HONOR MISPLACED

Arthur Browne

Chapter Six

   The rest of the crew all at once began protesting the Warrant Officer’s innocence in loud voices. Charlie held up his hands to fend off the verbal onslaught but to no avail. Suddenly the Wing Commander, in a voice that wasn’t very loud at all and should never have been heard above the din, said one single word.

“Attention!”

Silence fell and movement stilled.

The Wing Commander turned to Charlie and calmly explained, “What I believe this pack of misfits is trying to tell you, Inspector, is that Warrant Officer Lewin has never left this base at any time within the last fortnight. You have seen our security. You know that sneaking out would be impossible. I can show you the records of all leaves issued if you wish me to do so. And he certainly has dozens of witnesses who saw him here yesterday and last night.”

Charlie had already decided that the Warrant Officer made for a lousy suspect. “I’m quite certain all that is true,” he said evenly to the Wing Commander whose name he still did not know. “I never expected to unearth the killer on this visit to your, uh, unusual airbase, but one must go through the motions. That is how these things are done.” He turned back to the assembled bomber crew. “Is there anything else that any of you can tell me that might shed any light on the Flight Lieutenant’s last days?” he asked amiably.

He was assured that they were now holding nothing back.

He couldn’t resist a small speech to such a captive audience. “I don’t hold it against you for trying to protect your crewmate. It was perhaps a bit foolish and decidedly unnecessary, but your loyalty does you credit. I wish you all the luck in the world with… whatever it is exactly that you do here.” He received a smattering of chuckles for his efforts, and then bid the men farewell.

This time as he escorted the two policemen back outside, the Wing Commander walked beside them, and at the door paused and motioned them through first. Once outside, the man actually began to laugh quietly.  “You certainly led them down the primrose path, Inspector,” he said unexpectedly. “I knew there was something going on in there, but I wasn’t expecting that.”

As long as the man was in such an obliging mood, Charlie decided to press the investigation forward. “If you don’t mind me asking, Wing Commander, why is it that Mr. Crowley was in London this weekend, if things are so busy around here and no one else is being given leave?”

The Wing Commander looked thoughtful and just a little impressed at the same time. “It isn’t that the boys are flying every night. There are other factors at play. It is mostly a matter of security. This installation isn’t supposed to exist. Yet here we are out in the countryside, with nothing but small towns surrounding us. I can’t very well just let loose a horde of thirsty airmen to descend on the countryside like locusts every weekend. Not to mention the ground crews, staff, and the soldiers guarding the base. I used to give them passes to go to London before we grew to such a large operation. Now the best I can do is let small groups of men go to the city every now and again.”

Charlie now had a chance to look thoughtful. “But I suppose having young Mr. Crowley under your command presented its own challenges, eh?”

The Wing Commander stopped and looked at Charlie with undisguised admiration. “You don’t miss much, do you, Inspector? The truth is that having a member of the minor nobility here wasn’t a problem at all. But commanding the son of a man who makes many of the decisions about how this war is going to be fought required some finesse. I don’t mean to say that I gave him preferential treatment often, but there were a handful of times when he asked for permission to spend the weekend in London, and I couldn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t. And that is what happened that led up to all this. He came to my on Saturday morning and said he just needed to straighten out some things. I assume now that it might have had something to do with that French woman, but he didn’t tell me. I didn’t ask. He had his own car, and there was nothing for him to do here. So I let him go. I wish I hadn’t, but I did.”

“Quite understandable, Wing Commander,” Charlie told the man. They had arrived at their car. “I do have to ask about the Flight Lieutenant’s personal effects. I was wondering if I could see them.”

The Wing Commander looked pained. “I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news there, Inspector. I feel it only fair to tell you that his things were taken away by a special military police squad only hours after we found out about his death. You might as well know that the military is investigating this homicide as well. Those fellows were sent here at the direct order of the Prime Minister. I suspect that they were not only investigating the murder, but making sure that there was nothing in the items that would lead to the disclosure of this base. I might as well tell you that this operation is being run at the direct order of the Prime Minister. He may very well have come up with the idea himself. I have no doubt that any personal belongings of the Flight Lieutenant will make their way to his family soon enough.”

Charlie was not at all happy about this latest turn of events. He stuck his hand out and received a hearty shake from the Wing Commander. Charlie half expected the man to offer his name also, but it was not to be, and they climbed into the car and headed back for London. It was almost completely dark now and the airfield was showing no lights at all. The lights on the car were covered over to narrow slits as per blackout regulations, and it was a slow drive all the way. They used the time to discuss the case.

Charlie had had the foresight to ask for the address of Warrant Officer Babbage’s brother, and as they neared London he told Billy that they might as well make a brief stop there to interview the mysterious Marie Korlette. All of a sudden flashes filled the dark sky ahead of them, lighting up the distance. The Germans were at work over the city once more. It was almost beautiful in a very sad way. Red and gold bursts of light would momentarily cast the skyline of the city in silhouette, and bursts of antiaircraft fire of several hues rose slowly and majestically to burst in the scattered clouds. A fireworks show of death considered Charlie with a shudder.

The bombers had moved on before they entered the city proper, and they had no trouble finding the house they were looking for other than a few detours around fresh bomb damage and new fires. As they neared their destination, Billy made an observation that had already occurred to Charlie. “This isn’t more than a mile from where the murder took place, is it?”

“I wasn’t one hundred percent certain of it until we got close, but it is indeed a bit much for coincidence, isn’t it?” Charlie agreed.

They pulled up in front of the small and unprepossessing residence and walked up the front stairs and rang the bell. It was opened moments later by a lovely young woman who was obviously less than thrilled to see them. Her smile fell away and a look of annoyance crossed her pixie-like face. Charlie knew at once that this was the French girl and not the housewife who had taken her in.

She was dressed fashionably, more fashionably than her supposed refugee status would seem to allow for. Charlie found himself wondering if she had somehow talked her way onto a British warship in a port under heavy bombardment with a large trunk of clothes, or if she had somehow managed to acquire a new wardrobe in London. And if so, how? He took in the high heeled shoes that looked to be expensive, the black stockings that might be real silk under the too-short skirt. The black, brocaded jacket and bright scarf around her neck. She had on a necklace that might be real pearls and a silver band around her wrist that sparkled with some kind of perhaps precious stones. Here hair was cut rather short in back and slightly longer in the front, which he assumed was the height of fashion somewhere. She had pale skin, elfin features, and light brown eyes. All of this he took in in an instant thanks to the light spilling from within the house, because the girl motioned them to enter quickly even as she began, in fairly good English and with a rather fetching French accent, to ask them who they were. He thought that inviting two strange men into the house before determining who they were was a poor idea, but the blackout regulations did not make allowances for this sort of thing.

He flashed his ID card at her, and she looked baffled. “Is this about my papers? Because I have been standing in line every day to finish with that. You make too many papers.”

Charlie smiled in a friendly manner and hastened to correct her false assumption. “We wish to talk to you about Flight Lieutenant Crowley. We just have a few questions to ask.”

She glanced quickly at the door. She is expecting someone, Charlie realized.

“Well, keep your voices down. Mrs. Babbage, she is not feeling well. She is sleeping. So what is it you want to know? Thomas, he is a good man. Is he in trouble? I can’t imagine he get himself in trouble.”

Charlie realized that she was either unaware of the man’s death, or the best actress he had ever met in his life.

“I regret to inform you that he was murdered last night not very far from here.” No sense prolonging the suspense, he decided, and sometimes you could learn a lot from dropping some startling news.

Her eyes went wide and a hand flew to her mouth. But he noticed that she didn’t break down crying. It was the reaction of someone receiving bad news about someone they new, but not someone they were deeply in love with.

“But he was here,” she blurted, “just last night. He came the night before, too, unexpectly… no, how do you say?… unexpectedly. We had a fight. And he come again last night. He wants to make up with me. But we have another fight. And then he went away.”

Charlie couldn’t see the sense in admitting to the police that you had a fight with someone right before they were murdered. She fell even lower on his list of suspects, which at that moment contained absolutely no one. “What time did he leave last night, Miss Korlette?”

She thought for a moment. “It was not too late. Before eleven maybe. Around that time.”

Someone chose that moment to ring the doorbell. Mademoiselle Korlette looked unhappy but not at all surprised, Charlie decided. But she couldn’t very well pretend she hadn’t heard the bell. Because they had never moved away from the door she was able to open it without taking a step. Charlie, and presumably Billy, were surprised to see an American Air Force officer standing on the small porch. Marie was quite obviously not at all surprised. The plot thickens, thought Charlie to himself.

Marie Korlette was more than a little flustered by the timing of this latest arrival. “Well, we really must be going,” and she looked to be getting ready to do exactly that.

“Good manners dictate that you introduce us to your friend,” Charlie insisted, motioning the man to step inside so that they could close the door and not invite any more visitors in the form of bombs raining down from above. He once again flashed his credentials.

“What have I gotten myself into, Mack?” asked the officer in lieu of introducing himself.

Charlie thought he was a full colonel, but he wasn’t that familiar with the American uniforms and their insignia yet. The Americans had just begun arriving in any real numbers quite recently. “You have gotten yourself into the middle of a murder investigation,” Charlie informed the man. “May I ask who you are, Sir?”

“I am Colonel Stephen Rogers, USAF, at your service.” The tall, dark-haired American was a very loud talker.

Charlie didn’t like either the volume or the tone of his voice, but he found the accent fascinating. He wondered briefly if the man was from Texas. He also wondered why Marie wasn’t telling his to keep his voice down so the lady of the house could sleep. “And how long have you been acquainted with Miss Korlette, Sir?”

The officer decided to go with defensiveness rather than helpfulness. “Hey, what is this? Should I be getting myself a lawyer?”

“That is certainly your right, Sir,” Charlie responded truthfully. But he didn’t let it go at that. The man was getting under his skin. “You can phone one from the police station while we conduct a very thorough investigation.” His smile had just a tinge of coldness to it.

The Colonel stove for joviality. “There’s no need for all of that,” he declared. “I have been seeing Marie for about a week, isn’t that right, Honey?” He turned to the young lady for support.

But Charlie wasn’t finished yet. “Did you by any chance meet an RAF officer recently, a friend of Miss Korlette’s by the name of Thomas Crowley?”

The man looked worried now. “Sure, he was here last night when I came by to pick Marie up. I didn’t talk with him. He left as soon as I showed up. Marie said he had been trying to get her to stop seeing me. They used to date for a while. Wait, is he the guy who was murdered?” He looked very worried now.

Marie jumped in at this point. “It is just like he tells you. Tommy wanted me to stop going out with him. He said he loves me. But a man from a family like that, is he ever going to marry a girl from a farm? No, he is not. He was sad, maybe, but nothing happens. He just left.”

“And what did the two of you do then?” Charlie prodded them.

“We went out on the town,” drawled the American, “to two or three places. Drinking, dancing, a hundred people saw us.”

Charlie was watching his suspect list return to absolute zero once again. It had seemed promising for a moment there. A jealous, spurned lover, a fight of some kind in the passion of the moment. Maybe an accidental death in self defense. But he didn’t think the two were lying. He told them they were free to go, and that he would contact them if he felt he needed to.

As they all prepared to depart, Marie Korlette suddenly turned to him. “But I do notice one funny thing,” she said in a rush. “Tommy, he has a big, fancy car. That is how he comes to see me. But this morning, when I go to the building to get my papers, I see the car. It is still parked across the street.”