The Man Without A Face Read online

  The Man Without A Face

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  A Brief Introduction

  Dedication

  Part I

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Part II

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Part III

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Copyright

  The Man Without A Face

  Clifton Robbins

  A Brief Introduction

  Little is known about the crime writer Clifton Robbins. An internet search will throw up a list of books he wrote and a scant biography. Deeper research offers a tiny bit more, but not much.

  He was born in London in 1890, was educated in Cambridge, and worked as a journalist before turning his hand to crime writing. His first novel, Dusty Death, was published in 1931 and introduced the world to barrister-turned-detective Clay Harrison and his able assistant, Henry. Harrison’s penchant for a nice cup of tea and a fine cigar sees him through a series of cases involving murder, kidnapping, jewellery heists, drug smuggling and a ruthless female arch-enemy.

  Robbins wrote five Clay Harrison novels, as well as two featuring the armchair detective, George Staveley. There are also two standalone novels, a mystery entitled Murder at 25, and a curious novel about an anti-smoking campaigner, The Devil’s Beacon.

  Robbins’ final published novel was the George Staveley mystery, Death Forms Threes, in 1940. Quite why he stopped writing then is unclear, although the Second World War may have been an influencing factor. His books have never been reprinted, and only a couple of contemporary reviews have survived, so it is possible that his work was not hugely popular during his lifetime.

  There are records of a Clifton Robbins who died in 1944, and of another who died in Cambridge in 1964. The latter left no children and his estate was handled by his cousins. Years of research have failed to track down any surviving relatives and we welcome any information readers may have about Clifton Robbins or his family. We can be contacted at [email protected].

  Dedication

  To WIG

  Part I

  When

  Chapter I

  King Edward’s Cook

  “Like watching the silver at a wedding,” said Henry, scornfully.

  “Exactly,” answered Clay Harrison with a smile.

  “Doesn’t sound quite dignified to me,” commented Henry.

  They were sitting in the dining-car of a train which was steadily rolling to the West of England. There was a feeling of summer in the air and the dining-car, despite the efforts of producing a cool luncheon, was rather uncomfortably hot.

  “In this atmosphere, too,” continued Harrison, “one sacrifices a lot for lucre. But you will admit that the bank balance was getting somewhat low, Henry, and the fee, if I may dwell on it, was more than tempting.”

  “Undoubtedly, sir,” replied Henry, “but if it got round, you know, sir, it might do you a lot of harm.”

  “A very wise thought, Henry,” said Harrison. “Sometimes I wonder what I should do without you. Precious little, I expect, and that pretty badly. But in this case I think we must have a good look at the facts before we make up our minds.”

  “But watching the silver, sir; you can’t get away from that.”

  “Maybe I can’t, Henry,” was the answer. “Maybe I don’t want to. Here’s my tea and your coffee. Now let me light a cigar, and then I’ll try and put the facts before you.”

  Henry watched Clay Harrison light his cigar and settled himself down not to be convinced. He knew Harrison would win in the end—he always did—but Henry proposed to make it as long as possible. If there ever was a hero-worshipper in the world, that man was Henry. He had been Clay Harrison’s clerk when the outlook of a career at the Bar was distinctly gloomy, even if one took an optimistic view of the situation. He had watched his master conscientiously trying to be a tolerably reliable barrister with very little success. Harrison got to the understanding of a man better than a brief in those days and the briefs which actually came his way were of the routine character which did not draw out his special faculties. Had he been able to jump into the ready-made position of a leading criminal lawyer he would have done well, but such miracles mainly occur on the moving screen.

  Henry soon discovered his master’s knowledge of languages, and had found that Harrison had a certain aptitude for solving rather intricate human problems. Henry hated the idea of calling Harrison by the low name of detective, but Harrison himself said that he was not nearly good enough to deserve such a title. Friends had applied to Harrison for help, especially when continental countries were in question, and he had been singularly successful. Government departments had gradually grown to trust him on curious missions, and had found him reliable. His reputation had thus steadily increased and he had found more and more employment in private investigation and less and less in actual legal work. He continued to live in the Temple, although it was not easy to discover his address without some friendly introduction, and some of the strangest stories were told and some of the most tangled skeins unravelled in his modest chambers.

  With the growth of reputation came fees, and Harrison decided upon investigation as a profession. He called it his “job” and settled down to it in a business-like manner. All the time Henry was growing with it and had become a kind of personal assistant, ready for any kind of work at any time, and often proving of the greatest value by exercising his Londoner’s shrewdness and common sense. Together they had recently had a long encounter with the organisation which had been running the international “dope” traffic, and not only Clay Harrison, but also Henry, had gained greater esteem as a result of their efforts. Naturally, most of Harrison’s activities, and especially his more important successes, were of a type which could not be reported in the newspapers; the international unpleasantness might have been too great: indeed, the avoidance of such difficulties was often the reason why Harrison himself had been employed. Still successful work of this nature cannot be kept wholly secret; a certain number of people in England knew of Harrison’s work and the circle was steadily growing.

  “Are you ready, Henry?” asked Harrison, pulling contentedly at an excellent cigar—this and tea-drinking, at any hour of the day or night, being his particular vices.

  “Yes, sir,” answered Henry. “Although I must say I can’t see anything special in the facts. They are so obvious.”

  “Impatience is one of your alarming sins, Henry,” said Harrison, solemnly. “You must curb yourself. You go dashing at any old hurdle, with no idea of what you are likely to find on the other side. Here we have Mrs. Marston—Mrs. William Marston—writing to me to come down to her country home and keep an eye on things while a play is being acted in the grounds in honour of her daughter’s twenty-first birthday. Livia, I think the girl’s name is. Charming name, Henry.”

  “Keeping an eye on things being about the same as watching the silver, sir.”

  “Quite right, Henry. Mrs. Marston even makes the point herself in her letter. She says there are some very valuable things in the house and, as there are likely to
be a number of strangers in and out all the time and the servants will be very heavily occupied with the hundred and one details of the open-air entertainment—indeed the house might be practically untenanted at odd times—she feels she would like to have me about.”

  “You see, sir,” said Henry, with a grin.

  “The fee she offers is the kind that makes a poor man like myself go pale,” continued Harrison.

  “It was certainly very generous,” said Henry.

  “She refers to my reputation, which is very nice of her, and suggests that she will be honoured if I consider myself as a guest; indeed, she would prefer that the other people in the house should think of me in that way. And in a postscript, again urging me to accept, she says that she is sure that the play itself, containing scenes of old West Country life, will appeal to me.”

  “Which all shows how much she wants you.”

  “Oh, there was just one other point, she wants me to get down as early as I can to-day so as to have a quiet chat with her before everybody else arrives.”

  “Quite natural, sir.”

  “It isn’t quite natural, Henry, that’s the point,” said Harrison. “There are a whole lot of things about it which are not quite natural, if you’ll only look at them. Had it seemed quite natural to me, I shouldn’t have taken on the job, however large the fee might have been.”

  “Really, sir?”

  “Of course, Henry, you ought to have known me better by this time. First of all, what does she mean by ‘keeping an eye on things’? You say it means ‘watching the silver.’ There are hosts of men willing to do that for a very small fee. They may be square-toed and obvious, but they are efficient and keep their eyes open pretty wide. I should say they could do the job far better than I could.”

  “But your reputation, sir?”

  “It’s not going to scare a thief of that kind as much as my square-toed gentry keeping an obviously suspicious eye on everything. I first thought it might be some very rich person who wanted to be lavish over everything, even ‘watching the silver,’ but Mrs. Marston comes of an old family and, though comfortably well off, could not afford to splash money about in that way, even if it were her natural ostentatious habit, which it can’t be.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Henry, a little uneasy.

  “So I assume that ‘keeping an eye on things’ means something much more general, and I thought I would like to know what things they might be. The mention of the servants therefore does not matter, especially as she says, as an inducement, that I shall enjoy the play. If I am going to see the play I am obviously not expected to remain in the house just at the time I should be most needed if you were right, Henry. I can’t think why she put it in. She felt she must have some excuse for asking me at all, but she herself has made it very thin. I am afraid that she did not realise that this particular point might have decided me not to accept the invitation.”

  “It sounds all right,” said Henry, grudgingly. “But aren’t you possibly reading too much into it, sir? At any rate, she may feel more comfortable with you about the house.”

  “Thank you, Henry,” said Harrison. “I am certain that’s how you would feel yourself. But there’s one thing more—”

  “Just a moment, sir, I’ve thought of something,” Henry broke in quickly. “Suppose she particularly wants to meet you—because of your reputation. She does not know you. She can’t very well ask you to come as a guest but she can pay you to, and that would explain what you called her thin excuse about the servants.”

  “I think my one thing answers that, Henry,” replied Harrison, “although I give you full marks for your idea. It’s really quite ingenious. But she wants to have a quiet chat with me before the others arrive. To me that seems to give the whole game away. I can’t imagine a chat would be so frightfully important if I was just going to watch the silver. It’s not likely that any of the guests would start taking it to-night. The play is due to be performed tomorrow afternoon and she would only need the very shortest possible interview with me to tell me my duties. Indeed, she needn’t do it herself at all; she could leave it to the butler.”

  “Sir,” protested Henry.

  “Why not, Henry?” answered Harrison. “But she wants a quiet chat. That means, as far as I can see, she really wants to consult me about something. She cannot think of any way of getting me down except during the festivities. She knows it would be no good asking me as a guest. She does not want to say anything on paper about her real business. That has to be done personally. At the same time she doesn’t seem to want to arouse any suspicions at home, so she wants me to appear more as a guest than anything else. At the same time, Henry, it’s important and rather urgent.”

  “Why, sir?”

  “Because, as you said, the fee is very generous and she wants to play on my avaricious nature.”

  “It does sound possible,” said Henry, with a note of hesitation in his voice, but really quite convinced. “What do you think is behind it, sir?”

  “Steady, Henry, you’re jumping again,” said Harrison, with a laugh. “Immediately I make a suggestion to you, you try to dash off at once to its illogical conclusion. I have very little idea who the Marstons are, to start with. I know they’re an old country family and live at Penstoke House. They have a daughter, named Livia, aged twenty-one. And that’s about all. They’re one of those excellent English families about which one is not likely to hear anything at all. Thank heaven there are some of them left! Mrs. Marston has been so negligent as to forget to include a list of my fellow-guests. Why, she hasn’t even sent me a note of her next-door neighbours, nor a map of the neighbourhood, nor anything of that kind.”

  “You’re laughing at me, sir,” said Henry, sadly.

  “Well, Henry, that’s the only way I can get an idea of what is at the back of her mind, isn’t it? I might spot something from a name I recognised, but that’s the only chance. I can’t invent anything exciting which might fit in. Of course there is one place where we might get an idea.”

  “Really, sir?” said Henry, brightly.

  “Yes, she sent me a small printed programme of the play,” answered Harrison. “I haven’t found much in it myself, but it’s worth looking at again. Come along to our carriage and let’s see.”

  Having staggered their way back to their compartment, and Henry having given his approval to the narrowness of the corridors because, he said, at any rate it was quite impossible to fall over sideways, they settled themselves down in their corners again and Harrison produced the programme, which was printed in the style of an old playbill.

  “Look at it yourself, Henry,” said Harrison, passing it to him, “and tell me what you see.”

  Henry studied it carefully and handed it back. “Not very amusing,” he remarked. “I suppose it’s much funnier to those who understand it.”

  “Quite right,” answered Harrison. “And what do you make of that?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Oh, Henry, doesn’t that suggest to you that it was written by Miss Livia, the daughter of the house?”

  “I don’t see why, sir.”

  “You said it wasn’t very amusing, didn’t you, Henry? You may have also noticed that it is called ‘The Rise of the Marstons’ and then discusses the family somewhat flippantly during its long history. For example, the Stone Age Marston is compared favourably with some of his later descendants. That shows a young hand at work, Henry, and it also shows the hand of somebody who is so intimate with the family that nobody can take offence at any of the little jokes: someone, almost, who can do no wrong, Miss Livia, in fact. I can’t imagine the Marston family standing it from anyone else.”

  “That’s good, sir,” said Henry, admiringly. “But you have seen something else, haven’t you?”

  “Thank you, Henry, I have,” answered Harrison. “I told you there wasn’t much here, and I almost said that there were no names on the programme. When I looked at it again I found I was wrong. There is one name of one
actor, and that is Mr. William Marston himself.”

  “I didn’t notice that, sir.”

  “It’s the fourth episode of ‘The Rise of the Marstons.’ Just look at it.” Harrison and Henry studied the paper together: “Edward I visits Penstoke Castle, with his retinue. His cook, Marstonne, produced such a succulent banquet that the King granted him a piece of land in the district. William Marston himself has graciously consented to appear as the famous cook who connected the fortunes of the Marstons with those of Penstoke.”

  “That doesn’t take us very far,” said Henry, cautiously.

  “It is, I think, a further proof of Miss Livia’s hand, at any rate,” replied Harrison. “But, really more important than that, it shows the position of the family, and particularly of William Marston himself, in the district. I feel that the ‘graciously’ is a mixture of joke and earnest. The guests from outside the district and people like ourselves will take it as a joke, while those who live at Penstoke and nearby will be very serious about it.”

  “Do you think Mrs. Marston wants to see you about her husband, then?” asked Henry.

  “I can’t say,” answered Harrison. “Maybe about him, maybe about herself, maybe about Miss Livia. Those are the only people we know anything about. We know something of Miss Livia: bright, cheery, a little headstrong, I should say, and with no overwhelming respect for tradition or pomposity. We know Mrs. Marston wants to consult me urgently and rather secretly and we know that Mr. William Marston is a commanding figure in his own district. If it’s nothing to do with any of them, then we shall have to start our work when we get to Penstoke House. All the same, the cigar is finished and the journey is not near its end, so we may as well sleep until we get to our next point.”

  Henry was not impressed by the suggestion of sleep on Harrison’s part, but he knew that silence was now expected of him. They changed at a large junction and then meandered by a local line to the small station of Penstoke, but hardly a word was said until the train slowed down at their destination.