The Punch and Judy Murders

CHAPTER ONE The Bridegroom Sets Out On His Travels

The next document, at 2.10, showed a broader epistolatory style. It had evidently been telephoned white-hot by the old man, without regard for economy or coherence:

Any philosophical soul, on the eve of his wedding, must suspect that some damned thing or other will go wrong. It is bound to. That is the cussedness of all human affairs. And I had learned that it was particularly the case in anything which concerned Evelyn Cheyne and myself. Thus, on that hot, murky June afternoon while I sat in my flat taking sustenance out of a tall glass and studying this telegram, it appeared that — for some reason unknown, less than twenty-four hours before the wedding — I was supposed to go to Torquay and be a butler.

It was just a little over a year after that wild business at the Chateau de I'Ile in France, which has since become known as the Unicorn Murders. Evelyn Cheyne and I were going to make a match of it: the only wonder may be why we had waited so long. It had been no fault of ours. The reason was the same reason why both of us were uneasy about this wedding — Evelyn's parents.

To say that they were holy terrors would be unjust, and conveys a wrong impression. Major-General Sir Edward Kent-Fortescue Cheyne was a good sort, and on my side; Lady Cheyne, though inclined to be weepy, was as much as could be asked for. But imagine what you think both would be like from their names: that's it. When we broke the news to them, Lady Cheyne wept a little and the General said gruffly that he hoped he could entrust his daughter's happiness to my keeping. Under these omens they were sticklers for everything going according to form. The General had arranged a formal wedding, which was something of a cross between the Aldershot Tattoo and the Burial of Sir John Moore. I need not add that it gave both Evelyn and myself the hump. He was even bringing over a great old school-pal of his from Canada, now become a notorious clergyman or a bishop or some such thing to perform the ceremony. Consequently, I did not like to think what would happen if I failed to show up on time at precisely eleven-thirty A.M. On Tuesday morning.

But here was H.M.'s telegram; and it looked like trouble.

I did what I should have done in the first place: I put through a trunk call to Torquay. But H.M. was not at the hotel, and had left no message. Then I rang up Evelyn. The wench, usually so full of the devil, was in nearly as low spirits as myself. She spoke in a small worried voice.

"Ken, it looks like trouble."

"It does."

"But Ken, are you going? I mean, the old man's done a tremendous lot for us, and I don't see how you can let him down if he asks you to go. Do you think it's-?"

She meant: "Do. you think it's Military Intelligence Department work?" H.M., who controls that network, requires a powerful stimulus to push his feet off the desk at the War Office and get him to move anywhere under his own steam. Since even the heavy labour of moving from his office to his home always produces an epic of inspired grousing, his presence in Torquay was important. All the same, I have no longer any official connection with his Department; and Evelyn, who once had a hand in it as well, had given in her resignation over a month before.

"So why me?" I said, "when he's got three dozen people with more brains ready to be called up, and particularly at a time like this? I should have to call off that dinner to-night for one thing, and that would put everybody's back up. Besides, I feel it in my bones some damned thing or other is bound to happen. Every time H.M. is ill-advised enough to stray out of his office, and drags me along with him, it always ends up in my being chased by the police."

"But are you going?"

"Wench, I've got to go. The last time, you remember, I mixed myself up in an affair where I had no business; and H.M. pulled me out… "

There was a pause, during which Evelyn appeared to be dreaming. Then the telephone emitted what seemed to be a faint chortle of pleasure. "I say, but didn't we have a grand time, though?" she crowed. "Look here, Ken: I'll tell you what: let me go along with you. Then, if we don't get back in time, we'll both be in the soup and we can get married at a registry office, which is what I want to do, anyway."

"NO! Your old man-"

"Yes, I suppose you're right," she admitted with suspicious meekness. "Anyway; whatever happens, we've simply got to have the plush-horse service at St. Margaret's, or I should never hear the last of it. But what is H.M. up to, do you think? Did you know he was in Torquay? Did anybody know he was in Torquay?"

I reflected. "Yes, I knew he was out of town. Nobody seems to know his whereabouts. Last Saturday there was an American named Stone here looking for him. Stone went to the War Office, but they either couldn't or wouldn't tell anything. Then he dug up Masters at the Yard; Masters knew nothing, and passed him on to me."

"Stone?" repeated Evelyn. "Who's Stone? Do you know what he wanted with H.M.?"

"No. He looked like a private detective. But I was too much taken up with other matters to be curious. Here: are you sure you won't mind if-?’

"Darling," said Evelyn, "you go ahead, and I'd only love to go with you. But for heaven's sake try, try to get back in time for the wedding! You know what'll happen if you don't."

I knew: very probably I should have to take her father's horse-whip away from him and sit on his head on the steps of the Atheneum. So I rang off, after farewells in which Evelyn almost tearfully implored me to take care, and began 'phoning in earnest to cancel arrangements for that night. It was a mess all the way round; and Sandy Armitage, who was to be my best man, was not pleased. It was twenty minutes past three before I finally piled into a cab-without taking so much as a tooth-brush-and reached Paddington just in time to swing aboard the train when the whistle blew. London streets looked yellow and sticky in the heat-haze, and the train-shed was worse. I sat back in the corner of an empty compartment to cool off and consider.

The mention of Stone's visit brought back to mind another puzzling thing. Stone had charged into my flat demanding to know where H.M. was, and acting in a mysterious way; but he seemed very well informed. At least the War Office seemed to have given him what help it could, so he doubtless had tolerably high credentials. Yet one thing stood out of Stone's guarded conversation: H.M., he said, had been behaving queerly. Now, of course, H.M.'s conduct at its mildest can seldom be described as homely or commonplace, and I knew that this must have reference to some current office joke which Stone (who had never met him) would not understand. Mr. Johnson Stone was a stocky, grey-haired man, with good-natured eyes behind a rimless pince-nez, and a preternaturally solemn jaw. Searching all over London after H.M. had put him into a great fume.

"They tell me," he had said, looking at me sideways, "that your Chief is a mighty queer sort of fellow. They say he's now got into the habit of going around in disguise.

This was startling even for H.M., and I became certain it referred to some joke. I gave Stone my solemn oath that the head of the Military Intelligence Department (or anybody else under him) was seldom known to go about in disguise. But somebody had evidently made a powerful impression on Stone — I could darkly see the hand of Lollypop, H.M.'s blonde secretary — and Stone went out muttering that it was a very fishy business; with which I was inclined to agree. In other words, what was the old blighter up to?

The train was due in Torquay at 7.38. It was a hot and gritty ride, with every click of the wheels diminishing the time when I must be back in London. But, when we came out into the deep trees and red soil of Devon, running for miles beside the sea, I began to feel somewhat soothed. I changed at Moreton Abbot, and just on time we pulled into Torquay station on a clear evening with the breath of the sea on the air. Outside, when I was looking round for a station wagon for the Imperial Hotel, a long blue Lanchester drew up at the kerb. A chauffeur drooped at the wheel; and in the tonneau, his hands folded over his stomach, glared H. M. But I almost failed to recognize him, and the reason was his hat.

He wore a fresh-linen Panama hat with a blue-on-white band, and its brim was turned down all around. There was the broad figure, weighing fourteen stone; the broad nose with spectacles pulled down on it; the corners of the mouth turned down, and an expression of extraordinary malevolence on the wooden face. But nobody in twenty Years, I think, had ever seen him without the top-hat which he said was a present from Queen Victoria. The effect of that festive Panama, its down-turned brim giving it the look of a bowl, and the malignant face blinking under it as he sat motionless, with his hands folded on his stomach, was not one that could be seen with gravity. I began to see the explanation of his disguise.

"Take it off," I said out of the corner of my mouth. "We know you."

H.M. was suddenly galvanized. He turned with slow and terrifying wrath. "You too?" he said. "Burn me, ain't there any loyalty in this world? Ain't there any loyalty in this world: that's what I want to know? If I hear just one more remark about disguises and false whiskers and What's wrong with this hat? Hey? What's wrong with it? It's a jolly good hat." Laboriously he removed it, revealing a bald head shining in the evening sun; he blinked at the hat with defiant respect, turned it round in his fingers, and replaced it. His sense of grievance rose querulously. "Ain't I got a right to be cool if I want to? Ain't I got a right-"

"We won't discuss that now," I said. "Speaking of loyalty: I'm here. The wedding is at eleven-thirty tomorrow morning, so let's get on with whatever business there is."

"Well… now," said H.M., rubbing his chin rather guiltily. He covered it up with an outburst about there being no reason why people should get married anyway; but at length he grudgingly admitted that both of us could be back in London on time. Then he waved a flipper at the chauffeur. "Buzz off, Charley. Mr. Butler will drive us back. Your name, Ken, is Robert T. Butler. That mean anything to you, hey?"

And then occurred revelation. "About 1917," I said, with the past opening up. "September or October. Hogenauer — "

"Good," grunted H.M. I climbed into the driver's seat, and H.M., with many curses, climbed beside me. He directed me out of town by the bus route towards Babbacombe; but I thought that under his grousing he seemed very worried, especially since he went to business at once. "It's more'n fifteen years ago, and neither of us is gettin' any younger, but I hoped you'd remember….

"You played the part of one Robert T. Butler, of New York," he grunted, with a curious obstinate look about him. "You were supposed to be an outlawed American sidin' violently with Germany in the Late Quarrel, and rather tied up with their secret service. Your business was to investigate Paul Hogenauer. Hogenauer had been givin' us a lot of headaches. The question was whether he was just what he pretended to be, a good British subject, the son of a naturalized German father and English mother: or whether he was tangled up with the feller they called L. in a bit of work that would have got him shot at the Tower. Humph. You remember now?"

"I don't remember this `L' whoever he is," I said; "but Hogenauer — yes, very well. I also remember that he got a clean bill of health. He wasn't a spy. He was just what he pretended to be."

H.M. nodded. But be put his hands to his temples under the brim of the Panama hat, and rubbed them slowly, with the same obstinate fishy look.

"Uh-huh. Yes. Now consider Paul Hogenauer a minute. Ken, that fellow was and is a genius of sorts…. When you knew him he was about thirty-five. At thirty-five he'd been offered a chair in physiology at Breslau. Then he got to tinkerin' with psychology as well; he'd got a new hobby each week. He was a chess wizard, and no bad hand at cryptograms or ciphers. To add to the staggerin', total, he was a chemist. Finally, there wasn't much about engraving he didn't know, or inks, or dyes — which was one reason why Whitehall wanted to keep on the good side of him if he wasn't a German spy. With all that, dye see, he was a simple-minded soul, with a sort of foggy honesty; or wasn't he? Burn me, son, that's just what I want to know! That's what bothers me."

H.M. scowled malignantly. I still did not see how this concerned me, and said so.

"He got a clean bill of health: sure. And I'm pretty sure there was no hanky-panky about it. But," argued H.M., "immediately after that, what does he do? In October, '17, he leaves the country for Switzerland. Well, we don't stop him. And then he turns up in Germany. And then about a month

later we get a nice, polite letter, as long as your arm and as muddled as your head, explainin' what he's going to do and the reasons for it. Half his heart (that's the words he used) is in Germany. He's goin' over to Germany. He's goin' into the little office on the Koenigstrasse where they move pins and decode letters and try to nail Allied spies. It's his conscience, he says. Now, I'll stake my last farthing he never had a suspicion he was under observation in England, and also that he never did any dirty work over here. But why all this bleedin' honesty? What made his heart suddenly flutter for Germany after three years of war? The whole point is, is he to be trusted?"

I tried to call back recollections from some time ago, and pictured a small, mild, spindly man, already going bald, with a shiny black coat and a tie like a bootlace. Like most ethers, I had been as callow as soap in those days; I remember having been rather contemptuous of him; but since, once or twice, I have wondered whether Paul Hogenauer might not have been discreetly smiling.

"It's interesting enough," I admitted, "but still I want to know where I come in. I suppose Hogenauer's in England now?"

"Oh, yes, he's in England," growled H.M. "He's been here for eight or nine months. Ken, there's some great big ugly black business, goin' on, and I can't put my finger just on it. It's all wrong. Hogenauer is mixed up in it: I don't mean that he's doin' the dirty work, but he knows who is. Or else — Well, Charters and I tumbled smack into the middle of it."

I whistled. "It sounds like a gathering of the old clan. You mean Colonel Charters?"

"Uh-huh. He didn't drop into it officially, of course; he hasn't been connected with the Department for a long time. But he's now Chief Constable of the county, and Hogenauer ran into him, and he sent a line to the old man. We're goin' to Charters's house now."

He nodded ahead. We had left the main road between Torquay and Babbacombe, and turned into a red-soil road which curved up over the great headlands beside the sea. Ahead and to the right, I could see the cliffs of Babbacombe tumble down sheer to the water, and to a strip of pebbled beach laced with a froth of surf far below. The sea was grey-blue, the beach a dazzling white, the cliffs patched with dark green, all in colours as brilliant as a picture post-card. Alone at the top of the headland in front of us, H.M.'s gesture indicated a long, low bungalow built in the South African style, with a veranda around all four sides. There was no other house near it except a smaller, more sedate house in red brick, about a hundred yards away, and separated from the bungalow by a tennis court. On this more prim house the fading sunlight caught a glitter from a doctor's brass nameplate beside the door. We were making for the door of the bungalow, which was shaded with laurels.

"And the next point," said H.M., staring ahead, "is not only whether Hogenauer's to be trusted, but whether he's sane. I told you he was pretty restless about. movin' from one hobby to another. Well, son, he's got an awful queer hobby now. It's ghosts."

"You mean spiritualism?"

"No, I don't," said H.M. "I mean he claims to have a scientific theory which will explain, on physical grounds, every ghost that ever walked and every banshee that ever wailed. There's somethin', also, about being able to transfer himself through the air, unseen, like Albertus Magnus: or some such scientific fairy-tale. Ken, that feller's either a lunatic or a quack or a genius. And you've got to find out which."