The stone which Messrs. Tarkington and Oxley had thrown into the
turbid waters of the British Police Administration produced ripples
which, like other similar wave forms, spread slowly away from their
point of disturbance. One of these ripples, penetrating into the grim
fastness of the Criminal Investigation Department of New Scotland
Yard, had the effect of ringing the bell of a telephone on the desk of
Detective Inspector Joseph French and of causing that zealous and
efficient officer, when he had duly applied his ear to the instrument,
to leave his seat and proceed without loss of time to the room of his
immediate superior.
“Ah, French,” Chief Inspector Mitchell remarked on his entry. “You
should be about through with that Kensington case, I fancy?”
“Just finished with it, sir,” French answered. “I was putting the last
of the papers in order when you rang.”
“Well, you’ve had a lot of trouble with it and I should have liked to
have given you a breather. But I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Something come in, sir?”
“A Yorkshire case. A place called Thirsby, up on the moors not far, I
understand, from Hellifield. We’ve just had a request for a man and I
can’t spare any one else at present. So it’s you for it.”
“What is the case, sir?”
“Suspected murder, robbery and arson. The people there appear to know
very little about it and the whole thing may turn out a mare’s nest.
But they’re darned mysterious about it—say they don’t want it to be
known that inquiries are being made and suggest our man might go to
the Thirsdale Arms, the local hotel, in the guise of an angler or an
artist. So, if you’re a fisherman, French, now’s your chance. You’re
to call down at the police station after dark, when Sergeant Kent,
who’s in charge, will give you the particulars.”
It was with mixed feelings that Inspector French received his
instructions. He delighted in travelling and seeing new country, and
the Yorkshire moors comprised a district which he had often heard
spoken of enthusiastically, but had never visited. He was by no means
averse, moreover, to getting away from town for a few days. It would
be a welcome break in the monotony of the long winter. But on the
other hand he loathed working away from headquarters, bereft of his
trained staff and of the immediate backing of the huge machine of
which he was a cog. Local men, he conceded, were “right enough,” but
they hadn’t the knowledge, the experience, the technique to be really
helpful. And then the “Yard” man in the country was usually up against
jealousies and a more or less veiled obstruction, and to the worries
of his case he had to add the effort always to be tactful and to carry
his professed helpers with him.
However, none of these considerations affected his course of action.
He had his orders and he must carry them out. He completed the filing
of the papers in the Kensington murder case, handed over one or two
other matters to his immediate subordinate, and taking the large
despatch case of apparatus without which he never travelled, went home
to inform his wife of his change of plans and pack a suitcase with his
modest personal requirements. Then he drove to St. Pancras and caught
the 12.15 restaurant car express to the north.
He was neither an artist nor an angler, and in any case he considered
the month of November was scarcely a propitious time for worthies of
either type to be abroad. Therefore beyond dressing in a more
countrified style than he would have affected in town, he attempted no
disguise.
He changed at Hellifield and took the branch line which wound up in a
north-easterly direction into the bleak hills and moors of western
Yorkshire. Six o’clock had just struck when he reached the diminutive
terminus of Thirsby.
A porter bearing the legend “Thirsdale Arms” on his cap was at the
station, and having surrendered his baggage, French followed the man
on foot down the main street of the little town to a low, straggling,
old-fashioned building with half-timbered gables and a real old
swinging sign. Here a stout and cheery proprietor gave him a somewhat
voluble welcome, and soon he was the temporary tenant of a low and
dark, but otherwise comfortable bedroom, while an appetising odour of
frying ham indicated that the _pièce de résistance_ of his supper was
in full preparation.
He smoked a contemplative pipe in the bar, then about half-past eight
took his hat, and passing the landlord at the door, gave him a
cheerful good-night and said he was going for a walk before bed.
While he did not intend to hide the fact of his visit to Sergeant
Kent, he had no wish to draw attention thereto. He believed that in a
small town such things invariably get out, and to shroud them in an
air of mystery was only to invite publicity. He therefore did not ask
for a direction, but instead strolled through the streets until he saw
the police station. Walking quietly but openly to the door, he
knocked. Two minutes later he was shaking hands with the sergeant in
the latter’s room.
“I’m sure I’m grateful to you for giving me the chance of a change
from London,” French began in his pleasant, cheery way as he took the
chair the other pulled forward to the fire. “Will you join me in a
cigar, or do you object to smoking in the office?”
The sergeant dourly helped himself from French’s case, and gruffly
admitted he was not above the use of tobacco after office hours.
French seemed in no hurry to come to business, but chatted on about
his journey and his impressions of the country, drawing the other out
and deferring to his views in a way that was nothing less than
flattering. Before ten minutes Kent had forgotten that his visitor was
an interloper sent to him over his head because his superiors imagined
that he was not good enough for his own job, and was thinking that
this stranger, for a Londoner and a Yard man, was not as bad as he
might reasonably have been expected to be. Under the soothing
influences of flattery and good tobacco, he gradually mellowed until,
when French at last decided the time had come, he was quite willing to
assist in any way in his power.
At French’s request he gave him a detailed account of the tragedy
together with a copy of the depositions taken at the inquest, and then
went on to describe the bomb which Mr. Tarkington had dropped when he
mentioned his theories to Major Valentine.
“Chief Constable, he told me to find out what kind of safe it was in
the house,” the sergeant went on. “I knew, for I had seen it at the
time, but I went out again to make sure. It was made by Carter &
Stephenson of Leeds, number—” he referred to a well-thumbed
notebook—“12,473. I went down to Leeds, and saw the makers, and they
said the safe was twenty years old, but it was the best fireproof safe
of its day. I asked them would the notes have burned up in it, and
they said they wouldn’t scarcely be browned, not no matter how fierce
the fire might be.”
“And what exactly was in the safe?”
“Just paper ashes and sovereigns. No whole papers—all was burned to
ashes.”
“Could I see those ashes? Are any of them left?”
“I think so. We took out the sovereigns and left the rest. The safe is
lying in the rubbish where we found it.”
French nodded, and for some minutes sat silent, drawing slowly at his
cigar while he turned over in his mind the details he had learned. As
he did so the words of Chief Inspector Mitchell recurred to him: “The
people down there don’t appear to know much about it, and the whole
thing may turn out to be a mare’s nest.” Now, having heard the story,
he wondered if this was not going to be another of his chief’s amazing
intuitions. It certainly looked as like a mare’s nest as anything he
had ever handled. The only shred of evidence for foul play was the
safe-builders’ statement that their safe would protect papers even in
the fiercest fire, and that statement left him cold. What else could
the builders say? They had sold the thing as fireproof; how could they
now admit they had made a false claim? And this Tarkington’s theory of
the twenty-pound note was even less convincing. There was no real
reason to believe that Averill had not handed it to his servant or to
a visitor or sent it away by post. In fact, the whole tale was the
thinnest he had listened to for many a day, and he saw himself taking
a return train to St. Pancras before many hours had passed.
But he had been sent up to make an investigation, and make an
investigation he would. He rapidly planned his line of action. The
first thing to be done was to get rid of this sergeant. He might be
right enough for his own job, but French felt that he would be no help
in an affair of this kind. Left to himself, he would go out and
examine the house and then interview Tarkington. By that time he
should have learned enough at least to decide whether or not to go on
with the case. He turned to Kent.
“Your statement, sergeant, has been so very complete that I do not
believe there is anything left for me to ask you. But I think I should
understand the affair even better if I went and had a look at the
house. I’ll do that to-morrow. But, much as I should like your
company, I cannot ask you to come with me. I entirely agree with and
admire your wisdom in keeping the affair secret, and if we were seen
together the cat would be out of the bag. I will give out that I am a
representative from the insurance companies and I think no suspicion
will be aroused. If now you will kindly tell me where the place lies,
I think that’s all we can do in the meantime.”
Five minutes later French turned from the main street into the door of
the Thirsdale Arms. The landlord was standing in the hall and French
stopped in a leisurely way, as if ready for a chat. They discussed the
weather for some moments, and then French asked the other if he would
join him in a drink.
It was not long before they were seated before a glowing fire in the
private bar, when French proceeded to account for himself.
“I like your country,” he began, “what I’ve seen of it. I’ve been a
bit run down lately, and though it’s not the time one would choose for
a holiday, my doctor thought I should take a week or two’s rest. So,
as I had a bit of business here I thought I would kill two birds with
one stone and do my business and take my holiday at the same time. And
about that bit of business I thought that if you would be good enough
you could maybe give me some help.”
The landlord, evidently curious, was anxious to do anything in his
power and French, following out his theory that where absolute truth
is inadmissible, deviations therefrom should be as slight as possible,
went on confidentially:—
“It’s about a place called Starvel where there was a big fire
recently. You know all about it, of course.” The landlord nodded
eagerly. “Well, I may tell you strictly between ourselves that I am a
detective. A fire unaccounted for is a very disturbing matter to
insurance companies, and I have been sent down to try to find the
cause of the outbreak. I’ve seen the police sergeant, and he has very
kindly promised to show me his notes of the inquest, but I should like
more general information than that. I wondered if you could, perhaps,
tell me something about the affair; about the people who lived in
Starvel, and so on?”
With this beginning, and the help of whiskies and sodas and two more
of his cigars French was soon in possession of all the landlord knew
and surmised about the Starvel Hollow tragedy. But he learned nothing
helpful. The man’s story agreed with that of Sergeant Kent, though it
was obvious that the idea of foul play had never entered his mind.
One thing he remarked on which Kent had not mentioned—about which
indeed, as French afterwards learned, Kent knew nothing—and that was
the incipient affair between Ruth Averill and Pierce Whymper. When
French learned later on how slight this affair had been he was filled
with amazement, as he had been so many times before, at the range and
exhaustiveness of local gossip.
“Nice young fellow, Mr. Pierce Whymper,” the landlord went on. “He’s a
son of Mr. Stephen Whymper, the Leeds surgeon, and a junior assistant
of Nixon and Arbuthnot’s, the church architects. He’s here as clerk of
works of the renovation of the church—a fine old church, this of ours!
I got to know Mr. Whymper a bit, for he stayed here for a few days
when he came first, and before he got lodgings. Our terms are a bit
high for him, you know, for a constancy. They don’t overpay these
young fellows that are just starting on their jobs.”
“It’s a fact,” French admitted. “And how is the affair with the young
lady getting on?”
“No one rightly knows. It seemed to be going on thick enough before
the fire and then, somehow, it seemed to be cooled off. I suppose one
of these here lovers’ quarrels.” And the landlord smiled tolerantly,
as one man of the world to another.
But whether or not the landlord was a man of the world, there was no
doubt whatever that he was a thoroughly accomplished and successful
gossip. French soon found that by the mere interjection of an
occasional phrase he could obtain a detailed description of the life,
habits and character of any of the inhabitants of Thirsby that he
cared to name. Very willingly, therefore, he suggested more whisky and
proffered further cigars, while he sat registering in his memory the
impressions of his neighbours which the other sketched with such
evident relish.
He was a likeable old fellow, the landlord, or so French thought.
Though a gossip first and always, he was something of a philosopher
and his outlook was human and kindly. The people he spoke of were real
people, and French could picture them living in the little town and
going about their businesses, with their loves and hates, their
ambitions and their weaknesses. Old Mr. Averill—well, the landlord
hadn’t a great opinion of him. He was dead, and one didn’t ought to
say too much about the dead, but there was no denying that he was
mean—a regular miser, he was. The way he had treated that niece of
his—as nice a young lady as ever stepped—was just a fair scandal. A
young lady just grown up, like Miss Ruth was, should have a bit of
pleasure sometimes, and the poor girl hadn’t even decent clothes to
wear. Mean, the landlord called it. And what use, he asked, growing
oratorical, was the old man’s money to him now? That was what he
said—and he waved his cigar to give point to his remark—that was what
he said: What had the old man got for all his screwing and saving? It
would have paid him better . . .
French insinuated the idea of Roper.
Roper, the landlord did not know so much about, though he had to
confess he had not particularly liked him. Roper had a squint, and if
French took the landlord’s advice, he would just keep his weather eye
open when dealing with a man with a squint. Roper was quiet enough and
civil spoken, and they said he was good enough at his job, but he was
close—very close. Sly, the landlord would call it, though, mind you,
he hadn’t known anything wrong about the man. Mrs. Roper? He had only
met her once. He didn’t know much about her, but she was well enough
spoken of. Neither of them could have had much of a time out at
Starvel, but they had served the old man well and made no complaint.
About Tarkington, the landlord waxed almost lyrical. Tarkington was a
white man, straight as a die and no fool neither. He was more than a
bank manager. He was, so French gathered, a sort of financial father
confessor to the neighbourhood. Every one trusted Tarkington, and took
their difficulties to him for help and advice. And Tarkington gave
both, in good measure pressed down and shaken together. He did not
spare himself, and if he could help a lame dog over a stile, he did
it. What Tarkington said went, as far as most things were concerned.
The landlord also approved of Oxley. Oxley would have his joke, if he
was to be hung for it the next minute, but he was a very sound man and
a good lawyer. If you had Oxley on your side he would make a keen
fight for you, and for all his jokes and his breezy manner he wouldn’t
give nothing away. Oxley was well liked and he deserved it.
Of the medical profession in Thirsby the landlord was equally ready to
impart information. Dr. Emerson was a good doctor and well respected,
but he was growing old. He hardly did any work now, but he had made
plenty and he could afford to retire. Not that he had been a
money-grubber—the landlord had known many a case where he had treated
poor patients free—but until Dr. Philpot had come he had the whole of
the practice, and he hadn’t done badly with it. The landlord wished
that hotel keeping was half as profitable. Well off, Dr. Emerson was.
French next murmured Dr. Philpot’s name, but the landlord spoke with
more reserve. He was a clever man, first rate at his job, the landlord
believed, though he was thankful to say he hadn’t ever needed to call
him in. But he had made some good cures and people that had had him
once wouldn’t have anybody else. And he was pleasant spoken and
likeable enough, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t have done
extra well at Thirsby, for there was an opening for just such a man on
account of Dr. Emerson’s age. But—the landlord sank his voice and
became more confidential than ever—the truth was he had made a muck of
things, and no one would be surprised to see him take down his plate
any day. He was all right in every way, but the one—he was a wild
gambler. Fair ruining himself, he was. Horses mostly. It was a pity,
because he was well liked otherwise. But there you were. The landlord
had nothing to say about backing an occasional horse—he did it
himself—but, systematic gambling! Well, you know, it could go too far.
French was interested to learn that Sergeant Kent was a fool. The
landlord did not put it quite in those words, but he conveyed the idea
extraordinarily well. Kent was bumptious and overbearing, and carried
away by a sense of his own importance. French, the landlord was
afraid, wouldn’t get much help there.
The landlord showed signs of a willingness to go on talking all night,
but by the time eleven-thirty had struck on the old grandfather’s
clock in the hall French thought he had all the information that was
likely to be valuable. He therefore began insinuating the idea of bed,
and this gradually penetrating to the other’s consciousness, his flow
of conversation diminished and presently they separated.
The next day was Sunday, and after a late breakfast and a leisurely
pipe, French asked for some sandwiches, saying he was going out for a
long tramp over the moor. Having thus explained himself he strolled
off and presently, by a circuitous route, reached the lip of Starvel
Hollow.
In spite of the fact that his professional and critical interests were
aroused, French could not help feeling impressed by the isolation of
the ruins and the morbid, not to say sinister atmosphere which seemed
to brood over the entire place. Around him were the wild rolling
spaces of the moor, forbidding and desolate, rising here into rounded
hills, dropping there into shallow valleys. The colouring was drab, in
the foreground the dull greens of rushes and sedgy grass, the browns
of heather and at intervals a darker smudge where stone outcropped, on
the horizon the hazy blues of distance. Scarcely a tree or a shrub was
to be seen in the bare country, and the two or three widely separated
cottages, crouching low as if for protection from the winds, seemed
only to intensify the loneliness of the outlook.
At French’s feet lay the Hollow, a curious, saucer-like depression in
the moor, some quarter of a mile or more across. Its rim looked
continuous, the valley through which it was drained being winding and
not apparent at first sight. In the centre was the group of pines
which had surrounded the old house, stunted, leaning one way from the
prevailing wind, melancholy and depressing. Of the walls of the house
from this point of view there was no sign.
French walked down toward the ruins, marvelling at the choice which
would bring a man of means to such a locality. He could understand now
why on that night some five weeks earlier a building of the size of
this old house could be burned down without attracting more attention.
The Hollow accounted for it. Even flames soaring up from such a
conflagration would not surmount the lip of the saucer. Truly a place
also, as Tarkington had pointed out, where burglars could work their
will unseen and undisturbed.
French had seen the remains of many a fire, but as he gazed on the
wreckage of Starvel he felt he had never seen anything quite so
catastrophic and complete. He felt a growing awe as he began to
examine the place in detail.
The walls were built of stone, and except these walls and the small
outhouse at the opposite side of the yard, nothing remained standing.
The house was two storied and “L” shaped, with the remains of a single
story porch in the angle of the two wings. French compared the ruins
with the sketch plan given him by Kent and identified the places where
the bodies had been found. Then after a general survey he stepped
through the gaping hole that had evidently been the front door and
ploughed his way across the débris to the safe.
It was red with fire and rust, but the makers’ name and number, in
raised letters on a cast iron plate, were still legible. The safe had
been lifted upright and fixed on a roughly built pile of stones, as
the town officer of Thirsby had deposed at the inquest. The doors were
now shut, but with some difficulty owing to the rusty hinges French
was able to swing them open. Inside, as he had been told, was a mass
of paper ash.
Fortunately it was a calm day or the heap might have whirled away in
dust. As it was, French sat down on a stone, and putting his head into
the safe, began to examine the ash in detail.
The greater part had been ground to dust, doubtless by the fall of the
safe from the second story, and the churning of the sovereigns, though
there still remained a number of small flakes of burnt paper. These
French began to turn over with a pair of forceps, examining them at
the same time with a lens.
He was delighted to find that on nearly all he could distinguish marks
of printing. But, as he turned over piece after piece he became
conscious of growing astonishment. For this printing was not the
printing of bank notes. Rather it seemed to him like newspaper type.
Wrapping paper, he supposed. But why should the contents of the safe
have been wrapped up in newspapers? More important still, why should
portions of the newspapers rather than of the notes have been
preserved?
His interest keenly aroused, he set to work in his careful, methodical
way to check over all the fragments he could find. As he did so
something very like excitement took possession of him. There were no
fragments of notes! Every single piece that bore any marking was
newspaper!
What, he asked, himself, could this portend? What other than robbery?
And if robbery, then murder! Murder and arson! Could Tarkington and
the Chief Constable be right, after all? Certainly, after this
discovery he couldn’t drop the investigation until he had made sure.
He had brought with him a small case of apparatus, and from this he
now took a bottle of gum and some thin cards. Painting over the cards
with the gum, he laid on them such flakes of ash as bore legible
words. From one piece in particular he thought he might be able to
identify the newspaper of which it had been a part. It was a roundish
scrap about the size of half a crown, along the top of which were the
words: “—ing as we—” in small type, with below it in capitals, as if
the headline of a small paragraph: “RAT-CATCHER’S F——”
French secured the cards in a case specially designed to preserve
specimens, and re-closed the safe. It certainly looked as if
Tarkington’s suggestions might be true, and as he put the case away in
his pocket, he wondered if there was any further investigation he
could make while he was on the ground.
Stepping outside the building, he considered how a hypothetical
burglar might have forced an entrance. The window frames and doors
were all gone; moreover, any marks which might have been made
approaching them must long since have been defaced by time and the
footprints of sightseers and workmen. French, nevertheless, walked all
round the house and about the grounds, looking everywhere in the hope
of coming on some clue, though he was scarcely disappointed when his
search ended in failure.
He was anxious, if possible, to find out what newspaper had been
burned. He did not think the point of vital importance, but on general
principles the information should be obtained. There was no knowing
what clue it might not furnish. On his way back to Thirsby, therefore,
he turned aside to Mr. Oxley’s house and sent in his card.
In the privacy of the solicitor’s study French introduced himself and
in confidence declared his mission to the town. He apologised for
troubling the other on Sunday, but said that at the moment he wished
only to ask one question: Could Mr. Oxley tell him, or could he find
out for him from Miss Averill, what daily paper the late Mr. Averill
had taken?
Mr. Oxley did not know, and excused himself to interrogate Ruth.
Presently he returned to say it was the _Leeds Mercury_.
Next morning French took the first train to Leeds, and going to the
_Mercury_ office, asked to see the files of the paper for the month of
September. Commencing at the 15th, the day of the fire, he began
working back through the papers, scrutinising each sheet for a
paragraph headed “RAT-CATCHER’S F——”
He found it sooner than he had expected. Tucked in among a number of
small news items in the paper of Tuesday, 14th September, he read:
“RAT-CATCHER’S FATAL FALL.” And when he saw that the type was similar
to that on the burnt scrap and the last line of the preceding
paragraph was “Mr. Thomas is doing as well as can be expected,” with
the “—ng as we—” in the correct position relative to the
“RAT-CATCHER’S F——” he knew he had really got what he wanted.
French was extraordinarily thorough. Long experience had taught him
that everything in the nature of a clue should be followed up to the
very end. He did not therefore desist when he had made his find.
Instead he worked on to see if he could identify any of the other
scraps he had found. And before he left he had found eight out of the
eleven he had mounted, and proved that the burnt papers were those of
the 13th, 14th, and 15th; the three days before the fire.
So far, then, the indications were at least for continuing the
investigation. Leaving the _Mercury_ office, French walked up the
Briggate to Messrs. Carter & Stephenson’s, the makers of the safe. He
asked for one of the principals, and was presently shown into Mr.
Stephenson’s room. Introducing himself in the strictest confidence in
his true guise, he propounded his question: Was the safe absolutely
fireproof?
Mr. Stephenson rose and went to a drawer from which he took a number
of photographs.
“Look at those,” he invited, “and tell me was the fire at Starvel any
worse than those fires?”
The views were all of burnt-out buildings, most of them completely
gutted and resembling the wreckage of Starvel. French assured him that
the cases seemed on all fours.
“Very well, there were safes in all those fires—safes just the same as
that at Starvel, and all those safes had papers in them, and there
wasn’t a single paper in any one of them so much as browned.”
French took out his burnt fragments.
“Look at those, Mr. Stephenson,” he invited in his turn. “Suppose
there were newspapers in that safe before the fire, could they have
come out like that after it?”
“Not under any conceivable circumstances,” Mr. Stephenson declared
emphatically, “that is, of course, unless the door had been left open.
With the door shut it’s absolutely impossible. And I’ll be prepared to
stand by that in any court of law if you should want me to.”
The man’s manner was convincing, and French saw no reason to doubt his
statement. But he saw also that its truth involved extremely serious
consequences. If Mr. Stephenson was right the newspapers had not been
burnt during the Starvel fire. They could only have been burned while
the safe door was open. But the door was locked during the fire; Kent
had had to get an expert to open it. They must therefore have been
burned before it was locked. A sinister fact truly, and terribly
suggestive!
On his way back to Thirsby French sat smoking in the corner of a
carriage, weighing in his mind the significance of his discoveries. He
considered the points in order.
First. Old Averill was a miser who had filled up his safe with notes
and gold. The notes had been seen on more than one occasion by Mr.
Tarkington’s clerk, Bloxham, the last time being only a few days
before the tragedy. Mr. Tarkington estimated there must have been some
£30,000 to £40,000 worth of notes in the safe, though this was
probably only a guess. But it was at least certain that before the
fire it contained a very large sum in notes.
Second. After the fire the gold was intact, or at least part of it was
there, but there was no trace of the notes. It was perfectly true that
a number of notes might have been burned and been crushed to powder by
the falling sovereigns. But it was straining the probabilities too far
to believe that no single fragment of any one note should remain. On
the other hand fragments did remain—but these were all of newspapers.
Third. The newspapers, according to Mr. Stephenson’s evidence, were
burned before the door of the safe had been closed.
Gradually French came to definite conclusions. As far as his
information went the following facts seemed to be established:—
First. That the safe was unlocked, and the notes were taken out before
the fire.
Second. That three or four newspapers were put in to replace them.
Third. That the newspapers were set on fire and allowed to burn to
ashes while the safe door was open.
Fourth. That after they were burned the safe was locked.
If these conclusions could be sustained it unquestionably meant that
French was on to one of the most dastardly and terrible crimes of the
century. He felt the sudden thrill of the hunter who comes across the
fresh spoor of some dangerous wild beast. But he did not disclose his
feelings. Instead he kept his own counsel, simply reporting to
headquarters that the case seemed suspicious and that he was remaining
on to make further inquiries.