678910111213141516171819Surelyeveryman12345678910111213142021222324252627282930313233walkethinavain15161718192021222324252627283435363738394041424344454647shew:surelythey2930313233343536373839404142484950515253545556575859606162aredisquietedin43444546474849505152535455565763646566676869707172737475vain:heheapeth585960616263646566676869707677787980818283848586uprichesand717273747576777879808187888990919293949596979899knowethnotwho82838485868788899091929394100101102103104105106107108109110shallgather9596979899100101102103104105
“The circle of figures taken in their ascending order and starting with the second six, run thus:
6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 39, 51, 54, 72, 80, 89.
Now, assuming that my interpretation of the solitary six in the circle is correct—that the old man started from six because he thought the use of the figure one gave away too much—we will substitute for these figures the letters which appear underneath them in the table. The substitution gives us the following row of letters:
S R E L Y V M N W A K T H I U D Q P C O S
“This is the line of letters from which we will endeavour to reconstruct the old man’s cryptogram. We can, I think, go forward with the assurance that they are the actual letters represented by the cryptogram, for several reasons. There are no recurring letters, and they represent every letter in the text in consecutive order, with three exceptions which are capable of a simple explanation. The U has been taken from the second ‘surely’ instead of the first, to mislead the solver. Otherwise you would have surely for the first five numbers, which would be too clear an indication. The same reason exists for making A the tenth letter instead of the eighth; which would reveal the word ‘man.’ The final letter—the ‘G’ in ‘gather’—has been excluded, for a reason which I will presently explain.”
“What about the second S—the final letter? Do you not call that a recurring letter?” asked Marsland, who was closely examining the table the detective had prepared.
“Not in the cryptographic sense. It is the first letter of the text repeated after the line had been completed without recurring letters. There is a special reason for its use. The old man has worked on what is called the keyword cipher, which is the most difficult of all ciphers to discover. This system consists of various arrangements, more or less elaborate, of tables of letters, set down in the form of the multiplication table, and from the table agreed upon messages are constructed whose solution depends on the use of some preconcerted keyword. The most scientific adaptation of this principle was constructed by Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort. In his system the letters of the alphabet are set down one under another from A to Z, then A is added to the line. The next line starts with B and runs to another B at the bottom. You continue till you have the whole alphabet set down in this fashion. From this table and an agreed keyword, which may consist of a proper name or a sentence of several words, you construct a cipher message.”
“How?” asked Marsland, in a tone of keen interest.
“That is what I now propose to demonstrate to you, if, as I think, the old man constructed his cryptogram in accordance with this principle. I have come to the conclusion that he modified and adapted this system to his own ends, using the letters of the text from the Bible to conceal it better, and then made it more difficult still by turning the letters into figures after the manner I have described. He has also made a slight but not uncommon variation from the Beaufort principle by striking out the ‘G’ in ‘gather,’ which would follow the ‘O’ if every letter in the text was used once, and substituting the final S, instead of placing the ‘S’ after ‘G.’ But the clue that suggested to my mind that he had worked on this principle are the two figures 6 coming together at the top of the circle. In the substituted letters they form two S’s. Now, why does he have two S’s when he carefully avoids recurring letters in the rest of the table? And why did he insert the first S again, as represented by the figure 6, instead of taking the next S in this table?
“In pondering over these points I discovered, as I believe, the system of cryptogram he used to construct his secret. He wanted to make the cryptogram difficult of solution, but at the same time he wanted to give some indication of the form of cryptogram he was using when his heirs came to search for the money. The recurring S indicates that he was working on a modification of the system I have explained, in which you add the first letter of your first column to the bottom, and continue on that system throughout the table. It is not much of a hint, because we have got to find the keyword before we can use the table, but by its help we will start with the assumption that the old man worked on the following table:
S R E L Y V M N W A K T H I U D Q P C O SR E L Y V M N W A K T H I U D Q P C O S RE L Y V M N W A K T H I U D Q P C O S R EL Y V M N W A K T H I U D Q P C O S R E LY V M N W A K T H I U D Q P C O S R E L YV M N W A K T H I U D Q P C O S R E L Y VM N W A K T H I U D Q P C O S R E L Y V MN W A K T H I U D Q P C O S R E L Y V M NW A K T H I U D Q P C O S R E L Y V M N WA K T H I U D Q P C O S R E L Y V M N W AK T H I U D Q P C O S R E L Y V M N W A KT H I U D Q P C O S R E L Y V M N W A K TH I U D Q P C O S R E L Y V M N W A K T HI U D Q P C O S R E L Y V M N W A K T H IU D Q P C O S R E L Y V M N W A K T H I UD Q P C O S R E L Y V M N W A K T H I U DQ P C O S R E L Y V M N W A K T H I U D QP C O S R E L Y V M N W A K T H I U D Q PC O S R E L Y V M N W A K T H I U D Q P CO S R E L Y V M N W A K T H I U D Q P C OS R E L Y V M N W A K T H I U D Q P C O S
“It is from this table, unless I am very much mistaken, that he constructed the cipher at the top of the sheet,” said Crewe.
Marsland examined the curious table of letters, with close scrutiny, from various points of view, finally reversing it and examining it upside-down. He returned it to Crewe with a disappointed shake of his head.
“I can make nothing of it,” he said.
“It is necessary for us to discover the keyword he worked on before we can make use of it,” said Crewe. “Once we get the keyword, we will have no trouble in deciphering the mysterious message. The keyword is the real difficulty in ciphers of this kind. It is like the keyword of a combination lock. Without it, you cannot unlock the cipher. It is absolutely insoluble. Suppose, for example, he had picked a word at random out of the dictionary, and died without divulging it to anybody, we should have to go through the dictionary word for word, working the table on each word, till we came to the right one.”
“But that would take years,” exclaimed Marsland blankly.
“Unless we hit on it by a lucky accident. That is why the keyword cipher is practically insoluble without knowledge of the keyword. It is not even necessary to have a word. A prearranged code of letters will do, known only to the composer of the cryptogram. If he wanted anybody else to decipher his cryptogram, he would have to divulge to him not only the form of table he worked on but the code of letters forming the keyword.”
“Well, I do not see we are much further forward,” said Marsland despondently. “Of course, it’s very clever of you to have found out what you have, but we are helpless without the keyword. The old man is not likely to have divulged it to anybody.”
“You are wrong,” said Crewe. “He has divulged it.”
“To whom?”
“To this paper. As I said before, he did not want his cryptogram to be insoluble; he wanted his heirs to have his money, but he did not want it found very easily. You have forgotten the texts at the bottom of the paper. They have not been placed there for nothing. The keyword is hidden in them.”
“I forgot all about the texts—I was so interested in your reconstruction of the cryptogram,” said Marsland. “As you say, he didn’t put the texts there for nothing, so it seems likely that he has hidden the keyword in them. But even now we may have some difficulty in finding it. Do you propose to take the texts word for word, testing each with the table, till you find the right one?”
“That would take a long while,” said Crewe. “I hope to simplify the process considerably. In fact, I think I have already discovered the keyword.”
“You have!” exclaimed Marsland, in astonishment. “How have you managed that?”
“By deduction from the facts in front of us—or perhaps I should say by reflecting on the hints placed in the texts. Isn’t there something about those texts that strikes you as peculiar?”
Marsland examined them attentively for some time, and shook his head.
“I’m afraid I’m not sufficiently well up in the Scriptures to notice anything peculiar about them. I should say they were from the Old Testament, but I couldn’t tell you what part of it.”
“The texts are from the Old Testament, from Jeremiah XXV and Isaiah VII. They are remarkable for the fact that they represent two passages—the only two instances in the whole Bible—where the writers used cryptograms to hide their actual meaning. In the first instance the prophet, Jeremiah, living in dangerous times, veils his attack on the King of Babylon by writing Sheshak for Babel—Babylon; that is, instead of using B B L, the second and twelfth letters of the Hebrew alphabet, from the beginning, he wrote Sh Sh K from the end—a simple form of cryptogram which is frequently used, even now. In the second instance the prophet Isaiah, working on a very similar form of cryptogram, writes ‘Tabeal’ for ‘Remaliah.’
“Now, we are faced by two facts concerning the presence of these two texts on the paper containing the cryptogram. In the first place, the cryptogram was complete without the texts; for what purpose, then, could they have been at the bottom of the sheet except to give a clue to the discovery of that keyword without which no recovery of the hidden treasure was possible, unless it was found by a lucky chance? In the second place, the selection by the old man of the only two cryptographic texts in the Bible was certainly not chance, but part of a deliberate harmonious design to guide the intelligent searcher to the right keyword. He was evidently versed in cryptography, constructed this one as carefully as a mechanic putting together a piece of mechanism, fitting all the parts carefully into one another. The figures in the centre of the circle give the key to the outside figures: the outside figures are the key to the cryptographic table of letters from which the cryptogram is to be solved; there remains the key to be found. It is not likely that the composer of such an ingenious cryptogram would leave the keyword to guesswork.
“The whole thing is a Bible cryptogram from first to last: figures, letters, words, and texts. It is even drawn on a sheet cut from the Bible. Why? Such an act might be deemed irreverent in a deeply religious man like the old man was, but when we piece the thing together we find that he was actuated by a religious spirit throughout. Not the least skilful part of his cryptogram is his concealment of the keyword in the text at the bottom. The text would convey nothing to most people, for very few people know anything about cryptograms, still fewer people would know that these texts contain the only two cryptograms in the Bible. Therefore, in accordance with his harmonious design, it seems to me that the keyword should be found in the five alternatives of the cryptic texts: Babel, Babylon, Sheshak, Remaliah, or Tabeal.
“Babel and Babylon may be discarded because there is no letter B in the cryptographic table, and it is essential that the keyword shall contain no letter which doesn’t also appear in the table. ‘Sheshak’ may also be discarded for the present as unlikely because of the awkwardness of the recurring ‘Sh’ in a keyword. There remain Tabeal and Remaliah. The tendency of the composer would be to use the longer word, because a long keyword is the better for the purpose. I think, therefore, we should first try whether Remaliah is the keyword we are in search of.”
“By Jove, Crewe, that is cleverly reasoned out!” exclaimed Marsland, in some excitement. “Let’s put it to the test. How do we apply this keyword to the table?”
“Easily enough. On this sheet of paper we will write down the cryptogram; and the keyword underneath it, letter for letter, thus:
TYNMVRTTHSMREMALIAHREM
“Now, the first word of the cryptogram is T. Look in the first column of the table for it, and then run your eye across the table for the first letter of the keyword. When you have found it, look at the top of the column and tell me the letter.”
“K,” said Marsland.
“Very well, then. We put down ‘K’ as the first word of the solution and proceed in like manner through the whole of the cipher. The second letter is Y—find it in the table, then look across for the second letter of the key E, and then to the top of the column. What letter have you?”
“C,” said Marsland.
“KC, then, are the first two letters of our solution, and we go on to the third, always repeating the same process. N in the first column, M across, and the top gives you?”
“O,” said Marsland.
“The next letter is M in the cryptogram and A in the keyword. What does the top of the column give you?”
“L,” replied Marsland. “But I say, Crewe, do you think we are on the right track? K, C, O, L, is a queer start for a word isn’t it? I know of no word commencing like that.”
“I may be mistaken, but I do not think so,” replied Crewe firmly. “Let us keep on till we’ve finished it, at all events.”
They resumed their task, and ultimately brought out the letters: K, C, O, L, C, H, C, R, A, E, S. Marsland gazed at the result in dismay.
“By Jove, we’re on the wrong track,” he said ruefully. “It is the wrong word, Crewe. These letters mean nothing; you’ll have to try again.”
But Crewe did not reply. He was examining the result of his night’s labours closely. Suddenly he put down the paper with an unusual light in his eye.
“No,” he said. “I am right, the old man was thorough to the last detail. He has given another clue to his heirs in the circle and the two lines. They represent a clock face. But the figures round them run the reverse way to clock figures. The cryptogram reads backwards. Hold it up to that mirror, and see.”
Marsland did so, and laid down the paper with a look of bewilderment.
“Search clock! The old grandfather clock at Cliff Farm!” he said.
Asthe car swept around the deserted sea-front and through the scattered outskirts of the town, Crewe gradually increased the going, till by the time Staveley was left behind, and the Cliff road stretched in front of them, his powerful car was driving along at top speed. The night was not dark for the time of year; the windings of the road were visible some distance ahead: from the cliffs the rollers of the incoming tide could be seen breaking into white froth on the rocks below.
“It has occurred to me that, for a man who was afraid of a German invasion, old Lumsden selected a very bad hiding-place for his money,” said Marsland. “He could not have known of the reputation the German soldiers made for themselves in stealing French clocks in the war of 1870.”
“Perhaps not,” replied Crewe. “But I do not think he intended to leave the money in the clock when the Germans came. If he fled from the farm he would have taken it with him. His object in hiding it in the clock was to have it constantly under his eye.”
The car mounted the hill to the cutting through the cliff road near their destination, and as the road dipped downwards Crewe slackened the pace. Both of them were looking across towards the farm on the left. As it came into view Crewe exclaimed to his companion:
“Did you see that?”
“A light!” said Marsland excitedly.
“It is gone now; it was probably a match. There must be some one there. I wonder who it could be?”
“Perhaps it is Gillett. We will soon see.”
“No, we will drive past. It may be some one who wants to escape being seen. We will run the car off the road a little way down past the farm, then extinguish the lights and make our way back.”
He increased the pace of the car so that if there was any one at the farm it would appear that the car was going on to Ashlingsea. They both kept their eyes on the house as the car sped past, but there was no repetition of the flash of light they had seen. Less than half a mile away Crewe shut off the engine, and carefully ran the car off the road on to a grassy path. He extinguished the lights and jumped out of the car. He took an electric torch from his overcoat pocket and after turning it on to see if it was in order he set off in the direction of the farm.
“We will not keep to the road, as there may be some one on the watch,” he said. “Follow me, I know my way across the fields.”
He clambered over the gate of a field and set off at a run, with Marsland following him closely. He led the way over ditches and across hedges and fences until they reached the meadow at the side of the farm. Before climbing the low, brick wall Crewe waited for Marsland.
“You watch the front of the house while I go to the back. If you see any one challenge him in a loud voice so that I can hear you, and I’ll come to your assistance. If I want you I’ll call out.”
They climbed the wall and dropped noiselessly on to the grass. Crewe waited until Marsland had taken up his station behind a plum-tree in the garden, and then crept towards the kitchen door. He stood outside the door listening intently for a few minutes, but as he heard no sound he selected the right key from the bunch he had borrowed from Gillett, and turned the lock. He waited to see if the sound of the turning lock had alarmed any one inside the house. Slowly he turned the handle, opened the door and stepped noiselessly into the kitchen.
A few minutes later Marsland heard him approaching him from the back of the house.
“Come quickly,” he said. “Some one has been before us and found the money, but he is coming back again.”
Marsland silently followed Crewe along the side of the house to the kitchen, and into the room where the great grandfather clock stood. Crewe flashed the torch on it, and Marsland started back with a cry of astonishment. The wooden case had been smashed beyond repair. It had been hacked and splintered with a heavy weapon, which had not only battered in the front of the case, but smashed the back as well. Pieces of the wood had been pulled off and flung about the room. About the bottom of the broken case several sovereigns were lying.
“The treasure!” he cried. “It was here then. Has he got away with it?”
“Most of it, but not all of it,” said Crewe. “See here!” He knelt down by the case, plunged in his hand, and drew forth a canvas bag which clinked as he held it up. “This is the sort of bag that banks use for holding sovereigns—the banks put a thousand sovereigns into each bag and seal it up so as to render it unnecessary to count the coins every time the bags are handled. There are four of these bags still here.”
“But where are they hidden?” asked Marsland, in amazement. “Where did you find this one? Wasn’t it lying on the floor when you came in?”
“The old man devised a skilful hiding-place,” said Crewe. “He fitted the case with a false back, and stowed his treasure in between. Look here!”
He flashed the light around the interior of the case, and Marsland, looking closely, saw that the back of it, which had been smashed, was a false one, skilfully let in about three inches in front of the real back. In the space between the two backs the eccentric old owner of Cliff Farm had concealed his treasure as he had obtained it from the bank.
“It’s an ingenious hiding-place,” said Crewe. “He laid the clock on its face, took off the back, fitted his false slide into a groove, stacked in his money-bags, replaced the proper back, and then restored the clock to its original position. You see, he was careful to make the space between the false and the real backs so narrow that there was very little possibility of the hiding-place being discovered by chance or suspicion. Even the man who has forestalled us with the solution of the cryptogram was unable to discover the treasure until he had recourse to the clumsy method of smashing up the clock. This is what he used to do it.” Crewe pointed to an axe lying near. “With that he smashed the case, found the treasure, and carried off what he could. He would be able to carry four of these bags at a time—two in each hand. He has left these four for another trip. How many trips he has already made I do not know, but probably more than one.”
“He may be back again any moment,” said Marsland, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Hadn’t we better hide?”
“He won’t be back just yet,” said Crewe confidently.
“What makes you so certain of that?”
“He was here when we saw the flash of light. That is less than half an hour ago. To walk from here with four of these bags to the cliff, down the path in the dark to the boat he has waiting for him would take more than half an hour.”
“But what makes you think he has a boat? Why do you feel sure he has come by sea?”
“Because that is the better way to come if he wanted to escape observation. If he came by road he would have brought a vehicle and would have taken the whole of the treasure away in a few minutes. But in a vehicle he might be met along the road by some one who knew him.”
“Have you any idea who it is?” asked Marsland.
“Some one who has solved the cryptogram or got it solved for him,” said Crewe. “By making a tour of the second-hand bookshops in London he probably got in touch with some one who has made a study of cryptograms, and in that way got it solved. There are some strange human types in these big second-hand bookshops in London—strange old men full of unexpected information in all sorts of subjects.”
“But how did he get a copy of the cryptogram? Could he have got possession of the copy I found on the stairs?”
“I think so.”
“How?”
“Miss Maynard gave it to him.”
“Miss Maynard!” echoed the young man. “How could she have got it? She left the house with me and did not come back. In fact, she was very much opposed to coming back when I suggested that we should do so in order to get it.”
“If she had it in her possession at the house her opposition to your proposal to go back for it is quite reasonable. I think you said that after you found the dead body upstairs she rushed downstairs and waited outside for you. She had ample time to go into the room and take the cryptogram from the table where you placed it. Doubtless her main thought was that its presence might implicate Brett in some way.”
“Then it is Brett who has taken this money and is carrying it down the cliff to the boat?” said Marsland excitedly.
“Yes. Probably Miss Maynard is down at the boat keeping guard over the bags as he brings them.”
“And you think he will come back here for the rest?” asked Marsland.
Crewe noticed the eagerness in the young man’s voice: it seemed as if Marsland was excited by the thought of meeting Brett.
“He is not likely to leave £4,000 behind unless he knows the place is being watched.”
“Let us go towards the cliffs and meet him,” declared Marsland impatiently. “To think that I am to meet him face to face, and here of all places.”
“We might miss him in the dark, and he might get clean away.”
“Where shall we hide?” asked the young man, again sinking his voice to a whisper. “He may reach here any moment now.”
“He came in by the front door. The lock has not been injured, so apparently he has a key. You hide in the room on the left—just inside, close to the door. I will hide in the cupboard underneath the staircase. When he reaches the clock he cannot escape without passing us. Give him time to get the money, and as soon as he has the bags in his hands ready to start off, we will both spring out at him.”
Crewe watched Marsland enter the sitting-room on the left and then opened the door of the cupboard beneath the staircase and crouched down. The cupboard opened into the hall, and through the crack of the door Crewe was able to see into the room where the shattered clock was. The door of the room where Marsland was hidden also commanded a view of the interior of the room in which the clock stood. The stillness was so complete that Crewe could hear the watch in his pocket ticking off the ebbing moments. Once the distant yelp of a sheep-dog reached him, then there was another long period of stillness. Twice his keen ear caught a faint creaking in the old house, but he knew they were but the mysterious night noises which are so common in all old houses: the querulous creakings and complaints of beams and joists which have seen many human generations come and go.
But, as the time dragged on without a sound to indicate that the thief was returning, Crewe found to his vexation that he had increasing difficulty in keeping his senses alert in that dark and muffled silence. The close and confined atmosphere of the cupboard, the lack of air, his cramped position, compelled an unconquerable drowsiness.
Then he heard a sound which drove away his drowsiness—the sound of a key in a lock. He heard the door creak as it was pushed back and then came steps advancing along the hall, stumbling along noisily, as though their owner thought that the need for precautions ceased when the front door was passed: that once inside the house he was safe, and need not fear interruption.
There was a scrape and a splutter, and a flickering flame in the hall; the thief had struck a match. Through the crack of the cupboard door Crewe watched the tiny blue flame grow larger, turn yellow, and burn steadily, and he could see the dim outline of a man’s back and a hand shielding the match showing transparent through the flame. The thief had struck his match with his face to the doorway. The outline of his other hand approached, and the light grew brighter—the intruder had lit a piece of candle. As it burnt up the man turned towards the clock, and Crewe saw the face of Brett for the first time. His impression was of a pair of hunted nervous eyes roving restlessly in a livid waxen mask, a tense sucked-in mouth.
He saw no more. Apparently Marsland had been too excited to wait until the thief had the bags in his hands, for Brett started as though he heard a movement, and quickly extinguished his candle. There was a moment of intense silence, and then Crewe heard Marsland’s voice raised in a strange high-pitched scream that made it seem unfamiliar.
“Powell, you traitor and murderer! I am Marsland—Captain Marsland. I will kill you without sending you to trial.”
Crewe had thrown open the door of the cupboard at the first sound of the voice, but before he could get on to his feet there was the deafening sound of a revolver shot, followed by the rush of feet and the fall of a body.
The bullet had missed the thief, and Marsland, advancing on him after firing, had been knocked over by Brett’s rush for the door. Before Crewe could reach him across Marsland’s prostrate form Brett had thrown open the door and was outside the house.
Crewe dashed for the door in pursuit. He caught a glimpse of a fleeing figure, bent nearly double to shield himself from another shot, running down the gravel path at amazing speed. Then the figure was swallowed up in the night.
Crewe followed, without waiting to find out how Marsland had fared. He failed to catch another glimpse of Brett, but had no doubt he would make for the path down the cliff, about a quarter of a mile away, Crewe, who had been a long-distance runner at school, and was in excellent training, knew that he would last the distance better than Brett.
He caught sight of Brett again before half the distance between the downs and the cliffs had been covered—a fantastic flying figure bobbing into view against the sky-line for an instant as he ran across the crest of a little hill, and as suddenly disappeared again. But that brief glimpse of the fugitive revealed to Crewe that Brett had mistaken his course: he was running too much to the right.
Crewe ran on steadily in a straight line for the path. When Brett discovered that he had run too wide he would have to curve back, taking almost a semicircular course before he reached the beginning of the path. Crewe’s course was the shorter—the cord to Brett’s bow, and would bring him to the path before Brett could possibly reach it. The detective slackened pace slightly, and cast a glance over his shoulder to see if Marsland was following him; but he could not see him.
Crewe reached the hidden path, and waited, listening, by the bushes which concealed the entrance. Soon his quick ear caught the pad of footsteps, and as they drew nearer they were accompanied by the quick breathing of a man running hard. Then the form of Brett loomed up, running straight for the path.
Crewe sprang at him as he came close, but the runner saw his danger in time to fling himself sideways. He was on his feet again in an instant, and made away along the edge of the cliff, bounding along with great jumps among the rocks from point to point and rock to rock. Crewe drew so close that he could hear Brett’s panting breath as he ran, but each time Brett with a desperate spurt put a few more yards between them again. Once he staggered and seemed about to fall, but he sprang up again and ran with the speed of a hare.
They had reached the rocky headland which jutted into the sea a hundred yards or more by the dangerous turn of the cliff road. Crewe slackened his pace to call out a warning to the man he was pursuing.
“Look out or you will fall over the cliff!” he cried.
Brett paused, turned irresolutely, and then began slowly to retrace his steps. But as he did so a figure appeared suddenly out of the gloom and dashed past Crewe towards him.
“You dog, I have you!” screamed Marsland. “You cannot get away from me again.”
“Look out, Marsland!” cried Crewe, springing after him. “You will both go over.”
Marsland ran on without heeding, cursing savagely at the hunted man. Brett had fled away again at the sound of his voice, and Crewe could hear his gasping breath as he stumbled over the slippery rocks. The two figures appeared clearly against the sky-line for a moment as they raced towards the end of the headland. Then the foremost disappeared over the cliff with a scream. Brett, endeavouring to double in his tracks at the edge of the headland, had slipped and gone over.
Marsland was standing on the edge of the cliff, peering down into the sea mist which veiled the water below, when Crewe reached his side. Crewe drew him back.
“Come away if you don’t want to follow him,” he said. “We shall have to get the police out to look for his body, but perhaps the sea will carry it away.”
Thesearch for the body began in the morning, at low tide. Inspector Murchison had come from Staveley to superintend, and from the landing place he and Sergeant Westaway directed the operations of the Ashlingsea fishermen who had been engaged to make the search.
Some of the townspeople who had walked up from the town to witness the proceedings thought that the body would be swept out to sea and never recovered, but the fishermen, with a deeper knowledge of a treacherous piece of sea from which they wrested their living, shook their heads. If the gentleman had fallen in near the deep water of the landing-place the undercurrent might have carried him out into the Channel, but there were too many reefs and sand-banks running out from the headland, and too many cross-currents, to let a body be carried out to sea.
They gave it as their opinion that the body would be found before high tide, either in one of the shallows near the big sand-bank, a quarter of a mile out, or in one of the pools between the reefs whose jagged, pointed edges showed above the surface of the sea nearer the headland.
The sea lay grey and still under an October sky of dull silver. The boats, as they came from Ashlingsea, put in at the landing-place to receive the instructions of the police officers standing there, and then started to search. There were two rowers in each boat, and standing at the stern was a man holding the rope to which the grappling irons were attached. Slowly and mechanically the boats were rowed out some distance to sea, and then rowed back again. The men in the stern watched the ropes in their hands for the first sign of tautness which would indicate that the grappling irons had hooked in to something. Frequently one of the irons caught on a piece of rock, and when this happened the boat had to be eased back until the irons could be released. The boats searching further out, near the sand-bank, used nets instead of grappling irons.
Crewe, who had driven over in his car from Staveley, after watching this scene for some time, turned back to the road in order to put up his car at Cliff Farm. Marsland had not accompanied him. The young man had motored over with his uncle, who, after hearing from his nephew a full account of the events of the previous night, had insisted on participating in the search for the missing man. Sir George Granville, on arriving at the headland, had scrambled down the cliff with some idea of assisting in the search, and at the present moment was standing on the landing-place with Inspector Murchison, gesticulating to the rowers, and pointing out likely spots which he thought had escaped their attention.
Crewe, on regaining his car, found Marsland leaning against it, contemplating the scene before him with indifferent eyes. He nodded briefly to the detective, and then averted his eyes. Crewe explained his intention regarding the car, and Marsland said he might as well go down with him. He got up into the front seat with the same listlessness that had characterized his previous actions, but did not speak again till they reached the farm.
At the house Crewe and Marsland met Detective Gillett, who had gone there to store his bicycle preparatory to watching the operations of the fishermen searching for the body.
“I have had a pretty busy time since you came along to us last night,” he said, referring to the visit of Crewe and Marsland to Ashlingsea police station to report the fall of Brett over the cliff. “We got the money—£12,000 altogether. There was £8,000 in the motor-boat and £4,000 here in the bottom of the old clock case, as you said.”
“What about the girl?” asked Crewe. “Was she there?”
Detective Gillett looked in the direction of Marsland before replying.
The young man, with the same air of detachment that had marked his previous actions, had wandered some distance down the gravel-walk, and was carelessly tossing pebbles from the path at some object which was not apparent to the two men in the porch.
“I found her searching along the cliffs with a lantern,” said Gillett, in a low voice. “She was looking for Brett; she told me that she had heard a scream and she thought he must have fallen over accidentally. I didn’t enlighten her. Poor thing, she is half-demented. She has got it into her head that she is responsible for some document or paper which Brett had given into her safe-keeping, and which she handed back to him last night at his request before he went to the farm to look for the money.”
“Doesn’t she know what is in the paper?” asked Crewe quickly.
“Her mind is in such a state that it is useless to question her. She keeps repeating that it was to be opened in the event of his death. It was only after great difficulty I ascertained from her that she had given the paper back to Brett last night. I am anxious that Brett’s body should be recovered in order to ascertain what its contents are.”
“I should think the girl would have a fair idea of the contents.”
“I think so too, but she is not in a fit state to be questioned at present, and may not be for some time. The strain has been too much for her. In my opinion she is in for a severe illness.”
“Where is she now?”
“At the station. Of course, I had to take her into custody on a charge of attempting to steal this money. Whether the public prosecutor will go on with the charge or whether he will bring any other charge of a more serious nature against her remains to be seen.”
Marsland, who had abandoned his stone throwing, had strolled back to the porch in time to hear Gillett’s last remarks.
“It is a strange thing to find a girl of her type in love with such a scoundrel,” he said.
“Quite a common thing,” said Detective Gillett, speaking from the experience of the seamy side of life which comes under the attention of Scotland Yard. “There are some women brought up in good surroundings who seem to be attracted irresistibly to scoundrels. You never know what a woman will do. By the by, it is a good thing, Mr. Marsland, that you did not hit him when you fired at him last night. If you had killed him I should have had to arrest you, and the case would have had to go to a jury. Of course, there is no doubt how it would have ended, but it would have been an unpleasant experience for you.”
“I shouldn’t have minded that,” was the young man’s answer.
Gillett regarded this declaration as bravado, and merely continued:
“As it is, you are virtually responsible for his death in frightening him over the cliff, but the law takes no account of that.”
“I should prefer to have shot him,” said Marsland.
“Ah, well, I must get away and see what they are doing,” said the Scotland Yard detective, who obviously disliked Marsland’s attitude. “I suppose I’ll see you again during the day?”
When he had gone off towards the cliffs Crewe turned to Marsland and said:
“I am going to have another look at the place—now that this case is concluded.”
He entered the house and Marsland followed him. The interior looked more sombre and deserted than ever. The fortnight which had elapsed since the tragedy—during which time the place had been left untenanted—had intensified the air of desolation and neglect that brooded over the empty rooms, had thickened the dust on the moth-eaten carpets and heavy old furniture, and gave an uncanny air to the staring eyes of the stuffed animals which hung on the wall in glass cases—dead pets of dead occupants of Cliff Farm.
Crewe and Marsland looked through the house, entered the room where the grandfather clock stood, and Crewe pointed out the mark of the bullet which Marsland had fired at Brett the previous night. In his excitement he had fired too high, and the bullet had gone into the wall about eight feet from the floor, between two photographs which hung on the wall. One of these photographs was of James Lumsden, the eccentric old owner of Cliff Farm, who had broken his neck by falling downstairs. The other was Frank Lumsden, whose dead body had been found in the house by Marsland thirteen days before.
“That was the second time I missed Brett,” said Marsland, staring at the bullet hole in the wall between the photographs.
“The second time?” echoed Crewe. “Do you mean that he was the burglar at whom you fired a week ago?”
“Yes. I came into the room just as he was getting out of the window. I caught only a glimpse of him but I knew him instantly. I had a presentiment that he was near and that is why I happened to be wearing my revolver.”
“What was his object in breaking into the house?”
“He wanted to be sure that I was the man he had to fear just as I wanted to be sure that he was the man I wanted to kill. An hour before I had broken into his rooms at 41 Whitethorn Gardens, for the purpose of making sure about him. I saw his photograph there, and that is all I wanted.”
“And it was you and not he who was in the house when Mrs. Penfield called out that the police were in the house?”
“Yes, that was I. I didn’t understand why she called out, but it served as a warning to me that she expected him. And so when I got back to my uncle’s I got my revolver out of the drawer. The first I heard of him being in England was when Inspector Murchison told us, although I was prepared in a way after finding that Lumsden had been here. Murchison spoke of him as Brett, but I did not know him by that name. So to make sure I got Mrs. Penfield out of the house by a hoax on the telephone and broke into the place in her absence. I did not know that it was you who came back with her.”
“But his object in breaking into your room was probably to get some article of yours which would help to bring suspicion against you with regard to Lumsden’s death. No doubt it was he who took the glasses which were subsequently found in the well. As you lost a pair of glasses in the storm and arrived at the farm without them, Miss Maynard probably mentioned the fact to Brett. Did you tell her that you had lost your glasses that night?”
“I forget. Oh, yes, I did! I mentioned it when we were looking at the cryptogram on the stairs.”
“He was certainly an enterprising scoundrel.”
“Don’t you wish to know why I wanted to kill him?” asked the young man after a pause.
“I do, very much.”
“I feel that I must speak about it,” he said. “And you are the only man to whom I can. You heard Murchison tell us that Lumsden and Brett, as he called himself, had been tortured by the Germans but that they gave away no information. That is their version; let me tell you the truth about them. Both of them belonged to my company in France. Lumsden had been under me for four or five months and I had nothing against him. He was a fairly good soldier and I thought I could depend upon him. Powell—or Brett—had come over with a recent draft. One night when I was holding a short advanced trench to the south of Armentières I sent Lumsden and Brett out on a listening patrol. The trench we were holding was reached through a sap: it was the first of four or five that were being dug as jumping off places for an attack on the German trenches.
“It was just about midnight that I sent Lumsden and Brett out and they ought to have been back by 2 a. m. It was the middle of summer and dawn commenced about 3 a. m. Either they had been captured or had lost their way and were waiting for dawn. When it was light enough to see the landscape, two figures appeared on the parapet of a German trench in front about three hundred yards away. They were calling and gesticulating to us. At that distance it was impossible to make out what they were saying, but from their gestures we gathered that the Germans had deserted the trench and it was ours if we liked to go over and occupy it.
“It came as such a surprise that none of us stopped to think; but if we had stopped no one would have thought of treachery. The men went over the parapet—every one of them. It was a race—they were laughing and joking as to who should be there first. And when we were within forty yards or so there was a volley from rifles and machine guns. The bullets seemed to come from every quarter. The men were taken by surprise and they dropped almost before they had time to realize what had happened. I was one of the first to go down but it was only a bullet in the leg. As I lay where I fell I was struck by another bullet in the shoulder. Then I crawled to a shell hole for shelter. I found seven of my men there, all of whom had been hit.
“We were not there long before the Germans commenced to lob hand grenades into the shell hole. How I escaped death I do not know: it was an awful experience to see those murderous bombs coming down and to be powerless to escape from them. I saw several of my poor men with limbs blown off dying in agony, and from what I learned subsequently much the same thing had happened in other shell holes where men had crawled for shelter. Out of my company of 82—we were not at full strength, and I had only three second lieutenants besides myself—I was the only one to come through alive. And I lay in a state of semi-collapse in the shell hole for two days before being rescued when our men drove the Germans out of their trenches.”
“A dreadful experience,” said Crewe sympathetically.
“These two miserable loathsome creatures, Brett and Lumsden, to save their own lives, had beckoned my company into the trap. They had been captured by the Germans, and no doubt were tortured in order to make them do what they did. But as British soldiers they should have died under torture rather than be guilty of treachery. The memory of how my poor men died without having a chance to defend themselves haunts me day and night. I hear their voices—their curses as they realized that they were the victims of a horrible act of treachery, their cries and moans in the agony of death.”
He sat down on the upturned clock case and buried his face in his hands.
“AmI the first man to whom you have told this story?” asked Crewe, in a gentle voice.
“Yes,” said Marsland. “It is not a story that I would care to tell to many. It is not a story that reflects any credit on me—my company wiped out through treachery on the part of two of my men.”
“But when you came back to England, wouldn’t it have been better to have reported the matter to the military authorities and have had Brett and Lumsden tried by court martial?”
“I did not know they were in England until I came down here: I thought that if they were not dead they were prisoners in Germany. I have no witnesses for a court martial, and after being off my head in the hospital for a couple of months I doubt if a court martial would believe my story. Counsel for the defence would say I was suffering from delusions. And it would have driven me mad if such a scoundrel as Brett had been acquitted by a court martial for want of evidence. Besides, the satisfaction of having him shot was not to be compared with the satisfaction of shooting him down myself just as if he were a dog.”
“But it is a terribly grave thing to take human life—to send a man to his death without trial.”
“I have seen so many men die, Crewe, that death seems to me but a little thing. If a man deserves death, if he knows himself that he deserves it a hundredfold, why waste time in proving it to others? If I had shot Brett I should doubtless have had to stand my trial for murder. But if the police searched all over England could they have found a jury who would convict me if I saw fit to tell my story in the dock? Told by a man in the dock it would carry conviction; but told by a man in the witness-box at a court martial it might not.”
“I believe there is some truth in that,” said Crewe, in a firm, quiet voice. “But it is a matter which must be put to the test.”
Marsland stood up and fixed on him an intent gaze.
“What do you mean?” he said. “If Brett is dead he died by accident—by a fall over the cliff. The law cannot touch me.”
The detective did not speak, but his eyes held the young man’s glance intently for a moment, and then traveled slowly to the portrait of Frank Lumsden on the wall.
“I mean that,” he said slowly.
“Do you know all?” Marsland asked, in a voice which was little more than a whisper.
“I know that it was you who shot Frank Lumsden.”
“Yes, I shot him!” The young man sprang to his feet and uttered the words in a loud, excited tone which rang through the empty house. “And so little do I regret what I have done, that if I had the chance to recall the past I would not falter—I would shoot him again.”
“Sit down again,” said Crewe kindly. “Do not excite yourself. You and I can discuss this thing quietly whatever else is to happen afterwards.”
“How long have you known that I did it?” asked Marsland, after a pause.
“It was not until yesterday that I felt quite certain. What annoys me—what offends my personal pride—is that my impetuous young friend Gillett picked you out as the right man before I did. He was wrong in his facts, wrong in his deductions, wrong in his theories, and hopelessly wrong in his reconstruction of the crime. He had no more chance of proving a case against you than against the first man he might pick out blindfolded from a crowd, and yet he was right. True, he came to the conclusion that he was wrong when I put him right as to the circumstances under which the tragedy occurred, but that doesn’t soothe my pride altogether. If there is one lesson I have learned from this case, it is that humility is a virtue that becomes us all.
“But, after all, I do not think I have been so very long in solving the problem,” the detective continued. “It is only thirteen days since the tragedy took place, and from the first I saw it was a complicated case. I never ruled out the possibility of your being the right man after Brett and Miss Maynard tried to sheet home Lumsden’s death to you. I do not think she was fully in Brett’s confidence—in fact, it is fairly obvious that he would not tell her the story of his treachery. But he knew that you had shot Lumsden and she caught at his conviction without being fully convinced herself. Brett’s conduct was inconsistent with guilt. But it was consistent with the knowledge that Lumsden had met his death at your hands and that he himself would share the same fate if you encountered him.
“I am under the impression that he reached Lumsden a few minutes after you rode away from the spot, and that Lumsden was then alive. Probably he was able to breathe out your name to Brett. The latter helped the dying man into the motor-car and started to drive back to Staveley for medical aid, and after passing the thatched cottage on the right he became aware that Lumsden had collapsed and was past human aid. So he decided to take the body to the farm, and in order to disappear, without drawing immediate suspicion on himself, he tried to indicate that Lumsden was shot in the house.
“Then he disappeared because he was afraid of you. If he had got you under lock and key he might have risked coming into the open and giving evidence against you. But I rather fancy that his intention was to get away to a foreign country with old Lumsden’s money, and then put the police on your track by giving the true circumstances under which Lumsden was shot.”
“Did he write to you?” asked Marsland.
“No.”
“I was always afraid he would. What put you on my track?”
“The conviction that you had warned this girl to clear out as Gillett had obtained some awkward facts against her. You were the only person who had any object in warning her, though Gillett thinks you had even less reason to do so than Brett. I regarded you merely as an average human being and not actuated by Quixotic impulses. I remembered that she had tried to sheet home the crime to you and therefore you had little cause to be grateful to her—so far I am in accord with Gillett. But if you knew that she had nothing to do with the tragedy, and if you felt that Gillett’s close questioning might lead to information from Brett which would tell against you, it was common sense on your part to get her out of the way.”
“It is wonderful how you have divined my mind and the line of thought I followed,” said the young man. His even tones were an indication that he was regaining his composure.
“Next, there was your attempt to kill Brett instead of helping me to capture him. That told against you. True, it indicated that you had what you regarded as a just cause of deadly hatred. But if you were under the belief that Brett had killed Lumsden it would have suited you better to capture him than to shoot him. Your shot at Brett showed me that you knew it was not Brett who had killed Lumsden, and also that you feared if Brett were arrested he would charge you with shooting Lumsden.”
“Go on,” said the young man breathlessly.
“There is little more to tell,” said Crewe. “I had to ask Gillett yesterday not to refer to the doubts I had expressed to him regarding Brett’s guilt. I was afraid he might do so in your presence and that would have put you on your guard. The final proof came when Gillett discovered the bullet in the tree where Lumsden fell. At the moment Gillett found the bullet I picked up these in the grass.”
Crewe produced from his waistcoat pocket a pair of eye-glasses.
“So that is where I lost them!” exclaimed Marsland. “It never occurred to me before. I have no recollection of their dropping off—I suppose I was too excited to notice they had gone.”
“Your meeting with him was accidental?” said Crewe.
“Quite. I had been out riding on the downs and when I struck the road I wasn’t sure which way I had to go to get home. I saw a man coming along the road and I rode up to him. It was Lumsden. I tell you, Crewe, he was terrified at the sight of me—no doubt he thought that I had been killed in France. As I was dismounting and tying up my horse he pleaded for his life. He grovelled at my feet in the dirt. But I didn’t waste much time or pity. I told him that he had earned death a hundredfold, and that the only thing I was sorry for was that I could kill him only once. He sprang up the bank in the hope of getting away, but I brought him down with a single shot. I saw that he was done for and I left him gasping in the agony of death. I had no pity—I had seen so many men die, and I had seen my company of good men go to their deaths because of his treachery.
“I rode back over the downs, and caring little which way I went I lost my way and was overtaken by the storm. Eventually I saw the farm and went there for shelter. And upstairs I found the dead body of this man Lumsden. It was the strangest experience of my life. I did not know what to think—I could not make out how the body had got there. And when Miss Maynard asked me to say nothing to the police about her having been there I thought it was the least I could do for her. I knew that whatever errand had brought her there she had nothing to do with his death.”
There was a long pause during which the two men looked at one another.
“You think that I had just cause for shooting him?” said Marsland.
“I think you had no right to take upon yourself the responsibility of saying ‘The law will fail to punish these men and therefore I will punish them without invoking the aid of the law!’”
“I do not regret what I have done. As I said before, if I had to go through it again I would not hesitate to shoot him. Perhaps it is because I have lived so much with death while I was at the front that human life does not seem to me a sacred thing. These two men deserved death if ever men did.”
“You believe that no jury would convict you?” said Crewe.
“I do not see how a jury of patriotic Englishmen could do so. But I do not care about that. I have finished with my life; I do not care what becomes of me. When I recall what I have been through over there in France, when I think of the thousands of brave men who have died agonized deaths, when I see again the shattered mutilated bodies of my men in the shell-hole with me—I want to forget that I have ever lived. All that remains to be done is that you should hand me over to the police.”
“That is a responsibility which I should like to be spared,” said Crewe gravely. “I think we may leave it to Brett.”
“To Brett!” exclaimed Marsland, springing to his feet again in renewed excitement. “Do you think he has escaped death; do you think he has got away?”
“I feel sure he was killed. But if his body is recovered the police will learn from it that it was you who shot Lumsden.”
“How will they find that out?”
“The girl Maynard has told them that he had an important paper in his possession when he was drowned and that is why they are so anxious to recover the body. They do not know the contents of the document but it is an easy matter to divine them. Let us look at this matter in the way in which Brett must have looked at it after thinking it over carefully. He knew that you had shot Lumsden; he knew that if he met you his life would not be worth a moment’s purchase. The shot you fired at him when he was breaking into your room at Staveley was an emphatic warning on that point, if he needed any warning.
“Do you think that he would not take steps to bring his death and Lumsden’s death home to you in the event of his being shot down? If he had got out of the country, as no doubt he had hoped to do, he would have put the police on your track for shooting Lumsden. If the police recover Brett’s body, they will find on it a document setting forth Brett’s account of how Lumsden met his death. No doubt his and Lumsden’s treachery will be glossed over, but your share in the tragedy will be plainly put.”
“I overlooked all this,” said Marsland quietly. “Let us walk across to the cliffs and see what they are doing.”
They left the farm and walked slowly towards the cliffs, each immersed in his own thoughts. There were a few groups of people on the road, and another group at the top of the hill. Suddenly there arose a shout, and the people on the road started running towards the cliffs.
“They’ve found it!” The cry of the people on the beach below was carried up to the cliffs, and Crewe and Marsland, looking down, saw the fishermen in one of the boats close to the cliff lift from the water the dripping, stiffened figure of a man which had been brought to the surface by the grappling irons.