He'd Rather Be Dead

by George Bellairs

  As he turned to nod good-bye to the zetetic Powlett, Littlejohn noticed that Horace was taking from a drawer a new card and entering something on it.

  “He’s got me on the list!” he thought, and lit his pipe to create a more healthy atmosphere.

  CHAPTER FOUR - AT THE WINTER GARDENS

  “I’m sorry, Littlejohn, that I can’t co-operate fully with you on this case, but you’ll appreciate my difficulties.”

  They were back in Boumphrey’s private room and settling the routine details of the investigation.

  “You see, my job is one of constant coming and going all day long during the season.”

  Littlejohn didn’t see, but didn’t tell the Chief Constable so. What he needed to be coming and going about more than anyone else, was a mystery, but the Inspector took it that Boumphrey was trying to excuse himself from the intimate and awkward contacts which would be encountered as the case progressed.

  “But I’ll tell you what I will do. You seem to have taken a fancy to Hazard. I’ll assign him to showing you round, generally making you comfortable, and helping you out in matters of irritating routine if you need him.”

  Littlejohn was not aware that he had expressed any particular liking for Hazard to the Chief Constable, but had to admit to himself that the Inspector of the Public Morals Squad would be a much better and more straight-forward associate than his chief.

  “That’ll suit me very well, sir, and, if you don’t mind, I’d like now to get my things down to the hotel ready for an early start in the morning.”

  “Fine! Fine!” said Boumphrey, clutching one hand with the other. If he had raised them above his head, he would have looked like a boxer acknowledging the plaudits of his followers as he enters the ring. “I’ll just ring the bell for Hazard and you can become even better acquainted.”

  Hazard seemed agreeably surprised when he arrived and discovered his new assignment.

  “That’ll be a pleasant change,” he said, sotto voce, and Boumphrey scowled disapprovingly at him.

  “Well,” said the Westcombe Inspector, “We’ll be getting along to the Grand Hotel.”

  “Don’t forget these, Littlejohn,” said the Chief Constable, and pointed to the dossiers which he had selected, still reposing on their table. “They’re confidential, so I’ll lend you this brief-case. Lock it up and put it in a safe spot among your luggage. If you take my advice, you’ll give those papers the once-over before you start. They’ll help you to understand the parties of the case. Here’s the key. The lock’s a patent one and they’ll be safe enough.”

  “What’s the old chap been giving you there?” asked Hazard, as they descended the Town Hall steps. He was carrying Littlejohn’s suit-case and looking in every direction for a free taxi.

  “Files about some of the principal citizens, for perusal.”

  “Good God! Is the Gestapo at it already! I thought your brief-case smelled of stinking fish. However, as the C.C. says, it’ll throw light on some of the hierarchical activities of Westcombe.”

  A taxi drew-up at length and they climbed in. The driver seemed disgusted at the shortness of his journey, for they merely drove two hundred yards along the promenade and were deposited at the doors of a huge edifice of concrete and glass, built in the most modern style of architecture and advertised as containing two hundred bedrooms all with H. & C., box-spring beds, and conditioned air. There were also one hundred bathrooms, three lifts, a commodious air-raid shelter and a system of silent signals for summoning the staff to the bedrooms.

  “Always best to drive-up in a taxi,” said Hazard, “even if you only pick it up round the corner. Creates a healthy respect from the start. I booked you a room, and after a lot of haggling got one with a bath and view of the sea on the second floor, which is out of the way of dining-room smells.”

  “That’s decent of you, Hazard.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’m only currying favour,” replied the cynical supervisor of seaside morals. “Put down New Scotland Yard when you check-in, too. That’ll knock ’em cold!”

  Littlejohn did as his colleague advised, whereat the desk-clerk began to scutter around and chatter excitedly like a macaw, rang the bell twice and thereby produced two page-boys, who relieved Littlejohn of all his portable property and almost carried him in triumph to the nearest lift.

  The bedroom was sumptuous, with a purple carpet, and eiderdown and bedcover to match. In the spaciousness of it, the bed seemed lost, but the ensemble brought to Littlejohn’s mind a theatrical setting of a highbrow little theatre presenting a tragedy in which the Borgias smother a victim in bed.

  The place smelled stuffy and Hazard hastened to open a window and let in the sea breeze. The attendant page boys rushed in horror to close it.

  “The air’s conditioned, sir,” said one of them. “It’s washed clean and warmed in the basement, and if you open the windows you’ll dirty the air and put the system out of order.”

  “Good Lord! It’s a plot to suffocate the police before they’ve got started!” replied Hazard as if to himself, and he opened two more windows. The page boys rushed away to their burrows like a pair of startled hares and without waiting for a tip.

  “Now before you start on the Chief’s dark secrets, I suggest you see the parties in the flesh. Tonight is gala night at the Winter Gardens and most of them will be there. The place is owned by the Municipality and the principal Corporation officers have free admission. They serve the best food and drink in town and, as likely as not, most of the possible murderers will be there. If you’re not too tired, I’d like to take you. Local high life and all that.”

  “I’ll be delighted.”

  “Right. I’ll call back in half an hour. Give you time for a shave and a bath, if you want one. We’ll have a bite of food there and then do the rounds. There’s the long-bar where all the lads foregather. A troupe of all-in wrestlers, if you’re a sadist. Organ recitals by Acron, Mus.Bac., and anything from the rumba to corn-pickin’ to the strains of Sid Simmons and his Hot-Dogs …”

  An hour later they were eating a surprisingly good meal for war-time in the mirror-hall of the Winter Gardens.

  “Hullo, there’s Oswald back again already,” muttered Hazard. “That’s the waiter just across by the door. The catering manager and Sir Gideon had a row about that fellow. Ware insisted on his being sacked for cheek, just because he found the place full when he called with a party, and Oswald said, quite reasonably, that he was sorry he couldn’t just tell somebody else to leave and vacate their seats. He’s soon been reinstated. One of your suspects, by the way. He was engaged as a casual head-waiter for the fatal banquet by the caterers who had charge of the affair. Probably Ware arranged it by way of recompense. He was that way.”

  A small party, composed of two men and two women passed the detectives’ table.

  “That’s the deputy-Mayor, now the civic head again, and his wife, son, and daughter-in-law. A good scout is Tom Hogg. A rough diamond, who sat next-but-one to Ware at the feast of death. He’s general secretary of the local Carters’ Union, a Socialist, and a sworn opponent of the victim. They were always scrapping. Ware didn’t believe in trade unions and their rates of pay, and was for ever in trouble with his men and their officials. Hogg’s putting up as M.P. for some division at the next General Election and Ware was backing his opponent. Said he’d one or two cards up his sleeve that would cook Tom’s goose. So there you have another possible.”

  Littlejohn demolished an excellent apple charlotte and looked round the dining-room, ablaze with the lights of heavy chandeliers and teeming with pretty women and prosperous-looking men, as well as humbler holiday-makers doing themselves well while the going was good.

  “There’s Kingsley-Smith, the Town Clerk,” said Hazard, raising his hand in salute to a tall, well-groomed, middle-aged man, sitting with a mixed party of six at a round table in an alcove.

  “Likes the pretty girls, does the T.C. His wife’s not among that lot. A funny thing, you know, bu
t at a seaside place like this, with the holiday feeling always in the air, things get slack. It’s quite the habit in a certain set for husbands and wives to go about separately. Mrs. Kingsley-Smith’s probably inspecting the A.R.P. nurses—she’s a big shot in the V.A.D.—whilst the old man runs around with somebody else’s wife. They don’t seem to think there’s anything wrong in it, provided there’s a party of ’em together.”

  Hazard reeled off the names of one local celebrity after another in quick-fire succession. The Borough Accountant and his wife, the latter rudely staring out of countenance a number of elegantly-dressed young ladies and gentlemen, her husband’s underlings by day, who now greeted him and his lady with varying degrees of familiarity. Mr. Oxendale, the principal bank manager of Westcombe, who with his wife was entertaining the Principal of the Department of Dry Goods and Edible Oils. The banker was consulting the menu and choosing what he thought was a tasteful meal.

  “It’s all a case of this …” he told the waiter.

  Mr. Ryder, O.B.E., of the Poultry and Incubation Office, glared from a solitary table at his antagonist, Mr. Brown, the solicitor, dining with his wife. At yet another table, Mr. Oliver, the Borough Treasurer, was regaling his wealthy aunt, a perfect tartar of a woman who couldn’t make up her mind what to eat.

  “F’r instance,” Oliver was saying, and after each spasm the old aunt shook her head peevishly.

  The Inspectors were glad to leave the hot room, heavy with the scent of women and table-d’hôte.

  “Let’s just pop in and see the big attractions and then we’ll see the habituals in the long-bar,” suggested Hazard, and led his colleague into the thickly-carpeted corridor.

  Through a heavy glass door they saw a thin gathering listening to Acron’s recital. The organist looked like a contortionist, clawing at his four manuals of keys, trampling the pedals, whipping the stops in and out … Beyond, the strains of more savage music seeped through another entrance.

  “The dance hall. Better seen from the gallery, Littlejohn.”

  They ascended a staircase and found themselves in a square balcony high above the dance-floor. Light drinks and refreshments could be obtained there, but Hazard waved aside the expectant waitress. He led his friend to the edge of the gallery. Below was a remarkable sight.

  Soft music ascended. Sid Simmons and his men were resting for the time being, or rather, all except the pianist and drummer. The former was playing tinkling cascades, without rhythm, apparently the first thing that crossed his mind. The tempo was made by his colleague, who was operating on his drums with what looked like wire pan-brushes. Wearing a look of intense, leering concentration, this percussionist leaned over his instruments, tickling them softly with his scrubbers, for all the world like a doctor auscultating a patient’s chest.

  Meanwhile, those in the body of the hall danced. There seemed to be thousands of them. Littlejohn had never seen anything like it. From his viewpoint it looked as if you couldn’t throw a penny between any pair. Shuffling languidly, many hardly moving, but just rolling and swaying, others with heads askew and buried deep in their shoulders and with hindquarters rhythmically rotating, this great amorphous mass looked like the contents of a drop of pond water viewed under a microscope. Twirling, wriggling, revolving or oozing dreamily. A shot from a Réné Clair camera, showing heads going round and round.

  Suddenly, at a signal from Sid Simmons, the whole thing changed. The Hot Dogs were torn by a frenzy of harsh sounds. Sid himself blew rending blasts on his trumpet and his “boys” began a series of the wildest and noisiest contortions.

  A great wave of passion seemed to possess the dancers. As though into the drop of water under the microscope someone had injected a dose of toxic fluid. They began to fling one another about in the most savage abandon, now the closest of clinches between partners; then hurling themselves apart as though spasms of distaste had seized them. Arms, legs, buttocks, bosoms, heaved and smote those of their opposite numbers. On each face a look of intense concentration and unflagging energy. Almost involuntarily, Littlejohn’s hand, resting on the balustrade of the balcony, beat a tattoo and his foot gently rose and fell to the rhythm of the band.

  “Well, I’ll be …” said Littlejohn, lacking words.

  “Oh, this goes on every night. Same people, too,” said Hazard. And as Sid and his boys finally ceased abruptly, the astonishing thing was that the recent protagonists grinned calmly at each other, clapped and shouted vociferously for more, and then, when the Hot Dogs responded, set grimly about each other with redoubled intensity.

  “What about a drink after that,” suggested Hazard. The two men descended the stairs and made for the long bar. On the way, the Westcombe officer opened yet another door, disclosing two huge lumps of flesh writhing in a rope ring to the diabolical shouts of hundreds of spectators, a good half of them women.

  “Choke him!”

  “Break his bloody arm!”

  “Chuck him over the ropes!!”

  “Tear his hair out!!!”

  And the mountain least in labour thereupon buried a hand like a ham in his opponent’s crisp thatch and tore out a handful, whilst the victim yelled his head off and contorted his face like a baboon.

  “I’ve seen that sort of stuff till I’m sick of it,” said Littlejohn, who in his earlier days, had suffered spells of duty in a district which revelled in such sports and frequently rioted or tried to murder the referee.

  As they made their way to the corridor, the man who had lost his hair threw both his opponent and the referee, indistinguishable from each other by this time, right over the ropes, greatly to the satisfaction of all the ladies present.

  “You know, Littlejohn, that troupe have their own doctor and he told me recently he’d never had a serious injury, let alone a hospital case, all the time he’d been with ’em.”

  A wilder burst of demoniacal cheering than ever signified that the ejected parties had recovered and, in turn, had hurled their enemy into the audience. The last thing Littlejohn saw through the glass doors of the hall was the two wrestlers allied in the common cause of attacking the referee.

  The long bar of the Westcombe Winter Gardens is the evening gathering place of most of the local men-about-town. Nine-thirty, after the B.B.C. news bulletins, sees such of them as are free from nocturnal duties, drifting in for their symposium before closing-time. The belated equivalent of the French heure de l’aperitif

  Littlejohn and Hazard could scarcely find a place in the vast extent of counter on which to rest their elbows.

  Enquiring eyes overhauled the “chap from Scotland Yard,” whose arrival had already been noised abroad. Some wondered if he were on somebody’s trail already; others were surprised to see him in that place of relaxation and entertainment, for they were under the impression that an official detective, like a bloodhound, diligently follows the scent to the exclusion of all else until the job is done. This, to a certain extent was true of Littlejohn, but he had his own methods of working. He placed great reliance on gathering atmosphere in his cases.

  It was obvious that Hazard was regarded with respect and treated with the reserve which arises from it. He was greeted, but never with familiarity or invitations to “have one” with this or that of the customers there. Nobody slapped him on the back or called him “old man,” although there were many there in the bibulous condition when a man’s the friend of all the world.

  Four barmaids and a cocktail shaker, who was incessantly convulsed, had their work cut out in satisfying the clamouring crowd.

  “This lot’s on me!”

  “What’ll you have?”

  “Cheers!”

  “Here’s to you, old man.”

  All the questions and answers of the toper’s litany. Faces growing more and more excited, flushed, or melancholy, according to how the drink took them. Gestures less and less restrained. Alcoholic bonhomie rising like the tide across the promenade outside.

  A tall, athletic youngster, going to seed physica
lly, probably through relaxing training, entered and was greeted by his cronies.

  “That’s young Christopher Swift, Ware’s private secretary. Cambridge blue. Smart chap,” said Hazard, and buried his nose in his glass. “You might like a word with him on his way out. He won’t be here for long, I’ll bet, with the funeral hanging over him.”

  A knot of men gathered round Swift, but grown suddenly subdued, as when a funeral passes by, or as when the chattering crowds at a French church service become suddenly hushed at the Elevation.

  “Do you think this is the place to introduce one’s self?” asked Littlejohn.

  “Preferable to calling at the house, until things settle down. Better not make a show of approaching him at the bar. Let’s take our glasses to that free table by the door and stop him as he passes.”

  Hazard was right. Swift merely had his drink and spoke a few words to his pals. Then he bade them goodnight and made for the door. He paused to give a friendly greeting to Hazard, who introduced him to Littlejohn.

  “Glad they’ve got you chaps on the job so soon. Boumphrey’s quite incapable of tackling this himself. Too scared of giving offence.”

  A friendly young chap with an open, healthy countenance and fair complexion. He squinted slightly behind his glasses when he looked you in the eyes.

  “Sorry about all this,” replied Littlejohn. “You must be having a worrying time. How is Lady Ware?”

  “Taking it badly, I’m afraid. Whoever else liked or disliked the chief, she was his best friend. A regular trooper, bless her!”

  “I’d like to talk with her, but don’t feel like bothering her with all this upset.”

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you. Not yet. It’ll distress her. Can I do anything?”

  “Well … just one question, please. Did Sir Gideon call anywhere on his way to the lunch?”