The Elder Ice: A Harry Stubbs Adventure

by Hambling, David

  “Or shrapnel.”

  I shook my head. I had spent the war lugging sixty-pound bursting shells, and we had suffered the effect of counter-battery fire by German fifteen-centimetre guns. One man might be decapitated, but not three, and the mess was far greater.

  “Not much blood,” Arthur added. He had calmed down now and was looking at it more rationally. “The straw soaked up what there was, but there wasn’t much to begin with.”

  Something stirred in the straw, and I had the horrible impression that one of the heads was moving, working its jaws to speak something except it had no breath.

  “Garn!” shouted Arthur, and a rat scuttled away through the straw. It had been chewing at the soft meat of the severed neck. “Vermin everywhere.”

  Then I saw the biscuit tin. It was open and lying empty a few feet away from one of the bodies. Next to it was a white object that proved to be a piece of crumpled tissue paper. There was, of course, no sign of what it had wrapped. I took both the tin and the tissue.

  “This is only three of the men,” I said. “What about the other?”

  “He doesn’t signify right now. What bothers me is these three dead ’uns here. Now, I’m going to make them disappear somewhere they won’t easily be found. The last thing I want is police and murder investigations stirring things up—especially when it leads back to Harry Stubbs, known to be an acquaintance of mine.”

  “The police might think you’d arranged it. A sort of revenge for the attack outside the Hero.”

  “They might well suspect that,” he said patiently. “And they might stumble over a few other things in their size nines while they were about it. So what I’m saying is, are you going to give me any more grief?”

  “I hadn’t the foggiest that this could happen. There’s money at stake—perhaps thousands of pounds—but Mr Rowe never hinted there might be criminal gangs in it.”

  “I trust you.” Arthur looked over the dismal scene. “But I think you should have a word with your Mr Rowe. I don’t think he’s playing straight with you. If the other one shows up, and I’m sure he will, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “You’re a pal, Arthur.”

  “Keep looking over your shoulder, Stubbsy. This ain’t over yet.”

  Round Seven: The Mastermind

  Once more I squared up to write a report on my investigation and struggled with what to leave out and what to include. The failure of my attempts to retrieve Shackleton’s treasure-box was one thing; the dead Irishmen were another matter entirely. In the end, I eschewed any attempt at picking and choosing and laid the whole thing before Mr Rowe to use his superior understanding and judgement, neglecting only mention of Arthur. The greatest danger, I surmised, was that I would omit a vital piece of evidence. If Mr Rowe wanted to go to the police, so be it.

  All I had to show for my expedition was a piece of tissue paper and empty biscuit tin. The tin, from Huntley and Palmer, yielded no information, but the paper was more informative. The contents had perforce imprinted the wrapping. It was ordinary tissue paper, a type commonly used to wrap delicate clothing and other items, of double thickness, white in colour, of ordinary manufacture and not especially old. Judging from the creases, it had been folded up inside the box. I looked for crumbs or fibres and found nothing. I sniffed the paper, a faint residue of wood and dry earth.

  I tried folding and refolding the paper, and concluded it had wrapped a flat object perhaps five inches across with five equal projections. A medallion or ornament in the shape of a star. Perhaps a piece of jewellery—or a fossil.

  By the end of the morning, I had completed my report. I submitted it to Mr Rowe, with the tissue paper as an enclosure duly noted, via Mrs Crawford. Fortunately, another matter relating to the repossession of a motorcar called me away, and my mind was distracted.

  The murder—and it must have been murder—of the three Irishmen was a puzzle too deep for me. Obviously, one of them had coshed me and taken the box, and a third party had then taken it off them. But I could not even speculate whom they were working for, never mind who else may be involved.

  The next day the office seemed livelier than usual, and I soon apprehended that Mrs Crawford was not at her desk. In her absence, the outer office took on the air of a schoolroom without a teacher. I found two messages waiting for me, one an office memorandum about the excessive use of vellum paper for unimportant documents. The other was from Mr Rowe and was most mysterious. It instructed me to make my way to the Upper Norwood recreation ground to a certain bench, where I would receive further instruction. I was on no account to let anyone else know where I was going.

  It was a clear, bright morning, and the sun made a pretty show on the frost, but the wind was too sharp unless you were walking briskly. I passed housewives with baskets on their way to the shops, delivery boys on foot and on bicycle, a postman finishing his morning rounds, a group of children from the Blind School led in a crocodile by a teacher. The world was going about its regular business.

  The Recreation ground was a large rectangular area consisting of playing fields at one end and a landscaped section at the other. Consulting my instructions, I located the bench directed. Nobody was in sight except a pair of municipal gardeners digging up flowerbeds in anticipation of spring. The ground was hard frozen, and that was an optimistic task.

  “Good morning, Mr Stubbs,” Mrs Crawford greeted me cordially and indicated I should remain seated. “A chilly morning, I'm afraid, but we need a secluded spot away from other ears.” She was wearing a long coat trimmed with fur, patent leather shoes, a black hat, and carried a large handbag and a black umbrella. She remained standing as she spoke. Outside the office, she seemed different from her usual self. I had never seen her without her reading glasses. “This will be a morning of revelations. Firstly and most importantly, you are about to become a wealthy man—if you're able to follow my instructions.”

  “Your instructions?”

  “Yes, mine. In fact, you've been following them for some time. That is one of the things about which I must undeceive you. I'm afraid the world is not as kind and generous a place as you have been led to believe,” she said sadly. “Solicitors’ firms are not apt to give golden opportunities to boxers with no qualifications and a taste for adventure stories. Mr Rowe has not been taking a personal interest in your career.”

  “Yes, he is,” I protested automatically. “I have had many words of encouragement from him and some very flattering reports on my performance.”

  “I'm afraid not. You may have received messages in his name, but he wrote not one of them. Your employment as Latham and Rowe was entirely on my initiative. The partners believe you are kept on to help with debt collection duties and the like. They have no idea of the terms of your engagement. In effect, you have been working entirely for me.”

  This shocking news took some time to digest.

  “My interest,” Mrs Crawford went on, “is in the Shackleton case. Again, Mr Rowe has no idea the firm is still pursuing it. As far as he's concerned, it's a dead letter. Only you and I know otherwise.”

  “But Mrs Crawford, why?”

  “Mr Stubbs, have you met a single person in your investigations who genuinely believed that Shackleton had anything of value? I think not. The world is persuaded that he was nothing but a wild adventurer, a treasure-hunter who never found treasure. But we know different. We know he found Aladdin's cave.”

  “How do we know that? And what did he find? What was in that biscuit tin?”

  “That is the answer to the mystery and the gold at the end of the rainbow. I will explain more at the proper time. The only question now is whether you are willing to walk the final mile with me and claim the reward for your labours.”

  I considered the proposition, tried to gauge what she was asking of me and what was at stake. “My position at Latham and Rowe,” I started.

  “Put it out of your mind.” She shook her head. “I have submitted my resignation, ‘for personal reasons’ wit
h immediate effect, and it has been accepted. I have destroyed the paperwork relating to the Shackleton legacy. If you go back, you will not have a post, and there are likely to be some difficulties over your employment there. Our bridges are well and truly burned, Mr Stubbs. We must look forward.”

  The mention of Shackleton’s name made me think of him and the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Endurance Expedition in 1914. When the Endurance had been stuck in the ice for months and then crumpled like an empty tin can, Shackleton’s dream of crossing the Antarctic disappeared – the pressing matter then was how they could ever get home alive.

  The gardeners had dug two rows, and in that time, my dream of being a lawyer’s clerk had sunk. What of my life I could salvage? “You mentioned wealth,” I said.

  “Yes. Again, I can explain more later. But you may trust me when I say there will be more money than you can imagine.” Mrs Crawford’s eyes were steely blue, and she had a quality about her you might call resolution. If she were a man, she might have been a leader.

  “It is not that I doubt you, but I feel a more thorough explanation of how this wealth is to be obtained, and the legalities of the situation, are in order.”

  Mrs Crawford blinked. “Legalities? Mr Stubbs, we are to retrieve some property which rightfully belongs to the Shackleton estate, and which was stolen—with violence, I might add—from you yourself. As we are still acting pro tem for Latham and Rowe, we are entirely on the side of the law. And I assure you the finder’s fee will be a king’s ransom at the least.”

  The proposition had become much simpler. I was to continue acting just as before, in pursuit of Shackleton’s mysterious treasure. “Why have you told me this?” I said at last. “Why not just issue another letter under Mr Rowe's name?”

  “Firstly, because I need to be part of the expedition. Secondly, because you will become party to some extraordinary information, and I wish you to be prepared for it.”

  The prospect of vast wealth, and getting a little of my own back on the individual who struck me from behind, both enticed me. But the lure of adventure really drew me on. The same that lures a man to step into the ring, heedless of the risk that he will be beaten black and blue. “Will you at least tell me why we may not conduct matters through the usual channels for recovering stolen property from a malefactor?”

  “When you sensed a presence in the summerhouse, it was no illusion. And those misfortunate Irishmen did not die by any normal means, as you must realise.”

  “Who killed them?”

  “Not ‘who’ but ‘what’. A force that the regular authorities are singularly ill-equipped to deal with. You needn't frown so, Mr Stubbs. I have my own sources of intelligence, and I’m confident of bringing matters to a successful conclusion. If,” she added, “you are with me. That will mean following my instructions promptly and without question.”

  “I can do that.”

  “I was sure you could. You will hear some very strange things this morning. I want you to ignore them as far as possible, and keep your attention riveted to the men with whom we are dealing. They are exceptionally dangerous. Take your eyes off them, and we’ll both have our throats cut.”

  Her frank language took me aback. Mrs Crawford was not at all the woman I had taken her to be. She might have been Boudicca, with the sun glinting from her auburn pompadour under her hat.

  “I am with you,” I said at length.

  “Good man. Now, may I ask you to fetch a cab and meet me at the entrance to the park here?”

  “Very good, Mrs Crawford.”

  I hurried off with a strange feeling of exaltation. I was not looking back to the ruined career behind me; I was looking forward to the encounter to come, with the prospect of danger and riches. The sun was sparkling on the frosty lawns, and I was gambling everything. I believe I might have started whistling.

  Round Eight: The Collector

  We left the cab two streets away from our destination. Mrs Crawford walked ahead of me at a smart pace, swinging her rolled umbrella purposefully. I followed with slow strides, one step to her two.

  “You recognise the address?” she asked, stopping outside a town house with a brass knocker in the shape of a fist. The area had once been respectable but was now less so; I knew it well from my debt-collecting days, knew how little money there was on this street. A curtain across the road jerked.

  “The collector,” I said. “The one who buys anything Shackleton touched.”

  “Exactly. Harcourt is his name. We require the element of surprise, so I’ll ask you to break the door down, if you please, Mr Stubbs.”

  Doors, as I have said, have a largely symbolic value in repelling intruders. That said, some are more stoutly secured than others. I put my fingertips close to the jamb, gauging its strength and where it was bolted. I took a half step back and directed a kick at the lock.

  The deadbolt was all that held it; at my impulse, the door flew open. Metal fittings clattered across the stone floor beyond.

  “Meredith, we’re in,” I said, a line from an old song that always seems very apt on these occasions.

  “The bailiffs have come and they mean to collect,” declared Mrs Crawford, stepping over the threshold into the bare, shadowy hall. I judged it cheap accommodation, left unfurnished. “Mr Stubbs, kindly intercept anyone who attempts to interfere.”

  She had barely spoken these words when a man in shirtsleeves and braces came through a doorway to my right. He grabbed a walking stick leaning in one corner and was raising it to strike at me when I hit him with a straight left to the abdomen, a right to his chin, and a left to the side of his face. It was instinctive boxing but sound. When you work the drills long enough, the combinations come out right without having to think. He was only a small man, and it was a clean knockout.

  I recognised my would-be assailant from the fight outside the pub. The fourth of the Irishmen, the man with the knife. No wonder his face was already bruised.

  “His name is Connell, and he’s a criminal known to the police,” said Mrs Crawford. “Keep hold of him.”

  I patted Connell for a knife and found nothing. We had caught him unprepared.

  Then she turned and called up the stairs in a ringing voice, “Good morning. I am Mrs Geraldine Crawford, from the firm of Latham and Rowe of upper Norwood, representing the creditors to the estate of the late Sir Ernest Shackleton. I have reason to believe that you are in possession of property pertaining to the estate, and I wish to discuss the matter.”

  “You had better come upstairs, then,” came the quiet reply.

  We could not see the speaker, who was up on the second landing. Mrs Crawford indicated I bring the man who had attacked me; I half-dragged, half-carried him, and we went upstairs at a brisk pace.

  A tall, sandy-haired gentleman with a moustache greeted us on the landing. He was wearing a good tweed suit and a watch chain. I would have said he was fifty.

  “Roger Harcourt,” she said.

  “Geraldine Crawford,” said the other. “And I'd like to mention that if you attempt violence, my associate will be forced to restrain you.”

  I must have cut a menacing figure, coming out of the shadows and tossing aside the still-stunned Connell with one hand. He took a step back.

  “Purely a precaution,” Mrs Crawford went on. “I do want to talk to you, Mr Harcourt, and I don't want you doing anything precipitate to prevent our talking.”

  “Indeed.” Harcourt showed us in to a room furnished sparsely and rather cheaply with second-hand items. A bachelor’s room, the study or workroom of a man with varied interests. A side table held decanters and a dozen glasses, none of them clean. An odd assortment of old books, well bound and perhaps valuable, packed the shelf behind him, but nothing else in the room indicated wealth or taste.

  The large table at one end, which I instantly identified as a collection of items relating to Sir Ernest, was the room’s most remarkable feature. There were skis, winter coats, travelling chests, an ice axe hanging from it
s leather thong, even pairs of snowshoes like crude tennis rackets.

  Harcourt scowled at Connell, who took a seat in the corner. I went to search Harcourt for weapons, but Mrs Crawford indicated it would not be necessary. He sat behind the desk, and we sat in front of it in mismatched easy chairs, as though we had come into his office to make a request.

  The desk was spread with an unusual display of impedimenta: a wooden case of jewellers’ screwdrivers, a long wooden pointer, a corkscrew, a penny whistle, a magnifying lens, an old hearing trumpet, a candle and matches, and a many-bladed pocketknife with a scaling instrument extended. I thought of the tray of assorted items in Kim’s game. Only the ashtray full of cigar stubs made sense. A notebook, a couple of books whose titles I could not see, and a scrap of ancient leather marked with a five-sided pattern or picture, also lay there.

  “Mr Harcourt is the younger brother of Sir Edward Harcourt of Effra Hall,” Mrs Crawford informed me. “He was a friend of Ernest Shackleton for some years. Mr Harcourt, this is my associate, Mr Stubbs.”

  Knowing who he was, I could see his type. The younger brother, a man without any trade, profession, or prospects. He had to make his way by means of his social connections and the opportunities and knowledge they afforded. I knew his sort as gamblers, at the ring and the racetrack. A few of them were always about. They patronised fighters or owned shares in horses. Many of them played cards with those who could afford to lose. Harcourt’s face showed signs of years of late nights and drinking. Judging from his surroundings, I would say he was not a successful gambler.

  Harcourt’s gaze barely flicked over me, as though I was merely a hired thug. A more sensitive man might have been insulted, but his assumption was understandable, especially given the state of his front door.

  For my part, I belatedly recognised him as the man with the bushy beard in the train from Chichester and in the Conquering Hero. The beard was a false stage prop, no doubt.

  “What may I do for you, Mrs Crawford?” he asked, completely composed. “You must have a good reason for forced entry into a man's house.”