The Case of the Murdered Major: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  THE EXTRA PRISONER

  Travers peeped into Winter’s office to see if he were there, but the room was empty. Ramble was just coming down the stairs.

  “Everything go smoothly with you?” Travers asked him.

  “Very well indeed, sir,” Ramble said. “The Commandant didn’t help a great deal, but we got on all right. I’m a posh German spouter now, sir.”

  Travers smiled. “Your Achtung! is one of the best I’ve heard.”

  “You’re out of date, sir,” grinned Ramble. “I’ve got a whole lot more now. You ought to have heard me this afternoon.”

  “Well, let’s hear a sample.”

  “All right, sir. Stille stehen, that’s when you want them to keep still and not keep moving about. Vorwarts, that’s when you get ’em on the move. Dass ist verboten, that means you can’t do that there ’ere.”

  Travers laughed. “You’re a regular linguist.”

  “There’s yards yet, sir, if only I could remember them.”

  “And where’d you get them from? Captain Winter?”

  “No, sir. I happened to be talking to the doctor and saying I wished I knew a spot of German so he said, what do you want to say, and I told him, and before I knew where I was there was me spouting German.”

  “Well, keep up the good work.” Travers told him. “And before you go, have you got a prisoners’ room list made out?”

  “Here it is, sir.”

  He produced his notebook, and Travers ascertained that Beckner was in Room 9. Outside the door the two separated, Ramble bound for the Sergeants’ Mess and tea, Travers for a short drink before changing for dinner.

  Winter was about to begin an early scratch meal. What he was proposing to do that evening was to go on working in an unoccupied room near the hall, so that the prisoners would be handy if he needed one of them for interrogation. He particularly wanted to have a talk with Captain Friedemann, whom he suspected of being an out-and-out swine.

  “The Commandant dining in?” Travers asked.

  “No,” said Winter. “He left word he’d be round at Garrison. What about a drink to keep me company?”

  “Don’t think I will,” Travers said. “About time I had a spit and polish.”

  But he did not go to his room. With Stirrop going out and Winter safely in the Mess, he had a chance too good to be missed. And as he made his way towards the camp, he could not help thinking once more about Dulling. What did he mean when in those volunteered confidences he declared he knew no German? Was the expression a relative one, meaning that compared with, say, Winter, he knew no German at all? Whatever it meant it was surely indiscreet of the doctor to volunteer German to Ramble when he was anxious to keep secret the fact that he was of very recent German descent.

  But Dulling soon passed out of Travers’s mind as he neared the main entrance and thought of a possible meeting with Lading. Something extraordinary must be going on for Intelligence to have planted him there. As for the question of secrecy, there was something which Travers found not unpleasing—that it was himself and not the Commandant who was to be made the confidant of Lading’s purpose. Lading had evidently summed up Stirrop on his last visit and was only too aware that a confidential word to him would soon be the property of all Shoreleigh.

  He let himself through the wire gates, through the main entrance door, and then through the special door that led to the hall where the prisoners would be spending their early evening. There were so few of them compared with the number the camp could hold, that only the ground floor was being used, and even there some rooms were unoccupied.

  Travers blinked as he came in from the darkness outside. Just inside the door to the left were the officers, some reading and others playing cards. Captain Friedemann rose politely at the sight of him, but Travers smilingly waved him down again. Everywhere in the hall were groups of other prisoners, reading, playing games, or promenading about the room. In one corner some sort of a class was assembled, and it turned out to be a group of enthusiasts having a lesson in English from one of their number.

  Almost at the first Travers had caught sight of Beckner, and there was no doubt about Beckner’s having caught sight of himself. That slow progress through the hall had brought Travers nearer and nearer to the right-hand side door which led to a corridor. Occasional prisoners were going in and out on the way to and from their rooms. Travers made a slow way along the dimly lighted passage till a glance back showed that it was at the moment empty. Then he inserted a key and whipped open one of the unoccupied rooms, and just inside the door he waited. Faint footsteps were heard. A second or two and another dark figure slipped inside. Travers turned the key and left it in the lock, then pulled a straw palliasse towards him.

  “Better squat down here in case anyone flashes a torch,” he whispered.

  Still, for a faint moment, he wondered if it really were Lading, then the reassuring voice came.

  “Bit of a shock for you, what?”

  “Yes,” Travers said. “And what’s it all mean?”

  “First of all, this,” Lading told him. “Everything contrary to Geneva, so officially M.I. know nothing about me. I was asked if I’d do the job, and then I was disowned. If I’m spotted or anything gets out, then I just chance my arm. And you’ll have to swear on a stack of Bibles that you knew nothing about it. That suit you?”

  “I dare say I can be just as good a liar as you,” Travers said cheerfully. “But what’s back of it all?”

  “In the very strictest confidence, all sorts of things. One of ’em’s this. We’re dead plumb certain that some mighty dangerous coves are among the gang you’ve got here. The French were pretty slack about everything on the West Coast, but we’re sure that in this collection are some very important agents who’d just gone out from Germany. Some of the real top-wallahs. Don’t ask me how we know. My job’s to find out who they are.”

  “But if they’re here they can’t make trouble,” pointed out Travers.

  “We’ll come to that,” Lading told him, “I was rushed by plane and otherwise to Accra, popped into clink, and then taken aboard with one or two other coves from there when the boat called in, and I’ve got the most perfect set of papers you ever saw. You ought to have seen me taken on board, by the way. Handcuffs and all!”

  “Yes, but now we’ve got your papers.”

  “That’s what you think. Feel this pocket. There’s some you didn’t get. And what I’m supposed to be is an ostensible German planter from French Equatorial Africa, who was really a high-up Nazi agent—sort of wandering Gauleiter. The French got on my track so I slipped across the border and down to the coast where the British nabbed me. That’s why I speak practically no English, but good French.”

  “I get you,” Travers said. “And what else do you hope to find out?”

  “It’s just a bit vague. This shipload was sent here deliberately because various things have been going on. There’ve been a whole lot of leakages about sailings from the port here. There’s been sabotage in one or two local factories, though nothing’s been allowed to leak out. What the idea is, is that the coves in this camp will try to get into communication with the coves outside, who are the ones we want to grab.”

  “But, my dear fellow, it’s impossible. We take the most stringent precautions. How can there be any communication with outside?”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” Lading said. “You fighting soldiers are so trustful. You don’t know half the ingenuity of the coves you’ve got in this camp. Look at the last war. I’ve only read about things, but there were French prisoner officers who’d guarantee to produce a key for any lock within twenty-four hours, and if I told you some of the things I heard aboard ship, your hair would stand on end.”

  “Good Lord, you scare me stiff!” Travers said. “We don’t want any escapes from this camp. The War House’d have the tunics off us.”

  “No panic,” Lading told him blithely. “There won’t be any escapes. People who want
to escape have to do a whole lot of spade-work first. Learn a camp and get their bearings, for a start. And that’s where I come in. All you people have to do is to watch out for anybody who has to leave camp lawfully. Some cove, for instance, who gets toothache, and has to go to an outside dentist under escort. You take damn-good care he has a good escort. You keep your eyes on that sort of thing and I’ll do the rest. Have you got those keys?”

  “All labelled,” Travers told him, handing them over. “Two to get you outside, one for the wire gates, and one for the towns. Anything else you want?”

  “I don’t know that there is,” Lading said. “I may fake a spot of insubordination with one of your provosts. If he reports it, you can have me hauled up before the beak. Any likelihood of your Commandant being away?”

  “Every likelihood,” said Travers dryly. “The weekend, for instance.”

  “That may be a little late,” Lading said. “Tell you what. If the Commandant is away, you come into the hall with no cap. That’ll give me the tip.”

  “Good. Want any money?”

  Lading chuckled. “I’ve got fifty pound-notes on me at the moment. Feel this other pocket. Here, under my armpit. Another thing your search-party didn’t get wise to. Now I’d better slip out. Oh, and just one bit of information. Friedemann’s a first-class swine. Regular tough guy. By to-morrow morning this camp will be organised, Gestapo and all complete. Any cove who isn’t a hundred per cent Nazi is due for a very thin time.”

  He got to his feet, gently turned the key, and took a peep out.

  “Good luck, old-timer, and, Heil Hitler!”

  In the same second he was gone. Travers waited a full minute and then slipped out too.

  He had intended looking up Winter in whatever unoccupied room he happened to be at work, but a lucky glance at his hands showed him they were so grubby after squatting on that floor that if Winter had seen them he must have wondered. So Travers went straight through to the outer door and so to his room. Sniffy was waiting anxiously.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Travers said. “You were going to the pictures, weren’t you?”

  “It doesn’t matter, sir,” Sniffy told him with no great heartiness. “There’s a darts competition in the N.A.A.F.I. hut, sir, instead.”

  “Right,” said Travers. “Bring me a pail of hot water and I’m finished with you.”

  He had a stand-up bath, changed into his best slacks, and made his way to the Mess. Not a soul was there.

  “What’s happened to everybody?” he asked the orderly.

  “Captain Winter’s over at camp, sir, and Captain Byron and Mr. Pewter at the Royal, if they’re wanted. A sherry for you, sir?”

  “I think I will,” Travers said. ‘What’s on the menu?”

  “A rare nice bit of steak, sir, and some chips. Then baked apples.”

  “Right,” said Travers. “I don’t want my steak too underdone, and I’d rather not have any of your famous gravy.”

  He had a few minutes with that great stand-by of his tired hours—The Times crossword—and then the meal came in.

  “Mr. Dowling’s late,” he remarked.

  “He is, sir, isn’t he? He ought to’ve done the count before now.”

  The meal was finished, with a spot of cheese as bonne bouche, and Travers had once more settled to the crossword before Dowling came in.

  “What’s happened to you, young feller?” asked Travers. “Been lost in a snow-drift?”

  “The most amazing thing happened, sir,” Dowling said, and he sounded really excited. “We couldn’t get the count right.”

  That was something which had happened before, as Travers remarked. Occasionally the medical people would bring a man into hospital and forget to warn the Provost or Ramble, and there would be a prisoner short until he was run to earth.

  “Oh, but this is different, sir.” Dowling said. “We went through the rooms and ended up at the hospital, and there was a prisoner too many!”

  Travers sniffed.

  “Well, and how’d you straighten it out?”

  “We didn’t, sir. Ebbing said it was—”

  “Wait a minute. Why was Ebbing on duty?”

  “He arranged it with Stamp, sir. They often do change about if one wants to get off suddenly. And, as I was saying, sir, Ebbing said it was damn-funny and he was sure he’d got the figures right, so we kept them in their rooms and started all over again. You wouldn’t believe how careful we were, sir, and when we’d finished we still found there were seventy-four!”

  Travers sat up and look notice.

  “Well, are there seventy-four? What’d you do about it?”

  “Well, sir, Ebbing said we ought to report it and have someone else take the count as well—”

  Travers clicked his tongue annoyedly. Ebbing had always been very much of a fool.

  “So I sent him to see if he could find you, sir, but you weren’t in Mess—”

  “Why on earth didn’t he look in my room?” Travers asked plaintively. “Well, go on.”

  “Well, sir, I thought I’d better ring up the Commandant at Garrison H.Q., which I did. and—”

  “Oh, my hat!” groaned Travers.

  “And he wasn’t there, sir, and they said he hadn’t been there.”

  Travers’s eyes opened wide, and in the same moment he was furious. The strictest of all camp rules was that when there were prisoners or when prisoners were expected, any officer who left the camp must leave his whereabouts with the Mess and telephone orderlies. And there was Stirrop breaking his own rules. Had any other person done the same thing there would have been more than a first-class row.

  “So what did you do?” Travers asked. “It’s ridiculous that there should have been an extra prisoner?”

  “Well, sir. Ebbing said we’d better count again ourselves, and when we did, the count came right, so we left it at that.”

  “I see. And how did the mistake arise?”

  “Well, sir, I don’t know what you’re going to think of me, but it didn’t arise. I mean, I’m dead sure those first two counts were right. You can’t make a mistake, sir, over sixty-three. The officers were right all along.”

  “Show me your room counts,” Travers said.

  Then there was a sudden hesitation.

  “I didn’t take any, sir, till the last time.”

  “You mean to say you didn’t jot down the totals of each room! What’d you do? Try to carry totals in your head?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the highly perturbed Dowling. “Ebbing was doing it as well, so I thought that was enough check.”

  “You listen to me, young feller,” said Travers grimly. “I know Sergeant Ebbing and his kind. In the future if any old sweat suggests dodging duty or taking short cuts, you put him in his place. Now you’d better get on with your dinner.”

  A few minutes later Travers made his way to his office, and sent out both telephone orderly and runner for a half hour’s breather. An idea had come into his mind.

  In a camp, when walking unexpectedly into this room and that, one cannot avoid overhearing tail-ends of conversation. Travers knew that the Dance-Stirrop affair was still in progress, and he had heard mentioned a certain expensive road-house about seven miles from the camp. It seemed to him now that it might be as well to know just where Stirrop was spending the evening. To have the information in his possession might put him in a very strong position in the course of some future scrap, particularly if it concerned the breaking of the rule which Stirrop was then breaking himself.

  So he put through some telephone calls. The first was to the Royal, asking for Captain Tester. Tester was there and was brought to the ’phone, whereupon Travers quietly hung up. Next came the home of Bertha Dance. Mrs. Dance said Bertha was out, but she’ll give the message when she came in, and if she was late, would it do in the morning. Travers apologised and said he had just found the very paper he was looking for, and so Miss Dance needn’t be bothered. Next came the road-house, where Major Stirrop was asked f
or. It was five minutes before he was brought to the phone, and as soon as the voice was verified, Travers gently hung up.

  And he was chuckling. He could imagine his going back to Bertha—for Travers had no doubt she was there—and positively exploding.

  “Would you believe it! . . . Some damn-fool rings me up and then when I get there, the line’s dead. Etc., etc, etc. . . . And how’d the hell did the fellow know I was here?”

  Next morning Stirrop was actually in Mess when Travers came in to breakfast.

  “Morning, sir. Have a good dinner?”

  “Not too good,” Stirrop said, after a moment’s hesitation. “If I was those people at Garrison I’m damned if I’d pay what they do. Too much money. That’s the trouble with them.”

  “How’s the Brigadier these days?”

  Stirrop shot a look of which Travers was quite aware.

  “As a matter of fact, I just had a word with him and no more. I think he was dining out.”

  Travers left it at that. No point whatever in arousing suspicions, though he rather hoped that when Stirrop read through Garrison Orders which had come through overnight, he would observe that the Brigadier had been away on leave since Friday!

  There was no use in looking for Dowling. When an Orderly Officer has had a twenty-four hour spell and doesn’t come off it till eight o’clock, he grabs a quick breakfast then and turns into bed for the rest of the morning. But when Travers arrived at the office, there was Dowling waiting at the door.

  Travers smiled.

  “Well, young feller, what’s the latest?”

  Dowling kept a very straight face.

  “It happened again this morning, sir. The first count showed seventy-four, and when we did it the second time, it was all right.”

  Travers grunted.

  “This is getting beyond a joke. I think I’d better have a word with Ebbing, then we may have to see the Commandant.”

  CHAPTER VII

  SOMEONE SCORES AN OUTER

  Why was it that Travers should have given any credence whatever to that extraordinary story related by Dowling? On the face of it the whole thing was too preposterous to be given a moment’s thought. If the camp was so secure that no prisoner could possibly escape, then how could an additional prisoner get inside? And who in heaven’s name should want to get inside? And Lading wasn’t up to monkey tricks either. He had no extra prisoner up his sleeve, and even if he had, there was no method of smuggling him in. The camp itself had no secret entrances. To think of underground tunnels in a building constructed within the memory of some of the oldest inhabitants was more than fantastic.