Hardcastle's Traitors (2 page)

The war to which Hardcastle alluded had been in progress for the sixteen months since the fourth of August 1914. Despite his pious hope for a swift end to the bloody conflict, there had been nothing but depressing news since the war had started. Nor were there any signs of victory in the foreseeable future; the losses were mounting day after day.

In August 1914, young men had flocked enthusiastically to the Colours fearful that the widely held belief that it would all be over by Christmas would mean missing the ‘fun' as they had termed it. But it was a premise that had proved to be well short of the reality. Now, just over a year later, the two opposing armies were firmly entrenched from the North Sea to the Swiss border; and thousands of British, Colonial and German troops lay dead with little but a few yards of blood-sodden ground to show for their sacrifice.

The sight of wounded soldiers and sailors in the streets had become commonplace, and hospitals were overflowing with the seriously injured.

The war no longer seemed like ‘fun'. And now that the earlier flood of keen volunteers had started to ebb, Parliament would shortly begin debating the imposition of compulsory conscription to fill the yawning gaps in the ranks of the decimated British Army.

At five minutes past midnight, Hardcastle took his hunter from his waistcoat pocket and flicked open the cover.

‘It's time we took shelter, just to be on the safe side,' he said, and conducted his family into the cupboard beneath the stairs, having first instructed Walter to check the blackout curtains and, as an added precaution, to turn out all the lights.

Very soon the menacing heavy throb of Maybach engines and the spasmodic bark of anti-aircraft guns announced the arrival of the enemy overhead. And occasionally the distinctive sound of British fighters could be heard zooming around the sky in a vain attempt to destroy one of the giant airships. But for the most part they were unable to match the Zeppelins' superior altitude.

Even in the cupboard under the stairs, the Hardcastles were able to hear, somewhere in the distance, the noise of cascading bricks; indication that yet another building had fallen victim to the raiders' bombs.

It was not until one o'clock in the morning that the Hardcastles heard the voice of a cycling policeman shouting ‘All Clear', and the family was able to emerge from its makeshift shelter.

‘I could do with a cup of tea,' said Alice, stretching her limbs after an hour's confinement in the cramped staircase cupboard.

‘Not for me,' said Kitty, ‘I'm off to bed. I'm early shift in the morning.' For some months now, Kitty had been working as a conductorette with the London General Omnibus Company. She had taken the job against her father's wishes, but Kitty had always been a headstrong girl. Even so, her excuse that she was releasing a man for the Front had little impact on her father who did not see working on the buses as women's work, whatever the circumstances.

‘I'm for bed too,' said Maud, who also worked long hours. For the past few months she had been nursing at one of the big houses in Mayfair that had been converted to hospital accommodation for wounded officers.

Refusing his wife's offer of a cup of tea, Hardcastle was about to pour himself another whisky when there was a knock at the door.

‘Surely it's not a neighbour come to wish us a Happy New Year at this hour of the morning,' he muttered, as he pulled open the front door. But it was a jocular comment; he had already anticipated who would be on the doorstep. As the divisional detective inspector of the A or Whitehall Division of the Metropolitan Police he had his headquarters at Cannon Row police station in the shadow of New Scotland Yard. Being the division's senior detective, he was expected to be on call at all hours.

‘Mr Hardcastle, sir?' A sergeant from Kennington Road police station was standing on the doorstep.

‘What is it, Skipper?' There was a resigned note in Hardcastle's question.

‘There's been a burglary at a jeweller's shop in Vauxhall Bridge Road, sir.' The sergeant proffered a message form.

‘Why the hell do I need to know that at this hour?' demanded Hardcastle, seizing the form.

‘There's been a murder there as well, sir,' said the sergeant, before Hardcastle had finished reading the message.

‘God dammit! Best see if you can find me a cab, Skipper. And when you get back to the nick telephone Cannon Row and tell them I want DS Marriott and a couple of detectives at the scene tout de suite.'

‘Very good, sir.' The sergeant flicked back his cape and taking his pocketbook from a tunic pocket, made a note. That done, he paused and grinned. ‘And a very Happy New Year to you and your family, sir.'

‘Some hopes of that,' muttered Hardcastle, donning his Chesterfield overcoat and seizing his bowler hat and umbrella. He took a few paces back into the hallway. ‘I've got to go out, love,' he shouted. ‘Expect me when you see me,' he added. It was something he always said when called out to deal with a crime.

‘You take care of yourself, Ernie,' responded his wife from the kitchen. Having been married to a policeman for twenty-three years, Alice had grown accustomed to her husband being sent for at any hour of the day or night, especially now that he was a senior detective.

The sign over the shop simply read: REUBEN GOSLING. At one end of the fascia a projecting wrought-iron arm bore the three golden balls that were the traditional sign of a pawnbroker.

When Hardcastle arrived, Detective Sergeant Charles Marriott was already there. As a first-class sergeant, he was the officer Hardcastle always chose as his assistant. Marriott lived with his wife Lorna and their two children in police quarters in Regency Street, within walking distance of Vauxhall Bridge Road. Neither Marriott nor his wife was pleased at his being called out so early in the New Year.

Detective Constables Henry Catto and Cecil Watkins were also there, their umbrellas raised. The two DCs, being single men, lived in the police section house at Ambrosden Avenue, and were the ones that Marriott called out in preference to married officers, particularly during festive celebrations such as the New Year.

It was an unseasonably warm night, temperatures having on occasion reached fifty degrees Fahrenheit in late December. But it was raining quite hard.

‘What do we know so far, Marriott?' asked Hardcastle, struggling to raise his umbrella as he alighted from his cab.

‘Forced entry was made through the shop door, sir.' Marriott indicated a hole in the glass panel. ‘A professional job by the look of it: brown paper, treacle and a glass cutter. There was only a Yale rim latch, despite the owner having been advised on several occasions to improve the security. Either the thieves knew that or they struck lucky.'

‘More than the victim did,' muttered Hardcastle. ‘Where's the body, Marriott?'

‘In the front of the shop, sir, near the cash register.'

‘Who found it?'

‘PC 313A Dodds, sir. He was on this beat and a member of the public called him. Something to do with a car making off at high speed. It was then that Dodds found the broken glass in the door.'

‘Where is this PC, Marriott?'

‘Here, sir,' said a caped figure. He approached Hardcastle and saluted. ‘All correct, sir.'

‘I'm glad you think so, lad.' Hardcastle always addressed constables as ‘lad' even though they were often his age or even older. ‘Sergeant Marriott's given me the brief details, but how exactly did you come across this break-in?'

‘I was patrolling my beat in a north-westerly direction, sir—' the PC began.

‘Never mind all that fiddle-faddle, Dodds, you're not giving evidence now,' said Hardcastle. ‘Just tell me the story.'

‘Yes, sir. I was about fifty yards away when I heard someone shouting for police. So I made me way down here a bit swift and come across the broken glass panel in this door, sir, and so I ventured inside.'

‘And what did you find when you
ventured
inside, as you put it, lad?' demanded Hardcastle sarcastically. He was always impatient when receiving a report from an officer who prevaricated.

‘I saw Mr Gosling's body lying on the floor, sir. I never touched nothing apart from ascertaining that he was dead. Then I shouted for my mate on the adjoining beat, and told him to get assistance from Rochester Row nick, sir. It's only about five minutes away.'

‘For God's sake, lad, I know where Rochester Row nick is,' snapped Hardcastle. ‘Anything else?'

‘Yes, sir, sorry, sir. While I was waiting I had a word with the gent from the outfitters next door. It was him what called me, sir, and he reckoned as how he'd seen a motor vehicle leaving the scene at a fast speed.'

‘Did you see this motor vehicle yourself?'

‘No, sir. It must've made off in the opposite direction. The opposite direction from the one I come from, if you see what I mean, sir.'

‘And who is this man?'

‘Mr Sidney Partridge, sir,' said Dodds, quickly referring to his pocketbook.

Hardcastle grunted and turned to Marriott. ‘I don't suppose you've had time to find out what's been taken yet. But I presume they didn't leave without helping themselves to the tomfoolery.'

‘The glass showcases have been broken into, sir, and they've been emptied,' said Marriott. ‘Quite a haul of jewellery, I'd've thought, although they've left some cheap stuff behind, along with all of the stuff that had been pledged, as far as I can tell. It seems as though they knew what they were looking for.'

‘We'd better take a glim at this here corpse, then.' Closing his umbrella, Hardcastle pushed open the door with a gloved hand.

The body of an elderly man lay face down in the centre of the shop floor, arms outstretched, his head a mass of matted blood. He was dressed in striped pyjamas, a dressing gown and slippers. An Ever-Ready electric torch – still switched on – lay close to the man's right hand, and a pool of his blood had spread across the linoleum-covered floor. But blood had been splashed everywhere: on the front of the counter, on the walls and on the showcases.

‘They must've given him a good whack, judging by the amount of blood, Marriott. Looks like an abattoir,' said Hardcastle, hands in pockets as he glanced around. ‘I reckon he disturbed these villains and was bludgeoned on the head for his pains.'

‘Yes, sir.' Marriott confined himself to a simple answer, as he always did whenever the DDI stated the obvious. ‘I've sent for Doctor Spilsbury, sir,' he said, anticipating the DDI's next instruction.

‘That PC said this man's name was Gosling.'

‘Yes, sir, Reuben Gosling. He's owned this establishment for nigh on thirty years.' It was Marriott's job to possess such local knowledge. ‘He's a jeweller as well as a pawnbroker.'

‘I gathered that from the sign outside,' said Hardcastle acidly. ‘Is he married?'

‘I believe he's a widower, sir. I had heard that his wife died about ten years ago, but I don't know for sure.'

‘And he lived over the shop, I suppose.'

‘Yes, sir.

‘Where's this witness Partridge, the one that Dodds mentioned?'

‘He lives above the outfitters next door, sir.'

‘In that case we'll have a word with him while we're waiting for the good doctor to arrive.' Hardcastle turned to the two DCs. ‘You wait here for Dr Spilsbury. Have a look round and see if you can find anything of importance, but don't touch it if you do. Understood, Catto?'

‘Yes, sir.' Catto was an experienced detective and did not need to be told how to conduct himself at the scene of a murder, but for some reason that Catto had never been able to fathom his abilities were always called into question by the DDI.

The window of the outfitter's shop next to Gosling's establishment contained a number of mannequins attired in the latest men's fashions. Hardcastle looked around the doorway of the shop until he discovered a bell handle high on one side. He pulled at it several times.

Eventually a window on the floor above the door was flung open and a tousled head appeared.

‘Who the devil's that at this time of the morning disturbing decent folk when they're trying to get some shut-eye?' The speaker was clearly in a bad mood.

‘Police,' said Hardcastle, stepping back from the doorway and looking up.

‘Oh, right. Hang on, guv'nor.' The head disappeared and moments later the shop door was opened by a man in a nightshirt over which he wore an overcoat. ‘Sorry, I didn't know it was you,' he said. ‘You'd better come inside. It's a bit of a dirty night out there.'

Leaving their umbrellas on the step, the two detectives entered the shop and Marriott closed the door.

‘You're Mr Sidney Partridge, I understand,' said Hardcastle.

‘That's me, sir.' Partridge stood with shoulders slightly rounded and hands clasped together in the manner of the obsequious, mid-fifties, shopkeeper he was.

‘I'm Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division. Are you the owner of this establishment, Mr Partridge?'

‘That I am, sir, and any time I can fix you up with a suit, just say the word. At a discount, of course. I've a very good selection.' Partridge made a sweeping motion with a hand, as if to encompass his entire stock.

‘I'll bear that in mind,' said Hardcastle, gazing round at the racks of suits, overcoats and other items of apparel that comprised a gentleman's outfitter's stock-in-trade. ‘I understand you have some information that might assist me.'

‘Well, I don't know if I've got anything to tell you that might be of any use, sir. Me and Gladys had toasted the New Year on the stroke of twelve and then we chatted for a bit. It must've been about ten past midnight when we decided to turn in. I checked the curtains to make sure they were covering the window, seeing as how the maroons had gone off from the fire station in Greycoat Place about half an hour before. But I knew we had time to spare before those wretched Blimps came right over London. It's always the same, you see, sir. They set off the warning far too early. The curtains were all right, though; being in the trade, so to speak, I can lay my hands on a good quality twill.'