Hardcastle's Traitors

by Graham Ison

  Two officers, each attired in an army uniform bearing the red gorget patches of the General Staff, were shown into the comfortably appointed room occupied by Captain Haydn Villiers at the Tower of London. One of the officers purported to be a colonel, the other a major. In fact, the two officers were from MI5 and the ranks they held were honorary. At that moment, they were unaware of the death of Peter Stein and its ramifications. Not that it mattered; they were here for a different reason.

  ‘Perhaps you would leave us,’ said the colonel, addressing the Grenadier Guards captain who was acting as Villiers’s escort.

  The Grenadier, aware of the visitors’ true identity, just nodded and left the room to take up station outside.

  The two MI5 officers settled themselves in the comfortable armchairs with which the room was furnished. The colonel opened a slim folder and rested it on his knee.

  ‘Captain Villiers, you will shortly be charged with serious offences under the Official Secrets Act,’ began the colonel.

  ‘What in hell’s name has that to do with the General Staff?’ asked Villiers rudely. ‘I suppose you’re base wallahs from Intelligence who’ve never seen a shot fired in anger.’

  ‘It won’t help your case to adopt that sort of churlish attitude, Villiers,’ said the colonel mildly.

  ‘Is anything likely to help my case?’

  ‘That depends on you. If you are prepared to give us details of your contacts, other than Pierre Benoit whom we know about, it’s possible that the authorities may take a more benevolent view of your treachery.’

  ‘The hell they will!’ scoffed Villiers. ‘I don’t think you really understand what this is all about.’

  ‘We know that you and your supporters harbour some idealistic concept that the Jews will one day be given a homeland and a state of their own.’

  ‘It’s more than idealistic,’ snapped Villiers. ‘The Ottomans have promised it to us, whereas the British have merely paid lip service to some half-baked proposals that they have no intention of honouring.’

  ‘You’re hardly in a position to talk of honour, Captain Villiers,’ observed the major quietly.

  ‘Clearly we each have a different concept of honour, Major, and it depends on one’s standpoint,’ said Villiers. ‘And in answer to your question, Colonel,’ he said, turning to the other officer, ‘I refuse to give you any information whatsoever.’

  The colonel closed his folder and stood up. ‘In that case you will almost certainly face a firing squad. Is that what you want, Captain Villiers?’

  ‘I am not the only one prepared to die for our cause,’ said Villiers. ‘You may not live long enough to see it, Colonel, but one day there will be a sovereign state of Israel.’

  ‘We’ll leave you with your dreams, then, Captain Villiers,’ said the colonel, as he and the major left the room.

  Hardcastle and Marriott arrived at Bow Road police station at half past two. Having identified himself to the station officer, Hardcastle mounted the stairs to the DDI’s office on the first floor.

  Carl Sawyer was the divisional detective inspector of the H or Whitechapel Division, but was known invariably as ‘Tom’. Fifty-two years of age, he was a rotund, jovial fellow with full sideburns, a flowing moustache and thinning auburn hair, and had spent all his service in the East End of London. An unashamed rough diamond, he was regarded by policemen and villains alike as a walking encyclopedia of local criminals, their methods and their families. He had even been known to give the occasional few shillings to the family of a villain he had been instrumental in having put away, knowing that the man’s dependants were, as a result, in dire straits.

  ‘Welcome to where the real police work’s done, Ernie.’ Sawyer laughed the moment that Hardcastle entered his office. ‘You’ve caught a good one this time, and bloody glad I am to get shot of it,’ he said, crossing the room with his hand outstretched.

  ‘Oh, you don’t know just how grateful I am to you, Tom. There’s nothing I like more than having a good murder to get my teeth into,’ said Hardcastle with heavy irony. ‘This here is DS Marriott, my bag-carrier,’ he added, indicating his sergeant.

  ‘You have my deepest sympathy, Skipper.’ Sawyer laughed again as he shook hands with Marriott, and then invited his guests to take a seat. Taking a bottle of whisky and three glasses from the bottom drawer of his desk, he poured liberal measures.

  ‘To be honest, Tom, I don’t see why I’m getting stuck with this topping,’ said Hardcastle, taking a sip of whisky.

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Sawyer. ‘Apparently Arthur Ward created merry hell about it. He reckoned that an East End topping ought to stay with East End coppers.’ Ward, an ailing detective chief inspector, destined to die before the year was out, was the head of the CID and had his office at Scotland Yard. ‘But Patrick Quinn outranks him, and he has the ear of Basil Thomson. So that was that.’ Since the outbreak of war, Thomson, the assistant commissioner for crime, had taken a greater interest in the workings of Special Branch almost to the exclusion of ordinary crime. ‘Your trouble, Ernie, is that you’re too handy, being just across the road from the Yard. You ought to put in for a transfer to a working division.’

  ‘Have you caught Jack the Ripper yet, Tom?’ asked Hardcastle. ‘His toppings were on your manor, weren’t they?’

  ‘You certainly know how to punch below the belt, Ernie,’ said Sawyer with a laugh.

  ‘Well, the message I got was that you couldn’t cope and needed help from a real detective, Tom. And I’ll thank you for a drop more of that Scotch of yours.’ Hardcastle pushed his glass across the desk.

  ‘Where’s Stein’s body now, sir?’ asked Marriott, attempting to steer the conversation away from badinage and back to the reason for their being there.

  ‘We were going to shift it to St Clement’s hospital for a start, Skip,’ said Sawyer. ‘Just down the road, but that was until Dr Spilsbury turned up. He’s doing the post-mortem and he ordered it to be moved to St Mary’s in Paddington. And that’s where it is now.’

  ‘At least that’s on the decent side of my toby,’ said Hardcastle, finishing his whisky. ‘Well, I suppose we’d better have a look at where Stein was topped.’

  Sawyer grabbed his bowler hat and paused only to tell one of his detectives where he was going.

  Peter Stein had lived in lodgings over a chandler’s shop within walking distance of the police station. A constable was stationed outside.

  Tom Sawyer pushed open the door of the shop and strode in, followed by Hardcastle and Marriott.

  ‘Hello, Mr Sawyer.’ The chandler wiped his hands on a dirty cloth, and nodded to H Division’s DDI.

  ‘This here is Percy Dyer, Ernie,’ said Sawyer. ‘Used to be a useful boxer in his time, but then he took to burgling. But a carpet in Pentonville nick soon sorted him out. Didn’t it, Perce?

  ‘That it did, Mr Sawyer. But you know as well as me that I’m going straight now.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Sawyer pensively. ‘So how come someone in a room over your shop gets hisself topped, eh?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Mr Sawyer, you know that weren’t nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Yes, I know, Perce,’ said Sawyer. ‘Topping ain’t your style. Anyhow, we’re going up there to take a gander.’

  ‘How long’s that copper going to be stuck outside my shop, Mr Sawyer?’

  ‘As long as Mr Hardcastle here thinks he ought to stay. Why? Putting the mockers on your trade, is he?’

  ‘I ain’t no fence, Mr Sawyer, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ exclaimed Dyer nervously.

  ‘I know that, Perce. You wouldn’t dare, being only a stride from the nick.’

  ‘What d’you know about this murder, Mr Dyer?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘It was about half past six this morning, sir. I was woken up by shouts coming from Stein’s room and then I heard a shot. So I leaped out of bed just in time to hear someone racing down the back stairs. Then I heard a door slam. I s’pose it was the back door into the alley. So,
I went into Stein’s room and found him dead on the floor. So I got dressed a bit jildi, told the missus to stay where she was and legged it down to the nick.’

  ‘I had one of my lads take a statement from Percy here, Ernie,’ said Sawyer. ‘It’s down at the nick. Now then, Perce, let me and these gentlemen through the shop, save us going round the back alleyway.’

  Passing through a door at the rear of the shop, the three detectives mounted a rickety staircase to the first floor.

  ‘All correct, sir,’ said a second constable stationed there.

  ‘Anyone been nosing around since I was here last, son?’ asked Sawyer.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ said Sawyer, and pushed open the door of the first room on the right, a room that was immediately over the shop and facing the road. ‘This is where he was found, Ernie.’

  Hardcastle glanced around the small room. A filthy rug covered part of the boarded floor. There was an iron-framed bed with a bare mattress, a couple of crumpled blankets and a ticking-covered pillow. In one corner was a washstand on which were a chipped bowl and a ewer.

  ‘Where exactly, Tom?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘Right there on the carpet, if you can call it that. You can see the bloodstains. Stein was wearing a pair of dirty underpants and a vest when he was found, and must’ve leaped out of bed when his killer came in. He was lying on his back, and he’d been shot in the chest. I reckon he was a goner before he had time to draw a second breath. I was called out at about five minutes to seven and the divisional surgeon got here at around half past eight.’

  ‘Any idea what the motive was, sir?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine, Skip, but I reckon you can rule out robbery. It doesn’t look as though Stein had anything worth nicking. Mind you, there was a couple of blokes from Special Branch who turned up, straight after the murder was reported to the Yard.’

  ‘There’s a surprise,’ said Hardcastle. ‘What did they want?’

  ‘Damned if I know, Ernie,’ said Sawyer. ‘You know what that lot’s like; always play their cards close to their chest. But they did take some equipment and a writing pad away with them.’

  ‘What sort of equipment?’ Hardcastle took a sudden interest; Quinn had mentioned something about Morse code equipment.

  ‘It was a sort of key thing and a set of earphones. I asked them why they wanted it, but they wouldn’t tell me. Personally I thought Stein had nicked it.’ Sawyer spent a few minutes filling his pipe and lighting it.

  ‘How did Dr Spilsbury get involved, sir?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘The divisional surgeon reckoned that a murder was too much for him; he usually only deals with prisoners who have been injured prior to their arrest and that sort of thing. He sent for Spilsbury who arrived at about ten. There wasn’t much he could do here, of course, other than to ask for the body to be sent to St Mary’s hospital. We already knew the time of death from what Dyer had told us.’

  ‘Bit of a dog’s dinner,’ commented Hardcastle.

  ‘The next thing I know is Arthur Ward getting in touch and telling me that this job was down to you, Ernie, but I still don’t know why. Anyway, good luck.’

  Hardcastle thought it unreasonable that Sawyer should not have been told, and despite what Quinn had said about the need for secrecy, decided to tell the H Division DDI what he knew.

  ‘Well I’m buggered,’ said Sawyer, once Hardcastle had explained why he had become involved. ‘So that’s it. Are you saying that Stein was a bloody spy, Ernie?’

  ‘Special Branch seems to think so, Tom.’

  ‘In that case I’ve probably wasted my time sending my men out to lean on their snouts.’

  ‘You never know,’ said Hardcastle, who set great store by the value of informants. ‘Just because Special Branch reckon he was spying don’t mean that some of the local villains don’t know anything.’

  ‘If I hear anything, Ernie, I’ll let you know. I s’pose you’ve got one of those telephone instruments, being the Royal A Division?’

  ‘Yes, we have,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Another flash in the pan. It won’t last, Tom, you mark my words. We always managed to do the job without all this newfangled rubbish they’re giving us.’

  ‘I sometimes think I’m getting too old for this job, Ernie. It all seems to be passing me by. I’ll be glad when I’ve got me time in and I can push off to some nice little cottage in the country with my Martha. Somewhere in Kent takes me fancy.’

  Hardcastle laughed. ‘You’d be bored out of your mind, Tom.’

  ‘Not me, Ernie. A nice little garden with a few roses, and the grandchildren coming to see us. No, I can’t wait.’

  ‘You mentioned back stairs just now, sir, and a back alley,’ said Marriott.

  ‘Yes, there’s an alley that leads off Harley Grove, Skipper. It gives access to the rear of these premises,’ said Sawyer. ‘I had a look at the door this morning and there aren’t any locks. Anyone could’ve walked in and it looks as though someone did.’

  ‘And made his escape the same way,’ suggested Hardcastle.

  ‘That’s about the strength of it, Ernie.’

  ‘Well, there’s not much here to whet our appetite,’ said Hardcastle, as he began wandering around the small room. Stein appeared to have owned very little in the way of personal property. A cupboard contained a few items of clothing and a pair of boots in need of repair.

  ‘This coat’s got a button missing, sir,’ said Marriott, taking a worn, serge reefer jacket from the back of the only chair in the room. ‘There should be six buttons, but there’s only five. And I’d swear they match the one we found in Gosling’s shop. There’s what looks like bloodstains on it, too, sir.’

  Hardcastle took hold of the jacket and examined it closely. ‘I think you’re right, Marriott. Bring it with you. And bring those boots with you, too. If they don’t match the footprint we found in Gosling’s shop, Kaiser Bill’s my uncle.’ He felt in the pockets of the reefer jacket. ‘Well, well,’ he said, taking out a silver necklace, a wristwatch and an albert watch chain. ‘If these ain’t proceeds from Gosling’s shop, I don’t deserve to be a DDI.’

  ‘D’you think this topping’s tied up with another job, then, Ernie?’ asked Sawyer.

  Hardcastle explained about the murder of Reuben Gosling.

  ‘How lucky can you get?’ said Sawyer, laughing once again. ‘Two for the price of one.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Hardcastle thoughtfully. ‘When you examined Stein’s body, Tom, did you happen to notice whether he’d got a cut on either of his hands?’

  ‘Now you come to mention it, Ernie, he had a bandage on his right hand. I didn’t look any further, but I dare say Dr Spilsbury will be able to give you chapter and verse.’

  ‘What about fingerprints, Tom?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘Oh, I never bother with that, Ernie. I know where to find my villains, and I’ve got some good snouts on the manor.’

  Hardcastle, who had himself only recently begun to appreciate the value of this comparatively new science, nodded. ‘Yes, Tom, I think you’re right; the Job is passing you by. I’ll get Charlie Collins down here to give the place the once over. You never know, I might get lucky.’

  ‘And luck is what you’ll need, Ernie.’

  ‘I’ve just had a thought, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘Really, sir?’ Marriott tried to keep the sarcasm from his voice; he knew that the DDI’s ‘thoughts’ often led the enquiry off on some wild goose chase.

  ‘Have a look at the windows. It’s just possible that the sash weight we found in Gosling’s shop came from here.’

  Marriott crossed to the only window in the room. The glass was filthy and it was almost impossible to see out of it. He attempted to raise the lower window, but succeeded only after applying all his strength.

  ‘You’re right, sir. The wooden fillet has been removed and the left-hand weight is missing.’

  ‘I’ll put money on
it being the one that Catto found under the cabinet in Gosling’s shop, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle, a satisfied smile on his face. ‘Get Mr Collins to have another look at it with a view to comparing any prints on it with those of Stein’s. He’ll probably have to go to St Mary’s to take Stein’s dabs.’

  NINE

  It was half past six by the time that Hardcastle and Marriott got back to Cannon Row.

  ‘I’ve compared the button we found in Reuben Gosling’s shop with the remaining five on the coat we seized from Stein’s room, sir,’ said Marriott, ‘and I’m as sure as can be that it matches.’

  ‘What about the boots we found, Marriott? Any luck with those?’

  ‘I compared them with the photograph of the footprint in Reuben Gosling’s shop that Simpson’s photographer took for us, and I’d swear that the right boot is identical, sir.’

  ‘Now we’re getting somewhere, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Get on to Mr Collins, and ask him to meet us at Stein’s room at Bow Road tomorrow to make a thorough examination for fingerprints. I’ll be particularly interested to know if any of those he finds match any he found in Gosling’s shop or in Sinclair Villiers’s car.’

  Marriott glanced at his wristwatch. ‘I doubt that he’ll still be in his office, sir.’

  ‘Not in his office, Marriott?’ Hardcastle raised his eyebrows and stared at his sergeant. ‘Mr Collins is a CID officer. Of course he’ll still be in his office. See to it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Marriott, and left the police station to make his way across the courtyard to what was known to members of the Force as Commissioner’s Office.

  Hardcastle had just started to check the reports that were awaiting his attention when DC Rafferty of Special Branch appeared in his office.

  ‘Oh, it’s you again, Rafferty,’ said Hardcastle, laying down his pen with a sigh of exasperation. ‘What is it now?’

  ‘Mr O’Rourke would like to see you as soon as possible, sir.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector O’Rourke is acting as Mr Quinn’s deputy, sir, while Mr Quinn and Mr McBrien are away. He’s currently occupying Mr Quinn’s office.’