£ R.

PUNSHON

Genius in
Murder
 GENIUS
IN MURDER
by E. R. PUNSHON

Every experienced police officer will

tell you that the murderer’s chief
difficulty lies in the safe disposal of
the body of the victim. However
cunningly concealed, discovery is
almost certain. Dropped from an
aeroplane over the sea, tides will
bring it ashore. Chemical destruction
is never so complete but that clear
traces will be left.
In E. R. Punshon’s story, ‘Genius
in Murder’, did the culprit really earn
the epiphet ‘Genius’ so freely be­
stowed upon him by that famous and
now dreadfully harassed and worried
team, Inspector Carter and Sergeant
Bell? A t any rate the hiding place
chosen by the murderer was certainly
simple, unique, wildly improbable,
and at the same time exactly and pre­
cisely where it might be expected that
a dead body would be found.
But for Sergeant Bell, blundering
on from utter bewilderment to the
right solution, the mystery would
never have been solved. Yet he had
often been close to despairing of suc­
cess, especially when, as so often
before, he found his ‘poking about’
bringing him into ridiculous and
even near farcical situations that gave
his superiors— and perhaps the reader
as well— much amusement. But from
these very situations in the end the
truth becomes apparent.
GENIUS IN MURDER
 B y the Same Author

TH E UNEXPECTED LE G ACY
PR O O F, COU N TER PROOF
TH E CO TTA G E M URDER
TR U TH CAM E OUT
 GENIUS
IN
MURDER

E. R. PUNSHON

LONDON
ERNEST BENN LIMITED
 T h is reset edition pu b lish ed 1952

P u b lish ed by Ernest B ern L im ited

Bouverie House, F leet Street, London, E .C .4
Printed in Great B rita in by
Western Printing Services L td ., B ristol
 C O N TE N T S
Chapter page
1. T H E M E L T O N -M IL L E R P E A R L S J

2. T H E B E N H A M F A M IL Y V A U L T 14
3. T H E O R IE S 23

4. Q U E S T IO N S 31

5. A H Y D E P A R K A F F A IR 37
6 . m r. r y d e r ’s sto r y 45

7. K E N N E T H GO M ES F O R W A R D 52

8 . A CLO SED CASE 58

9 . T H E N Q T T IN G H IL L D E V E L O P M E N T 65

10 . F R E S H IN F O R M A T IO N 71
I I . T H E C L A P T O N P R IN T E R 78

12. S T O C K C E R T I F IC A T E S 85

13. F A L S E W IT N E S S 91
14. TH E W O R ST OF BLUNDERS 97
15. T H E T H I R D T IM E IO 3

16. F R E S H I N V E S T IG A T IO N S IO 9

17. S P O IL IN G A N I D Y L L I l6

18 . FRESH NEW S I 23

19. I D E N T I F I C A T IO N 13I

20. M A J O R M O R R IS H A S ID E A S 137
21. ONE P U Z Z L E SO LVED I4 3

22. SC H O O L B O Y ’S C Y P H E R I4 9

23. TH E PEARLS RECOVERED 159

24. M O R E T H E O R IE S 166

25. P A R T I A L C O N F E S S IO N 173
26. S T IL L N O N E A R E R l8 l

27. S E T T IN G A T R A P 18 9
 CONTENTS

Chapter page
28. TW O CAPTURES 196

2 9 . A R U B Y R IN G 204

3 0 . T H E F IN A L T R A G E D Y 209

31. C O N C L U S IO N 215
 Chapter i

THE MELTON-MILLER PEARLS

M a j o r m a r k m o r r i s , Chief Constable of the Southdown
County Police, looked up with a certain interest as there was
shown into his private room Chief Inspector Carter, perhaps
the best known and most successful officer Scotland Yard
then possessed, of whose coming he had been warned by
’phone that morning. Behind Carter there followed a meek,
melancholy-looking, unobtrusive individual, who the Major
learnt afterwards was Sergeant Bell, also of Scotland Yard,
but concerning whom at the moment the only thing he
noticed was that beneath this person’s arm was an ancient
and untidy-looking umbrella. Waving his two visitors to
seats the M ajor said :
‘IPs about this Smith business you’ve come, isn’t it?’
He turned as he spoke to search among the piles of papers
on his desk, in the hope that his London visitors would
understand that among the many pressing affairs the South-
down police had to deal with, this Smith business counted
for very little.
‘Well, sir,’ Carter answered, ‘I certainly have come about
that, and I certainly haven’t.’ He paused a moment to note
the effect he felt this paradox ought to produce, and when
M ajor Morris only looked blank he went on : lit is the Smith
affair we came down to this part about, but if it was only
that we shouldn’t have bothered you. It’s proved an absolute
washout.’
‘Absolute,’ agreed Bell, an almost cheerful smile illumin­
ing for a moment his generally melancholy features.
‘Com-plete.’
‘The John Smith our information pointed to,’ Carter
continued, ‘turns out a most respectable householder, per­
fectly well known, worked in the same grocer’s shop for all
his life except when he was in Persia and Mesopotamia and
those parts during the war. But quite respectable and had
his second set of twins only a week ago.’
7
8 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘I see, I see,’ said the Major, quite agreeing that this

particular Smith was thus placed beyond all possible sus­
picion. ‘Still,’ he argued, ‘there must be a John Smith some­
where, mustn’t there?’
‘Even,’ murmured Bell, ‘even quite a lot of ’em.’
Both M ajor Morris and Inspector Carter frowned. Both
of them thought the remark quite uncalled for— and even
a little insubordinate. It was in fact the type of remark by
which is explained the fact that Sergeant Bell had remained
a sergeant, with but small hope of future promotion, while
Inspector Carter, with fewer years of service, was con­
fidently looking forward to his superintendency.
‘Anyhow,’ Carter resumed, determining to ignore his
sergeant’s lack of manners, even though he feared it would
give this country policeman but a poor idea of Scotland
Yard discipline, ‘this Smith isn’t our Smith, and of course
it doesn’t seem likely that the smartest receiver in London
would be found anywhere so far out of town,’ and Carter’s
tone expressed a faint surprise that anyone at all was to be
found so far out of town— except perhaps the M ajor himself,
who probably couldn’t help it. ‘Why, even the men he buys
stuff from don’t know where he lives or what he looks like.
They get word to meet him late at night on top of a ’bus
or in a picture theatre— handy places picture theatres being
so dark. O r may be he picks them up in his car. They hand
over the jewels, or whatever it is, and he hands over the
cash, and that’s all there’s to it, and as he is always wrapped
up, and probably disguised as well, we can’t get any des­
cription of him. It’s a very difficult case.’
‘Seems so,’ agreed the Major.
‘If only cases wouldn’t be difficult,’ sighed Bell, more
sadly than ever, and seemed lost in rapturous contemplation
of the detective’s ideal life in which every case would bring
its own solution with it.
Neither of the other two took any notice of this remark.
‘Anyhow, we’ve eliminated one possibility,’ Carter went
on more brightly, ‘and after all, that’s all good detective
work is— eliminate every possibility till only the truth is left.
I mean to say, hard work more than— er— well— inspiration,
as the papers call it in their exaggerated way.’
He coughed modestly, and Major Morris remembered a
 THE M ELTON -M ILLER PEARLS 9

certain recent article in the Daily Arrow, that one of all our
morning papers which is the best known and the most
influential, offering as it does the biggest prizes on record
for the solving of crossword puzzles. In this article reference
had been made to the ‘inspired’ work of Inspector Carter in
one or two recent sensational cases— the Windmill Common
murder, for instance, and the Margetson affair. So it was
with still more interest that M ajor Morris regarded his
visitor, and he noticed that Sergeant Bell was also looking
at the Inspector with evident admiration, and this pleased
the Major, for he knew that the Inspector is as seldom a hero
to his sergeant as is the great man to his valet.
‘I suppose,’ M ajor Morris observed carelessly, ‘it’s this
affair of the Melton-Miller pearls.’
Inspector Carter looked a little taken aback, for the affair
of the Melton-Miller pearls had been kept very quiet indeed.
‘Oh, you’ve heard about that,’ he said.
The M ajor nodded carelessly. He did not think it
necessary to explain that his wife had a cousin who belonged
to the same bridge club as the dearest friend of the girl who
was Lady Jane Melton-Miller’s private secretary. Major
Morris felt it was enough that he knew what he knew.
‘Worth a hundred thousand pounds or more, I suppose,’
he remarked.
‘And not insured,’ said Carter, ‘and the trouble is the
thief is almost certainly someone who was at that swell
dance they gave the other day. Every chance of a whopping
big scandal,’ said Inspector Carter, looking half pleased,
half fearful, for a big society scandal is a two-edged thing,
offering chances of kudos and publicity perhaps, but full also
of the most dangerous traps and pitfalls. ‘Biggest scandal of
the century most likely, if it comes out who really took ’em,’
he concluded.
M ajor Morris did not look much interested. A possible big
scandal in London society would trouble but little the calm
waters of Southdown.
‘You had information the pearls were likely to be dealt
with in this neighbourhood?’ he asked.
‘Well,’ Carter said, ‘it was hardly that, but we knew the
receiver we’ve been after so long was looking for them, and
we had a hint he operated down here at times, and we got a
IO GENIUS IN MURDER

tip there was someone named Smith mixed up in it— it was

just a chance we took, but a regular wash-out, for if there is
a Smith in the business it certainly isn’t this Smith we've
been interviewing. Quite respectable he is, and we shouldn’t
even have troubled you at all, only for another little affair.
Luckily it isn’t one that’s likely to give much trouble.’
There was a certain relief in the Inspector’s voice, for he did
detest cases that gave much trouble. ‘There’s a Sir Charles
Benham lives near here, isn’t there ?’ he asked. ‘A t Benham
Court, near a village of the same name ?’
‘That’s so,’ agreed the Major. ‘Very old family, been
there for generations. Very clever man, Sir Charles, but
decidedly eccentric, lived in India many years, a touch of
the sun, I should say. What about him?’
‘Keeps his coffin in his bedroom, doesn’t he?’
‘Well, not exactly,’ answered the Major, smiling. ‘I think
he has it all ready in the family vault, though. I understand
he picked up some ideas in India about deep breathing, and
trances, and the soul leaving the body to visit astral planes,
and all that sort of stuff,’ said the M ajor with the extreme
distaste of the healthy-minded Englishman for all such vague
speculative imaginings. ‘I remember he kept me nearly the
whole of one evening at the club, explaining the story of
Lazarus on some such lines— I almost had to be rude to get
away in time for any bridge at all that night. So in case he
gets buried before being really dead, there’s his coffin ready
for him in the Benham family vault, and instructions in his
will that it’s not to be sealed down or put underground for
at least a year. I suppose the idea is that by that time it’ll be
a sure thing; and if he revives before, he can get out. There’s
to be a key of the vault put in the coffin, I believe, and every
precaution taken. A very eccentric man, but, I understand,
thought quite a lot of in the city.’
‘He called at Scotland Yard yesterday,’ Carter explained.
‘He seemed very upset. He said the family vault at Benham
had been entered forcibly the night before last.’
‘Family vault entered?’ the M ajor repeated. ‘What for?
To steal his coffin?’
‘He told us there’s a story that valuable jewellery was
buried with his great-aunt Annabella, who died a hundred
years ago or so. He said very' likely the story wasn’t true,
 THE M ELTON-M ILLER PEARLS II

but it’s always been a family tradition well known in the

neighbourhood.’
‘Never heard of it myself,’ said the Major.
‘O f course,’ Carter continued, ‘we explained that the
affair was one for you to deal with. Well, he took rather a
high hand, talked about red tape, said he didn’t want a lot
of local gossip, hinted he was pals with the local M.P., and
would get a question asked, told us he had no confidence’—
Carter paused and coughed apologetically, and corrected
himself— ‘said he had more confidence in us at Scotland
Yard. People do feel like that sometimes, don’t they? O f
course, no reason why they should, only some do,’ said
Carter with a complacent smile that made M ajor Morris
feel he would give six month’s pay for the right to throw
his inkstand at the Inspector’s head, ‘but the real trouble is
this M.P. he seems to have in his pocket, and then there
are the Melton-Millers who have half a dozen relatives and
friends in the House and mean to make themselves nasty
unless we get their pearls back for them, and quick about
it, too. So we are feeling we’re rather up against it, because
M.P.s can always make themselves a nuisance, can’t
they?’
‘They can,’ agreed M ajor Morris with some emotion, and
for a moment or two the air was tense with what was
thought, but not said, about the power M.P.s possess to make
themselves a nuisance.
‘So just to calm Sir Charles down,’ Carter went on ‘Mr.
Phillips— our Superintendent, you know— thought that as I
was coming down here to-day about this Smith business
that’s proved such a wash-out, I might just mention it to
you, and then if you don’t mind, you might— that is, if you
think the story worth investigating— give us permission to
accompany anyone you detail to look into it. Then we could
write to Sir Charles and tell him we had taken the matter in
hand on the spot, just to satisfy him. Though I don’t see
what there is to be done, when there’s no proof whatever
that anything at all was ever in the vault to be stolen. O f
course, we would tell him every effort was being made to
discover the' perpetrators of the outrage— if anything has
12 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Oh, quite so,’ agreed M ajor Morris, fully sympathizing

with this point of view. ‘Quite so.’
‘In my idea,’ said Carter, ‘it’ll very likely turn out some
bit of mischief by boys or something like that. Only it’s
best to keep on the right side of people when they’ve got
friends who’re M.P.s, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, quite so,’ agreed the Major again. ‘Er— it happens
I’ve an appointment near Benham this afternoon.’ It was to
attend a lawn tennis tournament, but the M ajor felt there
was no time to go into details— ‘and I was going home to
lunch first. M y place isn’t far from Benham. I could take
you in the car— and we could see what has really happened.
Afterwards I could drop you at the station, that is, if you
are going back to town.’
Carter thought this a very good arrangement and ex­
pressed his gratitude, and Sergeant Bell remarked meekly
that that would give him a chance to restore to Sir Charles
his umbrella he had left behind him at the Yard after his
visit there the day before.
‘Bit the worse for wear,’ Bell observed, surveying its
almost prehistoric appearance with interest, ‘but I daresay
Sir Charles will be glad to get it back— it looks like an old
friend.’
‘Oh, is that his old gamp?’ asked the M ajor, laughing
a little, ‘I didn’t notice before, I ought to have recognized
it though. I don’t suppose there’s another like it in
existence.’
‘No, sir,’ said Bell. ‘One of your men at the door spotted
it at once.’
‘Oh, that umbrella’s famous,’ Major Morris explained,
‘Sir Charles is never seen without it— wet or fine. They say
when he played for the Benham Cricket Club he used to
take it on the field with him, but I expect that’s just a story.
Funny thing he should forget it, though. I can almost as
soon imagine him forgetting his hat or his boots.’
‘He forgot it twice yesterday,’ observed Bell, as if medita­
ting sadly on the frailty of the human memory. ‘Left it
behind him first in Inspector Carter’s room, and then when
Inspector Carter noticed it and sent a man after him with it,
blessed if he didn’t leave it in the taxi. The taximan brought
it back to the Yard, and of course, we know who it belonged
 THE M ELTON-M ILLER PEARLS 13

to, because it’s an umbrella you don’t forget once you’ve seen
it. So I brought it along to-day to give it him back.’
‘Not a gentleman to forget either,’ Carter remarked.
‘What with his size, and his height, and his white hair, and
his big white moustache, and his face burned nearly brick-
red, and then his plus fours suit— I wonder if he always
wears plus fours in the City— he makes a striking figure.’
‘Oh, everyone knows him,’ M ajor Morris repeated.
‘Clever man but very eccentric,’ he added as he began to
busy himself making preparations to depart.
Before long he was ready, his car was brought to the
door, and as the two Scotland Yard men were taking their
seats, Major Morris said to the chauffeur :
‘Benham Church, Briggs. By the way, aren’t you a
Benham man ? Do you remember ever hearing any story
about jewellery having been buried in one of the coffins or
graves in the Benham churchyard?’
The man looked interested at once, but shook his head.
‘No, sir, never heard any story like that,’ he answered.
 C h a p te r 2

THE BENHAM FAMILY VAULT

B e n h a m is one of those quiet, straggling, old-world villages
lost as it were in the depths of the unchanging country,
traversed by no busy main road, composed of ancient,
creeper-clad cottages, of a few more modem houses, of
church, vicarage, inn, and manor house that all date back
for hundreds of years, where it seems to the casual observer
as though nothing ever changed and one could almost expect
to find the stocks and the whipping-post on the village green
still in use.
In point of fact probably every house and cottage in the
village has its wireless set— often home-made— every lad,
almost, possesses his motor-cycle, and every lass, without any
almost about it, is as conversant with the latest fashion as
any denizen of Mayfair, while not only every lad and lass
but every grandpapa and grandmama as well could have
passed with ease an examination on the morals, manners,
and slang of the United States as exemplified by the latest
films. Indeed the last debate, a very successful one, in the
Village Institute, had been on ‘Companionate Marriage’.
But though the country bumpkin had thus turned into the
up-to-date citizen of the world, the natural charm and
beauty of the quiet country-side remained unchanged, as
fresh and lovely and unspoilt as though man had never
invented bungalows or factory chimneys. Even at week-ends
the tumultuous tide of motor traffic did no more than roar
past on the high road— one says ‘roar’ past advisedly but
the ‘roar’, at least on a fine Sunday, was generally that of
a seventy m.p.h. engine throttled down to a three m.p.h.
pace— and only the backwash of this tide touched the
extreme edge of the village in making for the well-known
Benham Royal Arms Hotel that the rush of modern progress
has changed almost in the twinkling of an eye from a remote,
rather forlorn country beerhouse, providing with difficulty
bread and cheese for the traveller’s refreshment into one
H
 THE BENHAM FAM ILY VAULT 15

of the best-known and smartest and up-to-date of week-end

hotels, adjacent to the well-known links where the glory and
renown of England has faded so often before the triumphant
Stars and Stripes, and equally convenient for hunting, fish­
ing— but see the advertisements appearing regularly in our
two Sunday papers.
Benham village rather keeps aloof from the Royal Arms
Hotel, even though temporary golfing widows, and some­
times even an actual golfer who is generally either satiate
with triumph or under solemn vow never to touch ball or
club again, often appear in the village to admire the
mediaeval cottages and visit the magnificent old church,
which is widely known among those who interest them­
selves in such things as a fine example of the English Perpen­
dicular style. Built about 1400 by one Geoffrey Layton, of
the family to whom in the late seventeenth century the
Benhams succeeded— their name, originally Taylor from the
pursuit in which they made their money, they changed to
Benham when they bought the manor— it possesses a mag­
nificent steeple which is a landmark for miles around and
was a frequent goal for steeplechases in the days when a
steeplechase was literally and exactly what the name implies.
In the churchyard, where for more than a thousand years
the small village community has interred its dead, there are
some fine early tombs, as well as several of those ponderous
erections by which our Georgian ancestors seem to the
irreverent to have wished to guard themselves against any
risk of a premature resurrection.
Near the church, but a little to the west, stands the Vicar­
age, a building almost as old as the church itself, and some
distance to the east stands the Manor House, its chimneys
just visible above a row of elms. By the corner of the church­
yard wall there turns the road leading to the Manor House,
and here, as the police motor car stopped and its occupants
began to descend, was standing a tall, handsome, athletic-
looking girl, carrying golf clubs and talking, with some
animation apparently, to. a young fellow who was much
smaller and of slighter build than herself. The contrast in
size between the two was quite amusing, for the girl looked
as if she could easily make two of the young man. Not that
she was at all masculine in appearance, for her clear, smooth,
i6 GENIUS IN MURDER

rather dark skin and unspoiled complexion, her great dark

eyes shaded by long black curling lashes, her well-shaped
nose and mouth with red soft lips that displayed behind
them two rows of white and even teeth, gave her every right
to claim her full share of feminine beauty. Nor indeed, in
spite of his slender build and light weight, his small regular
features and the fascinating wave that unaided nature and
not art had imparted to his reddish brown hair, did the
young man give any impression of effeminacy. His skin was
tanned, he had an outdoor look about him, his small brist­
ling, moustache had an aggressive twirl to it, his general air
was sturdy and resolute enough, even if at the moment he
did not look too comfortable before the storm that had
seemingly just burst upon him. With a sudden gesture the
girl lifted her hand. She had in it one of those small stumpy
umbrellas that have become fashionable. It had a heavy
handle carved to represent an owl’s head, and for a moment
those in the car had the impression that she was about to
apply it to the young man’s own head. But before matters
could get to quite such a pitch, the arrival of Major Morris’s
car broke up an interview that had apparently grown too
heated for the usual conventions. The chauffeur had
sounded his horn as he turned by the churchyard wall, and
the girl, hearing it, swung round in a hurry as if she had
been expecting someone and then stopped, disappointed
apparently at seeing only strangers. Seizing an opportunity
for which he was perhaps grateful, the young man lifted his
hat to her unregarding back and disappeared with con­
siderable promptitude. The girl appeared to hesitate, a little
as if she were half inclined to set off in pursuit. Instead she
went off up the road leading to the Manor House. The
Major, as he was descending from the car, remarked :
‘That was Miss Baird, I think. I met her at the Hunt
Ball. She lives with Sir Charles, his niece, I believe, and his
ward, too, though I suppose she’s of age now. I’m told she
is quite a talented artist, had a picture rejected by the Royal
Academy only last year.’ T o the chauffeur he added : ‘That
was her, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir, Miss Baird, sir,’ the man answered.
‘Do you know who it was with her?’
‘Gentleman from London, he’s often stopping at the
 THE BENHAM FAM ILY VAULT 17

Benham Royal Arms, I don’t know his name. The talk in

the village is that they are likely to make a match of it,
only Sir Charles won’t hear of it. It’s the golf ’as done it,’
he added dispassionately.
‘Golf often does,’ smiled the Major.
‘Fine young woman,’ said Carter with appreciation, ‘but
they didn’t look like lovers to me, looked to me more as if
she wanted to put him across her knee and smack him— she
could have, too, all right enough.’
‘Oh, a lovers’ quarrel probably,’ answered the Major, still
smiling, for indeed there had been something eager, even
intimate, about their attitudes that suggested more than
ordinary acquaintance.
The little party went on into the churchyard, crossing to
the north side, where, near the celebrated yews that are
said to date from pre-Conquest days, stands the Benham
family vault, built in that form of a heathen temple which
seems at one time to have appealed so strongly to Christian
sentiment, and looking at first sight almost as big and im­
posing as the venerable old church itself.
The vault was closed by ponderous oak doors, streng­
thened by iron studs and looking solid enough to resist a
siege, but fastened by a clumsy, old-fashioned lock almost
anyone could have picked with the aid of a bent nail.
Bending down to examine it, M ajor Morris said :
‘It does look as if someone had been tampering with it—
those marks are quite recent.’
The sexton, an elderly man, for whom they had sent as
soon as they arrived, came up now. He was carrying a huge
old key nearly a foot long, and he looked doubtful and
worried.
‘I don’t know about all this here,’ he said, ‘this here’s a
private family vault, so to speak, and Sir Charles, he’s a very
particular gent; so to speak, along of his having his own
coffin* in there all ready and waiting. There was a news­
paper gent, t’other day, as come and wanted to photo it, and
Sir Charles didn’t half go for him, gave it him proper hot
and strong he did.’
‘Stupid to do that,’ said Carter severely. ‘It costs nothing
to be civil to the Press, and it always pays.’
‘Anyways, they put in nigh a page of pictures,’ the sexton
B
i8 GENIUS IN MURDER

continued, ‘me with my spade, and the church, and the

vault with a cross on it to show where the coffin was inside,
and Sir Charles himself tooked while he was dressing of ’em
down, and two pictures of coffins and all, so it didn’t make
no difference in the end.’
‘It never does,’ said Carter, ‘not with the Press, it doesn’t.’
‘Well, hurry up, get the doors open,’ M ajor Morris
ordered sharply, hardly paying any attention to this
aphorism, though indeed it enshrined all the wisdom of this
age.
But the sexton still hesitated.
T d like the Vicar to be here,’ he said doubtfully, ‘a family
vault being in a manner of speaking a family vault, so to say,
and me in charge, and Sir Charles liable to temper— very
liable to temper is Sir Charles.’
‘Well, where is the V icar?’ asked M ajor Morris im­
patiently. ‘Mr. Calthorpe, isn’t it?’
‘He’s gone to London to-day,’ explained the sexton, ‘but
likely he’ll be back sometime and if you’ll wait and he says
it’s all righ t. . . ’
‘Do you expect us to wait all day for him ?’ almost shouted
the Major, and Bell, who had been looking closely at the
lock that fastened the huge old doors said mildly over his
shoulder:
‘I don’t think there’s any need, sir, I think the lock’s been
broken, I think we’ve only got to go in.’
He pushed the doors as he spoke. They yielded at once,
for in fact the tongue of the rusty old lock had been snapped
off short. The sexton stared and gasped and muttered some­
thing about not knowing what Sir Charles would say, him
being a gent very liable to temper in a manner of speaking,
and through the open doors there came an odour of mingled
dust, damp and decay, before which for a moment the three
men hesitated. Then Bell, stepping modestly back as be­
fitted his junior rank, allowed his two superior officers to
precede him down the short flight of steps that led into the
interior.
There in the middle of the large bare circular chamber,
on the walls of which hung various faded, crumbling family
escutcheons, stood on trestles the ponderous oak coffin, lined
with lead, in which Sir Charles Benham had provided by
 THE BENHAM FAM ILY VAULT 19

his will that his body was to repose after death for a space
of a year before final interment or the final fastening down
of the coffin lid. It was covered with a heavy velvet pall and
Carter observed :
‘No dust about, floor clean, too, I notice.’ He added
apologetically to the M ajor : ‘One gets to notice everything,
becomes quite mechanical in time.’
M ajor Morris looked suitably impressed and the sexton
explained :
‘Swep’ out every week and the pall shook and all. Very
particular gentleman, Sir Charles, and gives me half a
crown a week to see to it.’
‘Any special day for doing that ?’ Bell asked.
‘I generally does it on a Saturday, in a manner of speak­
ing,’ answered the sexton, ‘afore I goes and gets my half a
crown so as I can say as how the job’s just been done
proper.’
‘You would have been in here to-morrow then,’ observed
Bell thoughtfully.
‘Never mind that now,’ interrupted Carter with some
impatience. ‘Look at th a t... what does that mean ? Some­
thing been happening there, eh ?’
He pointed as he spoke to the gate of open ironwork that
was at the head of another flight of steps just opposite them.
In spite of the semi-darkness within the vault that was only
illuminated by the rays of light coming through the open
door, his sharp eyes had made out that this gate had been
wrenched from its hinges and was only leaning in position
against the supports on which it had previously hung.
‘Eh, well now, look at that,’ the sexton exclaimed, staring
at it.
Carter lifted the gate away, putting it against the wall,
and through the gap thus made, followed by the other two,
he descended another short flight of steps that led to the
great lower or interior vault where for three centuries the
mortal remains of the members of the Benham family had
been placed, arranged in ponderous coffins in stone niches
all around.
It was a gruesome, gloomy place, where all seemed
designed $o proclaim, to shout aloud, the triumph of death,
the victory of the grave; and the ray of light from Carter’s
20 GENIUS IN MURDER

electric torch that he sent darting hither and thither seemed

only to increase the depths of the surrounding gloom. Bell,
too, had an electric,torch in his hand, but its ray he directed
only on the stone Hoor, where the dust of fifty years lay
thickly, for it was almost exactly half a century since the
last burial had taken place here.
T o the sexton, hovering uneasy and bewildered in the
background, Bell said :
‘I see Sir Charles’s half-crown didn’t include sweeping up
down here?’
‘No, no,’ the old man answered, ‘there’s only corpses there,
and no one don’t ever go down there only for to take in
another of ’em.’
‘First thing,’ said Carter, ‘is to find out which is Aunt
Annabella’s coffin and see if it’s been interfered with.’
He was about to move forward when Bell said quietly :
‘Beg pardon, sir. . . if you notice there’s no sign of any
footstep on the floor, though the dust is thick enough.’
‘No, that’s so . . . there isn’t,’ agreed M ajor Morris. ‘Some­
one must have been down here though, or why was that
iron gate broken?’
‘Whoever forced the gate may have meant to come down
and then changed his mind,’ Bell observed. He added,
flashing his lamp around : ‘I don’t see anything to show any
of the coffins have been interfered with.’ To Carter he
continued : ‘How would it be if you inspected them your­
self, sir, while we waited here, so that there’ll be only one
set of footmarks ?’
‘Yes, I was thinking that,’ agreed Carter. ‘It’s a rummy
business, I can’t make head or tail of it at present, looks
almost like mere mischief or practical joking or something
like that.’
Torch in hand he made the round of the vault, examining
each coffin in turn to make sure it had not been interfered
with, and trying, generally in vain, to read the name-plates
on which the inscriptions had generally been obliterated by
the damp and dust of ages.
He came back to his companions.
‘No sign of anything having been touched,’ he said.
‘Something alarmed them,’ suggested M ajor Morris,
‘something put the wind up them and they bolted before
 THE BENHAM FAM ILY VAULT 21

they finished their job. Can’t say I wonder, either. Bit trying
to the nerves down here, I’ve a sort of feeling myself one of
those coffins might open any moment and someone put a
head out and ask what we’re doing down here.’
The sexton, standing on the steps just behind, made an
inarticulate and startled sound, and retreated quickly to­
wards the comparative light of the upper vault. Even
Carter looked uneasy, and could not quite prevent himself
from giving a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure
that all the dead there still slept undisturbed. The three of
them turned and made their way again to the upper vault,
where at any rate a little sunlight penetrated through the
open door and where no serried ranks of coffins lay around
with their long-dead occupants, but only that one which
had been placed there to await its future inmate.
‘You really didn’t ought to say things like that, sir,’ Carter
protested mildly to Major Morris, ‘enough to keep a man
awake all night thinking of it.’
The M ajor laughed a little, a slightly uneasy laugh, for
his own image had a little upset himself, and indeed it
needed steady nerves to remain quite unaffected by the
gruesome place from which they had just emerged.
‘Oh, well,’ he said, half apologetically, ‘I only meant I
could understand anyone getting cold feet down there, and
I’ve no doubt at all that that what’s happened. The story
of jewellery hidden in one of the coffins induced some fellow
to break in, but that place down there was a bit too much
and he hadn’t the nerve to go on. You agree with me,
Inspector?’
‘I’ve no doubt at all you’re right,’ agreed Carter, and he
accepted with gratitude a cigarette the Major offered him.
Just outside the vault they both paused to light their
cigarettes and to exchange a pleasant word or two with
each other in their half unconscious relief at having escaped
from the gloom of the vaults to the sweet air of the open.
They agreed that Sir Charles must be warned to put a new
and stronger lock on the old doors, and that probably then
there would be no further trouble, and inside the vault Bell
lingered to stare at Sir Charles’s coffin on its trestles, under
its velvet pall.
‘No harm in taking a peep, is there ?’ he murmured to the
22 GENIUS IN MURDER

sexton, and turning back the pall looked hard and long at
the coffin. ‘Lid not put on quite straight,’ he murmured,
though in fact the heavy oak cover fitted perfectly : ‘Ever
take a look inside ?’
‘I don’t think Sir Charles would like it,’ the sexton
answered, a little uneasily, ‘peculiar gendeman, Sir Charles,
and liable to tempers in a manner of speaking, very liable to
tempers.’
‘He’ll never know,’ Bell said and lifted the lid. ‘No, he’ll
never know,’ he repeated slowly, for there within, still and
quiet in death, lay the body of Sir Charles Benham, a little
blood at the corners of the dead lips, of the cold nostrils, the
glazed unseeing eyes staring lifelessly upward.
 C h a p te r 3

THEORIES
I t w a s the shrill and piercing cry the old sexton uttered
at this sight that broke the quiet talk passing between Major
and Inspector and brought them both back running to the
vault.
‘Good God! what’s that? what’s happened?’ Major
Morris shouted, for there had been a quality of horror and
of dread surprise in the old man’s sudden cry that had
shaken him strangely.
‘It’s him, he’s there, in there, it’s him,’ the sexton stam­
mered, pointing and stuttering, and Bell, with a slow gesture
showed the open coffin where the dead man lay in his habit
as he had lived, his attire of a ‘plus fours’ suit with its sug­
gestion of vigorous life and outdoor sport contrasting so
grimly with the sad casket of death in which he lay
enshrined.
‘Why, it’s Sir Charles . . . why, he’s there . . . why, he’s
dead,’ the M ajor gasped, standing and staring almost unable
to believe his own eyes. ‘B u t. . . b u t. . . but’ he stammered,
and was silent.
‘Sir Charles,’ repeated Carter, staring, too, with open eyes
and mouth. ‘What’s that?’ he asked bewilderedly, trying to
absorb a fact that it was indeed difficult enough to grasp, but
that all the same was there, plain before his eyes. ‘It can’t
be,’ he protested, ‘why, he rang us up from his hotel just
before we left town . . . did he come straight back to do him­
self in . . . there?’
‘Couldn’t have done himself in,’ observed Bell thought­
fully, ‘the lid was in place and so was the p a ll. . . where he
is, someone put him.’
‘Well, but,’ protested Carter, ‘I took the message from
him myself only just before we left town . . . how could any­
one have done him in and brought him here and all? eh?’
He swung round angrily on M ajor Morris. ‘That can’t be
him,’ he protested. ‘Are you sure it’s him?’
‘It’s Sir Charles Benham all right enough,’ Major Morris
23
24 GENIUS IN MURDER

answered slowly. ‘I’ve known him years. . . not a man to

mistake either.’ He put his hand to his head with a gesture
almost pathetic in its bewilderment. ‘But I don’t understand
what this can possibly mean,’ he said. ‘I don’t under­
stand . . . ’
‘You can identify him, too?’ Bell asked the sexton, who
was leaning against the wall of the vault as if to save him­
self from falling. ‘This is Sir Charles Benham ?’
‘It’s him all right,’ the old man answered, ‘but what’s he
there for, when he’s never been dead as I heard on, and no
funeral nor nothing, and now he’s there in his own coffin
what’s been waiting for him for years in a manner of speak­
ing . . . now he’s there seemingly.’
‘Yes, he’s there all right,’ said Bell, and turned again and
stooped over the dead man, brooding and silent.
‘First thing,’ declared Carter, waking from the stupor of
astonishment and wonder in which the Major was still held
motionless, ‘is to get a doctor. There’s a doctor in the
village?’
Major Morris turned to the sexton.
‘Don’t stand gaping there,’ he ordered angrily. ‘M y car’s
at the churchyard gate. Tell the driver to go for Dr.
Pollard . .. tell him if Pollard’s out to ’phone or fetch
another doctor as quick as possible.’
The sexton hurried away. Major Morris took out his
pocket-book and began to write the instructions he meant to
send to his headquarters as soon as his car returned. He said
as he wrote :
‘I suppose he is dead . . . no use trying anything?’
Bell straightened himself.
‘There’s a thin cord tied round his neck,’ he said. ‘It’s sunk
right into the flesh . . . you can’t see it at first. . . must have
killed him on the spot, tied like th a t. . . must have been
someone he knew pretty well to get near enough to do that.’
There was a silence for a little as the other two, bending
over the coffin, saw for themselves.
‘Well, that’s murder,’ M ajor Morris said, drawing a long
breath, ‘murder that is . .. besides, someone must have put
him there, couldn’t have put himself in his own coffin.’
‘Been dead twenty-four hours according to my way of
thinking,’ Carter declared. ‘O f course, I’m not a medical
 THEORIES 25
man, but I’ve a lot of experience. . . a lot of experience,’ he
repeated, a little vexed that the M ajor did not seem to be
listening. ‘Only then he was at the Yard yesterday. . . and
rang us up this morning . . . that is, if it’s the same m an ... .’
‘Doesn’t look to me quite the same man,’ observed Bell.
‘Most likely the man who came to the Yard was got up to
look like him . . . of course, none of us at the Yard knew Sir
Charles and he was a man easy to personate— white wig,
big false moustache, brown stain for the complexion, plus
fours suit, good enough to take in anyone who wasn’t a
friend. O f course, whoever it was would have to have the
physique, must have been someone naturally tall and big, a
little man couldn’t have done i t . . . seems as if we must look
for a tall, big man, who knew Sir Charles well.’
‘That ought to narrow down the inquiry pretty well,’
observed Major Morris.
‘Yes, but why the dickens did the murderer, if it was the
murderer, come and tell us to search the very place where he
had hidden the body?’ demanded Carter, and then shook
his square, firm shoulders as if to shake off the heavy be­
wilderment that had fallen on them. ‘Anyhow, it’s plain
this isn’t the same man as the one we saw . . . anyone can
tell that at a glance . . . there’s small details the trained eye
picks out at once. Only what’s it mean?’ he added with a
sudden lapse into bewilderment, ‘why murder a man and
hide the body where no one might ever have thought of
looking for it and then tell us to go and search the very
spot?’
‘Perhaps that is just what he hoped to prevent,’ observed
BeH.
‘By telling us all that about the vault having been broken
into and jewellery and all the rest of it? what do you
mean ?’
‘Well, you see, sir,’ explained Bell, rather apologetically,
‘he may have thought we were bound to search the vault,
but that perhaps, if he drew our attention to the vault, we
would overlook the coffin. He must have known it was
bound to be seen that the vault had been entered. The
sexton says he was due to-morrow to sweep up and he was
bound to notice the lock had been broken and forcible entry
made. Then of course there would have been a close search
26 GENIUS IN MURDER

made and the coffin very likely examined, when it didn’t

seem as if anything else had been touched.’
‘I see what you mean,’ interposed the Major, ‘it was an
attempt to put us on a false scent with that story about the
jewellery, there was a good chance we should conclude, as
we nearly did, that the attempt at theft had failed, that
whoever it was broke in bolted in a panic without doing
any more mischief, and that all that was necessary was to
make the vault secure against any further attempts of the
sort. Meanwhile the murderer, masquerading as poor'
Benham, is laying another false trail in London and when
Benham is finally missed it’s up in town that the search
starts— and for him still alive, too, not for his body, that’s
lying all the while in the coffin here. It very nearly came off,
too. What made you think of looking inside there?’ he
added to Bell.
‘Well, sir, I suppose chiefly it was that old umbrella of his,’
Bell explained. ‘You remember, sir. . . the one I had with
me you recognized as his.’
‘Yes, but what on earth . . . ? ’
‘Well, you see,’ Bell went on in the same deprecatory
manner, as if presenting an apology for an indiscretion
rather than an explanation of a bit of brilliant guesswork—
and it was of course as the first that his words were accepted
by both his listeners, ‘that umbrella did seem such a very
old one, I thought the gentleman must have had it a good
many years, and if he had kept it safe all that time, it did
seem a bit odd for him to go and lose it twice in one
m orning.. . looked almost as if the gentleman wanted to
lose it and you know yourself how hard it is to lose a thing
when you want to lose it. I remember once someone gave
me a pair of lemon-coloured kid-gloves— you wouldn’t
believe how hard I worked to lose those gloves and how
they always, always turned up again.’ For a moment he
looked as if he were going to burst into tears at the mere
thought of that sad old experience of long ago, and then
mastering himself, he went on : ‘Looked to me as if it were
the same way with that umbrella— that Sir Charles wanted
to lose it and couldn’t, though why a man should want to
keep an umbrella half a century by the look of it, and then
try to lose it twice in one morning instead of just throwing
 THEORIES 27
it away, was more than I could understand. So I gave it up,
but now I think it was just a bit of convincing, artistic detail,
just to make us quite certain it was Sir Charles himself had
called, for there was his old umbrella, everybody knew so
well, that he had forgotten and left behind him. I expect
that’s why he ’phoned again this morning and let us know
the hotel where he had been staying. . . little artistic
touches, both of them . . . trouble with artistic touches, if
you notice, is that real life’s never artistic— thank the Lord,’
he added from the depths of his heart.
‘Come to think of it,’ observed M ajor Morris, ‘there could
hardly be a better hiding-place for the dead body of a
murdered man than his own coffin. . . the one place where
no one would ever think of looking.’
‘It’s always a difficulty a murderer is up against,’ agreed
Carter, ‘how to dispose of the body, and I certainly never
heard of the victim’s body being hidden in his own coffin
before. . . looks to me as if we were up against someone a
bit out of the ordinary— a genius in murder.’
A slight noise without made him break off. Hurrying up
the path that led past the church towards the vault was a
very tall, very thin, active-looking man, whose remarkably
long legs were covering the ground with enormous strides.
Behind him followed the sexton and the Major’s chauffeur,
and the M ajor said :
‘The tall man’s Dr. Pollard, lucky they found him in.’
‘Good man?’ asked Carter.
‘Oh, I think so, quite clever,’ the M ajor answered, ‘but a
very small practice. The man who was here before him
drank and practically all his patients left him. Pollard is
getting some of them back, but it’s uphill work, and then
he’s got the name for being rather dear and a little lazy.’
‘Lazy ?’ repeated Bell, a trifle surprised, for the long lean
form and tremendous strides of the approaching doctor
seemed to belong rather to a restless and energetic
personality.
‘Well, he’s got a housekeeper who is stone deaf,’ said the
M ajor laughing, ‘and the story is that he got her on purpose
so she shouldn’t hear the night b e ll. . . of course that’s only
a joke. The truth is I think he came here for a quiet time
and a chance to write some medical book he’s busy with—
28 GENIUS IN MURDER

some theory about cancer, I believe. And then he and Sir

Charles knew each other in India where Pollard practised
at one time. Anyhow, he doesn’t seem to worry much about
building up a practice here, and he still keeps some of his
London patients, who send for him occasionally. He came
here from London. But he told me once that makes it
rather awkward for him, as they are mostly patients from
the practice he sold there, so he has to keep it rather dark
apparently about their sending for him.’
Pollard was quite close now and Major Morris stepped
out to welcome him.
‘Good day, doctor,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid this is a bad
business we’ve had to send for you about. Briggs,’ he added
to his chauffeur, handing him the instructions he had been
writing out. ‘See that’s given to Inspector Wilson as soon as
you can get to h im . . . take the car and get back here
quick.’
Briggs saluted and withdrew and M ajor Morris followed
the doctor into the vault. Pollard seemed a good deal
affected.
‘T errible. . . what a terrible thing,’ he said, ‘oh, quite
dead . .. been dead twenty-four hours at least. . . but what
. . . good God, he’s been strangled, look at that cord round
his neck!’
‘No man could do that himself, I suppose?’ Major Morris
asked.
‘Good God, no, that’s murder,’ Pollard repeated, ‘but
why . . . but how? . . . in his own coffin, to o . . . what a
nightmare . . . who . . . ?’
‘That’s what we must find out,’ M ajor Morris said. ‘It
seems an extraordinary case . . . had he any enemies, do you
know ?’
‘Good God, no,’ Pollard said again, ‘one of the best. . . as
white a man as ever lived . . . straight as a d ie . . . I knew
him years ago in India . . . as fine a fellow as ever lived.’ He
was still bending over the coffin, still looking down at the
livid, distorted features of the dead man, as though he
could scarce believe what he saw. ‘But why is he here ?’ he
asked and then : ‘His ruby ring’s missing. . . he always wore
i t . . . I told him not to.’
‘What ring was that?’ Carter asked sharply, getting in the
 THEORIES 29

question before Major Morris could ask it, rather to the

M ajor’s annoyance.
‘A very fine ruby ring,’ Pollard answered. ‘It was a
present from one of the ruling Indian princes, I believe . . .
some private service my poor friend had been able to
render. . . it must have been worth two or three hundred
pounds or more . . . that’s what it’s been done for.’
‘But then why hide the body here ?’ M ajor Morris asked.
‘Just to gain time, I suppose,’ Pollard suggested. ‘It was
sure to be found before long, of course, but I suppose any
delay helps.. . . I always told him not to wear that ring so
much. It looks to me as if he had been enticed down here
on some story, then attacked and strangled, and the ring
taken.’
‘We’ll have to try to trace it,’ M ajor Morris said. He
added to Carter : ‘Perhaps it’ll go to this mysterious receiver
you’re hunting.’
‘Who’s that?’ Pollard asked, but no one answered him,
and indeed he did not seem to expect a reply, for he was
bending again over the dead man. ‘No sign of any other
injury,’ he remarked, ‘death must have been almost instan­
taneous with that cord twisted like that, must have been
someone who knew how to do it, with some medical
knowledge, if you ask me.’
‘That’s another point to remember,’ said Morris. ‘Who
is this coming ? do you know him ?’
‘Th at?’ asked Pollard, looking up. ‘Oh, that’s Kenneth
Benham, nice young fellow, cousin of Sir Charles; he used
to call him Uncle Charles but really he’s a rather distant
cousin, I believe. . . he’ll be the heir, I suppose, though I
don’t know whether he gets the title, too . . . or the money,
for that matter if Sir Charles has really altered his will.’
‘W hy? was there bad feeling between them?’ asked
Carter, once again getting in his question before the Major
had time to ask it.
‘Oh, no, only the boy wanted to go on the stage,’ Pollard
explained, ‘and Sir Charles wanted him to take up medicine.
Sir Charles had a foolish prejudice against the stage, said
he would cut the boy off with a shilling if he became an
actor . . . very silly of him . . . I love the theatre m yself. . .
often run up to town when anything good’s on, used to do a
3° GENIUS IN MURDER

bit of amateur work myself, excellent fun, amateur acting.

I believe Kenneth Benham did a year or two at St. Thomas’s
and then got a job with a touring company. Sir Charles
wasn’t pleased.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Carter, and glanced at the Major, who too
was looking grave.
Kenneth was nearer now. He was a tall, broad, finely-
built young fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather smartly
dressed considering this was the country and the morning.
Behind him there appeared quite suddenly, round the comer
of the church, that same tall, athletic-looking girl whom
they had seen' before. She was walking very quickly, and
almost at once Overtook Kenneth, who was not hurrying
himself. She passed him with a stiff bow he acknowledged
by lifting his hat, but they did not speak, and she hurried
on towards the open vault and the little group of men just
visible within. Now that she was nearer the two Londoners
could better appreciate the clear-cut regularity of her
features, the animation of her flashing eyes, something
intense and vivid in her whole personality as though her
re-action to life was still intense and vigorous. With a hand
thrown out almost as in warning or in menace, she said
very clearly :
‘What does all this mean ? what are you doing here ? how
have you dared . . . ?’
Then something in their manner, in the way in which
they looked at her perhaps, seemed to affect her. In a quieter
tone she said : ‘What has happened, please ?’
 C h a p te r 4

QUESTIONS
M a j o r m a r k m o r r i s , of the Southdown County Police,
like most other middle-aged gentlemen, had never realized
how much more vivid is the recollection they retain of the
charming young ladies they happen to meet than is the
memory of themselves they succeed in impressing on the
same young ladies. Consequently when he stepped forward
with a politely lifted hat and a grave yet friendly ‘Good
morning, Miss Baird,’ he was met by a cold glance that went
through him and past him as if he did not exist.
‘What does all this mean?’ she demanded, imperious
again. ‘How have you dared . . . ?’ She paused, her manner
making it clear that what they had dared they had now to
answer for, and that that was what she intended to see
they did. Suddenly she caught sight of Dr. Pollard. ‘Dr.
Pollard,’ she exclaimed and hesitated, a little bewildered
now by the way in which they were all looking at her. She
put back her head, always she carried it high, now it was
higher still. ‘Dr. Pollard,’ she said, ‘who are these men and
what are they doing here? I should like an explanation.’
‘M y name is Morris, Major Morris,’ the Major interposed,
still a little hurt. ‘I think I had the pleasure of meeting you
at the Hunt Ball.’
Kate Baird’s expression was still blank. Many an elderly
gentleman, and even some by no means elderly, had passed
across the field of her vision and left no track nor trace
behind. She did remember vaguely that at the Hunt Ball
someone had trodden on her to e . . . someone else had
brought her an ice and bored her with a long interminable
tale of which she had been quite unable to understand the
p oin t. . . someone else had proposed, too, but not, she was
fairly certain, this person who called himself M ajor Morris,
and then anyhow the Hunt Ball was separated from this
present moment by all that abyss of the dusty past which
the passage of a month or two means in the crowded life
3i
32 GENIUS IN MURDER

of youth. Turning her back firmly on the M ajor she said

to Pollard :
‘M y uncle will be most angry.’
‘M ajor Morris,’ Dr. Pollard explained, as it were calling
that now rather indignant official back into the field of con­
sciousness from which Kate had just expelled him, ‘is the
chief of the County Police.’
‘Oh, a policeman,’ said Kate, as if now grudgingly ad­
mitting his right to exist, and the M ajor felt still more hurt
and indignant, for though he sometimes called himself a
policeman he did not wish to be so described by the young
ladies of his acquaintance.
The young man, Kenneth Benham, who, without increas­
ing his pace at all, had come strolling up to join them, now
spoke.
‘Anything on?’ he demanded. ‘I say . . . uncle will raise
Cain about that,’ he added, nodding towards the open
vault. ‘Who did that?’
‘I have asked these men for an explanation,’ K ate flashed
indignantly. ‘I have not received it.’
Chief Inspector Carter moved unobtrusively across to
Kenneth’s side, for he had not forgotten that the young man
had been described as being on bad terms with the dead
Sir Charles.
‘You are Mr. Kenneth Benham, nephew and heir to Sir
Charles Benham?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean . . . heir ?’ Kenneth retorted quickly,
but Major Morris was speaking again.
‘Miss Baird,’ he said, ‘we have some reason to believe . . .
er . . . we have received what may turn out to be grave news
about Sir Charles Benham and I must ask you to answer a
few questions. Can you tell us when you saw him last?’
Kate still hesitated and Dr. Pollard said gravely:
‘M ajor Morris is asking in his official capacity. I ought to
explain that these other two gentlemen are two Inspectors
from Scotland Yard.’
‘Chief Inspector Carter,’ said that gentleman with some
emphasis on the first word, ‘and Sergeant Bell,’ he added
with almost as much emphasis on the first word as before.
‘What are they doing here? what does all this mean?’
Kate demanded again, throwing out one hand with a gesture
 QUESTIONS 33

unconsciously dramatic, ‘what do you mean— grave news.

Where is my uncle ?’
‘I think we shall come to an understanding sooner,’ the
M ajor persisted, ‘if you would first answer us a few ques­
tions. When did you see Sir Charles Benham last?’
‘The day before yesterday, when I said good night. He
went to London very early yesterday morning.’
‘You have not seen him since?’
‘No. We had a ’phone message from him yesterday after­
noon to say he was staying in town over the week-end.’
‘Can you tell me who took that message ?’
‘I did.’
‘Was it from Sir Charles himself? could you recognize his
voice ?’
‘No, it was someone at the hotel speaking, it was a message
my uncle had left for them to give us. W hy?’
‘I suppose someone saw him yesterday morning before
he started?’
‘I don’t think so. He used to get up very early. He lived
in India a long time and he got into the way there and
kept it up here, generally he was up by four or five every
morning. When he was going to town he would often get
the car out and start before anyone else was up.’
‘Was that what happened yesterday?’
‘I think so, I don’t think anyone will have seen him start.
I heard the car starting. I remember thinking he was starting
even earlier than usual.’
‘Can you tell us the exact time?’
‘It was before five. I remember hearing the clock strike
five some time afterwards.’
‘Did he get his own breakfast ready?’
‘He never had any breakfast. He thought no one ought
to, he used to drink a glass of hot water and that was all.
Why are you asking all these questions ?’
‘There is one more I must put you,’ M ajor Morris said.
‘Had Sir Charles any visitors the previous night ?’
‘Mr. Ryder came to dinner.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Mr. Kenneth Benham had dinner with us. So had Mr.
Codrington.’
‘That is three at dinner besides yourself and Sir Charles,’
C
34 GENIUS IN MURDER

remarked Major Morris. ‘Mr. Kenneth Benham is this

young gentleman.’ He glanced as he spoke at the tall young
man looking on, and received a confirmatory nod. ‘Mr.
Codrington is a friend of Sir Charles?’
‘Yes, and of mine,’ the girl answered, and Bell noticed the
touch of emphasis in her voice, the look of anger or resent­
ment that showed for an instant in Kenneth Benham’s
expression. He guessed that between the two young men no
love had been lost and that the girl knew it, as any girl
would. She went on : ‘He often stays at the Royal Arms
Hotel. He is in business in London— on the Stock Exchange.
He comes here for the golf.’ (Bell was certain but by native
intuition, not by hearing, that Kenneth Benham muttered
to him self: ‘Not him, the bounder.’) ‘We won the last
mixed foursome tournament together.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Major Morris said. ‘I think I’ve seen him— a
young fellow, rather tanned, small moustache, below average
height.’
He added a description of the clothing worn by the young
man they had just seen in her company that was brief,
adequate, and did great credit to his powers of observation
and memory. Kate Baird nodded acquiescence, Kenneth
scowled a little more, unnoticed save by Bell, and Major
Morris continued ;
‘Mr. Codrington spent the evening with you then ?’
‘No,’ she answered, ‘he had an engagement at the hotel—
someone he had promised to see about some investments. He
went away almost immediately dinner was over.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said the Major. ‘And Mr. Ryder— who is he ?’
‘A business friend of uncle’s. He motored down from
London, uncle was anxious to see him about business.’
‘Ryder is quite a big pot in the city,’ Kenneth interposed.
‘Office near the Mansion House somewhere. He’s the man
behind the Crude Metals Combine the papers keep talking
about.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Majoi; Morris impressed. ‘Quite so . . . Sir
Charles was interested in that ?’
‘I think so,’ Kate answered. ‘I know Mr. Ryder and uncle
did a lot of business together.. . . I think uncle was worried
about something.. . . I don’t know w h a t. . . he and Mr.
Ryder had a long talk together before dinner.’
 QUESTIONS 35

‘Did Mr. Ryder stay long?’

‘After dinner?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think he stayed till about ten. We all played bridge,
uncle and Mr. Ryder and Mr. Kenneth and myself. I
thought uncle seemed unusually bright and cheerful, he and
Mr. Ryder seemed rather jolly, I thought. He said some­
thing about something being all right now. Mr. Ryder left
in his car about ten, I think.’
‘After that?’
‘I went to bed. I think uncle and Mr. Kenneth talked for
a little. I heard the front door close and uncle locking up
about eleven.’
‘It was just before eleven when uncle let me out,’ Kenneth
interposed.
‘You weren’t sleeping at your uncle’s then?’ the Major
asked.
‘No. I was staying with Mr. Calthorpe at the Vicarage.
I went back there.’
‘What time was that?’
‘About twelve. I sat on the churchyard wall for a time
smoking a cigarette or two— Calthorpe doesn’t like tobacco.
I didn’t notice the time very specially but it would be about
twelve.’
‘Mr. Calthorpe would know perhaps, if he was still up ?’
‘No one was up— they keep early hours at the Vicarage,’
Kenneth answered. ‘The door was open and I let myself in
and locked it and then went up to bed as quietly as I could
so as not to disturb anyone.’
‘Ah,’ said Carter with extreme significance and Kenneth
looked at him with equally extreme disfavour.
‘You haven’t told us yet what all this means,’ he said,
‘or why you have opened the vault— it is private property,
you know.’
‘I think----- ’ began Kate, and Dr. Pollard turned to her.
‘Miss Baird,’ he said, ‘if you will come up to the house
with me, I will try to explain— at least, as far as I can and
providing Major Morris agrees. Major Morris is in charge
here, I suppose.’
‘I shall be grateful to you, doctor,’ the Major said quickly,
and Kate, who was beginning vaguely to understand that
36 GENIUS IN MURDER

there was more in all this than the mere unauthorized open­
ing of their family vault, went quietly away with the
doctor, whose tall form could be seen bending over her as
he began slowly to find words in which to inform her of the
tragic discovery that had just been made. When they were
out of earshot Kenneth spoke to M ajor Morris :
‘Does all this mean anything has happened to my uncle?’
he asked. ‘Has there-been an accident? anyhow, what’s that
to do with opening the vault?’
‘Sir Charles Benham is dead, apparently murdered,’
M ajor Morris answered. ‘We have discovered his body,
hidden in the vault there, inside the coffin he had prepared
for himself,’
Kenneth stared, evidently at first hardly able to believe
what he heard.
‘Oh, that’s impossible,’ he said.
He moved to the vault. They made way for him. He went
in and came out again at once, looking pale and shaken.
‘M y God, who’s done that ?’ he asked.
‘That’s what we mean to find out,’ said Chief Inspector
Carter.
 C h a p te r 5

A HYDE PARK AFFAIR

F r o m the windows of the train that was taking him and
Sergeant Bell back to town, Chief Inspector Carter was
surveying with a certain disapproval a world with which
in general he was little inclined to find fault since hitherto
it had always seemed ready to provide a background so
admirable and even essential for the activities of Chief
Inspector Carter. But to-day just now it seemed to him a
little less excellent than usual.
‘Pushed out,’ he said bitterly.
Sergeant Bell nodded. He seemed a little more cheerful
than usual. He even permitted himself to smile, a real smile,
too, not merely that faint movement of his lips by which
he was wont to express a pallid acquiescence in the worst.
‘Pushed out,’ repeated Carter. ‘And by a country
bumpkin.’
The country bumpkin was M ajor Mark Morris, D.S.O.,
formerly of the Royal Dragoons, now Chief Constable of
the Southdown County Police.
‘Kicked out,’ Bell ventured to correct his superior officer.
‘Hard,’ he added, his smile growing brighter still. ‘Did I
tell you I heard Dr. Pollard saying how lucky it was Scotland
Yard men were on the spot, and Major Morris say there was
nothing Scotland Yard could do that the Southdown force
couldn’t do just as well.’
‘It was you found the body,’ observed Carter, ‘but for us
they would never have known anything about it, and this is
the thanks we get. O f course, I know it seems a simple,
straightforward sort of case. All the same, just the sort of
case the Press likes to feature, there’ll be dozens of photo­
graphs and headlines a yard high on every front page to­
morrow, and all about how splendidly M ajor Morris, the
Chief Constable, and the Southdown Police are handling
the case— that is, if Morris knows how to deal with the
Press, which perhaps,’ said Carter with a certain lingering
hope, ‘he don’t.’
37
38 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Wonder if the Press will get to know of it in time for to­

morrow morning’s papers,’ speculated Bell idly, as he
watched with interest some men working in a field the train
was passing. ‘Funny thing,’ he mused aloud, ‘how jolly it is
to watch other people work. I expect that’s why musical
comedies are so popular, it’s so jolly to sit back and do
nothing and watch the chorus sweat. Anyhow, I never heard
of any other reason.’
Carter took no notice of these profound reflections. He
hardly noticed them indeed. Every now and then, in the
course of his connection with Bell, he was aware of a faint,
uneasy consciousness that Bell often said one thing and
meant something quite different— a foolish and annoying
trick and one quite enough by itself to act as a complete bar
to promotion. Anyhow, it didn’t seem possible that Bell could
have guessed that his superior officer was planning to get
away on the quiet and give, by ’phone if possible, to Mr.
William Simpson or to one or another of his Press friends
that nod which to a blind horse is as good as a wink, which
also would be likely to send young Mr. Billy Simpson and
others of his pals all together as fast as they could go to
enjoy the country air of Benham village. No, Carter re­
assured himself, it wasn’t likely Bell had any idea of that
sort, and his expressed wonder as to how soon the Press
would get to know of what had happened down at Benham
could have been nothing but the most innocent speculation.
For Bell, though sometimes bringing off a lucky shot, was
notoriously deficient in that power of analysis and deduction
that had put Chief Inspector Carter, as Mr. William
Simpson had remarked in a recent article, at the very head
of the detective profession in every country of the world.
‘Well, anyhow,’ said Carter, brightening up a little as he
came out of his long reverie, ‘I’ll take good care Phillips
knows it was us found the body.’
‘That’ll please Mr. Phillips,’ agreed Bell, wondering if the
‘you’ in the original sentence that had now turned to ‘us’
would presently suffer a further sea change into ‘me’— or ‘I’
rather, for since his promotion Chief Inspector Carter
always tried to be very careful about his grammar, especially
when talking to a Superintendent.
‘Anyhow,’ said Carter, preparing to descend as the train
 A HYDE PARK AFFAIR 39
steamed into the London terminus, ‘I’ll guarantee that if I
had the handling of the case, there would be an arrest within
twenty-four hours.’
‘I expect there would, sir,’ agreed Bell warmly.
‘I’ll mention no name,’ declared Carter, ‘but you wait and
see, and provided that that Southdown lot don’t muck up
the whole thing, you’ll find I’ll prove right.’
‘Shouldn’t wonder, sir,’ agreed Bell, and if the thought
came into his mind that, since no name had been men­
tioned, it would at any rate be difficult to prove the In­
spector wrong, he put it away at once, as improper and
subversive of all discipline and probably a bit bolshevistic
as well.
From the station they went straight to the Yard. It was
late by now, and Superintendent Phillips had left, but
Carter stayed to write his reports— he liked writing reports,
he knew the Assistant Commissioner himself had declared
them to be the best, the most nicely written, the neatest, the
clearest, the most discriminating in the right use of red ink
and black, of any of which he had cognizance. This report
he wrote to-night, or rather the two of them, one on the
events at Benham village, and the other on the unfortunate
entire failure to trace the man in search of whom they had
originally gone there, Carter always considers among his
best, but all the same he was not greatly surprised to find
Phillips, when he saw him next morning, in a thoroughly
bad temper.
‘Complete wash-out,’ he growled, ‘you didn’t find out a
th in g . . . no nearer knowing anything than we were
before, eh?’
‘Except,’ Carter pointed out, ‘that it is certain this man
Smith my instructions were to enquire about----- ’ ,
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ interrupted Phillips, ‘very likely
that Smith isn’t our Smith, but my information is that our
man either has his- headquarters for receiving stolen stuff
down there, or else visits it frequently. It doesn’t follow he
is resident there but every clue points that way.’
‘Couldn’t find anything there, sir,’ protested Carter.
‘Oh, I daresay you couldn’t find anything,’ grumbled
Phillips, unjustly hinting in every inflection of his voice
that the whole district was littered with things to find.
40 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘A wash-out, that’s what it is, and the Commissioner him­

self wanting to know what we’re doing. Why, there’s a
yarn in this morning that crooks from America and the
Continent are bringing their stuff over here whenever
they’ve made a good touch, just to sell to him because his
prices are so good, and yet we can’t even get to know the
first thing about him, whether he’s young or old, a fresh
hand at the game or an old one, we haven’t even an idea
what he looks like.’
‘The real super-criminal at last,’ Carter observed.
‘There’s no such thing,’ snapped Phillips, ‘can’t be, all
criminals are fools or else they wouldn’t be criminals, they’d
go on the Stock Exchange instead. But it does look a little
as if we had the super-fence at last.’
Carter cleared his throat.
‘I could draw up a scheme,’ he began, ‘that I would
guarantee----- ’
‘Every man I’ve got is doing that,’ snapped Phillips, ‘all
guaranteed, too. But I don’t want schemes or guarantees
either, I want a man in the dock. What’s all this in the
papers about that Sir Charles Benham who called here the
other day being found dead in his own coffin— where else
would you expect to find a dead man anyway? There’s
something about its being due to you the discovery was
made, and I would like you to remember, Inspector, that
when you’re instructed to follow up important clues in a
big case, you aren’t expected to discover promiscuous dead
bodies lying about in vaults and places. W hy couldn’t you
let the Southdown people discover their own murder?’
‘They haven’t our experience, sir,’ Carter pointed out,
‘very good force, but— well, in the country, you are in the
country, aren’t you? It’s not like London, and I don’t
suppose they would ever have thought of looking inside that
coffin if I hadn’t been there. I’ve made a full report, sir,’ he
added with a glance as reproachful as he dared make it at
the obviously unread sheets of foolscap with their exquisite
red and black ruling that lay, in his handwriting, on
Phillips’s desk.
‘There’s something in from the Southdown people, too,’
grunted Phillips, ‘want us to check up on a man named—
named— oh yes, Ryder. City man apparently, there’s an
 A HYDE PARK AFFAIR 41

interview with him in the papers but nothing much in it.

The Press seems to have got word of it very quickly.’
‘Smart boys, the Press boys,’ declared Carter, ‘not much
they don’t get word of.’
Phillips grunted again but made no other comment.
‘Well, it’s out of our hands,’ he remarked.
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Carter moodily. ‘Simple case, too. I
don’t suppose the Southdown people will have any trouble
handling it, don’t see how they can. It’s known there were
four people with the murdered man that night so that’s
something to start on.’
Phillips was looking again at the communication received
from the Southdown authorities.
‘A Miss Baird,’ he remarked. ‘Mr. Kenneth Benham—
some relative, I suppose?— and two other men Ryder and
Codrington. Know anything about them ?’
‘Miss Baird lived with Sir Charles,’ Carter explained.
‘She was his niece and ward and kept house for him. It’s not
likely she had anything to do with it, I suppose, and any­
how she is a woman and whoever came here personating
Sir Charles was probably the murderer and was certainly a
man. I suppose she can be ruled out more or less, though
one never knows. Codrington is a young man, said to be on
friendly terms with her, on the Stock Exchange. If he had
anything to do with it, some objection Sir Charles seems
to have made to any talk of an engagement between him
and Miss Baird may suggest a motive. On the other hand
he left immediately after dinner when the others settled
down to bridge. Also he’s a small man, of slight build, and
could never have tried to pass himself off for a man of Sir
Charles’s physique. Mr. Ryder is a well-known business man
and left at ten, and Sir Charles was certainly alive an hour
after that.’
‘What about— what’s the name— ah, yes, Kenneth
Benham ?’ Phillips asked. ‘Know anything of him ?’
‘Apparently he was on bad terms with his uncle, who is
said to have threatened tq disinherit him,’ Carter answered.
‘He has been on the stage so he knows something of acting
and make-up, and he must have known Sir Charles well
enough to personate him if he wanted to. Also, he has been
a medical student.’ Carter pronounced these last two words
42 GENIUS IN MURDER

with some distaste. Once, during a specially boisterous rag,

medical students had stood him on his head, and the ex­
perience was one he had neither forgotten nor forgiven. ‘A
medical student,’ he repeated darkly, ‘and Dr. Pollard said
the strangling must have been done by someone with
medical knowledge, who knew how, and who was someone
Sir Charles knew well and would let get close enough to him
to slip the cord round his throat. Looks about good enough
to me.’
‘Looks simple,’ agreed Phillips. ‘Don’t like cases that look
too simple— they’re like the man who looks a fool and then
lets you down with a thump by showing he isn’t. Same with
some cases, they look simple and then you find they aren’t,
and I notice the Southdown people say there’s no trace of
struggle anywhere or any sign of disorder. They think any­
thing disarranged was put back in place by someone wearing
gloves and that the murderer must have spent the night in
Sir Charles’s study and then left in his car in the early
morning when Miss Baird heard someone go. If so, he must
be 'about the coolest card on record. Anything distinctive
about the cord used ?’
‘Ordinary bit of window-blind cord apparently,’ Carter
replied. ‘I hadn’t a chance to examine it, though. The
Southdown people took charge at once.’
‘They’re welcome,’ said Phillips, ‘we’ve enough to do,
under-staffed the way we are. Is the vault where the body
was found far from the house? Could it have been carried
there by one person?’
‘Oh, yes . . . easier for two, though.’
‘This Codrington for instance— you say he’s of slight
build and Sir Charles was a big, heavy man?’
‘Yes, I don’t know if Codrington could have managed
it. He might have got a wheelbarrow perhaps— or if Miss
Baird were helping the two of them could have done it
easily. She’s a hefty sort of girl. Once the body was in the
coffin, it might just as well never have been found if I— but
that doesn’t matter, not our affair now.’
‘What about Kenneth Benham? Nothing between him
and Miss Baird, I suppose?’
‘There seems to be a sort of idea that she had turned
him down for young Codrington and that there was bad
 A HYDE PARK AFFAIR 43
feeling between Codrington and him as a consequence. But
all that seems to be only talk. There’s one thing though.
Kenneth Benham had the physique necessary to personate
his uncle as well as a knowledge of make-up and acting.
How is this for a theory? He is in love with Miss Baird and
his uncle has threatened to disinherit him. He carries out
the murder, hides the body where he thinks it will never be
found, personates Sir Charles here and at the hotel in town,
so that the investigation starts on the wrong basis that Sir
Charles was alive and in town twenty-four hours after his
actual death at Benham Manor House, and is in con­
sequence pretty sure to fail. Kenneth gets power to admin­
ister the estate until his uncle’s death and so works himself
into a specially confidential relationship towards Miss Baird,
whose money affairs were in Sir Charles’s hands, I suppose.
He gets rid of Codrington and in that way he secures both
the money and the girl. I think that sounds plausible ?’
‘It may have been like that,’ agreed Phillips, ‘but anyhow
we needn’t trouble about the case, unless the Southdown
people want our help, which isn’t likely. Meanwhile there’s
a case in this morning that wants careful handling— another
of those Hyde Park affairs.’
‘Hyde Park ?’ repeated Carter, half interested, half
alarmed, for he thought of Hyde Park cases as of dynamite
that might easily go off unexpectedly and blow a man—
either to promotion or clean out of the force for good and
aU.
‘The usual thing,’ continued Phillips. ‘One of our men
ran in someone for misbehaving and now he turns out to
be a swell with lots of money and the highest character,
through never having been found out before, and he’s
briefing the biggest bully at the Bar to defend him. Which
means that if we aren’t careful we shall have the whole
Press in full cry after us again. O f course, our man may
have made a mistake, but he’s got a good record and he
wouldn’t act unless he was sure.’
Carter was looking very grave.
‘If we get the Press after us again . . . ’ he said almost in
a whisper.
‘I don’t like the idea any more than you do,’ said Phillips
grimly.
44 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘We must do our best,’ said Carter, sitting upright and

squaring his shoulders, ‘I’ll do my best,’ he declared. ‘I
know some of the Press boys, but they’d all of ’em sacrifice
their fathers and their mothers and their little children,
too, to their papers. But I’ll do my best,’ he repeated.
Phillips relaxed perceptibly. It was on the whole rather
useful to have on the staff someone who appeared to have
a gift for guiding our modern Behemoth that is the Press
in the way in which it ought to go. Carter was certainly a
useful man, a good thing they had given him his chief
inspectorship. For Behemoth, when Behemoth got prancing,
was the very devil, and Carter certainly had a way with
Behemoth— how acquired Phillips saw no reason to inquire
so long as it appeared that regulations were observed, and,
after all, who can control a ’phone call from a street box?
Then, too, Carter could be trusted never to do more than
drop the discreet hint that was, besides, all that Behemoth
required.
‘These are the papers in the case,’ Phillips said, picking up
a bundle from the table. ‘You had better look through them
before you start work. You’ll find instructions there. Taking
Bell again?’
‘Think so, sir,’ Carter answered, ‘I know where I am with
Bell, better than I should with a smarter man, perhaps.
Reliable man, Bell, but soon gets out of his depth, no power
of analysis, no grasp.’
‘No, perhaps not,’ agreed Phillips, unconsciously absorb­
ing the impression that power of analysis and ‘grasp’ were
qualities which Carter must possess abundantly, since he
was so quick to recognize their absence in others. ‘The man
in this Hyde Park case is named Ryder, Mr. Samuel Ryder.
Same name as that of Sir Charles Benham’s city pal, but
hardly likely to be the same man, I suppose.’
‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Carter said, ‘but even if it is there
can’t be any connection between a murder down in the
country two days ago, and a disorderly case in Hyde Park
last night.’
‘I suppose not,’ agreed Phillips, turning to another of the
numerous piles of papers on his desk.
 C h a p te r 6

MR. RYDER’S STORY

G o i n g to look for Sergeant Bell, to acquaint him with the
new task to which they had been assigned, Carter found
him surrounded by the morning papers, with copies of every­
one of which he had apparently provided himself.
‘Just seeing what they say about that Benham affair, sir,’
he explained apologetically. ‘Wonderful how quick they’ve
been to get on it.’
‘Oh, the Press boys soon hear of anything a bit out of the
way like that,’ said Garter carelessly; ‘local paper man
’phoned them most likely.’
‘I expect that was it, I expect someone ’phoned them,’
agreed Bell with equal carelessness. ‘Quite a long special
article in the Daily Arrow by a Mr. Simpson, I think was
the name. Highly flattering reference to you, sir.’
‘Is there?’ said Carter, still careless. ‘Someone must have
told them how it was the discovery' was made.’
‘Seems like it,’ agreed Bell, meekly resigned to the fact
that there was no reference, flattering or otherwise, to him
either in the Daily Arrow or in any other of the morning
papers.
‘Can’t help feeling sorry we’re out of it,’ Carter continued.
‘Interesting case, interesting but simple, though I daresay
that Morris fellow will do his best to make a mess of it. It
would have made a bit of a splash if we had brought it off,
and now there’s no chance of our having anything more to
do with it— unless the Southdown people find themselves
at a dead end and call us in on a dead cold trail. Now my
idea is this----- ’
He paused impressively but Bell was not listening, he
was folding up and putting aside the papers he had been
reading.
‘Tenpence that lot cost me,’ he sighed, ‘do you think I
could put it down on my expenses sheet, sir ?’
‘O f course you could,’ agreed Carter heartily, ‘if you want
45
46 GENIUS IN MURDER

to see it struck out again with a note in red ink “improperly

incurred” .’ When he had finished chuckling over this joke,
which he thought excellent, but which did not seem to
raise Bell’s spirits to any marked degree, he added : ‘Heard
about that Hyde Park case last night? Likely to be trouble
about it, I understand, so Phillips wants me to report.’
‘Oh, Lord, a Hyde Park case,’ groaned Bell, and looked
so dismayed as he took out his handkerchief that Carter
really thought for a moment that he was going to burst into
tears. But he only wanted to sneeze, and, having done so
twice, he said with a kind of passionless intensity : ‘I loathe
Hyde Park cases.’
‘So does everyone else,’ agreed Carter, 'but there you are,
and the funny thing in this one is that the man concerned
is a Mr. Ryder— Mr. Samuel Ryder.’
‘Same name as Sir Charles Benham’s friend ?’
‘Yes. If it’s the same man, a bit of a coincidence, eh?’
Bell stared sadly out of the window.
‘Sometimes I think there are no coincidences,’ he said
after a pause, ‘only similar results from similar happenings,
the connection between which we don’t happen to know
about.’
‘Well, anyway, I don’t see how there can be any con­
nection between a Hyde Park case and a murder in South-
down two days before,’ grumbled Carter. ‘You are too fond
of guessing at large, my lad. Stick to the facts. One lucky
guess coming off doesn’t mean others will. Anyhow, the
Southdown business will give us an excuse to interview
Mr. Ryder. Phillips wants to know how far we can go in
backing up our man. Ryder’s sure to have some big pot for
counsel, so we’ve got to be sure of our ground. Phillips
wants to know what sort of man Mr. Ryder is and what
character.’
‘Very highest,’ answered Bell, ‘meaning that nothing
much is known against him and he always votes Conserva­
tive. Meteoric career . . . meaning that he’s got rich sud­
denly, no one knows how. Wizard of finance— meaning
he’s brought off one or two lucky gambles on the Stock
Exchange and I suppose you have to be a wizard to do that.
Well known for generous gifts to public objects— meaning
that he’s on the hunt for a title. Popular sportsman of the
 MR. R Y D E R ’S STORY 47
best type— meaning that he owns two or three racehorses
and bets a good deal. Engaged at the moment in extensive
operations of national importance in connection with the
rationalizing of the crude metal market— meaning that he’s
trying to squeeze out the small firms, buy up the big ones
for twice what they are worth and then sell the lot to the
public for ten times its value.’
Garter looked puzzled.
‘Where did you get all that?’ he asked.
‘Went round last night to see a city gent, Sir Hamilton
Wimpole, if you remember him,’ Beil explained. ‘He’s a
director of one of the small firms that’s likely to get squeezed
out, so maybe he’s a bit prejudiced, but that’s what he told
me.’
‘Do you mean you think Ryder’s a wrong ’un ?’
‘Oh, no,’ protested Bell, looking quite shocked. ‘Not at all,
sir. All I mean is he seems the sort of man you aren’t
surprised to find in a Hyde Park case, who you know will
fight it to the last gasp with the help of the biggest man at
the Bar, and who you are pretty sure never thinks of
murder— having methods of his own much deadlier than
that.’
‘What you mean,’ said Carter, laughing again; ‘is crude
metals and not crude murder? Ha, ha.’
He laughed once more, said he had forgotten something
but would be back in five minutes, and Bell, looking after
him sadly, knew in every fibre of his being that Carter had
gone to repeat to Phillips the information just given him
about Ryder, but that the source of that information he
would probably forget to mention.
In a few minutes Carter returned, looking very cheerful,
and said they had lost enough time gossiping and they had
better get off. A bus took them close to Mr. Ryder’s offices
which were on the third floor of a new office building near
the Mansion House. They consisted of a suite of half a dozen
rooms and had a busy, solid, prosperous air. They were not
so large as to suggest show, or so small as to suggest that the
affairs transacted there were of a limited nature. The people
who came and went all had a solid, prosperous air— one had
an impression that Crude Metals Syndicate was a business
only for the solid, the established, the prosperous, nothing
48 GENIUS IN MURDER

about Crude Metals evidently of the unreliability of rubber,

the variability of tin, or the feverishness of shipping.
‘Five telephones and a worn carpet,’ Carter observed in
Bell’s ear, looking round the room in which they found
themselves.
‘So there is,’ agreed Bell.
‘Points to notice,’ said Carter impressively. ‘Shows plenty
doing. You know, my lad, it’s not only noticing things that
counts, it’s knowing what to notice.’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Bell admiringly.
‘And if you ask me,’ said Carter in a sudden burst of
confidence, ‘I wouldn’t be in the shoes of the fellow who ran
in the boss of this show for quite a lot— no jury would ever
believe the head of a business like this could do anything
he didn’t ought.’
‘No, sir,’ agreed Bell heartily. ‘No jury would— at least,
not so long as all liabilities are met— and if they aren’t, then
there wouldn’t be anything a jury wouldn’t believe.’
‘Eh, how do you mean?’ asked Carter, a little puzzled,
and then a clerk came in to announce that Mr. Ryder would
see them immediately, and she was obviously a good deal
surprised that to them had been extended a privilege her
experience taught her was granted to few.
She ushered them accordingly into Mr. Ryder’s private
room, a fair-sized, comfortably furnished apartment with
the same air of solid, business-like efficiency, that the outer
offices possessed. Mr. Ryder was a tall, florid man, a little
too portly, heavily built, well, though not too well, dressed,
his manner having all the confidence and decision of one
who knows his place in the world, and knows it is a good
one, and means it to be better still.
‘Sit down, please,’ he said, waving them to chairs but
remaining standing himself. ‘I suppose you’ve come about
this disgraceful outrage to which I have been subjected. I
meant at first to decline to see you, then I made up my
mind to tell you myself my interests are in competent hands,
and that all we have to say will be said in open court— in
open court,’ he repeated formidably.
‘Quite so, that, of course, is sure to be so with a gentle­
man of your position,’ Carter answered amiably, ‘but as a
matter of fact we’ve called about something quite different.
 MR. R Y D E R ’S STORY 49
I believe the other day you visited Benham, dined with Sir
Charles Benham at the Manor House, and left about ten
after having played a rubber or two of bridge.’
‘Well, what about it?’ demanded Mr. Ryder.
It was evident then this was the same Mr. Ryder. But
Carter, glancing at Bell, was disappointed to observe that
his sergeant had either failed to notice the coincidence or
else considered it of no importance. Indeed it was difficult to
see that there could be any connection between the two
affairs, and Carter continued :
‘The Southdown police have asked us to make certain
inquiries and also to apply to you for information—
information that may be of great assistance. You have seen
in the papers that Sir Charles Benham has been found
murdered ?’
‘I saw the headlines,’ answered Mr. Ryder, ‘I could hardly
believe it— is there any possibility of any mistake ? it seems
so incredible.’
‘You were on intimate terms with the late Sir Charles?’
‘We did a good deal of business together; he was a
member of a syndicate I am Interested in— the Crude
Metals Syndicate. I should have made some inquiries, only
you understand I have been a good deal taken up with this
outrageous business.. . . I was with my solicitors before eight
o’clock this morning . . . I shall press for heavy damages. . .
and there is certainly some confusion about the newspaper
report. As it happens Sir Charles Benham called at
this office yesterday and left for Paris by the two o’clock
train.’
‘Is that certain ? you knew Sir Charles well ? did you see
him yourself?’
‘O f course I know him well, we have done a good deal of
business together.’
‘You saw him yourself yesterday?’ Carter persisted.
‘Well, no, one of the staff saw him, I was out at lunch as it
happened.’
Carter asked if they could see the clerk referred to. Mr.
Ryder grumbled a little, but rang a bell and told the office
boy who answered it to find out if it was Miss Young who
had spoken to Sir Charles Benham when he called the day
before, and, if so, to send Miss Young in. Miss Young duly
D
5° GENIUS IN MURDER

appearing, proved an efficient, brisk young person, who re­

membered the call perfectly. O f course she was certain it
was Sir Charles Benham. He had given his name and he had
left his card and besides she remembered him from the time
when she had seen him before. He was a striking-looking
man and not easy to forget. No, she had only seen him
that once before, as she had not been in the office long.
She had suggested he should wait for Mr. Ryder but he had
explained he had to catch the Continental express at two.
No, it had not occurred to her that he might not be Sir
Charles at all, why should it? She supposed that instead of
going on to Paris he had changed his mind and returned
home, as the papers said he had been found there murdered.
It was very dreadful but rather thrilling to think she had
been talking to a man who less than twelve hours afterward
had been murdered!
Miss Young was thanked and dismissed.
‘There is not much doubt but that the person who called
here and on us was either the actual murderer or an
accomplice,’ Carter said slowly. ‘Probably the call was
purposely timed for an hour when you would be out,
perhaps a watch was kept to make sure you had gone out.
Obviously anyone who knew Sir Charles well would have
been liable to detect the imposture at once.’
‘I don’t see the object,’ observed Mr. Ryder, frowning.
‘Laying a false trail,’ Bell explained, speaking almost for
the first time. ‘A search that started in Paris wasn’t likely
to find a body hidden in the Benham vault— it might have
been there for years without being found.’
‘Oh, hardly that,’ observed Mr. Ryder. ‘You are sure the
body is actually that of Sir Charles?’
‘Oh, yes. When you left him,’ Carter asked, ‘he seemed
quite normal— well and cheerful and all that ?’
‘Very cheerful, he had been very pleased and relieved at
a kind of reconciliation he had patched up with his
nephew. He told me the boy had promised to leave the
stage and go on with his medical training. Sir Charles was
so pleased he tore up at once the will he had made dis­
inheriting him, so that the previous will, under which young
Kenneth inherits, would come into force again.’
‘Interesting,’ observed Carter, ‘very interesting.’ He
 MR. R Y D E R ’ S STORY 51
added : ‘When you left you came straight back to town. You
have a flat near Hyde Park Corner, I think ?’
‘Yes. I left about ten and got in about twelve, I don't
care for fast driving at night— or any other time, either.
Safety first is my motto, motoring or anything else for that
matter. I’m not sure of the exact time I got back, but I
daresay they could tell you at the garage. I garage at
Higgins’s, quite close.’
‘You were driving yourself?’
‘Yes, always do— astonishing how many more miles to the
gallon petrol will do for you than for a chauffeur.’
Carter laughed.
‘Yes, sir, very likely,’ he said. ‘Well, we are very much
obliged and we’ll send on the information you’ve given us
to the Southdown police. They’re handling the case,’ he
explained, a little wistfully, as he thought of all those great
headlines in the morning papers and of how much bigger
they would be in the evening ones, and so, once more ex­
pressing their thanks, he and Bell retired together.
 C h a p te r 7

KENNETH COMES FORWARD

' I f y o u ask me,’ said Carter as he and Bell walked away
from Mr. Ryder’s office, ‘if you ask me, I would give quite a
lot not to be in Baker’s shoes when the case comes on.’
‘Baker?’ repeated Bell, for the moment a little puzzled.
‘Our man who ran Ryder in,’ Carter explained; ‘you
know him? Harry Baker, one of the old P Division. Good
man enough, but lacking in tact. But there, tact’s a thing
some have and some haven’t and that’s all there’s to it,’ and
the little gesture of mingled regret and satisfaction that he
made placed P.C. Baker— and most other people— among
the first and himself with the second. ‘I must say,’ he con­
tinued, ‘Mr. Ryder made a very good impression on me and
I think he would on any jury.’
‘So do I,’ said Bell warmly, ‘he’s just the sort any jury
would acquit at sight.’
‘That’s what I feel,’ declared Carter, pleased; ‘the best
type of British business man, vigorous, straightforward,
alert.’
‘I don’t know about alert,’ commented Bell, ‘seemed to
take him a long time to grasp why people who commit
murders generally try to hide the body.’
‘Oh, that was only because of where it was hidden, funny
place to hide a body, you know— obvious place in a way
and yet original, too. As I said to Phillips, good thing you
and I were there, or the Southdown people wouldn’t ever
have found it— that’s why they want to push us out now, I
said to Phillips. Well, we’ll have to get along and make a
few inquiries round where Mr. Ryder lives, but I shall be
surprised if we hear anything that’s not to his credit.’
‘So shall I,’ said Bell. ‘When you’ve got a reputation, why
you’ve got a reputation.’
But Carter was not listening. He was making for a west­
ward bound ’bus that had just stopped. He and Bell
mounted it and when they reached the newly erected
52
 KENNETH GOMES FORWARD 53

building near Hyde Park Corner where M r Ryder occupied

a flat on the first floor, the cautious inquiries they made in
the neighbourhood all resulted most satisfactorily. A chat
with the men at the garage where Mr. Ryder kept his car,
a few moments’ conversation with the porter of the flats, a
word or two with the constable on the beat, all confirmed
the picture already formed of Mr. Ryder as a thoroughly
worthy, respectable citizen. He kept regular hours, he and
his wife lived on the best of terms, every bill was paid the
moment it was due, even his motoring licence was as clean
as the day it was issued.
As for the night on which the murder of Sir Charles
Benham had taken place, the garage man remembered it
perfectly for only very seldom was Mr. Ryder out so late
alone. It was just after midnight when Mr. Ryder ran in
his car, for the garage man remembered that Mr. Ryder
himself had joked about the lateness of the hour, and how
he had just heard midnight striking, and how Mrs. Ryder
would be wondering what had happened to him, and finally
he had tipped the garage man an unexpected half-crown.
The garage man had had the impression that business must
have been good that day, as Mr. Ryder seemed in such
spirits, but then he was always- a pleasant gentleman and
very nice to deal with.
‘Nice car he’s got, too,’ Bell observed. ‘Racing Bayard,
isn’t it? Bit of a speed merchant perhaps?’
The garage man laughed very much at the idea. He
explained that Mr. Ryder was a real gentleman; and if you
saw a gentleman in a Something Seven or a So-and-so Ten,
then you knew he wasn’t a gentleman, but if you saw him in
a racing Bayard, then you knew at once he was a gentleman
as was a gentleman.
‘So that’s how to tell ’em, is it?’ asked Bell admiringly,
and the garage man said it was, and added that there were
plenty who liked a fast car even though they never drove
fast themselves, because in traffic or in an emergency the
reserve of power a fast car possesses is often very useful.
So they chatted a few minutes more, changing the subject
dexterously to the question of the best double to choose
among all those offered by the various M ajor Punters and
Captain Spotters who recommended them with such con­
54 GENIUS IN MURDER

fidence and in such variety to the readers of their different

journals. Then, assured that in the thrill and interest and
excitement of the last part of their talk, the garage man
would forget all about the earlier portion of it, and if he
thought of repeating their conversation at all, would think
only of retailing that part of it in which they had expressed
their views on the views of M ajor Punter and Captain
Spotter, Carter and Bell strolled away.
‘And if,’ said Bell, quite viciously, ‘I had the chap who
invented motor cars here, I’d hold him down in the middle
of the road and let every motor ’bus on the Knightsbridge
route run over him in succession. In the old days you knew
where to look for a man, either he was there, or you asked
at the nearest railway station. But in these days he can be
here now and a hundred miles off in a couple of hours. Look
at this case now. Ryder leaves at ten and gets up here at
twelve.’
‘Well, that’s all right, isn’t it?’ Carter asked, ‘driving a bit
slow, but a substantial city gent’s not like one of these
young fellows who aren’t ever happy unless the speedometer
is marking fifty at the least.’
‘Yes, that’s all right,’ agreed Bell, ‘but suppose he did
drive fast that night, he could have left Benham at twenty
to twelve and been up here soon after— that Bayard would
do forty miles in thirty minutes the roads being clear, the
night not too dark, and a risk taken.’
‘You don’t mean you think Ryder had anything to do
with the murder, do you?’ Carter demanded. ‘No motive for
one thing and you said yourself big men in the city don’t
deal in murder, why should they ? And any way, it certainly
wasn’t him who was masquerading as Sir Charles— it
couldn’t have been him who called in disguise at his own
office, could it?’
‘I suppose not,’ agreed Bell and was silent, and from the
porter of the building where Mr. Ryder occupied a first
floor flat they gained another interesting piece of informa­
tion, for it seemed it was Mr. Ryder’s custom to take a stroll
in the Park almost every night. He said it helped digestion
and made him sleep better. It was in fact quite a regular
habit with him, that only fog, snow, or an unusual pressure
of work kept him from. ‘After dinner rest a while, after
 KENNETH COMES FORWARD 55

supper walk a mile/ is the old saying that sometimes he

would quote to the porter before setting out or returning.
Occasionally even, when there had been guests to dinner,
he would persuade one or another of them whose road ran
in that direction to walk part of the way home across the
Park and so secure a companion for his accustomed evening
stroll.
‘Looks worse and worse for us/ said Carter gloomily.
‘Respectable business man can’t take a breath of fresh air
without police and so on and so on . . . you can see the
headlines from h ere. . . of course, I’ll see what I can do
with the Press boys, but it’s going to be difficult. . . just like
Phillips to shove a job of this sort on me because he thinks
I’ve got tact— tact and energy wanted, says Phillips
and thinks of me, and nice jobs like this I get let in for
like that.’
‘Yes, sir/ agreed Bell. ‘There’s Mr. Simpson of the Daily
Arrow,’ he remarked casually.
Carter received the suggestion with little favour. He said
Mr. Simpson was inclined to be standoffish. ‘Very stiff
gentleman, Mr. Simpson.’ But there were one or two
others. . .
‘Unfortunate affair altogether/ said Carter. ‘But I’ll tell
’em what we know about it, being Mr. Ryder’s habit to
take a stroll in the Park every evening— always a good plan
to show you know all about the defence’s strong point you
are certain they’ll rub in good and hard . . . I shall suggest
transferring B aker. . . good man but lacking in ta c t. . . tact
. . . I shall report to the Southdown people, too, that Ryder
seems quite straight, highest reputation, apparently drove
straight home after leaving Benham that nigh t. . . I don’t
take any stock in your eighty miles an hour theory, Bell, you
know.’
‘No, sir/ agreed Bell, ‘only an idea, sir.’
‘Ideas aren’t much good/ retorted Carter, a little sharply,
and on their return to the Yard they learnt to their surprise
that Mr. Kenneth Benham was waiting to see them. Super­
intendent Phillips, busy with another and important matter,
had delegated Chief Inspecter Carter to hear what the
young man had to say, and Carter looked quite excited as
he instructed a constable to show Mr. Benham in.
56 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘M ay be important,’ Carter said, ‘what do you think, Bell?

How about our chance of getting him to give himself away
before we’re through with him— it wouldn’t be the first time
a man’s come in here to put us on a false scent, eh ?’
‘They do sometimes,’ agreed Bell, ‘but whoever hit on
that notion of hiding a murdered man’s body in his own
coffin isn’t the sort to give himself away. If young Benham
is innocent he can’t, and if he’s guilty, he won’t.’
‘Oh, trust you to look on the black side of things,’ growled
Carter, and then when Kenneth appeared he put on his
most friendly air.
‘How do you do Mr. Benham?’ he said warmly. ‘Sir
Kenneth, I suppose now, isn’t it? I hope you’ve come to
tell us something about your uncle’s murder. A very sad
affair and any assistance you can give us . . . ’
‘Well, the fact is,’ Kenneth said, slightly embarrassed,
‘I’ve come chiefly about Mr. Ryder and this Hyde Park
business I understand he’s mixed up in.’
‘But, good Lord,’ cried Carter, startled, while even Bell
looked up with interest. ‘What do you know about that?’
‘I was there, I saw the whole thing.’ Kenneth explained;
‘so I came along to tell you you’ve got the wrong man. Mr.
Ryder was behind a tree that the other fellow dodged past,
and your man, making a run at him, collared Ryder instead.’
‘What on earth,’ demanded Carter, ‘was Ryder doing
behind a tree?’
‘I don’t know, I’m wondering that myself,’ Kenneth
answered. ‘But he was there all right, for I saw him, and
I saw the other man bolt, and I saw Mr. Ryder jump
forward, I suppose he was a bit startled, right in front of
your man who collared him at once— it was quite a natural
mistake.’
‘Why didn’t you say so at the time?’ asked Carter
suspiciously.
‘Well, there was the lady to consider.’
‘Lady? What lady?’
‘That’s just it,’ Kenneth explained. ‘I didn’t see how I
could say anything without dragging her in, and I thought
it was pretty low to do that, and Ryder would have to
manage best way he could . . . after all, it was his own fault,
if he had kept quiet instead of jumping out like that, it
 KENNETH COMES FORWARD 57

would have been all rig h t. . . it was only the way he acted—
lost his head I suppose— that made your man think he was
the chap he wanted . . . and then I thought that was mean,
to o . . . to leave him to face an accusation when I knew he
was innocent.. . . A t the moment I thought it was just pick­
pocketing or something like that and Ryder would only
have to say who he was and it would be all rig h t. . . but if
it’s going to be one of these misbehaving in the Park cases,
it might be jolly awkward for him. So then I thought I had
better come along and tell you all about it if you’ll promise
to keep the lady’s name quiet. I suppose you do that some­
times ?’
‘We can’t give any guarantee,’ explained Carter, ‘but you
may have entire confidence that nothing more will be said
than necessary. The Commissioner never permits un­
necessary publicity— after all, we all know here how much
we depend on the public helping us and we don’t do any­
thing we can avoid to frighten them away.’
Kenneth still hesitated but on renewed assurances of the
immense discretion of Scotland Yard finally yielded.
‘It seems jolly mean to tell,’ he said, ‘but it was Lady
Melton-Miller.’
Carter and Bell both stared at him.
‘Lady Melton-Miller?’ Carter repeated with evident
excitement. ‘You mean the wife of the South American
millionaire— the owner of what they call the Queen of
Sheba pearls?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, whoever it was, it wasn’t her,’ declared Carter, with
emphasis, ‘for I believe the Assistant Commissioner and
Superintendent Phillips were with her last night, and Mr.
Phillips is with her now, I think. Nothing about it has been
made public yet, but the Sheba pearls she owns were stolen
last week, and half our men are busy trying to get track
of them.’
‘Suppose you tell us your story from the beginning, Sir
Kenneth ?’ Bell suggested mildly.
 Chapter 8

A CLOSED CASE
K e n n e t h looked a little surprised.
‘I’ve told you all there is to tell,’ he protested. ‘You’ve got
the wrong man, that’s all.’
‘Not all,’ Carter declared in his most official tone, trying
to make it as good a copy as possible of Superintendent
Phillips’s, when that gentleman was making his voice sound
as much like a K .C .’s as he could. ‘You haven’t told us yet
what you were doing in Hyde Park ?’
‘You see, Sir Kenneth,’ interposed Bell, before Kenneth
had had time to do much more than begin to bristle, ‘there’s
Sir Charles’s death and you and Mr. Ryder were the last
to see him and now there’s this affair and you and Mr.
Ryder in it again apparently, that’s all.’
‘Wants explaining,’ barked Carter. ‘Wants explaining
that does.’
‘Nothing to explain,’ retorted Kenneth, ‘and besides what
possible connection can there be between uncle’s murder
and you people making a bloomer in Hyde Park ?’
Carter grunted, making the fierceness of his grunt cover
the fact that he had no other answer to make, and Bell,
looking sadly out of the window, murmured :
‘Sometimes I think there’s nothing that isn’t connected
with everything else, don’ t you? “ Flower in the crannied
wall” idea— I read that in one of the evening papers only
last week— wonderful what you see in the papers, isn’t it?
Well, Sir Kenneth, if you wouldn’t mind telling us how you
and Mr, Ryder happened to be there just when we did make
this bloomer of ours . . . ?’
‘Well, it’s simple enough,’ Kenneth answered, looking a
little sulky however, as if he really thought it was no business
of theirs. ‘I know uncle had been a good deal worried over
business lately, somehow he gave me the idea he was pretty
badly— well, scared.’
‘W hat of?’ snapped Carter.
58
 A CLOSED CASE 59
‘I thought it must be he had gone into something too deep
— I knew he had something to do with the syndicate Ryder’s
trying to get up to make a combine in the crude metal
market. Rationalization, they call it now, sounds better than
saying they are squeezing out the small firms to get a
monopoly for the big ones. From what uncle said I thought
there was trouble about getting enough capital to secure
the options they wanted. He gave me the idea he was pretty
badly scared . . . frightened. Then after Mr. Ryder came to
see him that night and they had been talking together in the
study, uncle seemed quite different. Rather jolly— jolly and
a bit excited, if you know what I mean, like a man who
thought he was done in and then found he wasn’t. Like
you felt in the war when you got an order to hold a post
till you were wiped out because Brigade Headquarters
thought it was a key position, then you got an order to
retire instead, because Brigade Headquarters had found out
the position didn’t matter a cuss. So I thought perhaps Mr.
Ryder, if I put it to him, might be able to say something—
of course, it was jolly vague, but I thought it might be worth
trying.’
‘Did you tell the Southdown police all this ?’ Carter asked.
‘The case is in their hands, you know.’
‘I tried to tell Major Morris,’ Kenneth answered, flushing
a little. ‘He seemed to think I was trying to throw sus­
picion on Ryder. That wasn’t my idea at all. So I dried up.
You see, it’s all so jolly rummy, there seems no reason why
anyone should want to murder uncle.’
‘The question of motive is always very important,’ agreed
Carter.
‘On the face of it, there seems no sense in the thing,’
Kenneth said. ‘Uncle was a bit eccentric in some ways, like
that dodge of having his coffin waiting for him in the vault
all ready, but lots of people are scared of being buried alive
and uncle always said he had seen it as near as possible
happen in India. But he hadn’t an enemy in the world—-
why should he ? he wasn’t in anybody’s way— how could he
be? He was just an ordinary retired Indian civil servant
dabbling a bit in business in the city— as many of them do—
and doing rather well— as most of them don’t.’
‘I suppose,’ observed Carter; ‘what I mean is— you know
6o GENIUS IN MURDER

what the French say, “Cherchez la femme” . Anything like

that in his life, do you think?’
‘Good lord, no,’ exclaimed Kenneth, frankly amused,
‘why, he was quite old— regular crusted old bachelor. Oh,
no, there’s no women in this, can’t be.’
‘There was last night apparently,’ observed Bell in one of
his usual musing melancholy asides.
Kenneth turned to stare at him.
‘What has last night’s affair got to do with uncle’s
murder?’ he demanded again. ‘Unless you think it was
Ryder did it?’ he added, half scoffingly, half inquiringly.
‘I never think,’ murmured Bell, ‘not encouraged in the
G.I.D. Only you seem to have wanted to ask him questions
yourself, didn’t you ?’
‘Yes. I came up to town for that. The only thing that
seems the least bit puzzling about uncle’s life before this
happened is what I told you just now, that I thought that
there was something that was— well, I said frightened and
that’s the word that keeps coming back to me. I have the
idea there was something he was really scared about.. . . I
can’t imagine w h a t.. . . I thought Mr. Ryder might know.
Well, when I got to his flat they said he was out, they said
he had gone for a stroll in the Park. Well, I didn’t want to
go back without seeing him after coming up to town on
purpose, so I thought I would walk through the Park, too,
on the chance of meeting him. I was strolling along, keeping
a bit of a look out for Ryder on the chance of running
against him, and I noticed a man and a girl sitting on a
seat together rather out of the way. I couldn’t see them
very plainly, because there was a bit of mist about if you
remember, and I didn’t pay them any attention either. I
just noticed there was a man close by, standing behind a
tree, trying to get a light for his cigarette, and I didn’t pay
hjm any attention either. I couldn’t see him distinctly, fey
one thing, all I could see was someone lighting matches
that kept going out again.’
‘Wasn’t windy, was it?’ Bell asked. ‘I seem to remember
that mist you mentioned.’
‘No, there was no wind at all, and I remember thinking
he must have rotten matches or something. Anyway, he
didn’t seem able to get a light going, and just as I went by
 A CLOSED CASE 6l
I heard the man on the seat s a y : “ Lady Melton-Miller”
and I thought: “Good lord, what’s she doing here ?” ’
‘Is she a friend of yours ?’
‘Oh, no, she wouldn’t know me from Adam. But I have
taken part once or twice in charity matinees when she’s been
on the committee, and I have just had glimpses of her skir­
mishing round bossing things in the far distance. So I knew
her name quite well, but of course it was no business of mine,
and anyone might have fifty good reasons for meeting any­
one in Hyde Park or anywhere else. I walked on and almost
at once I heard the woman yell out something about letting
her alone, and “Help” and “ Police” and the man she had
been sitting with bolted like a good ’un and your man
appeared from somewhere all in a minute, and collared, not
the fellow who had been with the girl, but the fellow who
had been trying to light his cigarette behind the tree. It
was his own fault, he blundered right into your man’s arms,
he must have quite lost his head; it was hardly possible for
your man not to make the mistake. As I told you before,
I didn’t say anything then. I didn’t quite grasp what it was
all about. When I saw it was Ryder I thought he would only
have to give his name to make it all right, and I didn’t want
to be asked if I knew who the woman was. So I just cleared
out and left them to it, I thought any trouble Ryder was
put to he had brought on himself by behaving like an idiot.
But when I heard to-day that Ryder was really for it, I
thought I had to come along.’
Carter and Bell exchanged glances. That of Carter was
frankly bewildered, that of Bell was even more gently
resigned and sad than usual. Carter said :
‘The woman certainly wasn’t Lady Melton-Miller. Mr.
Phillips was at her house most of last night and she was
certainly there all the time. Inquiries into the loss of her
“Queen of Sheba” pearls are going on very actively— worth
a hundred thousand those pearls are. The woman con­
cerned in your affair came along quite willingly to the police
station. She gave her name as Nancy Wood, she gave an
address that was verified in the directory, and said she was
employed as a tea-shop waitress at an address she gave and
she gave the name and address of the tea-shop manageress,
which was also verified by the directory. Only,’ added Carter
62 GENIUS IN MURDER

with a sigh unconsciously imitated from Bell, ‘only nothing

is known of her at either address, and the address of the
tea-shop manageress is that of someone who has nothing to
do with her or with tea shops.’
‘Common trick with old hands,’ Bell explained as Kenneth
looked rather puzzled. ‘They provide themselves with names
and addresses from the directory and then when it’s looked
up, there it is, and that seems all right. She’s improved on
the usual routine though in calling herself a tea-shop wait­
ress. That did sound all right and above-board. Generally
her sort describe themselves as actresses or journalists
because they think that sounds respectable— and we know
it don’t.’
‘In any case,’ said Carter, still more gloomily, ‘Baker’s for
it, experienced officer, too, but this time he’s put his foot
in it all right.’
‘Spoilt his chance of promotion,’ sighed Bell. ‘He’ll never
even be a sergeant now.’
‘Nice dressing-down we shall get in the papers,’ said
Carter, and this time it was he and not Bell who seemed
on the verge of tears. ‘You can see the headlines from here,’
he groaned.
‘Well, I can’t see your man was to blame,’ Kenneth re­
peated. ‘It was the way Ryder blundered right into his
arms . . . Ryder must have lost his head altogether. . . Lord
knows why.’
‘Wish we did,’ said Bell slowly, ‘only wish we did, too.’
‘The magistrate won’t care anything about all that,’
Carter declared. ‘Nor the Press. Only thing we can do
is to admit a mistake, offer no evidence and an apology. I’ll
do my best to keep it off the front page . . . if only there was
a Test Match on or something like that it would be a help.’
‘Be on all the placards,’ agreed Bell, permitting himself
the rare luxury of a smile. ‘Mr. Phillips won’t be fit to live
with for a week after. As for the Assist. Commish.----- ’
But the Assistant Commissioner, Sergeant Bell left to the
imagination, and Carter took up the tale of woe.
‘Ten to one Phillips will send me along to do the explain­
ing,’ he lamented. ‘ “Tact wanted,” he’ll say and think of me
— as usual.’
And by way of exemplifying his tact he escorted Kenneth
 A CLOSED CASE 63
to the door of the building with many expressions of grati­
tude for the information he had given and of praise for his
public spirit in coming forward.
‘One of our great difficulties,’ he said as Kenneth took his
departure, ‘people won’t come forward— very good of you
indeed, Sir Kenneth.’
Then he went back to find Bell.
‘Well, that’s torn it,’ he said, ‘if only that meddling young
idiot had had the sense to keep his silly mouth shut and not
come butting in where he wasn’t wanted, we might have
had a chance to pull it off— now we’re for it all right.
Headlines a mile high there’ll be— what are you doing
there?’
‘It’s only noughts and crosses— interesting game,’ Bell
explained. ‘M y kiddy taught it me the other night— I like
it because no one ever wins and you always have to start
fresh just like detective work. Funny business this, isn’t it?’
‘If you see anything funny about it, I don’t,’ retorted
Garter.
‘I mean it’s funny those two in the Park should be talking
about Lady Melton-Miller just when she’s had her pearls
stolen.’
‘That’s why, of course. Nothing in the papers yet but lots
of people know, all the servants, for instance. Why, the
Press have nearly as many working on the case as they
have on the coffin murder as they call it-—they want to
have their columns all ready the moment the Commissioner
tells ’em it’s all right.’
‘Funny thing,’ mused Bell, ‘that Mr. Ryder should be on
the spot, too.’
‘Don’t they tell us he always takes a walk through there
every evening?’ demanded Carter.
‘Funny he should go running into Baker’s arms the way
this young Kenneth chap told us he did,’ Bell continued.
‘Lost his head, that’s all,’ said Carter, ‘any man makes
a fool of himself once he loses his head.’
‘Or even without,’ murmured Bell. ‘Funny thing, seeing
it was a quiet, rather misty night, without any wind, he
had to go behind a tree to light a match, and then didn’t
seem able to help their getting blown out.’
‘Look here,’ Carter demanded severely, ‘have you got any
64 GENIUS IN MURDER

bee in your bonnet by any chance? Think Miss Nancy Wood

had the pearls perhaps and Mr. Ryder’s the receiver we’re
looking for ? Got that in your head by any chance ?’
‘Oh, no, sir,’ answered Bell looking quite abashed, ‘oh, no
— don’t see how a respectable, well-known city man bringing
off a big thing in this crude metal merger could possibly
be a receiver of stolen goods. But I was wondering if I
could get permission to try to trace if there’s any report in
of a woman being picked up rather badly knocked out and
refusing to say who did it.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Carter with decision, ‘no object in
carrying this case further-—it’s closed.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bell meekly. ‘So’s the Coffin Murder for us.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ snapped Carter, and Bell
did not answer because he didn’t know.
 Chapter 9

THE NOTTING HILL DEVELOPMENT

A l l the same, Sergeant Bell got his permission. Not that
he dared ask for it again. A sergeant does not ask for what
a chief inspector has peremptorily refused. But the per­
mission came, and came in that unexpected guise in which
so often comes, if it comes at all, the fulfilment of our
wishes.
A light rain had set in, the sort of rain, chill and thin and
persistent, that looks as if it means to continue for all future
time, and instead of getting on with his work, of which he
had plenty waiting for him on his desk, Sergeant Bell was
staring out of the window, watching the melancholy drip
drip of the raindrops on pavement and passers-by alike,
when Carter came briskly into the room, looking so bright
and satisfied it was almost as if the rain stopped at once,
only it didn’t.
‘I’ve just been chatting to Phillips,’ he said. ‘He’s worried
about this Melton-Miller pearls case— men on the job don’t
seem to be making headway at all.’ Carter paused to shake
his head and look sympathetic. ‘It’s a case that wants tact,
I think myself,’ he went on, ‘though of course I didn’t
say so to Phillips— every man his own methods. You remem­
ber what we were saying about the woman in the Hyde
Park Ryder affair?’
Bell turned quickly.
‘Anything turned up about her, sir?’ he asked.
‘Had an idea something might, hadn’t you?’ countered
Carter.
‘Oh, no, sir,’ Bell protested, for he disliked admitting to
‘ideas’, things that he knew were welcome nowhere in this
great England of ours. ‘I only just thought. . . I mean it
just struck m e .. . that probably the man she was with
wouldn’t be pleased so to say . . . he only got away because
. . . well, because Mr. Ryder lost his head and came butting
in and got pinched instead . . . sort of deus ex machina, Mr.
E 65
66 GENIUS IN MURDER

Ryder was that n ig h t. . . that’s what the papers call it, don’t
they ? . . . it means the motor car that come along and gets
you when you aren’t looking. . . well, anyway, she nearly
got the chap who was with her pinched all righ t. . . and that
might have been awkward for him, for it’s not everyone who
likes the inside of police stations . . . so I thought he might
be a bit upset about it and want to take it out of h e r . . . so
there’s just the chance that if any woman is found knocked
about a good deal and not keen about laying a charge, then
it might be possible to get her to talk and get track that way
of the man who was with her.’
‘And if we did get hold of him, what good would that be ?’
demanded Carter.
Bell looked embarrassed.
‘I don’t know, sir,’ he admitted, ‘only it might be interest­
ing to know who it was . . . and why he was talking about
Lady M elton-M iller. . . if he was talking about Lady
Melton-Miller . . . if you poke about a bit, there’s always a
chance of poking something out.’ He paused and added with
a sudden burst of confidence : ‘I can’t help it, sir, but I’ve
got it in my head there’s more in all this than we know of.’
‘There always is,’ said Carter, ‘and anyway you’re all
wrong. There’s no record of any woman being knocked
about last night.’
‘No, sir,’ said Bell meekly.
‘Except of course,’ Carter corrected himself, ‘the usual
where a chap’s been thrashing his wife— or not wife— and
she’s turned nasty about it and asked for a summons.’
‘Only routine that, sir,’ commented Bell, still more meekly.
‘But what there is,’ said Carter, ‘is a report of a woman
found dead in a street near Notting Hill.’
‘Dead— murdered?’ Bell exclaimed. ‘I never thought of
t ha t . . . I should have thought of that.’
‘Too late now,’ said Carter, a touch of severity in his
manner. ‘I thought of it at once . . . the moment I knew I
said to Phillips: “This is linked up with that Hyde Park
affair.” You could have knocked Phillips off his chair with
your little finger. He said : “Good God, Inspector, what
made you think of that?” I said I had felt all along there
was more to that business than had come out— a good ex­
perienced man like Baker doesn’t make mistakes without
 THE NOTTING HILL DEVELOPMENT 67

reason. When Phillips felt a bit stronger after the knock out
I had given him, ha, ha ’ Carter paused for Bell to join
in the laugh and when Bell didn’t but only looked sadder
still, Carter went on with a touch of impatience : ‘You see,
what had struck him so was that the report said a bit of
paper had been found in her bag with a sort of sketch map
on it that seemed to show the spot in Hyde Park where the
affair happened. So when on top of that I said there was
some connection— well, clean bowled out he was.’
‘He would be,’ agreed Bell, a little enviously, marvelling
not for the first time at the wonderful knack Carter had of
making use of the information others gave him. ‘Was this
woman’s body found in the street?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I don’t quite know the hour. Strangled.’
‘Strangled ?’
‘Yes. Bit of ordinary window-blind cord tied round her
neck— done so she hadn’t a chance even to cry out. What are
you staring at?’
‘Sir Charles Benham was strangled by a piece of ordinary
window-blind cord,’ Bell observed slowly.
‘Eh?’ said Carter and paused. ‘Well,’ he said and hesi­
tated. ‘Hang it all,’ he said, ‘there can’t be any connection-
strangling is common enough, isn’t it ? and blind-cord’s easy
enough to get, isn’t it? natural thing to use.’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Bell. ‘I thought it seemed a bit funny,
that’s all.’
‘In our line,’ declared Carter, ‘things generally are funny.
Phillips wants me to report whether there’s anything else
to connect up with the Hyde Park affair, so I suppose you
might as well come along.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Bell gratefully.
‘You should have seen,’ added Carter with obvious enjoy­
ment, ‘the way Phillips was rubbing his head when I left
him— couldn’t understand how I had come to put two and
two together the way I had. But, Lord, that’s the whole art.
of detection— put two and two together, and there you are.
That’s something for you to remember, my lad.’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Bell, more meekly than ever, even if he
did add to him self: ‘Provided you manage to make them
come to four and not five.’
A convenient motor ’bus transported them quickly to the
68 GENIUS IN MURDER

Notting Hill district where the local men who had the case
in hand were mildly surprised to find the importance these
two officers from Headquarters seemed inclined to attach
to it.
T o them it seemed ordinary enough, commonplace
indeed. The dead woman had probably been living with
some man, there had been a quarrel, he had revenged
himself— jealousy most likely. Though not young she had
still been strikingly good-looking, with small regular features
and lovely golden brown hair with a natural wave to it.
The murderer had been prudent enough to carry out his
crime in a dark side street where few ever came. No, the
woman had not been identified. ‘Difficult to identify
women of that class.’ Even those who knew them were often
enough shy of coming forward. The job had been done
expertly, the local men said, and the Inspector in charge
remarked thoughtfully that it might be worth while making
a few tentative inquiries among medical students perhaps.
Robbery had not been the motive anyhow, for the victim’s
money and her few cheap valuables had not been touched.
But there was nothing of any kind except the little sketch
map tucked away in a corner of an otherwise almost empty
hand bag. They added that she had evidently been drinking
heavily.
‘Drinking, had she?’ said Bell, interested.
‘Smelt of brandy a treat,’ said the local man. ‘Doctor
said she was full of i t . . . must have made it easier to do
her in.’
‘Ye-es,’ agreed Bell. ‘Ye-es . . . only a lot more difficult to
get her where she was found . . . a drunken woman attracts
notice these days.’
‘Well, she must have been pretty well blind with all that
brandy in her,’ the local man said.
‘Probably taken where she was found in a car,’ suggested
Garter. ‘No crime complete without a motor car these days.’
‘I don’t think so,’ the local man said. ‘Our information
is that a man and woman were seen going up that street and
the man was seen coming back alone. We got that from a
man we know, quite reliable chap. He’s a bookmaker’s tout
and was probably waiting there to take betting slips— we
have to pinch him now and then but he never bears malice
 THE NOTTING H ILL DEVELOPMENT 69

and helps us all he can. I think you’ll find he is quite clear

there was no car about and that the woman showed no sign
of being in drink.’
‘Then it must have been another woman,’ said Carter.
‘Our witness says he saw none.’
‘Drinking heavily,’ mused Bell, ‘but showed no sign of it—
that’s funny too.’
‘She had a good head for liquor and could carry it all
right,’ declared Carter impatiently; ‘anyhow, that won’t
help us much. What are you staring at now, Bell?’
‘Me, sir?’ asked Bell, startled, ‘oh, it just struck me— I’ve
read somewhere. . . in the papers I expect, there’s a lot in
the papers . . . well, there aren’t many can carry a lot of
brandy without showing it, especially women, but I re­
member it said that under the influence of strong emotion
sometimes strong drink has no effect at all.’
‘What strong emotion ?’ Carter asked.
‘I was thinking of fear,’ Bell said. ‘If she was afraid, it
might be she drank brandy freely to give her courage and
it might be it hadn’t any other effect— didn’t make her
drunk, I mean, only— careless.’
None of them made any answer to that. They were all a
little silent, a little quiet. The tragedy seemed somehow to
come nearer to them, to grow plainer. The local man said :
‘That means she knew it was coming or thought it might
be.’
Bell nodded. It was plain that he was thinking deeply.
He said presently:
‘That sketch map you found— seems to suggest she had
a regular appointment in the Park?’
‘Oh, lots of them have regular appointments,’ chuckled
the local man.
Carter began to show signs of impatience. He felt he had
scored a point with Phillips and he didn’t see much chance
of gaining much further kudos. It was one of those bare,
bleak cases with little to go on that are the most difficult
and unsatisfactory of all. An unidentified woman is picked
up dead . . . strangled . . . that’s all that’s known.
‘Up against a blank wall,’ said the local man, almost as
if he had read Carter’s thoughts; ‘difficult to make a start
when you’ve nothing to start from.’
70 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Except— her,’ said Bell, and the vague gesture that he

made seemed to indicate the still form of what once had
been, like others, a young and laughing thing with before
her the common and immortal task of woman, wife, and
mother.
‘The Press won’t give it any more than a back page para­
graph,’ Carter remarked, ‘especially just now with the
“ Coffin Murder” in the public eye— queer case that, no
sign of any motive yet apparently. Afraid the Southdown
lot aren’t going to do much with it.’
The local man agreed that most likely they wouldn’t, and
hinted it was a pity they hadn’t called in Mr, Carter, and
Mr. Carter purred a little and complimented the local man
on the way he had handled his case, and so they parted
with equal good will, and as Carter and Bell were returning
to seek their motor ’bus, Bell said, a little tim idly:
‘I was just wondering, si r. . . I was thinking that if I
might poke about a bit among the pubs h ere. . . ’
‘Feeling thirsty?’ asked Carter brightly.
Bell acknowledged the joke with his very saddest smile.
‘It’s only that I feel,’ he explained, ‘that that brandy
clue might be followed up a bit on the off-chance so to
speak. She may have had a bottle by her and emptied it
before she came out, but most likely she was the sort that
never keeps anything by, and she may have been getting it
at some of the pubs about here.’
‘Well, if she did, she wouldn’t be likely to leave her name
and address,’ grumbled Carter. ‘Still, you can t r y . . . and,’
he added, ‘I’m going to ask Phillips if it wouldn’t be as well
to find out where Mr. Ryder and Sir Kenneth Benham were
last night. Not,’ he added, ‘that I think Mr. Ryder has any­
thing to do with it— best class of city man, Mr. Ryder, I
think. But that young Sir Kenneth— of course, he’s a
baronet, but titles aren’t what they used to be, not by a long
way.’
 Chapter i o

FRESH INFORMATION
S y s t e m a t i c a l l y and laboriously Bell set himself to visit
the neighbouring public-houses. A local directory supplied
him with a list of them, his pocket 'map of London showed
him their position, and he found his task facilitated by the
two facts that everyone knew of the murder that was a
local sensation even if, as Carter had remarked, only an
inner page item for the papers, and that already a good
many inquiries had been made in the district in the effort
to identify the victim.
‘Seems to me I ’ve seen her here,’ said one barman, one
of those too willing witnesses who do more to confound the
truth than do even the deliberate falsifiers, but he was
unable to provide any more useful information.
Another gave her a name and an address with great dear­
ness and precision, but the real owner of that name and
address proved very much alive and of irreproachable
character.
‘She was in here all right,’ another said, ‘but I had never
seen her before and I didn’t know her at ail— I only re­
member her because after I hac} seen the way she swallowed
one go of brandy, I wouldn’t serve her again, and she went
off at once. But I must say what she took didn’t seem to
make any difference.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember her because of her hat,’ said a
barmaid, ‘I knew it again at once— chic it was. No, she had
only been in here once before. She was with a fellow, a
little bow-legged red-haired fellow— I remember him
because he wanted to see the boss and tried to get an order
for printing the menu cards for the dining-room and such
like.’
‘Did he get it?’ asked Bell.
‘No, the boss said his specimens looked too fancy like, and
then all our printing’s done by a customer. He tried hard
though, said he had a special way of colour printing of his
7i
72 GENIUS IN MURDER

own and he did his work cheap because his shop was a bit
far out and he only paid a low rent.’
Even to Bell, whose patience was inexhaustible, who knew
well that the most devious by-paths lead sometimes the
straightest to the final goal, this seemed wandering rather
far from the point.
‘You’ve never seen the man again?’ he asked.
‘No, 'not that I noticed, only we have so many in, I don’t
suppose I should have noticed her only for her hat— chic it
was.’ She seemed disposed to launch out into a full des­
cription, but the sadness that crept into Bell’s eyes as he
turned them now towards her served to divert her from her
purpose. ‘Chic,’ she contented herself with saying firmly, as
if challenging Bell to deny it, and then added : ‘That first
time she was in here, she only drank ginger ale, but last
night it was brandy.’
‘Seem to be affecting her at all?’ Bell asked.
‘That was the funny part of it,’ the barmaid answered.
‘T o look at her you wouldn’t have thought she had had a
drop of anything stronger than lemonade, but there it was,
for I saw it with my own eyes, and it got so I refused to
serve her again— afraid she would drop where she stood,
I was.’
‘Did she seem angry or upset in any way when you
wouldn’t give her any more ?’
‘No, more surprised like— she laughed in a funny sort of
way, and then she said it was no more than water to
her— then she said perhaps I was ri ght. . . oh, quite the
lady she was . . . all the same the brandy showed in the way
she talked . . . kept on beginning to tell you things and then
stopping . . . not that I wanted to hear, only you have to be
civil to customers. . . said, she had come all the way from
C lapton.. . . ’
‘She didn’t say why ?’
‘No. I didn’t pay much attention, having my work to do
and gentlemen coming in all the time but none of them
could have took the brandy she did and not shown it more—
could stand a lot, she could. A wonderful head she must
have had.’
‘It wasn’t her head so much as her fear, I think,’ Bell
said slowly. ‘I remember once in the war seeing a man drink
 FRESH INFORMATION 73
half a bottle of rum before we went over the top, and it
might have been water, for all the effect it seemed to have.’
He thanked the girl for the information she had given
him and made one or two other calls. One other place he
found where she was remembered for the way in which she
had tossed off the brandy she had been served with, and
then asked for more which had been refused. But nowhere
was she known and nowhere was there any information to
be secured concerning her identity.
‘If I were an Inspector, which I never shall be,’ Bell
thought to himself wistfully, ‘I would go and poke about
Clapton now, but as I’m a sergeant, I had better go back to
the Yard and see what they think of it there— not much, I
expect.’
That prognostication was correct, for when he got back
to headquarters and reported to Carter, who was on the
point of going off duty and not best pleased at being kept
to listen to the account of his sergeant’s doings, the Inspec­
tor seemed but little impressed.
‘Don’t see that it amounts to much,’ he declared. ‘She
has been seen in the company of a man who may be a
printer by trade or just a tout for a printer, and she had
an appointment with someone somewhere the night she was
murdered . . . doesn’t take us much further forward, does it ?’
‘No, sir,’ agreed Bell, shaking his head reproachfully at
himself for having learned so little and yet still with a
vision in his mind of a tragic figure of a woman going hither
and thither in the effort to drown the terror that drove
her in brandy of which perhaps the only effect had been to
blind her to the oncoming of her doom. ‘Bad time, she must
have had,’ he mused, half to himself, ‘knowing what was
coming to her and the only thing she could think of to
drink more brandy.’
‘Bit of a funny case,’ Carter admitted, ‘Lot of odd pieces
lying about— don’t see how to fit them in though. It was
strangling both in the “Coffin Murder” and in this case—
and both times a bit of ordinary window-blind was used.
But most likely that’s mere coincidence. What connection
could there be between a baronet in the country and a stray
woman in Notting H ill?’
‘No, sir,’ agreed Bell. ‘Only------’
74 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Then there’s Ryder and young Kenneth Benham both

present in Hyde Park that evening, and both with Sir
Charles at dinner the evening he was murdered. Odd, but
where’s the connection?’
‘Yes, sir, where is it?’ echoed Bell with one of his heaviest
sighs.
‘And Mr. Ryder was at home last night,’ Carter con­
tinued. ‘Phillips agreed with me it would be as well to
check up on his movements, and the report is he left his
office at the usual time and returned home as usual, went
out for his usual stroll about ten and returned about half an
hour later, which doesn’t leave much time for getting to
Netting Hill, committing a murder, and getting back to
Hyde Park Corner again. But it seems young Benham was
mooning about town somewhere, we can’t check up his
movements clearly, says he was walking about— walking
about may mean anything.’
‘So it may,’ agreed Bell thoughtfully, ‘anything at all.’
‘Then again,’ continued Carter, frowning heavily, ‘there’s
this Hyde Park affair— is there anything behind that we
don’t know about ?’
‘There’s a death,’ said Bell, ‘a woman’s death.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Carter, ‘and apparently badly scared about
something. I put that to Phillips. I said : “ If it was just an
ordinary disorderly conduct case and nothing behind it,
what was there for her to be so scared about? If she
could yell out for police and help then, why didn’ t she
come to us again, if there was anything she was frightened
o f.” ’
‘Frightened she was all right enough,’ Bell said. ‘Young
Kenneth Benham said the same of his uncle— he was
frightened too, it seems. And it seems there was reason in
both cases,’ he added.
‘What about this little red-headed, bow-legged man you
say she was seen with?’ Carter asked. ‘Could he be the man
she was talking to in the Park?’
Bell shook his head.
‘I don’t see how a man of his description could be con­
fused with a man of Ryder’s height and build,’ he said.
‘Besides, apparently she knew him well and she wouldn’t
need a sketch map of where to meet him. There’s another
 FRESH INFORM ATION 75

point that might mean something— they were talking about

Lady Melton-Miller, Kenneth Benham says.5
‘Only the young man’s word for it,5 grumbled Carter.
‘Anyhow, they might easily have heard some gossip and just
been talking.5
‘Yes,5 agreed Bell, ‘yes, sir, of course there’s that. Seems
to me there is just one little bit of solid fact we can lay hold
of. We have a description of a man she was seen with and
he may be a jobbing printer and he may have a place of
business in Clapton. I thought perhaps I could run out
there to-morrow morning and poke about a bit?5
As he spoke a certain eagerness shone for a moment, like
a clouded flame, behind his habitual melancholy, for there
had been roused in him the sombre passion of the chase, the
dreadful chase-where man’s the quarry and life or death
the prize. But Carter hesitated.
‘Can’t you think of anything likely to be more useful than
that?5 he grumbled. ‘I’ll see what Phillips says,5 he added
reluctantly.
‘Thank you, sir,5 exclaimed Bell, pleased and grateful,
and Carter nodded and was hurrying off to the home
and the supper he felt he had so well earned when in the
very' doorway of the building he saw two strangers just
entering.
He knew them both at once, for indeed it was a well
founded boast of his that he never forgot a face or a figure
he had once seen.
‘Miss Baird, I think ?’ he said. ‘And Dr. Pollard, isn’t it ?’
he added to her companion, and he was conscious of a
certain excitement, for it seemed to him that perhaps their
arrival heralded some new development in a case that had
taken great hold on the public imagination— witness the
interminable columns the newspapers were printing,
whereof the perusal left the reader knowing precisely as
much as he had known before, only knowing it so much less
clearly.
‘That’s my name,5 the doctor admitted, and then,
recognizing Carter in his turn, he said : ‘Oh, that’s lucky.
Miss Baird, this is the officer who discovered Sir Charles's
body.5
Carter gave him a friendly smile. He perceived that this
76 GENIUS IN MURDER

country doctor was a man of penetration and intelligence.

He said :
‘Is it about that case you’ve come ?’
Pollard hesitated a moment and Miss Baird spoke;
‘There is something I feel you ought to know/ she said
briefly. ‘I asked Dr. Pollard to come with me.’
‘M y poor friend, Sir Charles, appointed me one of his
executors,’ Pollard explained, ‘and as Miss Baird was feeling
rather worried I thought— even though I’m sure the thing
itself doesn’t matter in the least— still, I told Miss Baird
it might be better to go straight to the responsible
authorities. So here we are. Always best to go straight to
the people really in charge, I think.’
Carter was more than ever persuaded of Pollard’s insight
and intelligence. A t any rate, if he didn’t know who was in
charge of the case, he knew who ought to be.
‘Quite so, excellent rule, excellent,’ he said, ‘only in this
case, as it happens, well, it’s really the Southdown police
who are looking after i t . . . their district, you see, and they
are responsible.’
Pollard looked a little taken aback.
‘But I thought you Scotland Yard people were always
responsible for all that sort of thing,’ he protested. ‘That
is why I told Miss Baird to come to you. O f course, we
knew the local police down there were doing their best—
not getting much further forward as far as I can see in spite
of all the questions they are asking of everybody, but I
quite thought the general direction came from here. I
suppose I ought to have known better. What ought we to
do now?’
‘Oh, we shall be very pleased to hear anything you have
to say,’ Carter answered and invited them to follow him to
his room. ‘Mistake quite natural,’ he added, ‘obvious course
would be for all detective work to be synchronated from
here.’ The word pleased him and he repeated it. ‘Synchro­
nated from here, every inquiry would have a much better
chance of success. I could draw up a scheme.’
He paused for a moment, rapt in almost ecstatic contem­
plation of the scheme he felt he could evolve, magnificent,
superb, far-reaching, monumental, but yet was not so rapt
in it but he could see the impressed admiring look Dr.
 FRESH INFORM ATION 77
Pollard gave to his companion. He caught sight of Bell
moving down a distant corridor also preparing to get off
homewards. ‘Oh, Bell,’ he called, ‘come here, will you?’
and to Dr. Pollard and Miss Baird he explained : ‘M y
sergeant, he generally works with me, he was with me if you
remember when poor Sir Charles Benham’s body was dis­
covered— extraordinary hiding-place to choose, but effec­
tual, it might never have been found for years.’
‘That is what Miss Baird feels is so terrible,’ explained
Pollard, ‘so do I— no one might ever have known, not for
years at least. . . and all the time the body there . . . a
terrible thought.’
Bell came up, looking more depressed than ever, for he
knew for certain, he felt it in every fibre of his being, that
this new summons meant his supper would be spoilt once
again.
Carter said :
‘This lady is Miss Baird, she has some information she
wishes to give us, better be ready to take a statement. O f
course, I’ve explained it’s a Southdown police matter really
and we shall simply have to report to them for their action.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bell, and his reproachful eyes on Dr.
Pollard and Miss Baird seemed to ask why they could not
have gone direct to the Southdown people with their infor­
mation and let him get away to his supper that he knew
was every moment getting more and more dried up in the
gas-cooker oven at home.
 C h a p t e r 11

THE CLAPTON PRINTER

‘N o w , Miss Baird,’ began Carter as soon as they were all
safely established in his room, ‘anything you have to tell
u s ,,
She hesitated and was very pale, so that it was plain
enough that she was very reluctant to speak. But Dr.
Pollard gave her a fatherly and encouraging smile and she
said abruptly, like one deciding to take a plunge'that can
no longer be avoided.
‘On the night of . . . when it happened . . . there was some­
one in the lane . . . ’
She paused again and Dr. Pollard said, still with his air
of mild encouragement:
‘That’s the lane that runs round the back of the house.
It passes the Meadow Bank cottages and a farm or two and
then joins the high road near Mr. Markham’s place. Miss
Baird’s room overlooks it. I told Miss Baird it was absolutely
necessary the fact should be known even though it can’t
really be of any importance.’ A gesture he made seemed
to emphasize the absolute non-importance of what they had
come to tell. ‘Still, I was quite clear you had to know,’ he
added ‘though of course I thought then the whole affair
was in your hands.’
‘I saw Kenneth Benham there,’ Kate Baird said abruptly;
and Bell, watching her closely, told himself that she had
found the doctor’s well meant chatter almost unbearable,
that in another moment she would have screamed at him
to be silent— he was himself just a little inclined to sym­
pathize with her.
But Carter was sitting bolt upright and looking very
serious.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
Kate did not answer, but the little gesture that she made,
weary and contemptuous, seemed to say quite plainly that
unless she had been sure beyond all possibility of doubt she
78
 THE CLAPTON PRINTER 79
would not be there. Quiet and slow as was this gesture
of hers it even abashed Garter a little. Almost apologetically
he said :
‘You’ll be asked how it is you are sure.’
‘I know I shall,’ she answered as if admitting his excuse.
‘Yes.’ She was speaking very slowly and precisely now as if
she felt that unless she were careful the words she uttered
might slip out of her control. ‘He was striking a match to
light a cigarette, I suppose. I saw his face quite plainly.’
‘You would be ready to swear to that, if necessary?’
‘Yes.’
‘I suppose you were surprised to see him? He had left
the house some time before to return to the rectory?’
‘I didn’t think much about it. I wondered what he was
doing there. That is all.’
‘That’s very important,’ Carter declared again, ‘most
important. You saw him from the window of your room?’
‘At first I just saw a figure in the moonlight. I thought it
was one of the villagers going home late. Afterwards when
he struck a match I saw who it was.’
‘You haven’t said anything about this to anyone else?’
‘No. I just thought it was funny and then I forgot all
about it. I never thought of it again till-— till afterwards,
after what happened, I mean.’
‘Can you tell what time it was?’
‘Half-past eleven, I heard the church clock strike, I mean
when I saw who it was. I remember it struck twelve just
as I got into bed.’
‘Very interesting, very important,’ declared Carter. ‘Got
all that down, Bell? We must ’phone the Southdown people
at once. You won’t object to repeating to them what you
have told us?’
‘I suppose I must,’ she answered, ‘I should have gone to
them first only we thought you were in charge.’
‘Miss Baird,’ interposed Dr. Pollard again, ‘is very dis­
tressed at the thought that she may be throwing suspicion
on young Sir Kenneth— she doesn’ t suspect him for a
moment and I tell her no one does. Only there’s the fact
and it’s one I felt you ought to know. Because after all a
fact’s a fact.’
‘Exactly,’ said Carter, agreeing at once, ‘facts are facts,
8o GENIUS IN MURDER

that what I always say. And it’s facts that count. That’s
what I’m always saying to the sergeant here. Eh, Sergeant?
Facts. Give us the facts and then we know where we are.
Eh, Sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Bell, ‘except when we don’t,’ he added
in his saddest and also, luckily, his lowest voice, so that
Carter did not quite catch. He added more loudly : ‘Quite
a lot of facts in this case. But where are we with them
all?’
‘Oh, that’ll come,’ said Carter cheerfully.
‘I only wish the case was in your hands,’ repeated Dr.
Pollard with a certain emphasis, ‘I do indeed. O f course,
Morris is a very good man, very good man indeed, but still
he hasn’t the experience you have, has he ? can’t, you know,
the country isn’t London. And then this is such a remarkable
case— the body hidden where it was and I suppose the
actual murderer coming here, here of all places, masquerad­
ing as his own victim. I don’t know whether to call him a
genius in crime or a madman.’
‘Anyhow, genius or madman, I think he’ll hang,’ Bell
said slowly.
Dr. Pollard came across and shook hands with him
warmly.
‘Thank you for saying that,’ he exclaimed, ‘thank you, it’s
good to hear. I w onder. . is it indiscreet to ask . . . is there
any special reason why you say that?’
‘None, I’m afraid,’ interposed Carter instinctively claim­
ing his own right to be in the centre of the stage. ‘Sergeant
Bell is being a bit optimistic for once, that’s all.’
‘Except,’ explained Bell, ‘that the man behind all this is
so clever he’s bound to make mistakes. Clever people always
do, because they see so many more roads than the rest of
us, and sooner or later they are bound to choose the wrong
one. But a murderer can’t afford to do that, because that’s
when we get him.’
‘I see,’ said Pollard, looking rather puzzled. ‘Quite so—
you mean it’s easier to catch a clever criminal than a stupid
one.’
‘Gives more chances,’ said Bell.
‘I think I see what you mean,’ observed K ate slowly, ‘yes,
there’s that.’
 THE CLAPTON PRINTER 8l

‘Clever or stupid, we get ’em sooner or later,’ declared

Carter.
‘Glad to hear it,’ Pollard explained, and looked as if he
would like to shake hands with Carter now but then decided
not to, ‘But I can’t say they seem to be making much pro­
gress. They’ve been asking a lot of questions about Mr.
Ryder and Ryder’s a man of the highest standing, one of
the best-known men in the city, I’m told.’
‘Behind the new Crude Metals Merger, isn’t he ?’ Carter
asked carelessly, and was gratified to note how surprised and
impressed Dr. Pollard looked.
‘You knew that?’ the doctor said in rather awestruck
tones. ‘Well, it’s more than Morris did or any of his people
till I told them, and then they seemed quite excited, because
poor Sir Charles had put twenty thousand into Ryder’s
syndicate, but the only difference Sir Charles’s death makes
about that is that the executors are bound to call in the
money as soon as they oan, while Sir Charles could have
left it with Ryder as long as he liked— so that really my
poor friend’s death means to Ryder the death of a partner
and good backer, a loss, a very real loss indeed.’
‘It has ben put to us,’ Garter said, ‘that Sir Charles had
recently shown signs of great uneasiness and fear?’
‘Fear?’
‘Yes, there was something he was afraid of— frightened.’
‘By what?’ asked Pollard, opening his eyes to their
widest.
‘That is just what we want to know, it might be very
important if we did.’
‘I don’t see what there was he could be afraid of, what
could there be ?’ countered Pollard. ‘He had no enemies, he
had good health, no money troubles— the Crude Metals
Syndicate is promising so well it is quite likely his twenty
thousand will double or treble itself. A t least, so I’m told,
I’m not a business man myself. But that’s what the lawyers
tell me— Field and Farnham, of Lincoln’s Inn, Sir Charles’s
solicitors and executors with me. You can ask them yourself
if you like. I gather there’s some prospect of very big city
people indeed coming into it.’
‘I see,’ said Carter slowly. ‘Suppose Sir Charles had
threatened to withdraw his money?’
F
82 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘There’s not a hint of such a thing in any of his papers,

and then why should he ? why should any man draw out of
a good thing that’s promising to turn out even better than
expected? I understand from Mr. Field that at first it was
looked upon as rather a wildcat scheme, but that now plenty
of people wbuld jump at the chance of getting in. It seems
Ryder got complete control of Crude Metals Developments
which turns out to have some very valuable options on
patents or something— I don’t pretend to know what. Field
and Farnham have all the details. But you can take it as
certain that Sir Charles’s twenty thousand is more than safe
and that if he had wanted to withdraw it, Ryder could have
replaced the money in any one of half a dozen different
quarters— he might have had to give up some of his holding,
and I don’t suppose he wanted new people in as Sir Charles
was very much a sleeping partner. But that would be all.’
‘I see,’ said Carter again. ‘Anyhow, the case is in the
hands of the Southdown people. We can’t touch it.’
He sighed a little as he spoke, for the ‘Coffin Murder’ was
still very much a front-page sensation, and he was pleased
indeed when Dr. Pollard said warmly :
‘Well, that’s a great pity in my opinion.’
Then he and K ate Baird took their leave, and after that
there was a good deal to be done in the way of copying out
Miss Baird’s statement, writing a full report, communicating
with the Southdown police headquarters, and so on.
‘Interesting case,’ Carter said when at last they had
finished, or rather when he had finished, for he intended
to leave Bell to clear up— which is what sergeants and such
like are for. ‘Wish we had it— what gets me is the cheek
of the fellow who did it coming here the way he did and
passing himself off for the very man he had murdered.’
‘It’s cheek that always goes the furthest,’ Bell observed,
half to himself, and then added aloud : ‘Anyhow, we’ve this
other case to keep us busy.’
‘Oh, that woman, oh, there’s not much to that— inside
matter only, no front-page column there,’ declared Carter,
remembering how some of his journalistic friends classified
the affairs of this world— as they would have done those of
the next world had the occasion arisen.
But for Bell the death of the unknown woman of Notting
 THE CLAPTON PRINTER 83

Hill held an interest as acute as that the public found in the

‘Coffin Murder,’ as it was still called. His imagination, a
little slow but always strong, had fastened on the picture it
had shown him of her going from one public-house to
another in the effort to drown in brandy that had had no
effect on her a terror it seemed she had been too terrified
to tell.
‘Knew what was coming to her,’ Bell mused. ‘Looks like
she wanted to give that fellow away in the Park and when
it didn’t come off, thanks to Ryder blundering in, then she
was scared. Did she know anything about the Melton-
Miller pearls? but then why should that make her act the
way she did ? and why should she be so scared afterwards,
and were Ryder and young Kenneth Benham both there
both by accident?’
He shook his head with sad reproach at these questions
to which he knew no answer, and that night sat up late con­
sulting the directory by the aid of which he compiled a list
of all the jobbing printers in or near the Clapton district.
In the morning, having first secured the necessary permis­
sion, he busied himself paying visits to all the establishments
whose addresses he had noted.
A t each one he asked for an estimate for printing hand­
bills, commented on the bad state of trade, a subject on
which as he expected all became instantly eloquent, and,
talk thus happily started, went on to drop a casual inquiry
for a small, red-headed bow-legged man in the trade, whom
he said he had once known but of whom he had lost sight
recently.
His first impression, gathered from the first three or four
establishments he visited, was that printers, both masters
and men, were of every conceivable shape, size, and colour­
ing, save small, bow-legged and red-headed. But when
turning down a side street he found there the small and not
very prosperous-looking printer’s establishment whose
address was next on his list, he stood and stared in silence
for two or three minutes.
‘That’s funny,’ he muttered to himself at last, ‘that’s very
funny.’
For the name above the shop was certainly ‘John Smith’
as given in the directory, but below it appeared in smaller
84 GENIUS IN MURDER

letters ‘late Charles Codrington & Co.’— and there came to

Bell the memory that Codrington was the name of the
fourth guest at the dinner at Benham House on the night of
the murder, the young man in whom not much interest had
been taken because it had been reported that he had left
early.
‘Is that another coincidence?’ he mused. ‘There are as
many coincidences in this thing as there are fools at a grey­
hound racing meeting— is it coincidence or is it something
more?’
He entered the shop, and he was not altogether surprised
when there came forward to meet him a small, bow-legged
man with flaming red hair.
 C h a p t e r 12

STOCK CERTIFICATES
‘A b o u t an estimate for handbills,’ Bell began, sniffing an
air which with the approach of the little bow-legged man
had become odorous with brandy. ‘And that’s yet another
coincidence,’ he mused. ‘How many coincidences does it
take to make a water-tight case ?’ he asked himself.
Leaving this conundrum unanswered, he hesitated
whether to continue his tactics of indirect approach or to try
the effect of a shock attack by asking at once what this
man knew of the woman in whose company he had been
seen.
That, Bell felt, was what Carter would have done at once
and very likely with success. Phillips would have begun like
that, too, severe and threatening, and then would all at
once have changed to softest, silkiest persuasion in that
effective way of his. But there was a certain obstinacy about
the little man’s chin, a certain air of cunning, too, in his
sharp little eyes that suggested he might be one of those who
take refuge in the mulish ‘don’t know, don’t remember’
against which the most expert cross-examination often fails.
Besides there was that smell of brandy in the air that
troubled Bell so sorely with its reminiscence of the woman
whose murder he was investigating. He decided instantly,
for these reflections had passed through his mind in the
fraction of a second, that prudence and caution were best,
and the little printer asked :
‘How many would you be wanting?’
‘About ten thousand,’ Bell replied largely and added :
‘You aren’t Mr. Codrington, are you?’
‘What about it?’ the other demanded, ‘my name’s Smith,
Codrington’s been gone years.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Bell. ‘There’s some rather special print­
ing I want done. I was told Mr. Codrington could manage
better than anyone else.’
‘Th at’s right,’ declared Mr. Smith. ‘What you mean is
85
86 GENIUS IN MURDER

the Codrington process. Ask anyone in the trade— turned

it down now so as to save a bob or two . . . cheapness , . .
that’s all they think of and the Codrington’s cheaper, too, in
the long run. But first cost is all anyone thinks about.’
‘I daresay it’s the Codrington process I heard about,’
observed Bell. ‘It’s for a rather swanky menu card,’ he
added, remembering that was the order Mr. Smith had
apparently tried to secure in the Notting Hill public-
house.
‘Oh, that’s my new process,’ Mr. Smith exclaimed at once,
‘that’s secret, that is, but the best on the market. No more
patents for me, I had enough of that with Codrington, that
was my process, too, but he put the patent through, worth
nothing now, of course.’
Bell dropped a discreet inquiry as to the whereabouts of
this Mr. Codrington and was sorry he had done so, so
marked was the glare of suspicion with which Mr. Smith
greeted the question.
‘Dead these many years,’ he declared. ‘W hat do you want
to know that for ?’
‘Well, you see,’ Bell explained, ‘I don’t want to give this
job of mine to anyone who couldn’t tackle it.’
Mr. Smith fairly bristled.
‘Funny job I couldn’t tackle,’ he snarled. ‘Look here.’
He went to his desk and produced a big book full of
specimens of what indeed seemed very excellent work. Bell,
though anything but a typographical expert, thought them
very good, and proceeded to make rather deprecatory
remarks about most of them, reducing the little man thereby
to a state of quite unsuppressed fury.
‘Perhaps you don’t think much of that either,’ he snarled,
and opening a locked drawer produced an elaborate and
skilfully executed stock certificate to the value of a thousand
pounds in the Crude Metals Development Corporation.
It bore of course no signatures and it was plainly marked
‘prooP and at it Bell stared long and thoughtfully. ‘Crude
Metals Development Corporation,’ he thought to himself;
‘didn’t Pollard say something about Ryder having control
of that? Another coincidence? another little bit to fit into
the jig-saw ? if only we knew what pattern to work to.’
‘Good bit of work, eh ?’ asked the little printer.
 STOCK CERTIFICATES 87

‘Oh, all right,’ agreed Bell with marked lack of enthu­

siasm; ‘but only a very small job, eh?’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ demanded Mr. Smith
angrily; ‘small or big, it’s good, isn’t it? Besides, there was
two fifty of them I did, and that’s not so small, seeing the
quality of the work.’
Bell yawned, as still unimpressed, then drew a bow at a
venture.
‘Big man, Mr. Ryder,’ he said, ‘I daresay Mr. Ryder paid
a good price?’
‘Good work and a good price go together,’ retorted Mr.
Smith, ‘but I don’t say I should charge you as much as I did
him. That was a special job in a way of speaking.’ He
paused, blinked, and then with a sudden change ofimanner :
‘Who said anything about Mr. Ryder?’ he demanded,
‘I thought you did, wasn’t that the name ?’ Bell answered
innocently; and when he had talked a little more he went
away, making the grim and two-edged promise that Mr.
Smith might depend on hearing of him again.
There was a telephone box near, and Bell went to it and
rang up a city firm, Hamilton Wimpole & Co., from whom
he knew he would receive any assistance they could give.
‘Issued capital of Crude Metals Development Corpora­
tion ?’ came the voice of Sir Hamilton Wimpole himself over
the line. ‘£50,000, I believe. Yes, a private corporation, I
don’t know any details, though I could find out, I daresay.
But I know it is said to have valuable assets, and I believe
it’s been taken over recently as the base for the Crude Metals
Merger that is being formed— outside our line, so I don’t
know much about it, a bit of a gamble, I should say, but
likely to turn out weU. Oh, yes, the assets are certainly
valuable, unless they’ve been mortgaged or anything like
t ha t . . . certainly, anyone would take the stock as good
security for a loan, up to two-thirds value, I should s a y . . .
oh, no trouble at all, always glad to give you any
information.’
Bell hung up the receiver and paid a visit to the local
police station.
There it seemed they knew Mr. Smith but had nothing
definite against him.
‘Some years ago there was some suspicion of his being
88 GENIUS IN MURDER

mixed up in those big Bank of England forgeries— it was

thought some of the work had been done in his shop,’ the
local Inspector said. ‘But nothing could be proved. He put
the blame on his partner, a man named Codrington, but it
was a bit doubtful whether he wasn’t Codrington himself.
Now he says Codrington’s dead and he’s bought the busi­
ness. Anyhow there’s never been anything else against him.’
Bell thanked the Inspector for the information given him
and then made his way back to headquarters.
‘Suspected of forgery once,’ he mused, ‘and now he’s been
printing two hundred and fifty one-thousand-pound certifi­
cates of stock in a company of which the capital is only fifty
thousand. Another little bit that wants fitting into the jig­
saw. And the printing was done to the order of Ryder. W hy
is Ryder always turning up? And the man who did the
printing has been seen in the company of the woman who
apparently wanted to get arrested in Hyde Park a man who
was saved by Ryder’s interference, which affair was wit­
nessed by Kenneth Benham, now said to have been seen in
the lane near Benham House about the time his uncle was
murdered and whose evidence saved Mr. Ryder from having
to appear in the police court. Also the printer, now named
Smith, is suspected of having Codrington for his real name,
and Codrington is the name of a young man also present at
Benham House on the night of the murder. And Mr. Smith
alias Codrington has been drinking brandy rather freely—
is he scared, too ?’
A t this point in his cogitations he stood still, and stared
so fiercely at a small child advancing to ask him the right
time that he was saved answering that perennial question,
the small child deciding it would be safer to demand of an
approaching policeman to be seen safely across the road.
‘This isn’t a case,’ Bell decided finally, ‘it’s a nightmare.’
And that was an opinion both Phillips and Carter seemed
to share when Bell made his report.
‘To my mind,’ declared Carter finally, ‘one thing’s plain
— this printer, Smith or Codrington or whatever his name
is, knows something. Plow would it be if I went down there
and put him through it. I think I can undertake to make
him tell anything he knows. If you approve, sir,’ he said to
Phillips, ‘I’ll go at once.’
 STOCK CERTIFICATES 89
Phillips nodded.
‘ I think I’ll come with you,’ he said. ‘This may turn out
important.’
‘That’ll be fine, sir,’ exclaimed Carter with an enthusiasm
he did not altogether feel, for he thought the trail sounded
promising, and he knew that by discipline and regulation
all credit in every investigation always goes to the senior
officer present.
‘Groping in the dark, we are,’ Phillips said, ‘but it looks
as if we were groping round something. Only I don’t quite
see how I can spare time this afternoon— these Melton-
M iller pearls are keeping me on the run all right.’
Carter brightened up, hoping that perhaps Phillips would
decide after all not to accompany him, and Bell uttered the
mild and deprecatory cough that befits sergeants in the
presence of superintendents and inspectors.
‘I noticed he had been drinking brandy rather freely,
sir,’ he said when Phillips looked at him. ‘So had the woman
he was seen with.’
Phillips hesitated.
‘You don’t think----- ’ he began and paused.
‘Oh, no, sir,’ protested Bell, who never admitted to think­
ing if he could help it, ‘I only meant I just wondered if it
might be as well to ask the sub-divisional Inspector to have
an eye kept on Smith. Got enough to do,’ said Bell moodily,
‘without another murder on our hands.’
‘Oh, come,’ protested Carter, ‘that’s not likely— what
should anyone want to do him in for? More likely it was
he did in the woman, jealous or something, and he’s been
drinking to forget.’
‘Yes, sir, it may be that,’ agreed Bell with his usual
meekness.
‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you,’
declared Phillips, but all the same he looked startled and
uneasy, and Bell admitted sadly that that was the worst
of imagination, it did run away with you.
‘Well, I’ll make time this afternoon,’ declared Phillips,
and from their expedition he and Carter returned rather
bad-tempered and disappointed.
The little printer, as Bell had suspected he might do, had
taken refuge in the ‘don’t know’, ‘can’t say’, ‘don’t re­
go GENIUS IN MURDER

member’ that is the impregnable defence of the witness with

self-control enough to remain within its limits. He even
denied remembering speaking to any woman in particular.
When he was in a public-house— and he liked his drink, he
admitted, though the most sober of men— he often passed a
word or two with anyone else who happened to be there.
Probably that might have happened that evening, he ‘didn’t
know’, he ‘couldn’t say’, he ‘didn’t remember’. But he was
quite clear that he knew nothing of the woman they were
asking about and had no information to give them.
‘Lying all right he was,’ Garter told Bell after Phillips had
started out again on some fresh business connected with the
missing Melton-Miller pearls, ‘of course he was lying, and
Phillips is putting a man on to watch to see what he can find
out and also to make sure nothing happens— not that that’s
likely.’
‘No, sir,’ agreed Bell. ‘I just came in to say M ajor Morris
is here and wants to see you,’ he added. ‘Seems he wants to
thank us for sending on Miss Baird’s statement so promptly,
only he says it’s all humbug.’
‘Humbug?’
‘So he says, says she’s lying,’ Bell answered. ‘Bit more
nightmare,’ he added with one of his sad little sighs.
 Chapter 13

FALSE WITNESS
‘Y e s / declared M ajor Morris, comfortably ensconced in
the same armchair which K ate Baird had occupied when
she told her story, ‘there’s no doubt about that at all.
Her story is invented. It is quite impossible for anyone
from her bedroom window to see anyone standing in the
lane, quite impossible.’
‘Well, now/ said Carter, ‘I didn’t think, I really didn’t
think, it was possible for anyone to surprise us here, seeing
what we have to deal with every day, but that is a stag­
gerer, a real facer.’ He paused and looked at the head of
the Southdown police with a kind of admiration, as at
one highly privileged among men since to him it had been
granted to achieve the rare feat of surprising Scotland
Yard. ‘Yes, I am surprised this time/ he admitted frankly.
‘What about you, Sergeant, bit of a facer for us, eh?’
Bell was looking not so much surprised as worried.
‘It’s more than a facer/ he admitted however in his
turn. ‘She didn’t tell her tale like a liar, either, seemed
unwilling rather, while a liar is generally fluent and
eager, knows the yarn he’s going to tell and is anxious to
get it off his chest. No/ he said again, ‘I should never
have thought she was lying/
‘Phillips will be surprised, too. And the Assist. Com-
mish,/ Carter went on, regarding the M ajor almost with
awe as one who had accomplished there an unpre­
cedented feat.
‘There’s a fairly high hedge along that lane/ M ajor
Morris went on. ‘Even in the day time you couldn’t see
much more than that someone was passing along it. To
recognize anyone at night time from the bedroom by the
light of a match struck to start a cigarette with— quite out
of the question. As soon as we got your message over the
’phone we went out and tried the experiment and that’s
the conclusion we came to.’
9i
92 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Means,’ declared Carter with emphasis, ‘that she’s

trying to shield someone. W ho?’
He paused and looked round as if demanding a reply
neither of the other two felt able to give.
‘Well, that’s the way I see it,’ Carter announced again.
‘Unless,’ observed M ajor Morris, ‘she did it herself and
it’s herself she’s shielding.’
‘There’s that,’ agreed Carter. ‘Herself or someone she
knows. That’s logic. Logic, Bell, that is, eh?’
‘Trouble with logic,’ sighed Bell, ‘is that it is logic and
isn’t human nature. No logic in human nature. Some­
how I can’t get it into my head that that girl was lying.’
‘Well, she was, that’s certain,’ repeated the Major.
‘Though,’ he added generously, ‘I know it’s always hard
to believe a pretty girl’s lying to you— trade on that,
some of them do, though some of ’em, and the prettiest,
could give Ananias eighty yards in a hundred and a beat­
ing. But you can’t go against physical impossibilities, and
it’s simply a physical impossibility for anyone at night,
from that room, to recognize anybody passing in the lane
or even to see anyone there. And that’s that.’
‘Well, of course, if that’s t ha t . . . ’ admitted Bell, re­
cognizing a formula to which there is no reply.
‘Question is, who’s she shielding?’ Carter pointed out.
‘That’s the important point— herself or someone else?’
‘I don’t quite see,’ remarked Morris, ‘how she can have
carried out a thing like that by herself.’
‘Physical impossibility,’ murmured Bell, ‘and that’s
that. No girl, even of her build, could have carried the body
from the house to the vault without help.’
‘Which means,’ said Morris, ‘there’s someone else in it,
someone she’s shielding. Who? The only men known to
have been there that night are Mr. Ryder, and she and he
never seem to have had much to do with each other, and
two young men, Kenneth Benham himself, and Mr.
Codrington— and he left immediately after the dinner.’
‘Made any inquiries about him ?’ asked Carter negligently.
‘Yes. Half-commission man as they call it on the Stock
Exchange. Sir Charles seems to have met him in the city,
liked him, done business with him, and asked him to the
house. Then he took to spending his week-ends at the
 FALSE WITNESS 93
Benham Royal Arms Hotel, for golf. A t one time the
servants thought there was something between him and Miss
Baird.’
‘Then he’s your man,’ cried Carter, ‘ten to one he’s your
man.’
‘We’ve thought of that,’ said the Major, looking worried
again. ‘But where’s the motive? Though that’s been our
difficulty all along— no motive apparent why anyone should
want to murder Sir Charles. He had no enemies, no com­
plications in his life, his death no benefit to anyone.’
‘Kenneth Benham says he had seemed afraid,’ Bell put in.
‘We’ve tried to follow that up. It leads nowhere and
there’s only his word for it, no one else seems to have noticed
it; quite likely it is only young Benham’s imagination—
after the event. O f course, there’s the quarrel between him
and his uncle, but that doesn’t seem to have been very
serious, they parted on good terms that night.’
‘That might be a blind on Kenneth’s part,’ observed
Carter, who had been thinking profoundly, ‘I wonder—
women are a queer lot.’ He paused, hesitated and corrected
himself. ‘Feminine psychology shows itself in unexpected
ways,’ he said. ‘Could it be that Miss Baird has some reason
she doesn’t want to state for believing Kenneth Benham
guilty and has invented this story to draw attention to him ?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ admitted the Major, considering it. ‘If
so, and we seem to be doing nothing, she may come forward
again. We have made inquiries about young Codrington
and he seems to have a good alibi as it is certain he spent
the night at his flat— at any rate there is evidence he was in
bed there in the morning when his usual cup of tea was
taken to him. And it seems certain that the murderer spent
the night at Benham House since someone was heard leaving
with the car in the early morning. Another point is that it
can’t have been Codrington who called here masquerading
as Sir Charles. For one thing Codrington is a small man of
slight build and for another there is evidence he spent the
day at his office.’
‘There’s a fresh point,’ Carter observed, and told how
the name of the predecessor of Mr. Smith in the printing
business was also Codrington. ‘O f course, that may only be
a coincidence,’ he admitted.
94 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘O ur Codrington is young and he isn’t bow-legged or red­

headed or a printer,’ M ajor Morris pointed out. ‘Only a
coincidence, I think.’
‘Coincidences, in this case,’ sighed Bell from the back­
ground, ‘are as common as are losing tickets in a sweep­
stake:’
M ajor Morris agreed that they were, and presently, look­
ing very worried, took his leave.
‘Difficult case, this “Coffin Murder” ,’ Carter commented.
‘Almost glad we aren’ t handling it.’
‘Sometimes I almost wonder what case we are handling,’
sighed Bell. ‘The “ Coffin Murder” or the loss of Lady
Melton-Miller pearls, or the death of the Notting Hill
woman, or the Hyde Park affair, or this printer chap. The
moment you touch one you seem to be switched on to
another, and yet where’s the connection?’
‘Time Phillips was back,’ commented Carter. ‘Wonder
what luck he’s had?’
And when the Superintendent did return, he seemed in
a much better temper.
‘Gave Lady Melton-Miller the go-by,’ he said cheerfully.
‘ ’Phoned her we had a clue that needed following up— only
have to say “clue” to people and they eat out of your hand.
The Assist. Commish. was so interested in what I told him
about that printer fellow that he thought he would like to
see him himself, and we went off there together. O f course,
Smith wouldn’t say anything, knows too much and that
proves he knows more than he ought. But what do you
think ?’
Neither Carter nor Bell seemed able to think at all.
‘We found,’ said Phillips impressively, ‘that he had burnt
that proof of the Crude Metals Corporation stock certifi­
cate. Looks as though there were something fishy about
that, eh ?’
‘So it does, sir,’ agreed Carter. ‘I spotted that from the
first.’
‘Looks,’ said Bell, a little anxiously, ‘as if he had spotted
we thought so.’
‘That’s quite immaterial,’ declared Phillips. ‘If he tries to
bolt, we get him. If Ryder’s in it, as I’m beginning to think,
and he bolts we get him. All precautions taken. O f course
 FALSE WITNESS 95
I wish myself,’ he added, surveying Bell sternly, ‘you had
managed to get possession of that proof when he showed it
you.’
‘No authority to seize it,’ Bell ventured to point out.
‘I’m not talking of authority, I’m talking of initiative,’
commented Phillips still more severely. ‘That’s the way to
win promotion,’ he said, and then went on to C arter: ‘O f
course, it’s not important, nothing in a proof, you can’t
show a jury a proof and the Assist. Commish. is going to
have a chat with the Commissioner himself to-morrow. It’s
a queer business, and if it means that Ryder has been getting
this man to print duplicate stock certificates on which he
has been raising money— which is what the Assist. Com­
mish. thinks and what I think, too----- ’
‘So do I,’ declared Carter, and Bell said nothing at all but
only looked rather more worried than usual.
‘Then if that’s so,’ Phillips continued, ‘it’s quite on the
cards that we’ve unearthed about the biggest city scandal
there’s been for years. Ryder could easily raise £30,000 on
the strength of depositing stock certificates, giving control
of Crude Metals Corporation, in each of half a dozen
different quarters— from all the five big banks in turn
possibly. It’ll have to be done very tactfully for the big
banks are very touchy about their business dealings, but
it’ll make them sit up a bit if we can show that they have
all made a big loan on the same security, and it’ll be some­
thing for poor old Scotland Yard to have found that out for
them before they had a hint of a suspicion themselves.’
Phillips closed his eyes for a moment in almost ecstatic
contemplation of the surprise, the admiration, the gratitude
of the great banks, he was sure they could not help ex­
pressing when they found how carefully they had been
protected.
‘Only----- ’ began Bell, still uneasy and paused, waiting
for an encouragement to continue that did not come.
‘Only what?’ snapped Phillips.
‘Oh, trust Sergeant Bell,’ laughed Carter, ‘for seeing diffi­
culties in the way.’
‘Well, what are they?’ Phillips asked. ‘Cheer up, my lad,
and look gay for once. I tell you we are on the biggest
thing ever— biggest financial swindle of recent years un­
96 GENIUS IN MURDER

covered by slow old Scotland Yard before the smart city

folk had an idea anything was wrong.’
‘Something for the Press to chew on, that,’ declared
Carter, chuckling in his turn.
‘Stop ’em wanting to know what’s being done about this
and that,’ agreed Phillips. ‘Luckily they can’t get on to us
about the “Coffin Murder” -—nothing to do with us and I’m
not sorry for it, either. And luckily they are taking no
interest in that Notting Hill case. But I’m afraid the Melton-
Miller pearls will be in the papers in a day or two and we
haven’t much to show there yet.’
‘Once we’ve brought off this city coup,’ Carter repeated,
‘they’ll be too busy handing us bouquets to think of anything
else.’
 C h a p te r 14

THE WORST OF BLUNDERS

F or the next day or two both Superintendent Phillips and
Chief Inspector Carter lived in a state of high expectation.
The Assistant Commissioner himself had the matter in
hand, and the discreet, confidential inquiries he was making
were proving of the most remarkable interest. For the
information he had been able to secure seemed to make it
certain that the stock certificates representing the capital
of Crude Metals Corporation had been pledged in at least
seven, and probably eight different quarters, and that in all
these cases but one the certificates must have been forged
to Mr. Ryder’s orders seemed equally certain. What that
meant was that at least seven important London banks had
advanced between twenty and forty thousand pounds each
on the security of what was practically waste paper.
‘And there’s not one of these city innocents,’ said Phillips
smilingly to Carter, ‘seems to have the faintest idea that
there’s anything wrong— I daresay none of them ever even
looked at the certificates, got ’em from Ryder, that was
good enough, and a clerk was told to tuck ’em away in the
strong-room. It’ll be a bit of an eye-opener for them when
the Assist. Commish. goes the rounds to-morrow to tell them
how they’ve been taken in.’
‘Is it for to-morrow?’ asked Carter, mildly envious of the
superb place in the limelight the Assistant Commissioner
would enjoy, calling thus on half the important financial
houses in London to explain to them the error of their ways.
‘To-morrow for certain,’ Phillips told him. ‘All the facts
in our hands now— and evidently neither Ryder nor the
printer fellow, Smith or Codrington or whatever his real
name is, has any idea of what’s on, for they both seem quite
tranquil. I’m wondering a good deal myself if Ryder has
given one bank all genuine stock certificates and all the
others all forged stuff, or if he’s mixed ’em. If he has done
the first, one of the banks is all right— only, which one? If
o 97
98 GENIUS IN MURDER

he’s mixed forged and genuine, there’ll be a bit of a legal

dog-fight I suppose.’
‘Interesting to see how it turns out,’ Carter agreed. ‘Bell’s
got it into his head there is some connection between this
and the “ Coffin Murder” case. I told him that was for the
Southdown people to worry put.’
‘Don’t see how there can be,’ pronounced Phillips. ‘Why
should the fact that Ryder had raised money on forged
stock certificates make him want to murder anyone ? I know
it’s funny our inquiry into the Notting Hill case should
have got us no further forward with that case, but led us
instead to this affair, very funny indeed. All the same, it’s
fairly certain Ryder spent the night of the “Coffin Murder”
business in his own bed. The trouble with that case is we’ve
got to find someone who stopped all night in the house—
what a nerve, eh?— and who was free next day to mas­
querade as Sir Charles. And that couldn’t have been Ryder,
he couldn’t possibly have turned up at his own office dis­
guised. Or could he?’ he added with a passing shade of
doubt in his voice.
The next day both Phillips and Carter made a point of
being occupied with office work, so as to be on the spot when
the Assistant Commissioner returned from his triumphant
round of visits that was to show the big financial interests
how well they were looked after and protected.
Indeed, both the Superintendent and the Chief Inspector
were quite excited, and during the day they paid each other
several visits to chuckle together over the kudos that would
accrue to the service from such a brilliant and spectacular
piece of investigation as that now being brought to a head
by the Assistant Commissioner’s visits to the different banks
concerned. They were thus happily engaged in Phillips’s
room when Bell returned from the errand on which he had
been dispatched— as much to keep him busy and out of the
way during these exciting hours as for any other reason. It
was to Somerset House he had been sent and he reported
that he had there examined young Codrington’s birth cer­
tificate, which described him as the son of Ronald
Codrington, printer, of the address in Clapton where now
Mr. Smith carried on business.
‘Proves,’ said Carter, interested, ‘that there really was
 THE WORST OF BLUNDERS 99

a Codrington who was a printer there. That’s something to

know, anyhow.’
Bell looked as if he wanted to make some remark but
Phillips wasn’t bothering his head about young Codrington
or his birth certificate. It was the coming triumph over the
City that occupied his thoughts.
‘All right, Bell, that’ll do,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You can
make a note of it in case the information proves useful. You
know,’ he went on to Carter, ‘what I like about this is that
not one of all these city fellows has the ghost of an idea
there’s a-thing wrong. Then we pop up and not only tell
them they’ve been swindled and how and when, but that we
know who did it and can lay hands on him any moment.’
‘Be something to set off against the Melton-Miller pearls,’
observed Carter, ‘if Melton-Miller tries to make the Press
turn nasty about our not having spotted the thief or got the
pearls back yet.’
‘Pie’ll do his best,’ said Phillips, ‘or his worst rather. He
cut up very rough with some of our people last night, I
believe. Said we seemed all asleep and there’s one or two
M.P.s he seems to think he’s got in his pocket he may get
to put a question in the House.’
‘Will he, though?’ exclaimed Carter, a little pale, for it is
a feature of the British Constitution that for some reason
or other a question in the House is almost like a letter in
The Times in its earth- and empire-shaking effects.
‘Told us he would put pressure on the Home Office to
have the whole department reorganized,’ added Phillips, a
little uneasily, and Carter looked grave, but also hopeful, for
the complete reorganization of the department might just
possibly mean a vacant superintendency or two a chief
inspector with a good record might easily be asked to fill.
‘Seems he’s a man with a big pull on the Press,’ he
remarked.
‘S o ' it’s just as well,’ declared Phillips, ‘we’ve got this
Ryder case card to play if he tries to be nasty about his
pearls— hullo, is that the Assist. Commish. back again?’
It was, arid a moment later that dignitary put his head in
at the door.
‘I want you,’ he said to Phillips in a tone of thunder, and
disappeared.
I OO GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Something gone wrong,’ said Garter, while Phillips stood

and stared aghast.
Then he gave Carter a look that made the Chief Inspector
fairly jump and fled, to return half an hour later, a broken
man.
‘Ryder’s got ahead of us,’ he said simply; ‘he’s done us
down.’
‘E h?’ said Carter, ‘why? how?’
‘Went round to ’em all yesterday,’ explained Phillips,
‘paid off every loan and collected all the stock he had given
as security.’
‘Good Lord,’ gasped Carter.
‘Who cares now whether it was forged or whether it
wasn’t?’ asked Phillips bitterly.
‘B u t.. . b u t. . . ’ stammered Carter, blinking both eyes
rapidly, ‘but where did he get the money from?’
‘W hat does that matter so long as he got it?’ demanded
Phillips. ‘Don’t talk like a fool.’ But he said this without
energy or venom, for indeed the Assistant Commissioner had
used up so much of both those qualities while talking to
Phillips that it is no wonder Phillips had none left to use
himself. ‘It seems he’s raked in Da Costa’s, the big financiers,
really big people, you know, unlimited resources, highest
reputation. They’re taking over the Crude Metals Merger
into their own hands. They provide Ryder with a quarter
of a million to cover preliminary expenses and he becomes
a salaried director with a commission on results. That means
he gives up control, and his chance of big money, but he
makes sure of the thing succeeding; he gets a snug berth,
he stands in with a first-class finance house— and he gets
the ready money he needs to redeem the forged stock before
there’s any chance of trouble.’
‘Must have got wind we were on his track,’ mused Carter,
‘and instead of bolting he’s simply planked down a trump
card and gone to earth with D a Costa’s.’
‘We can’t touch him,’ groaned Phillips. ‘It’s a complete
wash-out.’
‘I suppose,’ sighed Carter, ‘that’s what Bell meant. I
thought he had something on his mind from the hints he
dropped— you remember, sir, when he heard that the proof
of the certificate had been burned?’
 THE WORST OF BLUNDERS IOI

‘No, I don’t,’ snapped Phillips, ‘but if he suspected any­

thing why didn’t he say so? Who can tell what a hint
means? Dereliction of duty almost. Tell him I want him,’
growled Phillips formidably, ‘as soon as he gets back.’
The prospect of a scapegoat thus presented made him look
more cheerful for a moment; and then a scared and hurried
messenger arrived to say that Mr. Phillips was wanted
immediately in the Assistant Commissioner’s room. It was
some time before he came back, and when he did he was
pale and quiet and subdued; even the thought of finding
a scapegoat no longer availed to cheer him, the situation
had gone beyond that.
‘It was Mr. Ryder himself on the ’phone,’ he said. ‘I had
to do the talking; the Assist. Commish. told me to try to
smooth him down; might as well have tried to smooth down
a thunderstorm in a fit. He had got word of our inquiries,
wanted to know what we meant by it; he’s going to raise
Cain about it.’
‘He can’t do much,’ protested Carter. ‘He couldn’t face
any inquiry, there’s no doubt the certificates were forged.
He’s only bluffing; we must bluff back, that’s all.’
Phillips looked wearily at the Inspector.
‘There’s times,’ he said, ‘when you make me think you
can’t see the nose on your face,’ and Carter fairly squinted
in his instinctive desire to show he could. ‘He can fix up
some story as easy as buttering hot toast— all he’s got to say
is that the capital was increased in view of the approaching
connection with Da Costa’s— or some yarn like that. How
can you persuade a British jury there was fraud when every
penny’s been paid? No deficiency, no fraud, that’s simple.
Talks about a libel action— and Da Costa’s will have to
back him for their own sakes now he’s in with them. Talks
about seeing the Home Secretary and lodging a complaint
with him personally— talks about all sorts of things he’s
going to do. Oh, we’re in for trouble, I can tell you that.
Just think how it will look. Important financial operations
on foot. We come blundering in with accusations of fraud. I
tell you, Carter, there’s going to be a howl raised
that’ll----- Unless we can smooth Ryder down, and he
didn’t sound like being smoothed. Thank God, they can sack
us, but they can’t take our pension away, that’s something.’
102 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Is it as bad as that?’ asked Carter, his knees so weak he

had to sit down.
‘Worse,’ said Phillips sombrely.
‘M y God,’ groaned Carter.
‘He said he would come round,’ Phillips went on in tones
of sadness and despair, ‘to hear what we had to say before
he went on to the Home Office.’
‘The Home Office,’ repeated Carter, really scared now.
‘Oh, we’re for it all right,’ Phillips told him gloomily.
‘The Home Office will throw us over at once— bound to.
Very likely the lot of us will— go,’ said Phillips with a sweep
of the arm to indicate how far and how thoroughly they
might expect to— go.
 Chapter 15

THE THIRD TIME

B ut the slow hours dragged on their apprehensive length
and still there was no sign of Mr. Ryder. He was coming,
that was understood, but apparently he was in no hurry.
Apparently he was content that Scotland Yard should, so
to speak, sit and cower and wait his good pleasure. The
Assistant Commissioner, a man of infinite resource, was
called away on an errand so pressing that even the Com­
missioner himself had to admit its urgency. Before he went
the Assistant Commissioner gave Phillips careful instructions
how he was to ‘handle’— the Assistant Commissioner’s own
word:—Mr. Ryder when that gentleman appeared, and
afterwards Phillips went to confide in Chief Inspector
Carter.
‘Funked it,’ said Phillips with an extreme of bitterness
cold print can give no hint of; ‘funked it, he has, and left
me to it.’
‘It’s going to be difficult,’ admitted Carter, for once in
his life cheerfully acquiescent in the fact that his seat in the
forthcoming performance would be quite in the back row.
‘Think so?’ askfed Phillips, who was not often ironic, but
when he was, was so very tremendously.
Carter said nothing. That was prudent. Phillips walked
over to the window. It was dark now and he stood there,
gazing blankly out at a darkness that was as nothing to the
darkness that filled his soul. The door opened suddenly and
Sergeant Bell came in, not as sergeants should enter rooms
where superintendents and chief inspectors sit, but suddenly,
abruptly, even violently.
‘Ryder----- ’ he began and paused.
‘There, is he?’ asked Phillips.
‘He’s there . . . his car . . . he’s there. . . dead . . . he’s there
in his car, dead and murdered,’ Bell said, or rather panted,
for even he, whom few things ever moved, was shaken
beyond all recognition.
103
IO4 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘W hat?’ said Phillips, quite disbelieving his own ears.

•What?’
‘He’s mad,’ said Carter, staring at Bell, ‘mad . . . drunk. . .
mad.’
Bell sat down heavily and wiped his forehead with his
handkerchief.
‘I think I shall be soon,’ he said slowly, ‘if this case goes
on like this much longer.’
‘But what do you mean ?’ demanded Phillips. ‘What car ?
where? Who’s there? who’s dead?’
‘Ryder,’ repeated Bell and then he said : ‘Go and look for
yourself, sir . . . I put men to see the car wasn’t touched . . .
it’s there and Ryder’s in i t . . . dead . . . murdered . . .
strangled.’
Somehow it was this last word that made Phillips, that
made Carter, realize that Bell was telling them nothing but
the bare and simple fact.
‘Strangled ?’ Phillips repeated, and the word came from
him in a whisper.
‘Strangled ?’ repeated Carter, like a soft and sinister echo
from very far away.
‘The third, he’s the third,’ said Bell.
Then they were all silent and they looked at each other,
and the silence that lay between them! was as though it
were full of strange and dreadful shadows. It was
Carter who spoke the first, Carter who made the first effort
to throw off this obsession they were all conscious
of.
‘You mean Ryder’s been murdered?’ he asked avoiding
though unconsciously, the word ‘strangled.’ ‘You mean his
body’s in a car down there at the door ? well, who brought
it here?’ .
‘God knows,’ said Bell. He added : ‘I suppose when we
know that we shall know who murdered him.’
‘Can’t you talk sense?’ demanded Carter irritably; ‘what
I mean is who brought the car here, who drove it ? if Ryder
was dead inside, who was driving it?’
‘There’s no talking sense in this affair,’ Bell answered,
‘because there’s no sense in it. All I know is that the car was
seen to drive up and stop outside here and when the door
was opened no one was there but Ryder lying on the floor
 THE THIRD TIME IO5

dead and strangled with a length of blind-cord tight round

his throat.’
‘But,’ stammered Carter, ‘but— hang it all, man, someone
must have driven the car.’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Bell, ‘and Ryder couldn’t— not with that
blind-cord round his throat the way it was. But there was
no sign of anyone else. Better come and see for yourself,
sir,’ he added to Phillips. ‘I told them to take care nothing
was touched till you got down.’
Phillips looked almost helplessly at Carter and Carter
looked back almost as helplessly. Both of them wished to
believe Bell either mad or drunk, only they knew he wasn’t,
and to assure themselves that so incredible a thing could
not have happened, only they knew it had.
‘Come and see for yourselves,’ Bell repeated, finding it
quite natural that they could hardly grasp or believe what
he had told them. ‘I had just got back from Clapton. I
stopped as I came in to pass a word with a man I saw. I
heard a car draw up. It struck me that perhaps it might be
Mr. Ryder. Fuller was on duty at the door. A t the moment
he was talking to a lady who had asked him something—
she had lost her umbrella, and she wouldn’t believe lost
umbrellas weren’t kept here, and he was trying to tell her
how to get to Lambeth Road. When he got rid of her he saw
the car still standing there, and no one getting out, so he
opened the door, Ryder was lying on the floor. He was quite
dead and a length of blind-cord was knotted round his neck
. . . drawn tight.’
‘Someone kills a man and then delivers us the body?’
Phillips asked. ‘You want us to believe that?’ and then quite
suddenly, as if realizing all at once that he had to believe
it, he rushed from the room, followed as swiftly both by
Carter and Bell.
Down below, guarded by two or three constables, stood
the car. On the floor between the driver’s seat and the
steering-wheel, lay the huddled body of what once had been
a man. A doctor, hurriedly summoned, was bending over
it, though no expert was needed to read the tale told by
those swollen and distorted features.
‘Expert job,’ said the doctor, straightening himself, ‘the
man who did that knew how.’
106 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Dead?’ asked Carter, somewhat superfluously.

‘Oh, he couldn’t have lived two minutes with that twisted
round his throat— both jugular veins stopped, blood supply
to the brain cut off instantly, consciousness lost at once,
death in two minutes. Neat job.’
‘Practice makes perfect,’ said Bell grimly.
‘It’s the third,’ agreed Phillips, ‘if it’s the same man’s
done it each time.’
‘Same trade mark,’ said Bell, as grimly as before, with a
gesture towards the tight-drawn cord round the dead man’s
throat.
‘How long since death occurred?’ Phillips asked the
doctor.
‘Oh, only a few minutes, not more than ten or
fifteen.’
‘If Ryder was driving the car when it drew up,’ observed
Carter, who had been thinking his hardest, ‘then the
murderer must have been waiting here and someone must
have seen him hanging about. If the murderer was in the
car, then someone must have seen him get out.’
‘He could open the door on the other side and slip out
easily enough,’ Phillips remarked. ‘It’s dark, no one would
notico- or pay any attention if they did. He could be in
Whitehall or on the Embankment in a few seconds and safe
away. Easy enough if he had the nerve— but, think of it, the
insolence of i t . . . leaving the body right on our doorstep.
It’s . .. it’s . . . incredible,’ he burst out. ‘I can’t believe it
yet,’ he said, staring at car and at the unfortunate Ryder’s
body as though he half expected those grim facts to vanish
into nothingness.
‘There wasn’t anyone hanging about here,’ said Fuller,
the constable who had been doing door duty. ‘If there had
been, I should have seen them and asked them what they
were doing. I can swear to that.’
‘It’s more likely the murder had been carried out before
the car arrived and the murderer just stopped the car here
and slipped out without being seen or noticed,’ agreed
Phillips.
They were all silent again. That strange and rather
ghastly picture of the car with its dread burden being driven
right up to the entrance to Scotland Yard, and then left
 THE THIRD TIME I07

there, as if in deliberate challenge and defiance, was more

than their imaginations could well conceive.
!I think it’s fairly plain that’s what must have happened,’
Phillips continued, rousing himself presently. ‘Someone was
in the car with Ryder, killed him by strangling on the way,
took over the driving of the car, brought it here, left it
here.’
‘But why ? . . . what for ?’ asked Carter bewilderedly.
‘Suppose he had to leave it somewhere,’ Phillips said.
‘Expect he reasoned no one would suspect a car drawing up
here, right at our door, and no one would suspect or stop
anyone getting out of it.’
‘One thing’s sure,’ said Bell slowly, ‘it’s the same man who
came to us that other time and passed himself off for his
own victim he had murdered not twenty-four hours before.
There can’t be two men alive with such nerve, the nerve
to do a thing like that and a thing like this.’ With a move­
ment of his hand he indicated the car and Ryder’s body.
‘Just as no one else would have had the nerve to wait the
whole night at Benham House after the murder there so as
to let the other inmates think they heard Sir Charles making
an early start next morning. It’s the same man and,’ said
Bell with a sort of sombre slow enthusiasm, ‘he’s a genius
in his way— a genius in murder.’
‘That’s all very well,’ grumbled Carter, ‘what we want to
know is who is he and what’s his motive?’
Once again there was silence, for darkly weighed on them
the shadow of this unknown who once again had given
proof of such sheer audacity and calculated coolness as
were without parallel in their experience. One of his victims
he had hidden in such a place of concealment as none other
had ever thought of, where indeed the body might well
have remained undiscovered for many years. Now the body
of another he had thrown, as it were, right in the face of
Scotland Yard, and then to all that was added the silence
and the certainty with which he slew.
Phillips began to give orders. The body was to be removed
to the mortuary <vhere more careful examination could be
made. The car must be gone over with the utmost care in
the hope of finding finger prints. (‘There won’t be any,’
commented Phillips in parenthesis, ‘this bird wore gloves,
io8 GENIUS IN MURDER

trust him for a thing like that.’) Other routine work had to
be seen to, and Carter, like a man waking from a dream,
said in a thrilled whisper :
‘M y word, when the papers get hold of this.’
One of the men deputed to search the car came up.
‘Found this, sir,’ he said.
It was a woman’s small handkerchief and in one corner
were carefully embroidered the initials : ‘K .B.’
‘Kate Baird,’ commented Phillips, ‘have to follow that up
— not much to go on but it’s something. First thing though
is to go round to Ryder’s office and see if they’ve anything
to tell us there.’
‘One thing about this, sir,’ observed Carter in a low
voice, ‘there won’t be any complaint laid against us at the
Home Office now.’
Phillips made no comment. It was- a point that had
already occurred to him.
 C h a p te r 16

FRESH INVESTIGATIONS
S i n c e it was evident that investigations should be begun
at once, Phillips, as the senior officer present and as both
Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner were not at the
moment available, even on the telephone, decided to send
immediately Carter and Bell to Ryder’s offices, even though
these might very likely be closed by now, while he himself
went to the flat to carry out inquiries there.
Ryder’s offices, however, in the big building near the
Mansion House were by no means deserted. The staff
seemed as busy as though it were noon instead of night,
and the chief clerk, a man named Rawlings, who received
the two detectives, explained with some complacence that
the conclusion of the negotiations with the Da Costa firm
had caused a temporary rush of work.
‘We shall be acting in close association with D a Costa’s
for the future,’ said Mr. Rawlings, as one for whom a life­
long dream had suddenly been realized.
He evidently fully expected to see his two visitors wither
away, as it were, before the prestige of the mighty name he
had just pronouncd; and when Carter told him of the grim
reason of their visit he showed himself at first quite unable
to take in the full significance of the detective’s statement.
‘But,’ he protested, ‘Mr. Ryder left here only an hour
ago; he went round for his car, he said he would be back
soon, he said we were to wait till he came back.’
‘That was his private room, wasn’t it?’ Bell asked, glanc­
ing towards a door through which he thought he remem­
bered passing on their previous visit.
Rawlings said it was, and he went bewilderedly across the
room and opened the door and looked inside, as if he half
expected to see his employer there tranquilly at work, and
so be able to refute the tale these two strangers told.
But the room was empty— still and quiet and empty, and
Bell, who had followed Rawlings and was looking over his
shoulder, said :
109
1 10 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Someone has been burning papers in the grate there, a

lot of papers.’
The grate, a large one, was in fact full of burnt paper ash,
and Bell crossed over to the fireplace and stirred the heap
gently in the vain hope of finding unconsumed fragments.
But the burning had been done with skill and care, nothing
decipherable remained, and Rawlings said with a sort of
confused protest:
‘This room’s private . . . I mean . . . Mr. Ryder . . . he said
he would be back.’
‘He never will,’ said Bell softly. ‘Must have taken him half
the day to burn all this stuff. . . I wonder why ?’
‘B u t . . . b u t . . . b u t . .. ’ stammered Rawlings again, ‘why,
it’s not an hour since he left here to go round to get his
car.’
Carter sat down at thg big table in the middle of the
room.
‘Pull yourself together, Mr. Rawlings,’ he said, ‘Ryder’s
dead, murdered, and we want any information you can give
us.’
But Rawlings, though gradually beginning to realize the
truth of what had happened, proved to have very little
information to give. He might have been, and indeed was, a
highly efficient clerk, but outside his clerical duties he
seemed hardly even to exist. Thirty years of office routine
had turned him into a kind of human machine, operating
accurately, and responding promptly when the appropriate
button was touched, but outside that accustomed field
hardly capable of independent thought or action. What was
hot usual and accustomed,for him hardly existed;it was not
usual for heads of firms to be murdered, and that that fate
had overtaken Mr. Ryder was a fact he could still hardly
understand, while of his employer’s private life or personality
outside business it was soon evident he simply knew nothing
at all.
Not one scrap or tittle of information had he to give that
seemed likely to throw the least light on the mysterious and
sudden doom that had overtaken his employer. For him Mr.
Ryder had merely been a kind of impersonal force that
issued orders and signed letters and cheques, appearing
each morning from the unknown and retreating each even­
 FRESH INVESTIGATIONS 111
ing into a void equally unknown. He had noticecj nothing
unusual in his employer’s life or conduct, either now or
recently, or at any other time, and one felt that for him the
unusual was a thing which one was careful to avoid noticing.
He knew nothing about Mr. Ryder’s financial standing,
that had not been his department, and one felt that for
him what was outside his department, did not exist. He
could provide, and offered to do so, a list of Mr. Ryder’s
business friends and associates, and one felt that this list
would, be a miracle of neatness and of red and blue ink
rulings. But he hardly knew the name of a single private
friend. He had no idea how Mr. Ryder was in the habit of
passing his spare time. He agreed that Mr. Ryder had had
many visitors but he had never noticed them or paid them
the least attention, visitors were not his ‘department’. And
he repeated his emphatic declaration that Mr. Ryder had
seemed just the same as usual all day and had appeared
quite normal when he left to get out his car and made that
promise he now would never keep to be back before very
long.
‘Where did he keep his car?’ Carter asked.
Mr. Rawlings even had to inquire to find that out.
Apparently Ryder had used a large garage quite close, only
two minutes’ walk away, and scenting a possible clue Carter
rang up the garage only to be informed that Mr. Ryder had
certainly been alone when he came to get his car and equally
certainly had been alone when he drove away.
‘That means he must have picked up whoever did it some­
where on the road,’ Carter said to Bell, ‘and that means it
must have been someone he knew— have to check up on the
movement of all his friends, private and business.’
‘Trouble will be to find out who they were,’ Bell observed.
‘I’ve a feeling some of his friends were very private indeed.’
Carter grunted and began again to question Rawlings.
There was a second door to the room Carter had noticed
at once and pointing to it, he asked where it led to.
‘Only to the corridor,’ Rawlings answered.
‘That’s public, eh?’ Carter remarked, and going to look
found that the door opened not only on a corridor that
served several other offices but also on the main stairway of
the building.
112 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Anyone whose visit he didn’t want known Ryder could

have let in and out by that door without any of the staff
knowing anything about it?’ Carter suggested.
‘The door was always kept locked and it is marked
private,’ Rawlings protested indignantly. ‘It was hardly ever
used, Mr. Ryder always came and went by the outer
offices.’
‘Always ?’
‘Well, generally,’ Rawlings corrected himself. ‘He may
have slipped out that way occasionally if there was any
special reason. But of course any visitor always asked for
him at the inquiry window— naturally.’
‘Naturally,’ agreed Carter, ‘only all the same it would
have been quite easy for anyone to come or go by that door
without any of your staff knowing anything about it— and
if such a visitor came up the stairs when he arrived, and left
the same way, or perhaps ran up to the floor above and
came down by the lift from there, no one would ever know
he had been on this floor at all. Ryder may have had a
dozen visitors like that none of you knew anything about—
what’s this?’
Carter had been ferreting about among the papers on the
desk and now had uncovered a half sheet of note paper on
which was written, and not in Ryder’s script, Kenneth
Benham’s name and address and ’phone number. The
writing was slightly blotted and on the paper of the blotting
pad was the reproduction, apparently quite recent.
‘Looks as though that young man has been here to-day,’
Carter remarked.
But neither Mr. Rawlings nor anyone in the office had
seen anyone answering Kenneth’s description, and Carter
nodded with satisfaction.
‘Kenneth Benham’s writing all right, eh, Bell ?’ he asked,
and Bell expressed agreement. ‘And done recently, for the
blotting pad is quite fresh and clean— was the blotting
paper often changed?’ he asked Rawlings.
Mr. Rawlings— for this was within his department—
answered at once that the office boy had instructions to put
a clean sheet of blotting paper in the pad twice a week, and
that this day was one of those on which the change was
made. The office boy, duly summoned, was sure he had put
 FRESH INVESTIGATIONS ” 3
fresh blotting paper in position as usual that morning; and
again Garter nodded with satisfaction at this conclusive
proof that Kenneth Benham had called to see Ryder— and
without any of the staff being aware of the fact— that very
afternoon.
He told himself the investigation was beginning brilliantly.
‘A starting point,’ he said, rubbing his hands. ‘A starting
point, eh, Bell? And that’s everything, eh?’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Bell with his usual meekness, ‘one can
get anywhere from a starting point, anywhere at all.’
‘Exactly,’ agreed Garter, pleased. ‘Precisely.’
‘Even to the right spot sometimes but not always,’ added
Bell abstractedly.
‘Eh ?’ said Carter, who had not quite caught this. ‘What’s
that?’
‘It’s the motive that’s worrying me as much as anything,’
Bell answered. ‘Can’t see anyone had any motive for putting
Ryder out of the way— except us perhaps,’ he added with
his most melancholy smile, Rawlings having for the moment
left the room to answer a ’phone call.
‘W hat?’ said Garter startled. ‘Oh, you mean that about
the Home Office? Yes,’ he agreed, ‘there won’t be any
complaint against us lodged there now.’
Rawlings came back into the room; and Carter began to
question him about the burnt papers that filled the grate
and that had been so thoroughly and so carefully destroyed.
But Mr. Rawlings knew all about them and had quite a
simple explanation to give. Now that the Crude Metals
Merger scheme had practically passed into the hands of the
Da Costa people, Mr. Ryder had judged it wise to destroy
all papers dealing with the negotiations that had been con­
ducted previously with other firms. There had been no
reason why Da Costa’s should know what terms had been
offered, discussed, accepted or rejected, by other people,
and Mr. Ryder had decided to destroy every trace of such
negotiations.
Finally, unable to learn anything more, but Carter at
least in excellent spirits at the discovery they had made of
Kenneth Benham’s apparently secret visit to Ryder that
day, the two detectives took their departure, and when they
were outside Bell said :
H
114 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘I suppose what Ryder was really burning and taking

such care to destroy was everything in connection with the
forged certificates he had managed to redeem— and he’s
done the job thoroughly, too, taken pains with it. That’s
why he was late coming round to see us, he wanted to make
sure every atom of incriminating evidence had been
destroyed before he tackled us.’
‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ agreed Carter. He added from the
depths of his h eart: ‘Bit of an escape for us, the case would
have looked bad; Home Office would have turned us down
at once. As for die Press,’ added Carter with horror in his
voice, ‘they would just simply have jolly well let themselves
go— “unfounded attack on well known financier” . I can see
the headlines from here.’
‘Funny how things turn out,’ mused Bell; ‘the fellow who
did in Ryder saved us, so to speak, and we’ll hang him for
it if we can. Funny, too, that Ryder would probably be
alive now if he hadn’t waited so long to make himself safe
before beginning his attack on us— it’s only because it was
dark the murder could be carried out the way it was. If
Ryder had started earlier, while it was still daylight, he
would have been safe enough, I expect.’
‘Life’s a funny thing,’ commented Carter sagely. ‘Any­
how, we’ve got something to follow up— two things rather,
for there’s that handkerchief of Miss Baird’s we found in the
car, and now there’s proof we’ve got that Kenneth Benham
was paying visits on the quiet to Ryder. I’ll bet a good deal,’
said Carter, ‘Phillips won’t have got as much to show.’
Phillips indeed had had an experience something like
their own, for Mrs. Ryder, much upset at the news of her
husband’s terrible and sudden end, also appeared extra­
ordinarily ignorant of his affairs. They had been married a
good many years, but she seemed to have been content so
long as her husband provided her with sufficient money for
the house, for occasional chocolates, a library subscription,
and two visits every week to the cinema. And he on his
side seemed to have, been equally content with her so long
as she kept the house comfortable, and saw that his meals
were well cooked and ready to time. Apart from that they
appeared to have lived side by side without either knowledge
or sympathy or understanding, and one felt that each had
 FRESH INFORM ATION "5
been for the other a mere part of the necessary furniture
of life. She had raised no objection at all to an examination
of Mr. Ryder’s private papers, and these had proved to be
very few in number and totally without interest. She had
noticed nothing unusual in her husband’s behaviour, and
indeed she had seemed to Phillips to be nothing but a kind
of everlasting negative. In response to almost every question
she had shown herself consistently and perpetually un­
informed. She had indeed, provided a list of private friends
that was very scanty, and did not promise to be of much
interest, but apart from that there seemed to have been
nothing she could tell in any way likely to help the investi­
gation. All the same Phillips was in fairly good spirits.
‘Found out an odd thing,’ he said, ‘the porter at the flats
knew me— he was at the Night Owls club when we raided
it and he remembered me at once. He told me someone had
been there pumping him about Ryder only this morning.
According to his own account, he hadn’t said much, because
he didn’t know much, though he said he did his best,
having been treated to beer quite liberally. And afterwards
he saw the chap who had been questioning him getting on a
’bus in the company of a small, red-headed bow-legged
man.’
‘That printer fellow, Smith?’ exclaimed Carter eagerly.
‘Exactly,’ said Phillips, ‘and the description the porter
gave me of his companion corresponds closely enough to the
description of young Mr. Codrington, the Stock Exchange
half-commission man. What do you make of that?’
Inspector Carter made nothing of it at all, but recognized
sadly that his own discovery of Kenneth Benham’s appar­
ently secret call on Ryder seemed of very minor interest in
comparison with this new complication.
 C h a p te r 17

SPOILING AN IDYLL
L aiT e as it was, tired as they all were, wet and unpleasant
as the night was turning, Phillips decided that the lines of
inquiry thus opened up were too promising to be left even
till the next morning.
‘Get on with it while the scent’s hot,’ he said. ‘Starting to
rain too,’ he added disgustedly as he heard the rain drops
driving against the window panes.
To himself he assigned the task of tracing out the con­
nection that apparently existed between the red-headed
printer, Smith, and the young half-commission man
Codrington, whose name was the same as that of the pre­
decessor of Mr. Smith in the printing business, and to dis­
covering why the two of them appeared to have developed
so sudden an interest in the personality of Mr. Ryder on the
very day that was to see his murder.
‘It’s plain,’ Phillips observed in a somewhat worried tone,
‘that this Codrington can’t be that Codrington— he’s not
old enough, it’s ten or twelve years since that one vanished
from the printing business and at that time this one must
have been quite a boy. But it looks like there was some
connection somewhere.’
‘How about this for a theory ?’ suggested Carter. ‘Suppose
Smith knew we were inquiring about the forged Crude
Metals certificates he had carried out, and suppose he got
into a panic about it, and suppose then he found out that
Ryder was coming along to see us, might Smith have got it
into his head that Ryder was going to give the whole thing
away and him with it, and put the whole blame on him,
and that his only chance was to do in Ryder first?’
‘That’s an idea,’ agreed Phillips much struck by it, ‘very
ingenious, Inspector. That would provide a motive for
Ryder’s death and that,’ said Phillips, almost yearningly,
‘is what we want— and what your idea gives us, Inspector.’
Carter tried his best to look modest. Bell gave his little
cough. Carter looked at him suspiciously.
116
 SPOILING AN IDYLL 117

‘Well ?’ said Carter, willing since the case was difficult, to

hear what practically anyone had to say.
‘Seems certain, sir, doesn’t it?’ said Bell, thus permitted
to speak, ‘that it was the same man in all three cases.’
‘Well,’ snapped Carter angrily, for he had felt in his bones
that Bell was going to point out something that would
nullify his theory, ‘why not ? Smith was seen in the company
of the Netting Hill woman, wasn’t he? That’s how he
comes into the thing, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Bell, ‘only there’s no evidence he knew
anything about Sir Charles Benham, and the night of the
murder he was working late on a rush order.’
‘Sure of that?’ demanded Phillips. ‘How do you know?’
Bell looked rather embarrassed.
‘Just thought it might be as well to check up on him just
in case,’ he explained apologetically, for he knew very well
he had acted without instructions. ‘Besides, Smith couldn’t
be the man who masqueraded as Sir Charles— hasn’t the
physique.’
Phillips only grunted.
‘Anyhow I’ll go and have a talk with him,’ he said for­
midably, ‘I want very much to know what he was doing
hanging round Ryder’s place.’
‘I suppose,’ observed Carter, ‘the forger)' business is a
wash-out now— doesn’t give us any handle now we can use
against him?’
‘Altogether washed out,’ agreed Phillips, ‘we can wipe
that off just as if it had never been— I don’t even know if
any legal offence was committed at all. If you leave a bag
stuffed with waste paper as security for an hotel bill, I don’t
know that that’s any offence if the bill is paid before the
bag is opened. Same here. The security for the loans was
fraudulent, but what does that matter if the loans were
paid off all right? But,’ added Phillips thoughtfully, ‘it’s
possible Smith won’t know that— in the meantime you and
Bell get off and see what you can get out of this young
Codrington. I’ve a bit of a feeling we’ve rather neglected
young Codrington. Have the Southdown people done any­
thing about him, do you know ?’
‘I don’t think they thought he was of any interest,’
Carter answered. ‘He left Benham immediately after dinner
Il8 GENIUS IN MURDER

that night and he seems to have gone straight back to his

flat— at least there is good evidence he was there in bed
first thing the next morning, and that he spent all that day
at the office where he has a desk, so it can’t have been him
either that was passing himself off as Sir Charles. No hint
of any motive either.’
‘Well, get a statement from him,’ directed Phillips. ‘No
need to let him think himself suspected— usual idea, you
know, grateful for any shred of information that can throw
light on movements of someone else you are making inquiries
about. What I specially want you to do is to try to find out
if he knows about Ryder’s death— if he does, ask him how.’
Carter nodded twice to show he understood the import­
ance of this point, and then he and Bell departed as swiftly
as an intermittent motor ’bus service allowed to the block
of service flats in Maida V ale where young Mr. Codrington
occupied a doorway, a bathroom, and two cupboards, these
last being known respectively as bedroom and sitting-room.
They found the young man apparently on the point of
retiring for the night. But he welcomed them quite amiably,
and indeed seemed as pleasantly excited by their visit as
any other honest citizen who finds the dailiness of his daily
life broken by a hint of possible connection with some sen­
sational case of which the newspapers have been full— and
indeed articles by ‘Our Crime Expert’ were still appearing
and still advancing new theories on the ‘Coffin Murder’,
though of the death of the Netting Hill woman ‘Our Crime
Expert’ had never had anything much to say, since that had
seemed to have about it no feature likely to tickle the
palate of the sensation-loving newspaper reader.
‘Though,’ as Carter had observed to Bell earlier that
evening, ‘they’ll forget all about the “Coffin Murder” when
they hear about what’s happened now— man murdered and
his body left on our doorstep so to speak. They’ll spread
themselves about that when they hear of it,’ said Carter,
cosily aware that an anonymous ’phone message had already
warned Mr. Simpson, of the Daily Arrow that something
specially special was on foot, and equally cosily aware that
whatever criticism others might be in for, there would be
sure to be a kind word or two for Chief Inspector Carter—
the Press being the most loyal of friends.
 SPOILING AN IDYLL II9

Now it was quite smilingly and willingly that Mr.

Codrington agreed in answer to their questions that he
had known Sir Charles Benham fairly well and had dined
with him on the night of the murder.
‘Made me very interested in the case, you’ll understand
that,’ he said as he produced from the box that called itself
a cupboard inside this cupboard that called itself a room,
whisky, a syphon of soda water, and some cigarettes. ‘Say
when— won’t you? T ry a gasper, too. There were two
johnnies came to see me the other day. Morris, one of them
called himself— boss of the local police, I think he said he
was. I told them all I knew, which wasn’t much, and of
course if there’s anything I can say or do to help you, I
would be only too pleased. Sir Charles used to put things in
my way sometimes, jolly good pal he was, and you won’t
have to ask me twice to help you if I can.’
He spoke with a certain repressed force that neither of
the two detectives failed to notice and that struck them both
as genuine, even if only because he made no effort to stress
it. It was more like something that he actually felt than
merely something he wished them to know he felt, and after
Carter had asked one or two unimportant questions, he
said :
‘Mr. Ryder, the! man behind the Crude Metals Merger,
was there that night, too, wasn’t he?’
Codrington nodded.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, speaking rather slowly, ‘but he can’t
have anything to do with it, can he? He’s a bit of a swell
in the city and then so far as I can make out, he left early
and went straight back to town. I’ve thought a lot of
Ryder,’ he said, and though his voice was still quite slow
and steady, a certain dark, strange glow had come into his
eyes that both Carter and Bell saw and that astonished
them. ‘Do you think it was Ryder?’ he asked. He smiled, his
voice was rather elaborately careless, and yet that dark and
almost sinister glow was still apparent in his eyes, for eyes
are often traitors even to those who can control their voice
and features best. ‘Know anything to make you suspect
him ?’
‘Do you think it was Ryder did it?’ Carter asked.
‘I’ve nothing much to go on,’ the young man answered,
120 GENIUS IN MURDER

and suddenly a pencil he had been playing with snapped

right across in his fingers. He looked at the two pieces and
put them down. ‘No, nothing to go on,’ he repeated.
‘You’ve been thinking a good deal about the case?’ Bell
asked abruptly.
Codrington gave Bell a quick look, hesitated a moment,
and one could almost see him visibly retreating behind his
defences. He smoothed out his expression, steadied his
voice, half closed his eyes that their depths might no longer
be seen, clasped his hands round his knees and held them
lightly in position there. He had exactly the air of one who,
feeling he has let himself be taken at a disadvantage, is now
rallying his forces. He said slowly and carefully :
‘You could almost say I’ve been thinking of nothing else.
Sir Charles was a good friend of mine. I was one of the last
people to see him alive. I had eaten his dinner and drunk
his wine only just before his murder. I would give a good
deal to see his murderer hanged.’
And once more, as he said this, a kind of fierce energy
seemed to flash out in his words and vanish again, and once
more the dark eyes glowed an instant and then were dark
again.
That he meant what he said it was impossible to doubt,
and with a little sigh Bell thought to him self:
‘Now, what makes him that way ? what makes him feel so
strongly? Sir Charles was only a business friend, he talks
as though he were his best friend, he might be his father
even— of course, that’s absurd. Only w h a t . . . ? ’
Carter was saying aloud, judging that the time was come
to play this card :
‘I think we may take it Mr. Ryder wasn’t the murderer,
for Mr. Ryder was murdered himself a few hours ago.’
Codrington stared, pale, bewildered, evidently utterly
surprised. That he was either the finest natural actor this
world has ever seen or else that he had known nothing
about the murder before seemed certain. Indeed it appeared
he could not at first believe it.
‘Who? Ryder? what? murdered? what do you mean?
Ryder’ he repeated; ‘what on earth------’
‘He was found dead in his car not long ago,’ Carter re­
peated. ‘He had been strangled.’
 SPOILING AN IDYLL 12 1

‘W hat?’ shouted Codrington and sprang to his feet.

‘W hat?’ he cried again. ‘Ryder? strangled? like Sir Charles?
murdered ? like him ? strangled like him ? strangled
like------?’
He paused abruptly and Bell had the impression that he
had been going to say something and had only stopped
himself in time.
‘Like a woman at Netting Hill,’ Bell said, and Codrington
looked at him steadily— rather too steadily, Bell thought.
‘I read about that in the papers,’ he said, ‘I thought of
that at once . . . excuse me one moment.’
He went quickly out of the room, crossing the tiny space
behind the entrance door that divided this room from the
bedroom. Bell took the opportunity to look round more
carefully than he had had time to do before. There did not
seem to him to be much of great interest. It was very
typically the ordinary bachelor’s service flat, with little to
throw any light on the character or pursuits of the occupant.
But on the mantelpiece were ranged rather more invitation
cards than every young bachelor who has no special social
relations can expect to receive.
‘Quite swell friends,’ Bell murmured, ‘the Earl of Ross,
Lord and Lady Tweedville, Mr. and Lady Melton-Miller,
Sir John Wyvern and Lady Mandervilie— moves in swell
circles, this young man.’
But Carter was not listening to him. He was listening to
something else and he was grinning broadly to himself.
‘He’s got a girl in theije,’ he said, still smiling, ‘no business
of ours, of course. But he has. I spotted it at once and I
heard someone moving just before he vanished. I expect she
was getting nervous and wanted to be off. Didn’t you spot
it?’
‘No, sir, can’t say I did,’ admitted Bell.
‘Use your eyes, my lad, use your eyes, we’ve got to learn
to do that in this business,’ Carter exhorted him, and showed
him with a pointing finger where a woman’s stumpy
umbrella still wet from recent rain, its handle carved in the
shape of an owl was standing against the wall, though as it
happened, hidden from Bell by a hanging coat— for the flat
was so small there was no vestibule, or rather the space
behind the entrance that the owners of the building called
122 GENIUS IN MURDER

a vestibule, was so small nothing could be kept there. As

a consequence the tenant’s hats, umbrella, overcoats, had to
adorn the sitting-room, and it was among them that Garter
had picked out this umbrella that seemed to tell of a
feminine presence in the little apartment.
‘I hadn’t seen that,’ Bell admitted, regarding it gravely.
‘You’ve got to learn to use your eyes if you want pro­
motion, Bell,’ Carter warned him gravely. ‘I saw it at once
and then I thought I heard someone move, just a
minute before our young friend went out. No business of
ours of course though I’m afraid we’ve spoilt an idyll.’
‘Sorry about that,’ said Bell abstractedly, ‘sorry about
that.’
 C h a p te r 18

FRESH NEWS
W h e n the two Scotland Yard men got back to head­
quarters, it was to find that Phillips had returned before
them but had gone off home without leaving any message.
Taking this as implied permission to seek their own homes
and their waiting beds, Carter and Bell availed themselves
of it, and next morning when they went to make their report
to the Superintendent and seek further instructions, they
found him in a somewhat gloomy mood.
‘That printer fellow, Smith, or Codrington, or whatever
his real name may be, is a tough proposition,’ he grumbled,
‘as tough a proposition as any I’ve ever run up against. I
got nothing out of him— didn’t know, couldn’t remember,
close as an oyster that’s had its shell nailed down with three-
inch spikes. He did admit he had been hanging round
Ryder’s place, and what he had the cheek to tell me was that
he had been thinking of canvassing him for a fresh order
and then changed his mind and thought he wouldn’t, for
fear Ryder might not like it and he might lose his chance
of new business. I asked him why he didn’t call at Ryder’s
offices and he said he had tried only he could never get
past the clerks— oh, he had a reply to everything. He stuck
to it he had been alone and he knew nothing of any young
man having been seen with him, not his fault if some young
man got on the same ’bus as he did— it often happened. I
said he had been seen speaking to him and he said he did
remember asking someone for a match. As for the young
man being called Codrington, same name as that of the man
he bought his business from, he knew nothing about it and
hadn’t an idea what we were driving at or what we kept
worrying him for. But I’m fairly sure he knew nothing of
Ryder’s murder— when I told him about that, he nearly
dropped, wouldn’t believe me at first, seemed to think it was
some sort of trap I was laying for him. Afterwards he made
an excuse to go away and came back smelling of brandy.
123
124 GENIUS IN MURDER

For some reason he was upset— upset in a queer sort of way.

He knows something but what he don’t mean to tell and I
can’t guess. I’m putting a man on to watch him.’
Carter then gave the worried Superintendent a brief
report of the interview he and Bell had had with Codrington
and he chuckled a little as he told how he was sure there
had been a lady visitor in the flat when they arrived there.
‘No business of ours, of course,’ he said, ‘not even if he
had a dozen girls there, but I spotted it the moment I got
in.’ He chuckled again. ‘You did ought to have seen Bell’s
face when I showed him a woman’s umbrella stood up in
the corner and quite wet to show it had only just been put
there— he hadn’t noticed it, but, as I told him, you’ve got
to notice things in our line if you mean to get there.’
He gave a friendly smile at the dejected-looking Bell, who
sat melancholy in a distant corner and knew better than
to utter a word of protest. But Phillips bestowed on him a
quite encouraging glance as if to tell him that though he
might have fallen down this time, nevertheless on other
occasions he had shown himself quite useful.
‘Better luck next time, Sergeant,’ he said, and Bell felt
quite cheered.
‘Young Codrington’s got all his wits about him,’ Carter
went on. ‘He saw I had spotted the thing and he made an
excuse to go out and pack the girl off— sans her umbrella,
ha, ha.’
Phillips permitted himself another smile, this time the
tolerant smile of the middle-aged at the hot-blooded follies
of youth and Bell murmured :
‘Funny thing is I’m sure I’ve seen an umbrella like it
somewhere but I can’t think where.’
‘Expect you’ve seen dozens like it,’ smiled Carter; ‘they
turn those things out wholesale— fox’s head handle, wasn’t
it?’
‘Owl’s head,’ said Bell in a voice full of apology for
correcting his superior officer.
‘I meant owl,’ said Carter severely. ‘What about it, any­
w ay?’
‘I don’t know sir,’ Bell confessed, ‘only it worried me till
I couldn’t sleep, so I got up early, and,’ he continued un­
easily, for he knew that he had shown initiative, and he
 FRESH NEWS I25

knew that in official life initiative is about as safe as

dynamite, ‘I went poking round a bit on my own.’
‘Where?’ asked Phillips, frowning and doubtful.
‘The West End,’ explained Bell, still more uneasily. ‘Lord
Ross, Lord Tweedville, the Melton-Millers, Sir John
Wyvern— all the swells whose cards Codrington had on his
mantelpiece. It was Higgins, the Melton-Miller butler,
helped me most. He rang up one or two of the other houses
and he gave me a note to Lord Tweedville’s man, he said
what Lord Tweedville’s man didn’t know, the recording
angel didn’t know either.’
“Well, what about it?’ snapped Phillips.
‘Only that Codrington’s not known at any of the houses,
name not on any of the visiting lists anywhere,’ explained
Bell deprecatingly.
‘Not much in that,’ pronounced Phillips, after considering
the point. ‘I don’t suppose he’s the only young fellow with
a lot of invitations on his mantelpiece from big pots who
don’t know him from Adam.’
‘Half commission man,’ commented Carter. ‘Help him
when he’s talking Stock Exchange if he can pretend he’s in
with a lot of rich swells.’
‘Only that invitation card may mean,’ Bell ventured to
point out before subsiding into silence and his unobtrusive
corner, ‘that Codrington may have been at the Melton-
Miller’s the night the pearls disappeared.’
‘Five hundred other people there as well,’ Carter pointed
out, ‘and no proof that he actually made use of the invitation
or that he even had it at the time— he may have got hold
of it later.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Phillips, ‘yes, but— but if Codrington were
actually there that night, then it looks as if we had got back
to just where we started from— good L o rd ! talk about a
cat chasing its own ta il! In this blessed case everything
seems to lead to something else. . . we start with following
up a clue to the lost Melton-Miller pearls and it leads us to
the discovery of the murder of Sir Charles Benham. We
follow that up and it leads us to a typical Hyde Park case.
We investigate that and we come to the Notting Hill
murder. We take that in hand and come upon large scale
forgeries, and when we try to follow that up, what we get is
12 6 GENIUS IN MURDER

the forger murdered for some inconceivable reason and left

on our doorstep, so to speak, and the clue we get to the
murderer takes us back to the Melton-Miller pearls,
where we started. Pretty full circle as it seems to me.’
‘A nightmare,’ declared Carter with indignant emphasis,
‘not a case at all but a nightmare.’
‘And this very morning,’ Phillips lamented, ‘Melton-
Miller letting himself go about his rotten pearls— I suppose
you saw the Daily Arrow leading article this morning?’
‘A stinger,’ agreed Carter sadly. ‘I did all I could with
young Mr. Simpson but he says Melton-Miller’s got a pull
and the thing’s got to rip for a time. All he could promise
was if we did manage to find the pearls and get ’em back,
he would try to see we got a good show— full page headlines
he’s promised,’ said Carter wistfully, seeing in his mind’s eye
an enormous headline ‘Lost Pearls Found— Inspector’s Fine
Work.’
‘Don’t see much chance up to the present,’ commented
Phillips. ‘If it’s Codrington, he may have them tucked away
in his flat somewhere, but it’s not likely. Anyhow we can’t
search it.’
‘Suppose not,’ agreed Carter regretfully, with a sidelong
glance at Bell, before whom doors and even windows had
been known to open mysteriously when important evidence
seemed likely to lie behind them. But this time Bell made
no sign, since for one tiling to burgle an occupied flat was
going a little far, and for another he saw no special reason
to believe the pearls were there— even if Codrington had
them he probably kept them elsewhere. So Bell made no
sign and Carter went on : ‘O f course in a way it’s a bit of
luck this Ryder murder has happened at the same time. If
it hadn’t been for that, the papers would have spread them­
selves a lot more about “Lost Pearls— Yard’s Failure” as the
Daily Arrow puts it. Wonderful how quick they got hold of
the Ryder case,’ he added hurriedly, just in time to prevent
Phillips from making the same comment.
Phillips contented himself with grunting, for after all the
papers had been bound to hear of the Ryder murder sooner
or later, twenty minutes sooner made no difference, and
Carter’s influence with the reporters was always used very
tactfully and often to the advantage of the Service— as well
 FRESH NEWS 127
as his own. Phillips had always felt it was one of those
things it was wiser to know nothing about, of which so
many are known by every wise man set in authority over
others.
So, without passing any further remark on the subject,
Phillips set himself to explain the plans he had formed for
further investigations, whereto both Carter-and Bell listened
with due respect, Carter occasionally offering a suggestion
or even a criticism while Bell preserved a decorous silence
and thought to himself with less decorum :
‘All that amounts to is that we are to sit still and hope for
something to turn up, which perhaps it will and perhaps
it won’t. Beg pardon, sir,’ he added hurriedly, aware that
Phillips had addressed to him a remark which he had been
too much absorbed in his own thoughts to hear.
‘Too much trouble to listen to me, I suppose?’ said
Phillips witheringly.
‘Oh, no, sir,’ protested Bell, really shocked at such a
suggestion.
But Phillips was not easily placated, and he was still
frowning and vexed when the little conference broke off,
and Bell departed on the errand to which he had been
assigned, one that proved of no interest or importance
whatever. Not that that surprised him, for he had learnt by
long experience that in most chases the quarry, whatever
shape it bore at first, soon turns-into a wild goose, but as
soon as he returned he was told off to interview a caller who
wished, as all callers do, for a private interview with a highly
placed official.
Sergeant Bell was not a highly placed official, but then it
is seldom highly placed officials who interview in the first
place those numerous callers at Scotland Yard who have,
about once in a thousand times, something of real interest
to say. Y et that one chance in a thousand is too valuable
to be neglected, so that no caller goes away unheard, and
Bell, promoted as often before to be a highly placed official
for the time being, received in a small room used for the
purpose an elderly man plainly wearing his Sunday best and
a stiff clean collar that he was not used to, and as plainly
torn between nervousness at finding himself in such close
contact with the incalculable powers of the law and im­
128 GENIUS IN MURDER

portance at the thought that he was about to set its vast

machinery in motion.
And the very first words he uttered made Bell suddenly
interested, suddenly realize that perhaps this time the one
chance in a thousand had come off.
‘It’s a man what has a printing business near me,’ ex­
plained the stranger, ‘mine being a restaurant, what used
to be dining-rooms— Simpson’s Dining-Rooms at first and
then Simpson’s Super Dining-Rooms alter the missis took
to going to the pictures, and now a restaurant along of her
having been on one of them day trips to Boo-loin, and
business never any better for it, though always the best
tenpenny dinner with two veg.----- ’
‘Mr. Smith’s place is near yours, then, is it, Mr.
Simpson ?’ asked Bell tactfully interrupting a discourse that
seemed to him likely to continue for a considerable time.
‘That’s right,’ agreed Mr. Simpson, ‘just opposite it is,
and there’s been a fellow hanging round there some time
now and up to no good, as the missis said, soon as she saw
him, and then there was another bloke come in and ordered
kippers what he never ate, and I ask you would any bloke
on the straight do a thing like that— asking funny questions,
too.’
‘What sort of questions?’ inquired Bell, beginning to be
interested, for though the ‘fellow hanging round’ was very
likely the plain-clothes man put on to shadow the little
printer, who this could be who ordered kippers and never
ate them, but asked ‘funny’ questions, he could not imagine.
‘Oh, just funny, if you know what I mean,’ explained
Simpson (Bell didn’t), ‘wanted to know where I got my
printing done and a lot more I didn’t pay no attention to.’
Bell was still interested. Any new personage appearing in
this dark and strange affair might well prove, he thought,
of capital importance.
‘What was he like ?’ he asked.
‘Well, funny, if you know what I mean,’ said Mr. Simpson
(and still Bell didn’t), ‘not the sort of bloke you would care
to meet on a dark night, “ done time and earned it, too” , my
missis said as soon as she saw him. Sulky sort of brute with
a nasty look about him, and a sneaky way of walking, and
the sort of mug on him you would show a baby that was
 FRESH NEWS 129

sound asleep if you wanted to wake it up in a fit right away

quick.’
It was, Bell thought, a picturesque description enough,
and one probably due more to the absent Mrs. Simpson
than to the little man now repeating it. But it was lacking in
precise detail, and yet Bell was grateful for it, since he
thought that just possibly this unknown who ordered
kippers, and did not eat them, and asked questions, and had
apparently so darkly sinister an appearance, might turn
out to be the unknown for whom they sought. A certain
excitement stirred in him at the idea that at last they might
prove to be on the track of the unknown assassin, that at
last they had at any rate some vague indication of his
possible appearance. It was not much to go on, but it was
something, and though to his further questions Mr. Simpson
returned ljut the most vague replies, one clear fact did at last
emerge— that the stranger was a tall man and that was im­
portant, Bell thought, for whoever had masqueraded as dead
Sir Charles must certainly have been tall, while most of
those concerned in this affair, except Ryder, now dead
himself, and young Kenneth Benham, were below the
average height. And height is a thing that cannot very well
be disguised— young Codrington, for example, five feet four
or thereabouts, could never have tried to pass himself off
for a man measuring six feet in his socks.
‘First six-footer we’ve come across in this affair,’ Bell told
himself exultingly.
‘Very interesting, Mr. Simpson,’ he said encouragingly.
Mr. Simpson beamed.
‘But it wasn’t him what I come to tell you about,’ he went
on. ‘You see, Smith’s missis used to come in often like to
have a talk with my missis— you know what women are for
talk?’
Bell nodded wisely and Simpson continued :
‘Often when I got tired of hearing them at it, clatter,
clatter, I’d just slip out to the Red Lion to have a glass
of beer and pass the time of day with any----- ’ .
‘And Mr. Smith would be there perhaps ?’ murmured Bell,
hoping to bring the other back to the point— if that is, such
a thing really existed.
‘Not him,’ said Simpson, evidently amused at the idea,
I
130 GENIUS IN MURDER

and then all at once brought out with a rush what he had
really come to say. ‘There ain’t no one seen nothing of his
missis for long enough, and when you asks he acts funny
like, if you know what I mean, and says she’s gone for a
visit, and if you says anything more he turns nasty and
shuts you up short like and— and----- ’
‘Yes?’ said Bell, encouragingly. ‘Yes?’
‘And only night afore last he was digging in his back-
garden.’
 Chapter 19

IDENTIFICATION
‘W a s he, though?’ said Bell thoughtfully.
Digging in the back garden late at night might mean
nothing— or it might mean a good deal. In little Mr.
Simpson’s mind it was evidently linked up with the dis­
appearance of Mrs. Smith. Well, there were stranger things
than that in the records of the London police— in the records
of the police of any large town.
A few questions Bell asked elicited nothing much of
interest except that Mr. and Mrs. Smith did not always
‘hit it off’ together.
‘There was things she didn’t hold with,’ said Mr. Simpson,
but of the nature of these ‘things’ he either was, or wished
to appear, ignorant.
Apparently, too, Mrs. Smith had more than once hinted
to Mrs. Simpson fears of ‘trouble’ but had always refused to
take Mrs. Simpson’s proffered counsel to leave her husband
before that ‘trouble’ developed. It seemed fairly plain that
Mrs. Smith disapproved of certain of her husband’s practices
and lived in dread of the consequences they might entail
but yet would not desert him.
‘Said he was her man,’ explained Mr. Simpson with an
air of apologizing for a perhaps not wholly unamiable
feminine weakness.
‘Had they any children?’ Bell asked suddenly, almost
eagerly indeed.
Mr. Simpson shook his head, and Bell sighed as he
realized that the sudden vague idea that had just occurred
to him was showing itself to be like most other sudden
ideas, quite valueless.
‘One kid they had,’ Mr. Simpson said, ‘but they lost it
years ago— made a difference, that did.’
Other questions Bell asked resulted in the information
that the space behind the little red-headed printer’s estab­
lishment was not so much a garden as a patch of sour and
desolate earth cumbered with old packing-cases and other
miscellaneous and unwanted articles for which there was
131
132 GENIUS IN MURDER

not room under shelter or for which exposure to the weather

did not matter. It seemed that Mr. Smith was no horticul­
turist.
However, all this appeared to Bell to he of sufficient
interest to warrant immediate report, and asking his visitor
to wait for a few minutes, he went to find Phillips, since, as
it happened, Inspector Carter was not available, some errand
or other having called him away for the time. But Bell
decided he had better not wait his return, since Phillips, he
thought, might wish to question Simpson himself. T o Bell’s
disappointment, Phillips did not seem much interested. All
he said was that the missing Mrs. Smith was most likely only
paying a visit somewhere or another and would turn up
again safe and sound in due course. It would be quite
enough, Phillips thought, if the local people were asked to
make a note of the matter and attend to it.
‘Only there’s this man Simpson talks about,’ Bell urged.
‘Don’t you think, sir, we ought to try to follow that up?
He seems to have made a funny sort of impression on
Simpson, and I don’t suppose it’s often anyone in a place
like that orders kippers or anything else and doesn’t eat it.
And what struck me is that Simpson says he was tall, and
it’s a tall man we’re looking for, and the first tall man I
think we’ve heard of in this case. O f course, the description
is vague all right.’ Bell had repeated it once to Phillips,
now he went over it again : ‘Looks like as if he had done
time, sulky air, a nasty look about him, sneaky way of
walking, and the sort of mug to scare a baby into a fit.. . . ’
He paused. Phillips was looking at him. Slowly, awfully,
steadily, Phillips was looking at him. There was something
in the Superintendent’s look, something in the Super­
intendent’s attitude, that seemed to freeze the very heart of
Bell. He just stood still and waited, and the silence in that
room was an awful thing while the consciousness of the
appalling truth burned itself like red-hot iron into Bell’s
innermost soul.
‘I,’ said Phillips, just like that, not dwelling too much
upon the pronoun, but letting it have all its due weight and
dignity, ‘I was round there last night I— went into some
filthy eating-shop opposite Smith’s, I— I— ordered some
kippers that I didn’t eat because they weren’t eatable, I—
 IDENTIFICATION 133
asked one or two casual questions.’ He paused while the
dazed Bell stood there and waited. ‘I— ’ concluded Phillips,
‘am glad to know— from you— what impression I make on
other people.’
Had Bell been a really ready and tactful person he would
probably have said : ‘You must have been wonderfully well
disguised, sir,’ or ‘well, no one could possibly have told that
was you’, or something like that, and of such sentences Bell
afterwards thought of at least twenty. But at the moment
all he did was just to stand or rather droop. Perhaps it was
as well, for probably at that moment not the softest answer
imaginable would have had much effect.
‘Done for myself,’ thought Bell sadly, ‘done for myself
again, just when I thought I was getting on a bit with
Phillips, too,’ and he could almost watch the conviction
biting itself into Phillips’s mind that all the time Bell had
known perfectly well to whom the little restaurant-keeper’s
description was meant to apply.
‘I don’t think I’ll trouble to see your friend,’ said Phillips
with a truly appalling emphasis on these last two words.
‘Apparently I’m not good enough style for him.’ He paused
and picked out a pape/- from the many that lay on his desk.
‘Besides, we know all about this digging business— nothing
to it. Our man I had put on to watch Smith reports here
that Smith after dark dug a small hole about a foot across
and a foot deep in the yard behind his place. I hardly
think,’ said Phillips with crushing emphasis, ‘that that’s big
enough or deep enough to hide a murdered woman’s body,
unless chopped up very fine. Our man thought something
might be up and watched, but all Smith wanted to do was
to put in some sort of plant or other. Interesting, eh?’
Bell made no attempt to reply. He was thinking that often
as in his career he had put his foot in it with his superiors,
never had he put it in quite so successfully and so deeply
as on this occasion. And he had done it so innocently, he had
fallen so innocently into the trap so innocently laid for him
by that Simpsonian description. W hy had he not remem­
bered in time that Phillips had been making inquiries in
person? why had it not occurred to him that Phillips, no
Adonis at his best, had a trick at times of putting on a scowl
and a slouch that might well cause dark alarm in the heart
134 GENIUS IN MURDER

of any Simpson? He looked so dejected, so miserable, that

even Phillips himself felt almost sorry for him.
‘Plenty of people try to grow things in back gardens
where even chickweed would wither,’ he remarked; ‘noth­
ing out of the way in Smith sticking some plant or other
in the ground. Tell your friend’— this time the emphasis
on these two words was just a little less vicious— ‘we’re
much obliged to him, and his information may prove very
valuable and will he keep a sharp look out for the suspicious-
looking chap with the baby-scaring mug and let us know at
once if he turns up again— which he won’t.’
‘Yes, sir, no, sir,’ said Bell, wondering whether he hadn’t
better go straight away and drown himself.
‘O f course,’ added Phillips, ‘if it’s true the woman has
actually disappeared, it’ll have to be looked into.’
‘Do you think, sir,’ Bell asked timidly, for indeed he
scarcely dared make the suggestion, any suggestion, ‘do you
think it might be worth while showing Simpson a copy of
the photograph of the woman in that Notting Hill case?’
Phillips glowered at him. It was an obvious, an elementary
suggestion, and a thing he ought, he felt, to have thought of
himself at once, that he knew he would have thought of, if
Bell had not put him off by repeating, all that silly rot the
Simpson creature had been jabbering.
‘Hasn’t that been done already?’ he demanded indig­
nantly. ‘Really, Sergeant, I thought you had intelligence
enough for that. Certainly Simpson must see it. Not one
chance in a thousand he’ll know it but let him see it. As for
the digging in the garden, that’s nothing of course. I don’t
know why our man reported it at all, only if you tell a man
to report everything, he always thinks you mean everything
that doesn’t matter and then leaves out everything that does.
Here’s the fellow we put on to watch Codrington. He reports
that Codrington bought a copy of the Daily Arrow, a packet
of cigarettes, Gaspers, for sixpence, and a dog collar, large
size, provided with brass studs— wonder he didn’t count the
studs and report the number. What’s the matter?’ he de­
manded, for Bell had uttered a sudden exclamation and
now was looking at him very oddly indeed, with something
that seemed like terror and a dark wonder in his eyes.
‘Good God,’ he said, below his breath, ‘is he afraid that
he will be the next?’
 IDENTIFICATION 135
‘Now look here, Bell,’ began Phillips exasperated, for this,
he felt, was going almost too far— one might put up with
Simpsonian descriptions, which were perhaps beneath con­
tempt, but what on earth was Bell staring at, like a man
who saw a ghost appear or else a vision of swift and dreadful
death. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he demanded.
‘It’s that dog collar, sir,’ Bell said slowly.
‘What about it?’ asked Phillips.
‘That’s what I’m wondering/ Bell said, ‘that’s what I’m
wondering.’
‘Get out,’ roared Phillips, losing all patience, ‘get out and
see if you can get that photograph identified. If so, come
back and tell me. If not, don’t.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Bell and, still a little like a man in
a dream, he went away.
Soon he was back again, this time more like his ordinary
dejected self, for that moment of wonder and of doubt that
for a brief space had held him staring and dazed, had now
it seemed quite passed away.
‘Portrait identified as that of Mrs. Smith,’ he announced
briefly. ‘Simpson states he is prepared to swear to it any­
where.’
Phillips looked quite excited this time.
‘Now that is interesting,’ he said, ‘that really is interesting.
That’s the first step forward we’ve been able to take for
long enough. Does Smith know it’s his wife? Probably,
almost certainly. Then why hasn’t he said anything? Does
that mean he’s guilty? He can hardly be the actual mur­
derer. His alibi seemed good, if I remember rightly, and he
doesn’t answer the description of the last person seen in the
woman’s company. But he may kn ow . . . he may n o t. . .
only thing certain is he doesn’t mean to say. W hy? Bell,
we’ve made a step forward, but it looks like only a step into
deeper darkness.’
He sank into deep thought, and Bell, as in duty bound,
waited respectfully the outcome of his senior officer’s
meditations. Y et for his part, he could not help thinking
that the incident of the dog collar was much more re­
markable, even though he had an idea that in the shock
of this new information Phillips had forgotten all about
that.
But then there was also the story of the little red-headed
 I36 GENIUS IN MURDER

printer going out in the dark to dig a hole in which to

place some plant or other. That, it seemed to Bell, had also
its significance, though one much harder to divine, since
the meaning of the dog collar was plain, he supposed, to
anyone who chose to think about it. Even a twelve-year-
old child could hardly miss the significance of that. But this
back garden digging. . . ? Was it perhaps simply that the
little printer was after all a bit of a horticulturist? O r was
there some other explanation?
‘A foot across and a foot deep,’ Bell mused. ‘Too small for
a grave as Phillips says. But a square-foot hole is not too big
for planting a shrub, if the planting is to be done properly.
What else could it be for ?’
All at once he spoke. He had not meant to. The words
seemed to come from him of their own accord. It was
almost as though another spoke while he stood aside and
listened.
‘We’ve got to begin again at the beginning,’ he said,
‘we’ve come full circle, sir, same as you said yourself, and it’s
at Benham where we’ve got to find the key that’ll make all
this fit in at the end.’
Phillips looked at him a little puzzled.
‘True enough,’ he said, ‘round and round we’ve been
like a cat after its own tail, but the Benham affair is in the
hands of the Southdown police. We can’t interfere, we can
help if they ask, but we can’t take it up.’
‘If you’ll give me leave, sir,’ Bell exclaimed eagerly, ‘I
could go down there and poke about a bit. Southdown
wouldn’t mind a junior like me coming and asking a few
questions— it wouldn’t be like you, sir, or Inspector Carter
turning up there. They mightn’t like that but I should only
just ask them if there was anything they could tell us to
help us.’
‘All right,’ Phillips said abruptly. ‘Get on with it. What
the Assist. Commish. will say, heaven knows, but get along
before he hears anything about it.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Bell and vanished, before Phillips
should have time to change his mind.
 Chapter so

M A JO R M O R R IS H A S ID E A S

M a j o r m o r r i s , of the Southdown police, a worried man

himself, was not displeased to learn from Sergeant Bell that
the Scotland Yard authorities also were much perplexed
and troubled. He gave his visitor a quite sympathetic re­
ception, and on the particular point on which Bell had
ostensibly come to seek information, that of the whereabouts
of K ate Baird whose handkerchief had been found in
Ryder’s car on the occasion of his murder, the M ajor was
able to supply definite information at once.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Miss Baird was in town that day.
She went up to see her lawyers and did not return till late.
But you don’t think she can have had anything to do with
the Ryder affair, do you ?’
‘We are still only collecting facts and every fact points a
different way,’ sighed Bell. ‘And a handkerchiefs not much
in any case. It may have been left in the car purposely for
that matter to put us off, or it may have nothing whatever
to do with Ryder’s death.’
‘Difficult case,’ commented M ajor Morris, pleased that
Scotland Yard had also found it so. ‘But then, whoever
murdered Sir Charles had thirty-six hours or so in which
to cover his tracks. He made good use of the time, too, if you
ask me. Our only real discovery has been that Miss Baird
was lying when she said she saw Kenneth— Sir Kenneth
now— in the lane the night of his uncle’s murder. Now this
handkerchief clue seems to link her up with the Ryder case.
Only what’s her motive? Had she anything to do with
Ryder?’
‘No connection at all that we know of,’ answered Bell.
‘Well, then,’ commented Major Morris and frowned
darkly. ‘At first I thought she and Kenneth Benham might
have planned together to put the old man out of the way
as an obstacle to their marriage, but then would she invent
a story to throw suspicion on her own accomplice if that was
their plan?’
137
138 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Doesn’t seem likely,’ agreed Bell.

‘O f course,’ continued Morris, ‘there’s a good deal that
points to Kenneth. He had quarrelled with his uncle, he
inherits largely under a will his uncle had threatened to
alter, he was on the spot at the time, he is tall and bigly
made, so he has the necessary physique to personate him
if he wanted to. On the other hand he has a good alibi.’
‘Everybody always has,’ sighed Bell, ‘I believe people
are born with ’em, just as they are born with ten fingers
and ten toes, only they’ve more alibis than that.’
M ajor Morris nodded.
‘Young Benham’s isn’t cast-iron,’ he remarked. ‘Maybe
it’s all the stronger for that, a cast-iron alibi is always a bit
suspicious to my mind. There’s proof, if Miss Baird is telling
the truth, that the murderer left Benham House about five
in the morning in Sir Charles’s car afterwards found aban­
doned in London with nothing to show when. It is just
possible, but only just, that Kenneth Benham might have
got to London, left his uncle’s car there, returned in another
driven by an accomplice or on a motor-cycle he had waiting
somewhere, and got back into his room unperceived in time
to show at breakfast next morning. But you couldn’t put
that before a jury as a mere guess, or without a good deal
more proof that we have to show.’
‘No,’ agreed Bell thoughtfully, ‘it could be done but only
just— it would have needed a mixture of luck, cheek, and
brains you couldn’t ask a jury to take for granted. Though
whoever it is we are up against, has cheek and lufck and
brains all right.’
‘Looks to me,’ declared Major Morris, ‘as if Miss Baird
knew something else she won’t tell and so invented that story
of having seen him in the lane to direct attention to him.’
‘Have you questioned her?’
‘We put it to her that she couldn’t possibly have seen
him, and she stuck to it that she did. We asked her to put
it to the test by seeing if she could recognize others there
and she wouldn’t agree. She said she could recognize some­
one she knew well, like her cousin at a far greater distance
than comparative strangers, which I suppose is true enough
and then the light and the exact position where anyone
in the lane was standing would make all the difference. And
 MAJOR MORRIS HAS IDEAS I39

she wound up with telling us she didn’t care whether we

believed it or not, he was there and she thought it her duty
to tell us and that was all. And she wouldn’t say another
word though when I tried a bluff, and said we would arrest
him on the strength of what she said, she looked ghastly—
perfectly ghastly. I thought she was going to break down
altogether. I had to leave it at that. Afterwards she came
to see me and I had to say that we had decided there
weren’t sufficient grounds on which to take action against
the young man. Then she burst out almost hysterically that
she knew he was innocent. I thought she was going off her
head altogether, quite a scene we had.’
‘First of all she invents incriminating evidence against a
man and then declares he’s innocent,’ mused Bell. ‘Difficult
to know what to make of that.’
‘She’s a woman,’ said M ajor Morris as if he felt that
explained all, ‘never know what women are up to. There’s
this, if she and he are both in it together, Kenneth may
have left Benham House in his uncle’s car much earlier than
she says he did. That would give him more time to get back
to his room in the Vicarage unseen, and the lie she told us
may have been ah attempt to throw dust in our eyes by
making us think there’s bad feeling between them— which
from her sort of breakdown in my room when she knew we
weren’t going to proceed to an arrest, there certainly isn’t.
Anyhow the idea that she was trying to divert suspicion from
him by telling us a lie to incriminate him in the hope that
we should recognize the lie and therefore decide he was
innocent seems— well, subtle.’
‘A bit too subtle, a bit too complicated,’ agreed Bell, ‘if
only we knew why she lied— if she lied------ -’
‘Oh, no doubt of that,’ insisted M ajor Morris, ‘quite im­
possible she could recognize anyone in the lane from her
window at night. But I agree the theory I spoke of is too
subtle altogether.’
‘Though there’s something very subtle behind all this,’
said Bell sadly, ‘three murders and not a hint of who’s guilty
— not a hint of a motive, not a trace, and every clue we get
only leads to something entirely different.’
‘You think there’s a connecting thread if only we could lay
hold of it that runs through all these affairs ?’ Morris asked.
140 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Same methods,’ Bell pointed out. ‘Same people always

popping up, every clue we follow up leads us round and
round in the same old circle. Take these three murders—
quick and sure every one. Sir Charles Benham in his house,
with servants hearing nothing, the woman at Notting Hill
in a street without any of the inhabitants hearing a sound,
Ryder in a car on our own doorstep and nothing seen or
heard till the officer on duty opens the car door and finds
him lying dead on the floor. Swift and sudden every time,
and I can’t think there’s two men alive could do it like
that over and over again.’
‘You know the man I had in my mind,’ Major Morris
remarked, ‘was Ryder himself.’
‘Ah, he’s cleared,’ Bell answered slowly, ‘we had thought
of him, too, but now he’s cleared all right enough.. . . ’
‘And where else to look . . . ’ added M ajor Morris with a
gesture of extreme discouragement.
‘There was a young man, a Mr. Codrington,’ Bell
observed.
‘Oh, we’ve thought of him,’ Major Morris answered, ‘but
he’s got a good alibi, too— there’s proof he was in bed as
usual in his flat at half-past seven next morning and had
been there all night. Besides he’s a small, slightly built man,
he could never have passed himself off as Sir Charles
Benham, even if we didn’t know he was at his office all next
day.’
‘Used to stay a good deal at Benham Royal Arms Hotel,
didn’t he ?’
‘Yes, quite a lot, they have a very good class of visitor
there and it’s close to the links. Codrington plays golf and
bridge rather well, and our inquiries suggest he used the
hotel for getting in touch with well-to-do visitors to whom
he could recommend investments— he’s with a firm of stock­
brokers. No complaint about his methods but his visits to
the hotel and his golf and his bridge seem to have been
strict business with him. There seems to have been an idea
at one time that there was something between him and
Miss Baird, but I don’t know about that, anyhow it’s no
concern of ours.’
‘No,’ agreed Bell. ‘Is Miss Baird still at Benham House?’
‘Yes, she’s staying on for a time, I understand.’
 MAJOR MORRIS HAS IDEAS I41

‘And Kenneth Benham?’

‘When he’s down here, he stays at a cottage in the village.
O f course, under the will Benham House is his property,
but I suppose he thinks it would hardly be the thing for
him to stay there alone with Miss Baird. She comes in for a
good bit, you know, and I understand is going to move to a
flat in town as soon as she can find one.’
‘I suppose there’s a good deal of business to be seen to,’
agreed Bell. ‘Dr. Pollard is one of the executors, isn’t
he?’
‘Yes, but I think the lawyers are doing all the work, he
says he is not a business man and he leaves it all to them.
I think his idea is he was only made executor so that Miss
Baird should feel she had some friend to appeal to in case
of any difficulty.’
Bell rose to take his leave, and M ajor Morris remarked
that when he saw Miss Baird last she looked very ill and
worn.
‘Natural enough in a way,’ he admitted, ‘when a thing
like this has happened, but I can’t help feeling she knows
something.’
‘Wish we knew why she told that lie,’ sighed Bell, and was
about to add ‘that is, if it was a lie’, hut changed his mind
as he saw the M ajor looking at him.
But the M ajor guessed what had been on the tip of his
tongue and said, a little irritably:
‘You can go along and see for yourself if you like— see if
you think it’s possible she could recognize anyone in the lane
from her window.’
‘Oh, of course, sir, if you are convinced about that, it’s
good enough for us. Is it long since you saw her?’
‘As it happens I saw her this morning. I suppose she had
come in from Benham to do some shopping.’
‘Showery weather,’ Bell remarked. ‘I wonder if you
noticed if she had an umbrella?’
‘I think so,’ answered the Major, looking rather puzzled,
‘one of those stumpy things with a strap to carry it by—
military, I think they call them. W hy?’
‘Only another idea gone west,’ Bell admitted, ‘that’s all,
sir. By the way, there’s one little point about Codrington.
He’s just bought a dog collar.’
142 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Dog collar/ repeated the Major, looking as if he were

beginning to doubt his visitor’s sanity.
‘A dog collar,’ repeated Bell. ‘Large size, one of those
that are all over brass studs so that in a fight the throat
will be well protected.’
M ajor Morris sat back in his chair. He had turned very
pale, in his eyes there showed no longer any doubt of the
other’s sanity but a sudden fear and swift dismay.
‘Good God,’ he said. ‘Is it that now?’
 Chapter 21

ONE PUZZLE SOLVED

I n h i s meek and unobtrusive way, Sergeant Bell tucked
himself into a corner of the motor ’bus that ran every hour
to and from Benham village. There, obliterated behind a
basket of a cheery, genial countrywoman, as in other matters
he was accustomed to remain obliterated behind the cheery,
genial presence of Chief Inspector Carter, Bell sat in silence
and deep thought while his mind threshed to and fro, like
a fish taken in a net.
Fact after fact, incident after incident, he passed in
review, and one and all they mocked him with their teasing
hints of an order he could not discover, of relations he
could not perceive, of connections he could not link together.
He had the conviction that if only he could hit upon the
secret word, the word of power, the ‘Open sesame’, that
then the moment it was pronounced the locked cavern of
the truth would fly open and all that it held be made plain.
But what that word might be or how to find it, seemed
altogether beyond his power. Y et still it was as though the
secret played hide and seek with him, peeping at him from
this side, laughing at him from that, always just evading
his grasp and yet always just within his reach.
‘Is it that we haven’t facts enough,’ he wondered, ‘or is
it that we haven’t the brains to put them in the right
order?’
‘Benham,’ shouted the conductor, and with a word of
apology for having been there, Bell wriggled out from
behind the basket of the cheery, genial countrywoman and
alighted.
At a little distance, hidden behind trees— the motor ’bus,
which went some distance further, had stopped not in the
village but at the cross roads just outside— stood the church
with its cemetery where in the Benham family vault had
begun this Chinese-nest-of-boxes mystery. Turning down the
other road Bell came into the village itself, opposite Dr.
i4 3
144 GENIUS IN MURDER

Pollard’s modest little house wherefrom a small boy was

emerging carrying a bottle of medicine in his hand. Not
far away stood a large double-fronted shop, one window
devoted to grocery, one to drapery, and in this second
window Bell observed with interest a row of lady’s stumpy
umbrellas, all much alike, with short leather straps for
handles, offered at an ‘epoch-making price’ as recently
‘purchased from a leading London manufacturer forced by
the trade slump to realize for cash’. ‘Our customers get the
benefit’ announced in large letters the shopkeeper, whose
methods seemed to substantiate the proud claim above his
windows ‘formerly with Barker’s, Kensington’, as in other
walks of life others proclaim themselves ‘M .A. (Oxon)’ or
announce with shy delight that they are that month’s chosen
of the Book Society.
Bell slipped into the shop. The grocery side was thronged
with farmers’ wives, buying Danish bacon and Dutch
margarine, and Bell touched his hat to the pleasant-faced
young lady, rosy, fair-haired, blue-eyed, who seemed to
preside over the drapery, and asked if she could direct him
to the church. She could and did, and she noticed, as she
had done before, that these London smarties weren’t so
smart after all. This Londoner for instance was singularly
slow in grasping her directions, plain though they were
(what could be plainer than ‘turn by Mrs. Atkins’s cottage
and then Farmer Bright’s footpath will take you right to
it’ ?). But he was quite nice and pleasant and had such a
quiet, meek way of talking she felt a little sorry for him and
was really pleased that he noticed their new line of um­
brellas they were showing in the window.
‘Wonderful value, couldn’t get ’em for that in town,’ he
admitted, ‘and selling fast enough I daresay. I noticed a tall
young lady, dark hair, dark eyes, black for beauty as they
say, though for my part,’ added Bell thoughtfully, looking
anywhere but across the counter and evidently quite
oblivious of the fact that it was a blonde he was addressing,
‘I never saw a dark girl could hold a candle to lots of fair
ones I’ve met. But I noticed she had a new, very smart
umbrella she was showing somebody as if she was very
pleased with it.’
‘Miss Baird that’ll have been,’ said the drapery counter
 ONE PUZZLE SOLVED 145

young lady opening to their widest her large and very blue
eyes, lifting a hand to adjust her auburn and permanent
waves, ‘she lost her own in town the other day, so she came
to us, and as she said herself, she couldn’t have done better
in Bond Street at anything near the price.’
‘I’m sure she couldn’t,’ agreed Bell heartily, and after he
had had once more the way to the church explained so
carefully not even a Londoner could miss it, he expressed
his gratitude, wished he had his wife with him to buy one
of that cheap line of umbrellas, and took his leave.
And now he remembered very clearly, and wondered why
he had not before,, that he had seen Kate Baird on the day
of the discovery of Sir Charles Benham’s body carrying
an umbrella of which the handle represented an owl’s head.
‘Must have been her all right at Codrington’s that night,’
he mused. “No business of ours,” Carter said. Wonder if he
would have said that if he had known who the girl was.
Only what the dickens was she doing there ?’ and once again
his mind threshed to and fro, like a great fish freshly taken
in a net.
He left the church to one side and went on to find the
little lane in which, according to her own story, Kate Baird
had seen Kenneth Benham lingering on the night of the
murder. He had no difficulty, from the description given to
him, in finding both the place where Kenneth was supposed
to have been waiting and the window from which Kate
claimed to have seen him. He had still less difficulty in
deciding that the Southdown police were right and that it
was quite incredible that either she or anyone else, not
even with the aid of night glasses it was highly improbable
she possessed, could make out from that window, placed as
it was, the identity of anyone at that spot in the lane at
night.
‘She must have been lying then,’ Bell mused. ‘What for?
It’s impossible to believe any girl would lie about a thing
like that and yet apparently she did.’
He felt very hot and worried, and what to think he did
not know. Was it possible she had deliberately lied in order
to throw suspicion on someone she suspected but dared not
openly accuse? Or was it simply a desperate attempt to
divert suspicion from someone else? Neither theory seemed
K
14 6 GENIUS IN MURDER

tenable to Bell and yet there were the facts— Kate’s state­
ment and the impossibility that it could be true.
‘In our job,’ Bell said to himself, ‘we get to be able to
swallow a lot that’s rum, humans being rum. But it’s a
bit too thick to believe that girl’s just lying for the fun of
it. If she had known he was there, she might have been able
to make out a moving shadow and guessed it was him. But
then how could she know he was there? Unless, of course,
he had an appointment with her. But even then she couldn’t
have been sure he was actually there unless she had come
to keep it and seen him . . . but then she wouldn’t have been
likely to say anything. . . of course if she had actually
arranged to meet him . . . or someone else. . . by the Lord,’
cried Bell abruptly, ‘that’s what it is . . . she had an appoint­
ment with someone else that night, she came out to keep it,
either coming or going she saw Kenneth there . . . afterwards
from her window, she saw someone was still there and took
it for granted it was still him, as it probably was. So she
told the truth all right when she said she saw him from the
window of her room, though she didn’t think it necessary
to add she had seen him before from the other side of the
hedge.’
He paused and very slowly and very deliberately— but not
very hard— he kicked himself three times.
‘That, my lad,’ he said to himself sternly, ‘is for not
having had gumption enough, sense enough, to think that
out before, plain enough with a bit of thought. No wonder
you’re a sergeant and likely to stay so while your juniors
get promoted.’
Then he paused and said slowly and aloud the one word :
‘Codrington. Codrington,’ he repeated, ‘it was with him
she was the night we nearly caught her at his flat, only she
slipped away in time. It was him she came out that'night
to meet and saw Kenneth in the lane, either coming or
going.’
He paused and tried to picture her slipping through the
darkness at the very moment perhaps when her uncle’s
life was passing from him in the strangler’s grip. O r was it
to arrange the details of the assassination she had gone?
Had she led the young man back, had she introduced him
into the house to commit the murder and then helped
 ONE PUZZLE SOLVED 147

him to dispose of the body? But that theory left un­

explained, and Bell was glad of it, the identity of the
unknown who had masqueraded as the dead Sir Charles,
since a small slight man like young Codrington could not
possibly have disguised himself as the tall, burly Sir Charles.
But all this he realized was speculation and rather vague
speculation, too. One fact more had been established and
that was something and even a good deal, but where it led
to Bell did not clearly see. Making up his mind to investigate
a little more, he soon found there was a footpath, not much
used apparently, that ran between the lane and a small
wood he could see at a little distance. This footpath could
easily be reached from Benham House, and any person
following it between house and wood would pass quite near
the spot where Kenneth was supposed to have been loiter­
ing that night.
Taking out his pocket-book, Bell made a sketch map
showing the relative positions of house, lane, path, and wood,
marking with a cross the spots he imagined must have
been occupied by Kenneth waiting and by Kate passing by,
when presumably she had seen him but had remained
unseen herself.
Then he decided to follow the footpath. It led him across
a stile, into the wood and as he walked slowly along, look­
ing carefully to right and left, hoping vaguely to discover
some useful clue or another, though of what nature he had
no idea, he came presently to a spot, a little more open than
the rest, where the fallen trunk of a tree lay comfortably
placed on level turf to make a resting-place.
That it had been so used was plain, for there were matches
and traces of tobacco ash lying about, and looking at this
last Bell wished he had the genius of the gentleman he had
once read about who could distinguish at a glance forty-
seven varieties of tobacco.
‘Not that that would be much use nowadays,’ he told
himself, ‘when everyone smokes “ Minus Threes” or
“ White Pussies” or “The Butler’s Own” or one of a dozen
other brands. All the same it’s the very spot for people who
want to meet each other on the quiet.’
He made another little sketch of its position, for indeed
it seemed to him exactly the place where lovers might meet
I48 GENIUS IN MURDER

to exchange in secret their vows and their kisses or others

to plan murder? Which he wondered. Neither, perhaps, he
thought.
For some little time he ‘poked about’, to use his own
favourite expression, without finding anything of interest,
for the short, tough turf held no signs he could distinguish,
and the scattered matches he found, the tobacco ash, a
piece of tinfoil that might have held chocolate, a scrap of
tom newspaper, all that told him nothing. A little tired, he
sat down on the fallen tree trunk to rest, and he was in
the act of taking out a cigarette to treat himself to a smoke,
and to wonder what those had talked of who had smoked
there before him, when his attention was caught by a series
of signs roughly and apparently quite recently scratched on
the log where a piece of rotting bark had been pulled away
to leave a fresh and level surface. They were of regular
shape and order, thus :

o u aj u a* 3 u t - v n a r - a u f c n / u n n i t - r j a

His cigarette still unlighted in his hand Bell stared at them

blankly.
‘Is this something at last?’ he asked himself with a
gathering excitement.
 Chapter 22

SCHOOLBOY’S CYPHER
F o r at the first glance Bell had recognized a form of cypher
that is one of the oldest and simplest known, so much so
indeed that it is often called ‘the schoolboy’s cypher’ since
it is often used by children— and by criminals whose
mentality is generally on the child level.
It is frequently known, too, as ‘angle writing’, each letter
of the alphabet being represented by the angle formed by
the straight lines by which in the key figure it is enclosed,
th u s:

a b. c d. e f.

g h- i j- k 1.

m n. 0 p. q r-

Thus the letter ‘i’ is represented by a square, ‘t’ by an

open V , ‘e’ by an open angle facing right, like a capital ‘L ’
thus |_, and so on, the second of each pair of letters being
distinguished by a dot. ‘s’ for example, being represented by
the *V’ shaped figure plain, and ‘t’ the same with a dot
added. In so simple a system of transposition, the only
possible complication is to alter the alphabetical order, and
this may be done on any easily memorized system, as for
example writing the alphabet in reverse order, beginning
with ‘z’, or putting it down perpendicularly instead of
horizontally, or even by adopting the order in which the
letters occur in some simple sentence.
But the cypher is never difficult to read, as no cypher can
be when the same letters are always represented by the
same signs, and Bell was quite confident of being able to
solve it without trouble.
The first thing of course was to note which sign occurred
149
ISO GENIUS IN MURDER

the most frequently, since that would probably represent

the ‘e’ which is the letter that in English and in other
languages as well occurs the most frequently. In this case
that was the closed square, which in the figure Bell had
drawn to help him, would stand for ‘i’ when plain and for
‘j ’ with the added dot. But the ‘L ’ shaped figure, which in
this diagram stood for ‘e’, occurred only one time less often,
and Bell thought he might as well try first to read the
cypher on the chance that the simplest alphabetical order
had been used. The result he secured however was only
‘iciadixhcesoirjevl’, which seemed meaningless. So he gave it
up, since the result was only this jumble of letters, and
started again trying another arrangement of letters, in which
the closed square should stand for ‘e,’ as on the principle
of frequency it should do. But he succeeded no better,
either with that or with any other arrangement he tried and
he decided ruefully that the cypher must be a little more
subtle than appeared on the surface.
He comforted himself with the reflection that in that case
the communication was probably of importance, and not
merely, as he had thought possible, a message passing be­
tween two children, perhaps two boy scouts carefully pre­
paring themselves for secret service in the next great war.
A t any rate it seemed the thing would have to be
properly worked out, perhaps by the Foreign Office experts
who were always ready to take an interest in such things,
and in any event it was perhaps not very prudent of him
to sit there notebook in hand. If he were seen, his occupa­
tion might be guessed, and timely warning taken by whoever
it was used this secret method of communication.
So having first made a careful copy of the cypher he got
up, and, thinking it worth while to continue his explorations,
he followed the footpath through the wood and across a
field to the high road to which it was evidently a short
cut and which it joined close to a large and prosperous-
looking farm.
Retracing his steps, and deciding that the first thing he
must do was to report his discoveries to his superiors, Bell
re-entered the wood on his way back to the village. Hearing
the sound of someone at work at a little distance he left the
path and a few yards away saw an elderly labouring man
 s c h o o l b o y ’s c y p h e r 15 1
engaged in some rural occupation. Bell wished him good
day, the other, quite willing to chat, responded, and it
appeared had seen Bell go by before, though Bell had seen
nothing of him. It was not often, he remarked, that anyone
used this path except Mr. Barnard’s own men. Mr. Barnard,
it seemed, was the farmer whose prosperous-looking build­
ings Bell had already noticed, and he was apparently a well
known local personage, very opinionated, very set in his
ways, but popular and respected and said to be the best
farmer for miles around. Gently guiding the conversation in
the wished-for direction, Bell learnt that his new friend had
been working there all that afternoon, and that the only
other person he had seen was Miss Kate Baird.
‘Drawing pictures,’ the labourer explained; ‘she’s always
doing it, artist they calls her.’ He stopped and chuckled at
the idea of an occupation which to him, as to most of his
fellow countrymen, seemed distinctly humorous when re­
garded as a pursuit for a grown-up person, though of course
for children it was well enough. ‘Drew my Betty once,’ he
added, ‘it weren’t nothing like so good as the photo the
missus had took . . . of course we all said how wonderful like
it was,’ he hastened to add for fear of being thought lacking
in courtesy.
‘Does she paint much in the wood? some pretty bits in
there I noticed,’ Bell observed carelessly.
‘She does sometimes but not this morning, she was only
sitting on a fallen log doing nothing,’ the labourer
answered.
Bell chatted for a moment or two longer and then strolled
away. He thought to himself this showed that Miss Baird
had had at least the opportunity to read the secret message
if it were meant for her— or perhaps to scratch it on the
wood for someone else to read, for that, too, was a
possibility.
‘Wish I could read it,’ he said to himself. ‘Looks simple
enough, and that open ‘L ’ figure comes just where it ought
for ‘e’, if the alphabet is written straightforwardly, and yet
“iciadixhcesoirjevl” ’— he repeated, reading the string of
letters from his pocket-book, ‘only makes gibberish’, he said
aloud and all at once grew alert again as he slipped back his
notebook into his pocket, for through the branches and the
152 GENIUS IN MURDER

undergrowth he had a glimpse of someone seated on the

fallen log.
A nearer, cautious approach showed him it was Kenneth
Benham who was there, and for a little Bell stood motionless,
watching him and wondering and thinking.
Was he there to read the cypher, and was it K ate Baird
who had left it for him? Y et why should they adopt such a
method of communication when there was nothing to
prevent their meeting openly, if they wished to? Was it a
sign that here the waters were deeper than appeared at first
sight? O r was Kenneth’s presence at this spot a mere
chance ?
Bell came forward and Kenneth looked up and nodded a
recognition.
‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘you down here now? anything up?’
‘Oh, I’m just poking about,’ Bell answered. He came
nearer and noticed that Kenneth had so seated himself as
to cover the scratched cypher. Was that because he had
read it and did not want it seen by anyone else? ‘Just
poking about,’ Bell repeated. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’
‘Beautiful,’ agreed Kenneth, not without a touch of
irony in his voice. ‘I suppose you’re just out enjoying the
fine weather?’
‘Oh, poking about, poking about,’ Bell repeated. ‘Not
finding much though.’
‘I read about Ryder’s murder,’ Kenneth said abruptly. ‘Is
there any connection ?’
‘W ith Sir Charles Benham’s murder?’ asked Bell. ‘If
we knew that, we should know a good deal more
than we d o .. . . so we should if people told us all they
know.’
‘If that’s meant for me,’ said Kenneth composedly, for
Bell had spoken with some emphasis, ‘I don’t think it
applies, there’s nothing I know I’ve not told you.’
‘Not even what you were doing in the lane near Benham
House the night of the murder?’
Kenneth did not answer for a moment or two. He showed
no sign of fear or discomposure though he looked a little
thoughtful. Then he said quietly :
‘I wondered if she had told you.’
Bell caught the use of the feminine pronoun, but he gave
 s c h o o l b o y ’s c y p h e r 153
no sign of how keenly it interested him. He, too, waited a
litde before speaking and then he observed :
‘Then you knew she had seen you ?’
‘She could hardly have helped, she passed so close.’
‘Don’t you think those are facts you should have men­
tioned to us?’
‘Why should I? Neither fact had or could have any
connection with the murder.’
‘What was Miss Baird doing out so late that night?’
Kenneth looked long and steadily at Bell before he
answered. Then he said simply :
‘How should I know ? you must ask her that.’
And Bell was aware of the conviction that Kenneth either
knew or at least suspected the errand that had taken her out
but that nothing would ever make him tell it. Presently
Kenneth added :
‘If you think Miss Baird knows anything about uncle’s
murder or can tell you anything, you’re wrong. She can’t.
More than I for that matter.’
‘Miss Baird herself didn’t seem so sure of that,’ Bell
remarked.
‘You mean she half suspected I had something to do with
it?’ Kenneth asked, and when Bell did not answer he was
silent for a moment or two. Then he said unexpectedly, as
if to himself, with an intense though repressed emotion :
‘Thank God.’
Bell, busy with lighting his cigarette, an operation he
performed very slowly and thoughtfully, wondered what
to make of this. W hy should Kenneth thank his God that
K ate Baird had doubted his innocence? Was it, Bell won­
dered, that if she suspected others, then she must be ignorant
of the truth, and if she were so ignorant, then she could not
be guilty herself? But then in the same way it followed
from Kenneth’s present relief that he had not always been
entirely certain of her innocence, if he regarded now her
suspicion of himself as proof that she knew nothing of the
truth. But then again, if sometimes he had had doubts of
her entire innocence, then he himself must equally, by the
same reasoning, be ignorant of the actual facts and therefore
innocent of complicity in them. These deductions seemed to
Bell of interest and he thought it worth while to test them.
154 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘you’ve wondered if perhaps Miss

Baird had not had something to do with it.’
‘Not really, never,’ protested Kenneth, ‘only in such a fog,
in such a tangle, you get to doubt everything, even your own
sanity, even whether what’s going on round you is real. But
now because I know I am innocent myself I know she is,
too.’
‘You mean if you had nothing to do with it and she
thought you might have had, then she was wrong, and if
she was wrong, then she had no accurate knowledge of
what happened that night— as you were often afraid she
might have?’
Kenneth looked rather taken aback. He had not expected
from this quiet, rather depressed-looking man a deduction
so swift and so accurate.
‘I don’t think I said anything like that,’ he protested.
‘Oh, it follows, it follows,’ Bell answered, and did not add
that the same reasoning applied to Kenneth, who, if he had
entertained doubts of Kate Baird’s innocence, could not be
guilty himself.
But then, Bell reminded himself cautiously, it did not
follow that either Kenneth or Kate had really entertained
such doubts, which might easily have been paraded in order
to mislead. Long experience had taught Bell to be prepared
for every form of deception and deceit. He said after
another silence :
‘Who had Miss Baird come out to meet that night ?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Was it Mr. Codrington?’ Bell insisted.
‘That’s a question you’ve no right to ask and I should
have no right to answer, even if I knew, which I don’t.’
‘You might guess.’
Kenneth did not answer. It was plain he intended to keep
silent. Bell, trying one or two more questions and getting no
response, lapsed into silence himself, and producing another
cigarette began to smoke it. Kenneth remained sitting on
the log, his chin in his hands. It appeared he had no
intention of moving, and Bell wondered if his object in
remaining seated there, so obstinately in the same position
was to keep the cypher message hidden— for his body com­
pletely concealed it— or was it merely that he was sunk too
 s c h o o l b o y ’s c y p h e r 155
deep in troubled thought to think of moving? Which was
the right explanation, Bell could not decide, but he decided
presently that he could wait no longer, not if he were to be
in time to make his report that day. A t any rate, he re­
flected, he had been able to confirm his theory that Kate
Baird had seen Kenneth, not from her window, but from
the footpath where it skirted the lane, though no doubt as
soon as she was in her room again she had looked out and
had been able to distinguish some sort of moving shadow
in the lane she had been sure was Kenneth, She had not
lied in telling her story then, and that was something
established. Bell told himself that even to have so small a
point settled was, in such a tangle, something to be grateful
for, and he thought the best plan would be to suggest to
Phillips to take a statement from Kenneth.
‘Phillips might manage to make him talk,’ Bell told him­
self, ‘though I rather doubt it.’
Leaving Kenneth still seated there in the same attitude,
Bell went back to the village, and near the spot where the
footpath joined the lane saw approaching a tall, thin man
whose long legs were carrying him over the ground at a
surprising rate. It was Dr. Pollard, who knew him again at
once, and stopped on seeing him with an exclamation of
surprise.
‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘any fresh developments?’
‘Just poking about,’ explained Bell, ‘poking about, that’s
all.’
The doctor explained that he was on his way by the
footpath through the wood, a short cut, to visit a patient in
an adjacent farm, and then he began to talk of the murder
of Mr. Ryder and of how much it had surprised and
shocked him.
‘But if it’s true the poor fellow was strangled,’ he
asked, ‘are there no finger-prints or other clues to help
you ?’
‘A piece of blind-cord was used,’ Bell explained.
‘Like it was with poor Benham,’ the doctor exclaimed
immediately. ‘Is it possible it’s the same man? could there
be any connection ?’
‘We don’t know enough to have much idea about that,’
answered Bell.
15 6 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Ah, you’re cautious,’ smiled the doctor. ‘Quite right, no

doubt, quite right. A dreadful business, terrible.’
‘It is,’ agreed Bell, ‘as dark a business as I’ve ever known.
How is Miss Baird keeping? all this must have been a great
trial to her.’
Pollard agreed that it was, but added that he was not
her medical attendant. A Dr. Sterling attended her when
necessary. A discreet question or two brought the further
information that Miss Baird had been in town on the night
of the visit to Codrington’s flat and that she had come back
by the late train.
‘Without her umbrella,’ added Pollard smiling. ‘I don’t
know how many that makes she’s lost.’
Bell smiled too and remarked she might very likely get it
back on applying to the lost property office. But having the
information he wanted he showed no sign of interest in it
and changed the conversation to ask if the winding up of
the estate was proceeding normally.
‘Nothing unusual turned up in Sir Charles’s papers or
affairs, I suppose?’ he asked. ‘Nothing to help us in any
way.’
Pollard said he thought not, but explained that all the
details were in the hands of the lawyers. He was, he said,
not much more than a figurehead, his only role to help Miss
Baird should any help be necessary, which up to the present
it had not been.
‘Just a matter of precaution,’ he explained, ‘in case the
lawyers and Miss Baird didn’t get on together, that’s
all.’
‘I suppose,’ Bell asked, a little abruptly, ‘you knew Sir
Charles well— I suppose you’ve no suspicions yourself?’
‘None,’ Pollard assured him, ‘none, I suspect no one, no
one at all— and that’s God’s truth.’
He spoke with a sudden emphasis that a little puzzled
Bell. His words had sounded sincere, and, yet, if they were
sincere, why such emphasis? Could he possibly mean that
he did not suspect because he knew? The idea flashed across
Bell’s mind and passed, leaving it a little troubled, and
more than once, after they had shaken hands and parted,
Bell glanced over his shoulder at the doctor striding along
on the way to visit his patient at, presumably, Mr. Barnard’s
 s c h o o l b o y ’s c y p h e r
157
farm, since that, it seemed, was the only house the path
led to.
In the village Bell found a public telephone from which
he called up headquarters, and when he had been put
through to Phillips he recounted briefly his adventures, and
his discovery of the angle writing he had found and failed
to read.
He described the various figures, and the result he had
got when he had tried to read them on the assumption that
the alphabet had been used straightforwardly, and without
any complications, and in rather a queer voice Phillips,
who, Bell understood, had now been joined by Garter,
asked him to repeat the result he had secured when trying
to read the cypher.
‘It was only a jumble of letters,’ Bell protested, a little
surprised at the request, and from his notebook he read :
“ iciadixhcesoirjevl” — that was as far as I went,’ h e-ex­
plained, ‘I stopped there as it didn’t make sense.’
To his astonishment he heard a sound of boisterous
laughter coming over the line and this time it was Carter
who spoke.
‘Bell, you great galoot,’ the Inspector was saying, ‘what
do you think you keep in your brain box? M y lad, you must
try to be a bit sharper than that.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bell, meekly as ever but a little bewildered,
for on the whole he had thought he had done pretty well
that day.
Phillips was speaking now.
‘Luckily no harm done,’ he was saying, ‘but you know,
Sergeant,— however we needn’t talk about that now. We
shan’t let it go against you as you did manage to blunder
on the thing all by yourself.’ Phillips’s voice expressed the
surprise he apparently felt at this fact. He continued : ‘The
Inspector and I are coming down by car. We’ll garage it
at the Benham Royal Arms Hotel, get something to eat
and come on to Benham. Meet us outside the church at a
quarter to nine. Understand ?’
‘Very good, sir,’ answered Bell, repeating his orders, and
then he hung up the receiver and stepped outside the tele­
phone cabin feeling rather bewildered still. For he certainly
had had the impression that he had done rather well, and
I58 GENIUS IN MURDER

what he had discovered was evidently considered to be of

sufficient importance to bring Phillips and Carter down full
speed, and yet somehow he had managed to amuse his
superiors enormously, they had told him he really must try
to be sharper than that, and his chief reward was apparently
to be that ‘it’ would not be allowed to go against him what­
ever ‘it’ might be.
‘Must have put my foot in it again— and pretty deep,
too, this time,’ he told himself sadly.
Then he sighed a little, very gently, and went to pass the
time as best he could till the hour appointed.
‘Though,’ he added to himself, ‘if I had been Phillips I
would have kept away from that hotel— bit too public,
everyone will know they’re down here, whoever has ar­
ranged that meeting by the fallen log may easily take
alarm.’
 Chapter 23

THE PEARLS RECOVERED

A f r a i d that possibly his movements were being watched
for his discovery of the angle writing he had found on the
fallen log at the secret meeting place in the wood seemed
to him to prove that more things were happening in this
quiet village than were apparent on the surface, Bell took
some pains to make his departure from Benham village by
the local motor ’bus as evident as possible.
Then, too, he let his fellow passengers hear him ask the
conductor when the next train left for London and showed
himself nervous about his chance of catching it. The last
the others saw of him was his tall figure hurrying down the
street towards the station where, however, all he did was to
obtain a meal of beer and bread and cheese at a small
public-house near and then to hire a bicycle on which he
returned to Benham in time to keep his appointment.
He was early but Phillips and Carter were there before
him and he could hear them begin to laugh as they saw him
approaching. Evidently, whatever the joke was they had
found so funny over the ’phone, it still had power to amuse
them, and Bell had to wait, meek and bewildered, while
several jests were passed about his angle writing and the
way in which he had interpreted it.
‘Best laugh the Assist. Commish. said he had had for
years,’ declared Carter genially. ‘Tickled to death, he was.’
So the Assistant Commissioner had been amused too.
But what at?
‘O f course, Bell,’ Phillips explained kindly, ‘I told him it
was all your doing— both finding it and reading it,’ he could
not help adding with a fresh chuckle.
‘It was a great piece of luck your coming on it like that,’
Carter said; ‘great luck. Luckily, too, I was there to spot
at once what the thing really m eant. . . you know, Bell, the
“gibberish” you sent along, ha, ha.’
‘Ha, ha,’ echoed Phillips.
i59
l6 o GENIUS IN MURDER

Bell still waited patiently to hear what the joke was. He

was well aware that somehow or other he had made an ass
of himself but he could not imagine how. Garter went on :
‘He said it just showed how necessary it was officers should
have a good knowledge of foreign languages.’
‘Foreign languages,’ repeated Bell, beginning to under­
stand.
‘French,’ explained Carter good-humouredly, ‘French,
my lad— that was what it was, gibberish you thought it, but
really it was just a few words in French : “ Ici a dix h. ce
soir, je v. les donnerai,”— “here at ten o’clock to-night, I will
give them you.” The “ h” is short for “ heures” and the
“v” short for “vous” . When you are looking at a French
paper,’ Carter added, giving the impression that the French
Press was as familiar to him as the English, ‘take a glance at
the advertisements and you’ll see lots of abbreviations like
that. O f course I spotted the thing was in French the
moment I saw the first three letters— “ici” for “ here,” that
gave me the idea at once and I saw immediately it was
French.’
‘I don’t know that I should have,’ observed Phillips
generously.
‘The Assist. Commish, said that, too,’ observed Carter,
enjoying his triumph, ‘he said it was just one of those things
you are apt to overlook unless you’re very wideawake
indeed, and it showed how necessary it was to have people
about who were familiar with foreign languages.’
As an actual matter of fact, the Assistant Commissioner
had said nothing of the sort. He had not said it was one
of those things that are apt to be overlooked except by the
very wideawake. He had not even thought it. Nor had he
said anything about the advantages of being familiar with
foreign languages. He had not even thought of that either,
nor would he have considered the ability to read half a
dozen words of perfectly simple and straightforward French
‘familiarity with foreign languages’. But Carter was not
lying. He was simply repeating what he felt the Assistant
Commissioner ought to have said, and what therefore
Carter was by now fully persuaded he had said. And in the
glow of the commendation thus received from so exalted a
source, Carter threw out his chest a little and drew himself
 THE PEARLS RECOVERED l6l

up to the full of his erect, well-drilled height, and beamed

upon the wretched Bell, so miserably conscious of having
made himself the laughing-stock of the Yard, so well aware
that never, never, never would Carter let that story be for­
gotten. Even Phillips could not help, though feeling a little
sorry for Bell, looking admiringly at Carter, and feeling
a good deal impressed by what apparently— though he had
not heard the remark himself— the Assistant Commissioner,
a man not given to idle praise, had said to Carter. From the
Assistant Commissioner a remark like that meant a good
deal— Phillips knew that he himself was due for retire­
ment before long, and he felt that Carter was probably
already marked to succeed him.
As for Sergeant Bell, he, understood that all the credit
for his long day’s work had somehow gone to Inspector
Carter. His own share was to be a good joke marked up
against him, of which he would not be permitted to hear the
last for many a long day. It seemed to him just a little odd
that things always worked out that way. But there it was,
and he could almost hear the whole of Scotland Yard
chuckling over his latest blunder, but leaping smartly to
attention as Chief Inspector Carter passed by, already
marked for the next vacant superintendency, destined to
be Chief Constable in time, perhaps even to fill the Assistant
Commissioner’s place, since one day no doubt that post will
be held by a man risen from the ranks.
‘Well, we had better get along,’ said Phillips. ‘Hope it’s
not going to rain. Sergeant, you and I will watch to see
who turns up to keep this appointment, while Inspector
Carter will take care of Miss Baird, just in case there’s any
alteration in the programme and they’ve changed their plans
at all. I did mean to put you on to Kenneth Benham, but
it seems he has left where he was staying, and started back
in his car for town.’
‘Eyewash, if you ask me,’ said Carter, ‘covering his tracks,
that’s all.’
‘Very likely,’ agreed Phillips, ‘and then of course there’s
nothing to show who this message is from or who it is to—
it may have nothing to do with him, it may have nothing
to do with the case for that matter, it may be merely two
children amusing themselves.’
L
162 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Somehow I don’t think it is,’ declared Garter, ‘some­

how I’ve a sort of feeling we’ve hit on the “ clou” to the
whole affair.’
‘We shall soon know,’ answered Phillips, careful not to
admit he had no idea what a ‘clou’ might be. ‘What I am
wondering more than anything else is what the “them”
refers to, what it is the sender of the message is promising
to give the other. Seems as if it ought to be something
important.’
‘Something of capital importance,’ declared Carter, ‘if
you ask me.’
‘Bell says,’ continued Phillips, ‘he saw four people near
the fallen log— is that right, Sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir,’ answered Bell.
‘I thought only three,’ protested Garter, ‘the Baird girl,
Kenneth Benham, and Dr. Pollard.’
‘And a fourth,’ smiled Phillips, not sorry to enjoy in his
turn a tiny triumph over his smart, promotion-bound sub­
ordinate, ‘you are forgetting the farm labourer— probably
he doesn’t count but we must make sure. There’s just the
off-chance he might prove one of whoever we are up against,
disguised for the occasion.’
Garter managed to indicate, strictly within the bounds of
respect and discipline, that he didn’t think much of that
idea.
‘When you’re holding down a job like mine,’ said Phillips,
and Carter noticed with a glow that he said not ‘i f but
‘when’, ‘you’ll learn to test everything and to think nothing’s
improbable till you’ve tried it out. Why, I remember once
listening for an hour to a society woman telling me about
her husband and another woman, and afterwards I found
out that every single word she uttered was just the plain,
bare unadulterated truth. So you see you can never tell.
Anyhow, we will check up on the Sergeant’s farm labourer,
and to-morrow make sure if he’s all right. That’ll be your
job, Bell. You can say you dropped something— a notebook
or a pair of gloves or anything you like-— while you were in
the wood, and had the man you chatted to seen anything of
it. That ought to let you know whether he’s genuine or a
fake. We had better be getting off now,’ he added again,
‘so as to be there in good time.’
 THE PEARLS RECOVERED 163

They parted accordingly, Carter going off on his task of

watching Kate Baird, and, if necessary, following her to any
new trysting-place that might have been arranged, and
Phillips and Bell proceeding along the lane and then the
footpath to the wood where the fallen log lay.
It was not difficult to find secure hiding-places in the
bushes and undergrowth near by, and Phillips adopted the
further expedient of covering the log rather thickly with
some red paint, of which he had brought a tin with him.
‘Whoever comes along is pretty sure to sit down there,’
he explained, ‘and if for any reasoh we don’t manage to
get hold of them or don’t want to, they’ll be pretty plainly
marked and most likely without knowing how it happened.
Carter’s idea,’ he added admiringly.
Bell knew perfectly well that it was because he was sore
and jealous and a little envious of a dexterity in Inspector
Carter he was well aware he could never hope to rival,
that he found this idea a good deal less brilliant and valuable
than evidently it appeared to the Superintendent.
‘K id’s work,’ he said, but not aloud, only to himself.
This task accomplished Phillips selected two adjacent
bushes, strategically placed, behind which they could hide.
Behind one accordingly, a prickly one on rough and stony
ground, round it the night breeze blowing chilly, Bell
ensconced himself, while Phillips, as befitted his superior
rank, crouched behind one that was less prickly, that grew
on smoother ground, that was more sheltered from the thin
night wind. They dared not smoke, of course, for the smell
of tobacco carries far at night, and so in silence and in dark­
ness they waited . .. waited . . . w aited.. . .
It is said that the ideal detective needs three great
qualities, of which the first is patience, the second patience,
the third, more patience. All the rest can be learnt but
these three qualities must be innate. That night Phillips
and Bell had need to show they possessed them— especially
when presently the threatening rain began to fall with a
slow, steady, drenching, businesslike efficiency.
It was towards midnight when at last they heard footsteps
approaching, so carefully, so cautiously, picking so wary a
way through the dark and the wet they were neither of
them quite certain they actually heard anything at all. It
164 GENIUS IN MURDER

might have been a weasel or a fox proceeding on its un­

lawful occasions, or even merely the sound of the wind
stirring the dripping branches of the trees— at least they
thought so till the sound of a heavy fall, followed by a loud
and hearty curse in a voice they both knew well, told them
it was not.
Since further concealment seemed unnecessary, as that
loud swear word could have been heard half a mile away,
Phillips and Bell emerged from their concealment— Bell
much the drier of the two for by the justice of heaven the
hard and stony ground on which he had been lying had
not held much water, while the soft turf Phillips had chosen
had been transformed into a small lake.
‘That you, Inspector,’ asked Phillips, ‘not hurt yourself,
I hope ?’ but he said this as though that hope were not very
acute, rather indeed as if the contrary would be a consola­
tion. But no doubt he didn’t mean that, not really.
‘A beastly branch tripped me up,’ Carter explained, get­
ting to his feet. ‘There’s a puddle there deep enough to
drown you in— except for that stone I hit. It’s made my
nose bleed.’ He removed himself from the puddle in which
he had stretched his length, and then feeling tenderly his
nose where it had come violently in contact with Mother
Earth : ‘That you, Sergeant ?’ he asked as Bell came up.
‘You might lend me your handkerchief, will you?’
His own was already soaked with his freely flowing gore.
So was Bell’s soon. Phillips tendered his, and Bell remem­
bered that putting a door key down the back was supposed
to be efficacious. He did not make the suggestion, however,
for it seemed to him cold rain water was likely to have much
the same curative power, and indeed soon the bleeding
stopped, and Carter was able to report that Miss Baird,
having played the piano till about ten, had then appeared
at the window of her bedroom for a time, after which the
light had gone out. Carter had made sure that both front
and back doors were locked, and all apparently made secure
for the night, and after a time, nothing else happening, he
had come, as previously arranged, to report that to all
seeming Kate Baird was keeping no appointment that night.
Phillips said :
‘Not a soul’s been near here either . . . another wash-out.’
 THE PEARLS RECOVERED 165

The extreme appropriateness of this remark, for the rain

was coming down harder than ever, was purely accidental,
but Bell could almost feel through the darkness the looks of
burning hate with which both Phillips and Carter were
regarding him. But for him they would both, he knew well,
so did they, have been at this moment warm and dry and
comfortable by their own firesides.
‘I believe it’s starting again,’ said Carter miserably.
‘It’s never stopped,’ said Phillips.
But he meant the rain whereas Carter was thinking of his
nose, each, with the natural selfishness of the human race,
concerned only with what touched him most nearly.
As for Bell, he said nothing at all. There was nothing to
say. He knew he was to blame. He knew it would be long
before either of his superior officers forgave him or forgot
this fruitless expedition into the damp, dark wilds of the
country, he knew that for the next tedious and unpleasant
job that came into the office, he would infallibly be chosen.
‘A complete wash-out,’ said Phillips with a sinister glance
towards Bell. ‘M ay as well make a move now, may as well
have a smoke first,’ and in order to light his cigarette— a
task a little difficult in the wind and driving rain, he sat
down on the fallen log.
‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said Bell timidly, ‘have you forgotten
the paint, sir?’
Phillips leaped to his feet with a muffled roar. He did not
say anything, but both the others knew that this superb self-
control might break down at any moment.
‘Perhaps it won’t show, sir,’ said Bell, fumbling for his
electric torch.
‘Not— show,’ repeated Phillips bitterly, ‘not show on a
nearly new pair of blue serge trousers?’
Bell switched on his lamp. There was no doubt about the
paint showing. After all, Phillips had laid it on good and
thick. But the beam of the electric torch also fell on a bush
near by, and on this bush there hung, they saw it plainly,
all three of them, though indeed they nearly doubted the
evidence of their own eyes, where there hung and dangled
in the cold rain a triple string of pearls, superb and wonder­
ful, glimmering softly there like a woman’s smile through
tears.
 Chapter 24

MORE THEORIES
I t w a s an odd enough picture that they made, had any
been there to see it, these three men as they stood motion­
less in the rain and stared and gasped and stared again at
the softly swinging, dangling pearls shining in the rain under
the beam of Bell’s electric torch.
For a space, how long a space they never knew, they stood
thus, blinking, bewildered, silent, and as if in sympathy
with their astonishment the rain ceased, the wind dropped,
the night seemed to grow as still and silent as themselves,
while yet the pearls swayed softly to and fro from the branch
whereon they dangled.
It was Phillips who spoke the first, forgetting his ruined
new blue serge trousers, forgetting his sopping clothing,
forgetting even the rainwater that from his drenched hat
and hair and collar still dribbled slowly down his back. He
said :
‘Where did they come from?’ He put out his hand and
touched them as if to assure himself they were real. Then
he said : ‘Where on earth did they come from ?’ He paused
again and again he touched the pearls. ‘Where the hell did
they come from?’ he asked. Finally he announced : ‘It’s the
Melton-Miller pearls all right, it is.’
After that he relapsed into silence, but he still stared
his hardest at the dangling pearls it seemed he more than
half expected to see vanish away as mysteriously as they
had appeared.
Carter said :
‘Well, we’ve got ’em back anyhow. That’ll be something
for the Press boys to chew on, that will. Old Melton-Miller
won’t have quite so much to say now we’ve got ’em back
for him.’
‘Yes, only how did they get there?’ asked Phillips, almost
plaintively, ‘that’s what I want to know, how did they get
there?’ and very much as if he were afraid of touching them,
166
 MORE THEORIES 167
very gingerly, as if he more than half expected them to
explode suddenly in his hand, he took them from the bush
where they hung and held them out at arm’s length.
‘Well,’ he said comprehensively. ‘Well.’ Once more he
said, as if appealing to the surrounding night in the vain
hope that it would answer, ‘How did they get there?’
‘Someone put them there,’ announced Carter, feeling that
as the surrounding night made no attempt to answer he
must do his best.
‘Do you think so?’ asked Phillips, very earnestly, without
the least idea of being sarcastic, in his present state of
bewilderment grateful for anything that had even the air of
being an explanation. Besides, if someone had, as Carter
said, put them there, then they had not arrived of their
own accord and free will, a supposition which in his present
state of mind Phillips would have been quite prepared to
consider. ‘I daresay you’re right,’ he said, giving the impres­
sion of having thought it out carefully and decided it was
possible.
Bell stepped forward and lowering the beam of his torch
moved it slowly to and fro on the ground beneath the bush
on which the pearls had been hung.
‘There don’ t seem to be any footprints,’ he remarked. ‘The
rain has made the ground so soft there no one could step on
it without leaving signs.’
‘That means,’ said Carter triumphantly, pleased that it
was he who had drawn so swiftly a deduction from the
facts Bell had observed, ‘that means they must have been
there before the rain came on— all the time you two have
been waiting they must have been hanging up there.’
His voice betrayed a certain discreet, hardly indeed per­
ceptible amusement at the thought of his two colleagues
waiting there patiently in the drenching rain while within
their reach the lost pearls swung and waited. Bell perceived
sadly that another funny story at his expense would soon be
going the rounds— he had the very clear impression that in
the version of the story Carter would tell Phillips’s partici­
pation in the affair would grow faint, imperceptible indeed,
while Sergeant Bell’s share would grow larger and larger
like that historic serpent which swallowed up all the rest
till only it was left. And Phillips would be grateful to
I 68 GENIUS IN MURDER

Carter for such consideration and would not omit to show

his gratitude next time recommendations for promotion
had to be made. Bell shook his head very reproachfully at
himself, he told himself severely that anyone of real intelli­
gence would have managed better, no really competent
detective would have taken an elementary French sentence
for a meaningless jumble of letters, or omitted to be aware
of a fortune in pearls dangling within arm’s length, or have
got his two immediate superiors drenched to the bone, or
have failed to protect his Superintendent from sitting down
on wet paint.
Phillips said not a word. His soul was overflowing as he
thought of himself lying there in a puddle in the drenching
rain with the pearls swinging to and fro just above his
head.
‘Looks to me,’ said Carter briskly— he was feeling quite
bright and cheerful again for after all if his nose was more
sore, his clothing was less wet than that of the other two,
and he already felt as if all the credit for the recovery of
the pearls was his alone, ‘looks to me as if this is what was
meant by the message I read— you remember-— “at ten
o’clock to-night I will give them to you.” Well, there you are
— the pearls,’ he said triumphantly, ‘left for some accom­
plice, only it’s us got ’em instead.’
Phillips was looking for something in which to wrap the
pearls. All their pocket handkerchiefs were out of action,
but Phillips accepted from Bell the scarf which hitherto
had prevented as much rain trickling down the Sergeant’s
back as had passed by way of the Superintendent’s. Having
put the pearls carefully away, Phillips said :
‘Seems like it, only if that’s so, why didn’t anyone come
to get them? We were here long before ten and not a soul’s
been near the place.’
‘Just possible,’ said Carter thoughtfully, ‘that you were
spotted . .. what I mean is,’ he added hurriedly, just in
time to prevent Phillips from commerlting on this theory,
‘that anyone coming up the path might easily have spotted
Bell. I saw him myself almost at once as I came along.’
‘I got up from where I was hiding when I knew it was
you,’ protested Bell meekly, but neither of the others seemed
to hear his small, sad voice.
 MORE THEORIES 169

He added, but only in silent thought to himself, not aloud,

that if the alarm had been taken by those who had
arranged this rendezvous, it was probably because Phillips
and Carter had shown themselves at the Benham Royal
Arms Hotel, where it was more than likely they had both
been recognized, whence such news would very easily and
very quickly be spread abroad. But this was an idea he did
know enough to keep to himself.
‘Would anyone wanting to hand over stolen property
worth about a hundred thousand pounds to an accomplice,
hang it up on a bush and leave it for the other fellow to
pick up so to speak?’ persisted Phillips.
‘No, sir,’ agreed Carter, ‘no, sir, he would not.’
‘Unless,’ suggested Bell hesitatingly, for he did not want
to expose himself once more to the homeric laughter of
his superiors, ‘unless it was us they were meant for.’
‘Eh?’ said Phillips, ‘eh? what do you mean?’
‘I was only thinking that perhaps whoever was in posses­
sion of the pearls didn’t know what to do with them,’
explained Bell. ‘There was a case like that once when stolen
pearls worth thousands were put in a matchbox and dropped
in the gutter just to get rid of them. I thought perhaps it
might be like that this time, that whoever had the pearls
knew we were going to be here to-night and left them for
us.’
Phillips only grunted. Bell had no idea what he thought
of the suggestion. Carter said cheerfully :
‘Well, anyhow, we’ve got ’em back. That’ll be something
for the papers to chew on— “Miraculous Recovery of Stolen
Pearls” ,’ he cooed, for indeed his mind was so made that
it ran naturally to headlines in the largest size letters, and
at the same time he thought to himself that it would be odd
if somewhere or another in the consequent articles no re­
ference appeared to the work of Chief Inspector Carter—
even prominently. Phillips said moodily :
‘I shall put in for a new pair of trousers— “Expenses”
ought to let that through all right.’ He paused while Bell
sighed enviously for it was only superintendents who could
get items like that allowed, not sergeants. ‘Only why,’
almost shouted Phillips with sudden energy, ‘why when we
set out on one trail, do we always get somewhere else ? Bell
170 GENIUS IN MURDER

comes down to find out what the Southdown people are

doing about the “Coffin Murder” investigations, and what
he gets is the Melton-Miller pearls. Is there any connection ?
If we stick to trying to find out where the pearls came from
to-night, shall we lay hands on the murderer of Sir Charles
Benham? How on earth can there be any connection, and
yet, if there isn’t, why does one investigation always cross
another?’
‘Seems to me plain,’ persisted Carter, ‘that the angle
writing referred to the pearls— it promises to hand some­
thing over at ten to-night and at ten to-night there’s the
pearls. Good enough to my mind. Also we know both Kate
Baird and Kenneth Benham were in the vicinity— Bell saw
one of them sitting on the log and was told of the other
having been there— well, then ! Good enough for me.’
‘But even supposing it is them, which left the message— •
and the pearls— for the other?’
‘The girl left ’em early in the evening,’ said Carter, ‘that’s
why she stopped quietly in the house— she had done her
share. Young Benham was to collect them but he tumbled
to it you were here and he didn’t dare.’
‘How did they get hold of the pearls in the first place?’
Phillips asked. ‘There’s nothing to show any connection
between either of them and the Melton-Miller affair.’
‘Not so far as we know,’ agreed Carter.
‘The only person , who seems to connect both with the
Melton-Miller business,’ Bell pointed out, ‘and with Sir
Charles Benham, is young Codrington— and he links up
with Kate Baird too, in some ways. But for the Benham
murder he has a good alibi, in any case he hasn’t the
physique for the masquerade the day after the Benham
murder, and up to the present there’s no sign he’s been
anywhere in this neighbourhood to-day.’
‘How’s this for a guess?’ asked Carter, though with less
assured a manner than usual, for even his confidence was
now a little shaken. ‘You remember we had information
that seemed reliable to show the unknown receiver of stolen
goods we’ve been looking for so long had his headquarters
somewhere about here. Well, suppose,’ said Carter, drawing
a long breath, for he felt the suggestion was a daring one,
‘suppose it was Sir Charles Benham?’
 MORE THEORIES 171
‘Who was?’ asked Phillips doubtfully.
‘The receiver, suppose it was Sir Charles Benham, suppose
he quarrelled with some crook or another— very likely about
these very pearls. The crook does Sir Charles in. He hides
the body where we’— Carter gave the pronoun just the very
least little extra emphasis, quite unconsciously— ‘found it.
It was he who masqueraded as the dead man next day and
had the cheek to come and see us. Now, whoever that was
must have been someone who knew Sir Charles well. Now
there’s one man in this affair who knew Sir Charles well,
who had the necessary physique, who was seen at this very
spot this very day— and that’s the new baronet, Sir Kenneth
Benham. I suggest Miss Baird either knows or suspects. She
tries to get the pearls back from Kenneth who took them
after the murder. He won’t part and in retaliation she drops
a hint to us that he’s guilty. She threatens him again and for
fear of her putting us on his track he agrees to give up the
pearls. He leaves them here for her, but we get in first. I
think all that hangs together?’
‘If it’s like that and she was to have the pearls, why didn’t
she come for them instead of staying in the house and
going to bed as usual which is what she did according to
your account?’ demanded Phillips. ‘Anyhow, it’s no good
standing here talking about it. We’ll get back and to-morrow
see if we can hammer sense out of it— that is, if we aren’t
all down with ’flu by then,’ he added in a voice so gloomy
and so full of dark foreboding one might have thought it
was Sergeant Bell himself who spoke.
‘If I might have permission, sir,’ said Bell timidly, afraid
it would not be granted for he knew he was at the moment in
no one’s good books, ‘I should like to stay here and try to
poke round a bi't more in the morning. O f course, I won’t
let on that we have the pearls; if they were really meant for
someone else, it may be as well for whoever left them there
not to know what’s become of them. I thought of stopping
the night at the Benham Royal Arms Hotel. They don’t
know me there and I’ll pitch a yarn about my car having
broken down. I just thought I should like to poke about a
bit more,’ he concluded pleadingly.
‘Suit yourself,’ said Phillips after a pause, ‘only don’t ask
me to initial your hotel bill for “ Expenses” .’
172 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘No, sir,’ said Bell, feeling with melancholy fingers a

pound note in his pocket he had hoped to be able to hand
over to his wife for their summer holiday fund. ‘I quite
understand, sir.’
So it was arranged, and when, in the character of a
stranded motorist that made the gloom he still felt over that
pound note he knew now ‘Expenses’ would never restore to
him, appear the most natural thing in the world, Sergeant
Bell arrived at the hotel he was promptly allotted the
modest room his meek appearance and lack of baggage
appeared to merit. But he had managed to make an oppor­
tunity for a look at the visitor’s list and after doing so his
countenance expressed a kind of melancholy satisfaction.
‘Only has he anything to do with it or is it only another
coincidence?’ he wondered, ‘O r is it,’ he asked himself bit­
terly and apprehensively ‘going to turn out the start of
something entirely fresh?’
 Chapter 25

PARTIAL CONFESSION
B e l l ’ s mind was one vast confusion of thoughts, theories,
beliefs, imaginings, suppositions, as he sat in the room
assigned to him at the top of the hotel next that occupied
by the liftman, and with an open packet of cigarettes at
hand, tried to put some kind of order to the chaos in his
mind. He did not feel in the least sleepy, and it seemed to
him he might very profitably devote these quiet hours of
the night to that task. All the day his mind had threshed to
and fro in aimless imaginings, all the day long it had turned
round and round upon itself, like a captive squirrel in one
of those cages of revolving torture happily in these gentler
days no longer to be seen, and now he hoped that in solitude
and quiet, he might be able to arrive at some tenable or at
least possible theory to explain the tangled course of events.
He had provided himself with notepaper from the hotel
smoking room, he had filled his fountain pen from the hotel
inkpot, and now he settled himself to put down in black
and white the various points to which he hoped to find an
answer. At the head of the paper he wrote :
‘Questions to be answered :
1. If our first information was correct and the unknown
receiver of stolen goods operates from this neighbourhood,
find his headquarters. (Note. Consider this hotel.)
2. Assuming he is one of the local people, which ? Pre­
sumably someone who goes frequently to town— that is,
practically everyone from Miss Kate Baird and Dr. Pollard
to the two murdered men, Sir C. Benham and Ryder. (Note.
If it was either of these last two, then a motive for the
murders can be imagined— some dispute over the price paid
or disposal of stolen property.)
3. But it may just as well be someone who comes often to
this hotel. Obtain list of frequent visitors. Codrington is
one.
03
I 74 GENIUS IN MURDER

4. Consider who can have masqueraded as Sir C. Benham

the day after his murder. (Note. As Sir Charles was tall and
bigly made, those of small physique— like Codrington—
ruled out.)
5. Consider the meaning of the Hyde Park incident. Why
did the woman concerned in it, subsequently murdered,
subsequently identified as the wife of Smith, the Clapton
printer, attempt to call in the police? Who was the man
she tried to get arrested ? why did Ryder intervene to save
him? was that intervention deliberate or accidental? was
Ryder’s own presence there an accident or purposed? is
Kenneth Benham’s explanation of how he happened to be
there just at that moment to be taken at its face value or
not? (Note. Both Ryder and Kenneth Benham are tall, big
men, either could have been the masquerader as far as
physique goes. Further note. Both had good alibis for the
night of the Benham murder. Final note. Never trust an
alibi.)
6. Was this woman’s murder a direct result of the Hyde
Park incident? If so, why? (Note. Reason to believe that
after it she was in a state of great agitation and distress.)
7. W hy has Smith, who presumably knows of his wife’s
murder, never reported it or tried to identify her body?
8. W hy did he dig a hole in his back garden? (Note. A
most important point, probably explains a lot.)
9. Is the fact that his former, possibly imaginary, partner’s
name, Codrington, is the same as that of the young half­
commission Stock Exchange man a coincidence or some­
thing more?
10. Why did young Codrington show so much emotion
during our interview with him? Was it fear of us— or some­
thing else?
11. Why has he bought a dog collar well provided with
brass studs ? (Note. That’s fairly plain.)
12. W hy is he staying in this hotel to-night? (Note. Lucky
his name was in the visitor’s book.)
13. Why was Kate Baird at his flat the night of Ryder’s
murder?
14. How did her handkerchief get into Ryder’s car?
15. W hy was she out late the night of Sir Charles’s
murder ?
 PARTIAL CONFESSION 175

16. W hy did she tell us of Kenneth Benham’s presence

in the lane that night ?
17. What was she doing near the fallen log to-day?
18. Who was it cut the angle writing on the log?
19. Who was the message intended for?
20. Who left the pearls there ?
21. Who was meant to get them?
22. What was Kenneth Benham doing near the fallen
log?’
Bell paused here and regarded with an air of some alarm
this long list of questions.
‘Good Lord,’ he protested to himself, ‘I could go on like
that from now till next week.’
And after a pause he took up his pen again and wrote
very solemnly and slowly and sadly :
‘Why is anything?’
This question he regarded with considerable satisfaction,
and then settling himself to think, discovered suddenly that
his mind absolutely refused to function. All day it had been
like a fish threshing to and fro in the net in which it was
taken, like a squirrel going round and round in its cage, and
now all at once it seemed to stop dead.
It was just as though some controlling power had stopped
the machinery, had swept out his brain, had turned his mind
into a perfect blank. He re-read his list of questions and they
seemed to him to have no significance, he asked himself why
a man should dig a hole in a back garden and he found no
reply. Thinking he must he tired, though he did not feel so,
he undressed and got into bed, and almost the moment he
did so, he was asleep.
When he awoke, it was still early, and he lay for a long
time looking out of the window at the flying clouds chasing
each other across a sky that seemed beautifully clear and
bright after last night’s rain. It seemed to him that just in
the same way, after the previous evening’s mental tumult
and confusion he had experienced his mind had now become
very clear and quiet.
‘I was pushing it too hard,’ he said to himself, ‘now it’s
had a chance to settle down,’ and he was aware of a feeling
that while he slept some unknown power had been putting
the pieces of the puzzle in ordered sequence for him, so
176 GENIUS IN MURDER

that now he had nothing to do but arrange them in

place.
‘Only even if that’s so,’ he thought, ‘that doesn’t bring
me any nearer to knowing who the murderer is.’
While he was dressing he noticed from his window a man
working in the hotel grounds. He was digging a series of
small holes in which he was then putting something— some
plant or cutting presumably. And to Bell this seemed of
good omen.
‘Because,’ he said to himself ‘if a man digs in a garden
it’s generally to plant seeds or cuttings— and if not, well,
then it’s to hide something.’
It was still fairly early when he got downstairs and he
dawdled over his breakfast till presently young Codrington
appeared. Bell waved him a friendly greeting and the young
man nodded sulkily. Bell thought:
‘He wasn’t much surprised to see me, he was expecting
one of us.’
Bell waited patiently till Codrington had finished a meal
for which he seemed to have small appetite, and he noticed
that the young man sent more than one swift and doubtful
glance towards himself. After a time Bell got up and went
across to him.
‘I wondered if you could spare me a few minutes’ con­
versation, Mr. Codrington,’ he said, and without waiting
for the refusal he anticipated he added : ‘It’s a nice morn­
ing, we could chat on the veranda quite out of the way,
if you like.’
‘Don’t know that I want a chat,’ mumbled Codrington.
‘Oh, come,’ said Bell earnestly, ‘come, Mr. Codrington,
don’t you think,’ he asked with a sort of melancholy re­
proach, ‘that our help and protection are worth more than
a dog collar— even if it has got a lot of brass studs.’
Codrington went paler still, swallowed in his throat, and
then said jerkily :
‘I don’t know what you mean— I don’t know what you
are talking about— what dog collar?’
‘The one you wore in a certain little wood near here last
night I think,’ Bell answered. ‘I think you wore it under
that silk scarf of yours, I think you felt that if a cord
dropped suddenly round your throat from one of those trees
 PARTIAL CONFESSION 17 7

you passed— then that would give you at any rate a chance
for your life.’
‘You seem to have been doing a devil of a lot of thinking,’
said Godrington who had put his head between his hands,
his elbows resting on the table, so that his face was hardly
visible.
‘I have,’ said Bell with feeling, ‘never more in all my
life.’
‘I wasn’ t in any wood last night,’ Codrington said.
‘Got an alibi?’ asked Bell with interest. ‘All the same I
think it was you who hung the Melton-Miller pearls where
we found them. If we hadn’t had the idea of digging out
that rabbit h o le. . . ’
Codrington started violently and for the first time looked
up at Bell.
‘Rabbit hole— you found them in a rabbit hole ?’ he cried
excitedly. ‘Why, then good God, why then----- ’
‘Gently, gently, Mr. Codrington,’ Bell protested, ‘you are
making everyone look at us. No, we didn’t find them in a
rabbit hole, we found them hanging on a bush near a fallen
log— strange fruit to find growing on a bush, too. But unless
you knew where you had left them, why did you think it
strange they were in a rabbit hole? Except for those who
knew, a rabbit hole and a bush, one is as odd a place for
pearls as another.’
‘Mighty smart, aren’t you?’ snarled Codrington. ‘Think
yourself awfully clever, don’t you, eh?’
‘They don’t think so at headquarters anyhow,’ sighed
Bell. ‘I wish they did.’
Codrington made an almost visible effort to pull himself
together.
‘I don’t know what you are after,’ he said sullenly, ‘I
haven’t a ghost of an idea what you are talking about.’
‘No,’ agreed Bell, ‘no? But suppose we had seen some­
one digging them up from the hole in his back garden where
he had put them for safety when you gave them him to
keep for you ?’
‘You’re mad,’ Codrington protested. But he was very pale
now and shaking in every limb. ‘You’re mad . . . I don’t
know what you mean . .. what do you want ?’
‘Only the truth,’ sighed Bell. ‘And that’s about as much
M
178 GENIUS IN MURDER

as any man can want. Why not come outside and tell me all
about it— we’re attracting too much attention here.’
He took hold gently of the young man’s arm and led him
outside to a quiet corner of the veranda where he made
him sit down. Drawing up a chair for himself, Bell said :
‘W hy not tell us all about it? You’ve got nothing to worry
about, I think. Now the pearls have been recovered I don’t
suppose there’ll be any question of a prosecution— even if
there were any satisfactory evidence against anyone, which
there isn’t. I don’t say we mightn’t get some if we poked
about a bit but I don’t imagine Melton-Miller will want to
carry the matter further. You know it was a mistake to
leave their invitation card on your mantelpiece. As soon
as we had inquired and found out they didn’t know you,
well, it was something to think about, wasn’t it?’
‘I never meant to take them,’ Codrington mumbled, ‘I
swear I didn’t.’
‘I daresay not,’ agreed Bell. ‘Lady Melton-Miller said she
thought at first she had just dropped them somewhere-— she
knew the clasp was weak. I expect that’s what happened
and you just happened to pick them up.’
‘That was it,’ Codrington agreed eagerly, ‘I hadn’t an
idea in my head at first— if I had known what it was going
to lead to I would have died rather than touch the cursed
things.’
He hid his face again between his hands and Bell waited
patiently for he saw the other was shaken by some profound
emotion. When Codrington looked up, he said more
quietly :
‘It’s hard to get business— you don’t know how hard.
People let you down, too— you work a man for weeks, you
get him to the point, one day he tells you he’s given his
own broker the order you’ve been trying for— all you can
do is to smile and make some sort of joke about i t . . . people
don’t do that so much though if they think you’re in with
the swells. . . only it don’t do to say you are . . . that sounds
like swank . . . the thing is to let yourself be seen . . . it’s not
hard . . . you can generally get in without much trouble and
if you dodge about the hall and passages, and keep away
from whoever’s giving the show, you don’t run much risk
of being spotted . . . once when I was challenged I got away
 PARTIAL CONFESSION 179
by letting on I was one of the waiters . , . two or three
times I’ve landed big orders through being seen at swell
places or through letting the man I was working know I
had seen him there.’
‘I see,’ said Bell, quite interested by this exposure of the
methods of the half-commission man. ‘That’s why you
went to the Melton-Millers, that night.’
‘Yes, I knew a man I knew would be there, I knew if
I could just get a chance to nod to him and say “how do ?”
he would be so impressed I should land his order all right.
Mind,’ added Codrington suddenly, ‘there was nothing dis­
honest about it, nothing crooked, I’ve played that trick
twenty times, but I’ve never once tasted a drop of any
drink or eaten as much as a ham sandwich anywhere. Not
once. I wasn’t going to give them a chance to run me in
for larceny.’
Bell nodded a grave approval, though secretly wonder­
ing more than a little at this scruple of honesty in a
business in which scruples seemed to him to have a small
place.
‘I couldn’t see the man I was looking for,’ Codrington
went on. ‘I got into a little room, it was to keep out of
Lady Jane Melton-Miller’s way— she was standing close
by, I had been near her before and had noticed her pearls,
there had been a picture of her and a paragraph about her
pearls in the papers the week before. When I slipped into
that little room out of her way there were the pearls on
the floor. I picked them up. I meant to give them back
to her. I swear I did. I went to look for her and then I
thought she would be sure to want to know who I was and
what I was doing there. And then all at once I thought
that it was a hundred thousand pounds I had in my pocket
— a hundred thousand pounds.’
‘A big temptation,’ agreed Bell gravely. ‘I don’t know
how many of us could have stood it— “ lead us not into
temptation” , that’s a wise man’s prayer, I think.’
‘If I had known, I would have cut my throat rather
than touch the cursed things,’ Codrington repeated with
passion. ‘I don’t know how it came about. Suddenly I was
in a taxi with the pearls still in my pocket— even then all
I thought of was the reward. I thought: “ There’ll be a
i8o GENIUS IN MURDER

big reward,” I thought it would be five or ten thousand

perhaps. And they could stand it all right— nothing to
them. I could have bought a partnership with that— you
don’t know what it’s like to be on half-commission, fight­
ing for every bit of business. A firm’s got its clients, its
connection, but a half-commission man— he’s nothing. I
gave them someone I knew to keep for me— till the
reward was offered. He said I was a fool, he said if I pro­
duced them I should have to explain how I got them, he
said I could easily get thirty or forty thousand for them—
my God.’
‘Only it didn’t happen that w ay?’ Bell asked gently.
‘It generally doesn’t.’
‘In the end I was glad to get rid of them,’ Codrington
said. ‘I was never happier in my life than when I left the
filthy things where you found them and came away with­
out them.’
Bell nodded again.
‘There’s more you can tell me, though I think,’ he said
in the same gentle \>oice. ‘1 think I have a right to ask
your help.’
‘W hy?’
‘Because,’ said Bell still in the same low voice, ‘because
I think you must want to see your mother’s murderer
brought to justice.’
 Chapter 26

STILL NO NEARER
T h e young man made no answer. He sat further back in
his chair, he seemed as it were to shrink, to grow actually
and visibly smaller. His face had become of a dreadful
pallor, from his throat came a slight gurgling noise, and
his hands clasped and unclasped themselves mechanically.
Bell got up and going into the hotel came back with a
glass of brandy and water. But the young man waved it
away.
‘M y God, my God,’ he stammered, ‘do you know that,
too?’
Bell offered him again the brandy and water.
‘You’ll feel better if you drink it,’ he urged, and this
time Codrington accepted it. A tinge of colour came back
into his cheeks and he said :
‘How did you find out? who told you?’
‘No one told us,’ Bell explained, ‘you just poke about
and you find out things and you put ’em together, and if
they stay put together, then that’s all right, and if they
don’t, well, then, you start again. Generally,’ he added
with profound melancholy, ‘you start again, no wiser than
you were before, but sometimes it just happens that you’ve
pulled the right cat’s tail.’
‘She wasn’t my mother,’ Codrington said. ‘You’ve got it
all wrong.’
‘I wouldn’t lie about it, sir, if I were you.’ Bell advised
him earnestly, ‘not now. Besides, there’s no reason now
why you should. If you go on telling us lies, your mother’s
murderer may escape. If you tell us the truth, we may
catch him yet. And you run no danger yourself. I don’t
suppose the Melton-Millers will want to prosecute now
they’ve got the pearls back, and even if they did, there’s
no evidence against you worth twopence we could bring
into court.’
‘How did you find out?’ Codrington asked.
181
l8 2 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Oh, you just go on worrying and worrying, like a dog

with a bone,’ Bell repeated. ‘First of all you think it must
be this, and then you see it couldn’t be, and then you think
it’s that, and then you realize that’s impossible, and then
you suppose perhaps it’s something else and that doesn’t
come unstuck like the rest, and so you feel maybe you’re
on the right track. Your name is Codrington and that
was the name of the former partner in the printing business
who disappeared after there was some little trouble over
a police matter— and who just possibly had never existed
at all. If he hadn’t, who was he? if you don’t mind that
way of putting it. Was your name being the same only a
coincidence? I never trust a coincidence, it’s so often
something else. If your name wasn’t a coincidence, where
did you get it from? were you the man himself? Too
young. Were you a cousin, a nephew, or a— son? If you
were a son of his old partner, why were you, as you
apparently were, still in touch with Smith and the print­
ing business? So I went and poked about Somerset House
a bit and I found your birth certificate, so that proved
there really had been a Codrington, and it described you
as the son of a John Codrington, printer of Clapton. Well,
after that, from information received, we were able to
identify the woman murdered at Netting Hill as Mrs.
Smith, the wife of the Clapton printer, and it wasn’t very
difficult then to guess that perhaps John Codrington and
John Smith were the same, and if you were his son, then
I reasoned out his wife was your mother. Next question
was, why hadn’t Smith or Codrington reported his wife’s
murder? Obvious explanation, he was guilty or had guilty
knowledge. I don’t trust “obvious” any more than I do
“coincidence” — both happen but more often they don’t.
Also there seemed no motive, he had a good alibi, he didn’t
answer the description of the murderer, and if he had
wished to murder her,— well, why Notting Hill? Second
explanation— he was scared, either because he was mixed
up in something else that might come out during investiga­
tions, or because he knew the murderer and was afraid of
him. What else was there he could be mixed up in? We
knew the dead woman had been talking about the Melton-
Miller pearls one night in Hyde Park and as naturally
 STILL NO NEARER 183

we had Mr. Smith under observation, one of our men was

watching him when he was digging a hole one night in his
back garden. W hy do people dig holes in their back
gardens at night? Well, there might be many reasons,
but one might be to hide a rope of stolen pearls. But if
he had them, how had he got hold of them? He hadn’t
had any chance himself, and if they had been left in his
care by someone else, then that someone must be someone
with good reasons for trusting him. But that was difficult,
for there weren’t any good reasons for trusting a man with
his record— except one, and that is that blood’s thicker
than water. But we knew you had been to the Melton-
Millers' that night, and had had the opportunity to lift
the pearls, so that led me back to the same conclusion—
that you might be his son and therefore also the son of
the woman murdered at Notting Hill. But then why had
you been brought up away from your parents? Mothers
don’t usually part very willingly with an only son. From
information received, we knew that Mrs. Smith was
worried about some of her husband’s transactions that she
thought might get them all into trouble. Suppose she had
sent her boy away from her that she might save him from
being mixed up in other transactions that might get people
into trouble.’
‘She should have told me the truth,’ the young man
muttered. ‘I thought perhaps . . . I got the idea . . . it was
all so mysterious. . . I got the idea my father was some
swell.’
‘So you made her tell you the truth that he was only an
East End jobbing printer?’ Bell mused. ‘I suppose she
hadn’t the strength to go the whole way, to cut herself off
from you entirely. M any of us see the right thing to do but
aren’t strong enough to do it all the time— God forbid,’
he added hastily, ‘that I should seem to judge her for I
think she was better than most and if she had had the
luck to find a decent sort for husband and----- ’
‘And for son,’ said Codrington bitterly, ‘and for son—
don’t forget that.’
‘And for son,’ agreed Bell steadily, ‘then everything
might be very different, but it isn’t, because you know
things are never different, only the same. But if she were a
184 GENIUS IN MURDER

woman of that sort, then one could understand better

what had happened. You had the pearls. They had to be
disposed of. Your father offered to put you in touch with
the best receiver in London whom he would know all right,
for I think he had a good many friends among those who
have dealings with such people. But for some reason,
perhaps because he was afraid, he asked your mother to
help. She had helped him in other things, even though
it went against the grain. Perhaps he thought she would
help him in this because it was for you. Evidently she
agreed, for she was there in the Park that night, to keep
the appointment made with the man we’ve been trying
so long to catch. Something went wrong. What ? why ? She
called out for the police. What for? One of two parties to
a transaction in stolen goods doesn’t usually call in the
police. Why did she? And why did she bring against him a
silly, foolish accusation that had no evidence to support
it, and that must inevitably have fallen through when it
came into court? Was it merely stupidity? or spite? or was
there a deeper reason? She had tried to .save you once by
sending you away from your father’s influence. I tried to
put myself in her place. I wondered if she had planned to
put into our hands without our knowing it the very man
she must have known we were keenest of all to get, the
man we wanted more badly than all the other crooks in
London put together, so that afterwards she might be able
to say to him, to say to her husband : “Leave my boy
alone, if you get him mixed up in any of your doings, I’ll
tell the police who it was they arrested in Hyde Park that
night.” Was it like that, do you think?’
Bell paused and young Codrington looked at him
blankly, stupidly.
‘I don’t know,’ he stammered. ‘I don’t understand . . . I
never thought. . . I couldn’t make out what she was after.’
‘I don’t suppose you could,’ agreed Bell, ‘I think your
mother was a fine woman. So of course you wouldn’t
understand. I think your mother gave her life to save your
soul— a pity, for I think her life was worth something and
I doubt if your soul is. But it may be God knew her
worth and took her because she was worth taking— I don’t
suppose He thinks that of many of us.’
 STILL NO NEARER 185

Codrington sat staring gloomily in front Of him. He

had so much the air of one quite broken down that Bell
felt almost sorry for him— almost but not quite. Still, it
was something, Bell supposed, that the youngster seemed
to be feeling some emotion, made no effort at least to
justify himself or brazen out what he had done.
‘I think that’s what happened,’ Bell repeated. ‘Her
plan miscarried. It was likely too, it wasn’t a very good
plan, too fanciful, too imaginative, things don’t happen
quite like that. But it succeeded so well that— the man
concerned murdered her, perhaps out of revenge, perhaps
for fear of what she might do next, perhaps as a warning
to others who might try anything of the sort again—
perhaps for all three reasons.’
‘I expect it was like that,’ Codrington agreed. ‘I thought
it might be me next— that’s why I bought that dog collar.’
‘Well, I daresay,’ admitted Bell, ‘though the fellow’s an
expert— Dr. Pollard says he must know something of
surgery— he would have had a bit of a shock if he had got
his cord round your neck and found a brass-studded dog
collar. Was Ryder in Hyde Park that night by pure
accident ?’
‘I shouldn’t think so, I don’t know.’
‘W hy was he murdered ? I suppose the same man killed
him. Why ?’
‘I don’t know,’ Codrington repeated. ‘I never thought
about it, I had enough to do with getting rid of those filthy
pearls, I never thought about anything else.’
‘He was murdered just when he had made himself
secure,’ Bell mused, ‘just after he had got in with a high-
class firm and had a chance to become rich and respect­
able. Only if he had become respectable, he would have
to break off all old associations. Perhaps old associations
didn’t like that, perhaps old associations thought he was
going to give them away, and that that was why he was
on his way to Scotland Yard to have a talk with us. I
think he only meant to bluff and bully a bit, now he felt
secure, but perhaps it didn’t seem that way to old associa­
tions and so old associations thought intercourse between
us and him had best be broken off before begun. Then
there’s the Benham murder. Same man again, I think, but
186 GENIUS IN MURDER

what was the motive there? Was Sir Charles one of the old
associations, do you think?’
Codrington shook his head.
‘Nothing crooked about him that I know of,’ he said.
‘I think he was quite straight; a man with a record like his
doesn’t often run wrong at his age.’
‘Nothing to show he wasn’t straight,’ agreed Bell,
‘Nothing’s come out in his papers or belongings in any
way suspicious. W hat about Kate Baird, though? what
about his niece ? what was she doing at your fiat the night
we were there?’
‘She had come for some letters and things of hers I had
-— a photo she was anxious to get back,’ Codrington
answered. ‘We were half engaged once, in a way. That
was when I went first to their house. Old Sir Charles was
very decent to me— he helped me a lot with introductions
to people, I used to let him beat me at golf, sometimes
I would find his ball and drop it near the hole without
his knowing, losing a round of golf at times has brought
me a good many orders. I got on with Kate, too. She wrote
me some letters and there was a photograph— she didn’t
exactly give it me. I got hold of it one day and kept it.
She wanted the letters back and the photo. I didn’t want
to part. I hoped she would come round again. I promised
to have them for her the night the old man was murdered.
We were to meet by that log in the wood. I didn’t bring
the letters and she was furious and went off again at once.
Afterwards she came to my flat for them, that was the
night you were there. I was getting them out when you
came and then when you turned up I got her off in a
hurry. I made an appointment with her to give them back
in the wood at our old meeting-place. I wanted to try
my luck with her again. But she rang me up on the ’phone
and said she wouldn’t come and told me if I meant to
give them back I could send them through the post and
if not she never wanted to see or speak to me again. So
I thought it was no good any more and I posted them to
her. But when I heard you had been in the wood and
then when those two other fellows turned up here— of
course I knew them again at once— I guessed you had
seen the message I had left for her. So I thought that was
 STILL NO NEARER 187

a good chance to get rid of the pearls and I left them there
as soon as it was dark for you to find.’
‘A nice time we had of it, too, waiting for you there in
the rain,’ observed Bell with one of the saddest of his
smiles as he thought of the incident of the wet red paint
and his Superintendent’s new serge trousers. ‘Did you often
use that angle writing when you were communicating with
Miss Baird?’ he asked.
‘It was her idea first of all,’ Codrington answered, ‘it
was all a lark to her at first, she was only a kid then. And
it suited me, I didn’t want Sir Charles Benham to know
until it had gone too far for him to stop it. She stopped it
herself instead, we didn’t hit it off, she has funny ideas
about some things, I play bridge a lot and I told her once
how you can help yourself in little ways with a partner
who understands you— not cheating, you know, only a
smile when you like a bid and a frown if you don’t and
so on. It all helps. Well, she went clean up the spout then,
that was the beginning of it. I daresay it was only that
she wanted to get rid of me. Nothing to fuss about in what
I did.’
‘It might be that,’ agreed Bell and added : ‘Her hand­
kerchief was found in the car after Ryder’s death. Did
she leave it there or did someone else?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Codrington hastily.
‘No, I know,’ agreed Bell, rather to the young man’s
relief. ‘We know what you were doing all that evening.
You’ve no idea then of the identity of this man you were
going to sell the pearls to?’
Codrington shook his head.
‘There’s not a soul knows that,’ he said. ‘M y mother
didn’t know. I am sure my father doesn’t. Ryder may have
known— he’s dead.’
‘What was your mother doing at Netting Hill that
night?’
‘She knew— he— would have it in for her. She had gone
there to stay out of the way. She had an old aunt there
she could have stayed with. She was on her way to her
when----- ’
‘I thought perhaps it was like that,’ Bell agreed. ‘It’s odd.
We’ve cleared up the biggest forgery plot in the history of
188 GENIUS IN MURDER

the city, we’ve recovered the Melton-Miller pearls, we

know this and that, we know why Mrs. Smith was
murdered and the meaning of that odd affair in Hyde
Park— and we’re still no nearer than we were to knowing
who is behind it all.’
‘I can tell you one thing,’ Codrington said. ‘I know
Kenneth Benham— he’s Sir Kenneth now— I know he got
hold of a handkerchief of K ate’s and I know he was a good
deal upset because he lost it.’
 Chapter 27

SETTING A TRAP
C o d r i n g t o n had, or appeared to have, no more informa­
tion to give, and he made no attem pt to hide his relief
when Bell seemed inclined to bring the conversation to an
end.
‘Mind you,’ the young man said, as he rose to hurry
away, for he protested that he was already late for
business and would have to neglect various affairs needing
attention if he were any further delayed, ‘mind you, if there
were anything I could do to help you, I would at once. You
know why . . . no one has a better reason than me to want
to see him caught and hung.’ He spoke again with that
accent of slow, subdued emotion Bell had noticed in him
once before and been impressed by then as now. Then after
a long pause, for he seemed to have forgotten his hurry
he had been proclaiming the moment before, he went on :
‘I expect he— whoever he is— I expect he knows th at . . . I
expect it’s more likely I’ll go the way my mother w e n t. . .
and Ryder .. . and Sir Charles. . . than that he’ll swing . . . ’
He spoke heavily, as if under the oppression of some
dark presentiment, and Bell looked at him uneasily, for
indeed this was a possibility that had not been altogether
absent from his own mind.
‘Why do you say that ?’ he asked, ‘have you a n y .. .
any reason . . . ?’
‘No, only dreams,’ Codrington answered, ‘I’ve begun to
dream lately . . . and he’s a clever devil, a genius in murder
. . . if you don’t catch him and hang him, he’ll get me
most likely.’
‘I don’t see why he should,’ Bell said, ‘still perhaps you
had better be a b it careful. I don’t think much of that dog
collar of yours, but if I were you I should keep away from
lonely places, and be as much with people as possible, and
never more alone than you can help.’
‘Streets in Netting Hill aren’t lonely,’ Codrington re-
189
190 GENIUS IN MURDER

torted, ‘and a motor-car in the middle of London is sur­

rounded by people enough, Lord knows, and Sir Charles
wasn’t alone, in the house, was he?’
‘We’ll try to keep an eye on you,’ Bell promised, for he
thought the young man really afraid. ‘If you think you
notice anyone following you, don’t say anything. . . it will
be for your own safety. As for Kenneth Benham, of course
we’ve kept him in mind but there’s no evidence against
him, he not a probable, only a possible, like a good many
others.’
‘Well, perhaps he hadn’t anything to do with it,’ agreed
Codrington unexpectedly. ‘Well, I must be off.’ He nodded
and went a few steps away and then came back. ‘I told
you I had dreams lately,’ he said, ‘last night I dreamed
about a woman . . . I thought she had her arms round my
neck— -strangling me,’ he said with an odd emphasis on the
last two words.
Then he was gone, almost running, and Bell looked after
him with a thoughtful and a puzzled air.
‘Was that meant for a hint about K ate Baird? he asked
himself. ‘Sounded like i t . . . silly, of course . . . spite, per­
haps, if she’s turned him down . . . well, if a cord was round
your neck, it wouldn’t matter much who pulled it tight,
man or woman . . . hefty sort of girl she is, too, even in
these days of girl athletes . . . she was on the spot of course
. .. that’s identity established . . . we have only her word
for what happened that night, no one else heard the motor
start when she says it did . . . no one else heard anything
at a l l . . . but could she have carried the body where it was
found ? . . . no proof for that matter that the murder was
committed in the house, she might have got him to the
chapel on some excuse or another and done it there . . . no
evidence though and no jury would believe it without
absolute proof . . . I wouldn’t myself. . . still, you never
know.’
He shook his head gloomily and after he had paid his
bill he went on to the farm of Mr. Barnard. There he told
a story of a favourite pipe he had left in a wood where he
had chatted with a man he believed to be in the employ
of Mr. Barnard, and had that man seen anything of it ?
The labourer concerned was summoned. He had seen
 SETTING A TRAP 191
nothing of the lost pipe and as it appeared during the con­
versation Bell dexterously started that he had been
employed on that farm since he was a boy, had hardly left
the neighbourhood during his whole life, and possessed an
excellent character, and eight children, all still at school,
any probability that he was either the Unknown himself
in disguise or in any way connected with him, seemed dis­
posed of. On the principle of checking every statement
made by any person concerned, Bell also made sure that
there really was a patient of Dr. Pollard’s at the farm­
house, and that the doctor had made a visit the preceding
evening.
‘There wasn’t any call for him to come again,’ Bell’s
informant grumbled. ‘Thinking of his bill, he w a s . . . he
said himself he didn’t need come again for a day or two
and then turns up again same evening.’
‘Some of these doctors are a bit keen on the money,’
agreed Bell, shamelessly libelling a profession which is
seldom mercenary. ‘But then Pollard’s got a name for
that, hasn’t he?’
‘Well, no, he ain’t, and that’s a fact,’ admitted the
other, ‘generally, it’s a bit the other way, and he don’t
come as often as he m igh t. .. lazy some of them says he
is, but then of course it ain’t so far here from his place.’
Bell, a little surprised to hear repeated again this story
that Pollard had a reputation for laziness, for the doctor
had always'seemed to him an energetic and even restless
personality, chatted a little longer, promised a reward of
half a crown if his pipe were found, took his leave, in
passing through the wood on his way to the village and the
station deposited the pipe there so as to give any possible
searcher a sporting chance to earn the promised half-
crown, and so made bis way back to headquarters where
his report of his proceedings was received with but
qualified approval.
‘You seem to have talked a lot to this Codrington fellow,
don’t see why you wanted to tell him all that,’ grumbled
Phillips. ‘Least said, soonest mended, that’s a safe maxim
in our line.’
‘I thought it was the only way, or the best way of
getting him talking,’ apologized Bell, depressed by this
192 GENIUS IN MURDER

rebuke. ‘If I hadn’t seemed like being confidential with

him, I don’t think he would have been with me. I thought
it was important to get him talking.’
‘Might have been if you had got it in writing,’ Carter
remarked. fA statement in writing, signed, that’s some
good.’
Bell looked more depressed still.
‘He seemed to me in a queer, jumpy mood,’ he said.
‘I think he would have shied at once if I had even hinted
at writing.’
‘Well, I don’t see we’re much further forward,’ com­
plained Carter, ‘not since we got the pearls back. O f
course, that’s cleared up all right, and so is the Hyde Park
business and the forgery affair. All that can be closed, but
we’re not an inch nearer knowing who murdered Sir
Charles or Ryder either, and it doesn’t look as if we ever
shall be, for I don’t even see where we’re to look for
fresh evidence . . . of course, if the murderer is the same
man as the receiver we’ve been looking for so long . . . ?’
‘Oh, he is,’ murmured Bell. ‘I think he is.’
‘Well, if he is, who is he?’ demanded Carter, looking
hard at Bell who drooped visibly beneath those stern
questioning eyes— the eyes young Mr. Simpson of the
Daily Arrow always described as ‘gimlets.’
‘We can’t even tell,’ sighed Phillips, ‘whether he’s some­
one on our list of suspects or someone we’ve never even
come in contact with yet. And anyhow, Bell, what
Codrington told you, and we could have guessed most of
it, doesn’t seem much help does it?’
‘No, sir,’ 'Said Bell meekly.
‘You don’t think he knows the identity of the man we
want ?’
Bell hesitated for a long time. -
‘There’s something about him I don’t quite understand,’
he said at last. ‘A t times I’ve wondered if he wasn’t our
man himself but that doesn’t seem possible. I think per­
haps he knows something but doesn’t quite know what it
is. He hinted he suspected Miss Baird.’
‘Well, of course, she’s on the list,’ agreed Phillips. ‘But
it hardly seems likely and there’s no evidence.’
Carter had been thinking deeply. This was evident to
 SETTING A TRAP 193
both his colleagues, for he had, when he was deep in
thought, a profound, preoccupied air, a frowning brow,
abstracted eyes, that as it were commanded respect before
a word was uttered.
‘I’ve an idea,’ he said at last and paused to let the fact
win the appreciation it deserved. ‘No one but us knows yet
that the Melton-Miller pearls have been recovered. I think
we may take it our man knows young Codrington has them
or had them. I take it, too, we may conclude Codrington
is willing to help; I suppose he must want to see his
mother’s murderer hanged, after all it seems she got killed
trying to help him, save him in a way. Well, I suggest we
put it to him that he lets it be known he has the pearls
and is ready to negotiate . . . we could provide him with an
imitation string to show. . . if our fish bit, as I think would
happen, Codrington would soon get word where he could
gee a buyer .. . then when the appointment is made, we’ll
be there to keep it and whoever comes along we’ll take
in . . . if we gave Codrington the real pearls and made our
coup the moment he handed them over, we could bring it
in unlawful possession.’
‘Wouldn’t do,’ said Phillips decisively, ‘too much of the
agent provocateur about that last b i t . . . we might try the
other p a r t . . . get young Codrington to make an appoint­
ment and bring in whoever keeps i t . . . we should find out
who we had to deal with perhaps, that would be half the
battle, threequarters— and if we got his address and could
make a search and we had the right man, we ought to
get all the evidence we need unless we had very rotten
luck. In any case to know who it is we are up against
would mean everything, we shouldn’t be lost in this
infernal fog of ignorance that chokes us every moment
now.’
The plan seemed to him indeed a very good one, and he
was very hopeful of success. Perhaps, for like most of the
English he had no taste for originality, he liked it all the
better because it was in essence a thoroughly old respect­
able idea, that had been tried and had failed and had
succeeded hundreds of times before. It seemed to him that
even at the worst it ought to bring them some hint of the
identity of the man against whom they had hitherto been
N
194 GENIUS IN MURDER

obliged to fight, as it were, blindfolded and held in

complete ignorance.
Bell was perhaps a little less optimistic. It might come
off, he admitted to himself, but the very touch of the
obvious, of the usual and the expected, that recommended
it to Phillips made Bell regard it with some misgivings, ft
hardly seemed to him to promise much success against an
adversary so subtle, strange, and unexpected as the one to
whom they were now opposed.
He kept this opinion to himself, of course, for he was
not asked to express it, and after all, it might come off—
even a glimpse of the unknown might well mean every­
thing.
Carter, very pleased with his idea, lost no time about
putting it into execution. He bustled off at once to see
Codrington and came back in a very bad temper.
‘The little blighter,’ he complained, ‘he’s scared through
and through— that what’s the matter with him. Shook like
a leaf he did and wanted a drink before he would say a
word. All I could get him to promise was that he would
consent to putting it about that he still had the pearls
and then if he got any offer he would let us know and we
could carry on . . . but he says all he wants is to stay out
of it, he says he’ll turn any message over to us and we can
do the rest. O f course, that’s no good, he’ll be watched to
see if he starts out, and if he doesn’t the other fellow will
be warned and won’t be there either. I suppose he thinks
if he goes anywhere near the place he might get his neck
twisted before we could interfere— and I shouldn’t mind if
it was,’ added Carter, for he was furious to see his
excellent plan threatened with failure by such unexpected
obstinacy.
‘I’ll go and see him,’ said Phillips, who had great and
well warranted faith in his own powers of persuasion.
But he returned nearly as disgruntled as the Inspector.
‘All I could get,’ he complained, ‘is that the young
coward will agree to start out as if to keep any appoint­
ment that is made. But he’ll turn back before he gets too
near, he’s not going to trust his precious carcass anywhere
near anyone so quick at the strangling game. Scared the
worst way I ever saw a man, trembling like a leaf he is.
 SETTING A TRAP 195
As for seeing his mother’s murderer hanged— well, I sup­
pose he wants that to come off all right but not enough to
run any risk to his precious self.’
‘Funny,’ mused Bell, half to himself, for indeed
Codrington had never seemed quite like that, there had
shown at times in his eyes a look slow and fierce and
doubtful that had not seemed that of a man whom a risk
was likely to hold in check. Aloud Bell said : ‘He didn’t
seem that way when I was talking to him, he must have
been getting the wind up since, he must have a good nerve
as a rule to judge from his story of his gate-crashing
stunts, and his getting away with those pearls, and passing
himself off as a waiter at one place when they wanted to
know who he was.’
‘Well, it’s not so much the wind he’s got up now,’
growled Phillips, ‘it’s a hurricane, a cyclone, a tornado,
all of them together. Fair upset he is and shaking all over
and looks ghastly.’
‘Ought to know he would be safe enough with the
three of us on the spot,’ observed Bell, looking sad and
worried as he always did over things that he failed to
understand— and they were many.
 Chapter 28

TWO CAPTURES
W h e n a day or two later Bell obeyed the urgent summons
that called him to the Superintendent’s presence he
found Carter there before him and could see at once that
both Superintendent and Inspector had a somewhat
worried air. Y et what Phillips had to say seemed to show
that everything was progressing favourably.
‘We’ve got word from Codrington,’ the Superintendent
said : ‘H e has rung up to tell us he’s got a meeting
arranged. So that’s all right.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bell, wondering a little what it was that
Phillips’s uneasy and troubled manner seemed to suggest
was also all wrong.
‘Only,’ Phillips went on moodily, ‘where do you think
it is they’re to meet?’
Bell preferred not to think. He knew if he did he would
be sure to think wrong, so he said nothing and waited. He
had to wait a long time, for Phillips seemed deep in rather
gloomy thoughts and even Carter looked a little worried.
Bell began to feel almost cheerful by comparison with the
depression in which the other two appeared plunged.
Rousing himself with an effort, Phillips said :
‘What I want to know is, what’s it mean?’
‘Just a coincidence if you ask me,’ said Carter, ‘Just a
coincidence.’
Bell once more reflected, but did not say, that a coinci­
dence is a thing that in detective work should always be
mistrusted. Coincidence it may be, consequence it is more
likely to prove, but he waited silently for more enlighten­
ment, which came when Phillips explained :
‘Codrington says he’s been told to be at eleven at night
by that fallen log in the wood at Benham where we found
the pearls.’
‘The devil,’ said Bell thoughtfully.
‘Exactly,’ said Phillips, and at the mere recollection of
196
 TWO CAPTURES 197

a certain damp and even soaking evening, he sneezed

twice over.
‘Codrington says,’ added Carter, ‘nothing on earth’s
going to get him near there, not if he knows it. He thinks
there’s something up.’
‘So do I,’ said Phillips, ‘only what?’
Bell was of the same opinion and he also had no idea
what that something might be that he felt instinctively
was ‘up’.
Carter became more explicit. It seemed that Codrington,
folowing instructions, had dropped a discreet hint or two
in likely quarters— probably through the agency of his
father, the Clapton printer— that the Melton-Miller pearls
were for disposal. A mysterious message thereupon, over
the ’phone, had bidden him to be at a certain call-box at
a certain hour, and when he arrived there a message, after­
wards traced as having been given from another call-box,
informed him that if he would bring anything he wanted
to dispose of to the fallen log in the little wood near the
Barnard farm at Benham, someone would be there pre­
pared to talk business, even then and there to hand over
the cash if he on his side would bring the ‘goods’ with him.
Codrington, playing his part well enough, had answered
that he wasn’t going to bring such valuables alone to so
lonely a spot, to which the other had retorted by telling
him not to be a fool, reminding him that a certain measure
of mutual confidence was necessary if business was to
result and that his, the speaker’s reputation depended on
his always being ‘straight’ with his clients. Thereupon
Codrington had answered that he would hide his ‘goods’
in the wood, and when he was convinced that everything
was all right and that the money would be forthcoming,
he would indicate their place of concealment. With this
arrangement the other had seemed content and had rung
off, after repeating the time, date, and place of the pro­
posed meeting.
‘So there’s our trap set,’ said Carter, growing more
cheerful, for it seemed to him to promise well and after
all the idea was all his own— if it turned out well, as he
thought it should, the resulting kudos would be all his
own.
198 GENIUS IN MURDER

But Bell asked himself uneasily for whom it was that

trap in the dark and lonely wood would be waiting, and
Phillips, who seemed uneasy himself, continued presently :
‘Godrington seems to have handled it very well, I think.’
‘Do you think we can trust him, sir?’ asked Bell.
‘I don’t see why not,’ answered Phillips thoughtfully.
‘I don’t think he would dare try to do us down— even if
he wants to, I don’t see how he can. After all, we’ve got
the pearls all right. No, I think we can trust him. The diffi­
culty is to get into the wood without being seen by who­
ever it is means to be there that night. M y idea is that
just the two of you should be there and you had better
take up your positions the night before. You ought to be
able to do that without being seen, no matter how close a
watch our unknown friend may be keeping. You ought to
be able to shin up a tree or something like that so as to
make sure of not being spotted.’
And this prospect of an eighteen-hour vigil hidden in
a wood without rest, relief or change, without regard to
the weather, without prospects of any food save what they
could take with them in their pockets, was so much in the
ordinary routine of their work that no comment was made
on it by any of them— except that Carter said sadly :
‘I suppose we shan’t even be able to smoke?’
‘Wouldn’t do,’ agreed Phillips; ‘extraordinary how far
you can smell ’baccy in the open air.’ He added : ‘I take
it this means that the man we are up against really has his
headquarters somewhere near Benham— though whether
as a permanent resident or as a visitor you can’t be sure.
It’s these motors,’ he added resentfully, ‘you never know
now whether a man is operating near where he lives or a
hundred miles away. O f course I’ll arrange with the South-
down people for them to concentrate a big force on the
wood immediately after eleven, so that even if you miss
your man no one will be able to get away unseen.’
Carter nodded expert approval.
‘If he keeps the appointment with Codrington at all, we
shall get him all right,’ he declared.
‘We shall get him all right if he’s there to get,’ agreed
Phillips, ‘but whether we shall be able to hold him or
not is quite different. I told young Codrington that, it
 TWO CAPTURES 199
seemed to worry him. Whoever we are up against is such
a tunning devil I don’t feel too sure of coming out on top.
Anyhow, once we’ve got him in our hands we can search
him and his home and that may give us evidence enough
to bring him into court. A t the worst, once we’ve got him
identified, we can keep a watch on him that’ll put a com­
plete stopper on his little games for the future— by the
Lord,’ cried Phillips with a sudden burst of energy, ‘we will
that, though I have to keep a G.I.D. man permanently
on his doorstep and get a snapshot taken of everyone who
goes near him. If I can’t gaol him, I’ll drive him out of
business for keeps.’
‘Only I wish I knew,’ sighed Bell, ‘why he wants to meet
Codrington by that fallen log— I don’t feel happy about it.’
Both Carter and Phillips began to laugh. The idea of
Sergeant Bell feeling happy about anything amused them
both immensely, and Carter, at first a bit uneasy himself
but now in good spirits at what seemed the certain success
of a plan originated by himself alone, said as soon as he
had stopped sm iling:
‘Bell, my lad, is there anything on earth you do feel
happy about?’
Bell wrinkled his brows, hesitated, and was still trying
to find to this question a satisfactory response, when
Phillips dismissed them to make their preparations while
he got into touch with the Southdown authorities whose
help was essential.
The plan decided on was that very early, before dawn,
Carter and' Bell were to take up their places in the wood
near the fallen log in the most secure hiding-places they
could discover. There they would wait all day, remaining
carefully concealed, and whoever kept the appointment
made with Codrington, they were to detain. On his side
Major Morris agreed to rush up a strong force of his men
who were to be timed to arrive precisely two minutes after
eleven, so that their presence would not be suspected and
yet escape from the wood would be impossible. The part
Codrington was to play was simple enough, and was con­
ditioned by his absolute refusal to be anywhere near the
appointed spot at the hour arranged. That he meant to
run no risk himself, he made quite plain.
200 GENIUS IN MURDER

T m not going to be choked out of life like a blind

puppy,’ he repeated several times, and Phillips had to
promise faithfully that he would confirm the story
Codrington meant to tell, and by which apparently he
hoped to clear himself of all suspicion of having aided the
police in laying their trap— a quite simple story it was to
be, one so simple that it was likely to be accepted at once,
merely that after he had started out to keep his appoint­
ment he had realized that he was being ‘tailed’ and had
thereupon felt that it would be madness to attempt to keep
the appointment made, so had gone back and to bed
instead.
‘Quite a plausible yarn,’ agreed Bell, ‘almost as plausible
as the story the little boy told when they found the straw­
berry jam gone and asked him why he had washed his
face, and he said because he liked it to be clean. No, if our
unknown friend swallows that yarn of Codrington’s, he’s
a lot more innocent than I take him to be.’
‘Well, it’s Codrington’s own idea,’ answered Carter care­
lessly. ‘Anyhow, once we’ve got our man, even if we can’t
hold him— and I expect we shall all right— we’ll be able
to keep him under such close observation he won’t have
any time to think of anything else. Phillips meant that
about keeping a C.I.D. man permanently on his doorstep,
if he had to.’
‘All the same, I’ve a feeling----- ’ began Bell, but Carter
cut him short.
‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘you’re enough to give the hump to a
man who has just won the Irish sweepstakes.’
‘I don’t want to give anyone the hump,’ protested Bell,
a little hurt, ‘only there have been three lives lost already
in this affair.’
‘There won’t be another, not to-night, anyhow,’ asserted
Carter confidently, ‘and after to-night we’ll look after
Codrington as much as we can.’
Bell said no more, but still looked doubtful, for indeed
it seemed to him that young Codrington ran a risk con­
siderably greater than was realized by his two superior
officers— or for that matter by Codrington himself.
However, there was nothing he could do, and in the
chill and damp and most unpleasant hour that precedes
 TWO CAPTURES 201
the dawn, the two of them, Garter and Bell, made their
way with many a stumble and many a scratch and bump,
through the dark and tangled wood to their destination
where the fallen log lay. Not far away they were fortunate
to discover an almost ideal hiding-place— a huge, wide-
spreading, low-growing oak whose branches would provide
both good concealment and an excellent point of view.
There they ensconced themselves, there they waited all
day, patient and bored— bored very literally ‘stiff’, for their
perch in the branches of the old oak did not allow much
movement.
It is perhaps unnecessary to add that it rained most of
the time, but then both Carter and Bell had expected that,
since the official forecast had been ‘fine and warm’.
The sun set upon two weary, patient men who all day
had seen no other human creature, for along the path that
led by the fallen oak not even a farm labourer had passed,
while the weather had not been of the sort to tempt out
anyone else. After it became dark they allowed themselves
the luxury of a change of position and slid to the ground
to stretch there their cfamped and aching limbs, and since
they were both pretty thoroughly soaked, and shelter made
no further difference to them they took up new positions
behind bushes that protected them from observation but
from nothing else.
About ten the rain ceased, but a thin cold wind sprang
up instead, so that Bell reflected that unless Garter’s teeth
stopped chattering no one could pass within a mile without
becoming aware of their presence. However Carter, pre­
sently, becoming aware himself of the sound, put them in
his pocket out of the way, and asked Bell what he would
give for a hot bath. The question nearly brought tears to
Bell’s eyes, but before he could reply he heard in the dis­
tance a sound he was nearly certain was that of a cautious
approaching footstep.
‘Did you hear?’ he asked.
‘Someone coming,’ Garter whispered in reply, ‘A bit
before time,’ he murmured, looking at the dial of the
luminous wrist watch he wore.
The footsteps came nearer still, they were very slow,
very cautious, once they ceased altogether, and for so long
202 GENIUS IN MURDER

that both Carter and Bell feared alarm had been taken.
But then they began again. Nearer they came and nearer
still, and once there was the sound of a stumble and of a
muttered exclamation. A moment or two later, against
the black and still stormy sky a moving figure became
apparent. Who it was, in that darkness they could not
recognize, and with his mouth to Bell’s ear, Carter
murmured :
‘Shall we go for him? shall we take him?’
Bell made a negative sign. For one thing the Southdown
police would not yet be in position, and if their man
escaped, as in that darkness and on that rough ground
he easily might, there was no one there yet to cut off his
escape.
The man moved, apparently seeking shelter from the
chill wind that was now blowing. He came a little nearer
to the place where the two detectives were hiding and
he began to fumble in his pocket. Carter touched Bell
hopefully on the arm, and Bell nodded, for he, too,
thought that possibly the stranger intended to light a cigar
or cigarette. That indeed was what he was about to do,
and by the light of the match he struck they saw his
features distinctly and were able at once to recognize the
murdered baronet’s nephew and heir, young Kenneth
Benham.
‘I always thought it was him,’ Carter murmured in Bell’s
ear. ‘I always said so, if you remember.’
Bell remembered nothing of the sort but he did not say
so. He was listening intently. He whispered :
‘Listen— there’s someone else coming. I can hear foot­
steps again.’
‘Good Lord, two of ’em,’ Carter murmured, ‘what’s that
mean? It can’t be Codrington after all, can it?’
The approaching footsteps were slow, light, hesitating.
To Bell, they did not seem like Codrington’s, who had a
quick, rather shuffling step. Besides, it was not likely that
Codrington, who had shown such dislike to the idea of
being present here, should have changed his mind at the
last moment. Kenneth had evidently heard the footsteps,
too, for he threw down the cigarette he had just lighted
and drew back a step or two into the deeper shadows. The
 TWO CAPTURES 203

footsteps came on more slowly, more hesitatingly still, often

indeed they were barely audible. Kenneth, hidden by the
shadows in which he stood, was quite invisible. The new­
comer, at the corner of the path where it turned in
towards the spot where lay the fallen log, grew slowly
into sight, and in a whisper, his mouth to Bell’s ear, Carter
whispered :
‘A woman.’
A t that moment the clock of the village church began
to strike eleven, and under cover of the chiming hour, Bell
whispered back again :
‘It’s Miss Baird— Kate Baird.’
And Carter was so astonished that he had not even the
presence of mind to murmur that that was exactly what
he had always suspected.
‘The receiver— the thief— the murderer— the pearls,’ he
muttered bewilderedly. ‘Good Lord, which is which, what
is what?’
And through Bell’s mind, too, there raced a hundred
conflicting thoughts and theories, for indeed that it should
be these two to keep the rendezvous was a possibility that
he had never thought of.
Kenneth stepped out from the shadows that had hidden
him. He spoke in a low voice but very clearly. He was
holding out towards the girl something on the palm of his
hand that gleamed and glittered in the beam from a tiny
electric torch that he directed on it.
‘Kate,’ he said, ‘Kate, did you send that, did you------’
She interrupted him with a low cry, a cry that low
though it was yet seemed charged with as deep emotion
as the most loud throated shout.
‘That’s uncle’s ring, uncle’s missing ruby ring,’ she cried,
‘how did you get it, how?’
It was at this moment that there sounded far off a rattle
of pistol shots, five in one swift fatal burst, and then once
again the silence of the night, and Kate clutching in terror
at Kenneth’s arm and the two detectives running from
their hiding-place.
 Chapter 29

A RUBY RING
A s b y a common instinct all four of them set off running
together in the direction whence those swift ominous
reports had seemed to come, and then Carter, remembering
something, caught hold of Kenneth’s arm,
‘I want that ring,’ he exclaimed, ‘that ruby ring.’
Kenneth’s answer was a sudden swift effective swing
with his right that Carter had only just time to guard by
throwing up his arm, but that still landed with sufficient
effect to send him flying backward. Bell, following close
behind, tripped over him and went sprawling. Kenneth
called o u t :
‘Come on . . . this way . . . never mind them.’
With that he and his companion vanished from the path
into the shelter of the trees where the dark night hid
them at once. Carter and Bell scrambled to their feet again,
Carter wiping the dead leaves and damp mould out of his
mouth.
‘That was your boot,’ he spluttered furiously to Bell, ‘the
heel of your boot.’
‘Was it, sir?’ murmured Bell mournfully and yet perhaps
— one only says perhaps—-with less mourning in his heart
than in his tone, for he himself had come off comparatively
undamaged.
Carter, without confirming a statement to the truth of
which his two senses of taste and touch had both borne
witness, set off running again. Bell followed. But the two
fugitives had the advantage not only of the start they had
gained but also of knowing thoroughly the ground, and
where their pursuers blundered into a deep natural hollow,
from which escape was not easy, they skirted easily its
edge and got soon to smooth and open country. By the
time the two detectives had got back to level ground, they
had lost also their sense of direction, and were no longer
204
 A RUBY RING 205

sure by which way they could soonest emerge from the

wood.
‘They’ve got away from us all right,’ Carter said; ‘still
now we know who it is . . . those two all the time . . . and
they’ll be caught all right if the Southdown lot are where
they ought to b e . . . you noticed he had’ that ring, I
suppose he did the murdering, and she got rid of the stuff,
only why was he giving it her?’
But Bell did not answer. He thought he heard voices
at a distance and he was listening intently. He said aloud :
‘There was firing . . . ’
‘Oh, y e s . . . yes,’ agreed Carter, who, what with Ken­
neth’s fist on his chin and Bell’s boot in his mouth, had
almost forgotten that. ‘What can it have been? which
way did the sound come from? over there, wasn’t it?’
He pointed to the left as he spoke but Bell was looking
to their right.
‘I thought it was over there somewhere,’ he said.
From directly behind them they heard a very loud clear
voice, distant, but distinct in the quietness of the night.
It said :
‘You two blithering idiots, come here.’
Instinctively they both moved in the direction whence
the voice seemed to come.
‘Meaning us?’ Bell wondered.
‘Sounded like it,’ said Carter.
‘Yes, sir, exactly like it, that’s what I thought, too,’
agreed Bell, and if ever his tones had been sad and de­
pressed before, now they were even more so. ‘Exactly like
it,’ he repeated; ‘so it did.’
‘W hat I mean . . . ’ began Carter, vexed, and then :
‘Come on, let’s see who it is.’
‘I tell you,’ said the same voice, nearer now and even
louder and clearer and angrier, ‘they must be somewhere
here still. . . they jumped out at us suddenly from the
undergrowth. . . one of them tried to grab a ruby ring I
ha ve . . . I let fly and he went over and then I thought
we had better run.’
A woman’s voice said :
‘I saw one of them quite plainly. . . he looked just
a wf ul . . . brutal. . . you can’t imagine.’
206 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘I wonder which of us she means,’ mused Beil. ‘O f course,

I suppose it sounds like me,’ he added wistfully, ‘but you
know, sir, you were the nearest, weren’t you?’
Carter said something inarticulate. Other voices were
speaking now, but in low, hoarser tones, so that what they
said was indistinguishable. The first loud and clear and
angry voice, still preserving all those qualities, began again.
It said :
‘I tell you they weren’t police. . . I could see that much
. . . a couple of tramps probably . . . they tried to grab a
ring I h a v e . . . I didn’t wait to stop to argue after I had
downed one of them . . . and then there were shots . . . I
heard them plainly.’
‘Never mind them, they’re being looked after,’ said a
gruff voice.
‘Look, there they are both of them,’ cried a woman’s
voice, as there emerged into the detectives’ field of view
a small group— two men in uniform, Kenneth, Kate.
‘Yes, there they are, that’s them,’ cried Kenneth, ‘grab
’em quick.’
He made a movement as if to do so, but one of the
uniformed men, both of whom carried electric torches, got
in front. He knew Carter at once, for he had seen him in
the Chief Constable’s company. He saluted and said
stolidly :
‘Found these two parties leaving the wood. Arrested
same, following instructions received. Stated they had
been assaulted with intent to rob by----- ’ The speaker
hesitated, he remembered Kenneth’s vivid language, but
judged a paraphrase prudent. ‘By two persons unknown,’
he concluded.
Kenneth was still blinking bewildered eyes, but Kate had
a quicker mind and said :
‘They are two policemen, then? well, then, why----- ’
She broke off as by the light of the electric torches she
recognized them. ‘Oh, Kenneth, it’s the men we saw that
day at Scotland Yard,’ she exclaimed, ‘you know, when
I went there with Dr. Pollard.’
‘Well, how was I to know?’ grumbled Kenneth, his
slower mind grasping the truth now, ‘if a fellow jumps out
in the dark from behind a tree, what can a fellow do but
land him one?’
 A RUBY RING 207
‘You had a ring that belonged to Sir Charles Benham
and was missed after his murder,’ Carter said, rather
viciously. ‘You’ll have to account for its possession.’
‘Well, I can do that all right,’ answered Kenneth. ‘Those
pistol shots,’ he added.
‘They’re being taken care of,’ repeated the stolid one.
Carter demanded possession of the ruby ring, which,
after a little hesitation, Kenneth accorded, but not, for he
was still in a very bad temper, until he had exacted a care­
fully worded receipt.
‘Do you wish to make a statement?’ Carter asked, as he
was writing out the form of words agreed on.
‘I don’t mind,’ Kenneth answered, ‘only first I would
like to know what the— what the devil you two are doing
hanging about here and these chaps as well?’ he added,
indicating the two uniformed men.
‘From information received,’ said Carter slowly, ‘we had
reason to believe that the person guilty of the murder of
Sir Charles Benham had arranged to meet an accomplice
in this wood, at the place where we were waiting at eleven
o’clock to-night.’
‘You had?’ shouted Kenneth, ‘why then— playing the
fool like this you’ve missed them both?’
‘Have w e?’ said Carter, and again, while Kenneth only
stared, Kate, of the quicker mind, understood and uttered
a little cry of dismay and fear.
‘M ajor Morris,’ continuing Carter, ‘co-operating with
us, arranged to have the wood watched, so that any person
using violence,’ said Carter, still viciously, ‘to escape from
us, should be stopped when leaving, especially persons
showing signs of apparent haste.’
‘But, good Lord,’ stammered Kenneth, still bewildered.
‘Well,’ he conceded, ‘we were showing signs of haste all
right.’
‘But for Major Morris’s instructions and the efficient
way in which they were carried out,’ continued Carter,
who knew that often more things can be bought by com­
pliments than by cash, ‘you would have got away unseen,
and I don’ t suppose we should ever have known it was
you who had been here.’
Kenneth opened his mouth to utter an indignant and
heated denial, and then closed it again suddenly, for he
208 GENIUS IN MURDER

remembered now that as he and K ate were hurrying away

together, after the downfall of Carter, and before they ran
into the arms of the waiting police patrol, he had in fact
remarked to K a t e :
‘Better not say anything about this. . . better not let
anyone know.’
And K ate had agreed.
‘No,’ she had said, ‘no.’
Carter noticed their hesitation and the quick glance they
exchanged.
‘Fixed that up already,’ he said. ‘I thought so.’
Bell said mildly from the undistinguished background
where he had been standing listening to all this :
‘You know, I’m wondering about those pistol shots
myself. . . a bit funny, don’t you think, sir?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Carter. ‘Most likely nothing to do with
this, don’t see how they could. Still we had better push
along and see what’s happened.’ He said to Kenneth : ‘No
objection to coming with us, have you?’
‘No, it’s what I want,’ Kenneth answered, for he had
thought that burst of pistol shots sounded very much as
though fired in deadly earnest, and, since so much had
happened recently, he was troubled at the thought of new
developments.
Carter nodded to the two uniformed men to stand away
and he took an opportunity to murmur to them :
‘Watch him . . . if he bolts that’s evidence . . . and it’s
evidence we want.’
The two Southdown men nodded with complete under­
standing and the little party started off at the best speed
permitted by the darkness of the night and the roughness
of the ground.
 Chapter 30

THE FINAL TRAGEDY

N o t they alone had heard that rapid burst of firing, so
loud, so ominous, so different from the almost friendly
report of a poacher’s gun that now and again, from time to
time, set in that neighbourhood gamekeepers on the scurry
and night-watchers on the alert. Others also were hurry­
ing along now in the same direction, and it was a little
group clustered near a five-barred gate in a lane that led
from the highroad, a little stationary group gathered round
some centre of attraction to which Bell was the first to
draw attention.
‘Something there,’ he said.
Carter nodded, and when he and the others reached this
group Bell had noticed, they found Phillips there, and
Major Morris, and several of his men, as well as some of
the inhabitants of the village, all clustered round where by
the side of the lane there showed a little pool of blood,
and near by, on the bank that bordered the lane, plain
indications that someone had fallen there, and lain, and
then risen again with difficulty.
There was nothing else, only these signs that seemed
to show some tragedy had been enacted there, but of the
actors in it, of the victim, of the aggressor, no trace re­
mained.
A rapid, close search was begun, by the aid of electric
torches, by the help of the head lights of a motor-car
and of two motor-cycles that were brought up. But nothing
was found, and indeed whatever footprints or other marks
had originally been left on the ground rendered soft and
muddy by recent rain had probably been obliterated in
the quick rush made by so many towards the same spot.
Someone discovered that the five-barred gate which ad­
mitted into the field the lane ran past was unlatched and
swung easily on its hinges. Someone else discovered that a
bramble just above the bank, where there were marks as
if someone had fallen, was broken, and that its thorns
o 209
310 GENIUS IN MURDER

showed signs of blood, as if it had been grasped by some

hand that it had torn badly. A village boy was found, too,
who told a vague story of someone with a bicycle he had
seen standing there earlier in the evening, to whom he had
said good night but from whom he had received no reply,
and how after reaching home on hearing the pistol shots he
had looked out and had seen a cyclist riding by at speed.
But this cyclist had been to him no more than a flying
shadow in the night, and Major Morris said :
‘We can’t do much more till it’s light. . . if anyone’s
been hurt I suppose we shall hear of i t . . . bullets in him
and a hand badly torn most likely.’
‘Whoever it is has been pretty badly hit, I think,’ Phillips
said, stooping over the little pool of blood one of M ajor
Morris’s men was guarding carefully against incautious
newcomers. ‘Someone . . . only who? . . . only why? . . . and
why to-night?’ With a kind of little groan of bewilderment,
he repeated, ‘W hy to-night?’
‘Seems like----- ’ began Major Morris and then paused,
for on second thoughts he did not know what it seemed
like and so judged it prudent not to say.
Carter said to Phillips:
‘We found Kenneth Benham and K ate Baird in the
wood.’
‘It’s a wonder,’ said Phillips bitterly, ‘it wasn’t George
Robey and the Bishop of London.’
‘I’ve brought ’em along,’ continued Carter ignoring this
flight of fancy that came from the depths of the Super­
intendent’s bewilderment. He showed the ruby ring that
had belonged to Sir Charles Benham. ‘They had this with
them,’ he said. ‘I found it in Kenneth Benham’s possession.’
Phillips took it and stared at it with a sort of resigned
air.
‘Well, if it’s been them all the time,’ he said, ‘and they
were there, who’s done the shooting and what for?’
‘M ay be just a coincidence, may be nothing to do with
our affair,’ suggested Carter.
Phillips grunted as if he hardly thought so. Then he
asked :
‘Have they said anything?’
Carter explained that-there hadn’t been time to ask
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 211

many questions, and Phillips turned to Kenneth himself

who was standing near with Kate, both of them looking as
much bewildered and disturbed as any of the others
present. T o Phillips’s question as to whether he could
throw any light on what had happened, Kenneth shook
his head but he was quite willing to tell his story.
‘I was in the wood because I got a message to be there
at eleven to-night,’ he said. ‘Someone rang me up and told
me to be there. I asked who it was and all the answer I
got was that I would know when I got there. I said it
sounded too much like a “leg pull” , and then I was told
that I would get proof at ten o’clock that it was serious.
I thought that meant I should get another call at ten, but
nothing happened, and then at a quarter past there was a
knock at the door. I went but there was no one there, and
then someone threw a little packet at me. I picked it up.
It was a small cardboard box tied up with string and inside
was uncle’s ruby iing. I knew it again at once. I didn’t
quite know what to do and then I thought anyhow I had
better go and see what happened. I thought perhaps some­
one might be there who might have something to tell me.
There wasn’t time to consult anyone or try to get help even
if----- ’ He paused and then said : ‘I think I thought if
there was anything in it I should be just as likely to manage
all right by myself as if any of you people were there. I
don’t think I’m awfully impressed by what you’ve done so
far. So I made up my mind to go and when I got there
Kate— I mean Miss Baird-— Miss Baird came along. I
thought perhaps there was something she had found out
she wanted to tell me. I showed her the ring, I thought
perhaps she had sent it, but before she could say anything
two fellows jumped out at us and tried to grab it. I thought
they meant mischief and just at that exact moment I heard
firing, like a pistol, an automatic pistol. So I let out at one
of the fellows and he went over and we ran for it, and
then we ran right into a couple of policemen and it seems
the two chaps in the wood are two of your men, and what
the devil it all means and what clever work you’re up to,
I’ve no idea. Was it you sent me the message to go there
to-night?’
‘It was not,’ said Phillips.
2 12 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘Looks as if you expected someone to be there or what

were your two men after?’ Kenneth pointed out.
Phillips took no notice of this. He did not know what
answer to make to it and therefore preferred to make none.
He said to K ate :
‘Have you any objection to saying how you came to be
there?’
‘Someone rang me up,’ Kate answered. ‘I think it was a
man’s voice. He said if I would be in the wood at eleven,
near the fallen log I knew of, I would be told who
murdered my uncle. I was to come alone and not to say a
word to anyone or I would learn nothing. That’s all. I
thought anyhow I would go and see what happened.’
Phillips asked a few more questions, while Major Morris
was still busy making arrangements to have the spot where
they were standing carefully guarded till daylight should
make a closer examination possible. Neither Kenneth nor
Kate had, however, any more information to give and
finally both were allowed to go with a warning that pro­
bably they would be wanted again in the morning.
‘Though it looks to me,’ said Phillips moodily, ‘if their
story’s true, that we’ve been given away— absolutely given
a w a y . . . Who by ? What for ?’
‘Codrington,’ answered Garter, in a single word.
Phillips nodded.
‘That’s what I think,’ he said. ‘Double-crossed us, he has,
the young swine. But we shall never be able to prove it.
Only there’s this shooting, what’s that mean . .. what’s
the connection ? . . . who’s been hit and who by and what
for?’
‘Ah,’ said Carter. Then he said again : ‘Ah-h.’ And after
that he said nothing at all.
‘M ay have nothing to do with our affair,’ mused Phillips.
‘M ay be only a coincidence.’
‘I never trust a coincidence myself,’ observed Bell from
the background where he had been standing looking on.
‘Ten to one it’s a consequence instead.’
This remark he addressed to himself in a low tone
because his opinion had not been asked, and neither of
his two superiors heard or heeded it. M ajor Morris was
giving all the necessary orders, and, as there seemed
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 213

nothing else for the Scotland Yard men to do, they took
themselves dispiritedly off.
‘Another complete wash-out,’ Phillips mourned. ‘Lucky
I’m near retirement, no promotion I can miss, for what
they’ll think of us up at H.Q., the Lord only knows. We
aren’t a bit nearer any result about anything. . . this
shooting affair to-night may mean nothing or it may be the
climax of the whole thing, but anyhow it’s for the South-
down people to follow up.’
So he and Carter lamented together as they made their
way side by side towards where their car awaited them,
and Bell, following close behind, seemed almost cheerful by
comparison. But he walked slower and slower, and Carter
called to him crossly :
‘Come on, what are you hanging back for? what’s the
matter?’
‘I think I’ve hurt myself,’ Bell explained, ‘I’m not sure
. . . I think it was when I fell over you, sir . . . it’s my side.
I’m a bit afraid I’ve broken a rib.’
Both Phillips and Carter showed themselves quite con­
cerned, and suggested that as they were now close to the
village, and to Dr. Pollard’s house, it might be as well to
knock him up.
‘It’s not so very late,’ Phillips said. ‘He may be up still,
even if he hasn’t turned out to see what’s on, like pretty
well everyone else.’
And indeed that swift burst of firing had in fact roused
a very fair proportion of the inhabitants of the village.
‘I don’t think I saw him there,’ Bell remarked. ‘Did you,
sir?’
Neither Phillips nor Carter had seen the doctor and
when they came to his house they found it in darkness
and to their ring they got no answer.
‘Looks like .he was out after all,’ observed Phillips.
‘He wasn’t in the lane,’ Carter repeated. ‘I heard stime-
body ask if he was there, and hadn’t he better be sent for,
and Major Morris said that was no good till they found
somebody hurt.’
‘I heard him say that, too,’ observed Bell. He added :
‘The door’s open.’
For it had yielded at once to the slight push he had given
214 GENIUS IN MURDER

it, and, swinging back, it revealed the dark, empty hall

beyond. Bell stepped forward across the threshold and
called :
‘Is there anybody there?’
No answer came. His voice lost itself in the quiet and
empty house. He called again :
‘Is there anybody there?’
But there was still no answer, only his voice dying slowly
away in that black emptiness and drawing after it a faint
and tiny echo. Carter shouted loudly :
‘Dr. Pollard . . . Dr. Pollard wanted. . . the doctor
wanted.’
When there was still no answer, he said crossly:
‘But, hang it, someone must be in the place surely. . .
hasn’t he got any servants?’
‘Old housekeeper. . . very old and more deaf,’ Bell
answered.
‘Here, what are you doing?’ Phillips demanded.
‘Just going to see if he is in his room,’ Bell explained. ‘He
sleeps in the room above, I know that. If my rib’s really
broken . .. ’ he added pathetically.
‘Well, I suppose if it is, it needs attention,’ Phillips
admitted, and Bell began to run up the stairs, and then
paused when he was half way up.
‘There’s blood on the banister rail,’ he said.
‘Eh?’ said Phillips.
‘What do you mean, what blood?’ demanded Carter.
They came forward together into the hall. From above
Bell called, his voice dropping softly down to them through
the darkness :
‘There is blood on the handle of the door.’
They began to hurry up the stairs. Above them the
light of Bell’s electric torch flashed out. He went into the
room and came out again at once.
‘We’re too late,’ he said.
He returned into the room and Phillips and Carter fol­
lowed him. Bell lighted the gas as they entered and by it
they saw where Dr. Pollard lay fully dressed upon the bed,
bleeding from two bullet wounds in the body. He was still
alive, still conscious. One glance of indescribable malice
and contempt he gave them and then as they still watched,
he died.
 Chapter 31

CONCLUSION
1
F o r a little time, in that still and silent room, the three
of them stood there motionless, all of them with their
eyes fixed on that dead figure on the bed, still stamped
with its last grin of hatred, of defiance and of malice. Bell
was the first to move, for of the three he was the one on
whom amazement lay less heavily. Bending over the bed,
he said :
‘He’s been shot twice through the b o d y . . . the other
shots missed, I suppose . . . those two were plenty though
. . . it must have been his will more than his strength
brought him back here . . . see, he’s tried to stop the bleed­
ing . . . his hand’s all torn, that’s where he caught hold of
the bramble bush.’
‘B u t . . . b u t . . . ’ stammered Carter, ‘but why . . . but who
. . . who?’
‘Codrington,’ answered Bell in a single word.
‘Codrington,’ echoed Phillips, ‘why, he was scared . . . too
scared. . . ’
‘Eyewash, if I may say so, sir,’ murmured Bell with
melancholy emphasis. ‘I ought to have seen that at once
. . . he wasn’t quite the sort to show such funk as that.’
‘But,’ began Phillips. ‘Well, now then,’ he said with a
bewildered emphasis.
‘We laid our trap,’ Bell mused, ‘and he laid his, and he
knew of ours but we didn’t know of his. Likely he thought
our trap was a bit too simple for----- ’ Bell indicated with
a gesture the still figure on the bed. ‘Likely he thought our
trap was laid a bit too much in the sight of the bird we
wanted to catch. So he gave us away, Codrington did, and
he’— again there was that gesture towards the bed— ‘he
sent young Kenneth Benham and Miss Baird to spring it
for us. But he never thought of the other trap laid along­
side ours that he walked right into and was taken.’
‘You mean Codrington----- ’ began Phillips and paused
once more.
215
2 l6 GENIUS IN MURDER

‘I mean I think Codrington remembered his mother done

to death in that Notting Hill street and I think he knew
we should never bring that home to the man who did it,’
Bell answered. ‘We had nothing to put before a jury, we
never should have had anything. . . nothing was left, no
evidence at a l l .. . and then, too, Codrington had his own
reasons for shirking a trial, going into the witness-box and
all t ha t. . . he would have been asked some nasty questions
about those pearls and the part he and his father had
played . . . and perhaps he wasn’t quite sure himself of
Pollard’s identity till he saw Pollard slipping out to-night
to have the fun of watching our trap shut down on those
who had nothing to do with it.’
Phillips and Carter were both deep in thought. Carter
said suddenly :
‘What about arresting Codrington ?’
‘He’ll have a good, sound, water-tight, counsel-proof
alibi all fixed up by now,’ Bell remarked resignedly.
‘Sure to,’ agreed Phillips with equal resignation.
‘That means,’ declared Carter, passionately resenting
the injustice of things, ‘that means the papers will put this
down as another police failure, another unsolved murder
mystery.’
‘Well, it isn’t,’ said Phillips.
‘That don’t count,’ pointed out Carter, still resentful,
‘nowadays, it isn’t what is that counts, it’s what the papers
say it is that matters.’
And to that piece of twentieth-century philosophy the
others had no reply to make.
Bell was, as he would have said himself, ‘poking about’ .
In one corner of the room there was a safe of which the
door hung open. Investigating with his usual and this time
most fortunate prudence Bell discovered a wire attached
to the safe door, so that if, when it was locked, it was
opened, without certain precautions being taken, some of
those chemicals with which during the war incendiary
bombs were concocted would have been set in action with
the result that within the safe a heat so intense would have
been produced as to reduce the whole of its contents to ash.
As it was, the door being open, Bell was able to disconnect
the wire and remove the chemicals, and then the safe
 CONCLUSION 217
yielded evidence and enough of the nature of Dr. Pollard’s
activities. There was a part of the more valuable produce
of one or two recent burglaries, of various ‘smash and
grab’ raids, together with certain documentary evidence
of an interesting character. But Bell paid more attention
to a small packet of pieces of thin strong cord, cut to a
convenient length, and in character and length exactly
like those found embedded in the throats of the dead man’s
three victims. Also there was in the safe a small book,
published about a hundred years ago and long out of print,
giving a very full and particular account of the methods
employed by the sect of the Thugs, who at that time in
India worshipped the goddess K ali by offering to her as
many victims as they could succeed in poisoning or strang­
ling, and of the long warfare waged between them and the
British Government which had ended at last in their
extermination. Later still evidence came to hand from an
old colleague of Sir Charles Benham’s that both he and
Dr. Pollard, during their residence in India, had made a
study of some of the more obscure Indian sects and had
been in touch with an old man reputed to be one of the
very last of the survivors of the Thugs.
But that only became known later and for the moment
Bell was much more interested in a curious rubber body
garment, capable of being inflated, that he had also dis­
covered.
‘See that,’ he said, exhibiting it. ‘Sort of thing they use
on the stage when an actor has to play Falstaff or some
part like that. I remember Pollard told us he used to go in
for amateur acting and I suppose that’s where he got the
tip. He was as thin as a lath but wearing this, properly
inflated, together with a loose-fitting plus four suit, a big
white false moustache, and some brown stain for the face,
he could give a personation of Sir Charles Benham good
enough to deceive anyone who didn’t know him very well.’
‘But if he murdered Sir Charles,’ protested Carter, ‘what
for?’
‘We know Sir Charles was associated with Ryder in
business,’ Bell answered slowly, ‘and we know, for Kenneth
Benham told us, that Sir Charles had seemed uneasy and
even afraid, Kenneth Benham said, all that week before
2 l8 GENIUS IN MURDER

his murder. I think most likely he had found out or sus­

pected that Ryder was crooked. If so, he would be afraid
not only of losing his money, but possibly of being mixed
up in some big scandal— perhaps in something criminal
even. Probably he spoke about his misgivings to Ryder and
Ryder came to see him and reassured him for the time,
promised to prove to him that everythfng was quite all
right and aboveboard. But that was a promise that could
not be kept, for you can’t prove things are straight when
they are crooked, not to a man who has his wits about him.
I think Ryder consulted Pollard. I think Pollard was
always behind Ryder, most likely it was Pollard pro­
vided the capital that enabled Ryder to appear so sud­
denly as a successful business man. Pollard saw the
situation was desperate. He saw it wouldn’t be possible
either to bribe or cajole or hoodwink Sir Charles. So he
silenced him instead, and Ryder had a perfect alibi and
there was no hint of any motive we could find. And in that
Hyde Park affair, when poor Mrs. Codrington planned
her simple, futile scheme for getting Pollard into our hands
for a time without our knowing who he was, with the idea
that at any time she would be able to hold over him and
over her husband the threat of telling us that the
mysterious receiver we wanted was the man we had had
under arrest at such and such a time, so giving herself
the power to make them leave her boy alone instead of
dragging him into their own criminal ways as she thought
they were doing over the Melton-Miller pearls business—
you may be sure she never blamed the boy himself— then
in that affair, too, Ryder and Pollard acted together.
Pollard was no easy bird to lay traps for, he always sus­
pected something, he did that night, and he had Ryder
there to help him if necessary. Ryder saved him by getting
arrested in his place— fully prepared, of course, to fight the
case if necessary, which it wasn’t, as we had to crawl out
with our tails down. And meanwhile, Pollard, badly fright­
ened by the narrow escape he had had, took his revenge at
Notting Hill and as he thought made himself secure against
any such further attempts.’
‘But why didn’t Mrs. Codrington simply tell us Pollard
was the man we wanted?’ protested Carter.
 CONCLUSION 219

‘She didn’t know. Pollard kept his identity hidden from

everyone but Ryder. I think Ryder must have known.
That’s certain. But no one else. Even young Codrington
wasn’t sure, though he suspected it, till to-night, when he
double-crossed us with Pollard. He was hiding and waiting,
watching to make sure, watching for Pollard to slip out and
watch us getting still more muddled, still more confused, still
further from the truth when we found it was young
Kenneth Benham and Miss Baird we had caught— with the
ruby ring in their possession, too. Then, when he was sure,
having double-crossed us, he double-crossed Pollard with
two bullets through the body.’
‘That means it was Pollard did in Ryder?’ Phillips
remarked frowningly.
‘I think so, sir,’ agreed Bell, ‘I take it Ryder had made
himself safe, established himself in a way, by the deal he
had brought off with Da Costa’s. I imagine he brought
that off on his own. It meant that having made himself
secure he could cut loose from Pollard and quietly turn
himself into a thoroughly respectable leading city man.
Most likely Ryder meant to run straight for the future;
he would have called it turning over a new leaf. What a
man has won crookedly outside the law, he often thinks
it’ll be easier to keep within it— and he calls that turning
respectable and thinks it is, too. Probably Ryder calculated
he had the whip hand of Pollard, that he had only to
threaten Pollard with exposure to keep him quiet. From
what I can make out, Pollard never went to Ryder’s office,
his practice seems to have been to ring up Ryder and make
an appointment. I think he did that that day and Ryder
arranged to pick him up in his car— a car’s handy for a
private talk, no chance of being overheard or being noticed
by inconvenient witnesses. When he had done so, he told
Pollard he was on his way to us, waiting for him at Scot­
land Yard, and that unless Pollard agreed to let him drop
right out and to undertake never to molest him, then he
would let us have a hint of Pollard’s identity. Well, as I
see it, Pollard wasn’t the sort to let himself be treated like
that and possibly he wasn’t sure whether that hint wouldn’t
get itself over to us anyhow. I imagine he promised every­
thing and let Ryder suppose he felt himself beaten. As I
220 GENIUS IN MURDER

see it, Ryder, somewhere on the Embankment, a little

careless in the glow of victory he thought he had won,
would slow down to let Pollard alight— Pollard would ask
him to choose a quiet dark spot where he would not be
seen. But Pollard had his favourite little bit of cord all
ready— very likely as he rose to get down, with that same
movement he would have it round Ryder’s neck, and then
one moment would be enough. Afterwards he simply drove
on in the car and left it where we found it and slipped
away into Whitehall without a soul seeing him. A genius
in murder that man was, but finished in the end by a mere
amateur like young Codrington.’
As he spoke he looked at the dead man with a sort of
sombre admiration, but both Phillips and Carter, for all
their long experience, were aware of a cold and shivery
feeling. That picture Bell had drawn of the tragedy
enacted with such silence, speed, and dexterity in the very
heart of London, right on the busy Embankment, within
a stone’s throw of their own office, that tale of Ryder’s life
snuffed out like an unwanted candle at the very moment
when success and safety must have seemed to the victim
within his grasp, affected them both strangely.
It was Phillips who recovered himself first.
‘I don’t know why we are all standing here,’ he said.
‘Major Morris must be told of this, it’s his affair. Bell, go
and find him. We’ll wait here.’
‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ began Carter, feeling at once
that the limelight this announcement would shed on who­
ever made it should not be wasted on a mere Sergeant,
above all not on Bell who would simply not know what use
to make of it, who had no ‘nous’ at all for such a situation,
‘begging your pardon, sir, very touchy some of these pro­
vincial people, very touchy indeed . . . liable to stand on
their dignity . . . might think it funny if you sent a junior
officer .. . besides if Bell has hurt his rib . . . if it’s
broken. . . ’
‘Ah, yes, that rib,’ said Phillips and fixed Bell with a
severe eye. ‘Misleading your superior officers with false
information I think, Bell?’ he said sternly.
Bell looked very uncomfortable.
‘You see, sir,’ he explained, ‘I wasn’t sure. . . no real
 CONCLUSION 221
evidence, not to call evidence . . . it was just an idea . . . it
had to be someone . . . I made up my mind at first it was
Ryder till Ryder was cleared by that cord round his own
neck, and then I felt certain it was Codrington, till I found
his own mother was one of the victims, and then I thought
most likely it was young Kenneth Benham till we caught
him in the wood to-night, and of course that made it
certain it wasn’t him because of course the man we were up
against wasn’t likely to let himself be taken in such an
obvious and simple trap as that. So I then thought of
Pollard especially when he didn’t show to-night. . . and
when it was certain someone had been shot I thought it
was worth while making sure he was all right. If he was,
the only harm would be that he would think me a fool for
imagining I had a broken rib without even a bruise to
show. And if he wasn’t, well then, at last, we knew . . . ’
He paused and Phillips grunted.
‘When I was a sergeant,’ he growled, ‘I would never
have dared bamboozle a superintendent. Cut along and
find M ajor Morris. Report to him, and then ring up the
Assist. Commish.— he’ll be at his club most likely, try
there first, and inform him fully of what has happened.’
‘V ery good, sir,’ said Bell, quite bewildered by this
injunction to intrude his humble personality on the august
consciousness, of the Assistant Commissioner, and it was a
most apologetic look, a look that said as plainly as possible
that it wasn’t his fault, that he could not help giving the
almost equally bewildered Carter, who really did not
know what the service was coming to when sergeants were
allowed, and even encouraged, to thrust themselves before
Chief Inspectors.
He felt that Phillips must have quite lost his head. He
made one last effort.
‘Lucky guess Bell made there,’ he said. ‘Strange how
analysis, deduction, observation all seem to fail at times,
and mere luck succeeds.’
‘Very strange,’ agreed Phillips briefly, and there was
silence then till M ajor Morris, breathless and incredulous,
arrived to take over the conduct of affairs.
222 GENIUS IN MURDER

II

That it was young Codrington who had brought about

the death of Dr. Pollard was as certain as anything could
be, but, as Bell had foreseen would be the case, the alibi
with which he had provided himself was perfect. The
book-keeper of the Benham Royal Arms Hotel was able
to swear that he returned some time before the
moment when the fatal shots had been heard, her sister
was in a position to confirm her story, there was indepen­
dent evidence that the house telephone from the bedroom
Codrington occupied had been used soon after the book­
keeper had seen him return, and obviously only Codrington
himself could have put that call through, since no one else
had the right to be in his room. Further, the book-keeper
had mentioned his return to the manager who remembered
the incident perfectly for it was some complaint of the
young man’s conduct, though of quite a trivial nature, that
the book-keeper had had occasion to make. Against an alibi
thus triply fortified nothing could be done, and it was
perhaps gratitude for the book-keeper’s help and sympathy,
as well as a proof that her complaint about his behaviour
had not been very serious, that brought about the marriage
between her and the young man that was celebrated
shortly afterwards.
‘Only,’ said Bell when he had occasion to see Codrington
about some detail a little later on, ‘only suppose we find
the pistol that was used that night. We are still looking for
it. If that was found and its ownership brought home to
anyone, what then?’
‘It’ll never be found,’ Codrington answered with con­
fidence, and Bell was inclined to be of the same opinion,
for he knew that on the night of Pollard’s death, the book­
keeper’s sister had caught the last train to London, and he
knew that a small object thrown from one of the bridges
into the Thames is not likely to be seen again. Codrington
added slowly : ‘He would have escaped you, he didn’t
escape— someone. But I don’t think he ever gave that
someone a thought till he saw him jump out of the hedge
and put the automatic to his body and fire. He was clever,
 CONGLUSION 223

oh, clever he was, but the cleverest always overlook some­

thing— or someone.5
‘It’s the worst of being too clever,’ Bell agreed, and
wondered, but did not like to ask, if the young man had
seen the notice in the paper that day of the wedding just
celebrated between Sir Kenneth Benham and Miss
Catherine Baird, ‘very quietly, in the country5 the paper
said; and Bell thought to himself that it must have been a
strange courtship that had taken place between them,
under the shadow of such strange events.
‘Though I thought,5 he confided to his wife, ‘it was
going to turn out that way after that night we found them
in the wood and nearly arrested them both.5
‘Didn’t strike you till then?5 asked his wife with a touch
of pity in her voice.

THE END
 E. R. PUNSHON
was born in London, and at the age
of fourteen started work as an office
clerk. Both he and his employers
found this an unsatisfactory arrange­
ment and he soon emigrated to
Canada to seek his fortune growing
wheat. From farming he turned to
wandering about Canada and the
U.S.A. looking for another job— by
no means easy in those days of any­
thing but ‘full employment’. Finally
he got a job as cattleman on a boat
sailing from Boston to Liverpool.
On his return to England E. R.
Punshon determined to turn author
and soon won one of the first literary
prizes offered for open competition.
Since then he has contributed to
many magazines and periodicals,
ranging from T h e H ib b e r t J o u r n a l to
P u n c h , written plays for the B.B.C.,
had a play produced on the London
stage and published many novels, of
which his detective stories have
proved the most popular.
Mystery • Romance • Adventure

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