The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “But to resume my story,” went on Porle, and now he was speaking to Wharton. “A few weeks ago, sir, I was walking idly in the High Street here when I saw this very Mortheimer. He had grown a beard but I recognised him, and I took immediate steps, sir, to ensure that he did not recognise me. I was with Martha at the time and I induced her to follow him to the bus. Later that day I ascertained from the conductor who the man was and where he lived. Then I made my plans.”

  Once more he leaned forward. “Everything is still without prejudice?”

  “Most certainly,” Wharton told him.

  Porle let out a breath of relief.

  “I assure you, sir, that I am grateful. But I was mentioning my plans. I went to Cleavesham and arranged rooms for myself at that cottage known as Lane End. Then I began what might be called a systematic plan of campaign.”

  “In other words you blackmailed him.”

  “My dear sir!” He looked incredibly shocked. Then his eye seemed to flicker and I could almost have sworn he winked. “The man was a scoundrel, sir, and a thief. If he had money, then I was entitled to some return of what he had stolen from me.”

  “Most decidedly,” said Wharton heartily. “And what luck did you have?”

  Porle shot him a look, then gave a complacent smirk.

  “I induced him, sir, by certain methods of my own devising, to pay me two pounds per week, with a promise of a lump sum in the very near future. That promise, sir, he broke. I decided to apply what is known, I believe as the screw. Hence that notice which Major Travers possibly saw me affix.”

  “You saw him that night?”

  “No, sir. He didn’t appear.” His face took on a due gravity. “The following morning I heard of his untimely end. There was nothing further to detain me in Cleavesham, and I returned here.” He gave a little bow. “That, gentlemen, I think is all.”

  Wharton got to his feet. “And a very good all, too.” Porle looked surprised. “You don’t propose to ask me any questions?”

  Wharton shook his head.

  “And I shall not be troubled by the—er—police?”

  “No,” Wharton said. “You won’t be troubled by anybody. This is a free country, Mr. Porle. Good day to you, sir, and good luck.”

  Porle grasped his hand, and then mine. “One question, sir. The man Mortheimer left money. There will be a possibility of my participating in the—er—estate?”

  “Maybe,” said Wharton. “In any case I wish you luck.”

  “Sir, I thank you,” Porle said, as if he were conferring a knighthood at the least. “And permit me, gentlemen, to see you to the door.”

  “We’ll find our own way out,” Wharton assured him.

  “The key, gentlemen,” Porle called to us from the landing. “You will lock the door and replace it?”

  Wharton called back that he certainly would. Then, as soon as we were in the passage-way again, he was grasping my arm. Probably the Dickensian atmosphere of that half-hour was at the background of his mind, for he was using an old tag of his that he had taken from Sam Weller.

  “Well, if that don’t beat cock-fighting!”

  “He’s a great lad,” I said. “And you ought to be pleased.”

  “Yes,” he said, and as if the discovery was due to his own perspicacity. “I knew I’d find out who that Maddon was. Not half-past ten yet,” he added, glancing at his watch. “What about that coffee?”

  I said there was a nice little place at the end of the short cut.

  “That reminds me,” he said. “You owe me a drink. Didn’t you bet you’d find out who Maddon was inside a week?”

  “All right, George, I’ll pay,” I said. It was far too good a morning for argument.

  Over the coffee he was still so cock-a-hoop about Maddon that he forgot to ask me about my discoveries. Perhaps I do him an injustice. My question may have put him off.

  “Don’t you think, George, that Maddon and Temple were in stir together, and that’s how Maddon got to know him?”

  “That’s it for a fiver,” he said, and pursed his lips. “Yes, that’d be it. They served their time from ’30 to ’34 or thereabouts.”

  “Extraordinary,” I said. “Fancy you having got Maddon that four years.”

  “I knew him before then,” he said. “You might not know it, but he was actually connected with Murphy.”

  “Murphy the poisoner?”

  “Who else?” he said, as if there wasn’t any other Murphy. In that context there shouldn’t have been. Murphy ranks with Crippen and Armstrong and Brides-in-the-bath Smith, and the rest of the murder top-notchers whose lives are a source of income for the novelist-historians. In case you don’t happen to have heard of him, I’ll only say that he was a chemist in quite a good way of business in the West End. When he died—and that was in Broadmoor—he left well over ten thousand pounds. His particular ideas were far removed from sordid murder. All he did was experiment with certain poisons of his own mixing and devising, by trying them out on customers. That was only at the very end of his career, but he had deprived the country of at least six citizens before he was caught. “Caught” is hardly the word, for no man could have been more astounded than Murphy was when the police called on him.

  “That was the devil of a long while ago, George?” I said. “Getting on for forty years,” he said. “I knew all about it from what happened afterwards. Mortheimer was a youngish man then, and his firm handled Murphy’s affairs. He was very decent at the time. The wife died from shock and he handled the trust for the two children. Either two or three. They were sent abroad to Australia or somewhere.”

  “Maddon,” I said, and he asked what was biting me. “Nothing,” I said. “I was just remembering him as I saw him the night before he was murdered. After what you and Porle have said, it’s like seeing him again. The educated way he spoke. That touch of cynicism.”

  “Never mind him,” he said. “He’s dead and he doesn’t affect anything. What about that business you were talking about last night.”

  “Oh, that,” I said, and ordered more coffees while I collected my thoughts.

  “There you are then,” I said when I’d told him all I knew. “My God, yes!” he said. “But isn’t it going to be a bit difficult to prove?”

  “Not if you handle it,” I said.

  He swallowed it at that, even if he did protest. “But you’ve got everything at your fingers’ ends.”

  “So will you have by half-past two,” I said. “I’ll have lunch at the Wheatsheaf and we’ll rehearse things there.”

  I watched him think that over and I knew he’d take the job on. I wouldn’t have done it in any case. Fancy me holding the stage with George sitting there and announcing in everything but words how much better he’d have done the job himself.

  “Well, we’ll see,” he said. “But if he brazens things out then we’re sunk.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” I said. “I’ve got a rather effective entry or two I can make. Something that will take the wind clean out of his sails.”

  “Oh?” he said, and waited.

  “But I’m not telling you,” I said. “You’ve got to be just as much surprised as he is.”

  He grunted, then was asking what Chevalle had been like that morning.

  “I think he hated the thought of reopening things,” I said. “Once his wife’s buried he hopes everybody will forget everything.”

  “And why not?”

  “No reason at all,” I said blandly, but I knew I’d touched him a bit on the raw, for that was what he had been hoping for himself. If not, why hadn’t he come down by road?

  “In any case, to-day should be the last day,” I said. “This time to-morrow you ought to be back in Town.”

  There was a telephone in the restaurant, so I rang up Helen and said I would be out to lunch. It was Annie who took the call. I’d forgotten it was War Savings’ day.

  There was a handy bus and we took it. As we passed Bassetts I saw a man clipping the hedge in fron
t of Little Foxes. I guessed it was Dewball, but when we neared I saw it was Santon.

  “See you at the Wheatsheaf,” I told George hurriedly, and pushed the bell.

  “Hallo, Major,” Santon said when I strolled up, and his tone lacked its old heartiness.

  “Dewball about?” I said. “I don’t know if he told you, but I happened to be passing on Saturday and I wondered if you had a Porthaven Gazette. Will you tell him from me that I’ve managed to get one?”

  “I will,” he said. “But it’ll have to be when he gets back.”

  “Any time will do,” I said. “Gone out, has he?”

  “He was overdue for his annual holiday,” he said, and was idly flicking at the hedge with the shears as he said it. “I thought this would be a good time, so I let him get away yesterday.”

  “I don’t think I’d bother then,” I said. “He’ll have forgotten all about it by the time he’s back. And I shall be gone too.”

  “You’re going?” he asked politely.

  “At any time now,” I said. “I never intended a long stay.”

  He didn’t say anything about another trip before I went. In fact he didn’t seem to know what to say, so I brought the brief talk to an end by saying that I’d have to get along to lunch.

  “Might as well go the back way,” I said, “if you don’t mind my using your path.”

  “Everybody uses it,” he said. “I’m going that way, so I’ll see you along.”

  He went with me as far as his boundary. As I told Wharton later, I didn’t know if there was anything from which he wanted to steer me away or if his accompanying me was just politeness. But even when I had left him and was making my way along the path I had the uneasy feeling that he was behind me in the wood, watching me.

  “A bit risky, wasn’t it, talking to him at all?” George told me accusingly.

  “Don’t think so,” I said. We were in the bar having a quick one, so I daren’t talk much above a whisper. But I did tell him about Dewball’s sudden holiday, and he raised his eyebrows at that.

  “Doesn’t want him questioned?”

  “That’s it,” I said. “And I’ve a pretty good idea about what.”

  CHAPTER XV

  EVERYTHING LOVELY

  At about two o’clock Chevalle rang up. I was all of a flutter when I heard his voice.

  “Thought I’d let you know everything’s fixed,” he said. “Would you like to synchronise watches so that we arrive roughly together?”

  We did that and I told him to make sure he got Santon to the summer-house. Then I thought of something else.

  “By the way, Chevalle, I ought to warn you that some pretty uncomfortable things have to be said this afternoon.”

  “Uncomfortable for whom?” he asked after a pause.

  “For you,” I said. “To be blunt, the possible relationships between Santon and your wife.”

  I heard him give a little grunt. And I had to wait a moment or two more before he spoke.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be news to me.”

  When I told George he was relieved about that, but when we set off I was for once the cooler man of the two. He was looking on the black side, and worrying about what would happen if Santon stood his ground. I felt never a tremor. Usually, when a climax is at hand my heart begins to race like a mad thing, but that afternoon it was beating so steadily that I might have been merely bored. Maybe it was because I was looking beyond that coming interview. Looking at my theory; my own theory, and knowing that nothing that Santon would do could change it from the fact it now was back to theory again. There, if only to some small extent, I was to be wrong.

  Well, we came through the woods to the summer-house. I put my head inside the door and began: “Is anyone there?” Then I had to change it to an “Oh,” for Chevalle and Santon were standing not far from me on the lawn.

  “Here we are, then,” Wharton began amiably. “Sorry to bother you, Commander, but there’re one or two points I’d like to go over with you and Chevalle. Just clearing up an oddment or two about Mrs. Chevalle’s death.”

  Santon had shot the three of us a look, and the look he gave Chevalle was vaguely hostile. Maybe he was guessing that Chevalle’s rendezvous had been a trap.

  “Let’s sit in here,” Wharton said. “Devilish hot out there in the sun.”

  He set out the four chairs, with himself facing Santon, and Chevalle and I on the flanks.

  “What’s it all about?” Santon asked with an attempt at jocularity. “Looks like a regular mothers’ meeting.”

  “The fact of the matter is,” Wharton said, and in the same amiable tone, “I’ve come here to ask you to make a statement.”

  “Statement? Statement about what?”

  “About the way you killed Mrs. Chevalle.”

  “What!” He stared, but the smile when it came was feeble. “What is this? A joke?”

  “Oh, no,” Wharton said. “After all, if we know you killed her we’re entitled to get you to tell us how.”

  “Never heard such damn nonsense in my life! You were at the inquest, weren’t you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Wharton said. “Very interesting it was.”

  “Look here,” Santon said. “This is a joke, isn’t it. Own up.”

  Wharton heaved a sigh. “Well, if you won’t talk I suppose I’d better. It’ll amount to the same thing in the long run.” He leaned forward. “But you won’t mind admitting that you recently spent a few days with Mrs. Chevalle in Town?”

  “Who? I?” His face flushed slightly. “Who told you that goddam lie?”

  “Ah, well,” said Wharton regretfully. “But what I’m not going to do just yet is tell you how I know. You’ll claim, of course, that you were at Southbridge.”

  “I damn well was at Southbridge.”

  “Then you don’t mind telling me in what room Lord Kindersley addressed the delegates.”

  It was at me that Santon shot the look. He remembered all right.

  “In the big concert room, of course. A damn great room with a platform at the far end.”

  “Exactly,” said Wharton and was taking out the two clippings. “All you know about that conference is what you read in your Telegraph, and that didn’t mention the scene and only gave a resume of the speech. But here’s a fuller account from the Porthaven Gazette. That meeting wasn’t held at the Civic Centre at all. It was held on the Town football ground and the speech was made from the main stand.”

  He put on his spectacles and was peering at Santon over their tops.

  “You see,” he said. “Much better for you to tell the truth.”

  “Even if I wasn’t there,” Santon told him, “and I don’t admit even that—then it’s my own business where I was.”

  His tone had been slightly bellicose. That was the wrong way to handle Wharton.

  “Well, you’ll soon have to admit it in a Court of Law,” he told him grimly. “But let me suggest a few things to you. When you got back here, or before—it’s immaterial at the moment—Mrs. Chevalle told you that for some time she had been blackmailed by Maddon. He’d probably seen you together in Town some time. The next thing she had to tell you was that I was going to arrest her for killing Maddon, unless she could prove an alibi. She was desperate and she threatened to own up she’d been with you.”

  “Very interesting,” Santon said dryly.

  “But that wouldn’t have suited your book,” Wharton told him. “Your wife would have divorced you, and it’s she who has the money. And you didn’t want to marry the ex-Mrs. Chevalle. All right for a nice week-end, but marriage—Lord bless you, no! But you strung her along. Everything would be all right, you said. You and she would go away. She was to pack her bags and be round here at ten o’clock, shall we say. You’d take her back in the car to the empty house, collect the luggage and there we are. And she swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.”

  “But—” He broke off with a shrug of the shoulders.


  “Never mind. Say what you’ve got to say.”

  “All you had to do was set the stage,” Wharton said. “You fixed an appointment with Major Travers so as to claim a reason for getting out your car. When she was here you rang Chevalle and laid stress on the fact that the lady had a gun and was threatening to shoot herself. You’d got rid of Dewball, and I think you told the lady that a little something had gone wrong with the car and you’d sent him to the local garage for a spare part. At any rate you and she adjourned to this summer-house.”

  He gave another peer over his spectacle-tops and went on. “I don’t claim absolute truth for every detail, but I think you asked the lady to bring her gun with her—the one you’d given her as a present. Maybe she’d told you at some time or other she might be pestered by her husband. But she’d got rid of that gun. Still, that didn’t worry you. You had a pair. Picked them up on your Mediterranean travels probably. Dewball must have seen them in his time. I expect that’s why you sent him off on a holiday—so that he couldn’t be questioned.”

  Wharton let out a breath.

  “And so to the murder. You two were sitting here, she waiting impatiently for Dewball and the spare part, and you waiting for Chevalle. You had your eye on this window and as soon as you saw him you said, ‘Oh my God! There’s your husband!’

  “She was scared stiff and that was what you wanted. You told her to stay put, and out you went by this back door. From just out there you called to Chevalle. ‘That you Chevalle?’ Then you said you’d be with him in a minute, and back you nipped in here. The bend in the path had hidden you, even if he’d been looking this way. The lady was still scared. You talked like lightning. ‘Here’s a gun. If he threatens you, pretend to shoot yourself. Like this. Don’t worry. It isn’t loaded.’ She was scared, mind you, and everything took place within a few seconds. You showed her how to hold the gun to her head—guided the limp hand, if you like—and pressed her finger on the trigger. Then out you nipped. ‘My God, Chevalle, what’s that?’ Then you bolted through the shrubbery towards the house and you managed to get back here at about the same time as Chevalle got here himself.”