The Case of the Murdered Major: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 6

  “But that isn’t all,” went on Travers. “He wanted to know how you’d managed to get this job. I told him the same way as he and I got our jobs. Then he hinted the W.O. was very slack these days, and all sorts of what he called riff-raff could get in.”

  “My God! What a dirty little tyke he is.” He shook his head bewilderedly. “And what’d you tell him?”

  “I said he’d be able to see your whole record and family history in your B.199A.”

  Winter’s mouth gaped.

  “What’s that?”

  “Just a minute,” Travers said, “and I’ll show you.”

  He nipped into his office, passed some more work to Miss Dance, and then was back with half a dozen Army Forms. Two were handed to Winter.

  “Here you are, young feller. Came by this morning’s post. To be filled in according to King’s Regulations, para. so-and-so. One copy to be certified and then sent to W.O. by me and the other’s retained by the Unit.”

  “It looks a regular dossier,” said Winter, staring at it.

  “Just what it is, and a pretty complete one at that.”

  “Any hurry for it?”

  “Lord, no. We’ve all three got to do them, so I’ll collect them sometime when the rush is off. Say in a week’s time.”

  “I’ll attend to it,” Winter said, “and I hope it makes the old man’s eyes pop. I wouldn’t mind having a dekko at his when it’s filled in.”

  Travers smiled non-committally. Winter halted him at the door.

  “Thanks for spilling the beans about our friend. Rather important, don’t you think, that we should keep each other promptly informed?”

  “Yes—perhaps it is. But it’s a dirty game all round.”

  “But necessary?”

  “Maybe,” said Travers, and shook a sad head.

  He was nodding to himself as he went through the communicating door. Dirty it was, and it was doubtful if the best way of countering underhand work was to go underground one’s self. Far better be a master of one’s job, and do it, and leave the treacherous little swine no possible genuine complaint.

  Τravers rang Transport and arranged for meeting that train just before twenty hours. Then he finished the morning’s mail, gave out letters to various departments, and dictated more letters. Then while Miss Dance was typing them he noticed something strange about the fourth finger of her left hand.

  “Hallo! What’s all that?”

  “Oh, that,” she said promptly, and out went the ring at arm’s length to be surveyed. “Just an engagement ring.”

  Traven raised interested eyebrows.

  “Captain Tester?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Early wedding?”

  “Plenty of time to think about that,” she told him archly.

  Travers settled down to the compilation of a couple of returns, and then all at once there was a slam that fairly shook the room.

  “Damn Winter!” he said. “The fellow’s always slamming doors. Why the devil can’t he go out quietly.”

  Then Travers smiled sheepishly. He was giving a perfect performance of Stirrop at his petulant best. Not that he wouldn’t have a word with Winter. Damn-bad manners slamming doors.

  His eye caught the clock. Midday already, and he hadn’t had his morning inspection of camp.

  Ramble was waiting with the medical sergeant and the orderly provost, and the four made the usual round. Then just as Travers had dismissed his parade and was coming out of the main door, he caught sight of Tester waiting on the steps. During Bernice’s Christmas visit, the two had naturally seen a good deal of Tester at the Royal. Bernice thought him charming, but Travers had still never quite cottoned to him, maybe because Tester was of a generation with which it was hard at times to find points of contact.

  Tester that morning was wrapped up to the eyes in a handsome coat with a fur collar, which gave him the look of a rakish Russian. He had come, Travers imagined, as he often did—to take Bertha Dance out to lunch.

  “Well, how’s things?” Travers asked him.

  “Not too bad,” Teller said, and then somewhat diffidently: “Could you possibly spare me a minute?”

  “Come along in, then,” Travers told him. “It’s too nippy to stand out here.”

  They kicked the snow off their shoes and Travers unlocked one of the prisoners’ rooms.

  “And now what’s all the trouble?”

  “I hardly like to tell you,” Tester said hesitatingly. “The fact is, I’m in a devil of a hole.”

  “What sort of hole?”

  “Well, it’s this.” He looked round as if afraid of being overheard. “I’ve been frightfully worried. Driven nearly off my nut, in fact. Then this morning I made up my mind to confide in you. It’s about Bertha. Miss Dance.”

  “But I thought—”

  “No, it’s something different. The fact is I had an anonymous letter a few days ago. I can’t show it you because I chucked it on the fire.”

  “The best place for it.”

  “I don’t know. I’d like you to have seen it now. What it said was that the Commandant here was well, a bit too friendly with my girl, and I’d better look out.”

  “I see,” said Travers, and grunted.

  “Yes, and the trouble is I’ve been putting two and two together, and I know there’s the devil of a lot of truth in it. And what can I do? I can’t have a stand- up row with him. That’d queer my pitch with Bertha. What the devil am I to do?”

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “My dear chap, how can I? Acting on an anonymous letter! That’d properly send the balloon up.”

  “It’s difficult,” Travers said, and shook his head. “Mind you, I’m not committing myself in any way, but entirely without prejudice I’d suggest that you keep your ears and eyes open and if you see really good cause, then you can act. But it’s a rotten situation—if there’s any truth in it.’

  “It is a bit,” Tester said mournfully. Then he cheered up somewhat. “Thanks a heap for what you’ve said. But I’m warning you that if I catch a certain someone up to any monkey tricks, I’ll knock his block off.”

  “You’d better keep that to yourself,” Travers told him, forcing a smile. “And you’d better forget that you’ve been here at all. Which reminds me. This will be your last visit for a bit. We’ve some boy friends coming to-night.”

  “Prisoners?”

  “That’s it. It’s as much as my tunic, or the Commandant’s, is worth to let you in here when there’re prisoners.”

  They moved back to the main door, and there Travers was just in time to dodge back out of the sight of Miss Dance who was coming towards the Bentley. A minute later Travers emerged to see the car going out at the main gate, and he stood for a moment or two shaking his head over the new situation. Much as he would have liked Stirrop to be the recipient of a thick ear, even at the hands of Tester, he knew the danger of scandal in the camp.

  Suddenly he was aware of a curious sort of depression, only to realise at the same moment that it was the covering oppression of that huge entrance porch with its Christmas cracker pillars and vast flat top. Then he smiled as he remembered one of Stirrop’s earlier, windy ideas, how that since that top concrete veranda could be reached from the corridor on the first door, it might make a good machine-gun post in the event of a prisoners’ mutiny.

  The alarums and excursions of the morning had put Travers well behind with work. The afternoon post was heavy and just when he was about to knock off at eighteen hours for an early dinner and a breather before the next excitement, Mafferty came down to the office, wanting to know if Travers had any details about the port of departure of the expected prisoners.

  “I don’t know a thing except what I’ve told you,” Travers said. “There’ll be the ship’s officers—which reminds me. They’ll have to be given the chance of buying extras, and we must find them waiters and batmen out of their rank and file. They’ll have their meals first, as was done last time. The crew and
their so-called passengers can all be lumped together.”

  “Yes, sir, but where do they all come from?”

  “West Coast of Africa,” Travers said.

  “That’s what I want to know, sir. Won’t they all want an issue of clothing?”

  “Good Lord, yes,” said Travers. “Fancy this climate, after Africa.”

  “What I was thinking was, we’d make an issue in the morning, sir, when things are a bit easier. What shall I give them?”

  “Thick pair of trousers, shift, vest, pants and one of those woollen pullovers. Let me see now. We’ve no authority for payment, so we’ll make each cove sign for what he has and pass the account to whatever camp they go to next.”

  “Any Intelligence people coming, sir?”

  “Haven’t heard any,” Travers told him. “Perhaps they’ve been interrogated this time on board ship.”

  By 19.30 the buses had gone to the station taking Byron and his additional guard, and Travers had the briefest of pow-wows with seniors of departments in his office.

  “Everything all right with you, Mr. Pewter?” He ticked off the list. “Quarters for the escort? Reception guard? All posts manned? Main Guard know about lights? . . . Good. Then I needn’t keep you any longer.”

  The medical sergeant, Mafferty, and last of all Ramble, reported all correct, and Travers was left alone except for a telephone orderly and his runner. The R.T.O. rang to say the train was running late—about half an hour, he thought. Travers cursed the trains and the War House. Why it couldn’t have been arranged that prisoners arrived during daylight was something he couldn’t fathom. For one thing they could have marched the four miles and saved public expense.

  Dulling arrived and reported. Then earlier than Travers expected, the R.T.O. rang again to say the train was in and the buses were being loaded.

  “Might as well cling on here for another quarter of an hour, doc.,” Travers said. “A bit more cosy than hanging around at the main door. Unluckily it’s a dark night.”

  “The snow helps, don’t you think?” Dulling said. “Oh, and by the way, any of those Intelligence people coming this time?”

  “Not that I’ve heard,” Travers said.

  “What was the name of that youngish fellow—the captain? Awfully smart at his job.”

  “You mean Lading,” Travers told him. “Awful nice chap, as you say. Did you know his father was a Bosche?”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, but a decent sort of Bosche. The mother was English and that’s why young Lading went to Rugby. Then the father died and the mother came back to England.”

  Then suddenly he gave a look of surprise, for Dulling had gone a most peculiar red, and was like a man with something on his chest and unable to get it off.

  “I ought . . . I mean . . . Well, I think I ought to tell you something. Between ourselves.” He lowered his voice and glanced round at the two orderlies at the other end of the room. “I’d rather you didn’t mention it to the Commandant.”

  “I certainly won’t,” Travers told him, and waited.

  ‘*My father was a German, naturalized a few years ago, just before he died. The name used to be Dufleheim.” He smiled, rather feebly. “That was long before I came to Shoreleigh.”

  “I shouldn’t worry about that, doc.,” Travers said. “And you can rely on my keeping it well under my hat. And I suppose, by the way, that you speak the lingo?”

  Dulling shook his head. “It’s an amazing thing but I’ve completely forgotten every word of it. And I did it at school too. Honest to God, I don’t believe I could count up to ten.”

  At a quarter to nine—or twenty-forty-five—the first bus was seen at main gate. It came through and slowly crawled towards the main door. Other buses followed and then the line halted. Pewter’s guard lined the road and Ramble gave the order for the first bus to unload. Winter hollered in German that every prisoner must be responsible for bringing his own luggage into the building, unless it was too heavy to carry. Travers moved on through a double line of guards to the lighted reception-room. The doors were open, and with one of the provosts as check, he prepared to count the new arrivals.

  They marched through in single file, and a mixed lot they were, with about only one thing in common, which was that they all made exaggerated shivers to indicate the excessive cold. The officers were well clad, but some of the rest seemed to have the thinnest of clothes, and a good few were still wearing topees. They were of all ages and all sorts. One or two of the younger officers were as truculent as they dared to be, and of the rest, some looked tired and indifferent, some were chattering among themselves as if to keep up courage, and one fellow, as he passed Travers, actually gave a curl of the lip. Travers called Winter over. Winter blasted hell out of him in a few well-chosen words, and the line moved slowly through again. Then something really peculiar happened. A good many of the Huns wore beards, and it was a bearded one almost at the end of the line who, as he passed, bestowed on Travers an unmistakable wink!

  After the first shock, Travers wondered if it were some nervous affliction, for another wink followed it. Then the blinking of the eyelid stopped, the man looked straight ahead again, and Travers passed him through.

  “How many do you make it, Sergeant Stamp?”

  “Seventy-three, sir.”

  “Correct,” said Travers. “Seventy-three it is.”

  The prisoners lined up in the hall, each man with his hand luggage in front of him. Boilers of tea appeared, and each man was given a mug. While Travers dismissed the buses and interviewed the officer of the escort. Winter harangued. The prisoners were told camp routine, and what was expected of them. When the tea was drunk they were marched off under escort to relieve nature, then assembled again, and this time in their categories of ship’s officers, ship’s crew, and more or less genuine passengers. The heavy luggage had meanwhile been brought in, and the following day the prisoners would be allowed access to it under supervision to remove necessaries only.

  The search and the medical inspection began. Each man stripped to the skin and, while the doctor examined him, the provost staff under Ramble went through belongings. Impounded articles went into a bag, giving the number which at the same time was allotted to the particular prisoner, and all papers and documents were brought to one of the two long tables at which Winter and Travers respectively sat. Names were taken and checked against the Nazi membership cards which every prisoner had. Money was counted and a receipt given, and then as soon as a room total was completed, that room was marched off under escort, and cookhouse orderlies brought each man a hot meal of good old army stew.

  All that may sound a fairly rapid procedure, but it was well after midnight when the last room was locked up and the last light out. Travers, Dulling, and Byron adjourned to the Mess for bread and cheese and hot coffee.

  “Gawd, but I’m tired!” Travers said. “Still, I expect we all are.”

  “Captain Winter’s going on all night, is he?” Dulling asked.

  “Not quite,” Travers said. “He likes to get his papers in order before he turns in. He’ll be along later. By the way, Byron, there were only seventy-three boy friends. The escort officer said one had gone sick way back, so you’d better warn Pewter in case he gets the wind up when he takes the count.”

  The three ended up with a whisky for night-cap, and then Travers would wait for Winter no longer, but decided to turn in. After all, he could tell him in the morning about that extraordinary cove with the wink. Someone slightly mental, probably, or else that extraordinary rarity—a Bosche with a sense of humour.

  CHAPTER V

  THE WINKING MAN

  Travers was in the Mess rather earlier the next morning. Dowling, who was Orderly Officer, was just going out. Winter was just beginning breakfast.

  “Hallo!” said Travers. “Quelle mouche te pique?”

  Winter was a first-rate French linguist, and he and Travers would often talk French when it was a question of secrecy. Miss Dance, for in
stance, knew no French at all. And here is a convenient place to state that Travers’s German was more than ragged, consisting as it did of a few pat phrases and no more.

  “I’m not really late,” protested Winter. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been in the camp for an hour already.”

  “And how did our boy friends sleep?”

  “Not too bad. They’re full of complaints, though. Asking for no end of favours, and wasn’t there some back-chat when they learned they’d got to clean out their rooms and do latrines!”

  “They won’t get much change out of Ramble,” chuckled Travers. “Did you ever see him march into a room and holler ‘Achtung!’”

  “He’s a good fellow, is Ramble,” Winter said. “Oh, and before I forget it. Young Pewter’s entered up the Count Book wrongly. He’s got it down as seventy-three.”

  “There are only seventy-three,” Travers said. “I signed a receipt for the bodies and property of seventy-three. There were to have been seventy-four, but one cove was taken ill before they started. He may be along here in a day or two. Don’t forget, too, that the doc.’s got two under observation in hospital.”

  ’The escort officer came in. He was going back with his men in about an hour’s time. Travers asked him how he had slept.

  “Gosh, it was cold!” he said. “I seemed to spend the whole night turning from one sore hip to another.”

  “About time you young fellers learnt the horror of war,” Travers told him. “Good luck to you in any case if I don’t see you again. I shall come along and lend you a hand, Winter, as soon as the Commandant gets here.”

  Everything had been so carefully planned out that Travers would not be needed for a couple of hours. All the same, he was early in the office and was well on the way with the mail when Miss Dance arrived. She seemed the least bit upset, and Travers wondered whether Tester had spoken after all. But the engagement ring was still in place.

  It was after ten o’clock and Stirrop had not arrived. It was too much to hope that he would take yet another day’s leave, but Travers could congratulate himself on the smoothness and even gaiety with which that arduous yesterday had passed, and contrasting it with the panic and frayed nerves that had marked the previous arrival of prisoners. Now for a few days everybody was going to be overworked, Winter in particular, though a spot of real work for a change would do him no harm. Then when the prisoners had gone there ought to be a spot of leave for himself. Seven days in town was something to look forward to.