The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries Part 30

In the bedroom of the dead man, Magnum on a sudden impulse threw up the window. Outside it, he was surprised to find a screen of fine-meshed wire netting.

"Why this?" he asked to Stacey.

"To keep out summer insects, I should imagine."

Magnum suddenly became very thoughtful, hunching his bushy eyebrows and twisting at his straggly beard.

The hedger and ditcher, beaming with pride at the success of his detective work, came to announce that the housekeeper had gone to visit a married daughter living at Tonbridge.

"We'll go there at once," said Magnum; "and the first question to ask her is why Jona.s.son put up that wire netting."

Stacey looked at him questioningly.

"The loaded revolver he kept in his bedroom," pursued Magnum, "is nothing out of the ordinary for a nervous man living in a lonely country cottage. But the wire screen is highly unusual. The unusual is worth a.n.a.lysis."

An hour later, they were at Tonbridge. Mrs Pritchett was readily found in the parlour above her daughter's confectionery shop in the High Street a time-worn, grey-haired, grey-minded woman, resigned to the arrows of misfortune, dull of speech, with that love for irrelevant, side-track detail which goes so often with one of limited interests and narrow outlook. Magnum, with his impatience of slowness, found his temper distinctly tried during his endeavours to get relevant answers to his pointed questions. In essence, her information amounted to this: Mr Jona.s.son had had the wire screen fixed up six months previously. He was a very reserved man, liking to give orders without giving reasons. It was in wintertime, so that there was no reason to guard against wasps, gnats, or mosquitoes. No; she had no idea why he wanted it, but he was very concerned about having it put up at once.

"At once?" questioned Magnum, seizing on the suggestiveness of the phrase.

It was directly after he received a visit from the dark gentleman with the gold-rimmed spectacles. High words had pa.s.sed between them. No; she had no idea who he was. Mr Jona.s.son was very reserved, keeping his affairs entirely to himself. The dark gentleman was a foreigner he looked like a half-caste. He was seen in the neighbourhood of Paddock Wood three months later. She believed that this man must have tried to murder Mr Jona.s.son in the train. She was convinced that he was hiding under the seat of the compartment.

"That has been proved impossible," put in Stacey.

Mrs Pritchett was of the opinion that nothing was impossible to a foreigner.

Regarding the past life of the dead man, her information was mostly conjecture, embroidered fantastically after the fas.h.i.+on of country gossip. The only definite fact was that he had gone to Africa as a young man. The name "Uganda" persisted in her memory. At one time he had kept souvenirs of Africa in his study, but some years back he had made a clean sweep of them, burning them in a bonfire at the end of the garden.

Letters? When Mr Jona.s.son received letters, he usually burnt them. No, indeed, she never pried into his private papers! She hoped she knew her place! No; she didn't listen to the conversation between Mr Jona.s.son and the foreigner. She couldn't help hearing that they were angry with one another, but to suggest that she would stoop to listen at a keyhole- "If you had," retorted Magnum impatiently, "Mr Jona.s.son might be alive today."

Mrs Pritchett relapsed into the easy tears of old age, and it took all Stacey's efforts to comfort her.

"You'll be saying next as it was me as murdered him!" she cried accusingly at Magnum.

He offered a sovereign as consolation for wounded feelings, and the interview proceeded. But no further information of importance resulted.

Magnum and Stacey returned to town. The scientist chose an empty second-cla.s.s compartment of the same type as the mystery carriage, and asked Stacey to leave him there alone during the journey.

At Cannon Street, when Stacey went to rejoin his friend, he found Magnum glowing with excitement.

"I think we've got it!" he cried, slapping Stacey on the shoulder with a l.u.s.ty thump. "First set your detectives on the hunt for that half-caste with the gold-rimmed spectacles."

"Yes, I'd settled to do that," returned the young lawyer; "but even if we find him, it doesn't help much for our side of the case. a.s.sume that he threatened to murder Jona.s.son-a.s.sume that Jona.s.son was in deadly terror of him-a.s.sume that he travelled in the next compartment to Jona.s.son. Even then the Empire Company would claim that the deceased threw himself out of the train-suicide while temporarily insane, but still suicide. The fifty thousand pound policy money will never come to Miss Gerard unless we can show the court how Jona.s.son was terrified out of an empty compartment."

"I believe I can do it," returned Magnum emphatically. "The phial of atoxyl he carried in his pocket, the book on sleeping sickness, the wire screen to his bedroom window, Uganda the home of the tsetse fly they fit together like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. One more piece in place, and the whole pattern would stand out. To-morrow we'll search that sealed compartment once again."

"In the presence of the Empire's lawyer?"

"Naturally. Arrange it for the afternoon. And if I can show him that Magnum is not quite the fool he imagines-"

As mentioned before, Magnum was not without a dash of very human vanity.

On the following afternoon, the same four were back in the shed where the mystery carriage stood mutely waiting to deliver up its secret. The insurance lawyer's acidulated smile was now fattened out to a mellow tolerance. He was no longer afraid of any of Magnum's theories. The goods manager, while still outwardly neutral, had transferred his sympathies to the side of the Empire Company.

Although it was summer, Magnum wore a pair of thick gloves. In his side-pocket a packet bulged out noticeably.

"I want every inch of the compartment swept out," he said to the railway official. "Will you do it yourself, so as to avoid any suspicion that might arise if I were to do so?"

Tolerantly, the goods manager called for a carriage-cleaner's broom, and proceeded to the task, sweeping around the cornices, behind the cus.h.i.+ons, and underneath the seats, and gathering the sweepings into a small pile, while the other three watched intently from outside.

"Stop!" called Magnum suddenly, his eyes alight with unsuppressed triumph. From the sweepings he picked up a large insect, dead, and displayed it emphatically in his gloved hand in front of the insurance lawyer.

"A tsetse fly!" he stated.

"Well; and what if it is?"

"The carrier of the sleeping sickness. Deadly. One sting from it, and a man would stand a poor chance."

"I don't follow your argument," objected the lawyer, with chilly impa.s.siveness.

"That's what drove Jona.s.son to his death. That one, and perhaps a dozen others. The rest probably flew out of the open door in the Sevenoaks tunnel. This one was killed by him."

"Still, I don't follow you. How could your dozen tsetse flies enter a closed compartment?"

"Get inside, and I'll demonstrate!" snapped Magnum.

The lawyer, with a gesture of disbelief, entered the compartment, and the door was closed on him. Magnum immediately proceeded to the smoking compartment alongside, lit himself a cigar, and then produced from his pocket the box which was causing the bulge. It contained a dozen live wasps, angry at their long imprisonment. Magnum, standing on a seat, took out one of the buzzing insects with his heavily gloved fingers, and placed it in the tube of the alarm-chain pa.s.sing from compartment to compartment. A few puffs from his cigar drove the insect to find escape through the further end of the tube. The other wasps quickly followed.

What then took place in the insurance lawyer's compartment would have been highly comic had it not been in demonstration of a tragedy.

Fighting with the furious insects, ruffled, dishevelled, and wiped clear of cynical smiles, the lawyer made a hurried and undignified escape to the outside.

"And that," clinched Magnum, "was how Jona.s.son was sent to his death."

The murderer was never captured, and so the inner history of the tragic feud never came to light. But it became abundantly clear that the dead man had been fearing an attack by the tsetse fly; it was for that reason that he screened his bedroom window and carried in his pocket the drug which might counteract the terrible effects of the sting. No doubt the unknown murderer had threatened him with that particular form of revenge. Jona.s.son had insured his life heavily, either in the superst.i.tious hope that it might avert death, or in order to leave his niece well provided for, or for both reasons.

The fact of importance which Magnum had demonstrated was the method by which Jona.s.son had been driven out of the railway-carriage. On that, the Empire Company compromised out of court for forty thousand pounds.

Magnum, who did not believe in hiding his light under a bushel, sent to Stacey's wedding-present table a neatly framed sheet of writing-paper with the wording: "To Mr and Mrs Stacey, forty thousand pounds, from Magnum."

The Red Ring William Le Queux William Le Queux (18641927) was considerably more prolific than Max Rittenberg and far better known. He is regarded as one of the progenitors of the spy novel, producing works of international intrigue just before John Buchan and E.P. Oppenheim. His early works, which rapidly established his reputation, include A Secret Service (1896), England's Peril (1899) and the bestselling The Invasion of 1910 (1905). Le Queux was a dab hand at self-publicity, perhaps using some author's licence to add to the mystery. But he was clearly a fascinating character, deeply involved with the secret service, and often acting on his own initiative all manner of secrets are revealed in Things I Know (1923). The following story first published in 1910 and which so far as I know escaped inclusion in any of his many collections-is presented in the first-person, giving an added verisimilitude to the mystery. Who knows but that something very like this might just have happened in Le Queux's world.

The Usborne affair, though very remarkable and presenting a number of curious features, was never made public, for reasons which will quickly become apparent.

It occurred in this way.

Just before eight o'clock one misty morning last autumn, Captain Richard Usborne, of the Royal Engineers, and myself were strolling together up and down the platform at Liverpool Street Station, awaiting the arrival of the Hook of Holland boat-train. We had our eyes well about us, for a man was coming to London in secret, and we, members of the Secret Service, were there to meet him, to examine his credentials, and to pa.s.s him on to the proper quarter to be questioned, and to receive payment-substantial payment for his confidential information.

I had arranged the visit of the stranger through one of our secret agents who lived in Berlin, but as I had never before met the man about to arrive, we had settled that I should hold a pale green envelope half concealed in my handkerchief raised to my nose, and that he should do the same.

"By Jove, Jerningham," d.i.c.k Usborne was saying, "this will be a splendid coup-the revelation of all the details of the new Boravian gun. The Department ought to make you a special grant for such a service. I hope, however," he added, glancing about him with some suspicion "I hope none of our foreign friends have wind of this visit. If so, it will fare badly with him when he gets back."

I had kept my eyes well about me and was satisfied that no other secret agent was present.

A moment later the train drew into the station, and amid the crowd I quickly distinguished a short, stout, middle-aged man of essentially Teutonic appearance, with a handkerchief to his face, and in it an envelope exactly similar to my own.

Our greeting was hasty. Swiftly we put him into the taxi we had in readiness, and as we drove along he produced certain credentials, including a letter of introduction from my friend in Berlin.

Herr Gunther which was the name by which we knew him-appeared extremely nervous lest his presence in London should be known. True, he was to receive for his information and for certain doc.u.ments which he carried in his breast-pocket two thousand pounds of Secret Service money; but he seemed well aware of the ruin which would befall him if his Argus-eyed Government became aware of his a.s.sociation with us.

We had both witnessed such misgivings on the part of informants before. Therefore we repeated our a.s.surances in German for the stranger did not speak English and at St Clement Dane's Church, in the Strand, I stopped the taxi and alighted, for d.i.c.k Usborne was to conduct our friend to the house of our chief, General Kennedy, in Curzon Street, it not being considered judicious for Gunther to be taken to the War Office.

The German was to return by the Hook of Holland route at nine o'clock that same night, therefore he had brought no baggage. Secret visits of this character are always made swiftly. The British public are in blissful ignorance of how many foreigners come to our sh.o.r.es and tell us what we most desire to know for a substantial consideration.

The Secret Service never advertises itself. Yet it never sleeps, night or day. While pessimists declare that our authorities know nothing of what is progressing in other countries, a gallant little band of men and women too-are ever watchful and ever travelling across the face of Europe, gathering information which is conveyed to London in secret and carefully docketed in a certain room of a certain Government Department that must, of necessity, be nameless.

We, its agents, often live through exciting times, crises of which the public never dream.

It is one of these which I am permitted to here relate.

On the day in question I played golf at Sunningdale, for I had been some months abroad-living in a back street in Brest, as a matter of fact and was now on leave at home. I dined at the golf-club, and about ten o'clock that night entered my rooms in Shaftesbury Avenue, where I found a telegram lying upon the table.

It had been despatched from the Brighton station at Victoria at six-thirty, and read.

Am at Webster's. Come to me at once. Cannot come to you. d.i.c.k.

By this message I was greatly puzzled. Webster's was a small private hotel in which I knew Usborne had sometimes hiden himself under the name of Mr Clarke, for we are often compelled to a.s.sume fict.i.tious names, and also to keep queer company.

Why had he so suddenly gone into hiding? What had occurred?

At once I took a cab along Victoria Street and alighted before the house, which was to all intents and purposes a private one, save for the lamp outside which stated it to be an hotel.

The black-bearded little manager, whom I had once met before, told me that my friend had arrived there at noon and taken a room, but at two o'clock he had gone out and had not returned.

"And he left no message for me?" I asked.

"None, sir."

"Did he bring any luggage?"

"Mr Clarke seldom brings any luggage," was the man's reply. "He generally just sleeps here, and leaves his baggage in a railway cloakroom."

I was puzzled. If d.i.c.k wished to see me so urgently he would surely have remained at the hotel. He was aware I was going out to golf, although I had not told him where I intended playing.

While we were speaking I saw a chambermaid pa.s.s, and then it occurred to me to suggest that my friend might have returned un.o.bserved. He might even be awaiting me in his room. He had said that he was unable to come to me, which appeared that he feared to go forth lest he should be recognised.

I knew that d.i.c.k Usborne, whose ingenuity and daring were unequalled by any in our service, was a marked man.

Both the manager and the chambermaid expressed themselves confident that Mr Clarke had not returned, but at last I induced the girl to ascend to his room and ascertain.

From where I stood in the hall I heard her knock and then try the door.

She rattled it and called to him. By that I knew it was locked on the inside.

Instantly I ran up the stairs and, banging at the door called my comrade by name. But there was no response.

The key was still in the lock on the other side, so a few minutes later we burst open the door by force and rushed into the dark room.

The manager lit the gas-jet, and by its dim light a startling sight was presented. Lying near the fireplace, in a half-crouching position, face downwards, was d.i.c.k Usborne. Quickly I turned him over and touched his face. The contact thrilled me. He was stone dead!

His eyes, still open, were glazed and stared horribly, his strong hands were clenched, his jaw had dropped, and it was plain, by the coutortion of the body, that he had expired in agony.

Quickly suspicious of foul play, I made a rapid examination of the body. But I could find no wound or anything to account for death. A doctor, hastily summoned, was equally without any clue to the cause of death.

"Suicide, I should think!" he exclaimed when he had finished his examination. "By poison, most probably; but there is no trace of it about the mouth."

Then, turning to the police-inspector who had just entered, he added: "The door was locked on the inside. It must, therefore, have been suicide."

"The gentleman was a friend of yours, I believe, sir?" asked the inspector, addressing me.

I replied in the affirmative, but declared that he was certainly not the man to commit suicide.

"There's been foul play-of that I'm positive!" I declared emphatically.

"But he locked himself in," the hotel manager argued. "He must have re-entered un.o.bserved."

"He was waiting here for me. He wished to speak to me," I replied.

The theory held by all present, however, was that it was suicide; therefore the inspector expressed his intention of having the body conveyed to the Pimlico mortuary to await the usual post-mortem.

I then took him aside downstairs, and telling him in confidence who I was, and what office my dead friend held, I said: "I must ask you, inspector, to lock up the room and leave everything undisturbed until I have made a few inquiries myself. The public must be allowed to believe it a case of suicide; but before we take any action I must consult my Chief. You, on your part, will please inform Superintendent Hutchinson, of the C.I. Department at Scotland Yard, that I am making investigations. That will be sufficient. He will understand."

"Very well, sir," replied the inspector; and a few moments later I left the house in a taxi. Each member of the Secret Service is a detective by instinct, and I suppose I was no exception.

Half an hour later I was seated with General Kennedy in his cosy little library in Curzon Street explaining briefly my startling discovery.

"That's most remarkable!" he cried, greatly upset at hearing of our poor colleagues's death. "Captain Usborne brought the man Gunther here just after nine, and we had breakfast together. Then he left, promising to return at three to again take charge of the stranger. He arrived about a quarter past three, and both he and the German left in a four-wheeler. That is the last I saw of either of them."

"Gunther was to leave to-night. Has he gone?" I asked.

"Who knows?" exclaimed the shrewd, grey-headed little man, who, besides being a distinguished General, was Director of the British Secret Service.

"We must find him," I said. Then after a moment's reflection I added: "I must go to Liverpool Street Station at once."

"I cannot see what you can discover," replied the General. "If Gunther has left he would not be noticed in a crowded train. If he left London he's already on the North Sea by this time," he added, glancing up at the clock.

"Usborne has been a.s.sa.s.sinated, sir," I declared with emphasis. "He was my best friend. We have often been in tight corners on the Continent together. May I be permitted to pursue the investigation myself?"

"By all means, if you really believe it was not a case of suicide."