One Too Many

 

 

WHEN SIMON GRANT, THE Napoleon of Consolidated Nitro-Phosphates

and Heaven knows how many affiliated companies, vanished off the face of

the earth one rainy November night, it would have been, in any case, only

natural that his family and friends should be disturbed, and that there should

be a slight flurry on the Stock Exchange. But when, in the course of the

next few days, it became painfully evident that Consolidated Nitro-

Phosphates had been consolidated in nothing but the name—that they were,

in fact, not even ripe for liquidation, but had (so to speak) already passed

that point and evaporated into thin air, such assets as they possessed having

mysteriously disappeared at the same time as Simon Grant—then the hue-

and-cry went out with a noise that shook three continents and, incidentally,

jogged Mr. Montague Egg for an hour or so out of his blameless routine.

Not that Mr. Egg had any money in Nitro-Phosphates, or could claim

any sort of acquaintance with the missing financier. His connection with the

case was entirely fortuitous, the by-product of a savage budgetary

announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which threatened to

have alarming results for the wine and spirits trade. Mr. Egg, travelling

representative of Messrs. Plummet & Rose of Piccadilly, had reached

Birmingham in his wanderings, when he was urgently summoned back to

town by his employers for a special conference upon policy, and thus—

though he did not know it at the time—he enjoyed the distinction of

travelling by the very train from which Simon Grant so suddenly and

unaccountably vanished.

The facts in the case of Simon Grant were disconcertingly simple. At

this time the L.M.S. Railway were running a night express from Birmingham to London which, leaving Birmingham at 9:50, stopped only at

Coventry and Rugby before running into Euston at 12:10. Mr. Grant had

attended a dinner given in his honour by certain prominent business men in

Coventry, and after dinner had had the unblushing effrontery to make a

speech about the Prosperity of British Business. After this, he had hastened

away to take the Birmingham express as far as Rugby, where he was

engaged to stay the night with that pillar of financial rectitude, Lord

Buddlethorp. He was seen into a first-class carriage at 9:57 by two

eminently respectable Coventry magnates, who had remained chatting with

him till the train started. There was one other person in his carriage—no

less a man, in fact, than Sir Hicklebury Bowles, the well-known sporting

baronet. In the course of conversation, he had mentioned to Sir Hicklebury

(whom he knew slightly) that he was travelling alone, his secretary having

succumbed to an attack of influenza. About half way between Coventry and

Rugby, Mr. Grant had gone out into the corridor, muttering something about

the heat. He had never been seen again.

At first, a very sinister light had been thrown on the incident by the fact

that a door in the corridor, a little way up the train, had been found swinging

open at Rugby, and the subsequent discovery of Mr. Grant’s hat and

overcoat a few miles farther up the line had led everybody to fear the worst.

Careful examination, however, failed to produce either Simon Grant’s

corpse or any evidence of any heavy body having fallen from the train. In a

pocket of the overcoat was a first-class ticket from Coventry to Rugby, and

it seemed clear that, without this, he could not have passed the barrier at

Rugby. Moreover, Lord Buddlethorp had sent his car with a chauffeur and a

footman to meet the train at Rugby. The chauffeur had stood at the barrier

and the footman had paraded the platform in search of the financier. Both

knew him very well by sight, and between them they asserted positively that he had never left the train. Nobody had arrived at the barrier ticketless,

or with the wrong ticket, and a check-up of the tickets issued for Rugby at

Birmingham and Coventry revealed no discrepancy.

There remained two possibilities, both tempting and plausible. The

Birmingham-London express reached Rugby at 10:24, departing again at

10:28. But, swift and impressive as it was, it was not the only, or the most

important, pebble on the station beach, for over against it upon the down

line was the Irish Mail, snorting and blowing in its three-minute halt before

it roared away northwards at 10:25. If the express had been on time, Simon

Grant might have slipped across and boarded it, and been at Holyhead by

2:25 to catch the steamer, and be in Dublin by 6:35, and Heaven only knew

where a few hours after. As for the confident assertion of Lord

Buddlethorp’s footman, a trifling disguise—easily assumed in a lavatory or

an empty compartment—would be amply sufficient to deceive him. To

Chief Inspector Peacock, in charge of the investigations, the possibility

appeared highly probable. It had also the advantage that the passengers

crossing by the mailboat could be readily reckoned up and accounted for.

The question of tickets now became matter for inquiry. It was not likely

that Simon Grant would have tried to secure them during his hasty one-

minute dash for the Mail. Either he had taken them beforehand, or some

accomplice had met him at Rugby and handed them over. Chief Inspector

Peacock was elated when he discovered that tickets covering the train-and-

streamer route from Rugby to Dublin had actually been purchased for the

night in question from the L.M.S. agents in London in the absurd and

incredible name of Solomon Grundy. Mr. Peacock was well acquainted with

the feeble cunning which prompts people, when adopting an alias, to cling

to their own initials. The underlying motive is, no doubt, a dread lest those

same initials, inscribed on a watch, cigarette-case or what-not, should arouse suspicion, but the tendency is so well known that the choice of

initials arouses in itself the very suspicion it is intended to allay. Mr.

Peacock’s hopes rose very high indeed when he discovered, in addition, that

Solomon Grundy (Great Heavens, what a name!) had gone out of his way to

give a fictitious and, indeed, non-existent address to the man at the ticket-

office. And then, just when the prospect seemed at its brightest, the whole

theory received its death-blow. Not only had no Mr. Solomon Grundy

travelled by the mailboat that night or any night—not only had his ticket

never been presented or even cancelled—but it turned out to be impossible

that Mr. Simon Grant should have boarded the Irish Mail at all. For some

tedious and infuriating reason connected with an overheated axle-box, the

Birmingham-London express, on that night of all nights, had steamed into

Rugby three minutes behind time and two minutes after the departure of the

Mail. If this had been Simon Grant’s plan of escape, something had

undoubtedly gone wrong with it.

And, that being so, Chief Inspector Peacock came back to the old

question: What had become of Simon Grant?

Talking it over with his colleagues, the Chief Inspector came eventually

to the conclusion that Grant had, in fact, intended to take the Irish Mail,

leaving the open door and the scattered garments behind him by way of

confusing the trail for the police. What, then, would he do, when he found

the Mail already gone? He could only leave the station and take another

train. He had not left the station by the barrier, and careful inquiry

convinced Mr. Peacock that it would have been extremely difficult for him

to make his way out along the line unobserved, or hang about the railway

premises till the following morning. An unfortunate suicide had taken place

only the previous week, which had made the railwaymen particularly

observant of stray passengers who might attempt to wander on to the permanent way; and, in addition, there happened to be two gangs of

platelayers working with flares at points strategically placed for

observation. So that Peacock, while not altogether dismissing this part of

the investigation, turned it over as routine work to his subordinates, and

bent his mind to consider a second main possibility that had already

occurred to him before he had been led away by speculations on the Irish

Mail.

This was, that Simon Grant had never left the express at all, but had

gone straight through to Euston. London has great advantages as a hiding-

place—and what better thing could Grant have done, when his first scheme

failed him, than return to the express and continue his journey? His watch

would have warned him, before he reached Rugby, that the Mail had

probably left; a hasty inquiry and a quick dash to the booking-office, and he

would be ready to continue his journey.

The only drawback was that when the Chief Inspector questioned the

officials in the booking-office he was met by the positive statement that no

ticket of any kind had been issued that night later than 10:15. Nor yet had

any passenger arrived at Euston minus a ticket. And the possibility of an

accomplice on the platform had now to be dismissed, since the original plan

of escape had not involved an accomplice, and it was not reasonable to

suppose that one had been provided beforehand for such an emergency.

But, argued the Chief Inspector, the emergency might have been

foreseen and a ticket purchased in advance. And if so, it was going to be

extremely difficult to prove since the number of tickets issued would

correspond with the number of passengers. He set in train, however, an

exhaustive investigation into the question of the tickets issued in London,

Birmingham, Coventry and Rugby during the few weeks previous to the

disappearance, thinking that he might easily light upon a return half which had come to hand very much subsequent to the date of issue, and that this

might suggest a line of inquiry. In addition, he sent out a broadcast appeal,

and this is where his line of inquiry impinged upon the orbit of Mr.

Montague Egg.

“To the Chief Commissioner of Police.—DEAR SIR,” wrote Mr. Egg in his

neat commercial hand, “understanding as per the daily Press and the B.B.C.

that you desire to receive communications from all persons travelling by the

9:50 p.m. Birmingham-London express: on the 4th ult., I beg to inform you

that I travelled by same (3rd class) from Coventry to Euston on the date

mentioned and that I am entirely at your disposal for all enquiries. Being

attached to the firm of Plummet & Rose, wine and spirit merchants,

Piccadilly, as travelling representative, my permanent address will not find

me at present, but I beg to enclose list of hotels where I shall be staying in

the immediate future and remain, dear sir, yours faithfully.”

In consequence of this letter, Mr. Egg was one evening mysteriously

called out of the commercial room at the Cat and Fiddle in Oldham to speak

with a Mr. Peacock.

“Pleased, I’m sure,” said Mr. Egg, prepared for anything from a colossal

order for wine and spirits to a forgotten acquaintance with a bad-luck story.

“Monty-on-the-spot, that’s me. What can I do for you, sir?”

Chief Inspector Peacock appeared to want every conceivable detail of

information about Mr. Egg, his affairs and, in particular, his late journey to

town. Monty disposed capably of the preliminaries and mentioned that he

had arrived at the station with plenty of time to spare, and so had contrived

to get a seat as soon as the train came in.

“And I was glad I did,” he added. “I like to be comfortable, you know,

and the train was rather crowded.”

“I know it was crowded,” said Mr. Peacock, with a groan. “And well I

may, when I tell you that we have had to get in touch with every single

person on that train, and interview as many of them as we could get hold of

personally.”

“Some job,” said Mr. Egg, with the respect of one expert interviewer to

another. “Do you mean you’ve got in touch with them all?”

“Every blessed one,” said Mr. Peacock, “including several officious

nuisances who weren’t there at all, but hoped for a spot of notoriety.”

“Talking of spots,” said Monty, “what will you take?”

Mr. Peacock thanked him, and accepted a small whisky-and-soda. “Can

you remember at all what part of the train you were in?”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Egg promptly. “Third-class smoker, middle of the

coach, middle of the train. Safest, you know, in case of accidents. Corner

seat, corridor side, facing engine. Immediately opposite me, picture of York

Minster, being visited by two ladies and a gentleman, in costumes of 1904

or thereabouts. Noticed it particularly, because everything else about the

train was up to date. Thought it a pity.”

“Hum,” said Mr. Peacock. “Do you remember who else was in the

compartment at Coventry?”

Monty screwed up his eyes as though to squeeze recollection out

through his eyelids.

“Next me, stout, red, bald man, very sleepy, in tweeds. Been having one

or two. He’d come from Birmingham. Next him, lanky young chap with

pimples and a very bad bowler. Got in after me and tripped over my feet.

Looked like a clerk. And a young sailor in the corner seat—there when I

arrived. Talked all the time to the fellow in the corner opposite, who looked

like some sort of a parson—collar round the wrong way, clerical hat, walrus

moustache, dark spectacles, puffy cheeks and a tell-me-my-good-man way of talking. Next him—oh! yes, a fellow smoking a pipe of horrible scented

sort of tobacco—might have been a small tradesman, but I didn’t see much

of him, because he was reading a paper most of the time. Then there was a

nice, inoffensive, gentlemanly old bird who needed a haircut. He had pince-

nez—very crooked—and never took his eyes off a learned-looking book.

And opposite me there was a chap with a big brown beard in a yellow

inverness cloak—foreign-looking—with a big, soft felt hat. He came from

Birmingham, and so did the parson, but the other two on that side got in

after I did.”

The Chief Inspector smiled as he turned over the pages of a formidable

bunch of documents. “You’re an admirable witness, Mr. Egg. Your account

tallies perfectly with those of your seven fellow-travellers, but it’s the only

one of the eight that’s complete. You are obviously observant.”

“My job,” said Monty complacently.

“Of course. You may be interested to know that the gentlemanly old

bird with the long hair was Professor Amblefoot of London University, the

great authority of the Higher Calculus, and that he described you as a fair-

haired, well-mannered young man.”

“Much obliged to him, I’m sure,” said Mr. Egg.

“The foreigner is Dr. Schleicher of Kew—resident there three years—

the sailor and the parson we know all about—the drunk chap is O.K. too—

we had his wife along, very voluble—the tradesman is a well-known

Coventry resident, something to do with the Church Council of St.

Michael’s, and the pimply lad is one of Messrs. Morrison’s clerks. They’re

all square. And they all went through to town, didn’t they? Nobody left at

Rugby?”

“Nobody,” said Mr. Egg.

“Pity,” said the Chief Inspector. “The truth is, Mr. Egg, that we can’t

hear of any person in the train who hasn’t come forward and given an

account of himself, and the number of people who have come forward

precisely corresponds with the number of tickets collected at the barriers at

Euston. You didn’t observe any person continually hanging about the

corridor, I suppose?”

“Not permanently,” said Monty. “The chap with the beard got up and

prowled a bit from time to time, I remember—seemed restless. I thought he

perhaps didn’t feel very well. But he’d only be absent a few minutes at a

time. He seemed to be a nervous, unpleasant sort of chap—chewed his

nails, you know, and muttered in German, but he—”

“Chewed his nails?”

“Yes. Very unpleasant, I must say. ‘Well-kept hands that please the sight

seize the trade and hold it tight, but bitten nails and grubby claws well may

give the buyer pause.’ So the Salesman’s Handbook says”—and Monty

smirked gently at his own finger-tips. “This person’s hands were—

definitely not gentlemanly. Bitten to the quick.”

“But that’s really extraordinary,” said Peacock. “Dr. Schleicher’s hands

are particularly well kept. I interviewed him myself yesterday. Surely he

can’t suddenly have abandoned the habit of nail-biting? People don’t—not

like that. And why should he? Was there anything else you noticed about

the man opposite you?”

“I don’t think so. Yes. Stop a moment. He smoked cigars at a most

extraordinary rate. I remember his going out into the corridor with one

smoked down to about an inch and coming back, five minutes afterwards,

with a new one smoked half way through. Full-sized Coronas too—good

ones; and I know quite a bit about cigars.”

Peacock stared and then smote his hand lightly upon the table.

“I’ve got it!” he said. “I remember where I met a set of badly chewed-

up nails lately. By Jove! Yes, but how could he …”

Monty waited for enlightenment.

“Simon Grant’s secretary. He was supposed to be in town all that day

and evening, having ’flu—but how do I know that he was? But, even so,

what good could he do by being in the train in disguise? And what could

Dr. Schleicher have to do with it? It’s Simon Grant we want—and

Schleicher isn’t Grant—at least”—the Chief Inspector paused and went on

more dubiously—“I don’t see how he could be. They know him well in the

district, though he’s said to be away from home a good deal, and he’s got a

wife—”

“Oh, has he?” said Mr. Egg, with a meaning emphasis.

“A double life, you mean?” said the Chief Inspector.

“And a double wife,” said Mr. Egg. “You will pardon my asking a

delicate question, but—er—are you certain you would spot a false beard at

once, if you weren’t altogether expecting it?”

“In a good light, I probably should, but by the light of the doctor’s

reading-lamp— But what’s the game, Mr. Egg? If Schleicher is Grant, who

was the man you saw in the train—the man with the bitten finger-nails?

Grant doesn’t bite his nails, I know that—he’s rather particular about his

appearance, so I’m told, though I’ve never met him myself.”

“Well,” said Mr. Egg, “since you ask me, why shouldn’t the other man

in the train be all three of them?”

“All three of which?”

“Grant and Schleicher and the secretary.”

“I don’t quite get you.”

“Well, I mean—supposing Grant is Schleicher, with a nice ready-made

personality all handy for him to step into, built up, as you may say, over the last three years, with money salted away in the name of Schleicher—well, I

mean, there he is, as you might say, waiting to slip over to the Continent as

soon as the fuss has died down—complete with unofficial lady.”

“But the secretary?”

“The secretary was the man in train, made up as Grant made up as

Schleicher. I mean, speaking as a fool, I thought he might be.”

“But where was Schleicher—I mean, Grant?”

“He was the man in the train, too. I mean, he may have been.”

“Do you mean there were two of them?”

“Yes—at least, that’s how I see it. You’re the best judge, and I shouldn’t

like to put myself forward. But they’d be playing Box and Cox. Secretary

gets in at Birmingham as Schleicher. Grant gets in at Coventry as Grant.

Between Coventry and Rugby Grant changes to Schleicher in a wash-place

or somewhere, and hangs about the platform and corridor till the train starts

with him in it. He retires presently into a wash-place again. At a

prearranged moment, secretary gets up, walks along the corridor and retires

elsewhere, while Grant comes out and takes his place. Presently Grant

walks down the corridor and secretary comes back to the compartment.

They’re never both visible at the same time, except for the two or three

minutes while Grant is re-entering the train at Rugby, while honest

witnesses like me are ready to come forward and swear that Schleicher got

in at Birmingham, sat tight in his seat at Coventry and Rugby, and went

straight through to Euston—as he did. I can’t say I noticed any difference

between the two Schleichers, except in the matter of the cigar. But they

were very hairy and muffled up.”

The Chief Inspector turned this over in his mind.

“Which of them was Schleicher when they got out at Euston?”

“Grant, surely. The secretary would remove his disguise at the last

moment and emerge as himself, taking the thousand-to-one chance of

somebody recognising him.”

Peacock swore softly. “If that’s what he did,” he exclaimed, “we’ve got

him on toast. Wait a moment, though. I knew there was a snag. If that’s

what they did, there ought to have been an extra third-class ticket at Euston.

They can’t both have travelled on one ticket.”

“Why not?” said Mr. Egg. “I have often—at least, I don’t exactly mean

that, but I have from time to time laid a wager with an acquaintance that I

would travel on his ticket, and got away with it.”

“Perhaps,” said Chief Inspector Peacock, “you would oblige me, sir, by

outlining your method.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Mr. Egg. “‘Speak the truth with cheerful ease if

you would both convince and please’—Monty’s favourite motto. If I had

been Mr. Grant’s secretary, I’d have taken a return ticket from Birmingham

to London, and when the outward half had been inspected for the last time

at Rugby, I’d pretend to put it in my pocket. But I wouldn’t really. I’d shove

it down at the edge of my seat and go for my stroll along the corridor. Then

when Grant took my place—recognising the right seat by an attaché-case,

or something of that sort left on it—he’d retrieve the ticket and retain it. At

the end of the journey, I’d slip off my beard and spectacles and so on, stick

them in my overcoat pocket and fold the conspicuous overcoat inside-out

and carry it on my arm. Then I’d wait to see Grant get out, and follow him

up to the barrier, keeping a little way behind. He’d go through, giving up

his ticket, and I’d follow along with a bunch of other people, making a little

bustle and confusion in the gateway. The ticket-collector would stop me and

say: ‘I haven’t got your ticket, sir.’ I’d be indignant, and say: ‘Oh, yes, you

have.’ He’d say: ‘I don’t think so, sir.’ Then I’d protest, and he’d probably ask me to stand aside a minute while he dealt with the other passengers.

Then I’d say: ‘See here, my man, I’m quite sure I gave up my ticket. Look!

Here’s the return half, number so-and-so. Just look through your bunch and

see if you haven’t got the companion half.’ He looks and he finds it, and

says: ‘I beg your pardon, sir; you’re quite right. Here it is.’ I say: ‘Don’t

mention it,’ and go through. And even if he suspects me, he can’t prove

anything, and the other fellow is well out of the way by that time.”

“I see,” said the Chief Inspector. “How often did you say you had

indulged in this little game?”

“Well, never twice at the same station. It doesn’t do to repeat one’s

effects too often.”

“I think I’d better interview Schleicher and his secretary again,” said

Peacock pensively. “And the ticket-collector. I suppose we were meant to

think that Grant had skipped to the Irish Mail. I admit we should have

thought so but for the accident that the Mail left before the London train

came in. However, it takes a clever criminal to beat our organisation. By the

way, Mr. Egg, I hope you will not make a habit—”

“Talking of bad habits,” said Monty happily, “what about another spot?”

 

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