The Case of the Fighting Soldier: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Damn queer?” the major said, and then to me: “That bomb you lost was actually fired?”

  “Of course it was,” I said. “It struck low and ricochetted off, which was why it didn’t happen to go off.”

  “I know,” he said, patient with my stupidity. “But if the bomb was discharged from the bombard, then the cartridge was exploded. Then what’s an unexploded cartridge doing here?”

  I could only gape a bit foolishly.

  “Lord knows,” I said lamely, and then in the same moment I knew where the sergeant had found it. The search of what had been Mortar’s room was over, and so was the search of Ferris’s. That unused cartridge had been found, therefore, under what had been the floor of Staff’s room. What it had been doing there was a question for Staff to answer—and to George Wharton.

  Chapter VIII

  If I hadn’t been right on top of George when he got out of his compartment, I should never have spotted him, so smart was his appearance. I don’t know why, but I had anticipated him in battle-dress, but there he was in a well-cut uniform and wearing a Sam Browne as dark and polished as a general’s. As I came smilingly up, I was still puzzled by some other difference in him, and then I saw that he had probably spent his hours in the train on curling back his walrus and making it into something of an old-time Guardee. But a bulge in the breast pocket showed that he was still carrying the antiquated spectacles.

  “Hal-lo! George,” I said. “What’s all this? Kidding yourself you’re a soldier?”

  He grunted. “I was soldiering, young fellow, when you were in your cradle.”

  “Then it must have been in the Boer War,” I said, and relieved him of one of his two handbags. Instead of a British warm he was carrying a fine serviceable waterproof, and his back had miraculously straightened.

  When we were in the rear of the comfortable saloon, and I had told the driver to take it easy on the way home, I had to swivel round for another good look at him.

  “Well, I must say you’re looking smart,” I told him.

  George actually smirked. “We old war-horses can prick our ears up,” he told me, and gave a sideways nod of approbation.

  He was wearing the three British war medals and a French one. I was so pleased at the general sight of him that I could only express it by trying to pull his leg.

  “What did they give you that Croix de Guerre for?”

  “Saving the wine ration,” he said, and chuckled.

  “Well, it’ll give you a point of approach to Feeder,” I told him.

  “Who’s Feeder?”

  “I’ll tell you,” I said, “and I’ll start at the beginning.”

  It had taken us three-quarters of an hour of fastish driving to reach the junction and I thought now that I should have an hour in which to give George a full story. I had also drawn the plan of the camp you will have found earlier in the book.

  “First of all,” I said, “I’d better tell you that no one in the camp except the Colonel and I and Ferris—you remember telling me about Ferris?—knows who you really are. You’ll be accepted as a War Office expert who’s inquiring into the explosion, and you’ll be also put down for the students’ benefit as a member of the staff. You’ll be put down, in fact, for at least one lecture.”

  He shot a look at me from under his shaggy eyebrows. “A lecture on Security,” I said. “Don’t tell me you’ve got the wind up?”

  “Wind up!” He snorted. “I can do that standing on my head.”

  “Then you’ll be highly popular,” I told him. “Still you needn’t go into training. Your effort’s down for very near the end of the Course—a kind of threat over the students’ heads—so you probably won’t have to strain your blood-pressure system after all.”

  Well, I went over each member of the staff, trying to impress each one on his mind so that at the general introduction he’d have each one firmly fixed. Naturally, I included Feeder. Then I gave my personal opinion of each as formed in the three weeks’ acquaintanceship. When he had thoroughly digested all that, I went through the first week’s rehearsal, and the gradual forming of two hostile camps within the staff.

  “You and I talked about that when we were having lunch that Friday,” I reminded him. “You remember—the day you proclaimed to the room that you were a democrat. But I wouldn’t like to say that the division in the school was of Regular and Not-so-Regular. That was behind it, perhaps, but there were other things that caused the split. The principal one was Mortar himself. If one man loudly proclaims to all and sundry—and with a damn-your-eyes attitude—that he belongs to one class, then you can expect the other class to take counter measures, even if those measures are passive.”

  “You’re a bit beyond me there,” George said. “You get on with what actually happened and I’ll do my own theorising.”

  So I came to the two so-called accidents and my meeting with Mortar and Ferris in the Greyhound. George knew a Mills bomb as well as most, but I had to explain the Northover in detail. Brende, I said, would show him the actual works, and would arrange for him to let off a round or two if he so wished. George was already wishing; I could almost hear the old war-horse pawing the ground.

  Then I came to the events of the Saturday—Mortar’s birthday. There was much frowning, and pursing of lips from George, and he made me go over everything twice, following various movements on the plan. Next he wanted details of the bombard, but again I preferred to say that Brende would show him more in five minutes than I could tell in thirty.

  “Brende won’t let you fire that weapon, though,” I had to add. “It’s a terrifically powerful thing. A twenty-pound bomb and nine pounds and more of high-explosive inside it. What you’ll have to do is wait till it’s fired at a demonstration.”

  He saw that all right and switched back to a quick memory test on what I’d already told him, and by that time we were about fifteen minutes from the camp.

  “Now we’ll get down to brass tacks,” he said, and held his pencil poised. “Have you got any ideas? Real ideas, mind you, not any goddam theorising.”

  I’ve told you about that perennial point of difference between us, and how George expects me to produce every time something that hits the nail clean on the head. If I do happen to get a clean hit, then he classes it under ideas. If I miss, then it’s a theory.

  “I’ve told you why I think Mortar was murdered,” I said. “You haven’t said if you agree or not.”

  “You don’t think I’m as big a fool as that?” he said, and leered roguishly. “I’ve got to justify being down here, haven’t I? And I mustn’t let you down? Very well, then. Let’s take it for granted he was murdered. What I’m asking you is, if you have any ideas about who did it.”

  “I know who didn’t do it,” I said. “It’s a very short list—myself and Ferris. I don’t like to add Feeder, because you never know. He may have had some private quarrel with Mortar which I never got to hear of, and we haven’t yet heard what sort of an alibi he’s got.”

  “It was only Feeder’s evidence that proved there weren’t any explosives in the room, wasn’t it? If Feeder was lying, then the whole thing takes on a different complexion.”

  “That’s a good point, George,” I admitted. “Break down Feeder’s evidence, and you may arrive at death through negligence instead of murder.”

  “I know all about that,” he said. “And who else couldn’t have done it?”

  “No one,” I told him. “Even the Colonel might have done it, if you want my answer to include the fantastic. But I don’t see why Compress should have done it, or Nurse Wilton.”

  George grunted prodigiously, made a note or two in his book, and then was at me again.

  “And who’s your favourite for the job?”

  “I haven’t any,” I said. “What’s more, I’m not going to have any. I’ve given you the facts and it’s up to you to do the theorising—and the suspect-eliminating. What’d the taxpayers buy you that beautiful uniform for?”

  “You a
lways will have your little joke,” he told me cajolingly. “Don’t tell me you haven’t a favourite for the job.”

  “What I will tell you, George,” I said, “is this. I’m too old a pet nowadays to be led round on a string. All I’ll repeat is that I saw Collect looking where that bomb was supposed to be, and after that the bomb couldn’t be found. I’ll repeat that I didn’t like Staff’s manner when I ran across him at the end of the hut there, and I thought it damnably queer that he didn’t put that anonymous note in his pocket. And it was queerer still that he should be out of real harm’s way when the bomb happened to go off. I’ll also repeat that Flick wasn’t where he should have been that night, and that Brende more than once gave Mortar a look as if it’d be a pleasure to blow him sky-high. And when that accident occurred with the Northover, it was Brende who got his fists on it and said he’d take it away—remove the evidence, if you like—and have a real good look.”

  “Now that’s the very kind of thing I wanted,” George said unctuously. “And this is Peakridge, is it?”

  He replaced his spectacles in their antiquated case and ran his eye over the little town as we went through it. The driver quickened pace and we overtook a couple of vehicles bringing students from the station.

  “A couple of minutes and we’ll be at the camp,” I said. “You’ll just have time to tell me if you’ve any ideas yourself. Not that I expect you to have any already.”

  That brought him out, as I’d hoped it would do. “And why shouldn’t I have ideas? What’ve you been talking away for the last hour for if it wasn’t to give me ideas?”

  “Splendid,” I said. “And what ideas have you got?”

  He hesitated for a moment, and I knew why. George likes climaxes. I told you he was a showman. Not a buffoon, mind you, for no man can so maintain the dignity of the Law when he is so minded. But he has a weakness for tricks. He likes the glare of the lights, the flourish of the hand, and the “Hey presto!” before he produces his rabbits from the hat. But now we were in sight of the camp and he had no time to work up to a climax.

  “Well, here’s something you’ve missed,” he told me grudgingly, and as if it were my fault that the car was slowing down. “Brende stopped Ferris from going into that burning room, didn’t he?”

  I nodded, wondering what was coming.

  “To stop him getting burnt to death?”

  “Obviously,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” he said, as the car came to a halt. Then his voice lowered. “Why shouldn’t it have been the other way round? Why shouldn’t there have been something in that hut Brende didn’t want Ferris to see?”

  The Colonel was waiting at his usual spot. George gave the walrus a final curl, and then the salute he gave the Colonel was as smart as a man could ever wish to see. The Colonel was undoubtedly impressed at once, and favourably. He was smiling quite genially as his hand went out.

  “How are you, Captain Wharton? Damn those fellows there! They make so much noise you can’t hear yourself speak.”

  He was referring to the contractor’s men, who seemed to be swarming like ants about the burnt-out centre of the staff quarters. George’s eyes were that way, too. Then Harness came up, and George seemed to recognise in him a kindred spirit, for he gave a grasp of the hand that made Harness wince.

  “We’re having tea in the Mess to-night,” the Colonel bellowed, and off we moved. There was a special batman, by the way, for George, who was being accommodated in a spare room in the hospital.

  Shorty was on duty and produced tea as soon as we entered. Collect, Staff, Flick, and Compress were already there, and I did the formal introductions. Neither George nor Ferris gave a flicker of recognition, but I doubt if he got far in his deductions, for George was already at the top of his form. He had a part to play and he was playing it for all he was worth; quietly, deferentially, urbanely. Flick I was watching with interest, and as something of a stranger, for it was two whole days since I had seen him other than at meals.

  We all sat chatting over our meal, with George playing the hardest part of all—that of listener. Collect must have seen something congenial in him, for he brought up a chair alongside George’s, and I could just hear them talking about experiences in the last war. Then, when the meal was over, George and I adjourned to the Colonel’s room, and George’s manner underwent a subtle change after he’d presented his credentials, so to speak. He considered, and rightly, that he’d given an exhibition of perfect discretion, and indeed of discipline. Now, in the Colonel’s private quarters, he was the representative of what he was accustomed to call the Big Bugs, or the Powers that Be. It was the Colonel’s turn to be deferential.

  “Would it be too much to ask, Superintendent—”

  Wharton held up a warning hand at once.

  “Never that word, sir. When I play a part I like to be the part. Captain Wharton, sir, to you, and everybody, and wherever we happen to be. A slip of the tongue has ruined many a good investigation. And now, sir, what was it you wanted to know?”

  “Well—er—just an idea of your plan of campaign, so to speak,” the Colonel said.

  Wharton bowed graciously. “And a very proper question, too. What I propose to do, sir, for at least a couple of days, is to go everywhere and say little. I hope to pop in at lectures and see the demonstrations, and even mix discreetly with the Home Guard. In other words, sir, I want to get this school into my skin. By that time the ideas ought to come of themselves, as they say. If not, then my name’s Robinson.”

  He had glanced at me when he talked about getting to be a part of the school itself, and I knew he was recalling an investigation at a camp of my own. But when we got outside and I was accompanying him to his room to see he had all he wanted, I had to do a little leg-pulling.

  “You’re putting up a great show, George,” I told him, and then while he was still purring: “And still clinging to the Maigret business?”

  Maigret was the only detective of fiction about whose quiet exploits George had frankly confessed he liked to read. And no wonder. Physically the two seemed the spit of each other, and each was a product of the same hard school and imbued with what I might call the depths of domesticity.

  “Maigret, my foot!” George snorted. “I was working that line and wearing out my flat feet long before Maigret was thought of. Maigret be damned!”

  “Right-ho, George,” I said. “We’ll consider him damned.”

  Then he was giving a grunt as the batman showed us into the room, and I believe it was a grunt of disappointment at finding nothing for complaint. It was certainly an airy, comfortable room, and far more like home than my own. He had even been provided with a portable typewriter, a lockable desk, and special lighting, and there was a hospital bathroom across the corridor outside the door.

  When we had both cleaned up we took a stroll round the camp, and there was plenty for George to see, what with the place swarming with the students of the new Course, and George’s various identifications of buildings he had seen only on my map. Then the salutes of the students got rather a nuisance and we sheered off in the direction of the ranges. There was a kind of natural entrance, where the crescent of the hills narrowed, and once inside there and round the corner, George got on top of a handy mound and had a good look about him.

  “The red flags still there, then?” was his first comment.

  “Yes,” I said. “The bomb was never officially found.”

  He nodded, then was giving a twisted grin which was meant to register a cynical distrust of other people’s infallibility.

  “I suppose you haven’t wondered just where we’d be if that original bomb should ever happen to be found?”

  “Thanks for the we, George,” I said. “But to tell the truth I hadn’t thought of any such thing. Losing twenty-pound bombs isn’t like losing collar studs.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “All the same, you’d look a pretty fool if it turned out that Mortar was killed by a different bomb altogether.”

 
“Good,” I said. “So you’re up to your old tricks already. When it’s a question of someone being a fool, it’s me. When there’s a job of work to be done, then it’s we. But get this into your head from the word go. My job here is as laid down by the War House. Anything I can do to help in my spare time—well, here I am, even if it’s to be something for you to sharpen your wits on. That’s all I promise.”

  “Never knew such a chap as you are to take offence,” he was grumbling at once. Then he glared. “What’re we hanging about here for? Where was it you saw that chap Collect when you thought he was looking for the bomb?”

  We set off that way, George grumbling at the going. Then I halted.

  “You can’t have it both ways, George. If that bomb’s still somewhere here, then we oughtn’t to go any farther.”

  “What’s the idea? Wind up?”

  “No,” I said airily. “Merely a respect for regulations.”

  But he didn’t go on by himself. All he said was—and in his best placatory manner—that there was no point in a couple of amateurs going over what the professionals had searched. So we turned towards the centre and I showed him the actual firing-points, and the scene of the queer affair of the Northover, and the very crater that had been made by the Mills that might have got Ferris. By then the first dusk was already in the sky, and when we were back at George’s room, it was time to smarten ourselves up for the first real event of a new course-dinner in the dining-hut. When I picked George up to take him there, I saw he had been doing some heavy and efficient work on his moustache again. What had been a walrus was now a first-class buffalo.

  “All set?” I said.

  He gave a last complacent smirk in the mirror, and was so annoyingly pleased with himself that I had to try to knock him off his perch.

  “Just one thing I ought to mention,” I said. “I may be your stooge in the business of investigations, but outside all that, don’t forget our relationships. You’re trying to be a soldier and I’m trying to help you.”