Inspector French: Sir John Magill's Last Journey

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  The stationmaster at Whitehead was next called. He deposed that a man, whom he afterwards identified as deceased, had come off the 8.00 p.m. train ex Belfast, arriving at Whitehead at 8.47. He told of deceased’s inquiry for Mr Rimbolt and his annoyance when he was informed that Mr Rimbolt was then living at Bangor. Finally he described deceased’s inquiry about a telephone, his use of the booth on the up platform, and his subsequent departure from the station in the direction of the Larne road.

  A good deal of this evidence had seemed to the audience tame and dull after the sensational suggestions as to Malcolm’s possible part in the affair. But when the next witness proved to be Detective-Inspector Joseph French of the Criminal Investigation Department of New Scotland Yard, interest revived sharply. No one present except the police officers had ever seen a real live C.I.D. man and he was immediately accepted as the pièce de resistance of the entertainment. There was a little buzz through the room as people settled themselves to listen more intently.

  French, however, proved a disappointing star turn. His quiet businesslike manner did nothing to quicken the pulse or touch the emotions, nor did the matter of his testimony arouse any excitement. His evidence, in fact, was practically confined to the discovery of the will, of which he handed in a certified copy. But the doctors stimulated the flagging interest.

  Dr Finley was the first to be called. He began quietly enough by stating that he had examined the remains and had found that while there was a bruise above the right temple, the skin was not anywhere broken. But when after being reminded of the bloodstains on the road he repeated his statement to Rainey and French that this blood could not have come from the deceased, the proverbial pin could have been heard to drop. Everyone sat staring at Finley with an air of tense expectancy.

  ‘Were you able from your examination of the remains to state the cause of death?’ the coroner went on imperturbably.

  ‘No, sir,’ Finley answered, ‘not with certainty.’

  ‘You therefore held a post mortem?’

  ‘I did, with the help of my colleague, Dr Simpson.’

  ‘And did this reveal the cause of death?’

  ‘It did.’

  ‘Just tell the jury what that was.’

  Interest still further tensed as those present instinctively leaned forward the better to hear the reply.

  ‘Death was due to shock following a severe blow on the head above the right temple. The skull was fractured though the skin remained unbroken.’

  ‘How in your opinion might such an injury have been inflicted, Dr Finley?’

  ‘It seemed to me that some soft and yielding though heavy weapon had been used, such as a sandbag.’

  There was a little movement among the audience. Things at last were going as they should. The coroner went on:

  ‘In your opinion, doctor, could this blow have been self-inflicted?’

  ‘Quite impossible, I should say.’

  The coroner wrote for some seconds, then looked up.

  ‘There is also the consideration that no such weapon nor indeed any kind of weapon was found,’ he remarked, continuing:

  ‘Now, Dr Finley, another thing. Does the position of this bruise suggest anything to you as to the positions which deceased and his murderer must have occupied when the fatal blow was struck?’

  Dr Finley answered without hesitation.

  ‘If the murderer were right handed I should suggest that he was standing behind and rather to the right of deceased. If he were left handed the reverse would be the case; they would be standing face to face.’

  Again the coroner wrote.

  ‘Was that all that you learned from your examination of the remains?’

  ‘It was all that my colleague and I learnt directly. But to make the examination complete we sent the stomach and certain other organs to the police analyst for chemical analysis.’

  ‘And did you get a reply from him?’

  Dr Finley assented. ‘I believe he is in court,’ he added.

  After a few more questions Dr Simpson was called. He corroborated Dr Finley’s evidence in every particular. Then M.Clung called ‘Professor M’Grath!’ and a fresh-faced man looking more like a successful business man than a professor of science, entered the box.

  ‘You are Professor Henry M’Grath, gold medalist at the London University and the holder of many other scientific distinctions, and now act as police analyst of Belfast?’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘Did you receive from Drs. Finley and Simpson certain organs taken from the body on which this inquest is being held?’

  ‘I received certain organs. I understand they were taken from the body you mention.’

  ‘Did you submit these organs to analytical tests?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Please tell the jury what you found.’

  At this question interest, if possible, intensified. The audience once again instinctively bent forward, the better to hear the reply.

  ‘I found in the stomach and intestines a trace of trional.’

  ‘Trional? That is a sedative, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s used for sleeping draughts.’

  ‘And what quantity did you find present?’

  ‘About twenty-five grains.’

  ‘Is that enough to cause serious injury?’

  ‘Oh, no. It represents a single fairly large sleeping draught only. It should not have had any permanent ill effects.’

  The audience, cheated of their sensation, relaxed. But not a few faces showed bewilderment. The coroner wrote industriously.

  ‘Then your evidence is that at some time previous to his death the deceased had taken a sleeping draught?’

  ‘That he had taken a quantity of trional such as might be found in a sleeping draught,’ Professor M’Grath amended.

  ‘How soon would such a draught take effect?’

  ‘It is not possible to say with any degree of accuracy, as the time is modified by so many unknown factors. Different people react differently to drugs, and the same person will react differently according to his condition. For instance, if a man has just eaten a heavy meal, reaction will be slower than if his stomach were empty.’

  ‘I can understand that, professor, but can you not give us some idea?’

  ‘From half an hour to two hours, I should say. I couldn’t go closer.’

  ‘Half to two hours,’ the coroner repeated. ‘Now, Professor, can you say how long this draught was taken before death?’

  Professor M’Grath shook his head.

  ‘That is even more difficult to answer. The most I could say is, probably within eight to ten hours, but I could not state that with certainty.’

  ‘Might it have taken place within four or five hours?’

  ‘Undoubtedly it might.’

  French was a good deal impressed by this evidence, which was clearly what Rainey had been going to tell him when interrupted. It certainly tended to confirm Rainey’s theory of Malcolm’s innocence. If the sleeping draught might take effect within half an hour, it could have been taken before, say, nine o’clock. And though the professor would not commit himself as to the time between the taking of the draught and the murder, from his reply it would seem at least several hours. If therefore Malcolm really had been ill that night, he was innocent.

  The evidence also explained a point which had given French a good deal of worry. The murderer, whether Malcolm or some other person—for French was still not convinced of Malcolm’s innocence—had conveyed Sir John, alive or dead, from Whitehead to Lurigan in a car. French concluded that it was in a car because he could see no other way in which the journey could have been made. Now, would anyone risk carrying a dead body in that way, when at any moment some accident or unforeseen circumstance might lead to the stoppage of the car and an investigation of its contents? French had always doubted it. But if the criminal drugged his victim with a harmless sleeping draught before starting the run, and murdered him only when he was about to destroy t
he evidence of his crime by hiding the remains, that would be an entirely different proposition. French was interested also in the choice of the sedative, one which could be purchased without a doctor’s prescription.

  It was now beginning to look as if Sir John had been met and drugged shortly after he left Whitehead, probably on the pretext that a nip of brandy on a cold night would do him no harm. There would then have been no danger in driving him to Lurigan. If his presence were discovered he would no doubt be asleep, but he would wake well and unharmed and no suspicions would arise.

  The more French thought over this theory, the more convinced he became that it was the truth. Moreover the hours worked in. If Sir John had been drugged about nine or half past, four to six hours later would bring it to half past two when X.Y.Z. saw the operations in progress in the plantation. This would—

  French suddenly awoke to the fact that he was day-dreaming and missing what was going on. At once he switched his mind back to the proceedings, to find that Professor M’Grath was just returning to his seat. He was the last witness and when the coroner had adjusted his papers he addressed the jury. After some preliminary remarks on the serious and tragic nature of the evidence, he proceeded to recapitulate it in detail. Then putting aside his notes, he went on in serious tones:

  ‘Your duty is threefold. First, you have to say whose in your opinion is the body on which this inquest has been held, provided you are satisfied as to the identity in your own minds. Here I do not think you will have much difficulty. Secondly, you have to state the cause of death, again provided the evidence has left no reasonable doubt in your minds. Here again I think you will find your task easy. The medical evidence to my mind is clear, and I am sure you will agree that the deceased met his death as the result of a blow delivered by some heavy but yielding weapon such as a sandbag. Unfortunately that does not end the matter so far as you are concerned. You are to say, if you feel that you can do so from the evidence, how this injury came to be sustained. And here I need scarcely remind you that such an injury might conceivably have been caused in one of three ways: as the result of accident, suicide or murder. Should you think that the evidence justifies you in so doing, you will say to which of these three categories the present instance in your opinion belongs. Unfortunately again, even this may not end the matter so far as you are concerned. Should you find that this death falls into the last of the three categories, that it is in fact a case of murder, then you must consider who may be guilty of that murder. If in your opinion the evidence on this point is inconclusive, you will bring in a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown. On the other hand, if you feel reasonably certain from the evidence of the identity of the murderer or murderers, you will bring in your verdict against that person or those persons.’ With a peroration about the importance of their office, the coroner dismissed the jury to consider their verdict.

  And a lot of consideration it evidently took! For upwards of two interminable hours the remainder of the little gathering waited, afraid to go away and unable to settle down even to talk connectedly, while the shadows lengthened across the lawn and the light faded from the western sky. Rainey, French and M’Clung were frankly bored and anxious to get away, Malcolm Magill was pale and apprehensive, even Victor and the solicitor, Dinsmore, were anxious-looking, while the spectators still hoped for their sensation. Not one of them but would have given something he valued to have that period of waiting at an end.

  At last, just after seven o’clock, there was a movement, and the jury filed back into their places. Everyone straightened up and the atmosphere once more became tense as the coroner asked the momentous question, ‘Gentlemen, are you agreed on your finding?’

  The jury, the foreman assured him, were agreed on their finding, but it was not the finding which most of those present expected to hear. A scarcely veiled disappointment could even be seen on more than one face as the foreman read out the verdict, disappointment at being baulked of a major sensation. For no mention was made of Major Magill. The verdict was the familiar one of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.

  8

  Belfast

  ‘Well,’ said French, when next morning he had reached Superintendent Rainey’s room at police headquarters, ‘that verdict was a surprise and no mistake. I’d have bet long odds they’d have found against the major. They didn’t know all that we know about his illness.’

  ‘A case of the benefit of the doubt,’ Rainey returned. ‘A local man of well known family; employer of labour and popular at that. It all counts. They didn’t want to commit themselves unless they were forced.’

  ‘But they believed him guilty all the same.’

  ‘I daresay they did. Still I question if they weren’t wise. They did their duty. They found the cause of death and left it at that.’

  French smiled as he thought of Rainey’s effort to shunt the problem of arrest.

  ‘You, sir, and I have more responsibility than if we were one of twelve on a coroner’s jury. What they think or the verdict they bring in makes no matter to anyone except themselves, but what you think may make a very serious difference to quite a number of people.’

  Rainey nodded, though there was something suspicious in the glance he shot at French.

  ‘I should like my friend the coroner to hear you,’ he declared. ‘He has a pathetic belief in the value of—’

  The door opened and M’Clung looked in.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘but there’s a man here says he’s got some evidence on this Magill case. If it’s true it seems important. I thought maybe you’d like to see him yourself.’

  ‘By all means, M’Clung. Bring him in.’

  The sergeant disappeared and in a few seconds returned with a stalwart young fellow of about three and twenty. He had the unmistakable appearance of a working man in his Sunday clothes and he was no less obviously nervous and self-conscious.

  ‘Good morning,’ Rainey said pleasantly. ‘You have some information for us? Come and sit down and tell us about it. Put out a chair for him, M’Clung.’

  The young giant sat down awkwardly and began twisting his cap in his huge bony hands. Rainey saw that some help would be necessary.

  ‘You were right to come to us with anything you know,’ he went on encouragingly. ‘Now perhaps I’d better ask you some questions. To begin with, what is your name?’

  ‘William M’Atamney.’ He put the accent on the ‘tam.’

  ‘Yes, and your business?’

  ‘I’m a cleaner on the Northern Counties Railway.’

  ‘A cleaner? Oh, yes, an engine cleaner, you mean?’

  ‘That’s right, mister.’

  ‘And where do you live?’

  ‘In Belfast, at 12 Monkton Street, off the Shore Road.’

  ‘And your work is in Belfast too?’

  ‘Yes, I work mostly in Belfast, but whiles I’m sent away relieving at other stations.’

  ‘I follow you. Engine cleaners usually work at night, don’t they?’

  ‘They do that.’

  ‘I see. Now I think we know who you are. Just start now and tell us your news.’

  M’Atamney shuffled on his chair and gave his cap a special flourish.

  ‘Well—ah—’ he began, ‘it was Thursday was a week, Thursday night. Cleaner M’Givern he was off duty at Larne, an’ they sent me down for to relieve him. Well, I had Number Fifty to clean; she’s broad gauge, ye understand, an’ I was workin’ in the broad gauge shed.’ He paused to collect his thoughts, then went on again. ‘Well—ah—Number Fifty was wanted out early an’ I’d wrought hard for to be sure she’d be ready. I had her all done only the wheels an’ motion an’ then I thought I was well enough on with her an’ I might quit for a wee while an’ have a fag. So I went out just for a wee walk to myself, don’t you see?’

  ‘I follow you,’ Rainey nodded.

  ‘Well—ah—’ resumed the cleaner, ‘it was a fine night, warm for the time o’ year, b
ut dark. I went across the yard and sat on the edge o’ the passenger platform facin’ the sea an’ lit up my fag.’

  Rainey turned to French.

  ‘I know the place, Inspector. The railway runs immediately along the edge of Larne Lough. Between this platform and the Lough there are just two sets of metals, the platform line and a run round siding. That right, M’Atamney?’

  ‘That’s right, mister. Well—ah—I’d only sat there about three or four minutes when I heard steps comin’ along the line from the Belfast direction. I thought to myself, “Here’s Billy M’Neill,” I thought—that’s another cleaner who’d slipped home a bit before that for his meat—“I’ll give him a bit of a start.” So I sat there an’ never let on till he was just opposite me, an’ then I jumped out and shoved my electric torch in his face. Man, but I gave him the queer ould scare! He let a screech an’ for a minute he couldn’t move, an’ then he just slipped past me an’ away as hard as he could lick for the Harbour.’

  ‘And was it your friend?’

  ‘It was not,’ M’Atamney returned darkly.

  Rainey curbed his impatience, though his foot swung irritably.

  ‘Yes? Then who was it?’ he asked sweetly.

  ‘It was him,’ the cleaner answered with dramatic emphasis and a backward jerk of the head.

  ‘Him? Who?’

  ‘Why him that was buried out at Major Magill’s.’

  ‘What!’ cried Rainey. ‘Sir John Magill? How do you know?’

  ‘I know rightly,’ M’Atamney declared. ‘I saw him as well as I see you with the torch shone fair in his face. I’d seen his likeness in the Telly’:—‘The Belfast Telegraph,’ interjected Rainey)—‘An’ then before I went home this morning I went round to Johnnie Gough, him ’at writes for the Telly, an’ sez he, “That was him right enough,” he sez, “an’ away you to the polis in Chichester Street an’ tell them what you’ve seen. If you don’t go, I will,” he sez, an’ so I came on up.’

  ‘You did well. And what was the man like?’

  ‘He was a weeish man, not very wee nor very big neither, an’ thin an’ with a bit of a stoop. His face was like the picture an’ he had a bald head an’ white hair. He hadn’t any hat, but he had an overcoat on.’