Ask For Ronald Standish

by Sapper

  “And so far as I was concerned they were quite welcome to the information. At the same time, seeing that I’d given ’em back their rotten bit of paper, their interest in me seemed a little strange. However, in the beargarden at Calais I forgot all about the blighters, and as soon as I got on board I tottered down below to have a quick one when I butted into Jimmy Prendergast and proceeded to do a bit of barpropping.

  “After a bit Jimmy says to me, ‘Who are your boyfriends, Philip?’

  “Sure enough there they all were in the dining-saloon which you could see into through the opening at the back of the bar.

  “‘I’ve been watching ’em,’ he went on, ‘and they’re talking about either you or me. I don’t know ’em, thank God, so you must be the lucky one.’

  “At which I told him what had happened, keeping the old optic skinned on the beauty chorus while I did so. And Jimmy was right: their loving interest in me had not waned. They were having the hell of an argument about something, and from the way any one of them who caught my eye immediately looked away, I knew I came into it.

  “‘You mind your step, Philip,’ said Jimmy. ‘That man with fur on his face would eat his mother.’

  “By Jove! Bob, Jimmy was right. And it’s because of what happened next that I came round to see Ronald. When we got to Dover I waited as I always do for the mob to get off. I’d lost Jimmy, and I was standing near the top of the disembarking gangway and to one side of it. Suddenly I became aware of a very seductive scent beside me, and perceived a dame, pleasant to the eye, who was fumbling in her bag. And the next instant her landing ticket dropped on to the deck just inside the guarding rope. I naturally got underneath to pick it up, and as I was bending down I got the deuce of a blow in my back which shot me forward into the gap between the gangway and the ship’s rail. In fact, as near as a toucher, I went overboard between the dock and the side of the ship.

  “To put it mildly I was not amused, but when I’d recovered my balance and was on, the point of giving tongue, I saw what had happened. Lying prone on the deck was one of the four men, with the other three bending solicitously over him.

  “‘You’re not hurt, I trust, sir?’ said map-reader to me. ‘My poor friend here is subject to sudden fits of vertigo.’

  “Bob, I stared at him for about five seconds, and then I made the only possible answer – ‘Oh! yeah.’

  “Fit of vertigo! I couldn’t prove anything, of course, with the blighter lying there on the deck giving a spirited imitation of a half-dead codfish. But I knew, and he knew that I knew, he was lying. The whole thing was a deliberate attempt to kill me. If I’d gone overboard there was every chance of my being crushed to death between the ship and the wharf.

  “However, there was nothing to be done about it, so I returned the ticket to the lady who it was obvious must be in with them. Then I expressed my deep regret at the gentleman’s lack of equilibrium, and departed to my seat in the Pullman. Give me a drink, Ronald: my throat’s like a lime kiln after all that talking.”

  “Did anything happen coming up in the train?” I asked.

  “Not a thing. Didn’t see any of ’em again. The car met me at Victoria, and having dumped my kit I came round here. What do you make of it, chaps?”

  “That you’ve acted pretty wisely, Philip,” said Ronald. “If you are right – and I’m inclined to think you must be – and the episode on board was an attempt to murder you, you’ve butted into something considerably bigger than a mere business deal. The presence of the watcher outside confirms it.”

  “How the devil did he get there?” asked Philip. “No one knew I was coming to see you.”

  Ronald gave a short laugh.

  “On your own showing, they knew your name and address before you reached Calais. A wireless from the boat, or even a telegram handed in at Dover, would give ample time for their friends in London to have your flat watched before you got there. After that it was merely a question of following you here.”

  “Where is this mysterious communication?” I asked. “Have you got it here, Philip?”

  “There you are,” said Ronald, throwing it on the table. “See what you can make of it.”

  Scrawled on the menu card was the following cryptic message:

  RARPAAIRAGNEREBAYDONFAEHSNROC

  “Ask me another,” I remarked. “Anything like that gives me a pain in the neck. Have you got it, Ronald?”

  “I haven’t tried yet,” he answered. “Been too busy listening to Philip’s spot of bother.”

  Our visitor looked at him anxiously.

  “Do you really think that it’s serious?” he asked. “Even granted they had a dip at me on board the boat, they can’t do anything in London.”

  “My poor idiot boy,” said Ronald kindly, “your remark only shows how very little you know of what can go on in London. I don’t say they will have another go at you, but they may. The fact that you came here at once has prevented them doing so already, but unless I’m much mistaken you had better watch your step. They are obviously a bunch of desperate and unscrupulous men, and they know that you have had the original of this message in your hand. That you can’t make head or tail of it is beside the point; they can’t be sure that you haven’t deciphered it.”

  “What do you suggest that I should do?” asked Philip.

  “Leave this card with me, and go to your club. Dine at your club, sleep at your club, and don’t leave your club till you get permission from me.”

  “But, damn it, old boy,” spluttered Philip, “you don’t know what our smoking-room is like after dinner. The only members who aren’t snoring are the ones who have died during the day.”

  “Sorry, Philip, but it’s got to be done,” said Ronald gravely. “If it wasn’t for that man outside there, I wouldn’t feel uneasy. But the mere fact that he is there proves that they don’t propose to let the matter drop. I believe you are in considerable danger, and therefore I want you to go somewhere where, humanely speaking, you are safe. No one can get at you in a London club. But if anybody calls to see you whom you don’t know personally, you’re not in.”

  “But what about you, Ronald?” said Philip, impressed in spite of himself. “My coming here has put you in the danger zone.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Philip,” laughed Ronald. “I have ways of my own of chasing people who think they’re chasing me. But until I’ve solved this message – if I do solve it – I shall remain here. Then I’ll telephone you. You push off now; you’re safe in daylight. Get straight into a taxi” – he paused for a moment – “any taxi except the one waiting on the other side of the road.”

  He was peering cautiously out of the window.

  “The plot thickens, my hearties. Our opponents lose no time. But the watcher has blotted his copybook; he should not have spoken to the taxi-driver. I will ring up the rank. And remember, Philip, you are not to leave your club.”

  He put through a call, and having done so again repeated the order.

  “Under no circumstances whatever, until I say you may. ’Phone me when you get there to say that you’ve arrived; then sit tight. Here’s the car. I’ll come down with you. Give the driver the address of your flat, and re-direct him when you get into Piccadilly. Bob, you hold the fort for a moment.”

  He returned almost immediately.

  “So far, so good. The watcher heard the address all right, but the dud driver is following Philip. So, unless some lucky intervention of red and green lights occurs to separate them, they will trace him to his club.”

  “You really think it is as serious as you say?”

  “I do. This can’t be a mere business communication.”

  He picked up the menu card and studied it. “RARPA… Turn it round… APRAR… That’s no good,” He was talking half to himself. “No good at all… And the others look worse… Unless… Bob!”

  He gave a sudden exclamation and seized a pencil.

  “It is, by Jove! Bob: the second word is Berengaria spelt backwards.
That’s sense at any rate. NODYA is the third. No bon. And the fourth – well, it’s a word anyway. CORNSHEAF. But what about one and three? Berengaria and Cornsheaf. It’s a bit hard to follow, but we must be on the right track.”

  “Hold hard a moment,” I said. “I’ve heard the word Cornsheaf quite recently. It’s a pub somewhere or other; quite a well-known one. I passed it the other day coming up from Bournemouth.”

  “The devil you did,” he cried, getting out an ordnance survey map. “By Jove! Bob, you’re right. It’s between Basingstoke and Winchester. Which accounts for Philip’s map-reading friend. On the way up from Southampton to London, you note. Berengaria… Look up in the paper and see where she is at the moment.”

  I opened a copy of The Times. The Berengaria was due in Southampton that night.

  “So that if we are going to find the connexion between her and the Cornsheaf we haven’t too long to do it in,” he said quietly. “There must be a connexion, Bob: it’s quite impossible that there shouldn’t be. Is it a harmless one? If so, why their agitation over Philip? And if it isn’t harmless…”

  He broke off and sat drumming with his fingers on the desk.

  “If one and three are in cipher, why aren’t two and four? Perhaps they are not in cipher. They may be code words – insoluble unless you know the code. A five-letter code. Let us start with the best known of them all – our Mr Bentley. Get him off the shelf, old boy, and see if they have an APRAR.”

  I turned the pages eagerly.

  “They have,” I almost shouted in my excitement. “APRAR… Arriving on.”

  “Arriving on Berengaria,” he wrote. “Go on, Bob. What is NODYA?”

  I looked it up.

  “NODYA… Await orders.”

  “So there’s our message,” he said quietly. “‘Arriving on Berengaria. Await orders Cornsheaf.’ Interesting, Bob; very interesting. Who is arriving in the Berengaria tonight? Who awaits orders? And why at the Cornsheaf Inn, which appears to be a matter of some twenty-five miles from Southampton?”

  The telephone shrilled suddenly, and he stretched out his hand for the receiver.

  “Hullo… Speaking…What’s that? My God! Is he badly hurt?… Oh… No report heard?… Listen… Tell him from me that we’ve solved the message, and on my personal guarantee we will repay in full. No, I won’t come round now.”

  He replaced the receiver and stood up, his face grimmer than I had seen it for a long while.

  “This, Bob, has definitely ceased to be funny. Philip was shot through the upper part of the arm as he crossed the pavement to go into his club. No report was heard so it must have been some form of airgun, fired presumably from that following taxi.”

  For a few moments he stood deep in thought.

  “If they’d killed him, I’d never have forgiven myself. But it proves one thing, Bob, if further proof was necessary. This matter is desperately serious. Ring up the Yard, will you, and ask for McIver.”

  I did so, and as I waited for the number Ronald crept cautiously to the window and peered out.

  “Still there,” he remarked, coming back into the room. “We’re going to have some fun tonight, Bob.”

  “Here’s McIver,” I said, and he took the receiver out of my hand.

  “That you, Mac?” he asked. “Standish speaking. Is anybody, of extra importance arriving by the Berengaria tonight? Anybody who would cause the police a bit of alarm and despondency in case they might get hurt?… No?… I can’t say.… I don’t know whether it’s male or female, or whether he’s come from New York or Cherbourg… No, Mac, I’m not fooling. There’s something damned funny going on. So funny that a pal of mine who stumbled into it first and came and told me about it has just been plugged through the arm in broad daylight going into his club… I knew you’d have heard of it, but it’s the same show…”

  At that moment I happened to glance at the door; inch by inch it was opening. Glanced at Ronald; saw that he had noticed it too, and, that his right hand was feeling in a drawer for his revolver… Saw him make an imperative sign to me to get out of the line of fire: then watched him crouch behind the desk, while his level voice continued the whole time, though his eyes were bright and watchful.

  “And it’s a funny show, Inspector, as you’ll hear for yourself in a moment… I’ve solved the cipher, and this is how it reads…”

  It brought the thing to a head as he intended it should. The door was flung open, and for the split fraction of a second the man who dashed in stood bewildered, his gun in his hand, looking for Ronald. And in that split fraction Ronald fired and stood up, while the man, cursing venomously, dropped his revolver from a hand already dripping blood.

  “Leave that gun where it is,” snapped Ronald, “or I’ll plug you through your other arm. Get behind him, Bob, and belt him over the head with a poker if he tries any monkey tricks.”

  Then he began to grin; a noise like a gramophone record was coming from the receiver.

  “All right, Mac,” he said, “I wasn’t talking to you. We’ve got a visitor. Like to come round and see him? Yes, it was my shooting party, not his. Thanks very much all the same. I’ll keep him here till you arrive. All part and parcel of the same affair.”

  He replaced the receiver, and came slowly round the desk.

  “Get the handcuffs, Bob,” he said. “I’m getting tired of carrying the howitzer about the room. Put one round his left wrist… Thanks…”

  With a quick heave he jerked the man into a corner, and the next moment the other handcuff snapped round the leg of a vast armchair.

  “I don’t think you’ll get far attached to that little bit of furniture,” he remarked quietly. “And now – who the devil are you?”

  Crouching on the floor, his teeth bared in a snarl, our prisoner looked like an animal. He was young, in the early thirties. His face was sallow; his chin needed the attentions of a barber. But his eyes arrested one. They burned like coals of fire; the eyes of a madman or a fanatic.

  “Well, who are you?” repeated Ronald. “Do you usually go round trying to shoot complete strangers?”

  But the only answer was a snap of his jaws. “Nice little thing to have about the house, isn’t he, Bob,” continued Ronald, and at that moment there came a frantic peal at the bell.

  “Sounds like old Mac’s fairy finger,” he grinned, and even as he spoke the inspector came charging into the room.

  “Great Scott! Mr Standish,” he cried, “what’s all this about?”

  He paused, staring at our captive.

  “So that was your caller, was it? What’s your game, my man?”

  “Do you know who he is, Mac?” asked Ronald.

  “I don’t. But it won’t be difficult to find out.” He bent down, and the next instant drew his hand back sharply, as the man’s teeth missed it by a quarter of an inch.

  “So that’s the line, is it?” he said grimly. “I don’t want hydrophobia yet, my lad.”

  Which gave me the privilege of seeing what an extraordinarily effective gag a handkerchief can be when placed inside the mouth like a bit, and knotted behind the head. It is, of course, at the discretion of the gagger how tight the knot is drawn, and McIver was merciful. He only put one knee in our prisoner’s back when pulling…

  “Bite me, would you,” he muttered. “Now let’s see what we can find.”

  He ran an expert hand over him, and the first thing he produced was an ugly-looking stiletto.

  “Quite fitted to run a babies’ crèche, isn’t he?” he remarked. “What’s this? Looks like the badge of some society… And here’s a letter addressed to P Thompson. French stamp. Postmark, Paris. Address – ah! yes, I know it. Accommodation address. That damned little tobacconist makes quite a steady income out of that game… But Thompson… Accommodation name, too, no doubt, Mr Standish. What’s inside? Single sheet of paper. Il est arrivé. Which, unless my French has deserted me, means ‘He has arrived.’ Who?”

  He stared thoughtfully at the man on the floor.
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  “If I take that handkerchief off, will you speak?”

  The other shook his head and his eyes gleamed venomously.

  “If I’m any judge of human nature,” said Ronald quietly, “you’ll never get that man to speak. If you try to you’ll only be wasting time, and I don’t think we’ve got any to waste.”

  “But what on earth does he want to shoot you for?” cried McIver, scratching his head.

  “Because as I was telling you over the telephone I have, quite by chance, butted into something pretty big, That’s why I was asking you about the Berengaria… Ah! did you get our friend’s reaction to that, Mac? I was watching him purposely… A code message was mislaid in the boat train from Paris this morning, by some friends of this specimen. I have decoded it. Arriving Berengaria. Await orders Cornsheaf. Which is an inn on the Southampton–London road. Il est arrivé. It is pretty obvious that the man who arrived in France is the same man who is arriving in the Berengaria, and whom our friend here and his pals seem anxious to meet – and to meet privately. And from what I’ve seen of this ornament’s proclivities I shouldn’t think the meeting is for the purpose of presenting the mysterious arrival with a birthday present.”

  “What do you suggest we do?” asked McIver.