CHAPTER II
IS MAINLY ASTONISHING

In virtue of the facts that I was well known in Cromer, on friendly terms with the local superintendent of police, and what was more to the purpose, known to be a close friend of the Chief Constable at Norwich – also that I was a recognized writer of some authority upon problems of crime – Inspector Treeton, of the Norfolk Constabulary, greeted me affably when, after a very hasty breakfast, I called at the police station.

Treeton was a thin, grey-haired man, usually very quiet and thoughtful in manner, but this staggering affair had quite upset his normal coolness.

"I expect the detectives over from Norwich in half an hour," he said, with a distinct trace of excitement in his tones, as we stood in his bare little office discussing the morning's discovery. "You being such a close friend of the Chief Constable, I don't suppose there'll be any objection whatever to your being present during our investigations."

All the same, his tone was somewhat dubious as he added cautiously, "You won't, of course, give anything to the Press?"

"Certainly not," I replied. "You can rely upon my discretion. This isn't the first mystery I have assisted the police to investigate. This sort of thing is, so to speak, part of my profession."

"Yes," said Treeton, still with some hesitation, "so I understand, Mr. Vidal. But our people are terribly particular, as you know, about admitting unofficial persons into police work. No offence. But we are bound to be very careful."

"If you like, I'll 'phone to the Chief Constable," I suggested.

"No, sir. No need for that," he said hastily. "When the plain-clothes men arrive, I don't think any difficulty will be made as to your accompanying them." Then he added, as if to give the conversation a turn, "It's a very queer business, very. But I mustn't talk about it at present. No doubt you'll soon see for yourself what a strange affair it is."

"What is the curious feature, then?" I inquired anxiously.

"No," said Treeton, with a deprecatory gesture. "No. Mr. Vidal. Don't ask me. You must wait till the officers come from Norwich. They'll have a surprise, I can assure you they will. That's all I can say. I've taken care to have everything kept as it was found so as not to interfere with any clues, finger-prints, or things of that sort."

"Ah," I said. "Then you suspect foul play, eh?"

Treeton flushed slightly, as if annoyed with himself at having let slip the words that prompted my query.

Then he said slowly: "Well, at present we can't tell. But there's certainly something very mysterious about the whole business."

"Where is the body?"

"They've put it in the life-boat house."

"And that young fellow, Craig? I hear he's missing."

The Inspector looked at me with a strange expression on his face.

"Ah," he said briefly, "that isn't the only remarkable feature of this affair by any manner of means." Then impatiently: "I wish they'd come. I 'phoned to Norwich at six o'clock this morning, and now it's nearly ten. They might have come over in a car, instead of waiting for the train."

"Yes," I responded. "That is how so many inquiries are bungled. Red tape and delay. In the meantime a criminal often gets away hours ahead of the sleuths of the law and eventually may escape altogether. I've known a dozen cases where, because of the delay in making expert investigation, the culprit has never been caught."

As I spoke the telephone bell tinkled and Treeton answered the call. The Superintendent at Holt was asking for information, but my companion could give him but very little.

"I am watching the railway-station, sir," said Treeton over the 'phone, "and I've sent word to all the fishermen in my district not to take out any strangers. I've also warned all the garages to let me know if any stranger hires a car. The party we fancy may be wanted won't be able to get away if he's still in the district."

"Which is not very likely," I murmured in a low voice so that my words should not be heard over the wire.

When the conversation over the phone was ended, I sat chatting with Treeton, until, some twenty minutes later, three men, bearing unmistakably the cut of police-officers in plain clothes, entered the station.

Two of them were tall, dark-haired young fellows, dressed in neat navy-blue serge and wearing bowler hats. The third man, Inspector Frayne, as I learnt afterwards, was in dark grey, with a soft grey felt hat with the brim turned down in front.

"Well Treeton," said the Inspector briskly, "what's all the fuss about down here?"

"A case – a very funny case. That's all," replied the local inspector. "I told you over the 'phone all I know about it."

Then followed a brief, low-pitched conversation between the two officers. I saw Frayne look over at me inquisitively, and caught a few snatches of Treeton's words to him. "Great personal friend of the Chief Constable… Yes, quite all right… Writes about crime… No, no, nothing to do with newspapers … amateur, of course … decent sort."

I gathered from this that there was going to be no difficulty about my joining the party of police investigators. I was right. In a few moments Treeton brought Inspector Frayne over to me and we were introduced. Then, after a few friendly words, we started for the scene of the startling discovery of the morning.

We slipped out of the station in pairs, so as to avoid attracting attention, which might have led to our being followed and hampered in our movements by a crowd of idle and curious inhabitants.

Proceeding by way of the path which wound round the back of the high-up coast-guard station and so up over the cliff, we soon came to the seat where the body of old Mr. Gregory had been found.

The seat, a green-painted one with a curved back, that had more than once afforded me a comfortable resting-place, was the first out of the town towards the links. It was situate a little way from the footpath amid the rough grass of the cliff-top. Around it the herbage never grew on account of the constant tread from the feet of many daily visitors, so that clear about it was a small patch of bare sand.

On the right, upon the next point of the cliff, was another similar seat, while on the left the path leading back to the town was railed off because it was dangerous to approach too near the crumbling edge.

At the seat stood a very tall, thin, fair-haired young constable who had, since the discovery of old Gregory's body, remained on duty at the spot to prevent any one approaching it. This was done by Treeton's orders, who hoped, and very logically, that if the sand about the seat was not disturbed some tell-tale mark or footprint might be found by the detectives that would give a clue to the person or persons who had visited the seat with old Gregory in the early hours of that fatal morning.

Near the constable were two men with cameras, and at a little distance a small knot of curious idlers, all that remained of the many inquisitive folks who were at first attracted to the spot, but who, finding nothing to satisfy their curiosity, had soon returned to the town.

The morning was bright and calm, the sunlight reflected from a glassy sea, upon the surface of which were a dozen or so fishing-boats lifting their crab-pots, for the crabs of Cromer are far-famed amongst epicures for their excellencies. It was a peaceful, happy scene, that none could have suspected was the setting of a ghastly tragedy.

On arrival, Inspector Frayne, tall, grey-haired, with aquiline, clean-shaven face, assumed an attitude of ubiquitous importance that amused me.

"The body was found lying face downwards six feet beyond the south end of the seat," Treeton explained. "You see this mark in the grass?"

Looking, we all saw distinctly the impression that marked the spot where the unfortunate man had lain.

"No doubt," said the detective inspector, "the old gentleman was sitting on the seat when he was attacked from behind by somebody who sneaked quietly across the footpath, and he fell sideways from the seat. Have you looked for footprints?"

"There are a number of them, as you see," was Treeton's reply. "Nothing has been disturbed. I left all to you."

Gazing around, I saw that there were many prints of soles and heels in the soft sand about the seat. Many people had evidently sat there on the previous day. In the sand, too, some one had traced with a stick, in sprawly capitals, the word "Alice."

Frayne and his two provincial assistants bent and closely examined the prints in question.

"Women's mostly, I should say," remarked the detective inspector after a pause. "That's plain from the French heels, flat golf-shoe soles, and narrow rubber-pads, that have left their marks behind them. Better take some casts of these, Phelps," he said, addressing the elder of his subordinates.

"Forgive me for making a remark," I ventured. "I'm not a detective, but it strikes me that if anybody did creep across the grass from the path, as the Inspector rightly suggested, to attack the old man, he, or she, may have left some prints in the rear there. In the front here the footprints we have been examining are obviously those of people who had been sitting upon the seat long prior to the arrival of the victim."

"I quite agree, Mr. Vidal," exclaimed Treeton, and at this I thought the expert from Norwich seemed somewhat annoyed. "Yes," continued the local inspector, "it's quite possible, as Mr. Frayne said, that somebody did creep across the grass behind the old man. But unfortunately, there have been dozens of people over that very same spot this morning."

"Hopeless then!" grunted Frayne. "Why on earth, Treeton, did you let them swarm over there?" he queried testily. "Their doing so has rendered our inquiry a hundred per cent. more difficult. In all such cases the public ought to be rigorously kept from the immediate neighbourhood of the crime."

"At least we can make a search," I suggested.

"My dear Mr. Vidal, what is the use if half Cromer has been up here prying about?" asked the detective impatiently. "No, those feminine footprints in front of the seat are much more likely to help us. There's bound to be a woman in such a case as this. My motto in regard to crime mysteries is, first find the woman, and the rest is easy. In every great problem the 'eternal feminine,' as you writers put it, is ever present. She is in this one somewhere, you may depend upon it."

I did not answer him, judging that he merely emitted these sentiments in order to impress his listening subordinates with a due sense of his superior knowledge. But the search went on.

From the footpath across the grass to the seat was about thirty feet, and over the whole area all of us made diligent investigation. In one of the patches where the sand was bare of herbage I found the print of a woman's shoe – a smart little shoe – size 3, I judged it to be. The sole was well shaped and pointed, the heel was of the latest fashionable model – rather American than French.

I at once pointed it out to Frayne, but though he had so strongly expressed the opinion that there was a woman in the case, he dismissed it with a glance.

"Some woman came here yesterday evening with her sweetheart, I suppose," he said with a laugh.

But to me that footprint was distinctly instructive, for among the many impressed on the sand before the seat, I had not detected one that bore any resemblance to it. The owner of that American shoe had walked from the path to the back of the seat, but had certainly not sat down there.

I carefully marked the spot, and telling an old fisherman of my acquaintance, who stood by, to allow no one to obliterate it, continued my investigations.

Three feet behind the seat, in the midst of the trodden grass, I came upon two hairpins lying close together. Picking them up, I found they were rather thick, crinkled in the middle, and both of the same pale bronze shade.

Was it possible there had been a struggle there – a struggle with the woman who wore those American shoes – who was, moreover, a fair woman, if those pins had fallen from her hair in the encounter?

I showed the hairpins to Frayne who was busy taking a measurement of the distance from the seat to where the body had been found.

To my surprise, he seemed impatient and annoyed.

"My dear Mr. Vidal," he exclaimed, "you novelists are, I fear, far too imaginative. I dare say there are hundreds of hairpins about here in the grass if we choose to search for them. This seat is a popular resort for visitors by day and a trysting place for lovers after sundown. In the vicinity of any such seat you will always find hairpins, cigarette ends, wrappings from chocolates, and tinfoil. Look around you and see."

"But these pins have not been here more than a day," I expostulated. "They are bright and were lying lightly on the grass. Besides, are we not looking for a woman?"

"I'll admit that they may perhaps have belonged to somebody who was here last evening," he said. "But I can assure you they are no good to us." With this he turned away with rather a contemptuous smile.

I began to suspect that I had in some way antagonized Frayne, who at that moment seemed more intent upon working up formal evidence to give before the coroner, rather than in pushing forward the investigation of the crime, and so finding a clue to the culprit.

I could see that he regarded the minute investigations I was making with undisguised and contemptuous amusement. Of course, he was polite to me, for was I not the friend of the Chief Constable? But, all the same, I was an amateur investigator, therefore, in his eyes, a blunderer. He, of course, did not know at how many investigations of crime I had assisted in Paris, in Brussels, and in Rome – investigations conducted by the greatest detectives in Europe.

It was not to be expected that an officer of the Norfolk Constabulary, more used to petty larceny than to murder, would be so alert or so thorough in his methods as an officer from Scotland Yard, or of the Sûreté in Paris.

Arguing thus, I felt that I could cheerfully disregard the covert sneers and glances of my companions; and plunged with renewed interest into the work I had undertaken.

In the sand before the seat, I saw two long, wide marks which told me that old Mr. Gregory must have slipped from his position in a totally helpless condition. That being so, how was it that his body was found several feet away?

Had it been dragged to that spot in the grass? Or, had he crawled there in his death agony?

In the little knot of people who had gathered I noticed a young fisherman in his brown blouse – a tall youth, with fair curly hair, whom I knew well and could trust. Calling him over, I despatched him to the town for a couple of pounds of plaster of Paris, a bucket, some water, and a trowel.

Then I went on methodically with my investigations.

Presently the coast-guard, George Simmonds, a middle-aged, dark-haired man, who was a well-known figure in Cromer, came up and was introduced to Frayne as the man who, returning from duty as night patrol along the cliffs, early that morning, had discovered the body.

I stood by listening as he described the incident to the detective inspector.

"You see, sir," he said saluting, "I'd been along the cuffs to Trimingham, and was on my way back about a quarter past three, when I noticed a man lying yonder on the grass. It was a fine morning, quite light, and at first I thought it was a tramp, for they often sleep on the cliffs in the warm weather. But on going nearer I saw, to my surprise, that the man was old Mr. Gregory. I thought he was asleep, and bent down and shook him, his face being downwards on the grass and his arms stretched out. He didn't wake up, so I turned him over, and the colour of his face fair startled me. I opened his coat, put my hand on his heart, and found he was quite dead. I then ran along to our station and told Mr. Day, the Chief Officer, and he sent me off sharp to the police."

"You saw nobody about?" Frayne asked sharply. "Nobody passed you?"

"I didn't see a soul all the way from Trimingham."

"Constable Baxter was along there somewhere keeping a point," remarked Treeton. "Didn't you meet him?"

"Going out I met him, just beyond Overstrand, at about one o'clock, and wished him good morning," was the coast-guard's reply.

"But where is Craig, the young nephew of the dead man?" I asked Treeton. "Surely he may know something! He must have missed his uncle, who, apparently, was out all night."

"Ah! That's just the mystery, Mr. Vidal," replied the Inspector. "Let us go down to the life-boat house," he added, addressing the detective.

As they were moving away, and I was about to follow, the tall fisher-youth arrived with the plaster of Paris and a pail of water.

Promising to be with them quickly, I remained behind, mixed the plaster into a paste and within a few minutes had secured casts of the imprint of the woman's American shoe, and those of several other footmarks, which, with his superior knowledge, the expert from Norwich had considered beneath his notice.

Then, placing my casts carefully in the empty pail, I sent them along to the Hôtel de Paris by the same fisher-youth. Afterwards, I walked along the path, passed behind the lawn of the coast-guard station, where the White Ensign was flying on the flagstaff, and then descending, at last entered the life-boat house, where the officers and three doctors had assembled.

One of the doctors, named Sladen, a grey-headed practitioner who had been many years in Cromer, recognized me as I entered.

"Hulloa, Mr. Vidal! This is a very curious case, isn't it? Interests you, of course. All mysteries do, no doubt. But this case is astounding. In making our examination, do you know we've discovered a most amazing fact?" and he pointed to the plank whereon lay the body, covered with one of the brown sails from the life-boat.

"No. What?" I asked eagerly.

"Well – though we all at first, naturally, took the body to be that of old Vernon Gregory, it isn't his at all!"

"Not Gregory's?" I gasped.

"No. He has white hair and a beard, and he is wearing old Gregory's cape and hat, but it certainly is not Gregory's body."

"Who, then, is the dead man?" I gasped.

"His nephew, Edward Craig!"