The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  “He lives in Staveley—a young fellow with a little private means. He and Lumsden were close friends—I have often seen them together about the town. They served in the same regiment, were wounded together, taken prisoners together by the Germans, tortured together, and escaped together.”

  “Brett?” exclaimed Marsland in a tone which awakened Crewe’s interest. “I know no one named Brett.”

  “No, of course you wouldn’t know him, Mr. Marsland,” said the inspector genially. “You have not been so long in Staveley that you can expect to know all the residents. It’s not a very large place, but it takes time to know all the people in it.”

  “I was thinking of something else,” said Marsland.

  “What sort of man was Brett to look at?” asked Crewe of the inspector.

  “About the same age as Lumsden—just under thirty, I should say. A thin, slight, gentlemanly looking fellow. Rather a better class than poor Lumsden. I often wondered what they had in common.”

  Crewe, who was watching the effect of this description on Marsland, pressed for further particulars.

  “Average height?” he asked.

  “A little under,” replied the inspector. “Dark complexion with a dark moustache—what there was of it.”

  “I think you said he had been wounded and captured by the Germans?” said Marsland.

  “Tortured rather than wounded,” replied the inspector. “The Germans are fiends, not men. Brett and Lumsden were captured while out in a listening patrol, and because they wouldn’t give their captors any information they were tortured. But these brave lads refused to give the information the Germans wanted, and ultimately they succeeded in making their escape during an attack. I’ve listened to many of the experiences of our brave lads, but I don’t think I’ve heard anything worse than the treatment of Brett and this poor fellow who has been murdered.”

  “Was it at Armentières this happened?” asked Marsland.

  “I think it was,” replied the inspector. “Then you’ve heard the story, too, Mr. Marsland?”

  “No, I was thinking of something else,” he answered.

  “We must look up Brett,” said Crewe. “Just write down his address, inspector—if you don’t mind.”

  “He lives at No. 41 Whitethorn Gardens,” said the police officer. “But I don’t think you will find him there to-day. His landlady, Mrs. Penfield, promised to send me word as soon as he got back. When I heard of this murder I went down to see Brett to find out when he had last seen Lumsden, and to get a statement from him. But he had gone up to London or Liverpool the day before the murder. Mrs. Penfield expects him back early next week, but it is impossible to be certain about his return. The fact is, Mr. Crewe, that he does some secret service work for the Foreign Office, and naturally doesn’t talk much about his movements. He is an excellent linguist I’m told, knows French and Russian and German—speaks these languages like a native.”

  “There is no hurry about seeing him,” said Crewe. “I’ll look him up when he returns. In the meantime will you write down his address for me?”

  Marsland, who was nearer the inspector, took the paper on which the police officer wrote Brett’s address, and before handing it to Crewe looked at it carefully.

  “And now can you tell me anything about an old boatman who wears a scarlet coat?” asked Crewe. “A tall old man, with a hooked nose and white beard?”

  “That’s old Pedro,” replied Inspector Murchison. “He’s well known on the front, although he’s not been here very long, certainly not more than twelve months. But I hope you don’t think Pedro had anything to do with the Cliff Farm murder, Mr. Crewe? We’re rather proud of Pedro on the front, he’s an attraction to the place, and very popular with the ladies.”

  “Marsland and I saw him in his boat at an old landing-place near the farm a few days ago,” replied Crewe. “He’s a man not easily forgotten—once seen. I’d like to find out what took him over in the direction of Ashlingsea.”

  “He’s often over there,” said the inspector. “That is his favourite trip for his patrons—across the bay and over to the cliff landing, as we call it. That is the landing at the foot of the cliffs near Cliff Farm—I daresay you noticed it, Mr. Crewe?”

  “Yes. They told me at Ashlingsea that the landing-place and boat-house belong to Cliff Farm—that they were put up by old James Lumsden.”

  “That is right,” said the inspector. “The old man used to do a bit of fishing—that is ten or fifteen years ago when he was an active man, though getting on a bit—a strange thing to combine farming and fishing, wasn’t it? But he was a queer sort in many ways, was James Lumsden.”

  “And where is this man with the scarlet cloak to be found when he is not on the front?” asked Crewe. “I’d like to have a little talk with him.”

  “You’ll find that rather difficult,” said the inspector with a laugh. “Old Pedro is deaf and dumb.”

  “Has he any friends here, or does he live alone?”

  “He came here with his daughter and her husband and he lives with them. His daughter is a dwarf—a hunchback—and is supposed to be a bit of a clairvoyant or something of that kind. The husband is English, but not a very robust type of Englishman. They have a shop in Curzon Street off High Street—second-hand books.”

  “What is his name?” asked Crewe.

  “Grange.”

  “And it was to this man you recommended young Lumsden to go for a book on cryptograms?”

  “Yes; the same man,” said the inspector. “I can tell you a queer thing about his wife. I’ve said she is a bit of a clairvoyant. Well, you know there is not much love lost between the police and clairvoyants; most of them are shallow frauds who play on the ignorant gullible public. But Mrs. Grange is different: she isn’t in the business professionally. And, being a broad-minded man, I am ready to admit that there may be something in clairvoyance and spiritualism, in spite of the fact that they are usually associated with fraud. Well, one of my men, Constable Bell, lost a pendant from his watch-chain. It was not very valuable, but it had a sentimental value. He had no idea where he lost it, but he happened to mention it to Mrs. Grange—this dwarf woman—and she told him she might be able to help him in finding it.

  “She took him into a sitting-room above the shop, and after getting his watch from him held it in her hands for a few moments. She told him to keep perfectly still, and concentrate his mind on the article he had lost. She closed her eyes and went into a sort of trance. Then in a strange far-away voice she said, ‘I see water—pools of water among the rocks. I see a man and a woman walking near the rocks, arm in arm. I see the man take the woman in his arms to kiss her, and the pendant, caught by a button of her blouse, drops into the pool at their feet.’ That was true about the kissing. Bell when off duty visited Horseley three miles from here, with his sweetheart, and he thought the dwarf must have seen them and was having a joke at his expense. However, he cycled over to Horseley when the tide was out next day, and much to his surprise he found the pendant in the water—just as the dwarf had told him. How do you account for a thing like that, Mr. Crewe?”

  “It is very difficult to account for,” said Crewe. “Does this dwarf hold spiritualistic séances?”

  “Not that I am aware of,” replied the inspector. “If she does, it is in a private capacity, and not as a business.”

  “Her acquaintance is worth cultivating. We will go and see her, Marsland.”

  Crewe cordially thanked Inspector Murchison for the information he had supplied, and set out with Marsland for Mr. Grange’s shop in Curzon Street.

  “A good man, Murchison; he has given us a lot of information,” he said to his companion as they drove along.

  “It seemed very scrappy and incomplete to me,” was Marsland’s reply.

  “Gossipy is the right word—not scrappy. And there is nothing more valuable than gossipy information; it enables you to fill in so many blanks in your theory—if you have one.”

  “You have f
ormed your theory of how this tragedy occurred?” said Marsland interrogatively.

  “Part of one,” replied Crewe.

  Marsland accepted this reply as an intimation that the detective was not prepared to disclose his theory at that stage.

  “That story about the pendant was remarkable,” he said. “Do you believe it?”

  “It is not outside the range of possibility,” replied Crewe. “Some remarkable results have been achieved by psychists who possess what they call mediumistic powers.”

  “Do you really think it possible that, by surrendering herself to some occult influence, this woman was able to reproduce for herself the scene between Constable Bell and his sweetheart, and see the pendant drop?”

  “That is the way in which psychists would explain it, but I think it can be accounted for in a much less improbable way. I know, from my own investigations into spiritualism and its claims, that some mediums are capable, under favourable conditions, of reading a little of another person’s thoughts, provided the other person is sympathetic and tries to help. But even in this limited field failure is more frequent than success. But let us suppose that Constable Bell was an extremely sympathetic subject on this occasion. How was this woman, after getting Bell to concentrate his thoughts on the events of the day when he lost the pendant, able to discover it by reading Bell’s thoughts?”

  “Bell’s thoughts would not be of much help to her, as he did not remember when or how he lost the pendant,” said Marsland.

  “The point I am aiming at is that sub-consciously Bell may have been aware of the conditions under which he lost the pendant, and yet not consciously aware of them. The human brain does not work as a uniform piece of machinery; it works in sections or in compartments. Suppose part of Bell’s brain became aware that the pendant had become detached and tried to communicate the fact to that part of Bell’s brain where he keeps toll of his personal belongings. That would be the normal procedure, and under normal conditions a connection between these two compartments of the brain would be established, and Bell would stoop down and pick up the pendant. But on this occasion Bell was intoxicating himself with kisses and had put his brain into an excitable state. Possibly that part which keeps toll of his personal possessions was particularly excited at the prospect of adding the lady to the list of Bell’s belongings.

  “Let us assume that it was too excited to hear the small warning voice which was crying out about the lost pendant. And when Bell’s brain had become normal the small voice had become too weak to be heard. It was never able subsequently to establish a connection between that part of the brain to which it belonged and that part where Bell keeps toll of his property—perhaps it never tried again, being under the impression that its first attempts had succeeded. And so when Bell was asked by Mrs. Grange to concentrate his thoughts on the lost pendant he was able to reproduce the state in which his brain was at the time, and the medium was able to hear the warning in Bell’s brain which Bell himself had never consciously heard.”

  Marsland looked hard at Crewe to see whether he was speaking jestingly or seriously, for he had been shrewd enough to discover that the detective had a habit at times of putting forth fanciful theories the more effectually to conceal his real thoughts. It was when Crewe talked most that he revealed least, Marsland thought. But as Crewe’s face, as usual, did not reveal any clue to his mind, the young man murmured something about the explanation of the pendant being interesting, but unscientific.

  “What science cannot explain, it derides,” was Crewe’s reply.

  “Do you sympathize with the complaints of the spiritualists, that scientists adopt an attitude of negation and derision towards spiritualism, instead of an attitude of investigation?” continued Marsland inquiringly.

  “I think there is some truth in that complaint, though as far as I am concerned I have not found much truth in spiritualism. However, Mrs. Grange may be able to convince me that she uses her powers to enlighten, and not to deceive. I am most anxious to see her.”

  CHAPTER IX

  Staveley only differed from a hundred other English seaside resorts by having a sea front which was quite flat, the cliffs which skirted the coastline from Ashlingsea falling away and terminating in sand dunes about half a mile to the south of the town. At that point the cliff road, after following the coastline for nearly twelve miles, swept inland round the sand dunes, which had encroached on the downs more than half a mile from the sea, but turned back again near the southern outskirts of the town in a bold picturesque curve to the sea front.

  From the sea front the town rambled back with characteristically English irregularity of architecture to the downs. There was the usual seaside mixture of old and new houses, the newest flaunting their red-tiled ugliness from the most beautiful slopes of the distant hills.

  Crewe and Marsland drove slowly along to High Street by way of the front after leaving the police station. A long row of boarding-houses and hotels faced the sea; and there were pleasure boats, bathing-machines, a pier and a bandstand. The season was practically over, but a number of visitors still remained, making the most of the late October sunshine, decorously promenading for air and exercise. It was a typically English scene, except that the band was playing German music and the Kursaal still flaunted its German name.

  The front was bisected about midway by the main business thoroughfare of the town, and there was a sharp distinction between the two halves of the promenade which it divided. The upper half was the resort of fashion and the mode: the hotels were bigger and more expensive; the boarding-houses were designated private hotels. All the amusements were situated in this part of the front: the pleasure boats, the pier, the band, the goat carts, and the Bath chairs. The lower part of the front was practically deserted, its hotels and boarding-houses looked empty and neglected, and its whole aspect was that of a poor relation out of place in fashionable surroundings.

  Although Marsland did not know much about Staveley he was able to guide Crewe to Curzon Street, and once in Curzon Street they had not much difficulty in finding the shop kept by Mr. Grange. It was a curious little white house standing back a few feet from the footpath, and trays of second-hand books were arranged on tables outside.

  Crewe, after getting out of his car, began an inspection of the books on the trays outside the shop, and while engaged in this way he saw a young lady being shown out of the shop. She was a well dressed graceful girl, not much more than twenty. Behind her was the shopkeeper, a tall thin man past middle age, with a weak irresolute face disfigured by some cutaneous disorder, small ferrety grey eyes, and a straggling beard. As he opened the door to let the young lady out Crewe’s quick ears heard him remark:

  “Well, as I said, we didn’t go because we saw the storm coming up. I’m very glad now we didn’t, as things turned out. It’s a dreadful affair—dreadful.”

  To Crewe’s surprise Marsland stepped forward when he saw the young lady, lifted his hat and put out his hand. Crewe thought she hesitated a little before responding.

  “I am glad to see you, Miss Maynard,” Marsland declared. “You are the very person I wanted to see. But this is quite an unexpected meeting.”

  “It is very kind of you,” said the young lady with a smile.

  To Crewe it was evident that she was more embarrassed than pleased at the meeting.

  Marsland walked along the street a few paces with Miss Maynard and then came back to Crewe.

  “Please excuse me for half an hour or so, Crewe. I have some things to talk over with this lady.”

  He rushed back to Miss Maynard’s side without waiting for an answer. Crewe watched them for a moment and then he became aware that the shopkeeper standing at his doorway was watching them with a gaze of perplexity.

  “Mr. Grange, I believe?” said Crewe.

  The shopkeeper produced a pair of spectacles from his pocket and put them on before replying. With the spectacles on his small grey eyes he peered at Crewe, and said:

  “What can I
do for you, sir?”

  Crewe saw that the man was ill at ease, and he endeavoured to bring him back to his normal state.

  “Have you a copy of a book called Notitiæ Monastica?” asked the detective. “It’s a work on the early British religious establishments,” he explained.

  “No, sir: I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the book. But perhaps I could get you one if you particularly want it.”

  “You might try and let me know. I’ll leave you my address. Inspector Murchison told me that if anyone could help me you could.”

  “Inspector Murchison?” echoed Mr. Grange peering again at Crewe.

  “He was most enthusiastic about you,” continued Crewe. “He said that if ever he wanted to know anything about rare books he would come to you. You have a good friend in the inspector, Mr. Grange.”

  “I did not know—yes I think so—it was very good of him—very good indeed.” Mr. Grange was both relieved and pleased at being commended by the head of the local police, for he smiled at Crewe, blinked his eyes, and rubbed his hands together.

  “And about Mrs. Grange he was no less enthusiastic,” continued Crewe. “He told me about her extraordinary psychic powers and the recovery of Constable Bell’s watch-chain pendant. A most remarkable case. I take a great interest in occultism, Mr. Grange, and in all forms of psychic power—I have done so for years. Perhaps your wife would grant me the favour of an interview? I should so much like to meet her and talk to her.”

  “Certainly,” exclaimed Mr. Grange, who was now delighted with his visitor. “I am sure she would like to meet a gentleman like yourself who is interested in—er—occultism. Excuse me while I run upstairs to her.”

  He left the shop by a side-door opening on the passage leading to the private apartments above the shop. A few minutes later he came back with an invitation to Crewe to follow him upstairs to the sitting-room. Crewe followed him into a room which overlooked the street. In an arm-chair beside one of the two windows sat Mrs. Grange. She rose to meet Crewe. She was about four feet in height but her deformed figure seemed to make her look smaller. Her skin was dark and coarse and her teeth were large. On her upper lip there was a slight growth of hair and her eyebrows were very thick and shaggy. She had deep black eyes, and after her bow to Crewe she gazed at him in a fixed penetrating way—the look of an animal on the watch.