A Knife For Harry Dodd

by George Bellairs

  He grew incoherent, swearing and roaring in his rage. His wife and the land-girl each appeared at their separate doors to find out what it was all about, and Mrs. Shoofoot, seeing what must have been one of her rivals, turned upon the girl and waved her angrily to get on with her work. The girl, with a toss of the head, took no heed.

  ‘Peg Boone persuaded you to say she was there all the time.’ Cromwell reeled it off, intent on his improvisation and spurred on by the fact that each shot struck home.

  ‘There’s going to be trouble when all this tale is aired in court. I suppose you know what perjury means, Mr. Shoofoot.’

  ‘Any more of your bloody lip and I’ll chuck you off the place. I only said what I did because the police were pesterin’ a friend of mine. She was upstairs puttin’ the child in bed. But what did the police try to twist it to? What the hell did they try to twist it to… eh?’

  He grimaced and tried to whirl his arms around pugnaciously, but his flesh was so heavy that he couldn’t raise them higher than his shoulders. He passed a huge paw over his slobbering lips.

  ‘They tried to make out that she’d been out with some chap or other. They tried to blacken the poor girl’s good name. When anybody tries to do that, police or no police, they’ve got Enoch Shoofoot to deal with, an’ I’m a man as stands no messin’…Ask anybody…’

  ‘She told you she was putting the child in bed between half-past nine and half-past ten, when you left the place, did she?’

  ‘Never you mind what she asked me. A favour asked of Shoofoot by a friend of his is as good as done. Ask anybody…’

  Mrs. Shoofoot, anxious about her husband’s excited state, thought fit to intervene.

  ‘Dad,’ she called from where she was standing. ‘Don’t get worked up, dad. Remember what the doctor said about your blood pressure…’

  A look of concentrated hatred flooded Shoofoot’s eyes and face.

  ‘Shut your trap! Who asked you to interfere…?’

  ‘The doctor…’

  ‘To ‘ell with him! I don’t need women and doctors to tell me what to do. And as for you…’

  He turned his attentions back to Cromwell.

  ‘As for you…’

  He told the sergeant to clear off in unprintable language. ‘…Or else I’ll set the dog on you…’

  As if fully understanding the threat, a large sheep-dog with a most benign face emerged with a rattle of chains from his kennel, eyed Cromwell, and cheerfully wagged his tail. This added fuel to Shoofoot’s obscenities and fury.

  ‘Gerrout, or I’ll chuck you out.’

  He made as if to put his threat into action, and held out his large hands to seize Cromwell. The sergeant backed a pace, drew himself up, and thrust the palm of his hand in Shoofoot’s middle, just where his paunch emerged like a balloon from the unfastened top buttons of his trousers. The farmer grunted, lost his balance, staggered back a few paces, struggling to recover, his eyes goggling, his legs making backward figures of eight. He came to rest against a great heap of ripe manure, standing in its own drainings like a large pudding in a plate of golden gravy, slid down, and sat in the fluid. His roarings as he beat the air mingled with the starting of the engine of Cromwell’s car, the shrieks of the land-girl, the alarmed screams of Mrs. Shoofoot, and the cries of pigs and startled hens. To this hearty send-off, Cromwell steered his car through the yard gates and made off for Maltkiln Farm before Shoofoot could recover sufficiently to warn his fellow sponsor and liar of what had been said.

  Macey’s Maltkiln Farm was as miserable as Shoofoot’s was prosperous. This state of affairs embittered Macey, who was religious, and thought that God had made a mistake in making the wicked Shoofoot to flourish, whilst he, a deacon, had a mortgage on his farm and received letters nearly every day from the bank about the state of his account. He was in the yard tinkering ineffectively with a broken old tractor when Cromwell drew up. The roadside gate which gave access to the farm path was askew and rickety, and the road beyond full of potholes and bordered by rusty wire. A few scrawny hens were picking and taking dust baths and flew cackling away from the car. The telephone bell was ringing…

  A masterful-looking fat woman, with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, appeared at the door. She had a man’s cloth cap on her head.

  ‘Sam! Sam! Wanted on th’phone. It’s Enoch Shoofoot, and he’s in a proper tear.’

  Cromwell leapt from the car and stood between the master and his house.

  ‘I want a word with you, sir. Urgent.’

  He made it sound terribly important and fatal. Macey paused to make up his mind and then, taking the chance of letting down his neighbour a peg, called back to his wife.

  ‘Tell ‘im I’m in the fields and you’ll get me to ring ‘im when I come in. Well…? What are you waitin’ for? Tell ‘im…’

  The woman glared and went indoors, and you could hear her passing on the message and arguing. Cromwell could see that she might return and warn Macey, or give him a message passed on by Shoofoot.

  ‘I can’t talk here with all this noise. Let’s take a turn along the path a minute or two.’

  Sam Macey was a small, bandy-legged man, dressed like a jockey. He wore horsy tweeds, riding breeches, and dirty hobnailed boots. His thin neck projected from his collar like a snake, and his head was almost the same diameter, which gave it the look of a nail sticking out from his chest. The eyes were pouched and sly, the nose long and narrow, the lips fanatically thin and cruel. His ears stuck out like the handles of a vase. He regarded Cromwell suspiciously.

  ‘Are you from the Ministry of Food or the Agricultural Committee?’

  ‘No; the police.’

  Mr. Macey jumped. His was a queer dual personality. He felt on Sundays that the inspiration given by singing lusty hymns at chapel, of praying at length before the congregation, of listening to the outpourings of ‘brothers’ in the faith, would speed him on his way, honest, pure in heart, and of good repute for the remaining six days. But he always fell by the wayside. He fell almost as soon as he got out of the meetinghouse and saw the shapely, buxom bodies of the choir girls, or when some black-marketer shuffled a wad of banknotes under his nose, or when, by night, he stole the mushrooms from Shoofoot’s fields, which, although not of the same parish, adjoined his own. Mr. Macey wrestled on his knees against such attractions of the world and the flesh, and was unhappy whether he lost or won. His mixed emotions had made him an easy prey of Shoofoot, who led him into black-market and just like a lamb to the slaughter. Mr. Shoofoot fascinated Mr. Macey by his evil, drew him like a moth to flame, filled him with hatred, disgust and admiration.

  ‘I haven’t done anything…’

  He protested so much that Cromwell was sure that here was some hidden jiggery-pokery. The pale blue, shifty eyes searched Cromwell’s face, then fell.

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting you had, Mr. Macey. There has, however, been a mistake about an alibi you gave Miss Boone at The Aching Man…’

  Macey scowled.

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘Mr. Shoofoot.’

  ‘Have you been talkin’ to Shoofoot? What’s he bin sayin’?’

  ‘That you both said she was in the room all the time on the night the police were enquiring about, whereas, that wasn’t quite exact, was it?’

  Cromwell’s voice was like silk.

  They had walked a little distance along the lane leading back to the road. This farm was less prosperous than Shoofoot’s, although the soil and situation seemed the same to a novice like Cromwell. The will and ruthlessness were lacking. The yard was dirty and untidy, many of the cow-sheds and store-houses were mere shanties, the house needed a coat of paint.

  ‘I’ll bet there’s a whacking mortgage on it,’ thought Cromwell to himself. He was right. Shoofoot held it, and one false step by Macey, and Sam would be out, Enoch would be in, and the two adjacent farms would become one large one.

  Back at the farm, the telephone bell was ringing again.

  ‘Tel
l me, what did Shoofoot say?’

  Macey was panting and sweating with fear and anxiety.

  ‘He said that Miss Boone was away an hour, putting the child to bed, and that you both agreed that you could count that as being as if she were with you down in the bar…That right?’

  ‘Well… Yes and no. I’m not much of a drinker. We’d both been to market and sold some cattle. Some of the other farmers were there, and we all got talkin’ together. Between half-past seven an’ eight, that ‘ud be. My car was in dock and Shoofoot had taken me with him in his car to the mart. Once we got in The Achin’ Man he just wouldn’t leave. Stayed till closin’ time. I had to wait for ‘im, else walk home. I got snoozin’ by the fire, because a couple of glasses of beer always makes me sleepy, me not touchin’ it as a rule…’ He looked a bit pious and a smug note came in his voice. ‘So you simply confirmed the tale Shoofoot told?’

  ‘Yes. I’d no reason to doubt his word, and he spoke up for Peg Boone when the police called on him, and then phoned me and told me they were cumin’ to ask me the same, and said I’d better say what he said was true…’

  The pale eyes searched Cromwell’s face again, like one waiting for judgment.

  ‘Sam!’

  It was Mrs. Macey, hurrying towards them, waving her podgy arms, shouting like a town-crier.

  ‘Sam! Mrs. Shoofoot’s ringin’…’

  She ran to meet her husband, spurred on by urgency, her heavy legs hardly leaving the ground.

  Macey looked rattled. Wherever he went, whatever he did, his wife was after him, calling for a full account, taking him to task, always on his heels.

  ‘Can’t I have even a minute to myself…?’

  She was too excited to listen.

  ‘Mrs. Shoofoot’s just been on the telephone. When Shoofoot couldn’t get you…or you wouldn’t answer him, he set off to come here. She said to try an’ find you, because Shoofoot’s in a tearin’ rage and…’

  ‘Well? Wot of it? I’m not afraid of Shoofoot.’

  He said it without conviction, and his large Adam’s apple moved anxiously up and down his windpipe.

  Mrs. Macey could hardly get it out.

  ‘If Enoch Shoofoot comes ‘is usual way, he’ll meet Thunder…Thunder’s out in foxholes field now…’

  Macey jumped again, this time almost a foot in the air. Cromwell did not need to ask about Thunder, for his bellow was already on the air. Across two fields they could see the gigantic, gross figure of Shoofoot, making his way to Macey’s farm. As they looked, Shoofoot realised what the bellow meant. He was in mid-field, and standing under a large oak in the hedge was a huge Hereford bull, working himself up for attack. He was pawing the ground and tossing his horns, limbering up for a chase.

  Macey and Cromwell ran the same way, to the gate which led to the first field. By the gatepost stood a rake and a pitchfork. Macey seized the latter and Cromwell the former. There was a gate between Shoofoot and his rescuers. Both parties made for this. For all his bulk, Shoofoot could move. He covered the ground in great leaps and, as he became airborne after each jump, his legs made a pedalling motion. The bull came on his heels, breath emerging like two jets of steam from his flaming nostrils. Shoofoot started to zigzag, confusing the beast as best he could.

  The gate between was wired instead of being held by a catch, and to save time, Macey and Cromwell climbed over it and, brandishing their weapons, thrust themselves between Shoofoot and Thunder. They fought a rearguard action back to the gate, which Shoofoot had now contrived to open, passed through it, and flung it to. The bull, chasing along the hedge, pawing the ground, trying to get at them, snorting and bellowing, was left to dissipate his energy, whilst Cromwell and Macey turned to Shoofoot.

  Fear had spurred on the burly farmer; now it left him without support. He looked about him, recognising nothing and nobody. His limbs twitched, his face was running with sweat, his shirt soaked. He reeled to Macey, held out his hands, gripped the little farmer for a second, and then fell at his feet. He did not move again. They knelt beside him and turned him over. He was dead.

  Later, Mr. Sebastian Dommett found that Enoch Shoofoot died from natural causes, but he was another victim of the Dodd case, and had he not been so handy making up an alibi for Peg Boone, he might, later that winter, have foreclosed and owned both Crabtree and Maltkiln.

  Small wonder that the following Sunday, bright and early at the chapel, Sam Macey’s thin tenor was heard above all the rest, shouting that God moved in a mysterious way His wonders to perform…

  19—The Grey Car

  Littlejohn accelerated, passed Macfarlane’s car, and signalled him to stop. With an angry gesture, the doctor pulled to the kerb and called through the window.

  ‘What is it now?’

  ‘Park your car and join me in mine. There are one or two other questions I want to ask you.’

  ‘I’ve told you all I know…’

  Passers-by were beginning to take an interest in the exchange of comments coming from the two cars, and Macfarlane resignedly did as he was bidden.

  ‘Get in and sit down, doctor…’

  Dr. Macfarlane smelled strongly of drink and looked like turning awkward.

  ‘Can’t I be left in peace? There’s no more I can say about young Dodd. What I told you was true.’

  Littlejohn looked him in the eyes, and the doctor began to shift his gaze uneasily.

  ‘I don’t think it was, doctor. What did Peter Dodd say he’d tell the police if you didn’t give him an alibi?’

  The by-road was almost deserted, but in the nearby highway they were using a pneumatic drill which punctuated the conversation with tearing, drumming noises. Littlejohn raised the window.

  During the pause, Macfarlane had tried to pull himself together without much success. Littlejohn’s comment had evidently got him in a weak spot.

  ‘Are you trying to threaten me, Inspector, because if you are…?’

  I only want the truth, doctor.’

  ‘You’ve had it.’

  ‘Very well. Please lock your car. I want you to come with me to the police station?’

  ‘Are you arresting me?’

  ‘No. I want you to make answers to certain questions which the police will wish to put to you after I’ve told them what I think.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Macfarlane’s tone was truculent. He was trying to bluff it out.

  Littlejohn took out his notebook and quoted the date of Comfort’s death.

  ‘Where were you in the afternoon that day, doctor?’

  ‘I can’t say. It’s so long ago. Most likely at the club. I’m going there now, when you’ll allow me.’

  There was a rasp in the voice. The doctor spoke quickly and Littlejohn noticed beads of sweat appear on his upper lip.

  ‘Mind if we have the window down? It’s a bit hot in here.’ Littlejohn apparently didn’t hear. Instead, he lit his pipe. ‘Are you trying to intimidate me?’

  ‘Does the mention of the road from Helstonbury to Cold Kirby strike any note of remembrance? You’d been to Helstonbury and were giving Peter Dodd a lift home.’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You’d better try, doctor. You were giving Peter Dodd a lift home. I don’t know why you’d been to Helstonbury, but you were coming home and picked up Peter Dodd. You were drunk at the time and were unfit to be in charge of a car…’

  ‘Who’s told you that?’

  ‘We know most of what has happened to Harry Dodd lately. We know that you were zigzagging across a bad road when you encountered a car in which Harry Dodd, his father, and a friend were taking a run. You skidded and, to avoid you, Comfort, the third party, who was driving the other car, also skidded, left the road and was killed in the accident. You drove on…’

  Macfarlane was in great distress now. He’d removed his hat and was mopping his head.

  ‘Can’t you open the blasted window…I’m… I’m…’

  ‘You drove on and left Comfort
dying on the roadside. You… you, a doctor. Why did you do it?’

  ‘Has Peter Dodd told you this?’

  ‘Never mind. I want the truth.’

  ‘Why haven’t the police questioned me before? It’s not right to try and trap me like this. If Peter Dodd’s told them, I’ll tell them he told me to drive on; the other car had righted itself.’

  ‘You know very well the other car didn’t right itself. Otherwise you wouldn’t have driven away. Now, do we go to the police station to make a statement, or are you going to tell me what happened?’

  Littlejohn, although apparently smoking his pipe contentedly, was himself feeling hot under the collar. This was a shot in the dark, a guess, stimulated by the doctor’s grey car and Peter Dodd’s apparent hold over Macfarlane.

  ‘The police are still closely questioning all owners of grey Letchworth saloons in this county. They’ll catch up with you. In fact, I shall report the matter to them. You’ll have to tell a more convincing tale than the one you’ve told me. They’ll array against you everybody you saw between Helstonbury and your surgery. What were you doing in Helstonbury?’

  ‘I’d an old friend a patient at the infirmary. I went to operate. I wasn’t drunk. I had a couple of drinks on an empty stomach. It was a hard operation and the patient didn’t come through it. I was upset. I’m always upset when any patients of mine die.’

  ‘I’m not denying that, doctor. Where did you meet Dodd?’

  ‘He asked me for a lift. He’d left his car to be decarbonised in Helstonbury, and was waiting for a bus back. I told him to jump in.

  ‘…And you went off, careering all over the shop on a greasy road.’

  ‘I wasn’t drunk, I tell you. I wasn’t well, and the whisky on an empty stomach made me giddy. I should have let Peter Dodd drive, but he’d had a drink as well.’

  ‘A bright pair to be loose on the road with a car, weren’t you? And you skidded and killed Comfort.’

  ‘I didn’t know till I read it in the paper. Peter Dodd called round and showed it to me. He said I’d better keep quiet, nobody would know.’