Afternoon Tea Mysteries, Volume One: A Collection of Cozy Mysteries (Three thrilling novels in one volume!) Read online

  The housekeeper answered in the affirmative, and went her way, wondering over the strange manners of the lady whom, at first, she had been disposed to consider “such a nice, pleasant, conversable person!”

  At supper-time, however, when the upper-servants assembled at what was, to them, the pleasantest meal of the day, a great surprise was to greet them.

  Stephanie did not take her usual place at table, and a fellow-servant, sent to her room to summon her returned, saying that the room was empty, and Stephanie was nowhere to be found.

  Kristen and Mrs. Williams together went to the girl’s bed-room. It bore its usual appearance: no packing had been done in it, and, beyond her hat and jacket, the girl appeared to have taken nothing away with her.

  On enquiry, it transpired that Stephanie had, as usual, assisted Lady Cathrow to dress for dinner; but after that not a soul in the house appeared to have seen her.

  Mrs. Williams thought the matter of sufficient importance to be at once reported to her master and mistress; and Sir George, in his turn, promptly dispatched a messenger to Mr. Bates, at the “King’s Head,” to summon him to an immediate consultation.

  Kristen dispatched a messenger in another direction—to young Mr. Holt, at his farm, giving him particulars of the girl’s disappearance.

  Mr. Bates had a brief interview with Sir George in his study, from which he emerged radiant. He made a point of seeing Kristen before he left the Court, sending a special request to her that she would speak to him for a minute in the outside drive.

  Kristen put her hat on, and went out to him. She found him almost dancing for glee.

  “Told you so! told you so! Now, didn’t I, Miss Carter?” he exclaimed. “We’ll come upon her traces before morning, never fear. I’m quite prepared. I knew what was in her mind all along. I said to myself, when that girl bolts it will be after she has dressed my lady for dinner—when she has two good clear hours all to herself, and her absence from the house won’t be noticed, and when, without much difficulty, she can catch a train leaving Huxwell for Wreford. Well, she’ll get to Wreford safe enough; but from Wreford she’ll be followed every step of the way she goes. Only yesterday I set a man on there—a keen fellow at this sort of thing—and gave him full directions; and he’ll hunt her down to her hole properly. Taken nothing with her, do you say? What does that matter? She thinks she’ll find all she wants where she’s going—’the feathered nest’ I spoke to you about this morning. Ha! ha! Well, instead of stepping into it, as she fancies she will, she’ll walk straight into a detective’s arms, and land her pal there into the bargain. There’ll be two of them netted before another forty-eight hours are over our heads, or my name’s not Jeremiah Bates.”

  “What are you going to do now?” asked Kristen, as the man finished his long speech.

  “Now! I’m back to the “King’s Head” to wait for a telegram from my colleague at Wreford. Once he’s got her in front of him he’ll give me instructions at what point to meet him. You see, Huxwell being such an out-of-the-way place, and only one train leaving between 7.30 and 10.15, makes us really positive that Wreford must be the girl’s destination and relieves my mind from all anxiety on the matter.”

  “Does it?” answered Kristen gravely. “I can see another possible destination for the girl—the stream that runs through the wood we drove past this morning. Good night, Mr. Bates, it’s cold out here. Of course so soon as you have any news you’ll send it up to Sir George.”

  The household sat up late that night, but no news was received of Stephanie from any quarter. Mr. Bates had impressed upon Sir George the ill-advisability of setting up a hue and cry after the girl that might possibly reach her ears and scare her from joining the person whom he was pleased to designate as her “pal.”

  “We want to follow her silently, Sir George, silently as, the shadow follows the man,” he had said grandiloquently, “and then we shall come upon the two, and I trust upon their booty also.” Sir George in his turn had impressed Mr. Bates’s wishes upon his household, and if it had not been for Kristen’s message, dispatched early in the evening to young Holt, not a soul outside the house would have known of Stephanie’s disappearance.

  Kristen was stirring early the next morning, and the eight o’clock train for Wreford numbered her among its passengers. Before starting, she dispatched a telegram to her chief in Lynch Court. It read rather oddly, as follows:—

  “Cracker fired. Am just starting for Wreford. Will wire to you from there. K. C.”

  Oddly though it might read, Mr. Mutchey did not need to refer to his cipher book to interpret it. “Cracker fired” was the easily remembered equivalent for “clue found” in the detective phraseology of the office.

  “Well, she has been quick enough about it this time!” he soliquised as he speculated in his own mind over what the purport of the next telegram might be.

  Half an hour later there came to him a constable from Scotland Yard to tell him of Stephanie’s disappearance and the conjectures that were rife on the matter, and he then, not unnaturally, read Kristen’s telegram by the light of this information, and concluded that the clue in her hands related to the discovery of Stephanie’s whereabouts as well as to that of her guilt.

  A telegram received a little later on, however, was to turn this theory upside down. It was, like the former one, worded in the enigmatic language current in the Lynch Court establishment, but as it was a lengthier and more intricate message, it sent Mr. Mutchey at once to his cipher book.

  “Wonderful! She has cut them all out this time!” was Mr. Mutchey’s exclamation as he read and interpreted the final word.

  In another ten minutes he had given over his office to the charge of his head clerk for the day, and was rattling along the streets in a hansom in the direction of Bishopsgate Station.

  There he was lucky enough to catch a train just starting for Wreford.

  “The event of the day,” he muttered, as he settled himself comfortably in a corner seat, “will be the return journey when she tells me, bit by bit, how she has worked it all out.”

  It was not until close upon three o’clock in the afternoon that he arrived at the old-fashioned market town of Wreford. It chanced to be cattle-market day, and the station was crowded with drovers and farmers. Outside the station Kristen was waiting for him, as she had told him in her telegram that she would, in a four-wheeler.

  “It’s all right,” she said to him as he got in; “he can’t get away, even if he had an idea that we were after him. Two of the local police are waiting outside the house door with a warrant for his arrest, signed by a magistrate. I did not, however, see why the Lynch Court office should not have the credit of the thing, and so telegraphed to you to conduct the arrest.”

  They drove through the High Street to the outskirts of the town, where the shops became intermixed with private houses let out in offices. The cab pulled up outside one of these, and two policemen in plain clothes came forward, and touched their hats to Mr. Mutchey.

  “He’s in there now, sir, doing his office work,” said one of the men pointing to a door, just within the entrance, on which was printed in black letters, “The United Kingdom Cab-drivers’ Beneficent Association.” “I hear however, that this is the last time he will be found there, as a week ago he gave notice to leave.”

  As the man finished speaking, a man, evidently of the cab-driving fraternity, came up the steps. He stared curiously at the little group just within the entrance, and then chinking his money in his hand, passed on to the office as if to pay his subscription.

  “Will you be good enough to tell Mr. Emmett in there,” said Mr. Mutchey, addressing the man, “that a gentleman outside wishes to speak with him.”

  The man nodded and passed into the office. As the door opened, it disclosed to view an old gentleman seated at a desk apparently writing receipts for money. A little in his rear at his right hand, sat a young and decidedly good-looking man, at a table on which were placed various little piles of si
lver and pence. The get-up of this young man was gentleman-like, and his manner was affable and pleasant as he responded, with a nod and a smile, to the cab-driver’s message.

  “I sha’n’t be a minute,” he said to his colleague at the other desk, as he rose and crossed the room towards the door.

  But once outside that door it was closed firmly behind him, and he found himself in the center of three stalwart individuals, one of whom informed him that he held in his hand a warrant for the arrest of Harry Emmett on the charge of complicity in the Craigen Court robbery, and that he had “better come along quietly, for resistance would be useless.”

  Emmett seemed convinced of the latter fact. He grew deadly white for a moment, then recovered himself.

  “Will someone have the kindness to fetch my hat and coat,” he said in a lofty manner. “I don’t see why I should be made to catch my death of cold because some other people have seen fit to make asses of themselves.”

  His hat and coat were fetched, and he was handed into the cab between the two officials.

  “Let me give you a word of warning, young man,” said Mr. Mutchey, closing the cab door and looking in for a moment through the window at Emmett. “I don’t suppose it’s a punishable offence to leave a black bag on an old maid’s doorstep, but let me tell you, if it had not been for that black bag you might have got clean off with your spoil.”

  Emmett, the irrepressible, had his answer ready. He lifted his hat ironically to Mr. Mutchey; “You might have put it more neatly, guv’nor,” he said; “if I had been in your place I would have said: ‘Young man, you are being justly punished for your misdeeds; you have been taking off your fellow-creatures all your life long, and now they are taking off you.’”

  Mr. Mutchey’s duty that day did not end with the depositing of Harry Emmett in the local jail. The search through Emmett’s lodgings and effects had to be made, and at this he was naturally present. About a third of the lost jewelry was found there, and from this it was consequently concluded that his accomplices in the crime had considered that he had borne a third of the risk and of the danger of it.

  Letters and various memoranda discovered in the rooms, eventually led to the detection of those accomplices, and although Lady Cathrow was doomed to lose the greater part of her valuable property, she had ultimately the satisfaction of knowing that each one of the thieves received a sentence proportionate to his crime.

  It was not until close upon midnight that Mr. Mutchey found himself seated in the train, facing Miss Carter, and had leisure to ask for the links in the chain of reasoning that had led her in so remarkable a manner to connect the finding of a black bag, with insignificant contents, with an extensive robbery of valuable jewelry.

  Kristen explained the whole thing, easily, naturally, step by step in her usual methodical manner.

  “I read,” she said, “as I dare say a great many other people did, the account of the two things in the same newspaper, on the same day, and I detected, as I dare say a great many other people did not, a sense of fun in the principal actor in each incident. I notice while all people are agreed as to the variety of motives that instigate crime, very few allow sufficient margin for variety of character in the criminal. We are apt to imagine that he stalks about the world with a bundle of deadly motives under his arm, and cannot picture him at his work with a twinkle in his eye and a keen sense of fun, such as honest folk have sometimes when at work at their calling.”

  Here Mr. Mutchey gave a little grunt; it might have been either of assent or dissent.

  Kristen went on:

  “Of course, the ludicrousness of the diction of the letter found in the bag would be apparent to the most casual reader; to me the high falutin sentences sounded in addition strangely familiar; I had heard or read them somewhere I felt sure, although where I could not at first remember. They rang in my ears, and it was not altogether out of idle curiosity that I went to Scotland Yard to see the bag and its contents, and to copy, with a slip of tracing paper, a line or two of the letter. When I found that the handwriting of this letter was not identical with that of the translations found in the bag, I was confirmed in my impression that the owner of the bag was not the writer of the letter; that possibly the bag and its contents had been appropriated from some railway station for some distinct purpose; and, that purpose accomplished, the appropriator no longer wished to be burthened with it, and disposed of it in the readiest fashion that suggested itself. The letter, it seemed to me, had been begun with the intention of throwing the police off the scent, but the irrepressible spirit of fun that had induced the writer to deposit his clerical adjuncts upon an old maid’s doorstep had proved too strong for him here, and had carried him away, and the letter that was intended to be pathetic ended in being comic.”

  “Very ingenious, so far,” murmured Mr. Mutchey: “I’ve no doubt when the contents of the bag are widely made known through advertisements a claimant will come forward, and your theory be found correct.”

  “When I returned from Scotland Yard,” Kristen continued, “I found your note, asking me to go round and see you respecting the big jewel robbery. Before I did so I thought it best to read once more the newspaper account of the case, so that I might be well up in its details. When I came to the words that the thief had written across the door of the safe, ‘To be Let, Unfurnished,’ they at once connected themselves in my mind with the ‘dying kiss to my Marchioness Mother,’ and the solemn warning against the race-course and the book-maker, of the black-bag letter-writer. Then, all in a flash, the whole thing became clear to me. Some two or three years back my professional duties necessitated my frequent attendance at certain low class penny-readings, given in the South London slums. At these penny-readings young shop-assistants, and others of their class, glad of an opportunity for exhibiting their accomplishments, declaim with great vigour; and, as a rule, select pieces which their very mixed audience might be supposed to appreciate. During my attendance at these meetings, it seemed to me that one book of selected readings was a great favourite among the reciters, and I took the trouble to buy it. Here it is.”

  Here Kristen took from her cloak-pocket “The Reciter’s Treasury,” and handed it to her companion.

  “Now,” she said, “if you will run your eye down the index column you will find the titles of those pieces to which I wish to draw your attention. The first is ‘The Suicide’s Farewell;’ the second, ‘The Noble Convict;’ the third, ‘To be Let, Unfurnished.’”

  “By Jove! so it is!” ejaculated Mr. Mutchey.

  “In the first of these pieces, ‘The Suicide’s Farewell,’ occur the expressions with which the black-bag letter begins—’The fatal day has arrived,’ etc., the warnings against gambling, and the allusions to the ‘poor lifeless body.’ In the second, ‘The Noble Convict,’ occur the allusions to the aristocratic relations and the dying kiss to the marchioness mother. The third piece, ‘To be Let, Unfurnished,’ is a foolish little poem enough, although I dare say it has often raised a laugh in a not too-discriminating audience. It tells how a bachelor, calling at a house to enquire after rooms to be let unfurnished, falls in love with the daughter of the house, and offers her his heart, which, he says, is to be let unfurnished. She declines his offer, and retorts that she thinks his head must be to let unfurnished, too. With these three pieces before me, it was not difficult to see a thread of connection between the writer of the black-bag letter and the thief who wrote across the empty safe at Craigen Court. Following this thread, I unearthed the story of Harry Emmett—footman, reciter, general lover and scamp. Subsequently I compared the writing on my tracing paper with that on the safe-door, and, allowing for the difference between a bit of chalk and a steel nib, came to the conclusion that there could be but little doubt but what both were written by the same hand. Before that, however, I had obtained another, and what I consider the most important, link in my chain of evidence—how Emmett brought his clerical dress into use.”

  “Ah, how did you find out th
at now?” asked Mr. Mutchey, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

  “In the course of conversation with Mrs. Williams, whom I found to be a most communicative person, I elicited the names of the guests who had sat down to dinner on Christmas Eve. They were all people of undoubted respectability in the neighbourhood. Just before dinner was announced, she said, a young clergyman had presented himself at the front door, asking to speak with the Rector of the parish. The Rector, it seems, always dines at Craigen Court on Christmas Eve. The young clergyman’s story was that he had been told by a certain clergyman, whose name he mentioned, that a curate was wanted in the parish, and he had travelled down from London to offer his services. He had been, he said, to the Rectory and had been told by the servants where the Rector was dining, and fearing to lose his chance of the curacy, had followed him to the Court. Now the Rector had been wanting a curate and had filled the vacancy only the previous week; he was a little inclined to be irate at this interruption to the evening’s festivities, and told the young man that he didn’t want a curate. When, however, he saw how disappointed the poor young fellow looked—I believe he shed a tear or two—his heart softened; he told him to sit down and rest in the hall before he attempted the walk back to the station, and said he would ask Sir George to send him out a glass of wine. the young man sat down in a chair immediately outside the room by which the thieves entered. Now I need not tell you who that young man was, nor suggest to your mind, I am sure, the idea that while the servant went to fetch him his wine, or, indeed, so soon as he saw the coast clear, he slipped into that little room and pulled back the catch of the window that admitted his confederates, who, no doubt, at that very moment were in hiding in the grounds. The housekeeper did not know whether this meek young curate had a black bag with him. Personally I have no doubt of the fact, nor that it contained the cap, cuffs, collar, and outer garments of Harry Emmett, which were most likely redonned before he returned to his lodgings at Wreford, where I should say he repacked the bag with its clerical contents, and wrote his serio-comic letter. This bag, I suppose, he must have deposited in the very early morning, before anyone was stirring, on the door-step of the house in the Easterbrook Road.”