The Dartmoor Enigma

by Basil Thomson

  “Why, of course. It shall take you anywhere you like.”

  For a wonder at that time of year the sun was shining brightly over the moor at eight o’clock when the car started on its long pull up to Duketon. Richardson passed the scene of the tragedy with feelings very different to those which had depressed him at the outset of his inquiry. Then everything pointed to failure; now the weathercock was set fair for the run home.

  “I want you to pull up at the Duchy Hotel,” he said to the driver.

  “You had better come in with me, Jago. I shall want you to make a note of the interview I’m going to have with the innkeeper.”

  At this early hour the bar and the other rooms on the ground floor looked most uninviting. It was being swept out and the granite floors were being swabbed; the proprietor was in his shirt-sleeves cleaning the bar counter.

  “I’m afraid you’ll find us in rather a mess,” he said. “We don’t expect visitors so early as a rule.”

  “I’m not going to detain you for more than five minutes,” said Richardson. “Where can we go for five minutes’ quiet talk?”

  “Come into the back parlour, sir. We shall be quiet in there.” He led the way.

  “You remember my last visit, Mr. Tovey, when I told you that we were officers from Scotland Yard?”

  “Very well indeed.”

  “And you remember telling me of a young holiday-maker who stayed a night with you and asked you about Mr. Dearborn? He mistook him for someone else. You couldn’t remember the name he gave you…”

  “And if you’ve come to ask me for the name now I should have to tell you the same. All I can say is that I should know it again if I heard it.”

  “Yes, but please be careful when I suggest a name. Don’t try to please me by saying yes unless you’re quite sure. A great deal depends upon your, answer, Mr. Tovey.”

  “You’ve only to say the name and if I’m not quite sure I’ll tell you so.”

  “Was it Sutcliffe?”

  Tovey shook his head.

  “Was it Willis?”

  “No, it wasn’t a common name like that.”

  “Was it Instone?”

  “Yes!” The affirmative came almost in a shout. “Yes! Instone was the name. I could swear to it in any court of law.”

  Richardson gave the order to the driver to set them down at The Firs in Winterton.

  “Shall you be wanting the car any more to-day, sir?” asked the driver.

  “I can’t tell you yet, until I’ve had a talk with Superintendent Carstairs.”

  They found Mrs. Dearborn at home. She came out of her kitchen, wiping her hands.

  “I’m sorry to break in upon you at such an early hour,” said Richardson.

  “On the contrary, I’ve been expecting your visit for more than an hour. I’ll just run into the kitchen for a moment and turn off the gas, and I’ll join you in the sitting-room.”

  A moment later she was with them. “You were going to tell me who my husband really was,” she said. ‘Of course I have guessed by now that he must have been passing under an assumed name. What was his real name?”

  “Charles Instone.”

  She stared at him. “I suppose that that invalidates our marriage.”

  “You will have to ask a lawyer about that, Mrs. Dearborn. I can’t tell you what effect a marriage ceremony with a person who gave an assumed name will have upon the widow.”

  “Why was he hiding his identity?” she asked. “Don’t be afraid to tell me; I’d rather know the truth.”

  “Well, he was clerk to a solicitor in Bristol and he had, I am sorry to say, embezzled a good deal of his employer’s money.”

  A horrified look showed in Mrs. Dearborn’s eyes. “You mean that the money that I’m living on was stolen?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Well then, of course it must be restored to the person to whom it belongs, and I must find a situation somewhere.”

  “Don’t do anything in a hurry. That’s my advice to you. Wait until the whole case has been cleared up.”

  “But this house? At least I can put it into the hands of house-agents to sell for me. I shouldn’t wish to stay on here in any case.”

  “I know nothing to prevent you from selling the house if you can find a purchaser, and that ought not to be difficult. Where do you think of going to when you leave?”

  “To London. I believe that it would be easier to find the kind of work for which I am fitted in London than in a country town. I thought of putting the house into agents’ hands to-day and going up to London to-morrow.”

  “Where shall I be able to find you in London in case there are other questions to ask you?”

  “In the same hotel where you called on me last time. I suppose that if I should need your advice I could always communicate with you through Scotland Yard?”

  “Yes, your letters would always be forwarded, but I shall be seeing you constantly before the case is finished; and now I must wish you good-bye and good luck.”

  When Richardson informed Superintendent Carstairs that he was called to Clifton for an inquiry, the Superintendent in the fullness of his heart offered him the use of the car.

  “No,” said Richardson. “It is very kind of you to suggest it, but to take the car over a hundred miles and let it come back empty would be an abuse of your hospitality. We will do the journey by train.”

  “But you will be coming back here later on?”

  “I don’t know yet, Superintendent. I have to make my detailed report to my chiefs at the Yard and see what they decide. In the meantime can one of your clerks work out our journey to Clifton?”

  In less than five minutes the time-table was arranged. They were to take the car to North Road and lunch on the train. The train connections appeared to work in together.

  Richardson glanced at the clock. “I suppose we ought to be off,” he said.

  “I’ve ordered the car, sir,” said the policeman clerk. “I fancy that it is at the door now.”

  Richardson shook hands with the Superintendent and the expressions of goodwill were reciprocated on both sides.

  “You’ll be back again, Mr. Richardson, very shortly, if only to have an interview with the murderer,” said Carstairs, laughing.

  The trains suited admirably. The two Metropolitan officers found themselves at Clifton in time to interview the lady who had signed herself Dora Straight between tea-time and dinner. A taxi carried them to her house—an affluent-looking one for a single woman. Richardson gave the maid one of his cards and asked to see her mistress on a rather urgent matter.

  “It’s one of her bridge-party days, sir,” objected the girl.

  “Tell her, please, that I’m very sorry to disturb her at such a time, but that if they could play dummy for a few minutes that would suffice.”

  The maid sped upstairs and delivered the message. She must have left the door open, for sounds of protest and indignation floated down the stairs. They caught the words, “But it’s not the ordinary police; it’s Scotland Yard.” A hushed silence ensued; it was broken by a petulant voice. “Here, Alice, you come and take my hand. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Will you step this way, gentlemen, please,” said the maid. She led them into the dining-room on the ground floor and shut the door after them.

  It opened again to admit a tall, masculine-looking lady with bobbed hair stippled with grey, and a red face which at that moment was lowering like a thundercloud. “Sit down,” she commanded, “and tell me as shortly as possible what is your business with me.”

  “I think, madam, that you were the writer of this letter.” Richardson produced the letter that they had found unopened in the box of papers from Sutcliffe’s office.

  She took it, read the contents, and glanced at the date. “But this was written more than three years ago,” she said.

  “Yes, madam, but it reached the gentleman to whom it is addressed only yesterday. He has been away in the country for the pas
t three years.”

  “Psha! What’s the good of beating about the bush? I know just as well as you do that he has been in a convict prison, and what’s more, I flatter myself that I helped to send him there.”

  “By sending a letter to the Chief Constable of Bristol?”

  “Exactly. He and his confederate had cheated me out of two thousand pounds, and naturally as I’d lost my money I decided to get even with them.”

  “You were warned that the gold mine in Borneo to which Mr. Sutcliffe invited subscriptions was a fraudulent concern?”

  “I was.”

  “Would you mind giving me the name of the person who gave you that warning?”

  “I should mind very much. The warning was given to me in confidence.”

  “By a man who was consistently robbing his employer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, didn’t you know? Mr. Charles Instone, who gave you that warning and so was instrumental in the prosecution of his employer, made away with a very large sum of money belonging to that employer. I feel sure that a lady with your obvious sense of justice will not hesitate to help me by telling all she knows when once the true facts are brought to her notice.”

  “And in the meantime I’m to be robbed of two thousand pounds on a bogus prospectus and have no redress.”

  “The two thousand pounds you subscribed to the gold mine will probably be refunded to you.”

  “Have you been sent down here to tell me this?”

  “No, madam; I’ve been sent down here to investigate the circumstances of the murder of the late Mr. Instone.”

  “Instone murdered! When?”

  “On the 29th of September last.”

  “Who did it?”

  “That is what I have to find out, and I thought I might count on your help. I gather that the warning you received did come from the late Mr. Instone. Did it come by letter or by word of mouth?”

  “By letter, of course. I have it upstairs.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Well, the poor man made it a condition that I should keep his letter confidential. He said that in writing it he was risking his job in my interests.”

  “Yes, but since he’s dead, the condition can scarcely hold good; especially when we have to think of justice to the living.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said doubtfully.” I’ll just look through the letter and see whether there’s anything in it that it’s not fair to divulge. Don’t get up; sit where you are till I come down.”

  The letter took some time to find, or else the bridge-party had waylaid the lady on her way upstairs. In the end, however, she made her appearance with the letter in her hand.

  “I’m sorry to have been so long. I had to hunt for it. I don’t think there’s anything in the letter that I ought not to show you. Here it is.”

  As Richardson read the missive he reflected that this was one of the most sickening documents that he had ever been called upon to peruse:

  “DEAR MADAM,

  “I feel it my duty both to satisfy my own conscientious scruples as well as to save your pocket to convey a warning to you. The North Borneo gold-mining company to which you have been induced to subscribe a large sum is, I regret to say, not only a very risky enterprise but actually a fraudulent one. I have read the prospectus with sickness of heart to think that anyone concerned to uphold the reputation of the firm to which I am attached, should invite his clients to put money into a gold mine which does not in fact exist. Many men in the past have been sent to prison for far less than the false statements with which this prospectus abounds. I can only hope to save my employer’s good name by warning his clients not to put any money into it. At the same time, I feel that I have a right to beg them to treat this letter in the strictest confidence, since, if it were brought to the notice of the head of the firm, I should be dismissed from my post for the ‘crime’ of having tried to save the reputation of the firm.

  “I am, dear madam,

  “Your faithful well-wisher,

  “CHARLES INSTONE.”

  “May I keep this letter, madam?” asked Richardson.

  “No, but if you like to take a copy of it…it struck me as the letter of a man of very high principles. Don’t you think so?”

  “Before I express an opinion, let me ask you one or two questions. When you received this letter had you paid over the money for your shares?”

  “Yes, of course I had.”

  “You hadn’t only sent in your application for shares in the mine?”

  “No, I’d paid the money over. This letter didn’t reach me till several days later. I think that it was after the shares had gone to allotment.”

  “Didn’t it strike you that Mr. Instone’s warning came a little late? If all he says in this letter about his motives were true, wouldn’t he have written to you when your application for shares was received, thus leaving you time to cancel it?”

  “That, I confess, had never struck me. Then you think that he had some ulterior motive?”

  “I do. A Mr. Frank Willis had lately been frequenting the office.”

  “Yes, Mr. Instone mentioned him in an interview I had with him. He said that he didn’t trust him.”

  “Perhaps the feeling of distrust was mutual.” He turned to Jago. “Have you finished copying that letter?”

  “Just finished.”

  Richardson handed the missive back to the lady with a courtly bow. “I’m very much obliged to you, Miss Straight. I hope that you will be able to pick up your rubber upstairs without any very heavy losses.”

  “Thank you.” For the first time during the interview she permitted herself to laugh almost gaily.

  As they left the house to walk to the station, Jago remarked, “I give you top marks for the way in which you conducted that interview, Mr. Richardson. Lord! What fire and slaughter she was breathing when she came into the room.”

  “Yes, the temperature went up about ten degrees.”

  “But you soon cooled it down. How did you know that she’d had a letter from that swine Instone?”

  “It was one of the guesses that one has to make on this job. I’ll let you into a secret. If you feel sure that something must have been done, don’t ask the witness whether it was done because he or she will say no; speak of it as something that you both know was done and in nine cases out of ten they won’t risk lying about it.”

  “What I can’t understand is why Sutcliffe didn’t make a better fight at his trial. The truth would have come out.”

  “Well, you see, he blamed Frank Willis for the whole affair, and didn’t want to give him away because of the sister. Instone was cunning enough to use the fraudulent gold mine to hide his own robberies.”

  Chapter Twenty

  THEY HAD TIME for sandwiches at the station before taking the next train to London.

  “We shall get in pretty late, or in the early hours of the morning,” said Richardson; “but that will be better than kicking our heels in Clifton when we might doss down in London and start work again to-morrow morning.”

  “What are we going to do in town?”

  “Go out to Bromley and make that alibi for Sutcliffe for the 29th September watertight. At present it rests only on the word of Sutcliffe and his young woman, and whatever we may think about it, it won’t be good enough for Mr. Morden. Also I want to redeem my promise to Sutcliffe to let him know who the man who called himself Charles Dearborn really was.”

  “Won’t he fly up in the air!” said Jago.

  “No; I think you’ll find that he’ll be stunned, poor devil. He’s a standing example of the misery that a man makes for himself when he adopts the wrong profession. If you’d joined the Church, Jago, do you feel that you would have risen to be Archbishop of Canterbury?”

  “I don’t,” laughed Jago; “but I wouldn’t answer for you.”

  The following morning found them again in the garage at Bromley.

  Peter Sutcliffe crawled out from
under a car with his face streaked with oil. “Oh, so you’re back at last; this has been the longest two days that I ever remember.”

  “I’ve news for you,” said Richardson; “those letters you lent me and the photograph have been useful. We now know the identity of the man who was killed on Dartmoor. He was your clerk, Charles Instone.”

  “Good Lord! But I thought you said that he had money.”

  “So he had, but it was your money—money stolen from your account.”

  “My God! What a fool I was to trust him. But I can’t think how he did it.”

  “It seems to have been easy enough. You didn’t check your pass-book, and I suppose you signed cheques blind without noticing whom they were in favour of.”

  “I’m afraid sometimes I signed them blank.”

  “Well, then, can you wonder that a man not naturally honest should have taken advantage of your carelessness about money?”

  “But he had been trained under my father. I left all the investment business to him. He knew more about it than I did.”

  “Naturally, but if it will relieve your mind at all I may tell you that his dishonesty over money seems to have begun only about a year before the crash. In that year he managed to embezzle twenty-five thousand pounds of your and your clients’ money.”

  “I can’t think how he expected to get away with it.”

  “I think he felt that it was time for him to bolt, and that was why he was cunning enough to get a woman investor to lodge a complaint to the police that the gold mine you were interested in was a dud one. He trusted that an investigation would be set on foot and that in the confusion that resulted he would be able to slip quietly away with all the stolen money in Bank of England notes of large denominations. And that was precisely what happened. I have with me a copy of a letter he wrote to one of the investors while he was still in your employ. You have it, Sergeant Jago. Thank you. Now, Mr. Sutcliffe, read that.”

  “My God! Uriah Heap wasn’t in it with this blighter. I deserved all I got for trusting him.”

  “And now, one thing more. I want you to drive me out to the man whose car you drove home on the 29th of September last.”