The saying “it never rains but what it pours” is a popular expression
of the unhappy fact that misfortunes never come singly. Fortunately
for suffering humanity, the phrase expresses only half the truth. Runs
of good luck occur as well as runs of bad.
As French was smoking his after-breakfast pipe in the lounge next
morning it was borne in on him that he was at that time experiencing
one of the most phenomenal runs of good luck that had ever fallen to
his lot. Four days ago he had proved that the dead man was Pyke. Two
days later he had learned how the breakdown of the car had been faked.
Yesterday he had found the explanation of the watchman’s inaction, and
to-day, just at that very moment, an idea had occurred to him which
bade fair to solve the problem of the disposal of the duplicator!
Unfortunately, nothing could be done towards putting it to the test
until the evening. He spent the day, therefore, in a long tramp on the
moor, then about five o’clock walked for the second time to Gurney’s
house.
“I want to have another chat with you,” he explained. “I haven’t time
to wait now, but I shall come up to the works later in the evening.
Listen out for my ring.”
He strolled back to the town, had a leisurely dinner, visited the
local picture house, and killed time until after eleven. Then when the
little town was asleep he went up to the works. Five minutes later he
was seated with Gurney in the boiler-house.
“I have been thinking over this affair, Gurney,” he began, “and I am
more than ever certain that some terrible deeds were done here on that
night when you were drugged. I want to have another look around. But
you must not under any circumstances let it be known that I was here.”
“That’s all right, guv’nor. I ain’t goin’ to say nothing.”
French nodded.
“You told me that you had been a mechanic in the works before your
rheumatism got bad. Have you worked at any of those duplicators like
what was packed in the crate?”
“I worked at all kinds of erecting works—duplicators an’ files an’
indexes an’ addressing machines an’ all the rest o’ them. I knows them
all.”
“Good! Now I want you to come round to the store and show me the
different parts of a duplicator.”
Gurney led the way from the boiler-house.
“Don’t switch on the light,” French directed. “I don’t want the
windows to show lit up. I have a torch.”
They passed through the packing-shed and into the completed-machine
store adjoining. Here French called a halt.
“Just let’s look at one of these duplicators again,” he said. “Suppose
you wanted to take one of them to pieces, let me see how you would set
about it. Should I be correct in saying that if five or six of the
larger pieces were got rid of, all the rest could be carried in a
handbag?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Now show me the bins where these larger parts are stocked.”
They passed on to the part store and across it to a line of bins
labelled “Duplicators.” In the first bin were rows of leg castings.
French ran his eye along them.
“There must be fifty or sixty here,” he said, slowly. “Let’s see if
that is a good guess.”
On every bin was a stock card in a metal holder. French lifted down
that in question. It was divided into three sets of columns, one set
showing incomes, the second outgoes, and the third the existing stock.
The date of each transaction was given, and for each entry the stock
was adjusted.
“Not such a bad guess,” French remarked, slowly, as he scrutinised the
entries. “There are just fifty-four.”
The card was large and was nearly full. French noticed that it went
back for some weeks before the tragedy. He stood gazing at it in the
light of his torch while a feeling of bitter disappointment grew in
his mind. Then suddenly he thought he saw what he was looking for, and
whipping out a lens, he examined one of the entries more closely. “Got
it, by Jove! I’ve actually got it!” he thought, delightedly. His luck
had held.
One of the entries had been altered. A loop had been skilfully added
to a six to make it an eight. The card showed that two castings had
been taken out which either had never been taken out at all or, more
probably, which had been taken out and afterwards replaced.
Convinced that he had solved the last of his four test problems,
French examined the cards of the other bins. In all of those referring
to large parts he noticed the same peculiarity; the entries had been
tampered with to show that one more duplicator had been sent out than
really was the case. The cards for the small parts were unaltered and
French could understand the reason. It was easier to get rid of the
parts themselves than to falsify their records. The fraud was
necessary only in the case of objects too big and heavy to carry away.
French was highly pleased. His discovery was not only valuable in
itself, but he had reached it in the way which most appealed to his
vanity—from his own imagination. He had imagined that the fraud might
have been worked in this way. He had tested it and found that it had
been. Pure brains! Such things were soothing to his self-respect.
He stood considering the matter. The evidence was valuable, but it was
far from permanent. A hint that suspicion was aroused, and it would be
gone. The criminal, if he were still about, would see to it that
innocuous copies of the cards were substituted for these dangerous
ones. French felt he dare not run such a risk. Nor could he let Gurney
suspect his discovery, lest unwittingly the old man might put the
criminal on his guard. He therefore went on:
“Now all I want is to make a sketch of each of these parts. The
duplicator which went out in the crate may have been taken to pieces
and I want to be able to recognise them if they’re found. I suppose I
could get a sheet or two of paper in the storeman’s desk?”
In one corner a small box with glass sides constituted an office for
the storeman. French led the way thither. The door was closed but not
locked. The desk, which he next tried, was fastened. But above it in a
rack he saw what he was looking for, a pile of blank bin-cards. He
turned back.
“It doesn’t matter about the paper, after all,” he explained. “I see
the desk is locked. I can make my sketches in my notebook, though it’s
not so convenient. But many a sketch I’ve made in it before.”
Chatting pleasantly, he returned to the bins and began slowly to
sketch the leg casting. He was purposely extremely slow and detailed
in the work, measuring every possible dimension and noting it on his
sketch. Gurney, as he had hoped, began to get fidgety. French
continued talking and sketching. Suddenly he looked up.
“By the way,” he said, as if a new idea had suddenly entered his mind,
“there is no earthly need for me to keep you here while I am working.
It will take me an hour or two to finish these sketches. If you want
to do your rounds and to get your supper, go ahead. I’ll find you in
the boiler-house when I have done.”
Gurney seemed relieved. He explained that it really was time to make
his rounds and that if French didn’t mind he would go and do so.
French reassured him heartily, and he slowly disappeared.
No sooner had his shuffling footsteps died away than French became an
extremely active man. Quickly slipping the four faked cards from their
metal holders, he carried them to the office. Then taking four fresh
cards from the rack, he began slowly and carefully to copy the others.
He was not a skilful forger, but at the end of half an hour’s work he
had produced four passable imitations. Two minutes later he breathed
more freely. The copies were in the holders and the genuine cards in
his pocket. Hurriedly he resumed his sketching.
French’s work amounted to genius in the infinite pains he took with
detail. In twenty minutes his sketches were complete and he
effectually banished any suspicion which his actions might have
aroused in Gurney’s mind by showing them to him when he rejoined him
in the boiler-house. Like an artist he proceeded to establish the
deception.
“Copies of these sketches sent to the men who are searching for the
duplicator will help them to recognise parts of it if it has been
taken to pieces,” he explained. “You see the idea?”
Gurney appreciated the point, and French, after again warning him to
be circumspect, left the works.
The problem of what he should do next was solved for French by the
receipt of a letter by the early post. It was written on a half sheet
of cheap notepaper in an uneducated hand and read:
Ashburton.
12th October.
Dear Sir,
If you would come round some time that suits you I have something I
could tell you that would maybe interest you. It’s better not wrote
about.
Lizzie Johnston.
French had received too many communications of the kind to be hopeful
that this one would result in anything valuable. However, he thought
he ought to see the ex-parlourmaid and once again he made his way to
her cottage.
“It’s my Alf,” she explained. “Alf Beer, they call him. We’re being
married as soon as he gets another job.”
“He’s out of a job, then?”
“Yes, he was in the sales department in the works; a packer, he was.
He left there six months ago.”
“How was that?” French asked, sympathetically.
“He wasn’t well and he stayed home a few mornings, and Mr. Berlyn had
him up in his office and spoke to him something wicked. Well, Alf
wouldn’t take that, not from no man living, so he said what relieved
his feelings and Mr. Berlyn told him he could go.”
“And has he been doing nothing since?”
“Not steady, he hasn’t. Just jobbing, as you might say.”
“Hard lines, that is. You say he had something to tell me?”
The girl nodded. “That’s right,” was her original reply.
“What is it, do you know?”
“He wouldn’t say. I told him you was in asking questions and he seemed
sort of interested. ‘Wants to know about Berlyn and Pyke and Mrs.
Berlyn’s goings-on with Pyke, does he?’ he sez. ‘I thought some one
would be wanting to know about that before long. Well, I can tell him
something,’ he sez.”
“But he didn’t mention what it was?”
“No. I asked him and he sez ‘Value for cash,’ he sez. ‘He puts down
the beans and I cough up the stuff. That’s fair, ain’t it?’ he sez.
‘Don’t be a silly guff, Alf,’ I sez. ‘He’s police and if he asks you
questions, why, you don’t half have to answer them.’ ‘The devil I
have,’ he sez. ‘I ain’t done no crime and he hasn’t nothing on me. You
tell him,’ he sez, ‘tell him I know something that would be worth a
quid or two to him.’ And so I wrote you that note.”
“Tell me why you thought I was police,” French invited.
Miss Johnston laughed scornfully.
“Well, ain’t you?” she parried.
“That’s hardly an answer to my question.”
“Well, everybody knows what you’re after. They say you think Pyke was
murdered on the moor and that Berlyn murdered him. Leastways, that’s
what I’ve heard said.”
This was something more than a blow to French, and his self-esteem
reeled under it. For the _n_th time he marvelled at the amazing
knowledge of other people’s business to be found in country districts.
The small country town, he thought, was the absolute limit! There he
was, moving continually among the townspeople, none of whom gave the
least sign of interest in his calling, yet evidently they had
discussed him and his affairs to some purpose. The garrulous landlady,
Mrs. Billing, was no doubt responsible for the murder of Pyke becoming
known, but the belief that he, French, suspected Berlyn of murdering
him was really rather wonderful.
“It seems to me,” he said with a rather sickly smile, “that your
townspeople are better detectives than ever came out of Scotland Yard.
So your young man thinks I’m police and wants to turn an honest penny,
does he? Where am I to find him?”
“He’ll be at home. He’s living with his father at the head of East
Street—a single red house on the left-hand side just beyond the town.”
In the leisurely, holiday-like way he had adopted, French crossed the
town and half an hour later had introduced himself to Mr. Alfred Beer.
Lizzie’s Alf was a stalwart young man with a heavy face and a sullen,
discontented expression. French, sizing him up rapidly, decided that
the suave method would scarcely meet the case.
“You are Alfred Beer, engaged to Lizzie Johnston, the former servant
at Mr. Berlyn’s?” he began.
“That’s right, mister.”
“I am a police officer investigating the deaths of Mr. Berlyn and Mr.
Pyke. You have some information for me?”
“I don’t altogether know that,” Beer answered, slowly. “Just wot did
you want to know?”
“What you have to tell me,” French said, sharply. “You told Miss
Johnston you had some information and I’ve come up to hear it.”
The man looked at him calculatingly.
“Wot do you think it might be worth to you?” he queried.
“Not a brass farthing. You should know that witnesses are not paid for
their evidence. Don’t you misunderstand the situation, Beer, or you’ll
find things mighty unpleasant. Come along now. Out with it.”
“How can I tell you if you won’t say wot you want?”
“I wouldn’t talk to you any more, Beer, only, I think you don’t
understand where you are,” French answered, quietly. “This is a murder
case. Mr. Pyke has been murdered. If you know anything that might help
the police to discover the murderer and you don’t tell it, you become
an accessory after the fact. Do you realise that you’d get a good
spell of years for that?”
Beer gave an uncouth shrug and turned back to his digging.
“I don’t know nothing about no murder,” he declared, contemptuously.
“I was just pulling Lizzie’s leg.”
“You’ve done it now,” French said, producing his card. “There’s my
authority as a police officer. You’ve wasted my time and kept me back
from my work. That’s obstruction and you’ll get six months for it.
Come along to the station. And unless you want a couple of years
you’ll come quietly.”
This was not what the man expected.
“Wot’s that?” he stammered. “You ain’t going to arrest me? I ain’t
done nothin’ against the law, I ain’t.”
“You’ll soon find out about that. Look sharp now. I can’t spend the
day here waiting for you.”
“Aw!” The man shifted nervously. “See, mister, I ain’t done no harm, I
ain’t. I don’t know nothing about no murder. I don’t, honest.”
“I don’t want to be hard on you,” French answered. “If you tell your
story without any more humbugging I’ll let the rest go. But I warn
you, you needn’t start inventing any yarn. What you say will be gone
into, and Heaven help you if it’s not true.”
“I’ll take my davy it’s true, mister, but it ain’t about no murder.”
“Well, get along sharp and let’s hear it.”
“It was one night about six months ago,” said Beer, now speaking
almost eagerly. “Me and Lizzie were walking out at that time. Well,
that night we’d fixed up for to go for a walk, and then at the last
minute she couldn’t get away. Mrs. Berlyn was goin’ out or somethin’,
and she couldn’t get off. We’d ’ad it fixed up that when that ’appened
Lizzie would come down to the shrubbery after the rest ’ad gone to
bed. Well, I wanted to see ’er that night for to fix up some little
business between ourselves, so I went up to the ’ouse and gave the
sign—three taps with a tree branch at ’er window. You understand?”
French nodded.
“Well, I went back into the shrubbery for to wait for her. It was
dark, but a quiet night. An’ then I ’eard voices an’ steps comin’
along the path. So I got behind a bush so as they’d not see me. There
was a man and a woman, an’ when they came close I knew them by their
voices. It was Pyke and Mrs. Berlyn. I stayed still an’ they passed me
close.”
“Go ahead. Did you hear what they said, or what are you getting at?”
“I ’eard wot they said when they were passing. ‘I tell you ’e knows,’
she said. ‘I’m frightened,’ she said. ‘You don’t know him. If ’e once
thinks you’ve played ’im false ’e’ll make a ’ell of a trouble.’ An’
then Pyke says: ‘Nonsense!’ ’e said. ‘’E’s not that sort. Besides,’ ’e
said, ‘’e don’t know anything. ’E knows we’re friends, but that’s
all.’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m sure ’e knows or ’e guesses, anyway. We’ll
’ave to separate,’ she said. ’E said they ’ad been careful enough, and
then they went past an’ I didn’t ’ear no more.”
“That all?”
“That’s all,” said Beer, disgustedly. “Ain’t it enough?”
“Nothing to boast about,” French replied, absently. He remembered that
the man had been dismissed by Berlyn and he wondered if this statement
was merely the result of spite. He therefore questioned him closely.
But he was unable to shake him and he formed the opinion that the
story was true.
If so, it certainly had a pretty direct bearing on the theory he was
trying to evolve, for there could be little doubt as to who “’e” was.
As he considered the matter he was surprised to find how complete that
theory was and how much of it had been definitely established. There
were gaps, of course, but there was no doubt as to its general
correctness.
As French now saw it, the affair stood as follows:
Stanley Pyke and Phyllis Berlyn, friends during childhood, find that
they love each other when they renew their acquaintance in later
years. But it is then too late for the course of true love to run
smooth and a clandestine attachment follows. Berlyn learns of this
some four months before the tragedy and as a result of his
interference the two decide to discontinue their meetings—in public,
at all events. The flirtation with Colonel Domlio is possibly
deliberately undertaken by Mrs. Berlyn to prove to her husband that
her interest in Pyke is over.
But the two find that they cannot give each other up and the intrigue
is continued secretly. Berlyn, however, is not hoodwinked. He sees his
friend betraying him and he determines on vengeance.
His first move is to get an accomplice to assist in the details. Here
French admitted to himself that he was out of his depth. He could not
imagine who the accomplice was or why he should have been required.
But if Berlyn were guilty, the murder was clearly a two-man job.
Simultaneous activities in different places proved it.
The arrangements about the crate are next made. French was aware that
these had not yet been properly followed up; other matters had been
more urgent. But they represented a second string to his bow which he
would develop if necessary.
Then comes the night of the crime. While Berlyn and Pyke are at
Tavistock, the accomplice drugs the watchman’s food. He then waits for
the car. Pyke is sandbagged and his body carried into the works. One
of the men then unpacks the crate, and taking the duplicator to
pieces, returns the larger parts to stock. He has already doctored the
cards, as well, necessarily, as the corresponding books. He then
strips the recognisable clothes off the body, puts the latter in the
crate, smashes in the face, closes the crate, and leaves all as
before. Finally he escapes with Berlyn’s outer clothes and the smaller
parts of the duplicator. He has only to get rid of these and his part
in the ghastly business is complete.
In the meantime his confederate has driven the car out to a lonely
part of the moor, changed the magneto, and made the tracks leading
from the road.
The facts which pointed to Berlyn’s guilt were sixfold:
1. Berlyn in all probability was consumed by jealousy, one of the
strongest of human motives for crime.
2. Berlyn had an unparalleled opportunity for the deed, which only he
could have arranged.
3. It was not easy to see how anyone but Berlyn could have handled the
magneto affair.
4. Berlyn had the necessary position in the Veda Works to carry out
the watchman and stock-card episodes.
5. Berlyn answered the description of the man who had called for the
crate.
6. Berlyn had disappeared, an incomprehensible action if he were
innocent.
As French thought again over the accomplice, he recognised that here
was the snag in his theory. Motives of personal jealousy and private
wrong leave no room for an accomplice. Moreover, it was incredible
that a man who had shown such ingenuity could not have devised a
scheme to carry out the crime single-handed.
But though French recognised that there were points in the case as yet
unexplained, he saw that his own procedure was clear. He must start
the search for Berlyn and he must learn the identity of the
accomplice.
The first of these was easy. He had compiled a pretty accurate
description of the junior partner and Daw had got hold of his
photograph. A note in the _Police Gazette_ would start every police
officer in the country on the search.
The second problem he found more difficult. Rack his brains as he
would, he could think of no one who might have helped Berlyn.
He thought his next plan would be an enquiry into the whereabouts at
ten o’clock, on the night of the crime, of everyone whom it was
possible to suspect. That, coupled with an investigation as to who was
in London when the various letters were posted, should yield results.
The fact that a number of possible suspects had been at Mrs. Berlyn’s
party from eight to eleven on the fatal evening seemed to rule them
out. But French thought he should get some more definite information
on the point. Accordingly, he went up to the works and asked for Mr.
Fogden, one of those whom Lizzie Johnston had mentioned as being
present.
“I heard a peculiar story about Mrs. Berlyn,” he said _a propos_ of
nothing special when they had talked for some time. “I was told she
had a premonition of Mr. Berlyn’s death and was miserable and upset
all that evening of the crime. A peculiar thing, if true, isn’t it?”
“Who told you that?” Mr. Fogden asked, sceptically.
“A chance remark in the bar of the Silver Tiger; I don’t know the
speaker’s name nor, of course, do I know if his story was true.”
“Well, you may take it from me that it wasn’t. I was at Mrs. Berlyn’s
that evening and there was nothing wrong with her that I saw.”
This gave French his lead. When he left the office he had obtained all
the details of the party that he wanted. On the day before the crime
Mr. Fogden had had a telephone call from Mrs. Berlyn saying that
Berlyn was to be out on the following evening and that she would be
alone, and asking if he and one or two of the others would come and
keep her company. Eight people had turned up, including himself, Cowls
and Leacock from the works, a Dr. Lancaster and his wife, and two Miss
Pyms and a Miss Nesbitt from the town. All these people were very
intimate and the party was quite informal. Some of them had played
billiards, and the others bridge.
This information seemed to French to eliminate Fogden, Cowls, and
Leacock, as well, of course, as Mrs. Berlyn herself. He spent the
remainder of the day in racking his brains for other possible
accomplices and in thinking out ways to learn their movements on the
night in question.
Next morning he took up the matter of the whereabouts of all suspects
when the incriminating letters were posted in London.
Fortunately, the enquiry presented but little difficulty. A further
application to Mr. Fogden revealed the fact there was an attendance
book at the works which all the officers signed, from Mr. Fogden
himself down. This book showed that everyone concerned was in
Ashburton on the dates of posting. Even Stanley Pyke, who was absent
five days out of six on his rounds, had been there. Further, Mr.
Fogden’s diary showed that he had had interviews with Colonel Domlio
on the critical days. From Lizzie Johnston, French learned that Mrs.
Berlyn had also been at home during the period.
French was more puzzled than ever. It looked as if someone must have
been mixed up in the affair of whose existence he was still in
ignorance.
Just as he was about to step into bed that night an idea struck him
which gave him sharply to think. As he considered it he began to
wonder if his whole view of the crime were not mistaken. He suddenly
saw that the facts could bear a quite different interpretation from
that which he had placed upon them, an interpretation, moreover, which
would go far towards solving the problem of the accomplice.
Once again he swung from depression to optimism as, chuckling gently
to himself, he decided that next morning he would embark on a line of
enquiry which up to the present he had been stupid enough entirely to
overlook.