“Only some of it,” Wharton told him. “It was your manner that gave you away. I knew you had something to say if only I could get you to talk.”
There was a moment’s silence, and I managed to cut in.
“As the sole idiot of this pleasant meeting, I think I ought to be allowed to ask a question or two.”
“Why not?” said Wharton, waving a hand round.
“About that cave, then. I suppose Brende had it prepared well beforehand?”
“You bet your life he had,” Passenden said. “I don’t know what you fellows found, but when I stepped in he had a camp-bed and a deck-chair and plenty of grub, and a primus stove.”
“My men have unearthed some of them where he hid them,” Wharton broke in. “And they’re still scouring the district.”
“But why did he look so ill?”
“He simply had to keep awake for twenty-four hours,” Passenden said. “That’s what I advised him. No grub and no sleep and then that beard on his face and his natural thinness, and a few pricks on the arm to show he’d been drugged, and there you are.”
“I begin to see things,” I said. “There were marks of tyres outside that side gate before Penelope drove up the hired car that night. Those were the tyres of her own car, and she and Brende used to pop out at night. That’s why she took that flat in the town. She and Brende could have got back to the house all right through the passage, but she couldn’t have brought in the car without it being noted at the gate.”
“One thing about the syringe marks on Brende’s arm,” Wharton said. “You didn’t prime him well enough, Major. He was right-handed, so he made all the marks on his left arm. That set me thinking, or rather it confirmed certain ideas I already had. Genuine marks would have been made anywhere and everywhere.”
He was getting to his feet and stowing his spectacles away in their antiquated case.
“That seems to be about all for the moment, gentlemen. Later on I must ask you for a confidential report, but we’ll fix that later. I rely on you two gentlemen to be at my disposal all tomorrow.”
“One thing I’ve got to say,” added Passenden. “My opinion is that Mrs. Brende ought not to be brought into all this under any circumstances. I’d hate to be truculent, but I’d strongly object to mentioning her name in any report of mine, however confidential.”
Wharton raised a placatory hand.
“I agree. You needn’t worry about that in the least. I assure you all that this whole affair is over and done with when certain formalities have been complied with.” His voice hushed suitably. “Colonel Brende’s death will be suitably announced, as was Miss Craye’s. Professor Newton will go on with his work—under entirely new management, which will be his own. And you, Major, can do what you’ve been trying to do for days. Visit Scotland.”
Passenden took the hit very well. Wharton peered roguishly at him, forgetting that the spectacles were no longer on.
“Taking what I’ve said into account, there’s just one last question I’d like to put myself. Colonel Brende shot himself. You suggested that to him, Major?”
Passenden smiled wryly but said nothing.
“It was your gun?” persisted Wharton.
“The palaver’s finished,” Passenden told him amiably. “Even if you prove it’s my gun, I’ll still disown it.”
Wharton nodded.
“Now I’ll surprise you. Perhaps I agree with you. And between ourselves, I’m not sorry everything is finished with. I think all the Big Bugs will be very much of the same opinion. Oh, and just before we part, gentlemen, there’s one thing I ought to acknowledge. Major Travers won’t be asked for a report, so as we may not all be together again, I’d like to thank him in front of you for the way he’s helped in this unpleasant business.”
“Hear, hear!” cut in Passenden. I sat polishing my glasses and wondering where George’s latest hypocrisies would lead him.
“He’s often had to be left in the dark,” Wharton went on, “but that didn’t damp his enthusiasm. Many a time he was giving me vital information without being aware of it.” He cleared his throat and I had a sudden fear that he was about to fake a break-down, but I needn’t have been alarmed. He was merely bringing the meeting to a definite end. “And that’s all, I think, gentlemen. I’ll let you know the time for to-morrow.”
So George had done it again. I’m not referring to the solving of the case, but to his blandishing of myself, for I had been fool enough to feel something of a glow come over me at those words of heartfelt gratitude, even if I knew somewhere deep down that they were only a part of his technique. Or weren’t they? Had I really done anything, and was he genuinely grateful?
Those very questions show how he had had me fooled as ever, but there was something with which I was not disposed to let him get clean away.
“After those few comforting words of yours, George,” I said, “I’m sorry to come down to earth. Give me a plain answer to a plain question. Did Colonel Brende die when you claim he did?” All I received was that look of pain and reproach.
“That business of Ledd coming along was far too apposite,” I said. “You’d tried a bluff to make those two talk, and it hadn’t come off. Ledd saved your bacon. When did he actually shoot himself? Or hasn’t he shot himself at all?”
“Now, now, now,” Wharton said upbraidingly. “Of course he’s shot himself.”
“But when?”
“Well, as a matter of fact it was just before I rang you up and arranged that meeting. Nobody knew but myself and the nurse.”
“I knew it,” I said, and clicked my tongue. “My God, what an old humbug you are! How you can do the things you do, and get away with them, absolutely gets me down.”
“Just tricks of the trade,” he said, and chuckled. “I hoped they’d talk of themselves, but I took the precaution of having something up my sleeve.”
“And you really think Passenden made him shoot himself?”
“Yes,” he said, and soberly enough. “I think Passenden saw that that first way out which he’d suggested at Cumberforth wasn’t going to work.” He shook his head with a certain lugubriousness. “As a matter of fact, I made a slip. I hinted to Passenden that I could pin the Craye murder on to Brende, and I’d take action at the right moment. I think Passenden used my name or yours and came here this morning through the guards, and had an interview with Brende, after squaring the nurse.” He raised a quick hand. “Oh, no, I’m making no enquiries. I don’t give a damn whose gun it was or what was done. Brende’s death was a godsend, and I’m leaving it at that. But that doesn’t prevent me knowing what happened. Passenden gave him the gun and said if he didn’t use it, it’d be a question of a cold morning and a quick drop.”
I agreed. George stowed away his papers and made a move. In the corridor he said he had to go to Brende’s room, and would I care to see the body? I said I’d go with him, and I certainly wouldn’t. The body, it turned out, was covered with a sheet, but the sight of that was enough for me. And something rather got me when I thought of the waste and tragedy of it all. What Brende might have been and done, for instance, but for that kink that twisted all his life.
“Here’s the gun that did it,” Wharton was saying. “Into my pocket it goes and that’s the last that will be seen of it.”
I said nothing because I was thinking, and I had never thought so clearly in my life. I knew who had been rung up by Passenden, and who had whispered those dreadful alternatives in the ear of Brende. I even incongruously knew that a certain young married couple might be forgiven, and get a start off in life. And how did I know it? Because the gun that Wharton had put in his pocket was my little French automatic.
1 The Author!
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 scholarshi
p 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 Fighting Soldier
What was I to be this time? A Commandant again of a Prisoner of War Camp? Was I to get a sedentary job at the War Office itself, and begin the slow process of fossilisation? Was I due for some wholly new job of which the rank and file had never even heard? As it turned out, I most certainly was.
Ludovic Travers reports to room 299 of the War Office to receive new orders. He is sent up to Derbyshire to be a training officer for the local Home Guard, and to be plunged headlong into a new wartime mystery. It is not long before he meets the ‘fighting soldier’ of the title, a tough veteran of the Spanish Civil War and dozens of other bloody battlefields.
But when chewing-gum is discovered wedged into the barrel of a bomb launcher, it is obvious there’s an individual—or more than one—in the camp out to make sure someone doesn’t live to fight another day. And it’s not long before their diabolical intent leads to explosive murder. Once again, it will be down to Travers’s quick wits to make sense of it and bring the guilty to justice—with able support from George Wharton of Scotland Yard.
The Case of the Fighting Soldier was originally published in 1942. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
Chapter I
On a certain morning of October, 1941, I was rung up in my office by Command. A relief was coming that morning to take over the camp from me, and I was to report at the War Office two days later. The War Office, I was assured, would communicate with me direct as to the exact time.
I was not in the least surprised, for I had known for some weeks that my camp, as then constituted, was on its last legs, and that some of us were due for a change. This is a funny war for what one might call chopping and changing. All the trains are full of troops who seem to be going somewhere new, and on the roads you see convoys who are changing areas. Maybe the War Office has inveigled recruits by assuring them that if they join the Army they will see, not the world, but England. Maybe there was all this scurrying about in the Great War, though most of it was in scurrying to France and then being lucky enough to be able to scurry back again. Now there is no France to scurry to, so the bright lads at the War House have to do the best they can.
The War Office duly sent an urgent postal telegram to the effect that I was to report at Room 299 at fourteen hours on the Thursday. That gave me ample time to initiate my successor, pack my few belongings, and get into touch with my wife and George Wharton. Bernice said she could get at least one night off from the hospital, since bombing had temporarily ceased, but George was not at the Yard, so I left him a message.
Just before two o’clock on that Thursday afternoon I was once more entering the vast annexe to the War House. The last time I was there I was in a state of mild trepidation, but now I was inured to change and anticipating with a cynical indifference the fate in store for me. What was I to be this time? A Commandant again of a Prisoner of War Camp? In charge of a camp of Italian prisoners working on the land? Was I to get a sedentary job at the War House itself, and begin the slow process of fossilisation? Was I due for some wholly new job of which the rank and file had never even heard? As it turned out, I most certainly was.
The youngish major who interviewed me was not a bad fellow, though his chest was unadorned by ribbons, even of the Coronation variety. He did the usual fingering of papers and documents while he was talking, as if to dissociate himself from things and to let me tactfully know that both he and I were in the hands of some Higher and vastly Inscrutable Providence.
“We want you to take up an appointment at Peak-ridge,” he said, and waited to observe my reactions.
“That’s Derbyshire, isn’t it?” I said.
“Oh, yes,” he told me briskly.
“But I’ve just come from there,” I protested mildly, and was quickly wondering how I could add that my orders might have been sent direct to my old camp, and the taxpayer saved a certain expense. He frowned slightly.
“Surely that’s all to the good, I mean, if you know the country and all that.” Then he was going hastily on with his little piece. “The official title of the place is, No. 5 School for Instructors of Home Guard. There’ve been only two schools in the country hitherto, but this is something quite new. It’s a fortnight’s Course, for one thing, as against a week at the old schools.”
I’m afraid a slightly cynical smile accompanied my question.
“What do I become exactly? An administrative officer to the Home Guard?”
“Oh, no no,” he hastened to reassure me. “You’ll be one of the lecturing staff and probably second-in-command.”
Thereupon he told me things which I knew perhaps far better than he did. The Home Guard—then the Local Defence Volunteers—had been called into being after Dunkirk to meet the imminent threat of invasion. Slowly it had become better armed and equipped, and now it actually had, in many cases, weapons superior to those of the Regular Forces. What the Home Guard now needed therefore was skilled instruction in those weapons and in the very latest methods of attack and defence, and since the paper strength of the Home Guard was in the region of two million, an enormous number of trained instructors were needed. Hence the new schools, Peakridge among them.
The camp had been specially built and sited. It was a hutted one, and would accommodate the large resident personnel and two hundred and fifty students. These would be drawn from all ranks of the Home Guard, and liberal out-of-pocket compensations would be given and the Course itself made attractive so as to ensure full and steady support. There was a magnificent central lecture and cinema hall combined, and Peakridge had been chosen because it was handy for the industrial North and Midlands, and because the very sterile and hilly nature of the land made magnificent country for bombing, detonating, and guerrilla work. The main line station was two miles from the camp, and that, he seemed to think, was the perfect distance. One Course would follow hard on the heels of another, and after every two Courses the staff would get six days’ leave. I tried to appear suitably gratified when he told me that.
“But what is my exact job?” I asked him.
“You lecture on Administration,”
he said. “Heaps of Company and other Commanders don’t seem to be able to get the hang of the administrative side, which is becoming very important.”
I had had quite a lot to do with the Home Guard at my old camp; and could have made quite a pertinent comment, which was that if the paper work demanded by the War House could drive to desperation and despair an old hand like me, then no wonder the Home Guard were often at their wits’ end. My new job might be summarised by saying that among the blind, I, the one-eyed, was to be king.
But I was being handed a sheaf of papers, and most of them I knew at a glance for Army Council Instructions.
“These are all the A.C.I.s that refer to the Home Guard,” my major was saying. “What we want you to do, Major Travers, is to boil them down in any way you like into about two lectures of about an hour each but not more than three. That will be a matter of arrangement between you and your Commandant, Colonel Topman.”
“Very good,” I said. “And when do I report at the school?”
“Saturday—the day after to-morrow,” he said. “I have your railway warrant and everything here.”
“Good,” I said. “That gives me a tiny spot of leave. I’m due for seven days, by the way.”
He shook his head with a nice mixture of reproof and consolation.
“I’m afraid you won’t get much leave. When you report on Saturday, you’re supposed to bring with you typewritten copies in triplicate of the actual lectures you propose to give.”
“I thought there must be a catch somewhere,” I said with a deliberate ruefulness, but inwardly I was not in the least perturbed. I’m a pretty fast worker for one thing, and I knew where to put my hand on a super stenographer, and I was doubly damned if I was going to let the War Office hog the first hours of leave I had had for three months.
The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 24