The Ponson Case · Chapter 12 (1/3)

XII

A Stern Chase

When the 10:30 a.m. Riviera express pulled out of Paddington next morning, Inspector Tanner was occupying a corner seat in one of its first-class compartments. In his pocket was a warrant for the arrest of William Douglas, in case his investigations should indicate that such a step was desirable. He had determined that if his victim could not account satisfactorily for his actions on the night of the murder, or if his boots fitted the marks on the Cranshaw River bank, no other course would be possible.

Once again the Inspector was favoured with magnificent weather for his country ramble. Indeed, like the previous days, it was too hot, and as the train slipped swiftly through the sunbaked country, he moved into the corridor so as to make the most of the draught from the open windows. Each time that he had made this journey in the past he had enjoyed it, especially the portion between Exeter and Newton Abbott⁠—down the estuary of the Exe, past Dawlish and Teignmouth with their queer spiky, red rocks, and precipitous little cliffs running out into the blue sea, then farther on inland again through the hilly, wooded country of South Devon, where one caught unexpected glimpses of tiny, nestling villages, and of narrow lanes, winding mysteriously, between mossy, flower-spangled banks under the cool shade of overhanging trees.

He reached Plymouth⁠—the first stop since leaving Paddington⁠—shortly before three. Changing at North Road, he boarded a branch line train after a short wait. A run of a few minutes brought him to Yelverton. Here he alighted, and when the Launceston and Princetown trains had rumbled off, he accosted the stationmaster.

“I am looking for a Mr. William Douglas of Myrtle Cottage,” he said. “Can you tell me where that is?”

The stationmaster could. Myrtle Cottage, it appeared, was half a mile away on the road to Dousland, and Tanner, having received directions as to his route, set off to walk.

The house was small and surrounded by trees, through which the gables showed picturesquely. It was set back some little distance from the road, a path leading through a not very well kept flower garden to the door. Mr. Douglas was evidently an apiarist, for a row of wooden hives lined each side of the path, and the hum of the insects was audible even from the road. Along the side of the garden, and passing close to the gable of the house ran a lane, from which a large gate led to a yard in the rear. This gate, Tanner noticed, was standing open.

He walked up the path and knocked at the green-painted door. For some time there was no response, but after a second and more peremptory summons he heard footsteps approaching. The door was opened by a small man with grey hair and a beard trimmed short.

“Got him first shot,” thought Tanner, as he politely asked for Mr. William Douglas.

The man threw the door open.

“Walk in, sir,” he said. “My brother is upstairs. I’ll call him.”

“Your brother?” asked Tanner sharply, as he followed his guide to a rather poorly furnished sitting room.

“Yes. I’m John. I’ve lived here for some years, but William is just back from America.”

Tanner nodded. He recollected the hotel porter had stated that William Douglas had spoken with an American accent, whereas this man clearly hailed from the north of England. Besides, the beard was different. The porter had mentioned a goatee, but the speaker’s was cut to a tiny point.

“Sit down, sir,” said the man civilly. “I’ll send my brother down.”

He indicated a chair opposite the door, and Tanner took it. From where he sat he could see the foot of the staircase, and he watched John walk to it and leisurely ascend. Presently he heard him call “William!”

A nasal voice answered, but the Inspector could not hear the words. John’s voice, now more distant, mumbled something in reply, and there was a word, apparently of assent, from the other.

Tanner glanced round the room. Beside the easy chair in which he sat⁠—leather lined, and very old and worn⁠—there was not much that made for comfort. A deck chair stood with its back to one of the rather small windows. In front of the other window was a table on which lay a number of books, mostly dealing with bee keeping. The floor was covered by a carpet, the worn, threadbare condition of which was brought out pitilessly by the rays of the sun which struck obliquely across it. Tanner got up and began to poke about, but without taking his eye off the bottom of the stairs. William, it was evident, was in no hurry to come down.

Suddenly there came faintly the purr of a motor engine, and in a few seconds the sounds indicated that a car had started at no great distance away. It grew louder, and Tanner moved to the window. The sitting-room was in the gable beside the lane, and as the Inspector looked out he saw a small two-seater with one occupant pass out towards the road. But this occupant was a small man, and though his collar was turned up and his cap pulled down over his eyes, Tanner could see he had a grey beard.

He stood for a moment wondering how John had got downstairs without having been seen. Then, as the house seemed strangely quiet, an idea flashed into his mind, and he ran to the stairs and called, “Anyone there?” There was no answer, and with a sudden feeling of foreboding, he raced up. Three rooms opened off a short landing, and the doors being open, he glanced into each in turn. They were all empty!

A casement window on the landing was open, and as Tanner looked out, he saw what had been done. About three feet below the sill was the roof of a low shed. Nothing could be easier than to step out of the window on to the roof, and drop to the ground. The open door of the outhouse to which led many wheel tracks showed where the motor had been kept.

Tanner swore savagely. Never before had he been so completely and so easily duped. It was now evident to him that William Douglas had recognised him approaching the house, and had invented a brother to enable him to hold the Inspector’s attention while he bolted. And he had played his cards skilfully! Ruefully the Inspector had to admire the trick, though he surmised it had been worked out beforehand in view of just such an emergency.

“He’ll not get far,” the angry man growled, as he prepared to follow. But, thinking a moment or two would now make little difference, he turned his steps instead to the kitchen. There on a shelf, as he had expected, were three or four pairs of boots. Drawing from his pocket a tracing of the marks on the Cranshaw River bank, he eagerly compared it with the soles. Those of the first pair he took up corresponded! Here was proof, if proof were required. William Douglas had been at the Luce Manor boathouse on the night of the murder!

Seizing a small handbag he had noticed in the sitting room, the Inspector packed the boots, then, after closing the windows, and locking the yard gates and the house doors, he hurried back along the road towards Yelverton. Inquiring for the local telephone call office, he rang up the Plymouth police authorities, describing, so far as he was able, the man and the car, and asking them to have a ring formed round the locality. Hastening on to the Yelverton police station, he told the sergeant what had occurred, and handing him the keys of the cottage, instructed him to take charge, and to make a thorough search of the premises.

He learned that a train left for Plymouth in a few minutes, and travelling by it, he soon reached the police headquarters of that city. Here he was met by a superintendent, and the two men discussed the affair in detail.

“I have done, I think, everything possible,” the Superintendent concluded. “All the stations at a radius of about twenty miles or more have been advised, and the roads will be watched from Looe and Liskeard round by Launceston, Okehampton, and Moreton Hamstead, to Newton Abbott. All trains and steamers, as far as possible, will be examined before departure, and the railway people at the smaller stations will be advised. I don’t think he’ll make for Cornwall, you know. It’s too much of a dead end. He will either go east in his car, or come to Plymouth and try the trains, or even more likely, the steamers.”

“That is my own view,” Tanner returned. “I suppose there’s nothing to be done now but wait for information?”

“I think we’ll hear something before long. If you haven’t had a meal, I should get it while you have the chance. The Dartmoor Arms, a few doors away, is quite good, and I’ll send for you if there is news.”

As this seemed sound advice, Tanner followed it. But he had not finished his hastily served dinner when he was sent for. News had come in.

“I have a wire from the Tavistock men,” the Superintendent explained. “A car answering your description has just been found abandoned in a lane about quarter of a mile on the Yelverton side of Tavistock. Evidently your man wouldn’t risk taking it through the town.”

“Then he must be there himself.”

“Unless he got away by rail. What time did you say he left Yelverton?”

“About quarter-past four, or slightly later.”

“From Yelverton to Tavistock is not more than about five miles. He would do it easily in fifteen minutes. Say he would reach Tavistock between half past four and quarter to five.” The Superintendent picked up a Bradshaw. “Here we are. By the Great Western there’s a 5:27 for Plymouth and a 6:02 for Launceston. Now for the South-Western. There’s a 5:22, and a 7:50 for Exeter. He’s gone either by that 5:27 to Plymouth or the 5:22 to Exeter, and I should say the latter.”

“It seems likely. Would your men have reached the stations before those trains left?”

The Superintendent shook his head.

“It’s just possible,” he answered, “but I hardly think so. Your phone was received at”⁠—he referred to a paper⁠—“4:42. Orders were issued immediately, but considering telegraphic delays, they were probably not received at Tavistock till five or slightly after. The men would then have to be collected and instructed. They might have seen those trains out, but it’s unlikely.”

“Well, I’ll go on to Tavistock now anyway,” Tanner decided. “I presume you will have those trains searched?”

“Of course. I issued a new set of orders immediately. Both trains will be carefully examined, and the country all about Tavistock will be scoured. We are well accustomed to that,” the Superintendent added with a grim smile.

“The Princetown convicts? I suppose you are,” answered Tanner, as with a brief word of farewell he withdrew.

There being no train by either line for some little time, Tanner took a car. As they climbed the long, slow incline to Yelverton, out of the relaxing, enervating Plymouth air, he felt himself growing fresher and more energetic. He was grimly determined not to rest till he had laid his hands on the man who had duped him. From merely professional, the matter had become personal. Tanner’s pride was involved. No one, he swore, should play him such a trick and get off with it.

They slipped quietly through the fifteen or sixteen miles of charmingly wooded country, dropping into Tavistock as the shadows began to lengthen across the road. The sergeant had been advised of Tanner’s arrival, and was expecting him. Together they ran back and examined the abandoned car. Though they found nothing directly helpful, Tanner felt sure it was the one he had seen from the sitting room at Myrtle Cottage.

He turned to his companion.

“Did you hear about this in time to examine the Plymouth and Exeter trains at 5:27 and 5:22?” he asked.

The other shook his head.

“No, sir, I’m sorry to say we did not. But I have since made inquiries. No one with a grey beard was seen at either station. At the Great Western Station four persons booked, all third single to Plymouth, but the clerk remembers one of these was a young sailor and the others women. At the South-Western Station two tickets were issued to Exeter, one a first to Major Reading, who lives here, the other a third single to a little, elderly, clean-shaven man. Our men were there within ten minutes of the train’s departure, so that’s how the clerks remembered⁠—between that and there being so few bookings.”

“A small, elderly, clean-shaven man, sergeant? Let us go round the Tavistock barbers.”

The sergeant looked up sharply.

“By Jove! sir, a likely enough ruse,” he cried. “It won’t take long to find out⁠—there are only three.”

They ran back to the little town, and at the first barber’s learned that a small, elderly man with a short grey beard and moustache had called at a few minutes before five, and had had his beard and moustache shaved off.

“Now to the telegraph office. We’ll have him before long.”

The Inspector sent messages to Plymouth, to Exeter, and to some of the principal stations beyond, explaining that the bearded man of the previous wires had had himself shaved. Then he looked at his watch.

“Quarter to eight. Can I catch the 7:50? Phone to hold it while I run across.”

He jumped into the car and drove to the South-Western Station. There he caught the train for Exeter with a minute to spare.

He leaned back in the corner of a first-class compartment, and slowly drew out and lit a cigar, while he turned over in his mind the next step to be taken. He thought that at all events he should go on to Exeter. The 5:22 from Tavistock, by which Douglas had travelled, reached that city before his wire about the shaving had been sent out. Therefore it was hardly likely that the man would have been detained en route. Tanner, of course, recognised that a freshly shaven chin was unmistakable, but he did not think a village constable would have the sharpness to deduce what Douglas might have done, and act accordingly. But from Exeter in what direction would the quarry head?

There seemed two possibilities. Probably he would try either to reach London, or to get abroad. London, as Tanner knew, was perhaps the safest place in the world for a criminal to lie hidden. But many ill-doers had an overwhelming desire to put as great a distance as possible between themselves and the scene of their misdeeds. If Douglas were of this class he would try to get out of the country, and if, as the hotel porter had stated, he spoke like an American, would he not be likely to try to reach the country in which he might most easily pass for a native? There was, of course, no means of knowing, but at least it was clear that the approaches to London as well as the ports should be closely watched.

In any case, whatever the fugitive’s goal, he would be almost certain to pass through Exeter. It was true he could double back to Plymouth, but the probabilities were he would keep away from the district in which he was known. As Tanner’s train ran into St. David’s Station, Exeter, he felt sure his victim was not far before him.

A tall efficient looking sergeant of police was waiting on the platform. This man, sharply scrutinising the alighting travellers, promptly fixed on Tanner.

“Inspector Tanner, sir?” he questioned, and as the other nodded, continued, “they phoned us from Plymouth you were coming through on this train. We have inquiries in hand both here and at Queen Street, the other station. So far we have heard nothing of your man.”

“What exactly are you doing?”

“We have a man at each station working the staffs⁠—booking-clerks, ticket collectors, porters, refreshment rooms⁠—the usual thing. Another man is going round the hotels, another the restaurants open at that hour, and another the garages, in case he might have gone on by car. Is there any other line you would wish taken up?”

“Why no, sergeant. I think you have covered all the ground. Have you advised your men that the fellow got shaved?”

“Some of them, sir; some of them we couldn’t get hold of. We advise them as we can get in touch with them.”

Tanner nodded again.

“Well, we had better go to headquarters and wait for news.”