Chapter Seven… Honor Misplaced…

Posted on November 10, 2013 by pouringmyartout

HONOR MISPLACED

Arthur Browne

Chapter Seven

   Marie showed them to the car before she and her new romantic interest left to wherever it was they were going. Charlie didn’t know how he had missed seeing it when they pulled up at the house, even in the darkness and with the lights of their car nearly covered over. It was on the other side of the street half way down the block, and it was the kind of car he would normally have noticed anywhere, let alone in this neighborhood of inexpensive homes.

It was a black 1939 Rolls Royce Wraith, and it was a lovely automobile if ever one was made. He and Billy walked all the way around the huge machine checking for damage or a flat tire, but the car seemed to be in perfectly good order.

“So why would a man leave a car like this here and just walk off?” Billy pondered aloud. He made as though to reach for the driver’s door handle.

“Let’s leave that for the lab boys to fingerprint, shall we?” Charlie admonished him. But then he noticed that the large bonnet was slightly ajar. He removed a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wrapped it around his fingers before gingerly lifting the bonnet and peering inside. He was careful to grasp it not by the handle but off to the side a bit, which he couldn’t have done if it hadn’t been unlatched. Unfortunately it was too dark to see much. He told Billy to go and see if there was a torch in the police vehicle as there was supposed to be. And it turned out there was.

With Billy shining the light for him while he held the bonnet up, they checked the engine over and it didn’t take long to figure out what the problem was. Someone had pulled the distributer cap loose, but left it resting in place so it wasn’t obvious what had been done to it. In the dark, with out a torch, it would have been impossible to spot.

“Well it appears that someone tampered with it, unless the car wouldn’t start and he loosened it himself while trying to figure out what the problem was.” Charlie was just thinking out loud.

Billy joined in this exercise. “Someone purposely disabled the car while he was inside arguing with the girl? But what was the purpose? To keep him here? Or to make sure that he left on foot?”

Charlie glanced up and the moon was just bright enough to let him see that there were no telephone lines leading to any of the houses nearby. He mentioned this fact to Billy.

“So he would have had to walk somewhere, it would seem,” Billy said sagely. “But was this all to set up a chance to murder him?”

“The two events might not even be linked,” Charlie conjectured. ‘”Maybe out new American friend already knew about the romance between Marie and the Flight Lieutenant. He might have disabled the car just out of spite.” This seemed implausible even as he found himself saying it.

Billy was too polite to point this out. “If it was the killer, did he follow the victim here? Or did he know he was coming already? It seems like an intricate way to stage a robbery, and besides, the money was still in his wallet, so that takes that off the table.”

“And if murder was the plan all along, we still don’t know the motive,” Charlie added to the story. “If someone was interested in finding out about his clandestine work for the RAF, they wouldn’t have shot him in the back.” But then he reconsidered. “Unless they tried to kidnap him and he made a break for it. They might well have shot him to keep him from getting away.”

“Or it was a planned robbery, but someone came by and interrupted them before they could get the money,” Billy contributed.

Charlie decided that they were getting no place. They had more questions than answers. He told Billy to drive the official car back to Scotland Yard and send the lab boys over to examine the auto and dust it for prints. He would stay and make sure nothing happened to it.

He tried, while standing on the dark street, to think about the case, but his thoughts kept turning to Kat and their lunch date. He could picture her in his mind, her smile, her earnestness and easy manner. And he found that he was looking forward to lunch more than he ever would have expected. When Billy came back with the technicians, he left the car in their care and had Billy drop him off at his small flat. He went upstairs, made a small bite to eat and then went to bed. Before sleep took him, he found himself thinking not about the case but rather about Kat’s eyes.

The following morning he made himself a cup of coffee that, thanks to the German wolf packs prowling the seas, was mostly something other than coffee. On the other hand he was glad to not have had his sleep interrupted by their bombers. That was a rare thing these days. And then he was off to work. Getting to the Victoria Embankment and Scotland Yard, headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police, had developed into something of a game that he played every morning. He would set out walking from his flat and see how far he got on foot before one of his Uncle’s cabbie friends managed to spot him and offer him a lift. He was more than half convinced that they took turns cruising along his regular route every morning until they found him. He felt a rush of affection for these men, some of whom he had known for years. And he couldn’t help laughing aloud as a thought occurred to him. He thought he might start taking alternate routes to make the game more challenging. An old woman with a shopping bag looked askance at the lone man laughing as he walked down the street.

He heard the cab pulling up behind him and turned to see who would be driving him that morning. The lucky winner of this morning’s game of hide and seek was Reggie Ellenborough, and old West Ender with a red face and short hair that stuck straight up and made him look a little like a friendly old hedgehog. Charlie slid into the back seat and settled in for the short drive.

“Have you solved the murder yet, Charlie?” Reggie wanted to know. “I’ve never seen Jack so worked up. You better hope he doesn’t catch wind of who did it before you do, or I wouldn’t want to be that poor sod.”

“He has as good a chance of solving this one as I do,” Charlie admitted. “Every lead I go after vanishes like the fog when the sun comes up.”

Reggie went on to recount some of the off hours exploits of a few of his unmarried coworkers and then they were driving beside the river and there was the historic and much loved building in which Charlie worked. The sight of it never failed to stir him somehow. He once again allowed himself to relax when he saw that it hadn’t been leveled by bombs during the night. He bid Reggie a fond farewell and went inside.

Billy spotted him at the same instant he saw Billy, working away at his desk, busy reading some paperwork. As soon as Billy saw him, he dropped the papers and stood rapidly, and Charlie knew instantly that something was wrong. Billy stood and walked towards him, and there was something about the way he walked, as though he were reluctant to approach him, and the set of his jaw, and the way his eyes seemed to be just a little too wide, that caused Charlie’s heart to beat more rapidly. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Was it Uncle Jack? Or his Mother?

“Charlie, I just got the paperwork. They found her this morning, floating in the river not far from here,” Billy began in a rush.

Because his mother had leaped into his mind, he now assumed, for some absurd reason, that this was who Billy was talking about. Charley started to panic a little. He was trying to figure out what to ask first when Billy went on to say, “I know you just met her, but I’m sure this must come as a terrible shock.”

And then it hit him who Billy meant. And as strange as it seemed to him, he wasn’t sure that this news wasn’t as devastating as if his own mother had been found dead. That poor girl, that poor, sweet young girl. And he realized how utterly bizarre it was for him to feel as though he had suffered the loss of a loved one, but he couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t as though he had lost a large part of his past. It was as if he was losing an even bigger part of his future. As if he somehow sensed, somehow knew for a certainty, that they were intended to spend their lives together and now they never would, never could.

A part of him went cold inside, and he wasn’t at all sure that it would ever be warm again.

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67 Responses to Chapter Seven… Honor Misplaced…

  1. benzeknees's avatar benzeknees says:
    December 5, 2013 at 8:56 pm

    You may have to change Charlie getting into the front seat of the cab with the driver – I believe London cabbies are/were designed with no seat beside the driver & a very spacious are for passengers. If this is the case Charlie would have no choice but to sit in the back. Found this on Wikipedia: Right up till the late 1950s vehicles licensed as London taxis were required to be provided with an open-access luggage platform in place of the front passenger seat found on other passenger cars (including taxis licensed for use in other British cities). If you go to Hackney carriage on Wikipedia you can see a pic along the right hand side.

    Reply
  4. wildersoul's avatar WilderSoul says:
    November 11, 2013 at 9:40 am

    Boo hooooo! Poor Charlie! And dear sweet Kat, so sad.
    Off to read chater 8, then off to sleep.
    I am woefully behind on the sci-fi story!

    Reply
  6. Krishnan P Nair's avatar Krishnan P Nair says:
    November 10, 2013 at 11:26 am

    The death of a loved one has shocked me too. My regrets to charlie.

    Reply
  7. Trenton Babbage Enterprises's avatar Trenton Babbage Enterprises says:
    November 10, 2013 at 6:00 am

    ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…bonnet…well done.

    Reply
  8. Eli's Mommy's avatar addercatter says:
    November 10, 2013 at 5:49 am

    No no no!!! No… he hadn’t said a name yet!!! Make it be someone else!!! Not her!!! I am crying… begging… CRYING!!!

    Reply

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