The Case of the Running Mouse: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Preposterous!” she said, but I could tell she was very relieved.

  Then she gave me her version. Voices had not been raised. Georgina had had a casual fainting fit, and the maid had been most flagrantly caught in the act of listening at the keyhole.

  “Wouldn’t you have dismissed her?” she asked me.

  “Under those circumstances—yes,” I said. “But did your sister often have those fainting fits?”

  That made her think, and quickly. Once or twice before, she said, but never in that flat where we then were.

  “Well, it shows you the methods of the police,” I said. “But there’s another thing, and still between you and me. Why did you lead the police to believe that your sister had gone away with some other man? Some other man, that is to say, than Worrack?”

  Again she shot me a quick look. “Because I thought it might be possible, of course.”

  The defiance showed uneasiness and I followed it up. “But every piece of evidence in the possession of the police shows that your sister wouldn’t have looked twice at any other man than Worrack.”

  “You don’t know women,” she told me, and her lips clamped together again.

  We didn’t seem to be getting much forrader, and I was wondering if I had better go. Then I decided to do something for which I’d come, if only tentatively, prepared.

  “Very well,” I said, “but now I must again ask for your implicit confidence. This ring. Did it belong to your sister?”

  The lips parted, and it was at me she was staring. Then she slowly held out her hand.

  “Yes,” she said. “How did you get it?”

  “That I’m not prepared to tell you, at the moment,” I said. “What I will say is, that I’m also not prepared to tell anything about it to the police—unless I’m forced.”

  “What do you mean by forced?”

  “This,” I said. “I got possession of the ring in a highly confidential way. It was pawned, and I have a description of the man who pawned it. That’s all, so far, and I’m saying nothing to the police. But they’re making enquiries at all pawnshops and jewellers about any jewellery in your sister’s possession. Sooner or later they’ll stumble on that pawnshop where I found it. Then I may be forced to speak.”

  I had held out my hand and she had given me back the ring without a word.

  “I’ve got to talk to you in deadly seriousness,” I went on. “I’m convinced that there are things you can tell if you wish.”

  “If you’re not going to believe me, there’s no point in saying anything more,” she told me, and with an offended reserve.

  I let out a sigh. “Why quibble? I repeat that there are things you could tell me, if you wished.”

  “Why should there be?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I hate to say it, but because some of the things you’ve already said are so far from the truth.”

  She got to her feet at that. I sat tight.

  “Don’t you think you’d better go?”

  I could have told her that that tragedy queen stuff only made things look even more suspicious. What I did say was that if she didn’t believe I was there to help her, then perhaps I had.

  I got to my feet, heaved another sigh, and picked up my hat. But I did smile in the most friendly way as I held out my hand.

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Grays. I do hope you’ll soon be absolutely better.”

  I saw then that there was something she wanted to ask or say, so I made my way to the door a slow one. At the door itself she was halting me.

  “Oh, Mr. Travers.”

  “Yes?” I said, and smiled and waited.

  “Perhaps I’ve been too hasty. And I haven’t thanked you sufficiently.”

  “Regard the thanks as given,” I told her.

  “That’s sweet of you,” she said, and smiled wanly as she shook her head. “But thank you again for keeping everything—well, just between us two.”

  There was never a suspicion of coquetry in the voice or the smile.

  “You can rely on me,” I said, and rather lamely, and then was turning again to go.

  “But something else.” She hesitated. “If you discover anything”—she was moistening her lips—“anything against—I mean, derogatory in any way to my sister, will you tell it to me first?”

  “And not to the police?” I said. “Yes. I think I can promise that. But I hope I shan’t. I just can’t think your sister was that kind.”

  Then I knew that I’d dropped my first real brick. Her lip puckered and she was turning away.

  “I’m so sorry,” I began, but I was too late. As I turned again I could hear the catch in her throat, and as I gently closed the door I saw her head between her hands and heard the sound of her tears.

  Before I had gone a hundred yards I passed a little tea-shop. It was nearing four o’clock, so I turned back, and over my modest tea I began to think about Barbara Grays. The first thing I realised again was that I had seen a woman utterly different from the one who had lunched with Hamson that day at Moroni’s. Maybe it was the shock that had made her different, and yet I didn’t know, for the change seemed spiritually deeper. But that she could have been concerned in even the remotest way with the death of her sister seemed to me incredible. On the other hand, that she knew infinitely more about it than she had even unconsciously hinted, seemed incontrovertible.

  What had I learned from that brief interview? I took out my notebook and jotted a few ideas down. First, there was more in that Ada business than had met Wharton’s eye. That the maid had been listening seemed fairly certain, but the main thing about which Barbara Grays had been anxious was to know just how much she had heard, and if Ada had imparted what she had heard to the police. Therefore, the talk between the sisters had been specially confidential, and from that it was not unreasonable to assume that the talk had been concerned with the tragic event that followed.

  Barbara Grays’ conduct with me that afternoon had throughout been highly peculiar. I don’t mean such trivialities as that she had not asked me to have tea, though she knew both me and my wife. That might have a certain significance, but it stood out far less clearly than other things. At that lunch she had shown a complete and almost callous indifference to her sister’s disappearance, but that afternoon it had been plain to me that she had for that sister a deep affection. There had been the ring, legally as good as hers, which she handed back to me without protest, and with practically no questioning. Then I remembered that she had never asked me why I was calling on her, but had left it to me to do the explaining. Queer deviations from the usual and conventional, and yet again significant. There was something else, though as yet it was only an impression, or even more vague than that. Something, in fact, was telling me that she and Hamson were no longer on the same terms, and my belief—still purely intuition—was that he had cooled off.

  One thing, and not relative to the afternoon’s interview, had rather puzzled me—how Lulu could have known of that quarrel of the sisters and the dismissal of Ada. But as I was jotting down the headlines of the facts which I proposed to disclose to Wharton, I thought I knew the answer to that. Lulu must have been the personal go-between, in business matters, for Worrack and Georgina. To get from the club to Georgina’s flat meant practically passing Barbara’s, and Georgina might therefore have used Lulu for little errands concerning the sisters on Lulu’s way back. She must have happened to call at Barbara’s flat that day after Ada’s dismissal and have learned the story from Ada herself. That was a theory in which I had no great faith, and yet afterwards it turned out to be perfectly correct. Ada had told the story and naturally it had been a heavily biased one.

  I made my way back to Wharton’s room and wrote out the report of the call on Mrs. Grays. Wharton, an old Inspector friend of mine told me, was well on the job. Men were short, but he had scrounged half a dozen for work on the case, and it looked as if there might soon be something doing.

  Just as I was going to leave him a personal message, t
hat I’d be at the flat and he was to ring me up if he wanted me, in he came. He had a quick look at my report, grunted, and put it in his notebook. Then he was giving me a glare.

  “What do you think’s happened at Richmond?”

  “Lord knows,” I said.

  “When Richards”—that would be Detective-Sergeant Richards, and it was the first intimation that he was to help on the case—“started making enquiries, what do you think he found? Someone else was there a day or two ago and up to the same thing!”

  “Good Lord!” I said.

  “What’s it mean?” he said, and threw up his hands. “Why should anybody go making enquiries?”

  “Well, there is something that strikes me,” I ventured. “As that report says, I don’t think Mrs. Grays had anything to do with the sister’s death, and I do think she was more worried about the disappearance than she made out. Why shouldn’t she, or Worrack, have had enquiries made?”

  “Yes, but how did they know she’d been to Richmond!” I gave a Whartonian grunt. “Sorry,” I said. “That didn’t occur to me. But why shouldn’t O’Clauty have let something out? He’s a natural bletherer.”

  “That’s an idea,” he said. “I’ll see him to-night and find out.”

  He made a note and then was clicking his tongue. “Don’t know which way to turn. I want to see each of those people individually we had at the club. Then I’ve got a little surprise for you.” He glanced at his watch, an old-fashioned turnip which he carried in his waistcoat pocket. “That won’t be for another few minutes. And something I want you to do. We’ve found out about the jewellery. The pawnbroker’s come forward and he’ll be here in about half an hour. I’ll get you to see him for me and take a statement.” I was glad he wasn’t looking at me, for my face went a glorious scarlet. That shock, after the discovery of Bill Ellice’s activities at Richmond, had been too much, but as I blew my nose I managed to tell him that I’d certainly see to the pawnbroker.

  “I’ve got to get along to Richmond,” he said. “And something else. I’ve had a report on that head. They can’t say how long she’s been dead. A fortnight, perhaps, at a rough guess. The body had been embalmed.”

  My eyes fairly popped at that.

  “When I say the body, I mean that the head had been embalmed, so probably the whole body was. Just ordinary embalming fluid pumped in. Some arsenical preparation or other, the same as they use to preserve corpses for the dissecting table.”

  “You mean, a doctor did it?”

  “Not necessarily,” he said. “An undertaker might have done it, or a medical student. Anyone who had the stuff and knew the ropes.” Then he was peering at me from under his shaggy eyebrows. “Do you see anything else?”

  “Don’t know,” I said, fingers at my glasses. “Except perhaps, that whoever killed her hadn’t any means for quick disposal of the body, such as burning, for instance. Burying might have been too dangerous.”

  “Just how it struck me,” he said. “The devil of it is, it doesn’t get us very far.”

  Then there was a tap at the door. A sergeant looked in with, “Carpenter’s here, sir. Will you see him?”

  “Yes, and make it quick,” Wharton told him.

  That was the surprise he had in store for me, and a surprise it certainly was. So was Jean himself, and I can’t somehow help calling him that, for he had shaved off his moustache and when he took off his hat I saw that he had altered his hair, combing it straight back instead of in the middle, a method which had made his skull have a Gallic kind of flatness. He was wearing what looked like his best clothes, and the plain-clothes man who brought him in was carrying a heavy suit-case.

  “What a surprise!” said Wharton, up to his cat and mouse tricks straightway. “What’s been happening?”

  That question was to the plain-clothes man.

  “Picked him up just as he got off the bus at King’s Cross, sir.”

  “Really?” said Wharton. “Well, you can wait outside. Mr. Carpenter and I are going to have a little friendly chat.”

  Jean took the chair that Wharton indicated, and he was making no protests, at the moment. But his eyes did go towards that suit-case.

  “So you were doing a bolt,” Wharton told him. “Like to tell me what the idea was?” Then he was leaning forward with a glare. “And none of that grimacing!” A quick change to a benevolent smile. “Or would you rather talk to me in French?”

  Jean shrugged his shoulders, and the gesture had both humility and helplessness. Then he said he had lost his job, and as he had a bit put by he thought he’d treat himself to a holiday with a sister at Peterborough. If a munitions job presented itself, he’d take it.

  “Name and address of the sister?” asked Wharton.

  Jean made heavy going of that, but at last got something out. Wharton pressed a buzzer and picked up the ’phone.

  “Take this, please. Urgent. Get Peterborough and Inspector Frost personally if you can. Ask him to verify the following person and find out if she has a brother named Jean Carpenter.”

  Now I knew that that was all bluff. George was speaking to nobody because he had not connected up. But Jean didn’t know it. Before Wharton could say another word, his hand was going out.

  “Yes?” said Wharton.

  Jean said he’d remembered now that the sister had moved from Peterborough. He’d have remembered that in the train, but it wouldn’t have mattered, as he could have stayed with friends.

  “All right. Give me the names and address of the friends,” Wharton said imperturbably.

  Jean was flummoxed again. Wharton gave him a look and then got to his feet. I was expecting a roar, but all he did was to push the desk bell. In came the plain-clothes man.

  “Take him away,” he said. “Say I’ll see him again later. And search him. Bring me the key to that case.”

  “The case is unlocked, sir.”

  “You can’t do this to me,” burst out Jean. “I haven’t done a thing.”

  “Pleased to hear it,” Wharton told him mildly. “Hang on for a minute,” he said to the man, and then was unfastening the straps of the case. Then he was rummaging carefully among its contents, and all at once I saw his eyebrows raise.

  “Ah, what have we here? Patent medicines?”

  He had two small packets, and both had been opened. In one were small whitish pellets, and in the other capsules like that which had been found by Worrack’s table.

  That was the end of Jean, but he still made something of a fight of it. The packets had been given him by a friend to keep for him and he even gave a name and description.

  “Too bad,” Wharton said. “Of course you don’t know where we can lay our hands on him?”

  Jean said he didn’t, but wherever he was he was a dirty double-crosser. Wharton motioned to the man to get outside again.

  “Look here, Carpenter, I’m going to give you just one chance,” he said. “You’re in possession of certain drugs that come under the Act. Your trying to bolt is against you, and your record too. In other words, you’re in a nasty spot. I know how you got this stuff, by the way. These pellets are what the Nazis dope their men with. These other little chaps just put a man to sleep for ever when he’s badly wounded. You got them from a Navy man, who picked them up from an officer taken from one of their submarines. Or from a soldier on leave perhaps. Duropine, that’s what they are; the same stuff that killed Mr. Worrack. Did you supply it to him, by the way?”

  Jean swore by all that was holy that he’d never parted with either a pellet or capsule. He’d bought the stuff in a pub and from a soldier, on spec., but it was unknown to him, though he’d sampled one of the pellets, and he’d regarded the deal as a bad one.

  “Too bad again,” Wharton said. “It’s going to get you a couple of years. It may even get you hanged. And that’s a pity. If you’d come clean I might have done a few things.”

  To cut a long story short, he got Jean where he wanted him. But again the story, even if this time true, was ve
ry far from the whole truth. Jean swore that he’d never parted with either a pellet or capsule except once, and then only to oblige a certain gentleman. The gentleman was Hamson!

  “Well, tell us all about it,” Wharton said with a quick glance at me.

  The story was convincing enough. Hamson must have been to the inquest, where he had heard about duropine. Jean had happened to meet him the same afternoon and had asked about the inquest. Hamson had described the capsule, and the astonished Jean had thought it like those he had bought from the soldier. So that night at the club he had brought one for Hamson to see.

  Wharton called in the man again. “Wait outside with him for a minute,” he said. “He can have his bag.”

  Then he was speaking through, and this time genuinely. “The man Carpenter. He’s been turned loose, but have him tailed. Report if he does any telephoning.”

  In came Jean again.

  “Well, I believe what you’ve told me,” Wharton said. “But God help you if I find out it’s a lie. Got any money?”

  Jean said he had.

  “Then fix yourself up for the night,” Wharton said. “Report here at nine in the morning and that may be the last I want of you.”

  He nodded curtly and out Jean went.

  “A pretty good liar, eh?” he said to me.

  “He may be telling the truth about Hamson,” I said. “The only snag is Hamson’s telling him about the capsule. Still, everyone was very friendly at the club.”

  “I’ll lay Carpenter’s been peddling that dope for weeks,” he said with a snort.

  “You’re going to question Hamson?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “If Carpenter telephones, it’s ten to one it’s Hamson. But why worry? We know where everybody is.”

  “But if there’s anything fishy about Hamson, then Carpenter will tip him off,” I pointed out.

  “Let him,” he said, and lugged out his watch again. “Here I am, blethering with you when I ought to be half-way to Richmond.”

  I helped him into his overcoat, and he gave me final instructions about the pawnbroker. When he’d see me again he didn’t know, he said, but if I’d leave my whereabouts with Frank, then he’d let me know if there was anything urgent on hand.