The sea mystery

by Freeman Wills Crofts

Mr. Cooke was obliging, and in ten minutes the precious document was handed over. Stopping only to get the girl to certify on it that she had made it with Pyke’s machine, French hurried her away.

“I’ll drive you home, Miss Welsh,” he said, with his pleasant smile. “You have been of the greatest help. Now I wonder if you could do something else for me,” and he began repeating the questions he had already put to her mother.

Almost at once he got valuable information, though once again not on the matter immediately at issue.

It appeared that on the previous afternoon Pyke had called the girl into his room and asked her if she would do a small commission for him. It was to take a letter to a lady in Chelsea. It concerned, so he said, an appointment to dine that evening, so that she would see that it was urgent. The matter was private and she was not to give the note to any one but the lady herself, nor was she to mention it. To compensate her for her trouble and to cover the cost of taxis and so on he hoped she would accept a ten-shilling note. She had not thought this strange, as she knew him to be liberal in money matters. But she had wondered that a note about a dinner appointment should be so bulky. The envelope was of foolscap size and must have contained at least a dozen sheets. She had taken it to the address it bore and handed it to the lady—Mrs. Berlyn at 70b Park Walk, Chelsea. She had not mentioned the matter to anyone.

Here was the explanation of the conversation French had overheard on Hampstead Heath. With a little thought he was able to follow the man’s mental processes.

In the first place, it was evident that Pyke had realised that he was suspected, as well as that French had opened Ganope’s note. He would guess, therefore, that French would shadow him continually until his meeting with Mrs. Berlyn, and would try to overhear what passed thereat. He would also see that for that very reason he was safe from arrest till the meeting had taken place, when this immunity would cease.

But he wanted the night in which to escape. How could he stave off arrest until the following day?

Clearly he had solved his problem by writing out the conversation, possibly with stage directions, as a playwright writes out the dialogue in his play. In it he had pledged himself to a visit to Berlyn on the morrow. If he could make French swallow the yarn he knew that arrest would be postponed in order that French might learn the junior partner’s whereabouts. He had then sent Mrs. Berlyn her “lines” and she had learnt them like any other actress. French ruefully admitted to himself that in spite of the absence of a rehearsal, the two had presented their little piece with astonishing conviction.

On reaching the Yard, French’s first care was to set the great machine of the C.I.D. in operation against the fugitives. Among his notes he already had detailed descriptions of each, and he thought he would be safe in assuming that Pyke would wear his collar up and his hat pulled low over his eyes. Mrs. Welsh had described the suitcase, and burdened by this, French thought there was a reasonable chance of the man having been noticed.

A number of helpers were soon busy telephoning the descriptions to all the London police stations as well as to the ports. Copies were also sent for insertion in the next number of the Police Gazette. In a day or so all the police and detectives in the country would be on the lookout for the couple.