Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 9, No. 42, May 1947

Sir Gilbert Murrell’s Picture by Victor L. Whitechurch

Which half-dozen important books of detective short stories, published in the twentieth century, are now the hardest to find, and therefore the least accessible to the general public? That’s an interesting question, and we decided to pose it to three of America s outstanding crime connoisseurs — Vincent Starrett, Anthony Boucher, and James Sandoe. Mr. Starrett nominated Clifford Ashdown’s THE ADVENTURES OF ROMNEY PRINGLE (1902), H. Frankish’s DR. CUNLIFFE, INVESTIGATOR (1902), B. Fletcher Robinson’s THE CHRONICLES OF ADDINGTON PEACE (1905), J. S. Fletcher’s THE ADVENTURES OF ARCHER DAWE, SLEUTH-HOUND (1909), A. J. Rees’s INVESTIGATIONS OF COLWIN GREY (1932), and C. Daly King’s THE CURIOUS MR. TARRANT (1935). Mr. Boucher, leaning more on historical and qualitative significance, suggested William MacHarg’s and Edwin Balmer’s THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF LUTHER TRANT (1910), T. S. Stribling’s CLUES OF THE CARIBBEES (1929), Harvey J. O’Higgins’s DETECTIVE DUFF UNRAVELS IT (1929), Percival Wilde’s ROGUES IN CLOVER (1929), Frederick Irving Anderson’s BOOK OF MURDER (1930), and C. Daly King’s THE CURIOUS MR. TARRANT (1935). Mr. Sandoe’s list included Clifford Ashdown’s THE ADVENTURES OF ROMNEY PRINGLE (1902), Gilbert K. Chesterton’s THE CLUB OF QUEER TRADES (1905), T. S. Stribling’s CLUES OF THE CARIBBEES (1929), Frederich Irving Anderson’s BOOK OF MURDER (1930), Henry Wade’s POLICEMAN’S LOT (1933), and C. Daly King’s THE CURIOUS MR. TARRANT (1935).

The truth is, there are a good hundred books of detective short stories published since 1900 that are now extremely-to-excessively hard to find. It is really unfair to try to isolate the six hardest — luck plays too large a part in every book collector’s campaigning. Also, it is sometimes easier, paradoxical as it may seem, to locate an expensive rare book than an inexpensive one. One reason for this is that bookdealers and bookscouts naturally go after the high-priced rarities with infinitely more patience and persistence than they are willing to expend on books that, no matter how scarce and desirable, will bring them only relatively small profits or commissions. Many a time in the early stages of our own collecting we came upon a notoriously difficult book standing unwept, unhonored, and unsung on some obscure dealer’s shelf, and modestly priced to boot; but we have learned through bitter experience that this apparent availability did not mean the book in question was common. We were just lucky — another copy of the volume might not turn up in the next ten years. The internationally famous collector, Ned Guymon of San Diego, once told us that at the very beginning of his collecting career he received a large carton of miscellaneous books from England which averaged him a mere shilling per copy; yet in that “grab-bag” he found a paperback first edition of which there are still only three known copies in the United States!

Judging from our own experience, we would agree with Messrs. Starrett, Boucher, and Sandoe on five of their choices, ROMNEY PRINGLE is without question one of the Kohinoor rarities — there are only four copies extant, including the one in the British Museum of London, MR. TARRANT, DR. CUNLIFFE (the only title in the three lists, by the way, which is still missing in your Editor’s collection), and ARCHER DAWE are tremendously elusive gentlemen of the genre. And the English first edition of Chesterton’s THE CLUB OF QUEER TRADES is also a permanent entry on most collectors’ want-lists — although the U. S. first edition is not too uncommon.

For the sixth scarcity-of scarcities we would unqualifiedly name a book which fails to appear on any of the lists above. To our mind it is second only to ROMNEY PRINGLE in sheer unbelievable rarity. We refer to Victor L. Whitechurch’s THRILLING STORIES OF THE RAILWAY (1912), a paperback featuring Thorpe Hazell, fanatical devotee of vegetarianism and setting-up exercises and probably the first railway-detective to appear in covers. This book seems to have vanished almost completely into the limbo of lost literature. In twenty years we have seen but three copies of this book, and only one of them intact.

So, continuing our policy of bringing to EQMM readers the rarest of the old as well as the finest of the new, we now offer you a Thorpe Hazell railway ratiocination. There are nine “cases in the private note-book” of Thorpe Hazell, all interesting, but one outstanding. Dorothy L. Sayers considers “Sir Gilbert Murrell’s Picture” the most ingenious of Thorpe Hazell’s investigations. We are in full accord with Miss Sayers’s critical judgment. To the best of your Editor’s knowledge this story has appeared in the United States only once — in one of Miss Sayers’s anthologies. It deserves reprinting as a modem classic.

The affair of the freight car on the Didcot and Newbury branch of the Great Western Railway was of singular interest, and found a prominent place in Thorpe Hazell’s notebook. It was owing partly to chance, and partly to Hazell’s sagacity, that the main incidents in the story were discovered, but he always declared that the chief interest to his mind was the unique method by which a very daring plan was carried out.

He was staying with a friend at Newbury at the time, and had taken his camera down with him, for he was a bit of an amateur photographer as well as book-lover, though his photos generally consisted of trains and engines. He had just come in from a morning’s ramble with his camera slung over his shoulder, and was preparing to partake of two plasmon biscuits, when his friend met him in the hall.

“I say, Hazell,” he began, “you’re just the fellow they want here.”

“What’s up?” asked Hazell, taking off his camera and commencing some “exercises.”

“I’ve just been down to the station. I know the station master very well, and he tells me an awfully queer thing happened on the line last night.”

“Where?”

“On the Didcot branch. It’s a single line, you know, running through the Berkshire Downs to Didcot.”

Hazell smiled, and went on whirling his arms round his head.

“Kind of you to give me the information,” he said, “but I happen to know the line. But what’s occurred?”

“Well, it appears a freight train left Didcot last night bound through to Winchester, and that one of the cars never arrived here at Newbury.”

“Not very much in that,” replied Hazell, still at his “exercises,” “unless the car in question was behind the brake and the couplings snapped, in which case the next train along might have run into it.”

“Oh, no. The car was in the middle of the train.”

“Probably left in a siding by mistake,” replied Hazell.

“But the station master says that all the stations along the line have been wired to, and that it isn’t at any of them.”

“Very likely it never left Didcot.”

“He declares there is no doubt about that.”

“Well, you begin to interest me,” replied Hazell, stopping his whirligigs and beginning to eat his plasmon. “There may be something in it, though very often a car is mislaid. But I’ll go down to the station.”

“I’ll go with you, Hazell, and introduce you to the station master. He has heard of your reputation.”

Ten minutes later they were in the station master’s office, Hazell having re-slung his camera.

“Very glad to meet you,” said that functionary, “for this affair promises to be mysterious. I can’t make it out at all.”

“Do you know what the missing car contained?”

“That’s just where the bother comes in, sir. It was valuable property. There’s a loan exhibition of pictures at Winchester next week, and this car was bringing down some of them from Leamington. They belong to Sir Gilbert Murrell — three of them, I believe — large pictures, and each in a separate packing case.”

“H’m... this sounds very funny. Are you sure the car was on the train?”

“Simpson, the brakeman, is here now, and I’ll send for him. Then you can hear the story in his own words.”

So the brakeman appeared on the scene. Hazell looked at him narrowly, but there was nothing suspicious in his honest face.

“I know the car was on the train when we left Didcot,” he said in answer to inquiries, “and I noticed it at Upton, the next station, where we took a couple off. It was the fifth or sixth in front of my brake. I’m quite certain of that. We stopped at Compton to take up a cattle car, but I didn’t get out there. Then we ran right through to Newbury, without stopping at the other stations, and then I discovered that the car was not on the train. I thought very likely it might have been left at Upton or Compton by mistake, but I was wrong, for they say it isn’t there. That’s all I know about it, sir. A rum go, ain’t it?”

“Extraordinary!” exclaimed Hazell. “You must have made a mistake.”

“No, sir, I’m sure I haven’t.”

“Did the engineer notice anything?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, but the thing’s impossible,” said Hazell. “A loaded car couldn’t have been spirited away! What time was it when you left Didcot?”

“About eight o’clock, sir.”

“Ah! — quite dark. You noticed nothing along the line?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“You were at your brake all the time, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir — while we were running.”

At this moment there came a knock at the station master’s door and a porter entered.

“There’s a passenger train just in from the Didcot branch,” said the man, “and the driver reports that he saw a car loaded with packing cases in Churn siding.”

“Well, I’m blowed!” exclaimed the brakeman. “Why, we ran through Churn without a stop — trains never do stop there except in camp time.”

“Where is Churn?” asked Hazell, for once at a loss.

“It’s merely a platform and a siding close to the camp between Upton and Compton,” replied the station master, “for the convenience of troops only, and very rarely used, except in the summer, when soldiers are encamped there.”

“I should very much like to see the place, and as soon as possible,” said Hazell.

“So you shall,” replied the station master. “A train will soon start on the branch. Inspector Hill shall go with you, and instruction shall be given to the engineer to stop there, while a return train can pick you both up.”

In less than an hour Hazell and Inspector Hill alighted at Churn. It is a lonely enough place, situated in a vast, flat basin of the Downs, scarcely relieved by a single tree, and far from all human habitation, with the exception of a lonely shepherd’s cottage some half a mile away.

The “station” itself is only a single platform, with a shelter and a solitary siding, terminating in what is known in railway language as a “dead end” — that is, in this case, wooden buffers to stop any cars. This siding runs off from the single line of rail at a switch from the Didcot direction of the line.

And in this siding was the lost car, right against the “dead end,” filled with three packing-cases, and labeled “Leamington to Winchester, via Newbury.” There could be no doubt about it at all. But how it had got there from the middle of a train running through without a stop was a mystery even to the acute mind of Thorpe Hazell.

“Well,” said the inspector, “we’d better have a look at the switch. Come along.”

There is not even a signal-box at this primitive station. The switch is actuated by two levers in a ground frame, standing close by the side of the line, one lever unlocking and the other operating the switch.

“How about this switch?” said Hazell as they drew near. “You use it so occasionally that I suppose it’s kept out of action?”

“Certainly,” replied the inspector. “A block of wood is bolted down between the end of the switch rail and the main rail, fixed as a wedge — ah! there it is, you see, quite untouched; and the levers themselves are locked — here’s the keyhole in the ground frame. This is the strangest thing I’ve ever come across, Mr. Hazell.”

Thorpe Hazell stood looking at the levers, sorely puzzled. They must have been worked to get that car in the siding, he knew well. But how?

Suddenly his face lit up. Oil evidently had been used to loosen the nut of the bolt that fixed the wedge of wood. Then his eyes fell on the handle of one of the two levers, and a slight exclamation of joy escaped him.

“Look,” said the inspector at that moment, “it’s impossible to pull them off,” and he stretched out his hand towards a lever. To his astonishment Hazell seized him by the collar and dragged him back before he could touch it.

“I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed, “hope I’ve not hurt you, but I want to photograph those levers first, if you don’t mind.”

The inspector watched him rather sullenly as he fixed his camera on a folding tripod stand he had with him, only a few inches from the handle of one of the levers, and took two very careful photographs of it.

“Can’t see the use of that, sir,” growled the inspector. But Hazell vouchsafed no reply.

“Let him find out for himself,” he thought.

Then he said aloud: “I fancy they must have had that block out, inspector — and it’s evident the switch must have been operated to get the car where it is. How it was done is a problem, but, if the doer of it was anything of a regular criminal, I think we might find him.”

“How?” asked the puzzled inspector.

“Ah,” was the response, “I’d rather not say at present. Now, I should very much like to know whether those pictures are intact?”

“We shall soon find that out,” replied the inspector, “for we’ll take the car back with us.” And he commenced undoing the bolt with a spanner, after which he unlocked the levers.

“H’m... they work pretty freely,” he remarked as he pulled one.

“Quite so,” said Hazell, “they’ve been oiled recently.”

There was an hour or so before the return train would pass, and Hazell occupied it by walking to the shepherd’s cottage.

“I am hungry,” he explained to the woman there, “and hunger is Nature’s dictate for food. Can you oblige me with a couple of onions and a broomstick?”

And she talks today of the strange man who “kept a swingin’ o’ that there broomstick round ’is ’ead and then eat them onions as solemn as a judge.”

The first thing Hazell did on returning to Newbury was to develop his photographs. The plates were dry enough by the evening for him to print one or two photos on gaslight-paper and to enclose the clearest of them with a letter to a Scotland Yard official whom he knew, stating that he would call for an answer, as he intended returning to town in a couple of days. The following evening he received a note from the station master, which read:

“More mysterious than ever,” said Hazell to himself, “I can’t understand it at all.”

The next day he called at Scotland Yard and saw the official.

“I’ve had no difficulty with your little matter, you’ll be glad to hear,” he said. “We looked up our records and very soon spotted your man.”

“Who is he?”

“His real name is Edgar Jeffreys, but we know him under several aliases. He’s served four sentences for burglary and robbery — the latter a daring theft from a train — so he’s in your line, Mr. Hazell. What’s he been up to, and how did you get that fingerprint?”

“Well,” replied Hazell, “I don’t quite know yet what he’s been doing. But I should like to be able to find him if anything turns up. Never mind how I got the print — the affair is quite a private one at present, and nothing may come of it.”

The official wrote an address on a bit of paper and handed it to Hazell.

“He’s living there just now, under the name of Allen. We keep such men in sight, and I’ll let you know if he moves.”

When Hazell opened his paper the following morning he gave a cry of joy. And no wonder, for this is what he saw:

It was evident to Hazell that the papers had not, as yet, got hold of the mysterious incident at Churn. As a matter of fact, the railway company had kept that affair strictly to themselves, and the loan Committee knew nothing of what had happened on the line.

But Hazell saw that inquiries would be made, and determined to probe the mystery without delay. He saw at once that if there was any truth in Sir Gilbert’s story the substitution had taken place in that lonely siding at Churn. He was staying at his London flat, and five minutes after he had read the paragraph had called a hansom and was being hurried off to a friend of his who was well-known in art circles as a critic and art historian.

“I can tell you exactly what you want to know,” said he, “for I’ve only just been looking it up, so as to have an article in the evening papers on it. There was a famous copy of the picture of Velasquez, said to have been painted by a pupil of his, and for some years there was quite a controversy among the respective owners as to which was the genuine one — just as there is today about a Madonna be longing to a gentleman at St. Moritz, but which a Vienna gallery also claims to possess.

“However, in the case of ‘The Holy Family,’ the dispute was ultimately settled once and for all years ago, and, undoubtedly, Sir Gilbert Murrell held the genuine picture. What became of the copy no one knows. For twenty years all trace of it has been lost. There — that’s all I can tell you. I shall pad it out a bit in my article, and I must get to work on it at once. Goodbye!”

“One moment — where was the copy last seen?”

“Oh! the old Earl of Ringmere had it last, but when he knew it to be a forgery he is said to have sold it for a mere song, all interest in it being lost, you see.”

“Let me see, he’s a very old man, isn’t he?”

“Yes — nearly eighty — a perfect enthusiast on pictures still, though.”

“Only said to have sold it,” muttered Hazell to himself, as he left the house; “that’s very vague — and there’s no knowing what these enthusiasts will do when they’re really bent on a thing. Sometimes they lose all sense of honesty. I’ve known fellows actually rob a friend’s collection of stamps or butterflies. What if there’s something in it? By George, what an awful scandal there would be! It seems to me that if such a scandal were prevented I’d be thanked all round. Anyhow, I’ll have a shot at it on spec. And I must find out how that car was run off the line.”

When once Hazell was on the track of a railway mystery he never let a moment slip by. In an hour’s time he was at the address given him at Scotland Yard. On his way there he took a card from his case — a blank one — and wrote on it, “From the Earl of Ringmere.” This he put into an envelope.

“It’s a bold stroke,” he said to himself, “but if there’s anything in it, it’s worth trying.”

He asked for Allen. The woman who opened the door looked at him suspiciously, and said she didn’t think Mr. Allen was in.

“Give him this envelope,” replied Hazell. In a couple of minutes she returned, and asked him to follow her.

A short, wiry-looking man, with sharp, evil-looking eyes, stood in the room waiting for him and looking at him suspiciously.

“Well,” he snapped, “what is it — what do you want?”

“I come on behalf of the Earl of Ringmere. You will know that when I mention Churn,” replied Hazell, playing his trump card boldly.

“Well,” went on the man, “what about that?”

Hazell wheeled round, locked the door suddenly, put the key in his pocket, and then faced his man. The latter darted forward, but Hazell had a revolver pointing at him in a twinkling.

“You — detective!”

“No. I told you I came on behalf of the Earl. That looks like hunting up matters for his sake, doesn’t it?”

“What does the old fool mean?” asked Jeffreys.

“Oh! I see you know all about it. Now, listen to me quietly, and you may come to a little reason. You changed that picture at Churn the other night.”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” sneered the other, but less defiantly.

“Well, I do — but not quite all. You were foolish to leave your fingerprints on that lever, eh?”

“How did I do that?” exclaimed the man, giving himself away.

“You’d been dabbling about with oil, you see, and you left your thumbprint on the handle. I photographed it, and they recognized it at Scotland Yard. Quite simple.”

Jeffreys swore beneath his breath.

“I wish you’d tell me what you mean,” he said.

“Certainly. I expect you’ve been well paid for this little job.”

“If I have, I’m not going to take any risks. I told the old man so. He’s worse than I am — he put me up to getting the picture. Let him take his chance when it comes out. I suppose he wants to keep his name out of it — that’s why you’re here.”

“You’re not quite right. Now, just listen to me. You’re a villain, and you deserve to suffer; but I’m acting in a purely private capacity, and I fancy if I can get the original picture back to its owner that it will be better for all parties to hush this affair up. Has the old Earl got it?”

“No, not yet,” admitted the other, “he was too artful. But he know’s where it is, and so do I.”

“Ah — now you’re talking sense! Look here! You make a clean breast of it, and I’ll take it down on paper. You shall swear to the truth of your statement before a commissioner for oaths — he need not see the actual confession. I shall hold this in case it is necessary; but, if you help me to get the picture back to Sir Gilbert, I don’t think it will be.”

After a little more conversation, Jeffreys explained. Before he did so, however, Hazell had taken a bottle of milk and a hunk of whole-meal bread from his pocket, and calmly proceeded to perform “exercises” and then to eat his “lunch” while Jeffreys told the following story:

“It was the old Earl who did it. How he got hold of me doesn’t matter; perhaps I got hold of him — maybe I put him up to it — but that’s not the question. He’d kept that forged picture of his in a lumber room for years, but he always had his eye on the genuine one. He paid a long price for the forgery, and he got to think that he ought to have the original. But there, he’s mad on pictures.

“Well, as I say, he kept the forgery out of sight and let folk think he’d sold it, but all the time he was in hopes of getting it changed somehow for the original.

“Then I came along and undertook the job for him. There were three of us in it, for it was a ticklish business. We found out by what train the picture was to travel — that was easy enough. I got hold of a key to unlock that ground frame, and the screwing off of the bolt was a mere nothing. I oiled the switch well so that the thing should work as I wanted it to.

“One pal was with me — in the siding, ready to clap on the side-brake when the car was running in. I was to work the switch, and my other pal, who had the most awkward job of all, was on the freight train — under a tarpaulin in a car. He had two lengths of very stout rope with a hook at each end of them.

“When the train left Upton, he started his job. Freight trains travel very slowly, and there was plenty of time. Counting from the back brake-van, the car we wanted to run off was No. 5. First he hooked No. 4 car to No. 6, fixing the hook at the side of the end of both cars, and having the slack in his hand, coiled up.

“Then, when the train ran down a bit of a decline, he uncoupled No. 5 from No. 4, standing on No. 5 to do it. That was easy enough, for he’d taken a coupling staff with him; then he paid out the slack till it was tight. Next he hooked the second rope from No. 5 to No. 6, uncoupled No. 5 from No. 6, and paid out the slack of the second rope.

“Now you can see what happened. The last few cars of the train were being drawn by a long rope reaching from No. 4 to No. 6, and leaving a space in between. In the middle of this space No. 5 ran, drawn by a short rope from No. 6. My pal stood on No. 6, with a sharp knife in his hand.

“The rest was easy. I held the lever, close by the side of the line, coming forward to it as soon as the engine passed. The instant the space appeared after No. 6 I pulled it over, and No. 5 switched to the siding, while my pal cut the rope at the same moment.

“Directly the car had run by and off, I reversed the lever so that the rest of the train following took the main line. There is a decline before Compton, and the last four cars came running down to the main body of the train, while my pal hauled in the slack and finally coupled No. 4 to No. 6 when they came together. He jumped from the train as it ran slowly into Compton. That’s how it was done.”

Hazell’s eyes sparkled.

“It’s the cleverest thing I’ve heard of on the line,” he said.

“Think so? Well, it wanted some handling. The next thing was to unscrew the packing case, take the picture out of the frame, and put the forgery we’d brought with us in its place. That took us some time, but there was no fear of interruption in that lonely part. Then I took the picture off — rolling it up first — and hid it. The old Earl insisted on this. I was to tell him where it was, then he was going to wait for a few weeks and get it himself.”

“Where did you hide it?”

“You’re sure you’re going to hush this up?”

“You’d have been arrested long ago if I were not.”

“Well, there’s a path from Churn to East Ilsley across the downs, and on the right hand of that path is an old sheep well — quite dry. It’s down there. You can easily find the string, fixed near the top.”

Hazell took down the man’s confession, which was duly attested. His conscience told him that perhaps he ought to have taken stronger measures.

“I told you I was merely a private individual,” said Hazell to Sir Gilbert Murrell. “I have acted in a purely private capacity in bringing you your picture.”

Sir Gilbert looked from the canvas to the calm face of Hazell.

“Who are you, sir?” he asked.

“Well, I rather aspire to be a book collector; you may have read my little monogram on Jacobean Bindings?”

“No,” said Sir Gilbert, “I have not had that pleasure. But I must inquire further into this. How did you get this picture? Where was it — who—?”

“Sir Gilbert,” broke in Hazell, “I could tell you the whole truth, of course. I am not in any way to blame. By chance, as much as anything else, I discovered how your picture had been stolen and where it was.”

“But I want to know all about it.

I shall prosecute... I—”

“I think not. Do you remember where the forged picture was seen last?”

“Yes; the Earl of Ringmere had it — he sold it.”

“What if he kept it all this time?” said Hazell, with a peculiar look. There was a long silence.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Sir Gilbert at length. “You don’t mean that. Why, he has one foot in the grave — a very old man — I was dining with him only a fortnight ago.”

“Ah! Well, I think you are content now, Sir Gilbert?”

“It is terrible — terrible! I have the picture back, but I wouldn’t have the scandal known for worlds.”

“It never need be,” replied Hazell. “You will make it all right with the Winchester people?”

“Yes... yes... even if I have to admit I was mistaken, and let the forgery stay through the exhibition.”

“I think that would be the best way,” replied Hazell, who never regretted his action.

“Of course, Jeffreys ought to have been punished,” he said to himself; “but it was a clever idea — a clever idea!”

“May I offer you some lunch?” asked Sir Gilbert.

“Thank you; but I am a vegetarian.”

“I think my cook could arrange something; let me ring.”

“It is very good of you, but I ordered a dish of lentils and a salad at the station restaurant. But if you will allow me just to go through my physical training ante-luncheon exercises here, it would save me the trouble of a more or less public display at the station.”

“Certainly,” replied the rather bewildered baronet; whereupon Hazell threw off his coat and commenced whirling his arms like a windmill.

“Digestion should be considered before a meal,” he explained.