Crime at Tattenham Corner

by Annie Haynes

  Harbord looked where he pointed at the vast, billowy expanse around them, then he looked back inquiringly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Stoddart waved his hand to the north side. “Over there lie Matt Harker’s stables. He has turned out more winners of the classics than any other trainer. His gees get their morning gallops over the Downs.”

  Harbord’s expression changed. “And you connect this dead man at Hughlin’s Wood with Harker’s stables?”

  Stoddart looked at him. “I will tell you that in an hour or so.”

  As he spoke he turned the car rapidly to the right, and dashing down the road, which was little more than a track, they found themselves at Hughlin’s Wood, with Hughlin’s village in the immediate foreground.

  Harbord thought he had seldom seen a more desolate looking spot, or a more appropriate setting for the crime they had come to investigate. A few stark, upstanding pines, growing in rough, stubbly grass, were all that was left of the once mighty wood; a long, straggly hedge ran between them and the road that led to Hughlin’s village. It stood in a cleft in the hill which ran along to the bottom of the Downs. There was a curious cone-like hill just above the Wood. Harbord learned later that it went by the name of Hughlin’s Tomb, and was supposed to contain the remains of a giant named Hughlin, from whom the wood derived its name. On the opposite side of the road was some barren pasture-land, and a little back from the track stood a small hut or barn.

  By the Wood apparently the whole of the little population of Hughlin’s village was gathered. A policeman was keeping every one back from the ditch.

  The crowd scattered as the car came in sight. Stoddart slowed down and he and Harbord sprang out.

  Inside the space which was being kept free two men were standing. One was easily recognized by his uniform as a superintendent of police. The other, a tall, clean-shaven man of military appearance, Harbord identified as Major Vincent, the chief constable of the county.

  Major Vincent came to meet them. “Glad to see you, Inspector Stoddart. I hardly hoped that you could be here so soon.”

  Stoddart jerked his head at his run-about. “She is a tidy sort of little bus, sir. This is a terrible job!”

  “It is,” Major Vincent assented. “This is where the body was found – was flung, I should say – just over here.”

  The inspector walked forward and glanced down into the rather deep ditch. Long grasses fringed the edges, broken down and trampled upon now; the bottom was full of evil-smelling water.

  Stoddart’s quick, glancing eyes looked round. “Anything found here?”

  The superintendent answered:

  “Not so far, but we have made no very vigorous search. We waited till you came.”

  Stoddart nodded. “Quite right. The body?”

  “Over there.” The superintendent pointed to the barn in the field opposite. “Temporary mortuary,” he explained. “The inquest will be opened tomorrow at the Crown Inn down in the village. In the meantime –”

  “The body is here, I understand,” the inspector finished. “We will have a look at that first, please, sir.”

  He made an imperceptible sign to Harbord as he glanced at Major Vincent.

  “Any more evidence as to identity?” he questioned, as they walked across the rough grass together.

  Major Vincent shook his head. “You will be able to help us about that, I understand, inspector.”

  “I may be able to. I ought to be if your suspicions are well founded,” the inspector answered. “You rang up the house, of course.”

  “Of course! Answer, ‘Not at home.’ Said then we were afraid Sir John had met with an accident. His valet is coming down, should be here any minute now.”

  “Good!” the inspector said approvingly.

  The Major opened the door of the barn. “I will stop out here, and have a cigarette, if you don’t mind,” he said apologetically. “I have been in two or three times already and it has pretty well done for me. It is a ghastly sight.”

  Stoddart’s glance spoke his comprehension as he went inside; the doctor and the superintendent followed with Harbord.

  Inside was, as Major Vincent had said, “a ghastly sight.” The light was dim, little filtering through, except what came from the open door. The place was evidently used for cattle fodder. The floor was strewn with straw, trodden down and begrimed. The dead man lay on a hastily improvised stretcher of hurdles raised on a couple of others in the middle of the barn.

  Stoddart and Harbord instinctively stepped forward softly. The superintendent took off the covering some kindly hand had laid over the distorted face. Then, used though they were to scenes of horror, both Stoddart and Harbord with difficulty repressed an exclamation, so terrible was the sight. A momentary glance was enough to show that the man had been shot through the lower part of the face. The head had lain in the water of the ditch for some time face downwards. It was swollen and livid and grazed, but was not impossible of recognition. Yet, as Stoddart gazed on the figure, still in evening-dress, over the strong-looking hands with their manicured almond nails that had made marks on the palms as they clenched in the death agony, a certain look that Harbord well knew came into the inspector’s eyes. He held out his hand. “The card – ‘Sir John Burslem,’” he read aloud. He looked at the dead man’s wrist-watch, turned it over and looked at the monogram, glanced at a letter that was peeping out of the pocket – “Sir John Burslem, 15 Porthwick Square.” The postmark was that of the previous morning.

  The superintendent watched him in silence for a few minutes. At last he said:

  “Well, inspector, what do you say – is it Sir John Burslem?”

  “I believe so,” the inspector said without hesitation. “It is Sir John Burslem, I firmly believe. But I only had a casual acquaintance with him.”

  And, hardened though he was, Stoddart turned aside and blew his nose as his mind glanced from the twisted, broken thing before him to the prosperous financial magnate of whom he retained so vivid a recollection. He replaced the covering over the shattered head and looked at his watch.

  “The valet should be here directly. It seems to me we must await more positive identification from him. Until he comes, I should like a few words with you, doctor. How long had death taken place when you first saw the body?”

  The doctor coughed. “It is difficult to say with precision. I reached here about half-past seven this morning. I should say the man had been dead at least five hours when I saw him, possibly more, certainly not less.”

  “The cause of death?”

  “Evidently the man had been shot through the lower part of the face. For anything more we must wait for the post-mortem.” He added a few technical details.

  Harbord waited outside with Major Vincent and the superintendent.

  “Sir John Burslem,” he repeated thoughtfully. “A financier, you say. I seem to remember this name in some other connection.”

  “He was a big gun in what is called high finance,” Major Vincent told him. “It is said that no international deal, no great scheme of Government stock was launched without his advice. For himself, he was head of the great firm of Burslem & Latimer, the iron and jute merchants, Wellmorton Street, and of Burslem & Co., diamond merchants of South Africa, besides being director of Heaven knows how many companies. Sir John Burslem’s name spelt success to any undertaking.”

  “And will this” – Harbord jerked his head backward – “mean failure?”

  The major shrugged his shoulders. “Heaven knows! One’s imagination fails to picture the world of speculation without Jack Burslem, as he was generally known. But here’s the valet, Ellerby, I expect,” as a car stopped.

  An elderly man got out and came towards them. He was looking white and shaken.

  “Gentlemen,” he began in a quaking voice as he got near them, “they say that he – that Sir John has had an accident. He – he can’t be – dead!”

  “That is what we have brought you here to ascertain, Mr. Ellerby,”
Major Vincent said, a touch of pity in his tone as he thought of the ordeal that lay before the man. “You will be able to tell us definitely. The clothes at any rate you will be able to recognize. The face has been – in the water for some time and is terribly swollen.”

  The man looked at him, his mouth twitching. “I should know Sir John anywhere, sir,” he said, his manner becoming more composed. “I couldn’t be deceived about him. It is an impossibility.'’

  Stoddart went in with him. Harbord stood with the other three at the door. They heard a cry of horror, then a hoarse sob, and Ellerby’s voice, broken now:

  “Oh, it is Sir John, sure enough! Oh, yes, his poor face is all swollen, but I could swear to him anywhere. There is the dress coat I put on him yesterday evening, and his shoes, and his eyeglass on his cord, and his wrist-watch. Oh, it is Sir John safe enough. And what are we going to do without him? And her poor young ladyship – and Miss Pamela?”

  He came out wiping his eyes openly.

  “You identify the body positively as that of Sir John Burslem?” Major Vincent questioned authoritatively.

  “Oh, yes, sir, there is not no doubt possible.” Ellerby’s careful, rather precise grammar was forgotten now in his excitement and his own real grief. “I could tell without looking at his face,” he went on, “for there’s just the things I put out for him last night, little thinking. And her poor ladyship with a big party today going to the races!”

  “The races – by Jove!” Stoddart looked at his watch and then at Harbord. “Of course that accounts for all the traffic on the road; it’s Derby Day!”

  “You are right, sir.”

  The valet put away his handkerchief and steadied his voice. “It seems but the other day that poor Sir John was telling us to put our shirts on Peep o’ Day – ‘Best colt Matt Harker ever trained,’ he says, ‘and a dead cert for the Derby; maybe the last we’ll have before the tote comes in,’ Sir John said, ‘so get the best you can beforehand.’ And we did, all of us, at Sir John’s own bucket shop.”

  Stoddart’s face altered indefinably. “I hope you didn’t build on the colt winning, Mr. Ellerby.”

  “That I have, sir.” The man looked at him half fearfully. “All my own savings and my wife’s I have put on, and I borrowed my sister’s too. It is a tidy lot I stand to win when Peep o’ Day passes the winning-post! Though poor Sir John will never lead her in now.”

  “Nor anyone else as the winner of the Derby,” Stoddart said gravely. Don’t you realize what that” – with a nod at the barn – “means to all of you who have put your money on Peep o’ Day?”

  Ellerby began to tremble. “No, sir, I don’t. But we got our money on right enough. Sir John, he said it was as safe as if it was in the bank.”

  “So he may have thought, though in a gamble there is often a slip betwixt the cup and the lip,” Stoddart said dryly. “But don’t you know that an owner’s death renders void all his horses’ nominations and entries. Peep o’ Day is automatically scratched. If Sir John Burslem had died one minute before the race was run, and, not knowing, Peep o’ Day’s number had gone up, he would be disqualified. Today will be a grand day for the bookies. The favourite scratched at the last minute. You get your money back though, but we must wire at once for the sake of the poor devils who are putting on, on the course. Harker’s the trainer, you said.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ellerby stammered, his face working painfully. “Matt Harker said that Peep o’ Day was the best three-year-old he had ever had in training. He carried all the stable money.”

  “Well, it is to be hoped Harker hedged a bit,” Stoddart said slowly. “For Peep o’ Day won’t run to-day. And I wonder, I wonder –”

  CHAPTER 2

  Surely, surely, no hour had ever been so long! Sophie Burslem twisted herself round in bed once more. It was morning. Of course it was morning. The sun was streaming through her open window. She could hear the pleasant, familiar sounds of everyday life, but the sound for which she was waiting and watching did not come. At last she caught the echo of voices, distant at first, then nearer. One of the gardeners was talking on the terrace beneath the window.

  “Ay! if Peep o’ Day brings it off and I ain’t no manner of doubt that he will, seeing Sir John himself he said to me, ‘You like a bit of a gamble sometimes, I know, Germain. Well, you will have the safest gamble of your life if you put your shirt on Peep o’ Day. Best colt I’ve ever had,’ Sir John said. Well, my missus and me we drawed our nest-egg out o’ the post office, an’ we put it on Peep o’ Day, months ago, and we got 100 to 8 then. I reckon we will be made folks tomorrow.”

  “I am wishing I had done the same,” another voice chimed in, “but I thought there’s many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, and so I waited until this morning, and now I’ll only get starting price, and they’re saying it will be odds on. So ’tain’t any good backing Perlyon for a place as I had reckoned on doing. ’Tis sure to be place betting.”

  “Ay, ay,” the first speaker assented. “I had a tip for Perlyon myself, but –”

  The voices died away in the distance. As Sophie Burslem lay for a moment perfectly still on her pillow, two tears welled up in her eyes and rolled miserably down her cheeks. Peep o’ Day! Peep o’ Day! Those poor men had put their savings on Peep o’ Day. And now Peep o’ Day would never win the Derby!

  A minute more and there came the sound for which she had been waiting – a tap at the door. She pulled the lever that raised the latch and her maid came in with her tea. She set it on the table beside the bed.

  “It’s a lovely morning, my lady. And Sir John was saying yesterday that fine weather was all that Peep o’ Day wanted. He likes to hear his hoofs rattle, Sir John said. And if it had been heavy going it would have been all against him.”

  “Yes,” said Sophie Burslem faintly.

  She was stretching herself lazily while from beneath her half-closed eyelids her eyes were keenly watching every moment of the maid’s. Had she not been called a good amateur actress in the days that were gone? She would have to act today if she had never acted in her life before.

  “I have put all my savings on Peep o’ Day,” the maid went on. “My young man, he has done the same. We shall have something to talk about tonight, I expect, my lady.”

  Beneath the silken counterpane Sophie Burslem’s hands were twisting themselves together in an agony. Then came another of the sounds she was dreading. In the adjoining room some one was moving about opening and shutting drawers; then came silence; then a loud knocking at the door of her room. She made herself speak quietly:

  “What is that, Forbes? Just see, will you?” Then she waited again in that blank, awful expectancy. There was a murmured colloquy at the door; strain her ears as she might she could only catch a word or two.

  At last Forbes came back. “It is James, my lady; he wants to know if you can tell him where Sir John is?”

  “Sir John! I don’t know. Has he gone out?”

  “I suppose so, my lady. Somebody wants to see him on important business, and he is not in his room. They are saying he has not slept there, my lady.”

  “What?” Sophie Burslem raised herself on one elbow. Then she laughed. “Nonsense! Really for a moment you quite frightened me, Forbes. I expect Sir John has gone out to put a little more on Peep o’ Day. He went over to Oxley last night, you know. Mr. Harker said he had never had a colt he felt so confident about. He is a beauty, Forbes!”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  But the maid still hesitated. Was she really watching her furtively, Sophie wondered, or was it just her own fancy? Was she always going to be fanciful now?

  “James says – please what is he to say to the man on the phone, my lady? He has rung up twice before this morning, James says, and it’s from Scotland Yard, my lady.”

  “Scotland Yard!” For one moment Sophie Burslem’s heart seemed to stop beating; then went on again with great suffocating throbs. This time she was sure that her laugh did her credit. So had she laughed on
the stage in the old days at Elmhurst. “Poor Forbes! You really look quite frightened. Don’t you know that detectives are down at Oxley watching Peep o’ Day? It is something to do with that, of course. But why is James up here? Where is Ellerby?”

  “I don’t know, my lady. He went out ever so early this morning; we are wondering when he will be back, my lady.”

  “Rather an extraordinary proceeding on Ellerby’s part,” Sophie commented dryly. “Get my bath ready, please, Forbes, and tell James Sir John will be in directly, I expect.”

  She slipped on the side of the bed as she spoke and sat there watching Forbes as she went into the bathroom and turned on the tap.

  Sophie Burslem looked very young this morning – too young to be Sir John’s wife. She was a dainty vision in her soft, silken night-robe, with her pretty rounded neck and arms bare. Her shingled, chestnut hair was ruffled, it needed no permanent waving. The pink and white skin was as clear as ever, only the great, appealing brown eyes had altered indefinably. In the big pier-glass opposite she fancied that others could see the terrible fear that lurked in them, the dark circles round them. Long ago some one used to tell her that she had laughing eyes. Would anybody ever say that again? she asked herself. Just now they seemed to move of their own volition, glancing here and there into every corner fearfully. Suddenly they were caught by a tumbled heap of white by the sofa near the window. It was the frock she had worn last night just as she had thrown it down. She stared at it in a species of fascinated horror. Surely she was not mistaken. Across one fold there was an ugly, dark stain!

  She got up and went over to it, her bare feet pattering over the polished boards between.

  Forbes came back. “My lady, my lady, your slippers.”

  Sophie turned round and stood before the heap on the floor, her hands behind her, her breath coming quick and fast.

  “Nonsense! I don’t want slippers. You can go, Forbes. I will ring when I am ready.”