Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery. Freeman Crofts Wills

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СКАЧАТЬ Cheyne’s first concern was with his mother and sister. An inquiry produced the information that the two ladies were waiting for him in the drawing-room, and thither he at once betook himself.

      Mrs Cheyne was a frail little woman who looked ten years older than her age of something under sixty. She welcomed her son with a little cry of pleasure.

      ‘Oh, I am relieved to see you, Maxwell,’ she cried. ‘I’m so glad you were able to come. Isn’t this a terrible business?’

      ‘I don’t know, mother,’ Cheyne answered cheerily, ‘that depends. I hear no one is any the worse. Has much stuff been stolen?’

      ‘Nothing!’ Mrs Cheyne’s tone conveyed the wonder she evidently felt. ‘Nothing whatever! Or at least we can’t find that anything is missing.’

      ‘Unless something may have been taken from your safe,’ Agatha interposed. ‘Was there much in it?’

      ‘No, only a few pounds and some papers, none valuable to an outsider.’ He glanced at his sister. She was a pretty girl, tall and dark and in features not unlike himself. Both the young people had favoured the late commander’s side of the house. He turned towards the door, continuing: ‘I’ll go and have a look, and then you can tell me what has happened.’

      The safe was built into the wall in his own sanctum, ‘the study,’ as his mother persisted in calling it. It had been taken over with the house when Mrs Cheyne bought the little estate. As Cheyne now entered he saw that its doors were standing open. A tall man in the uniform of a sergeant of police was stooping over it. He turned as he heard the newcomer’s step.

      ‘Good-evening, sir,’ he said in an impressive tone. ‘This is a bad business.’

      ‘Oh, well, I don’t know, Sergeant,’ Cheyne answered easily. ‘If no one has been hurt and nothing has been stolen, it might have been worse.’

      The sergeant stared at him with some disfavour. ‘There’s not much but what might have been worse,’ he observed oracularly. ‘But we’re not sure yet that nothing’s been stolen. Nobody knows what was in this here safe, except maybe yourself. I’d be glad if you’d have a look and see if anything is gone.’

      There was very little in the safe and it did not take Cheyne many seconds to go through it. The papers were tossed about—he could swear someone had turned them over—but none seemed to have been removed. The small packet of Treasury notes was intact and a number of gold and silver medals, won in athletic contests, were all in evidence.

      ‘Nothing missing there, Sergeant,’ he declared when he had finished.

      His eye wandered round the room. There was not much of value in it; one or two silver bowls—athletic trophies also, a small gold clock of Indian workmanship, a pair of high-power prism binoculars and a few ornaments were about all that could be turned into money. But all these were there, undisturbed. It was true that the glass door of a locked bookcase had been broken to enable the bolt to be unfastened and the doors opened, but none of the books seemed to have been touched.

      ‘What do you think they were after, sir?’ the sergeant queried. ‘Was there any jewellery in the house that they might have heard of?’

      ‘My mother has a few trinkets, but I scarcely think you could dignify them by the name of jewellery. I suppose these precious burglars have left no kind of clue?’

      ‘No, sir, nothing. Except maybe the girls’ descriptions. I’ve telephoned that in to headquarters and the men will be on the lookout.’

      ‘Good. Well, if you can wait here a few minutes I’ll go and send my mother to bed and then I’ll come back and we can settle what’s to be done.’

      Cheyne returned to the drawing-room and told his news. ‘Nothing’s been taken,’ he declared. ‘I’ve been through the safe and everything’s there. And nothing seems to be missing from the room either. The sergeant was asking about your jewels, mother. Have you looked if they’re all right?’

      ‘It was the first thing I thought of, but they are all in their places. The cabinet I keep them in was certainly examined, for everthing was left topsy-turvey, but nothing is missing.’

      ‘Very extraordinary,’ Cheyne commented. It seemed to him more than ever clear that these mysterious thieves were after some document which they believed he had, though why they should have supposed he held a valuable document he could not imagine. But the searching first of his pockets and then of his safe and house unmistakably suggested such a conclusion. He wondered if he should advance this theory, then decided he would first hear what the others had to say.

      ‘Now, mother,’ he went on, ‘it’s past your bedtime, but before you go I wish you would tell me what happened to you. Remember I have heard no details other than what Miss Hazelton mentioned on the telephone.’

      Mrs Cheyne answered with some eagerness, evidently anxious to relieve her mind by relating her experiences.

      ‘The first thing was the telegram,’ she began. ‘Agatha and I were sitting here this afternoon. I was sewing and Agatha was reading the paper—or was it the Spectator, Agatha?’

      ‘The paper, mother, though that does not really matter.’

      ‘No, of course it doesn’t matter,’ Mrs Cheyne repeated. It was evident the old lady had had a shock and found it difficult to concentrate her attention. ‘Well, at all events we were sitting here as I have said, sewing and reading, when your telegram was brought in.’

      ‘My telegram?’ Cheyne queried sharply. ‘What telegram do you mean?’

      ‘Why, your telegram about Mr Ackfield, of course,’ his mother answered with some petulance. ‘What other telegram could it be? It did not give us much time, but—’

      ‘But, mother dear, I don’t know what you are talking about. I sent no telegram.’

      Agatha made a sudden gesture.

      ‘There!’ she exclaimed eagerly. ‘What did I say? When we came home and learned what had happened, and thought of your not turning up,’ she glanced at her brother, ‘I said it was only a blind. It was sent to get us away from the house!’

      Cheyne shrugged his shoulders good humouredly. What he had half expected had evidently taken place.

      ‘Dear people,’ he protested, ‘this is worse than getting money from a Scotchman. Do tell me what has happened. You were sitting here this afternoon when you received a telegram. Very well now, what time was that?’

      ‘What time? Oh, about—what time did the telegram come, Agatha?’

      ‘Just as the clock was striking four. I heard it strike immediately after the ring.’

      ‘Good,’ said Cheyne in what he imagined was the manner of a cross-examining K.C. ‘And what was in the telegram?’

      The girl was evidently too much upset by her experience to resent his superior tone. She crossed the room, and taking a flimsy pink form from a table, handed it over to him.

      The telegram had been sent out from the General Post Office in Plymouth at 3-17 that afternoon, and read:

      ‘You and Agatha СКАЧАТЬ