The Dartmoor Enigma

by Basil Thomson

  Sutcliffe laughed bitterly. “I see that you won’t trust my alibi on that date without a supporting witness.”

  “You are quite wrong. Personally I trust your word entirely. But I have to satisfy my superiors.”

  “Quite right. Let us start at once.”

  He started up one of the cars belonging to the garage and invited Richardson to the seat beside him, while Jago entered the tonneau. They turned into the main road and drove nearly the length of the town before swinging into a side street and pulling up at a tailor’s shop.

  “You had better get down and make your own inquiry. I’ll stop in the car.”

  The tailor—a youngish man of about thirty—bustled out to welcome a visitor whom he took to be a new customer.

  “No,” said Richardson; “I’m not a customer. I’ve called only to ask you on what date you brought your car home from the garage after it had been repaired. I think that a garage hand took you for a run in it before handing it over.”

  “That’s right, but I shall have to look up the date in my day-book.” He reached to a shelf for the book in question. “Here it is. I see that the date was September 29.”

  “Thank you, sir. May I have one of your business cards giving your name and address?”

  “Certainly. I don’t ask you the reason for your inquiry. I suppose you are thinking of calling me as a witness in some case or other. I hope you’ll remember that my time is valuable.”

  “I will,” said Richardson; “but I don’t think we shall have to trouble you. Good morning.”

  “Well,” said Sutcliffe, as Richardson resumed his seat beside him. “I hope that my alibi is now watertight.”

  “Quite.”

  “Good; then let me tell you of a curious thing that happened this morning. I have had a letter from Borneo asking me whether I still desire my name to appear as one of the directors of the Sulanka Gold Mining Company, and with it was a private letter from the secretary telling me that since the additional capital subscribed by Mr. Viner, the American capitalist, had been invested and shares had been allotted to him, the company was undergoing re-construction. The letter goes on—let me read it to you.” He took a letter from his pocket and read, “‘The capital subscribed by Mr. Frank Willis and yourself still ranks for dividend, but the directors feel that the board should be composed principally of directors residing in Borneo. As you know, the value of metallic gold is now very high and the new borings through the rock have established the fact that the ore lies in a seam easy of access, and so far without a limit. It is therefore very valuable property.’”

  “Then all your good luck is coming together, sir.”

  “Well, there is a postscript. ‘Our sub-manager has left for England and will see you during his stay there. The Board feels that as one of the pioneers who first brought this property to public notice, you deserve generous treatment.’”

  “I suppose you’ll go out there, sir?” said Richardson.

  “I’m trying to make up my mind about that. I must let you into a family secret. I’m engaged to be married.”

  “I congratulate you, sir. Miss Willis is a charming girl.”

  “Oh! So you knew that already. Is there anything that you people at the Yard don’t know?”

  “How was this letter addressed to you, sir?”

  “It was addressed care of Miss Willis in Brondesbury Road, which means that her brother Frank was out there at the time. What I can’t understand is why Frank hasn’t written.”

  “You don’t think that he’s the sub-manager who’s on his way over to see you?” asked Richardson.

  “In that case he ought to have been here by now. He started before this letter was written. It’s very mysterious. The question I want to ask you is what I ought to do about that stolen money, some of which belongs to my former clients and the rest is mine. Didn’t you tell me that ‘Charles Dearborn,’ so-called, left a widow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I don’t want that poor woman to suffer.”

  “I think you would be wise, sir, in doing nothing for the moment. Leave the case in my hands and I’ll put it before my chiefs at the Yard and get their advice upon it. At this moment we don’t know who the man was who stopped Instone’s car and attacked him. Until we do, it is going to be very difficult to clear up the case. The person I’ve been trying to get hold of is your former office boy—John Reddy. I’ve advertised for him to come forward without getting any reply. All we know of him is that he came down to Winterton on the day after Instone’s death, and that as soon as he heard Instone was dead he went off back to the station. We also know that when hiking over Dartmoor he recognized Instone and told the hotel-keeper who he was, but since that time he has clean disappeared.”

  “Suppose I were to advertise, saying that his former employer in Bristol would like to see him, and I give the address of the newspaper? Surely that would bring a reply.”

  “I wish you would try that.”

  They had reached the garage. Sutcliffe stowed away the car and went off to wash his hands while the two officers waited for him. When he came back Richardson drafted the advertisement and took it away to the post office. It was to have three insertions in all the leading morning and evening papers. Sutcliffe ran after him to ask where a telegram would find him if the young man turned up, and was told that a telegram addressed to Scotland Yard would always be forwarded to him.

  Then, after arranging matters with an advertisement contractor, the two officers betook themselves to the Central C.I.D. office, and Richardson asked Superintendent Witchard to arrange an interview for him with Mr. Morden.

  “Look here, young man,” said the Superintendent, “you’ve been running up a pretty bill for expenses. You seem to have been joy-riding all over the country. When are you going to finish the case?”

  “I’ll shut it down whenever you give me the word. One can’t get to the bottom of a complicated case like this without testing every bit of evidence, and that means running about to interview possible witnesses. This is a far more complicated case than even that garage murder in Southampton. Why not come in with me to see Mr. Morden and save me telling the story twice over?”

  “Very well, I will, but I warn you that you’ll have to submit to some questioning.”

  The Superintendent led the way to Morden’s room and took him in.

  “Well, Mr. Richardson, we have been expecting to hear from you. How are you getting on?”

  “I thought it would be more satisfactory if I came to report progress in person. The main fact that can be proved in evidence is the identity of the murdered man.”

  “If he was murdered,” interjected the Superintendent.

  “I have found two eye-witnesses of the murder, sir,” said Richardson. “This man who called himself Charles Dearborn was in reality a solicitor’s clerk from Bristol named Charles Instone, who stole twenty-five thousand pounds from his employer and his employer’s clients, changed his name to Dearborn and ran away to Plymouth three years ago, and banked the money on the pretence that it was the proceeds of a sale of house property in London. He bought the house in which he was living at Winterton and advertised for a housekeeper; he engaged one whom he afterwards married under the name of Dearborn. All this can be proved by witnesses.”

  “How could he steal that huge sum without the knowledge of his employer?”

  “I was coming to that, sir. His employer was quite unfit for his profession as a solicitor, neglected his business and spent a great part of his time playing golf. He had inherited the business from his father, who had had quite a prosperous practice. Many of his father’s clients stuck to him and would have continued to do so. The crash came when he induced a number of them to invest their capital in a gold mine in Borneo. His clerk, this man Instone, wrote a disloyal letter to a lady who had invested a large sum in the mine and incited her to complain to the Bristol police that she had been induced to invest in a non-existing mine. Inquiries were instituted; it w
as found that the solicitor had no assets, Instone having stolen them all, and the solicitor, a man of the name of Peter Sutcliffe, was indicted on a charge of malversation of funds entrusted to him. Even then he behaved like a fool. He elected to conduct his own defence, which he did very badly; he was sentenced to four years’ penal servitude and struck off the rolls. All this also can be proved. I have a copy of the letter written by Instone to the lady who brought about the indictment of Sutcliffe and the original can be produced.”

  “Very good. This Instone seems to have been a clever rascal.”

  “He was, sir. Though he had £25,000 in his pocket, he went about for a week or so after the trial asking for work as if he was a pauper.”

  “Well, you seem to have cleared up the identity of the murdered man, but not that of his murderer.”

  “Not yet, sir, but if I am given time I think I shall be able to do that too.”

  “Have you covered all the people who might have had a motive for killing the man? That solicitor Sutcliffe, for instance? He must be out of prison by this time.”

  “He was out of prison on September 29—the day of the murder—but he has a watertight alibi which I have tested.”

  “Had anyone else a motive for waylaying Instone’s car and bashing him on the head?”

  “I know of one man, sir, but he seems to be out of the country. The person I am trying to get hold of is Sutcliffe’s office boy, John Reddy, who would be a very valuable witness if he could be found. I have advertised for him but without effect. I have to-day got his former employer, to whom he seems to have been attached, to advertise for him—three insertions in all the leading newspapers. That may produce something.”

  “Have you warned the Special Branch officers at the ports, giving a description of the suspect and of this boy, John Reddy, asking them to detain both the suspect and the boy and send them up here?”

  “No, sir; I haven’t done that.”

  “Well then, do it at once.”

  “I will, sir, as soon as I have got a good description of the suspect from someone who knows him well. I learned only this morning that the man is on his way home from Borneo, and I know where he would go if he lands in England.”

  “I won’t ask you what his name is at this stage as long as I know that you are doing everything in your power to get hold of him. It is always better to leave the officer in charge of a case to work it in his own way, but I trust you not to do anything highhanded which may lead to newspaper criticism of this department. I would rather that you failed than that. What do you think about the case, Mr. Witchard?”

  “I suppose that Mr. Richardson had better go on with it now that he has got as far as this, sir.”

  “So do I. If he does pull it off it will make a stir. I’d like to ask you one more question, Mr. Richardson. In what walk of life is this suspect of yours?”

  “He’s an official of a prosperous gold-mining company in Borneo, sir.”

  “Then be careful what you are doing, or we shall have all the financial papers on our track.”

  Superintendent Witchard was more friendly as they went down the stairs together. “If I had known how far you have got on with the case I shouldn’t have pitched into you about your expenses,” he said.

  “As long as you’re satisfied, Superintendent, I’ll stand any amount of fault-finding that you like to administer.”

  “I wonder that you didn’t think of communicating with the Port Officers from the Special Branch. Send me the name and description of the man you want and I’ll get out a circular, not only to our Port Officers on both sides of the Channel, but to the officers at the landing stations of the air lines as well.”

  “You shall have it this evening, Mr. Witchard.”

  Richardson looked into the sergeants’ room on the ground floor to collect Jago. He beckoned him out into the passage. “Come along,” he said; “we’ve got to go back to Bromley as quick as we can.”

  “To Bromley again?”

  “Yes, I’ll tell you why when we are in the train.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  BEYOND CALLING Jago shortly that they were going to Bromley to get a personal description of Frank Willis for circulation to the Port Officers Richardson was not communicative. He was considering how he could obtain such information from Sutcliffe without arousing his suspicion that the police were becoming interested in his future brother-in-law. He did not relish the duplicity of his role. Fortunately he had with him the group photograph of the Willis family.

  He found Sutcliffe working on the ignition circuit of a car—a comparatively clean job.

  “We’ve put your advertisement in,” said Richardson, “and I hope it’ll bring some response from the boy, Reddy. I’ve been thinking over what you told me about the mine yesterday. Have you made up your mind to go out?”

  “I haven’t got further than talking over the matter with Miss Willis. She is all for seeing new countries and says she doesn’t mind roughing it in the least; but I’m afraid of the climate for her, and I’m certainly not going out there alone.”

  “Of course, in the case of your brother-in-law-to-be he seems none the worse.”

  “No, but it’s different for a man.”

  “He’s a good deal older than his brother and sister?”

  “Yes; let me see, he must be thirty-eight.”

  Richardson pulled out the group photograph from his pocket. “I suppose he’s not like this photograph now, after spending all these years in the Far East.”

  “He was very sunburnt when he came home before my conviction. I shouldn’t think that he’s altered much—these fair men don’t show their age, least of all if they have an easy-going nature like Frank’s. I did him a terrible injustice in my mind. I thought that he had robbed me of practically all I possessed and that he was the man who had been killed on Dartmoor. When you were trying to get a description of him to fit that fellow, I quite forgot to tell you that he had a pronounced limp which he got from the kick of a horse.”

  “Well, I shall be very much interested to hear what you decide about going out. Of course you won’t go until all this business has been cleared up and the money embezzled by Instone has been returned to its rightful owners. I shall be at the Yard for the next two or three days. Please telegraph to me if you get any answer from the boy Reddy. Good-bye for the present.”

  On the way back to London, Richardson pulled out pencil and paper and began to draft a description of the man who was to be stopped at the ports. If his surmise was correct and Frank Willis was the man who had had the fatal encounter with Instone, he might be in England still, and therefore must be stopped at the ports in whichever direction he was going. His draft description ran as follows. “A man of 38, fair hair, good features, very sunburnt, about five foot nine, walks with a marked limp. Name, Frank Willis, but may be travelling under another name. This man should be stopped at the ports either when leaving England or returning, and escorted to the Superintendent, C.I.D. Department, New Scotland Yard.” He tossed this over to Jago and asked him to make a fair copy of it, for Jago had acquired the knack of writing legibly in the train.

  When the description was completed, Richardson cut the group photograph in such a way that only the elder brother appeared in it. This he attached to the notice with a pin. While he was thus engaged, Jago spoke.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot over this case of ours, Mr. Richardson. You don’t think that Mr. Sutcliffe’s elder brother, the tea merchant, of Mincing Lane, was the murderer? He had a motive of course, if he knew that Instone had robbed his brother and helped to get him sent to penal servitude.”

  “That idea did cross my mind and I made some inquiries about him, but he is a man who would naturally go to the authorities instead of taking the law into his own hands. Still it was as well to be sure and I asked his chief clerk at Mincing Lane for the date on which his employer left England on his honeymoon. It was on September 26—three days before the murder.”

  Ar
rived at Scotland Yard, Richardson went straight to Superintendent Witchard’s room. “Here is the notice for the Port Officers, sir. I thought they would prepare a block from the photograph at the head of the notice.”

  Witchard read the description with a frown. “It’s not as detailed as I should like to have it, but I suppose it was all that you could get.”

  “Yes, sir; I’ve never seen the man myself.”

  “There’s the limp, of course, but a man who is conscious of it and thinks that he is being scrutinized can generally disguise his limp for a few paces. He can’t disguise his sunburn. Why do you say that he is to be stopped going either way? Do you mean that he may be in England at this moment?”

  “Yes, sir, because if he committed the murder he must have been here on September 29. On the other hand, if he is arriving direct from Borneo, as may be the case, I’ll have to look elsewhere for a man who had a motive for the murder.”

  Richardson and Jago spent a busy day at the Central Office working up their notes of the Winterton case for the final report. Richardson was not very hopeful that Peter Sutcliffe’s advertisement would bring any response, but at ten o’clock on the following morning the messenger laid a telegram on the Chief Inspector’s table. Richardson tore it open and read:

  “CHIEF INSPECTOR RICHARDSON, NEW SCOTLAND YARD.

  Come immediately.—SUTCLIFFE.”

  He tossed it over to Jago and said, “Shove all those papers into the drawer, lock it and get your hat. This may turn out to be our great day.”

  They tore across to Westminster Underground station and were at Victoria in five minutes, taking their tickets to Bromley.

  No one came forward to meet them when they entered the garage. One or two of the garage hands looked up from their work and that was all. The murmur of voices could be heard from the far end of the shed where two or three derelict cars formed a screen to what might be going on behind them. It was not until they turned the corner of this screen that they saw Sutcliffe, who was sitting on the footboard of one of the cars conversing with a youth with sandy hair and a face thickly covered with freckles. As Sutcliffe left his seat the youth slunk away from him.