Hardcastle's Soldiers (3 page)

‘Not much goes on here that we don't know about, sir,' said the railway policeman, preening himself.

‘Except escaping murderers it seems,' said Hardcastle, crushingly redressing the balance.

‘The van's here to remove the body, sir,' said Marriott. ‘And I've taken a statement from Lieutenant Mansfield.'

‘Yes, all right, Marriott.' Hardcastle pulled out his watch and glanced at it. ‘We'll take a stroll up to Horse Guards, and have a word with Colonel Frobisher. He should be able to tell us where this man Stacey is. Then it'll simply be a case of arresting him.' He rubbed his hands together. ‘Should have it all done and dusted by tonight, Marriott.'

T
he taxi set down the two detectives in Horse Guards Road, and they swiftly crossed the parade ground to Horse Guards Arch.

‘Funny to think of General Wellington sitting in that office up there, sir,' said Marriott, pointing at the window beneath the clock.

‘Funnier still to think of a general becoming prime minister,' commented Hardcastle, displaying, yet again, his knowledge of history. ‘I'd have thought he'd have had more sense.'

The dismounted sentry in the archway raised his sword in salute at the sight of the bowler-hatted Hardcastle. It was not the first time that the DDI had been mistaken for an army officer; nevertheless he solemnly doffed his hat in acknowledgment of the compliment.

Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Frobisher of the Sherwood Foresters was the assistant provost marshal of London District, and was Hardcastle's point of contact in all matters military. Attired in khaki service dress, he wore a red armlet with the letters APM in black.

The APM looked up warily as Hardcastle and Marriott were shown into his office. ‘I take it this is not a social call, Inspector,' he said, smiling. The arrival of the DDI usually succeeded in presenting Frobisher with a problem.

‘Indeed not, Colonel. It's a case of murder that took place some two hours ago at Victoria Station, but with your assistance I reckon I can clear it up before nightfall.'

‘Take a seat and tell me how I can help you,' said Frobisher, moving a writing pad into the centre of his desk.

As briefly as possible, Hardcastle outlined the circumstances surrounding the death of the cashier who had now been identified as Herbert Somers.

‘The army officer I mentioned – a Lieutenant Geoffrey Mansfield of the North Staffordshire Regiment – seized this cap.' Hardcastle handed over the runaway soldier's headgear.

Frobisher examined the cap, and wrote down the name and number that were inscribed inside it. ‘You'll be wanting me to tell you where this man is stationed, I suppose, Inspector.' He looked up with a twinkle in his eye.

‘That'd be a start, Colonel.'

‘It might take some time,' said Frobisher. ‘The Army Service Corps is one of the largest corps in the British Army, and to make matters worse this man could be from a unit anywhere in the world. France, Belgium, India, Malta, Gibraltar and Egypt to name but a few. I don't suppose this Lieutenant Mansfield happened to notice whether this soldier had any campaign ribbons on his tunic.'

‘I didn't think to ask, Colonel. Although I doubt it. The man was running away at the time. Is it significant, though?'

‘It might tell us whether he'd just returned from the Front. On the other hand if he had no medals, he might be in training. Leave it with me, Inspector, and I'll get back to you as quickly as I can.'

‘There was a service revolver lying near the body, Colonel.' Hardcastle produced the slip of paper on which DC Lipton had recorded the serial number.

‘D'you know for certain that it's a service revolver, Inspector?'

‘It's a Webley Mark Six and is engraved with the broad arrow along with the letters WD. DS Marriott here tells me that stands for War Department,' said Hardcastle, indicating his sergeant with a wave of his hand.

Frobisher nodded. ‘Yes, a good weapon, introduced in 1915, Inspector, but you say the cashier wasn't shot.'

‘No, Colonel, he was bludgeoned to death with the butt. I was wondering if it was possible to trace where it came from.'

‘Virtually impossible, Mr Hardcastle. That particular weapon has been issued in its thousands. All I can tell you is that they are normally only issued to officers, NCOs and trumpeters of cavalry regiments, and some artillery drivers. I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that your man Stacey of the ASC would not have been issued with one. Not unless he's a horse transport driver. However, I'll do what I can. But I must warn you that I'm unlikely to be able to help. Weapons are abandoned on the battlefield, and rarely traced. In fact, most are lost or buried.'

Once their business with Colonel Frobisher had been completed, Hardcastle and Marriott took a taxi to Cox and Company's bank in Albemarle Street, a turning off Piccadilly.

The manager, a white-haired man of about sixty, who introduced himself as Leonard Richards, had already been advised by the Vine Street police – at Hardcastle's behest – of the death of Herbert Somers.

‘A terrible tragedy, Inspector,' said Richards, once Hardcastle and Marriott were ensconced in the manager's office. ‘Is there any indication as to who was responsible?' He sat down at his desk, adjusted his spectacles and smoothed his hand over his hair.

‘These are early days, Mr Richards,' said Hardcastle, unwilling to divulge what the police knew about the escaping soldier seen by Lieutenant Mansfield. After all, the man Stacey might have had nothing to do with the murder of Herbert Somers, but Hardcastle thought that extremely unlikely. ‘But we'll bring him to book, never fear.'

‘That's very comforting, Inspector.'

‘What interests me at the moment, Mr Richards, is whether there is any money missing? I'm working on the basis that your teller was murdered in the course of a robbery. There were a few bank notes of different denominations left scattered about on the floor of the kiosk.'

‘I've already had the bank's accountant conduct an audit of Mr Somers' books, Inspector, and the monies that were returned. It seems that some three hundred pounds are missing.'

‘I take it that the missing money was sterling, sir,' said Marriott, looking up from his pocketbook.

‘Yes, it was. Mostly five-pound notes, and possibly one or two one-pound and ten-shilling notes, I should think. The French francs appear all to be accounted for.'

‘I see.' Marriott made a note and glanced up again. ‘I don't suppose you have the serial numbers of those notes, sir, do you?'

Richards smiled at the question. ‘I'm afraid we don't have the time for that, Sergeant Marriott. We're already short-staffed, thanks to the war, and more men are going off to join up almost every day.'

‘I thought that might be the case, sir,' said Marriott. ‘Might we have Mr Somers' address? We'll need to have a word with his family.'

‘Yes, certainly,' said Richards, and he scribbled the details on a slip of paper. ‘The tragedy is made worse by the fact that Somers shouldn't have been there at all.'

‘Oh?' Hardcastle, who always gathered snippets like that, looked up sharply. His suspicious mind immediately wondered why.

‘No, Somers doesn't usually do the services' bureau de change. It's normally a teller called Utting, Jack Utting, but he called in sick yesterday evening. Apparently he was knocked over by a lad on a bicycle that afternoon. Not badly hurt, just a bit bruised it seems, but he didn't feel up to coming in to work today.'

‘How very interesting.' Hardcastle made a mental note of that piece of information, his active detective's mind immediately wondering whether there had been an accomplice to the robbery and whether his name was Jack Utting. And if so, had he played any direct part in the unfortunate death of Herbert Somers? ‘D'you happen to have this Mr Utting's address?'

‘Yes, I do.' Richards scribbled a Pimlico address on the slip of paper bearing Somers' address and handed it to Hardcastle. ‘Having a house in Pimlico makes it much more convenient for Utting to get to Victoria than it did for poor Somers who lived in Lewisham.'

‘Would the cashier usually report here first, Mr Richards? Before setting off for Victoria Station, I mean.' Hardcastle knew what the railway policeman had told him, but he always checked.

‘No, he would normally go straight to Victoria Station. Then he'd wait until the military escort arrived with the cash. The army comes here every day to collect the money, you see. Except for those days when we're advised that no troop trains were expected. And the hours of work tend to change too, dependent on what the army tells us. Some troop trains arrive early in the morning; others late at night.'

‘I see,' said Hardcastle thoughtfully. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Richards.'

It was nearing four o'clock the same afternoon by the time that Hardcastle and Marriott arrived at Honor Oak Park railway station in south-east London. It was but a short walk from there to the Somers' terraced house in Tatnell Road, Lewisham.

‘Yes, what is it?' The woman who answered the door was probably about forty years old. She looked harassed, and flicked a lock of greying hair away from her face.

‘We're police officers, madam,' said Hardcastle, raising his hat. ‘Mrs Somers, is it?'

‘No, I'm Mrs Perkins, Mrs Somers' neighbour,' said the woman, opening the door wide to admit the two detectives. ‘Mrs Somers has had terrible news, and I came in to do what I could. She's got two small children, you know. They're next door, playing with my three. I don't know how we're going to break it to them.'

‘We know about the murder of Mrs Somers' husband, madam, that's why we're here,' said Hardcastle, as he and Marriott stepped over the threshold.

There was no pressing reason why Hardcastle should have visited Herbert Somers' widow; the local police had called earlier to advise her of her husband's brutal murder. But Hardcastle was a tenacious detective and would explore every avenue in his hunt for a killer, even though he realized that he was unlikely to find the answer to the cashier's death in this well-kept house.

‘I'll make some tea,' said Mrs Perkins, after she had shown the two CID officers into the parlour. A careworn woman of about thirty-five was sitting in an armchair, her red-rimmed eyes testifying to the grief she was suffering at the loss of her husband. She clutched a wet handkerchief between her hands.

‘I'm Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle, ma'am, and this is Detective Sergeant Marriott. We're investigating the death of your husband.' The DDI glanced around at the jumble of bric-a-brac, at the depressingly brown decor, and the brown velour curtains. The fire grate was filled with a newspaper folded into a fan. But there was not a trace of dust anywhere and the windows were sparkling clean.

Doris Somers looked up listlessly. ‘You can't bring him back though, can you?' she asked, almost accusingly.

‘No, I can't,' agreed Hardcastle, then mumbled, ‘and I'm very sorry for your loss.' He was not very good at uttering words of condolence, even though he had been obliged to visit the recently bereaved on many occasions during his service.

‘He suffered terribly from asthma, you know,' said Mrs Somers.

‘Chronic, it was,' said Mrs Perkins, reappearing with a tray of tea. Hardcastle suspected that it had already been made when he and Marriott arrived. ‘I can vouch for that.'

‘It stopped him from joining the army, you know,' continued Mrs Somers, ‘and I thought he'd be safe enough working at the bank. You expect to hear of men getting killed at the Front, but not when they work in a bank in London. Why did it have to happen?' She looked at the two detectives as though imploring them to work some sort of miracle.

‘Were you aware of anyone who might've wanted to murder your husband, Mrs Somers?' asked Marriott, accepting a cup of tea from Mrs Perkins. It sounded a crass question to pose, but sometimes the answer to such a question had solved a murder. Nevertheless, the police had to consider that a motive for murder was not always the most obvious one. Not that there was much doubt in the minds of either Hardcastle or Marriott, that Herbert Somers had been the victim of a random robbery at the hands of a soldier called Stacey.

‘No. He was well liked, both at the bank and by the neighbours here in Tatnell Road.'

‘I can testify to that, Inspector,' put in Mrs Perkins. ‘Bert Somers was a lovely man. He'd do anything for anybody would Bert. And he was a great help to those round here who'd lost husbands or sons at sea, or at the Front. Being at the bank, he knew how to write letters to the Admiralty and the War Office about pensions and that sort of thing.'

Hardcastle realized that there was little to be gained by prolonging this painful interview, and he hurriedly finished his tea. ‘If you can think of anything that might help us, Mrs Somers, you only have to tell a policeman – any policeman – and it will reach me.' He turned to Mrs Perkins. ‘Thank you for the tea.'

And with that he and Marriott left the grieving widow to the tender ministrations of Mrs Perkins, her neighbour and friend.

From Tatnell Road, Hardcastle and Marriott rushed to St Mary's Hospital in Paddington.

Despite having told Hardcastle that he was to start the post-mortem examination at six o'clock that evening, Dr Bernard Spilsbury had almost finished by the time the two detectives arrived.

‘No doubt about it, Hardcastle,' said Spilsbury as he washed his hands. ‘It was the blow to the back of the head with the revolver you found at the scene that killed your victim.'

‘I understand from his widow that he suffered from chronic asthma, doctor,' said Hardcastle. ‘I wondered whether that would have made a difference.'

‘Not at all. That would not have been a contributory factor in the man's death. I'll let you have my report in due course, Hardcastle.'