The Starvel Hollow tragedy

by Freeman Wills Crofts

“That’s all right, gentlemen,” he said pleasantly. “I am from Scotland Yard after all, and I’ll tell you as much as I can. I only wish I knew more! As to what may or may not lie behind it I cannot hazard a guess; we are about to go into that. But the fact is that we received secret information—I can’t give away the source—you may say an anonymous letter if you like—but information was forthcoming which led us to believe that the poor gentleman, Mr. Giles, had become the victim of a gang of criminals. The story was to the effect that he had been murdered by chloroform or poison, and that after he had been coffined, the gang returned and removed the body, disposing of it in some other way. That was all, but it obviously suggested that the gang in question was that of the burglars who, as you are aware, have been active in these parts for many months, and that they had emptied the coffin in order to find a temporary safe deposit for their booty. That, at all events, was a possible explanation. On going into the matter I thought it was worth while testing the story by exhuming the coffin, and sure enough, the body was gone. But the other suggestion about the burglars’ swag wasn’t so happy. When we opened the coffin we found it half-full of earth: about the weight of the deceased. Needless to say we searched it thoroughly, but there was nothing else in it. So, whatever the motive of the crime, it was not to find a safe hiding place for valuables.”

The reporters were voluble in their interest and in the joy they evidently felt in the scoop vouchsafed them.

“Some story that, Inspector,” they cried. “Tell us more and we’ll give you a good write up.”

But French smilingly shook his head.

“Sorry it’s all I’m at liberty to give away,” he declared. “Come now, gentlemen, I haven’t done so badly for you. Plenty of men in my position wouldn’t have told you anything.”

“But do you not think,” said one, the least vociferous of the four, “that your theory may have been right after all? Is it not possible that the stuff was hidden in the coffin as you suggested, but was dug up and removed by the gang before you made your exhumation?”

“I thought of that,” French declared brazenly, “and you may be right, though there were no signs of it. However, that is one of the things to be gone into.”

When French had breakfasted he went to see the undertaker who had conducted Giles’ funeral, and there he received some information which still more firmly established the theory he had evolved.

“The whole arrangements,” explained Mr. Simkins, the proprietor, in the course of the conversation, “were carried out to Mr. Roper’s orders. Mr. Roper said that Mr. Giles had had an idea he mightn’t get over the attack, and he had handed him the money for his funeral, asking him to see to it as he had no relative to do it. There were twelve pounds over when the ground was bought, and Mr. Roper handed the money to me and told me to do the best I could with it. He said he thought the best plan would be to get the body coffined that afternoon—it was a Wednesday—and have the funeral on the Friday. He said the doctor thought the coffining should be done as soon as possible, and while the day of the interment didn’t really matter, Friday would suit as well as any. That was the reason he gave for the arrangement, for you know, sir, in inexpensive funerals at such a distance, we generally do the coffining just before the funeral and so make the one journey do. But that was the way it was done.”

“I understand,” French continued. “Mr. Giles died on the Tuesday, the coffining was done on the Wednesday, and the funeral took place on the Friday. That right?”