Hardcastle's Quartet Page 9

  ‘Sit down, Ernie, and tell me how you’re getting on with the murder of Georgina Cheney.’

  ‘Not making much progress, I’m afraid, sir.’ Hardcastle gave Wensley the unvarnished details of what little he had learned so far. He knew that any attempt to delude the head of the CID was pointless and admitted that he was not close to making an arrest. ‘I’ve still to see the Royal Air Force officers at Sutton’s Farm, sir, but I’m tending towards the killer being someone who knew the woman in Malta.’

  ‘Well, Ernie, I’m about to add to your troubles. I would have given this job to an officer based here at the Yard, but as you’ve already got the Cheney murder you can have the others.’

  ‘The others, sir?’ Hardcastle did not like the sound of that.

  ‘There have been two other similar murders in the last six months.’ Wensley drew a docket across his desk and opened it. ‘A Mrs Blanche Hardy was murdered on W Division on the tenth of January. Her body was discovered by her husband, Major Andrew Hardy, at their house in Kings Avenue, Clapham. Major Hardy had returned unexpectedly from France having been granted leave. He didn’t advise his wife that he was on his way, believing that his homecoming would be a nice surprise. In the event, the surprise turned out to be his.’

  ‘And the other one, sir?’

  ‘The other one was on the twenty-seventh of March. Mrs Hazel Lacey, the wife of Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Lacey, was found at the Wardour Hotel in Wardour Street on C Division. Her body was discovered by a chambermaid. Colonel Lacey was in Ypres when he got the news.’

  ‘And both are unsolved, of course, sir?’

  ‘So far, Ernie. Both victims had been killed by manual strangulation, and each was a well-to-do young woman whose husband was a regular officer serving overseas. So you can see that there is a similarity between those two and your Cheney murder. It looks as though we might have a multiple murderer on our hands.’

  ‘Did Dr Spilsbury examine those two, sir?’

  ‘Yes, he did. And I suggest that you make him your first port of call. I want you to put all three toppings together and see if you can find a common factor, other than those I’ve outlined. If you want more manpower just say the word and you can have whatever you need.’

  ‘But won’t the DDIs on those divisions resent me taking their cases off of them, sir?’

  ‘I doubt it, Ernie. You wouldn’t have minded if I’d given the Cheney murder to someone else, would you? You Royal A chaps are always telling me how much you have to do,’ said Wensley with a smile. ‘Anyway, Fowler and Sullivan will do as they’re told, and if you have any trouble from them let me know. I’ll soon put them right.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘Keep me informed from time to time, Ernie. I know that Basil Thomson is tied up with Special Branch these days, but he has taken an interest in these toppings and it doesn’t do to get on the wrong side of the assistant commissioner for crime.’

  Hardcastle seated himself behind his desk and reached for his pipe. He was aghast at having been presented with two more murders to solve, but it was a compliment that ‘Ace’ Wensley had shown sufficient confidence in him to give him the task. He shouted for Marriott.

  ‘Sir?’ said Marriott, buttoning his jacket as he entered the DDI’s office.

  ‘You know I’ve always been a fair man, don’t you, m’boy,’ said Hardcastle jocularly.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Marriott had no alternative but to agree, whatever his inner thoughts may have been.

  ‘And I’ve always believed in sharing things.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Marriott apprehensively.

  ‘Well, m’boy, this is what I’m going to share with you.’ Hardcastle went on to explain about the monumental task with which he had just been saddled by Detective Chief Inspector Wensley. ‘So I’ve decided to let you share in the undoubted glory that will result from three successful prosecutions.’

  ‘Thank you very much, guv’nor,’ said Marriott with a hint of sarcasm. He knew that the investigation of three murders would afford him very little time for any sort of social life over the next few weeks, if not months. He knew also that his wife Lorna would not be pleased and that she would question, yet again, why he had not stayed in the Uniform Branch instead of becoming a detective.

  ‘I wondered how long it would be before the powers-that-be at Scotland Yard would put two and two together, my dear Hardcastle.’ Dr Bernard Spilsbury turned from the cadaver he was exploring and invited the DDI and Marriott to take a seat.

  ‘Mr Wensley suggested that there were similarities between the murders of Blanche Hardy, Hazel Lacey and Georgina Cheney, sir,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘I can only speak from a pathologist’s point of view, of course, but I would tentatively postulate that the pattern of strangulation indicates quite strongly that the same person was responsible for all three murders. The positioning of the thumb marks and fingermarks on the throats of all three victims seems to suggest it. And in each case there was a fracturing of the thyroid cornu. In both the Hardy and Lacey murders, sexual intercourse had taken place recently. It had also taken place in the case of Mrs Cheney, but I told you that when I did her post-mortem.’

  ‘Is there any way in which the semen can be identified as belonging to the same person, sir? So that it can, for example, be compared with the other cases,’ asked Marriott.

  ‘Oh, if only there were, my dear Marriott,’ said Spilsbury, ‘forensic science would have made a great advance.’

  ‘Where are we going to start, sir?’ asked Marriott, once he and the DDI were back at Cannon Row police station.

  ‘We’ll take the first one first, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle, as though that were obvious. ‘We go down to Brixton nick and have a word with Mr Cornelius Fowler.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Marriott glanced at the clock behind Hardcastle and sensed that an early night was out of the question.

  ‘Come, Marriott, there’s work to be done.’ Hardcastle picked up his hat and umbrella and made for the door.

  Once in Whitehall, the DDI stared impatiently up and down the street in search of a cab. Although the murder of Blanche Hardy had occurred six months ago, the DDI gave the impression that there was not a moment to lose.

  Mounting the steps of the three-storey building in Brixton Road, Hardcastle pushed open the inner door and approached the counter.

  Deliberately ignoring the callers, the elderly station officer, his four-bar chevron indicating that he was a station sergeant, continued to write in the large Occurrence Book.

  But Hardcastle was accustomed to dealing with such malcontents whose churlish behaviour was most likely the result of being passed over for promotion to inspector rank. He rapped sharply on the counter with the hook of his umbrella, causing the sergeant to look up with a frown. Rising ponderously from his desk the sergeant ambled across the room and peered at the callers.

  ‘In a bit of a hurry are we?’ he enquired sarcastically.

  ‘DDI Hardcastle of A. When you can spare the time, Sergeant, perhaps you’d be so good as to direct me to Mr Fowler’s office.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t realize who you was, sir,’ said the station officer, becoming immediately obsequious. He lifted the flap in the counter and pointed to a door. ‘Through there and up the stairs, sir, and it’s the first door on the right. I can get a PC to show you, sir,’ he added unwisely.

  ‘I’m quite capable of climbing a flight of stairs and finding the DDI’s office without assistance,’ snapped Hardcastle, further adding to the sergeant’s discomfort.

  He pushed open the W Division DDI’s door. ‘Well, Connie, old son, I’ve come to pull your chestnuts out of the fire.’

  ‘Yes, I heard that the Elephant had given you this job, Ernie. And I’m very pleased to get shot of it. I don’t like having unsolved cases on my books. But of course you don’t have much to do on A Division so I suppose you can fit it in.’

  ‘Not much to do!’ exclaimed Hardcastle, still irritated b
y the station officer’s curmudgeonly attitude. ‘I’ve got the seat of government on my patch, along with Parliament, Buck House, Clarence House, Marlborough House and Westminster Abbey, to say nothing of Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyrood House in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Ernie, you’d better have a drink.’ Without further ado, Fowler withdrew a bottle of Scotch and three glasses from his bottom drawer.

  ‘This is Marriott, my bag carrier, Connie.’

  ‘I suppose your guv’nor’s roped you in for this job, has he, Skipper?’ Fowler busied himself pouring the whisky and handing it round.

  ‘So, tell me the tale,’ said Hardcastle, having taken a goodly sip of Fowler’s Scotch.

  ‘Major Andrew Hardy is with the Tank Corps somewhere in France,’ Fowler began. ‘He came home on leave on the tenth of January to his house in Kings Avenue – that’s the smart end of my manor – and found his wife Blanche dead in the bedroom. She’d been strangled. There was no sign of forced entry, so I’m presuming that the murderer was known to her.’

  ‘Didn’t Mrs Hardy have any staff, sir?’ asked Marriott. ‘A housemaid or something of the sort?’

  ‘Unusually no, Skip. According to Major Hardy there used to be a housemaid, but it seems Mrs Hardy got rid of her, although the major didn’t know who the girl was or why his missus got shot of her. By all accounts there was a woman who came in twice a week to do the cleaning, but apparently Mrs Hardy did her own cooking. When she wasn’t out to lunch or dinner, that is. Local enquiries suggested that she went out quite often and usually in the company of a man not her husband. And before you ask, there were several different men, but we’ve not been able to trace any of them.’

  ‘D’you reckon she was a bit of a good-time girl, then, Connie?’ suggested Hardcastle.

  ‘Looks that way. Incidentally, she wasn’t short of cash. According to the woman who came in to clean, Mrs Hardy had quite a fortune of her own.’

  ‘How would a charwoman know that, sir?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘The charwoman, a Mrs Beatrice Groves, said that she and Mrs Hardy often sat in the kitchen having a bit of a chinwag over a cup of tea, and Mrs Hardy told her all sorts of things. I got the impression that Blanche Hardy was a bit lonely and sometimes poured out her heart about things not usually discussed with household staff.’

  ‘D’you have an address for Mrs Groves, sir?’ Marriott was busily taking notes.

  ‘There you are, Skip.’ Fowler handed a docket to Marriott. ‘It’s all in there: statements, names and addresses, post-mortem report. Take it with you. I shan’t be needing it any more,’ he added with a laugh.

  The following morning Hardcastle spent an hour studying DDI Fowler’s docket on the Blanche Hardy murder and making himself fully conversant with the details.

  ‘Time we got ourselves up to Vine Street nick, Marriott,’ he said, opening the door of the detectives’ office. ‘We’ll take a cab.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Marriott, as he raced down the stairs after the DDI. He was not quite sure why Hardcastle had mentioned taking a cab; he always took a cab when he went about his enquiries knowing that his expenses claims would never be queried.

  Vine Street police station was hidden in a small turning between Piccadilly and Regent Street. As the two detectives alighted from their taxi, Hardcastle paused to look up at the four-storey building.

  ‘The Marquess of Queensberry was brought here to Vine Street twenty-three years ago, Marriott, after he’d been arrested for criminal libel against Oscar Wilde.’

  ‘Really, sir?’ Marriott was surprised, yet again, at the rare flashes of historical knowledge that his DDI revealed from time to time.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ The policeman standing on the doorstep moved to block the entrance.

  ‘I’m DDI Hardcastle from A, lad. I’ve come to see Mr Sullivan.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ The PC sketched a salute. ‘I take it you know the way,’ he said, pulling open the heavy door.

  DDI William Sullivan was a sharp dresser. Always immaculately attired, he wore a well-cut suit with a double-breasted waistcoat and sported a monocle. He invariably carried a Malacca cane, substituting an umbrella for it only when rain threatened. It was a style of dress that caused him to be known, to villains and policeman alike, as ‘Posh Bill with the Piccadilly window.’ Furthermore, it was rumoured that he had a small mirror fixed inside his curly brimmed bowler hat in order to ensure that his hair was tidy whenever he entered a building. None of which endeared him to Hardcastle; in fact, the two DDIs disliked each other, but masked that enmity with a false bonhomie.

  ‘Good morning, Ernie old boy,’ exclaimed Sullivan effusively, when Hardcastle and Marriott entered his office. ‘The Elephant warned me you’d be turning up on my doorstep.’

  ‘Yes, Bill, I’ve come to clear up one of your toppings for you. Mr Wensley reckoned it was too difficult for you C Division people.’

  ‘It’s not that I couldn’t solve it, old boy, it’s just that we don’t have the time on a busy working division like St James’s. We’d’ve got around to it eventually.’

  ‘Not what I heard,’ muttered Hardcastle, as he and Marriott sat down uninvited.

  ‘It’s all there, Ernie.’ Sullivan handed Marriott a thick docket. ‘I’ll give it to your skipper because I suspect he’ll be doing most of the work. But in short, Hazel Lacey was found by an hysterical chambermaid called Rose Miller in her room at the Wardour Hotel in Wardour Street on the twenty-seventh of March. She’d been strangled. It’s presumed that Mrs Lacey was having an affair with the man who booked the room.’

  ‘Do you know who that man was, sir?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘According to the manager, Skip, a man calling himself Kenneth Reeves made the booking by telephone the day before. None of the hotel staff remember seeing Reeves and exhaustive enquiries have failed to find any trace of him.’

  ‘That’s a great help,’ said Hardcastle acidly. ‘It means I’ll have to start from scratch. Wensley said that her husband’s in the army. Is that true?’

  ‘He’s a lieutenant colonel in The Buffs. He came home for the funeral, but he’s now back in France.’

  ‘Well, I’m not bloody well going over there to talk to him,’ said Hardcastle grimly.

  It was a somewhat disgruntled Hardcastle who returned to his police station at Cannon Row. He sat down behind his desk and filled his pipe, once again to contemplate the enormity of the task that the head of the CID had given him.

  His reverie was interrupted by the arrival of Marriott clutching the two dockets containing details of the investigations that the police on W and C Divisions had carried out.

  ‘I’ve been through the papers, sir. Mr Collins’ men examined both scenes for fingerprints, but found nothing that matched anything in their records.’

  ‘Comes as no surprise,’ said Hardcastle moodily.

  ‘But it seems that Mrs Groves was not interviewed in depth, sir.’

  ‘Who the hell’s Mrs Groves, Marriott?’

  ‘Beatrice Groves is the charwoman who was employed by Blanche Hardy, sir. If you remember, Mr Fowler at Brixton said that Mrs Hardy confided in her. Might be worth having a talk with her.’

  ‘I was just going to suggest that, Marriott. Where does she live?’

  Marriott turned to the page in the docket that contained Mrs Groves’ brief statement. ‘Saxby Road, sir. It’s only a short walk from the Kings Avenue address where Mrs Hardy was found.’

  ‘And what does Mrs Groves’ statement say, Marriott?’

  ‘Just that she was employed by Mrs Blanche Hardy as a cleaner, sir, and the dates.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘That’s bloody sloppy police work, Marriott, and what’s more—’ But Hardcastle prevented himself from making an adverse comment about DDI Fowler’s supervision of his detectives. He would never criticize a senior officer to a sergeant, whatever his personal opinion might have been. He pulled out
his hunter and flicked open the cover. ‘That’s a job for this afternoon, I think. But first we’ll sink a pint or two at the Red Lion, Marriott. Then we’ll be properly equipped to go about police business.’

  The detectives’ arrival in the downstairs bar of the pub was somewhat marred when Hardcastle caught sight of Charlie Simpson, a reporter from the London Daily Chronicle, perched on a bar stool.

  ‘Morning, Mr Hardcastle. Can I buy you a pint?’

  ‘Provided it’s without prejudice, Simpson,’ said Hardcastle, coining a useful legal phrase that, in his mind, precluded him from being under any obligation. Although the CID officers from Cannon Row rarely paid for their beer in the Red Lion, the DDI saw no reason why a Fleet Street hack should not put his hand in his pocket.

  ‘I hear you’ve got two more murders on your plate now, Mr Hardcastle,’ said Simpson, once he had ordered a round of drinks.

  ‘Now who would have planted a little seed like that in your mind?’ scoffed Hardcastle.

  ‘A little bird at the Yard, guv’nor.’

  ‘Take a word from one who knows, Simpson. Get yourself some reliable informants.’

  Simpson laughed. ‘Yeah, all right, guv’nor, but have you got a titbit for me? Like when you’re going to make an arrest.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Hardcastle. ‘You’ll be the last to know. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with my beer.’

  ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, Mr Hardcastle, I’ve got a deadline to meet.’

  ‘Don’t let me detain you,’ said Hardcastle, as Simpson picked up his hat and made his way upstairs.

  ‘Someone’s been talking to the press, sir,’ said Marriott.

  ‘You have a happy knack of getting to the nub of the matter, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle sarcastically. ‘And it could’ve been anyone. Somebody on W or C Divisions, or even at Commissioner’s Office. It’s surprising what a detective will do for the price of a couple of Scotches.’