Conclusion

When French struggled back into consciousness he found himself lying

on the floor of that upper room with Sergeant Carter bending

solicitously over him.

“He’s coming to,” he heard him say as if from a great distance. “He’ll

be none the worse in a few minutes.”

“I’m all right,” French whispered, faintly. “What about——”

“Both safe as a house,” Carter answered. “I thought you were taking

too long over the job and was coming up the fire escape when I heard

you shout. Lucky I got up in time. But it was a near thing, Mr.

French; just as near a thing as I should like to see. Don’t you be in

any hurry. You’ve all the day before you. Take a nip of this brandy

that Harvey has brought.”

The stimulant made French once again feel his own man, and he sat up

to find that his assailants had been safely handcuffed. Mrs. Berlyn

sat in one of the wicker armchairs, deadly pale and with an expression

of murderous hate in her eyes. Pyke was still unconscious, and the

others at once turned their attention to him, with the result that

presently he, too, revived. The taxi was waiting and before many

minutes had passed both prisoners were lodged in the cells.

When French sat down in his own room to think over this unexpected

development he very soon saw that he had made a terrible error in his

handling of the case. Never before had he blundered so inexcusably!

The clue to the truth was there in his hand and he had missed it.

Though even now he could not understand all that had happened, he saw

enough to appreciate his mistake, to locate the point at which he had

strayed from the right path.

He had accepted the identification of the remains, but on whose

testimony? On that of the criminals, Mrs. Berlyn and the man whom he

had thought was Jefferson Pyke. Of course at the time at which he

interviewed them he had no idea of their connection with the crime,

and therefore no reason to doubt their statements, but his error came

in just here: that by the time he began to suspect them the

identification was so firmly fixed in his mind that he overlooked the

fact that it depended on them. If he had remembered that supremely

important point he would have questioned the dead man’s identity. This

would have led him to investigate, even more closely than he had, the

movements of the Pykes and no doubt he would have thus discovered the

impersonation which had been carried out.

The first question, then, which demanded solution was: If the man whom

he had thought was Jefferson Pyke was really his cousin, where was

Jefferson himself?

Like a man in a dream French went back to Kepple Street. Was Mrs.

Welsh _absolutely_ sure that the Mr. Pyke who had engaged her rooms on

the 22nd of July was the same man who had occupied them ever since?

Mrs. Welsh, when at last she had been made to understand the question,

was absolutely sure.

If she were right, Stanley’s impersonation of Jefferson must have

begun on that 22nd of July. They had both been at the Houston in the

morning. By the evening Jefferson, the real Jefferson, apparently had

vanished.

Then suddenly French remembered the episode of the broken basin. It

had not occurred to him before, but now he wondered if there was not

more here than met the eye. The accident was unlikely. Had the basin

been deliberately broken to help on some trick?

He went back to the Houston and once again interviewed the reception

clerk. But she could add nothing to her former statement. Then he

reëxamined the chambermaid. From her at last he obtained a new fact,

an apparently trifling fact, but what a difference it made in his

conclusion!

The girl had stated that the gentleman who broke the basin had told

her that he had overslept himself and had asked her to see that his

friend in No. 351 was awake. She had gone and found that the friend

was already up. Now French learned that by “up” she had meant that the

man was up and dressed and had left his room.

At this a light shone into French’s mind. He retired to a corner of

the smoking room, and after half an hour’s hard thinking he reached a

detailed solution.

He saw that it would be possible for Stanley to arrive at the hotel

and engage two rooms, ostensibly for himself and his cousin. He would

go to his own room after explaining that his cousin would arrive later

in the day. After impressing his personality on the staff, he would go

out, make up as Jefferson, return with more luggage, and occupy the

second room which had been engaged. He would sleep in Jefferson’s

room, and in the morning ring early for shaving-water, get up, dress,

take his luggage down, pay his bill, and leave the hotel. Then

hurrying back, he would slip into his own room unobserved, go to bed,

and ring again for hot water, giving the maid the message about his

friend. Lest the incident should be forgotten in the event of future

enquiries, he would smash the basin, thus impressing his identity on

all concerned.

That this was what Stanley had done, French was now pretty sure, and

he despatched wires to the French and Italian police asking if the

same trick had been carried out in Paris and at Grasse and San Remo.

After some time there were replies. It had been carried out in Paris,

but not at the other two places. At the latter there was no doubt that

both men had been present.

Jefferson Pyke had, therefore, disappeared at some point between

Grasse and Paris, and French soon saw that there was nothing for it

but to go to the Riviera and himself enquire into the men’s movements.

Accordingly, after consultation with his chief he obtained a letter to

the French police, and travelling to Marseilles, began work. Slowly

and painfully he traced the two from Marseilles to San Remo, to Monte

Carlo, to Grasse, and finally to Nice. And there in the pleasure city,

on the shores of the Mediterranean, he came on the explanation he

sought.

For at Nice, Jefferson Pyke had died. At first, knowing what he did,

French had suspected foul play. But in this he found he was mistaken.

Jefferson had been taken ill at his hotel and had at once been moved

to a hospital. There he had been operated on for appendicitis. French

saw the doctor who had had charge of the case and learned the details.

There had been complications and the operation could not save him.

French was deeply chagrined at his failure to learn so essential a

fact at an earlier stage in his investigation. He swore great oaths to

his gods that never, _never_ again should he fail to follow up to the

very end every clue which presented itself, whether he thought it

likely to prove valuable or not.

With identity of murderer and victim established, a comparatively

short further enquiry sufficed to clear up the details of the affair

which were still in doubt. And dreadful reading they made.

It seemed that soon after Phyllis Considine came to Ashburton as the

bride of Charles Berlyn she found she had made a terrible mistake in

her marriage. The feeling which she had imagined was love died away,

and she saw herself tied for life to a man whom she disliked. A mutual

coldness inevitably resulted, which rapidly widened as the husband

also found himself disillusioned. On Phyllis’s side less than a year

sufficed to turn it into a bitter hatred.

Under these miserable circumstances she began to look elsewhere for

companionship, and Stanley Pyke, who found himself strongly attracted

to his former playmate, was only too ready to fill the breach. They

saw a good deal of each other and the inevitable happened. Before long

both were deeply in love.

Though they were careful to act discreetly when under observation,

they were not careful enough, and Berlyn became aware of what was

going on. He at once remonstrated with his wife, finally telling her

in no ambiguous terms that if given cause he would not hesitate to

divorce her. If this had been all, Phyllis would no doubt have eagerly

seized so complete a solution of her difficulty, but both she and Pyke

saw that it was by no means all. Berlyn, as joint owner of the

business, would certainly have dismissed Pyke as well as cut Phyllis

out of his will. The couple would, therefore, have been without money

or prospects. This she was not prepared for, and while admitting

unwise behaviour, she denied that there was anything serious in her

relations with Pyke and undertook that Berlyn should have no further

cause of complaint. Then she began to meet Pyke secretly, and

gradually the terrible solution which they afterwards adopted grew

subconsciously in both their minds. If Berlyn should die, the whole

situation would be straightened out.

From that time, the idea of murder was never far from the thoughts of

either. But they could see no way in which the dreadful deed could be

safely accomplished. Pyke, however, was sufficiently callous and

far-seeing to suggest the flirtation with Domlio, partly as a proof

that the lady’s feeling for himself was a thing of the past, and

partly lest a scapegoat should afterwards be wanted in connection with

the murder.

Then came Jefferson’s visit and the cousins’ holiday and Jefferson’s

unexpected death. Pyke was about to give up the tour and come home

when it suddenly struck him that here was the solution for which he

and Phyllis had been looking. He travelled up to Paris and there spent

a few days in working out his plan.

The idea of diverting suspicion from the murder of Berlyn by staging

the accident on the moor had already occurred to him. But this plan

had the objection that it involved his own disappearance as well as

Berlyn’s. If, however, he disappeared, the whole fruits of the murder

would be lost, as he was committing it simply to enable him to marry

Phyllis. Jefferson’s death showed him how he might escape this

dilemma.

He would, in brief, murder Berlyn, stage the accident on the moor, and

disappear—as Stanley Pyke. He would immediately reappear—as Jefferson.

By impersonating Jefferson he could marry Phyllis and get all his

cousin’s money as well.

In this scheme there was a risk, of course, but the chances of anyone

learning of Jefferson’s death were, he thought, sufficiently remote to

make the scheme practicable. As soon as he could, without suspicion,

he would go abroad, where Phyllis could presently follow him.

At first the plan seemed full of snags, but as he thought over it, he

saw ways of overcoming one difficulty after another, until the whole

ghastly affair grew coherent and feasible. When he returned to

Ashburton the scheme was cut and dry and he had only to get Phyllis’s

approval and promise of help.

Jefferson, the real Jefferson, had already visited Ashburton, but he

had only been seen closely by the landlady, Mrs. Billing, the Berlyns

and their servants, Domlio, and one or two others. Of these the only

one Stanley need interview was Mrs. Billing, and he felt sure he could

deceive her. Sergeant Daw, with whom in his enquiries about the

tragedy he would have most to do, had only seen Jefferson in the

distance. Personation would, therefore, be possible.

The first thing necessary was to prove Jefferson still alive. Stanley

found it easier than he had expected. From a theatrical supplies shop

he bought shoes with false internal heels to increase his height,

padded underclothes to give him the necessary girth, rubber discs to

wear inside his cheeks to alter the shape of his face, and glasses.

When in addition to these he wore Jefferson’s clothes and copied as

best he could Jefferson’s walk, speech, and deportment, it was not

surprising that the unsuspecting and unobservant persons at Ashburton

should be taken in.

On his way home he carried out the tricks at the hotels, then taking

the room in Kepple Street. For some hectic weeks he managed to live at

Kepple Street as Jefferson and at Ashburton as Stanley. His continual

absences from Ashburton, travelling for his firm, enabled him to put

in the necessary appearances in Kepple Street, where he gave out that

in the intervals he was making business trips in England and France.

He saw that by a judicious interview with the clerk of the Tavistock

Urban District Council he could arrange for the evening journey across

the moor. His first idea had been to dispose of Berlyn’s body on the

way back by throwing it into one of the small mires close to the road.

But when he considered this in detail he realised that the

difficulties were overwhelming, just as had been suggested to French

by Sergeant Daw. He therefore devised the episode of the duplicator in

order to provide a means for the removal of the remains. He knew the

Burry Inlet, and the date of a suitable tide became the foundation on

which the rest of the plan was built.

In London he bought the second-hand typewriter and wrote the letters

ordering the duplicator and crane lorry on paper he had obtained from

the L. M. S. hotels. These letters he handed to the tobacconist,

Ganope, who for a consideration undertook to post them on the proper

dates. Neither he nor Phyllis was, therefore, in London when they were

sent out, though he called in person at the hotels for the replies. He

similarly obtained the duplicate magneto. This he handed to Phyllis

and she damaged it and ran it on the car until it gave up, then

replacing the original.

On the fatal night every movement of each conspirator was carefully

timed and cut and dry to the last detail. When near the works on the

return journey Stanley called out to Berlyn to stop, saying that he

had seen a man lying on the road. He jumped out and ran round the car,

and on Berlyn following him he slipped behind his victim and

sandbagged him. Hastily throwing the body into the car, he drove to

the works gate. There he was met by Phyllis, who had already drugged

Gurney’s tea in the way French had surmised.

At the works Phyllis helped Pyke to carry the body to the

packing-shed. After replacing Gurney’s drugged tea with fresh, she put

her bicycle in the tonneau of the car and drove out to the selected

spot on the moor. She changed the magneto and made the two lines of

footmarks by putting on shoes of Berlyn’s which she had brought for

the purpose. Then mounting her bicycle, she returned to the works. The

bicycle and the magneto she hid in a clump of shrubs, waiting until

Pyke came out to say that the ghastly job in the works was complete.

She then went home, silently let herself in, replaced Berlyn’s shoes

in his room, changed her clothes, wakened the maid and called up

Sergeant Daw.

In the meantime Stanley Pyke rode on the bicycle to Colonel Domlio’s,

dropped the clothes and other objects into the well, and continued on

his way to Plymouth. There he left the bicycle in a dark entry in the

lower part of the town, where he was sure it would speedily be found

and annexed. He took the first train to London, returning to Ashburton

in the character of Jefferson on receipt of Daw’s wire about the

tragedy.

Such was the plan, and, had the conspirators been sure their actions

would have remained unquestioned, they would have stopped there. But

both were afraid that in some unforeseen way suspicion might be

aroused and they took several other steps in the hope of turning such

possible suspicion on to other persons.

First they considered it necessary that, should the crate be

discovered, the body therein should be taken as Stanley Pyke’s. This

would effectually prevent a doubt arising as to Jefferson’s identity.

Pyke, therefore, changed his own underclothes with those of the dead

man and dropped his own suit down the well, while both he and Phyllis

stated that the birthmark on Berlyn’s arm was really on Pyke’s.

To carry on the same deception, Pyke decided to make up as Berlyn

while disposing of the crate. In height and build he was, in his

disguise, not unlike Berlyn. The chief difference between them was

their colouring, both the Pykes being dark and Berlyn fair. Stanley

therefore dyed his hair and lightened his complexion before going to

Wales.

The episode of the blackmailing letter was designed with a similar

object. Phyllis Berlyn had staged the farce of the twisted ankle. She

had fallen into Domlio’s arms in such a way that a photograph might

have really been a profitable investment to a blackmailer. Pyke had,

of course, forged the letter. The confederates hoped that the taking

out of the car which they believed would result, together with the

finding of the articles in the well, which they thought a competent

detective might achieve, would throw the suspicion on Domlio.

With regard to money, Pyke had resolved on a bold stroke. French found

that he had instructed a firm of solicitors in London to get in touch

with Jefferson’s lawyers in the Argentine for the purpose of arranging

the sale of Jefferson’s property there. He had forged Jefferson’s

signature to the necessary documents, and the matter was well

advanced.

This piece of greed had prevented Stanley from leaving London and had

caused him to rent the Victory Place flat as a refuge in case Kepple

Street got too hot to hold him. Flight thither under such

circumstances had been decided on, and, therefore, when danger

threatened, only the time and method of reaching it remained to be

settled.

As all Berlyn’s property went to Phyllis under the deceased’s will,

she also would have been well off, so that when the two took up their

abode in a rather out-of-the-way part of Algeria, as they had

intended, they would have been comparatively rich.

But thanks to Evan Morgan’s desire for a fishing expedition on the

last day of his holidays, together with Inspector French’s steady

pegging away at a puzzling and wearisome case, these evil hopes were

frustrated. Some three weeks after the next assizes, both Stanley Pyke

and Phyllis Berlyn paid for their crime with their lives, leaving the

ownership of Jefferson’s money as a juicy morsel on which the lawyers

of England and the Argentine could pile up fees to their hearts’

content.

For French the case had not been an unmixed triumph. Though in the end

he had taken the criminals and added to his reputation with his

superiors, in his heart of hearts he knew that he had been saved by

the skin of his teeth alone and that he had had a lesson in the danger

of neglecting to follow up unlikely clues to the very end which would

last him for his life. But on the whole he was satisfied.