The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Just a minute before we go in,” Wharton said. “A lot of caves in this part, are there?”

  The man smiled. “Absolutely honeycombed with ‘em.”

  “And did you know this particular cave?”

  “I didn’t,” he said. “They’re so common, you see, that we don’t take much account of caves. I reckon you’d find some of the old codgers in these parts, though, who knew all about it. If they didn’t, they’d swear they did.”

  Wharton produced as by magic a torch from his trouser pocket.

  “No gas or anything?” he said.

  Before the man had time to do anything more than smile, Wharton was making his way in.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Passenden Tells

  THE guide had remained outside and Wharton and I made an examination of the cave by the light of the torch. But the cave was not altogether dark. Light penetrated in two places from its roof, and where the rain had come through those wide fissures in the rock, the walls were stained and the rocky floor was still moist.

  How large was that cave? Well, of the size of the biggest room in a suburban villa perhaps, which would be about sixteen feet by twelve, though I did not measure it. What particularly struck me about it was that it was amazingly well chosen, for it could have been made quite snug and warm. I won’t say that an illicit distiller could have concealed the worm of smoke that would have come from the roof, but an oil-stove would have warmed the place and a primus could have cooked. As a matter of fact the first thing I smelt on entering was paraffin, and almost at once we found the oil-stove that had been used, and a petrol tin with paraffin in it.

  But Brende had been given no comfort. All he had had to lie on was a heap of dry litter in the corner farthest from the entrance. He had evidently been kept drugged and allowed to recover for two things—to be questioned and to be given enough food and water to keep him alive. Two cups and two dirty plates were there, and Wharton said they all came from Woolworth’s. One of the cups had tea stains, and the plates had grease marks which Wharton said was butter or margarine.

  The following traces were found of the person or persons who had been with Brende in the cave: a few cigarette-stubs of common brands, match-ends and a small heap of charred paper. The last description was not absolutely correct for the heap had been reduced to the finest ash. There, as we thought, lay all Brende’s private papers and, but for the burned note-book, the results of all his private researches. Wharton got to work looking for finger-prints. Naturally there were plenty of Brende’s, of which he provided himself with a specimen, but of any others there was never a trace. Then he began a most careful examination of the litter of the bed, but in five minutes was giving it up.

  “I’ll get the place sealed,” he said, “and send a man or two to go over it at leisure.”

  But he flashed a torch once more over the floor as if loath to leave the place, and then we stepped outside again. While we were in there we had grown so accustomed to the queer light that for most purposes we could have dispensed with the torch.

  “What now?” I asked Wharton.

  Just a scout round, as he put it, for a good ten minutes. I thought he was looking for feet-marks, but when I suggested that the ground, made rock-hard by the draught, would show no marks, he explained what he was looking for. In the cave there had been no signs of urination or excretion. Brende, drugged or not, couldn’t have resisted nature, so something of the nature of the chamber-pot must have been used, and emptied somewhere outside. Well, to cut the story short, we did come at last on a couple of such spots, and about a hundred yards from the cave entrance among some bushes. Wharton seemed to think that the captor wouldn’t have taken the trouble to go so far;

  I thought that the farther the better, so as to avoid the eyes and nose of chance wanderers like the shepherd.

  Our guide was a local constable who had helped find the cave and was now on duty. Wharton said he had better stay there, and we would take the car and arrange reliefs and so on with his inspector. Off we went then, back to the station, I driving the four-year old Morris.

  “One thing I’ll own up to at once, George,” I said. “In my heart of hearts I never thought it possible for Brende to have been kidnapped from that house. Though that rifleman of mine and the R.S.M. made an entry, I know it wasn’t a fair test, because they knew all the ropes. Now I’ll own up that that cordon of mine couldn’t have been effective after all.”

  “We all make mistakes,” Wharton said with smug generosity. “By the way, we’ll get off back to Dalebrink as soon as we can. I want to get those men of mine to work.”

  “You want only one or two, didn’t you say?”

  “Don’t know,” he said. “Ten or a dozen will be more like it. That means I’ll have to borrow some.”

  “But why all that number?”

  “Don’t know,” he said again. “We were lucky over finding that tyre mark outside that side gate at the Hall. We might have a bit of luck like that here.”

  “You’ve discovered the car that brought Brende here?” I said, and with a touch of indignation that he had not told me so.

  “Well, no,” he said mildly. “I was just giving that by way of illustration.”

  We were nearing the station or I might have told him a few things. Then he was doing more telephoning and I was feeling uncommonly hungry by the time we got away, for lunch-time was already past. But I was driving the car, which was that much nearer the Camp and a meal.

  “One thing you do know for a certainty,” I said to him. “The kidnapping was under the direction of someone who knew all about that cave beforehand. There’s the local touch, George.”

  “You can’t be sure,” he said.

  “Why all the Dismal Jimmy business?” I asked him. “You ought to be thunderingly well pleased with yourself. And why can’t you be sure the job wasn’t planned locally?”

  “This land’s all open,” he said. “Everyone knows the hills are riddled with caves. All anyone planning a kidnapping had to do was to survey the ground for a likely spot.”

  Specious, wasn’t it? There are times when I think that George’s mental light filter excludes everything likely to be informative to the very ones who ought to know, and for the reason that at the very last moment he can discard the filter and have a grand display of illumination and colour presided over by himself.

  “You’re a brain-picker,” I said. “You’re a user of talents. What you want round you, George, are strong silent men who sweat blood for the good of your cause and ask no questions.”

  He looked startled, as if he’d been suddenly savaged by his pet rabbit.

  “For instance,” I said, “what about Passenden? Where does he come in? Don’t tell me you were looking for him for two days to ask him to tell you the story of the Three Bears?”

  “Passenden!” he said, with all his old contempt. “Any fool knows where he comes in. Soon as the Colonel disappeared, Mrs. B. had a talk with him, didn’t she? She thought the Colonel had lost his memory and he’d be wandering back to the scenes of his childhood, so she asked Passenden to look for him.”

  “If you wait a moment while I repress a tear,” I said, “I’ll compose myself sufficiently to ask why you wanted to see Passenden. That yarn doesn’t fit.”

  “Oh, yes it does,” he said, and gave a little chuckle. “If he did make a discovery, I wanted to be Johnny-on-the-spot. Couldn’t have clues obscured, and so on.”

  But I wasn’t listening at that particular moment. He was still babbling on, but I remembered something, and it sent my fingers to my glasses.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, “and listen to this. The word Passenden. A common name, do you think?”

  “Well, not uncommon. You’d expect to find it in the telephone directory.”

  “Granted,” I told him. “But suppose you’re picking up the receiver and asking who’s speaking. The voice says, ‘Passenden speaking.’ Would you spot the name first time? Wouldn’t you ask to have it
repeated or spelt out?”

  He pursed his lips, then admitted grudgingly that perhaps I was right.

  “I’m damn sure I’m right,” I said. “One proof is the day when Passenden rang the Hall and Ledd took the message. Ledd’s used to taking messages and yet he told us that Major Passenham was on the phone.”

  “That’s right,” said Wharton, cocking a more attentive ear. “But what’s the moral?”

  “This,” I said. “Penelope Craye made a slip, though I don’t know why. When Passenden first called to see me I tried to get Brende for him, but Penelope answered.”

  “You told me all that,” he cut in. “She looked for Brende but he’d gone out.”

  “True,” I said. “But I told her that a Major Passenden wanted to speak to the Colonel. I didn’t give the name emphasis, or speak specially clearly. But she didn’t say, ‘Who?’ or ask me to repeat or spell. As soon as I’d said the name, she knew it, and therefore—though, mark you, she pretended ignorance of Passenden—she knew his name. Therefore he must have been expected.”

  “She’d seen that notice about Passenden in the paper,” he said. “He was a friend of the family and that’s why she knew he’d ultimately turn up at the Hall.”

  “Agreed,” I said patiently. “But Penelope and I weren’t exactly strangers. Here are some of the things I’d have expected her to say to me under those circumstances. ‘How is Major Passenden? We’ve been expecting him. The Colonel will be awfully sorry to have missed him. Do send him along to see us.’ That would have been normal conduct, so I claim. Everything she did was abnormal, according to your arguments.”

  “There may be something in it,” he admitted, and then we stopped talking, for I was driving through the town and the traffic needed watching. Then in less than no time we were at the Camp and he was taking over the wheel.

  “You’ll be in Dalebrink from now on?” I asked.

  “I very much doubt it,” he told me. “A spot of grub and I’m off back to Cumberforth. May be there a day or two.”

  He waved a hand and was off. I nodded cynically at the back of the car. If George still considered it necessary to be secretive, my withers would be unwrung. I had my own work at the Camp, and since no one could bar my entry at the Hall, I had my own sources of information if I felt so disposed.

  I was busy enough during what was left of the afternoon, but no sooner was tea over and time on my hands than I began thinking about things again, and in spite of my self-assurances that the case was Wharton’s affair from now on, and that if he didn’t want me to play in his yard, I wouldn’t be fretting. What I did think, as I laid aside the crossword at which I had been spasmodically working, was that it might be exceedingly gratifying to work out at least part of the case and put it to Wharton as beyond all question.

  I am not going to bore you with lengthy arguments or abstruse deductions. All I want to do is to sum up things briefly and, I hope, clearly, and see if you agree. And we start off with what seemed to me to be the clearest thing of all, that the killing of Penelope Craye was the central point of everything. In it would be found the master clues, and it was upon it that I might reasonably concentrate, since Wharton apparently was thinking otherwise. If then I could gather anything from what I had already seen and heard and from Wharton’s scanty hints, the following facts stood clear:

  (a) Brende had been kidnapped for obvious reasons.

  (b) Penelope Craye had been killed because she could not be kidnapped too. To use the same method would have been too dangerous.

  Why had she been killed? Because

  (a) Brende’s captors had gathered from him or otherwise that she knew things.

  (b) They had been unable to get anything from him at all, and hoped for better luck from her. Connected with both (a) and (b) is Brende’s note-book, which P.C. did have and which she burned.

  (c) She was a member of the gang and her mouth had to be shut once and for all. Also she would have served her purpose.

  Now it couldn’t be denied that the killing of Penelope Craye was an inside job. But all suspects, except Newton, had been removed. That, you will say, is all to the good. Didn’t Wharton boldly state that Newton was his key man, and that if he could be made to talk, then the case would be over in its entirety? I admit it. Wharton did. So far, therefore, so good. Newton killed Penelope Crave, at least if we follow the arguments to their logical conclusions.

  But when I had got so far, a personal knowledge of Wharton and his idiosyncrasies began to cut across things. If Wharton stated that Newton was the master mind, it was all the more reason why I should not believe him. In ordinary cases he was secretive, doling out information as a last resort. What then might I expect on a hush-hush case like this, where he had every reason to keep everything important from the faintest risk of disclosure? In other words, why had he told me something so conclusive, so staggering and so dangerous as that Newton was the man behind it all? What did he want? Why had he put the thought in my mind? One reason only could present itself to me. He wanted me—without committing himself—to hint to Newton that we were wise to him, and he hoped that Newton would then let something fall for which he—Wharton—had been waiting, and which he had not been able to obtain by his own methods.

  Very well, I told myself, I would call on Newton again. I would scheme to bring back the topic of the photostats, and I would pin him down. In fact, on the old principle of no time like the present, I would see Newton before dinner, and as soon as I’d planned the precise lines of attack.

  Mind you, there was something else of which I had not lost track. The killing of Penelope Craye might have been an entirely independent thing, or only remotely connected with the kidnapping of Colonel Brende. Bluntly, she might have been poisoned by Mrs. Brende for reasons already argued. If so, Newton was Wharton’s master mind only as far as concerned the kidnapping.

  I wanted to see young Craye, so I went to my office, and while I was waiting for him to come, I thought I’d find out if Newton was in. Ledd said he’d just gone out for a walk. That rather surprised me, as I’d never thought of Newton as taking open-air exercise, and it was decidedly salutary as showing how slovenly my thinking had recently been. It was also extremely lucky for me that Newton was out, for if I had gone to the Hall and tackled him along the lines which I had prepared, I should have made several additional kinds of a fool of myself.

  Craye came in and I asked if he wished to go to Penelope’s funeral, which was the following afternoon at the local cemetery. He said he ought to go, and he was grateful for the favour. He had heard from his aunt, who had sent him letters of condolence arising out of the announcement of the death. He also told me that the solicitors whom Penelope occasionally used in town, had no knowledge of a will. That, though we didn’t mention the fact, seemed to make him principal heir to whatever she had.

  “You still don’t feel like making a clean breast to your aunt?” I asked him.

  He said he didn’t. He’d rather move cautiously. He also wanted to know when he was coming up for judgment. I refused to commit myself. A considerable deal of anxiety would still do him no harm.

  Out he went. I stretched my legs and wondered if I should see Newton after dinner. Then the phone bell went. Passenden was asking if I were busy, and might he just pop in for a moment. He was going away in the morning, he added, as what struck me as an afterthought. I said I’d be glad to see him, and straightaway I was wondering how I could bring the conversation round to the subject of Sowdale, and the time he had spent there when he had led me to think he was in Scotland. What I particularly wanted to do was to test that absurd theory Wharton had put forward, about Passenden helping Mrs. Brende to find a husband who hadn’t been kidnapped after all, but had lost his memory.

  I couldn’t help wondering too, why it should be me in particular whom Passenden wanted to see, and, being a suspicious cove, I was soon having the idea that there must be something he was wishing to find out. Then all at once I realized how little I
really knew about him considering how closely he had been connected with what one might call the fringes of the case. He had turned up in Dalebrink at just the right moment, which was strange when you take into account those months of wandering through France and Spain and Portugal. He had been in the vicinity of the Hall on that Saturday night, and he had led us into thinking he was in Scotland when he was actually in the vicinity of the place where the kidnapped Brende had been found. No wonder, then, that I began to be more and more interested as the moment of his arrival drew near. What I actually was to hear from him was so amazing that if I had been given a hundred guesses I could never have come within a mile of it.

  Passenden was looking just the same. A bit more tanned, perhaps, and with much of the newness gone from that civilian suit, but as quiet in manner as ever and utterly unperturbed. As he was going away in the morning he had come to say good-bye and to thank me, so he said.

  “I don’t think there’s anything to thank me for,” I said. “And where’re you bound for this time?”

  “Oh, town,” he said. “Scotland’s none too good at this time of year.”

  “I suppose not,” I said, and passed my cigarette-case, and then flicked the lighter for him.

  “You’ve heard about poor old Brende?” he was suddenly asking.

  “Yes,” I said. “Wharton let me know, as I was interested. How did you get the news?”

  “Through Mrs. Brende,” he said unconcernedly. “They’re bringing him to the Hall to-morrow, I believe.”

  I gave a Whartonian grunt, and ventured the opinion that it had been a queer business all round.

  “Does your pal Wharton think so?” he said.