When French reached the Yard next morning he found that a reply had come in from America.
The chief of the Chicago police stated that Geoffrey Buller had been in real estate in the city, but in quite a subordinate position, an employee on a moderate salary. There was no reason to believe that he had been obtaining money from any other source. His character was reputed to be ‘ordinary’.
From this it seemed clear that Sir Geoffrey could not have contributed materially to the maintenance of Forde Manor, a fact which undoubtedly strengthened the case for arson.
So much the better for Shaw, thought French, but what of himself? If Buller were not responsible for Charles Barke’s disappearance, how and why had that disappearance occurred? What line of investigation into this was now left? For an hour French sat reading and rereading the dossier, pausing over each item to consider if by any means it might point the way to a further advance, and from each passing on disappointed. He could find nothing to grip; nothing to get his teeth into. In so many of his cases the puzzle was to reconcile what appeared to be conflicting facts, but here it was in the absence of facts that his difficulty lay.
He was beginning his second hour of mental struggle when his telephone rang. It was Shaw.
‘I’m speaking from Ockham,’ the insurance man explained. ‘I’ve come on one or two suggestive points over at Forde Manor. It occurred to me that you might be interested. Care to drop down?’ In his present frame of mind the voice came like a message from heaven. ‘I’ll be with you in an hour,’ French replied without hesitation.
‘Then bring some overalls and come direct to the Manor.’ Once again the day was fine and French enjoyed his run out of town. Relieved to have his exasperating problem postponed, he was in excellent form as he turned the car in at the Manor gates and drove up to what had been the house. Shaw, in a boiler suit and with a smear across his face, appeared through the blackened doorway as the car stopped.
‘Glad you were able to come,’ he greeted French. ‘I think this’ll interest you as much as it does me. Bring some old clothes?’
‘Overalls; in the back of the car. What have you found?’
‘Nothing,’ Shaw returned with apparent satisfaction. ‘Drawn a complete blank so far.’
A wave of misgiving swept over French. ‘Nothing?’ he repeated. ‘But you didn’t bring me down here to tell me you had found nothing?’
Shaw laughed. ‘Just what I’ve done,’ he admitted. ‘Sounds bad, doesn’t it? But perhaps it’s not quite so bad as it sounds.’
French conquered his momentary irritation. He threw open the car door. ‘Sit down in here,’ he invited, ‘and tell me about it. Pipe or cigarette?’
‘Pipe,’ Shaw returned. ‘Thanks.’ He took French’s pouch. ‘You were over in Paris?’
‘Yesterday,’ French answered. ‘How did you know?’
‘Rang up about this yesterday morning. They said you’d probably be back today. Any news of your little job?’
‘None,’ French told him, going on to give an account of his expedition.
‘Curious thing that,’ Shaw ruminated, ‘because here it looks—well, you’d better form your own conclusions.’
‘Tell me.’
Shaw handed back the pouch and lit his pipe before replying. ‘One of my most important jobs,’ he went on at last, ‘as you know is to find out in a case of fire how the outbreak has originated. Once that’s done the question of arson is usually settled.’
‘Like finding the body for me. And if there’s a knife sticking out of the back we stop wondering whether it’s murder.’
‘That’s right,’ Shaw agreed. ‘Well, I began by summarizing the available evidence. The first man to see the fire was a farmer’s labourer. Smoke was then pouring from the centre block and red flickering was showing through the hall windows. I had some trouble fixing the time of that. I needn’t worry you with the details, but I managed it at last. It was a quarter past two.’
‘So that it started in the centre block.’
‘It started in the centre block. But more than that: at a quarter past two it had got just so far. Very well, various people then came on the scene; the head gardener, some more labourers; Mrs Stanton, a policeman, the fire brigades from Cobham and London and so on. In each case I tried to fix the hour of arrival and the state of the fire at that time, and in that way I’ve been able to build up a sort of synthetic time study of its progress.’
‘Good,’ French approved.
‘My next move was to find out, mainly from Mrs Stanton, what I may call the building’s inflammability. I learned its construction, where there were wooden floors and wall panelling, where the furniture was placed and what it consisted of, how the breaking of the windows might increase the draught—all those sort of things.’
‘The deuce of a lot of work.’
‘Yes, and of course only estimating at that. But I got it done at last, and then I felt it had been worth the trouble. For I was sure the fire had spread too fast.’
‘Too fast?’
‘Yes. Of course it was only guesswork, but I have a fair experience of fire and that was my strong opinion.’
‘I suppose by that you mean that it was helped?’
‘I thought so. I’ve seen cases where paraffin or petrol has been used with a similar result.’
French was interested. ‘Go on,’ he urged.
‘My next point was: How did the outbreak occur? Well, I went into all the usual possibilities. It wasn’t lightning, for there had been no storm. It wasn’t accidental focusing of the sun’s rays, because it had taken place at night. So far as was known, there had been no explosion. Spontaneous combustion was a more difficult question, but I couldn’t find that there had been anything in the place which might have gone up in that way. In the end I eliminated everything but two possibilities which as a matter of fact had been suggested by Mrs Stanton. Those were the central heating and the electric mains.
‘I took the mains first. Fortunately the electricity people had a plan of the house showing the installation, and what with that and seeing their men and discussing the thing with Relf, I was able to trace where the mains had run from their entrance to the master switches. This was in the centre wing admittedly, but it was wholly along brick walls and away from timber or anything inflammable. Further, the electrical people assured me that the wires were properly cased in pipes fixed below ceiling level and that it would have been impossible for rats or mice to have got at them. They were absolutely positive that no fusing or heating could have taken place, and that the current could under no circumstances have Started a fire. The fuse boxes I found; they were beneath an arched flue and were protected. None of them had been blown. I learnt also that all the switches were open, and that the current had not been turned on for some weeks.’
‘Pretty conclusive, all that.’
‘I thought so and therefore turned to the central heating. The boiler and furnace were in a cellar under that centre wing, so that things looked promising. But here the evidence was just as strong. The cellar was all brick, including the floor, and even if by some miracle hot coals had dropped out of the furnace, there was nothing for them to set alight. Relf, who did the firing, struck me as a competent man, and I have been assured on all hands that he is reliable.
‘There remained then the chimney. I made the usual test of putting a smoke up from below, sealing the top, and looking for leaks. I didn’t find any, but I wasn’t satisfied with that. I examined it all over from ladders, and I can tell you at once it wasn’t the chimney. Firstly, nowhere from furnace to cowl was there a bit of timber projecting into it, and secondly, I tore down the brickwork at intervals and it was lined throughout with flue pipes.
French stared. ‘What did you do then?’ he asked after a pause.
‘Rang up and asked you to come down.’
‘And now I’m here, what do you propose?’
‘That we should search the ruins for the real case.’
For a moment French did not reply. At first he was indignant at what looked like a barefaced attempt to exploit him, to obtain freely the advantage of his knowledge and skill. Then he felt Shaw was not the man to do a thing like that. His irritation passed away and he saw the investigation as indirectly helping his own case. If arson were proved against Buller, he would himself have to revise his conclusions as to his connection with Barke.
‘I’d be glad to join with you,’ he therefore answered.
‘Good,’ Shaw replied, getting out of the car. ‘Put those blessed overalls on and we’ll start. I’ve got a couple of men to lend a hand.’
As Shaw spoke he moved to the corner of the building and gave a call. Two labourers appeared, and entering through the gaping void which had been the front door, all four got to work.
It proved a tedious task. They began by clearing an area in the centre of the hall block and then piling up on it the surrounding debris as this was examined and passed as innocuous. Gradually the heap grew, but by lunchtime only half the rubbish in the block had been gone over.
Only one item of interest was recorded. At intervals they came across what looked like large splashes of lead or solder. Some soft metal objects had apparently been melted and had poured down in liquid form. There were quite a number of these—at least ten in the area immediately surrounding the hall. No one concerned could throw any light on their origin.
About one o’clock they knocked off and ran down to the Three Musketeers in Ockham, where an agreeable interlude was passed. Then an hour after resuming work Shaw called out. French went over.
‘What’s that?’ Shaw asked, pointing to a piece of what looked like vulcanite or black bakelite. It was rectangular-shaped, about six inches by nine. One edge was straight and even, the others were turned up and irregular.
‘It’s a part broken off something larger,’ French pointed out. ‘Better see if we can find the rest.’
Further search produced three more pieces. Shaw fitted them together. They did not build up the entire object, but enough were there to show that it had been a rectangular box with an open top.
‘A car battery!’ Shaw exclaimed. ‘Now what was it used for?’ French stood looking down at the remains, considering the suggestion underlying Shaw’s remark. A car battery would certainly start a fire, if given a suitable heater. Was there any way in which the matter could be settled?
Suddenly he saw that there was. Wires! No heater could have been operated without wires. Moreover those wires would be copper and wouldn’t melt. Therefore their remains should still exist.
‘See any wires?’ he asked casually.
‘If they’re here,’ Shaw answered grimly, ‘we’ll find them.’
Presently one of the labourers made an exclamation. ‘Looking for wires, sir?’ he went on. ‘Here you are. Connected to this little knob.’
As he spoke he handed up a tiny object from which hung a pair of copper wires, bare and discoloured by the fire. The moment he saw it a thrill of excitement ran through French’s mind. It was a car cigar lighter. At one end was a miniature coil which grew incandescent when the current was turned on.
He had always thought a lot of Shaw, but now he looked at him with increased respect. ‘You’ve got it, I think,’ he said quietly.
‘Cigarette lighter?’ Shaw returned equally calmly, though his satisfaction was obvious. ‘When I saw the battery I thought of it, though I never believed we’d find it. Good work, Sparkes.’
‘It’s one of those dashboard lighters which are pushed home in a socket to switch on the current,’ French pointed out, ‘but as you see, the wires from the battery are fixed on permanently. That means something else.’
‘A switch!’ exclaimed Shaw. ‘And there’ll be other wires leading to that.’
All four kept on lifting and sifting debris, till at last French announced that he had come on a pair.
Careful work traced them for some feet, and then they came to an end. Shaw rubbed his chin as he stared at them. ‘See,’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘That beam has broken them. We should pick them up again beyond it.’
Another spell of heaving and barring and tugging and the beam was moved and the surrounding rubbish cleared. Again they came on to the wires. They led to what, Shaw saw from his plan, was a small cellar. In the corner, half buried by rubbish, was some unusual-looking apparatus.
‘Let’s have that stuff cleared away,’ Shaw directed.
It was getting dark as the last of the rubbish was removed and they were able to examine the other subjects. First there was a ten-gallon drum which had evidently been open, as the top was missing. Though discoloured by the fire, it was not otherwise damaged, having been protected by a steel joist which had fallen just above it. In the drum was a copper float, sliding up and down a vertical rod. At the bottom of the drum was a tap.
These in themselves presented an interesting combination, but when blackened and twisted electrical apparatus were attached both to the float and the tap, the searchers’ interest grew keener. That on the rod was a Contact, and it was evident that when the float fell to the bottom of the drum, a circuit would be closed. The purpose of the other piece of apparatus was not so clear. It consisted of an electro-magnet, operating the first of a series of levers, the last of which was connected to the tap. Both men stood in silence for a moment, then Shaw slapped his thigh.
‘Pretty!’ he exclaimed. ‘A pretty piece of work. Whoever did it deserved to succeed.’
‘What is it?’ French asked.
‘I have a friend,’ Shaw returned with apparent irrelevance, ‘in Middleton’s, the railway signalling firm, and I’ve often been over the works with him. He’s an enthusiast and he loves explaining his stuff. One of the things he showed me was a signal reverser: that’s an apparatus for electrically throwing a mechanically operated signal to danger without putting back the lever in the signal-box. I needn’t go into it, but the point is that a very small and weak movement, that of the electro-magnet armature, has to operate a comparatively big and heavy mechanism. It’s done by having a hammer-shaped weight swinging on a pivot and held up near the top of its circuit by a trigger. This trigger is attached to the armature, and a movement of an eighth of an inch, when the armature closes, is sufficient to release the weight. The weight crashes down, engaging a heavy lever which is fixed on the same pivot, and its momentum is sufficient to operate the mechanism.’
As he spoke, light was percolating into French’s mind.
‘Now here,’ Shaw went on, ‘you have the same mechanism. Here is the magnet and the armature. This is the weight pivoted here, and you can see the trigger would hold it up. You can also see that when it falls it must come into contact with this lever and so open the tap.’
‘Very good,’ said French. ‘It’s certainly ingenious.’
‘In the signalling affair the putting back of the lever in the box resets the apparatus for the next time, but here,’ Shaw’s voice grew grimmer, ‘no next time was required.’
French nodded. ‘Very ingenious,’ he repeated. ‘Let me get it clear. First the tap would be closed and the weight raised and fixed up with the trigger. Then the drum would be filled with water, carrying the float to the top of the rod. That right?’
‘That’s right,’ Shaw nodded. ‘The thing might stay like that for months. Then when the time came someone would send a current through the electro-magnet, the weight would fall, the tap would open, and the water would run out—from the size of the tap, very slowly.’
‘Designed to take some hours, I expect,’ French suggested.
‘Quite; that’s the idea. But eventually the float would reach the bottom of the rod and that would close the other contact.’
‘Switching the current from the battery on to the lighter,’ French added.
‘Quite. Someone would switch on the first circuit, then perhaps six or eight or a dozen hours later, when that person had gone and the place was locked up, the fire would start.’
‘And if the bloke hadn’t been so clever and put in this delayed action affair, he mightn’t have been suspected.’
Shaw shook his head. ‘He could scarcely have avoided it,’ he pointed out. ‘He couldn’t have the outbreak discovered too soon after his visit.’
‘Well,’ French said, ‘this is all extraordinarily satisfactory. But we’re not finished yet. There’s the other electric circuit which operated the magnet. Where did that run?’
‘We’ll find it,’ Shaw declared. ‘But it’s too dark to do any more tonight. If we store away what we’ve found and call it a day, I don’t think we’ll have done so badly.’
French found that his interest in the proceedings had grown too keen to allow him to remain in town and the next morning saw him back again with Shaw at Forde Manor. There they began the search for the second pair of wires which they believed must lead from the drum.
They soon found them. They were not easy to follow, being broken in many places from falls of rubbish. But eventually they traced them to the library, where they came to an end. The flames had here raged with particular fury and no scrap of woodwork was left. Discoloured brass hinges, locks and castors with a coal-box, fire-irons and such like were all that was left of the heavy and expensive library furniture.
As in the region surrounding the great hall, their entire route from service rooms to library had been marked by further splashes of soft metal. These interested both men profoundly, though neither could explain their origin.
For a long time their search was fruitless, then they had some further luck. They discovered first another car battery, and secondly one spring of a sliding contact.
It was evident then that the impulse which had operated the electro-magnet and opened the tap on the drum had been sent from the library.
‘Here’s another problem,’ exclaimed Shaw as they stood considering this discovery. ‘Suppose this contact was made in the library some hours before the fire, who made it? Buller was in Capri.’
‘I think,’ French returned, ‘I can answer that. I’m afraid Mrs Stanton’s the villain of the piece.’
Shaw stared.
‘As I see it,’ French went on, ‘that contact was attached to a drawer of an old bureau, so that when the drawer was opened, the circuit was closed and the current flowed. Mrs Stanton opened the drawer on that Monday—for the first time since Sir Geoffrey went to Italy.’
‘But why?’
‘A letter from Sir Geoffrey asking her to send him a certain paper which was in the drawer.’
Shaw smacked his thigh. ‘You’ve got it! That’s it, as sure as we’re alive! That’s proof that Sir Geoffrey burned down the place for the insurance money.’
‘Scarcely that, I’m afraid. You can’t prove that he put in that apparatus.’
‘Who else could have?’
French shook his head. ‘Scarcely enough for court, I’m afraid.’
Shaw remained for some moments lost in thought. ‘What was the paper he wrote for?’ he asked presently.
‘Good,’ French approved. ‘That’s our best chance. Mrs Stanton told me about it. It was a testimonial from his employers in Chicago, and he wanted to show it to the directors of some Italian company, in connection with his getting a seat on the board.’
‘Not a very convincing tale. However, it raises some interesting questions to which we’ll want the answers.’
‘That’s right,’ French agreed. ‘Now, will you get them or shall I?’
Shaw laughed. ‘I didn’t venture to suppose you would. But if you will, the question is answered. It would be a difficult job for me. I’d have to employ a private agency in Chicago and would probably have to go to Italy myself. Whereas you have only to sit down and write a couple of telegrams.’
‘I’ll do it,’ French decided. ‘I should want to in any case because, as you must see, this raises the picture question again and the possible consequent disappearance of Charles Barke.’
‘Fine,’ Shaw approved, ‘and of course I’m interested in the picture question too. If those alleged cleanings were really copies, there’s further fraud.’
‘That’s a second line of inquiry. Who did the alleged cleanings? Have any of the originals been sold? There’s a lot of work there.’
‘As you’re doing the other, I’ll take that on,’ Shaw offered, ‘though it might be convenient later to join forces.’
‘You mean,’ said French, ‘that you’ll have a shot at it, and when you fail, you’ll shove it on to me.’
‘Exactly,’ Shaw grinned, ‘or in other words, if we need the organization of the Yard, it’ll be there.’
Having photographed and removed their finds, both men returned to town, where each began to plan the next stage of the inquiry.