Death of a Frightened Editor: A Golden Age Mystery

by E.

  “What happened to the first of two bottles, do you think, A.C.? There wasn’t one on Mortensen, and the steward had left everything on the table undisturbed, you know.”

  24

  The Brighton Belle, most luxurious of all the Southern trains, makes its first trip of the day to Brighton at 11 o’clock. For an hour-and-a-half before that time it stands in the yard at Clapham Junction being groomed by the stewards for its journey—and being warmed up to a comfortable heat. It pulls out for Victoria about half-an-hour before the time scheduled for its Brighton departure.

  Reeves, the chief steward of the first-class coaches was laying the tables for coffee, etc., when Doctor Manson, having driven to the Junction, walked along the permanent way and boarded the Belle. A minute or two’s search through the train brought him to Reeves. The steward was laying out cups and saucers and plates, carrying a tray of each in turn, and padding along the cars on flat feet—a physical occupational trait which will always betray a waiter, whether in hotel, ship or on a train. To Doctor Manson’s request for a few minutes’ chat, he looked down at his fatigue dress. “Excuse me a moment, sir,” he said and vanished into the kitchen car, to reappear in a clean white coat, the badge of the Pullman company on the lapels.

  “Now, sir,” he said: and listened to the Doctor’s questions.

  “No, sir. I did not remove any bottle from Mr. Mortensen’s table.”

  “Are you an observant man, Reeves?”

  The steward’s eyes crinkled in the corners; it imparted a kindly humorous twist to his usually deadpan face. “In this job one has to be, sir. Otherwise we’d lose half the silver from the tables. People like the spoons as souvenirs—especially foreigners. I think they collect one from everywhere.”

  “Would you have noticed how many tablets there were in the bottle?”

  Reeves thought the matter over carefully, wrinkling his brows in the effort. “There were four, sir,” he announced. “No,” he replied to a further question. “There were definitely more than two.” Pressed on the point, he said he had to move the bottle to make room for Mr. Mortensen’s cup of coffee, and that was how he came to remember the contents. The bottle was still there when he served Mr. Edgar with whisky. That would be nearly half-an-hour later.”

  “You told me, Reeves, that Mr. Mortensen came on the train at 4.40, was served with a mixed grill which he finished at five minutes to five, when his plate was cleared away.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s correct.”

  “And that was when you brought the coffee. Had anyone else been in the car then?”

  “Yes, sir. But I can’t remember whether it was Mr. Edgar, or someone else. But Mr. Edgar was in the other chair when I came in with the coffee.”

  “Did the others know what time Mr. Mortensen usually arrived?”

  “I think so. One or two had asked me at various times the time he came.” No, he said, he couldn’t remember exactly who they were. He thought that they had been intrigued by the fact that he was always there whatever time they reached the train and were curious as to the time he did come aboard.

  “‘Whatever time they reached the train’, Reeves. Do I understand that they sometimes arrived earlier than customary?”

  “Yes, sir.” He added that once or twice he had noticed one or another of them in the car quite early. They usually sat for a moment or two with Mr. Mortensen. No, he could not remember which passengers; he only noticed them casually.

  The steward was definite about the food served in the car on the fatal night. All those who ate liked to do so before the train was moving. Betterton had sardines, Mackie a poached egg on toast, Phillips coffee and cheese, Starmer and Edgar buttered toast. Crispin did not eat—never did, and the other exception was Mrs. Harrison who did not want anything, but changed her mind later and just before Mackie began his story ordered tea and a chicken sandwich. She turned the sandwich down when the steward brought it. “Everything was cleared away within five minutes of the train starting, except Mrs. Harrison’s tea. After that only drinks were on the table.”

  Reviewing the results Doctor Manson decided that it tied up with what Edgar had recalled—with one exception; the four tablets which Reeves had noticed in the bottle and the two which Edgar said it had contained. Could both Edgar and the steward be correct? Manson thought he saw a possible way. Suppose Mortensen had taken two of the tablets before the coffee arrived, and before he went to the lavatory, from which he returned to find Edgar at the table. That would leave the two which Edgar, not knowing that Mortensen had had his usual fill, refused to take.

  In that case, what had happened to the remaining two? And what had happened to the bottle, which after Mortensen’s death was half full of tablets?

  Meantime he put the problem aside and telephoned Brighton. Inspector Edgecumbe had at his request put a shadower on each of the seven passengers. They had been equally shadowed in London from the time they left Scotland Yard until they embarked on the train for Brighton. Manson had been hoping that the accusation of murder might lead to alarm and a precipitate action on the part of the guilty person. This had been intimated to Edgecumbe. Unfortunately it had not brought results.

  Edgecumbe reported that only two had left their homes during the evening and night. Crispin had gone to a gathering of journalists held in a hotel near the Dome. He had remained there a couple of hours and then returned to his flat. Phillips, the stock-broker, huddled in an overcoat, had gone for a walk along the under-cliff promenade—a walk which had extended from the Palace Pier to Ovingdean Gap and back again, a distance of over two miles each way. He had not stopped or spoken to anyone. He seemed, his shadower had said, to be wrapped not only in his overcoat but in profound melancholy.

  The Brighton inspector had gone even further; he had arranged for each of the telephones of the seven to be tapped. Three had made outgoing calls; in each case the conversation was purely personal and had no possible connection with Mortensen. Incoming calls had been equally nebulous. Manson suggested that the ‘tailing’ might be continued throughout the coming night, and replaced the telephone receiver.

  A call to Jones found that the superintendent was still away and had sent no intimation of his whereabouts or his intentions.

  “Where the devil can he have gone to?” the Deputy Scientist asked, without regard for his grammar.

  “No idea, Jim. And I have no idea where we have got, either. All we have gained by days of inquiry can be put down in a very few lines.” He drew a sheet of paper towards him, and wrote:

  MORTENSEN:

  Meal finished at 4.55. Had coffee.

  Coffee finished at 5.5.

  Witnesses: the steward and Edgar.

  —

  Took tablets at (approx.) 5.0 to 5.5. Witnesses: Edgar and the steward. Two or four tablets then in the bottle.

  —

  Had a whisky at (approx.) 5.25. Confirmed by Edgar and the steward (no whisky was served after 5.30.)

  —

  Had nothing else to eat or drink after 5.30.

  Confirmed by steward and all passengers.

  —

  Nobody approached his table after 5.30 when Mackie began telling his story.

  —

  Was dying in cloakroom at 5.55. Confirmed by all stewards.

  —

  PROBLEM

  Poisoning through the glass of whisky can be discounted.

  Laboratory analysis of dregs in Mortensen’s and Edgar’s glasses revealed no trace of strychnine. Only means of poisoning therefore seems to be the meal at 4.45 or the tablets taken at 5.0 to 5.5. But strychnine symptoms exhibit themselves within two or three minutes of the dose (minimum) or within 15 minutes (maximum).

  Mortensen, therefore, should have been attacked by symptoms not later than 5.15. But was not attacked until nearly six o’clock.

  “And to that there is no seeming answer,” Manson said, after they had pored over the synopsis. “Let’s go a stage further.” He started a second sheet:

&
nbsp; SUSPECTS:

  Six passengers are being blackmailed by Mortensen.

  All have a motive for getting rid of him.

  Four of them were at his table at some time or another during the evening.

  One, of them, Edgar, was sitting with him, but apart from the whisky had nothing in which he could have administered poison.

  Three—Mackie, Mrs. Harrison and Crispin—were never near him, so far as can be ascertained.

  Together they went over the points enumerated and compared them with the parts of the case dossier concerned with them. Merry stirred, and bent a puzzled look at his chief. “There’s one thing strikes me as peculiar,” he said. “On this night two people appeared in the Pullman well in advance of their customary time. Edgar, usually the last to board the train nearly half-an-hour earlier, and Crispin something like twenty minutes earlier. Is it a coincidence that it should happen on this night—or something more sinister?”

  “It has happened before,” Manson said, and gave his deputy the gist of the steward’s talk at Clapham. “In the case of Crispin it doesn’t matter. He has no motive so far as we are concerned to dispose of Mortensen.”

  “But Edgar.” Merry shook his head. “I’ve always had an eye on him. Look at the position? He is sitting with Mortensen from first to last. He is the one who should have known exactly when Mortensen left the car, and he doesn’t, or says he doesn’t. He says he was slewed round to hear Mackie tell his story, but we’ve only his word for it. We’ve spent a lot of time and trouble trying to find who approached Mortensen within the time limit of the poison, while all the time we have Edgar sitting with him.”

  “True,” Manson agreed, “but—” Before he could finish the sentence the door opened and the figure of Superintendent Jones filled the aperture.

  “Well, look who’s here!” Merry said. “Where the deuce have you been more’n a couple of days?”

  “I been runnin’ round . . . car . . . doin’ nearly . . . thousand miles.”

  “Then it’s a miracle you aren’t dead or in clink, the way you drive,” Manson said. “Have you collected any summonses? Or did you get out on your warrant card?”

  “I collected something.” There was gravity in the superintendent’s voice. Manson looked hard at him.

  “Let’s have it, Old Fat Man,” he said. “Where have you been?”

  “To Middlecoombe.”

  “Sounds like Devonshire.”

  “That’ll be where his femme is,” Merry quipped.

  “Where she was,” boomed Jones. “Am I telling this story, or ain’t I?”

  “You’re telling,” Manson smoothed. “Have a drink?”

  25

  The village of Middlecoombe is situated in the heart of Devon about midway between Exeter and the lace community of Honiton. Unless you knew it to be there you would be unlikely to come across it, for it is hidden among trees in an isolated rural area. According to the gazetteer its population is 405, with early closing (if there is such a thing there as early closing!) on Wednesday. It has three pubs, a small general grocery store, a church, no chapel, and a post office which is also a newspaper and general stationers’ and fancy goods shop with general view of the village on picture postcards. Who buys them is something of a puzzle, for visitors are few and far between, except for hikers tramping from one hostel to another. Traffic in and out of the village is by foot, bicycle or by the carrier’s ramshackle covered motor-cart, which has wooden benches along each length, leaving a centre gangway for merchandise. The only concession to progress of Middlecoombe is the motor carrier—it used to be a horse-drawn van.

  When he had walked out of the A.C.’s room, the Superintendent had no intention of going to Middlecoombe; in fact he had never heard of the place. For reasons which he had kept to himself, he left the Yard, caught a No. 11 bus in Parliament Street and got off in front of the ruins of the old Gaiety Theatre. From there he crossed the Strand and made his way to Somerset House, disappearing through the door of the department sacred to births, marriages and deaths.

  For three-quarters-of-an-hour he pored over books and forms, running a fat finger down lists of names and turning them up in the appropriate registers, and muttering things to himself. Once he seemed to give his task best; but after starting towards the exit, he turned and began a new hunt. Fifteen minutes later a loud “Ha!” scandalised the staff, to whom silence in the room is the golden rule. After hurried copying of details in his notebook, he asked an attendant for a gazetteer, turned to two name-places—and left.

  Back at the Yard, he commandeered a car, and to the consternation of the garage staff had it filled up with petrol, got in and drove off. It was dark when under the protection of St. Christopher (who really must be the guardian saint of motorists) and after several detours, he reached the Devon village. Half-an-hour later he was comfortably settled in ‘The Crown’ and eating a meal of home-cured ham and home-laid eggs, served in a corner of the bar. Warm and with hunger satisfied, he called for a pint and joined in conversation.

  “Ah! You be from London.” A young swarthily countenanced and powerful drinker made it not so much a question as a statement. Country people are not quite the yokels some townsfolk like to believe, even when they live in the backwoods; and this one had identified the London registration letters on the plate of the superintendent’s car.

  “Yes,” Jones admitted. “But I was born of the soil and love the country. Feel peaceful-like there”—a statement which would have surprised the men at the Yard, for Jones was not only a Londoner born, but was possessed of an abiding love for it, equalled only by his dislike for the country in any shape or form.

  “Having a run round like,” he explained. “Heard about this village . . . picturesque . . . all olde worldie thatched roofs, white cottages. Used to live under thatch meself, once . . . warm. Woman told me about this place . . . Middlecoombe. Used to live here, she said.”

  If there is one thing that will start a conversation going in a rural pub, it is news about a long departed, whose shortcomings can be gossiped over in reminiscence. A great place for scandal and gossip is a village pub. Jones’s intimation of such a departed brought results.

  “Who’d that have been, mister?” the landlord asked.

  “Woman met in pub in London . . . Harris . . . Mary Harris . . . that’s it, I think.”

  “Harris?” The landlord scratched his chin; it rasped from an unshaven growth of beard. “Don’t remember no Harris,” he said; and looked round the bar for confirmation.

  “No,” came from several throats. “Ain’t never been no Harris here.”

  There was a pause for reflection.

  “I reckon as how he’s a’meaning Mary Harrison, Joe,” said a voice from a corner.

  “That’s it!” Jones agreed. “Mary Harrison. Lived here, didn’t she?”

  “I reckons you’d better ask Isaac here about her.” A guffaw of laughter greeted the remark.

  “Knew her, did he?” Another guffaw followed.

  Isaac, a little mean-looking man with a hang-dog expression, shuffled uncomfortably. “Ah, give over,” he said. Jones looked inquiringly.

  “A friend of you’n, is she, mister?” the landlord asked.

  “No. Just met her. Mentioned this place. Struck me as a bit of a goer.”

  “That’s Mary, all right.” Jones looked at the speaker.

  “Farmer Cousins,” the landlord introduced. “Seems like from what you say as Mary ain’t changed with the years.”

  There was a loud ‘click’ from behind. Jones swung round under the low raftered ceiling. “Oh,” he said. “Darts. If there’s one game I fancies it’s darts.”

  “Isaac’s champion round here, mister. Take him on?”

  “Pleased.”

  He was, too! If there was one game Superintendent Jones excelled at it was darts. He took his three and started off with an instant double-strip. Five minutes was sufficient for him to run out a winner. The tap-room crowd looked at the big ma
n with respect. “Beer all round, landlord,” he ordered. He took a swig at his beer in a pewter mug.

  “So Mary was the village belle, was she?” he asked.

  There was a snigger from the men. “Belle ain’t quite the word us had fer her,” said one of them.

  “Her wur a scarlet woman, and her only seventeen,” came from a lugubrious figure sitting alone.

  “She wur that. Isaac here wur knocked out, by his missus along’a her. An’ he worn’t only one, neither.”

  Between then and ten o’clock, when the bar closed, the superintendent heard quite a lot of the village amours of Mary Harrison and not a little of it was heated as past rivalries were aired and debated. As he closed the house and had a final drink in the kitchen behind the bar, the landlord summed up. “Don’t ee take too much notice of what they says, mister. Mary was a good-looking girl and there worn’t many of her looks in village. Ain’t now, if it comes to that. All she wanted was fun.”

  “What was she—farmer’s daughter?”

  “Lawks, no. Came to live here. Gawd knows what for, or why. I allus reckoned she’d had trouble at home, somewhere and cleared out. Lodged with Mrs. Winscombe, who’s been dead these five years, and worked for old Martha at post office, over the green.” He waved a hand in the direction.

  The superintendent slept soundly in a feather bed, and woke to another meal of ham and eggs. Then he set out for his first glimpse of Middlecoombe in daylight. And a pleasing spectacle it was, even for the town-loving policeman. The Crown stood on the south side of the green. Green was, perhaps, something of a misnomer, for it was really a duckpond, railed round with a single wooden railing.

  A strip of green turf edged the space between the rails and the roadway which ran completely round the pond and then disappeared into country at either end of the village limits. Whitewashed cottages with little fenced front gardens still blooming with late flowers; even in this late October day, stood higgledy-piggledy without any building line between barns, a stockyard, shops and the other two pubs. Thatch was everywhere—not a tile or slate roof to be seen.