Hardcastle's Quandary

by Graham Ison

  It was eight o’clock by the time that Hardcastle put his key in the lock of his house at 27 Kennington Road, where he and his wife, Alice, had lived since their marriage thirty-four years ago. Pausing in the hall, he took out his hunter and checked the time of the longcase clock that had stood there for years. Satisfied that it was keeping good time, he pushed open the door of the parlour.

  ‘You’re late for a Saturday,’ said his wife. ‘I’ve got your supper, but it just needs warming up.’

  ‘I’m sorry, love, but I had a murder suspect to deal with. It was one that Wally arrested at Kempton Park. He’s got the makings, has that lad.’

  Alice laughed. ‘Praise indeed, coming from you, Ernie.’

  ‘Would you like a sherry, love?’

  ‘Please, Ernie.’

  Hardcastle poured an Amontillado for his wife and a whisky for himself before sitting down in his armchair opposite Alice.

  ‘Well, are you going to tell me about it?’ Alice stopped knitting and pushed the needles into the ball of wool. ‘Clothes for Wally’s new baby,’ she explained.

  ‘There’s not much to tell,’ said Hardcastle, taking a sip of his Scotch. ‘We’d put the name of the wanted man in the Police Gazette and young Wally spotted him at Kempton Park.’ He made it sound as though Walter had recognized Holroyd on description, but he saw no harm in making his son appear smarter than he had been. He was secretly very proud of him.

  ‘Oh, well, if that’s it, I’ll go and put your supper in the oven.’ Alice placed her knitting on a side table and took her glass of sherry with her as she went through to the kitchen.

  Hardcastle picked up the Daily Mail which had arrived after he had left for work that morning. Its late delivery was, in Hardcastle’s view, another example of slipping standards brought about by the effects of the war, a war that had ended nine years ago.

  About the time that Hardcastle arrived home at his Kennington Road house, his son Walter put his key into the door of his terrace house in Ewhurst Road, Brockley, in south-east London. He had moved into the rented property shortly after his marriage to Muriel Groves on the sixteenth of January 1924. On the first of July 1925, she gave birth to Edward and was now pregnant with the couple’s second child.

  Walter crossed the room to where his wife was seated awkwardly in an armchair and gave her a kiss. ‘How’s number two?’ he asked, patting his wife’s stomach affectionately.

  ‘Kicking like mad,’ said Muriel, ‘and Edward’s been up to mischief all day. But he’s a Hardcastle, and my mother-in-law said I should never have married a Hardcastle, especially if he’s a copper. How was your day, Wally?’

  ‘Run of the mill,’ said Walter. ‘I was down at Kempton Park all afternoon, but the racing was rained off. However, I did manage to arrest a bloke that Dad had been looking for.’

  ‘I bet that pleased him,’ said Muriel.

  ‘Very likely,’ said Wally. ‘Not that he’d ever tell me. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, please. But what about you?’

  ‘I’ll just have a bottle of beer.’

  ‘No, I meant what d’you want to eat?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, thanks. I grabbed a bite in the canteen at Teddington nick while we were processing our prisoners.’

  Muriel shook her head. ‘It’s not good for you, all that canteen food, darling. I suppose you had a fry-up.’

  ‘It’s all they’d got left,’ said Walter, lying convincingly, and walked through to the kitchen to make his wife tea.

  ‘Kitty popped in to see me this afternoon,’ shouted Muriel.

  ‘Kitty who?’

  ‘Good heavens, Wally, your sister Kitty.’

  ‘That was nice of her.’

  ‘She gave me lots of advice about bringing up children.’ Muriel chuckled.

  ‘She’s got a cheek,’ said Walter. ‘What does she know about it? She’s not married.’

  ‘Hardly her fault, Wally.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ Walter returned to the sitting room and handed his wife a cup of tea. He opened a bottle of beer and sat down opposite her, stretching his legs out.

  Right at the end of the war, Kitty had fallen in love with a staff sergeant in the Royal Engineers and had accepted his proposal of marriage. He had been killed in the last week of the war, and Kitty vowed that she would never marry. Instead, she travelled every year to the military cemetery where her fiancé was buried and laid flowers on his grave. In the aftermath of the war, it was a familiar story.

  SIX

  Catto had returned from the Ritz Hotel and reported that Holroyd had never stayed there, as he had claimed when arrested by Detective Sergeant Walter Hardcastle of the Flying Squad.

  Catto could not understand why Hardcastle had sent him there. Holroyd had already admitted that he had lied to the DDI’s son when he was arrested. But Hardcastle was known to his subordinates as a ‘belt and braces’ detective.

  ‘Just as I thought.’ Hardcastle had been in no doubt that if Holroyd were to be released on bail, he would disappear without trace, and the lie about staying at that prestigious West End hotel confirmed it. Consequently, the DDI ordered that the former artillery captain should be kept in custody over what remained of the weekend.

  On Monday morning, Holroyd was collected by a prisoner-transport van and conveyed to Bow Street police court.

  Hardcastle made a point of seeing Sir John Hanbury, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, in his chambers before the court sat. He did not want to explain, in open court, the reasons for his application, mainly because of the presence of the press.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Hardcastle.’

  ‘Good morning, Sir John.’

  ‘What can I do for A Division’s chief thief-taker this morning?’ Hanbury asked jocularly.

  ‘I have a Captain Rupert Holroyd appearing before you this morning, Sir John, and I should be much obliged if you could see your way clear to remanding him into police custody, if you would be so kind. He has admitted uttering a number of forged cheques to the detriment of Captain Guy Stoner and that’s what he’s been arrested for. However, we have discovered two dismembered bodies, one male and one female, at the site of a garage he and Stoner jointly owned. I strongly suspect that Holroyd has committed both murders, and I would like the opportunity to question him further in connection with this matter.’

  Hanbury considered Hardcastle’s application seriously for a moment or two, his fingers steepled together and touching his pursed lips. ‘I see no problem there, Mr Hardcastle,’ he said eventually. ‘I’ll remand him into your custody until his next appearance at this court on …’ He paused to examine a calendar. ‘Tuesday the nineteenth of April. In the circumstances, I shall not take a plea this morning in respect of uttering forged cheques.’

  ‘I’m much obliged, Sir John,’ said Hardcastle, and returned to the courtroom. Five minutes later, the Chief Magistrate took his place on the bench.

  ‘Put up Rupert Holroyd,’ said the clerk of the court.

  A PC ushered Holroyd into the dock of Number One Court.

  ‘State your full name,’ said the clerk.

  ‘Rupert Holroyd, sir.’

  ‘And your address?’

  ‘The Salvation Army refuge at Vandon Street, London SW1, sir.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the clerk. Dipping his pen in the inkwell, he wrote No fixed abode in the court register.

  ‘Remanded to police custody until reappearance at this court on Tuesday the nineteenth of April,’ said Sir John Hanbury. ‘Next!’

  As Hardcastle was leaving the court, a reporter sped across the room from the press box. ‘Hargreaves, Surrey Advertiser, Mr Hardcastle. What was that all about?’ he asked optimistically. ‘Has Holroyd got something to do with what’s been going on at Ditton?’ But his hopefulness was cut short by Hardcastle’s curt response.

  ‘If I’d wanted the world to know, Hargreaves, it would have been revealed in open court. Good day to you.’

  After Hardcastle a
nd Marriott had enjoyed their usual lunch at the Red Lion, they made their way down to the cells. ‘You’re going to St Mary’s Hospital this afternoon, Holroyd,’ announced Hardcastle.

  ‘What for? There’s nothing wrong with me.’

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ retorted Hardcastle, standing at the door to Holroyd’s cell, ‘but the purpose of your visit will be to look at a severed head. I want to see if you recognize it.’

  ‘How d’you want to do this, sir?’ asked Marriott, once he and Hardcastle had returned to the DDI’s office.

  ‘A couple of DCs can take him up there in the van, and you and I will take a cab and meet them there.’

  Ritchie and Proctor were the two officers selected by Marriott to act as escort.

  ‘Out you come, Holroyd,’ said Ritchie, as the gaoler opened the cell door.

  ‘It’s Captain Holroyd to you, Constable,’ said the prisoner irritably. ‘I was an officer, you know.’

  ‘So was I,’ said Ritchie mildly.

  ‘Oh!’ That surprise response left Holroyd momentarily speechless. Although aware that many ex-servicemen who had fought in the war had joined the police after the conflict was over, he had not realized that some of them had been officers. ‘What regiment?’ he asked lamely.

  ‘Not that it’s any of your damned business, because the bloody war’s been over for nearly nine years now,’ said Ritchie, ‘but I was a captain in the Grenadier Guards.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Holroyd again, and remained silent for the entire journey to Paddington.

  The mortuary attendant had been alerted by Sir Bernard Spilsbury that Hardcastle would be arriving to examine the remains that had been found at Ditton.

  ‘All ready for you, sir.’ The attendant led the party across the room to a side bench and, with a proprietorial flourish, removed the covering from the male severed head, rather like a magician who had just performed a particularly difficult illusion. He then removed the covering from the female sufficient to display the head, but not the torso. ‘There we are, gents.’ He appeared disappointed that there was no reaction, no cries of horror and no turning away from the grisly sight.

  ‘Have a look at this one, Holroyd.’ Hardcastle pointed to the male head.

  ‘Good God!’ exclaimed Holroyd. ‘It’s Guy.’

  ‘Guy who?’ demanded Hardcastle, a stickler for accuracy. After all, it might not have been Stoner, but another man called Guy.

  ‘That’s Guy Stoner, Inspector. Ye gods! Who would have done such a thing?’

  ‘You, perhaps?’ suggested the DDI drily.

  ‘It most certainly was not,’ asserted Holroyd. ‘We might have had our disagreements, but nothing that would warrant my murdering him.’

  ‘Disagreements about what?’ Hardcastle thought that was probably a slip of the tongue or, perhaps, referred to minor tiffs, but he was on it in a moment.

  ‘Guy had started running about with a young married woman, Inspector, and I told him that it was distracting him from getting the garage business up and running. He was never there when a joint decision needed to be made; instead, he was indulging himself and his floozy in the fleshpots of London. He was besotted with the woman. Apart from anything else, of course, it was damned bad form. It was what in the army we called conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, but he wouldn’t listen.’ In view of what Marriott learned later about Holroyd, that remark was pretentious, to say the least.

  ‘Is that her?’ asked Hardcastle, pointing at the female head.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Holroyd. ‘I never met her.’ He glanced at the head again. ‘Pretty, wasn’t she? And quite young, as far as you can tell.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘I don’t know, Inspector. Guy never mentioned her name. All I can tell you is that one day he remarked that she was married and that her husband was much older than she was.’ Holroyd shrugged. ‘I suppose that’s why she took a shine to the dashing, monied Captain Stoner.’ There was an element of envy in Holroyd’s comment.

  ‘Monied until you emptied his bank account,’ commented Hardcastle. Marriott frowned at the DDI’s continued flouting of the Judges’ Rules, but he knew it would be pointless to mention it now or later.

  ‘Is this the woman you mentioned who had the sports car?’ Hardcastle kept pressing Holroyd for every last piece of information.

  ‘No!’ Holroyd answered the question very quickly. Too quickly, perhaps. ‘As I told you, I’ve never seen this woman before,’ he said, gesturing at the female head.

  There was no respite for anyone once Hardcastle had some evidence that needed following up. Back at Cannon Row police station, he and Marriott continued their attempts to unravel the mystery of the dead woman who, it now appeared, could have been Stoner’s lady friend, or at least one of them.

  ‘When did Stoner meet this woman you say was married to an older man, Holroyd?’ persisted Hardcastle.

  ‘I’m not absolutely sure.’

  ‘D’you know where?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. Guy was very secretive about the whole affair.’

  ‘Where did they conduct this affair? Did Stoner have a room somewhere that he kept for these meetings? Or perhaps a friend whose apartment he used? You must know something about it, or are you being deliberately obstructive?’ Hardcastle was beginning to lose his temper.

  ‘He took her to a hotel, I think.’ Holroyd was beginning to get annoyed, too.

  Recognizing the signs, Marriott stepped in to see if he could extract some vital information.

  ‘As I understand it, Captain Holroyd, Guy Stoner was your friend.’

  ‘Yes, he was. We served together in the war. Both of us were in the Ypres Salient, which was a pretty uncomfortable place to be, I can tell you.’

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ said Marriott. ‘My brother-in-law was there for a while.’

  ‘Oh, who was he with?’

  ‘The Middlesex Regiment.’

  ‘The Diehards. That was their nickname.’ Holroyd nodded slowly as though recalling that trying and dangerous time: the constant shelling, the unique sound of falling masonry and the cries of the wounded. ‘Did he survive?’

  ‘Yes, he stayed on. He’s a regular officer now.’

  ‘Rather him than me,’ said Holroyd derisively. ‘I couldn’t wait to get out and enjoy myself in the fleshpots of London.’

  ‘Ah, the nightclubs,’ said Marriott, as though dreaming of some youthful escapades. In fact, he detested the places. ‘I can imagine that you and Guy had a whale of a time.’

  Holroyd laughed. ‘That we did, Sergeant Marriott. We reckoned we’d earned it. We’d fought hard and then we played hard.’

  Hardcastle was about to intervene, believing that his sergeant was wasting time, when Marriott’s next question revealed his strategy.

  ‘I suppose it was to those familiar haunts that Guy took this lady friend of his.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it was. There were times when he came to work looking absolutely exhausted. On one occasion, I asked him where he’d been, and he told me that he and his lady friend had spent the night dancing and drinking at the Black Cat in Wardour Street.’

  ‘Is that somewhere that you and he had been in the past?’

  ‘Yes, it was one of our favourite spots, as a matter of fact. On one occasion, Guy told me, he went out with one of the chorus girls from there, but he always had plenty of money to flash about. There’s nothing that impresses a girl so much as a chap who’s willing to spend money on them.’

  ‘Any idea who she was?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, I never met her. But I told you that before.’

  ‘Now, Holroyd, tell me about the fire at your so-called garage. That presumably was to disguise the fact that it never stood a chance of being a success.’ Once again, Hardcastle took a gamble, as he had so often done in the past, usually with a successful outcome. But not this time.

  ‘I know nothing about that.’

  ‘What d’you mean, you know n
othing about it? You tried to claim off the insurance, and you put the land on the market, using the name of Oliver Talbot to cover your tracks.’ This time, Hardcastle had more luck.

  ‘I didn’t make myself quite clear, Inspector,’ said Holroyd. ‘I was away the weekend of the fire.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I was coming to that, Inspector,’ said Holroyd wearily. ‘I went to my folks in Rutland, to Oakham. It’s about twenty miles from Leicester. Anyway, I got back to Ditton in the late afternoon of Monday the fourteenth of March to find the place ablaze. What was left of it. I promptly called the fire brigade.’

  ‘Where did you live when you were in Ditton, Captain Holroyd?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘In the office. It was quite spacious, and we had camp beds and that sort of thing. It was cheaper than taking rooms and it meant that we were on site all the time.’

  ‘When did you leave Ditton to visit your people?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘It was the Friday before the fire. That’d be the eleventh. I caught a train at around noon from St Pancras.’

  ‘And you stayed in Oakham the whole weekend, did you?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘When you say you saw your folks, are you talking about your parents?’

  ‘Not exactly. My father died some six years ago, and my mother now lives with my sister and her husband. It was at my sister’s place that I stayed.’

  ‘So they can vouch for you, can they?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘They’d jolly well better,’ said Holroyd with a laugh.

  ‘Make a note to get the Rutland Constabulary to check Holroyd’s alibi, Marriott.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Marriott was looking forward to his promotion so that he would, at last, escape Hardcastle’s overbearing and constant need to tell him how to do his job.

  ‘Why did you decide to use the name Oliver Talbot when you put the land up for sale with Coates of Kingston?’

  ‘My word, you have been doing your homework, Inspector,’ said Holroyd, with a tinge of sarcasm.

  ‘We tend to make a lot of enquiries when dealing with a double murder, Holroyd,’ said Hardcastle drily, even though he had known nothing of the murders when he spoke to the estate agent. ‘Perhaps you’d answer my question.’