Silent Nights

by Martin Edwards

  “Hey! Wait a minnit! Santa Claus ’e come by ’ere today, and ’e left somethin’ for you. Now, what was it? Ah—’twas that stockin’ ’anging by the door. Take it down.”

  “Oh, Mr Jenks!” gasped the child.

  “Whoa! Not the big ’un! ’E didn’t leave that ’un. ’Twas the—the middle-size ’un. Ay, that be it. Now run along, my dear—I gotter go back and try and find that money!”

  When Mr Jenks returned to the little back room, he found his visitor in a very thoughtful mood, and watched him hopefully, without speaking. Detectives should not be interrupted.

  “Tell me, was Mr Parkins in financial trouble of any kind?” asked Crook suddenly.

  “Not that I knows on.”

  “Would you say his character was as good as the average?”

  “If it ’adn’t been, ’e’d not ’ave been made treasurer,” responded Mr Jenks. “We always thought ’im honest. Took Mr ’Ardcastle’s word for it. But there—you never know, do we?”

  “No, you never know,” nodded Crook. “Who is this Mr Hardcastle?”

  “E’s boss, where ’e worked.”

  “All right, I think I’ll go and call on him, and also take a look at Parkins’ room.”

  Mr Jenks opened his eyes wide.

  “That be no good!” he exclaimed. “We all on us done that first. There ain’t a penny in it!”

  “I don’t expect there is, Mr Jenks,” answered the detective. “But maybe I’ll find something else.”

  II

  Mr Hardcastle, the grocer, received the detective with considerable pleasure. Though he stood to lose his three-pound-ten, he was troubled less about that than about his assistant, for whose honesty, he told the detective, he would have sworn.

  “Not that there weren’t others who held a different view,” he admitted frankly. “You see, not much was known about him when he first come to our town, and he wouldn’t have found a job here, not if I hadn’t given him a chance.”

  “Why not?” asked Crook.

  “Dunno, sir. Prejudice, I expect. We like our own people, and don’t much care about strangers. And then, as I say, we knew next to nothing about him.”

  “What made you give him a chance?”

  The grocer rubbed his nose, and looked a little puzzled.

  “Danged if I can say, exactly,” he answered. “Something about him, I expect. You can’t explain it, can you? Anyhow, there it was.

  “I took him on, and when my chief assistant got a better job in London, I put Jim in his place.”

  “And he justified himself?”

  “Absolutely.” But the detective noted a slight hesitation, despite the definiteness of the word.

  “Better tell me everything, Mr Hardcastle, if I’m to help you,” he suggested.

  “Yes, you’re right,” frowned the grocer. “It’s true, he never did a wrong thing after I promoted him—until this present business, that is—but, before then—well, I did catch him over a small matter. Nobody knew it but him and me—and you’re the third. He took ten shillings from the till.” The grocer paused, and his frown grew. “He’d got a sister—not quite right in her head. He’s keeping her in a home somewhere.”

  “So there’s our motive,” muttered Crook reflectively. “What happened, after you found him out?”

  Mr Hardcastle shifted rather uncomfortably.

  “I ought to have kicked him off, of course,” he grunted. “But I couldn’t, somehow. You know how it is. I said I’d overlook it, and he bucked up wonderful, and when this chance came—well, I thought it might just do the trick and make a man of him. Some of us are only waiting for a bit of trust from other folk to give us the right view of things. Or don’t you agree?”

  “Of course, I agree,” said Crook. “Many a man has gone wrong through mere suspicion.”

  “Now, there you are! That’s how I argued. So I gave him the chance, and I went further, and proposed him for the treasurer of our Slate Club when I’d been asked to take it on and didn’t want to.”

  Crook shook his head slightly.

  “You were right to take a risk on the man yourself,” he commented, “but were you right to take a risk on other people’s money?”

  Mr Hardcastle did not reply. Instead, he rose and walked to a desk. For a few seconds he remained there writing, and then he returned to the detective with what he had written.

  “There’s my check,” he said bluntly. “Ninety-three pounds eight-and-twopence. If you don’t trace that money, Mr Crook, hand that to Mr Jenks tomorrow.”

  Crook took the slip of paper, looked at it, and then looked at the grocer.

  “You’re a white man, Mr Hardcastle,” he said.

  “Not a bit,” came the gruff retort. “It’s what I ought to do. When I proposed Jim for treasurer, I said to myself that I’d stand the racket if things did go wrong. Well, I stand by my word, whether it’s down on paper or not. So please say no more about it. Only,” he added, with a faint smile, “I’m not a millionaire, and if you can catch the silly young devil, I’m not saying I won’t be glad.”

  “I’ll do my best,” replied the detective. “I’d like to see his room now, if I may.”

  The room in which Jim Parkins had slept—though not on the night of the theft—was at the back of the building. It was on the first floor, and its small window overlooked a narrow street. There was a side door below the window, and it was out of this side door he had undoubtedly gone, for it had been found open in the morning, and all the other doors were locked.

  “He’d naturally go by that door,” added the grocer. “Just down one flight of stairs, and passing nobody’s bedroom. Easy!”

  “The door was found wide open?”

  “Wide.”

  “I should have thought he’d have closed it behind him,” commented Crook.

  “A man in a hurry don’t always think of those things,” answered Mr Hardcastle.

  “Perhaps not.” Crook turned to the bed, and noted its disorder. “You said the bed had not been slept in?”

  “Nor had it. It wasn’t like that this morning. But we’ve turned the place upside down, looking for the money.”

  “You had small hope of finding it!”

  “That’s right. But there was one or two in here near went off their heads! Ted Blake even ripped up the mattress!” He pointed to a slash in the bedding, and then turned to a small chest in a corner. “And he smashed that drawer, getting it finally open!”

  “This chair’s broken.”

  “Ay, and I saw it broke. Joe Binder sat upon it a bit too hard this morning through emotion. A leg was loose.”

  “There seems to have been a good deal of emotion flying around,” smiled Crook. “I shall be quite half an hour in this room, Mr Hardcastle, if you’ve anything else to do.”

  III

  Mr Hardcastle took the hint and departed. Left alone, Detective Crook made a thorough examination of the little room, taking his full time over it. Then he descended the narrow flight to the side door, examined that, and emerged into the lane.

  A small group of villagers, standing outside a cottage on the opposite side, watched him, and one or two straggled forward.

  “Be you a detective?” asked one.

  “You never know,” replied Crook.

  “Haw, haw,” guffawed the speaker awkwardly. “Well, if you be, are you goin’ to find that money for us?”

  “You never know,” repeated Crook, smiling.

  “’E’s a close ’un!” exclaimed the other, nudging his neighbour. “But that’s what I’d do, if I was a ’tec!” He turned back to Crook. “’E must ’ave slipped out quiet, mustn’t ’e? Ted Blake ’ere never ’eard ’im, and ’e sleeps oppersit.”

  “Wish I ’ad! ” grunted Blake. “’E’d not ’ave got far, blast ’im!”

  “Y
ou sleep too ’eavy, Ted,” retorted the first speaker. “What’s goin’ to ’appen to my Christmas turkey?”

  “Perhaps I’ll find the money for you,” said Crook.

  Blake whistled. “P’r’aps ’e’s got it already,” he said with a wink, “and ’ll pop it down our chimney into our stockin’s, fer a Christmas surprise!”

  “Yer never know!” chorused the others. Crook passed on, with a smile, and wended his way to the post office. Here he made a request to the postmaster, and a few minutes later an elderly, keen-eyed man was standing before him. Jerry Lupton had delivered letters in the district for over eighteen years.

  “More dust than mud these days, isn’t there?” began the detective.

  The postman agreed, a little wonderingly.

  “Ay, it’s been dry, sir, that it has,” he nodded.

  “All the same,” continued Crook, “I see you’ve got a little red mud on your left foot. Where did you pick that up?”

  “Eh?” queried the postman, and gazed down at his boot. “Can’t say.”

  “Don’t give up at the start!” reproved Crook. “Have a think.”

  The postman thought. He thought for three minutes. Again he shook his head.

  “Can’t say,” he repeated.

  “Come, come,” insisted Crook. “I think better of you than that! No one knows this district better than you! Isn’t there a spot somewhere where the ground is slightly reddish? Get pictures into your mind!

  “Here’s a long, white road—here’s a bit of yellow, sandy soil—here’s brown earth—this is almost black—and now, here, is some reddish earth. And it must be near water—a spring, or a river, or a brook, for the weather’s been dry lately—”

  “Got it!” cried the postman, all at once. “Shooter’s Wood! That’d be the place now!”

  “Well done!” exclaimed Crook, and his eye lightened. “Where is Shooter’s Wood? And when were you last there?”

  Jerry Lupton told him. It was a small wood at the far end of the town. He only went through it once a day, to deliver letters, when there were any, at a small cottage on the farther edge.

  It was just in his district, and many a time he’d wished it weren’t. A path ran through the wood to the cottage, and midway the path was traversed by a stream running at right angles to it. Yes, the earth was certainly reddish about there, and he must have trod on a bit of moist bank. That would explain his boot satisfactorily.

  Detective Crook thanked him, received directions, and after giving the postman strict instructions to tell no one of their conversation, set out for Shooter’s Wood. He walked at a fair pace, yet he gave no appearance of hurry, and his eyes missed nothing on the way.

  In less than ten minutes he was in the wood. In another five he had reached the little brook. It ran lazily across the track, disappearing in the thick trees on either side.

  Crook stood still for a few seconds, taking in the picture. Then he began to move slowly toward the left, keeping near the bank of the stream. A low branch of one of the trees attracted his attention. It had been snapped off.

  The stream led him into a spot where the trees thickened considerably. Crook noticed that the undergrowth was downtrodden. He pursued his way with slow steps, but with a quickening sensation in his heart. Coming round a bush, he stopped.

  IV

  Lying on the ground, on its face, was a body.

  Crook’s lips tightened, but he gave no other outward sign of emotion. Stooping swiftly, he felt the body. It was cold. It had been dead several hours.

  The cause of death was apparent. That was, the immediate cause. Beneath the man’s head, which the detective gently raised, was the spiked stump of a tree. The man had fallen, or been struck or thrown, and the spike had finished the job.

  Carefully and tenderly, Crook lifted the body slightly, turning it a little on its side, and as he did so an exclamation escaped him. Tightly grasped in one hand was a stout brown envelope.

  Even before he took the envelope from the dead man’s hand, and opened it, the detective knew what it contained. It contained ninety-three pounds in notes, eight shillings in silver, and two coppers.

  But there were other things on the envelope which, to the detective’s experienced eye, were even more important. There were fingerprints. Some were small. The fingers of the dead man were small. Other of the fingerprints were big.

  The detective rose from his examination of the recumbent figure, and gazed around. The wood was ghostly and silent, save for the faint trickling of the water of the stream as it ran along its red bed, to emerge for a moment at a public track that its secret might be revealed, and then lose itself again in the woods beyond.

  With the envelope in his pocket, Detective Crook retraced his way back to the track, and returned slowly to the village. Mr Hardcastle raised his head quickly as he saw him coming toward his shop, and exclaimed:

  “Ah! I wonder if he’s found anything?”

  “I wunner,” murmured Mr Jenks, who had called to discuss the one and only topic.

  A moment later the detective entered.

  “Well?” cried Mr Hardcastle and Mr Jenks together.

  “I’ve got your money,” replied Crook quietly.

  Two mouths opened wide.

  “What’s that?” exclaimed the grocer. “You’ve—you’ve found it?”

  “Yes. And I’ve found something else not quite so pleasant, I’m afraid.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve found Jim Parkins, Mr Hardcastle. He’s lying on his face, dead, in Shooter’s Wood.”

  There was a silence. Mr Jenks suddenly choked a little, and Mr Hardcastle stared glassily in front of him.

  “What’s that you’re saying?” he muttered at last. “Jim—dead?”

  “Yes. He was holding this envelope.” The detective laid the envelope on the table, and they fixed their eyes on it, in fearful fascination.

  “The Lord’s hand descended on ’im,” piped Mr Jenks unsteadily.

  “No—not the Lord’s,” came the detective’s gentle voice. “The hand of somebody rather less than the Lord.” He turned to the grocer. “You were right in your estimation of your assistant. Mr Hardcastle. He was a white man, like yourself—and it may give you pleasure to remember that it was your kindliness helped to turn him white.”

  “I—I don’t understand this,” muttered Mr Hardcastle.

  “It’s quite simple,” answered Crook. “That money was stolen from Jim Parkins last night, shortly after Mr Jenks left him, and Parkins followed the thief and regained the money. But it cost him his life.”

  “You mean—the thief killed him?” whispered Mr Hardcastle.

  “Not intentionally, I imagine. In the struggle—as I picture it—Parkins got the envelope back, and was knocked down, or fell, immediately afterward. He fell on a sharp tree-stump, and, I should say, was killed instantly.”

  “But, if that be so,” exclaimed Mr Jenks. “why didn’t the thief take the money back again?”

  “Because, at the moment, fear was greater than greed,” responded Crook. “When he found out what he had done, he fled. It involves less courage to take a chance on being caught as a thief than as a murderer.”

  The truth of this sank in.

  “How did you come to find poor Jim?” asked Mr Hardcastle quietly.

  “Ay, and ’oo done it?” cried Mr Jenks.

  There were tears in the old man’s indignant voice; and also, Crook noticed, in his eyes.

  “Let me tell you my theory,” said the detective, “and correct me where you think I am wrong. You remember, Mr Jenks, you whistled up to Jim Parkins’ window after you left him last night, and tried to get him to come out with you?” Mr Jenks nodded. “Will you repeat what you called up to him—the words you repeated to me?”

  “‘Lock it away,’ I said, ‘and come round
for a drink.’’’

  “And he replied, ‘I’m not leavin’ it.’ Now, suppose somebody overheard that conversation—”

  “They wouldn’t know it was money,” interposed Mr Hardcastle.

  “They might think it was something valuable, all the same,” replied Crook, “and they might—if they knew that he was treasurer of the Slate Club—even guess that it was money.”

  “That’s true,” admitted Mr Hardcastle. “Well?”

  “Suppose the person who overheard whistled up at the window after Mr Jenks had left, and, concealing himself, went on whistling till Jim Parkins came down? It would be easy—Jim Parkins being a small man—to knock him on the head, slip up to his room, and run off with the money. And if Jim came to just as the thief was getting away, he would probably chase him.”

  “He would,” agreed his listeners.

  “Then my theory is that Jim chased the thief to Shooter’s Wood, the thief trying unsuccessfully to shake him off. When they came to the stream, they turned up along the banks, and at last Jim caught his man, and managed in the struggle to get the money back. But he was killed the next minute, as I’ve told you.”

  “Yes, but you ain’t told us ’oo killed ’im!” exclaimed Mr Jenks.

  “I am coming to that,” answered Crook slowly. “It was a man on whose boots I saw traces of the red mud that led me to Shooter’s Wood. It was a man who, while I was speaking to him, whistled at one of my remarks, and put an idea into my head—an idea which, in itself, might not have been worth considering, but which was worth considering coupled with the red mud.

  “The man lives opposite the window of Jim’s bedroom, so might easily have overheard the conversation. And he left his finger-marks both on the envelope you are now looking at, and also, I imagine, on the locked drawer he was so anxious to prize open this morning—knowing that he would find nothing in it.”

  “You mean Ted Blake?” ejaculated Mr Hardcastle.

  “Ted Blake killed Jim Parkins,” responded Crook. “His enthusiasm when searching Jim’s room this morning was merely an obvious and clumsy attempt to divert possible suspicion from himself as far as he could.”

  “Ted Blake!” repeated Mr Hardcastle, while Mr Jenks murmured, “I never did like that feller, not since ’e broke my toy windmill an’ refoosed to pay for the mendin’. ”