The Crime Club

by Frank Froest

  He went out. The chief constable turned an inquiring eye on his subordinate. ‘Now what the devil does he mean?’ he demanded.

  Trelway shrugged his shoulders. He was too wise to express an opinion.

  A genial country practitioner, to whom murders were rare, had received the Scotland Yard man with cordiality and importance. Adhurst mingled half a dozen crisp questions with a flood of generalities, and went his way with his brain working at high tension, though his face did not betray that he had a care in the world.

  He walked the one and a half miles to the Red House with deliberation. He wanted to get the bearings of his problems, for, since his arrival at Townsford, it had not seemed so simple. He was a sociable soul, and more than once he stopped to lean over the railings of a cottager’s garden and admire the sweet peas. He went so far once as to buy a bunch of flowers, which he dropped into a ditch when he was out of sight. Nevertheless, by the time he passed up the gravel drive of the Red House he had assimilated a large amount of local gossip.

  Livrey met him on the veranda. ‘My dear man!’ he exclaimed, ‘you don’t mean that you have walked out? If I’d have known I’d have sent the car—’

  Adhurst flashed a disarming smile at him. ‘I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the walk, thanks. This is a beautiful district.’

  ‘Very. Well, come along in. You won’t trouble to dress for dinner. You are just in time.’

  It was at the dinner-table that the detective caught his first glimpse of Mrs Sheet. Somehow she was different to the type his imagination had conjured up. She was beautiful—there was no gainsaying that—but it was with a vivacious Southern beauty, now marred by the dark rings that encircled the dulled eyes. She could not have been more than twenty-five, and her voice was low and musical as she spoke to the detective.

  ‘I can’t realise it,’ she said. ‘I can’t realise that he is gone—that I am—’

  A crash interrupted her, and Livrey, with an apology, rang for a servant to pick up the knives which he had accidentally swept off the table.

  ‘They say that you have got the man who did it?’ She went on with a quick catch of her breath, ‘You think you will be able to prove that he did it? It is dreadful of me, I know, Mr Adhurst, but’—for the moment her face flamed and she clenched her fist passionately—‘I could kill him myself … For the sake of a few paltry jewels …’

  She rose abruptly and left the table.

  Livrey seemed little affected either by her emotion or her abrupt departure. ‘Sad, very sad,’ he observed perfunctorily, and applied himself to the soup. Adhurst followed his example without comment. There were one or two things he would have liked to have asked Mrs Sheet, but they could wait.

  This tête-à-tête meal with Livrey had a certain piquancy for him, for he had begun to conceive that the place he occupied in the family affairs of the dead man might be worth considering.

  There are always possibilities of surprise in even the most ordinary case of murder, and Adhurst had had too much experience ever to feel sure. Creeping Jimmie—though things on the face of it were against him—might be able to prove definitely his innocence. And if Jimmie was not guilty it was advisable to find out what other person might have a motive for wishing Sheet out of the way. The bunch of flowers that the detective had bought on his way outwards had gained for him the local gossip that there had been talk of a separation between Mr and Mrs Sheet, and that his brother-in-law was an infrequent and unwelcome visitor to the Red House. Still, it might all be country scandal without foundation.

  Yet here he was, with the body of Lawrence Sheet scarcely cold, assuming all the airs of a host in the house, and reposing within the detective’s breast-pocket was a cipher wire to Scotland Yard requesting inquiries might be made into his career. It was all very hazy and indefinite, and Adhurst knew that he had to walk warily.

  ‘What I can’t understand,’ said Livrey, ‘is where the diamonds have gone. It is possible, I suppose, that this man you have arrested has passed them to a confederate or hidden them?’

  ‘Easily possible,’ agreed Adhurst. ‘We can’t say till inquiries have got a bit closer.’

  Livrey glanced at him sharply. ‘You have no doubt you have got the right man?’

  ‘Not the least in the world,’ lied the detective glibly. ‘It is only a matter of collecting evidence now. We don’t often make mistakes.’ That last touch of brag was unusual with Adhurst. In the ordinary way he would no more have spoken of his efficiency than of his honesty.

  He believed he saw the least trace of relief in Livrey’s face. Yet it might have been the passing of a shadow.

  ‘I shall be glad, for my sister’s sake, to get it all over,’ said the other. ‘By the way, I must run up to town tomorrow to see about his affairs—that is, unless you are likely to need me down here for anything.’

  ‘Not at all likely. You’ll be required for evidence at the inquest, of course, but that isn’t till the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, I shall be back before then. You will make your headquarters here, I hope, while you remain—eh? My sister would wish you to do absolutely as you please. If the car will be of any use to you in getting to and fro I will leave orders that it is to be at your disposal.’

  ‘That is very good of you.’ Adhurst had been wondering how he should lead up to the proposal that had been volunteered. ‘In point of fact it would be most useful. I have to meet a colleague tonight, and if I might venture—’

  ‘Certainly. I will tell Cody—that’s the chauffeur—to have it ready.’

  Creeping Jimmie, very chastened and with handcuffs spanning his broad wrists, cast a reproachful glance on Adhurst as he was assisted to alight on Townsford platform.

  ‘I thought you would ha’ known better than this, Mr Adhurst,’ he said dolefully. ‘I had no more to do with croaking that guy than the babe unborn.’

  ‘So you say, Jimmie,’ assented the inspector. ‘Hullo, Grenfell. Shake hands with Mr Trelway. There’s a couple of men and a cab waiting to take Jimmie to the station. Suppose we go and have a pow-wow at the hotel.’

  He had foreseen the necessity of a conference and arranged for a private room at the hotel adjoining the station. Grenfell caught him by the arm as they entered. ‘Adhurst, old son,’ he said quietly, ‘this is a mess-up.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that Jimmie isn’t the man.’

  Adhurst kicked the door to. ‘My bright young friend,’ he said blithely. ‘You’re a day behind the fair. We knew that an hour ago, didn’t we, Mr Trelway. I’ve got Jimmie’s alibi in my pocket.’

  Grenfell’s grip tightened. ‘I don’t stand for any mystification stunt,’ he declared. ‘Now cough it up. Have you got the right man?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve got hopes. Sit down and I’ll order drinks and we’ll get to the agenda.

  ‘Well,’ he went on, when the waiter had answered the ring and gone out, ‘Mr Trelway and I have been busy for quite a while. We know that Jimmie got out thirty miles up the line—at Gillington—and that Sheet was alive then, and that Jimmie couldn’t have gone back to the compartment. The Gillington police have cleared all that up.’

  ‘That’s what’s brought me down,’ interrupted Grenfell. ‘Jimmie’s story is that there was a clergyman in with him and Sheet, and that the jewel merchant seemed a bit uneasy when the parson began to get out. He whispered something to the parson through the window, who stared at Jimmie hard. Taking that in conjunction with your turning up at Waterloo, Jimmie decided that it was not his day and got out, took a stroll round the town, had some food and returned—to find us waiting for him.’

  ‘That’s so. The Gillington people have found the parson—a local curate. Sheet had asked him to take a good look at Jimmie, as he was carrying valuables and believed the other to be a crook. The parson saw Jimmie get out, and later noticed him in the town, so he couldn’t have committed the murder. All the same, we’ll hold him for a while. What do you think, Mr Trelway?’

/>   ‘That’s best,’ agreed the superintendent sagely. ‘Better not let Livrey have an idea we’ve got the slightest suspicion that we’ve got the wrong man.’

  Grenfell held up his hands. ‘You people are forgetting I don’t know anything of this side of the case. Suppose we be a bit clearer.’

  Adhurst began to unstrap a small attaché case which he carried. Like all Scotland Yard men he relied largely on method, and he had systematised the various reports gathered by the local men and sent in by telegraph and telephone, so that he could instantly lay his hands on anyone.

  ‘My dear Watson,’ he quoted, ‘it’s very simple—or will be, I hope. Listen!’

  For an hour the three talked. Then Adhurst flung up his arms and gave a prodigious yawn.

  ‘Heigho,’ he sighed, ‘I’m tired. I think that clears us up. You’ll keep an eye on Livrey, Grenfell, and you’ll arrange about another man meeting you at Waterloo. Mr Trelway will swear out a search warrant, and I’ll arrange with the stationmaster, if possible, about a dummy train.’

  Punctually at twenty minutes past nine next morning Livrey leaned from the window of a first-class compartment to say good-bye to Adhurst, who had come to see him off. Three compartments behind Grenfell was immersed in a daily paper, but no sign of recognition had passed between his colleague and himself. He had sauntered once or twice along the platform, and he knew he could make no mistake about the suspect, who henceforth would never be out of sight until he was arrested or cleared. No bloodhound could hold more tightly to a trail than Grenfell.

  As the engine gave a preliminary cough Trelway and the chief constable sauntered up. ‘Everything going smooth, I hope?’ said the latter.

  ‘Quite, thanks,’ said Adhurst. ‘Well, good-bye, Mr Livrey. See you tomorrow.’ The train glided out and he turned to the chief constable. ‘I have a car waiting outside, sir. You’ve got the map?’

  Major Borden pulled an ordnance survey chart from his pocket and unfolded it. ‘This is the thing.’ His forefinger traced the course of a line in red ink that had been run along one of the roads and stopped at a cross. ‘There we are, I think. It won’t be long before we’re able to test your theory. What time’s this special?’

  Adhurst looked at his watch. ‘A matter of ten minutes now. I think I’ll be moving. We don’t want to hold up traffic more than we can help.’

  With a nod he strode away to where Cody the chauffeur, an alert little Cockney, was waiting with Livrey’s, or rather Sheet’s, car. To the chauffeur he produced a map marked in similar fashion to that which the chief constable had possessed.

  ‘There, Cody,’ he said, pointing to the cross. ‘That’s where we’ve got to make for. How long is it going to take us?’

  ‘Stoner’s Cray. That’s twelve miles. It’s a bad road, sir, and the tires on this old jigger are none too good. Mr Livrey has cut ’em about something awful this last day or two. ’E don’t know ’ow to treat a decent car, ’an that’s a fact, if I may say so, sir.’

  ‘Well, do your best and take the last mile or two easy.’

  It was a picturesque drive, but the detective had no eye for scenery. Just at that time his mind was on hard business. He had achieved that perilous thing in detective work, a theory, and he had pinned himself to work it out.

  They stopped at last at a point where the road for a matter of a couple of hundred yards ran side by side with a railway line. Clumps of bushes and gorse grew on the open strip of waste land between the roadway and the line, and over this strip Adhurst quested to and fro like a hound at fault. Presently he called Cody to desert the car and aid him.

  The keen little Cockney, though he had no idea of the ultimate object at the back of the detective’s brain, joined enthusiastically, and in a little gave a yelp of triumph and pointed to a tangle of brambles and furze.

  ‘Good boy,’ said Adhurst, and his eyes roved swiftly over the ground in the neighbourhood. He gave a subdued chuckle as he observed a footprint in the sandy soil. ‘Cody,’ he remarked, ‘be virtuous, and Providence will always be good to you. Neither you nor I made that footprint.’

  ‘Is it a cloo, sir?’ asked Cody breathlessly. This adventure with a real live detective was thrilling him.

  ‘Something of the sort. Now we passed a house a mile or two back. You dodge along there with the car and ask if they can lend you a box or something to put over it till we’re able to take a plaster cast.’

  A puff of smoke warned Adhurst that the special which held the local police was coming. It advanced very slowly and Adhurst waved a handkerchief. The signal was answered, and he dropped behind a clump of bushes and sighted along his stick as though it were a rifle. Then he rose and, taking a ball of twine from his pocket, fastened one end to the bush, and, carrying it forward, tossed the ball to Major Borden through the open window of one of the compartments.

  The train halted. Borden cut his end of the string and threaded it through a bullet hole in one of the side windows. Adhurst leapt on the foot-board and the train crawled in until he held up his hand. ‘How’s that, sir?’ he demanded.

  At the other end of the compartment Trelway was holding the string above his head. The chief constable jumped on a seat and, closing one eye, squinted along the line.

  ‘Correct!’ he ejaculated. ‘That explains why there was only one bullet mark.’

  ‘Tie a knot in the string and we can work out the distance afterwards. Now, sir, if you like to get out, I’ll show you something else I have found.’

  He took the chief constable and the superintendent back to the clump of bushes, winding up the string as he proceeded. Then he pointed out the footprint. ‘I don’t know whether we really need it,’ he observed, ‘but it may be calculated to help. Whoever killed Sheet lay under those bushes. You’ll observe he could not be seen from the line or the road.’

  ‘What’s worrying me,’ said Trelway, ‘is why no one heard a shot.’

  ‘That doesn’t greatly worry me. When we raid the Red House that may be cleared up. We’ve got everything in broad outline now, and by tomorrow we ought to be close enough up to decide. Suppose we finish here. Will you have a talk with the nearest signalman, Mr Trelway?’

  Well after midnight it was before Adhurst returned to the Red House, accompanied by his colleagues and four uniformed constables. There had been a hundred things to do, and they had been content to leave matters at the Red House till the last. There was no particular hurry, and Adhurst had wanted many details filled in.

  The house was in darkness, save for a thin glimmer of light in the hall, and a sleepy-eyed servant answered the detective’s ring. His face betrayed his astonishment as he saw Adhurst’s companions. Adhurst, however, deigned no explanations.

  ‘Your mistress has retired, I suppose? Will you tell her maid to let her know that we wish to see her at once? Hurry up, my man, and don’t stand there like a dummy. We’ll wait in the dining-room. Come in, gentlemen. Will you post your men, Mr Trelway? It may be advisable that no one should leave the house till we are finished.’

  Mrs Sheet came to them in a few minutes, her dark hair tumbling about the scarlet dressing-gown she had hastily donned. She stood at the door for a second looking from one to the other of the men. Adhurst bowed gravely.

  ‘Sorry to have disturbed you. There are one or two points of importance on which it is essential to see you.’

  She advanced into the room and mechanically sat in the chair which he offered. There was an involuntary tightening of her brows, and she put one hand to her heart.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  It was Trelway who answered. ‘You are aware that we are police officers. We want to inform you that we hold a warrant to search this house.’

  ‘I do not understand what you mean. Why should you search the house?’ Her lips were white, and Adhurst judged that it was only by a great effort at self-control that she did not faint.

  ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘you must understand your position. We suspect you of being concerned in
the murder of your husband. You will be arrested. You need say nothing unless you choose, but anything you do say may be used as evidence. I should advise you to consult a solicitor—later.’

  The deliberate warning, which at least had the effect of putting an end to any suspense she may have suffered, seemed to act on her like a tonic.

  ‘This is absurd,’ she said in a strained whisper. ‘I did not kill him.’

  ‘You will dress at once,’ said Trelway.

  ‘In this room,’ said Adhurst quickly. ‘We shall leave it at the disposal of your maid and yourself, but’—his tone was significant, for he had the possibility of poison in mind—‘everything that is brought in to you will be searched.’

  Her head dropped on to her arms on the table.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she moaned. The police officers passed out.

  The systematic search of a house for evidence in a matter of crime is not a thing airily undertaken, and daylight had long dawned ere the officers had finished. An urgent message brought in by a cycle constable had taken the chief local officers back into town about nine o’clock, carrying with them a man’s shoe, a powerful air-rifle, and a bundle of letters.

  Adhurst, who saw no sense in wearing himself out unnecessarily, stretched himself on a couch and seized the opportunity for a nap. To him there entered, a couple of hours later, Grenfell, who woke him by the simple process of inclining the sofa at an angle, so that its occupant rolled with a thud to the floor.

  ‘That’s a tom-fool trick,’ said Adhurst irritably, dusting himself. ‘What did you want to do that for?’

  ‘Do you know what the time is?’ asked his colleague. ‘Livrey was arrested an hour ago.’

  ‘I know. There was a brass band and a procession to welcome him at the station, of course.’ Adhurst had not quite recovered his good humour.

  ‘Something of the sort. The whole village seemed to know about the arrest. Your pal Trelway is in his glory. He told me how he had elucidated the case, though he was good enough to say that you had been of some trifling assistance. And now, since I’ve been your errand-boy in this affair, you might tell me something about it. I see they’ve let Jimmie go. He’s made back to London in a cloud of dust. How’d you get on to Livrey anyway?’