Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery. Freeman Crofts Wills
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had a bad fright and cook still seemed hysterical. As he sat he looked at them curiously.
Cook was an elderly woman, small and plain and stout. She had been with them since they had bought the house, and though he had not seen much of her, she had always seemed good-tempered and obliging. He had heard his mother speak well of her and he was sorry she should have had so distressing an experience. But he didn’t fancy she would be one to give burglars much trouble.
Susan, the parlourmaid, was of a different quality. She was tall with rather heavy features, and good-looking after a somewhat coarse type. If a trifle sullen in manner, she was competent and by no means a fool, and he felt that nefarious marauders would find her a force to be reckoned with.
By dint of patient questioning he presently knew all they had to tell. It appeared that shortly after the ladies had left a ring had come to the door. Susan had opened it to find two men standing without. One was tall and powerfully built, with dark hair and clean-shaven face, the other small and pale—pale face, pale hair and tiny pale moustache. They had inquired for Mr Maxwell Cheyne, and when she had said he was out the small man had asked if he could write a note. She had brought them into the hall and was turning to go for some paper when the big man had sprung on her and before she could cry out had pressed a handkerchief over her mouth. The small man had shut the door and begun to tie her wrists and ankles. Susan had struggled and in spite of them had succeeded in getting her mouth free and shouting a warning to cook, but she had been immediately overpowered and securely gagged. The men had laid her on the floor of the hall and had seemed about to go upstairs when cook, attracted by Susan’s cry, had appeared at the door leading to the back premises. The two men had instantly rushed over, and in a few seconds cook also lay bound and gagged on the floor. They had then disappeared, apparently to search the house, for in a few minutes they had come back and carried first Susan and then cook to the latter’s room at the far end of the back return. The intruders had then withdrawn, closing the door, and the two women had neither heard nor seen anything further of them.
The whole episode had a curious effect on Cheyne. It seemed, as he considered it, to lose its character of an ordinary breach of the law, punishable by the authorised forces of the Crown, and to take on instead that of a personal struggle between himself and these unknown men. The more he thought of it the more inclined he became to accept the challenge and to pit his own brain and powers against theirs. The mysterious nature of the affair appealed to his sporting instincts, and by the time he rejoined the sergeant in the study, he had made up his mind to keep his own counsel as to the Plymouth incident. He would call up the manager of the Edgecombe, tell him to carry on with his private detective, and have the latter down to Warren Lodge to go into the matter of the burglary.
He found the sergeant attempting ineffectively to discover fingerprints on the smooth walls of the safe, sympathised with him in the difficulty of his task, and asked a number of deliberately futile questions. On the grounds that nothing had been stolen he minimised the gravity of the affair, questioned his power to prosecute should the offenders be forthcoming, and instilled doubts into the other’s mind as to the need for special efforts to run them to earth. Finally, the man explaining that he had finished for the time being, he bade him good-night, locked up the house and went to bed. There he lay for several hours tossing and turning as he puzzled over the affair, before sleep descended to blot out his worries and soothe his eager desire to be on the track of his enemies.
For several days after the attempted burglary events in the Cheyne household pursued the even tenor of their way. Cheyne went back to Plymouth on the following morning and interviewed the manager of the Edgecombe, and the day after a quiet, despondent looking man with the air of a small shopkeeper arrived at Warren Lodge and was closeted with Cheyne for a couple of hours. Mr Speedwell, of Horton and Lavender’s Private Detective Agency, listened with attention to the tales of the drugging and the burglary, thenceforward appearing at intervals and making mysterious inquiries on his own account.
On one of these visits he brought with him the report of the analyst relative to the dishes of which Cheyne had partaken at lunch, but this document only increased the mystification the affair had caused. No trace of drugs was discernable in any of the food or drink in question, and as the soiled plates or glasses or cups of all the courses were available for examination, the question of how the drug had been administered—or alternatively whether it really had been administered—began to seem almost insoluble. The cocktail taken with Parkes before lunch was the only item of which a portion could not be analysed, but the evidence of the barmaid proved conclusively that Parkes could not have tampered with it.
But in spite of the analysis, the coffee still seemed the doubtful item. Cheyne’s sleepy feeling had come one very rapidly immediately after drinking the coffee, before which he had not felt the slightest abnormal symptoms. Mr Speedwell laid stress on this point, though he was pessimistic about the whole affair.
‘They know what they’re about, does this gang,’ he admitted ruefully as he and Cheyne were discussing matters. ‘That man in the hotel that called himself Parkes—if we found him tomorrow we should have precious little against him. However he managed it, we can’t prove he drugged you. In fact it’s the other way round. He can prove on our evidence that he didn’t.’
‘It looks like it. You haven’t been able to find out anything about him?’
‘Not a thing, sir; that is, not what would be any use. I can prove that he sent your telegram all right; the girl in the Post Office recognised his description. But I couldn’t get on to his trail after that. I’ve tried the stations and the docks and the posting establishments and the hotels and I can’t get a trace. But of course I’ll maybe get it yet.’
‘What about the address given on his card?’
‘Tried that first thing. No good. No one of the name known in the district.’
‘When did the man arrive at the hotel?’
‘Just after you did, Mr Cheyne. He probably picked you up somewhere else and was following you to see where you’d get lunch.’
‘Oh, well, that explains something. I was wondering how he knew I was going to the Edgecombe.’
‘It doesn’t explain so very much, sir. Question still is, how did he get all that other information about you; the name of your lawyer and so on?’
Cheyne had to admit that the prospects of clearing up the affair were not rosy. ‘But what about the burglary?’ he went on more hopefully. ‘That should be an easier nut to crack.’
Speedwell was still pessimistic.
‘I don’t know about that, sir,’ he answered gloomily. ‘There’s not much to go on there either. The only chance is to trace the men’s arrival or departure. Now individually the private detective is every bit as good as the police; better, in fact, because he’s not so tied up with red tape. But he hasn’t their organisation. In a case like this, when the police with their enormous organisation have failed, the private detective hasn’t a big chance. However, of course I’ve not given up.’
He paused, and then drawing a little closer to Cheyne and lowering his voice, he went on impressively: ‘You know, sir, I hope you’ll not consider me out of place in saying it, but I had hoped to get my best clue from yourself. There can be no doubt that these men are after some paper that you have, or that they think you have. If you could tell me what it was, it might make all the difference.’
Cheyne made a gesture of impatience.
‘Don’t I know that,’ he cried. ‘Haven’t I been racking my brains over that question since ever the thing happened! I can’t think of anything. In fact, I can tell you there was nothing—nothing that I know of any way,’ he added helplessly.
Speedwell