Inspector French: Death on the Way

INSPECTOR FRENCH: DEATH ON THE WAY

Freeman Wills Crofts

Copyright

Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain for the Crime Club

by Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1932

Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1932

Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

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

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008393182

Ebook Edition © June 2020 ISBN: 9780008393199

Version: 2020-07-23

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Map

1. Prelude to Tragedy

2. Tragedy

3. Inquest

4. Enter Inspector French

5. Concerning a Bicycle

6. Progress

7. The Day’s Work

8. Tragedy Again

9. Inquest Again

10. The Torn Print

11. Fraud!

12. French on the Fraud

13. The Drawn Blinds

14. The Payment in Notes

15. Elimination

16. Light at Last

17. Brenda Takes a Hand

18. Brenda Learns the Truth

19. Conclusion

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also in this series

About the Publisher

Map

1

Prelude to Tragedy

Clifford Parry sat in the corner of a first-class compartment of the 8.20 a.m. train from Lydmouth to Whitness and beyond, gazing gloomily out on the series of views which passed successively before his eyes. A more depressing series it would not have been easy to find. It was late October, a dull and sombre morning. The railway ran along by the sea and the receding tide had laid bare a vast area of mud flats, broken here and there by slimy stones, patches of dank seaweed and the twisting beds of tiny streams. A chill drifting rain fell hopelessly, adding a colder gray to the drab colours of the shore. In the distance, half blotted out by the mist, was a sea of the colour of tarnished lead.

Parry, though travelling thus luxuriously, was a son of toil on his way to his daily round. He was junior assistant engineer in the divisional engineer’s office of the Southern Railway at Lydmouth, in Dorset, and he was going down to Whitness to calculate earthwork quantities on the new Redchurch-Whitness Widening, or doubling of a single line, which the Railway Company was carrying out between those places. An uninteresting job, calculating earthwork, some might have said. Not so Parry. Before it had come his way he had passed through several extremely unhappy years. Since his release from the army after the War he had until now been able to obtain only precarious employment, and indeed had had spells of total idleness which left him face to face with actual want. Work, to him, was an inestimable boon. Dull, wearing, monotonous work would have been an inestimable boon, and his present job certainly could not be so described. As work, he enjoyed almost all of it.

Presently the train began to slacken speed, for Redchurch. At Redchurch he would be joined by his colleague, Ackerley. Ackerley was superior in rank to Parry, being the resident engineer in charge of the Widening. Ackerley was a general favourite, a hard worker, and very keen on his job.

As the train drew up at the platform Parry looked out. Yes, there was Ronnie Ackerley, a tall, well-built young fellow made up in mackintosh and huge boots and with a knapsack over his arm. He approached Parry’s compartment.

‘Hullo, Ack!’ Parry greeted him. ‘Beastly morning.’

‘Rotten,’ Ackerley agreed concisely, and the weather had been duly weighed in the balances, found wanting, and dismissed.

‘Where’s Bragg?’ Ackerley went on presently.

‘Coming down later. He had to meet some of those Westinghouse people about the Lydmouth signalling.’

Bragg was the third in command in the technical staff of the office. He was responsible for such design as was carried out in the divisional office and was Ackerley’s senior in charge of the widening operations.

Ackerley nodded. ‘Wonderful how quickly you get out of things,’ he remarked. ‘I was quite keen on that signalling job when we were getting out the plans, and now since I’ve come down here I’ve lost all interest in it.’

‘You can’t do everything,’ Parry pointed out.

Ackerley grunted. ‘I say, that darned pump gave up again last night,’ he went on.

‘Is the water rising?’

‘No, Lowell got the pulsometer working. But it meant keeping the boiler going all night.’

‘They’ve never got those Pier IV foundations dry?’

‘No, nor never will. Not with those pumps at all events.’

Though no longer young enough to enjoy the continuous talking of shop merely for its own sake, Parry was naturally anxious to be as well up as he could in everything concerning the Widening. Now, however, he did not reply to Ackerley’s last observation, but sat gazing moodily out of the window. They were once again running along the shore, but here the mud flats had given place to deep water. The railway embankment, in fact, formed the actual battery. The wind was sou’-west and the sea choppy. The water looked cold and gray and uninviting.

Ackerley glanced curiously at his companion. ‘What’s up?’ he demanded.

Parry roused himself. ‘Nothing. Only a bad tooth. Are you expecting many people tonight, Ack?’

That evening the Ackerleys were giving a dance at their house in Redchurch and Parry had been invited. Ronnie Ackerley, indeed, had asked him home to change and dine. Parry had accepted, and his suitcase containing his evening things was on the rack above his head. Ronnie had felt a certain amusement when giving the invitation. It was popularly believed that Parry had become deeply enamoured of Pearl, Ronnie’s sister, and that anyone should fall in love with Pearl struck Ronnie as a good joke.

Presently they plunged into a tunnel which pierced a bluff chalk headland, the White Ness, from which the adjoining little town got its name, then emerging on to a viaduct crossing a deep chine, they ran half a mile or more along level ground through the outskirts of a watering place and finally drew up in Whitness station.

‘I’m going out on the ballast train to Cannan’s Cutting,’ said Ackerley as they got out. ‘I’ll be back in the afternoon, if not for lunch. You’re dining with us?’

Parry pointed to the suitcase he was carrying. ‘Thanks awfully. I’ve got my things here.’

Parry crossed the platform and left the suitcase in the stationmaster’s office, wishing that official an absent-minded good-morning. Then he set off to walk back along the line over which they had just passed. His objective was the contractors’ headquarters. On level ground near the edge of Whit Chine Messrs John Spence & Co. had rented a field beside the line, which they were using as a ‘yard’. Into it they had run a siding and had located their offices, stores, carpenters’ and smiths’ shops and general plant. In a corner the Railway Company had erected a two-roomed hut for their own engineers. Here Parry was to calculate his earthwork quantities.

He reached the barbed-wire enclosure and passed in through the railway gate. Near the carpenters’ shop a number of men were loading timber framing on to a wagon. Talking to their foreman was a big-built, heavy-visaged young man in oilskins and a sou’-wester. He turned, and seeing Parry, walked across.

‘Hullo, Parry! Seen Ackerley?’

This was Lowell, Messrs Spence’s second-in-command, Ackerley’s opposite number on the contractors’ side.

‘He’s gone out on the ballast train to Cannan’s Cutting. He said he’d be in this afternoon.’

‘That’s that slip at Peg 124, I expect. He’s fairly got the wind up about it.’

‘This rain won’t do it much good.’

‘It’s not heavy enough to do it any harm,’ Lowell declared with the wisdom of five-and-twenty. ‘I wanted to see Ackerley,’ and he descended into technicalities.

Parry replied in kind, then letting himself into the railway hut, absently took off his coat and hat, stoked up the fires in the two stoves and began to get out his papers. For a moment he stood looking vacantly out of the window, then with a sigh he sat down at his desk and began to work.

Clifford Parry had just reached his thirty-second birthday. He had been educated at Lydmouth, where his people lived and where there was an excellent school. Instead of going on to college, as his parents had intended, he joined up in 1916. He served till within a month of the end of the War, being then invalided out, shell-shocked and quite broken in health. During his period of service his father had died, and he found his mother in poor health and circumstances. With a struggle they managed to exist; Parry, as he grew stronger, continuing the engineering course he had begun. He would, however, have had to give this up and get a job, had it not been that a relative died and left Mrs Parry some £500. After long discussion it was decided that the money should be spent in letting Parry continue his studies. At length he qualified by passing the examination for Associate Membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers. But before the news came that he had got through, his mother contracted a chill and died.

Left alone and practically penniless, for his mother’s pittance had died with her, Parry turned to look for a job. Then the real bitterness of life entered into his soul. First there were debts, which he himself had contracted before he realised how limited were their resources. Next, no one wanted an ex-service man of poor health and with just his qualifications. Absolute want began to stare him in the face. He took a job as a junior clerk; and was glad to get it. That kept him from starvation. He lost that job owing to a reduction of hands, then got another of the same kind. In one way or another he had worked along, till one day, finding himself back in Lydmouth, he had taken his courage in both hands and gone once again to see Mr Marlowe, the divisional engineer of the railway. Marlowe had known his father and on that account saw him at once. Luckily for Parry, work on the Widening was just about to begin, and Marlowe, with some misgivings, offered him a job as junior assistant engineer. It was made clear to him that though he was four years older than Ackerley, he was to be his junior in rank. Parry took the job with thankfulness, and though he was embittered from his experiences, he loyally accepted the conditions and did his very best to make good. The debts, however, still hung over him, and for a time after starting on the railway he remained badly crippled. Then once again he had come into some money. That money had just made the difference. It had enabled him to pay off what he owed. That and the outdoor life, which suited his health, was bringing him back competence and vigour. Two qualities also stood him in good stead. One was an extraordinary gift of inventive ingenuity. If confronted with a puzzling situation he could always cover want of knowledge by devising some original means of meeting the difficulty. The other was a great natural charm of manner which tended to smooth his relations with his fellows.

Ronald Ackerley’s history was very dissimilar. He had obtained his degree in engineering in the University of London and had started work in the Southern Railway’s head office. Then a vacancy had occurred at Lydmouth, and as his people lived at Redchurch, he had applied for and obtained it. This had enabled him to live at home, and each day he had travelled the fifteen miles in and out of Lydmouth. When work on the Widening had started and he had been appointed junior resident engineer, he had continued to live at home. He was at this time twenty-eight years of age and a thoroughly good man at his job. His manner occasionally left a little to be desired, but he was liked and respected by everyone.

For a couple of hours Parry worked steadily. His aim was that important figure, the amount of earthwork completed during the previous four-weekly period. It was a figure which had been widely discussed, guessed, and betted on by all concerned. It was a figure which showed the progress of the job, as a patient’s temperature shows his health. It was, moreover, an important item in the make up of the ‘certificate’, the four-weekly statement of the total work done on the job, upon which the contractors were paid.

Suddenly the door opened and a tall burly man of about five-and-forty entered. He had a dark skin and almost black hair and eyes, as if southern blood coursed in his veins. His air was leisurely but competent.

‘Hullo, young Parry,’ he drawled as he took off his wet coat. ‘Got those quantities out?’

‘Hullo, Bragg. I’m well on with them. The figures look big this time.’

‘Yes, those slackers have got going at last. Seen Carey today?’

Carey was the contractors’ chief resident engineer, Lowell’s superior.

‘No. Lowell was in the yard when I came in, but Carey didn’t show up.’

Bragg went to the telephone and pressed the buzzer. ‘Hullo, that you, Lowell? Is Carey about?’

The receiver barked so that Parry could almost hear the words.

‘Oh, gone to Redchurch, is he? When will he be back? … Right, I’ll go over after lunch.’

Bragg had appropriated for himself the smaller of the two rooms into which the hut was divided. He now pushed open the door and disappeared within. But he left it open and they talked spasmodically through it.

About one o’clock he emerged. ‘What about a spot of lunch?’ he suggested. ‘Is Ackerley coming in for it?’

‘He didn’t know.’

‘We’ll not wait for him.’

The two men searched in coat pockets and knapsacks and produced sandwiches and sundry other foods. Then making themselves comfortable before the stove, they began their meal. Scarcely had they done so when the door opened and Ackerley appeared.

‘At it again,’ he greeted them. ‘I’ve rarely seen you two when you weren’t eating. Don’t you ever do any work, Bragg?’

Bragg ignored this. ‘What have you been up to all morning, young Ackerley?’ he asked.

Ackerley hung up his dripping mackintosh and began washing at a small sink in the corner.

‘That slip at Cannan’s Cutting is moving.’

‘Much?’

‘It’s come down about a foot at the top, and the bottom is bulging.’

Bragg nodded. ‘We’ll fix up something about it later.’

The three men chatted as they ate: a little shop, a little mild ragging, and a good deal of critical discussion on centreboard sailing, at which Bragg and Ackerley were adepts and Parry a keen learner. Then when a pipe and two cigarettes were going, Bragg turned back to business.

‘I say, Ackerley, those figures for the pitching at Peg 110 don’t seem to be right. They don’t agree with the contractors’ at all events. Ours show over 3500 yards pitched in the last four-weekly period. From a casual inspection there didn’t seem to me to be anything like that done.’

‘Three thousand five hundred yards,’ Ackerley repeated slowly. ‘You’re right, Bragg, it’s too large. Who measured it?’

‘I measured that with Pole,’ Parry put in, ‘and I’m pretty sure what we did was right. Let’s see the figures, Bragg.’

Pole was the contractors’ junior engineer and ranked with Parry.

‘They’re on my desk. I didn’t say you were wrong, young Parry. As you know, I get my figures by subtracting the total done at the end of the previous period from what you return as being done now. Conceivably there was an error in last month’s return.’

‘That wouldn’t help Pole and me,’ Parry pointed out, ‘for we measured up last month’s too. And what’s more, I bet it was right also.’

‘Well,’ said Bragg, ‘it’s pleasant to deal with infallible people who never make mistakes. All the same, young Parry, you’ll have to check it again. And I’ll want it done this afternoon, because it must go into the certificate. Let’s see, Ackerley; didn’t you say you were going to walk through to Redchurch later on?’

‘Yes, I’ve to see Potts about his right of way. Parry saw Potts and fixed it up.’

‘I’d forgotten it was today. Better have a look at the slip again when you’re passing.’

‘Right, I’ll do so.’

‘What time shall you be starting, Ackerley?’ Parry interposed.

‘About half-past four, I think. I want to see a couple of things at the viaduct as I pass.’

Parry considered. ‘That would just suit me. I’ll walk out with you. I ought to get these quantities done by four-thirty.’

‘“Ought to get” won’t be enough, Parry,’ Bragg declared. ‘I must have them for the certificate if we stay here all night.’

Parry suddenly registered dismay. ‘Oh, I say, Bragg,’ he protested, ‘I hope you won’t want me to stay late. I have a “do” on, a very special affair, really.’

‘So have I,’ Bragg rejoined dryly, ‘the certificate. What time do you want to get away?’

‘I want to be in Redchurch by six-thirty. That would do, wouldn’t it, Ack?’

Ackerley agreed.

‘Well, look sharp and get your stunts done,’ Bragg returned. ‘We’ll see how you get on. Is it still raining, Ackerley?’

‘Yes, worse luck. But the wind’s gone down.’

Ackerley, having resumed his mackintosh, which had left quite a respectable pool on the floor, went out, and Bragg and Parry settled down once again to their work. But they had not more than got under way when another visitor made his appearance. This time it was a tall stoutly-built man of middle age with a small dark moustache and wearing the inevitable dripping waterproof.

‘Is the great man within?’ he demanded in a rather high-pitched voice and with a mellow Irish intonation.

Parry leaned back consequentially in his chair.

‘Yes, I’m here, Carey,’ he replied condescendingly. ‘What can I do for you?’

Carey advanced into the room.

‘Sure what would I be doing talking to the likes of you?’ he inquired. ‘It’s his lordship here I want to see.’ With a jerk of his thumb he indicated Bragg, who had appeared at his door. ‘You’re after ringing me up, Bragg?’

Bragg agreed, and the two men disappeared into the inner office. As Parry worked he could hear scraps of conversation through the open door: ‘held by the fox wedges,’ ‘three-eights inch camber,’ ‘meet the lateral thrust;’ and then Bragg in a louder voice: ‘When are you going to get a pump that’ll clear out that blessed hole at Pier IV?’ and Carey’s protesting reply: ‘Me dear man, the pump’s one of the best. Sure didn’t that idiot Hudson go and get it filled up with gravel and cut the valves out of it.’ Another murmur and then Carey again: ‘I declare to goodness that man’ll have me demented, the way he’s going on.’

The saga of the pump was still under discussion when there came a sound of movement, and the two men emerged into the outer office.

‘Right,’ Bragg was saying. ‘That should get the water down.’

The door closed behind Carey, and silence fell in the hut as Bragg and Parry settled down to work. Both had a good deal to get through and neither wanted to be kept late. Then Ackerley turned up again, and going into Bragg’s room, began to check with him certain figures for the certificate. For some time their voices came to Parry in low, indistinguishable murmurs. Then came Bragg’s voice: ‘I say, Parry!’

Parry got up and went to the door of the inner room.

‘How long will it take you to finish?’ Bragg asked. ‘Bring in what you’re at, will you?’

Parry collected his foolscap sheets.

‘I’m pretty well on,’ he explained as he laid them before Bragg, ‘but I’m afraid it will take a bit of time still.’

‘How long?’

‘Most of an hour, I should think.’

‘Well, Ackerley’s ready to go now and you can’t wait much longer or it will be dark. You’ll be able to finish these when you get back.’

Parry’s face fell, and Bragg, noticing it, went on impatiently: ‘Oh, very well, very well. I forgot your blessed “do”. See. We’ll not get our train tonight, but we’ll go by the ballast engine. Get me the comptometer and I’ll finish the darned thing myself.’

‘Oh, thanks awfully, Bragg. Very decent of you.’

With a gesture Bragg brushed his acknowledgments aside. ‘Then you’ll come back here as sharp as you can, Parry, with the check of that pitching, and you, Ackerley, will wait and see us at Redchurch. I’d like to hear about that slip, especially as I’ll not be down tomorrow.’

It was close on half-past four when Parry and Ackerley left the hut and began walking down towards the railway.

‘By the way,’ said Parry, ‘there’s the ballast engine shunting that stuff for Lowell. I’ll slip across and tell Blake we’re going tonight. Ten to one Bragg’ll forget.’

He crossed the sidings towards the engine. The driver stopped when he raised his hand.

‘I say, Blake,’ he called up, ‘we’re going to Redchurch with you, Mr Bragg and myself. Will you stop for us opposite the office?’

‘Right, Mr Parry.’

‘And I say, Blake,’ Parry went on, ‘are you going up to the station before you start?’

‘Yes, we’ve to lift these wagons out of here and throw them into the goods yard for the early goods.’

‘Then I wish you’d collect a bag of mine from the stationmaster’s office—a yellow suitcase. I’ve not got time to go up for it.’

‘Certainly, Mr Parry. I’ll bring it along.’

Parry thanked him, and passing out of the gate, followed Ackerley along the line towards the viaduct. The weather was still unpleasant. Though the rain had ceased, it remained raw and cold. The sea, of a dirty lead colour, was white-flecked, and a dull roar came up from the beach and the base of the cliffs. Far out a small steamer, heading for Lydmouth, was making heavy weather of it, white water flying from her bows as she dipped into the swells.

The two young men, reaching the edge of the Whit Chine, descended to where the massive foundations of the new viaduct were going in beside the spindle-shanked piers of the old. Ackerley had a quick look at the work and a word with the various foremen, and then they climbed up the other side of the chine to where, a hundred yards ahead, loomed the black forbidding mouth of the tunnel.

‘We’ll not go into the tunnel,’ Ackerley decided. ‘I was through it yesterday and everything’s going on all right. Besides, we’ve scarcely time.’

Dusk indeed was falling as Ackerley led the way off the railway to the sea side. A narrow path ran round the outside of the ness, joining the railway again at the far end of the tunnel.