The Case of the Missing Men: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  It was a good quarter of an hour later when we left. Wharton and I said nothing till we were back in the car. Then he asked if there hadn’t been a pub at the common just short of the fork. How I was feeling he didn’t know, but he could do with a beer.

  There was a car park in front of the pub, and there we left the car. The saloon bar was almost empty and we had a corner to ourselves. I ordered two half-pints, and Wharton said I’d better make his a pint. Then we got our heads together.

  “Well, where are we now?” George began.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to puzzle out,” I told him. “All I can see is that we’re in a bigger muddle than we were before. I don’t mean about the piece of wood. That’s simple. Martin wasn’t sitting at that window with the window shut. The window was open, but the one who shot him took away the piece of wood and shut the window. Which leaves us where we were before. Who did the shooting?”

  “And it complicates that timing we did,” George said. “I worked it out just as quickly as the murderer must have done, and I took a good minute. It’d have been more if I’d had to shut that window and pocket the wood. And he daren’t have shut the window loudly.”

  He glanced at his watch and closed his eyes as if going mentally through the motions. Another glance at the watch and he was shaking his head.

  , “Well over half a minute. And that window wasn’t easy to get at. The chair was close up against it.”

  “Perhaps Kitty was longer than she thought,” I suggested.

  “You can’t argue like that,” he told me reprovingly. “Either you trust a witness or you don’t. She made it about a minute. That’s sixty seconds, and when you count in seconds, thirty more seconds are the hell of a way out.”

  We agreed to leave it. There’d be plenty of time for thought on the way home. But George wasn’t in any hurry, and as I’d finished my beer I called for another.

  “Obstinate old cuss, that Richard Chaice,” George remarked. “Wonder if that Mrs. Roper will worm what we want out of him?”

  I said I thought she would. And I offered to bet that before long Richard would get back to Lovelands. If not, his sister-in-law would mother him to death.

  It was amazing how near we were at that moment to having the solution to a couple of murders. One little twist to that conversation and we’d have seen the things that were right under our noses, but the conversation didn’t take that particular turn. A stranger came up, for one thing, and asked if either of us would care to make a four in a game of darts. George, who fancies himself at the game, promptly got to his feet. He had a couple of games and won them both, and he even offered to buy me another drink. I said it was pretty late and we ought to be making a move.

  The stars were out, but it wasn’t too light, when we set off again. George was hunched up in the seat beside me, and I was driving carefully and trying to remember just where it was in Uxbridge that I turned left. By chance I hit the correct spot, and perhaps it was that that made me relax and do a bit of thinking on my own account. Then I thought of something that made me chuckle.

  “What’s tickling your fancy?” George asked grumpily.

  “Just thinking of Mrs. Roper,” I said. “Did you notice how she was licking her lips like a cat, and smearing that lipstick all over her chin. I bet she had a fit when she saw herself in the glass.”

  “Old fools of women, dolling themselves up!” George said and relapsed into his corner.

  When he next spoke, and that would be about fifteen minutes later, his tone had so changed that he startled me.

  “You mistake lipstick for grease-paint?”

  I didn’t quite gather what he meant, unless it was some reference to Mrs. Roper.

  “Not that,” he said. “That grease-paint you found in the summerhouse and thought it was lipstick.”

  “Oh, that,” I said. “I told you about that.”

  He gave a grunt, then began filling his pipe. There was only the sound of his puffing till we were running into Pinner. Just as we came to that open space that looks like a village green he was suddenly asking me to stop the car.

  “The pubs are all shut now,” I told him. “It’s well after ten.”

  As soon as I pulled up he was getting out. I thought he wanted to stretch his legs and I got out too. The stars were still shining and a young moon was rising away to our left. It was a grand night after the day we’d had, and it was a night I was long to remember.

  “Let’s walk a yard or two,” George said. “There’s something I want to put up to you.”

  I lighted my pipe, but before we’d gone half a dozen yards he was stopping me.

  “Listen to this,” he said, “and tell me if I’m right. There never was anybody of the name of H. Preston!”

  I stared at him.

  “But there was!”

  “Have it your own way,” he said, “but I say there wasn’t. What’s more, I think I can prove it. I say there wasn’t a G. H. Preston, and this is why. G. H. Preston was Austin Chaice!”

  I took off my glasses and began polishing them, and as I blinked away I began to see things for myself.

  “You’re right, George,” I said. “You’re dead plumb right.”

  “Well, let’s hear how you’d prove it.”

  “Well, that was why he used that grease-paint,” I said. “I think he had a make-up box in the summerhouse, and when the man I disturbed that night cleared away all the make-up apparatus and the false whiskers he didn’t know that Carmine Number 2 had dropped on the floor.”

  “Yes. Go on,” he told me impatiently.

  “That’s why Chaice used to go to that summerhouse,” I said. “He’d do a quick make-up—unless it was for some special occasion, as when he called on himself or saw the house agents—and then he’d slip out the back way to the lane and on to the back door of Number 6. Then he’d show himself for the benefit of the neighbours.”

  “Yes, but why did he do it?”

  I said it was a long story. Chaice had that passion for verisimilitude, and he was very much of an exhibitionist. He’d got a lot of publicity out of the typewriter affair and he’d proved himself right. The creation of G. H. Preston was a kind of improvement along the same lines. For one thing, he was about to write a play which he was calling Mr. Polegate, and undoubtedly that play would deal with a case of double identity and be worked out in accordance with his own experiences at Number 6. I said Chaice had actually told me that his play was to deal with a double identity, but he’d refused to give further details.

  “And another thing,” I said. “He was writing that manual of detection. Lang told me he’d stopped short at three different sections, one of which dealt with disguises. I’d say he was waiting to incorporate his experiences in those three sections. What a kick he’d have got out of writing something like this: ‘It’s the fashion nowadays to decry the use of disguises, but let me give you a personal experience.’ Then he’d have related how he fooled not only the house agents but even his own secretary. Can’t you see him gloating as he dictated that to Lang?”

  “He must have been barmy,” George told me with a grunt.

  “I think he ultimately would have been,” I told him. “But you didn’t know him as I did. You can’t get into the hide of another man by reading somebody else’s notes.”

  “Right,” said George. “Let’s get on the move again. We can talk the rest of this over in the car.”

  What he was soon wanting to know was how the discovery helped us. He had ideas, he said, but he’d like to hear mine first. All I could say was that it looked as if we’d solved one murder, though we’d never be able to prove it.

  “Chaice’s murder?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Everything goes to prove that Martin murdered him.”

  “All right,” he said, a bit testily. “Let’s hear your reasons.”

  As I began to expound them they sounded more and more convincing. Martin had owned to me that he had followed his father, and ostensibly to
discover if he really had anything to do with the liquid-squirting. Chaice became aware of his clumsy efforts and led him a dance. Nevertheless, when Martin said he had always lost his father, that might have been deliberate lying. Maybe Martin had seen him enter the back or front of Number 6. After all, Chaice would boldly enter by the front gate in order to let any chance neighbour see him.

  “Now take the Monday when Chaice was killed,” I said. “I had been induced by Constance Chaice and Martin to lend a hand in following Chaice if he went out that night. Then Martin went sick, and, as I said in the notes, I think the sickness was a fake. What was intended was that Daine and I should do the following while Martin had a good alibi. What he did, as soon as his father had left, was to slip downstairs. He may have followed the three of us. He may have been the running man that Pymme saw at Number 3. But what he almost certainly did do was to catch up with his father when he was nearing the house and crack him on the skull and then finish him off. As I said, he had a perfect alibi. If necessary, he might have got Constance to add to the proof that he’d never left his room.”

  “You realise that you’re making her a pretty cold-blooded murderess?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “She mayn’t have been aware of how she was being used. Or she might have suspected, and pretended she didn’t. But haven’t I been insisting lately that she knows a hell of a sight more about things than we’d imagined? And why was she getting nervy about me and the police still being in the house?”

  George said there was a lot in that, but it’d take the very devil of a lot of proving.

  “Unless we can tie it up with Martin’s own murder.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I don’t see how Mrs. Roper’s going to help us there. Even if she does worm something out of Richard Chaice, it may turn out to be something connected with Austin’s murder, not Martin’s. In fact, it’s almost certain to be.”

  We more or less left it at that, and at once found ourselves getting back to G. H. Preston. George was even more of the opinion that Chaice was as near mad as makes no difference.

  “When he went to Number 6 that Monday night he actually knocked at his own door. Daine heard him talking to an imaginary somebody inside. Then he came out and said good night to the same imaginary character. If that isn’t lunacy, what is?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “Everything was done for the benefit of anyone going by. Take a secret service agent, for example, or even one of our own men who has to assume a wholly new personality to get himself into the confidence of a suspect. What’s the golden rule if it isn’t that you don’t pretend to be the character? You are that character, and it’s just as important to know it when you think you’re alone as when you’re not. And you bet your life Chaice would have put all that in his book.”

  “You class those letters we found under the same heading?”

  “Undoubtedly,” I said. “The show piece was that letter he wrote to himself.”

  Then I had a brainwave.

  “I think I’ve got something, George. What we haven’t thought about is the logical end of G. H. Preston.”

  “You mean?”

  “This,” I said. “I think the time had practically arrived when Chaice would wish to finish Preston off. How, I don’t know, but it’d have been something spectacular. Something that would have made a stir in the local Press. Maybe in the London papers too. But it would have been something that brought the police to Number 6 in search of Preston. They’d have found the letter. They’d have interviewed Chaice, who’d have had the time of his life spinning yarns with his tongue in his cheek. Then at the right moment he’d have let the whole cat out of the bag. Magnificent publicity—especially for his forthcoming play.”

  “That’s it, for a fiver,” George said, and then was asking if we weren’t near Beechingford.

  We were, and it was not a long way off midnight. George said he’d stop at the police station in case a message might have come in from Mrs. Roper. I could drive myself home and leave the car at Lovelands. Then he changed his mind and told me to wait.

  There wasn’t any message, so I drove him to the Flagon, and left the car there.

  “What about the morning?” I asked him.

  He thought for a bit, and then said he’d be at Number 6 at about ten o’clock. I pushed off on foot. Harris had given me a key, and I found a message on the mat to the effect that a thermos of coffee was in the dining-room. There were sandwiches too, and the remains of an apple tart.

  When I’d finished that meal I was too awake for bed, so I lighted my pipe and did some more thinking. It was about one in the morning when I made my way out towards bed. In the hall my hat and coat lay where I’d carelessly thrown them on the table, and the sight of them there grieved my sense of tidiness. So I picked them up, intending to hang them on a peg outside the cloakroom, and for some reason or other I happened to notice the table drawer.

  Then I suddenly thought of something. I thought of something else, and then all at once I had my glasses in my hands and was blinking away as I polished them. From that table drawer my thoughts had ranged to that rubber-tired wheelbarrow that had been propped against the back of the summerhouse, and then they ranged still farther afield. A minute or two later I was going upstairs. But I was going very slowly; in fact I hardly knew I was going at all. Gaps there might be, and far too many, and yet the general pattern was clear. I knew, and yet I didn’t quite know.

  It was a long time before I fell asleep. When I woke there were still too many gaps, but of the main pattern I had never been more certain. I knew, for instance, who had killed Austin Chaice, and though I didn’t know how, I thought I knew who had killed Martin.

  CHAPTER XV

  ALL THE ANSWERS

  I was very late for breakfast that morning. Daine had finished his, and when he looked into my room I was only just getting out of bed. I told him in confidence about Richard, and he, too, was of the opinion that it would not be long before he was back at Lovelands.

  “You never know,” I said enigmatically, and at once he was giving me a questioning look.

  I closed the door after having had a look along the corridor. “Can you keep something under your hat?”

  “I think so,” he told me.

  “I oughtn’t to let out even a hint,” I said. “There’d be the devil to pay if Wharton knew I’d said a thing. But the fact is, I don’t think I shall be here after today. I might even get away tonight.”

  “You mean the job’s finished?”

  “As good as, and that’s all I can say.”

  He nodded to himself, and then had to try a question. “Suppose you couldn’t give me an idea who did it?”

  “That’s more than my job’s worth,” I said, and shook my head. “What I might do is give you a hint, and for God’s sake don’t ever mention it, even when it all comes out.”

  Then I shook my head again.

  “I oughtn’t to tell you really, but you’ll have to draw your own conclusions. The answer really is, ‘Why did Richard bolt?’”

  His eyes opened wide.

  “So he was mad, was he?”

  “You’re getting nothing more out of me,” I said, and began to hustle him out of the room. Then he thought of something.

  “If you’re likely to be going, why not sign that agreement? It’s been waiting for your signature.”

  I met him again in the hall after breakfast. Harris, by the way, had not appeared, and doubtless he was now terrified of a new encounter with Wharton. It was a Saturday and Daine’s staff were away, but we found the agreement and the covering letter at the bottom of one of his trays. I signed and he signed, and, as I was going out, I said I’d post the letter and get the matter finished.

  It was about a quarter to ten, but before I set out for Number 6 I took a quick look through the workshop door. Lang was busy typing, but not with his face to the window. He was facing Kitty, who was settled comfortably in a chair and knitting what looked like a jumper sleev
e. The pair actually looked pleased to see me.

  “Don’t move,” I told them. “I only looked in to tell Kitty her Uncle Richard was well.”

  She was tremendously thrilled to hear he’d been located, and to hear my opinion that he’d probably return.

  “You write him a letter,” I told her. “Give him all the little details of news and make him homesick.”

  She said she’d do it at once. Lang brought me a piece of paper on which to write the address, and he was wanting to know why Richard had gone away. I was giving away no more information. All I did say was that he’d thought he was a bit of a nuisance. Then I made my exit, and was hurrying off to Number 6. But not by the back lane. I went out by the front gate as if I was really bound for the town.

  More pieces were already fitting into the puzzle, and before the morning was out that jigsaw was almost entire. Not that we had an interesting morning. Goodman had obviously been staggered at Wharton’s revelation about Preston, though he could contribute little to that evidence of double identity. But Wharton had done some telephoning and had a few more facts.

  That question of the beard, for instance. A beard takes some fixing, and even an experienced actor like Chaice would have had to make a remarkably good job of it to have faced the light of full day. For an ordinary visit, as to Mrs. Pymme, it wouldn’t have mattered so much, or on those occasions when he showed himself at Number 6 for the purpose of satisfying either neighbours or passers-by. But Wharton had rung up both the house agents and Lang. Each had confirmed that the mornings of Preston’s visits had been dark and rainy. In Morland’s office there had been artificial light, and at Lovelands no light but the dim one of nature. An added confirmation was that when Preston called at Lovelands Chaice had not been there.

  Well, we spent the whole morning at Number 6 and the summerhouse, and for the sole reason, apparently, of Wharton’s notes. A General’s inspection was nothing to it. We were expected to get ideas, or he would find his own and then he’d write them down. And everything was now around the theory that Martin Chaice had killed his father. The motive was centred round that manuscript, and I gathered that in the background was Constance Chaice, with a question-mark.