1938-06-24 — Page 5

THE

IXTELL,"

“W

CHINA MAIL

FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT,

JUNE

JUNE 24, 1938

MYSTERY OF A HAT AND COAT

said

Inspector M'Cabe, getting down his empty glass and accepting, a ̈ ́ cigar from the box Maxwell Bennett proffered, "it's been a good night's work! We've got the entire gang,

the coining plant, and a whole pile of the dud money they've been putting into circulation."

completely,

"Yes, it was successful raid." Bennett, put- ting aside the cigars, lit his pipe, which he preferred.

"And to think," added the big inspector, from the armchair he "occupied with corpulent compla- cency, "that what put you wise to the gang's hideaway cipher message you decoded from what appeared to be an ordinary. innocent, laundry bill—”

was

A

The telephone bell interrupted. Maxwell Bennett lifted the re- ceiver. "Yes?

"A call for you, Inspector," he

the intimated. "From

Yard. Your men, returning after the raid with the prisoners, have reported that you accompanied me here to my rooms. other case, apparently."

An-

smoke

to Bennett continued while the inspector talked over the wires with the Powers that Be.

There was nothing about Max- well Bennett, or his apparent way of living, which might suggest the private detective: a studious avoidance of publicity on his part, very desirable in dealing with criminal affairs.

Appearance, dress, manner sug- gested the city business man, a young man in the early thirties, well-groomed, poised alert, with a long, shrewd head, prematurely. greying at the temples.

Inspector M'Cabe replaced the receiver.

He was a big burly man, but active and energetic, with weak- ness for a floral buttonhole. The pink carnation which was his pre- sent fancy was wilted with the excitements of the night.

He turned frown.

with a worried

"Well!" he gave relief to his feelings, "this is a queer affair!" attentive,

Bennett, instantly nodded sympathetically.

"What's queer about it?" The inspector drew a puzzled breath.

"Well, when a man dies a sud- den death, whether from causes accidental, suicidal, or homicidal, it's queer," he exclaimed, "If, like a guest come to a party, he hangs up his coat and hat as a prelimin- ary!

"That," he intimated, "is ex- actly what a man who has been found dead in the park appears to have done-hung up his coat and hat, before the event, on a tree, like one might hang 'em hall-stand!"

on a

"Sounds mysterious," Bennett murmured.

It was, definitely, an extraor dinary procedure. “Assuming.”

submitted Ben- nett, "that the coat and hat were not hung on, the tree by someone other than the dead man, aftor the event, the circumstance certainly, peculiar."

"Oh! but there is no doubt," affirmed the inspector, "that the

coat and hat were hung on the tree by the dead man himself.”

"How so?"

"Because footprints corres- ponding with the shoes worn by the dead man, approaching and returning from the tree, prove that it was he himself who hung up the coat and hat."

"Very remarkable !" Bennett.

1

declared

cause

.of.

He smoked thoughtfully.

the "What was death?" he inquired.

The inspector shook his head blankly.

nor

"There is no mark of violence on the body, no disorder of the evidence of any clothing struggle, and-money and jewel- lery being left untouched-there obviously had not been any strug- gle."

"H'm," Bennett sat twisting his neck-tie.

It was a habit he had when puzzled.

It was a standing joke at Scot- land Yard that one could always tell the progress of Maxwell Ben- nett's cases from the condition of A difficult case re- his neck-tie. duced his tie, invariably, to crumpled rag.

"H'm, an interesting problem,

he remarked, Inspector,"

Short Story

"on

which to exercise your penetra- tion."

The Inspector pulled a face.

wry

"The people He said casually: at the Yard are sending along a car which will take us-*5

"Who made the discovery?" Inspector M'Cabe asked the con- stable, through the open-window,- as the car proceeded along the carriage-way under dark, shivery trees nodding like black funeral plumes.

"Me, sir, I am on patrol duty on this side of the park. I found the body, just after midnight, when I was making my round."

man.

Later, a Records Office would make plaster casts of the tyre and foot-marks, rendering permanent these perishable clues; of the meantime preservation ground evidence necessitated the car being stopped short, and In- spector M'Cabe and Maxwell Ben- nett, alighting, advanced on foot,

"Well, sergeant! What do you make of it?" Inspector M'Cabe asked the senior officer.

The sergeant, obviously, made nothing of it,

"It's all very puzzling, sir!" He sniffed like a bloodhound] that has lost the scent.

"The man appears to have died a natural death, there is no evidence of foul play, but appar- ently a second person was present, who has thought it advisable to disappear."

The inspector turned on him sharply.

"Sol There was a second per son present?"

The sergeant explained. There are tracks of tyres, eir showing that a car has come and gone."

The police party, including Maxwell Bennett, proceeded while the inspector was questioning the detective-sergeant to where the body of the dead man lay, dressed in evening clothes without coat or hat, which were to be seen hanging on an adjacent tree.

The general sensation produced by the personality of the dead man was a feeling of distaste..

He was a middle-aged man, flabby squat and obese, with mottled. fat face bespeaking coarse. undisciplined appetites; apparent- ly a foreigner, of Slavonic char- acteristics.

The party grouped about the body was silently observant.

"Has identity been estab- lished?" asked Inspector M'Cabe.

The contents of the pockets, comprising money, a gold watch, cigarettes and a petrol lighter, and

flask

with half-filled whisky, included nothing, the sergeant reported, which might establish identity.

A

The inspector, continuing, in- quired:

"Has the doctor made his ex- amination?"

The police surgeon, a thin, pale young man wearing eye-glasses, nodded.

"What was the cause of death?”

"It would appear," said Max- well Bennett, as he and Inspector M'Cabe bent together to example these marks, "that the dead man' did not occupy the front seat with the man who drove, like a friend; he was driven inside the car, like a passenger."

The inspector, following the same line of reasoning, nodded.

That's quite evident," he agreed, "from the way, as shown by the foot-prints, that the two men got out of the car."

"Which might suggest," sub- mitted Bennett, "a taxi-cab, rather than a private car.”

"On the other hand," pointed out the inspector, "the small, neat

indeed, elegant-footprints of the man who drove were not made by shoes such as it is at all likely would be worn

8 by working chauffeur."

"Yes, I had noticed the point," admitted Bennett, "and the infer- ence is interesting. That if the car was a taxi-cab, the man who drove it was not a taxi chauffeur, and consequently not the regular driver.'

"H'm," said the inspector, doubtfully.

"It objected.

is

not conclusive," he

"No," Bennett admitted, "it is merely speculativė.”

The marks made by the car

By J. W. Dent offering nothing further that

Kirkwood

the inspector asked him.

Following rupture "Syncope. of an aortic aneurism. Induced, evidently, by over-excitement or some violent emotion."

Assuming instant rigour, fixing the expression of the features at the moment of death, the last im- mediate emotion of the dead man apparently had been fright.

-Inspector-M'Cabe became busi

nesslike.

"Well!" he said, briskly, "let's go over the ground-it's getting a bit lighter now-and see if we can discover, from the movements of the two men, what happened.".

It was apparent that both the participators in the mysterious midnight adventure had arrived together in the car; therefore, the attempt to reconstruct

gan, logically, with the car De

There had been rain, some light showers, in the course of the pre- vious day, and the ground, being soft, retained clear impressions of wheel and foot-marks.

was

informative, or even suggestive, the two investigators returned together to where the body lay.

It was becoming rapidly light. "Have you noticed," said Ben- nett, "that the man who drove the car, as well as the man who is dead, followed the peculiar pro- cedure of hanging up his coat and - hat on a tree?”

"So he did!" exclaimed the in- spector. "Sure enough, there are the prints of his feet the neat, small feet-leading to, and re- turning from, the tree next to the one on which the dead man's coat and hat are hanging."

"Observe, too," Bennett added, "the second double track, made when he returned to remove his .coat and hat from the tree.”

The inspector stared.. "It's queer, very queer," he de- clared.

"All this fussy running about with coats and hats!"

Bennett took him by the arm. "There is one more point of in- terest to which I would like to direct your attention."

He pointed.

(Continued on Page 7)

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