French had now reconciled the apparent contradiction in regard to one
of his four test points. Obviously his next job was to clear up the
other three.
As he considered on which he should first concentrate, his mind
fastened on the one point which at the time had seemed not completely
satisfactory—the slightly suspicious manner of Gurney, the night
watchman. During the night, as he now knew, the body of Stanley Pyke
had been taken to the works and put into the crate. It was impossible
that this could have been done without Gurney’s knowledge. Gurney must
be made to speak.
Accordingly, after breakfast next morning he set off to the man’s
house. He passed out of the town on the Newton Abbot road, then
turning into a lane to the left, struck up the side of the valley.
Soon he reached the cottage, a tiny place with deep overhanging eaves
and creeper-covered walls. In front was a scrap of well-kept garden
and in the garden was the man himself.
“Good morning, Gurney,” French greeted him. “I thought you would have
been in bed by now.”
“I be just going,” answered the old man. “I came out an’ begun a bit
o’ weeding an’ the time ran round without my noticing.”
“That’s lucky for me,” said French, heartily. “I want a word with you.
A nice place you’ve got here.”
“Not too bad, it ain’t,” the other admitted, looking about him with
obvious pride. “The soil’s a bit ’eavy, but it don’t do so bad.”
“Good for your roses, surely? Those are fine ones beside the house.”
Gurney laid aside his hoe and led the way to the really magnificent
bed of La Frances to which French had pointed. It was evident that
these were the old man’s passion. French was not a gardener, but he
knew enough to talk intelligently on the subject and his appreciation
evidently went straight to the watchman’s heart. For some minutes they
discussed horticulture, and then French wore gradually round to the
object of his visit.
“Terrible business that about Mr. Berlyn and Mr. Pyke,” he essayed.
“It must have set this town talking.”
“It didn’t ’alf, sir. Everyone was sorry for the poor gentlemen. They
was well liked, they was.”
“And that was another terrible affair,” pursued French after the local
tragedy had been adequately discussed, “that finding of the dead body
in the crate. Extraordinary how the body could have been put in.”
“I didn’t ’ear naught about that,” Gurney answered, with a sudden
increase of interest. “You don’t mean the crate you was speaking about
that day you was up at the works?”
“No other. Keep it to yourself and I’ll tell you about it.” French
became deeply impressive. “That crate that I was enquiring about was
sent from here to Swansea. There it was called for by a man who took
it on a lorry to a place called Burry Port and threw it into the sea.
A fisherman chanced to hook it and it was brought ashore more than a
month later. And when it was opened the dead body of a man was found
inside.”
“Lord save us! I read in the noospaper about that there body being
found, but it fair beats me that the crate came from ’ere, it does.”
French continued to enlarge on the tale. That Gurney’s surprise was
genuine he felt certain. He could have sworn that the man had no
inkling of the truth. But he marked, even more acutely than before, a
hesitation or self-consciousness that indicated an uneasy mind. There
was something; he felt sure of it. He glanced at the man with his
shrewd, observant eyes and suddenly determined on directness.
“Look here, Gurney,” he said. “Come over and sit on this seat. I have
something important to say to you.” He paused as if considering his
words. “You thought a good deal of your employers, those two poor men
who were lost on the moor?”
“An’ I had reason to. It wasn’t an accident ’appening in the execution
of my dooty, as you might say, as made me lame and not fit to work. It
was rheumatism, and they could ’ave let me go when I couldn’t work no
more. But they found this job for me and they let me the ’ouse cheap.
Of course it was Mr. Berlyn as ’ad the final say, but I know as Mr.
Pyke spoke for me. It wasn’t everyone as would ’ave done that, now was
it, sir?”
Consideration on the part of an employer was not, French knew, to be
taken as a matter of course, though it was vastly more common than the
unions would have the public believe. But gratitude on the part of an
employee was not so frequent, though it was by no means unique. Its
exhibition, however, in the present instance confirmed French in the
course he was taking.
“Now, Gurney, do you know who I am?” he went on. “I’m an inspector
from Scotland Yard and I’m down here to try to solve these two
mysteries. Because, Gurney, do you know what I think? I think that on
that night the body of one of these two gentlemen was taken to the
works and put into the crate.”
Gurney started and paled. “Lord save us!” he muttered. “But wot about
the accident?”
“There was no accident,” French replied, sternly. “There was murder.
Who committed it, I don’t know at present. Where the other body is, if
there is another body, I don’t yet know. But I have no doubt about one
of the bodies. It was put into the crate on that night.”
Gurney moistened his dry lips.
“But——” he began, and his voice died away into silence.
“That’s it,” French went on, impressively. “Now, Gurney, I’m not
accusing you of anything. But you know something. You needn’t attempt
to deny it, because it has been plain to me from the first moment I
spoke to you. Come now. Something out of the common took place that
night. What was it?”
Gurney did not deny the charge. Instead he sat motionless, with
scared, unhappy eyes. French remained silent also; then he said,
quietly:
“What was it? Were you away from your post that night?”
“No, sir, not that. I was there all the time,” the other answered,
earnestly. Again he paused, then with a sudden gesture he went on: “I
didn’t know nothing about what you ’ave been saying, but I see now I
must tell you everything, even if I gets the sack over it.”
“You’ll not get the sack if I can help it,” French said, kindly, “but
go on and tell me, all the same.”
“Well, sir, I did that night wot I never did before nor since. I slept
the ’ole night through. I sat down to eat my supper in the
boiler-’ouse like I always does, an’ I didn’t remember nothing more
till Peter Small ’e was standing there shaking me. ‘Wake up,’ ’e says;
‘you’re a nice sort of a night watchman, you are.’ ‘Lord,’ I says. ‘I
never did nothing like that before,’ an’ I asks him not to say nothing
about it. An’ ’e didn’t say nothing, nor I didn’t, neither. But now I
suppose it’ll come out an’ I’ll get wot for about it.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” French said, heartily. “I’ll see you
through. I’ll undertake to get Mr. Fogden to overlook this little
irregularity on one condition. You must tell me everything that took
place that night without exception. Go ahead now and let’s have the
whole of it.”
The old man gazed at him in distress.
“But there weren’t naught else,” he protested. “I went to sleep, an’
that’s all. If there were anything else took place, w’y I didn’t see
it.”
“That’s all right. Now just answer my questions. Go back to when you
left your house. What time was that?”
“The usual time, about twenty minutes to seven.”
“You brought your supper with you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who prepared it?”
“My wife.”
“Did you meet anyone on your way to the works?”
“Well, I couldn’t rightly say. No one that I remember.”
“No one could have got hold of your supper, anyway?”
The man started. “You think it might ’ave been tampered with?” he
queried. He thought for some moments, then shook his head. “No, sir,
I’m afraid not. I don’t never let my basket out o’ my ’and till I gets
to the boiler-’ouse.”
“Very well. Now when you got to the boiler-house?”
“I put it where I always do, beside one o’ the boilers.”
“And you left it there?”
“While I made my rounds, I did. But there wasn’t no one else in the
works then.”
“How do you know?”
Gurney hesitated. In the last resort he didn’t know. But he had not
seen anyone and did not believe anyone had been there.
“But suppose some one had been hidden in the works,” French persisted.
“He could have doctored your supper while you were on your rounds?”
“If there ’ad been ’e might,” the man admitted. “But I didn’t see no
one.”
“What time do you have your meal?”
Gurney, it appeared, had two meals during the night. Time hung heavy
on his hands and the meals made a break. He had his dinner about six,
started work at seven, and had his first meal about eleven. His second
meal he had about three, and he was relieved at six.
On the night in question he had his first meal at the usual time.
Until then he had felt perfectly normal, but he had scarcely finished
when he found himself growing overpoweringly sleepy, and the next
thing he remembered was being wakened by the fireman at six the next
morning.
“It’s clear that your supper was doped,” French said. “Now think, did
nothing in any way out of the common happen between six and eleven?”
Gurney began a denial, then stopped.
“There were one thing,” he said, slowly, “but I don’t believe as ’ow
it could have ’ad anything to do with it. A little before ten there
were a ring at the office door. I went to open, but there weren’t no
one there. I didn’t think naught of it, because children do ring
sometimes just by way o’ mischief. But there weren’t no children there
so far as I could see.”
“How far is this door that you opened from the boiler-house?”
“At t’other end o’ the building. Two ’undred yards, maybe.”
“Is that the only door?”
“No, sir, there be a gate near the boilers for lorries, but people
going to the office use the other.”
“Is the large gate locked at night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who keeps the key?”
“I do. There’s a key in the office that any o’ the gentlemen can get
if they wants, but I carry one with me.”
For some moments French sat thinking, then a fresh point struck him.
“What did your supper consist of on that night?”
“Tea an’ bread an’ butter and a slice o’ meat. I have a can o’ tea. I
leave it on the boiler and it keeps ’ot.”
“You mean that you don’t make your tea separately for each meal? You
drink some out of the can at the first meal and finish what is left at
the second?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“And the same with food?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now on the night we’re talking about you had only one meal. You slept
through the time of the second. What happened to the tea and food that
was left over?”
“We ’ad it for breakfast, my wife an’ I.”
“That is what I wanted to get at. Now did either of you feel sleepy
after breakfast?”
A mixture of admiration and wonder showed in the old man’s eyes.
“Why, no, we didn’t, an’ that’s a fact,” he said in puzzled tones.
“An’ we should ’ave if so be as wot you think is true.”
This looked like a snag, but French reminded himself that at the
moment he was only getting information and his theorising could wait
till later. He continued his questions, but without learning much
more.
“Now, Gurney,” he said at last, “under no circumstances are you to
mention what we have been speaking of—not to your wife nor to Mr.
Fogden nor to anyone. You understand?”
“I understand, sir, right enough.”
“Very good. Now I’m anxious to go into this matter further, and I’ll
call at the works to-night.”
“Right, sir. I’ll be on the lookout.”
It was dark as French rang at the big gate of the works. Gurney soon
appeared at the wicket and French followed him across the yard to the
boiler-house, a distance of perhaps forty yards. It was a fair-sized
shed, housing five Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers with mechanical
stokers and the usual stoker engines and pumps. On a ledge of the warm
brickwork near one of the ash openings stood the old man’s can of tea,
and his basket of food was placed on the repair bench close by. French
took in these details and then said:
“I want now to try an experiment. Will you lend me your key of the
wicket. I will go out, lock the wicket behind me, and go round to the
office door and ring. When you hear the ring you go and open. Repeat
everything exactly as you did that night so as to get back here at the
same time. In the meantime I shall let myself in again by the wicket
and see if I should have time to dope your tea and get away again
before you appear. You understand?”
This program was carried out. French went out and rang at the office
door, then ran round to the large gate, let himself in through the
wicket, found the can of tea, opened it and counted ten, closed it and
relocked the wicket. Then he began to time. Three minutes passed
before Gurney appeared.
So that was all right. Anyone who had access to the key in the office
could have doctored the watchman’s food. Moreover, the fact that the
Gurneys had breakfasted without ill effect on the remainder was not
such a difficulty as French had at first supposed. The criminal might
have doped the tea on his first visit and during his second poured
away what was over and replaced it with fresh. In fact, if he were to
preserve his secret he must have done so. The discovery of the
drugging would have started an enquiry which might have brought to
light the whole plot.
Though French was enthusiastic about his discovery, he saw that it
involved one disconcerting point. What about the theory of Berlyn’s
guilt? The ring at the office door had come shortly before ten. But
shortly before ten Berlyn was at Tavistock. Therefore some other
person was involved. Was this person the murderer and had he made away
with Berlyn as well as Pyke? Or was he Berlyn’s accomplice? French
inclined to the latter supposition. In considering the timing of the
car he had seen that it could have been used to carry the body to the
works provided an accomplice was ready to drive it back to the moor
without delay. On the whole, therefore, it looked as if the murder was
the work of two persons, of whom Berlyn was one.
But whether principal or accomplice, it was at least certain that the
man who had drugged Gurney’s food knew the works intimately and had
access to the key in the office. Only a comparatively small number of
persons could fill these requirements and he should, therefore, be
quickly found.
Well pleased with his day’s work, French returned to the hotel and
spent the remainder of the evening in writing up his diary.