Inspector French and the Starvel Tragedy (24 page)

French began to walk round the house in circles of ever increasing radius, scrutinising the ground for traces of yellow clay. And so he searched until the evening began to draw in and dusk approached.

And then, as he was coming to the conclusion that it was getting too dark to carry on, he found what he wanted. Out on the open moor at the back of the house and at the bottom of a tiny hollow were unmistakable traces of recent digging. The ground over a few square feet was marked with scraps of disintegrating yellow clay and the sods with which the hole was covered still showed cut edges.

French was overwhelmed with delight. That he had found something of value, most probably a cache containing the stolen money, he had no doubt. Scarcely could he restrain his desire to open the hole again then and there. But it was getting dark and he had no lamp. He thought two witnesses would be desirable, so he curbed his impatience, noted carefully the position of the marks, and regretting the necessity for leaving it unguarded, set off on his return journey.

He called to see Sergeant Kent and arranged that he and a constable should meet him at the outhouse at eight o’clock on the following morning. At the hotel he dined, and saying that he had to take the night train to Carlisle, asked for a packet of sandwiches. Then he left the town and walked out once more to Starvel.

His mind was not at rest until he had again visited the site of the hole and made sure it remained undisturbed. Then, determined to take no chances, he re-entered the outhouse, and seating himself at a window from which he could see the hollow in the light of the moon, lit his pipe and composed himself to watch.

That night in the lonely shed beside the gaunt, blackened walls of the old house, proved one of the longest French had ever spent. But there was no escape from the vigil. If Averill’s hoard lay beneath the sods a few yards away, the place must be watched. Roper might come for the swag at any time, and French could not run the risk of its being snatched at the last moment from his own eager clutches.

He pulled a couple of old boxes to the window, and sitting down, made himself as comfortable as he could. But time dragged leadenly. He watched while the moon crept slowly across the sky, he smoked pipe after pipe of his own special mixture, he speculated over the tragic business on which he was engaged and indulged in waking dreams of the time when he should be Chief Inspector French of the C.I.D., but nothing that he could do seemed to shorten the endless hours. He was cold, too, in spite of his heavy coat. He longed to go out and warm himself by a brisk walk, but he dared not risk betraying his presence. In the small hours he ate his sandwiches, and then he had to fight an overwhelming desire for sleep, intensified by the fact that he had been up a good part of the previous night. But his vigilance was unrewarded. There was no sign of a marauder, and as the first faint glow of dawn began to show in the east, he saw that he had had all his trouble for nothing. Altogether he was not sorry when just before eight o’clock Sergeant Kent and the constable put in an appearance, and as he stepped out to meet them he heaved a sigh of heartfelt relief.

“You’re here before us,” Kent greeted him in surprise.

“That’s right, but I was too early. Now, sergeant, I asked you to come out here for rather an unusual purpose: in fact, so that we might dig a hole. Here is a spade and we’ll go and begin at once.”

The sergeant looked as if he wondered whether French hadn’t gone off his head, but he controlled his feelings and with his satellite followed the other’s lead.

“I want you,” went on French when they had reached the site of his discovery, “to see just why I wish to dig this hole at this place,” and he showed him the traces of the yellow clay and the cut sods. “You see, someone has buried something here, and I want to find out what it is.”

Kent in a non-committal silence seized the spade and began digging. The constable then tried his hand, and when he had had enough, French relieved him. So they took it in turns while the hole deepened and the heap of soil beside it grew.

Suddenly the spade encountered something soft and yielding which yet resisted its pressure. Kent, who was using it, stopped digging and began to clear away the surrounding soil, while the others watched, French breathlessly, the constable with the bovine impassiveness which he had exhibited throughout.

“It’s a blanket, this is,” the sergeant announced presently. “Something rolled up in a blanket.”

“Go on,” said French. “Open it up.”

Kent resumed his digging. For some minutes he worked, and then he straightened himself and looked at French wonderingly.

“Lord save us!” he exclaimed in awed tones. “It’s uncommon like a human corp.”

“Nonsense!” French answered sharply. “It couldn’t be anything of the kind. Get on and open it up and then you’ll know.”

The sergeant hesitated, then climbed heavily out of the hole.

“Well, look yourself, sir,” he invited.

French jumped down, and as he gazed on the outline of the blanket-covered object, his eyes grew round and something like consternation filled his mind. The sergeant was right! There was no mistaking that shape! This was a grave that they were opening and the blanket was a shroud.

French swore, then controlled himself and turned to the sergeant.

“You’re right, Kent. It’s a body sure enough. Clear away the soil round it while the constable and I get that shed door off its hinges.”

The task of raising the uncoffined and decaying remains on to the improvised stretcher was one which French could never afterwards think of without a qualm of sick loathing, but eventually it was done, and the men slowly carried the shrouded horror to the shed. There the door was placed upon a couple of boxes and French, clenching his teeth, turned back the blanket from the face.

In spite of the terrible ravages of time both Kent and the constable immediately recognised the distorted features. The body was that of Markham Giles!

The discovery left French almost speechless. If Markham Giles’ body was here,
whose was the third body at Starvel?
Was the whole of his case tumbling about his ears? Once again he swore bitterly and once again pulled himself together to deal with the next step.

“This means an inquest,” he said to Kent. “You and I had better get back to Thirsby and notify the coroner and so forth, and this man of yours can stay here and keep watch.”

They walked down to the little town almost in silence, French too full of his new problem to indulge in conversation, and the sergeant not liking to break in upon his companion’s thoughts. On arrival Kent got in touch with the coroner while French rang up Major Valentine.

“No, sir, I don’t know what to make of it,” he admitted in answer to the major’s sharp question. “It certainly does look as if the man I suspected was dead after all. But I would rather not discuss it over the ‘phone. Could I see you, sir, if I went down to Leeds?”

“No, I’ll go to Thirsby. I’d like to look into the matter on the spot. There will be an inquest, of course?”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant Kent is arranging it with the coroner. We shall want an autopsy also. One of the things I wanted to know is whom you think I should have to make it. But you can tell me that when you come.”

Major Valentine replied that he would drive over in his car and would pick up French at the police station at two p.m. on his way out to Starvel.

It was now getting on towards midday, but French decided that he would have time to make an inquiry and get lunch before the Chief Constable’s arrival. He therefore turned into the High Street and walked to Pullar’s, the largest shoe shop of the town.

“Mr. Pullar in?” he asked pleasantly. He had met the man in the bar of the Thirsdale Arms and there was a nodding acquaintance between the two.

“I suppose you haven’t heard of our discovery, Mr. Pullar?” French began when he was seated in the proprietor’s office. The whole business was bound to come out at the inquest, so he might as well enlist the other’s goodwill by telling him confidentially something about it.

Mr. Pullar cautiously admitted he hadn’t heard anything unusual.

“This is unusual enough for any one,” French assured him, and he told of the finding of the grave on the moor, though making no mention of his doubts and fears about Roper.

Mr. Pullar was duly impressed and repeatedly begged that his soul might be blessed. When he had absorbed the news French turned to the real object of his call.

“I thought that maybe you could give me a bit of help, Mr. Pullar. You’d perhaps be interested to know how I got on to the thing. Well, it was in this way.” He took from the matchbox the piece of clay he had found on the floor of the shed.

“I picked this up in the shed, and as that sort of clay is covered everywhere here with three feet of dark soil, it followed that some one had dug a hole more than three feet deep.”

Mr. Pullar expressed his admiration of the other’s perspicacity with the same pious wish as before.

“Now you see,” French continued, “this clay was sticking to a shoe. It probably got a bit dry in the shed and dropped or got knocked off. Now, Mr. Pullar, can you tell me what kind of a shoe it was?”

Mr. Pullar shook his head. With every wish to assist, he was doubtful if he could answer the question. He picked up the piece of clay and turned it over gingerly in his fingers.

“Well,” he said presently, pointing to the hollow curve, “that’s been sticking round the outside of a heel, that has. If it had been a toe it would have been squeezed flatter. But that’s the square-edged mark of a heel.” He looked interrogatively at French, who hastened to interject: “Just what I thought, Mr. Pullar. A man’s heel.”

“Yes, a man’s heel I would think: though, mind you, it’s not easy to tell the difference between a man’s and some of these flat-heeled shoes women wear now.”

“I thought it was a man’s from the size.”

“No: it might be either a big woman or a small man. Sevens, I should say.” He got up and put his head through the office door. “Here, John! Bring me three pairs of gents’ black Fitwells: a six and a half, a seven and an eight: medium weight.”

When the shoes came Mr. Pullar attempted to fit the circle of clay to the curve of each heel. French was delighted with the thorough and systematic way he set about it. He tried it with all three sizes, then roared out for a pair of sixes and a pair of nines.

“It’s no good, Mr. French,” he said when he had tested these also. “Look for yourself. It’s smaller than a nine, but you can’t tell any more than that. It might be a six or a seven or an eight. It isn’t sharp enough to say.”

French looked for himself, but he had to admit the other’s conclusion was correct. The prints presumably had been made by a man with rather small feet, and that was all that could be said.

French was disappointed. He had hoped for something more definite. Roper admittedly had rather small feet, but the same was true of numbers of other men.

He bade Mr. Pullar good day and returned to the hotel for lunch. But he soon learned that the worthy shoe merchant had made the most of his opportunities. Scarcely had he sat down when the reporter of the local paper hurried into the coffee room and excitedly demanded details of the great find. And behind him appeared the hotel proprietor and a number of clients who had been supporting British industries in the bar.

French saw there was nothing for it but capitulation. Good-humouredly he told his story, merely stipulating that after his statement to the reporter he should not be troubled further until he had finished his lunch. This was agreed to, but it is sad to relate that French did not entirely play the game. His repast ended, he slipped out through the yard, and by devious ways reached the police station unnoticed. Major Valentine drove up as he arrived and in a few seconds the two men were whirling out along the Starvel road, while French told his story in detail.

“It’s really an extraordinary development,” the Chief Constable commented. “You assumed that Giles had been murdered in order to obtain his body for the Starvel fraud. If you were correct it followed that his coffin would be empty. You opened his coffin and it was empty. A more complete vindication of your line of reasoning it would be hard to imagine. And now it turns out that the body was not used for the Starvel fraud; therefore the whole of your reasoning falls to the ground. If you had not made a mistake and acted on false premises you would not have discovered the truth. Peculiar, isn’t it?”

“Peculiar enough, sir. But I wish I could agree with you that I had discovered the truth. It seems to me I am further away from it than ever.”

“No; the correction of an error is always progress. But I’m not denying,” Major Valentine went on with a whimsical smile, “that there is still something left to be cleared up.”

French laughed unhappily.

“I don’t like to think of it,” he said. “But the post-mortem may tell us something. According to my previous theory this man was murdered. Now this discovery raises a certain doubt, though personally I have very little. But in any case we have no proof. Therefore I thought we should want a post-mortem.”

“Undoubtedly. We’ll get Dr. Lingard of Hellifield. This the shed?”

“Yes, sir. The body’s inside.”

A few minutes sufficed to put the chief constable in possession of all the available information and the two men returned to the car.

“You know,” the major declared as he restarted his engine, “if this man was murdered it doesn’t say a great deal for that Dr. Emerson. He gave a certificate of death from natural causes, didn’t he?”

“If you ask my opinion,” French answered gloomily, “he didn’t examine the body at all. I saw him about it. It seems the man had been suffering from heart disease for years. He also had a touch of influenza some days before his death which might have caused heart failure.

“Dr. Emerson practically admitted he had assumed this had happened. He also admitted that anyhow only a post-mortem could have made sure.”

“Careless and reprehensible, no doubt. But, French, I wonder whether we shouldn’t all have done the same in his circumstances. The idea of foul play in such a case would never enter any one’s head.”