The Cheyne Mystery quotes

This would seem to be the last word on the subject of narration in general. For the novelist no dictum more entirely complete and satisfactory can be imagined—in theory. But in practice it is hard to live up to.

Where is the beginning of a story? Where is the beginning of anything? No one knows.

When I set myself to consider the actual beginning of Maxwell Cheyne’s adventure, I saw at once I should have to go back to Noah.

“I don’t follow this,” he said. “How do you get your chart to move if it’s nailed down?”

There was no answer, but as he swung round with a sudden misgiving there was a sharp click. Lamson had disappeared and the door was shut!

Cheyne seized the handle and turned it violently, only to find that the bolt of the lock had been shot, but before he could attempt further researches the light went off, leaving him in almost pitch darkness.

Price read it carefully, then sealed it in its envelope. Immediately after he handed through the panel a tumbler of whisky and water, then hurried off, saying he was going to dispatch the letter and bring Cheyne his breakfast.

Oh, the unspeakable delight of that drink!

Cheyne thought he had never before experienced any sensation approaching it in satisfaction. He swallowed it in great gulps, and when in a few moments Price returned, he demanded more, and again more.

“But that’s all very well, Miss Merrill; awfully good of you and all that,” he protested, “but it doesn’t really meet the case at all. If you hadn’t come along and played the good Samaritan I should have died. I was—”

“If you don’t stop talking about it I shall begin to wish you had,” she smiled.

“How did the accident happen? I should be interested to hear that, because I’ve thought about it and haven’t been able to imagine any way it could have come about.”

“Then shake hands on it!”

Solemnly they shook hands, and so the firm of Cheyne and Merrill came into being.

“Good gracious!” cried the young lady as she stared wonderingly at the collection. “Whatever are these? Another expedition to Mount Everest?”

“Torch: takes the place of the old dark lantern,” Cheyne answered proudly, pointing to the article in question.

“Jemmy for persuading intractable doors, boxes and drawers; cap that will not drop or blow off; gloves to keep one’s fingerprints off the furniture; diamond for making holes in panes of glass; penknife for shooting back snibs of windows;

Then he returned to his study of the tracing.

There are those who tell us that in this world there are no trifles: that every event, however unimportant it may appear, is preordained and weighty as every other.

On this bright spring morning in the first class refreshment room at Euston, Cheyne was to meet with a demonstration of the truth of this assertion which left him marveling and humbly thankful.

When he took his first sip of coffee he found that he had forgotten to put sugar in it, and when he looked at the sugar bowl he saw that by the merest chance it was empty.

An empty sugar bowl. A trifle that, if ever there was one!

And yet nothing of more supreme moment had ever happened to Cheyne than the finding of that empty bowl on his table at that moment.

Inquiries at the post office revealed the fact that there was a shipping agency in the Rue des Tanneurs, and soon he had reached the place, found a clerk who spoke English, and put his question.

When French wished to be suave, as he usually did, he could, so to speak, have wheedled his best bone from a bulldog.

Now, explaining in a friendly and confidential manner who he was and why he wanted the information, he begged the other’s good offices.

“Looks like it, sir. As a matter of fact every single statement those men made that could be tested has been proved false. Even when there didn’t seem any great object in a yarn they pitched it.

Lies seemed to come easier to them.

”

“Well, I’ve known a good few cases of that, and so have you, French.

It’s a habit that grows.

Now, what’s your next move?”

French smiled pleasantly. Though interested in the man, he could not help noting with some amusement at once the restraint and the completeness of his statement.

How refreshing, he thought, and how rare, to meet someone who will give you the pith of a story without frills!

“I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Price,” he said cordially. “I suppose Mr. Cheyne has told you the effect that your letter has had on us all?”

And so in a quite orderly sequence event had followed event, until now it looked as if the climax had been reached.

Like a flash these thoughts passed through Cheyne’s mind, and like a flash he saw what depended on them.

Now they knew where Joan Merrill had been taken. If she was still alive—and he simply could not bring himself to admit any other possibility—she was on that boat of Merkel’s some two hundred and fifty miles north of the Azores!

The sight which met his eyes on emerging made him hold his breath, as he clung to the rail at the companion door. It was a wonderful morning, clear and bright and fresh and invigorating.

The sun shone down from a cloudless sky on to a dark sapphire sea of incredible purity, flecked over with foaming patches of dazzling white.

As far as the eye could reach in every direction out to the hard sharp line of the horizon, great waves rolled relentlessly onward, wavelets dancing and churning and foaming on their slow-moving flanks.