but I gathered it was genuine and valuable. It had been wired for electricity, but the main lighting effect came from lamps dotted about the room. A grand piano—Mary Crawsham was no mean performer—stood not far from the huge fire-place, on each side of which were inglenooks with their original panelling. The chairs, though in keeping, could be sat on without getting cramp; there was no carpet on the floor, but several valuable Persian rugs. Opposite the fire-place was the musicians’ gallery, reached by an old oak staircase. Facing the door were the high windows, through which Jobson had peered nearly half a century ago and seen what lay in the room.

  ‘The bloodstain is renewed every week, my dear,’ said Sir John jocularly to one of the girls.

  ‘But where exactly was the body, Uncle John?’ cried Michael.

  ‘From what I gather, right in the centre of the room. Of course, it was furnished very differently then, but there was a clear space in the middle and that was where he was lying.’

  ‘What do you make of it, Ronald?’ said David.

  ‘Good Heavens! My dear fellow, don’t ask me to solve the mystery,’ laughed Standish. ‘Things of that sort are hard enough, even when you’ve got all the clues red hot. But when they’re forty years old—’

  ‘Still, you must have some idea,’ persisted Anne Horley.

  ‘You flatter me, Anne. And I’m afraid that the only solution I can see might spoil it as well as solve it. Providing everything was exactly as Sir John told us—and you must remember it took place a long time ago—I think that the police theory is almost certainly correct as far as it goes.’

  ‘But how could the man get away?’

  ‘I am quite sure they knew how he got away, but that part has been allowed to drop so as to increase the mystery. Through the door.’

  ‘But it was locked on the inside.’

  Ronald smiled.

  ‘I should say it would take a skilled man with the right implement five minutes at the very most to lock that door from the outside, the key being on the inside. Which brings us to an interesting point. Why should he have troubled to do so? He had just killed his pal; so his first instinct would be to get away as fast as he could. Why, therefore, did he delay even five minutes? Why not lock the door from the outside and put the key in his pocket? He can’t have been concerned with staging a nice mystery for future owners of the house; his sole worry at the moment must have been to hop it as rapidly as possible.’

  He lit a cigarette.

  ‘You know, little things of that sort always annoy me until I can get, at any rate, a possible solution. Why do laundries invariably send back double-cuffed shirts with the holes for the links at least an inch apart? Why do otherwise sane people persist in believing that placing a poker upright in front of a fire causes it to draw up?’

  ‘But of course it does,’ cried Anne indignantly.

  ‘Only, my angel, because at long last you leave the fire alone and cease to poke it.’ He dodged a book thrown at his head, and continued. ‘Why did that man take the trouble to do what he did? What was in his mind? What possible purpose did he think he was serving? That, to my mind, Sir John, is the really interesting part of your problem. But then I’m afraid I’m a base materialist.’

  ‘Then you don’t think there is a secret passage at all?’ said Michael.

  ‘I won’t say that. But I think if there had been one leading out of this room, the police would have found it.’

  ‘Well, I think you’re quite wrong,’ remarked Anne scornfully. ‘In fact, you almost deserve to be addressed as my dear Watson. What happened is pathetically obvious to anyone except a half-wit. These two men came for the gold plate. They locked the door to ensure they should not be disturbed. Then they searched for the secret passage and found it. There it was, yawning in front of them. At the other end—wealth. On which bright thought Eustace—he’s the murderer—sloshes Clarence in the meat trap, so as to get a double share, and legs it along the passage. He finds the gold, and suddenly gets all hit up with an idea. He will leave the house by the other end of the passage. So he goes back; shuts the secret door into this room, and hops it the other way. What about that, my children?’

  ‘Bravo!’ cried Ronald, amidst a general chorus of applause. ‘It’s an uncommonly good solution, Anne. It gets rid of my difficulty, and if there is a secret passage I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you aren’t right.’

  ‘If! My poor child, what you lack is feminine intuition. Had women been in charge of this case it would have been solved thirty-nine years and eleven months ago. I despair of your sex. Come on, children: let’s go and dance. I’m tired of ancient corpses.’

  The party trooped out into the hall, and Ronald strolled along the wall under the musicians’ gallery, tapping the panelling.

  ‘All sounds solid enough, doesn’t it?’ he remarked. ‘They certainly didn’t go in for jerry-building in those days, Sir John.’

  ‘You’re right,’ answered our host. ‘Each one of these walls is about three feet thick. I was amazed when I saw the workmen doing some plumbing upstairs before we moved in.’ He switched out the lights and we joined the others in the hall, where dancing to the wireless had already started. And as I stood idly watching by the fire-place, and sensing the comfortable wealth of it all, I found myself wishing that I was a partner in Crawsham’s Cable Works. I said as much to David, who looked at me, so I thought, a little queerly.

  ‘I wouldn’t say it to everybody, Bob,’ he remarked, ‘but I confess I’m a trifle surprised at things. I’d heard all about the new house, but I did not expect anything quite like this. Crawsham’s Cable Works, old boy, have not been entirely immune from the general slump, though we haven’t been hit so hard as most people. But th
at is for your ears only.’

  ‘He’s probably landed a packet in gold mines,’ I said.

  ‘Probably,’ he agreed with a laugh. ‘Don’t think I’m accusing my reverend uncle of robbing the till. But this ain’t a house: it’s a ruddy mansion. However, I gather the shooting is excellent, so more power to his elbow. Which reminds me that it’s an early start to-morrow, and I’ve got to see him on a spot of business. Night, night, Bob. That cup stuff is Aunt Mary’s own hell-brew. I think she puts ink in it. As the road signs say—you have been warned.’

  Which was the last time I saw David Crawsham alive.

  Even now, after a considerable lapse of time, I can still feel the stunning shock of the tragedy that took place that night. Big Ben had sounded: National had closed down, and a general drift bedwards took place. Personally, I was asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow, only to awake a few seconds later, so it seemed to me, with the sound of a heavy crash reverberating in my ears. For a while I lay listening. Had I dreamed it? Then a door opened and footsteps went past my room. I switched on the light and looked at my watch: it was half-past two.

  Another door opened and I heard voices. Then a shout in Sir John’s voice. I got up and, slipping on a dressing-gown, went out. Below I could hear Sir John talking agitatedly to someone, and as Ronald came out of his room, one sentence came up distinctly.

  ‘For God’s sake keep the women away!’

  I followed Ronald down the stairs: Sir John was standing outside the music-room in his dressing-gown, talking to the white-faced butler.

  ‘Ring up the doctor at once, and the police,’ he was saying, and then he saw us.

  ‘What on earth has happened?’ asked Ronald.

  ‘David,’ cried his uncle. ‘The chandelier has fallen on him.’

  ‘What?’ shouted Ronald, and darted into the music-room.

  In a welter of gold arms and shattered glass the chandelier lay in the centre of the floor, and underneath it sprawled a motionless figure in evening clothes.