The talk was continued until past eleven. Parson Kinrade kept leading it into criminal channels. All the cases Littlejohn had been engaged on since last they met. Then, cases before that. They were sleepy when they parted, partly from the heat of the room, partly from the Archdeacon's old port which came from a grocer's shop in Kirk Michael.
"They say one of the bishops got the grocer's grandfather ordering that port a century ago and they've sold it ever since."
And after it all, Littlejohn couldn't sleep. It was either the excitement of a full day or the port which hadn't settled down. He felt like he did when a child and was anticipating some big event on the following day and was too excited to fall-off.
He got out of bed once and looked through the window. The fog was thinner and he could see the trees in the garden, but beyond that, a wall of thick darkness.
The fog-horn on Langness was still blaring in the distance. Otherwise, not a sound, except the crackings of the house, settling down after the day.
The grandfather clock in the hall struck twelve. Only an hour since they'd retired! It seemed more like three or four. The slow strokes seemed interminable. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. . . .
And when the clock stopped striking, the telephone took it up. Only more urgently and swiftly.
Littlejohn slipped on his dressing-gown and went downstairs. The parson and his housekeeper must have been fast asleep. There wasn't a sound from either of their rooms. The Chief Inspector groped for the instrument.
"Is that . . . ? Is that you, sir? This is me . . . Inspector Knell, sir. Glad you're back."
Good Heavens! His old associate, the diligent Knell, eagerly ringing him up in the small hours, just to say he was glad Littlejohn was 'over' again!
"Sorry to get you up, sir, if you'd gone to bed. The man you brought over to-day . . . Mr. Crennell, sir . . . Sorry, I couldn't get to the pier to meet you. I was out on a case . . . "
Littlejohn played five-finger exercises on the wall with his spare hand to soothe his nerves. Traa di Lioor. Time enough!
". . . He's dead, sir. He must have wandered out of his house. They found him outside the Jolly Deemster, his favourite public house. He'd been shot this time. Right through the head. One or two people heard the shot, but with it being the fifth of November only a day ago and the night being wet so they couldn't let off the fireworks on bonfire night, they . . . "
"Don't you think I'd better come along and we'll talk it over on the spot, Knell?"
Littlejohn was starved through and this looked like going on for ever and ever.
"Would you, sir? I'd be very grateful."
A hand with a lamp and a froth of whiskers following appeared over the balusters of the stairs.
"What is it, Littlejohn? Anything wrong?"
"Yes, pazon. Finlo Crennell has been attacked again. And this time it's murder."
Before a look of sadness and alarm came to the parson's face, did Littlejohn see a gleam of adventure in the bright blue eyes?
2
SATURDAY NIGHT
IT was six o'clock before the couple in Queen Street were left alone. First one visitor, then another called to welcome Finlo Crennell back. Finally, the lull between the day's work and the evening's leisure. Everyone at home, cleaning-up and getting ready for the week-end.
Outside, it was still raining. Fine rain, which hung in the air as it slowly fell. Little beads of moisture which, without being really fog, created a milky obscurity and clung to the clothes. The street lamps were surrounded by haloes and the sounds of the town grew muffled. There had been a succession of downpours on the three previous nights which had made Guy Fawkes celebrations out of the question. Dull, intermittent explosions sounded as the boys took advantage of the better weather.
Mrs. Cottier took a cloth from a drawer in the sideboard, spread it over the table, and began to lay the meal. Crennell was sitting placidly smoking in front of the blazing fire. He had brought a rocking-chair on the hearthrug, which had pleased Mrs. Cottier. It was his usual performance when he settled after dark and he had instinctively carried it out again. He rocked gently to and fro, puffing his pipe.
"How do you feel now, Finlo?"
He smiled, as usual, and then tried to utter a few words. The first real attempt at speech since he'd arrived.
Mrs. Cottier could not make out what he was saying, however. He hardly opened his mouth and seemed to eat his words as they came.
"What do you say?"
He nodded and smiled again.
"That's the first time you've tried to talk, Finlo. What do you want to say?"
He gabbled again, like a child learning to talk or imitating a grown-up.
"You'll soon be better. I'm just making your tea. I got some fluke . . . little dabs. You always liked them, didn't you?"
Another knock on the door and the doctor entered, muffled in a raincoat and wearing a slouch hat. Sandy hair and a sandy moustache on which the fine rain hung in small globules. He took off his outdoor things. A young man who had taken over the practice of an old doctor who had retired.
"Well, Mr. Crennell. So, you're back with us. . . ."
No reply. Just the smile that wouldn't come off.
"He seems to have lost his memory, doctor, but he's just tried to talk for the first time. What is it? Has he been ill while he's been missin'?"
Dr. Jamieson made no reply, but took a chair and sat facing Crennell on the hearth.
"How are you feeling?"
A nod, a grunt, and another smile.
The doctor took out his stethoscope and stood up.
"Let's have a look at you, then. Stand up, Mr. Crennell and take off your jacket and waistcoat."
Crennell allowed himself to be manipulated, doing nothing much to help himself, good-humouredly letting the doctor and his housekeeper handle him. Jamieson put away his stethoscope.
"He's all right in himself. It's his brain. He's had a bad knock and it's quite possible there's some obstruction there which has taken his speech and made his wits a bit dim. I'll arrange to have him in hospital on Monday and they can decide there what's best. Meanwhile, he'll be all right. I think we'll soon have him better."
In reply to the woman's string of questions he gave general instructions about feeding, rest, and other things. He was baffled himself, but had to show a front of knowing. The police had told him all they knew and beyond that, there wasn't much in his clinical equipment that was of use.
He stood for a moment at the door. The soft, sad rain was still coming down. You couldn't see it falling, but you felt it. Like a mood of resignation.
The fog-horn was blaring at Langness and now and then a fusilade of fireworks.
"Good night, Mrs. Cottier. I'll call to-morrow and we'll have him in Noble's Hospital on Monday. Sure you can manage him?"
"Of course, doctor."
She closed the door. Footsteps started passing. People on their way to the pictures or the pubs.
They ate their tea in silence, nodding and smiling at one another. Now and then, Mrs. Cottier would refill Crennell's cup. He devoured the fish with almost animal relish, his eyes on his plate. His appetite was voracious and Mrs. Cottier got up and put another lot on the grill and these he disposed of as well, eating the small bones and licking his fingers appreciatively. Finally, he had emptied every plate of food. Then he resumed his rocking-chair and his pipe.
She cleared the table and washed-up, returning now and then from the kitchen to see that he was all right. She found him rocking, silent, like one in deep thought. From time to time, he lifted his head and smiled again. A slow, satisfied smile, like one given to a new acquaintance who has done a kindness.
Finally, she hung the tea-cloth over the fireplace to dry, thought a moment, and then seemed to come to a decision.
"Would you like a bottle of beer, Finlo? I'll get you one."
She was a total abstainer, a Methodist, who in days past would have resented drink in the house. Crennell had gone his own way a
bout it and taken his beer outside.
"If you'll stay good, I'll just call at the Crown for you and get a bottle or two. That be all right?"
No answer.
She put on her hat and coat.
"Just stay where you are, Finlo. Don't move. I'll be back in five minutes with your beer."
After another anxious glance she left him, locking the front door behind her and taking the key.
Crennell rocked and smoked for a minute or two and then raised his head with a puzzled look. Then he rose, put on his cap, and tried the door. His movements were those of a dog which has heard a call from his master which he tries to obey.
There was a spare key in the drawer of the sideboard and without hesitation he took it out, unlocked the door, and shambled into the dark.
He walked like one who knew his way about and where he was going. Down to the quayside and his favourite pub, the Jolly Deemster. But he did not make a bee-line. Instead, he wandered through a maze of little streets, looking to right and left as he did so, like one glad to be back and enjoying the feel of familiar haunts and the comfortable shadows of homely places.
From Queen Street the harbourmaster turned into the main square, where the avenues of trees made long shadows under the lights and the great bulk of Rushen Castle loomed through the soft rain. Thence he moved in his wobbling way into a smaller square, dominated by a bank which formerly, in days when the town was the island capital, had been the House of Keys, the Manx parliament building. There he turned once to look at the tall fluted monument to a former governor which stood in the principal square facing the war memorial. It was as if Crennell were assuring himself that it was still there.
Along Quay Lane, a narrow alley leading down to the quayside. Here the mist was so thick that he couldn't see the opposite bank of the river. Not that he wished to see it. He made his way along the waterfront to a tall, threestoreyed house with a fine doorway and a façade of many windows, which stood near the harbour. Here he paused, rubbed his jaw, and seemed to ponder. It was the harbourmaster's house and office, which, until his retirement, Crennell had occupied. There his wife had died. He turned the corner and the harbour came in full view. A stretch of calm water enclosed by two piers like the arms of a pair of callipers. On the end of each, a dim navigation light shone through the mist of rain.
He stood there, evidently trying in his dim consciousness to sort things out. Like a dog which has been taken far from home and then returns and is puzzled by some change or other in familiar things. Something held Crennell back from knocking at the door of his old home. He shook his head, as though trying to clear it, and finally retraced his steps along the quay.
All the time he had been followed. Footsteps, soft, rhythmic, relentless, seemed to echo his own. He never once turned as though he heard them. As far as Crennell was concerned, they might not have existed at all. All the way from Queen Street, through the warren of old lanes to the quay and back. Sometimes the footsteps hastened as though anxious to shorten the distance between themselves and those of Finlo Crennell, and always something happened to slow them down to their persistent, slow pace again.
In Queen Street, a man and his wife on their way to visit relatives; in the square, a man in an old car, shunting it here and there, turning round to get out of the town. In front of the former House of Keys, an old woman going with an empty jug for her supper ale. Then, down Quay Lane, a courting couple, crushed close in a doorway, almost unconscious in a long kiss. And at the corner of the quay a man taking a dog for a walk. It was as though the people of Castletown were, in relays, protecting the stricken harbourmaster from the fate which followed in his footsteps. And yet, in the blanket of thick, fine rain, nobody saw or greeted him. The man and his wife on their way to her mother's were quarrelling because he didn't want to go; the man manæuvring his car had a girl with him he didn't want anybody to see; the woman with the jug was anticipating her beer; the lovers were in a world of passionate ecstasy in spite of the weather; and the man with the dog was afraid he might lose her in the mist and she was precious to him. Had one of them looked up and seen Finlo Crennell, he would have been recognized and saved.
Then there was complete silence, as though the quiet town was expecting something. The lights of the streets seemed to illuminate a dead world. The empty telephone box near the castle gates, the police station with its pepper-pot towers silhouetted against the light of a fluorescent strip reflected on the castle walls, the single finger of the castle clock, given by Queen Elizabeth I, almost on nine.
The hotel at the corner where the quayside sloped down to the river bank was busy. The usual Saturday customers sitting round the bar enjoying their drinks. The blinds were drawn and the windows threw a soft glow across the river and into the narrow street in front. The sign was just visible. The Jolly Deemster, presumably in honour of some one-time jocular judge who had sat, in his time, at Castletown courthouse. The whole of the civic life was concentrated round the pub. The customs office, the castle, the harbour-board headquarters, the police station. Finlo Crennell walked right into the hub. He knew where he was going and made for the door of the hotel, the only living person on the scene.
The other footsteps sounded. It was as if they had been temporarily silent, smoothed over, like those of a ghost, and then they suddenly met the earth again.
"Finlo. . . . You know me don't you?"
The voice was soft, almost a whisper, but the harbourmaster turned and faced the figure which had materialized behind him. He rocked on his heels for a minute, peered at the speaker, and then smiled again. It was his answer to everything.
The shadow which had followed Crennell moved backwards four paces. Silence again, as though the town were still listening. Not a sound. Then a flash and a roar.
Finlo Crennell looked surprised. His knees sagged and on his puzzled face there slowly came the smile that wouldn't come off. It was his reaction to everything in the dim world which somebody had thrust upon him.
"Damn those kids. They ought to make it a law they can't let off fireworks except on the fifth. . . ."
Somebody in the Jolly Deemster said it as the clock over the castle struck nine and the footsteps outside hurried away.
The body lay sprawled over the edge of the pavement for a quarter of an hour or more and then a heavy man in a bowler hat and wearing a seaman's jersey under his jacket emerged in a hurry and unsteadily tottered round the side of the hotel. It wasn't until he returned to the street that he saw the body in the gutter.
"I thought he was drunk at first," he told the police later.
Then there started a sequence of events which didn't end until three o'clock in the morning.
The man in the billycock bent over the still form in the street and touched it. The light from the parlour of the Jolly Deemster fell across it and it was only when the sailor's wits had cleared that he saw the wound between the eyes and the trickle of blood flowing from it.
He couldn't get inside the Jolly Deemster fast enough.
"Finlo Crennell's outside and he's been shot."
For a split second it might have been a scene in a waxwork show.
The landlord and his wife behind the bar serving drinks, and a dozen or so Saturday evening customers sitting at little tables or on the long leather-upholstered seats round the walls. Men and their wives or girls. A group of workmen, stiff in their best Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, playing dominoes. A man with one eye who was telling the world in general about his grandfather who'd lived to be ninety-four.
". . . and he always drank a pint of boiling water first thing in the marnin' . . . ."
Then a shudder seemed to shake the room and everybody made for the door to see if the news was true.
"No need for everybody to come. The women'd better stop behind. And don't touch anythin'."
The man with one eye spoke this over his shoulder, ran to the body, looked at it, and without another word, dashed off to the police station round the corner. Thence, aft
er raising the alarm, he tore off to The Crofts to get a doctor. After this, he collapsed and had to be taken into a public house for a reviver.
Under its blanket of mist, the little town began to move. Doors opened and closed, more and more people appeared in the streets, a crowd gathered under the castle walls where the body of Finlo Crennell still lay in the gutter.
"A shot fired at point blank range straight through the brain. . . ."
The doctor was kneeling beside the body.
"There's nothing we can do. He's dead."
Two uniformed policemen who had arrived on the scene started to move away the crowd.
"Get along, now. You're doing no good out here in the rain, impedin' us with our work."
One of them had run out without his helmet in the excitement. They hadn't any intention of moving the body until they got instructions from higher up.
The sergeant-in-charge arrived with Mrs. Cottier. She'd called at the police station when she'd found Crennell missing on her return with the beer, and the sergeant had gone with her to look around and help.
When she saw the body on the pavement, Mrs. Cottier began to moan and weep.
"Better take her to her sister's. She won't do any good here."
Nobody wanted to leave the scene and the sergeant had to order one of the women who were now standing on the fringe of the crowd to take the housekeeper in charge.
"And the rest of ye, be off, an' do as you're told. You can't do any good here."
Everybody was listening and watching the doctor and the police. They seemed to have forgotten Finlo Crennell lying there in the rain, a smile still on his lips.
"Ring up Douglas and tell them there's been a murder here. Tell them to get along as soon as they can."
The bobby without a hat ran to the police station, and the other dispersed the crowd of onlookers with sweeping gestures. No sooner had one lot gone than another arrived.
The clock on Castle Rushen struck ten.
"He might have been lyin' there yet if I hadn't come out of the Jolly Deemster. . . . "
Death Treads Softly (A Cozy Mystery Thriller) (Inspector Little John Series) Page 2
