‘I have.’
‘They’ll strip you of your commission.’
‘They might do worse than that — they may send me to jail. But it doesn’t matter — I’m still going to do what’s right.’
‘And what about us?’ the other man demands. ‘Have you thought about that? It will ruin us, too.’
‘I know,’ Lieutenant Fortesque says, ‘and I’m very sorry for that. If I could find some way to spare you all, while doing the right thing myself, I would. But there is no way.’
‘What happened after that?’ Blackstone asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Blenkinsop said. ‘The sergeant spotted me standing there, told me I was an idle little bleeder, and ordered me to go to the reserve trench and fetch the rum ration.’
‘Were the three officers still there when you got back?’
‘No, they’d gone.’
‘And how did Lieutenant Fortesque seem?’
‘He was sitting at his table with his head in his hands. I asked him if there was anything I could do for him, and he said there was nothing anybody could do. I think. . I think he knew he was going to be murdered.’
‘But you say that you didn’t kill him?’
‘No, I. . he was kind to me. He even. .’
‘He even what?’
‘He asked me once if I’d ever. . you know. .’
‘No, I don’t know.’
‘If I’d ever been with a woman.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘That I hadn’t. Then he asked me if I’d ever wanted to, and I told him that of course I’d wanted to, but when I’d asked women if they would, they’d only laughed at me. So he said that there were some women who wouldn’t laugh at me — who’d let me do it to them as many times as I wanted to, as long as I had the money.’
‘Prostitutes,’ Blackstone said.
‘That’s right,’ Blenkinsop agreed. ‘And he said that even though I had a cushy number, what with being his servant, there was still a chance I’d get killed by a stray bullet or a grenade, and no man should have to die a virgin. So the next time we came to this village, he gave one of the corporals some money, and told him to take me to the brothel.’
‘He didn’t come with you himself?’
Blenkinsop laughed at Blackstone’s obvious ignorance. ‘Officers don’t go to the same brothels as the men. They don’t do it to whores who’ve already had it done to them fifty times that day. What officers do is go to Paris, and sleep with ladies who smell of perfume and are dressed in silk from head to foot.’
‘What I don’t see is why, if you hardly ever left the dugout, you weren’t there when Lieutenant Fortesque was killed,’ Blackstone said.
‘Oh, that was because he’d sent me on an errand,’ Blenkinsop told him.
It was half an hour, to the second, when Corporal Johnson and the other two redcaps returned.
‘We’ve come for the prisoner,’ Johnson said — as though that wasn’t already obvious.
‘Take him outside,’ Blackstone said to the other two redcaps. ‘But I don’t want him locking up yet.’
‘If you don’t mind-’ Johnson began.
‘But I do mind,’ Blackstone interrupted. ‘I mind very strongly. And once the other three are outside, Corporal Johnson, you and I are going to have another one of our cosy little chats — at the end of which, even someone like you should be able to see why I mind.’
Johnson nodded to the other two redcaps, who grabbed Blenkinsop and frogmarched him out of the room.
Blackstone waited until they’d closed the door behind them, then said, ‘Tell me, Corporal Johnson, before you arrested Blenkinsop, did you bother to check out his alibi?’
‘He didn’t give me one,’ Johnson said, as if that were all the defence he needed. ‘He just kept babbling on about how he hadn’t killed the lieutenant.’
‘So he didn’t give you one — and you didn’t think — even for a moment — to ask him if he had one?’
‘There was no need to, was there?’ Johnson replied. ‘Captain Carstairs’ note made it quite clear that he was the guilty man.’
What was the matter with these people? Blackstone wondered — although he already knew the answer.
‘Blenkinsop claims that Lieutenant Fortesque stayed up all night, drinking whisky,’ he said.
‘Officers do that kind of thing,’ Johnson said. ‘It’s because they’re gentlemen, you see.’
‘Though if an ordinary man did it, you’d just call him a drunk — and lash him to the wheel in the town square,’ Blackstone pointed out.
‘It’s not the same thing at all,’ Johnson said stubbornly.
‘How is it different?’
‘I can’t explain it — it just is.’
Because the officers said it was, Blackstone thought.
‘Blenkinsop also says that, as a result of spending all night “being a gentleman”, Lieutenant Fortesque had drained his bottle by an hour before dawn,’ he continued.
‘That’s possible.’
‘And that the lieutenant ordered him to go and get another bottle from the quartermaster’s office in the reserve trench.’
‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? A man who’s worried about being shot will say anything.’
‘Yes, he will — and sometimes, it will even be the truth.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Blenkinsop says he can produce witnesses who will support his claim. He says that when he left for the reserve trench, there were several other privates near the dugout, and they can testify that Lieutenant Fortesque was standing in the doorway, alive and well.’
‘I don’t see-’ Johnson began.
‘You mean, you don’t want to see,’ Blackstone interrupted him. ‘Blenkinsop further claims it took him about twenty minutes to reach the reserve trench. That would be about right, wouldn’t it?’
‘More or less,’ Johnson said reluctantly.
‘And that when he did reach the reserve trench, the supplies still hadn’t arrived, and he had to wait until they did. All of which meant that by the time he returned to the dugout, Lieutenant Fortesque’s body had already been discovered. Have you got all that clearly in your mind, Corporal Johnson? When Blenkinsop left, Fortesque was alive — and when Blenkinsop returned, Fortesque was dead.’
‘He could have doubled back,’ Johnson said.
‘Would there have been time?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then bloody well find out!’
‘He was the only enlisted man who could have got close enough to Lieutenant Fortesque. .’ Johnson muttered, mantra-like.
‘Did you question Blenkinsop shortly after the lieutenant’s body was discovered?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘In the trench, of course. Just outside the dugout.’
‘And was he holding a whisky bottle in his hand?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Oh come on!’ Blackstone said, exasperatedly.
‘I was investigating the murder of an officer. A whisky bottle’s not something you notice at times like that.’
‘Well, here’s something you will have noticed,’ Blackstone said. ‘Was the front of his uniform soaked with blood?’
‘No, but. .’
‘You did see Lieutenant Fortesque’s injuries for yourself, didn’t you, Corporal Johnson?’
‘Well, yes. . I. .’
‘And was it at all possible for the man who inflicted them not to have been covered in blood?’
‘Well, no — but he could have changed into another uniform.’
‘The army must have altered a great deal since my day,’ Blackstone said, ‘because, back then, enlisted men didn’t have spare uniforms they could simply change into.’
‘They don’t now,’ Johnson said worriedly.
‘But officers do, don’t they?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Let me ask you that question again,’ Blackstone said menacingly. ‘Do officers have spare uniforms?’
‘Some of them might,’ Johnson conceded.
‘I want you to examine Blenkinsop’s alibi carefully,’ Blackstone said. ‘And if it checks out — and it will check out, because he hasn’t got the imagination to have invented it — I want you to release him. Is that clear?’