The first thing in the morning brought us news of Feeder. The bullet that had killed him had come from the gun he was holding. As for the prints, they were his, as we knew, but the Yard expert considered it doubtful if his fingers had held the gun when it was fired. As for the paraffin test, that had given negative results for both hands. I had rather expected Wharton to be exultant, but he was not. Perhaps he was asking a question which I had already asked myself. We knew that Feeder had been murdered, but where did the knowledge get us? As the day wore on, sober reasoning made it plain that all we could find were yet more deductions, and deductions of that nebulous kind that makes you immediately aware that to follow them up and try to make them into fact would probably be a loss of valuable time.
Wharton actually gave me the news about Feeder when I met him on the parade ground after breakfast. He was on the way to the magazine, so I went with him. What he had in mind was an inquiry into the brass cartridge for the Blacker that had been found in the debris of Staff’s floor.
Store was not at the magazine, but we found him in his quarters. He was full of an early morning heartiness for which neither of us was in the mood, and even more chatty than when I had seen him last.
“Funny about Brende’s gun?” he said to Wharton.
“What’s funny about it?” Wharton asked wryly.
Store waved a hand round the room he shared with Brende. “Well, it doesn’t look any too good for me or the batman. I know he wouldn’t suspect either of us, but there you are, sir.”
“You never saw Feeder hanging about here?”
“Him!” Store said contemptuously. “You never knew where he was. Still, he’d have had a nerve to come in here and lift a gun out of Brende’s box.”
“The box was unlocked?”
Store said of course it was unlocked. The biggest crime in barracks is the stealing of a comrade’s possessions, because barrack life means leaving things unlocked and trusting to room-mates. Wharton told him with scarcely concealed impatience that he’d known that as long as Store himself, and the information that he wanted was at the magazine.
“What is it this time, sir?” Store asked, with a glance at me.
“Just a little check up,” Wharton said, and that was the last he did say till we were inside the magazine.
“Cartridges, brass, cordite, Blacker bombs for the use of,” said Store officially, running through the leaves of the ledger. “Here we are, sir. Bang up to date. Thirty-one, sir.”
“And where are the thirty-one?” Wharton asked mildly.
“Here, sir, on this rack.”
“Just count them,” Wharton said.
Count them?’ There was a slight lifting of eyebrows. “Certainly, sir.”
A minute and he was frowning. A recount, and he had to admit that there were only thirty.
“When did you last count them?” Wharton asked.
There was a brief hesitation and then Store said he thought it was after the firing on the Wednesday. None had been issued since. Wharton gave him one of his Ancient Mariner looks.
“And what if I tell you that I know you were one short as long ago as last Saturday?”
Store blustered and said it was impossible. Wharton’s stare persisted and he added that he had to leave certain things to his assistant, who probably had taken the balance for granted, seeing as how there were so few cartridges.
“And you made up the book on his word?”
“You have to sometimes, sir. You don’t expect a sergeant to make mistakes, sir. Besides, I’ve only got one pair of hands.”
Wharton nodded and left it at that. When he asked to be shown the magazine annexe, Store was so eager and officious that it was plain that he had had a nasty shaking.
“Plenty of flex and electrical stuff here,” Wharton said as he cast an eye round. “Everything for detonations except actual explosives. No necessity to have such strict supervision as you have at the main magazine. No end of people come in?”
“Oh, but we do keep an eye on things,” Store said. “I don’t think anybody would have the chance of lifting much here.”
Wharton touched what I call one of the plunger sets with his foot.
“That operates with its own batteries, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Then if you had a power or light plug handy, you could dispense with the batteries?”
Store agreed. All that was needed was to set off the detonator by electrical current, and it didn’t matter where the electricity came from. The boxes were handy when there was no grid or other electrical source into which to plug.
Being none too good at matters electrical I thought I’d use the opportunity to make my hazy knowledge far more secure.
“Suppose this bit of wood is a detonator,” I said. “I fix the two wires in contact with it, and I attach them by means of a plug to a source of power. When I operate the light or heating switch, off goes the detonator, and not before.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“But suppose I still prefer to use some sort of plunger?”
“That’d be all right, sir,” Store said. “All it’d mean would be that the juice was on but the plunger action operated it instead of the switch.”
“A perfectly simple thing to make, would it be?”
“Simple as ABC, sir.” He picked up a smallish round tin and found a round piece of wood to fit it. “Let’s imagine there’s some metal on the base of this piece of wood, sir, and connected with the juice.”
“By juice you mean electricity, of course?” Wharton said.
“That’s right, sir. But the wires connected with the detonator are lying at the bottom of this tin and I fix the wooden plunger in so that it is still well clear of the wires. It happens to be a good tight fit, luckily. There you are then, sir. There’s your home-made plunger set. The juice is on and all you have to do is press down the plunger. The metal at the bottom touches the wires, and off the detonator goes.”
“Good,” I said. “And I could buy any length of flex I wanted from any electrical shop. One of these days I’ll try it.”
“If you like, sir, I’ll get this piece of wood and this tin fixed up for you.”
I was going to say it wouldn’t be necessary, but he was so eager to rehabilitate himself, as it were, that I said instead that I’d be most grateful, though I did add that there wasn’t any hurry.
“I believe Mr. Staff’s a bit of an expert on this kind of thing,” Wharton cut in hopefully.
Store smiled condescendingly. “Oh, yes, sir. He’s been in here once or twice, trying to tell me a thing or two. I believe his family are connected with explosives in some way or other. Now what did he tell me?”
Wharton didn’t wait for Store to remember, but said we would have to be going. Then he put him on rather better terms with himself by adding that the visit had been unofficial. Then he added that it had also been highly confidential, and accompanied the statement by a look which removed the fleeting smile from the face of Store.
Before we could discuss in any way what we had learned, we caught sight of Harness coming from the Home Guard N.A.A.F.I., and he waited for us. As we walked towards the office, Wharton told him in confidence the news about Feeder.
“My Gawd, sir, it fairly makes your flesh creep,” Harness said. He had made as if to halt and his hand went out to Wharton’s arm, but George was in the mood for haste.
“You mean, to think that a murderer’s somewhere about the camp?” I said.
“That’s it, sir. And who’s he going to get next?”
Wharton was waving a hand by way of farewell, and sheering off towards the Mess. I didn’t feel I ought to leave Harness so abruptly, so went on the few yards to the office.
“I’m real sorry about that Feeder,” Harness told me with a shake of the head. “Take him all round, he wasn’t all that bad. I think on the whole I’d rather have had him than his officer.”
“Between ourselves,” I said, “what
was your main grouse against Mortar?”
He didn’t need even a second thought. “He was a trouble maker. If I’d liked to make trouble myself, I could have had him before the Colonel.”
“What for?”
“I’ll tell you only one thing. When we were on parade one morning and I’d got the men moving right smart, Captain Mortar came across. He sort of rolled across, you know, sir, in that impertinent sort of way he had. ‘Nice to see some real live soldiers again,’ he says, and so that everyone could hear. Now was that discipline, sir? I ask you. I tell you it absolutely spoilt that parade and it made me so furious that if I’d had a gun I’d have shot him.”
“Very annoying,” I said consolingly. “I know he could be a very annoying person, and deliberately so. But he’s gone now, Harness.”
“Yes,” he said, “and I’ve sometimes been tempted to say, ‘Damn-good riddance!’”
I went to the Mess in search of George but he was not there, so I asked Shorty to make me a spot of coffee and went through to the writing-room. Thinking over what Harness had just told me, I had an idea. As I followed that idea up, it began to lead me into deeper and deeper morasses, and when I’d drunk my coffee I decided to put the whole thing up to George. As I came near the hospital, Staff was leaving it, and he was looking far from pleased with himself. George was in his room and making notes.
“Been twisting Staff’s tail?” I said. George exploded.
“The damn’ young whippersnapper. What d’you think he said? Said that he didn’t consider the explosives work they did at the quarries came within the scope of my question. Within the scope, mind you. I gave him scope!”
“I bet you did,” I said. “How d’you sum him up generally?”
His voice lowered and he was pursing his lips reflectively. “Don’t know. My own private idea is that that cartridge that was found under his floor was another plant.”
“Like the use of Brende’s gun.”
“That’s it,” he said. “Someone trying to throw suspicion first on one and then on the other. The trouble is that in each case we can’t be sure. Staff may have had that cartridge there for some other reason and have forgotten all about it, and he must have had it well out of the way, or it’d have gone off when the room was burnt. We know he’d been in the magazine, and the same with Brende. His yarn about Feeder may have been a pack of lies from beginning to end.”
“Well, I’ve had an idea, George,” I said. “Perhaps it’s one that has occurred to you long ago, but why shouldn’t this case be looked at from a new angle—that of motive. Leave Feeder out of things for a bit and try to assess every possible motive that each possible person had for killing Mortar.”
I rather fancied he was only too eager to clutch at any new ideas, for in less than no time he was writing down names. “Collect,” he said. “You told me he was jealous of Mortar’s popularity, and he’d never forgiven him for suppressing that Scoutcraft lecture. Is that all?”
I said it was, and he went on to Flick. There the only real point at issue between the two men had been Nurse Wilton, apparently. I added that Flick was something of a lick-spittle, and he had been very easily induced by the anti-Mortarites to transfer to their camp.
“But if we’re to believe Shorty,” Wharton said, “Mortar disclaimed all interest in the lady on the Saturday evening when he had those drinks with Flick. We simply must take that as true.”
“Not only that,” I said, “but would Flick, as a married man, take an affair with Maisie Wilton as more than philandering? His own affair, I mean. He daren’t take it more seriously and risk the scandal and the effects on his military career. But leave all that out, George, can’t you say about both Collect and Flick that neither had a strong enough motive to commit a murder?”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Staff’s a bit more promising. I’ve told you that Mortar badgered him till he was pretty desperate. But think of his career as a young regular soldier. I suppose you noticed his three pips, by the way? His promotion came through this morning.”
George owned that he hadn’t noticed the pips, but he did agree that even if Staff had the strongest motive so far, it wasn’t a motive good enough. Then I told him what Harness had thought of Mortar, and that seemed no motive for murder. Lastly, there were Brende and Store. Brende had been discussed ad nauseam already. His motive seemed about as strong as Staff’s, and had arisen from much the same causes, but if his gun had been planted, then he was let out altogether. As for Store, we knew no reason why he should have a murder motive at all.
George pushed the sheet of notes aside. “If this is your bright idea, I don’t think much of it,” he told me wryly. “It simply brings us up against the same dead end.”
“I think it makes us see the whole case more clearly,” I said. “You remember we talked over the nature of the Northover affair and the Mills, and then Mortar’s death, and how all three had been underhand, sneaking sorts of affairs. A person could easily persuade himself in each of the three that they were no more than practical jokes, carried a bit too far. The bit too far wouldn’t matter, because the perpetrator wouldn’t be there to see the results. To see the blood and the torn limbs, for instance. But let’s put all that on one side and go on to the murder of Feeder. That comes into a different category. That’s a cold-blooded, calculated killing. The murderer actually held the gun. He mayn’t have seen the shattered skull, because it was a dark night, but he wasn’t a practical joker. My point then is this. Have we to deal with a wholly different person from those on that list?”
“I get you,” he said. “Was Feeder killed from a motive which we haven’t even a suspicion of, and which had no connection with Mortar at all, and, as you say, by someone not on the general suspect list?”
Then he looked up at me with an expression of humorous resignation. “In other words, we may have to start all over again. Where? And how?”
I couldn’t suggest a thing. He was shaking his head, and when he did say something else it was not what I was expecting.
“The funny thing is that I’ve got that on-the-edge feeling. There’s just some little thing missing. You know, like when you’ve forgotten a name and it’s on the tip of your tongue. At any minute I sort of know something’s going to turn up. I felt it when we were with Store and I got it just now when you were talking. Then before I could pounce on it, it had gone.”
He had some telephoning to do that morning so I didn’t see him again till after lunch. He was then going down to Peakridge to arrange for Feeder’s funeral on the Monday, and I should have gone to watch some firing at the ranges but for the fact that a fairly heavy rain was coming down. As I was not actually on duty I went to the Mess instead. Ferris and Flick were at the bar, and talking quite amicably.
Now you may have been thinking that I have made you plough through a lot of argument without bringing you anywhere. As devil’s advocate I would retort that you, who heard Wharton and myself arguing about motives, were as wise as we. Not that I should expect you to arrive at the startling theory at which I arrived at the mere sight of Ferris.
“A new person and a new motive!” That’s what flashed across my mind as I waved a hand in refusal of a drink and went through to the writing-room. Staff was there, and doing the Times crossword, but that didn’t worry me in the least. I refused, and with not all the courtesy I should have shown, the paper that Staff offered me, and I drew up a chair on the other side of the fire and began to concentrate. I didn’t have to think long.
A different sort of killer and a different sort of killing—well, Ferris was the answer. He was a killer all right, and whenever he thought the occasion warranted it. As for motive, it stood out like Beachy Head in the Channel. He had sworn to get Mortar’s killer. Very well then. He had got Mortar’s killer, for Feeder was the one who had killed Mortar!
Simple, wasn’t it? And fairly watertight as a theory. Indeed, the more I examined it, the more I knew it was the correct answer to the whole busi
ness. All that remained to do was to find what motive Feeder had for killing Mortar. Incredible, you may say, that Feeder should have killed Mortar at all. What about his tears and genuine grief both in the Colonel’s room and at the graveside? I can only say that such things prove nothing, and I speak from experience of murderers. Nothing is more explicable than a turgid and easily summoned emotion. A person who knows himself to be a murderer must have nerves at full strain, and emotion lies much nearer to the surface with him than it does with you and me.
I think I must have been shuffling uneasily on my seat for l looked round to see Staff’s eyes fixed curiously on me. Then he went out and I heard Flick hail him from the bar before the door closed again. What to do about following up my theory was what was worrying me. I could hardly tackle Ferris direct, and yet what could Wharton and I do if we stuck to the recognised methods of inquiry? Ferris doubtless had some sort of alibi, and it was too much to expect that anyone might have seen him near the haystack that night, for since Peakridge was out of bounds and routine traffic had ceased, the road was always deserted by dusk.
But I sat on in my chair, worrying my wits and every now and then giving my glasses an unnecessary polish, and then when I was making up my mind to leave the whole matter to Wharton’s judgment, the door opened and Ferris came in. In the brief glimpse I had of it I could see that the bar-room was empty.
“Hallo, sir,” he said genially. “Taking things easy?”
“As a matter of fact I was just thinking of trying to find a job of work,” I said, as he drew up his chair to the fire.
“No day for work,” he said. “I pity those poor devils out there on the range.”
The Case of the Fighting Soldier: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 19