The Riddle of the

  Blue Moon

  Leonard Grib

  © Leonard Gribble 1950 *

  *Indicates the year of first publication.

  CONTENTS

  I IN THE FOG

  II THE SILVER RACEHORSE

  III PROOF

  IV LITTLE MACKLIN

  V GUILE

  VI A TRAIL TO FOLLOW

  VII THIRD DEGREE

  VIII SOLO

  IX ESCAPE

  X THE LUCKY LUCY

  XI THE COMING OF CUTHBERT

  XII THE PRISONER

  XIII CUTHBERT DECLARES HIMSELF

  XIV THE ALARM

  XV AT SCOTLAND YARD

  XVI A STRANGE RETURN

  XVII A CHANGE OF FORTUNE

  XVIII THE ROUND-UP

  XIX TEA WITH THANKS

  CHAPTER I

  IN THE FOG

  THE fog rolling in from the sea hung over hedgerow, lane, and field like a thick grey blanket of cotton-wool. At times when the sea breeze stirred it the steamy cloud thinned, and for a brief spell the blurred outline of bare trees, leafless hedges, and occasionally a solitary haystack in a field rimed with frost appeared like objects seen through an unclear glass.

  'My feet are freezing,' Mary Selby announced, stamping her stout brogues on the iron-hard surface of the road. Her eyes were screwed up as she tried to peer through the swirling vapour that carried the salt tang of the sea. 'I don't think he can get through this fog, Mark.'

  Her brother swung his arms briskly and his fur-lined gloves smote together with a heavy smacking sound.

  'Chips said he would come. He'll keep his word, sis,' he said, 'you should know that.'

  He watched his breath disappear like smoke in the cold wintry air. Mark Selby's keen young face wore a slightly anxious frown. It had been his idea to set out along the coast road and meet Chips, who was coming down from London on his uncle's motor-cycle combination to join the Selby twins for what remained of the Christmas holidays. He had met them during the previous summer, when all three had shared an exciting adventure in Dorset and helped to round up a gang of international jewel thieves who had been smuggling diamonds from Holland. With the reward money Chips had gone to Mark's school, where, for a term, he had worked hard to catch up with boys somewhat younger than himself. A firm friendship had grown between him and Mark, and when invited to join the twins after they had come down to Graysands Bay, on the fringe of the great Romney Marsh, he had readily accepted.

  'We don't know how far this fog extends inland,' Mary reflected after they had begun to climb a hill. 'It might be pretty thick for miles.'

  'Well, the weather news on the radio didn't mention anything about fog except coastal patches along the Channel,' Mark told her. 'It's probably thinned out a few miles back over the Marsh.'

  They reached the top of the hill over which the coastal road switchbacked, and again walked into a thin patch of mist.

  'Look, there's the sea,' said Mary, pointing with a gloved finger. 'It doesn't look very inviting, does it?'

  'Of course it doesn't look inviting,' said Mark testily, his eyes not on the patch of cold grey restless water, but searching the steamy fog swirling farther along the road. 'What do you expect in early January?'

  His sister's blue-grey eyes turned to him, widening mischievously.

  'My, aren't we touchy!' she exclaimed. 'Sounds like we don't want to miss our little playmate.'

  Mark turned and threw a slow left-handed swipe at the side of her head, which she promptly ducked, as he intended.

  'Stop ragging, Mary,' he said. 'I'm a bit worried about Chips. Something could have happened.'

  Instantly his sister's playful mood changed. The brittle humour faded from her eyes. She caught her brother's arm.

  'You don't think he's had a crash, Mark!' Her voice trembled a little, then steadied. Mary Selby was a girl of fifteen who could think very clearly and rationally for her young years. 'After all, a dozen things could have delayed him besides the fog.' Her hand fell away from her brother's arm. 'He could have had trouble with the combination. You know, it's a bit ancient, as we found out last summer. Or he could have stopped for some food or a hot drink. It must be pretty bleak driving a combination this weather.'

  There was a dogged streak in Mary's twin brother, and it was apparent when he refused to consider her argument.

  'I don't think Mark would have brought the combination if he wasn't sure it wouldn't let him down,' he said, and pulled the collar of his coat higher round his ears as a cold wind suddenly tore inland from the sea and blew the fog around them to tattered shreds of waving mist.

  'Well, he could have been mistaken or let down,' his sister persisted, just as doggedly. 'We've come a few miles, you know, and we've got to think of Mr. Ferney.'

  'Mr. Ferney knows we've come to meet Chips.'

  'You forgot to inform him just how many miles you had in mind, Mark.'

  Another cold breath of wind came off the sea, and once more the gaping vent in the blanket of fog was closed, and all around them on the coastal road the steamy vapour writhed, deadening sound and hiding objects beyond the hedges. For some seconds the only sound was the throaty warning of a ship's fog-horn. It stopped abruptly, and Mark moved on up the road, his step ringing on the metalled surface.

  'Well, let's reach the next dip, anyhow,' he suggested, 'and then we'll turn back. Of course,' he added hopefully, 'there's just a chance he took a short cut across the Marsh.'

  'Do you really think he would have done that?' his sister asked, falling into step beside him.

  'No,' said her brother truthfully. 'He doesn't know this part of Kent, and he'd naturally keep to the coast road. Besides, this isn't weather to go wandering across Romney Marsh when you don't know the way.'

  'It isn't my idea of weather to go wandering across the Marsh if you do know the way,' Mary informed him, and dug in her overcoat pocket. 'Here, have a peppermint. It'll stop your throat tickling.'

  'My throat isn't tickling, thanks,' said Mark, taking the proffered peppermint.

  'Well, mine is. It's the raw mist. I shall be jolly glad to get back to Mr. Ferney's fire. Tell you what, Mark,' his sister continued in a changed tone, 'I hate to say it, but I've got an idea this holiday with Chips is going to be a bit of a frost— and I don't mean that as a pun.'

  'How do you mean?' Mark asked, sucking on his peppermint.

  'Well, there's not much we can do down here, really, is there? Old Mr. Ferney's all right, and it was nice of him to suggest to Father that we came down. And I suppose in the summer it's all right. But it's jolly bleak, and about the only things we can do are listen in and read.'

  'You can always eavesdrop on the guests,' Mark said bluntly, and did not glance round to see the warm flush that stole into his sister's face.

  'That's being spiteful,' she protested.

  'Sorry. But you really do let your ears work over-time in the lounge,' he told her from the depths of his turned-up collar.

  'That's only because I'm interested in people.'

  'I know. But someone might get the idea you're nosey,' he laughed, and received a hard punch in the ribs which sent him running along the road with his sister in pursuit. The fog muffled their cries, and probably this was why neither of them heard the oncoming car. It reared suddenly out of the curling tendrils of mist and there was a scream of brakes as Mary yelled.

  For one dreadful moment she stood with hands raised to her face, expecting her brother to be knocked flat, but the car skidded on the icy road, and Mark leaped straight for the hedge, throwing himself like an acrobat. The driver of the car leaned out and shouted, but Mary did not catch his words, although she caught something else—the sound of a thin, piercing scream that came from the rear of the car. She stared at the fog-smeared windows, and the next moment had to jump clear herself as the driver let in the clutch.

  Mark extricated himself from the frozen embrace of the hedge.

  'I say, Mary,' he said, 'that chap ought to be reported, driving like that in this fog. He might have killed us. Of course, we were all over the road, but, all the same, it isn't his fault we're still alive.'

  Mary shuddered.

  'Did you hear the scream, Mark?' she asked quietly.

  'Scream? What do you mean?'

  'Someone inside the car screamed. It sounded like a woman.'

  'Probably thought we'd been knocked down.'

  'No, it wasn't that sort of scream,' said Mary, her young face screwing up into a puzzled frown as she swept back her fair curls.

  'Well, what sort of scream was it?' her brother asked.

  'It sounded like—oh, I can't explain very well, but like someone afraid—scared badly.'

  'You mean frightened?'

  'Yes, I suppose so.'

  'Probably it was you yourself, only you didn't know it. People do funny things when they get a shock.' Mark turned round. 'Help me get these prickles out of my coat, sis. I'm like the fretful porcupine.'

  'You've scratched your ear,' Mary informed him as she helped brush his coat free of thorns. 'But if it was I who screamed you would have heard me, wouldn't you, Mark?'

  'Eh?' Her brother stopped banging his coat with his gloves. 'Yes, that's right, I'd have heard you. But I didn't. Well, maybe you imagined it. Trick of the fog, you know.'

  'But it wasn't a trick of anything,' Mary insisted. 'There was some woman in that car and she was badly frightened. She was afraid to be there, in that car, Mark.'

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  'Oh, I say, sis, take it easy,' her brother protested. 'You're letting your imagination run riot. Here, let's start legging it back to the hotel. We've come quite far enough for a walk in this pea-soup, and maybe Chips has wired that he couldn't make it.'

  They started back, and there was no more said until Mary remarked quietly, 'She was frightened, Mark, I know.'

  Mark looked at his twin sister. He knew that quiet tone of voice in which she had just spoken. It meant that Mary's mind was more than usually active.

  'What are you getting at?' he asked. 'You know, Father told us not to get involved in any more amateur detective work. You heard him. 'Leave that to me,' he said. 'I get paid for it, and you don't.' So stop thinking about that car. It's nothing to do with us.'

  Mary said in the same quiet tone, 'Did you notice its number?'

  'No,' her brother admitted ruefully. 'I landed in the hedge with my back to it. Did you?'

  She shook her head. 'No, I was too busy trying to see the frightened woman, although there was too much fog on the windows, but I did notice its tyre tracks where it skidded to a stop.'

  'What about them?' asked Mark, his interest aroused by his sister's manner.

  'One had a pattern I've never seen before. Lots of tiny diamonds split up with half-circles looped like figure eights. It was one of the near-side tyres, probably the rear because it was so distinct.'

  'Nice work, sis,' said Mark approvingly. 'Mean you'd know that car again if you saw the rear near-side wheel?'

  'I'm pretty sure of it,' Mary told him, and lifted her head suddenly. 'Listen!' she exclaimed.

  She stood still, listening, and Mark caught the faint sound beating through the smothering fog that had attracted her attention.

  'You're right!' he shouted excitedly. 'It's the combination, Mary. I'd know that chug-chug anywhere. It's Chips. Look out, he's coming along at a pretty lick. We'd better keep back.'

  They crouched back by a frozen ditch glazed with ice as the noise of the approaching motor-cycle came nearer in the fog. They caught the gleam of a headlamp, which stared for a moment like a baleful eye through the grey vapour, and then both were jumping up and waving their arms and yelling at the tops of their voices.

  The motor-cycle combination swerved and stopped as the engine gave a wheezy cough, and the figure swathed in helmet and leather jacket and enormous goggles climbed from the seat.

  Ted Carpenter pushed the goggles off his face, and the Selby twins saw that their friend was looking rather grim about something.

  'Have you seen a black car with a silver racehorse over the radiator, Mark?' Chips asked. 'About five miles back the driver forced me right off the road. Took me quite a bit of work to get the combination started again, and I've been pushing it along ever since. The blighter didn't stop. Just kept right on.' Chips's indignation had overcome his pleasure at meeting his friends, but now he held out a hand to the girl. 'Sorry to be so snappy, Mary,' he grinned, 'but that road-hog made me lose my temper. You'll have to forgive me. It's jolly nice being with you two again, though this isn't quite the greeting I've been saving up. Had a good Christmas, and plenty of presents?'

  'Chips,' said Mary quickly, before her brother could speak, 'what do you mean by pushing the combination along? You weren't walking and pushing it just now.'

  Chips laughed.

  'No, I certainly wasn't. I meant I've been pushing up the speed. Why?'

  'The same chap nearly ran us down,' Mark said. 'I think he must be crazy to take such chances in this fog.'

  'Yes, it wasn't long ago,' Mary added. 'Can we get in, Chips? We'll help you trail him. We came out to meet you, but we didn't think the fog would get so thick. Oh, and he's got a near-side tyre with a very distinctive pattern marking.'

  Chips rubbed a gloved hand across his chin before giving Mark a slap on the back.

  'Same old Mary,' he grinned. 'That's just how she was in the summer. Full of wanting to get somewhere. Well, all right, we can talk about the holidays later. You get on the back, Mark, and Mary in the sidecar. Give me a hand, it's strapped down.'

  A couple of minutes later a heavily laden combination chugged through the fog swirling along the coastal road. Mark and Chips kept up a halting conversation of sorts, mostly about some of the fellows at school and letters they had received during the holidays, and Mary, sitting in the sidecar, with the wind blowing raw mist into her face, shut her mouth firmly and sucked peppermints.

  They were approaching the curving stretch of road that ran in winding fashion to the end of Graysands Bay, where Jeremy Ferney kept the Saltings Hotel, when suddenly Mary jumped up excitedly and pointed through a hole in the fog.

  'Look!' she shouted. 'Don't run by it, Chips!'

  Chips obediently slowed and brought the combination to a stop, and the three youngsters walked across the road to the patch of whiteness on the grey surface that had attracted Mary's searching gaze.

  'It's a handkerchief—a clean one—and a woman's!' she said excitedly.

  'Sorry,' said Chips. 'What's so exciting about that, Mary? I don't get it.'

  'Mary says,' her brother informed him, 'that she heard a woman in that car scream as though she were afraid.'

  Chips gave the girl a quick glance. He had found plenty of reason the previous summer for paying attention to Mary Selby's ideas and theories.

  'Look closer,' Mary invited. 'See? there's the tyre pattern I saw at the skid marks. The little diamonds and half-hoops joined together like figure eights. This handkerchief is lying over the tracks, so it must have been thrown from the car—unless another car's been along, and we haven't seen one, have we?'

  The two boys shook their heads.

  'Go on, Mary,' said Chips. 'That makes sense.'

  'And so does this,' said Mary, bending low and pointing with her finger on the surface of the road. 'Watch.'

  They had to bend low with her to follow the faint markings of the now familiar tyre pattern as she showed where it left the main road following the coast and turned off down a lane, where, on the frozen and rut-broken surface, the distinctive markings were lost.

  'So the car's turned off across the Marsh,' said Mark thoughtfully. 'But I don't get it, you two. This road doesn't lead anywhere.'

  'It must,' said Mary, straightening her back.

  Her brother shook his head.

  'It doesn't. Mr. Ferney told me all these lanes that run back into the Marsh at this end of Graysands Bay just link up with other roads. There are some isolated farms, but that's all. No one would take a lane like this as a short cut to nowhere. It doesn't make sense.'

  'It might not make sense, but they've taken it,' Mary said obdurately, her chin tilting in a manner that brought a smile of recollection to Chips's eyes.

  'You're not proposing that we should follow this lane, are you, Mary?' he asked quietly.

  Mary hesitated for a moment, then said, 'No. But when the fog's lifted we might do some exploring.'

  'That won't be today, and it might not be tomorrow unless a stronger wind blows up and shifts this stuff,' her brother reminded her.

  Chips pointed to the handkerchief in Mary's hand.

  'Any initials on it?'

  Mary unfolded the pale square, holding it to her nose as she did so.

  'Carnation or jasmine or one of those heavy flower scents,' she said.

  'Is that what it is?' said her brother, wrinkling his nose. 'It's got a pretty strong whiff, anyway. Hallo, there are initials, in the corner, and what's that? Looks like someone's upset the ink.'

  All three helped to straighten out the linen square with lace edges and trace the dark blue smudges in the centre.

  'It's printing,' said Chips suddenly, 'but it's been smudged, and it doesn't look as though it's been done with proper ink.' His pointing finger moved. 'Look—"At the." You can make that out clearly between the smudges, and then there's this broad blue curve.' He broke off, scratching his chin. 'I don't get that at all.'

  'The initials, I think,' said Mary, 'are either A. V. or A. N., I can't be sure. They're in the form of a monogram embroidered on the linen, and the centre strokes cut through the letters. But it's a very expensive hanky. I can tell you that.'

  Chips looked at her.

  'Still thinking of the frightened woman in the car, Mary?' he asked. 'Think this might belong to her?'

  Mary nodded.

  'That's just guesswork,' said Mark. 'You've got nothing to back it up.'

 

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