by E.
“I’m coming round to see you, Doctor. I’m going to talk,” was the reply.
CHAPTER XII
THE COLONEL
Fran Baker, crossing the lounge of his hotel after seeing that his guests were well supplied with lunch, was button-holed by Doctor Manson.
“You and I, Franky, are going down to the Rostrum to catch a fish. Come along.”
Franky looked from the Doctor’s rod to his gaff. “Ef so be it is a salmon yiew want, Doctor, you’re a bit early. Beant any salmon up yet.”
“Then, Franky, we’ll have a few spins for another fish, and hope for a run,” he said.
The two rolled comfortably to the river in the Doctor’s Oldsmobile, and, leaving it parked in the farmyard, strolled slowly down to the water-side. Arrived there, Manson made no attempt to fit his rod together. Instead, he sat on the granite “rostrum” and motioned the hotelier to sit beside him.
“Franky,” he said, “I brought you down here because I did not want to talk my kind of fish language in front of the hotel people. I’m spinning in waters I do not know, but I think, perhaps, you DO know them. Together, you with that knowledge and I with my bait, we might get over a fish.”
Baker made no comment. Doctor Manson produced his case, applied a lighted match to the hotelier’s cigarette and his own, and settled comfortably down in the Rostrum. Then he spoke.
“How long has the colonel been coming down to the Arms, Franky?” he asked.
“This would a’ben his fourth year, Doctor,” was the quiet reply.
“Did you know anything about him before?”
“Only what he had told me beforetimes, Doctor. Whensobe he first came, he seemed a nice kind of man, y’see. He made good friends here and was popular in the place.”
“And what did he tell you?”
“Well, I disremember a lot of it. He said he had been a C.O. in India and had retired a year before, and wanted a place to visit for the fishing.”
“Did he say what he did for a living?”
“No, Doctor. We reckoned he was on his pension. And, of course, gentlemen in the Army usually have a bit of money—in the peace-time army I mean, like old General Bearton, over at Honiton. He was in India, as you well know.”
“Quite. When did the colonel begin to get unpopular?”
“About half-way through his second year. One or two people he had known before wouldn’t talk to him. I think they had caught him fishing in the ends of their beats. Then, once, he accused a young journalist fellow from London of fishing for salmon without a salmon licence. He reported him to the bailiff. It seems that the colonel went down to the water to fly-fish for salmon and found the young journalist there spinning. I’d given him the beat for salmon and the colonel had no right there, anyways, except in the trout water. Well, the colonel was annoyed and asked him if he had taken out a license for salmon. The young fellow replied: ‘No, I haven’t taken out a licence. What the hell has it to do with you anyway? More than one pool, isn’t there?’ You see the colonel mostly fished for trout. So he told the bailiff.”
Franky grinned. “He had to write and apologise to the young fellow. You see,” he added slyly, “the young man was quite right in saying he hadn’t taken out a licence for salmon. I had taken it out for him, and charged it on the hotel bill. Well, the young fellow spilled the tale in the hotel and that didn’t help the colonel with the other guests.”
“And, of course, with the same people coming down every year, they’d remember it against him,” mused Manson. “Yes, I see that. When did Sir Edward and the major first meet him?”
“The first year they were down here. They were all friendly together. Always divided a stream’s beats between them, and usually took a luncheon basket for three.”
“The same next year?”
“Yes, Doctor. All through the season. And the night before the colonel left—he lived in Surbiton, Surrey, then, so I was told—the three had a champagne party. Very good friends they were. That was in September. When Major and Sir Edward came down next year they weren’t on speaking terms with the colonel.”
“The major had a nice little estate at that time, hadn’t he, Franky? Was it not in Devonshire?”
Baker nodded.
“And then he came to live in the Tremarden Arms?”
“That’s so, Doctor.”
“He had sold the estate?”
Another nod from the hotelier.
“Lost his money, didn’t he?”
Baker nodded again.
“Anything to do with the colonel?”
There was no answer, but the Doctor, his eyes on Franky’s face, saw the shadow that passed over it. “I know all about the share deal, Franky,” he said gently, “or at least nearly all about it.”
The shadow passed from the hotelier’s face. He looked up in relief.
“Well, then, Doctor, that is all there is to it. Major and Sir Edward thought Colonel had ’frauded them of their money, and they were very sore about it—especially Major. He had reason to be—God knows,” he added after a pause.
Manson let a few moments pass in silence. Franky’s remark had come as a shock to him. So, Sir Edward was in it too, he mused, silently. Then: “How did the thing start, Franky?” he asked. “Do you know?”
“Yes, Doctor. Major told me the story the first night he came to live in the hotel. Seems it began half-way through the season, when they were all such good friends. Major, he said the colonel was all up in the air like, one evening, saying he was on the point of making a fortune. It was more or less a secret, so he said. Major and Sir Edward twitted him a bit and then he told ’em all about it. That’s what the major said to me, anyhow. Him, that’s the colonel, had a financial friend who knew about a gold mine in South Africa that hadn’t got any gold in it. But it seemed like that the colonel’s friend knew that there was gold in it. He said that a new thing had been found—is it a vein?”
“Yes, a new vein of ore, Franky.”
“Well, it had been found by a prospector or something like that and he had told the financial gentleman. And they were going round buying up all the shares in the mine for a shilling or two apiece. It all had to be done very quietly—Colonel said, else secret would get out and they would have to pay several pounds for the shares.”
“How did the colonel know all this, Franky?”
“I don’t understand the rights of finance, Doctor, but I think the colonel had a lot of the old shares when the mine was first running, and he knew because the financier man wanted to buy them and the colonel didn’t want to sell at first. Anyways, Colonel told Major and Sir Edward they weren’t sure whether the gold was all right or not then, but an assayer was making a secret report for the financier, and they’d know the facts in a few days’ time.”
“Oh, my God. A story that’s been told a hundred times,” moaned Manson. “Do people STILL fall for it?”
“They did know, too,” Franky went on. “Colonel, he showed them the report a few days afterwards. It said that there was a rich streak on land which the old company had leased or optioned or something, but had never worked. Something about wrong direction, if you understands what that means, Doctor.”
“Yes, Franky. The old vein, which had seemed to end, turned at right angles and was taken to have petered out. The new direction wasn’t traced.”
“There was a fortune in the mine, the report said, and the new vein could be worked cheaply, as it was near the surface. The colonel, he said he was in clover, because he had two thousand of the old shares, and the financier, ’cause Colonel was keeping the story secret, was letting him buy another two thousand at £10 each. Major said Colonel was grumbling at the price because the financier had only paid two shillings each for the shares. But the shares would be worth £50 in no time, and perhaps more very soon.”
“I should know the rest, Franky. I’ve heard it so many times. Of course, Sir Edward and the major wanted to be let in, and the colonel wrote to his friend, the financier,
and as they were friends of the colonel they, could have a few shares at the price the colonel was paying for them, only they mustn’t breathe a word about it. That was it, wasn’t it? How many shares did the major buy?”
Franky nodded slowly. “It was just like you said, Doctor. You might a’most have been there. Major, he bought 500 shares, and Sir Edward he bought 500, too. Mind you, it looked all right, ’cos it wasn’t very long before each of them received £500 on account of the mine’s dividends or something. I’m not quite sure what it was. So both of them bought some more shares off the colonel’s friend with it.”
“Next thing I see was the financier friend was reported in the papers as wanted for a bucket-shop, and had gone to South America with all the money he had got for the shares, and the mine wasn’t worth a penny. Seems the report was a fraud and there had never been any gold at all.”
“And the major?”
“He lost about £10,000 and had to sell his house—lovely little house it was, too, Doctor. He’d been born in that house. So had his father. And all his money went ’cept his pension. And that wasn’t the worst. The shock of losing all they had sent his wife funny, and after a time she died. Major said Colonel had killed her and some day he’d send him the same way.”
“What happened when they met the colonel at the Arms next year?”
“Ah!” Franky’s face clouded as he gazed mentally back. “Colonel looked to be in a terrible state. He said as how he was sorry. His friend was a damned fraud, and that he himself had been hit and lost a packet. Major, he listened and then said, ‘Well, it couldn’t be helped—he’d been a damned fool and lost a lot of money,’ but he wasn’t out, not by long chalks. And after that he ignored the colonel.”
“And Sir Edward?”
“He’s a very rich gentleman, as you know, Doctor. I don’t think he felt the loss very much, but he was pretty wild about the major’s money, and wanted to hound the colonel out of the hotel. But they couldn’t prove that the colonel had known that the shares were wrong ’uns. At least, not then,” the hotelier added, as an afterthought.
“What do you mean, not then?”
“Well, Doctor, it seems that after the colonel had gone—he went early that year—two men were talking one day with Sir Edward in the lounge of the Arms, and spotted in the letter-rack an envelope addressed to Colonel. One of them said: ‘Donoughmore? Ah! He’s a smart guy. Met him in a hotel at Okehampton last year, and he told us he’d made £10,000 in a month.’”
“‘Ah!’ said Sir Edward, ‘that wants a bit of making these days. Did he say how he did it?’ ‘Yes,’ says the other man. ‘He’s in the City, and he said he’d just unloaded a packet of shares on to a couple of suckers at ten times their value.’ ‘I see,’ says Sir Edward, in a nasty voice; and he told the major. Major says, ‘Suckers is the right word, Edward. We asked for it.’”
Franky spread his hands. “You see, Doctor, it was in my hotel it all took place. And Major and me have always been good friends. And I knew his wife.”
“And this was the first time they had seen the colonel since they knew the truth that the colonel was a sharepusher?”
“Yes, they agreed, so Major said, not to let him know they knew. Major wouldn’t have it known that he’d been such a fool. He told me it served him right for trusting anybody in speculation without making financial provision for his wife, in case anything went wrong. He said he was nearly as bad as Colonel. He had ruined his own wife.”
“There is only one more point, Franky. Sir Edward called the colonel a sharepusher. Did he know that for a fact?”
“Oh, yes, Doctor. He went up to London and got a private detective to find out all about Colonel. The detective said he had been selling shares for years. He said he was a man who went to hotels, made friends with wealthy people, and then ‘let them have shares’—these were the words the detective used, Sir Edward said, but nobody had complained, and there was no direct proof. Sir Edward, he saw the committees of two clubs Colonel was a member of, and Colonel was asked to resign.”
Doctor Manson lay back against the granite slabs of the Rostrum when Franky had finished. His eyes stared across the swiftly running water of the rapids as they entered the salmon pool. Franky watched him for a time. Then: “I don’t think that it puts you over a fish, do it, Doctor?”
“Fish?” Manson pondered bewilderedly for a time. “Oh, I see. The colonel! I don’t know, Franky. We’ve had one or two rises, but the fish is coming short. What do you do in a case like that, Franky?”
“Give him a rest, Doctor, and try same pool later on . . . with a different fly, mebbe.”
“Like most of the advice you give, Franky, very sound,” was the reply. “We’ll try it. Come along, it’s getting near time for a cup of tea.”
CHAPTER XIII
FRED EMMETT
Some five miles out of Exeter, on the London side of the city, there stands, amid farm lands, a large flour mill. On the opposite side of the road is a cattle cake mill. Next to the flour mill is an extensive piggery, with hundreds of Medium-Whites lolling in “garden” pens in front of their stys. From above the roof of each sty a revolving cowl whizzes round, drawing out the smelly air that comes from the presence of Mr. Pig’s sleeping quarters. Adjacent to the cattle mill are acres of poultry pens, divided and sub-divided into smaller enclosures; and each enclosure confining a separate breed of fowl.
Stretching across the front of each of the mills is a painted sign. It blazons to the onlooker that the mill is owned by Frederick Emmett and Sons, Ltd. The description is not quite accurate; the Emmett part had been deceased for some years at this time and the “Son” now reigned in his stead.
For nine months of the year Fred Emmett ground grain into flour. He turned the by-products into cattle food. He fed the middlings from the grindings to the pigs—and used the manure from the pigs for land, on which he grew grain to feed to his fowl. Nothing was ever wasted in Emmett’s mills; the result was that Fred Emmett could spend the remaining three months of the year fishing and shooting in Tremarden.
Sergeant Merry found all this out for himself when, on his tour of investigation of the Tremarden Arms suspects, he reached Emmett. Emmett’s workpeople, gathered in the roadside pub, announced enthusiastically that “Master Fred” was the best employer for whom any man or woman could hope to work. His business rivals, sadly outstripped, were eager to confess that a better man had beaten them. Everybody agreed that Fred was worth a mint of money, hadn’t a care in the world, and was friendly to all men. His bite, they agreed unanimously, was even less dangerous than his friendly bark.
In fact, try as he would, Merry could find nothing which would suggest any kind of motive through which Mr. Emmett would be likely to push the late, and unlamented, Colonel Donoughmore off this mortal coil.
Back in Tremarden, his search bore no better fruit. Nobody had ever heard Emmett say anything against the colonel. He had twitted him now and again, and said he’d knock his damned block off. But then, said the local sportsmen, Master Emmett was always going to knock somebody’s block off; but never did.
The only thing which Merry could find that was worrying Emmett was that he had lost his spectacles. He couldn’t see his fly on the water very well without them; a circumstance which had decreased his creel to an unfortunate level. He blamed the colonel for the upset, which had resulted in his mislaying the spectacles in a place he could not, for the life of him, remember, and said that he wished now, that he had thrown the damned man in the river, because it would probably have saved the man getting killed on that day and then he, Emmett, would not have lost his glasses.
Merry gave it up. As he said to Doctor Manson: “If I was one of those book detectives, I’d know Emmett was the murderer, him being the only one against whom there is no suspicion. You see, the man who says he’s going to throw a fellow in the river always says it in books because he thinks that that makes him out to be innocent, since only a fool would say he would do it if he meant
to do it.”
“Quite!” said Manson, with a face which threatened to burst into a contortion of merriment.
“But not being a book detective, but only a real one, I’m puzzled, you see, Harry,” Merry went on. “I’d as soon suspect a fellow with no alibi or motive, but with access to the dead person, as I’d suspect one with so darned good an alibi as to be supernatural. I’m suspecting Emmett because he sounds too good to be true.”
“Quite,” replied Manson, again. “Now, I suspect everybody, Jim. I’ve got a mind like that.”
“I know you have, Doctor,” was the reply. “One of these days you’ll be having somebody sueing you for slander or libel, or something, if you go on having a mind like that. You’d dash-well have to produce some ground for having your suspicious mind pointing its suspicion at them.”
He fell silent for a few moments. Then, a chuckle came from between his lips.
“Now what’s the matter?” asked Manson.
“I was just thinking of the time when I first came across your suspicious mind,” was the reply.
“Can’t recall it, Jim. When was it?”
“When you insisted on questioning old Giles and his Dean about the possible whereabouts of your missing bottles of beer. And I’ll never forget the Master’s face as he gathered that you had begun investigations of the disappearance with him.”
Manson laughed with his Sergeant and friend over the incident.
Giles, you see, had been the Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where Manson and Merry were undergraduates. The idea of questioning one’s college Head in connection with missing beer from Hall could only have occurred to anybody with an extraordinarily suspicious mind!