Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 90, May 1951

The Affair at the Hotel Splendide by W. A. Darlington[4]

It takes a really courageous writer to sit down and deliberately create a detective who is supposed to be funny. Not only is one таn’s humor another mail s lament, but too often (if not most often) the trick just doesn’t come off — even in the hands of a Wоdehouse. And too often (if not most often) the character turns out to be funny for the wrong reasons — in ways the author never originally intended.

The American version of the blundering, bumbling bloodhound is usually у in the short-story field, a correspondence-school graduate — summa-cum-laughter. The two most notable examples are Ellis Parlor Butler’s Philo Gubb and Percival Wilde’s P. Moran (of Shetland Yard). The adventures of the former have little more than old-fashioned nostalgia to delight present-day readers — that, and a genuine historical importance; but the misadventures of P. Moran are modern, streamlined laughing-pieces, full of fun and flavor, with meaty plots and richly rewarding insights into human nature.

On the other hand, what about the British version of the dumb detective? We decided to investigate. In due course we made the acquaintance of W. A. Darlington’s Mr. Cronk, and on first reading Chapters XVI and XVII of MR. CRONK’S CASES, we thought them an amusing account of “dirty work at the villa.” But now that we have reread the story, we find ourselves somewhat perplexed. Were we attracted to a subtle parody connotation? Was there something of Hercule Poirot anglicized into the quiet little Mr. Cronk — a faint suggestion, barely perceptible? We leave it to you, with the sad conviction that again that difficult and dangerous experiment has not quite come off...

The Hotel Splendide received Mr. J. W. Carpenter (né Cronk) with outward calm. It allotted him a room with a hath, and proceeded to charge him outrageous prices for their daily use. It fed him sumptuously, and professed itself unobtrusively ready in a score of ways to help that generous sum of money from the Sunday Globe to melt away.

He went quite unrecognized. Even such visitors as read Cronk’s Own Story in the Sunday Globe never dreamed of connecting him with “that quiet little man in the corner.” A year back he would no doubt have caught the eye as being out of place in such surroundings; but Mr. Cronk the successful detective had learned many things about dress and deportment which Mr. Cronk the solicitor’s clerk had never known. Even in this well-dressed crowd he now passed muster.

Accustomed as he was to his own company, he felt neither lonely nor bored; and after his experience at the Tancred Hotel, simply to be part of a crowd that was neither curious nor hostile gave him pleasure. He watched the rich at play, and wove little romances about the younger ones. This was a difficult game, because everybody seemed to be on terms of almost embarrassing intimacy with everybody else, quite regardless of sex or length of acquaintance.

The older English people he found more easy to place. He could guess, with reasonable confidence, at their social standing and their mutual relations. He could also make something of the Americans. The French, on the other hand, he found mysterious in the extreme. These ladies, so very smart and so very highly finished — were they or were they not all that they should be? As for the men, he gave them up altogether. Some were clean-shaven, and were not to be distinguished from Englishmen until they spoke. Others wore dark suits and spade-shaped beards, and were at all times indistinguishable from one another.

At night, Mr. Cronk would watch the couples on the dancing-floor, and would think how pretty the girls looked now that long frocks were back in fashion. There was, he learned, to be a big masked ball in a week or so. He found himself looking forward to that with eagerness. In his quiet way he was enjoying himself hugely.

But though Mr. Cronk’s arrival seemed to cause no stir on the surface of life in the Hotel Splendide, it did in fact set in motion some odd crosscurrents below the surface. He would have been astonished and shocked, for instance, if he could have looked in at an extraordinary general meeting held in the back premises of the “Chat Noir” a day or two after he came.

The “Chat Noir” was a rather dubious gambling establishment, to which the respectable visitors to Plage-sur-Mer were accustomed to sneak off when they wanted a glimpse of the seamy side of life. But the meeting was held on the top floor, to which the respectable visitors were never allowed to penetrate; and the subject for discussion was “Cronk, And What To Do About Him.”

The gathering was a mixed one, socially and sartorially. It included several people whom Mr. Cronk might have recognized as denizens of different spheres in the hotel.

There was the extremely smart French Countess, with the blue-black hair and olive skin of the south, who took her meals at the table in the window in conspicuous and haughty solitude. She was now sitting beside, and hobnobbing familiarly with, her own maid. There was also the athletic-looking young English man who had signed the register just after Mr. Cronk on his day of arrival. There were two French guests, one anglicized, one spade-bearded. There was a person in a green baize apron, from the knife-and-boot department. There was a waiter. And there was the second supernumerary junior assistant hall porter.

The rest of the party were recognizable at a glance to any film-fan as thugs, toughs, or Bad Men. Useful fellows, no doubt, for their specialized purpose; but their hair grew too close to the eyebrows for them to appear either decorative or intelligent. Their contributions to the discussion consisted of grunts when they approved of what was being said, and of snarls when they did not.

The discussion was being carried on in English, as all the members of the assemblage were fluent in that tongue — except the low-browed Bad Men, for whose benefit a translation of the main lines of argument into easy French was made from time to time. The young Englishman, addressing the meeting, was being mildly heckled by the knife-and-boot man.

“But are you then well sure that it is Cronk?” asked Knives-and-Boots.

“Of course I am. I saw him at the trial, as close as I am to you. I knew him the instant he stepped on the boat.”

There was a heavy silence. The meeting thought hard for a space, and one of the Bad Men spat.

“He is clever, this Cronk?” said one of the Frenchmen.

“As the devil. Clever enough to look a fool. He’s deep — that’s what he is.”

“And you think he’s after us?”

“What else? The French police must have sent for him because they are afraid we know all their own agents. There’s too much good stuff going to be worn at that masked ball for them to leave anything to chance.”

“Well,” said the Countess’s maid, in a voice of calm authority, “we mustn’t leave anything to chance either. You’d better get called suddenly back to England, Charlie. Cronk may have recognized you. I’ll send for François instead.”

The Englishman looked mutinous for a. moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, well,” he said. “I suppose it’s safer.”

“And meanwhile,” the maid went on, “we must find out what Cronk is here for. He may simply be having a holiday. If so, it would be madness to do anything that might arouse his suspicions. So I suggest that Louise have a go at him.”

“Me?” asked the Countess, in faint protest.

“You, my dear,” said the maid firmly. “And then we’ll meet again and discuss what’s to be done.”

Here one of the Bad Men snarled. The sound was understood by all present to be a suggestion.

“No,” said the maid severely. “None of your tricks, Alphonse, unless it is necessary. That’s all for today.”

The meeting dispersed as unobtrusively as it had collected.

Next morning, to his chagrin, Mr. Cronk committed a social blunder. He was crossing the lounge, and the French Countess (she whose aloof air he had been admiring from afar, in his humble way) was surveying her immaculate self in a long mirror. As Mr. Cronk passed behind her, she turned away from the glass and stepped back, with the result that he bumped into her and actually knocked her off her balance.

She staggered and only saved herself from falling by clutching at the back of a chair. Scarlet with shame, he stammered apologies. But the lady bore him no ill-will. She smiled, bowed graciously, and passed on her way with the unruffled serenity of the born aristocrat, leaving Mr. Cronk reflecting what a nice woman she must be.

When she appeared at lunch, he was admiring her stately progress up the room, when suddenly she caught his eye and gave him a smile of recognition. It was so fleeting an expression that he could hardly believe it had ever existed, yet so intimate and friendly that it warmed his heart.

At dinner she swept in looking so wonderful that Mr. Cronk was abashed, and kept his eyes on his soup plate, pretending not to have seen her. But afterwards, on the terrace, where he was drinking coffee, she came and ensconced herself in a chair near him. She had evidently not noticed that there was anybody in Mr. Cronk’s shadowy corner, for she did not throw a glance in his direction.

Now he could gaze without embarrassment, for she was full in his view. He did so. The night was warm and the terrace sheltered; and after a few moments she slipped off her wrap and threw it over the back of her chair. Mr. Cronk admired her poise even more than before.

A waiter brought coffee. She sipped it delicately. Then she produced a gold cigarette-case from her bag, took a cigarette, and put it to her lips.

The assured grace of her movements fascinated Mr. Cronk.

But now a slight frown appeared between her perfect brows. She opened her bag, peered into it, shut it again, and looked about her helplessly. Mr. Cronk was puzzled for a second. Then came enlightenment: she had no matches.

There were matches on all the tables about them, but she seemed not to realize this. Mr. Cronk’s hand sought the pocket of his dinner-jacket and found his nice new lighter. Dare he come to the rescue of beauty in distress, without an introduction? Could he bring himself to risk a snub? Might she not suspect, after this morning, that he was trying to scrape acquaintance with her?

As he sat in agony of indecision, the Countess herself caught sight of him, and solved his difficulty.

“Excuse me,” she said, in English which had only the faintest trace of a foreign accent, “but have you, by good fortune, a match?”

Mr. Cronk leaped forward, produced his lighter, lit it in trembling haste, and held it out. The Countess leaned forward with her cigarette and, steadying herself with a touch of her soft fingers on his hand, obtained her light.

“Thank you so very much,” she said.

Mr. Cronk put the lighter back into his pocket, achieved an awkward bow, and was turning away when she gave him a friendly smile and said:

“Will you not stop and talk to me?”

And Mr. Cronk found himself sitting at her table, and heard a voice which he hardly dared believe was his own inviting her to drink a liqueur with him, and calmly giving the order to the waiter.

His apprehension lest he might not know how to talk to a foreign noblewoman soon proved groundless, for the Countess, belying her aloof appearance, did most of the talking. It appeared that she was lonely, having found nobody in the hotel whom she considered worth talking to until Fate had willed that Mr. Cronk should collide with her.

Mr. Cronk preened himself in the semi-darkness. He had thought already that his expensive dinner-jacket had given him an unwonted air of smartness. Now he knew it.

“How strange!” said the Countess suddenly, with a laugh. “Here we are, old friends, and we do not know one another’s names. You are Mr. — Mr.—?”

“Cr— Carpenter!” said Mr. Cronk, remembering only just in time.

“Then that is another strange thing. I seem to know your face. Yet I have never met a Mr. Carpenter. Have we, perhaps, passed one another in some crowd, or at some party? Deauville, Biarritz, Cannes — have you been there lately?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Mr. Cronk, and added with daring gallantry, “and I am sure that if I had seen you I should not have forgotten it.”

“Perhaps,” suggested the Countess, knitting her brow, “I have seen your photograph. Has it been lately in the papers?”

She spoke with the assured air of one well used to seeing her friends’ photographs in the papers. Mr. Cronk, glancing warily about to make sure that nobody else was within earshot, resolved to give her his confidence. It would be safe with her.

“Well,” he admitted, “as a matter of fact, it has.”

“Carpenter? Carpenter?” The Countess searched her memory. “I read your English papers every day, but I do not remember...”

“Well, as a matter of fact my name’s not Carpenter. It’s — er — Cronk.”

“Cronk?” The Countess sat up straight. “But surely... yes... now I remember! You are the so clever detective who...”

“Please, please!” Mr. Cronk restrained her. “Don’t raise your voice. Nobody must know. There’s a special reason. You will keep it to yourself, won’t you?”

The Countess drew herself up.

“What is it that I should tell?” she asked loftily. “Besides, I am leaving tomorrow.”

“Leaving?” asked Mr. Cronk.

“Alas, yes. We meet only to part, my friend. Life is like that. But, who knows, we may meet again.”

She rose and pulled her wrap about her. Mr. Cronk felt that he ought to kiss her hand, but did not trust himself so far as to try. He bowed, much less awkwardly than before, and watched her with admiration as she swept along the terrace.

Arrived in her room, the Countess rang for her maid. Then, without waiting for the girl to arrive, she took off her frock and her stockings, put on the towel wrap and the rope-soled shoes she used for bathing, and began to put her finery carefully away.

A quick double-knock sounded on the door.

“Entrez!” called the Countess.

The maid appeared in the doorway.

“Madame?” she enquired respectfully, for the benefit of anybody who might be within earshot.

Then she closed the door, and her manner changed. She sauntered across to the dressing-table, selected a cigarette from the Countess’s gold case, and lit it. Then she sat on the bed.

“Any luck?” she asked.

The Countess, on her knees before a chest of drawers, glanced up.

“It is Cronk, and he is up to some game.”

“Why? Did he suspect you?”

“Not he. You should have seen him. He got the thrill of his life.”

“Well, what did he tell you?”

“That he has a special reason for not wanting it known who he is.”

“Is that all?”

“Isn’t it enough?”

“All right, my dear, all right. I only wondered if you’d been able to make him talk a bit more.”

“I couldn’t, without asking questions; and that might have put him wise to me.”

The maid looked thoughtful.

“Are you sure he wasn’t wise to you? He’s deep, you know.”

“If he had been, would he have given me his name?”

“He might. You never know.”

“Anyhow, to be on the safe side, I told him I was leaving tomorrow. I hope that won’t be awkward for you. But seeing you sent Charlie home just in case...”

“No — quite right. All my arrangements are finished. Thank you, Louise. You’ve managed very well.”

The Countess was now sitting up to the dressing table, where her hands were busy with the lustrous blue-black hair.

“Well,” she said in a sudden tone of discon tent, “I hope next time you’ll let me have a proper maid. It’s bad enough turning myself out like a millionairess — and this wig’s the last straw.”

She twitched the smooth dark hair off as she spoke, revealing a mop of fair curls beneath.

“Don’t he absurd, my dear,” returned the maid with firmness. “The fewer people that know anything, the better. Besides, you’ve nothing to do all day but turn yourself out. It’s I who have the really hard work. The only rest I get is when I’m up here supposed to be looking after you.”

The Countess laughed shortly.

“Why not?” she said. “You get your reward. Your share’s twice mine.”

“And quite right too, considering I planned the whole thing.”

“There’s nothing much in that,” objected the Countess, now in a thoroughly pettish humor. “It’s only going to be an ordinary hold-up.”

“Yes. But who found out that Mrs. Harrison was coming for the dance? And who knew that where Mrs. Harrison goes, half a dozen other rich American women will follow?”

“Oh, all right! I’m sorry. I suppose I’m tired or something.”

“Don’t mention it, my dear. Now, if we’re off tomorrow, you’d better pack. And put that wig on. We mustn’t take risks. Somebody might break in — you never know. You may have encouraged Cronk too far, for instance. If he tried his luck and found you here instead of his Countess, the game would be up.”

“He won’t,” said the Countess.

“You never know. So put it on.” Meekly, the Countess obeyed. But Mr. Cronk did not “try his luck.” He was asleep, and dreaming (like the individual in the song) that he dwelt in marble halls, with vassals and serfs at his side.

Next day, the table in the window was empty, and Mr. Cronk, for the first time, felt lonely.

He looked about him at a concourse of perfect strangers absorbing their large continental luncheon. Yesterday, all he had wanted was to sit in a corner and watch them. Now, he was unhappy because not a soul among them was interested in himself.

And then suddenly, among the concourse, he found one person who was taking a very great interest in him.

This was one of the prettiest of the girls he had seen dancing in the hotel in the evenings. She was fair, and (as all such girls seemed to be nowadays) she was tall and very slim. He had noticed her before, chiefly because she had a most individual voice which, whenever she raised it above a low conversational tone, had an astonishing carrying power. It was very clear in tone and conveyed an extraordinary sense of enjoyment in whatever she happened to be doing.

She was gazing in a fascinated way at Mr. Cronk, and had evidently just made some remark about him to her escort — the extremely fit-looking young man who was always about with her. As Mr. Cronk glanced up, they both dropped their eyes and appeared extremely disconcerted.

Almost immediately afterwards they rose to go. Mr. Cronk wondered why the girl had stared like that. Had she, like the Countess, remembered his face from a newspaper photograph?

As soon as he was outside the restaurant, the young man asked his companion the same question.

“I say, Pat, what was the excitement about? Why did you stare at the little man? I didn’t know which way to look when he caught us.”

“He had a crumb on his lip.”

“But, my dear girl...”

“And he looked lonely and pathetic. I was just thinking...”

“That you’d like to adopt him, I suppose!”

The girl laughed.

“Something like that. And then he went and caught me. Let’s have our coffee here on the terrace, shall we?”

She picked up an English weekly paper, and dropped into a chair. The young man became totally immersed in a copy of La Vie Parisienne.

Suddenly the girl exclaimed, “Why, good heavens, here he is!”

“Who?” said a preoccupied voice. “Our little man.”

“Well, don’t stare at him again.”

“I don’t mean himself, silly. I mean here’s his picture in the paper. And Philip — he’s — he’s a famous detective!”

“What?”

The young man dropped La Vie, leaned across, and studied Mr. Cronk’s portrait — a much better one than any that had appeared in the daily Press. He burst into laughter.

“Poor lonely little fellow with a crumb on his lip,” he mocked. “And he turns out... Pat, you’ll have to keep your maternal instincts in better order.”

“Look out — here he comes!”

Mr. Cronk, still a prey to gloom, wandered out on to the terrace and sat down. After a moment he became aware that he had taken a seat opposite the fair girl and her escort; and further, that they were studying him surreptitiously under cover of their magazines.

Mr. Cronk did not look up again till he had finished his coffee. Then he threw a quick, casual glance at the girl. Her head was still bent over her paper, but he was in time to catch the flash of her eyes as they dropped to the page.

“I say, Philip,” she said, under her breath, “he’s watching us. D’you think he suspects us?”

“How can he?”

“Well, perhaps the hotel’s employing him, and he’s noticed that we’re not quite...”

The young man looked serious.

“By Jove, it is possible! Because there’s no doubt about it, Pat — what we’re doing is criminal, if you come to think of it.”

The girl stole another glance at Mr. Cronk, who looked away a second too late.

“He’s still at it,” she said. “Philip, I don’t like it. Let’s go and bathe, shall we? And if he goes on watching us, we’ll know!”

They departed in confusion.

Mr. Cronk, wondering what could be afoot, drifted across the terrace to the chairs they had occupied, and glanced idly at the paper the girl had been reading. It was lying open as she had dropped it, and the page showed an excellent likeness of himself.

Evidently they knew him for what; he was. But why should a nice-looking English boy and girl, with an air of wealth and well-being such as these had, be perturbed at finding a detective their fellow-guest? Were they perhaps not all they seemed? Mr. Cronk sighed heavily. He was learning by sad experience to distrust everybody.

And yet he had a strong reluctance to suspect these two. They were so well turned out — so clean!

After all, there might be some reason for their peculiar behavior which he had not thought of. He decided that he must keep an eye on them — without, of course, allowing them to suspect that he had even noticed them — and that in the meantime they were entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

This settled, he leaned back in his chair and sunned himself. And a clear young voice floated up from the garden below him.

“If that little detective is here on business,” it said, “I bet he is after us.” An indistinguishable murmur came in answer.

“Well, anyhow,” went on the voice, “you looked the picture of guilt yourself.”

Mr. Cronk peeped cautiously over the terrace balustrade. It was as he feared. The speakers were the tall, fair girl and her escort. They had now turned down the path which led to the bottom of the hotel garden and to the beach, and the girl’s voice was no longer audible.

But he had heard enough. Here was no more surmise. Here was proof. These two pleasant young people were up to something which it was Mr. Cronk’s duty to discover. And suddenly it was borne in on Mr. Cronk what that something was.

The fancy-dress ball, to which, it was rumored, all sorts of wealthy and fashionable people were coming! They were going to make a haul under cover of the masquerade. He must set himself to prevent them.

And so began a perfect orgy of vigilance in Plage-sur-Mer. Mr. Cronk, intent on his two young suspects, never dreamed that he was himself under constant surveillance in the hotel, or that when he took his walks abroad, muscular but inarticulate men with no foreheads prowled after him. The only thing he did notice was that one of the spade-bearded Frenchmen, meeting him in a deserted passage, looked at him in a meaning and (Mr. Cronk felt) a sinister way, and made an odd gesture of the hand. But bearded Frenchmen always had a slightly sinister aspect to Mr. Cronk. And all Frenchmen gesticulated by habit. He thought no more of the incident.

Pursuing his investigations, he soon made a significant discovery.

The young couple were not staying in the hotel at all.

They lunched at it, dined at it, danced at it, and used its bathing-place. They behaved in every way like ordinary guests. But when a change of clothes was necessary, or night fell, they slipped off unobtrusively down an unfrequented road.

Along this road Mr. Cronk tracked them. He was now a much more experienced shadower than of old, and managed to keep them in sight till they reached a lonely middle-sized villa standing in its own grounds just outside the village. The house was shuttered and had its blinds drawn, and was to all appearances quite uninhabited. He watched the young couple slip furtively in at the garden gate. Then, through the hedge, he saw them let themselves into the house by a side-door.

He continued his stroll along the road, the very picture of a casual holiday-maker out for a constitutional, and sat down on a sand dune near by. After a while the suspects came out again in evening clothes and, letting themselves out at the garden gate with the same stealthy air as before, took the road back to the hotel.

Mr. Cronk made a sudden bold resolution. There were no other houses near, and nobody seemed to be about. He would search the villa.

With infinite caution he crept in at the garden gate, found the side-door, and turned the handle. The door was unlocked and swung inwards at his touch. He listened tensely, but there was not a sound. He stepped inside.

It took him only a few moments to confirm his worst suspicions. The house belonged, it appeared, to one Lord Leconbridge. Only two of the rooms — the big bedroom at the front of the house and the kitchen — bore marks of occupation. The rest was untouched. The rooms lay dust-sheeted and ghostly behind their closed shutters.

Whoever these young people might be, and whatever their intentions, it was plain that they had no right to be living where they were living. He must get back to the hotel, and think this out. He let himself out again by the side-door.

At that moment his heart leaped with pure terror. He heard — or could have sworn that he heard — a creak from the garden gate.

He dodged behind a bush, but no other sound broke the evening calm. At last, taking courage, he tiptoed along the path, reached the gate, and craned a cautious neck over it. But there was nobody to be seen along the road in either direction.

Telling himself that he was growing fanciful, he returned to the hotel.

Two days before the hotel dance a meeting was convened at the rooms at the “Chat Noir,” where the Cronk Menace was discussed in detail.

There was now no doubt in the mind of anybody present that Cronk was a very dangerous man. It had been established by the “Countess” that he was in Plage-sur-Mer for a purpose. It was now established, furthermore, that his spies, accomplices, assistants — call them what you will — were the two young English people, apparently so harmless, who were to be seen about the hotel at all hours, though they were not staying in it; and that their headquarters was the empty villa on the outskirts of the town, which belonged to Milord Leconbridge.

Last night Cronk had actually visited the villa, choosing his time carefully so as not to meet his assistants personally. Doubtless his object had been to give them their orders; but the subtlety of his methods was proved by the fact that an immediate and intensive search of the villa had yielded no sign of any message. Probably some clever code of signaling had been devised.

Everything in the villa had been left untouched to avoid suspicion. And now the question was: what next?

A gray-haired American lady, one of a batch of tourists who had come over for the day from a neighboring and cheaper resort, was in the chair. She looked like a schoolmistress from the Middle West, but her voice was the voice of the late Countess’s late maid.

“Have these people,” she asked briskly, looking round the table, “been in touch with any other visitors?”

The meeting shook its heads.

“Good. If they’re working alone the thing’s easy. The two young ones must go to their villa in the evening to dress for the masquerade. We can settle their hash then. As for Cronk, he’d better be — er — removed at about the same time. If he’s in the hotel that’ll be your job, Jacques.” Knives-and-Boots gave a nod. “You’re off duty then. You can hide in the cupboard. But I think he will not go to his room. We know that he has no costume for the masquerade, unless he goes to the villa to change. He will hardly do that, I think.”

“He may,” put in the extra hall-porter. “His method is always to do the thing that seems wrong.”

“Well, let us hope he does,” said the ex-maid with unction. “We can then put him with his friends. After that we all know what to do. I will give the signal, as near 11:30 as can be. Any questions? No? Good — then I will rejoin my party, if you will excuse me.”

On the day of the dance Philip and Pat decided to take things easy, in preparation for a strenuous evening. After their customary morning bathe they ordered drinks and dawdled over them on the terrace.

This brought great relief to Mr. Cronk, who was able to post himself near them under the screen of some ornamental vegetation in pots, and make believe he was reading a book. The crooks in their turn, having the enemy collected into one spot, were able to relax their vigilance.

From time to time Mr. Cronk could hear the clear, penetrating voice of the girl Pat. For the most part she uttered nothing but casual and lazy comment on the weather, or the passers-by. But just before lunch he overheard a snatch of conversation which gave him one more proof, if such were needed, that she and her young husband were not all that they should be.

“I say, Philip,” she exclaimed, in the tone of one uttering an unpleasant truth, “has it struck you that this show tonight’s going to be a bit risky?”

An interrogative murmur from Philip.

“Because it’s a grand affair with people coming from all parts. There’s certain to be someone who knows us. I don’t mean at night — we’ll be masked. But I think we’d better not have dinner here. How about having a scratch meal at the villa, and dressing up afterwards?”

Those few chance-heard sentences settled the day’s arrangements for everybody. All afternoon Mr. Cronk (and the crooks) took their ease. After dinner Mr, Cronk (and the crooks) set out for the villa.

Mr. Cronk was nervous, but quite determined. He entered the garden without hesitation, and walked into the house unheralded even by a knock.

Philip and Pat, sitting at the kitchen table over their scratch meal, sprang up in alarm. Mr. Cronk, abashed but still purposeful, saw that the girl had on a dressing-gown and very little else. Philip was in tennis flannels.

“You!” said Philip blankly.

“Then you were after us!” said Pat.

Mr. Cronk, overjoyed at obtaining a confession of guilt so easily, gave a portentous nod.

“I know all about you!” he said.

“Oh, Philip,” Pat began; but the boy silenced her with a wave of the hand.

“Well,” he said defiantly. “What if you do?”

“Only that I’m going to see that it goes no further.”

“I should like to punch your head,” Philip said in a menacing tone.

“No, Philip — no. It would be an awful mistake!” Pat remonstrated swiftly.

Mr. Cronk also thought it would be a mistake. He backed away nervously, and determined on a bluff.

“Better be careful,” he said. “My... my men are outside.”

And then, as if to make his words come horribly, terrifyingly true, the door flew open and the room was suddenly full of large unpleasant men. Half a dozen of them seemed to jump on Mr. Cronk simultaneously, knocking all the wind out of his body. The world disappeared and was replaced by constellations of beautiful stars.

When he was able to think coherently once more, and to take stock of his surroundings, he found that he was most efficiently and thoroughly bound to a large armchair in one of the dust-sheeted sitting-rooms. A gag which felt like iron and tasted like mud was clamped securely between his jaws.

Gradually, he got his brain into some sort of order. Who were those large unpleasant men, and why had they done this to him? The answer came only too plainly. They were the myrmidons of Pat and Philip. He had been tricked, and probably at this very moment his deceivers were on their way to despoil the guests of the Hotel Splendide.

An attempt to struggle out of his bonds proved a hideous failure. It caused a sharp pang to shoot right across his body, and what should have been a shriek of anguish was smothered in the muddy taste of the gag. Moreover, his chair gave a dangerous lurch and threatened to fall over, and add the peril of concussion to his other ills. There seemed to be nothing for it but to wait and hope for rescue.

Yet what hope was there? Once they had made their haul, the bandits would certainly not return here to set him free. The house was empty and remote. He might lie here helpless for days. Weeks. Even months.

An imaginary newspaper headline, “Gruesome Discovery in French Villa,” floated before his mind’s eye.

Then, miraculously, a motor-car was heard outside. For a moment the beam from its headlights threw strange shadows across the room. It drew up outside the house. Voices were heard, and footsteps on the garden path. Then the front door was opened.

Mr. Cronk heaved at his bonds in a desperate attempt to give some signal to the people below. Who they might be he neither knew nor cared. So long as they would release him, they could do what they liked with him afterwards. They could now be heard moving downstairs.

Suddenly, Mr. Cronk knew what he must do. Setting his teeth, and nerving himself to the horrid deed, he flung his weight backwards. The chair swayed, hung precariously on a dead centre, and toppled over with a reverberating crash. Mr. Cronk saw some more constellations, followed by complete darkness.

When he came to, he was lying on the floor. His bonds and the gag were gone, and he was being contemplated with interest by a young man in flowing white draperies and a halo.

“Wh-what are you?” gasped Mr. Cronk, horrified.

“I’m an archangel,” said the young man. “What are you?”

But Mr. Cronk only closed his eyes.

“Here — I say — hold up!” said the archangel. He raised his voice. “Hurry up with that water, Joyce!”

“In a minute,” said a pleasant contralto from outside. “I’ve found two more in the bedroom.”

“Good God!” said the archangel. And though it was more or less the kind of thing a real archangel might be expected to say, there was something unarchangelic in the tone. Mr. Cronk decided that he was not dead after all, and opened his eyes.

“Here they are,” said the rich contralto. And a young woman in the robes of ancient Greece entered, ushering Philip and Pat, both looking exhausted and bedraggled.

Astonishment gave Mr. Cronk his tongue.

“Aren’t you — aren’t you robbing the hotel?” he asked.

Philip in his turn looked amazed.

“Why should we?”

“I thought you were,” explained Mr. Cronk weakly.

“Well, we weren’t.”

“Excuse me,” said the archangel politely. “But do you mind telling me what you were doing? My name’s Leconbridge, by the way. The little bit of old Greece is my wife. It’s our house.”

Mr. Cronk gave another groan. Events were moving too fast for him in his half-dazed condition.

Lord Leconbridge looked from Pat to Philip.

“We’re having a honeymoon,” said Philip doggedly.

“What — all of you?”

“No — us,” said Pat, with an explanatory gesture. She addressed herself to Lady Leconbridge. “I know it’s awful, and you can put us in prison if you like. But we knew the house was empty, and we’ve been awfully careful of your things.”

“But why did you do it?” asked his wife.

“Partly economy. Partly for fun. We couldn’t afford to stay at the hotel more than a week, and we didn’t want to be branded everywhere as newly-married. And besides,” continued Pat, taking heart of grace from the fact that the Leconbridges seemed interested rather than angry, “I wanted a chance to get used to my funny name.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s Palk, you see. Pat Palk. Mrs. Philip Palk. It’s a fine old family, and all that. But I didn’t want to have to spend my time while I was new to it, and all self-conscious, explaining to people that it isn’t spelt P-O-R-K.”

Lady Leconbridge gurgled suddenly.

“Palk?” she said. “Then haven’t we been staying with your aunt?”

“Yes,” said Philip simply. “That’s how we knew your house was empty.”

“And him?” The archangel indicated Mr. Cronk, who had lapsed into a sort of coma.

“Oh, that’s Mr. Cronk, the famous detective.”

“That?”

“Yes. You know. The man who found out that smuggling business.”

“Good Lord! Who’d have thought it? And who tied you up?”

“I don’t know. Some men. Hotel robbers, it looks like. Ask him.”

But no sense could for the moment be got out of Mr. Cronk. When asked who had attacked him, he shook his head.

“Nobody,” he groaned. “I don’t know. It’s all a mistake.”

They looked at each other in perplexity.

“One thing’s clear,” said Lord Leconbridge at last. “There’s some funny business planned for this ball, and I must get across at once and stop it if I can. Got anything on worth stealing, Joyce?”

“No, darling.”

“Then come on.”

“I say — you must take us,” implored Pat.

“But you aren’t dressed.”

“It won’t take us a minute. I’m Cinderella and he’s a sort of student.”

“Well, hurry up. And we ought to take old what’s-his-name, in case he’s fit to give evidence. Isn’t there a fancy dress that’ll do for him?”

“There’s your old Pierrot kit, Freddy. It’s put away on the top of my wardrobe,” said Lady Leconbridge. “Come along, Mr. Cronk.”

She went out. And Mr. Cronk, still too dazed to protest, followed her.

Mr. Cronk had seldom felt less gay than when he followed the other members of his party down the passage leading to the Hotel Splendide’s magnificent ballroom.

He was still half dazed, and his head ached dismally. He was wearing fancy dress for the first time in his life, and it did not fit him. And somewhere at the back of his mind was the dull conviction that he had just made a fool of himself, and was now going to be forced into doing so again in public.

Just outside the ballroom these mixed feelings culminated in a wave of actual physical nausea. Mr. Cronk dropped into a chair and put his head into his hands. Consequently, he did not see his companions pause in astonishment at the doorway, nor hear Lord Leconbridge’s exclamation:

“Good Lord! The police! We’re too late.”

For the dance was in a state of suspended animation. Gendarmes were on guard at the doors. The dancers, with their masks off, were standing about in groups.

Two groups caught Lord Leconbridge’s eye. In one, which consisted of the famous Mrs. Harrison and her gilded following, half a dozen millionairesses were holding an agitated census of their own and each other’s jewelry. The other group contained no face that he knew, but was noticeable because of the odd assortment of people that it contained. Some were in fancy dress, some in ordinary clothes. One wore a green baize apron, and one the resplendent uniform of a hall-porter. And suddenly he noticed that the members of this group were all handcuffed together in pairs.

“I wonder if the thieves got away?” said the clear, resonant voice of Pat, on whom the handcuffs had not yet made an impression.

At the words a little Frenchman — the spade-bearded kind — swung round and came towards them.

“Who are you?” he said sharply. “And what you know of t’ieves, yes?”

Obeying his gesture the party unmasked. The Frenchman glanced at them with suspicion, and addressed himself to the leader.

“You tell, please, yes?”

“I am Lord Leconbridge, I have just found an English detective, Mr. Cronk, gagged and bound in my villa.”

The Frenchman’s face showed lively concern.

“Is he blest, the good Cronk?”

“Blest?” repeated Lady Leconbridge.

“Blessé — hurt!” her husband translated in a swift undertone. “Yes, monsieur. He is a little blest in the head. But he’ll be all right.”

The Frenchman bowed.

“I am glad,” he said formally, then suddenly burst into enthusiastic speech. “Ah! But ’e is clevaire, zis Cronk! Figure yourself, Mister, I am pretend to be one of ze robbaires. Zey tell me zat ze so famous Cronk is what you call on ze job. I tip ’im ze vink and make a sign when we meet, but ’e look along ze nose, and I t’ink ’e not understand. Like all ze English, ’e pretend to be more stupider zan ’e is not. But ’e understand ver’ well. ’E make ze mystere. ’E make it zat zese bandits zey give attention to ’im, and leave me to make my little plans. I salute Cronk, me. ’E ’as dragged across my traces what you call ze crimson kipper!”

“I don’t,” murmured Philip Palk. “But I always will in future.”

“Et voila — I capture ze lot.”

“It seems to me, Lord Leconbridge,” Mrs. Harrison said, “that we owe a great deal to this Mr. Cronk. Where is he, anyway?”

“Er — somewhere about. Ah! Here he is.”

And Mr. Cronk made his entrance.

It was not an impressive entrance. He was still wearing his mask; his Pierrot suit was many sizes too large; his knees were collapsing under him; his head was splitting; and he had only the very vaguest notion what was going on.

“Ah! Cher collègue!” exclaimed the spade-bearded Frenchman — the same one who had looked so sinister when they had met in the hotel — and kissed him on both cheeks. Utterly astonished and profoundly shocked, Mr. Cronk recoiled and looked about him, to find himself being gazed at from all sides with curiosity and admiration.

He was, though he had no notion why, once more a popular hero. Everybody seemed agreed on that point — except that, from the other side of the room, a manifest hussy with blonde curls was eyeing him malignantly. And in a flash of realisation, he recognized her for his exotic Countess, and saw the gyves on her wrist.

Mr. Cronk’s sorely battered brain reeled afresh. Why were these people admiring him? Who was this oscillatory Frenchman? What had he done to the Countess that she should hate him so? Why was she so changed? Why the handcuffs? What did it all, or any of it, mean? And what was he expected to do?

There was only one way of coping with a situation so complicated, and outraged Nature intervened to see that he took that way.

He fainted.