The Mystery at Lovers’ Cave
by Anthony Berkeley
Contents
I. Our Special Correspondent
II. Girls and Murder
III. Inspector Moresby Is Reluctant
IV. Anthony Interviews a Suspect
V. Roger Takes Up the Cudgels
VI. An Unwelcome Clue
VII. Sidelights on a Loathsome Lady
VIII. Introducing a Goat-faced Clergyman
IX. Colin, Who Art Thou?
X. Tea, China and Young Love
XI. Inspector Moresby Conducts an Interview
XII. Real Bad Blood
XIII. A Midnight Expedition
XIV. Roger Is Argumentative
XV. Interesting Discovery of a Shoe
XVI. Inspector Moresby Intervenes
XVII. Shocking Ignorance of a Clergyman
XVIII. Preparations for an Arrest
XIX. End of a Scoundrel
XX. Poisons and Pipes
XXI. Roger Plays a Lone Hand
XXII. New Discoveries
XXIII. Colin Upsets the Apple-cart
XXIV. Inspector Moresby Is Humorous
XXV. Roger Solves the Mystery
XXVI. Caustic Soda
Chapter I.
Our Special Correspondent
“If,” said Roger Sheringham, helping himself to a third piece of
toast, “your brain had as many kinks in it as your trousers have few,
Anthony, you would have had the intelligence to find out our train
from St. Pancras this morning before you ever arrived here last
night.”
“There’s a telephone here and an enquiry office at St. Pancras, I
believe,” retorted his cousin. “Couldn’t the two be connected in some
way?”
“You write to me and ask me to waste my valuable time in amusing you
on your holiday,” Roger pursued indignantly. “I not only consent but
very kindly allow you to choose the place we shall go to and book our
rooms for us; I even agree to harbour you here for a night before we
start and submit to your company and your chattering at my own
breakfast-table (a thing peculiarly offensive to any right-minded man
and destroying at one blow the chief and abiding joy of bachelorhood).
I do all this, I say, and what is my reward? You refuse point-blank
even to find out the time of our train from St. Pancras!”
“I say, did you see this?” exclaimed Anthony, glancing up from the
_Daily Courier_. “Kent all out for forty-seven on a plumb wicket at
Blackheath! Whew!”
“If you were to turn to the centre of the paper,” replied Roger
coldly, “I think you might find some rather more interesting reading
matter than the performances of Kent on plumb wickets at Blackheath.
The editorial page, for instance.”
“Meaning there’s another of your crime articles in?” Anthony asked,
flicking back the pages. “Yes, I’ve been reading some of them. They’re
really not at all bad, Roger.”
“Thank you very much indeed,” Roger murmured gratefully. “Out of the
mouths of babes and sucklings! Anyhow, you understood them, did you?
That’s good. I was trying to write down to the standard of
intelligence of the ordinary _Courier_ reader. I appear to have
succeeded.”
“This is rather interesting,” Anthony remarked, his eyes on the
required page.
“Well, yes,” said Roger modestly, folding up his napkin. “I did rather
flatter myself that I’d——”
“This article on ‘Do Shingled Heads Mean Shingled Hearts?’ By Jove,
that’s an idea, isn’t it? You see what he’s getting at. Boyishness,
and all that. He says——”
“I think you’ve mistaken the column,” Roger interrupted coldly. “The
one you’re looking for is on the right, next to the correspondence.”
“Correspondence?” repeated Anthony vaguely. “Oh, yes; I’ve got it.
‘Clergymen Who Gabble. Sir: I attended the burial service of my
great-aunt by marriage last Thursday and was exceedingly distressed by
the slipshod way in which the officiating clergyman read the——’”
“I don’t think I’ll go for a holiday with you, Anthony, after all!”
observed Roger suddenly, rising to his feet with such vehemence that
his chair fell violently to the floor behind him.
“You’ve knocked over your chair,” said Anthony, quite seriously.
At this point, very fortunately, the telephone-bell rang.
“Hullo!” said Roger into the mouth-piece, more loudly than was
strictly necessary.
“Hullo!” answered a voice. “Is that Mr. Sheringham?”
“No! He left for Derbyshire early this morning.”
“Oh, come!” chided the voice gently. “Not before eleven o’clock,
surely. He wouldn’t go without his breakfast, would he?”
“Who’s speaking?”
“Burgoyne, _Daily Courier_. Seriously, Sheringham, I’m very relieved
that I’ve caught you. Listen!”
Roger listened. As he did so his face gradually cleared and a look of
intense excitement began to take the place of the portentous frown he
had been wearing.
“No, I’m afraid it’s out of the question, Burgoyne,” he said at
length. “I’m just off for a fortnight in Derbyshire with a cousin of
mine, as you know. Rooms booked and everything. Otherwise I should
have been delighted.”
Expostulatory sounds made themselves heard from the other end of the
wire.
“Well, I’ll think it over if you _like_,” Roger replied with a great
show of reluctance, “but I’m very much afraid— Anyhow, I’ll let you
know definitely in a quarter-of-an-hour. Will that do?”
He listened for a moment, then hung up the receiver and turned to
Anthony with a beaming face. “Our little trip’s off I fear,” he said
happily.
“_What?_” exclaimed Anthony. “But—but we’ve booked our rooms!”
“_You_’ve booked them,” Roger corrected. “And there’s nothing to
prevent you from occupying them. You can sleep in one and brush your
hair in the other, can’t you? Of course I shall be delighted to
reimburse you for any expense you may have incurred through your
misunderstanding that I would accompany you, though I must take this
opportunity of pointing out, without prejudice, that I am not legally
liable; and should my heirs or fellow-directors dispute the claim, my
solicitors will have instructions not to——”
“What are you talking about?” Anthony shouted. “Why do you want to
back out at the last minute like this? What’s happened? Whom were you
talking to then?”
Roger resumed his seat at the breakfast-table and poured himself out
another cup of coffee.
“To take your questions in inverse order,” he said at length, and with
a slight diminution of his bantering air, “that was the editor of the
_Daily Courier_, a very great man and one before whom politicians
tremble and duchesses stand to attention. You may remember that I had
some truck with him last summer over that Wychford business. He wants
me to go down at once to Hampshire as Special Correspondent to the
_Courier_.”
“To Hampshire?”
“Yes. I don’t know whether you saw a little paragraph in the papers
yesterday about a woman who fell over the cliffs at Ludmouth Bay and
was killed. The idea now appears to be that it might not have been an
accident after all, and there’ve been one or two important
developments. They want me to follow up those articles I’ve been doing
by covering the business for them, to say nothing of putting in a
little amateur sleuth-work if the chance arises. It’s a job after my
own heart!”
“But I heard you say that it was out of the question, because you were
going away with me?”
Roger smiled gently. “There’s a way of doing these things, little boy,
as you may find out when you get a little older. But, seriously,
you’ve got the first claim on me; if you’re dead set on this
Derbyshire trip, I’ll come like a shot and chuck the other.”
“Of course not!” Anthony said warmly. “I wouldn’t dream of it. What do
you take me for? Run off and sleuth to your heart’s content. I may
even buy the _Courier_ once or twice to see how big an idiot you’re
making of yourself.”
“If you can drag your eyes away from the cricket page! Well, it’s
jolly sporting of you to take it like this, Anthony, I must and will
say. I know how maddening it is to have one’s plans upset at the last
minute.”
“I dare say I shall be able to survive it,” Anthony opined
philosophically, stuffing tobacco into his pipe. “I’m not much of a
whale for my own company, it’s true, but I’ll probably fall in with
somebody or other up there; one often does. Baccy?”
“Thanks.” Roger took the extended pouch and transferred some of its
contents to the bowl of his own pipe with a somewhat absent air.
Suddenly his face cleared and he smote the table lustily. “I’ve got
it! Why on earth shouldn’t you come too? It ought to be interesting
enough and I’d be jolly glad of your company. Of course!”
“But the other rooms have been booked,” Anthony demurred.
“For goodness’ sake, stop harping on the bookedness of those rooms!
You’re getting positively morbid about them. They can be cancelled,
can’t they? Would you _like_ to come down with me?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Then go out and cancel them by wire, and I’ll send the woman a cheque
from Ludmouth; so that’s settled. I’ll ring up the _Courier_ and say
I’ll go, and then I shall have to fly down there and see them before I
start. There’s a train for Bournemouth at twelve-ten, I know, because
I caught it a fortnight ago. Greene will have got my bag packed by
now, so after you’ve wired come back here and collect the luggage and
go on to Waterloo. Take two first singles to Ludmouth and I’ll meet
you in front of the little place where you book for Sandown Park five
minutes before the train goes. Shoot!”
“What’s your second name, Roger?” Anthony asked admiringly. “Pep or
Zip?”
As he made his way down the main stairs of the building in which Roger
Sheringham’s bachelor flat was situated, Anthony Walton smiled slowly
to himself. The little holiday he had fixed up with Roger was going to
be even more amusing than he had expected.
Although there were more than ten years between the cousins (Roger was
now thirty-six, Anthony a bare twenty-five), they had always been good
friends, and that also in spite of the fact that they had scarcely a
taste or a feeling in common. It is often remarked, and even by people
whom one would certainly expect to know better, that opposites make a
happy marriage. Nothing could be more ludicrously untrue, but they do
frequently make a happy male friendship. This one was a case in point.
Anthony, big, broad-shouldered, good-natured and slow-witted, had got
his blue for rugger at Oxford, and now regularly left his father’s
office, where he sat and amiably did nothing for the rest of the week,
each Saturday morning to play for the Harlequins. It was his secret
opinion that games were the only things that mattered in this world.
In the matter of brains he was no match for the keen-witted if
slightly volatile Roger, and his slow deliberation was in equal
contrast with that gentleman’s dynamic energy; nor did he possess
enough imagination to be impressed in the slightest degree by his
cousin’s fame as a novelist with an already international reputation,
though he did afford him a qualified respect as the owner of a
half-blue for golf obtained at Oxford nearly fifteen years ago.
With his usual methodical care Anthony set about carrying out the
string of orders which had been entrusted to him. Seven minutes before
the train was due to leave he took up his position, tickets in hand,
at the appointed spot on the vast surface of Waterloo Station.
Punctually two minutes later Roger appeared and they passed through
the barrier together, followed by a staggering porter with their
combined traps. The train was not full, and an empty first-class
smoker was obtained without difficulty.
“We’re going to enjoy ourselves on this little trip, Anthony, my son,”
Roger remarked as the train began to move, settling himself
comfortably in his corner and beginning to unfold a large wad of
newspapers which he had brought with him. “Do you know that?”
“Are we?” Anthony said equably. “I shall enjoy watching you on the
trail, certainly. It must be a strange sight.”
“Yes, and now I come to think of it, you’re by way of being rather
indispensable there yourself, aren’t you?”
“Me? Why?”
“As the idiot friend,” Roger returned happily. “Must have an idiot
friend with me, you know. All the best sleuths do.”
Anthony grunted and began somewhat ostentatiously to turn the pages of
_The Sportsman_ with which he had prudently armed himself. Roger
applied himself to his bundle of papers. For half-an-hour or more no
word was spoken. Then Roger, throwing aside the last newspaper from
his batch, broke the silence.
“I think I’d better give you the facts as far as I can make them out,
Anthony; it’ll help to stick them in my own memory too.”
Anthony consulted his wrist-watch. “Do you know you haven’t spoken for
thirty-six minutes and twelve seconds, Roger?” he said in tones of the
liveliest astonishment. “I should think that’s pretty nearly a record,
isn’t it?”
“The name of the dead woman was Vane,” Roger continued imperturbably;
“Mrs. Vane. She appears to have gone out for a walk with a girl cousin
who was staying with her, a Miss Cross. According to this girl’s
story, Mrs. Vane sent her back as they were approaching the village on
their way home, saying that she wanted to call round and see a friend
on some matter or other. She never got there. A couple of hours later
a fisherman turned up at the police-station and reported that he had
seen something on the rocks at the foot of the cliffs as he was rowing
out to some lobster-pots half-an-hour earlier, though it had
apparently not occurred to him to go and see what it was. A constable
was sent off to investigate, and he and the fisherman climbed down the
cliffs, which seem to be fairly well broken up at that point. At the
bottom they found Mrs. Vane’s body. And that was that.”
“I believe I did see something about it,” Anthony nodded. “Wasn’t it
an accident?”
“Well, that’s what everybody thought, of course; and that was the
verdict at the inquest yesterday, Accidental Death. But this is the
important development. The _Courier’s_ local correspondent caught a
glimpse of Inspector Moresby, of all people, prowling about the place
this morning! He telephoned through at once, and——”
“Inspector Moresby? Who’s he?”
“Oh, you must have heard of him. He’s one of the big noises at
Scotland Yard. I suppose he’s been mixed up in nearly every big murder
case for the last ten years. Anyhow, you see the idea. If Moresby’s on
the job, that means that something rather important’s going to
happen.”
“By Jove! You mean she was murdered?”
“I mean that Scotland Yard seems to think she was,” Roger agreed
seriously.
Anthony whistled softly. “Any clues?”
“None that I know of, though of course they must be working on
something. All the local man can tell us is that Mrs. Vane was a
charming woman, quite young (twenty-eight, I think Burgoyne said),
pretty, attractive, and very popular in the neighbourhood. Her
husband’s a wealthy man, a good deal older than herself and a
scientist by hobby; in fact quite a fairly well-known experimentalist,
I understand.”
“Sounds queer!” Anthony ruminated. “Who on earth would want to murder
a woman like that? Did you gather whether any motive had come to
light?”
Roger hesitated for a moment. “What I did gather is that the girl
cousin benefits to the extent of over ten thousand pounds by Mrs.
Vane’s death,” he replied slowly.
“Oho! That sounds rather rotten, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Roger agreed gravely.
There was another little pause.
“And you’ve got to write about it for the _Courier?_” Anthony remarked
almost carelessly.
“Yes; as far as we know we’re the first in the field. It’ll be a
decent little scoop if we’re the only people to come out with the news
about Moresby to-morrow morning. I shall have to fly off and have a
chat with him the moment we arrive. Luckily I know him slightly
already.”
“Take your seats for lunch, pleece,” observed a head popping suddenly
into the carriage from the corridor. “Lunch is now being served,
pleece.”
“I say, Roger,” Anthony remarked, as they rose obediently, “what put
you on to this crime business? Before that Wychford affair, I mean.
You never used to be keen on it. What made you take it up?”
“A certain knotty and highly difficult little problem which I had the
felicity of solving about two years ago,” Roger replied modestly.
“That made me realise my own powers, so to speak. But I can’t tell you
names or anything like that, because it’s a most deadly secret. In
fact, you’d better not ask me anything about it at all.”
“Right-ho, I won’t, if it’s a secret,” Anthony promised.
Roger looked slightly disappointed.