The Case of the Climbing Rat: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Charles was lying up there unconscious that morning, and it was decided to prolong that unconsciousness. Favre was, however, called in for safety and to bolster up the alibi still further. You led Gallois and myself to believe that Favre had come in the afternoon of Tuesday, though I admit you didn’t necessarily tell a lie. The word afternoon means many things, according to the time of year. If it is daylight, then it may mean early evening, and that’s when Favre did actually come—on the early evening of the Tuesday. At three o’clock on the afternoon of that Tuesday, Charles was allowed to recover consciousness, though he was led to believe it was three o’clock on the Wednesday. For the Wednesday then, from three o’clock till well after any time which would make any of you concerned in the death of Bariche, all three of you had a perfect alibi.”

  “But, M. Travers, this is nonsense! it was Wednesday. Charles knew it was Wednesday. He saw the Wednesday’s newspaper, and that would have been impossible on the Tuesday”

  The eyes of Travers opened wide. Now he knew why Gallois had gone into Charles’s room at midnight and asked about the newspaper.

  “But why prevaricate? Charles, it is true, was shown a newspaper,but he did not examine that newspaper, he was merely shown it—like this. But I say, and you know, that the things that were then supposed to happen on the Wednesday, really happened on the Tuesday—except one, Favre did come here when Charles was sent to sleep again. He’s an old man and careless perhaps, and he accepted all that he was told. He saw Charles lying under the influence of a sedative or drug, and he made no examination. Charles, as far as he was concerned, had not recovered consciousness, but to him it appeared that he was likely at any time to do so, and he was in no danger.

  “Charles then was kept sleeping till just before I arrived here with your brother on the Wednesday evening, I expect Jules telephoned you from Gevrol that we had just arrived there, and it would be safe to let Charles come round again. Charles woke up, feeling better after what he thought was a two-hour nap, but he had been sleeping or unconscious since the previous Tuesday afternoon.”

  He paused and tried to catch her eye, but always she was looking away across to the window. Her face seemed suddenly older and very tired, and her hands were limp in her lap.

  “Will you tell me what happened at the Villa Sablons?” he said.

  She shook her head quickly.

  “Perhaps it was this, then,” he went on. “Charles had told you on the Tuesday that Gallois must be met at Toulon. Someone had to go to Toulon then on the Wednesday, and it could not be Jules. Then Robert, who should have killed Bariche, was too ill with his malaria, and it was you who volunteered to kill Bariche. You insisted that you should be identified with this cause, as much as the others and up to the very hilt. You claimed the right, perhaps, on behalf of your dead sister. Your brothers knew you, and they trusted you. That Wednesday night. Robert was so proud of what you had done, that he boasted of you to me and Gallois, and of your bravery and your courage in a crisis.

  “What was arranged then was this, and I frankly confess I don’t know if Robert was well enough at the time to be told all of it. You rang Bariche and told him I don’t know what—except perhaps that you were an unknown admirer—while Jules gave a free ticket for the circus to the woman in the house. But then Robert was suddenly feeling better, and wished perhaps to kill Bariche after all, while you went to Toulon. But, as was pointed out, Bariche was now expecting a woman. To receive a man might make him slam the door in the caller’s face. Therefore it was you who went to the Villa Sablons to avenge your sister and brother. You left the Villa afterwards by the way Jules had mapped out for you, and, while you were there, it was Jules who watched Charles. Before you were back, Robert had left for Toulon in a hired car. As soon as you reached here from Carliens, you punctured your own car as arranged.”

  He touched her gently, and his look had an infinite pity.

  “All this is true? . . . For this moment, between you and me?”

  “Perhaps,” she said. She spoke so softly that he scarcely heard, and her smile was strangely calm. “And even if it were so, I still do not understand how you came to know.”

  “There were things you forgot,” he said, and almost with regret. “Charles insisted to myself and Gallois that when he first awoke it was unnaturally calm. That was what struck him—the peace of the little room up there. There was not even a mosquito that buzzed or a fly that stirred, it was so peaceful. But when he awoke again after what he thought was only a nap, it was not quiet. The air was full of the noise of animals going home from the fair. But, as I came to realize, if he had woke that Wednesday afternoon, he would still have heard the sound of people and animals. One cannot hold a great fair within four hundred metres of a house without hearing the noise of people and animals. Also he did hear the clock in the church tower, and that’s more than four hundred metres away.

  “Later there was something else, which perhaps does not matter. While he was unconscious, Charles dreamt that he was in the sea and always trying to reach the surface, and at last something seemed to break on his brain and there he was on the surface—in the bed. To me that doesn’t seem like an unconsciousness that was natural. It was as if he was drugged again and again—harmlessly, perhaps—just when he was on the point of waking up.”

  She had not heard the last words, for she had sprung to her feet and was flying to the porch. Robert Debran was about to draw his car in at the side lane, and she was calling.

  “Robert, quick! Get me something from the village.”

  He saw the doctor shrug his shoulders and back the car out again. What it was that she wanted he could not hear, but in a minute she was in the room.

  “Quick, m’sieu, I beg of you. In five minutes he will be back.”

  “There’s nothing else to say,” he told her. “Only this perhaps. You were alarmed that Wednesday night when you heard who Gallois was, but Robert reassured you. Nevertheless in the morning you set our breakfast table under this very window out there, while you were in this room listening, and dreading that something might be said by either of us to reveal that we had suspicions. Also you didn’t want us to go to Carliens where we should hear about the murder. You even kept the newspaper from us that morning. You wanted us to stay here, and the following morning when Charles went away with us, you wanted all of us to go right away to Mariette. Anywhere rather than Carliens.”

  As she sank down in the chair, he wondered for a moment if she were going to faint. But she was still smiling wanly, and shaking her head.

  “But if all this is true, why should you come here? Why did you not leave us to this M. Gallois?”

  He turned away.

  “I don’t know. It’s the hardest thing to explain to you. Perhaps I didn’t want you to lie to Gallois. I didn’t want the three of you to commit perjury and swear lies on behalf of each other. It was you above all I did not want to be guilty of that.”

  Her hand was timidly on his arm.

  “But if I killed Bariche, wouldn’t it be a small thing to lie—after that?”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps also I’m a fool. There are things that shame one and bring disgrace, and I might be the kind of fool who agreed with the killing of Bariche.”

  Her eyes suddenly narrowed and her whole body was taut.

  “If it were to be done again to-morrow, I would do it. The law had done nothing, and he was not fit to live.”

  There was silence for a long minute. Travers was thinking of that Wednesday evening, and all the anxieties that Robert must have been undergoing as he went to Toulon, and waited there, and came back. He could hear his voice that night when Gabrielle came to the porch. “Everything goes well?” “Yes,” she had told him serenely. “Everything goes well—very well.”

  A murderess, he was thinking, and the assassin of Bariche. And yet he did not know.

  To him she would always be something other than that. And then a sound was heard. His startled eyes met the calm ey
es of Gabrielle.

  “It is M. Gallois,” she said gently.

  “Remain here,” he told her quickly. “Let me see him first. Believe me when I say I will do all I can.”

  It was a hired car, or a police car from Furolles, for two men sat in the back, and to them Gallois was giving instructions. Travers stood impassively by, and it was not till one of the men made a move that be spoke.

  “One minute!”

  Gallois turned startledly, then slowly got out of the car.

  “Remain here,” he told the men, and as Travers moved off across the grass he was following him. On went Travers to the far side of the house till they were out of earshot.

  “You forgive me?” Travers said.

  But it was the face of Gallois that showed humiliation.

  “I should have known,” he said. “We are affinities, you and I, and what one thinks the other thinks also. And you came here to meet me?”

  “Yes,” said Travers. “And to hear the truth for myself.”

  Gallois nodded, and his lean face took on a seriousness.

  “Jules is arriving from Nice. The others are here?”

  “Robert is coming at any moment,” Travers said. “But Gabrielle, you won’t question her if she confesses? I’ve tortured her too much myself already.”

  Gallois nodded again.

  “My friend, it shall be as you ask. And you, you prefer to wait here?”

  “Yes,” said Travers. “But one moment. What will they do to her? Surely they can’t send her to the guillotine?”

  The smile of Gallois had in it a knowledge of the sorrows of all mankind.

  “Two years, perhaps. One year—who knows? There will be sympathies. Perhaps there will not even be one year. Who can tell?”

  A slow shake of the head and he was making for the door. Travers stood for a moment, glasses in his motionless hands. As he blinked in the glare of that hot noonday sun, he vaguely discerned at the already open door a something that would be Gabrielle. But he heard the voices, and it was hers that was the more calm.

  “It is you then, M. Gallois.”

  “Yes,” said Gallois gravely. “It is I.”

  And that was all. When Travers hooked the glasses on again the two were already in the house. What he was feeling he hardly knew, but there was a sense of intrusion on the tragedies of others, and something like a vague shame, and as the sound of the doctor’s car was heard, there was something that was also like fear, and on a sudden impulse he was turning away, and his hands once more went fumblingly to his glasses.

  THE END

  About The Author

  Christopher Bush was born Charlie Christmas Bush in Norfolk in 1885. His father was a farm labourer and his mother a milliner. In the early years of his childhood he lived with his aunt and uncle in London before returning to Norfolk aged seven, later winning a scholarship to Thetford Grammar School.

  As an adult, Bush worked as a schoolmaster for 27 years, pausing only to fight in World War One, until retiring aged 46 in 1931 to be a full-time novelist. His first novel featuring the eccentric Ludovic Travers was published in 1926, and was followed by 62 additional Travers mysteries. These are all to be republished by Dean Street Press.

  Christopher Bush fought again in World War Two, and was elected a member of the prestigious Detection Club. He died in 1973.

  By Christopher Bush

  and available from Dean Street Press

  The Plumley Inheritance

  The Perfect Murder Case

  Dead Man Twice

  Murder at Fenwold

  Dancing Death

  Dead Man’s Music

  Cut Throat

  The Case of the Unfortunate Village

  The Case of the April Fools

  The Case of the Three Strange Faces

  The Case of the 100% Alibis

  The Case of the Dead Shepherd

  The Case of the Chinese Gong

  The Case of the Monday Murders

  The Case of the Bonfire Body

  The Case of the Missing Minutes

  The Case of the Hanging Rope

  The Case of the Tudor Queen

  The Case of the Leaning Man

  The Case of the Green Felt Hat

  The Case of the Flying Donkey

  The Case of the Climbing Rat

  The Case of the Murdered Major

  The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel

  The Case of the Fighting Soldier

  The Case of the Magic Mirror

  The Case of the Running Mouse

  The Case of the Platinum Blonde

  The Case of the Corporal’s Leave

  The Case of the Missing Men

  Christopher Bush

  The Case of the Murdered Major

  The tea had brought a pleasant warmth and Travers snuggled down in bed. Once more he was busy with something that had vastly cheered him of late—A perfect scheme for the murder of Stirrop.

  There were difficulties from the first day the blustering and objectionable Major Stirrop set foot in the Prisoner-of-War camp. Captain Ludovic Travers, his adjutant, saw trouble—dire trouble—looming ever nearer. For there was something sinister about the camp, and there were strange happenings among the prisoners. One day, when Travers was making his count, there was one prisoner too many; the next the numbers tallied rightly—only to be wrong again within an hour or two.

  An escape plan is uncovered, and then Major Stirrop was murdered. And not only the Major—for another strange death is later brought to light. Travers will join forces once more with his old friend Superintendent George Wharton to get to the bottom of this mystery, one of Christopher Bush’s most intriguing and thrilling.

  The Case of the Murdered Major was originally published in 1941. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

  “Great is the gain to any tale when the author is able to provide a novel and interesting environment described with evident knowledge.” Guardian

  CHAPTER I

  TRAVERS ARRIVES

  Did you soldier in the last war? Do you regard yourself as conversant with the old army routine—its maligned quartermasters, its grim adjutants, its splenetic colonels, its ramrod sergeant-majors, its orderly-rooms, stores, drills, and a score of other things which are a part of memory? Suppose, for instance, that you—old-stager as only other people call you—were offered a job of work in this war. Would you jump at it like a shot and assume you could soon pick up the old threads, and in less than no time be an oiled, efficient cog in the dear old machine?

  If so, you might get something of a shock, which brings us to this story, and the experiences of Ludovic Travers.

  Perhaps you have met Ludovic Travers before. You recall his six-foot-two of lamp-post leanness, his huge horn-rims; his diffident, attractive smile, dislike of conventions, insatiable curiosity, eccentricities that never concealed good breeding, and the whole man permeated, as it were, with a likeableness that never lost a friend or made an enemy.

  In the Great War private influence managed to conceal queer eyesight, and Ludovic Travers became a full-blown private of infantry. As a sergeant in 1915 he won a Military Medal at Loos. Then he accepted a commission and 1917 found him a Company Commander in Egypt. Then dysentery knocked him over pretty badly, and when at last he left a convalescent camp he was offered the job of adjutant to a Prisoner of War Camp. There, until the end of the war, he stayed.

  It was not till the winter of 1919 that he came home, At the death of his father he came into a considerable sum of money, but his way of life remained the unobtrusive same, except perhaps that he liked to drive a ready good car. He wrote those well-known economic essays—pills of shrewdly informed innards with whimsical chocolate coating—and was recognised as a financial expert of some importance. Something in that line brought him into contact with Scotland Yard, and, both before and after his marriage with Bernice Haire he was one of those unofficial experts whom the Yard has always on tap. />
  But it needed no special prescience on the part of Travers to recognise long before it came that war was inevitable. Like millions more, he was unsettled by perpetual crises, moved to fierce indignations, and anxious to do something about it all. The call for ex-officers gave him his chance. He passed his medical—bat-eyes and all—and was esteemed fit for any home service. Then came the great day when he came back to the flat to find Bernice flourishing a letter.

  “Darling, they’ve offered you a job!”

  Travers hooked off his horn-rims and began polishing them—a trick of his when at a sudden loss or on the edge of discovery.

  “Who’s they?”

  “The War Office, darling!”

  Travers beamed fatuously, took the letter, and had a look at it. The look became one of reproof.

  “But, my dear it’s addressed to me and smothered all over with Secret and Confidential.”

  “That’s why I simply had to open it,” she told him disarmingly. And then, quickly, “What’s Qmr. stand for?”

  Travers read the document slowly through. What he was being offered was the appointment of Adjutant/Quartermaster at No. 54 Prisoner of War Camp, Shoreleigh. He was asked to state whether or not he would accept the appointment, and he was further confidentially informed of the method by which he would be apprised of the imminence of war and his orders to move.

  “What rank will you have, darling?”

  “Rank?” said Travers, and blinked. “Oh, yes—rank. Captain, of course. An Adjutant’s always a Captain, except when he’s a Major.” He gave a reminiscent smile. “Not a bad job when you come to think of it. What I was doing in the last show.”