Crow's Inn Tragedy (28 page)

Meanwhile Todmarsh was hurrying to the front door. He opened it. A closed car stood just outside. He could see a man leaning back—crouching down rather, it seemed. Todmarsh waved his hand. “Welcome home, Hopkins!”

Seen thus in the sunset light waving his greeting, there was something oddly youthful about Aubrey Todmarsh's face and figure. Always slender, he had grown almost thin during his time of anxiety about Hopkins. His face with its short dark hair brushed straight back and its strangely arresting eyes looked almost boyish. Watching him there one who was waiting said he looked many years younger than his real age. But it was the last time anyone ever called Aubrey Todmarsh young looking.

The car door opened. The man inside leaned out. About to spring forward, Todmarsh suddenly paused. Surely this was not Hopkins!

At the same moment he was seized sharply from behind, his arms were pinioned to his sides, men in uniform and men out of uniform closed in upon him, and while he tried to free himself frantically, wildly, he felt the touch of cold steel upon his wrists, and Inspector Furnival's voice rose above the hubbub.

“Aubrey William Todmarsh,
alias
the Yellow Dog, I arrest you for the wilful murder of Luke Bechcombe in Crow's Inn, on February 3rd, and it is my duty to warn you that anything you say will be taken down in writing and may be used as evidence against you.”

Quite suddenly all Todmarsh's struggles ceased. For a minute he stood silent, motionless, save that he moved his manacled hands about in a side-long fashion. The inspector's keen eyes noted the long thumb, the short forefinger. At last, swift as lightning, Todmarsh raised his hands to his mouth.

“Escape you after all, inspector,” he said with a ghastly smile that dragged the lips from his teeth.

He swayed as he spoke, but the inspector did not stir.

Instead, he surveyed his prisoner with an ironic twist of the mouth.

“I think not. You may feel a little sick, Mr. Todmarsh, that is all.”

“Cyanide of potassium,” Todmarsh gasped.

“You would have been dead if it had been,” the inspector said blandly. “But your tabloids are in my pocket, and mine, just a simple preparation with the faintest powdering of sulphate of zinc, have taken their place in yours.”

“A lie!” Todmarsh breathed savagely.

The inspector did not bandy words.

“Wait and see!” Then with a wave of his hand: “In with him, men!”

Todmarsh offered no further resistance, nor was any possible, surrounded as he was. He was hurried into the waiting car and the inspector followed him, just in time to see him slip to one side with a groan.

“Ah, makes you feel rather bad, doesn't it?” the inspector questioned callously.

The inspector heaved a great sigh of relief. “So at last we have been successful almost beyond my expectations. It had begun to be regarded as hopeless in the force. The men were getting superstitious about it—the capture of the Yellow Dog!”

“Ay! And yet there he was just under our noses all the time if we had but guessed it,” Steadman said slowly. “When did you first suspect him, inspector?”

The two men were sitting in the little study in Steadman's flat. Both were looking white and tired. There was no doubt that their experiences at the hand of the Yellow Gang had tried them terribly. But, while Steadman's face was haggard and depressed, the inspector's, pale and worn though it was, was lighted by the pride of successful achievement. He did not answer Steadman's question for a minute. He sat back in his chair puffing little spirals of smoke into the air and watching them curl up to the ceiling. At last he said: “I can hardly tell you. I may say that, for a long time, almost from its inception the Community of St. Philip was suspect at headquarters. Taking it altogether the members were the most curious conglomeration of gaol birds I have ever heard of, and no particular good of Todmarsh was known. He had never been associated in any way with philanthropic work until he suddenly founded this Community and loudly announced his intention of devoting his life to it. We looked into his past record; it was not a particularly good one. He was sent down from Oxford for some disgraceful scrape into which he said, of course, that he, innocent, had been drawn by a friend. Henceforward, how he got his living was more or less a mystery save that his small patrimony was gradually dissipated. Then came the War when, of course, he was a conscientious objector. After that, he lived more or less by his wits, was secretary to several companies, none of them of much repute. At last, suddenly, with a flourish of trumpets, the Community of St. Philip was founded. Where the money came from was a puzzle, probably to be explained by the loss of the Collyer cross.”

He was interrupted by a sharp exclamation of surprise from the barrister.

“By Jove! Of course. And that explains old Collyer's curious conduct. He had found the young man out and wanted to hush it up for the sake of the family.”

The inspector nodded. “He had found something out. Probably we shall never know what, but I am inclined to think something that led him to suspect who was Mr. Bechcombe's murderer. I went down to Wexbridge the other day, but I could get nothing out of him. He is merely the shadow of the man he was. Have you seen him lately, sir?”

The barrister shook his head. “Not since he went back to Wexbridge. But I have heard frequently of the change in him. Still, you must remember that Mr. Bechcombe and he were great friends; the murder must have been a terrible shock, quite apart from his guessing who was responsible.”

“Quite so,” the inspector responded. “But, all the same, it is very strongly my impression that he made some discovery the last time he called at Community House.”

At this moment there was a tap at the door and Tony Collyer looked in. Seeing the inspector, he drew back.

“I beg your pardon.”

Steadman looked at the detective, then, receiving an almost imperceptible sign from him, he called out:

“Come in, Tony. We were speaking of you, or rather of your father.”

Tony came in and took the chair Steadman pushed towards him.

“You told me to call to-night, you know, sir. Perhaps you had forgotten.”

“I had,” Steadman said penitently. “But I am very glad to see you, my boy. How is your father?”

“I hardly know,” Tony said slowly. “He is rather bad, I am afraid, poor old chap! You see he suspected the truth about Uncle Luke's murder and it has pretty nearly finished him off.”

The inspector glanced at Steadman. “What did I tell you?”

“He saw a line or two in Aubrey's blotting-book telling him that Mrs. C. would be at Crow's Inn with the twinklers at a quarter to twelve,” Tony pursued. “He will tell you himself just what it was. He sees now that he ought to have come to you at once, but he did not know what to do, the poor old governor. He had taken rather a fancy to Aubrey lately, though he never thought much of him as a kid. But, naturally, one doesn't like to try to hang one's nephew, or half-nephew by marriage. You know his mother was my mother's half-sister.”

“And Luke Bechcombe's,” Steadman said. “Well, no one can help what one's nephews, or half-nephews do!”

“The first direct line we had to Todmarsh came from you, though, Tony. When you told us your suspicions of Mrs. Phillimore, you know,” replying to Tony's look of surprise.

“Knew she was a wrong 'un first time I saw her,” Tony acquiesced. “Carnthwacke was the same—‘bad little lot!' he called her. Pretty well bust up the rich American widow business for you, didn't we?”

“You did!” the inspector said with a grin. “And a detective from Boston, whom we wired to, finished it. He recognized her as a woman that they had wanted for years; been in that crook business ever since she was a kid. I wasn't thinking she had turned reformer over here.”

“Not precisely!” Tony said with an answering grin. “Pretty well gave the show away when you arrested her, didn't she?”

“Wanted to turn King's evidence,” said the inspector, “but we weren't having any. Hopkins will do for us! By the way, sir,” turning to Steadman, “I found out this morning to whom we owed our escape from the Yellow Dog's clutches.”

Steadman raised his eyebrows interrogatively. “Indeed!”

“Hopkins's wife,” said the inspector. “It was the Hopkinses' child you rescued from under Mrs. Phillimore's car on the day of Mrs. Bechcombe's lunch. You sent it to the Middlesex Hospital and sent your own car to fetch Mrs. Hopkins, and take her there like a lady, as she phrased it. Then you sent the child sweets and toys and this completely won the mother's heart. She acts as housekeeper to the Yellow Gang at the house by Stepney Causeway. If she had not been”—he shrugged his shoulders—“well, you and I would have been in kingdom come, Mr. Steadman.”

“Good for her!” said Anthony. “And I suppose my precious cousin's anxiety about Hopkins was lest the beggar should give him away to save his own skin, and not out of love for the gentleman at all. I should always distrust a chap that keeps on opening and shutting his mouth and chewing up his tongue,” Tony added sapiently. “Mrs. Phillimore, too. Carnthwacke told me he was slick sure he had seen her walking about with his wife's maid.”

The inspector nodded.

“Sometimes she was mistress, sometimes maid, and part of the week she was Fédora, the great fortuneteller, and this way she was able to pick up information for Todmarsh. If she had been spotted—well, it was her taste for philanthropy.”

Tony got up and walked about the room. “But it is an awful thing, whichever way you look at it. We shall have to keep it from my poor mother. She never cared for Aubrey, but he was her half-sister's son, after all. I don't think he meant to kill Uncle Luke, you now, Furnival. I think it was done in a scuffle.”

The inspector shrugged his shoulders. “Didn't care whether he did or not, if you ask me. According to Hopkins, he went disguised, taking chloroform with him to render Mr. Bechcombe unconscious, and wearing rubber gloves, so that his finger-prints should not be recognized. Then, while Mr. Bechcombe was unconscious, he meant to impersonate him and get Mrs. Carnthwacke's diamonds. But Mr. Bechcombe had struggled much more than he expected, and in the struggle recognized him. Then the game was up as far as Todmarsh was concerned and Mr. Bechcombe's death followed instantly. The rest of the programme was carried out as arranged, only that Mr. Bechcombe lay behind the screen dead, not unconscious!”

“Brute!” Tony muttered between his teeth; “deserves all he'll get, and more! Poor old Uncle Luke—” blowing his nose. “He was always good to us when we were boys. It won't bear thinking of!”

Anthony Collyer was sitting in the library at Bechcombe House. A letter from his father lay open on the table. To him entered Cecily Hoyle, looking as attractive as ever in her short black frock, low enough at the neck to show her pretty rounded throat, short enough in the arms to allow a glimpse of the dainty dimpled elbows, and in the skirt to reveal black silk stockings nearly to the knees, and
suede
-clad feet.

“Tony, you have heard?”

Tony got up, pushing his letter from him. “I have heard that you are not Thompson's daughter after all—”

“No. I was mother's child by her first husband, Dr. James Hoyle. So I am Cecily Hoyle after all. Because Mr. Thompson adopted me and then took my father's name, but he isn't related to me at all, really—not a scrap!” explained Cecily lucidly.

“So I have been told,” Tony assented.

As Cecily drew farther into the room he drew a little back, and rested his elbow on the mantelpiece.

“I—I thought you would be pleased, Tony,” the girl murmured, just glancing at him with sweet, dewy eyes. “Because, you see, it makes all the difference.”

“Difference—to what?” Anthony inquired in a stiff, uninterested tone.

“Why—why, to us,” Cecily whispered with trembling lips. “I—I said I couldn't be engaged to you any longer, Tony. But—but if you ask me again, I have changed my mind.”

“So have I changed my mind,” Tony returned gloomily. “You said you would not let me marry a thief's daughter—well, you see, I have some pride too. I will not let you marry a murderer's cousin!”

“Cousin! Pouf!” Cecily snapped her fingers. “Who cares what people's cousins do?”

“Well, you would, if they did brutal murders and got themselves hanged,” Tony retorted, taking his elbow from the mantelpiece, and edging a little farther from Cecily, who was betraying an unmaidenly desire to follow him up.

“I shouldn't really—not a half-cousin,” the girl contradicted. “And he was mad, Tony. His father had been in an asylum more than once, only your aunt didn't know when she married him.”

“Half-aunt,” corrected Tony, “I'd like you to remember that half, Cecily.”

“Well, I will!” the girl promised. “And, Tony, I want to tell you that I hadn't the least idea that Thompson was the man that I thought was my father while I was at Mr. Bechcombe's. It seems he put me there thinking to get some information he wanted through me, and which I am thankful to say he didn't. I never recognized him, he looked so different. Then after the murder when he told me, though he said he wasn't guilty—I couldn't help doubting.”

“You might have trusted me,” Tony said reproachful.

Cecily burst into tears. “You might trust me now.”

Tony's heart was melted at once. He drew the sobbing girl into his arms. “I would trust you with my life, sweetheart—but I—”

“Ah, you shall not say but!” the girl cried, clinging to him. “You do love me, don't you, Tony?” lifting her face to his.

“You know I do!” said Anthony, his sombre eyes brightening as he looked down at her.

“Then that is all that matters,” said Cecily decidedly, “isn't it, Anthony?”