Dixon then jostled him out of earshot. Their arrival in the dining room caused another fuss. Bacon, who seemed to be objecting to everyone and everything, raised his voice again.
“This is the limit! Fothergill, if you please, this time. What’s he doing here? The fellah’ll be arrestin’ the whole village next.”
Fothergill smiled a sickly smile.
“Jest givin’ the police a bit of ready ’elp, sir. I’ve come of my own volution, I can assure you.”
“What are you doin’ accompanied by a bobby, then? Hey, you, Littlejohn. How long are we to be kept waitin’ here?”
Littlejohn gave Bacon a bland smile.
“Not long. Just till Mrs. Liddell arrives.”
That made them all sit up, even Leo. The thought of Esther joining the party had added a little stimulus...Bacon even felt his tie to see if it was straight.
Finally Cromwell and Esther. As they entered the front door, they were greeted by the flashbulbs of the press photographers, who, tired of hanging about without much to do for days, were now really going to town. Leo, Fothergill, and now Esther. A page-full of pictures for tomorrow.
“Anybody else due?” one of the photographers asked Cromwell.
“You might even see John Grebe before the night’s out.”
“Who’s he?”
Esther Liddell caused a mild sensation. She was dressed like a woman this time, instead of in the usual trousers and shirt. A black costume, a little black hat, make-up, lipstick...There was even a faint aroma of expensive scent.
All the men except Leo rose. Leo just sat in his corner, smiling, enjoying it all. Esther didn’t seem impressed. She still wore the same blasé, almost baffled look the police had come to know so well. She didn’t even flinch when she saw Leo. Fothergill tried giving her a smile, but she didn’t seem to see him.
“Will you all please sit down?”
Bacon looked ready to say something, but followed the rest. Rather a rickety-rackety crew. The Chief Constable, red, puffing, quite out of countenance and inwardly objecting to being pushed around, as he thought, by a mere Chief Inspector. Bacon, the lord of the seedy manor, seeking an opportunity of asserting himself, especially now that Esther had arrived. Bacon in his shabby suit and highly polished shoes, drinking a lot of whisky he couldn’t afford, even trying to cadge a glass or two from Horrocks who paid for three rounds in succession. Horrocks, deep in his chair, smiling, trying to look like a man of the world, contemptuous of the whole business. And then the comic turns, Leo and Fothergill. Leo was slumped beside the fire with his feet on the mantelpiece, lounging as if he didn’t care a damn. And Fothergill, out of his element among the shabby local gentry.
“Where’s Brett?”
Littlejohn smiled at Bacon again.
“I think he’s in the other room, sir. We’ve enough here as it is.”
“But I object. He’s usually one of our party.”
Nobody took any notice.
“I did invite Mrs. Iremonger to come, as well. You called on your way to Pullar’s Sands, Cromwell?”
“Yes, sir. The maid said she wasn’t well enough...”
Nobody asked what was the matter with her. They all knew.
“You left somebody in charge at the Saracen’s Head, I suppose?”
Esther Liddell didn’t answer. It was left to Cromwell. “Yes, sir. A man called Folland, from the village, stands-in for Mrs. Liddell when she takes a few hours off.”
“And when did he last stand in?”
“On the night Captain Grebe died, he said. He was there from nine till closing time at ten-thirty. Then he locked up and left. Mrs. Liddell hadn’t got back by then.”
Everybody sat up and listened. Except Esther Liddell, herself. To her it was just old news, not worth getting excited about.
Littlejohn looked at Mrs. Liddell. She was very striking in her black suit, with a white blouse, and a solitary gold brooch holding it together at the neck. No other finery, except the wedding ring which she’d never worn when he’d seen her before. She was playing nervously with the ring as Littlejohn’s glance fell upon it. He looked at it for a second, paused, and then went on.
“You might take notes, will you, Cromwell?”
“Certainly, sir.” Out came the big black book and the ball-pointed pen which Littlejohn had given him last Christmas.
“Tell us about the death of Jack Liddell, Fothergill.”
They all looked up again, even Esther Liddell this time. Bacon looked ready to explode. Littlejohn filled his pipe and lit it.
Fothergill’s voice wag dry and hoarse. He had to make two efforts before the words would come.
“What must I tell?”
“Right from when you left Mrs. Iremonger’s boat.”
“Get him a drink, first. Ring the bell, Leo.”
Lucy came at once, Leo waved to her familiarly, and at his order she went off and brought Fothergill a tankard of beer, which the postman drained eagerly. He wiped his mouth and moustache on the back of his hand.
“Go on, Fothergill.”
“There wasn’t much to it, sir. I was passin’ just at the time Jack was killed. Snyde had said Jack and his missus was together in the loft. She said at the inquest, she left her ’usband just after that, an’ wasn’t there when he fell an’ broke ’is neck. I passed five minutes later and she was still there. So her evidenks at the inquest wasn’t quite true.”
He paused.
“Well, Mrs. Liddell? What have you to say ?”
She had been given a glass of whisky at Bacon’s order and she took a sip very listlessly, and spoke in the same monotonous tone as ever. As though she didn’t care what happened.
“I’m tired of it all. Tired of being bullied and harrowed to death. Yes, I was with him when he fell. I didn’t want to kill him. I hated him, but I’d enough to live for without him. He wanted me out of the way. There was a wealthy widow at Parth he took a fancy to, but she wouldn’t have anything but marriage. He wanted a divorce, but I wouldn’t. I was brought up Catholic and so was he. I clung to the bit of old-time decency that was left in us. So, he tried to trip me out of the loft. Crept up behind me and I just turned as he reached me. I pushed him away, he staggered, and fell through himself. That’s all. I’ve told it now and I’ll take what’s coming.”
She took another deep drink and lapsed into her semi-stupor again, just as if she’d never spoken. She was neither excited nor concerned about what the rest thought.
“And on the strength of what Fothergill saw, he blackmailed you ever after.”
Fothergill was going to protest when she spoke again.
“I’d said one thing in court and couldn’t go back on it without looking as if I’d murdered Jack. So I put up with. Fothergill. Everything except his loathsome efforts at lovemaking.”
“’Ere, I never...”
Leo laughed outright and then drowned it in a good swig of his beer.
“Oh, oh, oh. Fothergill, the local Don Juan.”
Then silence. As though they were all thinking about what was to come next. Nobody even rebuked Leo.
“And then Leo arrived, wrung the truth out of Fothergill, and took his place as blackmailer.”
“Call it that if you like. I don’t care.”
She looked as if she didn’t, too. She didn’t even glance in the direction of the two men.
Littlejohn turned to the postman.
“Tell me, Fothergill, were you never afraid that someone...say, Mrs. Liddell, might do you violence to rid themselves of your presence?”
Fothergill perked up. A chance to show how clever he was.
“I left a note, signed, in me own hand, in my cash-box at home, sayin’ that if ever voilence was done to me, it was likely to be Mrs. Liddell, because of what I knew about her. And I wrote down the whole story...”
Bacon couldn’t hold it any more.
“You damn’ cad, Fothergill. Horse-whippin’s too good for you. By gad, for two pins...”
“That will do
, Bacon. Let Littlejohn get on with it. We’re going to be here all night.”
Horrocks seemed to be the only one capable of controlling Bacon, who took it like a child, without protest or anger.
“Leo wasn’t as prudent, were you Leo?”
Fowler cocked one eye.
“I’m listening, sir. Most interesting.”
“Leo took over Fothergill’s place without thinking that Mrs. Liddell might be heartily sick of the blackmail, of the perpetual presence and pestering of men she didn’t like or want about the place. He didn’t write a protective letter like our friend the postman. He just went out into the dark and almost got knifed in the back.”
Everybody looked up again. Things were getting warm now and there was a noise in the room. The murmur of several voices, not in spoken words, but in exclamations and catches of the breath, which all together sounded like the alarm of spectators as a climax is arrived at in a melodrama.
“You were followed in the night, Fowler. You were followed all the way from Pullar’s Sands. You were too intent on giving your old enemy, Grebe, a shock as he landed from his ferry, to notice. And when he did land, there was someone with him, so you had to wait. You followed him into the dark yard of this hotel. There was someone there waiting for you, someone who’d dogged you with a knife.”
For the first time, Horrocks showed keen interest. His face had changed. Still composed, but pale and drawn, and his hands tightened on the arms of his chair.
A knock on the door. Littlejohn sprang up to answer it. It was the constable from Falbright with Horrocks’s stick.
“We’d a job to find it, sir. It wasn’t in the hall-stand where his housekeeper says he usually keeps it. We found it on the top of the bookshelves. She remembered seein’ it there when she dusted the place.”
“Thanks. Please stay here with it for a minute.”
Littlejohn returned and sat down again. There were no comments this time from Bacon or the Chief Constable.
Colonel Cram was beginning to see that soon he’d have to eat humble pie. This was the end of the Elmer’s Creek affair, and he knew it now.
Littlejohn looked round at them all and his face was stern.
“From the very beginning of this case, we’ve had no help whatever from anyone. Only Dixon has shown any inclination, and he’s been half afraid of the local powers-that-be.”
There was a commotion as Bacon and Cram tried to speak at the same time.
“Someone must have had an idea what happened, but nobody gave us even a hint. All that the upper classes, Captain Bacon, Dr. Horrocks, Mrs. Iremonger, Sir Luke Messiah, even you, Chief Constable, wanted was for us to pin the crime on Leo Fowler, arrest and charge him, and go back to Scotland Yard. And in that you were all helped by the local inhabitants, none of whom came forward, although someone must have seen strange things happening on the night of Grebe’s death. The only one who got talkative was poor Jumping Joe, and he got killed for it.”
“I do assure you, Littlejohn...”
“May I go on, please, doctor? In the dead darkness of the inn yard, Grebe went in the gentlemen’s lavatory and Fowler waited for him to surprise him when he came out, hoping the light of an opening door would light up his face. They were men of the same build, wearing naval caps and greatcoats. The murderer got the wrong man. Grebe was stabbed in the back and killed. Fowler, knowing himself in trouble if they caught him, fled to the Saracen’s Head. He went back there fortified by the knowledge that he’d seen the murderer of John Grebe . . . or he thought he had.”
Leo never said a word. He just smiled again, a cocksure smile, as though he knew more than Littlejohn.
“We can imagine the murderer’s thoughts when, as Grebe fell, he recognized he’d killed the wrong man. In five minutes, the ferry was due out, and if Grebe didn’t arrive to take her over, there’d be a search and a hue and cry. The murderer therefore acted quickly, carried the body to the point behind the inn, and flung it in the sea. Unfortunately, the tide was coming in, the body was swept into the river, and instead of drifting out to sea and giving the murderer time to cover his tracks and think things out, the current took and left the corpse under the pier at Falbright, where it was found the same night. The killer might even have hoped the body would never come back here, but vanish forever.”
Cromwell was jotting down notes with his ball-pointed pen. Mere scribbles; he knew it all, but just made a pretence as a matter of form.
“There remained the ferry. The murderer was about Grebe’s build. He quickly put on Grebe’s cap and coat and went aboard, keeping his head down, and made straight for the bridge. The ferry had to go, otherwise there’d be a hue and cry and the whole business would come out. All the murderer wanted was time. He took the Falbright Jenny into the river, and there either his courage, or his skill, or his knowledge of the river failed him. Personally, I think he didn’t know enough about the river and beached the ferry by mistake. Having done that, he’d to bolt across the sands as quickly as he could and get out of sight. He’d created a diversion. That would have to do. Still wearing Grebe’s uniform, he crossed the bank and probably reached terra firma on the foreshore near the Peshall signpost. Thereabouts, at any rate. Jumping Joe was on his way home. He saw someone pass nearby dressed like John Grebe. Who else could it be at that hour, in his cap and greatcoat, fresh from the ferry? Then, when Joe heard the captain was dead about half-past ten the night before, he remembered in his fuddled way, he’d seen him later than that. He started to talk about ghosts. And when he grew sober, perhaps he thought of other things, as well. Perhaps he saw someone or heard someone talking to the ghost of Grebe.”
Somehow, the atmosphere seemed to have lightened, as though relief was taking the place of anxiety. Horrocks leaned back, Bacon ordered drinks all round. Only Esther hadn’t changed. She sat in her chair, looking straight ahead, her mind miles away. Littlejohn crossed to her.
“Can I get you another drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“Then, if you’ll allow me, I’ll take this...”
And before she quite knew what he was doing, he drew the ring from her wedding finger and put it in his pocket.
She didn’t even protest; just yielded as though used to having everything, peace, comfort, even the will to do as she wished, taken from her.
“What are you doing, Littlejohn? That’s her ring. Play the game.”
It was Horrocks, suddenly alive at what he seemed to imagine an insult to the woman.
“It isn’t her wedding-ring at all, sir. It’s an intaglio ring which seems to have a spring locket which opens. If it contains what I think, sir, you shouldn’t have given it to her, you know...It’s wrong for a doctor to...”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Littlejohn.”
“I’ll explain in a minute. Mrs. Liddell, have you anything to say?”
She sat there, a picture of defeat and despair. Littlejohn felt sorry for her. The members of this sordid drama seemed too intent on their own affairs to bother about Esther Liddell’s isolation and distress.
“I killed John Grebe. It was as you say. I mistook him for Leo Fowler. I couldn’t bear Fowler about me and I followed him to kill him. I’d had enough...Fothergill for years. I could handle him to a certain extent. But Leo Fowler was ruthless.”
“Thank you.”
Leo said it as though enjoying himself still.
“Shut up, Fowler.”
It came from Cromwell, exasperated beyond endurance by the callousness of Leo and the relief of the rest of the party at hearing the case solved so easily.
Esther Liddell, for the first time, seemed changed. She even looked better for the confession. There was a flush on her cheeks and much of the lethargy had gone.
“You can arrest me, Inspector. I’ll come along. I wouldn’t have used the ring...I thought I might, when I asked for it, but I’ve been thinking it over.”
The Chief Constable was busy now. An arrest, a warrant, that was all
.
“You’ll want the warrant before you charge her?”
“Yes, sir. Let Captain Bacon fill it in in the other room. My colleague, Cromwell, will go with him and explain.”
Bacon, now! He almost looked proud as he rose and made his way out to the landlord’s office to sign a warrant for Littlejohn.
“We’ll be back in a minute.”
Littlejohn spoke slowly and deliberately now.
“Did you find out whom you’d stabbed before you sent for the doctor?”
All eyes turned on Horrocks. The audience seemed to have thinned out considerably after the departure of Bacon and Cromwell, two big men who took up a lot of room.
“I knew it was the captain right away. It was horrible...He fell and...I...I had to get the knife...It was mine and they’d have known if I’d left it. I felt his beard...Then I knew. The doctor had a little flashlight, too...”
“So, you telephoned for the doctor from the callbox and he came?”
“Yes.”
Horrocks intervened. He rose from his chair and without a move in Esther’s direction, crossed to Littlejohn.
“I’ll give you a full statement later. She sent for me. What could I do?”
“You pretended you’d come back for your stick. Instead you came to attend to Grebe.”
“She thought he wasn’t dead, but he was, when I got here. I know, as a JP, I ought to have acted otherwise.”
“JP or not, you should have called the police.”
“But she was an old friend of mine.”
“Your mistress.”
“If you like, until I grew old and passé.”
“Yet, you educated her taste, you know. You made her want better things. Leo, whom she once fancied in the old days, was, when he returned, quite loathsome to her after the education you’d given her among your Corots and your antiques and all the things you bought with the money you and Grebe made peddling the dope you shipped on the Euryanthe.”
Horrocks’s colour rose and he made a gesture as though to push away the revelations Littlejohn was making.
“Not here, Inspector. I’ll give you a full account later.”
“You’ll do it now, sir. Mrs. Liddell...”
Death Drops the Pilot Page 23
