The Case of the Corporal's Leave: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Take a seat there,” the old man said, and I backed carefully to the plush armchair. “You’ll have a cigar?”

  “Thank you, sir, but I won’t,” I said. “I don’t want to take up more of your time than I can help.”

  His tone had been conciliatory, to say the least of it, indeed compared with his earlier barks and ejaculations it was friendliness itself. I seized the favourable opportunity to begin with Sir William Pelle.

  “Who’s he?”

  I told him and went gabbling on for fear he should cut in again. A valuable ring was missing and as he was the most famous collector, the police wondered if he had been approached by the thief, and if he hadn’t, would he notify the police at once if the thief did make any approach, and at the same time try to detain him.

  He gave a grunt or two and was snatching in a fumbling sort of way at his whiskers.

  “How do you know the ring was likely to be offered to me?” he asked me shrewdly.

  I threw discretion to the winds and described the ring. I even said it was probably the ring that Elizabeth gave to Essex.

  “Rubbish, sir, rubbish!” he told me. “Damme, sir, you don’t believe all you read?”

  “That’s for my superiors to say, sir,” I answered. “I’m merely obeying instructions.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” he said impatiently, and hoisted himself out of his chair.

  “You will be willing to help us?” I asked.

  “The situation’s not likely to arise,” he told me. “I’m not the man, sir, to entertain offers from any Tom, Dick or Harry.”

  He growled a something under his breath and was making his way through the door to the hall. I followed and for the life of me I could think of nothing else to say.

  “Good day to you, sir,” he said to me, and gave a funny little bow, though he didn’t hold out his hand.

  “Good day and thank you, Mr. Dane,” I said, but already he was turning back from the door.

  When I came round to the front of the house I kept well beneath the wall and then nipped through the front door. There I was in the usual kind of wardens’ post, if a more spacious one than most. Somewhere a man was humming to himself and there was a smell of cooking. As I peered along the passage a warden came out.

  “Anything I can do for you, sir?”

  I told him I wasn’t there on business but for reasons of pure sentiment. He was interested when I told him how the place used to be a police canteen and recreation room, and he told me the billiard-table was still there.

  “Pretty snug quarters you’ve got here,” I said. “Does Mr. Dane bother you much?”

  “Not him, sir,” he said. “Grumbles sometimes if there’s too much noise. Sends that man of his down, and then we have to use the soft pedal for a bit. There is the old boy now.”

  Dane, his loose cape flying, was making for the front gate, the inevitable umbrella beneath his arm.

  “Queer old gentleman,” he said. “You don’t often see his kind nowadays. And lousy with money, so they reckon.”

  “How old would you put him?”

  “Him? Oh, about eighty-five. And he walks a darn sight better than I do. Had a bit of trench foot in France in the last war.”

  We swapped war reminiscences for a minute or two and then I said that Dane was certainly a peculiar character. Last Monday I should have seen him at half-past four but when I rang up to confirm, he was out.

  “Did you see him go out?” I asked.

  “Last Monday?” He frowned, and began mumbling names of people on duty. Then he opened a door.

  “Fred, was it on Monday afternoon we saw old What’s-his-Name going out without his umbrella?”

  I didn’t hear what was said but my warden came back with a beam on his face.

  “It was Monday, sir, and about half-past four. My mate he said to me, ‘Lummy, Dick, look at that!’ and there was the old boy without his umbrella. First time any of us ever saw him go out like that.”

  “And you didn’t see him come back?”

  He shook his head and I didn’t press the point. But as I made my way back to the station I was feeling none too happy. That he had left his house at four-thirty ought to have been good news, and yet it wasn’t, and this is why. Four-thirty would never have given him time to catch the four-fifty at Charing Cross. In other words, old Dane had a perfect alibi for the essential time on that Monday evening. By no combination of circumstances, so it seemed to me, could he have been the one who snatched that attaché-case.

  But when I got back to the Yard I found myself confronted with quite different views. By throwing a cloak of modesty over my interviews with Dane I had created the impression that I had scored a tremendous success, and George was out to prove otherwise.

  “Why shouldn’t he have taken a taxi?” he said. “That would have got him to Charing Cross in time?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “In any case it’s up to you. Have all taxi-drivers questioned.”

  “A hell of a game, that,” he said. “Far better go to the fountain-head and ask at Charing Cross if he did or didn’t take that train.’”

  “Of course,” I said, and wondered why I hadn’t thought of that myself. And then, in case George had ideas of sending me to make that particular inquiry, I said if he didn’t mind I’d be getting back to the flat. George said he might ring me there later and added that I hadn’t done a bad day’s work, and that told me that up his sleeve he had a card or two of which he hoped I knew nothing. Indeed he probably had a couple of packs.

  Chapter XII

  WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS

  George paid me an unexpected visit soon after breakfast. There were times when he was always dropping in, but of late his visits had been so rare that I wondered if he had something on his mind and wanted a change of scene to stimulate his ideas. And he was looking a bit subdued and not because it is hard to be hearty in the early morning. George, if he has a mind, can be hearty at any time.

  He had had breakfast hours ago, he said, but he didn’t give the expected glare when he said it. And it was in a tone that was almost casual that he told me that Bertram Dane had not only taken the four-fifty from Charing Cross that Monday night but had also got off at Pangley.

  “Then you’ve as good as got him,” I said. “But how did he get to the station?”

  “There’s a cab rank not fifty yards from his door,” he told me. “Just round the corner into Holliwell Street. We’ve even got the very taxi that took him to Charing Cross. And the man there who punched his ticket. And the one who saw him through the barrier at Pangley.”

  “When did he come back?”

  “By the six-forty,” George said. “That gave him an hour and a quarter in Pangley.”

  “Rather long, wasn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s one of the things that’ve been making me think. You’d have thought he’d have shot back to town like a pea out of a pod.”

  “Yes,” I said thoughtfully; and then thought of something. “I suppose you couldn’t tell him you’d been making inquiries at Pangley, and having learned by chance that he was there, and on that train, you were wondering if he saw anything abnormal? Mightn’t that make him go into details as to why he was at Pangley at all?”

  “Not it,” George said curtly. “He had a perfect right to be at Pangley. Hundreds of people were on that train. Coincidence has to operate sometimes, hasn’t it?”

  I rather stared.

  “That might be one of his lines of argument,” George went on. “And why should he tell us what his business was? We’ve got to have a damned sight more on him before we ask questions. Dane’s a wealthy man.”

  “What difference does that make in the eyes of the law?”

  “Every difference,” he told me, and his tone had nothing cynical. “He can afford to use the best legal advice, can’t he? If I make one little slip, what am I in for? Unlawful inquiry and an action for damages.”

  “What’s come over you, George?” I
said. “I’ve known you take bigger risks in far less important cases.”

  “All right,” he said. “You go along and question him yourself. I’ll give you a free hand. And I’ll bet a fiver that you get thrown out on your ear, and that you hear more about it in under a week’s time.”

  For a moment I had an idea that that was the original scheme behind George’s visit of that morning—to get me to tackle old Dane, and then he was uttering a disclaimer. “Not that I’d let you make such a fool of yourself.”

  “Then what are you going to do?” I said.

  “Something we probably shan’t be able to do,” he said. “Try to prove that he was in the neighbourhood of Pelle’s house at the right time. Try to connect him with sending back the jewellery. Prove collusion with the Blaketon woman.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that last bit,” I said. “He went on the four-fifty because she’d made Pelle lose the earlier train.”

  “There you are then,” George said. “Didn’t I tell you there were wheels within wheels? We’ve got to conduct two parallel inquiries—him and her—and find the points of contact. Those two birds have got to be killed with one stone. When we’ve got one to talk, then we’ll have the other.”

  “And Marion Blaketon’s the most vulnerable?”

  “Maybe,” George said guardedly. “All the same, I’ve had men on her tail and she hasn’t made a suspicious move since we saw her.”

  “What about that Bewford visit?” I said. “When she went past Kalpoor for the purpose of spying out the land.”

  “Two curious things there,” he said. “She did go to Bewford but she had tea in a tea-shop. That’s all her movements we’ve managed to trace.”

  “You mean that if she’d really been calling on friends, she’d have been having tea with them?”

  “That’s it,” he said. “There is, of course, the fact that she might have found these friends out. And then again, she ought to have telephoned to make sure. Or they mightn’t have a telephone.”

  “Wheels within wheels,” I said, and could appreciate some of George’s problems. “But what’s the other curious thing you were talking about?”

  “There are ten thousand people in Bewford,” George remarked casually, and then cocked an eye at me.

  “You mean it might be impossible to trace her movements?”

  “Yes and no,” he said. “But there’s a railway station there, isn’t there? She could have taken a different line from Charing Cross. Therefore she did go by Pangley to spy out the land, as you called it.”

  He had pulled out his pipe and was regarding it contemplatively. I passed him my pouch, but he shook his head.

  “Time to be getting along,” he said. “Meeting Prider outside Covent Garden Station in twenty minutes.”

  “Something on?”

  “Yes,” he said, “and I thought you might like to come along. We’re seeing a bloke called Harry the Snoot.”

  “Who’s he?” I said. “Someone from Damon Runyon?”

  He looked as if he was going to ask me where that was. Then he changed his mind and got to his feet, and we were turning into Long Acre before he began spilling the beans.

  I think the idea was Prider’s, even if George was tentatively claiming credit; or should I say that he was manoeuvring himself into such a vantage position that if things went right he could pronounce the benediction. And the idea was this.

  Prider—George did give him credit for that—had been puzzling out the methods by which Marion Blaketon might have profited by that Society of which she seemed to be virtually in sole charge. Of the dozen ways of which he thought, two made a special appeal.

  a. She could tip off some ‘reformed’ yegg about the jewellery and habits of friends or patronesses, and so facilitate both easy and profitable entries. If this were skilfully done there would be no risk of a squeal, and she would be sure of her share of the swag.

  b. In the case of a jewel thief who had served a term without disclosing the whereabouts of the swag, she could put him in touch with a fence as soon as he got outside. If there were sufficient intermediaries there would be little risk, and again she would draw her percentage. Maybe her share in either case, as Wharton admitted, had occasionally been an item or two of jewellery. When she wished to raise the wind she had later disposed of these, or tried to, as in the case of her visit to Grace Allbeck’s shop.

  With regard to the first—and Wharton was careful to disclaim full agreement—Prider thought that Marion Blaketon had been behind that abortive attempt at an entry which had been upset by Mavin. I saw the reason for Wharton’s disagreement. Why should Marion Blaketon arrange for Pelle to take a particular train and gain no profit from it? It didn’t matter to her what train Pelle took provided the jewellery was in the house that night.

  But the second was the promising opening, though the problem there had been to find a suitable man who had either just been or was about to be released. And as there wasn’t one, Prider had suggested Harry the Snoot. Harry Sanders was his official name, and he had a snoot, according to Wharton, that made night work his only hope of survival. But Harry had been out for best part of a fortnight after doing twelve months for lifting a jewel-case from a parked car in Hanover Street. And the jewellery had been recovered.

  I was getting a bit puzzled. Harry the Snoot, according to Wharton’s account, was the very opposite of the right man. But before Wharton could tell me more, we were in sight of the Opera House and there was Prider waiting for us.

  “Everything all right?” Wharton asked him.

  “Everything okey-doke, sir,” Prider told him, and I saw George wince. “In Morgan’s coffee-house at half-past ten. I’ve fixed up a table.”

  That coffee-shop was almost empty when we went in and our table was at the far end. The seats were high-backed to give privacy, and except for the faint whoosh of the broom of the waiter who was sweeping the floor, there was very much of a hush.

  “Come in here any time up to seven in the morning, and you wouldn’t hear yourself speak.” Prider told me, eyes on the door.

  The waiter came up and George ordered three large coffees. I thought him a bit ambitious. The chipped cup I got and the stains on the saucer made me wonder if I’d have survived a small one. Then Prider was nudging Wharton. My back was to the door and it was not till Harry was on top of us that I had my first sight of him.

  He looked a humorous sort of cove, quite well dressed and as mildly spoken as you’d find them. Precious little accent either, and with a self-possession that staggered me. As for that nose of his, it was something to fascinate. At all sorts of moments I found myself wrenching my eyes away from that monstrous beak. Frontways it wasn’t so bad, but seen from the side it was something incredible.

  Wharton was calling for another large coffee. Prider was holding out his hand.

  “How are you, Harry? Make yourself at home.”

  “How’s tricks with you?” asked Harry and sidled into my seat. Wharton’s hand went across too. To me it was something out of Gilbert and Sullivan, with special reference to the Pirates of Penzance. Maybe Harry never should have been a burglar. Some one had blundered, and his indentures should have bound him apprentice to a bugler, and everyone knew it and dealt out a little sympathy on the sly.

  “What about something to eat?” Prider asked him when the coffee came.

  “Not for me,” said Harry, and squinted at me.

  “We’ve brought you a mouthpiece,” Prider explained. “Mr. Travers, this is Harry Saunders.”

  “How are you,” I said, and I felt somehow that I should have said, “How’re you, Harry?” and out of the corner of my mouth.

  “He’ll look after your interests,” went on Prider. “If anything slips up—which it won’t—you’ll be in good hands.”

  Wharton leaned forward.

  “Glad you’re coming in with us on this,” he said. “About time you did yourself a bit of good.”

  “Draw it mild, Super,” Harry told
him with a grin. “Since when have you been a friend of the working man?”

  Wharton nudged Prider in the ribs.

  “Always one for his little jokes, eh?” He leaned forward again. “But you will do yourself a bit of good, take it from me. Besides, there’s what we know about that Henrietta Street job. We’re not holding that against you, are we?”

  “Come off it, Super,” Harry told him. “You can’t pin that on me.”

  “Mr. Travers here might tell you different,” Wharton said. “Still, we’re not talking about that. You stick close to us and you’re on a good thing. Prider’s given you an outline?”

  Harry said that a ruddy outline was about what it amounted to. Wharton handed him a sheet of printed paper.

  “Did you get one of these when you came out?”

  Harry had a look at it and said he didn’t remember. I saw it was one of Marion Blaketon’s tracts.

  “Put it in your pocket,” Wharton said genially. “It’s going to be one of the best friends you ever had. You tell him, Prider.”

  “This is the lay,” Prider said, and his voice lowered. “Everyone’s supposed to have one of these handed him when he comes out. That one is yours. Crease it well and rub it in the dirt and make it look as if it’s been in your pocket for days. See that name at the bottom? Marion Blaketon, Secretary. She’s the one you’re going to tell the tale to.”

  And so gradually to the tale itself. Harry would produce the tract and say the police weren’t giving him a chance.

  “Don’t choose the language,” Wharton said. “That dame’s pretty hard-boiled.”

  Prider said he’d probably have to fill in a confidential form or else answer questions which she’d enter on a form. Everything he told her was to be true, with one exception, and that was what needed careful handling.

  “You see, you’re supposed to have got away with that Hanover Street stuff. She won’t know any better. Nothing ever came out. So you sort of hint that you aren’t too hard pressed for a job. You can go on living for a goodish while yet.”