THE SUNNINGDALE MYSTERY
"Do you know where we are going to lunch to-day, Tuppence?"
Mrs. Beresford considered the question.
"The Ritz?" she suggested hopefully.
"Think again."
"That nice little place in Soho?"
"No." Tommy's tone was full of importance. "An A.B.C. shop. This one in
fact."
He drew her deftly inside an establishment of the kind indicated, and
steered her to a corner marble-topped table.
"Excellent," said Tommy with satisfaction, as he seated himself.
"Couldn't be better."
"Why has this craze for the simple life come upon you?" demanded
Tuppence.
"_You see, Watson, but you do not observe._ I wonder now whether one
of these haughty damsels would condescend to notice us? Splendid,
she drifts this way. It is true that she appears to be thinking of
something else, but doubtless her subconscious mind is functioning
busily with such matters as ham and eggs and pots of tea. Chop and
fried potatoes, please, Miss, and a large coffee, a roll and butter,
and a plate of tongue for the lady."
The waitress repeated the order in a scornful tone, but Tuppence leant
forward suddenly and interrupted her.
"No, not a chop and fried potatoes. This gentleman will have a cheese
cake and a glass of milk."
"A cheese cake and a milk," said the waitress with even deeper scorn if
that were possible. Still thinking of something else, she drifted away
again.
"That was uncalled for," said Tommy coldly.
"But I'm right, aren't I? You are the Old Man in the Corner? Where's
your piece of string?"
Tommy drew a long twisted mesh of string from his pocket, and proceeded
to tie a couple of knots in it.
"Complete to the smallest detail," he murmured.
"You made a small mistake in ordering your meal, though."
"Women are so literal minded," said Tommy. "If there's one thing I hate
it's milk to drink, and cheese cakes are always so yellow and bilious
looking."
"Be an artist," said Tuppence. "Watch me attack my cold tongue. Jolly
good stuff, cold tongue. Now then, I'm all ready to be Miss Polly
Burton. Tie a large knot and begin."
"First of all," said Tommy, "speaking in a strictly unofficial
capacity, let me point out this. Business is not too brisk lately. If
business does not come to us, we must go to business. Apply our minds
to one of the great public mysteries of the moment. Which brings me to
the point--the Sunningdale Mystery."
"Ah!" said Tuppence, with deep interest. "The Sunningdale Mystery!"
Tommy drew a crumpled piece of newspaper from his pocket and laid it on
the table.
"That is the latest portrait of Captain Sessle as it appeared in the
Daily Leader."
"Just so," said Tuppence. "I wonder someone doesn't sue these
newspapers sometimes. You can see it's a man and that's all."
"When I said the Sunningdale Mystery, I should have said the so-called
Sunningdale Mystery," went on Tommy rapidly. "A mystery to the police
perhaps, but not to an intelligent mind."
"Tie another knot," said Tuppence.
"I don't know how much of the case you remember," continued Tommy
quietly.
"All of it," said Tuppence, "but don't let me cramp your style."
"It was just over three weeks ago," said Tommy, "that that gruesome
discovery was made on the famous golf links. Two members of the Club
who were enjoying an early round were horrified to find the body of a
man lying face downwards on the seventh tee. Even before they turned
him over they had guessed him to be Captain Sessle, a well known figure
on the links, and who always wore a golf coat of a peculiarly bright
blue color.
"Captain Sessle was often seen out on the links early in the morning,
practising, and it was thought at first that he had been suddenly
overcome by some form of heart disease. But examination by a doctor
revealed the sinister fact that he had been murdered, stabbed to the
heart with a significant object, _a woman's hat pin_. He was also found
to have been dead at least twelve hours.
"That put an entirely different complexion on the matter, and very soon
some interesting facts came to light. Practically the last person to
see Captain Sessle alive was his friend and partner Mr. Hollaby of the
Porcupine Assurance Co., and he told his story as follows.
"Sessle and he played a round earlier in the day. After tea the other
suggested that they should play a few more holes before it got too dark
to see. Hollaby assented. Sessle seemed in good spirits, and was in
excellent form. There is a public footpath that crosses the links, and
just as they were playing up to the sixth green Hollaby noticed a woman
coming along it. She was very tall and dressed in brown, but he did not
observe her particularly and Sessle he thought did not notice her at
all.
"The footpath in question crosses in front of the seventh tee,"
continued Tommy. "The woman had passed along this, and was standing at
the farther side, as though waiting. Captain Sessle was the first to
reach the tee, as Mr. Hollaby was replacing the pin in the hole. As the
latter came towards the tee, he was astonished to see Sessle and the
woman talking together. As he came nearer, they both turned abruptly,
Sessle calling over his shoulder: 'Shan't be a minute.'
"The two of them walked off side by side, still deep in earnest
conversation. The footpath there leaves the course, and passing between
two narrow hedges of neighboring gardens comes out on the road to
Windlesham.
"Captain Sessle was as good as his word. He reappeared within a
minute or two, much to Hollaby's satisfaction, as two other players
were coming up behind them, and the light was failing rapidly. They
drove off, and at once Hollaby noticed that something had occurred to
upset his companion. Not only did he foozle his drive badly, but his
face was worried, and his forehead creased in a big frown. He hardly
answered his companion's remarks, and his golf was atrocious. Evidently
something had occurred to put him completely off his game.
"They played that hole and the eighth, and then Captain Sessle declared
abruptly that the light was too bad and that he was off home. Just at
that point there is another of those narrow 'slips' leading to the
Windlesham road, and Captain Sessle departed that way which was a short
cut to his home, a small bungalow on the road in question. The other
two players came up, a Major Barnard and Mr. Lecky, and to them Hollaby
mentioned Captain Sessle's sudden change of manner. They also had seen
him speaking to the woman in brown, but had not been near enough to
see her face. All three men wondered what she could have said to upset
their friend to that extent.
"They returned to the Club House together, and as far as was known at
the time, were the last people to see Captain Sessle alive. The day
was a Wednesday and on Wednesdays cheap tickets to London are issued.
The man and wife who ran Captain Sessle's small bungalow were up in
town according to custom, and did not return until the late train. They
entered the Bungalow as usual, and supposed their master to be in his
room asleep. Mrs. Sessle, his wife, was away on a visit.
"The murder of the Captain was a nine days' wonder. Nobody could
suggest a motive for it. The identity of the tall woman in brown was
eagerly discussed, but without result. The police were, as usual,
blamed for their supineness--most unjustly as time was to show. For a
week later, a girl called Doris Evans was arrested and charged with the
murder of Captain Anthony Sessle.
"The police had had little to work upon. A strand of fair hair caught
in the dead man's fingers, and a few threads of flame colored wool
caught on one of the buttons of his blue coat. Diligent inquiries at
the Railway Station and elsewhere had elicited the following facts.
"A young girl dressed in a flame colored coat and skirt had arrived
by train that evening about seven o'clock, and had asked the way to
Captain Sessle's house. The same girl had reappeared again at the
station, two hours later. Her hat was awry and her hair tousled, and
she seemed in a state of great agitation. She inquired about the trains
back to town, and was continually looking over her shoulder as though
afraid of something.
"Our police force is in many ways very wonderful. With this slender
evidence to go upon, they managed to track down the girl, and identify
her as one Doris Evans. She was charged with murder, and cautioned that
anything she might say would be used against her, but she nevertheless
persisted in making a statement, and this statement she repeated
again in detail, without any substantial variation, at the subsequent
proceedings.
"Her story was this. She was a typist by profession, and had made
friends one evening, in a Cinema, with a well dressed man who declared
he had taken a fancy to her. His name, he told her, was Anthony, and
he suggested that she should come down to his bungalow at Sunningdale.
She had no idea then, or at any other time, that he had a wife. It
was arranged between them that she should come down on the following
Wednesday--the day, you will remember, when the servants would be
absent and his wife away from home. In the end he told her his full
name was Anthony Sessle, and gave her the name of his house.
"She duly arrived at the Bungalow on the evening in question, and
was greeted by Sessle who had just come in from the links. Though he
professed himself delighted to see her, the girl declared that from the
first his manner was strange and different. A half acknowledged fear
sprang up in her, and she wished fervently that she had not come.
"After a simple meal which was all ready and prepared, Sessle suggested
going out for a stroll. The girl consenting, he took her out of the
house, down the road, and along the 'slip' onto the golf course. And
then suddenly, just as they were crossing the seventh tee, he seemed to
go completely mad. Drawing a revolver from his pocket, he brandished it
in the air, declaring that he had come to the end of his tether.
"'Everything must go! I'm ruined--done for. And you shall go with me. I
shall shoot you first--then myself. They will find our bodies here in
the morning side by side--together in death.'
"And so on--a lot more. He had hold of Doris Evans by the arm and
she, realising she had to do with a madman, made frantic efforts to
free herself, or failing that to get the revolver away from him. They
struggled together, and in that struggle he must have torn out a piece
of her hair and got the wool of her coat entangled on a button.
"Finally, with a desperate effort, she freed herself, and ran for her
life across the golf links, expecting every minute to be shot down
with a revolver bullet. She fell twice--tripping over the heather, but
eventually regained the road to the station and realised that she was
not being pursued.
"That is the story that Doris Evans tells--and from which she has
never varied. She strenuously denies that she ever struck at him with
a hat pin in self defence--a natural enough thing to do under the
circumstances, though--and one which may well be the truth. In support
of her story a revolver has been found in the furze bushes near where
the body is lying. It had not been fired.
"Doris Evans has been sent for trial, but the mystery still remains a
mystery. If her story is to be believed, who was it who stabbed Captain
Sessle? The other woman, the tall woman in brown whose appearance so
upset him? So far no one has explained her connection with the case.
She appears out of space suddenly on the footpath across the links, she
disappears along the slip, and no one ever hears of her again. Who was
she? A local resident? A visitor from London? If so, did she come by
car or train? There is nothing remarkable about her except her height,
no one seems to be able to describe her appearance. She could not have
been Doris Evans for Doris Evans is small and fair, and moreover was
only just then arriving at the station."
"The wife?" suggested Tuppence. "What about the wife?"
"A very natural suggestion. But Mrs. Sessle is also a small woman, and
besides Mr. Hollaby knows her well by sight, and there seems no doubt
that she was really away from home. One further development has come
to light. The Porcupine Assurance Co. is in liquidation. The accounts
reveal the most daring misappropriation of funds. The reasons for
Captain Sessle's wild words to Doris Evans are now quite apparent. For
some years past, he must have been systematically embezzling money.
Neither Mr. Hollaby, nor his son, had any idea of what was going on.
They are practically ruined.
"The case stands like this. Captain Sessle was on the verge of
discovery and ruin. Suicide would be a natural solution, but the nature
of the wound rules that theory out. Who killed him? Was it Doris Evans?
Was it the mysterious woman in brown?"
Tommy paused, took a sip of milk, made a wry face, and bit cautiously
at the cheese cake.