The Dartmoor Enigma

by Basil Thomson

  “Yes, sir, this afternoon if you like.”

  “Send him in, then.”

  In a few moments the junior chief inspector made his appearance. There were those who resented his quick promotion over the heads of officers senior to him, but it was impossible to feel malice towards a man who gave himself no airs, who appeared ever anxious to learn from those junior to himself in rank, and who gave the fullest credit to all who worked under him. It had been his success in a Paris case and the warm recommendation from the Foreign Office that had brought him his last step in promotion.

  “You sent for me, sir?” he said to Morden.

  “Yes, Mr. Richardson. It was to ask you if you know Dartmoor at all?”

  “No, sir. I’ve been once to the convict prison, but that is all.”

  “Well, now is your opportunity. The Chief Constable has asked for help in a difficult case which is set out in these papers, and I propose that you take Sergeant Jago with you, as he has an intimate knowledge of the district. Get a copy made of these papers to take with you; get the anonymous letters photographed; get the usual advances and report yourself to the Superintendent at Winterton to-night if you can.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “I don’t want you to waste valuable time in writing reports, but if you make any discovery that promises well, you should let us know.”

  For the next hour Richardson made life a burden to the various departments concerned in sending officers to work in the provinces. But in the end he found himself on the Waterloo platform with his companion in time for the afternoon express to Tavistock. All this had been arranged by telephone from Scotland Yard. The first part of the journey was devoted to a study of the Chief Constable’s letter, and to the photographs of the two anonymous letters.

  “Have a good look at these photographs, Jago, and tell me what you make of them,” said Richardson; “take your time.”

  Jago studied the envelopes and their postmarks and then scrutinized the text of the letters. “One thing strikes me, Chief Inspector. These two letters were sent off on the same day and the man who posted them could only have posted one in Tavistock and the other in Moorstead if he had a car or motor-lorry.”

  “Ah! That’s where your local knowledge comes in. It’s a sound deduction, but why should the owner of the car go to such pains to be anonymous?”

  Sergeant Jago shook his head, and Richardson pulled out a map from his pocket. “The distance is only a dozen miles or so, nothing very much for a motor-lorry; but what do motor-lorries carry right across the moor?”

  “Mostly granite.”

  “Oh, then there are granite lorries between Tavistock and Moorstead?”

  “Yes, sir, there’s Rowe’s quarry a mile or two out from Tavistock, where the best granite comes from, and there’s a smaller quarry somewhere near Moorstead.”

  “Have you noticed anything special about the handwriting of these anonymous letters? Would you say that the two were written by the same man?”

  Jago studied the photographs again. “Well, if they were, the fellow disguised his hand. The writing in the Commissioner’s letter slopes backward much more than the other.”

  “It does, but that’s a familiar trick for a half-educated writer of anonymous letters.”

  “You think the same man wrote both?”

  “I feel sure of it and if I’m right we have something to go upon. First the misspelling. He spells ‘burial’ with two r’s in the Commissioner’s letter, and ‘buried’ in the Chief Constable’s also has two r’s.”

  “But I don’t see why he should have wanted to appear to be two different people.”

  “Only because he thought that more notice would be taken of two people than one, and he wanted notice taken, which makes me think that he knows something and that it’s not merely a hoax.”

  “But if he knows something, why shouldn’t he come openly to the police and tell them?”

  “Ah, that’s what we’ve got to find out. For the moment we’re only speculating. Suppose, for instance, that the writer is an ex-convict lately released on licence and that he saw a crime committed; he might think that he wouldn’t stand a chance with his bad record if he were accused of committing the crime.”

  “Yes, I see that, sir.”

  “At any rate, you with your local knowledge have given us something to work upon—the motor-lorry theory.”

  They had passed Okehampton and were nearing Tavistock. Richardson packed up his papers and took his modest luggage down from the rack. The train slowed down; a constable in uniform was on the platform; Richardson approached him.

  “I’m Chief Inspector Richardson from Scotland Yard.”

  The constable saluted. “We’ve been sent to meet you, sir, by Superintendent Carstairs. He had a telegram this afternoon.”

  “This is Detective Sergeant Jago—a native of Tavistock.”

  The constable shook hands. “I know your family well, Sergeant,” he said.

  The drive from Tavistock to Winterton by the main road which skirts the moor was rapidly covered. The car drew up at the police station.

  They were met on the steps by Superintendent Carstairs, who shook hands warmly with Richardson.

  “I’m very glad you’ve come down, Chief Inspector. The fact is that with my limited staff I could never have undertaken to solve the case.”

  “But I shan’t be able to get on without you, Superintendent,” said Richardson. “It’s true that I’ve brought with me Sergeant Jago, who was born and brought up in Tavistock and has knowledge of the locality, but naturally he has no acquaintance with the dead man’s affairs and you would have.”

  “That is the trouble, Chief Inspector. No one knows anything of the late Mr. Dearborn’s affairs—not even his wife. What I propose to do for you is this. I’ll show you the broken stick which was picked up by one of my officers about a quarter of a mile from the scene of the accident, and then, tomorrow morning I propose to introduce you to the widow and let you question her in any way you please. I want you to remember that whenever you require transport the police car will be at your service. In fact, I am turning over the case to you entirely.”

  “The body has not been buried yet?”

  “No. Dr. Symon, who was called in by the widow to attend the deceased just before he died, is a young man without very much experience, and the verdict at the inquest was given on his evidence. You will probably desire to have a second medical opinion in view of the finding of the broken stick and the anonymous letter written to me.”

  “That was not the only one, Superintendent. The Commissioner in London also received one in the same handwriting. I have brought photographs of the two letters for you to see. Now may I have a look at the broken stick?”

  “Step into my office, Mr. Richardson. We can dispose of all these questions now.” He led the way to a little room, scrupulously tidy, and called for his clerk. “See that we’re not disturbed, Henry.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Now sit down, Mr. Richardson, and make yourself at home. This office will always be at your disposal.”

  He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked a drawer and took from it the top of a heavy walking-stick with a silver band. “You will see the bloodstains on the crook.”

  “With a hair adhering to it,” observed Richardson. “I suppose the bloodstains have not yet been examined to see whether it’s human blood, nor the hair compared with that of the dead man?”

  The Superintendent chuckled in his beard.

  “No, down here I’m afraid we don’t work at such high pressure. The fact is that when the Chief Constable told me on the telephone that you were coming, I thought it better not to interfere with any possible evidence.”

  “Have you any doctor in your mind, say from Plymouth, who could make a second examination of the body with Dr. Symon?”

  “Well, yes; I thought of calling in Dr. Fraser. He’s a man of about forty-five, well known to the local magistrates, a
nd very cautious when giving an opinion. If you approve I can telephone to him this evening to be up here to-morrow morning.”

  “Very well, and now I’ll show you the photographs of the letters.”

  Richardson laid the two photographs on the desk. Superintendent Carstairs took out a pair of glasses, polished them with his handkerchief and bent over the letters, breathing hard. It was clear that he was more at home in dealing with his staff in out-door-work than in comparing documents. Richardson felt, more than saw, that he was waiting for a lead. It was a pathetic spectacle—this weather-beaten, bearded superintendent, who more than filled his office chair, bending over documents on which he knew that he could give no useful opinion. Richardson came to his rescue.

  “You see, Mr. Carstairs, that the letters were written by the same hand and that the writer tried to disguise his handwriting by tilting the characters backward in the letter to the Commissioner. But the misspelling is the same in each.”

  The Superintendent nodded.

  “Then, if you look at the postmarks you can see that they were posted in places a good many miles apart. The writer, therefore, must have been in possession of a car or motor-lorry.”

  Superintendent Carstairs acquiesced and handed back the photographs, glad to be rid of them. “Now, Mr. Richardson, you must be tired after your journey. I’ve found quarters for you and your sergeant at the local hotel—the Duchy Arms. If you will come round here at nine-thirty to-morrow morning I will introduce you to Mrs. Dearborn.”

  Chapter Two

  OCTOBER 11 was one of those rarely warm and beautiful days that seem to be sent to leave dwellers on the moor with a memory of the dead summer when the pall of mist and rain is due to descend upon them.

  At half-past nine the Superintendent looked in to say that it was not too early to take Richardson over to Mrs. Dearborn. “I telephoned to her this morning, telling her to expect you, so you will find her prepared. Dr. Fraser will be at the house for the medical examination of the body at half-past eleven. Probably you will want to see him.”

  “What about Sergeant Jago, Mr. Carstairs? Will the lady be prepared to receive two of us?”

  “If you take my advice, Chief Inspector, you will see her alone. She isn’t an excitable person, but I fancy that she will be more communicative if you are by yourself. While you are talking to her, Sergeant Jago might be looking over the car, which is in the private garage at The Firs.”

  Mrs. Dearborn opened the door to them in person. She was a thin, worn woman, who looked older than her age; there was an air of faded gentility about her. She was dressed in black. “This is the gentleman of whom I spoke to you on the telephone,” said Carstairs. “Chief Inspector Richardson of Scotland Yard.”

  Richardson shook hands with her and noticed that her fingers were rough like those of one accustomed to domestic work.

  “Will you come into the sitting-room, Mr. Richardson?” she said; “we shall be quite quiet there. And you, Mr. Carstairs?”

  “No, I’ve my work to do. But I hope you will tell Mr. Richardson everything you know and keep nothing back. While he is here I should like his assistant to have a look at the car in the garage. May I have the key please?”

  She took a key from a hook in the hall and gave it to him. “No one has touched the car since it was brought in.”

  After a sympathetic reference to her loss, Richardson began his questioning. “I think I ought to ask you first, how long you have been married to Mr. Dearborn?”

  “We were married in Plymouth a year ago, but I had been keeping house for him for two years before that. You see, when my father died, his pension died with him and I was left very badly off. I saw an advertisement in a Plymouth newspaper, for a housekeeper, and I answered it. Mr. Dearborn invited me to an interview and that was how I first met him.”

  “Until you answered that advertisement you knew nothing of your husband?”

  “No; I had never heard of him in my life.”

  “Had he been living long in Winterton?”

  “No, he told me he had only just bought this house.”

  “Did he say who the house agent was who sold it to him?”

  “No.”

  “Nor from what part of the country he came? Because I gather that he was not a Plymouth man.”

  “No. It may seem strange to you, but he told me nothing of his past life and I asked him no questions, because I thought that he would tell me of his own accord if he wanted to.”

  “So you never knew anything about his former profession?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Nor about his friends and relations?”

  “No; he told me he had no near relations, and apart from business letters from tradesmen, he received no correspondence by post.”

  “What was his age?”

  “There I can answer you. At the time of our marriage he gave it as thirty-eight.”

  “He had a bank in Plymouth, I suppose?”

  “Yes. It was the Union Bank—because when he showed me his will, I saw that the manager of the Union Bank was his sole executor and he explained that he had left everything he possessed to me.”

  “What did he do with his time?”

  “Well, he was a great newspaper reader, and that took up the greater part of his mornings. Lately he has had the quarry to visit, but before he bought that he used to take long walks.”

  “By himself?”

  “Yes, always by himself. When he first came people used to call on him, but he never returned their visits nor answered their invitations to tennis-parties and the like, so I suppose they grew tired of asking him.”

  “And they haven’t renewed their invitations since your marriage?”

  “No, but I have always plenty to occupy me at home, looking after the house and garden.”

  “You have a maidservant?”

  “Yes, a Devonshire girl who has been with us ever since I came to the house.”

  “Have you a gardener?”

  She smiled. “You are talking to the gardener at this moment. Sometimes I have to get in a jobbing gardener to do the digging, but otherwise I look after the garden myself.”

  “How long has your husband had a car?”

  “He bought it about six months ago. It was like a new toy to him. Two or three times a week, except in very bad weather, he would go for long drives over the moor. I suppose he wasn’t a very experienced driver and that that was the cause of the accident.”

  “He was conscious between the time of his accident and his death a week later?”

  “Oh, yes; certainly on the first two days after the accident.”

  “And he never told you how it happened?”

  “Yes; he said that his foot-brake didn’t work, but my impression was that he had his foot on the wrong lever and mistook the accelerator for the brake.”

  “Did he speak of having met anyone shortly before the mishap?”

  “No. As I told you, he did not know any of his neighbours.”

  “So it comes to this—that neither you nor he were on speaking terms with anyone in Winterton?”

  “He was not, but I have one friend in the place—a young naval officer, Lieutenant Cosway, whose parents live in the second house from this, in that direction”—she pointed towards Plymouth. “You see, I have a Siamese kitten. One day Mr. Cosway was passing with his dog and it chased my kitten up a tree. He called off the dog and apologized, but the kitten was afraid to come down and so he took off his coat and climbed the tree. I got frightened because the higher he climbed the higher went the kitten, and I was afraid that the tree, which was bending with his weight, would break and both of them would be killed. However, he rescued the little beast and brought it down in his arms.

  “Since then he has been in to look at my garden once or twice. You see, he has a dockyard appointment at Devonport and often comes up to Winterton to see his family.”

  “Did he never make your husband’s acquaintance?”

  “No,
my husband always happened to be out when he came.”

  “Then if your husband had no friends in Winterton, at any rate he had no enemies?”

  She appeared startled. “Enemies? Why do you ask that?”

  Up to this point her manner had been so colourless and her replies so composed that Richardson had scarcely realized that he was dealing with a woman of flesh and blood. She left him in no doubt on that point now.

  “The questions you have been asking me are surely very unusual. Do you always cross-examine people on their private lives like this in the case of an accident? I think that I am entitled to some explanation.”

  “You are quite right, Mrs. Dearborn. I ought to have explained sooner why I have been asking these questions. Someone has been writing anonymous letters to the police, suggesting that your husband’s death was due, not to the motor accident alone, but to an attack made upon him by someone on the road, and in order to clear this up there is to be another medical examination this morning.”

  “But this is ridiculous. My husband was fully conscious after his accident, and I am sure he would have told me if he had been attacked.”

  “Well, we can only wait for the result of the medical examination, and until that is made there is nothing for you to worry about. You see, Mrs. Dearborn, anonymous letters in most cases turn out to be malicious and ill-informed, but it is unwise entirely to ignore them as I think you will agree.”

  “I quite see that, and now that I know the reason for your questions I will answer them all to the best of my ability. The only point on which I can give you but little help is on my husband’s affairs, because he never took me into his confidence.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Dearborn. I won’t worry you with any more questions now.”

  Richardson went round to the garage where he found Sergeant Jago with evidence on his clothes and hands of having made an exhaustive survey of the car. Before joining the Metropolitan Police Jago had worked in a Tavistock garage and the experience had been useful to him; indeed there had been a time when the Public Carriage Department at Scotland Yard had competed with the C.I.D. for his services.

  “Well, young man,” said Richardson, “what discoveries have you made?”