Chapter Fifteen #2
He went out to the front desk and rang the Yard, asking for Mackinnon.
After quickly explaining the situation, he said, “You stay there and hold the fort, with due deference to Inspector Cavett, of course. I want Piper to find out how to get to the Barley Mow, in Tottenham. Then he and Mr. Tring are to meet me. We’ll pick them up on the Embankment. Got it?”
“Aye, sir. The Barley Mow, Tottenham, and the Embankment entrance.”
“Anything new at your end?”
“Nothing that canna wait, sir.”
“Good. I’m on my way.”
Sunday traffic was light. The police car stopped at the Embankment entrance to New Scotland Yard a couple of minutes before the others appeared.
Ernie, in his dark suit, looked like a City clerk on his day off.
Tom was wearing one of his more subdued checks, blue and green, and could have been anything from a bookie to a commercial traveller to a country squire.
He could change his speech to suit any witness, a big advantage in a case like this that involved people of all classes.
Alec thought of dismissing the driver. However, a uniformed officer might come in handy if the informant’s notion of a respectable pub turned out to be a haunt of shady characters like the rat himself and the mate who had “pulled off” something remunerative—and probably illegal.
Also, if Ernie drove, he’d be less able to concentrate on discussing the case.
He and Tom must hear the story Alec had just been told, and they hadn’t had time before he left the Yard for Stepney for more than the briefest report from Tom on his interviews in Hounslow last night and with Pelham’s nephew this morning.
Ernie hopped into the front of the car beside the driver and started to give him directions to the Barley Mow.
Tom climbed in beside Alec in the back. The police vehicle was larger and sturdier than Alec’s Austin Chummy, their usual transport before the Yard had acquired its present fleet, but the springs still dipped a bit as Tom’s bulk settled on the seat.
They headed north on the Victoria Embankment.
Turning to look backwards, Ernie grinned at Alec. “So, Chief, what did I say about pubs?”
“You may be right. Or we may be on a pointless errand. My informant did not, in himself, inspire confidence.”
“Then why are we on our way to Tottenham?” Tom asked.
“Because, besides the pub, the War also came into his tale.”
“Ah.” Tom was capable of expressing a wealth of meaning with his favourite monosyllable. This one meant he was interested.
“Aha!” said Ernie, his grin broadening. He took out his notebook and one of his ever-ready supply of pencils. “What did this unreliable chap have to say for himself, then?”
Alec told them. He included much of the “corroborative detail,” still far from certain whether it enhanced or detracted from the credibility of the narrative.
When he finished, Tom said “Ah” again, this time signifying satisfaction.
“You’re our pub expert, Tom. You find it believable that the landlord would confide such a thing to a scruffy stranger?”
“In those circumstances, yes. The chance conjunction—”
“Whew!” said Ernie.
“The conjunction”—Tom repeated with a severe look—“of talk of the murders and the War, on top of an uneasy conscience because he wasn’t rushing to the police with his information …
Well, I can understand him blurting out what was at the top of his mind.
He probably regretted it right away. But he’s probably not too worried because, by the sound of it, Chief, the laddie he told doesn’t exactly look like the sort who’s likely to seek out the company of coppers. ”
“Would it be a good idea, do you think, to make him worried?”
“Well now.” Tom stroked his moustache thoughtfully. “That I couldn’t rightly say without talking to him first.”
“And so you shall.” Alec had intended to talk to Shadd himself, but Tom was obviously a better choice. “I’ll see what the place looks like before I decide whether Ernie and I should come in with you. Now, let’s go back over Pelham the nephew and this chap you saw in Hounslow last night.”
“Peter Wensley, Major, retired. Pelham the uncle was his superior officer in South Africa, when he had just attained the rank of colonel and was feeling his oats. Major Wensley had married a Boer woman in Pretoria after our troops took the city. She was expecting his child. He assumed she was safe there, but he received a message that she had gone to visit relations in the veld. The whole family ended up in one of our concentration camps and were in dire straits. To cut a long story short, Pelham refused to let Wensley go to his wife’s rescue. She died.”
No one spoke for an interminable half-minute. Then Alec said softly, “No wonder he had it in for Pelham.”
“He’s an old man, Chief. His legs are as shaky as his handwriting.”
“Pelham really liked to throw his weight about, didn’t he!” said Ernie. “He sounds like a real bastard who had it coming to him. Can’t have been the major that gave it to him, though. Not just his weakness, but he didn’t know Devine or Halliday, did he, Sarge?”
“No, he was already in dodgy health before the Great War—wounded in the Boer War—and didn’t rejoin the army. He’s been living in pretty straitened circumstances in that residential hotel for years. Didn’t seem like he knew anyone much except the other residents.”
“So much for him. What about Pelham the nephew, Tom?” Alec asked.
“He spent the War with the Indian Army in Mesopotamia, Chief. That’s one reason he ended up at the India Office. He was actually out in India last autumn, went out in September, back just in time for Christmas. Which knocks him out as far as Devine is concerned.”
“November, Devine disappeared.” Ernie had the detail at his fingertips, as usual. “The twenty-first.”
“He swears he’d never heard of Devine or Halliday. I couldn’t see any reason to disbelieve him.”
“What did he say about his quarrel with his uncle?”
“The colonel tried to tell him what to do one time too many. The final straw was in ’21 or ’22. He’s not absolutely sure what that particular spat was about, the one that finished off relations between them, because they had so many over the years.”
“Such as?”
“The colonel disapproved of him going into the civil service rather than the army—that was the most frequent trouble. They disagreed on politics. The nephew dared to protest a couple of times about the way the colonel bullied his wife. All in all, he never expected to inherit anything and knew nothing about his uncle’s will, but presumed that Mrs. Pelham would scoop the pool. ”
“What did you make of him, Tom? Was he worried about being suspected of doing away with the colonel?”
“Not him. A very ordinary gentleman who was more worried about whether he ought to send his condolences to his aunt, or call on her, or would she maybe not want anything to do with him, in accordance with his uncle’s wishes.
After what you said about her, Chief, I ventured to advise getting in touch. ”
“She certainly had no qualms about not observing her husband’s wishes!”
“That’s what I thought. What about that bloke you went to see in Southwark? Get anything from him?”
Alec told them about the porter who had served briefly under Halliday and Devine, and his summing up of their characters. “Halliday would obey orders because it was his duty. Devine would go along because he was easily led.”
“You reckon he read them right, this porter?”
“He seemed a pretty astute fellow. It appears more and more likely that Halliday and Devine were dragged willy-nilly into some mischief started by Colonel Pelham. The urgent question is, was anyone else equally involved in whatever it was? Is there another unwitting target waiting out there?”
Tom shook his head. “If he’s read the papers, Chief, he’s not unwitting. Seeing nobody’s asked us for protection, it looks like that’s the lot.”
“Or else he doesn’t read the papers,” Ernie pointed out. “Some don’t. Lots only read the racing pages of The Pink ’Un.”
“Very true, laddie. We better find out if the Sporting Times reported the names of the victims.”
Ernie made a note.
By this time they were in the Tottenham High Road. The driver asked Ernie for more precise directions to the Barley Mow. He turned off the High Road.
“Drive past the pub,” said Alec, “then stop round the nearest corner.”
The Barley Mow, despite its old-fashioned name, was a post-war hostelry in the middle of a row of newish shops.
The exterior gave the impression of aspiring to serve a better class of clientèle than would probably ever find their way thither.
Hoping to attract the superior sort of commercial traveller, it was surrounded by the dwellings of petty clerks.
Either Tom or Ernie would fit in to a nicety.
“All yours, Tom. We’ll wait here.”
The car uttered a grateful sigh as the detective sergeant got out. As he closed the door and walked back towards the corner, Ernie said in a significant tone, “Free house.”
“You think that’s important?”
“We-ell…”
“You’ve got a theory.”
“Well, I do, Chief. But I could be all wrong. I don’t want to talk about it till we hear what Mr. Tring finds out.”
“All right. What do you think of Major Wensley and the younger Pelham?”
They were in agreement that, given Tom’s opinions of their respective characters, neither could seriously be considered a suspect. They had hardly reached this conclusion when Tom reappeared.
“No luck, Chief. The barman says Shadd’s taken the missus and kiddies to the seaside—Clacton—for the day. But they get pretty busy Sunday evenings, so he’s supposed to be back by seven to run the saloon bar.”
Alec sighed. “Then we’ll just have to wait, won’t we?”