Freeman Wills Crofts

“ French had to ascertain if his quarry were on board, and if so, see that they did not escape him—also a difficult job outside the three-mile limit. For Price a fortune hung in the balance—not of course all the gold that might be found, but the proportion allowed him by law; while for Cheyne there remained something a thousand times more important than the capture of a criminal or the acquisition of a fortune—for Cheyne the question of Joan Merrill’s life was at stake. Their several anxieties were reflected on the faces of the men, as they stood in silence, watching the rapidly growing vessel. ”

“ He ordered a room for the night, and some strong tea, after which he sat on in his secluded corner of the comfortable restaurant, and smoked a meditative cigar. His walk had done him good. His brain had cleared, and the weariness of the journey, and the chagrin of his deadlock had vanished. His thoughts returned to his problem, which he began to attack in the new.
He puzzled over it for the best part of an hour, without making the slightest progress, and then he began to consider how far the ideas he had already arrived at fitted in with what he had since learned of Dangle’s movements. ”

“ Cheyne said as he slowly sipped his coffee. “The idea’s rather tempting. But I wish I could feel as sure as you seem to do about my own style. I’m afraid I don’t believe that it is as good as you pretend.”
“Mr. Cheyne,” Parkes answered deliberately, “you may take my word for it that I know what I am talking about. I shouldn’t have come to you if I weren’t sure. Very few people are satisfied with their own work. No matter how good it is it falls short of the standard they have set in their minds. It is another case in which the outsider sees most of the game.” ”

“ Eager hands helped to raise the prostrate man, who appeared to be more or less seriously injured, while hurried questions were bandied from lip to lip.
It did not need the barmaid’s half hysterical cry: “Why, it was your purse; I saw it go,” to make clear to Cheyne what had happened, and as he grasped the situation his heart melted within him and a great fear took possession of his mind. Once again these dastardly scoundrels had hoaxed him! Their oaths, their protestations of friendship, their talk of an alliance—all were a sham! They were out to murder him. ”

“ Cheyne’s great idea was that instead of proceeding directly to the police station and lodging an information against his captors, as he had at first intended, he should himself attempt to follow them to their lair. To enter upon a battle of wits with such men would be a sport more thrilling than big game hunting, more exciting than war, and if by his own unaided efforts he could bring about their undoing he would not only restore his self-respect, which had suffered a nasty jar, but might even recover for Arnold Price the documents which he required for his claim to the barony of Hull. ”

“ Cheyne was so serious and eager that he felt somewhat dashed, but he joined in the laugh, and when they had had tea they settled down to talk over their arrangements. Then it seemed that she really had a plan, and when Cheyne heard it he became immediately enthusiastic. Like all good plans it was simple, and soon they had the details cut and dry.
“Let’s try tonight,” Cheyne cried in excitement.
“Yes, I think we should. If these people have some scheme on hand every day’s delay is in their favor and against you.” ”

“ Susan was “Miss Dangle” and almost certainly sister to James. Lewisham, the motorman of the Enid, was Sime.
Dangle, Sime, and Blessington! Why, there was something sinister in the very names, and as Cheyne peeped guardedly in beneath the blind, he felt there was something even more sinister in their owners. Dangle, with his hard-bitten features and without his veneer of polish, looked a crafty scoundrel. There was a nasty gleam in his foxy eyes. He looked a man who would sell his best friend for a shilling. ”

“ For a few seconds nothing happened, then suddenly two figures appeared at the deckhouse door, and after a moment’s pause, rushed up on the bridge and began waving furiously. As they passed up the bridge ladder they came from behind the shelter of a boat and their silhouettes became visible against the sky. They were both women!
A strangled cry burst from Cheyne as he snatched the captain’s telescope and gazed at them, then with a shout of “It’s she! It’s she!” ”

“ Emerging on to the wide boulevard in front, French’s eyes fell on a bus bearing the legend “Grand Hôtel du Sablon,” and getting in, he was driven across the boulevard and a short way up a long, rather narrow and winding street, between houses some of which seemed to have stood unaltered—and doubtless had—for six hundred years, when Bruges, three times its present size, was the chief trading city of the Hanseatic League. As he turned into the hotel, chimes rang out—from the famous belfry, the porter told him—tinkling, high-pitched bells and silvery, if a trifle thin in the clear morning air. ”

“ What? Break faith with Price? Go back on his friend? Rage again choked Cheyne’s utterance. Stutteringly he cursed the other, once again demanding under blood-curdling threats of future vengeance his immediate liberty. Through his passion he heard the voice of the other saying he was sorry but he really could not help it, the panel slid shut, and darkness and silence, save for the sounds of the sea, reigned in the Enid’s cabin. ”

“ What more natural for Blessington than to pull up at the departure side with the yellow Armstrong-Siddeley and set them down? What more commonplace for him than to pick them up at the arrival side with the black Napier? While he was changing the cars, they could enter, mingle with the crowds of passengers, work their way across the station and be waiting for him as if they had just arrived by train.
Late as it was, French returned to the Yard and put a good man on to make inquiries at Waterloo in the hope of proving his theory. Then, tired and very hungry, he went home. ”

“ But French, if sometimes an enthusiastic optimist and again a down and out pessimist, was at all times thorough. He did not stop at Bruges. He worked all the way through the list, and it was not until he had satisfied himself that no other hotel fulfilling the conditions existed in any of the other towns, that he felt himself satisfied. It was true there was an Hotel du Carillon in Malines, but this name was obviously too short for the space.
As he went jubilantly to bed, the vision of a trip to the historic city of Bruges bulked large in his imagination. ”

“ Now we have come to the conclusion that you are too clever and determined to have you for an enemy. We are accordingly faced with an alternative. Either we must murder you and Miss Merrill or we must get you on to our side. The first we all shrink from, though”—and here Dangle’s eye showed a nasty gleam—“if it was that or our failure we shouldn’t hesitate, but the second is what we should all prefer. In short, Mr. Cheyne, will you and Miss Merrill join us in trading Schulz’s secret: all, including Frau Schulz and Mrs. Price, to share equally? ”

“ At the same moment a significant lurch showed that they were passing from the shelter of the estuary into the open sea.
He twisted and tugged at the handle. “Here you, Lamson!” he shouted angrily. “What do you mean by this? Open the door at once. Confound you! Will you open the door!” He began to kick savagely at the woodwork.
A small panel in the partition between the cabins shot aside and a beam of light flowed into Cheyne’s. Lamson’s face appeared at the opening. He spoke in an old-fashioned, stilted way, aping extreme politeness, but his mocking smile gave the lie to his protestations. ”

“ It covered her head with a crown of burnished gold, and though in Cheyne’s opinion it lost much of its beauty from being shingled, it gave her an aureole like that of a medieval saint in a stained glass window. Like a saint, indeed, she seemed to Cheyne; a very human and approachable saint, it is true, but a saint for all that. ”

“ I want nothing but what is fair—as a matter of fact I can get nothing but what is fair—the law wouldn’t allow it. But I don’t want to be done. If I had the papers I would show them to a first-rate lawyer. If Arnold is entitled to succeed he will do so, if I am the heir I shall, if neither of us no harm is done. We can only get what the law allows us. But in any case I give my word of honor that, if I succeed, Arnold shall never want for anything in reason.”
Price was speaking earnestly and his manner carried conviction to Cheyne. ”

“ What induced you to launch out into all this complicated network of crime?”
Price smiled whimsically.
“Well, you might surely guess that,” he answered. “Suppose you had refused to give me the letter, how was I to know that you would not have put it beyond my reach? I couldn’t take the risk.”
“Suppose I refuse to give it to you now?”
“You won’t, Mr. Cheyne. No one in your position could. Circumstances are too strong for you, and you can hand it over and retain your honor absolutely untarnished. I do not wish to urge you to a decision. ”

“ It was a weary and disgruntled Cheyne who at six o’clock that evening dragged himself up the ten flights to Miss Merrill’s room. But when he was seated in her big armchair with his pipe going and had consumed a whisky and soda which she had poured out for him he began to feel that all was not necessarily lost and that life had compensations for failures in the role of amateur detective. ”

“ Cheyne grumbled. “If it wasn’t for that we could start a whole hour earlier. As it is there is no use going out there before nine.” He paused and then went on: “Queer thing that these two houses should be so much alike—this Earlswood and the one in Hopefield Avenue. Both at cross roads, both with lanes behind them, and both surrounded by gardens and hedges and shrubs.”
“Very queer,” Joan admitted, “especially as there probably aren’t more than a hundred thousand houses of that type in London. But it’s all to the good. You’ll feel at home when you get in.” ”

“ French’s thoughts turned towards a voyage. But it could not be an ordinary voyage in a well-appointed liner, where peaches and matches and novels would be as plentiful as in the heart of London. Nor did it seem likely that it could be a trip in the Enid. Such a craft could not remain out of touch with land for so long a period as these stores seemed to postulate. French could not think of anything that seemed exactly to meet the case, though he registered the idea of an expedition as one to be kept in view. ”

“ There he sank down exhausted and for some time lay motionless in a state of coma.
Suddenly he became conscious of the sound of light but rapid footsteps approaching on the footpath at the other side of the paling, and once more summoning all his resolution he nerved himself to listen. The steps drew nearer until he judged their owner was just passing and then he cried as loudly as he could: “Help!”
The footsteps stopped and Cheyne gasped out: “Help! I’ve hurt my head: an accident.” ”

“ Once in the cab it would have been child’s play for a powerful man like Sime to have chloroformed her, and having got her to the house, they could easily have kept her helpless and semi-conscious by means of drugs.
French returned on foot to the Yard, thinking over the affair as he walked. It certainly had a sinister look. These men were very much in earnest. They had not hesitated to resort to murder in the case of Cheyne—it was through, to them, an absolutely unforeseen accident that he escaped—and French felt he would not give much for Joan Merrill’s chances. ”

“ A plausible ruffian, Sime. A man without scruple and bad to be up against. He has no ostensible business, either.”
“And Blessington?”
“Blessington is, in my opinion, the worst of the three. He has ten times the brains of the other two put together and is an out and out scoundrel. He’s well enough off in a small way and is supposed to have made his money by systematic blackmail. He’s supplying the cash for this little do of yours, whatever it may be. He is believed at Wembley to be something in the city, but I don’t think he has any job. Lives on the interest of his money, I should think.” ”

“ Miss Merrill’s hazel eyes twinkled as she continued:
“By the time we got to the hospital I was sure that nothing would save me from being hanged for murder. But there was no trouble. I simply told my story, left my name and address, and that was all. Now tell me what really happened to you; or rather wait until we’ve had tea.”
Cheyne sat back in his chair admiring the easy grace with which she moved about as she prepared the meal. She was really an awfully nice looking girl, he thought; not perhaps exactly pretty, but jolly looking, the kind of girl it is a pleasure just to sit down and watch. ”

“ Everywhere were evidences of wealth and prosperity, and as he turned into the Place Verte, and looked across at the huge bulk of the Cathedral with its soaring spire, he felt that here was an artistic treasure of which any city might well be proud.
The Grand Hôtel du Carillon was an old, quaint looking building looking out over the Place Verte. French, entering, called for a bock in the restaurant, and after he had finished, asked to see the manager. A moment later a small, stout man with a humorous eye appeared, bowed low, and said that he was M. Marquet, the proprietor. ”

“ That night after supper, as French stretched himself in his easy-chair, he decided he would have a preliminary look at the tracing. He recognized that the mere fact that it had been handed to Cheyne by Dangle involved the probability that it was not the genuine document but a faked copy. At the same time he was bound to make what he could of it, and it was with very keen interest he unfolded and began to study it.
It was neatly drawn, though evidently not by a professional draughtsman. The lettering of the words, “England expects every man to do his duty” was amateurish. ”