Half-Way House
There was no mist on the water when, some weeks later, Detective-Inspector Kendall stepped on board a trim yacht named Spray II, moored at a river mouth somewhere in Africa, to renew his acquaintance with two young people. Hazeldean gripped his hand firmly, and Dora—a very different Dora from the timid girl he had first met in the shadow of the ramparts—was equally happy to see him.
“My advice has proved good, Miss Fenner,” exclaimed Kendall. “I hardly recognise you!”
“All the change isn’t due to you, Mr. Kendall,” she answered, with a glance at Hazeldean.
“But Kendall started the ball rolling by clearing us out of a bad atmosphere into a good one,” said Hazeldean. “That was the smartest bit of work he ever did!”
“I agree,” nodded Kendall, “though some of the credit must also go to the commissaire and the doctor. It was the doctor, in fact, who warned me that Miss Fenner might go under if she didn’t escape at once from policemen and publicity.”
“It—it was that last news—about what had happened at Haven House—that nearly finished me,” murmured Dora.
“And the policemen and the publicity would have quite finished you,” nodded Kendall. “That’s why I packed you both off. I didn’t need you any more—just then.”
“Just then?” repeated Hazeldean.
Kendall smiled.
“Those two words shouldn’t surprise you. I named this date and this place for a possible reunion—and here I am.”
“Well, here we are,” responded Hazeldean. “Having obeyed you in all things. Not only have we cut ourselves adrift from everything but winds, tides, fishes, birds and mosquitoes, but we’ve kept this date for you. Do you know we’ve been hanging around here for a fortnight? I only hope you’re going to make it worth our while! There’s a particular mosquito we’ve named George, who calls regularly every night to sing to my nose, that I’m just longing to get away from.”
“We’ll get away from him,” promised Kendall. “Do you still stock that excellent sherry I once tasted in a smaller river mouth in Essex?”
“Thus tactfully,” smiled Hazeldean, “a smart detective steered the conversation towards the true object of his visit.”
“Which was not the sherry,” said Kendall.
When they were seated in the saloon, with the sherry before them, Kendall suddenly asked, “How much more do you two know than when you sailed off?”
“Very little,” replied Hazeldean. “You can take it—nothing. We did the thing thoroughly. Dropped right out when you let us go, and haven’t worried about papers. We don’t even know—whether you’ve found any one yet?”
“Not Mr. Fenner,” answered Kendall. “Yet.”
“No trace of him since he took my boat and vanished into the mist?”
“None.”
“What about the others?”
“We found Marie the day after you left.”
“Where?”
“At the pension.”
“At the pension? She went back?” exclaimed Dora.
“Pierre chased her back,” replied Kendall. “He caught her up before she left the ramparts and turned her round again. I don’t know just how he managed it. Marie doesn’t know herself. He scared the life out of her, and when we found her she was nearly out of her mind.”
“But I don’t understand!” exclaimed Hazeldean. “Marie wasn’t at the pension when you came along.”
“As a matter of fact, she was,” answered Kendall. “We only unearthed her just in time. Mr. Fenner had a secret workshop at both ends—Boulogne and Benwick—and Master Pierre knew all about it.”
“You mean, he’d hidden her there?”
“Practically buried her there. But, as I say, we got her out of the cellar in the nick, and she’s been looked after.”
“Poor Marie!” murmured Dora.
“Not so poor as she was,” corrected Kendall, with a dry glance at Hazeldean. “She’s writing her life story.”
Hazeldean laughed.
“Or, do you mean, somebody else is?” he asked.
“Well, I expect somebody else shares the cheques with her. Perhaps, after all, you should have stayed behind, Hazeldean, to pick up the journalistic crumbs?”
“I doubt whether this particular crumb would have been in my line.”
“And it must really be a very tiny crumb,” added Dora. “Marie’s life, I should think, must have been very uneventful.”
“Uneventful?” retorted Kendall. “She was the youngest of thirteen children, always wanted to go on the stage, has fallen out of three windows, been in twenty-eight fires, and once walked home under Maurice Chevalier’s umbrella. By the time we get back she will probably be engaged to a film star!… Well, let us leave Marie to the romancers. Personally, I found Pierre and his truth far more interesting.”
“Oh! You found Pierre?” exclaimed Hazeldean.
“Yes, we found Pierre,” responded Kendall. “After Marie. He led us a dance, though, and was as slippery as an eel. He beat us twice. The third time we got him in a Paris attic. We had to get him, and we had to make him talk. Oh, yes, Pierre’s talk was far more interesting than Marie’s writings. He worked for Dr. Jones, just as Dr. Jones worked—sometimes—for Mr. Fenner. And Pierre had a habit of hearing a lot more than he was ever told.”
“I learned of the connection between Jones and Mr. Fenner from Pierre. I learned how they met, and how they worked together, and also where Madame Paula came in. I’m afraid—it’s not particularly—”
“Never mind what it is, please go on,” interposed Dora. “One thing I expect you learned from Pierre was that Dr. Jones was trying to make love to me.”
“Yes, I learned that,” nodded Kendall.
“And my uncle wanted it, so that he could make love to Madame Paula. Did Pierre tell you that?”
“Pierre knew that. He also knew what was in a letter Dr. Jones wrote Mr. Fenner the day before your last visit to Boulogne—”
“Yes, one came in the morning!” exclaimed Dora.
“Do you know what was in it, Miss Fenner?”
“No.”
“I needn’t mince matters?”
“I’ve told you.”
“Well, it was this letter that gave your uncle his first desire to go to Boulogne that week-end. Dr. Jones was impatient. You were giving him no encouragement. Unless your uncle brought you over and altered your mood, the collaboration was at an end, and Dr. Jones would reveal something he knew.”
Dora was silent for a moment. Then she said quietly, “No, I didn’t know that, though it doesn’t surprise me. What was it Dr. Jones threatened to reveal?”
“I don’t know. Nor does Pierre. If Pierre had known, you can be sure the commissaire would have got it out of him—you have only seen that polite gentleman on his best behaviour, I assure you!”
“Then what was the nature of the collaboration?” asked Hazeldean.
“To explain that, I’ll first explain how it arose,” answered Kendall. “I’ve traced a good deal about both Mr. Fenner and Dr. Jones, and everything fits perfectly. When your father was dying, Miss Fenner, he wrote to his brother in South Africa, your uncle, in the hope of patching up an old quarrel. John Fenner would inherit the house—Haven House—and as you were still a child, your father hoped your uncle would take his place, look after you, and make a home for you.”
“Yes, I know that,” said Dora. “He told me before he died. He died before Uncle John came.”
“Did you also know that your uncle sailed from South Africa in the Good Friday, but arrived at Southampton on the William George?”
“Yes. At least, I knew the first ship had been wrecked, and that Uncle John was the only person saved.”
“He was picked up by the William George. No trace was ever found of the Good Friday. Your uncle said there had been a mutiny, and that everything, including the wireless, had been smashed before the ship went down. He was in a pretty bad condition when he was rescued. Practically unconscious, and clinging to the last portion of the small boat he’d got away in. The doctor of the William George looked after him, and kept him in his cabin. The doctor was Dr. Jones.
“I’ve traced the record of the William George’s surgeon at that time. It isn’t much of a record. His conduct had not been professional, and he’d been struck off the Medical Register.
“But now, apparently, that didn’t matter. The shipwrecked man—John Fenner—whom he’d brought back to life remained his friend. Dr. Jones had a lady friend, also, in Boulogne, who needed money to keep her pension going. Your uncle supplied that money, Miss Fenner, and enabled Dr. Jones to marry the lady and become her permanent boarder.”
“Wasn’t Mr. Fenner rather elaborate in his gratitude?” suggested Hazeldean.
“Extremely elaborate,” answered Kendall. “Especially as he needed his inheritance to assist him with his invention. All his money went to the invention and to Dr. Jones. That explains why he pleaded poverty to his niece—”
“And why you had to do all the housework, Dora,” said Hazeldean. “Of course, what Dr. Jones got out of it wasn’t due to gratitude, but to blackmail.”
“Yes, obviously,” replied Kendall. “Dr. Jones learned something while he was bringing John Fenner back to life in his cabin on the William George—and what he learned will prove, when we learn it ourselves—to be the kernel of the mystery.”
“How are we going to learn it?”
“There are two possible sources. One is from John Fenner himself—the other I’ll tell you shortly. Jones, after settling down with Madame Paula in the pension, seems to have led a useless sort of a life there. His inglorious career had also included a short term in the Air Force, and he took up flying again as a hobby. He flew Fenner across to Boulogne more than once. I found a cable in a drawer of Jones’s bedroom. It said: ‘Agree. William George. Usual. Wait.’ Guessing that the words ‘William George’ were used by them for the aeroplane—probably covering some recognised arrangement—we can elaborate this message into something along the following lines: ‘Agree to the terms of your letter this morning. Fetch me by aeroplane. Will meet you in the usual place. Wait till I turn up.’ The usual place, of course, was the isolated field where Wade and I found Fenner’s bicycle.” He paused as his mind travelled back. “That mist, you know—it might have played the devil with all their arrangements, and instead it was on their side right the way through. It lifted when they needed to see, and came on again when they needed not to be seen.”
“We’re piercing plenty of mist now, anyway,” commented Hazeldean.
“Before we’ve finished we’ll pierce the lot,” answered Kendall. His eyes rested for a moment on the little round of brilliant blue water that danced and sparkled through the porthole, as though he were dwelling on the contrast. Then he went on: “Matters came to a head on that last trip across the water. I dare say the two men quarrelled en route, but Fenner had to get over. When they landed, however, and Jones got nasty—we can be sure they had plenty to quarrel about—he had to be dealt with. Well, we know what happened to Jones.”
“May I interrupt for a moment?” asked Hazeldean.
“Of course. Have you found a flaw?”
“No, but Madame Paula said that Mr. Fenner had arrived on the evening before—”
“Yes, by the boat I missed,” added Dora.
“Madame Paula was lying,” answered Kendall, “which proves the extent to which she was interested in Mr. Fenner. She was ready to lie for him and fly with him. Whether he told her everything, we don’t know; but a woman like that generally knows on which side her bread is buttered, and by now she probably had little feeling left for her husband.”
“She hated him,” said Dora.
“She had every reason to,” replied Kendall. “And so, Miss Fenner, had you. We won’t waste any special sympathy over Dr. Jones. But—the seven victims whose deaths preceded that of Dr. Jones? I think we shall find a very different story here.”
He stared at his half-empty glass, made a movement to finish it, then pushed it away.
“Those seven people were finished off most devilishly by a new form of gas which is interesting our authorities at this moment,” he continued. “Probably Fenner hoped to make his fortune out of that gas. Probably Jones did also. Well, the gas was convenient for another purpose not originally thought of—and now we come to the cricket ball.”
“There’s one question I’d like to put first,” interposed Hazeldean. “Where does Pierre come into all this? Is he just a naturally bad character who happened to be handy, or does he fit into the jig-saw?”
“He fits into the jig-saw,” replied Kendall. “He was a steward on the William George. Jones took him along with him to Boulogne. Exactly why, I can’t say. We’re satisfied we’ve got all the truth we can out of him—which is quite enough to go on with as far as Pierre himself is concerned—and that he doesn’t know the nature of the original secret between Jones and Fenner. But I expect he smelt a rat—maybe as far back as on the boat—and that Jones thought it wise to have him under his wing.”
“He recognised a brother of the breed!” added Hazeldean. “Well—what have you found out about the cricket ball?”
“Very little, for certain. Rather less, by presumption. But the complete story—well, we’re on the way to that now, I hope.”
“We?”
“You, I, Miss Fenner, and your crew.”
The atmosphere in the cabin suddenly tightened. Kendall himself seemed to feel it, for he added quickly: “Of course, we needn’t include Miss Fenner.”
“Mr. Kendall,” answered Dora, “do you seriously think you can leave me out?”
Kendall knew that he couldn’t.
“Right! Very well, that’s settled. Now, what we know for certain about the cricket ball is that it came through a window and gave Mr. Fenner a severe shock. That it increased his desire to leave Haven House, supplying a second urgent motive for going to Boulogne. And that it was an old ball. Expert opinion suggests from five to ten years as the age. I verified the fact that balls of this make and type were obtainable from five to ten years ago in Cape Town—from where John Fenner sailed. Although the ball has known an extraordinary amount of wear and sea-water, the impressions of two small letters are just decipherable. They’ve helped. By the way, Miss Fenner, your father—John Fenner’s brother—also came from South Africa, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he was born there, and he had meant to go back when he left,” replied Dora, “but he met my mother in England and stayed to marry her.”
“And he never went back at all?”
“No. I think Uncle John was rather upset. There were only the two of them, and they were in business together.”
“Did your Uncle John ever speak about this?”
“To me? Only once, that I can remember. It was just after he arrived at Haven House. ‘Your father deserted me,’ he said, ‘but, you see, I’m not deserting him, and bear him no ill-will.’”
“I don’t see why he should,” commented Kendall dryly, “since he was coming into the property! You’ve got the words pretty pat.”
“Yes. They were among his first words, and I think one would remember those. Besides—they seemed so—stilted.”
Kendall nodded. “And your mother?”
“She died a year after I was born.”
“I see. Yes… Well, to return to the cricket ball, I’ve told you all I know; and now here are some presumptions. Your uncle had seen that cricket ball before, and he interpreted it correctly as a warning. He sent you off, in consequence, to Boulogne. Then, in the evening, he received seven visitors, disguised as his own butler. Then he went to fetch himself, but fetched something else instead—his gas—which he sent through the keyhole… I’ve identified some of those seven visitors.”
“You have?” cried Hazeldean.
“Yes. From the list of passengers and crew who were on the Good Friday, the ship he sailed on, from some descriptions, and from a group photograph. Fenner lied when he said he was the only one saved. The photograph, taken just before the ship sailed, shows the third officer, Harold Brown. He is one of the seven. It also shows a rather mannish-looking woman walking along a gangway. If it had been taken a couple of seconds later, we should have lost her, for she’s only just on the picture. Look.”
Now he drew the photograph from his pocket and laid it on the narrow cabin table. Hazeldean and Dora peered over it, and Hazeldean gave an exclamation.
“You recognise her?” asked Kendall quietly.
“In—the chair,” murmured Hazeldean.
“That was my impression. In spite of the usual theory, photos sometimes lie, but these features seem too distinctive to mistake. I haven’t got her name—just the picture. Do you recognise any more?”
Hazeldean studied the photograph.
“One more, I think,” he said at last. “The fellow on the couch?”
“Arthur Lawson,” nodded Kendall. “And looking—if I may say so—more vapid in life than he looked in death. That the lot?”
“No!”
It was Dora’s voice this time. She was peering over Hazeldean’s shoulder. She touched a small figure leaning idly over a rail, without betraying any interest in the photographer.
“Well?”
“Uncle John!”
“Yes, there’s not much doubt about it. That proves that the whole of his story was not fiction—he was on that ship—and, in addition, we find three of the seven victims accounted for. I’m particularly disappointed not to find the old gentleman who fired the shot, but though he’s not in the picture, I am concluding he was on the ship. I am also concluding that the two seamen were on the ship. That brings the number up to six. And the seventh I have identified by a description. This, Hazeldean, is the tall brown-haired man who was lying nearest the door. The man with the scar on the back of his head. I found out something rather interesting about him—including how he got that scar. He was cricket mad. Played regularly for his club in Port Elizabeth—William Miles, I’ve looked up some of his scores—and he kept up his enthusiasm even after receiving a crack on the head through looking the wrong way. As a matter of fact, that crack on the head seems to have made him madder about the game than ever, because afterwards he carried the ball about with him wherever he went—as a mascot! Queer that, eh? And mighty interesting… Let’s have your thought, Hazeldean. You’re wondering about something?”
“I’m wondering whether William Miles had his mascot in his pocket when the Good Friday went down,” replied Hazeldean.
“I’m not—I’m damn sure he did!” answered Kendall, with a grim smile. “But now I want to talk about another ship—the Ferndale. You remember, the name Ferndale was on the abandoned boat our seven victims arrived at the creek in.”
“Have you proved that?”
“Sufficiently. You haven’t forgotten that little photograph of Miss Fenner I found in it.”
“Yes, but how do you explain that?” asked Dora.
“We’ll find the explanation presently,” returned Kendall, “and meanwhile it serves as a connecting link. It belonged, obviously, to one of those seven people. Two separate mysteries relating to your family would be too much of a coincidence! Now, then, about the Ferndale. We had no difficulty in tracing the origin of that little boat. Eleven months ago a cargo steamer named Ferndale, bound for Buenos Aires from Cape Town, met a storm and was driven off her course. The storm was a terror, and she went farther south than she had ever been. The only ultimate damage, however, was a lost boat—in addition to lost time. Yes? You’re wondering about something else?”
“Pretty obvious what I’m wondering, isn’t it?” responded Hazeldean. “That lost boat seems to have travelled the hell of a distance!”
“South?”
“And north!”
“Yes. But is that all you’re wondering about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t it strike you that there’s a surprising amount of South Atlantic about this business?”
“Well, of course. The Good Friday went down there, the William George picked Fenner up there, and now—the Ferndale. But if they’re all part of the same story, you’d expect to find ’em in a bunch.”
“Can’t you add something else to the bunch?”
Hazeldean thought, then shook his head.
“Your mind’s been off this case lately—mine hasn’t,” said Kendall. “What about a piece of paper? A piece of paper on one side of which a murderer had written in printing letters: ‘With apologies from the Suicide Club,’ in a cumbrous attempt to shift the blame—”
“By God—yes!” exclaimed Hazeldean. “And on the other side of the paper—”
“One of his victims managed to scribble, in his last moments of consciousness: ‘Particulars at address 59·16s 4·6e G.’ Suppose ‘G’ was the first letter of a sentence intended to start with the word ‘Go,’ and suppose 59·16s and 4·6e represent latitude and longitude. By the way, did you mention this piece of paper to Fenner? I suppose you did?”
“Yes, I mentioned it,” nodded Hazeldean.
“Then I’ve a hunch that’s where Spray I has gone,” said Kendall, “and where Spray II is going to follow!”
Dora had suddenly left the table. Now she returned breathlessly with a map. She spread it out before them on the flat surface.
“Just blue water,” murmured Hazeldean.
“Call that a map?” retorted Kendall, and produced another.
Kendall’s map was a large scale chart of a small portion of South Atlantic. Hazeldean knew the charts well, for he used them himself, though he did not possess one as far south as this.
“See that tiny dot?” said Kendall.
“By Jove!” murmured Hazeldean.
“Well,” asked Kendall, “what about paying the tiny dot a surprise visit?”