The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  Then I saw something that took my mind off pink tiles and railway carriages, for coming towards me was Bernard Temple. In his go-to-meeting garments, and with a gold watch-chain across his waistcoat he looked a highly respectable citizen.

  As we neared I could imagine him looking frantically for a hedge gap with even a semblance of a path beyond it, but there was no dodging me.

  “Afternoon, Temple,” I hailed from twenty yards, and my tone was geniality itself.

  I guessed what he was feeling. He would have liked to pass me with an utter indifference, or perhaps a slight curl of the lip, but he just couldn’t summon the moral courage.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, and all he had achieved was a manner slightly frigid.

  “I think you owe me a vote of thanks,” I told him with a kind of roguish heartiness.

  “Indeed?” he said, eyebrows rising.

  “That little trick I played on you,” I went on. “Getting you to go to Chevalle. Getting you out of a remarkably nasty hole, in fact.”

  He shot me another suspicious look and said nothing.

  “I was in the kitchen,” I said. “From the moment you entered the house I was watching you. From the time you stuck your head inside the door till the moment when you kicked Maddon in the ribs.”

  That scared him. Chevalle, if he had seen him since the interview, hadn’t told him that.

  “You may not believe it,” I said, “but I shan’t tell Major Chevalle that I’ve met you this afternoon. It’s not my business to tell the police everything, though when I knew you’d seen him I did confirm what you’d told him. Now I’d like to ask you a question or two in return. Just what was it you were looking for in his desk?”

  He couldn’t meet my eyes. Then he made as if to speak, couldn’t get the words out, and finally managed to spin me the yarn that he’d spun Chevalle, about fifty pounds for a War Bond, and his collector’s zeal getting the better of him. But for me there was a variation. He’d looked in the desk first and when the money wasn’t there, then he’d caught sight of the wallet. It wasn’t worth while calling him a liar.

  “I’m not going to argue that with you,” I told him. “But you know that if I cared to open my mouth I could make you a lot of trouble. But here’s an easy question. You told me Maddon boasted to you that he’d never bought a War Savings Certificate. My information is that that was true up to three months or so ago, but—and this is a fact—ever since then he’s bought one every week.”

  “But I didn’t know that,” he said. “Believe me, Major Travers, I honestly didn’t know it.”

  “When did he do that boasting to you?”

  “Not more than a week ago.”

  “You’d swear that?”

  “It’s true,” he said, and spread his hands in a gesture of vehemence.

  “I want the information for my own satisfaction,” I said.

  “And I’m warning you. If what you’ve told me isn’t true, then I’m going to open my mouth to Chevalle.”

  “Major Travers, I’ll swear on anything you like that it’s true,” he said passionately.

  “Well, I believe you,” I said. “Know anything about a man named Porle?”

  “Porle,” he said, his manner eased as by a miracle. “The curious old fellow who lives with Mrs. Harmer at Lane End?”

  “That’s the man.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve never even spoken to him. I’ve heard about him, of course. The whole village has.”

  “Well, thanks very much,” I said. “You can trust me, and I hope for your sake I can trust you.”

  A nod and I was moving on. I believed what he told me about Maddon’s boast. If you ask why I should be concerned about such a triviality and what amounted only to the proof that Maddon was a boastful liar, then I can honestly say that the thought in my mind was the reconciliation of conflicting statements, and the hope that such reconciliation might throw—if only for Wharton’s benefit—some additional light on Maddon himself. Also, mine is the kind of mind that hates loose ends and is irked, as I’ve told you already, by the most trivial of mysteries. What I didn’t know at the time, though you should know it now, is that the information which Temple had given me was the most vital in the whole affair.

  I got past the bungalow outbreak and cut back along the lane. In its sudden shady relief, and with Five Oaks nearer with each step, I began thinking of Maddon and War Savings, and then it struck me that there was a perfectly harmless explanation of the presence in Maddon’s room of Thora Chevalle’s cigarette stubs, hair-pin and hair, and finger-print. Mrs. Beaney was the one who could shed light on that—or couldn’t she? Would she say she had emptied the ash-tray, when out of laziness or from lack of time she’d done nothing of the sort? But the scent; that couldn’t be explained away by a War Savings’ visit. In a day it would practically have gone, for though it had been fresh enough when I had entered the room, it had been only a faint odour to Chevalle an hour or so later.

  The walk by that brick lane was not too interesting. I did notice that the telephone was available all its length, for a wire led to a farm just short of Five Oaks. I was to remember that later, but at the moment all I knew was that if I didn’t quicken my pace I should be late for tea. As it was, I reached home as tea was on the table, and after it I spent an early evening with one of Helen’s library books. Then, soon after supper, I was called to the telephone again.

  “Who is it please?” I asked, for the caller would give Annie no name.

  “Galley, sir,” the voice said, and then I remembered it. “The Chief thought you’d like to know about those prints we sent to town. We’ve just had a call from the Yard. Nothing doing.”

  “Bad luck,” I said. “And thanks very much.”

  Most of the bad luck, I was thinking, was Wharton’s, for the odds were now that for the rest of his life he’d be teasing his wits to give a name and circumstance to what would remain a vague and irritating memory. Also, I could tell myself, I had lost the possibility of a perfectly good drink.

  Part Τwο

  THE LADY FOUND

  CHAPTER VII

  LITTLE BY LITTLE

  Breakfast was early on the Monday morning and soon after it Helen appeared dressed for going out, and Annie brought the bicycle to the front door.

  “Where are you gallivanting off to?” I said.

  “War Savings’ day,” Helen told me briskly.

  “I’d have thought Saturday the best day,” I said. “Aren’t most of the men paid then?”

  “Then or Friday,” she told me, “and a lot of the women too. But Saturday’s the shopping day. They don’t know till the Monday what they can really spare.”

  “Live and learn,” I said, and that was that. But Helen was in on time for lunch, even if she did go off again soon after. I thought the opportunity a good one for a visit to the Wheatsheaf, though I loathe drinking after meals.

  There were only three men in the bar and they were talking about the inquest. Questioning the landlord would be nearer the mark, for he had been on the coroner’s jury. I asked what the verdict was, and was told “Murder at the hands of some person or persons unknown.” The landlord evidently expected me to be impressed by the sonorities of all that, and I duly frowned and gravely nodded. Then I gathered that Temple’s evidence had been the sensation, but only his fortuitous discovery of the crime and expeditious ringing of the police. Nothing had evidently been said about War Bonds, and wallets, and Miss Smith.

  “What sort of a man was this Maddon?” I asked, and within ten minutes I had plenty of information, and much of it conflicting. To the claim that he was a gentleman came the objection that he did his own garden and cooked his own meals. But it was agreed that he spoke educatedly, and it was suspected that he was a Londoner.

  “The house was his?” I asked.

  It was his, I was told. At first he hired it furnished from old Mrs. So-and-so, and when she died he bought it lock, stock, and barrel. A bargain too, they
reckoned, considering the present price of house property.

  It appeared, too, that Maddon, though keeping himself very much to himself, used to pay frequent visits to Porthaven, travelling, of course, by bus. But he was tight-fisted. When I asked for instances I was told one in which my sympathies were wholly with Maddon, and my respect for his courage. For Sussex, as you may or may not know, has long milked its resident, dormitory class of population; indeed, one might regard such milking as one of the county’s major industries. So, when Maddon arrived, the first to seize on him was the local Horticultural Society, expecting a fat subscription. But the approach was the usual subtle one—a letter to Maddon saying it had given the Society much pleasure at its last meeting to appoint Herbert Maddon, Esquire, a Vice-President, and they would be delighted if he would so act. Maddon, so I gathered, wrote back a scorcher. I could well believe it, and I’d have loved to have read it.

  After that, the other village bodies went to work more warily, but with no better luck, for Maddon subscribed to never a one of them. With one exception. It was the pre-war custom of Sussex to indulge on Guy Fawkes’ Night in processions, fireworks and bonfires and to mulct the spectators for subscriptions to charities. Maddon sent—and unsolicited—the incredibly large sum of a pound to the secretary of the Cleavesham Bonfire Boys, with the remark that nothing was so gratifying to his advancing years as to find that people could still make jackasses of themselves.

  As for the rest of that day, nothing much happened. Galley did ring up after supper, saying that the Chief thought I might like to know what happened at the inquest. Before he could ring off I asked him if they’d discovered any relatives of Maddon. He said they hadn’t found a trace of one. From all they’d discovered he might not have a relative in the world.

  The fact that it was Galley who had rung me was again significant, though of course Chevalle might have been a far busier man than my special pleading had credited. After all, I remembered he’d have those local burglaries still on his hands as well as this business of Maddon, and doubtless his office was as cumbered with routine, official returns and red tape as any other war-time concern into which bureaucracy can contrive to insinuate itself.

  But what I was thinking, as I waited for sleep that night, was that in the morning I’d be hearing from Wharton. But I was to be disappointed, for no letter came. Then I stayed in the house that morning, hoping, rather preposterously, that he might ring me when he’d found the answers to some of my questions. In the afternoon I took a very short walk and only at tea-time, and from some remark of Annie’s, did I remember that Maddon had been buried. Annie said there were only a few of the curious ones there, except, of course, the undertaker from Porthaven and his men.

  It was only a few minutes after that when the telephone went. It was Chevalle, and as soon as I heard his voice I was wondering what he was going to tell me.

  “Afternoon, Travers,” he began. “Sorry I’ve been too busy to see you.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I told him. “I knew you’d be up to the ears.”

  “I thought I’d let you know I’m throwing my hand in,” he said. “I’ve got in touch with the Yard and they’re taking over.”

  “I think you’re doing the right thing, if I may say so,” I said. “It looked a pretty tricky case to me, and you people are overworked as it is.”

  “Glad you agree,” he said, and he sounded relieved. Then he seemed to heave a sigh. “Well, that’s that. Hope to be seeing you soon.”

  It’s not a bad feeling at times to have a long-shot of a prophecy come true, but I wasn’t feeling any too happy. To me there was only one explanation for Chevalle’s retirement from the case, and it was the one that prompted the prophecy. I knew that whoever came down from the Yard would have a harder job on hand, now that Chevalle was out of things. Even as a layman he couldn’t be forced to give evidence against his wife, and whatever it was that he had discovered—and it had to be pretty damning—would be locked up tight in that cold brain of his. And I doubted if even Galley would have been given the faintest glimpse of the truth.

  It was about half-past nine that night, and I was thinking about bed, and how the morning must bring a reply from Wharton, when I heard a ring at the front door. Then I heard Helen’s voice and a second voice which seemed curiously familiar. Another moment and I knew it for Wharton’s.

  “Delighted to see you,” Helen was saying, and Wharton was insisting that the pleasure was all his. I’ve often wondered why women fall so heavily for George. Maybe he has IT or the modern variety known as OOMPH, or maybe again it is the air of forlornness with which he can speciously clothe himself, so that they feel an immediate urge to mother him. But of all the little tricks and adaptations in George’s vast repertoire—and within an hour he can be hearty, oily, majestic, virtuous, pathetic, Rabelaisian and a pious old humbug—his handling of women is an achievement which one might reasonably call supreme.

  “Ludo’s in here,” Helen said as she opened the door. “Annie’s not in bed yet so we can soon put up the blackout. Mr. Wharton to see you,” she announced triumphantly.

  “He’s looking very much better,” George told her, still up to his old tricks and looking at me with a sideways peer, like a blackbird on a lawn. “Good cooking and fresh air; that’s what he wanted.”

  “Mr. Wharton’s staying at the Wheatsheaf,” Helen told me. “Now I’ll leave you to talk.”

  “Now I can get in a word,” I said to George. “Do you mind if I ask you how you are? I believe that’s the correct thing.”

  “I might be worse,” he told me unctuously, and began taking off—of all things for a warm June evening—that navy blue overcoat of his with the velvet collar. “Only got down a couple of hours ago. Saw Chevalle at Porthaven and then got myself fixed up at the Wheatsheaf.”

  Annie came in with two bottles and glasses on a tray, and she was smiling at him as if she were thirty years younger. Wharton got to his feet with a flourish, and a “Well, well. And how are you?”

  “Good work, George,” I said when she had gone. “And so you managed to get sent down here then.”

  With a vast assumption of humility he told me an old fool like himself was all that could be spared. In any case things shouldn’t take very long.

  “Any special reasons for predicting that?” I asked.

  He said there weren’t, except that the smaller the locality the easier the case. Then, when he’d taken a pull at his glass, and wiped his walrus moustache with a handkerchief like an embryo table-cloth, he asked me to tell him all I knew about things.

  Well, I played strictly fair. I told him exactly what happened at Five Oaks, and the clues that were found and who found them. I went on to my visit to Temple and the queer case of Pyramid Porle, but I said nothing about the evening I’d spent at Bassetts.

  “That’s much what Chevalle told me,” he said. “But you were being a bit of a Smart Alec, weren’t you? Why didn’t you tell Chevalle about Temple and Porle straightaway?”

  “You know how it is, George,” I said guilefully. “We all fancy ourselves at times. And it worked out well in the long run.”

  “Not with this man Porle it didn’t,” he told me. “Did you get his prints?”

  “They may be on this book,” I said, showing him the copy of The Great Pyramid Explained.

  He snorted. “Probably been pawed over by half the village. But what was his game?”

  “Don’t know,” I said frankly.

  “A bit touched, was he?”

  “A bit of a crank, yes, but remarkably sane. I’d even call him astute.”

  “Looks to me as if he’d been watching that man Maddon for some time,” Wharton said to that. “He knew Maddon and Temple were pals. I take it he meant Maddon when he told you that Temple was mixed up with rascals?”

  “That’s how I took it,” I said. “But going back to prints. Those I sent you for identification were Temple’s.”

  “Temple’s were they?” He sai
d it so off-handedly that I knew he had something up his sleeve. I’d be a fool if, after fifteen years of George, I couldn’t read him like a banner headline.

  “What was his Yard record?” I asked.

  “Who said he had a record?” The glare went and he allowed himself to smile. “Rather funny about Temple. Did I ever tell you that story about the tombstone inscription? ‘Here lies William Longbottom, Poet and Painter; born in 1853, died 1879, aged 26 years.’ And underneath the Latin quotation—‘Ars longa, vita brevis.’”

  I warned you that George could be Rabelaisian. I laughed, though I’d heard it before. If you see the point of the joke, then you have a flippant mind too, and if you don’t, there’s no harm done.

  “But what’s that got to do with Temple?” I wanted to know.

  “Tell you in the morning,” he said. “You and I are going to pay him a little visit. But I’ll give you a clue. When I heard his real name, then I remembered him. And you ought to too.” He snorted. “Always boasting about your memory.”

  “I’m damned if I am,” I said. “That’s your speciality, not mine. But about Maddon. You still don’t remember who he is?”

  “Funny thing, isn’t it?” he said aggrievedly. “On the tip of my tongue, so to speak. Still, I’ll win that bet before the week’s out, or my name’s Robinson.”

  I must have looked startled at that flagrant transference of the term of that bet for he was asking if I’d thought of something. I said I was wondering if he’d any news of those other samples I’d sent him. He countered by asking if I thought him a magician, and again I knew he was hiding something in that crafty old brain of his.