The Ma.s.singham affair.

Grierson, Edward.

THE LETTER 1936.

"Old father antic the law," says one of the characters in King Henry IV.

One day in the late nineteen-forties, a young solicitor in Smed-wick, near the Scottish border, happened to be going through some papers left in the lumber room by his predecessor from whom he had bought the practice, a Mr Justin Deny, recendy deceased, when his attention was caught by a folder marked in Mr Derry's rather crabbed handwriting Summary of Facts in In Re Milligan and containing carbon copies of some twenty typescript pages, the originals of which the old man had probably taken away with his other possessions at the time of the sale.

Young Mr Jobling had a quick eye. It had led him to the cobwebby but immensely lucrative practice in the historic ducal town (as the munic.i.p.al guide book had it), and where most men would have pa.s.sed on with a cursory nod to In Re Milligan, he looked closer and saw that what he had stumbled on was a personal confession of the most beguiling kind. Nor had he read far before he suspected that the carbons, which must have been left behind by accident, had been typed by Mr Derry himself, not entrusted to the somewhat formidable lady who had pa.s.sed with the firm and was now designated, in Mr Jobling's idiom, his P.S.

12th July 1936 Something that has happened recently [he readl had decided me to write down all the facts of what came to be called trie 'Ma.s.singham Affair'. It is still not quite forgotten in Smedwick, though it ended in 1899, nearly forty years ago, and poor Milligan and so many of the others are dead. I would have said only last week that it ought to be forgotten. Now I am not so sure. I shall write it all down first and then decide what to do. It will not be an easy decision. There are still people alive who could be hurt most deeply by what it is in my power to say. And can I even be sure it is true? Can I say with absolute certainty that I know what happened at Ma.s.singham that night; what Sugden's part was, and poor Amy's; or whether the old woman was lying in her last words to me?

Mr Jobling could make nothing of it. He was a newcomer to the district and had never even heard of Ma.s.singham. And though the twenty closely typed pages opened his eyes to many things and helped to make him in future years perhaps the most cautious of a notably cautious breed of men, it gave him no insight into the secret heart of Mr Deny. He understood the lawyer's problem and missed the man's. But then perhaps there would have been no problem for Mr Jobling. He would never have given house-room to the Ma.s.singham Affair.

THE CRIME 1891.

The young woman came to the head of the stairs and peered down into the darkness. From there the sounds from the drawing-room were much more audible. Rats, most probably. The Rectory was plagued with them: Tike Hamlin town', her father would complain as they set off on their nightly pilgrimage, candles in hand, up the stairs and along the narrow, shadowy corridors of the house. Only last year young Merrick from the bothy by the bridge had found a nest of them behind the cistern in the attics, and on his advice there had been imported, despite the Rector's marked repugnance to the tribe, a large and somnolent tom-cat that dozed all day by the fire and did his duty, one supposed, by night. Not in the drawing-room, apparently, where the sounds persisted even more loudly than before.

Miss Verney stamped her foot imperiously to stop them. She was an imperious girl: it came of being an adjutant in the care of souls. The Rector was a widower, and in the remote parish lost in the wilds of the Northumbrian hills he had no other helpmate. He would not have desired one. He would certainly not have been permitted one.

Below the stairs the pa.s.sage stretched out to the front door with the two main living-rooms on its right. All was dark down there. The moon was full, but the hall had no windows and all the doors into it were closed. Suddenly Miss Verney was aware of a shaft of light shining diagonally across her view like a sunbeam through cloud, marking the wall of the pa.s.sage on the left, and she saw that it was coming from the drawing-room door which had begun to open.

She drew back from the stairhead, but not hastily, for she was not a timorous or hasty person. The Rector's room was next to her own, and she entered it, knocking gently at the door.

"Father."

He too had been awakened. She heard the sc.r.a.ping of a match THE Ma.s.sEMGHAM AFFAIK.

and by its glow she saw him sitting up in bed, a Biblical figure with his ragged white beard, wearing a flannel nightgown of the same stuff as her own and a cap with a ta.s.sel that dangled down over one ear.

"Father," she said, "there are burglars in the house."

Mr Verney was nearing seventy, but a man of spirit, and he received this alarming news with something approaching relish. "Where's my sword?" was his first remark as he jumped up. Some time elapsed before he got his candle lit and found it, but he was armed at last and was just starting for the door when he was firmly ordered back to bed.

"Didn't you call me, my dear?" he protested, taking the logical point as he usually did in their arguments, without much noticeable success.

"Perhaps I did," she answered. "It was foolish of me. Please don't go out."

"But I will," he said, taking a good grip of the sword.

He had got the door open by this time and their raised voices, still arguing earnestly with one another, had already roused the cook in the servants' wing. But from below the sounds continued uninterruptedly, and as they went down the stairs, the Rector leading with his drawn sword in one hand and a candle held high in the other, they saw the drawing-room door wide open and, nearer at hand, a shaft of light shining from the dining-room and moving along the wall. From the landing half-way down the stairs they could look directly into the room, and there, between them and the table, they glimpsed the figures of two men, one with a candle and something like a gun or an iron bar. Next instant the intruders had seen the light on the stairs, and their candle was snuffed and thrown under the table.

"Who are you?" Mr Verney called out, and repeated it as the dining-room door was seen to close towards them. He went on unhesitatingly and had almost reached the door when there was a loud explosion and the candle fell from his hand, leaving them all in almost total darkness.

"Are you hurt, Papa?" Miss Verney cried.

"Merely grazed," he answered. "And you?"

Before she could reply, a man came out at them, crouching low and making for the drawing-room some yards away, only to be seized by the militant Miss Verney, who shouted out, "You scoun- drel!" while the Rector slashed with his sword in all directions. The fugitive darted from her grasp into the drawing-room, and by the light of the moon she saw him disappear through the window into the grounds. Returning into the pa.s.sage, she took her father round the waist from behind and tried to drag him back from the dining-room, into which he sought to hurl himself against the armed and desperate man whom they could hear beyond the door blundering up and down and vainly trying to open the shutters and get out. But the Rector's blood was up. He thrust her from him roughly, shouting to her to leave him, and she obeyed out of half-forgotten habit. From the landing, in painful agitation, wounded by far the more severely, she heard him go, and listened to the macabre game of blind man's buff proceeding in that room, in which one powerful fellow with a gun went dodging from corner to corner, pursued by an old gentleman who lunged out at shadows in Byronic style-Arras they p.r.i.c.k'd and curtains with their swords And wounded several shutters and some boards -a table cloth in this instance, as she found when she came to the reckoning.

She could see nothing but a faint glow where the moonlight shone into the pa.s.sage through the drawing-room door. She heard the sound of heavy breathing, the crash as a table went over, a sudden cry of triumph, or so it seemed, and then the door was wrenched open, and in the uncertain light she saw the figure of a man come bursting out in one tempestuous rush to hurl himself into the drawing-room, from which came the tinkle of broken gla.s.s and the thud of a body landing in the flower-bed below the windows of the house.

Above her a light was shining on the stairs as the cook came wavering into view, uttering cries of alarm and clutching her dressing-gown around her. "Be quiet, Jane," Miss Verney commanded her. She could feel in her thigh the slow welling of blood, but there was no trace of it to be seen on her gown and she had no intention that it should be seen. Seizing the candle, she ran into the dining-room, fighting back the rising tide of panic. Her father was slumped against the table, head thrown back, eyes open and staring. For a moment she thought that he was dead, and a fierce, uncontrollable anguish filled her heart. Then she saw him move and his gaze came down to hers, and she rushed into his arms as she had not done since she had been a little girl frightened by some sound in the night.

15.

THE Ma.s.sESTGHAM AFFAIR.

"There, there," he said, trying to comfort her, not knowing that it was for him that she feared. They were interrupted by a cry, as the cook, following cautiously into the light, caught sight of the blood flowing from the wound on his shoulder where a few scattered pellets from the charge had struck.

"Only a graze. Surely you've seen blood before. Be a good sensible woman," the Rector admonished her in a firm voice. "I'll take no hurt. Are you sure you're all right, my dear?" "Quite sure, Father."

"The scoundrels!" the Rector said as she began to lead him into the drawing-room, where the bandages were kept. "They fired on us. There were two of them, you saw that?" "Yes."

"Have they taken anything?"

She glanced around her, not really caring, for the blood seemed to be coming faster now and she feared that at any moment he might discover it. The room was in turmoil: the desk rifled, drawers open, papers strewn everywhere. Something was missing; she sensed it even before her eye detected what it was; and she said: "They've taken my watch. The one with the seal. From the mantelpiece." "The one poor Davey gave you?" "Yes." "My dear!"

"It's all right, Father. It's no matter. Now stay still while I cut away the cloth from your shoulder."

Working deftly, she soon had him bandaged and dosed and tucked up in bed with a hot-water bottle. From the pillows, with his long beard straggling down over the sheets, he watched her anxiously as she bent down to kiss his forehead under the white woollen cap. "Are you sure you're all right, dearest? You look so pale. You're sure they missed you?" "Of course. Now lie down and try to go to sleep like a good papa." "Don't you go out," he said suddenly with anxious awareness of what she would do.

"I'll behave sensibly, you can be sure."

"But you'll go running out. I know you."

"Only to Tom's dear. We must have the doctor fetched from Smedwick. And the Police must be told."

Avoiding his gaze, so filled with dismal forebodings for her safety, she kissed him again before going to her room, where she stood in front of the mirror in the candle-light and let down her gown. The shift beneath it was soaked in blood. Calmly, with the detachment of a nurse, she examined the wound and dressed it with linament. It was not as bad as she had feared. Then she threw on some clothes and ran down the stairs to the front door.

Outside, the moonlight shone down on the Rectory in its garden among the bare trees, with the one straggling street of the hamlet on rising ground behind it under the rim of the moor. Below her, as she hurried down the hill, she could see young Merrick's cottage, set in the narrow valley beside the church and ruined castle, and beyond it a bracken-covered fell topped with a line of crags, along whose face lay pockets of snow glittering with a silvery brightness.

She felt no fear. It never occurred to her to think that the men who had broken in on them might still be lurking in the hedgerows. She came to the cottage in a mounting clamour from the dogs, and knocked loudly at the door. When young Merrick came she gave him her message and walked back up the hill, refusing all help. Only when she had reached her own room and got herself tidily to bed did she faint clean away.

II.

Superintendent Blair, stationed in Smedwick, six miles off across the moor, was awakened at half-past three on the February morning. He came downstairs muttering to himself, fastening his belt and tunic b.u.t.tons, a burly, square-jawed man with an iron-grey moustache that drooped round the corners of the mouth, giving to his face a petulant and disapproving expression.

At young Merrick's news, however, his eyes kindled and he nodded his head several times portentously.

"Two men, eh, Tom?"

"So Miss Charlotte says, sir."

"And armed, you say. A shot-gun?"

"Seems it was, sir."

"Poachers," announced the Superintendent with profound conviction. He knew his district and its besetting sin, which was an inordinate love of pheasants and coneys. As in so many other towns surrounded by large estates, poaching in Smedwick had achieved the dignity of a profession, diligently pursued, night after night, by

17.

"There, there," he said, trying to comfort her, not knowing that it was for him that she feared. They were interrupted by a cry, as the cook, following cautiously into the light, caught sight of the blood flowing from the wound on his shoulder where a few scattered pellets from the charge had struck.

"Only a graze. Surely you've seen blood before. Be a good sensible woman," the Rector admonished her in a firm voice. "I'll take no hurt. Are you sure you're all right, my dear?"

"Quite sure, Father."

"The scoundrels!" the Rector said as she began to lead him into the drawing-room, where the bandages were kept. "They fired on us. There were two of them, you saw that?"

"Yes."

"Have they taken anything?"

She glanced around her, not really caring, for the blood seemed to be coming faster now and she feared that at any moment he might discover it. The room was in turmoil: the desk rifled, drawers open, papers strewn everywhere. Something was missing; she sensed it even before her eye detected what it was; and she said: "They've taken my watch. The one with the seal. From the mantelpiece."

"The one poor Davey gave you?"

"Yes."

"My dear!"

"It's all right, Father. It's no matter. Now stay still while I cut away the cloth from your shoulder."

Working deftly, she soon had him bandaged and dosed and tucked up in bed with a hot-water bottle. From the pillows, with his long beard straggling down over the sheets, he watched her anxiously as she bent down to kiss his forehead under the white woollen cap. "Are you sure you're all right, dearest? You look so pale. You're sure they missed you?"

"Of course. Now lie down and try to go to sleep like a good papa."

"Don't you go out," he said suddenly with anxious awareness of what she would do.

"I'll behave sensibly, you can be sure."

"But you'll go running out. I know you."

"Only to Tom's dear. We must have the doctor fetched from Smedwick. And the Police must be told."

Avoiding his gaze, so filled with dismal forebodings for her safety, she kissed him again before going to her room, where she stood in THE CRIME: l8gi.

front of the mirror in the candle-light and let down her gown. The shift beneath it was soaked in blood. Calmly, with the detachment of a nurse, she examined the wound and dressed it with linament. It was not as bad as she had feared. Then she threw on some clothes and ran down the stairs to the front door.

Outside, the moonlight shone down on the Rectory in its garden among the bare trees, with the one straggling street of the hamlet on rising ground behind it under the rim of the moor. Below her, as she hurried down the hill, she could see young Merrick's cottage, set in the narrow valley beside the church and ruined castle, and beyond it a bracken-covered fell topped with a line of crags, along whose face lay pockets of snow glittering with a silvery brightness.

She felt no fear. It never occurred to her to think that the men who had broken in on them might still be lurking in the hedgerows. She came to the cottage in a mounting clamour from the dogs, and knocked loudly at the door. When young Merrick came she gave him her message and walked back up the hill, refusing all help. Only when she had reached her own room and got herself tidily to bed did she faint clean away.

II.

Superintendent Blair, stationed in Smedwick, six miles off across the moor, was awakened at half-past three on the February morning. He came downstairs muttering to himself, fastening his belt and tunic b.u.t.tons, a burly, square-jawed man with an iron-grey moustache that drooped round the corners of the mouth, giving to his face a petulant and disapproving expression.

At young Merrick's news, however, his eyes kindled and he nodded his head several times portentously.

"Two men, eh, Tom?"

"So Miss Charlotte says, sir."

"And armed, you say. A shot-gun?"

"Seems it was, sir."

"Poachers," announced the Superintendent with profound conviction. He knew his district and its besetting sin, which was an inordinate love of pheasants and coneys. As in so many other towns surrounded by large estates, poaching in Smedwick had achieved the dignity of a profession, diligently pursued, night after night, by groups of men and dogs roaming as silent as shadows in the woods and straying sometimes, when game was scarce, to the scattered farmsteads on the fells. Only a few months earlier a police constable by the name of Luke had been shot and killed by gentlemen of this kidney who had never been brought to justice, and the memory of that crime was still fresh in Blair's mind.

"Let's see now," he mused, stroking his moustache with the back of his hand. "It was done about two, you say. And you'd heard by half-past and rode straight over here."

"I went to Doctor first, sir."

"You went to the doctor first," the Superintendent repeated, though it could be seen that this was not a commendation. "And now it's three-forty. Those beggars could be home across the moor and safe and snug by now. And they could still be out of their bolt holes and in the haughs. Well get the nets down."

No sooner said than done with so efficient a machine. The Headquarters staff was alerted, constables were sent running to every outlying officer, and within half an hour the roads into the town were guarded and patrols had begun the rounds in the Bewley and Pelegate sectors where all the more notorious poachers were known to live. Having thus galvanised his force to deal with what he saw as a heaven-sent chance of smiting the Amalekites, the Superintendent got into his gig and drove by the Deeping Road to Ma.s.singham which he reached about half-past five, while darkness still lay over the countryside.

He found the villagers swarming in the Rectory and its grounds in a pleasurable state of ghoulishness. No doubt it was felt that after thirty years the Rector and his family had at last edified the neighbourhood. "Can't have this, now can we?" the Superintendent reasoned with them as he began to shoo them out. "Destroy the clues you will, if any, and then wherell we be?" With tact and good humour he got the place cleared of all but the Verneys, who were under sedatives in their bedrooms, and the household staff, which consisted of a cook, two daily maids and a general handyman by the name of Bell who did not sleep on the premises.

"Now see here, Jane," the Superintendent said, waylaying his quarry in her kitchen, "you're the one to help me, you are. Did you see or hear anything?"

"Just a noise like, and the gun going off-and then the master hollering."

"I want you to show me where they got in."

Preceded by a constable carrying a candlestick, they went into the drawing-room. One of the sash windows had been forced with some instrument and panes of gla.s.s had been broken. The window stood open. The Superintendent leaned through it over the flower-beds, but it was still too dark to see anything out there, so he turned back into the room, following the trail of damage that led towards the central table lying on its side and the bureau against the far wall, all its drawers open and littered with paper.

"Seems they couldn't have found much," he said. "Anyways, they went next door."

"That's right, sir. Into the dining-room."