House in Charlton Crescent (27 page)

They all stared at him, John Daventry among them. The man's mottled face was quivering, his bloodshot eyes were watering, the loose lips were working, twitching, the shoulders were hunching themselves up, the whole man seemed on the verge of collapse.

“Mr. John—I couldn't help it—I never meant it. I was forced—I was tricked—” The uneven voice broke off in a gurgle, the ghastly face was hidden by a pair of trembling hands.

A great silence fell upon them all in the room. Even Inspector Furnival and Bruce Cardyn, hardened criminal hunters though they were, felt their breathing quicken.

A loud guffaw from John Daventry broke across the stillness with the force of an electric shock.

“So the game's up, is it, old Soames? I guessed it would be when the inspector guessed the Cat Burglar business. Don't worry, old chap. You have done your best! Inspector, I congratulate you!”

Something jingled in the inspector's hands, the next moment it was round John Daventry's wrist and the room seemed instantly full of men in plain clothes surrounding them both.

“John William Daventry”—the inspector's stern voice dominated them all—”I arrest you for the wilful murder of Anne Georgina Dorothea Daventry in this house on the evening of January. And it is my duty to warn you that anything you say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence against you.”

“You bet it will!” Again that loud laugh of Daventry's rang through the room. “Damn it all man, I can see when the game is up. And I don't know that I care much. It seemed a wicked shame that that old woman should go on living—a life that was no good to herself or anyone else. Stingy old beggar too. Made as much fuss about lending a chap a few pounds as though she hadn't got any amount of shekels tucked away in the bank. Seemed as if she was going to live for ever, and that beastly rheumatism doesn't kill. I might have been too old to enjoy the stuff when it did come. So I took the matter in my own hands. But it hasn't done me much good and I don't know that I'm sorry it has ended as it has. Sometimes in the night I have seen the old thing's eyes looking up at me as they did when I stuck the dagger in. So that is the end, inspector. And don't touch old Soames. He knew nothing about it until it was all over when he saw me taking my hand from the dagger. But you won't have your sensational trial, inspector. I have laid my plans too well for that! Good-bye, everybody. It is going over the top of the trench a bit before my time, that is all.” With the last words he staggered against the wall.

“Poison—that handkerchief! And I never thought of it?” the inspector explained as he and another man caught up the prisoner.

“Good old blow, wasn't it?” Daventry managed to get the words out as the men surrounded him. “You will find the half of a tablet there that would kill a dozen men, inspector.”

The words were haltingly spoken. The hue of death was spreading over the handsome features. The policemen laid him back on the couch; the eyes were glazing over, the breath was failing.

Soames stumbled forward and fell beside him.

“Mr. John! Mr. John—you'd never have done it in your right mind. It was the gas and the shells in that accursed war! Up there they'll know it all—and understand.”

And that was the requiem of John Daventry.

“Oh, a terrible affair, terrible!” the rector of North Coton said. “And, inspector, I hear that the poor boy's grandmother on the maternal side had periodical attacks of insanity. I take it that the poor fellow must have inherited the taint.”

“Perhaps.” The inspector's tone was doubtful.

All that was mortal of John Daventry had been laid to rest in the churchyard at Daventry nearly a month ago. And Mr. Fyvert and the inspector were just “tidying up,” as the inspector phrased it, in the library at Charlton Crescent.

“There was that terrible shell shock too that he got in the trenches,” the rector pursued. “He and a party of his men were buried by the explosion of a shell close at hand and had to be dug out. Then he was badly gassed. Such experiences must leave their mark, you know, inspector. John Daventry could not be looked upon as accountable for his actions.”

The inspector's face was very grave. He made no motion of assent. Presently Mr. Fyvert went on: “How was it that you suspected him, inspector? For I gather that you did suspect him.”

“It was fairly obvious, was it not?” the inspector said with a sarcasm that was lost upon the rector. “Well, I may say that I did not think of him at first. My suspicions were divided between that unhappy girl, Branksome's wife—whom very early in the proceedings I discovered to be an impostor—and Soames. It was very soon obvious that the butler was either guilty himself or screening some one. The footprints on the border to which he drew my attention were a clumsy device; he has since confessed that he used an old pair of Branksome's shoes to make them, fastening them firmly to a pole and leaning from the window to stamp them on the soft earth beneath.”

The rector's mild eyes opened wide. “What an extraordinary device! It would never have occurred to me.”

“I am sure it would not,” the inspector agreed heartily, a faint twinkle in his eye. “Then I found out that Soames had been for some time in a chemist's shop in his youth. That would have given him the knowledge necessary for the making up of the hyoscine pill—the poison in the milk. Pirnie suspected him too. It seems she thought that while he was philandering with her he had taken the opportunity to poison the milk. However, she knows the truth now and they have made it up. So that is all right. And I discovered that both John Daventry and Lady Anne's eldest son, Christopher had had a turn that way and had messed about with drugs a good deal as boys under Soames's tuition. That I think first turned my suspicions definitely to John Daventry. He knew about the attempted secret poisoning of Lady Anne and he did not tell us of Soames's knowledge.”

“I cannot think that poor John knew anything of the attempted poisoning,” remarked Mr. Fyvert fatuously.

The inspector contented himself with raising his eyebrows.

“Then again he had obviously fallen in love with the pretended Miss Balmaine,” he pursued. “That provided an additional motive. Though no doubt his financial difficulties were the principal. My very definite suspicion became a certainty when I taxed Soames with his share in the matter.”

“Yes! Yes! I see!” The rector blew his nose vigorously. “Poor John—poor John! Well think it may be said that gassed and shellshocked as he had been he gave his life for his country as truly as any of those who fell on the field of battle. I am sure my poor sister will agree with me with the clearer vision of Eternity.”

The inspector coughed dubiously. “I hope so.”

“And that unhappy girl—David Branksome's wife?” questioned Mr. Fyvert after a pause.

“David Branksome himself is a professional crook,” Inspector Furnival answered. “His wife is an actress who successfully made up to impersonate Lady Anne. She dressed at her husband's lodgings where I found most of the garments. But the gown she made herself at Charlton Crescent and kept there. She it was who stole the diary with the help of her husband's instruments, and he managed to get the pearls while he was secretary to Lady Anne. The pearls, of course, were their principal objective; but there can be no doubt that they hoped to obtain other jewellery, and it was their desire to possess themselves of the diamonds that led to their undoing, since they might have got off safely with the pearls.”

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! It is all very sad and terrible,” sighed the rector. “That child Maureen, too, has probably injured herself for life by that foolish trick with the mask. Oh, I am very much afraid so.” As the inspector made a gesture of dissent. “They are going to take her abroad very soon—the sister and Mr. Cardyn, for I dare say you will be surprised to hear that they—Miss Fyvert and Bruce Cardyn—are going to be married very quietly and quite soon.”

The inspector raised his eyebrows. “Indeed! I had not heard.”

“No? It may seem soon after all—the—the trouble. But it is quite a long standing attachment, they tell me, and they are anxious to get away from all this talk of ‘the five' and the tragedy altogether. Still, most people are surprised like you, inspector. For myself—I suppose my profession renders me unusually observant—I was expecting the announcement, from various little signs that have noticed.”

The inspector made no rejoinder, but later on when the rector had gone, he said to himself, rubbing his nose reflectively, “Wonder
what
he noticed. Profession made him observant, has it? About as observant as Balaam, I should think, when the ass had to speak to make him stop. And the ass would have had to shout pretty loud to stop the rector of North Coton.”

THE END

Annie Haynes was born in 1865, the daughter of an ironmonger.

By the first decade of the twentieth century she lived in London and moved in literary and early feminist circles. Her first crime novel,
The Bungalow Mystery
, appeared in 1923, and another nine mysteries were published before her untimely death in 1929.

Who Killed Charmian Karslake?
appeared posthumously, and a further partially-finished work,
The Crystal Beads Murder
, was completed with the assistance of an unknown fellow writer, and published in 1930.

The Bungalow Mystery

The Abbey Court Murder

The Secret of Greylands

The Blue Diamond

The Witness on the Roof

The Crow's Inn Tragedy

The Master of the Priory

The Man with the Dark Beard

The Crime at Tattenham Corner

Who Killed Charmian Karslake?

The Crystal Beads Murder

“I cannot understand why Mr. Bechcombe apparently offered no resistance. His hand-bell, his speaking-tube, the telephone—all were close at hand. It looks as though he had recognized his assassin and had no fear of him.”

The corner house of Crow's Inn Square was the most dignified set of solicitors' chambers imaginable. But this monument to law and order nonetheless becomes the scene of murder – when the distinguished lawyer Mr. Bechcombe, despite giving strict instructions not to be disturbed, is strangled in his own office.

Inspector Furnival of Scotland Yard has to wrestle with fiendish clues, unearth priceless gems and tangle with a dangerous gang before he can solve this case, his third and final golden age mystery. Originally published in 1927, this new edition is the first printed in over 80 years, and features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“What could be better to whet the appetite of the mystery-loving reader? A capital piece of work... exactly the sort of mystery story that everyone is asking for and will eagerly devour.”
Sketch

The offices of Messrs. Bechcombe and Turner took up the whole of the first floor of the corner house of Crow's Inn Square. Bechcombe and Turner was one of the oldest legal firms in London. Their offices were dingy, not to say grimy-looking. The doors and windows had evidently not had a coat of paint for years. There were no lifts in Crow's Inn. Any such modern innovation would have been out of place in the tall, narrow-casemented houses that stood square round the grass—grass which was bound and crossed by stone flagged walks. The front door of the corner house stood open; the tessellated floor of the hall was dulled by the passing of numberless footsteps. The narrow, uncarpeted stairs went up just opposite the door.

A tall, grey-haired clergyman, who was carefully scrutinizing the almost illegible doorplate, glanced round in some distaste as he went up the worn stairs. At the top he was faced by a door with the legend “Inquiries” written large upon it. After a moment's hesitation he knocked loudly. Instantly a panel in the middle of the door shot aside and a small, curiously wrinkled face looked out inquisitively.

“Mr. Bechcombe?” the caller said inquiringly. “Please tell him that Mr. Collyer has called, but that he will wait.”

The message was repeated by a boyish voice, the panel was pushed into its place again, a door by the side opened and Mr. Collyer was beckoned in. He found himself in a small ante-room; a door before him stood open and he could see into an office containing a row of desks on each side and several clerks apparently writing busily away. Nearer to him was another open door evidently leading into a waiting-room, furnished with a round centre-table and heavy leather chairs—all with the same indescribable air of gloom that seemed to pervade Messrs. Bechcombe and Turner's establishment.

The boy who had admitted Mr. Collyer now stood aside for him to pass in, and then departed, vouchsafing the information that Mr. Bechcombe would be at leisure in a few minutes.

With a sigh of relief the clergyman let himself down into one of the capacious arm-chairs, moving stiffly like a man afflicted with chronic rheumatism. Then he laid his head against the back of it as if thoroughly tired out. Seen thus in repose, the deep lines graven on his clean-shaven face were very noticeable, his mouth had a weary droop, and his kind, grey eyes with the tiny network of wrinkles round them were sad and worried.

The minutes were very few indeed before a bell rang close at hand, a door sprang open as if by magic and the same boy beckoned him into a farther room.

Luke Bechcombe was standing on the hearthrug with his back to the open fireplace. The head, and in fact the sole representative, of the firm of Bechcombe and Turner, since Turner had retired to a villa at Streatham, Luke Bechcombe was a small, spare man with grey hair already growing very thin near the temples and on the crown, and a small, neatly trimmed, grey beard. His keen, pale eyes were hidden from sight by a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. His general appearance was remarkably spick and span.