Toll the Bell for Murder (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  The Druidale road ended in Ballaugh, capital of the curraghs. Thence, a perfect maze of lanes led through the drained marshland to Mylecharaine.

  It was hardly a village at all. Two or three houses in a cluster by the roadside, one of them acting as a local stores and post-office. The church and vicarage stood completely isolated at the end of a by-road. The rest of the place was scattered piecemeal. Cottages on their own, built on little islands of dry ground standing above the general level of the land. Farms just visible through the rings of willows and sycamores which protected them from the winds and were twisted and tortured in the process.

  Knell pulled-up near the telephone kiosk which, since its recent erection, had become the official centre of the parish. There was nobody about. If there had been, what was the use? Knell realized that he had brought Littlejohn there simply to show him the scene of the crime. Or rather, the scene of the grim nocturnal drama staged by the Rev. Sullivan Lee.

  They sat in the car, side by side, not moving for a minute or two. Littlejohn was quietly smoking his pipe and Knell took a cigarette from a packet and lit it. There was hardly enough breeze to blow the smoke away: The land shimmered under the hot Spring sunshine, birds were singing and chattering, and in the distance they could hear the calling of plovers and bitterns. The turns in the road and the heavy tall hedges of shrubs and trees prevented their seeing far around them.

  Knell began to speak in a low apologetic voice, like a penitent making his confession.

  “It’s the strangest case I’ve ever been on, sir. We know Sir Martin Skollick was a rascal, cynical, a woman chaser, a twister. He was disliked everywhere and had enemies among the farmers, villagers, and Lord knows who else, that he’d offended or robbed or meddled with their women. Half a dozen people hated him enough to wish him dead. That we know.”

  He drew hard on his cigarette and then threw the end of it through the car window with a gesture of disgust.

  “That’s all. We haven’t even found out where the murder happened. Or who was up at the unearthly hour when people heard the shot. We just know that Skollick and somebody else were abroad in the dark together, and that unknown somebody and Skollick met, and one killed the other.”

  “You’ve searched the roads for traces of blood and questioned everybody in the vicinity?”

  “Yes. Our men have been to every farm and cottage in the neighbourhood where the shot was fired. Not a thing. We’ve searched every road and by-path, too. Unluckily, there was a short shower the day after the murder. It might have been sent to bailie us. After it had washed away all traces, it cleared up and it’s been fine ever since.”

  “And yet, none of us think Lee did it.”

  “No, sir. He either saw the crime and knows who did it, and is for some goddam reason shielding him. Or else he came across the body and the shock drove him round the bend. He carried it to the church, prayed over it, rang the bell, wakened everybody, and then froze into a sort of silence ever since.”

  Littlejohn climbed out of the car, knocked out his pipe against the heel of his shoe, and leaned over a gate in the hedge, looking across at the stark lonely buildings which constituted the church and vicarage of Mylecharaine.

  “You searched the house, the vicarage, I mean?”

  “Yes, sir. There was nothing there to help us. Would you care to see the church and the parsonage?”

  Then a diversion occurred before Littlejohn could reply.

  Down the road ahead of their car trotted a little flock of sheep. About four ewes and half a dozen lambs. They were unattended, but were obviously being pressed from behind. The reason for their hurry appeared almost on their heels. A smart, dark-blue saloon car rounded the curve, came to a halt, and a handsome middle-aged man stepped out and shouted to Knell.

  “Hi, Knell! Open the gate you’re leaning over and let in these blasted sheep. Wandering unattended on the road and me unable to get past ’em. Who the hell owns ’em, I don’t know, but he’ll soon know where to find them. I see Mrs. Cashen peeping round the curtains there.”

  The newcomer indicated the nearest cottage, the curtains of which were in a state of agitation.

  “She’ll convey the information to the proper quarter in no time. It’s like the jungle drums here in the curraghs for passing on news.”

  Between them Knell and the stranger shepherded the little flock into the field beyond the gate, the sheep showing their approval by immediately starting to gnaw the grass and the lambs by plunging at their mothers’ udders and enjoying a convulsed meal.

  The stranger was still complaining.

  “What a ruddy place for a doctor! If it isn’t floods blocking the roads, it’s cattle. And if it isn’t cattle, it’s sheep. Half my time’s spent in removing obstacles.”

  Knell introduced Littlejohn to the doctor.

  “This is Dr. Pakeman, sir. Superintendent Littlejohn, of Scotland Yard, doctor.”

  “Ah. So you’re the man! I’m glad to meet you, Superintendent.”

  He gave Littlejohn a remarkably fine and well-kept hand for a countryman. For Dr. Pakeman had all the appearances of one. He looked nearer sixty than fifty; a tall, forthright man, with a small grey moustache, rugged features full of character, and shrewd grey eyes. He wore a tweed suit, and a cap which he now removed to mop his forehead, which was broad and intelligent. The moustache, the bushy eyebrows, and plentiful grey hair cut short and bristling over his fine head all gave him a look of strength and dependability.

  “They brought in Dr. Pakeman when the body of Sir Martin was found.”

  Pakeman put on his cap again and took out and lighted a pipe.

  “Not much I could do. Hardly anything left of his head. All the brain had been shot away.”

  Knell winced.

  “You live near here, doctor?”

  “In Ramsey actually. On the Lezayre Road, the nearest doctor to the curraghs. That’s why I have to navigate this maze every day. Not that I don’t know it like the back of my hand after nearly thirty years of it.”

  “What do you think of all this, doctor? The murder, I mean.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Littlejohn. In fact, it’s better. You’re a trained man. I’m not. All the same, I’m not surprised. What I’m surprised at is that nobody’s done it before.”

  “He could hardly be described as a popular favourite, doctor?”

  “Not by a long way. In fact, nobody liked him. He was a strong man, determined, he had money, he could be described as successful. Even when it came to seducing a virtuous girl, he seemed to succeed. Some people are that way, aren’t they? Can’t put a foot wrong. And yet, Skollick was a Wilshout, a failure and a freak. You ask why? Because for all his success, he could never be content with what he’d got. He couldn’t rest. He’d his own estate; he wanted that of the man next door. He’d his own wife-and she’s a damned nice one, too--but he wanted somebody else’s as well. He’d enough money of his own, but whilst the chap across the way had some, too, Skollick couldn’t sleep for hatching schemes to twist him out of it. He was a real bad lat.”

  It wasn’t said in heat or passion. The doctor might have been calmly describing some disease or other to a colleague.

  “Which reminds me, I’m on my way to Myrescogh Manor now. I’ve got to see Lady Skollick. This business had put her out. You’d think she’d jump for joy to be rid of such a scoundrel. Not a bit of it. She’s heartbroken and a nervous wreck. Going my way?”

  “We may as well. I’d like to see the manor. It doesn’t seem much use staying here, doctor. There’s nothing to see and nobody to talk to.”

  “You don’t know how to go about it, Littlejohn. These are cautious people, sly, and with a shy sense of humour. You’d like them immensely if you got to know them. But it takes a long time, Traa di Liooar, as they say in Marne Plenty of time. You should come round with me for a spell. We must see what we can do about it. Well, Knell, get back in that car of yours and let’s get going. Better follow me and hoot at
every turn in the road. One car’s enough for the natives to cope with in these parts. Two coming round a corner together would just paralyse them.”

  He jumped in his car, patted an old springer spaniel which had been sitting beside him, started off, and they followed his route. The road wound and twisted, crossing little bridges over the drainage ditches. Here and there an old by-road, metalled in sharp flints, branched off, but now led nowhere, for the homestead at the end of it had fallen into decay and its land had become waste or been joined to that of others.

  They reached Myrescogh Manor at last. An avenue of wind-twisted firs broke away from the main road and they followed it between hedges of daffodils and unkempt gorse to the house itself, which faced the hills to the south. A square-built place, simply constructed in rectangular fashion, with a great front door, a row of five windows above it and four on the ground floor. It seemed to huddle for shelter among its giant weather-tortured trees. In front, a wild garden sprawled about, with forlorn unkempt rose beds, profuse thorny bushes and tall scraggy palms and eucalyptus trees, which shook in the breeze, struggling for life in unhospitable soil. All the blinds were drawn, no chimneys smoked, and there was no sign of human habitation. Behind stretched acres of neglected curragh land, much of it bearing the rotten appearance of peat-bog with masses of gorse growing like a black and yellow fleece in the midst of it. An ominous, foreboding house, whose windows looked like blind eyes, and the door of which seemed firmly closed against intruders.

  4

  THE HOUSE AT T ANT ALOO

  DR. PAKEMAN BEAT upon the thick oak panels of the front door of the manor. He was too impatient even to use the knocker. A pause, footsteps which seemed to approach from afar off and sounded like a crescendo of drum-beats. Then the door was flung wide open and an elderly woman in cap and apron stood gravely there looking them all over.

  “Good day to ye, docthor,”she said at length in the lilting Manx brogue.

  “Well, Jinnie. And how’s your mistress to-day?”

  “Middlin’, middlin’, docthor. She’s still in her bed.”

  “Did she sleep well last night?”

  “Afther the tablets you gave her, yes.”

  “I’d better go up and take a look at her.”

  “She’s awake.”

  “These two gentlemen are from the police.”

  The woman’s face had been set woodenly until now. This was the expression she thought meet for a servant in a house 6f tragedy and death. Now her look changed to one of surly, defiant hostility.

  “What will they be wantin’ here?”

  “I met them in the curragh and I’m taking them home with me. Better let them wait in the morning-room until I come down.”

  The maid turned and indicated by a motion of the head that they could follow her.

  Littlejohn was not superstitious, but as soon as he crossed the threshold, a queer feeling took hold of him as though round the next corner something or someone might have been lurking to do him harm. It wasn’t physical harm, either. It went deeper than that. It might have been due to the thick walls, or the dead hush which pervaded the place, or again, the chill might have risen from deep foundations stretching far into the damp underground waters of the ancient bog.

  The hall was wide and a broad staircase rose at the end of it and disappeared upwards in a right-angled turn. Persian rugs on the polished oak floor, mounted heads of foxes and deer on the walls, a carved ebony hat stand, a huge gong, and a print of Frith’s Derby Day filling half of one side.

  The maid opened a door to the right and bade Littlejohn and Knell enter. From here came the smell which pervaded the whole house, that of aromatic wood. There was a small fire of apple wood and gorse roots burning in the large fireplace.

  “Better draw the curtains, Jinnie. No sense in keeping out the light of day.”

  The old woman obeyed and swished back the heavy chenille curtains on brass rings. She did it with a gesture of protest, but it was obvious she was an admirer of the doctor and would go far to please him.

  “You’ll excuse me if I go up to see my patient. I won’t be long.”

  They were left alone. Knell hadn’t said a word since they arrived at the manor. He was obviously out of his element and uncomfortable.

  “I can’t say I like this place much. I’ll bet it’s haunted.”

  He looked around as though expecting a ghost or something even more monstrous to materialize.

  “You feel it, too?”

  “Yes, sir. It gives me the creeps.”

  All the same, the little morning-room was a pleasant place and obviously much used. It overlooked the front garden, facing the hills between Sulby and Kirk Michael on which the sun of high noon was shining and revealing a wide graceful sweep of coloured bracken and gorse. A blackbird was busy on the lawn listening for worms and digging them up and another was singing in a tree. Daffodils running riot everywhere. Wild roses and honeysuckle in the hedges. A pleasant sight. They might have been looking out on a world full of good things, like unattainable pleasures set-out in a shop window.

  The room itself was furnished in well-used Victorian chairs, a small table, a sideboard and an oak chest. Books on either side of the fireplace, a television set, and in one corner, a large radiogram with a record cabinet. There was just space in which to move round among the various odds and ends. There were two large pictures on the walls, indifferently painted aspects of the manor itself, one from the front, and the other from the side, which showed the avenue of tortured trees in the winter, leafless, twisted, with a stretch of bare curragh in the background. It made you feel cold and depressed to look at it.

  Over the fireplace were photographs and miniatures on ivory. A number of the photographs were of the same beautiful woman. Leaving a ’plane all smiles; in the process of what looked like accepting gifts from children at a bazaar or fete; then in evening dress as though ready to mount the platform and sing a song; and finally, dressed up like Mimi in La Boheme.

  Littlejohn took it all in casually, whilst Knell looked through the window whistling Don’t Knock the Rock through his teeth absent-mindedly. He had learned it by heart one night as he supervised the arrest of half a dozen berserk teddy-boys at a Douglas dance-hall, where the band kept on playing to keep everybody busy.

  There was not a sound in the house and the doctor was back before they realized he was there.

  “Sit down. Lady Skollick says you’re to have a drink.

  Jinnie’s bringing in the whisky.”

  No sooner said than done. The maid entered with a tray on which were a bottle and glasses. She held it far from her as though it were something vile and dangerous. She put it on a table and left the room and the doctor poured out helpings.

  “Say when. Soda?”

  “Your health, gentlemen.”

  “Good health, doctor.”

  Knell drank gingerly. He’d been brought-up teetotal and had signed the pledge at the Band of Hope in his youth. He eased his conscience by telling it that this was in the course of duty and that the whisky was distasteful to him. Then he took a good swig and smacked his lips.

  The doctor seemed at home there. He even bent and took a couple of handfuls of gorse roots and flung them on the fire. The flame licked them up and the scent of the burning wood filled the room again.

  “I was just looking at all the photographs round the fireplace, doctor. Are the ones of the same woman those of Lady Skollick?”

  “Yes. She was a fine singer in her time. Opera and concert platform. She still has a splendid voice although she’s middle-aged now. I’ve heard her a time or two.”

  “Soprano?”

  The doctor raised his eyebrows. Littlejohn nodded at the picture of Mimi. “Yes. You musical?”

  “My wife more than me. We often go to the opera.”

  “I wonder if I’ve ever heard Lady Skollick.”

  “She was Jean Calloway in those days.”

  Littlejohn shook his head. No. He didn�
�t remember the name.

  “How long was she married to Sir Martin?”

  “Twelve years or so, I think. I did hear her mention it once.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Fifty-eight. She was ten years younger.”

  “She ought to be in her prime.”

  “Ought is the right word. But you didn’t know Skollick.”

  “How did he get his knighthood?”

  “His father was a baronet. A stockbroker with philanthropic leanings. A very respectable and decent chap, I believe.”

  “How did Skollick make his money?”

  “Followed in father’s footsteps, only instead of keeping on the straight and narrow path of respectable stockbroking, after his father’s death he converted the firm into a bucket-shop and landed himself in gaol for a spell. He must have salted a lot away. He never seemed to go short of anything after he came from gaol. His wife was waiting when he came out, and they came over here. But don’t think Skollick did it to hide himself for very shame. He came to avoid high income-tax and death-duties.”

  “Did he start being unpleasant as soon as he got here?”

  “Right away. But it’s time we thought about some lunch. It’s turned half-past one. Come to my place for a drink and a sandwich. It’s on your way home. There’s cold meat, and I’m sorry that’s the best I can offer.”

  “We mustn’t impose on you.”

  “Rubbish. I can see you’re both bursting for more information. I’m full of it. In and out the houses on the curragh one doesn’t miss much. I’ve been doctor to the Skollick’s since they arrived and there isn’t much I don’t know about them. Let’s go.”

  They bade Jinnie good-bye and left as they had come, the doctor leading and Knell driving in his wake.

  They passed through the domain of Myrescogh again; great sweeps of barren land where rushes and willows flourished and brambles and gorse grew wild and rank. Then, at length, the main road through the curraghs, narrow but well-metalled, which led them quickly on the highway which runs the whole way from Castletown to Ramsey.