HONOR MISPLACED

Arthur Browne

Chapter Fourteen

   They discussed what they should do as they finished eating. Charlie really meant for it to be he and Billy that were discussing it, but they couldn’t very well exclude Uncle Jack when he hand handed them their first real suspect on a plate. “We could put him under surveillance,” suggested Billy, the obvious answer to a detective.

But Charlie and his uncle knew cab drivers. “He would be onto you in nothing flat if you try to follow him around,” Uncle Jack declared.

“True enough,” Charlie agreed. “Especially now with the war on. Less traffic to mix with, and at night with the blackout it would be almost impossible to keep track of him. It might be easier to set up some watchers around the General’s home. If we see him passing by there more than a few times, or if he parks somewhere in the vicinity, that might be enough to arrest him.”

“Why can’t you bring him in for questioning right now?” Demanded Uncle Jack. “The scratches on his face alone should be enough to at least question him.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Charlie admitted. “We have no motive for one thing. And we have no witnesses. We don’t have any evidence from the crime scenes. All we have is the word of his fellow cabbies that he was probably driving somewhere at the times of the murders and that none of you saw him in the usual places.”

“Can’t you put a bug in his cab or something?” Uncle Jack demanded.

Charlie smiled as he said, “You’ve been watching too many gangster movies from America. We aren’t the FBI. Our budget has dropped to nothing with the war. And we didn’t have equipment like that to begin with.”

“Well me and the lads can keep an eye on him,” his uncle insisted.

“The last thing we need is you and your gang playing G-men,” Charlie tried to reason with the older man. “And he would spot you faster than he would the police. He would think you were trailing him to find his best fares.”

His uncle had to admit that this was true.

“What about a trap?” Charlie asked, suddenly excited. “We could dress one of the constables or young Billy here up in Captain Crowley’s uniform. Have him limp off down the street with his cane as though he were out for a walk or on his way somewhere. If we did it just as the sun was setting and visibility is poor, we could might get away with it.”

“That might actually work,” declared Inspector Dawes.

Charlie pretended to be hurt. “You needn’t sound so surprised,” he pouted.

Billy had the decency to look suitably chastised.

“The thing is that would only work if we see him parked nearby or circling the block. He has to see our bait to take it. I do like my idea of setting up some watch posts on or near the General’s home,” Charlie said. “I know they are all safe enough now. But those soldiers wont be watching for a cab in the neighborhood. And they couldn’t do anything about it anyway but shoot the driver after he takes a shot at someone. I think we need to pay a call on the lovely Lady Emily. She is the one to ask. She runs that household, that’s clear enough.” He went over to the bar and borrowed the telephone from Edmund Hotspur. Lady Emily was quite happy to have he and Billy stop by. “It isn’t like I can go anywhere,” was what she said in a somewhat wistful tone.

They paid the bill and bid Uncle Jack goodbye, but not before Charlie issued a stern warning against taking matters into his own hands. “I know you want to get this bastard, but we need to stay within the law. We can’t have some clever barrister get him off because we made a mistake.”

Uncle Jack promised to behave, and Charlie and Billy climbed into the little police vehicle that had seen better days. Once again it was but a short trip, and soon they were seated comfortably in the General’s sitting room once more. Charlie explained to Lady Emily their theory about the possibility that a cabbie was the one persecuting the family for some as yet unknown reason. She was surprised by this revelation, but saw the logic behind it. Charlie then asked about the probability of the General allowing a rotation of policemen with binoculars to be stationed on their roof, and explained his reasoning once again. She assured him that the General would have no objections.

“We will also have some constables close by,” he went on, “just in case we do spot the same cab passing by too many times, or parked near the house. Anything out of the ordinary like that and we will have a chance to make an arrest.” Charlie suddenly realized that the news of her Husband’s brother’s death had not yet been delivered. He felt cold inside as he told he what had happened. She took it bravely.

“Oh, the poor man,” she said quietly, “all alone in that house, no one to look after him. My husband and he were no longer close. They haven’t talked in years. I think that him being the younger son and my husband getting the title started the rift. We tried to make sure he was taken care of financially, but he was a proud man from a proud family and that didn’t sit well. He made some poor investments over the years. Ended up living on just his retirement. And the fact that Edward was promoted so rapidly just made things worse. He showed no interest when I or any of the children reached out to him over the years.”

That explains no one finding the body, considered Charlie. He felt awful to have been the one to bring even more bad news to this remarkable woman. He offered his condolences, and told her that he would be sending over an officer to keep an eye on the street. Then he and Billy took their leave.

When he got back to his little office there was another report laying on his desk. The crime lab reported that the bullet found lodged in the door frame of the Crowley residence was too damaged to compare it to the other bullet that had killed Flight Lieutenant Thomas Crowley. Charlie couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised. Now even if the bullets found in the General’s brother’s body were in perfect condition, there would be no way to say for sure that they all came from the same gun.

He spent some time pondering the best way to take a closer look at Tom Hartford without alerting him to their suspicions or putting the case in jeopardy. His idea to set a trap for the man did seem like a gamble, but one that might just pay off. But he just couldn’t figure out the timing of how to have the bait and the suspect pass close to one another. Maybe it would be better to approach the man now and ask him some questions about where he had been at the time of the murders after all. It might just put him in a panic and cause him to be more likely to fall for the trick. Or he might just cease his attacks altogether if he realized he was a suspect. Charlie couldn’t decide if the risk was worth taking. Either way it did seem to beat just sitting around waiting for the killer to strike again. And the more he thought about it the more he came to the conclusion that talking to the man was the best way to go. It would either force him to do something rash and bring him out into the open, or they might just find the fellow had perfectly good alibis, and a sound reason for the scratches on his face. This whole idea of a cabbie being the killer might just be diverting them from finding the actual killer.

He went out and knocked on the Chief Inspector’s door. Chief Inspector Andrew McLaughlin was a fit, if not overly tall man with rather bushy blond hair now going slightly gray. Charlie set out his suspicions along with his lack of progress and the plan he was devising. The Chief Inspector approved of the plan if not the lack of progress, and agreed to detail some men to watch the General’s home as well as placing a few to wander the neighborhood keeping an eye out for taxi cabs.

“Well I suppose this is the best we can do, given the circumstances,” the Chief Inspector was willing to admit. “But there seems a lot that could go wrong. Imagine if word got out that a cabbie was going around doing away with people. So far we have kept the murders out of the press. Amazing what powers the government has during war time. Let me know if you need anything else.”

That was a dismissal if ever Charlie had heard one. He went out to set up the schedule for watching over the General’s house. He sent three of the plainclothesmen over right away, one to go up on the roof with binoculars, and the other two to separately pretend they were out for a stroll. He gave them strict instructions to keep a sharp eye out and note the license numbers of any cabs they saw. He also told them that if they were noticed by the drivers of the cabs, they should keep walking out of the neighborhood and immediately phone headquarters to have a replacement sent over. He didn’t want the killer to spot the same men walking around more than once. He revised the scheduled to change the shifts of the men walking more often.

Then he grabbed Billy and told him to get the car once again. They were going to track down Tom Hartford and have a little chat. They would learn something one way or the other, that Charlie promised himself.