The Cheyne mystery

by Freeman Wills Crofts

Cheyne made noncommittal noises, and Speedwell, looking pleased, continued:

“One evening, nearly two months ago, I got back late from another job and I found a wire waiting for me. It was from Mrs. Hazelton’s housemaid and it said: ‘Maxwell Cheyne disappeared and Susan left Warren Lodge for London.’ I thought to myself: ‘Bully for you, Jane,’ and then I thought: ‘Susan will be turning to Brother James. I’ll go out to Hopefield Avenue and see if I can pick anything up.’ So I went out. It was about half-past ten when I arrived. I found the front of the house in darkness, but an upper window at the back was lighted up. There was a lane along behind the houses, you understand, Mr. French, and a bit of garden between them and the lane. The gate into the garden was open, and I slipped in and began to tiptoe towards the house. Then I heard soft steps coming in after me, and I turned aside and hid behind a large shrub to see what would happen. And then I saw something that interested me very much. A man came in very quietly and I saw in the faint moonlight that he was carrying a ladder.” There was an exclamation from Cheyne. “He put the ladder to the lighted window and climbed up, and then I saw who it was. I needn’t tell you, Mr. Cheyne, I was surprised to see you, and I waited behind the bush for what would happen. I saw and heard the whole thing: the party coming down to supper, your getting in, Sime coming out and seeing the ladder, the alarm, your coming out, and them getting you on the head in the garden. You’ll perhaps think, Mr. Cheyne, that I should have come out and lent you a hand, but after all, sir, I don’t know that you could claim that you had the right of it altogether, and besides, it all happened so quickly I had no chance to interfere. Well, anyhow they knocked you out and then they searched you and took a folded paper from your pocket. ‘Thank goodness, we’ve got the tracing at all events,’ Dangle said, speaking very softly, ‘but now we’re in the soup and no mistake. What are we going to do with the confounded fool’s body?’ They examined the ladder and saw from the contractor’s name that it had been brought from the new house, then they whispered together and I couldn’t hear what was said, but at last Sime said: ‘Right, we’ll fix it so that it will look as if he fell off the ladder.’ Then the three men picked you up, Mr. Cheyne, and carried you out down the lane. Susan stood in the garden waiting, and I had to sit tight behind the bush. In about ten minutes the men came back and then Sime took the ladder and carried it away down the lane. The others whispered together and then Dangle said something to Susan, ending up: ‘It’s in the second left hand drawer.’ She went indoors, but came out again in a moment with a powerful electric torch. Blessington and Dangle then searched for traces of your little affair, Mr. Cheyne. They found the marks of the ladder butts in the soft grass and smoothed them out, and they looked everywhere, I suppose, for footprints or something that you might have dropped when you fell. Then Sime came back and they all went in and shut the door.”

Cheyne snorted angrily.

“It didn’t occur to you, I suppose, to make any effort to help me or even find out if I was alive or dead? You weren’t going to have any trouble, even if you did become an accessory after the fact?”

“I’m coming to that, Mr. Cheyne. All in good time, sir.” Speedwell rubbed his hands unctuously. “You will understand that as long as the garden was occupied I couldn’t come out from behind the bush. But directly the coast was clear I got out of the garden and turned along the lane where they had carried you. I wondered where they could have hidden you, and I started searching. I remembered what Sime had said about the ladder, so I went to the half-built house and had a look around, but I couldn’t find you in it. Then I saw you lying back of the road fence, but just at that minute I heard footsteps, and I stopped behind a pile of bricks till the party would pass. But you called out and the lady stopped, and once again I couldn’t interfere. I heard the arrangements about the taxi, and when the lady went away to get it I slipped out and hid where I could see it. In that way I got its number. Next day I saw the driver and got out of him where he had taken you, and I kept my eye on you and when you got better trailed you to Miss Merrill’s. From other people living in the flats I found out about her.” After a pause he concluded: “And I think, gentlemen, that’s about all I have to tell you.”

Inspector French slowly expelled a cloud of gray cigar smoke from his mouth.

“Really, Speedwell, you have surpassed yourself,” he murmured. “Your story, as I told you, sounds like a novel. A pity though, that having gone so far you did not go a little farther. You did not find out, for example, what business this mysterious quartet were plotting?”

“I did not, Mr. French,” the man returned earnestly. “I gathered that it was connected with ‘the tracing’ that Dangle spoke of, and I imagined the tracing was what they had been wanting from Mr. Cheyne, and evidently had got, but I didn’t get a sight of it, and I have no idea of their game.”

“And did you find out nothing that might be a help? Where did those three men spend their time? What did they do in the daytime?”

“Just what I told Mr. Cheyne, sir. I gave him perfectly correct information in everything. Dangle is a town sharp and helps run a gambling room in Knightsbridge. Sime is another of the same—collects pigeons in the night clubs for the others to pluck. Blessington, I got the hint, lived by blackmail, but I’ve no proof of this.”