The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “I trust you too,” I said. “That’s necessary, you see. We’ve got to tell each other a whole lot of things and keep nothing back. Is that a bargain?”

  “Yes. It’s a bargain.”

  “Then you begin by telling me what’s worrying Thora,” I said.

  She was full of it, and of indignation too. Wharton had threatened to arrest her for the murder of Maddon.

  “It’s ridiculous!” she blazed at me. “He must be mad! How could she have done such a thing? And why?”

  “Steady, young lady!” I said. “You listen to the other side—Wharton’s side.”

  That calmed her down. By the time I’d finished massing that accumulation of evidence I could see she was badly shaken.

  “Where is Mrs. Chevalle?” I asked her.

  “Lying down,” she said. “She didn’t come down at all to-night. She’s simply crazy with worry.”

  “And Major Chevalle?”

  “In the house,” she said. “I said I had a headache and made that an excuse for a walk.”

  “Whose suggestion was it that you should see me?”

  “Mine,” she said. “Thora jumped at it too.”

  “What was I expected to do?”

  “Well,” she said hesitatingly, “I thought you knew Mr. Wharton pretty well. Dick told me that, and I thought you’d be able to point out how impossible it was. I mean that Thora should have done such a thing.”

  “It’s all very simple then,” I said. “You see, you can’t commit a murder if you’re somewhere else when it was done—unless you use mechanical means, like a time bomb, and that wasn’t the case with Maddon’s murder. He was shot, and at a definite time. All Mrs. Chevalle has to do is to prove an alibi.”

  “That’s what I told her,” she said. “But she won’t. She’s just obstinate about it.”

  “Isn’t obstinate a mild word? Would you call a person obstinate who refused to save her own neck? In fact, oughtn’t we to ask ourselves if Mrs. Chevalle can or dare say where she was at the time of that murder?”

  She gave me a frightened look. Then she frowned as if she were thinking of something.

  “Do you mind if I’m uncommonly frank?” I said.

  “I want you to be,” she told me earnestly.

  “Then I’ll tell you one of my impressions of Mrs. Chevalle. I think she’s the least bit over-sexed. I happen to know the relationship between her and her husband, and my view definitely is that she has to have a man in the offing somewhere.” If I’d been arguing with Wharton I’d have left out those last four words. “To be blunt, I think she was not spending a holiday with a girl friend. In fact, Wharton proved to her that she’d told him lies about that. You see what I’m getting at?”

  “Yes,” she said, and bit her lip.

  “And you don’t disagree?”

  She shook her head.

  “If what I think is right,” I went on, “then everything’s explained. She didn’t do the murder, but she daren’t prove an alibi. If she spent that holiday with some man, then she gives Chevalle grounds for an immediate divorce. And she’d lose the custody of the child. Unless, of course . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless she really did shoot Maddon.”

  “Yes, but why should she shoot Maddon?”

  “It’s our belief, and Mrs. Chevalle hasn’t denied it, that Maddon was blackmailing her.”

  Her eyes opened wide at that.

  “If a woman philanders extensively,” I pointed out, “then she lays herself open to being found out. The world’s a small place. Or Maddon may have known of some earlier indiscretion.”

  “How horrible people are!”

  “Human nature,” I said, and then there was a long half-minute of silence. There was a smell of honeysuckle from a thorn clump near us, and the whole dusk was still and scented. Never would there be so intimate and so lonely a moment.

  “Will you tell me something, Mary?” I said gently.

  “What is it,” she asked, and as if she felt that intimacy too.

  “You needn’t tell it to me,” I said. “Just say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “You love Chevalle, don’t you?”

  She was holding herself very still and the smile was for herself.

  “And if I do?”

  “And he loves you?”

  “And if he does?” she said, and then at last looked at me.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I just wanted to be sure.”

  “Life’s queer,” she said. “Hasn’t it treated you queerly sometimes?”

  “Not as much as I deserved,” I said. “But you didn’t say it as some people do—as if you had a grievance?”

  “I’m not bitter about things,” she said. “In a way I suppose, I’m happy.”

  “Tell me about yourself,” I said. “When you were a girl and everything.”

  She told me, and there wasn’t a lot to tell. Thora’s father and hers were brothers, and each made his own way in the world. Thora’s father began as a bricklayer and rose to be a master builder. Mary’s father made his way by scholarships and became a music teacher. He was gassed in the last war and then I gathered the small family of three had a bad time. Thora’s father helped surreptitiously, but he had against him his wife and Thora herself. They were ashamed of the poor relations and Thora was jealous of Mary’s success in winning a scholarship to a good school.

  Though Mary spoke with no bitterness, I gathered that Thora thought that as a poor relation Mary should have had the usual schooling to fourteen or so, and then have gone to work to support her parents.

  “My mother died first,” Mary said, “and I left school to look after father. He died only a month later. I was eighteen then and I got a post as nursery-governess. Then Thora married and Clarice came, and Thora persuaded me to come here.”

  “Where she could at last definitely have you in a position of subservience.”

  “Not altogether that,” she said. “Besides, I was glad to come.”

  “How does she really treat you?”

  “It’s how she treats Richard that’s so . . . so galling,” she said. “She’s maddening. And he never says a word.”

  “But you,” I said. “How does she treat you?”

  “Sometimes I hate her!” She said that with a passionate vehemence. “She’s selfish, and mean and paltry . . . and horrible. Then she’ll be decent for a bit. Not to Richard—to me. Then it begins all over again.”

  The shadows of the wood and the gathering dusk made her almost invisible now, but I caught a glint of her hair as she suddenly turned.

  “What’s the time? Richard will wonder whatever’s happened.”

  “I’ll see you home,” I said. “There oughtn’t to be anybody on the path now.”

  “No, no,” she said. “There’s another path to the road. I’ll go that way.”

  “Then I’ll see you as far as that,” I insisted.

  We went quietly and it was only as we neared the road that I remembered something.

  “You still haven’t asked me what I can do to help,” I said.

  “What can you do?”

  “For her, nothing,” I said. “She can save herself if she wishes. For you—well, I don’t know. Stick your chin out and keep it out.”

  I felt her smile at that. “And what can I tell Thora?” she asked as we stopped at the last stile.

  “Tell her to tell the truth. Wharton’s a hard one where duty’s concerned. Whatever he’s said he’ll do, then he’ll do it.”

  “I’m sure she’ll never tell.”

  “Well, do your best,” I said. “If it will help in any way you can use my name.”

  “Perhaps I will,” she said, and hesitated, foot on the stile. “I don’t know how I can repay you.”

  “There’s nothing to repay,” I said. “But you can answer me one last question if you like. It’s this. Was to-night the first time you had an idea that she was suspected of having anything to do with Maddon?
”

  “But, of course!” she said. “That’s why it was such a shock.”

  She went then and I followed her after a minute or two. It was close on black-out time, so I made my way up to bed at once, but sleep came far too slowly. Yet somehow, with the interests of Mary Carter and Chevalle so much nearer and more personal, I should have been glad that my theory of Mary’s complicity had been proved so utterly wrong. Perhaps the knowledge did please me, but it brought other trains of thought, and it even brought a wholly new theory. So startling was that theory that I actually sat up in bed and found myself reaching out to the bedside table for my glasses.

  Then a happier thought came and drove it from my mind, for I suddenly remembered a character who seemed to have dropped out. Pyramid Porle—and I couldn’t help smiling to myself at the thought of him. The bland satisfaction on that pudgy face of his when he came by me that night after affixing his gaudy notice. The magnificence of his gestures, his florid courtesies and his superb unbendings.

  “Yes,” I was telling myself just before I slipped into sleep. “I must certainly ask Wharton what’s being done about Pyramid Porle.”

  CHAPTER XI

  EVE OF ACTION

  There was to follow a day of comparative inaction; of lull, if you like, before the last shattering event. For me it was a day of odds and ends, and though I didn’t know it at the time, its apparently trivial events were pregnant with information. Take the new theory of mine, for instance, which had made me sit up in bed. The morning exhibited it in a pretty poor light and I knew it had been the ephemeral off-spring of dark woods, the scent of honeysuckle and the trustfulness of a pretty woman. Yet before that day was out I had reinstated that theory and thereafter, whatever I said openly or did, it remained in the background of my mind.

  In the morning I took a stroll round to the east of the village and as it was still half an hour to lunch-time when I came to the Wheatsheaf, I thought I’d look in. Five men were there, not counting the landlord. One was watching a game of darts, and one of the four contestants was Wharton. He gave me only a nod as if I were a casual acquaintance.

  All the pots had just been filled so I had only myself to pay for. Wharton’s side had got their double and were well away, and George was crowing. I uttered a silent prayer for the others to get going, and doubtless in answer, they did. And to some purpose. A double top, a treble twenty and a double nineteen—a hundred and eighteen. Wharton grunted, then threw his darts. Three ones that all skimmed the twenty. Then the enemy popped up with a treble eighteen and two twelves, and George’s lead had vanished. His partner chipped in with a fifty-four and George cheered up again. Two more throws from the others and it was all over. Fifty-two the last man wanted. His first dart was a twenty, his second a sixteen and his third caught the wire of the double eight and stuck the right side. The onlooker hastily emptied his mug and hoped for a refill by the losers.

  George paid up with a good grace, but he didn’t ask me to have one. When he’d finished his tot he asked, for the benefit of the room, if I had come about that little matter. I said I had, if he wasn’t too busy. With a “Better luck next time, sir,” in his ears he led the way to his room.

  “Never saw such a lucky thrower as that little fat fellow,” he told me. “What brought you round? Found out something?”

  I said I’d come to ask him the same question, and his reply was an immediate snort. He’d got rid of Galley and the man, and had gone through Five Oaks with a sieve and a microscope and hadn’t found a thing.

  “No news about that man Porle yet?” I asked.

  “I rang up only this morning,” he said. “Nothing about him at all. They’re checking taxis now. He probably had to have one, with all that luggage.”

  “What about intermediate stations?” I asked.

  “All been tried,” he said. “He didn’t get off there.”

  “And Temple?”

  “He was out,” he said. “I might have a look at him this afternoon.”

  “Have you got that photograph handy?” I asked him. “That one of Mrs. Beaney’s.”

  “Do you think Maddon really threw it away?” he said as he unlocked his case.

  “I don’t,” I said. “I think she helped herself to it. And if you ask me, I think it’s the last thing Maddon would have thrown away.”

  His eyebrows raised at that. “You think it was part of his blackmail equipment?”

  “Don’t you?” I said, and waited while he had a good look at the photograph himself.

  “That girl,” he said, and frowned. “Nothing of Mrs. Chevalle in her.”

  “For a very good reason,” I said. “She wasn’t born when it was taken.”

  He gave me a glare at that. “That boy too. Doesn’t remind me of anybody. Unless it’s Temple.”

  “Temple!” I said, and reached for the photograph. “Don’t know, George. I don’t see much resemblance. Not that there would be. All boys look alike. At least when they’re being told to watch for the dicky-bird.” Then I frowned. “And yet—”

  “And yet what?”

  “Well, let’s see where logic gets us,” I said. “We think Maddon was blackmailing two people. Mrs. Chevalle and Temple. The photograph couldn’t have been used against Mrs. Chevalle, and therefore it was used against Temple. Temple was in jail for four years and Maddon saw him there. Maybe Maddon was a member of some visiting commission, or Maddon might even have been in there himself.”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “If so we’d have had his prints.”

  “I’d forgotten that,” I said. “But that doesn’t bust the theory. You know the claim that if you stand at the entrance to Piccadilly Tube Station long enough you’ll see everyone you ever knew. That holds just as good for the front at Porthaven in peacetime. Maddon saw Temple there and recognised him.”

  “Very pretty. Very pretty indeed,” he told me. “Now if you’ll only tell me what that’s got to do with the photograph of a boy and girl, then I’ll see what can be done.” He snorted. “You and your theories!”

  “You want everything handed out on a gold salver,” I said. “I admit it isn’t a photograph of Temple in prison costume, but you’ll admit it ought to tell us something, if only we could find out what it is. It was important to Maddon. It was the only photograph we know he had. And it was dangerous, or he wouldn’t have cut off the photographer’s name and address.”

  “Well, that’s a dead end too,” he said as he locked the photograph up again. “There isn’t a photographer in Windsor who was established there all that time ago. We’ve got the names of one or two who were, but that’s a forlorn hope.”

  “You never know your luck,” I told him. “But come and have another drink and cheer yourself up.”

  But he wouldn’t do that. His lunch was almost due, he said, and so I left him to it. He also told me he had a hunch that Mrs. Chevalle might crack up that afternoon, so he was staying at the pub, just in case.

  I thought he was being rather optimistic, though I took good care not to hint as much. My own idea was that Mrs. Chevalle wouldn’t weaken till the moment of formal arrest, and then she’d spin a yarn with a bit more truth in it, in the hope of gaining more time. She’d have few scruples in making accusations against others and making herself out some sort of a victim.

  But I wasn’t worrying too much about Mrs. Chevalle. What I was thinking about was that new theory of mine, for something had already happened that morning to give me new faith in it. What I was looking for, then, was another fact or two to make that theory a really workable one, and it seemed to me that that photograph was a vital link in a chain of evidence if only I could fit it into its right place. But by the time I was back at Ringlands I had given up the attempt as hopeless. For the life of me I couldn’t fit that photograph in, and yet the annoying thing was that something more than intuition kept telling me that it could be fitted in. Later in the day, I told myself, I’d have another crack at it. For the moment, fitting that photograph into the the
ory was rather like trying to explain the murderous proclivities of Jack the Ripper by gazing at a print of The Maiden’s First Prayer.

  As soon as I got in, Helen told me that Commander Santon had rung me up. He wouldn’t leave a message and said I could ring him at any time before two o’clock. I rang him at once.

  “Morning, Major,” he said, still bright and breezy. “How are you this morning?”

  “Not too bad,” I said.

  “Like a little jaunt to-morrow?”

  “What time?” I said, thinking of Wharton’s zero hour.

  “The morning. Elevenish. Back for lunch.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’ll be at your place round about eleven.”

  “Don’t do that,” he said. “I’ve got to go to the village, so I’ll call for you on my way back.”

  Mary called that afternoon at about half-past three. Helen was doing some weeding in the borders so I stayed put in the summer-house and watched them going round the gardens. It was only when they came down the front path that I put in an appearance.

  We chatted for a bit and I thought it was rather artistic the way I contrived to maintain an argument with Mary that made it necessary for me to go with her a little way along the road.

  “Was I flattering myself too much,” I said when we were out of earshot of Helen. “Or didn’t you come to see me after all?”

  “I did and I didn’t,” she said.

  “Well, tell me how things are going.”

  “I don’t think Thora slept much last night,” she said. “I thought she looked ghastly when I took her a cup of tea early this morning. Then she went out and when she came back she was much more cheerful. I wondered if Mr. Wharton had changed his mind and let her know.”

  “Not he,” I said. “If she’s banking on that, she’s due for a shock. But you don’t think she’s made up her mind to own up?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and frowned.

  “Did you have to use my name?”

  “Not actually,” she said. “I said I’d been thinking things over. Then when I asked her to tell me if she’d been spending that time in Town with . . . with somebody else, she was simply livid. She used the most dreadful language, I simply had to go out of the room. But she dared me to say a word to Richard. She said she’d kill me if I did.”