Inspector French: Sir John Magill's Last Journey

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  ‘Dr MacGregor wasn’t looking out for any fake and so he didn’t find one, and now he’s not going to admit he made a mistake,’ M’Clung declared stoutly.

  French shrugged.

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ He paused, then added: ‘You must be right. At all events we’ll have to make sure. There’s nothing for it but a trip to Campbeltown. You might go and find out how you get there.’

  ‘You go by steamer from Greenock,’ M’Clung explained after another brief disappearance, ‘but you can’t go and come on the same day. You leave the Central at 8.35, change to the boat at Greenock, and get to Campbeltown at 1.30. Then you’re stuck there for the rest of the day. Coming back you leave at 7.45 in the morning and you’re in Glasgow at 1.15.’

  ‘Good Lord! What’ll we do there for a whole afternoon? And we can’t go tomorrow for it’s Sunday. Well, we needn’t worry; we can’t help it. Ring up your superintendent, will you, and ask him if you can remain with me for a day or two. Then you can go and see your young woman again, or anyone else you want to. But be at the train on Monday morning.

  It was an immense though minor disappointment to French that on Monday the bad weather should hold. Enveloped in waterproofs, he and M’Clung sheltered precariously behind deck houses on the Clyde steamer, trying to appreciate through driving mist and rain the beauty spots of one of the finest coastal trips in Europe. But all they could see were dripping and windswept piers, with occasional cheerless-looking houses in the background, and bleak shores rising grey and smudgy to the dim outlines of mountains above.

  They were fortunate in catching Dr MacGregor before he went out on his afternoon’s rounds. He was big and shrewd-looking with a breezy manner, and French felt instinctively, a man to be trusted. After a few words of introduction French saw the line he should take.

  ‘You mustn’t misunderstand the object of our call, Dr MacGregor,’ he declared with a smile. ‘At first sight it looks like an inept kind of joke, but I need scarcely say that that is not the fact. You remember the sergeant calling on you relative to a visit you paid to a man named Victor Magill, who had hurt his knee while on a launch cruise?’

  The doctor nodded decisively.

  ‘Now this is very strictly between ourselves,’ went on French. Again the doctor nodded and French continued impressively:

  ‘From certain facts which have come into our possession we have reason to believe that this launch trip was undertaken to cover up a serious crime. Indeed I needn’t make any mystery about it, we believe the members, all four, guilty of the murder of Sir John Magill near Larne. You may remember seeing the case in the papers?’

  ‘Aye, I think I saw it,’ Dr MacGregor answered, with more than a suspicion of the Doric. ‘And was that what the sergeant was after? He wasna over ready with his explanations.’

  ‘A good man, the sergeant,’ said French. ‘Well, from information received we believe these four ruffians went ashore near Larne between half past two and half past three o’clock on that same morning, all four of them, you understand. That of course raises the question of Magill’s knee.’

  ‘I see it does,’ the doctor returned dryly.

  ‘So then,’ went on French, ‘it follows that either they didn’t all four go ashore as we suppose, or else that the injury was faked. And the last is what I firmly believe was done. I’ve come to you, doctor, to ask your help in finding out how.’

  French spoke earnestly and MacGregor, who seemed at first inclined to get on his high horse, remained silent.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘you may suggest that the injury was faked if you like, but if you do you’ll be wrong. There was the swelling and the heat and the colour. You might heat up the knee with mustard and paint on the discoloration and pretend it was painful, but you couldn’t fake all the symptoms together, at least not well enough to deceive a qualified doctor. No, Inspector, you may take it from me there was no fake about it. I’ll swear that in any court of law.’

  French felt, and looked, terribly disappointed.

  ‘That’s a pretty heavy blow, doctor, and no mistake. It about leaves me in Queer Street so far as my case is concerned. I could have sworn you’d be able to help me.’

  Dr MacGregor intimated that he was sorry, but that he couldn’t alter facts to suit the inspector’s cases. French tried again.

  ‘The man would be lame, I suppose?’

  ‘Lame? Aye, he’d be lame. I doubt for the first day or two he wouldna do any walking at all.’

  ‘He told you how the injury was supposed to have occurred?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘And the appearance of the bruise agreed with that?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  French made a gesture of despair.

  ‘Then you can’t help me at all, Doctor?’ he almost implored. ‘If I were to take up enough of your time to tell you the whole facts you’d see how extraordinarily strong is the suggestion of a fake. You can’t tell me anything more?’

  For the first time the doctor began to show impatience.

  ‘I can tell you again what I’ve told you before and what I’m not bound to tell you at all,’ he said, ‘and that is that there was no fake about it. If you don’t like to take my word for it you needn’t. I’m afraid I must wish you good day. I’m behind already with my calls.’

  ‘It’s not your word I doubt, Doctor,’ French returned, rising. ‘There’s my address. If in thinking over the thing you see a way out I’d be obliged if you’d let me know.’

  Dr Macgregor took the card with evident rising anger.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll let you know,’ he said harshly. ‘If you bring a case against the man on the lines you’ve mentioned, I’ll go into the box and swear that your case is false. Goodbye.’

  ‘Pity people are so beastly touchy,’ French grumbled as he and M’Clung turned away from the doctor’s gate.

  ‘It’s what I said, Mr French. He’s not sure about the thing, but he’s not going to admit any mistake.’

  ‘You think so? Now I don’t agree with you, M’Clung. I believe he’s sure enough. And he looks competent. I can’t picture him making a mistake of that kind. It’s an abominable puzzle and I don’t see the way out. And yet I believe there must be a way. Here, let’s go for a walk somewhere.’

  At another time and under other circumstances French would have been delighted at the prospect of a ramble along a new and fine stretch of coast, but for the moment he was past scenery. His case and his case alone occupied his mind. For the next couple of hours as they trudged along through what had become merely a damp mist, he proved a poor companion. Then he suddenly stopped and faced M’Clung.

  ‘I believe I’ve got this too!’ he declared, with a kind of cold excitement. ‘Look here, that doctor gave the thing away himself. Don’t you see? Come back and let’s see him again.’

  He hurried M’Clung along till once more they were in Dr MacGregor’s consulting room.

  ‘Sorry to trouble you again and all that, doctor,’ French said with eagerness, ‘but I believe I’ve got it!’

  MacGregor looked at him with cold eyes.

  ‘Got it? Got what?’ he asked none too graciously.

  ‘How that knee evidence was faked. As a matter of fact you told me yourself, though neither you nor I recognised it at the time.’

  The doctor looked as if his temper might get the better of him at any moment, but he was evidently interested.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘You said that in your opinion the injury took place at the time and in the manner stated?’

  ‘Might have taken place,’ MacGregor corrected.

  ‘You’re absolutely sure of the time?’

  MacGregor rapped out an oath.

  ‘I’m not absolutely sure of the time,’ he declared angrily, ‘nor no man living could be sure of the time. What I’m sure of is what I said: that it might have taken place when stated.’

  French had the self-satisfied air of a conjurer who has j
ust successfully produced a lady’s vanity bag from a consequential old gentleman’s coat pocket.

  ‘You think,’ he suggested innocently, ‘it couldn’t have taken place that same morning?’

  M’Clung started and French thought he heard a smothered ‘Boys o’ boys!’ But MacGregor dashed his hopes.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ he answered sharply. ‘Admittedly it’s a point you can’t be so sure of. You go by the discoloration and one person discolours more quickly than another. But in this case discoloration was well marked. It could scarcely have taken less than thirty hours to develop, though it might easily have take a lot longer, several days in fact.’

  ‘Now, Doctor,’ said French in evident excitement, ‘here’s my last question. Excluding discoloration, could the injury in your opinion have occurred that same morning, say six hours before you saw it?’

  Both he and M’Clung waited almost breathlessly for the reply. This time it was satisfactory. MacGregor admitted that in this case it might.

  ‘Then,’ French cried triumphantly, ‘there we have it! Suppose, Doctor, the injury was done six hours before you saw it and the discoloration was painted on! What about that?’

  French sat back and beamed at the other. MacGregor returned his gaze earnestly. Then his manner changed.

  ‘Sorry, Inspector. I see what you are driving at, and you may be right. You mean that, while there was no fake of the injury, as I said, there may have been a fake as to the time it occurred?’

  ‘That’s it, Doctor. I suggest that the injury was deliberately produced after the launch left Ireland, say about three-thirty in the morning. You saw it about nine-thirty, say six hours later. By that time the swelling would be there all right, but not the proper discoloration, not the discoloration, that is to say, which might be present if the injury had taken place thirty hours earlier, as Magill stated.’

  MacGregor, now quite thawed, admitted the possibility. All the same it was only a guess on the inspector’s part and there wasn’t any proof of its truth.

  French agreed, but pointed out that if his case stood as a whole it would automatically provide sufficient proof. The doctor saw this for himself. He even obscurely hinted that it was ‘smarrrt’ of French to have thought of it and they parted friends.

  ‘Now we for London as soon as we can get there,’ French exclaimed as they turned towards their hotel. ‘What time does that blessed boat get to Glasgow tomorrow?’

  ‘It goes to Greenock. The train gets to the Central at 1.15.’

  ‘Well, we should get up to town that night. We’ll have a shot at it any way and then the great experiment will begin.’

  ‘We can get the Midday Scot at 1.30, into Euston at 9.50,’ returned the travel expert.

  French looked at him.

  ‘’Pon my soul, M’Clung, you’re not doing so badly. How do you know that?’

  M’Clung sniggered.

  ‘Thought we might need it, sir, and looked it up before we came away.’

  ‘Huh,’ said French. ‘If we don’t pull this case off after the amount of brains that have gone into it it’ll be queer an’ strange, so it will. That right?’

  Something almost approaching a wink hovered for a moment near M’Clung’s left eye.

  ‘Ain’t ’arf a bad shot, sir,’ he responded encouragingly.

  That night they travelled to town and next morning French had a long interview with Mitchell. The chief-inspector was profoundly impressed with French’s theory and congratulated him warmly.

  ‘I believe it’s the truth,’ French admitted modestly, ‘but I’m not sure that it’s good enough as it stands. I think, sir, with your permission we should have a reconstruction.’

  Mitchell thought over this.

  ‘I agree,’ he said at last. ‘It’s a thing I’m not usually keen on, but this certainly seems a case for it. Very good, French, go ahead. You can have what you want.’

  ‘Any chance of your coming along, sir?’

  ‘I’d like to, but I can’t get away: that Brighton burglary.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Well, I’ll carry on and fix up my arrangements.’

  ‘Good. Who would you like?’

  French hesitated.

  ‘I want a small man,’ he said, ‘for Sir John’s part. We’ve no one small enough really, but I think Ormsby would do. He’s middling small and very handy. Carter and Harvey will do for Victor and Teer, for Harvey’s a good man with a car. I shall want a witness also, I think. M’Clung would do for that.’

  ‘Right, French. Good luck to you.’

  When French left the chief-inspector’s room his movements became mysterious. Calling Ormsby, Carter and Harvey, he gave them certain instructions. Then with M’Clung in tow he left the Yard and called at a large clothing establishment on the South Side. There he gave orders for three cowled cloaks of very dark brown cloth of the cheapest quality, two to fit large men, the other slightly smaller. Then at a ship chandler’s he described the rope ladder found on the Cave Hill, and ordered a similar one to be sent to the Yard. By dint of a good deal of persuasion the shop people agreed to have all four articles completed and delivered by the following afternoon.

  ‘Now to Euston,’ he said, leading the way to the nearest tube station.

  Half an hour later they walked for the second time in the inquiry into the reservation office on No. 6 platform. The clerk greeted them as old friends.

  ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he began, as if prepared for a long conversation. ‘I suppose you’re not looking for sleeping car attendants this time?’

  French regretted it was nothing so dramatic. On this occasion, he and his companion were mere humble members of the travelling public. In fact, they only wanted a reservation. Could the clerk fix them up with two communicating berths to Stranraer for the following night?

  The clerk’s comment took the form of a low whistle. But he was able to reserve the berths.

  ‘Now I want something else,’ French added. ‘I want the corridor on the left side of the carriage.’

  Again the clerk whistled as he shook his head.

  ‘So that you can wave to little Albert?’ he said with a grin. ‘You’re not trying to make me an accessory before the fact, I suppose? Neither of you gentlemen going over to Ireland to be murdered, are you?’ Then seeing that French was not overwhelmed with the humour of his remarks, he returned to business.

  He could not tell on which side the corridor was, but he could ask the stationmaster’s people to ring up and find out. Some time was spent in telephoning and then French learned that once again his luck was in. The berths were on the right side of the train. He therefore took the necessary tickets and half an hour later he and M’Clung were back at the Yard.

  ‘Good enough for today,’ French declared. ‘We’ll knock off now. You can amuse yourself as you like tomorrow, but meet Ormsby and me at Euston in time for the Stranraer train. Tomorrow night’ll settle our hash.’

  M’Clung duly vanished. But French did not go off duty. Instead, he called his three men together and spent a solid hour posting them in their duties for the following night.

  19

  London to Stranraer

  Shortly before 7.40 next evening French and his two companions arrived at Euston. In the little drama which they were about to enact French was taking the part of Joss and Ormsby that of Sir John Magill, while M’Clung acted as observer. French and Ormsby carried suitcases, and in French’s lay the smallest of the brown cloaks and the rope ladder.

  Carter and Harvey, who were playing the parts of Victor and Teer respectively, had left on the previous night for Dumfries. There they were to hire a car and drive it to where Teer’s car was seen near the station at Castle-Douglas, arriving shortly before the boat train was due. For rightly or wrongly French believed that Victor had not spent the night on the launch with Mallace, but instead had been with Teer at Castle-Douglas. With these two went the other brown cloaks.

  French did not consider it necessary to reproduce
the movement of the launch or to appoint anyone to act as Mallace. If his theory were correct there could be no doubt as to the movements of the launch, and as he was satisfied that Mallace had remained with it during all its voyages, his movements were therefore also known.

  By a fortunate chance it turned out that their former acquaintance, Pugg, was the attendant in charge of the sleeping cars. French called him aside.

  ‘We’re going to try a little experiment tonight,’ he explained, ‘and we want you to give us your help. It’s a simple matter. We want you to act as nearly as you can in the same way in which you acted on the night Sir John Magill crossed. For the purposes of the experiment, Mr Ormsby here will sleep in the berth corresponding to Sir John’s and I in the next berth, corresponding to Mr Coates’s. Mr M’Clung, whom you met before, will travel in my stateroom. I want you to satisfy yourself that the communicating door is not only locked, but bolted on each side. Do not keep any better or worse watch than you kept on that night, but, of course, if you see anything wrong, let me know.’