The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Exactly! And the house? Your wife still looked after that?”

  “No. Her cousin, Miss Carter, had looked after it for some months—with a helper who came in most afternoons. My wife didn’t like housework.”

  “That was a grievance with her, that someone else should be running the house?”

  “Why, no!” Chevalle said, and looked surprised. “She was only too pleased. If you’d like evidence—”

  “No, no,” the Coroner cut in hastily, and then gave a look at the jury. “The jury can ask questions if it so pleases. But one last question myself. Would you regard your wife as highly strung?”

  “Yes,” Chevalle said, and very quietly. “Temperamental and highly strung.”

  And so to the brief summing-up. A philosophical and kindly discourse I thought it; apt as a summary and comprehensive. I liked the bit about the queer unaccountable turns that married life will take and the dictum that though marriage is a legal institution, no human law can force compatibility on the constitutionally incompatible.

  And so to the verdict, and the only one possible—suicide in a moment of temporary insanity. There was the not-unexpected sympathy with Major Chevalle and the relatives of the deceased. I’d forgotten them and was guessing that the elderly man in the second row was probably the dead woman’s father. When later I saw him shake hands with Chevalle I knew it. It was a very happy touch, I thought. It showed that Carter knew perfectly well the faults and limitations of his dead daughter, and that his sympathies were with Chevalle. It didn’t show it as crudely as all that, but still it was a happy touch.

  But I didn’t linger on the scene. The very moment the proceedings were over I slipped out at the back and through the side door of the pub to the road. Then, as I was walking home, it struck me that I’d let my taste for irony get the better of my sense of judgment. It was true that there were certain things that I alone knew, and even more that I suspected, but had I been quite fair to Chevalle, or for that matter, to Wharton? Why wash the dirty linen in public for the delectation of the dirty-minded? Why shouldn’t Chevalle’s good name be guarded? And Mary Carter’s? Why drag in Maddon when the dead woman was little more than a suspect in embryo? And by being loyal to Chevalle, Wharton stood to lose more than he had gained, for he might have made a fine public show by telling even the little he suspected, and a sensation by the announcement that in the opinion of the police the dead woman had owned the gun that killed Maddon.

  What I was feeling, in fact, was a revulsion. I had eaten too much of the case, and my mental stomach was announcing the fact, with that cheap irony of mine the principal symptom. So I was pleased at the thought that for a day and more I should be without Wharton, and if I once more let the case become an obsession, then the responsibility would be entirely my own. And I actually lived up to the good intentions, perhaps because there was nothing at the moment which I had a hope of finding out. Then, to show the queer way things work out, something presented itself on a gold platter.

  It was after tea on the Sunday, and Helen had tragically reminded me that Thora Chevalle, Mary and Clarice should have been with us.

  “Extraordinary how quiet Cleavesham has been ever since I’ve been here,” she said, “and then, as soon as you get here, Ludo, we have two people getting killed.”

  “The imputation being what?” I asked flippantly.

  “It isn’t funny,” she said. “It’s just queer.”

  “It is,” I said. “But surely you aren’t as stagnant in Cleavesham as you’re trying to make out?”

  “It’s quiet,” she said. “That’s why I like it. A few bombs and not half what anybody expected.”

  In a minute I was asking her what she was smiling at. “Just thinking of something,” she said. “We did have one excitement. Our Wings for Victory Week.”

  “I gathered that was a bit of a riot,” I said. “What were the high spots?”

  “There were several,” she said, still smiling to herself. “The best was a monster treasure hunt, on Mr. Groom’s meadow. The one on the left as you come to the corner.”

  “Well, tell me about it,” I said. “Whose idea was it?”

  “Mine, really,” she said. “Commander Santon was most enthusiastic. He improved on the idea enormously.”

  I can’t remember her description, but it was quite funny. Maybe if I’d known all the locals I’d have found it as funny as she did. The prizes—the treasure, if you like—were hidden at various places all over the meadow, and Santon had rigged up concealed speakers which he controlled from a central tent on a vantage spot. It was rather like the game we played when young, saying hot and cold when the seeker got near to or far from the missing object. The really funny thing was when a certain old lady—a busybody and notorious gossip—had a concealed speaker suddenly bark at her that she was hot.

  “My dear, she simply leapt!” Helen said. “I never saw anything so funny. I honestly believe she thought it was the devil himself in the ditch. I laughed till I cried.”

  She had a good laugh even then. I thought it rather funny too.

  “What was the old lady’s name?” I said.

  “Mrs. Beaney,” she said. “The one who used to work for Mr. Maddon.”

  “But she’s not old.”

  “My dear, she’s over sixty if she’s a day,” Helen told me.

  “Well, the story’s funnier now,” I said. “I hope she didn’t get a prize?”

  Helen said, regretfully, that she got third prize. I said that wasn’t so funny.

  The Sunday wore quietly on and nothing looked like happening. Then, just after the nine o’clock news, Wharton rang from Town.

  “Thought I’d let you know I’ll be down first thing in the morning,” he said. “The nine-thirty at Porthaven.”

  “What’s happened to the car?” I asked.

  “Don’t think I’ll need it any more,” he said. “The idea here is that everything can stand as it is.”

  “And the armoury?”

  “Everything dead right,” he said. “The Pond one, the Five Oaks bullet, and the other O.K. Tell you more tomorrow.”

  “I’ll meet you at the station,” I said. “I’ll have news for you too.”

  “What news?”

  “Too dangerous to tell now,” I said.

  “You can lower your voice, can’t you?”

  “It’d still be too dangerous,” I told him.

  “But, dammit, can’t you give me an idea?”

  “Very well then,” I said. “It’s about a princess with a beautiful head of golden hair. A bed-time story, but only for grown-ups. A wicked fairy killed her and I know how and why.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  HAPPY MEETING

  As soon as I was downstairs that Monday morning I rang Chevalle at Bassetts. If he was going to Porthaven, I asked, would he give me a lift. He said he usually left at nine, but if that was too early for me he could wait.

  “No, no,” I said. “Wharton’s coming down by the nine-thirty and I’m meeting him, that’s all. Nine o’clock will suit me fine.”

  I also told him he wasn’t to pick me up at Ringlands, as a post-breakfast walk would do me good. As things turned out, I was just coming up to Bassetts when he brought the car out at the front gate.

  He was looking a different man from when I had last seen him. More his old self, and confident, and noticeably cheerful, and he was quite amusing about the fight he was still having with the bus company to get them to run a handier morning service. But we were getting to Porthaven too quickly for my liking.

  “Would you mind pulling up for a minute or two?” I said. “There’s a rather important matter I’d like to talk over with you.”

  At once his manner had a subtle change. The real man was no longer there but was covered, as it were, by a film of wariness.

  “I told you Wharton was coming back,” I began. “He’s been making certain inquiries and he’s got the answers.”

  “Answers to what?”

 
; “I may be hurting your feelings,” I said, “but he’s got the answer to the question of your wife’s suicide.”

  “Question?” He gave me a look. “Surely there wasn’t any question.”

  “The verdict of a coroner’s court is one thing and hard fact is another,” I said. “Especially when the fact emerges well after the verdict. To be frank,” I said, “your wife didn’t commit suicide.”

  His eyes narrowed, which was a trick of his when in thought.

  “It may be painful for you to have things reopened,” I went on.

  “It’s Wharton’s business, not mine,” he said. “Even if it weren’t, duty’s duty.”

  “Well, what I wanted to ask was, could you be at Santon’s place at two-thirty this afternoon. Wharton wants to go into things on the spot.”

  “If I’m definitely wanted—yes.”

  “Then you can do Wharton another favour,” I said. “You fix the meeting with Santon. Make any excuse you like, but don t mention Wharton. We’ll turn up on foot by the back path.”

  “I’ll arrange it at once,” he said, and then shifted slightly in his seat. “Any advance information available?”

  “There is,” I said, “but Wharton thinks it will rather spoil things if you know it beforehand. I don’t quite know what’s going to happen myself.”

  “Right,” he said, and it seemed to me with relief. “And that’s all?”

  “That’s the lot,” I said. “Unless you ring the Wheatsheaf to the contrary we’ll see you on Santon’s tennis court at half-past two.”

  He dropped me at the foot of High Street, which I said was near enough. Wharton’s train was due in five minutes, and I thought I’d try Helen’s short cut the reverse way. It was the most amazing coincidence that I did. It was like finding the gun in the pond. What happened, happened so quickly that it was plumb ridiculous that it should have happened at all.

  It was like this. I was making my way along that narrow walk between the gardens of little semi-detached villas. After each pair was a side path, as a kind of tradesmen’s entrance, and I squinted through each one on the right towards the railway in case I should catch sight of Wharton’s train. When the gardens began to close in towards the walk, there was only a narrow strip between me and the backs of the villas. Then by chance my eye ran idly up to the bedroom windows, and at one of them I saw a face. It was turned sideways to me as if its owner was reading a book. I took a second quick look, for something in that profile had seemed familiar. Another second and I was making for the passage-way by the side of that house, for the owner of that face was no other than my old friend Pyramid Porle.

  A dozen schemes flashed through my mind before I knew they were all unnecessary. Porle was the last man to run away. Then I had to smile to myself: not only at the thought of Pyramid Porle, but the astuteness that had thrown the police clean off the scent. All he had done when he had left Cleavesham was to deposit his luggage at the entrance to the short cut, carry his bags to the pre-arranged snuggery, and then return for the trunk. Unless it had been remarkably heavy he could have carried it that forty yards and up the side-path where I stood. That done he had taken a ticket at the booking office, and had then made an unobtrusive way back to the villa.

  Just then I heard the sound of an incoming train, so I made a cautious way out to the walk and towards the station. The train was in when I reached the platform.

  “What about a cup of coffee?” was the first thing Wharton said to me.

  “Plenty of time for that,” I said, and told him about Pyramid Porle. His eyes bulged, and then he was breathing out threatenings and slaughter.

  “What’s amusing you?” he asked me indignantly.

  “Only that you don’t know him,” I said. “But why not walk in on him and have a nice little friendly chat?”

  I got him to my way of thinking and then we began to reconnoitre. Again luck was ours. As we came near that villa a woman came out of the back door. She didn’t see us, but as we turned back I saw her stoop by the door. We stood with our backs to the villa till she had passed us. A shopping basket was on her arm, and it looked as if she were heading for the lower town.

  The next move was for George to go past the villa and cast a quick eye up at the window. He came back in a state of excitement. No face was there, he said, but he thought that so much to the good. So we went through the side gate and up to the back door. Under a brick where the woman had placed it was the key.

  The door was quietly unlocked and we stepped into a passage covered with coco-nut matting. In front were the stairs, and they were carpeted. Up them we went, I in the lead and at the top came to a landing. There we stood hardly daring to breathe, till I had spotted the right door! I moved across and nodded back to George. The handle of the door turned and I stepped into the room, George at my heels.

  Porle was seated with his back to me, and cleaning his telescope. Some slight sound must have attracted his attention for his look round was only casual. Then he was looking like a sceptic who at last sees a ghost.

  “Morning, Mr. Porle,” I said. “Sorry to break in on you like this, but I’ve brought a friend along to see you. Superintendent Wharton of Scotland Yard.”

  Wharton was staring as if he were some queer freak. Porle had lost all that bland poise of his, and was making fluttering movements with his hands. But only for a minute. There was that little bow from the waist.

  “I’m honoured, gentlemen.” His head went sideways. “Scotland Yard, you said?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “A notable institution, sir,” he told Wharton. “A notable institution. You will sit down, gentlemen?”

  We sat. George was even more goggle-eyed. For my part I had no disposition to laugh. Porle was just as I had left him. The pontifical phrases, the bland courtesy and the self-appreciation were all there, and the self-assurance would soon be back too.

  “You left Cleavesham in rather a hurry,” I said, “so I wasn’t able to return your book.”

  “You read it, I trust, with interest and profit?”

  “With both,” I said unblushingly. “But why did you leave so hurriedly? Was it anything to do with that notice you tacked on Maddon’s back door?”

  That got him in the wind, but only for a moment.

  “The name, sir, is Major Travers?” he asked with that sideways cock of the head as if he hadn’t heard my question.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He nodded once or twice, and came to a decision. “You would not be bored, gentlemen, if I proposed to tell you something of my history? It would be without prejudice?”

  “Most certainly it would,” I said. “Provided, of course that it’s true.” Then I was hastily apologising, for a look of pain had come to his face. “What I meant was ‘complete.’ To include your dealings with Maddon for instance.”

  “That, sir, is what I intended,” he told me with a grave reproof.

  He gently cleared his throat, and again I dared not look at Wharton.

  “A quiet spot here,” he began, “and suited to my means. You perhaps saw the woman of the house.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And I replaced the key. The back door of the house, of course, is unlocked.”

  “Of no consequence,” he assured me. “The key is for the convenience of a daily woman who arrives usually at eleven.”

  “Good,” I said. “That means we can have a quiet, friendly chat. But you were saying?”

  “I was about to tell you something of my history,” he reminded me, and was settling himself in his chair. I wish you could have seen the man as he told it. Without his overpowering presence it may read stiltedly, and even to me it sounded like some inset story from Gil Blas or Hadji Baba.

  “My father was a wholesale jeweller, in Clerkenwell, and a man of very wide talents,” he began. “We lived at Highbury, a suburb, sir, which you may know. I was the only child of his marriage, and as a young man I was somewhat of a weakling, and as my father was not without means, there
was no necessity for me to work for a living. It was just before his untimely death that I began to take an interest in certain studies of which you are aware”—his hand had waved round at the table and its books and magazines—“and thanks to them, and the exercise of faith, I began to improve in health. In fact, sir, I may say that I never looked back.”

  Some reply seemed requested so I said I was glad to hear it.

  “But we wander from the point,” he said. “My father died and our affairs were left in the hands of a solicitor. A scoundrel, sir! A thief and a scoundrel!”

  As he glared at me he looked the very spit of Micawber denouncing Uriah Heep.

  “That man, sir, embezzled the moneys of his too-trusting clients—myself and my mother among them. The widow, sir, and the fatherless. But he was caught, sir. Yes, he was caught, and he was clapped into jail. Four years was the sentence and it should have been more. But the shock had killed my unhappy mother, and instead of being a comparatively wealthy man I was left with only a pittance. It is true that a little more was realised by the sale of the house and furniture, but in comparison, sir, I was a poor man. That was why I accepted the offer of Martha, an old servant of our family, to come here.”

  “One minute, sir,” broke in Wharton, and that “sir” was highly illuminating. “Would you mind telling me the name of that solicitor?”

  Porle gave him a shrewd look. “Entirely without prejudice?”

  “God dammit, yes!” exploded Wharton.

  A quick reproof and Porle was nodding. “The name of the man, sir, was Mortheimer. Mortheimer, of Branch, Mortheimer and Branch.”

  “My God, I knew it!” said Wharton. “Henry Mortheimer!”

  “You were acquainted with him perhaps?” asked Porle, with that crafty little sideways turn of the head.

  “I knew him well enough,” said Wharton grimly. “I helped to get him his four years.”

  Porle’s chubby face lighted. “Then we are kindred spirits, sir. Kindly permit me to shake you by the hand.”

  For the first time I had a look at Wharton. On his face were various emotions. A sort of amiable inanity as he took the hand, and in the grin a definite triumph at having at long-last solved Maddon’s identity. There was also a kind of impish look as he caught my eye.