Freeman Wills Crofts

“ Pyke on his part had his back to the door and was facing the cupboard.
French instantly began to act a part. First he wished to show fear. Here he had not to act—the emotion was only too genuine. Indeed, had he let himself go he would have been paralysed with terror. Therefore, as he spoke his eyes were agonised, his features distorted, and his voice thick and trembling.
“Don’t be a fool, Pyke. You can do better than that. I’ve sense enough to know when I’m beaten. My life’s of more value to me than success in a case. You want your liberty and I want my life. ”

“ He imagined the well was not used, for on his last visit he had noticed a well-oiled force pump a hundred yards away at the kitchen door.
The well was surrounded by a masonry wall about three feet high, coped with roughly dressed stones. On the coping was a flat wooden grating, old and decaying. Ivy covered about half of the wall and grating.
French crossed the yard and, leaning over the wall, glanced down. The sides were black with age and he could distinguish no details of the walls, but there was a tiny reflection from the water far below. ”

“ Morgan’s story.
“That’s just the lucky way things happen, isn’t it?” French exclaimed. “A man commits a crime and he takes all kinds of precautions to hide it, and then some utterly unexpected coincidence happens—who could have foreseen a fisherman hooking the crate—and he is down and out. Lucky for us, and for society, too. But I’ve seen it again and again. I’ve seen things happen that a writer couldn’t put into a book, because nobody would believe them possible, and I’m sure so have you. There’s nothing in this world stranger than the truth.”
The sergeant agreed, but without enthusiasm. ”

“ With identity of murderer and victim established, a comparatively short further enquiry sufficed to clear up the details of the affair which were still in doubt. And dreadful reading they made.
It seemed that soon after Phyllis Considine came to Ashburton as the bride of Charles Berlyn she found she had made a terrible mistake in her marriage. The feeling which she had imagined was love died away, and she saw herself tied for life to a man whom she disliked. A mutual coldness inevitably resulted, which rapidly widened as the husband also found himself disillusioned. ”

“ And if so, what a completely new view it gave of the crime! Berlyn, Phyllis, and Jefferson Pyke all apparently mixed up in the affair and all innocent! Who, then, could be guilty? French had to own himself completely puzzled. If this view were correct, the murderer must be some one whom he had not yet seriously considered.
Unless it could be Domlio, after all. Nothing that the two had said directly precluded the possibility. Of course, in this case it was difficult to see why they should not denounce Domlio, if it would free themselves and Berlyn from suspicion. ”

“ Mrs. Billing took the grey sock and stared at it for some time, while a puzzled expression grew on her face. French, suddenly keenly excited, watched her almost breathlessly. But after turning it over she put it down, though the slightly mystified look remained.
“Here are some underclothes,” French went on. “Do these want any mending?”
Slowly the landlady turned over the bundle. As she did so incredulity and amazement showed on her bird-like features. Then swiftly she turned to the neck of the vest and the shirt cuffs and scrutinised the buttons and links. ”

“ Berlyn met his death the car broke down, in fact that it was that breakdown which led indirectly to the accident. Well, I don’t want a car that breaks down. If she’s not reliable, she’s no good to me.”
Mr. Makepeace looked pained and flashed a rather indignant glance at the sergeant.
“She did break down that night,” he admitted, reluctantly, “but there’s no machinery on earth that won’t sometimes go wrong. She failed from a most uncommon cause, and she might run for twenty years without the same thing happening to her again.” ”

“ French continued to turn the matter over in his mind, and the more he did so the more he leaned to the opinion that Domlio must be, after all, the murderer. All the arguments which had before led him to this conclusion recurred to him with redoubled force and the difficulties in the theory seemed more and more easily surmountable. Domlio’s motor drive on the night of the crime, his denial of the trip, the hiding of the clothes and duplicator parts in the well, his depressed and absorbed manner—these really were not accounted for by any theory other than that of the man’s guilt. ”

“ And all this could be done by one man.
As French closed his eyes he seemed to see the reverse process being carried out—a crane-lorry arriving on the Loughor bridge, stopping, backing at right angles to the road until its tail was up against the parapet—the road was wide enough to allow of it; the driver getting down, taking a tarpaulin off a crate, swinging the crate up to the pulley of his crane, lowering the jib until the crate swung suspended over the rushing flood beneath, then striking out some type of slip shackle which allowed the crate to fall clear. ”

“ But thanks to Evan Morgan’s desire for a fishing expedition on the last day of his holidays, together with Inspector French’s steady pegging away at a puzzling and wearisome case, these evil hopes were frustrated. Some three weeks after the next assizes, both Stanley Pyke and Phyllis Berlyn paid for their crime with their lives, leaving the ownership of Jefferson’s money as a juicy morsel on which the lawyers of England and the Argentine could pile up fees to their hearts’ content. ”

“ Not very convincing, French thought, as he rapidly considered what the colonel had told him. However, it might be true. At all events, he had no evidence to justify an arrest. He therefore pretended that he fully accepted the statement, and, wishing the colonel a cheery good evening, stood aside to let the car pass.
As he cycled slowly into Ashburton he kept turning over in his mind the question of whether there was any way in which he could test the truth of Colonel Domlio’s statement. Frankly, he did not believe the story. But unbelief was no use to him. He must prove it true or false. ”

“ The motive undoubtedly was to enable the survivor to claim Phyllis as his wife and to live with her in good social standing and without fear of his rival. But the crime, French reminded himself, had a peculiar feature. The staged accident on the moor involved the disappearance of both actors, the murderer as well as the victim. If, then, the murderer disappeared, he could not live with Phyllis. If either Berlyn or Pyke were guilty, therefore, he had carried out the crime in a way which robbed him of the very results for which he had committed it. ”

“ When I heard the sergeant’s story I recognised at once that my having taken out the car was a very unfortunate thing for me. I felt sure that foul play would sooner or later be suggested and I thought I should be suspected. I couldn’t prove where I had been and I was afraid I should not be believed when I explained.”
“I’m afraid that is not very clear. Why did you imagine that foul play would be suspected?”
Domlio hesitated.
“I suppose,” he said at last, “things have gone so far there is no use in trying to keep anything back. I knew that there was bad blood between Berlyn and Pyke. ”

“ The chief constable and Superintendent Griffiths were waiting for them at Loughor. Already the tide was running swiftly, swirling and eddying round the piers of the bridge. Moored to the bank at the east end was a broad-beamed boat with Manners in the stern sheets and two oarsmen amidships.
“Good Heavens! They’ll never row against that current!” French exclaimed, aghast at the rushing flood.
“They’re not going to try,” Nield declared. “This is what I’ve arranged with Manners. He has an extra-long painter fixed to his boat. We’ll get the end up on the bridge and tie it to the crate. ”

“ We’ve been having trouble, as you’ve heard.”
“I don’t often take a trip like this without finding trouble at the end of it. We’re like yourself, Sergeant—we have to go out to look for it. But we don’t often have to look for it in such fine country as this. I’ve enjoyed my journey.”
“The country’s right enough if you’re fond of coal,” Nield rejoined, with some bitterness. “But now; Mr. French, what would you like to do? I expect you’d rather get fixed up at a hotel and have some dinner before anything else? I think the Bush Arms is the most comfortable.” ”

“ On the contrary, the tendency was in Jefferson Pyke’s favour. He did not appear to be of the stuff of which murderers are made. Nor, from the purser’s description, did it seem likely that he was hatching a crime while on the Flintshire. On the other hand, there was no knowing what even the mildest man might do under the stress of passion.
But what really worried French was the fact that he had made no progress towards the tracing of his suspects’ present whereabouts. In vain he urged his men on to more intensive efforts. Nowhere could they learn anything to help. ”

“ Berlyn?”
Pyke’s eyes flashed.
“They’ll not get her, either. I know where she is and I’ll pick her up. Say your prayers, Mr. French. You’ve only got seconds to live.”
He slowly raised the pistol from the level of his side pocket to that of his eyes, keeping it first directed to French’s heart and then to his head. In those few moments French tasted the bitterness of death. He knew instinctively that the man meant to carry out his threat and he was powerless to prevent him. Covered by Pyke’s steady gaze as well as by his pistol, no sudden spring would help him. ”

“ Pyke was saying. “I have a better plan than that. To-morrow I’ll call at the Yard to see French and I’ll confess to the murder. I’ll say that my misery through remorse and suspense is worse than anything I could afterwards suffer, and that I just can’t bear it any longer. Lots of murderers have done that and he’ll suspect nothing. He’ll of course arrest me. Admittedly, he may arrest you also. This, of course, I should infinitely regret, but you will agree there is no other way. He’ll then think he has solved his problem and he’ll look no further afield. ”

“ Pyke glanced at the card and nodded.
“A case on which I was engaged took me recently to Ashburton, and while there I heard of the tragic death of Mr. Pyke and Mr. Berlyn of the Veda Works staff. I understand that Mr. Pyke was a relative of yours?”
“That is so. My first cousin.”
“Well, Mr. Pyke,” French said, gravely, “I have to inform you that a discovery had been made which may or may not have a bearing on your cousin’s fate. A body has been found—the body of a murdered man. That body has not been identified, but there is a suggestion that it may be your cousin’s. ”

“ Mrs. Billing was terrified and eagerly promised discretion. French questioned her further, but without result. She did not believe her late lodger was on bad terms with anyone, nor did she know if he had a birthmark on his upper arm.
French’s delight at his discovery was unbounded. The identification of the dead man represented the greatest step towards the completion of his case that he had yet made. He chuckled to himself in pure joy. ”

“ The saying “it never rains but what it pours” is a popular expression of the unhappy fact that misfortunes never come singly. Fortunately for suffering humanity, the phrase expresses only half the truth. Runs of good luck occur as well as runs of bad.
As French was smoking his after-breakfast pipe in the lounge next morning it was borne in on him that he was at that time experiencing one of the most phenomenal runs of good luck that had ever fallen to his lot. Four days ago he had proved that the dead man was Pyke. Two days later he had learned how the breakdown of the car had been faked. ”

“ He left the house and regained the clump of brushwood in which he had hidden the bicycle. But he did not withdraw the machine. Instead, after a quick glance round he crept in beside it, pulling the bushes over him to make sure that he was invisible from the road. From his hiding-place he could see the entrance to “Torview,” as the colonel had named his house.
He was waiting on a pure chance, but after an hour he found that his luck was in. He heard the sounds of an engine being started up, and presently saw a small green car turn out of the drive and disappear in the direction of Ashburton. ”

“ French could not imagine any way in which it could have been done. The duplicator was a big machine and heavy. It could not have been lifted by less than three or four people. Of course there was the runway and differential, but even these would only have lifted it out of the crate on to a car or lorry. To have unloaded it secretly would involve the existence of a second differential in some place available only to the murderer, a far-fetched hypothesis, though no doubt possible. ”

“ Had it been the other way round, had Phyllis and Pyke conspired to kill Berlyn, the thing would have been easier to understand. Wife and lover against husband was a common enough combination. But the evidence against this idea was strong. Not only was there the identification of the clothes and birthmark, but there was the strong presumption that the man who disposed of the crate in Wales was Berlyn. At the same time this evidence of identification was not quite conclusive, and French determined to keep the possibility in view and test it rigorously as occasion offered. ”

“ But this not only postulated an accomplice, but overlooked the duplicator. If the car had been used to dispose of the duplicator, it would have been warm when the sergeant found it.
The third point was the squaring of the night watchman. The more French thought over this, the more impossible it seemed. In an ordinary matter the man might easily have been corrupted, but unless he had some irresistible motive he would never have risked his neck by aiding and abetting a murder. ”

“ French glanced at him keenly. The man was genuinely angry. And if so, it tended in his favour. Real indignation is difficult to simulate and would not be called forth by an imaginary insult.
“If you think my remark unwarrantable, I shall withdraw it,” French said, with his pleasant smile. “I simply wanted to know whether you yourself believed in it. I think you do. Well, Colonel, I think that’s all we can do to-night. I’m sorry to have given you all this annoyance, but you can see I had no option.”
They had reached the gate of Torview. Domlio stopped the car. ”

“ Berlyn’s action was clear, but not Pyke’s, for Pyke could get nothing out of it.
French swore bitterly as he realised that in all probability his former view of the case was incorrect and that he was once again without any really satisfactory theory on which to work. Nor did some hours’ thought point the way to a solution of his problem.
At least, however, he saw his next step. Mrs. Berlyn was the accomplice of some one. That some one was doubtless alive and biding his time until he thought it safe to join the lady. If so, she was pretty sure to know his whereabouts. ”