The sea mystery

by Freeman Wills Crofts

On his way home he carried out the tricks at the hotels, then taking the room in Kepple Street. For some hectic weeks he managed to live at Kepple Street as Jefferson and at Ashburton as Stanley. His continual absences from Ashburton, travelling for his firm, enabled him to put in the necessary appearances in Kepple Street, where he gave out that in the intervals he was making business trips in England and France.

He saw that by a judicious interview with the clerk of the Tavistock Urban District Council he could arrange for the evening journey across the moor. His first idea had been to dispose of Berlyn’s body on the way back by throwing it into one of the small mires close to the road. But when he considered this in detail he realised that the difficulties were overwhelming, just as had been suggested to French by Sergeant Daw. He therefore devised the episode of the duplicator in order to provide a means for the removal of the remains. He knew the Burry Inlet, and the date of a suitable tide became the foundation on which the rest of the plan was built.

In London he bought the second-hand typewriter and wrote the letters ordering the duplicator and crane lorry on paper he had obtained from the L. M. S. hotels. These letters he handed to the tobacconist, Ganope, who for a consideration undertook to post them on the proper dates. Neither he nor Phyllis was, therefore, in London when they were sent out, though he called in person at the hotels for the replies. He similarly obtained the duplicate magneto. This he handed to Phyllis and she damaged it and ran it on the car until it gave up, then replacing the original.

On the fatal night every movement of each conspirator was carefully timed and cut and dry to the last detail. When near the works on the return journey Stanley called out to Berlyn to stop, saying that he had seen a man lying on the road. He jumped out and ran round the car, and on Berlyn following him he slipped behind his victim and sandbagged him. Hastily throwing the body into the car, he drove to the works gate. There he was met by Phyllis, who had already drugged Gurney’s tea in the way French had surmised.

At the works Phyllis helped Pyke to carry the body to the packing-shed. After replacing Gurney’s drugged tea with fresh, she put her bicycle in the tonneau of the car and drove out to the selected spot on the moor. She changed the magneto and made the two lines of footmarks by putting on shoes of Berlyn’s which she had brought for the purpose. Then mounting her bicycle, she returned to the works. The bicycle and the magneto she hid in a clump of shrubs, waiting until Pyke came out to say that the ghastly job in the works was complete. She then went home, silently let herself in, replaced Berlyn’s shoes in his room, changed her clothes, wakened the maid and called up Sergeant Daw.

In the meantime Stanley Pyke rode on the bicycle to Colonel Domlio’s, dropped the clothes and other objects into the well, and continued on his way to Plymouth. There he left the bicycle in a dark entry in the lower part of the town, where he was sure it would speedily be found and annexed. He took the first train to London, returning to Ashburton in the character of Jefferson on receipt of Daw’s wire about the tragedy.

Such was the plan, and, had the conspirators been sure their actions would have remained unquestioned, they would have stopped there. But both were afraid that in some unforeseen way suspicion might be aroused and they took several other steps in the hope of turning such possible suspicion on to other persons.

First they considered it necessary that, should the crate be discovered, the body therein should be taken as Stanley Pyke’s. This would effectually prevent a doubt arising as to Jefferson’s identity. Pyke, therefore, changed his own underclothes with those of the dead man and dropped his own suit down the well, while both he and Phyllis stated that the birthmark on Berlyn’s arm was really on Pyke’s.

To carry on the same deception, Pyke decided to make up as Berlyn while disposing of the crate. In height and build he was, in his disguise, not unlike Berlyn. The chief difference between them was their colouring, both the Pykes being dark and Berlyn fair. Stanley therefore dyed his hair and lightened his complexion before going to Wales.

The episode of the blackmailing letter was designed with a similar object. Phyllis Berlyn had staged the farce of the twisted ankle. She had fallen into Domlio’s arms in such a way that a photograph might have really been a profitable investment to a blackmailer. Pyke had, of course, forged the letter. The confederates hoped that the taking out of the car which they believed would result, together with the finding of the articles in the well, which they thought a competent detective might achieve, would throw the suspicion on Domlio.