The Twice Hanged Man: A Richard Clever Mystery Read online

  “That’s right!” Stanton flicked open his pocket book and confirmed Clever’s astonishing memory. “He threatened to burn the depot down, according to Sam… I mean, Miss Hurst. That is one hell of a coincidence, Sir.”

  “Ask Sergeant Jones what I think about coincidences some day soon,” Clever answered. “We must move this Cain boy up to the top of our suspect list, ahead of the bus driver, his boss, or your attractive red haired friend.”

  “I hadn’t thought of her as a suspect, Sir,” Stanton replied, rather too quickly.

  “That is because you have only been a detective for three hours,” Clever said. “Had it been an insurance fraud, Sam Hurst would have had to help her boss make the claim. Until a few moments ago, the driver was a suspect too. He might have stolen his own bus, just to get revenge over his boss for some past argument.”

  “But you don’t think that anymore?” Stanton asked.

  “Of course not,” the DCI said, reaching for his hat. “We need to find this Cain chap as soon as possible, if only to preserve him from a charge of murder.”

  “It’s not like me to argue with you, Guv,” Dan Jones interjected, “but you have overlooked one tiny fact. Young Janice dozed off, and almost missed her stop. When she got up to leave the bus, it was empty. Everyone had left the bus before her. Cain wasn‘t on the bus.”

  “Have you never seen a magician pull a rabbit from an empty top hat, Sergeant?” Clever said. “Now, I suggest we all pay a visit to the bus depot, and get this horrid little mess sorted out.”

  The sergeant and the newly promoted detective constable exchanged looks of bewilderment, then fell in behind their DCI as he swept out of the office. As they passed the front desk, the duty sergeant stepped out and pushed a piece of paper into Dan Jones’s hands.

  “Here, this is one for CID, Dan,” he said. “Some silly bugger threw himself off Solomon’s Tor. He’s still alive, somehow. Can you get over to Castleburgh General and charge him?”

  Dan Jones sighed and stuffed the details into his jacket pocket. Suicide was, in his eyes, the coward’s way out, and the laws concerning it were necessarily strict. Attempted suicide was a crime, and attracted a stiff prison sentence from most judges.

  As the attempted suicide was tucked up safely in a hospital bed, Jones decided to leave it until after the current business had been settled satisfactorily. It was going to be an education for both he and DC Stanton, watching the eccentric, but brilliant, Clever Dick pull a big white rabbit out of his hat.

  Chapter Three

  Sam Hurst smiled up from her desk when DC Stan Stanton appeared in her office door.

  “Hello, Stan. Couldn’t keep away?” she bantered, falling silent as two other men followed him in.

  “Miss Hurst, I presume?” Richard Clever said. “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Clever, this is Detective Sergeant Jones, and DC Stanton, I believe you already know. I would like to borrow one of your buses for a few minutes.”

  “We have one in the garage at the moment, undergoing repairs, Chief Inspector,” she said. “I’m afraid it isn’t in working order.”

  “That is fine,” Clever replied. “Can you show us the way?”

  Sam Hurst flicked a quick glance at Stanton, who managed a slight shrug, to show that he too was in the dark. She led them down a flight of stairs and across a courtyard to a large garage at the rear.

  “There she is,” Sam told them. “Dear old number thirty three. One of the last of the old design.”

  “And what about the missing bus?” Clever asked. “Was it the same old design?”

  “Yes. The pre-nineteen thirty models didn’t have a rear safety exit. Does that matter?”

  “Very much so,” Clever explained. “It means that anyone leaving the bus had to pass the driver. Am I right, Miss Hurst?”

  “I suppose so,” she replied. “I don’t quite understand what you are getting at though.”

  “Rabbits out of hats,” Richard Clever told her. “Please take a seat near the front, Stanton, and Jones… take the driver’s seat. I will sit further back. Count to twenty, then we all get off the bus.”

  Jones knew better than to argue, and took his seat. Stanton and the girl sat two rows back, and Clever another couple of rows further back still. The sergeant counted to twenty, climbed out of the bus, and held up a helping hand for Sam Hurst. Stanton followed, and they waited for their DCI to disembark, but in vain.

  After a moment, Jones climbed back aboard. The bus was completely empty. For a few seconds, the big DS could hardly understand it. His Guv’nor had managed to vanish, in broad daylight. Then he smiled to himself as he realised the simplicity of the trick. He walked down the aisle, until he came to where Clever had been seated. The DCI had lain down in the space between his seat and the one in front.

  “Are you saying it was that simple?” Jones asked as his boss climbed to his feet.

  “Yes, I am. Our Mr Cain waited until no one was paying attention, and lay down, out of sight. Because our witness wasn’t expecting a trick, she assumed Cain must have got off earlier. As far as she and the driver were concerned, the bus was now empty. Ted Newby was in a hurry to meet his mistress, so was hardly paying attention anyway. At some point, Cain emerged and forced the bus to a halt.”

  “Where his cousin was waiting,” Jones continued. “They robbed the driver and… no, it doesn’t pan out, Guv. Why kidnap the driver, and steal the bus?”

  “Because it went wrong,” DC Stanton said, excitedly. “Cain stopped the bus, but Newby put up a fight. He might be a burly sort of bloke, and not afraid of using his fists. So Cain, or his cousin were a little heavy handed.”

  “Correct. I suspect that the driver was struck over the head, and bled inside the bus. He staggered outside, and was hit again. Hence the pool of blood by the roadside.”

  “But why take the bus?” Stanton asked. “I can’t imagine it was just to hide the bloodstains.”

  “Perhaps they were after the takings?” Sam Hurst offered.

  “Then they would just grab his money box,” Jones said.

  “No, they couldn’t do that,” Sam replied. “There is a cash box welded under the seat. The driver has to push the cash through a slot in the side. The only keys to the boxes are here, at the depot.”

  “There we are, gentlemen,” Clever concluded. “Two amateurs knock the driver about, then find they can’t get to the precious money. So, they have to steal the bus, in order to break open the cash box at their leisure.”

  “And the driver?” Jones asked, already suspecting the truth.

  “If he was injured, they would have left him by the road,” Clever said. “I think they took the dead body with them, to avoid us launching a murder hunt. As I said, Cain and Tubbs are amateurs.”

  “John Tubbs?” Sam asked. “He used to work here. The boss fired him because he was doing ‘foreigners’ on the side. His dad owns Old Pale farm on the Carlisle road, and Tubbs used his barn.”

  “Miss Hurst, you should apply to join the CID,” Clever said, sincerely. “There we have it, Jones. Have a few uniformed men get over to this barn. I suspect that, if they are quick, they will find our suspects, dismembering a bus.

  Once a case was broken, Richard Clever sank back into a state of gentle lethargy. His mind was so honed to suit his chosen career that it began to close itself down without something intricate to work on. It was of no interest to him that Jones, Stanton and a half dozen constables had raided the Tubbs farm within the hour, and found Cain and Tubbs using crow bars to lever open the buses cash filled strong box.

  Realising their predicament, both young men had tried to fight their way out. Tubbs was arrested without much of a struggle, but Cain had only been taken after four big constables managed to hold him down.

  Tubbs had burst into tears, and confessed that they had killed the driver. It had been his cousin who had struck the deadly blow. Tubbs denied all blame, other than helping to store the body in the farm’s outhouse.

 
Stanton, given the task of finding the body was surprised to reach the outhouse, only to discover it was empty. A trail of blood led away, across the moors. Five minutes later, the DC found Ted Newby crawling towards the road. A hastily summoned ambulance rushed the wounded man away to hospital.

  “Lucky lads,” Jones said, as they pushed the two young offenders into the back of a Black Maria. “I have other business at the General, Stanton, so you get these two charged, and I’ll take a statement from the driver when he comes around.”

  “Do you want me to follow you on, Sarge?”

  “No, I’ll cope,” Jones said. “Some clot tried to top himself, and I have to charge him. Three months hard labour might make him appreciate that suicide is a mortal sin.”

  “I can’t believe this fellow’s good luck,” Dr. Jameson told Dan Jones as they observed the patient through a small window in the hospital room’s door. “We put him in isolation because of his state of mind.”

  “Then he was definitely trying to kill himself?” Jones asked.

  “Solomon’s Tor rises to over four hundred feet, then ends in a sheer cliff face. The chap must have known that he would die on impact.” The doctor scratched his ear and shook his head. “It appears he struck an outcropping tree root, and then a thorn bush on the way down, before landing in another thicket. Apart from a few cuts and a bump to his head, he’s fine.”

  “Then I can charge him?”

  “You can,” the doctor replied, “but he seems a little bit vague as to his whereabouts. The bump might have caused some short term memory loss.”

  “That’s convenient,” Dan Jones sneered. “You mean he might have ‘forgotten’ that he jumped off a four hundred foot cliff?”

  “I’ll leave that to you, Sergeant,” Dr. Jameson said. “Don’t go steaming in though. If he is genuinely confused, shouting at him will only make things worse.”

  “I’ll treat him like a little lost lamb, Sir,” Jones replied. “I’m a gentle sort at heart.”

  The doctor smiled and pushed open the door for Jones to enter. He made the usual noises about not tiring the patient, and specified an interview length not to exceed five minutes. As it so happened, Dan Jones only needed two minutes to realise that he was up against the strangest case he had ever come across.

  He abandoned his interview and went in search of a private telephone line. Once alone in one of the consultant’s offices, he dialled the station house in Castleburgh, and demanded to be put through to Richard Clever’s desk.

  “Guv’nor, it’s me, Jones. I think you need to get over to the General right away,” he said, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. “I’ve a chap here who claims to be Peter Fornell.”

  “Why do I seem to know that name?” Clever asked.

  “It was before both of our times, Guv, but it made all the national papers back in the day,” Jones explained. “I suggest you have a word with Bill down in Records. He’ll dig up the old case files. Have a read, then get over here.”

  “You are making a real mystery out of this, Jones,” Clever said, annoyed at having to bestir himself. “Can’t you just tell me what it is all about?”

  “Not over the phone, Guv,” Jones insisted. “This has the chance of making us look very silly, if it gets out. I’m hoping you can rustle up an explanation before it goes public.”

  “Very well,” DCI Clever said, accepting that his quiet evening at home, reading a good library book would have to be postponed. “I’ll be with you by five or five thirty.”

  Clever arrived at the Constabulary Records Department just as Sergeant Bill Connors was about to lock up. After the usual moans about never getting any home life, the grizzled old sergeant returned to his dust laden files, and asked what Clever needed.

  “A case file on someone called Peter Fornell,” Clever said.

  “Oh, the Fornell case,” Connors said. “I was only talking about it the other evening, in the Swan. Some tourist wanted all the gory details. He bought me a couple of pints, and I gave him the bare bones of the case.”

  “Not very wise of you,” Clever said. “You know the rules of evidence, Sergeant.”

  “They hardly apply in the case of Peter Fornell,” the sergeant replied. “Now, what would it be under?” He rummaged through an index file and came up with a small card. “As I thought. It’s in the A to F cabinet of closed cases. Give me a minute.”

  The sergeant bustled off, returning a few minutes later with an inch thick folder. He placed it on his desk and folded his arms.

  “Thank you, Sergeant, I’ll return it tomorrow morning, first thing.”

  “Sorry, Sir, but you know the regulations. No case files to be removed without the correct paperwork, signed by at least two senior officers.”

  “Of course,” Clever replied. “Thank you for the reminder, Sergeant Connors. May I?” He gestured to the sergeant’s chair, and was invited to sit with a begrudging nod of the man’s head. The DCI sat and turned to the first page. Then he turned each page, pausing only for a couple of seconds over each sheet. After a couple of minutes, he stood up and thanked the sergeant.

  “That will suffice, thanks,” he told the astonished Records keeper. “I’ll return with the proper request forms, should I need the actual case file.”

  “I heard, but I never believed it,” Connors said. “No one has that good a memory.”

  “No?” Clever closed his eyes for a moment. “Third page from the end, line seventeen. I believe it says ‘and was signed off by Assistant Commissioner George Smith, prior to sentencing’. Feel free to check, Sergeant Connors.”

  Connors waited until the DCI had left before flicking to the relevant page. He counted down to the right line and read the exact words quoted by Clever.

  “Bugger me!” he exclaimed. “He’d be a wonder at remembering racing form.”

  Chapter Four

  “He’s in here, Guv,” Jones said. “Did you get the file from Bill Connors?”

  “Sort of,” Clever said, tapping a finger to his forehead. “It’s all in here, so we should be able to trip this chap up easily enough.”

  Jones drew two wooden chairs close to the patient’s bed and the two detectives sat down on opposite sides. The Detective Sergeant introduced his DCI to the patient, and sat back, waiting for Richard Clever to pull the man’s ridiculous claims apart.

  “Can you tell me your name, please?” Clever asked.

  “Peter James Fornell,” the young man replied, wearily.

  “Where were you born, Peter?”

  “Why, right here, of course,” the patient replied. “The Castleburgh Free Hospital.”

  “It’s called the General now,” Clever told him.

  “Really, when did that happen?”

  “Never mind,” the DCI replied. “It isn’t important. Can you tell me your date of birth please, Peter?”

  “Of course I can.” The young man grinned at the simplicity of the request. “I might have taken a nasty bump to my head, but I’m not addled, you know. Do I know my own birth date, indeed!”

  “Well?” the DCI prompted. “Can you let me in on the secret, Peter?”

  “October the seventeenth.”

  “And the year?”

  “Eighteen eighty one,” the injured man said. Dan Jones glanced across at his DCI, who gently waved a silencing finger at him.

  “What can you tell me about your early education?” Clever continued.

  “These are a rum set of questions,” Peter Fornell said. “How can me being a Harrow boy, and then Cambridge, relate to what happened to me this morning?”

  “You remember falling from the Tor?” Jones asked, only to receive a sharp look from his Guv’nor. The question was a deviation from the path the DCI had decided on, and was not, immediately, relevant to their enquiry.

  “Fall be damned,” the young man replied, indignantly. “I was pushed off the bloody thing!”

  “Let’s leave that, just for the moment,” Richard Clever told him. “I am
interested in your early life, Peter. Can you humour me a little while longer? Who was your mother?”

  “Was? My mother is Eliza Fornell, the stage actress. My father, to his eternal discredit, has never laid claim to me, other than to pay for my education.”

  “Can you name him?”

  “Of course I can, Chief Inspector. He is Charles Vancleur, the third Earl of Castleburgh,” the young man replied. “Good luck with getting him to acknowledge me though. The man is a thorough blackguard.”

  “Quite,” Clever agreed. “May I ask you a few more personal questions?”

  “If it helps to find out who pushed me off that damned cliff, I’ll even tell you my shoe size, Chief Inspector.”

  Richard Clever continued with his gentle probing of Peter Fornell’s life history, from his birth, up to the year nineteen hundred and twelve. Sometimes, he would stray from the personal and ask his man the odd historical question.

  “Can you tell me who won last years Derby?”

  “That depends,” the young man said, with a grin. “Abayour took it on a disqualification, but I think Craganour was very hard done to. Did you lose a wad of money too, Chief Inspector?”

  “I never gamble,” Clever replied. “Who won the FA Cup that year?”

  “Football’s not really my sport. Wasn’t it Bradford, after a replay?”

  “Yes, that is correct,“ the DCI replied. “Now, can you tell me about April the Tenth, Nineteen Hundred and Twelve?”

  “I certainly can,” Fornell replied. “It was just about the luckiest day of my life. I was due to leave England for America, but the relocation funds promised by my dear father never arrived. I missed the ship. Instead, I spent a miserable time in Southampton, trying to raise enough for a train back to civilization.”

  “The ship you missed that day was the SS Titanic,” Richard Clever said, glancing at Dan Jones’ increasingly pained look of astonishment. The sergeant was beginning to look as though he doubted his own sanity.