Death in the Night Watches

by George Bellairs

  “Come again, Inspector, if you want to know anything else. I’ll be in after surgery to-night. We can resume our talk about Saturn then, too. Most interesting. All right, boy, I’m coming.… Let yourself out, Inspector. The lock’s a spring one. Dear me, where’s my key? Ah, here we are.… Now, boy.…”

  Littlejohn was left in charge of the untidy house. In the hall hung diplomas testifying to the highest possible medical qualifications. The whole place stank of disinfectants, dogs and cats. The Inspector slammed the door on the lot.

  There was one more port of call for Littlejohn that morning. On a housing estate on the fringe of the town lived the girl with red hair, Veronica Bartlett, who had wept so copiously at Mr. Henry’s funeral service.

  “Itlldoo”, Peabody Way, North Trentbridge.

  Littlejohn winced at the name of the house someone had given him. It ought to be said in justification of Mr. Cuthbert Bartlett, the girl’s father, that the house was already named when he became a tenant. The man who tacked its silly title to the gate in letters which cost sixpence apiece at the ironmonger’s, did a moonlight flit after three months’ tenancy, owing thirteen weeks’ rent.

  Cuthbert answered the door. He was a physical culture maniac in his spare time, which accounted for the state of the garden, a rubbish tip on which every variety of weed flourished. When the neighbours complained, Cuthbert challenged them to physical combat.

  Shoulders thrown back, chin pressed down as though he were trying to force his head from his body, legs bowed athletically and calves almost muscle-bound from overdevelopment, Mr. Bartlett faced Littlejohn and gazed aggressively and questioningly at him. He was an insurance agent and was in for lunch after a session of premium collecting. His daughter, too, was at home, as Littlejohn had learned at the works, for her father disapproved of the food supplied in the canteen, contending that his own system of diet was streets ahead of it and cheaper, too. He and his daughter had just finished a meal of carrots, spinach and vegetable sausages and Bartlett was therefore ready for anything. There he stood at the door of his castle, his shock of red hair leaping like flames from his scalp and his hairy nostrils dilated like those of a war horse. The Inspector decided that his face would have qualified him for the Gestapo.

  “Yes?” said red head. He thought Littlejohn was a Tory politician canvassing in connection with the forthcoming by-election and was ready to set about him, for he was a Communist himself.

  The Inspector outlined the purpose of his visit. He asked if Miss Bartlett was available.

  Cuthbert took up a protective attitude, for he was her sole surviving parent. It was said that he had cycled his wife to death by overdoing tandem riding at week ends.

  “What do you want with her? I warn you, I won’t have any brow beating. If her boss was murdered, she had nothing to do with it.…”

  At this point Veronica herself appeared. She was a very lovely girl, which was a tribute to her father’s system of gymnastics and diet. Flaming red hair, clear, flawless complexion, dark blue eyes and high cheek bones, setting off a perfect figure and long shapely limbs. She seemed to have modelled herself on some film star or other, the name of whom evaded Littlejohn, although he was familiar with her style, which cropped up in everything Veronica did.

  Languidly the girl thrust her father aside. She was the poor man’s Waterloo and he took a back seat at once.

  “Were you wanting to see me, Inspector?” said the red headed girl, in the language of a dramatic school. She attended lessons in elocution regularly.

  “Yes, if you can spare a few minutes before you go back to the office, Miss Bartlett?”

  “Come in, then.…”

  With her father forming a rigid, muscle-bound bodyguard in the rear, the procession moved into a small parlour decked out in modern limed oak furniture, modern brass, and modern problem pictures. One of the latter depicted a man in chains weeping and puzzled Littlejohn no end. On either side of it were framed portraits of Mr. Bartlett, one almost naked, bulging proudly beside a table full of trophies for either croquet or tossing the hammer, the Inspector could not quite make out which from the object held by the athlete; the other as centrepiece of a gathering of extremely aggressive-looking men and women, who might have been revolutionaries or food reformers, or both.

  “You needn’t stay, dad. I’ll manage,” said the girl, evidently intent on conducting the interview without parental restriction. The man with red hair did as he was bidden and retired to the scullery to make noises of washing up or juggling with crockery.

  It seemed evident why the philandering Henry had chosen Miss Bartlett as his secretary and had her trained at his own expense for the job. Up to the time of his death, however, Worth had remained content with using her as a pleasant ornament for his office and car. Her father had made it plain in a confidential interview about his daughter’s future, that he would expertly break every bone in Henry’s body if he tried to take any liberties.…

  “Do take a seat, Inspector,” said the girl, gracefully lowering herself on to a large couch.

  Littlejohn was not much of a mimic, but he and his wife derived a lot of fun from his description of that interview when he got home to Hampstead at length.

  Miss Bartlett was not playing the part of a vamp that day. She was the well bred girl helping the law to avenge her chief.

  “Actually, I don’t think I can help much, Inspector. I was in bed and fast asleep when it all happened,” she said. “But …”

  “You are, I believe … or rather were, Mr. Henry’s secretary, Miss Bartlett?”

  “Yes. Although actually, I’m only on probation. I’ve only just trained for it. Before that, I was in the general office.…”

  “I want you to tell me if you can, what appeared to be Mr. Henry’s state of mind just before his death. Say, a day or two before.…”

  Littlejohn rattled on. He had no time to become involved in a long winded and dramatic scene.

  “You mean, was he worried or gay?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Actually, he was troubled and, shall we say, preoccupied-looking. I noticed that. Sometimes he didn’t seem to hear what was said to him.”

  “Any idea what caused it?”

  “Actually, I think a number of things.…”

  Veronica Bartlett articulated precisely, carefully enunciating each syllable, emitting words from lips and tongue, as instructed by her professor of elocution. The refinement somehow reminded Littlejohn of a hot house.

  “… For some reason he was worried about the death of Mrs. Worth’s dog.…”

  “He mentioned that to you?”

  “Not exactly. The vet. ’phoned him about it and the message made him very agitated. I could never understand the reason. Until the dog died, he never mentioned it. I had no idea he was so fond of it.”

  “Anything else, Miss Bartlett?”

  The girl made gestures of stimulating recollection and finally opened her fine eyes wide as though remembering something terrible.

  “He got frightfully fussed about something in the way of moulding sand. Why, I don’t know. I thought he was going mad … crazy.…”

  “I see. He brought a sample into the office?”

  “Yes. And compared it with a specimen he had in an envelope.”

  “Ah! He did that?”

  “Finally, he and Mr. Gerald had the biggest row I’ve ever heard. Actually, I wasn’t in the room. I have a little office of my own, you know. But it was going on next door and I couldn’t help overhearing until they realised I was there. Then they went and finished it off in Mr. Gerald’s room, which had a connecting door with Mr. Henry’s. I didn’t hear any more then.”

  “You heard some of it, Miss Bartlett?”

  “Actually, I did.… I don’t know whether I ought to tell it. … I think it concerned the works and as I’m only guessing what it’s about, I … I … well …”

  “I’m not asking you for a commentary on the conversation, Miss Bartlett. I
want to know as near as possible the actual words. You’ll have no responsibility in the matter and it will be a great help if you can recall them to mind.”

  Veronica clasped her hands and gazed into space. It was like the beginning of a film in which the heroine tells the story of her life and wherein the scene slowly becomes a throw-back of the years of long ago.

  “The beginning was in low voices. Gradually, as their tempers rose, they began to shout. They exchanged one or two sentences each before they remembered where they were …”

  “Veronica! Time you were getting back to the office. You’ll be late,” came from the kitchen where, having finished his washing up, the gymnast sounded to be busying himself with mop and pail.

  The girl with red hair was so immersed in her tale that she ignored the heckling.

  “… remembered where they were and closed the doors and went to the inner room.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Actually, I can’t be sure if it’s word for word, but as far as I remember, Henry said, ‘Now, once and for all, there’s to be no more of it, understand? It’s got to stop here and now. I’ve had expert examination and I know everything you’ve been at.’ I think Mr. Gerald said something like, ‘You go to hell! It’s your own imagination. You know I wouldn’t stoop to money getting in that way.’”

  “Yes …?”

  “Mr. Henry went on in a louder voice, ‘Don’t lie to me. I have the report here.… And another thing, I know of your jiggery-pokery with moulding sand.’ Mr. Gerald was furious. ‘You’re mad,’ he shouted. ‘Just plumb crazy …’ and then they slammed the doors and I didn’t hear anything else.”

  “And what do you think the quarrel was about, Miss Bartlett?”

  “I’m sure Mr. Henry had discovered Mr. Gerald cooking the books and using the firm’s cash. What else could it have been? Mr. Henry must have had an expert accountant on the books, or something. That’s my opinion. And the moulding sand. I suppose that referred to some sort of cheating with the company’s stock.… Actually …”

  “Veronica! Do you hear?”

  “What is it, daddy?”

  “Time you were back at the office.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter. Now Mr. Henry’s not there, it’s happy-go-lucky.”

  “Mr. Gerald doesn’t like the works, Miss Bartlett?” interjected Littlejohn.

  “No, Inspector. He tried a time or two to break away and live an independent existence. Actually, he’s tried all sorts of things to make enough money. Speculating on the Stock Exchange and such. But he hasn’t managed it. He can’t do without the money he gets from the firm and he’d lose that if he cut adrift.…”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Oh, Mr. Waghorn, the secretary of the firm, told me once in a burst of confidence after Mr. Henry and Mr. Gerald had been having a row about Mr. Gerald’s drawings.”

  “I see.…”

  Veronica had taken out her lipstick and flapjack and was hastily redecorating her pretty face. Languidly she rose, the job apparently completed to her satisfaction.

  “Really, I must be off now, Inspector. Please excuse me.”

  “I must be getting along, too. Thanks for your help, Miss Bartlett. You’ve been most useful.”

  She flashed a sparkling glance at Littlejohn which tantalised him in that he couldn’t for the life of him recollect the name of the film star prototype of the young red head.

  The three of them emerged from the cottage in single file. Mr. Bartlett wheeling a cycle, his trousers fastened with clips round his bulging calves, his fiery hair leaping from his bare head, shoulders back, chin in.… The girl waved a farewell with her finger tips to the two men and ran to join a youth waiting for her in a sports car ornamented with trophies and with most of its entrails exhibited on the outside of the bonnet. Littlejohn lit his pipe and stood with Bartlett until the noisy vehicle had departed amid clouds of fumes and with violent explosions.

  Bartlett sniffed the air like a gun dog and then snorted.

  “Take my advice, Inspector,” he said dogmatically. “Stop smoking. Bad for you. Gives you duodenal ulcers.”

  He looked boldly up and down the figure of a passing flapper and, as though enlivened by the sight of it, swung nimbly into the saddle of his bicycle, nodded a farewell, and pedalled away after his premiums with the utmost vigour.

  He was a small, agitated object in the distance before Littlejohn recovered from this sudden attack and made off, grinning to himself, for the police station again.

  CHAPTER XVI

  HIGH FINANCE

  MR. SIMON WAGHORN, secretary of Worth’s Engineering Co. (Trentbridge) Limited, to give it its proper name, was one of the faithful retainers of the family. He had entered the firm as office boy and been a loyal and patient servant for forty-five years. At the age of fifteen he had begun, as junior clerk, to answer the boss’s bell at the double; at sixty, now secretary of the works, he still ran when one of the family rang the buzzer which, with sublime impertinence, they still did when they wanted him.

  If, however, Waghorn lost none of his subservience to his principals, he was stiff and strict with his underlings. He always tried to behave towards them as he imagined the Worths would do. Littlejohn found him a bit difficult until he had talked him round.

  From the point of view of years, Waghorn looked his age. Perhaps a year or two more; you might have taken him for nearly seventy when he’d slept badly or when one of the directors was annoyed with him. His face was heavily lined; deep furrows across the forehead and from the ends of his long upper lip to the roots of his nose. He suffered from chronic dyspepsia and in spite of his doctor’s reassurances, thought it was something far worse. From the medical dictionary which he was always reading, he had diagnosed carcinoma, was worrying himself to death about it, and taking doses of white powder every hour or two. Tall, emaciated, with his heavy, colourless face cleanshaven, he would have looked the part of a butler better than his own.

  Mr. Waghorn had never got out of the habit, acquired when he joined the firm, of changing into an office jacket. He faced Littlejohn in trousers and vest of navy blue serge and coat of grey cheviot, with frayed cuffs and pins sticking out of the lapels.

  He was secretary in name alone and because it was beneath the dignity of one of the family to sign as such. One of the Worths had always handled the confidential work. Waghorn was the clerical beast of burden.

  “Come in.”

  The secretary’s voice was plaintive. He hadn’t got over the death of Mr. Henry, who had always treated him decently and called him by his Christian name. That, added to the mental tortures imposed by his medical dictionary …

  Waghorn was sitting at a desk, stirring bismuth powder into a glass of water. He gulped it down and when it reached his stomach, was able to get his breath again and speak.

  “Sit down, Inspector, will you?”

  Next door somebody was furiously typing. The secretary’s room was constructed with walls of three-ply and every sound from outside penetrated. The desk was shabby and littered with papers. Waghorn did not seem particularly busy in spite of the confusion of files, letter baskets and correspondence. He just seemed to be waiting for something … the sound of the family buzzer, calling him into The Presence, like a hard pressed geni of the lamp. Care sat heavily on his shoulders.…

  “You’re the detective who’s come from London to help them catch Mr. Henry’s murderer, are you?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m here to enlist your help on one or two rather delicate matters.”

  The secretary took a liking to the big, comfortable man on the other side of the desk. He had called him “sir”. Few people did that. One or two polite ones called him Mr. Waghorn. The old workmen knew him as Simon; others as Waggy. For the most part, it was nothing at all.…

  “What can I do, Inspector? You mustn’t ask me to divulge anything confidential in the firm. I couldn’t do that.… It’s terrible to think of Mr. Henry being murdered. An awf
ul shock.”

  He rubbed his hand back and forth across his waistcoat, massaging the stomach beneath.

  “Mr. Henry led rather a wild life, personally, I understand.”

  Waghorn held out the palms of his hands at Littlejohn, as though fending off the plague. He was a childless widower, himself. Incapable of any indiscretion, a deacon of his chapel, yet with a mind vivid in imagining carnal sin. A Saturnalia of Mr. Henry’s misdeeds passed before his inner eye.

  “They said he did. I didn’t pry into the private lives of my employers.…”

  “I’m sorry to have to embarrass you a bit, but I’m anxious to get some background. You see, it will be clearer to discover what actually happened if we can get a picture … a sort of general atmosphere surrounding the family.”

  “I understand.”

  It was obvious he didn’t.

  “Did Mr. Henry and Mr. Gerald agree with each other?”

  Waghorn’s guard was up at once.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad to hear that from you, sir. Everybody else has told me they were in the habit of quarrelling frequently. Your testimony at the adjourned inquest, under oath, of course, will be most useful.”

  Littlejohn looked him steadily in the eyes until it quite broke down the secretary’s resistance and put him out of countenance. He rose from his chair and took a couple of tired paces up and down his office.

  “What do you want to know about it, Inspector?” he said at last, having apparently made up his mind.

  “I’ll come right to the point, Mr. Waghorn. What have they been quarrelling about of late?”

  “I don’t know. Has it any bearing on the murder?”

  “Most likely. Sure you have no ideas?”

  “They must have had a bad quarrel last week. They weren’t speaking to each other for two days before Mr. Henry died. I think it was something on the usual theme. Mr. Gerald wanted to get out of the works and live his own life. He’s never liked working here. But beggars can’t be choosers.…”