The Merafield Mystery

Evening Star, Issue 19773, 25 January 1928, Page 2

The Merafield Mystery

By R. A. J. Walling

(Author of ‘ The Third Degree,’ ‘ Fatal Glove,’ etc.)

Special Note.—All the names, and incidents in this story are entirely fictitious.

CHAPTER VIII.

How had this young woman persuaded me to do a thing of which I could not have conceived myself capable a month before?—to enter into a conspiracy with her against what nine people in ten would have called the ends of justice—at any rate, to place an impediment in the way of the official police ? She was a young woman of a type practically unknown to me—a type, indeed, with which I should have said (a month before) I had not an atom of sympathy. I did not understand it; I should have been positive that it would be utterly at a loss to understand a mi|ldle-aged lawyer of rather conventional and formal ideas such as I was.

engineered by the lady, and probably the visit of Major Overbury as well. For some reason or other the gnus had gone off before they were meant to, or the plan had miscarried in some way, for three clever,people like these could never have intended to leave so many traces for an intelligent detective to pick up. But there was generally a snag somewhere in every plot, or the detective profession would be a far more arduous business than it was.

But here was 1 assisting her to dodge the police, and planning in my mind a great many other things which would have annoyed the police still more if they could have had an inkling of my mental processes. And doing it all with gusto I As I had suggested to Mrs Briscoe, she could not expect me to close my intelligence as well as my eyes and lips; I would not take a single glance at her as she stood on the cliff. I would certainly not say a word to anybody about what had happened that evening. But I could not help drawing my own conclusions and making my own inferences. They were not clear, but they were clearing. I walked home, and within five minutes of my arrival was in bed, speculating on the reception the Scotland Yard men had experienced at Highcliff Farm. 1 learnt of it afterwards. They woke the house without ceremony, confident that their victim would simply tumble into their hands. But I also learnt that the appointed victim was not Mrs Briscoe.

They never even suspected the existence of Mrs Briscoe. Possibly she might have remained where she was without danger. Rossiter, the leading man and a detective of some quality, took his assistant and four plainclothes men from Westport in a big car, posted the four so that nobody could get out of the place without being seen, and then demanded admission.

The farm people, albeit a little awed by Rossiter, were as good as their word. They began at once on the story of their visitor’s departure for London in the morning. Their anxiety to get it off letter-perfect was, perhaps, an excellent thing, for Rossiter was keen enough to see at once that the yarn had been invented,. But instead of turning his attention to the search for Mrs Briscoe, it confirmed him in the theory with which he had started. In order to put him off the scent, these rustic folks had concocted a thin talo about a woman who lived only in their imagination. He brushed Mrs Briscoe and her doings on one side, and came with threats and blusterings to the real business of his visit.

That business was to find Major Ovcrbury! They had Major Overbury concealed somewhere on tne premises. They had committed a frightful crime by harboring him, but if they produced him at once it might go easier with them —all in the usual vein.

Of course, as the, farm people had never, to their knowledge seen Major Overbury, and he was certainly not concealed on the premises, they were unable to produce him, and Rossiter was unable to find as much as a nailparing of him. The expedition had come to grief, and shortly after one in the morning the big car roared past my house on the way back to Westport. Being at breakfast just after eight o’clock, I was called to the telephone. The police had a prisoner who must be charged that morning. Would I fet two magistrates to sit at the Meraeld Arms at eleven o’clock?

It was Grainger who spoke. “ Oh, our friends from the Yard, Mr Franks, have made up their minds to charge Atkins after all. Say they’ve discovered something. I don’t know what—some tale of cock and bull, I expect. The charge is of being accessory before and after the fact of Sir Charles Merafield’s murder.”

So Atkins was really laid by the heels, and Mrs Briscoe would have to work out her problem alone I I got the two magistrates, and the court held an almost formal sitting. Atkins was brought in between two policemen. He gave me a glance and a half-hint of a smile as I read the charge against him—that he was accessory to the fact of the murder of Sir Charles Merafield both before and after the crime.

Rossiter himself was the only witness. He proved the arrest of Atkins, who, when formally accused, merely said that he was not guilty. “I have reason to believe, Your Worships, that the prisoners’ name is not Atkins, and that he is masquerading in the character of a chauffeur, but our inquiries are not complete.” Whereupbn the police superintendent asked for a week’s remand, and Atkins was marched off to Westport again.

During the day I picked up the bits of evidence on which the charge had been built. They were undoubtedly suggestive. It appeared that when Rossiter and his man, on the previous day, had made their investigations at Merafield Tower they turned Atkins’s bedroom upside down and inside out. Almost everything they found was quite consistent with the character of an innocent chauffeur—but not quite everything. In a drawer of the dressing table they came upon two long strips of printed paper. They were “ proofs ” of a chapter of a book, apparently a technical book, containing large numbers of algebraical tables and other mysteries. Possibly not much notice would have been taken of the document, as it was rather crammed and soiled, but for three marks upon it. There were: (1) A rubber stamp mark—“ First Proof. (2) A rubber stamp mark—“ Please return before ,” and written in the blank space the words “ August 31.” , , (3) A manuscript note at the bottom of the second strip;—“l think this is all right, but check formula 53.”

Rossiter confessed that ho did not know what to make of this at the moment, but it confirmed the opinion he had formed from other circumstances that Atkins was no professional chauffeur. The point which made him certain that he had got hold of a master clue was the date on the rubber stamp. Atkins might deny until Doomsday that he had any connection with this strange document, but it could belong to nobody else. Atkins had occupied the room on the second floor of Merafield House since the beginning of July, and nobody else had been in it except the housemaids. _ . XJpon this Rossiter formed his theory, and it was ingenious and plausible. According to him, there was a conspiracy in which Lady Merafield and Major Overbury were involved, with Atkins as an assistant. Atkins’s engagement at Merafielcl Tower had been

Having got a working theory, Rossiter set about realising it in a most workmanlke manner. Before Atkins got back from his motor ride he had rushed out Mrs Ponsonby-Fernside and confronted her with the rest of, the servants. When did she see Atkins on the night of the crime? Ho appeared almost immediately in the group of servants which gathered about Lady Morafield and Major Overbnry. She could not say whether he came down from the upper story with Mason and the footman. She did not observe. But what she did observe, when pressed on the subject by Rossiter, was that Atkins was in his full chauffeurs rig. not in deshabille like the rest of That was enough for Rossiter. And as for me. I recalled that he was in full chauffeur rig when he arrived with the car at Rosebank. He ! ,d looked very spick-and-span, and not at all like a man recently disturbed rudely in his sleep. More significant than that, I remembered what Lady Merafield had told me that as she went down the stairs she heard Overbury talking, or thought she did as if speaking to himself. I reflected that if the keen and nimble Rossiter had possessed half the light L had on what happened at Merafield Tower on August 19, he would not bo long in laying his hands on the man who killed Merafield. - But his activity was a challenge to me. If I was to discover all that was necessary in order to fulfil _my tacit promise to Lady Merafield without revealing things she wanted hidden, I should have to be quick. Perhaps it was not quite fair tor me to take the advantage I did of Rossiter’s natural pride in his astuteness. But ho was so cock-a-hoop about it that the question of fairness did not trouble my conscience. He made no difficulty about showing me the printed document that had been found m Atkins’s room. He could make nothing of it himself, except that it betrayed Atkins’s chauffeuring for the masquerate it undoubtedly was. He w .uld lot Scotland Yard find out all about that, and it would not take them long to unmask Mr Atkins. He. proposed to post it to the Yard at once, and let them search for its origin. I reached my office, after the court had risen, in a mood of excitement, torn between two possible procedures If I chased the due given to me by the conversation of Atkins and Mrs Briscoe, I must leave the clue of the manuscript. And, on the other hand, if !■ chased the clue of the manuscript, T reallv feared what might happen to Mrs Briscoe. As it turned out I need not have feared, for that young woman was quite capable of looking after herself, and not even Rossiter had any terrors for her. , .• I decided upon the clue of the document.. That had.to be followed at once if I was to get at it before Scotland Yard. I telephoned to my wife that I was called suddenly to London, and that she was not to expect me back until she received a telegram. The best train available left fit 2 o’clock, which gave me an hour and a-half.

I spent the hour and a-half in getting my lunch and collecting literature to enliven the journey. It was not bookstall literature, and it was somewhat expensive. You cannot get a Lloyd’s Register at the price of a novel —and the shipping papers are many. It was with these that I amused myself during five mortal hours, hunting for the name of a ship—Terpsichore. I found a Terpischore or two, but neither of them was the sort of ship I wanted. There was a tramp of the name which, after dancing across the Atlantic in the cotton trade, was now (according to the ' Shipping Cassette’) laid up in the Fnl. There was a Medway ketch which did coasting voyages—with cement, no doubt. No "ship named Terpsichore would answer my purpose—so I had concluded by the tirfio the train ran into Paddington. I made a bundle of all that statistical junk and left it at the cloak room before I set out on the major business of my visit, which was to get ahead of Scotland Yard.

Rossiter’s letter, with the document whoso source he wanted to trace, would reach them next morning. What I had to do must be done that evening. My Lone 1 a club was one of the big “ caravanseries,” and T_ often stayed at an hotel instead of going there. But its advantage for me on this occasion was that it had a good library and a most intelligent woman in charge thereof. So I engaged my room, had a hurried dinner, and at once got to work.

My flying visit to London had been determined by a feature of the printed document which probably meant nothing to Rossiter. ' If it did, ho gave no sign of knowledge. I had seen at a glance that it was not a chapter in a new book, hut the proof of a chapter in an old one, with revisions and additions. It consisted almost entirely of algebraical calculations, numbered from 49 to 56. The four largest were printed from the original plates, and were consequently much darker and heavier than the other four, which had been freshly set up in new type. One of these was the No. 53 referred to in the manuscript note. A new edition of the bookj whatever it was, had been ordered, and it would probably appear in the autumn lists of the publishers. As they would not he out for some time, my task was to find the original edition of the work. My friend the librarian rather raised her eyebrows at rny inquiries. I was usually on the hunt for law or general literature, and it surprised her that I should be asking for works on chemistry. She produced several which I could reject with a look at their exterior. They were not big enough to contain the wide and voluminous calculations of which I was in search. But I. ran down the quarry within five minutes. She took from the shelves two volumes in royal octavo:— ‘ Chlorine Gases. Newland.’ ‘ Chemical Aspects of Modern War. Newland.’

Of course! I ought to have thought of it immediately. Before I opened either of them I was sure that one of these books would contain tho chapter that had been sent to Atkins, the chauffeur at Merafield Tower, or had reached him somehow.

I turned to chapter five of ‘ Chlorine Gases.’ Not there. But chapter five of ‘Chemical Aspects’ was the thing itself. In' the proof of the revision two formula had been altered and two added. The chapter was much longer than in the original. That wa* all I wauteckto know.

It was nearly nine o'clock. But 1 must go a lot further if I was to keep in front of Scotland Yard. A suggestion in Overbury’s letter decided my next step. Professor Stanley Newlaml was a member ol Overbury’s club, the Fifty-two. _ . To the Fifty-two Club, accordingly. Newlaml was not there. He would not be there to-morrow. His address? He lived at a flat at the top of Park street. But it would be no good, so the porter informed me, to call there—it was closed up. Professor Newlaml left for bis annua! holiday abroad about a fortnight ago—France, the porter believed. Mrs Newlaml? Oh! there was no Mrs Newlaml; she was long since dead. There was a Miss Newland, lint-she did not live at home with her father. She was something on her own account, like most of these young women in modern times. She came in now and then to call for her father—“blew in,” as you might say. But he did not know her address. * “Very important, sir?” asked the porter, sympathetically, seeing me nonplussed. “Rather,” I answered. “I’m only in London for a day, and I specially wanted to be able to get in touch with the professor.” “ I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir, and I don’t know anybody that can. They might be able to tell you in Gower street, where he gives his lectures, but tbere’d be nobody there now. It’s a pity Mr Quance is away, too.” “Mr ?” I queried. “Mr Quance, sir. Don’t you know him? He’s almost like a son to Professor Newland—bit of a’professor himself, They do say that' he’s every bit as clever as Mr Newland; anyhow, they work together. Mr Newland put him up for the club. ‘ But Mr Quance is away, too. He’s been out of London for a. good many weeks. I did hear that bo was gone abroad to find out wlint those Germans are doing in the way of poison gas. But, of course, that’s only hearsay.” “ Well,” said I, “thanks very much. I’m sorry to have troubled you. It’s a pity. I shall have to wait till I come up'again. By the way, what did you sav Mr Quance was called?” “Say, sir?” He looked at me, puzzled. “Ob, do you mean his front name? Air Bertram Quance, sir. Don’t mention it,” What lie forbade me to mention was not Mr Quance’s front name, but the trouble he bad taken to inform me. Nevertheless I was excedingly grateful to the chatty porter. He had saved me a lot of running about. - Tbo next morning I was m Bedford street, Covent Garden, by 10 o’clock, seeking the offices of Messrs Hatley, Martin, and Co., publishers. It was a neek-and-neck business with Scotland Yard. If they had anybody there whose hobby was chemistry, they would be close'on my heels. The general manager was a little annoyed at being disturbed before he had got through his letters. _ Still, lie received me. Yes, he said, they were issuing a now and revised and enlarged edition of ‘ Chemical Aspects ’ —it would be out in the autumn. Professor Newland was revising It, but he was away, and the process of correction was rather hung up. No, they did not know where ho was—they believed in Franco. Professor Newland was very fond of an informal holiday in France, and never left any address. My interest in the matter was . . . ? The general manager was looking at my professional card. With Scotland Yard behind me I was compelled to risk something. I risked a good deal in the next two minutes. It included the chance of being thrown out of the office and the chance of being kept there till Scotland Yard arrived. But I risked it.

“The question may seem impertinent,’ said I, “and I won’t ask you to answer it unless you feel that you can. Do you know whether Mr Quance was assisting Professor Newland in the revision of Ills hook?” ~“I don’t know,” he replied. It would have ben the most natural thing in the world, for Mr Quance is Professor Newland’s most trusted colleague —almost his other self. But I happen tp know that Mr Quance left for Germany back in July, and is not yet returned to London.” “You know that for a fact? I asked. , . . “Of my own knowledge—l met him here a day or two before he went. He told me he had a long job, but did not say what it was. Ho mentoined the Ruhr, and Munich, and Berlin, and said something about going right away to Silesia.” “ I must tell you the reason ot my curiosity,” said I. “ I represent, quite privately, as a lawyer, a very close friend of Mr Quance, who is well aware of his whereabouts. But by a curious chain of accidents Mr Quance is quite likely to be dragged into a most unpleasant affair unless the facts of his journey to Germany can be established. Naturally, his friends wish to keep his name out of it altogether. You know him well?” “Yes, intimately.” “You don’t think he is the sort of man who would mix himself in any shadv business?”

“No, I should say he was the soul of honor.”

“Well, sir,” said I, “to-day maybe, or to-morrow at the latest, I think you are likely to have a visit from Scotland Yard. They will bring a proof of a chapter of ‘ Chemical Aspects,’ and ask you all sorts of questions about it. They may not know anything about Mr ’Quance unless yon tell them. But if they do the first thing they will want to know is whether Professor Newland is likely to have sent it to Mr Quance for a correction. You may think fit to tell them that the professor might have done so if Mr Quance had been in England, but that as he is in Germany it is impossible. And you may think fit to add that Professor Newland has a large number of scientific friends and correspondents, to any of whom the chapter might have been shown. If you should put it in this way 1 am sure you would be doing service to your friend, Mr Quance.” The general manager looked grave. “It’s a serious matter to withhold anything from Scotland Yard,” he said. “ I don’t ask you to withhold anything,” said I, “but merely to refrain from being led by Scotland Yard into inferring things that I am sure will prove to bo mistaken. It is possible, of course, that the name of Mr Quance may not be mentioned at all. In that case, would you feel bound to bring it in yourself? ”

The general manager pondered this. “No,” he said; “I don’t see why I should.” “And if they should mention it, would you see any difficulty in telling them tliat Mr Quance is in Germany—giving them exactly the same information as you have been good enough to give me? ” “No,” the general manager re peated, “I don’t see why I should.” Then, after I had thanked him for his promise, he said casually a thing of which I did not understand the full import till long after, I had risen to go, and we talked a little about Professor Newland’s work and discoveries, just to round off the interview, and something occurred to him suddenly. “ I believe we had a letter from Newland not long ago. It may tell us where you could communicate with him if you want to find out Quance’s whereabouts. Half a minute.”

He turned to a shelf of files, searched one of its boxes, pulled out a letter written on thin ruled paper such as one finds in second-class French hotels, and passed his glance over it. “Ah, yes,” he said. “This is it; instructions about proofs, sent . from Crozon, saying that we shall get chapter five from Quance, who is correcting a formula. Hadn’t seen it before. Crozon —you know it—no? It’s a little town at the end of nowhere, hi the

north-western extremity of Brittany. Just the sort of place Newland would go to —where nobody knows, him and he knows nobody. Near the sea, where he can laze and stay, or move on, and no curiosity on anybody’s part The general manager wandered on, but I was scarcely listening. “Chapter Five! ” • I interrupted his description or the end of nowhere by suddenly sitting down again. “Sir,” I said, “I have reason to believe’that it is about the proofs of chapter five that Scotland lard will want to inquire when they come, lb is the proofs of chapter five that they will bring with them.” “Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “ What have they to do with it? How did they get hold of it ? ” “ That’s a long story,” I said. But will you take my word that the last thing Mr Quance would want, or Professor Newland either, would be that Scotland Yard should be able to connect those proofs with Mr Quance? It migi« be in the last degree disastrous for him.” “But I don’t know anything of you, Mr Franks,” said he. “I. have only your bare word. And Scotland Yard, you know ” Even as he was speaking the blow fell. His telephone buzzed. He stopped to take up the receiver and listened. “ One moment,” he said. Then he looked me straight in the eyes for some seconds. “They’re here, Mr Franks. If you are not an honest man ” “Your friendship with Quance,” I whispered. He rose from his table, pushed open a door, and said: “ Better get in there. Here, take this!” And he placed in my hand the letter from which he had been reading. 1 was a little astonished, but I went. I found myself in a tiny apartment where the publisher kept some boxes of documents and hung his hat and coat. The door was a mere framework covered with green baize. I heard everything that passed in his room as though I had been in it. “ Send them up.” he said through the telephone, and presently they were settling down to business. : “ From Scotland Yard, I believe,” the publisher began. (To be continued.)