French believed that he had obtained all the available information
about the Berlyns from his interview with the sergeant and Lizzie
Johnston. Pyke was the next name on his list and he now crossed East
Street to the house in which the travelling representative had lodged.
The door was opened by a bright-eyed, bustling little woman at sight
of whom French’s emotional apparatus registered satisfaction. He knew
the type. The woman was a talker.
But when for the best part of an hour he had listened to her,
satisfaction was no longer the word with which to express his state of
mind. He had no difficulty in getting her to talk. His trouble was to
direct the flood of her conversation along the channel in which he
wished it to flow.
He began by explaining that he was staying at the hotel, but that as
he liked the district and might want to remain for some time, he was
looking about for rooms. He had heard she had some to let. Was this
so, and if it was, could he see them?
It was so and he could see them. She had had a lodger, a very nice
gentleman and a very good payer, but she had lost him recently. Mr.
——? She had heard his name: was it not Mr. French? Mr. French must
have heard about his dreadful death? His name was Mr. Pyke. Had Mr.
French not heard?
Mr. French had heard something about it. It seemed a very sad affair.
It was a very sad affair. Mr. Pyke had gone out that evening as well
as Mr. French or herself, and he had never come back, had never been
seen again. Terrible, wasn’t it? And a terrible shock to her. Indeed,
she didn’t feel the same even yet. She didn’t believe she ever would.
Between that and the loss of the letting. . . .
What had he said before he started? Why, he hadn’t said anything! At
least he had said he wouldn’t be home until about midnight, and for
her not to forget to leave the hall door on the latch and to put some
supper on the table in his room. And she had done. She had left
everything right for him, and then she had gone to bed. And she had
slept. She was a good sleeper, except that one time after she had had
scarlet fever, when the doctor said . . .
Yes, the rooms were ready at any time. She believed in keeping her
house clean and tidy at all times, so that everything was always ready
when it was wanted. She had once been in service with Mrs.
Lloyd-Hurley in Chagford and she had learnt that lesson there. Mrs.
Lloyd-Hurley was very particular. She . . .
Mr. Pyke’s things? Oh yes, they were gone. She thought that would be
understood when she said the rooms were ready. She . . .
It was his cousin. His cousin had come down from London and taken
everything there was. That was Mr. Jefferson Pyke. Her Mr. Pyke was
Mr. Stanley. Mr. Jefferson was the only remaining relative, at least
so she understood. He packed up everything and took it away. Except a
few things that he said he didn’t want. These she had kept. Not that
she wanted them, but if they were going begging, as Mr. French might
say, why, then. . . .
No, she had only seen Mr. Jefferson once before. He lived in the
Argentine, or was it Australia? She wasn’t rightly sure—she had no
memory for places—but he lived away in some strange foreign country,
anyhow. He happened to be over on a visit and was going back again
shortly. Her brother James lived in Australia and she had asked Mr.
Jefferson . . .
So French sat and listened while the unending stream poured about his
devoted head. At times by summoning up all his resolution he
interposed a remark which diverted the current in a new direction. But
his perseverance was rewarded as from nearly all of these mutations he
learned at least one fact. When at last, exhausted but triumphant, he
rose to take his leave, he had gained the following information:
Mr. Stanley Pyke was a jolly, pleasant-mannered man of about
five-and-thirty, who had lodged with the talkative landlady for the
past four years. He had been connected with the works for much longer
than that, but at first had had other rooms farther down the street.
Hers, the landlady modestly explained, were the best in the town, and
Mr. Pyke’s removal was an outward and visible sign of his prosperity.
For the rest, he was satisfactory as lodgers go, easy to please, not
stingy about money, and always with a pleasant word for her when they
met.
On the evening of the tragedy he had dined at six-fifteen instead of
seven, his usual hour. He had gone out immediately after, giving the
instruction about the door and his supper. The landlady had gone to
bed as usual, and the first intimation she had had that anything was
wrong was the visit of the police on the following morning.
Some one, she did not know who, must have informed the cousin, Mr.
Jefferson Pyke, for that evening he turned up. He had stayed at
Torquay for three or four days, coming over to Ashburton to see the
police and make enquiries. On one of these visits he had called on her
and stated that, as he was the only surviving relative of his cousin,
he would take charge of his personal effects. He had packed up and
removed a good many of the dead man’s things, saying he did not want
the remainder and asking her to dispose of them.
It had not occurred to her to question Mr. Jefferson Pyke’s right to
take her lodger’s property. She had seen him once before, in Mr.
Stanley’s lifetime. Some two months before the tragedy Mr. Stanley had
told her that his cousin was home on a visit from the Argentine—she
believed it was the Argentine and not Australia—and that he was coming
down to see him. He asked her could she put him up. Mr. Jefferson had
arrived a day or two later and she had given him her spare bedroom. He
stayed for four days and the cousins had explored the moor together.
Mrs. Berlyn, she had heard, had driven them about in her car. The
landlady had found Mr. Jefferson very pleasant; indeed, when the two
men were together they had nearly made her die laughing with their
jokes and nonsense. Mr. Jefferson had told her that he owned a ranch
in the Argentine and that he was thinking of starting flower gardens
from which to supply the cities. He was then on his way back from the
Scillys, where he had gone to investigate the industry. A week after
Mr. Jefferson left, Mr. Stanley took his holidays, and he had told her
he was going with his cousin to the south of France to a place called
Grasse, where there were more gardens. He was only back some three
weeks when he met his death.
All this was given to French with a wealth of detail which, had it
been material to his investigation, he would have welcomed, but by
which, as it was, he was frankly bored. However, he could do nothing
to stop the stream and he simulated interest as best he could.
“By the way, Mrs. Billing,” he said, pausing on his way out, “if I
take these rooms could you look after the mending of my clothes? Who
did it for Mr. Pyke?”
Mrs. Billing had, and she would be delighted to do the same for Mr.
French.
“Well, I have some that want it at the present time. Suppose I bring
them over now. Could you look at them?” Five minutes later he returned
with his suitcase and spread out the clothes as he had done for Lizzie
Johnston an hour or two before. Like the maid, Mrs. Billing glanced
over them and remarked that there didn’t seem to be much wrong.
French picked up the grey sock.
“But you see they have not been very neatly darned. This grey one has
been done with a different coloured wool. I thought perhaps you could
put that right.”
Mrs. Billing took the grey sock and stared at it for some time, while
a puzzled expression grew on her face. French, suddenly keenly
excited, watched her almost breathlessly. But after turning it over
she put it down, though the slightly mystified look remained.
“Here are some underclothes,” French went on. “Do these want any
mending?”
Slowly the landlady turned over the bundle. As she did so incredulity
and amazement showed on her bird-like features. Then swiftly she
turned to the neck of the vest and the shirt cuffs and scrutinised the
buttons and links.
“My Gawd!” she whispered, hoarsely, and French saw that her face had
paled and her hands were trembling.
“You recognise them?”
She nodded, her flood of speech for once paralysed.
“Where did you get them?” she asked, still in a whisper.
French was quite as excited as she, but he controlled himself and
spoke easily.
“Tell me first whose they are and how you are so sure of them.”
“They’re Mr. Pyke’s, what he was wearing the night he was lost. I
couldn’t but be sure of them. See here. There’s the wool first. I
darned that and I remember I hadn’t the right colour. Then these
buttons.” She picked up the vest. “I put that one on. See, it’s not
the same as the rest; it was the only one I could get. And then if
that wasn’t enough, these are the cuff-links. I’ve seen them hundreds
of times and I’d know them anywhere. Where did you get them?”
French dropped his suave, kindly manner and suddenly became official
and, for him, unusually harsh.
“Now, Mrs. Billing,” he said, sharply, “I’d better tell you exactly
who I am and warn you that you’ve got to keep it to yourself. I am
Inspector French of New Scotland Yard; you understand, a police
officer. I have discovered that Mr. Pyke was murdered and I am on the
track of the murderer.”
The landlady gave a little scream. She was evidently profoundly moved,
not only by surprise and excitement, but by horror at her late
lodger’s fate. She began to speak, but French cut her short.
“I want you to understand,” he said, threateningly, “that you must
keep silence on this matter. If any hint of it gets about, it will be
a very serious thing for you. I take it you don’t want to be mixed up
in a murder trial. Very well, then; keep your mouth shut.”
Mrs. Billing was terrified and eagerly promised discretion. French
questioned her further, but without result. She did not believe her
late lodger was on bad terms with anyone, nor did she know if he had a
birthmark on his upper arm.
French’s delight at his discovery was unbounded. The identification of
the dead man represented the greatest step towards the completion of
his case that he had yet made. He chuckled to himself in pure joy.
But his brain reeled when he thought of his four test points. If this
news were true, he had made some pretty bad mistakes! Each one of his
four conclusions must be false. As he remembered the facts on which
they were based, he had to admit himself completely baffled.
Presently his mood changed and a wave of pessimism swept over him. The
identification of the underclothes was not, after all, the
identification of the body. Such an astute criminal as he was dealing
with might have changed the dead man’s clothes. But when he reminded
himself that the man who called for the crate resembled Berlyn, the
thing became more convincing. However, it had not been proved, and he
wanted certainty.
Fortunately there was the birthmark. French had examined it carefully
and was satisfied that it was genuine. Who, he wondered, could
identify it?
The most likely person, he thought, was Jefferson Pyke. It would be
worth a journey to London to have the point settled. That night,
therefore, he took the sleeping-car express to Paddington.
Daw had given him the address—17b, Kepple Street, off Russell Square,
and before ten next morning he was there.
Jefferson Pyke was a clean-shaven man of about forty, of rather more
than medium height and stoutly built. He was a study in browns: brown
eyes, a dusky complexion, hair nearly black, brown clothes and shoes,
and a dark-brown tie. He looked keenly at his visitor, then pointed to
a chair.
“Mr. French?” he said, speaking deliberately. “What can I do for you,
sir?”
“I’ll tell you, Mr. Pyke,” French answered. “First of all, here is my
professional card. I want some help from you in an investigation I am
making.”
Pyke glanced at the card and nodded.
“A case on which I was engaged took me recently to Ashburton, and
while there I heard of the tragic death of Mr. Pyke and Mr. Berlyn of
the Veda Works staff. I understand that Mr. Pyke was a relative of
yours?”
“That is so. My first cousin.”
“Well, Mr. Pyke,” French said, gravely, “I have to inform you that a
discovery had been made which may or may not have a bearing on your
cousin’s fate. A body has been found—the body of a murdered man. That
body has not been identified, but there is a suggestion that it may be
your cousin’s. I want to know if you can identify it?”
Mr. Pyke stared incredulously.
“Good Heavens, Inspector! That’s an astonishing suggestion. You must
surely be mistaken. I went down to Ashburton directly I heard of the
accident, and there seemed no doubt then about what had happened. Tell
me the particulars.”
“About a fortnight ago, as you may have noticed in the papers, a crate
was picked up in the sea off Burry Port in South Wales, which was
found to contain the body of a murdered man. The face had been
disfigured and there was no means of identification. However, I traced
the crate and I learned that it was sent out from the Veda Works on
the morning after your cousin and Mr. Berlyn disappeared.”
“Good Heavens!” Mr. Pyke exclaimed again. “Go on.”
“I made enquiries and the only persons known to have disappeared were
those two men. You see the suggestion? I am sorry to have to ask you,
but can you help me to identify the remains?”
Mr. Pyke’s face showed both amazement and horror.
“This is terrible news, Inspector. I need hardly say I hope you are
mistaken. Of course you may count on me to do all I can.”
“You think you can identify the body, then?”
“Surely I ought to recognise my own cousin?”
“Otherwise than by the face? Remember the face has been disfigured. I
might say, indeed, it is nonexistent, it has been so savagely
battered.”
“By Heaven! I hope you will get the man who did it!” Pyke said, hotly.
“But that does not answer your question.” He hesitated. “If it is not
possible to recognise the features, I’m not so sure. How do you
suggest it might be done?”
French shrugged.
“Identification otherwise than by the features is usually possible. It
is a matter of observation. Some small physical defect, a crooked
finger, the scar of an old cut, or mole on the neck—there are scores
of indications to the observant man.”
Mr. Pyke sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Then I’m afraid I’m not very observant,” he said at last. “I can’t
remember any such peculiarity in poor Stanley’s case.”
“Nothing in the shape of the finger nails,” French prompted. “No
birthmark, no local roughness or discoloration of the skin?”
“By Jove!” Mr. Pyke exclaimed with a sudden gesture. “There is
something. My cousin had a birthmark, a small red mark on his left
arm, here. I remembered it directly you mentioned the word.”
“Then you have been fairly intimate with your cousin? Have you often
seen this mark?”
“Seen it? Scores of times. We were boys together and I have noticed it
again and again. Why, now I come to think of it, I saw it on these
last holidays I spent with Stanley. We went to the south of France and
shared a cabin in the steamer to Marseilles.”
“Could you describe it?”
“No, but I could sketch it.” He seized a piece of paper and drew a
rough triangle.
French laid his photograph beside the sketch. There could be no doubt
that they represented the same object. Pyke seized the photograph.
“That’s it. I could swear to it anywhere. You’ve found Stanley’s body
right enough. Good Heavens! Inspector, it’s incredible! I could have
sworn he hadn’t an enemy in the world. Have you any clue to the
murderer?”
Natural caution and official training made French hedge.
“Not as yet,” he answered, assuring himself that his ideas about
Berlyn were hypothetical. “I was hoping that you could give me a
lead.”
“I?” Jefferson Pyke shook his head. “Far from it. Even now I can
scarcely credit the affair.”
“Well, I should like you to run over his associates and see if you
can’t think of any who might have hated him. Now to start with the
senior partner: What about Colonel Domlio?”
Mr. Pyke had never met him and knew nothing about him, though he had
heard his cousin mention his name. French went on through the list he
had made at Ashburton till in the natural sequence he came to Berlyn.
“Now Mr. Berlyn. Could he have had a down on your cousin?”
“But he was lost, too,” Pyke rejoined, then stopped and looked keenly
at French. “By Jove! Inspector, I get your idea! You think Berlyn may
have murdered him and cleared out?” He shook his head. “No, no. You
are wrong. It is impossible. Berlyn wasn’t that sort. I knew him
slightly and I confess I didn’t care for him, but he was not a
murderer.”
“Why did you not like him, Mr. Pyke?”
Pyke shrugged.
“Hard to say. Not my style, perhaps. A good man, you know, and
efficient and all that, but—too efficient, shall I say? He expected
too much from others; didn’t make allowances for human errors and
frailties. Poor Mrs. Berlyn had rather a time with him.”
“How so?”
“Well, an example will explain what I mean. On this last holiday after
Stanley and I got back to London we met Berlyn and his wife, who were
in town. The four of us dined together and went to a theatre. We were
to meet at the restaurant at seven. Well, Mrs. Berlyn had been off
somewhere on her own and she was five minutes late. What was that for
a woman? But Berlyn was so ratty about it that I felt quite
embarrassed. You see, he wouldn’t have been late himself. If he had
said seven, he would have been there—on the tick. He couldn’t see that
other people were not made the same way.”
“I follow you. You say that Mrs. Berlyn had rather a time with him.
Did they not get on?”
“Oh, they got on—as well as fifty per cent of the married people get
on. Berlyn did his duty to her strictly, even lavishly, but he
expected the same in return. I don’t know that you could blame him.
Strictly speaking, of course he was right. It was his instinct for
scrupulously fair play.”
“Your late cousin and Mrs. Berlyn were very good friends, were they
not?”
“We were both good friends with Mrs. Berlyn. Stanley and I knew her as
children. In fact, it was through Stanley that Berlyn met her. I was
in the Argentine at the time, but he told me about it. Berlyn was
going for a holiday—one of those cruises round the western
Mediterranean. Stanley happened to have met Phyllis Considine, as she
was then, in London, and she had mentioned she was going on the same
trip. So he gave Berlyn an introduction. Berlyn, it appears, fell in
love with her and was accepted before the cruise was over.”
“Do you think Berlyn could have been jealous of your cousin?”
“I’m sure he could not, Inspector. Don’t get that bee into your
bonnet. Stanley certainly went often to the house, but Berlyn was
always friendly to him. I don’t for a moment believe there was
anything to be jealous about.”
“There was enough intimacy for them to be talked about.”
“In Ashburton!” Pyke retorted, scornfully. “In a little one-horse
place like that they’d talk no matter what you did.”
“It was believed that there was something between them until about
four months before the tragedy, then for some unknown reason the
affair stopped.”
“That so?” Pyke retorted. “Well, if it stopped four months before the
tragedy it couldn’t have caused it.”
“Do you know where Mrs. Berlyn is now?”
“Yes, in London; at 70b Park Walk, Chelsea, to be exact.”
French continued his questions, but without learning anything further
of interest, and after cautioning Pyke to keep his own counsel, he
took his leave.
So he had reached certainty at last! The body was Stanley Pyke’s. He
had admittedly made four ghastly blunders in his test points and these
he must now try to retrieve. There was also a reasonable suspicion
that Charles Berlyn was the murderer. Splendid! He was getting on. As
he went down to the Yard he felt he had some good work behind him to
report.