Tragedy at Beechcroft by A. Fielding

AT New Scotland Yard, Pointer found that Edwards had sent a message to say that he was flying back to England at once. He was shown into Pointer's room two hours later. If not one in reality, then Edwards gave a really splendid imitation of an innocent man. Tomlinson was present, and was keen to find out if the tale that he was about to hear would fit the reconstruction made by the chief inspector of Major Moncrieff's work, and that of the so-called chauffeur.

Edwards at once explained that the dead man had been a remarkable inventor, and a man endowed with an uncanny skill in instantly locating any fault, and suggesting just where an improvement could best be affected by merely listening to the running of the engine which he was driving. He himself, Edwards, was a mechanical engineer specialising in luxury motor-cars. For the last two years, Moncrieff and he had been under a contract, a secret one, with the Crolls and Boyce car people as triers out of their special car makes. He went on to say that the head of the firm, Sir Mark Crolls, had married a Belgian lady, and lived outside Brussels. Over a year ago, Sir Mark had had a very bad smash, and would never be able to walk again, and at the same time, from certain indications in the car world, and certain marks on their letters and on the seals of the envelopes enclosing them, the firm suspected that Sir Mark's mail was being tampered with. Edwards digressed for a moment to speak of the almost fantastic lengths to which car designers went to keep any new designs or alterations a secret. So that when they felt the post to be insecure, they organised other means of communication with the bedridden head. At first, Moncrieff and he used to take turns in carrying the blue prints and notes over to Brussels, but their trips were evidently watched, for after a while a rival firm obtained the ear of the Belgian Customs, and had so managed matters that Moncrieff and he were suspected, or rather said to be suspected, of illicit drug-running, so that everything they carried with them across the Channel, every paper, every piece of metal, was carefully detained for long enough to photograph it or test it for secret writing. This led to the personal friends being used by the Major and himself as carriers of the less important papers, while a lugger and the Belgian canals played their parts in getting the more important and most secret documents and pieces into the hands of Sir Mark. This last time, a relation of Mrs. Moncrieff's was going over with some diagrams, but she developed mumps, which was why Santley had been asked to take a box of chocolates over to Brussels to the head porter of the Adolphe Max Hotel, who acted as a go-between. They learnt just after Mr. Santley had started that the man in question had had an accident, upon which he, Edwards, had flown over, been able to retrieve the precious box from Mr. Santley's room while he was fast asleep, and had duly passed it on. Under the chocolates had been some very important papers. As for Moncrieff's inventions, apart from some very clever gadgets, he was working on a new type of car, his own, of which some parts were to be made for him under Sir Mark's own supervision. No, Sir Mark had never seen all the plans, but he was immensely interested, and a little perturbed. Personally, he, Edwards, believed that Moncrieff's car would take the country by storm when finished.