Death Drops the Pilot

by George Bellairs

  “You can leave opinions to us, Fothergill. Meanwhile, I want you to come along to the Barlow Arms with us. We want you in sight, instead of running round to your friends and warning them that we know far too much. Come along.”

  “But...What will people say and what are you goin’ to do with me there?”

  “Never mind what people say. Far too much has been said already and a little more won’t do any harm. As for what you’re going to do...Until we need you, you can play darts with Sergeant Cromwell.”

  Fothergill bowed his head. The last straw!

  18 THE JOLLY BLACKMAILER

  LITTLEJOHN had decided on second thoughts to place Fothergill in the custody of Dixon at the Elmer’s Creek police station. It left him and Cromwell free to pursue their inquiries, but it overwhelmed Dixon. The village bobby had, in his dreams, triumphed over his official enemy, Fothergill, in many ways, but he had never in his wildest imaginings, held him under lock and key in the parish cell.

  “Have I to lock him up?”

  “Yes, but make him comfortable. He won’t be any trouble.”

  Dixon was in mufti, too, for it was Sunday afternoon. He wore a dark blue suit and a black tie. His wife’s Aunt Maria was with them to tea. She had buried her second and favourite husband five years ago, but still retained perpetual widow’s weeds for him. When she visited the Dixons, she expected them to join her in signs of mourning. She was reputed to have a tidy bit put away and Dixon and his missus believed in keeping on the right side of her.

  Even as he discussed official matters with the Chief Inspector, Dixon could hear Aunt Maria slapping his kids for being noisy. He had even to put up with that!

  “I’ll want Fothergill tonight and I’ll telephone you later what to do with him. Give him a good tea.”

  That wasn’t difficult either, for much was laid on in the way of eatables when Auntie called. A tall thin woman, she had an insatiable appetite. Already she was shouting that she was hungry.

  As Littlejohn and Cromwell left the police station a small knot of villagers had formed at the gate. The news that Fothergill was in the lock-up was staggering and unbelievable. Both church and chapel were full later that night as people foregathered to discuss the latest developments.

  Littlejohn crossed to Falbright and saw Leo in gaol.

  “Well, Leo. Still enjoying yourself?”

  The cell was full of smoke, for with Littlejohn’s permission, the attendant policeman had sent out for tobacco for Leo’s pipe, and he was lying comfortably in his favourite posture, flat on his back on his bed. Smoke curled up to the ceiling.

  “Yes, sir. Having a grand weekend, and thanks for the tobacco. My only complaint is there’s no religious service here on a Sunday. I feel I ought to go to chapel.”

  He raised himself to a sitting position and eyed Littlejohn with the usual good-humoured twinkle.

  “For a blackmailer, Leo, you’re a very jolly man.”

  Leo paused with his pipe halfway to his mouth.

  “Say that again, Inspector.”

  “You heard me, Leo.”

  Leo slapped his thigh and laughed.

  “Well, Inspector, you beat the band! What have you been finding out since last I met you? You look full of it.”

  Littlejohn lit his pipe and puffed out the smoke to join that of Leo’s pipe, curling all over the shop.

  “Let’s stop this cross-talk for a bit, Leo. This is serious. You gave me to understand that you proposed marrying Mrs. Liddell and settling down to keeping a pub. What you really meant was, you know so much about Esther Liddell, that you intend to live on her earnings at the Saracen’s Head for the rest of your life. Fothergill’s talked, so I know all about it.”

  Fowler didn’t turn a hair. He seemed as pleased as ever.

  “Why did you try to mislead me, or at least keep me off the trail? Your own neck was in danger at one time, you know.”

  “Let’s forget that. I arrived at the Saracen’s Head and I liked the look of it. I also liked the look of Esther. I told the truth when I said I always liked the look of her. But she didn’t like the looks of me apparently. To be quite candid, she’s got more refined and fastidious since the days when I first knew her. Now, Inspector, who could have made her that way? Surely, not Fothergill!”

  “No. I’ve a good idea, though. So she wouldn’t take you on as landlord then?”

  “No. On the contrary. She seemed to dislike me for some reason. And judging from the uneasy way she and Fothergill received me, they’d both had something to do with leaving me behind to the tender mercies of the Gestapo in 1938. However, I’d got over that. On the other hand, there was Fothergill lording it in the place as if he owned it. I couldn’t understand that. So, I got it out of him. After all I’ve been through, I’m a past master in the art of getting things out of people. I don’t suppose Fothergill has told you that I locked him in a room, tied him to a chair, put a bucket over his head, asked him to explain his privileged position, and every time he said no or even hesitated, I gave the bucket a damned good beating with a poker. It didn’t raise even a black eye, but it made Fothergill most eager to confide after two or three drum solos.”

  “No. He didn’t tell me that, but I guessed you’d put him through some sort of third degree.”

  “It seems all wasn’t well with the way Jack Liddell died. Of course, any woman would get fed up with a human tomcat like Jack. He’d try any loving wife’s patience. I don’t blame Esther, even if she did do it, which guilt is based purely on Fothergill’s evidence. But I did say, that if Esther didn’t behave, I’d see the case was reopened, with another witness, Fothergill, this time.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  Fowler grinned.

  “Really, Inspector. I wasn’t going to help you solve the case and deprive me of a nice cosy retreat for the rest of my life. You would have reopened the Jack Liddell affair if I’d spoken...”

  “And why are you talking about it now?”

  “Because when I saw you on your way to the Saracen’s Head, I put a proposition to Esther. I said unless she sent word to me before noon today, that she’d marry me, I’d tell you what I knew. You see, don’t you, that we’d got to be married. If anything happened to her and I was a mere lodger at the inn, I’d be out on my neck. Even if she left the place to me in her will, there’d have been investigations and the limelight might have made it very uncomfortable for me. I’d no intention, as I said, of losing a nice little billet dropped in my lap. Besides, Esther must share the responsibility for what I’ve been through. She and her late husband could have warned me or helped me to escape, or held up the ship a bit. She’d got to make it up to me. Also, my being always there would just remind her that people don’t play dirty tricks and get away with it.”

  Leo wasn’t smiling any longer. His face was grim and drawn. He was in the grip of an obsession he’d nursed for years.

  “It pleased me to think of always being around in the snug little village Grebe and Bacon and Horrocks and Mrs. Iremonger had settled in. I just wanted to haunt them. All of them must have hated my guts when I appeared like the voice of conscience and I think any one of them would have murdered me. One of them did try, and got Grebe instead.”

  “Have you never thought it might be Esther?”

  “Never entered my head. She couldn’t have taken the boat half over the river and beached her the way someone did. She hated boats. Has done ever since the Euryanthe episode.”

  “Who is it, then?”

  “Have you thought of Fothergill? He was one of the Euryanthe gang. I’d given him the one big hell of his life with his head in that bucket at the Saracen’s Head and I’d taken his place at the inn as, shall we say, a privileged guest. Also, I knew his part in the Jack Liddell case, and I’d only to say the word and his high-and-mightiness the village postman would be unfrocked and disgraced. He’d every reason...”

  “He’s in gaol in Elmer’s Creek right now.”


  Leo smiled again and slapped his leg.

  “Well, I’ll be damned! You do work quickly, Inspector. You’re one ahead of me all the time.”

  Littlejohn rose and knocked out his pipe on the heel of his shoe.

  “I’ll be off now, Leo, but you’re coming over to join us in a little meeting of the Euryanthe Old Boys’ Association at eight tonight at the Barlow Arms.”

  “I can’t wait!”

  Littlejohn sailed back over the river on the ferry after making arrangements with the police for Leo’s appearance at Elmer’s Creek that evening.

  “I’ll hold you responsible for him.”

  The Chief Constable speaking over the phone sounded as if he thought Littlejohn had gone mad again.

  Dusk was falling as Littlejohn arrived at the hotel. The lights of Falbright were coming on and the Fame Light and the navigation buoys of the channel were flickering intermittently. A cold wind sprang up and filled the sails of the boats returning to harbour after the day’s good sport.

  The last call of the day. Littlejohn knocked at the door of Dr. Horrocks’s house near the police station. An elderly grey housekeeper answered.

  “Is the doctor in?”

  “There’s no surgery on Sunday.”

  “I thought he wasn’t in practice any more.”

  The woman eyed him up and down and as good as told him not to be impertinent.

  “He’s still a doctor and in emergencies never says no. But on Sundays it has to be...”

  “I’d like to see him.”

  He handed her his card. She screwed up her eyes to read it.

  The house was a detached one surrounded by a fair-sized garden. Mainly neat lawns with here and there a geranium bed and some rose bushes, the last flowers of which were hanging sadly in the autumn cold. Quite different from Bacon’s shabby place.

  Indoors it was the same. The housekeeper, having taken Littlejohn’s card and invited him in, left him in a wide square hall, beautifully panelled, with pictures which must have cost a small fortune, on the walls. A Corot and a Cezanne, and genuine by the looks of them. Antique furniture, well kept, worth its weight in pound notes. A deep carpet...Nothing out of keeping, nothing ostentatious. Everything in good taste.

  The doctor received him in the library. The place was full of books, but clean, well-arranged, tastefully decorated, carefully ordered. A large gilded Louis XV desk with medallions on a blue ground, bergère chairs in brocade, a boule clock over a marble Adam fireplace...A room to make a collector’s mouth water.

  “Good evening, Chief Inspector. You wanted to see me? It must be urgent.”

  Horrocks was standing on the rug waiting for him, Littlejohn’s card in his hand. As he removed his cigarette, Littlejohn casually observed that the large signet ring was missing from his finger.

  The doctor was in tweeds and wore leather carpet slippers.

  “I’ve been having an easy day. I usually take out my boat, but I didn’t feel like it... A drink?”

  The same languid, kindly manner, the grace of a perfect gentleman, in keeping with the lovely things with which he had surrounded himself.

  “I won’t drink at present, if you don’t mind, sir.”

  “You’ve not seen my house before. Pity. Come again. I’ve one or two things you might be interested in.”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but I just wanted to check your alibi for the night of Grebe’s death. Let me see...” Littlejohn consulted his notebook.

  “You left the Barlow Arms at ten, walked as far as your home with Captain Bacon, who left you at the door. You then discovered you’d left your stick at the Arms, and returned for it. That would be about...?”

  “I daresay I got back there at just after half-past ten.”

  “And you neither saw nor heard anything unusual?”

  “I can’t say that I did, Chief Inspector. Why?”

  “I wondered.”

  “Are you any nearer solving the case?”

  “A little, sir. We’re following one or two lines of inquiry.”

  “Including alibis again?”

  The doctor smiled a tired smile. He looked fed up with the whole business.

  “You must excuse the apparent ill-temper some of us have shown over this case. We treated you badly the other night, I must admit. We’re old men now and settled in our ways. This business has shaken us up quite a lot. Grebe was one of our little party of cronies and a murder here is most disturbing. Especially as some of us are magistrates, too. You must confess that fellow Fowler has rather tried to flout us. Bacon, in particular, thinks you’ve encouraged Fowler a little. But don’t think harshly of us. We didn’t intend to be discourteous or unhelpful.”

  “I quite understand. My colleague and I are on edge, too. We haven’t had much help locally. The whole village seems to have ganged-up against us in a sort of pact to say nothing to help. It’s made things difficult.”

  “I see.”

  Horrocks rubbed his chin.

  “Anything I can do?”

  “Not at the moment, sir, but after dinner at the Arms to-night, I want to see you all again. We might be able to talk it over and arrive at some useful conclusions.”

  “A good idea.”

  “Well, thank you, doctor, for your kindly interest. I’ll get along now and see about an evening meal. My colleague must be famished.”

  The housekeeper let him out. She seemed better tempered now, almost apologetic for the reception she’d given Littlejohn when he arrived.

  “The doctor’s not getting any younger, sir. I have to see that he doesn’t overdo it. He’s still at everybody’s beck and call, even if he has retired. The nearest doctor in practice is four miles away and they still send for Dr. Horrocks in urgent cases and he never refuses. I get cross sometimes.”

  “In the night, too, I suppose.”

  “Yes, sometimes.”

  “Did they call him out the night Captain Grebe died?”

  She looked at Littlejohn in her most kindly manner, grateful for his interest.

  “Not late on...I suppose the police doctor did that. But earlier that evening, in fact not long after he’d got in, somebody telephoned and out he went in a hurry. I was in bed, but after all these years with him, I’ve come to imagine all that goes on. The telephone, the rush for his bag, his hat and coat, and out into the night. A perfect gentleman is the doctor.”

  “It’s good to get such an excellent report from one’s intimate servant.”

  They hadn’t heard Horrocks open the library door. He stood there, smoking his pipe. He eyed them both benevolently, smiling gently, as though pleased with what he’d heard.

  19 THE COWARD

  THE Chief Constable was the first to arrive.

  “I don’t know what all this is about, Littlejohn. It’s a very strange way of conducting an inquiry. I’ve brought the blank warrant form, too. It’s not even signed. What you’re going to do with it, I don’t know. I hold you responsible.”

  “There’ll be a number of magistrates present at the meeting, sir. One of them can sign it, if and when required.”

  “This is a nightmare.”

  The Chief Constable mopped his brow, left Littlejohn, and made straight for the bar for a drink.

  It was a quarter to eight. The two Scotland Yard officers had had dinner and now Cromwell was on his way to Pullar’s Sands to bring Mrs. Liddell to the gathering. Littlejohn smiled to himself at the thought of the motley crew which would assemble in the dining room at eight.

  Braid had protested when Littlejohn had insisted on the privacy of the room.

  “It’s Sunday and it’s our busiest day. This murder’s caused a record crowd and we’ll need all our accommodation to cope with them. It’s most inconvenient.”

  Leo’s arrival caused a sensation. Everybody recognized him as he passed through the hall into the dining room.

  “That’s the murderer. I wonder what’s going on.”

  Leo was accompanied by a policema
n and the crowd round the bar were vastly intrigued.

  “He ought to be handcuffed. It’s not fair. If he breaks away, it’ll be some other poor devil as’ll get stabbed. The way the police carry on these days...”

  “What do we pay rates for, anyhow?”

  Bacon and Horrocks were the next in. By this time Littlejohn had sent for a pint of beer for Leo, who said he hadn’t had a drink for two days.

  “What’s that fellow doin’ here?”

  “He’s been invited like the rest, sir.”

  Bacon glared at Littlejohn. He was still sore about the interview at the Hall. Horrocks was smoking a cigar already. Littlejohn noticed he hadn’t brought his stick this time.

  The bobby who’d escorted Leo from Falbright was ready to return. Littlejohn had told him they didn’t need him. Now the Chief Inspector took him into the hall.

  “You know where Dr. Horrocks lives? Well, just go round to his housekeeper and ask her to give you his stick. He’s forgotten it and wants it. Then bring it to me, but don’t come in the room. Send Lucy in for me and I’ll come and take it from you here.”

  “How long is this going on?”

  Bacon and the Chief Constable had ganged-up against Littlejohn. They thought the whole business an officious sort of farce. Horrocks, on the other hand, seemed very amused and drank his whisky with obvious enjoyment.

  Littlejohn hadn’t time to answer. Fothergill had arrived with his red-faced, self-conscious bodyguard. As they passed through the hall, there was another commotion from the crowd round the bar.

  “Wot, another arrest? Fothergill! What next?”

  The postman tried to stop and harangue the crowd. He just wanted to tell them he was a police witness, not a suspect.

  “It’s all right, chaps...I’m just...”