And A Bottle of Rum

Theodore Terhune stories

1. Seven Clues in Search of a Crime

2. House with Crooked Walls

3. A Case for Solomon

4. Work for the Hangman

5. Ten Trails to Tyburn

6. A Case of Books

7. And a Bottle of Rum

This edition published in 2022 by Moonstone Press

www.moonstonepress.co.uk

Introduction © 2022 J. F. Norris

Originally published in 1949 by Hutchinson & Co Ltd

And a Bottle of Rum © the Estate of Graham Montague Jeffries, writing as Bruce Graeme

The right of Graham Montague Jeffries to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

ISBN 978-1-899000-38-8

eISBN 978-1-899000-39-5

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Text design, typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London

Cover illustration by Jason Anscomb

Contents

Introduction by J. F. Norris

And a Bottle of Rum

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Introduction

Of Books and Ships and Smugglers, Too

Books take a step back to make room for the spectre of the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh in this final adventure in the Theodore Terhune series. Less of a traditional detective novel than others featuring our favourite bookseller turned amateur sleuth, And a Bottle of Rum (1949) finds Bruce Graeme indulging in his gift for action sequences. Combining the conventions of a pursuit thriller with those of a detective novel, the story begins with the mundane yet cruel crime of a hit-and-run, leading to a battle of wits between the police and a gang of clever smugglers who use the quotidian routines of village life to mask their crimes.

Graeme does not forsake his love of books altogether. The opening scene has Theodore and Julia MacMunn (sadly making only a cameo appearance) headed for a remote estate where Terhune will inspect a vast library of antiquarian volumes that he might end up purchasing. On the way home they are nearly run off the road by a lorry and discover a man in a ditch who has been knocked down and killed by the same vehicle. What appears to be an accident will, however, prove to be something more sinister. Having initiated this adventure, books continue to feature when the victim’s widow approaches Terhune to peruse her husband’s collection, modest in comparison that of the Stallybrass home, but nonetheless holding one huge clue that helps Terhune get to the root of the death of P.C. Tom Kitchen and solve the mystery of the speeding lorry.

Among the books in the policeman’s rather odd library are several on the history of smuggling in the Dymchurch region of Kent. Readers as knowledgeable as Bruce Graeme may raise their eyebrows at once, for they will certainly recognize the village of Dymchurch as the home of Dr. Syn, aka the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, a fictional series character created by Russell Thorndike and the protagonist of several books of crime and adventure inspired by Kent’s infamous history of smuggling.

The early nineteenth-century writer and poet Richard Harris Barham, who used the more recognizable pseudonym Thomas Ingoldsby, wrote in his seminal collection of Gothic short stories and poems The Ingoldsby Legends: The world, according to the best geographers, is divided into Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Romney Marsh. In that hyperbolic quip Barham manages to evoke the strangeness and singularity of this region, which he came to call the fifth continent. (Antarctica was still a vast anonymous and unexplored land of ice and snow in Barham’s day, and North and South America were conveniently clumped together for the writer’s purposes.) He goes on in the story The Leech of Folkestone to describe a realm of witches on broomsticks and enchanted cows, one where the uncanny seems to have permanently taken root and uses men in the service of all that is evil.

Due to its unique geography and fickle climate, the Romney Marsh has for centuries been known to be perfectly suited to the purposes of smugglers and criminals, who exploit the frequent smothering fog and rocky coastline to carry out their wicked deeds. Writers inspired by both their landscape and their history of criminality have doomed the Romney Marsh region and the surrounding towns and villages, from Dymchurch to Hythe to Folkestone, to be locked for ever in their notorious past. Graeme reminds us of this when he has Terhune examine the history books that P.C. Kitchen has obviously read several times and annotated with curious marks and abbreviations.

Ever the erudite book-lover, Graeme selected actual historical volumes to include in Kitchen’s small but noteworthy library. The Smugglers by Lord Teignmouth and Charles G. Harper, subtitled Picturesque Chapters in the History of Contraband, was published in 1909 by Cecil Palmer in Britain and in 1923 by George H. Doran in the United States. This vast, two volume-history was reprinted by a Yorkshire publisher in a single volume in 1973. I trust that the several passages cited in And a Bottle of Rum are quoted verbatim—Graeme was nothing but thorough in his research.

Also found in the dead man’s collection is Smuggling Days and Smuggling Ways (1892) by H. N. Shore, reprinted in 1929 by Philip Allan, a publisher known for his interest in the outré, especially supernatural and horror fiction. Uncannily, just as with the Teignmouth and Harper history, Shore’s book was also revived in a much later reprint in the 1970s. The undying curiosity and interest in Romney Marsh and Dymchurch serve to keep the past alive. A simple Google search for smuggling and Romney Marsh turns up numerous websites with a wealth of history and lore. These latest contributions in our age of information saturation signify an apparently never-ending desire to cement this region of Kent into its criminal past. Graeme is conscious of this when he writes: so many writers had been lured by the strange remoteness… using it as the locale for stories: it lent itself so readily as an insidious spur to the conflict of human passions.

The bulk of And a Bottle of Rum reads like a manic thriller. Indeed, with its many action-oriented incidents, Graeme might have eschewed numeric chapters in favour of evocative chapter titles like The Adventure of the Accidental Stowaway for the episode in which Terhune finds himself locked inside the smuggler’s truck headed for destination unknown, or Darts and Detection for the scene in which he travels to local pub the Load of Hay to take part in a darts competition while simultaneously gathering information from the garrulous drinking crowd, whom he suspects of belonging to the gang of smugglers.

This adventure finds Terhune dealing with professional criminals rather than the devious murderers of his previous escapades. The gang takes advantage of the relatively unsophisticated forms taken by rural crime in order to create havoc while they run their smuggling operation. Following the nasty hit-and-run murder, Terhune confronts haystack arson and cow-rustling, misdemeanours used as distractions and cover for the smugglers. No less devious or clever than the murderers he has dealt with in the past, this band of criminals are probably more ruthless and dangerous than any villains he has met before. They are smart enough to know that a hit-and-run can be easily forgotten in a week when car crashes, burglary and an attempted rape are also keeping the police hectically busy.

One of the most interesting passages in the book has Terhune observing two suspects and comparing their personalities. Just as his love of books defines him as a detective, Terhune’s love of language finds him examining the subtle differences between two types of criminal:

Two dangerous men; each in his own way. Terhune could not decide which would have to be the more feared in case of trouble. If there were a shade of difference—not admitted by most dictionaries—in the definition of cunning and crafty, he would have described Matcham as cunning; the other as crafty. Each in his own right a dangerous opponent in combination…

In the final chapters of And a Bottle of Rum, Terhune is in full detective mode. Never fear that this seems less of a bibliomystery than the other books in the series. When our hero stumbles across an inscription in a copy of The House of Arden by Edith Nesbit he realizes that Tom Kitchen’s miniature library has secretly held the most damning piece of evidence—one that was patiently waiting for Terhune to find it. A savvy and assiduous reader will latch on to the inscription’s significance quicker than Terhune if he or she has made note of a single passing remark made very early in the book. Once again Bruce Graeme has planted a clue rather ingeniously in his story, later coming full-circle in order to allow his detective hero to lead the police to the guilty party. Tom Kitchen is vindicated by his own book collection and we as readers cheer for Terhune, who has done it again. And a Bottle of Rum is a fine ending to his adventures, wrapping up the saga of one of the best literary-minded sleuths in the world of Golden Age detective fiction.

Graham Montague Jeffries (1900–1982), better known as Bruce Graeme, was married and had two children: Roderic and Guillaine. Both his son and daughter went on to write books and interestingly also used their father’s alter ego surname for their own pen names. Guillaine Jeffries, as Linda Graeme, wrote a brief series of books published between 1955 and 1964 about a girl named Helen who was a ballet dancer in theatre and on TV. Roderic Jeffries followed in his father’s footsteps and turned to writing crime fiction, using his own name and the pseudonyms Roderic Graeme (continuing his father’s series about the thief turned crime novelist Blackshirt), Peter Alding, Jeffrey Ashford and Graham Hastings. In addition to more than sixty crime, detective and espionage novels, Roderic wrote a number of non-fiction works on criminal investigation and Grand Prix racing.

Late in life Graeme gave his Elizabethan farmhouse in Kent to Roderic and his wife. Graeme moved up the road to a bungalow and would have lunch with his son and daughter-in-law once a week. According to Xanthe Jeffries, Bruce Graeme’s granddaughter, he remained in Kent while his son’s family moved to Majorca in 1972. They remained close even while apart, and Graeme would visit in May every year, on his birthday.

When I asked for any family stories she might share with Moonstone Press readers, Xanthe very politely complied with an anecdote-filled email. I learned that her grandfather kept a couple of marmosets as pets and had inherited a Land Rover from his son when Roderic moved away. She also wrote of his annual visits to Majorca: If the weather was not to his liking, she reported, we never heard the end of it. On his last trip to us he became very worried about having to travel back to the U.K. via Barcelona. Apparently he was concerned about Spanish customs law. When asked why he told my parents that his walking stick was in fact a swordstick! Clearly, Graeme was something of an adventurer himself.

J. F. Norris

Chicago, IL

December 2021

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Chapter One

There was no threat of fog when Julia called one evening about seven, to drive Terhune to Pennyfields, a house on Romney Marsh half a mile north-west of Dymchurch. On the contrary, the early evening was both warm and pleasant enough to make it a tempting one for a swim.

I suppose you positively must go tonight? she asked in a deceptively casual manner, as they followed the winding road down to the Marsh.

He grinned, suspecting what was in her mind. Tonight’s the night fixed by the old boy for the doings.

You could telephone him that something had turned up to prevent your keeping the appointment.

I could, but what for?

Any cold, rainy night is good enough to go pottering among a lot of silly old books.

Good enough for me, old girl, but not for old Stallybrass. He’s moving in less than a month’s time.

It might be raining by tomorrow, she wistfully commented. It would not take us long to run back for my costume—

Nothing doing, he firmly interrupted. To quote the classics—Business is Business.

It’s after business hours.

Not for me, Julie. Besides, the Parkinsons are expecting you.

I could ’phone them—

His No was adamant. So Julia, with a sigh of regret but not too much disappointment—for she knew her Theo too well—resigned herself to spending a boring evening with an old school friend living in Folkestone. A short while later she dropped him by a pair of handsome wrought-iron gates, the entrance to Pennyfields.

I’ll call for you about—

Say… He reflected. Ten-fifteen?

She nodded. I’ll be here. He knew that she would be, too, for Julia had a rare sense of punctuality. She waved a hand. See you later, she called out as the car drove off.

He waited until the car had passed out of sight round a near corner before turning to enter the iron gates. They were closed; but there was no lodge nor any bell that he could see, so he turned the solid iron handle and pushed. The right-hand gate opened easily and without noise. He entered, closed the gate, and began walking up the gravelled drive which forked two ways. He automatically took the left-hand fork, which soon began to curve to the right.

Because of the massive hedge which bordered the road on both sides, he could see nothing of the house, nor anything of what lay beyond the hedges. This knowledge made him realize that, in spite of his having passed and repassed the property many hundreds of times, never once had he had a glimpse of the house. Wondering how this had come about, he decided that there was only one answer. A simple one. The house was not to be seen from the road. Doubtless it was hidden by trees. Otherwise, he would certainly have seen it; if not on one occasion, then on another. Especially when cycling or walking.

The carriage-way continued to curve, still to the right. It seemed to him that it must be circular in shape; and, judging by the distance, probably surrounded the house. This deduction was presently proved right, for when he reached a wide gap in the right-hand hedge he saw the house for the first time, and appreciated that it was situated in the middle of a large, bowl-like depression that was entirely bordered by the right-hand hedge of the drive. Within the outer border of the hedge was a screening belt of trees which ran parallel. No wonder the house was not to be seen save from where he stood.

A second drive, in the shape of a horseshoe, proceeded from the break in the bordering hedge as far as the house. The left-hand prong bore a discreet notice board marked Tradesmen, so Terhune took the other.

As he advanced towards the house he saw that he would arrive at one of those porticos that are a feature of Georgian architecture. Neither the portico nor the house itself impressed him as being in any way artistically beautiful. The building was square and ugly, and possessed nothing of the elegance which often accompanies simplicity. To Terhune’s eyes it more resembled the officers’ quarters in a barracks than a home. Especially as attached to the main building, was a large, and equally barrack-like, range of outbuildings.

He knocked; then grinned, for the knock produced just that sort of dull, echoing sound he had anticipated. While he waited for someone to answer, he tried to picture the type of man who would receive him. He had never met Stallybrass; all the preliminary dealings, which were culminating in the present visit, had been conducted by correspondence, or over the telephone. If the style of letter were in any way indicative, or the dry, formal tones of a somewhat high-pitched voice, then he expected to meet a smallish man of advancing years, probably one with a scholar’s stoop, a minimum of grey hairs, thin bloodless lips and pale blue eyes. But, of course, there was nothing more deceptive than a voice, he told himself. B.B.C. news readers and commentators were living examples of that particular generalization.

The door opened without sound or warning. When he saw the man who peered near-sightedly at him from within the gloomy interior he gaped with amazement. For the tiny, stooping grey-haired man was the personification of everything he had idly imagined Stallybrass to be. It was too absurdly miraculous; it was as if, in fact, the other man had stepped out of his own imagination.

He presently realized that the other man was beginning to look somewhat startled. He tried to disguise what he felt sure must be an inane grin, and asked hastily, Mr. Stallybrass?

The little man nodded. Mr. Theodore Terhune, I presume. Without waiting for confirmation, he went on, Will you come in?

Terhune stepped inside. Stallybrass closed the door with deliberate care. You came by car, I see. Have you left it in the road? He rightly interpreted his visitor’s expression. No, the road is as invisible from the house as the house is from the road. But your shoes would have been dusty—which they are not—if you had walked. You would not look as cool as you do if you had ridden a bicycle. No bus passes through this district. Therefore, unless I am greatly mistaken, you came here by car.

There was not the vaguest suspicion of humour in the dry, even voice. Nor of patronage. Nor of anything to suggest that he was being personal at the expense of Terhune, whose detective novels were in ever-increasing demand. You should have driven it up to the house—

I was driven here by a friend, who is on her way to Folkestone and will call for me on her way back.

Good. The exclamation was disinterestedly polite, no more. Shall we go into the library? He led the way across the large square hall towards a door at the far side, which he opened; then stood aside for Terhune to enter. I shall leave you here, if you will excuse me. I have some work in the kitchen to do. I live alone except for a male servant to attend my simple needs. It is his night off. Perhaps you will ring the bell beside the fireplace when you have finished your work, or if you should want me before then.

Thank you. There seemed nothing more for Terhune to say; Stallybrass did not appear to be a man who would patiently exchange civilities, or waste time in meaningless chatter. He passed into the library and cast a quick, appraising glance about him. He did not hear the door close behind him, or the sound of any movement; but when he turned back to the door it was shut. So, with shining eyes, he approached the nearest bookshelf: his first glance had already assured him that he was a lucky man to have the opportunity of making an offer for the complete library.

2

Time ceased to be of consequence to him as he inspected the crowded bookshelves, and jotted down compendious notes of the more important titles together with the prices he could afford to pay. Some of the expensive titles he examined in closer detail to ascertain the date of the edition, and the overall condition; the cheaper books he accepted on trust—not a particularly risky course, he felt, for it was easy to see that the collection was a well-preserved one, and belonged to a man who was unlikely to be satisfied with spoiled or incomplete books.

In between times, while he paused to refill and light a pipe, he wondered why Stallybrass was selling his library. True, he had announced that he was moving away from the neighbourhood in consequence of having sold the property; but that was no explanation for selling the library as a whole. If it were a case of moving into a smaller house, with less room for books, the likely course would have been to keep the most treasured books and sell the surplus. But no; he had made it perfectly plain to Terhune that no offer would be considered for a part of the library; it would have to be for the entire collection, a condition to which he was only too willing to agree, for his business was continually expanding. Perhaps Stallybrass needed the money, was the next reflection. Or perhaps he was going abroad to live, and did not want the expense and trouble of taking his library with him.

Terhune finished writing his last note with a sigh that was more of regret than relief; where books were concerned his energy was inexhaustible. He glanced idly at his watch, then leapt to his feet with dismay: the time was already ten-forty.

He hurried across to the fireplace and looked for a bell-push. He wasted nearly two minutes before realizing that there was none, and that the purple silken cord which descended from the ceiling was the only bell in the room. This he pulled with an impatient jerk which would have been disastrous to a weak link anywhere. Though he listened carefully he heard no echoing jangle; he was scarcely able to prevent himself from giving the cord another tug just to make sure. Fortunately, he left it alone; the door was opened as quietly as it had been closed; Stallybrass entered the room.

Have you finished, Mr. Terhune?

Just. If you will excuse my hurrying off—my friend promised to meet me at ten-fifteen—

Ah! Then indeed you must hurry. You are very nearly thirty minutes late already. You have everything you want?

Yes, thanks. Terhune stuffed the mass of notes into his pocket.

Come along then. Stallybrass’s small