Hardcastle's Quartet

by Graham Ison

  ‘I’ll need you to make a written statement to that effect, Miss Craig,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘But I made one when you were here before, Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but in this one you will identify the man in the photograph, Miss Craig,’ explained Hardcastle gently. ‘And you will probably be called to give evidence.’

  ‘Good gracious! Where?’

  ‘Probably at the Old Bailey in the City of London,’ said Marriott.

  Dorothy Craig looked suitably impressed. ‘Gosh!’ she exclaimed. ‘Isn’t that where they try all the famous murderers?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hardcastle, ‘and some not so famous ones.’

  Once the statement was taken, Hardcastle, Marriott and Burgess moved on to the restaurant where, it was thought, Henson had taken Hannah Clarke for what proved to be her last supper.

  Dismissing the restaurant manager’s protests that they were ‘rather busy’ just now, Hardcastle showed him the photograph of Rollo Henson.

  ‘D’you recognize this man, Mr Morrison?’

  ‘Definitely. That’s the man who came with the pretty girl on that Thursday night, Inspector. The day before she was found on the beach,’ said Morrison. ‘I’ve no doubt about it.’

  Once again, a statement was taken to add to the growing pile of evidence against Rollo Henson.

  ‘Ever given evidence at the Old Bailey, Burgess?’ asked Hardcastle, as they waited outside the restaurant for a cab to appear.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Burgess.

  ‘Well, you will when this case comes up. And just to make sure that you’ll be there, I want you to find the pier-master’s man who found the murdered girl’s clothing in the lifebelt locker and take a statement from him detailing what he found and when he found it.’ But Hardcastle’s device was to ensure that Burgess would be away from Worthing for at least a week. And was designed more to inconvenience Superintendent Potts than to oblige the young Worthing sergeant.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Burgess enthusiastically.

  ‘And now Sergeant Marriott and me will make our way back to London, Burgess.’

  It was close to nine o’clock by the time that Hardcastle and Marriott returned to London.

  ‘I think we’ve done enough for one day, Marriott, and a very satisfactory day too.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’ve got the right man, sir.’

  ‘The right man, Marriott?’ Hardcastle stared at his sergeant. ‘Of course we’ve got the right man. Now then, as far as tomorrow’s concerned, I wonder where Sergeant-Major Cuthbert Curtis, barrister-at-law, will be on a Saturday morning.’

  ‘Either at home or at the recruiting office, I suppose, sir.’ Marriott could not understand why Hardcastle needed to see Curtis again.

  ‘Find out, Marriott. I want to talk to him.’ Hardcastle glanced at his watch, wound it and dropped it back into his waistcoat pocket. ‘I think we’ll have an early night. See you at eight tomorrow morning. Get off home now and give my regards to Mrs Marriott.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Marriott did not share the DDI’s view that nine o’clock constituted an early night. ‘And mine to Mrs H.’

  Marriott’s first job on arriving at the police station on Saturday morning was to telephone the Central London Recruiting Office in Great Scotland Yard. At ten o’clock he tapped on Hardcastle’s door.

  ‘Mr Curtis is on duty at the recruiting office this morning, sir.’

  ‘We’ll walk down and have a chat with him, then,’ said Hardcastle.

  Together the two detectives strode down Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square. Hardcastle paused to buy a box of matches from a one-legged ex-soldier, and later he and Marriott stopped to doff their hats to a passing military funeral.

  ‘Will it ever be over, Marriott?’ Hardcastle’s question was a rhetorical one; the roll of dead from the Great War seemed unending.

  ‘According to the papers things are going well out there, sir.’

  They turned into Great Scotland Yard and mounted the steps of the recruiting office.

  ‘Hello, Inspector,’ said Curtis, rising from behind his desk. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Some assistance if you have a moment, Mr Curtis.’

  ‘By all means. Come into the office.’

  ‘You’re probably aware that I’ve arrested a man named Henson for the murder of Georgina Cheney, Mr Curtis,’ said Hardcastle, once the three of them were ensconced in Curtis’s tiny office.

  ‘I saw a brief piece about it in The Times, Inspector,’ said Curtis. ‘It was also the subject of much gossip up at the Bailey, mainly because Henson is a barrister.’

  ‘Quite so. In that connection I’ve a favour to ask.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Rollo Henson claimed that he was at a bar mess dinner the night of Mrs Cheney’s murder, but I’m certain that he wasn’t. D’you know of a reliable source who I might ask, and who would be willing to give evidence?’

  ‘Which Inn of Court did Henson belong to, Inspector?’

  ‘Inner Temple, Mr Curtis,’ said Marriott.

  ‘Ah, you’re in luck, then. That’s my inn, too. Now, let me see …’ Curtis spent a few moments thinking and then wrote a name on a slip of paper. ‘Mr Justice Cawthorne is the man to see. He’s something of a trencherman and never misses one of these dinners. Have a word with him.’

  ‘But I can hardly expect a High Court judge to come to court to give evidence, Mr Curtis.’ Hardcastle sounded perturbed at the very thought of seeing a High Court judge in the witness box rather than on the bench.

  ‘You may be right,’ said Curtis, with a smile. ‘He’ll probably make a written statement that will be accepted in evidence by the presiding judge at Henson’s trial. I doubt that any defence counsel would have the courage to argue with that. Except perhaps Edward Marshall Hall,’ he added wryly.

  ‘Where are we likely to find this judge, Mr Curtis?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘He sits in the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. You’ll find him at the Law Courts in the Strand. Best thing is to find his clerk and he’ll arrange for you to see the judge when he rises for lunch. But you’ll have to wait until Monday; I doubt that he’ll be sitting on a Saturday. That’s the best I can do, Sergeant Marriott. To coin an apt phrase, High Court judges are a law unto themselves.’

  ‘It looks as though that’s all we can do until Monday, sir,’ said Marriott, as he and Hardcastle walked into Whitehall. He was hoping that the DDI might decide to take the rest of the weekend off, but that hope was immediately dashed.

  ‘D’you remember Etherington telling us that he met Georgina Cheney at some charity function at the Langham Hotel, Marriott, and that she’d arrived with another man?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Marriott referred to his pocket book. ‘Etherington told us that it was on Saturday the eleventh of May.’

  ‘So it was, Marriott, so it was.’ Hardcastle hailed a cab. ‘Langham Hotel, cabbie.’ And turning to Marriott, said, ‘We’ll see if they know who brought Georgina Cheney to this do when Etherington took her off of him.’

  ‘We’re police officers,’ said Hardcastle, and identified himself to the Langham Hotel’s concierge.

  ‘How may I be of assistance, Inspector?’

  ‘There was some sort of charity affair held here on Saturday the eleventh of May,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘Ah, one of many, sir. In aid of the war wounded, I seem to recall. But then most of them are.’

  ‘I dare say,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Do you have a guest list for that there function?’

  ‘Indeed I do, Inspector.’ The concierge opened a drawer in his desk and rummaged around until eventually he produced a dog-eared document. ‘Was there someone in particular you are interested in?’

  ‘Does the name of Rollo Henson appear on your list?’

  ‘Henson, Henson,’ muttered the concierge, as he ran his finger down the column of names. ‘Yes, he we are: Rollo Henson accompanied by Mrs Georgina Chene
y.’

  ‘I bloody thought so, Marriott,’ exclaimed Hardcastle. ‘So much for his story that he’d not seen her since leaving Malta.’

  ‘Shall I take a statement, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hardcastle, and addressed the concierge. ‘I’m seizing that document and my sergeant will take a statement from you saying that the list you’ve handed him was a true list of those attending that function here on the night in question.’

  ‘I’m not sure the manager would like you to take that, sir,’ said the concierge, somewhat disturbed at what he saw as Hardcastle’s high-handed action.

  ‘Well, he’ll just have to lump it,’ said Hardcastle. Turning to Marriott, he asked, ‘Have you got that photograph of Henson with you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. In that case we’ll go to the Wardour Hotel and see if anyone there can identify Henson as the man who was with Hazel Lacey the night she was topped.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Marriott could see the rest of Saturday slipping away.

  The visit to the Wardour Hotel in London’s West End proved to be disappointing. As ‘Posh Bill’ Sullivan had said, the reservation had been made by telephone the day prior to the murder by a man calling himself Kenneth Reeves. But no one recalled having seen the mysterious Kenneth Reeves. Hardcastle was in no doubt that Reeves was Henson, but mere supposition was not enough.

  However, Hardcastle was a more resourceful detective than those who had investigated Mrs Lacey’s murder. Leaving the hotel, he stopped and spoke to the linkman. ‘Have you worked here long?’ he asked.

  ‘For the past two years, sir. Ever since I was invalided out of the Life Guards in ’16. Squadron Quartermaster Corporal, I was.’

  ‘I see you were in South Africa,’ said Marriott, noting the man’s Boer War medal ribbons. ‘And Mons.’

  ‘That I was, sir. A bloody rout was that Mons caper an’ all.’

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ said Hardcastle. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Jethro Walsh, sir.’

  ‘Well, Walsh,’ said Hardcastle, ‘I’m investigating the murder that took place here on the twenty-seventh of March.’

  ‘Oh, I remember that, sir. A right to-do that was.’

  ‘In that case, have a look at this photograph.’

  Jethro Walsh took a pair of glasses from a pocket in his ornate tunic, and looked carefully at the photograph of Henson. ‘That’s him, sir. Mr Reeves that is. He was definitely here that night.’

  ‘Why d’you remember him so clearly, Mr Walsh?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘I never forgets a gent what gives me a handsome tip, sir, and Mr Reeves bunged me a sov,’ said Walsh, fingering his waxed moustache.

  ‘Did any of the police officers who were here that day speak to you?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘No, sir.’ Walsh paused. ‘No, I tell a lie, sir. There was one: a gent in a bowler hat and sporting a Piccadilly window.’

  ‘What did he ask you?’

  ‘He asked me to call him a cab, sir.’

  Once Hardcastle had arranged a relief for the linkman, Marriott took a statement from him.

  ‘I bloody knew it, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle as they walked away from the hotel. ‘Shoddy police work.’

  It was unlikely that a High Court judge would be at court before ten o’clock in the morning. It was, therefore, fifteen minutes before that hour when Hardcastle and Marriott were set down outside the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand.

  ‘D’you know there are three and a half miles of corridors in this place, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle, as they approached the door.

  ‘I hope we don’t have to walk along all of them before we find His Lordship, sir.’ Marriott was amazed yet again at one of the DDI’s inconsequential pieces of information. Particularly as the police had very little to do with the civil courts.

  Hardcastle approached a constable standing at the start of a long, echoing entrance hall that was dominated by high Gothic arches.

  ‘I’m DDI Hardcastle of A, lad.’

  ‘Sir?’ The PC saluted.

  ‘I’m looking for the clerk to Mr Justice Cawthorne.’

  ‘Ah yes, I knows where he is, sir. I’ll get one of the messengers to show you the way. If you was to get lost we might never find you again.’

  Hardcastle fixed the PC with a stony stare, and the PC wiped the smile from his face.

  After walking for what seemed an age, the messenger eventually tapped on a door and admitted the two detectives.

  The judge’s clerk was a man of about sixty, attired in the customary black jacket and striped trousers of his calling.

  Hardcastle introduced himself and Marriott and explained why they wished to see the judge.

  ‘His Lordship is just refreshing his memory with today’s case papers at the moment, Inspector,’ said the clerk. ‘He usually goes into court at ten-thirty or just after. I’ll let him know you’re here. In the meantime, gentlemen, please take a seat. I’ve no doubt you could do with a cup of tea.’

  ‘Very kind of you, sir,’ said Hardcastle.

  At twenty minutes to eleven, Hardcastle heard a voice shouting for someone called Monaghan. The clerk rose, tapped on a communicating door and after a brief conversation with the judge ushered the two detectives into his chambers.

  ‘My clerk tells me you wish to see me on an important matter concerning a murder, Inspector.’ Mr Justice Cawthorne was a jolly, round-faced man of ample proportions. His girth bore testimony to his love of bar mess dinners, and his rubicund complexion seemed to indicate a liking for port. ‘Sit yourselves down.’ He waved at a couple of easy chairs and sat down himself.

  ‘I’m investigating the murder of a Mrs Georgina Cheney, My Lord,’ began Hardcastle. ‘And I’ve charged a barrister by the name of Rollo Henson with that murder.’

  ‘Yes, I read that he’d been arrested. If he’s hanged he’ll be disbarred you know.’ Cawthorne looked gravely at Hardcastle and then burst into laughter at the DDI’s bemused expression. ‘Joking aside, Inspector, how can I help you?’ The judge took off his spectacles and began polishing the lenses with a pocket handkerchief.

  ‘When I first interviewed Mr Henson he claimed that on the night of the murder he was at a bar mess dinner, My Lord.’

  ‘And you think he’s lying, eh?’ said Cawthorne. ‘What date was this?’

  ‘Tuesday the eleventh of June this year, My Lord.’

  ‘Tell Monaghan to bring the lists, Sergeant,’ said Cawthorne. ‘He’ll know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, My Lord,’ said Marriott, and crossed quickly to the clerk’s office.

  Monaghan appeared a few seconds later. ‘Which one, My Lord?’

  ‘Eleventh of June.’

  ‘This is the one, My Lord,’ said Monaghan, handing a list to the judge. ‘Incidentally, My Lord, counsel and parties to the action are all assembled in court,’ said Monaghan, glancing pointedly at the clock.

  ‘You worry too much, Monaghan. They won’t start without me,’ said the judge, who then laughed and waved a hand of dismissal. He examined the list and then looked up. ‘Henson was not at the dinner that night, Inspector, and now I suppose that you want a statement from me, eh?’

  ‘That would be most helpful, My Lord.’

  ‘Here, give me the form. I’ll write it.’ Cawthorne took out a fountain pen and quickly wrote a brief statement. ‘I think you’ll find that this will satisfy whichever judge tries Henson’s case, Inspector.’

  NINETEEN

  A fortnight later, Hardcastle and Marriott were summoned to attend a conference in counsel’s chambers at Hare Court in that area of London known as the Temple.

  ‘Dryden Bradley, gentlemen. I’m one of a number of counsel assisting Sir Gordon Hewart, the Solicitor-General, in the matter of the Crown and Henson,’ said the barrister, as he shook hands with the two detectives. ‘I’ll just make some space for you to sit down.’ The speaker was a tall man, some forty years of age, with a high forehead, a moustache and beard
. He spent a few moments clearing a couple of chairs of briefs and law books, and deposited them on the floor. ‘The Solicitor will be appearing for the Crown in this case, but if he finds himself on his feet in another court, Mr Cedric Kitchen KC will be briefed to stand in for him.’

  ‘I’ve met Mr Kitchen, sir,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I interviewed his butler, a year or so back, in connection with the case that resulted in the conviction of Hilda, Lady Naylor. And I’ve appeared at the Bailey in a case Mr Kitchen was prosecuting.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said Bradley. ‘Then you’ll know his methods, should he be appearing.’ The lawyer drew a substantial pile of paper across his desk and unfastened the pink ribbon that bound it. ‘I have to say, Mr Hardcastle, that your investigation into this matter has been extremely thorough. What d’you think Henson’s motive was?’

  Hardcastle thought that to be abundantly clear. Nevertheless, he expounded his thoughts on the matter.

  ‘Put simply, sir, murder for profit. I examined the bank account of Rollo Henson and found that substantial sums of money were paid into that account within days of the three murders. It seems to me that he wooed these women with the intention of stealing as much money from them as he could. And then he murdered them when they found out what he had done and threatened to tell their husbands. Of course, there may have been others who did not protest and were not, therefore, murdered.’

  ‘Quite so, but we can’t proceed on a supposition.’

  ‘I have obtained a statement from Commander Robert Cheney, sir, and he said—’

  ‘One moment, Inspector.’ Bradley raised a staying hand and riffled through the appendix to Hardcastle’s report. ‘Yes, I have his statement here. He avers that the sum of about seven hundred and fifty pounds was missing from his late wife’s estate.’ The barrister looked up. ‘And that of course equates with the sum paid into Henson’s account on the twelfth of June this year.’ He paused. ‘Within hours of Mrs Cheney’s murder.’

  ‘That’s correct, sir. However, I’m still awaiting similar confirmation from Major Hardy and Colonel Lacey that sums were missing from their respective wives’ savings. Unfortunately, both officers are serving with the BEF and the army is having some difficulty in locating them.’