The Chessman

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  Conversation was stilted to the point of awkwardness. It was with unexpected relief that Jordan saw Esmé approach a man in the expectant crowd. He watched her walk over to him, then pause. The light caught his face as he bent his head towards her. ‘Where’s Tom?’ she asked, her voice carrying clearly. ‘I thought Tom would be here.’ The man bent his head, his face catching the light, as he replied. There seemed to be an odd sort of shadow over him.

  Esmé Vardon laughed and with a little toss of her head, took the man’s arm. With a regretful sigh, David Jordan walked out into the warm Hampshire night.

  Quarter of an hour later, lulled by the steady thrum of the engine and snuggled into the travelling rug, Esmé Vardon was half asleep in the comfortable seat of the big car. She smiled at the thought of David Jordan, then shook her head. A gentle flirtation, nothing more. She didn’t want anything more, not with Tom waiting. ‘How long will it be now?’ she asked drowsily.

  ‘Not long now,’ said the man, with such an odd note in his voice that she turned to look at him.

  He turned off the main road and the roughness beneath the wheels told her they must be on a cart track. The headlights showed black trees and a mud road closed in by hedges.

  He switched the engine off and the headlights blinked out, leaving only the fitful moon. The wind stirred the leaves in a scarcely audible rustle, then that passed, leaving absolute silence.

  She suddenly felt afraid. ‘Is … Is Tom waiting for me?’ she asked, a crack in her voice.

  The man got out of the car and opened the door for her politely. ‘He’s waiting. We’ll have to walk a little way, I’m afraid.’

  His tone held nothing but polite regret and she consciously dampened down the apprehension that caught her. She got out of the car, then the moon came from behind the clouds again and she saw his twitching, waiting hands. Fear leapt again to be replaced by absolute terror as the hands shot out and fastened round her throat …

  FOURTEEN

  On the dark Hampshire road, Thomas Vardon heard the puttering of the motorbike before he saw it. He got out of the car and stepped into the road as the bike approached and drew to a halt beside the stationary Lanchester.

  It was a motor breakdown mechanic. ‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ said Thomas in relief. ‘It’s ages since I rang for help.’

  Alfred Bourne, the Automobile Association scout, was not a man to be hurried. He dismounted, stood the bike on its stand, pushed up his goggles and unfastened his leather helmet. ‘I’m sorry about that, sir. I came as soon as I got the call. What seems to be the problem with the car?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue,’ said Thomas helplessly. ‘She was going sweet as a nut and then she suddenly conked out on me. I tried to see what the problem was, but everything looks all right. I set off on foot, looking for a garage, when I saw the AA box a mile or so down the road.’

  Alfred Bourne took his torch from his sidecar and shone the light over the raised bonnet, glancing to see that the AA membership badge was in place on the grille.

  ‘Is there anything you can do?’ asked Thomas Vardon, following the scout round the front of the car.

  ‘I’ll just check the petrol,’ said Bourne in a maddeningly methodical way.

  Thomas wriggled impatiently. ‘It’s not the petrol. I filled up before I set off. Look, I’d be awfully obliged if you’d hurry. I’m meant to be meeting my wife at Southampton. I’m horribly late already.’

  Alfred Bourne unscrewed the cap and confirmed the tank was full with a flash of his torch. ‘The tank might have been holed,’ he explained. ‘That happens far more than most people realize. Let’s have a look at the leads.’

  He spared a sympathetic look for the anxious man beside him. ‘Why don’t you sit down on the bank and have a cigarette, sir,’ he said, indicating an overhanging oak by the side of the road. ‘If the car was running fine before, I’m sure there’s nothing I can’t fix. Your wife is bound to be all right. She’s probably having a nice cup of tea somewhere.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem very likely,’ muttered Thomas, but it was obvious the AA man wanted him out of the way so he could look at the engine in peace.

  He sat down on the grassy slope, lit a cigarette and took a pull from his travelling flask as Bourne raised the bonnet.

  Ten minutes or so passed, while Alfred Bourne worked in silence, broken by occasional comments. Thomas had taken another cigarette from his case and tapped it on the back of his hand, when Alfred Bourne raised his head and stood back from the car. ‘If you’d just like to try her, sir, I think everything should be in order.’

  Bourne stood back with a smile of satisfaction as the engine roared into life. He lowered the bonnet and stepped round to the driver’s seat.

  ‘It was a nut on the inlet—’ he began, but Vardon cut him short.

  ‘I really must dash. Thanks for everything you’ve done.’ And with a flurry of dust and a blaze of red tail lights, the Lanchester was off.

  Alfred Bourne stood back from the road and watched the disappearing car. ‘I bet he’s going to cop it from his missus,’ he said to himself with a grin as he filled in his notebook. ‘I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes.’ He climbed back on his bike and chugged away.

  At the entrance to Pennyfold farm, three miles away, off the Titchfield Road, Esmé Vardon’s twisted body lay beneath the stars.

  Thomas Vardon went back in to the all-too-familiar Cunard office on the quayside. The shipping clerk looked up warily. This was the third time Sir Thomas had spoken to him that night. Sir Thomas, thought the clerk, looked dog-tired and haggard with worry.

  ‘Have you had any luck, sir?’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘No. I’ve been to the principal hotels and contacted the hospital, too.’ This had been the clerk’s suggestion on Sir Thomas’s previous visit. ‘There’s no sign of my wife. Are you certain she didn’t leave a message?’

  The shipping clerk looked at him helplessly. ‘I’m sorry, Sir Thomas, but we checked the first time you called and no message has been received since.’ He valiantly tried not to yawn. It was more than four hours since the Mauretania had docked and was now past five in the morning.

  Vardon sunk his head between his shoulders and rested his arms on the desk. The clerk watched him sympathetically. ‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘I can’t stay here all night. I’ll be in the Palace Hotel. If, by any chance, my wife does get in touch with you, can you contact the hotel?’

  ‘We’ll certainly do that, Sir Thomas,’ agreed the clerk, glad there was an instruction he could follow.

  ‘Fine. I’ll be round again later on. Good night.’ With a weary sigh Vardon left the building and climbed once more into his waiting car.

  Dawn comes early in July which, for the farmer, means that morning milking can, for a few precious weeks, be carried out in broad daylight. Percy Taston (known universally as ‘Perce’) liked this time of day. The sun dappled through the tracery of delicate green oak leaves and glinted on the dew of the grass beside the track up to Pennyfold farm. Fine morning, Taston thought.

  The herd came to a shambling halt. ‘Get along there!’ he called, slapping the rump of the reluctant cow in front of him. ‘Drat that dog. What’s he got now? Get out of it, Samson!’ But Samson wouldn’t get out of it. Taston squinted. There seemed to be some large grey animal lying huddled under the hedge.

  The dog pawed and whined as Taston turned over the body, then, sensing his master’s distress, sat on his haunches and howled.

  The first Jack knew of Percy Taston’s gruesome discovery was when the telephone rang at half eight that morning. Over a hastily snatched breakfast of a couple of rolls and the cup of tea Isabelle provided, he brought her up to date before calling for Ashley in the Spyker.

  Ashley met him outside the police station. ‘I’m sorry to get you up so early, Haldean,’ he said as he climbed into the car. ‘God help us, what a business.’

  Jack put the car in gear and drove off. ‘That’s okay, Ashley. T
here’s no doubt it’s Esmé Duclair, is there?’

  ‘None, I’m afraid. Her passport was in her handbag.’

  ‘Does Sir Thomas know?’

  ‘I imagine he will, by the time we get there. Apparently he drove down to Southampton last night to meet the ship. He must be in some hotel or other. It’ll be an easy job for the Hampshire police to find him.’

  ‘Poor beggar,’ said Jack, as he slowed and manoeuvred the Spyker round a plodding horse and cart. ‘Hell’s bells! I’ve just remembered. We should have had the inquest on Simon Vardon today.’

  Ashley shook his head. ‘I left a message for the coroner to adjourn the proceedings. We can’t go ahead now a second murder has happened.’

  Jack glanced at him. ‘So there’s no doubt in your mind the murders are connected?’ he asked, gearing the car back up to fourth.

  Ashley snorted. ‘Is there in yours? No, I didn’t think there was. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this, Haldean. We’ve just got to.’

  It was a phrase Ashley repeated as he gently re-covered the dead woman’s body with a blanket. The sight of the blue face and the blackened tongue made him first queasy, then angry.

  The doctor, a small, competent-looking man, was briskly efficient. ‘The cause of death is definitely asphyxiation caused by the crushing of the windpipe – or, to put it another way, strangulation. She’s been dead for about nine hours, give or take an hour or so. Even at this time of year it can get very cold just before dawn, which can affect matters, but I don’t think I’m far out, which gives us a time of death from two till four this morning.’

  ‘We’ll have to find out when the Mauretania docked last night, Haldean,’ said Ashley.

  Jack, a piece of paper in his hand, was holding the dead woman’s handbag and seemed not to have heard him.

  ‘Haldean?’ repeated Ashley. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Jack held out the handbag towards him. ‘Look in there.’

  Ashley took the bag with a frown, drawing in his breath as he saw a familiar little box. Using his handkerchief he picked out the box and opened it. Inside, on a nest of cotton wool, lay a pink marble chess piece. A red rook ornamented with crystal chips.

  Although he had been certain Simon Vardon’s and Esmé Vardon’s murders were connected, Ashley felt his skin crawl.

  ‘There’s something else,’ said Jack quietly. ‘This paper,’ he said, passing it over. ‘I saw it under the hedge while you were looking at the body.’

  It was a page torn from a magazine. The title, Cinema Weekly, was printed at the top of the page. The picture showed a girl with bare neck and shoulders smiling into the camera. She was just about identifiable as the same woman with the ghastly face under the blanket.

  ‘“Esmé Duclair”,’ read Ashley, ‘“who appeared in Eve’s Daughters, The Twelve Caesars, and Victory Hill, amongst others, is on her way to join her husband, Sir Thomas Vardon, in Sussex, England. It’s to be hoped that the new Lady Vardon won’t turn her back on Hollywood completely. Bon voyage, Esmé!”’

  Ashley looked at the picture. ‘Poor thing,’ he said. ‘She must’ve brought it with her.’

  ‘It’s not her’s,’ Jack said sharply.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It can’t be hers. Cinema Weekly is printed on Fleet Street. It’s an English magazine. There’s only one reason why the Chessman should have it.’

  ‘To make sure he recognized Lady Vardon at Southampton.’ Ashley bit his lip. ‘But why should she go off with a man she didn’t know? We’ve got some digging to do. We’ll go to the Southampton police first and see what they’ve managed to get for us. With any luck they’ve found Thomas Vardon, poor devil. Let’s start with him.’

  Thomas Vardon was in the Palace Hotel. Unshaven and haggard, he could tell them little.

  The Mauretania had docked at half one. His car had broken down on the main Arundel to Southampton road. He had called the AA – no, he didn’t know the man’s name, damnit, it hadn’t been a social occasion – but it was, he thought, a few miles outside of Fareham. By the time he had got to Southampton docks it was about ten to three and his wife had long since vanished.

  When asked why his wife should have driven off with a man she presumably didn’t know, he looked horribly uncomfortable. When Jack suggested the man could have been dressed in chauffeur’s uniform, he seized on the idea with an eagerness which Jack found oddly touching.

  ‘That could be it,’ he said. ‘That could explain … Oh, hell. I’d been wondering if she’d just …’ He broke off awkwardly. ‘I suppose you’d better know. Things weren’t all they could have been between us.’

  Thanks to Isabelle, Jack did know, but said nothing.

  ‘I wondered if Esmé had perhaps gone off with someone. It sounds crazy now, but I’d been to all the hotels I could think of last night and couldn’t think where she’d got to.’ He looked at them in bewilderment. ‘Why has this happened? This maniac, the Chessman, killed my brother. Could the Chessman have killed Esmé?’

  Ashley swapped glances with Jack and nodded. ‘Unfortunately, Sir Thomas, we believe that’s exactly what happened.’

  ‘My God.’ Thomas Vardon sat very still for a moment, then looked up with a twisted smile. ‘I’m next.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, sir,’ declared Ashley with a lot more assurance than he felt. ‘We’ll get him before then.’

  There was a distinguished visitor waiting for them at the police station. The Chief Constable of the county, Colonel Kimberly-West, had interested himself in the case.

  ‘I want to know a bit more about this affair before I decide what action to take,’ he said, smoothing out his moustache. ‘I believe Lady Vardon was an American citizen, which makes me think we should call in Scotland Yard right away. I’ve already discussed the matter with them. Incidentally, Major, I believe you’re associated with the Yard?’

  ‘Sir Douglas Lynton will certainly vouch for me,’ said Jack. Strictly speaking, he knew he had no right to be there, but he hoped the Assistant Commissioner’s name would do the trick.

  It did. The Chief Constable’s face cleared. ‘Sir Douglas? A very sound man and diplomatic, too. We have to be devilish careful with Americans. We can’t afford to be seen shilly-shallying with the possibility of international repercussions at stake.’

  A knock sounded on the door and the desk sergeant came in. ‘Excuse me, sir, but a Mr Alfred Bourne’s called. He’s the AA scout who was called to assist Sir Thomas Vardon last night.’

  ‘Send him in, man,’ said Colonel Kimberly-West. ‘We might as well hear what he has to say.’

  Moments later a nervous-looking, middle-aged man was ushered into the room. ‘Sit down, Mr Bourne,’ said the Chief Constable with bluff geniality.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Mr Bourne, perching uneasily on the edge of the proffered chair. ‘I hope as how I’m not wasting your time. I only came because the office said I ought to.’

  ‘Just tell us what happened, man,’ said the Colonel.

  ‘Well, sir, we had a call from the AA box two miles outside Fareham that one of our members had broken down and was in need of assistance. He was on the main Arundel Road four miles outside Fareham.’

  Mr Bourne consulted his notebook. ‘We received the call at two forty-five a.m., and I reached our member at ten minutes past three.’ Ashley jotted down the times and places. ‘I can show you the place exactly if you have a map,’ added Mr Bourne helpfully.

  A large-scale map was produced and after some slight hesitation, Mr Bourne put his finger on the spot. ‘There we are, just about.’

  Jack looked at the map. ‘That’s about two and a half miles from where the body was found. That’s here, off the Titchfield Road. There’s a minor road connecting the two places. I bet it’s rotten.’

  ‘It is that, sir,’ agreed Mr Bourne, warmly. ‘Shocking, some of these roads are. Anyway, the gentleman said he had been waiting for some time. He’d tried to mend the car himself before he walked on down the r
oad and contacted us. He was in a rare hurry to get on. Well, I soon found what the problem was. I suspected it was a problem with the fuel and I was right. It was a 40 h.p. Lanchester. It’s a lovely car and usually very reliable, but they have an autovac system which sometimes causes problems.’

  Ashley and the Chief Constable looked blank.

  ‘It’s the way the fuel gets into the carburettor, you see. The petrol comes out of the main tank through a pipe to a small tank at the back of the engine drawn by the vacuum created. From there it’s fed by gravity into the carburettor. Now, the vacuum intake pipe is joined to an inlet manifold on the engine, which is secured by a nut. If the nut works loose, then air gets in and the vacuum is broken, so the fuel stops. I tightened up the nut and everything was fine. It’s simple enough, but it puzzles a lot of people who aren’t used to an autovac.’

  ‘How long did it take you to mend the car?’ asked the Chief Constable.

  ‘Oh, only about ten minutes or so. Once I’d found what was wrong it was no trouble. The gentleman was grateful enough, but he didn’t stop to chat, like you get some gentlemen doing. As soon as the car was running again he was off like a flash. In a proper hurry, he was.’

  ‘Could the damage have been caused deliberately?’ asked Jack.

  Mr Bourne looked startled. ‘Why should anyone do such a thing?’

  ‘Never mind why. Could the nut be loosened in advance so the car would break down mid journey?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ agreed Mr Bourne reluctantly. ‘I still don’t see why anyone should do that, though.’

  ‘It’s just an idea, Mr Bourne,’ said Ashley with a smile.

  The Chief Constable stood up. ‘Thank you for your time, sir. I’d be obliged if you’d give your personal details to the sergeant at the desk for our records, but it’s highly unlikely we’ll have to call on you again.’

  He waited until Mr Bourne had left the room, then turned to Ashley and Jack. ‘Now, gentlemen, we can start to put some ideas together. I have the times from the Cunard office and the statement from Sir Thomas Vardon. I must say, in light of what we’ve just been told, it seems like a fairly straightforward case.’