The Cheyne Mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts Contents 1 The Episode in the Plymouth Hotel 2 Burglary! 3 The Launch “Enid” 4 Concerning a Peerage 5 An Amateur Sleuth 6 The House in Hopefield Avenue 7 Miss Joan Merrill 8 A Council of War 9 Mr. Speedwell Plays His Hand 10 The New Firm Gets Busy 11 Otto Schulz’s Secret 12 In the Enemy’s Lair 13 Inspector French Takes Charge 14 The Clue of the Clay-marked Shoe 15 The Torn Hotel Bill 16 A Tale of Two Cities 17 On the Flood Tide 18 A Visitor from India 19 The Message of the Tracing 20 The Goal of the “L’Escaut” Chapter I The Episode in the Plymouth Hotel When the White Rabbit in _Alice_ asked where he should begin to read the verses at the Knave’s trial the King replied: “Begin at the beginning; go on till you come to the end; then stop.” This would seem to be the last word on the subject of narration in general. For the novelist no dictum more entirely complete and satisfactory can be imagined—in theory. But in practice it is hard to live up to. Where is the beginning of a story? Where is the beginning of anything? No one knows. When I set myself to consider the actual beginning of Maxwell Cheyne’s adventure, I saw at once I should have to go back to Noah. Indeed I was not at all sure whether the thing could be adequately explained unless I carried back the narrative to Adam, or even further. For Cheyne’s adventure hinged not only on his own character and environment, brought about by goodness knows how many thousands of generations of ancestors, but also upon the contemporaneous history of the world, crystallized in the happening of the Great War and all that appertained thereto. So then, in default of the true beginning, let us commence with the character and environment of Maxwell Cheyne, following on with the strange episode which took place in the Edgecombe Hotel in Plymouth, and from which started that extraordinary series of events which I have called The Cheyne Mystery. Maxwell Cheyne was born in 1891, so that when his adventure began in the month of March, 1920, he was just twenty-nine. His father was a navy man, commander of one of His Majesty’s smaller cruisers, and from him the boy presumably inherited his intense love of the sea and of adventure. Captain Cheyne had Irish blood in his veins and exhibited some of the characteristics of that irritating though lovable race. He was a man of brilliant attainments, resourceful, dashing, spirited and, moreover, a fine seaman, but a certain impetuosity, amounting at times to recklessness, just prevented his attaining the highest rank in his profession. In character he was as straight as a die, and kindly, generous, and openhanded to a fault, but he was improvident and inclined to live too much in the present. And these characteristics were destined to affect his son’s life, not only directly through heredity, but indirectly through environment also.