Toll the Bell for Murder (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  And then a newly filled-in grave, with withered wreaths and flowers ready to be cleared-up and wheeled to the rubbish heap. A headstone lying beside it, waiting for another name. Here lies Mary Fayle, wife of William Fayle, of Ballagonny. Other names, probably those of children, inscribed above the dead woman’s. It now awaited, like the closing of a chapter, that of the old man, who had been content to defer vengeance, the repayment of the debt which had burned him up and killed him in the end.

  The church was closed and locked. He strolled across to the vicarage, past a number of plain graves which, he was surprised to find, were those of men of the R.A.F., stationed there during the war. Some of the dead had come from as far away as Canada.

  The vicarage was closed, too. A depressing place with dark windows, some of them devoid of curtains which emphasized the blackness within. It was like an empty sepulchre. A couple of water-hens swimming with their chicks on a dark pool in one corner of the garden. At the sight of Littlejohn they all vanished under the water. He peeped through one of the downstairs windows, which, had he known it, gave a view of the room in which the constable had found the Rev. Sullivan Lee on his knees just after the crime. It was shabby and gloomy. Makeshift furniture, like a job-lot from a saleroom. An old armchair, a table on which books were stacked, leaving a small corner for feeding on. The fire-grate was an old cast-iron thing in which the bars held an overflowing load of ashes dribbling out into the hearth. On the mantelpiece a photograph of a woman was just visible. She was young and dressed in an old-fashioned full-length skirt and a blouse of the type which had a collar held up by whalebone supports. One hand was placed on an open book on top of a cardboard pillar painted to look like marble. There was a small sanctuary lamp in front of it, with a half-burnt candle sticking out from the top. The room was cold and forlorn. Far less tempting than the cell now occupied by the tenant of the place.

  Littlejohn turned to see a small red van appear from the tunnel of trees at the end of the hamlet. He made for it. The postman was delivering the slender mail of the community, whistling as he did so and shouting news and greetings. He saw Littlejohn and waved a hand. Littlejohn waved back.

  “Going my way?”

  He felt hungry and depressed and in no mood for a further lonely walk through the deserted secret roads back to civilization again.

  “Sulby.”

  “Right, sir. Jump in.”

  The chatter of the postman cheered him up. He was a Ramsey man and his hobby was rifle-shooting. He had won cups and a lot of useful prizes for his skill. He showed Littlejohn a gold watch and an expensive propelling pencil.

  They passed a Methodist church miles from anywhere.

  It was well-kept and obviously in constant use. The postman said it was there that William Fayle attended.

  “Did you ever know him? A grand old man. A great loss to the community. He often preached at that church. Well read, he was. And, would you believe it, he used to say he’d never been off the Island in his life. Not even to Liverpool. Only been three times to Douglas.”

  William Fayle had done all the good in his life to his own neighbours and friends.

  They arrived back at the hotel just before nine. It seemed days since Littlejohn had left it in the early dawn. There was a smell of bacon and eggs on the air which made him hungry.

  At the door, a man with a handcart was selling fresh fish.

  A cat was standing on its hind legs mewing loudly, and he gave it a cod’s head so big that the animal was bewildered and couldn’t think what to do with it.

  7

  TWO WOMEN

  IT WAS THE sight of Fayle, of Ballagonny, passing the hotel in an ancient Austin in the direction of Ramsey which made Littlejohn take the rocky road to the farm a second time. He had just finished his late breakfast and was filling his pipe, when, through the window, he spotted the farmer, obviously on his way to the mart.

  The Superintendent had no wish to torture his feet in the flinty track through the curragh again, but it was obvious that the two Fayles, brother and sister, mutually restrained one another in conversation with the police. Her candour would annoy him and his caution and lack of sophistication would tire her patience.

  It was even hotter following the damp way through the marshes under the morning sun. Littlejohn took off his jacket and slung it over his arm. He walked alternately on the flints of the path and the grass verges. When his shoes were soaked with the dew of the latter, he took to the former, and reversed the process when the pointed stones had punished him enough.

  Ballagonny came into view, white in the sunshine at the end of the trail. The cattle had vanished from the farm-yard and instead a wiry little woman, clad in black and wearing a large apron, was occupying almost the whole of it with the job in hand. Spread all around her were the contents of a bedroom which she was turning out and cleaning. A dismantled bed with a large mattress, a chest with all the drawers out, and blankets, quilts, window curtains, a carpet and a hearthrug spread along a clothes-line and flowing in the breeze. She was beating the rug when she turned and spotted Littlejohn.

  “Is Miss Fayle in?”

  The woman seemed surprised and a bit put-out by this interruption of her mighty task, and merely nodded in the direction of an open door, set between two windows with small leaded lights.

  “She’s through there.”

  Ellen Fayle came to the door to see what it was all about.

  “I thought you’d be back, Superintendent. Won’t you come in?”

  She was as self-possessed as ever and, without her beret, even better looking than when Littlejohn had first seen her along the road. She led the way indoors, through a low ceilinged, whitewashed hall.

  “Won’t you give me your hat? I’m sorry, but we have nothing to offer you to drink, except milk and buttermilk. Grandfather was a strict abstainer and wouldn’t have alcohol in the house.”

  “Buttermilk will suit me splendidly.”

  He looked round the room during her absence. A large raftered farm kitchen with a big hearth and plenty of windows through which shafts of sunlight, penetrating through surrounding trees, made the air shimmer and sparkle. It bore signs of modernization. A new red-tiled floor with mats here and there, a great welsh dresser with blue plates on the shelves, straw seated chairs and, in the middle, a huge oak table, black with age. On one of the chairs stood a large open work-basket.

  She was back and handed him his drink. It was ice-cold and refreshing after his unsteady trek through the hot curragh. He sipped it gratefully. He hadn’t drunk buttermilk since he was a boy and used to go with his father to farms around his home.

  “Sit down, Superintendent. How did you know William was out?”

  She seemed to sense the reason for his visit, and, as he was smiling and ready to reply, she took him up with a laugh.

  “I was always one for asking questions and wanting to know the reason why.”

  “I saw your brother pass the hotel in his car.”

  “He’s gone to see the lawyer about grandpa’s estate.”

  “I wondered if we could perhaps speak a little more freely in his absence. He is so protective towards you that certain questions might anger him.”

  “You’re quite right. I’m glad you came back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to find out who killed Sir Martin.

  It was a shameful business and an end he didn’t deserve.”

  “So you don’t think the Reverend Lee committed the crime?”

  “Of course I don’t. Do you?”

  “May I ask why?”

  “He wouldn’t do such a thing. He’s a mild man. As for using a gun. It’s ridiculous.”

  Littlejohn drank the last of his buttermilk and lit his pipe. Ellen Fayle filled up his glass again from a jug. Upstairs, the daily help was taking back the contents of the bedroom, bumping and lumbering, and finally, a tall gangling man in overalls and a misshapen old hat, appeared from some outbuildings and began t
o help her carry up the furniture.

  “This will be a new life for you, Miss Fayle. I mean, farming with your brother.”

  She nodded.

  “Yes. I was brought-up here, but I never took to farming.

  I was always one for books and reading, and, as I told you, asking a lot of questions. My mother was English. Her father was an ex-army man who retired to Ballaugh. Father and she made a love-match of it, they say. When we were children, she persuaded him to go for a holiday on the Continent. They were drowned in a boating mishap at Aix-les-Bains.

  That explained quite a lot. The girl had obviously taken after her mother in a craving for things beyond the quiet life of the Manx countryside. And her brother, William, probably like his father, had inherited a Manxman’s deep love of his own land and yet, had in him some of his mother’s temperament. Otherwise, he would not have talked so freely with Littlejohn earlier in the day. Manx caution had been leavened by more easy going English ways.

  “You have always lived here?”

  “I went to a school at Cheltenham for two years. Otherwise, I’ve been brought-up here. When I came back from school, grandfather said I needn’t stay at home if it didn’t suit me. He was always so sweet to me. And now, my brother is just the same. To hear him talk, I’m to be the lady of the house and he’ll do all the work. Which is rather silly. I shall do my share here, now.”

  “You were in a lawyer’s office?”

  “Yes. If they’d allowed women at the Manx bar, I think I would have tried it. As it was, I wanted to train as a law clerk. I found it very interesting.”

  “And there you met Sir Martin Skollick?”

  “Yes.”

  A pause. Upstairs, the noise continued, as though the pair renovating the bedroom, were pulling it down first.

  “Were you in love with him?”

  “Yes. And he loved me.”

  Her self-control was wonderful. No sign of tears or emotion. She kept her feelings hidden and well in hand.

  “I don’t know what you are thinking, Superintendent.

  You’ve probably been told a lot of strange things about Sir Martin. Most of them are legendary.”

  “His fondness for women, his inability to get on with his neighbours, his love of money. Are those what you mean, Miss Fayle?”

  “I don’t care what reputation he had. I only remember him as I knew him. You must think me a hard woman remaining so calm in the face of recent happenings. I can only say that when he was alive, I lived through such events in imagination over and over again. He used to say he was a doomed man, and would come to a bad end. Everyone seemed against him. Well, he was right, in spite of my efforts to convince him otherwise by pretending I took it all as a joke. I seem to have wept until I’ve no more tears. I have the child. He’s asleep upstairs. I can’t realize yet what has happened. When the delayed shock breaks upon me, I suppose then.”

  Her face was hard and drawn as she rose and took away the jug and glass to hide her feelings. When she returned, Littlejohn saw her eyes were bright with tears. She sat down and calmly faced him.

  “Were there any questions you wanted particularly to ask?”

  “Did Sir Martin visit you in England after you left home?”

  He asked it as kindly and objectively as he could, and she seemed to appreciate his manner.

  “Yes. He made arrangements for me at a nursing-home and he visited me at my aunt’s. My aunt is my mother’s sister and although the news came as a great shock to her, in the circumstances she was very kind.”

  “Circumstances?”

  “Yes. Sir Martin and I were going to be married as soon as he could get a divorce.”

  Littlejohn nodded. “I see.”

  “I hope you do, Superintendent. I hope you realize that this wasn’t just another of what have been locally described as Sir Martin’s wicked ways. I know he had a reputation as a philanderer, or worse. But this time, it wasn’t the same. There was the child, you see.”

  “You mean?”

  “He had no children of his own. He wanted children, but his wife, it seems, didn’t. She was, in her day, a famous opera singer, a coddled artist, a woman of temperament. Sir Martin was very fond of children.”

  “And intended to marry you in course of time and make your son legitimate.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Had he approached Lady Skollick?”

  “Yes. She refused. She said it was against her principles.

  Besides, I believe she asked what was going to happen to her. She said she had sacrificed her career for Sir Martin.”

  “In such case?”

  “If he could not persuade her, we were leaving the Island and going to live somewhere together, probably Italy.”

  “Did your family know this?”

  “No. The divorce wasn’t mentioned to anyone except my brother. I told Sir Martin that until the future was settled one way or another, my grandfather was not to know.”

  “And before anything further was arranged, Sir Martin and your grandfather were dead.”

  She nodded, as though not trusting herself to speak.

  “Forgive the next question, but you know of the existence of Mrs. Vacey?”

  “I do. It was purely a superficial love affair.”

  Littlejohn admired her loyalty and her way of brushing Mrs. Vacey aside, but...

  “You know he was with her until midnight just before he died?”

  “I know that, too. He promised to break with her. No doubt he’d been that very night about it.”

  “How long had he known about the child?”

  “A month before he was born. I’d left for my aunt’s before that. Sir Martin came over to see me. It was then I told him about the child. He said he loved me and reproached me with leaving the Island without telling him and for giving him all the trouble of finding me. Then he said he’d ask his wife for a divorce and marry me. He had been off the Island when I left and only discovered that I’d gone when he returned. He’d found out my whereabouts right away from the post office and came to me without delay.”

  “So, he really wouldn’t have much chance of seeing and settling matters with Mrs. Vacey until very recently?”

  “That’s quite true.”

  “Do you think Sir Martin had any enemy who hated him enough to want to kill him?”

  “I don’t know. He had a bad financial crash in England some years ago. Several people were ruined. He had to go to prison in connection with it. I don’t know how badly those who lost money would take it.”

  Littlejohn felt she was putting it mildly. Perhaps Skollick had softened the tale in the telling. The financial crash had been a pure swindle, and Sir Martin had been sent to prison for sheer roguery. No use, however, washing ancient dirty linen. He rose to go.

  “You don’t think anyone on the Island, anybody locally, would hate him enough to shoot him?”

  She shook her head in a bewildered way.

  “My brother might have felt that way, but, for my sake, would never have done it. I told him everything. The idea of a divorce horrified him. He said he’d never agree. But William was here, at grandfather’s deathbed when Martin was killed. Quite a lot of us can testify to that. The vicar, of course, didn’t approve of Martin at all.”

  She had a way of understating things, of playing them down, which Littlejohn observed. Even her own emotions were held in check, damped down under her quiet, calm exterior. And now, as she found it easier to confide in Littlejohn, she had turned to calling Skollick simply by his Christian name, as doubtless she’d done when he was alive.

  “Who then could have been responsible?”

  She paused and then in a deliberate, icy voice.

  “Have you thought of Lady Skollick? How she must have hated him for the idea of divorce. A temperamental, violent woman.”

  “All the same, she could hardly have burgled the schoolroom and stolen the gun. In any case, how did she know of its existence?”

  “
Someone might have told her. One of the women there.”

  “It’s very unlikely.”

  “I only thought of her because she hated him. He told me she said so when he mentioned the divorce.”

  “Has she any friends?”

  “Very few. She thinks herself a cut above most people round here. She’s connected with the church and subscribes liberally there, but she’s not sociable about it. She’s friendly with Dr. Pakeman. I believe she’s very neurotic and sleeps badly. The doctor’s frequently there. Martin told me the doctor was a great admirer of Lady Skollick during her operatic days. He’s a musician and often crosses to England for concerts and opera seasons.”

  “Well, I must go. I’m keeping you from your work, Miss Fayle. I’m very grateful to you for being so frank and helpful. If I think of anything else, perhaps I might call again?”

  “Certainly. Thank you, too, for being so kind and sympathetic. With the exception of William, not very many people approve of me just at present. I’m the kind of woman whose photograph is removed from the family album. And I think that perhaps if grandfather hadn’t been so good and made his wishes understood to my brother, things here at Ballagonny might have been much more difficult.”

  They parted with a handshake. In the room above, the noise suddenly ceased as the domestic helpers paused to watch Littlejohn off.

  From the road beyond the farm, the chimneys of Myrescogh Manor were visible. A thread of smoke was rising from one of them and slowly mounting to the pale blue sky. Littlejohn lit his pipe and strolled in that direction. He didn’t meet a soul until he reached the gates of the manor. There, a man was weeding the drive, the metallic sound of his rake and the rattle of the gravel sounding loud on the still air. He was small and almost hunchbacked from rheumatism and bending at his eternal task of tending the earth. He raised his small spiteful eyes as Littlejohn approached and presented a face like that of a ferret emerging from a burrow.