Chapter XXIV: "it Must Be Fearfully Difficult to Be a Good Detective"

Superintendent Wilson chose to take his holidays in August--he was in a position to choose, while lesser men like Blaikie had to adjust their holidays to their superior's convenience. For a reason which he never made clear, even to himself, Wilson's fancy lighted on a holiday in France, and on Dinard as his place of sojourn--not the greater Dinard, but its neighbour, St. Enogat, where, for a moderate sum, he hired from the big hotel a pleasant little villa with a tiny garden and steps of its own leading down to the shore. He would have said, if you had asked him, that he was going simply for a holiday, and why not? But it was certainly in his mind that Dinard was not far from Paramé, on the other side of the broad estuary of the Rance. What could be more natural than that Wilson, staying at Dinard, should go to have another look at Paramé, where Mr. Culpepper and his family rented that other pleasant little villa he had visited a few months before?

For Wilson had not succeeded in putting the Radlett case thoroughly out of his mind. It continued to haunt him. It was not merely that the criminal had escaped out of his grasp; he was enough of a philosopher to bear such occasional defeats without any loss of tranquillity. It was that he was not satisfied that he had got to the bottom of the mystery. Everything had pointed to Rosenbaum, but was Rosenbaum really the guilty man? He kept saying to himself that there was something "fishy" about the whole case. He turned to other cases, and solved them; but the Radlett murder stayed in his mind, a latent source of uneasiness and self-criticism.

Mrs. Wilson, though she said nothing to her husband on the point, was perfectly aware of the reasons for his sudden enthusiasm for a holiday in France--at Dinard, or somewhere along that bit of coast. She did not even remind him that he had cursed Dinard heartily the year before, when she had tentatively suggested a visit. She accepted placidly what her fate dispensed, well knowing that, if her husband had set his heart on going there, she had better let him have his way, unless she wanted him to fret and fume all through a holiday taken elsewhere. That sensible woman knew also that the great detective, her husband, needed looking after, like the rest of her children, in all matters involving arrangements of a personal character. He would plan the business of Scotland Yard with perfect efficiency down to the last detail, but he was quite incapable of making in good time even the simplest arrangements for the family holidays.

It was Mrs. Wilson, therefore, who hired the little villa at St. Enogat, took the tickets, and did the packing for her family when the time came. As soon as the journey was actually begun, Wilson came to himself. He managed things on the boat, at the customs house, at the hotel in whose grounds the villa lay, with as much skill and energy as if they had been vital steps in a murder case. It was not that he was inefficient, even in his family affairs, only his head was too full of other things to bother about them till the last moment.

St. Enogat has admirable bathing--you run down straight from the little villas to the sea, and dry yourself unashamedly in the sun--a fine beach, a rocky headland where one can scramble, with just the necessary risk of being caught by the tide--in short, the attractions needed to make it an ideal place for children with not too nervous parents. Mrs. Wilson could sit on the beach and knit, receiving visits from her children between their expeditions. She could say to her husband that she knew he wanted to see the surrounding country, but she was far too comfortable on the _plage_ to go with him. She could dismiss him with a smile, well aware that the only bit of country likely to interest him for the time was Paramé, on the opposite side of the river, but quickly to be reached by the little ferry-boat that plied regularly across the mouth of the Rance to St. Malo.

Wilson took the eldest boy with him, leaving the girl and the two younger boys behind, with a promise of splendid expeditions to come. Noon found him in Paramé, walking along the seashore, as he had walked in the winter, past the endless plantation of the break-waters. But it was no part of his plan to visit the Culpepper _ménage_--at least, at present. He had come to spy out the land. Probably there was nothing to find out, but he had an instinct that the place would repay study.

Wilson's boy, immensely proud of his father and his father's profession, of which he told already great tales at school, vowing to be the master-detective when he grew up, sleuthed along at the Superintendent's side. He could have wished his father to approach the house with more circumspection, for Wilson's hint that "There's a house along here I wanted to have a bit of a look at," had been quite enough to give that sharp young gentleman an idea that the expedition was one of business as well as pleasure. Wilson, however, went along quite openly till he was within a hundred yards of the villa, and could command a clear view both of its front door, and of the gate leading down to the sea. Then he pulled his son gently into the shadow of a boat drawn high up on the beach, and sat down with him to do nothing but watch for the time being.

"Father, what are you looking for?" asked the boy.

"I don't know, Robin. I'm just spying out the land a bit."

The house was evidently occupied. There was smoke coming out of a chimney, the veranda windows were open to the sea, the whole place looked bright and fresh under the noonday sun. They had lain there a quarter of an hour, and young Wilson was getting restless, when a middle-aged lady came out of the villa and passed within a short distance of them, going in the direction of the town. It was Mrs. Culpepper. They saw her turn back and speak to some one inside the house before she came out of the garden gate.

There was another pause of inaction. Then Wilson heard quite near at hand the chuff-chuffing of a motor-boat, and, looking seaward, saw the boat itself running along, close inshore.

"Is it going to land here, father?" asked the boy.

The boat ran on till it reached the little river opening just beyond the house. Up this it disappeared. They heard the engines for a minute or two longer, then they stopped. A couple of minutes later a young woman appeared round the far side of the house, which she entered quickly through the open French windows.

"Who's that, father?" asked the boy.

"Norah Culpepper, that's her name, my boy. Any the wiser?"

"Why, father, wasn't it Mr. Culpepper you found in the cupboard?" He had often told the tale at school.

"You know too much, young man," said his father. "Now, shut up, and we'll go a bit nearer. I want to have a look at that boat."

Wilson did not go straight towards the house. Instead, he turned inland, and made his way round to the back of the little stream a short way above its mouth. There was a coppice reaching to its bank. Through this father and son made their way, until they saw the boathouse a yard or two ahead of them, on the very edge of the coppice. Wilson found a crack and applied his eye to it, so as to get a view of the interior. "Father, lift me up. I want to see, too," said his son, and was duly lifted.

There was nothing remarkable about the interior of the boathouse, except that it was very well kept and excellently fitted. In the centre lay a trim little motor launch, painted in bright colours, and with her metal-work bright and shining--evidently well cared for and in perfect condition. Wilson admired her lines: the boat looked as if she possessed both exceptional speed and strength. "So the girl runs that all alone, does she?" he said to himself. "Only wish I had one like her"--the boat, he meant, not the lady.

"Father," began the boy.

"Hush," said Wilson, softly, for the door on the other side of the boathouse was opening. Norah Culpepper came in, quite unconscious that there were eyes upon her. "Not a sound," whispered Wilson, bending down to his son's ear. He speedily resumed his place at the crack, and the boy, having at length found another suited to his height, glued his eyes to that, and watched.

Norah Culpepper was stowing something away in the boat--something wrapped up in little parcels, which she was placing in what looked like a narrow secret drawer under the thwart. And she had brought provisions with her, enough, it seemed, to last for quite a voyage. What could she be up to? Wilson was thoroughly puzzled as he watched her. There was something quick and furtive about her movements, though she thought herself quite alone.

Suddenly the boy beside him stumbled, dislodging a stone and bumping gently against the wall of the boathouse. Wilson turned sharply round and caught him, holding him tight lest he should make a further sound. This compelled him for an instant to remove his eye from the crack. When he looked again, he saw Norah Culpepper, manifestly alarmed, standing bolt upright in the boat, listening intently. Wilson held his breath, and tightened his grip on his son. After a minute, the girl, hearing no further sound, apparently made up her mind that there was nothing to fear. Her pose lost its appearance of anxiety, and she resumed her work, stowing food away in the boat. In a few minutes, having done her task, she left the boathouse. They heard her steps receding towards the house along the gravel path.

Wilson waited a few minutes, considering the situation. The girl had locked the door of the boathouse on her departure, and it might be hard to open it with his skeleton keys. Nor could he see an easy prospect of entering it from the water-side, as the walls protruded well out into the stream. Moreover, if he did enter the boathouse, there would be small chance of getting away unobserved if any one should come while he was there. He decided, regretfully, to postpone his examination of the place, though he very much wanted to see what Norah Culpepper had been concealing.

Motioning to the boy, whom he had by now released, he began to make his way back through the coppice, striking upstream away from the house. He meant to find a comfortable place where he and the boy could eat the sandwiches they had brought before resuming their explorations.

But, when he came to the edge of the wood, the first thing he saw was Norah Culpepper, standing on a little hillock, from which she could get a view of any one emerging from the copse on either of its two open sides. The house garden bordered it on the third side, the stream on the fourth.

Wilson saw the girl before they were actually out of the copse, and before she had a chance of seeing them. He had to decide at once whether to show himself, or to remain a prisoner in the copse until she chose to go away. He pulled the boy back deeper among the trees, while he considered the position. Miss Culpepper had evidently been alarmed by the sound she had heard, and had hurried round to the edge of the copse in order to make sure if any one had been spying on her. Perhaps she had even seen his eye at the crack, and her resumed self-possession had been deliberately assumed. What had he better do?

He was not long in making up his mind. The girl could not watch the copse and the boathouse at the same time. If she would only stay where she was, he had the best of all opportunities of studying it from the inside with little risk of interruption; for the other inmates of the house were not very likely to go there. Hastily he told the boy what to do--to show himself plainly outside the copse, and to keep the young woman in sight. If she questioned him, he could say he had been playing in the copse, or even that he had been looking at the boathouse. If he lost sight of her, or she made for the boathouse, he was to cut in quickly and give his father warning.

The boy entered eagerly into the plot, while Wilson hurried back to the boathouse. He had seen just a chance of climbing in by the water-side, at some risk of a ducking. That was preferable to tampering with the lock, which might be noticed later, even if he were able to open it. Moreover, it would be difficult to get round to the door of the boathouse unobserved from the windows of the villa.

Wilson had to act quickly. With great care, he crawled along the face of the boathouse wall, getting precarious foothold on a slightly protruding joist which ran along the bottom of the woodwork. Suspended over the water, he managed to creep through the opening at the end, only tearing his coat a little on an inconvenient nail. As he stood up at last inside the little building, he heaved a sigh of relief.

There was no time to be lost. In a minute he was in the boat, hunting for the hidden drawer under the thwart in which Norah Culpepper had stowed away her mysterious packages. It took him some minutes to find the trick of it, but at length he pressed in the right two places, and revealed a long, narrow cavity, stuffed full of the little packets he had seen the girl hide. They were carefully sealed: he could not open one without betraying that he had been meddling with it.

Wilson held the packet in his hand for a minute. Then hardly knowing why, he put it to his ear. Unconsciously, he had heard. Now he heard quite plainly the steady tick of a watch--of more than one watch. He put the packet back hastily into its place and tried another and another, with no result. No other packet gave back any sound. But he had formed his conclusion. Watches, he remembered, were subject to an _ad valorem_ duty of 33 1/3 per cent. In looking for the clue to a murder mystery, he had stumbled on something very different. Miss Culpepper was a smuggler, engaged in introducing watches and perhaps other articles into England without payment of duty. What luck that one of the watches had been going!

But how did it all fit in? Did it fit in at all? Wilson had barely asked himself these questions when there came a rap on the side of the boathouse, and a voice whispering, "Father, are you there?"

He answered, and the boy whispered again that the lady had gone back to the house. Wilson hastily removed the traces of his visit, and clambered out again round the end of the boathouse, and so rejoined his son. "Come away quickly," he said. "I've seen what I wanted. I'll tell you presently," he added, as the boy began to ask questions. "We must get away first of all."

Following the same course as before, they emerged from the coppice. There was no sign of Norah Culpepper this time; no one was in sight. Wilson struck inland a good distance, and then turned in the direction of the town. Soon, they sat down under some friendly trees, and ate their lunch. Wilson asked the boy how he had fared.

"Oh, father, the lady spoke to me. She asked me what I was doing there. I said I was just playing. She asked was there no one with me, and I said there was no one, but some one was coming for me soon. Was that right?"

Wilson nodded.

"Then she asked me my name, and said she was English, too. I said my name was--oh, father, I thought you wouldn't want them to know my name, and I tried to think of another, and--I made such a mess of it."

"Why, what did you say it was?"

"I said my name was Robin. Then she asked what my other name was, and oh--I said Pasquett. You know, I remembered that gentleman you brought to see us at home."

Wilson whistled. "And what did she say then?"

"She stared at me stupid-like, and repeated the name after me. I could see I had said the wrong thing and frightened her. I don't know why it was wrong. Father, I'm sorry."

"Never mind, Robin. You see, she knows Mr. Pasquett. It must have startled her. What did she say then?"

"She looked at me a minute, as if she didn't know what to say. I didn't either. Then she started running towards the house, and I ran as hard as I could run through the trees till I got to you. I made sure she was going straight to the boathouse. She was frightened, father."

"I don't think there's much harm done, Robin. She won't find any trace of me in that boathouse, I hope, and when she doesn't, she'll think your name really is Pasquett, and it was just a coincidence. Do you think she suspected you weren't telling her your real name? From the way you said it, I mean."

The boy thought for a moment, very solemnly.

"I don't know, father," he said.

"Well, we'll hope she didn't, and you got me out of that boathouse jolly well, Robin. Well done, my boy, though you did make that one slip."

They munched in silence for a few minutes. Then, "Father," said the boy, "it must be frightfully difficult to be a good detective."

"It's not too easy to be a good anything, Robin. But it's largely practice and patience."

Then as they resumed their walking, Wilson told the boy what he had found in Norah Culpepper's boat. Robin was highly delighted at the idea that he was taking part in the detection of a smuggler--it seemed to him much better fun than a murder case. He prattled on about it all the way home to St. Enogat. But Wilson, while he kept up the talk with his son, was thinking hard. How did it fit in? Clearly, these watches were meant for smuggling--probably for smuggling into England. Then did Norah Culpepper really cross the Channel in her motor-boat, and land her cargo on some spot on the English coast? It would be a dangerous game, especially if she managed the boat alone, but it was just possible. That must be it; for it was hardly likely that she passed the watches on to a waiting ship. Of course, she might have confederates--a crew. There was further watching to be done.

But had Miss Culpepper and her motor-boat any connection with the case in which he was mainly interested--the crime committed at Sugden's Hotel? Catching smugglers was all very well in its way, but Wilson's main interest was in the major crime. And what he had found was a boat, well equipped for making secret journeys across the Channel, and probably in the habit of making such journeys under Norah Culpepper's expert guidance. Had that, or had it not, any connection with the murder of Hugh Radlett, or with the curious disappearance of his body? Wilson thought hard, but as yet he could find no answer to his question. He must find out more about Miss Culpepper and her boat.