The Case of the Missing Men: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Ah well,” I said. “Another good deed gone astray.”

  But she laughed when I held out my hand for it.

  “I’m certainly not giving you it back. It’s a godsend.” Then her expression changed. “Was it . . . daddy’s?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I found it in the summerhouse.”

  “How on earth did it get there?” Her forehead wrinkled. Then she nodded. “Probably some outdoor theatricals while I was away. Daddy did have a make-up box, I know.”

  “Well, I may see you later,” was my goodbye, and as she’d gone on upstairs I opened the front door and had a look at the weather. It was still raining and the skies were leaden. Not the weather for outdoor theatricals, I thought to myself, and in no particular context. And fancy my mistaking grease-paint for lipstick.

  I was probably shaking a regretful head over that when I turned back to the hall. I do know I was startled when Lang suddenly spoke at my elbow.

  “Someone wants you on the phone, Mr. Travers. I think it’s Mr. Wharton.”

  I went into the workshop to take the call. It was George right enough.

  “Is Harris about?” he asked, and it seemed rather urgently.

  “I think so,” I said. “Do you want him on the phone?”

  “No, no, no,” he told me quickly. “Have him on tap. I want to talk to him in about ten minutes.”

  “Something happened?”

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ve got a line on Richard Chaice.”

  All George would tell me when he arrived was that Goodman had found out how Richard Chaice and his luggage had reached Beechingford Station. He did say that we ought to have suspected that Harris had had a hand in the disappearance. Who else could have taken the ration book from the drawer where Mrs. Edwards kept it? And hadn’t Harris and Richard Chaice been like two bugs in a rug? I said I wouldn’t go so far as that, but I knew that Harris often spent his afternoons in the garage.

  Harris was sent for, but George didn’t waste time over display.

  “There’s some information we think you can give us,” was how he began.

  “Indeed, sir?” said Harris, and cast a wary eye at me.

  “Yes,” said Wharton, and held his pencil poised over the notebook. “We just want Mr. Richard Chaice’s present address, that’s all.”

  “His address, sir?” Harris was pretending to be hard of hearing.

  “That’s all,” said Wharton blandly.

  “But how could I know his address, sir?”

  “How could he know the address?” Wharton said to me, and his smile was that of the lion who’d made a second unsuccessful snap at a Christian. Then he gave Harris one of his special glares. I expected Harris’s pendulous cheeks to start wobbling, but the old boy was keeping himself well in hand.

  “Are you going to give me the address, or aren’t you?” Wharton fired at him.

  “Even if I knew the address, sir, I’m not at liberty to disclose it,” Harris told him, with what I might call a watchful dignity. “As a servant of the family, sir—”

  “Servant of the family be damned!” exploded Wharton. “Ever slept in a police cell?”

  Harris gave an involuntary shudder.

  “Because that’s where you’ll be unless you—” He broke off to change the phraseology. “Put it this way, and don’t give me any more of the old family servant stuff. As far as I’m concerned you’re an ordinary plain citizen who’s withholding vital evidence.”

  He gave a grunt or two.

  “Who was chauffeur here before the man who’s now away?”

  “A Mr. Stapley, sir.”

  “Mr. Stapley!” said Wharton sneeringly. “Over the telephone you called him Tom. And he’s blown the gaff. When he left his employment here on account of ill health, he started a little greengrocery business, and Mr. Chaice gave him the money to buy a little van. That’s the van you asked him to bring to the side gate at half-past six in the morning. You helped to carry the luggage. You shook hands with Richard Chaice and said you’d be letting him know this and that.” He got to his feet and his eyes were narrowing as he took a step towards Harris. “Now will you tell us where he is, or do we have to take you away?”

  Harris drew back a step and his shoulders shrugged in a cringe.

  “Well, sir—”

  “Well, sir, nothing!” Wharton told him grimly. “What is that address?”

  Harris gave a preliminary licking of the lips, then said, almost inaudibly, that it was 24, Ransom Road, Hanford Rise. Wharton gave a quick glance at his watch.

  “On the telephone, is it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then don’t try any monkey business with telegrams,” Wharton told him. “And now tell me this. Why did Mr. Chaice leave Lovelands, and why did it have to be so secretly?”

  Harris shook his head, took a deep breath and then decided that he might as well give in.

  “The information will be in confidence, sir?”

  “Damn it, what do you think we are? Of course it will be in confidence.”

  “Of course, sir,” echoed Harris. “And you wanted to know why he left.”

  “Do I have to ask every question twice?”

  “No, sir.” His voice lowered. “Well, it was really because of the mistress, sir. I think she rather objected to having him here, and Mr. Richard was aware of it. In the late master’s time, sir, things were different, if I may put it like that.”

  “I know,” Wharton told him. “He thought she’d make things awkward for him, so he decided to go on his own account. But why the secrecy?”

  “Well, sir, he didn’t want any trouble.”

  Wharton gave him a look, pursed his lips to a smile of incredulity and said the excuse was as good as any.

  “And who’s he gone to at Hanford Rise?”

  “His late wife’s sister, sir. She’s a widow, I understand, sir, and she’s often asked him to live with her.”

  “He’s gone there permanently, has he?”

  “That I can’t say, sir. It would have depended on what happened here.”

  “All right,” said Wharton, and put the notebook in his pocket. “Make Mr. Travers a large packet of sandwiches, and if you’ve got a thermos, fill it with hot coffee. The bigger the better. And sweeten it.”

  “Poor old Harris,” I had to say when the door closed on him. “He made a good fight of it, George.”

  “He’s not a bad old boy,” Wharton admitted now the battle was over. “A good job he owned up or we might have been in queer street.”

  Stapley, it appeared, had carried Richard Chaice’s luggage to the platform, and had had no idea of the station to which his passenger had booked. Nor had Goodman been able to get any information from the booking clerk.

  “How long will it take you to get to Hanford Rise?” George asked me.

  There was a motoring map among the books and I had a look. It was a cross-country journey and I said I might make it in a couple of hours. But only if George sat behind and didn’t keep making noises at what he considered the taking of chances. That, I should say, is when I do anything approaching thirty miles an hour. George himself drives with both hands firmly on the wheel, and on a very straight stretch on a summer day has been known to touch twenty-five.

  He telephoned to Goodman while we were waiting, and in another quarter of an hour we were off. The rain was still coming steadily down, but that wasn’t worrying me. With any luck at all we should be in Hanford Rise well before dusk, but what I wasn’t looking forward to was the return journey on an unknown road. The only thing that cheered me up was the wondering just what it was that we should get out of Richard Chaice, and, above all, what had been the reason Martin had given for taking that piece of wood.

  CHAPTER XIV

  DISCOVERY

  I wondered why George had insisted, after all, on sitting in front, but I was not to know the reason till we were more than halfway to Hanford Rise.

  “Making pretty good time, aren’t we?”
he suddenly said. “Might as well have those sandwiches.”

  I knew then why he had asked Harris to make up a big package, and why it was a quart thermos. George insisted, too, that we should pull up for a quarter of an hour’s breather, though he didn’t do too much breathing. While I was trying unavailingly to get my proper share of that combined tea and supper, I was telling him about my interview with Constance Chaice.

  “How could she be mixed up with it?” he wanted to know. Then he was giving me a look. “You aren’t implying she instigated her husband’s murder!”

  “Not to such an extent that she’d incriminate herself,” I said. “Constance is an extremely clever woman as far as her own interests are concerned.”

  “She struck me as a bit of a fool,” George said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But she’s been fool enough to have had three husbands and to have come off uncommonly well out of each of the deals. And one fact remains, George, and you’ve got to take my word for it—that she was doing her best to get me out of the house. And the police too.”

  “You are the police, aren’t you?”

  I said he was begging the question, and he was. That’s the worst of George. When I initiate a theory—and Heaven knows I’m apt enough at that—George treats it with either contempt or complete disregard. But he keeps it well in mind, and if it turns out a winner, then in less than no time the theory has become his own, and himself the only begetter.

  But he didn’t seem inclined to follow that particular theory up, so I tried to create a little comic relief by telling him how I’d been deceived over the lipstick. All he had to say was that I’d mentioned nothing in my notes about finding any lipstick, or grease-paint or whatever it was. Then, as he wiped that voluminous moustache and handed me back the empty thermos, he was asking if we were going to stay there all night.

  As we came through Uxbridge the rain ceased, and by the time we reached the common at Hanford Rise a final watery sun was setting. A pedestrian put us on our way to Ransom Road, and in a couple of minutes we found it. The house at which we drew up was a little detached villa with a small front garden. Just beyond it was a narrow side road, and I moved the car on and parked it there.

  A woman of about fifty came to the door. She was fluffy-looking and stout, and on the wrist that held open the door were at least three bangles.

  “Mr. Chaice in?” asked Wharton.

  She gave us a quick look.

  “What did you want him for?”

  “We don’t,” said Wharton pleasantly. “What we would like is a word with you. Mrs. Smith, isn’t it?”

  “Roper’s the name,” she told us.

  “Of course.” said Wharton, and looked at me as if I’d bungled things. “If you could spare us a minute, Mrs. Roper, we’d be much obliged.”

  “You don’t want to sell me something, because if—”

  “Nothing of the sort,” said Wharton largely. “As a matter of fact we might be coming about Mr. Austin Chaice’s will. You know, Mr. Richard Chaice’s brother.”

  “Oh, that,” she said, and her eyes bulged expectantly. Then she was making a gesture for silence and showing us into a room just off the tiny hall. It was a room stuffy with knick-knacks and photographs.

  “We don’t want to disturb Richard,” she confided. “He went to the ironmonger’s this morning and got himself a catalogue of carpenter’s tools. I think he’s going to be such a help in the house. Excuse me while I do the black-out.”

  The black-out curtains were drawn and she switched on the light.

  “Wasn’t it rather risky letting him come from Beechingford all alone?” Wharton asked.

  “Oh, Mr. Harris fixed that,” she told us. “I met him at the junction. Not that he really couldn’t have come by himself. He’s just a bit absent-minded at times, that’s all. But wait a minute. Perhaps you’d like to see my poor sister’s photograph—the one who died in Canada. I had to take it down because I thought it might upset him.”

  We duly inspected the photograph, and then Wharton said Mrs. Roper was a woman of understanding and tact who could put two and two together. She’d know, for instance, why Richard had left Lovelands.

  “It was that woman, that Mrs. Chaice,” she said. “A stuck-up hussy, if you ask me. Not that Richard has said much.”

  Wharton nodded knowingly.

  “Well, perhaps we’d better have a word with him,” he said, rubbing his chin and pursing his lips. “We ought to be alone with him really?”

  He had looked at me, and I said we ought. I added that Mrs. Roper would understand.

  “Perhaps you’ll tell him there’s two gentlemen to see him,” Wharton said. “We’ll be seeing you afterwards perhaps.”

  “In the dining-room,” she said. “I’ve got a nice little fire for him. It’s been such a wretched day, and poor dear, he does want some comfort.”

  She gave us a confidential nod as she led the way out.

  “Two gentlemen to see you, Richard,” she was calling. Wharton moved me ahead of him and pushed me on. I was in the room before Richard knew it, and when he saw me it was as if he saw a ghost.

  “I’ll just give the fire a bit of a poke,” Mrs. Roper said. She did so lingeringly, and as lingeringly retired.

  “How are you, Richard?” I said, and held out my hand.

  He took it limply, and his look was that of a schoolboy caught in some escapade.

  “You’ve come to see me, Mr. Travers?” was all he could say.

  “And this is Superintendent Wharton of Scotland Yard,” I said.

  He shot Wharton a look, then his mouth gaped.

  “There’s nothing wrong, is there, sir, at Lovelands?”

  “Nothing whatever,” Wharton told him confidentially. “Everybody’s well, and very worried about you.”

  He smiled at that. Wharton waved him back to his seat and drew one up for himself.

  “You’ve got to come back, you know. Everybody wants you to come back.”

  “No, sir, I shan’t do that,” he said. “I think I shall be very comfortable here. Millie’s been asking me to come for years.”

  “What about Kitty?”

  “Kitty’s a good girl,” he said, and nodded to himself.

  “She’s engaged,” Wharton told him. “Going to marry that Mr. Lang.”

  “I knew it,” he said. “They didn’t think I knew it, but I did. I see all sorts of things, Mr. Warford, that people don’t think I do.”

  Wharton didn’t bother to correct the name. His voice lowered as he hurried in with his question.

  “So I believe. Mr. Travers here told me there were things you’d noticed and which you’d have told your late brother, if you hadn’t thought they’d make mischief. Don’t you think, now you’ve left Lovelands, you might tell us what they were?”

  “No, sir, I shan’t do that,” Richard told him quietly. “Let the dead past bury the past; that’s the best way in this life.”

  “Yes, but suppose the information might lead to the discovery of your brother’s murderer?”

  “That wouldn’t make me change my mind,” he said, and gently shook his head. “Taking one life, sir, won’t bring back another.”

  I think Wharton knew he could never be forced, and I think, too, that he had already that other scheme in mind which he was soon to put up to Mrs. Roper.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “But there one little question I’m sure you won’t mind answering for us. About Martin. He saw you in the garage the morning he shot himself. What did he come for?”

  “Let me see now,” he said, and looked contemplatively at the ceiling. Then his face lit up. “It was about a quotation from the Bible, sir. Something he wanted for one of those poems of his.”

  “He asked you if that quotation about all flesh being grass came from the Psalms?” I put in.

  “That was it, sir. And I told him.” Then he was giving us a look so whimsical that I almost laughed. “I hope I was right.”

  “Yo
u were right,” I told him, and smiled. “But after that, didn’t he want you to give him a piece of wood?”

  “Yes, sir, he did.” He shook his head regretfully. “That’s something I should have done before I came away. He’d asked before to attend to that window of his, but I’d forgotten or else I’d been too busy.”

  I didn’t dare look at Wharton. All I could do was wait, and then at last I had to prompt him.

  “Something was wrong with the window?”

  “Yes, sir,” he told me at once. “The sash cord was broken, and I’d promised to repair it.”

  “You mean he couldn’t open the window,” cut in Wharton. “That’s right, sir. Well, he could open it, but it wouldn’t stay open. That’s why he wanted the piece of wood.”

  Five minutes later we were saying goodbye to him. Though he persisted that he would never return to Lovelands, I knew his heart was there, and we promised that we’d deliver faithfully all his messages. Wharton wouldn’t let him see us to the door.

  Mrs. Roper was in the hall waiting for us. Wharton made a motion for silence and drew her into the sitting-room again.

  “Is there a neighbour whose telephone you could use?” he asked her.

  She said there was a Mrs. Somebody-or-other at Rosecot whose telephone she often used, and while she was telling us that her lips were licking with expectation and the lipstick was smearing across her chin.

  “If you weren’t a woman of real tact and common sense, Mrs. Roper, I wouldn’t be asking you to help us,” Wharton said. “Mr. Travers here agrees with me, especially as it may affect the amount Richard Chaice receives under his brother’s will.”

  “Anything I can do—”

  “I knew it,” Wharton said hastily. “I told Mr. Travers that we were lucky to find someone here like you.”

  He expounded the scheme, and he revealed his identity. Mr. Chaice wasn’t the sort from whom vital information could be extracted, but she could do the extracting for us. There was something that he’d discovered at Lovelands that he ought to have told his brother, and which might have prevented that brother’s death. Mrs. Roper could perhaps extract that information from him. It would have to be done guardedly, and along certain lines which he would himself suggest.