Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries Page 9

  Mr Beck smiled benignly. The girl was very young and pretty and innocent—little more than a child, who had been playing at a make-believe engagement.

  ‘How long is it since you changed your mind?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I never really made it up to marry Mr Hawkins. I only just agreed to become engaged. But about a week or ten days ago I found I could not go on with it.’

  ‘I see; that was about the time, was it not, that the young electrical engineer, Mr Ryan, arrived?’

  She flushed hotly.

  ‘Oh! it’s not that at all—how hateful you are! Mr Ryan is nothing to me, nothing. Besides, he was most rude; called me a flirt, and said I led him on and never told him I was engaged. Now we don’t even speak, and I’m so miserable. What shall I do?’

  ‘Don’t fret,’ said Mr Beck, cheerily; ‘it will come all right.’

  ‘Oh! but it cannot come all right. Father will be bitterly disappointed if I don’t marry Mr Hawkins. He’s awfully rich, carries diamonds about loose in his waistcoat pocket. He has fifty thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds getting brightened up in Amsterdam; that’s where they put a polish on them, you know. He showed father the receipt for them mixed up with bank-notes in his pocket-book. His friend, Mr Bolton, who is in the same business, says Mr Hawkins is a millionaire.’

  ‘And Mr Ryan has only his brains and his profession,’ said Mr Beck, cynically.

  ‘Now you are just horrid. I don’t care twopence about Mr Hawkins’ diamonds or his millions. But I love father better than anyone else.’

  ‘Except?’ suggested Mr Beck, maliciously.

  ‘There is no exception—not one. You come second-best yourself.’

  ‘Oh, do I? Then I will see if I cannot find some diamonds and cut out Mr Hawkins. Meantime, let us get on to our dinner. You need not be in any hurry to break your heart. You are not going to marry Mr Hawkins to-morrow or the day after. Something may happen to stop the marriage altogether. Come along.’

  Something did happen. What that awful something was neither Miss Hazel nor Mr Beck dreamt of at the time.

  It was the fussy half hour before dinner when they arrived at the veranda of the big Thornvale Hotel that had grown out of the Thornvale golf links. As Miss Mag Hazel passed through the throng every eye paid its tribute of admiration; she was by reason of her golf and good looks the acknowledged queen of the place.

  A tall, handsome young fellow near the porch gave a pitiful look as she passed, the humble, appealing look in the eyes of a dog who has offended his master.

  ‘How handsome he is; what beautiful black eyes he has!’ her heart whispered, but her face was unconscious of his existence.

  She evaded a small, dark man with a big hooked nose who came forward eagerly to claim her. ‘Don’t speak to me, Mr Hawkins, don’t look at me. I have not five minutes to dress for dinner.’

  A tall, thin man with a grey, drooping moustache stood close by her left in the central hall. To him she said: ‘I will be down in a minute, dad. I want you to take me in to dinner, mind. You are worth the whole lot of them put together.’

  Colonel Hazel’s sallow cheek flushed with delight, for he loved his daughter with a love that was the best part of his life.

  Big, good-humoured, smiling Tom Bolton, as the girl went in to dinner on her father’s arm, whispered a word in the ear of his friend, Sam Hawkins, and the millionaire diamond merchant cast a scowling glance at handsome Ned Ryan, who gave him frown for frown with interest thereto.

  At Thornvale Hotel the company lived, moved, and had their being in golf. They played golf all day on the links, and talked golf all the evening at the hotel. All the varied forms of golf lunacy were in evidence there. There was the fat elderly lady who went round ‘for her figure,’ tapping the ball before her on the smooth ground, and throwing it or carrying it over the bunkers. There was the man who was always grumbling about his ‘blanked’ luck, and who never played what he was pleased to think was his ‘true game.’

  There was the man who sang comic songs on the green, and the man whose nerves were strained like fiddle-strings and tingled at every stir or whisper, whom the flight of a butterfly put off his stroke. There was a veteran of eighty-five, who still played a steady game. He had once been a scratch man, and though the free, loose vigour of his ‘swing’ was lost, his eye and arm had not forgotten the lesson of years. His favourite opponent was a boy of twelve, who swung loose and free as if he were a figure of indiarubber with no bones in his arms.

  Mr Hawkins and Mr Bolton were a perfect match with a level handicap of twelve; each believed that he could just beat the other, and the excitement of their incessant contests was intense.

  But Miss Mag Hazel reigned undisputed queen of the links. None of the ladies, and only one or two of the men, could even ‘give her a game.’ Lissom as an ash sapling, every muscle in her body, from her shoulder to her ankle, took part in the graceful swing which, without effort, drove the ball further than a strong man could smite it by brute force. Her wrist was like a fine steel spring, as sensitive and as true.

  Heretofore only one player disputed her supremacy—Mr Beck, the famous detective, who was idling a month in the quiet hotel after an exciting and successful criminal hunt half way round the world. Mr Beck was, as he always proclaimed, a lucky player. If he never made a brilliant stroke, he never made a bad one, and kept wonderfully clear of the bunkers. The brilliant players found he had an irritating trick of plodding on steadily, and coming out a hole ahead at the end of the round.

  He and Mag Hazel played constantly together until young Ned Ryan came on the scene. Ryan was a brilliant young fellow with muscles of whipcord and whalebone, whose drive was like a shot from a catapult. But he played a sporting game, and very often drove into the bunker which was meant to catch the second shot of a second-class player. Mag Hazel found it easier to hold her own against his brilliance than against the plodding pertinacity of Mr Beck.

  It may be that the impressionable young Irishman could not quite play his game when she was his opponent. He found it hard to obey the golfer’s first commandment: ‘Keep your eye on the ball.’ He tried to play two games at the same time, and golf will have no divided allegiance.

  The end of a happy fortnight came suddenly. It was a violent scene when, in a grassy bunker wide of the course, into which he had deliberately pulled his ball, he asked her to marry him, and learnt that she was engaged to the millionaire diamond merchant, Mr Hawkins. Poor Ned Ryan, with Irish impetuosity, raved and stormed at her cruelty in leading him to love her, swore his life was barren for evermore, and even muttered some very mysterious, meaningless threats against the more fortunate Mr Hawkins.

  Tender-hearted Mag had been very meek and penitent while he raved and stormed, but he was not to be appeased by her meekness, and flung away from her in a rage.

  Then it was her turn to be implacable when he became penitent. All that evening he hovered round her like a blundering moth round a lamp, but she ignored him as completely as the lamp the moth and shed the light of her smiles on Mr Beck.

  So those two foolish young people played the old game in the old, foolish fashion, and tormented themselves and each other. The two men concerned in the matter, Mr Ryan and Mr Hawkins, scowled at each other on the golf links and at the bridge table, to the intense amusement of the company, who understood how little golf or cards had to do with the quarrel.

  At last Ned Ryan had an open row with Mr Hawkins on the golf links, and told him, quite unnecessarily, he was no gentleman.

  Then suddenly this light comedy deepened into sombre tragedy. The late breakfasters at the hotel were still at table when the thrilling, shocking news came to them that Mr Hawkins had been found murdered on the links.

  Perhaps it is more convenient to tell the dismal story in the order in which it was told in evidence at the coroner’s inquest.

  Mr Hawkins and M
r Bolton had arranged a round in the early morning before breakfast, when they would have the links to themselves. They had a glass of milk and a biscuit, and started off in good spirits, each boasting he was certain to win.

  They started some time between half-past six and seven, and about an hour afterwards Mr Bolton returned hastily, saying that he had forgotten an important letter he had to send by that morning’s post, and that he had left Mr Hawkins grumbling at having to finish his round alone. Mr Bolton then went up to his own room, and five minutes later came back with a letter, which he carefully posted with his own hand just as the box was being cleared.

  At half-past seven Colonel Hazel, strolling across the links, specially noticed there were no players to be seen. Ned Ryan went out at a quarter to eight o’clock to have a round by himself, having first asked Mr Bolton to join him. He had, as he stated, almost completed his round, when in the great, sandy bunker that guarded the seventeenth green he found Mr Hawkins stone dead.

  He instantly gave the alarm, and Mr Beck and Mr Bolton were among the first on the scene. The detective, placid and imperturbable as ever, poked and pried about the body and the bunker where it lay. Mr Bolton was plainly broken-hearted at the sudden death of his life-long friend.

  Beyond all doubt and question the man was murdered. There was a deep dint of some heavy, blunt weapon on the back of his head, fracturing the skull. But death had not been instantaneous. The victim had turned upon his assassin, for there were two other marks on his face—one an ugly, livid bruise on his cheek, and the other a deep, horrible gash on the temple from the same blunt-edged weapon. The last wound must have been instantly fatal. The weapon slew as it struck.

  It was plain that robbery was not the motive of the crime. His heavy purse with a score of sovereigns and his pocket-book full of bank-notes were in his pockets, his fine diamond pin in his scarf, and his handsome watch in his fob.

  The watch had been struck and smashed, and, as so often happens in such cases, it timed the murder to a moment. It had stopped at half-past eight. It was five minutes after nine when Mr Ryan had given the alarm.

  While all the others looked on in open-eyed horror, incapable of thought or action, Mr Beck’s quick eyes found a corner of the bunker where the sand had been disturbed recently. Rooting with his hands as a dog digs at a rabbit burrow with his paws, he dug out a heavy niblick. The handle was snapped in two, and the sand that clung damply round the iron face left a dark crimson stain on the fingers that touched it.

  No one then could doubt that the murderous weapon had been found.

  Mr Beck examined it a moment, and a frown gathered on his placid face. ‘This is Mr Ryan’s niblick,’ he said slowly.

  The words sent a quiver of excitement through the crowd. All eyes turned instinctively to the face of the young Irishman, who flushed in sudden anger.

  ‘It’s a lie,’ he shouted, ‘my niblick is here.’ He turned to his bag which lay on the sward beside him. ‘My God! it’s gone. I never noticed it until this moment.’

  ‘Yes, that is mine,’ he added, as Mr Beck held out the blood-stained iron for inspection. ‘But I swear I never missed it till this moment.’

  Not a word more was said.

  The crowd broke up into groups, each man whispering suspicions under his breath. The whisperers recalled the recent quarrel between the men, and in every trifling circumstance clear proof of guilt was found. Only Mr Bolton stood out staunchly for the young Irishman, and professed his faith in his innocence.

  Like a man in a dream Ned Ryan returned alone to the hotel, where an hour later he was arrested. On being searched after arrest a five-pound note with Hawkins’ name on the back of it was found in his pocket, and his explanation that he had won it at golf provoked incredulous smiles and shrugs amongst the gossipers. Two days later a coroner’s jury found a verdict of wilful murder against the young engineer.

  There was a second sensation, in its way almost as exciting as the first, when it was found that the murdered man had willed the whole of his huge fortune unconditionally to Miss Margaret Hazel.

  But the girl declared vehemently she would never touch a penny of it, never, until the real murderer was discovered. She had a stormy interview with Mr Beck, whom she passionately charged with attempts to fix the guilt on an innocent man. She made no secret now of her love for the young Irishman, to the horror of the respectable and proper people at the hotel, who looked forward with cheerful assurance to her lover’s execution.

  But the distracted girl cared for none of those things. She poured the vials of her wrath on Mr Beck.

  ‘You pretended to be my friend,’ she said, ‘and then you did all in your power to hang the innocent man I love.’

  Mr Beck was soothing and imperturbable. ‘Nothing of the kind, my dear young lady. It is always my pleasant duty to save the innocent and hang the guilty.’

  ‘Then why did you find out that niblick?’

  ‘The more things that are found,’ said Mr Beck, ‘the better for the innocent and the worse for the guilty.’

  ‘Oh! I’m not talking about that,’ she cried, with a bewildering change of front. ‘But here you are pottering about doing nothing instead of trying to save him. I will give you every penny poor Mr Hawkins left me if you save him.’

  Mr Beck smiled benignly at this magnificent offer. ‘Won’t you two want something to live on?’ he asked, ‘when I have saved him, and before he makes his fortune.’

  She let the question go by. ‘Then you will, you promise me you will!’ she cried eagerly.

  ‘I will try to assist the course of justice,’ he said, with formal gravity, but his eyes twinkled, and she took comfort therefrom.

  ‘That’s not what I want at all.’

  ‘You believe Mr Ryan is innocent?’ asked Mr Beck.

  ‘Of course I do. What a question!’

  ‘If he is innocent I will try to save him—if not—’

  ‘There is no “if not.” Oh! I’m quite satisfied, and I thank you with all my heart.’

  She caught up the big, strong hand and kissed it, and then collapsed on the sofa for a good cry, while Mr Beck stole discreetly from the room and set out for a solitary stroll on the golf links, every yard of which he questioned with shrewd eyes.

  He made one small discovery on the corner of the second green. He found a ball which had belonged to the murdered man. There was no doubt about the ownership. Mr Hawkins had a small gold seal with his initial cut in it. This he used to heat with a match to brand his ball. The tiny black letters, ‘S.H.,’ were burnt through the white skin of the new ‘Professional’ ball, which Mr Beck found on the corner of the second green. He put the ball in his pocket and said nothing about his find.

  But about another curious discovery of his he was quite voluble that evening at dinner. He found, he said, a peculiar-looking waistcoat button in the bunker that guarded the second green. It seemed to him to have been torn violently from the garment, for a shred of the cloth still clung to it.

  ‘If I had found it in the bunker where the murder was committed,’ said Mr Beck, ‘I would have regarded it as a very important piece of evidence. Anyhow it may help. I will examine young Ryan’s waistcoats to see if it fits any of them.’

  Then for a few days nothing happened, and excitement smouldered. People had no heart to play golf over the scene of the murder. The parties gradually dispersed and scattered homewards. Colonel Hazel, who had been completely broken up by the tragedy, was amongst the first to go.

  Mag gave her address to Mr Beck, with strict injunctions to wire the moment he had good news. ‘Remember, I trust you,’ were the last words she said as they parted at the hotel door.

  Mr Bolton and Mr Beck were almost the two last to leave. The diamond merchant was disconsolate over the death of his old friend and comrade, and the detective did all in his power to comfort him.

  One morn
ing Mr Bolton had a telegram which, as he explained to Mr Beck, called him away on urgent business. He left that afternoon, and Mr Beck went with him as far as Liverpool, when they parted, each on his respective business.

  ***

  The next scene in the tragedy was staged in Holland.

  Two men sat alone together in a first-class railway carriage that slid smoothly through a level landscape intersected with canals. They had put aside their papers, and talked and smoked. One of the men was plainly a German by his dress and manner—the other a Frenchman.

  The Frenchman had tried vainly to stagger through a conversation in German and the German in French until they had found a common ground in English which both spoke well though with a strong foreign accent.

  There had been an account of a big diamond robbery in the papers, and their talk drifted on to crimes and criminals of all countries—a topic with which the Frenchman seemed strangely familiar. He did most of the talking. The German sat back in his corner and grunted out a word or two of assent, to all appearance deeply interested in the talk. Now and again a silver flask passed between the two men, who grew momentarily more intimate.

  ‘Herr Raphael,’ said the Frenchman, ‘I am glad to have met you. You have made the journey very pleasant for me. You are a man I feel I can trust. I am not, as I told you, Victor Grandeau, a French journalist. I am plain Mr Paul Beck, an English detective, at your service.’