The Case of the Fighting Soldier: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  My eyes bulged at that. I had mentioned Feeder only to find out what sort of a hand she might really be at remembering people.

  “There was someone from the school then who sent off a registered package,” I said, and looked triumphantly at George.

  “You look it up in the book, Miss,” Wharton said.

  “All I want is the address where that parcel went to. By the way, what sort of a parcel was it?”

  She couldn’t remember that, she said, and was frowning away. She rather thought it was a flat packet, but she had recognised Feeder as the very chatty sort, and as a customer was on his heels, she had been trying all the time to expedite matters and get rid of him.

  “Well, have a good look and try to refresh your memory,” Wharton said. “A smart young lady like you ought to be able to put two and two together.”

  She simpered a bit and began looking through the book. Wharton explained to the postmaster in confidence that that particular man happened to be a deserter and he was anxious to lay his hands on him. The address to which the package was sent might be the one where the deserter was now hiding.

  A quarter of an hour later the assistant had given it up. There were no fewer than twenty-seven registrations recorded, and for the life of her she couldn’t find a thing to make her recall which of them had been Feeder’s.

  “Rather a lot of registrations?” Wharton said.

  “Oh, no,” the postmaster told him. “It was market day for one thing and we always get a lot of extra business then. Also people go in for registration much more these days. Posts are a bit irregular, and then there were the blitzes. What they think is that things will be quicker and safer if registered.”

  There was nothing for it but to take a complete list of addresses to which letters and packages had been sent, and copying them down took a goodish time. Wharton was in far too bad a humour when we came out. It was only with difficulty that I could induce him to have tea. I was dying for a cup.

  “You ought to be bursting with excitement, George,” I said. “Two strokes of luck in one afternoon.”

  “Luck, my foot!” he said, and brandished the list under my nose, to the vast astonishment of the waitress. “Addresses from John o’ Groat’s to Land’s End. Best part of a week before I can get them all inquired into.” Then he found another grievance.

  “And it’ll take me most of to-night to do the telephoning.”

  “It’ll be worth it if we get our hands on Feeder,” I said. “And there may be more to it than that, George. Feeder’s package may have been Ferris’s stamps. I told you Ferris made a kind of pet of him and I’ll bet he showed him the stamps. A keen collector would be anxious to show anybody his stamps. And you know what scroungers and thieves old soldiers are. When Feeder knew those stamps were worth hundreds, he simply waited for a chance to lift them. And he posted them here instead of at the camp.”

  “You and your theories,” he said. “Far more likely he’d scrounged something else out of the Quartermaster’s stores and was sending it off to a pal.”

  Inside me I was sufficiently gratified to let George enjoy his pessimisms, even if he was failing to enjoy his tea. When the plate of toast had gone he was ignoring the cakes and wiping his moustache with the usual voluminous sweeps of his handkerchief as he got to his feet. I paid the bill and followed him down to the car, and then I was beginning to wonder. In a minute or two I thought I knew. George was far too irritable for that irritation to be genuine. George had discovered something then, and the irritation was a mask to conceal some intense gratification.

  However, I didn’t give the knowledge away, even when he tried some of the old camouflage on the way back. “All that telephoning,” he said, “and just when I wanted an hour or so to myself to-night.”

  “Something special on?” I ventured.

  “I’ve got to have a little leisure sometime, haven’t I?”

  “Of course,” I said, and with what I hoped was suavity. “The Maigret business and all that.”

  He shot a look at me. “What about that lecture of mine? I don’t want to get on that platform looking like a fool, do I?”

  “Not if it can be avoided,” I said. “But if you like I’ll lend you a hand with your lecture.”

  “You!” he said. “A lot you know about Security. You can’t even drive this damn’ car. Nearly had us in the ditch then.”

  “That’s because I can’t help listening to your cheerful prattle, George,” I said, and after that he was stonily silent till we were home.

  “Oh, yes,” I thought to myself. “George is certainly on good terms with himself. He’s got hold of something, and it’s something big.”

  But for the life of me, even after I’d racked my brains in the Mess, with and without some moist assistance, I couldn’t be sure quite just what it was. Still, I ought to tell you that I had inklings.

  In spite of all that telephoning George found time that night to attend the cinema. I didn’t get a chance to collar him, for he disappeared before the end of the show, but I couldn’t help wondering if he had been doing the Maigret business with Flick.

  In the morning I woke up all excitement, for it was the day when there was to be that aerial co-operation for the first time, and it looked like being an uncommonly exciting demonstration. I called on George before breakfast and found him much his usual self, though a shade too genial for that early hour. He wanted to know, for instance, if I’d slept well, and he admitted he was intending to take a look at the dive-bombing.

  After breakfast there was a call from the Yard. The preliminary investigation of Mortar’s remains had been completed, and there was no doubt that the line of the explosion had been against his back. I won’t go into all the gruesome details, but analysis of fibres and so on showed that the bomb had gone off very close to his bowels, and the explosive was that used in the Blacker bomb.

  “That rather kyboshes things, doesn’t it?” I said to George when we’d got back to his room. “It looks to me as if he had that bomb on the floor and was lying on his side examining it. He’d have been too tottery standing on his feet.”

  I had to lie down and show him just what I meant. George shook his head, though not at disapproval of my efforts. “That doesn’t alter the fact that the bomb might have been wired for detonation by electrical contact. It might have happened to go off just when he lugged it out.”

  “But he must have seen the wiring,” I said.

  “Maybe he hadn’t time. He got on his side to lug it out from where he’d hidden it and just at that moment someone pressed down the plunger and up it went.”

  “Then you accept Feeder’s evidence that Mortar did have the bomb concealed in his room?”

  He was far too dexterous to admit that. “What’s the use of theorising?” he told me. “I don’t accept anything, but I’ve got to look at everything, haven’t I? What time does this bombing begin?”

  I said it was at ten-thirty hours, and didn’t add that he might have seen for himself the notices on all the boards. Then he said he had a job or two to do but if I’d call round at ten hours twenty or so, he’d be ready.

  Long before that we heard the two big bombers doing their preliminary zooming in the sky. I and George got on a knoll near the ranges, and I had my field-glasses.

  “What are those fellows doing?” he asked.

  He was referring to a line of men moving slowly along the scrub in the distance, and I remembered that the Sappers had come that morning to make a final search for the missing Blacker bomb. Then we turned our eyes the other way, for the dive-bombing was beginning. All over the camp and the ranges men were in prepared positions. Some would be putting to the test the lessons on anti-aircraft attacks with machine and sub-machine guns, and practising rapid and accurate sighting. Some of the posts and pits were for aerial testing of camouflage, and I did my best to wish that Collect’s hectic labours would not be reported on too badly by the close scrutiny from the air to which they would be subjected. />
  I said close scrutiny, and I meant it, for those planes zoomed down with a really terrifying noise and nearness that made one instinctively duck. One second there would be the roar and then up they would zoom and be out of range and almost earshot. Then they would circle low a mile or so back and down they would roar again from some new and unexpected angle, and more than once it seemed as if a wing must catch the top of a hut.

  “A great show this,” I hollered to George through the din. “And all free and gratis.”

  It certainly was a marvellous display of aerobatics, and there was more in it than that, especially when a bag of flour fell plump near one of the pits as an indication that its occupants had been well and truly bombed. There were shrieks of mirth as the umpires ordered the dead out of the pits, and the Home Guard were certainly enjoying their morning. So was George, and he even said he was sorry when it was all over. I was sorry, too, even if the bugle had long since gone for lunch.

  Collect was a bit fidgety during the meal, and no wonder, with the report on his camouflaging still to come in. Then towards the end of the meal an orderly came in and whispered to Harness, who at once left the room. In five minutes Harness was back and making signs to Wharton. The meal had just concluded, so I shamelessly followed George out.

  “Something in your line, I think, sir,” Harness was telling Wharton. “It’s the local police and the Air Station. I can’t quite make out what they’re getting at.”

  Wharton bustled across to Harness’s office, I at his heels. An orderly handed him the receiver. It was evidently the police who were now on the line, for Wharton was giving his credentials. Then came various Ah’s and Yes’s and Very Good’s, and at the end the assurance that he’d be there inside five minutes.

  “It is something for me,” he told Harness, and out we two went. “Get a car, and double quick,” he was then snapping at me.

  I collared the Colonel’s car and just had time to get a cap and my British warm. Wharton was already waiting when I took my seat at the wheel.

  “About a mile down the road, at that haystack,” he said.

  I shot the car off and was wanting to know just what was in the wind.

  “It was one of those aeroplanes,” he said. “When the pilot came down to ground-level he saw something lying on the ground on the far side of the road. Next time he came round he went right over to investigate. One of his crew said it was a man lying there, and in khaki, and as he hadn’t moved when he came round the next time, he thought he’d better report the matter at the Air Station. They got in touch with the local police.”

  I had been hurtling the car on and we were practically there. Another car with a constable at its side was there too, and he opened the field gate for us. Round the corner of the stack were two men in plain clothes, one of whom was the local detective-inspector. On the ground at their feet a man was sprawled, a revolver by his outstretched right hand. Even at a distance of yards I could see that the man was Feeder.

  Chapter XIII

  “You’re Superintendent Wharton, sir?” the plain-clothes Inspector asked.

  “That’s me,” Wharton said. He whipped out his credentials, flourished them and whipped them back again. “Anyone touched the gun?”

  “It’s just as we found it, sir.”

  Wharton circled round and had a look at the body. The shot had been fired apparently with direct contact of the muzzle and the right temple. Only a tiny trickle of blood had congealed along the jaw.

  “How long do you make him dead, sir?”

  “A couple of days at the least,” Wharton said, not looking up, for he was gently raising the head and looking at the ground beneath. Feeder had certainly chosen a soft bed, for the winds of the last few days had whirled loose hay that had settled like a carpet when night dews had damped it and held it down.

  “No signs of footprints?” Wharton asked, as he got to his feet.

  “We looked as we came in,” the Inspector said. “Too much hay about and the ground’s too hard, sir.”

  Wharton took a series of photographs, then had the position of the body marked by pegs cut from some old thatching stakes. Then he made some measurements, and was asking us to lend a hand to move the body just round the stack corner out of the wind.

  “Looks like plain suicide, sir,” the Inspector ventured, as we laid the body down.

  “Yes,” Wharton said. “Everything looks fair and square to me. I knew him at the school. Got himself into a bit of trouble and took his own way out. That’s what it looks like to me. Name of Feeder, by the way. Let’s have a look at his pockets. Got any gloves?”

  The Inspector—luckily for him, I couldn’t help thinking—had his gloves, and in less than a minute Feeder’s pockets had been emptied. Four pounds three shillings, a stout pocket-knife, two keys, a very dirty khaki pocket-handkerchief, and ration book and identity card were all that were found on him.

  “Christian name Albert,” Wharton said, and grunted. “Ration book issued at Enfield.”

  He copied down the identity number, had another look at Feeder’s body, then said he thought that would be about all.

  “You get him along to your mortuary,” he told the Inspector. “Have your doctor extract the bullet, and test the gun for prints. Must make sure they were his own. I’ll be along in about an hour. And you’d better have a photographer standing by. And one last thing,” he said, and tapped his skull. “Keep everything there. Not a word who this chap is or where he comes from. Spin any yarn you like so long as it’s not the truth. Got that?”

  The Inspector said he had, and no wonder, for Wharton was glaring at him from under his shaggy eyebrows.

  “That’s all right then,” Wharton said, and relaxed. “Lucky for us that someone like you was here. In an hour’s time, then, at the station.”

  “Back to camp?” I asked George, as we came through the field gate again.

  “That’s it,” he said. “And don’t move this hell-wagon quite so fast this time. Better draw in on the right when we get there. I want to take over his kit and stuff.”

  Ten minutes later we had all Feeder’s belongings in Wharton’s room and were going through them. The tin trunk—an old one he had probably taken over from Mortar—was principally filled with souvenirs of various campaigns, and they ranged from a perfectly lovely lace mantilla to Moroccan necklace rosaries of the usual thirty-three beads. Of what one might call personal papers there were none, though there were photographs of women and studies in the nude, and one or two neatly folded copies of Spanish newspapers. There was a very fine mouth-organ and a jews’ harp, some articles of civilian clothing, and the whole was held down by a spare pair of battle-dress trousers and quite a lot of underclothes of the official issue type.

  “Evidently travelled with all his belongings,” George said. “Probably hasn’t got any relations or he’d have given away that mantilla. More than the official issue of underclothes, aren’t there?”

  I said undoubtedly there were, and George said he’d probably scrounged them from the stores, and that was why the trunk had been locked and padlock attachment used as well.

  “A chap with his nocturnal experience and so on could scrounge anything,” he said. “But no spare ammunition. Where’d he scrounge that gun from that he did himself in with?”

  “What was it?” I said. “I didn’t see it any too clearly.”

  “An old-type Webley .450. 1916, in fact. Six in the breech and one fired. I’ve also got the gun number. What we’ll do is get a question put at dinner to-night, if anyone’s recently lost a Webley.”

  “Tell me honestly, George,” I said. “Do you really think it was suicide?”

  The answer was coming pat and then he changed his mind. “I’ll put all my cards on the table,” he said. “You believe in hunches, don’t you?”

  “I’d follow one every time,” I told him.

  “Well, all I’ve got against suicide is a hunch. I said as much to you days ago, didn’t I? ‘What I reckon
is, we’ll never clap eyes on Feeder again,” that’s what I said, didn’t I?”

  “In substance,” I said.

  “There we are then. Something told me there was a hell of a lot of jiggery-pokery about Feeder’s bolting out of the camp, and I think I can tell you why. I’m working here and it’s all underground work. Nobody knows what’s being done. I’ve never announced a thing publicly or let out a hint. I wanted this inquiry to get on somebody’s nerves—the somebody who was responsible for me coming down here. Now do you see it? If anybody was likely to know all about Mortar, and likely to give me a tip, it was Feeder. What I must have been telling myself was that someone had the wind up about Feeder. Someone really thought that Feeder might have put us on the right track, and so Feeder had to be removed. That’s one side of the question. That’s why I’d hate to think it was suicide.”

  “And the other side is that everything points to suicide.”

  “That’s it,” he said. “He was fretting about Mortar and, according to Brende, he’d told us lies. Then Brende, like an officious fool, told him he’d be for the high jump. Every reason why Feeder should bolt, and at once, before Brende could take action. Also the bullet went to the right spot and everything looked perfectly natural.”

  “Feeder didn’t act as if he were contemplating suicide when I saw him last,” I said. “He seemed quite delighted to be doing a job of work as my batman. He was as cheerful as I’d ever seen him.”