A Knife For Harry Dodd

by George Bellairs

  ‘You are Mr. Grappenhull,’ he said, fingering a card from the cabinets. ‘You have discovered a way of reducing taxation and your doctor has sent you along to discuss it with me…Well, Mr. Grappenhull, I shall be very interested to hear about it.’

  Dr. Fenniscowles thereupon put on a pair of large round gold-framed glasses, drew a pad and pencil towards him, and indicated that he was ready to hear about Income Tax.

  A pretty nurse, sitting at a table nearby, thereupon crossed the floor and whispered at length with the doctor.

  ‘Well, why wasn’t I told? Where is Grappenhull, anyway? He ought to have been here hours ago. Tomorrow? Well, who put his appointment down for today? I did? I did not…Oh, very well. What is the use of arguing. Everybody denies what I say. Yes, Mr. Cromwell? What can we do for you? Not another offer of a male-voice choir, country dancing, or theatrical performance to inflict on my poor flock! No?’

  Cromwell patiently told the doctor what he was after and produced the red beer-bottle cap and the picture of Harry Dodd, borrowed from the bedside of Dorothy Nicholls.

  Dr. Fenniscowles regarded the red cap blankly.

  ‘Beer? Where do we get our beer, Miss Clarke?’

  ‘I think it is made by Hoods’, doctor. I see the bottles in the canteen. That looks like one of the caps.’

  ‘So it is. How interesting it would be to form a collection of these small, corrugated metal disks, eh? One from each of the breweries of England! People have collected more stupid things, I can assure you, sir. We have in this institution, for example, men who collect match-boxes, moths, cigarette cards, eggs, stamps, matches and transparent paper. I myself collect National Savings Certificates…’

  He roared at his joke and then suddenly cut off his laughter like turning off a tap.

  ‘Who is this?’

  He indicated the photograph.

  ‘A Mr. Harry Dodd, of Brande, sir. He was murdered two days ago and we found that red cap in his pocket.’

  ‘He is an obvious extrovert…’

  And the doctor then began to analyse poor Harry Dodd’s make-up in terms which were double-Dutch to Cromwell, who felt that if he didn’t get away pretty soon, he would go mad himself and have to be detained. It was a nightmare. He looked at the pretty Miss Clarke for relief. She smiled at him.

  ‘The officer has just called to ask if Mr. Dodd ever came here whilst he was alive. I think we can help him, doctor.’

  Dr. Fenniscowles suddenly leapt to his feet as if someone had thrust hot needles in his flesh.

  ‘Dodd, did you say? Dodd? My dear Inspector, have you called to say you have him? Is the long search, the long agony over? Is he safely back in the fold?’

  Miss Clarke joined them at the desk.

  ‘Mr. Dodd escaped recently. He was an inmate and got away. He seems to have vanished. We feared some accident had happened to him. There are disused mineshafts around here. We have searched everywhere…’

  Dr. Fenniscowles raised his hands above his head and then brought them down to his hair, which he tore in frenzy.

  ‘We have never lost an inmate before, sir. If they have tried to get away, we have found them and brought them home. This one has baffled us, evaded our every effort.’

  Cromwell looked from one to the other of them.

  ‘Was he called Dodd?’

  ‘Of course he was called Dodd, Inspector. Why else would I be so agitated. Had he been called Webb, Bolter, Widdows, or Bookbinder, I wouldn’t have minded, for we have no inmates of that name, but his name was Dodd and that is the man you also seem interested in.’

  ‘Harry Dodd?’

  ‘Harry? Certainly not! Walter ! Walter Dodd. It haunts me in my dreams. I hear it called aloud. Walter Dodd. All night long.’

  ‘It isn’t the same man. Our man is Harry Dodd.’

  Miss Clarke thought it well to intervene.

  ‘Our patient was Walter Dodd. He was an old gentleman, precise age seventy-eight. His son, Harry Dodd, called to see him regularly. He was well known to us. He must have drunk the beer here with his father. The old man liked a bottle of beer as often as he could get one. Harry Dodd called a little over a fortnight ago. The following day his father escaped and has not been seen or heard of since.’

  The doctor sat at his desk looking wildly ahead, whilst the nurse finished her recital. Suddenly a light appeared in his eyes and he bared his cruel teeth in a smile.

  ‘I am so glad you have taken up the case, Inspector. We always hesitate to call in the police; but now our reputation is at stake. Never before have we been beaten. We mustn’t be beaten this time, Inspector, must we?’

  Cromwell, clutching at straws, agreed. He also said he was a sergeant, not an inspector, but Fenniscowles waved that aside, as if he knew best.

  The doctor rose to his full height and was at Cromwell’s side in two long strides. Taking the sergeant’s hand in a grip of iron, he pumped it convulsively up and down.

  ‘On then ! On to victory ! Good luck and God speed.’

  He flung Cromwell’s hand away and rang the bell for the next caller.

  Outside, the man who thought he was made of glass was still hanging about. He’d been admiring the bright little new car with ‘Police’ in a sign which you could illuminate, on the top of it. He sidled up to Cromwell.

  ‘Got a cigarette? Don’t touch me. I’m fragile. Made of glass, you know.’

  Cromwell gingerly passed his packet across.

  ‘Thanks. My name’s Glass. Fragile, with Care. What’s yours?’

  ‘Cromwell.’

  The man cackled and looked sly. He was used to that kind of thing. One of the inmates, his special buddy, said he was Guy Fawkes, and there was another, George Washington, who always attacked a fellow called George the Third whenever he met him.

  ‘Pleased to meet yer.’

  Mr. Glass drew at his cigarette hungrily.

  ‘You here about Walter Dodd escapin’?’

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  ‘Well…You see, Oliver, there ain’t much goes on here I don’t know. Walter’s been gone quite a while now, and I know Big Head…that’s what we call the doctor…Big Head’s very worried about it. I thought, as there’s nothin’ else for a policeman to call about, you might have…’

  He waved the cigarette airily above his head, trying to assemble his wandering thoughts.

  ‘They’ll never get Walter here again.’

  ‘Why, Mr. Glass?

  ‘No…Walter has too many friends outside. He’s up to his neck in intrigue, if you know what I mean.’

  Cromwell didn’t. He felt to be getting more and more out of his depth.

  ‘Well… Quite often Walter would walk down to the gates and there would be a nice little car waitin’ to take him for a drive. Off he’d go in it with his pals, and his friends here would pretend he was somewhere about in the grounds. He wasn’t supposed to go out, you know. He was kept in here by the Big People…’

  Mr. Glass winked one eye and said Big People as if they really were Big and Cromwell knew them all.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know. Don’t try foxing me or I’ll have one of me awkward dos and throw stones at you. Walter was kept in here by the Big Ones…’

  ‘Did he tell you?’

  ‘No. But he told others I know, and they told me. But, now and then, he’d play hookey and go for his ride. Listen…’

  Mr. Glass, as he called himself, looked around to see if anyone was looking, and then spoke without moving his mouth.

  ‘The last time Walter was out, he came back in a terrible state. Good job it wasn’t me. I’d have been smashed to smithereens. He’d been in a motor accident.’

  ‘He’d what?’

  ‘He’d been in a motor accident. And he’d run back here all the way. All dirty and cut, he was. He told the doctor he’d fallen down in the wood, there, and hadn’t been able to get back for his tea. They’d been huntin’ for him, you see.’
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br />   ‘Did he tell you that?’

  ‘No. He told George, who passed it on to me. You see, Walter wanted to see a newspaper to find out if anybody got hurt. George the Third’s allowed newspapers. Some of us aren’t. We get too excited by the things that go on outside. George says they’re all mad outside, so he isn’t affected much by what they do. It seems the man who was driving Walter in the car was killed. The Big Ones held a sort of inquest on him, and who do you think said he was with the dead driver when it happened? Harry Dodd, Walter’s son. He must have said it was him as was there, to save his old dad, who’d have got into shocking trouble if the Big Ones had known he was out. Got another cigarette?’

  ‘Did Walter say any more about the accident?’

  ‘Not a thing. Next we knew, he’d run away. George said Walter was frightened…If you’re turnin’ that car, I’m off. One little slip and…well… I’ll get badly chipped, if you don’t break me altogether…’

  Mr. Glass thereupon took gingerly to his heels and was gone.

  ‘I wonder how much of that is true?’ said Cromwell to himself.

  In the distance he could see Mr. Glass pointing him out to one of his friends and they started to laugh together.

  Not far from the gates stood a telephone box. Cromwell entered and rang up the Cambridge police. Littlejohn had told him where to find him if he needed him. The Inspector was in the police station, as it happened, and they talked together for a long time.

  8—The Old Home

  HARRY DODD’S old home was several miles out of Cambridge, but with police directions to guide him, Littlejohn found it easily. Mrs. Dodd still lived there, with Peter, the unmarried son, and several old servants.

  The house was an ugly, square edifice built in red and yellow brick. The long drive was dark and gloomy, with old neglected rhododendrons and poplars fringing it. Then it opened out on a large, well-kept lawn with formal flower-beds and a rose garden. It had been a family house, and the rotting arbours and out-houses testified that it was now too big for the present occupants. Littlejohn felt the melancholy of its decayed splendours and its silence meet him as he faced it. He climbed the five stone steps to the large door with its glass panels decorated with stars, and rang the bell.

  An elderly maid in cap and apron took his card. Inside, the house was well kept. The hall furniture was heavy and Victorian, and there was thick Turkish carpet on the floor. At the far end another door led to a conservatory.

  ‘Mrs. Dodd will see you.’

  He followed the maid through a door on the right into a large room which overlooked the front lawn. There was too much furniture, and it was stuffy, for, in spite of the warm weather, a good fire burned in the old-fashioned grate. The sideboard, the easy fireside chairs, the tables and the cabinets were of mahogany and all outsize by modern standards. They seemed to tower over the occupants of the room.

  An old lady rose to meet Littlejohn. She was tall, erect and frail, with a pink enamelled-looking complexion and delicate, long, thin hands. She put down a piece of embroidery as she rose.

  To associate Harry Dodd and his two Nichollses with this woman seemed absurd. She had all the graciousness of a queen mother, all the breeding and kindness of a great lady. A Pekingese dog, sitting on a cushion, rose as quickly as his fat little old body would allow, and began to yap savagely at Littlejohn. The Inspector extended a friendly hand and the dog thereupon fastened his sharp teeth in his forefinger and drew blood. Mrs. Dodd quickly pressed the dog back on his cushion and turned to the Inspector.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Inspector,’ she said, after rebuking the animal, which settled quietly down, still growling. ‘Rab isn’t very well. He’s old and a bit off colour, like his mistress. Let me see the bite…’

  She examined the finger, and in spite of Littlejohn’s making light of it, showed him the way to a small washroom near the main door, told him to wash it well, and then herself dressed it with lint and iodine. Littlejohn admired her calm and poise. She had about her an air of invulnerability. She was wearing a black dress, presumably out of mourning for her husband. In the confusion of his entry and the affair with the dog, Littlejohn had quite forgotten Mrs. Dodd’s bereavement.

  ‘I’m very sorry about Mr. Dodd, madam,’ he said to her. ‘I called to ask if you could help us in investigating the matter of his death. If you don’t care to talk about it just at present, however, it can wait, although time is rather precious in a case like this.’

  ‘I quite agree, Inspector. I wish to help you all I can. The circumstances are rather unique, one must admit. Our marriage was dissolved long ago, but I feel the loss of my husband just as much as if it hadn’t been. We had remained good friends…’

  Her voice grew husky, and she was on the verge of tears. She was silent for a minute and then went on.

  ‘What is there I can tell you?’

  She bade him be seated and then rang the bell.

  ‘You’ll take coffee with me. I was just about to have it when you called. That is, if you care for my sort of coffee. The real thing doesn’t agree with me at all. But my doctor recommended a kind of powdered stuff… Coffex, and it’s very nice. Rab likes it, too, but I’m afraid he’s not going to get any for his behaviour…’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, Mrs. Dodd. If he’s out of sorts…’

  ‘Real coffee affects him the same way as his mistress. He’s fond of it, too, and always has his drink with me. We were both very seedy after dinner the other evening. I got better the quicker of the pair of us. I’m very fond of Rab. He’s old, but Harry bought him for me years ago…’

  The maid arrived with the synthetic brew, and Littlejohn confessed he liked it as well as the real thing.

  ‘I was wondering, Mrs. Dodd,’ he said at length, ‘if you could tell me some of the circumstances of your separation from Mr. Dodd and the subsequent friendship which developed between you…’

  ‘I don’t mind at all, really, and I’ll tell you right away, that had this monstrous thing not happened, we had planned to re-marry. The whole affair was a misfortune and ought never to have been. I was as much to blame as my husband.’

  ‘You mean in the matter of the divorce?’

  ‘Yes. I spent far too much time on social life in those days. Harry, my husband, wasn’t that sort at all. He was a very plain man of simple tastes, and at the time that unpleasant event occurred, was just reaching the age when he wanted his fireside with his wife, his pipe and his slippers. Instead, this house was always overflowing with people. The children had grown up and were launching out, and though they are my own, I must admit they moved, and still do, in a circle quite above that their father found comfortable. Mind you, they’ll never be as good as their father was…’

  It was pathetic. The old woman, surrounded by memories of Harry Dodd; his picture on the mantelpiece, his dog on a cushion, living in the past and on recollections of their days together. Mrs. Dodd seemed to read his thoughts.

  ‘You must think the whole business was a mad one. I thought differently of it in those days. I was younger then, more proud and self-willed, full of pride. I couldn’t forgive him. The shock was so great…’

  ‘And your children didn’t help you?’

  She gave him a keen glance.

  ‘Who told you that, Inspector?’

  ‘I’ve seen your son, Peter…’

  She smiled.

  ‘Peter, of course, was in the forces then. He was fond of his father and took his side more than the others. Yes…I must confess the other children took it badly. They both moved in rather snobbish company at the time and…well…they were a bit ashamed of their father. In the confusion of events they rather rushed me into a divorce. In that they were assisted by the family solicitor, Aspinall. No sooner had the decree been granted than I bitterly regretted it. For my husband, confused and anxious to do the right thing, bought a house and took the woman in the case and her mother to live with him. His transgression had been to spend a weekend at Brighton w
ith his secretary. He told me afterwards…long afterwards, that he was lonely and simply fleeing from the discomfort of his home. He certainly chose the wrong person to flee with and, unfortunately for him…and for me, as it turned out later, he walked right into my sister and her husband at breakfast the following morning. Poor Harry…He didn’t even defend the suit. My sister, who has since died, came straight to me, of course, told me everything and, with a kind of avuncular protectiveness, her husband, who has married again, by the way, told my eldest son, Winfield, what had happened. Winfield, of course, brought in Aspinall without even consulting me. I suppose the chance of disposing of his father was too good to miss. I cannot think he did what he did out of consideration for me…’

  She spoke harshly.

  ‘Your son, Winfield, must have disliked his father very much…

  ‘He did. They were opposites. Besides, it gave Winfield a chance to get control of the works, which he did very quickly after his father went. I fear I helped him to do so. Looking back on the panorama of the past, one sees things with different eyes.’

  ‘You met your husband afterwards?’

  ‘Not until comparatively recently. A little more than two years ago, he wrote to me. He had left the Dodd family Bible here and wanted some particulars of the family…It was all written out on the fly-leaves. He asked if I would send it. I had thought kindly of him as I grew older. He never married Miss Nicholls, he was a bit of an outcast, and he was the father of my children. I told him I would bring the book. We met at an hotel between here and where he was living. The condition of my husband filled me with compassion. He had grown flabby, neglected-looking, lonely and so very, very humble. All his pride had gone. We enjoyed our meeting, once the ice had been broken. Peter drove me there and back and, after that, we met quite regularly. Some time ago I took the bull by the horns. “Harry,” I said to him. “This is rather ridiculous. Here we are meeting like a couple of young people carrying on a clandestine courtship. You may come home, if you wish.” For answer he broke down and cried. “Life’s been a hell since I left you,” he said. “If you’ll have me, I’ll come back, and I won’t get in the way…”’