The Case of the Running Mouse: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  What with passing the salmon mayonnaise to Barbara, and trying to keep an eye on Worrack, and listen to Molde, still babbling in the conversational hubbub of the room, I was pretty busy. I saw Jean bring a long drink to the high table, and Worrack take a pull at it. He was rubbing his eyes as if they were tired, and then he sort of roused himself to make some reply to Lulu, who was sitting by him. Hamson was there too, taking a seat at Worrack’s left hand. George was at the bar, talking to Jean about something, and Jean was shrugging his shoulders and apparently expostulating. I also saw Hamson beckon to Scylla, who came across to him and stood talking for a minute or so, but she didn’t sit down and that showed she wasn’t intending to stay.

  I hope you have got that lay-out, for it is highly important. George and Jean at the bar; Molde, Barbara Grays and myself at two tables removed from the high table, and at the high table Worrack, with Lulu on his right and Hamson on his left, and Scylla standing by Hamson. Other people don’t matter, except perhaps Tubby. Though he swore blind that he knew nothing about the mouse, I’ll always think he had his own reasons for the denial.

  It was a genuine mouse, caught alive in a trap, probably, and brought along that night for a spot of fun. What Tubby didn’t deny was that he was the first to see it and give the tally-ho.

  “Hi! Look there! A mouse!”

  That was Tubby, and when we looked, or tried to look, we knew he wasn’t pulling our legs. I spotted the mouse nipping along the wainscot past Barbara’s chair, and was fool enough to holler the fact and in a moment there was pandemonium. Lulu let out a shriek and hopped on a chair. Scylla went one better. Her shriek wasn’t so shrill but she nipped up on the table, frock clutched tight round her knees. There were shrieks of delight from the men, and in the general din followed the chase of the mouse and the bandying of jokes.

  Why did I notice Worrack? Because he was the only one who was outside the spirit of that rag. He made never a move when the two women shrieked, and then after a couple of seconds maybe, his head went forward into his cupped hands. Then his hand went out towards the drink, and slowly and gropingly, as if he was half afraid to take it. He seemed to clutch the glass and drag it reluctantly towards him, and when his lips went to it he changed his mind. Then he swayed in his seat, and it was then that I knew he was ill. Two men were in my way as I made for him, but I brushed them aside. Worrack had slumped back in his chair, mouth agape, and just as I reached him he was falling sideways to the floor.

  CHAPTER VII

  ON THE SPOT

  What happened, and all inside a couple of minutes, I can’t really tell you. As I told that Inspector, I’d have needed six sets of eyes and then a few more to keep up with things, and half a dozen hands to note them down. I know that instinctively I let out a yell and waved my arms. What with that and my six foot three I must have looked rather ridiculous, and I knew that people thought me some new variation on the old joke, for there was a different kind of laughter and even more noise. But Hamson had got to his knees and was staggering to his feet with Worrack in his arms. That quietened them.

  “Please!” I said. “Quiet everybody. Mr. Worrack’s been taken ill.”

  It was no more than ten foot to the office, and Hamson was nearing it, Worrack in his arms. Lulu was flying across to open the door, and after the sudden hush a new babble began. Barbara came by me as my fingers went to my glasses; she was almost running, and something made me follow her.

  The door had closed upon Hamson almost at once, but just as I caught up with Barbara, it opened and Hamson was ushering—pushing, I might almost have said—Lulu out to the room again, and her fingers were frightenedly at her mouth.

  “What is it?” Barbara asked, and she looked scared too.

  “Nothing much,” Hamson told her curtly. “Keep everybody out of here if you want to help.”

  He drew me in, closed the door and then was nodding back. I saw Worrack lying in the swivel chair, mouth still agape.

  “Have a look at this,” Hamson said, and was drawing back Worrack’s eyelids. A quick look at me, and then he was prising open the mouth.

  “Poison?” I said, and I had never said anything more lamely.

  “Looks like it.” He thought for a moment or two. “Nip out and get that glass he was drinking from.”

  I looked back from the door.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Afraid so,” was all he told me.

  There was a crowd round the high table. Molde was sitting in Worrack’s chair and Scylla was by him, hands on his shoulders, and I remember I had to move her aside to reach the glass. I don’t know why but I left the glass alone for a moment. There was no need to call for silence, for there wasn’t a sound in the room and everyone appeared to be watching me.

  “Μr. Worrack’s very ill,” I said. “Everybody had better cash in his chips. George, you see that nobody leaves.”

  I had seen him making for me, and pretty scared he looked.

  “Is he bad, sir?”

  “Worse than that,” I said. “In fact, he’s dead.”

  “Oh, my Gawd!” His eyes had bulged and then Tubby was pushing him aside. The murmur of voices died away.

  “What are you getting at, Blunt?”

  “Nothing,” I told him mildly.

  “Well, you’re acting as if something fishy had happened. Do you mean he’s killed himself?”

  “I mean nothing,” I said. “What I’ve said I’ve said.”

  “To hell with that.” He gave a look round. “If you’re going to call in the police, then some of us ought to be on the move. It’s going to be pretty awkward for some of us here.”

  I knew it was that girl he was thinking of, but somehow he got my goat.

  “You stay here, and like it,” I told him. “Isn’t it going to be awkward for me too? Who the hell are you, in any case?”

  What he ought to have done was clip me under the jaw. Probably he was far too taken aback. I’m a mild-looking soul and he was looking as if he’d been suddenly savaged by his pet rabbit. Also I was ignoring him and putting my handkerchief round the glass. As I moved off with it, Barbara was clutching my arm.

  “He isn’t dead. You’re fooling!”

  “I only wish I were,” I told her, and when I moved on towards the office door I had the queer feeling of being extraordinarily alone, with all those people back there and the new quick murmur of voices that suddenly arose.

  Hamson took the glass carefully from my fingers and had a good sniff at it.

  “Don’t recognise it,” he said. “What do you make of it?”

  I had a good sniff too.

  “Something very faint,” I said. “Reminds me . . . what the devil is it? Something like new-mown hay. But very faint.”

  “It’s a new one on me,” he said. “But why the devil should he want to do himself in?”

  “God knows,” I said. “Maybe the strain had got too much for him.”

  “But what about that communication he was making to you to-night?”

  “Who knows?” I said. “Maybe there wasn’t any communication. Maybe he intended to do himself in. That’s what he was talking about, and why he wanted me to be here.”

  That knocked him endways. He took a turn or two up and down the room, and he was shaking his head.

  “Whatever he died of, there’s one thing we’ve got to do, and quick,” I said. “And that’s ring the police.”

  “My God, yes!” he said, and stopped his prowling. Then he was giving me a rather queer look.

  “When they come there’s one thing I wish you’d do for me. Keep quiet about my police service. There’s no point in dragging that in.”

  “No point at all,” I said, and didn’t think too much of the request at the time. Somehow it seemed something of the same kind of argument as Tubby had begun propounding, and there wasn’t any sense in reminding him that most of us would have things we wanted to conceal.

  “Another thing,” he said. “Oughtn’t we to take a quick look
through his pockets? We don’t want too much dirty linen washed.”

  “Don’t get you,” I said.

  “Well, there might be something incriminating about some of the people out there,” he said. “Molde, for instance. He may be a wash-out, but he’s entitled to a certain amount of protection.”

  “Molde be damned,” I said. “You know as well as I do that nothing ought to be touched.”

  Then as I moved over to the telephone, straddling Worrack’s body to do so, I told him something else.

  “You get outside and tell them the truth. Say the club’s closed down after to-night. Say they’ve got nothing to worry about. Spin any yarn you like.”

  I thought he might cut up rough, but he didn’t. He gave me another quick look and then he went out. Before I’d found the number of local police-headquarters—and I didn’t give the universal call for reasons of my own—I heard him calling the room to order.

  In less than five minutes George was showing in an Inspector Brontway, and two plain-clothes men with him. They came up through the garage and so had no idea what was beyond the office door. Hamson, by the way, had not returned.

  I gave quick explanations and he had a look at the body. Then he had a sniff at the glass, poured the remaining brandy-soda into a bottle from his bag, and then put in the glass and my handkerchief with it. I told him the handkerchief was mine and handkerchiefs were rationed.

  “You’ll get it back, sir,” he told me reassuringly. “And let me see, sir. The name you gave was Blunt. Christian names?”

  I told him I’d come to see the dead man. A business appointment. As there was a gaming-room outside there, the dead man had suggested I should give a nom de guerre, so to speak.

  You can guess the kind of look he gave me. Then he was opening the door and leaving it ajar behind him. The faint sounds ceased, and then he was back again.

  “A gaming-room, eh? But you didn’t come here for that.”

  “No,” I said. “I did have a flutter to pass the time till Mr. Worrack here might be ready for me. That’s all.”

  “I see. You did have a flutter.”

  I took a look at one of his men. His eyes shifted from mine. I expect he thought the net of the Law had already enmeshed me, and good and proper.

  “And your real name, sir?” the inspector was asking.

  “Travers.”

  He spelt it out as he wrote so that I might correct if necessary. Then he wanted my Christian name.

  “Ludovic,” I said.

  “Ludovic Travers,” he repeated slowly. Then the most comical expression came over his face. The pencil stopped writing.

  “Ludovic Travers,” he said. “Not the Ludovic Travers?”

  “Looks like it,” I said, not wishing to seem too eager.

  “I recognise you now, sir,” one of his men said. “I remember seeing you with Superintendent Wharton.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But there’s the telephone and you’ve only to dial the Yard.”

  Another minute and we were all as thick as thieves. I ventured to tell him, with the air of one man of the world to another, what the club was and how it was run, and I showed him my own invitation. Mine, of course, as I told him, was just a blind to disguise the real object of my visit.

  “Would you mind telling me what you did come here for?” he asked me.

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t know,” I said, and felt I was getting into deeper water. “I believe it was about a financial investment. That’s my real job, you know.”

  “Financial investment,” he said. “Then he wasn’t losing any money. He didn’t do himself in for financial reasons, if you get me. But why couldn’t he see you in the daytime, sir?”

  “That was my fault,” I said. “I was too busy. He said it was urgent and would I see him here.” I shrugged my shoulders gracefully. “I didn’t see why I shouldn’t. Provided, of course, no one knew who I was.”

  Just then the police doctor arrived. I left him to the Inspector while I did some pretty quick thinking. My previous night’s visit might get out and then I’d look a bit of a liar. But think how I might, I couldn’t find a way of wriggling out of that.

  “Poison all right,” the doctor was saying, and then the Inspector let him have a sniff at the bottle. All he did was grunt, and that told me he didn’t know what the poison was.

  “You’d better get it sent along to the Yard,” he said. “We may find something else at the P.M.”

  “Whatever it was, it was pretty quick,” I said. “From the time he took the first swig at it to the time he dropped wasn’t more than five minutes.”

  “Some of these new atropine groups are fairly quick,” he told me. “What was his general health like?”

  I told him what George had told me. I also mentioned the leg, and who he was exactly.

  “The son of an honourable, was he?” the Inspector said. “That’s right,” I said. “The grandson of a peer, if you like.” I thought that information might do us all a bit of good.

  The finger-prints were taken, and that was when it all seemed so unreal. Somehow I expected Worrack to sit up or groan or something. That he was dead seemed unthinkable.

  “His prints on the glass,” the Inspector said, “and no one else’s. Smudged a bit, sir, where you had that handkerchief.”

  Then he told one of his men to go through the pockets, while he made a note or two. I didn’t see any sign of those IOU’s of Molde’s, but I did run my eye over the keys and saw that they included those of the safe.

  “Now, sir,” the Inspector said. “You’ve no knowledge of any reasons why he should commit suicide?”

  “Never a reason,” I said. “On the contrary. Why, for instance, did he want me to come here? It couldn’t have been because he wanted me as a witness to his suicide.”

  “That reminds me,” he said. “What about witnesses?”

  I said I knew those who might help, and my view was that the rest might go home. After all we had their addresses. I said, too, that to save time and to be helpful I wouldn’t mind making an announcement.

  “What sort of announcement?” he said, and when I told him, he said that would suit him fine. Then he told the doctor to hang on for a bit and we went into the main room.

  Once more there wasn’t any need to call for silence. “Ladies and gentlemen,” I said. “The Inspector here doesn’t want to cause any of us any undue inconvenience. Provided George has your full names and addresses, everybody may go except the following, who might be able to throw some light on things.”

  The list of those who had to stay was: Hamson, Lulu, Scylla, Jean and George. Scylla probably meant that Molde would hang on too. I also added that if anybody else had anything that seemed of even the slightest importance, would that person stay on too.

  “Where was he actually sitting?” the Inspector asked me.

  I showed him, and then before he spoke I knew what was missing. For he was frowning away at the table, then looking under it, and finally all round it and along the wainscoting.

  “Just a minute, sir,” he said, and nipped off back into the office.

  I could have told him he was wasting his time. No bottle or anything that might have contained poison had been in Worrack’s pockets. Then as I moved my foot, what should I see against it but something like a small capsule.

  “Look,” I told him as he came frowning back. “That what you’re looking for?”

  He picked it up gingerly, using a pair of forceps. It was a capsule of a kind, a flimsy affair of what looked like stout cellophane, and it looked as if it had been much trodden on. He sniffed it, then put it under my nose. The same scent of new-mown hay was there.

  He took it into the office and I watched the room gradually clear itself. George was doing manfully, shepherding the witnesses to a table next to Worrack’s.

  When the Inspector came back I said that if he liked, I’d be Worrack and I’d place the witnesses just where they’d been at the crucial times. When I loo
ked up at Jean he seemed the most uneasy witness of the five. Doubtless he still had plenty of work to do, and he was about to lose a good job.

  “This man we can soon get rid of,” I told the Inspector. “It was you who mixed the drink, Jean?”

  “Oui, m’sieu.”

  “Talk English,” I said. “We’re not all citizens of the world. But you saw him mix the drink, George. What happened exactly?”

  George said nothing happened. Mr. Worrack, who was looking very ill, asked Jean for a stiff brandy and a very little soda. That was what Jean mixed. Then he put it on a tray and carried it over.

  “You go with Jean and bring the brandy bottle,” I said. “Make sure it’s the right one.”

  That didn’t take a couple of minutes. I gave the Inspector the bottle and asked in a whisper if Jean might get on with his work. Best, I thought, to keep on the right side of the Inspector and let it appear that I was only his mouthpiece.

  Then we got down to the reconstruction. The mouse, by the way, had long since been butchered, and was lying on one of the tables. But the whole thing didn’t take long. George brought me the drink in Jean’s place, but water instead of brandy and soda. I took a good pull at it, and then put my head in my hands. Lulu said she hadn’t noticed that because she was looking for Scylla. She’d been trying out a system that interested her and she wanted to ask her how it had worked.

  And so to the mouse. George said that for a mouse to get into the room by ordinary means was unthinkable, and I backed him up by saying someone had brought it in for a rag. Then we got to work on that part of the reconstruction, and it was far from a success. Lulu burst into tears when we came to the point of Worrack’s collapse, though only after she’d said again that she’d seen nothing unusual in his behaviour, as she’d been far too busy worrying about the mouse. Scylla, very pale and nervy, said much the same, but I noticed that when she did her act on the table she didn’t draw her frock up to a height well above the knee. Hamson said that what with the shrieking women and his own interest in the mouse, he hadn’t noticed a thing till Worrack fell back on him in the chair.