‘Then, again, that journey to Marseilles, the start for Colombo, was, though perfectly innocent, a very unfortunate one. Mr Errington had gone on an aimless voyage, but the public thought that he had fled, terrified at his own crime. Sir Arthur Inglewood, however, here again displayed his marvellous skill on behalf of his client by the masterly way in which he literally turned all the witnesses for the Crown inside out.
‘Having first got Mr Andrew Campbell to state positively that in the accused he certainly did not recognise the man in the tweed suit, the eminent lawyer, after twenty minutes’ cross-examination, had so completely upset the stockbroker’s equanimity that it is very likely he would not have recognised his own office-boy.
‘But through all his flurry and all his annoyance Mr Andrew Campbell remained very sure of one thing; namely, that the lady was alive and cheerful, and talking pleasantly with the man in the tweed suit up to the moment when the latter, having shaken hands with her, left her with a pleasant “Au revoir! Don’t be late tonight.” He had heard neither scream nor struggle, and in his opinion, if the individual in the tweed suit had administered a dose of poison to his companion, it must have been with her own knowledge and free will; and the lady in the train most emphatically neither looked nor spoke like a woman prepared for a sudden and violent death.
‘Mr James Verner, against that, swore equally positively that he had stood in full view of the carriage door from the moment that Mr Campbell got out until he himself stepped into the compartment, that there was no one else in that carriage between Farringdon Street and Aldgate, and that the lady, to the best of his belief, had made no movement during the whole of that journey.
‘No; Frank Errington was not committed for trial on the capital charge,’ said the man in the corner with one of his sardonic smiles, ‘thanks to the cleverness of Sir Arthur Inglewood, his lawyer. He absolutely denied his identity with the man in the tweed suit, and swore he had not seen Mrs Hazeldene since eleven o’clock in the morning of that fatal day. There was no proof that he had; moreover, according to Mr Campbell’s opinion, the man in the tweed suit was in all probability not the murderer. Common sense would not admit that a woman could have a deadly poison injected into her without her knowledge, while chatting pleasantly to her murderer.
‘Mr Errington lives abroad now. He is about to marry. I don’t think any of his real friends for a moment believed that he committed the dastardly crime. The police think they know better. They do know this much, that it could not have been a case of suicide, that if the man who undoubtedly travelled with Mrs Hazeldene on that fatal afternoon had no crime upon his conscience he would long ago have come forward and thrown what light he could upon the mystery.
‘As to who that man was, the police in their blindness have not the faintest doubt. Under the unshakable belief that Errington is guilty they have spent the last few months in unceasing labour to try and find further and stronger proofs of his guilt. But they won’t find them, because there are none. There are no positive proofs against the actual murderer, for he was one of those clever blackguards who think of everything, foresee every eventuality, who know human nature well and can foretell exactly what evidence will be brought against them, and act accordingly.
‘This blackguard from the first kept the figure, the personality, of Frank Errington before his mind. Frank Errington was the dust which the scoundrel threw metaphorically in the eyes of the police, and you must admit that he succeeded in blinding them—to the extent even of making them entirely forget the one simple little sentence, overheard by Mr Andrew Campbell, and which was, of course, the clue to the whole thing—the only slip the cunning rogue made—“Au revoir! Don’t be late tonight.” Mrs Hazeldene was going that night to the opera with her husband.
‘You are astonished?’ he added with a shrug of the shoulders, ‘you do not see the tragedy yet, as I have seen it before me all along. The frivolous young wife, the flirtation with the friend?—all a blind, all pretence. I took the trouble which the police should have taken immediately, of finding out something about the finances of the Hazeldene ménage. Money is in nine cases out of ten the keynote to a crime.
‘I found that the will of Mary Beatrice Hazeldene had been proved by the husband, her sole executor, the estate being sworn at £15,000. I found out, moreover, that Mr Edward Sholto Hazeldene was a poor shipper’s clerk when he married the daughter of a wealthy builder in Kensington—and then I made note of the fact that the disconsolate widower had allowed his beard to grow since the death of his wife.
‘There’s no doubt that he was a clever rogue,’ added the strange creature, leaning excitedly over the table, and peering into Polly’s face. ‘Do you know how that deadly poison was injected into the poor woman’s system? By the simplest of all means, one known to every scoundrel in Southern Europe. A ring—yes! A ring, which has a tiny hollow needle capable of holding a sufficient quantity of prussic acid to have killed two persons instead of one. The man in the tweed suit shook hands with his fair companion—probably she hardly felt the prick, not sufficiently in any case to make her utter a scream. And, mind you, the scoundrel had every facility, through his friendship with Mr Errington, of procuring what poison he required, not to mention his friend’s visiting card. We cannot gauge how many months ago he began to try and copy Frank Errington in his style of dress, the cut of his moustache, his general appearance, making the change probably so gradual, that no one in his own entourage would notice it. He selected for his model a man his own height and build, with the same coloured hair.’
‘But there was the terrible risk of being identified by his fellow-traveller in the Underground,’ suggested Polly.
‘Yes, there certainly was that risk; he chose to take it, and he was wise. He reckoned that several days would in any case elapse before that person, who, by the way, was a business man absorbed in his newspaper, would actually see him again. The great secret of successful crime is to study human nature,’ added the man in the corner, as he began looking for his hat and coat. ‘Edward Hazeldene knew it well.’
‘But the ring?’
‘He may have bought that when he was on his honeymoon,’ he suggested with a grim chuckle; ‘the tragedy was not planned in a week, it may have taken years to mature. But you will own that there goes a frightful scoundrel unhung. I have left you his photograph as he was a year ago, and as he is now. You will see he has shaved his beard again, but also his moustache. I fancy he is a friend now of Mr Andrew Campbell.’
He left Miss Polly Burton wondering, not knowing what to believe.
And that is why she missed her appointment with Mr Richard Frobisher (of the London Mail) to go and see Maud Allan dance at the Palace Theatre that afternoon.
The Affair of the Corridor Express
Victor L. Whitechurch
Victor Lorenzo Whitechurch (1868–1933) was a clergyman who became such a successful crime writer that he was invited to become a founder member of the prestigious Detection Club, and contributed the opening chapter to the Club’s round-robin novel The Floating Admiral (1931). In his later years, he concentrated increasingly on producing novels such as The Crime at Diana’s Pool (1926) and Murder at the College (1932), but his most celebrated work features the railway detective Thorpe Hazell.
Introducing a reprinted edition of Whitechurch’s Thrilling Stories of the Railway (1912) in 1977, Bryan Morgan said that the author was ‘no mere Bradshaw-browser; he…[was] almost a practical railwayman. He knew how to scotch a point, what was the loading-gauge of the Great Northern, and how long an engine took to re-water…’ Hazell was sharply differentiated from Sherlock Holmes, a health fanatic, book collector, and train enthusiast, who was regularly consulted by railway companies for advice about ‘the bewildering task of altering their time-tables’.
Thorpe Hazell stood in his study in his London flat. On the opposite wall he had pinned a bit of paper, about an inch square, at the hei
ght of his eye, and was now going through the most extraordinary contortions.
With his eyes fixed on the paper he was craning his neck as far as it would reach and twisting his head about in all directions. This necessitated a fearful rolling of the eyes in order to keep them on the paper, and was supposed to be a means of strengthening the muscles of the eye for angular sight.
Presently there came a tap at the door.
‘Come in!’ cried Hazell, still whirling his head round.
‘A gentleman wishes to see you at once, sir!’ said the servant, handing him a card.
Hazell paused in his exercises, took it from the tray, and read:
‘Mr F. W. Wingrave, M.A., B.Sc.’
‘Oh, show him in,’ said Hazell, rather impatiently, for he hated to be interrupted when he was doing his ‘eye gymnastics.’
There entered a young man of about five-and-twenty, with a look of keen anxiety on his face.
‘You are Mr Thorpe Hazell?’ he asked.
‘I am.’
‘You will have seen my name on my card—I am one of the masters at Shillington School—I had heard your name, and they told me at the station that it might be well to consult you—I hope you don’t mind—I know you’re not an ordinary detective, but—’
‘Sit down, Mr Wingrave,’ said Hazell, interrupting his nervous flow of language. ‘You look quite ill and tired.’
‘I have just been through a very trying experience,’ replied Wingrave, sinking into a seat. ‘A boy I was in charge of has just mysteriously disappeared, and I want you to find him for me, and I want to ask your opinion. They say you know all about railways, but—’
‘Now, look here, my dear sir, you just have some hot toast and water before you say another word. I conclude you want to consult me on some railway matter. I’ll do what I can, but I won’t hear you till you’ve had some refreshment. Perhaps you prefer whiskey—though I don’t advise it.’
Wingrave, however, chose the whiskey, and Hazell poured him out some, adding soda-water.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll be able to give me advice. I am afraid the poor boy must be killed; the whole thing is a mystery, and I—’
‘Stop a bit, Mr Wingrave. I must ask you to tell me the story from the very beginning. That’s the best way.’
‘Quite right. The worry of it has made me incoherent, I fear. But I’ll try and do what you propose. First of all, do you know the name of Carr-Mathers?’
‘Yes, I think so. Very rich, is he not?’
‘A millionaire. He has only one child, a boy of about ten, whose mother died at his birth. He is a small boy for his age, and idolised by his father. About three months ago this young Horace Carr-Mathers was sent to our school—Cragsbury House, just outside Shillington. It is not a very large school, but exceedingly select, and the headmaster, Dr Spring, is well known in high-class circles. I may tell you that we have the sons of some of the leading nobility preparing for the public schools. You will readily understand that in such an establishment as ours the most scrupulous care is exercised over the boys, not only as regards their moral and intellectual training, but also to guard against any outside influences.’
‘Kidnapping, for example,’ interposed Hazell.
‘Exactly. There have been such cases known, and Dr Spring has a very high reputation to maintain. The slightest rumour against the school would go ill with him—and with all of us masters.
‘Well, this morning the headmaster received a telegram about Horace Carr-Mathers, requesting that he should be sent up to town.’
‘Do you know the exact wording?’ asked Hazell.
‘I have it with me,’ replied Wingrave, drawing it from his pocket.
Hazell took it from him, and read as follows:
‘Please grant Horace leave of absence for two days. Send him to London by 5.45 express from Shillington, in first-class carriage, giving guard instructions to look after him. We will meet train in town—Carr-Mathers.’
‘Um,’ grunted Hazell, as he handed it back. ‘Well, he can afford telegrams.’
‘Oh, he’s always wiring about something or other,’ replied Wingrave; ‘he seldom writes a letter. Well, when the doctor received this he called me into his study.
‘“I suppose I must let the boy go,” he said, “but I’m not at all inclined to allow him to travel by himself. If anything should happen to him his father would hold us responsible as well as the railway company. So you had better take him up to town, Mr Wingrave.”
‘“Yes, sir.”
‘“You need do no more than deliver him to his father. If Mr Carr-Mathers is not at the terminus to meet him, take him with you in a cab to his house in Portland Place. You’ll probably be able to catch the last train home, but, if not, you can get a bed at an hotel.”
‘“Very good, sir.”
‘So, shortly after half-past five, I found myself standing on the platform at Shillington, waiting for the London express.’
‘Now, stop a moment,’ interrupted Hazell, sipping a glass of filtered water which he had poured out for himself. ‘I want to get a clear notion of this journey of yours from the beginning, for, I presume, you will shortly be telling me that something strange happened during it. Was there anything to be noticed before the train started?’
‘Nothing at the time. But I remembered afterwards that two men seemed to be watching me rather closely when I took the tickets, and I heard one of them say “Confound,” beneath his breath. But my suspicions were not aroused at the moment.’
‘I see. If there is anything in this it was probably because he was disconcerted when he saw you were going to travel with the boy. Did these two men get into the train?’
‘I’m coming to that. The train was in sharp to time, and we took our seats in a first-class compartment.’
‘Please describe the exact position.’
‘Our carriage was the third from the front. It was a corridor train, with access from carriage to carriage all the way through. Horace and myself were in a compartment alone. I had bought him some illustrated papers for the journey, and for some time he sat quietly enough, looking through them. After a bit he grew fidgety, as you know boys will.’
‘Wait a minute. I want to know if the corridor of your carriage was on the left or on the right—supposing you to be seated facing the engine?’
‘On the left.’
‘Very well, go on.’
‘The door leading into the corridor stood open. It was still daylight, but dusk was setting in fast—I should say it was about half-past six, or a little more. Horace had been looking out of the window on the right side of the train when I drew his attention to Rutherham Castle, which we were passing. It stands, as you know, on the left side of the line. In order to get a better view of it he went out into the corridor and stood there. I retained my seat on the right side of the compartment, glancing at him from time to time. He seemed interested in the corridor itself, looking about him, and once or twice shutting and opening the door of our compartment. I can see now that I ought to have kept a sharper eye on him, but I never dreamed that any accident could happen. I was reading a paper myself, and became rather interested in a paragraph. It may have been seven or eight minutes before I looked up. When I did so, Horace had disappeared.
‘I didn’t think anything of it at first, but only concluded that he had taken a walk along the corridor.’
‘You don’t know which way he went?’ inquired Hazell.
‘No. I couldn’t say. I waited a minute or two, and then rose and looked out into the corridor. There was no one there. Still my suspicions were not aroused. It was possible that he had gone to the lavatory. So I sat down again, and waited. Then I began to get a little anxious, and determined to have a look for him. I walked to either end of the corridor and searched the lavatories, but they were both empty. Then I looked
in all the other compartments of the carriage and asked their occupants if they had seen him go by, but none of them had noticed him.’
‘Do you remember how these compartments were occupied?’
‘Yes. In the first, which was reserved for ladies, there were five ladies. The next was a smoker with three gentlemen in it. Ours came next. Then, going towards the front of the train, were the two men I had noticed at Shillington; the last compartment had a gentleman and lady and their three children.’
‘Ah! How about those two men—what were they doing?’
‘One of them was reading a book, and the other appeared to be asleep.’
‘Tell me. Was the door leading to the corridor from their compartment shut?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘I was in a most terrible fright, and I went back to my compartment and pulled the electric communicator. In a few seconds the front guard came along the corridor and asked me what I wanted. I told him I had lost my charge. He suggested that the boy had walked through to another carriage, and I asked him if he would mind my making a thorough search of the train with him. To this he readily agreed. We went back to the first carriage and began to do so. We examined every compartment from end to end of the train; we looked under every seat, in spite of the protestations of some of the passengers; we searched all the lavatories—every corner of the train—and we found absolutely no trace of Horace Carr-Mathers. No one had seen the boy anywhere.’
‘Had the train stopped?’
‘Not for a second. It was going at full speed all the time. It only slowed down after we had finished the search—but it never quite stopped.’
‘Ah! We’ll come to that presently. I want to ask you some questions first. Was it still daylight?’
‘Dusk, but quite light enough to see plainly—besides which, the train lamps were lit.’
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