Hardcastle's Traitors Read Online Free PDF Page B

at the butler. ‘Bring a decanter of whisky, Henwood.’
    â€˜Very good, sir.’
    â€˜I imagine you’ve come to see me about my stolen motor car, Inspector.’
    â€˜Indeed, sir,’ said Hardcastle cautiously. ‘If it is your vehicle, I believe it might have been taken in order to carry out a robbery.’
    â€˜Good grief!’ exclaimed Villiers. ‘Where was this?’
    â€˜At a jeweller’s establishment in Vauxhall Bridge Road.’
    â€˜Was much taken?’
    â€˜Very likely, sir, but we don’t know for sure yet,’ said Hardcastle. ‘However, that don’t really concern the police so much as the fact that the owner, a man by the name of Reuben Gosling, was murdered in the course of the robbery.’
    â€˜Good grief!’ exclaimed Villiers again. ‘It’s this damned war, you know, Inspector. Decent common standards seem to have gone out of the window. Have you caught the murderer yet?’
    â€˜Not yet, sir,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but you can rest assured I’ll have him standing on the hangman’s trap before long. Or, I should say, have
them
waiting for the drop.’
    â€˜There was more than one, then?’ Villiers assumed an air of surprise.
    â€˜According to a witness at the scene, two men were involved.’
    â€˜Have you any idea—?’ Villiers broke off as the butler entered the room bearing a whisky decanter, a soda siphon and three crystal tumblers on a tray. ‘Just put it down over there, Henwood. I’ll deal with it.’ He turned to Hardcastle. ‘I dare say you gentlemen wouldn’t be averse to a dram to celebrate the New Year, eh, Inspector?’
    â€˜Most kind, sir,’ murmured Hardcastle, grateful that Villiers had not made the usual fatuous comment about policemen not being permitted to drink on duty.
    â€˜I don’t suppose you’ve found my car yet, have you?’ enquired Villiers, as he handed round the whisky.
    â€˜Not yet, sir, but I’ve no doubt it’ll turn up. Thieves of this sort usually abandon a car they’ve used once it’s served its purpose.’ Hardcastle had never before dealt with a murder involving a car, but made the comment as though fully conversant with such a situation. ‘And with any luck, we’ll find that they’ve left their fingerprints all over it.’
    â€˜I just hope they haven’t damaged it,’ said Villiers, taking a sip of his Scotch. ‘It’s a valuable motor car, a Haxe-Doulton.’
    â€˜So I believe,’ murmured Hardcastle, sampling Villiers’s excellent whisky. ‘This is a very decent malt, if I may say so, sir,’ he said.
    â€˜I have it sent direct from Islay,’ said Villiers, waving a deprecating hand in response to the compliment. ‘I imported the car from America just before the war and it cost me over seven hundred pounds plus the cost of having it brought over,’ he said, confirming Hardcastle’s view that the car’s owner was an exceedingly wealthy man.
    â€˜Where do you normally keep the car, sir?’ asked Marriott, even though the message from Chelsea had stated that the vehicle had been taken from outside Sinclair Villiers’s house.
    Villiers appeared surprised by the question. ‘Outside in the street,’ he said, as though it were an obvious place to park a car. ‘I told the sergeant at Chelsea police station that that’s where it had been left.’
    â€˜And you last saw it when?’ queried Hardcastle. He knew that that information had also been contained in the message.
    â€˜At eight o’clock last night,’ said Villiers. ‘But, look, Inspector, I told the chap at Chelsea all this.’
    â€˜I presume you didn’t go out to celebrate New Year’s Eve, then.’ Hardcastle ignored Villiers’s mild protest; he knew that the information about the car’s theft had been given to