The Templeton Case

The Templeton Case by Victor L. Whitechurch

The Templeton Case opens at Marsh Quay, a small estuary port near the cathedral city of Frattenbury, where schooner hand Tom Gale idles while waiting for a delayed cargo of gravel. A yacht, the Firefly, arrives carrying Reginald Templeton, a bearded ex-Africa explorer of about fifty, and his hired crewman Jim Webb. Templeton anchors, rows across the estuary to call on a Jewish dealer named Isaac Moss, who keeps a weekend house opposite, then walks into Frattenbury to dine with his cousin, Canon Fittleworth, leaving Webb free for the night. An unidentified young artist lodging at the "Mariner's Arms" inn, calling himself Grayson, shows unusual interest in Templeton's movements before abruptly cycling away before dawn. The next morning Webb finds Templeton stabbed to death in the yacht's cabin. Mr. Proctor, a retired cigar-merchant neighbor, takes charge until Superintendent Norton and Detective-Sergeant Colson arrive from Frattenbury. The doctor rules it murder by a dagger-like weapon, delivered while Templeton leaned at his cabin table. Canon Fittleworth confirms Templeton had hinted at carrying something valuable and had an unnamed appointment in Frattenbury that evening. Investigation reveals Templeton's solicitor is Anthony Crosby, and that Moss fled to London unusually early the next morning. Colson's shoe and stick-ferrule tracking along the field path shows Templeton walked to Frattenbury and back; a second walking stick, found hidden in the yacht's dinghy, becomes the prime physical clue, since Templeton did not own it. Colson also finds a chamois bag containing one uncut diamond in the dead man's pocket. Canon Fittleworth, examining the cabin, pockets a cigar band he recognizes as matching his own rare Cuban brand, but withholds it until the inquest, where his delay earns a public rebuke from the coroner, Francis Norwood. Colson secretly substitutes a duplicate walking stick for the one found in the dinghy, then stakes out Marsh Quay; that night an unknown figure paddles out, retrieves the decoy stick, and escapes upstream on the tide before Colson can catch him, confirming someone deliberately planted and reclaimed the item. Separately, Colson notices the cigar band produced at the inquest had been swapped while passing among the jurymen — of whom Proctor is foreman. Suspicion falls on three men: Moss, the fugitive artist Grayson, and Proctor. Grayson is tracked to a village lodging and detained by Major Renshaw, the Chief Constable; he explains he avoided Templeton because his father had ruinously defeated Templeton in an old lawsuit, and is cleared when Canon Fittleworth reveals the cigar band shown to him is not the one he actually found — meaning the real evidence was switched at the inquest. Grayson is released and reunites with Winnie Cotterill, a young artist in London who turns out to be Templeton's ward-like protégée and principal heir; Templeton's solicitor Crosby privately holds a sealed letter revealing Winnie's father was actually a disgraced embezzler named Forbes, information he decides to withhold from her. Moss is tracked to his Hatton Garden office and confesses in terror: Templeton had delivered him a consignment of diamonds that afternoon in a routine business transaction, and Moss discovered that night he was missing one stone, panicked, rowed to the yacht to retrieve it, found Templeton already dead, and fled to London rather than report it. His story is corroborated by hotel witnesses placing him away from Marsh Quay at the time the clue-stick was reclaimed, clearing him as the culprit. This leaves Proctor — the cigar merchant, Switzerland traveler, and jury foreman who tampered with the cigar-band evidence — as Colson's primary remaining suspect, and the detective sets about quietly gathering proof, including matching a cigar taken from Proctor's own locked cupboard to the band originally found in the cabin.

By Victor L. Whitechurch · Genre: Detective Fiction, Mystery, Crime Fiction · 21 chapters · 75,505 words

First lines

Tom Gale leaned heavily on the low bulwarks of the little schooner _Lucy_, his arms folded upon the aforesaid bulwarks, his short, black clay pipe in his mouth, and his eyes fixed on the flowing tide glittering in the sunlight of a clear October day.

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detective fiction · murder mystery · crime fiction · police procedural · England · coastal · estuary · Edwardian · yacht · murder · stabbing · physical evidence

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