She grew angry.
‘What did it get him? A grave…Driving about the country with Dodd and, from what I hear, somebody deliberately killed my Arnold. Some of Dodd’s fine friends…’
She wept again.
‘What did they do in the workshop?’
She dried her eyes.
‘Would you like to see it?’
It was a spacious shed. Much larger than it looked from the road. The base was of concrete, and there were a lathe and a drill screwed down to the floor. In one corner, a small furnace. Then, a bench with bags of powder on it and bottles of acid and other coloured chemicals. There was dust over everything, and the machinery was going rusty.
‘I don’t know what it was all about, but there it is. I hate it all…’
As far as papers went, the place had been cleared. No books, bills, formulae… nothing. Just the bare necessities for the practical work.
‘Did Dodd ever stay here overnight, Mrs. Comfort?’
‘No. They knocked off pretty early, and they’d have a meal, and Dodd would go then.’
‘How often did he come?’
‘About three times a week. Then they’d come across here, and you’d hear the machinery going…They had a motor in the little shed behind.’
Littlejohn looked in. A small, efficient-looking electric motor provided the power for the machines.
‘And there were just two of them at it?’
‘Yes. My son, Andrew, helped them now and then. Andrew’s in the forces doing his National Service with the R.A.F…’
‘How long did your son give them a hand?’
‘Quite a lot. He was goin’ in for engineering. In fact, he’s taking an engineering degree when he finishes his service.’
‘Where is he now, Mrs. Comfort?’
She rose and took a letter from behind a jug on the mantelpiece.
‘145632 A/C Comfort, Andrew,
Lidbury,
Yorks.’
She read out the address, and Littlejohn made a note of it.
‘Andrew knows more of what it’s all about than I do. He got compassionate leave when his father died, and he’s coming home this weekend to clear up the workshop. If you call again…’
‘I’ll do that, thanks. He may be a great help. Meantime, did Dodd do anything else when he came here?’
‘Nothing special. He was so taken up with what they were making in the workshop. That’s one of the things I didn’t like about him. He seemed all on fire to finish what they were doing just to get his own back on his family.’
‘You mean, he bore them a grudge for what they’d done to him?’
‘That’s it…’
‘But from what I gather, he was an easy going, mild sort of man.’
‘He used to be at first when he started coming…about three years since. But he changed. From not caring a thing about his family, he seemed to grow to hate them. Whether they’d done something to him to make him that way, I can’t say.’
‘He was out for revenge?’
‘That’s what it seemed to me…’
Mr. Pharaoh’s beaming, livid face appeared at the door. Littlejohn thought he’d have to drive back to Helstonbury himself, but Mr. Pharaoh crossed the floor with steady steps.
‘You two finished? It’s time I made my way. I’ve things to do before I set out for Lowestoft.’
Littlejohn took the red beer-bottle cap from his pocket.
‘Yours is a Hoods’ house, isn’t it, Mrs. Comfort?’ he said.
‘Yes. But we don’t sell bottled beers. Our customers like draught ale, and we don’t turn over enough to casuals to keep bottled stuff. If Mr. Dodd drank bottled beer and had that cap in his pocket, as you say, he must have been somewhere else for it. There’s quite a lot of bigger houses of Hoods’ sell it. You’re going to have a job finding out, Mr. Littlejohn.’
‘It looks like it. just one more thing, Mrs. Comfort. Did Dodd ever bring parcels of stuff or store anything here?’
‘No. What kind of things?’
‘I hardly know. But he had a big tin trunk affair at his bungalow. It was full once, I believe. Now it’s empty. He seems to have moved it somewhere.’
‘No. It wasn’t here, sir.’
‘As regards your husband’s accident. Where had they been when it happened?’
‘Just a run to Helstonbury for materials, they said. They’d a case of tools they’d called for at the railway office.’
‘You remember the details at the inquest, Mrs. Comfort?’
‘Shall I ever forget them…? I was in a daze at the time, but they seemed impressed on my mind for ever after. Why?’
‘I was wondering if you ever saw the grey car which caused the accident, before. Did you see anyone hanging round the place, or was anybody in asking questions?’
‘Funny you should ask that, Inspector. There was a man here enquiring for Harry Dodd not long after it happened. He called casually for a drink and asked about him. I always wondered what he wanted and if he was connected with that accident.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He asked if Harry Dodd lived in the village. I told him no. Then he wanted to know if I knew him, and if he was a customer of our place. There didn’t seem much point in denying it. Everybody here knew Harry. I just said he came sometimes. With that, I had to go and see to something, and when I’d finished, the man was gone.’
‘What did he look like, Mrs. Comfort? Would you recognise him again?’
‘Yes, I think I would. Tallish, well-built, wore a sporty suit, looked a bit like a bookie…’
‘Had he a car?’
‘I didn’t see one. But he might have parked it anywhere on the road. What I did notice about him was the ring he wore. If I met him again, I’d look for it and recognise him. It was a silver one. Like a snake. It looked so out of place because he was smartly dressed. A man like that ought to have worn a gold ring. But, then, sometimes things like that are keepsakes and people wear them for that…’
*
In Brande, Cromwell had fixed their bedrooms, ordered and approved their evening meal, and had a pint of beer. Now he found himself with time on his hands till Littlejohn got back.
‘Is there anybody handy I could have a bit of a talk with about Harry Dodd till the chief gets in?’ he asked Mr. Mallard, who had taken off his coat and was peeling potatoes in the kitchen.
The landlord looked up a bit sheepishly. He slipped the potato he had been rotating in his fingers back in the bucket.
‘Got to give the missus a ‘and now and then. It’s the maid’s day off,’ he said apologetically. ‘Yes. You’re just in time. You ought to have a word with Mrs. Mattock. That’s the woman that does for the Nichollses up at the bungalow. She also cleans the little village bank, and as it’s been open today…open two days a week…she’ll just be moppin’ about now. That’s the bank across the way.’
He rose and took Cromwell to the door. Over the road stood a small, neat, timbered building with the Home Counties Bank plate on the door, which was closed.
‘Knock hard. She’ll come.’
Cromwell crossed and followed instructions.
‘We close at three…’
The woman who peeped out evidently regarded herself as one of the bank’s staff. She was a tubby little thing of sixty or thereabouts, with white hair, a button nose, and little fat arms with sleeves rolled past her elbows. She was holding a mop.
‘Mrs. Mattock? Can I come in and have a word with you?’
The little woman did not yield an inch. She must have thought Cromwell was a bank robber. Her hand tightened on the mop and she looked a bit scared and ready to scream for help.
‘It’s about Mr. Dodd…I’m from the police…’
She didn’t ask for his credentials, but swung back the door, taking, however, the precaution of fastening it open with a wedge used for the purpose.
‘Pore Mr. Dodds. It is a sad affair. Nice man, Mr. Dodds. Never a wrong word in all the
time I was doin’ up there. Not that I thought anythin’ about them Nicholls women. Jumped-up ‘uns, they are. But Mr. Dodds… well… A proper gentleman, he was…’
She continued to reel off testimonials until Cromwell thought it well to butt-in.
‘I wonder who would want to kill Mr. Dodd. Can you think?’
‘I can’t, unless it was those two women. Deep ‘uns, they was. That Missis Nicholls…Well…I’ve given me notice.’
She tightened her lips expressively.
‘Why should they want to kill him? He was the goose that laid the golden eggs, wasn’t he?’
‘Goose? You’ve hit it there, mister. He was a proper goose ever takin’ up with sich trash. Missis Dodds, she used ter call ‘erself. I never called ‘er by it. Always Miss Nicholls. Like it or not, that’s what she got. An’ that’s all she deserved. Tryin’ to come it over the likes o’ me as has their marriage-lines proper…!’
‘But they wouldn’t want to kill Dodd, would they?’
‘If he left ‘em in his Will, they would. Proper old grabbers. Tried to beat me down to two shilling an hour. Me… as does for a bank, if you please. I soon told ‘em.’
‘But they didn’t know about any Will.’
‘So they say. Deep ‘uns. Specially that Mrs. Nicholls. Eyes at the back of ‘er head, that one. And Dodds knew it.’
‘Why?’
‘He hid things from ‘em. Locked ‘em all in his big box and kept the key himself. Then he emptied it and took the things away somewhere…’
‘Did you see him?’
‘Of course. Mr. Dodds and me got on well. He’d let me up to do his attic. He slep’ there out of the way of them two. I never see him sleep in any of the beds downstairs…’
Mrs. Mattock coughed behind her hand to indicate that she had modest feelings and couldn’t speak more plainly of the obvious.
‘What is all this about taking his things away?’
Mrs. Mattock indicated that she was busy by thrusting her mop in a pail of dirty water and, with a deft gesture, flinging a flood of it over the tiled floor. Then she dried her mop by wringing it in a device like a sieve on the top of the bucket, and began to slop up and down as she talked.
‘As I was sayin’, Mr. Dodds tuck away his things bit by bit. There was papers and books in the box. I saw ‘em…’
She paused to push back a wisp of hair and then started again, to and fro, to and fro…Mrs. Mattock wore a large black hat which bobbed in time with her thrusting and pulling at the mop. It almost hypnotised Cromwell.
‘He took out a big handful, put ‘em straight, and then popped them in his raincoat pocket. He thought I wasn’t lookin’…’
There was a small counter, a mahogany screen behind it, and leaded lights on the top of the screen. A pair of bright brass banker’s balances and a pile of weights beside them, with a brass shovel; all to remind you of days when gold sovereigns were shovelled and weighed out like packets of tea. A clock on the wall ticked with the sound of a bouncing ping-pong ball. There were notices on the counter and walls. Bankers’ Notice to the public…Buy Defence Bonds…£5 Is All You Can Take Abroad With You In Cash…And Mrs. Mattock busy mopping and slopping about in the midst of it all.
‘If you ask me, Mr. Dodds was gettin’ ready to do a bunk… to run off an’ leave them women…’
Mrs. Mattock paused to emphasise this by soaking her mop in the bucket and discharging its dirty water again over the tiles. There was a pause. Pink-ponk, pink-ponk, ponk, pink. Every now and then the clock seemed to miss a beat. Someone had been eating monkey-nuts in the manager’s room, and Cromwell could see a pile of empty shells on the floor round the waste-paper basket.
‘…He was packin’ up.’
‘Whatever for?’
Mrs. Mattock put her mop down in the bucket.
‘It’s my belief he’d got fed up. He was takin’ his belong-in’s away, bit by bit. Somethin’ had happened and he wanted to get away.’
‘What was it?’
Mrs. Mattock had all the answers. What she didn’t know she guessed at or made up.
‘One day I was cleanin’ his attic and he was rootin’ in his box, an’ sudden-like I turns, and there he is lookin’ at a woman’s photo…’
She paused for effect, thrust back her hat from her brow, and nodded for emphasis.
‘And it wasn’t what you think…’
Cromwell wasn’t thinking at all. He was waiting for the sequel.
‘It wasn’t a young ‘un. It was an old-fashioned picture. In my opinion…in my opinion it was the photo of his first wife from who he was parted. He looked at it fondly, and then when he sees me lookin’ put it away agen, bashful-like.’
‘And what might that have meant?’
‘He was pinin’ for his old missus. He was sorry he’d left ‘er.’
Mrs. Mattock sniffed, tightened her upper lip to prevent the flow of tears, and resumed her mopping.
‘So you think he was sneaking off to go back to Mrs. Dodd again.’
‘Yes. An’ that’s not all. My friend Missis Cleethorpes, who does for Mr. Henry ‘Ooper and Mr. Charlie ‘Ooper, bachelors both, heard ‘em talkin’ together one day. They was Mr. Dodds’ pals…She heard ‘em sayin’ to one another that Mr. Dodds ‘ad got friendly with Mrs. D. agen. “Good thing, too,” sez Mr. Charlie. “Time he give them Nichollses the go-by…” What do you think o’ that?’
‘Did you ever see anybody hanging about the bungalow whilst you were there, Mrs. Mattock?’
‘Meanin’oo?’
‘Strangers, up to no good, say.’
‘That Uncle Fred, or ‘ooever he is, called a time or two. Drunken old gasbag, that’s what ‘e is. I don’t recollect anybody else particular.’
‘You think Mr. Dodd was afraid to make a clean break with the two women and was going to sneak off?’
‘Yes. He was afraid of the ‘ullaballoo the old woman would kick up if she knew he was goin’.’
‘A bit of a terror, was she?’
‘More than a bit. The young ‘un would never ‘ave stayed on there but for her mother nagging ‘er. Dorothy’s a bit too flighty, when she’s allowed to be, to want to bury ‘erself alive in a quiet spot like that. But her mother saw to it that she behaved proper. She knew when she was on a good thing, did ole Nicholls. I wouldn’t put it past ‘er to stick a knife in Dodds if she thought he was plannin’ to leave ‘em ‘igh and dry.’
‘Did any of Mr. Dodd’s family ever call at the bungalow?’
‘Not that I’d know. And now, if it’s all the same to you, I’d better be finishin’ me work. If anybody tells the bank manager that I was ‘ere at this time talkin’ in the bank, ‘e’d carry on ‘orrible…’
So Cromwell had to thank her, tell her good-bye, and leave her to her job.
Back at the inn, Mr. Mallard was waiting impatiently for Cromwell.
‘Helstonbury police have just been on the phone wantin’ you, Sergeant. It was Mr. Judkin and ‘e said it was important. Shall I get ‘em again?’
He looked eager to do anything to please his guests. ‘If you don’t mind.’
‘The Inspector’s not back yet, then? ‘said Judkin at the other end of the line. ‘Will you tell him when he gets back, that my men have found the knife that killed Dodd. The man on duty at the bungalow thought the earth under one of the azaleas looked disturbed and got a fork to it. The knife was buried there. It’s got young Dorothy’s finger-prints on it, and it’s the Nichollses’ bread-knife.’
‘I’m glad you’ve found it…’
‘Glad? Why, it makes it an open and shut case. Dorothy did it out of jealousy. She knew Dodd was fed up and wanted to get away.’
‘Did she? So she knifed him with the bread-knife, left her prints on it, hid it where it was sure to be found, and then confessed…’
‘She hasn’t confessed. My men are just off to bring the pair of them in. I’d like the Inspector and you to come over when he gets back. And don’t you back-answer me
that way, Sergeant. I’m in charge here and…’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to be insulting. But really, Dorothy Nicholls couldn’t kill a fly. I’ll be very surprised…’
‘I don’t want to argue with you. Tell the Inspector I want to see him when he gets back. That’s all…’
Cromwell hung up the instrument with a puzzled frown on his face. He took a step or two in the direction of the bar and then returned to the telephone and addressed it, as though Judkin himself were in its place.
‘Silly damn’ fool!’
And then he went off for a drink to soothe his feelings.
7—The Red Cap
Judkin nodded and smiled at Cromwell, as he and Littlejohn entered the temporary police offices at Helstonbury. It was obvious he’d had second thoughts on his outburst over the telephone and wanted to be friends again. It was the nearest to an apology he could give. Cromwell smiled back, and that ended it.
‘Shall I hold them on suspicion?’ said Judkin to Littlejohn after he had told him about the discovery of the bread knife.
It was dark, and outside, gas-lamps lit up the deserted town square. In the distance the neon signs of the picture house glowed a diabolical red, and now and then the stentorian bellow of the braided commissionaire assured the town in general that there were seats in all parts.
There had not been electricity in the old house now occupied temporarily and, expecting to be out of it quickly, the police hadn’t had it wired. Gas jets threw a clear white light over everything. The night patrol was getting ready for duty, and there was a lot of tramping and shuffling about in the constables’ common-room at the back. P.C. Drane, the polite policeman, was off duty and had been replaced by a uniformed attendant in new boots. He kept creaking about self-consciously, now tiptoeing, now walking on the sides of the soles, in a frantic effort to stop their squeaking.
‘I think we’d better talk to the pair of them first, Judkin. There really doesn’t seem much point in locking them up. We can always get them if we want them; they can’t go far…’
A Knife For Harry Dodd Page 8
