The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  Detective Gillett took a stroll over to “Beverley” in order to interview young Tom. The house, an old stone building, stood in the midst of its grounds—well away from the sea—on a gentle eminence which commanded an extensive view of the rolling downs for many miles around, but the old stone building was sheltered from the fury of Channel gales by a plantation of elm-trees.

  The detective found his man digging in the kitchen-garden and preparing the ground for the spring sowing. Young Tom was a thickset man of middle age with a large round face that he had inherited from his father. He was a man of slow thought, slow actions, and hard to move once he had made up his mind. According to Gillett’s standards his appearance scarcely justified the parental description of him as a clever lad.

  The detective was not an expert in gardening, his life having been spent in congested areas of London where the luxury of a plot of ground is unknown, but something in young Tom’s method of digging attracted his attention. It was obvious that young Tom was not putting much energy into the operation. The fact that his shirt-sleeves were not rolled up but were buttoned at the wrist seemed to bear out this opinion. With his heavy boot young Tom pressed down the spade vigorously, but he brought up only a thin spadeful of earth each time. Then with his spade in his right hand he twisted the blade among the earth so as to break it up.

  Detective Gillett brought the conversation round from the weather and vegetable growing to his recent visit to young Tom’s father. He spoke of the legacy and expressed regret that old Tom, who if he had his rights would be able to pay for proper care and nourishment, should have had to go to the infirmary. But, according to Detective Gillett, even adversity had its uses. The fact that old Tom was practically bedridden when the murder was committed prevented the idle gossip of the town from trying to connect him with the tragedy.

  The detective had not expected to find in young Tom a fluent conversationalist, but after a few moments he came to the conclusion that he was a more than ordinarily hesitating one, even according to the slow standard of Ashlingsea. Apparently young Tom did not want to discuss the murder. Detective Gillett kept the conversation on that subject and soon arrived at the conclusion that young Tom was uneasy. It came to him suddenly that what was wrong with the man’s method of digging was that to all practical purpose he was using only one arm. Young Tom was careful not to put any weight on his left arm.

  “What is wrong with your arm?” exclaimed the detective in an imperative tone.

  Tom stopped digging and looked at him.

  “Nothing,” he replied in a surly tone.

  “Let me have a look,” said the detective, stepping towards him.

  “No, I won’t,” answered young Tom, stepping back slowly.

  Gillett looked him over from head to foot as if measuring him. His eyes rested on the man’s boots, and then turned to an impression made on the soft earth by one of the boots.

  “I want you to come along to the police station with me,” he said suddenly.

  “What for?” asked Tom in a tone of defiance.

  Gillett looked him over again as if to assure himself that he had made no mistake in his first measurements.

  “I’ll tell you when you get there,” was the reply.

  “I had nothing to do with it,” said Tom.

  It was plain to Gillett that the man was undergoing a mental strain.

  “With what?” asked the detective.

  “With what you want to ask me about.”

  For a clever lad young Tom seemed to be making a hash of things.

  “I have not said what it is,” said Gillett.

  “But I know,” said Tom.

  If that was the extent of young Tom’s cleverness it seemed to be leading him in the direction of the gallows.

  “You think it is about this murder?” suggested Gillett.

  There was a long silence. Gillett kept his eyes steadily on his man, determined not to help him out by substituting another question for the plain one that Tom found it so difficult to answer.

  “I’ll come with you to the police station,” said Tom at length. “But you go first and I’ll follow you behind.”

  It was obvious to Detective Gillett that Tom wanted to avoid giving the village cause for gossip by his being taken to the police station by a detective. The detective was not disposed to consider Tom’s feelings, but he reflected that his main purpose was to get Tom to the station, and that since he was not prepared to arrest Tom at present it was desirable to get him there as quietly as possible.

  “No,” he said. “You go on ahead and I’ll follow.”

  Tom accepted this plan and walked up the village street to the police station with the detective about forty yards behind. Constable Heather was in charge of the station, and when he saw Tom he greeted him affably. When Heather was made to realize by Tom’s awkwardness that Detective Gillett was responsible for his visit, he whistled in a significant manner.

  When Gillett entered the building Tom rolled up the sleeve of his left arm and displayed a bandage round the upper part.

  “Do you want to see this?” he asked doggedly.

  “I do,” replied the detective with keen interest. He was anxious as to the nature of the wound, but he was too cautious to display a curiosity which would reveal his ignorance. He assisted at unwinding the bandage.

  “Be careful,” said Tom wincing, as the detective’s hand touched his arm. “The bullet is in it.”

  “Is it?” said Gillett.

  When the bandage was off he examined the wound carefully. It was a bullet wound through the fleshy upper part of the arm, dangerously inflamed and swollen from dirt and neglect.

  “You had better get this attended to,” said Gillett. “There is a risk of blood poisoning and the bullet must be removed. You’ll be more comfortable without that bullet, and I want it.”

  “I had nothing to do with him,” said Tom. He spoke in a loud excited voice. It was evident that he was feeling the strain of being under suspicion.

  “But you were at Cliff Farm the night Frank Lumsden was murdered,” said Gillett, eyeing him closely as he put the question.

  Young Tom nodded a surly admission, but did not speak.

  “What were you doing there? How did you get this?” Detective Gillett pointed to the wound. “Take my advice and make a clean breast of it. I’ll give you five minutes to make up your mind.” Gillett picked up a pair of handcuffs from the office table as he spoke, and jingled them together nonchalantly.

  Young Tom’s ruddy colour faded as he glanced at the handcuffs, and from them his eyes wandered to Police Constable Heather, as though seeking his counsel to help him out of the awkward position in which he found himself. But Police Constable Heather’s chubby face was set in implacable lines, in which young Tom could recognize no trace of the old acquaintance who for years past had made one of the friendly evening circle in the tap-room of The Black-Horned Sheep. Young Tom turned his gaze to the floor and after remaining in silent cogitation for some moments spoke:

  “I was in the garden. It was before the storm came on. I don’t know who killed Frank Lumsden. I didn’t see either of them. They were in the house before I got there. I saw a light in a room upstairs. Then a gun or something of the kind was fired and I felt that I was hit. I got up and ran.”

  “Do you mean that some one fired at you from the house?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “Whereabouts were you?”

  “Just near the cherry-tree at the side of the house.”

  “Did you see who fired it at you?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t anyone call out and ask you what you were doing there?”

  “No.”

  “He just fired—whoever it was.”

  “I heard the gun go off and then I felt a pain in my arm. I touched it and saw it was bleeding. Then I ran and that is all I know.”

  “I want to know a lot more than that,” said Gillett sternly. “Your story won’t hold
water. What were you doing there in the first place? Why did you go there?”

  “I went there to look for the money. I thought there was no one at home and I meant to look for it in the garden round about.”

  “Did you take a spade with you?” asked Gillett.

  “What would I want to do that for?” asked Tom.

  “Well, you can’t dig without a spade,” said Gillett.

  “There’s spades enough in the barn,” said Tom.

  “You meant to dig for the money?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “In the garden.”

  “Whereabouts in the garden? Don’t you know that the garden has been turned over several times?”

  “I’ve heard that, but I wanted to dig for myself.”

  “It would take one man a week to dig over the garden. No one knows that better than you.”

  “I was going to try just near the pear-tree. I count that’s a likely place.”

  “And did you dig there?”

  “No. Didn’t I tell you there was lights in the house when I got there?”

  “A likely story,” sneered the detective. “You went there to dig in the garden, although you knew it had been turned over thoroughly. You didn’t take a spade with you, and you didn’t turn over as much as a single clod. But you came away with a bullet wound in the arm from a house in which the murdered body of the owner was subsequently found.”

  Dull as young Tom was, he seemed to realize that the detective had a gift of making things appear as black as they could be.

  “I’ve told you the truth,” he said obstinately.

  “And I don’t believe a word of your story,” said Detective Gillett.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Crewe spent two days in making investigations at Cliff Farm and at Ashlingsea. He went over the farm very carefully in search of any trace of disturbed ground which might indicate where old James Lumsden had buried the money he had obtained from the sale of his investments. But he found nothing to support the theory that the money had been buried in the fields.

  There were, of course, innumerable places where a few bags of money might be hidden, especially along the brook which ran through the farm, but though Crewe searched along both banks of the brook, as well as in the open fields, he found no trace of disturbed ground. The garden, he ascertained, had been thoroughly searched under the direction of Frank Lumsden.

  Crewe realized that searching for the money without the assistance of the mysterious plan which Marsland had seen on the staircase was almost hopeless, and he was not affected by his failure.

  His inquiries at Ashlingsea concerned the character and habits of the grandfather and the murdered man. In the course of his inquiries about the grandson he went up to London and called on the former employers of Frank Lumsden, and the firm of Messrs. Tittering & Hammings, wholesale leather merchants, gave Frank an excellent character. He had been a sober, industrious, and conscientious clerk, and they were greatly shocked at the fate that had befallen him. They could throw no light on the murder, for they knew of no one who had any enmity against Frank. Inquiries were also made by Crewe at the headquarters of the London Rifle Brigade, in which the young man had enlisted. His military record was good, and threw no light on his tragic fate.

  Crewe returned to Staveley to continue his work on the case. Sir George Granville, in his anxiety to be helpful in solving the mystery, put forward many suggestions to his guest, but they were not of a practical kind. On points where Crewe did ask for his host’s assistance, Sir George was unable to respond, in spite of his eagerness to play a part in the detective’s investigations. For instance. Sir George was not able to give any information about the old boatman whom Crewe and Marsland had seen at the landing-place, at the foot of the cliffs near the scene of the tragedy.

  Sir George had often seen the man in the scarlet cloak, and knew that he plied for hire on the front, but he had never been in the old man’s boat, and did not know where he lived or anything about him beyond the fact that he was called Pedro by the Staveley boatmen, and was believed to be an Italian.

  “I’ll tell you what, Crewe,” said Sir George, a bright idea occurring to him as the result of reactionary consciousness that he was not a mine of information in local matters. “You go up and see Inspector Murchison. He’s a rare old gossip. He has been here for a generation and knows everybody and all about them. And mention my name—I’ll give you my card. You will find he will do anything for me. I’d go along with you myself, only I have promised to make a call with Mildred. But Harry will go with you—Harry knows Murchison; I introduced him yesterday on the front.”

  After lunch, Crewe, accompanied by Marsland, walked up to the police station at Staveley to call on Inspector Murchison. The police station was a building of grey stone, standing back in a large garden. It would have been taken for a comfortable middle-class residence but for the official notices of undiscovered crime which were displayed on a black board erected in the centre flower-bed. A young policeman was sitting writing in a front room overlooking the garden, which had been turned into a general office.

  Crewe, without disclosing his name or using Sir George’s card, asked him if he could see the inspector in charge. The young policeman, requesting him to take a seat, said he would inquire if the inspector was disengaged, and disappeared into an inner office. He shortly returned to say that Inspector Murchison would see them, and ushered them into the inner office, where a police officer sat writing at a large desk.

  Inspector Murchison of Staveley was in every way a contrast to Police-Sergeant Westaway of Ashlingsea. He was a large and portly man with a good-humoured smile, twinkling blue eyes, and a protecting official manner which ladies who had occasion to seek his advice found very soothing. He had been stationed at Staveley for nearly thirty years, but instead of souring under his circumscribed existence like Sergeant Westaway, he had expanded with the town, and become more genial and good-tempered as the years rolled on.

  He was a popular and important figure in Staveley, taking a deep and all-embracing interest in the welfare of the town and its inhabitants. He was a leading spirit in every local movement for Staveley’s advancement; he was an authority in its lore, traditions, vital statistics, and local government; he had even written a booklet in which the history of Staveley was set forth and its attractions as a health and pleasure resort were described in superlative terms. He was regarded by the residents as a capable mentor and safe guide in all affairs of life, and was the chosen receptacle of many domestic confidences of a delicate and important nature. Husbands consulted him about their wives’ extravagance; wives besought him to warn husbands against the folly of prolonged visits to hotels on the front because there happened to be a new barmaid from London.

  It was striking proof of Inspector Murchison’s rectitude that, although he was the repository of as many domestic histories as a family physician or lawyer, none of the confidences given him had ever become common gossip. For all his kindly and talkative ways, he was as secret and safe as the grave, despite the fact that he had a wife and five grown-up daughters not less curious than the rest of their sex. He was an efficient police officer, carefully safeguarding the public morals and private property entrusted to his charge, and Staveley shopkeepers, as they responded to his smiling salutations when he walked abroad, felt that they could sleep in peace in their beds, safe from murder, arson, or robbery, while his portly imposing official personality guarded the town.

  Inspector Murchison swung round on his office chair as Crewe and Marsland were brought in by the young policeman.

  “What can I do for you, gentlemen?” he asked courteously.

  “This is Mr. Crewe,” said Marsland. “Mr. Crewe has been making inquiries about the murder at Cliff Farm.”

  “Glad to see you both,” said Inspector Murchison, extending his hand. “If I can be of any assistance to Mr. Crewe he has only to say so. Of course I’ve heard all about the murder at Cliff Far
m. It was you who discovered the body, Mr. Marsland. A terrible affair. Poor, inoffensive Frank Lumsden! I knew him well, and his grandfather too—a queer old stick. Buried his money where no one can find it. And that is what is at the back of this murder, Mr Crewe, I have no doubt.”

  “It certainly looks like it,” said Crewe.

  “What is your opinion, inspector, with regard to the money?” asked Marsland. “Do you think that young Lumsden found it and refused to pay the legacies, or that it has never been found?”

  “It has never been found,” said Inspector Murchison in a positive tone. “I’m quite certain of that. Why, it is scarcely more than a week ago that young Lumsden and his friend Brett came to ask me if I could throw any light on it. They had a mysterious looking cryptogram that young Lumsden had found among his grandfather’s papers, and they were certain that it referred to the hidden money. They showed it to me, but I could not make head or tail of it. I recommended them to go and see a man named Grange who keeps a second-hand book shop in Curzon Street, off High Street. He’s a bibliophile, and would be able to put them on the track of a book about cryptograms, even if he hadn’t one in stock himself.”

  “What was the cryptogram like?” asked Marsland. “Was it like this?” He took up a pen from the table and attempted to reproduce a sketch of the mysterious document he had found on the stairs at Cliff Farm.

  “Something like that,” said the inspector. “How do you come to know about it?”

  “I found it at the dead man’s house before I discovered the body. I left it there, but it was stolen between the time I left the house and when I returned with Sergeant Westaway. At any rate it has not been seen since.”

  “Ah,” said the inspector, “there you have the motive for the murder.”

  “You spoke just now of young Lumsden’s friend, Brett,” said Crewe. “Who is Brett?”