Death in Dark Glasses (Inspector Littlejohn)

by George Bellairs

  "I know them well, sir."

  Looney noisily took Littlejohn through the misty lanes to Ronaldsway. The dew was heavy on the grass and the sun had just fallen behind the hills as they took off for England, and long after they landed, the Inspector thought with a chuckle of the saintly vicar of Grenaby following Damon Runyon down Dream Street and into Good Time Charley's Joint in search of adventure.

  16

  THE ARRIVAL OF MR. CARDONNEL

  ON the morning of the day when Littlejohn crossed to the Isle of Man, a large furniture van drew up at the gates of Shenandoah. It was followed by a great flashy car from which emerged a little fat man followed by a buxom blonde young lady who seemed to know all the answers.

  "There it is. Like it?"

  "Nope."

  "You won't know it when I've finished with it, little gel."

  "I hope not," said the little gel with emphasis and, taking out a large portable make-up outfit, she began to improve her looks.

  Mr. Cardonnel had bought Shenandoah. He had other larger—much larger—places up and down the world, but here he planned to build a remote love-nest for his latest parasite. He was an ignorant, choleric man, with a leathery skin, puffy figure, hanging paunch and poached shifty eyes overhung by large pouches. He wore a light grey flannel suit, a white linen cap, and brown shoes with cloth tops. He made money in London as an importer, Rouen as an exporter, Manchester as a merchant-converter, and Buenos Aires as an operator, all of which occupations had elastic implications. His impudence made everybody fear him, except the Collector of Taxes who had sworn to get him yet.

  "We'll pull it all down an' put it up again. All you need is somethin' to start on, these days. You won't know it when I've done with it. . . ."

  "You said that before."

  Mr. Cardonnel shrugged his shoulders. He'd bought the house cheap and was getting a bit fed up with Sadie and her whims. Not a bit of gratitude in her; and after all he'd done for her! If she didn't behave he'd have to sell it. At a profit, of course. Meanwhile . . .

  He took a key from his pocket and flung it at the chief remover.

  "Shift the lot," he said. "I bought it all, lock, shock and barrel."

  Mr. Cardonnel's origins and nationality were a bit of a puzzle, but he prided himself on his idiomatic English.

  "Shift the lot to the saleroom where I told you. I hope there's a few antiquities there to raise the price of moving them."

  Three men were carrying all the remaining belongings of the late Mr. and Mrs. Finloe Oates and stowing them in a van when P.C. Mee passed on his bike.

  " 'Ere," he said dogmatically. "What are you at? That's not yours . . ."

  "It's 'is. 'E's bought it," said one of the strong men who was bearing a large wringing machine on his back. He wanted to jerk his thumb over his shoulder but circumstances forbade it.

  The light suit, white cap, cloth tops and big cigar rather put Mee at a disadvantage.

  "What's goin' on 'ere, sir?" he said to Mr. Cardonnel.

  "Eh?" snapped the cosmopolitan round his cigar. "Mind your own businesses. . . ."

  "There's been a murder 'ere and till it's cleared up this place hasn't to be disturbed."

  "I bought it. . . ."

  That seemed conclusive as far as Mr. Cardonnel was concerned. What he paid for was his.

  But the blonde had heard as well. She paused in her make-up operations.

  "What did you say? A murder . . . ?"

  "Yes. A nasty one, too."

  This was just the excuse Sadie was waiting for. She was fed-up with Mr. Cardonnel who thought he'd bought her, as well. Besides, a certain young film producer had been telling her how well she'd look on celluloid.

  "You never told me."

  "Of course not. Why worry your pretty head about it, my pet? What's a murder now and then. Doesn't make the house any worse, does it? Doesn't spoil the nice country round, does it? You won't know this place when I've done with it. Change the name, rebuild the house, new garden, garage for four cars. Won't be the same. No trace of murder. . . ."

  "So you say. It'll be haunted, for all that. . . ."

  Miss Sadie, for all her materialism, was superstitious. She carried a rabbit's foot everywhere in her handbag and wore a lucky talisman next to her fair skin.

  "Pouf!"

  "Pouf yourself. I'm going back . . ."

  "You're what?"

  Mr. Cardonnel had bought all the furniture, fiddled a substantial building licence, paid for the place, and insured it ready for a fire.

  All the same, the flash car later returned to Rodley. The old furniture had been put back in the house, the van had gone, and here was Mr. Cardonnel summoned to appear at Rodley Police Station and give an account of himself.

  "There's nobody to sell the place yet. Surely whoever sold Finloe Oates's securities, hasn't sold his house and furniture, too. It's the bloomin' limit," said Montacute after Mee's report.

  Mr. Cardonnel and Sadie weren't on speaking terms when they arrived in town. In separate places, they counted their ready money. Early next morning, he planned to leave her, still sleeping, in Rodley's best hotel, The Swan with Two Necks. He would put £100 on her dressing table and leave her with the clothes he'd bought her. Sadie, finding she had twenty pounds, three shillings and fourpence in her bag made up her mind to bolt to London in the car whilst the Old 'Un, as she lovingly called him to her private circle, was tied up in the police station. A murder house! What crazy thing would he be wanting next?

  So, Mr. Cardonnel saved quite a bit in £ s. d., but lost his flash car.

  "I want my lawyer," said Mr. Cardonnel stubbornly. "I ain't sayin' anything till my lawyer gets here. . . ."

  "But nobody's accusing you of anything, sir. All I want to know is, how did you buy the place? The owner's been dead quite a while and, as far as I can see, there's nobody to sign the transfer."

  "I want my lawyer," intoned Mr. Cardonnel, who was still wearing his white cap and smoking a large cigar.

  "Very well, then. Where is he . . . ?"

  "I 'ave several. I don't keep all my chickens in one hatch. In this case, Meager's the man. Send for Meager."

  Mr. Meager lived, it seems, in Brighton, and it took them a couple of hours to get him to Rodley. He came post haste for he was making a good thing out of Mr. Cardonnel. Mr. Meager was a real forensic smart-Alec. On the way there, he imagined Mr. Cardonnel arrested for something terrible and already he had decided who to employ as counsel and how much to charge for the initial fees.

  "Tell 'em all about the bungalow I bought. . . . I'm goin' to sell it, but first of all, they're tryin' to say it's not mine after I paid for it. Tell 'em I paid for it."

  Mr. Meager told them. He looked like the manager of a smart week-end hotel. Black jacket, grey trousers, patent leather shoes and white linen, just as if he attended weddings every day. He was swarthy with a look of the Middle East about his face and hair, and before he uttered a sentence, he hissed like a cobra.

  "Certainly you bought it, Mr. Cardonnel. I arranged the conveyance."

  "Who with?" said Montacute.

  "With the vendor's solicitor. . . ."

  "Who might that have been?"

  "Slope and Ryleigh of Holborn, London. The title was quite good. They acted for the vendor."

  "How was it all done? Please tell me how the transfer. . ."

  "Conveyance, you mean . . ."

  "Conveyance, then. How was it signed?"

  "H'ss. As a rule, all the parties meet at a common meeting-place, pay the money over, and sign the documents together. In this case, however, the deeds were sent to me for examination of title, then Slope & Co. sent me the Conveyance signed by their client. They are a firm of good repute, so I accepted it that way."

  "So you never saw the seller, then?"

  Mr. Meager looked a bit uneasy. His bloodshot eyes turned to the poached ones of Mr. Cardonnel and he read trouble in them. He hissed in a low, coaxing key this time.

  "I assure yo
u Mr. Cardonnel, all was quite in order."

  "It 'ad better be. Nobody pulls a fast one on me. I paid my money and I'm havin' what I paid for. Remember that, Mr. Meager."

  "Of course."

  Mr. Meager stroked his oily hair.

  "Well, Mr. Meager, I think you'd better get full details of that transaction from the seller's solicitors, here and now," said Montacute.

  "Here and now," said Mr. Cardonnel ominously. "And I don't want to be here all day, so look sharp."

  Mr. Meager thereupon telephoned to Holborn and held a very technical conversation about conveyances, vendors, consideration money, ultra vires, fi. fa., mutatis mutandis, and searches in land registries, eventually returning to impart the news that Slope & Co. knew as little of the vendor as he did himself. Their contact had been personal, however, and in order.

  "But that's all very irregular, isn't it?"

  "Well, gentlemen, it's this way. . . ."

  Mr. Meager sat down, crossed his legs, joined the tips of his exquisitely manicured fingers, and prepared for a long explanation for which he proposed to charge Mr. Cardonnel a handsome fee in course of time.

  "Cut the cackle an' get to the hens," said Mr. Cardonnel idiomatically.

  Mr. Meager raised his eyes to heaven and looked at Montacute and his attendant shorthand-typist constable as though to indicate that all his clients weren't on the Cardonnel level.

  "It seems that Messrs. Slope received a letter from the vendor, Finloe Oates . . ."

  "When?"

  "Early in May. It was to the effect that he had a house to sell. He enclosed a copy of an advertisement which I had previously inserted in several local papers on behalf of my client . . ."

  "Me !" said Mr. Cardonnel, biting the end of another cigar.

  Mr. Meager leapt to his feet and lit the cigar for his client with a silver lighter.

  "Go on. . . ."

  "He said he had the house for sale. Would they contact me, offer it, and say that as the vendor wished a quick sale, he would sell for five thousand pounds . . . !"

  "Outrageous!" bellowed Mr. Cardonnel. "Meager would 'ave 'ad me pay it, too. I beat 'em down a thousand. . . . Paid four . . ."

  Mr. Meager waited patiently until his client had finished, like a spaniel waiting the word or the whistle to begin operations again.

  "The key was sent, we looked the place over roughly. . . . "

  "Did you go in the loft?"

  Mr. Cardonnel looked amazed.

  "Whatever for? I only wanted the place to pull down and remake. Wanted to find a place to start on. Get somethin' to start on these days, is my advice. No use buyin' plots of land and expecting any 'elp with 'em. Get a place to begin on. . . . That's the stuff! By the way, if either of you gents want a nice little place, I'll sell that bungalow to you cheap. We can come to some arrangement if you like . . ."

  "May we hear the rest of your account, Mr. Meager?"

  Montacute was fed up with Mr. Cardonnel. He tainted the air.

  "The deal went through, Slopes sent the documents of title, prepared the conveyance and posted the lot to me. The conveyance arrived signed by Oates and witnessed by Slope & Co. That was good enough for me. I sent a draft and that was that."

  "But what I'm interested in is Slope & Co.'s client. How did he contact them?"

  "As I said, it was all done personally."

  "But how could it be?"

  "Slope & Co. obtained the signature of Mr. Finloe Oates in their office. He called and signed in their presence. He had previously handed them the deeds and identified himself by showing his identity card. All was straight and above board."

  "It had better be," said Mr. Cardonnel.

  They didn't stay much longer. Mr. Cardonnel left them after renewing his offer to sell them the bungalow cheaply. He was back not long afterwards concerning Sadie, whom he said had stolen his car, but, after a whispered conversation with Mr. Meager, he decided to withdraw the charge.

  Cromwell, armed with a tale from Montacute, made his way up the steep, seedy stairs of a Holborn block and found at the end of the trail, the dingy chambers of Slope & Co. They were the last fruits of an old firm whose aristocratic clients had all died or lost their substance in death duties. They were glad to do odd jobs of conveyancing and copying for other firms. The staff consisted of a dried-up managing clerk, because there were no Slopes or Ryleighs left, and the firm functioned as a subsidiary of a large partnership in the city.

  "Yes, Mr. Oates called here. He signed the deed all right. I can assure you on that point."

  The clerk had his sandwiches spread out on a half-finished conveyance and seemed glad of somebody to talk to.

  The windows of the place were hermetically sealed and there was a strong, hot smell of sealing-wax, liniment, moth balls and cheese sandwiches on the air.

  "What sort of a man was Finloe Oates?"

  "Shy, very shy."

  Mr. Tuffin, the factotum, nibbled his sandwich like a mouse and took a swig of tea from a large beaker.

  "Yes. . . . Very shy. . . . Seemed afraid of the law. Healthy sentiment, what? I could tell you a thing or two. He, he, he."

  He thereupon swallowed a crumb down the wrong tube and became convulsed with choking and coughing.

  ". . . Oh, ohohoho. . . ."

  He drank some tea and subsided.

  "Never drink with your mouth full. . . . And never talk while eatin'. That's what my dear mother always taught me, sir. She's still alive. Chirpy as a bird at eighty-eight. . . . What were we saying, sir?"

  Mr. Tuffin looked as old as he said his mother was. His copious hair was snow white and fluttered round his head like silk. He wore an old-fashioned suit with narrow stove-pipe trousers and a high collar which looked ready at any moment to decapitate him. He tottered about on his long shaky limbs and his body and hands were thin and bony. There must have been some spirit inside him which burned like a lamp, though, for he never stopped smiling. He looked a good man, whom somebody had placed in his high garret of an office and forgotten.

  "We were saying something about Finloe Oates, Mr. Tuffin. . . ."

  "A shy man, I was saying, wasn't I? He wore dark glasses. He said he suffered from cataracts, poor fellow. My Uncle Reuben had them for years and then somebody recommended him to try a decoction of Eye-bright. . . ."

  "Mr. Oates was nearly blind then? He could see to sign the papers?"

  "Oh, yes. . . . He signed them and I sent them off to Brighton. The draft was here by return and I had it ready for him when he next called."

  "He identified himself?"

  "Well. . . . He called with the deeds himself. And I asked him for formal identity, too. He showed his National Registration card. The signature more or less tallied."

  "More or less?"

  "He'd forgotten his pen. He borrowed a quill one. . . . Said he liked them. . . . Naturally it differed a bit from a fountain pen, but the signature on his Identity Card and the one he gave were pretty much alike. I use quills for engrossing deeds. A bit old fashioned but then, I'm old fashioned, and I like a nice quill. . . ."

  "Nothing else you can remember, sir?"

  "No. Why? Is anything wrong?"

  "I think the man who called on you wasn't Oates at all. He was a rogue who stole and liquidated all Oates's property. Stock, bonds, bank account, and now his house. . . . He got the lot . . . including Oates's identity card, seemingly."

  "But. . . . This is terrible. . . ."

  "Don't worry, Mr. Tuffin. I think I'm right in saying that no title passed on a forged signature . . ."

  "You are, sir. But this might mean I shall lose my place."

  "Not if we can help it. I'll call again and tell you what happens. . . . "

  "Fortunately, I only do this for a hobby now. I don't know what I'd do, sir, without my job to occupy my mind. I don't need to work, really . . ."

  "You're lucky, Mr. Tuffin . . ."

  "Money is a mixed blessing, you know. Take my case, sir. For years, fifty or mo
re, my Uncle Reuben lived with my mother and me. He used to go out to work every day, but my mother and I just thought he did something in the City. At times, he hadn't a penny to bless himself with and my mother and I would help him with our own savings till he earned more. . . . "

  "Must have been a bookie?"

  "How did you know? You're right, sir. He daren't tell my mother because she's a very strict Particular Baptist and he was afraid she'd turn him out. He was fond of us both and had nowhere else to go, you see. When he died, he left us all his money. My mother didn't like it, but as I said, what would happen if we didn't take it? Besides, I said, Uncle Reuben would feel it very keenly, if we didn't accept his legacy. . . ."

  Cromwell waited . . . and it came!

  "He left us eighty thousand pounds."

  Mr. Tuffin said it without excitement or alarm. Just as though Uncle Reuben might have left them a lot of debts or an odd five pounds!

  "We don't know what to do with it. . . ."

  Cromwell bade the clerk good morning and left him still pondering abstractedly on the fortune which baffled him. Cheese sandwiches, indeed!

  "Whoever did this crime seems to have aimed at completely skinning Finloe and Lysander Oates," Cromwell told Littlejohn the following morning. He had met the midnight from Liverpool at Euston in the small hours and they were on their way together in a taxi to the Yard. "It's a wonder he didn't sell the old clothes as well. . . ."

  He then told Littlejohn about the forged conveyance of Shenandoah and how it had been done.

  "We're up against a clever antagonist but he made one slip and, through that, we'll get him."

  He then gave Cromwell an account of his travels and how he had stumbled across the amazing truth, the fact that Hazlett had been in the Isle of Man at the time Lysander Oates was murdered. He was the man in the dark glasses.