The Incredible Crime

by Lois Austen-Leigh

  “Yes; let me see—he died in his club, didn’t he, of heart failure?”

  “That was the coroner’s verdict, given on the medical evidence; but we are morally positive that this drug was administered to him. They were all drinking liqueurs, a lot of them together, and it would have been quite simple to dope his. The man we suspect was one of the company.”

  “But surely there was an autopsy?”

  “There was, but the family had it done by his own doctor, who said he found signs of angina. Now if it was this drug there would be no signs of anything, but it takes a man in a big way to dare to say he can find no traces of anything to account for death.”

  “I am surprised to hear you say that,” said Maryon.

  “Oh, no, when you come to think of it, your young doctor says he can find nothing to account for death; another man is called in, and perhaps honestly thinks he can find some trace of something; anyhow, he says he can, and the first man is made to feel like a fool, and the coroner makes sarcastic remarks. But this chap, the Secretary for State, had asked for an interview with the Chief Commissioner, as he wanted to speak to him about this drug: we know that for certain; but he died a few hours before, or was removed just in time.” They smoked in silence for some time. “If one of the crowd I have my eyes on here was to die suddenly, then I should be certain.”

  “I suppose I must help, you devil,” said Maryon pleasantly, “but what am I to say to Skipwith? I would like to be above-board with him as much as possible.”

  “Tell him I am a policeman on a holiday; you must not repeat anything about the drug.”

  Maryon got up and went to a bookshelf. There he fumbled about till out of a far corner he produced a dirty-looking book in an old-fashioned binding.

  “Here, listen to this,” he said, and turning over the pages, he found his place and began to read: “‘If I understand you rightly, you have formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to…Consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing; where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies; and where roads and newspapers lay everything open?’ There, that’s what I say to you, only much better put than I can do it.”

  “That’s good,” said McDonald, “very good. Who wrote it?”

  “A parson’s daughter—more than a hundred years ago.”

  “Ah—it was about a hundred years ago Warren Hastings in India first described cocaine as a ‘pernicious luxury.’ It wasn’t even known in England, and if you ‘consult your own understanding,’ old fellow, you’ll admit that all I’ve been saying to you is quite possible nowadays, even though we are English and Christians.”

  “Well, I’ll make it all right with Skipwith and let you know when we start; and, mind you, I am taking you because I know Temple is innocent.”

  After McDonald had taken his departure, Maryon stood for some time gazing out of the window lost in thought. It was a dull day, but the window was open, and through it came the tinkle of a chapel bell. It seemed to claim his attention, and after a moment’s thought he put on his gown, picked up his mortar-board, and went down the stairs.

  “Yes,” he said to himself, “I will go to chapel at King’s; it will take the nasty taste out of my mouth, and make me feel clean again.” He pursued his way along King’s Parade and turned in at the College gate with a stream of other people.

  There was a thick, low-lying fog about, and the enormous mass of buildings round him could only be dimly discerned. Then he saw, as he lifted his eyes, that the four tall pinnacles of the Chapel were above the fog and were bathed in rosy sunshine. The sight and realization of it comforted him queerly, and as he stepped over the threshold into that most magnificent of buildings, there fell on his spirit a sudden hush of dignity and peace. He moved slowly up the long length of the dim ante-chapel. There was a soft glow coming from the masses of candles in the chancel, lighting up the two tall figures of the trumpeting angels over the organ.

  A verger took charge of him, and seeing he was a senior member of the University, put him into a stall. A Bach fugue was rolling sonorously through the Chapel. The rows of wax candles looked like stars, and behind them were all the mysterious shadows of that stately pile. The old stained-glass windows showed here and there a patch of colour and light, but that soon faded as the time went by. Maryon, in a trance which lifted him far from the moil and toil of life, had not consciously listened to a word of the service, until his attention was caught by the stately words of the College prayer: “For our Founder, King Henry VI, by whose bounty we are here brought up to godliness and the study of all good learning.”

  “Godliness and the study of all good learning,” he murmured to himself, and at the moment his eye fell on the kneeling figure opposite, in surplice and hood, of a Fellow of the College who to his own certain knowledge had risked his life more than once in the cause of humanity.

  “I’ll stake my life and honour on Temple,” he thought to himself.

  “Oh, where shall wisdom be found…where…where is the place of understanding?” sang the choir, and the question echoed along the high-vaulted roof and lost itself in the misty shadows. “It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed in the price thereof,” they sang on, in that building which for five hundred years has watched generations of men seeking after learning. Again the clear voices: “No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is above rubies,” and round them sat the men of learning, in their gowns, their surplices and their scarlet hoods. Then with a triumphant crash came the answer: “The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil, that is understanding.”

  Maryon left the place feeling like a different man.

  Chapter XVIII

  Captain Studde, for his own reasons, made it convenient for himself to accept Miss Pinsent’s hastily-sent invitation to lunch with her at Ipswich. This time he took some trouble to make it a pleasanter meal for her. He felt that last time he had probably been rather brutal in his treatment of her. After all, Prudence was well over thirty, now he came to think of it, though, by Jove, she didn’t look it. He had seen through her so completely, too, in spite of her efforts in pretending. So he ordered a table to be kept for them, and had cocktails waiting in the stone-paved lounge downstairs against her arrival.

  Prudence turned up punctually, and they enjoyed a cigarette with their cocktails. She came determined to beguile away his fears that any smuggling was going on at Wellende, and fully convinced of her ability to do so; and so, each cherishing a slight feeling of superiority, they sat down in the best of humours with each other.

  “You do look well, Prudence,” began Captain Studde, regarding Miss Pinsent’s glowing countenance with real admiration. “You’ve had a lot of good fresh air lately, I’ll be bound.”

  “I have indeed, and such good sport. Does it convey what it should to you, when I tell you that in five days’ hunting the hounds have made one six-mile point—point, Harry, and two seven-mile points?”

  “Yes, it does a bit; that’s pretty good going.”

  “I should just think it was,” said Prudence. “And now I’ve got to go up to Cambridge to entertain some tiresome people who are coming up for honorary degrees. Why does one know the name Sir Boris Buckthorne so well?”

  “Buckthorne?” said Studde with a malicious grin. “Why, he’s head of the Criminal Investigation Department. What’s he coming up to Cambridge for?”

  “How stupid of me,” said P
rudence, with a heightened colour. “Of course, I knew the Chief Commissioner was a friend of father’s, but I had forgotten his name; that is why he wants me home evidently.”

  “Perhaps Sir Boris is combining business with pleasure. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he was.”

  “You don’t mean to say you still believe that rot you filled me up with last time, about drugs in Cambridge?”

  “I do, every word of it.”

  “Well, I can tell you one thing: there’s nothing wrong going on at Wellende. I have satisfied myself as to that,” lied Prudence.

  “No,” agreed Studde, to her immense but well-concealed surprise. “I have found out since that I was wrong in my suspicions there.” He regarded Miss Pinsent’s handsome and unconcerned face keenly. Does she, or does she not, know the truth? He wondered.

  “Then perhaps very shortly you’ll find out you are wrong about Cambridge, too,” said she, anxious to get the conversation away from Wellende.

  “No,” said Studde, “that’s the C.I.D., not me. Not much chance of them being proved wrong, I fancy. What a charming fellow your cousin is.”

  “Who? Ben? I thought you said you didn’t know him.”

  “I met him, as it happened, the evening we met here last time.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Prudence vaguely. “I am glad you liked him.” That was the evening, she thought to herself, that Ben had said he was duck-shooting, and Harry had had a drill at the mouth of the river. Very reluctantly she faced the certainty that Ben had been deceiving her. That he should have been shooting duck at the mouth of the river she knew to be an absurdity; since he had met Captain Studde that night, he was not duck-shooting. It made it more likely, then, that the second night when he had said he was shooting was also a blind. Then he may very well have been one of the people in that boat—and what, what could he be doing about his own house with so much secrecy? Prudence found it difficult not to be absent-minded during the rest of that lunch; but she made an effort, and long practice in entertaining came to her aid, and in spite of her worried state of mind she was a very pleasant companion.

  Driving home from Ipswich, she was able to think things over, though without any satisfaction to her peace of mind, and it was with some misgiving and much distaste that she faced the problem of entertaining the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

  She found the Chief Commissioner, however, a much pleasanter guest than she had anticipated. After listening to Harry Studde’s insinuations about “combining business and pleasure,” and her own uneasy knowledge of what was going on at Wellende, she had pictured to herself a dour, sharp-faced personality; in this she was very wide of the mark.

  Sir Boris Buckthorne had been in the Navy, where he was universally loved and respected. He was an admiral. He had very quiet and unassuming manners, and a perfectly delightful habit after giving some piece of obscure information of adding, “as you know,” which invariably had the effect of making those to whom he was talking feel much better about themselves, and created an atmosphere of pleasantness all round. He had a plain face, with a little naval beard and moustache, turning grey, and an absolutely adorable smile, which lit up his face into something beautiful.

  Thus it was rather with a sense of pleasure and not duty that Prudence took him out for a walk after the degrees had been conferred. The temptation to confide in this kindly gentleman all that Studde had been telling her, and her fears about Ben, were almost too much for her. She felt certain that Sir Boris would be so nice and kind about it. She didn’t even dare to start a vague conversation about drug-trafficking in general, being shrewd enough to realize that while she would certainly learn nothing from Sir Boris, he might learn more than was intended from her.

  “No,” she thought with a sigh, “I must not let the word pass my lips.”

  So it came about that they walked out together up Madingley Hill, both thinking, as it happened, of the same subject from different points of view, for Sir Boris did not entertain the smallest desire to open such a subject with Miss Pinsent. When they had reached the top of the hill they instinctively turned to look at the view.

  “This is the best aspect of all,” he said, “and in this soft, misty light the buildings are made somehow mysterious. See that shaft of light on Clare and King’s Chapel?”

  “Yes; it is beautiful, beautiful.”

  Sir Boris turned and regarded his companion with his charming smile; but she was not looking at him, her attention had been attracted elsewhere.

  “Look at that bird,” she exclaimed. “Is it a rook, or a rocketing pheasant? It looks almost too small.”

  Sir Boris looked where she indicated. “It’s not a pheasant,” said he, fumbling for his glasses. “I am sure it’s too small; it’s a pigeon.” As he got his glasses on: “Yes, it’s a pigeon. See the colour of its wings?”

  “I see now, but it’s a curious way for a pigeon to fly, surely.”

  Sir Boris was regarding it with a good deal of interest. “Observe the light on its wings against the russet-brown of the beech trees. It’s worth coming out of London to see a thing like that alone, Miss Pinsent.”

  “Yes, I entirely agree with you. I wouldn’t live in London for anything.” As they spoke an elderly and very good-looking man got over the gate from the field; he had a small basket under his arm. As he saw them he lifted his hat to Prudence.

  “Who is that?” asked Sir Boris.

  “It’s our Head Porter, and I am not sure but he’s a greater man in the College than my father,” she laughed. “He is said to be frequently mistaken for the Master.”

  Sir Boris looked at him with interest. “What do you suppose he carries in that little basket?”

  “His lunch, I should think. I have met him out before like this, and he tells me there is nothing he loves so much as a long day in the country alone, when he can get it.”

  Sir Boris half turned as if he was going to ask him if he really had got his lunch with him, but evidently thought better of taking such a liberty, and followed Miss Pinsent.

  Later on, when nearer Cambridge, they were overtaken by a couple of figures, clad in very short “shorts” and very thin vests, jogging along at a steady pace. They were splashed with mud, and they were hot, but they were not short of breath.

  “I think that must be the most healthy form of exercise of all,” said Sir Boris as he watched the long, easy strides of the runners.

  “If they get into condition gradually and don’t overdo it at the outset,” agreed Prudence.

  “It’s a deal less violent than Rugby football.”

  “Yes, and so much more useful,” said she. “One might almost organize a post with those men,” musingly, “if you wanted to send something you didn’t dare trust to the post. I fancy all the big towns have athletic clubs and a certain number of cross-country runners; they could do it like relay races.”

  “That’s an interesting idea of yours, Miss Pinsent. It had never occurred to my police mind as a possibility.”

  Prudence looked at him and laughed. “I had completely forgotten you were a policeman.” And as Sir Boris smiled at her: “No one could possibly be expected to remember it of you,” she added.

  Chapter XIX

  The next morning at breakfast the Master of Prince’s consulted his engagement-book.

  “My dear,” he said to his daughter, “I fear by some oversight I have omitted to inform you that we have engaged ourselves to dine with Francis Temple in his rooms to-night. I trust that you are at liberty to do so.”

  “With Professor Temple!” exclaimed Prudence in surprise. “What’s he giving a dinner in his rooms for? It’s very unlike him, and to ask ladies, too!”

  “I am unable to satisfy your curiosity on that point. I only know he seemed particularly anxious we should dine with him.”

  “Temple,” said Sir Boris thoughtfully; “
that is the great toxicologist, of course?”

  “Yes,” replied the Master; “he is a Fellow of our College; and that reminds me of a piece of gossip for you, Prue. Temple has recently completely changed his appearance! I couldn’t have believed such a difference was possible!”

  “Changed his appearance? What do you mean? Has he put on a false beard, or what?”

  “Quite the contrary, quite the contrary,” said her father, laughing. “He has shaved his face completely, and cut his hair. I think he must have done something else too, though I am sure I don’t know what. He manages to look fifteen years younger than he did.”

  The good man was honestly unaware of the new teeth the Professor now boasted, but he would not have mentioned them in any case.

  “Well, I’m—blessed,” said Prudence, out of deference to her father; “it’s quite certain any change in his appearance will be for the better.”

  “I think you are a little severe, my dear, but,” he said, laughing gently, “I only know of two reasons for a change of appearance. One was suggested to me by your friend Mrs. Skipwith, or I am sure I should never have thought of it, and that is that the Professor has fallen in love.” This afforded the good Bishop much amusement, and he even had to produce his pocket-handkerchief and wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes.

  Prudence, somehow, didn’t find it half so amusing. If the Professor had fallen in love, she thought it was more ridiculous than amusing; interested, however, she certainly was.

  “And the other reason, Master?” said Sir Boris, who had been watching both the Pinsents with some interest.

  “The only other reason for such a change of appearance is a wish to dissociate yourself from a discreditable past,” and the Master laughed again with great enjoyment; the others joined with him.

  “Temple’s past will take more getting away from than that,” said the Chief Commissioner.

  “Why?” asked Prudence. “That sounds almost sinister. Have you his dossier at the Yard?”