The Detective _Malgré Lui_
I have already mentioned that the Indescribable kept its own tame
doctor, a man at the very head of his profession. He was not in the
least necessary to it; that is to say, a far cheaper man would have
done the work equally well. But it suited the style of the
Indescribable to have the very best man, and to advertise the fact
that he had given up his practice in order to work exclusively for the
company; it was all of a piece with the huge white building, and the
frieze, and the palms in the waiting-room. It looked well. For a quite
different reason the Indescribable retained its own private detective.
This fact was not advertised; nor was he ever referred to in the
official communications of the company except as “our representative.”
He carried neither a lens nor a forceps—not even a revolver; he took
no injections; he had no stupid confidential friend; but a private
detective he was for all that. An amateur detective I will not call
him, for the company paid him, and as you would expect, quite
handsomely; but he had nothing whatever to do with Scotland Yard,
where the umbrellas go to.
He was not an ornament to the company; he fulfilled a quite practical
purpose. There are, even outside the humorous stories, business men in
a small way who find it more lucrative to burn down their premises
than to sell their stock. There are ladies—ladies whose names the
Indescribable would never dream of giving away—who pawn their jewels,
buy sham ones, and then try to make the original insurance policy
cover them in the event of theft. There are small companies (believe
it or not) which declare an annual loss by selling their stuff below
cost price to themselves under another name. Such people flocked to
the Indescribable. It was so vast a concern that you felt no human
pity about robbing it—it was like cheating the income tax, and we all
know how some people feel about that. The Indescribable never
prosecuted for fraud; instead, it allowed a substantial margin for
these depredations, which it allowed to continue. But where shady work
was suspected “our representative” would drop in in the most natural
way in the world and by dint of some searching inquiries made while
the delinquent’s back was turned would occasionally succeed in showing
up a fraud and saving the company a few hundreds of thousands by doing
so.
The company’s “representative,” and our hero, was Miles Bredon, a big,
good-humoured, slightly lethargic creature still in the early
thirties. His father had been a lawyer of moderate eminence and
success. When Miles went to school it was quite clear that he would
have to make his own way in the world, and very obscure how he was
going to do it. He was not exactly lazy, but he was the victim of
hobbies which perpetually diverted his attention. He was a really good
mathematician, for example; but as he never left a sum unfinished and
“went on to the next” his marks never did him justice. He was a good
cross-country runner, but in the middle of a run he would usually
catch sight of some distraction which made him wander three miles out
of his course and come in last. It was his nature to be in love with
the next thing he had to do, to shrink in loathing from the mere
thought of the next but one. The war came in time to solve the problem
of his career; and more fortunate than some he managed to hit on a
_métier_ in the course of it. He became an intelligence officer; did
well, then did brilliantly; was mentioned in despatches, though not
decorated. What was more to the point, his Colonel happened to be a
friend of some minor director of the Indescribable, and, hearing that
a discreet man was needed to undertake the duties outlined,
recommended Bredon. The offer fell at his feet just when he was
demobilized; he hated the idea of it, but was sensible enough to
realize, even then, that ex-officers cannot be choosers. He was
accepted on his own terms, namely, that he should not have to sit in
an office kicking his heels; he would always be at home, and the
company might call him in when he was wanted.
In a few years he had made himself indispensable to his employer; that
is to say, they thought they could not get on without him, though in
fact his application to his duties was uncertain and desultory. Four
out of five inquiries meant nothing to him; he made nothing of them;
and Whitechapel thanked the God of its fathers for his incompetence.
The fifth case would appeal to his capricious imagination; he would be
prodigal of time and of pains; and he would bring off some coup which
was hymned for weeks behind closed doors in the Indescribable
Building. There was that young fellow at Croydon, for example, who had
his motor-bicycle insured, but not his mother-in-law. Her body was
found at the foot of an embankment beside a lonely road in Kent, and
there was no doubt that it had been shot out of the side-car; only (as
Bredon managed to prove) the lady’s death had occurred on the previous
day from natural causes. There was the well-known bootlegger—well
known, at least, to the United States police—who insured all his
cargoes with the Indescribable and then laid secret information
against himself whereby vigilant officials sank hundreds of dummy
cases in the sea, all the bottles containing sea-water. And there was
the lady of fashion who burgled her own jewels in the most plausible
manner you could imagine and had them sold in Paris. These crooked
ways too the fitful intuitions of Miles Bredon made plain in the
proper quarters.
He was well thought of, in fact, by every one except himself. For
himself, he bitterly regretted the necessity that had made him become
a spy—he would use no other word for it—and constantly alarmed his
friends by announcing his intention of going into the publishing
trade, or doing something relatively honest. The influence which saved
him on these occasions was that of—how shall I say it?—his wife. I
know—I know it is quite wrong to have your detective married until the
last chapter, but it is not my fault. It is the fault of two mocking
eyes and two very capable hands that were employed in driving
brass-hats to and fro in London at the end of the war. Bredon
surrendered to these, and made a hasty but singularly fortunate
marriage. Angela Bredon was under no illusions about the splendid
figure in khaki that stood beside her at the altar. Wiser than her
generation, she realized that marriages were not “for the duration”;
that she would have to spend the rest of her life with a large,
untidy, absent-minded man who would frequently forget that she was in
the room. She saw that he needed above all things a nurse and a
chauffeur, and she knew that she could supply both these deficiencies
admirably. She took him as a husband, with all a husband’s failings,
and the Indescribable itself could not have guaranteed her more surely
against the future.
There is a story of some Bishop, or important person, who got his way
at Rome rather unexpectedly over an appeal, and, when asked by his
friends how he did it, replied, “_Fallendo infallibilem_.” It might
have been the motto of Angela’s mastery over her husband; the
detective, always awake to the possibilities of fraudulent dealing in
every other human creature, did not realize that his wife was a tiny
bit cleverer than he was and was always conspiring for his happiness
behind his back. For instance, it was his custom of an evening to play
a very long and complicated game of patience, which he had invented
for himself; you had to use four packs, and the possible permutations
of it were almost unlimited. It was an understood thing in the
household that Angela, although she had grasped the rules of the game,
did not really know how to play it. But when, as often happened, the
unfinished game had to be left undisturbed all night, she was quite
capable of stealing down early in the morning and altering the
positions of one or two cards, so that he should get the game “out” in
time to cope with his ordinary work. These pious deceits of hers were
never, I am glad to say, unmasked.
About a fortnight after Mr. Mottram’s interview with the young man at
Indescribable House these two fortunate people were alone together
after dinner, she alternately darning socks and scratching the back of
a sentimental-looking fox-terrier, he playing his interminable
patience. The bulk of the pack lay on a wide table in front of him,
but there were outlying sections of the design dotted here and there
on the floor within reach of his hand. The telephone bell rang, and he
looked up at her appealingly—obviously, he was tied hand and foot by
his occupation—which to her only meant putting her darning away,
lifting the fox-terrier off her feet, and going out into the hall. She
understood the signal, and obeyed it. There was a fixed law of the
household that if she answered a call which was meant for him he must
try to guess what it was about before she told him. This was good for
him, she said; it developed the sleuth instinct.
“Hullo! Mrs. Bredon speaking—who is it, please? . . . Oh, it’s
you. . . . Yes, he’s in, but he’s not answering the telephone. . . .
No, only drunk. . . . Just rather drunk. . . . Business? Good; that’s
just what he wants. . . . A man called what? . . . M-o-t-t-r-a-m,
Mottram, yes. . . . Never heard of it. . . . St. William’s? Oh, the
_Midlands_, that are sodden and unkind, that sort of Midlands,
yes? . . . Oh! . . . Is it—what? . . . Is it supposed to have been an
accident? . . . Oh, that generally means suicide, doesn’t it? . . .
Staying where? . . . Where’s that? . . . All right, doesn’t matter;
I’ll look it up. . . . At an inn? Oh, then it was in somebody else’s
bed really! What name? . . . What a jolly name! Well, where’s Miles to
go? To Chilthorpe? . . . Yes, rather, we can start bright and early.
Is it an important case? Is it an important case? . . . Oo! I say! I
wish I could get Miles to die and leave me half a million! Righto,
he’ll wire you to-morrow. . . . Yes, quite; thanks. . . . Good-night.”
“Interpret, please,” said Angela, returning to the drawing-room. “Why,
you’ve been going on with your patience the whole time! I suppose you
didn’t listen to a word I was saying?”
“How often am I to tell you that the memory and the attention function
inversely? I remember all you said, precisely because I wasn’t paying
attention to it. First of all, it was Sholto, because he was ringing
you up on business, but it was somebody you know quite well—at least I
hope you don’t talk like that to the tradesmen.”
“Sholto, yes, ringing up from the office. He wanted to talk to you.”
“So I gathered. Was it quite necessary to tell him I was drunk?”
“Well, I couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment. I
couldn’t tell him you were playing patience, or he might have thought
we were unhappily married. Go on, Sherlock.”
“Mottram, living at some place in the Midlands you’ve never heard of,
but staying at a place called ‘Chilthorpe’—he’s died, and his death
wants investigating; that’s obvious.”
“How did you know he was dead?”
“From the way you said ‘Oh’—besides, you said he’d died in his
bed, or implied it. And there’s some question of half a million
insurance—Euthanasia, I suppose? Really, the Euthanasia’s been
responsible for more crimes than psychoanalysis.”
“Yes, I’m afraid you’ve got it all right. What did he die of?”
“Something that generally means suicide—or rather, you think it does.
The old sleeping draught business? Veronal?”
“No stupid, gas. The gas left turned on. And where’s Chilthorpe,
please?”
“It’s on the railway. If my memory serves me right, it is Chilthorpe
and Gorrington, between Bull’s Cross and Lowgill Junction. But the
man, you say, belongs somewhere else?”
“Pullford; at least it sounded like that. In the Midlands somewhere,
he said.”
“Pullford, good Lord, yes. One of these frightful holes. They make
perambulators or something there, don’t they? A day’s run, I should
think, in the car. But of course it’s this Chilthorpe place we want to
get to. You wouldn’t like to look it up in the gazetteer while I just
get this row finished, would you?”
“I shan’t get your sock finished, then. On your own foot be it! Let’s
see, here’s Pullford all right. . . . It isn’t perambulators they
make, it’s drain-pipes. There’s a grammar school there, and an asylum;
and the parish church is a fine specimen of early Perp., extensively
restored in 1842; they always are. Has been the seat of a Roman
Catholic Bishopric since 1850. The Baptist Chapel”——
“I did mention, didn’t I, that it was Chilthorpe I wanted to know
about?”
“All in good time. Let’s see, Chilthorpe—it isn’t a village really,
it’s a ship town. It has 2,500 inhabitants. There’s a lot here about
the glebe. It stands on the River Busk, and there is trout fishing.”
“Ah, that sounds better.”
“Meaning exactly?”
“Well, it sounds as if the fellow had done himself in by accident all
right. He went there to fish—you don’t go to a strange village to
commit suicide.”
“Unless you’ve got electric light in your house and want to commit
suicide with gas.”
“That’s true. What was the name of the inn, by the way?”
“The _Load of Mischief_. Such a jolly dedication, I think.”
“Now let’s try the map.”
“I was coming to that. Here’s the Busk all right. I say, how funny,
there’s a place on the Busk called ‘Mottram.’”
“Anywhere near Chilthorpe?”
“I haven’t found it yet. Oh, yes, here it is, about four miles away.
Incidentally, it’s only twenty miles or so from Pullford. Well, what
about it? Are we going by car?”
“Why not? The Rolls is in excellent condition. Two or three days ought
to see us through; we can stay, with any luck, at the _Load of
Mischief_, and the youthful Francis will be all the better for being
left to his nurse for a day or two. You’ve been feeding him corn, and
he is becoming obstreperous.”
“You don’t deserve to have a son. However, I think you’re right. I
don’t want to trust you alone in a ship town of 2,500 inhabitants,
some of them female. Miles, dear, this is going to be one of your big
successes, isn’t it?”
“On the contrary, I shall lose no time in reporting to the directors
that the deceased gentleman had an unfortunate accident with the gas,
and they had better pay up like sportsmen. I shall further point out
that it is a great waste of their money keeping a private spy at all.”
“Good, then I’ll divorce you! I’m going to bed now. Not beyond the end
of that second row, mind; we shall have to make an early start
to-morrow.”