That night he was taking Miss Amber, poor girl, to a state dinner of his relations. They had ten minutes together before the horrors of the ceremony began and she was benign to him about the recovery of the small Gerald. “It was dear of you to ring up and tell me. I love Gerry. Poor Mrs Warnham! I just had to go round to her and she was sweet. But she has been frightened. You’re rather a wonderful person, sir. I didn’t know you were a children’s doctor—as well as a million other things. What was the matter? Mrs Warnham didn’t tell us. It must—”
“Who are ‘us,’ Joan?”
“Why, Lady Chantry was with her. She didn’t tell us what it really was. After we came away Lady Chantry asked me if I knew.”
“But I’m afraid you don’t,” Reggie said. “Joan, I don’t want you to talk about the small Gerry? Do you mind?”
“My dear, of course not.” Her eyes grew bigger. “But Reggie—the boy’s going to be all right?”
“Yes. Yes. You’re rather a dear, you know.”
And at the dinner-table which then received them his family found him of an unwonted solemnity. It was agreed, with surprise and reluctance, that his engagement had improved him: that there might be some merit in Miss Amber after all.
A week went by. He had been separated from Miss Amber for one long afternoon to give evidence in the case of the illegitimate Pekinese when she rang him up on the telephone. Lady Chantry, she said, had asked her to choose a day and bring Mr Fortune to dine. Lady Chantry did so want to know him.
“Does she, though?” said Mr Fortune.
“She was so nice about it,” said the telephone. “And she really is a good sort, Reggie. She’s always doing something kind.”
“Joan,” said Mr Fortune, “you’re not to go into her house.”
“Reggie!” said the telephone.
“That’s that,” said Mr Fortune. “I’ll speak to Lady Chantry.”
Lady Chantry was at home. She sat in her austere pleasant drawing-room, toasting a foot at the fire, a small foot which brought out a pretty leg. Of course she was in black with some white about her neck, but the loose gown had grace. She smiled at him and tossed back her hair. Not a thread of white showed in its crisp brown and it occurred to Reggie that he had never seen a woman of her age carry off bobbed hair so well. What was her age? Her eyes were as bright as a bird’s and her clear pallor was unfurrowed.
“So good of you, Mr Fortune—”
“Miss Amber has just told me—”
They spoke together. She got the lead then. “It was kind of her to let you know at once. But she’s always kind, isn’t she? I did so want you to come, and make friends with me before you’re married, and it will be very soon now, won’t it? Oh, but do let me give you some tea.”
“No tea, thank you.”
“Won’t you? Well, please ring the bell. I don’t know how men can exist without tea. But most of them don’t now, do they? You’re almost unique, you know. I suppose it’s the penalty of greatness.”
“I came round to say that Miss Amber won’t be able to dine with you, Lady Chantry.”
It was a moment before she answered. “But that is too bad. She told me she was sure you could find a day.”
“She can’t come,” said Reggie sharply.
“The man has spoken,” she laughed. “Oh, of course, she mustn’t go behind that.” He was given a keen mocking glance. “And can’t you come either, Mr Fortune?”
“I have a great deal of work, Lady Chantry. It’s come rather unexpectedly.”
“Indeed, you do look worried. I’m so sorry. I’m sure you ought to take a rest, a long rest.” A servant came in. “Won’t you really have some tea?”
“No, thank you. Good-bye, Lady Chantry.”
He went home and rang up Lomas. Lomas, like the father of Baby Bunting, had gone a-hunting. Lomas was in Leicestershire. Superintendent Bell replied: Did Bell know if they had anything new about the unknown murderer?
“Inquiries are proceeding, sir,” said Superintendent Bell.
“Damn it, Bell, I’m not the House of Commons. Have you got anything?”
“Not what you’d call definite, sir, no.”
“You’ll say that on the Day of Judgement,” said Reggie.
It was on the next day that he found a telegram waiting for him when he came home to dress for dinner:
Gerald ill again very anxious beg you will come sending car to meet evening trains.
Warnham
Fernhurst
Blackover.
He scrambled into the last carriage of the half-past six as it drew out of Waterloo.
Mrs Warnham had faithfully obeyed his orders to take Gerald to a quiet place. Blackover stands an equally uncomfortable distance from two main lines, one of which throws out towards it a feeble and spasmodic branch. After two changes Reggie arrived, cold and with a railway sandwich rattling in his emptiness, on the dimly lit platform of Blackover. The porter of all work who took his ticket thought there was a car outside.
In the dark station yard Reggie found only one: “Do you come from Fernhurst?” he called, and the small chauffeur who was half inside the bonnet shut it up and touched his cap and ran round to his seat.
They dashed off into the night, climbing up by narrow winding roads through woodland. Nothing passed them, no house gave a gleam of light. The car stopped on the crest of a hill and Reggie looked out. He could see nothing but white frost and pines. The chauffeur was getting down.
“What’s the trouble?” said Reggie, with his head out of the window: and slipped the catch and came out in a bundle.
The chauffeur’s face was the face of Lady Chantry. He saw it in the flash of a pistol overhead as he closed with her. “I will, I will,” she muttered, and fought him fiercely. Another shot went into the pines. He wrenched her hand round. The third was fired into her face. The struggling body fell away from him, limp.
He carried it into the rays of the headlights and looked close. “That’s that,” he said with a shrug, and put it into the car.
He lit a cigar and listened. There was no sound anywhere but the sough of the wind in the pines. He climbed into the chauffeur’s place and drove away. At the next crossroads he took that which led north and west, and so in a while came out on the Portsmouth road.
That night the frost gathered on a motor-car in a lane between Hindhead and Shottermill. Mr Fortune unobtrusively caught the last train from Haslemere.
When he came out from a matinée with Joan Amber next day, the newsboys were shouting “Motor Car Mystery.” Mr Fortune did not buy a paper.
It was on the morning of the second day that Scotland Yard sent for him. Lomas was with Superintendent Bell. The two of them received him with solemnity and curious eyes. Mr Fortune was not pleased. “Dear me, Lomas, can’t you keep the peace for a week at a time?” he protested. “What is the reason for your existence?”
“I had all that for breakfast,” said Lomas. “Don’t talk like the newspapers. Be original.”
“‘Another Mysterious Murder,’ ’’ Reggie murmured, quoting headlines. “‘Scotland Yard Baffled Again,’ ‘Police Mandarins.’ No, you haven’t a ‘good Press,’ Lomas old thing.”
Lomas said something about the Press. “Do you know who that woman chauffeur was, Fortune?”
“That wasn’t in the papers, was it?”
“You haven’t guessed?”
Again Reggie Fortune was aware of the grave curiosity in their eyes. “Another of our mysterious murders,” he said dreamily. “I wonder. Are you working out the series at last? I told you to look for some one who was always present.”
Lomas looked at Superintendent Bell. “Lady Chantry was present at this one, Fortune,” he said. “Lady Chantry took out her car the day before yesterday. Yesterday morning the car was found in a lane above Haslemere. Lady Chantry was inside. She wore chauffeur’s un
iform. She was shot through the head.”
“Well, well,” said Reggie Fortune.
“I want you to come down and look at the body.”
“Is the body the only evidence?”
“We know where she bought the coat and cap. Her own coat and hat were under the front seat. She told her servants she might not be back at night. No one knows what she went out for or where she went.”
“Yes. Yes. When a person is shot, it’s generally with a gun. Have you found it?”
“She had an automatic pistol in her hand.”
Reggie Fortune rose. “I had better see her,” he said sadly. “A wearing world, Lomas. Come on. My car’s outside.”
Two hours later he stood looking down at the slight body and the scorched wound in that pale face while a police surgeon demonstrated to him how the shot was fired. The pistol was gripped with the rigour of death in the woman’s right hand, the bullet that was taken from the base of the skull fitted it, the muzzle—remark the stained, scorched flesh—must have been held close to her face when the shot was fired. And Reggie listened and nodded. “Yes, yes. All very clear, isn’t it? A straight case.” He drew the sheet over the body and paid compliments to the doctor as they went out.
Lomas was in a hurry to meet them. Reggie shook his head. “There’s nothing for me, Lomas. And nothing for you. The medical evidence is suicide. Scotland Yard is acquitted without a stain on its character.”
“No sort of doubt?” said Lomas.
“You can bring all the College of Surgeons to see her. You’ll get nothing else.”
And so they climbed into the car again. “Finis, thank God!” said Mr Fortune as the little town ran by.
Lomas looked at him curiously. “Why did she commit suicide, Fortune?” he said.
“There are also other little questions,” Reggie murmured. “Why did she murder Bigod? Why did she murder the lady doctor? Why did she try to murder the child?”
Lomas continued to stare at him. “How do you know she did?” he said in a low voice. “You’re making very sure.”
“Great heavens! You might do some of the work. I know Scotland Yard isn’t brilliant, but it might take pains. Who was present at all the murders? Who was the constant force? Haven’t you found that out yet?”
“She was staying near Bigod’s place. She was at the orphanage. She was at the child’s party. And only she was at all three. It staggered me when I got the evidence complete. But what in heaven makes you think she is the murderer?”
Reggie moved uneasily. “There was something malign about her.”
“Malign! But she was always doing philanthropic work.”
“Yes. It may be a saint who does that—or the other thing. Haven’t you ever noticed—some of the people who are always busy about distress they rather like watching distress?”
“Why, yes. But murder! And what possible motive is there for killing these different people? She might have hated one or another. But not all three.”
“Oh, there is a common factor. Don’t you see? Each one had somebody to feel the death like torture—the girl Bigod was engaged to, the girl who was devoted to the lady doctor, the small Gerald’s mother. There was always somebody to suffer horribly—and the person to be killed was always somebody who had a young good life to lose. Not at all nice murders, Lomas. Genus diabolical, species feminine. Say that Lady Chantry had a devilish passion for cruelty—and it ended that night in the motor-car.”
“But why commit suicide? Do you mean she was mad?”
“I wouldn’t say that. That’s for the Day of Judgement. When is cruelty madness? I don’t know. Why did she—give herself away—in the end? Perhaps she found she had gone a little too far. Perhaps she knew you and I had begun to look after her. She never liked me much, I fancy. She was a little—odd—with me.”
“You’re an uncanny fellow, Fortune.”
“My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! I’m wholly normal. I’m the natural man,” said Reggie Fortune.
The Absconding Treasurer
J. Jefferson Farjeon
Joseph Jefferson Farjeon (1883–1955) came from a distinguished family. His grandfather was the American actor Joseph Jefferson, and his father, Benjamin Farjeon, was a prolific and successful novelist, while his sister Eleanor became renowned for her stories and poetry for young people. Farjeon’s crime novels included No. 17; originally a stage play, the story was the source for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1932 thriller Number Seventeen. Dorothy L. Sayers was among his many admirers, saying: “Jefferson Farjeon is quite unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures”. A striking reminder of the enduring appeal of Golden Age crime writing came in late 2014, when the British Library reissue of Farjeon’s Mystery in White became a runaway best-seller.
The short stories that Farjeon wrote early in his career are less well known, and not even the British Library possesses a copy of “The Absconding Treasurer”. We are therefore indebted to Monte Herridge, a very knowledgeable American enthusiast, for tracing and supplying the text of the story. Herridge’s researches, published on the excellent Mystery*File website, have revealed that Farjeon wrote no fewer than fifty-seven stories featuring Detective X. Crook which originally appeared in Flynn’s/Detective Fiction Weekly between 1925 and 1927. They are straightforward stories when compared to Farjeon’s later work, but they display his developing craftsmanship as a writer of mysteries.
***
“I be secretary of the Slate Club, d’ye see,” said Mr Jenks, nervously rubbing his somewhat stubbly chin, “and so, naterally, I do feel sort o’ responsible.”
“Naturally,” agreed Detective Crook. “But no one suspects you of having run off with the money?”
“’Ow could they?” responded Mr Jenks, frowning heavily. “I ain’t run off. I be ’ere. Well, then.” He rubbed his chin again. “But Mr Parkins, the treasurer—well, ’e ain’t ’ere, d’ye see? And ’twas ’im ’ad the money. And the money ain’t ’ere.”
“So, of course, Mr Parkins is suspected, not you,” nodded the detective. “That’s quite obvious. When was the sharing out to have been?”
Mr Jenks looked doleful. They were sitting in the back room of his toy-shop, and the blinds were half drawn, as though in mourning for the departed cash.
“To-morrer, it was,” he groaned. “And a rare day it was to ’ave been. Ninety-three pound eight-and-twopence—we reckoned it up on’y lars’ night, sir. And twenty-six on us to share it, which was more’n three-pound-ten each, and many on us wantin’ it badly, you may be sure, sir, and some on us spent it already. And Mrs Mason ill, and countin’ on ’er three-pound-ten fer med’cine, and my own son jest lost ’is job, too—”
“Yes, I can imagine it must be a blow to you all,” interposed Crook, “but perhaps we may be able to trace the money yet. You say Mr Parkins and you reckoned up the amount last night?”
“That be right. Lars’ night, it was,” answered the secretary.
“Do you mean you reckoned it out on paper, or actually counted the cash?”
“On paper. But Mr Parkins, ’e ’ad the cash, too, locked away in a drawer. And, I’ll allow, we checked the amount.”
Mr Jenks’ eyes glistened at the memory. It had evidently been a pleasant occasion.
“But how did Mr Parkins happen to have the money there?” was Crook’s next question. “Wasn’t he in rather a hurry to withdraw it from the bank? Or hadn’t it been put in the bank?”
“Oh, ’twas put in the bank, that’s right enough,” exclaimed the secretary. “Mr Parkins was most methodical. That’s why he was chose for treasurer when Mr ’Ardcastle put ’im up, ye see. But ’e got sorter worked up—Christmas excitement, I put it down to—and said ’e’d get the money out, and ’ave plenty o’ time to divide it up.
“‘Why not wait till tomorrer, Jim,’ I said. ‘W’ot’s the ’arm in takin’ it out tod
ay?’ ’e said. ‘Wouldn’t ye like to see it?’ ’e said. ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind,’ I said. So ’e draws it out, and lars’ night round I go to ’is room, and we reckon it up, as I’ve told ye.”
“What is Mr Parkins?”
“Treasurer. ’E be the treasurer—”
“Yes, but what’s his job?”
“Oh, I see. ’E was with Mr ’Ardcastle, the grocer—been ’is assistant for well nigh two year.”
“Married?”
“No. Nor goin’ to be, that I knew on.”
“Where was his room? The room where he kept the money?”
“’E ’ad a bedroom over the shop.”
“And that’s where you last saw him?” asked the detective. Mr Jenks nodded. “What time did you leave his room?”
“’Twas near ten, I reckon. ‘Come for a stroll?’ I said. ‘Walk back with me. Jim?’ ‘Not it,’ ses Jim. ‘Not with all this money lyin’ about.’ And then, when I’m outside, I whistles up to ’is winder, and ’e pops ’is ’ead out, and I said: ‘Lock it away, and come round for a drink,’ but ‘no,’ ’e ses, ‘I’m not leavin’ it.’ And then back I come, sir, and that’s the lars’ we see o’ Jim Parkins. Nex’ mornin’ ’e was gone, ’is bed not slep’ in, and the money was gone. too.”
A silence fell upon them. It was broken by a small voice from the shop.
“Mr Jenks!” called the small voice.
“That you, Elsie?” exclaimed Mr Jenks, and went to the door.
An odd sensation passed through Detective Crook as he overheard the short ensuing conversation.
“Excuse me,” said the small voice, “but mother ses ’as anything been found out, yet, if you please?”
“Nothin,’ ” replied Mr Jenks. “But you go back and tell ’er, we’re doin’ all we can.”
“’Er cough’s awful bad today, Mr Jenks.”
“That’s a shame, that is. Well, you see she takes ’er med’cine reg’ler, then she’ll get better.”
“Thank you, Mr Jenks.”
There was a sound of retreating feet, which suddenly paused as Mr Jenks called out:
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