Inspector French: Sir John Magill's Last Journey

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  But it was not the details of the story that most strongly impressed French. It was the fact that Teer had thought it necessary to tell it. From what he had seen of the man, he was convinced that Teer’s normal reaction to his approach would have been to tell him to go to hell and mind his own business. Teer had made an evident effort to be polite. French was strongly of opinion that it was because he was afraid. The more he thought over the whole interview, the more convinced he became that Teer’s story was false and that he had told it to prevent the further investigation of his actions. Well, if so, the ruse wouldn’t succeed. This was the first interview in the whole confounded case which had left French definitely suspicious and he would take no risk. He would follow the affair up to the bitter end. He turned his attention back to Teer.

  ‘Very hard lines, all that,’ he declared sympathically, ‘but just what would happen. I’m surprised all the same that you could get no help when your jet choked. Do you mean to say that no vehicle of any kind passed you during the night?’

  Teer replied that there was none. The inspector surely didn’t imagine that if there had been he would have sat there quietly and let it pass? No motorist would have refused him the loan of a torch to get his carburettor fixed.

  French wondered if he could get anything further.

  ‘Where exactly did this breakdown of yours take place?’ he asked sharply. ‘I want to know the exact place. It you can’t describe it I shall want you to come and point it out.’

  If Teer were innocent French felt he must resent such a tone. But Teer to all outward showing did nothing of the sort. He answered civilly, even anxiously.

  After this experiment. French did not suppose he could dispel the idea that he was suspected from the man’s mind. However he did his best. After a few minutes’ friendly chat he thanked Teer for meeting him so pleasantly and took his leave.

  He had next a word with the manager. Unquestionably on that eventful Wednesday, 2nd October, Teer had left the hotel in his car about four in the afternoon, ostensibly for Carlisle.

  A good, but obvious beginning! French decided that next morning he would take an early train to Carlisle and begin the checking in detail of Teer’s movements.

  14

  Castle-Douglas

  At half past ten next morning French stepped down on to the platform at Carlisle. The County Hotel at the station was his first objective, and five minutes later he was talking to the manager.

  But here he drew blank. No one remotely resembling Teer, so far as he could ascertain, had dined on the Wednesday in question. This of course was not conclusive; no member of an hotel staff can remember every chance visitor. But French reasoned that if Teer had been laying a trail he would have done something to impress his presence on those with whom he came in contact. He therefore left the station and began the round of the remaining hotels in the hope of having better luck elsewhere.

  He tried the Crown and Mitre and the Red Lion without success, but at the Adelphi he struck a satisfactory vein. Teer had arrived about six and had ordered dinner. He had chatted at some length to the reception clerk, saying he was driving through from Newcastle to Stranraer and therefore did not require a room. He had then taken his car to the garage and insisted on having it greased. During dinner he had conversed with the waiter about his drive, the weather and the roads, and on leaving at a few minutes past eight he had explained to the garage man where he was going, and asked his advice as to the route. In short, from French’s point of view he had acted in the most satisfactory manner possible. It was hard to doubt that he had intended his call to be discovered by the police, should suspicion become aroused.

  One other useful fact he learned. The number of the car was 1905. The garage man remembered it because 1905 was the year of his marriage. The letters, however, not being connected with any event in his own life, he had forgotten.

  So far, so good, but when French turned to consider the checking of Teer’s journey between Carlisle and Stranraer he realised that he was up against a very different proposition. During that whole period of twelve hours the man appeared to have met no one from whom confirmation of his story could be obtained. Nor was it likely that the mere passing of his car should have been noticed. For some time French felt at a standstill. At last he decided to put out a general call over the entire area. For this he had to get in touch with the Scottish authorities, but eventually he managed it and before very long every man in the district was presumably racking his brains and probing his memory in the effort to produce something useful.

  All the remainder of that day French haunted police headquarters in Carlisle, a nuisance to himself and everyone else. Officers to whom he applied suggested tactfully that their colleagues were in a better position to help him than themselves. At intervals he would disappear for a meal or a stroll round the town, returning hopefully to make fresh inquiries and to suffer further disappointments.

  He arranged for telephonic communication with his hotel to be kept up during the night, but in spite of it he was back at the police station before breakfast next morning. Still the same blank silence reigned. It was Sunday and the slow passage of the day got badly on his nerves. On Monday he was again early at the police station, once more without result.

  Fretting impatiently at the delay, he returned to his hotel for breakfast. There he determined that if he received no news by twelve o’clock he would go himself to Dumfries, Castle-Douglas, Newton-Stewart and the other towns en route in the hope of picking up information. Accordingly, after fruitlessly waiting until midday, he went to the station and took the 1.26 train.

  One of French’s greatest pleasures was travelling through new country. He had never before gone by this route during daylight and now as the train pulled out of Carlisle, he looked forward with pleasurable anticipation to the journey. The day was fine and the country smiled under the thin autumn sunshine. The trees had turned coppery, and already the ground bore streaks of russet and brown where the wind had blown the fallen leaves into swathes. Presently on the flat lands approaching the Border, French noticed the ruins of the great munition town which had sprung up during the war and which now, save for those slight traces, had as completely disappeared. The nameboard at Gretna Green Station turned his thoughts into another channel, and he mused over the breathless and passionate pilgrimages with their hopes and fears and alarms which this famous little place must have seen. So, enjoying himself hugely, he passed Annan, and after a peep at the Solway Firth and the Cumberland Hills beyond, reached Dumfries.

  At Dumfries it appeared that something unusual was afoot. On the platform there were three police constables who seemed to be searching the train for a suspect. Two in turn approached French’s compartment, regarding him with a cold stare as he prepared to alight. Immediately they transferred their activities elsewhere, but as he began to move down the platform one of them came back and spoke to him.

  ‘Ye wouldna be Mr French o’ London?’ he said encouragingly.

  ‘Ah would so,’ French returned, relaxing into the vernacular.

  The man nodded and felt, in his pocket.

  ‘Ah hae a wee note for ye,’ he explained, handing over a thin buff envelope. It contained a sheet of flimsy paper bearing the words:

  ‘To Det.-Insp. French, C.I.D.

  ‘SIR,—Carlisle phones your car believed seen at Castle-Douglas and recommends that you proceed there immediately.

  ‘ANGUS M’TAVISH,

  ‘Sergt., Dumfries.’

  The train was on the move, but French, to the indignation of the station officials, hurled himself into a compartment. As the men’s scandalised faces slowly faded from sight he could not help giving a few breathless chuckles. He did not see exactly how the discovery that Teer’s car had been seen at Castle-Douglas was going to help him, but he felt cheered at the prospect of renewed action. And if Teer had been up to anything he ought not—why then his, French’s, luck was holding in a way he could scarcely have believed possible. He wa
s so much taken up with the possibilities which were opening out that he scarcely even saw the beauties of the country through which the train was now running, and it was with but slightly veiled eagerness that he alighted at Castle-Douglas.

  The sergeant, was expecting him and told his story with gusto. On receiving French’s general call he had gone over in his mind everyone who might possibly have been out of doors on the night in question. Amongst others, he had remembered that certain of the railway staff were on duty to pass the night trains. Upon these he had concentrated. Getting into conversation with each in turn, he had made his inquiries. The fortunate circumstance that an engine had been derailed on the Kirkcudbright Branch on the previous afternoon enabled him to fix the night, and before long he had his clue.

  It seemed that there were three men on duty when the down boat trains passed at about four in the morning, a signalman, a platform porter and a booking clerk. None of these had himself seen the car, but the porter unwittingly put him on to a man who had.

  The sergeant had naturally asked whether any passengers had joined or left the boat train, and the porter had answered that though no one had joined it, one man had alighted. This was a friend of his own, a young fellow in the motor trade, who had been to London on a holiday. The porter had seen him getting out and had passed the time of day—or night—with him. It had not taken the sergeant long to run the young holiday-maker to earth and to hear his story.

  ‘Ye best see him yoursel’ an’ get the tale first hand,’ the sergeant went on. ‘But forby that, ye’ll need to see the lie o’ the land, if ye’re to onderstand it right.’

  French, recognising sound sense when he heard it, agreed and they set off in quest of the youth.

  ‘Aye,’ said the young worthy, when at last they had tracked him to his lair. ‘I saw a car all right, but I didna see ony one wi’ it. Ye see, I came off the Lonnon train an’ walked home. I live half a mile out along the Dumfries Road. Well, when I came to yon wee wicket gate on the far side o’ the railway—ye ken the place, Sairgent?—the car was there. It was parked up against the side o’ the road, headin’ for the toun.’

  French’s questions elicited the fact that the car was a new-looking Morris six saloon, and so far as the youth had observed, it might well have been Teer’s.

  ‘Good,’ said French heartily. ‘We’ll go and see the place.’

  Castle-Douglas station is of the ordinary roadside type of a double line passing between two platforms. The town lies on the ‘down’ or south side of the railway, the side for Stranraer, and on the down side also are the station buildings. At the west end of the station beyond the platforms, and close to the junction for Kirkcudbright, there is a bridge over the railway. This carries the main road from Castle-Douglas to Dumfries. A row of houses fronts this road on the station side, being separated therefrom by a field and narrow belt of trees. Some hundred yards or more beyond the bridge the road takes a slight bend and at this bend was the wicket gate.

  French stopped at the gate and looked about him. Owing to the bend, the car, parked on the far side, of the wicket, was out of sight of the bridge leading from the town. Moreover, while between the wicket and the bridge the adjoining houses were close to and overlooking the road, opposite the car’s position there was a larger house, set back from the road and well screened by trees. The car, therefore, could not have been overlooked.

  ‘Let’s see where this wicket gate leads to, Sergeant.’

  They passed through, to find a footpath, a mere track, running across the adjoining field in the direction of the station. It led to a wire paling, apparently the railway boundary, edging the belt of trees. There was no gate in this fence, but the track passed on beneath it and through the trees. At the opposite edge of the belt was the station, and the path led across a couple of goods lines to the up platform. The whole distance from wicket gate to platform was not more than some 120 yards.

  When French had assimilated these, details he experienced a sense of profound disappointment. There was no proof that this was Teer’s car. There was no reason why Teer should have stopped it in a place which, if not actually overlooked, was near a town where people might be abroad at night. There did not seem to be much help here.

  ‘Umph,’ he grunted, ‘this is all very interesting, Sergeant, but I’m afraid it’s not much use to me. We can’t prove that this is my man’s car. As a matter of fact it’s about the last place I’d expect him to park. I’m obliged to you and all that, but I’m afraid we’ll have to try again. No car was seen passing through the town?’

  The sergeant answered stiffly that no car was seen passing through the town. The sergeant’s feelings were hurt. He had done, as he imagined, extraordinarily well and this was his reward. He had never thought much of these English upstarts at New Scotland Yard. Now he thought less.

  French saw that he had blundered and in his kindly way hastened to remedy his mistake. He was beginning to explain how much he appreciated the sergeant’s action, and in what a rosy light he would paint it to the man’s superiors, when suddenly he came to a halt. For a moment he stood motionless, staring at the sergeant, while something more than his usual little thrill of excitement ran through his nerves. Illumination had come!

  ‘By heck, Sergeant,’ he cried, beaming on the surprised officer, ‘you’ve got a bull’s eye after all! It’s the man I want right enough. Congratulations! I know now what he was doing here.’

  He remained standing on the pavement while delightedly he followed out his new idea.

  This train by which the young motor mechanic had arrived, this boat train from London to Stranraer which had passed Castle-Douglas while the new Morris six was parked beside the station, this was the train by which Sir John Magill had travelled! It was the train in which Joss had carried out his evolutions with drugs and doorlocks! Here with a vengeance was the connection for which French was seeking. And in another moment a swift flash of insight showed him the underlying motive. Joss had drugged Sir John in order to get his plans. He had got them. But when Sir John awoke he might discover his loss. He might wire forward from Newton-Stewart or Glenluce. Police might be awaiting the train at Stranraer. There might be a search of the other passengers’ luggage. Joss must be in a position to submit to that search; in fact, he must be in a position to demand it. And how could that be done? Obviously only by getting rid of the package. And once more, How? By handing it out of the train to Teer.

  Delighted now, French looked about him with new interest. Why, the place seemed to have been specially created to facilitate thefts from trains! He felt there could not be much doubt as to what had taken place on that night when Sir John Magill passed through on the down boat express!

  In his mind’s eye he seemed to see the little drama being enacted. Shortly before four in the morning a car arrives, at the wicket, a new brownish-yellow Morris six. From it a man steps. He passes through the wicket gate, like a flitting shadow he crosses the field and reaches the up platform. There—possibly lying on the ground between the rails and the up platform wall—he waits unseen for the arrival of the boat express. The train arrives, he goes to the sleeping car, a bundle of plans is pushed out of the window of a berth, the man returns to his lair and the train starts. When the station has settled down again he picks himself up, retraces his steps, reaches the car and drives off with the precious documents.

  All surmise! Surmise truly, but French could have sworn that every detail had happened just as he had pictured it.

  ‘Heartiest congratulations, Sergeant,’ he said warmly. ‘I believe, thanks to you, I’ve got my man. I have only two other questions to put. First, is the station quiet when the boat train is passing: I mean, is there any other train there? Second, is there any way in which we can trace the further movements of the car? If you can answer those I’ll trouble you no further.’

  An inquiry at the station soon produced the information that the station was otherwise entirely deserted during the passage of the boat express,
but French’s second question was not so easy to dispose of. The sergeant could only repeat that he would not rest on his oars, but would continue his inquiries in every possible direction.

  As French further considered the matter two corroborative facts emerged. One was that Castle-Douglas was the first station, the nearest to London, at which the plans could have been got rid of by such a scheme. South of Carlisle the train stopped only in big well-lighted stations. The same applied to Carlisle itself and in a lesser degree to Dumfries. At all these places shunting on adjoining lines might have been in progress during the halt, involving the presence of shunters and engine men. Carriage examiners also might have come to investigate the sleeping car wheels at the critical moment. But at Castle-Douglas, on a branch line, the station at that hour was quiet.

  The second was even more convincing. Here was the explanation of that extraordinary question which Joss had asked the clerk at Euston when reserving the sleeping berths. He had wanted the berths to be on the right side of the coach. Why? Because the right side was the side away from the platform at Castle-Douglas. It was the side at which Teer would be waiting for the plans.

  But in spite of these highly promising considerations, further thought produced the usual reaction and French’s enthusiasm waned. He saw that once again he was on to the wrong crime. Again he was investigating the theft of the plans, not the murder. And though, as he had thought before, the one might involve the other, this could only be very indirectly.

  However, his undertaking with Superintendent Rainey was to investigate the movements of the launch quartet and he must go through with it. Obviously, therefore, the first thing was to get proof that this parked car really was Teer’s. Such proof could only be obtained by tracing the car. How was this to be done?

  French was not at all clear, and the more he thought of it the less clear he became. The problem was the more exasperating as when put into words it sounded so extraordinarily simple! A motor car had left Castle-Douglas at about four in the morning—he felt he was sure enough of his ground to postulate this. Either the same car or another had reached Stranraer about seven that same morning. Where had this car or these cars been between the hours named?