Toll the Bell for Murder (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  There was nothing more to be done. Littlejohn asked to be called at five-thirty.

  “Five-thirty, sir! Will you want breakfast then?”

  “No. I’m off for a walk in the curraghs before I have my trout.”

  “I’ll put the alarm on then.”

  He was asleep not long after ten and the last thing he heard was a drunkard singing on his way home and a dog barking somewhere in the wilderness behind the hotel.

  6

  ENCOUNTER IN THE CURRAGH

  “IT’S HALF-PAST FIVE.”

  A voice Littlejohn hadn’t heard before, perhaps that of a maid, awoke him from a deep, dreamless sleep. At first he didn’t quite know what it was all about. Then he slowly gathered his consciousness together, became aware of the dawn, and realized it was time to get up. The mattress creaked as he sat up and gave the room a surprised look. The curtains were drawn and daylight was creeping in between them. Under the window a thrush was singing.

  He walked to the door, his bare feet sinking in the carpet.

  The maid had left tea and some biscuits outside for him. She had been terrified when, the night before, they’d told her there was a Scotland Yard detective staying in the house. Her education about such notables had been gained by weekly visits to the cinemas at Ramsey. They were usually handsome, overpowering men and the thought of entering the bedroom of one of them had filled her with fear.

  The girl was returning from putting a match to the fire in the dining-room and was only half-dressed. A buxom wench whose white flesh seemed to be trying to pour itself from her tight underclothes. She squeaked and fled downstairs and after Littlejohn had closed his door and was drinking his tea, he heard her creep past and scutter up to her own quarters overhead.

  It was cold. Cold enough for frost, although when he opened the curtains there was no sign of it. The smoke from the newly lighted fire below was drifting on the breeze, which was in the north-east. There was a ground mist rising from the curraghs behind the hotel and all the buildings visible seemed to be floating on it. The glow across everything indicated that the sun was somewhere behind the hills in the east and would soon be making an appearance.

  Littlejohn washed and shaved, and then lit his pipe.

  It tasted good after the strong tea. He quietly let himself out.

  There was a solemn stillness over all the countryside and an odour of damp leaves and grass. The village was completely deserted and so silent that he could hear a stream rushing over stones somewhere in the near distance. He could not feel the wind now. Only the sting of cold air on his freshly shaven cheeks. He turned up the collar of his raincoat and thrust his hands deep in the pockets.

  He had studied the ordnance map of these parts so closely that now he knew its main characteristics by heart. Knell had filled in a lot of other details, too, and the map in his pocket was pencil-marked to show Myrescogh Manor, Mylecharaine, and the best ways of reaching them. Littlejohn turned to the right at the door of the hotel and after ten minutes brisk walking, reached the first road into the curraghs.

  To the Curraghs. It was signposted, but was obviously not a motor road for anybody with respect for tyres and springs. The surface was of loose sharp flints, most of them about the size of an egg. After the first fifty yards the track crossed the railway. The crossing-gates were open and the cottage of the man in charge of them was quiet, with the blinds drawn. At the back, the hens in a wire-netting pen were standing in a cluster watching the door and waiting to be fed. Thence, the road, disappeared into the deepness of the marshes. Littlejohn walked across the line, a narrow-gauge affair which ran straight as a die until it vanished over the horizon at both ends.

  A wall of shrubs shut in the road to right and left and nothing was visible through it. A slim grass verge bordered it on each side, and there were narrow ditches which kept the surface drained. The summits of tall trees met overhead and the road unwound mysteriously onwards. Now and then a gate broke the thickets and Littlejohn could see flat fields in which sheep and cattle were feeding, with here and there a sheet of water surrounded by tall twisted trees, which hung over it menacingly.

  He was well shod, but the flints hurt his feet and he could feel them through the soles of his shoes, as though he were walking barefoot. It took him almost half an hour before the track joined a properly metalled road, with the sun shining on it and a farm set back at the end of it-a “street” in the Anglo-Manx dialect. Littlejohn stopped to admire the scene, for the house was whitewashed and solid, and the rising sun was casting the shadows of the surrounding trees across the vast unbroken gable-end. Not a human soul about. Cattle in the yard, waiting for milking. An appetizing smell of stables and hay on the air. A flock of geese appeared, and the largest one, which was leading, opened its beak and hissed furiously at him.

  The road began to twist through open country, and sod hedges, topped with gorse and covered in brambles on either side, still obscured the view. The mist had vanished, the trees and houses had become detached from the early morning vapour and were beginning to stand out solid and clear. Littlejohn looked over another gate. Beyond, the chain of graceful hills which form the rugged centre of the Island, purple and green with the colours of Spring. In the foreground tilled fields, pastures, a few houses dotted about, copses of bog-oak or willow, and now and then, the glaucous water of a little mere.

  Littlejohn realized that he was lost. With the hills running approximately from east to west, it wasn’t difficult to judge direction or distant places, but the intimate details of the curragh were now confused to him. He was just taking out his map again when he heard the sound of grinding heavy wheels and a cart appeared carrying a load of manure. A man of magnificent physique was walking beside it, with a little sheep-dog at his heels. He looked at Littlejohn with calm eyes, quite unperturbed at the sight of a stranger there so early in the day.

  “Good morning. Am I right for Mylecharaine?”

  “Good mornin’, master.”

  The man stopped the horse and came over to Littlejohn.

  He wore a suit of soiled blue overalls and a cloth cap. Tall, broad, fair, with a fresh complexion and blue eyes. He pointed along the road behind him.

  “You go back till you come to another road which crosses this leek a T. Keep left. It’ll bring you to Mylecharaine.”

  A slow drawling voice with a lilting brogue. The dog, his tongue hanging out and his eyes glued on his master, took in every word as though he understood what it was all about.

  “You the policeman from London on the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “News got round, leek.”

  Littlejohn offered him a cigarette and they both lit-up.

  The farmer made for a gate in the hedge and leaned across it. Littlejohn climbed the bars and sat on the top one. It was a relief to get his feet off the ground after the punishment of the flints on the old road. The horse drew into the hedge and started to chew the grass.

  “Did you know Sir Martin?”

  “Aye.”

  There was a look in the eyes and a tone in the single word which implied more than a casual interest in the dead man. Littlejohn waited. The farmer looked ahead of him at the distant hills, his eyes steady and a lost look in them. When he spoke, it was as if he were talking to himself.

  “Funny thing, Myrescogh died somewhere near the same time as my grandfather.”

  He was speaking of Skollick in the old Manx fashion of giving him the name of his home.

  “Old chap died just as the bell started. The one the parson from Mylecharaine rang in the dark when he was found with the corpse.”

  “Did your grandfather live in the curraghs?”

  “At the farm there you just passed. Eighty-four, he was, and, leek as not, would have reached a hundred but for Myrescogh. That broke the old chap’s heart.”

  “Trouble about land?”

  The farmer drew hard on his cigarette and then threw the stub at his feet and ground it in the soft soil of the ga
teway.

  “No.”

  Another pause. Littlejohn wondered whether or not his new friend was going to tell him the whole story. The cows were waiting for milking and it was probably time for breakfast at the farm.

  “The old man was buried last week. A Methodist, he was, but grandmother lies in Mylecharaine churchyard, so he went there, too.”

  Traa dy Lioor. Time enough. The whole story was on the way if Littlejohn would give the man time.

  “The old fellah was goin’ fast, when the bell started to ring. Them’Il be the bells o’ heaven’ he sez to my sister. He’d heard it in spite of his bein’ a bit deaf. Then he went out with the tide. People in these parts always go out with the tide at the Lhen. The waters from here reach the sea through the Lhen and the Killane River. Grandad’s farm is on the Lhen waters.”

  Cocks crowing, a lark singing in the air, and in the farm along the road a cow mooing and then a lot more echoing.

  Across the fields the smoke from a cottage chimney trickling slowly over the marsh as somebody lit the fire.

  “My sister had gone over to England but got back in time to see the old man before he died. It pleased him a lot. He always liked her the best. Left her half the farm along with me the other half. I’m not married and she promised him that she’d settle down here again with me. If anybody says a word about her.”

  He might have felt like the elder brother in the Prodigal Son, but he didn’t act like him. He raised a fist as large as a ham and crashed it down on the top bar of the gate with such force that he almost dislodged Littlejohn.

  “Was it Sir Martin’s fault?”

  The man didn’t seem to hear the question, but the silence was enough.

  “She was always the clever one of the family. Never took to farmin’, leek, though now she’ll have to settle to it. She got herself a job in Ramsey, in a lawyer’s office. Myrescogh used to call and she must have caught his eye. He got to goin’ there and bringin’ her home in his car. I told her what I’d do to him if it didn’t stop. He was up to no good. But you know what women are. What I said seemed to make her more stubborn. One day she went to Ramsey and didn’t come back. She wrote from England. There was a baby on the way and she was with her aunt in Liverpool.”

  He paused and then turned and gave Littlejohn an angry look as though the Superintendent were somehow forcing him to speak.

  “I’m tellin’ ye all this so that you’ll get it true and first hand. Everybody knows all about it, but they’d add to it to suit their own evil tastes if you was to ask ’em.”

  Littlejohn handed out more cigarettes and they lit them and puffed in silence.

  “It might easy have been me as shot Myrescogh. When Ellen wrote, I took the gun and was off to the manor. I knew it was him. Grandad stopped me. Our mother and dad died years ago, and grandad brought us up. He was a powerful religious man. Preached in the Methodist churches on the Plan. A big strong fellah, he was. He said the Lord would have His vengeance, and repay. It looks as if he was right, though I didn’t think so at the time. Now the child, he’s only a few months old-has come over to live here as she promised grandad before he died.”

  “Did you never take it up with Sir Martin?”

  “I never seen him since Ellen ran away. He went off the Island, too, about the same time, and didn’t come back till a month or so ago. By that time, I’d cooled-off and didn’t want to upset the old man, who was dyin’ by then. He started to die slowly from the day he heard about Ellen. It broke him up. He was that fond of her. Leek as not, it was the rage he had inside him that burned him out, but he was never a one for revenge or spite.”

  “There were other girls in trouble through Skollick?”

  “Not like Ellen. One in the village was seen ridin’ in his car a time or two, but her dad went to the manor with his gun across his arm and sent the girl to her aunt’s in Bristol. I ought to have done the same. Anyhow, it’s worked out right, as the old fellah said it would, though he’s not here to see it.”

  “You were awake at the time the big explosion was heard?”

  “Yes. Me and Ellen and some cousins from Regaby was all with grandfather. We knew he’d go with the tide. The vicar said he’d last till mornin’ and went home around one o’clock.”

  “The vicar?”

  “Yes. The Reverend Lee. We sent for him at midnight.

  There’s no Methodist parson near, but grandad was broadminded. Mr. Lee stayed over an hour.”

  “Did he seem upset about anything?”

  “No, except the old man dyin’. He prayed a lot and tried to comfort us all with promises of where the dead went to.”

  “And the rest of you stayed up until he died?”

  “Long after it. There were things to do, you see.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s funny that our family should be mixed-up in a murther again. Myrescogh and the vicar, this time. I said when they arrested the parson, they’d got the wrong chap. Rev. Lee wouldn’t hurt a fly. You’ll see. When he comes before the Deemster, he’ll get off.”

  “You’ve been mixed up in murder before, you say?”

  “Aye. Over three hundred years ago. Only other murther I remember ever happenin’ in the curraghs. A forefather of mine. same name as me, William Fayle, was killed for the same old reason, covetousness of his land and his woman.”

  He smiled slyly at Littlejohn.

  “And they didn’t bring anybody from across to detect who did it. The parish lockman and the jury caught him. Now, with Myrescogh havin’, as they say he has, had his face shot away, they won’t be able to use the same way of findin’ out who killed him.”

  Littlejohn looked hard at the man. There seemed to be a lesson in crime investigation in the offing.

  “How did they find out?”

  “It’s well-known that if a man’s murthered and the one that has done it is made to touch the corpse, the dead will bleed from the mouth and nose. That’s how they knew that Gilnow Casement killed William Fayle. All the suspected were made to touch the body of the dead.”

  Along the road a woman was approaching and when she saw the two men she slowed down her stride. She wore a beret and raincoat and was smoking a cigarette.

  “William. It’s taking you a long time to carry the muck. I’ve had to get the cows in for milking and breakfast’s ready.”

  She spoke well, without a trace of brogue or accent.

  Evidently a well-educated girl. She looked hard at Littlejohn. Dark, with black curls escaping from under her cap, tall and strong, and obviously of farming stock, she had the prominent cheek-bones and clear dark eyes of the celtic Manx. An almost impudent retrousse nose and a determined chin. She was a beauty which, with her poise and self-confidence, would certainly have challenged Skollick’s predatory tastes. Very different from her Scandinavian-looking brother with his blue eyes and almost red hair. In the partnership which was beginning, she would obviously provide the drive and adventure.

  “I’d better be comin’ along, then. This is the detective from London.”

  He didn’t mention Skollick.

  “So I see. I’m pleased to meet you. It was in yesterday’s paper about you.”

  “My name’s Littlejohn, Miss Fayle. Superintendent Littlejohn.”

  “So it said in the paper.”

  Her brother looked at her uneasily. Her self-possession seemed a bit like cheek in his eyes, but he was obviously proud of her.

  Littlejohn climbed from the gate and began to fill his pipe.

  “I’m sorry, sir, we can’t ask you to breakfast. You’d have been very welcome, only, well, with grandfather just dying, everything’s upset at the farm.”

  “I quite understand, Miss Fayle. I’m expected back at my hotel about half-past eight or nine. I must be going, too.”

  The farmer made a clicking noise with his tongue, whereat the horse ceased his eating and drew himself up, ready for off. The dog came to heel, too, from his foraging in the hedge-bottom.

&nbs
p; “By the way, Mr. Fayle, did the doctor come to your grandfather on the night he died?”

  “We sent for him. The old fellah took the turnabout ten.

  We’re on the telephone. So Ellen rang him up. He was out, but got here not long after the parson left.”

  “Before or after the explosion?”

  “He’d got in just after it happened. I remember him saying he wondered if it was poachers. However, he was too busy to bother when he saw the old man. He was like the parson. Didn’t believe he’d go with the tide. He left around quarter to three.”

  “It was Dr. Pakeman?”

  “Of course.”

  They all said good-bye and brother and sister invited Littlejohn to call on them whenever he might be passing. He watched them disappear round the corner side-by-side. He felt he’d have liked to meet grandad before he’d died. A man who had kept vengeance and violence out of his family tragedy and had been prepared to wait. And, as he died in peace, his faith had been justified.

  The way, too, William Fayle’s murder had been solved three hundred or more years ago. That was a new one! Littlejohn could imagine himself trying it out on one of his cases. They’d think he’d gone completely round the bend!

  He walked to the cross-roads. One of them, to the right, led to a dead-end, another farm, set among willows and twisted sycamores. He took the left fork and arrived at Mylecharaine. The village was quiet. A woman feeding poultry; some children playing about in the road, waiting for the bus to take them to school. Another woman pushing a wheelbarrow loaded, for some reason, with plants in pots. A motor-cycle went past, ridden by a rather elegant young man on his way to work.

  Littlejohn lit his pipe again and looked round taking in the scene. One or two of the houses, whitewashed, single storied affairs, were reached by little bridges across a dyke. Others sprawled here and there on high land. Gardens were ablaze with wallflowers, and the flower-beds and even the wild hedge-bottoms were yellow with primroses. In the orchards which seemed to cling round the houses for protection, apple blossom was just breaking.

  The church was reached by a short path closed by a large white-painted iron gate, shaded by a large cypress and a huge red fuchsia tree. Littlejohn opened it and walked to the churchyard. A small area, just suitable for the size of the community. The stones of the surrounding wall were overgrown by ivy. Gravestones old and new, with one or two elaborate headstones, and some without even a name. Just slabs of undressed granite. Two large vaults on which he read the almost indecipherable names of Mylecharaine and Myrescogh. A huge granite block beneath which, Littlejohn was later informed, reposed the bodies of five generations of Costains, who had lived at a large farm nearby. Faded wreaths and everlasting flowers under glass shades. The hum of bees on the air. The severity and melancholy of the place softened by daffodils and wallflowers in full bloom.