He'd Rather Be Dead

by George Bellairs

  “As far as I can remember his programme … he opened his letters first thing after breakfast. Talked over them with me and told me in general terms how to deal with them. Then, to the Town Hall for official letters and any other civic matters. He hadn’t long to spare there, for he’d an appointment with his doctor at eleven. A cold-cure inoculation. He was terribly troubled by coryza in the autumn and that treatment did him a lot of good. After that, he was due at the Town Hall for the lunch.”

  “Who is his doctor … or who was …?”

  “Preedy. There he is, at the bar, taking a late one with Fenwick, the dentist, a pal of his, and Miss Latrobe, his dispenser.”

  Swift pointed to a group of three, drinking cocktails soberly. Or rather, two of them were. The dentist seemed to be satisfying his thirst with tonic water.

  The doctor was tall, slim and dark, with a sleek, well-groomed look about him. A cold fish, apparently, and very efficient by the look of him.

  Fenwick, his companion, was a small, thin shrimp of a fellow with a long sallow face, hooked nose and dark, roving eyes. His streaky black hair was brushed back from a large, globular forehead.

  The girl was striking and bold-looking, with auburn hair, a slim figure, and was dressed in a well-cut tailor-made. She was quite at ease with the two men, and admiring eyes from all parts of the room followed her movements and glanced enviously at her escorts.

  Conversation between the trio seemed desultory. They looked to be rounding-off a tiring day with a moment’s relaxation before breaking-up and making for home. They seemed a bit out of place among that revelling throng and nobody intruded on them. One and another simply greeted them and passed on.

  “Preedy seems to be easing-up after hours. He’s a busy man, making great strides in his profession. He’s a local lad, too. Born here and returned to practice in his home town. Rather unusual,” Swift was saying. “Fenwick, his friend, is on the water-waggon. Says he’s got a duodenal ulcer and has to take care … Well, I’ll be off, if that’s all I can do for you. See you again. I’ll let you know as soon as Lady Ware feels fit to see you. Good-night.”

  Swift made a hot-foot exit, as though suddenly remembering many things to be done.

  “Good chap,” said Hazard. “The source of the fine speeches Ware used to make …”

  Preedy and his two friends paid for their drinks and left the bar.

  Fenwick spotted Hazard and stopped cheekily before him.

  “Evening, Hazard. How’s tricks …? Have a drink?”

  “ No, thanks, Mr. Fenwick. We’re just off.”

  “This the man from Scotland Yard we’ve all heard about?” went on the dentist. “Wish you luck, sir. A difficult business.”

  “Yes, so it seems,” said Littlejohn. “Thanks for your good wishes.”

  Preedy and the girl did not approach the two detectives, but waited with a show of patience for Fenwick to return. He, with a wave of the hand, joined them and they departed.

  “Good-looking girl, Miss Latrobe. No better than she should be, though, if you ask me,” remarked Hazard, gloomily. “That’s what I mean when I say this isn’t the place to bring-up youngsters in. Look at ’em all. That group of lads, there. All of ‘em in their ’teens and drinking like seasoned vessels with girls of their own age. What are their parents thinking of? I’d put ’em across my knee and wallop ’em. So many thousands are always round them, though, holidaymaking, that they get infected with the mood themselves and can’t settle down to any serious everyday business.

  “Once, this was a small, hard-working fishing community. Look at the legacy Ware’s bequeathed to it! Gimcrack pleasure palaces, shoddy concrete, the holiday feeling three hundred and sixty-five days and nights of the year, and the enervating, decadent state of always being on the loose.”

  Littlejohn was only half listening to Hazard as he rode his favourite hobby-horse. He was wondering about Sir Gideon’s last port of call before his death-feast. The doctor’s surgery for a hypodermic injection.

  CHAPTER FIVE - THE TEN DOSSIERS

  The perfect black-out of the Grand Hotel, so necessary because it faces the sea, enfolds it and seals-in its busy contents like a parcel carefully wrapped in thick brown paper. From outside the place looks like a towering abode of the dead. Break through the double vestibule which serves as a light-trap, however, and beyond is a humming hive of comfort and pleasure.

  Flunkeys rushing hither and thither, or rather they did rush before the Forces took the most energetic of them. Now, many elderly waiters and other servitors have emerged from retirement or from those lower rungs of the below-stairs ladder down which they are forced by the passing of time. At present, the great place and its clients must be satisfied with middle-aged senior attendants and a host of grey-headed or physically unfit underlings, who do their best with failing, tired bodies, plantigrade or flat feet and memories which can only sustain half an order.

  The dining-room is a shadow of its former lavishness. Yet, it does very well, for there are sources of supply still to those who are “in the know,” and many a housewife who has spent a morning queueing for fish, flesh and confectionery, only at the end of it all to find the day’s stocks sold out, has to thank the management of the Grand Hotel for being up in the small hours and on the spot with a pocket full of cash far exceeding that available either to her or the more belated man who supplies her. The cellars, too … You can still manage a bottle or two of Champagne if you can pay for it; or if less expensive, Graves, Beaune, Moulin-au-Vent, or even Moselle or Hock. The other week, a customer for a bet ordered Chianti and Asti Spumanti, and got them!

  The place was waking-up when Littlejohn entered after leaving Hazard to his wife and family. The cinemas and theatres had just turned out, the Winter Gardens had put-up its shutters for the night, and “Time, gentlemen, please,” had been very definitely called in a hundred and one other places of refreshment by exhausted proprietors and managers. The guests of the Grand Hotel therefore returned to its public-rooms, where the fact that they were living-in entitled them to alcoholic service for as long as the worn-out servants could carry their trays. The lounge was full, the bars and cocktail rooms could hardly hold another drinker, the thirsty throng had overflowed into the entrance-hall and were occupying the chairs and settees there, and it was only by locking the doors of the dining-room, ghostly with its tables laid for breakfast and its napkins folded in shadowy shapes like bishops’ mitres, that the suave manager prevented the clamant guests from invading it and reducing it to a shambles, mitres and all! The writing-room alone was a haven of peace. Tea, coffee and cocoa only were served there, and were being sedately consumed by elderly, scholarly, or totally-abstaining clients, who from conservatism or stubbornness persisted in patronising the Grand Hotel when all the time they were like fish out of water there.

  Littlejohn found the writing-room and ordered a cup of cocoa. He always had one last thing at home and the smell of it when it arrived reminded him so much of his wife, Letty, that before he drank it—it was served scalding at any rate and useless for all practical purposes for several minutes—he indulged in a long-distance call to Hampstead at the expense of Westcombe Corporation and bade his wife good-night, and told her he was behaving himself. As he spoke, his love of home was further increased by the sound of the grandfather clock chiming half-past-eleven in the hall of his flat. On the other hand, Mrs. Littlejohn asked him for an explanation of the background of noise at his end, and he had to reply that it was the Westcombe Lodge of the Ancient Order of Oddfishers, terminating their proceedings by singing a ritual hymn which sounded like a cross between a dirge and “Nellie Dean.”

  Back in the writing-room, the Inspector’s drink had cooled sufficiently, although he vowed to himself that Letty could give the Grand Hotel points in making it, in spite of the fact that it was costing the Municipality a shilling! Suddenly, Littlejohn remembered the parcel of dossiers which Boumphrey had pressed upon him. He felt like taking a cursory glance at them
and debated with himself whether to do it in the quietness of the writing-room or in his Borgia bedroom. He decided finally on the latter, so entered the lift and was hauled to his own floor. This quarter of the hotel must have been reserved for the respectable, early-retiring section of the clientele, for outside almost every room was one or more pairs of shoes. He was specially baffled by some leather bedroom slippers shut out from one of the bedrooms, and contented himself by a jocular deduction that probably their owner had arrived home drunk, put out the mysterious footwear, and gone to rest in his boots! Sherlock Holmes would certainly have had a field-day along that corridor.

  Littlejohn changed into his dressing-gown and travelling-slippers, thrust out his own shoes, lit his pipe, and opened the brief-case containing Boumphrey’s files. On top of the bundle was the neat plan of the seating arrangements at the ill-starred luncheon. The Inspector observed that there was a folder for each of the guests who sat near Sir Gideon. He took a sheet of notepaper from the rack on his writing-table and made a list.

  Canon Silvester Wallopp

  Father William Manfred

  Rev. Titus Gaukroger

  Ralph Arthur Oliver

  Edgar Kingsley-Smith

  George Bertram Oxendale

  Percy Wilmott Saxby

  Dr. Alastair McAndrew

  Tom Hogg

  Harold Brown

  All of them with deep-rooted grievances against Ware, all of them seated in a malevolent cordon round him when he collapsed, each one a potential red herring on whom to waste a lot of time and energy.

  Furthermore, there was no dossier for Sir Gideon himself. That would have been useful indeed. And perhaps so would one of Boumphrey. Littlejohn smiled. It must be the sea air or the atmosphere of frivolous revelry permeating the whole place. What did he want a file of the Chief Constable’s secrets for? He opened the first folder. Like the rest, it contained a number of plain sheets, with a two-inch margin down the left side of each for the date. In date sequence, the various scraps of information gleaned by the Chief Constable or his agents were tabulated. The first sheet was headed with particulars such as name, age, date of arrival in Westcombe, place of birth, previous places of residence and the like. The fact that National Registration numbers were included, showed whence much of the routine information had been gathered.

  Littlejohn commenced to read. Much of the matter was more like paltry gossip than anything else. Boumphrey or his underling was thorough to the point of pettiness. He could imagine Horace Powlett terrified lest he should miss the slightest detail and bring down the heavy wrath of Boumphrey on his head.

  Canon Wallopp’s grievance was chiefly centred in the unchristian sin of pride. This elderly and heavy cleric had, according to his record, just missed a bishopric and consoled himself by behaving like the bishop of Westcombe. The latter place was no see, of course, falling under that of Westchester, but Wallopp did his best. He lived in style in a large rectory, with two curates to do all his menial parochial offices and two manservants to dance attendance on him. He was unmarried and was given to mild flirtations with young ladies whilst giving them scriptural instruction. He had been known to fondle the assistant librarians, too, under cover of helping them to find erudite books on theology for him in remote corners of the library. This the faithful Powlett had gathered and entered, like the recording angel, on his files.

  Canon Wallopp had quarrelled with Sir Gideon for the reason already given, that instead of allowing him to continue as Mayor’s Chaplain, ex officio, Ware had decided in favour of one who, he stated, had done more for the town than the Canon. Mr. Titus Gaukroger was one of the attractions of Westcombe Beach and daily contributed to its popularity, whereas Wallopp looked down his nose at holidaymakers. So, Gaukroger had been chosen and Wallopp left to grind his teeth. For months the Canon did not speak to the Mayor, who did not grieve about it, for he knew that as soon as good food was to be had, the clerical glutton would return to the fold.

  After reading that the Canon had quarrelled with the Mayor about the lost appointment, Littlejohn dismissed him as a suspect. Wallopp was more likely to wait until the end of Sir Gideon’s term of office and then put in another claim. Here was no motive for killing.

  The “bishop” would be visited along with the rest of outstanding guests and interviewed concerning his evidence and reactions.

  Now, Gaukroger’s was a funny case. It appeared that he had started his working-life as a shipping-clerk and had a degree in commerce! He had triumphed in becoming Mayor’s Chaplain, but after his appointment, his conduct had suddenly become very strange. In fact, his public promotion had given him a great boldness. Like many another in similar positions, John Knox, Bishop Ridley, Thomas à Becket, for example, he had tried to reform his master, even to the extent of preaching against him and his works. He had not, in his sermons, actually cited Sir Gideon by name, but Westcombe had come in for a good gruelling or two. The Rev. Titus had even compared it to Sodom and Gomorrah and foretold its destruction like the cities of the plain, unless it repented. All of which was, of course, unfair. It wasn’t as bad as all that! But Mr. Gaukroger, as official chaplain of the place, was intent on cleaning it up. His first sermon after election was based on “Ho! Everyone that thirsteth,” and attacked strong drink. Just before the banquet at which he died, Sir Gideon threatened to sack him if he did not change his tune. People didn’t want the seaside holiday they’d saved-up for a whole year to enjoy, to be described as a Belshazzar’s Feast by the official chaplain of the place where they were spending it. And the Rev. Titus had stood and defied his master! Nevertheless, the evangelist would hardly strike his tormentor dead for questioning his wisdom. Another one to be interviewed.

  Father Manfred, too, had been passed-by when the official chaplain was elected. His was a different case altogether. He had quarrelled with Ware not from pride, but from conviction that by this public act of heresy the Mayor had not only insulted the Mother Church of which he was a member, but damned his immortal soul. He was not likely, however, to precipitate Sir Gideon’s taste of hell with the help of a dose of strychnine. Manfred was with Sir Gideon when he died. A visit to him was very necessary in case the Mayor had recovered sufficiently between the spasms of illness which eventually carried him off, to speak and express any opinion concerning his murderer.

  Kingsley-Smith, the Town Clerk, owed Ware a considerable amount of money. This Boumphrey had gleaned from a letter which he had read on the Town Clerk’s desk one day in the latter’s absence. The file stated that Kingsley-Smith had been responsible for introducing Ware into the best local circles when first he arrived in Westcombe, where the Kingsley-Smith family had lived for generations. Constitutional Club, Yacht Club, Golf-Club. Kingsley-Smith had proposed Ware for membership in them all. And Ware had lent him money. The letter the Chief Constable had not hesitated to read, was pressing for repayment. The money motive was quite a feasible one for murder. A further note on the file stated that Kingsley-Smith ran another establishment in London! One of Boumphrey’s men had come across him dining with someone not his wife in a fashionable West-End restaurant and, on making enquiries, had discovered that the Town Clerk of Westcombe kept a mistress.

  It was quite obvious to Littlejohn that all the information on Boumphrey’s files had not been acquired fortuitously. The Chief Constable had evidently set out to dig himself in at Westcombe by learning as much as he could about the shady side of its principal citizens. He wondered where Ware’s file might be.

  Littlejohn grew tired of grovelling among the questionable doings of Westcombe, like the man with the muck-rake. There was the constant friction between Westcombe and Hinster’s Ferry, personified by the struggle between Ware and Wilmott Saxby, the latter fighting for the very existence of his little Urban District Council and almost at the last gasp when Ware died.

  Tom Hogg, deputy-Mayor, ousted from the Mayoralty by Ware and his men because Gideon was anxious for local honours. In times past, the Mayor of Westco
mbe had always been asked to continue in office for a second period. In Tom’s case, precedent was broken because Ware was champing at the bit for the cocked-hat and robes and the golden chain. Besides, Hogg and Ware were like cat and dog about labour conditions. The eternal battle of master versus man, with Ware using the additional threat of queering Hogg’s pitch in the constituency he proposed to contest as Labour candidate next election.

  Oliver, the Borough Treasurer, suspected of being wrong in his books on one occasion and of borrowing money to put them right. Then, finding Sir Gideon beating a dog with a putter on the links one day, he stops him in a rush of righteous indignation. And later, discovers that Sir Gideon is calling for a thorough examination of his books just to try and catch him out for revenge! What if the defalcation comes to light? Boumphrey’s record merely indicated that a chance remark by one of the Treasurer’s staff about trying to find an error in the books, happened to coincide with Oliver’s sudden visit to a wealthy aunt and a quick solution … The money motive again, with Ware sticking-out his chin for the rap!

  Oxendale, the bank manager, within a short time of retirement, being badgered by Ware for the sheer joy of showing his power. Ware, a large shareholder in Cotts’ Bank, was threatening to have him moved to a smaller branch far distant from the place where Oxendale planned to settle-down when he got his pension. After all, his friends were in Westcombe and he’d bought a nice little house there. Then, along comes Ware and upsets the apple-cart. You’d feel like murdering him if you got a chance!

  The last two men in the ring round Ware when he died were Dr. Alastair McAndrew, Medical Officer of Health, and Harold Brown, Clerk to the Justices. According to the files, McAndrew had no bone to pick with Ware, except that they frequently quarrelled about the Mayor’s opposition to Health Grants. Ware was all for advertising Westcombe. His financial interests were there and he liked spending the town’s money to their advantage. The doctor wanted better hospitals, better equipment, better research. Ware, in common with many of his kind, was overawed by science and hence treated it with a show of contempt.