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

by Christopher Bush

  “I won’t labour that, George, but I think that from then on her life was one of concentrated bitterness and brooding hatred of Pelle. But there was nothing she could do except think. And then came the queer twist when Kenray was called in as consultant to Pelle. If Pelle had ever heard his name from Grace Crowner he had long since forgotten it, and the association meant no contact with a Grace Allbeck, even if he knew that second name. But to her the whole business of that association must have been a torture. A point I would make, by the way, is that I’m sure Kenray never knew the name of the man who’d caused her breakdown all those years before. He was in London at the time, for one thing, and Crowner was only his stepfather.

  “And then came the day when Kenray told her about Pelle’s madness, or obstinacy, in talking of taking that jewellery personally to Kalpoor. Whatever Kenray may have suggested to the contrary—and I think later you’ll see he had reasons—there’s no doubt in my mind that he told Grace Allbeck all his business affairs. She was his partner and a supremely capable one. I think she asked him, as I did you, what would be Pelle’s responsibility if anything happened to the jewellery in transit, and he doubtless gave the opinion that you gave me—that he’d be held guilty of gross negligence and responsible in law for the value of the stolen articles.

  “From then on she began making plans to ruin Pelle. She sent him on that wild-goose chase that afternoon, for she’d lived in Faversham Square and knew the numbers of the houses. She even thought of a suitable suspect on whom the police might waste considerable time; a man for whom she’d neither liking nor sympathy—I mean, Bertram Dane. I suggest she rang him up under an assumed name, and altering her voice. I can tell you an episode that Tom Fulcher told me which made that well within her possibilities. Probably she said she had a papal ring of great age and value and he could see it at a certain time—she named the train from Charing Cross—and at that time only, as she was going away that night. I’d say the fictitious address was in Manwood Lane and she was careful to tell him to go just into the town and there he’d get a bus to drop him at her door. When Dane asked how she knew the ring was genuine and valuable, she said she’d consulted Kenray.”

  “The devil of a lot of suppositions, aren’t there?”

  “I don’t think that’s entirely supposition, George,” I said. “When I asked Grace Allbeck why Dane had shaken his fist at her that morning, she told me, and she could tell me only the truth, for if we questioned Dane, then his tale would have to agree with hers. Remember, George, that in Grace Allbeck we have a woman of more than ordinary intelligence who could drive a purpose remorselessly through. What she told me was that he was accusing her of double-crossing him in the matter of a ring by trying to buy it from a client. That means he put down the failure to find that client to some fault of his own and he was intending to go to Pangley again when the lady returned and have the matter out with her. Later on I’ll try to show why he didn’t go to Pangley again.”

  “Just a minute before you go any further,” George said, “I’m not so blind that I can’t see out of one eye at least. Are you going to tell me that she killed Pelle? What about her alibi?”

  “That’s what I’m coming to,” I said. “You put the idea into my head when you suggested that Mavin had thought of doping Pelle’s coffee. But that’s rushing on ahead. What she did first, I’d say, was to tell Kenray when he went off to that sale that Monday that he wasn’t to tire himself but get back early to the shop and have some tea before getting on with that office work he’d mentioned. That gives us two eventualities to face.

  “Suppose first that he came back late, so late that she’d have had to take the four-fifty. Then I think she’d have left a note saying the kettle was on the boil and she’d had to slip out for something and he was to make himself a cup of tea. In that case the dope would have been in the milk.

  “But that didn’t happen, so we needn’t go into it further. What we’ll do is look at his own evidence. He says he got in at about five—”

  “But she was there!”

  “I know she was. I repeat, he says he got in at about five. Is there a clock around there where he could have seen the time as he came in? There isn’t. And it was a filthy afternoon, wet and heavily overcast. Analyse his own evidence again and you’ll be of the opinion that he came in dog-tired, and he said to her, ‘What’s the time?’ She said it was nearly five, when as a matter of fact it might have been no more than half-past four. Then she said how dreadfully tired he looked, and into the office came the tea and a sleeping powder in it. It was, ‘Drink this and then lie back for a bit. There’ll be plenty of time to do your work.’ Then in a matter of minutes he was asleep, and she could catch that four-fifty. Fulcher had been conveniently got rid of, and I expect she’d bought her ticket beforehand and it would take just five minutes from door to train.

  “Perhaps she wore a veil. In any case she had only old Dane to dodge, and when she got out at Pangley she would expect him to take the left fork to the town. She hurried on ahead of Pelle and waited for him just short of Sutton’s cottage. Remember how Kenray let slip that she could see in the dark like a cat? And undoubtedly she never meant to kill. All she wanted was to snatch that case, but when she struck, the blow must have had in it the hatred of years. But she wouldn’t be worrying about him when he fell. She’d have been listening for steps, and drawing back to the hedge to empty that case into capacious pockets. Then she threw the case into the gorse of the common, for it would have been too dangerous to take. I think she must have gone partly through a gap in the hedge to throw the case and that when she came back to the road she was just near enough to Trigg’s truck to see it. All I can think of then is that she had a kind of womanly softening. She didn’t know Pelle was dead but she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do, and by putting him in the back of that low truck she may have had an idea that he’d get attended to wherever it was that truck was going.”

  “You think she could have lifted him? The body was limp, remember.”

  “I saw her lift something just as heavy as he,” I said. “A box that made Tom Fulcher stagger and wheeze, and that was the first time I saw her. But as I was saying she had to hurry back to the station to dodge Dane. When she got back home, it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two before a quarter-past six. The meal had been prepared beforehand and all she had to do was to warm it while she tidied herself and hid the jewellery away. Then she woke Kenray up. ‘What time is it? Not much after six. You’ve had a lovely sleep and I hadn’t the heart to wake you. And you’d better get yourself ready now because dinner will be on in five minutes.”

  “As for what she intended to do with that jewellery, I can’t say. Kenray was due to leave for the States in about ten days and then she might have taken it out to the country and buried it somewhere. What I do believe is that she’d never have profited a penny from it. But what she did do that night when Kenray had gone was to send that ring to Dane, posting it, of course, in the morning. That was for verisimilitude. In it was a letter with the address simply London, and saying that as Dane hadn’t called as requested or arranged, and the owner had been on her way through town, she was sending the ring for inspection, and at some convenient time she’d expect to hear from him.”

  “But that ring wasn’t a papal ring,” protested George.

  “I know it wasn’t. But wouldn’t he expect a silly bletherer like that woman to make a mistake? Hadn’t she already bitched him up about her address?”

  “You’re too ingenious for me,” he said. “But go on. Let’s hear the rest.”

  “Well, what we come to is a general proof,” I said. “I claimed that Grace Allbeck wouldn’t have profited by taking that jewellery, and yet she virtually stole that ring. But did she? Or did she give a quid pro quo?”

  “I don’t get it,” George said.

  “This is what she did,” I told him. “She valued that ring at a thousand pounds, and so she gave something else worth a thousand pound
s to make up for it.”

  I waited for him to say what I knew he’d say.

  “But she’d given that piece of jewellery long before that!”

  “Had she? Just think. What proof is there?”

  “The proof of the lists that Pelle made.”

  “Do you know if they showed an anonymous piece of jewellery?”

  “Well, I can’t say I do. As far as I remember they showed several anonymous pieces.”

  “Exactly. And who was checking the lists at Kalpoor that morning when the jewellery was returned?”

  “Kenray was.”

  “Exactly!” I said. “And there we are. All he had to do in his own good time was to slip that piece of jewellery in with the rest. Substitute it, if you like, for another anonymous piece that wasn’t worth much.”

  “Here! Just a minute,” and he held up a hand. “What’s this you’re getting at? Are you making Kenray a confederate?”

  “Yes and no,” I said. “What made him suspicious about his stepsister I can’t say, but it might have been any number of things. Maybe something went wrong with the sleeping powder and he woke up too soon. He found she was out and then went off to sleep again, and later wondered why she’d said she’d been in all the time, looking after the meal. Then he began next morning to wonder a whole lot of things. Where had she been? Why had she always seemed so interested in Pelle? Why had she asked for the telephone number of his office? And so on and so on, George, and yet the proof doesn’t lie in that. I’d say he found her very strange the next morning and that’s when he got the whole story out of her. The ring couldn’t be recovered for it had been posted to Dane that morning, so it was he who suggested the gift in its place. There always seemed something curious to me about that gift, and I think there did to you. And now you also know the answer to something else that puzzled you at the time. Your instincts were right, George. There was something fishy about Kenray’s coming to see you that morning. What he came for was to see how much you knew, and to spike your guns. Another awkward thing he had to do later on was to go to Pangley and find that attaché-case, and he did that on the night when I went to see Mavin, and though I wondered why he’d come to see Mavin, all I thought was that it was about the jewellery.”

  Once more George raised a pontifical hand.

  “Mind you, I’m not agreeing with all you’ve said, though some of it sounds mightily suspicious. But what you’re saying about Kenray—well, that hasn’t got so much proof as you said.”

  “Then here’s some news for you,” I said. “Kenray changed his mind about going to the States. He was sending her instead. Now do you see how he was shielding her? She’d never been there on business before. And another thing. Kenray’s giving up his business and retiring to the country. He wants to get the thing out of his sight even if it’ll be harder to get it from his mind. And I could tell you all sorts of little things about her. That morning when I saw her lift that heavy box, for instance. She didn’t see me but when she did she was scared. Wondered who I was, and her eyes kept probing me. Knew she’d made a blunder in letting a stranger see her lift that box. It reminded her of what she’d lifted the previous night, and so she had to tell me—a stranger—that she hadn’t really the strength to do what she’d already done. Then she pretended Tom Fulcher wasn’t a countryman because she didn’t want him questioned about herself, and where he’d been the previous night. And then that night when you and I went round she’d had a headache and I asked how the head felt. She was just about to say, ‘As if I’d been clubbed,’ and then she remembered in time. I said it myself and I saw her wince.”

  “Well, I won’t commit myself,” George said. “But why did she dare to send Dane that ring? Suppose it had come out that it had been taken from Pelle’s dead body?”

  “Tell me something,” I said. “Did Dane have that ring on him when he was killed?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did.”

  “That’s what I thought. What would a collector as unscrupulous as he was worry about the origin of that ring? True he daren’t put it in his collection, but he could carry it about with him and take it out of his pocket every now and again and gloat over it. But about your general incredulity George, or your lack of credulity. Perhaps I haven’t sufficiently accentuated her feelings and motive. Not the motive for killing him, George. Don’t forget that. The motive for ruining him financially and making him publicly ridiculous. And I do think even in our little way, George, you and I have had our own small indignations during this case—the simonism and nepotism, for instance, and strapping young men like Bill (‘Skittles’) Pelle being far too valuable for machine-gun fodder, and war-time cushy jobs and rackets.”

  “I know,” George said, and pursed his lips reflectively. “The motive’s there all right. But doesn’t what you’ve been saying upset our theories about Dane and Marion Blaketon?”

  “They do more than that,” I said. “They knock them cock-eyed. I don’t think now that there was any more between Dane and the Blaketon woman than there is between you and Lady Omnium. I doubt if either knew the other’s name.”

  “Then why did she ring that Chaddon girl that Monday afternoon?”

  “For the reason she gave,” I said. “To ask her to a party. And the reason she asked me to that party was, as you said, to prove there had been a party in her mind. And also possibly to prove to me how well-conducted her parties were. I think she may also have wanted me to have a good impression of her generally.”

  “Why? The Leverton business hadn’t broken then.”

  “But she had something else on her conscience, George. I’m pretty sure it was a man of hers who tried that burglary that Mavin circumvented at Kalpoor. Probably Leverton provided the burglar. I think she was trying to cultivate me just as she cultivated any likely person. Doris Chaddon, for instance, to learn all about the jewellery, and Mavin to learn about the autobiography, and me to learn how things were going at the Yard.”

  “I can get the rough hang of all that,” George said, “but there’s something else that’s gone a bit cock-eyed, as you put it. You say Dane had that ring sent to him anonymously. Very well then, he didn’t kill Grace Allbeck because he knew she knew he had it. Why did he kill her then?”

  “The answer is that he didn’t,” I said, and he sat up and stared.

  “Dane didn’t kill her! Then who did?”

  “Marion Blaketon did,” I said, and then after a moment or two: “And I killed Marion Blaketon.”

  There was a tap at the outer door. I hopped up at once and in came the waiter and a boy with a couple of trays. Then we had to leave the door open for the room to clear of smoke and in the cloak-room we had a quick clean up. Neither of us said a word, unless it was that I remarked that the water wasn’t very hot. George made noises like a trumpeting elephant while he laved his face and spluttered in the bowl, and I could guess what he was wondering. Then we went back to the warm room again. There was hot soup on the table; cold galantine and salad and potatoes and some apple pie and custard. I fetched a bottle from the back room.

  “Some of that port you always liked, George,” I said. “If you don’t mind drinking with a murderer.”

  “You’re pulling my leg,” he told me, but he glanced at that stitched skull of mine all the same.

  “Oh, I’m sane enough,” I said. “Exaggerating a bit perhaps. Maybe you won’t think it murder after all.”

  I kept him off till he had finished his soup and then he simply sat back and waited.

  “Here’s how it was then, George,” I said. “Go on eating, and I’ll talk and eat. About who killed Grace Allbeck. Remember how we discovered that Marion Blaketon had tried to sell her a piece of stolen jewellery? And how Grace Allbeck had taken her name and address? Well, let’s go back a bit.

  “That Saturday night at her house I did some fake fortune-telling, as I told you. I don’t know a thing about it so I extemporized. The Queen of Clubs turned up and somewhere or other I’d read that she repres
ented a dark or darkish woman of middle age, so I told Marion Blaketon to beware of a dark woman. I told her other things but that’s the one that matters, and the fact that I obviously convinced her I was the genuine thing in fortune-tellers.

  “Go on to the last time you saw her. The Leverton business had broken and you’d scared her stiff. And most of all with that bluff of yours, that you had certain sources of information that she wouldn’t suspect. But she did suspect. She remembered what I’d told her about a dark woman. She remembered—and I’ll bet a cold shudder went down her spine—how Grace Allbeck had her name and address and suspected her of trying to dispose of stolen property. When she got home she began working out how she stood, and it was a hell of a prospect. Whereas she might or might not swing clear in the matter of Leverton, she knew no reason why Grace Allbeck shouldn’t give her away—and Grace Allbeck was the sister of the man intimately concerned with that jewellery. That made her think of the burglary and if we knew the man who’d tried to make an entry. And my conclusion is that it all added up to the one thing—that Grace Allbeck was the immediate danger.

  “I think she rang her and recalled herself, and made an appointment. Maybe as soon as she was in that side door she asked a question. ‘I suppose you never told anyone about that piece of jewellery I brought here and asked you to buy? I mention it because I discovered later that it had been stolen.’ Maybe Grace Allbeck told her—either then or in the original telephone conversation—that she’d said nothing, not even to her brother. Then Grace turned to show her upstairs and Marion Blaketon struck her with the knife.”