The Cheyne mystery

by Freeman Wills Crofts

They left the Parkeston Quay at 10:30, and by 6 next morning French was on deck. He was anxious to miss no possible sight of the approach of Zeebrugge. He had read with a thrilled and breathless interest the story of what was perhaps the greatest naval exploit of all time—as, indeed, who has not?—and as the long, low line of the famous mole loomed up rather starboard of straight ahead, his heart beat faster and a lump came in his throat. There, away to the right, round the curve of the long pier, must have been where Vindictive boarded, where in an inferno of fire her crew reached with their scaling ladders the top of the great sea wall, and climbing down on the inside, joined a hand-to-hand fight with the German defenders. And here, at the left hand end of the huge semicircle, was the lighthouse, which he was now rounding as Thetis, Intrepid, and Iphigenia rounded it on that historic night. He tried to picture the scene. The screen of smoke to sea, which baffled the searchlights of the defenders and from which mysterious and unexpected craft emerged at intervals, the flashing lights as guns were fired and shells burst over the mole, the sea, and the low-lying sand dunes of the coast behind. The din of hell in the air, fire, smoke, explosion, and death—and those three ships passing on; Thetis a wreck, struck and fiercely burning, forced aside by the destruction of her gear, but lighting her fellows straight to their goal—the mouth of the canal which led to the submarine base at Bruges. French crossed the deck and gazed at the spot with its swing bridge and stone side walls, as he thought how, had the desperate venture failed, history might have been changed and at that touch and go period of the war the Central Powers might have triumphed. It was with renewed pride and wonder in the men who conceived and carried out the wonderful enterprise that he crossed back over the deck and set himself to the business of landing.

A short run past the sandhills at the coast and across the flat Belgian fields brought the spires of Bruges into view, and slowly rounding a sharp curve through the gardens of the houses in the suburbs, they joined the main line from Ostend, and a few minutes later entered the station. Emerging on to the wide boulevard in front, French’s eyes fell on a bus bearing the legend “Grand Hôtel du Sablon,” and getting in, he was driven across the boulevard and a short way up a long, rather narrow and winding street, between houses some of which seemed to have stood unaltered—and doubtless had—for six hundred years, when Bruges, three times its present size, was the chief trading city of the Hanseatic League. As he turned into the hotel, chimes rang out—from the famous belfry, the porter told him—tinkling, high-pitched bells and silvery, if a trifle thin in the clear morning air.

He called for some breakfast, and as he was consuming it the anticipated delights of sight-seeing receded, and interest in the movements of James Dangle became once more paramount. He was proud of his solution of the problem of the torn hotel bill, and not for a moment had a doubt of the correctness of that solution entered his head.

It came upon him therefore as a devastating shock when the courteous manager of the hotel, with whom he had asked an interview, assured him not only that no such person as the original of the photograph he had presented had ever visited his establishment, but that the fragment of the bill was not his.

To French it seemed as if the bottom had fallen out of his world. He had been so sure of his ground; all his reasoning about the stamp, the size of the hotel and town and lengths of their names had seemed so convincing and unassailable. And the names Grand Hôtel du Sablon and Bruges had worked in so well! More important still, no other hotel seemed to fill the bill. French felt cast down to the lowest depths of despair, and for a time he could only stare speechlessly at the manager.

At last he smiled rather ruefully.

“That’s rather a blow,” he confessed. “I was pretty sure of my ground. Indeed, so sure was I, that if I might without offense, I should like to ask you again if there is no possibility that the man might have been here, say, during your absence.”

The manager was sympathetic. He brought French a sample of his bill, stamped with his rubber receipt stamp, and French saw at once their dissimilarity with those he had been studying. Moreover, the manager assured him that neither had been altered for several years.

So he was no further on! French lit a cigar, and retiring to a deserted corner of the salon, sat down to think the thing out.

What was he to do next? Was he to return to London by the next boat, giving up the search and admitting defeat, or was there any possible alternative? He set his teeth as he swore great oaths that nothing short of the direct need would lead him to abandon his efforts until he had found the hotel, and learned Dangle’s secret.