Inspector French: Sir John Magill’s Last Journey. Freeman Crofts Wills

      

      FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS

       Inspector French and Sir John Magill’s Last Journey

       Copyright

      Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1930

      Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1930

      Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008190736

      Ebook Edition © March 2017 ISBN: 9780008190743

      Version: 2017-01-23

       Dedication

      TO MY MANY GOOD FRIENDS IN NORTHERN IRELAND

      For the sake of verisimilitude the scenes of this story have been laid in real places. All the characters introduced, however, are wholly imaginary, and if the name of any living person has been used, this has been done inadvertently and no reference to such person is intended.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Map

      Chapter 1: Scotland Yard

      Chapter 2: Knightsbridge

      Chapter 3: Belfast

Chapter 4: Belfast

Chapter 5: Lurigan

       Chapter 6: Lurigan: London: Belfast

       Chapter 7: Lurigan

       Chapter 8: Belfast

       Chapter 9: Stranraer

       Chapter 10: Portpatrick

       Chapter 11: London

       Chapter 12: Scotland Yard

       Chapter 13: London: Barrow: Newcastle

       Chapter 14: Castle-Douglas

       Chapter 15: Kirkandrews Bay

       Chapter 16: Cumberland

       Chapter 17: Glasgow

       Chapter 18: Campbeltown

       Chapter 19: London to Stranraer

       Chapter 20: Stranraer

       Chapter 21: London to Plymouth

       Chapter 22: The Cave Hill

       Footnote

       About the Author

       Also in this Series

       About the Publisher

       Map

       1

       Scotland Yard

      It was on Monday morning, the 7th of October, that Inspector French first heard the name of Sir John Magill. A commonplace name enough, certainly a name bearing no suggestion of exasperating mystery, still less of grim and hideous tragedy. All the same there came a time when French might well have said of it, as Queen Mary is supposed to have said of that of Calais, that when he died it would be found graven on his heart.

      For the Sir John Magill Case proved perhaps the most terribly baffling of all the baffling cases French had tackled. Never had truth seemed so elusive, nor had he been put to such shifts to capture it, as during that long-drawn-out inquiry. Never had his conviction been stronger that crime, ugly and sinister, lurked behind the activities he was investigating, yet seldom had the proof that all was well seemed more convincing. In short, many times before the case dragged on to its inevitable and dramatic close French found himself wishing nothing so much as that he had never heard of the unfortunate man who gave it its name.

      French had had a busy year. Since the night, now thirteen months past, when he and Sergeant Carter had fought for their lives and the life of Molly Moran on the deck of that spectral launch in Southampton Water, he had handled no less than five major cases. Moreover, four months of the time had been spent with a score of associates in trying to trace the author of one of those terrible series of sex murders which every now and then recall the shuddering days of Jack the Ripper. By the time this unhappy madman had been laid by the heels, September was well advanced, and then had come the blissful break of French’s annual holidays.

      He had spent it among the old world towns and rocky hills of Provence. When he was tracing the movements of the Pykes in the Burry Port-Dartmoor tragedy he had worked along the French Riviera and up through the Rhône Valley to Lyons and Paris. He remembered that Jefferson Pyke had recommended a stay at Avignon, and the night he had spent there on that investigation had convinced him of the excellence of the advice. Accordingly this autumn he had made the old city of the popes his headquarters. From there he and Mrs French had explored the country by automobile excursion, had marvelled at the arenas of Arles and Nîmes, with bated breath had crossed the Pont du Gard, had seen mediævalism in the walls and towers of Aigues Mortes, had climbed through the sinister ruins of Les Baux; in short, as far as fourteen brief days would allow, had steeped themselves in the enthralling atmosphere of Roman France. And now he had scarcely settled down to a winter’s work when the name of Sir John Magill had flashed into his firmament as a portent of menace and evil.

      It was then on Monday, the 7th of October, shortly after French had reached the Yard, that a telephone call summoned him to the room of his immediate superior, Chief-Inspector Mitchell.