The Polo Ground Mystery Read online

  Robin Forsythe

  The Polo Ground Mystery

  AN “ALGERNON VEREKER” MYSTERY

  Mr Sutton Armadale, the financier, was shot dead on the private polo ground of his palatial home. Before expiring in his gamekeeper’s arms, he muttered the one word “murder”.

  Among the suspects are Armadale’s second wife; a drunken, loud-mouthed stranger in the neighbourhood; and an irresistibly attractive ballerina. The amiable and eccentric Algernon Vereker finds the case as befuddling as a crack on the head from a polo mallet. Two witnesses were certain they heard two shots fired, yet only one spent cartridge case was found on the ground by the dead man’s body. What is the “Sutton Stakes” connection… and is a “Bombay Head” part of the solution?

  The Polo Ground Mystery (1932) is a classic country house whodunit, with a sporting equestrian theme. The second of the Algernon Vereker mysteries, this new edition is the first published in over 70 years. It features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

  ‘A first-rate thriller – keeping you dancing with suspense to the end.’ Daily Herald

  To

  My Son

  JOHN

  Robin Forsythe (1879-1937)

  Crime in Fact and Fiction

  Ingenious criminal schemes were the stock in trade of those ever-so-bright men and women who devised the baffling puzzles found in between-the-wars detective fiction. Yet although scores of Golden Age mystery writers strove mightily to commit brilliant crimes on paper, presumably few of them ever attempted to commit them in fact. One author of classic crime fiction who actually carried out a crafty real-life crime was Robin Forsythe. Before commencing in 1929 his successful series of Algernon Vereker detective novels, now reprinted in attractive new editions by the enterprising Dean Street Press, Forsythe served in the 1920s as the mastermind behind England’s Somerset House stamp trafficking scandal.

  Robin Forsythe was born Robert Forsythe—he later found it prudent to slightly alter his Christian name—in Sialkot, Punjab (then part of British India, today part of Pakistan) on 10 May 1879, the eldest son of distinguished British cavalryman John “Jock” Forsythe and his wife Caroline. Born in 1838 to modestly circumstanced parents in the Scottish village of Carmunnock, outside Glasgow, John Forsythe in 1858 enlisted as a private in the Ninth Queen’s Royal Lancers and was sent to India, then in the final throes of a bloody rebellion. Like the fictional Dr. John H. Watson of Sherlock Holmes fame, Forsythe saw major martial action in Afghanistan two decades later during the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880), in his case at the December 1879 siege of the Sherpur Cantonment, just outside Kabul, and the Battle of Kandahar on 1 September 1880, for which service he received the War Medal with two Clasps and the Bronze Star. During the conflict Forsythe was appointed Quartermaster of the Ninth Lancers, in which capacity he served in Afghanistan, India, England and Ireland until his retirement from the British army in 1893, four years after having been made an Honorary Captain. The old solider was later warmly commended, in a 1904 history of the Ninth Lancers, for his “unbroken record of faithful, unfailing and devoted service.” His son Robin’s departure from government service a quarter-century later would be rather less harmonious.

  A year after John Forsythe’s return to India from Afghanistan in 1880, his wife Caroline died in Ambala after having given birth to Robin’s younger brother, Gilbert (“Gill”), and the two little boys were raised by an Indian ayah, or nanny. The family returned to England in 1885, when Robin was six years old, crossing over to Ireland five years later, when the Ninth Lancers were stationed at the Curragh Army Camp. On Captain Forsythe’s retirement from the Lancers in 1893, he and his two sons settled in Scotland at his old home village, Carmunnock. Originally intended for the legal profession, Robin instead entered the civil service, although like E.R. Punshon, another clerk turned classic mystery writer recently reprinted by Dean Street Press, he dreamt of earning his bread through his pen by another, more imaginative, means: creative writing. As a young man Robin published poetry and short stories in newspapers and periodicals, yet not until after his release from prison in 1929 at the age of fifty would he finally realize his youthful hope of making his living as a fiction writer.

  For the next several years Robin worked in Glasgow as an Inland Revenue Assistant of Excise. In 1909 he married Kate Margaret Havord, daughter of a guide roller in a Glasgow iron and steel mill, and by 1911 the couple resided, along with their one-year-old son John, in Godstone, Surrey, twenty miles from London, where Robin was employed as a Third Class Clerk in the Principal Probate Registry at Somerset House. Young John remained the Robin and Kate’s only child when the couple separated a decade later. What problems led to the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage is not known, but Kate’s daughter-in-law later characterized Kate as “very greedy” and speculated that her exactions upon her husband might have made “life difficult for Robin and given him a reason for his illegal acts.”

  Six years after his separation from Kate, Robin conceived and carried out, with the help of three additional Somerset House clerks, a fraudulent enterprise resembling something out of the imaginative crime fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle, Golden Age thriller writer Edgar Wallace and post Golden Age lawyer-turned-author Michael Gilbert. Over a year-and-a-half period, the Somerset House conspirators removed high value judicature stamps from documents deposited with the Board of Inland Revenue, using acids to obliterate cancellation marks, and sold the stamps at half-cost to three solicitor’s clerks, the latter of whom pocketed the difference in prices. Robin and his co-conspirators at Somerset House divided among themselves the proceeds from the illicit sales of the stamps, which totaled over 50,000 pounds (or roughly $75,000 US dollars) in modern value. Unhappily for the seven schemers, however, a government auditor became suspicious of nefarious activity at Somerset House, resulting in a 1927 undercover Scotland Yard investigation that, coupled with an intensive police laboratory examination of hundreds of suspect documents, fully exposed both the crime and its culprits.

  Robin Forsythe and his co-conspirators were promptly arrested and at London’s Old Bailey on 7 February 1928, the Common Serjeant--elderly Sir Henry Dickens, K.C., last surviving child of the great Victorian author Charles Dickens--passed sentence on the seven men, all of whom had plead guilty and thrown themselves on the mercy of the court. Sir Henry sentenced Robin to a term of fifteen months imprisonment, castigating him as a calculating rogue, according to the Glasgow Herald, the newspaper in which Robin had published his poetry as a young man, back when the world had seemed full of promise:

  It is an astounding position to find in an office like that of Somerset House that the Canker of dishonesty had bitten deep….You are the prime mover of this, and obviously you started it. For a year and a half you have continued it, and you have undoubtedly raised an atmosphere and influenced other people in that office.

  Likely one of the “astounding” aspects of this case in the eyes of eminent pillars of society like Dickens was that Robin Forsythe and his criminal cohort to a man had appeared to be, before the fraud was exposed, quite upright individuals. With one exception Robin’s co-conspirators were a generation younger than their ringleader and had done their duty, as the saying goes, in the Great War. One man had been a decorated lance corporal in the late affray, while another had served as a gunner in the Royal Field Artillery and a third had piloted biplanes as a 2nd lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps. The affair disturbingly demonstrated to all and sundry that, just like in Golden Age crime fiction, people who seemed above suspicion could fall surprisingly hard for the glittering lure of ill-gotten gain.

  Crime fiction offered the imaginative Robin Forsythe not only a means of livelihood aft
er he was released in from prison in 1929, unemployed and seemingly unemployable, but also, one might surmise, a source of emotional solace and escape. Dorothy L. Sayers once explained that from the character of her privileged aristocratic amateur detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, she had devised and derived, at difficult times in her life, considerable vicarious satisfaction:

  When I was dissatisfied with my single unfurnished room, I tool a luxurious flat for him in Piccadilly. When my cheap rug got a hole in it, I ordered an Aubusson carpet. When I had no money to pay my bus fare, I presented him with a Daimler double-six, upholstered in a style of sober magnificence, and when I felt dull I let him drive it.

  Between 1929 and 1937 Robin published eight successful crime novels, five of which were part of the Algernon Vereker mystery series for which the author was best known: Missing or Murdered (1929), The Polo Ground Mystery (1932), The Pleasure Cruise Mystery (1933), The Ginger Cat Mystery (1935) and The Spirit Murder Mystery (1936). The three remaining novels—The Hounds of Justice (1930), The Poison Duel (1934, under the pseudonym Peter Dingwall) and Murder on Paradise Island (1937)—were non-series works.

  Like the other Robin Forsythe detective novels detailing the criminal investigations of Algernon Vereker, gentleman artist and amateur sleuth, Missing or Murdered was issued in England by The Bodley Head, publisher in the Twenties of mysteries by Agatha Christie and Annie Haynes, the latter another able writer revived by Dean Street Press. Christie had left The Bodley Head in 1926 and Annie Haynes had passed away early in 1929, leaving the publisher in need of promising new authors. Additionally, the American company Appleton-Century published two of the Algernon Vereker novels, The Pleasure Cruise Mystery and The Ginger Cat Mystery, in the United States (the latter book under the title Murder at Marston Manor) as part of its short-lived but memorably titled Tired Business Man’s Library of adventure, detective and mystery novels, which were designed “to afford relaxation and entertainment” to industrious American escape fiction addicts during their off hours. Forsythe’s fiction also enjoyed some success in France, where his first three detective novels were published, under the titles La Disparition de Lord Bygrave (The Disappearance of Lord Bygrave), La Passion de Sadie Maberley (The Passion of Sadie Maberley) and Coups de feu a l’aube (Gunshots at Dawn).

  The Robin Forsythe mystery fiction drew favorable comment for their vivacity and ingenuity from such luminaries as Dorothy L. Sayers, Charles Williams and J.B. Priestley, the latter acutely observing that “Mr. Forsythe belongs to the new school of detective story writers which might be called the brilliant flippant school.” Sayers pronounced of Forsythe’s The Ginger Cat Mystery that “[t]he story is lively and the plot interesting,” while Charles Williams, author and editor of Oxford University Press, heaped praise upon The Polo Ground Mystery as “a good story of one bullet, two wounds, two shots, and one dead man and three pistols before the end….It is really a maze, and the characters are not merely automata.”

  This second act in the career of Robin Forsythe proved sadly short-lived, however, for in 1937 the author passed away from kidney disease, still estranged from his wife and son, at the age of 57. In his later years he resided--along with his Irish Setter Terry, the “dear pal” to whom he dedicated The Ginger Cat Mystery--at a cottage in the village of Hartest, near Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. In addition to writing, Robin enjoyed gardening and dabbling in art, having become an able chalk sketch artist and water colorist. He also toured on ocean liners (under the name “Robin Forsythe”), thereby gaining experience that would serve him well in his novel The Pleasure Cruise Mystery. This book Robin dedicated to “Beatrice,” while Missing or Murdered was dedicated to “Elizabeth” and The Spirit Murder Mystery to “Jean.” Did Robin find solace as well in human companionship during his later years? Currently we can only speculate, but classic British crime fans who peruse the mysteries of Robin Forsythe should derive pleasure from spending time in the clever company of Algernon Vereker as he hunts down fictional malefactors—thus proving that, while crime may not pay, it most definitely can entertain.

  Curtis Evans

  Chapter One

  EXTRACT FROM “THE LONDON EVENING BULLETIN”

  MYSTERY OF SHOT MILLIONAIRE.

  SCOTLAND YARD MEN ARRIVE ON THE SCENE.

  NUTHILL, August 14th.

  Mr. Sutton Armadale, the millionaire sportsman, was found lying shot dead on the private polo ground of his palatial home, Vesey Manor, in Surrey, at an early hour this morning. The body was discovered by his gamekeeper, Stephen Collyer. Collyer, it appears, was awakened at five o’clock in the morning by the sound of two shots and, believing that poachers were at work in Hanging Covert, near his cottage, immediately rose, hastily pulled on his clothes, and went out to investigate. He was convinced that the shots he had heard were due to the springing of alarm guns which he had set in the covert. The sun had just risen and, as he put it himself, “visibility was good.” He was about to enter Hanging Covert when he happened to glance towards the manor. Between where he stood and Vesey Manor, in the dell below, lay Mr. Sutton Armadale’s private polo ground, and as the keeper’s eye ranged over that level green expanse it encountered a mysterious, dark object lying at its farther end. Using his field-glasses, which he had thrust in his pocket prior to setting out from his cottage, he at once distinguished it as the recumbent body of a man. Giving up his intention of trying to surprise intruders in the covert, Collyer hurried down the hill and crossed the polo ground to ascertain who the prostrate stranger might be. To his surprise and horror, he discovered that it was the body of Mr. Sutton Armadale. The dying financier, who was still breathing faintly, was bleeding profusely from a wound in the right temple, and on examination the keeper found that his employer was also suffering from another terrible wound in the abdomen. In his left hand he was clutching an automatic pistol, a Colt of .45 calibre. Collyer rendered what assistance he could in the circumstances, but Mr. Armadale never recovered consciousness. Before expiring in his gamekeeper’s arms he muttered the one word, “Murder.” On this point Collyer is quite positive, and ridicules any suggestion that he may not have heard aright. Seeing that nothing further could be done, Collyer at once ran to Vesey Manor and roused the servants. They in turn conveyed the news to Mr. Basil Ralli, Mr. Armadale’s nephew, who was staying with his uncle on a holiday visit from town. Mr. Ralli, after breaking the news as gently as he could to Mrs. Armadale, at once telephoned for the local doctor and the Nuthill police, who soon made their appearance on the scene. The small party of guests who were staying at Vesey Manor included Miss Edmée Cazas, who made quite a hit in the revue What’s Yours? with her dancing and her song, “He kissed me in the Cinema but wouldn’t see me home”; Captain Rickaby Fanshaugh, the well-known polo player, late of the 14th Lancers; Mr. Ralph Degerdon, son of Mr. Harold Degerdon, stockbroker of Drapers Gardens and Meadway Court, Godstone; Mr. Aubrey Winter, a cousin of Mrs. Armadale; and Mr. Stanley Houseley.

  Displaying his characteristic energy and initiative, Captain Fanshaugh collected the male servants of the house, and with the aid of Collyer combed the neighbouring coverts in search of a possible assailant. Their efforts, however, proved abortive.

  The tragedy presents several very perplexing features and is being thoroughly investigated by Detective-Inspector Heather of Scotland Yard, assisted by Detective-Sergeant Lawrence Goss, who arrived during the day as the result of an urgent summons for assistance by the Chief Constable of Nuthill.

  It appears that Mr. Sutton Armadale retired last night between twelve and one o’clock. He was in his usual good health and excellent spirits. During the afternoon he had played a brilliant game at No. 4 in a friendly polo match for the Pandits against a team of the 14th Lancers on the private ground at Vesey manor. Later he put in an appearance at the village flower show being held in one of the meadows adjoining the manor, at which Mrs. Armadale (she was, of course, the beautiful Miss Angela Daunay prior to her marriage two years ago) distributed the prizes. At cockta
il time the guests indulged in a swimming party in the charming pool in the rock garden, and after dinner played bridge and billiards until midnight, when every one retired. Mr. Armadale, who was a martyr to insomnia of late, slept apart from his wife, but shortly before one o’clock he came into her bedroom and bade her good night. From that moment no one either saw or heard his host until he was found dying by his gamekeeper on the polo ground near the manor.

  A very mysterious factor in the case is that, though Collyer is certain he heard two shots fired and his testimony is corroborated by Mr. Ralli, who happened to be lying awake at the time, only one spent cartridge case was found on the ground by the financier’s body in spite of a most careful search by the police. In this respect it may be noted that an automatic pistol, unlike a revolver, ejects the spent cartridge and reloads itself as each shot is fired. Inquiries are being diligently pursued by detectives under Inspector Heather, who, it may be remembered, brought the mysterious Bygrave case to a successful conclusion some years ago. Sir William Macpherson, the famous pathologist, who is also an expert on gunshot wounds, has been summoned to Vesey Manor.

  Mrs. Armadale, accompanied by Mr. Ralph Degerdon, was among the first of the inmates of the house to appear on the scene of the tragedy and render what little assistance she could to her dying husband. Though perceptibly suffering from shock, she is showing remarkable courage and fortitude in her bereavement and is doing her utmost to assist the police in their difficult investigations.

  At midday to-day the police detained a man in the village of Nuthill, who had openly boasted of having committed the murder, but after searching inquiries he was discharged.