The Case of the Running Mouse: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  I heard him let out a breath. “Remember how you ate my bread and salt that day?”

  “I do,” I said. “But what about it?”

  “Is this in confidence between you and me?”

  “Why not?”

  “Damn you, Travers! Can’t you ever be explicit?”

  “When it suits me,” I said. “But if you want to make any confidence, you can. I shan’t blab, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  There was a silence again, and the taxi was moving on through the dark, deserted streets. Another minute or two and we’d be at his hotel. Then he spoke.

  “I did kill him. But it wasn’t my fault.”

  I wondered if he had a gun on him, and if I should do more than hear the crack of it. Why should he let me go on living, once he’d told me that? Or did he trust me after all? Had he known all along that I knew?

  “Well, what about it?” he was saying.

  “Nothing about it,” I said, and was waiting for the crack of that gun. “But that other one. Did you kill her too?”

  “Blast you! What do you mean?”

  The brakes were grinding as the taxi slewed, and then was coming to a halt.

  “Here you are, sir,” came a hearty voice. “Warfield’s Hotel.”

  My side was by the pavement and I got out.

  “Thanks, Hamson,” I said. “Sure you won’t let me pay?”

  He growled a something which I didn’t catch, and in another second I was moving off in the dark. Across the road I stopped and looked back. The taxi was driving off and I seemed to hear Hamson’s steps as they turned towards the hotel. And then I was letting out a breath as I moved on again. What had prompted Hamson to make that confession I don’t know, but it appalled me, and scared me, and though the night was chilly, my forehead was damp with sweat.

  By the time I was in my room I had made up my mind. Hamson didn’t matter. Maybe he had had no hand in the death of Georgina Morbent, and as for keeping his confidence about Worrack, that I would certainly do, for Wharton would discover it in his own way. Especially after what I was going to tell him. And at once, for I had changed my mind about waiting for the morning. I was lucky enough to find him at the Yard.

  “Sorry to be a nuisance, George,” I said, “but could you slip round and see me? It’s very urgent.”

  “Why can’t you come here?”

  “To tell the truth I’m too damn tired,” I said. “It’ll be worth it. I assure you that.”

  “On to something?”

  “Yes,” I said. “What about a meal? Had anything yet?”

  “Meal!” he told me, and snorted. “A hell of a lot of time I get for meals.”

  “Expect you straightaway,” I said, and hung up before he should change his mind.

  Then I began thinking about Hamson, and my bet was that before morning he’d be dead. He’d do himself in, for after what he’d told me he’d know there was no other way out. Then I was wondering what it was that Worrack had known about him that had made his elimination a grim necessity. I could see why Worrack had forced Hamson on me as a colleague. What he had thought was that with the flair for detection with which he credited me I should spot something in Hamson for myself.

  But I didn’t want to do too much thinking, so I ordered a couple of service suppers and pottered about to pass the time. Then I did realise that as soon as I opened my mouth to Wharton I’d be likely to let out a considerable deal which would take some extraordinary explaining. That worried me and I had only managed to hit on a scheme when he arrived.

  “All togged out, are you?” he said when he saw me in uniform.

  “Purposes of disguise,” I told him, and took his hat and coat. “How are things with you?”

  “Damn slow,” he said. “Got a trace of that car at last and followed it as far as Twickenham, and that’s the lot. Nobody’s called on Carpenter and he’s done nothing suspicious.” Then he was cocking an eye at me. “You’re looking a bit tired.”

  “I am,” I said. “That’s why I’m going to have a pretty stiff drink. What about you?”

  Beer was his tipple, so I passed him a bottle and then we got down to the meal. No sooner had I swallowed the first mouthful than I set my scheme in motion. From my fob pocket I produced that ring and gave it to him across the table.

  “You’d better keep this, George. No necessity for a receipt.”

  “Good God!” he said. “Where’d you get it?”

  “That’s a long story,” I said. “Put that ring away and then I’ll tell you. And don’t forget you’ll have two hundred and fifty quid in your pocket.”

  He gave a sideways nod to indicate he was far too fly to have his pocket picked, and then before he could speak I was away on a new tack.

  “Tell me something about—about shady women’s doctors, George, will you? I’ve become rather interested since this morning.”

  He stared, and then his expression changed and I knew he was putting two and two together.

  “That’s right,” I said. “You must have run across plenty of them in your time.”

  “Why all the humbug? Why don’t you say what you mean? You aren’t talking about doctors, you’re talking about abortionists,” he said. “But you don’t want me to tell you about them. You ought to know enough yourself. Dirty, furtive little swine, that’s what I call ’em. Living up back streets usually.”

  “But not all of them, surely. What about that recent case of a doctor with a first-class practice and reputation who’d been making a packet out of doing the job, and for years.”

  “Of course there are all sorts,” he said, beginning a glare and thinking better of it. “The man you instanced simply moved among a better class, that’s all.”

  “What’s the actual process—without going into details —and how long does it take?”

  “A matter of a minute or two, that’s all. Then the patient simply pays up and walks out. But what the fellow has advised her is then to go to her own or some other doctor. It is impossible to detect what has really been done, and he treats her according to whatever symptoms she describes.”

  “A lot of it, these days, is there?”

  “Is there not!” he said.

  “Just one other thing,” I said. “These fellows seem to me to get into the hands of the police because of a patient’s death, at least in most cases. Why should a patient die?”

  “Several reasons,” he said. “Simple shock, though that’s rare. The peritoneal cavity may have been pierced and there may be shock from that. In most cases it’s septic poisoning owing to dirty conditions or instruments.”

  “That explains things,” I said. “And now I’ll tell you what I found out.”

  I began with Hamson and seeing him with Scylla Payton, and he was interrupting at once.

  “What did I tell you? Scylla Payton, eh?” He gave himself a nod of approval. “Didn’t I tell you it’d pay hand over fist to keep an eye on Hamson?”

  “That’s right, George,” I said, for it suited my book to let him think I’d accepted his advice. “You certainly do get some brainy ideas.”

  Then I told him about Goldilocks. George interrupted with a joke. If one was Scylla, then I ought to have christened the other Charybdis.

  “She was Goldilocks to me,” I said, after a suitable chuckle, and then I began telling him about that wireless comic and his gag about the hens spoiling their figure for two bob a dozen.

  “You see, George, I remembered that Worrack had told me once that Georgina Morbent was extraordinarily proud of her figure. He’d also told me she wasn’t the marrying sort. Didn’t want children and so on.”

  “Yes. Get on with it,” he told me impatiently.

  Well, I told him about the statement from the bank and how I’d checked up on Chataway, and had then decided to run an eye over the Comport Street lay-out. When I came to Goldilocks his eyes bulged, and he didn’t interrupt. And so on through the rest of the afternoon and evening, though with no mention of either H
amson or Barbara Grays.

  “My God, we’re on to something!” he said, and was waving his napkin about. “It’s plain as the nose on your face. Funny, wasn’t it, that I should have that intuition about keeping an eye on Hamson?”

  “Well, there we are, George,” I said. “We know what Georgina and her sister talked about that morning, and why Georgina was sick, and why Barbara sacked the maid, and we know why Barbara wouldn’t go to the police. But there’s something that’s been worrying me. We believe Georgina went from Richmond in Halberg’s car to Halberg’s house—it wouldn’t have been the nursing home—and underwent the operation. You’ve told me that it would be over in a matter of minutes and then she could have been driven back to the hotel. Why then did Georgina not keep her room at the hotel? Why did she assume that the operation was going to be a matter of some days?”

  “Perfectly simple,” he told me with a snort. “She drew out three hundred pounds, two-fifty in pound notes. Those were to pay Halberg. A hell of a price, you’ll say, for a few minutes’ work, but you bet he kidded her on. After all, he had to have some justification for that exorbitant fee. I’ll bet he told her she’d have to have a few days’ rest and he’d keep an eye on possible complications. And I’ll bet something else. What he intended to do was to move her the following day to the nursing home part of the show. He’d tell the nurse in charge that she was being treated for after-effects of the operation, or whatever the jargon is.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “But she died on his hands from some sort of shock and all he could do was embalm the body till he could dispose of it. Since he’d pawned more than one lot of things I’d say it had happened to him once before, so he knew just what to do.”

  “I’ll bet he was making a young fortune out of the game,” Wharton said. “Two-fifty for one operation and then another hundred and fifty or so from the jewellery.”

  I thought he was going to mention the ring, so I cut hastily in.

  “Something else is explained, too, and that’s where Hamson comes in. Barbara couldn’t inherit till Georgina was known to be dead. When Barbara got the money and Hamson married her, then there’d have been still more shared out among the gang. But about that severed head. You bet your life the head was cut off because the rest of the body would have shown the real cause of death. The perforation you mentioned, for instance.”

  “Oh, yes, it all fits in,” he said. “The problem is, just how do we get to work.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth this is my idea,” I said. “If I hadn’t had that uncanny luck to see Goldilocks come out of Chataway’s door, this is what I was going to do in the morning. Goldilocks is either Chataway’s secretary or secretary-receptionist, and I should have rung up and made an appointment under an assumed name, and I’d have gone there in uniform, saying I was on embarkation leave. When I got to Chataway’s place I’d have made the acquaintance of Goldilocks. Then I’d have told the doctor that my wife was much younger than I and we’d been married two years and were very disturbed because we had no children. All that would have given me the chance of summing him up. When I came out, I expect I’d have seen Goldilocks again and I ought to have had her summed up too.”

  “I’ve a damn good mind to try it,” Wharton said, and then chuckled. “There’d be blue merry hell if my wife ever found it out.”

  “You’re the ideal one to carry it off,” I said. “There isn’t a man at the Yard could come near you by streets.”

  That landed him and he said he’d try it. Then he was finishing off his beer and wiping his moustache with voluminous sweeps of his table-cloth of a handkerchief.

  “You think Chataway and your pal Goldilocks are both in it?” he asked me.

  “You never can tell,” I told him. “But Halberg-Markovitch is in it. There’s no shadow of doubt of that.”

  “I know,” he said, and then was chuckling delightedly. “Tell you what. I’ll bet you a new hat that everything’s over inside two days.”

  “I won’t bet,” I said, “but I may stand you a lunch if it is. But what about me, from now on? Anything in mind for me to do?”

  He pursed his lips. The brow furrowed and beneath it I knew the crafty old brain was working something out—or trying to keep something back.

  “I’ve got it worked out to the last move,” he announced. “As Montgomery says, it’s in the bag. Let me see.”

  The brow furrowed again and the lips pushed out the huge moustache.

  “Yes, that’s it,” he said. “All you do is sit tight and make no move at all.”

  Then he was making notes in his book and scowling at them.

  “That’s it,” he told me again. “You be in here at midday to-morrow and I’ll report progress. Perhaps I’ll be ringing you up again towards night, but that we’ll see about. Then, on Tuesday morning we ought to be ready to run down to that Malcroft place.” He gave me one of his most unctuous smiles. “I’ve got a first-class job for you there. Suit you to a T.”

  “Thanks very much,” I told him dryly, but to his back, for he was already making for his hat and coat. At the head of the stairs he thanked me for the meal and said how lucky it had been that I’d taken his advice about keeping an eye on Hamson. He also added roguishly that one day he might make a real detective out of me.

  “Where are you off to now?” I asked him, as he was moving off.

  “To Malcroft,” he said, “and the hell of a journey that’ll be in the black-out.”

  “Good luck!” I called after him and then had a little chuckle of my own. That little scheme had come off. So engrossed had he been in my disclosures, and then in plans of his own, that he’d forgotten to ask me how I’d come into possession of that emerald ring.

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE TRAP IS SPRUNG

  I slept like a top and it was almost nine o’clock when I finally awoke. When I’d dressed I went downstairs through force of habit, though I knew there could be nothing for me in the Personal Column of the Telegraph. Monday meant only four pages in the paper so I looked them hastily through and there was nothing about Hamson and suicide.

  When I’d finished breakfast I had an idea, and a damn silly idea it was. I’d ring up Hamson and give him the tip that the police were on to him. After his confession, I thought I owed him that much at least.

  Only about ten rooms in that hotel had direct communication, as you may have gathered, and it was lucky that his was one of them and I could call him direct. But he wasn’t in, and when I called the hotel they told me he’d left a good hour before.

  There was no comment on that, but the girl did tell me that he’d said he mightn’t be in till very late.

  I hung up and then was rather relieved he hadn’t been in. Then naturally I began thinking about his part in things, and dramatically enough they fitted together. Though Barbara Grays hadn’t been openly engaged to him, had she been his mistress? I thought that maybe she had, or else how could she have come into possession of that pawn-ticket? He had dropped it, I thought, or she had been jealous and had found it in a pocket. The shock of the discovery must have been terrific, for it told her that he was mixed up in Georgina’s disappearance, and probable death, and that whoever pawned the ring, he had obtained the ticket, and probably the cash to redeem it, as his share in the affair. There was still further proof that Worrack had forced him on me so that my supposed perspicuity should discover what his part in things had been. Then, when Worrack had been murdered, Barbara had gone much further and had sent me the actual ticket. No wonder, I thought, that things had cooled off between her and Hamson.

  And what about the method used by the gang? Somehow I couldn’t help thinking that Chataway knew nothing. Vaughan was a shrewd man and a knowledgeable one, and when he vouched for Chataway, then he had been sure of what he said. So the scheme, as I saw it, was worked like this. A pregnant woman consults Chataway through Goldilocks, who perhaps insists on knowing beforehand what the consultation is about. After the consultation, Goldilo
cks may have to type for Chataway a condensed report, and that would tell her all she would need to know. Later, the approach to the woman is made, but so warily that if she doesn’t bite, then no harm is done. Chataway’s clientele would be wealthy people, I thought, so that one catch would pay amply for a score of disappointments. As for Hamson, he would be the liaison between Goldilocks and Halberg.

  But as the strain of waiting for George Wharton was rather too much for me, I went along to my club for an hour and then walked back. It was a quarter to twelve when I got in and it was not till a quarter-past that George actually rang up.

  “Everything went off swimmingly,” he said and I knew he was bursting with satisfaction at having pulled off that visit to Chataway.

  “What about C. himself?” I asked.

  “I think he’s all right,” he told me. “But the little pal of yours. You had a good look at her, didn’t you?”

  “I did,” I said.

  “Notice anything peculiar?”

  “No,” I said. “What should I have noticed?”

  “Oh, it was nothing important,” he told me quickly. “Ring you up again at about nine to-night? It won’t be before, so you needn’t stay in.”

  Then he rang off and I was puzzling my wits to find out what I’d missed about Goldilocks. But I hadn’t any luck, and that afternoon, to keep my mind off things, I went to a cinema. Then I took a stroll in the park till close on dusk and after that treated myself out to dinner. Well, before nine o’clock I was back in my room and listening for the telephone bell. It was nearer ten than nine when it at last came.

  Wharton’s voice was pregnant with events.

  “That you, Travers? It is? Thought I’d let you know that everything’s set.”

  “Good,” I cut in.

  “I want you at the Yard at half-past eight sharp,” he was going on, “and in uniform. Don’t be late, or everything’ll be thrown out of gear.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said. “Nothing else you’d like to tell me?”

  “Not now,” he said. “Too dangerous. But if you play your own part all right, you’ll be standing me that lunch.”