Littlejohn looked with admiration at the little grey man sitting slumped before him. Somehow, Morrison had scrambled through life and retained his reputation and haughty arrogance through the support and fidelity of people like his good wife and his faithful servants, Crennell and Finch.
And then Crennell had discovered the truth!
"Crennell grew fond of the stones. The longer he kept them, the greater the obsession. Did you mention to him that Mr. Morrison had the first offer for them when Finlo talked of selling them?"
"Yes. He said that was understood. But he proposed to have them valued, all the same. He wanted all the money he could get for Nancy and if the stones had appreciated in value through keeping, he'd want a cut in the profit. I couldn't persuade him out of it. He said Mr. Morrison could buy them after he'd had them valued. If it hadn't been that the money was for Nancy, I'm sure Finlo would have parted with them if Mr. Morrison had given him four thousand. Perhaps Mr. Morrison could have borrowed that amount now. But Finlo wouldn't part with them before an independent valuation. He said he'd a friend, a jeweller . . . Mr. Norton here . . . who'd do it."
"And that, of course, would have brought out the whole sorry swindle."
"It wasn't a swindle, really."
"Of course it was."
"If Crennell had wanted the money for himself, it could have been arranged. He'd have taken the four thousand. But Nancy. . . . He was mad about her, and I suppose he wanted to give her the moon. As time passed, he grew fonder and fonder of her. He wasn't her father, you see, and he must have loved her with more than a father's love, although he'd have been shocked if anybody suggested it. The way he talked about her to the three of us at the Jolly Deemster. . . . We used to joke a bit about the old man's darling, behind his back. If she'd told him to jump in the harbour, he'd have done it. He was a good man, one of nature's gentlemen, but if anybody had done wrong to Nancy, he'd have killed him."
"Killed whom?"
Morrison stood in the doorway, his eyes fixed on Finch, who seemed to cower away at the wrath he saw there.
20
THE WRATH OF FINLO CRENNELL
MORRISON entered the room slowly, his eyes fixed on Finch, as though ready to strike him. He wore a large overcoat and a broad-brimmed hat, and carried a heavy walking-stick on which he leaned as he stood. Suddenly, he turned to Littlejohn.
"You sent for me?"
"Yes. Mr. Finch, who's in custody for obstructing the police, has a letter he wishes to give you. . . ."
"Where is it?"
Finch passed it over without looking Morrison in the face.
"But this is from my late wife. What are you doing with it?"
"She gave it to me with instructions to hand it to you in the event of her death."
"Funny. . . ."
Morrison fumbled and tore at the sealed flap and extracted a sheet similar to the one Finch had found in his envelope. He took out a pair of heavy spectacles, pushed them on his nose, held the letter to the light and read it. Then, he staggered back, his face ashen. Littlejohn helped him to a chair.
"Leave me alone! Finch. . . . Do you know what this says? Do you?"
"No. But I can guess."
It was Finch's turn to be aggressive now. He looked straight at his old master, and if looks could have killed. . . .
"She says she knew all the time and in spite of it, she's left her estate unconditionally to me. Did you tell her? Who told her? After all these years and all the trouble I took to avoid hurting her."
Finch leapt to his feet with blazing eyes.
"Hurting her, did you say? Hurting! You feared if she got a hint of Nancy, she'd by-pass you with her fortune and leave it to her children. Hurt. . . . You talk as if your heart was brimming over with charity, whereas . . ."
"Silence! Who told her?"
"Nobody told her. She'd eyes in her head and wits enough to put two and two together. You only had to look at Nancy and Mrs. Grebe-Smith to know they were sisters . . . daughters of the same father. Mrs. Morrison must have seen Nancy scores of times. To think of such a girl as the daughter of Mary Gawne and Finlo Crennell was just ridiculous."
"She wasn't a bit like me or my daughter."
"That's what you think. If you ask me, half Castletown probably suspected it and said nothing out of love for Mrs. Morrison. Not out of any regard for you. And as time passed, they forgot it. They'd their own affairs, more important than yours, to think about. You seemed to think all the world revolved round you . . . "
Littlejohn stood as much as he could of this long pent-up outburst between master and man and then intervened.
"Mr. Morrison. . . . We know all about the swindle you perpetrated on poor Finlo Crennell, who for more than twenty years hugged to himself a bag of glass he thought was diamonds, simply because he trusted you and you said the stones were worth over four thousand pounds. Finally, he decided to cash-in on them and give his adopted daughter, your daughter, the money which she and her husband badly needed. Instead of asking you for their value in exchange back for the fake diamonds, he was set on a valuation and a share in the profits, and he wouldn't part with the stones."
Morrison sat on one side of the table; Finch on the other. They looked like a pair of gamblers who had lost all they had and been deserted by the winners. Morrison re-read his letter over and over again as Littlejohn talked.
"Crennell told your old secretary, Finch, of his intention, and Finch told you. You realized that if Crennell discovered the trick you'd played on him, your long game of deceiving your wife was at an end. He'd tell her . . . "
Finch suddenly sat up.
"No, no. Not that. I won't have it said of Crennell. He'd made a promise, apart from the diamonds. He'd never break his word."
"I see your point. . . . You, Mr. Morrison, waited for Crennell on the quayside on the night he vanished. You made him an offer for the stones; he insisted on his obsession for a valuation and a share of the profits. You couldn't budge him from it. So, in a rage, you told him that the stones were valueless and he'd be lucky to get what you proposed to give him."
Not a move from Morrison. Instead, he read his letter again, like somebody counting the cost and finding he'd got nothing for all he'd paid.
Norton, meanwhile, sat with open mouth, listening to the unfolding of the drama in which he'd had a violent if only a minor part, like the clown who only appears on the stage to be knocked on the head or chased with a red-hot poker.
". . . When he heard your confession, Crennell's rage burst out and knew no bounds. He thought only of Nancy as the loser and saw her and her husband ruined by the trick you'd played. Not only that, he thought of his precious stones, which after all his joys and hopes in them, had proved to be mere sparkling pieces of glass. In his wrath, he struck you and you . . . you struck him back, probably with this. . . . "
Littlejohn took up Morrison's heavy stick which had been lying on the table and weighed it in his hands.
". . . . He fell back and over the quayside into the water. There you left him to drown. Better dead. . . ."
Still no move from Morrison. He looked to have made up his mind about something; either some kind of defence or mere resignation.
"When you heard Crennell had been picked up by the Rijswijk, and was coming back to Castletown, you didn't know what to do. Certainly, you thought, he'd face you and accuse you, if he didn't tell your wife the whole wretched story. Instead, your blow or the one he got when he fell, had taken away his conscious memory and he was like a helpless child. You waited for him outside the house, but the police and his friends were around. You didn't run him to earth and alone till he got outside his favourite public-house, and there you shot him in cold blood."
It was like being in another world from the quiet, sane place just beyond the threshold of the police station. Outside, people were passing on their ways for an evening's pleasure. Voices, greetings, laughter. The town going-on as though Morrison and his shabby affairs meant nothing at all.<
br />
The circle of faces in the charge-room. Two constables with wide-open eyes, watching an important case being unfolded and tidied-up by a famous man from Scotland Yard; Knell, who'd forgotten to take off his hat and whose cold pipe still hung from his teeth, his eyes shining with a kind of quiet pride; Finch folded-up in a kind of grief for his old friend Finlo and the family he'd faithfully served, and, now that the mistress had died, was on the brink of total ruin. And Norton sucking a dead cigar and flabbergasted at the turn of events which his wife's folly had started years ago.
"I don't know properly what happened next, but Charlie Cribbin, a wretched walking-on part, a nonentity in this tremendous drama, was in Castletown and anxious to see Crennell and get the money he'd been waiting for. When he heard Crennell was back, he came here hot-foot. He had also tried to blackmail you, Mr. Morrison, and you'd called his bluff . . . or, at least, you told me you had. He spent the whole evening trying to get hold of Crennell for a quiet word. He hung around the house in Queen Street and now and then, called back at the Trafalgar Inn for a drink. All the time, Crennell was occupied with the police, his friends, Mrs. Cottier, until at last, Mrs. Cottier left him for a minute or two. Then Crennell slipped out. Cribbin either wasn't there when Finlo left, and, finding the house empty, hurried to the Jolly Deemster, which he knew Finlo haunted, or else he followed Finlo and didn't catch him up in time. Whatever he did, Charlie came on the scene just in time to see you kill Finlo. And he telephoned you later, told you what he knew, and thus strengthened his blackmail case. You went up to Druidale and hung around until you caught Cribbin alone. You found him at the old empty house there, and you shot him in cold blood, just as you shot Finlo. . . ."
Morrison raised his head at last. His jaw was set and his eyes burned.
"A very plausible tale and you must have put in a lot of time, Inspector, finding a scapegoat to enhance your reputation. I deny it all. There's not a word of truth in it. Norton, there, could just as well have committed the crimes. He'd every reason."
Norton was on his feet.
"Here. Don't you try to pin it on me. I'd nothing to do with it. Keep me out. . . . You can't pass the buck to me."
Morrison smiled sardonically and rose to his feet, his hands in both pockets, his shoulders slumped.
"Well, Inspector, if that's all, I'll be on my way. Sorry, I can't oblige . . . "
"Wait. Gabriel Morrison, I arrest you for the murder of Finlo Crennell and I warn you that anything you say may be taken down in writing and used in evidence. . . . "
"But you can't arrest me for anything. I warn you, such a step will damage my reputation locally, in spite of its being a mistake, and I shall see that you are broken for it."
"All the same, sir, you are now under arrest. Knell. . . ."
He motioned to Knell, who didn't know what to do, but who approached and laid a hand on Morrison's shoulder.
"Don't touch me. You've no warrant!"
Morrison stepped back a pace, his eyes wild, his face set.
Just as Littlejohn moved to help Knell, there was a shot, and the police station became a pandemonium.
Morrison didn't move for a second or two, then he sagged to the ground and made a rattling noise in his throat. He had fired from his pocket and when they laid him down and opened his overcoat, they found the cloth of his jacket and his pullover blown to shreds and singed around a wound in the stomach. It looked hopeless from the start.
"Get a doctor and 'phone right away for an ambulance."
They found a doctor eventually in the house in the square where he was playing bridge and before he had done what he could to make Morrison comfortable, the ambulance arrived.
Littlejohn spoke to the doctor as he prepared an injection.
"Will he make it?"
"I don't know. You can see how he is by looking at the wound. Blood and burns and clothing. I can't tell till it's been cleaned and probed. And then there'll be an operation."
Before the doctor plunged the needle in Morrison's arm, the wounded man opened his eyes.
"Littlejohn. . . ."
The Inspector heard the faint whisper and bent his head.
"Sorry to make this mess. Got the gun when I went to see the children, but couldn't do it there with them about."
"No more."
The doctor put up his hand for silence and thrust home the hypodermic.
Littlejohn entered the ambulance with Morrison, and they set out for the hospital in Douglas.
On the way, Morrison opened his eyes again. The doctor took out his hypodermic.
"He's trying to say something."
They could just hear a whisper again.
"It was as you said. But Crennell seemed to go mad. Said I'd robbed Nancy. I hit him when he wouldn't give me the stones. . . . He persisted . . . grew angry. . . . I lost my temper. . . . Cribbin didn't see me shoot Crennell. Met me in the Square on the way home. . . . Put two and two together and telephoned. . . . Daren't have myself in his power. . . . Sorry my wife knew after all. . . . "
The doctor insisted, and the needle went in again.
That night, Morrison died without recovering consciousness.
There were one or two things to clear up and these Littlejohn attended to before he left Douglas for Grenaby.
Van Dam, under pressure again, confessed that he'd had the stones valued at Amsterdam before he left with his ship. Littlejohn had suspected as much. It was obvious that fearing even the faked diamonds would be missed when an inventory of Crennell's belongings was submitted, he'd kept them safe and brought them with him to Douglas on his next trip. There he hoped for a reward of some kind from the executors and when none was forthcoming, he was loud in his lamentations. He was fined for his offences and sailed away swearing never to return to such a parsimonious community.
The pistol with which Morrison shot himself was quickly compared with the wounds registered in connection with Crennell and Cribbin. Such was the confidence of Morrison in his cleverness and ability to get away with his crime, that he hadn't disposed of the weapon. The bullets which murdered his two victims were proved to have been fired from the gun he'd used on himself.
Finch was liberated without further charges. He'd suffered enough, but they took his rifle and his licence from him because, as the Castletown police told him, he didn't seem able to shoot straight!
And then Littlejohn returned to Grenaby. It was nearly midnight as they turned through Ballasalla and down the by-road to the village. The stars were shining and the night air was cold. The farms they passed on the way were silent and in darkness. By the faint light they could see ahead the long serene mass of the gentle Manx hills with more stars shining over their peaks.
"Another case finished, sir."
Knell seemed to regret it.
"Yes. Thanks for your help, Knell. We'll meet again at the Christening. . . ."
Knell whinnied self-consciously.
Over the bridge where the waters narrowed and rushed between the stones and where, in the sunny days, fishermen hauled out fat trout.
Under the trees to the vicarage. They could already see the lamp in the hall shining through the fanlight.
Knell dropped Littlejohn at the gates.
"I'll see you to-morrow, Knell. I'll have to come down to Douglas to square things up."
The police car whined into the distance and the noise faded away, leaving only sounds of the river, the trees, and the wind blowing at the head of the little valley.
Archdeacon Kinrade stood in the doorway, his sturdy figure silhouetted against the light inside. It was like the return of the prodigal son! The pair of them had parted early in the morning but the day had been long and trying . . . almost like a week.
"Come inside to the fire. Your supper's waiting."
The parson didn't even ask Littlejohn how the case had gone or what the day had brought. Time enough . . . Traa di liooar.
A warm gust of air, scented by wood smoke, met Littlejohn on the threshold
and the peace of the place gathered him up. His back was to the world of crime and violence and the things men did to each other. Ahead were serenity, comfort, and the sheer goodness of the old Archdeacon, who had become Littlejohn's dearest friend.
He closed the vicarage door behind him and followed the parson in.
Dear Reader,
My name is Tim Binding. I am a novelist, but I want to tell you about George Bellairs, the forgotten hero of crime writing
George Bellairs was bank manager and he wrote over fifty novels in his spare time. Most of them were published by the Thriller Book Club run by Christina Foyle, manager of the world famous Foyle’s bookshop, and who became a friend. His books are set at a time when the real-life British Scotland Yard would send their most brilliant of sleuths out to the rest of the country to solve their most insolvable of murders. Bellairs’ hero, gruff, pipe-smoking Inspector Littlejohn appears in all of them.
Many of Bellairs’ books are set in the Isle of Man – where he retired. Some take place in the South of France. All the others are set in an England that now lives in the memory, a world of tight-knit communities, peopled by solicitors and magistrates, farmers and postmen and shopkeepers, with pubs and haberdasheries and the big house up the road - but though the world might have moved on, what drove them to murder, drives murder now: jealousies and greed, scandal and fear still abound, as they always have.
So, if you liked this one, dip into the world of George Bellairs. In the coming months and years there’ll be plenty of books to choose from. Why don’t you join me, and sign up to the George Bellairs mailing list?
•First thing you’ll get is a free book.
•Then, from time to time I’ll send you publishing information.
•In the New Year I plan to visit the George Bellairs’ archive. Who knows what I’ll find there. Letters, unpublished work? I’ll let you know.
Death Treads Softly (A Cozy Mystery Thriller) (Inspector Little John Series) Page 23
