Hardcastle's Frustration (24 page)

‘There's not much as misses you Special Branch fellows, is there, Mr Drew?'

‘We like to think so, sir,' said Drew.

Hardcastle went home and for most of that Thursday evening mulled over the possibility that Powers was, after all, the murderer of Ronald Parker. But he could not think of any motive other than that Powers had had an affair with Daisy Benson. And the only connection between Powers and Ronald Parker was that Parker had also shared Daisy's bed. However, it was more than likely that Daisy had abandoned Parker in exchange for Powers' opulence. There was not much competition between a gas company clerk and a man who lavished dinner, champagne and caviar on his paramours in fine hotels.

Bearing in mind what Detective Inspector Drew had said about de Ritzen being wanted for a murder that had arisen over a prostitute, it was possible that history had repeated itself. But that would only hold good if Powers
was
de Ritzen.

Hardcastle was still fretting over the matter when he arrived at Cannon Row police station on the Friday morning. But at nine o'clock he made a decision.

‘Marriott!' shouted Hardcastle.

‘Yes, sir?' Marriott hurried across the corridor to the DDI's office.

Hardcastle recounted what he had learned from Aubrey Drew the previous day. ‘It's possible that Powers is our man for Parker's murder after all, Marriott. If he ain't, we might still have him for Captain Sinclair's murder in South Africa if he turns out to be de Ritzen.'

‘But what if Powers is
not
de Ritzen, sir?'

‘We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Marriott.'

‘Is there a warrant out for this de Ritzen, sir?'

‘I'm told there is, Marriott,' said Hardcastle, without mentioning that the warrant was in Bloemfontein. ‘So, get up to Bow Street as soon as they open for business and swear out a search warrant for Vincent Powers' address on Kingston Hill. Once you've done that, we'll get down there and see what's what. Oh, and let Kingston nick know, and ask them to send a couple of officers up to assist.'

Apart from Hardcastle's interest in Powers, other events were unfolding on that Friday morning. Some fifty miles away at Aldershot, Private Eric Donnelly of the Dorsetshire Regiment was tried by general court martial. Two days later, he was executed by a firing squad in the yard of the feared military prison at North Camp. Sergeant Mooney would doubtless have been disappointed that Donnelly had not met his end at the Tower of London.

It was close to three o'clock that afternoon when the two detectives alighted from a taxi outside Powers' house.

‘Mr Hardcastle, sir?' asked a uniformed sergeant who, together with a constable, was waiting in the road a few yards down from the house. ‘We were told you might need some assistance.'

‘Wait out here until I've gone in, Sergeant, and then come up to the front door and stay there,' said Hardcastle. ‘I'll call you when I need you.' Mounting the steps, he rapped loudly with the heavy lion's-head knocker.

‘Good afternoon, sir,' said the housemaid, bobbing as she answered the door.

‘Good afternoon. Is Mr Powers at home?'

‘I'll enquire, sir. May I say who it is?'

‘We're from the London Theatrical Casting Agency, miss.' Hardcastle told the lie with a reassuring smile. He knew that if he and Marriott were to be announced as police officers, Powers – if he was de Ritzen, the killer of Sinclair and Parker – would disappear, probably through a rear window, never to be seen again. Worse still he might confront them with a gun, and Hardcastle had no desire to repeat what had happened when he arrested Eric Donnelly alias Wilfred Rudd.

‘Please come in.' Having admitted the two detectives, the maid disappeared into a room at the rear of the large hall.

Moments later, a man emerged from the back room. A shade over six foot tall, he was of portly appearance, and had a florid countenance and flowing hair not unlike that of the Shakespearian actor he had claimed to be when he met Daisy Benson. Hardcastle's estimation of Powers' age, when he had caught a brief sight of him driving Daisy Benson away from Ronald Parker's funeral, put him at about forty. Closer examination confirmed that original estimate.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am Vincent Powers.' The man spoke with a deep and resonant voice, but there was no disguising his South African accent. ‘Violet tells me that you're casting agents.' He opened his arms in an expansive gesture of welcome that added to his theatrical persona.

‘That's not quite correct, Mr Powers, we're police officers,' said Hardcastle.

‘
Police officers!
' Clearly outraged, Powers shouted the words, all pretence at bonhomie vanishing in an instant. ‘What the hell d'you mean by coming into my house by telling lies to my maidservant? I shall make a very strong complaint. In any case, I can't possibly imagine what the police would want of me.'

‘I have a warrant issued by the Bow Street magistrate to search these premises,' said Hardcastle mildly. He withdrew the warrant and flourished it under Powers' nose.

‘
A search warrant?
' Powers became even more incensed. ‘This is a scandal. Who is your superior?'

‘Sir Edward Henry, the Commissioner of Police,' said Hardcastle, beginning to enjoy himself as he deliberately fuelled Powers' tantrum. ‘His office is at New Scotland Yard, but I doubt he'd be too interested in the protests of a bit-part actor. However, I am Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division, Mr Powers, and I suggest you calm yourself.'

‘How dare you to have the effrontery to tell me how to behave in my own house.' Powers, now even more red in the face than hitherto, continued to address Hardcastle as though delivering an impassioned monologue to the gallery at the Old Vic. ‘Under no circumstances will I allow you to search my house, and that's final.' He took a pace towards the two detectives and opened his arms wide, as if to prevent them from going any further into his property. ‘I demand that you leave at this very moment.'

That suited Hardcastle. ‘Vincent Powers, I am arresting you for obstructing police in the execution of their duty.' He laid a hand on Powers' arm as a token of the man's detention. ‘Fetch them two officers in here, Marriott.'

Marriott went to the front door and admitted the two policemen.

‘This man is under arrest, Sergeant,' said Hardcastle. ‘But he's to stay here while Sergeant Marriott and me conducts a search of this here house.'

The maidservant, standing at the back of the hall, had witnessed the arrest of her master with an open mouth and undisguised pleasure.

‘Where is Mr Powers' study, Violet?' Marriott asked the girl.

For a moment or two, the maid dithered, but she had told DC Wilmot that Powers was not a pleasant man to work for, and that, coupled with the unwelcome sexual advances her employer had made to her, decided her.

‘I'll show you, sir.' The maid led the two detectives upstairs.

‘You're dismissed, you slut,' screamed Powers at the maid's retreating back. ‘Pack your bags and go. And you'll get no character from me,' he added.

‘Shut up, you,' said the uniformed sergeant, roughly pushing Powers into a leather-upholstered watchman's chair near the back of the hall.

The study was sumptuously furnished. A large oak desk stood across one side of the room and there was a three-foot high Ratner safe on the wall opposite.

‘Where does Mr Powers keep the key to the safe, miss?' asked Hardcastle.

‘In the top right-hand drawer of the desk, sir,' said Violet promptly.

Hardcastle tried the drawer, but was not surprised to find that it was locked.

‘And the key to that drawer is under the corner of the rug, sir,' said Violet, before Hardcastle could ask, thus confirming his long held view that servants knew everything that went on in a household.

Marriott folded back the corner of the rug and handed the key to Hardcastle.

The DDI opened the drawer, found the key to the safe, and seconds later had it open. With a shout of triumph, he withdrew a passport and a revolver.

‘What was it that Greek chap said, Marriott?' asked Hardcastle, as he studied the passport. ‘Archie someone, wasn't it?'

‘Archimedes, sir, and “Eureka!” is what he said, meaning “I've found it.”'

‘Exactly so, Marriott. Well, m'boy, here we have a South African passport in the name of Jan de Ritzen that contains a photograph that looks astonishingly like Vincent Powers.' He opened the chamber of the revolver and satisfied himself that it was not loaded. ‘And unless I'm very much mistaken,' he added, ‘this is the weapon that killed Ronald Parker.'

The two CID officers descended to the hall where Powers, still seated in the watchman's chair, was being closely guarded by the two uniformed officers.

‘Vincent Powers, otherwise known as Jan de Ritzen, I am arresting you for the murder of Captain Angus Sinclair of the Black Watch upon an unknown date at Kimberley in the Union of South Africa.'

In an attitude of defeat, Powers collapsed against the back of the chair and stared at Hardcastle. ‘Well, that's it, I suppose,' he said.

‘I am also arresting you on suspicion of having murdered one Ronald Parker on or about the fourth of March this year.'

‘I've never heard of anyone called Ronald Parker,' protested Powers, sitting upright again.

‘Yes, well, we'll see about that, my lad,' said Hardcastle, unable to keep the delight from his voice, having, at last, solved the murder of the man found floating in the River Thames nearly three weeks previously. ‘He certainly knew about you from Daisy Benson, one of your many whores.'

Marriott turned to the maid. ‘Does your master have a telephone here, Violet?' he asked, anticipating Hardcastle's next instruction.

‘Yes, sir, it's in the drawing room. If you'll follow me, it's this way.'

‘I've arranged for transport from Kingston police station, sir,' announced Marriott, when he returned to the hall a few minutes later.

‘Excellent.' Hardcastle rubbed his hands together.

Once Powers was safely lodged in Kingston police station, and having informed the station officer that an escort would be sent to convey the prisoner to Cannon Row, Hardcastle turned to Marriott.

‘Well, Marriott, that looks like that.'

‘Perhaps we should have a drink to celebrate, sir. The lads here tell me that there's a decent pub just up the road. The Fighting Cocks, it's called.'

‘Don't be ridiculous, Marriott,' said Hardcastle with a wave of his hand. ‘We'd have to pay for our beer in there. No, we'll wait till we get back to civilization.'

The escort brought Vincent Powers to Cannon Row police station at eight o'clock that evening. Hardcastle immediately set about interviewing him in the small room at the front of the building.

‘Well now, de Ritzen . . .' Hardcastle and Marriott settled themselves in chairs on the opposite side of the table from the South African more familiarly known to them as Powers. ‘I shall shortly charge you with the murder of Ronald Parker. Is there anything you wish to say about that?'

‘I told you before,' protested Powers, ‘that I don't know anyone of that name.'

‘Yes you do. Daisy Benson, the woman you bedded at the Kingston Hotel on the night of Friday the eighth of February last and subsequently at your house, told you that Ronald Parker was someone who'd enjoyed her favours and was continuing to do so,' said Hardcastle, speculating that this might well have been the case. ‘What's more she told you that she wouldn't stop seeing him. But you don't like anyone sharing your women, do you? I suggest that you were so insanely jealous that you murdered him, just like you murdered a British officer called Captain Angus Sinclair for taking an Afrikaans whore off you in Kimberley.'

Since his arrest, Powers had recovered his equanimity and sat staring blandly at Hardcastle. ‘I've not the faintest idea what you're talking about, Inspector,' he said eventually, running a hand through his flowing hair. ‘I certainly don't recall any such conversation with this Mrs Benson you talk of. In fact, I'm quite sure I do not know a woman called Daisy Benson.' He waved an imperious hand as though dismissing the suggestion as a figment of Hardcastle's imagination. ‘Furthermore, I'm warning you that I am a very rich man and I shall brief the finest lawyers available to defend me against this ridiculous trumped-up charge. Until then, I have nothing more to say to you.' The South African folded his arms, leaned back in his chair and afforded Hardcastle his best withering gaze.

‘Take him through to the charge room, Marriott,' snapped Hardcastle furiously. ‘I'll be along shortly to charge him.'

Hardcastle arrived at the police station at his usual time of eight o'clock on Saturday morning. After inspecting the crime and charge books, and muttering about the inability of his detectives to get out and catch thieves, he settled in his office and lit his pipe. For the next hour, he studied the
Police
Gazette
, read his detectives' reports – some of which he sent back for resubmission – and prepared his notes about the arrest of Jan de Ritzen, alias Vincent Powers.

Finally, he ran his eye over the previous day's edition of
Police Orders
, and muttered an oath when he read that Divisional Detective Inspector Edward Brady of Y Division had been promoted ahead of him. Brady was his junior in age, service and seniority. Then he read the entry again, just to make sure that his eyes were not deceiving him. He knew of Ted Brady's reputation and had often wondered how he had got as far as being given charge of the detectives on that outlying division, let alone to go even farther. But he presumed that Brady had friends among the higher echelons of Commissioner's Office, as New Scotland Yard was correctly styled.