Rason, carrying a largish bag, was in nominal charge. As they got out of the car, Karslake muttered: “It’s not the place. It’s not a bit like it, except for the cottage itself. It’s no different from sixty others.”
“Mr. Ledlaw?” asked Rason, having learned the name at the local police station. “We are from Scotland Yard. I believe you knew Albert Henshawk?”
“The fellow who was murdered? We wondered.” He turned to his wife. “This is Mrs. Ledlaw. We knew an Albert Henshawk slightly some twenty years ago. But we lost touch. Anyhow, what did you want to ask us about him?”
“I want to know when you last saw Albert Henshawk, Mr. Ledlaw.”
“But you aren’t connecting my husband with the murder?” boomed Mrs. Ledlaw, “because we live in a seventeenth century cottage. The local sergeant told me he had reported this cottage at the time, and it was inspected by a Scotland Yard man.”
“It isn’t very like the one in the picture, you know,” said Ledlaw tolerantly. “True, there are somewhat similar oaks. But there—” he waved his hand at the half-mile of hillside sloping down to the Thames.
Karslake maintained a glum silence, wondering how they would explain Rason’s ineptitude. Rason opened his bag, took out the original model of the cottage, and laid it on the ground.
“I admit it’s not a bit like it,” he said.
Ledlaw smiled, while Karslake looked glummer than ever. Rason continued:
“But that is because — that darned cow spoils the whole thing, Mr. Ledlaw.”
Ledlaw’s face was expressionless.
“I can’t follow that,” said Mrs. Ledlaw.
“Funny thing, Mrs. Ledlaw. I went to the pictures last night. Saw a film where a whopping big cow appears to jump into a tea cup. Clever bit of photography — messing about with perspective. Made me think of this cow. So I thought — well, look here!”
The last was addressed mainly to Karslake. As Rason spoke, he plucked the figure of the cow from the model.
“Good Lord!” muttered Karslake, gaping from the model to the landscape and back again at the model.
With the removal of the cow, the meadow had vanished! It became, in fact, a half-mile of sloping hillside, while the “brook” was instantly recognizable as the Thames, half a mile away in the valley below.
“No deception in this trick, ladies and gentlemen!” chirped Rason, and fitted the peg back into its socket — thus restoring the meadow, with a brook from which a cow was drinking.
“It’s messing about with perspective. Got the idea from that cow jumping into the tea cup.” he told them all over again. “That’s what you meant when you told Henshawk the damned cow spoiled the whole thing, wasn’t it, Mr. Ledlaw! I suppose you can account for your movements on the evening of February 16th?”
“I can, if he can’t,” said Mrs. Ledlaw. “He was here. I remember the date, because he was asking me to marry him.”
“Last February, madam!” cut in Karslake. “We are informed that you have a grown-up daughter. And that she’s known as ‘Miss Ledlaw’.”
“Yes, but it’s all quite simple, really,” said Mrs. Ledlaw. “You see, we were divorced some years ago. And then we thought better of it — you look as if you didn’t believe me.”
“It’s of no great importance at the moment, Mrs. Ledlaw—”
“It is of great importance to me,” retorted Mrs. Ledlaw. “I insist on your inspecting my marriage certificate. I will not keep you more than a couple of minutes.”
When she had gone, Karslake spoke to Ledlaw.
“If you deny that you saw Henshawk that day, Mr. Ledlaw, are you willing to come back with us to London and let us see if Henshawk’s secretary and the porter recognize you?”
“Certainly not. You’ve no case against me. You can darned well bring them down here, if you’re so keen to waste your time.”
Mrs. Ledlaw was coming from the house carrying his dispatch case, which had become hers.
With horror he suddenly remembered.
“The certificate is not in there, dear. I took it out last week. Don’t you remember, Ruth?”
“Oh, of course! How stupid of me!”
But there had been altogether too much anxiety in Ledlaw’s voice. Karslake strode forward.
“I’ll have that opened, please, Mrs. Ledlaw!”
“Oh, very well, if you wish!” Mrs. Ledlaw did not know why her husband had shouted that nonsense about removing the certificate. It surely couldn’t matter much when they re-married.
Inside the case were: a packet of Mrs. Ledlaw’s letters, a photograph album, a rare edition of Canterbury Tales, the marriage certificate, a few other oddments and — Henshawk’s drawing of the cottage, loosely wrapped in tissue paper.
About the Story: The first Department of Dead Ends story was Roy Vickers’s “The Rubber Trumpet.” The moment we finished that tale of The Merry Widower we realized that we had just completed a rare experience — we had read a contemporary classic in the field of the detective short story. Immediately we set about purchasing the story for EQMM, and with it all the other Department of Dead Ends stories written up to that time — a half-dozen or so; further, we urged the author’s American literary agent to persuade Mr. Vickers to continue the series by writing originals especially for EQMM — we were that certain from the very beginning that readers of EQMM would find the Department of Dead Ends one of the most fascinating criminological bureaus in all the annals of detection and the stories themselves one of the most satisfying crime series in modem fiction.
We were not wrong: constant readers of EQMM have testified to that. Like present-day Oliver Twists they keep asking for more.
A short time after we published “The Rubber Trumpet” we received professional confirmation of our critical opinion. One day we traveled to Morningside Heights with Herbert Mayes, the remarkably perceptive editor of “Good Housekeeping,” to serve as one of his panel of “guest experts” in the post-graduate course in Journalism at Columbia University. Sitting next to us on the platform was Carl Van Doren, the famous author, critic, biographer, and Pulitzer Prize winner. At the end of the class the “lecturers” tarried long enough to talk shop. Imagine our delight when Mr. Van Doren complimented us on having published “The Rubber Trumpet”! He was so impressed by the story that he considered it one of the finest detective shorts he had ever read. Mr. Mayes was piqued by Mr. Van Doren’s enthusiasm and asked to be let in on a good thing. The very next day we sent a copy of EQMM containing “The Rubber Trumpet” to Mr. Mayes by special messenger and subsequently Mr. Mayes added his editorial accolade. Indeed, in the three and a half years since “The Rubber Trumpet” originally appeared in EQMM, we have heard nothing but extravagant praise for that first tale of the Department of Dead Ends. Such connoisseurs as Christopher Morley, Vincent Starrett, Anthony Boucher, Howard Haycraft, James Sandoe, Charles Honce, E. A. Osborne, and other true aficionados, have written or spoken to your Editor, unanimously selecting that great story for the Honor Roll Award.
Well, the Department of Dead Ends series has grown mightily since the publication of “The Rubber Trumpet.” No less than a dozen D.D.E. stories have appeared in EQMM up to the time of this writing. Naturally, the level of quality has varied from story to story — no writer can produce a masterpiece every time he sits in front of his typewriter. Some of the later tales — like “The Man Who Murdered in Public” and “The Case of the Merry Andrew” — are four-star accomplishments; but while it can be said in absolute truth that Mr. Vickers has never written an indifferent Department of Dead Ends tale, no story that followed “The Rubber Trumpet” ever quite equaled that first major triumph.