The Case of the Murdered Major: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

“Going to sleep it off?” Travers suggested craftily.

  “When I go out to lunch I behave myself,” Wharton said, good-humouredly. “Nice lot of fellows in that Mess. Did me well, too.” He peered from under his shaggy old eyebrows. “Like to see something interesting?”

  “Not particularly,” Travers told him. “Depends on what it is.”

  “Well, you just step across to your office,” Wharton said. “I might interest you.”

  On the way he began asking questions. Was he right in saying that on the night Stirrop was killed, the ’phone had gone phut? And was it the only ’phone? In other words, were the others only extensions from which people could ring only to Travers’s office. And was the ’phone often going wrong?

  Travers said yes to them all, and he gave the ’phone a bad name. Not only did it go wrong but always when it was most needed. That one night was not an exception. The telephone people had tinkered with it, but never really got at the seat of the trouble. They were coming again, probably in the morning.

  “Well, have a look at this,” Wharton said.

  The main entry wire came from a wall bracket outside the window of Ramble’s upstair room, which lay above Winter’s. Some sort of rough repair seemed to have been done at some time.

  “Two ends have been joined,” Travers said.

  “That isn’t the point,” said Wharton triumphantly. “We’re not so much concerned with the join. The interesting point is the break. Come up and have a look.”

  Then Travers saw that the wire had been cut clean, and afterwards stranded together again. Crude work, as Wharton pointed out, but effective.

  “And done that night,” he said. “And repaired the same night, too.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  “Well, once the wire was cut, every line was dead. If Major Stirrop wanted to ’phone anybody, then he couldn’t. After he was dead, the line was repaired in two shakes, and apparently it didn’t matter then who ’phoned who.”

  “But who on earth could have done it?” Travers said. “Surely only the man who stood behind Winter’s door.” Then he suddenly stared. “Good Lord! While Winter and I were talking down here, he must have hidden up here!”

  Wharton shrugged his shoulders.

  “Maybe,” he said. “What I want to connect up is just why it was important to whoever killed Stirrop that Stirrop shouldn’t be able to receive a message or send one. Find me an answer to that.”

  “It’s got me beat,” admitted Travers, for once at a loss for even a wild theory.

  “And one other thing,” went on Wharton. “The bullet that nearly killed Stirrop was never found. I saw the mark where it hit the wall and if it ricochetted, which it must have done, then it could only have fallen, a bit squashed, against another wall. Then why wasn’t it found?”

  “I always thought one of the prisoners found it,” Travers said. “They had the run of the corridor the next morning after count.”

  “You think that extra prisoner fired it, and afterwards picked it up?”

  “Well, if you pin me down—yes. But I didn’t think you were any too keen on the idea of there having been an extra prisoner at all.”

  “Why on earth should you think that?" asked Wharton with virtuous indignation. Then he nodded confidentially and his chin approached Travers’s ear.

  “Like to have a bet? Just a new hat?”

  Travers smiled sardonically.

  “When you bet, George, you take care you’re bookie, and owner and trainer and jockey, and the whole bag of tricks. What chance does an outsider like me stand?”

  Wharton snorted contemptuously.

  “What you mean is, you’re afraid to risk it.”

  “Have it your own way,” Travers told him. “A bet it is, but I’ll shout the odds. Bet you a new hat that there was an extra prisoner.”

  “I’m not betting,” said Wharton, with a haste that was only too informing. He changed the subject abruptly. “Bit chilly up here, isn’t it? I think I’ll get back to my office.”

  Travers suddenly remembered that B.199A, which he had somehow never had the time to fill in. A quick hour before tea might complete the job. So he took the twin forms from his safe and planned to get really down to things. A couple of minutes and he was drawing at an empty pipe and puzzling his wits over Wharton.

  For Wharton, even at his most secretive, had become for Travers as easy to read as a map with contours plainly marked. Wharton had been anxious to bet a new hat that there had been an extra prisoner, and Wharton bet only on certainties. From somewhere he had obtained new information, and Travers was trying hard to fathom what that information was.

  And there was another point. Travers had been prepared to bet, but only out of cussedness and to spike Wharton’s guns. When he had stuck by Dowling and had told Stirrop point-blank that he did believe in the existence of an extra prisoner, he had been relying not so much on the earnestness of Dowling’s evidence as on a hunch arising out of the immediate attraction of the mystery to his own mind. But whenever he came down to earth and sheer hard facts, that existence of an extra prisoner seemed utterly fantastic. The building had been searched with a small-toothed comb, and methodically from attics to coal-cellars. It was all, thought Travers, like some macabre essay on the theme, “He being dead yet liveth.” There was no prisoner in fact, yet his deeds as it were, answered for him, as witness his ghostly presence in the count, and the far from ghostly shot that had been fired at Stirrop.

  Travers’s thought ran on to a wondering where Wharton had obtained that new evidence that had convinced him of the very real existence of the palpably non-existent. Wharton, he knew, could never keep a secret long, and therefore it seemed safe to judge that the information had only just readied him. From the Sergeants’ Mess? Was that it? Was that why he had wangled an invitation to Sunday lunch?

  At that moment footsteps were heard outside. There was a tap at the door and Mafferty came in.

  “Superintendent Wharton in his office, sir?”

  “I think so,” Travers said.

  Then before he could put a question, there was a “Thank you, sir,” and Mafferty had gone. Travers frowned, then nodded to himself. Just as well, perhaps, not to have questioned Mafferty as to how that lunch had gone. A shrewd word or two in the morning might be less dangerous.

  He settled to his B.199A again, and almost at once was away on a new hue of thought. Stirrop’s record had been only just begun, and Travers had burnt it with other papers that had seemed of no consequence. If W.O. ever asked for it, the answer was simple—that the officer concerned had died before completion. As for the little Stirrop had filled in, it seemed that Burma had been his first foreign station, and from there he had come home in 1917. There the record ended, though it was enough to explain why, after the war he had gone to Burma again. Side-tracked, perhaps, by someone who’d assessed his brains, or else found a cushy job by some dear old pal like the unknown Harry Cross.

  Voices were heard outside, and there was Wharton and Mafferty making their way towards the building: Wharton guffawing hugely and Mafferty also apparently on the best of terms with himself. Mischief was afoot, thought Travers, and promptly got into his British warm again. Just inside the hall he caught the two up. Wharton looked neither self-conscious nor annoyed.

  “Where are you two off to?” Travers asked unconcernedly.

  “Just having another look round that store,” Wharton said.

  “Then I’m coming too,” said Travers with heavy humour. “We’ve missed things out of that store before.”

  Wharton had a good look at the floor and windows. Then, like an ordinary interested person, he had a look at what was on the shelves, and began fingering this and that. The safety razors were examined, and he had a real look at a suit of battle-dress.

  “I wouldn’t mind one of those pullovers,” he said. “Any chance of scrounging one?”

  Mafferty laughed.

  “Not nowadays, sir. If I lost one of them, there’d be
a Board of Inquiry.”

  Wharton waved a hand round.

  “But you issue them to prisoners? And these trousers?”

  “Ah, that’s in order, sir. They sign a receipt which covers us.”

  “It’s a hard world, George,” Travers said consolingly. “But I’ll buy you a pullover for next Christmas.”

  “Right,” said Wharton. “I’ll hold you to that. What are all these pails?”

  “Those are latrine buckets, sir,” Mafferty said. “These are pails.”

  “Why have some got yellow paint on?”

  “They’re P.A.D. pails, sir. They’re for replacements of various fire-points all over the camp. The yellow paint acts as a gas detector.”

  “Which reminds me,” said Travers. “Didn’t Captain Winter find some buckets missing when you and he checked up the other day? What about replacing them? And how do you square the ledgers?”

  “You wait, sir,” Mafferty said. “I know how many are missing. When this present guard marches out, I’ll wangle the deficiency on them.”

  “That’s how it’s done, is it?" said Wharton. “Then they tell me it isn’t the same old Army. And where are these fire-points by the way? I’d like to see one.”

  “You must have passed them in the corridors,” Travers said. “Here’s one here, outside the door.”

  Mafferty locked the store again, and Wharton began wandering round. Travers recalled to his memory how Winter had discovered deficiencies of sand in some buckets, which might have accounted for the sand in the weapon that had killed Stirrop, if the job had been an inside one. Wharton merely nodded and went wandering on. Up the first stairway he went, and as far as the top attics, and then slowly and solemnly down again.

  “What’s that door?” he suddenly asked.

  “Leads out to the top of the entrance porch,” Travers said. “It’s a kind of semi-circular veranda.”

  “Major Stirrop thought it would make a good machine-gun post,” put in Mafferty, with much comfort in the word ‘thought.’ “You got the key, sir?”

  Then he gave a gasp. As he tried the handle, the door opened.

  “That’s queer,” Travers said. “Who on earth should have been up here?” Then he smiled. “But Ramble, of course. He opened the door when he searched the building, and forgot to shut it.”

  “Those are his footprints, are they?” asked Wharton.

  “I expect so,” Travers said, and smiled. “That comic porch always amuses me. Damn-great pillars enough to support St. Paul’s and all they actually hold up is this priceless veranda place. The snow’s rather like icing on a Christmas cake, don’t you think?”

  “I thought it was rather a handsome effect,” Wharton said, and made his way through the snow to the low railing that made a futile sort of surround. A good look round, and he was back again, kicking the snow off his boots.

  “A grand view of all this part of the camp.” He nudged Travers roguishly in the ribs. “Next summer you’ll be having a deck chair up here and taking your afternoon nap.”

  It was that nudge in the ribs that Travers remembered that night when he lay as usual to the borderline of sleep. Wharton was never jocular without cause. What new thing had he discovered up on that comic veranda? And why was he so friendly with Mafferty? And why had Mafferty lost all his nervousness and suddenly become a wholly new person of smiles and quips and jokes.

  “Yes,” said Travers to himself, almost in the moment of sleep, “it’s up to me to protect Mafferty. All this gambolling about and taking Wharton’s fleece for genuine sheep’s wool. If George is trying any of his tricks, I’ll take the law into my own hands and pull him up with a jerk.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  WHARTON IS MYSTERIOUS

  Travers woke, automatically reached for his glasses, blinked as he put them on, and then began an orientation of Ludovic Travers in time and space.

  “What the devil day is it? Yesterday was Sunday. Wonder where Wharton went to in town last night? Monday. My hat! and end of pay period. All those cursed accounts for Regimental Paymaster. Wish I could get a rubber stamp so I didn’t have to sign my name about two hundred perishing times. Dammit, and it’s the funeral. Wonder if Garrison have arranged transport? And I must see Ramble. Which reminds me. Did we or did we not get those blasted 157’s away on Saturday?”

  There was more to it, but enough to show that Travers had travelled far from that rather scholarly if easy going Londoner of pre-war clays, to whom a damn was an event and who could wince at the pain of an ill-turned phrase. Bernice had more than once said—with a reproof which he hoped was wholly humorous—that the change was not altogether for the better, and Travers himself, trying to think back a mere six months, would feel as if he was peering into some dim and forgotten distance.

  Sniffy come in with the tea and a message.

  “Mr. Wharton would like to see you, sir, when you can spare a minute. Timms just told me.”

  Travers cursed Wharton, the funeral, Regimental Paymaster, and his razor. A sense of proportion came with each garment he put on, and he was almost his normal self when he looked in on Wharton. The old General was sitting up in the bed like a benevolent walrus, except that the cup of tea was balanced on his hand and not on his nose.

  “What are you so pleased about?” Wharton demanded.

  “Just things in general,” Travers said, and sketched the day that lay ahead.

  Wharton grunted. “A little work never hurt anybody. And I’m not going to make any for you. All I want is a few answers. What was that Captain Lading wearing when he left here?”

  “The clothes he was issued with as a prisoner,” Travers said. “Pullover, trousers, army-grey socks, and underwear. Why?”

  “I just wondered,” Wharton said. “And why did he ask for a suit of battle-dress?”

  “Shoreleigh’s full of troops,” Travers told him. “Battle-dress would make him absolutely inconspicuous.”

  “Did he have a key to the store?”

  “No. He didn’t have any reason to ask for one. Also, if he’d have been able to pick the locks he’d have helped himself to battle-dress.”

  “And all the prisoners’ baggage is kept in that room I saw yesterday afternoon?”

  “All the heavy luggage.”

  “How did Lading get his bag out of it? Did he have a key?”

  “He didn’t need a key,” Travers said. “He had only light hand luggage which he was allowed to keep with him in his room.”

  Wharton seemed rather disappointed, then he brightened up again when Travers pointed out that with himself twenty miles away that afternoon, he would be left to his own devices.

  “Who’ll be in charge of the camp?” he wanted to know.

  “Winter, when he gets back,” Travers said. “Miss Dance will have to answer any questions till then.”

  During breakfast Travers kept thinking about that curious look which Wharton had given. Undoubtedly, for all his attempts at concealment, Wharton was delighted at being more or less alone for a few hours. Then Travers was once more wondering what scheme it was that Wharton had on his mind, and why that visit of the previous afternoon to the store should have prompted questions about Lading. And what had Lading to do with Wharton in any case? He had been in the camp before Wharton arrived, and now his job was over and he had gone, how could Wharton possibly be concerned? He had never met Lading, and all he knew about him was what he had been told.

  A quick word with Byron and Travers was hurrying to the office. The guard were finding a funeral party of twenty and it turned out that transport was already arranged. Miss Dance arrived and was sent down town to buy a Staff wreath, and then he saw Ramble. The R.S.M. announced in as melancholy a voice as he could muster, that his batman was already poshing up his best rig-out for the occasion. He also expressed himself as having no qualms about being general master of the mournful ceremonies.

  Travers remembered something. Ramble had better lock that door to the veranda which he had probably forg
otten to shut after the search. Ramble stared.

  “I never opened it, sir. It was locked, and I knew nobody could be hiding out there.”

  “Well, it’s open now,” said Travers, equally startled. “And there’re footprints where somebody’s been. Not very clear ones because that last snow covered them, but they’re footprints all right.”

  He gave Ramble the key and then hurried in to Wharton, who appeared to have just looked in at his office and was now leaving. Wharton tried hard to be suitably impressed but failed to try hard enough.

  “But it’s damnably important, George,” insisted Travers. “Two things stand out as clear as day.”

  “I know,” said Wharton. “One of them’s that the extra prisoner was hidden up there while Ramble did his search. And what’s the other?”

  “Well, that that P.M. report may have been wrong. If we have any suspicions of Dulling, why not go the whole hog? Dulling may have faked that report. I know the S.M.O. was in it too, but one man can easily influence another when there’s necessity for it. What I’m getting at is that we don’t know any more about Stirrop’s movements that night than that he was seen going over to the building, then he vanished as it were. But why shouldn’t he have gone up to that veranda for some reason? He might have had to jump for it to save himself from some attack, and his fracture of the base of the skull was due to too heavy a fall on his feet.”

  ”And what about the blow on the head?”

  “There weren’t any actual abrasions on the skull,” Travers pointed out. “He may have had a crack on the skull when he was attacked, just before he jumped.”

  “And what about that double impression? If Stirrop was killed at once, what made them? Somebody laid his body down in two places and there weren’t any footprints. What about all that if he’d died of a high jump?”

  “Perhaps he wasn’t dead at once,” Travers said. “Perhaps he staggered along the drive and then fell and rolled over.”

  “Well, it’s a theory,” Wharton said, and then, piously, “Theories are useful things. I may look into it a little bit more. Where’s that key?”