Calamity at Harwood

by George Bellairs

  “And now, to begin at the beginning, Mr. Stagg, can you tell me anything about this haunting story? I hear that the mischief began whilst the alterations were in progress.”

  “That’s true, Inspector, and a pretty penny they cost the late boss. We often discussed it together and both of us came to the conclusion that it was some rival in the estate business who wanted to make the project a failure.”

  Mr. Stagg pursed his lips, thrust his face forward and jerked his head in a gesture of finality which brooked no challenge.

  “And what did you do about it, Mr. Stagg?”

  Here the estate agent relaxed, stuffed his hands in his pockets, sprawled his legs and puffed at his cherrywood, his mouth working like that of a fish in an aquarium.

  “We had a watchman on duty, of course,” he continued, speaking round his pipe stem. “But the blighters seemed to dodge him. We doubled the watch, but it was the same. Noises would be heard in one part of the place and while the men were investigating, the vandals would be at it somewhere else.”

  “You never thought of calling in the local police, I’m told.”

  Mr. Stagg removed his pipe, much to Littlejohn’s relief.

  “No. You see, that would have made the thing public and we wished to avoid it at all costs. After all, we had the flats to let, you know, and if anything had got about that they were haunted or the like, it was good-bye to any tenants. Mr. Burt, of course, positively refused to give up the venture. Once he’d sunk his money in anything he was like a bulldog … ahhhh … hemmm.”

  Mr. Stagg emitted a mournful sigh as though, at one and the same time, lamenting and honouring the dead.

  “So, he just stuck it out and footed the bill, Mr. Stagg?”

  “Yes. Fortunately the haunting business stopped suddenly and we were able to get on with the job properly. It was only after the flats had been let and tenanted that other disturbances began.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, at first, Mr. Burt pooh-poohed the idea. Then, so many of the tenants were involved, that he decided to investigate. He took the tenancy of one of the flats himself at the beginning and instead of just going there week-ends, as he’d planned, he made up his mind to travel to and fro every day until he’d got to the bottom of the affair. He still thought it was a professional rival trying to get the better of him and, if anything happened whilst he was there himself, he proposed to put a pukka investigator on the matter. But before he could do anything the tragedy happened … ahhhh … hemmmm.”

  “Had Mr. Burt any special enemies, professional or private?”

  “Not that I’d know. He’d rivals, of course. Plenty of ’em. In our game there’s keen competition, but not so keen that we set about doing one another violently to death. The thing’s beyond me!”

  “Now for the tenants, Mr. Stagg. They were all on the spot at the time of the crime except Mr. Brownrigg and Miss Freyle. Can you tell me anything about them? I know you take up references before letting a flat and I’d be glad of as much information as you’ve got about each of them.”

  Mr. Stagg pressed a bell-push and a languid young lady, who only needed a Spanish comb and a flower in her hair to complete her make-up for the title-role of Carmen, entered with the stealthy grace of a mannequin showing-off the latest creation.

  “Get the letting-file for Harwood Hall please, Miss Hodkiss?” ordered the little fellow and the girl departed without so much as rolling an eye. There was some delay, which caused Mr. Stagg to spring petulantly to his feet, fling open the door, clap his hands and cry, “Come, come, Miss Hodkiss!” Whereat Carmen appeared once more, quite unperturbed, gracefully placed a packet of papers in the hands of her boss and made a most ornamental exit.

  “Here we are, Inspector. Letters of application, two references for each tenant, and a tenancy agreement signed by every one.”

  The agent passed over the lot with magnanimous gesture.

  Littlejohn ran his eye over the papers. Then he took out his notebook and made a brief memorandum:

  CARBERRY-PEACOCKE.

  Former address, Mayfield, The Chase, Purley. Retired tea merchant. References: Former landlord, T. Parkes-Wood, Tintagel, The Chase, Purley, and Home Counties Bank, Rood Lane, E.C.3. Reported respectable and good for rent in each case.

  HARTWRIGHT.

  Written from Park Side Hotel. Late of Philadelphia. In England for at least twelve months. References: Philadelphia Express Co., Cockspur Street, S.W.I. “Good for amount of rent.” American Consulate: “American Citizens. Papers in order.”

  MISS FREYLE.

  No references. Known to Mr. Burt.

  WlLLIATT.

  Known to Mr. Burt. Cotts’ Bank, Wardour Street, report: “Respectable and should be good for your figures.”

  MISSES POTT.

  Late of The Cedars, Ewell. References: Snodgrass and Peate, Solicitors, Epsom, “Clients of ours and very respectable ladies. Considered worthy of tenancy.” London and S. Counties Bank: “Good for this.”

  BRAUN.

  Wrote from Master’s Lodging, Benfield College, Cambridge. References: Master of Benfield: “Refugee from Nazi oppression since 1937. Late of Vienna. World-famed anthropologist. Engaging in research on Sussex Downs.” Home Counties Bank, Cambridge: “Undoubted for amount of rent.”

  BEOWNRIGG.

  Writes from Dunstanby Hotel, Park Gate, W.1. States on his way to Amsterdam and would like to secure option. Will give references on return. Meanwhile, amount for year’s rent enclosed.

  “Well, that’s that and many thanks,” said Littlejohn, pocketing his notebook and pencil and rising to depart.

  “A pleasure,” said Mr. Stagg rising, too, and undulating towards the door. “Let me know if I can be of any further use. We must get to the bottom of this, not only for poor Mr. Burt’s sake, but for the reputation of the property. If it can be proved that it’s not due to something supernatural, there’s hope for us. Otherwise, I’m afraid the place is damned … a bad egg. But, I don’t believe in the supernatural, and that’s a fact.”

  With that categorical assertion, Mr. Stagg swept his visitor out of the office and returned like a stern Mussulman to preside over his many women.

  FLAT TO LET

  LITTLEJOHN caught his train at Victoria and finding himself in an empty compartment, began to turn over the case in his mind. He had hitherto gathered little concerning the matter he was undertaking and found himself so barren in ideas that before they had left the London perimeter, he dozed off. When he awoke, the train was cruising easily through gently spreading fields and past quiet green hills, halting here and there at a station.

  Calmly, the detective watched the scene unrolling. Difficult to think of war and crime. Trees, their leaves changing to the mellow tints of autumn. Farms snuggling in the valleys of the downs, their buildings mellowed with time and seeming part of the very countryside. A woman crossing a farmyard with a rolling, placid gait. A man repairing a fence. A cat sitting sedately, intently watching a rabbit-hole in the bank of the railway. Cattle rhythmically lopping the long grass around them. A flock of sheep bolting frantically from the train. A cock chasing the hen of his choice around a wired-in pen, whilst the rest of his dames clawed the sticky earth regardless of his philandering. A little man, knotted like an old tree and dressed like a scarecrow, walking a ploughed field with long, loping strides.

  The eternal earth surrendering herself to the inevitable approach of winter, heedless of war and the destruction of Mr. Solomon Burt. A chill in the air flowing through the open window and the seasonable scents of manure, damp soil, decaying leaves and wood-smoke. One by one the impressions came and went in Littlejohn’s mind as he sat quietly resigning himself to being carried along to his destination.

  MEADFORD on a station sign sailed into sight as the train slowly drew-up. The elderly station-master, a bent veteran with a large protruding rump, walked back and forth with plantigrade feet, inspecting the train proudly as though it were his very own.
A thin residue of evacuees descended in company with Littlejohn and were pounced on by a group of ladies waiting to receive them. A sprinkling of passengers climbed into the carriages leaving behind them a tall, heavily-built man, dressed in well-cut tweeds, wearing a slouch hat, who might have been a prosperous farmer or a butcher. Detective-Inspector Heathcote of the Sussex Police. He hurried forward and greeted Littlejohn.

  “Inspector Littlejohn? My name’s Heathcote. Sussex Police. The Yard ’phoned the time of your train. Glad to meet you.”

  They made for the little station-yard, higgledy-piggledy with sacks of seed and produce, coal-dumps, new agricultural machinery and cattle-pens.

  “There’s a car here,” said Heathcote, pointing to a neat turnout with a uniformed constable at the wheel, which stood in the road at the top of the approach. “But as it’s only two miles to Harwood, I thought maybe you’d like to walk. You’ll see what the surroundings are like and I can tell you a thing or two about the case as we go. What do you say?”

  “I’m game enough. It’ll be good to stretch my limbs after the train journey and the air’ll blow away the cobwebs. I fell asleep on the way.”

  Heathcote grinned, handed Littlejohn’s suitcase to the waiting chauffeur, and led his colleague to a small country inn, inappropriately called The Pack Saddle, which overlooked the railway line.

  “Let’s fortify ourselves to begin with,” he chuckled.

  They did not dawdle over their beer and soon were striding together along the pleasant main road to Harwood. Heathcote puffed a huge calabash and laid a smoke-screen in their wake.

  “This is a damned funny business, Littlejohn,” began the local man. “Had it not been for the police-surgeon’s smartness, the whole thing might have simply passed off as a practical joke as far as the ducking was concerned and an accident as far as the falling over the balusters. But the doctor swears that without a doubt the bruise on the head was caused by a blow from something like a piece of rubber piping and not from the fall which broke Burt’s neck. This was confirmed by a second medical expert, and the coroner adjourned for more enquiries. So there we are. Of course, if you believe in mischievous spirits, poltergeists, I gather they call ’em, it’s quite possible to think that one of ’em might use a truncheon. Or, as one of the tenants, Carberry-Peacocke, who’s keen on that sort of stuff, says, these things have a habit of hurling missiles about violently. But I don’t believe in such tackle. Neither, I gather, do you, eh?”

  “No. Have there been any more so-called manifestations?”

  “Not a thing. Our men have been on the spot since the tragedy, of course. I’ve slept on the premises two nights, too. In the late Mr. Burt’s bedroom. And jolly comfortable it is. If you don’t want to be trotting to and from London, you might as well move in. You’ll not get a room at the local pub. They can only accommodate two, and Professor Braun’s assistants are there. The rest of the village is fullup with evacuees.”

  “Well, I’ve come prepared to stay a bit,” said Littlejohn. “I may as well wallow in the luxury of the victim as not.”

  “To be getting on with the tale, then. You know the bare outlines?”

  “Yes. I’ve read the newspapers and such records as we’ve got at Scotland Yard.”

  “Good. Well, there we have it then. Burt, the owner of the place, is dragged from bed in the small hours by a trio of men disguised in fancy dress and pitched into the bathing-pool in his birthday suit. That much was seen by the caretaker of the flats, a fellow called Stone, who lives at the lodge. Who the perpetrators of this unholy joke were, we’ve no idea. We can trace their footsteps to a clump of rhododendrons, where they seem to have taken off their boots and then made off through the grass in their socks. As you’ll see from my notes, all the rest of the tenants have alibis, so they’re not in it.

  “Next, Mr. Burt appears, scantily clad in sacks and dripping wet, in the kitchen of the Carberry-Peacockes, who are up, listening-in to the poltergeist—or so they say—which has been abroad. These cranks were in the dark, with Mr. and Mrs. Hartwright, their neighbours, whom, it seems, they’d interested in their researches. They all gave one another alibis. Burt, it appears, couldn’t get in by the doors after his sousing and entered by the only open window, that of the Peacockes’ pantry. They switched on the light when they heard the noise, and instead of the ghost, there stood old Burt, like a drowned sailor from Davy Jones’s locker. When he saw them, he beat a hasty retreat through the kitchen door and upstairs. The next thing they heard was a fearful racket on the stairs and before they could get to the door to see what was up, down comes old Burt and breaks his neck.”

  The two detectives dodged the traffic of the Brighton Road, which bisects that from Meadford to Harwood, and, on safe ground again, Heathcote took up his tale.

  “The rest of the tenants, except Professor Braun, were up, too. The younger Miss Pott put on a dressing-gown and rushed out to the corridor, there to encounter Mr. Williatt, of the same floor, who’d also been wakened by the row going on. The elder Miss Pott, who’s stone deaf, slept through it all. Both her sister and Williatt swear she was asleep from start to finish. The Professor, who’s hardly the type to cause nocturnal commotions, slept on too, he says. Furthermore, if he’d done the killing, he’d have had to pass Williatt and Miss Pott on his way back, for as soon as Burt fell, the Peacockes and the Hartwrights hurried to the foot of the stairs and cut off all retreat. Of course, Williatt and Potts might be in league and have done it together. But why? he’s years older than he is and as ugly as sin. No fear of an affair going on there and old Burt breaking-in on ’em.”

  “You’ve struck a handful and no mistake,” interposed Littlejohn.

  “Yes. And what’s more, I can’t get a proper tale about the legend of the haunting from the folks in the village. I’ve tried everywhere. They just dry-up when it’s mentioned. There is something. I know that, because the locals get so shifty when I question ’em, and shut up like oysters.”

  By this time, they had reached the outskirts of the little village of Harwood, now no longer the quiet place discovered by Mr. Burt. Evacuees played in the road and on the green and mothers with children wheeled perambulators or gossiped here and there. Furthermore, there overflowed from the small premises of the Harwood Arms a motley collection of curious ghost-hunters, attracted as if by a magnet to the scene of new sensations, and among them were to be seen the bright faces of a few reporters. Heathcote had to run the gauntlet as they passed the inn and only extricated himself with difficulty.

  “Of course, the usual fingerprint search is useless in a place like the Hall,” went on Heathcote as they entered the drive. “The place is rotten with prints of everybody. Can’t sort out anything.”

  Littlejohn couldn’t help admiring the graceful old house they were approaching. In spite of Mr. Burt’s efforts, it retained a dignity and detachment which defied them to do their worst. Heathcote took a key from his pocket and let them in by the front door. The Adam staircase, curving beautifully, had been left intact and rose from a comfortable hall decorated with sporting prints and old brass. They climbed to the first floor and again Heathcote produced his keys and they entered a door leading to the late Mr. Burt’s quarters. He had done himself well.

  “Not bad, eh?” said Heathcote.

  “No. The last thing in comfort.”

  It was a bachelor establishment, composed of an office-cum-study, a lounge-dining-room, and a bedroom. The latter was lush with green carpet, costly mahogany suite and bed, and all the devices of a sybarite. At the head of the bed a miniature switchboard controlled patent contraptions for heating each room, boiling a kettle, warming shaving-water, and causing to function a microphonic system whereby Mr. Burt could dictate letters from his bed to a stenographer in the study if he wished. Mrs. Stone came daily to cook for such as desired it, so there was no kitchen.

  “Think this’ll do you for quarters while you’re here, Littlejohn?”

  “Yes, I think so. I’ll
not want to do any work among all this comfort unless I take a firm hold on myself!”

  “Mrs. Stone’ll see to your food. I’ve used the study next door as a sort of office; expect you’ll do the same.”

  Heathcote attended to Littlejohn’s creature comforts in the way of showing him the bathroom and various other aids to indolence.

  “Well, I’ll be getting along,” he said at length. “When you want a meal, just call the lodge. Here’s the private ’phone.” And he demonstrated yet another device. He pointed out the various keys of the instrument, “Lodge,” “Garage,” “Hall,” “Kitchens,” and pressed the button under the last heading.

  “Just come up, Lister,” he said.

  “That’s the constable in charge for the time being. He or his relief will be at your beck and call day or night.”

  Having turned over Littlejohn to his underling, a pleasant-faced young constable who looked like the champion caber-tosser of the force, Heathcote went his way.

  “I’ll be in first-thing to-morrow,” he said at the door. “Must get back to my desk. Combing-out the aliens. What a game! You’ll find all you want in the file I’ve left on the desk there. Medical reports, dispositions of tenants, my own notes and such. See you soon. So long!”

  “Anything you want, sir?” asked P.C. Lister, apparently anxious to be doing something, goodness knows what. “Like to meet any of the tenants … see any of the house … or shall I order you a meal?”

  “Let’s see … four-thirty, eh? Yes, Lister, you might ask Mrs. Stone to have something ready for me in about an hour and tell her to get this suite ready, too. I’ll be occupying this flat for the time being.”

  “Right, sir,” replied Lister and made off.

  Littlejohn took his hat and descended for a stroll about the place. As did Mr. Burt in days past, the detective enjoyed the grounds and the surrounding country, admired the house again, sought-out the now famous bathing-pool and other spots noted in the reports. But his pleasure came from different sources than those of Mr. Burt’s. The atmosphere took hold of one. Quiet, placid, comforting scenes. The way the Hall seemed set in the countryside, overlooking the cluster of cottages in the village, dominating and at the same time protective. The fine trees of the parkland, and in the distance, a forest on one side, the rolling pastures of the downs on the other, with fields of autumn stubble or winter-greens between.