Inspector French and the Sea Mystery

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  He ran out of the house, and calling up his taxi, was driven to Park Walk. There he soon spotted the man who was shadowing Mrs Berlyn.

  ‘Anything to report, Jeffries?’ he demanded quickly. ‘She’s still there, all right?’

  ‘Still there, Mr French. No one left the house since I came on duty.’

  ‘Good. Then come with me.’

  He rang at the door, and when the servant opened, asked for Mrs Berlyn.

  ‘She’s not up, sir,’ the girl returned. ‘Last night she said she had a chill and did not want to be called or disturbed this morning. She said she probably wouldn’t want anything until lunch and not to bring up breakfast as she was going to take a sleeping draught and might not be awake.’

  Though still inadequate to relieve his feelings, French swore his lurid oath.

  ‘Go and wake her now,’ he ordered the scandalised girl. ‘Here, I’ll go to the door with you.’

  The girl seemed about to object, but French’s tone overawed her. Hesitatingly, she led the way.

  ‘Knock,’ said French. ‘Or wait; I will.’ He gave a rousing knock at the door.

  There was no answer.

  ‘She too, by thunder!’ he growled, rattling the handle. The door was locked.

  ‘Your shoulder, Jefferies!’ and for the second time in half an hour French burst open the door of a bedroom. As in the former case, the room was empty.

  But here there was no open window. Not only was the sash latched, but when French opened it and looked out he found that it was thirty feet above the pavement and that there was nothing to assist a descent.

  A glance at the door explained the mystery. The key was missing. Evidently the occupant had left the room by the door, locking it behind her and removing the key. And the maid was able to supply the further information required. The girl, on coming down that morning, had found the yard door unlocked. Though she thought she had fastened it on the previous evening, she had supposed she must have overlooked it.

  French hurried down the narrow yard to the door which led out on the passage behind the houses, only to find that here again the door was locked and the key missing. Again and again he cursed himself for having underestimated the ability of these two people. Had he had the slightest idea that they had followed his progress so minutely, he would have employed very different methods. Even if he had not arrested them he would have seen to it that they did not escape. The shadowing he had adopted would have been effective under normal conditions, but not where the victims were alive to their danger and ready to make a desperate bid for safety.

  But French was too sensible to cry over spilt milk. He had blundered. Very well, it could not be helped. What he had to do now was to retrieve his error at the earliest moment possible. How could he most quickly get on the track of these criminals?

  He returned to the house and made a rapid search for any clue that the lady might have left, but without result. Then leaving Jefferies in charge, he drove back to Kepple Street.

  19

  The Bitterness of Death

  ‘Any luck, Carter?’ French asked quietly as he re-entered Pyke’s room.

  ‘No, sir. He has taken a suit-case with him, a brown leather one of medium size. I got the description from Mrs Welsh. She says she noticed it here yesterday afternoon and it’s gone now. And he has taken all his outer clothes, his suits and overcoats and shoes, but most of his socks and underclothing are here in these drawers. I’ve been through everything, but I’ve not found anything useful.’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’

  French hastily ran through the missing man’s effects. ‘Most of this stuff is foreign,’ he observed as he glanced over the clothes. ‘You see the Argentine marking on the collars and shirts. No, I don’t think there’s much to help us there. No books or papers?’

  ‘None, sir. But there’s a big heap of burnt paper in the grate.’

  ‘So I saw. We’ll go through it, later on. Now, ask the landlady to come here. Just sit down, Mrs Welsh, will you? I want to know if you can tell me anything to help me to find your lodger. I’m sorry to say he is wanted on a very serious charge; murder, in fact. Therefore, you will understand how necessary it is that you should tell me all you know.’

  Mrs Welsh was thunderstruck, declaring again and again that she would not have believed it of so nice a gentleman. She was also terrified lest her rooms should suffer through the inevitable publicity. But she realised her duty and did her best to answer French’s questions.

  For a long time he gained no useful information, then at last an important point came out, though not in connection with his immediate objective.

  Having given up for the moment the question of Pyke’s destination, French was casting around to see if he could learn anything connecting him with the crime when he chanced to ask, had Mr Pyke a typewriter?

  ‘Not lately, he hadn’t,’ Mrs Welsh answered; ‘but he did have one for a time. I don’t know why he got it, for I never knew him to use it. But he had it there on the table for about three weeks.’

  ‘Oh,’ said French, interested. ‘When was that?’

  ‘I couldn’t say exactly. Three months ago or more, I should think. But my daughter might remember. Vera is a typist and she was interested in the machine more than what I was. I’ll call her, if you like. She is at home on holidays.’

  Vera Welsh was the pretty girl with fair hair and blue eyes whom French had already seen. She smiled at him as she appeared in answer to her mother’s call.

  ‘We were talking of Mr Pyke’s typewriter,’ he explained. ‘Can you tell me what make it was?’

  ‘Yes, I noticed it when I was dusting the room. It was a Corona Four.’

  ‘And when did he get it?’

  The girl hesitated. ‘Between three and four months ago,’ she said at last, with a reserve which aroused French’s interest.

  ‘Between three and four months?’ he repeated. ‘How are you so sure of that? Was there anything to fix it in your mind?’

  There was, but for some time the girl would not give details. Then at last the cause came out.

  It seemed that on the day after Vera had first noticed the machine she had had some extra typing to do in the office which would have necessitated her working late. But on that day her mother had not been well and she had particularly wanted to get home at her usual time. The thought of Mr Pyke’s typewriter occurred to her, together with the fact that he had left that morning on one of his many visits to the country. She had thereupon decided to borrow the machine for the evening. She had brought her work home and had done it in his sitting-room. She did not remember the actual day, but could find it from her records in the office.

  ‘Very wise, if you ask me,’ French said sympathetically. ‘And what was the nature of the work you did?’ He found it hard to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

  ‘Just a copy of some tenders we had from America. I am in a hardware shop in Tottenham Court Road and it was about American lawn mowers and other gardening machines.’

  ‘I understand. I suppose you don’t know what the copies were required for?’

  ‘Just for filing. The originals had to be sent away and these were wanted for reference.’

  French rose to his feet. Certainly, the luck was not entirely against him.

  ‘Put your hat on, if you please, Miss Welsh, and come along with me to your office. I must see that copy. I can’t tell you how much you have helped me by telling me of it.’

  The girl at first demurred, as she feared her employer might have views of his own as to the taking of important papers home from the office. But French assured her that he would see she did not suffer for her action. In fact, before she knew what was happening she was in a taxi on the way to the place.

  On reaching the senior partner’s office French was as good as his word. He explained the importance of his seeing the type-script, and saying that Miss Welsh had risked her job in the interests of justice, begged that the matter might not be held
against her.

  Mr Cooke shook his head over the incident, but admitting to French that the girl was satisfactory, he agreed to overlook it. Then he rang for the papers in question.

  Ten seconds with his lens was enough for French. Here at last was the proof he had been looking for! The typing was that of the notes to the Vida works and to the magneto company.

  ‘I’m pretty glad to get this paper, Mr Cooke,’ he declared. ‘Now, do you think you could let me keep it? Miss Welsh could perhaps type another copy for you?’

  Mr Cooke was obliging and in ten minutes the precious document was handed over. Stopping only to get the girl to certify on it that she had made it with Pyke’s machine, French hurried her away.

  ‘I’ll drive you home, Miss Welsh,’ he said with his pleasant smile. ‘You have been of the greatest help. Now, I wonder if you could do something else for me,’ and he began repeating the questions he had already put to her mother.

  Almost at once he got valuable information, though once again not on the matter immediately at issue.

  It appeared that on the previous afternoon Pyke had called the girl into his room and asked her if she would do a small commission for him. It was to take a letter to a lady in Chelsea. It concerned, so he said, an appointment to dine that evening, so that she would see that it was urgent. The matter was private and she was not to give the note to anyone but the lady herself, nor was she to mention it. To compensate her for her trouble and to cover the cost of taxis and so on, he hoped she would accept a ten-shilling note. She had not thought this strange, as she knew him to be liberal in money matters. But she had wondered that a note about a dinner appointment should be so bulky. The envelope was of foolscap size and must have contained at least a dozen sheets. She had taken it to the address it bore and handed it to the lady—Mrs Berlyn, 70b Park Walk, Chelsea. She had not mentioned the matter to anyone.

  Here was the explanation of the conversation French had overheard on Hampstead Heath. With a little thought he was able to follow the man’s mental processes.

  In the first place it was evident that Pyke had realised that he was suspected, as well as that French had opened Ganope’s note. He would guess therefore that French would shadow him continually until his meeting with Mrs Berlyn, and would try to overhear what passed thereat. He would also see that for that very reason he was safe from arrest till the meeting had taken place, when this immunity would cease.

  But he wanted the night in which to escape. How could he stave off arrest until the following day?

  Clearly, he had solved his problem by writing out the conversation, possibly with stage directions, as a playwright writes out the dialogue in his play. In it he had pledged himself to a visit to Berlyn on the morrow. If he could make French swallow the yarn he knew that arrest would be postponed in order that French might learn the junior partner’s whereabouts. He had then sent Mrs Berlyn her ‘lines,’ and she had learnt them like any other actress. French ruefully admitted to himself that, in spite of the absence of a rehearsal, the two had presented their little piece with astonishing conviction.

  On reaching the Yard, French’s first care was to set the great machine of the C.I.D. in operation against the fugitives. Among his notes he already had detailed descriptions of each, and he thought he would be safe in assuming that Pyke would wear his collar up and his hat pulled low over his eyes. Mrs Welsh had described the suit-case, and, burdened by this, French thought there was a reasonable chance of the man having been noticed.

  A number of helpers were soon busy telephoning the descriptions to all the London police stations as well as to the ports. Copies were also sent for insertion in the next number of the Morning Report. In a day or so all the police and detectives in the country would be on the look-out for the couple.

  With Mrs Welsh’s help French made a list of the clothes likely to be in the suit-case. As these would have had a considerable weight, he thought it unlikely that Pyke would have walked very far. He therefore despatched three sets of men, one to make inquiries at the adjoining railway and tube stations, another to comb the neighbouring hotels and boarding houses, and the third to search for a taxi driver who might have picked up such a fare in one of the near-by streets.

  It was not until these urgent matters had been dealt with that he turned to consider his second line of inquiry. Of Jefferson Pyke himself he knew practically nothing. What was the man’s history? Why was he remaining in England? Particularly, where had he been at the time of the crime and while the crate was at Swansea.

  He began operations by writing to the Lincoln police for all available information about Phyllis Considine, as well as Stanley and Jefferson Pyke. Then he sent a cable to the Argentine, asking the authorities there for details about Jefferson. He wired to the police at San Remo, Grasse, and in Paris, asking whether the cousins had stayed during the month of July at the various hotels Jefferson had mentioned. Lastly, he rang up the Bibby Line offices to know if they could help him to trace two passengers named Pyke who had sailed from Liverpool to Marseilles on their Flintshire about four months previously.

  The Bibby people replied first. They said that the Flintshire had been home, but had left again for Rangoon. However, if Mr French would call at their office they would show him the passenger list and perhaps give him other required information.

  In an hour French was seated with the manager. There he inspected the list, which bore the names of Stanley and Jefferson Pyke, and he was assured that two gentlemen answering to these names had actually sailed.

  ‘If that is not sufficient for you, it happens that you can get further evidence,’ the manager went on. ‘Mr Hawkins, the purser of the Flintshire, broke his arm on the homeward trip. He went off on sick leave and, if you care to go down to Ramsgate, you can see him.’

  ‘I shall be only too glad,’ French said.

  Armed with an introduction from the manager, French travelled down next morning to the Isle of Thanet. Mr Hawkins was exceedingly polite and gave him all the information in his power. He remembered the Pykes having sailed on the last trip from Birkenhead to Marseilles. Stanley Pyke he had not come in contact with more than in the normal way of business, though they had once chatted for a few moments about the day’s run. But he had seen a good deal of Jefferson. He, Mr Hawkins, had spent a year in the Argentine in Jefferson’s district and they had found they had many acquaintances in common. He had formed a high opinion of Jefferson, both as a man of the world and a rancher. Both the cousins had seemed in every way normal, and several of the passengers had expressed regret when the two left the ship at Marseilles.

  On reaching London, French drove to the Houston. Showing his credentials he asked whether two gentlemen, a Mr Stanley and a Mr Jefferson Pyke, had stayed there for one night towards the end of the previous July.

  It was not to be expected that the reception clerk would remember either visitor. But she soon turned up the register. The names appeared on July 21st, both having been written by Stanley.

  ‘That’s scarcely good enough for me,’ said French. ‘It doesn’t prove that they were both here.’

  ‘Practically, it does,’ the clerk returned. ‘You see, each was allotted a room. If the rooms had not been occupied the allocation would have been cancelled, for at that time we were turning people away every night. But we can soon settle it.’ She looked up her account-books. ‘Here,’ she went on, after a moment, ‘are the accounts in question. Mr Stanley occupied No. 346 and Mr Jefferson, No. 351. The accounts were paid separately. I receipted Mr Stanley’s and Miss Hurst, another of our staff, receipted Mr Jefferson’s. Curiously,’ she went on, ‘I remember Mr Stanley paying. He broke the basin in his room and we had some discussion as to whether he would be charged for it. He was, in the end.’

  This would have seemed ample confirmation of Jefferson’s statement to most people, but French, with his passion for thoroughness, decided to see the chambermaid. She remembered the incident and remembered also that the gentleman’s
friend had occupied No. 351, as on her bringing his hot water in answer to his ring, he had said he was late and would she go and wake his friend in No. 351. She had done as requested, but the friend was already up.

  From the Houston, French walked to Kettle Street. Yes, Mr Jefferson had taken the rooms on the 22nd July last, and though he had been frequently away for a day or two at a time, he had lived there ever since. Moreover, Mrs Welsh’s records enabled her to say that he had been absent not only on the night of the crime, but also on the date when the crate was disposed of at Swansea.

  On his return to the Yard, French found that replies had come in from Paris and the Riviera. Stanley and Jefferson Pyke had stayed at the three hotels in question.

  The next post brought a letter from the Lincoln police. It appeared that the three young people, about whom inquiries had been made, had lived in the district at the time mentioned. Dr Considine was a well-known practitioner in the town until his death in 1912, but little was known of his daughter Phyllis, save the mere fact of her existence. Stanley and Jefferson Pyke had lived with a relative in the suburbs and had attended a private school kept by a Dr Oates. The relations between the girl and boys were not known, but it was probable that they had met, as they were in the same social set. More could probably be learned by further inquiries.

  This seemed to French sufficient to corroborate the statements of Jefferson Pyke and Mrs Berlyn, and he advised the Lincoln police not to trouble further in the matter.

  He had scarcely written his note when a cable from the Argentine police was handed to him. Jefferson Pyke was well known as the owner of an estancia in the Rosario district. He was believed to be comfortably off, though not wealthy. He answered the description given in the wire from Scotland Yard and had left for England on the boat mentioned.

  With the exception of the fact that Jefferson was away from his rooms at the time of the crime, all this was disappointing to French. So far he had learned little to help in the building up of his case. On the contrary, the tendency was in Jefferson Pyke’s favour. He did not appear to be of the stuff of which murderers are made. Nor, from the purser’s description, did it seem likely that he was hatching a crime while on the Flintshire. On the other hand, there was no knowing what even the mildest man might do under the stress of passion.