The Case of the Running Mouse: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “What’s the matter with you this morning, darling?” Worrack asked her amusedly. “Headache or just little tempers?”

  Then Pierre appeared with the ash-tray and the menu, Hamson began talking to me and left the selection to the others.

  “All food’s alike to me,” he told me. “In any case they always do you well here. What was your regiment Mr. Blunt?”

  I inwardly damned Worrack for not consulting me about the manner of my introduction. Then I thought I’d tell him the truth, and I did—more or less.

  “You’re lucky,” he said regretfully. “They turned me down with a wonky heart. All the same, you’d have thought they might have found some sort of a job for an old policeman.”

  “Policeman?” I said. “You make me shudder.”

  He laughed. “Not what you fear. Just the Indian police, that’s all.”

  “Darling, must you tell everybody your life history?” Barbara asked with a drawling impertinence, but Hamson only laughed. Then Worrack was asking us if we agreed on a general menu or if we’d like variations, and Pierre stood by expectantly. I said what was good enough for him was good enough for me, especially as he was paying. Hamson chuckled and said that went for him too.

  It was a good meal. I tell you that to get it over. A capital thing it may be—to do a bit of philosophising—for all of us to be rationed in essentials, but we had few essentials except perhaps a speck of toast. After all, money still counts, and it buys Scotch salmon, and game, and poultry, and even foie gras and caviare, if it comes to that. I was hungry and I ate accordingly, and Hamson had a good appetite too. Worrack seemed the pernickety kind of feeder, and Barbara Grays left half her food on her plate. And she had that pernicious habit of smoking throughout the meal. An American habit, I believe, but whoever invented it ought to have been made to anticipate his meals with three solid hours on a treadmill.

  It was just after the soup that I put my question.

  “How’s your sister these days, Mrs. Grays? I haven’t seen her for quite a time.”

  “Blunt knows Georgie pretty well,” Worrack cut in.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I added deprecatingly.

  Barbara laid her fork carefully on her plate and reached as carefully for the cigarette.

  “I think she’s pretty fit,” she told me unconcernedly. “Over in Ireland at the moment. Call that damn waiter, Peter, will you? This blasted soda’s perfectly tepid.”

  Worrack had ordered for her a double whisky, and we others were drinking lager.

  Worrack shrugged his shoulders and looked round for Pierre. Hamson leaned forward and patted her hand.

  “What’s the matter, darling? Not feeling too fit?”

  “Damn you, Tommy, will you leave me alone!” she told him pettishly. Then she caught my eye, and it was when she smiled that I seemed to see her face for the first time, and I knew I had seen her somewhere before.

  “Are you married, Mr. Blunt?”

  “Not too much,” I said.

  “I can’t stand being pestered,” she told me. “And you are a pest sometimes, Tommy, and a damned annoying one.” There was no point in dragging Georgina’s name in again and the meal went on its languid way. We talked about the theatre, which Barbara said was putrid, and about the blitzes which she described as vulgar and noisy. Then it leaked out, through Hamson, that she’d driven an ambulance, so there again was a person who was a queer contradiction. As spoilt as hell, bored beyond tears, and as selfish as they make them, and regarding the driving of an ambulance through the worst of the blitz as something of which to be disgustingly ashamed.

  With coffee she and Worrack had liqueurs. Hamson had a glass of iced water and I merely smoked.

  Worrack settled the bill for the four of us. Hamson expostulated but Barbara seemed to take it for granted.

  “Sorry I’ve got to push off,” Worrack announced. “Blunt’s coming along to Arcadia to-night, by the way.” Arcadia was the code word for that club of his.

  Barbara’s lip curled. “If he takes my advice he’ll stay at home and play double patience with his wife.”

  “Damnation, Barbara,” Worrack told her with mock exasperation. “Now you’ve lost me a perfectly good client.” He got to his feet. “See you later then, old chap. You’ll look after Barbara, Tommy.”

  It was then that the contretemps occurred and an awkward one it was. We had all got up and Mrs. Grays had said something about going to powder her nose, and Hamson had rushed to help her into the fur coat. I happened to glance round and there, almost full on me, was Deaker, one of the Assistant Commissioners at the Yard. My face flared to the colour of a tomato.

  “Hallo, Travers,” he said, and his voice had a heartiness for which I could have murdered him. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Just taking on fuel,” I said. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing in particular. You still at the same place?”

  “Still there,” I said, and wished to hell he’d go.

  “Perhaps I’ll be seeing you again,” he told me and glanced across at the lady who appeared to be waiting for him. He hesitated, gave a look at the three who were with me, and then said he’d have to be going.

  “Ring me up some time,” I said, and he grinned and nodded as he made off.

  The first face I saw was Worrack’s, and it looked as sheepish as my own. Then he saved the situation, as I thought, manfully.

  “A damn silly name, Travers,” he said. “Do you ever get ragged about it still?”

  “Travers Blunt sounds rather euphonious to me,” I said.

  I glanced at Hamson, but he had a queer wary look on his face.

  “A perfectly ghastly combination,” Barbara Grays remarked languidly. “Your parents should have been prosecuted for cruelty to children.”

  “Well, I’ll be going,” Worrack cut in. Barbara Grays moved off too and Hamson and I made our way to the washroom. Then we waited in the red plush vestibule. Barbara was always the devil of a time, he said, and I took that for a hint that he wouldn’t be glad of any more of my company, and I said I thought I’d be on the move.

  “Doing anything in particular this afternoon?” he asked me.

  “Yes and no,” I said. “Why?”

  He hesitated. “Well, there’s something I’d rather like to talk over with you. Sorry I can’t be more explicit. What about dropping in at my place at about four?”

  “Right-ho,” I said. “Provided you don’t want to see me to sell me a gold mine, and your place isn’t too far from Kensington.”

  “Warfield’s Hotel in Marybrook Street,” he said. “Not two minutes from Harrods. And I only wish I had a gold mine to sell you.”

  I said I’d look in. And would he make my excuses to Mrs. Grays, whom I hoped to see again some time. He said that if I was going to Worrack’s place that night I’d see her there.

  As soon as I was back at my flat I rang up Worrack, though I didn’t expect to find him in.

  “Congratulations on getting me out of that mess,” I said. “But you’ve landed me in another. As you called me an old army pal, and Hamson was rather persistent, I told him I was back in the Service.”

  “That goes for me,” he said. “What sort of a job? We’d better stick to the same yarn.”

  “An administrative job in a camp in the Midlands. Rank of Major.”

  He repeated that as if to make sure he’d got it.

  “One other thing,” I said, and told him about Hamson’s invitation. I heard him give a low whistle.

  “If he gets too persistent again,” I said, “what am I to tell him? That chap who spoke to me had policeman written all over him, and somehow I don’t think Hamson swallowed your tale.”

  “He’s a cute bird,” he said. “But tell him anything you damn-please, provided you let me know. I’ll be here between six and seven o’clock, so you might ring me up.”

  I said I’d rather slip along and see him if I might. Then I put a last question.


  “Suppose Hamson guesses that that lunch appearance of mine was a put-up affair. Suppose he jumps even farther ahead and guesses you’re doing something about a missing somebody, and I’m in it too? What then?”

  There was a moment or two of silence and I could almost hear him thinking.

  “Don’t think it’s likely,” he said. “If it should happen, then you can tell him that we are on that job. But make him swear he’ll keep his mouth shut to Barbara. She’s not to know a thing.”

  “If he offers to help, then you’d still like it?”

  “I think so,” he said. “I told you he was a spry bird. He ought to help you a lot.”

  So much for that. Whether I was pleased or not I didn’t know. Hamson might have been a police official years ago in India but that didn’t amount to much. Then I realised I was being rather illogical. After all, I hadn’t promised to undertake the case, so why should I object to a collaborator with whom I was never likely to collaborate? But of one thing I was sure. Hamson was no stool pigeon. If Worrack thought his role would be pumping Barbara Grays, then every instinct told me he was most damnably wrong. Hamson, whatever he was, wasn’t that sort. Nor did he strike me as a gold-digger in the matter of Barbara Grays. A pure adventurer would have had far more bounce and assurance, and Hamson struck me as a man of some means and a definite stability.

  In any case, I could tell myself, Barbara Grays might be a damn good-looking woman—at least in her agreeable moments—but it would have taken more than half a million to induce me to tie myself to her for the balance of my natural life. One thing in particular about her had struck me as curious and unpleasant. Though, according to Worrack, Georgina made her an allowance, she had seemed to me utterly indifferent when I had asked my question as to Georgina’s whereabouts. Her attitude had seemed, in fact, heartless to the point of callousness. And then, again, I wondered if I was being just. Worrack had said that the sisters were not the demonstrative kind, and I couldn’t very well have expected Barbara Grays to weep on my shoulder. Still, it was all very confusing, and when I relinquished the case—and all the time I was telling myself that that was what I definitely intended—then I pitied the official at the Yard who would have the dubious pleasure of taking it over.

  I ought to have written to my wife, so to take my mind off the case and to pass the time till a quarter to four, I wrote a long letter. Then I did some spit and polish and as there were a few minutes left, tackled the Times crossword. It was one of the harder sort, and after putting in half a dozen clues I was stumped completely, though I should say that as mine is the hither and thither kind of crossword brain, I usually managed to finish a puzzle in well under half an hour. However, it had passed the time for me, and I set out on the ten-minute walk to Hamson’s hotel. When I fumbled in my pocket on the landing to make sure I had my key, I felt that piece of paper that Worrack had given me with the address of the club. To my amazement it was a personal letter, typed and signed. Harcourt Gardens, No. 72, was the address and it began, “Dear Blunt,’’ and went on to say that Worrack was throwing a small party that night and would appreciate my company. I didn’t know what its validity would be as a method of evading the law, but it struck me as an ingenious and highly amusing effort.

  Warfield’s Hotel was a private affair that seemed both decorous and expensive. It seemed also to pride itself on tradition, for in the entrance hall were various pictures and engravings connected with its history, and as Benjamin Franklin had once stayed there, it doubtless did a roaring trade—I beg its pardon—sedate and prosperous trade—with Americans. Indeed, an American officer was the first person I saw there. At the bureau, presided over by an elderly lady, who I was surprised to see was not wearing mittens, I was simply told to go right up to Number 18, on the first floor.

  When I tapped at the door, Hamson’s voice told me to enter. He was in as unconventional a position as could be, well back in a low easy-chair and feet on the mantelpiece, smoking a filthy-looking pipe and browsing over a paper, which I spotted as the Financial Times.

  At the sight of me he gave a look of comical dismay and scrambled to his feet. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Hadn’t any idea it was so late. Let me order you some tea. And let me take your coat.”

  I said it seemed only a few minutes since I’d eaten that lunch, but he said he was having a cup in any case. There was a telephone with a house connection in the room, so he ordered what he called the usual, which turned out to be toast, cake, and tea.

  “Very few people know this place,” he said, “and thank God for that. I’ve had this little suite of mine for a goodish time now. And it isn’t as expensive as you might think.”

  He was clearing the newspapers off the side table that had stood at his elbow.

  “Hallo,” I said. “You’ve been doing the Times crossword.”

  “You’re a crossword fan, aren’t you?” he said. “Very disappointing to-day, don’t you think? I hate them when you can finish them off without writing down a word.”

  “Good God!” I said. “I thought it the hardest there’s been for weeks.”

  “That’s the beauty of them,” he told me. “Those you finish in ten minutes would probably take me an hour.”

  Worrack had called him a spry bird, but that couple of minutes gave me a far greater respect for his brains. Then the tea was brought in by a maid who looked as if she’d been born on the premises, and just too late to see Franklin.

  Hamson had tricked me into that meal, for he never took anything to eat between lunch and dinner. I said I wouldn’t spoil good food and helped myself to some toast.

  “Salt?” he said, and then made a rather dramatic pause. Then he gave me a look that was just a bit too humorous to be purely cynical.

  “Bread and salt. You know what that means, eating a man’s bread and salt. I wonder if I ought to encourage you—at least before I’ve told you why I wanted you to come here.”

  “It’ll take something pretty startling to put me off this toast,” I said, and my hand went out to the salt.

  “But seriously,” he said. “I didn’t get you here under false pretences, but I ought to tell you something first. After that you mayn’t want any tea.”

  “Very well,” I told him with an assumption of good humour. “Get it off your chest and then I’ll get on with the toast.”

  “I doubt if you will,” he said. “The fact is—well, I had an idea to-day that I’d seen you before. It was only when that cove spoke to you at Moroni’s that I knew where. And when Peter Worrack tried to explain away why he’d called you Travers.”

  CHAPTER IV

  AND LULU

  I hope I didn’t flush and I certainly did my best not to gape.

  “This is all very mysterious,” I said.

  He ignored that feeble disclaimer. “I knew you were Ludovic Travers,” he said. “Before I’d been in England a month I went to the Old Bailey to hear the Craigne trial and you were the principal witness for the prosecution. You hadn’t a moustache in those days and, if you don’t mind my saying so, you didn’t look as fit, and that’s what put me off.”

  “Well, I’m still eating your bread and salt,” I said. “And it was the policeman in you that made you attend that trial?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “And because I knew Craigne. Once when I was on leave I helped finance one of his shows, and did remarkably well out of it. That was before he ran off the rails.”

  That gave me another, even if vague, insight into Hamson’s mind, and I might say, his milieu. That Craigne circle had been the same racing and gambling kind: get-rich-quick schemers, effusive back-slappers and strident-voiced, aggressive women.

  “A queer gang to be mixed up with,” I said bluntly.

  “Not much in my line,” he told me quickly. “But Craigne himself wasn’t such a bad chap—then.” He paused. “Like me to go on?”

  “No,” I said dryly. “You say I’m Ludovic Travers. Well, what next?”

  “I’d like to put a q
uestion to you,” he said. “It was true what you told me about being in the Service?”

  “Absolutely. And about being on leave.”

  “Then I’ll tell you this,” he said. “If you’d been anything like a friend of mine, or perhaps even an acquaintance, and I’d met you to-day, I’d have asked you to do me a personal favour. You mustn’t mind my harping on it, but as an old policeman I’ve got an inquisitive mind. I can’t help putting two and two together, so to speak, and getting worried when they don’t add up to four.”

  “I’m the same way myself,” I told him. “But what are this particular two and two, and what was the answer?”

  “Perfectly frankly I’m worried about Georgina Morbent, Mrs. Grays’ sister. And I’m rather of the opinion that Worrack has forestalled me.”

  I raised incredulous eyebrows.

  “My dear Travers,” he told me, and the smile was definitely cynical. “Surely that wasn’t much of a deduction when I’d remembered who you were? He brings you along under an assumed name, and looks damned silly when that cove calls you by your right name. And he’d fixed it for you to meet Georgina’s sister—the woman, by the way, to whom I’m hoping to be engaged—and myself.”

  “To save argument, let’s admit it,” I said, and reached for the last piece of that excellent toast. “But why should you be worried about Georgina Morbent? Up to to-day’s lunch other people hadn’t taken any action, to your knowledge, so why should you have wished, for instance, to have had someone like myself to whom to apply for private enquiries?”

  “All common sense,” he said. “Not that I’m trying to be rude. I saw Georgina Morbent before she left for Ireland —left ostensibly, that is—and I happen to know she didn’t go there. I know it through Barbara Grays. It’s a long story but I’ll tell it briefly, like this. I have a key to Barbara’s flat. I knew she’d suddenly got something on her mind and that evening—she hadn’t come in and I was waiting for her—O’Clauty, Georgina’s trainer, rang up and I took the message, which was to the effect that in answer to Barbara’s telephoned enquiry, Georgina hadn’t been to Ireland.