The Wrong Letter

Preface

I can say with all sincerity, nay with all solemn responsibility, that this detective mystery deceived me. And as I have been looking out for a long time for a detective mystery that should be at least deceptive, whatever its other merits or demerits in being detective, I very willingly write a word to serve as a preface to it, though such books ought not to need such prefaces. The detective story is in this way a paradox (if I may use a word that has very painful memories for me) because the true reader and critic not only desires to be gulled, but even desires to be gullible. I wish when reading such a story to become as simple as Dr. Watson; to be in the happy, cheerful, childlike, radiant condition of Dr. Watson and not in the much more dark and disillusioned and satiated and sceptical condition of Sherlock Holmes. I generally am in that childlike condition. But in every case it is my ardent and aspiring ambition to be stupider than the man who wrote the story. And in the case of this story I actually succeeded.

This desire to be deceived is really peculiar to detective romance. It is in another sense that we say the same thing of other types of romance. It is sometimes said that when we go to the theatre we pay to be deceived. But we are not really deceived; we do not think that the dramatist intends something that he does not intend; we do not think the actor is doing something that he is not doing. We only forget, or half forget, for a moment, in the continuity and consistency of certain events, the fact that they come from a dramatist and an actor. But if we happen to remember it, we do not remember it with surprise. We are not astonished to discover that there is an actor on the stage, as we are (or ought to be) astonished to discover that there is a corpse in the summerhouse. We do not feel a momentary incredulity when we are told that the play was written by a playwright, as we do feel (or ought to feel) when we are told that the crime was committed by a curate. We watch a great actor performing Hamlet so well that (if we have luck) we lose for an instant the sense that he is a great actor; we feel for the moment that he is young Hamlet trying to avenge the death of old Hamlet upon Claudius. But we do not, either in forgetting or remembering, feel any shock of fact or the change of fact. We do not feel as we should feel if the play took a new and sudden turn, and we found that Hamlet had killed his own father and that his uncle was a perfectly blameless character. That would be the Detective Drama of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and now that so many peculiar experiments are being tried with that tragedy, I respectfully suggest it to the managers of the London Theatres.

If it is the first rule of the writer of mystery stories to conceal the secret from the reader, it is the first duty of the critic to conceal it from the public. I will therefore put my hand upon my mouth; and tortures shall not reveal the precise point in this story at which a person whom I had really regarded as figuring in one legitimate capacity suddenly began to figure in another, which was far from legitimate. I must not breathe a word about what the writer of this dramatic mystery does. I will confine myself strictly to saying what he does not do. And merely out of the things which he does not do, I could construct an enthusiastic eulogy. On the firm foundation of the things he does not do, I could erect an eternal tower of brass. For the things he does not do are the things being done everywhere today, to the destruction of true detective fiction and the loss of this legitimate and delightful form of art. He does not introduce into the story a vast but invisible secret society with branches in every part of the world, with ruffians who can be brought in to do anything or underground cellars that can be used to hide anybody. He does not mar the pure and lovely outlines of a classical murder or burglary by wreathing it round and round with the dirty and dingy red tape of international diplomacy; he does not lower our lofty ideals of crime to the level of foreign politics. He does not introduce suddenly at the end somebody’s brother from New Zealand, who is exactly like him. He does not trace the crime hurriedly in the last page or two to some totally insignificant character, whom we never suspected because we never remembered. He does not get over the difficulty of choosing between the hero and the villain by falling back on the hero’s cabman or the villain’s valet. He does not introduce a professional criminal to take the blame of a private crime; a thoroughly unsportsmanlike course of action and another proof of how professionalism is ruining our national sense of sport. He does not introduce about six people in succession to do little bits of the same small murder; one man to bring the dagger and another to point it and another to stick it in properly. He does not say it was all a mistake, and that nobody ever meant to murder anybody at all, to the serious disappointment of all humane and sympathetic readers. He does not make the general mistake of thinking that the more complicated the story is the better. His story is complicated enough, and on many points open to criticism; but the secret of it is found in the centre; and that is the central matter in any work of art.

I

The Crime

The telephone bell rang on the table of Superintendent Sinclair at Scotland Yard. He was a busy man, and had given orders that he was not to be disturbed except on matters important.

Putting down a paper he had been reading, he picked up the receiver. A woman’s voice spoke.

“Is that Scotland Yard?”

“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently, “Superintendent Sinclair speaking, what is it?”

“Listen carefully,” said the voice. “The Home Secretary has been murdered at his own house, it would be as well if you would come at once. Have you got that? Just repeat.”

Even Sinclair, the coolest head in the service, was staggered for a moment. There was not a trace of hurry or emotion in the voice. It might have been inviting him to tea. Before he could collect himself, the voice began again.

“I will repeat,” and the same impassive message came through with the concluding words, “Have you got that?”

Sinclair pulled himself together.

“Who is speaking?” he said. He heard a laugh and then the voice—

“Oh, no one in particular, just the murderer,” and then silence.

He rang his bell, and his assistant, or “familiar” as he was termed, Lewis, entered.

“Someone is playing a joke of sorts on us. Just find out who called up,” he said abruptly, and went on reading. The thing was so absurd, but something was wrong, and someone would have to answer for this. In a minute Lewis returned.

“They don’t seem to know downstairs, sir, there is a new operator at the exchange, and it seems that someone said she was a personal friend of yours, and must speak at once to you.”

“Oh, of course, the same old game. I suppose they think it’s funny,” and he turned savagely to his work.

“By the way, Lewis, just find out where the Home Secretary is,” he added.

About ten minutes had passed, when a knock came at the door, and a clerk ushered in Mr. Collins.

Sylvester Collins was not a Sherlock Holmes or anything like it, but after a successful career at the Bar, at a time when all his many friends had expected him to “take silk,” he had suddenly thrown up his whole career, and started as an Inquiry Agent and Amateur Detective, though he hated the expression, and always claimed that he was merely trying to use his experience at the Bar in a practical way.

However, he had been phenomenally successful, perhaps through luck, perhaps through a keen, trained brain and good common sense.

If his friends wanted to upset him, they would call him Sherlock Holmes, which was like a red rag to a bull to him.

He worked excellently with the official force, and had been “briefed” by them on many occasions, with the happiest results to all except the criminals who had been run to earth.

A clean-cut face with a large nose, and a firm mouth, were his chief characteristics. Soft brown eyes, and curly hair almost black, gave his face a curiously paradoxical expression.

When not engaged professionally, he was a keen sportsman, and enjoyed life to the full.

He was entirely devoid of “side” or “swank.”

Sinclair was a very different type. He was more like the Scotland Yard officer of real life than of fiction. After successful work in India, he had applied for and obtained his post. He had just a detective’s training and education. He made no pretensions to be other than a trained official with no particular brilliance, and he was glad to have the help of his friend, who had brains and not his experience.

Collins always came to Sinclair without ceremony.

He entered smoking a cigarette, and placed his hat and stick on the table.