THE Flambards Mystery

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 194, 21 September 1914, Page 2

THE Flambards Mystery

' By Sir William Magnay, Bt. »■ '» 1

/Vuthor of "The Heiress of the Season,. The Red Chancellor, f " The Master Spirit." etc,

[copyright.]

CHAPTER XXlV.—(Continued.) I \ THE RESULT. I started up with an exelamation as the truth dawned upon me. Bolt glanced round-at me with a half smile, ÜBfl under;.his look I contrived to restrain my excitement. The sergeant preceded with his story. ''.The man'let himself into the house •while the lady waited outside, walking lip and down, as though to keep warm. This went oii for perhaps ten minutes, an#'then it struck me as singular that the lady had not gone in, but should "Wait outside -in the cold. Of course, 5t was possible she did not fancy the house after what had lately happened tfterje; still I wasn't altogether satisfied, andil suggested to Sharpe that it looked likei a blind. ; 4 '*[' Pust what I was thinking myself,' he replied. " : I looked at my watch: it was 8.25, snd ; I knew there was an up-train at .8.48; ' rir:- ' . \

'l'll make sure, Sharpe,' I said

'Toil stay here while I run on to the Nation. I shouldn't be surprised "if that's his game.' . . "With that I left Sharpe on the -watch, and ran as quickly as I could to Morningford Road Station, but without' seeing anything of the party I nyaqted. Constable Devitt was there . -on the look-out; but he had, so .far seen nothing/ of him. I arranged that we V ahoiild post ourselves one at each end of tie platform and keep a sharp watch. after the up-train was signalled I fancied I saw a man cross the line about a hundred and fifty; yards'below. the station, but it was impossible to tell in the dark whether it was the party we were looking for. I message down' to Devitt to keep an eye on both sides of the line, and, when the'train came in, to-take the platform side while I would look after the oft'*ide 'doors. I had an idea,-sir, that our man; would be .likely, if lie guessed lie was - under observation, to slip in from the six-foot. And it turned out that 3 was right there. , As the train drew up I jumped down behind" the last coach, and, stooping by the footboard, ran along up the train. I knew the down non-stop, express was due and signalled, but the up-line engine was blowing off, and. I couldn't hear the other train and only knew she > was at hand when I saw her headlights coming round the . jurve. . ' "I judged' it time td run back' to being caught between the two ou the six-foot. I had just got to the end of the up-train when she' started, and ' turning to .look round I saw a man appear out of the darkness, jump off the ; down platform, and make a dash. for the last coach but one on the moving

train. At that moment the express was running through the station at high sp'eed. I shouted to the man, who made a desperate attempt to get on the footboard of the starting train. He seemed to miss getting a good hold; he swung round and dropped back again on to the six-foot. Before he could get his balance—the 'express seemed to catch him and fling him against the coach of the up. "I shouted to Deyitt, and ran to the man, who was only a few feet from me, but it didn't need a doctor to tell me that he was done for, and before they brought a lamp I identified the as the party we were after." "Wallace Rixon," I said, as the sergeant ended. Bolt nodded gravely. "Yes. He has found a preferable death to that which awaited him."

"Do you mean to say," Gelston asked in awe-struck amazement, {'■ that' Wallace Rixon murdered his uncle ? "

"He certainly killed him,'' was Bolt's cool answer; "and would have been arrested to-morrow, or to-night on his attempt to abscond. Those were your instructions, sergeant ? " " Yes, Mr Bolt. But," he added apologetically, " you see, sir, the position I was in. I only just cleared off to the up-line. The express was running at over fifty miles an hour."

Bolt nodded. "You could not have done more, sergeant. And, all things considered, perhaps it Is better as it is. Where is the body!"

"In the up waiting-room, sir. Dr Spackman had been a passenger by the up train; we got him back to the station. as he was driving away, arid he pronounced life to be extinct. Death must have been instantaneous."

"Well, sergeant, it has saved us an ugly ; job,'' Bolt said, thoughtfully. " There is'nothing to be done now but to communicate with flu; coroner." When the officer had left the room Bolt turned to us. • '

"I daresay this has been a surprise to you, gentlemen. But there were reasons why I could not sooner announce my. suspicions, and, latterly, my conviction that Wallace Bixon was the man who did his uncle to death. As to whether the* crime ought to come under the head of murder or manslaughter I will not take upon myself to decide. That will now probably never be known. Anyhow, it seems to me that this fatal accident has happened, for the best. And now I have the unpleasant duty of going t*o break the news to his widow." I stared at him in a fresh access of astonishment.' widow? Then "* ''

"Yes," Bplt explained, coolly,,"his widow. He married Miss Archer secretly by special licence about a week

CHAPTER XXV. ROLT'S STORY.

ago. Now you understand why it was no use for me to ask any questions."

" "As his wife she would not be a competent witness.'' And that was doubtless why he married her in sueli a hurry. Infatuation on her part, with, perhaps, a little coercion, if not terrorising, on his. I was really very sorry for her, and am strongly of opinion that she is to be congratulated on what happened an hour ago. It will make my task lighter. Well, I must be off and about it. Good-night. If you care to hear the explanation of the whole of the mystery as I have unrayalled it, and can 'give me an hour to-morrow evening, it is only fair to enlighten you on many points which probably are still a puzzle." We accepted the proposal eagerly, and arranged that he should dine with us next evening and afterwards tell us the story.

During .dinner next evening neither Bolt nor we touched on the subject of the- late tragedies. ' He mentioned casually that the, soi-disant Fitz-Rich-ard had been brought dpwiv from London and would at the-next hearing be charged with the other prisoners. *'■ The people at headquarters seem, very pleased at the breaking up of the gang's operations, V he remarked. " You see, it is rather a slur on police methods and' efficiency when a series of crimes * can continue to be committed with impunity.'' After dinner,' when we were alone, he for the first time spoke of Mrs Wallace Rixon.

'' My interview -with her was naturally rather painful/' he said; "but I could not help thinking that her distress was tempered by a feeling of thankfulness, which will, I should imagine, in a kittle time become the dominant ■ consideration.-She is a girl of considerable pluck, as well as beauty, and after she had recovered from the first shock of , the announcement her wits became steady enough and quickly at work. She asked; me if I would mind taking her v to; see her husband's body. I had previously rather impressed her by letting her; know that the fact of their marriage was no secret to me. "Of course'l at once got a fly and drbve with her to Morningford Road station, where , she viewed the body without making any scene. On the drive back she asked me a few questions as to wh&t had led up to the accident, rather suggesting that to her mind the tragedy might have come about less by chance than intention. On my assuring her that, according to Sergeant Weaver's testimony it was accidental, she said pointedly, 'You will admit, Mr Bolt, that there may have been a motive for suicide?' " ' You should know if that was the case better than I,' was riiy; evasive answer.

" 'No,' she objected. 'You can tell best whether the poor fellow was not being hounded to his death.' "Little sign of distress appeared in her cold, rather resentful; tone. ' There! were certainly strong grounds for suspicion against him,' I said gently. ' Naturally,' she ; replied. 'But I can' tell yoii this, whatever yourJ notion may be, it was not, a case of murder.' " I said I.was giad to hear it. ' ' ' What he may have done,' she continued in the same .tone of repression;

'was forced upon him. I presume the word murder implies premeditation?' '' ' Certainly,' I agreed. " 'ln that case there was none,' she maintained. 'I can tell you that. But don't ask me to say any more. I hope it . will not be necessary at the inquest to go into the matter of your suspicions against lrim 6r of his impending arrest. ' •

"I told her I did not think so, and assured her I would do my best to hush up that part of the business. "She thanked me, adding that it could be to no one's interest to have the true position of affairs proclaimed now he whom they chiefly concerned was no more.

" 'I trust you to do this,' she said, ' out of consideration for me.'

"For the first time she showed signs of breaking down. I repeated my assurance, and after that we kept silence for the rest of the drive.

I '' And now, gentlemen,'' Rolt con- ; tinued, as he rose from the table and i drew his chair round to the fire, '' I had better get under weigh with my promised story of the. whole business. < • "You have seen, apart from your unf ortunaite exjeriencesj *so much 1 of this complicated case, '■' Holt began, '' that it is only due to you for me to give the* whole history. For, doubtless both in the affair itself and iti my method of handling it, there must still be much that is a mystery to you. Here it is, then. "To go back a little. For some considerable time before these occurrences there had been complaints made to the police of mysterious robberies of jewellery, plate, and other portable valuables. These robberies varied very much in their locale and in their methods. Occasionally they took, place in town, but more generally in the country, and in' places ; widely apart., We had notifications from Scotland and the north of England, then as far west as Devonshire, and again as far east as Norfolk; the majority of the complaints, however, came from the Midlands, and more especially from the Home Counties.. In many instances a big haul was_made, in others the amount of the theft would be comparatively trifling, a single article such as a valuable ring or tie-pin, an antique piece of silver; in v onp case it was a rare old china figure. „ \ . "Now, there was one striking feature about all these robberies, &rid it was that our experts could never find any trace or sign of the houses robbed having been visited by the ordinary professional thief or burglar. There were, again, never any of the, to us, well-recognised tokens that... the procedure adopted had been that of the habitual criminal. Such men work on welldefined -and settled lines, methods which experience has shown them to be the best and safest. They serve a sort-of ap: prenticeship to the business, and learn its trade secrets just as do men in any Other calling. "But here, in the series of robberies to which our attention was directed, there seemed absolutely nothing to go upon, always excepting the very fact which I have, just alluded to, that they were not the work of the ordinary professional. .. : " That being practically settled, it behoved us to take a range of vision in looking .fori, the perpetrators. It/had often pccurred to me what opportunities for theit would be presented to a dishonest person who could assume sufficient respectability to get admitted into high social circles. He would have almost a- free hand in helping himself to valuable property, and, with a eonf handy, to make away with the; stuff, why, the : field fps thieving would..be almost „" By studying the cases I have alluded to, I .presently became convinced ;, that some such game was going on, and . I resolved to set myself on the ..tra,ck of thpse mysterious depredators. One or ; two big cases ii\ another sphere, notably the Bragdon murder case, cropped up to keep me otherwise engaged; consequently! had to postpone my researches, which looked like making a large draft on my time. In the meanwhile the mysterious robberies still went on at intervals. At last I found myself free to turn my attention to them, and I set about the business in earnest.

"The latest reports we had had ot a robbery which was evidently the work of the people I meant to run down came from Buckinghamshire. That was a case of stolen wedding presents. The victims were county people; there had been a big; reception after the ceremony, a contingent of the ; guests had come down from town, and" I found myself faced by this obvious difficulty. Seeing that many of the bridegroom's friends were quite unknown—except perhaps by name—to the bride's people, and vice .versa, no one was in a position to say positively whether any uninvited guests had been present.. I naturally came to the conclusion that such had been the case, and that the intruders, differing in no way from the ordinary wedding guest, had watched their opportunity, and, probably assisted by confederates outside the house, had picked up, under the nose of the custodian, several of the most valuable presents, passed them away, and coolly returned to town in the special train with the other guests. " Altogether there was little to be learnt from my investigations, except that the criminals must be men, and perhaps women, of sufficient refinement and style of dress to pass muster in a fashionable crowd.

I "Not much to go upon, especially as 'I iiad .already come to that conclusion; and I was beginning to feel myself in for a long aiid weary, and perhaps , thankless, task, when a wire came, an-., nouncing the robbery at Sir Percy Stayner's, Glenthorpe Hall. I posted off , at onee, to find that this was a different case. It was an ordinary, though very skilfully carried out affair of a robbery of jewels from bedrooms while the house-party was at dinner. Of course, all was over," and the thieves presumably far away with their booty by the time I arrived, so I seemed to be no nearer spotting 'them. The only clue I could get hold of was in the information that a smartly-dressed man, to all appearances a gentleman, had driven up to the house a day or two before the r.obbery, and, under the pretext of collecting material for a book on the family portraits of the county, had been wel-' corned and shown over a great portion 1 of the house; in fact, wherever - therewas a picture, of any consequence, Sir Percy takiug the opportunity of getting an opinion on his works of art from a, man who appeared to be an expert. "Well, I got a minute description of the visitor, and that was something to the good, for I felt certain his artistic tastes lay in a direction considerably renioved from portraiture. i 1 The clue was, however, not much to work upon, and I was wondering how best I eould follow it up when I received instructions to come . over hers and look into the Flambards crime, which was promising a rather tough problem t© the local police. X had gathered all I was likely to learn at Glenthorpe, so within two hours of getting tho message I was at Momingford, with every expectation of making short work of, a case which presented mors tangible facts to lay hold of. "Naturally, from the character of the

crime, the idea of connecting it in the remotest way with the robberies did not occur to me. It was not likely I should suspect that the gang on whose track I was trying to get would be still in the neighbourhood; my notion being that the robberies were being worked from headquarters in or near London. "On arriving here I got all the information the local men had to give,' then went up to Flambards and ran cursorily over the scene of tlie crime. On my return I came here to 'The George,' where I had the pleasure of meeting you, as you will remember, Mr Crofton, for the first time. It is my business to be inquisitive—l have known the answer to a chance question or remark lead to important results, — and from what the waiter told me casually about you I determined to draw you into a little chat. I know you must have thought the questions with which I plied you verged on impertinence, but you will long ago have understood their significance.

"Well, the account you gave ine of the New Year's rendezvous at Morningford Place rather took my fancy, and determined me to enquire a little more closely; into the real Character jof the hospitable Mr Jurby 'and his friends frojn town. Even then I had no "particular suspicion about! them; the odds -were in favour of their'being what they represented themselves to be, successful city speculators, not 'too highly-prin-cipled, perhaps, but thieves on a legitimate scale. I resolved, however, to combine my investigations into the Flambards mystery with close observation of Jurby arid Co.

'' You will remember the episode that occurred on the next evening when you were up at Morningford Placet" (To be continued.)