A woman’s voice was speaking from Euston and a very efficient voice it sounded. The 1.30, she said, did not connect with the Belfast boat from Liverpool, but many people preferred taking it and completing the journey before black-out time. The first stop of the train in question had been Rugby, at 3.20.
“Suppose I got out of the train because I knew I had to get back to London for something urgent I’d forgotten,” I asked her. “At what time would there have been such a train?”
She said she’d find out, so I tried Who’s Who for Worrack and Hamson and the Hon. Harold Lewton-Molde. Not one was mentioned, and just as I had decided to damn all double-barrelled names and was thinking of calling one gentleman simply Molde, the Euston lady was speaking again.
“About your train, sir. There’d have been a quarter of an hour’s wait only. Leave Rugby 3.40; arrive London 5.35.”
“Thank you,” I said, “for some very efficient service.”
As I had an old Debrett I looked up Molde, and there he was. Second son of Lord Hasbury of Medham, and at that I raised my eyebrows. Hasbury, one of a moderately recent creation, was a custodian of the old Nonconformist conscience; a situation that recalled the plaintive question of Moody and Sankey—“Where is my wandering boy to-night?” The age of the Hon. Harold, as I worked it out, was thirty-seven.
Then, just by luck, I tried Worrack, and found that he also was the grandson of a peer, but one of the sporting kind. Worrack’s father was the Hon. Claude Worrack, though the name conveyed nothing to me. But it told me a good deal about my possible employer, and confirmed a bit more. It also set me thinking about the extraordinary collection of people with whom I was likely to come into contact. How was it that they all seemed to be dodging war duties, for instance; and quite logically, if they were never a damn of use to the country, then why in hell should I worry even my brains over their probably self-created troubles. I, and they, as the Pharisee in me said, would get along none too well. A queer crowd, I told myself, but a crowd that would always be with us: plenty of pals in the best places and still living like fighting-cocks, and scrounging petrol for the races, and finding the wherewithal to patronise places like Worrack’s.
It was still only just after twelve, so I sat down to wait, in case Worrack should call. But I didn’t begin to theorise, which was rather strange for me. Things, as I had told Worrack, were far too nebulous generally, and the situation in which I was placed was far too unusual. At any other time I could probably have found a theory to explain everything that Worrack had told me, if only because I have that particular kind of brain which pops theoretically off at the slightest pressure on the trigger. George Wharton has been heavily sarcastic about that propensity of mine, though I prefer to call it a gift. And why should he grumble? Even if only one theory in three is right, that’s no bad average as far as criminal investigation is concerned. The trouble with George is that he forgets the happy one and limits his elephantine cavortings to the unluckier two.
As I took my notebook out I felt those two photographs of Georgina Morbent, and I had another good look at them. You couldn’t call her handsome, and yet the face had something extraordinarily attractive. I had not exaggerated when I gave Worrack my opinion, for except a devastating beauty she had everything that any man might want. There was a touch of both amusement and challenge in the mouth, as if she enjoyed life, had a confidence in herself, and didn’t give two hoots for the opinion of others. The eyes looked out clear and direct, and in them too was a touch of something like amusement, but what they gave most of all was that sense of trustworthiness, for which I had found no better word when I had commented on them to Worrack. There, in fact, was a woman I should have liked to meet, and with that I was wondering if I ever should meet her. Then, before I knew it, I was theorising at full speed. Had that yarn of Worrack’s been a concealment of something far more important than even her alleged disappearance? Would that explain his very definite nervousness? Whose was that gloved hand that had moved round the door? A woman’s most certainly, and there had been also that faint perfume. Yet it had been a man who had been also listening to our talk, for it was a man’s voice I had heard when I had listened at the door. A peculiar voice too; low-pitched and rather strident, and with a quality for which I could find no better description than that it was strangely clear.
The telephone went, and the sound brought a disappointment which I had no time to analyse.
“That you, Travers?” came Worrack’s voice.
“Blunt speaking,” I said.
“Sorry. Thought I’d tell you, after all, that everything’s all right. Don’t do any dollying up, by the way. And I may be waiting for you.”
“I’ll be there on time,” I said. “And just one other thing. I’ve been looking at those two photographs and I think I can tell you that I’m rather more interested.”
“Good,” he said and I didn’t ring off because I had the idea he would make some other comment. It came.
“She’s everything you said she was and then more. The kind you like to be seen out with. Makes you feel on top of the world, and every man as jealous as hell.”
“I know,” I said. “But I ought to have asked you for a few more personal details. What was her height, for instance?”
“Five nine,” he said. “Rather tall, that, for a woman, but she had a superb figure. One of the things she was most proud of.”
“Good enough,” I said. “That, and the hair, ought to be enough for any identification.” Then, as he was saying nothing: “Right-ho, then. I’ll see you at one o’clock prompt.”
But there was no hurry for I could be sure of a taxi a few yards away, and so, after I had washed behind my ears, I did a bit more ruminating. Perhaps because I could still hear Worrack’s voice, I was aware of a few more home truths about myself. Who was I, for instance, to adopt an attitude superior or puritanical because he chose to get a living in his own way and meet, in what he considered a square way, a definite demand? He at least had given plenty to his country; a damn sight more, in fact, than myself. And wasn’t I also fond of an occasional gamble? Hadn’t I adroitly skirted King’s Regulations by having more than one game of poker, and pretty long and hectic sessions at that? And who was I, in any case, to make myself a custodian of war-time or any other morals? And, even more to the point, just because I had chosen to masquerade as a private detective, what right did that give me to be hypocritical about my patrons?
The clock said half-past, so I took a last squint at myself in the glass. Then I thought I’d check the clock and my watch by wireless time, so I switched on my set. Apparently the clock was slow, for a programme had begun which I recognised as Workers’ Playtime. That clock must have been more than five minutes slow, for the usual playing on two pianos was finishing, though that small amount of lateness was no worry, and a quarter of an hour would be ample time to get me to Moroni’s. Then, as I put my watch on five minutes, there came the fruity voice of a comedian.
Pardon a digression which may seem to you to be utterly irrelevant. I thought so at the time, and I was not to know that in the half-minute that followed I might have had the solution of a case that as yet had hardly begun. This is the apparent digression.
I don’t know your opinion of the comedians—the comics, as they so optimistically call themselves—of the B.B.C. Most of them—I except Mr. Gillie Potter among others—are the objects of my envy, for few can earn a living more easily. Jokes that were hoary in my youth are still their stock-in-trade, and some have not changed their patter for years. Maybe they are overworked and there are not enough of them to go round. So when my fruity-voiced comedian began to speak, I wondered ironically if by the rarest chance he would have a brand new gag. Then at his first words I couldn’t help but wince.
The scarcity of eggs, that was his immediate theme.
“And do you know, girls, why they’re scarce? I listened to my hens the other day and do you know what I heard them singing?”
I had
heard that same gag a dozen times on the mess radio, and not only did I know it but I knew the next gag that would assuredly follow it. James Agate has said—and I don’t know if the mot is his own—that the greatest achievement of modern science is the knob that turns off the radio. At any rate I hastened to turn off mine.
And there I was wrong. If I’d borne with that comedian for only one more minute I might have had a whole heap of ideas. If you know what I missed, and if you’re a radio fan you certainly do, then you’ll know what I mean.
CHAPTER III
MEET THE FOLKS
In the taxi I did most of my thinking about Worrack, whom I was going to meet. Percival Halsey St. John Worrack was how he appeared in Debrett, and he had been born in 1895, which made him forty-eight. It was no great feat of deduction to imagine his career. Public school, Sandhurst and then his regiment; the Guards probably or the Cavalry. Family probably impecunious, or without too much money to spare. Service in the last war and then boredom, retirement and the life of a man about town. Private means probably eked out by commissions, racing and gambling coups, and possibly tips on the Stock Exchange. Called up at the beginning of the war, and the rest as stated.
I said I liked him, and I did, and principally because I respected his honesty. He wasn’t a Pharisee, and he had his own ideas about a square deal. That, paradoxically, was why I didn’t wholly trust him. I couldn’t help remembering, for instance, how he was shot through, as you might say, with that passion for a square deal and never letting a client down, and yet he had been guilty of what seemed to me an extraordinary treachery. First he had spoken of Georgina Morbent’s sister, Mrs. Grays, as a good sort and had hinted at a certain indebtedness. Later he had made that highly confidential suggestion that half a million was the devil of a lot of money, that Barbara Grays would find it uncommonly useful, and that I might reasonably begin my enquiries in that quarter. To put it bluntly, in fact, there was the very strong hint that Barbara Grays might have made away with her sister for the sake of the money. Melodramatic, perhaps, but such things have been. And then almost in the same breath, he had said that Barbara worshipped her sister, though I admit that he had immediately modified the statement by adding that everybody did.
Then there was that matter of the man Hamson whom I had not seen. Far too blatantly, it had been suggested that Hamson should assist me in any enquiries, particularly those concerning Barbara Grays. Apparently Hamson might be engaged to her at any minute, and yet it was expected—indeed it seemed to have been privately arranged—that Hamson should be the stool pigeon where Barbara Grays was concerned. And suppose this man Hamson was the one who had been listening at the door and whom I had later heard talking with Worrack. Suppose the woman who had been listening too was Barbara Grays, and there was some kind of conspiracy between the three.
Melodramatic again, you may say. But consider. Hadn’t Worrack fairly pitchforked me into that luncheon to which the taxi was taking me? And weren’t the three to be there? And if Worrack was getting ten thousand, Barbara most of the rest, and Hamson was going to marry Barbara—well, what do you make of that? And add one other thing. In that application to me by Worrack was something remarkably fishy. It was the police to whom he should have applied, and if he really was scared about their uncovering that night club of his, then the application could have been made by the sister. Indeed she was the one who should have made it.
There was something else; something that seemed partly to upset all that I have just written, and yet showing clearly that again there was something fishy as well as contradictory. Worrack had undoubtedly been deeply in love with Georgina Morbent. He had not said so in so many words, but when you have examined as many witnesses as I have in my time, or listened to the cross-examinations of George Wharton, not to mention prosecuting and other counsel, then you learn to spot what is true in the story of even the shiftiest witness. That she had been, and was at the time of her disappearance, Worrack’s mistress seemed to me an unquestionable fact, and that he would have married her if she had been the marrying kind, and if he had not had his own ideas about marrying a woman with all the money. You see again that queer mixture of the square deal and the dubiously honest.
I had that notebook in my breast pocket and while we waited at some traffic lights I made a jotting or two.
(a) Why didn’t B. see G. off at Euston?
(b) Where does G. live? Has the flat (?) been examined?
(c)Who are G.’s bankers?
(d) W. mentioned “no maid.” Then she had a maid but didn’t take her to Ireland.
That seemed to be all at the moment, and then, as we neared Piccadilly Circus, I began wondering again if I should take over the case or not, and when I was frank with myself I knew I had no real intention of proceeding much further. Intriguing though it had sounded at first, if only because it was of so unexpected a nature, there was now some deep and urgent caution telling me that the sooner I disengaged myself, the better. My own part, as cold reason told me, had been imprudent from the very first, and only a ridiculous vanity and an incurable curiosity had kept me from telling Worrack on the ’phone that he had made a mistake and that I wasn’t and never had been an enquiry agent. On the other hand, I could tell myself, if the case had been something routine and simple, I might have gone through with it. If it had involved a theft, for example, or even some perfectly straightforward disappearance; but possible murder was a hellish dangerous thing to be mixed up in, and particularly for me, and that night club background and the crowd with whom I should have to work were about as attractive as the other end of the social scale, which for the want of a better comparison we might do worse than call Petticoat Lane.
When I paid off the taxi I saw I had two minutes to spare. In the vestibule, all red plush and mirrors, Worrack was waiting.
“Glad you’re on time,” he said. “The others are there but I haven’t been in yet. Thought I’d better say I’d met you on the way.”
We left our things in the cloakroom and as we were about to enter the main room an elderly waiter came up to us.
“O.K., Pierre,” Worrack said. “Mrs. Grays’ table. Four of us, not three.”
His hand fell on my arm and he drew me back for a moment. What he wanted to tell me didn’t seem too important, but perhaps, as I thought afterwards, he wanted Pierre to set the extra place at the table and announce our arrival.
“A very useful place, this,” was what he said. “Do you know it at all?”
I shook my head.
“They always do you well,” he went on. “And they’re the people who supply my place with sandwiches and stuff. You’ll see all that for yourself to-night. Which reminds me. It’s quite possible I mayn’t be able to see you again after lunch, so you might drop in at the club. Any time after nine. Here’s the address. Quite easy to get at.”
I slipped the folded sheet of paper into my breast pocket. Easy is the road to perdition. Curiosity, or lack of moral courage, stopped me getting myself still further involved, though it had been on the tip of my tongue to blurt out that I’d decided not to take the case after all. And he was taking my arm again and moving me through the red plush curtains.
The room was fairly full and it was towards one of the alcoves that he was steering me, and I could feel the swing of his body as he pivoted on his game leg. A woman and a man were seated at one of the tables, and I spotted it from a good few yards away, for Pierre was just leaving it. It was the man at whom I had a good look as we neared, though what I tell you of my first impressions includes what I saw of him and gathered while we spent that hour over our meal.
When he got to his feet at our approach I saw that he was about six feet in height, and that he had a thick moustache cropped short, in line with the upper lip. He was fairly heavy in build, and his age was probably the late forties. In manner he was quiet, and he had a quiet likeable smile. Though he was not good-looking, like Worrack, for instance, his face had a reliability, and there was something of th
e soldier about him. My mind, always too keen on analysis and apt to imagine as well as theorise, found only two contradictions. Hamson had been a policeman in India, as Worrack had told me, but whereas Worrack looked the professional soldier to the life, Hamson was to my eye the civilian who has been a soldier and still wishes to be regarded as one. There was also that contradiction in his manners; easy though they were apparently, and perfect public school, there were times when they were just a bit hesitating. But did I like him? I think that I rather took to him from the first. And as soon as he spoke I knew his wasn’t the voice I had heard in Worrack’s room.
“This is Blunt,” Worrack was saying. “An old Army pal of mine. We ran into each other just now. He was looking for somewhere to lunch so I brought him along.”
“How do you do,” Barbara Grays was saying casually, and: “Pierre told us you were bringing a friend.”
She looked her thirty-five, which after all is a good age in a woman. She was tallish, like her sister, but plump, and as she sat with her fur coat drawn back carelessly over her shoulders, and elbows on the table, and fingers languidly holding a cigarette, the first impression I had was one of dowdiness. But it was only a studied or a natural boredom, I wasn’t sure which, for when I had a close if surreptitious look at her, I saw she was not only quite good-looking, but reticently made up and really exquisitely dressed. Her voice, of the dry soprano type, had a definite petulance.
“Well, what are we eating?” Worrack asked briskly.
Barbara Grays shrugged her shoulders, then frowned. “Blast that Pierre! Why hasn’t he brought that ash-tray?”
The Case of the Running Mouse: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 4