The Belgrave Manor Crime

A Golden Age Mystery

Moray Dalton

• Publisher: Dean Street Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781913054809
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Kriminal- & Mysterienliteratur

“It is believed locally that her death was accidental, but I’m afraid—”

Our story begins with psychic investigator Cosmo Thor meeting Madame Luna, a fortune teller down on her luck. Madame Luna shortly tries to make desperate contact with Thor, but without success. Concerned, Thor consults his friend, Hugh Collier of Scotland Yard, and learns that Madame Luna may be a woman found dead from a fall from a cliff in Devon. But what in the world was Madame Luna doing in Devon, if the dead woman indeed was she?

Thor’s investigation leads him to Belgrave Manor, a country house of ill-favoured reputation. The house belongs to wealthy London philanthropist Mrs. Maulfrey, the same woman who happens to have taken custody of Madame Luna’s young daughter.

After a tense visit, Hugh Collier is on hand to pick up the threads in what turns out to be a remarkably sinister case, and one in which Hugh himself will be imperilled before the dénouement.

An impressive tale of outré mystery and lurid crime, with a cast of compelling characters, The Belgrave Manor Crime was originally published in 1935. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

CHAPTER I
MADAME LUNA

“Oh, Mr. Thor—don’t you remember me?”

Thor, who had spent the last hour in the restaurant car, had resumed his seat with only a casual glance at the woman who had established herself in the seat facing his during his absence. Now that she had spoken he recognised her. He had been spending a few days at an East coast resort at the close of the summer season two years previously. She had been doing palmistry at the end of the pier, but clients had been few and she was in pitiful straits. Thor, seeing her wan little face peering wistfully out of her booth, had given her five shillings, double her usual fee, for a hand reading; and, after hearing her story, had paid her debts and helped her to get back to London.

He had neither seen her nor heard from her since. He was a serious student of the occult, and, as such, he sometimes regretted the traffic in amulets and horoscopes carried on by the possessors of a small psychic gift who picked up a precarious living on the fringes of the spiritualist movement; but he knew their difficulties and their temptations, and he would always help them if he could. He was a man of independent means, and, since his mother’s death, with no family ties. He had spent some years in the East. On his return he had taken a flat in a block off Vincent Square, where he lived with an old family servant as his housekeeper. He was gradually becoming known as an authority on what had hitherto been a kind of No Man’s Land between that covered by the C.I.D. and the alienist. Though he prided himself on never turning away a client in real need of his help he only undertook cases that made an appeal either to his scientific curiosity, or to a heart that was softer than his lean, harsh-featured face and his aloof manner indicated. He had just concluded an enquiry in the Midlands and he was conscious of both bodily and mental fatigue, but there was nothing in his manner to betray the fact that he would rather have been left to doze in his corner until the outskirts of London were reached.

“Of course I remember you,” he said, smiling.

She had not altered much. A little shabbier perhaps and more shrunken. Living on her nerves, he thought, and on not much else.

“I hope you are doing better now,” he said.

“I was,” she said. “I’ve been developing as a medium, and I made some good friends. But I was engaged to do palmistry at a bazaar up in Manchester. My landlady there persuaded me to stay on a week. She said lots of her friends would come to me. Well, several did—and then—I shall never know who complained to the police, but someone did. They sent a policeman’s wife and sister to ask a lot of questions, and I was led into saying more than I should. A trap. Well,” she added, with a bitter little laugh, “I suppose I may think myself lucky. I might have had three months, and they only gave me three weeks in the first division. I told them I had my little girl depending on me, I wouldn’t have minded so much if it hadn’t been for her.”

“There was someone to look after her in your absence?”

“My landlady. She’s not a bad sort, but easy going.”

“You are going back to her now?”

Madame Luna’s worn little face lit up, and for an instant she looked quite pretty. “She’s everything to me,” she said.

“How old is she?”

“Five.”

“A pretty age,” said Thor. “You must let me help you again. I seem to have brought you luck last time since you found friends after our meeting. Perhaps I shall bring you luck again.” He took out his pocket book and extracted ten one pound notes.

“Don’t worry about repayment. Let me hear from you if there is anything I can do.”

The tired brown eyes of the little palmist filled with tears.

“You’re too kind,” she faltered.

The train was entering Euston. There was no time for more. She tried to kiss his hand but he prevented her. The last he saw of her she was toiling down the platform, weighed down by her suit-case. A porter was collecting his luggage and his attention was distracted. When he glanced round again she had disappeared in the crowd.

He secured a taxi and drove back to his flat. Mrs. Jeal received him with head shakings. She had never overcome her disapproval of his activities. “You look worn out, Mr. Cosmo. I wish folk’d leave you alone. You want a rest.”

He was glancing through the letters that had come for him by the morning post. “I’ll take a long week-end off anyhow,” he said. “The Willetts have asked me down to Sharings.”

The old woman beamed. “Ah, there won’t be no trouble there.”

The Willetts were a placid, prosperous couple, devoted to their three charming children—Thor was godfather to the youngest—and to their garden. Thor came back to London on Tuesday, having spent most of his waking hours under a cedar on the lawn.

He was feeling decidedly better.

“Any callers?”

Mrs. Jeal answered reluctantly. “There was one. A person calling herself Madame Loony, or some such name.”

She had brought her master’s tea into the sitting-room and was standing by while he poured out his first cup.

Thor looked up at her quickly. “Madame Luna? What did she want?”

He was frowning slightly. He had given the woman ten pounds. He had not expected her to appeal to him again so soon.

“She didn’t say. She came not an hour after you left on Friday, asking to see you. Very flustered, she seemed, and as white as a sheet. I told her it was no use, that you’d gone on holiday.”

“What did she say to that?”

Mrs. Jeal showed a trace of embarrassment. “She seemed upset.”

Thor’s manner hardened. “I want a plain answer. What did she say?”

The old housekeeper answered sulkily. “She said ‘My God! Can’t I get at him?’ and I said, ‘You can call again Tuesday evening. He’ll be here then,’ I said, ‘but for the present he’s taking a rest. He’s flesh and blood like other folk,’ I said, but I doubt if she heard me. She was off down the stairs.”

“You should, have asked her to wait while you rang me up at Sharings,” said her master sternly.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, “but I wanted you to have a rest from them all. They’re always after you with this and that.”

“I know you meant well,” he said more gently, “but you must not try to stand between me and my work. Well—she may call this evening. Show her in if she does.”

But Madame Luna did not come again.

Thor was troubled by her non-appearance. He had done his best for her, he had no responsibility, and yet he felt responsible. He had told her to come to him. He was thinking of her when the bell rang the following evening. It was rather late. He had just left his tiny dining-room, and Mrs. Jeal was preparing the coffee. He heard her go to the door, but the visitor she ushered in was a man, Inspector Hugh Collier, of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard.

Some time previously a case of alleged haunting which Thor had been asked to investigate had proved to be a fraud intended to mask a cunningly contrived murder. Thor had communicated with the Yard. During the trial at which he had appeared as a witness for the Crown he had met the young Inspector. The two had become excellent friends, and though weeks often passed without their meeting Collier was sure to find his way sooner or later to Vincent Square.

“You were expecting somebody? I’m not butting in?” said Collier as they shook hands.

“Not at all. But how did you know?”

“Your housekeeper told me. Her face fell so perceptibly when she opened the door and saw that it was only an arm of the law,” said Collier, smiling. “I don’t think she cares much for policemen, even in mufti.”

He broke off as Mrs. Jeal came in with the coffee. Her manner was unusually subdued. “You’ll see the—Madam Luna—if she comes, sir?”

“Of course.”

When she had left them Thor turned to the younger man. “I’d rather like to tell you about this—unofficially,” he said.

“Is it in—in your special line?” asked Collier. “You know I’ve never touched any of this occult stuff, though I’ve got an open mind and all that.”

“No, no. It’s, as far as I know, a material dilemma.” Thor went on to describe his first meeting with the palmist on the pier at Salthaven and the second in the train a few days previously, and her subsequent call at the flat.

Collier listened attentively, lying back in one of his host’s comfortable chairs, sipping his excellent coffee, and smoking a much better cigar than he could himself afford. He had had a hard day at the Yard and he was glad to relax, but if his friend wanted his help he was ready to give it.

He reflected a minute before he made any comment.

“I gather she’s an hysterical neurotic type. Perhaps being tearful and exclamatory doesn’t mean much in her case,” he suggested. “For instance, she might have found there were still some bills owing when she’d spent your ten pounds, and thought she’d touch you for another fiver. Since you were away she may have found another friend to tide her over. Probably that’s all there is to it.”

“You may be right,” said Thor. “I hope you are. But did I say she was hysterical and neurotic? I don’t think she is. Impulsive, certainly, and with the lack of poise that comes from living from hand to mouth. And three weeks of square meals in prison hadn’t made up for years of under-nourishment. She’s a pathetic little soul, Collier, and as honest as she can afford to be I am certain.”

The man from the Yard shook his head. “If you knew as much about the seamy side as I do, sir.”

“I do know a little,” Thor said grimly.

“Well—what do you want me to do?”

Thor hesitated. “I hardly know. If I had her address I’d go and see her. I’ve looked in the advertising columns of Light and all the other papers, but she’s not in any of them. I suppose after a conviction for fortune telling she would have to lie low for a while.”

“She certainly would. What are you afraid of? That she’ll turn on the gas—something of that sort?”

Thor nodded. “She’s got her child to support, and she’s devoted to her. I’m worried about her, Collier.”

“I’ll find her for you,” said the young detective. “Could you give me a short description?”

Thor complied and Collier scribbled some notes in his book.

“Sounds like nine women out of ten,” he said pessimistically. “This standardised ready-made clothing is the devil. Well, I’ll do my best to round her up for you, but I hope she comes back of her own accord to set your mind at rest.”

He called again three evenings later.

“Any news?”

“No,” said Thor.

“I see,” Collier hesitated a moment. “There’s a woman’s body been found at the foot of a cliff in south Devon. I’m afraid—she sounds uncommonly like your Madame Luna. She hasn’t been identified. Here’s the account in the local paper. I’ll read it, shall I?”

“Please,” said Thor.

“ANOTHER FATALITY ON BARME HEAD

“The absence of a warning notice and an adequate railing along the cliff edge is believed to have caused the death of the woman whose body was found last Sunday afternoon on the rocks three hundred feet below. There was a train excursion to Barme on Saturday and the deceased is supposed to have come with it. Her handbag is believed to have been washed out to sea as her body would have been if it had not become wedged in a cleft of rock. There were no marks on her underclothing. She is described as between thirty and forty, about five feet three inches in height, ill-nourished, short black hair, unwaved, brown eyes, three teeth missing in lower jaw. No scars but mark of a recent burn on the forefinger of her right hand.”

“I don’t know about the burn, but the rest of the description tallies with yours.”

“I remember now,” said Thor, “she burnt her finger while we were talking. She was lighting a cigarette and she did not blow out the match quick enough. She was very on edge then, hardly knew what she was doing. It was on Friday afternoon she came here, very agitated. Suicide? What was she doing at Barme?”

“This woman may not be Madame Luna,” said Collier. “I wish I’d known before. The inquest is over now and she’s been buried.”

“What was the coroner’s verdict?”

“Oh, accidental, and a rider from the jury about putting up a fence. Of course it may be O.K. There was a good deal of mist along the coast at the time.”

“Well, I’ll have a look round,” said Thor.

“You will?” Collier’s tone betrayed his satisfaction. “I’m glad. Between you and me that sort of accident isn’t very good for a place and is too apt to be glossed over. We can’t butt in unasked, you know, but you, being a free lance—even so you’ll have to handle the local police carefully.”

Thor smiled faintly. “I probably shan’t go near them. But in most of my cases I have to steer a difficult course between the Scylla of medical etiquette and the Charybdis of the law. And I don’t really think this poor woman can be Madame ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page/About the Book
• Contents
• Introduction by Curtis Evans
• CHAPTER I MADAME LUNA
• CHAPTER II THE RESULT OF AN ACCIDENT
• CHAPTER III LET BY GARLAND AND SON
• CHAPTER IV SEBASTIAN QUAYLE
• CHAPTER V LUNCH AT THE MANOR
• CHAPTER VI DENNIS IS DISAPPOINTED
• CHAPTER VII BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY
• CHAPTER VIII S.O.S.
• CHAPTER IX COLLIER CARRIES ON
• CHAPTER X A NARROW SQUEAK
• CHAPTER XI COLLIER LOSES A TRICK
• CHAPTER XII ACCORDING TO PLAN
• CHAPTER XIII “PRAY SILENCE”
• CHAPTER XIV GOOD HUNTING
• CHAPTER XV TRESPASS
• CHAPTER XVI “COME AWAY!”
• CHAPTER XVII DANGER
• CHAPTER XVIII COLLIER GETS A LIFT
• CHAPTER XIX VETO
• CHAPTER XX ON BOARD THE “HALCYON”
• CHAPTER XXI THE VIGIL
• CHAPTER XXII A BURNING OF BOATS
• CHAPTER XXIII THE HORNED GOD
• CHAPTER XXIV THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
• About The Author
• Titles by Moray Dalton
• Copyright