The Incredible Crime

by Lois Austen-Leigh

  “I understand from my skipper you are paying us an official visit. What is it you want?” But if Lord Wellende was a gentleman so was Captain Studde, and he looked him straight in the face and told him the truth.

  “I don’t mind saying, Lord Wellende, you’re the last person in the world I either expected or wanted to see here. There’s smuggling going on, and I am searching every barge I can, and I can’t let even you go by.”

  Lord Wellende moved something on the small table and then said quietly:

  “You are not customs. Have you the right to search?”

  “Yes,” said Studde. Putting his hand into his breast pocket, he produced a folded paper. “This is what is called a W.R.6, a search-warrant,” and he handed it to Lord Wellende. The latter glanced at it; he saw that the royal arms were on the top, and that the document began with the majestic word “We.”

  He laughed. “All right, Captain Studde,” he said. “I see there is nothing for it but to take you into my confidence, and trust you. It’s a confounded nuisance you’re being about to-night; this isn’t the usual date for your drill.”

  “No,” said Studde, feeling awkward and uncomfortable, and hating his job, “but there’s a barge on the sandbank outside, as perhaps you saw, and it’s such a good chance to practise having a drill with the real thing, so we changed our date.”

  “Well, your change of date doesn’t leave me much choice, now you’ve caught me in the act, so listen to me.”

  The two men talked for about half an hour. Then there was a pause while Studde sat and thought. Finally he said:

  “You will get no interference from me, but I cannot speak for the customs. The drug you are using cannot be got by the public. You’ll be careful.”

  “I have it entirely under my own control,” replied Wellende.

  The two men talked a little more and then Captain Studde went on deck.

  “It’s better for me not to appear,” said Wellende, “if you have a man with you.”

  “I should think not indeed,” said Studde with a laugh. “Good-bye, Lord Wellende.”

  Studde, with a good night and a remark about the weather to the skipper, got into his own dinghy and dropped down the river with the tide. It was too dark for Catchpole to see Captain Studde’s face, and though bursting with curiosity he did not like to speak until his superior officer had done so.

  There had certainly not been time for Captain Studde to have searched the barge thoroughly alone, and he had been below all the time, he had not appeared on deck; what had he been doing, wondered Catchpole.

  “That was Lord Wellende’s barge, as I suppose you know by now all right, Catchpole?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I am quite satisfied that there is nothing contraband on her, and more than that, neither his lordship nor his people are in the business we are after.”

  “Yes, sir,” and then, after a little pause, “I am glad to hear it, sir.”

  There was a certain awkwardness. It was hardly possible, thought Studde, that his man could suspect him, Studde, of not being straight, and anyhow to defend himself was to court suspicion, so he said nothing. Meanwhile it was perfectly clear in Catchpole’s simple mind that there was only one explanation of the business, though discipline, good manners, or tradition—he didn’t give it a name in his mind—compelled him to appear to accept Captain Studde’s explanation.

  “His lordship” had been on the barge and had got round the Captain. Catchpole felt that this wasn’t quite right; though he couldn’t altogether condemn Captain Studde, “his lordship” was so undoubtedly “his lordship,” one had to remember that, and even one who wasn’t a local man would have to feel that, if he was a gentleman at all, and though it wasn’t right, he felt a certain pride, being a local man himself, that “his lordship’s” influence, or personality, reached so far. There was little talk between the two men; each was immersed in his own thoughts. They landed much where they had taken off, and walked back to where the paraphernalia of the drill was laid out. The huge tripod, holding the rocket, was erected and a small flickering light at sea showed the wrecked barge.

  Studde ran his eye over the tackle; he saw that the rocket would run clear from its box, and the big hawser on either side was free, too. He then went and inspected the angle at which the rocket was set, inquired the length that the wreck was from the shore, said a word about the strength of the wind to Catchpole, and had the angle slightly altered. Then he gave the word. Bang! Rush! Went the rocket through the night, out to sea, the cord uncoiling like a live thing after it. There was a slight pause, while all waited; then the thick hawser on either side began to move. Studde gave a grunt of satisfaction. The rocket had been aimed right—it had reached the wreck, and now the men on the wreck were pulling the thick circular rope out to which the cord, carried by the rocket, was attached. Presently, when a signal from the wreck had been given, the men on the shore worked the hawser and sent out a lifebuoy and bag suspended from the buoy.

  A huge magnesium flare lit up the proceedings, making the dark figures of the life-saving crew stand up vividly against the light. After an interval a limp, wet figure was pulled back in the buoy, and the practice of artificial respiration was gone through. The life-saving crew were local farm labourers, not very bright specimens, but they had been drilled well, and knew their job.

  “When your man comes round,” said Captain Studde, “what is it you give him?”

  “Very strong coffee, or tea, sir,” replied the man.

  “And what do you never give him?” said Studde.

  “Spirits,” was the reply.

  “Come to think of it, Catchpole,” said Studde, as they walked away, “we practically never get a man in on this flat coast who isn’t half drowned by the time he’s on shore.”

  “No, sir, of course not, sir,” and they both walked off.

  Chapter VIII

  After parting with Studde, Prudence’s first consideration was to secure a room for the night.

  “Is the Dickens room empty?” she asked the manageress, “because I think I should like to have it.”

  After going up and down what seemed like endless steps and along twisting passages, they came to a large old-fashioned-looking room. The two big four-poster beds, with the dressing-table in between in front of the window, immediately recalled the famous illustration by Phiz, and an old-fashioned floral designed wallpaper, though new, was in keeping with the rest of the room. Prudence thought with complacency that she could never look like the lady in the illustration as she sat in front of the glass. She took the room and ordered a fire to be lighted at once. Then the chambermaid came with the hot water:

  “There’s many ladies,” she said, “as say they can’t abide for to sleep in a room with another empty bed, it makes them fancy things.”

  “Is that really the case?” replied Miss Pinsent with interest. To her healthy and well-controlled nerves such fancies seemed wellnigh incredible. “I don’t think it will trouble me at all.”

  Then she had to consider sending a wire to her cousin to explain her non-arrival. She thought for a moment; in the circumstances it might be better not to say it was owing to a meeting with Studde, so she wired to say she had had engine trouble and would come in time for tea next day.

  Then she dined, and after dinner retired to her room in peace to think out what she had just been told. She had been considerably startled by what Studde had told her, though not perhaps for quite the reasons that he had supposed. A “distributing centre” for drugs was, she fancied, something quite different from being one in a chain of people through whose hands a forbidden drug passed, and she did not believe for a moment that such a centre was in Cambridge. It required the kind of daring and subtlety she felt quite sure no one in the University was capable of. She thought for a moment about some of her own and her father’s circle of friends, and smil
ed at the idea a little pityingly. Harry had a bee in his bonnet, that was what it was. Moreover, he had displayed a most lamentable ignorance of modern university life, he had himself admitted that he thought all professors were old men, and he was probably thinking that the colleges still contained various specimens of bachelor “Fellows” of unknown dark pasts and deplorable present habits, who were seldom seen about in the light of day.

  Others, too, who lived double lives. She laughed gently, as she thought of the University as it is to-day. The excellent hard-working fathers of families, the keenness about everything, healthy games as much as work, the desire to get the right sort of men up, undergraduates as well as dons, and she laughed again at the very absurdity of Harry Studde’s ideas. It was true, certainly, that Harry had said it was Scotland Yard that suspected Cambridge. It would be exceedingly distasteful, she thought, to have any inquiries made about the sources of one’s income; but there, she didn’t suppose for a moment it would happen.

  She thought of various different men she knew, working hard and quietly at their special jobs, and the strange branches of knowledge that many of them were pursuing. She remembered one had told her, only the other day, that they were touching a force in the universe that was beyond electricity; they didn’t know what it was yet, or where it might take them. She thought of the vast knowledge of the University, of the scientific investigations which Thomas was pursuing with such ardour. No, those were not the sort of men who would take the risk of distributing that drug. Except for the mischief the drug could do, which she didn’t half believe, the “running” of it meant a good deal of sport. Steady nerves, audacity, and pluck; that was what was required for that sort of work. These were far more likely to be found in people who had a long line of buccaneering ancestors behind them, thought Miss Pinsent complacently and entirely erroneously, as she reflected on her own mother’s people, the Temples, than any men of education. Mrs. Gordon had not been so very far out when she told Marcella Maryon that she always felt Prudence had it in her to kick over the traces. She had, and subconsciously aware of it herself, it had the effect of making her sit more firmly on her little pinnacle and draw her skirts round her, away from the moil and toil of common life.

  Having settled everything in her mind to her own complete satisfaction, Miss Pinsent took herself to bed, and slept the sleep of an untroubled mind. Next morning she did not hurry her departure, and when she did go, she drove slowly.

  Soon after leaving Ipswich she left the main road, and from there on traversed nothing but sandy, curling lanes. There was hardly even a village, only a few cottages collected here, and a lonely farm-house there. Occasionally came a long stretch of heathland and bracken. The screeching cock-pheasants toned to perfection with the russet bracken. Even the clothes of the farm labourers managed to blend with the heaps of sugar-beet that were a frequent sight along the road. All the colouring was soft and brown and russet, except when a flock of gulls made a startling patch of white against the brown earth. Then the road, which had been running through heathland for some miles, took a sudden turn up round a wood, and there displayed before her lay a grand panoramic view. In the far distance lay the grey, cold North Sea; nearer like a curving silver ribbon flowed the wide tidal Wellende river; nearer still, set in the middle of acres and acres of marshland, on a slight eminence, its old red brick glowing like a jewel in the setting sun, stood the stately pile of Wellende Old Hall. Prudence pulled up to gaze. It was high tide, and the river some quarter of a mile away from the house was full. She could even see the thin line of silver of the creek running up to the house. On the other side, on the top of a dyke, with windswept, stunted trees on either side, lay the drive. This had been constructed some four hundred years ago, when labour was a good deal cheaper than it is now, and ran for about a mile over the marsh. The approach to the house itself was under a gateway in a Tudor tower, which led into the courtyard round which the house was built.

  Prudence rang the bell, and walked straight in. Almost at once an old man came from the other end of the hall, still getting into his coat.

  “You’ll excuse me, miss,” he said at the sight of her, “but I wasn’t going to keep you waiting for a welcome.”

  “Thank you, Dunning,” said Prudence, “and is everyone here going on all right?”

  “Yes, miss, things don’t change here much, as you know, except his lordship ’as a new shooting-suit,” added the old man thoughtfully.

  “Well, that is a piece of news, of course; I suppose I may take it his lordship is quite well?”

  “He is, miss. I was to tell you he was ratting down in the moat, if you would join him there when you came.”

  Prudence went under the gateway and turned along a path to the left. The mingled yells of ecstasy and agony of two terriers and a man’s voice guided her to the spot. When down the path towards her came scurrying a ball of grey fur, she gave one yell, almost as piercing as the terriers, and flew in the opposite direction. When she had recovered herself and made certain the danger of meeting a rat was passed, she returned.

  “Prue,” said her cousin, slipping his arm affectionately through hers, “after all the trouble I have taken with your education, I am ashamed of you, to run away from a harmless rat.”

  “Ben,” replied she, rubbing her cheek against the rough tweed of his sleeve, “you know I have always had an inhibition against rats, mice, and ferrets; and I always shall have.”

  “My dear,” he said earnestly, “I hope after a week here you will drop using words of that description and express yourself in simple English.”

  “After three days,” said Prue, laughing, “I won’t use a word of more than three syllables—there!”

  “Tea is in the gallery,” said Ben; “go up, and I will get a wash and join you.”

  Prudence went up. The gallery was one of the beauties of the Old Hall. She sauntered to the window and looked out. The water of the river had taken all the colour of the setting sun, and was a blaze of glory. A flight of wild duck, like a brown smudge, tailing out, was passing across the red and gold; a couple of herons were flopping slowly along the edge of the marsh; one bird could be heard calling. Prudence listened.

  “What gull is it,” she asked her cousin, as he came in, “that calls very like a curlew?”

  He came up and stood beside her and looked out; one larger white-winged bird was visible. “I think,” he said, “it’s a herring gull—come and have tea.”

  They had their tea together cosily by a good fire, the two terriers joining them. Then Prudence went up to her room. Whenever she was at Wellende she always had one room, looking over the creek; indeed it had come to be known as hers. She found a good fire, and a roundcheeked, grey-haired woman, in a neat cap, doing her unpacking.

  “Oh, Mary,” said she, “how very, very nice it is to be here again.” She shook hands.

  “Yes, indeed, miss. It’s a long time since you’ve been; why, not all the summer, and his lordship is always so glad when you come.”

  “Yes, I know, but I can’t get away from Cambridge as much as all that. I have duties there,” she said, laughing.

  “And how is his lordship the Bishop, if I may ask?” said Mary in a prim voice.

  Prudence replied suitably, feeling, however, that somehow Mary was implying that Wellende was being neglected for the welfare of her father. Mary was upper housemaid at Wellende, but she was more than that. She had been there as long as Prudence could remember, always keeping herself rigidly in the background. Mary practically ruled the house. It was she actually, and Lord Wellende only nominally, who selected the housekeeper and the occasional new servants that were wanted. The housekeeper was considered new for an upper servant; she had only been there ten years.

  At dinner Wellende and Prudence discussed the prospects of hunting and local news, with occasional interruptions from Dunning as he waited.

  “I hope my not arri
ving yesterday wasn’t too great a disappointment to you, Ben,” said Prudence.

  “I bore up; as a matter of fact it was as well, because I was out myself last night.”

  “You out!” exclaimed Prudence. “You don’t mean to tell me you have taken to dining out in your old age!”

  Dunning here permitted himself an audible chuckle.

  “No, it wasn’t quite as bad as that, I was duck-shooting.”

  “Of course,” said Prudence, “how stupid of me, I had forgotten that possibility. I am still unacclimatized to the air of Wellende, and out in the evening suggests dining out to my suburban mind, before I think of duck-shooting.”

  “We’ll soon cure you of that. I had a school managers’ meeting this morning. We’ve got to get a new mistress for the village school, and a golden-haired lady has applied for the post.”

  “Who are the managers?” said Prudence.

  “Well, the ones that attended this morning were Woodcock and Abel Lundy—farms Stanny House Farm, you know—and myself. She got me cornered, the lady did,” chuckled Wellende. “Suddenly asked me what my views were about Clause 8 under Schedule B—or something of the sort—but Woodcock came to my assistance by asking her if she ever took a hand at halfpenny nap. And they got off to talking about halfpenny nap, which saved me; hadn’t the foggiest notion what Clause B Schedule 8 might be.”

  “You must be a priceless collection as school managers—you, Lundy, and Woodcock,” laughed Prudence.

  “It’s the best we can raise, anyway; the golden-haired lady evidently agreed with you, for she declined the job; an occasional evening in the big room at the ‘Plough and Sail’ for halfpenny nap is about the only dissipation there is to offer.”

  After dinner the cousins repaired to Wellende’s own particular den. There were deep window seats, for the walls were very thick at the Old Hall, and a large, old-fashioned fire-place. Sporting prints decorated the walls, and over the fire-place a print, done from a photograph, of the late Lord Wellende as Lord-Lieutenant of the county. A good-sized bookshelf occupied one wall, with a miscellaneous collection—“Handley Cross,” Sponge’s “Sporting Tour,” and “Happy Thoughts,” a few books of travel (Ben never left home if he could help it), and some books on veterinary surgery. Ben pulled up a comfortable chair and arranged some cushions in it for Prudence, and then lit his pipe.