The Body in the Dumb River

by George Bellairs

  The sergeant in charge could hardly wait for Littlejohn.

  ‘Inspector Naizbitt told me to send for him to the town hall if you called. He’s got some news for you.’

  ‘I don’t want to disturb him if he’s dancing at the ball…’

  ‘But them was orders. He said I wasn’t to forget ’em. Here, Banks…’

  The constable ran to the desk and saluted briskly. This quite took the sergeant by surprise, as he wasn’t used to it. Banks was putting on an act for the benefit of Littlejohn and Cromwell.

  ‘Banks, go and fetch the Inspector…’

  Banks ran out like a good boy.

  ‘…The Inspector ’ll be glad to come. He ’ates dancin’, but has to attend as a matter of jewty. Proceeds in aid of police charities, you see. Now the Mayor’s left, they’ll start rockin’ and rollin’ and whatnot. Inspector Naizbitt’s missus is a bit younger than him and she likes a rock an’ roll now an’ then. Then, she puts ’im through the ’oop, good and proper. Makes it difficult for discipline, sir…’

  Naizbitt was on the doormat, beaming with pleasure. He was wearing a dinner suit and his black tie was half-way round his neck. He looked to have run all the way. In the town hall the band was starting to play ‘Knocking and Rocking My Baby’. The saxophones were screaming and through the uncurtained windows you could see couples throwing one another about.

  Naizbitt straightened his tie and smoothed down his hair.

  ‘Come in here, sir.’

  The sergeant blew into his moustache. It wasn’t good enough telling Littlejohn the news in secret.

  The Inspector’s room was cold and it took him a long time to light the gas-fire which kept exploding and emitting yellow flames instead of blue. Eventually Littlejohn was able to introduce Cromwell, who was now wearing his bowler with great dignity. Naizbitt said he was pleased to meet him and Cromwell said the same in return. Then Naizbitt found them a chair apiece and sat down at his own desk, a weather-beaten relic of better times, and rubbed his hands.

  ‘I’ve some news for you, sir.’

  The sergeant entered with cups of tea. Naizbitt seemed surprised. He didn’t usually bring in the tea himself, but sent it in by a subordinate. Now the sergeant hoped to linger and hear the great news. Instead, he was thwarted. Two constables brought a roaring drunk in the charge-room and the sergeant had to return to deal with him. He was shouting the place down.

  ‘They’re all drunk at the police ball. Why can’t I get drunk, as well? One law for the rich and another for…’

  Dead silence. Littlejohn wondered what they’d done to him.

  Naizbitt was full of news.

  ‘We’ve had some replies about the all-stations call for information about Teasdale’s car, sir.’

  Between Chatteris and Benwick, in the Isle of Ely, the police had reported seeing the car, ‘number as stated, description as per enquiry.’ There had been a flood diversion on the road over which the river had overflowed. A patrolling constable had stopped the car, turned him round, and told him the best way.

  ‘It was driven by somebody different from Teasdale. Description didn’t tally at all. The driver did his best to keep his face hidden. He wore a black slouch hat, didn’t speak a word, and avoided the light. The report said they couldn’t give any description.’

  ‘Not much help. What time would that be, Naizbitt?’

  ‘Four-fifteen a.m.’

  ‘The time could be right.’

  ‘But the other report is much better. Grantham says that at 2.00 a.m. the policeman at Long Bennington stopped the same car without a rear light. Faulty connection. It came on again when the driver shook it. The constable had reported it, but said as it was pouring with rain and the driver said he was anxious to get to Cambridge and had been delayed by the floods up north, he exercised his discretion and let him proceed with a caution. I wish he hadn’t, although he’d probably have got a false name and address. In spite of his efforts to avoid being seen, the constable got a good look at the driver once or twice. Do you know who I think the description sounds like…? Not Teasdale, by any means…’

  ‘Ryder?’

  Naizbitt’s face fell. He looked thoroughly disappointed.

  ‘You knew all the time?’

  ‘I guessed. It couldn’t have been Teasdale. He was dead before he got to Long Bennington. He must have been in the car, folded up in the boot, probably dead before he left this town. He hadn’t digested his supper, you see. If he’d been alive at Long Bennington, his supper would have long been past his stomach.’

  Naizbitt scratched his head.

  ‘I’m not well up in anatomy, sir.’

  ‘Well, that’s a bit of good work, Naizbitt. Thank you for the help.’

  ‘That’s not all. Nobody’s seen or heard of Ryder. He seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. But there’s one thing that’s queer. His letters.’

  Outside the street was full of music and the sounds of stamping feet. The Mayor’s departure seemed to have let loose an avalanche at the town hall.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘The deputy postmaster called here this afternoon. He’d heard we were making enquiries for Ryder. Every morning, almost as soon as the post office opens at eight, Ryder calls for his letters, which are kept poste restante. Perhaps he has correspondence he doesn’t want old Scott-Harris to know about, or perhaps the old man’s tampered with his letters in the past. Be that as it may, Ryder won’t have his mail delivered to the house. He calls for it. Yesterday and this morning he did something he’s never done before. He didn’t call at all. His mail’s still there. I couldn’t take it away. We’ve no authority for that, but I had a look at it. Four or five envelopes; two sealed, betting letters by the look of them. Three unsealed; a paid bill, and two lots of pools coupons.’

  ‘So you think that if Ryder were leaving for good, or even temporarily, he’d have called for his mail before he went and as likely as not, arranged for it to be re-addressed.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes, I do. What do you think, Cromwell?’

  ‘The same as both of you. Do you think there might have been foul play?’

  ‘That’s one inference. We’ve got to find out. There’s one thing, however. If Ryder thought we were on his trail about the death of Teasdale, he’d bolt without mail or anything else. To go for his post might have run him right in our hands.’

  ‘Why would Ryder want to murder Teasdale?’

  ‘He might have been blackmailing him. Harry Wood met Teasdale on his hoop-la stall with his woman at Lowestoft and told Ryder when he got home. Ryder might have been squeezing Teasdale.’

  Cromwell rubbed his chin.

  ‘But Teasdale wanted to get a separation or a divorce from his wife. He told Martha Gomm and she had to make him promise not to do anything rash for the present.’

  ‘Perhaps Teasdale was trying to keep his promise when Ryder started the blackmail.’

  ‘But, if Ryder murdered him, he’d be killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.’

  ‘Perhaps Teasdale attacked him and got killed in a fight. Martha Gomm said he was a little terror when his temper rose. She told me that he attacked her own husband, twice his size, in a rage, and laid him out.’

  ‘If we admit that, why should Ryder take the body all the way to the Dumb River to dump it?’

  ‘In Teasdale’s pocket diary was written the place where he was due to be on the following day. To leave the body in Basilden would have narrowed the search for the murderer considerably. Ryder thought he was being clever. He took the body and left it with the car where it was expected to be. Anybody might have murdered Teasdale there. His enemies on the fairground, some of the riff-raff who follow fairs, even Martha Gomm. It would have been a very complicated case and might never have been solved. Ryder thought it al
l out but forgot one thing, and a very likely thing to be forgotten, too. He forgot the undigested supper in Teasdale’s stomach. That, in effect, brought the body all the way back to Basilden.’

  ‘Where do we go now?’

  ‘Cromwell and I are going to the Swan for a cold supper. Care to join us, Naizbitt?’

  From the town hall, the noise was louder than ever. Things were warming up. Now, they were ‘Watching All the Girls Go By’.

  ‘It would have to be in the way of duty, sir.’

  ‘We can arrange for that, Naizbitt.’

  When Heck Evans entered his dining-room later, he recoiled in surprise to see Inspector Naizbitt in full dinner rig, eating cold Melton Mowbray pie and pickles and drinking Hock with his two colleagues.

  Heck himself had just slipped across from the police ball to see that everything at the Swan was orderly and in good shape. He and his wife were running the bar at the dance. He was in full evening dress, tails and all, but he’d put on a black tie to make himself look like a real maître d’hotel. Instead, as his coat was a size too large, he looked like a hired hand.

  12

  The Funeral

  It was fine, but the streets were cold and damp. The church clock was striking ten as Littlejohn and Cromwell entered the police car which was taking them to the cemetery for James Teasdale’s funeral. The atmosphere of the town was not funereal at all. It was market day and stalls had been erected in the space in front of the town hall. There an exuberant crowd of stallholders were already shouting their wares, mainly eatables, with here and there a dash of clothing or cheap jewellery. The place was seething with life. Dominating all that was going on and looking slightly disapproving of it, was the stern bronze statue of Bishop Duddle, the only famous man who ever was born in Basilden. He had been martyred and eaten by cannibals of his diocese in the South Seas and now stood among the market folk, pointing to heaven, indicating the place to which he had gone after all his troubles.

  As Littlejohn and Cromwell joined the police car, a hearse passed through the square and pulled up at the door of Teasdale’s shop. Although it was yet empty, many of the market men removed their caps in tribute, knowing whom it was going to serve for the last time. The corporation garbage-cart, which was busy emptying the dustbins on one side and which stood in a row on the edge of the kerb of the square, because the backs were inaccessible to vehicles, halted out of respect, and the dustmen lined up beside it, bareheaded, to watch the event.

  If his wife’s family hadn’t thought much about James Teasdale, other people evidently had. In happier days, it seemed, James had been an infant prodigy in the town band. He’d played the euphonium in the never-to-be-forgotten year when the band had won a third prize at the Crystal Palace Festival. There were still some survivors of that triumph, eight of them, and they had gathered in front of the shop with their trumpets, drum, and uniforms. They got busy forming fours ahead of the hearse. They were going to play James to the cemetery. And, for a period during the war, Teasdale had been an auxiliary member of the Basilden fire brigade. Four uniformed firemen added themselves to the band. Also, although the dead man had not attended their lodge of late, James had been a freemason. Two carloads of his brethren arrived and parked round a corner, looking ready to ambush the main party when it appeared.

  If the widow had hoped for a quiet funeral, she was going to have a surprise!

  The undertakers’ men arrived like a quartette of hired assassins and entered the shop. The coffin and floral tributes were carried out. A crowd surged round, murmuring sympathetically. The owner of a stall selling poultry, sausages, and cheese wiped his hands on his apron and ran to join the rest, and a dog which had been hanging round thereupon stole a cock chicken and ran off holding it by the neck.

  The mourners emerged, all in black. Mrs. Teasdale looked bewildered at the crowd and then hesitated, appalled at the sight of the band, now forming up with instruments at the ready.

  ‘Who are those men?’

  Barbara had been forewarned and had consented to the music, but had forgotten to tell the family. Now, fearful of a scene, she hustled her mother in the first cab. The rest followed, surprise at the band and firemen driving all looks of despair and resignation from their faces. The procession moved off, slowed down by the speed of the band, which struck up the Dead March in Saul, which they played all the way to the cemetery gates; then they changed to Chopin’s Funeral March along the tree-lined avenue to the graveside.

  James Teasdale was going to be buried in the grave of his family. It was as though, having heard of the newly discovered irregularities of his life, his wife had insisted on returning him to his own people, and, in due course, resting herself in peace as far away from him as possible. The headstone had been removed from the grave and lay on one side as though flung away. Reginald Teasdale, died 1934, aged 66 years. Maude Elizabeth Teasdale, his wife, died 1942, aged 68 years. And the names of three of their children who had died young. R.I.P.

  Major Scott-Harris was not among the mourners, who included all the rest of Teasdale’s own and his wife’s families. Cousins from a distance, a very deaf old man whom nobody seemed to know, and then a mob of townspeople, curious because they’d never been at the funeral of a murdered man before.

  Littlejohn and Cromwell stood on the edge of the crowd. It was the Superintendent’s habit to attend such events; you never knew what you might see and hear.

  For the most part, the dead man received public sympathy. A decent, hard-working chap, with not an enemy anywhere. People were surprised that anybody should want to kill Jim. Some of them eyed Littlejohn with satisfaction, as though sure he would bring the criminal to justice and let the victim rest in peace.

  Scott-Harris came in for a lot of criticism. He ought to have been there. If anybody excused him on the strength of his being an invalid, there was invariably the retort that he could get around when it suited him.

  The daughters gathered round Mrs. Teasdale, all dressed in the deepest mourning. It was evident they were having some trouble with her. She wasn’t in tears but looked to be in a state of collapse. As the coffin was lowered, she fainted and they had to carry her to the nearby chapel to revive. It caused a stir of sympathy. Littlejohn didn’t miss the look of fear, almost terror in her face just before she passed out. It was as though she expected the dead to rise and rebuke her.

  The minister, the vicar of the parish church, resumed the committal timidly… It was then that Littlejohn caught the eye of a woman in black on the edge of the crowd.

  It was Martha Gomm. She hesitated as he looked at her, wondering whether or not to recognise him. Finally, she buried her face in her handkerchief. He did not see her again. She vanished in the crowd, which was breaking up. She had come a long way and was returning as far, simply to be there at the end. Before he left, Bertram, examining the funeral tributes, discovered that a sheaf of red carnations had insinuated itself among the rest. To James, with love.

  ‘Where did that come from?’ he asked his wife, who was with him.

  They looked blankly at each other and Bertram was uneasy. He didn’t like it at all and cautiously picked it out.

  ‘That must have come from some other funeral,’ he said to a gravedigger. ‘Remove it.’

  The gravedigger, hurrying anxiously to collect the price of a drink from the undertaker, could think of no better place to fling the flowers than in the open grave. So Martha Gomm’s red carnations lay on top of the coffin when the last earth fell upon it.

  They had revived Mrs. Teasdale, and the mourning party boarded their carriages and drove off. The band, left in the air, looked a bit lost and then, joining the firemen, went off to the pub at the gates, the Cemetery Hotel, for a drink. The crowd began to melt away; some to catch buses back to town, a short distance; others to examine the wreaths or inspect nearby graves. Littlejohn and Cromwell made for the police car again.

&n
bsp; ‘Excuse me.’

  A man in grey, with a tired solemn face, stood at Littlejohn’s elbow.

  ‘Excuse me. Are you the Scotland Yard detective?’

  ‘Yes, sir. What can I do for you?’

  ‘There’s something I think you ought to know.’

  He didn’t seem the sort you asked to come for a drink and a talk.

  ‘Would you care to come with us to the police station, sir? We could talk in comfort there.’

  ‘It isn’t much. I can tell you here. I must get back to my work. I’ve only asked off for a couple of hours. I felt I had to see the funeral. He was always a good friend of ours. Even in his hard times, he gave us what he could.’

  ‘You represent some charity, sir?’

  ‘The Salvation Army. We have our Citadel a few doors away from Mr. Scott-Harris’s house.’

  Littlejohn knew the type well. Serious, decent, truthful.

  Another funeral was approaching.

  ‘Let’s sit in the car, then, sir, and you can tell me what you wish.’

  The man climbed in and sat on the back seat.

  ‘It may not be significant, but it’s said in the town that James Teasdale was not killed where they found him. It was reported in one of the daily papers. It said it seemed that he’d been murdered in Basilden and the body carried to where they discovered it. I don’t want to waste your time, but I think…’

  He licked his lips and seemed diffident. He was shy of wasting the time of the police on what might be a triviality.

  ‘Last Sunday we held our usual evening service and it was my turn on duty. You see, whilst the service is on, one of us stands at the door to encourage interested passers-by to come in and join us. We start at half-past six and end about half-past seven. After the general service, there’s a devotional gathering at eight and casual visitors often stay on to that. I was at the door for over an hour, starting about six-fifteen to seven-thirty. It was rather cold and wet and I sheltered in the vestibule, but regularly went to look up and down the street…just in case, you see.’