Hardcastle's Obsession

by Graham Ison

  The cab drove through the open gates of Sir Royston Naylor’s estate and wound its way up a long driveway until the house came into view.

  Kingsley Hall was an eighteenth-century parsonage set in generous grounds and had been built in 1790 by the Reverend Dr Barnard. The house, which looked out over rolling countryside, had a typical Georgian symmetry about it, its facade decorated, and to a certain extent spoiled, by baroque frills, as though a later owner had tried to lessen the severity of its design.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ The door was opened by a butler of forbidding countenance. He was dressed, as befitted his station, in tailcoat and striped trousers.

  ‘I’m Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division of the Metropolitan Police, and this is Detective Sergeant Marriott.’ The DDI, expecting the usual disdainful reaction that was common among such flunkeys, was surprised by the butler’s response.

  ‘Please come in, gentlemen. I’m afraid Sir Royston is in London, if that’s who you were hoping to see. But Her Ladyship’s here.’ The butler smiled and opened the door wide.

  ‘No, as a matter of fact it was you I wanted to speak to,’ said Hardcastle, aware that butlers tended to know more about what went on in a household than anyone else there.

  ‘Very well, sir. If you’d care to follow me, I dare say Her Ladyship wouldn’t object to my using the withdrawing room.’

  ‘No need for all that sort of fuss,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I’d find it more comfortable to have a chat in your pantry, if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘Of course, sir. If you’ll allow me to take your coats, gentlemen, I’ll show you the way. By the by, my name is Drake, sir. Edward Drake.’

  Waiting until the butler had deposited their hats, coats and umbrellas on the hall table, the two detectives followed him down the backstairs and into his private quarters.

  ‘You’ll have come direct from London, then, gentlemen,’ said Drake, once Hardcastle and Marriott were seated in his pantry.

  ‘Yes, we have.’

  ‘In that case, and on account of there being a bit of a nip in the air, I dare say you could do justice to a drop of Scotch.’ It was a somewhat untenable excuse; the weather had been mild all week, and today was no exception. Without waiting for a reply, Drake set out tumblers and dispensed substantial measures of Buchanan’s Royal Household whisky. ‘Five shillings and sixpence a bottle,’ he said. ‘Sir Royston insists on it and has it sent down especially from Messrs Harrods in Brompton Road. He’ll not drink anything else.’

  ‘Good for Sir Royston,’ said Hardcastle, taking a sip.

  ‘Well now, sir, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?’

  Hardcastle told Drake that he was investigating Annie Kelly’s murder, but gave him only as much detail as he needed to know. ‘I’ve spoken to Sir Royston,’ he continued, ‘and he assured me that he spent the weekend of the twenty-third to the twenty-fifth of last month down here.’

  Drake hesitated. ‘Well, sir, I—’

  ‘If you’re concerned about breaching a confidence, Mr Drake, I can assure you that Sir Royston is aware that I’ll be checking his story. In fact, he went further: he insisted upon it.’ That was not quite true, but Hardcastle was not above exaggerating when he thought the occasion demanded it. ‘Anyway, it’s something I have to do; my guv’nor is very particular that I tie up all the loose ends. It’s a nuisance, but there we are.’ He smiled and spread his hands. ‘I’m sure you know that when the boss wants something, you just get on and do it.’ As far as Hardcastle was concerned, though, it was nothing of the sort; the DDI was a stickler for conducting a thorough investigation, and had no need of a senior officer to tell him how to do it.

  ‘Ah, yes, I do understand that, sir.’ Drake appeared relieved by Hardcastle’s assurance, and took a sip of whisky. ‘Sir Royston was here from the Friday evening, sir. That’d be the twenty-second. He was driven down from London and arrived here in time for dinner with Lady Henrietta at nine.’

  ‘Lady Henrietta? Is she an earl’s daughter?’ As a senior A Division officer, Hardcastle was familiar with the correct manner of address for the titled, often a trap for the unwary.

  ‘No, sir. Being the wife of a knight she should rightly be known as Lady Naylor. What’s more, her name’s really Hilda, but Sir Royston always calls her Lady Henrietta, and insists that we refer to Her Ladyship in like manner. I know it’s not correct, of course. Any butler worth his salt would know that. But people don’t seem to worry about things like that any more. It must be something to do with the war.’ In common with many other people, the butler blamed almost everything on the war.

  ‘Lady Henrietta, indeed.’ Hardcastle scoffed at such disregard for correct form. ‘And Sir Royston remained here for the whole weekend, did he?’

  ‘Yes, sir, him and Lady Henrietta. He took a shooting party out on Saturday afternoon. Altogether they bagged twenty-four brace of grouse, and Sir Royston got ten brace of them himself. He’s a very good shot, is the guv’nor.’

  ‘I presume that the members of this shooting party were house guests, then.’

  ‘Yes, sir, four couples, all titled they were, but they left on the Sunday about mid-morning.’ Drake poured more whisky into the detectives’ glasses. ‘Surely you can’t think that Sir Royston had anything to do with this murder, can you, sir?’

  ‘Good heavens, no, Mr Drake,’ exclaimed Hardcastle confidently. ‘It’s what we in the police call a process of elimination. But he may have witnessed something of importance.’ The DDI had no intention of telling Drake the real reason for his suspicion of Naylor. He took out his pipe. ‘D’you mind?’ he asked, holding it aloft.

  ‘Of course not, sir.’ Drake reached across to a ledge and took down an ashtray that he placed in front of Hardcastle.

  ‘A good boss is he, this Sir Royston?’ asked Hardcastle casually, as he waved away pipe smoke.

  ‘One of the best, sir, and Lady Henrietta is an absolute peach, a lady in her own right if you take my meaning. More than I can say for some I’ve worked for, and I’ve been in service forty-four years all told.’

  ‘Sir Royston must be a busy man. Doesn’t get down here too often, I imagine.’

  ‘Oh, very busy, sir. He’s involved in making uniforms for the army. Not him personally, of course,’ Drake said with a smile. ‘It’s the company he owns. It takes up most of his time, and I sometimes wonder how he manages to get away for the occasional weekend break.’

  ‘But Lady Naylor stays here all the time, does she?’

  ‘Yes, she does. It’s the air raids, you see, sir. Between you and me, Her Ladyship’s of a nervous disposition, and . . . well, not to put too fine a point on it, she’s terrified of them there Zeppelins. I find that surprising really, because she’s only a young woman and not the wilting violet type at all. Odd really because she’s quite a fine horsewoman, and quite fearless when it comes to riding. You should see her riding to hounds. The stallion she rides is a proper handful.’

  ‘How old is she, then?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘Twenty-five, sir.’ Drake lowered his voice, even though there were only the three of them in the room, and the door was firmly closed. ‘She’s Sir Royston’s second wife; his first died of the consumption some four years back.’

  ‘Are there any children, Mr Drake?’

  ‘No, Mr Marriott. It’s one of Sir Royston’s great disappointments. And it’ll be a greater sadness if he gets the peerage that’s being spoken of in some circles. There’ll be no heir, you see, and the title would die out with Sir Royston, there not being any male relatives either.’

  ‘You seem well informed, Mr Drake,’ observed Marriott.

  Drake afforded himself a brief smile. ‘There’s not a great deal that gets past a butler, sir, and that’s a fact. And what one butler doesn’t know another will. The butlership profession’s a bit like a secret society.’

  There was a knock at the door, and a plump cheerful woman entered the room. ‘I w
as wondering if these gentlemen would like a bite to eat, Ted,’ she said, gazing at the two detectives with a quizzical expression on her face.

  ‘This is my wife Gladys, sir,’ said Drake. ‘She’s the cook general. There used to be a lot more staff here, but now there’s only the two of us, apart from Jesse Paxton who’s the general handyman. The three parlour maids are off nursing the wounded, the kitchen maid’s gone off to make shells, and both the footmen are serving, one in the navy, and the other in the Flying Corps. Not that it matters much, seeing as how there’s only Her Ladyship and ourselves to worry about most of the time. But I dare say you’d like some lunch, seeing that you’ve come all the way from London. These gentlemen are from the police up there, Glad,’ he added.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘Have them poachers been about again, then? Now there’s no permanent gamekeeper, they’re running riot, in a manner of speaking.’

  ‘Lunch would be most acceptable, Mrs Drake, thank you,’ said Hardcastle, addressing himself to the butler’s wife, ‘but we don’t want to put you to any trouble. And no, we’re not interested in poachers.’

  ‘It’s no trouble at all, sir. To tell the truth, Ted and I are always glad of a bit of company. It gets a touch lonely down here.’

  ‘You said that Sir Royston hosted a shooting party the weekend before last, Mr Drake,’ said Marriott.

  ‘That’s correct, Mr Marriott.’

  ‘Sir Royston must employ beaters and a gamekeeper, then.’

  ‘That he does, sir, but like Glad said they’re not what you’d call regular staff. They’re resident in the village, and come up here as and when they’re required. They’re farm people mostly, but, as I explained, things are different now there’s a war on.’

  Having been treated to a splendid lunch of roast lamb – Sir Royston had his own flock of sheep, Drake explained – Hardcastle and Marriott announced their departure.

  ‘Would it be possible for you to telephone for a taxi, Mr Drake?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘No need for that, sir,’ said the butler. ‘I’ll run you to the station in one of the estate cars.’

  The two detectives arrived at Waterloo at four o’clock, and Hardcastle engaged a taxi on the station forecourt. ‘Scotland Yard, cabbie,’ he said, and in an aside to Marriott, added, ‘Tell ’em Cannon Row and half the time you’ll finish up at Cannon Street in the City.’

  ‘So I believe, sir,’ said Marriott wearily.

  Once in his office, Hardcastle sat down, removed his spats and shoes, and began to massage his feet.

  ‘I think we’ve had enough walking about for one day, Marriott.’

  Marriott did not believe that he and the DDI had walked any more than usual, perhaps even less, but he kept his counsel. ‘Bit of a waste of time, wasn’t it, sir?’ he suggested. ‘Seems as though Sir Royston didn’t have anything to do with it.’

  ‘Not necessarily, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle, reaching across his desk for his pipe. ‘That Drake was a bit too obliging for my liking. In my experience butlers are usually hoity-toity and completely loyal to their masters. Frankly, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the minute Naylor left the nick last night he was on the telephone to Drake telling him what to say to us. For instance, Drake said that Naylor was there on the Friday night in time for dinner at nine, but Ruby Hoskins reckoned she saw Naylor talking to Annie Kelly at nine o’clock that night in Victoria. No, Marriott, it don’t hang together. What’s more, I think that Naylor told his butler to give us the soft-soap treatment.’

  ‘There’s not much we can do about that, is there, sir?’

  ‘Not for the moment, Marriott, but the bird might yet come home to roost,’ said Hardcastle mysteriously. ‘Sit yourself down, m’boy, and smoke if you want.’

  ‘Thank you, guv’nor.’ Recognizing that Hardcastle was about to embark on one of his informal little chats, Marriott lapsed into the more familiar form of address. He took out a packet of Gold Flake cigarettes and lit one.

  ‘You should take up a pipe, m’boy,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Those things you smoke won’t do you any good.’

  ‘I tried it once, guv’nor, but I couldn’t take to it.’ It was the reply that Marriott always gave to the question that Hardcastle invariably posed whenever he saw his sergeant smoking a cigarette.

  ‘I’ve had an idea, m’boy,’ said Hardcastle, as he replaced his shoes and spats.

  ‘You have, guv’nor?’ Marriott’s response was apprehensive. He knew that Hardcastle was prone to steering the investigation in an unrelated direction whenever an enquiry seemed to be stalling, and Marriott frequently had difficulty in following the reasoning behind the DDI’s proposed course of action. Nevertheless, his chief seemed to possess an unerring ability to get to the nub of the matter.

  ‘Have a word with Inspector Sankey at Rochester Row, Marriott. I seem to recall something about him having got an old soldier to identify them that was killed in that Washbourne Street bomb.’

  ‘How will he help, sir?’ Marriott reverted to formality, realizing that Hardcastle had done so.

  ‘He might’ve seen Naylor hanging about Washbourne Street on the Sunday night.’

  ‘You still fancy Naylor for this topping, then, sir.’ Marriott had believed Drake, the butler, when he had said that Sir Royston was at Kingsley Hall for the whole of the weekend in question. That apart, a few questions to the titled folk that Drake had said comprised the shooting party would confirm Naylor’s alibi. Marriott thought it unlikely that Hardcastle had overlooked interviewing the house guests, but he guessed that the DDI had assumed they would endorse Naylor’s claim that he had spent the weekend at his country estate.

  ‘You know me, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Sir Royston Naylor ain’t out of the woods yet.’

  ‘But his butler was adamant that—’

  ‘His butler is very keen to hang on to his job,’ said Hardcastle, ‘and he’ll say anything his master tells him to. Don’t forget that most of the people who worked at Kingsley Hall have been dismissed, or gone to the war. And the butler and his missus might be next. That Naylor is a hard-headed businessman, and he’d sack the Drakes without a second thought.’

  Marriott was now thoroughly confused. ‘But how will this old soldier help, sir? He won’t know what Naylor looks like.’

  ‘Exactly, Marriott. We’ll arrange for him to have a glim of Sir Royston. Fetch Wood in here.’

  A minute later, DS Wood stepped into the DDI’s office. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Sergeant Marriott will find out from Inspector Sankey at Rochester Row who this old soldier was who identified the dead from Washbourne Street, Wood. Tomorrow morning, I want you to take him up to the offices of Sir Royston Naylor at Vauxhall Bridge Road so he can get a look at him. Then he can tell us if he’s ever seen Naylor hanging around Washbourne Street, particularly on the night that Annie Kelly was topped.’

  Aware that Albert Jackson would no longer be living at Washbourne Street, Wood went straight to the Salvation Army refuge at Vandon Street off Buckingham Gate.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant, Mr Jackson is here,’ said a young lady attired in the Army’s uniform, complete with its distinctive poked bonnet. ‘I’ll get him for you.’

  ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Wood of Cannon Row police station, Mr Jackson,’ said Wood, when the old soldier appeared.

  ‘Oh, aye.’ Jackson took his pipe out of his mouth and nodded. ‘What’s the problem, then?’

  ‘I want you to meet me tomorrow morning in Vauxhall Bridge Road.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d like you to have a glim at a man who you might have seen hanging around Washbourne Street, Mr Jackson. It’s possible that he’s someone we’re particularly interested in.’

  ‘Right, guv’nor. What time?’

  ‘About quarter to ten.’

  On the Friday morning, Detective Sergeant Wood and ex-Sergeant Albert Jackson, formerly of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, waited on the same side of the road
as Naylor’s offices, but a yard or two down from the entrance.

  At exactly ten o’clock the entrepreneur’s Rolls Royce Silver Ghost drew into the kerb.

  ‘Have a stroll up there, Bert,’ said Wood, who by now had not only got to know Albert Jackson, but had heard his entire life story twice, ‘and get a good look at the toff who’s getting out of the Rolls.’

  ‘Right, guv’nor.’ Doing as Wood had instructed, Jackson hurried along the pavement and almost collided with Naylor as he alighted from his Rolls Royce. ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ he said, touching his cap. ‘The old eyesight’s not what it was, not after I got me Blighty one.’

  ‘Ah, one of our heroes,’ said Naylor, and glanced at Jackson’s empty sleeve. ‘I hope you know how much we appreciate your sacrifice.’ He seized Jackson’s left hand and shook it vigorously. Relinquishing his grasp, he took out his wallet and opened it. ‘There you are my man,’ he added magnanimously, and handed the old soldier one of the new type of pound notes that had been issued to replace sovereigns at the outbreak of the war. ‘A little something to help you on your way. And good luck to you, my man.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Jackson, touching his cap again. ‘Very kind of you, I’m sure, sir.’

  Naylor strode into his office building, and Albert Jackson walked down the road to rejoin DS Wood.

  ‘Well, Bert,’ said Wood, ‘I’ve got to hand it to you. You don’t only get a good look at the man, but you take a quid off him into the bargain.’

  Jackson grinned. ‘The army don’t only teach you how to kill people, guv’nor.’ he said. ‘You picks up a few other skills an’ all.’

  ‘But had you seen him before, Bert?’

  ‘No, guv’nor, never set eyes on him afore today.’

  ‘Well?’ Hardcastle broke off his conversation with Marriott, and looked up expectantly as Wood entered his office.

  ‘It was a washout, sir. Jackson swears he’s never seen Naylor before.’

  ‘Dammit!’ exclaimed Hardcastle. ‘Someone must’ve seen the bloody man hanging around there. All right, Wood, you can go.’