by Graham Ison
‘Very good, sir. Are you charging him with attempted murder?’
‘Not at this stage, Wood,’ said Hardcastle thoughtfully. ‘You see, he’d probably go down for about ten years penal servitude for that, but if the military find that Rudd is the deserter called Donnelly they’ll shoot him at dawn. Much cheaper from the point of view of the public purse, and it would save you and me wasting our time at Surrey Assizes. A much more satisfactory outcome altogether, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, sir. But we know he’s not Rudd because his missus showed us a photograph of the real Rudd, and it wasn’t the bloke in the charge room.’
‘Very true,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but he doesn’t know that. Make sure you bring that revolver with you, and when we get back to the nick get it across to Inspector Franklin. With any luck, he might find it matches the round taken out of Ronald Parker’s head.’
It was two o’clock that afternoon before the escort arrived at Cannon Row police station with Rudd.
Hardcastle and Marriott had lunched on their usual fourpenny cannon and a pint at the Red Lion public house, but Hardcastle decided that there was nothing to be gained by interviewing their prisoner. Instead, he paid another visit to the APM’s office at Horse Guards.
‘I’ve taken the man calling himself Wilfred Rudd into custody on a charge of attempted murder, Colonel,’ he announced.
‘Good Lord!’ Frobisher looked up in surprise. ‘May I ask who he attempted to murder, Inspector?’
‘Me,’ said Hardcastle, ‘with what looks very like a service revolver.’
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Frobisher again. ‘I hope you weren’t hurt, Inspector.’
‘He’d’ve had to be quicker than he was to catch me out, Colonel. However, he refuses to disclose his real identity, but if he’s the Eric Donnelly you suggested he might be there’s the problem of getting someone to identify him.’
Colonel Frobisher leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘Yes, that could be difficult,’ he said. ‘Obviously, it would mean finding someone who knew both Rudd and Donnelly, but the battalion they served with is still in France.’
‘We’re satisfied that he’s not Rudd, Colonel, both from what you told me, and from having visited Rudd’s widow. She showed me a photograph of her late husband and it’s definitely not the man I’ve got in my police station.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ said Frobisher. ‘How long can you hold this man?’
‘For as long as it takes,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I doubt that there’s anyone prepared to swear out a writ of habeas corpus on his behalf.’
‘Yes, I understand. Nevertheless, you’ll doubtless wish to have this matter cleared up as soon as possible. I’ll get on to the depot of the Dorsetshire Regiment in Dorchester and see if there’s anyone in this country who knows what Donnelly looks like. I’ll be in touch as soon as possible.’
‘I’m much obliged, Colonel.’
Lieutenant Colonel Frobisher was as good as his word. The following morning, Hardcastle received a call from the APM to say that there was a Sergeant Mooney in his office who had at one time been Donnelly’s platoon sergeant. But, continued Frobisher, Mooney had been wounded in the same battle that had cost Wilfred Rudd his life, and was now a firearms instructor at the depot battalion.
‘I’ll send him straight across to the police station, if that would be convenient, Inspector.’
‘Admirable, Colonel, and I’m much obliged to you.’
Fifteen minutes later, there was a knock on Hardcastle’s door and the station-duty constable appeared.
‘There’s a Sergeant Mooney of the Dorsetshire Regiment downstairs, sir. He says he’s been sent here by Colonel Frobisher.’
‘Show him up here, lad,’ said Hardcastle. ‘And on your way out ask Sergeant Marriott to come in.’
The soldier who entered the DDI’s office was immaculate from head to toe. His uniform was pressed, the creases razor sharp. His cap badge glistened, as did his boots, and his puttees were impeccably wound. Beneath his left arm was a silver-headed swagger cane.
‘Inspector ’Ardcastle, sir?’ he asked, snapping to attention and throwing up a quivering salute. ‘Sarn’t Mooney, Depot Battalion, the Dorsetshire Regiment, thirty-ninth of foot, sah!’
‘Take a seat, Sergeant,’ said Hardcastle. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Marriott,’ he added, as Marriott entered the office.
‘Sarn’t.’ Mooney nodded in Marriott’s direction.
‘I’m told that you know Private Donnelly by sight, Sergeant Mooney. Is that correct?’
‘Know him, sir? I’m not likely to forget the leery little bastard. He’s got bad blood in him, has that one. When he come out to France, he was in the Bullring for a few weeks, and he struck a canary and got hisself twenty-seven days in the glasshouse. That was after he come out of the sick bay. Apparently he fell down the guardroom steps and done hisself a bit of harm, so I heard,’ added Mooney with a chuckle.
‘Bullring? Canary? What on earth are you talking about Sergeant Mooney?’ Hardcastle was, yet again, completely mystified by the soldier’s excursion into the esoteric argot of the military.
‘Ah, yes.’ Mooney tugged at his moustache. ‘The Bullring’s what they call the training camp at Étaples in France, sir,’ he said, pronouncing it Eat-apples. ‘It’s where the infantry does their training when they first come out to the BEF, and the canaries is the sergeant-instructors. They call ’em canaries on account of wearing yellow armbands.’
‘But why was he given twenty-seven days?’ queried Hardcastle. ‘That seems a strange sentence.’
‘Ah, well, the colonel at the Bullring’s a bit of a tartar, sir. He knows that twenty-eight days is the minimum sentence what entitles a defaulter to a few days’ remission for good behaviour. But twenty-seven days don’t qualify. So the colonel always hits ’em with twenty-seven, and then they do the full whack, so to speak.’
Hardcastle nodded approvingly. ‘That colonel sounds like a man after my own heart, Sergeant Mooney. Now, perhaps, you’d come with Sergeant Marriott and me and have a look at this man I’ve got locked up in one of our cells.’
‘It’ll be a pleasure, sir,’ said Mooney. ‘Best place for him.’ He seemed to have made up his mind that Rudd was indeed the deserter Donnelly.
‘Open up Rudd’s cell, Skipper,’ said Hardcastle to the station officer, as the three men arrived in the front office.
‘Very good, sir.’ The station officer seized a large bunch of keys and led the way into a dank passageway. He slid open the wicket of number three cell, peered in, and then unlocked the door.
The man calling himself Wilfred Rudd was stretched out with his hands behind his head, on the narrow wooden bench that did service as a bed. But he looked up in alarm at the sight of Sergeant Mooney and scrambled to his feet.
‘Aha, Donnelly, you idle son of a whore’s Saturday night coupling on the kitchen table, we meet again,’ said Mooney.
‘What’s he doing here?’ demanded the prisoner, addressing himself to Hardcastle.
‘Sergeant Mooney’s come to tell us who you are,’ said Hardcastle, and turned to the army sergeant. ‘Perhaps you’d be so good as to identify this man formally, Sergeant Mooney.’
‘That, sir, is Private Eric Donnelly, of the Dorsetshire Regiment, and a bloody disgrace to the old thirty-ninth of foot, so he is.’ Mooney took a pace closer to Donnelly. ‘My only regret, laddie, is that I’ll not be at the Tower of London one fine morning when they put a few rounds into you for cowardice and desertion in the face of the enemy.’
Donnelly sank down on to the bench and put his head in his hands.
‘Thank you, Sergeant Mooney.’ Hardcastle turned to the station officer. ‘You can lock Donnelly up again until I decide what to do with him, Skipper,’ he said.
‘My adjutant told me that Colonel Frobisher said that you’d be charging Donnelly with attempting to murder you, sir,’ said Mooney, as they returned to Hardcastle’s office.
‘I don’t really think he intended to kill me, Sergeant Mooney,’ said Hardcastle airily. ‘As I told my Sergeant Wood only yesterday, the best he’d get for that is ten years in the nick.’ He forbore from mentioning that Donnelly was still a suspect for Ronald Parker’s murder. ‘It’s a much better and cheaper solution if the army shoots him.’ He paused. ‘D’you think they will?’
‘Without a doubt, sir. Leaving his dead comrade on the field of battle and then slinging his hook is despicable, sir, and that’s a fact. Field Marshal Sir Douglas ‘Aig won’t find no problem in confirming a sentence of death. Not that it’ll be down to him, I s’pose,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘because they’ll likely court martial Donnelly here in the Smoke. Don’t matter, though; either way they’ll top the bastard.’
‘What now, sir?’ asked Marriott, once Sergeant Mooney had left the police station to return to Dorchester.
‘We wait until we hear from Mr Franklin about the tests he’s doing on the revolver we seized from Donnelly when Wood and me nicked him, Marriott.’ Hardcastle thought about that for a moment or two. ‘Go across to the Yard, Marriott, and see if Mr Franklin can tell us anything now.’
But fifteen minutes later, Marriott returned with disappointing news.
‘Inspector Franklin said that the weapon you seized from Donnelly, sir, is definitely not the revolver that was used to murder Parker.’
‘Sod it!’ exclaimed Hardcastle. ‘What did Mr Franklin say about the revolver?’
‘It’s a service issue, sir. He could tell because it’s got the broad arrow on it. As you suggested, Mr Franklin thought that Donnelly probably picked it up on the battlefield when he ran. I wonder when he got back here from France.’
‘No doubt the army will be interested to find out how he got back here, Marriott, but I’m damned if I am.’ And with that, Hardcastle immediately lost interest in Donnelly. ‘Get on to Colonel Frobisher and tell him he can have the prisoner and the sooner the better. You’d better arrange for the revolver to be returned to him, as well.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And now, Marriott, we’re back to the beginning with this damned murder. It’s too bloody frustrating for words, that’s what it is.’
Saturday morning found Hardcastle ill-tempered and dissatisfied. He had convinced himself that Eric Donnelly, alias Wilfred Rudd, was responsible for Ronald Parker’s murder. But now it appeared that he had done nothing more than pick up with Mavis Parker at a time when she was vulnerable and she and her late husband had been experiencing some difficulty in their marriage. And he wondered whether the death of the Parkers’ child from diphtheria had had something to do with her straying from the straight and narrow of acceptable married life. On the other hand, working in the paint shop of Sopwith Aviation had perhaps introduced her to new friends and, to her, an exciting and liberated new world.
‘It’s high time we had another word with Mavis Parker, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle, taking out his watch and peering at it.
‘But she’s working today, sir, and doesn’t finish until six o’clock. What’s more, she might be going out, seeing that it’s a Saturday.’
‘I dare say, Marriott, but she’ll go home first to change into her glad rags. I don’t know of any woman who’ll go out for the evening in the clothes she’s been to work in.’
‘D’you want to see her today, sir?’
‘Certainly, Marriott. We’ve wasted enough time already on this enquiry.’
‘Very good, sir.’ Marriott had promised to take his wife Lorna out for a meal. She had arranged for Meg Lewington, the sergeant’s wife who lived next door to their Regency Street quarters, to look after the Marriotts’ two children James and Doreen. It looked as though Lorna would be disappointed yet again, but that, regrettably, was the lot of a policeman’s wife.
‘In the meantime, Marriott, what’ve you found out about the owner of the Hispano-Suiza that Daisy Benson couldn’t wait to jump into after Parker’s funeral?’
‘A check with the licensing people shows the owner of the vehicle to be a man called Vincent Powers, sir. I’ve set Wilmot to finding out what he can.’ Fred Wilmot was one of the older detective constables at Cannon Row, and could be relied on to carry out an enquiry that was both discreet and thorough.
‘We’ll have wait and see what he turns up, I suppose.’
Fred Wilmot was very good at finding out things. For the task that Marriott had set him, he had attired himself in an outfit that was well worn, but hinted at the gentility of a man who had fallen on hard times.
Early on the Saturday morning, he approached the house called The Beeches on Kingston Hill with the intention of carrying out a preliminary survey, but luck was with him. A young maid was outside the gates polishing the brass nameplate of the house.
‘Good morning, miss,’ said Wilmot, touching his worn cap, and approaching the girl with a feigned limp.
‘Hello,’ said the girl, pausing in her work. ‘I’ve not seen you around here before.’
‘I suppose the gent who lives here isn’t in need of a good handyman, is he?’ Wilmot was an accomplished carpenter, a trade he had followed prior to joining the police. ‘I’ve been given me ticket from the navy after getting me leg busted up at Jutland, and I haven’t been able to find much in the way of work.’
‘I don’t think there’s any vacancies for that sort of post,’ said the girl, casting a nervous glance at the house. ‘But you wouldn’t want to work here anyway.’
‘Why’s that? Isn’t the mistress good to the staff, then?’
‘There ain’t no mistress, leastways not permanent. There’s just the master and he ain’t good to us. He’s got a very nasty temper and I’m thinking of packing it in, even though jobs in service is hard to come by, especially without a character. And Powers wouldn’t give me one.’
‘Is that his name?’ asked Wilmot innocently.
‘Yes, Mr Vincent Powers, that’s who he is.’
‘What have you done to upset him, then?’
The girl moved a little closer. ‘He’s too free with his hands, is that one,’ she said, emphasizing her point by holding up her hands with the fingers spread. ‘I’ll tell you this straight, mister, two or three times he’s tried to get me into his bed. That’s when he ain’t entertaining some tart what he’s brung in and who we’re supposed to call “madam”. Well, what with him being in the theatre an’ all, I s’pose he’s got the pick of the chorus, as you might say.’ She lowered her voice. ‘It’s happening all the time and only this morning one of his fancy women left the house in a taxi. Seven o’clock it was, and she’d been here all night. It ain’t decent.’
‘The master’s an actor, then, is he?’
‘So he says. He reckons he’s in that show at the Alhambra in Leicester Square at the moment. The Bing Boys on Broadway it’s called. I’d love to see it, but getting a free ticket out of him is like getting blood out of a stone.’
At midday, Wilmot arrived in the DDI’s office.
‘It’s about Vincent Powers, sir.’
‘What have you found out about him, Wilmot?’
‘He’s an actor, sir.’
‘How did you know that? Wearing a dickey without a shirt, was he? That’s how you can usually tell an actor.’
‘Not quite, sir.’ Wilmot laughed and went on to recount the conversation he had had with the maid at The Beeches, and related the story of the woman who had left in a taxi that morning.
‘Any idea who this woman was, Wilmot.’
‘No, sir. I asked the girl what she looked like, but the description wasn’t any help. It’d fit any one of a dozen ragtime girls.’
‘It could’ve been Daisy Benson, I suppose,’ said Hardcastle thoughtfully. ‘Although from what you said, it could’ve been anyone. All right, Wilmot, you can leave it there. Sergeant Marriott and I will look into it when we have time.’
ELEVEN
‘There she is, Marriott.’ Hardcastle had stationed himself near the greengrocer’s shop
opposite the factory gates at a quarter to six that same evening. Mrs Parker had emerged at just after six o’clock and turned towards her house in Canbury Park Road. The two detectives followed at a discreet distance.
Once Mavis Parker had entered her house, Hardcastle and Marriott waited a few yards down the road. At twenty past six, the two of them marched up the path and the DDI hammered on Mrs Parker’s door.
‘Yes?’ At first, the woman failed to recognize the two CID officers, but then she said, ‘Oh, it’s you, Inspector. I was just going out.’
‘I won’t hold you up for long, Mrs Parker, but there are a few questions that I need to ask you.’
‘You’d better come in, then,’ said Mavis, and somewhat reluctantly showed them into the parlour.
‘I’ve made enquiries at the Ministry of National Service, Mrs Parker,’ said Hardcastle, immediately getting to the nub of the matter, ‘and they told me that a letter was sent to your late husband on Monday the eighteenth of February this year. That letter informed Mr Parker that he’d been exempted from military service due to ill health.’
Mavis Parker looked extremely guilty at this announcement, but endeavoured to cover it up. ‘Oh, um, well, I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Are you sure that Mr Parker didn’t mention anything about having received such a letter?’ asked Marriott.
‘If he did get it, he didn’t say anything to me about it.’ Mavis Parker seemed flustered by the question.
‘Do you know where your husband kept his correspondence, letters, bills and that sort of thing?’ queried Hardcastle, who was finding it hard to believe that Parker would not have told his wife about such a letter. Unless, for some reason, he had not seen it.
Mavis Parker did not immediately answer the question and covered her confusion by asking one of her own. ‘Why are you so interested in this letter, Inspector?’
‘Very simply, Mrs Parker,’ said Hardcastle, ‘because someone murdered your husband, and I intend to find out who that person was. The ministry assured me that the letter was sent, but you told me that your husband was attempting to get to Holland in order to avoid military service. That, to my way of thinking, seems to imply that he didn’t see this here letter, and I want to know why.’