The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “The garden,” Clarice said.

  “There you are,” I said. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.”

  “But it’s bedtime, darling,” Mary told her. “It was only special being allowed to stay up so late.”

  There was a call from the porch and we turned back. Chevalle was there and Clarice was running to him. He smiled as he gathered her up and hoisted her to his shoulders. His free hand clapped me on the back.

  “Sorry to be late. Only just got rid of my visitor. He left the back way.”

  “We’re all going round the garden, daddy,” Clarice said.

  “Oh, no, we’re not, young lady,” her father told her, but she only laughed. He rubbed his cheek against hers till she wriggled away and then he set her down.

  “How long to supper, Mary?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Good,” he said. “You take this pest of mine and Major Travers and I will talk over a little business.”

  I had seen Chevalle and Mary Carter together for perhaps two minutes, and yet in that brief time it seemed to me that there was between the two some deep and intimate understanding. I had no more to go on than a look and a smile, but those can be eloquent things.

  “That was Temple with me,” he was saying as he took my arm and steered me round to the left. “Were you responsible for sending him?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But what was his yarn?”

  “Extraordinary. He said he called to see Maddon about a War Bond for fifty pounds that he’d induced him to buy. He walked in as Maddon had always told him to do and then saw the body. He also saw Maddon’s pocket-book sticking out of his breast pocket and let his War Savings craze get the better of his judgment and helped himself to the fifty pounds. He brought me round the Bond to-night, to hold for the estate. Then he was terrified at what he’d done, he said, and he daren’t put the notes back. Then he rang Porthaven in the voice of Miss Smith and beat it.”

  “A very well-constructed yarn,” I said. “It’s right enough, except for an addition or two and an omission. He took far more than fifty pounds from the wallet, and the wallet wasn’t visible. I know because I’d had a look at it five minutes previously myself. Also he went through all Maddon’s pockets, and his desk, though that had been gone through before. And when he couldn’t find what he was looking for, he gave Maddon a dirty look and kicked him viciously in the ribs.”

  “You were there?”

  “Watching from the kitchen,” I said, and then remembered something. I’d forgotten about Pyramid Porle.

  Chevalle had never heard of the man and when I told him all I knew, his eyes fairly popped.

  “What about all that God-palaver on the notice,” he said.

  “Was it blether, just to scare Maddon into something? or deadly serious?”

  “I think it was bluff,” I said. “If he knew for a certainty that Maddon’s soul was required of him that night, then it was himself who was doing the requiring, even if he was a few hours late. I’m pretty sure he’d nothing to do with killing Maddon, but it’ll be easy enough to question his landlady about his alibi for this morning. And to find out if he was out late last night.”

  “I’m afraid I shall have to do some telephoning,” he said. “Sorry about it but I oughtn’t to be more than a few minutes.”

  “Picking him up at the railway station ought to be easy,” I said. “It’s that bolting that I don’t like.”

  There was a sudden screech and we both looked round. But it was only the brakes of the bus from Porthaven stopping at the front gate. I saw a startled look in Chevalle’s eyes and then his face suddenly flushed. Then there was a shriek of joy from the porch behind us.

  “Mummy! . . . Mummy!” Clarice was running madly towards the front gate. A woman came through and with her the bus conductor setting down a travelling-case and some parcels. I heard Chevalle give a low, “Damn.”

  The conductor touched his cap and shut the gate. Clarice was pulling at her mother’s skirt, and then her mother stopped and lifted her. She kissed her and hugged her close.

  “No, darling. You’re rumpling my hair,” she suddenly said, and set the child down. Then she kneeled and kissed her again. “Mummy’s brought you a lovely surprise, darling.”

  Clarice danced and clapped her hands. “May I have it now, mummy?”

  “I’ll bring it to you when you’re in bed, darling.”

  We two suddenly came round the shrubbery bend. Thora Chevalle got to her feet and she said never a word.

  “How are you, Thora,” Chevalle said. “May I take your bag? This is Major Travers. He’s having supper with us.”

  “How do you do,” she said. Her hand was elegantly lifted and the wrist gracefully curved, and I was so astounded at having to reach up that I almost said, “Very well, thanks. How are you?” Then Mary was calling from the porch and running down.

  “Hallo, Thora. Had a good time?”

  “Lovely,” she said. “Carry some of these parcels, there’s a dear.”

  Suddenly I sniffed. I don’t know what made me do such a ridiculous thing and in the same moment I was looking apologetically at Chevalle. He caught my eye and on his face was a most curious look as if I’d caught him out in something foolish.

  “Mummy, you do smell lovely!”

  “Do I, darling?” Thora said and laughed.

  Chevalle had picked up the case. He didn’t look at any of us and his voice sounded formal and strange.

  “I have some special telephoning to do. Don’t wait for me if supper’s ready.”

  “Of course we’ll wait,” Mary said, and almost defiantly. We moved on towards the house. Chevalle out-distanced us and Mary was ahead too.

  “Take Clarice to bed, will you, Mary,” Thora said, and then turned to me. She was carrying nothing but her handbag. “Are you staying in Cleavesham, Major Travers?”

  “For a fortnight,” I said. “With my sister, Mrs. Thornley.”^

  “Lovely,” she said. It was her favourite word. “I love Mrs. Thornley. I think she’s such a dear.”

  She passed elegantly on, up the two steps and through the door to the hall. The others had disappeared and we went through a door on the right to a lounge-drawing room. I deposited my hat on a hall chair.

  “Do sit down,” she said. “Cigarette?”

  “I think I will,” I said. “Will you try one of mine?”

  As she sat in the light of the big bay window, I thought what a good judge Helen had been. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman finer looking than Thora Chevalle. Her hair, worn Garbo fashion, was all sheen and lustre, and as near my ideal of a platinum blonde’s as I’d ever got. She was tallish; not precisely slim, but with a body that most would have considered alluring, and her make-up was a work of art. And yet that was what spoiled the face; the thin eyebrows giving a touch of the supercilious and the coloured Cupid lips more than a hint of the babyish.

  “Ash-tray?” I said, and put one on the cushion by her.

  “Thanks,” she said, and though I wasn’t looking at her I knew she was giving me an appraising look.

  “I suppose you haven’t heard our local sensation?” I said.

  “No,” she said, and, “I didn’t know there could be a sensation in Cleavesham. What was it? An air raid?”

  “Only a murder,” I told her. “Someone took a dislike to a man named Maddon and shot him.”

  “Maddon!” She stared. “The man who lives at Five Oaks?”

  I nodded. She was looking away, and breathing a bit hard unless my eyes deceived me.

  “Strictly between ourselves it isn’t known who did it,” I went on. I had come over to the ash-tray to flick my ash in, and there was no mistaking that scent. “But let’s talk about yourself. You’ve been in Cleavesham long?”

  “About four years,” she said, much more at ease. “We were at Porthaven before that. I rather liked Porthaven but—er—my husband didn’t.”

  “Well, I like Cleavesham,” I told her.<
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  “Ringlands is lovely,” she said, and was getting to her feet. “But I must fly. My daughter will be getting anxious.”

  “Did you drop this?” I said, handing her the post card I’d retrieved from the floor.

  She looked at it and smiled a bit condescendingly. “It seems to be Mary’s. My cousin, you know. She’s a great help with Clarice.”

  She didn’t quite know how to make her exit so I helped her out.

  “See you in a few minutes,” I said, and gallantly held open the door. “And kiss your small daughter good-night for me.”

  “Lovely,” she said, and even now I don’t know to what she referred.

  I closed the door, listened and then made for the ash-tray. The cigarette-end went into my wallet and so did the post card which she’d held with warm, ungloved fingers, and I’d marked the spot where those fingers had been. Then while I finished my own cigarette I stood looking at the view from the window, for some of the wood across the road had been cleared that winter and through the scanty slender oaks was the distant blue of the Porthaven hills. Then suddenly the door opened and Chevalle came in.

  “Sorry about all this,” he said. “Galley’s got things in hand now and I don’t think I shall be disturbed again.”

  Then he sniffed. I think it was at the smoke, for all at once he was looking at the ash-tray.

  “I like that small daughter of yours,” I said. “I wish she were mine.”

  He had been frowning to himself as if in thought. Now he smiled. “She’s a great lass,” he said. “I wanted a boy but now—”

  He shrugged his shoulders and the frown was on his forehead again. Then a petulant voice came from the hall.

  “Mary, where’s Richard? Surely he’s not leaving Major Travers all this time?”

  Chevalle’s look was grim.

  “We seem to be waited for,” he said as he took my arm. In the hall was an appetising smell. Through an open door I saw Mary taking over a dish from a young maid. Thora was in the dining-room when we went in. It was to me she spoke, and I hoped the meal would not be one of those trying affairs when two people on bad terms address each other through a third person.

  “Hungry, Major Travers?”

  “Ravenously,” I said.

  “Lovely,” she said. “Sit here will you, and then you can talk to my husband. Are you frightfully intelligent?”

  “Not when I’m hungry,” I said, and she said that was lovely.

  It was a good meal. Mary was the connecting link between dining-room and kitchen, and once Chevalle got up to carry a heavy dish. For all his wife seemed aware of him, he might not have been there. As for the conversation, we kept off the murder. Chevalle was uncommonly quiet, though we did talk a little about the last war. He had been at Vimy with the Canadians, and as I’d spent a fortnight there too, we tried to find people we’d each known.

  Thora cut that short by asking me if I knew Town. She had been staying with an old school friend for a day or two, and had profited by the visit to Hampstead to do shopping in Town. When I said that Porthaven was a bad place for shopping, she asked how I knew. I said that every woman’s home town was a bad place for shopping, and she said that was lovely. Mary asked if I was married, and for some reason or other she seemed quite pleased to hear that I was.

  We had coffee in the lounge. Thora suddenly developed a traveller’s headache and asked to be excused. She even said good-night, as the head was so bad that nothing but bed and aspirins would cure it. Chevalle listened stolidly and I thought Mary looked a bit self-conscious.

  “So sorry,” I said as my hand went up to find hers. “Perhaps I shall be seeing you again very soon. And you must come to tea with us at Ringlands.”

  “That would be lovely,” she said and after an awkward hesitation and my more awkward holding wide the door, she gave a wan smile and was gone. In the room one felt the inaudible sigh of relief. Mary said she’d leave us to it but Chevalle made her stay. I was feeling a tremendous pity for him, and I knew why he had been so hurried about asking me to supper. That unexpected return of his wife must have been a bit of a shock, and I had a shrewd idea what he was thinking. But when I said I felt a pity, I chose an indifferent word. Perhaps something of the pity was for myself. I liked Chevalle, and during that short evening I had felt something even of admiration, so it was none too easy for me to pretend an ignorance of things and show a complete unconcern for what I knew he was suffering.

  But the rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough. Mary asked if I played bridge, and I said I did, though it was my own brand. She said that didn’t matter and we could play a new variation that had been invented for three. Great fun it was and I was staggered when I saw it was after eleven o’clock.

  “You’ll come and have tea with us at Ringlands?” I asked Mary as we said good-night.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What with Clarice and things, I’m a busy person.”

  “Busy be damned!” Chevalle told her bluntly. “Of course she’ll come, Travers.”

  She smiled at him for that.

  Chevalle said he’d see me half-way home and then he was going to Porthaven.

  “Lucky you’re with me,” I said, for the sky was clouded and after the light of the room I couldn’t see a hand before my face. Perhaps that darkness gave him the courage to ask me that question, though hesitatingly, and as a kind of afterthought when we’d said good-night.

  “I expect you’ll think me a bit of a fool,” he said, “but I wish you’d tell me something. My wife and I have had words about cigarettes. You know, she’s helping herself to mine and leaving me in the lurch. I’ve been missing some lately and I’d hate to question the girl who comes in.” He hesitated again and I wondered what was coming. “She was having a cigarette with you just before supper, wasn’t she?”

  “I believe she was,” I said, as if trying to remember.

  “You don’t know what kind it was? I thought there’d be a stub in the ash-tray but there wasn’t.”

  “What do you smoke yourself?” I asked him, and I could just see the outline of his face in the dark.

  “Turkish, and very few at that,” he said.

  “Then she wasn’t smoking Turkish,” I told him. “They were Virginias or I’ve never smelt one.”

  He began a new hesitant apology but I laughed and said I knew what wives were. Then we said another goodnight, and his last words were that he’d probably be seeing me in the morning. I moved off in the dark and then halted on the grass verge and listened till his steps receded in the heavy quietness of the night. As I moved on again I was shaking my head. I even found myself polishing my glasses, a trick of mine when at some mental loss or on the edge of some discovery.

  As for my thoughts, they were far from pleasing. There was a new pity, but now centred wholly on the man whom I had just left. There was an annoyance at myself, my interference and my clumsiness, and a shame that I had in a way forced Chevalle into the awkwardness of that question.

  The impartiality of the Law might be fine as a shibboleth, but to be a man’s guest and use his house for cheap spying was very much beyond the pale. Somehow I should have been glad if he had rounded on me and blasted hell out of me. For he knew perfectly well that I had taken that cigarette-end, and I remembered, too, that look of his when I had made that unpardonable sniff. It was the look of a man caught in some horrible snare, and now I looked back there seemed to be in it some strange appeal.

  When I let myself in I found that Helen had put up the black-out, and there was a glass of milk on the table in my room. I had rarely felt less like sleep, and try as I might I could not thrust from my mind the urgency of things that pressed on the brain like a thundery air. So I went to the bureau and took out the cigarette-end and the hair that I’d pocketed at Five Oaks. I laid them beside the stub that Thora Chevalle had put in the ash-tray and a hair I’d found on the divan where she had sat.

  Then I scraped some fine graphite from a pencil and dusted that post
card which she had held. Under a reading glass I compared it with the copy I had made at Five Oaks of the ash-tray print and to me they looked dead alike. But even then I told myself that the whole thing was lunacy. Others could have bought scent from the same shop from which Thora Chevalle had purchased hers. And she had been in Hampstead when Maddon was murdered, and if not, how in God’s name could she have been at Five Oaks at the—for her—unearthly hour of half-past five in the morning? And why? Where was the motive?

  A few minutes later I had made a resolve. I was not in the employ of Scotland Yard. As for my duty as a good citizen, that was an affair between me and my conscience. In any case I would never profit from what I might have discovered as a guest in Chevalle’s house. What I would do would be to carry on, and with tremendous discretion, my own inquiries, and then, when I was sure, I would review the whole case. But not with anyone else. I would do the reviewing, and with myself.

  Much later still, I wrote a letter to George Wharton, and my thoughts were by then as clear as they’d ever been. Perhaps the stillness of the house gave them their clarity, but I do know that when that letter was finished I went straight to my bed, and almost at once I was asleep. This was the letter, put in a stout quarto envelope with various enclosures.

  Dear George,

  I’ve got plenty of news for you—too much for my liking. I’ve located your man. Herbert Maddon is his name and he’s been living in Cleavesham for about nine years at a superior kind of cottage called Five Oaks. You’ll find it on the rough map herewith.

  But he doesn’t live there now. At about six o’clock this morning he was murdered—shot at close quarters and probably by a woman. I won’t add any details because you may read about it in to-morrow’s papers. Chevalle has sent Maddon’s prints to the Yard and the result may help your memory.

  And now I want you to do something for me in the strictest confidence.

  1. Herewith a cigarette-end marked A. and another marked B. Find out

  a. if they are the same brand.

  b. If the lipstick is identical. That may be difficult.