James Benn - Rag and Bone

“Curiosity, perhaps, but I’m inclined to agree with you. He didn’t confide in anyone, if the other staff are to be believed.”

“Anything else on him?”

“Besides his billfold, a train ticket to Plymouth. First class, rather extravagant for a waiter.”

“Any idea what’s in Plymouth that would interest him?”

“No idea. He has family in Shoeburyness, a little town at the mouth of the Thames,” Scutt said, consulting his notebook. “None of the hotel staff I talked with remembered him mentioning Plymouth. Tell me, did you know him well, Lieutenant Boyle?”

“I met him, when I came to visit Kaz,” I said, close enough to the truth to satisfy a lawyer.

“So Lieutenant Kazimierz knew him personally?”

“Sure, he worked the Polish floor regularly. I imagine they all knew him, to some extent. Why the interest? Why did you call me here?”

“You share rooms with Lieutenant Kazimierz at the Dorchester, correct?”

“Yes, but what does-”

“Bear with me, Lieutenant. We sent someone over there earlier to find you both. Gent at the desk said he’d seen you leave, but not Kazimierz. He wasn’t in his room. Any idea where he is?”

“He usually walks in the park, but very early. I don’t know where he is now. After last night, Colonel Harding told him to lie low for a while, maybe leave London for a few days. He could have left this morning.”

“Yes, last night. Very odd, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, I’m not much on opera, but I agree it was strange for Sidorov to invite him to that particular one.”

“I’m not referring to that, Lieutenant Boyle. I’m referring to what Kazimierz said. He called Sidorov a butcher, and said he would pay, something along those lines, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Look at the knife. It’s a bayonet, as you’ll see. Don’t touch it, but look at the marking.” I knelt, peering at the shaft of the bayonet, keeping my hands on the ground to steady myself and not topple onto poor Eddie. I could see a symbol, an eagle, stamped into the metal. Next to it were the letters W.P.

“That’s the Polish eagle,” Scutt said. “And they tell me W.P. stands for Wojsko Polskie, Polish Army.”

“What are you after, Inspector?”

“The truth, Lieutenant.” Scutt nodded at the men standing by the body, ready to transport it to the morgue. “Let’s step inside; it’s too cold out here for these old bones.”

We sat in two armchairs in the lobby, away from the flow of officers, staff, police, and guests. Scutt leaned forward and beckoned me closer. “You know of the Special Branch?”

“Yes. Started off as the Irish Special Branch, right?”

“It did, back when the Fenians were setting off bombs in London, in the 1880s, as if that might scare the Crown out of Ireland. Today, Special Branch specializes in intelligence gathering, foreign nationals, and coordinating with MI5 in particular. I called them after I got here and saw it was this Miller chap.”

“Why?”

“Oh, a policeman’s hunch. I’ve been doing this for decades, and I’ve got a sense for when things don’t smell right. This didn’t. With you nosing around, and after last night, it was just too much of a coincidence.”

“What did Special Branch say?”

“I think you may know most of it, but as a professional courtesy, I won’t put you on the spot. Edward Miller was not only a paid informer for the Soviets, but a member of the Communist Party. Had been, for the past six years.”

“You didn’t know that?”

“Not the bit about him being a card-carrying Bolshevik. I just learned that this morning. Now I’m telling you, because it points to your friend Lieutenant Kazimierz.”

“Why, because he got steamed at Sidorov last night? You think he decided to murder the first Red he saw the next morning?”

“From all the talk of the Katyn Forest Massacre in the newspapers, I’d say he’d have had plenty of reason even before this morning.”

“So would any Polish officer in this building. And listen, Kaz and Captain Radecki were paying Eddie to feed bad information to the Russians. Why would they kill him?” As I said that, I remembered what Radecki had said to Eddie. If you perform well, we will pay you. If not, we will kill you.

“Revenge, betrayal, there are many reasons for murder, all of them base. Come with me, I have something to show you,” Scutt said, rising with a groan, slowly straightening his back. “I tell you, I can’t wait for this war to be over, if only to get on with my retirement.”

We entered what until the day before had been Kaz’s office on the floor where the Polish Government in Exile was housed. A uniformed constable stood by Kaz’s desk, as Major Stefan Horak approached Scutt, clearly agitated.

“I cannot believe this, Inspector. There must be some mistake,” Horak said.

“What’s going on?” I asked. Neither met my eyes.

“Look here, Lieutenant Boyle,” Scutt said, taking control of the situation. “We searched Kazimierz’s desk. He’d cleaned most everything out, but see what we found in the bottom drawer.” He opened it and used his pen to push aside a few scraps of paper and an empty file. There, at the bottom, was a single bullet. A. 32-caliber bullet, with fresh marks on the jacket nose where someone had filed an X, creating a homemade dumdum bullet.

“It appears Lieutenant Kazimierz forgot something,” Scutt said.

“It only appears that someone placed this bullet in this drawer,” I said. “He cleared everything out yesterday, didn’t he? A dozen people could have put it there. Any rookie could tell you that.”

“Perhaps,” Scutt admitted. “We may learn something if there are any fingerprints on it, or on the bayonet.”

“I must protest, Inspector,” Major Horak said. “This is an open area; the desks are not guarded. Who knows who placed the bullet there?”

“True enough,” Scutt said. “But why would anyone? Who here would want to frame Lieutenant Kazimierz for murder?”

“No one, of course,” Horak said, and then stopped as the logic sunk in. If it wasn’t a frame-up, then it was Kaz’s bullet.

“When was he here last?” Scutt said.

“Yesterday,” Horak said. “He came in midday to finish some paperwork, then he and Captain Radecki lunched downstairs. He came up to say good-bye to the staff, and departed.”

“Then he couldn’t have left the note for Eddie. It was found this morning.”

“The staff changes their clothes here. Eddie was working the early shift this week. Eddie would be certain to find it this morning, as it appears he did. Lieutenant Kazimierz could have easily placed it in his pocket before he left yesterday.”

“Have you questioned Sheila, on the hotel staff? She and Eddie seemed close.”

“Sheila Carlson,” Scutt said, consulting his notebook. “Today is her day off. We’ll get to her soon enough. We’re short staffed, with men rounding up more Germans each night. Nabbed half a dozen down in Croydon before dawn this morning.” He sighed and pocketed his notebook, his heavy eyelids showing his exhaustion.

“Major Horak,” I said. “Do you store weapons here?”

“No, only the sidearms we carry. The guards bring their weapons from the barracks.”

“No rifles, no bayonets?”

“No. But come with me.” Horak led us down the hall, to another, larger office, with Radecki’s name on the door. It was spacious, by army standards. There was a table, and behind it a bookshelf held volumes in English and Polish. Framed pictures were arranged around a battered green helmet. “It’s gone,” Horak said.

“What is?”

“Valerian’s bayonet. He is very proud of it, and the helmet. He was stationed with our border troops in the east and fought against the Russians. He escaped after all was lost, and is proud he never surrendered his weapons. They wouldn’t let him travel through Romania with his rifle, but he did keep everything else. The bayonet has always been right here, with his helmet.”