“I might as well stroll across with you,” Travers said, once more taking the cue.
“I didn’t tell you before,” Wharton said, when they were well out of earshot of the neighbourhood of the Mess, “but there’s been a certain amount of eavesdropping going on round my windows and yours. I found where the snow had been trampled down at the back.”
“You don’t say so!”
“It cuts both ways,” Wharton told him. “It’s annoying I know, but on the other hand whoever it was may have heard something he was wanted to hear.”
“Such as what?”
“Ah, now you’re asking,” said Wharton, closing up at once. Then he changed his mind and did a bit of explaining.
“I want you to be patient and just trust the old man for once, before this day’s gone, all sorts of things ought to happen, or my name’s Robinson.”
“That’s all right, George,” Travers said. “This has been a queer sort of case for me—in it and not in it, so to speak. And I guess I’m about ready for a spot of leave.”
“If Stirrop hadn’t died, you’d have cracked up,” Wharton told him, and not without concern. “I’ll tell you now what I didn’t tell you then. When I first clapped eyes on you down here, you gave me a regular shock.”
“We’ll get over it,” Travers said. “But tell me just one thing, George. Was it Lading you met last night?”
Wharton pursed his lips.
“To tell the truth, it wasn’t.” Then he nodded. “But we’ll be seeing him all right. Sooner perhaps than you think.”
They went into the building, stayed for a minute or two, and came out. As they went through the gates, Wharton had a last instruction.
“Sometime this morning I shall send for Miss Dance. Don’t ask me any questions, but as soon as she gets in my room, pick up your ’phone as if you were waiting for a number. If anybody comes in your room, wave them away. That’s all, but cling on to that ’phone whatever happens.”
Travers nodded. Wharton gave him a look, then added one more thing.
“Whenever you’re with me to-day in the company of no matter who it is, look out for cues. Doesn’t matter if what I say don’t make sense. You play up to me, that’s all I ask.” He nodded to himself with something of the old complacency. “You trust the old gent., and I’ll see you don’t go far wrong.”
Just after nine o’clock a spanner was thrown into the works. Colonel Caithby rang from H.Q.
“Good morning, Travers. I’ve got some news for you that you won’t like. A Colonel Fraser, who’s something to do with Prisoners of War, is coming down here, and I promised to bring him along to see your camp.”
“That’ll be no trouble, sir,” Travers said. “What time, sir?”
“Oh. elevenish. He’s an awful good chap and he won’t give you any trouble. See you then. Goodbye.”
“Oh, my hat!" groaned Travers, and wondered with horror if the receiver had been properly replaced. Just like those ruddy brass hats! Thinking all the world had nothing to do but spit and polish, and then conduct Cook’s tours, while they asked fatuous questions and made their laboured jokes. Damn all brass hats! Not Caithby, for it wasn’t his doing and he was a thundering good sort, but damn Colonel Fraser, or whatever his name was, to the nethermost depths of perdition.
“Have you had bad news?” Miss Dance was asking.
Travers caught her goggled eyes, and smiled sheepishly.
While she gathered in Winter and Ramble and Mafferty, he gave the news to Wharton in the Commandant’s office.
“How long’s he likely to stay?” Wharton wanted to know.
“You never know,” Travers said. “Anything from half an hour to an hour and a half.”
Wharton shrugged his shoulders.
“Bit of a nuisance, as you say.” Then he gave what was meant to be a highly suggestive wink. “Bring him into the Mess for a drink. I like meeting these Army top-notchers.”
The bad news was passed on to all concerned, and the whole camp was at once a hive of activity, short words and shorter tempers. Travers was due for a preliminary inspection before eleven hours, and meanwhile got on with the morning’s routine. But his mind was far from his work. All the time he would find himself wondering just what was going to happen when Wharton sent for Bertha Dance.
Then the ’phone went.
“Can you spare Miss Dance for a minute?” came Wharton’s voice.
“Superintendent Wharton would like to see you for a minute,” said Travers, receiver still off.
Miss Dance smiled to herself, took a quick look at her make-up, found a notebook and pencil and went smirkingly out. Travers replaced the receiver, then lifted it again and prepared to listen. That he should hear anything at all was manifestly absurd, and what lay behind Wharton’s mysterious instructions was utterly beyond him, but he listened all the same. Then his eyes suddenly goggled. Voices were coming through, and as clearly as if they were in that very room.
Two things have been mentioned about Wharton—that he never missed a chance to display his consummate showmanship, and that he had a way with women. The two combined were almost to be his undoing.
“Good morning, good morning. And how are we this morning?”
“Oh, about the same as usual,” smiled Bertha. “Cold, isn’t it.”
“Cold as a lawyer’s heart,” said Wharton.
She giggled. “You do say the funniest things.”
“Anything to brighten up life,” Wharton told her. “And how are things with you these days? Dreaming about wedding-bells?”
“Nothing like that,” she told him archly. “Nothing like being sure of everything before you settle down.”
“Too true, too true,” said Wharton piously. “That’s what I used to tell my own daughter.” He heaved a sigh. “Still, you and I mustn’t sit gossiping here or we’ll have Captain Travers after us.”
“Oh, he’s not so bad. A solemn old stick. Not like you.”
“None of your flattery,” Wharton told her roguishly. Then he heaved another sigh, “Come on now, and let’s get to work. Just one letter to take down.”
The pencil was nicely poised and she expressed herself as ready. Wharton solemnly lighted his pipe, leaned back in his chair and began dictating.
“Dear Captain Tester—”
She stared, wide-eyed. Wharton calmly resumed.
“I regret to say I shall be unable to do any more work for you. Superintendent Wharton has discovered what is going on and—”
Site was on her feet, face a fiery red.
“Hallo. What’s up?” asked Wharton amiably.
“This letter. . . . Is it . . .”
“It is,” beamed Wharton. “It’s a letter from you to Captain Tester.”
Her mouth gaped, then she let out a shriek. A second, and she had grabbed the notebook and was out of the door. Another long shriek rent the air. Ramble, coming through the wire gates, looked round startled and broke into the double. In the far distance a sentry was peering round the wire. Travers had dropped the receiver and was at the door. It opened with a swish, and he was nearly sent sideways.
“Mr. Wharton,” she said, and paused for breath. “He had his arm round me. . . . He tried to kiss me!”
Wharton was in the room, motioning Ramble through. His voice was a cold menace.
“Sit down there, you! Mr. Ramble, keep your back against that communicating door and let no one through.”
He turned his key in Travers’s door and then came slowly across.
“You keep that mouth of yours shut, young lady, and listen to me. What you didn’t know was that Captain Travers heard every word that passed in that room. Now you’re going to answer a few questions.”
She shook her head furiously.
“I won’t say a word!”
“Captain Travers,” said Wharton gently, “will you be so good as to ring the police and ask them to send someone straight away.” He peered sideways at her. “Or would you rather talk to us? Nice
and friendly-like.”
Then he was nodding down approvingly.
“That’s better. Just one simple question. When did you first meet Captain Tester?”
She gave a dab at her eyes.
“In October. I met him at a dance.”
“That’s all,” Wharton said, and looked round as if for applause. “Now you’ll go home and stay there. If you’re wanted you’ll be sent for, but you can take it from me you’ll not be wanted here. Anything due to you will be sent on.”
A minute, and she had gone, and there was no flaunt as she passed through the door. Wharton heaved a genuine sigh.
“That might have been a very awkward situation. It scared you, Mr. Ramble?”
“It did a bit, sir,” Ramble said. “I couldn’t think what the devil was happening.”
Wharton look a look outside, then locked the door again.
“I’ll tell you what’s been happening. I had an idea before that some sort of eavesdropping had been going on, and when that man came from the Telephone Office on Sunday, I was just a little suspicious. I couldn’t do anything about him because I wasn’t sure, but we may lay hands on him later. What I did do was to lay a trap for the lady. Yesterday morning I told Captain Travers I had a rendezvous in town last night at a certain secret place. That place was kept under observation. Who should approach it last night, and prepare to listen at a window, but Captain Tester.” He peered from under his shaggy eyebrows. “Wasn’t that good enough proof?”
“I get you, sir. She was the only one who could have told him.”
“That’s right,” Wharton said, “and this morning Captain Travers and I clinched the matter. That question I asked her proved another thing. Captain Tester, as he calls himself, managed to get acquainted with her after she got her job in the camp. She must have been used for quite a considerable time.”
“Was it she who took those papers the night Stirrop was killed?” asked Travers.
Wharton shook his head.
“I’m not going to be too specific at the moment. I will point out that it was through her that Tester got his pass into the camp.”
It was Travers’s turn to heave a sigh.
“Well, I’m not too sorry she’s gone. Now I’d better get hold of Labour Exchange, to see if they’ve got a shorthand-typist.”
He was turning from the window, replacing the glasses which his long, lean fingers had been automatically polishing, and then he appeared suddenly to have gone mad, for he made a wild dash for the table where lay his cap and belt.
“Oh, my God! Those brass hats! Just coming through the gate!”
Wharton had never known him move so fast. Ramble disappeared too, like panting time toiling after him in vain.
Colonel Caithby was as usual a sight for sore eyes. He gave Travers a most charming smile as he introduced him to Fraser. And there was not much of the look of an interfering brass hat about Colonel Fraser. Travers had never before seen a brass hat wearing glasses, and he lacked that bristly white moustache which always gave a pukka air.
“What would you like to see first, sir?” Travers asked.
“The Confines of the camp, I think,” he said, genially “Just a quick look at your methods of security.”
The procession moved off, Travers with the two brass hats, then Winter, then Byron and the Orderly Officer; and Ramble, Mafferty and the guard Sergeant-Major bringing up the rear with the R.A.M.C. sergeant as a kind of after-thought behind. At the back entrance a move was made to the guard huts, and Fraser was glad to see there was a N.A.A.F.I. Then came the building.
“The prisoners are in their rooms, sir,” Travers said. “Would you like to see them there?”
“Any place you can have them all together?” he said, and turned to Caithby. “I always like to see the old Hun in a mass. It gives you a better idea.”
So Winter went on ahead with Ramble and when the main party arrived, the prisoners were lined up in the ball. Fraser had a good look at them, then got Winter to ask if there were any complaints. The situation was apparently too awe-inspiring and there were none.
Then their rooms were inspected, and Fraser expressed himself as very pleased.
“You’re an excellent camp here,” he said. “I might also call it a model camp. And what about discipline? Do those Bosche give you any trouble?”
“None at all,” Travers said.
“They’re a harmless lot of sheep,” added Winter. “No real trouble at all, sir.”
“Just like the old Bosche, eh? Truculent when he’s on top and nauseatingly servile when he’s down. What were those clothes they were wearing, by the way?”
Mafferty was beckoned forward to say his little piece. The Colonel glanced in the store, and then the whole party moved outside. The Colonel glanced up and around at that massive semi-circle of pillars, straight as candles and smooth with sham facings.
“A bit imposing all this, what?”
Caithby smiled.
“Those corner towers take my fancy,” he said. “Like something straight from Switzerland.”
“Well, I expect you were mighty glad to have the place,” Fraser said to Travers. “I think that’s about all, and thank you very much for showing me round.”
“Not at all, sir,” Travers said. “But won’t you come across and have a look at the Mess, sir. It’s only just over there.”
“Thank you, yes,” he said, with a look at Caithby. “You’re in no hurry?”
Caithby wasn’t, and the whole party was once more on the move. The other ranks saluted and dismissed themselves, and the officers slowed down outside the Mess door. Travers nodded back for the whole batch to come in.
Wharton was in an easy chair by the fire, and he got to his feet, peering over his antiquated spectacles. Perhaps, thought Travers, he had put them on for effect, for they somehow gave a scholarly look and added a dignity. Travers introduced him to Colonel Fraser, and added that the Superintendent was in Shoreleigh on a special job.
“No loss of the Mess silver, I hope,” Fraser said.
“Not to my knowledge, sir,” Wharton said. “What there’ll be after I’m gone is quite another matter.”
Fraser was pleased to chuckle, and in that pleasant atmosphere the sherries were drunk. A second was refused, and then he shook hands all round. With Wharton he had a word about the Yard and the old General actually contrived to stroll with him as far as the car. Then came the last salutes, the last smiles, and away the car went. Main gate closed on it, with a sentry riding frantically into the “Present!” and yet another inspection was over.
“A nice bloke, that,” said Byron.
“Best inspection I’ve ever had,” said Winter.
“It might have been worse,” admitted Travers. “And now what about some lunch?”
“I could do with something,” Wharton said, and almost plaintively. “This cold weather gives you an appetite.”
“The way you tacked yourself on to those brass hats was positively shameless,” Travers told him.
Wharton refused to be drawn. Travers, as he said, always had to have his little joke. And what had the brass hats to do until lunch anyway?
The meal was almost over when Wharton let fall his bomb.
First he cleared his throat, and when he spoke it was with an unusual and startling solemnity.
“I have an official announcement to make which I think concerns everybody here. It’s confidential at the moment and I rely on you not to repeat it. Captain Tester was arrested this morning, and is now in the custody of the civil police.”
There was a startled hush.
“Good God!” Byron was the first to speak.
Winter smiled cynically.
“I’d hate to say, ‘I told you so,’ but I never did like that fellow. There was something fishy about him from the start.”
Wharton said nothing in the babble of talk. Travers said nothing either. For one thing the arrest of Tester, foreseen as it had been after the events of the morning, c
ame to him as something of a damp squib; and for another thing, he was wondering what his cue was supposed to be.
“What was he arrested for?” he finally asked.
“For killing Major Stirrop,” burst in young Pewter with assurance.
“Did he kill Stirrop?” Travers asked point- blank.
Wharton was getting to his feet and wiping his moustache with huge sweeps of the napkin.
“In all probability—yes,” he said. “But one further word to all you gentlemen. Everything’s strictly confidential. Any loose talking and I shall have no hesitation in taking very drastic action. I may say that I have the full backing of Colonel Caithby to whom I mentioned the matter this morning.”
“But how could Tester have done the killing?” persisted Travers, who saw a carry-on look in Wharton’s eye.
“Tester’s now in town,” Wharton said. “I think I can divulge that much, and he refuses to talk.”
He paused for effect, and a smile of the utmost complacency was on his lips.
“But what he doesn’t know is that I happen to have a means of making him talk. What that means is, I haven’t confided to a soul, but you can take my word for it that after I’ve spoken to our friend Tester tomorrow morning, I’ll know all I want to know.”
“You’re going to town?”
“By the first train in the morning,” Wharton announced blandly. “There’s one little spot of information I still want, and that I may not get till late to-night,” he nodded to himself and then was shaking his crafty old head. “No hurry—that’s always been my motto. This time to-morrow I’ll know all there is to know about Tester—and his accomplices.”
“Someone else was in it too?” Pewter was asking at once.
“Sorry,” said Wharton, with an air of finality, “but I have no more information to give. If anybody here has anything of interest to tell me, they’ll find me in my office.”
And with that effective curtain Wharton majestically made his exit.
CHAPTER XVII
NIGHT OF HORROR
Travers was back at his office early that afternoon. There were arrears of work to clear off, and no Bertha Dance to help. The afternoon mail came in and he had his own typing to do and returns to render. Then the Labour Exchange sent three likely people to be tested for the vacant post, and it took an hour before Travers could be sure he was suited. It was a middle-aged man, not likely to be called up for service, that he finally chose. No more flirtatious females or Whores of Babylon for Ludovic Travers.
The Case of the Murdered Major: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 20