The place was completely isolated and built on the model of a small French chateau, even to the flight of steps leading to the broad front door. Littlejohn tugged the chain and could hear a bell ring indoors.
An elderly maid took his hat and vanished to announce him. Then she returned and led him into the library. A beautifully panelled room with oak beams in the ceiling and hundreds of uniformly bound books on the shelves. The kind you buy wholesale from a bookseller and never open again. The rest of the house was silent.
There was a log fire in the hearth and Mrs. Iremonger was sitting in front of it, taking tea from a small table. A silver service and fine china. She rose to meet Littlejohn.
Although Chickabiddy’s life had hitherto been gay and fast, she still looked well-preserved and handsome. She was wearing a light grey tweed costume with a white nylon blouse fastened at the neck by the same single stone diamond brooch Littlejohn had seen before. As she walked towards him, Littlejohn could see she’d been drinking something stronger than tea before the cups arrived. There was a decanter and glasses on the sideboard and one of the glasses was half full of what looked like whisky.
“You called then, Inspector. I thought you’d forgotten.”
A pleasant, husky voice, too, and a rather coy smile. She shook hands with a firm grip.
“Is this a social call, or professional?”
“Mainly professional, madam.”
“Tea? Or would you prefer...?”
“Tea, if you please.”
She poured a cup, handed it to him, and offered him an armchair near her own. Petit-fours? Or perhaps a cigar? There seemed to be nothing lacking. Over the fireplace, a very fine oil painting of a yacht, the Euryanthe. And on the opposite wall, a large oil portrait of a man who must have been Iremonger himself. A smallish, portly man in a reefer jacket and yachting cap, with a sea-blue background. A face of character, full, pink, with a little sharp nose and very blue eyes. There was something about the picture which surprised Littlejohn. The artist had skilfully captured a look of despair in the smile and general attitude. The look of a man who smiles when he’s lost faith and hope.
“That was my late husband, Inspector. A very fine man.”
Littlejohn remembered how Iremonger and Chickabiddy had got so drunk in the yacht, that they’d left their guests and walked over the side and into the river.
“I heard so, madam. He was lost with his yacht at Dunkirk, I believe.”
“So you’ve heard that. Yes. That’s the yacht, the dear Euryanthe.”
She was playing at drinking tea. Obviously she’d take to the whisky if Littlejohn would join her, but he stuck to his cup. In fact, he said he’d have another when she asked him. He took a cigar, too, which Chickabiddy produced from a cabinet, and lit it from the lighter she handed him.
“And now...You said this was a professional call.”
She sat down and played with the two rings on her wedding finger. A plain one in platinum and another with five large diamonds together worth a fortune. Strong, square hands and steady, apart from the nervous movements of the fingers.
“I called to ask about the Euryanthe really. Before the war, did you hire her to anyone?”
She gave him a searching, suspicious look, trying to fathom what he was getting at. Somewhere in the house behind, a large dog began to bay. Littlejohn wondered what Mrs. Iremonger did with herself after dark when the outdoor staff had gone and the servants had retired. A large silent house, surrounded by the marshes and the sea, with one solitary woman alone living with pictures of a man and a yacht.
“Hire her? No. She was too precious to us. Perfect in every way.”
“And yet, in the late thirties, I believe she appeared many times in German ports without her owners. Did you lend her, then?”
She tried to look relieved, but it was a poor effort.
“Oh, that. We lent her to John Grebe. He was a master mariner, cooped up here for a quiet life, yet interested in ships. In fact, my husband offered to make him master of the Euryanthe, but he refused. We lent her to him, however, several times. Better that than putting her up in the river when we didn’t want her.”
“That must have been on many occasions according to my information.”
She shrugged her shoulders as though it was too long ago to remember.
“She came from America originally, I hear.”
“Yes. A friend of my husband had her built. Then he fell ill, too ill to sail her, so he sold her to us.”
“She’d been engaged in the liquor traffic?”
“Who told you that?”
Littlejohn didn’t reply. He was busy knocking the ash from his cigar into a silver bowl which reminded him of a surgical dish.
“The friend who built her was the sort who wouldn’t tolerate curtailment of his liberties. What right had they to inflict prohibition? He made his yacht with a view to...”
“Smuggling liquor? And other things? Did you know Grebe used her for sneaking valuables out of Germany for wealthy exiles?”
He said nothing about the dope. He was feeling his way.
“He told me something of the kind. My husband and I didn’t object. She was being used in a good cause.”
“Did you and your husband finance any of those ventures? They certainly needed money to run the ship and man it, and Grebe presumably wasn’t rich.”
She couldn’t wait any longer, but made for the decanter eagerly and poured herself a stiff whisky and filled it up with soda. Then she repeated the process and handed Littlejohn the glass.
“I’m sure you’d like a drink, Inspector. Good health.”
“Good health, madam.”
He sipped his drink and she drank hers almost in a single gulp, like a man who finds water after a thirsty agony of waiting.
“Where is all this leading? John Grebe is dead, murdered. Is this helping to find who killed him?”
“I hope so. We’ve arrested Leo Fowler, the man who was captain of the Euryanthe when she was running treasure from Germany. He had a grievance against Grebe and traced him here to get even with him. I don’t think he intended to kill Grebe; perhaps just to blackmail him. This captain was betrayed into the hands of the Gestapo and ended up in a concentration camp and then in a Russian prison camp. He’s very sore about it, naturally, and he’s now anxious to know who informed against him. It must have been somebody who either bore him a grudge or thought he knew more than was good for him.”
“Very interesting. So he killed Grebe, after all, and now he has to pay the price.”
She set down her empty glass and then picked it up nervously and held it between the palms of her hands as though trying to warm it.
Littlejohn was watching her face. Her eyes were wide and he could see a little flame of fear lighting them. She couldn’t restrain herself and rose to help herself to more whisky.
“You’re not drinking, Inspector.”
“I’m all right, thank you, madam.”
“Why tell me all about this captain and his smuggling? Why bring me into it at all? It makes a good story, but what has it to do with me?”
“I had an idea that you and your husband were financially interested in those trips. After all, it was your yacht.”
A silence. Littlejohn expected to be shown the door. But Chickabiddy was of different mettle. She wanted to know just how much Littlejohn knew.
“If you’ve got the man who killed John Grebe, you’ve surely finished the case. This would be very nice as a social call, Inspector, but it obviously isn’t. You’re here trying to find out something from me. Just as though you weren’t satisfied at having a man in prison, but wanted somebody else. As though the case wasn’t solved, after all.”
“I’m seeking further information because the Euryanthe belonged to you, as I’ve said before.”
“Well, I can’t help you. That was all in the past. This murder is in the present. I don’t see the connection.”
“Don’t you? Where were you on the
night Grebe died, Mrs. Iremonger?”
She laughed harshly. The whisky was taking effect and she was losing control.
“Whatever for? I didn’t kill Grebe. He was a friend of mine, and of my husband when he was alive. I’d no reason...”
“All the same, will you tell me, please?”
“I was here, as I usually am after dark. I’ve few friends to visit and sometimes I read and sometimes I play cards with my French maid, Henriette. She will tell you I haven’t been abroad after dark for more than a fortnight. She’s out at present, but you can call to see her any time.”
“You are friendly with Dr. Horrocks and Captain Bacon?”
“Yes. They’re neighbours and they frequently call here. But rarely after dark, if that’s what you’re getting at. I think they foregather every night at the Barlow Arms.”
“They used to call together, with Grebe, I believe. You were a syndicate running the building estate down the road.”
“How clever you are, Inspector! Yes, and you’ve found it out. Simply...just like that.”
She snapped her fingers in his face.
“I wish you were in the local force. We could be good friends. You must have lived a very interesting life and could tell many stories of crime and horror. I like stories of crime and horror. What about John Grebe? Give me some details.”
She helped herself to another drink and frowned at Littlejohn’s half-filled glass.
“You’re a poor drinker, Inspector.”
“I’m on duty, madam.”
“Don’t keep calling me madam. To my friends I’m known as Chickabiddy. A name my husband invented and everybody in our set calls me that. I insist...You may call me Chickabiddy. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
They said Iremonger had picked her out of the gutter and given her a veneer of manners and culture. Now, she was shedding the case-hardening as the whisky did its work.
“Details of John Grebe...Details...Details...”
“He was murdered by mistake.”
Her eyes opened wide.
“Who told you that? Who told you? Didn’t you just say Leo Fowler did it?”
“No. Someone out to kill Fowler mistook Grebe for him in the dark and knifed the wrong man. They both dressed alike, in uniform, and they were both the same build.”
“But Grebe died on the ferry. I tell you, he died on the ferry.”
“No, he didn’t. He died long before the ferry left Elmer’s Creek. He died and was thrown in the river and the murderer took the Falbright Jenny halfway over the river himself and then grounded her and ran ashore across the sandbank.”
She was on her feet, rocking from side to side.
“This is incre’ble. You must be a magic’n.”
“You mean, you know what happened? How did you know?”
Suddenly she pulled herself together, sat down, and passed her hand across her forehead in a tired gesture.
“I didn’t say I knew. I don’t know a thing about it. All I said was, you were wonderful to think out such an idea. Why have you arrest’d the other man, then...the old captain of the Euryanthe? What’s his name...Leo Mills...Leo...? Walter Mills, that’s it. You got it all wrong, Inspector.”
“Walter Mills. You’re right, Mrs. Iremonger. But how did you know his name? I told you Leo Fowler.”
“You’re trying to trap me. You said Walter Mills. That’s how I got the name. I don’t know any Walter Millses. It was you who said Mills. And stop calling me Mrs. Iremonger. Call me Chickabiddy. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
She was drunk now, utterly drunk. The sort of thing that probably went on night after night as she sat in her lonely house, bored to death, missing the man who’d given it all to her, probably in a moment of drunken folly. And then he’d lost faith and hope and gone and got himself killed in a last heroic sacrifice at Dunkirk and gone down with his beloved Euryanthe.
“Did your husband know about the money you made on the Euryanthe?”
“No! He thought it was charity. That Grebe was rescuing them out of pity. We never told him.”
“Who’s we?”
“I don’ know what you’re talking about.”
She curled up in her chair and fell asleep. Short of shaking her violently and then trying again, there was nothing more to be done.
Footsteps outside, the front door opened and closed, and then a dark, slightly-built woman entered the library. She was dressed in a smart black costume and a little hat to match. She looked at Littlejohn standing rather stupidly beside the sleeping form of Chickabiddy, and then at her mistress, curled up in the chair.
“Comment?”
The French maid, Henriette!
“I called on your mistress and in the middle of our conversation, she just curled up and fell asleep. Will you please look after her?”
“Look after her?”
The French girl seemed tickled about it. She gave a tinkling, ironical laugh, seized Mrs. Iremonger by the shoulders and, with amazing strength for one so small and slim, jerked her from the chair. Mrs. Iremonger tottered and half opened her eyes.
“Your guest is going, madame. You must say goodbye.”
As Chickabiddy showed an inclination to return to the chair, the maid shook her roughly again.
“Say goodbye, I tell you, say goodbye.”
“Goo’bye. Call again. Call me Chickabiddy.”
She sank back in the chair and was fast asleep in a moment. The maid shrugged her shoulders, showed Littlejohn to the door, and gave him his hat.
“Is she often like that?”
“No, sir. She doesn’t get drunk until later as a rule. And then not too often. It is when she gets lonely and afraid of people, or memories, or this house. Did you frighten her? It is unusual for her.”
“Perhaps I did. However, she’ll sleep it off, won’t she?”
It was growing dark outside. On the road, men passed with fishing rods and fish on strings. Cyclists were hurrying home, their lamps lit. Windows lighted here and there across the marsh. A cat crept along the road and its eyes glowed like little lamps in the beams of a passing car. The Farne Light was throwing its fingers across the open country and out to sea.
Cromwell was waiting for him at the Barlow Arms. It was a relief to see his rugged friendly face.
“I arranged about Mrs. Liddell. I called and told her I’d fixed it for the police to send a man to keep an eye on the place and give her protection. It’s one of the Falbright men, a new chap from the county force who isn’t well known. They’ve got him up as a cyclist and he’s pedalled to the Saracen’s Head and he’ll stay there for a few days.”
“Good. What did Mrs. Liddell say to it all?”
“Not a thing. A funny woman. She’d been drinking a bit. She listened to what I had to say about Leo wanting somebody to protect her while he was away. She took it without moving a muscle. The detective we sent seems a bit baffled and scared about her, but he’ll do his job. He’s a decent sort.”
“Thanks, old man. Let’s get something to eat, now. And I hope it’s something good.”
Lucy was waiting for them in the dining-room and she even gave Littlejohn a smile.
14 A HAIRCUT AND A SHAVE
BEFORE he left Falbright police station after the appearance of Leo Fowler in the magistrates’ court, Littlejohn told the Chief Constable and Superintendent Lecky a story which at first left them incredulous. Then, after the Chief Inspector had detailed the steps by which he’d deduced it, they expressed approval and went so far as to apologize half-heartedly for their rather cavalier treatment of him in the case of Leo Fowler.
John Grebe hadn’t taken the Falbright Jenny into the river and beached her on the night he died! Someone who looked like him had done it, whilst Grebe’s body was floating about in the water behind the Barlow Arms.
The identity of the unknown pilot, the murderer, now assumed top-rank importance and the whole of the police machine in Falbright was geared up and put in motion to obtain more informa
tion. Joe Webb, the stoker, and everyone known to have crossed to Elmer’s Creek on Grebe’s last trip or returned to Falbright with the murderous pilot, was questioned. The Women’s Guild and the Methodist parson were very closely grilled. O Beulah Land ! Whenever the Rev. John Thomas Jingling, B.A., heard or saw those lovely hymnal verses afterwards, he felt slightly sick.
Not a thing came to light from all the constabulary work, which started as Littlejohn made his way to see Chickabiddy at Solitude, and continued long after.
Whilst he was away, Littlejohn left Cromwell to his own devices. They had worked together for so long and understood each other so well, that short of definite orders and a fixed object in view, the Chief Inspector always gave his colleague a free hand. He knew full well this meant that Cromwell would return with a considerable contribution to the case.
Left alone at the Barlow Arms, Cromwell ran his long fingers through the thinning hair at the crown of his head and the shaggy fringe which was beginning to hang over his collar at the back, and nodded.
“Is there a barber on this side of the river, Lucy?”
“Yes, sir, in a manner of speaking.”
And she gave him all the information she could about it.
Cromwell firmly settled his bowler on his head, lit his pipe, which was a replica of Littlejohn’s, and sailed out, smiling to himself. He was almost in Peshall village when he met Fothergill, unhurriedly and uninterruptedly making his way down the road. The postman was on the afternoon delivery. He always walked steadily to the Barlow Arms, his bag full and arousing the curiosity of those he passed on the way, but he never started to distribute its contents until he had turned about at the Arms. This was his first port of call and there he took a drink to speed him on his labours.
As a rule, Fothergill, the responsibility of Her Majesty’s mails heavy upon him, never halted until he reached the starting post. He already knew the contents of every article in his bag. Postcards he read shamelessly; circulars and routine bills, he passed on with contempt; regular letters he weighed carefully in his hand as he sorted them and, like a psychometric practitioner, imagined, with a fair amount of accuracy, what they contained. The new, interesting, or intriguing ones he read over in the post office lavatory, for he always took a cup of tea before starting on his rounds and it was a shame to waste the steam from the kettle.
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