Lott rose anxiously.
‘Is that all? Have I to go back to gaol, or what? I don’t want bail. I’d rather be in prison than face my old woman after this. If they grant me bail, I’ll go to an hotel.’
‘They’ll take you back now. Your case will be heard tomorrow most likely, before the magistrates, and finished with. Don’t leave the neighbourhood until I say you can.’
‘Very well. I’m much obliged to you, sir, for the kind and understanding way you’ve dealt with me. I’ll not forget you for this.’
Ishmael Lott was taken hack to Lowestoft to answer his petty charges next day. Fined and released, he was claimed by his wife as he left the court-house and taken home.
16—The Aching Man Again
On their way to The Aching Man again, Littlejohn and Cromwell called at the county asylum in search of Mr. Glass, Walter Dodd’s former friend and fellow inmate. Mr. Glass was in his old place, gingerly weeding with a long hoe, the small patch of garden which he seemed to have made his own.
‘Hello! Hello, Oliver!’ he called to Cromwell, who whispered to his chief that Mr. Glass had invented a nickname for him.
‘Hello, Mr. Glass. How’s the garden coming on?’
‘You’ve not come all this way to ask me that. What are you after now? Don’t come too near me…’
‘I just wanted to ask you something about when Walter Dodd came back from his motor trip… the one where they had the accident. Did he say anything about it?’
‘As I said before, he hadn’t anything to say. He was scared by what had happened. He seemed a bit mad with his son for the accident. As if Harry had done it all. As I said to him, “Walter,” I sez, “Walter, you don’t want to take on so. Harry wasn’t to blame.” But the old man kept on saying, “I can’t believe that my own flesh and blood…” just like that he said it, as if he was talking to himself.’
‘Is that all?’ asked Littlejohn from the car where he had been listening to the talk.
‘That’s all, as God’s my judge. Should there be anything more?’
‘No. What you’ve told us is very useful. Thanks for your help.’
They left cigarettes and drove away quietly, Littlejohn grave and thoughtful, and Cromwell still puzzling out what Mr. Glass had told them.
‘Is there anything in it?’
‘There may be quite a lot. It remains to be seen how things develop.’
The Aching Man was open. A few walkers and one or two lorry drivers were in the bar, drinking beer. Sid Boone was attending to them. He frowned as the detectives entered.
‘You here again?’ he said, coming round the counter and meeting Littlejohn and Cromwell on the threshold. ‘I wish you’d get this affair finished and leave us alone. It’s not good for the business always having police hangin’ round the place.’
‘Must be your guilty conscience, Sid,’ answered Littlejohn. ‘Nobody knows we’re police.’
‘Don’t they? Some of these blokes can smell a copper miles off. What do you want this time?’
‘Is your sister in?’
Peg was upstairs and Sid crossed to the foot of the staircase and called.
‘Peg! Friends of yours want to see you again.’
He left them standing there after she had answered she was coming. They could hear somebody moving about. Then a small rubber ball ran along the landing, struck the stairs and bounced slowly down, step by step, and rolled to Littlejohn’s feet. It was followed by a small slip of a child as pretty as a picture.
Unlike her mother, Nancy was fair, with a crop of close-cut golden hair, china-blue eyes, a solemn oval face and a tiny, well-shaped mouth. Her ears were small, delicately made, and well set back, her brow was broad, and the hair grew to a small point over it, known colloquially as a widow’s peak. She descended step by step, and Littlejohn gazed at her with astonished admiration. Cromwell, catching his chief’s grave and kindly look, thought Littlejohn was reminded of his own child, the only one, who had died at about Nancy’s age, and brought tragedy to an otherwise ideal union.
‘Did you see my ball?’
Nancy looked up at Littlejohn, and he awoke from his reverie and picked it up.
‘Are you Nancy?’
‘Yes. Who are you?’
‘My name’s Littlejohn, Nancy.’
‘Do you know Robin Hood…?’
The question remained unanswered, for Peg Boone appeared at the stair head, furiously watching the little meeting below.
‘Nancy…What are you doing there? Haven’t I told you never to go down there when the house is open. Come right back at once…’
She ran down and roughly hustled the child back upstairs and into what must have been a playroom again. The child tried to explain, but Peg did not listen. She hurried back to join the officers.
‘She’s not allowed downstairs while the place is open. I don’t want her meeting our type of customers. It’s bad enough her having to live on licensed premises, without mixing with all the rag-tag and bob-tail who come drinking here and mauling her…’
Her anger was slowly dying down, but somehow the intrusion of the child had made her uneasy.
‘What can I do for you? I thought you’d finished with us.’
‘So we have, Peg. Except for one thing. Did you know Harry Dodd had left you money in his Will?’
‘No. What’s all this about?’
She was still uneasy. She didn’t ask them inside, but kept them standing in the dark hall.
‘Harry Dodd’s Will has been lost or stolen, but a copy has been found. He left you quite a sum, from all accounts. Around twenty thousand pounds!’
They couldn’t see her face plainly, but it was obvious from the way she recoiled that she’d had a shock.
‘I don’t believe it! He never told me about that. Why should he leave all that to me?’
Littlejohn shrugged his shoulders.
‘Nancy, I guess, and, of course, if he was your lover and thought a lot about you…’
‘Yes…That might be it. That would be it…’
She seemed doubtful and then suddenly emphasised it.
‘Yes. That would be it.’
‘Could we have a word in your private quarters? It’s a bit public here.’
‘Of course, if you’ve something on your mind.’
They went in the room where, a day or two since, they’d sat cosily by the fire. Now the fire was out, the embers were scattered about the hearth, the place was untidy. A bottle or two and a couple of dirty glasses on the table, an ash-tray full of fag-ends and ash. It felt cold and damp, and, unlike their previous conversation, the present interview was also cold and damp. Peg seemed to have lost her interest and vitality. A funny kind of reception for news of inheriting twenty thousand pounds. Peg looked quite glum and preoccupied about it.
‘Do you know Peter Dodd, Harry’s son?’
Cromwell looked up. He half expected another battle of wits and endurance, like the previous one between Littlejohn and Peg. But there was nothing of that kind. In fact, Littlejohn himself seemed preoccupied and unhappy about the whole affair.
‘I may have met him. Harry never brought him here.’
‘But he called here from time to time, all the same. His car used to stand outside some nights whilst he had a drink with you and Sid, or perhaps you alone, indoors. That’s so, isn’t it?’
‘He was a customer. After all, he didn’t live far away, and most people nearby pass and have a drink sometimes.’
‘Do they, Peg? But Peter didn’t only come for drinks, did he? He came to see you, too. Like father, like son. The pair of them were fond of you, weren’t they?’
‘No need to be offensive.’
‘It’s the truth, Peg. Did Peter know about Nancy?’
‘I don’t know. I never asked him.’
‘That’s not true, you know. Why keep trying to put me off, Peg? Why don’t you tell the truth? Peter was in love with you as well as his father, wasn’t he? Did he ever ask you to mar
ry him?’
‘You seem to know all about it. Why ask me?’
‘Because I want to learn all I can about the late Harry Dodd. Was Peter his father’s rival, then?’
‘No, he wasn’t. If you’re thinking Peter wanted to do his father harm because of me, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Peter was fond of his father. He was the only one of the family who stood by him. If you want to know, Peter did ask me to marry him. He did know about Nancy. He also knew his father was thinking of going back home and that Nancy might be an embarrassment. He tried to do the right thing. He asked me to marry him to right the wrong his father did, and make Nancy as near legitimate as we could, and give her a better home than this, with a proper father to look after her…’
Littlejohn removed his pipe.
‘And what did you say, Peg?’
‘I don’t like your tone, Inspector. You sound as if you didn’t believe me.’
‘What did you say, Peg?’
‘I said I’d think it over. Before I decided, Harry was killed.’
‘And who killed Harry?’
‘How should I know? I didn’t. I’ve got an alibi…And I don’t like this talk. I’m going about my business. I’ve plenty to do, if you haven’t.’
‘Have you seen Peter lately?’
‘No. He’s had no time, on account of family troubles. In any case, now that his dad’s out of the way, Nancy won’t be an embarrassment any more. Things might have changed.’
‘That is so. Very well, Peg. If you’ve no more to tell us, we’ll be on our way…’
They drove back to the outskirts of Cambridge, where Littlejohn wished to have another word with Mrs. Harry Dodd. She was calmly doing needlework in a small morning-room when the Inspector entered.
‘Good morning, Inspector. Won’t you sit down…? This is my own little room. I work here when I’ve things to do and. I keep all my memories and mementos about me in it…’
There were framed photographs on the walls; a perfect picture-gallery of them. The children at various ages and one or two family groups, some of which included Harry Dodd, paterfamilias Harry, surrounded by his brood. Mrs. Dodd seated, Harry standing by her side, Peter in arms and Winfield and his sister one at each end, with the whole ornamented by two large palms in huge plant-pots. Littlejohn crossed and examined them one by one. Although the Dodd children had grown into dark adults, and Winfield’s hair had fallen out, leaving a bald dome, all of them were fair in child-hood.
‘Bonny children, weren’t they, Mrs. Dodd?’ said the Inspector.
‘Yes. They said they took after me. I was fair-haired before it went white. My husband was, of course, brown…a trifle gingery…None of them had his colouring. They went darker as they grew older. You’d hardly recognise any of them as the same people as those on the pictures, would you?’
‘No. They’ve changed, madam. This, I take it, is Lady Hosea?’
‘Cynthia; yes. She was such a pretty little thing. Now, I’m afraid, the strange life she leads with her husband has left its impress her features. She’s got a vacant look. I’ve no doubt it’s through listening to Bernard’s eccentric twaddle. To be for ever trying to make head or tail of his fantastic talk must give her that undecided, puzzled look she’s assumed since they were married. He’s a poet, you know, and has written quite a number of macabre stories for the reviews, which, I believe, are much appreciated in very select coteries…’
She spoke quietly and ironically, rather enjoying the thought of her comic son-in-law.
Littlejohn was fascinated by the photographs of Lady Hosea as a child. Mrs. Dodd noticed it.
‘Cynthia seems to have impressed you. She was a nice little thing. I shouldn’t say it, but I have a picture of myself, a miniature, it is, and as a child she was the image of myself at that age.’
And Peg Boone’s child was the image of Cynthia when she was Nancy’s age!
In other words, although she was Harry Dodd’s child, she resembled Mrs. Dodd!
Littlejohn sat on a low chair on the opposite side of the fireplace from the old lady.
‘Smoke your pipe, if you wish, Inspector. It makes me feel a tyrant seeing you hugging the cold bowl.’
‘I’ll be very pleased to, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Dodd.’ He felt more at home with his pipe going.
‘Now I’m quite sure you didn’t call either to look at the family portrait gallery or to sit and smoke by the fire, Inspector. What is it that’s worrying you?’
He was unhappy about it all. The serenity and kindness of Mrs. Dodd, her gentle invulnerable way, her air of perfect breeding, all seemed so remote from the sordid murder of her late husband and the cowardly crime at Gale Cottage. He braced himself. It had to be said.
‘Did you know, Mrs. Dodd, of your late husband’s connection with the Boones at The Aching Man public house on the Bath Road?’
‘He did mention the place a time or two. There was a child there he was sorry for. A sweet thing, he said, which oughtn’t to be brought up in such surroundings…’
She looked at him steadily and he decided to avoid the final thrust as long as he could.
‘By the way, your indisposition on the night your husband died…You know what caused it?’
‘Yes. Peter made real coffee, instead of using the powder that agreed with me. It made the dog and me bilious. I had to go to bed.’
‘Please don’t think I’m suspicious of your behaviour, Mrs. Dodd. Believe me, I only want to get a complete picture of what occurred in as many places as I can find, on the particular night. Now, you went to bed and your son, Peter, went to the doctor for some tablets?’
‘Yes. I thought I’d a good supply by me, but the bottle was empty when Peter looked for it. He went round the corner to the doctor’s for a fresh one.’
‘What time would that be?’
‘About nine…We had the coffee about eight and I was very seedy an hour later and went to bed.’
‘And Peter hurried round the corner, got more medicine, and returned at once?’
‘Very quickly…I fell asleep almost as soon as I got in bed, but it must only have been a short doze, for when next I woke, Peter was at the bedside with a couple of tablets and a glass of water for me. He apologised for being so long, he said. He’d gone right away in the car, but the doctor had some patients. The travelling clock at the bedside said nine forty-five, so he hadn’t been unduly long away. I took the tablets, fell asleep, and by morning I was very much better.’
‘I’m glad. One other thing, did your husband ever tell you he’d made a Will?’
‘We did talk of it the last time we met. He said if we came together again, he’d alter his Will and leave all to me.’
‘Did you need it, if you’ll forgive my asking?’
‘Not really. But I may as well tell you quite candidly that I’ve not much in the way of actual cash. Just after the war, the Sedgwick Engineering Company—my father was called Sedgwick…the Company was reorganised. With a view to avoiding considerable death duties on my death, a trust was formed of my shares. The beneficiaries under it were my three children and I enjoyed the income. Of course, had I needed any large sums, the trustees, my bankers, would have raised them, but my income is really in the nature of an annuity. Harry said that if he died, he’d like me to have such money as he had by him…’
‘Do you know how much that was?’
‘A few hundreds, I dare say. I didn’t object. It was rather sweet and thoughtful of him.’
‘It was over twenty thousand pounds!’
She was moved at last. She dropped the embroidery she was working, and her gentle hands fell in her lap.
‘Impossible! The divorce almost beggared him, or so they told me.’
‘It did at first. But Mr. Dodd and a friend started to speculate on the Stock Exchange. His friend, a little corn merchant called Lott, had quite a flair for it, and your husband was rather good at finance himself. They made about five thousand pounds a year for many years.’
‘You amaze me, Inspector! Where is all this money?’
‘We don’t know. We think it’s in a strong box in a London safe deposit.’
‘Incredible! No wonder he wanted to leave it to me. I fear I made light of his little savings. Poor Harry…Poor dear Harry.’
She wiped her eyes.
‘Is Mr. Peter in, madam?’
‘No. He’s gone to town to get his gun. It’s being repaired and the shooting season is here, you know.’
‘I never enquired where Mr. Peter worked. Is he in practice on his own, or…?’
‘He’s not doing anything at the moment. The war unsettled him. He was to have joined an old friend of ours, Tidmarsh, an old Cambridge firm, when he came from the army, but Mr. Tidmarsh died whilst Peter was in North Africa and the firm was sold. They had no place for my son when he came home. He then tried starting a practice from scratch, but that fell through. He’s not doing much just now, but was talking the other day of finding a partnership somewhere. In fact, he has written to one or two solicitors who are seeking a junior man.’
‘He has never married…?’
Mrs. Dodd looked searchingly at Littlejohn.
‘Oh, yes. He married. It was a war-time match. One of those quick, impulsive affairs. They hardly got on from the start and finally they separated. It’s a pity, because he’s still in love with her and she doesn’t want him. She is living in London. A good business girl, who runs a dress shop in Mayfair. They were thrown together in London during the war and rather foolishly got entangled. Presumably she will divorce him one of these days on grounds of desertion…’
‘Your doctor is Dr. Macfarlane, did you say, Mrs. Dodd?
‘No. My man is Dr. Webb, but he lives some distance away. Peter called on Dr. Macfarlane in his haste to get the tablets. He’s got them there before. No; Macfarlane’s not steady enough for me as a general rule. Too fond of the bottle.’
A Knife For Harry Dodd Page 20
