Silent Nights (5 page)

“You see, Glover, fingerprints are easy to obtain. People leave them everywhere in normal actions. But knee-prints are more difficult to obtain. People don't leave knee-prints about; it was difficult to establish comparison with the knee-prints the thief left on the polished floor about the safe!”

Glover swore suddenly; his hand went swiftly behind him.

“It isn't there,” said Mr Mullinger, gently. “I have it here, look! I abstracted it quite unostentatiously when you crawled on all fours to the table to empty the glass.”

Glover stared ashen-faced at his own automatic, pointed steadily in the grasp of Mr Mullinger.

“You see,” pursued Mr Mullinger evenly, “I suspected you quite early. And from the fact that you haunted this room practically all day on Christmas-eve, and again today—subconscious desire to be near the booty, my dear Glover, and know it is safe—it was fairly good proof that the proceeds were hidden here somewhere.

“Your knees have provided some excellent prints on the polished floor here. Identical with those left by the safe. And the distances between the impressions are identical, too, my young friend.”

“A blasted detective!” snarled Glover.

Mullinger smiled and nodded.

“I was,” he admitted. “Retired from the Force. Retiring, Glover—but not BACKWARD! Colonel, can you forsake the port long enough to ring up the police and summon the manager in here? Thank you.”

A Happy Solution

Raymund Allen

Raymund Allen (1863–1943) was a Welsh-born, Cambridge-educated barrister who spent much of his legal career working as District Probate Registrar in Llandaff. An obituary in
The Times
described him as “a stimulating companion, a witty talker with a strong love of argument, and an excellent
raconteur
who had a strong fund of legal stories with a South Wales setting”. His wife, Alice Pattinson, was a well-known bookbinder.

Allen wrote on legal subjects such as the Workers' Compensation Act, but his passion was for chess, and he contributed short stories about the game to the
Strand Magazine
for over twenty years. “The Black Knight”, which appeared in 1892, was a story of the uncanny, while “A Happy Solution”, published in 1916, combined chess with detection to such good effect that twelve years later, Dorothy L. Sayers included it in her ground-breaking anthology
Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror
. Allen was also the author of
Irregular Forces: A Story of Chess and War (
1915) and yet another chess story, “Allah Knows Best”.

***

The portmanteau, which to Kenneth Dale's strong arm had been little more than a feather-weight on leaving the station, seemed to have grown heavier by magic in the course of the half-mile that brought him to Lord Churt's country house. He put the portmanteau down in the porch with a sense of relief to his cramped arm, and rang the bell.

He had to wait for a few minutes, and then Lord Churt opened the door in person. His round, rubicund face, that would hardly have required any make-up to present an excellent “Mr Pickwick”, beamed a welcome. “Come in, my dear boy, come in. I'm delighted to see you. I wish you a merry Christmas.”

It was Christmas Eve, and his manner was bubbling over with the kindliness appropriate to the season. He seized the portmanteau and carried it into the hall.

“I am my own footman and parlour-maid and everything else for the moment. Packed all the servants off to a Christmas entertainment at the village school and locked the doors after 'em. My wife's gone, too, and Aunt Blaxter.”

“And Norah?” Kenneth inquired.

“Ah! Norah!” Churt answered, with a friendly clap on Kenneth's shoulder. “Norah's the only person that really matters, of course she is, and quite right too. Norah stayed in to send off a lot of Christmas cards, and I fancy she is still in her room, but she must have disposed of the cards, because they are in the letter-bag. She would have been on the look-out for you, no doubt, but your letter said you were not coming.”

“Yes, I know. I thought I couldn't get away, but today my chief's heart was softened, and he said he would manage to do without me till the day after tomorrow. So I made a rush for the two-fifteen, and just caught it.”

“And here you are as a happy surprise for your poor, disappointed Norah—and for us all,” he added, genially.

“I hope you approve of my
fiancée
,” Kenneth remarked, with a smile that expressed confidence as to the answer.

“My dear Kenneth,” Churt replied, “I can say with sincerity that I think her both beautiful and charming. We were very glad to ask her here, and her singing is a great pleasure to us.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing. “You must forgive us cautious old people if we think the engagement just a little bit precipitate. As Aunt Blaxter was saying today, you can't really know her very well on such a short acquaintance, and you know nothing at all of her people.”

Kenneth mentally cursed Aunt Blaxter for a vinegar-blooded old killjoy, but did not express any part of the sentiment aloud.

“We must have another talk about your great affair later,” Churt went on. “Now come along to the library. I am just finishing a game of chess with Sir James Winslade, and then we'll go and find where Miss Norah is hiding.”

He stopped at a table in the passage that led from the hall to the library, and took a bunch of keys out of his pocket. “She was sending you a letter, so there can be no harm in our rescuing it out of the bag.” He unlocked the private letter-bag and turned out a pile of letters on to the table, muttering an occasional comment as he put them back, one by one, in the bag, in his search for the letter he was looking for. “Aunt Emma—ah, I ought to have written to her too; must write for her birthday instead. Mrs Dunn—same thing there, I'm afraid. Red Cross—hope that won't get lost; grand work, the Red Cross. Ah, here we are: ‘Kenneth Dale, Esq., 31, Valpy Street, London, S.W.' '' He tumbled the rest of the letters back into the bag and re-locked it. “Put it in your pocket and come along, or Winslade will think I am never coming back.”

He was delayed a few moments longer, however, to admit the servants on their return from the village, and he handed the bag to one of them to be taken to the post-office.

In the library Sir James Winslade was seated at the chess-board, and Churt's private secretary, Gornay, a tall, slender figure, with a pale complexion and dark, clever eyes, was watching the game.

The secretary greeted Kenneth rather frigidly, and turned to to Churt. “Have the letters gone to post yet?”

“Yes; did you want to send any?”

“Only a card that I might have written,” Gornay answered, “but it isn't of any consequence”; and he sat down again beside the chess-players.

Churt had the black pieces, black nominally only, for actually they were the little red pieces of a travelling board. He appeared to have got into difficulties, and, greatly to the satisfaction of Kenneth, who was impatient to go in quest of Norah, the game came to an end after a few more moves.

“I don't see any way out of this,” Churt remarked, after a final, perplexed survey of the position. “You come at me, next move, with queen or knight, and, either way, I am done for. It is your game. I resign.”

“A lucky win for you, Sir James,” Gornay observed.

“Why lucky?” Winslade asked. “You told us we had both violated every sound principle of development in the opening but could Black have done any better for the last few moves?”

“He can win the game as the pieces now stand,” Gornay answered.

He proved the statement by making a few moves on the board, and then replaced the pieces as they had been left.

“Well, it's your game fair and square, all the same,” Churt remarked good-humouredly. “I should never have found the right reply for myself.”

Gornay continued to study the board with attention, and his face assumed an expression of keenness, as though he had discovered some fresh point to interest him in the position. At the moment Kenneth merely chafed at the delay. It was an hour or so later only that the secretary's comments on the game assumed for him a vital importance that made him recall them with particularity.

“If the play was rather eccentric sometimes, I must say it was bold and dashing enough on both sides,” Gornay commented. “For instance, when Lord Churt gave up his knight for nothing, and when you gave him the choice of taking your queen with either of two pawns at your queen's knight's sixth.” He turned to Churt. “Possibly you might have done better to take the queen with the bishop's pawn instead of with the rook's.”

“I daresay, I daresay,” Churt replied. “I should have probably got into a mess, whatever I played. But come along, now, all of you, and see if we can find some tea.”

Kenneth contrived, before entering the drawing-room, to intercept Norah for an exchange of greetings in private, and her face was still radiant with the delight of the unexpected meeting as they entered the room.

After tea Sir James carried off the secretary to keep him company in the smoking-room, and Churt turned to Norah. “You must sing one of the Christmas carols you promised us, and then you young folk may go off to the library to talk over your own private affairs. I know you must both be longing to get away from us old fogies.”

“Thank you, Lord Churt, for ‘old fogies', on behalf of your wife and myself,” Aunt Blaxter commented, with a mild sarcasm that somehow failed of its intended playful effect. But Norah had sat down at once to the piano, and her voice rang out in a joyous carol before he could frame a suitable reply.

A second carol was asked for, that the others might join in, and in the course of it Kenneth's hand came upon the letter in his pocket. He was opening the envelope as Norah rose from the piano. Her eye caught her own handwriting and she blushed very red. “Be careful, Ken. Don't let anything fall out!” she cried in alarm.

Thus warned, he drew the letter out delicately, being careful to leave in the envelope a little curl of brown hair, a lover's token that she would have been shy to see exposed to the eyes of the others. But, in his care for this, a thin bit of paper fluttered from the fold of the letter to the carpet, and all eyes instinctively followed it. It was a Bank of England note for a thousand pounds.

Kenneth looked at Norah in wonder, but got no enlightenment. Then at Lord Churt, as the bare possibility occurred to his mind that, in a Christmas freak of characteristic generosity, he might have somehow contrived to get it enclosed with her letter. But Churt's dumbfounded expression was not the acting of any genial comedy. His hands trembled as he put on his glasses to compare an entry in his pocket-book with the number on the note. He was the first to break the amazed silence. “This is a most extraordinary thing. This is the identical bank-note that I put into the Red Cross envelope this afternoon as my Christmas gift, the very same that I got for the purpose of sending anonymously, and that you ladies were interested to inspect at breakfast time.”

Each looked at the others for an explanation, till all eyes settled on Norah, as the person who might be expected to give one.

Churt looked vexed and troubled, Aunt Blaxter severely suspicious, as she saw that the girl remained silent, with a face that was losing its colour. “As the note was found in a letter sent by Norah, she would be the natural person to explain how it got there,” she remarked.

“I haven't the remotest notion how it got there,” Norah replied. “I can only say that I did not put it there, and that I never saw it again since breakfast time, until it dropped out of my letter a few moments ago.”

“Very strange,” Aunt Blaxter remarked, drily. Kenneth turned upon her hotly. “You don't suggest that Norah stole the note, I imagine!”

“My dear people,” Churt intervened, soothingly, “do let us keep our heads cool, and not have any unpleasant scene.”

Kenneth still glared. “If Norah had put the note into this envelope, she would have referred to it in her letter. I suppose you will accept my word that she doesn't.”

“Read out the postcript, Ken,” Norah requested. “Miss Blaxter may like to suggest that it refers to the note.” The girl looked at her with a face that was now blazing with anger, and Kenneth read out: “P.S. Don't let anybody see what I am sending you!” It had not occurred to him that it could be taken as anything but a jesting reference to the lock of hair, the note of exclamation at the end giving the effect of “As though I should ever dream you would”, or some equivalent. The matter was growing too serious for any shamefacedness, and he produced the lock of hair in explanation. It was cruel luck, he reflected, that the unfortunate postcript should be capable of misconstruction. He had counted on Norah's making a triumphant conquest of the Churt household, and it was exceedingly galling to find her, instead, exposed to an odious suspicion. Aunt Blaxter's demeanour was all the more maddening that he could think of no means to prove its unreasonableness. He looked gratefully at Lady Churt, as her gentle voice gave the discussion a fresh turn. “How long has Mr Gornay been with us?” she asked her husband.

Churt looked shocked. “My dear, we musn't make any rash insinuations in a matter of this kind. What possible motive could Gornay have for putting the note into Norah's letter, if he meant to steal it? Besides, my evidence clears him.”

“Would you mind telling us what you did with the note after you showed it at the breakfast table this morning?” Kenneth asked.

“I'll tell you exactly,” Churt answered. “When it had made the round of the breakfast table, I put it back in my pocket-book and kept it in my pocket till this afternoon. It was while we were playing chess that I remembered that the bag would be going to post earlier than usual, and I put the note in the Red Cross envelope with the printed address and stuck it down and put it into the bag. I came straight back to the library, and I remember being surprised at the move I found Winslade had played, because he was offering me his queen for nothing. Just at that moment it occurred to my mind that Norah had probably already put her letters into the bag, and that, if so, I might as well lock it at once, for fear of forgetting to do so later. I looked at the chessboard for a few minutes, standing up, and then went and found that Norah's letters were in the bag, and I locked it, and came back and took Winslade's queen.”

“But I don't quite see what all that has to do with Mr Gornay, or how it clears him.” Lady Churt remarked.

“Why, my dear, whoever took the note out of one envelope, and put it into the other must have done so in the few minutes between my two visits to the bag. It was the only time that the letter was in the bag without its being locked. And during that time Gornay was watching the chess, so it can't have been him.”

“Was he in the library all the time you were playing?” Kenneth asked.

“I can't say that,” Churt replied. “I don't think he was. I didn't notice particularly. But I am positive that he did not enter or leave the room while I was standing looking at Winslade's move, and he must have been there when Winslade offered his queen and when I took it, because he was commenting on those very moves after the game was finished, and suggesting that I might have done better to take with the other pawn. You heard him yourself.”