The sea mystery

by Freeman Wills Crofts

“He’s coming to,” he heard him say as if from a great distance. “He’ll be none the worse in a few minutes.”

“I’m all right,” French whispered, faintly. “What about——”

“Both safe as a house,” Carter answered. “I thought you were taking too long over the job and was coming up the fire escape when I heard you shout. Lucky I got up in time. But it was a near thing, Mr. French; just as near a thing as I should like to see. Don’t you be in any hurry. You’ve all the day before you. Take a nip of this brandy that Harvey has brought.”

The stimulant made French once again feel his own man, and he sat up to find that his assailants had been safely handcuffed. Mrs. Berlyn sat in one of the wicker armchairs, deadly pale and with an expression of murderous hate in her eyes. Pyke was still unconscious, and the others at once turned their attention to him, with the result that presently he, too, revived. The taxi was waiting and before many minutes had passed both prisoners were lodged in the cells.

When French sat down in his own room to think over this unexpected development he very soon saw that he had made a terrible error in his handling of the case. Never before had he blundered so inexcusably! The clue to the truth was there in his hand and he had missed it. Though even now he could not understand all that had happened, he saw enough to appreciate his mistake, to locate the point at which he had strayed from the right path.

He had accepted the identification of the remains, but on whose testimony? On that of the criminals, Mrs. Berlyn and the man whom he had thought was Jefferson Pyke. Of course at the time at which he interviewed them he had no idea of their connection with the crime, and therefore no reason to doubt their statements, but his error came in just here: that by the time he began to suspect them the identification was so firmly fixed in his mind that he overlooked the fact that it depended on them. If he had remembered that supremely important point he would have questioned the dead man’s identity. This would have led him to investigate, even more closely than he had, the movements of the Pykes and no doubt he would have thus discovered the impersonation which had been carried out.

The first question, then, which demanded solution was: If the man whom he had thought was Jefferson Pyke was really his cousin, where was Jefferson himself?

Like a man in a dream French went back to Kepple Street. Was Mrs. Welsh absolutely sure that the Mr. Pyke who had engaged her rooms on the 22nd of July was the same man who had occupied them ever since? Mrs. Welsh, when at last she had been made to understand the question, was absolutely sure.

If she were right, Stanley’s impersonation of Jefferson must have begun on that 22nd of July. They had both been at the Houston in the morning. By the evening Jefferson, the real Jefferson, apparently had vanished.

Then suddenly French remembered the episode of the broken basin. It had not occurred to him before, but now he wondered if there was not more here than met the eye. The accident was unlikely. Had the basin been deliberately broken to help on some trick?