The First Sexton Blake

by AnonYMous

  “After his departure,” continued Sexton Blake, “your uncle apparently went back to bed. But he could not sleep. Eventually, he got up and took a dose of chloral. In his agitation, he took too much. Presently he realised that he had taken too much. He found himself growing unconscious. He got out of bed, with the intention of rousing you and sending for a doctor. In the darkness he stumbled over that chair, and that was the crash you heard. As he fell he struck his head against the corner of the chair. That explains the wound on his forehead and the bloodstain on the chair. But the unconscious state in which you found him, and in which he now lies, was not due to the fall, but to the overdose of chloral he had taken.”

  “What do you propose to do in the matter?” asked the doctor.

  “I propose,” said Sexton Blake, “to go to the bank which issued the cheque and interview the manager.”

  III.

  Five minutes at the London and Colonial Bank, which had just opened when Sexton Blake arrived, sufficed to give the detective all the information he required.

  “The cheque-book from which that particular cheque was taken,” said the manager, after referring to his books, “was issued by us, three years ago, to Alderman Sir Alfred Bidwell, the well-known City merchant, of Hazeldean Hall, Elstree.”

  The detective thanked him, hired a taxicab, and drove to Elstree. On reaching. Hazeldean Hall, he found that the gates were closed and locked. He rang the bell, and the lodge-keeper appeared.

  “I wish to see Sir Alfred on a matter of urgent importance,” said Sexton Blake, when the man had opened the gates. “Is he at home?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the lodge-keeper; “but he’s ill in bed, and isn’t allowed to see any visitors.”

  As he uttered these words the detective saw two young fellows come out of the front door of the hall, clearly visible from the gates, and stroll away in the direction of the conservatories.

  “Who are those?” he asked.

  “The taller of the two is Master Ralph,” said the lodge-keeper. “He’s Sir Alfred’s only son, you know. The other is Lieutenant Ford. He’s a great friend of Master Ralph’s, and has been staying here for the last day or two.”

  Bidding the taxi-driver wait for him, the detective hurried up the snow-clad drive and followed the two young fellows towards the conservatories. Suddenly he started, and a thrill of suppressed excitement shot through his nerves. In the snow, on that part of the drive which led from the front door to the conservatories, the footprints of the two young fellows were the only footprints to be seen. And the footprints of one of the young fellows exactly corresponded with the footprints which Sexton Blake had sketched in Mr. Sinclair’s garden!

  Quickening his pace, the detective approached the two young men from behind without their having observed him, Carefully watching them, he saw that the one whose footprints corresponded with those of Mr. Sinclair’s nocturnal visitor was Lieutenant Ford.

  “Good-morning, gentlemen,” said Sexton Blake. “Sorry if I intrude. You know who I am, I see.”

  “You’re Sexton Blake,” said Lieutenant Ford, turning pale.

  “I am,” said the detective. “And I’ve come to ask you why you broke into Mr. Sinclair’s house this morning and forced him to burn that cheque?”

  The lieutenant uttered a groan of dismay, Ralph Bidwell turned to him with a cry of comprehension.

  “So you have been to Sinclair’s and forced him to destroy the cheque!”

  “I have,” said the lieutenant defiantly. “You have nothing more to fear from Sinclair.”

  “That is true,” said Sexton Blake gravely. “Mr. Sinclair is dying.”

  “Dying!” gasped Lieutenant Ford. “But—but I never touched him! It isn’t my fault if he is dying!”

  “I know it isn’t,” said Sexton Blake. “But after yon left the house, Mr. Sinclair took an overdose of chloral, and— However, before I tell you my story you’d better tell me yours.”

  The lieutenant glanced at Ralph Bidwell.

  “You’d better tell him the first part,” he said.

  “Two years ago,” said Ralph to the detective, “I was desperately hard up for money, and in a mad fit of youthful folly I forged my father’s name to a cheque. Within an hour of parting with the cheque I realised my folly. I went to the man to whom I had given the cheque, and implored him to give it back to me. But I was too late. He had endorsed it and had given it to Mr. Sinclair in payment of a debt.

  “I went to Mr. Sinclair,” he continued, “and made a clean breast of the whole affair. He saw that I was in his power, and, like the scoundrel he is, he made the most of it. In other words, he refused to give up the cheque, but agreed not to present it so long as I paid him so much a month.

  “From first to last,” he concluded, “I have paid Mr. Sinclair over a thousand pounds on account of that cheque. Three days ago he informed me that unless I paid him a hundred pounds before the end of the week he would take the cheque to my father and tell him everything. My father was then ill, and likely to die. I knew that the revelation of my baseness would break his heart. I also knew that he would probably alter his will. Yet I could do nothing to avert the disaster, as I couldn’t have raised a hundred pounds to save my life.”

  “Ralph told me all this last night,” said Lieutenant Ford, taking up the thread of the narrative. “Without telling him of my intention, I decided to go to Sinclair’s house and compel him to destroy the cheque.”

  The rest is soon told. Ralph Bidwell took Sexton Blake’s advice, and told his father everything. The old man was naturally greatly distressed, but in the end he forgave his erring son, and died without altering his will. Miss Arnold, on hearing the detective’s story, declared she had nothing but sympathy and admiration for Lieutenant Ford; and, as Mr. Sinclair died without recovering consciousness, the whole affair, so far as the police and public were concerned, remained an unsolved mystery.

  PY PONK

  April 17, 1909

  I.

  Like most detectives, Sexton Blake made a practice of reading all the “agony” advertisements that appeared in the leading London and provincial papers. Generally, the advertisements were so trivial that the detective’s interest in them ended when he had read them. But there were exceptions to this rule, and the following was one of them.

  It first appeared in the “agony” column of the Daily Letter on Saturday, 5th January, 1907, and it appeared, so far as Sexton Blake could discover, in no other paper. It ran:

  “X.Y.Z. Py ponk.”

  The detective road it and wrinkled his brow.

  “Py ponk!”

  No language with which he was acquainted contained such words.

  “A cryptogram,” he said to himself. “It’s no use trying to solve a cryptogram of two short words, but other advertisements may appear, couched in the same cipher, and then I may unearth the key.”

  The advertisement appeared again on the following Saturday, 12th January, and again on Saturday, the 19th, and again on Saturday the 26th. Its regular appearance at intervals of a week, and always exactly in the same form, piqued the detective’s curiosity.

  On Saturday, 2nd February, the advertisement appeared again, but this time with an addition. It now ran:

  “X.Y.Z. Eska zoeoltox. Py ponk.”

  Next Saturday—9th February—the advertisement reverted to its original for:

  “X.Y.Z. Py ponk.”

  In this form it appeared on the 16th and the 23rd, and then, on Saturday. 2nd March, it appealed again as:

  “X.Y.Z. Eska zoeoltox. Py ponk.”

  March passed and April came. April gave place to May, May to June, June to July, and July to August. And still the advertisement continued to appear every week, always in the Daily Letter, and always on Saturday. On the first Saturday in the month it took the form of “Eska zoeoltox. Py ponk.” On the other Saturday
s in the month it simply said, “Py ponk.”

  “If only the fellow would add a few more words to this advertisement, and give me something to work on, I’d undertake to discover the key,” muttered Sexton Blake, one night towards the end of August. “But he never will!” he added viciously. “It’ll be ‘Py ponk’ and ‘Eska zoeoltox’ to the end of the chapter.”

  In this, however, the detective was mistaken, for, on opening his Daily Letter on the morning of Saturday, 31st August, he saw that the familiar initials “X.Y.Z.,” instead of being followed by the usual “Py ponk,” were followed by two or three lines of unintelligible-looking jargon, of which the first three words were “Ponk si uski.”

  “At last!” cried Sexton Blake, with a happy, exultant laugh.

  II.

  Proceeding on the usual well-known system—of which the fundamental principle is to count all the characters in the cryptogram, and to assume that the one which appears the oftenest stands for the letter “e”—Sexton Blake speedily unravelled the tangle, and in less than half an hour had obtained a complete key to the unknown advertiser’s code.

  With the help of this key he ascertained that “Py ponk” stood for “No news”; that “Eska zoeoltox” meant “Cash received;” and that “Ponk si uski” meant “News at last.” That is to say, for eight months—from January to August—the unknown advertiser had advertised on the first Saturday in each month, “Cash received. No news.” On the other Saturdays of the month he had simply stated, “No news.” And now, on the last Saturday in August, he prefaced his advertisement with the statement, “News at last.”

  What was his news? Eagerly the detective deciphered the rest of the advertisement; and, when he had completed his task, this is what he read:

  “X.Y.Z.—News at last. Have found him. He enlisted in Yorkshire Fusiliers last June in name of Trevor. Have seen him and struck up acquaintance. Your wish will be gratified Sunday afternoon. See Monday’s Highfield Telegraph for full particulars.”

  Dark thoughts flitted through the detective’s brain as he perused these words. Then he walked across to the telephone and called up the War Office.

  “Where are the Yorkshire Fusiliers stationed at present?” he asked.

  “Highfield,” was the curt reply.

  He consulted a Bradshaw, and sent for a hansom. Half an hour later he was on his way to Highfield, where, on arrival, he drove to the barracks and asked to see the colonel.

  He colonel received him in one of the rooms of the officers’ mess, and listened to the story with the deepest attention.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “I know the young fellow to whom the advertisement refers. His name is John Trevor. But what do you suppose, is the meaning of these advertisements?”

  “In my mind,” said Sexton Blake, “there is no room for doubt as to their meaning. The man who inserted them in the Daily Letter was evidently employed by ‘X.Y.Z.’—whoever he may be—to ascertain the present whereabouts of this young fellow whom you know as John Trevor. X.Y.Z. apparently agreed to pay the man a certain sum per month whilst he was prosecuting his search, and instructed him to report progress every week in the Daily Letter.”

  “For eight months,” continued Sexton Blake, “the man’s investigations and enquiries yielded no result; so he advertised each week, ‘No news.’ Probably he received his promised pay on the last of each month; so on the first Saturday subsequent he added to the advertisement the words, ‘Cash received.’ Now, at last, he has discovered that the young fellow he has been searching for enlisted in your regiment last June.”

  “All of which,” said the colonel, “sounds very plausible. But what is the meaning of ‘Have seen him and struck up acquaintance. Your wish will gratified Sunday afternoon. See Monday’s Highfield Telegraph for full particulars’?”

  “It is because of those very words,” said Sexton Blake gravely, “that I have hurried here as fast as train and cab would bring me. In my opinion, ‘X.Y.Z.,’ in addition to engaging this man to search for Trevor, has bribed him to murder him; and, if I read the advertisement aright, the man intends to commit the crime tomorrow afternoon.”

  A look of horrified incredulity crossed the colonel’s face.

  “I must confess I find it hard to credit your theory,” he said. “If ‘X.Y.Z.’ had concluded this infamous bargain with his confederate, why should he instruct him to report to him in the Daily Letter?”

  “The reason for the cipher is obvious,” said Sexton Blake. “As for the rest, suppose that ‘X.Y.Z.’ didn’t wish to reveal his identity to his confederate, for fear that the latter might blackmail him. What could be simpler than for ‘X.Y.Z. to arrange to send his confederate his promised pay each month through his bankers, and to instruct his confederate to communicate with him, whenever he hail anything to communicate, by means of an advertisement in the Daily Letter?”

  The colonel touched a bell, and an orderly appeared.

  “Tell Private Trevor I wish to see him,” said the colonel.

  III.

  Trevor could throw no light on the meaning of the advertisements.

  “The last one certainly seems to refer to me,” he said; “but what it means I can’t imagine.”

  “It means,” said Sexton Blake, “that somebody has bribed somebody else to murder you. Tell me your history.”

  “There’s no reason that I know of why I shouldn’t tell you my history,” said Trevor. “I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. My real name is Hugh Langley, and I was adopted when my parents died by the late Sir Mark Bainford, who was an old friend, but no relation, of my father’s. Sir Mark always intended to leave me the bulk of his fortune, but he forgot to make a will; so, when he died, a year ago this month, his nephew, Harvey Bainford, obtained the whole of his uncle’s money, and I was turned adrift without a penny.

  “The rest you can guess,” he said bitterly. “After Sir Mark’s death, I tried in vain to obtain, employment as a clerk, and at last, two months ago, I enlisted in the Fusiliers in the name of John Trevor.”

  “What new acquaintances have you made, outside the regiment, within the last few days?” asked Sexton Blake.

  “Well,” said Trevor, “there is a man named Coombe, at present in Highfield on a visit. Last Wednesday I played in the annual cricket match between the garrison and the town, and at the conclusion of the match Mr. Coombe came up and congratulated me on my batting. He asked me to spend the evening with him at his hotel, which I did, and afterwards we arranged, at his suggestion, to go for a row on the river tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Sunday afternoon!” said Sexton Blake meaningly, “Can you swim?”

  “No,” said Trevor, in obvious surprise. “Strange to say, Mr. Coombe asked me that.”

  The detective laughed.

  “Now, come with me to Mr. Coombe’s hotel,” he said.

  Trevor obeyed—as everybody had a knack of doing when Sexton Blake commanded. They found “Mr. Coombe” in the otherwise deserted smoke-room of the hotel, and the instant Sexton Blake set eyes on him he recognised him as a shady London “private enquiry agent” named Vincent Wise. Wise was equally quick to recognise Sexton Blake, and started up.

  “‘Py ponk!’” said Sexton Blake, with a bland smile. “Also ‘Eska zoeoltox!’ Likewise ‘Ponk si uski!’ Sit down; the game’s up. Now, tell us all about it.”

  Wise threw up the sponge without even the semblance of a struggle.

  “Last New Year’s Day,” he said, “a gentleman whom I had never seen before came to my office and offered me a certain sum to do a certain work.”

  “The said ‘work’ being,” said Sexton Blake, “to find Hugh Langley, and murder him?”

  Wise sullenly nodded.

  “He wouldn’t tell me his name,” he said, “or why he desired Mr. Langley’s death. He said if I accepted his terms he would instruct his bankers to send me a certain sum on t
he last of each month, and he further arranged that I was to put an advertisement in the Daily Letter every Saturday, in a cipher of his own devising to inform him of the progress of my search.”

  “You accepted his terms,” said Sexton Blake, “and eventually you discovered that Mr. Langley had enlisted in the Fusiliers in the name of Trevor. You invited him to go for a row on the river tomorrow, and, having ascertained that he could not swim, you intended there should be an accident and he should be drowned.”

  Wise hung his head and did not speak.

  “Your silence proves that I am right,” said Sexton Blake. “Now, tell me, have you no suspicion who your unknown client is?”

  “I know who he is,” said Wise. “I shadowed him when he left my office, and found out who he was and where he lived; but I never let him know I had discovered his identity.”

  “And he its Mr. Harvey Bainford, of course?” said Sexton Blake.

  “Yes,” said Wise.

  “And he lives?”

  “At Marton Manor, near Cheltenham.”

  The detective turned to Hugh Langley.

  “And now for Marton Manor,” he said.

  IV.

  It was nearly midnight, and pitch dark, when Sexton Blake and Langley reached Marton Manor. It was a warm night, and they saw that the French window of the library—the only room which displayed a light—was wide open.

  As they drew nearer to the house, the sound of voices was borne on their ears, and a second or two later they perceived that the voices were those of two men in the library.

  “Harvey Bainford and Mr. Hampson,” whispered Langley. “That’s Bainford in the easy-chair, and the other man, with the foolscap envelope in his hand, is Mr. Hampson. He was Sir Mark’s solicitor.”

  Tho detective signed to his companion to tread lightly.

  “So you refuse to accept my terms?” they heard the lawyer say.

  “I do,” said Bainford.

  “Do you realise what your refusal means?” asked Hampson. “Here in this envelope is your uncle’s will, leaving everything to Hugh Langley. For twelve months I have suppressed it—”