A Medal For Murder (30 page)

He had parked the Jowett in James Street, perhaps on account of worrying about having to reverse if he drove to the station. As we crossed the square, I told him all about unmasking Miss Fell as Mrs deVries, the fact that the pawned ring was back on its owner’s finger, and that the person she had entrusted to redeem it, namely Lucy Wolfendale, had gone missing.

He let out an astonished whistle. ‘You have been busy.’

‘That’s not half of it.’

James Street bustled with shoppers. We paused to let a woman and her daughter totter in their heels to a motor whose chauffeur opened the door smartly. They were followed by a shop assistant, heavily laden with parcels and hat boxes.

As we reached the Jowett, Sykes asked, ‘Why did our mysterious gentlewoman go all the way from Harrogate to Leeds, so as not to be known, and then go to the trouble of supplying a false name and address?’

‘She is embarrassed by her poverty,’ I said in a low
voice. ‘I’m sure that Miss Fell has no connection with the robbery. As far as she was concerned, Lucy Wolfendale simply offered to do her the favour of redeeming her ring from Moony’s pawnshop.’

When we were sitting in the car, this time with me back in the driving seat, he asked, ‘But who else was in on it? Who was the young man who throttled Mr Moony?’

Not wishing to shout above the engine noise, I waited before starting the motor. ‘Good question. There is a Mr Root, Dan – originally from South Africa. I believe his real name is Bindeman. Either for his amusement or some other purpose, he listens in to what goes on in the captain’s flat. I hope I’ll have his fingerprints on a watchmender’s cup. Who knows? Perhaps he’ll be on police records.’

I started the car and began to drive up the street, towards the Valley Gardens, and past the Royal Pump room. Once on Cornwall Road, in a quiet spot in sight of the Grand Hotel, I stopped the car.

Sykes picked up where we had left off. ‘What sort of figure does this missing Lucy Wolfendale cut?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought she could be mistaken for a chap, though she is a budding actress, and a good one. Her height would be about right.’

Sykes barely kept the envy from his voice. ‘No wonder I drew a blank in Leeds. This is a ladies and gentlemen of Harrogate job. Is this Lucy part of some criminal ring?’ He turned to me, with a please-tell-all look on his face.

‘I doubt it. Her ransom note to her grandfather had a distinctly amateurish look about it. I would not say we are looking for a mastermind.’

He smiled. ‘Ransom note? Tell me you’re joshing.’

‘I wish I were. What does leave me feeling uneasy is that the man who doted on her was murdered.’

The smile vanished. His look became suddenly serious. ‘The motor trade man?’

‘You know about it?’

‘Heard it from the beat bobby in Woodhouse this morning. I never dreamed there might be some connection with the robbery.’

‘We don’t know that there is, yet.’

‘But you suspect?’ He was staring hard at me. I could hear his brain ticking, and anticipated the next remark. ‘Have you told the police?’ he asked, in a sombre voice.

‘I’d better tell you everything from the beginning.’ In a methodical order that would suit Sykes’s tidy mind, I told him everything that had happened since I arrived in Harrogate. He listened with rapt attention, his mouth opening now and again, until I had to remind him that it was summer, and there were flies about.

‘Is that it?’ he said.

‘No. One more thing. Half an hour ago, I asked Miss Fell to go down and keep Lucy’s grandfather, Captain Wolfendale, talking while I searched his attic for a second time, looking for the jewellery, and checking on something else that had intrigued me. There was no stolen property – or at least not what we are looking for. But I did find something else. The captain has a cigar box, with photographs from the Boer War, and some documents. One of the photographs shows the captain and his batman. And what is very puzzling is that having seen a photograph of Wolfendale as a lad, and having got to know him as he is today, I am almost certain that the man calling himself Captain
Wolfendale now is the sergeant in the photograph.’

Sykes shook his head. ‘This is too much for me to take in. You’ve lost me.’

‘The young Wolfendale in a photograph with his aunt has the same shape face as you, longish, and he is recognisable in the photograph in uniform, taken twenty-odd years ago. The man beside him in that photograph, in sergeant’s uniform, has a round face.’

‘Perhaps they changed caps, for a lark or something.’

‘That’s possible, I suppose. But the man calling himself Wolfendale now has that same round face, quite chubby. There is a death certificate for Henry Lampton, who died of suffocation whilst inebriated. There are discharge papers for the two men, Sergeant Lampton and Captain Wolfendale. I think that the person who died was Wolfendale, and that Lampton took his place.’

The afternoon sun shone brightly, turning the motor into an oven. ‘Let’s walk for a while,’ I suggested.

Sykes did not budge. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’

‘I can’t quite take it in myself. I almost picked up the cigar box and made off with it. But I don’t suppose Inspector Charles will be too delighted if having pointed the finger at Monsieur Geerts I now tell him that perhaps he has another suspect.’

Sykes sighed. ‘And, of course, you could be mistaken. Perhaps the chap just put on weight. Men do when they get older, and aren’t living an active life any more.’

In the bright sunshine of the afternoon, my interpretation of the photographs seemed less convincing to me. And I had certainly not convinced Sykes. He was impatient to be doing, not talking.

‘If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon get on with
this fingerprinting. Because I feel I’ve contributed nothing, apart from being Mr Moony’s messenger boy to his customers.’

I started the motor. As I did, my stomach rumbled.

‘Was that you or me?’ Sykes asked.

‘Me. I haven’t eaten a thing since my shared duck egg this morning. We can have a bite to eat, you check the fingerprints – see whether we can find out for sure who has been helping Lucy in her ransom efforts. Once I find her, I can get to the bottom of what is going on. Then I’ll go to the police, if needs be.’

I stopped the car at the entrance to the Grand Hotel.

The hotel doorman doffed his cap and got into the driving seat, ready to park the motor. He spoke to Sykes. ‘Need any attention to the motor, sir? We have a pit in the garage.’

Sykes looked at me.

‘Just petrol. Thank you.’

‘Very good, madam,’ he said in a slightly offended voice.

‘Hold on,’ Sykes said, hurrying round to the rear of the car. ‘There’s something I need from the boot.’

He lifted out the fingerprint kit. We entered the hotel and I picked up my key from reception. Then we found a seat in a quiet corner of the dining room, away from the string quartet, beside a verdant palm, designed to calm the spirit.

Sykes claimed to have eaten and said that he would start straight away checking fingerprints. He jotted down the names and items as I reeled them off. ‘Dylan Ashton’s prints should be on the note. I got him to write some addresses this morning when I visited the house agent’s office. Alison Hart’s are on the drinking glass I
lifted from the room she was in at Madam Geerts’s house. Rodney Milner’s will be on this business card. Dan Root has handled the little egg cup-style item that he uses in his watch mending. Captain Wolfendale’s prints should be on the matchbox.’

Having purloined so many items, I was wishing I had lifted the cigar box from the attic. But if the captain had something to hide, then it was best not to give him reason to become more jittery than he already was.

‘What about Lucy’s own prints, for elimination?’ Sykes asked.

‘There’s a perfume bottle I picked up from her dressing table.’

A waiter took my order for ham sandwiches. When he had gone, Sykes said, ‘Regarding Captain Wolfendale, your London cousin telephoned earlier with a message for you. Mrs Sugden took it down word for word.’

‘Excellent. What’s the gist of it?’

Sykes is not a man for giving the gist. He took out a notebook and read what Mrs Sugden had written. ‘Your cousin says nothing on Corporal Milner. Records on enlisted men do not come under his jurisdiction. As to Captain W, as he called him – I expect he didn’t want to give the full moniker in case anyone was listening in – Captain W, of the Yorkshire Light Infantry, served in India before shipping out to Cape Town from Mauritius on the HMS
Powerful
. He served in South Africa in the war against the Boers, 1899 to 1902. Awarded VC. Marital status single . . .’

‘Single? That must be a mistake.’

‘Don’t think so. Says here, Next of kin Miss EW, paternal aunt, of Harrogate.’ Sykes looked up from the
notebook. ‘Those were the facts. The next part is hearsay. Your cousin adds that his superiors in India were glad to see the back of W. There was a scandal in Calcutta involving the gentleman in question and the wife and daughter of a highly placed official. In South Africa a schoolteacher made a fuss after an encounter with him, and had to have her passage paid to England.’ Sykes closed the notebook. ‘Want to see for yourself?’

I shook my head. ‘He’s a widower, supposedly, with a son and daughter-in-law who died in South Africa – hence Lucy. And all this scandal and womanising, that’s not like him. He says himself he is hopeless with women. You realise what this means?’

Sykes looked miserable. ‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me. Don’t forget this is the first I’ve heard of this and I don’t know any of these people.’

I felt a mounting excitement. ‘I think it means I could be right, that the captain is not who he says he is. He came to Harrogate with a pack of lies.’

Sykes returned the notebook to his pocket. ‘All very odd. I’ll leave you to puzzle that out while I check fingerprints.’

The checking did not take long. The revelation was less than startling. Lucy’s prints, taken from the perfume bottle on her dressing table, were all over the ransom note. She had cut and pasted the message herself. Nor was it a surprise to see that Dylan Ashton’s thumb-print appeared on the note. I could hear their voices in my head. ‘How does this sound Dylan?’ ‘Perfect, Lucy.’

We left the dining room.

‘I’ll go and visit Dylan again. He works at the house
agents, Croker & Company. This time I’ll have good reason to make him squeal.’

Sykes looked at his watch. ‘It’s four o’clock. Will they still be open, on a Saturday?’

‘Meriel told me that Dylan lives in rooms above the office. I shall disturb his peace and demand answers.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Sykes asked.

‘No. What would help is if you could find out more about Captain Wolfendale and his links with Mr Milner. Ex-corporal, or ex-sergeant Milner, whatever he was.’

‘Why do you say sergeant?’

‘Because I think Milner was a corporal, but there’s a sergeant’s uniform hanging alongside the captain’s uniform in his attic. My guess is that it belonged to the late Sergeant Lampton, and I wish I could be sure.’

‘Why would Wolfendale keep a sergeant’s uniform?’

‘Because he was that sergeant?’

‘Then why would he keep the captain’s uniform . . .?’ A light went on in his eyes. ‘Because . . .’

‘Because he was the sergeant until Captain Wolfendale came into an inheritance, and then he became the captain. Is there anyone in Harrogate who knew the captain and the sergeant when they were still in uniform? ’

Sykes looked doubtful. ‘I’ll see what I can come up with. But I don’t know the watering holes in these parts, or where old soldiers are likely to congregate.’

‘This is a small town, and everyone is going to be talking about the murder. Milner must have mixed with the Harrogate well-to-do.’

‘How long have I got?’

‘I should be back within the hour.’

He nodded.

‘Oh, and one other thing I should probably tell you, Mr Sykes. I was the one who found Mr Milner’s body.’ Before he had a chance to express his concern, I said, ‘But it’s all right. I’m over the shock. Almost.’

As I left the hotel, I tried to concentrate on how best to make Dylan confide in me. But instead my brain would not let go of the information about Wolfendale. I could hear my cousin’s voice as he dictated his message to Mrs Sugden.

‘Captain W, of the Yorkshire Light Infrantry, served in South Africa in the war against the Boers. Awarded VC. Marital status single. Next of kin Miss EW, Aunt, of Harrogate.

Had Wolfendale lied to the army command, or to everyone else?