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

by Christopher Bush

  “There may be something in it,” said George. “But anything else?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We move on to the Tuesday night when I was waiting to go to St. John’s Wood. I began thinking about some of the things I’ve been telling you, and something suddenly told me that Marion Blaketon would wriggle clear of that murder. I had nothing but suspicion and flimsy circumstantial evidence to go on, and I couldn’t see how the murder could be pinned on her, and then all at once I got blazing mad. I told myself I’d be damned if she’d swing clear. So I grabbed the telephone and rang her up. I wrote down this afternoon every word of the short conversation. Here it is if you’d like to read it.”

  George gulped down his mouthful, adjusted his spectacles and read.

  T. That you, Mrs. Blaketon?

  B. Yes?

  T. Do you recognize my voice?

  B. But of course! It’s Ludovic.

  T. Forget it. And listen, Mrs. Blaketon, and don’t interrupt. I’m taking a hell of a risk to give you a warning. Inside a couple of hours at the most you’ll be arrested.

  B. Me!

  T. Yes, you. And for murder. MURDER. Haven’t you read the evening papers? Grace Allbeck left a statement about everything. Everything! Does that convey anything to you? And Wharton’s now with the Public Prosecutor and I happen to know what’s been decided. Put your nose out of your door and you’ll find you’re being watched.

  B. (After a pause.) It can’t be. It isn’t true!

  T. Mrs. Blaketon, I beg of you. Didn’t I try to give you a tip about Grace Allbeck last Saturday night? We knew a good deal then. You know what murder means, and they’ve got you.

  “That’s all, George,” I said, when I’d taken that paper back. And as I held a corner to the fire and watched it burn: “And you know the result. She didn’t kill herself because of the Leverton business. You and I know she might have wriggled clear from that, even if she might have had to give up the secretaryship of that Society. What she killed herself for was the killing of Grace Allbeck.”

  He grunted as he began again on his meal.

  “A risky thing to do, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” I said. “But I liked Grace Allbeck. As you told me, George, I have my likes and dislikes. I didn’t like Grace Allbeck less because she’d felt herself driven to ruining that old fool Pelle. And I don’t think the less of Kenray because he tried to cover Grace up.”

  “A detective’s no right to be a Jekyll and Hyde,” George said doggedly.

  “But I’m not a detective,” I told him. “Aren’t you always telling me so!”

  He shook his head and said nothing, and for a minute or two we got on with our meal. Then he pushed his empty plate aside and I took it away with my own, though I hadn’t finished.

  “A most extraordinary story,” he said heavily, even if his eyes were regarding with interest the slab of pie on his plate. “What I reckon is that we’d better say no more about it.”

  “I’m with you there,” I said. “I’ve got it off my chest and I feel better. And supposing the case were reopened, what good would it do? The principals are dead, and if they weren’t then everything I’ve been telling you is so fantastically circumstantial that it wouldn’t convince a jury of nitwits.”

  “You’re right enough there,” he said, and went on with his pie. Then in a minute or so he was asking what was amusing me.

  “I wasn’t amused,” I said. “I was merely thinking of something. I know this case is over and done with and your own solution is officially correct. But suppose it were reopened. Who’d get the blame for any slip-ups? The apprentice or the old master?”

  He paused in the middle of his final mouthful of pie.

  “What’s the idea? Trying to blackmail me?”

  “God forbid, George,” I told him hastily.

  Then I was fetching a couple of port glasses and passing a full one to him.

  “Here’s to forgetfulness then, George.”

  He nodded a good health, took a drink and smacked his lips. George would have been popular with the Arabs. A belch to show appreciation would have been right up his alley.

  “A drop of good stuff this.”

  “A cigar?” I said, and handed him the box.

  “Trying that blackmail stunt?” he said, but there was definitely a twinkle in his eyes as he peered at me over those spectacles he was still wearing.

  “Not a bit of it,” I said, and drew his chair towards the fire. “Just a celebration on account of my being blown back from hell’s gates instead of through.”

  He gave a little sigh of content as he stretched his feet towards the fire.

  “Just one little question,” I said coaxingly, “and then we’ll forget all that damned silly theorizing of mine. Just suppose I’d come to you a week ago with what I’ve told you to-night. What do you think you’d have said?” George drew in a steady breath of smoke, then blew it slowly out. Then he peered at me, and I was practically sure that he winked.

  “What would I have said? I reckon I’d have said we’d got something there, or my name was Robinson.”

  THE END

  About The Author

  Christopher Bush was born Charlie Christmas Bush in Norfolk in 1885. His father was a farm labourer and his mother a milliner. In the early years of his childhood he lived with his aunt and uncle in London before returning to Norfolk aged seven, later winning a scholarship to Thetford Grammar School.

  As an adult, Bush worked as a schoolmaster for 27 years, pausing only to fight in World War One, until retiring aged 46 in 1931 to be a full-time novelist. His first novel featuring the eccentric Ludovic Travers was published in 1926, and was followed by 62 additional Travers mysteries. These are all to be republished by Dean Street Press.

  Christopher Bush fought again in World War Two, and was elected a member of the prestigious Detection Club. He died in 1973.

  By Christopher Bush

  and available from Dean Street Press

  The Plumley Inheritance

  The Perfect Murder Case

  Dead Man Twice

  Murder at Fenwold

  Dancing Death

  Dead Man’s Music

  Cut Throat

  The Case of the Unfortunate Village

  The Case of the April Fools

  The Case of the Three Strange Faces

  The Case of the 100% Alibis

  The Case of the Dead Shepherd

  The Case of the Chinese Gong

  The Case of the Monday Murders

  The Case of the Bonfire Body

  The Case of the Missing Minutes

  The Case of the Hanging Rope

  The Case of the Tudor Queen

  The Case of the Leaning Man

  The Case of the Green Felt Hat

  The Case of the Flying Donkey

  The Case of the Climbing Rat

  The Case of the Murdered Major

  The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel

  The Case of the Fighting Soldier

  The Case of the Magic Mirror

  The Case of the Running Mouse

  The Case of the Platinum Blonde

  The Case of the Corporal’s Leave

  The Case of the Missing Men

  Christopher Bush

  The Case of the Missing Men

  ““This is something desperately secret,” she said. “Something I want you to do for me . . . But I can’t tell you now. It’s something I’m frightened about.”

  Ludovic Travers, consulting specialist for Scotland Yard, receives two invitations at once to visit Beechingford. One comes from Cuthbert Daine, his literary agent. Daine is an important and busy man, and it seems strange that he would want to see him personally about a matter that might have been handled by mail. The other invitation comes from Austin Chaice, the successful mystery writer. He is, he says, preparing a manual for detective story writers, and needs advice on certain points.

  The puzzlement aroused in Travers’s mind by these two letters is crystalli
zed by a half-hysterical telephone call from Chaice’s attractive wife.

  Travers is prepared to find a delicate and involved situation at Beechingford—but not prepared for the murder of his host!

  The Case of the Missing Men was originally published in 1946. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

  PART I

  CHAPTER I

  TWO LETTERS

  I waited for a moment at the door and gave a quick wipe to my glasses. That is a kind of nervous trick of mine when at a sudden loss, or on the edge of discovery, or faced with some unusual situation. But there was nothing nervously disquietening about that interview with Inspector Goodman. What was unusual was that I, who had assisted in the questioning of scores of witnesses and suspects in my time, was now about to be questioned. Maybe I was only wondering just what sort of hand Goodman would make of the job.

  I gave a tap at the door and opened it. My eyes went instinctively to the corner by the open desk where the body had been, then they rose for another look at Goodman. He was tall—about a couple of inches less than my six foot three—but weighing a good three stone more than myself, and beneath the tightness of his coat I could see that his weight was mostly muscle. A nasty customer in a scrap was my first impression of him.

  “Mr. L. Travers?” he said, and gave a quick look at his notebook. He had quite an attractive baritone voice and the tone was pleasant enough. Quite a good bedside manner, I told myself professionally.

  “That’s correct,” I said.

  “The L is for . . .?”

  “Ludovic,” I told him. “Just an old family custom.”

  I suppose I must have smiled. He gave an answering smile in which there was a certain diffidence, and then was waving me to a chair. He seemed rather puzzled about me, or so I thought, and under some circumstances I might have been amused. The situation certainly had ironic possibilities, and yet I didn’t feel the least amusement. Murder is a grim business and he’d a right to treat it seriously, and perhaps even more so had I.

  “Just how do you come to be in Beechingford?” was his first real question. “I ask that because I understand your address is St. Martin’s Chambers, in town.”

  He was peering at me with raised eyebrows, the sort of look that George Wharton would have made a whimsical one, and over the tops of antiquated spectacles.

  “It’s rather a long story,” I began. “I’m really here killing two birds with one stone. I mean, seeing both Mr. Chaice and Mr. Daine.”

  “You’re an author?” There was another and not unfriendly lift of the eyebrows.

  “I was, some years ago.”

  “But not now.”

  “Not now,” I echoed, and for a moment he seemed at a loss. Then he framed the next question.

  “What exactly are you doing now?”

  “That again is rather involved,” I said, and not out of cussedness, but just because I didn’t want to be obscure. “I was called up at the beginning of the war, then invalided out a year or so ago, and after that I carried on with certain work at Scotland Yard that I’d been doing for some years.”

  He looked so startled that I had to add that maybe I should have mentioned that straightaway.

  “Work at Scotland Yard,” he said. “Just what sort of work, sir?”

  “You know how it is,” I said. “They have all sorts of consultative experts, as they call ’em, on tap, and I was called in from time to time. These last few months I’ve been doing various jobs. They’re very short-handed, you know.”

  The door opened and his plain-clothes sergeant came in. His name, I had been told, was Smith, and he was carrying a fat notebook and had a pencil behind his ear. Goodman was at once getting to his feet.

  “Would you excuse me a minute or two, sir? There’s something I should have done.”

  He and Smith exchanged looks. Smith took the vacated seat at the desk, and just as Goodman was at the door I cleared my throat.

  “If you should happen to be ringing the Yard, Inspector, you might ask for Superintendent Wharton.”

  He didn’t like that at first, but then he grinned. I hadn’t intended to be clever or superior. I was looking after my own interests, so to speak, and trying to save time, and yet I could self-consciously tell myself that I might have done both in a different way.

  “You’ll excuse me, sir,” said Smith, and was at once busying himself with the back pages of his notebook.

  “You carry on,” I told him cheerfully, and took another look round the room.

  It was an airy, comfortable room. Through the window I could see the smooth lawn and beyond it the shrubbery and fringe of poplars that kept a privacy for the house from the small, if select, residential estate that lay beyond the back lane to the south. Through the open french window was coming the scent of roses from the beds that fronted the house. In the far garden corner I could see the thatch of the summerhouse that nestled in the shrubbery, and somewhere in the room itself a bee was droning clumsily. Then it found the open window and flew out, and my eyes went to the floor.

  The mess had been cleared up. The chair in which I was sitting was the one that had been overturned by the body, but there were chalk marks to show just where it had been. On the same red carpet was a chalk outline of the body itself, and a smaller one for the overturned vase, and a few single scrawls that represented the rucks made by the feet of struggling men. I wondered if Goodman had noticed the queer thing about those various marks or whether it would be unprofessional conduct on my part to point it out.

  Then my eyes fell on the telephone. It was an extension from the main telephone in the larger room where Chaice worked with his secretary, Orford Lang, to Chaice’s private sanctum where Smith and I then were. That’s why I had guessed that Goodman wanted to check up on me at the Yard. He hadn’t wanted me to hear and so had gone to the other room to make his enquiries. And there was every reason to make enquiries. No one could look less like a minion of the law than myself.

  That led me to wondering just what George Wharton would tell him. George and I had worked together for years, and though we could be everything from the facetious to the blasphemous to each other’s faces, we were a mutual admiration society when dealing with a third party. Viewed apart we were opposites, but together we were complementary and contrived to dovetail in. George takes a huge zest in his work, relieving the boredoms with a hundred tricks of showmanship and the playing of cameo dramas in which he is the leading man. He is all things to all men: stolid or furiously impatient, wily and tortuous or guilefully direct, dignified or skittish, bland, wheedling or superbly indignant in the same minute; homely and yet lousy with snobberies and humbug. And the most curious thing about it all is that George is the more likeable because of that repertoire of tricks. And one last thing, and one not to forget, is that he is the man for his job. It’s only the supermen who attain to the heights of the Big Five.

  What about myself, you may say. Well, I suppose I’m the opposite of George, except that in the course of years I’ve acquired some of his tricks. But mine is a helter-skelter, flibbertigibbet, crossword sort of brain that works quickly or not at all. The rest of my irritating peculiarities you will know long before you reach the end of this record. Perhaps the only thing George and I have in common is that neither of us looks the part we have to play. No false whiskers could disguise my lamp-post leanness and horn-rims. As for George, his immense walrus moustache and the hunched breadth of his shoulders and that black overcoat with the worn velvet collar give him the air of a harassed if somewhat superior man from the Prudential. But, as I said, we get along remarkably well on the whole. I know he has for me his likings and respects, even if they are only those of an Old Master for a useful apprentice. My own likings and respects are those of the apprentice who has come to know the Old Master only too well, but who would rather change his job than be kicked out of the studio.

  Goodman was the devil of a time, I thought, and just as I thought
that, I heard his step outside. Smith vacated the seat and took another at the little table by the french window.

  “A clear bill?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” he told me, and gave an answering smile. “So if you’d be so good, sir, we’ll hear all you know about this business.”

  “It’ll be a longish tale,” I told him.

  “Need it be?” he asked. “I mean, can’t we have the bare essentials? After all, sir, you’re something of an old hand.”

  “Not so old as you’d think,” I said. “But the trouble is to know what essentials are. My trivialities might be your highly important clues, and vice versa.”

  “Yes,” he said, and gave a Whartonian pursing of the lips. A quick look at his watch and he was wondering if I could get through in an hour. I said it depended on Smith and his shorthand, and he said Smith was one of the fastest there were. Smith tried to look as if he hadn’t heard.

  Well, that was that, and I began. What you are going to read is what I told Goodman, but with many extras; in fact, your version will be ten times as long, though not so long, I hope, as to get near boredom. There are things like personal views, descriptions of people and places which he could either have guessed from my tone or which he knew already. There were also, I frankly admit, things which I couldn’t very well divulge to him, since I was far from sure about them myself. And since I had no statement prepared, I had to extemporise, and that doesn’t always make for clarity. The best I can say is that he was told a very few things he had no need of knowing, and I doubt if anything was left out that might have helped him solve the Case. Just one other thing I should make clear. You would hate to wade through a verbatim report as taken down by Smith, with its deviations from strict chronology, its necessary and disjointed harkings back, and Goodman’s interrupting questions and my answers and explanations. What you are going to have are the very relevant facts, and in chronological order. If I describe a place or a person it will not be for the sake of padding, but because the matter contains a vital clue. You, like Goodman, have a Case to solve, and it is for you, therefore, that every single piece of the jigsaw is now placed in full view on the table before you.