drinks when breaking up at the end of the game, and as usual Weller set out the decanter, siphon and four glasses. Into one of the glasses he poured the prepared whisky. While standing at the side table he could see the liquid, but it would be invisible to his seated guests.
The other preliminary Weller dealt with shortly before his friends were due. Going to his boathouse, he made sure that his boat was ready for instant use, with rowlocks and oars in place and water gate open.
In due course the men arrived and settled down to their game. Weller threw himself desperately into the play, partly as the best way of passing the time, partly lest he should make some error which might later give rise to comment.
The evening, the longest he had ever spent, came to an end at last. He and his partner had lost, but without, he felt sure, any suggestion of carelessness on his part. They settled up their few shillings’ debt and then he turned to the glasses. Marbeck was the senior and Weller poured the whisky for him first.
After interminable delays the whisky was drunk, second helpings being offered and, as usual, refused. Further delay followed as the guests made their way to the hall and put on their coats in the most leisurely manner. But finally they left and strolled off together down the drive. Weller stood watching them, then slowly closed the door.
Now he could drop the pretence of composure. In the hall cloakroom he put on a cap and dark waterproof. Hurrying to a side door, he let himself out and made his way noiselessly towards the Thames.
It was not completely dark. More by sound than sight he located Marbeck. The old man was on his, Weller’s, boat slip, a tiny pier adjoining, but outside, his boathouse. Marbeck had moored his skiff, as usual, at the slip. Weller heard him getting in and unchaining his sculls. His movements were slow and fumbling, the result, no doubt, of the dope. But at last he cast off and floated out, a shadow of deeper jet on the dark waters.
Weller now worked frantically. In less than a minute his boat was following the other. He tried to steady the thumping of his heart, reminding himself that everything was going perfectly. He overtook Marbeck in mid-stream just as he had intended. ‘Marbeck!’ he called softly.
‘Yes, Yes? Who is it?’
‘Weller. A small matter I forgot. Ease up a moment.’
The other held water and the boats drew together. Weller unshipped his sculls, laying them parallel to the gunwale at either side. Then, as the skiffs touched, he gripped the gunwale of Marbeck’s, pushed it downwards, and then raised it with all his strength. The skiff rolled violently and then righted itself. Marbeck was overboard.
The victim’s single cry would not invalidate Weller’s plan; in fact it would help it. But further cries might give him away, he swung his skiff round to where Marbeck was struggling, and leaning over the gunwale, seized the figure and pushed it under.
His waterproof caught somewhere, impeding him, and he jerked it roughly free. He was counting on the dope making the old man stupid. It appeared to have done so, for his feeble struggling soon ceased.
One more point and Weller had finished. A glance showed him that Marbeck’s boat was as he wanted it: one oar caught in the rowlock, the other overboard. What had occurred would be obvious to everyone. Some slight indisposition or carelessness and Marbeck had lost an oar. He had made a sudden effort to recapture it before it floated away. The light skiff was unsteady in the water and its sudden roll had taken the old man unawares.
Weller now moved at top speed, though still silently. He rowed to his boathouse, replaced the boat, and hurried to the house. There he had a wash and brush up. He thought another whisky permissible while he waited for the next development.
Half an hour later it came, just as he had intended it should. Mrs Marbeck rang up to ask if her husband had left.
‘Yes, Mrs Marbeck,’ Weller hastened to reply. ‘He left at his usual time, nearly an hour ago.’
‘Well, he hasn’t arrived here and I’m rather anxious.’
‘I’ll come across at once,’ Weller declared and rang off.
This call was really part of his scheme. The wet oars, the drippings in his boat, the damp sleeves of his waterproof: all such awkward items would be explained by the speed with which he had hastened across.
Everything continued to go exactly to plan. He made his report to Mrs Marbeck, they rang up several houses at which the old man might have called. Then at Weller’s suggestion they telephoned the police.
Inspector French was at the house within minutes. He listened to statements and said he would start an immediate inquiry. Then came a period of waiting.
Mrs Marbeck urged Weller to go home, but his sickening anxiety prevented him. Fortunately his presence was not suspicious since politeness also required him to stay. At length, two hours later, the inspector returned. To Mrs Marbeck he broke his news with genuine kindness. Her husband’s body had been found lower down the river. He had evidently fallen overboard while making the crossing. Then he turned to Weller.
‘I’d like, sir, to go over to your house to get some further details about Mr Marbeck’s start. If you’ll take me over in your boat, I’ll send the car round.’
‘Right,’ Weller answered. He put on his waterproof and said he was ready.
But the inspector was looking at him very strangely. Weller’s heart missed a beat. All had been going perfectly; what could now be wrong? ‘I said I was ready,’ he repeated shortly.
Inspector French bent forward. ‘Excuse me, sir. I see you’ve lost a button from your coat.’
Weller glanced down. This was what he had felt. No doubt it had jammed under the oar. ‘My own fault, inspector,’ he said with truth. ‘It was loose and I omitted to have it resewn.’
French took something from his pocket. ‘It’s not lost, sir. I think this is it. Yes: colour, shape, size and even thread are the same. And do you know where I found it? Gripped in Mr Marbeck’s fingers: I could hardly get it out.’
Born in Dublin in 1879, Freeman Wills Crofts would go on to become one of Britain’s best loved writers of detective fiction. After leaving school, Crofts joined the Belfast and North Counties Railway, rising to Chief Assistant Engineer. In 1912 he married and, in his early 30s, wrote a novel during a long period of convalescence. In homage to Charles Dickens, this first attempt was entitled A Mystery of Two Cities but by the time it was published in June 1920, by Collins, it had been retitled The Cask after a rewrite that saw the final section of the novel, largely comprising a trial, excised altogether.
Fired by this success, Crofts wrote a second novel, The Ponson Case. And then a third … For his fifth novel, Inspector French’s Greatest Case, he created Joseph French, the Scotland Yard detective who would go on to appear in a total of thirty novels, countless radio plays and three stage plays. As Crofts described him, ‘Soapy Joe [is] an ordinary man, carrying out his work, in an ordinary way … He makes mistakes but goes ahead in spite of them.’
More books followed and Crofts was soon recognised as one of the best practitioners in the genre. The railway engineer and part-time organist and choirmaster retired in 1929 to take up writing full time, and in 1930 Crofts was invited by Anthony Berkeley to become a founding member of the Detection Club, based in London. Partly because of this, Crofts and his wife Mary moved to Blackheath, a pretty village in Surrey where their first home was a house, Wildern, which has since been re-named after its most famous owner. Over the next twenty years Crofts would produce many books including The Hog’s Back Mystery (1933), Crime at Guildford (1935) and The Affair at Little Wokeham (1943), all of which are set in Surrey.
An active member of the Detection Club, Crofts also contributed to several of their collaborative ventures, including