Inspector French and the Starvel Hollow Tragedy. Freeman Crofts Wills
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went home to inform his wife of his change of plans and pack a suitcase with his modest personal requirements. Then he drove to St Pancras and caught the 12.15 p.m. restaurant car express to the north.
He was neither an artist nor an angler, and in any case he considered the month of November was scarcely a propitious time for worthies of either type to be abroad. Therefore beyond dressing in a more countrified style than he would have effected in town, he attempted no disguise.
He changed at Hellifield and took the branch line which wound up in a north-easterly direction into the bleak hills and moors of western Yorkshire. Six o’clock had just struck when he reached the diminutive terminus of Thirsby.
A porter bearing the legend ‘Thirsdale Arms’ on his cap was at the station, and having surrendered his baggage, French followed the man on foot down the main street of the little town to a low, straggling, old-fashioned building with half-timbered gables and a real old swinging sign. Here a stout and cheery proprietor gave him a somewhat voluble welcome, and soon he was the temporary tenant of a low and dark, but otherwise comfortable bedroom, while an appetising odour of frying ham indicated that the pièce de résistance of his supper was in full preparation.
He smoked a contemplative pipe in the bar, then about half past eight took his hat, and passing the landlord at the door, gave him a cheerful goodnight and said he was going for a walk before bed.
While he did not intend to hide the fact of his visit to Sergeant Kent, he had no wish to draw attention thereto. He believed that in a small town such things invariably get out, and to shroud them in an air of mystery was only to invite publicity. He therefore did not ask for a direction, but instead strolled through the streets until he saw the police station, walking quietly but openly to the door, he knocked. Two minutes later he was shaking hands with the sergeant in the latter’s room.
‘I’m sure I’m grateful to you for giving me the chance of a change from London,’ French began in his pleasant, cheery way as he took the chair the other pulled forward to the fire. ‘Will you join me in a cigar, or do you object to smoking in the office?’
The sergeant dourly helped himself from French’s case, and gruffly admitted he was not above the use of tobacco after office hours. French seemed in no hurry to come to business, but chatted on about his journey and his impressions of the country, drawing the other out and deferring to his views in a way that was nothing less than flattering. Before ten minutes Kent had forgotten that his visitor was an interloper sent to him over his head because his superiors imagined that he was not good enough for his own job, and was thinking that this stranger, for a Londoner and a Yard man, was not as bad as he might reasonably have been expected to be. Under the soothing influences of flattery and good tobacco he gradually mellowed until, when French at last decided the time had come, he was quite willing to assist in any way in his power.
At French’s request he gave him a detailed account of the tragedy together with a copy of the depositions taken at the inquest, and then went on to describe the bomb which Mr Tarkington had dropped when he mentioned his theories to Major Valentine.
‘Chief Constable, he told me to find out what kind of safe it was in the house,’ the sergeant went on. ‘I knew, for I had seen it at the time, but I went out again to make sure. It was made by Carter & Stephenson of Leeds, number—’ he referred to a well-thumbed notebook—‘12,473. I went down to Leeds, and saw the makers, and they said the safe was twenty years old, but it was the best fireproof safe of its day. I asked them would the notes have burned up in it, and they said they wouldn’t scarcely be browned, no matter how fierce the fire might be.’
‘And what exactly was in the safe?’
‘Just paper ashes and sovereigns. No whole papers; all was burned to ashes.’
‘Could I see those ashes? Are any of them left?’
‘I think so. We took out the sovereigns and left the rest. The safe is lying in the rubbish where we found it.’
French nodded, and for some minutes sat silent, drawing slowly at his cigar while he turned over in his mind the details he had learned. As he did so the words of Chief Inspector Mitchell recurred to him: ‘The people down there don’t appear to know much about it, and the whole thing may turn out to be a mare’s nest.’ Now, having heard the story, he wondered if this was not going to be another of his chief’s amazing intuitions. It certainly looked as like a mare’s nest as anything he had ever handled. The only shred of evidence for foul play was the safe builder’s statement that their safe would protect papers even in the fiercest fire, and that statement left him cold. What else could the builders say? They had sold the thing as fireproof; how could they now admit they had made a false claim? And this Tarkington’s theory of the twenty-pound note was even less convincing. There was no real reason to believe that Averill had not handed it to his servant or to a visitor or sent it away by post. In fact, the whole tale was the thinnest he had listened to for many a day, and he saw himself taking a return train to St Pancras before many hours had passed.
But he had been sent up to make an investigation, and make an investigation he would. He rapidly planned his line of action. The first thing to be done was to get rid of this sergeant. He might be right enough for his own job, but French felt that he would be no help in an affair of this kind. Left to himself, he would go out and examine the house and then interview Tarkington. By that time he should have learned enough at least to decide whether or not to go on with the case. He turned to Kent.
‘Your statement, Sergeant, has been so very complete that I do not believe there is anything left for me to ask you. But I think I should understand the affair even better if I went and had a look at the house. I’ll do that tomorrow. But, much as I should like your company, I cannot ask you to come with me. I entirely agree with and admire your wisdom in keeping the affair secret, and if we were seen together the cat would be out of the bag. I will give out that I am a representative from the insurance companies and I think no suspicion will be aroused. If now you will kindly tell me where the place lies, I think that’s all we can do in the meantime.’
Five minutes later French turned from the main street into the door of the Thirsdale Arms. The landlord was standing in the hall and French stopped in a leisurely way, as if ready for a chat. They discussed the weather for some moments, and then French asked the other if he would join him in a drink.
It was not long before they were seated before a glowing fire in the private bar, when French proceeded to account for himself.
‘I like your country,’ he began, ‘what I’ve seen of it. I’ve been a bit run down lately, and though it’s not the time one would choose for a holiday, my doctor thought I should take a week or two’s rest. So, as I had a bit of business here I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and do my business and take my holiday at the same time. And about that bit of business I thought that if you would be good enough you could maybe give me some help.’
The landlord, evidently curious, was anxious to do anything in his power, and French, following out his theory that where absolute truth is inadmissible, deviations therefrom should be as slight as possible, went on confidentially:
‘It’s about a place called Starvel where there was a big fire recently. You know all about it, of course.’ The landlord nodded eagerly. ‘Well, I may tell you strictly between ourselves that I am a detective. A fire unaccounted for is a very disturbing matter to insurance companies, and I have been sent down to try to find the cause of the outbreak. I’ve seen the police sergeant, and he has very kindly promised to show me his notes of the inquest, but I should like more general information than that. I wondered if you could, perhaps, tell me something about the affair; about the people who lived in Starvel, and so on?’
With this beginning, and the help of whiskies and sodas and two more of his cigars French was soon in possession of all the landlord knew and surmised about the Starvel Hollow tragedy. But he learned nothing helpful. The man’s story agreed with that of Sergeant Kent, though it was obvious that the idea of foul play had never entered his mind.
One thing he remarked on which Kent had not mentioned—about which indeed, as French afterwards learned, Kent