Hardcastle's Quandary

by Graham Ison

  ‘Well, once I’d found that the place had burned down, and having milked Guy’s bank account – not something I’m proud of – I thought that suspicion might fall on me for setting fire to the place.’

  Hardcastle was about to point out that in one of the letters, purporting to be from Stoner, Holroyd wrote that Stoner had burned his hand. It was a curious coincidence and Holroyd might have been careless in mentioning it. However, Hardcastle was prevented from questioning Holroyd on the matter, remembering, somewhat belatedly, the Judges’ Rules. Holroyd had been cautioned in connection with that offence, and could not, therefore, be asked anything further about it. The DDI was not altogether sure on that point as he had only a passing knowledge of those rules of procedure that had been brought in as late as 1918. He thought them to be an unnecessary impediment to the investigation of crime, but he erred on the side of caution nevertheless.

  ‘Why should anyone think that, Captain Holroyd?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘It looked as though it was deliberate. I mean, a fire in the office and another in the workshop, some distance away. That wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘How do you know such things, Holroyd? Were you in the fire brigade?’ asked Hardcastle sarcastically.

  ‘You don’t only learn how to fire a gun in the Royal Field Artillery, Inspector,’ said Holroyd.

  ‘No, I suppose not. Do you also learn how to burn things down?’

  ‘If I’d been responsible for that fire, Inspector, I’d have made a far more efficient job of it.’

  ‘Take him down, Marriott.’ Hardcastle was fast becoming exasperated at his lack of progress. ‘And then come and see me.’

  ‘He’s a crafty bugger, Marriott.’ Slowly, Hardcastle began to fill his pipe. ‘How the hell are we going to prove that he killed Stoner and the woman Holroyd reckons he was running about with?’

  ‘If he did, sir.’

  ‘What d’you mean by that?’ Hardcastle lit his pipe and leaned back in his chair. ‘Sit down, Marriott.’

  ‘I don’t think he murdered either of them, sir,’ said Marriott, taking a seat. Hardcastle’s one acknowledgment of his sergeant’s forthcoming promotion to inspector was the frequent invitation for him to sit down in the DDI’s office. ‘If his alibi checks out, then I don’t see that he could have murdered them.’

  ‘Well, who did?’ It was typical of Hardcastle to expect that a statement of denial should be followed up with an alternative solution.

  ‘It would help if we could discover the identity of this woman friend of his, sir. Enquiries at the Black Cat might be a start.’

  ‘I was just going to suggest that, Marriott.’

  ‘I’ll get up there this evening, then.’

  ‘No, don’t you go. Send Catto. I seem to remember that he’s quite good at getting information out of reluctant nightclub owners. Anyway, he’ll probably know most of them, having served on C Division for a few years.’

  Hardcastle had been right. Henry Catto was in his element when persuading the owners or managers of nightclubs to part with information they would rather keep to themselves. Especially when they were labouring under the misapprehension that such information was in some way privileged.

  Catto’s first victim was the doorman at the Black Cat, who was left in no doubt that any attempt to prevent Catto from entering or to advise his boss of the presence of police would result in the doorman’s instant arrest for obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty.

  ‘There ain’t no trouble ’ere, guv’nor.’ The doorman rehearsed the well-worn mantra of nightclub doormen throughout the West End of London when confronted by the police.

  The moment that Catto passed into the main area of the club, he was met by a suave individual in immaculate evening dress.

  ‘Good evening, sir. I’m Dudley Savage, the owner,’ he began effusively. ‘If you’re intending to become a member, I must point out that black tie is de rigueur.’ Savage described a circle with his hand that encompassed the small crowded dance floor and a number of closely packed tables. The rather seedy club’s clientele appeared to consist of giggling women and chinless young men quaffing champagne, all attired in accordance with Savage’s dress code.

  ‘I’m a police officer.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Am I to take it that you are seeking membership?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ exclaimed Catto. ‘I’m making enquiries about certain of your members,’ he said loudly, and was pleased to see an apprehensive reaction not only from Savage but from those patrons close enough to have heard.

  ‘Perhaps it would be better if we talked in my office,’ said Savage nervously. Without waiting for a reply, he led the way around the edge of the small dance floor. ‘Are you from Marlborough Street?’ he enquired, once they were in his small, cluttered office with the door firmly shut, ‘because if you are, you must know that Station Sergeant Goddard inspects the club and the books quite regularly.’

  ‘Does he really?’ Catto was unimpressed by Savage’s mention of Goddard. Rumours of corruption had been circulating for some time, and Goddard always seemed to be at the centre of them, together with Mrs Meyrick of the famous 43 Club in Gerrard Street. ‘No, I’m Detective Sergeant Catto, attached to the Whitehall Division, and I’m investigating a murder.’

  ‘A murder? I see. Well, it can’t be anything connected to my club, surely?’

  ‘That’s what I’m here to find out,’ said Catto, taking a seat adjacent to Savage’s desk.

  ‘May I offer you a drink, Sergeant?’ Savage’s hand waved nonchalantly across a table laden with bottles of whisky, gin, brandy and a variety of mixers.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Savage helped himself to a whisky and then sat down behind his desk. ‘Now, what seems to be the trouble, Sergeant?’

  ‘Captain Guy Stoner, late of the Royal Field Artillery.’

  ‘Oh, Guy. Yes, he’s one of our members.’

  ‘Not any more,’ said Catto, in a dismissive tone that would have merited a nod of approval from Hardcastle. ‘He’s the murder victim whose death we’re investigating. Well, one of them, anyway.’

  ‘Good grief!’ exclaimed Savage, visibly shocked by Catto’s revelation. ‘But, regrettable though it is, how is that anything to do with the Black Cat?’

  ‘Our enquiries have indicated that he frequently brought a young lady to your club, and we are anxious to discover her identity.’

  ‘Has the young lady disappeared, then?’ Savage had regained his sangfroid and took on a slightly bantering tone.

  ‘Not exactly. We believe her to be the woman whose body was found – in several pieces – not very far from where we found Stoner’s body, also in pieces.’

  ‘Ye gods!’ exclaimed Savage. ‘It sounds like something out of a Hollywood horror movie.’

  ‘Have you any idea who this woman might be?’ said Catto, rapidly tiring of Savage’s false emotions.

  ‘I have no idea of her name, Sergeant, but I can tell you that she was about twenty, I should think. A long-haired blonde with a ravishing figure. She moved well on the dance floor, almost as if she were a professional dancer, and she was clearly taken with Guy. She could hardly keep her hands off him.’

  ‘But you’ve no idea of her name.’

  ‘I’m sorry, no. Much as I always like to assist the police, I’m afraid I can’t do so on this occasion.’

  ‘You say that she danced like a professional. D’you think she might’ve been a showgirl or a chorus girl?’

  ‘It’s possible. I’d have been very happy to take her on for the cabaret.’

  Catto returned to Cannon Row somewhat vexed that he had progressed little further. He could visualize an unending round of visits to nightclubs, of which there were many, in an attempt to discover if any of their showgirls or cabaret artistes were missing. Even then, it might turn out that the dead woman was neither the one nor the other.

  SEVEN

  DDI Hardcastle received Catto’s report stoically. ‘No m
ore than I expected,’ he said gloomily. ‘What I want you to do now, Catto, is to find out whether any young married woman possibly seen in the company of Stoner has been reported to the police as missing. You can follow that up if there has been such a report, and if there ain’t, then you’d better start round the clubs just to see if they’ve lost any showgirls. But whatever you do, don’t speak to that Station Sergeant Goddard on C Division. I don’t trust him.’

  ‘There’s no chance of that, sir,’ agreed Catto, who knew Goddard better than Hardcastle, even though Goddard might be able to provide the answer. Catto was not at all happy with the potentially endless assignment that Hardcastle had just given him, but he had to admit that he would have given the same orders had he been in the DDI’s place.

  The first part of Catto’s search started immediately and took very little time. Crossing the narrow road from the police station to the main building of New Scotland Yard, he eventually found a small room, several floors up, staffed by an elderly clerk who introduced himself to Catto as Mr Powter. Mr Powter had the appearance of someone who was permanently downtrodden, an impression heightened by his shabby suit which hung on him as though it had originally been the property of someone of a much larger build.

  ‘How can I help you, Sergeant?’ Powter coughed and pulled at his ragged moustache as though fearful he was about to be presented with an unanswerable query.

  ‘I’m wondering whether you have any missing showgirls, dancers or actresses listed, Mr Powter.’

  ‘A name would be useful.’ Powter took off his wire-framed spectacles and polished them with a colourful handkerchief, playing for time while he thought about Catto’s request.

  ‘I’m afraid we have yet to discover her name, Mr Powter, although it’s possible we will find it out in the next few days.’

  ‘Ah!’ Powter replaced his spectacles and peered afresh at Catto. ‘Showgirls, showgirls. I don’t remember any being reported, Sergeant, but I will have a look through my records. You never know what might turn up,’ he said optimistically. The clerk turned towards a long tray full of small index cards. ‘This one has all the missing females in it,’ he said. ‘We’ve found it useful to separate the men from the women. Just for the card index system,’ he added, with a laugh that eventually became a rattling cough, powerful enough, it seemed, to threaten to eject his dentures. ‘It helps to speed up the search,’ he added, once he had recovered his breath. Fortunately, his dentures had remained in place.

  ‘Yes, I imagine it would,’ said Catto.

  Mr Powter began to thumb through the cards with such speed and dexterity that Catto wondered if he was a professional card player in his spare time, possibly even a card sharp. After several minutes, he ceased his search and glanced up. ‘You say the young lady was a showgirl, Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes.’ Catto looked hopeful.

  ‘There’s no one who’s been listed as a showgirl, I’m afraid, but it’s possible the informant didn’t know that’s what she did for a living when he filed the report.’

  ‘Oh! That’s a pity. But then I didn’t hold out much hope anyway,’ said Catto, a comment that clearly upset Mr Powter.

  ‘I do my best, Sergeant,’ he wailed, ‘but we can’t perform miracles.’

  ‘My dear Mr Powter, that is not a criticism.’ Catto was a past master at sweet talk when occasion demanded it. ‘I think you’ve taken a great deal of trouble. But perhaps there is one other thing you can do for me …’

  ‘Of course, Sergeant, of course.’ A relieved Powter indulged in a short session of hand-wringing.

  ‘If you do get notification of a missing showgirl, possibly married, I’d be most grateful if you’d let me know as soon as possible. It’s a murder we’re investigating, you see.’

  ‘You have my word on it, Sergeant Catto. If you’d care to give me your telephone number, I’ll inform you the moment we receive anything that might assist.’ Powter hesitated. ‘Of course, we only work office hours, and if such a notification was made at, say, eleven o’clock at night, I wouldn’t know about it until nine o’clock the following day when the morning despatch arrived.’ Looking at Catto with a pensive expression, he added, ‘There again, if it was a Saturday evening, I wouldn’t be aware of it until nine o’clock on the following Monday morning.’

  ‘I think I can live with that,’ said Catto, picking up his bowler hat. He had known, right from the start, that he was unlikely to have found the dead woman’s details as easily as visiting Mr Powter’s office, but it had to be done.

  There was one other possibility that Catto tried before beginning enquiries in the West End, and that was to contact the Salvation Army’s Family Tracing Service which had lately widened its operation to include missing persons in general. Catto realized that a showgirl, who might not be a showgirl, and whose name was not known, was going to be extremely hard to trace. Helpful though the Sally Ann’s staff were, they could not come up with an answer, but promised to let Catto know if anyone fitting that rather vague description should be reported to them.

  Marriott assigned Detective Constable Stuart Ritchie to assist Catto in the search for the identity of the woman whose body had been found at Ditton. Until that happened, finding her killer would be nigh on impossible. Both Marriott and Catto were of the view that Ritchie, the former Grenadier Guards captain who had so effectively silenced Holroyd, was unlikely to accept any obstruction by nightclub owners, many of whom had been commissioned during the war, and who mistakenly believed that their members’ details were not open to police inspection.

  It was an unrewarding task. Working methodically, street by street, the two officers trudged wearily from club to club. They discovered showgirls, cabaret dancers and hostesses who had vanished from one club only to turn up at another or in the chorus line of a revue at a West End theatre. A telephone enquiry had even located one missing London dancer alive and well in the chorus line of the Sheffield Empire, such was the thoroughness of Catto’s enquiries.

  Detective Constable Proctor, who had been assigned to search all the records held at Scotland Yard, even learned of two so-called nightclub hostesses who had appeared at Marlborough Street police court charged with soliciting. But nowhere did the detectives discover a missing married showgirl, and Catto was beginning to believe that perhaps the dead woman had not been connected with show business at all.

  On the third day, however, the two detectives discovered a more promising lead at the Twilight Cabaret Club in Brewer Street, the last club they intended visiting that day.

  Unlike many of the sleazy dives that Catto and Ritchie had visited in the course of the last two days, the Twilight Cabaret Club appeared to cater for the upper echelons of the market. As if to emphasize this, the door to the club was opened by a tall man attired in a dress suit that actually fitted and had probably been made to measure by a West End tailor. The man was courteous to a fault, even when Catto told him who they were. In Catto’s experience, it was a good indication that this club had nothing to hide.

  ‘Please come in, gentlemen.’ The doorkeeper admitted them to a large, carpeted entrance foyer. To one side was a cloakroom, staffed by a young woman.

  ‘I’d like to speak to the manager. I’m Detective Sergeant Catto.’

  ‘There isn’t a manager per se, sir. Major Craddock is the owner and he runs the club. If you’d be so good as to wait one moment, gentlemen, I’ll telephone him and tell him that you are here.’ After a brief conversation, the doorman said, ‘The major will be with you shortly, sir. If you care to go in and take a table, please feel free to order a drink. On the house, of course,’ he murmured.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Catto, ‘but we’d rather wait here.’ It was his policy never to accept a free drink until he had assessed the calibre of the person offering it.

  The man who appeared some minutes later was tall and immaculately dressed, and probably aged around the mid-thirties. He walked with a limp and was aided by a black walking cane that he held in his right hand
.

  ‘Leo Craddock, gentlemen. My admissions manager tells me you’re from the police. Would that be the Marlborough Street station by any chance?’

  ‘No, Major.’ Catto immediately sensed that Craddock had had dealings with Station Sergeant Goddard and had been unimpressed. ‘I am Detective Sergeant Catto from the Whitehall Division, and this is Detective Constable Ritchie. We are investigating a murder, and it’s possible that you may be able to assist us.’ It was the same request that Catto had made on countless occasions since his enquiries had begun. In fact, Hardcastle was investigating two murders, but as far as the nightclubs were concerned, it was the identity of the woman in which Catto was interested.

  ‘A murder, eh?’ Craddock brushed his guardee moustache with the back of his left hand. ‘Perhaps you’d care to come up to my office. It’s more private to discuss such things there.’ He took a gold half-hunter from a fob pocket in his cummerbund, stared at it and replaced it. ‘Given that the sun is over the yardarm, I dare say I could persuade you gentlemen to accept a drink.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Major,’ said Catto, as he and Ritchie followed Craddock. It was particularly noticeable that the major’s right leg remained stiff, making his climb up the stairs a slow and difficult one. His richly carpeted, oak-lined office was well appointed, and there were several framed prints on the walls that depicted cavalrymen clad in a variety of uniforms, on horseback or dismounted and striking various poses.

  ‘I take it you were in the cavalry, Major,’ said Ritchie, as he and Catto sat down.

  ‘Yes, I was with the Sixteenth Dragoons, but we were deployed as dismounted infantry on several occasions, the last in November 1918. And, would you believe, at eleven o’clock on the tenth of November – exactly twenty-fours before the end of the bloody war – I got a Boche bullet through my right knee.’ Craddock shrugged. ‘Fortunes of war, eh? But it put paid to my army career. I was a regular officer, you see. However, to get our priorities right, let me get you a drink and then we can talk about this murder.’ Having poured three generous measures of Laphroaig, Craddock took the armchair adjacent to the two detectives, sitting down awkwardly. He dropped his walking cane on the floor.