Detectives and Young Adventurers: The Complete Short Stories

‘I never would have believed it of James Reilly,’ he said simply. ‘He’s always been a man of violent speech, but that’s all.’

Tommy nodded.

‘If you disperse energy in speech, it doesn’t leave you too much over for action. What I realise is that I shall be one of the principal witnesses against him. That conversation he had with me just before the crime was particularly damning. And, in spite of everything, I like the man, and if there was anyone else to suspect, I should believe him to be innocent. What’s his own story?’

The solicitor pursed up his lips.

‘He declares that he found her lying there dead. But that’s impossible, of course. He’s using the first lie that comes into his head.’

‘Because, if he happened to be speaking the truth, it would mean that the garrulous Mrs Honeycott committed the crime – and that is fantastic. Yes, he must have done it.’

‘The maid heard her cry out, remember.’

‘The maid – yes –’

Tommy was silent a moment. Then he said thoughtfully.

‘What credulous creatures we are, really. We believe evidence as though it were gospel truth. And what is it really? Only the impression conveyed to the mind by the senses – and suppose they’re the wrong impressions?’

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.

‘Oh! we all know that there are unreliable witnesses, witnesses who remember more and more as time goes on, with no real intention to deceive.’

‘I don’t mean only that. I mean all of us – we say things that aren’t really so, and never know that we’ve done so. For instance, both you and I, without doubt, have said some time or other, “There’s the post,” when what we really meant was that we’d heard a double knock and the rattle of the letter-box. Nine times out of ten we’d be right, and it would be the post, but just possibly the tenth time it might be only a little urchin playing a joke on us. See what I mean?’

‘Ye-es,’ said Mr Marvell slowly. ‘But I don’t see what you’re driving at?’

‘Don’t you? I’m not so sure that I do myself. But I’m beginning to see. It’s like the stick, Tuppence. You remember? One end of it pointed one way – but the other end always points the opposite way. It depends whether you get hold of it by the right end. Doors open – but they also shut. People go upstairs, but they also go downstairs. Boxes shut, but they also open.’

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Tuppence.

‘It’s so ridiculously easy, really,’ said Tommy. ‘And yet it’s only just come to me. How do you know when a person’s come into the house. You hear the door open and bang to, and if you’re expecting any one to come in, you will be quite sure it is them. But it might just as easily be someone going out.’

‘But Miss Glen didn’t go out?’

‘No, I know she didn’t. But some one else did – the murderer.’

‘But how did she get in, then?’

‘She came in whilst Mrs Honeycott was in the kitchen talking to Ellen. They didn’t hear her. Mrs Honeycott went back to the drawing-room, wondered if her sister had come in and began to put the clock right, and then, as she thought, she heard her come in and go upstairs.’

‘Well, what about that? The footsteps going upstairs?’

‘That was Ellen, going up to draw the curtains. You remember, Mrs Honeycott said her sister paused before going up. That pause was just the time needed for Ellen to come out from the kitchen into the hall. She just missed seeing the murderer.’

‘But, Tommy,’ cried Tuppence. ‘The cry she gave?’

‘That was James Reilly. Didn’t you notice what a high-pitched voice he has? In moments of great emotion, men often squeal just like a woman.’

‘But the murderer? We’d have seen him?’

‘We did see him. We even stood talking to him. Do you remember the sudden way that policeman appeared? That was because he stepped out of the gate, just after the mist cleared from the road. It made us jump, don’t you remember? After all, though we never think of them as that, policemen are men just like any other men. They love and they hate. They marry . . .

‘I think Gilda Glen met her husband suddenly just outside that gate, and took him in with her to thrash the matter out. He hadn’t Reilly’s relief of violent words, remember. He just saw red – and he had his truncheon handy . . .’

Chapter 8

The Crackler

‘The Crackler’ was first published as ‘The Affair of the Forged Notes’ in The Sketch, 19 November 1924. The Busies were created by Edgar Wallace (1875–1932).

‘Tuppence,’ said Tommy. ‘We shall have to move into a much larger office.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Tuppence. ‘You mustn’t get swollen-headed and think you are a millionaire just because you solved two or three twopenny half-penny cases with the aid of the most amazing luck.’

‘What some call luck, others call skill.’

‘Of course, if you really think you are Sherlock Holmes, Thorndyke, McCarty and the Brothers Okewood all rolled into one, there is no more to be said. Personally I would much rather have luck on my side than all the skill in the world.’

‘Perhaps there is something in that,’ conceded Tommy. ‘All the same, Tuppence, we do need a larger office.’

‘Why?’

‘The classics,’ said Tommy. ‘We need several hundreds of yards of extra bookshelf if Edgar Wallace is to be properly represented.’

‘We haven’t had an Edgar Wallace case yet.’

‘I’m afraid we never shall,’ said Tommy. ‘If you notice he never does give the amateur sleuth much of a chance. It is all stern Scotland Yard kind of stuff – the real thing and no base counterfeit.’

Albert, the office boy, appeared at the door.

‘Inspector Marriot to see you,’ he announced.

‘The mystery man of Scotland Yard,’ murmured Tommy.

‘The busiest of the Busies,’ said Tuppence. ‘Or is it “Noses”? I always get mixed between Busies and Noses.’

The Inspector advanced upon them with a beaming smile of welcome.

‘Well, and how are things?’ he asked breezily. ‘None the worse for our little adventure the other day?’

‘Oh, rather not,’ said Tuppence. ‘Too, too marvellous, wasn’t it?’

‘Well, I don’t know that I would describe it exactly that way myself,’ said Marriot cautiously.

‘What has brought you here today, Marriot?’ asked Tommy. ‘Not just solicitude for our nervous systems, is it?’

‘No,’ said the Inspector. ‘It is work for the brilliant Mr Blunt.’