Hardcastle's Soldiers (24 page)

Hudson nodded. ‘Been a busy night, Mr Marsh,' he said.

It was three o'clock on the Saturday morning by the time that Utting had been put in a cell, and Hardcastle was able to relax.

‘Take the weight off your feet, m'boy,' he said to Marriott.

With an uncharacteristic gesture of generosity, the DDI took a bottle of whisky from the bottom drawer of his desk and poured a measure into each of the two glasses he kept with it.

‘Have we got any evidence to support a charge against Utting, guv'nor?' asked Marriott, taking a sip of his whisky as he lapsed into a less formal mode of address.

‘Utting's tale is all my eye and Betty Martin, m'boy. He claims not to know the name of his sister's intended, and reckons he's never seen him before.' Hardcastle's tone of voice revealed his scepticism. ‘Well, if that was the case, how did he know that this stranger who turned up at nearly eleven o'clock at night
was
his sister's fiancé, just because he said so? He hadn't got an answer for that, had he?'

‘What will you do next, guv'nor?'

‘I'll wait until tomorrow morning and then give Master Utting a bit of a sharp talking to. See if we can't rattle the truth out of the young bugger. And by that time our gunman should be in a fit state to be given a going over. According to Wood, the people at Westminster Hospital said it was only a flesh wound, so he should be up and about by tomorrow. Which reminds me, I must have a word with Colonel Frobisher, see if we can't get that Colour-Sergeant Berryman a pat on the back, and perhaps a letter from the Commissioner.' Hardcastle pulled out his hunter and glanced at it. ‘Good gracious, Marriott, it's nearly half past three. You'd better get home, and my apologies to Mrs Marriott.'

‘Thank you, sir, and my regards to Mrs H.'

‘See you at eight o'clock in the morning, then,' said Hardcastle.

‘Yes, sir,' said Marriott, thinking that it was hardly worth going home.

But as Marriott reached the door of Hardcastle's office, the DDI spoke again. ‘Didn't you recognize our gunman, Marriott?'

Marriott paused on the threshold. ‘I must admit he looked familiar, sir.'

‘Of course he did,' said Hardcastle. ‘He was the little bastard who passed himself off as Lieutenant Geoffrey Mansfield who we spoke to at Victoria Station on the day of the murder. But he'd shaved off his moustache.'

‘Ye Gods!' exclaimed Marriott. ‘So he was. But why didn't you challenge him about it when you arrested him?'

‘I want him to think I hadn't recognized him, Marriott.' Hardcastle knocked out his pipe in the ashtray, and stood up. ‘Now, get off with you, or you'll be in no fit state to start work in the morning.'

True to his word, Hardcastle was in his office at eight o'clock on the Saturday morning. And so was Marriott.

‘Has our prisoner been released from hospital yet, sir?'

‘Yes, Marriott, he was brought back about half an hour ago. He's tucked up in cell number three.'

‘When are you going to interview him, sir?'

‘Not yet, Marriott. Get across to the Yard, and ask Mr Collins if he'd be so good as to come over here as soon as he can.' Hardcastle was playing a hunch.

It was fifteen minutes before Marriott returned with Detective Inspector Charles Stockley Collins, head of the Metropolitan Police fingerprint bureau.

‘You're up and about early this morning, Ernie,' said Collins cheerfully, as he entered the DDI's office.

‘Been up half the bloody night as well,' rejoined Hardcastle. He lit his pipe, and leaned back in his chair, a near-beatific smile on his face. ‘I've got a prisoner banged up in number three cell, Charlie, and I'd like you to take his dabs. When you've done that, perhaps you'd do me a favour and make a quick comparison with the prints you found on the revolver that was left at Victoria Station after the murder, and on the knife that killed Ivy Huggins. Oh, and of course the van that was abandoned in Kingston or Malden – I can't remember which – following her murder on Arthur Fitnam's patch. I've got a feeling that we're about to strike lucky.'

‘Who is this bloke you've arrested, Ernie?'

‘I don't know. At least, not at this stage, but I'll get it out of the bugger, never you mind.'

Collins smiled. ‘I'm sure you will, Ernie,' he said, but half suspected that Hardcastle knew already. He knew A Division's DDI of old.

‘Marriott here will take you down to the cells.'

‘Right, I'll get to it,' said Collins. ‘Lead on, skipper.'

Hardcastle and Marriott took their usual lunch of a pint of bitter and a pie in the Red Lion.

Unfortunately, Fleet Street journalists knew that Hardcastle frequented this particular public house and, in consequence, so did they in the hope of picking up a valuable snippet of newsworthy information.

Hardcastle had just taken the head off his beer when a reporter sidled up to him.

‘Charlie Simpson,
London Daily Chronicle
, Mr Hardcastle,' said the reporter by way of introduction.

‘I know who you are, Mr Simpson,' said Hardcastle, as he placed his glass on the bar and turned to face the reporter.

‘I hear you're about to make a breakthrough in the Victoria Station murder.'

‘I don't know what gave you that idea, Mr Simpson,' Hardcastle said, ‘but I should have thought that by now you'd know better than to talk to me about police matters when I'm enjoying a quiet pint. It tends to turn the beer sour.' He turned away dismissively.

When Hardcastle and Marriott returned to the police station at two o'clock that afternoon, DI Collins was waiting for them with the results of his checks.

‘You're in luck, Ernie. He's your man.'

‘Luck don't enter into it, Charlie,' said Hardcastle. ‘It's what's called good detective work.'

‘Well, whichever it was, you were right,' said Collins. ‘I got a match between your prisoner, and the prints found on the revolver at the scene of the Victoria Station murder, in the van and on the knife from the Kingston job. And they match the prints found on the revolver from Francis Street.'

‘I'm pleased about that,' said Hardcastle mildly. ‘That'll put a smile on Arthur Fitnam's face down at Wandsworth, too. It'll have cleared up his murder for him. Now, Marriott and me'll go and have a few choice words with our mystery man. See you at the Old Bailey, Charlie.'

At three o'clock that same afternoon, Hardcastle ordered the station officer to have the anonymous prisoner brought to the interview room.

However, Hardcastle's attempts to discover the identity of the young man who had masqueraded as Lieutenant Mansfield, and who had shot at policemen in Francis Street the previous evening, were to no avail. The prisoner sat in the interview room, his left arm in a sling, and a disdainful expression on his face.

‘Who are you?' demanded Hardcastle.

‘I'm not saying anything, copper,' said the boy, ‘and if you're thinking of charging me with anything, you'll have to prove it.'

Hardcastle noticed that the prisoner spoke with an educated voice. Although clearly not the product of a well-known public school, the DDI formed the opinion that he had probably been the beneficiary of a good grammar school education.

‘Won't make any difference,' said the frustrated Hardcastle. ‘You'll still be taking the eight o'clock walk.'

‘They don't hang people for taking a few pot shots out of a window,' said the young man confidently. ‘Anyway, I didn't hit anyone.' But his confidence was belied by the change in his demeanour. Hardcastle had worried him, and it showed. ‘I'm in a good mind to sue you for shooting me,' he added, with a show of bravado he did not feel.

However, the DDI was determined not to charge the prisoner with two counts of murder until he had made further enquiries.

‘Take him back to the cells, Marriott,' said Hardcastle irritably.

‘H
ave you got a reason for not charging the prisoner yet, sir?' asked Marriott, once he and Hardcastle were back in the DDI's office.

‘Indeed I have, Marriott. I've got a shrewd suspicion that he didn't carry out that murder on his tod. Where did he get the uniform? From Mansfield? I doubt it. And how did he know enough about the routine of the money-changing place at Victoria Station to carry out the robbery, eh? I'm sure he had someone else helping him, and I think I know who.'

‘So what do we do next, sir?'

‘We go to the Uttings' house in Clapham and have a word with Cora Utting. But not until you've been to Bow Street Police Court, and sworn out a search warrant.'

‘On what grounds, sir?'

‘I should've thought that was obvious, Marriott. Cora Utting is Jack Utting's sister. Then, our mystery gunman turns up in Jack Utting's house. According to Jolly Jack, Cora is engaged to the man we've got in custody. In my book that makes a connection.'

The house in Acre Lane, Clapham, in which Jack and Cora Utting's father lived, was a drab dwelling in a road of similarly drab houses.

‘I'm Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division, and this is Detective Sergeant Marriott,' said the DDI to the man who answered the door. ‘Is Cora Utting here?'

‘I'm William Utting, Inspector, her father. There's no trouble, I hope.'

‘So you'd be the father of Jack Utting as well, would you?'

‘That's me, Inspector.' William Utting was a man of about forty-five, and as he led the two detectives into the parlour, he walked with a distinct limp. And his left sleeve was empty.

Seeing that Hardcastle had noticed, Utting volunteered the reason. ‘I copped a Blighty one on the Somme last year,' he said. ‘Corporal in the Durham Light Infantry, I was. A bloody toc-emma took me left arm off, and buggered up me right leg. Still, can't complain. Most of me mates was killed.'

‘What the devil's a toc-emma?' asked Hardcastle.

‘It's a trench mortar, but toc-emma is the signallers' code for it, and bloody nasty things they was, too. They was always called toc-emmas by the troops who were on the receiving end of 'em, not that you heard 'em coming,' said Utting, easing himself into an armchair and inviting the policemen to take a seat on the settee. ‘Any road, you don't want to hear about my troubles. What was it you wanted?'

‘I'd like to have a talk to your daughter Cora about her fiancé.'

‘What, young Adrian? He's an officer, you know.'

‘Is that a fact? What's this Adrian's surname?' Hardcastle's interest was suddenly aroused.

‘Nash,' said Utting. ‘Why?'

‘In that case, I take it we're talking about Second Lieutenant Adrian Nash of the Army Service Corps.' Hardcastle spoke mildly, at pains to suppress his excitement.

‘That's him. But how did you know?'

‘Where's he stationed?' asked Hardcastle, answering Utting's question with one of his own.

‘Hounslow, I think he said, but I'm not sure. Young Cora will be able to tell you more about him. I think she's upstairs, Inspector. Hang on, and I'll give her a shout.' William Utting, who did not seem at all disturbed that the police had arrived wishing to interview his daughter about her fiancé, stood up and limped to the door. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he bellowed his daughter's name.

The young woman who entered the room looked to be older than the eighteen years of age that Hardcastle knew she was. She carried herself well, and her hair, worn up in the prevailing fashion, was immaculate. She seated herself sedately in an armchair, folding her hands in her lap, and looking the picture of a demure young lady. It was a pose destined not to last long.

‘This is Cora, Inspector,' said Utting, his face radiating pride. ‘These gentlemen are police officers, Cora, love.'

‘Police?' Cora seemed to be unsettled by that information. ‘What's wrong? It's not Adrian, is it?'

‘Nothing's happened to him, miss.' Marriott made that monumental understatement with no indication that it was far from the truth. But he had assumed that the girl thought that her fiancé had perhaps fallen in battle.

‘I can't wait to walk her down the aisle when she weds young Adrian.' Utting glanced at his daughter with obvious pride.

Hardcastle decided that he would not spoil William Utting's ambitious plans. At least, not yet.

‘How long have you known Adrian Nash, Miss Utting?' asked Hardcastle.

A further mention of her fiancé's name disconcerted the young woman even more. ‘Er, why d'you want to know?' she asked.

‘Perhaps you'd just answer the question.'

‘About six months, I suppose.'

‘Would that have been just before he went into the army?'

‘Yes, it was, as a matter of fact. We met at a tennis club dance. But once he joined up, he'd travel up from Aldershot at the weekends. That's where he was doing his officer training.' Cora Utting almost glowed with pride. ‘He's going to wear his officer's uniform when we get married.'

‘And he's in the Army Service Corps, is he not?'

‘Yes.'

Hardcastle knew that Nash had not ‘joined up' but was one of Lord Derby's reluctant recruits. His face took on a grave expression, and he decided it was time to tell the young woman the truth about her fiancé. ‘I'm afraid that it's unlikely there'll be a wedding, Miss Utting,' he said. ‘I'm sorry to have to tell you that Adrian Nash is in custody at Cannon Row Police Station, and will shortly be charged with two counts of murder, and another of attempted murder.'

With a gasp, Cora Utting's head fell forward, and she swooned from the chair in which she was sitting, and fell to the floor.

‘Ye Gods!' exclaimed her father. He stood up and attempted to pick up his daughter, but, having only one arm, was unable to be of any assistance. ‘There must be some mistake,' he said, turning to Hardcastle with an anguished expression on his face.