About twenty yards before Lott’s shop, the electric lighting ceased and gas lamps took its place, their lights seeming dim and pale green beside the unearthly glow of the sodium filaments. There was a gas standard about three yards past the corn stores. A man stood beneath it, smoking and spitting. He was tall and lean and wore a heavy, threadbare overcoat and a battered soft hat. You couldn’t see his face, but in a circle round him were spent matches, fag ends and dark disks about the size of a shilling from his incessant spitting. Without looking up, he turned his back as Littlejohn approached and remained with his face in the shadows. Beyond him, for some unknown reason, a small newsagent’s shop, with toys, birthday cards, paper-backed novels with lewd pictures on the front, and a lot of other shadowy junk in the window, was still open, although there seemed nobody about to patronise it. The light showed through the cellar grating of Lott’s shop. Littlejohn beat on the door with his fist. The glass panes in the panels had been covered by shutters bolted from within. The man under the lamp didn’t even turn his head.
Footsteps in the shop, and then: ‘Who is it?’
It was a woman’s voice; the whining, harsh tones of Mrs. Lott.
‘Inspector Littlejohn, of the police. Is your husband in?’
There was a sound of a chain being unhooked and a lock turned. Mrs. Lott stood in the gloom beyond, breathing heavily.
‘He’s not here. He’s out at his Free Fishers. Anythin’ I can do?’
She was very anxious to know Littlejohn’s business. That’s why she asked him in. He followed her to the stair-head and they descended into the cellar.
The bright naked bulb threw the contents into sharp relief. The desk, the filing cabinet, an iron safe in one corner, the grotesque graphs on the walls like the handiwork of some crazy modern artist. The desk was open and two account books were spread on it.
‘I was just doin’ the books. My husband’s no hand at figures.’
There was a cashbox, too, open, and revealing a lot of notes and coin. Mrs. Lott hastily closed it and pushed it in one corner of the desk top. She had stuck the pen she was using in her hair and now removed it. She was wearing carpet slippers and her shoes stood beside the desk. She suffered badly from bunions and shed her shoes whenever she could. The naked light etched more sharply the lines of her thin, acute, mean face, with its small eyes too closely set together and her hooked, inquisitive nose.
‘I called to ask your husband if he’d any contacts with Harry Dodd besides his weekly purchase of parrot seed. There was a light on as I passed, I thought I’d…’
‘Of course…’
Even when she tried to be agreeable she couldn’t keep the acid from her voice.
‘You mean pore Mr. Dodd that was murdered. What makes you think Mr. Lott might have anything to do with him?’
She thrust out her neck like a hen drinking, the better to hear the answer.
‘Your husband gets about on his lorries. I thought he might have heard some local gossip. Or then, they might have chatted when Dodd called every week.’
‘I don’t know of any friendship there. I would know, if there was any. My husband doesn’t keep much from me…’
Littlejohn was sure of it. Every night when work was done and Lott got home with all his wife’s parcels, the third degree would begin. Why was he late home? Who’d been in the shop? Why had they been and what had they said? She wouldn’t rest until she knew it all.
Littlejohn looked at the walls.
‘I’m quite intrigued by your husband’s hobby. Those graphs of stocks and shares are very skilfully done…’
He cast his eyes round. Government stocks, tea, copper, tobacco…One of the graphs was very erratic. A series of acute V’s connected by almost straight lines at the top, where they’d gone calm for a bit. At the side, in neat black printing, Buljone Tin Mines. Buljone…Littlejohn memorised it as an interesting freak. One day he’d look it up and see what caused all the ups and downs.
Mrs. Lott was chattering all the time. Once started she didn’t easily stop, and as she gathered momentum she grew more indiscreet.
‘… Never was a business man. When his father left him this place, it was a little gold mine…’
Littlejohn, who’d been immersed in the stock exchange when the talk began, and had missed the start, assumed she was talking about Ishmael Lott.
‘…Instead, he messed around speculating and drawing ups and downs in a book. Then he got to doin’ them on the walls. You see all that…that’s his day’s work. Or was, till I found him somethin’ better to do. He lost a fair bit, unbeknown to me, on his speculations, and neglected the shop and bought so badly for stock that he couldn’t pay his creditors and had to go bankrupt. I paid his debts out of the bit I’d saved and what my mother left me, and now the shop’s mine. He goes out with the lorries nearly every day. Throwin’ and liftin’ a few flour and corn sacks’ll do him more good than stocks and shares. He still draws ‘em on the walls, but in his own time now… at dinner time and sometimes in the evenin’s after the shop’s shut. Fat lot of good it’s all done him. He’s dyin’ to get his hands on some money and try his luck, but I keep the cash and sign on the bank account. He’s not makin’ away with any more of the family money while I’ve got strength to stop him. He…’
‘Your husband must have something about him, though. All this recording of stock exchange securities is a bit ingenious you know.’
Littlejohn had been busy eyeing the graphs and, having selected five of them, the fluctuations of which seemed very erratic, he was trying to make a note of their names without attracting Mrs. Lott’s attention. This was difficult, because she had eyes everywhere. Littlejohn, on the other hand, couldn’t trust his memory for some of the names, in which, as one who never speculated for lack of funds with which to do it, he had never before had much interest. He took out his packet of cigarettes, and with a small pencil scribbled as the talk went on.
Amal. Brass Industries.
U. Ch. Belang.
Freifontein.
Assoc. Nick.
Ruritanian Conc. Oil.
‘Oh, he’s clever enough in his own silly way. You wouldn’t think, to look at him, he was college educated, would you? His father made enough to bring Ishmael up like a gent. That’s what’s wrong. Big ideas and afraid to work…’
It was full-steam ahead on Mrs. Lott’s favourite topic of blackguarding her husband and complaining of her own sorry fate. Her eyes grew glazed as she warmed to the job, and Littlejohn was able to get on with his surreptitious scribbling on the cigarette packet without much trouble.
‘…I’m here checking the books for the month. If I didn’t, they’d be wrong. He’d have helped himself to the till. He knows what’ll happen if he ever does. I’ll leave him and, as I’ve got the money, he’ll have to work…get a job and get his jacket off proper. He won’t like that, so he behaves himself…’
She was venomous. Her hands on her hips, she took this opportunity of venting the spleen accumulated over years.
‘So your husband never backs his fancy in the stock and share lines…?’
Mrs. Lott almost spat.
‘He’d better not try it…! It’s his hobby, and as it is now, he plays it like playin’ cards without money. That’s as it’s goin’ to stay.’
‘Does he keep his records in the filing cabinet?’
Littlejohn indicated the large metal contraption incongruously standing in the middle of the room with the rest of the old junk.
‘Yes…It was what we took for a debt from a customer who went bankrupt. As soon as I heard he couldn’t meet the account, I sent a lorry along and picked up that cabinet and a typewriter. “These’ll do to be goin’ on with,” I sez. We sold the typewriter, but kept the cabinet. Not that it’s much use, and I’ll sell it one of these days. We keep bills and things in it, and Lott has the top drawer for his silly fluctuations, as I call ‘em…’
Littlejohn would have liked to see inside, but didn’t wish to
cause any panic or domestic trouble for Ishmael.
‘I’ll be getting along, then, and call perhaps tomorrow. Thanks for wasting time on me…’
‘Don’t mention it. If there’s anything you want to know, I’ll tell Lott when he calls for me. He should be along pretty soon. Would you like to wait? I’m makin’ some tea…’
She looked avid for more talk, but Littlejohn had had enough.
‘Tomorrow will do, thanks.’
Outside, the lounger was still hanging about under the street lamp. He spat as Littlejohn closed the door, but his face was in the shade. The inspector strolled back to the police station.
Miss Jump had called and left behind a copy of Harry Dodd’s Will and an unsealed envelope, both taken from Mr. Pharaoh’s box at the bank.
Judkin and Cromwell were drinking tea again. Drane, with many apologies and polite noises, brought in a cup for Littlejohn.
‘Sorry, sir. It’s a bit dark-coloured and rather an old brew. But if you don’t mind…’
‘I don’t mind, thanks…’
Judkin and Cromwell were both a bit excited by the papers left by Joan Jump. The copy of the Will, unsigned, showed that Dodd had left all he had, after certain specific legacies, to Nancy when she reached twenty-one. Meanwhile Peg Boone got the income, but Pharaoh was trustee, so she couldn’t handle the principal.
‘That’ll let the cat out of the bag good and proper. When this Will’s proved, the scandalmongers’ll get busy, and poor Mrs. Dodd will know the kind of man Harry really was. To say nothing of the Nicholls pair. The special legacies go to his pals. There’s a thousand apiece to his five cronies at The Bear. He says how grateful he was for their company and friendship in his time of trouble and loneliness.’
Judkin paused.
‘If I’d only known! I might have been a pal to him, as well.’
The envelope contained a list of securities and their values. Cromwell’s lips moved as he slowly totted things up. ‘Twenty to twenty-five thousand, all told, I reckon. Where did it all come from? He was supposed to be poor. Perhaps it was a final joke; leaving a lot of fancy legacies to all and sundry, and not a bean to meet them…’
Littlejohn removed his pipe thoughtfully.
‘I’m not so sure. He found money from somewhere for Dorothy’s annuity, and a lot more cash for Peg Boone’s first instalment. There may be more somewhere. And, don’t forget, that’s only a copy of the first Will. Dodd may have signed another. Pharaoh told me plainly that Harry Dodd was leaving everything to his wife. The new Will might have been what whoever robbed Pharaoh’s safe was after and may thus have been destroyed.’
Judkin held up a key.
‘This was in Pharaoh’s box. It’s marked London Metro. Safe Deposit.’ The label says, “Mr. H. Dodd”. It looks as if he has a box there, as well. There might be cash in it. How can we get at it?
‘Through Pharaoh’s executor.’
‘Our Miss Jump,’ Judkin chuckled. ‘She’s sole beneficiary, sole executrix, and everything else. Not that she doesn’t deserve it. She’s run that practice almost entirely since she started there. She’s done all the work while the old man’s gone sailing. It’s all straight and above board. Their relations were strictly like father and daughter, and she’s earned it. Good luck to her. She’ll give us all the help she can, she says, and she’ll be free from nine-thirty tomorrow to answer my questions…’
‘Good…I’ve just been to Lott’s shop. There’s a fellow there propping up the lamp-post outside, smoking and spitting, but doing little else…’
‘Battersbee, that’ll be. He lives in a house behind the shop, in a slum quarter. He’s a bit of a bolshie. He has seven kids in a four-roomed house, and when he gets fed-up with them he goes in the street, watches the passers-by, thinks dark thoughts, and then turns in about eleven. He’s told two or three of my men on the beat that he only gets peace in his spare time when he stands with his thoughts by the lamp…’
‘You’d think he’d go and get drunk…’
‘Drunk? Battersbee? Not likely. He’s T.T. He wants to be alone. He hates the world. One day he’ll commit a crime. He’ll either turn on the gas and kill his wife and family, or else hang himself on the lamp-post.’
‘I’m glad there’s a proper explanation. I began to think he’d something to do with Harry Dodd.’
‘Come, come, Littlejohn. Harry Dodd’s getting on your nerves. Battersbee’s just a harmless eccentric.’
Cromwell, who had been smiling to himself between puffs at his pipe, now burst into roars of laughter.
Judkin looked annoyed.
‘What’s bitin’ you?’ he said testily.
‘I was just thinking of my father’s brother, my Uncle Will. He left a Will, leaving a lot of legacies here, there and everywhere, appointed trustees, and formed trusts for the benefit of his nephews and nieces, including me…’
‘Well…?’
‘I hope Harry Dodd doesn’t turn out like Uncle Will. He left three and eightpence halfpenny…Three and six was the balance of his old-age pension, and he’d a twopence-halfpenny stamp in his pocket that he’d taken off a prepaid letter…’
Cromwell gurgled round his pipe with delight. The sight of him and the thought of his Uncle Will made Littlejohn roar as well. The idea of Cromwell having an Uncle Will seemed funny in itself!
Judkin glared. His sense of humour wasn’t his strong point at all and besides…A couple of Scotland Yard high-ups cackling like a pair of lads. It wasn’t right.
‘I’ll bet he’s hidden a packet in the Safe Deposit…’
‘That’s what they said about my Uncle Will. They said he’d hidden it somewhere, so they dug up the garden and searched all the mattresses…’
‘Did they find anything?’ Judkin asked it seriously, eager and carried away by confusing Dodd and Uncle Will!
The telephone bell interrupted the farce. It was Mrs. Ishmael Lott. Had the police heard of anything happening to her husband? He hadn’t arrived home and the Free Fishers’ meeting had ended early. She’d rung up the secretary, and Lott had been gone more than an hour since, but hadn’t got home.
‘He’s never done that before. He’s either gone out of his mind or else met with an accident.’
‘Did the secretary say where he left him?’
‘He said they left the Duke of York, where they meet, together, and that my husband parted with him to go to the shop and pick me up. I went shortly after Inspector Little…whatever’s he called…? left here. I couldn’t wait all night for me husband to call for me. And now he seems to have vanished…’
‘What was he wearing?’
With difficulty they wrung a description from the angry woman. She seemed more furious than anxious. How dared Ishmael Lott not turn in at a reasonable hour? How dared he disappear?
‘I think he might have been drinkin’ at the meetin’ and, as like as not, he was a bit afraid to come home…’ Judkin rang off at last.
‘What do we do? Ring the hospitals and then put out a nationwide call? I suppose it’s something to do with Harry Dodd. To hell with Harry Dodd!’
‘If I were you, I’d send somebody out to bring in Battersbee. If he was there when Lott arrived and found the shop closed, he’ll perhaps be able to say what happened.’
‘Good idea!’
In ten minutes the constable sent to get Battersbee, was back with his quarry. Battersbee was a pasty-faced, weedy man, with two or three days’ growth of black beard, a long beak of a nose, and a face lined with bitterness and ill-health. He was tall, but stood half-bent, as though to straighten himself would tear his chest. He was still smoking, and now and then gave a hollow cough without removing his cigarette. He kept on his greasy slouch hat and blinked his black, button eyes at the light.
‘What’s the game?’ he said. ‘What’s the meanin’ of this? I’ve done nothin’. It’s just another piece of officiousness…I’ll…’
‘Shut your mouth, Battersbee! Nobody’s accused you of anyt
hing. We only want a bit of help…’ Judkin evidently knew the requisite technique.
That suited Battersbee. A measure of confidence returned and he started to be cocky.
‘So that’s it. You want something, do you? What about me? I want a hell of a lot! To start with, what about a cup of tea, coffee, or cocoa? I don’t like being got out in the middle of the night. You’re lucky I don’t ask for a whisky and soda.’
The constable who’d brought him in also knew how to handle him.
‘Shut your trap, Battersbee, and take off yer hat when you speak to police officials…’
Battersbee looked the burly bobby up and down, as though wondering whether or not to try conclusions with him. Then he took off his hat, revealing a long, narrow forehead, receding black hair, and a red line where the hat had bitten in his brow.
‘Well… Get it over’
Littlejohn took a hand. He gave Battersbee a cigarette and lit it for him.
‘Now, Mr. Battersbee. You’ve been under the lamp by Lott’s corn stores all night, haven’t you?’
‘Nothing wrong with that? It’s a free country… or is it?’
‘You were there when I called over an hour ago, and you were there when I came out.’
‘Yes. And I was there while you were inside, and when Lott called, too.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘While you were in, Lott turned up. “Evenin’, Jim,” he sez to me. “Still proppin’ up the lamp?” “Yes,” I sez. “More than you’ll be doin’ soon.” When he asks what I mean, I tell him, see? I tell him the police are in with his missis.’
A Knife For Harry Dodd Page 18
