The Case of the Running Mouse: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “And there’s more to it than that,” he went on. “I know Worrack’s been worried. And I know this. Just before she left—again I say ostensibly—for Ireland, I asked her about an engagement we’d fixed up and she told me she’d certainly be back for it, and that’d be inside a week. She didn’t like her present flat, to tell the truth, and was frightfully keen on getting another, which I had inside information about. It involved a third person whose time was valuable, and who was doing us both a favour. Yet she didn’t drop me a line or ring up to say she couldn’t make the appointment, and an appointment she wouldn’t have missed for anything.”

  “All that seems pretty conclusive,” I said. “But what am I to do about it? Assume you were correct about Worrack having approached me, we’re still at a dead end. As an old policeman, you ought to know I can’t admit the fact. All I’ll say is that I couldn’t accept any commission from you, and if I’d accepted one from Worrack—which I haven’t—then I’d never dream of divulging what it was. So there we are.”

  “You called yourself Blunt, so I’ll be blunt,” he said. “I don’t ask you to tell me about yourself and Worrack because I know I was right. You’ve told me so a dozen times over. It’s one and one and the answer’s two. All I’ll add is, that I’m damn glad of it. I want to be told nothing and the last thing I want to do is to intrude. On the other hand, if there’s anything whatever I can do—and when I say anything, I mean anything—then you’ve only to ask me to do it.”

  “Well, there seems no more to say,” I told him. “Thank you for a most excellent tea and I’ll be getting along. I shall be seeing you—”

  “Just one other thing,” he cut in. “Give me a chance to explain why I got you here. It’s a damnably awkward thing to do, but it’s got to be done. If anything has happened to Georgina—which God forbid!—then it affects my whole life. I’m not a poor man but I’m the hell of a way from being a rich one. If Barbara comes into Georgina’s money, then I’m damned if I’m going to press her to marry me. That may sound quixotic, but it’s my way of looking at things, and you can take it as final. What I should do is find some pretext and cut loose altogether.”

  “It’s not for me to comment,” I said, “though I see your point of view.”

  “Don’t go yet,” he told me quickly. “There’s just one other question.” He hesitated, and the question had a certain hesitation about it too. “What did you think about Barbara—Mrs. Grays—at lunch to-day?” I avoided his look and he went quickly on. “How did she strike you, as a complete stranger?”

  “You tell me how she should have struck me,” I countered.

  “Damn your subtlety,” he said with a humorous exasperation. “Still, I’ll tell you this and I want you to believe it. She wasn’t herself; in fact she was the devil of a long way off being herself. I didn’t make any comment at lunch because I flatter myself I know how women should be handled.”

  “And what should she have been like?”

  That facer didn’t disturb him in the least, in fact he seemed grateful for it.

  “She’s a thoroughly good sort. Always very blunt, but not damnably rude and pettish like she was to-day. And all the bilge about making herself out to be a damn selfish woman. When the blitz was full on they tell me she did some pretty fine work and she had to be forced to throw her hand in when her nerve went. She mixes with a pretty fast crowd, I’ll admit that, but then so do I. She’s always liked a flutter, and I do myself, so long as I can afford it.”

  “What you’re trying to tell me is that she wasn’t herself to-day, because she’s worried about Georgina,” I said.

  “Perhaps it is,” he said, and let out a breath. I had got to my feet and he rose too, and out went his hand. “Thanks a lot for coming round. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit tiresome.”

  “You don’t know how much,” I told him enigmatically. “I’ll be seeing you to-night?’”

  “At Worrack’s place—yes, if you’re really going.”

  “Oh, I’m going,” I said airily. “I like a bit of a flutter too.”

  He gave me a quick look at that, I don’t know why. Maybe he’d looked me up in Who’s Who, for there was one in the little bookcase, and a Debrett, though no scheming of mine could ever land me inside those august covers. All he did do was to say he’d be seeing me then, and could I find my way down.

  There was plenty of time before I was due at Worrack’s flat, so I got on with a job I’d intended to do. In my time I’ve often employed private detective agencies, and I’ve made a habit of spreading my commissions round so as to have likely helpers in all sorts of places and in order not to place myself under too great an obligation to any particular firm. That afternoon I went to a firm in Broad Street, whom I had not employed for a good number of years. A chap called Ellice—Bill Ellice—ran it; he was still there, and he recognised me promptly enough. I knew I shouldn’t have to put in a plea for snappy service. All the little firms go frantic at the likelihood of getting in well with the Yard, and I took care not to let him think the job was merely something of my own.

  “Georgina Morbent,” he said, when he’d written down particulars I’d given him. “Anything to do with the racing man who was killed in the blitz? A millionaire they said he was.”

  “His widow,” I said, and I could see he was interested. Maybe he thought the charges could be accordingly.

  “Well, she ought to be easy,” he said, and took another good look at the photograph. “Things aren’t too brisk at the moment, Mr. Travers, so I’ll take over the job myself.”

  “Good for you, Bill,” I said. “And when you pick up her trail, don’t let go. Follow everything up till it’s a dead end. Report when there’s anything worth reporting and be as long-winded as you like.”

  I gave him the new address and telephone number, and when I left him there was still a half-hour before I was due at Worrack’s place, so I strolled on for a bit before taking the Underground. Between six and seven, he’d said, and it was about ten past six when I neared his door. As my hand went out to knock, I heard voices, and that was strange, considering the fact that when I’d done my best to listen that very morning, not a definite word could I hear. Then I saw that the door was not quite shut, and in the same moment I knew that in that room something was going on that was remarkably like a first-class row.

  “Do as you damn please!” That was Worrack and he seemed to be in a tidy temper. “You bloody little fool! You don’t think you can try that kind of blackmail with me?”

  “And you keep your language to yourself!” A woman’s voice, furious to the point of hysterics, and quite unknown to me. “You’re a nice one to talk about blackmail.”

  “Look here, Lulu, you’d better get out of here before I do something.” Worrack’s voice had become ominously calm. “Get out in any case. I’m expecting a caller.”

  “A caller. How nice for you. And what’s her name?”

  “Will you get to hell out of here?”

  With one hand I held the knob of the door and with the knuckle of the other I rapped loudly. The voices ceased as by magic; there was a moment’s silence and then Worrack was calling, “Come in!”

  “Hallo, Blunt,” he said. “Didn’t expect you on the dot like this. Meet Miss Mawne—Lulu to you. Lulu, this is Blunt, but Ludo to you.”

  She was what is known as a stunning brunette. Just about the right height for a woman and the right shape in the right places. The cheeky black hat on her jet-black hair went well with the lipstick, and she was wearing a swagger-coat that was either mink or the next best thing. Her face was pretty flushed after that scrap with Worrack, but the smile she gave him was almost coy.

  “You’re pulling my leg. Isn’t he, Mr. Blunt?”

  “I get you,” I said. “Lulu and Ludo.”

  “Sounds like something on the music hall,” she said, and gurgled.

  “There you are, Blunt,” Worrack said. “If that isn’t an invitation to team up, I’ve never heard one.”
/>   I was trying to look as if I was tickled to death at the mere idea. Worrack was going on. “Lulu’s our secretary at the club. One of the originals.”

  “I haven’t met you there, have I?” she asked me, and the smile was a first-class invitation.

  “I’ve only just got back to England,” I told her unblushingly. “Maybe if I’d known what I know now, I’d have got back before.”

  She didn’t look as if she’d fallen for that. Maybe she’d heard it too often before.

  “Run along now, Lulu,” Worrack told her. “You and Blunt can get better acquainted later.”

  He gave her a large envelope which she stuck in an inside pocket of the swagger-coat.

  “See you later, Ludo?” she told me with a smile that was flattering enough to a man of my age. Then: “Cheerio, Peter!” and off she went.

  I closed the door behind her but Worrack was suddenly there too. He opened the door again, stuck his head out, and listened. Half a minute went by before he closed the door.

  “Well, what did you think of her?” he said as he waved me to my chair. Then he noticed the two glasses. He and Lulu had had a sherry, he said, and what about one for me? I said I would, if he’d have another.

  “Well, here’s how,” he said, and nodded to me over his glass. “And may we never combine business and pleasure.”

  I took it that cryptic reference was to Lulu.

  “A smart-looking wench,” I said. “The club secretary, did you say?”

  He’d said that because Lulu liked the title, he told me.

  What she was, was a kind of secretary, spare croupier, and general receptionist. She typed the invitations, among other things, and brought them along every afternoon to be signed by him.

  “You remember the old song?” he said. “The lass who

  When she left the village she was shy . . . .”

  I popped in with the rest.

  But alas and alack

  She came back

  With a naughty little twinkle in her eye.

  “That’s it,” he said. “And that’s Lulu. Believe me or not, the product of a country vicarage.”

  “Well, the twinkle was there all right,” I said. “But she doesn’t seem to have gone back.”

  “Lulu’s all right,” he said. “You wouldn’t think it, but she puts in three solid hours every day working in a canteen. The vicarage conscience, perhaps.”

  “She didn’t buy that coat out of what you pay her,” I told him.

  “We pay pretty well,” he said, and then grinned. “What she makes on her own is no concern of mine. Live and let live, that’s the motto.”

  “What was that crack of yours about business and pleasure?”

  “That?” He shrugged his shoulders. “We all have our indiscretions.”

  “Jealous of Georgina, was she?”

  There I was, theorising again. The question had popped out and I wished I hadn’t put it quite like that. He gave a grunt and smiled a bit cynically.

  “Jealous as hell.” He was quiet for a moment or two and was giving a solemn shake or two of the head.

  “Funny how women find things out,” he said. “I’d have bet that nobody had an idea that Georgie and I were . . . well, more than just acquainted, but she found out. Still, there we are.” He smiled. “And let it be a lesson to you. Another spot of sherry?”

  I said I’d rather not, and we got down to business.

  First, I told him how plain it was that Georgina had intended all the time to go as far as Rugby, to throw everybody well off the scent, and then hurry back to town by that convenient train. I also said that I had a man on the job and we ought to know something of her movements within twenty-four hours.

  “Your man can be trusted?” he asked me quickly.

  “Absolutely,” I said, and then began to tell him all that had been discussed between me and Hamson. He listened with an attention that could only be called strained.

  “There you are,” I said. “You told me he was a spry bird, and, by God! he was. A damn sight too spry for me. Some of the best deduction I’ve heard for years. When I tried to put him off, I felt all the time that I was simply telling him a whole lot more.”

  “All to the good,” he said. “Don’t tell him exactly what we’re up to, but leave him thinking he was right.” Then he was frowning away again. “What job can you find him?”

  “That’s for you to suggest,” I told him, and just a bit frigidly. “The only assistance I might want is the kind that man of mine’s doing at this moment. Hamson couldn’t do that sort of thing. If anything fishy has happened, then everybody likely to be concerned knows him. He might perhaps be used for getting information out of people. They might talk to him thinking they were just passing on gossip.”

  I said that because I wanted him to mention again what he’d said originally, about using Hamson to spy on Barbara Grays. And the funny thing was that he made no response to that deliberate opening, though it must have been in his mind, for he began referring to her at once.

  “What was his idea in telling you that Barbara was all different at lunch to-day?”

  “Lord knows,” I said. “Wasn’t she?”

  “Well, she’s always a bit aggressive,” he said. “A bit touchier to-day, perhaps. I admit she didn’t show much of her bright side, but you know what women are. By the way, how does Hamson strike you personally?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Somehow I feel I’m not supposed to like him, and yet I do. Or it may be merely respect for his intelligence. And his directness.”

  That side of the conversation had an air of petering out, so I pulled out my notebook and said I had a question or two to ask. For instance, why hadn’t Barbara seen her sister off at Euston?

  “Why should she?” he asked, and with a curious belligerence.

  “Well,” I said, and grinned feebly. “I just wondered why, that’s all.”

  “Did you make a point of seeing your sisters off at the station?” he said, and then apparently realised he was being a bit abrupt. “What I mean is, that Georgina’s trip wasn’t any big affair. It was a casual trip to Ireland such as she’d taken before. Besides, Barbara knew I was seeing Georgie off. Just to help generally, that’s all.”

  “I get you,” I said. “But just a question arising out of that. You were pretty close to Georgina. Didn’t you expect her to report her safe arrival to you, especially after what she’d said about the thirteenth and all that?”

  “She said that just as the train was on the move,” he said, “and I didn’t have time to answer. Also, we weren’t the demonstrative kind. I expected her back in under a week, and I knew she’d write only if she felt like it.” He had been hoisting himself from the chair and now he was making his way to the window and fiddling with the blackout curtains.

  “Do you mind if we drop this for a bit?” he said, and his voice was suddenly tired. “There’s just so much I can stand at a time.”

  “Sorry,” I said, and got to my feet. “Maybe we can have a few words later to-night.”

  “No, no, no,” he told me quickly. “Damn silly of me. You ask me those other questions you’ve got in that book.”

  “They’re not going to be too easy either,” I warned him. “For instance, where does Mrs. Morbent live?”

  “She had a flat in Creevy Street.”

  “Have you got a key?”

  He didn’t bridle up as I’d expected at the implications in that question.

  “As a matter of fact, I have,” he said.

  “And have you been round there since she’s been away?”

  He hesitated, but only for a moment. “Once,” he said. “Two days before I wrote to you.”

  “Notice anything different?”

  He shook his head. “There wasn’t anything to notice. It’s a furnished flat, with just her extra personal possessions.”

  “What about private papers?”

  “Those are in her desk,” he said. “That’s locked and I haven
’t a key to that.”

  “Feel like going round there now? If you’ve got time?”

  Again he hesitated a moment, then he said that he’d rather dreaded going there again, but if I went too it might be different. It was only a five-minute walk.

  On the way I told him what I’d like to find. A bank pass-book, for instance, and cheque counterfoils, and the chance of tracing any payments which might look like blackmail.

  “Where did she actually bank?” I asked.

  “Barclay’s in Maynard Street,” he said.

  “If nothing turns up at the flat, would you feel like seeing the manager?” I asked him. “You could make it frightfully confidential.”

  He said he didn’t like the idea but he’d think it over. Then I asked about a maid. What did he mean by saying that she’d taken no maid with her to Ireland? He said he’d mentioned it because I might have thought a moneyed woman like her would have been expected to have a maid. She did have one, in fact, when her husband was alive.

  It seemed a long five minutes and I told him we ought to have taken a taxi on account of his game leg. He said he liked walking. It got him used to the leg and he was hoping it wouldn’t be long before no one noticed he had a game leg at all. In any case we were there, he said, and stopped before the porch of what looked like the real old-fashioned type of town house, area, basement, and all. It had been made into four flats, he told me, and Georgina’s was the best of the bunch and on the ground floor.

  “No service meals, then?” I asked as he turned the key in the Yale lock and drew back for me to go in.

  “That’s why she thought of leaving it,” he told me. “I believe Hamson had rather a good place in mind.”

  I thought of a question I’d have liked to ask but kept it to myself instead, and had a good look round the room.

  “This is a superb room,” I said. “Are the others like it?”

  There was a smaller sitting-room, a really fine bedroom a second smaller one, and a kitchenette. In the basement, he told me, there were a married couple who did housework for the four flats but only very occasional cooking. I ventured to guess the rent as three-fifty, and he told me I was fifty shy.