Trent Intervenes and Other Stories Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright & Information

  About the Author

  A note about the Main Character: Philip Trent

  I

  The Genuine Tabard

  II

  The Sweet Shot

  III

  The Clever Cockatoo

  IV

  The Vanishing Lawyer

  V

  The Inoffensive Captain

  VI

  The Fool-proof Lift

  VII

  The Old-fashioned Apache

  VIII

  The Bad Dog

  IX

  The Public Benefactor

  X

  The Little Mystery

  XI

  The Unknown Peer

  XII

  The Ordinary Hairpins

  Works by E.C. Bentley

  Copyright & Information

  Trent Intervenes & Other Stories

  First published in 1938

  Copyright: Estate of E.C. Bentley; House of Stratus 1938-2009

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of E.C. Bentley to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2009 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., 21 Beeching Park, Kelly Bray,

  Cornwall, PL17 8QS, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  ISBN

  EAN

  Edition

  0755103262 9780755103263 Paperback

  0755118332 9780755118335 Pdf

  0755119495 9780755119493 This Edition

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Edmund Clerihew Bentley was born in 1875 and educated at St Paul’s School, London, where he met eminent critic and author G K Chesterton, who became his closest friend. From school he went up to Merton College, Oxford on a history exhibition scholarship and later became president of the Oxford Union, as well as writing pieces for several journals including Isis. At Oxford he also added John Buchan to his growing list of friends.

  Called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1902, the year in which he married Violet, an army officer’s daughter, he nonetheless didn’t practice as he had determined to become a professional journalist and joined the staff of the Daily News. There he became deputy editor, but when the paper was amalgamated with another in 1912 he decided against remaining and joined the Daily Telegraph, which was more in tune with his own political opinions. He remained with he Telegraph for some twenty two years.

  During this time he also developed the Clerihew, which is a four line nonesense poem which Chesterton once referred to as a ‘severe and stately form of free verse’. He had first ‘invented’ Clerihew’s during a science lesson at St.Pauls when the following composition occurred to him:

  Sir Humphrey Davy

  Abominated gravy.

  He lived in the odium

  Of having discovered Sodium.

  They were first published as ‘Biography for Beginners’, with further volumes following, before being finally collected in the ‘Complete Clerihews’.

  Whilst still with the Daily News, Bentley also effectively invented a new type of detective story. He had grown irritated with Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes' infallibility and the fact he always went straight to solving a case. Bentley conceived the idea of a detective who had a convincing solution which was nonetheless proved wrong in the end. The result was Trent’s Last Case which was first published in 1913 and which became an immediate best-seller. It has been hailed by the New York Times as ‘One of the few classics of detective fiction.’; by Agatha Christie as ‘One of the three best detective stories ever written’; and by Dorothy L Sayers as ‘the one detective story [of the present century] which I am certain will go down to posterity as a classic. It is a masterpiece.’

  The book excited many to enter the field of detective fiction and can be said to mark the beginning of a new era which came to be known as the ‘Golden Age’. However, over twenty years passed before Bentley himself followed it up with Trent's Own Case (1936), and then shortly afterwards a book of short stories; Trent Intervenes.

  Elephant's Work followed in 1950. This was a classic ‘shocker’ was written at the suggestion of John Buchan, as indeed Trent’s Last Case had been.

  At the outbreak of the second world war Bentley returned to journalism for a short while. He died in London in 1956.

  *******

  A note about the Main Character: Philip Trent

  Bentley himself wrote:

  I feel a little embarrassment in writing about the character of Philip Trent, because the poor fellow has made his appearance in only one single book [Note: Two more were published later]. But it is a book which, I am glad to say, has had on extensive sale for many years past. I don't say this out of boastfulness at all, but simply because it is my only excuse for holding forth on this occasion. The story called Trent's Last Case was published in 1913.

  That is a long time ago. It takes us back to a day when the detective story was a very different thing from what it is now. I am not sure why Sherlock Holmes and his earlier imitators could never be at all amusing or light-hearted; but it may have been because they felt that they had a mission, and had to sustain a position of superiority to the ordinary run of mankind.

  Trent does not feel about himself in that way at all ...... One of the most hackneyed of quotations is that from Boswell's Life of Johnson, about the man who said he had tried being a philosopher but found that cheerfulness would keep breaking in. Philip Trent has the same trouble about being a detective. He is apt to give way to frivolity and the throwing about of absurd quotations from the poets at almost any moment. There was nothing like that about the older, sterner school of fiction detectives. They never laughed, and only rarely and with difficulty did they smile. They never read anything but the crime reports in the papers, and if they ever quoted, it was from nothing but their own pamphlets on the importance of collar-studs in the detection of crime, or the use of the banana-skin as an instrument of homicide. They were not by any means blind to their own abilities or importance.

  Holmes, for instance, would say when speaking of his tracking down of Professor Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime, such words as these: "You know my powers, my dear Watson, but I am forced to confess that I have at last met an antagonist who is my intellectual equal." Or, again, Holmes says, when he is facing the prospect of losing his life: "If my record were closed to-night, I could still survey it with equanimity. The air of London is the sweeter for my presence. In over a thousand cases I am not aware that I have ever used my powers on the wrong side." If I used to feel, as probably very many others used to feel, that a change from that style might not be a bad thing, it was certainly not in any spirit of undervaluing that marvellous creation of Conan Doyle's. My own belief is that the adventures of Sherlock Holmes are likely to be read at least as long as anything else that was written in their time, because they are great stories, the work of a powerful and vivid imagination. And I should add this: that a
ll detective stories written since Holmes was created, including my own story, have been founded more or less on that remarkable body of work. Holmes would often say, "You know my methods, Watson."

  Well, we all got to know his methods; and we all followed those methods, so far as the business of detection went. The attempt to introduce a more modern sort of character-drawing into that business was altogether another thing. It has brought into existence a rich variety of types of detective hero, as this series of talks is showing.

  My own attempt was among the very earliest; and I realize now, as I hardly did at the time, that the idea at the bottom of it was to get as far away from the Holmes tradition as possible. Trent, as I have said, does not take himself at all seriously. He is not a scientific expert; he is not a professional crime investigator. He is an artist, a painter, by calling, who has strayed accidentally into the business of crime journalism because he found he had an aptitude for it, and without any sense of having a mission. He is not superior to the feelings of average humanity; he does not stand aloof from mankind, but enjoys the society of his fellow creatures and makes friends with everybody. He even goes so far as to fall in love. He does not regard the Scotland Yard men as a set of bungling half-wits, but has the highest respect for their trained abilities. All very unlike Holmes. Trent's attitude towards the police is frankly one of sporting competition with opponents who are quite as likely to beat him as he is to beat them.

  I will introduce here another scrap of dialogue from Trent's Last Case that illustrates this. Trent and Chief-Inspector Murch have just been hearing the story of Martin, the very correct butler in the service of the man who had been murdered on the previous day. Martin has just bowed himself impressively out of the room, and Trent falls into an arm-chair and draws a long breath.

  TRENT : 'Martin is a great creature. He is far, far better than a play. There is none like him, none. Straight, too; not an atom of harm in dear old Martin. Do you know, Murch, you are wrong in suspecting that man'.

  MURCH: 'I never said anything about suspecting him. Still, there's no point in denying it—I have got my eye on him. He's such a very cool customer. You remember the case of Lord William Russell's valet, who went in as usual in the morning, as quiet and starchy as you please, to draw up the blinds in his master's bedroom a few hours after he had murdered him in his bed. But, of course, Martin doesn't know I've got him in mind.'

  TRENT: 'No; he wouldn't. He is a wonderful creature, a great artist; but in spite of that, he is not at all a sensitive type. It has never occurred to his mind that you could suspect him. But I could see it. You must understand, Inspector, that I have made a special study of the psychology of officers of the law. It's a grossly neglected branch of knowledge. They are far more interesting than criminals, and not nearly so easy. All the time we were questioning him I saw handcuffs in your eye. Your lips were mutely framing the syllables of those tremendous words: "It is my duty to tell you that anything you now say may be taken down and used in evidence at your trial."'

  That is a fair specimen of Trent, and I found that people seemed to like it for a change.

  I

  The Genuine Tabard

  It was quite by chance, at a dinner-party given by the American Naval Attaché, that Philip Trent met the Langleys, who were visiting Europe for the first time. During the cocktail-time, before dinner was served, he had gravitated towards George D Langley, because he was the finest-looking man in the room – tall, strongly built, carrying his years lightly, pink of face, with vigorous, massive features and thick grey hair.

  They had talked about the Tower of London, the Cheshire Cheese, and the Zoo, all of which the Langleys had visited that day. Langley, so the Attaché had told Trent, was a distant relative of his own; he had made a large fortune manufacturing engineers’ drawing-office equipment, was a prominent citizen of Cordova, Ohio, the headquarters of his business, and had married a Schuyler. Trent, though not sure what a Schuyler was, gathered that it was an excellent thing to marry, and this impression was confirmed when he found himself placed next to Mrs Langley at dinner.

  Mrs Langley always went on the assumption that her own affairs were the most interesting subject of conversation; and as she was a vivacious and humorous talker and a very handsome and good-hearted woman, she usually turned out to be right. She informed Trent that she was crazy about old churches, of which she had seen and photographed she did not know how many in France, Germany, and England. Trent, who loved thirteenth-century stained glass, mentioned Chartres, which Mrs Langley said, truly enough, was too perfect for words. He asked if she had been to Fairford in Gloucestershire. She had; and that was, she declared with emphasis, the greatest day of all their time in Europe; not because of the church, though that was certainly lovely, but because of the treasure they had found that afternoon.

  Trent asked to be told about this; and Mrs Langley said that it was quite a story. Mr Gifford had driven them down to Fairford in his car. Did Trent know Mr Gifford – W N Gifford, who lived at the Suffolk Hotel? He was visiting Paris just now. Trent ought to meet him, because Mr Gifford knew everything there was to know about stained glass, and church ornaments, and brasses, and antiques in general. They had met him when he was sketching some traceries in Westminster Abbey, and they had become great friends. He had driven them about to quite a few places within reach of London. He knew all about Fairford, of course, and they had a lovely time there.

  On the way back to London, after passing through Abingdon, Mr Gifford had said it was time for a cup of coffee, as he always did around five o’clock; he made his own coffee, which was excellent, and carried it in a thermos. They slowed down, looking for a good place to stop, and Mrs Langley’s eye was caught by a strange name on a signpost at a turning off the road – something Episcopi. She knew that meant bishops, which was interesting; so she asked Mr Gifford to halt the car while she made out the weather-beaten lettering. The sign said ‘Silcote Episcopi 1/2 mile’.

  Had Trent heard of the place? Neither had Mr Gifford. But that lovely name, Mrs Langley said, was enough for her. There must be a church, and an old one; and anyway she would love to have Silcote Episcopi in her collection. As it was so near, she asked Mr Gifford if they could go there so she could take a few snaps while the light was good, and perhaps have coffee there.

  They found the church, with the parsonage nearby, and a village in sight some way beyond. The church stood at the back of the churchyard, and as they were going along the footpath they noticed a grave with tall railings round it; not a standing-up stone but a flat one, raised on a little foundation. They noticed it because, though it was an old stone, it had not been just left to fall into decay, but had been kept clean of moss and dirt, so you could make out the inscription, and the grass around it was trim and tidy. They read Sir Rowland Verey’s epitaph; and Mrs Langley – so she assured Trent – screamed with joy.

  There was a man trimming the churchyard boundary hedge with shears, who looked at them, she thought, suspiciously when she screamed. She thought he was probably the sexton; so she assumed a winning manner, and asked him if there was any objection to her taking a photograph of the inscription on the stone. The man said that he didn’t know as there was; but maybe she ought to ask vicar, because it was his grave, in a manner of speaking. It was vicar’s great-grandfather’s grave, that was; and he always had it kep’ in good order. He would be in the church now, very like, if they had a mind to see him.

  Mr Gifford said that in any case they would have a look at the church, which he thought might be worth the trouble. He observed that it was not very old – about mid-seventeenth century, he would say – a poor little kid church, Mrs Langley commented with gay sarcasm. In a place so named, Mr Gifford said, there had probably been a church for centuries farther back; but it might have been burnt down, or fallen into ruin, and replaced by this building. So they went into the church; and at once Mr Gifford had been delighted with it. He pointed out how the pulpit, the screen, the pews, the g
lass, the organ-case in the west gallery, were all of the same period. Mrs Langley was busy with her camera when a pleasant-faced man of middle age, in clerical attire, emerged from the vestry with a large book under his arm.

  Mr Gifford introduced himself and his friends as a party of chance visitors who had been struck by the beauty of the church and had ventured to explore its interior. Could the vicar tell them anything about the armorial glass in the nave windows? The vicar could and did; but Mrs Langley was not just then interested in any family history but the vicar’s own, and soon she broached the subject of his great-grandfather’s grave-stone.

  The vicar, smiling, said that he bore Sir Rowland’s name, and had felt it a duty to look after the grave properly, as this was the only Verey to be buried in that place. He added that the living was in the gift of the head of the family, and that he was the third Verey to be vicar of Silcote Episcopi in the course of two hundred years. He said that Mrs Langley was most welcome to take a photograph of the stone, but he doubted if it could be done successfully with a hand-camera from over the railings – and of course, said Mrs Langley, he was perfectly right. Then the vicar asked if she would like to have a copy of the epitaph, which he could write for her if they would all come over to his house, and his wife would give them some tea; and at this, as Trent could imagine, they were just tickled to death.