The Grell Mystery

by Frank Froest

  Green bit back an expletive. The prospect of a night’s search in the wet and wind and rain did not appeal to him. There seemed no help for it, however. ‘Much obliged,’ he said. ‘We’ll watch for your men. Drive on, Mr Malley.’ And they slipped forward into the gloom.

  ‘There’s too much of the needle in a haystack business about this to suit my taste,’ he complained when once they were clear of the town. ‘That car might have taken anyone of fifty side-turnings. Anyway, we’ll go on to Petersfield and see whether they’ve had any luck. Slow down a bit. There’s not much object in speed now.’

  Presently their big acetylene lights picked out a caped policeman standing in the centre of the roadway, his arm upraised for them to halt. They could see his bicycle resting on the grass. As they stopped, he advanced and, glancing at the number on the bonnet, scrutinised the two detectives sharply.

  ‘It’s all right, constable,’ said Malley. ‘We’re not the people you’re looking for. We’re from London, and we’re looking for the same man.’

  The policeman, satisfied, stepped back with a clumsy salute and a ‘Beg pardon, gentlemen,’ and once more they were off. Ten minutes later, another cyclist, pedalling furiously, rode into the zone of light cast by their head-lamps. A hail brought him to a stop, and Green put a question, explaining who he was.

  ‘We’ve found it, sir,’ exclaimed the man excitedly. ‘It’s in a lane at the other side of the little village called Dalehurst, a mile farther up. It had been run into a ditch and left there. There’s no sign of the man who was in it. I’m just riding in to report. There’s a sergeant looking after it.’

  ‘Never mind about reporting, yet,’ said Green. ‘You come back with us and show us where this car is. I’ll take all responsibility.’

  They travelled on at a pace that permitted the cyclist to keep alongside, and presently, turning sharply to the right, picked their way along a narrow roadway which, overgrown with grass and flanked by densely-wooded country, was as desolate and lonely a spot as could be conceived. The car bumped and swayed over ruts and hummocks, and Green touched his companion’s sleeve to bid him stop.

  ‘We shall get on quicker and safer if we walk,’ he said, and dropped stiffly to the ground. Malley followed suit, and swung his arms vigorously about his body to restore some degree of warmth to his cramped frame.

  ‘We’ll carry one of the headlights with us,’ said Green. ‘Faith, it’s muddy.’

  Their boots made a soft, squelching noise as they tramped on under black shadows of the trees for a hundred yards. The track of the previous car was embedded plain on the soft earth. And here and there were footmarks recently made which the three avoided confusing, on Green’s order, by keeping to the side of the roadway. The wheelmarks ended abruptly round a slight bend, where they came upon the car itself. It was tilted at an acute angle, with its leading front wheel embedded in the low ditch. All the lights had been extinguished, and the rear of the car, with the number, was picked out in high relief against the dark background by the acetylene light carried by Malley.

  ‘Who’s that?’ growled a husky voice, and a police-sergeant stepped into the section of light.

  ‘It’s all right, sergeant,’ said the man who had acted as guide to the detectives. ‘It’s only two gentlemen from London who are engaged on the case. I met them and brought them along.’

  The chief inspector had taken the lamp from Malley and was throwing its light on the ground around the car. Then he stepped into the car itself and began a minute inspection of rugs and cushions. The search was only a matter of habit, and it revealed nothing. He stepped down and pointed to some footprints. ‘Anyone been here but you two men?’ he asked. ‘Here, both of you, press your right feet here. That’s it.’ He contemplated the marks with careful deliberation for a while, and then, stepping wide, followed a series of footmarks leading up the lane.

  ‘Our gentleman walked pretty fast,’ observed Green. ‘See how plain the heel and toe marks come out, while the rest of the impression is blurred. Hello! what’s this?’

  The road had terminated abruptly in a bridle-path leading apparently to the interior of the wood, and the footprints had become more and more indistinct with the transition to ground covered with fallen leaves. They had failed entirely as Green spoke, and he flung the light about in an effort to pick them up again. Then something met his eye on a spike of blackthorn, and he carefully picked off a thread of brown cloth. ‘We’re done for tonight, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘He’s gone off the track and got into the wood. We’ll get back, Malley, and try to find a room or somewhere to sleep near here. Then we can turn out with daylight. But first of all we must ’phone to the Yard. By the way, sergeant, do you know whose estate we’re on?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure,’ growled the officer. ‘It used to be Colonel Sawford’s, but I believe he sold it to that man who was killed in London a little while back. Grell was his name, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Really? Thank you, sergeant. Come on, Malley. Perhaps we can find the village post office and use the ’phone.’

  CHAPTER XLVI

  IT was to Heldon Foyle’s own house, and not to Scotland Yard, that Green telephoned eventually. Clad in a bright blue dressing-gown, the superintendent listened, with a few non-committal interjections, until his lieutenant had finished.

  ‘On his own land, eh?’ he said at last. ‘What do you make of it, Green? Is it genuine, or has he done it just to throw us off, and doubled back on his trail? It looks as if he intended us to find that motor-car.’

  Green disagreed. ‘It’s a deserted, blind road made for wood-cutters years ago. It was only a chance that a constabulary sergeant found it. He may have left it there for the time being, relying on coming back to hide it properly out of sight. And this is an ideal place for anyone to keep close. It would take a thousand men to search the wood anything like thoroughly.’

  ‘There’s some sort of house on the estate, I suppose?’ demanded Foyle.

  ‘Yes, I’ve not been up to it, but I’m told it’s a big, rambling old place called Dalehurst Grange, approached through sloping meadows and backing on to the woods. It would be easy for a man to see anyone in the house coming from the front and slip away into the undergrowth. Malley’s gone up to have a look at the place. We’ll need a search warrant to go over the place, but I don’t think it’ll be any good.’

  ‘Nor I,’ agreed Foyle. ‘It’ll have to be done some other way. You’ve asked the county constabulary to make inquiries and to watch the railway stations round about, of course? All right. You run things on your own discretion, and if you or Malley see me just shut your eyes. Now give me your address and report to the Yard as usual.’

  The superintendent lit a cigar after he had replaced the receiver, and thoughtfully toasted his slippered feet before the fire. Presently he rose, turned over the leaves of a time-table, and discovering that Dalehurst possessed no railway station, discarded it in favour of a gazetteer. From that he found that the village was four miles from Deepnook, and the time-table again consulted showed him that he could reach the latter place in a couple of hours from Waterloo.

  Before he went to bed that night he packed the kit-bag that had accompanied him in most of his wanderings all over the globe. Other things than clothes found a place in its depths, among them a jemmy, some putty, and a glazier’s diamond. The superintendent had an idea that they might be more effective than a search warrant.

  Yet, as he turned the key, he realised that the energy and the efforts of both himself and Green might be wasted. There was a possibility that it was a blind trail—that Grell had contrived the whole thing as a blind, and had slipped out of the net that had been drawn for the brown motor-car. The thought induced Foyle to telephone through to headquarters to order a fresh warning to be wired through to the police at all the ports. He believed in leaving as little as possible to chance.

  The night staff was still on duty when he reached Scotland Yard the next morning. The detective-inspect
or in charge stared at a corpulent man clad in a Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers of brown tweed, whose heavy boots clanged along the corridor. The hair, moustache, and eyebrows of the intruder were a shiny black, and a little trimming with scissors and a judicious use of a comb and brush had altered the appearance of the superintendent’s face as completely as the clothes had altered his figure.

  He was no believer in stage disguises. False beards and wigs were liable to go wrong at critical moments. He nodded reassuringly to the inspector and placed his kit-bag on the floor.

  ‘It’s all right, I’m Foyle right enough. I’m thinking of a change of air for a day or two,’ was all the explanation he vouchsafed. ‘I want to just run through my letters and catch the nine-ten train from Waterloo. I’ll leave a note over for Mr Mainland, who’ll take charge while I’m away.’

  He went methodically through the heavy morning’s correspondence, pencilling a few notes here and there on the letters, and sorting them into baskets ranged on the table as he finished. Precisely at a quarter to nine he touched a bell, and gave a few brief instructions. Then, carrying his bag, he descended the flight of steps at the front entrance and walked briskly along the Embankment. As he crossed the footway of Hungerford Bridge, a biting wind swept up the river and he shivered, warmly clad though he was. One of his own men passed without recognising him, and the superintendent smiled to himself.

  There were five minutes to spare when he sank into the corner seat of a smoking compartment, and composed himself with a couple of morning papers for the journey. But he read very little. There was much to occupy his mind, and as the train slipped out of Waterloo station he tossed the periodicals aside, crossed his knees, blew a cloud of smoke into the air, and with a little gold pencil made a few notes on a visiting-card. London slipped away, and an aeroplane flying low came into his line of vision as they passed Weybridge. The open pasture meadows gave place to more wooded country, and he placed his pencil back in his pocket as they ran into Deepnook.

  A solitary porter shuffled forward to take his bag. Foyle handed it over. ‘Is there a good hotel in this place?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s the Anchor, sir,’ answered the porter. ‘It’s a rare good place, an’ they say as ’ow Lord Nelson stayed there once. They aren’t very busy at this time of the year. Only one or two motorists stopping there.’

  ‘What’s good enough for Nelson is good enough for me. Is it far, or can you carry that bag there?’

  The porter hastened to reassure the gentleman. It was a bare three minutes’ walk. Might he ask if the gentleman was staying long?

  Foyle wasn’t sure. It depended on how he liked the country and on the weather. ‘By the way,’ he went on, with an air of one faintly curious, ‘didn’t Mr Grell, who was murdered in London, have some property this way? Dalehurst Grange or something? I suppose you never saw him?’

  ‘That I ’ave,’ asserted the porter, eager to associate himself, however remotely, with the tragedy. ‘I’ve seen him time and again. He always used this station when he came down from London—though that wasn’t often, worse luck. He was a nice sort of gentleman, though some of the folks down here pretended that ’e was not what you’d call in proper society, because he was an American. But I always found ’im generous and free-’anded. And to think of ’im being done to death! My missus says she’s afraid to go to bed afore I go off duty now. It was a great shock to us, that murder.’

  He spoke with a solemn shake of the head, as though he lived in daily dread of assassination himself. ‘You see the last train through, I suppose?’ asked Foyle irrelevantly.

  ‘Yes, sir. The ten-nine up. As I was saying, what with these ’ere murders and things—’

  ‘Have they shut the Grange up, or is there still someone living there?’

  ‘Well, they got rid of most of the servants. I believe there’s still a ’ousekeeper there and a maid, as well as a gardener. I remember when Mr Grell first took over the place, Bill Ellis—’e’s the blacksmith—ses to me—’ He entered into lengthy reminiscence, to which Foyle only paid casual heed. He had learned what he wanted to know. Grell, if he had left the neighbourhood the preceding night, had not done so from Deepnook, where he would have infallibly been recognised.

  The porter was still talking when they passed under the branching arms of the giant chestnut that shaded the courtyard of one of the prettiest of the old coaching inns of England. Foyle slipped a shilling into his guide’s hand, and registered himself as ‘Alfred Frampton—London.’

  Local gossip is often of service to the man who knows how to lead it into the right channels. The superintendent decided that an hour or two might be profitably wasted in the lounge, where half-a-dozen men were sitting at a small table before a huge, open fireplace. He ordered a drink and sat a little apart, relying on their provincial curiosity to presently drag him into the conversation. By the time the lunch he had ordered for one o’clock was ready, his habit of handling men had stood him in good stead. ‘Mr Frampton of London’ had paid for drinks, told half-a-dozen good stories, laughed at a score of bad ones, asked many innocent questions, and deftly given the impression that he was a London business man in search of a few weeks’ rest from overstrain. Moreover, he had gained some knowledge of the lay of the country and acquaintances who might be useful. One never knew.

  The afternoon saw him tramping through the picturesque countryside, with its dropping hills and wooded valleys. He moved as one careless of time, whose only object was to see the country. Once he stayed to talk with a stone-breaker by the side of the wood; once he led a farmer’s restive horse and trap by a traction engine. On both occasions he contrived to drop a good deal of information about himself, and his reasons for being in that part of the country. That it was false was little matter. The best way to stop local gossip is to feed it. A mysterious, quiet stranger would be speculated about, the amiable business man from London with a love of chat was quite unlikely to arouse suspicions.

  Sooner or later Grell, if he were in the neighbourhood, would learn of the presence of Green and Malley. His attention would be concentrated on what they were doing. Foyle, acting independently, was looking for an opening to attack from the rear. He had a great opinion of Grell’s capacity for getting out of awkward situations. He sauntered through Dalehurst, stopping at a little general store to buy some tobacco and gather more gossip. The village shop invariably focuses village gossip. A garrulous old dame talked at large with the affable stranger, and when the superintendent emerged he was certain that Chief Inspector Green and those acting with him had succeeded in maintaining an adequate discretion in regard to the events of the preceding night.

  As Foyle passed on, he observed a man hurrying towards him and recognised Malley. Abruptly the superintendent turned his back and, leaning his arms upon a low stone wall, seemed lost in contemplation of a little churchyard. When the divisional inspector had passed on, Foyle resumed his walk.

  It cost him some little trouble to find the road in which the motor-car had been left derelict. The sodden earth still retained wheel tracks, and it needed but a glance to show that the car had been removed but a few hours before. He walked on till he came to the place where Green had found the strip of brown cloth, which was fairly plain to find, for the footsteps of Green and the other police officers when they followed the trail ceased there as Grell’s had done.

  Here he drew a small pocket-compass from his waistcoat pocket, and pressing a spring released the needle. As it came to rest he thrust aside the hazel bushes and plunged in among the undergrowth. Now and again he consulted the compass as he walked leisurely forward, wet branches brushing his face and whipping at his clothes. For the brief portion of the way a keeper’s path facilitated his progress, but at last he was forced to abandon this and return to the wilder portion of the wood. He was making a detour which he hoped would lead him to the back of Dalehurst Grange.

  At last he could see a clear space ahead of him, and in a little, sinking on his knees on a
bank, was peering downhill to an old-fashioned, Jacobean manor-house, from whose chimney smoke was lazily wreathing upward. Between him and the house a meadow sloped for a hundred yards, and the back of the house was bounded by an irregular orchard.

  ‘Pity I didn’t think to bring a pair of field-glasses,’ muttered Foyle, as his eyes swept the place. ‘I can’t tell how those mullioned windows are protected. Well, I may as well make myself comfortable, I suppose.’

  A little search rewarded him with a great oak tree, and in the fork of a branch twenty feet high he found an easy seat from which he could watch the house without any great risk of being seen himself. Immobile as a statue, he remained till long after dusk had fallen and a steady light appeared at one of the windows. It was, in fact, ten o’clock, and the light had disappeared when he dropped quietly to earth and, with quick footsteps, began to cross the meadow to the orchard.

  Under the fruit trees the detective moved slower and held his stick before him, softly tapping the ground as though he were blind. He had not taken half-a-dozen steps before the stick touched something stretched about a foot from the ground. Stooping, he groped in the darkness.

  ‘A cord,’ he muttered. ‘Now I wonder if that is merely a precaution against burglars or—’ and, stepping over the obstacle, he went on cautiously feeling his way. Twice more he found cords stretched across the grass, so that an unwary intruder might be tripped up, but his caution enabled him to avoid them.

  The walls of the house loomed before him. He stepped to the nearest window and tested it. It was fastened tightly, nor could he see inside. Foyle had no taste for the haphazard, and would have liked to be certain of the run of the house. But one window was as good as another in the circumstances. He worked deftly with a glazier’s diamond for a while, and at last removing one of the diamond panes of glass thrust his hand through and undid the latch. The window swung open, and the superintendent sat down on the grass underneath and swiftly unlaced his boots.