The Night They Killed Joss Varran (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  ‘Perhaps the man following him couldn’t get Joss to himself and then got an opportunity after he left Ramsey. Could Joss have been beaten up and then staggered home to die on the doorstep?’

  ‘If I give you full details of how Joss was found, you’ll see it’s more intricate than that. Isabel, his sister, says she found him in the hedge across the track from the house. She swears he was dead then, although that’s only her idea. She’d no way of knowing, except that he looked dead. He might have been unconscious. The doctor says that he died somewhere about the time when she found him. Without more ado, Isabel ran to the Candells’ place and roused them. Three of the men, father and two sons, hurried to Close Dhoo and there found the body of Joss in an arm-chair inside the house. He was dead. But there was a bottle of whisky on the table and the front of the body was soaked in whisky, too. It looks as if there might have been a struggle opposite the house. There are marks which might have been made in a scuffle in the ditch there, but the Candell boys got so enthusiastic hunting for Varran’s body, that they’ve ruined any useful footprints or other traces. Whoever attacked Joss must have been disturbed by Isabel and hid in the hedge. Then, after she left for help, he carried Joss’s body to the house and tried to revive him. Finding him dead, he went off in a hurry.’

  ‘Fingerprints?’

  ‘None on the bottle or on the furniture, as far as we could see. Whoever did it was sharp enough to wipe them clean.’

  ‘Anybody who watches television knows the technique. It doesn’t need brains nowadays; it’s mere routine.’

  ‘That’s as far as we’ve got, for the present. It looks like being a long hard haul before we find out who’s responsible for last night’s events.’

  ‘Did Varran let his sister know beforehand that he was coming home, and when?’

  ‘No. He didn’t write to say when Isabel could expect him. She said she had an idea about when he’d be released, but nothing definite. Her sister, Rose, asked the vicar if he could find out, which he did by telephoning the prison chaplain.’

  ‘Did Joss write to her regularly from gaol?’

  ‘She said not. If he ever wanted anything, he seems to have sent her a peremptory note and asked for it. She wrote to him regularly, but he never replied to her letters and once or twice she suggested she might visit him, but got no answer. A bit rough of him, I must say. Isabel is a shy, awkward sort of woman and such a visit to London would have been a big ordeal. She’s never been off the Island in her life and, as far as she’s concerned, England might be on the other side of the world.’

  ‘What kind of a reception did you get in the curraghs in the course of your investigation, Knell?’

  ‘I could hardly call it frosty. They are, for the most part, hospitable, kindly folk, but murder is, of course, almost unknown there and an event like this draws them closer together and they get cautious and suspicious. It’s as though they’re afraid of becoming involved in some way, either by revenge from someone they might betray or by incriminating someone in their family, which, through intermarriage is sure to be widespread and to the members of which they are fanatically loyal in the face of outsiders.’

  The Archdeacon intervened.

  ‘I knew the Candell family long ago. They were peasants who elevated themselves by hard work and thrift. And peasants everywhere are sly, cautious and suspicious.’

  Knell smiled.

  ‘That’s right. But I had what you might call an entrée. I had an uncle who was a preacher in the North of the Island. He used to visit some of the little chapels dotted about the curraghs and district and was well-known and popular. When I mentioned his name the Candells thawed out a bit. Particularly Mrs. Candell who’s a woman of character and is more educated and talkative than the men. She told me about the strained relations that had existed between the Varrans and the Candells. She seemed quite relieved that Isabel had come to them for help and that the long feud had apparently come to an end.’

  ‘Feud, did you say, Reginald?’

  ‘You might call it a sort of mental feud, Archdeacon. There was no violence, but every friendly approach the Candells ever made to the Varrans was rudely repulsed until there was almost hatred between them. You admit, sir, that the house was originally rented through your good offices and later the Varrans bought it through a third party.’

  ‘Do you think the Candells might be involved in this crime?’

  ‘Certainly not. There’s a decency about all of them and they wouldn’t beat up and murder people. That’s my opinion, at any rate.’

  He looked hopefully at Littlejohn.

  ‘How long are you staying on the Island, sir?’

  ‘If you need an assistant, Knell, I could manage a few days here . . .’

  Knell rubbed his hands together.

  ‘In that case, would you like to come with me to the curraghs tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course. It’s years since I was last there. Wasn’t it in the curraghs that we were involved in a case where the parson went off his head and rang the church bells at midnight?’

  ‘That’s it, sir. That was a long time ago . . .’

  Knell said it sadly, as though he wished time would turn back and restore him to the golden years of his prime.

  ‘And what will we do when we get there, Knell?’

  ‘I thought you might like to have a talk with Isabel Varran and the Candells . . .’

  ‘You think the answer to the problem might be found there?’

  ‘I can’t think so, although they are a strange race of people. As I said, why should any of them wish to kill Joss Varran? They probably all despised him, but that doesn’t mean a hatred necessary to kill a man.’

  ‘The murderer might have been a stranger. Someone from Joss Varran’s past. Perhaps a shipmate or a prison acquaintance who might have originated from anywhere. In that case the criminal could have got clean away.’

  ‘We followed the usual routine of making full enquiries at the boats and the airport. We were on the nine o’clock boat this morning before she sailed. The crew was the same as when Joss Varran crossed yesterday on his way home. None of them saw him with any companion. He was, it seems, visible most of the time, wandering from bar to bar on the boat and drinking pretty heavily. The chances are that the murderer, if he were an outsider and made off back to the mainland after last night’s tragedy, would get the nine o’clock boat or else the first plane to England. There were quite a number of strangers left the island by both ways. What could we do? We questioned the crews and the dock and airport staff and our men are keeping the usual watches on departures, but in a case like this, to detain on suspicion of murder any stranger leaving the island would be quite impossible. It would be silly.’

  ‘Quite right.’

  ‘I’ve been hard at work on the case since it was reported to me in the early hours of this morning, but the bulk of it has been the dreary formal preliminaries of a case which, from the looks of things, is going to be a very hard nut to crack.’

  The Archdeacon, who had been listening drowsily to the conversation was obviously disappointed.

  ‘You’re telling us, Reginald, that after a day’s work, you are in despair. You haven’t even started scientifically on the case, yet. You’ve simply made a few routine notes in your book . . .’

  ‘Twenty-five pages, Archdeacon . . .’

  ‘You must be tired. You’ll feel better after a night’s sleep. The Chief Superintendent and I will be waiting here for you first thing tomorrow morning. You can then take us to Close Dhoo. Is that agreeable to you, Tom?’

  ‘I suppose so, if Knell can bear with us.’

  The door opened and Maggie Keggin appeared, flushed from her evening’s entertainment.

  ‘Good night to you all,’ she said, and then turning upon Knell, as was her custom, to deliver a parting shot, ‘And I hope you’ve remembered as you drank the Venerable Archdeacon’s wine, that you’ve to drive home in a car. It would be a disgrace to our family and to the
constabulary, if tomorrow you appeared in dock for drunken drivin’ . . .’

  And she departed with that

  Knell tried to look as if he was still as fresh as a daisy, without much success. His friends saw him off from the gate and watched the light of his headlamps gradually vanish in the night.

  3

  The Meeting at Close-e-Cass

  LITTLEJOHN, THE Archdeacon and Knell arrived at Close Dhoo early the following morning. It was sunny, one of the last days of the spent summer, but the recent tragedy and the ominous silence of the back roads and lanes which led to the house cast gloom over the excursion.

  The last part of the journey lay through tunnels of trees with their leaves taking on the tints of autumn along a neglected road almost overgrown with grass and weeds. The fading tracks of wheels were faintly visible, like a scar in the course of healing. Now and then, through gaps in the trees, they saw the bastion of kindly hills which suddenly level out into the northern plain.

  Knell seemed to be in a melancholy mood, depressed by the deserted desolation of old dead houses crumbling away and uneasy quiet where once there had been a lively community. As they passed a small tumbledown ruin standing askew on the roadside and apparently now used as a shelter for cattle, he drew his companions’ attention to it.

  ‘There was once a little colony of people here, crofters, who earned a livelihood by small fanning and fishing and the women worked the land when the men were away with the herring fleet. That wreck over there was a school. The teacher vanished one night. Nobody knew where she went. It’s said she eloped with a travelling tinker . . . Here’s Close Dhoo. I was told in the course of my investigations yesterday that an occupant, before the Varrans settled there, a recluse, hanged himself . . .’

  The Archdeacon grew impatient.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Reginald? You seem in a sad state. How many more mysteries are you going to unearth in the locality? Let us solve the death of Joss Varran first and you can deal with the rest at your leisure.’

  Knell pulled up at Close Dhoo and took a large key from his pocket, after pointing out the hedge opposite where the trampled foliage and grass indicated the spot where Varran’s sister had found his body.

  ‘The body’s in the mortuary at Ramsey,’ he said to whom it might concern as he fitted and turned the key in the stiff, heavy lock. The damp, slightly fragrant smell of burnt gorse from the cold fire met them.

  Knell stood with his hands on his hips and looked slowly round the room.

  ‘We’ve been over everything. There were no papers or letters in any of the drawers. We searched in the usual places where the likes of the Varrans keep their valuables, including up the chimney. There we found a biscuit tin with family papers in it: registry deeds for this property in the name of Josiah Varran; birth, marriage and death certificates and the like. Nothing of any use to us. And there was an old tin teapot with one hundred and seventeen pounds in notes in it. I gather that Isabel Varran had been living on public assistance. She saved the money out of that, perhaps. There’s no sign of investments or post office books . . .’

  He paused and addressed Littlejohn.

  ‘Do you want to take a look around, sir?’

  There seemed little purpose in it if the local police had already done it. The whole place must have been barren and sad at the best of times. Now it was a pathetic relic of days gone by on its last legs. Even the scanty stock of clothing in the simple wooden chest in one corner of the room was mostly outmoded odds and ends of a past age.

  Some long, voluminous dresses, a faded frock-coat . . . As though someone had collected the wardrobe for the traditional performance of The Manx Wedding, almost a genial mummers’ tale, at which everybody dressed in early Victorian clothes. Finally, there appeared in a corner of the box a dilapidated bowler hat.

  ‘Someone must have given them this old-fashioned finery,’ commented Knell, carefully folding it back in the chest. ‘Or else they bought it cheap at a rummage sale. This hat’s had its day, too. Everybody had one of these hats for funerals in the old times. They’d have as soon gone naked as without a hat at a funeral. There was a sort of ceremonial about when you wore it and when you took it off. And if they kept bees, a bowler hat was always useful for draping a net over when they opened the hives . . .’

  ‘When you’ve finished your little lecture on the social history of the Island, shall we get on with the murder case, Reginald? If Littlejohn doesn’t think it necessary to go over the house again, shall we arrange our next move?’

  ‘We ought to go to Close-e-Cass next and see Isabel Varran and the Candells. They’ll probably have recovered from the first shock and be a bit more lucid than I found them when I first interviewed them.’

  Littlejohn had been strolling here and there in the room, examining with interest the domestic odds and ends scattered around.

  At right angles to the inside of the door had been constructed a rough wooden partition, a form of indoor porch, to keep out the draughts. On the back of this, inside the room, a couple of shelves had been rudely nailed up. These held one or two books, a number of medicine bottles and an old-fashioned sewing box.

  Littlejohn opened the box, which was beautifully made, and lined in padded silk. It had evidently been treasured by a succession of owners. It contained nothing but a few bobbins of cotton, reels of silk, odds and ends of coloured material, needles, thimbles and scissors.

  The books were old and bound in mouldy, crumbling leather. Littlejohn turned them over and looked through the pages. The Archdeacon, standing beside him, was interested.

  ‘That is a Bible in Manx. Of very little practical use to the present generation, I’m afraid, but very valuable to a collector.’

  He turned to the fly-leaf. It contained the names and dates of birth of past Varrans, written in various illiterate hands, yellow with age. Beside several of the names, a cross and a date, presumably of death.

  ‘This is interesting, Tom . . .’

  On one of the blank leaves a map had been roughly drawn.

  ‘. . . You recollect how, in the legends of the old West in America, every prospector had an obsession that a rich lode of gold would be found in the vicinity of a chosen spot, and spent his life grubbing and fighting over it. The same applied, and, I suppose, still does, in certain places in these curraghs. It was believed, probably with some reason, that during the raids from the Norsemen in early times, treasure was hidden in the marshes, then known as the Myers, by natives and by the monks of an abbey which had a small foundation here. There is a plaintive Manx ballad about Mylecharaine, a miser, who found one of the hoards. It included the famous Mylecharaine silver cross, a lovely ornament which eventually disappeared, but not before details of it had been preserved and there is a replica of it now in the Manx museum. This map is perhaps one of many scattered among old curragh families, who hoped, one day, to make themselves rich by digging in the bogs and unearthing silver and gold. Let’s see if we can identify it.’

  The Archdeacon, who seemed to have forgotten the murder and his impatience to be getting on with the investigation, took the book and laid it on the table, put on his spectacles and bent over it.

  ‘It is apparently a map of this locality. The rough oblong at the head of the map is obviously a small lough. It is marked Polly, probably the way an illiterate would spell Poyll, Manx for Pool. There were several such small lakes indicated on old maps; none exist now since the curraghs were drained.’

  He looked closely over the top of his spectacles.

  ‘You see the road is marked Bayr Dhoo, the Black Path. And here is Close Dhoo, this house. The land marked Lheaney Streeu, was surely of some importance for the name means Field of Strife. The site of a fight or a battle, either physically or by litigation. The Field of Strife was obviously not worth much for cultivating purposes, for here beside the name of it is the word Creelagh or Shaking Land, which means Bog. The strife may have arisen for right of turbary, or peat digging.
/>   He straightened himself, closed and put the Bible away.

  ‘This looks like another of those treasure maps, of which dozens must have been in circulation at one time or another. Almost every family in the curraghs must have some map or legend which they hope will one day make them wealthy . . . But this is wasting time and has nothing to do with our murder. Shall we go and see the Candells?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Would the Chief Superintendent like to see upstairs before we leave? It’s a loft which Isabel Varran uses as a bedroom.’

  ‘You’ve gone over it thoroughly, I presume, Knell?’

  ‘Yes. There’s nothing up there to excite anybody. A bed, another chest full of old clothes, no letters or papers, except some old shoe boxes filled with out-of-date Christmas cards and old family photographs. Nothing at all worth wasting any more time on.’

  Knowing Knell’s thoroughness, Littlejohn was sure what he said was right. In any event, a call at Close-e-Cass was the more important for the present and they could return later and give Close Dhoo a closer look-over. They locked up the house again and made their way.

  Knell had to drive a considerable way back down the rutted lane along which they had come there, until they struck a properly metalled road. Otherwise the tyres and springs of the police car would have suffered from the flints and potholes of the road to Close-e-Cass which Isabel Varran and the Candells had used on the night before.

  The weather had suddenly changed and grown cloudy and damp and as the trees on the roadside thinned around the cultivated fields, the landscape grew monotonous under the grey sky.

  By a mild, unhurried farm road, or ‘street’, as they call them there, they soon reached Close-e-Cass, its buildings clean and white-washed surrounding the house like fortifications. The farmyard, with a huge dump of manure surrounded by a trench of brown drainage in one corner, was obviously a centre of activity and there was a small knot of men there all talking at once. The four Candell men, Joseph the father, Tom his brother, and the two sons, Joe and Baz, were prominent among them. Tom was a harmless family oddity who talked to himself a lot and emphasised his points by gesticulations and often roared with laughter at what he told himself. The morning milking had been finished and the full churns despatched and in spite of the ragings of Joseph, the other three had resisted all his efforts to drive them to work in the fields. The compulsive curiosity of all peasants held them and they imagined they might be wanted by the police or some other vague authority and they hung about expectantly.