Death at Dyke's Corner, page 1
part #19 of Robert Macdonald Series
Death at Dyke's Corner
by E.C.R. Lorac
First published in 1940
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
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Death at Dyke’s Corner
by E. C. R. LORAC
Sketch map of roads around Strand
CHAPTER ONE
“Of all the filthy nights I’ve ever known,” broke out Roland Straynge disgustedly, taking his right hand off the driving wheel in order to close the off-side window of the car more securely. “Call it rain—it’s more like a wall of water. The roads’ll be flooded if it goes on like this. Hallo, is it leaking in on you too, now? Get the other rug from the back. Nothing except a jolly submarine could keep dry under this.”
“For the rain it raineth every day,” chanted Steven Langston beside him. “This jolly well beats the band. Can you see anything at all?”
“Nix. Wipe the screen for me again. We’re still on the road by the feel of it, but it’s an act of faith.”
“Anne said take the left-hand fork after we passed the A.A. box,” said Langston cheerfully, as he re-wiped the misted windscreen, and peered out at the streaming road which shone like a river in the glare of the headlights through the torrent which ran down the glass.
“A.A. box, be damned! You couldn’t see the Tower of London itself on a night like this,” grumbled Straynge. “It makes no odds, anyway. Either fork leads to Reading eventually. I only hope to God the river’s not over the road at Farley. Ten to one it will be—in which case we’ll be done in the eye nicely. It’s a fool trick taking these cross-country routes.”
Langston glanced at his companion’s face, and then again at the downpour which lashed the windscreen and headlights. He knew that Straynge was taking a risk in driving fast on unknown roads when visibility was almost nil, but Langston, like most young men of to-day, enjoyed the hazards of speed. He was a medical student in his fourth year, and Straynge was his cousin, a man considerably older than himself, with a growing reputation at the Bar. The two had been to the Hunt Ball at Wenderby, and had set out on their return drive to London at two-thirty in the morning. Straynge had to be in court early, and Langston himself had to be on duty in the wards of St. Joseph’s at ten o’clock. Necessity impelled them both to return to London, to snatch a few hours of sleep before the day’s work.
The car bumped over a bad stretch of road, and Langston said, “We’ve taken the wrong fork. Anne said that this was an absolute stumer. There’s a double hairpin bend somewhere——”
“Hell! There is!”
Straynge saw the bend in the road ahead just in time to save hitting the bank. He braked, felt the car skid on the flooded surface, and righted it with a skill which Langston applauded with a quick “Played sir,” as they swung more slowly round the second bend.
Langston heard the brief profanity with which Straynge greeted the situation ahead, and instinctively braced his feet against the panel in front of him. “All U.P. this time,” was his own reaction.
Immediately in front of them, a car was drawn up on the opposite side of the road, on the outer curve of the narrow bend. As they swung round the wicked curve, headlights blazed full at them, blinding them both. In the gap between their own bonnet and that of the stationary car another pair of lighted eyes glared through the rain—rather high up, Langston noted. A lorry had drawn out to pass the standing car, and was coming at them like a battle-cruiser, full steam ahead.
There are some situations in which the most skilful driver is impotent. This was one of them. There were three vehicles to occupy a given width of road, and the road was not wide enough. Straynge did what he could. He drove his Morris into the bank, braking skilfully. Langston felt the impact as wings and wheels crashed against the sodden bank, and then sensed the rending, tearing scream of metal as the lorry hit them and passed them, its height towering above them, its length seeming never-ending, as wood and metal and glass split and rent, and darkness came down on them.
“Are you all right?”
Straynge’s voice was quite cool, and Langston replied at once, “Yes. I’m O.K. You?”
“Not touched. God knows how. He kept his nerve and drove straight. I’ll say that for him. He’s just about shaved the side off us. My God! What a mess!”
“You there, sir?”
A hoarse voice called from the teeming rain, and Langston realised that the lorry driver had pulled up and come running back, and was standing beside them with the rain lashing down on him.
“Yes. Small thanks to you I am still here,” snapped Straynge. “What about the other car? Hell! I suppose we’ve got to be drowned as well as bashed.”
Producing a torch he clambered out of the wrecked Morris. The door handle had gone, and the door was split and rent, and Straynge kicked it savagely to get it clear. Seeing his own car he said “Good God!” hardly able to believe that he himself was unhurt after such an impact. Turning the beam of his torch on the car across the road he was silent for a second. It was a nasty sight, but miraculously it was not on fire.
“Have to get him out somehow, God knows how,” he said at length and turned to the lorry driver. “Got any tools in your outfit? Look sharp.”
Langston had found another torch in the door pocket beside him, and as he struggled out of the tilted Morris, Straynge said:
“Keep an eye on that bend, Steven. If anything else comes along there’ll be hell to pay. Blast this rain.”
Langston recognised the wisdom of his cousin’s advice. The road was narrow, and the double bend, edged with tall hedgerows and dense elm trees, might be responsible for a further smash if another car chanced to come along. The torrential rain, the twisting road and the high hedges were jointly responsible for the fact that he and Straynge had not seen the headlights of the stationary car. Now, with the lights put out of commission, the situation would be desperate if another car came along at speed.
The lorry driver came running back with tools, and he and Straynge set to work to lever open the smashed door of the wrecked car. It was a Daimler, Langston noted—a beauty—smashed now into crumpled confusion of twisted metal and rent panels. The driver was still inside. With the rain lashing in his face and pouring down his neck Langston kept watch on the road ahead. Behind them the lorry would indicate to an oncoming driver that caution was necessary.
He heard Straynge’s voice, “Come and look at him, Steven. I think he’s finished.”
Langston became aware of a reflection in the shroud of moisture which encompassed them and said:
“Look out. There’s another car in the offing. He’ll be on us if we are not careful.”
He handed his torch to Straynge, and went back to the wrecked Daimler. As he bent through the aperture where the door had been wrenched away, Langston was conscious of the heat of the Daimler’s engine, and the hot airlessness which still persisted inside the saloon. The car was twisted and tilted, and the driver’s slack body had been moved up by Straynge and the lorry driver so that it rested against the back of the seat, the head fallen forward on to the chest. Langston turned the beam of his torch on to the man’s face and gave a soundless whistle. The glass from the smashed side window had been driven into the driver’s face and throat. Langston knew that the man was dead before he touched the limp pulseless wrist. He was intent on the pitiable figure over which he bent, and was startled when a voice behind him said:
“Better let me have a look at him. I’m a doctor.”
“He’s quite dead,” Langston said abruptly, and drew back, giving place to the new arrival. As he stood upright in the road again, the young man was almost glad to feel the lash of the cold rain on his face. Bending down in the hot air of the car must have turned him sick. He felt dizzy and bemused for a moment.
The lorry driver was talking to Straynge.
“His rear lights were out. I never saw him till I was on top of him, and just as I pulled out you came round the bend. There wasn’t time to do nothing. I couldn’t stop in time—we was nearly head on. I thought if I kept straight I might only hit the wings both sides.”
“You were driving too fast,” said Straynge, and the man replied:
“We have to keep schedule, sir, and I was behind time. Road’s up on the straight stretch between Strand and Raynes Cross and I had to do my best on this.”
Straynge turned to Langston.
“This doctor chap came up just as you got busy,” with a nod of his head towards the Daimler. “He’s put his car inside a gateway back there. He’ll give us a lift with a bit of luck. The Lord knows how long the police will keep us here. The poor devil’s dead, isn’t he?”
Langston nodded, and a crisp voice came from behind them.
“Nothing to be done there. Someone’s got to fetch the police.”
There was a note of authority in the voice, as of a man accustomed to controlling others. He turned to the lorry driver.
“Is your outfit still able to move?”
“Yes, sir. The lorry’s all right. Wings gone, but I can drive her.”
“Then you’d better go on to Strand and fetch the police out. Report there’s a
The man produced his driving licence, and the other took it.
“I’m going to keep this. The police will bring you back here. Give them my card, and be careful what you’re up to.”
He turned to the others.
“You’ll have to wait here, as I intend to do. My name’s Mainforth. If you get in my car, at least you’ll be under cover.”
Turning again to the lorry-man he said:
“If you see any car coming in this direction, try to stop them and warn them there’s a smash blocking the road. Go along now and keep your head.”
Langston put in, “Ought we to move him?”
It was to the dead man he referred.
Dr. Mainforth replied:
“No earthly object. The rain won’t do him any harm, and the police won’t thank us for moving him. Get inside—I’ll turn the car so that the headlights shine across the road—if I’m not bogged already. This rain’s as cold as sleet. Jolly night for a smash.”
With the engine roaring and the wheels churning up the clay, he managed to reverse his own car in the field and manœuvred it so that its bonnet was level with the gate, its lights streaming across the road.
“That’s the best I can do. No use standing in the road and waiting to be hit.”
“That’s a damned odd business, sir,” put in Langston, and the doctor replied:
“Meaning?”
“I’m a medical student. Fourth year at St. Joseph’s.”
“I see,” replied Mainforth. “What happened exactly?”
Straynge replied, giving their names and details of the accident. When he had finished Mainforth asked:
“You are sure the Daimler was stationary when you first saw it?”
“Perfectly certain,” replied Straynge. “I suppose the driver pulled up by the roadside when the rain came down in such floods. It was very difficult to see any distance ahead, but why the deuce he chose to pull up at the most dangerous point of a narrow bend beats me completely. It was an insane thing to do. I suppose he was killed instantaneously, wasn’t he? He’s horribly cut about.”
“But he wasn’t killed in the smash at all,” burst out Langston. “He was dead already, before the lorry touched him. His jugular’s cut right through, and he’s not bled at all, barring a few drops. If he’d been killed by the smash, he’d have been fairly spouting blood.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Straynge, and Mainforth put in:
“That’s all perfectly true, in fact, painfully obvious. I should say he’s been dead at least an hour, and the engine of his car had been running all the time. I probably needn’t give you advice, but apart from the police, I shouldn’t advertise what you know.”
“Quite,” replied Straynge, “but since we all three know the facts, can’t we get a bit farther? If the crash didn’t kill him, what did?”
“Exhaust gases,” said Langston promptly. “It was carbon monoxide which killed him—don’t you agree with me, sir? Remember his colour?”
“Yes. I agree with you as to what killed him. As to the mechanics of the killing—well, it remains to be proved.”
“Isn’t this quite possible?” asked Straynge. “Say he’d been driving with all the windows shut, because of the rain. If there was a fault in the exhaust pipe and the gas got into the car, he’d have felt a bit drowsy and dizzy. He realised he was feeling queer, and pulled up immediately, as an experienced driver would. Because it was raining he didn’t let down the window, and the rest followed.”
“A very nice explanation, accounting for all contingencies—almost,” said Mainforth. “You noticed the car? It’s a Daimler, almost new. If you’ve ever heard of a new Daimler with a fault in the exhaust pipe, it’s more than I have—or any one else.”
“Quite,” said Straynge in his abrupt way. “Also it’s a bit of a coincidence that his car was pulled up at the most dangerous corner it could have been pulled up at. A very nice scheme. No arguing about faults in the exhaust pipe now. It’s smashed to blazes.”
“My hat!” said Langston. “That means——”
“It’ll be the jury’s business to say what it means,” put in Mainforth. “You neither of you recognise him, I take it?”
“Who is he?”
“Morton Conyers.”
Straynge gave a whistle. “Is he, by jove? I put in for some of his new issue a week back, but it was over-subscribed in five minutes.”
“A financier then?” asked Langston and the doctor replied.
“Morton Conyers is the originator—and virtual owner of John Home & Co., Ltd. He started his first store in the outer suburbs of London twenty years ago. Recently he’s been operating in the small market towns of the Home Counties, on the slogan of ‘cut overhead costs and economise by dealing with one firm under one roof.’ You probably saw his latest store last time you drove through Bamsden.”
“Good Lord! That chap! He’s a big noise, isn’t he? Someone was saying that John Home’s the English Woolworth. Jupiter! This isn’t half going to be a huroosh!”
“That’s about it—and the huroosh is just starting. Here are the police. That poor devil of a lorry driver’s going to get it in the neck. Lucky you were on your own side of the road.”
Langston checked a little whistle. He knew quite well that for a good part of their route they had been anything but on their own side of the road. Fortunately they could plead not guilty to any fault over the accident. They had been travelling slowly—for twenty yards. The Morris had stopped dead with its wheels in the bank before the lorry had touched them. Roland Straynge said all this, and said it several times over, to the Police Inspector who tried to lecture him in the solemn manner of the English Constabulary. Straynge’s statement was a model of virtue, and the lorry driver, by name Albert Bigges, was an honest man. He made no attempt to contradict Straynge. He admitted that he had been driving faster than he cared to on such a night—but his job depended on his keeping to his time-table. He was behind time, owing to a puncture and to the fact that he had had to take the more devious route on account of road repairs and a tree down across the main road. On rounding the first bend at Dyke’s Corner (where the accident occurred) he had pulled out abruptly to avoid the Daimler. The rear lights of the latter were off, and he had been almost on top of it before he saw it. The very moment he pulled out he had seen the headlights of the Morris, and done the only thing he could do, since he was travelling too fast to pull up dead in his own length. He had gone on, keeping his lorry straight, and hoping to get through with a minimum of damage.
Straynge, sheltering in the police car, heard the inspector harping persistently on one point as he questioned the lorry driver.
“You say the Daimler was stationary. Was the Morris stationary, too?”
“It was when I hit it—pulled up by the bank.”
“When you first saw it was it moving, or standing by the bank?”
Straynge turned to Langston, and their eyes met. Comprehension dawned on them. The inspector had seen Morton Conyer’s body. In common with Dr. Mainforth and young Langston, he had known at once that the dead man had not been killed in the smash. The first question which had come into his mind was “How much do these other two know about it?”
Bigges was getting confused under the persistent questioning.
“The Morris was close in by the bank. It might have been moving. It had been moving, but it had pulled up before I hit it . . .”
“Look here, Inspector,” put in Straynge. “I told you we’ve just driven from Wenderby. We left there at two o’clock. It was two-thirty to the tick when the collision happened. You can see that from my watch—the glass broke when the lorry hit us. If you think we’ve been standing by the roadside here, think again.”
“If you left Wenderby at two o’clock, you drove pretty fast to get here at two-thirty,” retorted the inspector. “Over twenty miles that is, on a night like this, too.”
“That’s beside the point. There’s no law against my driving fast on decontrolled roads. I didn’t come round that bend fast.”
