They return at evening A book of ghost stories
instrument used was a book--his own book, I take it, and whoever did
it was a strong man, for he’d brought it down on his face so that
he’s--not a pretty sight, but that’s not the end of it. One of my
men noticed a board in the floor was loose. It was pulled up, and
underneath was a body, much decomposed, with its throat cut. He was
a Jap, too. Looks like a feud of some kind. Kato killed this chap
and another chap got him. I came to see you, sir, because nothing is
known of this Kato, and except some letters from you we found nothing
suggesting he had any friends or acquaintances in this country. The
Embassy people know nothing about him.”
“As I say,” replied Mr. Cheltenham, “I knew him purely in a business
way, but I do think there was some mystery about him, for I had come
to the conclusion that he was not the author of the book which he
pretended to have written.”
“How’s that?” asked the Inspector.
“It is a collection of extremely subtle and beautiful poems,” replied
the publisher, “and from my experience of Kato I am convinced he could
not have written them. He was always very nervous and uneasy, by the
way.”
“Don’t you be too sure he didn’t write ’em, sir,” said Mr. Walsh.
“Besides your letters, the only papers we found in his rooms were
poems, stacks of them. I’ve brought some of them along, and in view of
what you say I’d like you to look through them and see if they shed any
light on the business, and then I’m afraid I must ask you to come along
and identify the body.”
“Must I really do that?” said Mr. Cheltenham.
“I’m afraid so, sir; you’re the only person who seems to know anything
about him, and you’ll be wanted at the inquest.”
“Very well,” replied the publisher, “I’ll ring you up when I have
looked through these papers.”
“Much obliged, sir,” said the Inspector, and left the room.
The first thing Mr. Cheltenham did was to send for his manager.
“Dixon, I have decided to withdraw _And he shall sing_.”
“But, sir----”
“I’m afraid there are no ‘but’s’ about it. I’ll explain to the Trade
and the reviewers, you hustle up and get the books back; there aren’t
many out yet, and reviewers don’t hurry over poetry.”
* * * * *
Some people may remember a curious little mystery about a book of
poems--it had another title--which was reviewed enthusiastically in
one or two papers, but apparently never published. A few copies are in
existence, and sell for good sums when a collector consents to part.
Mr. Cheltenham destroyed every copy he could get hold of. Perhaps an
impulsive and unnecessary performance, but he felt he could do no
other. Having completed his plans for the withdrawal of the book he
turned to the inspector’s bag and its contents. They were “poems,” as
he had said, the feeblest, most bathetic, utterly commonplace rubbish
on which Mr. Cheltenham in a long and bitter experience had ever cast
his eyes. “It is the poetic fame which I desire,” these words came
back to his mind as he thrust the heap back into the bag. Perhaps he
understood; and “F. Gonesara”? He shrugged his shoulders and took a
taxi to Mr. Kato’s flat in a typical Bloomsbury street.
The Inspector was waiting for him.
“Well?” he said.
“Mr. Walsh,” replied Mr. Cheltenham, “when you have time I have a
story to tell you, one you may not believe, but I think if you _could_
believe it you would be saved a lot of useless work on this case. And
now let’s get the beastly ordeal over.”
“Any time you like, sir. Come with me.” He led the publisher along a
passage and opened a door, and they entered a room. Mr. Cheltenham
recognised it, as he had expected, and when he saw the bed and a
red-stained sheet upon it, he trembled again--and then the Inspector
went forward and drew back the sheet.
THE SEVENTEENTH HOLE AT DUNCASTER
THE SEVENTEENTH HOLE AT DUNCASTER
Mr. Baxter sauntered out of his office in the Dormy House at Duncaster
Golf Club, just as the sun was setting one perfect evening late in
September, 192-, his meagre labours finished for the day. He gazed
idly around him over one of the finest stretches of golfing country in
the world. Duncaster is a remote hamlet on the Norfolk coast and, being
twelve miles from a railway station, would have remained delicately
secluded if some roaming enthusiast in the late 90’s had not felt
his heart seized by so fair, so promising, so Royal and Ancient a
prospect, and rallied his golfing acquaintance to found the Duncaster
Golf Club, with a small and select membership, and small and select
it had remained. Almost deserted for most of the year, it was thickly
sprinkled in August, and there was always a pleasant gathering of old
friends at the Spring and Autumn meetings. Mr. Baxter, the popular and
efficient secretary, was a portly little person, kindly, considerate,
but not very happy. He let his eye roam placidly just over the superb
sand-dune country bordering the North Sea, where gleaming alley-ways
of perfect turf burrowed their way through the golden ramparts above
them, sweet isolated pathways ending in the World’s Finest Greens--so
the members considered--where little red flags gleamed, waving gently
in a dying evening breeze; then his eyes wandered inland and became
for a moment sharply intent as they reached the 17th green, the new
17th placed on a plateau in the big wood, the long shadows cast by the
sleepy sun peeping through the trees, playing across it.
Mr. Baxter was in a slightly depressed and introspective mood. Golf
secretaries, he decided, were born and not made, and born under no
felicitous star. There was he, a student and a philosopher by taste and
temperament, condemned to oversee for a slender remuneration the tiny
activities of a blasted Golf Club. He had drifted into this blind alley
as he had always drifted; it was all due, he supposed, to the fact
that one of his glands functioned inadequately. Yes, golf secretaries
were only explicable on some such derogatory hypothesis. This 17th
green, for example, because it was the only alteration made since the
opening of the links, what a “Yes and No,” what a discordant clamour
of debate, what a fuss about almost nothing! Of course it was an
improvement; by hacking a fairway through the wood and making the green
on that ideal little plateau a bad 270-yarder had been changed into a
very fine two-shotter--the best, though not the most pleasing hole, for
the dunes made the real charm of the course. And yet--the student and
philosopher rebelled.
He strolled across to the Pro.’s shop, whose tenant was standing in the
doorway smoking a pipe, and gazing reflectively in front of him.
“Evening, Dakers,” said Mr. Baxter, “I thought I saw someone on the
17th a little while ago. Is anyone still out?”
The Pro. took his pipe out of his mouth. His face did not command
a wide range of expression, but for a moment a look of a certain
sharpness and subtlety flitted across it.
“No, sir, everyone’s in. Mr. and Mrs. Stannard finished a quarter of an
hour ago; they were the last.”
“That’s funny,” said Mr. Baxter, “I could have sworn I saw someone.”
The Pro. paused a moment, as if carefully choosing his reply. “I think,
sir, it’s the shadows. I’ve fancied the same thing.”
“Well, what do you think of it?” asked the Secretary.
“I’m sure it’s a very fine hole, sir, but it’s too good for me. I’ve
played it seven times now, and done five fives and two sixes. It’s
funny, too, because it’s just my length--a drive and push iron with the
ground as hard as this, yet I haven’t found the green with my second
shot once. The ball seems to leave the club all right, and then--well,
it’s something I’ve never known happen before.”
“I hope it’s going to be a success, for it’s been enough bother and
expense,” said Mr. Baxter.
The Pro. did not answer for a moment. He put his pipe back in his mouth
and looked away over to the subject of discussion. At length he asked,
“Did they ever discover what the contractor’s men died of, sir?”
“Not for certain,” replied the secretary, “blood-poisoning of some
kind--a very unfortunate affair.”
“The other chaps thought it had something to do with those skulls and
bones they dug up. They got talking to the villagers, who put the wind
up them a bit, I’m thinking.”
“How was that?” asked Mr. Baxter.
“It’s some sort of talk about the wood, it seems,” replied Dakers.
Mr. Baxter was interested. “I should like to hear more about this,” he
said, “but I have no time now. I’ll see you to-morrow.”
The next day, the Saturday before the opening of the Autumn meeting,
Mr. Baxter played an afternoon round with Colonel Senlis. It was for
both of them their first introduction to the new 17th. The Colonel had
taken up the game after he retired, and he served it with an even more
fanatical devotion than he had served his King. He was a jolly old
maniac with a handicap of 16 and a style of his own. Mr. Baxter might
have been a very fine player; he had balance, rhythm, and a beautiful
pair of hands, but his heart had never been in it, and he was content
to be a perfectly reliable 2.
No incident of any moment occurred during the first 16 holes. The
Colonel collected much fine sand in various portions of his attire;
Mr. Baxter played sound but listless golf. When they reached the
seventeenth tee the wind, which had been wandering vaguely and gustily
round the compass, suddenly settled down to blow half a gale from due
east, and the seventeenth became a tiger indeed. Mr. Baxter, after a
couple of nice blows dead into the wind, lay some twenty yards short of
the wood, which was beginning to shout wildly in the gale. The Colonel
was in the rough on the right, an alliterative position he usually
occupied. He played his fourth--one of the few properly struck golf
shots of his existence--dead on the pin. The secretary took his number
three iron, and knew from the moment the ball left the club that he
didn’t want it back. It was ruled on the flag.
As the Colonel came up, a look of swelling pride on his rubicund
visage, he remarked, “Did you see mine, Baxter? Never say again I can’t
play a spoon shot! You hit yours, too, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” answered the secretary, smiling. “I’m inside you by a yard or
two, I fancy.”
“I don’t,” said the Colonel. “You’ll be playing the odd, stroke gone,
all right.”
They walked together along the avenue of lurching Scotch firs and
larches, and climbed the bank of the plateau.
“My God!” cried the Colonel. “We’re neither of us on! Where the Hades
are they?”
An exasperating search followed, which ended when the Colonel found
his Dunlop No. 1 dozing behind a tree, and Mr. Baxter detected his No.
2 in a rabbit hole. The Colonel made robust use of an expletive much
favoured by the gallant men he had once had the honour of commanding.
Mr. Baxter quietly picked up his errant globe and walked off to the
last tee.
“Damn it, Baxter!” cried the Colonel, “that hole meant to fight me, I
felt it all the time.”
The secretary had played many holes with the Colonel on many different
courses, but had never noticed any of them displaying any Locarno
spirit towards or desire to fraternise with him, but all the same he
had voiced his own thoughts. It _had_ been a ludicrous incident, but
its humour did not appeal to him particularly. Both those shots should
have been by the pin. Just what the Pro. had said. It was very curious.
“I’m going to hate that hole,” he thought.
“There’s a damned funny mark on my ball,” grumbled the Colonel. “I
suppose it hit a tree, though I could swear it didn’t. Looks more like
a burn. Why, there’s the same thing on yours!”
Mr. Baxter examined them. They were funny symmetrical little marks, and
they were remarkably like burns. “The wind must have caught them and