Hardcastle's Soldiers

by Graham Ison

  A man in a dressing gown opened the door an inch or two.

  Sankey barged through the door, and promptly shut it behind him. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,’ he said. He deemed it unnecessary to explain that he was a police officer; he was in uniform. ‘But we have a man with a gun shooting at our officers from the house opposite.’

  ‘So that’s what it’s all about,’ said the man.

  ‘I’d like your permission to put a sniper in your upstairs front window, sir.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’ll be all right, but my wife’s in bed,’ said the man, as he led the way upstairs to the front bedroom. ‘So long as she doesn’t get hurt.’

  ‘We’ll try not to disturb her, sir,’ said Sankey hopefully, but he had time to consider that the appearance of a soldier with a rifle in the lady’s bedroom would not exactly be viewed with equanimity by her.

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ said the man in a vain attempt at pacifying his wife, as he and Sankey entered the room. ‘It’s only the police.’

  The woman, her hair in paper curlers, drew the bedclothes up around her neck. ‘What on earth’s happening?’

  Once again, Sankey explained briefly what the police hoped to do, before moving cautiously to the window. Kneeling down, he held back the corner of one of the curtains and slowly slid up the bottom half of the window a foot or two. As quickly as possible, he leaned out and waved his lantern towards the group of policemen further down the road. That done he raced downstairs, ready to admit Colour-Sergeant Berryman.

  By this time, Berryman had joined the little group of police officers, and was conferring with Superintendent Hudson.

  ‘D’you think you’ll be able to hit this fellow without killing him, Colour-Sergeant?’ asked Hudson.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Berryman spoke confidently. After his experience in the trenches, hitting a stationary target should present no problems. And, in any event, he was acting under police instructions, and any unfortunate outcome would be their responsibility, not his.

  ‘Get down to number fourteen as quickly as you can, then,’ said Hudson. ‘Mr Sankey will let you in. His signal means that he’s arranged for you take a position in the upstairs room of that house. I’ll try to reason with the man, but if I’m unsuccessful, I’ll signal to you with a lantern. Of course, a couple of rounds near him might persuade him to surrender.’ The superintendent was still hoping that the gunman would give up, or at best be wounded rather than killed.

  ‘I’ll give it my best shot, sir,’ said Berryman, with a grin. He ran down the road to number fourteen, his rifle at the trail, demonstrating clearly that he was more accustomed than the police to moving rapidly while under fire. The door opened, and Berryman went in.

  SEVENTEEN

  Waiting until he could see Berryman positioned in the bedroom window, his head just above the sill, Hudson took the megaphone from one of the policemen, and raised it to his lips. ‘This is the police,’ he shouted. ‘Give yourself up, or we’ll open fire.’

  Hudson’s message was met with an insolent shout of defiance from the upstairs window of number seventeen, followed by another shot.

  ‘All right, sir?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘Yes, go ahead.’

  Taking a lantern from one of the PCs, Hardcastle turned and signalled to Berryman.

  None of the policemen heard Berryman’s shot – the anti-aircraft guns were making it difficult to hear anything – but they saw the man’s revolver fall into the front garden of number seventeen as the man himself reeled backwards into the room.

  ‘I reckon Colour-Sergeant Berryman’s a good shot, Marriott,’ commented Hardcastle drily. Turning to Catto, he said, ‘Take possession of that revolver in the front garden, and make sure you don’t put your bloody dabs all over it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Catto.

  At Hudson’s command, two policemen rushed at the front door of the Uttings’ house and broke it down. The PCs were followed by Hardcastle, Hudson, Marriott, and some of the other officers.

  One of the PCs opened the door of the sitting room to find a man, and a woman holding a baby, cowering on the floor in the corner furthest from the windows.

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked the PC.

  ‘Jack Utting,’ said the white-faced man.

  The policeman relayed this information to the DDI.

  Having learned that Utting was not the shooter, Hardcastle led the way upstairs, moving extremely fast for so bulky a man. He kicked open the door that he knew, from his previous visit, was the front bedroom. On the floor lay a young man, moaning, and holding his left arm. There was blood seeping between the fingers of his right hand.

  Hardcastle bent over the prostrate figure, and quickly checked that he was unarmed. ‘And who are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘Go to hell!’ muttered the man, and continued to moan. ‘I was nearly killed.’

  ‘D’you know this man, Mr Hardcastle?’ asked Superintendent Hudson. ‘From your enquiries, I mean.’

  Hardcastle was fairly sure that he had seen the man before, but did not know his true name. However, he had no intention of telling the superintendent until he had made certain. ‘Not to my knowledge, sir,’ he said enigmatically, ‘but I’ll sweat it out of the young bugger, you may rest assured of that.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you will, Mr Hardcastle,’ said Hudson mildly.

  ‘Take Lipton with you, and get this man to hospital, Wood,’ said Hardcastle to the sergeant who had followed him up the stairs, ‘and make sure that he’s kept under guard until he’s ready to be interviewed. Arrange with the station officer at Cannon Row for a round-the-clock uniformed presence, on my orders.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ DS Wood dragged the wounded man into an upright position, and he and Lipton hurried him downstairs into the street.

  That matter out of the way, Hardcastle turned to DC Catto, who by now had been joined by Carter. ‘You and Carter search this room thoroughly, and then the rest of the house. Sergeant Marriott and me will be downstairs talking to Mr and Mrs Utting.’

  ‘What are we looking for, sir?’ asked Catto.

  ‘You’ll know when you find it, Catto,’ said Hardcastle, and turned on his heel.

  Having been assured that the danger had passed, Nancy Utting had put young Archie to bed, and went into the kitchen to make tea.

  Hardcastle pushed open the door to the sitting room so hard that it crashed back against the wall. Unconvinced, despite police assurances, that the gunman had been captured, Jack Utting leaped to his feet in panic, thinking he was about to be shot.

  ‘Right, Utting, you’ve got a bit of explaining to do.’ Hardcastle sat down in an armchair, now relieved of its packing case, and filled his pipe. ‘And you can start by telling me the name of that idiot who my officers are just taking to hospital, on account of him having been shot in the arm.’

  ‘I don’t know who he is, Inspector.’

  Hardcastle inspected the tobacco in his pipe, and then lit it. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, my lad,’ he said mildly. ‘You’ve had a man in your house attempting to murder my policemen, and you’re telling me you don’t know who he is. Pull the other one.’

  ‘All I can tell you is that he’s Cora’s fiancé.’

  ‘Who’s Cora?’ Hardcastle knew of the existence of Cora Utting. DS Wood’s searches at Somerset House had revealed that she was Utting’s sister.

  ‘She’s my sister.’

  ‘What was he doing here, then, this fiancé of your sister Cora? Just drop in for a cup of tea and a chat, did he, before keeping his hand in with a revolver?’

  ‘No, he came round to give me a message from Cora.’

  ‘Really?’ Hardcastle’s sarcastic, one-word response indicated that he was not taken in by Utting’s statement. ‘And he didn’t tell you his name? And you claim not to know it.’

  ‘No, I’ve no idea.’

  ‘And what was this message?’

  ‘I don’t know. He never had time to tell me. It
was then that there was a knock at the door, and he looked out of the front-room window. Then he said there was a copper at the door, and with that, he ran upstairs.’

  ‘That’s what I call guilty knowledge,’ commented Hardcastle mildly. ‘Where does your sister live?’

  ‘With my parents.’

  ‘And where do your parents live?’ Hardcastle’s temper was beginning to shorten quite dramatically.

  ‘Clapham, in Acre Lane.’

  ‘How long has your sister been going out with this mysterious stranger?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you knew that this man was your sister’s fiancé?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see. Let me get this straight, Utting. Your sister Cora gets herself promised to this mystery man, but she doesn’t tell you his name or where he came from, and neither did he. Is that it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Utting unconvincingly.

  ‘Wasn’t there an engagement party, then?’ asked Marriott, who was standing near the door.

  ‘I mean you’d have been invited, being her brother,’ put in Hardcastle. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘She never held one, Inspector.’ Utting was beginning to sound desperate in the face of the detectives’ persistent questioning. ‘She said as how they oughtn’t to have a party, what with the war and the shortages, and everything.’

  ‘How very patriotic,’ said Hardcastle, with icy sarcasm.

  There was knock at the door, and a PC looked into the room. ‘The All Clear’s been signalled, sir. Mr Hudson asked me to tell you that the air raid was over. Oh, and that bomb fell in Vauxhall Bridge Road.’

  ‘All right, lad, thank you,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘How often have you seen this boyfriend of your sister?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘I never met him before.’

  ‘So tonight was the first time you’d set eyes on him, was it?’ persisted Marriott.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Why isn’t he in the army? Looks to be the right age to be serving. Not a conchie, is he?’ Marriott knew that many eligible young men had claimed to be conscientious objectors to fighting in the war, but with his brother-in-law at the Front, he had no great sympathy for people he regarded as shirkers of the worst possible kind. Particularly as Ted Kimber, one of Cannon Row’s detectives, had been killed at Neuve Chapelle two years ago while serving as a lieutenant with the Suffolk Regiment.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Utting. ‘I don’t know anything about him.’

  Hardcastle stood up, and knocked the tobacco out of his pipe on the fire grate. ‘Jack Utting, I’m arresting you on suspicion of being involved in the murder of Herbert Somers at Victoria railway station on Wednesday the eleventh of July, and conspiring with a person unknown to attempt to murder police officers.’

  Utting’s face paled and he swayed to such a degree that Hardcastle thought he was going to faint. But the DDI just stared at him with a cynical expression on his face.

  But Utting’s surprise was as nothing compared with Marriott’s shock at his DDI’s sudden decision to arrest the man without any apparent evidence.

  Having handed his prisoner over to the custody of DCs Catto and Carter, Hardcastle walked out to the street in time to meet SD Inspector Marsh.

  ‘Where’s the guv’nor, Ernie?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m here,’ said Hudson, appearing out of number seventeen.

  ‘The bomb fell in Vauxhall Bridge Road, sir,’ said Marsh.

  ‘Yes, I heard. Casualties?’

  ‘Four dead, three seriously wounded, sir.’

  Hudson nodded. ‘Been a busy night, Mr Marsh,’ he said.

  It was three o’clock on the Saturday morning by the time that Utting had been put in a cell, and Hardcastle was able to relax.

  ‘Take the weight off your feet, m’boy,’ he said to Marriott.

  With an uncharacteristic gesture of generosity, the DDI took a bottle of whisky from the bottom drawer of his desk and poured a measure into each of the two glasses he kept with it.

  ‘Have we got any evidence to support a charge against Utting, guv’nor?’ asked Marriott, taking a sip of his whisky as he lapsed into a less formal mode of address.

  ‘Utting’s tale is all my eye and Betty Martin, m’boy. He claims not to know the name of his sister’s intended, and reckons he’s never seen him before.’ Hardcastle’s tone of voice revealed his scepticism. ‘Well, if that was the case, how did he know that this stranger who turned up at nearly eleven o’clock at night was his sister’s fiancé, just because he said so? He hadn’t got an answer for that, had he?’

  ‘What will you do next, guv’nor?’

  ‘I’ll wait until tomorrow morning and then give Master Utting a bit of a sharp talking to. See if we can’t rattle the truth out of the young bugger. And by that time our gunman should be in a fit state to be given a going over. According to Wood, the people at Westminster Hospital said it was only a flesh wound, so he should be up and about by tomorrow. Which reminds me, I must have a word with Colonel Frobisher, see if we can’t get that Colour-Sergeant Berryman a pat on the back, and perhaps a letter from the Commissioner.’ Hardcastle pulled out his hunter and glanced at it. ‘Good gracious, Marriott, it’s nearly half past three. You’d better get home, and my apologies to Mrs Marriott.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, and my regards to Mrs H.’

  ‘See you at eight o’clock in the morning, then,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Marriott, thinking that it was hardly worth going home.

  But as Marriott reached the door of Hardcastle’s office, the DDI spoke again. ‘Didn’t you recognize our gunman, Marriott?’

  Marriott paused on the threshold. ‘I must admit he looked familiar, sir.’

  ‘Of course he did,’ said Hardcastle. ‘He was the little bastard who passed himself off as Lieutenant Geoffrey Mansfield who we spoke to at Victoria Station on the day of the murder. But he’d shaved off his moustache.’

  ‘Ye Gods!’ exclaimed Marriott. ‘So he was. But why didn’t you challenge him about it when you arrested him?’

  ‘I want him to think I hadn’t recognized him, Marriott.’ Hardcastle knocked out his pipe in the ashtray, and stood up. ‘Now, get off with you, or you’ll be in no fit state to start work in the morning.’

  True to his word, Hardcastle was in his office at eight o’clock on the Saturday morning. And so was Marriott.

  ‘Has our prisoner been released from hospital yet, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Marriott, he was brought back about half an hour ago. He’s tucked up in cell number three.’

  ‘When are you going to interview him, sir?’

  ‘Not yet, Marriott. Get across to the Yard, and ask Mr Collins if he’d be so good as to come over here as soon as he can.’ Hardcastle was playing a hunch.

  It was fifteen minutes before Marriott returned with Detective Inspector Charles Stockley Collins, head of the Metropolitan Police fingerprint bureau.

  ‘You’re up and about early this morning, Ernie,’ said Collins cheerfully, as he entered the DDI’s office.

  ‘Been up half the bloody night as well,’ rejoined Hardcastle. He lit his pipe, and leaned back in his chair, a near-beatific smile on his face. ‘I’ve got a prisoner banged up in number three cell, Charlie, and I’d like you to take his dabs. When you’ve done that, perhaps you’d do me a favour and make a quick comparison with the prints you found on the revolver that was left at Victoria Station after the murder, and on the knife that killed Ivy Huggins. Oh, and of course the van that was abandoned in Kingston or Malden – I can’t remember which – following her murder on Arthur Fitnam’s patch. I’ve got a feeling that we’re about to strike lucky.’

  ‘Who is this bloke you’ve arrested, Ernie?’

  ‘I don’t know. At least, not at this stage, but I’ll get it out of the bugger, never you mind.’

  Collins smiled. ‘I’m sure you will, Ernie,’ he said, but half suspected that Hardcastle knew alre
ady. He knew A Division’s DDI of old.

  ‘Marriott here will take you down to the cells.’

  ‘Right, I’ll get to it,’ said Collins. ‘Lead on, skipper.’

  Hardcastle and Marriott took their usual lunch of a pint of bitter and a pie in the Red Lion.

  Unfortunately, Fleet Street journalists knew that Hardcastle frequented this particular public house and, in consequence, so did they in the hope of picking up a valuable snippet of newsworthy information.

  Hardcastle had just taken the head off his beer when a reporter sidled up to him.

  ‘Charlie Simpson, London Daily Chronicle, Mr Hardcastle,’ said the reporter by way of introduction.

  ‘I know who you are, Mr Simpson,’ said Hardcastle, as he placed his glass on the bar and turned to face the reporter.

  ‘I hear you’re about to make a breakthrough in the Victoria Station murder.’

  ‘I don’t know what gave you that idea, Mr Simpson,’ Hardcastle said, ‘but I should have thought that by now you’d know better than to talk to me about police matters when I’m enjoying a quiet pint. It tends to turn the beer sour.’ He turned away dismissively.

  When Hardcastle and Marriott returned to the police station at two o’clock that afternoon, DI Collins was waiting for them with the results of his checks.

  ‘You’re in luck, Ernie. He’s your man.’

  ‘Luck don’t enter into it, Charlie,’ said Hardcastle. ‘It’s what’s called good detective work.’

  ‘Well, whichever it was, you were right,’ said Collins. ‘I got a match between your prisoner, and the prints found on the revolver at the scene of the Victoria Station murder, in the van and on the knife from the Kingston job. And they match the prints found on the revolver from Francis Street.’

  ‘I’m pleased about that,’ said Hardcastle mildly. ‘That’ll put a smile on Arthur Fitnam’s face down at Wandsworth, too. It’ll have cleared up his murder for him. Now, Marriott and me’ll go and have a few choice words with our mystery man. See you at the Old Bailey, Charlie.’