The Case of the Fighting Soldier: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “We’ll all get our wet days now,” I told him.

  Nothing else was said for a few moments, and then he was asking when Feeder was going to be buried.

  “On Monday,” I said. “Were you thinking of sending a wreath?” I shot a look at him. His eyes had narrowed and his gaze was intent on the fire.

  “No,” he said slowly. “I don’t think I’ll be a hypocrite. I still think he was a liar and a double-crosser.”

  “Well, he’s paid for it.”

  I shot another look at him, but his eyes were still intent on the fire. “Paid for it?” His lips curled. “He took the easiest way out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  His eyes swivelled at last round to mine. “What do you mean?”

  “This,” I said, watching him like a hawk. “This is in more than strict confidence, by the way. I’ve no authority to let out official secrets but I’m going to do so—this once. Suppose Feeder didn’t choose his own way out? Suppose he was murdered?”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Never more so,” I said, and found it hard to keep my eyes on his, so concentrated and intent was their glare on mine.

  “Any evidence?”

  “I oughtn’t to tell you this,” I said, “but I will. It’s beyond all doubt. The one who murdered him made several slips, and he didn’t allow for modern police methods.”

  “I see,” he said slowly, and his eyes were once more on the fire. “I suppose you haven’t any idea who did it?”

  “Wharton hasn’t, if that’s what you mean,” I said, and then I added something else, and somehow I couldn’t keep the words back. “That doesn’t mean I haven’t ideas myself.”

  I saw his body stiffen, and then his head slowly turned my way.

  “Who was it—Brende?”

  “No,” I said. “I think it was you.”

  “I!” He stared blankly. “You’re not serious?”

  “I’m afraid I am.”

  I suddenly went to the door and looked inside the bar. I even had a look outside both windows before I sat down. When I looked at Ferris again he was shaking his head.

  “That’s a pretty foul thing to say.”

  “Maybe,” I said curtly. “Feeder died a foul death.” He turned on me, spreading his palms with a gesture that was curiously Continental. “But why should I kill him?”

  “That remains to be proved—if you did kill him.”

  “Yes, but why this—this ridiculous charge against me?”

  “It isn’t a charge,” I pointed out. “It’s merely my own private suspicion. You told me, and you insisted that you were serious, that you’d get the one who did Mortar in. Can you blame me if I accept a statement that you’re capable of murder? Moreover, I think your life in Spain has definitely made things like killing and murder of very little account.”

  “Just a minute,” he broke in. “Is it fair to me to confuse my lectures, say, with my private life?”

  “You’re slurring the issue,” I said. “It wasn’t in a lecture that you said you’d get the one who got Mortar. You said it to me, and you meant it.”

  “I see,” he said and let out a breath. “Then you think that Feeder got Mortar, and I found it out, and then I got Feeder.”

  “That’s it,” I said. “That’s my private solution. I suppose it’s no use asking you if it’s a fact?”

  He sneered. “What’d be the good? You wouldn’t believe me, for one thing. And if I’d been such a fool as to have done it, I shouldn’t be a bigger fool and own up.”

  “Did you do it?” I asked quietly.

  His eyes were suddenly on mine again. “What would you do if I said yes?”

  “Tell Wharton—later. Give you two or three hours start to get away. I’d owe you that much.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “You needn’t worry, Major. I’m saying nothing and I’m not running away.” Then he was getting to his feet and making his way towards the door. “I will say this, Major—that I’m grateful to you. And you’ve given me a really good idea.”

  The door closed. I sat on for a minute or two, and what I was wondering was why his voice had shaken as he made that final statement. Was it from anger, or had it been due to some private emotion aroused by that idea which he claimed I had put into his head? Then I began to wonder what possible idea I could have given him, and as I made my way back to my room I was wondering and worrying about something else—whether or not to mention my indiscretions to Wharton. Finally, I decided to say nothing, for the information that had arisen out of that unauthorised talk with Ferris had been purely negative.

  But I did tell George of my latest theory, and it seemed to impress him. In fact, he admitted it was the most promising opening we had so far had. The problem was how to exploit the theory.

  “Well, that’s up to you,” I said. “If you want me to do anything, just let me know. Now I’ll leave you to do your telephoning.”

  He had plenty of other work to do too, he said, and he’d probably be in his room till dinner. Then, as I was going out, Harness came in to announce that owing to the rain and the need for men to change into dry clothes, the Advice Bureau would be closed for that evening. I promptly had a bath and a change myself, and then was at a loose end. It was still only five o’clock so I decided to go to the writing-room again and look through the weekly illustrateds. If I had not made that sudden resolution—and it needed a resolution to turn out in the pouring rain—I am confident to this day that we should never have known who killed Mortar and Feeder.

  Chapter XV

  I think you have gathered that Staff had put in a good session on the Times crossword that afternoon. He wasn’t what I might call a crossword Mrs. Battle, with the root of the matter in him, but very much of a dilettante. For one thing he hadn’t a pencil with a rubber at one end, and as he was also an optimist he would fill in clues without cross-checking. You can imagine, therefore, the condition in which he left an unfinished crossword, and the one that evening was a more horrible sight than most, and I made up my mind to give him a ticking off.

  As I laid The Times aside again I remembered that there was quite a good one in the Telegraph, and pretty furious I was when I found that Staff had mutilated that too. But when I had a look at one of the illustrateds, there was what looked like quite a good crossword, and unfouled by Staff, so I sharpened my pencil and settled down to its solution.

  You have probably long since gathered that my brain is of the crossword kind; that I know a very few things really well, for instance, and have a smattering of many more. Privately I have no respect for that kind of brain, though I would choose it every time for the fun it allows one to get out of life. As for the methods I employ in trying to solve a crossword, I expect they are the same as your own, which is to say that I read rapidly all the Acrosses and fill in any that are obviously correct, and then do the same with the Downs. After that, unless the puzzle is a snorter, its back is broken, and cross-checking does the rest.

  After that first complete run through, here then is the puzzle as so far filled in. Ignore stray letters at the sides, because they represent the ends of clues already filled in and which do not matter. What you see is the bottom right-hand corner only, and I append all the necessary clues.

  ACROSS

  22 This poet has nothing in him.

  28 No more than a second.

  31 An Irish lake.

  34 Fig out of sorts.

  DOWN

  20 Ordered appointments.

  23 Nothing this and no prize.

  24 Kosh dry, and get wheels.

  26 The entrants have little laundry.

  Now I ask you to follow my mental processes when I arrived at that bottom right-hand corner for the second look through.

  “No more than a second. The O at the end is the no more. I’ve got it—MOMENTO.”

  In it went and I tried 34 Across.

  “Fig out of sorts? Ends in Y. Fig? Of course, yes. SEEDY.”

  In i
t went, and then my eye caught something. If SEEDY were right, then 26 Down would have to end in NLS, and that seemed an impossible combination of 200 letters. Now the L was most certainly right, for it came from COROMANDEL (Coast) and the letters of that fitted everything else. The N was right, for I knew no Irish lake of five letters ending in H, except NEAGH.

  “Leave it,” I told myself, “and let’s get on. 20 Down ought to be easy. Ordered appointments. Order . . . command. That’s it—COMMANDS. Now 23 Down and what have I got? V—N—A—E. Nothing this and no prize. Nothing this. Nothing what? Simple VENTURE. Nothing venture nothing win.”

  Then I was saying, “Hallo, something wrong here. If the U’s right, then the A’s wrong. What about DROSHKY? Is that right? It must be. It’s an anagram, and that slang word kosh gives it away. Then what about the last clue, 26 Down? The entrants have little laundry.—M—NLS. Must be SM, surely. I’ve got it. SMALLS. Little laundry, and Little-go entrance exam. Then 11 Across was wrong L—U—H. But how silly of me! Trying to be clever. No special lake but just the Irish name for lake.”

  Thereupon I filled in LOUGH, and the corner was complete. I smiled to myself at the mistake I had made, and on reflection decided it was a reasonably natural mistake. Now if the setter had said simply Irish, I might have put in LOUGH, but he said an Irish, which made me think of a special lake and a proper noun.

  Then all at once I was lying back in my chair, and I was polishing my horn-rims. A curious idea had come to me, and on its heels another, and another. One more minute and I was hooking the glasses on again, and hoisting my long legs inwards. What had I better do? See Harness first and make sure, or see Wharton and both of us make sure? Another minute and I was making my way through the rain and the gathering dusk to Harness’s office.

  Five minutes later I walked, or rather bustled, unceremoniously into George’s room. He was writing, and he peered inquiringly over the tops of his antiquated spectacles.

  “I think I’ve got something, George,” I said. “Don’t look at me like that. I tell you I’ve really got something!”

  “No reason why you shouldn’t sit down, is there?”

  “Well, no,” I said, and took a seat. “But it’s this way, George. Did I ever tell you about Mortar’s original lecture and“

  “You mean about blowing up a house by a canal and wiping out the whole collection, enemy, inmates, and all? The thing Staff poked his nose in about?”

  “That’s it,” I said. “And here’s where I went wrong later. Mortar said he’d change the episode to something else in Mexico. But he didn’t say that at all—”

  “Here, what is this?” George cut in. “You’ve got me tied in knots. Start at the beginning—if there is one.”

  “This is what happened,” I said. “Mortar was in command of some irregulars who located an enemy headquarters. A night or so later on they came back with the explosives and blew up the house—a large private house, I’d imagine—to smithereens together with any civilians who happened to be in it. I thought it took place in Mexico, because when the Colonel asked Mortar to substitute something else for it in his lecture, what he said was: ‘I’ll put in something in Mexico.’ I wasn’t paying too much attention, but now I come to think back, what he said was: ‘I’ll put in something else, in Mexico.’ You see the difference?”

  Wharton nodded. “And where did the blowing up actually take place?”

  “In Ireland,” I said. “When he talked about a house by the lock, I thought it was l-o-c-k, because that was how he pronounced it. I imagined a canal lock therefore. What he should have done was to pronounce gutturally, then I should have known he was referring to a lough—l-o-u-g-h.”

  “I get you,” he said. “And was he in Ireland?”

  “Yes, with the Black and Tans. The job he’d have jumped at after the last war.”

  “Was Feeder with him?”

  “There are no records,” I said. “But he must have been with him. Mortar engaged Feeder immediately after the last war, and Feeder told me he was with him from then on. Feeder often used Irish turns of speech.”

  George shook his head at that. “Didn’t you tell me there were a lot of Irishmen in that International Brigade in Spain? Besides, all these adventurers like Mortar and Feeder and Ferris add all sorts of words to their vocabularies. Long after the last war was over our men used to say bon and napoo, and so on. When we were fitting out Mortar’s old room ready for the photographs, I heard Feeder addressing one of the Quartermaster’s men as amigo?”

  “We’re getting wide of the argument,” I said. “Waive all that and I’m still certain Feeder was in Ireland, and if so, there may be a motive for his killing Mortar. And something else I’ve discovered. I thought Flick was about thirty, but I’ve just found out he’s turned thirty-six. He was born in Eire, and here’s the address of his mother who’s still living there. What I’m getting at is that Flick was old enough to have fought in the troubles.”

  Wharton grunted, but it was his best sort of grunt.

  “And I’ll put something else to you,” I went on. “Mortar and Flick were friendly enough when we all got here first. Why shouldn’t the cooling off—it came during the very first week here—have been due to Flick’s putting two and two together about that lecture episode of Mortar’s? Their quarrel needn’t have been about Nurse Wilton at all.”

  “I’m beginning to get you,” Wharton said.

  “And to sum up, George, I’ll say this. We agreed that Feeder’s killing was something different. We’re looking for a different kind of killer from the one who did Mortar in. We want a cold-blooded killer, and one with a cold-blooded killer’s motive. We want him so badly that we can’t afford to miss a chance.”

  “I might do worse,” Wharton said, and frowned in thought.

  “Worse than what?”

  “Slip up to town and get an interview with the High Commissioner for Eire.”

  “It’d be worth trying,” I said. “It might even be worth your while to slip across to Dublin, or question the neighbours at Mrs. Flick’s home.”

  “Well, no time like the present,” he said. “You arrange for the car to be outside the dining-room. We’ll get our meal through early and then you can drive me to Peakridge to catch that eight o’clock. I’ll do a bit of packing and see the Colonel.

  At the door he gave me more instructions. “I shan’t say where I’m going. All the Colonel will know is that I’ve been recalled to town for a few hours. I don’t mind who knows that much. Perhaps it might make someone feel even more uneasy. And if I’m not back, you might take over the arrangements for Feeder’s funeral.”

  Well, we got to Peakridge in time for the train. In fact we had to walk up and down the blacked-out station to keep our circulation going till the train drew in.

  “I may have to arrange for any information about those registered packages to be sent here to you,” Wharton told me. “I might be all over the place the next day or two. And there’s something else you might do. It’s unorthodox and I don’t know if you’d care to take it on, but I think it might be a good idea to get this murderer as much on edge as we can. Have a little conference then, of everybody. Say I’m away following up a vital clue. If there’s anything in this Ireland business, then the murderer will guess where I am. Watch faces and form your own judgment.”

  “How much can I let out?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “You pretend to be ignorant. I’m the one who has all the suspicions. We’re dealing with a desperate man. I don’t want anything to happen to you—just yet.”

  I had to chuckle at that. George said it was no laughing matter, and added that if I cared to hint, very vaguely, of course, that someone might come forward with information and so avoid scandal, that might be all to the good too.

  “You use your own judgment,” he said as the train drew in. “I’ll get in touch with you if I can, but I can’t promise.”

  The whistle tooted and the train moved out.

  “Good lu
ck, George,” I called.

  The engine was puffing away and making the devil of a row, so that I couldn’t hear what he was hollering back.

  I gathered it was something about not letting the Colonel wash out that Security lecture.

  That night I spent the last half-hour before bed in my room instead of in the Mess, and I was feeling a something I had felt only once in my life. When as a foot-slogger sergeant I did something in the last war, for which they gave me a D.C.M., I was no more conscious of fear at the time than if I’d been reading La Vie in a dug-out. Things moved too quickly for fear, but afterwards, when I came introspectively to recall the various happenings, I was cold with fright and horror, and for months afterwards I would wince if I even heard the name of the place.

  Now I was cold with fear once more. George’s anxiety about my safety was the thing that set me off, and yet somehow I was not being afraid for myself. Most of us have sufficient vanity to dissociate ourselves from the hostility of others, and what gave me that cold fear was the realisation, and once more after the event, that a killer was loose in the camp, and almost certainly among those with whom I sat each day at the high table. That killer was more than cold-blooded, for there had been something diabolically cunning about the ruthless blotting out of Feeder. Now that killer would know that Wharton was away, and following up a promising clue. Would Wharton’s continued absence and silence fray the murderer’s nerves to snapping-point? Would there be another murder, to cover up the killing of Feeder?

  Laugh at me if you like, but that night I slept with my door locked, and I had my loaded automatic under my pillow. In the morning, when I had to rise to let my batman in, I felt no shame for either precaution, maybe because the rain was coming steadily down and it was a morning for depressions. At breakfast I regarded my fellows at the high table with a new interest, though with little profit, and every now and again I would be wondering where Wharton was at that precise moment.