Christopher Quarles: College Professor and Master Detective

Afterward she intended to take her away to some place where they were not known and look after her. Three times she had been to see her, fearful that her mistress might betray herself. And she had written to Thomas Jardine to warn him that his aunt had made no secret of her hatred, and that it might be said he had killed her. That communication Thomas Jardine had thought wise to keep to himself – for the present, at any rate – fully alive to the fact that, since he was drunk and quite unable to prove an alibi on the fatal night, and that it was not proved that the companion had committed a motiveless crime, he was in danger of arrest.

Zena had said it was curious the tragedy should happen while Dr. Hawes was away, and the professor declared it was this remark which had led him to believe that the dead woman was Mrs. Harrison and not Mrs. Jardine. On this supposition the attitude of Martha Wakeling was understandable. She might naturally wish to protect her mistress, and she was the only person who could help her in the deception.

The fact that I had given her a reason to suppose that I suspected the nephew would show her the necessity of warning him, and at the same time she would attempt to throw all the suspicion on Mrs. Harrison, who was past suffering.

This was Quarles's theory, and he had found the fact to support it in the handwriting of the store's order.

CHAPTER VII

THE DEATH-TRAP IN THE TUDOR ROOM

I had not been to Chelsea for some weeks – indeed, I had not been in town, business having kept me in the country – and I returned to find a letter from Quarles which had been waiting for me for three days.

Several cases were in my hands just then – affairs of no great difficulty nor any particular interest – and only in one case had I had any worry. This trouble was due, not so much to the case itself as to the fact that it had brought me in contact with another detective named Baines, who would persist in treating me as a rival. He was as irritating as Quarles himself could be on occasion, and was entirely without the professor's genius. To be candid, I may admit Baines had some excuse. Circumstances brought me into the affair at the eleventh hour, and he was afraid I should reap where he had planted.

It was a strange business from first to last, and one I am never likely to forget.

A man, riding across an open piece of country near Aylesbury early one morning, came upon a motor cyclist lying near his machine on the roadside. The machine had been reduced to scrap-iron. The man, who was dressed in overalls, seemed to have been killed outright by a blow on the head. Since the man still wore his goggles, and there was no sign of a struggle, Baines argued, and reasonably, I think, that death was not the result of foul play. That he had been run into by a motor car, and that the people in the car had either not stopped to see what damage was done, or, having seen it, feared to give information, was perhaps giving too loose a rein to imagination.

However, this was Baines's idea; and he had succeeded in hearing of a car with only one man in it which had been driven through Aylesbury at a furious pace on the night when a second and similar tragedy occurred, this time near Saffron Walden.

The man had been killed in the same fashion, he wore goggles and overalls, and the machine was smashed, though not so completely. Neither of the men had been identified. In the first case, there might be a reason for this, as the man was a foreigner. In the second case, the man was an Englishman. Both the machines were old patterns, and of a cheap make, carried fictitious numbers, and Baines had been unable to find out where they had been purchased.

He held to his theory of the car, but was now inclined to think that the cyclists had been purposely driven into. Granted a certain shape of bonnet – and the car driven through Aylesbury appeared to have this shape – he contended that, in endeavoring to avoid the collision, a cyclist would be struck in exactly the manner indicated by the appearance of the head. He was therefore busy trying to trace a devil-mad motorist.

The discovery of a dead chauffeur on a lonely road near Newbury now brought me into the affair. He had apparently been killed in precisely the same manner as the victims of the Aylesbury and Saffron Walden tragedies; and so I was brought in contact with Baines. From the first he scorned my arguments and suggestions. It seemed to me that this third tragedy went to disprove his theory of a madly driven motor car, but he insisted that it was only a further proof. Was it not possible, he asked, that the mad owner of the car, believing that his chauffeur knew the truth, had killed him to protect himself? I asked him how he supposed the car had been driven at the chauffeur in order to injure him, exactly as it had injured men on cycles. When Baines answered that the chauffeur was probably on a cycle at the time, I wanted to know why, in this case, the motorist had gathered up the broken machine and taken it away. In short, we quarreled over the affair, and Baines was furious when I was able to prove that in neither case was the wrecked cycle a complete machine. True, in one case, only some trivial pieces were missing which might have been driven into the ground by the force of the fall; but in the other an important part was wanting, without which the machine could not have been driven.

I came to the conclusion that there had been foul play, that the broken machines were a blind, and that the men had been brought to the places where they were found after they were dead.

I returned to London to pursue inquiries in this direction, and found the letter from Quarles asking me to go and see him as soon as possible.

I went to Chelsea that evening, and was shown into the dining-room. The professor looked a little old to-night, I thought.

"Very glad to see you, Wigan. I want your help."

"I shall be delighted to give it, you have helped me so often. Your granddaughter is well, I trust?"

"Yes, she is away. She has taken a situation."

"A situation!" I exclaimed.

"The world hasn't much use for a professor of philosophy in these days, and that leads to financial difficulty for the professor," Quarles answered. "You glance round at the luxury of this room, I notice, and I can guess your thoughts. Selfish old brute, you are saying to yourself. But it was the child's wish, and we bide our time. She is made much of where she is. I think it is my loneliness which deserves most pity. Besides, there is no disgrace in honest work, either for man or woman."

Something of challenge was in his tone, and I hastened to agree with him. In a sense, the information was not unpleasant to me. Life was not to be all luxury for Zena Quarles. The social standing of a detective, however successful he may be, is not very high, and the necessity for her to work seemed to bring us nearer together. The value of what I could offer her was increased, and a spirit of hopefulness took possession of me.

"But I didn't ask you here to pity either Zena or myself," Quarles went on, after a pause. "I daresay you have heard of Mrs. Barrymore?"

"I have."

"She advertised for a private secretary, and Zena answered the advertisement. When a woman goes deeply into philanthropic work, visits hospitals, rescue homes, and the like, she often does it to fill a life which would otherwise be empty. Not to Mrs. Barrymore. She is a society woman as well, is to be met here, there and everywhere. She is a golfer, a yachtswoman, fond of sport generally, and withal a charming hostess. It is no wonder she wants a secretary. You don't suppose I should let Zena go anywhere to be treated as a kind of housemaid, and in a way that no self-respecting servant would stand?"

"Of course not. I gather that you know Mrs. Barrymore personally?"

"I saw her once or twice when she was a child. I knew her mother."

I looked up quickly, struck by his tone.

"There is romance in every life, Wigan. Here you touch mine. Mrs. Barrymore's mother married an American. She chose him rather than me, and, although I afterwards married, I have never forgotten her. Naturally, I feel an interest in her daughter, Mrs. Barrymore, and I want your help."

"In what way?"

"I want your opinion of her."

"But I don't know her."

"You must get to know her. She puzzles me, and certain things which Zena has told me make me think I might help her. I should like to do so, if I can. We have been useful to each other, Wigan, because our methods are different. I have formed a certain opinion of Mrs. Barrymore, the result of theorizing. I shall not tell you what it is because I want your unbiased view, arrived at by your method of going to work."

"There is a mystery about her, then?"

"My dear Wigan, that is exactly what I want to find out."

"How am I to make her acquaintance?" I asked.

"Not as Murray Wigan, certainly," he said, and then he added, after a pause: "Would you mind pretending to be Zena's lover? When I saw her a few days ago I said I would suggest this way to her."

Mind? Pretend! The professor little knew how the proposal pleased me. He was offering me a part I could play to perfection.

"It is a good idea," was all I said.

"We even thought of a name for you – George Hastings – and you are a surveyor. Being in Richmond, you thought you might venture to call, not having seen Zena for some time. Mrs. Barrymore lives at Lantern House, Richmond. If you see Mrs. Barrymore, as I hope you will, and make yourself agreeable, she may give you permission to come again. I think it will work all right."

"Will to-morrow be too soon to go?" I asked.

"No."

"If I am given the chance, I will certainly go again when I can. Unfortunately, I am very busy just now."

"Ah, I haven't asked you about your work. Anything interesting?"

"One case, or, rather, three cases in one." And I told him about the cyclists and the chauffeur.

"Only wounds in the head? What kind of wounds?" he asked.

"I did not see the cyclists. I can only speak of the chauffeur from direct knowledge. The forehead, just by the margin of the hair, was bruised and the skin slightly abraded. At the base of the head behind, under the hair, there was another bruise – round, the size of half a crown. There was no swelling, no blood. I am told that the cyclists were also bruised about the temples."

"What had the doctor to say?"

"Very little in the chauffeur's case. Some severe blow had been delivered, but he could not say how. He was puzzled. When I suggested the man might have been run down by a car – quoting Baines's idea – he said it was a possible explanation. He said so, I fancy, merely because he had no other suggestion to offer."