Read Ebook: The crime at Vanderlynden's by Mottram R H Ralph Hale

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Ebook has 990 lines and 54796 words, and 20 pages

Release date: December 17, 2023

Original publication: London: Chatto & Windus, 1926

The Crime at Vanderlynden's

'Oh, my, I don't want to die, I want to go home!'

THE SPANISH FARM was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for 1924

THE CRIME AT VANDERLYNDEN'S

LONDON CHATTO AND WINDUS 1926

Printed in Great Britain

All rights reserved

THE CRIME

AT VANDERLYNDEN'S

High up in the pale Flemish sky aeroplanes were wheeling and darting like bright-coloured insects, catching from one moment to another the glint of sun on metallic body or translucent wing. To any pilot or observer who had opportunity or gift for mere speculation, the sight that lay spread out below might have appeared wonderful. From far away on the seaboard with its coming and going of ships, there led rail, road, and wire, and by these three came material, human material, and human thought, up to that point just behind the battle-line where in dumps, camps and Head-quarters they eddied a little, before streaming forward again, more slowly and covertly, by night, or below ground, up to the battle itself. There they were lost in that gap in life--that barren lane where the Irresistible Force dashing against the Immovable Post ground such a fine powder, that of material, very little, of men, very few, and of thought, nothing came splashing back.

But pilots and observers were too busy, adding to the Black Carnival, or saving their own skins from those puffs of Death that kept following them up and down the sky, to take any such a remote view; and even had they been interested in it, they could not have lifted the roof off the Mairie of the village--almost town--of Haagedoorne, and have seen, sitting in the Mayor's parlour, a man of middle size and middle class, a phenomenon in that place, that had been shocked in its village dignity so many times in those few months. For first it had been turned from one of those haunts of Peace, of small slow-moving officialdom, into the "Q." office of Divisional Head-quarters. It had become inhabited by two or three English Staff Officers, their maps and papers, their orderlies and clerks, policemen and servants; and now, last of all, there was added to them this quiet, absorbed young man--whose face and hair, figure and clothes had all those half-tones of moderate appropriateness of men who work indoors and do not expect too much. A young man who had neither red tabs nor long boots about him--and who seemed to have so much to do.

The old walls stared. The Mairie of Haagedoorne, half wine-shop, half beadle's office, had seen soldiers in its four hundred years, had been built for Spanish ones, and had seen them replaced by French and Dutch, English and Hessians, in bright uniforms and with a certain soldierly idleness and noise. This fellow had none of it. Sat there with his nose well down, applying himself to maps and papers, occasionally speaking deferentially to Colonel Birchin, who, a proper soldier, his left breast bright with medals, his face blank and slightly bored with breeding, would nod or shake his head. This was all part of the fact that this War was not as other wars. It was too wide and deep, as if the foundations of life had come adrift on some subterranean sea, and the whole fabric were swaying; it had none of the decent intervals, and proper limits, allowing men to shut up for the winter and to carry on their trade all the time.

The dun-coloured person attached to Divisional Staff, whose name was Stephen Doughty Dormer, indulged in none of these reflections. He just got on with it. He was deep in his job when an exclamation from his temporary Chief made him look up. The Colonel was sitting back in his chair , his beautiful legs in their faultless casings stretched out beneath his army table. He was holding at arm's-length a blue printed form, filled up in pen and ink.

Dormer knew it well. It was the official form on which Belgian or French civilians were instructed to make their claim for damages caused by the troops billeted on them.

The Colonel's mouth hung open, his eyeglass had dropped down.

"You speak this--er--language?"

"Yessah!" . "What language, sir?"

"This is--er--French."

Yes, he could speak French, and hastened to look. Dormer was a clerk in a bank. Like so many of that species, he had had a grandmother with views as to the improvement of his position in the world, and she had insisted that he should learn the French language. Why she desired this was never discovered, unless it was that she considered it a genteel accomplishment, for she dated from the days when society was composed of two sorts of people, gentle and simple. She belonged to the former category and was in no danger of allowing any of her descendants to lapse. As she paid for the extra tuition involved, her arguments were irrefutable, and the boy intended for no more romantic a career than is afforded by a branch office in a market town, had, in 1900, a fair knowledge of the tongue of Voltaire and Hugo.

He hardly reflected upon the matter again until, in the midst of a European War, he found that that War was being conducted in a country where French was the chief language, and that familiar-sounding words and phrases assailed his ear on every side. This was of considerable service to him, enabled him to add to his own and his brother officers' comfort; but he never boasted of it, having a profound uncertainty, after years of clerkdom, about anything so foreign and out of office hours. The legend of his peculiar ability persisted, however; and when after more than a year of incredible fatigues and nastiness, his neat methods and perfect amenity to orders were rewarded by the unofficial job of helping in the A. and Q. office of a division, he found his legend there before him. It was therefore with a sigh, and a mental ejaculation equivalent to "Spare me these useless laurels," that he got up and went over to his Chief's table, to be confronted by the sentence:

"I should say--knocked asquint, sir! Spoiled, ruined; they often say it, if the troops go into the crops."

"Well, how does it read, then? Knock asquint; no, that won't do; ruined, you say. Ruined a Virgin in my house. This sounds like a nice business, with the French in their present mood!"

Dormer simply could not believe it and asked:

"May I see the claim?"

"Certainly. Come here. Stop me wherever I go wrong."

He knew more French than Dormer gave him credit for. He read the blue form, printed question and pen-and-ink reply to the end. It went like this:

Q. When was the damage committed?

A. Last Thursday.

Q. What troops were responsible? Give the number and name of the English detachment.

A. A soldier of the 469 Trench Mortar Battery .

Q. Were you present and did you see the damage done?

A. No, but my daughter knows all about it.

Q. In what conditions was the damage done?

A. He broke the window . She called out to him, but he replied with oaths.

Q. Can you prove responsibility by witness?

A. My daughter.

A. They insulted the Mayor when he came to do it!

A. Not necessary. It is visible.

Q. Did you complain to the officer commanding troops?

A. He would not listen.

And so on.

Deposed and sealed at the Mairie of Hondebecq, Nord, as the claim for compensation of Mr. Vanderlynden, cultivator, 64 years old, by us Swingadow, Achille, Mayor.

"What do you say to that?" asked the Chief.

Dormer had a good deal to say, but kept it down. "I can't believe it, sir. I know the billet. I remember Miss Vanderlynden. She's as strong as a man and much more determined than most. It's a mistake of some sort!"

"Pretty circumstantial mistake, isn't it? Look at this covering letter received with it."

He held out a memorandum headed: "Grand Quartier General," in French, to the effect that one desired it might be given appropriate attention. And another from a department of English General Head-quarters with "Passed to you, please."

"The French have had their knife into us for some time. This'll be a nice case for them to take up. We must make an arrest at once. Sergeant!"

That Sergeant was a famous London Architect. He came to the door of the ante-room in which he worked.

"In what Corps Area is Hondebecq?"

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