The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Going already?” I said. It is true the beer was finished but it wasn’t much after eleven o’clock and he was a night bird if ever there was one.

  “Got to get a night’s rest,” he said as I helped him into that ancient overcoat. “Can you be at that Five Oaks place at nine o’clock sharp? Chevalle and that man of his are handing over.”

  I said I’d be there on the dot, and I was.

  Chevalle went out of his way to be genial with me that morning, but I think he was putting on an act for Wharton’s benefit. George himself was in great form and plumb in the centre of the stage. First he made me go through again everything I’d seen, and when the time came for Temple to enter, then I had to be Temple. Not a good performance, I fear, with George obviously hinting that he could have done it twenty times better himself. After that, we came to the various clues and each was handed over, including the ash-tray and the casts of the heel marks. Of the scent there was only the faintest possible trace, but George ran his nose, or rubbed it, all over the chair and professed to have a pretty good idea of what that scent had been.

  “What about that fellow Porle?” he said. “Any more news?”

  “Devil a bit,” Chevalle said. “As far as we’re concerned he’s gone up in smoke. And the smoke’s gone too.”

  “We’ll get him,” Wharton said grimly. “And without much fuss. Anything else you’d like to show me now?” There was a paying-in book of Barclays Bank, Porthaven, and the significant thing was that the manager had revealed that for the last two years Maddon had never drawn out a penny.

  “Any cheque books available?” Wharton asked.

  “Never a sign of one,” Galley cut in.

  Wharton had a look at the paying-in book. “Looks as if he paid something in once a fortnight. Where’d he get that from? No property in the village?”

  “None at all,” Galley said. Chevalle, significantly to me, was keeping his mouth shut. “And the post people say he never got registered letters.”

  “People don’t always register letters with notes in them,” Wharton told him. “What’s your idea, Major?”

  “What do you think I called you in for?” Chevalle told him with an attempt at humour. “I might perhaps repeat a suggestion of Travers’s, if he doesn’t mind—that he was blackmailing someone.” He shrugged his shoulders. “On the other hand, I don’t see who the devil he could have been blackmailing.”

  “What’s wrong with the scented lady?” Wharton asked him blandly.

  Chevalle shrugged his shoulders again.

  “Dammit all, she’s real enough,” Wharton told him with humorous expostulation. “Mind you,” he went on, the smile giving place to a frown. “I see your difficulty. It isn’t just a question of combing this village for all the women with the right coloured hair. You might call this village part of Porthaven, and you can’t search that. And she might have come from any part of England, and be back there by now.”

  Chevalle had been frowning away, and now it looked to me as if he too were making a decision to lay at least some of his cards on the table and leave things to Wharton with a better conscience.

  “All the same,” he said, “she had to get here somehow. If she walked from Porthaven she’d have been seen. The buses haven’t anything to report about a strange, fair-haired woman either the previous night or the next morning. Men were working in the woods practically all round here and no one saw a sign of a strange woman.”

  “Ah, well,” said Wharton resignedly. “We’ll have to try again. You’re lending me Inspector Galley here, and he can get busy along the same lines.”

  I wondered if he’d noticed the queer sort of challenge there had been, to me at least, in that use of Chevalle’s of the repeated word “strange” when he referred to the woman. But he’d seen nothing unusual: nothing, that is, to incline him to the belief that the woman had been a local one.

  “No other papers, letters or documents?” he asked.

  There was nothing. The bank, however, held certain investments that had been made from time to time. Maddon had been a shrewd speculator, for he had held off the markets till he had judged the slump at its lowest and then had invested practically every penny he had had at the bank. The year’s rises in values must have added fifty per cent, to the worth of his holdings. The bank, Chevalle said, automatically collected his dividends, so the moneys he took in from time to time could not have been from warrants cashed with local tradesmen.

  “What about the bed or beds?” Wharton asked.

  “Only one bed in use, sir,” Galley said, “and that was a double one. No trace of a woman in the room.”

  “The bed was made?”

  “Yes, sir, and by himself. Mrs. Beaney said anybody could tell a man had made it.”

  “Well, one thing stands out clear,” Wharton said. “This Maddon took every care to hide his identity, and his business, and he made a good job of it. People don’t do that unless they want to be hermits or else are up to something remarkably fishy. No photographs, by the way? Of him or anyone else?”

  Chevalle shook his head. “Only the post-mortem ones I showed you last night.”

  Wharton grunted, which was apparently his opinion of their value.

  “Well, I think that’s about all,” he said. “You’re a busy man, Major, and I look like being one too. You’ll furnish me with a relief for the man you’ve lent me, so that there can always be somebody here at the phone? Only for a day or two?”

  Chevalle said that whatever Wharton wanted, he’d only to speak.

  “Good-bye for the present then, and good luck,” he added, as he held out his hand. A smile and a nod to me and he was off. Galley went with him to the front gate and pumped up the rear wheel of his bicycle for him. George had a thorough good look through the house, and then the plain-clothes man was left in charge and George and I moved off to the village. Galley was to go on with those inquiries about a fair-haired stranger.

  As he walked along the field-path towards the village, George talked about everything but Temple, and it was plain that he didn’t want to reveal an inkling of the surprise he had in store for me. But George was always a secretive soul and I put it like that because his antics in that respect were more amusing than irritating. He loved hugging little pieces of information to himself and making a mysterious mountain out of a matter-of-fact molehill. He liked to throw scorn on a suggestion, and then to explore it to see if there was anything in it after all, whereupon he would appropriate the good in it and affect a mighty indignation if reminded of its origin.

  But as we neared Temple’s cottage I had to remind him of something.

  “One thing I don’t want you to mention to Temple, George, and that’s the little matter of his kicking Maddon in the ribs.”

  His stare became a glare. “And why not, pray?”

  “Because I promised him I wouldn’t let it go any further,” I said. “If he finds he can’t trust my word, then I shan’t be able to wheedle anything else out of him.”

  “And what have you wheedled out of him, as you call it?”

  “If it hadn’t been for me he’d never have gone to Chevalle,” I said, and then was telling him to pipe down, for we were right on Temple’s garden.

  There was no sign of him there so we went to the front door, and I drew George in close, so that we could not be seen through the windows. I had expected the woman to come, but it was Temple himself.

  “Morning, Temple,” I said cheerfully. “I’ve brought a friend of mine to see you.”

  He shot a look at Wharton and it was plain that he didn’t know him.

  “A nice place you’ve got here,” Wharton burst in, and was already through the door. “Wouldn’t mind a little place like this myself.”

  “This way, gentlemen,” Temple said, but he didn’t give that dental smile of his. “The room’s a bit untidy, I fear. I’ve been busy over War Savings’ accounts, as you see.”

  “No need to apologise,” Wharton told him, and Temple w
as beginning at once to look relieved. Nobody who didn’t know him could suspect Wharton of either malice or guile. At the worst he might have been peddling insurance, or vacuum cleaners.

  “Will you sit down,” Temple said to me, for Wharton was already making himself comfortable. Then Wharton gave a kind of sigh.

  “A real nice cosy little place, as I was saying, Mr. Broadbeam.”

  Broadbeam flashed back to Longbottom, and I half-smiled, thinking of Wharton’s anecdote. But the smile faded at the sight of Temple’s face. It was rather pallid and unhealthy-looking, but at Wharton’s apparently innocent remark it flushed to the colour of a dead ripe tomato.

  “Let me see,” Wharton went on reminiscently. “Four years was what you got, and you came out in ’34. Did you come straight down here?”

  I was afraid Wharton was going to indulge in one of those baitings in which I have known him fairly revel, but I loathe that kind of sadism, whatever the excellence of the reasons, and I loathe Wharton when he indulges in it. Perhaps he saw the look on my face for his tone took on more sorrow than irony.

  “Very nice to hear you’ve been going straight,” he said. “I’m not the one to rake up the past. My name’s Wharton, by the way. Superintendent Wharton of New Scotland Yard. I remember your case very well.”

  Temple managed to speak. He had been moistening his lips and shaking his head, and now he was spreading his hands as he made his protest.

  “But you’ve got nothing against me now.” The words gave him a new courage. “Why should you come down here and set people against me?”

  Wharton gave a look of the most innocent bewilderment.

  “Set people against you? Why, my dear sir, Major Travers here will tell you that he didn’t even know your real name till I just addressed you by it! God forbid that I should throw a man’s past in his face.” Then he snorted indignantly. “It’s evident, my dear sir, that you don’t know the man you’re dealing with.”

  It was hard not to tell George that he’d said a mouthful. What I did do was to try and set Temple’s mind more suavely at rest.

  “Superintendent Wharton’s quite right,” I said. “Nobody in this village is going to know anything about your history. Provided, of course, that you play fair with us.”

  His lip drooped at that, but I didn’t know whether it was in a sneer or from pity for himself.

  “You see, you’ve been keeping bad company,” Wharton chimed in. “Our information is that you were a close friend of Maddon. What have you got to say about that?”

  “But I wasn’t a friend of his,” he said, and then as if he had given something away, “And if I was, he was perfectly respectable, wasn’t he?”

  “Now you’re asking us for information,” Wharton said. “But just between ourselves, what was your opinion of him? Taking him all round, so to speak.”

  “Well, he was no friend of mine,” he said, and shrugged his shoulders. “I was seeing him fairly often because I was always at him to subscribe to War Savings. I regarded him as a man with plenty of money. Major Travers will tell you that my zeal for War Savings sometimes made me . . . well, over keen.”

  “Quite understandable,” Wharton told him graciously. “But you didn’t like him, I take it.”

  “I didn’t,” Temple said, and he sounded as if he meant it. “He had a nasty, sneering, superior manner. Very irritating at times.”

  “Tell me,” Wharton said, and leaned forward confidentially. “Do you think he had a past?”

  Temple’s face flushed again but his answer was prompt, even if he avoided Wharton’s eyes.

  “I don’t think so. I gathered the impression that he’d lived abroad, in the Colonies or places like that, where he’d had to be alone a good deal, and he’d got to like it.” Wharton tried to get more information about that but with little success. Temple couldn’t remember any specific reference to Colonies. Everything was very vague, in fact, though Temple insisted that his own intuitions had been consistently strong.

  “Well, we won’t keep you from your work,” Wharton said at last and got to his feet. “My word’s my bond and what’s been said here is highly confidential. And I can guarantee Major Travers’s discretion too. I take it we can call on you, very discreetly, from time to time to hear if you’ve any news? You may remember something—about Maddon for instance—that would help us.”

  Temple said with simulated enthusiasm that he’d be delighted. Then, somewhat nervously, he was saying that Cleavesham would never be the same to him again, and as soon as a convenient change suggested itself he would be leaving the village.

  “I don’t know that I blame you,” Wharton said. “The only thing is that until this business of Maddon is over, you’ll have to stay put. And one more thing. I hate to say it, but it’ll pay you hand over fist to co-operate with me. I’m putting no pressure on you—that’s the last thing I’d do—but if I remember rightly the police never recovered all the cash that was missing on a certain occasion. You wouldn’t like inquiries made as to what you’re living on now.” His hand went pontifically up as Temple began a protest. “Not another word, my dear sir. Forget all about everything, just as I’m going to do as soon as I’m out of this door.”

  “One of your best efforts, George,” I said as we strolled along towards the Wheatsheaf.

  “The Old Gent’s a long way off dead yet,” he told me with a sideways nod of self-appreciation. He was fond of little deprecatory allusions like that.

  “What about Porle’s rations?” I suddenly asked as I caught sight of Lane End Cottage. “What’s he going to do for food, now he’s bolted?”

  “Go to a hotel, of course,” he told me. “Go from hotel to hotel I should have said. But you don’t seem very interested in our friend Broadbeam?”

  “Should I be?” I said. “I thought you’d told me all you thought good for me to hear.”

  “You will have your little joke,” he said. “A bank cashier, that’s what he was. Highly respectable. Sidesman at church and secretary of this and that. Tremendous outcry when he was arrested. Must have been some dreadful plot. How could anybody think any wrong of that dear Mr. Broadbeam! But it was only about ten thousand he’d done the bank in for. Been keeping two homes going for one thing, though that didn’t account for all the money. Four years he got, and that was in 1930 if I remember right.”

  “Married, was he?”

  “Didn’t I tell you so? Only once though. The other place he had was a flat in Town where he kept a pretty lady. His wife died during the trial, by the way. No children, if I remember rightly.”

  We had gone past the Wheatsheaf and were nearing Ringlands. George said he had some telephoning to do and perhaps Helen would let him use her ’phone. As we came within fifty yards of the house Helen came to the front gate and a woman was with her. As she turned, the sun glinted on her hair.

  “Who’s that?” Wharton asked quickly.

  “Mrs. Chevalle,” I said, and he gave a curious grunt.

  CHAPTER VIII

  NEARER AND NEARER

  “Do you know Superintendent Wharton?” Helen said, and: “This is Mrs. Chevalle?”

  “Happy to meet you, ma’am,” Wharton said, and the approach that would have seemed ridiculous in me seemed perfectly natural to him. “I know your husband pretty well, but now I know why he never gave me the pleasure of meeting his wife.”

  Helen laughed. Thora Chevalle, to my surprise, didn’t say it was lovely. She was looking the least bit nervous, but enough, I thought, for Wharton to notice.

  “You’re down here on business?” she said.

  “That’s it,” Wharton said, and all four of us were inside the gate by then. “Trying to lend your husband a hand. Can’t have murders happen in a place like this and do nothing about it.”

  I was watching her. George’s smile was so paternal and his tone so remote from murder that she was beginning to relax.

  “It’s a horrible word, ‘murder’,” she said.

  “It is,
” agreed Wharton, “and we’ll say no more about it. You’re an old inhabitant here, Mrs. Chevalle?”

  “Oh, yes. We’ve been here some years now,” she said.

  But Wharton was staring at something. “Keep still,” he said, “but there’s a wasp or a bee crawling on your hair.”

  She gave a little shriek but George waded in to the rescue. I couldn’t see just what happened for he had whipped out his huge handkerchief and was telling her to keep still, and then announcing that he had it. She gave another little shriek as he drew the handkerchief away, and tugged at her hair. Then she giggled. But Wharton was stepping through the crazy-paving path to the lawn, removing the wasp and treading it into the ground, and he came back with a valedictory wiping of his hands.

  “Bravo!” I said. “I’ve heard of nothing so gallant since Francis jumped into the lions’ den and rescued the lady’s glove.”

  “I think it was very gallant of Mr. Wharton,” Helen said.

  “Oh, my poor hair!” Thora was saying. “Is it an awful fright?”

  “It’ll do till you get home,” Helen said, and none too kindly, I thought, but the mirror was produced from the bag all the same and Thora took a coquettish peep at herself.

  “Have you a cigarette on you?” Wharton was asking me.

  “Do have one of mine,” Thora said promptly. Wharton’s protest was feeble. I ironically held the lighter. Thora said she wouldn’t have one herself and I said it was too near lunch. Then she said she would have to fly, and inside two minutes she had flown.

  “Nice little garden you’ve got here,” Wharton said to Helen. “Most attractive.”

  “It is rather nice,” Helen said. “Annie and I did most of it ourselves.”

  “I knew it!” Wharton said. “I said to myself, this is Mrs. Thornley’s work!”

  “It’s nothing like the gardens of Pulvery, of course,” Helen added deprecatingly. “But these veronicas make a lovely splash of blue, don’t you think? And I must show you our special peonies.”

  I sheered off to the house and left them to it, not that I was missed, but there are times when George is spreading the soft soap a bit too thickly. And I didn’t like the way he’d fastened on to Thora Chevalle. I had thought it exaggeration for Chevalle’s benefit when he had claimed to catch a scent of the Five Oaks perfume, but I might have been wrong. The fact that my sense of smell is none too keen is no proof that his isn’t abnormal. And Thora Chevalle had been heavily enough scented that morning, for I had the perfume still in my nostrils when I was in my room. Then there had been that clumsy subterfuge to get a hair of hers; clumsy because it was obvious and risky, even if it had apparently succeeded. And that asking for a cigarette when he didn’t smoke one a month, and a minute before had his cold pipe in his hand.