Torquay is both a holiday destination and an investigative waypoint in the account of the Churston murder. Its proximity to the crime draws an ordinary visitor’s attention, while Inspector Crome’s later reconstruction of Alexander Bonaparte Cust’s movements makes the surrounding area part of the inquiry into the alphabetical killings.

Setting and First Mention

A young woman remarks that Torquay must have been a lovely place to visit and says she hopes to holiday there the following year. Learning that her companion had been in the region while the Churston murder occurred, she imagines that the visitor might even have passed the murderer in the street. The exchange turns geographical nearness into a source of excitement: the crime is not only a newspaper story but something that might have crossed an ordinary person’s path.

Cust’s Movements in the Inquiry

Inspector Crome reports that he has checked with Churston, Paignton, and Torquay and assembled a list of people to whom Cust offered stockings. Cust stayed at the Pitt, a small hotel near Torre Station, and returned there at 10:30 on the night of the murder. A train leaving Churston at 9:57 could have reached Torre at 10:20, but no one matching Cust’s description was noticed aboard the train or at the station. Crome qualifies that negative evidence: the trains returning from Kingswear were crowded because it was Dartmouth Regatta.

The Wider Pattern and Narrative Role

Crome’s account places the Torquay-area inquiries beside similar investigations at Bexhill and Andover. In Bexhill, Cust stayed at the Globe under his own name and offered stockings at about a dozen addresses, including Mrs Barnard’s and the Ginger Cat. In Andover, he stayed at the Feathers and made comparable offers to Mrs Fowler, who lived next door to Alice Ascher, and to several other people in the street. The stockings recovered from Alice Ascher’s shop were, according to Crome, identical to those from Cust’s supply.

Torquay therefore contributes to the reconstruction of a repeated method without, in the available account, resolving Cust’s whereabouts on the night of the Churston murder. The possible train connection and the crowded return services preserve uncertainty, while the hotel and canvassing records place him within the region’s investigative map. The town links a casual holiday conversation to the wider pattern of movements and evidence under scrutiny.