The Case of the Fighting Soldier: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  If I go into that a little more fully, it is because you may not know even the general action of explosives. When a high-explosive goes off, there is an instantaneous production of an incredible amount of gas, and the efforts of that gas to accommodate itself in space, by expanding, may be taken as a simple explanation of what we call blast. Now the expanding gases naturally take the line of least resistance. If the explosion occurred, for instance, on the floor, then the floor-boards would offer some resistance, and more blast would occur upwards than downwards. But there would still be a considerable blast effect downwards, for the quantity of explosive was considerable, and the floor-boards flimsy by comparison with, say, a steel sheet. If there had been no fire, then, one could have seen the hole in the floor and known precisely where the explosion occurred. If it had taken place on a shelf by the partition or outside walls, there would have been similar evidence left. But the fire had burnt practically every bit of timbering, and all evidence had gone. What the Sappers had discovered beneath the ashes was a small depression that might have been a crater, and it was situated near the middle of the partition wall that separated Ferris’s room from the one where we stood. As Mortar’s bed had stood by that wall, Wharton and I were inclined to agree with the Sappers that the depression was not a crater but a natural hole under the floor-boards, which the original builders had not thought it necessary to level.

  As for the evidence that might have been given by the furniture of the room, all the wood had gone up in flames and the metal was a twisted mass. One thing only seemed a lucky find. Of Mortar’s two bags or trunks, one had gone almost entirely and only fragments of it had been found. The other had been blown through the partition into Staff’s room, where it had been found beneath the general debris, though badly shattered and very much burnt. Wharton’s opinion therefore was that when the bomb had gone off it had been in the first bag, and it had been standing, according to Feeder, at the foot of the bed and near the chest of drawers.

  Feeder was dismissed before Wharton took his photographs of the reconstructed room. A motor dispatch rider was waiting to take the whole series to the Yard, and as George was busy with that and other things, I didn’t see him again by himself till after lunch, when we strolled back towards the Colonel’s room. Then I told him about the trick I’d played on Store. He wasn’t nearly so enthusiastic as I’d hoped.

  “I get all your points,” he said, “but I rather wish you hadn’t done it. A plausible chap like that oughtn’t to be put on his guard.”

  “Dammit all, George,” I said. “According to that line of argument there’d never be any inquiries.”

  “Didn’t you say Ferris was tackling him?”

  “I did,” I said, surprised enough. “But he’s doing it entirely on his own. Why should he pass anything on to you? Or have you co-opted Ferris as a member of the investigation committee?”

  He shot me a look. “Not yet,” he said. “But don’t you see? You’ve been seeing Store and with a very plausible excuse, and you think he was suspicious. In fact, he’s rumbled you. Probably he’ll rumble Ferris, too. What chance shall I have if I ever have to tackle him?” We waited for the Colonel and went into his room for a brief conference. I got permission to employ Feeder, and Wharton saw to it that the regular Sappers were asked to make another immediate and concentrated search for the possibly unexploded bomb. The Colonel didn’t see the point. Surely it was beyond doubt that Mortar had found that bomb and removed it to his room.

  “Let alone the fact that Feeder swears it never was in the room,” Wharton said, “the fact remains that in this kind of job, sir, you’ve got to be dead sure. A man’s neck may depend on it.”

  “Then you actually think it murder?” the Colonel asked, and the final word came out with an effort.

  “I’m not prepared at the moment to tell you anything, sir,” Wharton said. “The less we all know, the better. For instance, we three are the only ones in the camp who know that Mortar was killed by a Blacker bomb. Even Harness doesn’t know. Very well then. Suppose some officer on the staff mentions to one of us that it was bad luck, say, that Mortar should get killed by a Blacker bomb. I’ve never mentioned the fact; you haven’t and Major Travers hasn’t. Very well then, sir. There’s the man we want to interview. How’d he get to know it?”

  “Inspector Hornleigh investigates,” I nearly said, but the Colonel was obviously pleased. When Wharton told him about the morning’s gruesome work, he was tremendously impressed.

  “So long as we keep the old fellow amused, that’s all we need,” George told me later. “I’d say he’s a chatty old bird, and what he doesn’t tell somebody or other in confidence is what he doesn’t know. And that’s going to be the devil of a lot.”

  I didn’t see him again till after the funeral. I had to attend it as representing the Colonel. Ferris couldn’t possibly be spared, but Feeder was allowed to go. There were also a couple of buglers to sound the Last Post over the grave, and a detachment of our men to make a decent military show. In the town I collected the wreaths that had been ordered: one to which all the staff had subscribed, one from the general staff, and one from Ferris.

  On the whole it was what modern jargon calls a good show, though I found it melancholy enough, especially when the bugles sounded on the sharp autumnal air. Feeder was very distressed. As we dispersed prior to the return, I could hear him telling all and sundry what a great character Mortar had been, and I thought it might be just as well if I brought him back in my car, however unorthodox the act might appear.

  “You realise you’ll have to stay in the camp for a few days?” I said to him. “When the inquiry’s over, then you’ll be at liberty to go.”

  He understood that, he said, and was giving a dour shake of the head. I guessed he was thinking that those arrangements suited only too well the playing of his hand. The last thing he wanted was to be sent away from the school. Then I asked him if Mr. Ferris had mentioned a certain proposition to him—that, in fact, he should act as my batman during the rest of his stay.

  “I’ll be real pleased to do that, sir,” he said. “All the hanging about nearly drives you off your chump. I’m a good batman, sir. The Captain would have told you that.”

  “I’m sure he would,” I told him, and then nothing was said till we were almost in sight of the camp again.

  “You won’t mind if I ask you something, sir.” He didn’t wait for my reply but went right on. “You wouldn’t mind if I attended to some little things I want to do. I shan’t neglect you, sir, only I mayn’t be always on hand just when you think I ought to be there.”

  “In your spare time you do as you like,” I said, and he assured me that was all he wanted to know.

  But when we got out of the car I motioned him aside. “You can keep a still tongue in your head?” I began.

  “No man better, sir, though I say it myself.”

  “Then keep a still tongue about what I’m saying to you now, which is this. Drop that damn-silly idea of yours about squaring any accounts for Captain Mortar. Higher authorities have got that little job in hand and they’ll do it far better than you.”

  He merely nodded and said nothing. I said no more either, for I had sense enough to know that the advice had fallen on remarkably deaf ears.

  Wharton spent at least some of his afternoon listening to one of Ferris’s lectures, and he was tremendously enthusiastic.

  “Whoever would have thought it!” he said. “That chap’s a fighter, if ever there was one, and he knows his stuff.”

  “Naturally he does,” I said. “He had all that experience in Spain, and he did two or three Courses, including one at least at a Weapons’ School, before he came here.”

  “Weapon Schools!” he said, and snorted contemptuously. “Take that young fellow Staff. That’s your schools. Smart young officer, I grant you, and knows his stuff, but no real guts.”

  “So you heard Staff too, did you?” I said. “The fact of the matter is this, George. You and I ar
e attracted by men like Ferris and Mortar because they make us think we’re younger than we are. When they talk, we’re daredevils again. No carpet slippers for us on cold dark nights. We want to be out mopping-up tanks, and sticking knives into Huns.”

  “Isn’t that the line of talk you want for the Home Guard?” he asked indignantly.

  “It is,” I said. “And the fact that Ferris made you chuck out your chest and straighten your back just shows what a spell-binder he is. Anything else have you seen or heard, by the way?”

  He said he had seen Brende, who had gone over both the Blacker and the Northover with him. He had also been introduced to Mortar’s successor, who had arrived while I was at the funeral. He described him as colourless, and as he does not concern this story, that one-word description will serve.

  When I slipped into the Mess before dinner, Ferris was there. He asked me to have a drink with him, and I had it. Then he told me something that really pleased me.

  “I think I’ve changed my mind, sir, about something we talked about,” he said, and just a bit shamefacedly. “I think I’ll try and mix in a bit more.”

  “Good man,” I said. “Have another drink.”

  He said he wouldn’t, and in the same breath was doggedly insisting that he’d always have tried to be a good mixer if it hadn’t been for others. I said I knew that. And would he join Wharton and me at the cinema after dinner. Flick was showing some brand-new films, and both Wharton and I were in need of a little relaxation. He said he’d be delighted.

  The three of us sat by ourselves well at the back of the huge room and we did no talking, for the films were as good as promised. It was after twenty-two hours when we came out to the parade ground, snapping our eyes a bit after the strain, and glad to breathe the clear air after the smoke and fog of the room.

  As we drew near our quarters I asked Ferris if he were pleased to get back to his old room again.

  “I suppose I am,” he said. “I hope it won’t be ghost-ridden, that’s all.”

  “I’m a pretty good ghost layer,” Wharton said. “Which reminds me. Tomorrow you’ll be on the carpet officially. Instead of spending your night looking out for ghosts, you’d better get all the answers ready.”

  “Don’t let him scare you,” I told Ferris. “He’s the gentlest Inquisitor who ever twisted a rack.”

  We said good night to George and then went back to our rooms. As Ferris dropped me at mine, he said a curious thing. “A very enjoyable show to-night, sir.”

  “It was,” I said. “And most instructive.”

  “Flick’s a good hand at his job,” he said. “I wonder if Wharton knows, by the way, that he’s a stamp collector?”

  Chapter X

  I want to condense those interviews of Wharton’s with the staff, and give nothing but the relevant facts that emerged. They took place in his room at the hospital on the Tuesday morning, when, by a slight adjustment of times, every person concerned was available. I was present throughout, as a kind of liaison officer.

  When Wharton put it to the Colonel that his evidence was merely being taken pour encourager les autres, so to speak, he was only too ready to give in. As a matter of fact he and Collect said precisely the same thing. Each, as I knew, had been up to the eyes in the work which the end of a Course involved; each had been in his own room from after dinner onwards, and each recalled the explosion by the fact that the lights had gone out at the same time. Compress made a statement much to the same effect, except that he had been in his room writing a letter to his fiancée. All three had at once rushed out into the open and had met where I first saw them.

  Wharton’s handling of those three witnesses had been as matter of fact as their evidence, but when Ferris came in everything was very different. The atmosphere was chatty and informal, perhaps because he knew he was dealing with a decidedly touchy specimen. There was a bit of general gossip to begin with, then Wharton was asking how Ferris liked life at Peakridge. He made a wry face.

  “Well, to get down to business,” Wharton said. “No need to tell you that everything said here is as secret as the grave. And I needn’t ask you what your movements were on the Saturday night, because Major Travers knows all about them. By the way, you and he had a narrow squeak? If you’d stayed gossiping by the door you’d have both been in Kingdom Come.”

  “To be perfectly frank,” Ferris said, “I go hot and cold all over when I think of something else. Suppose there’d have been a booby-trap connected with the electric light!”

  “Good God, yes!” Wharton said, eyes bulging. “I remember you talking all about booby-traps in that lecture of yours, and remarkably interesting it was. What you mean is, a booby-trap connected with the switch. Meant for Mortar, of course, only it so happened that one of you turned the light on.”

  “That’s right,” Ferris said. He was about to say something else, then he hesitated and looked at me. “Do you mind if I get a whole lot of things off my chest? There mayn’t be any truth in them. They’re just what I think myself.”

  “This is Liberty Hall,” said Wharton largely. “Say what you like without fear or favour.”

  “Well, my idea is this,” Ferris said, “and it’s been worrying me nearly to death. I think I was responsible for killing Mortar.” He smiled at our startled look. “What I mean is this. Everybody on the staff attended that particular lecture where I went into the making and use of booby-traps. What I did was to show someone how to kill Mortar.”

  Wharton was looking remarkably serious. “Would it have been as easy as all that? No special knowledge required?”

  “The whole thing’s child’s play,” Ferris said. “That’s why I said I went hot and cold all over when I thought of Major Travers and me inside Mortar’s room. At any second either of us might have touched or kicked against the very thing that set the trap off.”

  “Yes,” said Wharton slowly, and pursed his lips. “It’s a damned unpleasant thought. But suppose Mortar was killed by a booby-trap. Who knew his room was empty that night and that he was working with you?”

  Ferris shrugged his shoulders. “His door was open. I know that because we found the key inside. All anybody had to do was to look in and see he wasn’t there.”

  “You’re making me go hot and cold too,” I said. “But, repeating Wharton’s reminder about secrecy from the other angle, I think I ought to tell you something highly confidential. It was a Blacker bomb that killed Mortar.”

  His mouth gaped, and then he was licking his lips. “My God, you don’t say so! What a bloody fool I was.” He was shaking his head. “I ought to have known it from the noise it made. But wait a minute. Was it that bomb that didn’t go off that day? The one that wasn’t found?”

  “Possibly,” I said. “It still remains to be proved.”

  He was shaking his head again. “How the devil could anybody hide a thing like that? Twenty pounds weight to hide and then to carry it to the room.”

  “Would the booby-trap be easy?” Wharton asked. “That part’d be easy enough,” Ferris told him. “Merely the arranging of some kind of electrical contact with a detonator. You kick against a trip-wire or pick up some object or other, the contact is made and up she goes. It might easily have been done through the electric fire and the power switch.”

  “Then thank heaven we didn’t turn it on,” I said whole-heartedly.

  “Well, I may have to have a long talk with you later about rigging up traps of that kind,” Wharton said; “but all I want at the moment is your assurance that it wasn’t beyond the power or intelligence of any member of the staff.”

  “If anyone couldn’t do that sort of thing, especially on top of my lecture on the subject, then he was an absolute fool in electrical matters,” Ferris said.

  Wharton nodded. I cut in. “I hope I’m not abusing any confidence, but there was a somewhat cryptic remark you made to me last night—about Flick being a stamp collector, like yourself Still in the strictest confidence, has that any bearing on the subject of thi
s morning’s investigations?”

  His eyes narrowed and he looked away for a moment or two before he spoke. “I don’t know. I hardly like to tell you because it shows I have a very unpleasant mind.”

  “So have we all—at times,” said Wharton helpfully.

  “Well, here goes then,” Ferris said. “I don’t know if either of you collects anything, but if you do, you know that the last person to trust is a fellow collector. They’re the biggest thieves in the world. No matter how moral they are in everything else, they’ll slip something into their pockets and not turn a hair. I showed Flick my stamps because he said he was a collector.”

  He paused again. “I hardly know how to go on. It’ll all sound so damn-silly.”

  “Let’s hear it, silly or not,” Wharton said.

  “Well, after the explosion that night I grubbed about with a torch in the dark and I couldn’t find a trace of either of my albums. They were in a drawer right up against the partition wall of Mortar’s room, but I hoped something might have escaped. Then I asked the doctor if he’d seen anything, and that Sapper officer. None of them had seen even a bit of the cover of an album.”

  “In other words,” said Wharton, leaning forward eagerly, “you think it wasn’t impossible that Flick lifted those stamp albums before the explosion?”

  “And that it was he who arranged the explosion—not thinking it’d kill Mortar—to cover up the theft?” was my addition.

  Ferris again shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll leave it to you, gentlemen. I will say this. When Major Travers and I were helping poor old Mortar across to his room we saw Flick go past the end of the hut. Did you notice anything else, Major?”

  “I can’t say I did,” I told him. “My eyes are pretty bad in the dark.”