The Merafield Mystery

Evening Star, Issue 19779, 1 February 1928, Page 2

The Merafield Mystery

By R. A. J. Walling

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

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

CHAPTER X. I could get nothing more out of Greene. His advice to drop the inquiry was all very well, but many points in it were so obscure that I could not make up my mind to give him an absolute promise. Greene was chiefly concerned about the acceptance of his theory that the murder of Merafield had been, as he said, an execution, and about saving the executioner from discovery. Ho skated very lightly over the things that really troubled me—the things that might happen to Lady Merafield, to Overbury to Qnance, and to Mrs Briscoe. “I shan’t undertake to do nothing, Greene,” said 1, “if 1 find that hinocent people are in danger. You may be perfectly right in defending the person who killed_ Merafield, though I think it’s stretching the Unwritten Law pretty far. But 1 am more concerned about defending the people who didn’t kill Merafield.” “Of course, 1 can’t coerce you, my friend,” said Greene. “ But t assure you, they are in no clanger.” “I think if by any chance Ovcrbury should be discovered they would be in supremo danger.” “And i think,” said Greene, looking at mo very straight, “ they, or some of them, would not thank you at all for butting in. However, I’ve said my piece, Franks, and that’s all there is to it.”

it. If it led anywhere, it led towards a very strong motive of anger and j an lousy on the part gf Quance. For I could not doubt that the “ bounder ” of. Mr Allison’s story was Merafield himself. It fitted in with Professor Newland’s marked dislike of him, with Greene’s observations of the afternoon, and with what I had heard from “Mrs Briscoe” and “Atkins” when they met at Highcliff Farm. Quance might have found an adequate reason here for being the executioner of Merafield, as Greene put it. But so also might Overbury in the conduct of Merafield towards his wife. So far as any available evidence went, the ingenious Rossiter was on two promising trails. But the available evidence was thin and inconclusive. Somewhere or other there was a great deal more of it which might give the story a very different appearance. I brooded over the episode of Merafield’s association with Miss Newland. Why, if that was. all over and done with, was Miss Newland in Devonshire under an assumed name, and why was Quance at Merafield Tower in disguise? And, above all, what meant the connivance of Merafield in this pretence? There was the supreme puzzle. As the result of these reflections I resolved to drop the supreme puzzle for the time and devote myself to the secondary one. The next morning 1 telegraphed to my wife to expect me home in the evening, and took the early train from Paddington to Exeter. At Exeter I hired a car, and was driven to Chittlehampstead, alighting at the door of Dr Sand,ys. Hero J. thought I might, with a little discreet employment of the imaginiition, obtain some light on one or two dark places. At any rate, neither the police nor Scotland Yard had yet discovered Chittlehampstead and Dr Sandys. The proprietor of the nursing home greeted mo with good humor when ho recalled my features, “Ah, yes! Mr Franks, the solicitor— Mrs Briscoe’s solicitor,” said he. “Rather say Mr Briscoe’s solicitor,” I corrected him.

When I left him both of us were unconvinced. The most startling tiling I had learnt was that Sir Charles Merafiekl knew that his chauffeur was a masquerader. I, could not divine the meaning of that. Was it that Merafield and Quance were fellow-conspira-tors in some business that would not bear the light? From what 1 had seen of the psondo chauffeur, I thought it most unlikely. But at present the question was insoluble.

I called at the publisher's on my way back to my club, ns ho had suggested. “Ha!” said lie; “I’m glad yon looked in. I thought you might like to know whether Scotland Yard had begun to get busy, and so 1. ’phoned over to Quance’s friend Allison, who lives in the same house. Allison —Mr Franks.” He introduced me to a young man who sat in the visitor's chair. “ Allison lias rooms over Quance s, ia Gower street,” he said. “I suppose it wasn’t an hour after Scotland Yard left us when they turned up there—but you tell the story, Allison.” “ Nothing much to tell,” said the young man. “I got in_ at half-past 12, and lound men posted on the stairway, and two in Qunnoe’s sitting-room turning everything upside down. I think f said, What the blazes do yon think von are doing? ’ or something of that sort, and was told to go and mind my own business. I don’t know what they found or what they wanted, but they left at 1 o’clock. Even now I haven’t the least idea what it’s all a bout.” “There,” Mr Sargent remarked, pointing to me, “is the man who can tell you—if.he thinks proper.” Mr Allison looked at me inquiringly. Before speaking I did a little, rapid thinking. Jf Sot land Yard bad discovered the identity ol Atkins they must have done), there was no point in keeping silence about what bad occurred at Westport. On the other side, if this young man was an intimate friend and housemate of Quance, lie might bo able to tell me some tilings 1 wanted very much to know—particularly to fill in blanks in the picture that Greene had drawn. “Well,” I said, “I bad hoped Scotland Yard would rest satisfied with Mr Sargent’s assurance and believe Mr Quance in Germany. But they haven’t. What they have discovered, Mr Allison, is that for several weeks Mr Quance has been masquerading as a chauffeur in the household of Sir Charles Merafield in Devonshire under the name of Atkins. As 1 dare say you have seer, in the papers, Sir Charles Merafield was murdered on the night of the 10th August, and now Atkins (that is, Quance) is under arrest for complicity in the crime.” Mr Allison uttered a startled cry. “Good God!” ho said. “Quance? It’s impossible—absurd!” “One would have said so; but it’s a fact.

“Ah, yes, of course! Is there any difference ?”

“That, Dr Sanclys,” said I, feeling for an opening, “ is what 1 want to talk to you about. In the first place, T should like to know whether there is anything outstanding on Mr Briscoe’s account for the treatment of his wife?” “ Why, no, my dear sir; I think not. Mrs Briscoe settled everything immediately before she left in such a hurry that day.” “As nothing seems to have been drawn on her account at the bank, I suppose she paid in notes?” “Exactly, exactly!” said Dr Sandys, looking rather surprised. He pulled a. book out of a pigeon-hole and flicked back the leaves. “M—m —yes, here we are. Three weeks’ settlement, thirty guineas. In cash, yes. Bather unusual. But Mrs Briscoe had always Bet-tier! in cash. Here we are: July, forty-five guineas; June, forty-two guineas; May, forty-four guineas; April, oh! twenty guineas for April. . . . Yes, she came in on the 16th.”

He looked up at me as though to ask; “ What the deuce are you driving at?” “Thanks,” said 1. “I expect the stay did her a lot of good.”. “I think so—l hope so. She is a cheery young woman, Mrs Briscoe; hut, you know, Mr Franks, after that terrible affair, she was really very had indeed. Ton niy soul, I was a little afraid for her. Oh! for quite a month it was touch-and-go.” “Indeed!’ said J, “I didn’t gather from Mr Briscoe that he knew it was very serious.” “Perhaps not. Very likely.” said Dr Sandys. “ The truth is, Mr Franks, that we were never able to communicate with him, because we neither knew his address nor anything about him. Tut, tut, my dear sir! If anything had happened to her it would have been most awkward—devilish awkward! So far as we knew, also, Mrs Briscoe never wrote to him. Of course, as you are the family lawyer, I’m not giving away any secrets.”

“Certainly not,” 1 assured him. I had my opening now. “ And between lawyer and doctor, I think I can say this to you in confidence—that Mr Briscoe never know the reason why his wife came here, nor even that she was hero. In fact, that is why 1 have come to sec you to-day. Mr Briscoe has been called away r abroad, and is uncertain when bo can return. You remember that I arrived just after Mrs Briscoe’s departure. Would yon be surprised to know that sho has now disappeared altogether, and that I am exceedingly anxious about her?”

Mr Allison was for rushing off t:o I Devonshire by the next train to put all I those idiotic yokels right about Quance, drag him out of gaol, and confound their stupidity. But I succeeded in quieting him down and bringing him round to the point I wanted to make. “ No doubt everything that can be done to defend Mr Quance will be undertaken,” I said. “ But there are one or two things you might be able to tell me which would help.” And then I asked him if he would say what he knew about any passage in Quance’s life that related to women. “Women! Old Quance?” ho exclaimed. “ Good lord, there aren’t any women in his life at all. Regular old anchorite. The only thing is_ that he was, and is still, gone on Miss Newland —the professor’s daughter, you know.” “Mr Sargent said something about that. But that’s all off, isn't it? ” f asked. With a question hero and there J got at the facts as Mr Allison knew them. Quance had ben assisting Professor Newland for several years—ever since the war. In fact, had been thrown much into the company of Mary Nowland, had fallen desperately in love with her. She was the first girl he had over thought anything about, and the only one. Mr Allison called her a chit, a minx—he had no patience with these ultra-independent modern girls. They got such ideas of their own importance that a fellow like Quance, absorbed in his work, stood no chance against any flashy bounder who came along with pots of money and motor cars and baths of champagne and all that sort ol thing. And that was what happened to Mary Nowland. Some filthy outsider Quance would never say who it was—got hold of her and fascinated herewith his money and his meretricious glitter, and Quance’s sober-sided old way of loving her and disapproving of her goings on brought about an eternal snTnsli. She “ chucked him over.”, “ I don’t think any permanent harm was done with all the night clubs and the champagne and the Rolls-Eoyce-ing, but that was only because, Mary Newland had brains as well as wilfulness. She pulled up just in time, and sent the bounder packing But, of course, it left an awful sore. Quance suffered a lot.” . . . “ And you don’t know,” I inquired, “ who the gay Lothario was? ” “ No. Quance hated to talk of the rotten business. “ And you don t know whether he and Miss Newland came together afterwards? ’’ • TT “No; but I don’t think so. He never said anything about it, and he was going about with a face like a funeral to the day when he left for Germany or was supposed to be leaving for Germany.”

I felt some qualms of compunction when I had planted this extempore invention upon the good old doctor. His face was an almost comic study in horror and alarm. “Good heavens!” he cried. “You astound me!”

But if I was to get what I wanted it was impossible to be merciful with him.

“Of course, Dr Sandys,” said I, “wo do not attribute the slightest blame to you for this unfortunate affair—not the slightest. You could not be expected to know anything about it. But we should be very grateful if you could throw any light upon it.” “Yes, yes,” said the doctor. “Naturally. What liojht do you want me to throw? You know the relations between a doctor and his patient ” “ Are confidential. But a husband, you know—well, don’t you think lie is entitled at least to be told what it was Ills wife suffered from that brought hei into the nursing home?” “No,” said he. “I don’t—unless she chose to tell him. But the question coos not arise now, Mr Franks, for, as you have already suggested, Mrs Bnscoe was not suffering from auynning when she came here. In fact, T have rarely seen a healthier young woman.”

1 felt like a man wading into deep water and expecting every moment to step over a ledgo. I could not think at first what I had said to suggest this remarkable fact. Then I remembered my remark that the suppositions Air Briscoe was unaware of tUe reason In's wife came to Dr Sandys.

“Quite so,” I. said; “and that only makes our present position more difficult.” 1 had to 'say something.

“ It was not until the tragic affair of Mrs Radley had happened that Mrs Briscoe became ill. It seemed to knock her right out. They must have been greatly attached. She had exhausted herself with anxiety, and then she collapsed utterly. I feared for her life, as I told you, Mr Franks. But all’s well that ends v. 11; so far as I am concerned it ended on the day Mrs Briscoe left.” I He was getting a little restive, and I did not push him further. “Well,” said I, “ many thanks, Dr Sandys. ,T expect the affair of Mrs Radley was very distressing. When did you say it happened?” “Oh,'that was at the beginning of July—at least, the second and final trngedv was. Now', Mr Franks, 1 am afraidl have a round to make. If ” Clearly a dismissal. I took it, L left. My hired car waited outside. I

When, over a_ solitary- dinner-at the cluh, T reflected upon'this conversation, I could not get much satisfaction out of

returned to Exeter in it, resumed ray journey by train, and was at Rosebank before dinnertime.

The secondary trail, had been more suggestive than I could have hoped. There were, as Greene had indicated, a great many more things in this case than were comprehended in Rossiter’s philosophy. I would have pressed Sandys harder for a hint of what ho meant by the tragic affair of_ Mrs Radley, but I dared not. Mrs Briscoe herself could have told me, but I was under a pledge not to seek for Mrs Briscoe. I saw Grainger the following day. That excellent officer remained still entirely in the dark, but I learnt from him that Rossiter was posing on a pedestal more magnificently than ever, and uttering vain things. “ Says he’ll have his hand on Overbury within three days,” Grainger observed, contemptuously, “ I don’t think.”

I remarked that it seemed improbable, since Grainger himself had not been able to find a single clue to Overbury.

“No, sir,” he replied; “not a clue, and, if you ask me, there never will be a clue. It was all very well thought out beforehand, and somehow or other Overbury got a big enough start of the police to clear right away. Overbury has vanished, and will nevermore reappear in this world.” “You don’t suggest that he is dead?” said I, a little surprised. “I don’t suggest anything,” Grainger returned, with a cryptic shake of his head. “ I only say that nobody will see again the person hitherto known as John. Wilson Overbury.’’ Grainger, hipped as he was by the tone of Rossiter, was in a particularly uncommunicative mood, and I gave him up. His hint that Rossiter pretended to be on the eve of a critical discovery, however, made me take at once a step towards the elucidation of Mrs Radley, whoever she was. I got on the telephone to the Superintendent of Births and Deaths for the division in which Chittlehampstead lay, and asked for a certified copy of any entry in the register of deaths of a person named Radley between April and August. Next morning there reached me, with the compliments of the registrar, two little oblong forms, tilled in and certified.

The first related to the death, on the 3rd of May, of Richard Radley, male child of Rose Radley, widow, aged two days, at Kcstor House, Chittlehampstcad, in the county of Devon. The second recorded the death, at Kcstor House, of Rose Radley, widow of Richard Radley, aged twenty. So this, the death of a very young widow, following on the death of her child, was the tragedy of which Dr Sanclys had spoken. This was what had affected Mrs Briscoe so mortally that she nearly died of it. If I could have questioned Mrs Briscoe or Atkins, or if I could have ventured to put a few questions to Greene, I might have mode an end of the puzzle there and then. But Mrs Briscoe was taboo, Atkins was in gaol, and Greene was resolved that neither I nor anybody else should solve the puzzle. There remained Somerset House, where, by a long investigation, T, might have got at the antecedents of Mrs Radley—but only if Mrs Radley was a reality and not a mask, and I thought she was a- mask. The next three days were a time of perfect inaction. I could not see a promising step in any direction. I was careful to spend every evening at Rosehank, thinking that if Mrs Briscoe should wish to ask for my help she would he likely to try to communicate with me there. Only on the third evening was I absent for two hours, my wife having asked me to take the car and transport some, plants which •she had promised to a friend living on the other side of Westport. I raised no objection, as 1 did not want to arouse her suspicion by declining so simple a request. 1 felt rather sorry, however, that I bad to run the risk, for on returning at about ten o’clock, when it was dark, I fancied I saw, as I turned the car into the little drive, a woman’s figure at the corner where the cliff path turned off, and at once imagined that Mrs Briscoe might have been reconnoitring the house with the purpose of speaking to me. But that might have been mere fancy, or it might have been some other woman—perhaps one of the people at HighclifT Farm. Thus, when the remand day of the Meraficld case arrived T was no wiser than when I lelt Dr Sandys. Atkins and Lady Merafield were brought up together, and both charged with being accessory to the murder of Sir Charles Meraficld beforehand after the fact.

When I went into court and took my seat in front of the magistrates I had a shock of surprise. Sitting at the solicitors’ table was Ronald Greene. A good deal of whispering was going on between the solicitors and police, with glances and nods in his direction. The presence of one of the best King’s Counsel of the day in the little rural police court at the Merafield Arms was an extraordinary event. Greene just nodded to me. I called the case. Lady Merafield entered, followed by Atkins. She was showing the effects of her confinement in prison. But though paler and thinner than before, she retained her cool, impassive demeanor, and was perhaps the most self-possessed person in the court. Immediately I had read the charge Greene rose and said that lie had been instructed to appear for both prisoners. The magistrates took up the evidence at the point where Rossitcr had left it.

That officer went into the box at once, and led, rather than was led by, the solicitor for the prosecution. Ho said that since the last hearing of the ease hp had been able, by inquiries made in London, to establish the fnet that Atkins was not Atkins. He related with some self-satisfaction the discovery of the proof in a drawer in the chauffeur’s bedroom, his deductions from it. and the tracing ol the clue. He had no doubt that the man w lio called himself Atkins and protended to be a chauffeur was a wellknown scientific chemist, who had long been associated with the eminent Professor Ncwland. At this point Greene got up and said that, to save time, it might bo admitted at mice that the male prisoner was Mr Bertram Qnance. Mr Qnance had no desire to make a mystery of it. Since this blunder of his arrest had been perpetrated by the police, ho recognised that his identity could not be kept secret, pcrlectly good though Jus reasons were for being in the district incognito. Their might feel disposed to dispense with Mr Rossiter’s details. Mr Bossiter looked greatly annoyed and a little nonplussed. But ho left It at that. Greene was clover. He had contrived to make Rossiter’s discovery look like a mare’s nest. His introduction of the theory of a perfectly good reason for the incognito caused Bossiter’s own deductions from Ouance’s proceedings during the last &w weeks to fall flat. That perfectly good reason ” was at the back of all minds. Bossiter described the frequent motor journeys taken by Qnance and Ladv Merafield together, and tried to build UP the of a. conspiracy between them into which Overbury was brought as the chief executant when the time was ripe.

His cross-examination by Greene was a masterpiece. Without transgressing the rules by the slightest margin, Greeiie managed to bring in every sort of irrelevance, -to discredit all Rossiter’s theories, and to make Rossiter look a fool. _ , Would Rossiter he surprised to.know this, that, and other things? Did he suppose this, or would he credit that?

By this process Greene got Rossiter to admit—

That he 'had no evidence to show that Quance and Rady Merafield had ever seen each other before Quancc’s engagement as chauffeur; That ho had no evidence to show any motive on the part of Quance for desiring the death ot Sir Charles Merafield. He did not suggest that there was any intrigue between Quance and Lady Merafield; the intrigue he sugf'sted was between Overbury and Lady era field; That he did not know why or how Quance came to be engaged as chauffeur at Merafield Tower. But ho suggested that it was at the instance of Lady Merafield. Then came the utter collapse of Rossiter.

“Do you know the handwriting of Sir Charles Merafield? ” asked Greene. Ho had seen it, hut, of course, was not familiar with it.

“ If I show a document to my friend hero for the prosecution, who knows it well, no doubt, and if he says it is in the handwriting of Sir Charles, will you accept that? ” Rossiter nodded, a little doubtfully: He did not. know where he was being led. Greene showed half a sheet of a letter to the solicitor for the prosecution, who passed it hack to hint with a word.

“ My friend says this is undoubtedly in the handwriting of Sir Charles. I will hand it to you, and you shall read it to the court if you like.” Rossiter took it, glanced over it, frowned, and said: “You had better read it yourself,”

There was some little question about getting it into the evidence. Greene was taking a most unusual course, but he insisted. And finally the essential fact came out that this was a letter addressed to Quance at Gower street in July by Sir Charles Merafield, iu which he said:

The prospect alarms mo greatly. Apart from the danger to myself, there is the desirability of keeping any knowledge of this from my wife. I thought of the chauffeur idea because I know you are a keen motorist. She has never seen you and would suspect nothing. I beg you to consider the suggestion. It will serve both your purpose and mine. Rossiter, like everybody else in the court was flabbergasted. “ You will admit, after that,” said Greene, “that a conspiracy between Lady Merafield and Mr Quance against the life of Sir Charles Merafield seems improbable, to say the least of it?” Rossiter was not going to admit anything. But Greene did not care for that. He had made his point.

“And you don’t know anything about the prospect of danger to himself of which Sir Charles speaks in this letter? ” Rossiter did not.

“ But, apparently, it could not be any danger which lie anticipated either from Mr Quance or from Lady Merafield, could it? ” asked Greene, insinuatingly. (To be continued.)