"THE MURDER AT FLEET"

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 134, 8 June 1929, Page 12 (Supplement)

"THE MURDER AT FLEET"

By ERIC BRETT YOUNG.

CHAPTER, XXV. "My excellent host"—the little man bowed towards Mr. Warden —"has done his best. For a nian who has never hud to practise concealing it was pretty good. But, as I said just now, he has been under the serious disadvantage of being constitutionally unable to tell a lie. For the moment I heard his evidence at the inquest I hadn't the smallest doubt that he was telling the truth. It was equally clear to me —though it didn't occur to the coroner, who had every reason for not suspecting him —that he wasn't telling the whole truth. It was only necessary to seize on a weak point in his story, as you did just now, to put him in a fix. If I had chosen I could have asked him one or two other awkward questions about the story—the perfectly true story —that he told us just now. For instance, I might have asked him how it was, if he threw the spear in. the fire, another precisely similar spear was found supporting the body in Dorman's Acre."

Mr. Warden looked up with a puzzled frown.

"I couldn't have answered you," he confessed. "I don't understand it now." "Perhaps it will be clearer in a moment/' said Mr. Tettony. "But let that pass. To my mind the details of Mr. Warden's evidence were unimportant compared with the astonishing fact — and it grew more astonishing as I came to know him better—that a magistrate and a gentleman should think it his duty to conceal the truth at a public inquiry. I asked myself what motive such a man could have that would outweigh his plain duty to society.' I felt sure that the motive, however mistaken, was an honourable one, and, knowing the character of the man, I was not long in guessing what it was. The only motive that coyld persuade such'a man to conceal his knowledge was the chivalrous motive of protecting a woman—a woman whom he "

Mr. Tettony paused with a trace of embarrassment, but the squire broke in stoutly:

_ "You're right, Tettony. I've lovod her since she was a girl. God forgive me for thinking "

"My dear friend," said Mr. Tettony quietly, "you couldn't think anything else. You arrived here not suspecting that anything was amiss. As. you approached the, library door, Mrs. Jago broke from the room crving: "It's too terrible! It is murder!'"

Mr. Faucet interrupted sharply. "Who told you that?" he cried. But the other ignored him.

"You hurried, into the room and found the professor wounded—dying, with a blood-stained weapon by his side. You knew—forgive me, Mrs. Jago, but it is time to speak plainly—you knew that the woman whose happiness meant so much to you was not happy with her husband. You saw her accused, convicted of a crime which you could not find it in your heart to condemn. Your first impulse was to protect her—to save the man's life, if it could still be saved, but above all to avoid his being discovered in circumstances that "would throw suspicion on his wife. You carried him to the car. He was a small man and you are unusually strong. Then you remembered the damning evidence of the spear. You hurried back and—l'm guessing here, but you shall tell me if I'm wrong—you found yourself in a difficulty. There were several spears scattered across the floor. The whole bunch of them had fallen from the wall. If Mr. Faucet had turned liis -professional eye on that bunch of spears he would have seen that the cord that held them'had recently snapped and had been clumsily knotted again." Mr. Faucet goggled at him and the squire nodded. "But I took the one that was stained " he said. , ' "Exactly. But in your haste you overlooked the fact that they were all stained—with rust. In short, you 'took the wrong spear. The other one was already—but I 'am going ahead too fast. "A sight too fast for me," said the detective plaintively. - "Then I'll go back to my own investigation of the case. Having .settled to my own satisfaction the motives of the person who did not commit the murder, I went on to consider the motives of the person who did."

Mr. Tettony paused a full minute be'fore he went on in his quiet sing-song that Ethelred remembered so well from his student days. "What is the motive of most crimes of violence? I think there are only .two that count. One is greed, and the other is fear. And the greater of these is fear. It may be fear of the world's censure—the kind of perverted respectability that urges a man to be off with the old wife before he is on with the new. It may be moral fear; the weak ferocity of.the.soul that finds itself in thrall to another and can see no other escape. Or the fear may be purely physical. I considered the character of the late Professor Jago. Here was a man of whom, by, all accounts, it was difficult to believe that anybody had cause to be afraid. A scholarly, inoffensive man, wrapped up in his own science even to the neglect of human relationships. Yet not an unkind man, nor ungenerous. Everyone knew, for instance, of his devotion to our poor iriend here—how he had devoted months of his time and patience to the work of bringing him back to health and vigour. What kind of cruelty could be expected from such a man, and to whom would he be cruel? I pondered this difficulty for some time—for more tha'n a day, in fact —before I chanced on the answer. I have it in my pocket now. It is a copy of the address which the professor was to have delivered to a gathering of psycho-pathologists on the night of his death. It is headed—" Mrs. Jago rose suddenly from her chair and laid her hand on the little man's arm.

"Must you go on?" she murmured. Mr. Tettony touched her fingers with his own. .

,"If you ask me to be silent," he said gently, "I will be silent." She stood for a moment looking down at him. Then she returned to her chair and covered her face with her hands. Mr. Tettony went on: "This paper is headed: 'Account of a case of total paralysis resulting from shell-shock.' ~1 need not read it all. You will probably have guessed that it concerns Mr. Spence. It contains a full Account of the treatmen -, that the professor pursued. , I will take only one or two extracts.

"I needn't go into 'the medical details," Mr. Tettony went on. "Anyway, ' they're not really important, because in all these cases the trouble isn't really physical. There isn't the smallest rea-1 son to— suppose—the > laid '

stress on this —that there's anything physically wrong with Mr. Spence. To put if* in Dr. Jago's way, a circle of volition has been broken. I suppose an electrician would call it a short circuit —a gap too wide for a spark to leap in that circuit by which the mind sends its commands to the body and the body its requests to the mind. That's only an illustration. If I went into the psycho-analysts' jargon we should all be out of our depth. It all boils down to this: there was a general inhibition of movement." He looked round at a circle of faces as unwavering as that of the lad in the chair. "The professor set himself," he went to, "to discover the spiritual wound that was at the back of this bodily breakdown. He made a series of experiments which strike me as extraordinarily ingenious, but I needn't go into them now because I'm convinced that the explanation that he found was the right one. I expect you all know something of these fellows' discoveries of the relations 'between mind and body. You know how a repressed desire of a repressed fear can play the dickens with the working of a perfectly healthy body. And the mixture of desire and fear seems to be particularly deadly —for that is what it was in this case. Leaving out the steps by which he arrived at it, the professor's conclusion was that his brother-in-law was suffering from a repressed desire for vengeance, and a repressed fear of the consequences of vengeance."

Mr. Faucet stirred his great bulk impatiently.

"Isn't it time you came to the point?" ho growled. But Mr. Tettony seemed to bo unaware of the interruption.

"That sounds a complex state of mind," he went on, "and no doubt it was. Perhaps it will be clearer if we consider how it arose. Bobbie Spence"— throughout Mr. Tettony had not turned toward the young man, and lie still spoke as if he were not present. "Bobbio Spence and liis comrades are fighting for their lives —and winning. The attackers, in spite of being ten to one, were beginning to waver and break. Then, through some incredible blunder, comes the interruption from our own side. A British shell falls and smashes up the 'plane. Bobbie's friend is killed outright, and Bobbie' is knocked out. It isn't difficult to imagine the effect of this upon a mind keyed up to a desperate light. It is a kind of treachery: but the fact that it is accidental makes it a thousand times worse, for there is no redress. Bobbie, with every nerve alert to fight, is struck down by a blow in the back; and at the very moment of the shock there is stamped on hia mind, strained to its utmost tension, the desire to avenge his friend, and the knowledge that vengeance is impossible." Mr. Tettony folded up the manuscript and put it in his pocket. ■ "I do not propose," he said, "to read any further. The professor's object was clear. He hoped to turn this unhappy young man's desire for vengeance into a new direction." He pat'fied for a moment; then, turning toward Bobbie Spence, he added: "Shall I tell them whether he succeeded ?" Already Ethelred had realised what to expect. But when it came it filled him with something of the sheer physical panic with which 'he would have seen a dead man leave his cofiin. Bobbie's hand groped and caught the arm of his chair. His fingers tautened, and, very slowly, he rose to hie feet and stood before them.

"You've won," eaid Bobbi.j Spence quietly. And with a smile he lifted both his hands above hie head and added: "Kamarad!"

CHAPTER XXVI. It was only afterward that Ethelred came to feel the unreality of that hint scene in the pleasant library at Fleet. When he looked back on it, it took on the. intense but fantastic quality of a dream. But at the time it had a note of the casual, almost the commonplace. It may be that, after the miracle of Bobbie Spence'e resurrection from his chair from the fire, nothing that could have happened would have astonished him. This slim contained youth, standing before the fire, in an admirable tweed suit and now and then emphasizing a point with a movement of his slender fingers was as far away as could be from the picture of Professor Jago'e murderer that had grown up at the back of the reporter's mind. "I hope I didn't etartle you," he said amiably. "I didn't mean to be dramatic, but you, eir" —he threw a fleeting glance at Mr. Tettony—"took me by" surprise."

At first there was a trace of thickness in his speech, ae though his tongue were slow to obey orders, but it disappeared ae he went on.

i "I suppose you want to know," he said, "why I haven't spoken before —escept to Rosamund. Oh yes, she kne.v. I think she knew before 1 told her. Well, I'm not going to excuee my silence. I suppose it was unforgivable to allow others to be euspected when I had only to lift a finger to hint at the truth." He paused, and looked from one to the other. "I did it to eave my skin," he said.

Rosamund shook her head, but her brother went on in sudden energy. His eyes ehone with strange excitement.

"Yes, to save my ekin —and perhaps my soul, too. I euppose I've failed, now, to eave either. But don't you see what it meant to me. Even you" —he pointed suddenly to Mr. Faucet, who still sat motionlese at the head of the table —"even you," he cried, "must understand what it meaht to me to come to life only to find that it wae at the price of death, of my own as well as another's. I wae dead and I lived. But my new life was given to me only on condition that I instantly laid it aside again. Will you blame me for a week's silence? Could I be blamed if I had not spoken at all?"

Nobody spoke; and. suddenly the young man sat down in his chair and resumed the attitude that they all knew so well. His arm lay along the arm of the chair and he was motionless. It was as though a statue,' having come for a moment to life, had. returned to the marble; and to Ethelred the gesture seemed more eloquent than words.

"I get tired if I stand long," said Bobbie Spence with a little laugh. "Also my calves are full of Jerry's confounded pellets. , Damn you Jerry old man, you r.early caught me. It would have been f iirer to tackle Warden. He had a stick. It wasn't kind of you to interfere with the innocent pleasures of a poor bloke who found walking, even at night, a— a "

He paused, searching for a word, and he found it. "An ecstasy," he said oaietlj. "Yes,! it was that; though it

hurt damnably at firs,t. Just to move, just to lift my arms, just to see a tree or fence' ten yards away and to know that I could go to it on my own feet— that was the most joyous thing I've ever known. Oh, you people who haven't been dead don't know the eheer, rapturous miracle of being alive! It was mine, that joy; and you wanted me to give.it up. I couldn't for a little while. I'm not afraid of death —I've been dead'too long—but I couldn't part with life so soon."

Still they sat hanging on his words, as motionless as he. But Ethelred found that Daphne had drawn near to him. His Jiaiid found hers and held it. -

"And now for my confession," said Bobbie, almost gaily. "I'm not going to pretend that I feel any remorse. Even for Rosamund's sake" —his voice softened, but he did not look at her—"l can't wish the thing undone. It was like waking from a nightmare. I hated him. He tortured me. He tortured me as no man should be allowed to torture another and live. Oh, I know it wasn't for his own ends, you can call him a martyr for science, if you like. Martyr or not, he was a devil —a fiend. He couldn't deceive me. I knew what he was doing to me—d'you realise that, Tettony?—as well as a man knows who's having a leg amputated without chloroform. But a man can faint under the sugeon's knife—and I couldn't. I say he did it for his own pleasure"—the lad's voice was high and strained now, with o note of agony that Ethelred found hard to bear. "I hated him," screamed Bobbie Spence. "And the moment I was free I killed him. J would kill him again here and now, if he came back and stood before me."

The detective made a sudden movement, but at a look from Mr. Tettony, he was still again.

"He knew his danger," went on Bobbie more quietly. "He hated me as I hated him, but he'd calculated his chances and thought he was safe. He had a pair of handcuffs ready, and I knew where he hid them in the bookcase. But when the time came I took him unaware. He'd put me on the rack that morning. Perhaps I was insane—perhaps I'm not sane now—but I knew what was in his mind. He wanted to finish with me before he went to London, and he looked in again, dressed to go out. He began his infernal torture. He—he probed my soul. 1-can't tell you the utter agony of it all. And then it was as if something broke, something iiner than a hair but as strong as steel. It came to me that I was free. I waited my chance. I hadn't to wait more than a few minutes. He turned his back to go to the table, and I snatched a spear from the wall. The whole bunch came down with a clatter. The noise startled him and he wheeled round. But he was too late. I put all my new strength into the blow, and I saw the hatred and the joy ill his eyes." Rosamund was sobbing quietly. .Ht: leaned from his' chair and touched her cheek with his fingers. "I'm sorry," he murmured. Then he stood up again» "Well, Mr. Faucet, that's the story. Your move I think." It turned out, when they came to talk about it afterward, that only Ethelred was prepared for what happened next. Perhaps that was because his eyes still lingered on Bobbie, while the others had turned to look at the detective. Mr. Faucet pouted, grunted and passed a troubled hand across his brow. Then he turned slowly toward the waiting McArdle; and in that moment Bobbio made his leap.

There was. a crash of glass, and he was through the window and racing down the slope of the lawn. McArdle and Jerry Vane collided at the sill and sprawled among the splinters of the smashed window; but while his great form, rolling in a curious stumbling run, was still in sight, Mr. Tettony had guessed the fugitive's intention and threw back his head with a kind of highspirited giggle, and clapped his hands like an excited school girl. And they heard the drone of an aeroplane's engine.

A moment later the thing nosed beautifully into the sky, swung in a wide circle and mounted. The rhythm of the engine fell to a steady beat. It circled like a buzzard. The tiny figure of the pilot could be seen, waving his arms.

And then as he watched, with Dapline by his side, her hand still clasping his, Ethelred saw the aeroplane dive steeply, climb again and flatten a perfect loop. Then a spinning nole dive. Then another' loop, and then, banking at a perilous angle, an exultant upward rush like a rocket. Bobbie was alive at last.

They did not see what followed. They did not know that five minutes later, over the misty spaces of the North Sea, the engine faltered, drinking its last drop of petrol. Only the crew of a Thames barge saw the end —saw the aeroplane dive and recover, swing in a faltering circle, and then spin downward like an autumn leaf.

Alexander Hamish McArdle, a newly Hedged sergeant in the East Anglian Constabulary, was writing in the autumn sunlight that filtered through the dusty window of Swalechurch police" station. Now- and ,then he drew a miniature dictionary from the pocket of his tunic and consulted it.

" Your friend Mr. Tettony-s" he wrote, "is over at Fleet every day. This is much commented but in my opinion it would be an admirable match. No doubt you heard that Warden has put a grand monument over the body of the poor lad Spence, as well as >paying all the expenses of bringing it from the Dutch coast where it was cast up. But you may not be aware that Mr. Faucet's conduct of the Fleet case was strongly animadverted upon by the chief constable. I gather that Mr. Faucet will shortly be turned off at the main."

Mr. McArdle paused and released a mighty guffaw. Then went on:

•" For yourself, my dear Mr. Betts, 1 am delighted to hear of the success of your career in the metropolis. A wee bird tells me that it will not be long before Miss Daphne joins you. It would be impertinent to inform you that your lass is a treasure, but I can congratulate her, too, with a full heart, and conclude by wishing both of ye " He paused and flutteied the pages of his tiny dictionary. " felicity," he ended. . (The End.)