The Case of the Headless Jesuit

by George Bellairs

  Whereat Mrs. Alveston began to weep again. She soon settled, however. She seemed, at bottom, to be enjoying herself and her misery.

  “And he took his dog with him?”

  “Yes. And that reminds me. Phyllis, has Meg come home yet? I can’t understand it at all. Such a nice, obedient dog, who never went away from home. He could leave her with me and go anywhere and she as good as gold. And now, when she might be a comfort to me and a companion in sorrow, away she goes and isn’t seen again. Have you heard where she is, Phyllis …?”

  “Yes, mother. She’s been seen sneaking about by people, but nobody could get near her. She just turned tail and off.”

  “Somethin’ must have ’appened to scare her good and proper,” said Pennyquick judicially.

  “All the same, why couldn’t she ’ave come here? We’d ’ave given her a good home.”

  Mrs. Alveston had taken umbrage at the dog’s ingratitude.

  Littlejohn had formed a pretty good opinion of Mrs. Alveston. A hypochondriac, full of self-pity, yet close with her own affairs. If any family trouble caused the murder, he wasn’t going to get very far with her. She was loyal and would protect the Salters with all she’d got. Any help the police wanted would have to come from Phyllis and it was up to him to get her on their side as quickly as possible.

  “Well … we’ll not disturb your rest any longer, Mrs. Alveston. I’ll call again when you feel better and we’ll have another chat.”

  “I don’t enjoy very good health, sir. And this business had got me down. Seems as if misfortunes never cease coming my way. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve them. Still, it says in the Good Book, ‘Whom He loveth, He chasteneth.’ There’s comfort in that.…”

  She groped for her glasses and one of the devotional books on the bedside table, and with that the party left her.

  “I’d like to see you again, very soon, Miss Alveston. I don’t like upsetting your mother and I guess you know as much about things as she does.”

  “Yes, I think I do.”

  Phyllis smiled a knowing smile.

  “Very well, then. You work in Thorncastle, I believe.”

  “Yes.…”

  “Do you get out for coffee in the mornings?”

  “I could do.…”

  “Well, suppose you join me at my hotel, ‘The Mitre’, for coffee to-morrow. Is it far from your place?”

  “No. A few doors away. Shall we say ten-thirty?”

  “Yes, that’s all right.”

  Cromwell had turned to look through the window to hide his smiles. A nice girl, Phyllis. He wouldn’t have minded changing places with Littlejohn for a bit.…

  “Here,” said Cromwell suddenly. “There’s that dog. Look!”

  They all crowded round the window.

  Across the way, dejected and bedraggled, stood Meg, Granville Salter’s bobtail sheep-dog. Her coat muddy and hanging in shaggy tails, instead of fluffy and clean as of old. The white of her face was smoky black and her rump, where other dogs have tails, was almost on the ground with misery. She looked with anxious liquid eyes across at the house. The hair which usually covers the eyes of the breed was held back by a device of Mr. Granville’s, a pipe cleaner twisted like a woman’s curling-pin.

  “Poor Meg,” said Phyllis, and flew to the door to bring her in. But the dog, taking one despairing look, fled again and was lost in the rough cover and bushes of the common across the way.

  Littlejohn, who was fond of dogs, and who had only recently lost his own, felt his heart turn over, but said nothing.

  The police prepared to leave and gathered their hats and coats and Pennyquick assumed his helmet which made him look more of a policeman again.

  “And by the way, Inspector,” said Phyllis as they parted at the door. “Granville was worried about something. Mother didn’t know, but he was.…”

  “So I guessed from your interruption,” said Littlejohn. “We’ll talk about it to-morrow. So, for the present, good-bye.…”

  “Good-bye, Inspector.”

  “You two go on and find Percival. I’ve something I want to attend to,” Littlejohn said. “I’ll join you in a little while.”

  Cromwell eyed his chief quizzically. Maybe he’d fallen for Phyllis! Something unusual with Littlejohn.… He stifled his own questions and led Pennyquick away puzzled.

  Littlejohn crossed the road and took to the common. Brushing aside the rough branches and treading down the bracken, he made his way to the thick part. Then he whistled. He walked another twenty yards or so and whistled again. In a clearing stood the dog. She looked at him warily. Gently he approached her, stretched out a hand to her and talked to her comfortably. She stood stock still, graceful in every line in spite of her bedraggled state.

  “Sit,” he called.

  Meg looked at him and then sat down.

  “Stay,” he shouted.

  And she stayed there, trembling but obedient.

  As he neared the dog, she did not move, but in fear, slowly bared her teeth. Then she made as if to rise.

  “Stay,” he shouted sternly. And she did.

  He reached her, knelt and gently touched her head, then her soft ears, then her muzzle. She whined and turned upon him her sad, stricken eyes.

  Then and there, having lost one master, Meg found another for the rest of her life.

  FIVE

  THE HEADLESS JESUIT

  AT first the manager of “The Mitre” made it plain to Cromwell that they didn’t serve coffee in the middle of the morning. There were cafés in the town for the purpose. Why not try one of them? Cromwell, previously fortified by a perusal of the Innkeepers’ Act from one of the volumes in the portable library which he always lugged around in his suitcase, gently, but incorrectly, began to quote chapter and verse. Then, rather more loudly, he spoke of writing to the R.A.C. and having the manager’s many stars removed from the handbook.…

  When Phyllis Alveston met Littlejohn in the lounge, an obsequious waiter, attended by an acolyte in a white jacket, served coffee from the hotel’s best silver service.…

  Phyllis was wearing a very becoming loose red coat with a Robin Hood hat to match. The clear, sharp weather had flushed her cheeks and made her comely. The members of a film company, who had, on the previous evening, invaded the hotel, halted their to-ing and fro-ing, part of their campaign of publicity and exhibitionism, and looked hard and admiringly at her. The dashing star, Ronald Rainod, straightened his tie and deliberately crossed her path, flashing her one of his sure-fire smiles as he passed. Phyllis didn’t even see him, but hurried to join a smart, middle-aged man, sitting near the window and reading the morning paper.

  Rainod pursed his lips in the sibilant whistle of modern wolves on the hunt.

  “The old ’uns get all the luck,” he drawled. “Who the hell’s he?”

  “That’s Detective-Inspector Littlejohn, of Scotland Yard.”

  Cromwell threw it at him tersely and vanished up the huge carved staircase. The rest of the company held their sides, for Rainod was, in his new film, featuring as a Scotland Yard detective himself.…

  “… I won’t keep you long, Miss Alveston,” Littlejohn was saying. The flunkeys had departed deferentially leaving them with what looked like troubled tea, but which tasted faintly of toasted acorns. “But there are one or two things about which I didn’t want to trouble your mother.…”

  The girl’s face showed little animation. Superficially, she looked a picture, but deep down something was wrong. Her eyes bore a fixed, stunned look and she held her lips in a frozen artificial smile.

  “Are you in trouble yourself?”

  “Well, Inspector, a thing like this … I mean, a murder in the village and of one … one to whom we were very attached.… I hardly feel like jumping for joy.”

  “Ah, yes.… Granville Salter. You’ve known each other for a long time?”

  “Yes.… As long as I can remember. We even played together sometimes at the Hall when we were kids. And he came d
own to all the gatherings in the village. And then, after the Hall closed, he stayed at our place when he came back to Cobbold.…”

  “This recent visit. Was it true he came for a holiday after an illness? I heard that was the case.…”

  “I … really … He wasn’t very well.… And he liked the old place at Christmas time. It held happy memories for him.…”

  Phyllis played with her gloves and stirred her coffee.

  “Do you take sugar? I didn’t put any in.…”

  “Oh … I …”

  “Look, Miss Alveston … I wish you’d be quite candid with me. There’s some mystery surrounding the visit of Mr. Salter to Cobbold. Some say this and some say that.… If you know what it is all about, I’d be grateful if you’d tell me. It will save a lot of trouble for us and, whatever you withhold, we shall find out eventually. So …”

  The waiter was back again.

  “Coffee all right, sir?”

  “It will do, thanks.…”

  The man withdrew with a puzzled frown on his face. Outside the room he started to mutter rebelliously.

  “Granville came to see mother about something. That was the main reason.”

  “What was it?”

  She had laid aside her gloves and was now fussing with her handkerchief. She caught Littlejohn’s eye and smiled wanly.

  “He wanted to marry me.…”

  Just like that, in a dull voice. No tears. The girl was simply stunned with grief.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Alveston. I’d no idea. And he’d called for your mother’s consent. Was she surprised and willing?”

  “Neither. You see, he’d asked her several times before. We’ve been in love for a long time. Granville had a little money of his own and now he’d got a job. But the thing seemed to upset mother terribly. Every time it was mentioned, she had one of her attacks.”

  “What sort of attacks?”

  “Nervous attacks. She’s had them for years. She’s had a lot of trouble, you see, and it has worn her out. She starts to tremble and cry out and sort of passes into a faint, but with her eyes open.…”

  It sounded like hysterics to Littlejohn!

  Phyllis seemed to read the Inspector’s thoughts.

  “The doctor said it was mainly hysterical; but that wasn’t fair. You can help yourself in hysterics, but mother seemed past that. The past has not been kind to her.”

  “But why should a good fellow wanting to marry her daughter upset her so much? You’d have thought she would be glad to see you settled and happy.…”

  “Yes, wouldn’t you? But she wouldn’t hear of it. She wouldn’t be persuaded to give her consent.”

  “Why?”

  “Said I mustn’t marry above my station. You see, in her young days she’d been a servant at the Hall and so had my father. The Salters were in another world and the very thought of one of her class marrying the family would have been as thinkable in those days as reaching for the moon. She just wouldn’t admit that times have changed. And another thing. She said we wouldn’t be happy once the first flush had worn off. She said the Salters were always a fickle lot, who didn’t treat their women very well. I had a row with her about it. There was nothing of the kind about Granville, or his father, for that matter. It was just an excuse. She didn’t want me to leave her, that was it. I don’t blame her, really. She is very helpless and has little pleasure in life, or ever had, for that matter. All the same … I’d my life to live.”

  “Of course.”

  Outside, the film director was marshalling his forces. They’d been waiting for months for these shots. The cathedral with a background of clear sky and high clouds, in a frame of old, leafless trees. The great man was posting his cameras, moving them here and there. He was in a bad temper. He wanted to shift the church two yards to the right to make a wizard shot and couldn’t. As a rule, he got his own way, thanks to a pocketful of cash, but here was something he couldn’t pay for.… “Why does it always have to happen to me, blast it?” Mr. Rainod was in a bad mood, as well. He wouldn’t do as he was told. There had to be children playing, too, as the criminal went to ground in the crypt. Just to set guilt against a background of innocence. The director passed a fistful of notes to a flunkey. “Round up some kids. Give ’em a quid apiece, and tell the little devils to bring their skippin’ ropes and balls.… Go on.… Get cracking.…”

  “And what did Mr. Salter say to all this?” Littlejohn was asking. He pushed the coffee apparatus away.

  “He was very mad about it. If he pressed it, mother just started to cry. He wanted me to marry him and run away, but I just couldn’t. How could I leave her as she was?”

  “Very difficult. And was that all? Just an impasse?”

  “Yes. At first, just after the war and when he was demobbed, he said …”

  “He served in the Forces …? Excuse the interruption; it’s important.”

  “Yes.… In Burma.…”

  “Just Burma.… Not in Germany at all?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I just wanted to be precise. Please go on.”

  “When he came home, his father had died and there wasn’t enough left to keep up the Hall. We’d written to each other all the time and then he suggested our getting married and living in the village at the small dower-house.”

  “And your mother objected?”

  “I’ll say she did. She seemed terrified.”

  “And then the battle began. All the trouble and argument.…”

  “Yes. Then, mother had a long talk with Granville without me. He seemed to cool off after that. Mother must have been so pathetic that it moved him. He went off to live in London.”

  “Did you see him much after that?”

  “No. Once, I think. He came up on business and called.”

  “Had he changed much?”

  “Yes. He looked awful. Pale and thin. And with me, he was very strange. As though he still loved me, yet something held him back.”

  Littlejohn remembered what Mrs. Pennyquick had said. No wonder Salter’s attitude had been changed and mysterious if Mrs. Alveston had told him he was in love with his half-sister! Apparently Phyllis didn’t know about it, or, if she did, she wasn’t admitting anything. One couldn’t very well ask her.

  “What made him change his mind this time? He came and stayed with you again for some days, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. A few days before he arrived, Granville wrote to me. He seemed very excited. He wanted to start where we’d left off. There’d been no leaving off for me. I could never love anyone else.…”

  You could have heard a pin drop. She just sat silent. No emotion; simply a sort of stunned resignation, as though, all the time she’d been expecting things to turn out badly. Outside, you could see the film unit at work. The sound and cameras were “on”, the murderer was sneaking to the church, followed by the whole circus on wheels, and the director was pantomiming for the children to play harder. They skipped and bounced their balls frenziedly, thinking of the pound notes to come.

  “What do you think Mr. Salter was excited about?”

  “I don’t know. But he said in his letter he would like to come to us for Christmas and he thought that, at last, he’d be able to make mother see reason.”

  “And did he?”

  “As far as I could see, he didn’t. He said he thought things were going to be all right, but by the time he was … he died … he hadn’t spoken to mother. He said he’d something to do before he tackled her again.”

  “You’ve no idea what it was?”

  “No. But he said he was going to be sure it wouldn’t upset her again before he spoke.”

  “H’m. And your mother has never taken you fully into her confidence about her objections?”

  “I don’t understand you. What more could she have to tell me?”

  “Nothing, maybe. I just wondered, Miss Alveston.”

  Time was passing. In the dining-room opposite you could see the waiters laying the tables for lunch. T
he chef in his white cap and uniform was having an argument with the manager and doing most of the talking. Outside, the director was re-taking the whole business and shoppers were looking in the windows and entering the very select establishments of the cathedral close.

  “I hope I’m not keeping you, Miss Alveston.”

  “It’s all right. I asked off for an hour.”

  “I’m very grateful to you for your help. And now rather a delicate question. Can you tell me anything about your father?”

  “Not a thing. I hate him. I can’t see why mother can bear to speak of him or keep his photograph up in the house. She won’t hear of taking it down. You’d think he’d died loving her dearly, instead of leaving her in the lurch.”

  “Have you ever seen him?”

  “Not to remember. He married mother during the first war, in nineteen-seventeen, and I was born soon after.…”

  It was difficult to think of Phyllis as over thirty. She looked young and fresh, in spite of her troubles. Yet, she had the poise and sophistication of one of that age. And all the time, she’d waited for Granville Salter and just when happiness seemed within their reach, someone had …

  “I was born soon after. Father, if such I can call him, father served with the army in occupied Germany and came home on leave until he was demobbed. Then he disappeared. He just left mother in the lurch.”

  “And what did she do?”

  “She had a little money.… I don’t know how much or where it came from. She’s very close on her private affairs. She started baking cakes and bread and the like. Built up a nice little business. But she seemed stunned and afraid by what had happened. She just wouldn’t go out and about any more.”

  “And she’s more or less stayed indoors ever since?”

  “Yes.… Except when she goes to see her sister at Barewood-le-Fen.…”

  “Where’s that?”

  “About three miles the other side of Thorncastle from Cobbold. She comes by train to Thorncastle and goes on by bus.”

  “But why this sudden trip?”

  “Well, you see, my aunt has been totally bedridden for years. They were very much attached and she’s mother’s only living relative. She goes twice a year to see her.”