THE SIX-HOUR MYSTERY

Taranaki Daily News, 17 October 1930, Page 4

THE SIX-HOUR MYSTERY

By

ANTONY MARSDEN

“The game’s up, Karin. Where’s that box?” I The digger stood motionless beneath the tree, his hands up, saying never a word. Woolcroft laughed harshly, and , advanced a step. And then the long, lean fingers in the shade of the bough found their hold, and heaved. Down swept the springy ' ./ branch, swishing and whipping at the big man’s face with its sharp spines. The digger stooped, and stooping dodged away round the far side of the trunk, clasping some burden in his hands. The . branch swayed, rustling in the dark overhead ... and Woolcroft, dashing his hat brim from his eyes with an oath, .fired simultaneously. But his aim went wide. The bullet glanced from, the stone head of the little faun, and went singing upwards to- *.. .. wards the shadowy foliage. 'J Karin had vanished into the mist on the far side of the tree, and as Woolcroft sprang forward he could hear his footsteps retreating rapidly towards the river bank. Woolcroft dashed round the trunk. At the last instant, a slim figure ran out from the hedge to meet him, and fired two shots m quick succession into . his body, at point-blank range. He did not even groan, as he reeled ’ back beyond the trunk to collapse with sprawling, catching arms across tho < , little stone figure. The woman leaned over him; a moment later Karin was at her side. “Mort de Dieu! What madness have you.done?” ■ , / “He is dead!” she gasped. And then, with horrible jarring suddenness, the woman began to laugh. Karin tugged at her desperately. //.//“Come—come! A car turned jpwn ■ " the lane two minutes ago.” “I don’t care! He’s dead, he’s dead!” She clung to Karin, trembling hysterically, while peal on peal of her shrill, ghastly laughter rang through the bushed night. “Oh, come—d’you want us both to hang?” He tore her away at last, dragging ' . ..Ser madly by the wrist as he made for tho riverside. Together they hurled, themselves, beyond the lip of the lawn, and he pushed her aboard. “Hold this!” he gasped, as he stooped j to the painter. ;/ «it is—?” she murmured, cclutching it.

“Th© casket, of course. Be quiet, for , pity’s sake.” Already, as Karin freed the rope, he could hear footsteps racing down the stone-flagged path to the tree. “Oh, God!” the woman muttered low. “ might have paid him—l never thought you’d find it!” . “Quiet, you fool!” One strong thrust of his feet against the bank, and he had scrambled aboard. Now he was groping at the engine, saying never a word. The woman’s mut-. terings ceased. In silence, veiled in the "'chill mist, the launch slid gently from the shore, and began to float upstream on the tide.

* *

The long, flagged path, running from the terrace of the big house to the cedar-tree, showed faintly white before the two inspectors, as they raced towards the river. Thornton, was half a dozen yards ahead; but just as he neared the tree, ...the other man saw him swerve aside, like a jibbing horse, and heard him cryout, sharply: “Come out, there! Put your hands -•jlD— Next moment, the Yard man's flash-, lamp was directed on something in the shadow of the tree—a figure, a little, . .squat stone, statue, as they now perceived, and on a bigger and daiker shape that seemed to crouch behind it. Thornton sprung forward, gun in . . hand. , As he did so the dark figure moved •—slipped sideways, -lurched towards them, and collapsed with a thud at the ■base of the statue. Thornton was on his knees beside it now, with the Twickenham man stooping over him. “We’re too late, by George— The big man had rolled over on his back, and his glazed eyes stared up unwinking at the light of the flash. Thornton’s hand felt his . heart, but there was no sign of motion; yet the body was still warm —hot, indeed; and the man’s clothes were moist with perspiration. ' Thornton felt lower on the chest, and when he brought away his hand it was dark 'with blood. > “Listen —” his colleague cried. A sound reached them suddenly from the misted river—the tap of boot or boathook on the planks of a boat, as it might have been. Thornton sprang up, and the two raced for the bank; and as they- stood there, peering down across the few yards of water which were all that the mist let them see, there came a metallic rattle, followed by the spluttering roar of a motorengine. . ' ' “It’s that damned launch again—! Thornton exclaimed. The noise came from upstream, from somewhere under the lee of the island; •' but it grew nearer, as the boat began to forge past them, invisible in midstream? “Drifted up on the tide, and now she’s making down river— Thornton’s companion gasped. The Yard man turned on him.

“The nearest ’phone?” “A call-box at th© top of the' lane.” / “Run! Run like hell—call Teddington Lock and Richmond—Richmond . firet. If the Conservancy have no patrol-boat at Richmond Bridge, ring the Riyer Police Station at Barnes. ‘ "-That launch has got to lx! stopped —.” The inspector lumbered off at his top speed as the launch, gathering way, « thudded past the end of the garden. He would take three or four minutes Thornton calculated, in getting his ’phone call through; and the launch’s ' - journey to Richmond—? Not much .‘4 v -']ess than ten, he hoped. His colleague ’ ' had mentioned that the tide was , ' against her, and it was his business to know about such things. If the police at Richmond Bridge were smart in putting out they should be in time. He returned to the body under the tree, and after assuring himself that ■ < life was, indeed, extinct made a rapid turnout of the pockets; these yielded nothing likely to be of any help, however, except a half-sheet of paper, on which some figures were scrawled. The detective placed this with care inside his notebook, snapped open the dead man’s gun, and observed that one cartridge only had been fired. ‘•One miss—in self-defence,” he grunted. “And two that he stopped hims self—” His foot pressed on soft earth as he stepped aside. He turned, torch in hand, to discover a square hole eighteen inches deep, freshly dug, and a spade lying near it. But the investigation of these cluea muut wait, decided / Thornton, as he set off towards the lane again.

Re wap approaching the front gate when the constable challenged him,

standing beside the ear a few yards

away. “All right,” cried Thornton, turning the flash on himself. >

“You, sir?” The man’s .tone was urgent. “Sir, a man threw himself across that gate three minutes ago, and went off up the lane like mad. I challenged him, but I daren’t leave the prisoner here—”

“All right, that was the inspector,” Thornton cut in. “Come along, both of you —I want you in here.” He led the way back towards the river, the constable and Jakes at his heels. As they stopped underneath the. tree Thornton switched his light suddenly on the dead man’s face. “Recognise this?” he asked. “Woolcroft —1” he stammered in a low tone-, and trembling violently—“Oh, lawdy, what’s happened him?” “Friend of yours, wasn’t he?” Thorn-

ton pursued. “I—I —not exactly a friend, sir, you mmht say. I sort of knew him by sight—.” ■ “Well enough to be sure of him? The terrified negro nodded. “It was his house I found you in just now—you and your pal Roper, eh ? “Ye—yen, sir, but ... oh, God, I didn’t know —” “We’ll find out how much you know, presently,” Thornton assured him grimly, and at once led the way back to the waiting car.. In a few minutes he pulled up outside the police station. . / “Take your man in,’.’ he called back to the constable in the rear seat, ‘ and ask the sergeant to come out to me.” And when the station-sergeant appeared: “I’m going to Richmond, sergeant. Tell the inspector when he comes. Detain that fellow I’ve brought —you can take off his bracelets now. Get on to the surgeon quick, and send him round to Moat House; theres a man been shot. I’m afraid he’s dead all rio-ht, but the surgeon had better go the constable will show' him the place. Then send to No. 6-1 don’t know the road, but your man will tell you it; the place where Roper was taken and bring round the man and ,the girl who are being detained there. " , The sergeant shook his - head. , . “I’ve no one left sir; if the man you’ve just brought with you goes off with the surgeon, it leaves me singlehanded here —” Thornton remembered suddenly that Roper had asked to be allowed to ’phone to the house. “You can get through there on the - ’phone. Your inspector’ll be along in a minute. . I’ll be back soon, I hope, or ’phone you from Richmond Bridge. But I can’t stop now—” He let in the clutch, and was gone. The sergeant, not a little dismayed by the whirl of events which had thus broken in upon his quiet routine, gaped down the street till Thornton s car disappeared, then slowly turned from under the blue lamp and re-enter-ed the charge-room. There the big handcuffed negro was awaiting him, with the young policeman by°his side; but the sergeant made first for" the telephone and asked for a number. Then, as he waited to get through, he addressed his subordinate in what the latter privately, identified as a “windy” voice: “In the cells, Simpson. Then jump round to Dr. Marriott’s—you’ve to take him to view the body—” And then, sharp curiosity getting the better of his dignity: “I say, who is the chap, anyway?” “God knows! We —” ~ * «Sh!”?The sergeant held up his hand, as a voice answered his telephone call. “Police speaking. Is the doctor in? Ask him to speak to me, please. I’ll hold on—” He looked up, and the young constable spoke again, .with a nod towards Jakes: “We’ve a full house, sergeant. Where

d’you want Jxim put?” . But at that moment the voice from the telephone began again, and the sergeant turned back to it hastily. b * * * * 1 . “Oh, shove the nigger in with this London fellow’s other charge,” said the sergeant, and turned to the telephone , . • . t ■ “Yes, doctor, speaking. There s a man been found shot —” Forthwith he plunged into a somewhat agitated report of the Moat House discovery, during which the young constable, having received his orders, and finding that the' sergeant had no more attention to spare for him, marched off the negro to . a cell marked “2 ’ and there locked him up. This procedure, simple and even trivial though it may appear, is yet worth careful record. Cell No. 2, the midmost of the three which the station possessed, was that wherein the luckless Eddy Roper was already 1 immured. Numbers 1 and were tenanted respectively by a bargee and a bricklayer, who had been brought in fighting-drunk from a street brawl not lono- before, and had been left to cool tlieir unbooted heels in solitude until their passions subsided. To the harassed sergeant, with far weightier affairs on his mind, it had eemed obvious common sense to keep the fighters apart and to lump Thornten’s °two charges together. Thornton had left no instructions to the contrary —there was no reason why he should, his hurried departure having given the sergeant no chance to mention the shortage of cells. Indeed, even had the point been raised, Thornton might easily ha\e agreed to house his two suspects together. There was no valid reason to keep them apart—unless, perhaps, instinct, and his experience of knotty cases might have warned Thornton that ths less two unquestioned witnesses were allowed to confer the better . . . Be that as it may, Thornton was out of reach and the decision not in his hands. And yet the episode, one may repeat, is well worth recording;_ for although Thornton did not know it, the threads of all the queer'affair were lying ready for him to pick up, till Jakes and Roper met; he might have solved the riddle out of hand, had he not gone to RichW But fate ruled otherwise. He went. The two suspects were left alone together, with but a single-handed sergeant in the front -of the building, and with a roaring drunkard on each side to cover their muttered speech. And so it fell out that Inspector Thornton, far from solving the riddle, pushed his astute investigations to their logical end, nor even realised what a riddle there had been to solve. Thornton himself, about the time when Eddy Roper looked up to see Jakes pushed into his cell, had reached the boat-slip of the Thames Conservancy close by Richmond Bridge, and was in eager conference with a sergeant . of the river police. ■ (To be Continued).