Mystery at Lynden Sands

Paul Fordingbridge, with a faintly reproachful glance at his sister, interrupted his study of the financial page of The Times and put the paper down on his knee. Deliberately he removed his reading-glasses; replaced them by his ordinary spectacles; and then turned to the restless figure at the window of the private sitting-room.

“Well, Jay, you seem to have something on your mind. Would it be too much to ask you to say it⁠—whatever it is⁠—and then let me read my paper comfortably? One can’t give one’s mind to a thing when there’s a person at one’s elbow obviously ready to break out into conversation at any moment.”

Miss Fordingbridge had spent the best part of half a century in regretting her father’s admiration for Herrick. “I can’t see myself as Julia of the ‘Night Piece,’ ” she complained with a faint parade of modesty; and it was at her own wish that the hated name had been abbreviated to an initial in family talk.

At the sound of her brother’s voice she turned away from the sea-view.

“I can’t imagine why you insisted on coming to this hotel,” she said, rather fretfully. “I can’t stand the place. Of course, as it’s just been opened, it’s useless to expect everything to go like clockwork; but there seems a lot of mismanagement about it. I almost burned my hand with the hot water in my bedroom this morning⁠—ridiculous, having tap-water as hot as that! And my letters got into the wrong pigeonhole or something; I had to wait ever so long for them.

“I remember quite well how you laughed at me when I came back from that wonderful séance and told you how I had been assured that Derek was still alive. That was five years ago, but I can recall it perfectly. And I know it was true. And if you had been there yourself, and had heard it with your own ears, you’d have believed it too. You couldn’t have disbelieved. It was far too convincing. After the medium went into a trance, the control spoke to me. And it told me all about Derek⁠—what regiment he’d been in; when he was captured; how he’d disappeared; how anxious I’d been about him; and how we’d lost all trace of him. You’d have been quite convinced yourself, if you’d been there and heard it all.”

“I am quite convinced,” her brother replied drily. “That’s to say I’m quite convinced that they’d looked up Derek’s name in the casualty lists and got together all the data they could gather beforehand. I expect you gave away a good deal yourself by your questions, too. You’re about the easiest person to pump, if one goes about it in the right way.”

Miss Fordingbridge smiled in a superior fashion, as though she knew that she held a trump card still.

“Would it convince you if I said that I’d seen Derek?”

“Some more of their confounded mummery? No, it wouldn’t convince me. A child could deceive you, Jay. You want to be deceived. You can’t bear the idea that Derek’s dead⁠—that’s what vitiates this stuff that you dignify by the name of evidence.”

Wakened abruptly by the trilling of a bell beside his bed, Sir Clinton bitterly regretted the striving of the Lynden Sands Hotel towards up-to-dateness, as represented by a room telephone system. He leaned over and picked up the receiver.

“Sir Clinton Driffield speaking.”

“I’m Armadale, sir,” came the reply. “Can I see you? It’s important, sir, and I can’t very well talk about it over the phone.”

Sir Clinton’s face betrayed a natural annoyance.

“This is an ungodly hour to be ringing anyone up in his bed, inspector. It’s barely dawn. However, since you’re here, you may as well come up. My room’s No. 89.”

He laid down the receiver, got out of bed, and put on his dressing-gown. As he moved across the room and mechanically began to brush his hair, a glance through the window showed him that the rain of the previous night had blown over and the sky was blue. The sun had not yet risen, and a pale full moon was low on the western horizon, A murmur of the incoming tide rose from the beaches; and the white crests of the waves showed faintly in the half-light.

“Well, inspector, what is it?” Sir Clinton demanded testily. “You’d better be brief, be businesslike, and be gone, as they say. I want to get back to bed.”

“There’s been another murder, sir.”

Sir Clinton made no effort to conceal his surprise.

“Another murder! In a place this size? They must be making a hobby of it.”

Armadale’s smile of triumph became even more marked. He turned once more to his bag, slipped his hands into his rubber gloves, and then, with every precaution, lifted a dusty-looking Colt automatic into view.

“This is a . calibre pistol,” he pointed out. “Same calibre as the cartridge-case we picked up on the rock, and probably the same as the bullet’ll be when we get it from the body. I’ve examined the barrel; there’s been a shot fired from it quite recently. I’ve looked into the magazine; it lacks one cartridge of a full load.”

He paused dramatically before his final point.

“And I found this pistol in the pocket of the woman Fleetwood’s golf-blazer which was hanging on her peg in the lady golfers’ dressing-room.”

After another pause, meant to let the fact sink home in Wendover’s mind, Armadale added:

“You’ll admit, sir, that a toy of this sort is hardly the kind of thing an ordinary lady carries about with her.”

Wendover thought he saw his way now, and he prepared to spring his mine.

“Let’s be quite clear about this, inspector. I take it that you went into that ladies’ dressing-room, hunted around for Mrs. Fleetwood’s coat-peg, and found the blazer hanging on it and the shoes lying on the floor below.”

“Exactly, sir. Mrs. Fleetwood’s card was there, marking the peg. I’d no difficulty.”

Wendover made no attempt to repress the smile which curved his lips.

“Just so, inspector. Anyone else could have found the things just as easily. They were lying there, open to anyone; not even a key to turn in order to pick them up.

“I’d read it this way. While they were standing there, with their backs to the wreck, No. 3 started into activity. He came out from the cover of the hull and walked up to where they were standing. He must have gone quietly, for they don’t seem to have turned to meet him. You see that, squire? Do you see anything else?”

Wendover was staring at the tracks with a puzzled look on his face. The inspector, who had just reached this point in his diagram, gave a smothered exclamation of surprise as he examined the sand below him. Wendover was the first to find his voice.

“Where’s the rest of Fordingbridge’s track?” he demanded. “It simply stops short there. He didn’t turn; he didn’t walk away; and⁠—damn it, he can’t have flown away. Where did he go to?”