Stephen Barr - Best of the best detective stories - 25th anniversary collection

By half-past two he had dumped the car in Central London. He spent the rest of the night in a Turkish bath.

The next afternoon he buried the mastiff close to Crouch.

At midnight Mrs. Crouch, alarmed by the non-arrival of her husband at her father’s house in Sussex, began to telephone inquiries as to road accidents. After ringing the vet and her own servants in Hampstead, she made a full report to Scotland Yard.

In the next few days the mastiff received its first installment of publicity — but only on the reasonable ground that it intensified the mystery of Crouch’s disappearance.

No man, taking an illicit holiday with a fair companion, would burden himself with a mastiff. Nor could he lose his memory and disappear without being quickly identified by the presence of such a rare and noticeable animal. Any crook could shoot a mastiff: but to dispose of the carcass in a secret manner would be as difficult as to dispose of a corpse. The case became a murder mystery with, as it were, a double corpse.

For a week Stretton read the newspapers with anxiety. The schoolboy who had seen him getting into the car with Crouch had given a description which would fit tens of thousands. There were appeals to this unknown friend to communicate with the police. The lack of response created suspicion of the “big” man, but provided no clue to identity. No one east of London claimed to have seen a mastiff in a car. In a few days it became clear that there was nothing to lead the police to examine Stretton’s garden.

Yet there were periods of depression and uncertainty, and some moments in which his scientific training and his common sense would again fail him. He felt no moral guilt, never gave a thought to Crouch as a person. But now and again his imagination was haunted by the luminous eyes of the mastiff staring expectantly in the direction of the lane — the mastiff that had a special affection for the police. There was that thought-pattern nonsense! Of course, some of the social insects — bees, ants, and whatnot — could achieve a sort of collective thinking—

“If dogs do have a thought-pattern of their own, they obviously can’t communicate their conclusions to humanity — so what does it matter if they have!” Thus he would laugh it off: but he could never wholly forget it.

In a month of hard work the police failed to pick up any clue to the identity of the murderer or the whereabouts of the corpse, and the case was passed on to the Department of Dead Ends. Except when he lapsed into mysticism about the dog, Stretton lost the sense of peril.

The vision of Leonie’s beauty no longer tormented him, so his nervous health improved. It was as if he were starting his life afresh, the past expiated and forgotten. In a couple of months he began preparations for a professional comeback.

He decided that he would have to live on in the cottage for a while. The potato patch bulged over the two graves. He finicked with a spade, breaking the outline. The soil might take a year or more to subside, he supposed, but while he remained at the cottage he was safe. The woman who did his housework had an elementary, incurious mind.

The woman came about eleven on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. By January he was driving to London on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to re-establish contacts in his practice as a consultant.

To put it in the absurd terms of Stretton’s own mysticism, the mastiff spoke from the grave in the first week of February — some six months after the murder.

It was a little after ten on the Thursday morning. Stretton was rising late after a heavy evening on theory, and had just finished dressing when he saw a car draw up in the lane. Behind it was another — then a third and a fourth. Leisurely a dozen or more men emerged from the cars, some in police uniform.

Stretton hurried downstairs and opened the front door.

“Good Lord, sir, there he is!” exclaimed Detective Inspector Rason. “Cor! He’ll ask us a lot of questions before we’ve dug up the answers. I thought he’d be in London by now.”

“Your show!” said Superintendent Karslake grimly. As usual, he was in grave doubt as to the legality of Rason’s position.

“Good morning, Mr. Stretton.” Rason introduced himself and Karslake. “We have received certain information — that is — well, to cut it short, we’d like to do a spot of digging in your garden. Any objection?”

Stretton knew, of course, that he was done for, though there might still be some faint chance of stalling.

“That’s a curious request,” he said evenly. “I think I’m entitled to ask what sort of information?”

He expected them to say that they were looking for the body of Arthur Crouch. If they had said it, he would have kept his head.

“The information, Mr. Stretton,” said Rason, “was furnished by a mastiff.”

“My God!” gasped Stretton. As before, his hands sweated with superstitious terror, while his spine felt cold.

“Do I make myself clear, Mr. Stretton, or don’t I?” chirped Rason. “I see that I do. Perhaps we can go inside and swap yarns while the men get busy. They won’t be long. I was here yesterday with one of those young scientific farmers — you know, B.Sc. and all that! He spotted a patch over there where the earth had been dug up, he said, to a depth of several feet some time during the last year.”

Stretton led them into the parlor. In half an hour, he supposed, the men would uncover the body. It would serve no purpose to pretend someone else had put it there. In those few steps all hope vanished. Dignity alone remained.

“I think you know already that your men will find the body of Arthur Crouch,” he said.

“Steady on!” said Rason. “I have to warn you—”

“Unnecessary, thanks!” Stretton was taking it very well; but he lost some composure as he went on: “You implied that Crouch’s mastiff is still alive. Either I’m partly mad, or your men will also dig up the carcass of that mastiff.”

Rason gave him a long, noncommittal look.

“Are you sure that was the end of Arthur Crouch’s mastiff, Mr. Stretton?”

Stretton’s nerve gave. He gaped at the detective, then collapsed into the armchair.

“Are you telling me it was someone else’s mastiff I killed?” The words came from the heart of a broken man.

“I’ve no statement to make, Mr. Stretton,” replied Rason. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to work it out for yourself.”

“It must have a natural explanation!” cried Stretton. “I can work it out. The million-to-one chance turned up. A second mastiff strayed into the garden. On that particular night! The million-to-one chance turned up!”

“And double the odds for luck,” guffawed Rason.

“Even then, that thought-pattern rot turns out to be true!” Stretton’s voice was slipping out of control. “And how the hell could that animal bring you here? It traveled on the floor of the car — six months ago! It’s against reason, I tell you.”

“Yet we are here!” said Rason.

A couple of hours later Rason was alone in a police car with Superintendent Karslake, on their way back to the Yard. Stretton had been taken away an hour previously in charge of a sergeant. Both smoked in silence until they were running into East London.

“Your case, and a good job o’ work too, Rason!” Karslake’s tone was aggrieved. “You’ve produced your evidence, and you don’t have to tell me how you got it, if you don’t want to.”

Rason did not rise. Karslake continued: “Couldn’t follow what he meant by a ‘thought-pattern.’ But he was right about that second mastiff being a million-to-one chance. It’s the sort of thing that’s turned up in your favor before.”

“Yes, sir, only he was wrong,” said Rason. “The whole point is that there is only one mastiff in this case. Actually there are only nine of ’em now in the whole country. I’ve made it my business to find out that not one of the nine has ever set foot in the county of Essex. All the same, I was speaking the truth when I told him a mastiff had furnished the information—”