Half-mast for the Deemster (Inspector Littlejohn)

by George Bellairs

  "I'll see what I can do, Daphne. . . . But they're short-handed, it seems. . . ."

  She deprived her husband of all the dignity his clothes imparted. He almost ran to find somebody to give them drinks. Silas entered without ceremony.

  "Eh?"

  "Champagne cocktails, Silas. . . ."

  "Wot? I'll have to get the boss to see to those. We're short-handed an' I don't know a champagne cocktail from a shandy-gaff. . . ."

  He hurried out to find Jules.

  Tremouille waved a hand in the direction of Littlejohn and Colquitt. His wife nodded to the reporter and looked hard at Littlejohn. They seemed quite out of place in the room. . . . Like a conjurer and his partner ready to go on the stage. Jules entered. He wore his chef's cap and white clothes, this time without the tea towel.

  "Gome in my room, sir. I'm mixing some drinks there. . . ."

  Colquitt put his feet on a vacant chair and puffed cigarette smoke vertically to the ceiling.

  "Just like 'em to turn up in that rig-out. Her father was consul to some tinpot South American republic and she's never got over it. Tremouille met her somewhere on the mainland. She's a lot younger than he is. He dotes on her. Better if he'd married the girl he wanted. By the way, did you know he was keen on Deemster Quantrell's wife when they were young. She chose the better man, even if he was much older. . . . Another drink? Hurry up. . . . I'll just order another. . . ."

  He left the room a bit unsteadily and returned with a cocktail glass.

  "Champagne cocktails at old man Parker's expense. Good old Parker! Worth a packet, but keeps his son on a wage! Bet Lawrence wishes he'd drop dead after this little flutter. Where were we . . .?"

  He sipped his drink, his little finger in the air above the glass.

  "Tremouille . . . yes. I was saying he wanted the Deemster's wife. He never forgave Quantrell for that. Or for getting the Deemstership before him. Every time the prize has been there, Tremouille has been baulked by Quantrell's getting there first."

  "Yet, he's the Quantrell's lawyer?"

  "Oh. . . . That. . . . Just like Quantrell. Never bore any ill-will. Besides, it helped Tremouille to keep in touch with his old love. Not that she'd look twice at him. But when he sits back and thinks of the dance this lovely he's got leads him, he must curse his luck. Lovely woman but runs him in debt and treats him like a dog. I'll bet Tremouille hasn't got a bean, except what he makes in practice. And that won't be much. Now, I guess, he'll be High Bailiff or something when they fill the vacancies . . . and from that to Deemster. That'll give him a regular income, if nothing else. He does so want to be somebody, too. Look at the way he dresses. You'd think he was the Count of Monte Cristo. . . . And he can't even afford a proper holiday; stays with his wife's relatives on the mainland every summer. . . ."

  Colquitt had certainly got it in for Tremouille. He seemed to be going out of his way to caricature the guests at Parker's dinner. A lot of frustrated, penniless spongers, to hear him talk. . . .

  "I'd better be seeing to a list of guests. Got to get it in the paper next time we go to press. Get a few guineas in Liverpool, too. I'm correspondent here for some mainland papers. Another drink, first. . . . Why, look who's blown in. . . ."

  It was Harborne-Smith, bulging from his evening clothes, fat, pink and jovial, with a girl half his age on his arm. They were laughing and talking as they passed the glass door on their way to the bar Jules had improvised outside, for a drink.

  "You'd think he owned all Ramsey. Instead of which, he's a remittance-man, sent here out of the way of his family. I once met a man who knew him when he was in practice on the mainland. He had to go abroad. No confidence. Specialist in unsuccessful operations. Finally gave it up and the family gave him an income to get him out of their hair. . . . Expect you think I'm a mine of information. Trust the press for getting the news. . . . Let me get you one of the old man's cocktails. They're good. . . ."

  "I think I'll turn in, sir. I've a full day to-morrow. . . ."

  "Can you give me a line for the paper? Any clues? Suspects? Likely arrests?"

  "So far, nothing, sir."

  "Not even a slant on anything?"

  "Nothing. . . ."

  "What about the men you arrested . . .? Irons, Fannin and Kewley? Did you get anything from them?"

  "Not so far. . . . I'll be talking to them later. Perhaps they know something that will help. . . ."

  "Perhaps they do. . . . Good luck. . . ."

  Colquitt looked at his watch and Littlejohn did the same. Nine o'clock. Somewhere at the back, you could hear a wireless giving the Greenwich time signal. Outside, the wind was still rising, but they were casting off the ropes of one of the tramp ships. There was a lot of shouting and steam hissed from the safety-valve.

  "I'd better get my information and be off. I've another function to report before I finish. See you later, Inspector. You won't want to leave the Island when the time comes. It gets you. You'll see. . . ."

  He hurried out and you could hear him greeting people in the lobby. In the other room they seemed to have started the meal. Amy and the hired man, a broken-down flat-footed waiter in a shabby tail-coat, were carrying in the dishes.

  Tremouille, Parker, Harborne-Smith. . . . A pretty trio, if what Colquitt said was true. Malevolent little blighter, with his tongue loosened by drink.

  "Forgive me, but are you the Scotland Yard man over on the murder case?"

  It came from a tall, well-built young man with a large handlebar moustache, sitting with a good-looking fair girl near the window. Hitherto they had sat drinking beer in companionable silence. They seemed on good terms and thoroughly to enjoy each other's company without any fussing. They wore tweeds and Littlejohn remembered seeing them getting out of a little sports car now parked on the quayside.

  "Yes, sir. How did you know?"

  They all laughed. After Colquitt's chatter all the Island must know!

  "I've been wanting to meet you, sir. My name's Teare. Walter Teare. I think I can claim an introduction because I'm the brother of Millie Teare who's engaged to your assistant . . . or that's what he says he is . . . Reggie Knell."

  "A very good fellow who's been a great help. Please tell your sister that. It'll perhaps get him a good mark."

  "I will. Will you have a drink, sir?"

  "No thanks, I've had more than enough. May I buy one for you?"

  "I'm the same. Had enough. We've to drive home to St. Mark's yet. Sorry. . . . This is Miss Barbara Quine, my fiancée . . . and you're the first to know it. We've just got engaged this very evening. . . ."

  "Then we must have a drink. I believe there are some champagne cocktails going. They're the very thing for a celebration of this kind."

  Littlejohn crossed to the little room Jules used for his office, now a temporary cocktail bar. In the large room across the passage, the one in which he'd interviewed Morin the first time he called, he could see about forty people in the middle of a meal. A lot of white shirts, bare backs, bare arms, permanently waved hair. Knives and forks hard at it, hands raising glasses. . . . And in the midst of it all, old man Parker, propped in his chair, doing the honours, with his son's wife cutting up his pheasant into small pieces. . . . The Duck's Nest gang, as Knell had called them. The Jonee Ghorrym lot, perhaps faintly uneasy at the presence of Scotland Yard on the Island, with a smuggling charge in the offing. And Captain Ebeneezer Teare washed from the bridge of his own shp . . . what of that?

  There was nobody about, but there were half a dozen champagne cocktails standing on the little sideboard. Littlejohn took three of them with him.

  "The very best of luck to you both. . . ."

  Barbara Quine was a nice girl who worked in the government office and who was still a bit 'dazed at the whirlwind wooing of Walter Teare. Compared with that of Knell, who'd been at it over seven years, it seemed a record!

  "It's very nice of you, Inspector. There's something I wanted to tell you. I intended telling Reggie to-morrow, but if I tell you.
. . . It's just that Reggie was in my office this morning, inquiring about the Jonee Ghorrym set-up. The shareholdings, the captains and what-have you. Well, over lunch, I chanced to mention the thing casually to another friend, a marine assessor, and he said that Deemster Quantrell had been on the same tack a couple of months ago. He asked my friend, a chap called Mylchreest, all about the Jonee, especially about the loss of the master, Teare, some years ago. Teare was washed off his bridge in a storm. The Deemster was trying to find out the names of any members of the crew at the time. They all seemed to get scattered, though. They don't carry a large crew and it happened in 1945. There was an inquiry but none of them seems to have seen what happened really. I thought you might like to know. . . ."

  "I certainly would. . . . Thanks very much. It may help."

  The girl thought she ought to say something to show the Inspector was welcome in their company.

  "I see you got caught up with Trevor Colquitt. . . . He's a bit of a bore and cheeky chappie when he's had a drink or two."

  "Yes. He seemed to be pumping me for copy and also giving me thumbnail sketches . . . and not too flattering at that . . . of his Ramsey friends."

  "He's a bit bitter and malicious, Inspector. You should have seen the last report he gave on our dramatic show. I'm a member of one in Douglas. It was a scorcher. And really, everybody said the play was quite good. Seeing that Colquitt was once a good amateur actor himself, you'd have thought he'd have a bit of sympathy for others, wouldn't you?"

  "Yes; it would seem so. He was a bit of an actor, then?"

  "Yes. In his young days, about ten years or so ago. . . ."

  She spoke with the ruthless cruelty of youth. She was twenty-one and Colquitt was about forty one or two! In his young days. . . .

  ". . . He was quite up to professional standard. In fact, a touring company that came for the winter wanted him to join-up with them."

  "The hero, was he?"

  "No. Character parts. Like Churdles Ash in The Farmer's Wife and the old parson in a Brontë play. You know the sort I mean. A master of makeup. You wouldn't have known him. He met his wife on the stage. She was a member of the same stock company who wanted him to join them. Lucky he didn't. The war came and put them out of business. But he married one of the girls and she stayed on here for a while. Then, two years later, when the company came back, Rosemary . . . that was her stage name, her real one was Ivy . . . Rosemary bolted with one of the men in the troupe and left Trevor in the lurch. So, I guess that's made him bitter."

  Walter Teare massaged his moustache.

  "Really, old girl, once you get going you're quite a little chatterbox, aren't you? You never talk so fast to me. . . ."

  "You never let me get a word in edgeways, Wally. It must be the champagne cocktail. . . ."

  Littlejohn was just thinking of leaving them to their own company when Silas came to bring him to the telephone. He looked at his watch. Ten fifteen.

  He bade the happy couple good night and went to get his message. It was the Douglas police with the news about Irons. He'd just died after eating his supper. All the signs were of arsenic poisoning. The chemist was busy now on the coffee and the police were out in their numbers questioning everyone and trying to trace who'd been there when the coffee was bought in the fish-and-chip shop. . . .

  Littlejohn sighed. He might have known it. But somebody had a nerve to take the war right into the police-station where, he'd hoped, both Irons and Fannin would have full protection.

  "See that nothing happens to Fannin and Lamprey. Don't let them have food from outside, and no visitors. No, not even a lawyer, unless someone's there with them. . . ."

  He telephoned to his wife in the Fens. Everything seemed all right in the vast parsonage, except that it was blowing a gale and some slates had fallen in the courtyard. Oh, and the Canon had been liverish. He said it was the water. . . .

  He felt like another drink and ordered one from Silas. The party was over. There had been a few speeches and old Parker had been hoisted to his feet and replied in words nobody could hear except those at his elbows. It had been voted a good party and everybody had gone home in good spirits, including the host. Littlejohn retired after his drink, and undressed leisurely. There were three rooms on his landing, then three steps up, and three more rooms where Jules and the staff slept. He knew Jules's room was the one at the end of the passage. He'd seen him coming and going there as he took up his bag.

  On each side, the rooms seemed to be occupied by two married parties of old Parker's guests. They took a long time settling and then, just as all was quiet, Littlejohn remembered he'd left his pipe on the mantelpiece of the bar. He slid out of bed and slipped on his dressing-gown. The pipe was there and he recovered it by the light of the dying fire without even putting on the lights.

  As he returned softly up the stairs in his travelling slippers, the door of Jules's room opened noiselessly and he saw Amy, the waitress, enter furtively, half-clad, and as quietly close it.

  14

  THE AFFAIRS OF THE Jonee Ghorrym

  "COMMISSAIRE Luc? Bonjour, mon brave! Comment-ca-va?"

  Littlejohn spoke to his old friend Luc, of the Paris Police Judiciaire, in good French. They had, during the War, when Luc was in London, worked well together.

  The line from Ramsey police-station to the Quai des Orfèvres was so clear that they might have been speaking across the street. By the time they had finished, Luc had amiably promised to do many things, including a visit to London in the following Spring. The next step was to get a picture of Jules Morin across to Paris as soon as possible. If it left by the morning 'plane to Manchester, the local police there would see it safely aboard the afternoon flight from Ringway to Le Bourget, and it would be at its destination that night. The point was, the photograph.

  One of the constables at Ramsey had a bright thought. Last Christmas, Morin had made a monster cake, iced and ornamented, for a banquet, and the local newspaper had taken his photograph standing in chef's attire beside his masterpiece. The local police saw to it that the photograph of cake and cook was on the way in half an hour.

  Amy had appeared as usual at breakfast, wearing her apron and cap, with no suggestion of leaving for safety on the mainland, as Littlejohn had suggested. She seemed to have thought it all out and now insisted on seeing the thing through. It was the least she could do in duty to the dead Alcardi, she said. Littlejohn did not argue with her. He'd seen quite enough the night before and as soon as his meal was over he took the Ballure Road in search of Parker's office.

  Lawrence Parker was pottering about his builder's yard . . . or rather, his father's . . . seeing that the workmen did their jobs properly. Men were busy there, sorting out timber, loading bricks and tiles on lorries, sawing-up wood, mixing mortar in a noisy mill. Parker seemed to be here there and everywhere, questioning the men, urging them on. For the most part, they ignored him, knowing he couldn't sack them without asking the old man.

  Just beyond the gates of the large yard, stood a brick office with wide windows and through one of them, you could see old Parker, already on the job before nine-thirty, sitting in his chair, his bowler hat on his head and a rug over his knees, motionless, the only signs of his continued survival, his eyes, overlooking the yard and all that went on in it. Now and then, an elderly typist approached him, ostensibly to ask if he wanted anything.

  Lawrence Parker wasn't pleased to see Littlejohn.

  "We're busy," he said. "You're interrupting the work. If you want to talk to me, why don't you come to The Duck's Nest at one o'clock when I have my lunch?"

  He still wore tweeds and a cloth cap. In spite of the time he spent in the open, his face was pale, almost the colour of parchment. He was a chain-smoker and lit one cigarette from the stub of another. For one so tall and heavily built, the small cigarettes looked out of place. He had a nervous twitch of the eyelids, as though from gazing at a bright light, and his fingers were never still.

  "This is urgent, sir. I
've no time to wait."

  "What is it, then?"

  "You're a director of the company which owns the Jonee Ghorrym?"

  "Yes. What of it?"

  "You know we arrested Captain Kewley yesterday for carrying passengers forbidden to leave the Island? He was later released."

  "Yes, I know. A bit high-handed, I thought it."

  "You think helping criminals to escape from justice is high-handed?"

  "What proof had you that he knew they were fleeing from you?"

  "Fannin was on his way to jail, escaped, and later turned up on your boat. Irons had been told not to leave. Irons, by the way, died last night. . . ."

  "What?"

  Parker screwed up one side of his features in an astonished grimace. The sign that he was shaken was mainly in his eyes, which opened wide and their lids stopped flickering for a brief spell. He fumbled in the pocket of his coat for another cigarette which he lit from one half-smoked.

  "Irons was murdered last night."

  "I didn't know that. How did it happen?"

  "He was poisoned in jail. . . . Somebody poisoned his coffee."

  Parker was angry.

  "What the hell are the police doing? Since you came here there have been nothing but murders going on. The Deemster, that scout, Alcardi. . . . And now Irons. Where's it all going to end? It's time you showed results. This sort of thing . . ."

  "If you and your friends would help a bit, we might get on much quicker, The Jonee Ghorrym seems to have become the centre of gravity in these crimes."

  "What do you mean by that? I've nothing to do with it. Nor have any of my friends."

  "You know, of course, that the Jonee has been engaging in smuggling."

  "That's a lie! It's slander. You'd better tell Tremouille that, and see what happens."

  "Alcardi, Irons and Fannin were all in it and, if smuggling was going on, the directors should know something about it. At any rate, the Customs people have been told and you'll have to answer to them on that count."

  "I've nothing more to say. You can deal with our lawyer. You can't talk like that about a properly run company, police or no police. I'll. . ."