The Cheyne mystery

by Freeman Wills Crofts

Evidently it belonged to Blessington, and evidently also Blessington was a man of tidy and businesslike habits. There were but few papers on the desk and these from their date were clearly current and waiting to be dealt with. In the drawers were bundles of letters, accounts, receipts, and miscellaneous papers, all neatly tied together with tape and docketed. In one of the side drawers was a card index and in another a vertical numeralpha letter file. Through all of these Cheyne hurriedly looked, but nowhere was there any sign of the tracing.

A few measurements with a pocket rule showed that there were no spaces in the desk unaccounted for, and closing the top, Cheyne hurried upstairs to the escritoire. It was a fine old piece and it went to his heart to damage it with the jemmy. But he remembered his treatment aboard the Enid, and such a paroxysm of anger swept over him that he plunged in the point of his tool and ruthlessly splintered open the lid.

The drawers were fastened by separate locks, and each one Cheyne smashed with a savage satisfaction. Then he began to examine their contents.

This was principally bundles of old letters, tied up in the same methodical way as those downstairs. Cheyne did not read anything, but from the fragments of sentences which he could not help seeing there seemed ample corroboration of Speedwell’s statements that Blessington lived by professional blackmail. He felt a wave of disgust sweep over him as he went through drawer after drawer of the obscene collection.

But here also no luck met his efforts, and with a sinking heart he took out his rule to measure the escritoire. And then he became suddenly excited as he found that the thickness of the wood at the back of the drawers, which normally should have been about half an inch, measured no less than four inches. Here, surely, there must be a secret drawer.

He examined the woodwork, but nowhere could he see the slightest trace of an opening. He pressed and pulled and pushed, but still without result: no knob would slide, no panel depress. But of the existence of the space there was no doubt. There was room for a receptacle six inches by twelve by three, and, moreover, all six sides of it sounded hollow when tapped.

There was nothing for it but force. With a sharp stroke he rammed the point of the jemmy into the side. It penetrated, he levered it down, and with a grinding, cracking sound the wood split and part of it was prised off. Eagerly Cheyne put the torch to the opening, and he chuckled with satisfaction as he saw within the familiar lilac gray of the tracing.

Once again he inserted the point of the jemmy to prise off the remainder of the side, but the heavy wood at the top of the piece prevented his getting a leverage. He withdrew the tool to find a fresh purchase, but as he did so, the front door bell rang—several sharp, jerky peals. Frantically he jammed in the jemmy, intending by sheer force to smash out the wood, but his position was hampered, and it cracked, but did not give. As he tried desperately for a fresh hold an urgent double knock sounded from below. Sweating and tugging with the jemmy he heard voices outside the window. And then with a resounding crack the panel gave, he plunged in his hand, seized the tracing, thrust it and the jemmy into his pocket and rushed out of the room.

But as he did so he heard the front door open and Dangle’s voice from below: “It sounded in the house. Didn’t you think so?” and Susan’s: “Yes, upstairs, I thought.”

Cheyne looked desperately round for a weapon. Near the head of the stairs stood a light cane chair, and this he seized as he dashed down. As he turned the angle of the stairs Dangle switched on the light in the hall, and with a startled oath ran forward to intercept him. With all his might Cheyne hurled the chair at the other’s head. Dangle threw up his arms to protect his face, and by the time he recovered himself Cheyne was in the hall, doubling round the newel post. Both Dangle and Susan clutched at the flying figure. But Cheyne, twisting like an eel, tore himself free and made at top speed for the back door. This he slammed after him, rushing as fast as he could down the garden. He slackened only to pull the gate to as he passed through it, then sped along the lane, and turning at its end away from Dalton Road, tore off into the night.