Tragedy at Ravensthorpe (A Clinton Driffield Mystery)

by J. J. Connington

  “I must skip again; and now we reach the night of the robbery in the museum. You know what happened then. Mr Foss came to me with his tale about overhearing some of you planning a practical joke. His story was true enough, I’ve no doubt; but it set me thinking at once. I may not have shown it, Joan, but I quite agreed with you about his methods. It seemed a funny business to come straight to the police over a thing of that sort. Of course he had his reason ready; but it didn’t ring quite true, somehow. I might have put it down to tactlessness, if it hadn’t suggested something else to my mind.

  “That pistol-shot which smashed the lamp was too neatly timed for my taste. It was fired by someone who knew precisely when the keeper was going to be gripped, and it was fired just in time to get ahead of Foxton Polegate in the raid on the show-case. That meant, if it meant anything, that the man who fired the shot was a person who knew of the practical joke. But on the face of it, Foss was the only person who knew about the joke, bar the jokers themselves. So naturally I began to suspect Foss of having had a hand in the business. It was the usual mistake of the criminal—trying to be too clever and throw suspicion on to someone else.

  “Now Foss wasn’t the man in white, obviously; for he came to see me while the man-hunt was still in full cry. So at that stage in the business I was fairly certain that at least two people were in the game: Foss and someone else, who was the man in white. That looked like either the valet or the chauffeur, since they were the only people I knew about who were directly associated with Foss while he was here. But this incognito business at the masked ball had made it possible for outsiders to come in unrecognized; so the man in white might be a confederate quite outside our range of knowledge. One couldn’t assume that either Marden or Brackley was in the show at all.

  “I learned, later on, that Foss had synchronized his watch with yours, Cecil; and that, of course, made it pretty plain that he was in the game. There was also another bit of evidence which suggested something. If either the valet or the chauffeur was the confederate, then they could easily enough have found out from the servants what costume Maurice meant to wear that night—a few questions to his valet would have got the information—and they could have chosen the Pierrot costume for their own runner in order to confuse things. That suggested that Foss’s servants might be in the business; but it proved nothing really. The white Pierrot costume was chosen mainly for its conspicuousness, I’m sure.

  “Now I come to the disappearance of the man in white.”

  “Thank goodness!” Joan commented. “It gets more interesting as it goes on, does it? That’s something to be thankful for.”

  “One does one’s best,” Sir Clinton retorted, unperturbed. “Now the vanishing of that fellow could be accounted for in various ways, so far as I could see. First of all, he might have slipped down the rope into the little lake. That was what the rope was meant to suggest, obviously. But fortunately one of the hunters had the wit to keep an eye on the lake; and it was pretty clear the man in white didn’t go that way. Then there was the possibility of his being concealed in the cave; but that was ruled out by the search of the cave. Thirdly, the gang might have hit on the opening of one of the secret passages of Ravensthorpe. Candidly, I ruled that out also. It seemed next door to impossible. But if you exclude all these ways, then there seem to be only two possibilities left. The first of these depends on the man in white having a confederate in the cordon who let him slip through. But the chance of a slip-through of that sort escaping the notice of the rest of the hunters seemed very small. It seemed to me too risky a business for them to have tried.

  “The final possibility was that the fugitive disguised himself as something else. Well, what disguise would be the best? It’s a question of camouflage, and they had only a few seconds to do the camouflaging You can’t dress up as a drain-pipe or a garden-seat in a couple of seconds. So we come down to something that’s human in shape but isn’t really human. In a garden, you might pretend to be a scarecrow; but up on that terrace a scarecrow was out of the question. And then I remembered the statues.

  “Suppose somebody had gone up there in the evening and had chiselled one of the statues off its base. The broken marble could be heaved over into the little lake and the bare pedestal would be left for the fugitive.

  “I ought to have thought of that,” Michael interjected. “It’s so obvious when you think of it. But I didn’t think of anything like that at the time.”

  “My impression then,” Sir Clinton continued,” was that the man in white had white tights on under his Pierrot dress. His face and hands were whitened, also; so that as soon as he stripped off his jacket and trousers, he was sufficiently statuelike to pass muster in that light. His eyes would have given him away in daylight; but under the moon he’d only got to shut them and you’d hardly notice his whitened eyelashes. In the few moments that you left him, while the cordon was being formed, he took off his Pierrot things, wrapped them round the weight he’d used in breaking the case’s glass, and pitched the lot over the balustrade. That would account for the splash that was heard.”

  Sir Clinton paused to light a cigarette.

  “That theory seemed to fit most of the evidence, as you see. It explained why they’d chosen that particular place for the disappearing trick; and it accounted for the splash as well. Further, it suggested that there was a third man in the gang: the man who smashed down the real statue. They’d leave that bit of work to the last moment for fear of the damage being seen accidentally beforehand. Now Foss was at the masked ball, so it wasn’t he. The man in white might need all his powers in that race, so it was unlikely that he’d been up there on a heavy bit of manual labour just then, for the shifting of that statue, even in pieces, can have been no light affair. That suggested the use of a third confederate. But I’m no wild enthusiast for theories. I simply noted the coincidence that this theory demanded three men and that Foss’s party contained three men: himself, the valet, and the chauffeur.

  “Now, for reasons which I’ll give you immediately, it seemed likely that this affair was only a first step in a more complicated plan. On the spur of the moment, I decided it was worth while taking a hand. So I got a patrol set round the spinney and issued orders that no one was to go up to the terrace until I’d been over the ground. I took good care that everyone knew about this; and I took equally good care not to go there myself. I rather advertised the thing, in fact. That was to assure the fellows that no one had seen the empty pedestal. They were pretty certain to rout about for information; and they’d hear on all sides that no one had been up to the terrace. That left the thing open for them to try again if they wanted to.

  “Another thing confirmed my notions. When the Inspector was dragging the lake, he got a largish piece of marble out of it. That fitted in with the view that the broken statue was down in the water in fragments, hidden by the weeds. It all fitted fairly well, you see.

  “Then came another bit of evidence—two bits, in fact. The village drunkard put abroad some yarn about seeing a White Man in the woods; and a little girl saw a Black Man. That might have been mere fancy. Or it might have been true enough. When the hunters had gone, the pseudo-statue would come down off his pedestal. Suppose he wandered off into the wood and was seen by old Groby. There’s your White Man. But he couldn’t possibly get back to the house in white tights. He’d want to get in as quietly as possible. What about a set of black tights under the white ones? When he took off the white ones, he’d be next door to invisible among shadows; and he’d be able to sneak in through a window in the servants’ wing—in the shadow of the house—fairly inconspicuously. Perhaps that’s how it happened.”

  “That was it,” the Inspector confirmed, looking up from a sheet of paper which he was consulting from time to time.

  Sir Clinton acknowledged the confirmation but refused to lay much stress on the point.

  “I thought it possible,” he said, “but it was merely a guess. In itself the evidence wasn’t worth anything;
but it fitted well enough into the hypothesis I’d made.”

  He turned to the Inspector.

  “Did you get the five medallions as I expected?”

  Armadale put his hand into his pocket and withdrew the five disks of gold, which he handed over to the Chief Constable. Sir Clinton took the sixth medallion from his own pocket and laid the whole set on the table beside him.

  “They say,” he went on, “that the more outré a crime is, the easier it is to find a solution for it. I shouldn’t like to assert that in every case. But there’s no harm in paying special attention to the bizarre points in an affair. If you cast your minds back to the case as it presented itself to us on the night of the masked ball, you’ll recall one point which undoubtedly seemed out of the common.”

  He glanced round the circle of listeners, but no one ventured to interrupt.

  “Here was a gang of thieves bent on stealing something. One of them—Foss—knew that in the showcase there were three medallions and three replicas. The medallions were of enormous value; the replicas were worth next to nothing. Foss, I was sure—and it turned out afterwards that I was right—Foss knew that the real medallions were in the top row and that the replicas were in the lower row.”

  He arranged the six disks on the table as he spoke.

  “And yet, with that knowledge, it was the replicas which they stole and not the real medallions. Amazing, at first sight, isn’t it? To my mind it was much more bizarre than the vanishing trick. And, naturally, it was on that point in the case that I fixed my attention. These weren’t blunderers, remember. The rest of the business showed that they were anything but that. The way they had seized upon that practical joke to serve their ends was quite enough to prove that there was a good brain at the back of the thing. That joke wasn’t in their original programme, and yet they’d taken it in their stride and turned it to account in a most ingenious way. They weren’t the sort of people who would make a mistake about the positions of the replicas. If they took the electrotypes instead of the real things, it was because the electrotypes were what they wanted.

  “Why did they want them? That question seemed to thrust itself forward in front of all the others which suggested themselves in the case; and it was that question that had to be answered before one could see light anywhere.”

  He leaned forward in his chair and glanced at the two rows of medallions on the table before him for a moment.

  “If one thinks about a point long enough, it often happens that all of a sudden a fresh idea turns up and fits into its place. I think it was probably the notion of the pseudo-statue that put me on to this affair. There you had a fraud imposing itself on some people simply because they had no reason to suppose that any fraud was intended. I doubt if any of you people, Mr Clifton, gave a second glance at these statues that night. You simply regarded them as statues, because you knew that statues were on all the pedestals in normal circumstances. You were off your guard on that particular point.

  “That idea seemed to give me the key to this mysterious preference for replicas. If they’d taken the real medallions that night, with all the fuss that was made, then you Ravensthorpe people would have known at once that the true Leonardos had gone; and, naturally, with the theft of them dated to a minute, the risk was considerable. But suppose that the theft of the replicas was only the first stage in the game, what then? They had the replicas; you had the real medallions. Foss, as the agent for Kessock, had every excuse for asking to see the medallions again.

  “Now at that point there would come in the very same subconscious assurance that played into their hands in the case of the statue. Maurice would know for certain that the three things in his safe were the real Leonardos. He’d fish them out for Foss to examine; and he’d put them back in the safe without any minute inspection when Foss handed them over. The replicas would be off the board—lost, gone for good. He’d never think of them.”

  Sir Clinton glanced mischievously at Joan before continuing.

  “As it happens, I can do a little parlour conjuring myself. It comes in handy when one has to live up to the part of Prospero or anything like that. I know what one can do in the way of palming things, and so forth. And as soon as I hit on this idea of the case, I saw how things might be managed. Foss would fake up some excuse for handling the real medallions; and during that handling, he’d substitute the replicas for the Leonardos. Maurice, having apparently had the things under his eye all the time, would never think of examining the medals which he got back from Foss’s hands. He’d simply put them back into the safe. Foss would have the real things in his pocket; the deal would fall through; Foss & Co. would retire gracefully . . . and it was a hundred to one that no minute examination of the medallions in the safe would be made for long enough. By that time it would be impossible either to find Foss or to bring the thing home to him even if you did find him.

  “You see the advantages? First of all, the only theft would be one of the replicas, which no one cared much about. Second, the date of the real theft would be left doubtful. And third, this plan gave them any amount of time to dispose of the real things before any suspicions were aroused at all, as regards the genuine Leonardos. My impression is that they had a market for them: some scoundrelly collector who’d pay high to have the Leonardos even if he couldn’t boast publicly that he had them.”

  “That’s correct, sir,” the Inspector interposed. “Brackley had a market, but he wouldn’t tell me who the collector was.”

  Joan rose from her chair, crossed the room to a small table, and solemnly came back with a tray.

  “Have some whisky and soda,” she suggested to Sir Clinton.

  “You find the tale rather dry?” he inquired solicitously. “Life’s like that, you know. Inspector Armadale really needs this more than I do. He’s been a long time out in the cold up yonder. I’ll take some later on, if you don’t mind.”

  Joan presented the tray to the Inspector, who helped himself.

  Sir Clinton waited till he was finished with the siphon and then continued, addressing himself to Joan:

  “Perhaps the story has lacked feminine interest up to this point. We’ll hurry on to the day when you, Maurice, and Foss had your talk on the terrace. Down below was Foss’s motor, serving two purposes. It was there if they had to make a bolt, should things go wrong. It also allowed the chauffeur, making a fake repair, to watch what went on in the museum. I gather that he meant to keep an eye on his confederates.

  “At that moment, Foss had the three replicas in his pocket; and he was looking for some excuse to carry out the exchange. He led the conversation on to Japanese swords and so forth. I suspect Brackley supplied the basis for that matter, enough to allow Foss to make a show of information. Then Foss brought up the subject of his ‘poor man’s collection’ of rubbings. I’ve no doubt he forced a card there—induced Maurice to offer to let him take rubbings of the medallions. That would be child’s play to an ex-conjurer with a smart tongue. He got his way, anyhow.

  “But then came a complication he hadn’t expected. You, Joan, got interested in this taking of rubbings. I admit it was hard lines on the poor fellow. It was the last thing he could have anticipated.”

  “Thanks for the compliment!” Joan interjected, ironically.

  “Well, it wasn’t in the plan, anyhow,” Sir Clinton went on. “It meant an extra pair of eyes to deceive when the exchange was made; and as the exchange was the crucial move in the whole scheme, your company—strange to say—was not appreciated. In fact, you made Mr Foss nervous. He wasn’t quite as cool as he could have wished; and my reading of the situation is that he bungled his first attempt at the substitution and had to prolong the agony by pretending to take a second rubbing of the first medallion he got into his hands.

  “He had more luck with his second attempt, even with your eagle eyes on him; and he stowed away Medallion Number One in one of the special concealed pockets which he had in his clothes. But he desired intensely to be relieved of your comp
any; and he proceeded to draw your attention to someone calling you. Of course that voice existed solely in his own imagination. But it was quite as effective as a real voice in getting you to leave the museum; and then there was one onlooker the less to bother him in his sleight-of-hand.”

  Sir Clinton paused to light a cigarette before continuing. Inspector Armadale, laying down his paper, turned to the Chief Constable as though expecting at this point to hear something which he did not already know.

  “The next stage is one of pure conjecture,” Sir Clinton went on. “Foss is dead, and I haven’t had any opportunity of interrogating the other actor: Marden.”

  Inspector Armadale smiled grimly at the way in which the Chief Constable evaded any reference to the valet’s murder.

  “Possibly Inspector Armadale has a note or two on the matter,” Sir Clinton pursued, “but even if he has, it can only be something like ‘what the soldier said,’ for Brackley could have merely second-hand evidence at the best. Take the case as the Inspector and I found it. Foss was dead, stabbed with the Muramasa sword. On its handle we found the finger-prints of Maurice, and no others. Under Foss’s body we found an undischarged automatic pistol with his finger-prints on the butt. We noticed curious pockets in Foss’s clothes; but they were empty. And we found no trace of any of the medallions about the place. Maurice was non est inventus—we could see no sign of him. Marden had cut his hand in a fall against one of the cases. He’d wrapped it up with his handkerchief in a rough sort of way. The case containing the Muramasa sword was open, and the sheath was lying in it, empty, of course.

  “It’s only fair to Inspector Armadale to tell you that he suspected Marden immediately. What I’m going to give you is merely the case as it presented itself to me.”