Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926

Detective X. Crook remembers the crime lore of his earlier days too well to be deceived by the baronet’s queer actions

I

“Ah, good morning, Detective Crook,” exclaimed Sir Arthur Trentby, extending his hand cordially. “It’s very good of you to have come so promptly after my SOS. Will you arrest me?”

The detective looked keenly into the gray eyes that smiled into his, and he noted the trouble behind the smile. This did not surprise him, for people only sent for him when they were in trouble.

“I’ll be happy to arrest you, Sir Arthur,” he responded also smiling, “when you’ve proved your guilt.”

“Oh, but that’s perfectly easy,” answered Sir Arthur. “Just come along to my bedroom, and you shall see the evidence.”

Trentby Hall was, humanly speaking, a lopsided affair. From one side, as they crossed the spacious lounge, emanated the warmth of home, but from the other side — the larger, last wing — came the chill of emptiness and disuse. Sir Arthur glanced at his guest and explained:

“The penalty of inheriting a place too big for one, Mr. Crook,” he observed. “We have made one side cozy, but the other side we leave rigidly to itself.”

“We?” queried Crook.

“Myself and my niece. She has lately come to look after me, to keep house for me, and to minister to me.” The light tone still dominated, but the shadows were there. “As a matter of fact — well, well, the bedroom will tell you everything.”

A few seconds later, they reached it, and Sir Arthur threw the door open. Instinctively, the detective’s eyes flashed round the room and fastened on the most significant object — a massive silver cup of beautiful design and workmanship, standing somewhat incongruously on a small table by the bed.

“Right first time,” murmured the baronet, following the detective’s gaze. “I see you know your job.”

“That’s a fine piece,” commented Crook. “Where did you get it?”

“God knows!” replied Sir Arthur. “I woke up yesterday morning, and there it was.”

“It sounds like kleptomania,” said Crook.

“Coupled with loss of memory, and, one prays, a guiltless soul,” added Sir Arthur. “But the medical and moral sides of this needn’t worry you. I believe I had a great-grandfather who was a bit of a rascal, and I myself got shell-shock in the war. It’s the practical side, however, I want you to help me with. Who does that belong to? And what the devil can I do in the future to keep myself out of trouble?”

Crook crossed to the table, took up the silver cup and examined it.

“It’s really a lovely thing,” he said. “I should imagine the owner will soon be after it!”

“Damn it, I hope so,” retorted the unfortunate kleptomaniac. “But I can’t expect him to be as lenient as the last.”

“Oh! Who was the last?”

“A new neighbor of mine, who lives across the park. I dined there a fortnight ago, and came away with a golf snuff-box. Louis Quinze — most valuable.”

“Yes, it sounds valuable,” nodded Crook. “What did your neighbor say?”

“He was a sportsman!” exclaimed Sir Arthur enthusiastically. “I should never have known it was his if he hadn’t mentioned the loss casually a few days later. I wish you could have seen his eyes when I produced the missing article! I explained my little habit, and he refused to accept any apology. Yes, George Tappan’s a sportsman. Well, Doanes, what is it?”

A butler was hovering in the passage outside.

“Mr. Tappan, sir,” said the butler.

“Eh? Oh — tell him I’ll be down in a minute,” jerked Sir Arthur, and, as the butler disappeared, turned back to Crook with a wry laugh. “Looks as though I don’t need you, after all,” he grunted. “At least — not for this case!”

They descended to the hall. Mr. Tappan was a large, jovial man, with ruddy cheeks and leather gaiters, and he responded to the introductions affably. He looked a little awkward immediately afterward, however, and asked whether if Sir Arthur were busy, he should call again a little later.

“No — come into my study,” replied the baronet. “I’ve an idea I know your business — and I’ve just confided my little... er... weakness to my friend Mr. Crook here.”

Mr. Tappan’s awkwardness did not depart.

“Look here — I’d better come back later,” he murmured.

“No, you won’t!” retorted Sir Arthur, as he opened his study door and almost pushed his visitor in. “I want to get this over!” When the door was closed, he inquired bluntly: “Well, have you lost anything?”

“I have,” answered Mr. Tappan, with a glance at Crook. “You want me to speak of it?”

“Yes,” nodded Sir Arthur. “And I’ll help you on your way. Is it a silver cup?”

“Yes — an Elizabethan silver cup,” answered Mr. Tappan, his ruddiness increasing slightly.

“There you are!” exclaimed Sir Arthur almost triumphantly. “What did I tell you? I’ve got your cup in my bedroom, Tappan. Am I to be arrested this time?”

“Don’t be a fool!” growled the other. “Of course, not.”

“I said he was a sportsman, Mr. Crook!”

Crook smiled, but the sportsman shook his head protestingly.

“That’s nonsense,” he remarked. “How could I act any differently? Kleptomania’s a fairly common disease — only some of ’em try to get away with it!” He smiled at his little joke.

“Besides, I’ve not proved that the cup is mine yet. It’s got to be fourteen and one-half inches high, it’s got to have a sort of acorn device around it, and the hallmark’s got to be 1585. Otherwise, I make no claim.”

“Now you’re talking nonsense,” retorted the baronet. “It’s hardly likely that you’d lose a silver cup on the same day that I took one from somebody else, is it? However, I’ll bring the confounded thing down, and then we can see whether it tallies.”

It did tally. It stood fourteen and one-half inches from the polished desk surface on which it was stood, acorns and oak leaves bulged ingeniously around its upper part, and the hall-mark said, 1585.

After Mr. Tappan had departed, Sir Arthur looked at the detective blankly.

“Now you see how it goes,” he remarked. “If I can’t check this habit — if it gains on me — what’s going to be the outcome? It isn’t likely I’ll confine my attentions to Tappan. I’ll do something bad, and at best there’ll be a scandal. At worst — well, I dare say you know better than I what the worst will be!”

Detective X. Crook nodded gravely. He well knew what the worst was like. The baronet suddenly flushed.

“I beg your pardon!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t mean—”

“You needn’t worry,” interposed Crook smiling. “I never run away from my memories, but like to have them before me. They keep me human, which is a quality one is apt to lose too quickly in my work. Can you put me up for the night, Sir Arthur?”

“Why, of course,” responded the baronet cordially. “And for as many more nights as you want. Alice, my dear,” he called, as a girl came out of a room. “This is Mr. Crook. Will you have a room got ready for him? He’s spending the night with us. Mr. Crook — my niece, Miss Hone.”

II

The detective did not remain for lunch. He wished to get away and think, and there were also several things he wanted to do.

The first of these was to note the exact position of Sir Arthur’s bedroom, to examine the ground beneath the window, and then to walk across the park to the boundary of Mr. George Tappan’s property. Then, inquiring the way to the police station, he had a chat with the local inspector.

After that, he thought of lunch; and, when tire meal was over, he bought a local guide and spent quite a considerable time studying it on a seat. Next he called on a house agent.

It was just on four o’clock before he returned to Trentby Hall.

Doanes, the butler, met him as he entered, and announced that tea was being served in the drawing-room. Crook removed the traces of his wanderings, and then sought the welcome refreshment. He found Miss Hone alone. This did not displease him.

She looked up as he entered, and apologized for her uncle’s absence.

“He’s got a headache,” she said. “He often gets them.”

“A war legacy?” asked Crook as he sat down.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Isn’t it a shame? Uncle’s not fifty yet, but sometimes he seems just like an old man — trying hard not to be old.”

“Yes, when we try hard not to be old, that’s an ominous sign,” replied Crook. “No sugar, please. I’ve learned to do without.”

“Another war legacy?” she smiled, passing him his cup.

“No — a prison one,” said Crook.

She stared at him, but he was smiling so gently that, in some strange way, both the oppression and the awkwardness which should have followed such a statement evaporated.

“That’s not really — true?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. Quite true. And prison is so unpleasant an experience that—” he paused, and she nodded, understandingly.

“I know,” she murmured. “Uncle’s told me why he’s sent for you.”

“Good! I’m glad! That eases matters immensely,” replied the detective. “Then I can ask you questions — and I can also finish my unfinished sentence. I was about to say, Miss Hone, that prison is so unpleasant an experience that we must see your uncle does not endure it.”

“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed. “Poor uncle! Isn’t it a rotten — affliction?”

“It’s embarrassing,” agreed Crook, watching her. “Tell me, has Sir Arthur got better or worse since you came to look after him?”

“Worse — at least, lately,” she returned. “When I first came, it was just — general unwellness, you know, and headaches—”

“But not kleptomania?” interposed Crook rather eagerly.

“No-o, not then,” she said slowly. “At least, he’d had the trouble a bit during the war and just after it — he was invalided out — and he used to explain it, half humorously, by saying that soldiers lost all their respect for property!

“Poor old uncle! But then he got better,” continued the girl. “It seemed as though the kleptomania had left him, and only the headaches and general nervousness remained — I wonder—”

She paused.

“What do you wonder?” asked the detective.

“I wonder if coming to live in this queer old place has had anything to do with it?”

“What is ‘it’?”

“The return of the kleptomania, I mean,” she explained. “I love it here, but it’s a bit — well, gloomy, in a way. Half the house shut up, you know.”

“Yet you stick it?” he remarked.

“Oh, I’m all right,” she laughed. “A poor sad orphan, and all that, is only too glad to find an ailing uncle to look after! It seemed ridiculous, when he was so ill, and I was all alone, not to come to him.”

“He asked you to then?”

“Broad hints,” she answered smiling. “Very broad ones. The war took most of his money as well as most of his health, and when he inherited this place, he thought he’d be glad to bury himself here, and there was just enough money to keep one end of it going! But he got horribly lonely — some of his letters were really quite tragic — so, naturally, I came along.” She shot a sudden, half challenging glance at him.

“Are you wondering whether I’m mercenary? Because I’m not! Uncle and I have only each other, and we’re jolly good pals. Besides, though he did tell me before I came that he was going to leave me all he had, I don’t believe it will be much more than debts!”

“I’m quite sure you’re not mercenary,” Crook assured her. “I believe you’d even help your uncle to pay some of those debts, if it were necessary, and if you could.”

“Good guess,” she nodded, and he liked her for her frankness.

“Then we’ll take each other’s good faith for granted,” responded Crook, “which I think we’ve really done from the start. Some detectives love fencing, but I hate it, unless I’ve got to do it. I can nearly always tell whether I’ve got to fence with a person or not — by his eyes.”

“That’s suspiciously like a compliment!” she exclaimed with a sudden smile. “Thanks awfully!”

For just a moment, an odd sensation shot through the detective — a sensation he had not experienced for many a day. It was a sensation of youth and gayety, gloriously and richly irresponsible, hovering in the confused borderland between creation and destruction. Something he had once been — countless years ago — rose and gripped him. But the moment passed, and his grave expression gave no clew to its passage. So often will a girl unconsciously speak to a man, and unconsciously receive his reply.

III

“Can you recall,” said the detective prosaically, “the first time your uncle’s kleptomania returned?”

“Oh, yes — quite distinctly,” answered the girl. “It wasn’t so long ago. We’d been in the town, and when we got back, uncle found a brand-new leather letter case in his coat pocket. He didn’t know how it had got there, till he suddenly remembered his old habit. We guessed the shop he’d taken it from, and returned it next day.”

“And, after that—”

“Yes, then it began again. He didn’t believe it would, but it did. He’s taken things three times, now — but, luckily, the last two from Mr. Tappan’s. We’re simply dreading when he’ll take something from somewhere else.”

Crook frowned, and was silent for a few seconds. Then he asked:

“When does he take them? Does he know?”

“No.”

“Do you?”

“How could I? But I believe it’s been in the night lately. That’s what makes it so awful. It looks like real stealing.”

“You mean he walks in his sleep?”

“Oh, I don’t know! It’s merely guessing.”

“You’ve never found him walking in his sleep, then?”

“Not lately. But he used to. So he might easily have begun again, mightn’t he?”

“But how would he get into Mr. Tappan’s house?”

“That beats me. Anyway, even if he doesn’t go there in the night, he often pays visits, and dines there. Mr. Tappan’s frightfully decent about it.”

“Let’s get back to the suggested sleepwalking. Have you tried locking him in his room?”

“I’ve suggested it. But then he might get out of the window.”

“That could be fastened, too.”

“And make him a prisoner? No — he’d simply hate the idea! He’d die if he didn’t have air. And, then” — she shrugged her shoulders — “what’s the good of living at all if you’re going to make a prisoner of yourself. Much best take your chance, I say.”

“And you’re right,” murmured Crook. “It’s better to be dead than to be only half alive.”

She looked at him quickly.

“And yet,” she said, “people who are only half alive can show wonderful pluck sometimes — can’t they?”

“That’s even truer,” agreed Crook, and rose. “Miss Hone, you’ve helped me immensely. I believe we’re going to find a solution.”

“Solution?” she repeated, in hopeful bewilderment. “I don’t see how there can be any solution — unless you can cure him?”

“I might even do that,” answered Crook; and somewhat abruptly excusing himself, left the room.

Neither Miss Home nor her uncle saw any more of their guest until dinner. Then they met him with serious faces.

“We’ve either got a burglar or a ghost in the house,” announced Sir Arthur bluntly.

“Are you speaking seriously?” inquired Crook.

“Quite seriously. One of the maids saw a light in the east wing while she was returning from the town. The silly girl was so frightened she ran away again, and by the time she came back, the light had gone.”

“It might have been her imagination.”

“Doanes says it probably was,” interposed Miss Hone, “and, you know, Rose is terribly nervy, uncle.”

“Yes, but she’s so absolutely certain, my dear,” retorted Sir Arthur, “that one can’t disbelieve her.”

“Have you been over the east wing?” asked Crook.

“Of course. But all we found were rats.”

“We might make a second tour, after dinner—”

The butler’s voice behind him intervened respectfully:

“I’ve just been over it again myself, sir,” he said. “I didn’t find anything.”

“H-m. Well, it’s odd,” grunted Sir Henry, and glanced grimly at the detective. “But these are odd times, eh? Do you suppose human oddity’s contagious?”

They switched off to other topics, and, led by Miss Hone, the conversation assumed a lighter tone. After dinner, however, the shadows crept up quietly in the drawing-room, though Miss Hone again did her best to dispel them at the piano.

Toward ten o’clock, Sir Arthur pulled his chair close beside the detective’s, and asked him, while his niece played softly:

“Am I making you waste your time here?”

“I’m sure I’m not wasting my time,” answered Crook, and smiled toward the piano.

“Ah — that’s nice of you. Nor are we, for that matter. But I’m speaking — well, professionally. Are you getting near any solution of my problem?”

“I’m so near,” replied the detective, “that I’m afraid I shall not be enjoying your hospitality after to-night.”

“By Jove,” murmured Sir Arthur, astonished. “That sounds rather like a fairy tale!”

“Well, we’ll try and materialize it, Sir Arthur,” answered Crook. “Did I notice you yawning a few moments ago?”

The baronet laughed, and confessed that it might have been so. Late hours were not kept at Trentby Hall. As he spoke, his niece rose from the piano and came toward them.

“Ten o’clock, uncle,” she announced, and added, with a glance at Crook: “We never stand on ceremony with guests.”

The evening broke up, and they retired to their respective bedrooms. Crook, having spent a busy day, soon closed his eyes and fell asleep, but his host was not so fortunate, and tossed and turned till after midnight. Then he, too, fell into a doze, but it was a troubled one, full of vague shadows and disturbing fancies.

Once he imagined he was walking through the park, and could even feel the grass against his ankles, and the night air upon his temples; but, when he opened his eyes with a start, he discovered that he was still in his room, staring at the bedpost. In the distance a church clock was striking the hour. Six.

He turned impatiently on his side, and, as he did so, flung out his arm. Something unfamiliar impressed itself upon him. Some new sensation — in his arm — no — his hand.

He sat up abruptly, and switched on the light. On the little finger of his left hand was a gold signet ring.

A greatly distressed baronet sat down to breakfast three hours later. He was bursting with annoyance and humiliation, and declared to his niece and his guest that he would never be able to face Mr. Tappan again.

“I don’t think you’ll have to face him much longer,” remarked Crook. “I hear he’s leaving the neighborhood in a day or two.”

“No — is he?” exclaimed Sir Arthur, opening his eyes wide. “He never mentioned it.”

“I heard so yesterday, from the local house agent,” said Crook. “If you don’t like to face him, why not send the ring across to him by Doanes?”

“But it mightn’t be his,” interposed Miss Hone.

“In that case, he’ll send it back,” responded Crook.

“Of course,” nodded the baronet. “It’s a good idea.” And he called the butler to him. “Doanes,” he said, “I want you to take this ring across to Mr. Tappan at once. Give it to him with my compliments, and tell him — er — that I believe he left it here yesterday, when he called.”

“Very good, sir,” replied the butler; and departed.

IV

Twenty minutes later, Doanes returned, and was again summoned to his master’s presence. Sir Arthur was pulling, with nervous, jerky puffs, at his pipe in the morning room, watched sympathetically by his niece and his guest.

“Well? Did you give Mr. Tappan the ring?” demanded Sir Arthur.

“Yes, sir,” replied the butler. “He sent his compliments and thanks.”

“Ah — then it was his?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s odd,” interposed Detective Crook. “Because, as it happens, it’s mine.”

“What?” shouted the baronet, while his niece stared at Crook, and the butler looked frankly astounded.

“Yes, I’ve worn that ring for six months — ever since a grateful client gave it to me,” continued the detective. “I’ll tell you how it found its way into Mr. Tappan’s possession, if you like. No, don’t go, Doanes — it’s really quite an interesting story.”

“If you’ll excuse me, sir,” murmured the butler, but Sir Arthur suddenly looked at him, noticed his pallor, and ordered him sharply to remain. Then he turned to Crook, and, looking thoroughly bewildered, begged for an explanation.

“When I left you yesterday morning, Sir Arthur,” replied the detective, “various thoughts revolved in my mind, but uppermost was one which you may have considered rather absurdly trivial. It was the accuracy with which Mr. Tappan described the height of the Elizabethan cup — fourteen and a half inches.”

“But collectors always know the measurements of their things—” began the butler, and stopped abruptly.

“I rather anticipated that suggestion from you,” said Crook dryly, “for I can understand your interest. That was one reason why I referred to my absurdly trivial thought.” The butler said nothing, and Crook turned back to the others and continued:

“I made various investigations, two of which are of special interest. Firstly, I found out, at the police station, that none of Mr. Tappan’s losses had been notified to them. Now, it was, perhaps, logical that Mr. Tappan should have come to you first, Sir Arthur, about the Elizabethan cup, even though its value is about a thousand pounds—”

“A thousand pounds!” exclaimed the baronet.

“Yes, at a guess. But why did he let a week go by in the belief that his valuable gold snuffbox had been stolen without mentioning the matter to anybody? The second investigation was made in the pages of a local guide. Trentby Hall is a very interesting old place. Did you know that one of your ancestors — possibly the great-grandfather who you told me was a bit of a rascal — was also a bit of an antiquary, and collected quite a lot of valuable stuff? Now — where is that stuff?”

“How should I know?” murmured Sir Arthur, shaking his head.

“Well, I’ll tell you where some of it is,” responded Crook. “It’s in an old, dilapidated chest in an attic in the east wing.” The baronet by this time was speechless.-“What isn’t there is in the temporary possession of Mr. George Tappan. I made an exhaustive tour of the east wing yesterday afternoon — scaring, I fear, one of your maids — and when I discovered the chest, it occurred to me to add my ring in the hope that it might appear again. It did appear again — not by your bedside, as I imagined, but actually on your finger. Doanes is an audacious rascal—”

“It’s not true!” cried the butler.

“Why waste time, Doanes?” asked the detective sternly. “I don’t know how you discovered the chest, or whether Mr. Tappan discovered it, and you discovered him. But I gather that you hadn’t the courage for direct burglary, or the strength of mind to forego your share.

“So this scheme was invented by which your master should apparently steal his own property to be passed on to a new owner — but only you and Mr. Tappan knew it was your master’s property, and only you knew that he never touched it until he found it on waking by his bedside.”

Doanes dropped his eyes, and Crook’s tone grew a little gentler. “I’m sorry, Doanes — very sorry,” he said. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me.”