Inspector French and the Sea Mystery Read online

  As the guard waved his flag French sprang to his feet, and amid the execrations of the porters, he hurled himself and his baggage from the moving train. Then, smiling pleasantly at the exasperated officials, he hurried from the station, jumped into a taxi, and told the man to drive to the Ardlo Magneto Works in Queen Elizabeth Street.

  ‘Sorry to trouble you so soon again, Mr Illingworth,’ he apologised on being shown in, ‘but I’ve thought of a way in which that car could have been disabled at the time and place required, and I want to know if it will hold water.’

  ‘If your method covers all the factors in the case as you have described it, I should like to hear it, Mr French.’

  ‘Well, it’s simple enough, if it’s nothing else. I take it that if the magneto of my car goes wrong I can buy another?’

  ‘Why, of course, but I don’t follow you.’

  ‘They are all made to a standard—interchangeable?’

  Mr Illingworth whistled.

  ‘Gee, I’m beginning to get you! Yes, they’re all made standard. There are several models, you understand, but all the magnetos of any given model are interchangeable.’

  ‘Good! Now tell me, what’s to prevent my man from buying a duplicate magneto, damaging the armature winding invisibly with a needle, and running it on his car till it gives up; then taking it off, carrying it as a spare, and putting it on again when he had got the car to the point of breakdown?’

  ‘You’ve got it, Mr French! Great, that is! I didn’t think it was possible, and there, as you say, it’s as simple as A.B.C.’

  ‘Well,’ said French, ‘then did he?’

  Illingworth looked his question, and French went on:

  ‘I’m looking to you for proof of the theory. First, do these magnetos carry a number? If so, is there a record of the number fitted to each car? If so, what was the number supplied with Mr Berlyn’s car? Next, is that the number that came in for repairs? Next, was there a magneto of that type ordered separately recently, and if so, by whom?’

  ‘Steady on, Mr French,’ Mr Illingworth laughed. ‘What do you take me for? I’m not a detective. Now let’s go over that again, one thing at a time. Magnetos carry a number, yes, and we have a note of the numbers supplied to the different car manufacturers. They can tell you the number of the magneto they put on any given car. What car are you interested in?’

  ‘A 15-20 four-seater Mercury touring car, number 37,016, supplied through Makepeace to a Mr Berlyn of Ashburton.’

  ‘Right. I’ll ring up the Mercury people now.’

  Mr Illingworth was indefatigable in his inquiries, but he was not prepared for the state of delighted enthusiasm into which his results threw French.

  ‘That’s got it,’ the latter cried eagerly. ‘A long shot, but a bull’s eye! I have to thank you for it, Mr Illingworth, and you don’t know how grateful I am.’

  The first fact was not encouraging. The magneto which had been supplied originally with Mr Berlyn’s car was the same that had been sent in by Makepeace with the short-circuited winding. So far, therefore, the breakdown might have been genuine enough. But it was the second item which had so transported French. A precisely similar magneto had been sold as a spare about a month earlier and under circumstances which left no doubt as to the motive. It had been ordered by a Mr Henry Armstrong, in a typewritten letter headed ‘The Westcliff Hotel, Bristol,’ and it was to be sent to the parcels office at St David’s Station, Exeter, marked ‘To be kept till called for.’ The letter was being sent over by hand, and when French received it a few minutes later he saw that it had been typed by the same machine as that ordering the duplicator.

  ‘That’s fine, Mr Illingworth,’ he repeated in high delight. ‘That’s one of my major difficulties overcome: I just want you to tell me one other thing. How long would it take to change the magneto—out in the country on a dark night?’

  ‘It’s a half hour’s job for a skilled man. The actual lifting in and out of the machine is easy, but the setting is the trouble. The contact breaker, as I’m sure you know, has to be set so as to give the spark at the right point in the engine cycle. That takes a bit of time.’

  ‘I follow that. But is there no way that the adjustable parts could be set beforehand to save that time?’

  ‘That’s right. They could be marked and everything set to the marks. That would speed things up.’

  ‘By how much, should you say?’

  ‘With everything marked, a man could do the whole thing in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Good,’ said French. ‘I guess that’s everything at last.’

  He returned to Paddington and caught the 1.30 p.m. express for Exeter. He was overjoyed at his progress. The issue was rapidly narrowing.

  How rapidly it was narrowing struck him even more forcibly as he thought of a further point. The trick had been played with Berlyn’s car. Could it have been done without Berlyn’s knowledge? Could in fact, anyone but Berlyn have carried it out? French did not think so. It was beginning to look as if the solution of the whole problem were in sight.

  At Exeter he went about the package. As far as book entries were concerned he was quickly satisfied. But no one remembered the transaction, nor could anyone recall inquiries having been made by a tallish, red-faced man with light hair and glasses.

  Nothing daunted, French caught the last train from Exeter to Ashburton, full of an eager anxiety to get to grips with his remaining problems.

  11

  John Gurney, Night Watchman

  French had now reconciled the apparent contradiction in regard to one of his four test-points. Obviously his next job was to clear up the other three.

  As he considered on which he should first concentrate, his mind fastened on the one point which at the time had seemed not completely satisfactory: the slightly suspicious manner of Gurney, the night watchman. During the night, as he now knew, the body of Stanley Pyke had been taken to the works and put into the crate. It was impossible that this could have been done without Gurney’s knowledge. Gurney must be made to speak.

  Accordingly; after breakfast next morning, he set off to the man’s house. He passed out of the town on the Newton Abbot road, then turning into a lane to the left, struck up the side of the valley. Soon he reached the cottage, a tiny place with deep overhanging eaves and creeper-covered walls. In front was a scrap of well-kept garden and in the garden was the man himself.

  ‘Good morning, Gurney,’ French greeted him. ‘I thought you would have been in bed by now.’

  ‘I be just going,’ answered the old man. ‘I came out an’ begun a bit o’ weeding, an’ the time ran round without my noticing.’

  ‘That’s lucky for me,’ said French heartily. ‘I want a word with you. A nice place you’ve got here.’

  ‘Not too bad, it ain’t,’ the other admitted, looking about him with obvious pride. ‘The soil’s a bit ’eavy, but it don’t do so bad.’

  ‘Good for your roses, surely? Those are fine ones beside the house.’

  Gurney laid aside his hoe and led the way to the really magnificent bed of La Frances to which French had pointed. It was evident that these were the old man’s passion. French was not a gardener, but he knew enough to talk intelligently on the subject and his appreciation evidently went straight to the watchman’s heart. For some minutes they discussed horticulture, and then French wore gradually round to the object of his visit.

  ‘Terrible business that about Mr Berlyn and Mr Pyke,’ he essayed. ‘It must have set this town talking.’

  ‘It didn’t ’alf, sir. Everyone was sorry for the poor gentlemen. They was well liked, they was.’

  ‘And that was another terrible affair,’ pursued French, after the local tragedy had been adequately discussed, ‘that finding of the dead body in the crate. Extraordinary how the body could have been put in.’

  ‘I didn’t ’ear nought about that,’ Gurney answered, with a sudden increase of interest. ‘You don’t mean the crate you was speaking about that day you was u
p at the works?’

  ‘No other. Keep it to yourself and I’ll tell you about it.’ French became deeply impressive. ‘That crate that I was inquiring about was sent from here to Swansea. There it was called for by a man who took it on a lorry to a place called Burry Port and threw it into the sea. A fisherman chanced to hook it, and it was brought ashore, more than a month later. And when it was opened the dead body of a man was found inside.’

  ‘Lord save us! I read in the noospaper about that there body being found, but it fair beats me that the crate came from ’ere, it does.’

  French continued to enlarge on the tale. That Gurney’s surprise was genuine he felt certain. He could have sworn that the man had no inkling of the truth. But he marked, even more acutely than before, a hesitation or self-consciousness that indicated an uneasy mind. There was something; he felt sure of it. He glanced at the man with his shrewd, observant eyes and suddenly determined on directness.

  ‘Look here, Gurney,’ he said, ‘come over and sit on this seat. I have something important to say to you.’ He paused; as if considering his words. ‘You thought a good deal of your employers, those two poor men who were lost on the moor?’

  ‘An’ I ’ad reason to. It weren’t an accident ’appening in the execution of my dooty, as you might say, as made me lame and not fit to work. It was rheumatism, and they could ’ave let me go when I couldn’t work no more. But they found this job for me, and they let me the ’ouse cheap. Of course it was Mr Berlyn as ’ad the final say, but I know as Mr Pyke spoke for me. It wasn’t everyone as would ’ave done that, now was it, sir?’

  Consideration on the part of an employer was not, French knew, to be taken as a matter of course, though it was vastly more common than the unions would have the public believe. But gratitude on the part of an employee was not so frequent, though it was by no means unique. Its exhibition, however, in the present instance confirmed French in the course he was taking.

  ‘Now, Gurney, do you know who I am?’ he went on. ‘I’m an Inspector from Scotland Yard, and I’m down here to try to solve these two mysteries. Because, Gurney, do you know what I think? I think that on that night the body of one of these two gentlemen was taken to the works and put into the crate.’

  Gurney started and paled. ‘Lord save us!’ he muttered. ‘But wot about the accident?’

  ‘There was no accident,’ French replied sternly. ‘There was murder. Who committed it I don’t know at present. Where the other body is, if there is another body, I don’t yet know. But I have no doubt about one of the bodies. It was put into the crate on that night.’

  Gurney moistened his dry lips.

  ‘But—’ he began, and his voice died away into silence.

  ‘That’s it,’ French went on impressively. ‘Now, Gurney, I’m not accusing you of anything. But you know something. You needn’t attempt to deny it, because it has been plain to me from the first moment I spoke to you. Come now. Something out of the common took place that night. What was it?’

  But Gurney did not deny the charge. Instead, he sat motionless with scared, unhappy eyes. French remained silent also, then he said quietly:

  ‘What was it? Were you away from your post that night?’

  ‘No, sir, not that. I was there all the time,’ the other answered earnestly. Again he paused, then with a sudden gesture he went on: ‘I didn’t know nothing about what you ’ave been saying, but I see now I must tell you everything, even if I gets the sack over it.’

  ‘You’ll not get the sack if I can help it,’ French said kindly, ‘but go on and tell me all the same.’

  ‘Well, sir, I did that night wot I never did before nor since. I slept the ’ole night through. I sat down to eat my supper in the boiler ’ouse, like I always does, an’ I didn’t remember nothing more till Peter Small, ’e was standing there shaking me. “Wake up,” ’e says, “you’re a nice sort of a night-watchman, you are.” “Lord,” I says, “I never did nothing like that before,” an’ I asks him not to say nothing about it. An’ ’e didn’t say nothing, nor I didn’t neither. But now I suppose it’ll come out, an’ I’ll get wot for about it.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ French said heartily, ‘I’ll see you through. I’ll undertake to get Mr Fogden to overlook this little irregularity on one condition. You must tell me everything that took place that night without exception. Go ahead now and let’s have the whole of it.’

  The old man gazed at him in distress.

  ‘But there weren’t naught else,’ he protested. ‘I went to sleep, an’ that’s all. If there were anything else took place, w’y, I didn’t see it.’

  ‘That’s all right. Now just answer my questions. Go back to when you left your house. You took your supper with you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did you meet anyone on your way to the works?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t rightly say. No one that I remember.’

  ‘No one could have got hold of your supper anyway?’

  The man started. ‘You think it might ’ave been tampered with?’ he queried. He thought for some moments, then shook his head. ‘No, sir, I’m afraid not. I don’t never let my basket out o’ my ’and till I gets to the boiler ’ouse.’

  ‘Very well. Now when you got to the boiler house?’

  ‘I put it where I always does, beside one o’ the boilers.’

  ‘And you left it there?’

  ‘While I made my rounds, I did. But there wasn’t no one else in the works then.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Gurney hesitated. In the last resort he didn’t know. But he had not seen anyone and did not believe anyone had been there.

  ‘But suppose someone had been hidden in the works,’ French persisted, ‘he could have doctored your supper while you were on your rounds?’

  ‘If there ’ad been ’e might,’ the man admitted. ‘But I didn’t see no one.’

  ‘What time do you have your meal?’

  Gurney, it appeared, had two meals during the night. Time hung heavily on his hands, and the meals made a break. He had his dinner about six, started work at seven, and had his first meal about eleven. His second meal he had about three, and he was relieved at six.

  On the night in question he had his first meal at the usual time. Until then he had felt perfectly normal, but he had scarcely finished when he found himself growing overpoweringly sleepy, and the next thing he remembered was being wakened by the fireman at six the next morning.

  ‘It’s clear that your supper was doped,’ French said. ‘Now think, did nothing in anyway out of the common happen between six and eleven?’

  Gurney began a denial, then stopped.

  ‘There were one thing,’ he said slowly, ‘but I don’t believe as ’ow it could have ’ad anything to do with it. A little before ten there was a ring at the office door. I went to open, but there weren’t no one there. I didn’t think naught of it, because children do ring sometimes just by way o’ mischief. But there weren’t no children there so far as I could see.’

  ‘How far is this door that you opened from the boiler house?’

  ‘At t’other end o’ the building. Two ’undred yards maybe.’

  ‘Is that the only door?’

  ‘No, sir, there be a gate near the boilers for lorries, but people going to the office use the other.’

  ‘Is the large gate locked at night?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Who keeps the key?’

  ‘I do. There’s a key in the office that any o’ the gentlemen can get if they wants, but I carry one with me.’

  For some moments French sat thinking, then a fresh point struck him.

  ‘What did your supper consist of on that night?’

  ‘Tea an’ bread an’ butter and a slice o’ meat. I have a can o’ tea. I leave it on the boiler and it keeps ’ot.’

  ‘You mean that you don’t make your tea separately for each meal. You drink some out of the can at the first meal and finish what is
left at the second?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘And the same with the food?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Now, on the night we’re talking about you had only one meal. You slept through the time of the second. What happened to the tea and food that was left over?’

  ‘We ’ad it for breakfast, my wife an’ I.’

  ‘That is what I wanted to get at. Now did either of you feel sleepy after breakfast?’

  A mixture of admiration and wonder showed in the old man’s eyes.

  ‘Why no, we didn’t, an’ that’s a fact,’ he said in puzzled tones. ‘An’ we should ’ave, if so be as wot you think is true.’

  This looked like a snag, but French reminded himself that at the moment he was only getting information and his theorising could wait till later. He continued his questions, but without learning much more.

  ‘Now, Gurney,’ he said at last, ‘under no circumstances are you to mention what we have been speaking of: not to your wife nor to Mr Fogden, nor to anyone. You understand?’

  ‘I understand, sir, right enough.’

  ‘Very good. Now I’m anxious to go into this matter further, and I’ll call at the works tonight.’

  ‘Right, sir. I’ll be on the look-out.’

  It was dark as French rang at the big gate of the works. Gurney soon appeared at the wicket and French followed him across the yard to the boiler house, a distance of perhaps forty yards. It was a fair-sized shed, housing five Babcock and Wilcox water-tube boilers, with mechanical stokers and the usual stoker engines and pumps. On a ledge of the warm brickwork near one of the ash openings stood the old man’s can of tea, and his basket of food was placed on the repair bench close by. French took in these details, and then said:

  ‘I want now to try an experiment. Will you lend me your key of the wicket. I will go out, lock the wicket behind me and go round to the office door and ring. When you hear the ring you go and open. Repeat everything exactly as you did that night so as to get back here at the same time. In the meantime I shall let myself in again by the wicket and see if I should have time to dope your tea and get away again before you appear. You understand?’