Bodies from the Library 3 Read online

  BODIES FROM THE LIBRARY

  3

  Forgotten stories of mystery and suspense by the Queens of Crime and other Masters of the Golden Age

  Selected and introduced by

  Tony Medawar

  Copyright

  COLLINS CRIME CLUB

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Published by Collins Crime Club 2020

  Selection, introduction and notes © Tony Medawar 2020

  For copyright acknowledgements, see Acknowledgements

  Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

  Cover illustrations © Shutterstock.com

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008380939

  Ebook Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780008380946

  Version: 2020-05-28

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction

  SOME LITTLE THINGS

  Lynn Brock

  HOT STEEL

  Anthony Berkeley

  THE MURDER AT WARBECK HALL

  Cyril Hare

  THE HOUSE OF THE POPLARS

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  THE HAMPSTEAD MURDER

  Christopher Bush

  THE SCARECROW MURDERS

  Joseph Commings

  THE INCIDENT OF THE DOG’S BALL

  Agatha Christie

  THE CASE OF THE UNLUCKY AIRMAN

  Christopher St John Sprigg

  THE RIDDLE OF THE BLACK SPADE

  Stuart Palmer

  A TORCH AT THE WINDOW

  Josephine Bell

  GRAND GUIGNOL

  John Dickson Carr

  A KNOTTY PROBLEM

  Ngaio Marsh

  THE ORANGE PLOT MYSTERIES:

  THE ORANGE KID

  Peter Cheyney

  AND THE ANSWER WAS …

  Ethel Lina White

  HE STOOPED TO LIVE

  David Hume

  MR PRENDERGAST AND THE ORANGE

  Nicholas Blake

  THE YELLOW SPHERE

  John Rhode

  THE ‘EAT MORE FRUIT’ MURDER

  William A. R. Collins

  Footnotes

  Acknowledgements

  Also Available

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  ‘You and I, serene in our armchairs as we read a new detective story, can continue blissfully in the old game, the great game, the grandest game in the world.’

  John Dickson Carr

  One of the many joys of visiting the British Library and other repositories is coming across forgotten or unknown works by some of the most highly regarded writers of the Golden Age of crime and detective fiction, a period that can be considered to have begun in 1913 with Trent’s Last Case by E. C. Bentley, and to have ended in 1937, the year in which Dorothy L. Sayers sent Lord Peter Wimsey on a Busman’s Honeymoon.

  This, the third collection of Bodies from the Library, continues our mission to bring into the light some of these little-known short stories and scripts, as well as works that have only appeared in rare volumes and never previously been reprinted. For this edition, there is a previously unpublished mystery featuring Ngaio Marsh’s famous detective, Inspector Roderick Alleyn, as well as a long lost novella in which John Dickson Carr’s satanic sleuth Henri Bencolin goes head to head with a brutal murderer. Stuart Palmer’s Hildegarde Withers confronts ‘The Riddle of the Black Spade’, and six authors go in search of a character as they rise to the challenge of building a short story around the same two-line plot. Among the more famous detectives featured are Anthony Berkeley’s Roger Sheringham, who does his bit to help defeat Hitler, and Senator Brooks U. Banner investigates a murderous scarecrow in a case from the pen of Joseph Commings.

  And, in the year that marks 100 years of Agatha Christie stories, the inimitable Hercule Poirot investigates a murder foretold …

  Tony Medawar

  March 2020

  These stories were mostly written in the first half of the twentieth century and characters sometimes use offensive language or otherwise are described or behave in ways that reflect the prejudices and insensitivities of the period.—T.M.

  SOME LITTLE THINGS

  Lynn Brock

  Inspector Clutsam of the Yard came into the office of the senior partner of Messrs Gore and Tolley on the morning of Thursday, June 27, looking peeved. He came because Chief Inspector Ruddell of the Yard had called to see Colonel Gore at three o’clock on the afternoon of the preceding Monday and had not been heard of since.

  ‘Afternoon, Clutsam,’ said Gore, brightly. ‘Hot, isn’t it? You’d find it cooler without that natty little bowler, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Now look here,’ growled the visitor. ‘What did Ruddell come to see you about? The Isaacson necklace, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he say anything to indicate any line of action he had in view concerning it?’

  ‘Not definitely. I gathered that he wanted us to drop the case. He conveyed to me that he had some information which made us quite superfluous. However, as he had by then spent half an hour trying to pump me for information, I concluded that he was talking through his hat.’

  ‘What time did he leave you?’

  ‘A little before four.’

  ‘Say where he was going next?’

  ‘I gathered somewhere where there was beer. Monday afternoon was also very hot, you remember, and unfortunately I could only offer him whisky. Which reminds me—’

  Inspector Clutsam undid his face partially and accepted a cigarette and a whisky without prejudice. ‘In that case, Colonel,’ he said, ‘you’re the last person we know of who saw Ruddell alive.’

  ‘That,’ replied Gore, ‘is a very real consolation to me for his loss.’

  ‘S’nothing to be funny about,’ snapped Clutsam.

  ‘In life,’ murmured Gore, agreeably, ‘Chief Inspector Ruddell was not an amusing person. In death, I admit, he will be a very serious proposition for any sort of Hereafter to tackle. You think he is—er—deceased?’

  ‘Think? Ruddell’s been put away—I know it. There are plenty who’d do the job and glad of it. He’s been bumped off—I tell you I know it. He was due back at the Yard on Tuesday morning for a conference with the Commissioner. He didn’t stay away from that just to be funny. And we haven’t been able to find him for two days. Someone’s got him.’

  ‘As we are on the fourth floor,’ said Gore, reassuringly, ‘we have no cellar. But you are at liberty to inspect our strongroom—’

  ‘Why did you ask him to come here if you had nothing to tell him?’

  ‘We didn’t.’

  ‘He told the clerk you did—that you rang him up at two o’clock on Monday and told him you had something special for him about the Isaacson necklace.’

  Gore considered his cigarette thoughtfully. ‘Now, there’s an instance of the importance of little things, Clutsam. If Ruddell had mentioned to me that he had got that message, I
rather think both you and he would have been saved some trouble. But he didn’t. He just blew in as if he owned my office, talked eyewash for half an hour, lost his temper, and made an unsuccessful attempt to bluff us off the case. Pity; but, as it happens, it makes things more interesting.’

  ‘What things?’ snarled Clutsam.

  ‘Oh—stolen necklaces and things. As a rule, they bore us horribly—necklaces do. As a matter of fact, in strictest confidence, we decided just twenty-five minutes ago to leave Lady Isaacson to you gentlemen at the Yard. I’m wondering now if we shall.’

  ‘Stop wondering,’ growled the visitor. ‘You take it from me, Colonel, this Isaacson woman is a—’

  ‘Now, that’s just what Ruddell said about her,’ smiled Gore, winningly. ‘Have another little drink, and tell me why you people dislike this poor little lady so much. By the way, I hope you haven’t been very unkind to her about that smash-up on the Portsmouth Road last month, have you?’

  Lady Isaacson was the wife of a millionaire and a very showily-handsome young woman. She had been comparatively unknown to fame until, some six weeks previously, she had made a determined attempt to kill one of His Majesty’s Ministers. Returning in the small hours of the morning from London to her Surrey residence near Farnham, she had crashed into a car going Londonwards, near Guildford. The Important Personage had escaped without injury, though his car had been badly damaged. But the incident had been given elaborate publicity by a certain section of the press, owing to the fact that the lady had been driving well over on the wrong side of the road at a furious pace, and, it was alleged, in a condition of intoxication. She had refused to disclose the name of a gentleman—not her husband—who had been her passenger at the time of the accident and on whose lap, according to the Important Person’s chauffeur, she had been sitting; a detail which had added additional piquancy to the fact that she had been returning from a very notorious night-club. The loss, a few weeks later, of an immensely valuable diamond necklace, which had been stolen from her town residence in Grosvenor Square, had revived the interest of the British public in this sprightly young person. The necklace had been insured for £120,000; but Lady Isaacson had issued a statement to the press disclaiming all intention to hold the insurance company concerned to its liability. She desired, she said, to discover if the police, who spent so much time in attending to other people’s business, could attend to their own with any satisfaction to the public.

  Inspector Clutsam had shut up his face again. It was quite clear that he did not intend to answer the last question. Upon consideration of the face Gore picked up an unsigned letter from a little heap upon his desk, tore it across and dropped it into the waste-paper basket.

  ‘These little things—’ he said. ‘Now, you know you and Ruddell have been bullying Lady Isaacson to get out of her the name of that man who was with her.’

  Clutsam made a noise of contempt as he rose.

  ‘Why did you decide to take Ruddell’s advice?’ he demanded.

  ‘We didn’t.’

  ‘Then why did you decide to drop the necklace affair?’

  Gore reached for the Morning Post which lay on the top of his desk, and indicated a small paragraph tucked away at the foot of an unimportant page. ‘Another little thing, Inspector. Let’s see what you make of it.’

  ‘A curious occurrence,’ Clutsam read, ‘is reported from Bath. William Brandy, an elderly tramp, was admitted to the Infirmary on Tuesday suffering from injuries to his head and eye. According to his statement, he was struck by a heavy object while asleep during the previous night on his way from Salisbury to Westbury and rendered unconscious. On awakening in the morning he found close to him a wash-leather bag containing a necklace of what he supposed to be diamonds, fastened by a gold clasp set with three emeralds. Upon examination, however, by a Bath firm of jewellers, the supposed precious stones proved imitations. No explanation is forthcoming of the circumstances which occurred shortly after midnight in a remote spot at a considerable distance from any road or habitation. It is feared that the unfortunate man will lose the sight of the injured eye.’

  ‘Curious little story, isn’t it?’ Gore commented. ‘You remember that Lady Isaacson’s necklace had a clasp with three emeralds. Not that I suggest for a moment that hers is a fake … But that’s why we thought of dropping the case—’

  ‘It seems a damn silly reason to me’, blew Clutsam. He dropped the newspaper disdainfully. ‘Hell—I’m fed up. I’ve heard enough fairy tales in the last twenty-five years. I tell you what it is, Colonel. I’m sick of this job. Here I am running round like a potty rabbit for the last forty-eight hours, without a square meal or half-an-hour’s sleep, with everyone yelling at me, “Have you got Ruddell? Why the what’s-it haven’t you? You get him or you get out. There’s a man waiting for your job.” And these beggars in the papers blackguarding you. People looking at you as if you were a mad dog. Hell, I’m tired of it. Here, can I use your ’phone for a moment? My kid’s bad—diphtheria. I haven’t been able to get home since Monday morning.’

  The burly, dogged figure bent over the instrument and rang up a Balham number. ‘That you, Alice? How’s the boy? Worse. Yes—get another doctor at once. No, I can’t go—I can’t, old thing … Sorry, girlie … Get the second opinion at once—the best man … I’ll ring up this evening … Stick it, kid …’

  Clutsam straightened himself. ‘The kid’s got to go, the Missus says,’ he said, simply. ‘Bit of good news for a chap, isn’t it? Well, good morning, Colonel.’

  A little thing—but it moved Gore. On the whole, his relations with the police, professionally, were rather trying. But no one knew better than he how hard was the task to which Clutsam and his colleagues, in uniform and out of it, were bound day and night—the ceaseless vigilance that alone made life for the citizen even tolerably secure. At the moment the man in the street and the man on the bench had their knives into the police. No doubt, in private life, Clutsam and his Alice had to suffer the averted eyes and sotto-voces of their neighbours.

  Experience had taught Gore, too, what sort of a job it was to look for a lost man in London—long days, perhaps long weeks of false scents and monotonous failure—the search for a needle in a haystack of stupidity, falsehood and hostility. Also he was interested by William Blandy’s misadventure.

  He took Clutsam by the shoulders and pushed him down into a chair. ‘Don’t be in a hurry,’ he said. ‘That telephone message we didn’t send has given me an idea. The cigarettes are there. It’s only an idea—but there is the fact that the lift was not working on Monday afternoon, and that Ruddell went down by the stairs. Sit tight for a bit, will you?’

  The bit lengthened to nearly half an hour before he returned; but he returned with news which brought the impatient Clutsam to his feet in a hurry.

  ‘I think I’ve found where Ruddell went when he left here,’ he said. ‘Care to see?’

  The building in Norfolk Street, which housed Messrs Gore and Tolley on its fourth floor, contained the offices of some score of assorted businesses. On the third floor, by the staircase down which Gore led Clutsam, were, at one end of a long corridor, the offices of a literary agent, at the other end those of a turf accountant named Welder, and, facing them, those of the ‘Victory’ Aeroplane Company. In the doorway of Mr Welder’s offices the caretaker of the building awaited them, jangling his bunch of keys. They went in and surveyed the three meagrely-furnished rooms. Gore pointed to a window which he had opened.

  ‘I rather think they got him in here somehow. And I rather think they got him out of here by that window, when they were ready—probably at night, when it was quiet.’ He leaned out to point down into a narrow yard below. ‘Some of the tenants here park their cars down there. There’s a gate into the street. It would be quite simple to cart him away …’

  Clutsam stared about him incredulously. ‘Bunkum,’ he snapped. ‘There isn’t a chair out of place. Ruddell would have wrecked this place before six men got him. There isn’t
anything to show—’

  Gore pointed to a cigarette which lay under the table of the inner office. ‘Just one little thing, Clutsam. Look at it. Been in trouble, hasn’t it?’

  Clutsam stooped and picked up the cigarette, which was badly bent and burst at its middle. But he derived no other information from it.

  ‘You smoked one of that brand just now, Clutsam,’ Gore smiled. ‘If you’ll forgive swank, it’s rather an expensive brand. Also you notice that it has barely been smoked. Now, I gave Ruddell a cigarette just as he was leaving me on Monday afternoon. Of course, they tidied up. But they left this little thing. Careless of them! Why wasn’t the lift working on Monday afternoon, Parker?’

  The caretaker could not say. The lift had jammed at a little before three, but had been got right shortly after four. He had never seen Mr Welder, never known anyone to use these offices since they had been taken by Mr Welder a couple of weeks before. From the agents who had let the offices the telephone elicited no information except that Mr Welder had paid six months’ rent in advance. They had never seen him.

  ‘Let’s see,’ suggested Gore, ‘if the people over the way can tell us anything about him.’

  But the clerk in charge of the ‘Victory’ Company’s offices—apparently the staff consisted of a clerk and the manager, Mr Thornton, who was away—had not seen anyone enter or leave Mr Welder’s offices.

  ‘Not on last Monday afternoon—about four?’

  ‘I wasn’t here on Monday, sir. The boss gave me a day off.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ smiled Gore. ‘That must have been nice. Mr Thornton himself, I suppose, was here that afternoon?’

  ‘I believe so, sir.’

  ‘On Tuesday?’

  ‘No, sir. He went down to the works at Bath on Monday night. He’s down there now, sir.’

  ‘Ah, yes, yes, yes,’ said Gore, affably. ‘Many thanks.’

  On the landing he looked at his watch. ‘Two more little things, Clutsam. And here’s a third. On the occasion of her first visit to us, Lady Isaacson was indiscreet enough to inform me that Mr Thornton had recommended her to consult us … Care for a run down the Bath road? I ought to be able to get you back to London by six.’