The Case of the Corporal's Leave: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Somebody attacked and stabbed Mrs. Allbeck,” Wharton went on as if to lure him into talk. “Was she expecting a visitor, do you know?”

  Tom stammered that he knew nothing. He had gone out at seven o’clock, which was his usual time. Grace Allbeck knew where he was, and she’d have telephoned the pub if she had wanted him.

  “In other words, everything was normal,” Wharton said.

  “That’s it, sir,” said Tom. “Normal, that’s what it was. I looked in as I always do and I said, ‘Just off now, Miss Grace,’ and she nodded, same as she allust do. If she’d have wanted me for anything, she’d have told me then.”

  “What was she doing when you saw her?”

  “Readin’ a book,” Tom said. “She sorta looked up and then nodded.”

  “A bad business, Tom,” I said.

  “Can’t see how it’s true,” he told me. “Don’t know who in the world should want to go hurtin’ her. Never did a livin’ soul no harm in her life. It can’t be true, sir.”

  “It’s true enough,” Wharton told him, and his hand fell on the old fellow’s shoulder. “But you get up to your room. Mr. Kenray should be here soon. Maybe we’ll want you again then.”

  Wharton and I went up with him. On a table by the chair in which Grace Allbeck had sat was an opened book, face downwards. It looked a much read book and I glanced at the worn title on the cover: Henry Wilson’s Silverwork and Jewellery.

  “What about the shop, George?” I asked quickly. “It couldn’t have been a burglary?”

  “Nothing disturbed down there,” he said. “Never a sign of entry. And the alarm’s in order.”

  He drew in a chair at the table and began dialling and I guessed he was calling the hospital. They must have told him to wait, for he began talking to me with a hand covering the mouthpiece. The telephone showed everything was normal, he said, for it was switched to the extension when the shop was closed at night. Then he was pricking his ears.

  “Sounds like Kenray,” he said. “You keep him down there. I’ll be with you as soon as I’m through.”

  Kenray looked a broken man. His shoulders were sagging and he found speech hard. And there was nothing he could tell. He had left town without returning to the shop, having spent the afternoon at a sale. His sister had never an enemy in the world, he said, and his eyes went towards the shop door.

  “It wasn’t burglary,” I said. “Wharton’s sure of that. But here is Wharton now. He’s probably got the latest from the hospital.”

  Kenray’s eyes asked the question.

  “Not too good,” Wharton said. “There’s a fighting chance and that’s all they’ll say. At the moment there’s a spontaneous arrest of haemorrhage. If only she gets a bit stronger and there’s no secondary haemorrhage, then they might operate in the morning.”

  And the devil of an operation that would be, as I knew, though Wharton didn’t say so. Ribs cut away, and a major operation generally.

  “I must go there,” Kenray said. “I’ve got to be there for myself.”

  “You stay here,” Wharton told him gently. “Go upstairs and try and get some sleep.”

  “Sleep?” He brushed Wharton aside and turned to the door. Wharton’s hand held him back.

  “We’ll go with you then. There’s something I ought to do myself.”

  And that would be to examine the knife, I thought, while Wharton called up the stairs to a man of his that he’d be at the hospital if wanted. Then out we went and were making for Lower Regent Street. On the corner of Duncannon Street I halted.

  “I don’t think I’ll come any farther with you, George,” I said. “Perhaps you’ll give me a ring later.”

  I couldn’t see his face, but he said he would. Then I shook hands with Kenray and he and George crossed the street, and George, I knew, would be thinking that that was the second time that day that I’d left him in the lurch. But this time the reasons were far more personal. I’ve known men in the old days who simply couldn’t listen at critical moments to a broadcast of the Boat Race or a Test Match. What they had to do was sneak away and then come back when they thought the crisis was over, and things once more going their desired way. But I wasn’t suffering from nerves, even if my fears were something of the same kind. So incredible was that attack on Grace Allbeck that I was refusing to believe it, even if I knew it was true, and to have gone to the hospital with Wharton would have shattered that illusion and set me to thoughts that would have meant a sleepless night.

  As soon as I was indoors I got into a dressing-gown and sat before the electric fire. I had taken my time over undressing and that was why Wharton’s ‘phone call seemed to come so soon.

  “No more news,” he said. “She’s fairly comfortable and that’s all.”

  “Could she make a statement?”

  “They wouldn’t hear of her being disturbed,” he said. “In the morning there might be better luck.”

  “I owe you an apology,” I said.

  “For not being here?” he said. “You couldn’t do any good here. You stay where you are. I’m just getting a statement off to the Press.” His voice lowered a bit. “And I’ve got an idea.”

  He told me what it was before I could ask him. In that Press statement would be the claim that Mrs. Allbeck was still alive and that it was hoped she’d recover sufficiently to give an account of what had happened.

  “Fine!” I said. “That will make somebody sit up and think. I suppose you aren’t aiming at any special person?”

  “Yes and no,” he said.

  “You think you know!”

  He paused for a second or two before answering.

  “Think’s the right word,” he said. “This time to-morrow I may be sure.”

  That was all, but the noteworthy thing was what he left unsaid. You don’t know George as well as I do, but to me it was significant that he hadn’t added, “. . . or else my name’s Robinson.”

  Chapter XV

  OUT OF THE BLUE

  I slept badly that night though I woke fairly late. Indeed it was the sound of the post that woke me, and I hooked on my glasses and yawned my way to the door. There was only one letter, from Bernice, so I made my way back to bed and read it at ease.

  But I was not at ease for long. Towards the middle of the letter she said she’d had a cheque from the people to whom I’d sold that piece of jewellery, and a brief note had accompanied it.

  I think the name was Allbeck, but it was really a charming letter. She must be an awfully nice woman, so tell me about her when you write.

  That was all but it was enough to bring me back to the events of the previous night. At once the letter was limp in my hands and I was back in that pipe-dream of mine, and all at once, as by a flash of inspiration, I knew who had killed Grace Allbeck. That was the word that went through my mind: killed, not tried to kill, and when I knew that I knew that I had rushed too far ahead. Maybe she was not dead, and yet that thought was not enough and I had an overwhelming urge to know.

  At once I was putting on my dressing-gown and making for the telephone. In the old days I had been a governor of that hospital, and maybe, I thought, the matron would tell me what I wanted to know.

  “This is Ludovic Travers,” I said, and repeated the name carefully. “Could I possibly speak to Matron?”

  The feminine voice asked me to wait, and I waited for about two minutes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But Matron isn’t available. Will you leave a message?”

  I gave my telephone number and said I was inquiring about a Mrs. Allbeck who’d been brought in the previous night. Might I be rung any time up to half-past eight.

  I put on the same clothes that I had worn when I went that afternoon to Manwood Junction, and so that Corporal Trigg could recognize me. Then I had breakfast and when my first pipe was alight it was still well short of half-past eight. The headlines in the paper looked promising but before I’d had time to read more than a paragraph, the telephone bell went. My heart began t
o race as I made my way across.

  “Who?” I said.

  “Wroce,” he said. “You remember me, Travers?”

  “Of course,” I said. “How are you, Wroce?”

  “Pretty fit—considering. You were asking about Mrs. Allbeck, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, and waited.

  “Friend of yours?”

  “Yes,” I said again.

  “Sorry then,” he said, “but there’s some bad news for you. She died at five o’clock this morning. Secondary haemorrhage, and nothing could be done about it.”

  “Did she recover consciousness?”

  “No, no, no,” he said. “Quite a peaceful end. We’d put her under morphia.”

  “Thanks, Wroce,” I said. “Very good of you. Look me up some time and we’ll have a yarn.”

  He said he would, and that was that. I made my way slowly back to my chair, and there for a time I sat. Then I began looking through the pages for that account that Wharton had handed out, and at last I found it. War news had crowded it to a corner but it was all there; all that was vital, that is, in a single paragraph. A premeditated crime, Wharton had said, and probably with the idea of theft. The assailant had been disturbed by a fire-watcher and had bolted, but the police expected immediate developments. Inquiries at the hospital had said that while the conditions of the injured woman was grave, she might be able to make a statement in the morning.

  Nine-fifteen found me at a platform barrier on Charing Cross Station. Five minutes later the train drew in and I was watching the approaching passengers. I spotted a corporal that fitted his C.O.’s description of Trigg, and at the same time he spotted me.

  “Corporal Trigg,” I said, and smiled.

  “That’s right, sir,” he told me with a grin.

  “This way then,” I said, and made left. “Did you get a seat or did you have to stand?”

  I kept blethering on like that for I didn’t want him to question me about what his new job was and where I came in. He was a good talker too, and it was only as we neared the Yard that I mentioned what was in his mind.

  “Like your present job?”

  “It’s not too bad, sir,” he said. “A bit dead-and-alive.”

  “Round here,” I said, making for the side entrance, and I saw his eyes opening at the sight of a couple of uniformed police.

  “A fine building, sir,” he whispered. “The War Office, isn’t it?”

  “More or less,” I said, making for the side staircase. The man on duty gave us a questioning look and I flashed my card and up we went.

  “This is it,” I said, and rapped on Wharton’s door. His voice sounded like an invitation to enter, and in we went. Corporal Trigg ahead.

  “Morning, Superintendent,” I said gravely. “This is Superintendent Wharton of New Scotland Yard.”

  “Scotland Yard!” There was no grin on Trigg’s face now and his eyes were bulging.

  “That’s it,” I said, and turned once more to Wharton.

  “This is Corporal Trigg who’s kindly come here to tell us how he discovered Sir William’s body.”

  George didn’t turn a hair.

  “Very good of him,” he said, and began adjusting his antiquated spectacles. I passed him a paper on which I’d written, “Let me handle him, and you come in later.” George read that slip, and then unpursed his lips, and looked at me over the top of his glasses.

  “What the Corporal’s got to realize,” I went on, “is that that we are his friends. We’ve brought him here for his own good. Not a single word that’s spoken here will ever come out.”

  “That’s right,” said Wharton emphatically. “Just a night among the three of us.”

  “Take your O.C. Depot,” I said to Trigg. “He knew you were coming here this morning, whatever he told you. But he didn’t know what you were coming for. He thinks we want you to give us information about a man who was billeted with you at Colchester, so you’ll only have to keep your mouth shut and you’ll be all right. But you’ve got to open your mouth wide—very wide—with us. If not you’ll lose those stripes of yours for one thing and you’ll probably land in jail for another.”

  “Tell the truth and fear no man,” Wharton told him. “And everything in the strictest confidence.”

  Trigg shuffled in his seat, got out an unintelligible some-thing, and then shook his head.

  “All right,” I said. “Let me tell you what I think happened and you can correct me if I go wrong. I begin at last Monday week. Sutton, the gardener at Kalpoor, wanted you to help him with the Sten gun. You said you would, and you also knew that Sutton’s daughter would be home that afternoon and evening. Tea was at five o’clock and that’s when you’d promised to come. The problem for you was how to get there from Manwood Junction. You didn’t feel like pushing a bike, even if you could have borrowed one, so you either squared it with your sergeant or chanced your arm, and then took a small ration truck. It was a small one, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right, sir?”

  “Well, now you’ve found your tongue, why not go on from there?” I said.

  “Well, sir,” he said. “I was there about an hour.”

  “Just one minute,” I cut in. “When you got to Sutton’s cottage you drew right in on the verge and switched the lights off?”

  “That’s right, sir. And then I was there about an hour and then I came out.”

  “I see. At about six o’clock. But you didn’t come out alone?”

  He shot me a look at that and his face coloured.

  “Don’t be nervous, Corporal,” Wharton told him jocularly. “We’ve all done a bit of courting in our time.”

  “Miss Sutton came out with you,” I prompted.

  “Yes, sir. She did. And then I said good night and switched my lights on and moved off. And then I got back to the Depot.”

  “Yes?” said Wharton, and for a moment or two the room had a strange stillness.

  “Then I happened to look at the flaps on the back, sir, to see if I’d left all in order, and then I saw . . . well, sir, what I saw.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, sir, I was sort of struck all of a heap. What I thought of doing was dumping it in another truck and then I thought there might be an inquiry or something. . . . Then I backed out quietly, sir, right against some railway wagons and put him under a tarpaulin.”

  “Well, we won’t go into any more details,” I said. “I think what you’ve told us is true. But was that the only reason why you put the body in the railway wagon? So that it shouldn’t be known you’d taken the truck?”

  “Well, sir,” he said. “There was my leave.”

  “I get you,” Wharton said. “If you’d reported what you’d found and had got clear in the little matter of taking a truck without permission, you’d have lost your leave because you’d have been kept back for an inquiry.”

  “Well, yes, sir.”

  Wharton nodded. I cut in again.

  “While you and Miss Sutton were at the gate, or when you drove away, did you see anything suspicious?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did you see anything at all?”

  “I don’t know that we did, sir. . . . Only a man.”

  “A man?” said Wharton sharply. “What sort of a man?”

  “Well, sir, he was a curious sort of man, if you know what I mean.” He shuffled in his seat. “I was just saying good night to Trixie—that’s Miss Sutton—she says, ‘Listen!’ Then we heard footsteps right close and we saw this man come by. Right against the truck, he was. He had on a funny sort of two-peaked cap.”

  “And a cape?” I said, and tried to sound only mildly interested. “And he had a beard?”

  “I couldn’t see all that, sir. He had on a coat of some sort. All floppy like, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’d be the cape, and the wind blowing it,” I said. “But what did he do? Go straight past?”

  “Yes, sir. He went right past, and he sounded like he was mutt
ering to himself.”

  “He was going from Kalpoor towards the railway station?”

  “That’s it, sir. Towards the station.”

  “I take it you can see pretty well at night,” Wharton said. “Well, perhaps I can, sir. I do a lot of night driving sometimes.”

  “Ever see Sherlock Holmes on the pictures?”

  His eyes opened wide.

  “That’s just what she said, sir—Miss Sutton said. Just like the hat Sherlock Holmes had on the pictures.”

  I caught Wharton’s eye, and he nodded.

  “What we’re going to get you to do now, Corporal,” he said, “is to go over everything in order while it’s being taken down. Nothing to get the wind up about. Everything nice and friendly. Just a formality, you might say.” He cast a roguish eye at me. “After that we might pay him something for expenses and then he can enjoy himself for the day.”

  “Why not?” I said. “We might ring the Depot and say he’ll be back some time in the evening. How’s that sound, Corporal?”

  “Not too bad, sir,” he told me, and for the first time since entering that room there was on his face something like a grin.

  It was nearer twelve o’clock than eleven when Corporal Trigg departed, and there was no vestige of a grin on the face of Wharton.

  “How’d you come to rumble him?” he was asking me.

  I told him, and all the thanks I got was a grunt or two.

  “A bit of luck for us,” was his sole comment. “If it doesn’t put Dane in the bag, then my name’s Robinson. I don’t know what the A.C.’s going to think of it.”

  “Whatever he thinks of it,” I said, “you’ve got enough to pull Dane in for questioning. He might give the Blaketon woman away, or vice versa.”

  Nothing was said for a moment or two. I think we both felt the imminence of something in the air, like the quick rustle of leaves in a dead calm, and then a sudden coldness and an overcast sky, and in the far distance maybe, the first rumble of thunder.