by John Bude
At the conclusion of his orders the Chief Constable inquired of Thompson and Meredith if they had any other points for discussion.
The Superintendent took advantage of the offer.
“There is just one thing, sir. I suppose we are quite safe in our assumption that the other lorry-men are not connected with the racket?”
“No,” acknowledged the Chief. “We’re not! But that’s a risk we’ve got to take. If there is a case to be made out against any of these men, it’s bound to come to light when the gang is broken up. Personally, I’m inclined to believe that only Prince and Bettle are incriminated. For two very sound reasons. Inquiries have been made since we last met and we have definitely ascertained that Ormsby-Wright owns just that one group of tied houses in the coastal towns. And since they’re a vital factor in his scheme, it follows that the other lorries are used solely for the delivery of petrol. And again—when you made your examination of the bulk-wagons, Meredith, you found that only No. 4 was fitted with a false tank.”
“That’s true enough, sir! Besides, a limited personnel is always an advantage in a criminal organization—don’t you agree, sir?”
The Chief intimated that he did and, after further details had been gone into, the conference broke up.
And as the Chief Constable had arranged, so it came about. At midnight on the following day the various arrests were made. In every case, save one, the culprits were in bed and entirely unsuspicious.
In Meredith’s case, there was nothing dramatic in the arrest of the murderers. According to instruction, Mrs. Arkwright had left the front door of No. 9 unlocked. Followed by Sergeant Matthews, Railton and another constable, Meredith crept upstairs. Flinging open the door of the bedroom, he switched on the lights, roused the two men and told them to get into their clothes. Realizing that the game was up, the prisoners came quietly. A search of the room brought further incriminating evidence to light. In a drawer Meredith found two half-empty bottles of acid. Although the labels had been scratched off, analysis proved that the bottles contained concentrated sulphuric and oxalic acid respectively, convincing proof that Superintendent Thompson’s reconstruction of the crime was correct.
The other arrests were carried out in the same efficient and unobtrusive manner. Thompson alone ran headlong into melodrama.
At eleven-thirty, according to plan, he and his men posted themselves in the grounds of Brackenside, preparatory to making the arrest at midnight. There was a single light burning in an upper window when they arrived on the scene. From the man who had been shadowing Ormsby-Wright they learnt that he was in, and that the light was coming from his bedroom window. Thompson decided, therefore, to post a man at every door and french window on the ground floor, for even if Ormsby-Wright was in bed by midnight, it was pretty obvious that he wouldn’t be asleep. Thompson and a Sergeant were to ring the front door bell. If Ormsby-Wright answered in person they were to arrest him on the spot. If it was answered by a maid or manservant, they were to rush the stairs and make direct for his bedroom.
At ten minutes to twelve the light went out. The men took up their positions. On the stroke of midnight Thompson rang the front door bell. After a considerable pause, the door was opened by a maid-servant in her night attire. On seeing the two men she gave a scream before they were able to warn her and, apparently in the hubbub that followed, she, feminine-like, threw a faint. Thompson and the Sergeant, having previously worked out the exact location of the wanted man’s bedroom, took the stairs two at a time and rushed straight for the door. Then they struck an unexpected snag. To their immense chagrin, the door was locked! Thompson thereupon hammered and demanded entry in the name of the law, but although the light was switched on Ormsby-Wright made no effort to comply with his request. The two men then got their shoulders to the door and after a series of violent efforts succeeded in breaking in an upper panel. Then came the tragedy!
Even as Thompson was reaching through the splintered woodwork to turn the key on the inside there came a deafening report. It is hardly necessary to tell what they found. Ormsby-Wright stretched out over the bed, a smoking revolver in his hand and blood oozing from a fatal head-wound. He was dead before they reached him. Warned by the approach of the police that the game was up, he had seen that there was only one way out of the predicament, and taken it.
Ormsby-Wright’s suicide provided conclusive proof of his own guilt, and the various books, accounts and personal memoranda found in his private safe were more than sufficient to convict the other members of the notorious gang, Rose included. That he had incited Bettle and Prince to do away with Clayton was certain. Both the murderers upheld this point, though it did nothing to divert the ends of justice. Bettle and Prince paid the extreme penalty. Higgins was sentenced to fifteen years’ penal servitude. It was Higgins who had fixed the hose to the exhaust of Clayton’s car, locked the lean-to and hidden the key in a prearranged place. He had then left for the Beacon at Penrith to establish his cast-iron alibi.
For the rest there is little to be said. The racket had been going on for seven years and it was estimated that Ormsby-Wright had netted a cool fifty thousand pounds during that period. The rest of the gang received sentences ranging from two to four years. Prince, Bettle and Rose were all known to each other before they came North and Ormsby-Wright had engaged them for the specific purpose of running the liquor racket. The proprietors of the tied houses were of a similar kidney and a share of the handsome profits had ensured their silence. At the trial of Bettle and Prince it came out that Thompson’s theory as to how the murder was committed was right in every detail, whilst Inspector Meredith’s statement as to how the racket was being managed received a like confirmation.
Inspector Meredith? Well, that is hardly correct. Superintendent Meredith would meet the case better—a co-worker with Thompson at Carlisle headquarters! A well-merited promotion!
THE END
Also available from British Library Publishing
MR BAZALGETTE’S AGENT
Leonard Merrick
With an Introduction by Mike Ashley
When Miriam Lea falls on hard times, an advertisement for private agents catches her eye, and within weeks she finds herself in Mr Bazalgette’s employ as a private detective in pursuit of an audacious fraudster. What follows is a journey through some of the great cities of Europe – and eventually to South Africa – as Miss Lea attempts to find her man. Miriam Lea is only the third ever professional female detective to appear in a work of crime fiction. Originally published in 1888, Mr Bazalgette’s Agent presents a determined and resourceful heroine who grapples with some very modern dilemmas of female virtue and vice.
ISBN 978 0 7123 5702 9
144 pages
Also available as an ebook (978 0 7123 6307 5)
THE SANTA KLAUS MURDER
Mavis Doriel Hay
Aunt Mildred declared that no good could come of the Melbury family’s Christmas gatherings at their country residence Flaxmere. So when Sir Osmond Melbury, the family patriarch, is discovered – by a guest dressed as Santa Klaus – with a bullet in his head on Christmas Day, the festivities are plunged into chaos. Nearly every member of the party stands to reap some sort of benefit from Sir Osmond’s death, but Santa Klaus, the one person who seems to have had every opportunity to fire the shot, has no apparent motive. In the midst of mistrust, suspicion and hatred, it emerges that there was not one Santa Klaus, but two. The Santa Klaus Murder is a classic country-house mystery that is now being made available to readers for the first time since its original publication in 1936.
ISBN 978 0 7123 5712 8
288 pages
Also available as an ebook (978 0 7123 6313 6)
Table of Contents
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Introduction
I. The Body in the Car
II. Meredith Gets Going
III. The Puzzle of the
Hose-Pipe
IV. Clue at the Bank?
V. Motive?
VI. Sensational Verdict
VII. The Parked Petrol Lorry
VIII. Prince and Bettle Explain
IX. Investigations at the Lothwaite
X. Discoveries at the Depot
XI. Problem Number Two
XII. Fraud?
XIII. Meredith Sets his Scheme in Motion
XIV. The Quart in the Pint Pot!
XV. The Inspector of Weights and Measures
XVI. The Bee’s Head Brewery
XVII. The Muslin Bag
XVIII. Meredith Goes to Earth
XIX. Pipes
XX. “The Admiral”
XXI. Reconstruction of the Crime
XXII. Circumstantial Evidence
XXIII. The Last Round-Up
Advertisements
