Hardcastle's Obsession

by Graham Ison

  ‘We spoke to several of the women, sir, and Gordon Lipton found out that the one woman they haven’t seen for a few days is called Queenie Douglas.’

  ‘Where’s Lipton now?’

  ‘Er, in the office, sir.’

  ‘Well, I want to hear it from him. I won’t have any truck with hearsay or sloppy reporting, Catto. You should know that. Fetch him in here at once.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Catto fled, reappearing seconds later with DC Lipton.

  ‘Now, what’s all this about a missing tom, Lipton?’

  ‘I spoke to several of the women, sir, and one of them, a Polly Brewer, knew her quite well. She told me that Queenie Douglas hasn’t been seen around since last Sunday. That’d be the twenty-fourth, sir.’

  ‘And our anonymous body was found in the rubble of the house in Washbourne Street early on the Monday morning,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Did this Polly Brewer know where Queenie Douglas lived?’

  ‘Apparently she dossed down in Strutton Ground in a room over a chandler’s shop, sir. At least, that’s where she said Queenie turned her tricks.’

  ‘Right, carry on, and tell Sergeant Marriott I want him.’

  Hardcastle buckled on his spats, seized his hat and umbrella and met Marriott in the corridor. ‘We’re going to Strutton Ground, Marriott. Get your titfer and gamp. Looks like it might rain.’ The pessimistic Hardcastle always thought it was about to rain.

  ‘Very good, sir.’ Marriott crossed the corridor to the detectives’ office and collected his bowler hat and umbrella, and he and the DDI set off for Victoria Street.

  ‘Well, Marriott, there seems to be only the one chandler’s shop here.’ Hardcastle stared up and down Strutton Ground.

  ‘Nice juicy apples, guv’nor,’ yelled a market trader from the other side of the road. ‘Fresh up from Kent today.’ He held up a large Cox’s Orange Pippin.

  Hardcastle glared at the vendor. ‘I hope you’ve got a licence, lad,’ he said. ‘And when were your scales last checked?’

  ‘Bloody coppers,’ muttered the fruiterer, and replaced the apple on the carefully constructed pyramid of fruit on his costermonger’s barrow.

  Hardcastle pushed open the door of the chandler’s shop. ‘Police,’ he announced tersely. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Fred Watson, guv’nor, and I’ve been here twenty years and never had any trouble with the law.’

  ‘Well, you might have now,’ said Hardcastle. ‘What can you tell me about this prostitute who lives over your shop?’

  ‘D’you mean young Queenie Douglas, sir?’ The chandler sounded shocked at the suggestion that one of his tenants could be a prostitute. The apprehension showed in his face; he knew the allegation to be true.

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘She ain’t no pross, guv’nor,’ protested Watson. ‘Nice young lady she is. I wouldn’t have no loose women in my lodgings.’ But the nervous twitching of Watson’s hands told the DDI otherwise.

  ‘Really?’ Hardcastle sounded sceptical. ‘You own these premises, do you?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Watson. ‘I rent the shop and the three rooms upstairs, but now our boy’s off to sea with the Royal Navy, we don’t need all three, so I thought as how I’d sort of sublet the spare room.’

  ‘Did you indeed, well, we’ll need to have a look at this here room that you’ve sort of sublet to Queenie Douglas.’

  ‘Is young Queenie in some kind of trouble, guv’nor?’ The chandler appeared anguished by Hardcastle’s request.

  ‘We think she might’ve been murdered,’ said Marriott.

  ‘Oh my Gawd!’ exclaimed Watson, but his shock was more likely the result of a loss of rent, than sorrow at the fate of the dead woman. ‘You’d better come this way.’ He led the detectives through his shop to a staircase at the rear. On the way he shouted to someone called Reginald.

  An acne-stricken youth of about fifteen appeared from a storeroom. ‘Yes, Mr Watson?’

  ‘Take over the shop, Reginald. I’ve got to take these gents up to Queenie’s room.’

  The room into which Watson showed the two CID officers was obviously the room to which Queenie Douglas took her clients. There was a bed, a wash-hand basin, and a small rug covering the centre of the bare-boarded floor. But there appeared to be no personal possessions.

  ‘It doesn’t look as though Queenie Douglas lives here,’ Hardcastle announced, in a tone of voice that brooked no argument. Although in that, he was wrong.

  ‘I thought she did,’ said Watson, looking extremely concerned at the DDI’s abrasive attitude, and at once contriving an expression of mystification.

  ‘Mr Watson, it’s as plain as the nose on my face that this here Queenie Douglas uses this place for plying her trade as a common prostitute. How much rent does she pay you? And don’t even think of lying because I’ll check.’

  The chandler paused for a moment. ‘Seven bob a week,’ he said.

  ‘That seems to be a great deal of money for renting this room, Mr Watson,’ said Marriott. ‘I suggest that you knew how she made her money, and decided that you’d have some of it. And that, my friend, makes you guilty of living on immoral earnings.’

  ‘I never knew that’s what she was up to, so help me,’ protested the anguished Watson.

  ‘How many other girls use this room, Watson?’ demanded Hardcastle. That the DDI had omitted the honorific of ‘mister’ indicated that he had moved Watson from the status of helpful informant to one of culpable lessor.

  ‘None, guv’nor, honestly,’ exclaimed Watson.

  ‘I hope so, for your sake,’ said Hardcastle, ‘because if I find that there are other whores using this accommodation you’ll be doing a carpet for keeping a brothel.’

  ‘I never knew nothing about any of that, guv’nor, so help me,’ whimpered Watson, wringing his hands. ‘And seven bob seemed a reasonable rent for central London. What with the war being on.’

  ‘I don’t see what the war has to do with you fleecing a young girl, Watson,’ said Hardcastle brutally. ‘Anyway, you can get on with your chandelling, or whatever you call it, while Sergeant Marriott and me has a look round this drum. But you haven’t seen the last of me.’

  The chastened Watson fled downstairs; Hardcastle’s threat of imprisonment had terrified him.

  ‘D’you think that Mr Collins might have any luck here, sir,’ suggested Marriott. Detective Inspector Charles Stockley Collins was head of the Yard’s fingerprint bureau, and the leading expert in this comparatively new field of criminal investigation.

  ‘Doubt it, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle gloomily. ‘If this here Queenie Douglas picked up a Tommy every night, or even more than one, Mr Collins wouldn’t know where to start.’ But having thought about Marriott’s suggestion, he added, ‘But it wouldn’t do any harm for him to have a go, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll get on to him, sir,’ said Marriott.

  ‘I don’t think we’re going to learn very much here,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I wonder where she lived when she wasn’t whoring.’

  ‘That Polly Brewer that Lipton spoke to might know, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I think we’ll have a word with those women. In the meantime, I’ll have another go at Watson. I’m sure he knows more than he’s telling.’

  When Hardcastle and Marriott returned to the ground floor, the chandler was selling a woman customer two candles. Waiting until she had paid her sixpence and left the shop, the DDI adopted a more conciliatory approach.

  ‘Now then, Mr Watson, I’m prepared to overlook you having accommodated a prostitute if you’re willing to assist me.’ Hardcastle knew very well that he would need far more evidence than he currently possessed in order to convict Watson for living on immoral earnings. Apart from which, with a murder enquiry to resolve, he had no time for such comparatively trivial offences.

  ‘I honestly didn’t know what she was up to, sir, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Maybe . . .’ said Hardcastle, deliberately injecting a tone of doubt into his voice, ‘but it rat
her depends on how helpful you are.’

  ‘Anything I can do, just say the word, guv’nor,’ said Watson, now sycophantically desperate to please.

  ‘I suppose that Miss Douglas used that door at the side of your premises in order to get to her room. She wouldn’t have come through the shop, would she?’

  ‘No, sir. Any road, I close at nine o’clock of an evening.’

  ‘And does that door make a noise whenever anyone comes in?’

  ‘It squeaks something cruel, guv’nor. I keep meaning to oil it, but I never seem to get round to it.’

  ‘Odd that,’ said Hardcastle, ‘seeing as how you’ve got a shop full of oil.’ He turned to his sergeant. ‘Not surprising though, Marriott. Have you ever noticed that men who sell shoes always seem to be down at heel?’

  Watson appeared bemused by this aside of Hardcastle’s, but kept silent.

  ‘And did the door bang when this Queenie came in, Mr Watson?’ Much to the chandler’s concern, Hardcastle kept belabouring the question of the noisy door.

  ‘Yes, it does. I kept telling Queenie to shut it quietly, but she never took no notice.’ Watson sighed at the apparent selfishness of his tenant. But Hardcastle was convinced that the chandler liked to keep a check on how many clients the girl brought back with her, and had deliberately left the door so that its hinges squeaked. Probably with a view to extracting a little more money from the girl.

  ‘Did you ever see any of the men she brought back?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Did anyone come here asking after her?’

  Watson thought about that. ‘There was a soldier who called in here a couple of times.’

  ‘Any idea of his name?’

  ‘No, he never said. But there was something funny about his uniform. Apart from the two stripes on it.’

  ‘Oh? What was that?’

  ‘He had a badge on the back of his cap as well as on the front.’

  ‘I’ve never heard anything like it,’ exclaimed Hardcastle. ‘I hope you’re not trying to sell me a dummy, Watson.’

  ‘No, guv’nor, honest. I thought it was a bit odd meself.’

  ‘Well, if this here swaddy returns, you’re to let me know tout de suite at Cannon Row police station. Got that, have you?’ said Hardcastle, as he and Marriott turned to leave.

  ‘You can rely on me, guv’nor,’ said Watson, delighted that the detectives were leaving.

  ‘I’d like to think so, Mr Watson.’

  Followed by a hurrying Marriott, Hardcastle strode back along Strutton Ground towards Victoria Street on his way back to the police station. ‘A soldier with a badge on the back of his cap, Marriott,’ he muttered irritably. ‘I’ve never heard the like of it.’

  ‘There is a regiment that wears two badges, sir,’ said Marriott.

  Hardcastle stopped and stared at his sergeant. ‘I hope you’re not taking the piss, Marriott,’ he said.

  ‘No, sir. It’s the Gloucestershire Regiment. When they were the 28th of Foot they won the distinction of wearing Sphinx badges on the front and the back of their headdress to commemorate the rearguard action they fought at the battle of Alexandria in 1801.’

  ‘You’re a bloody know-all, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but that might just come in useful,’ he added, ever one to turn his sergeant’s knowledge of military matters to his own advantage.

  ‘There’s a lot of them though, sir,’ said Marriott. ‘It’ll not help much until we’ve got a name.’

  ‘Let’s hope that Watson’s so terrified of having his collar felt that he’ll let us know if this here front-and-back badge soldier comes around looking for Queenie, then.’

  As Hardcastle strode down the corridor leading to his office, he bellowed for DC Lipton.

  Gordon Lipton appeared immediately. ‘Sir?’

  ‘This Polly Brewer woman you spoke to, Lipton, the one who said that Queenie Douglas had been adrift for a few days . . .’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Get hold of her, not literally, of course,’ said Hardcastle, smiling at his own little joke, ‘and take her round to the mortuary at Horseferry Road. Get her to have a glim at the body there and tell us if it’s Queenie Douglas. Then come back here and report. Got that?’ The DDI wondered why he had not thought of it before. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t suggest it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Lipton, thinking that it was not his place to advise Hardcastle on how he should conduct a murder enquiry.

  THREE

  Hardcastle always claimed to be unwilling to go to work on an empty stomach. On Friday morning, as he did every other morning, he had enjoyed a breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, two pieces of fried bread and a couple of sausages followed by two slices of toast and marmalade. Finally, he washed down the meal with three cups of tea.

  He caught his usual tram from the stop in Westminster Bridge Road at the corner of Kennington Road where he lived at number 27. It was the house in which he and his wife Alice had lived since their marriage 23 years ago, and was just a few yards along the road from where the famous Charlie Chaplin had once resided.

  The tram crossed Westminster Bridge and deposited Hardcastle at the stop opposite the entrance to the Houses of Parliament. Known to A Division’s policemen as the Clock Tower entrance, it was at the foot of the world famous Big Ben. A policeman had been assigned to the post some years ago to facilitate the turning of Members’ hansom cabs in the face of trams crossing the centre of Westminster Bridge. The policeman there this morning saluted, and reported that all was correct.

  Grunting an acknowledgement, Hardcastle crossed Bridge Street and strode down Cannon Row to the police station that bore its name.

  ‘Good morning, sir. All correct, sir,’ intoned the station officer. ‘There’s a gent waiting in the interview room, sir, name of Watson. He’s the chandler from Strutton Ground, and he says it’s important.’

  ‘I hope for his sake it is,’ growled Hardcastle.

  ‘Will you be wanting to see the books, sir?’ The station officer had already laid the large volumes on his desk.

  ‘Anything to interest me, Skipper?’

  ‘No entries in the crime book since the last time you initialled it yesterday morning, sir.’

  ‘I can see my detectives need a squib up their arses, Skipper,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Get someone to bring this Watson up to my office, then,’ he added curtly, as he mounted the stairs.

  Within seconds, a PC knocked on Hardcastle’s office door, and ushered in Fred Watson.

  ‘I’m told you have something important to tell me, Watson,’ said the DDI as he slowly filled his pipe.

  ‘Yes, sir. That soldier I told you about.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He come by yesterday evening, guv’nor, not long before I’d shut up shop. But the funny thing about it was that Queenie turned up a few minutes later.’

  Hardcastle took the pipe from his mouth and stared at the luckless chandler. ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘In her room, as far as I know.’

  ‘Thank you, Watson,’ said Hardcastle. ‘It’s a great shame you didn’t see fit to tell me this last night,’ he added acidly. ‘It would have saved me a great deal of trouble.’

  ‘I thought you might’ve gone home, guv’nor,’ whined Watson.

  ‘Gone home? I’m not a bloody chandler, Watson. I’m a senior detective investigating a murder, and I don’t pack it in at nine o’clock and put my feet up.’

  ‘I’m sorry, guv’nor.’

  ‘You can go, Watson.’ Hardcastle dismissed the chandler with a wave of his hand.

  In fact, it would have made very little difference if Watson had told him the previous evening about Queenie Douglas’s reappearance, but Hardcastle saw no reason to say so.

  For a few moments after Watson’s departure, Hardcastle pondered whether there would be any profit in interviewing Queenie Douglas. Eventually he decided that there might be some merit in talking to the soldier that had asked for her, and
Queenie could lead the DDI to him. If the Gloucestershire Regiment corporal was in the habit of consorting with prostitutes, it was possible that he might have known the dead woman.

  ‘Marriott,’ bellowed the DDI.

  ‘Yes, sir?’ said Marriott, appearing in Hardcastle’s doorway.

  ‘We’re going back to Strutton Ground,’ said Hardcastle, and told Marriott what he had just learned from Watson.

  Fred Watson was surprised, and not a little alarmed, to see Hardcastle and Marriott enter his shop. It was only a matter of twenty minutes or so since Watson himself had left the police station.

  ‘Is she in?’ demanded Hardcastle.

  ‘Yes, guv’nor, she’s up there now.’

  ‘Good.’ Hardcastle marched through the shop, bounded up the uncarpeted staircase with an agility that belied his bulk, and hammered on Queenie Douglas’s door.

  ‘What d’you want?’ demanded a shrill voice from within.

  Hardcastle threw open the door to find Queenie lying on the bed reading a romantic penny magazine called My Paper. ‘Are you Queenie Douglas?’

  ‘Yeah. What of it?’

  ‘I’m Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division, and I’m investigating a murder.’ It was a blunt statement intended immediately to concentrate the woman’s mind.

  In some alarm, Queenie swung her legs to the floor and stood up. She was barefooted and clad only in a shift. ‘I ain’t had nothing to do with no murder, mister,’ she protested.

  ‘I didn’t say you had, my girl. But one of your sisters of the street was found strangled last Monday in the basement of a bombed house in Washbourne Street not half a mile from here.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know nothing about that.’

  ‘Who’s this soldier you’ve been seeing, Miss Douglas?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘Soldier? What soldier?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking,’ said Marriott patiently. ‘He’s a corporal in the Glosters.’

  ‘That’s Harry Waldren. We’re going to get wed.’

  ‘God Almighty!’ muttered Hardcastle. ‘And where can we find this Corporal Waldren?’

  ‘What d’you want him for?’