Bodies from the Library. Georgette Heyer
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wife said that case would be the death of me. I couldn’t sleep for worrying over it. I’d tried all the ordinary things that should have provided clues—fingerprints, footprints, the weapon used, but none of them gave me an inkling. If I ever commit murder, I said, it will be like this, in the open where everyone can see me do it. Then I know I’ll never be found out.
Then suddenly I had an idea. I searched Richard Luckery’s room, then came downstairs and arrested him. He was charged, tried and, I’m glad to say, in due course hanged.
The explanation? Well, he had found what he thought was a very clever way of committing murder. A double bluff. He decided to impersonate someone impersonating him. Perhaps it was by chance that he came on that old stock of Edwardian clothes, or perhaps he was actually looking for something of the sort. He chose that Inverness cape as a garment easily distinguishable, bought another with which to impersonate himself, made a habit of wearing the first one, then waited his moment. He chose a Saturday afternoon because he knew that Miss Lucia would be gardening then, asked Katie to mend his first cape, went down to the shrubbery where he had hidden the second, put it on, murdered his aunt and returned to the house, which he entered while the servant was on the terrace. He had a perfect witness in Miss Agatha, who would swear it was him, because of the cape, and a perfect alibi in that his cape would be in Katie’s room. He knew I should soon find out about the purchase of the second cape by someone who did not resemble the purchaser of the first—some simple disguise, I guessed. The more Agatha swore it was him, the more sympathy he would gain for being impersonated.
But, of course, he made his one mistake. They all do, thank heavens, or I don’t know what would become of detectives. He forgot to plan the disposal of the second cape. I found it between the mattresses on his bed.
Rupert Croft-Cooke, who wrote detective fiction under the pen name of Leo Bruce, was born in 1903. He was brought up in south-east England, an aesthete in a family of athletes, and attended Tonbridge School and what is now known as Wrekin College in Shropshire, where he did well both academically and at the game of darts, at which he excelled.
Croft-Cooke published his first work, a slim booklet of verse entitled Clouds of Gold, at the age of 18. Aged 19, after a brief period working as a private tutor, he decided to go in search of what he would later describe as ‘adventure, romance and excitement’. He secured a teaching post in Argentina and travelled throughout South America, taking in Brazil and even the Falkland Islands. After two years he returned to England, and began working as a freelance journalist and writer, as well as broadcasting on 2LO, one of the first radio stations in Britain, which would go on to become part of the BBC.
In 1940, Croft-Cooke enlisted in the Intelligence Corps, serving first in Madagascar and later in India. On returning to civilian life, he settled in Ticehurst, Sussex, where he continued to write. In 1953, as part of a ‘war on vice’—defined as encompassing prostitution and homosexuality—initiated by the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Croft-Cooke and his Indian companion and secretary were charged with indecency and convicted. After serving his sentence, he sold up and moved to Tangier, where he spent the next fifteen years writing and playing host to visiting writers including Noël Coward.
Over a career lasting more than fifty years, Rupert Croft-Cooke was amazingly prolific. He authored nearly thirty volumes of autobiography, including The World is Young (1937) on his experiences in South America, as well as collections of verse, memoirs of his extensive travels and biographies of Lord Alfred Douglas—Oscar Wilde’s Bosie—and of the entertainers Charles ‘Tom Thumb’ Stratton and Colonel ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody. Croft-Cooke also wrote widely on subjects that interested him, including his beloved darts and the circus, as well as the importance of freedom of the press and the problems caused by ‘petty’ regulation. After his conviction and subsequent imprisonment, he argued for greater tolerance of homosexuality and in support of improvements to the penal system. His writing was highly regarded by critics up to the early 1950s, but after his conviction, reviews tended to be more negative and even favourable ones were marred by obscurely worded but plainly homophobic allusions.
As well as his extensive writing under his own name, Croft-Cooke also wrote detective stories using the pseudonym of Leo Bruce. His first mystery novel, Case for Three Detectives, was published in 1936. While the titular detectives parody Lord Peter Wimsey, Hercule Poirot and G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, the case is solved by a cockney policeman, Sergeant William Beef, who would go on to appear in seven other novels. In the early 1950s, Croft-Cooke abandoned Beef and created another amateur sleuth, Dr Carolus Deene, a history teacher who would appear in more than twenty novels. As Bruce and under his own name, Croft-Cooke wrote many short stories including a round-robin novella with Beverley Nichols and Monica Dickens, author of the Follyfoot series of children’s novels. His last book was published in 1977 and Rupert Croft-Cooke died in 1979.
One of four uncollected stories to feature Sergeant Beef, The Inverness Cape was first published in The Sketch on 16 July 1952. The text in this collection is taken from the original manuscript of the story in the author’s papers, where it was located by Curtis Evans, author of Masters of the ‘Humdrum’ Mystery and The Spectrum of English Murder.
Freeman Wills Crofts
For years Weller, the solicitor, had handled Marbeck’s affairs, and when he received the old man’s letter saying that he wanted to realise some securities, it struck him like a sentence of death.
For the securities were gone. In order to recoup some unlucky operations on the Stock Exchange, he had sold the lot. Marbeck was no business man, and as his dividends continued to be paid with unfailing regularity he had suspected nothing.
For Weller discovery would mean the end of everything. He would not escape prison. His business in the nearby town, his charming house on the Thames, his position and his friends—all would be gone. He could look forward to nothing but poverty and misery.
But there was an alternative. He scarcely dared to put it into words, but if Marbeck were dead he could undoubtedly produce papers which would convince the executors that he had sold at the old man’s request and paid him the money.
He saw very clearly how the deed could be done, and with complete safety. The Thames! What was the river for, if not to meet the problems of those who lived on its banks? A little care, an unpleasant five minutes, and then—
Weller’s house was on the north bank. He was not married, but his sister kept house for him, helped by a woman who came morning and evening to clean and cook. He would have to choose a time when his sister was away from home, as he must have the home to himself in the late evening.
On Wednesday nights for years past he and three friends had met at each other’s houses for a rubber of bridge. There was a dentist, an architect and Marbeck, who was a retired professor of music. The first two lived near Weller on the north bank, but—and this was where the river came in—Marbeck’s house was on the south bank almost immediately opposite. There was no bridge close by, and all four had light skiffs which in suitable weather they used as ferries, preferring to scull directly across rather than to get out cars and drive some miles round.
This was Thursday and on the coming Wednesday the meeting was to be at Weller’s. Till then he could easily put Marbeck off with assurances that the sale of the stock was in hand. Wednesday indeed would suit from every point of view, for his sister was going to some friends in Torquay for that entire week.
Two small preliminaries required attention. At a London chemist’s Weller bought some of those ‘safe’ sleeping tablets obtainable without a medical prescription. The shop was large and full of customers and he was satisfied that the purchase had attracted no attention.
On Wednesday evening he dissolved