Inspector French: Sir John Magill's Last Journey

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  There were therefore pretty strong reasons to believe that Teer and Mallace had been in communication at Tarn Bay as well as at Kirkandrews Bay. But why? What under heaven had been their object? For the Kirkandrews Bay meeting, French had been able to suggest a motive, but this earlier one at Tarn Bay completely knocked him out. He couldn’t form even the faintest idea of their purpose. Curse it all! The only thing that seemed certain was that there must be some deeper factor in the affair than he had yet imagined.

  All that night French racked his brains over the problem, but without result. In vain he took a three-hour walk, in vain he drank large cups of strong coffee: he could get no light anywhere. What he should do next day he didn’t know. And then suddenly his problem was solved for him. Superintendent Rainey wrote raising a question which set him off next day hot-foot on a fresh phase of the inquiry.

  17

  Glasgow

  Superintendent Rainey’s letter, which was to the Yard and which had been forwarded, ran as follows:

  ‘re Sir John Magill Case.

  ‘Since discussing this affair with Inspector French a discovery had been made relative to the presence of a motor launch in Northern Ireland waters on the night of Sir John’s disappearance, This may or may not have a connection with the case, but at all events I think it should be considered by Inspector French.

  ‘There is a further point upon which I should be glad to have some inquiries made in Glasgow. If you could conveniently arrange for Inspector French to proceed to Glasgow I would send Sergeant M’Clung to meet him there, when the two points in question could be discussed between them and such action taken as might be considered desirable.’

  The letter was accompanied by an instruction from Chief-Inspector Mitchell for French to arrange the meeting as and when he thought proper.

  French, being for the moment at a dead end, hailed the letter with delight. He wired to Belfast making a rendezvous for the following morning at the St Enoch Hotel and that night travelled up to Glasgow.

  He was not displeased to see the rugged features of the sergeant in the lounge next morning. Though he had not known him very long he had formed a high opinion of him as well as growing to like him personally.

  ‘Did you have a good crossing?’ he greeted him, determined for once to say the right thing.

  M’Clung had had a fine crossing and he was glad to get to Glasgow for he had a sister married on a Glasgow man and he hoped maybe he’d be able to see her.

  ‘Sure you will,’ said French heartily. ‘Come and have a bite of breakfast and then let’s have the great news.’

  ‘Not so great maybe as you think, Mr French,’ the pessimist answered doubtfully, though he threw himself into the breakfast plan with no lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘Those two things the superintendent wrote about,’ he went on, when a little later they were ensconced with pipes in a deserted corner of the smoking room; ‘those two things came out of the one inquiry. The superintendent was still going on about that X.Y.Z. letter, you inderstand, and he was annoyed that we couldn’t get any word about it or the car passing or anything. So he arranged to have a house-to-house visitation along all that bit of Coast Road from Larne to Glenarm to find out if anyone had heard the car pass. There were a couple of us on it for three days. Well, we got these two points.

  ‘The first one we got from people who live close to the shore just on the Larne side of Lurigan. There’s a daughter, a woman of about thirty, and she sleeps in a room looking out over the sea and keeps her window open at night. Well, that night of the disappearance she happened to wake up and it was some time before she dropped off again. While she was lying awake she heard what she first thought was a car on the road, but afterwards she realised it must be a launch out at sea. She’d never heard such a thing before and she remarked it specially. It sounded close in shore and seemed to be coming from the Larne direction and going north. We tried to shake her statement every way we could, but she was quite certain about it.’

  French was growing more and more interested.

  ‘What time was that, Sergeant?’ he asked.

  ‘It was just coming on to two-thirty, because she heard the half hour strike almost at once and then after a while three o’clock.’

  ‘Just a minute; let me check that up.’

  French dropped once more into his old pastime of scaling distances and calculating speeds. He had had so much of this to do that he had bought some four-inch Ordnance maps of the whole district. Presently he announced his results.

  ‘Since I saw you, M’Clung, I’ve been going into the matter of Mallace’s launch—I’ll tell you directly—and I’ve found she’ll do 10¾ knots maximum, say 10 knots for ordinary full speed. Well, see what I’ve just found. The distance from Portpatrick to Ballygalley Head is just 26 sea miles. At 10 knots she would do it in about 2½ hours. She left Portpatrick about midnight, so what time would you expect her to pass your friend’s house?’

  M’Clung was profoundly impressed. While the idea that the Ballygalley launch might be Mallace’s had naturally occurred both to himself and, Rainey, neither had really accepted it seriously. The sudden likelihood that it was indeed the truth therefore struck him as of the first importance.

  French had become equally excited.

  ‘By Jove, M’Clung!’ he cried, ‘if that was Mallace’s launch it means we’re getting warm in this inquiry. By Jove, yes!’

  He remained silent while visions of progress floated illusively before his eyes. What if the launch really had called at Lurigan during that tragic night? What if its party had gone ashore? What if they had there met Sir John, who had walked from Whitehead to keep a prearranged appointment? What if the party had then and there murdered him? And lastly, what if they had buried his body on Malcolm’s ground so that, were it found, Malcolm and not themselves might be suspected?

  Here was the first theory of the crime which seemed to offer any shadow of consistency. As French thought over it he grew more and more impressed. By Jove, yes! Here certainly Was something that must be thoroughly gone into. He turned back to M’Clung.

  ‘That’s good as far as it goes,’ he declared. ‘But you had a second point?’

  M’Clung once more took up his tale.

  ‘After we left the young woman who heard the launch we pushed on to the houses beyond Ballygalley Head, on the bay, you remember, where the road from Carncastle comes down. Well, we’d been through the most of them when we came on one where they told us something; you can believe it or not as you like. A man and his wife and a sister-in-law lived in it and the man had been ill, in fact he wasn’t quite better yet. But that night he’d been bad, so bad that they hadn’t expected him to last till the morning. So the wife and the sister-in-law had both sat up all night. Well, neither of them had heard any car pass, and what was more, both of them swore no car had passed at all. I said one would easy slip by and they never hear it, but they said no, if one had passed they’d have heard it for certain. They said the man was disturbed by noises and they were afraid that if a car had startled him it might have been fatal. That’s how they were so sure there was no car, and they couldn’t have helped hearing it if one had passed for the road was just about twenty feet away from his window. Well, there you are, Mr French. If what those women said was true no X.Y.Z. drove past at two-thirty in the morning. On the other hand there might have been a dozen cars and they not notice them.’

  ‘What do you think yourself, Sergeant?’

  ‘It’s not easy to say, Mr French, but I don’t mind admitting that I was impressed by their manner. They seemed to be quite certain, and if they were both there, and were frightened about noises, why then they ought to have heard a car if there was one to hear. But you couldn’t say for sure.’

  ‘Did Superintendent Rainey take it seriously?’

  ‘He did, sir, and that’s what I’m coming to now. It occurred to him that maybe that letter was not written by any public-minded citizen out to redress wrongs, but
by somebody who wanted the body to be found.’ M’Clung turned his head on one side and slightly closed one eye. ‘Did it occur to you, sir, that the legacy wouldn’t be paid if the body wasn’t found?’

  French nodded.

  ‘Not without a considerable delay,’ he amended. ‘Yes, that occurred to me. Go on.’

  ‘Well, there were two men that were due legacies and both of them wanted the money pretty badly.’ M’Clung looked indescribably sly.

  French felt slightly puzzled.

  ‘You mean Malcolm and Victor? But we’ve suspected both of them and we’ve been rather forced to admit their innocence.’

  M’Clung nodded.

  ‘That’s right, Mr French. But this tale of the two women’s has reopened the question. At least with Superintendent Rainey it has.’

  ‘But this tale of the two women’s doesn’t alter the facts that made us conclude they were innocent.’

  French spoke to pump the other’s brains. So far as he himself was concerned he was ready enough to suspect either, or both of the cousins. Victor he suspected as it was. M’Clung’s voice broke in on his thoughts.

  ‘You may be right enough about that, Mr French; probably are. But the superintendent would like it gone into a bit further, that is, if you agree.’

  ‘I’ll agree all right,’ French assured him. ‘Anything that may help I’ll agree to. What exactly does he want?’

  ‘Well, sir, about Malcolm and Victor and the letter there were two things. The first was that seeing where the body was buried it wasn’t very likely that Malcolm wrote drawing attention to it.’

  French agreed with a nod and M’Clung went on.

  ‘But there’s a funny thing about Victor. That X.Y.Z. letter was posted in Belfast. Now Victor got to Belfast that very morning off the Glasgow boat. And it was the first time he’d been in Belfast for long enough. And what’s more. The letter was received at Chichester Street by the afternoon delivery. That means it must have been posted between say 10 a.m. and 1.30 p.m. But by 1 p.m. Victor had seen Malcolm and seen you and me and the superintendent, so he had learned how the case stood and what was known and therefore the sort of letter that would be wanted to get the body found. And from 1 to 1.30 he’d have had plenty of time to type it. So you see, sir, there’s a bit of a case against Victor.’

  ‘Well, what does Superintendent Rainey want me to do?’

  ‘It’s this way, sir.’ M’Clung was not to be hurried. ‘Suppose Victor wrote the letter, where would he get a machine to type it on? If we’re right so far he must have had it in Belfast. Now he wouldn’t get a typist to do such a letter. He would do it himself. And what’s more, he wouldn’t use his own machine, supposing he had one. Therefore what would he do?’

  French felt his usual thrill.

  ‘Good man, M’Clung! I get you. He’d buy one. Now let’s see. He’d have to buy it either in Oban or Glasgow or Belfast, wouldn’t he? Oban’s too small a town for that—such a sale would be remembered. And Belfast is too near home. Therefore try Glasgow! Eh, M’Clung, I begin to understand why I was asked to meet you here.’

  ‘Yes, sir, and besides we’ve done Belfast thoroughly and it wasn’t bought there.’

  ‘Good. By the way, did you bring the X.Y.Z. letter with you?’

  ‘I’ve got it here, sir. The superintendent said we’d want it if we had any luck.’

  ‘Your superintendent’s a man after my own heart. Well, Sergeant, that’s very good. And now unless we’re going to spend the entire day sitting here, we’d better get a move on. We’ll have to make a list of the typewriting places and go round them. Get hold of that directory and we’ll begin.’

  A few minutes later the two men turned into Argyle Street.

  ‘We may as well start with this big place here near the Central, Frazer’s.’

  Frazer’s was one of those establishments which deal with one or two makes of new machines and any class of old ones they can get their hands on. French asked to see the principal.

  ‘I want you, if you’ll be good enough, Mr Frazer,’ he said, ‘to tell me what type of machine this was done on.’

  Frazer examined the letter carefully, first with the naked eye and then with a lens.

  ‘It’ll be a Corona Number Three,’ he said at last. Then as French would have spoken, he held up his hand. ‘Wait till I ask my foreman. He knows the types better than I do.’

  The foreman was sent for and in his turn unhurriedly scrutinised the document.

  ‘Yon’s auld Coronatype,’ he pronounced. ‘A Number Three Corona. Ah ken it well.’

  ‘Kind of miraculous,’ French declared, feeling that a judicious compliment might smooth the remainder of the interview. ‘To me all type looks very much alike. Do you mean to tell me that they’re all so different that you can distinguish them as a glance like that?’

  Frazer picked up the paper again.

  ‘Some letters are the same in most makes,’ he explained, ‘and some are different. The difference is bigger perhaps in the figures than in the letters. For instance, to take an obvious case, some makers carry the lower loops of the 3’s and 5’s down while others curve them round like print. Then again in most makes the small “l” does duty for a “1,” but with some others there is a special key for the one and the figure is a different shape to the small “l.”’

  ‘A matter of elimination, I expect?’

  ‘That’s so. The shape of one letter may limit the machine to half a dozen makes, a second letter may knock out two of those six and so on.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ said French. ‘I’m always using the same method. In fact, your spotting the machine is just a bit of detective work. We’ll be appointing you consultant to the Yard next.’

  Mr Frazer’s forte was not humour. He replied that he would always be glad to be of use and was that all?

  French assured him that it was not all, that it was in fact only half of what he wanted.

  ‘That letter,’ he explained, tapping it with a long forefinger to emphasise his point, ‘that letter which you tell me was typed on a Number Three Corona, is believed to have been written by a murderer. We think he bought the machine, obviously a second hand one, here in Glasgow on Tuesday, the 8th of October last. Now the other thing that I want to know is—Did he buy it here?’

  Mr Frazer was mildly interested. He did not know anything about such a purchase, but he would do his best to trace it. Would Mr French mind waiting a moment?

  In ten minutes he came back. No No. 3 Corona had been sold on the day in question.

  ‘We may just settle down to it,’ French said when he and M’Clung were once more in the street. ‘I’ll tear my list in two and you may do one lot and I the other. Ring up the hotel at every even hour.’

  All day French worked hard, visiting shop after shop where second hand typewriters were to be had. At twelve and two he returned to the St Enoch Hotel and took M’Clung’s call, but the latter had nothing to report. And then when he got the four o’clock message there was news.

  M’Clung believed he had got it. Would Mr French come to Farquharson’s in Queen Street?

  Ten minutes later French reached the shop. M’Clung introduced him to Mr Farquharson himself. A third man was hovering in the distance.

  ‘Yes,’ the proprietor said, ‘I think we must have sold the machine you are looking after. This is Mr Duncan, who handled the transaction. Tell him anything you can, Duncan.’

  Duncan was a little rat of a man with an extraordinarily stupid face. His evidence was disappointing. On the afternoon of the day on which Victor Magill had passed through Glasgow a man had called and said he required a second-hand typewriter, a portable. Duncan had shown him two or three, among them a No. 3 Corona. This the man finally bought, carrying it away with him. Duncan was able to fix the date from the sales record.

  ‘Was the man among these?’ asked French, producing his photographs of Sir John, Malcolm and Victor.

  Duncan hesitated, not indeed witho
ut excuse, for the three portraits were not unlike. Finally he admitted that he could not tell.

  ‘Well,’ said French, keenly disappointed, ‘describe him in your own words.’

  But this was just what Duncan could not do and it soon became evident that for all he remembered of the stranger he might as well never have seen him.

  For a moment French was baffled, then he turned back to Mr Farquharson and with a good deal of trepidation asked where his firm had got the machine.

  A moment later he breathed more freely. All was not necessarily lost. Mr Farquharson admitted that he kept records of his purchases as well as of his sales. If they would excuse him a minute … Yes, he had turned it up. The machine had been taken in part payment for a new one from Mr Jabus Montieth of 136A Strathpeffer Street, off the Great Western Road.

  ‘It looks well, M’Clung, it looks well,’ French exclaimed as the two men drove to Strathpeffer Street. ‘This is one for you and your superintendent! If only we find this Montieth we may get what we want tonight.’

  Still their luck held. Montieth was at home.

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed, ‘I sold my old machine to Messrs Farquharson. A right good machine it was too, but it was getting worn and out of adjustment. I write a good deal and I thought I might treat myself to a new one.’

  ‘I’m glad we’ve come to the right man,’ French said in heartfelt tones. ‘Now, Mr Montieth, if you can only answer one other question I’ll trouble you no more. Do you happen to have any of your writings there, those that were done by the old machine? If I could get hold of anything typed by that machine I could tell whether it’s the one I want.’

  ‘I can do that easily.’ Mr Montieth turned to a shelf. ‘Here is the manuscript of a short story done on it—rejected, I’m sorry to say.’