Murder Impossible Read online

I couldn't see Sam's face, but his shoulders were shaking as though he might be laughing. It's a dog's life. It really is.

  SAX ROHMER

  The Death of Cyrus Pettigrew

  The definitive biography of Sax Rohmer (or Arthur Henry Ward as the Inland Revenue and passport office knew him) has yet to be written. The scrappy (and one is tempted to strike out that initial consonant) life which came out nearly 20 years ago, Master of Mystery, was a dog's breakfast of highly dubious anecdotes, lazily written and facetious Sunday newspaper style showbiz reminiscence, and absurd hyperbole (its principal author Cay Van Ash regarded Rohmer as 'the last great master of the English language'). Too, the book suffered from the iron hand of its co-author, Rohmer's wife Elizabeth, and thus, despite Rohmer's extramarital shenanigans and not infrequent disappearances, there is a highly unrealistic Mills &Boon gloss over all. Brought in as editor, Rohmer authority Robert Briney tried his hardest to pull the whole farrago together (his notes, interpolations and bibliography are the only bright spots), but on the whole it was a hopeless task.

  Should another, and more critical, biography be contemplated? It ought to be. Rohmer was a fascinating figure who created a hero—or antihero—of extraordinary, indeed mythic, proportions. Dr Fu Manchu is one of a rare breed of fictional characters (Sherlock Holmes, Bulldog Drummond, James Bond, Billy Burner are just a few more) who have acquired over the years an independent cultural identity quite divorced from their origins. In Fu Manchu's case he was, in his time, the embodiment of a particular class's view of a particular race and, rightly or wrongly, Rohmer's books, even though fiction (perhaps because they were fiction), influenced the ideas and prejudices of an entire generation. An indepth analytical life is sorely needed.

  There are, in any case, so many foggy areas in his life, especially the period from 1903, when he sold what seems to be his first story, 'The Mysterious Mummy' (which appeared in Pearson's Weekly Xmas 'Xtraj, to 1911, when he started writing the first episodes of the initial Fu Manchu series. His early stories were all published under the name A. Sarsfield Ward (the Sarsfield from an heroic Irish ancestor, or so his mother claimed), from 1903 through to at least 1909.

  When exactly he became Sax Rohmer is something of a mystery. It's generally assumed the pseudonym arrived with the publication of the first of the Severac Bablon stories in Cassell's Magazine (June, 1912), but, as I only very recently discovered, 'Sax Rohmer' had already appeared over a year earlier, by-lining the first of his four 'Narky' tales in Everybody's Weekly in early March, 1911. As far as is known the last use of the Sarsfield Ward name (apart from when he had two stories in a magazine in the same issue) was in mid 1909, so there may well be lost stories by Rohmer in obscure, and perhaps not so obscure, periodicals in between those two dates.

  Some of which may well be Impossible, for at least three of Rohmer's early tales contain 'miracle' crimes, including 'The Mysterious Mummy' (possibly the very first story to hinge on a thief escaping detection by donning a policeman's uniform). In the 1900s Rohmer knew many artists who worked in the music halls and variety theatres, including illusionists and magicians (much later he became friendly with Harry Houdini), and these associations almost certainly sparked off story ideas. The gimmick he uses here was new in 1909, but has been utilized pretty extensively by numerous writers since.

  JACK ADRIAN

  'Rugby in two minutes!' said Saxham glancing at his watch. As if to belie his words, at that moment the brakes were smartly applied, and, with a great rattling, the train was brought to a standstill.

  'Signals against us!' muttered my friend, settling himself more comfortably in his corner. ‘Beastly night! Shouldn't like to be out in it!'

  But Fate had ordained that he should go out in it, for the words had barely left his ;ips when, above the hissing from the locomotive and the pattering of the rain, we heard the sound of voices, and a guard came running along the metals, crying: 'Is there a doctor on the train?'

  'Just my luck!' growled Saxham, dropping the window. 'All right, guard. What's the trouble?'

  'Don't know, exactly, sir,' said the man, as my friend and I descended from the footboard; 'but I think somebody's been killed! This way gentlemen!'

  Muffling ourselves in our greatcoats, for the rain was pouring down in torrents, we followed the evidently excited official to the door of a firstclass compartment, and making our way through the knot of passengers whom even the inclement weather did not suffice to keep in their seats, climbed in and surveyed a scene which I shall never forget.

  The one occupant of the compartment crouched on the floor against the further door, with his head upon the seat. I judged him to be a man of sixty, and somewhat obese; but a closer inspection showed that his features and limbs were swollen to much more than their normal size. His clean shaven face was covered with singular blotches, and his lips showed a pale grey-white against the purple.

  'Only a few minutes, in my opinion,' declared Saxham. 'Who gave the alarm?'

  'The young lady that always travels with him, sir. They're regular passengers. She's in the next carriage, being attended to. After pulling the communication cord, she fainted.'

  'What steps do you propose taking?'

  'Is it murder, sir?' asked the guard, in horrified tones.

  'I should not like to express an opinion at present,' Saxham said. 'Were they alone in the carriage?'

  'Yes, sir. The poor gentleman always preferred to get a carriage to himself, as he liked to travel with the window open; and, the train not being very full, I locked the door at Euston. If you'll step in and see what you can do for the young lady, we'll get on to Rugby, else there'll be trouble.'

  The increasing group of curious passengers was warned to board the train, and, leaving Dr Saxham to attend to the lady in the next compartment, we all returned to our seats. At Rugby I immediately hurried back to see of what assistance I could be to my friend, arriving just as he assisted to the platform a stylishly dressed and, in a colourless fashion, rather pretty girl, whose pallid face and frightened eyes looked out of a frame of light hair.

  I learned that she was a Miss Pettigrew, niece of the dead man, to whose house, near Harborne, on the outskirts of Birmingham, they had been journeying. Mr. Cyrus Pettigrew had been a wealthy collector of pictures and curios, and he and his ward spent a great deal of time in London. They had that day been to attend a big auction.

  Learning that she had friends in Rugby, Saxham prevailed upon her to remain there for the night, since he feared that a continuance of the journey so tragically interrupted might lead to a more serious breakdown. Before she could leave the station, however, she had to submit to a brief examination at the hands of two detectives.

  'Sorry to trouble you at such a time, miss,' said the elder of the officers, a bluff, kindly looking man; 'but my colleague and myself are taking charge of the case, and we shall have to make our report.'

  'Have you any idea who might have done the thing?' inquired the younger man, from which remark I concluded that murder was assumed.

  'There was no one else in the carriage all the way,' declared Miss

  Pettigrew, who spoke and looked as though she were half dazed. 'I fell asleep before the train left Northampton, and did not awake until I heard a loud shriek and a hand suddenly clutched me. I started up, to find my uncle tearing at his throat, with his face purple, and his eyes glaring most horribly.'

  She shuddered at the recollection, and became so deadly pale, that we feared she was about to faint again. Exercising a great effort, however, she succeeded in recovering herself.

  'To what do you attribute death, doctor?' asked the elder officer.

  'To poison!' said Saxham promptly.

  We were all very much amazed at the reply.

  'Might it not be a case of suicide?' I suggested.

  'There was no trace of a phial of any kind in his possession, or anywhere in the carriage,' said the detective.

  'It was not swallowed‘ explained Saxham vaguely. 'Owing
, however to the state of the body, I am unable to make a definite statement.'

  I was greatly puzzled by that guarded assertion, as was the officer.

  'Tell me, miss,' he inquired: 'did you notice anything in his hand when you woke?'

  'Nothing at all. I immediately ran to the communication cord, pulled it and remembered nothing more.'

  'How were you seated in the carriage?'

  'I was in the right hand corner, facing the engine, and my uncle sat opposite to me. The window on that side was closed, but the farther one was open. It was a peculiarity—'

  She broke off, with a stifled sob.

  'He would never travel with both windows up, even in the coldest weather, if he could avoid it,' she added. The detectives were clearly nonplussed.

  'I understand that both doors were locked,' said the elder reflectively; 'and he was sitting in the corner farthest from the open window, so how—'

  'Both doors were locked when the guard arrived,' confirmed the station official who had come up. 'So if you're working on the idea that anyone got in from another carriage and then slipped out again, it's a wrong track you're on. There wouldn't be time, apart from the practically insurmountable difficulty of locking and re locking a carriage door from the footboard while the train was in motion. The unfortunate gentleman evidently cried out at the moment he was injured, and there was no one in the carriage then, nor was either door open. Isn't that so, Miss Pettigrew?'

  She nodded silently.

  'You're sure about the poison not being swallowed, doctor?' asked the elder detective.

  'Certain,' said Saxham. 'I merely withhold my opinion respecting the means whereby it was administered.'

  I could see that his words set both the men pondering, and I think they would have liked to have asked another question but the warning came that the delayed 9.5 for London was off, and they both left us hurriedly.

  A message had been sent to Miss Pettigrew's friends; so, leaving the unhappy girl in charge of the courteous stationmaster, my friend and I rejoined our train, which had also, of course, been delayed for the detaching of the car containing the body, and resumed our interrupted journey to Birmingham.

  Saxham was not very communicative on the subject of this gruesome episode; and, since the business wherein we were mutually interested, and which was responsible for our visit to the Midlands, entirely occupied our attention throughout the following day, the matter was not again discussed between us until the evening. Before entering the London train, we provided ourselves with a bundle of newspapers, and naturally turned to those columns devoted to the mysterious crime.

  My friend seeming still unwilling to talk about the case, I asked no questions, but occupied myself with the newspapers, several of which, after giving more or less inaccurate accounts of the tragedy, offered theories which were principally notable for their extraordinary absurdity.

  One of the more reputable evening journals published an interview with Inspector Pepys, in whom I recognized the younger of the officers that had taken charge of the case at Rugby.

  I drew the doctor's attention to this interview; but, having read it with apparent interest, he returned the paper, without offering any comment. In one of the half penny evening journals I also came across a curious item. This was an account, by a passenger on the train, of an eccentric person who shared the carriage with him from Euston to Willesden.

  It was a second class compartment, said this dubious witness, and, he thought, next to that in which the tragedy subsequently occurred. He entered it at the moment that the train was leaving the London terminus, to find that it had one other occupant, a stranger who would seem to have principally impressed him by reason of his peculiarly livid complexion. Auburn haired, and wearing pince-nez, this young man—for, according to the story, he was about thirty years of age— had nothing alarming in his appearance, seeming to be a poor student.

  He was reading a book; but, as the other got in, he put it down and fixed his eyes upon him. His eyes were very dark and penetrating, as the passenger could see through the pebbles, and when, having looked up several times from his paper, the latter gentleman found, on each occasion, this disconcerting gaze still fixed upon him, he began to grow nervous.

  Hoping to relieve the situation, he addressed a commonplace remark to his strange companion, which the other answered with a smile that occasioned the gentleman much alarm.

  'The night, as you truly remark, is wet,' said this singular young man, still smiling; 'but blood is thicker than water!'

  This peculiarly significant, if somewhat irrelevant, observation seems to have closed the conversation; and, enduring the horrible stare until the first stop, the other passenger, by then in a state of deplorable nervousness, hastened from the compartment into one already well filled.

  He did not report the episode to the guard, as, after all, he might have been mistaken in assuming the young man to be insane. Such, at any rate, was the explanation offered to the Press man by this witness.

  Saxham and I shared chambers in Carey Street at this time, and, on our return there that night, we were both too tired to talk much, almost immediately retiring to our rooms. On the following morning, directly breakfast was dispatched, my friend went out, giving me to understand that he proposed making a few inquiries respecting certain points of the case that were dark to him.

  He did not join me at lunch, as was his usual custom; and during my solitary meal I gathered from the early editions that the inquest would be adjourned for the attendance of the Home Office expert. Saxham did not put in an appearance until late in the evening, and even then offered no explanation as to how and where he had spent the day.

  At the inquest, he declined to express any opinion as to the cause of death, but the delayed report from the Government analysts served to confirm his earlier statements. In fact, there appeared to be but little doubt that Cyrus Pettigrew had succumbed to the action of some subde poison. There were a series of minute punctures in the skin of the right wrist and lower forearm, which might, said the experts, result from the bite of a small reptile.

  The local conditions rendered it extremely difficult to express any definite opinion. Since there was always the possibility that some such creature had escaped from the possession of a collector, and remained concealed in an unsuspected corner until disturbed by the unfortunate man, this testimony put a fresh complexion on the case; and an open verdict was returned.

  Passengers by the line travelled in constant alarm during the days that followed; for, since the hypothetical snake remained undiscovered, its appearance from some dark nook amid the cushions was to be expected at any moment. Such was the purport of more than one letter appearing in the Press. Naturally enough, the railway authorities prompted a thorough search for the creature, and the public eagerly awaited the confirmation of the lost snake theory which would be afforded by the advent of the reptile's owner.

  No one who had lost such a reptile put in an appearance, however, nor were the searchers successful in unearthing this hidden menace to travellers. The alarm and excitement which the case created throughout the country were already subsiding, and people beginning to forget the matter, when a new and unforeseen development occurred.

  As I was about to turn from Chancery Lane into Carey Street one night, about ten o'clock, I met a boy running with an armful of papers, and displaying a glaring bill, which read as follows:

  RUGBY TRAIN MURDER

  SENSATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  ARREST OF MISS PETTIGREW

  Hastily securing a copy, I found in the Stop Press News a brief paragraph which simply stated that Miss Pettigrew had that afternoon been apprehended in London for the murder of her guardian. There were no details, but this, in itself, was sufficientiy astounding; and I almost ran into Carey Street and upstairs to our rooms, so eager was I to communicate the news to Saxham, whom I had left earlier in the evening at work upon some intricate analysis.

  I found him still busily absorbed a
t the plain deal table, with the green shaded electric lamp suspended just above his head and throwing a circle of light upon the scientific disorder that surrounded him. His neat, black Velasquez beard almost touched the chemical litter as he bent over his work like some Mephistophelian necromancer.

  'Look at this!' I cried, holding the paper before his eyes. He glanced up absently and read the paragraph, scratching his head with a bone spatula the while. But as the truth percolated through the density of the obscure equations that doubtless occupied his mind at that moment, he forgot his experiments in face of this human problem.

  'Good heavens, Barton!' he said, with an instant return to his brisk, consulting room manner, 'what a horrible error! If I could only have been present at the postmortem!' he added regretfully.

  Temporarily he seemed undecided what to do, taking down and lighting his corncob, with some return to the preoccupation which marked a reflective mood. I, for my own part, failed to see how we were to concern ourselves in the case; and I was idly watching Saxham as he lent upon the corner of the mantelpiece, enveloping himself in clouds of tobacco smoke, when the doorbell rang violently, and some late visitor could be heard impatiently shuffling upon the landing.

  I went out and opened the door, to find a man of medium height, slim and carefully dressed. He was of conspicuously tawny complexion, and had lank, black hair.

  'Dr Saxham?' he inquired, with a slight accent.

  'He is in,' I said. 'Have you business with him?'

  'I come about Miss Pettigrew,' explained the visitor, in whose manner I detected a suppressed excitement.

  He proffered at the same time a card bearing the words:

  'J. Goree Bachoffner, B. A., B.Sc.(Lond.), No.—, Fig Tree Court.'

  At that I invited him to step inside, where Saxham, who had overheard the brief conversation, was still standing by the fireplace.

  'My dear sir,' he assured our visitor, as we entered and I mentioned his name, 'I had really expected to see you!'