The Twice Hanged Man: A Richard Clever Mystery

by Tessa Dale

“Yes. As I said, it was the luckiest day of my life.” The patient closed his eyes. “Can you imagine the horror of it, Chief Inspector? One thousand five hundred and nineteen passengers and crew, drowned.”

  “That is a rather exact number,” Clever said.

  “But accurate, I believe.”

  “Yes, to the man, Peter. Do you recall anything else about that summer?”

  “I don’t understand.” The injured man gave him a queer look, as if studying a simpleton. “How do you recall what you are still experiencing?”

  “Quite so,” Richard Clever said. “What is the year, Peter?”

  “Now you are talking absolute nonsense,” the man said, smiling. “It’s Nineteen Twelve, of course.”

  “I see.” DCI Clever removed his glasses, and started to polish them on a crumpled handkerchief. “Now, please tell me about this morning. Be as concise as possible, and leave nothing out.”

  “At last. I set off from my guest house for a brisk walk, about seven thirty this morning. I crossed the moors until I came to the foot of Solomon’s Tor, then climbed steadily to the top. It was a splendidly clear morning. I was admiring the magnificent view, when someone must have shoved me from behind. The force of the attack launched me several feet out into the void. Then I was falling, fast. I honestly thought I was a dead man, until I came to, here, in the hospital.”

  “Can you tell us who might wish to harm you?”

  “No. I haven’t a real enemy in the world. Apart from my father, of course. He’d love it if I fell off a high place. Then there are my bookmakers, but I owe them that much, it would cost them an absolute fortune if I died.”

  “You mentioned going off to America, just now,” Clever asked. “Alone? I understood you to be married.”

  “You seem to know a lot about me, Chief Inspector.”

  “Your wife?”

  “I don’t want to talk about her,” the young man said, touching his fingers to his temple.

  “What was her name?”

  “Is, damn it…what is her name! Eleanor, if you must know.”

  “Where do you think she is now, Peter?” the DCI said, pressing the injured man about her.

  “She left me a few weeks ago.” The patient shifted uncomfortably in his bed. “She was… a wicked woman, but she blamed me, Claiming that I was a bad sort.”

  “And are you, Mr. Fornell?” Clever asked. “Are you a bad sort? Could you do murder?”

  “Murder?” the young man’s voice became evasive. “No, of course not. That is an absolutely preposterous thing to say to me.”

  “Is it?” Richard Clever frowned, and turned to his companion. “Sergeant Jones, is that a newspaper in your pocket?”

  “Yes, Guv.”

  “Show it to our friend. Particularly the date. There, sir. Do you see the year? Nineteen Thirty Five. That makes you getting on towards fifty years old. Now, I must ask you once again. Who are you?”

  “Peter Fornell. I am not fifty years old, and it is definitely not Nineteen Thirty Five!”

  “You have sustained a nasty lump on your head,” Richard Clever told him. “I suggest we let you rest tonight, and resume our little chat tomorrow morning.”

  “Damned right,” the man snapped. “I don’t know what your game is, Chief Inspector, but when I get out of this bed, I intend making a formal complaint.”

  “That is your prerogative, sir,” Clever replied, “but I strongly suggest you read Detective Sergeant Jones’ newspaper, and give your predicament some serious thought. I am convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are not Peter Fornell. You seem to know a lot about him, but all the evidence points to you being either confused, or a fraudster. Your knowledge of dates, and your ability to recall minor details about sport and everyday events in nineteen twelve is too good, as if you have been studying the period. Perhaps your mind will clear by tomorrow, and you will be able to tell us who you really are.”

  “My name is Peter… Peter Fornell,” the patient snapped back. “One way or another, I’ll prove it, Chief Inspector. Ask my father, my stepmother, even my natural mother. Then you will have to apologise to me.”

  “Why is he keeping up such a transparent pretence?” Dan Jones asked as they left the hospital. “He must know we are on to him.”

  “I don’t think he is pretending,” DCI Clever replied. “He seemed genuine enough to me. His historical knowledge is excellent, as is his personal knowledge. Peter Fornell was the illegitimate son of a well known actress and an Earl. His dates are spot on, as his general knowledge, and the story about missing the Titanic is well documented. Our young impostor has, for whatever reason, really done his homework.”

  “But he is an impostor, isn’t he, Guv?”

  “Of course he is, Dan,” Richard Clever said. “How could he be anything else? It’s a matter of public record that Peter Fornell was tried for the brutal murder of his father, found guilty, and hanged in Carlisle Prison, on the ninth of January, Nineteen Thirteen.”

  Chapter Five

  Stanley Stanton was faced with a dilemma. Having been co-opted onto the CID strength in such an unofficial way, he was unsure as to his standing the day after. Had DCI Clever taken him on to his staff permanently, or had it been only for the duration of the Missing Bus case?

  Deciding to stick his neck out, he turned in on the following morning, dressed in his best civilian suit, and waited for the repercussions. The two cramped offices, allocated to Castleburgh’s CID were empty. He hung up his hat, and had just made himself a cup of tea when his DCI arrived.

  “Ah, for me?” he said, relieving the young DC of his freshly made brew. “I appreciate your keen ability to anticipate my desires, Stanton. Are you ready for your first full day in CID?”

  “If that’s okay with you, Sir,” Stanton said. “I wasn’t sure if I was a permanent fixture, or not.”

  “Nothing is permanent, Stanton,” Clever replied. “You and I are only as permanent as our last case. Get it right, and they want to shower us with praise, but one slip, and they throw you to the dogs.”

  “That’s very reassuring, Sir.”

  “I prefer it if you call me Guv, or Guv’nor,” the DCI told him. “DS Jones seems to like the epithet. You will last in CID as long as I do, and I’ve never failed yet.”

  “There’s always a first time, Guv,” Dan Jones said as he walked in. “Good morning DC Stanton. That’s a sharp suit you have on.”

  “Thanks Sarge.”

  “I rather think Sergeant Jones was referring to how much it made you look like a plain clothes policeman. It will be better once it has had time to get shabbier. A good CID man should not stand out in a crowd, unless he wants to.”

  “Oh, sorry, Guv. I’ll have it crumpled in no time.”

  “What about this nutcase at the General?” Dan Jones asked, bringing them back to the case in hand.

  “He believes he is Peter Fornell, and that he was the subject of an attack,” Clever said. “We need to disabuse him of one claim, and investigate the other. Stanton, I want you to get the paperwork together for us to get hold of the original Fornell case files. I am reliably informed that you will need the signatures of two senior officers. We can’t rely on my memory alone I suppose.”

  “Yes, Guv,” Stanton said, realising he was not going to get his morning cup of tea. “I’ll sort it out right away.”

  “Excellent. DS Jones and I will be over at the General, re-interviewing our counterfeit Peter Fornell. Let’s hope the young fellow’s head has cleared, and he can tell us who he really is.”

  “What if he sticks to his story?”

  “How can he?” Richard Clever replied. “He has only to read a newspaper, or listen to a wireless programme, to know he’s twenty three years out of step. Once reality breaks through, he will be only too willing to co-operate with our investigation.”

  Dan Jones accepted the logic of his DCIs statement, but could not help the odd feeling of foreboding niggling away at the back of his mind. Some
thing told him that the present investigation was not going to be as cut and dried as the vanishing bus case. The thought that they had a man, who was convinced he was an executed murderer from over twenty years ago, sent shivers down his spine.

  The Sergeant’s feeling of foreboding swelled to alarming proportions when they found Peter Fornell’s room empty, with the bed stripped and ready for a new occupant. It was as if the man had never existed, no matter what his real name had been.

  “They must have moved him onto a general ward,” Clever decided. “See if you can find someone who knows what has happened, Dan.”

  Jones searched the hospital wing, seemingly deserted of staff at the weekend. At length, he cornered a middle aged nurse going down the corridor, and demanded to know what had happened to the man in the private wing. She led him over to the nearby nurses station, and consulted a clipboard full of notes.

  “Ah, here we are, officer. Mr. Peter Fornell, admitted with a head injury and bruising. They segregated him, putting him into room number three. He’s gone, Sergeant.”

  “I bloody well know he’s gone,” Jones growled, sensing the nurse was being deliberately pedantic. “Where to though?”

  “He discharged himself, about an hour ago,” the nurse confirmed. “He explained that he was feeling better, and insisted on leaving. The doctor checked him and decided he was fit enough.”

  “Fit enough? The man was raving. He thought he was someone else.”

  “According to the notes, he was quite lucid. The doctor advised him to come back in a week’s time to have the stitches removed.”

  “The man came in as an attempted suicide.”

  “Really, and had you formally charged him?”

  “No, there were extenuating circumstances,” Jones confessed.

  “Then we had no right to keep him in,” she sniffed. “I believe that was what the Magna Carta was all about.”

  “Please Sister, tell me he left an address,” Jones pleaded.

  The nurse, flattered by Jones’ promoting her a rank, returned to the notes. After diligently checking a couple of pages, she looked up apologetically. No, they had not taken any details, other than his name, which it appeared, was now known to be bogus.

  “I thought it was an odd coincidence when they first brought him in,” the nurse said. “Peter Fornell was quite a notorious character when I was a girl. I wondered if they were related in some way.”

  “We don’t know,” Jones replied, “but we are concerned for his safety. He had a bang on the head, and seemed confused.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” she said. “After a bump, many people suffer short term amnesia. I imagine his wits are fully restored now. He’ll be sat at home, feeling foolish about the trouble he’s caused.”

  “Thank you, Sister,” Dan Jones said, then had a sudden afterthought. “There is one thing though. Why would he choose to settle on being a man who died twenty three years ago? Isn’t that rather peculiar?”

  “I see what you mean,” the nurse replied. “Perhaps he was thinking about Peter Fornell at the time of the accident. He might have been reading up on the old murder case for some reason. It might have been on his mind, and stuck.”

  “I want this fellow found,” Richard Clever announced, once they were back at Castleburgh’s main police station. “He can pretend to be whomsoever he likes, but he claimed he’d been attacked. If true, he may still be in danger.”

  DS Stanton came in and placed a heavy case file on one of the desks. He had used his initiative and, unable to find any senior men on site on a Sunday morning, drove over to the County Golf Club. A startled Chief Superintendent Bronson had furnished one signature, and his playing partner, the Assistant Chief Constable of Westmoreland had provided the second.

  “Mr. Bronson wasn’t too happy, Guv,” Stanton explained, “but I told him I was there at your express command, and that seemed to do the trick.”

  “You are learning fast, Stanton,” Jones smirked. “When in doubt, swear it’s the Guv’nor’s doing.”

  “As long as I get the credit when things pan out,” Clever said. “Now, how do we identify the bogus Peter Fornell? I am open to ideas.”

  “He mentioned staying local,” Jones said.

  “Yes, he did. A guest house was the exact phrase he used.”

  “There must be fifty in Castleburgh alone,” Stanton told them. “Then you have all the outlying villages, Guv. Royal End has three or four, and there must be another three dozen between here and Carlisle.”

  “I think we can cut that number down a little,” the DCI told them. “Our man said he set out to walk from his accommodation to Solomon’s Tor. That means he’s likely to have been stopping in the north east part of town. Otherwise, he’d have had to do a lot of town walking before he hit countryside.”

  “So, we concentrate on that part of town?” Jones asked.

  “We do. Let’s draw up a list, and start knocking on doors,” Clever said. “He should be easy enough to locate. A good looking young man on a walking holiday is noticeable, especially in a small sized town.”

  “I’ll ask at the railway station and visit the bus depot too, Guv,” Stanton enthused. “If he’s an outsider, he had to get here somehow.”

  “Good idea,” Clever told him. “Give my regards to Sam Hurst. She might be able to ring around and save us some shoe leather.”

  Stanton could feel himself blushing, despite being serious about checking travel companies. It annoyed him that his attraction to the girl was so obvious to his Guv’nor. Even Dan Jones gave him a quirky little smile.

  “We’ll start on Lever Street, and work our way down to the river,” the sergeant informed the DC. “Meet us there, the moment you’ve checked the transport angle. Should we involve uniformed in the search, Guv?”

  “Not at the moment. I can’t justify the use of the manpower yet,” Clever explained. “We might be looking for a time wasting fantasist.”

  “With a fixation on Peter Fornell,” Stanton muttered. “I can’t see why though, Guv.”

  “Peter Fornell was a charismatic character in his day,” the DCI explained. “It’s all in the file. He was the illegitimate son of a successful musical stage actress, and an Earl. The old man refused to formally acknowledge Fornell’s birth, and he grew up in a succession of public schools, finally earning an honours degree at Cambridge. It was in the Classics, so hardly qualified him for a life of toil.”

  “I bet not,” Stanton said.

  “No. He spent his time at country house parties, drinking and gambling to excess. His mother helped him out as best she could, then approached the Earl of Castleburgh. I suppose she reminded him of his duty, and he refinanced his errant son. The Earl had married within his own class some two or three years before, but had failed to produce an heir to his estate.”

  “Bastards can’t inherit,” Jones said. “That’s a well known fact. Fornell would never have become the fourth Earl of Castleburgh.”

  “Not the title,” Clever said, correcting his sergeant, “but there was no reason why the old man couldn’t settle his wealth on his only son. Fornell’s mother pressed him, but the old man would not relent. He finally agreed to paying off Peter’s gambling debts, providing he left England.”

  “That sounds harsh,” said Stanton. “Fancy wanting to banish your own son.”

  “Illegitimate son,” Clever told him. “It seems that the Earl’s business partner, and his housekeeper, joined forces with the family solicitor, and the Earl’s wife to drive Peter away. He had no choice, faced with such opposition, and he set off to join the SS Titanic in the April of Nineteen Twelve. The money never arrived, and Fornell travelled back up here to confront his father.”

  “He was supposed to have threatened to kill the Earl on two separate occasions,” Jones said, as he leafed through the file. “The housekeeper overheard one threat, and the second was made in the presence of Simeon Arthurson, the Earl’s business partner, and chief advisor.”<
br />
  “Correct. The housekeeper was present when Fornell called at the Earl’s home on the evening in question. The Earl’s wife was not present. She was staying in their London house. They locked themselves away in the library, and the housekeeper went to bed. In the morning, she found the Earl of Castleburgh slumped across his desk, with an ornamental letter opener plunged into his back, piercing the heart.”

  “It sounds like an Agatha Christie novel, Guv,” Jones offered. “I take it Fornell was arrested pretty damned quickly.”

  “That very same day. He had gone to a local point to point race meeting, and was happily splashing around money like it was wallpaper. The police charged him with his father’s murder. He claimed the Earl had relented, and given him a roll of cash to see him through, until he could change his will, making it work in Fornell’s favour.”

  “Pretty lame, if you ask me, Guv,” DC Stanton said. “The chap sounds like a real scoundrel.”

  “The jury, all Castleburgh men, agreed with you,” Richard Clever said. “Peter Fornell’s wife had already left him; his mother’s health had collapsed, and the murder weapon was supposed to be covered with his finger prints. The housekeeper, who had been in service with the Earl for eleven years, running his London establishment, testified that they had been arguing when she went to bed. The Earl’s business partner informed the court that Charles Vancleur had no intention of ever changing his will. The family solicitor confirmed that he had not spoken to the Earl about any changes either. As far as he was concerned, the two men - father and son - were on the very poorest of terms.”

  “Pretty cut and dried, Guv,” Stanton said. “I can’t see why our missing man was so interested in the case. I mean to say, he was so keen, he assumed Fornell’s identity when he was injured.”

  “Small pieces in a much larger jigsaw, Stanton,” Clever told him. “Once we have enough information to ponder, we will solve the mystery. Shall we get on with it, gentlemen?”

  Chapter Six

  Detective Chief Inspector Richard Clever was a man with many useful virtues when it came to conducting serious criminal investigations, but he had an Achilles Heel. His mind could assimilate information, correlate dozens of facts, and discard the misleading or irrelevant, with a frightening degree of precision, but handling mundane routine was not on his, otherwise most commendable, list of virtues.