‘You see,’ said Boyd, ‘I don’t speak French, and I’ve an important case on to-morrow or I’d come with you. According to the papers you, or this Pepper fellow, have got a theory and you can run it to ground while the scent is fresh. I see that you took notes of the names while Miss Fraser was telling her story. Will you go?’
I looked at my watch. There was just time to catch the four o’clock train. My chief himself had talked about sending me to Paris. Why should I not surprise him? Leaving Jimmy Boyd with Miss Fraser, who really seemed quite grateful to me, I went back to the Club to cash a cheque and to scribble a note to Mr Pepper telling him that business had taken me to Paris for a day or two and that I would keep my eyes open while I was there. I gave him my Paris address in case he should wish to communicate with me.
I pondered deeply over the case on my way over: somehow Mr Pepper’s theory, fantastic though it was, that the daughter was purposely got rid of while the mother was being spirited away and the aspect of the room was changed, did seem to fit the facts. For what other reason could the page in the register have been tampered with? Mrs Fraser was poor; if the photograph shown to me by her daughter did not lie, she was unattractive, but the people who thought it worth while to take all this trouble to kidnap her and cover up their tracks were Southerners actuated by motives quite different from those of reasoning beings like ourselves—motives which Mr Pepper seemed to understand and I did not.
I drove from the Nord Station to the Hotel des Etrangers in the Rue Cambon. I was received by the Manageress, who, to do her justice, did not at all look like a person who would be intimidated into doing what she did not want to do by an Italian with a pistol. I felt that if terrorizing were resorted to in our relations it would be exercised by her without having recourse to any pistol. She did not seem to take to me.
She assigned me a room on the second floor at the back which lent itself to the comedy I intended to play on the morrow. At about nine in the morning I sought her out at the receipt of custom and complained about my room. I was, she was surprised to hear, a literary person, travelling for my health, and I had been medically recommended always to choose a front room on the first floor in every hotel I stayed at. Expense was no object. The lady was sorry but firm. She could not turn the people out of their rooms to meet my wishes: the front rooms of every floor were engaged. I was equally firm. I liked the hotel, but not its back bedrooms. I was writing my experiences for the English papers and if I had been comfortable, I should have liked to mention the Hotel des Etrangers in my article. As it was—
‘You write, Monsieur? Tiens! There is certainly a room, but it is newly decorated, and smells of paint. Would Monsieur like to see it?’
I will not try to describe my emotions when I saw the room in which the drama or tragedy of Mrs Fraser had been enacted. Miss Fraser’s account of it was photographic in its accuracy. My luggage was moved down and I was at last able to lock the door against interruption. My first business was to search the room from top to bottom in order to discover who had supplied the new furniture in a desperate hurry. The furniture itself disclosed no maker’s name, but when I turned back the carpet I was lucky enough to find half a torn billhead:
My conjectures about the case had now taken a more concrete form. There might be other more cogent reasons for getting rid of Mrs Fraser than the suspicions of a secret society, and a news paragraph from Naples had given me a new line to work upon. If I was successful it was Mr Pepper’s wonderful intuition that had furnished me with the first clue and no credit attaches to me, his humble fellow-worker.
With the scrap of paper in my pocket-book I set out on foot for the Rue St. Jacques and visited in turn No. 3, 13, 23, none of which was a shop bearing any name ending in sjean, but No. 33 bore the name ‘Grosjean’ in gilt letters over the shop window, and M. Grosjean dealt in wallpapers, paints and bathroom furniture. I walked in boldly and asked the young man for patterns of wallpapers. He showed me hundreds, but found me hard to please. Not one was of the shade of dark blue that I was looking for. I demanded an interview with the manager, who was vapouring about the office at the back. He emerged a little unwillingly, I thought.
‘I have not seen all your patterns, Monsieur.’
‘Yes, Monsieur; we have no others.’
‘Forgive me, but the pattern I have set my heart on is that which you used in papering the front first-floor bedroom of an hotel in the Rue Cambon last Thursday. You remember, you did it in two hours at the special desire of the authorities?’
The curious change in his features warmed my heart. He was quite a nice-looking French paperhanger when he first came in; he was an unpleasant paperhanger to look upon when I had done with him. Alarm, consternation, suppressed fury possessed his expressive features in turn, and when words failed him and he was reduced to inarticulate hissing, I said suavely, ‘Used it all up, did you? Well, I am sorry. Good morning.’
I took a cab for my next visit, feeling sure that my paperhanger was busy with his telephone.
The policeman on duty in the police station of the Arrondissement was polite but perfectly firm in insisting that I should divulge my business before I had a private interview with his Commissary. He found me equally firm and when I paltered with the truth and said that I represented the Times newspaper in London he departed from his desk to take counsel. Presently he returned and beckoned to me. The Commissary was suspicious and short with me. I said, ‘Monsieur the Commissary, is it an offence to tamper with an hotel register?’
‘If you have a complaint to make, Monsieur, I am listening.’
‘I assume, Monsieur, that it is an offence. I am come to denounce the Manageress of the Hotel des Etrangers, in the Rue Cambon, of erasing the names of two English ladies named Fraser from her register.’
His face was not pretty to look upon. He appeared to be biting his lips to keep the words in. I thought for a moment that he was going to shout for his myrmidons to drop me down an oubliette.
‘No matter, Monsieur,’ I said lightly. ‘I am quite satisfied,’ and then as I was going out I dropped these words over my shoulder:
‘For a newspaper like the Times I am more than satisfied. “Bubonic Plague in Paris. The Eve of the Great Exhibition.” It will be a great sensation, Monsieur. Good day!’
I returned to my hotel, for now, I felt sure, I had nothing to do but to wait. I think that the telephone had been busy; the Manageress’ eyes scorched my face once but did not linger on it. I knew what she was feeling, for I had myself allowed my eyes to rest upon the puff-adder at the Zoo. But I was as easy and unconcerned as that unamiable reptile. Having left my card with the Police Commissary I told the porter that I expected a visitor and went into the salon to wait. Nor was I kept waiting long. The Manageress herself announced my visitor—M. Henri Bonchamps, of the Ministry of the Interior; a very diplomatic gentleman in silk hat and frock coat, brimming over with nervous amiability.
‘Mr Meddleston-Jones? Ah! Monsieur, I am enchanted to make your acquaintance.’ He looked at the retreating form of the Manageress and assured himself that the door was shut behind her. I put a chair for him and he sat down. ‘I call upon you at the desire of the Minister himself. His Excellency would have come in person, but unfortunately he has been summoned to the Elysée and he felt that the business was not one that brooked delay. His Excellency has been shocked at learning only this morning that some of his subordinates have been guilty of proceedings that he condemns in the strongest manner. It appears that a poor lady, a compatriot of yours, Monsieur, arrived in Paris with her daughter a day or two ago. She complained of illness, a doctor was called in; he discovered her to be suffering from bubonic plague contracted, no doubt, in Naples, whence she had come. The doctor notified the police and thus far no exception can be taken. But at this point their zeal ran away with them. They ought, of course to have informed the lady’s daughter and the British Consul, but instead of this they b
egan an elaborate course of concealment. The daughter was sent away on some pretext and during her absence the poor lady was removed to a hospital, where, unfortunately, she died the same night. They then appear to have deliberately deceived the daughter by pretending that the incident had not occurred. This was entirely indefensible and the Minister is taking very serious measures with all the officials and others concerned.
‘You are, no doubt, a relation of the poor lady, Monsieur,—a relation closely connected with the press in England. In tendering His Excellency’s apologies, I am desired to say that the lady was reverently interred in the Père La Chaise cemetery. I have with me the certificate and the title to the grave which His Excellency begs you to accept on behalf of the lady’s family. If there is anything else that you think should be done, Monsieur, you have only to suggest it. There is one request, one hope, I should say, that His Excellency desires to express. He does hope, he does most earnestly hope, that if possible no mention should be made in any newspaper of this most unfortunate occurrence. A mention of bubonic plague, for example, on the very eve of a Great Exhibition, would be deplored by us all—deplored even by your own compatriots in Paris. May I reassure His Excellency on this point?’
The gentleman had discharged his task with delicacy and skill, but I was not at all convinced that the Minister’s indignation and regret had not made its appearance at the moment when he thought he had been found out. I had the documentary evidence, the case was cleared up; I had only to tell the Consul and return to London.
My first visit was to Vicarage Gate, where I broke the news to the aunt and left her to tell Miss Fraser. She was very strongly against any publicity and on this occasion I resolved to tell Mr Pepper something less than the truth. I felt that in all innocence he might happen to mention the case in the hearing of his press agent and these journalists are so dreadfully indiscreet.
I presented myself at the office without saying a word.
‘Well,’ said Mr Pepper, ‘what was Paris like?’
‘Cool and a little showery,’ I replied.
‘Ah!’—a pause—‘did you hear anything about the Fraser case?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you were right, Mr Pepper, as you generally are, I believe that the furniture in the room was changed while Miss Fraser was out.’
‘Under threats from the Mafia?’ He was begining to crow.
‘Under a threat of some sort emanating from Naples, Mr Pepper—at least, that is what I think. But the poor lady is dead—so the police believe—and the British Consul desires that for the present everything should be left to him. Any publicity at this point would ruin everything.’
‘Ah, well. They will never get the guilty people. You’ll see.’
‘I think you are right in that too, Mr Pepper.’
A Mystery of the Sand-Hills
R. Austin Freeman
Richard Austin Freeman (1862–1943) was, like Arthur Conan Doyle, a doctor who turned to writing to supplement his income, and found success beyond his dreams. Freeman never matched Conan Doyle for creation of atmosphere, and his principal detective, Dr John Thorndyke, was a much less charismatic figure than Holmes. But what he lacked in literary flair, he made up for with meticulous craftsmanship, and his admirers included T. S. Eliot and Raymond Chandler.
Freeman’s inverted stories were a notable innovation; he showed the criminal at work, before describing how he was tracked down. This method of storytelling has stood the test of time: the American TV series Columbo, for instance, used it splendidly. And Freeman’s depiction of scientific methods of detection, as practised by Thorndyke in this story, remains a model for writers seeking to combine mystification with authenticity.
***
I have occasionally wondered how often Mystery and Romance present themselves to us ordinary men of affairs only to be passed by without recognition. More often, I suspect, than most of us imagine. The uncanny tendency of my talented friend John Thorndyke to become involved in strange, mysterious and abnormal circumstances has almost become a joke against him. But yet, on reflection, I am disposed to think that his experiences have not differed essentially from those of other men, but that his extraordinary powers of observation and rapid inference have enabled him to detect abnormal elements in what, to ordinary men, appeared to be quite commonplace occurrences. Certainly this was so in the singular Roscoff case, in which, if I had been alone, I should assuredly have seen nothing to merit more than a passing attention.
It happened that on a certain summer morning—it was the fourteenth of August, to be exact—we were discussing this very subject as we walked across the golf-links from Sandwich towards the sea. I was spending a holiday in the old town with my wife, in order that she might paint the ancient streets, and we had induced Thorndyke to come down and stay with us for a few days. This was his last morning, and we had come forth betimes to stroll across the sand-hills to Shellness.
It was a solitary place in those days. When we came off the sand-hills on to the smooth, sandy beach, there was not a soul in sight, and our own footprints were the first to mark the firm strip of sand between high-water mark and the edge of the quiet surf.
We had walked a hundred yards or so when Thorndyke stopped and looked down at the dry sand above tide-marks and then along the wet beach.
‘Would that be a shrimper?’ he cogitated, referring to some impressions of bare feet in the sand. ‘If so, he couldn’t have come from Pegwell, for the River Stour bars the way. But he came out of the sea and seems to have made straight for the sand-hills.’
‘Then he probably was a shrimper,’ said I, not deeply interested.
‘Yet,’ said Thorndyke, ‘it was an odd time for a shrimper to be at work.’
‘What was an odd time?’ I demanded. ‘When was he at work?’
‘He came out of the sea at this place,’ Thorndyke replied, glancing at his watch, ‘at about half-past eleven last night, or from that to twelve.’
‘Good Lord, Thorndyke!’ I exclaimed, ‘how on earth do you know that?’
‘But it is obvious, Anstey,’ he replied. ‘It is now half-past nine, and it will be high-water at eleven, as we ascertained before we came out. Now, if you look at those footprints on the sand, you see that they stop short—or rather begin—about two-thirds of the distance from high-water mark to the edge of the surf. Since they are visible and distinct, they must have been made after last high-water. But since they do not extend to the water’s edge, they must have been made when the tide was going out; and the place where they begin is the place where the edge of the surf was when the footprints were made. But that place is, as we see, about an hour below the high-water mark. Therefore, when the man came out of the sea, the tide had been going down for an hour, roughly. As it is high-water at eleven this morning, it was high-water at about ten-forty last night; and as the man came out of the sea about an hour after high-water, he must have come out at, or about, eleven-forty. Isn’t that obvious?’
‘Perfectly,’ I replied, laughing. ‘It is as simple as sucking eggs when you think it out. But how the deuce do you manage always to spot these obvious things at a glance? Most men would have just glanced at those footprints and passed them without a second thought.’
‘That,’ he replied, ‘is a mere matter of habit; the habit of trying to extract the significance of simple appearances. It has become almost automatic with me.’
During our discussion we had been walking forward slowly, straying on to the edge of the sand-hills. Suddenly, in a hollow between the hills, my eye lighted upon a heap of clothes, apparently, to judge by their orderly disposal, those of a bather. Thorndyke also had observed them and we approached together and looked down on them curiously.
‘Here is another problem for you,’ said I. ‘Find the bather. I don’t see him anywhere.’
‘You won’t find him here,’ said Thorndyke. ‘These clothes have been out all
night. Do you see the little spider’s web on the boots with a few dewdrops still clinging to it? There has been no dew forming for a good many hours. Let us have a look at the beach.’
We strode out through the loose sand and stiff, reedy grass to the smooth beach, and here we could plainly see a line of prints of naked feet leading straight down to the sea, but ending abruptly about two-thirds of the way to the water’s edge.
‘This looks like your nocturnal shrimper,’ said I. ‘He seems to have gone into the sea here and come out at the other place. But if they are the same footprints, he must have forgotten to dress before he went home. It is a quaint affair.’
‘It is a most remarkable affair,’ Thorndyke agreed; ‘and if the footprints are not the same it will be still more inexplicable.’
He produced from his pocket a small spring tape-measure with which he carefully took the lengths of two of the most distinct footprints and the length of the stride. Then we walked back along the beach to the other set of tracks, two of which he measured in the same manner.
‘Apparently they are the same,’ he said, putting away his tape; ‘indeed, they could hardly be otherwise. But the mystery is, what has become of the man? He couldn’t have gone away without his clothes, unless he is a lunatic, which his proceedings rather suggest. There is just the possibility that he went into the sea again and was drowned. Shall we walk along towards Shellness and see if we can find any further traces?’
We walked nearly half a mile along the beach, but the smooth surface of the sand was everywhere unbroken. At length we turned to retrace our steps; and at this moment I observed two men advancing across the sand-hills. By the time we had reached the mysterious heap of garments they were quite near, and, attracted no doubt by the intentness with which we were regarding the clothes, they altered their course to see what we were looking at. As they approached, I recognized one of them as a barrister named Hallett, a neighbour of mine in the Temple, whom I had already met in the town, and we exchanged greetings.
Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries Page 14
