The Case of the Murdered Major: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  It was about five o’clock that he had occasion to go up to Mafferty’s room, and who should be there but Wharton. Travers had come through as usual without knocking, and there were the two with their heads together, but Mafferty looking uncommonly serious, even for him. Wharton looked the least bit confused, and, more ominous still, he tried no jocularities. Nor did he budge, and when Travers had got the ruling which Mafferty gave him, Wharton was still there and apparently about to resume whatever surreptitious scheming Travers’s unexpected arrival had interrupted.

  The post was not cleared and yet Travers found himself unable to concentrate on work. There was Mafferty to worry about and whether it was he whom Wharton was drawing into the toils. Was he one of those accomplices Wharton had mentioned? Impossible, surely, and yet, the more one came to look at sheer facts, the more impossible was everybody in the camp.

  Was Wharton lying when he said that Tester had killed Stirrop? Travers did not know. He was not lying when he had said that Tester had been arrested, Travers at least felt sure of that. And yet some instinct told him that Tester was not the man. How could he have entered the camp that night? If he had contrived to mount the wall, and by means of a pole had propelled himself beyond the masses of coiled wire, he would have landed in a six-foot drift of snow which the first winds had blown up from the north. Had he struggled through the snow, a sentry must have seen him and given the alarm. And after he killed Stirrop, he had to get outside the camp again to where Dulling had picked him up.

  Dusk was in the sky and Travers was still working. In the room was not only the first dark but something of fear and vague alarm. Alone with his thoughts in that quiet room, and with the silence of the camp about him, Travers felt the approach of some strange and terrifying disaster, and when the sudden knock came at the door he jumped like a startled hare.

  But it was only Sniffy, and then what should he do but be mysterious too. His approach was crab-wise, and his voice a hushed croak.

  “Timms said I was to give this to you, sir, and not let anybody know.”

  Then while Travers stared, Sniffy backed towards the door, and was gone as mysteriously as he had entered. Travers, with a last look at the closed door, picked up Timms’s letter.

  Burn this as soon as read. Be in your office at seven o’clock and on no account stir out. Burn this.

  G. W.

  Travers read that note again, then slowly watched it burn, envelope and all. Then the thoughts began once more to whirl like the eddying fragments of charred black which circled and rose from the burnt paper. For a minute or two he squatted there before the fire, then on a sudden impulse left the ’phone to look after itself and made his way across to the Mess.

  Pewter, who was O.O., was stretched out in an easy chair before the fire. He scrambled to his feet at the sight of Travers.

  “Don’t disturb yourself,” Travers said. “Seen anything of Superintendent Wharton by any chance?”

  “He went out of main gate about ten minutes ago, sir,” Pewter said.

  Travers pushed the bell. “Join me in a short one?”

  “Thank you, sir. A sherry, if I may.”

  “Here’s how,” said Travers, and took his tot standing by the fire. All the time he was thinking hard. Wharton, he now knew, had gone to one of two places—to make contact with Lading, or to interview Bertha Dance. He had let her off lightly that morning because he wished to conduct his cross-examination in comparative secrecy. And the reason he wished Travers to stay in his office was for the taking of any ’phone message that might be sent from outside camp.

  Somehow the thought eased his mind. The Mess was a change from the oppressive silence of the office, and even the company of young Pewter was for once welcome, so that he stayed on a while. But the time was getting on, and it was about a quarter to seven when he came back to the office again.

  A telephone orderly was there. Mr. Ramble, had sent him, he said.

  “Where is Mr. Ramble?” Travers asked.

  “He did go upstairs with Captain Winter, sir, but he’s just gone.”

  “Well, you make yourself comfortable in Captain Winter’s room,” Travers said. “If I want you, I’ll call.”

  Then Winter himself came down.

  “You’re working late?” he said.

  “What about yourself?” fired Travers.

  Winter smiled. “I’m doing a job of work with Ramble. For him, really. I thought I’d do it up in his room so I shouldn’t be disturbed.”

  Off he went again, and once more that uncanny silence settled about the room. Then in an unfortunate moment Travers knew that it was just like that night when Stirrop was killed, except that now there was a strange awareness and that queer sense of things about to happen. Then, as he had done that night, he began to hum to himself and relighted his pipe, and stoked the fire noisily.

  He glanced at his watch and saw that Wharton’s zero hour was past. At any moment something might happen, and then he smiled to himself, for the only thing that could happen was the sudden ringing of the telephone bell. Then the bell did ring. Travers hesitated strangely for a moment, then picked the receiver up.

  “Yes?”

  “Main Guard speaking, sir. A closed car, like an ambulance car, just drew up, sir, outside the gate along the road, so I went to investigate. It was a driver from H.Q., sir, and a couple of red hats—military police. They said they had orders to wait outside, and I wasn’t to do anything about it. Is that all right, sir?”

  “Quite all right,” Travers said. “The public highway’s free to all. So long as they don’t want to come into camp, they can do as they please. Oh, and just a minute. Did Superintendent Wharton come through recently?”

  “About half an hour ago, sir.”

  “Right,” said Travers laconically. “Good-bye.”

  Now his thoughts were really a whirl. Wharton back in camp, and something like an ambulance waiting at the main gate. And Wharton still had that gun!

  All at once he found himself at the door, and listening. The camp was still as death itself. The wind lay towards the hutments and there was never a sound, not even of a sentry. A heaviness was in the air, as if a thaw was near, and the night itself was so turgidly black that from earth to sky seemed one impenetrable cloud. A cough came, and the sound was startling in the stillness. Then Travers smiled. It was only the orderly in Winter’s room.

  He went back to his table and tried to settle to work, and then, all at once, the new silence was shattered. It was a sudden clap, like a gun, and in a flash his heart was racing madly. Then, again, he knew what it was.

  “Damn that fellow, Winter! Why the hell can’t he shut doors quietly?”

  He went through to the orderly.

  “Was that Captain Winter who just went out?”

  “Nobody went out,” the orderly said.

  Travers stared. “Then what was that noise upstairs?”

  “Sounded like somebody dropping something, sir.”

  Travers gave a Whartonian grunt, frowned, then went back to his office again. What the devil did it mean? Winter had gone out. Then suddenly he was opening the door again, and was making his way round from the back, and looking towards the Mess and listening for the sound of Winter’s steps.

  Then there was a shot. There was no doubt about it this time. It cracked in the still air, and there followed a wild shout.

  “Mafferty! Mafferty!”

  It was over at the building, and Travers burst into a shambling run.

  Another shot—a louder one—and Travers was frantically trying to open the wire gate. All he could think of was Mafferty. Wharton’s voice had called, and Mafferty, after all, was the man. The gate opened and was left open, for Travers was running forward towards the dim light of the wire. Something dark lay on the snow by the other gate, and someone was running from the Mess. Voices were coming from everywhere, and behind him the feet of the orderly came pounding.

  “What’s happened?” Travers paused for breath. “W
hat’s been going on? Where’s Wharton?”

  “Here,” said Wharton, emerging from the dark. He was hatless and his coat was smothered with snow.

  Another voice came from towards the building, and drew nearer, and in the faint light Travers could see Mafferty.

  “Did I get him, sir?”

  “I think so,” Wharton said, and moved on towards the gate.

  Byron was there, and Pewter, and half a dozen men. Wharton pushed his way, and knelt by the thing that lay in the dim light.

  “He’s still alive. You, whoever you are, run to the gate and tell that ambulance to drive in. Captain Byron, you get him away.”

  “Clear off, you fellows,” Byron said, and as the tiny crowd disposed, Travers found himself alone with Wharton. Then he, too, stooped by the body.

  “Good God, it’s Winter!”

  “Winter it is.” said Wharton calmly. “Winter, alias the extra prisoner. Get off back to that office of yours and tell Colonel Caithby to come. Tell him it’s all right, and he’s to bring the men, Double off quick. There’s plenty more to do to-night.”

  As Travers moved off bewilderedly, he heard Wharton giving orders to Mafferty. Something about the prisoners, and moving them pronto to the first floor.

  Ten minutes later a runner said Wharton would like to see Captain Travers at the main building. Colonel Caithby was there, and looking remarkably serious. There was no welcoming smile for Travers, but barely an official nod. Two men were with him, and one was that Sapper sergeant who had been in charge of raising the floors.

  “Come on.” said Wharton impatiently. “Let’s get to work. We’ve got the prisoners upstairs, so everything’s clear. Where’s that chap Mafferty?”

  Mafferty appeared.

  “Extra guards all mounted, sir.”

  Wharton grunted and led the way to that room where the tunnel had been.

  “There you are,” he said to the sergeant. “Get those floor-boards up again.”

  This time the boards came up more easily still. Wharton peered down at the earth where the tunnel had been, and then Ramble appeared, and four men with shovels.

  “Right,” said Wharton, “Get the earth out and open the tunnel. Throw it anywhere.”

  The men got to work shovelling out the loose earth. In ten minutes they reported hard bottom.

  “There’s the tunnel in front of you,” Wharton told them impatiently. “Work along it.”

  An electric light was shone down on a lead, but now only one man could work. Soon two others were in the hole and throwing out the earth he shovelled back.

  Then came a muffled sound.

  “There’s a pipe here, or something. No, it’s something else.”

  Wharton motioned the two out and got down into the hole himself. Colonel Caithby came forward too, and Travers was peering over his shoulder. For days that smell of damp earth was to be in his nostrils, and he would wince at the horror of the thing that followed. First came a bag, yellow with the gravel of the sub-soil, and as Caithby reached down to haul it up Travers suddenly knew.

  Wharton’s voice came muffled from the tunnel, and then at last he was backing out, and holding the legs of the dead man. Caithby slipped down unhesitatingly, knee deep in loose soil, and lent a hand, while the sergeant stood at the brink, and slowly the body came up. As Travers caught sight of the dead white face, a something rose in his throat, and he was turning his head away.

  Wharton and Caithby scrambled out of the hole. Wharton looked down at Lading’s dead body.

  “Two or three are going to hang for this, sir, or my name’s not what it is. You identify him, Captain Travers?”

  “Yes,” said Travers quietly. “Even with that beard on, I still know he’s Lading.”

  Wharton turned the body over and removed the pullover. There was no need to remove the shirt, for the thrust of the knife had made an even larger rent and the blood had matted.

  “And what now?" asked Caithby.

  “Get hold of the doctor and have him taken away,” Wharton said. “Everything here must be left just as it is.”

  “A double guard on the prisoners, and this room guarded too,” Caithby told Travers, who nodded over to Ramble.

  Wharton gave a look round.

  “Nothing else we can do here. Better go and do some telephoning.”

  Outside the building he halted.

  “Where was Winter at seven o’clock?” he asked Travers.

  “Upstairs in Ramble’s room,” Travers said. “He told me he was doing a job of work and didn’t want to be disturbed.”

  Wharton moved on without comment, but it was to Winter’s room that he went.

  “We’ll go upstairs,” he said. “We ought to see something interesting.”

  A cold blast met them when the door was opened. Travers switched on the light, and there was a window open. Wharton leaned out, and was hauling in a short length of strong rope.

  “That’s how he got down without going down the stairs. Now let’s see what’s here.” He gave a grunt of triumph. “Ah, just what I thought.”

  On the floor behind the door was a wetness that shortly before must have been a pool of water.

  “Someone’s been standing here,” said Travers, staring. “That’s what happened when Stirrop was killed.”

  Wharton shook his head.

  “No one’s been standing. What you’re looking at is Winter’s alibi!”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  WHARTON EXPLAINS

  The telephoning had been done, and the three were in Travers’s office. It was to Colonel Caithby that Wharton mainly addressed himself.

  “It’s Captain Travers I’ve to thank. With him here, and used to me, so to speak, it was just like having an encyclopedia to consult. He used to tell me all I wanted to know.” He chuckled. “Though he didn’t always know how I used it. And it was not a bad plan, mind you, getting on friendly terms with the camp. I knew where to go for things and who to ask for them, without having to keep running to Captain Travers who was always up to his eyes.”

  “What gave you the first lead?” asked Caithby.

  Wharton pursed his lips. “To tell the honest truth, I don’t know. I had a good look at all the suspects Captain Travers gave me, and some I discarded for good. Tester I never liked the look of, and I was glad when I was able to rope him in. All the same, I knew he could never have killed Major Stirrop. Then one day something did strike me.

  “The talk was about Stirrop’s fractured skull and how it might have been caused by jumping down from too great a height. Remember that word down, because it gave me the lead. Then I got to thinking of how he was sandbagged and how the camp had sandbags everywhere. Then I thought to myself why shouldn’t a full sandbag have been dropped on his skull? Then I wondered from where, and that led me to that veranda. But it still wasn’t good enough. You can’t drop a sandbag on a man’s skull if that man isn’t there, and you’ve got to be a mighty clever person to do it in the dark even if you know he’s there. You’ve got to drop the sandbag damned accurately, and I told myself it couldn’t be done. It would have been too dangerous to miss. Still, we’ll come back to all that later.”

  “Yes, but how’d you get on to Winter?” Travers wanted to know.

  “I can’t tell you,” Wharton said. “The progress was gradual as you’ll see. Later we discovered it was his brother who fought with Smuts and who died about four years ago. This brother was also a South African—Weinholst was the real name—but he fought on the other side, and then became an irreconcilable, and a Commie agent. Stirrop ran across him in Burma of all places, in the days when Winter had blond hair and a beard—”

  “Good Lord! And I thought it was vanity that made him dye his hair!”

  “His hair was dyed all right,” said "Wharton, “but Stirrop had the idea he’d met him somewhere, and all the time he kept getting warmer, as they say. That’s why Winter had to kill him. Then there was that Army Form he had to fill in—”

  “Β.199A.
”

  “That’s it. He didn’t fill it in correctly—or a hundredth part correctly—and if he filled it in wrongly, then some smart person might have spotted the mistakes. Another reason why Stirrop had to be got rid of.

  “What you don’t know, Captain Travers, is that Winter had been living down here for months. He’d got his papers through for his job without too careful scrutiny—”

  “I know who gave him a good character,” Travers said. “It was the very chap for the purpose. A certain Lord Somebody, whose name I won’t mention.”

  “That’s what I thought. And once down here he contacted Tester, and if the two weren’t responsible for sabotage, then my name’s Robinson. When this last batch of prisoners arrived, he made himself known to Friedemann, but gave him a bad character—as he did Tester—by way of camouflage. He told Friedemann all that was going on, and you bet it was he who gave the orders.

  “And now about that extra prisoner business. That was Winter’s first plan to kill Stirrop, and it nearly came off. Remember that when you were away. Captain Travers, Winter took over for you, and he had your keys. That explains a lot. Now—to how he planned that murder which didn’t quite come off.

  “Winter knew that a few prisoners meant easy, and therefore comparative careless, counting, and he knew Ebbing and the two guard officers. So before the evening count he let himself into the store, took off his tunic, and slipped a pullover and trousers over his things, and put on a false moustache, or some other quick disguise, and came out in time to join a room—none too light a room, mind you—for the count. The prisoners didn’t all know each other yet, and even if they were wise to what was going on, you bet your life they’d been warned to keep their mouths shut. When the count was over—and wrong—he slipped back to the store and let himself out of the building.