‘Has the Alderman been looking after your sister, then?’ They both looked sheepishly at Littlejohn.
‘They’ve known one another for a long time. He sort of took her under his wing on the trip until…until…’
‘Bottoms up, Elizabeth. No morbid talk before dinner. Drink it down.’
‘Come on and be introduced, you two.’
At the sound of Marriott’s voice, the red-haired man and Mary Hannon started from their whispering, looked a bit guilty, and slowly approached.
‘Meet Inspector Littlejohn, who’s helpin’ us out of our present troubles, Miss Mary. And this is Mr. David Gauld. Miss Mary is the sister of our friend ‘ere, who’s enjoying her Pernodd, I see.’
There was a titter again as Elizabeth sipped her drink like a hen.
‘…And Mr. Gauld is an engineer in our biggest steelworks in Bolchester. He won the draw for this trip, Inspector, for himself and his wife, but as his missus was away nursin’ a sick mother, he very kindly gave her ticket to the Curries so they could bring their son along with them. You’ll be meetin’ them later. They’re always last down.’
Gauld turned crimson at the mention of his wife. Marriott seemed to have fired the shaft deliberately to remind him and his lady friend that their attraction was not unnoticed.
‘You should drink French stuff when in France, not sherry. Try a drop of this, you two.’
‘No, thanks.’
Mrs. Beaumont was still chattering to Mrs. Littlejohn, of whom she’d taken complete possession.
‘My husband was the only qualified dentist in Bolchester at the time. All the rest were quacks. He worked himself to death at his profession and died in his early fifties. I have never looked at another man since. A fine man, he was. Ha! Come and meet Mrs. Littlejohn…’
She addressed the Misses Hannon, who sauntered across, followed by Gauld.
‘Gauld’s got a wife, you know. I don’t like the way him and Mary Hannon are carryin’ on. There’s been talk about them back at home. Gauld’s not in her class at all, but she seems smitten. He’s only a sort of mechanic. Dawson mentioned it to me. That’s why he interfered, so to speak, and took Miss Mary in charge. To keep Gauld away from her. Not that I blame him. She’s a good-looker…’
Littlejohn looked across at Gauld. A fine, well-set-up man just in middle-age. He seemed a bit shy and out of his element, but he hung around Mary Hannon like a devoted dog.
‘Not that his wife’s much good to him. One of these intellecshules. Runnin’ all over the place with dramatic societies and dancing groups and surrounded by a lot of sissy young men. Leaves Gauld to get his own tea and do the housework, I’ll bet. Still, right’s right. He’s married. We don’t want no scandals on the Turnpike trips.’
Marriott downed another Pernod, his fourth. Littlejohn wondered what would happen at the seventh.
‘So Dawson put a spoke in his wheel?’
Marriott drew himself up in alcoholic dignity.
‘Yes. And with my full approval, sir. Here come two more. Two more love-birds.’
Littlejohn looked in the direction of the door. Old Turnpike, whoever he might have been, must have been a match-maker as well as an internationalist! Leslie Humphries, the schoolmaster Littlejohn had met earlier in the day, was opening the door for a pale-faced, dark girl of striking beauty. Everyone turned to look at them, except Gauld, whose adoring eyes still rested on Mary Hannon.
‘That’s Marie Blair, Alderman Dawson’s niece, who came with him. I’m sorry for Marie. This ‘as been a sad blow to her. She’s been in bed all day. Passed out, poor girl, when we broke the news.’
Marriott, under the influence of his drinks, had grown all sloppy. He hurried to meet the new-corners and bring them over to the Inspector.
‘This is Chief Inspector Li’ljohn, Marie, who’s come to get us out of our troubles. You’ll find him a big ‘elp, my dear.’
In normal times, her skin must have been pink and white; otherwise Marie Ann Blair had a classic, Italian type of beauty, dark, with finely chiselled features and a gentle dignity. She was young—in her early twenties—slim and graceful and, judging from the full generous mouth and the poise of the head, naturally impetuous.
Humphries was a changed man from the bewildered schoolmaster who’d called at La Reserve that morning. He was obviously head over heels in love with Dawson’s niece and saw and heard nothing but her.
They had no sooner exchanged greetings than Mrs. Beaumont was wobbling across, with Mrs. Littlejohn in tow.
‘How are you, Marie Ann? You oughtn’t to have got up. What did you let her get up for, Leslie?’
As though Humphries could help it! Mrs. Beaumont gave the young schoolmaster a melting, stupid glance. He was obviously one of her favourites.
‘I always said thirteen was an unlucky number. When the Moles didn’t turn up, we ought to have got two more. You may laugh at me if you like.’
Another pair arriving. An elderly man with a bald head and a woman with long ear-rings. Those were the first things you noticed about the Sheldons. He was tall and well-built, had a smart grey moustache and wore tweeds and a bow-tie. A tea planter from Assam, who had lost his wife there and who had rushed home to marry his childhood sweetheart when he heard she was a widow. And there she was, mutton dressed up as lamb, tall and slim and pallid-looking through dieting to keep her figure, and her hair dyed and her face painted to make her look younger.
‘I said you shouldn’t have put on those tweeds.’
She looked at the suits of all the other men, which were dark ones, with a frowning glare which changed to a smile when they met her gaze. Her fine hands, with long tapering fingers, were never still.
‘But you know I haven’t a dark suit with me.’
‘Hush!’
They’d evidently been quarrelling. Their faces were set and Sheldon was red around the ears.
Mrs. Beaumont took the Littlejohns from Marriott’s care.
‘Let me introduce Chief Inspector and Mrs. Littlejohn, who have kindly come along to help us out of our predicament.’
Littlejohn was sick of it already! Here they were, standing about, waiting for the meal to be served, getting to know the kind of people they’d normally avoid on a holiday. It was even worse than that, for over all hung the constraint and suspicion caused by Dawson’s death. Everyone was a bit afraid. Marriott with his drinks, Mrs. Beaumont with her over-confident manner and edgy voice, and two men in love dancing protective attendance on two women. To say nothing of Mrs. Sheldon, taking it out of her husband. M. Joliclerc’s examination must have shaken them all up. In the exceptional circumstances, nobody seemed to know what expression or attitude to adopt.
Dawson! He’d evidently come between Gauld and Mary Hannon. He’d thrown little Marriott off the local council in Bolchester and made a fool of him. Had he also made love to the bejewelled Mrs. Sheldon, whose husband obviously adored her and who, in return, publicly wiped her feet on him?
‘Go and take off that coloured tie. You have a black one somewhere. And don’t be long.’
Sheldon almost ran out to hide his humiliation. That was his wife’s way of working off her nervousness.
‘Have a drink of Pernod, Mrs. Sheldon?’
‘I’d rather a Cinzano, if it’s all the same to you, Mr. Marriott.’
She rolled her eyes at him and Marriott ogled her back.
‘A good-lookin’ woman,’ he said to Littlejohn, who helped him find the bottle which, in his confusion, he missed from under his very nose.
‘Did Dawson think so, as well?’
‘If Dawson’s wife hadn’t been alive at the time, it’s said he’d have married Irene Sheldon before Sheldon got home. Mrs. Dawson died some years ago. Irene’s a good singer. Gives concerts in Bolchester.’
Littlejohn could imagine what would have happened had Dawson still been alive. After dinner, Mrs. Beaumont would have gathered together a party at bridge and Mrs. Sheldon would have sung ballads at the piano.
Sentimental mush, probably, with a moist eye in Dawson’s direction.
Marriott handed over the drink to Mrs. Sheldon with a gallant flourish and she smiled sweetly in reward and turned away to Mrs. Littlejohn.
‘What are we waiting for? Is it those Curries again? They’re never in time. I’m famished and shall start if they don’t come in a minute.’
Mrs. Beaumont was baying again. She’d obviously taken over Dawson’s mantle as the bully of the party.
‘That’s all right, Mrs. Bewmont.’
She turned her back on Marriott.
‘Just a minute, Mr. Marriott.’
Littlejohn drew the little man aside.
‘What’s this about Dawson and Mrs. Sheldon?’
‘Ours is a small town. Full of gossip, sir. Everybody knows what everybody else is doin’. After his wife died, Mrs. Sheldon set her cap at Dawson. She was a widow, on the look-out for a second. She actually got Dawson on the run. At first he was flattered and responded a bit. Then, he got scared and avoided her. She married Sheldon for spite, then, if you ask me. But there was something between her and Dawson, though. Perhaps Dawson was carryin’ on with her, hopin’ to get what he wanted without leadin’ her to the altar, if you get me. Then when she started to grow awkward, he took fright. Now and then, you’d see her and Dawson exchange a queer look or a smile as if they’d some secret in common. You know what I mean. Let’s join the others.’
‘Just a minute. Miss Blair and Humphries. They’re in love, aren’t they? Did Dawson know?’
‘Of course. He was Marie’s guardian till she came of age. Trustee for her father’s money, too. The pair of them aren’t engaged. But there was no reason for Dawson objectin’. Humphries is a decent lad. No money, of course, but a decent lad. Marie should come into quite a packet when she marries. Now, I believe, she enjoys the income.’
‘At last!’
Mrs. Beaumont said it loudly and it struck the party entering like a shot from a gun. They looked surprised. The man pulled out his watch, looked more surprised, and then apologised.
‘We’re so sorry. My fault. Stayed in the bath too long. Hope we’ve not kept you waiting.’
‘Only twenty minutes. Somebody please ring the bell.’
‘Certainly, Mrs. Bewmont. Come over here, Mr. and Mrs. Currie, and meet our guests.’
Again! More handshakes, only this time the new-corners were refreshing. A jolly, buxom, middle-aged woman, with greying hair, and a tallish, ordinary, homely-looking man.
‘Where’s Peter?’
‘In bed. We sent him off with the housekeeper’s little boy to get him away from this atmosphere. He’s learning French at school and it’s good practice for him because Henri can’t speak English. They ate too much cassata ice-cream and Peter was sick… He’ll be all right.’
The soup was coming in and Mrs. Beaumont had already fallen-to. She had captured Mrs. Littlejohn and was sitting with her at a table for four. The Inspector joined them and Gauld, obviously ill at ease, made up the fourth. His eyes kept turning to Mary Hannon. Mrs. Beaumont took this as a signal to pester him for attention. The salt, the bread, the water, a clean fork…
They ate the roast beef and two veg, and then ice-cream and peaches. Nobody seemed to bother about the food. The meal went on in silence, punctuated by a whisper now and then or the loud demands of Mrs. Beaumont.
‘We always try to get English cooking. It agrees with one better,’ explained Mrs. Beaumont. As Marriott had said, a proper ‘ome from ‘ome. Littlejohn wondered why the T.T.A.-ites came abroad at all! He looked down the room at the other tables, making guesses at what these people were like in everyday Bolchester. It was difficult, under the cloud of Dawson’s death and the emotions it had caused on top of the holiday feeling, to get them in proper focus. Sheldon, for instance. What was he like at home? Or Marriott in his wineshop? Gauld, in his engineer’s overall, supervising the mechanics in the engineering shop…?
‘And now, sir,’ said Marriott. ‘Want to get to business?’ Coffee had been served and under the influence of the dinner wine, conversation was breaking out on all sides.
‘I heard what you said. It’s no use denying it. I shan’t listen.’
Mrs. Sheldon, still bullying her husband, sotto voce, which they all heard.
Littlejohn felt more like putting on his hat and going home. The incessant conversation of Mrs. Beaumont over dinner, crescendo and diminuendo as her breath waxed and waned; the moody silence of Gauld, preoccupied with his lady-love at the next table; the almost indecent frivolity of Marriott, lubricated by Pernod; the loud and spiteful rebukes of Mrs. Sheldon against her husband, who did everything wrong; the worried faces of the Curries about the boy who’d stuffed himself with ice-cream until he’d passed out. Littlejohn grew moody himself and wished he’d never come to the Riviera at all. This sort of thing might go on indefinitely.
And now Marriott, wanting him to start an investigation of some sort, ask questions, check alibis.
‘Did the examining magistrate take statements and alibis this morning when he came?’
‘Yes. A proper inquisition.’
‘He’s promised to lend me his files. I think that will be all I want. I only came here to meet you all.’
‘I thought you’d be interested. Besides, it would be a change to have a decent, gentlemanly English inquiry.’
So that was it! Littlejohn was expected to provide entertainment for Marriott and the rest. A sort of stage turn of detection!
‘It’s too bad to put them through it all again, sir.’
‘But I’ve told them what to expect. They’re all ready to help.’
He was saved by the telephone. The maid entered all of a flurry.
‘Al. le Commissaire Littiezhon…? Téléfon!’
It was Dorange of the Nice police. His cheerful, energetic voice was a pleasant change. His news was a change, too, but it wasn’t pleasant.
‘There’s been another murder on almost the same spot where they found Dawson. Another stabbing. Only this time, the man’s quite dead. You won’t know him, but I think you might be interested, so come along if you can. A man called Sammy, who owns a bar opposite the casino at Palm Beach. We’re there now.’
‘I’m wanted by the French police,’ was all he told the party at Bagatelle, and he ordered a taxi to take his wife home to La Reserve. As they waited for it, there was another call. M. Joliclerc, this time. The guests must not leave Cannes until further notice. They could, of course, make excursions in the motor coach, but in that case, a police officer would accompany them.
‘It’s scandalous. I shall wire to the embassy tomorrow.’
‘A fat lot of good that will do, Mrs. Bewmont!’
‘No need to be common, Mr. Marriott.’
More handshakes all round. This time they clung to Littlejohn like swimmers out of their depth and floundering.
It was very quiet as the Littlejohns left and, above the hum of traffic in the town below, they could hear the bell of the abbey on the Ile Saint-Honorat in the bay, calling the monks to service.
5 - Chez Sammy
Chez Sammy.
The name in blue neon met Littlejohn as he turned the corner of the square at Palm Beach. Someone had forgotten to switch it off in the confusion, although Sammy was now out of business. Elsewhere, however, things were going on as usual. The casino was brightly lit, crowds of people in evening dress arriving in expensive cars, the uniformed doormen helping them in and out. Every time the door opened, you could hear the drums and saxophones of Jimmy Madden’s band. The other bars were doing a good trade. The headlights of passing cars kept the whole place in a state of constant illumination and momentarily floodlit the forms of embracing couples among the trees.
The door of Sammy’s was closed, but when Littlejohn knocked, a gendarme let him in. Dorange came forward to meet him.
A rather flashy chromium and plastic affair of the American bar type. A long counter with a string of stools with round tops
of red leather. A coffee machine and a lot of little tables.
Behind the counter, shelves with bottles of all kinds of drinks, glasses of all shapes and sizes, a cash-register, and some piles of cigarettes, including the stiff yellow packets of an English make. Notices on the walls. Cassata. Bacon and Eggs. Hot Dogs. Visitez le Moulin Rouge… Sammy had fancied himself as a cosmopolitan. His name wasn’t Sammy at all. Henri Cristini, born in Marseilles, according to his papers. They showed Littlejohn his body in the room behind.
A door led from the bar into the rear premises. It was like stepping into a different world after the flashy frontage. A few comfortable easy chairs and a couch, a table with dining chairs, pictures on the walls, most of them photographs, including one of Sammy dressed in tights. He’d been an acrobat until he twisted himself and had to give it up. The room had a domestic cosiness about it. At the table sat a pale woman in her late twenties, with the clear olive complexion of the south and large dark eyes that stared unseeing into space. She wore a shabby flowered wrapper and leaned her elbows on the table. Both her breasts were visible, but nobody bothered. They were too busy with Sammy.
Cristini was lying on the couch ready for his journey to the medico-legal dissecting room or the morgue. A small, thick-set, strong-looking type, with brushed-back, long black hair, a Roman nose and a large mouth with thin lips. No doubt, the hidden teeth were white and flashing when he was alive. Now, in death, much of the stuffing had gone out of Sammy. Only a few hours ago, he’d been the uncrowned king of the locality, a man to be feared and, if he was your friend, you boasted about it. One who would buy and sell anything as well as drinks. Tickets for galas when the casino was booked-up; dope if you could pay for it; foreign currency; even a new passport.
The room seemed packed. Dorange and the police; the officials of the Parquet at Cannes headed by M. Joliclerc; a doctor, photographers, fingerprint men…
M. Joliclerc shook hands with Littlejohn. He’d done a lot of work already. Two of his victims were sitting on chairs by the wall, smoking disconsolately. Bassino, the stoker from the casino, and another man in a dinner suit, presumably the head waiter of whom Bassino had spoken to Littlejohn earlier in the evening. The man to whom Sammy had talked about the figure who ran away about the time Dawson was stabbed. And then Sammy had told him to keep his mouth shut. M. Joliclerc had worked well and fast. Bassino looked dolefully at the Inspector, shrugged his shoulders and, as he did so, a policeman tapped him and his companion and hauled them roughly to the waiting police-van. Littlejohn felt a bit sorry for Bassino. He was obviously off to the police station for a passage á tabac and wouldn’t get much sleep that night. Just a room full of tobacco fug and the incessant questions of relays of officers until he told all he knew and more besides.
Death in Room Five (A Chief Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Page 6
