The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  Well, the morning of Wharton’s arrival came and as soon as breakfast was over I was sitting waiting, and with an eye on the front gate. It was not till about half-past nine that a dark coupe drew up and Wharton got out. I was at the gate before he had opened it.

  “I won’t come in,” he said. “If you’re ready we’ll go straight off.”

  “A nice little car,” I said, running an eye over it. “How did you induce anyone to trust you with this?”

  “I’m not tramping about and waiting for buses at my time of life,” he told me. “Five Oaks is where we’re going first. Thought I’d like a word with that Mrs. Beaney.”

  He moved the car off. George drives as if he’d bet someone a thousand pounds he’d never have an accident, and if so he’s running a risk for some day a tricycle will run into him from the rear. But the twenty miles an hour gave me time to talk.

  “Have a busy day in Town?” I asked.

  “All over the place,” he said. “Didn’t get back here till nearly midnight.”

  “Find anything out?”

  “One or two oddments,” he told me after a bit of thought. “You’ll hear all about it later.”

  It was no use questioning him when he was in that sort of mood. Somewhere up his sleeve was a surprise for me, and George wasn’t one to reveal an inkling till the spectacular moment of revelation came. So I turned the conversation to the weather, and by the time he’d told me how hot it had been in Town he was drawing the car in by Mrs. Beaney’s cottage.

  We sat in her little living-room while Wharton did the questioning. As sharp as a ferret, that woman was, and I guessed that by noon at latest the village would know each word that Wharton had spoken, and probably a bit more for luck.

  She had never seen a sign of a woman in the house, she said. She didn’t think Mr. Maddon had been one for women. The only one who ever came was Mrs. Chevalle, and she knew that because Mrs. Chevalle called on her first. Sixpence a week she subscribed and she knew that wasn’t much, but it all helped. Afterwards Mrs. Chevalle went straight on to Five Oaks.

  “Mrs. Chevalle called as usual last week?” Wharton asked.

  “Oh, yes, she called,” Mrs. Beaney said, and, “Was there any reason why she shouldn’t have called?”

  Wharton laughed roguishly. “You leave me to ask the questions, Mrs. Beaney.” His face straightened. “All I’m trying to get at is whether everything was normal last week, right up to the time he was murdered. Apparently it was. You noticed nothing unusual about him?”

  It was plain that she’d have liked nothing better than to mention a something, but she had to shake her head.

  “Now that ash-tray that was on the little table,” Wharton went on.

  “Ash-tray?” she broke in. “I don’t remember no ashtray.”

  “Come, come,” Wharton said. “Surely Inspector Galley or someone asked you about the ash-tray?”

  “No one mentioned no ash-tray to me,” she said.

  Wharton described the ash-tray and told her that cigarette-ends and match-ends had been in it. Had she ever seen any sort of ash-tray when she’d come to the house? She said she hadn’t. Mr. Maddon didn’t smoke much and he threw his ends anywhere; usually in the fire-place, which she always cleaned up. But she admitted that there might be things like ash-trays which she’d never seen in the house. What with the work she had to do there and the little time to do it in, she hadn’t a minute to herself, not that she was one to poke in other people’s drawers and cupboards.

  Wharton switched the attack. Did Maddon ever have any gossiping moments, and if so, what had he ever let fall about himself? The question aroused Mrs. Beaney’s indignation, but only because Maddon had made things clear when she first arrived to do the cleaning. Obviously she had tried to get him to talk with the hope of finding matters for gossip, but he had laid down the position with a rather caustic asperity.

  “Not that I was one to talk, as I told him. I come here to work,’ I said. ‘And I’m not interested in other people’s business,’ I said.”

  “And a very good rap on the knuckles for him too,” Wharton said. Then he was giving one of his wheedling looks. “But just between ourselves, what did you make of him? Did you think he’d been married, for instance?”

  “He was very neat and tidy,” she said after a bit. “And he did some of his own cooking and made his own bed. I used to get his tea for him. High tea, they call it, a bit of fish or something, or a pudding.”

  Before Wharton could speak she was remembering some-thing.

  “There’s the photo! I haven’t never shown it to nobody, but I’ll let you see it. Found it, I did, as if he’d thrown it away, and I kept it myself because it reminded me of my poor sister Ada when she was a girl.”

  She was rummaging in a drawer and Wharton’s eyebrows lifted as his eyes met mine. It was what was known as a cabinet photo; a print mounted on stiff cardboard, and it showed a girl of about fifteen fitting on a chair, with a boy of about ten or twelve standing behind her, his hand on her shoulder. Behind was a backcloth representing distant mountains.

  “Rather Victorian,” I said when he’d passed it to me. “Probably taken best part of forty years ago.” Then I noticed something else. “Someone’s cut the photographer’s name and address off. If I remember rightly, they used to be in silver letters on the mount.”

  “I know where it was took,” Mrs. Beaney told us. “I happened to see it once before, on his desk, and it was took at Windsor. That’s what made me take to it so. My poor sister lived at Windsor.”

  “There you are!” Wharton told me. “That’s what comes of having a good memory. I told you we’d hear something from Mrs. Beaney. And I suppose you didn’t remember the photographer’s name?”

  But that was beyond her. Wharton got to his feet and began the usual well-soaped thanks. The photograph he’d return in a day or two, he said, and in the meanwhile Mrs. Beaney had better keep quiet about it. The police might consider she’d been withholding information, and if they turned nasty, that might mean trouble.

  We drove on to Five Oaks. The plain-clothes man who was sunning himself in a chair at the front door, ear cocked for the telephone, scrambled to his feet at the sight of us. Wharton told him genially to sit tight, and what he did himself was to write a letter and put it and the photograph in a stout envelope from his attaché-case.

  “I’ll get this rushed up to Town from Porthaven,” he told me. “A pretty forlorn hope hunting for a photographer who was in business forty years ago, but you never know.”

  “Going to Porthaven, are we?” I asked, when we were back in the car again.

  “One or two things I want to talk over with Chevalle,” he told me, and much too casually. “I rather wanted you to be there. Two heads are better than one.”

  “I know,” I said. “Even if they’re sheeps’ heads. But who do you think those children on the photograph were? Maddon’s own children?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know? What I’m hoping is that there’ll be a photographer who’s kept records. If so, he might be able to tell us who paid for the photograph. That might give us a start on Maddon’s trail.”

  “You’re a bigger optimist than I am,” I told him. “Still, you never know. But what are you seeing Chevalle about, George?”

  “You’ll hear in good time,” he told me impatiently. Then he trod hard on the brakes, released one hand from the wheel and looked at his watch. “Plenty of time. Chevalle’s had some civic function or other on and he told me he wouldn’t be free till best part of twelve o’clock.”

  I smiled cynically to myself but asked no more questions. Whatever it was that Wharton was going to talk over, it had been of sufficient importance to fix a time for the interview. Why he should want to have me there was an unanswered question that was just a bit disturbing.

  We had best part of an hour in Porthaven. George was arranging for the dispatch of his letter, and I found a place to get coffee. At just before noon I rejo
ined him at police headquarters. A minute or two later we were in Chevalle’s room.

  Chevalle was in uniform and a fine figure he looked. The two rows of ribbons looked impressive, and they weren’t coronation ones, either.

  “Hope I haven’t kept you two waiting,” he said, as he shook hands with us. “Make yourselves comfortable, and then we’ll get down to it.”

  Wharton went to the outer door, opened it and glanced along the passage.

  “No chance of anything being overheard?” he asked as he closed the door again.

  “Heavens, no!” Chevalle said, and looked a bit bewildered.

  “All the same we’ll not talk too loudly,” Wharton told him, and was drawing his chair in closer to Chevalle’s desk. Then he began putting on his antiquated spectacles, and I knew something unusual was in the wind. Chevalle caught my eye and his eyebrows lifted. I gave a quick shake of the head.

  “The time has come for some remarkably plain speaking,” Wharton began. “I thought it best to have Major Travers here as a trustworthy witness. We can both rely on his discretion, and that what’s said here goes no further.”

  “Aren’t you being rather mysterious?” asked Chevalle, and his smile was a dry one.

  “Just taking precautions,” Wharton told him evenly. “I always do that when I’m on mixed business. Part private, part not.”

  Chevalle nodded.

  “And a talk of that sort is agreeable to you?” Wharton asked him.

  “Good God, sir, get on with it!” Chevalle told him with a grim impatience.

  Wharton opened the attaché-case, made as if to take something out, then changed his mind and closed it again.

  “You’ll have to take my word for everything,” he said. “Though it’s all here if you should want to see it.” Then he was peering over his spectacle tops. “The fact is, Chevalle, I want to question your wife.”

  “My wife!” He shot an inquiring glance at me. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  “Well, I warned you that it was to be all cards on the table,” Wharton told him evenly. “I’m putting mine down right-away. My opinion is that you know perfectly well why I want to question your wife.”

  “Oh?” Chevalle said, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Look at it like this,” Wharton said placidly. “The first real murder case you’ve had since your appointment here. A first-class chance for you to show your metal and make a name for yourself. But what do you do? You scarcely touch the outside edges of the case and you throw your hand in.” His tone changed to the challenging. “If you’re anything, Chevalle, you’re a fighter. You’re a sticker. Yet you threw your hand in!” He shrugged his shoulders, and the tone changed again. “If it’s your wish not to talk, very well, we’ll not talk. In that case I shall have to proceed as I think fit.”

  “Proceed with what?”

  Wharton raised hands to heaven, then let them fall. I thought he was going to get to his feet.

  “Proceed with questioning your wife. Asking her to make a statement.”

  Chevalle leaned forward. “You surely can’t mean—”

  “Oh, yes, I do,” Wharton said. “I mean make a statement as a suspect.”

  Chevalle’s eyes narrowed again. “I take it this isn’t some kind of joke?”

  “What joke there is is of your own making,” Wharton told him, and his lips pursed in an ironical smile. “But if you want me to tell you a few facts, here they are. The hairs on that chair at Five Oaks were definitely Mrs. Chevalle’s. The cigarette-ends and the lipstick on them were hers, and so was the ash-tray print. I think the scent was hers, but I’m keeping that out.”

  Chevalle smiled, and it seemed relievedly. “But, my dear fellow, there’s a simple explanation of all that. My wife went there every week, as you know—”

  Wharton had raised a hand. He said rather grimly that he didn’t know a lot of things, and then proceeded to detail them. Why Monday’s ash-tray should never have been seen by Mrs. Beaney and should have remained unemptied, and why scent should linger for days.

  “It’s no use, Chevalle,” he said. “Your wife was at that house either late the previous night or early the following morning.”

  Chevalle’s lip drooped. “I see. And how did she get there from Town? By aeroplane?”

  “If it’s her alibi you’re relying on,” Wharton told him, “then I’ve a disappointment for you. I know with whom Mrs. Chevalle was supposed to be staying, and where. I saw the person myself and broke her evidence down, and it wasn’t a hard job either. Your wife, Chevalle, had rigged the whole thing with her. She did call at Hampstead and see the friend, but she didn’t spend the night there, and the friend doesn’t know what she did with herself after that.” He heaved a sigh. “That’s why I propose to ask your wife where she did spend her time, and why she gave me deliberately false information.”

  Chevalle sank back in his chair and he was moistening his lips. His fingers were at his chin and he couldn’t meet our eyes. He was a badly shaken than, and Wharton knew it.

  “Now you know why I wanted this little talk,” he said. “We’re all friends here, Chevalle. Lion doesn’t eat lion. But I’ve got to do my duty all the same.”

  “I know.” Chevalle’s voice had the dullness of defeat. “And I’m grateful. All the same, Wharton, there may be a perfectly natural explanation.”

  “I hope there is.” He shook his head. “I hope for everyone’s sake there is.”

  “Let me tell you something,” Chevalle said. “And I never thought I’d tell this to a living soul. My wife and I haven’t seen eye to eye for the best part of three years. She goes her own way and I ask no questions. She doesn’t even run the house. Her cousin does that.” His tone took on a defiance. “So long as she doesn’t smirch my name or make things difficult for me here, then I’m satisfied. All the same, she has my name, and I’ll fight for that name. That’s why I tell you she couldn’t have killed Maddon. What was the motive? Tell me that.”

  “Do you mind if I say something?” I suddenly asked. “Why not?” Wharton said, and I felt Chevalle’s eyes seeking mine. But it was at Wharton I looked.

  “I’m not butting in on this,” I said, “but I’d like to have Mrs. Chevalle’s name cleared. The best way to do that, it seems to me, is to lay all our cards on the table, as you said. The worst service I can do is to hold anything back, and I think I know of a motive. If I’m wrong, then Mrs. Chevalle can prove it wrong, and she’ll be a step nearer into the clear.”

  “That’s fair enough,” Chevalle said. “What is the motive?”

  “I think she was being blackmailed.”

  “Blackmailed! My wife blackmailed!”

  I told him about the conflicting information as to Maddon’s War Savings Certificates and I instanced the ironic twist in Maddon’s make-up.

  “So I see it like this,” I said. “Temple’s information was right. Maddon did recently boast that he’d never bought a Savings Certificate and he was speaking the truth, even if he did buy one every week. For he didn’t buy it at all. It was your wife who paid for it.”

  “A bit far-fetched, surely,” Wharton said.

  “Take it or leave it, there it is,” I said.

  Chevalle’s head suddenly went to his cupped hand and he was rubbing his eyes as if they were tired. When he looked at us again he was a beaten man.

  “All right, gentlemen, I give in. Maddon may have been blackmailing her. I don’t know. But for God’s sake leave me alone.”

  His voice was rising. Wharton got quickly to his feet and went to him behind the desk. His hand fell on Chevalle’s shoulder.

  “There,” he said, as one would to a child. “You leave it to me. You can trust me, Chevalle. I give you my word.”

  “I’m sorry.” Chevalle got to his feet, shaking his head. “Ever since I had an idea of all this I’ve been through hell. Sometimes”—the voice was rising again—“I’ve wished to hell I could get this coat off and get back in the Army again and do a man’s
job.” He shook his head again. “And I may do yet.”

  “Your job is to stay here and take what’s coming,” Wharton told him. “Personally I don’t think Mrs. Chevalle has a lot to fear, but it’s up to her. You couldn’t use any influence?”

  “With her? No. It’s your case, Wharton, and I’m out of it.” The lip drooped. “If I weren’t I wouldn’t bring myself to ask a woman of mine to be so good as to tell the truth.”

  Wharton gave me a backward nod so I began moving off. I saw his hand go out to Chevalle.

  “Forget everything. That’s my advice. Trust me and I’ll never let you down.”

  “Drive a bit slowly, George,” I said when we were just clear of the town. “There’s something I’d like to put up to you.”

  I think that interview with Chevalle had shaken him a bit. There was what I hadn’t heard, for it had been a good five minutes after I had left the room before he came out to rejoin me, with Chevalle still there.

  “What was the expert opinion on that bullet?” I began.

  “Italian probably,” he told me mildly.

  “We’ll never find out whether or not Maddon had a gun,” I said. “But what about Mrs. Chevalle? Doesn’t any case against her hang on whether or not she had one?”

  “She had one all right,” he said. “She let that slip to me herself. Says she used to keep it in a drawer and then it disappeared.”

  “That’s bad,” I said. “If she couldn’t think of anything better than that, then she’s in a nasty jam. She didn’t say what kind it was?”