Devious Murder

by George Bellairs

  ‘Very well. I will come right away.’

  She heaved a great sigh, thanked him again and told him how to find the house.

  Littlejohn then rang up the district police and explained what had happened. The call was answered by a sergeant who seemed indignant at the very idea of Mrs. Hassock calling on the Yard over their heads.

  ‘Leave it to us, sir. We’ll deal with it. Mrs. Hassock is a bit queer, you know, sir. This has happened before. We didn’t take it too seriously, because the Inspector had probably gone out on a lead in connection with the murder case. However, I’ll go round personally right away.’

  ‘That’s all right. I promised to call on her myself. I’ll do that. Meanwhile, carry on and leave it to me.’

  The sergeant didn’t seem at all agitated. Perhaps he thought his Inspector had revolted at last and run away from his plaintive wife.

  ‘Hassock seems to have hopped it somewhere. The top brass is coming down to investigate the Inspector. Chief Superintendent Littlejohn himself,’ he said to the C.I.D. sergeant.

  ‘Oh, hell!’ said the C.I.D. man. ‘That’s torn it. Poor old Hassock’s bad luck again.’

  The Hassocks lived in a semi-detached house in a nice part of Golder’s Green. There was a patch of garden in front, which Hassock seemed to be maintaining with difficulty. The lawn grass was long and sprouting great crops of daisies, and the flower beds were forlorn and untidy with weeds. Hassock hadn’t much spare time for anything except for attending to the instructions of his wife. Now and then one or another of the constables of his division gave Hassock some of his leisure time and indulged in a massive clean-up of the garden.

  Mrs. Hassock was peering round the curtains waiting for Littlejohn. She pressed her nose to the window as he opened the garden gate. She opened the front door in answer to his ring, greeted him, bade him enter and then looked to right and to left along the road to make sure nobody was spying on them. It might have been an assignation! Then she led the way along the dark hall to the front room, her hand pressed to her side as though in pain.

  ‘I’m afraid for him,’ she said without any preamble. ‘He’s never been away so long before in his off time. I have a strange presentiment.…’

  Littlejohn wondered if she suspected her husband’s fidelity and had enlisted him to find out the truth. She gazed into space, wide-eyed, as though seeing the answer written on the opposite wall.

  ‘How long has he been away?’

  ‘Since early this morning. Nobody knows where he is. The men at the police station know as little as I do about his movements. Still, one would expect that. They’re all jealous of him.’

  She suddenly seemed to recover from her trance, excused herself, and bade Littlejohn be seated.

  ‘We don’t take coffee or tea. They don’t agree with me. So I can’t offer you a cup. Please excuse what seems to be lack of hospitality. I have some dandelion coffee if you would like.…’

  ‘No, thanks, Mrs. Hassock. It’s very kind of you, but I must be on my way as quickly as I can. I’ve to look into your husband’s disappearance.’

  She was a tall, lank, flat-chested woman with an almost grey complexion and short-cut tousled grey hair. She was more to be pitied than blamed. She came of a good family and had been well educated. Her father had been a stockbroker who had got himself hammered on the Stock Exchange and decamped, leaving his wife and daughter to fend for themselves. Her mother had died soon afterwards and Winifred had taken a job as receptionist in a second-rate hotel in Brighton. There she had met Hassock, then a young policeman, who had got himself involved with her on a holiday spree. She never thought him good enough for her and in their frequent heated exchanges reproached him with it. The death of their only child, a little girl, from meningitis had driven her into a breakdown from which she had never completely recovered.

  ‘He came home after the discovery of the recent murder?’

  Mrs. Hassock closed her eyes and moved her head from side to side, like someone in a nightmare.

  ‘Yes. It was about 4.0 a.m. He was soaked to the skin. It was most unfair.…’

  Whether she was reproaching the police, or the weather, or the murderer and his victim for not choosing a dry calm night on which to operate was not quite clear.

  ‘He was supposed to be off duty for the next 24 hours. But he just changed his clothes and then went to his room and kept pacing up and down. He kept me awake and loss of sleep does not agree with me. At dawn he went out, banging the front door just as I had settled down.’

  ‘And that was the last you saw of him?’

  ‘Yes. I cannot understand it. He knew how anxious I get about him. A policeman’s life is dangerous, as you well know, Chief Superintendent. I am afraid something has happened to him.’

  Littlejohn made an excuse for leaving, reassured Mrs. Hassock as best he could, and promised to let her know of any developments.

  ‘He’ll be all right, Mrs. Hassock. He is probably following a lead in the case.’

  He returned to the divisional office and saw the sergeant, whose name was Shrike, and drank a cup of hot, strong tea with him, much to the man’s gratification.

  ‘Does Inspector Hassock often disappear like this?’

  The sergeant took a drink of his tea and ruminated. It was obvious that his loyalty to his intimate colleague was being strained.

  ‘Inspector Hassock is a very diligent officer, sir. He has his own methods and ways of doing things. He has been absent now and then like this, but has always mentioned where he was going. Could he have gone back to the scene of the crime, sir?’

  ‘He surely would have been back here by now. He’s not camping out there. What about the empty house where the body was found? Has anyone been there since and inspected the place?’

  ‘No, sir. It’s locked up. And with Inspector Hassock missing and not here to direct operations, work on that part of the investigation has stopped.’

  ‘I think I recollect that a firm named Antrobus & Co. of Baker Street, London, were agents for the sale.…’

  ‘They have an office here, sir. The key’s with them, likely as not. Shall I send for it?’

  ‘I’ll pick it up on my way there, thanks. I may be able to collect with it some information about the vendor of the house. What’s the address of the agents?’

  ‘It’s just round the corner, sir. You can’t miss it.’

  ‘Good luck, sir,’ said Shrike as Littlejohn departed.

  It reminded Littlejohn of Hassock, who always blamed his bad luck for his troubles and who looked like suffering from it again.

  Chapter 6

  Hassock’s Luck

  Littlejohn introduced himself to Mr. T. E. Antrobus, junior partner in Antrobus & Co., who, at first, thought he was inquiring about a house for his own occupation. The house in question, it appeared, was called Mountjoy.

  ‘It is the property of a wealthy dealer in musical instruments. He fled from Germany just before the war and built up a successful business in England. Now that things are settled there he’s gone, or is going, back home. The house has only just come into the market.…’

  ‘I’m not interested in buying it. I’m investigating a murder that was committed there last night.…’

  Mr. T. E. Antrobus admitted that he’d heard all about the crime. The only interest he seemed to take in it was the fact that the market value of the property had been reduced by the tragedy.

  ‘People don’t want to buy houses that crimes have recently been committed in. Thank God the victim wasn’t the owner, Mr. Kaltbad.…’

  Littlejohn felt that he’d had quite enough of Mr. Antrobus’s patter. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d lend me the key. I want to have a look over the place.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but the key’s already in the hands of the local police. Inspector Hassock borrowed it this morning. He’s keeping it a hell of a time. If an interested party turns up to see the house we’d be a bit embarrassed, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Very a
wkward. I’ll see what I can do about it. Good morning.’

  Mountjoy was some distance from the main street; Littlejohn made the journey in his car.

  The house was in Bowring Road and was quite deserted. It was all very pleasant and leafy; quite different from the impression Littlejohn had gathered at the time of the crime with the rain pelting down and the road dark and quiet.

  A long gravel drive led to the house, a large brick Victorian place surrounded by trees, with lawns and flower beds. The whole was well kept and would probably eventually attract a developer in the way of flats.

  Littlejohn walked round the house. The back was equally secluded and had some large greenhouses, a garage and outhouses of various kinds. It was a place for a large family. All the outer doors were locked. In the deserted quietness of the place Littlejohn, like Mrs. Hassock, had a strange presentiment. Something was wrong.…’

  All the windows and doors were securely fastened. The outer door of the conservatory had the smallest lock and Littlejohn applied himself to it. He took from his pocket a burglar’s tool, a picklock, known as a rossignol, once presented to him by a French thief. The door was soon open.

  Littlejohn wandered about the empty rooms. The place had been completely cleared and swept clean. Not even a scrap of paper remained. The bare boards of the rooms resounded like drums under his footfalls, except in the largest, which was vast, a veritable ballroom of a place with a parquet floor. On the walls were dark patches where the pictures had been.

  He climbed the broad staircase, with the carpet-clips still on the steps. It was the same upstairs and in the attics. In such places there often remain domestic left-overs and broken or rejected family furniture, which never reach the pantechnicon; the jetsam of family life. There was none there, however. No remnants. All was swept and clean, as though the departing owner, with Teutonic thoroughness, had taken away every trace of his occupation.

  The house was silent. Even the noises of the road and neighbourhood did not penetrate it, muffled by the surrounding trees and the solid construction of the building.

  Littlejohn all the time kept wondering why the body had been dumped where he found it. Was it a premeditated act to draw attention to the place? Or an impulsive, almost despairing, act of a murderer carrying a corpse around until it suddenly broke his nerve and he had rejected it at the gate, not caring whose or where it was?

  He lit his pipe and sat on one of the windowsills. The case was travelling in a strange direction. First, a body in the pouring rain in a spot which seemed to have no connection whatever with it. Then the identity of the victim revealed as that of a master cracksman noted for his art in sleight-of-hand robberies which baffled the police. Next, the flat at Tolham and the switching of the limelight from Orchard Court flats to The Limes next door. And now, the strange disappearance of Inspector Hassock, apparently alerted by some strange notion, on the track of the criminal.

  Suddenly, Littlejohn grew aware of scratching noises somewhere outside the room where he was sitting. As he went into the hall the scratching ceased. He stood wondering what was the cause of it all and if it would recur. Instead, from behind a door under the stairs, presumably leading to the cellars which he had not yet explored, arose a wild cry, which, used as he was to terror, raised the hair at the back of Littlejohn’s neck. He hurried to the door and tried it. It was locked and he had to use his rossignol again. As soon as he opened the door, a frantic black cat, presumably locked in during the confusion of the removal, leapt out, scuttered around him and fled to the kitchen door, where it resumed its scratching and crying. Littlejohn hastened after it, unlocked and opened the door, and the cat fled among the bushes.

  Then he returned to the cellar. The electricity had not yet been cut off and he switched it on. At the bottom of the steep stairs was a dark bundle, apparently flung down in haste. He forgot the dangerous slant of the staircase in his hurry to investigate. A body was lying face downwards. Littlejohn knew before he turned it over who is was and a strange feeling of sickness came over him. It was Inspector Hassock.

  At first Littlejohn thought Hassock was dead. He certainly looked it, but his pulse was beating faintly. Littlejohn ran up the stairs and out to the telephone kiosk, where he rang for the local police and an ambulance.…

  Hassock was in poor shape when he arrived at the hospital. He was unconscious and suffering from a blow on the head. He had apparently been thrust roughly down the cellar steps by his adversary, who had not seemed to care whether he lived or died. Fortunately, the skull was not fractured and only his left arm was broken. His hands had been tied behind his back with a piece of old rope and, as Littlejohn unfastened it, he was puzzled by the strange knot that had been made.

  Although the local police had hurried to inform Mrs. Hassock of the disaster, she telephoned Littlejohn at the Yard almost as soon as he arrived back from hospital.

  ‘Winifred Hassock speaking.…’

  Mrs. Hassock bitterly reproached Littlejohn for her husband’s condition. She seemed to regard him as responsible for the whole affair.

  ‘He was overworked. And always given the dangerous jobs. Now, he is in a London hospital and I am too unwell to make the journey.…’

  She didn’t seem to realise that her husband was half-dead.

  Littlejohn made no excuses. Mrs. Hassock sounded in a mood for bitter argument and released a flow of querulous complaints which she must have been saving up for years. He offered to provide transport for her, but she refused it, saying that in her husband’s absence she would have much to do and that she was a prisoner of bad health and was confined indoors. She demanded that her husband be sent home as soon as possible, where she could look after him properly. She did not approve of hospitals.…

  When it was all over and she had exhausted her energy and quietened down, Littlejohn managed to disentangle himself from the rumpus and hung up the phone. He sagged in his chair.

  ‘Oh, hell!’

  He gave Cromwell, who had entered during the conversation, a full account of his troubles.

  ‘This seems to be a sequel to Charles Blunt’s murder and whoever is responsible is a vicious swine.…’

  Fortunately Hassock recovered consciousness that evening. Littlejohn went to his bedside immediately.

  ‘Well, old man. How do you feel?’

  Hassock started to apologise.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I went about it the wrong way. A bit of bad luck.…’

  Littlejohn felt he’d had enough for one day. First, Mrs. Hassock with her grievances and ailments, and now her husband, who’d escaped death by a fraction, on again about his bad luck!

  ‘Nothing of the kind, Hassock. You did very well. Did you see who attacked you?’

  ‘No. He must have been in the house when I arrived and hiding behind the door. He came up behind me and hit me as I entered and I remembered nothing more. All I remember is opening the front door.’

  Tears began to run down his cheeks.

  ‘Don’t worry, old man. We’ll carry on where you left off.’

  ‘But it was really my case, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. And still will be when we’ve solved it.’

  ‘Was it you who found me, sir?’

  ‘Yes. And that was a bit of good luck. Your wife telephoned me to say you were missing. That was a change of luck for you. Now, get some sleep and I’ll come and see you again tomorrow. Don’t worry, you did fine.’

  ‘How is my wife?’

  ‘We told her and she’s bearing up. We’ll look after her while you’re away.’

  ‘She’s an invalid, you know, so she’ll need.…’

  ‘We’ll see that she needs nothing.’

  The doctor arrived, said it was high time Hassock was left to sleep, and gave him an injection.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Hassock before he went under.

  The doctor shook his head over him.

  ‘It’s a wonder he remembers anything. As a rule they don’t when suffering fro
m concussion. As soon as he came round he started to apologise for being here. No complaints about being beaten; only sorry. I’d imagine he’s what the Americans would call a good cop.…’

  It was Hassock’s bad luck that he was asleep as this compliment was paid to him.

  ‘… His wife’s been on the phone to us four times,’ added the doctor. ‘She insists that we send him home. Is she a bit of a nut case?’

  The young doctor had just returned from a spell in an American hospital and had not quite shed the American slang.

  On the way back to Scotland Yard, with one of those tricks of memory which seem to release information at inappropriate times, Littlejohn suddenly remembered the knot on the old rope used to tie up Hassock and where he had seen it made in the past. Many years before, he had in the course of his duties assisted a clever surgeon to whom he had later confessed that he had never seen an operating theatre. He had at once been invited to a famous hospital where the omission had been made good. Not only that, he had witnessed a major operation from the observation room. There he had watched with great interest the surgeons tying the firm, intricate, single-handed knots of sutures as they worked.

  This revelation left him as much in the dark as ever, though. There was nobody in the case, hitherto, even remotely connected with surgery. And who, in that profession, was likely to be connected with Charles Blunt or to be found rambling about the deserted Mountjoy? To say nothing of laying out poor Hassock and brutally throwing him down the cellar steps. Littlejohn tucked the information away in his mind and called in Cromwell’s room to report on Hassock’s condition.

  ‘His wife’s hounding the hospital now. She wants Hassock to be sent home at once. The young doctor there asked me if she was a nut case. His guess doesn’t seem far wrong.’

  ‘What about the owner of the house, Tom? Had he any connection with Charles Blunt.’

  ‘If he had, he’d hardly have murdered him and then left the body at his own garden gate for everybody to see. He was a trombone merchant, or something similar, importing musical instruments and selling them over here. A man called Kaltbad, a German refugee from the Nazis. I’d no idea there was so much profit in musical instruments. Kaltbad seems to have returned to his native land to retire. He came from Hamburg. Perhaps the German police could give us some information about him. Will you put in an inquiry?’