Ask For Ronald Standish

by Sapper

  “Hardly necessary,” laughed Ronald. “I can see ’em bristling. No – I’ll just take a photograph. Come along, Bob.”

  We went to the bank where we had rested three days before.

  “A charming view,” said Ronald. “I see that the farmer, who rejoices in the delicious name of Buzzle, has finished his labours, and the golden corn, if not actually waving, looks delightful in the foreground. Take a picture, Bob.”

  “I don’t see anything particularly charming about it,” I remarked.

  “That’s because you lack the artistic sense,” he grinned. “And now we can go back to the pub.”

  “But I thought we were joining the party here.”

  “Only at stated intervals, old boy,” he answered. “McIver is quite capable of holding the fort in our absence. Provided we are back here before dawn tomorrow all will be well.”

  And not another word would the aggravating blighter say, save a few vague generalities which only increased my curiosity.

  “It can’t be coincidence, Bob, and yet… Anyway, we’ll know for certain tomorrow.”

  “What?” I demanded.

  “If it’s coincidence,” he grunted.

  He woke me at four o’clock next morning, and waited with barely concealed impatience whilst I put on some clothes.

  “Don’t forget your camera,” he cried, as I bolted a cup of tea.

  And then he led me, almost at a run, back to our vantage point in the grounds of Styles Court. We passed two of the CID men, yawning and stiff from their night’s vigil, and after a while McIver joined us. The first faint streaks of dawn were showing over the downs: a low lying mist covered the country in front of us like a carpet. And then the sun itself showed over the ridge of hills. The mist eddied in thin wisps and began to lift, and glancing at Ronald I saw his eyes were gleaming with excitement.

  Slowly the sun crept up above the horizon: the white blanket rolled sluggishly back from the little hill on which we stood. And suddenly Ronald gave a cry of triumph.

  “So it wasn’t coincidence! We’ve solved the first part of the problem. Take a photo, Bob.”

  “But I’ll only get the cornfield,” I protested.

  “That’s all I want,” he answered.

  I focused the camera, and as I did so there came the drone of an aeroplane in the distance. The noise came nearer and nearer and glancing up I saw the machine. It was a Puss Moth flying low, and with a roar it passed over the house and disappeared.

  “Now then, McIver,” cried Ronald, “it’s up to you. There’s not a moment to be lost. Get to the village and fuse the bally telephone wires if necessary.”

  “I hope to Heaven you’re right, Mr Standish,” said the inspector.

  “Of course I’m right, man. For God’s sake get a move on.”

  McIver hurried away and Ronald turned to me.

  “Take another photo, Bob, now that the light is better, to make sure. And then we’ll rout the local chemist out of his bed and force him to develop them.”

  I made a second exposure, and still feeling completely bewildered followed him back to the inn.

  “Perhaps you will now condescend to enlighten me,” I remarked peevishly.

  “All in good time, old boy,” he answered.

  “The method we know: the culprit we don’t – as yet.”

  The snapshots were ready by ten o’clock, and slipping them into an envelope I stepped out into the street just as McIver passed in a car. A youngish man was with him, and when I got back to the hotel, the car was standing empty outside the door. Of Ronald there was no sign, and I sat down in the lounge to wait for him. Ten minutes passed – a quarter of an hour, and then I saw him coming down the stairs. And a casual remark died on my lips: never had I seen him so grave and so stern. Behind him was McIver with the other occupant of the car, who was now looking thoroughly frightened.

  “You have the prints, Bob?” said Ronald, coming across to me.

  I handed him the envelope.

  “Good. Then come in here with me. I am expecting a visitor shortly. McIver – will you wait in the bar.”

  He led the way into a small parlour and I followed. Then, having examined the snapshots, he flung himself into a chair.

  “My God! Bob,” he said heavily, “the end of this hunt is a bit of a nerve shatterer.”

  He sat smoking moodily till the landlord opened the door and ushered in Sir James Lillybrook.

  “I got your message, Mr Standish, and since it was so urgent I came at once. Have you discovered anything?”

  “I have,” said Ronald.

  “Well, please be as quick as possible,” remarked Sir James. “We are meeting at eleven today.”

  “Will you look at those two snapshots, Sir James,” said Ronald quietly.

  The other glanced at them, and for an instant his eyes dilated.

  “With special reference to the cornfield,” continued Ronald.

  “Well,” said Sir James. “I am looking.”

  “Do you notice any difference beyond the obvious one of the mist?”

  “I can’t say that I do.”

  “One of them, Sir James, was taken last night, and all the stooks of corn are standing upright. The other was taken this morning and three of the stooks are lying flat.”

  “Now you mention it, so they are. But what is the significance of that?”

  Ronald went to the door.

  “McIver,” he called, “will you both come here,”

  And as Sir James’ eyes fell on the young man he gave a strangled gasp and swayed as if he was going to fall. Ronald closed the door again, and with his back to it stood watching the other who was struggling to regain his self control.

  “I see you recognise the pilot of the aeroplane,” said Ronald gravely. “Well, Sir James, it is not for me to ask what induced a man in your position to act as a traitor to his country: presumably it was money. All I am concerned with is my own course of action. When you all dispersed after the earlier meetings and went back to London, the thing was easy. Then, when you remained here, you had to think of another plan. So by knocking over different numbers of stooks of corn you arranged to send different messages to the men who are in league with you, through the pilot outside – who I am glad to say had no idea what he was really doing. And my plain duty is to report what I have discovered at once to Mr Bignor.”

  “For God’s sake don’t, Mr Standish,” cried Sir James in a shaking voice. “Think of the disgrace. I could never stand it, I had been speculating: I was desperate. My son: he’s just left Sandhurst. My wife…”

  But Ronald’s expression showed no sign of relenting: in his particular code some things were beyond the pale.

  “Because of your wife, and because of your son, and even more because of the hideous public scandal which would be involved, I am going to make a suggestion to you. There is good rough shooting round Styles Court…”

  While a man may count ten they stared at one another: then Sir James Lillybrook rose, and without a word walked through the hall to his waiting car.

  I got things out of Ronald that afternoon. He spoke in jerky, clipped sentences – sentences punctuated by long pauses when he stared with sombre eyes over the fields at Styles Court.

  “Buzzle, the farmer, and the hikers. Hikers wouldn’t knock down stooks… Besides, the mist… They wouldn’t sleep out in the open at this time of year if they could avoid it… Then the aeroplane… Buzzle remembered it flying so low over his farm that he looked out, and it was then he saw that some stooks had been knocked down… And that morning was the only morning they were knocked down… And that morning was the morning of the conference when special precautions were taken. Coincidence perhaps: but it used to be done in the war if you remember, signalling to aeroplanes by signs on the ground…

  “I was sure it was somebody engaged in the conference: no outside agency could have got on to things so promptly without inside information… But I never dreamed it was Sir James… Once the deleg
ates had given up returning to London after the meetings he had to act quickly… Told young Ramsden, the pilot, that the number represented a code message to a bookmaker… Gave him a telegraphic address to send it to, and pitched a yarn about liking his flutter but not daring to send betting wires from Styles Court… Appealed to the boy’s sense of sport… And, of course, he has no idea even now of the real meaning of the messages…”

  “How did you get Ramsden?” I put in.

  “McIver had a man at every aerodrome within a radius of ten counties… Picked up the right one on the telephone this morning.”

  He rose and walked up and down with his hands in his pockets.

  “Just luck. If Buzzle hadn’t mentioned hikers that first day we saw him the plan would have succeeded. No outsider would notice a few stooks lying flat, or attach any importance to it. And it only took half a minute after dark for Sir James to stroll into the field and upset ’em. The poor devil was so sure he could not be found out that he actually came to me when Bignor proposed outside help. God! Bob – was I right in what I suggested to him? Hallo! landlord, what’s the matter?”

  “Accident up at the Court, sir. One of the gents staying there – Lillybrook the name is, I think – was out shooting. And the gun went off when he was getting over a fence. Killed him on the spot. Shockingly careless some gentlemen are with guns. Some beer, sir?”

  But Ronald Standish did not seem to hear the question. And after a while he turned on his heel and swung away down the village street. For there are times when it is well that a man should be alone.

  6: The Man in the Saloon Car

  “Come in, Bob, and take a pew. Philip has just returned from a rest cure in Paris, and he’s feeling a bit hot and bothered. Tell us the tale again, Philip.”

  Ronald Standish waved his hand towards the sideboard, and Philip Hardy, his long legs stretched out in front of him, lit a cigarette.

  “How are you, Bob?” he said. “You look your usual repulsive self.”

  “When did you cross, Philip?” I asked.

  “Boat train this morning, old boy. Why, Heaven knows: I usually fly. And if I had this time, I shouldn’t be here now boring Ronald.”

  “You aren’t, Philip,” said Ronald. “Not a bit. He’s been having adventures, Bob, and I want you to hear ’em.”

  “Who is she this time?” I asked resignedly, knowing Philip’s habits.

  “It isn’t a she; it’s a he – or rather a bunch of them. I can’t tell it all over again, Ronald; probably the whole thing is imagination on my part.”

  Ronald strolled to the window and glanced out.

  “It’s not imagination, Philip, that you’ve been followed here,” he said quietly. “Sit down. I’ll do any observation that is necessary. There’s a good-looking gentleman on the other side of the road who arrived just after you did. He’s still there. I must admit that he’s not very good at his job. In fact we might send him out a camp stool. But that doesn’t alter the main situation; somebody is very solicitous about your movements.”

  I confess I was surprised. Philip Hardy was a well-to-do young gentleman, with a pretty taste in horses and girls, and possessing the most extensive wardrobe I have ever seen. But since his brain was completely negligible, and he had never done, and never intended doing, a day’s work in his life, what possible source of interest he could be to anyone else was beyond me.

  “All right, old lad,” he remarked wearily. “I will tell him the whole ghastly story. You see, Bob, I wasn’t at all well this morning – not at all. I’d lowered some perishing hell-brew last night, and when I got to the Gare du Nord, I thought I might die at any moment. So I had a great idea; I would die lying down. Apart from the fact that you can’t in decency die in a Pullman, I felt that the strain of contemplating a face from close range all the way to Calais would be more than I could bear. So I staggered up and down the platform looking for an empty compartment.

  “Luckily the train was not full, and I managed to get one. I told the conducteur that I was a suspected case of bubonic plague; bribed him with inordinate quantities of silver, and by the time we left Paris I had sunk into an uneasy doze which lasted as far as Amiens. There I awoke feeling, if possible, more unutterably ghastly than before.

  “There is a short little tunnel just this side of Amiens station, and it was in that that I woke up. And as I opened my eyes I knew that something had caused the awakening – something had brushed my face. What, I didn’t know. It wasn’t there when my eyes were open. I could see nothing when we got into the light. But that something had touched me I was certain.

  “The door into the corridor was open, and I was lying on the seat facing the engine with my head nearest the door. And suddenly there came into my range of vision a spectacle so repellent that I sat up with a jerk. It was a man with hair sprouting all over his face apparently searching for something in the corridor. He came nearer so that I saw him more distinctly, and he was far, far worse close to. He was an outrage: definitely for adults only; a child would have yelled with fright.

  “He paused by my door, and a series of explosive noises issued from the face fungus. It appeared that he had lost a piece of paper. It had fluttered out of his compartment, and blown along the corridor. Had I seen it?”

  “One moment, Philip,” said Ronald. “This man was a foreigner?”

  “He was, though he spoke English.”

  “All right. Go on.”

  “You must remember, Bob, that I was still partially unconscious,” continued Philip. “Further, what little sanity had come back to me was numbed by the sight of this human gargoyle. At any rate I completely forgot about the thing that had brushed my face in the tunnel. So, with the best will in the world, I assured him I knew nothing about any piece of paper, that I had been asleep, and that at any moment I might be violently sick. On which, mercifully, he vanished from my gaze, and I slowly recovered. In fact, by the time the restaurant bloke came along ringing his bell I was just capable of movement, and picking up my newspaper I followed him to the luncheon car, passing on the way the compartment containing blackbeard.

  “There were three other men in it, and as I got opposite the door I glanced in casually. Which was the moment selected by the train for a rather worse lurch than usual that threw me almost into the carriage, so that I blundered against one of these blokes’ legs. I apologised, and having resumed a perpendicular position was about to move on when I noticed that the fellow I had barged into was making a clumsy sort of attempt to conceal something in his hands. If you get me, it was only noticeable because it was so clumsy. And out of the corner of my eye, as I got into the corridor, I saw it was a sheet of an ordnance survey map of England.”

  Philip Hardy lit another cigarette.

  “The whole thing, you understand, Bob,” he continued, “was over in a second, though I have taken longer to describe it. And by the time I’d reached the restaurant car it had passed from my mind. I did wonder vaguely why a man should want to cover up the fact that he was studying a map; it seems a comparatively harmless pastime. But the whole thing was so trivial that I forgot all about it until I opened my newspaper. For as I did so there fluttered out a single sheet of paper which fell on the floor. I bent down and picked it up. On it were written four meaningless words.

  “Now the old grey matter was still partially seized, but as I toyed with a more than usually revolting omelette, it began to creak a little. There could be no doubt at all that the slip of paper was the one the gargoyle had been looking for. And then I remembered my feeling when I woke that something had brushed my face. Obviously it was this very piece of paper that had blown along the corridor while the train was in the tunnel, and by some chance had drifted via my face into the newspaper beside me on the seat.

  “I again studied the words, and came to the conclusion that they were some sort of code. Anyway, they meant nothing in my young life, and I had just made up my mind that I would return the paper on the way back to my carriage when I h
appened to look up. Sitting two tables away on the other side of the gangway and facing me was the map-studier. And he was glaring at me like a wild beast; or rather he was glaring at this blasted piece of paper which I, of course, had made no effort to conceal. I was examining it, quite openly, above the table.

  “For an instant he caught my eye; then he immediately looked away. But it was too late; my curiosity was thoroughly aroused. The expression on his face had been so ferocious that I felt it couldn’t be some harmless business message. And so I slipped the menu on my knee, and whilst pretending to read the newspaper I copied out the message. Just in time as it turned out. Hardly had I done it, and got the menu in my pocket, when map-reader rose from his seat and came over to my table.

  “‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘did my eyes deceive me, or were you studying a piece of paper a few moments ago that seemed to cause you a certain amount of perplexity? Pardon my impertinence, but I think you are the gentleman whose seat is in our carriage, and since we have lost a very valuable – valuable to us, I mean – message, I was wondering if by any extraordinary possibility it could have blown into your clothing, and that you have only just discovered it.’

  “His tone was suave and perfectly courteous, and it seemed to me that since he had actually seen the damned thing in my hand, it would be fatuous to deny it. There was always the likelihood now of my suspicions being wrong, and its being a genuine business message in code. In any event I had a copy. So I said the exact truth; told him that unknown to me it had lodged in my newspaper; that I had only that moment found it. With which I handed it back to him, and we resumed our respective meals.

  “Bob, I was intrigued. You know how incredibly boring that journey is from Paris, and as the temperature in my head slowly decreased, I began to weave fantastic yarns in my imagination to pass the time. Map-reader had not waited for the end of lunch. He had disappeared shortly after our interview, but I sat in the restaurant car until we were running down the long hill into Calais. Then I went back to my own compartment, which I found exactly as I had left it save for one thing. I had shut the door on going to feed, and the window was shut too. But the instant I opened that door I spotted a faint smell of cheap hair grease – the sort of muck a third-rate hairdresser stuffs on Bert’s quiff for Sunday best. Well, whatever my sins are I don’t put stuff like that on my hair, so I thought I’d investigate. I went straight along to blackbeard’s compartment, where I apologised to him for having unintentionally deceived him at Amiens. And no further investigation was necessary. They’d got everything hermetically sealed, and the place reeked of the same filth. One of them, therefore, had given my stuff the once over, which would have put them wise to my name and address. Nothing was missing, nothing apparently had been touched. But attached to one of my bags is a card in a leather case, so they knew who I was.