Then he rang off. For a moment I was furious with him, and then as usual I had to chuckle. Everything would be all right if I played my part—whatever that was to be. George was leaving himself a bolt-hole. If anything slipped up on us, it was a million to one on my getting the blame.
You bet your life I was there on time; in fact Wharton wasn’t ready and I had to wait. Then we set off in his car. He and I sat in the back, and with the driver in front was the pawnbroker’s manager. I guessed he’d be wanted to identify Markovitch.
Wharton didn’t tell me a thing about what had been happening. He was far too busy rehearsing me in the part I had to play. Everything had been fixed up. Halberg was being told that a certain Major Smith—myself—had brought a charge against him, but if he could slip along to the police-station, everything might be settled amicably and out of court, as it were.
This was the ingenious charge, that on the late evening of the fourteenth of January I’d had my car at the side of the road, not too far from that nursing home of his, when he’d come by in his car and had nearly killed me. He’d also broken my front bumper. I’d just had time to take his number but I hadn’t been able to follow things up because I’d been away on duty, and had just come back to Twickenham, where I lived. A fictitious address had been provided for me.
There was a bit more to it than that, but George kept fussing as if I’d never played a part before. The fact was, that he was visualising himself in that same part, and we were well through Twickenham before I was asking him for the love of heaven to leave me alone and credit me with at least a minimum of savoir-faire.
We’d moved deceptively fast and it was not much after ten o’clock when we drew into the station yard. An Army car was there with a broken front bumper, and I knew George had done things in style, even if he had fitted the damage to the kind of car he’d been able to get. Halberg was due at half-past ten, so we had plenty of time. My pawnbroker friend was to be outside to make the identification, and if Halberg wasn’t Markovitch, then there’d have to be some modification of plans, and the fact would be signalled through by the buzzer to the room where I was to go. Otherwise everything would be as arranged.
In the local Inspector’s room there was an air of expectation. Wharton introduced me, and then was fussing about and arranging where I ought to sit, and where Halberg should sit. The Inspector pronounced himself as word perfect, and George was telling him not to be anxious or that’d spoil everything. I nearly told him to get to hell out of the room himself and leave us to it. On the table, by the way, which was under the very nose of Halberg, were the usual trays of papers, and an official-looking paper to which the Inspector would refer. There was also a newspaper artistically placed, but what that was for I didn’t know.
Well, the time slipped by and at last the buzzer went. The Inspector picked up the receiver, nodded, said O.K. and then replaced it.
“He’s just coming, sir,” he told Wharton, and out George slipped to get the report of the pawnbroker. My heart was beginning to race but that Inspector looked cooler than a cucumber.
Three minutes or so we waited, and then steps were heard. The buzzer hadn’t gone again, so we knew our man. Then there was a tap at the door.
“Dr. Halberg to see you, sir.”
“Ask the Doctor to come in,” the Inspector said cheerfully, and in Halberg came. He had an overcoat buttoned up to his chin, and a dark felt hat in his hand. I should warn you that he had very little accent, and even that little I shall not attempt to reproduce. What I did know was that he’d put on much more of it when he’d posed in the pawnshop as Markovitch, the Russian exile.
“Ah! come in, Doctor,” the Inspector said. “We shan’t keep you very long. At least I hope not. This is Major Smith. You may have noticed his car outside. Well, not his car, a Government one. The one he claims he was driving.”
Halberg shot a look at me and I nodded curtly.
“Sit down here, Doctor, will you?” the Inspector told him amiably. “This little business isn’t going to take us long. We’re all men of good-will—at least I hope so. Perhaps you’d like to hear Major Smith’s story.”
I told my story, and mightily indignant I was. I’d thought I had a puncture and had got out to have a look. When I was standing in the pitch dark—about seven o’clock it’d be—and by the rear off-wheel, a car suddenly whizzed by me. It caught my coat as I leapt back and then it just hit the front off-bumper. Luckily I’d managed to get the car’s number and I’d seen it was a dark saloon. I’d had the number traced but hadn’t been able to follow the matter up till the previous night.
“But that is impossible,” Halberg told me with an ingratiating smile. “My car was not out on that night. That I can prove.” He turned to the Inspector. “How is it that Major Smith is so sure about the date?”
“I was sure and still am,” I cut in belligerently. “I was thinking at the time that it was the fourteenth because my wife’s birthday was the following morning and I hadn’t bought her anything.”
The Inspector allowed himself to smile. “I think that’s good enough proof, don’t you, Doctor?”
Halberg shrugged his shoulders. “What can I do? In a court of law it would be his word, perhaps, against mine. As a civilian I should be at a disadvantage.”
“I resent that,” I said.
“Now, now, Major,” the Inspector said placatingly. “We’ve got to be reasonable. The Doctor doesn’t know, perhaps, what English law is like.”
“Reasonable,” Halberg said, picking him up. “I would wish to be reasonable, as you call it. I can claim—and I can prove—that it was not my car that did the damage. Nevertheless I wish to be reasonable.”
“Just how reasonable?” I said, and far more pacifically.
“For whatever damage was done I will pay. Get the Government or the Department to send me the bill and I will settle it at once. If the Major has any personal claims, I will settle them too.”
The Inspector gave me a look of reprimand. “Well, I call that more than reasonable. If the Major isn’t prepared to settle on those terms, then I don’t think much of his case.”
“Seems fair enough to me,” I said. “If the Doctor agrees, I’ll have everything worked out and send him the bill. It won’t be much. It was the principle of the thing, not the money.”
“Very fair on both sides, very fair indeed. I’ll just make a formal note to the effect that everything’s agreed on.”
He picked up his pen, stuck it in the ink and then was consulting that fake document.
“What’s the date?” he said, and before either of us could answer was picking up the newspaper.
“Oh, yes,” he said, and laid the paper down in another place. “Now just a formal note.”
He began writing something, but it was Halberg in whom I was interested. And no wonder. When that newspaper was removed, there, under his very eyes, were a platinum watch, a platinum wrist-watch and that emerald ring. He had started, then shot a look at me, but my eyes had dropped in time and I had been fiddling with the buckle of my Sam Browne. Then he had looked at the table again, and then had pushed back his chair.
“Hallo, Doctor, aren’t you going to wait?” the Inspector asked him, but as if not too interested.
“I have just remembered,” Halberg said, and was fidgeting nervously with his hat. “There is a patient whom it is necessary that I should see. I had forgotten. But you will understand.”
“Quite, quite,” He got to his feet, and his eyes didn’t even fall on those pieces of jewellery. “I’ll get the Major to send everything on.”
“Thank you. Thank you.” He had been backing towards the door and bowing to us both. Before the Inspector could open the door, he was out. I got to my feet, but the Inspector motioned me back again and put a finger warningly to his lips. In the room was extraordinary quiet, and then we heard the sound of an electric starter and the whine of gears as a car moved rapidly off.
A door to my left opened and in cam
e Wharton. His ear, I guessed, had been at the keyhole, but I was wrong. There was a glass partition above that door and his eye had been behind a periscope.
“Capital!” he said, and clapped me exasperatingly on the back. “Couldn’t have done it better myself. You too, Inspector.”
“What now,” I asked.
“Now he’ll be telephoning his pals in town,” he said. “Giving them the high-sign that the game’s up.” Then he was nodding down at those pieces of jewellery. “Artistic. That’s what I’d call it. Just that little artistic touch that always pays. What do the advertisements say? Not too much and not too little. Well, we’d better get going,” he went on piously. “Everything ready, Inspector?”
Everything was ready, but in another room. Wharton took a chair and clamped on some earphones and I gathered that he was about to listen in to Halberg’s telephone, or keep in touch with those already listening-in outside.
The Inspector was leaving us to it, and when he’d gone I asked George what was being done about Halberg escaping.
“Escape my foot!” he told me. “Four men are watching his place at this very minute. Two of them have motor-bikes that can do an easy seventy.”
“How long before anything will come through?”
“Look here,” he said, and gave me a look of exasperation in which he tried none too well to put a touch of humour. “Nothing’s going to happen yet. Even if he rings somebody up, that’s only half the game. We’ve got to see what happens to the one at the other end. You slip along down the town and have a look round. Come back in an hour. Get yourself some lunch.”
“If that’s so, I think I will have a stroll outside,” I said, though I was none too pleased about his wanting to get rid of me. Not that it would have been much fun sitting there doing nothing, and watching him with those earphones and his face like a mixture of walrus and Buddha.
“See you in a couple of hours or so,” he said, and was hauling out his pipe.
I strolled along to the little town. Tuesday seemed some sort of market day and there were several people about, and in that perfectly wonderful February sun it looked a cheerful place. I noticed a tiny cinema I’d missed on the Sunday, and then I came across an antique shop. Antique dealers are friendly people who never press you to buy, and I went inside for a look round. There wasn’t much there and what furniture there was was a wicked price, and that, I was told, was due to the war. Then, among the oddments of china, I found a rather attractive Liverpool cup and saucer, and saw it packed ready for despatch to my wife. Then the dealer and I had a yarn about this and that, and before I knew it the best part of an hour had gone.
Well, I couldn’t stand the waiting any longer so I made my way back to the police-station.
“I don’t think I’d go in there, sir,” the Inspector told me as I was making for Wharton’s room, and the grimace told me he’d probably been kicked out himself.
“Nothing happened then?” I asked.
“Yes. Halberg’s telephoned,” he said. “Did it almost as soon as he got in.”
“Know who it was?”
He grimaced again. “I don’t, sir. I know it was to a woman.”
“A woman,” I said, and shrugged my shoulders. Then I nodded towards Wharton’s room. “What’s he up to now?”
“I reckon he’s got all them watched that Halberg was likely to telephone to,” he said. “His men’ll report here if anything suspicious is happening.”
“What about Halberg?”
“We hope he’ll bolt,” he told me. “Probably he’s now disposing of the rest of that body. At least, that’s what the Super thinks.”
“If he told you that, then it’s probably the last thing he thinks,” I said, and he gave a knowing grin.
“Well, I’ll push off and get some lunch,” I said. “If he does happen to mention me at any time between now and Christmas, tell him I’m at the Royal George.”
I made my way to that hotel and ordered the lunch. There was some time to wait, so I had a beer and watched some dart players. At one o’clock I heard the news, and very little there was, and by that time I’d almost finished my meal. At half-past I was back at the station. The Inspector wasn’t about, and the officer on duty said he’d gone to dinner. I pushed on to Wharton’s room, and I could hear him talking. But I couldn’t make out the words so I gently turned the knob. Then the words came clear.
“Fine! Fine!” he was saying. “Got the pair of them, did you? . . . What’d they say? . . . The Free State, eh? Well, that’s not a bad spot. . . . Put up a bit of a fight! You don’t tell me. . . . I see. I see. . . . Yes. I’ll be along some time this late afternoon. Got a job to do here first.”
“Put up a fight,” I said to myself. Well, I pitied the chap who had tackled Hamson, with that neck of his and shoulders like the end of a barn. Probably a couple of Wharton’s men had tackled him at once, and even then they wouldn’t have had too easy a time. I was wondering too who the other one had been. Scylla, was she, or Goldilocks?
As I made my way inside that room Wharton was beaming at me.
“What’s the news, George?” I said.
“Couldn’t be better,” he told me. “Your little friend Goldilocks bolted first, and now we’ve just collared the other two.”
I nodded.
“What’re you looking miserable about?” he said to me.
“That hotel lunch,” I said. “But did I catch something about a fight?”
“It wasn’t much,” he said. “Just enough to make a nice little charge of resisting arrest.”
“Then Hamson must have been out of form,” I said. “If he’d really made up his mind to resist arrest, even two of your men wouldn’t have collared him.”
“You think so?” he said. The earphones were now off and the spectacles on, and he was peering at me over their tops. “That’s rather strange in a way. You see, we weren’t any too keen on arresting him.”
I stared. Then before I could speak he was going on.
CHAPTER XVII
BAT-EYED CUPID
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “we didn’t arrest him at all.”
“But you said—”
“Oh, no,” he said, and far too dictatorially I thought. “It was you who said things. We didn’t arrest Hamson because we had no reason to. It was Molde we arrested.”
“Molde!”
“Good Lord!” he said. “What’s coming over you these days. Of course we arrested Molde.”
“What for?”
“Dammit!” he exploded, “what should we have arrested him for! Being concerned in the death of Georgina Morbent, of course.”
“What about Worrack’s death?”
“That’ll be easy,” he told me with a snort. “That can be cleared up at any time.”
I smiled quietly to myself. That was all he knew.
“But Molde,” he said. “He was easy. I had my eye on him from the start. Funny you didn’t spot him too?”
“I know,” I said. “Tell me I’m a dud detective and some time you hope to take me in hand.”
He raised expostulating hands to heaven. “What the devil’s come over you? You’re that damn touchy I can hardly open my mouth.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But what was that about Molde?”
“A dope-fiend.” he said. “Riddled with it. I didn’t have to look at him twice. And that Scylla Griffiths—”
“Griffiths?”
“Yes. Payton’s her stage name. A pretty tough one she is too. But your pal Goldilocks. You had a good look at her, so you said. Did you see her fingers?”
“I didn’t,” I told him.
“Well, they’re spatulate, like Scylla’s. Sisters, that’s what they are. Laura Griffiths is her name. Secretary-receptionist to that Doctor Chataway.”
“Then I got something right,” I said.
He ignored that. In fact his tone became markedly milder.
“A hell of a game, wasn’t it? The sister doing the spotting and passing w
omen on to Scylla and Molde. And something else I can tell you. Do you know what that Molde was allowed by his father?”
I said I didn’t. What means had I got for finding out things like that?
“Two-fifty a year,” Wharton said, and as if it was peanuts to him. “Why, that flat of his and the lady’s costs more than that. And what about the way he splashes money about? Going to gambling places and the devil knows what. Where does he get his money? That’s what I asked myself, and she’s got none either. From being a pal of Halberg’s—that’s the answer, and from a little spot of blackmail. You don’t think that abortion business stops at operations, do you? Finest game in the world for a spot of blackmail afterwards.”
“True enough,” I said. “That side of it hadn’t struck me.”
“Another thing,” he went on. “Conroy told me a lot. That Molde had owed Worrack at least two hundred and fifty quid, for instance, and he’d paid up. Where did he get the money from?”
I could have told him, but I didn’t. Molde got that money from blackmailing Hamson. Both Worrack and Molde had known things about Hamson.
“I’ll tell you where he got his money from,” he was saying. “Or you can work it out for yourself. Mrs. Morbent paid Halberg two-fifty, didn’t she? Well, there’s the answer.”
“Yes,” I said, and tried to make it admiringly. “That’s the answer.” I could have added that it was the wrong answer but I kept my mouth shut.
“Well, so far so good,” he said. “Molde put up a bit of a fight when he was collared. That must have been funny. Scylla did some swearing, so I was told. Laura went quietly. I guess she’d sense enough to know that making a fuss wouldn’t get her anywhere.”
“And what now?” I asked.
“Now I’m going along to collect Halberg,” he said. “Then I’m going to search both places. But there shouldn’t be much of that. He had a local builder in a day or two ago to do some concrete work in the cellar. Might just as well have put up a notice outside—‘This way to the body.’”
The Case of the Running Mouse: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 22
