The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  It was not till a good twenty minutes later that he left, and without doing that telephoning on which he’d been so keen. Helen came back all smiles and humming to herself.

  “Wharton like your garden?” I asked politely.

  “I really think he did,” she said.

  “What were you gossiping about all that time?” I let my smile become a bit arch. “I’ll bet it was about Mrs. Chevalle.”

  “Of course it was,” she said. “She is rather an overpowering person to meet for the first time. You can’t help being interested in her.”

  “Wharton’s the world’s prize Parker,” I said. “And I’ll bet you didn’t leave much untold.”

  “Why, Ludo, what a thing to say!” she told me with a pretence of indignation. Then she smiled, and I thought with a definite satisfaction. Even Helen can be catty at times. “But we did have a really good gossip.”

  Lunch would be on in five minutes, she warned me, and I said it couldn’t be too soon for me. But what I did was to stroll round the back way to that spot on the lawn where Wharton had trodden with his elephantine foot on a highly convenient wasp. As I anticipated, there was never a sign of a wasp there, even allowing for the devastating completeness of the annihilation.

  I found myself at a loose end after lunch, so I took the morning paper to the summer-house. But I couldn’t settle to it, and soon I was thinking about the case again. What first came into my head was something I had gathered at the Wheatsheaf that morning after the inquest. Someone had remarked that Temple was an older inhabitant than Maddon. There had been a bit of an argument about it, and finally it had been established that he had been in the village for two years before Maddon arrived. But now I was remembering that the main ground for proof had been that a certain somebody, who was people’s warden, had died in a certain year and that Temple had taken over the office.

  That led me to a train of thought. I was far from believing the various yarns that Temple had spun to account for this and that. I had facts to go on, I could tell myself, and two facts stood out remarkably clear. One was that Temple had helped himself to Maddon’s money, and that though he had been forced to hand back fifty pounds, he was still in possession of a tidy balance. Then there was the fact that he had hunted with a feverish haste through that already ran-sacked desk. As an addition, and to clinch those two facts, was the kick in the ribs he had given the dead man, and the look of utter malignancy that had accompanied it.

  Now to me those facts added up to this. Maddon had known Temple as Broadbeam. He had discovered that Temple was living at Cleavesham and had dug himself in as a highly respectable and worthy inhabitant, so he had come to Cleavesham himself and had then proceeded to blackmail Temple. But he had not skinned him alive. He had been satisfied to do the milking regularly as against killing the cow for the sake of beef and hide. That was Maddon, the financier and shrewd investor. What Temple had expected to find in that desk was the blackmail instrument—accounts of the Broadbeam trial, photographs, and so on—and hence that vicious kick when the frantic search produced nothing.

  That naturally brought me to Pyramid Porle. What was his game? He, as Helen had confirmed, was expecting to come into money, and he had spoken to me of certain financial enterprises in hand. So it seemed to me that Maddon alone must be the source of that coming windfall, and there again it looked as if Porle was a blackmailer and applying the screw by his own peculiar methods. If so, there was a highly intriguing triangle, with Maddon milking Temple and Porle after the milk. As to why Porle had bolted, I thought I could explain that. He would expect the police to find that notice he had tacked to the door. Maybe when he had heard the news of the murder, his informant had added that the police had their eyes on someone, and then Porle had panicked.

  Yet I was sure that neither Porle nor Temple had had anything to do with the murder. Porle just wasn’t the sort to commit a murder, and from my special hidey-hole as unseen witness I had seen on Temple’s face and in his every action the certainty that a dead Maddon had been both surprise and shock. The interest of the two men therefore lay in what they revealed about Maddon himself. I was largely interested in that for Wharton’s sake and because I too was keen on discovering the whole history of Maddon. And a knowledge of Maddon might reveal the identity of his murderer. And there I suddenly thought of something startling. Temple had definitely expected to find something in the desk. But it hadn’t been there, and, what was more, the police had discovered nothing. Therefore the murderer had taken it. And why should the murderer take it? What was the point? To use it against Temple and so keep Temple’s mouth shut? But shut against what? For once I was stumped for a theory. And yet I know now that if I had eaten less for lunch and had been feeling more mentally alert, I could have found an answer, and so for the second time in that case there was a vital clue right under my nose, and myself not able to see it.

  Perhaps I should have arrived at it in a few minutes if Annie had not called to me that I was wanted on the ’phone. It was Santon.

  “Hallo, Major,” he said cheerfully. “Got anything on this afternoon?”

  “Devil a thing,” I said.^

  “Well, I’ve got to see a man at Bycliffe and then another in Porthaven. Like to ride round with me?”

  “I’d love it,” I said.

  “Right-ho, then,” he told me. “I’ll pick you up at three.”

  I went up to get myself into more ornate garments and then thought I’d stroll along to the house and so save his petrol. There was ample time, and as it was an afternoon of merciless heat I thought I’d take the back path through the woods, so I left word with Annie that I’d be out to tea and then set leisurely off.

  Just as I’d passed the cross paths I met Mary Carter. We both smiled like very old friends.

  “Off shopping?” I said, eyeing the basket.

  “Isn’t it a nuisance?”

  “You mean points and things,” I said. “What’s Clarice doing?”

  “She has to sleep in the afternoon,” she told me.

  “A bit of an effort, isn’t it?”

  She laughed; a lovely, infectious sort of laugh. “Oh, yes; there’s always rather an argument.”

  “And Mrs. Chevalle?”

  “She was busy with a caller,” she said. “Someone to see Major Chevalle, but he buttonholed Thora instead. I didn’t catch the name. A Mr. Warden I think it was.”

  I didn’t enlighten her, though I might have done so tactfully enough, but I think I was just the least bit startled at Wharton’s pertinacity in following up what could have been to him only the ghost of a clue. At that moment there came a fortunate diversion for a grey squirrel ran across the path almost at our feet.

  “Isn’t it a shame that the farmers shoot all the squirrels,” she said.

  I told her the difference between the grey and the red. In fact, I said, if I had a nice little rifle and some ammunition, I’d try to eliminate some grey squirrels myself.

  “I hate the thought of shooting anything,” she said, and there was nothing affected about the remark. “And I hate guns. Thora had a little gun—revolver I suppose you’d call it—in a drawer of hers I had to go to one day and it was just like seeing a snake.”

  “Perhaps you were a squirrel in a former existence,” I told her laughingly.

  “Not much of a squirrel about me,” she said. “I don’t know what I was. A camel probably.”

  There seemed a quiet irony in that allusion to beasts of burden. I changed the subject to that of our next meeting and suggested tea on Sunday, and the invitation to be passed on to Mrs. Chevalle and Clarice. Then we smiled a good-bye to each other and went our ways. I was still smiling as one does when something pleasant lingers in the mind. Mary Carter lingered in mine so that not even the thought of Wharton at Bassetts, or a gun in a drawer, could move her from it. A real man’s woman, I was telling myself, and that was the highest mark my appraisement could ever give. And a fine wife she’d have made for Chevalle if their worl
d had gone less tragically awry.

  I still had time to spare when I reached Little Foxes. Dewball was mowing the tennis court with a scythe and making heavy going of it. He paused while we agreed that it was a blazing hot day, then Santon heard me and came through the hedge arch.

  “Hallo!” he said. “Glad to see somebody in this ruddy village who’s on time. But you shouldn’t have walked all this way.”

  He hadn’t been waiting, he said, but he was ready when I was. So we moved off to the garage. The Morris saloon had had a good wash down and a polish and very nice she looked. He was finicky about cars, he told me. Liked to see them natty. Had an idea they went better. Just like golf clubs. Clean ones always seemed to improve his game.

  Off we went and I must say it was very pleasant, with the windows down and he driving fairly slowly so that I could have a good view of the countryside.

  “A pity you weren’t here for our Wings for Victory week,” he told me amusedly. “We might have stung you for a nice little sum.”

  “You’d have had your work cut out,” I said. “Oh, and something I meant to ask you. That War Savings’ rally you were at, at Southbridge. I know the town pretty well. What’s it like since the Blitz?”

  “The hell of a mess,” he said. “You’d never recognise it.”

  “Lucky they missed the Civic Centre,” I said. “Or wasn’t it?”

  He didn’t follow that.

  “It wasn’t everybody’s idea of perfection,” I explained. “Rather like an elaborate cornflour shape. Can’t touch the Norwich one.”

  “Don’t know Norwich,” he said, “but the Southbridge one’s still there—or most of it.”

  “I hope that big concert room is intact,” I said. “I’ll certainly hand it to them over that. I expect that’s where your rally was.”

  He laughed. “I’m no ruddy architect. A damn big room with a platform that’s all I know. That’s Bycliffe, by the way. Perched on top of that hill.”

  “A fine view out to sea,” I said.

  “Not so good as you’d think,” he told me. “The Hun has given it a pasting or two.”

  The hill was steep and winding and he had to drop into bottom gear. But the view from the top was really superb, even if the sea was hidden by the far cliffs. A pleasant, straggly village it was with a fine old church and green, and it was quite near the church, and under a huge chestnut tree, that he drew in the car.

  “I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes,” he told me. “What are you going to do? Have a look round? Or there’s a wireless in the back if you’d like to switch it on.”

  I said I’d be perfectly happy either sitting in the car or strolling round. But I thought wirelesses in cars had gone out of fashion.

  “I like to listen to the news when I’m on the run round,” he said. “As a matter of fact, this particular set was one my missis had in hers and I snaffled it when I sold the car.”

  I sat on for a minute or two and I couldn’t help smiling at nothing in particular; just the thought of the sailor’s fondness for gadgets, and how full of beans Santon always was. Then I thought I’d stretch my legs. So I got out and took a stroll past the church in search of the best view from the hill. It seemed to be from the churchyard wall so I went through the swing gate. A man was tidying up the churchyard by swopping the grass from paths and graves. He was making heavy going of it, but from a quite different reason from that which had made Tom Dewball sweat. Tom had been coping with a heavy crop. This was only a nuisance crop and dry at that, so that the swop had nothing at which to bite.

  “Afternoon, sir,” he said, and straightened himself and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “A warm afternoon,” I said. “A pity you couldn’t have cut that grass last Saturday morning when the rain was on it.”

  “Rain, sir?” he said. “Not on Saturday there weren’t.”

  “But surely,” I said. “That was when we had the thunderstorm.”

  He had caught the “we” and was asking if I was staying in Bycliffe. I told him I was from Cleavesham and he grinned.

  “Now I’ll show you, sir,” he said, and made a sweep with his arm in the direction of the Channel. “Them storms always come from over there, right as far as you can see. Then they split up. One lot go out to sea and just catch Cleavesham, and the other go more round like, then they sometimes join up. But not once in a hundred times do we catch anything of it. Regular galling, it is. You can sort of see the rain dropping on Cleavesham and here there ain’t so much as a drop what’d lay the dust. And something else I’ll tell you, sir.”

  We stood there yarning about vagaries of weather and when I happened to glance at my watch I saw that I was late. So I slipped him a tip to drink my health and hurried back to the car. It was another five minutes when Santon turned up. He was full of apologies and blasting hell out of those who got muddled in their War Savings accounts.

  I suggested tea, if there was anywhere handy. There was—a quite nice guest-house place. I bought a basket of early tomatoes there for Helen and another for the Chevalles, and it was nearly five o’clock when we got on the move again. Towards Porthaven the road was far less interesting, and the town itself I never did like, with its stucco-fronted boarding-houses along its garish main parade. Now, with its beach all barbed wire and concrete, bombed gaps in the stucco, and plaster peeling from its walls, there was a bravery about its tawdriness.

  I sat in the car till Santon had finished his last job of work, but it wasn’t a long one, and it was still short of six o’clock when we reached Bassetts. The front door was open and no one in sight, so I deposited my basket of tomatoes and sprinted back to the car. As I was closing the front gate Clarice hailed me.

  “Hallo!” I said. “Playing hide-and-seek again?”

  “Was it for me, that basket?” she said.

  “Young lady, you see too much,” I told her. “Do you know you’re coming to tea with me on Sunday?”

  I left her to think that over.

  “An old-fashioned one that,” Santon said. “Takes after the old man.”

  “I like them like that,” I said. “Mary’s a charming girl too.”

  He didn’t make any comment on that, perhaps because I was telling him that I’d walk the short distance to Ringlands. But he wouldn’t hear of it, and deposited me and the tomatoes at the front gate.

  “Very good of you,” I said. “And thank you for a damn good afternoon.”

  “We’ll have one or two more,” he told me, and then grinned as he moved the gear to reverse. “A bit more lively next time.”

  “No you don’t,” I told him, but he only laughed as he backed the car round. I smiled to myself too, as I went down the path, and then the smile became slightly cynical. So Santon thought of Chevalle as “the old man.” That put me in the same category too.

  “Had a good time?” Helen said.

  “Very nice indeed,” I told her. “Bycliffe’s a very charming spot.”

  She smiled at the sight of the tomatoes, and then told me I’d missed Wharton. He’d come to beg to use the telephone and then had stayed to tea.

  “He would,” I said, and then guilefully: “I hope you collected the cash for his calls.”

  “My dear, he was frightfully extravagant,” she said. “He rang supervisor to ask the charges and how much do you think they were?”

  “Ten bob?” I said airily.

  “Twelve and sixpence!”

  “No wonder Income Tax is ten bob in the pound,” I said. “And did he say anything about seeing me?”

  “Yes, he said he’d be seeing you in the morning.”

  “Very good of him,” I said, and she looked at me as if I’d uttered some blood-curdling blasphemy.

  I was just in time for some of the news, and as we listened to it I was paying a very formal attention. Those calls of Wharton’s, I thought, must have been to the Yard. Maybe he had been telling them he was sending them another platinum hair. And another c
igarette, perhaps, and with lipstick on it. Maybe he had even wormed out of somebody—and he wouldn’t have stopped short of questioning Clarice—just where Thora Chevalle was supposed to have spent that short holiday in town, and he was arranging to have the friend closely questioned.

  “What makes you so restless?” Helen asked me, for I had got to my feet and was polishing my glasses. “Has the afternoon made you too tired?”

  I sat down again and said it was probably an uneasy conscience. She didn’t take it at all flippantly, even if she did smile faintly as she told me with a hint of reproof that that was what came of spending an afternoon with Commander Santon.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE SHOWDOWN

  I didn’t see Wharton the following day. When I came down to breakfast I found a note for me, sent from the Wheatsheaf. He had been recalled urgently to Town, he said, but would be back late that night and hoped to see me the morning after that. I wondered when he had actually left for Town, and after breakfast I went to the Wheatsheaf and had a word with the landlord, who was doing some hoeing in his garden. He said Wharton had left Cleavesham last night by the eight o’clock bus to catch the eight-thirty from Porthaven, a train which would get him to Town about ten-fifteen.

  It seemed to me that getting to Town at that time of night wouldn’t mean any sort of conference, but more probably a full day ahead and the need to be on the job in the early morning. What that job was I could very well guess, but I didn’t let it worry me too much. As far as Thora Chevalle was concerned, the case was acquiring an inevitability and nothing I could do would deflect or deter. If she were guilty, then she was guilty, and tragic though the results might be for people in whom I was already more than interested, justice had to take its course. If she were innocent, so much the better. Wharton was tremendously discreet, I’ll say that for him, and no possible suspicion of scandal would be attached to her name.