“That’d be fine,” Wharton said.
As soon as she’d gone to her office, he was whispering hoarsely.
“Keep her here. Don’t let her get out on any account. Say I’ve gone to see Ledd.”
I told Penelope that Wharton would be back in a minute, and I was carrying on, so we went through the book together and I took notes of dates on which documents marked Secret had been received. Then she opened the morning’s mail, but there was nothing interesting. There was still no sign of Wharton, so I made more time by asking if she had any ideas. She said she had none. The only thing staring her in the face was that Colonel Brende had been kidnapped, and the thought of that sort of paralysed her brain.
“Kidnapped by whom?” I said.
“I don’t know. How should I know?” Straightaway I was beginning to notice signs of returning distress, so I decided to use the soft pedal, but after a quick shake or two of the head, she was composing herself again. “I know it’s all so incredible, but why shouldn’t it have been enemy agents?”
“Yes, but why?” I said. “It may sound foolish to you, asking that question, but it’s your point of view we want.”
“Well, Colonel Brende was the brains of everything here, wasn’t he? I mean, once he’d gone, everything went.”
“Yes, of course,” I said.
“And not only that. If enemy agents got hold of him, they’d try and force everything out of him. They’d make him tell what he knew. They’d give the world for that. They know we’re miles beyond them in what’s being done here.”
“True enough,” I said. “The trouble is that when we’re up against what we’ve always regarded as fiction, we can’t accept it readily as fact. If the Hun has got Colonel Brende, then things are pretty bad.”
“You saw Bengal Lancer?” she said, eyes popping. “Do you think they’d do things to him like they did there? Splinters under his nails?” Her face wrinkled in horror. “I can’t bear to think of it all. It’s too dreadful.”
There was still no sign of Wharton, so I told her the office room and the bedroom would now be sealed, so she would have to hand over any keys that opened the door from her office. She made no bones about giving me the only one there was, and we went out to the corridor. Wharton had considerately left the key in the door of Brende’s bedroom, so I locked it.
“Is there anything else you have to do here?” she asked as we went slowly along the corridor towards the main stairs.
“We might have to see Mrs. Brende,” I said, and then she caught sight of Wharton through the window.
“There is Superintendent Wharton just coming back. Isn’t it curious that his name shouldn’t be Jenkins?”
She was trying to pump me about Wharton, but I merely said we’d go downstairs and meet him in the hall. There I told him what we had been doing, and he was gushingly grateful. All that remained to do was, as I had anticipated, to see Mrs. Brende.
“I’ll ring for Annie,” Penelope said, and I caught Wharton’s quick lift of the eyebrows. “You’ll excuse me, but I’m so frightfully busy. I literally don’t know if I’m on my head or my heels.”
Annie appeared and took us towards Mrs. Brende’s room. We waited while she made enquiries, then were shown in. I introduced Wharton, and it was plain from the look on Mrs. Brende’s face that she knew all about things. She had been reading The Times, for there it lay and her pince-nez on it.
“A bad business and an extraordinary one,” Wharton told her with a heavy shake of the head. “When did you first hear about it, ma’am?”
He loved that old-fashioned method of address, which was part of his technique. I have told you that he always boasted that women were like putty in his hands, and he loved above all those of his own generation.
Mrs. Brende said that Professor Newton had given her the news.
“A very excellent fellow,” was Wharton’s surprising comment.
“He is,” she said. “I like Professor Newton, and I admire him enormously.”
I have also told you that the quality that struck me most about Mrs. Brende was her absolute sincerity. That quality was never more apparent than at that moment. That she might be making revelations about her private life was of no apparent concern. Very quietly and frankly she answered all Wharton’s questions, and seemed unaware of his apologies for them. For instance, she had heard nothing in the night, she said, except the raid. Her bedroom door had been locked. She had not seen Colonel Brende that evening or night, and would have been surprised if she had seen him. Colonel Brende, she did say, had his work to do and his various interests, and all she was doing at Dalebrink Hall was living in her own house.
Then Wharton took an unexpected line. He even put words into my mouth, but I had long ceased to show surprise at anything George might say or do.
“I’ve no wonder you regard it as inexplicable,” he told Mrs. Brende. “Major Travers here thinks just the same. If Colonel Brende was kidnapped—and, bluntly, that’s what it amounts to —then he doesn’t see how he could have been got through the sentries.”
“That, of course, I can’t give an opinion about,” she said. “But I do find it incredible.” She smiled gently. “I suppose we oughtn’t to be incredible, considering things that do happen in war-time.”
“Exactly,” said Wharton. “But Major Travers has a theory with which I’m inclined to agree. Colonel Brende wasn’t carried unconscious through the sentries. He thinks—and I must say I’m inclined to agree—that after the chloroform was given, then a drug was administered that made him do what he was told. In other words he did what he was told and his bodily faculties were unimpaired. He got out of the window and walked somehow through the sentries. After that, getting out of the park was easy. And I could tell you of at least a couple of drugs that would act as I’ve described.”
She merely nodded gently, as she had been doing while George was spinning that plausible theory.
“Is your husband by any chance a local man?” he asked.
“A Derbyshire man, yes,” she said. “There have been no connections now for a great many years, but the family used to live at a village called Sowdale, which is rather more north. It was my home too.”
Annie came in to say I was wanted on the phone. It was Harrison reporting that Major Passenden was wanting to see me, and what should he say. I said Passenden might as well wait as I’d probably be along in a matter of minutes. Then I hurried back to the room, for I didn’t know what new use George had been making of my name. He was just in the act of going, it appeared, so I mentioned Passenden.
“Passenden!” Mrs. Brende said. “A relation of Hugh Passenden?” Then she smiled. “I beg your pardon, but I knew a Major Passenden. He was killed just before Dunkirk. A very great friend, and of my husband.”
Then it appeared she had missed that paragraph in The Times, and you can imagine her surprise. I said I’d certainly find ways and means of letting Passenden see her, and she was most grateful. Then, I hope with a lot of tact and some more charm, I said I’d discovered that both Bernice and I knew the Colonel’s secretary.
“Isn’t it a small world,” she said perfectly naturally. “She’s actually—let me see, what is she? Well, we have cousins in common, so what does that make her?”
“That beats, me,” I said, and was aware that Wharton was anxious to be on the move. Another couple of minutes and we were going. Wharton’s last words were: “Delighted to make your acquaintance, ma’am, and I’m only too sorry it wasn’t on better business. But, as I said, I’ll keep you fully informed.”
We didn’t leave at once, however, for Wharton paid a visit to the Brains Trust and impressed on Newton the urgency of absolute secrecy about the kidnapping of Colonel Brende, and he minced no words. Also every scrap of information, or even of theory which might shed light on the mystery, was to be at once reported to him. Nothing, he insisted, would be too trivial. In the meanwhile Newton and the rest would carry on as normally as possible.
Af
ter that we at last went off to our cars. Wharton followed me in the direction of the Camp, but when we had got well round the bend he overtook me and signalled for me to stop. Then he got in my car, and I knew, not without pleasure, that I was about to hear things.
“A fine lady, that Mrs. Brende,” he began. “No man would want a finer witness.”
“You said that about Penelope Craye,” I reminded him.
“Oh, her,” he said, and chuckled. “No harm in a little soft soap. But about this Mrs. Brende. I’d heard a lot before I got here this morning. My supposed niece knows all the local history and gossip.”
“And what did you know?” I asked, ready to be on Mrs. Brende’s side.
“Only what you might have gathered for yourself the last few minutes,” he said unctuously. “She and her husband go their own ways, don’t they? Did she express any grief at what had happened to him? One of these May and December marriages, and he was the one who cooled off. And that Craye woman is in it, or I’m a Dutchman. Why all that ‘I’ll ring for Annie’ business? Why didn’t she take us to Mrs. Brende? I’ll tell you. Colonel Brende and his secretary have been seen in Dalebrink together.”
“Wait a minute,” said I, stemming the flood. “Does ‘seen’ mean seen in compromising circumstances?”
He hedged at once.
“Well, not necessarily. But they’ve been seen. And”—he leaned over archly—“he’s never been seen out with his wife. He prefers the company of the secretary.”
“That’s silly scandal, and dangerous,” I said. “Why shouldn’t he go out with his secretary? After all, she’s a relation, however distant, by marriage. And another thing. What’s made you change your opinions about Penelope? You were cracking her up to me as if she were heaven’s gift to Scotland Yard Superintendents.”
George merely chuckled.
“So she may be—yet. Know what I found in her room?”
“So that’s where you were.”
“The batman was just going in to clean up when I was that way,” he said, “so I sent him to find Ledd and I nipped inside. A thick wad of papers had been burnt in the grate, so I put what I could into an envelope, and they’re going up to town straightaway.”
“Papers?” I said. “Why shouldn’t she burn papers? Why shouldn’t they have been her own papers?”
“Why not?” he told me amiably. “Also, why shouldn’t I find out if they were? This is a queer business, isn’t it? Why shouldn’t there be something fishy?”
“Why not?” said I, to be in the fashion. “Anything else did you find out?”
“Nothing but what you know,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what I’ve already done. One or two of my men will be down here as quick as they can get. Everyone in the house is going to be tailed from now on, and every telephone talk is going to be listened to. I admit it doesn’t look an inside job, but I can’t afford to take chances. Now you tell me a few things for a change. About this Major Passenden, for instance.”
I told him far more than that. I explained all about the Home Guard stunt, and when it ended. The importance there was that since it did end at about one in the morning, and Colonel Brende was kidnapped at some time before half-past, the job was most likely to have been done in that half-hour. The sentries would ease off then, and human nature being what it was, might even surreptitiously forgather for a chat about experiences. I admitted that nobody in the house knew about the stunt, but if the job were not an inside one, that did not matter. Cross, or his men, might have let all Dalebrink know what was happening at the Hall, and the news might have reached the necessary ears. If so, the kidnappers saw a chance, and took it.
“A bit highfalutin, don’t you think?” Wharton protested mildly.
“Not more so than that theory you fathered on me, about the drug.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “I believe that theory’s correct. It’s the only explanation there is.”
“Have it your own way,” I told him, and went on with my revelations. There was the crack on the skull, and the Neggers whom Cross had seen at the road junction that night, and lastly I told him about the side door to the park.
“Good God!” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
At once he made me turn back, and there he was inspecting the door and the grass verge, and I fretting about Passenden waiting in my office. He even made his way through a nearby gap and had a look inside.
“Right,” he said, when a good ten minutes had gone by. “Now we’ll go and see this Major Passenden.”
“You want to see him?”
“Why the surprise?” he was asking, almost aggrievedly. “If he wanted to see Colonel Brende on important business, why shouldn’t he tell me what it was? And a bit apposite, wasn’t it, him turning up yesterday? And where was he last night when you got that crack on the skull?”
“Now, now, George,” I had to say. “Please don’t take me for an utter fool. And for the love of heaven let’s get back to the Camp. This head of mine isn’t any too good. If you’d shown as much interest in my skull as you have in Passenden, it’d have been more friendly, and a damn sight more sensible.”
He merely gave a silly chuckle. I shot my own car on, but he was at the Camp as soon as I. Passenden was with Harrison, who sent him in to me. When I introduced Wharton, he looked highly interested but no more.
“Do you vouch for Major Passenden as being a reliable person to whom I can talk?” Wharton asked, and in a humorous sort of way. Passenden pricked his cars at that, and no wonder. One doesn’t walk into a Commandant’s office and expect to meet a Superintendent of New Scotland Yard.
“Most certainly,” I said, wondering what he was going to divulge and why.
“Then later on I’ll tell the Major what’s been happening,” Wharton said. “But first of all, sir, what was your, precise business with Colonel Brende?”
“Oh, just a chat about old times, and experiences,” Passenden said off-handedly. “We hadn’t met since before Dunkirk, you know. I was working under him out there, and I was always a very close friend of the Brendes.”
“You’re a Derbyshire man?”
“Born and bred.”
“You knew Dalebrink Hall before?”
Passenden looked rather surprised, but he said he had always known it well. He had known Mrs. Brende before her marriage and had often been at the Hall in her widowed mother’s time.
Wharton nodded. “And so your business wasn’t what might be called secret. Or, if it comes to that, urgent.”
Passenden smiled. “Only in so far as I’d come all this way to see him. I had intended going to Scotland for my leave.”
“And, if I may apologize both to you and Major Travers, what did you come here for this morning?”
He put the question with such obvious humour that Passenden took no offence.
“Well, I came for two reasons. One was that I couldn’t get hold of Colonel Brende this morning, but I got Major Travers instead, so I thought I’d call and see if Major Travers had any news.” Then he smiled rather wryly. “The other thing’s more serious. Last night I was collared by the police.”
“Oh?” said Wharton, and smiled broadly.
“Yes. I put up at the George as Major Travers advised me, and just before I thought of turning in, I thought I’d stroll as far as the Hall. Sentimental reasons and—”
“At what time would that be?”
“Oh, I should say I left at about ten-thirty and I took my time. I had a good look all round, and then I got under a tree when the blitz started. Then I thought I’d walk back through the City, but when I got to the side road I saw some coves sitting under the hedge, and I thought: ‘By Jove, these chaps are Home Guard! They’ll ask me for a pass or something, and I haven’t got one.’ So I nipped through a gap to make a detour. I got out on a meadow and I ran slap bang into a couple of cops. They wanted to know who I was and asked to see my identity card.” He shrugged his shoulders. “And that was that
. They—or one of them—went back with me to the George and found me all right so far, and I also gave Major Travers’s name as a reference. So I thought I’d better come here and explain.”
Wharton nodded benignly. “And what time was it when the cops nabbed you?”
“Can’t say. Probably well after one in the morning. I didn’t mind how late it was because they gave me a key at the hotel. By the way, the cops were looking for baled-out airmen. Huns.”
“And did you see anything else extraordinary? Or hear anything?”
Passenden rather stared, then shook his head.
“Not that I can remember.”
“I see.” Wharton nodded once or twice, pursed his lips, then leaned forward impressively.
“Major Passenden, I’m going to tell you a secret. You’ll give me your word that it will be a secret?”
“Most certainly.”
“You see,” said Wharton as if to himself, “I can’t handle you as I would an ordinary sort of person. I can’t tell you that I have the power to take drastic action if a word of this gets out.”
“All the same, you are telling me,” cut in Passenden.
“Oh, come, come,” said Wharton. “You mustn’t take things that way. Still, there we are. The secret I have to tell you is this.”
I said Passenden was a quiet sort of chap, who gave the impression that nothing would rattle him. He wasn’t rattled then, but he was extraordinarily interested—up to a point, as I was later to recall. After that he tried to appear politely interested, and no more.
“Kidnapped. But how amazing!” was his comment when Wharton had finished. “Someone didn’t want him to go on with that job he was doing.”
“Tell Major Passenden what makes it even more amazing,” Wharton said to me.
I told him, and very fully. I showed him the lay-out of the sentries and patrols, and showed how the presence of Cross’s men made an exit from the building even more difficult. It was then that once more he began to be less interested. It was his own thoughts that were worrying him, not my disclosures.
“And now do you recall anything strange you heard or saw?” Wharton wanted to know.
The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 11