Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  Inspector French slowly expelled a cloud of gray cigar smoke from his mouth.

  ‘Really, Speedwell, you have surpassed yourself,’ he murmured. ‘Your story, as I told you, sounds like a novel. A pity though, that having gone so far you did not go a little farther. You did not find out, for example, what business this mysterious quartet were plotting?’

  ‘I did not, Mr French,’ the man returned earnestly. ‘I gathered that it was connected with “the tracing” that Dangle spoke of, and I imagined the tracing was what they had been wanting from Mr Cheyne, and evidently had got, but I didn’t get a sight of it, and I have no idea of their game.’

  ‘And did you find out nothing that might be a help? Where did those three men spend their time? What did they do in the day-time?’

  ‘Just what I told Mr Cheyne, sir. I gave him perfectly correct information in everything. Dangle is a town sharp and helps run a gambling room in Knightsbridge. Sime is another of the same—collects pigeons in the night clubs for the others to pluck. Blessington, I got the hint, lived by blackmail, but I’ve no proof of this.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No, Mr French, not that I know. Unless’—he hesitated—‘unless one thing. It may or may not be important; I don’t know. It’s this: Dangle, during these last three or four weeks, has been away nearly half the time from London—on the Continent. I don’t know to what country, but it must be France or Belgium or Holland, I should think—or maybe Ireland—because he has crossed over one night and crossed back the next. I know that because of a remark I overheard him make to Sime in a tube lift where I was standing just behind him. It was a Wednesday and he said: “I’m crossing tonight, but I’ll be back on Friday morning.”’

  This seemed to be the sum total of Speedwell’s knowledge, or at least all he would divulge, and he presently, departed, apparently cheered by French’s somewhat cryptic declaration that he would not forget the part the other had played in the affair. He perhaps would not have been so pleased had he heard French’s subsequent comments to Cheyne. ‘A dangerous man, Mr Cheyne, for an amateur to deal with, though he’s too much afraid of the Yard to try any monkeying with me. I may tell you in confidence that he was dismissed from the force on suspicion of taking bribes to let a burglar get away—I needn’t say the thing couldn’t be proved, or he would have seen the inside of a convict prison, but there was no doubt at all that he was guilty. Since that he has been caught sailing rather close to the wind, but again he just managed to keep himself safe. But the result is, he would do anything to curry favour here, and indeed once or twice he has been quite useful. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he has been blackmailing Blessington & Co., in connection with your attempted murder.’

  ‘Ugh!’ Cheyne made a gesture of disgust. ‘The very sight of the man makes me sick:’ Then, his look of anxious eagerness returning, he went on: ‘But, Inspector, his story is all very well and interesting and all that, but I don’t see that it helps us to find Miss Merrill, and that is the only thing that matters.’

  ‘The only thing to you, perhaps,’ French returned, ‘but not the only thing to me. This whole business looks uncommonly like conspiracy for criminal purposes, and if so, it automatically concerns the Yard.’ He glanced at the clock on the wall before his desk. ‘Let’s see now, it’s just five o’clock. Before giving up for the day I should like to have a look over Miss Merrill’s room to settle that little question of the fur coat, and I should like you to come with me. Shall we go now?’

  Cheyne sprang to his feet eagerly. Action was what he wanted, and his heart beat more rapidly at the prospect of visiting a place where every object would remind him of the girl he loved, and whom, in spite of himself, he feared he had lost. Impatiently he waited while French put on his hat and left word where he could be found in case of need.

  Some fifteen minutes later the two men were ascending the stairs of the house in Horne Terrace. The door of No. 12 was shut, and to Cheyne’s knock there was no response.

  ‘I’m afraid you needn’t expect Miss Merrill to have got back,’ French commented. ‘I had better open the door.’

  He worked at it for a few moments, first with his bunch of skeleton keys, then with a bent wire, until the bolt shot back, and pushing open the door, they entered the room.

  It was just as Cheyne had last seen it except that the kettle and tea equipage had been tidied away. French stood in the middle of the floor, glancing keenly round on the contents. Then he moved to the other door.

  ‘This her bedroom?’ he inquired, as he pushed it open and looked in.

  As Cheyne followed him into the tiny apartment, he felt as a devout Mohammedan might, who through stress of circumstances entered fully shod into one of the holy places of his religion. It seemed nothing short of profanation for himself and this commonplace inspector of police to intrude into a place so hallowed by association with Her. In a kind of reverent awe he looked about him. There was the bed in which She slept, the table at which She dressed, the wardrobe in which Her dresses hung, and there—what were those? He stood, stricken motionless by surprise, staring at a tiny pair of rather high-heeled brown shoes which were lying on their sides on the floor in front of a chair.

  French noted his expression.

  ‘What is it?’ he queried, following the direction of the other’s eyes.

  ‘Her shoes!’ Cheyne said in a tone of wonder, as he might have said: ‘Her diamond coronet.’

  French frowned.

  ‘Well, what’s wonderful about that?’ he asked with the nearest approach to sharpness in his tone that Cheyne had yet heard.

  ‘Her shoes,’ Cheyne repeated. ‘Her shoes that she wore last night.’

  It was now French’s turn to look interested.

  ‘Sure of that?’ he asked, picking up the shoes.

  ‘Certain. I saw them on her in the train to Wembley Park. Unless she has two absolutely identical pairs, she was wearing those.’

  French had been turning the shoes over in his hand.

  ‘You said you saw a mark of where someone had slipped on the bank behind the wall you threw the tracing over,’ he went on. ‘You might describe that mark.’

  ‘It was just a kind of scrape on the sloping ground, with the footprint below it. Her foot had evidently slipped down till it came to a firmer place.’

  ‘Right foot or left?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And which way was the toe pointing: towards the bank or parallel with it?’

  ‘Parallel. She had evidently climbed up diagonally.’

  ‘Quite so. Now another question. If you were standing in the field looking towards the bank, did she climb towards the right hand or the left?’

  ‘The left.’

  ‘And the soil where the mark was; you might describe that.’

  ‘It was rather light in colour, a yellowish brown. It was clayey, and the print showed clearly, like as it would in stiff putty.’

  French nodded.

  ‘Then, Mr Cheyne, if all your data is right, and if the footprint was made by Miss Merrill when she was wearing these shoes, I should expect to find a mark of yellowish clay on the outside of the right shoe. Isn’t that correct?’

  Cheyne thought for a moment, then signified his assent.

  ‘I turn up this shoe,’ French continued, suiting the action to the word, ‘and I find here the very mark I was expecting. See for yourself. I think we may take it then, not only that Miss Merrill made the mark on the bank, and of course made it last night, but also that she was wearing these shoes when she made it. And that would coincide with your observation.’

  ‘But,’ cried Cheyne, ‘I don’t understand. How did the shoes get here? Miss Merrill wasn’t here since we left to go to Wembley Park.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Well, there’s what Dangle said. I don’t mean of course that I believe Dangle. Everything else he’s said to me has turned out to be a lie. But in this case the circumstances seem to prove this sto
ry. If he didn’t see Miss Merrill how did he know of her getting over the wall for the tracing? And if he didn’t capture her then why did she not return here. Or rather, suppose she did return, why should she go away again without leaving a note or sending me a message?’

  French shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘I merely asked the question and your answer certainly seems sound: But now let us look about the coat.’ He opened the wardrobe door. ‘Is the cloth coat she was wearing last night here?’

  A glance showed Cheyne the brown cloth, fur-trimmed coat Joan had worn on the previous evening.

  ‘And you will see further,’ went on French when he had been satisfied on this point, ‘that there is no coat here of musquash fur. You say she had one?’

  ‘Yes. I have seen her wearing it several times.’

  ‘Then I think Mrs Sproule saw her wearing it today. We may take it, I think, either that she returned here last night and changed her clothes, or else that someone brought in her coat and shoes, left them here and took her out others.’

  ‘The latter, I should think,’ Cheyne declared.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t think she would come, here of her own free will and leave again without sending me some message.’

  French did not reply. He had rather taken the view that if the girl was the prisoner of the gang the garments would not have been changed, and the more he thought over it the more probable this seemed. Rather he was inclined to believe that she had reached her rooms after the episode at Earlswood, possibly even with the tracing; that she had been followed there and by some trick induced to leave again, when in all probability she had been kidnapped and the tracing recovered by the gang. But he felt there was no use in discussing this theory with Cheyne, whose anxiety as to the girl’s welfare had rendered his critical faculty almost useless. He turned back to the young man.

  ‘I have no doubt that that shoe of Miss Merrill’s made the mark you saw,’ he observed. ‘At the same time I want definite evidence. It won’t take very long to run out to Wembley and try. Let us go now, and that will finish us for tonight.’

  They took a taxi and were soon at the place in question. The print was not so clear as when Cheyne had seen it first, but in spite of this French had no difficulty in satisfying himself. The shoe fitted it exactly.

  That night after supper, as French stretched himself in his easy-chair, he decided he would have a preliminary look at the tracing. He recognised that the mere fact that it had been handed to Cheyne by Dangle involved the probability that it was not the genuine document but a faked copy. At the same time he was bound to make what he could of it, and it was with very keen interest he unfolded and began to study it.

  It was neatly drawn, though evidently not by a professional draughtsman. The lettering of the words, ‘England expects every man to do his duty’ was amateurish. He wondered what the phrase could mean. It did not seem to ring quite true. In his mind the words ran ‘England expects that every man this day will do his duty,’ but he rather thought this was the version in the song, and if so, the wording might have been altered from the original for metrical reasons. He determined to look up the quotation on the first opportunity. On the other hand it might have been condensed into eight words in order to fit round the sheet. It was spaced in a large circle among the smaller circles like the figures of a clock. It conveyed to him no idea whatever, except the obvious suggestion of Nelson. Could Nelson, he wondered, or Trafalgar, be the key word in some form of cipher?

  As he studied the sheet he noted some points which Cheyne appeared to have missed, or which at all events he had not mentioned. While the circles were spaced without any apparent plan—absolutely irregularly, it seemed to French—there was some evidence of arrangement in their contents. Those nearer the edges of the tracing contained letters, while those more centrally situated bore numbers. There was no hard and fast line, between the two, as letters and numbers appeared, so to speak, to overlap each other’s territory, but broadly speaking the arrangement held. He noticed also a few circles which contained neither numbers or letters, but instead tiny irregular lines. There were only some half dozen of these, but all of them so far as he could see occurred on the neutral territory between the number zone and the letter zone. These irregular lines represented nothing that he could imagine, and no two appeared of the same shape.

  That the document was a cipher he could not but conclude, and in vain he puzzled over it until long past his usual bed-time. Finally, locking it away in his desk, he decided that when he had completed the obvious investigations which still remained, he would have another go at it, working through all the possibilities that occurred to him systematically and thoroughly.

  But before French had another opportunity to examine it, further news had come in which had led him a dance of several hundred miles, and left him hot on the track of the conspirators.

  15

  The Torn Hotel Bill

  On reaching the Yard next morning Inspector French began his day by compiling a list of the various points on which obvious investigations still remained to be made. He had already determined that these should be carried through with the greatest possible despatch, leaving a general consideration of the case over until their results should be available.

  The immediate questions were, of course: Was Joan Merrill alive? And if so, where was she? These must be solved as soon as possible. The further matters relating to the hiding-place and aims of the gang could wait. It was, however, likely enough that if French could find Joan, he would have at least gone a long way towards solving her captors’ secret.

  Perhaps the most promising of all the lines of inquiry open to him were the detailed searches of Blessington’s and Sime’s houses, and he decided he would begin with these. Accordingly, having called Sergeant Carter and a couple more men, he went out to Earlswood and set to work.

  French was extraordinarily thorough. Nothing in that house, from the water cistern space in the roof to the floors of the pantries and the tool shed in the yard—nothing escaped observation. The furniture was examined, particularly the writing-desk and the old escritoire, the carpets were lifted and the floors tested, the walls were minutely inspected for secret receptacles, the pages of the books were turned over, the clothes—of which a respectable wardrobe remained—were gone through, with special attention to the pockets. Nothing was taken for granted: everything was examined. Even the outside of the house and the soil of the garden were looked at, and at the end, some four hours after they had begun, French had to admit that his gains were practically nil.

  The reservation was in respect of four objects, from one or more of which he might conceivably extract some information, though he was far from hopeful. The first was the top sheet of Blessington’s writing-pad. French, following his usual custom, had examined it through a mirror, but so completely covered was it with inkstains that he was unable to decipher even a single word. However, on chance he tore it off and put it in his pocket, in the hope that a future more detailed examination might reveal something of interest.

  The second object was a scrap of crumpled paper which he found in the right-hand upper pocket of one of Dangle’s waistcoats. It looked as if it had been crushed to the bottom of the pocket by some other article—such as an engagement book—being thrust down on the top of it. When the pockets had been cleared—as all had been—this small piece of paper had evidently been overlooked.

  French straightened it out. It was the bottom portion of what was clearly a bill, apparently a French hotel bill. On the back was a note written in pencil, and as French read it, the thought passed through his mind that he could not have imagined any more unexpected or puzzling contents. It was in the form of a memorandum and read:

  . . . . . . ins.

  . . . . . ators.

  Peaches—3 doz. tins.

  Safety Matches—6 doz. boxes.

  Galsworthy—The Forsyte Saga.

  Pencils an
d Fountain Pen Ink.

  Sou’wester.

  The paper was torn across the first two items, so that only part of the words were legible. What so heterogenous a collection could possibly refer to French could not imagine, but he put the fragment in his pocket with the blotting paper for future study.

  The other two objects were photographs, and from the descriptions he had received from Cheyne he felt satisfied that one was of Blessington and the other of Dangle. These were of no help in themselves, but might later prove useful for identification purposes.

  The search of Earlswood complete, French gave his men an hour for lunch, and then started a similar investigation of Sime’s house. He was just as painstaking and thorough here, but this time he had no luck at all. Though Sime had not so carefully destroyed papers and correspondence, he could not find a single thing which seemed to offer help.

  Sime’s house being so much smaller than Blessington’s, the search was finished in little over an hour. On its completion French sent two of his men back to the Yard, while with Sergeant Carter he drove to Horne Terrace. There he examined Joan Merrill’s rooms, again without result.

  The work ended about four, and then he and Carter began another job, quite as detailed and a good deal more wearisome than the others. He had determined to question individually every other person living in the house—that is, the inhabitants of no less than nine flats—in the hope that someone of them might have seen or heard Joan returning to her rooms on the night of her disappearance. In a way the point was not of supreme importance, but experience had taught French the danger of neglecting any clue, no matter how unpromising, and he had long since made it a principle to follow up every opening which offered.