Murder at the Mill House

Taranaki Daily News, 8 November 1935, Page 13

Murder at the Mill House

By

Francis I. Boyle

CHAPTER FOUR (continued)

It seemed that they waited hours, though actually it was only a few minutes, until David decided that the sound of the falling torch had not disturbed their gaolers. He picked it up, but it would not work: the bulb was shivered to atoms. Despite the strong suspicions that Stein and his henchmen were away, David realised the need for extreme caution, and it was again on tiptoe that they edged their way into the tunnel and followed the route which the rat had taken. The sounds of the running mill stream grew louder, and, putting out their hands, they found that the walls were literally streaming with moisture. The spirits of the youngsters rose with a bound as they pressed forward towards their goal. A conscientious man, Detective-Inspec-tor Sanders was determined to do all in his power to solve the mystery of the Mill House Murder and the subsequent disappearance of David Cameron, and now the girl, Mary Graham. This was as it should be, and were his normal sentiments. But in this case, he had two added inducements to spur him to to further effoi-ts. One consisted of the long and continual telephone calls which the News Editor of the Detonator put through at all hours if the day or night, urging him on to find the missing reporter, and threatening exposure of incompetence. For if there was anything which Sanders disliked more cordially than Birkett, it was his scandal-sheet, the Detonator, of which he was-frankly afraid. The other influence was a personal one: for the first time in his life, he had had his head banged against that of one of his subordinates and had been hurled, unconscious, into a ditch by a single man. True, this was a massive creature of abnormal strength, but Sanders did not like the thought. He had imagined that such a creature would not be difficult to find, but he was mistaken. Nobody appeared ever to have seen or heard of such a person, and his colleagues openly suspected him of exaggerating the man’s girth and strength as excuse for his treatment. Sanders was determined to find him and get even with him. . He and his assistant had come back to consciousness in the hedge. Their car was still there, but the green saloon had disappeared, and all efforts to trace it had failed: the registration number was not genuine. They had sought assistance and refreshment at a nearby inn, a highly modern and elaborate hostelry called the Belisha Beacon, kept by a formerly impoverished aristocrat with the wonderful name of Geoffrey ffuffington. They did not say they were policemen, recounting their experiences as a motoring adventure. But nobody had heard of or seen the four persons who had escaped from the green saloon, and all were openly incredulous about the gigantic creature, who had attacked them, except Mr. Geoffrey ffuffington, who was frankly alarmed. Sanders and Jim, putting the Belisha Beacon behind them, returned sadly to London. In the vague hope of finding something which the local police had missed, Sanders decided to go down to Kent, and personally make a thorough investigation of the Mill House.

But he did not examine it that night after all. He had gone down, to the village in Kent and interviewed the local sergeant. He was told nothing that he did not know already, and the constable who had made the discovery of the body of the murdered Mr. Camp, a Scotsman named Baird, had just left for his annual holiday in his native town in Banffshire. A telephone call from Scotland Yard concerning another case, made him decide to return to town at once, and leave his examination of the Mill House for another day—for it was unlikely that he would find much there.

Driving his two-seater Mavis Sports back to London by another route, Sanders suddenly found himself on familiar ground. Here it waj that he and Jim had been hurled into a ditch by that gigantic monstrosity. There was the modern building of the Belisha Beacon; and, standing outside, his now prosperous figure attired in gorgeous raiment, was that most aristocratic publican, Mr. Geoffrey ffuffington. Sanders pulled up for a drink.

Refusing the kind offer of gratuitous refreshment from Mr. ffuffington, who

recognised him at once, with the plea that he had a taste for low company, Sanders entered the public bar and ordered beer. This consumed, he sat sucking his propelling pencil, as was his wont when concentrating, to all appearances deep in contemplation of other matters. But his mind was certainly not far away; he was listening to the words of a workman up at the bar. The man was in almost the last stages of intoxication, proclaiming to all present that he was the finest mason, in the world. Why, wasn’t he specially engaged at £lO per week to carry out secret excavations at the Mill House? And if any blinking fool wanted to blinking well know what the blinking excavations were, he could blinking well do the other thing. Sanders drew the garrulous fellow aside and whispered in his ear. A minute later, the man was, for the first time in his life seated in a super-sports car by the side of an official of Scotland Yard. But he did not know the latter fact. Neither did Mr. Geoffrey ffuffington, as he waved a languid and lilywhite hand to speed his parting guests. CHAPTER FIVE. FATE OF AN INDISCREET MASON. Detective-Inspector Sanders was sucking the end of his propelling-pencil. This was a normal habit with him when thinking, but such was his concentration on this occasion that he almost swallowed the entire article. Dislodging it from the neighbourhood -of his larynx by means of a violent cough, Sanders swore rather profanely,’ and vowed that he would cure himself of the habit. But he had taken such vows before.

Sanders was, in sequence, angry, disgusted and intrigued with the case of the Mill House Murder. Not only had he been quite unable to solve the original crime, but he was entirely at loss to account for the subsequent disappearance of David Cameron, reporter on the staff of the Detonator—a paper for which Sanders had a most significant loathing—and the disappearance also of his fiancee, Mary Graham. As Sanders reflected rather bitterly, if that snooping little reporter had minded his own business, and if Mary Graham had stayed in Scotland like a good girl, most of this would not have happened.

But what exercised his mind more than anything else was the sudden and mysterious disappearance of the drunken mason, Sinclair by name, whom he had picked up, by the greatest of good luck, in an advanced state of intoxication in the public bar of the Belisha Beacon. For Sinclair, in his garrulous condition, had told the world that he had been employed by the murdered Mr. Camp, to make, certain secret excavations in. the Mill House. And Sanders, intending to make an examination of this house of mystery on the following day, had driven Sinclair down to an inn in the village where the Mill House was situated, and after seeing him safely into bed, had returned to London, leaving instructions with the innkeeper to watch his guest. Now the innkeeper had telephoned that the intemperate and indiscreet mason

had vanished, leaving no trace of his destination. Sanders had tired of swearing in the last few days. As an alternative, he decided to vent his feelings in other ways. Accordingly he rang up Birkett, News Editor of the Detonator, and his sworn enemy. No, Birkett had received no news of his missing reporter, nor of the girl. But he was anxiously awaiting it. And if Scotland Yard thought they could draw their blank stipends out of public money and do nothing at all to earn it, then Scotland Yard were Hank well mistaken . . . Sander? put down the receiver. Inevitably the pencil went to his mouth as he began to think. He had found out little enough from the mason, Sinclair, in that short drive back to the village where the Mill House was situated, preferring to wait for practical information inside the house on the following day. Moreover, as the night air began to sober him up, the fellow had appeared to regret his loquacity, and protested that he was bound under an oath to the late Mr. Camp to say nothing. He seemed mortally afraid of someone or something, and to Sanders’ relief, spoke fearfully of a huge and misshapen creature of gigantic physical strength and a cruel twist to his mouth, who had sought him out shortly after the murder of Mr. Camp, and questioned him about the subterranpan regions of the Mill House. Sanders welcomed an indepedent witness to the enormous proportions of the man who had thrown him into the ditch that night. For his colleagues had not let him forget the incident. And now this very valuable witness had disappeared. (To be continued).