Death in Room Five (A Chief Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  ‘There, there, you must rest, Marie Ann. Don’t get excited. You’re safe now.’

  ‘She’s dead, isn’t she? She said she was going to put an end to it. That’s what she meant, I think.’

  ‘No. She’s not dead. They found her just in time.’

  Marie Ann’s eyes grew wide with horror.

  ‘Don’t let her get near me. She murdered my uncle and the rest. My uncle swindled her and made her poor. I heard her quarrelling with him about it. And the other two, Sammy and Henri, they saw her wheeling the body down the hill to where it was found on the shore. Keep her away from me!’

  Molinard had given Mrs. Beaumont an injection and she was now sleeping naturally. He entered Miss Blair’s room to give her one, as well.

  ‘Leave that a moment, doctor.’

  Littlejohn spoke from the doorway.

  ‘But…’

  ‘Leave it a minute. Where’s Humphries?’

  ‘Who wants me?’

  Humphries, hands in his pockets, sauntered in.

  Littlejohn flung something down on the table. The crowd, now gathered in Marie Ann’s room, recoiled.

  ‘Ever seen that before, Humphries?’

  ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘The knife that killed Dawson and Sammy. I’ve just found it in the cistern of Mrs. Beaumont’s lavatory…’

  ‘Well, I don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘It was a very obvious place, once we’d settled it from her apparent suicide, that Mrs. Beaumont had murdered Dawson. It’s always the place they plant such weapons, according to crime stories.’

  Humphries turned red, then the blood drained from his face.

  ‘What has it to do with me? Get her arrested when she’s fit, and let us get home. All this is a supreme show of police incompetence.’

  ‘I insist on the patient being left alone and quiet. Otherwise, I won’t be responsible.’

  Molinard, still caressing his hypodermic, stood between Littlejohn and Humphries.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find her as bad as Mrs. Beaumont, doctor. She only had a few knock-out drops to lend verisimilitude to a very nasty piece of work. Between them, they tried to kill Mrs. Beaumont.’

  Humphries sprang across and thrust his face in Littlejohn’s.

  ‘Repeat that, in front of witnesses. I’ll make you pay for this when we get back. You’ll be a public disgrace and a laughing-stock. Chief Inspector Littlejohn of Scotland Yard, indeed!’ Marriott looked completely in a dream.

  ‘We’re all bewildered, Inspector. ‘Ow did anybody get in Mrs. Bewmont’s room and try to kill her? The doors were locked on the inside, both of ‘em.’

  ‘They got in to plant the knife and to dose Mrs. Beaumont’s nightly bottle of Vichy by using these.’

  He took the long-nosed pliers from his pocket and flung them on the table.

  ‘And this key. The scratches made on it by the pliers were rubbed out with something dark…perhaps burnt match and face cream or Vaseline. But when you wash the key, as I’ve done, the marks come back. That’s how it was done. Then they sat up here together and waited for the overdose to work.’

  A sudden scream from the bed and they all turned to see Marie Ann sitting up, wild-eyed, pointing at Humphries. Her lovely face had changed. Her features had a drawn, animal look, like a beast fighting for life. Her lips drew back, baring her teeth in a snarl.

  ‘I didn’t do it. He did it. My uncle interfered between us when we went for a walk at Lyons. My uncle called him names and he hit my uncle. Then, when he found us together on that night in Cannes, my uncle had a knife which he said he’d use if there was violence And he started to abuse him again. There was a fight… My uncle was stabbed…But I didn’t care about my uncle. He told him and me before he was killed, that I was penniless. My uncle had invested all my money in his business, he said, and lost it. I hated him for that. I didn’t care. I was terrified of him. He said he’d stop at nothing to get me.’

  Suddenly Humphries spun round and the women screamed as they saw his revolver. There was a report. Marie Ann Blair first looked surprised. Then the light died from her fine eyes and she fell back. Humphries, too, was transformed. His small eyes shone madly through mere slits in his face. His nostrils dilated and his mouth contracted in the grimace of a maniac.

  ‘So you didn’t love me after all. Just wanted to save your own skin. As we fought, Dawson dropped the knife, and she stabbed him in the back. All the rest I did to save her. Don’t move, any of you. I wanted us to die together, but she wouldn’t, so now I’ve done it for her. Instead, she concocted this pretty little scene. Mrs. Beaumont…Well…Don’t move, anybody. When he was dying, Dawson called for Valerie and Littlejohn. But for Littlejohn, the case would have gone stone dead as an act of revenge by the French Underground. We’d have got away with it. I owe you a debt for this, Littlejohn. I think I shall shoot you, then myself.’

  There was a second report, and this time it was Sheldon who held a gun, smoking in his hand.

  Humphries opened his eyes and mouth wide in agony, spun half round, and fell on his face with his hands above his head.

  Elizabeth Hannon fainted and Mrs. Sheldon’s voice was heard above the rest.

  ‘Where did you get that gun?’

  Sheldon looked bewildered and a bit bashful.

  ‘Brought it with me. Was goin’ to make an end of things here. One of the places I was truly happy in, long ago. Felt I’d be better out of your way. You see, you don’t seem able to bear the sight of me any more…’

  A new look came in Mrs. Sheldon’s hard face.

  ‘Oh, Jeremy, I didn’t know you loved me so much.’ Littlejohn walked out to the landing. He’d had enough humbug and melodrama to last a lifetime!

  Dorange was running up the stairs. He looked mad with everyone.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here?’

  As if somebody had been letting off fireworks under his chair just to vex him!

  17 - Return Trip

  Two more appendages to the already swollen files of l’Affaire Dawson. Dossier Humphries. Dossier Blair.

  M. Joliclerc, knowing the solution to the crimes, was able to concentrate all his energies in compiling voluminous notes. He vented a considerable amount of spleen on Marriott for his red-herring of Vallouris when all the time he meant Valerie.

  ‘‘Ow was I to know which he meant? I mentioned it to Humphries and he said it was the French word. No doubt about it.’

  ‘You failed to mention that in your original testimony.’

  ‘I forgot.’

  ‘You forgot! Pah!’

  Littlejohn interposed with another question.

  ‘How was it you knew there was something wrong in Mrs. Beaumont’s room the night I caught you tiptoeing across and listening at the door?’

  Marriott looked sheepish.

  ‘I often passed the door on the way to the bathroom and I’d hear her…well…Well, if you must know, when she was sound asleep and all right, she used to snore. But for heaven’s sake, don’t tell ‘er I said so.’

  Since he’d rescued her, Marriott and Mrs. Beaumont had become buddies. She thought she owed her life to him, but her gratitude extended simply to warm friendship. Marriott’s chances of successfully popping the question were as remote as ever.

  ‘She snored!’

  M. Joliclerc snorted and recoiled. The Englishman’s idea of romance! Happy because the woman snored!

  It took them two days to get the whole matter squared-up, and every morning Alf Fowles brought his charabanc to the door of Bagatelle and polished it furiously to keep up the morale of his clients and let them see that it was ready to take them home.

  Humphries was shot in the chest and died an hour afterwards. Between spells of unconsciousness, he recovered sufficiently to repeat that Dawson had followed and started to abuse him and Marie Ann Blair when they took a walk at Lyons. Humphries had lost his temper and there had been a scuffle, after Dawson had revealed, in uncontrolled ra
ge, that he’d used his niece’s money himself; so Humphries would marry a pauper. The same had been repeated after dinner at Bagatelle, but this time, Dawson had produced a knife and told Humphries to keep off. Humphries, the gymnast, had knocked it from his hand and they had scuffled again. Marie Ann, distracted with temper at the revelation that her uncle had dissipated her fortune, had picked up the weapon in a frenzy and struck wildly. They had thought Dawson dead and, in seeking a place to hide the body, had come across the petrol-cart and used it to get Dawson to the shore, where they hoped to get rid of him in the sea. Someone had appeared and they had fled.

  Next day, Sammy had accosted them outside Bagatelle. He recognised them through Marie Ann, the only shapely woman of the party…Svelte. Humphries smiled as he gasped out the word.

  Henri, spying from his attic window, had seen them returning the petrol-cart after disposing of Dawson, and the next day watched them as Sammy approached them in front of Bagatelle. He had asked for ten thousand francs, Humphries’ wristwatch, Marie Ann’s diamond clip. As the first instalment.

  Humphries, driven off his head with panic, love and anxiety for Marie Ann as well as fear for his own skin, had killed twice.

  ‘She didn’t love me, after all.’

  ‘My big mistake was,’ said Littlejohn to Dorange, ‘that I didn’t check the statement that the bank, as well as Dawson, was Miss Blair’s trustee. It seems Dawson alone had control of the money and spent it, but talked about the bank as co-trustee just to prevent suspicion and make things seem above board.’

  A telephone call to Haddock, who at once spoke to Miss Blair’s lawyer, proved the fact.

  ‘Hearty congratulations,’ said Dorange as they lunched with easy minds after the dossiers had finally been completed, signed and attested.

  ‘Don’t congratulate me! It was a pure stroke of luck. I began my vigil expecting Marriott to try some funny work. I sowed the seeds of it. I said Mrs. Beaumont had some secret she wouldn’t reveal and I thought she knew who killed Dawson. I painted a very lurid picture of French methods of police interrogation. I scared the lot of them.’

  Dorange raised his happy face from sniffing a bowl of Bouillabaisse Flambée.

  ‘You dwelt lovingly on a passage à tabac, your favourite torture?’

  ‘I was dumbfounded at Marriott’s response. He’d evidently constituted himself as a kind of sentry over Mrs. Beaumont’s welfare. When he gave the alarm, it suddenly struck me that what I thought was a sordid little affair going on in Miss Blair’s bedroom, might have been something much more sinister. I remembered the key on Mrs. Beaumont’s side of the lock of the communicating door and I took the opportunity of searching Humphries’ room for a means of turning it from the other side. I was lucky. They made one big mistake, too. Marie Ann pretended Mrs. Beaumont had given her sleeping tablets in wine! Mrs. Beaumont is rabid teetotal, if you know what that means. She wouldn’t touch wine on any account. We’d have used Vichy as a matter of course.

  ‘I suspected Marriott until then. He’d motive, because Dawson had done him so many dirty tricks, culminating in persuading Mrs. Beaumont to marry him under Marriott’s very nose. And I thought the sure phenomenon by which Sammy recognised the person dumping Dawson’s body in the dim light, was that atrocious white cap of Marriott’s. There’s not another cap like that in the whole of the Alpes Maritimes!’

  One thing Littlejohn did not reveal to Dorange was his strange interview with Sheldon after the death of Humphries.

  Littlejohn had thanked Jeremy Sheldon for saving his life. Sheldon had looked very crestfallen.

  ‘When I heard the alarm, I took the gun out of my hip pocket and put it in my dressin’-gown. Good job I did. But I didn’t mean to kill Humphries. Only wing him. Fired for his legs. Always have it on my conscience.’

  Littlejohn had patted Sheldon’s shoulder in comforting him.

  ‘You saved me and you certainly saved Humphries from a worse fate. Death, or a penal settlement.’

  Sheldon had nodded, better pleased.

  ‘Don’t tell my wife, sir, please. If she knows I fired at his legs and hit the poor blighter in the heart, she’ll only go for me. Always used to say I bungled everythin’. Now, she’s better disposed towards me. In fact, the little gel’s quite cut up to think I was contemplatin’ blowin’ out my brains on her account. We’ve made a fresh start, Littlejohn, and so long as I keep the revolver as a kind of menace, I think we’ll make the grade, sir.’

  She didn’t deserve the man, really. Anyone so naïve and childlike merited somebody to take better care of him!

  There was little trouble with the French police afterwards. Littlejohn’s statement about the circumstances of the shooting of Humphries made Sheldon more of a hero than a malefactor, and two days after the event, the Parquet gave the charabanc and its depleted load a clearance.

  Littlejohn, his wife, Dorange and a more amiable M. Joliclerc saw them off from Bagatelle.

  ‘I shall recommend the trustees to close this place after what has happened here.’

  Mrs. Beaumont, as resident representative of the Turnpike charity, spoke an official word as Alf Fowles started the engine of his bus.

  ‘Get away!’ commented Marriott with vulgar familiarity. ‘After what’s gone on, the place’ll be a sensation, Valerie. They’ll be fightin’ for tickets in Bolchester and there’ll be rackets in buyin’ and sellin’oliday vouchers.’

  They were sitting side by side in the motor coach and Marriott was still wearing his atrocious white cap.

  The Curries, a happy family again. Gauld and Mary Hannon, sitting together going back home to heaven-knew-what, and Elizabeth Hannon bidding good bye to a man she’d met at the casino and promising to write to him. He was elderly and wore a white suit, a snakeskin belt, a panama, and white shoes with cloth tops. He had borrowed Elizabeth’s last two thousand francs, because he said he’d left his wallet by mistake in his bedroom at his château.

  Sheldon and his wife, happily talking together about the journey home. She wore a necklet of artificial jewels to which she’d taken a fancy, and which Sheldon had bought with the last of his francs, including some of the small currency exchanged by Henri.

  They all put on their sunglasses. Handshakes, exchanges of addresses, thanks again, farewells. Alf Fowles let in the clutch and the coach, with BREWERS, BOLCHESTER large on its rear, slid away to the Corniche d’Or, and home…

  Dorange handed a cheroot to Littlejohn and lit it for him.

  ‘Now, let me take you for a pleasure ride.’

  He indicated his small car, which now looked larger with the charabanc not there for comparison.

  Along the noisy main road again, through Cannes, Juan, Antibes, to St. Laurent-du-Var, and there Dorange turned left.

  Fields of flowers, groves of orange, lemon and olive trees, with the bastion of the Alpes right ahead. Near St. Jeannet they ascended into the hills, through huge plantations of roses, carnations and mimosa until they reached a white house with a broad courtyard, where workmen were loading lorries with innumerable flowers.

  An elderly couple stood in the porch of the villa. A stocky little man with a strong, clever face shrivelled by the sun and shaded by a straw hat with a wide brim, and a gracious lady who must have been a dark beauty in her youth.

  ‘Jerome!’

  The waiting pair said it almost together. It was the first time Littlejohn had heard Dorange’s Christian name!

  Dorange embraced them both.

  ‘My father and mother…Chief Inspector and Mrs. Littlejohn.’

  It was then that Littlejohn fully realised how much Dorange thought about him. He had bestowed upon him the highest honour a Frenchman can give to a foreigner. He had brought him to his own people and his home.

  If you enjoyed Death in Room Five by George Bellairs you might be interested in Blackstone and the Rendezvous with Death by Sally Spencer, also published by Endeavour Press.

  Extract from Blackstone and the Rendezvous with Death
by Sally Spencer

  Prologue

  The fog had begun to descend just before nightfall, and within minutes it had covered the whole of the area north of the river. It was a thick, clogging fog, more yellow than grey. And it stank—not just of smoke and sulphur, but also of the decay and desperation it absorbed from the crumbling houses as it slid menacingly along them.

  To the shabbily dressed young man who was making his way with cautious speed down Burr Street, this fog seemed more than just an inconvenience. It was, to him, nothing less than a malevolent force that was doing all it could to detain him—to prevent him from reaching that part of the city where he could be reasonably sure he would be safe.

  He had been too rash, he thought. Far too rash. He should have ended his investigation earlier, at the point when he had already discovered enough to sketch out a rough picture of the terrible, terrible thing that was about to happen. But instead, he’d stuck doggedly at it, collecting extra details, refining the picture—putting himself more and more at risk. And finally, that night, he was paying the price, because—though he could not swear to it—he was almost certain he had been spotted. Which made it vital that he got all he knew down on paper before...before...

  Suddenly, he realized he was not alone! He could hear footfalls behind him. And not ordinary footfalls. They didn’t make the same sound as his scuffed dress boots, nor did they have the angry clump of a working man’s sturdy clodhoppers. No, these steps were muted, swishing like a slithering serpent.

  In a panic, he glanced over his shoulder, but could see nothing except the fog. He increased his pace, and behind him the swish-swishing grew faster, too. He felt his heart begin to pound, and could taste raw, naked fear in his throat.