The Dartmoor Enigma

by Basil Thomson

  “Oh, he took the line that now the Yard was investigating the case, there was no need to hold a second inquest. The doctors’ report says clearly that the deceased received a heavy blow on the head from a blunt instrument which fractured the skull, which was unusually thin, and that the injury could not have been caused by the head coming into contact with the roof of the car.”

  “If the funeral is to be to-morrow, Mr. Carstairs, I should be glad if you would have a telephone message sent to the manager of the Union Bank, who is sole executor to the will. After the funeral he would read the will to the widow.”

  “Certainly I will.”

  “In the meantime I hope that Mrs. Dearborn will not take it amiss if I call on her this evening to ask her about that stick; whether her late husband ever had one like it.”

  “I’m sure she will not object, but what I want to know is whether you intend to question Pengelly at the quarry, or whether you would like me to have him brought down here on the charge of driving without a licence.”

  “Wouldn’t the procedure be by summons?”

  “Not in this case, because there is the danger of the defendant moving out of the jurisdiction.”

  Richardson considered. He had to decide in his own mind whether Pengelly would be more communicative as a free man in the quarry than when in custody in a police station. He had to make up his mind quickly.

  “Yes, Mr. Carstairs, I should be glad if you would have him brought in. Perhaps you would instruct your officers to tell the foreman that he’s wanted only for a motoring offence. And now, if you’ll allow me, I’ll go and see Mrs. Dearborn.”

  He found the lady engaged in her back garden. She had heard the front-door bell and was on her way to receive her visitor. “You must be surprised to find me gardening, Mr. Richardson, but I find that it takes my mind off all this sadness and trouble.”

  “I have really come to ask you one question only—whether your husband had a heavy walking-stick with a crook handle and a silver band?”

  She shook her head. “No, he had only one walking-stick. Come into the house and I’ll show it to you. He never used it after he got the car.”

  She showed him a stick of light-coloured wood, which was standing with the umbrellas in the hall. “Have you found out anything more?”

  “Yes, we’ve found out who sent the anonymous letters, but don’t let us speak of them now. What I want to get from you is exactly what happened when Dr. Wilson brought your husband here after his accident?”

  “Dr. Wilson helped him into the house. He seemed very weak. The doctor said that he ought to be got to bed as soon as possible, and that our own doctor should be sent for. I got my husband upstairs and into bed after washing off the blood from his neck.”

  “Was he delirious or confused in his talk?”

  “Not at all. He spoke quite rationally, but his voice was weak. I told him I was going to send for Dr. Symon and he refused to allow me. I looked in upon him two or three times during the night; he seemed to be sleeping heavily. In the morning I took him some tea, but he scarcely touched it. He was quite sensible, though. I begged him again to see the doctor, but he wouldn’t. He asked me to bring up his cheque-book from his writing-table, and then when I next visited him he made me sit down and said, ‘I’m getting fed-up with this place, and if you don’t mind staying here by yourself for a bit, here’s a cheque for you for £200.’ I haven’t cashed the cheque, but it’s drawn on the Union Bank and the handwriting isn’t a bit shaky. He went on to say that he would go away for a bit and look for a place and then send for me.”

  “When he made this extraordinary suggestion did you think he was light-headed?”

  “I did, but his manner was so calm and natural that it was difficult to think that he was raving. I tried to soothe him by saying that I would help him to pack as soon as he felt well enough. Then for the next two days he scarcely spoke to me. I took in his meals, but he didn’t touch them. He lay practically the whole day in a state of coma. I got so frightened that I called in Dr. Symon off my own bat, and he attended him until the last.”

  “Did your husband seem quite clear as to how the accident occurred?”

  “He seemed to remember it perfectly. He said that when coming down the hill his brakes refused to act, and at a curve in the road the car swerved into the ditch.”

  “You are sure he made no mention of anyone stopping the car and attacking him?”

  “I am quite sure. Since your visit this morning I’ve been thinking things over and suggesting to myself that he was light-headed, but though, naturally, his voice was weak and he was suffering from his head, I feel more certain than ever that his mind and his memory were clear. After you had left this morning I did think of going round to see Dr. Symon, but as you had the case in hand I decided that it would be better to leave everything to you.”

  Richardson rose. “I must apologize for making this second visit, Mrs. Dearborn. You may be quite sure that I shall do my best to get to the bottom of the mystery.”

  Chapter Seven

  RICHARDSON declined the offer of tea on the ground that his work would not allow him time for accepting such invitations. Mrs. Dearborn saw him to the gate. At that moment, Chance decreed that he should make the acquaintance of her only friend in Winterton. A tall young man, striding along the road, lifted his hat to Mrs. Dearborn and was passing on when she called to him:

  “I should like you to know Lieutenant Cosway. Mr. Cosway, let me introduce this gentleman who has come all the way from London to deal with my affairs. Mr. Richardson is a Chief Inspector from Scotland Yard.”

  Cosway recoiled in mock horror. “I’d like to shake hands with you, Mr. Richardson, if you’ll give me time to run over certain incidents in my past life.”

  “That’s all right, sir; I’ve received no instructions to inquire into your biography.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Richardson will tell you that there’s a complication over the medical evidence at the inquest.”

  To Richardson this chance informal meeting with the one man in Winterton who knew Mrs. Dearborn was a godsend. “Are you going my way, sir?”

  “Yes; I was going to the golf club, but I would far rather spend the time having a talk with you.”

  They saluted Mrs. Dearborn and set off in company.

  “What’s the complication, Mr. Richardson? Surely the facts about Dearborn’s death were fully cleared up at the inquest?”

  “I may tell you confidentially, Mr. Cosway, that from information since received we have reason to believe that Mr. Dearborn owed his fatal injury not to the motor accident, but to a blow on the head inflicted by some assailant.”

  “Good God! I can’t say that I’m altogether surprised. I have always told my people that the late lamented Dearborn had a past—a lurider past even than mine—and that was why he behaved like an ill-mannered bear when people tried to be friendly with him.”

  “Has Mrs. Dearborn told you that since the accident he talked of leaving the neighbourhood for good?”

  “No, but he has left it for good; he’s gone to a land where people don’t go chasing one another with hatchets, or so the parson tells us on Sundays. But I see the whole thing. The lust for gold tempted the deceased Dearborn from the straight and narrow path, and as one can’t dig up gold in one’s own back garden he had to help himself to another fellow’s pile and was hiding down here in the wilds of Devon; and then, Nemesis, or whatever the lady was called, set about squaring the account and arranged that the hiding-place should be divulged and there you are. Did Nemesis use a revolver for the job?”

  “No, Mr. Cosway; nothing but a walking-stick.”

  “How flat and unfilmlike. But joking apart, I’m really sorry for that poor lonely woman and I’d like to do something to help her. As soon as the funeral is over my mother intends to call upon her. She didn’t do it before because we were afraid that that bounder of a man might be rude to her.”

  Richardson knew from earlier experience tha
t young naval officers of this type could be supremely useful, and that in any case when one got below the instinct for treating serious subjects lightly one found real sterling virtues.

  “I must confess that we are not getting on as fast as I could have wished, and I feel sure that if you would consent to help me in unravelling the mystery of Dearborn’s past life, something useful might come of it.”

  The jesting imp resumed its sway for a moment.

  “To think that I should be invited to share the secrets of the Yard has taken my breath away. They will spot me as the bogy man next time I enter the mess-room in Devonport. Something in my sinuous walk will betray me.”

  Richardson smiled. “I haven’t noticed anything sinuous about you, so far, Mr. Cosway; but seriously I feel sure that you can help us. Any detail about Dearborn’s behaviour, social or otherwise, may be useful.”

  At this point his new acquaintance stopped dead and gripped him by the arm. “Good Lord! How did I come to forget it? Last Sunday, just as I was going off to the golf club, I was stopped in the road by a hobbledehoy youth who asked me if I knew where a Mr. Dearborn lived—he wanted to see him. I said, ‘There’s the house but you’re too late to see him—he died last night.’ The boy turned pale green and made off in the direction of the station without another word.”

  “How was he dressed?”

  “Oh, something like a city clerk in his best clothes, I should say.”

  “Would you know him again if you saw him?”

  “Yes, I think I should; for one thing his face was smothered in freckles.”

  “Didn’t he ask when the funeral was to be?”

  “No; he seemed quite broken up by the news of Dearborn’s death. You see what this means, Mr. Richardson? That poor boy was the illegitimate son of the dead man. He’d come down to touch the hard heart of his parent and stick him for a handsome little sum as the price of his silence. And there he was on the wrong side by more than thirty shillings for his return railway fare. He left my heart bleeding for him.”

  “If we could get hold of that young man…or if we could get to know something about Dearborn…”

  “I’ve told you all that anyone here knows about him—that he was a surly brute who wanted to keep himself to himself.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Cosway. Our roads part here. I must be getting back to my work.”

  “They call our house The Elms, in case you want me. I believe that the purveyors of milk, meat and vegetables have a less flattering name for it. However, ‘The Elms’ is painted on the gate. Good-bye.”

  Richardson betook himself to the police station where he found Sergeant Jago gossiping with the police patrol.

  “Anything fresh, Mr. Richardson?” inquired Jago.

  “Step into the Superintendent’s room. I’ve something to tell you. I learned from Dearborn’s widow this afternoon that Dearborn intended to bolt after the accident. I suppose our friend the Superintendent would say that it was delirium, but there was method in his madness. He gave his wife a cheque for £200, quite legibly written, to cover her expenses while he was hunting for a new hiding-place. He didn’t put it like that, of course, but that’s what he meant.”

  “But that’s very important.”

  “It is, but it’s time to admit that we are up against it. We’re not getting on.”

  “You’ve still Pengelly to see to-morrow morning.”

  “I know, but Pengelly, even if he speaks the truth, won’t get us any further than the Duke girl did. They say that success in detective work is half chance and the other half the sweat of one’s brow, but in this case I want to know when chance is going to take a hand. It’s obvious that we shall make no advance until we learn something about Dearborn’s past life, and the man who knows most about him—Mr. Todd, the bank manager—can tell us nothing except that he thinks that Dearborn came from London.”

  “I wonder whether Dearborn was the real name,” said Jago. “When a man wishes to hush up his past he’s apt to change his name, and he doesn’t do it by deed poll either, so that line of country is unpromising. I’ve got a vague hope that something may turn up when the will is read, but that won’t be until to-morrow after the funeral.”

  “You’ll have your work cut out to-morrow, Mr. Richardson,” said Jago. “The Superintendent has got a warrant from the magistrates to bring Pengelly down from the quarry early to-morrow morning on a charge of driving a car without a licence and being likely to abscond. I suppose we can do nothing more until then.”

  After an early breakfast at their hotel, the two metropolitan officers walked to the police station. Superintendent Carstairs met them on the steps.

  “Good morning, Mr. Richardson. I have your man in cold storage down below.”

  “What was his demeanour at the quarry and on the drive down?”

  “He didn’t say a word.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to be present, Mr. Carstairs? I mean, oughtn’t we to interrogate him together?”

  The Superintendent shook his head. “That would spoil my record, Mr. Richardson. I want to be able to say that I turned the whole of the inquiry over to you. You had better have him brought up to my office, and I’ll post one of my men near the door in case you find that you want him.”

  Pengelly slouched into the room with a hangdog expression on his face. “Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said to Richardson. “I thought I was to be charged with driving without a licence.”

  “So you will be,” said Richardson cheerfully. “I believe you’re to be brought up before the Bench to-morrow, but I want to have a straight talk with you on another matter. I can see that you can guess what it is. When I saw you at the quarry yesterday you didn’t tell me the whole truth—only part of it. You didn’t tell me that you pulled up your lorry farther down the road, and that you hid among the heather to wait for Mr. Dearborn.”

  “What if I told you that that’s a lie?”

  “I shouldn’t say that if I were in your place, because I have plenty of evidence that you did. I know, for instance, that it wasn’t you who stopped Mr. Dearborn’s car; that it was someone else who held up the car before it reached you.”

  Pengelly was a man whose mind worked slowly. He remained silent with his eyes fixed upon his interrogator. Then he asked, “You mean you’ve found another witness who saw what happened?”

  Richardson nodded.

  “Well then, if that’s so, I don’t mind telling you the whole thing.”

  “You would have done better to tell the whole truth from the start.”

  “Would I? A man doesn’t run his head straight into the noose unless he’s a fool. These country police would have fixed the blame on me.”

  Richardson shook his head.

  “Oh, yes, they would. You don’t know them as I do.”

  “Well, let me have your version of what happened.”

  “What I’m going to tell you isn’t my version; it’s the truth and nothing but the truth. I did see Dearborn’s car waiting at the Duchy Hotel. I knew that if I waited somewhere down the Sandiland Hill he would be coming along. I stopped the lorry at the roadside after the turn, and walked back until I had a clear view right to the top of the hill. Then the young woman and me squatted down in the heather to wait, and we’d just stowed ourselves out of sight when another chap stepped out into the road between us and the top of the hill.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Oh, he was an upstanding fellow, but he had his back to me and I couldn’t really tell you what he looked like. He was wearing good clothes.”

  “What happened then?”

  “At the moment when he stepped out Dearborn’s car came in sight and the fellow in the road stuck out his arms as if he were a railway signal. Dearborn had to pull up whether he liked it or not, otherwise he’d have driven over the chap.”

  “And then?”

  “You must remember that they were a good two hundred yards away, so I couldn’t be expected to see all that happened. I remembe
r seeing Dearborn get out of his car with something in his hand—I think it was the starting-handle—and the other fellow went for him with his walking-stick. Dearborn dropped the handle because he’d got a welt on the head from the stick. I think, but I’m not sure, mind, that the stick broke in half with the force of the blow. Anyway, Dearborn was left lying in the road and the other fellow made off into the rough ground. I couldn’t see what became of him. I do remember seeing him pick up the starting-handle and the bits of stick and throwing them into the heather before he went.”

  “And you just left Dearborn lying in the road with a broken head?”

  “What else can you expect? It was a frequented road. He was bound to be picked up by someone, but if I’d done it—well, I should have been arrested for murder. No one would have believed me when I said I was giving first aid to the injured.”

  “I suppose you’re ready to put what you’ve told me into a signed statement?”

  “Yes, of course I am, and glad to have got it off my chest. And if you want anybody to corroborate what I’ve told you, you’ve only got to go and see Miss Susie Duke in Moorstead. She saw the whole thing.”

  Sergeant Jago had been taking notes in a combination of short and long-hand system of his own. “I can soon run this off, Mr. Richardson. If you like I’ll take it down to the cells and let him sign it there.”

  “Look here, sir,” said Pengelly. “How long are they going to keep me here on this charge of driving without a licence? I only done it because the chap that drives the lorry was down with the ‘flu, and if I’m kept hanging about before I’m brought up I shall lose my job at the quarry.”

  “I hear that you’ll be brought up to-morrow, and in any case if you lose your job I’ll intercede for you with the foreman. You may be wanted ultimately as a witness of what you’ve told me.”

  Pengelly left the room with quite a jaunty step.

  Richardson looked at his watch and turned to Jago.

  “I’ll get you to mind the baby while I’m out. I want to see the people who attend the funeral. When you’ve written out that statement take it down to the cells and get Pengelly to sign it.”