The Case of the Missing Men: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Read online

“What’s she want?” The tone had definitely softened.

  “She wouldn’t leave a message, sir. She said she must speak to you.”

  Chaice clicked his tongue, but not too annoyedly.

  “You carry on,” he told me with a wave of the hand. “I’ll probably catch you up.”

  I moved aimlessly on, and then the thatched roof of what looked like a summerhouse caught my eye and I strolled across the lawn towards it. It was an oblong building, built of red cedar, and large enough to contain two fair-sized rooms. There was also a veranda.

  Quite a pleasant place to spend an hour in the heat of the day, I was telling myself, for it was embowered in the flowering shrubs that rose to their full height behind it like the plants of a herbaceous border, and behind that long, dense shrubbery was a double line of poplars for a shield and windbreak. Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to have a look inside, but when I turned the handle of the door I found the door was locked. Then I noticed that a Yale lock had been quite recently fitted, and I could see the filling where the original lock had been.

  Don’t misunderstand me when I say that I noticed these things. They remained in my mind as things of no importance whatever; things, in fact, that I had noticed only sufficiently to be able to recall them later, and that’s all. As I moved off I thought no more about them, for I was wondering what way to take. Then a gravelled path caught my eye, leading through a new shrubbery that curved back to the house. In a few moments I was nearing the smaller barn which was partly converted to a garage. Through an open door I could see Chaice’s Rolls, jacked up against the end of the war. At the farther end another door was open, and as I came by, a man looked out. He had the look of a superior kind of carpenter.

  “Mr. Travers?” he said, and was holding out his hand. Then he took the hand back and rubbed it on his trousers. “Sorry, but I’ve been handling some rather dirty wood. I’m Austin’s brother, by the way.”

  His manner had been so shy, and yet so friendly, that I smiled as I reached out for his hand. He was much older than his brother and more stoutly built, and he had an untidy straggly moustache and such gentle eyes that he had a look of forlornness.

  “Doing some carpentering?” I asked, and the question was unnecessary, what with the carpenter’s apron he was wearing and the sawdust and tiny shavings on his ragged working coat. “Making some seed boxes,” he told me, interested at once.

  I followed him inside, and under the far window he had a fine carpenter’s bench, with a couple of vices, a hand-lathe and a fine array of tools. He waved a shy hand at the fixed template that held the thin boards of a box he had been nailing together.

  “A lot of boxes needed here,” he said. “Nothing much doing elsewhere, so I thought I’d get ahead.”

  He gave himself a little abstracted sort of smile and we stood for a few seconds in what seemed to him a happy vacuum. Then he gave a little start and the gentlest reprimanding smile. “You’ve seen Austin?”

  “Oh yes,” I said.

  “Of course,” he said, and was shaking his head. “I’m afraid my wits were wool-gathering again.”

  “Not at all,” I told him awkwardly, and picked up a completed box. “Very well made, if I may say so.”

  He smiled deprecatingly and then looked like relapsing into another vacuum. I said I was on my way to see Daine, and then he came to himself again and saw me to the door. A delightful old chap, I thought him, and the same moment wondered why I should think of him as old, for he couldn’t have been much over sixty.

  Across the gravelled sweep before the garage a side drive led to the old barn. There was a rustic porch with steps, and on the door a brass professional plate, doubtless salvaged from Daine’s headquarters in town. I gave a tap and entered. I was in the main room that had once been a lounge. The walls were lined with shelves and heaped with trays and stacks of papers. Two rather elderly women and a younger one were having tea, and from a wireless set came the whine of a wench—a croonerette sobbing out her larynx for the benefit of the troops. A door across the room opened, and Daine came in, some papers and his glasses in his hand.

  “My dear fellow,” he said, and stared at the sight of me. Then he grinned. “How long have you been here?”

  “Only just walked in,” I told him.

  He handed the papers to a nonchalant typist and we went through to his room.

  “A damnable noise, that,” he said, nodding back at the wireless. “Can’t do anything about it, though. Staffs nowadays have to be humoured.”

  He hadn’t changed a lot, I thought, and I told him so. A bit thinner perhaps, like all of us, but very fit. I liked him, too, without his glasses, for that was when you saw the unexpected and really likeable of the two men that went to make Cuthbert Daine. In his glasses he was the shortish, sparely built intellectual; quiet, shrewd and eminently business-like. Without them you saw the rather faun-like individual of his own cocktail parties, taking a terrific zest in company, flitting drolly from this group to that, steering an impish way among the trays, and all the time his face puckered with the most surprising grins.

  “A comfortable office this makes,” I said, and waved a hand to include dictaphone and handsome flat-topped desk. “Didn’t it use to function as a bedroom once?”

  He said it had been a small games room. There were three bedrooms, and now occupied by the women of his staff. There was a little kitchen where they scratched meals, but most of their food came from the house.

  The buzzer went, and, with a nod to me, he picked up the receiver. There was a five-minute conversation, with him trying most of the time to get off the line. When he hooked up, with a sigh of relief, the buzzer went again. At the same time I heard the frantic ringing of a bell.

  “That’ll be for you, and tea,” he told me. “A terrible day for me—Friday.”

  “You’re coming across?”

  He shrugged his shoulders in humorous despair and waved at the heaped tray on the desk.

  “Not a hope, my dear fellow. Lucky if I leave here much before seven.”

  As I made my way back to the house I was thinking that the next day was Saturday, and a holiday, and we’d have plenty of time to talk in peace. That brought a curious thought. What on earth did Daine find to do with himself in his hours of leisure? Daine, a Londoner to the very marrow of him, a sure figure at every literary gathering of the Bohemian sort, and himself the host par excellence. A bachelor, but very much of a ladies’ man, seen at his best with that impish grin on his face as he threaded his way through the chattering groups of dilettanti and philanderers. And always, as I somehow suspected, with a shrewd eye to business. And from all that to Beechingford!

  The sight of Chaice interrupted my thoughts. I told him I had had a word with Daine and I’d also seen his brother. I thought I’d dropped a brick at that last, but perhaps there wasn’t a quick annoyance on his face after all. But he took my arm, which looked like confidences about to be imparted.

  “Dick’s quite a good chap,” he said. “One of those people who can never settle down. Been all sorts of things in his time. Makes a hobby of doing odd jobs about the place, and damned useful he is, too.”

  “I’m sure he is,” I said, and he seemed quite content to leave it at that. And one thing I did know—that whatever faults Chaice had, snobbery was not one of them. At that moment, in any case, I had never felt less like making conversation. I was anticipating tea and I was realising that not only had the weekend opened well but that it promised even better. Perhaps the weather, as I said, had something to do with that now total absence of disquiet, and the fact that the two people most concerned had been on their best behaviour—Constance and Chaice, I mean. And it had been nice to see Daine again, and I had liked Lang, and Richard Chaice, and even old Harris.

  What I now know is that that afternoon had been the overture and an ironically cheerful one, for the drama that was to follow. When I entered the drawing-room the curtain rose on that drama, though no one could have
been less aware of the fact than myself.

  CHAPTER III

  ACT I, SCENE I

  The first scene of most plays might well be called ‘Meet the Folks’. You know the sort of thing you see: a drawing-room or lounge and people discussing someone who is absent. You learn to prick your ears, and, sure enough, that someone comes in, and then, likely as not, another absent person is discussed, and there may be a foreshadowing of some dramatic situation, and so on and so on till something really happens. By that time you have met all the folks and know them, and after that it is up to the dramatist to keep things going.

  What was to happen with me was much the same thing. There was this and that which made me prick my ears, and other things, far more important in the long run, which came back afterwards to bewilder and surprise me. So if I seem to you to mention trivialities, don’t be too sure that they are. There was, for instance, the matter of Chaice’s hat. I told you he had frequent changes of style in his dress, and I thought he’d given up that broad-brimmed Bohemian hat business and the velvet jacket get-up. But as I went through the hall again, on the way to the drawing-room, I saw on a peg outside the cloakroom door, amid an array of various garments, a hat of that same kind, and with it one of those flowing black capes.

  Constance was in the drawing-room, and you can picture the scene: the low table with china and silver ware, and another low table with sandwiches and cakes. An elderly parlourmaid was just leaving, and Harris took a look in to see that everything was as it should be.

  “Ready for tea?” Constance smiled at me.

  “Dying for a cup,” I said.

  “It’s perfectly unpardonable of me,” she went on, as she began pouring the tea, “but I forgot to ask you about Bernice. How is she?”

  I said my wife was very well indeed. She was still nursing in a hospital up north, but had had a short period of leave with me in town about three weeks before. Since association with Wharton and the law has made me a deft and shameless liar, I said we often thought about her—about Constance, that is.

  “I know,” she said, with an equally deft and embracing sympathy. “It’d be lovely to see her again. Sugar?”

  I said I didn’t take it. Chaice, who had been restlessly crossing one knee over the other and then the other over that, suddenly asked where Dickie was.

  “But, darling, you know when he’s working he always prefers something outside,” Constance told him.

  “I don’t know anything of the sort,” he snapped at her. I passed him a cup of tea and he was so agitated he spilt a lot of it in the saucer.

  “But you do know,” she told him. Her eyes had narrowed and the words came through tight lips.

  “I don’t like this business of Dickie being like a—well, a cheap handyman.”

  “But, darling, be reasonable. He couldn’t very well come in here with those clothes of his. He wouldn’t like it himself.”

  “I don’t see why not.” His little eyes looked very angry and he was spilling more of his tea. I passed him the sandwiches and he took one with a grunt. Then he asked where Martin was.

  “But, darling, how should I know?” she told him sweetly.

  “If you don’t know, who does? You make an absolute fool of him.” He gave an exasperated snort and began to wave a hand about. “What this generation is coming to, beats me.”

  “Must we have this all over in front of Ludo?” she asked him with the same exasperating sweetness. “Let’s leave it like this, darling. You spoil Dickie and I spoil Martin. Now we’re quits.”

  I plunged gallantly in. If one wanted to go to the town, how did one get there? Chaice, evidently only too glad to change the conversational trend, said there was quite a good bus service about a quarter of a mile along the road. He himself generally walked for exercise sake on the rare occasions when he went there, but if he was going to town he sometimes took a taxi. Lang had a bicycle which I might use if I felt that way inclined.

  “That reminds me, darling,” he told his wife. “Kitty rang up to say she was getting a lift with a friend. She won’t be in till about ten.”

  “You’ve ordered a taxi?”

  “No need,” he said. “This friend’s bringing her right here. Going on leave herself, so I gathered.”

  “Such a charming girl,” Constance told me gushingly. “We all simply adore her.”

  Chaice beamed approval. Restless as ever, he had now got to his feet and was leaning against the mantelpiece, on which he had put his cup. I was wondering where Lang had his tea, and I afterwards learned that he always had it taken to the workshop, as they called that room where he worked with Chaice. Then somehow we got to talking about that small residential estate that lay to the south of the house. Chaice said it was so small and select as to have no effect on the value of his own property. Even in winter one could barely see the roofs of the few villas.

  Chaice had now finished his tea. He was a gross and untidy eater, gulping his food carelessly down, and far more intent on monopolising the conversation and waving a hand around as he talked. I felt quite uncomfortable to be still eating, and then at last he could stand it no longer. When I’d finished he’d be in his room, he said, and then, with a grunt or two and a wave of he hand, he went out.

  “Well?” smiled Constance enigmatically, as soon as the door had closed.

  “Well what?” I countered, and blatantly passed my cup again.

  “Well, what must you be thinking of us?”

  “Why should I think?” I said.

  She gave an elaborate shrug of the shoulders.

  “Sometimes Austin is the most infuriating man in the world.”

  “Don’t all wives say that about all husbands?”

  “I wish you’d be serious,” she told me impatiently. “Take Richard. Would you have him wandering about all over the house when people are here? He looks just like a tramp.”

  “I don’t know,” I said mildly, but she was cutting in again. “Then there’s Martin. I know he’s all nerves, but that’s not his fault. That was why they turned him down for the Services. And he still has the most dreadful headaches.”

  “Must be pretty rotten for him,” I said.

  “It is,” she told me emphatically. “And that’s what Austin just won’t understand.”

  “What’s Martin doing with himself?” I asked.

  “He really wants to be an author,” she said. “Well, not an author exactly. He writes verse.”

  “Does he indeed!” I said, and my eyebrows lifted.

  “The trouble is he can’t get it published,” she said. “We thought perhaps you could give him some advice about that.” And there, I thought, was the devil of it. That perhaps was why Constance had been so keen on my coming to Lovelands.

  “But surely Daine could give him the best advice,” I pointed out.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “Austin’s furious about it. He’s set Cuthbert against it too, we’re sure of that.” She let out a sigh. “I’m so sorry for poor Martin. I do wish you’d have a look at his work and see if anything can be done.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’ll certainly do that much. I can’t promise anything farther, mind you.”

  “Sometimes you’re an absolute darling,” she told me, and added would I push the bell. I’d toyed with the idea of yet another cup of tea, but I duly rang the bell and then said perhaps I’d better see Austin.

  “What about a swim later?” she asked me. “We always take a dip at about six.”

  “When in Rome . . .” I said, and left it at that.

  I joined Austin in that sanctum of his. He had evidently been waiting impatiently, for he was prowling restlessly about the room when I entered.

  “Sorry about all that backchat at tea-time,” he began, “but Constance can be very exasperating at times.”

  He didn’t give me a chance to sympathise.

  “Take Richard. He’s a good fellow, and, like me, he hasn’t a bit of damned snobbery in him. I admit he’s been a
rolling stone in his time, and a pretty expensive one to me.” He shrugged his shoulders at that. “Not that I ever worried. Richard’s a good scout. And he’s had some tough luck. Came over here with his wife just after the war and I found him a little place just north of town. A damn bomb dropped clean on it. Killed his wife and shook him pretty badly too. That’s why he’s a bit absent-minded sometimes, as he calls it. And that’s the very thing that Constance keeps harping about. He’s no more weak in his wits than you and I are. If anything, he’s a damn sight saner than the rest of us. Come to think of it, he had to be after what he went through in the blitz.”

  “I must say I—” I was going to say that I’d thought him a real good sort, but Chaice only waved an impatient hand and surged straight on.

  “Then there’s Martin. It’s hard for a parent to talk like this of his only son, but that boy’s been ruined from the start. We didn’t have what they call nerves in our day, did we? All damn pose and poppycock. And what do you think he wants to be? One of those snivelling damn poets that write that blasted twaddle you see in the highbrow magazines. And wanted me to influence Cuthbert to find a publisher for it.” He waved his hands as if words were inadequate. “If you get a chance, have a look at it. If it doesn’t make you puke, then my name’s not what it is. Only one place for that sort of bilge, as I told him, and that’s cut in neat little squares and hung on a hook to help out with the paper shortage.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, though lord knows what, and then he gave an impatient grunt.

  “Let’s get through to the workshop and make a start on that job of ours. Can’t keep Lang with nothing to do.”

  He was already holding the door open, so through we went. And there we stayed till about six o’clock, with Lang editing Kensington Gore and making a list of quotes to submit to us later, and Chaice and I going through a host of questions that had been compiled against my visit. When we all three came to a kind of spontaneous halt, Lang asked if there was anything else and Chaice merely waved him away.