by Molly Thynne
Gilroy nodded.
“Stand at the top of the stairs, here,” went on Fenn, “and head him off if he breaks in this direction.”
Gilroy, from his post by the door, watched one of the detectives take a short jemmy from his pocket. He and Fenn stationed themselves on each side of the boxroom door, while the third man stood in readiness behind Fenn.
Then the man with the jemmy inserted it in the crack of the flimsy door, just below the lock. There was a sound of splintering wood as the door burst open, and Gilroy instinctively braced himself for action.
But there was complete silence from within the little room.
Fenn, keeping well within the cover of the wall, called to the occupant to come out, and it was as well he had not exposed himself, for the last word had hardly left his lips when there was an explosion that sounded terrific in the confined space of the little room, and a bullet sang past his head.
“Resisting the police isn’t going to make things easier for you,” he said, his voice, despite its ominous note of authority, steady and unperturbed.
The only answer was a second shot from within, but the man was wasting his ammunition. From where he stood he could not hope to reach either of the detectives, and he must have realized the impossibility of covering them both, should he attempt to come out.
“Better come quietly,” said Fenn mildly. “We can afford to wait.”
Gilroy was conscious of the sound of hurrying footsteps on the stairs, and turned to see Adams’s agitated face peering over his shoulder.
“Gawd, then there was some one up there!” he breathed incredulously.
A third shot rang out, and he disappeared with the abruptness of a rabbit into its hole.
Then, in a second, the man was out.
As he dashed through the door he fired point-blank at Fenn, at the same time thrusting his fist into the face of the other detective. He got home on the detective’s mouth, and Fenn, who had ducked as his assailant fired, grabbed at him, lost his balance, and let the man get past him. The third detective seized his wrist and the revolver clattered to the ground. Then Fenn closed with him.
Gilroy ran forward, but by the time he reached the group of struggling men the fight was over, and Fenn had his prisoner securely handcuffed.
He was not a beautiful object as he stood glaring at his captors. Unshaven, with the grime of several days on his sallow face, his mean mouth spluttering curses, and his dark eyes, the one almost unfailing beauty of the man, ablaze with venom, he looked what he was, a brute, whose only tools were violence and intimidation.
He said nothing when Fenn charged him, but as they were leading him away he glanced from his manacled hands to the detective.
“So Ling’s done the dirty on me at last!”
He literally spat out the words.
“You can tell him from me to mind himself when he comes out!” he finished.
“He won’t come out,” was Fenn’s answer, and he saw the man shrink at the words.
Fenn watched him through the door and down the stairs. Then he turned to Gilroy.
“There’s the end of the Braid case,” he said, with a note of deep satisfaction in his voice. “And as neat a clean-up as I could wish.”
“I take my hat off to Ling,” was Gilroy’s comment. “To have hidden him here, of all places!”
“And yet, like most strokes of genius, the thing was simplicity itself,” Fenn reminded him. “Johnson had the key of the boxroom, and, until Sir Adam’s affairs were settled up, it was unlikely that anybody would go there. And no one would have gone there if Adams, here, hadn’t happened to be cleaning up that beer as we came in, and if Goldstein hadn’t chosen to sneeze at the wrong moment.”
A sudden suspicion assailed him.
“Who was the tenant who spotted the fact that there was some one in the boxroom?” he demanded, turning to Adams.
But even before the porter spoke both Fenn and Gilroy knew instinctively what the answer would be.
“Miss Webb, sir. She happened to be up there getting something out of a trunk.”
In silence more expressive than words, Fenn left him and made his way down the stairs.
When he reached the hall he quickened his steps, but as he passed the ground-floor flat he was aware that the door was open, and that Miss Webb, a quivering interrogation mark, was standing on the threshold.
THE END
About The Author
MARY ‘MOLLY’ THYNNE was born in 1881, a member of the aristocracy, and related, on her mother’s side, to the painter James McNeil Whistler. She grew up in Kensington and at a young age met literary figures like Rudyard Kipling and Henry James.
Her first novel, An Uncertain Glory, was published in 1914, but she did not turn to crime fiction until The Draycott Murder Mystery, the first of six golden age mysteries she wrote and published in as many years, between 1928 and 1933. The last three of these featured Dr. Constantine, chess master and amateur sleuth par excellence.
Molly Thynne never married. She enjoyed travelling abroad, but spent most of her life in the village of Bovey Tracey, Devon, where she was finally laid to rest in 1950.
By Molly Thynne
and available from Dean Street Press
The Draycott Murder Mystery
The Murder on the Enriqueta
The Case of Sir Adam Braid
The Crime at the ‘Noah’s Ark’: a Christmas Mystery
Death in the Dentist’s Chair
He Dies and Makes no Sign
Molly Thynne
The Crime at the ‘Noah’s Ark’
“There’ll be blue murder here before Christmas!”
A number of parties heading for a luxurious holiday spot, are forced by severe winter weather to put up at the ‘Noah’s Ark’, a hostelry they will share with Dr. Constantine, a shrewd chess master and keen observer of all around him. Other guests include bestselling novelist Angus Stuart, the aristocratic Romsey family, a pair of old spinster sisters, and a galloping major whose horseplay gets him into hot water – and then gets him murdered.
Who is the masked intruder who causes such a commotion on the first night? Who has stolen Mrs van Dolen’s emeralds, and who has slashed everyone’s (almost everyone’s) car tyres? And are the murderer and thief one and the same, or are the guests faced with two desperate criminals hiding in plain sight in the snowbound inn? Dr. Constantine, aided by two of the younger guests, is compelled to investigate this sparkling Christmas mystery before anyone else ends up singing in the heavenly choir …
The Crime at the ‘Noah’s Ark’ was first published in 1931. This new edition, the first in many decades, includes an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
CHAPTER I
The snow had begun in the second week of December. It was hailed with joy by the entire infant population of the country; by the Press, which had already exhausted such time-worn copy as is to be culled from November fogs, and was at a loss to fill the hiatus that lies between “Collisions in the Channel” and “Christmas Shopping,” and by those inveterate sentimentalists who care not how bitter the weather may be, provided it is “seasonable.”
A white Christmas was predicted. Winter-sport enthusiasts routed their skis out from the attics where they had lain hidden for a twelvemonth, and less fortunate people, who had never set eyes on a Swiss mountain, spent happy hours fitting runners on to soap boxes, pessimistically aware that at any moment the snow might turn to sleet, and the fair, untrodden fields of virgin white to black slush. But for once it seemed that they were to be pleasantly disappointed. Day after day they woke to see the snow-flakes drifting slowly past the windows; and day after day the drifts rose higher and higher in the country lanes, until even the children grew tired of snowballing and turned to the contemplation of their chilblains, and the adult population of the country began to look upon “seasonable weather” as a rather grim joke.
And then it got beyond a joke. Conditions reached a point at which th
ey ceased to be funny and became merely irksome and annoying. Posts were late; the milk did not arrive in the morning; gutters and drains got stopped up in the evening, when it was too dark to see to clear them; and even the most confirmed among the sentimentalists began to grumble.
And still the snow went on. And, inevitably, the slow-moving but irrepressible sense of humour of the English reasserted itself, the absurdity of the situation caught their fancy, and the whole business became a joke once more. Within five days of Christmas the roads showed signs of becoming so blocked that it was doubtful whether the holiday-makers would reach their destinations, while the holly and turkeys destined for the delectation of those who had wisely elected to stay at home seemed unlikely to reach London at all. In spite of which, transport, though difficult, had not yet become impossible, and “going away for Christmas” had merely taken on the proportions of a gigantic game, in which the would-be holiday-maker pitted himself gleefully enough against Nature, and usually managed to win out in the end.
It was in this spirit that Angus Stuart set out to spend Christmas at Redsands. Indeed, it would have taken more than a snowfall to abash him, for he had only lately achieved a condition of serene content that would probably never again be his in this life. Love might come to him and possibly fame, but once only can a man taste success in the full tide of his youth and vigour; once only, after a period of sordid poverty, can he watch his bank balance swell in a few months to proportions he had never dared dream of; once only, and, when one is twenty-three this is perhaps the greatest bliss of all, can he prove himself right in the face of his disapproving elders.
Small wonder that Stuart was a little fey that morning when, in defiance of the ominous list of blocked roads which had issued from his (brand-new) loud speaker the night before, he climbed into the car that had been his for barely a month and set out for the most expensive pleasure resort on the map of England. Whether he succeeded in reaching it or not was, on the whole, immaterial to him. Less than a year ago he would have had his expenses scheduled to the last farthing, and any hitch on his journey, if it entailed the added cost of a night’s lodging, would have curtailed his Christmas holiday proportionately. Now, for the first time, he was realizing the power of money. He would put up anywhere he chose, no matter how expensive the hotel, and even should he wreck the car on the road, the disaster would be one he would be able to face financially. For, with a suddenness that even now took his breath away, he had become that most fortunate of mortals—the author of a best seller.
Three years before, in the face of the strident disapproval of an apoplectically-inclined father, a mother whose capacity for tears had been a weapon that until then had never failed her, two aunts, the one gloomy, the other acid, and an abominably level-headed and capable elder brother, he had thrown up a job which would in all probability have ended in a partnership. When, as an excuse for this act of wanton folly and ingratitude, he had explained that his first novel was already in the hands of a publisher, and that he proposed to become a writer of books, there had ensued a scene which he was still trying in vain to forget.
Six hours later he was in London with only twenty pounds and the problematical royalties of an as yet unpublished novel between him and starvation. For two years he had scratched a living out of the bare husk which, in his innocence, he had once glorified by the name of Art; but in the meagre hours snatched jealously from the hack work he did not dare refuse, he had managed to produce two more novels, and with the second his luck had turned. As in a dream he had watched the editions multiply; had sold the film rights for what had seemed to him then an incredible sum; had dealt graciously with editors who but a few months before had been known to him only by the slight variations in the wording of their printed rejection slips; and, at last, still dazed with the magnitude of his own success, had found himself blinking inanely across the footlights at an enthusiastic audience on the first night of the dramatization of his book.
And now he was on his way to Redsands, an expedition which, as he quite realized, was only another manifestation of that slight inebriation from which he had been suffering of late. He had never broken with his people, though during the lean years he had avoided seeing them, and when his mother had written, taking it for granted that he would accept his father’s belated suggestion that he should spend Christmas at home, he could not quite stifle a feeling of resentment. Conceit had never been one of his failings, but he was human enough to feel that the invitation had followed a little too closely on the heels of his success. It was no doubt some unconscious reaction that had made him choose Redsands—the latest, most exclusive and expensive of coast resorts—as an alternative to the fatted calf at home. In his present state of elation he took no account of the fact that he was by nature shy, and inclined to be awkward in the presence of strangers. And among strangers he would certainly find himself, for not only had he no acquaintances there, but he had never at any period of his life mixed with the kind of people who go to such places as a matter of course.
It was not until his thoughts had begun to turn towards lunch that it dawned on him that he had taken close on three hours to travel less than fifty miles. Also, it was snowing more heavily than when he had started, and the roads were becoming noticeably worse. For some time driving had been not only difficult, but actually dangerous, and twice he had narrowly escaped ditching the car. The strain and the cold were beginning to tell on him, and he realized that, unless the snow stopped soon, the roads would become almost impassable.
He had already made up his mind to put up at the first decent inn he came to, when he arrived at the hill that was destined during the next few days to prove the undoing of many a better car than his.
His attention was first drawn to its possibilities the forlorn little group which had parked itself at the bottom. Three of the cars had obviously shirked the ascent. A lorry, now firmly lodged in the snow-filled ditch, had had a shot at it, and a big Rolls, slued half way across the road, had evidently only escaped a similar fate by backing into the lorry. A very aged person, with a sack round his shoulders, was observing the wreckage with a certain dour satisfaction.
“You’d better bide where you be, sir,” he piped planting himself in the path of Stuart’s car, “or she’ll be on top of ’ee. Oy, there she come!”
His voice rose to an exultant squeak, and Stuart became aware of a large touring car majestically pursuing its inexorable way backwards down the hill towards them. It was gathering momentum with every yard, and Stuart, with a hasty glance behind him prepared to back out of harm’s way. But the wearer of the sack seemed quite prepared to deal with the situation. Planted in the middle of the road, he addressed the chauffeur, whose anxious face could just be seen peering from the driver’s seat. He was doing his best to keep the car straight, but, with the wheels locked and the car gathering speed each moment as it skidded down the steep incline, he was finding it a difficult business.
“Turn ’er into the ditch there, just ahead o’ tha’ lurry, I tell ’ee. Turn ’er in, or you’ll smash, for sure. Turn ’er in, I tell ’ee!” he piped vociferously.
And the chauffeur, seeing nothing else for it, turned her in. There was a thud as the luggage carrier met the bonnet of the Rolls, then the two cars settled down side by side in the snow, and the tension was over.
The chauffeur climbed out and opened the door of the car. After a short and apparently animated discussion he carefully handed out an old lady.
She was short and plump and evidently badly shaken. The chauffeur, who looked himself as if a stiff drink would do him no harm, was obviously at a loss as to what to do with her now that he had got her out into the snow. She was clinging to him with both hands, staring helplessly in the direction of Stuart and the aged yokel, and looked as if at any moment she might collapse in a heap at his feet.
Stuart, remembering the flask he had thrust into his pocket just before leaving, got out of his car and started up the hill towards them. He arrived ju
st as the head of another, rather younger, lady was thrust through the still open door.
“Pull yourself together, Connie!” said the owner sharply. “By the mercy of Providence we are none of us any the worse. Let us be thankful!”
The first old lady continued to stare helplessly at Stuart.
“Eh?” she queried vaguely.
“Trumpet!” ejaculated her companion, with almost vicious intensity.
Stuart, not unreasonably mistaking the word for one not usually employed by old ladies in polite society, stood aghast, his offer of assistance frozen on his lips. Then his eyes fell on the black satin cornucopia dangling from the plump lady’s wrist, and he understood.
At the same moment the chauffeur, rising to the occasion, gently disengaged the hand that was clutching his shoulder and placed the ear-trumpet in it. Mechanically the old lady raised it to her ear.
“Eh?” she repeated.
Her companion bent forward.
“Move away, Connie, and let me get out,” she exclaimed, her voice shrill with suppressed exasperation. “I can’t do anything while you stand there!”
“Move? Where?” murmured the owner of the ear-trumpet helplessly.
Stuart stepped forward and took her gently by the arm. With a start the old lady swung the trumpet violently in his direction, hitting him hard on the mouth.
“If you’ll let me help you,” he shouted valiantly down the orifice, his eyes watering with the pain of the impact. “We’ll try to get a little farther away from the door.”
She allowed him to support her for a few steps, while the other old lady climbed nimbly down into the snow and immediately took charge of the situation.
“Sit here,” she said briskly, brushing the snow off the running board of the car. “This gentleman will help you, I’m sure, and you’ll feel quite all right in a minute. My sister is a little shaken,” she explained to Stuart as, between them, they managed to get her seated. “But she’ll be quite herself after a short rest. She’s not so young as she was, and I must say it was an alarming experience.”