The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  But that was of comparative unimportance. Maddon was what mattered. He lay on the wood floor with his head against the swivel chair, and a hole had been neatly plugged through his right temple. I judged the bullet to have been a small calibre one, for the hole was neat and there had been little bleeding—only a trickle of blood along the nose. As for the range at which the shot had been fired, I judged it to be a couple of foot or just less. On the one hand the shot had been remarkably close end on the other there were no flash marks on hair or beard. He was fully dressed except for collar and tie, and slippers for shoes, and he had not shaved.

  I straightened myself, for my head was swimming again, and as I did so it dawned on me that somebody might come —a tradesman for instance—and find me there, so it might be as well if I had a couple of bolt-holes. So I undid the front door. It had a Yale lock, so I put on the catch and left the door virtually unfastened. Behind me, in the narrow passage into which the door opened, was a flight of stairs. Outside, the rain was now coming down in sheets and as I moved back for another look at Maddon there was a terrific clap of thunder and then a lightning flash that lit up the room.

  But in spite of the storm there was plenty of light for me to see all I wanted. First I moved Maddon’s head with my gloved hand and had a close look at him. The full lips seemed set in a sneer, and at close quarters he looked altogether a far less presentable specimen than the man I had met on his walk that previous night. In death his face was decidedly unpleasant. Then, as I let the head droop again I thought of something. “This night shall thy soul be required of thee.” Well, if Pyramid Porle had done the shooting, there’d be plenty of time to rope him in.

  Next, I gently insinuated my hand into his breast pocket, and with two fingers drew out a wallet. I didn’t count the notes that were in it, but I guessed there was best part of a hundred pounds in the wad. There were about a dozen visiting cards—Herbert S. Maddon, Five Oaks, Cleavesham, Porthaven, Sussex—and two or three receipts, and that was all, so I pushed the wallet back and then had a quick look out of a window. But in that downpour I knew that nobody would be coming, so I turned back to the room again.

  Once more I sniffed the scent that lingered on the chair. It was subtle, as I said, and very attractive, but I couldn’t even begin to give it a name, for my knowledge of scent is limited to buying, as a present, a bottle of Coty or Houbigant. But I did have an idea about the woman who had been there. If it were she who had shot Maddon, and the small calibre of the gun was some added evidence, then she couldn’t have gone out by the front door, for it had been bolted as well as locked. It was she, then, who had left the back door ajar when she had hurried away, and if so, then there might be the print of a heel where the bricks by the back door ended and the earth path began.

  I had a look at once. Luckily the rain was not coming down so fast, but I don’t think it would have deterred me if it had been a cloud-burst, for as soon as I was across the bricks I saw the deep print of the heel of a woman’s shoe. Beyond it was a second, rather more faint, and then a third which was only just visible. That discovery was lucky, for I might have spun the yarn that it was the front door by which I had entered the house.

  I didn’t mind then about the damp marks that my feet left on the kitchen floor. The other room didn’t matter either, for it was practically covered with a green cord carpet. But there was still plenty to see in that room. The side-table, for instance, that stood well within reach of the scented chair. On it was an ash-tray in which were stubs of cigarettes and dead matches. With a match-end I gently stirred them. Five of the stubs were of Players cigarettes and three were a far more expensive kind with filter tips, and on each of them was lipstick.

  You may wonder why I was having the nerve to make that extensive survey instead of ringing up the police, and I think the reason was the dead man himself: the fact that he was someone who had intrigued Wharton, and that Wharton would want to know all I could tell him about his death. For when the police did arrive there would be little chance of my making an inspection such as was being presented to me now, and the last use I intended making of Wharton’s letter of introduction to Chevalle was to thrust my nose into what would be Chevalle’s business. Everything I knew should certainly be placed at Chevalle’s disposal—or wouldn’t it? That, I was telling myself, would have to depend.

  But things were already fairly clear. The lady had knocked at the front door and Maddon had admitted her. The two had talked and smoked. He had sat on that other easy chair and later had gone to his desk to write or fetch something. Then she had shot him. Next she had ransacked the desk. There wasn’t a doubt of that, and she had done it hurriedly; so hurriedly that not a single drawer had been properly closed and papers that had been looked through had not been put back. Also it seemed to me that if she had done the job so thoroughly, then there was no point in my searching the desk or looking through the papers.

  I had another quick look through the window and then did some more thinking. Where did Porle come into all this? Had he been watching the house and was it he who had done the shooting after he had seen the lady leave? To that, as you will see, there was one clear objection. If the lady had not done the shooting or ransacked the drawers, then Maddon would have let her out by the front door. As it was, she had bolted through the back door and it was perfectly obvious why. From the front door and its brick path to the front gate the country lay open and she might have been seen, even from the back road, but once she was out by the back, then the woods concealed her.

  Perhaps it was thinking about the lady that made me have another look at the chair. As I did so the sun came peering in and it glinted on something. It was a hair, a long, golden hair. Then I saw another, where the head had rested, and I had a sudden idea. On the desk were 32 scattered envelopes. In one of them I put a hair and then added one of the lip-sticked cigarette-ends. Maybe there would be a print, and if so Wharton would get it developed for me.

  I glanced at my watch and judged that I had been in the house no more than a quarter of an hour. Plenty of time, then, to ring the police, and no doctor was needed for Maddon. He was deader than mutton and a quarter of an hour either way would make no difference to the doctor’s opinion as to time of death. So I had a quick look round the room and found little of importance. On the mantelpiece, behind an ornament, was a packet of Players with two cigarettes remaining. In the grate was a tiny pile of ash, but not of a coal or wood fire. The weather had been too sultry for that, and as I gently stirred the ash I saw a piece of dirty white and knew that Maddon had burnt that notice which Pyramid Porle had affixed so brazenly to the back door. The only other thing I noticed was the telephone, standing on the desk top and almost concealed by a couple of old newspapers. Perhaps, I thought, I had better ring the Porthaven police.

  But first I took a precautionary look out and it was phenomenally lucky for me that I did so. For just entering the front gate was a man. His back was to me as he shut the gate and he was carrying an umbrella and wearing a waterproof. It didn’t strike me for a moment that I, a stranger in Cleavesham, might know him. All I had was a hunch that the sooner I was out of the back door, the better for me. So I grabbed my stick and in a flash was in the kitchen. Then as I lifted the wooden snack I saw two things. Below the snack was a hole through which I could have put a couple of fingers and it gave a clear view of the room. Lower down the door was a bolt, and that I pressed quietly home.

  I heard steps before the front door and only a few moments later did it strike me that it was curious that there was no knock. But the caller must have opened the door, for I heard him calling as soon as the steps had ceased:

  “Maddon! Are you there?”

  He listened for only a moment or two and then I heard the handle of the living-room door. A man looked in.

  Why I hadn’t bolted out by the back I never shall know, but I was glad afterwards that I’d stayed where I was, eye at the hole. For the man was Bernard Temple.

  His eyes fell
on Maddon, and never did a man look more startled. He drew back a pace towards the door, then gave a cautious look round and stood intently listening. Then he shook his head as if he knew there could be no one in the house, and next he took a step forward. He leaned over and very gingerly his fingers touched the dead man’s face. Then he drew himself up and across his face there flashed a look of the intensest satisfaction. It wasn’t gloating; just a nod to himself and a sort of congratulatory smile.

  Then he thought of something, for his eyes opened wide. His head went sideways and I guessed his breath was held as he listened. Then his hands were busy at the dead man’s pockets. Even from my grand-stand I couldn’t see all I would have liked, for by bad luck he had his back to me as he knelt. But I knew he was examining this and that, and everything seemed to be replaced. Then out came the wallet and by chance he turned sideways. Into his pocket went most of the wad of notes, and then he was examining the rest of its contents. The wallet was replaced and he was motionless for a good minute, shaking his head now and again as if in a dilemma.

  Then he made up his mind. He had a quick look through the window and then went out by the side door. I heard the click of the bolt and at once he was back again, and feverishly searching that already ransacked desk. It was strange, I thought, that it didn’t occur to him that the desk had been gone through, but maybe his wits were a bit muddled after the shock of finding Maddon dead. But whatever he was looking for he didn’t find, for he was scowling and shaking his head as if he was now in the devil of a mess. Then he did something that made me stare, for he scowled down at Maddon and then suddenly swung his leg and kicked him viciously in the ribs.

  I knew that the time had come for me to tiptoe out of that door behind me, but so personal was the drama beneath my eyes that I stayed on till it might be too late. But Temple was now standing in thought again, fingers nervously at his beard. A few moments and he fairly darted to the window. He nodded to himself as if reassured, and then there happened the strangest thing of all. He took a step towards me and straightened himself. Up went his head as if he were assuming some deliberate pose and then out of his mouth came the queerest squeak!

  He squeaked again, then the noise became words.

  “This is Miss Smith speaking. Yes, I’m a stranger here.”

  Then I tumbled to what he was doing, and my guess was confirmed. He nodded to himself and then his hand went out towards the telephone. Then it went back and he produced a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, wrapped it round the receiver and then did some dialling.

  “Cleavesham two two nine,” he said, in that high-pitched feminine voice. “I want the Porthaven police station. . . . I don’t know the number. I’m a stranger here. . . . Yes, thank you.”

  His back was to me, for he was keeping a wary eye on the window and the front path. In under half a minute he had his number.

  “May I speak to the Chief Constable, please? . . . It’s a Miss Smith speaking, and it’s urgent. . . . Then I must talk to somebody else. . . . Oh, I see.”

  There his voice went back on him for the falsetto dropped too low. But he covered it by a spell of coughing.

  “I’m very sorry. My cough’s bad this morning.... What’s that? . . . Oh, I’m sorry. It’s about a murder. . . . Here. Five Oaks, they call it. . . . A man, he’s murdered. . . . Oh, no, it isn’t a joke. I wish it was. . . . I said I wished it was. . . . You’ll send someone at once? . . . I can’t promise that. I have a bus to catch. . . . Yes, it’s my aunt who’s very ill. . . . No, no, no . . . I can’t promise. Good-bye.”

  He hung up then and stood for a long minute, frowning away and nervously sucking at his lower lip. Then, before I was ready for him, he was on the move. A quick look round and he had gone. I heard the bolt click and then the slam of the door and at once I was through my own door and making for the window. I was in time to see him at the front gate. But he didn’t turn towards the village or the path by which I had come. A few yards to the left and he slipped into the chestnut undergrowth and was gone from sight. All I remember is one incongruity—when he drew the closed umbrella in after him.

  I let out a breath and then wondered what next. To Porthaven was just over two miles and the police would arrive in under ten minutes—if they’d really taken the message seriously, and they couldn’t afford to do less. And what about myself? Oughtn’t I to be making for the same undergrowth? And if I didn’t, then what was to be my yarn?

  Then it struck me that as far as I was concerned, not only was my position impregnable, but that if I disappeared I should miss quite a lot of interesting things. With Wharton’s letter in my pocket I could hardly be held as a suspect, though I very genuinely hated the idea of thrusting myself forward. But I did want to see the reactions of Chevalle and his men, and, above all, to the missing Miss Smith.

  And that makes a good moment to reveal a little more about myself, though maybe you have already guessed it. Even my wife says that at times I can be the most exasperating person in the world, for I seem to go deliberately out of my way to put people’s backs up. Perhaps I do, and because I love ironic situations and even creating them. And the matter of Miss Smith seemed very definitely such an irony. Could I not swear on a stack of Bibles that I’d never seen the lady? True I might have added the white lie that she must have gone before my arrival, but that wouldn’t make a pennorth of difference to the case. Later, of course, I’d reveal by a fake telephone call or anonymous letter just who Miss Smith had been. For the bearded Bernard wouldn’t bolt. Why should he? He could swear on the same stack of Bibles that he’d never been near the house.

  I suppose it was a kind of selfish cussedness that made me want to keep Bernard Temple—and Pyramid Porle for that matter—under my eye, if only for a few hours. After all, I’d discovered both of them and I alone knew that the two were linked not only with each other but also with the dead Maddon. What I wanted, then, was to find out what Porle had meant by trying to set me against Temple, especially as I now had grounds for believing that Porle’s description of him as dangerous and a consorter with rogues had more than personal dislike behind it. And yet I knew, the more I thought, that I wasn’t doing the right thing in keeping back or delaying information that ought to be at once in the hands of the police, so I made a bargain with myself. If the police asked, me about Miss Smith, then I’d naturally be ignorant. If, however, they asked me if I’d seen anyone at all, then I’d tell them about Temple. At the time that seemed to me a fair compromise. Now I look back at things I think I was playing a risky and a tricky game.

  But if I was to be ignorant of Miss Smith, then I had to ring Porthaven at once, otherwise I couldn’t explain my presence in the house and the fact that I was apparently waiting for the police arrival. So I looked up the number and then dialled. What I said you can guess. You can guess too the astonishment at the other end.

  “And you say there’s no woman there!” asked the station sergeant.

  “I’ve just told you so,” I said with a show of indignation.

  “Rum business to me,” he said, and I heard his grunt. “Give me your name and particulars, sir, will you?”

  I gave all I thought was necessary and then he told me that an Inspector Galley had already left for Cleavesham and ought to be there at any minute. I said I’d certainly wait, and that was that.

  As I hung up I caught sight of something. I had seen it at very close quarters before and had noticed nothing unusual, but this second look brought a question. That ash-tray with cigarette- and match-ends had very little ash. If all those cigarettes had been smoked, where had the ash gone? Each of the easy chairs by the table was surrounded by carpet, and a caller would surely not have flicked all the ash on that carpet, whatever Maddon himself had done. And when I got down on hands and knees and examined the carpet there was only the least suspicion of what might have been ash.

  Then, before I’d had time to think of an explanation, I heard the toot of a horn. A car was nosing its way along the short g
rass track that led through the wood from the road to near the front gate. Two men got out and the taller, so I guessed, was the Inspector, for he had a good look round while his subordinate waited. Then they came down the path and I met them at the front door.

  “Inspector Galley?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, and stared pretty hard. “And who are you?”

  I told him how I’d found the body and rung Porthaven after he’d left.

  “It was a Miss Smith who rang us,” he said. “Isn’t she here?”

  “Come and see for yourself,” I said, and stepped back.

  He had a look, at least in the one room. “You go right through the house, Bill,” he told his colleague. “I’ll stay here. And you haven’t seen any woman at all?” he asked me.

  “Never a woman.”

  “Then she got the wind up. Didn’t like staying with a corpse, perhaps.”

  He had a good look at the body, and when he got to his feet gave a sudden sniff.

  “Scent of some sort. Do you smell it?”

  I said it had been much stronger a few minutes before.

  “Believed in scenting herself up, that Miss Smith—if her name was Smith,” he said. Then he lifted the receiver and dialled. He told somebody it was all right and the doctor could come, and from the quality of his final O.K., I gathered that something had given him a special satisfaction. As he hung up, Bill—whose other name was Hope—came back. He’d been right over both floors, he said, and hadn’t seen a thing.

  “Now, sir, before we start we’d like your finger-prints,” Galley said to me. “Only so that we don’t get them mixed up with any others.”