Crow's Inn Tragedy

by Annie Haynes

  “Ay! And yet there he was just under our noses all the time if we had but guessed it,” Steadman said slowly. “When did you first suspect him, inspector?”

  The two men were sitting in the little study in Steadman’s flat. Both were looking white and tired. There was no doubt that their experiences at the hand of the Yellow Gang had tried them terribly. But, while Steadman’s face was haggard and depressed, the inspector’s, pale and worn though it was, was lighted by the pride of successful achievement. He did not answer Steadman’s question for a minute. He sat back in his chair puffing little spirals of smoke into the air and watching them curl up to the ceiling. At last he said: “I can hardly tell you. I may say that, for a long time, almost from its inception the Community of St. Philip was suspect at headquarters. Taking it altogether the members were the most curious conglomeration of gaol birds I have ever heard of, and no particular good of Todmarsh was known. He had never been associated in any way with philanthropic work until he suddenly founded this Community and loudly announced his intention of devoting his life to it. We looked into his past record; it was not a particularly good one. He was sent down from Oxford for some disgraceful scrape into which he said, of course, that he, innocent, had been drawn by a friend. Henceforward, how he got his living was more or less a mystery save that his small patrimony was gradually dissipated. Then came the War when, of course, he was a conscientious objector. After that, he lived more or less by his wits, was secretary to several companies, none of them of much repute. At last, suddenly, with a flourish of trumpets, the Community of St. Philip was founded. Where the money came from was a puzzle, probably to be explained by the loss of the Collyer cross.”

  He was interrupted by a sharp exclamation of surprise from the barrister.

  “By Jove! Of course. And that explains old Collyer’s curious conduct. He had found the young man out and wanted to hush it up for the sake of the family.”

  The inspector nodded. “He had found something out. Probably we shall never know what, but I am inclined to think something that led him to suspect who was Mr. Bechcombe’s murderer. I went down to Wexbridge the other day, but I could get nothing out of him. He is merely the shadow of the man he was. Have you seen him lately, sir?”

  The barrister shook his head. “Not since he went back to Wexbridge. But I have heard frequently of the change in him. Still, you must remember that Mr. Bechcombe and he were great friends; the murder must have been a terrible shock, quite apart from his guessing who was responsible.”

  “Quite so,” the inspector responded. “But, all the same, it is very strongly my impression that he made some discovery the last time he called at Community House.”

  At this moment there was a tap at the door and Tony Collyer looked in. Seeing the inspector, he drew back.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  Steadman looked at the detective, then, receiving an almost imperceptible sign from him, he called out:

  “Come in, Tony. We were speaking of you, or rather of your father.”

  Tony came in and took the chair Steadman pushed towards him.

  “You told me to call to-night, you know, sir. Perhaps you had forgotten.”

  “I had,” Steadman said penitently. “But I am very glad to see you, my boy. How is your father?”

  “I hardly know,” Tony said slowly. “He is rather bad, I am afraid, poor old chap! You see he suspected the truth about Uncle Luke’s murder and it has pretty nearly finished him off.”

  The inspector glanced at Steadman. “What did I tell you?”

  “He saw a line or two in Aubrey’s blotting-book telling him that Mrs. C. would be at Crow’s Inn with the twinklers at a quarter to twelve,” Tony pursued. “He will tell you himself just what it was. He sees now that he ought to have come to you at once, but he did not know what to do, the poor old governor. He had taken rather a fancy to Aubrey lately, though he never thought much of him as a kid. But, naturally, one doesn’t like to try to hang one’s nephew, or half-nephew by marriage. You know his mother was my mother’s half-sister.”

  “And Luke Bechcombe’s,” Steadman said. “Well, no one can help what one’s nephews, or half-nephews do!”

  “The first direct line we had to Todmarsh came from you, though, Tony. When you told us your suspicions of Mrs. Phillimore, you know,” replying to Tony’s look of surprise.

  “Knew she was a wrong ’un first time I saw her,” Tony acquiesced. “Carnthwacke was the same—‘bad little lot!’ he called her. Pretty well bust up the rich American widow business for you, didn’t we?”

  “You did!” the inspector said with a grin. “And a detective from Boston, whom we wired to, finished it. He recognized her as a woman that they had wanted for years; been in that crook business ever since she was a kid. I wasn’t thinking she had turned reformer over here.”

  “Not precisely!” Tony said with an answering grin. “Pretty well gave the show away when you arrested her, didn’t she?”

  “Wanted to turn King’s evidence,” said the inspector, “but we weren’t having any. Hopkins will do for us! By the way, sir,” turning to Steadman, “I found out this morning to whom we owed our escape from the Yellow Dog’s clutches.”

  Steadman raised his eyebrows interrogatively. “Indeed!”

  “Hopkins’s wife,” said the inspector. “It was the Hopkinses’ child you rescued from under Mrs. Phillimore’s car on the day of Mrs. Bechcombe’s lunch. You sent it to the Middlesex Hospital and sent your own car to fetch Mrs. Hopkins, and take her there like a lady, as she phrased it. Then you sent the child sweets and toys and this completely won the mother’s heart. She acts as housekeeper to the Yellow Gang at the house by Stepney Causeway. If she had not been”—he shrugged his shoulders—“well, you and I would have been in kingdom come, Mr. Steadman.”

  “Good for her!” said Anthony. “And I suppose my precious cousin’s anxiety about Hopkins was lest the beggar should give him away to save his own skin, and not out of love for the gentleman at all. I should always distrust a chap that keeps on opening and shutting his mouth and chewing up his tongue,” Tony added sapiently. “Mrs. Phillimore, too. Carnthwacke told me he was slick sure he had seen her walking about with his wife’s maid.”

  The inspector nodded.

  “Sometimes she was mistress, sometimes maid, and part of the week she was Fédora, the great fortuneteller, and this way she was able to pick up information for Todmarsh. If she had been spotted—well, it was her taste for philanthropy.”

  Tony got up and walked about the room. “But it is an awful thing, whichever way you look at it. We shall have to keep it from my poor mother. She never cared for Aubrey, but he was her half-sister’s son, after all. I don’t think he meant to kill Uncle Luke, you now, Furnival. I think it was done in a scuffle.”

  The inspector shrugged his shoulders. “Didn’t care whether he did or not, if you ask me. According to Hopkins, he went disguised, taking chloroform with him to render Mr. Bechcombe unconscious, and wearing rubber gloves, so that his finger-prints should not be recognized. Then, while Mr. Bechcombe was unconscious, he meant to impersonate him and get Mrs. Carnthwacke’s diamonds. But Mr. Bechcombe had struggled much more than he expected, and in the struggle recognized him. Then the game was up as far as Todmarsh was concerned and Mr. Bechcombe’s death followed instantly. The rest of the programme was carried out as arranged, only that Mr. Bechcombe lay behind the screen dead, not unconscious!”

  “Brute!” Tony muttered between his teeth; “deserves all he’ll get, and more! Poor old Uncle Luke—” blowing his nose. “He was always good to us when we were boys. It won’t bear thinking of!”

  Anthony Collyer was sitting in the library at Bechcombe House. A letter from his father lay open on the table. To him entered Cecily Hoyle, looking as attractive as ever in her short black frock, low enough at the neck to show her pretty rounded throat, short enough in the arms to allow a glimpse of the dainty dimpled elbows, and in the skirt to reveal black sil
k stockings nearly to the knees, and suede-clad feet.

  “Tony, you have heard?”

  Tony got up, pushing his letter from him. “I have heard that you are not Thompson’s daughter after all—”

  “No. I was mother’s child by her first husband, Dr. James Hoyle. So I am Cecily Hoyle after all. Because Mr. Thompson adopted me and then took my father’s name, but he isn’t related to me at all, really—not a scrap!” explained Cecily lucidly.

  “So I have been told,” Tony assented.

  As Cecily drew farther into the room he drew a little back, and rested his elbow on the mantelpiece.

  “I—I thought you would be pleased, Tony,” the girl murmured, just glancing at him with sweet, dewy eyes. “Because, you see, it makes all the difference.”

  “Difference—to what?” Anthony inquired in a stiff, uninterested tone.

  “Why—why, to us,” Cecily whispered with trembling lips. “I—I said I couldn’t be engaged to you any longer, Tony. But—but if you ask me again, I have changed my mind.”

  “So have I changed my mind,” Tony returned gloomily. “You said you would not let me marry a thief’s daughter—well, you see, I have some pride too. I will not let you marry a murderer’s cousin!”

  “Cousin! Pouf!” Cecily snapped her fingers. “Who cares what people’s cousins do?”

  “Well, you would, if they did brutal murders and got themselves hanged,” Tony retorted, taking his elbow from the mantelpiece, and edging a little farther from Cecily, who was betraying an unmaidenly desire to follow him up.

  “I shouldn’t really—not a half-cousin,” the girl contradicted. “And he was mad, Tony. His father had been in an asylum more than once, only your aunt didn’t know when she married him.”

  “Half-aunt,” corrected Tony, “I’d like you to remember that half, Cecily.”

  “Well, I will!” the girl promised. “And, Tony, I want to tell you that I hadn’t the least idea that Thompson was the man that I thought was my father while I was at Mr. Bechcombe’s. It seems he put me there thinking to get some information he wanted through me, and which I am thankful to say he didn’t. I never recognized him, he looked so different. Then after the murder when he told me, though he said he wasn’t guilty—I couldn’t help doubting.”

  “You might have trusted me,” Tony said reproachful.

  Cecily burst into tears. “You might trust me now.”

  Tony’s heart was melted at once. He drew the sobbing girl into his arms. “I would trust you with my life, sweetheart—but I—”

  “Ah, you shall not say but!” the girl cried, clinging to him. “You do love me, don’t you, Tony?” lifting her face to his.

  “You know I do!” said Anthony, his sombre eyes brightening as he looked down at her.

  “Then that is all that matters,” said Cecily decidedly, “isn’t it, Anthony?”

  And Anthony, capitulating as he kissed her eyes and her trembling lips, confessed that he thought it was.

  THE END

  About The Author

  Annie Haynes was born in 1865, the daughter of an ironmonger.

  By the first decade of the twentieth century she lived in London and moved in literary and early feminist circles. Her first crime novel, The Bungalow Mystery, appeared in 1923, and another nine mysteries were published before her untimely death in 1929.

  Who Killed Charmian Karslake? appeared posthumously, and a further partially-finished work, The Crystal Beads Murder, was completed with the assistance of an unknown fellow writer, and published in 1930.

  Also by Annie Haynes

  The Bungalow Mystery

  The Abbey Court Murder

  The Secret of Greylands

  The Blue Diamond

  The Witness on the Roof

  The House in Charlton Crescent

  The Master of the Priory

  The Man with the Dark Beard

  The Crime at Tattenham Corner

  Who Killed Charmian Karslake?

  The Crystal Beads Murder

  ANNIE HAYNES

  The Abbey Court Murder

  “A crime of a peculiarly mysterious nature was perpetrated some time last night in a block of flats called Abbey Court.”

  Lady Judith Carew acted furtively on the night of the Denboroughs’ party. Her secret assignation at 9:30pm was a meeting to which she took a loaded revolver. The Abbey Court apartment building would play host to violent death that very night, under cover of darkness. The killer’s identity remained a mystery, though Lady Carew had a most compelling motive – and her revolver was left in the dead man’s flat…

  Enter the tenacious Inspector Furnival in the first of his golden age mysteries, originally published in 1923. Though there are many clues, there are just as many red herrings and the case takes numerous Christie-esque twists before the murderer can be revealed. This new edition, the first printed in over 80 years, features an introduction from crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

  “Annie Haynes does, in The Abbey Court Murder, what all writers of mystery stories aspire to do, and so few carry off successfully… It is a first-rate story… the plot thickens with every page, leading us on to the final climax in a state of unfluctuating interest.” Bookman

  CHAPTER I

  St. Peter’s was rapidly becoming the church for fashionable weddings; but even St. Peter’s had seldom been the centre of a larger or more fashionable crowd than was assembling this warm April afternoon to see Lady Geraldine Summerhouse married to the man of her choice. There was the usual gathering of loiterers round the door and on the steps of the church; while the traffic in the street was impeded by the long line of private carriages and motors setting down guests.

  Two men came round the corner of King’s Street, walking quickly; the sightseers brought them to a standstill.

  “Hullo, what is this?” one of them exclaimed. “Oh, I see, a wedding. Well I suppose we shall get through somehow.”

  Both men, though they wore the conventional frockcoat and silk hat, had the look of travellers, or colonials, with their thin bronzed faces. The foremost of the two had reached the last line of waiting spectators, and was just about to cross the red carpet that was laid up the steps of the church and under the awning. The policeman put up a warning hand, some guests were alighting, another car took its place before the kerb. A group of maidservants, with baskets of flowers, stood immediately before the two strangers. The man behind turned his head idly as a big dark man sprang from a car and handed out a tall exquisitely dressed woman. Together they came up the steps and passed close to the stranger, but the beautiful eyes did not glance at him, did not note the change that swept over his face.

  He, looking after them, caught his breath sharply, incredulously. Then as they passed into the church he leaned forward and touched the arm of one of the maids.

  “Can you tell me the name of the lady who has just gone in?”

  The maid looked a little surprised at being spoken to, but the tone was unmistakably that of a gentleman; there was an obvious desire for information in his expression; she answered after a moment’s hesitation:

  “That was Lady Carew and Sir Anthony, sir!”

  “Sir Anthony and Lady Carew,” he repeated in a musing tone, a curious brooding look in his light eyes. “Not Carew, of Heron’s Carew, surely—mad Carew as they used to call him?”

  “Yes, sir. He is Sir Anthony Carew, of Heron’s Carew.”

  “And she, who was she before her marriage?”

  There was something compelling about his gaze. The girl answered unwillingly:

  “She was his sister’s—Miss Carew’s—governess, sir.”

  “Ah!” He turned away abruptly.

  His companion leaned forward:

  “Are you going on, old man? Hang it all, if you stay here much longer we shall be late for our appointment, and then—”

  “I am not going on.” The first man’s tone was decisive. “You can manage by yourself, Jermyn. Perhaps I may join you l
ater.”

  His friend looked at him and shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

  “Well, you always were a queer sort of fellow. We shall meet later at Orlin’s, I suppose. So long, old man.”

  He disappeared in the crowd. The other scarcely seemed to hear him. He kept his place in the forefront of the spectators, his eager eyes seeking amid the shadows and the dimness of the church, for one graceful figure. He did not notice that the other man had turned, and was now waiting behind him. At last the service—elaborately choral—was over, the organ pealed out the Wedding March, bride and bridegroom with their attendants came forth, and still those light eyes kept their watch on the interior of the church.

  The guests followed, some of them found their carriages without difficulty; others stood waiting in the porch talking and laughing to one another. Sir Anthony and Lady Carew were among the first to come out. Their footman touched his hat:

  “If you please, Sir Anthony, something has gone wrong with the car; it is just round King Street. Jenkins can’t get it to move. Shall I call a taxi?”

  “Yes, no. Wait a minute.” Sir Anthony looked anxious. The big green Daimler was his latest toy. He turned to his wife: “I must see what is wrong myself, I won’t be a moment, Judith, or would you rather go on at once?”

  “Certainly not. I would much rather wait. I hope it is nothing serious, Anthony.”

  As Lady Carew smiled, it was noticeable that the whole character of her face altered. In repose it was cold, even a little melancholy, but the smile revealed unexpected possibilities, the big hazel eyes melted and deepened, the mouth softened into new curves. She stood back a little as Sir Anthony hurried off, a tall graceful-looking woman in her exquisite gown of palest grey chiffon velvet, with the magnificent sables that had been her husband’s wedding gift thrown carelessly round her. Against the neutral tints of her background, against the deep tone of her furs, her clear delicate skin looked almost transparent. Her face was oval in shape, with small perfectly formed features, the eyes were remarkable, big and haunting, of a curious grey blue in the shadows which yet held yellow specks that shone in the sunlight, that danced when she laughed. Set under broad level brows, they had long black lashes that contrasted oddly with the pale gold of her hair.