Death in the Fearful Night (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  “Oh, very well. Charlie said he felt so sorry for me not gettin’ my gloves, that he went again to Freake’s after we’d got home. He saw me indoors and went off right away. He didn’t say where he was goin’. He wanted to surprise me with the gloves.”

  “I went over the fields. It’s only ten minutes that way.”

  He paused, waiting for Lucy.

  “When he got to the house, the light was still on, the man who was there had gone. There didn’t seem to be anybody in, though. So Charlie tried the door. It was loose. He went in …”

  Her voice faltered.

  “You finish it. I can’t bear what you told me.”

  “Nothin’ in it. Old Bracknell was stretched on the floor. I could see he was dead. There was a knife in him. I couldn’t see the gloves and I went off like a shot. I didn’t want to be caught there. They’d have said I’d done it.”

  Littlejohn put down his pipe.

  “You didn’t do it, did you, Charlie?”

  “Who? Me? Course I didn’t. He’d been stabbed when I got there. Why should I have done it?”

  “Because Bracknell was trying to steal your girl.”

  Charlie looked at Littlejohn as though he’d gone mad.

  “Haven’t I told you before, what I’d have done to Bracknell if he’d made a pass at Lucy? Tore him limb from limb and thrown him about the fields like manure. I’d ’ave let the crows pick Bracknell. That’s what I’d have done.”

  Lucy felt she was called for the defence.

  “Charlie wouldn’t do such a thing. He’s a kind man, is Charlie. Even can’t bear ill-treatment to animals. Couldn’t even stick a pig.”

  A hostile look crossed Charlie’s ruddy face.

  “Well …? What of it? Pig-stickers don’t make the best husbands, do they? You don’t want a pig-sticking husband, do you? If you do, you’ve only got to say so.”

  “Don’t be silly, Charlie. It’s because you’re so kind and gentle that I like you.”

  In spite of tearing Bracknell limb from limb and the crows pickings, she understood him!

  “What time would that be?”

  Charlie gave it up and cast enquiring eyes on his girl again.

  “As I said, it would be about half-past seven when we were at Freake’s the first time. Charlie would be back there just before eight.”

  “Meanwhile, Bracknell had been killed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think the man you saw with him killed him?”

  “We both talked about it, didn’t we Charlie? And we both said he did it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when we saw him, he seemed to be bullying Mr. Bracknell.”

  “Tellin’ him off, you mean.”

  “If you put it that way, Charlie, yes.”

  “And that is all?”

  “No.”

  Charlie said it stubbornly, as usual, as though the detectives weren’t going to let him finish his tale. He was determined to do it dad or no dad, waiting at home with his watch in his hand.

  “I hurried out of the house …”

  “Just one question more, Charlie … Why didn’t you tell the police that you’d found a murdered man?”

  Lucy leaned and touched Littlejohn’s arm gently, and then in a quiet voice defended her boy-friend.

  “He did it for me. If he’d told the police, dad would have been awfully mad. It would have come out about us being down at Freake’s after the gloves. Dad might have said there was something between me and Mr. Bracknell and asked what I was doing at the house at all when he’d forbid it. Also, the police might have said it was Charlie himself who did it on account of me. Everybody knows how Charlie was mad about me.”

  “I never said so. I never told nobody.”

  “But you were, and you behaved …”

  “I always behaved decent.”

  “We know, Charlie, we know. Get on with your tale, then, if there’s more. Otherwise, you’ll be here all night. Then what will dad say?”

  “Aye, Mr. Littlejohn. Besides, on top of what Lucy says, I knew the other man would tell the police. After all, he was the mayor and, as such, it was his duty.”

  “The mayor. What do you mean?”

  “I was goin’ to say, I thought when I see Mr. Checkland going to Freake’s, like, he’d find the body and report it. So that lightened my conscience about telling the police myself.”

  “You met Mr. Checkland at Freake’s Folly?”

  “I said so. When I come out of the house, in a hurry, too, I can tell you, I heard footsteps comin’ down Dan’s Lane. So, I nipped into a dark corner till they’d gone. Mr. Checkland appeared. I could see him in the lamplight as he passed the window. Plain as I’m seein’ you now. He went in. I didn’t wait. I ran out of my hidin’-place and I didn’t stop till I’d got back to Pinder’s.”

  “Were you surprised when you heard nothing about Mr. Checkland being there.”

  Charlie looked crafty.

  “No. I knew the mayor was connected with the police. That Herle’s as cunnin’ as a basket o’ monkeys. I was sure he’d told Mr. Checkland to keep quiet about it, as a matter o’ policy, like. Sort of trap they were springing on somebody.”

  Littlejohn lit his pipe again.

  “So, Charlie, you are prepared to state that when you visited Freake’s Folly at about half-past seven, with Lucy, you found Bracknell alive and in conversation with a man of the type you’ve both described …?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you returned about half an hour later, you found Bracknell dead and alone, and, as you left the house, Mr. Checkland was arriving and entered whilst you were hiding?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re both agreeable to sign a statement to that effect?”

  The two lovers looked at each other in alarm.

  “It would mean everybody would know, Mr. Littlejohn?”

  Lucy had grown red-cheeked and fearful and Charlie Space was beginning to look stubborn and hostile again.

  “Couldn’t it be kept secret?”

  “I’m afraid not. You see, you two have just provided some very vital evidence about the murder of Samuel Bracknell. It will probably clear of suspicion someone who might have been accused of murder. Your evidence might be very necessary to bring the criminal to justice.”

  “I don’t know what my dad’ll say about all this. Such a lot of things will come out along with it.”

  “Nothin’ ’ll come out.”

  Charlie sat up suddenly, a determined look on his face. He wagged a huge forefinger at his blushing bride-to-be.

  “If your dad says a word about us bein’ home late, or about us talkin’ to the police, or about anythin’ you and me does together, I’ll tell him where he gets off, take you away, marry you, and get myself a fresh job somewhere where we can ’ave a bit of peace. I’m sick of dad, dad, dad, everythin’ we do. And that’s flat and you know when I says a thing, I means it, and nothin’ll change me.”

  He paused for breath, wondering at his sudden gift of inspired speech.

  Lucy’s face wore a new expression as she faced him.

  “Yes, Charlie.”

  “And now we’ll have a drink with these two gentlemen, if you please. We want ’em to wish us congratulations, happiness and long life, and children to bless us. You can have tea, Lucy, or herb-beer, if you want. But I’m having a pint of ale in a pewter tankard like my own dad used to drink from. Now, what’ll you all have …?”

  When later, Mr. Moses Jolland, watch in hand, opened the door to his two fly-by-nights when they arrived home at eleven, he called their attention to the hour, to his own instructions, to the evils of loose living, to the punishments for disobedience. His mobile nose moved as he detected the scent of strong drink in the air, too.

  “So what?” asked Charlie Space, gently, and the tyranny of Mr. Moses Jolland crumbled in the dust.

  14

  THE BETTER MAN

  IT WAS exactly half-past
ten when the telephone rang. The young couple from Pinder’s Close Farm had hardly got through the doorway of the hotel before Bertha was in the ‘scale à manger’.

  “Superintendent Littlejohn is wanted on the telephone. It’s the police station.”

  “Upshott’s given us the slip again!”

  It was Herle and he sounded very annoyed. He almost said ‘I told you what it would be.’

  The man on duty keeping an eye on Upshott at the Barley Mow, had, it seemed, spent a very comfortable Saturday night. Upshott had been a model suspect. He’d passed the evening after dinner in drinking, making friends, and standing drinks here and there. Then, suddenly, he’d left the group round the bar, casually walked into the hall, nodded at the man who was trailing him, as though he might have been an old friend, and, before the plain-clothes constable had realised what was happening, had walked through the front door and lost himself in the dark.

  “It’s time we arrested him, or else let him go altogether,” said Herle.

  “Did your man enquire of the group at the bar, what they’d been talking about just before Upshott gave him the slip?”

  “I didn’t ask him. What has that to do with it?”

  “Quite a lot. I’ll ring up the Barley Mow myself.”

  The manager of the hotel was an Irishman. He seemed to have formed a good opinion of Upshott.

  “A nice, sociable kind of a fellow,” he told Littlejohn.

  “What were he and his friends talking about just before he left the hotel?”

  “Somebody had just come in and reported that the mayor had met with an accident and was in the infirmary seriously ill …”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Maloney.”

  “Don’t mention it, sir …”

  And Mr. Maloney went to chuck out two men who were drunk and wouldn’t go home.

  “Could you get us a taxi, Bertha?”

  “Of course …”

  She went to the front door and blew a whistle. Three taxis drew up and Littlejohn chose the first to arrive. They left the other two quarrelling with Bertha.

  “The infirmary, please …”

  It was just on the outskirts of the town. A tall new building made of concrete and towering in the darkness. The mayor, they told Littlejohn, was doing very nicely, thank you. He’d had his operation and it looked as if he might recover.

  “Is Mrs. Checkland still here?”

  “No, sir. She left about ten minutes ago.”

  “Was there anyone with her?”

  “A man arrived just before she left …”

  “Tall, grey haired?”

  “Yes. He asked if he could see the mayor. Of course, he couldn’t. Then he asked if the mayoress was here. We said yes. She was just having a cup of tea in the sister’s office. He went to see her there and they left together in Mrs. Checkland’s car.”

  The night porter, a red-haired, cadaverous man, recited it all without a trace of emotion or curiosity. They were used to far worse things than that at the Carleton Infirmary.

  “Take us to the mayor’s house, please.”

  “He won’t be at home. He’s had an accident, I hear.”

  The taxi man knew all about it. Presumably it was all over the town by this. The morning papers would be full of it. There was a reporter being shown out of Checkland’s house as Littlejohn and Cromwell entered.

  “Hello, Super. You on the case, too? Is it connected with the murders? It’s said the mayor shot himself. Is that true? Come on, now. Give us a break. We’ve got to live, like the police …”

  “Don’t pester me now, that’s a good chap. I don’t know any more than you.”

  “Sez you.”

  The elderly maid seemed surprised to see them.

  “Mrs. Checkland’s engaged, sir. I don’t think she’ll be able to see you.”

  “We’ll go and find out for ourselves, shall we, Maudie?”

  And before she could reply, Littlejohn led the way upstairs. He tried the door of the library with which he was now familiar. Mrs. Checkland and Upshott were inside and both of them rose with startled looks. Then Upshott got nasty.

  “What the hell do you mean breaking in here at this time of night? It’s intolerable. It’s exceeding your duty, Superintendent.”

  “If you persist, Mr. Upshott, in giving our man the slip and wandering away from your hotel, we’re bound to seek you out and remind you that you promised to stay put.”

  “This is exceptional. The mayor’s been shot. Mr. and Mrs. Checkland are friends of mine. I’m surely allowed to make enquiries as to what’s happened and how the mayor is.”

  There were two glasses half-full of whisky on the table. Mrs. Checkland had been sitting in her usual wing chair. Upshott had apparently been standing, talking with her when the detectives interrupted.

  “May I ask you, Mrs. Checkland, if you rang Mr. Upshott to tell him of the accident?”

  “No.”

  “Of course she didn’t. I heard about it at the Barley Mow. I hadn’t time to explain or argue or ask permission to go from that flatfoot who’s there seeing that I don’t run away. I just left the place and found Mrs. Checkland at the infirmary. Now that I have found out that the mayor’s likely to recover and brought her home, I’m quite satisfied and ready to go back to the hotel.”

  Littlejohn seemed to feel the heat of the room. He removed his raincoat and placed it across a chair with his hat. Upshott’s coat, too, had been thrown across the same chair.

  “You proposing to stay a bit, Superintendent? Mrs. Checkland ought to go and get some sleep. She’s played out. She’s been through a lot today.”

  “I quite agree. Before we go, however, madam, may I ask you one or two more questions? I won’t take much of your time.”

  “Certainly. Won’t you sit down, both of you.”

  She looked tired out, but as tranquil as usual.

  “Thank you, but we must be going. I wanted to ask you and Mr. Upshott why he suddenly decided to come back to Carleton after more than eighteen years’ absence? Did you both keep in touch all that time? Did you write to each other?”

  “No, we didn’t. I was in no mood for writing to her, or to anybody else when I left Carleton for Australia.”

  Upshott answered before Mrs. Checkland had quite understood the question. Now she passed her fingers across her forehead and looked at him as if asking him to tell the rest.

  “The reason I came back was to see Bracknell. Eileen … I mean Mrs. Checkland, wrote to me asking why I had given Bracknell her old letters, written before I went away. It was the only letter she ever wrote to me in Australia. She said she got my address from a letter I sent to her husband asking if he’d allow me to return to Carleton.”

  “But Bracknell had been blackmailing her for years. Why write a mere few weeks ago?”

  Mrs. Checkland spoke in a weary defeated voice.

  “My ready money was running out. I was desperate. I’d promised my husband I would never see or get in touch with Walter again. I broke my promise because I couldn’t go on. I wanted to know why Bracknell had the letters …”

  “Mrs. Checkland’s letter followed me about Australia. I’d had a good offer for my farm, sold it, and was travelling about a bit in search of a new job. The letter caught me up at Canberra. I decided then and there that I’d had enough of being on the run through Ben Checkland’s malice. Besides, I wanted to know what Bracknell was up to. I took the next ’plane. I arrived in England probably three months after Mrs. Checkland wrote.”

  “You saw Bracknell?”

  “I told you so. On the afternoon before he was killed.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t go to Freake’s Folly again after that?”

  “Certainly. What makes you think I did?”

  “You were seen there that night, just before Bracknell was found dead.”

  Mrs. Checkland covered her mouth with her hand as though to hold back a scream.

  “You weren’t there, Walter …?”


  “Of course not. I was back in London by then. I’ve already told the Superintendent. Who’s been telling yarns about seeing me at the Folly? Because it’s all lies …”

  “We have a reliable witness who saw you through the window indulging in high words with Bracknell. Are you sure your timing isn’t wrong, Upshott, and you were there at night, not in the afternoon?”

  “I’m dead certain. Someone’s trying to frame me. Someone who’s responsible for the murder. If I were you, I’d just keep an eye on that informant, Littlejohn.”

  “May I ask you, Mrs. Checkland, if your husband said when he proposed to visit Bracknell after you’d told him about the blackmailing?”

  “He said he’d some arrangements for a finance meeting to make with the Borough Treasurer. It would take about half-an-hour. After that, he was going straight to Freake’s Folly.”

  “What time would that be?”

  “He’d fixed to see the treasurer at 7.30.”

  “Did you telephone, or otherwise let Mr. Upshott know that Mr. Checkland was going, and at what time?”

  Upshott flushed a dull red.

  “What is all this? Still pursuing the tack that I’m the murderer?”

  “Please let Mrs. Checkland answer my question.”

  “Yes. I rang up. I’d arranged with Walter that if my husband wouldn’t call and see Bracknell about the letters, Walter would do so. I said I would telephone when I’d got my husband’s promise.”

  “So, you knew Mr. Checkland was going to Freake’s Folly and at what time, Upshott?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t rush down there, kill Bracknell, and then leave it to look as though Checkland had murdered him …”

  “Nobody said you did, Upshott.”

  “You insinuated it. I resent the way this interview is going. Before I know where I am, I’ll be in gaol accused of the two crimes. If I’m a suspect, say so, and then I’ll know what to do.”

  “Tell me, please, why you and Mrs. Checkland arranged to meet earlier today at the Marquis of Granby? It seems a strange thing to me that, knowing Mr. Checkland’s attitude towards you, you should begin to pester his wife and make secret assignations with her …”

  “Now don’t be offensive, Littlejohn. You seem to think that because you’re a policeman, you can be as insulting as you like. There are ways of dealing with people like you …”