The Case of the Headless Jesuit

by George Bellairs

  “You talk as if you suspect the robbery was for that, then.”

  “I do. If not, why leave the money? I don’t say it was Granville, or Plucock, though it’s hard not to suspect one or the other. The police came from Thorncastle and played around a bit. No fingerprints or clues. They were puzzled, too, because, had it been a tramp, he surely wouldn’t have worn gloves. I didn’t tell them my suspicions. Don’t really know why I’m telling you. But I can talk comfortably to you. That must be it.”

  “Thank you, Miss Fothergill. And now, will you kindly do something for me?”

  “If I can and it’s not too outrageous.”

  “I’m not going to ask you to let me see your brother’s diary or papers, but could you possibly look through them all yourself and see if there’s anything there which will help?”

  “Such as …?”

  “Will you make a list of the births in the family recorded over the past, say, fifty years, and any fuller details of them? And will you also copy any references to the Headless Jesuit you might find there?”

  “Quite a big job you’re giving me. But not quite so big as it might have been. The papers are in scrupulous order, and to go through them, and the diaries, will give me the greatest pleasure. My brother was very dear to me and it will be as though he were back again, speaking with me. Yes, I’ll do it.”

  “I’m very grateful, Miss Fothergill. Would you care to ring me up or send a note to the ‘Royal Oak’, where we’re staying, if you should find anything useful?”

  “Certainly.”

  “By the way, there’s another matter you might help with, too, if you can, Miss Fothergill. You must have known the servants at the Hall over the past thirty years or so.…”

  “Yes. I was a frequent visitor there with my brother, and sometimes alone. Why?”

  Littlejohn produced Salter’s list again.

  “This is Granville’s list of people in whom he was interested, presumably in his search for information. Can you tell me what happened to the servants?”

  “Yes, more or less. There’s Devereaux, the butler. He died in service and is buried in the village. Mrs. Knapp, the housekeeper, retired to a cottage here. She was a soldier’s widow with one child. Knapp … I mean Mrs. Knapp, died many years ago. Her daughter married and still lives here in her mother’s old cottage. A plaintive, queer little thing who lost her husband in the war. No children and she lives alone and kept a little toffee shop in the house. Rationing bothered her a lot, and it seemed to drive her off her head. She locked and bolted the door recently and never opened up again. They say she keeps a large stock with which she won’t part. Poor thing.…”

  “Not much use to us, then.”

  “I don’t know. She’s always been very nice to me. Maybe I could help if you need me. Just let me know.”

  “Thank you. Flather?”

  “Mrs. Flather was District Nurse until not long ago when she retired. Held the job for untold years. Never heard of or saw Flather. Maybe he ran away on the honeymoon, because she’s a tartar. Or maybe there never was a Flather. Reason Granville put her down may have been about the birth business. Perhaps thought she attended. But the ladies at the Hall probably wouldn’t have had her about. They had nurses from Thorncastle.”

  “And the unholy three, there … Stowell, Trotter and Meek?”

  “Oh, those! I remember them. Yes, maybe they were there at the time Granville’s concerned about. Stowell went away for a better job in London. I gave her a second reference. Trotter … well, she just drifted off somewhere, probably a better job, too. Meek got herself in the family way with somebody or other. She had to leave, but the fellow married her. They went off some place or other. I’d say from your point of view, Inspector, they were no-accounts.”

  “Many thanks, Miss Fothergill. In the jingle we were mentioning, there’s a Hosegood. Now Mr. Granville also has that name down. Could you throw any light on it?”

  “Hosegoods have lived in the village ever since it was a village. The present head of the family is a churchwarden and a poor, mean sort of fish. Ben Hosegood’s a tailor and doing badly. I seem to recollect a Hosegood being found dead in the grounds by Simister Salter and getting mixed up in the legends.”

  “That is so.”

  “Maybe, Granville was interested in him. Why?”

  “I can’t say. That’s part of the mystery.”

  “What do you make of it all, Inspector?”

  “It seems to me Granville was hunting for Phyllis Alveston’s real history and, as a sideline, some clue as to the truth or not of the Treasure story. In the course of his inquiries he crossed the trail of others bent on the same game. Where Plucock comes in, I can’t say, but he couldn’t have murdered Granville; he was dead already. There are others at large and I hope to unravel this tangle sooner or later and find them.…”

  “I hope you do. I’ll try my best to help.”

  A car could be heard drawing up at the gate and the anxious face of Cromwell next appeared, mixed up with the thick thorn hedge. With unwonted speed he rushed up the path and rang the bell. The maid came and went and came again and then brought Littlejohn to the door to consult his colleague.

  “Could you come over to the Hall, sir? Pennyquick just came back to the ‘Royal Oak’ to say there’s been another murder. At the Hall, this time.”

  “Right. I’ll just say good-bye to Miss Fothergill.…”

  Pennyquick was waiting agitatedly in the car.

  “This is the limit, sir! Three of ’em on our ’ands now. The village’ll be in an uproar when it gets round. It’s not safe to go out.”

  “What’s it all about?”

  “The lodgekeeper phoned down to say he found another body—in the Hall, this time. He went over mid-mornin’ to have a look round and found the fellow at the foot of the stairs with a broken neck. He wasn’t there last night, because the lodge-keeper says he looked all over the place before he turned in after dark.”

  It was Littlejohn’s first visit to the Hall. The great gates, with rampant lions rearing from the tops of their stone posts, stood open and, standing by, a short, stocky man in corduroy trousers and old jacket. They picked him up but he remained silent, apparently stunned by what he had found.

  There was a fine elm drive to the Hall, which came suddenly in view standing on a slight eminence with large neglected lawns about it. It was composed chiefly of wood and plaster, a basement of stone holding a strong framework of timber connected by horizontal beams. A gracious manor-house, free from all pretentions and now looking empty and forlorn.

  But Littlejohn and his party had no time to admire either the house itself or the remarkable interior. They parked the car and hurried inside to the foot of the main staircase, a great oak structure rising in gentle steps to a gallery round the main hall. At the foot lay the body, just as the caretaker had left it. It was twisted, face downwards, arms and legs sprawling, splayed-out. The back of the head was smashed in by a terrible blow. The corpse was cold and stiff with every appearance of having lain there all night. Probably the crime had been committed not long after the lodge-keeper had locked up and departed.

  Pennyquick waited respectfully, watching Littlejohn almost reverently, expecting now to learn exactly how the great ones from Scotland Yard behaved at the very beginning of a crime. Littlejohn stood with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and his hat thrust back on his head. He didn’t seem in the least anxious to turn over the body and see whose it was. Pennyquick felt a bit disappointed.

  “Aren’t we going to turn ’im over and see who ’e is?” he ventured at length. “Can’t say I recognize ’im, as he is, and I think myself he’s a stranger.…”

  “I know him. Saw him yesterday in London,” said Littlejohn.

  There was no mistaking that suit; it looked fresh from the racecourse!

  Littlejohn gently turned over the body and confirmed what he already knew.

  It was James Cooney, Investigator, alias, Barney
Faircluff, gaolbird.

  ELEVEN

  THE THIRD VICTIM

  THE inquest on Barney Faircluff went off quietly. The police saw to that. But the Coroner, Mr. Lancelot Qualtrough and his clerk, Whatmough, were obviously excited. They knew that Barney, under an assumed name and calling himself a professional investigator, was a crook and was after the Treasure.

  “If the craze spreads, someone will be finding the Salter gold, and then we shall have a Crowner’s Quest,” remarked Mr. Qualtrough gleefully.

  “If we don’t find it first,” added Mr. Whatmough, sotto voce.

  “What?” asked his master. But there was no reply.

  The inquest was adjourned, naturally, but was graced by the appearance of a strange character who looked as though a wash wouldn’t come amiss and who bit his nails to the quick. This was Herbert Moss, Barney’s clerk and factotum, who, in the absence of other relatives and friends, came to identify the body. He wore a shabby navy-blue suit and a black tie to chime with the occasion and gave his bit of evidence with a practised hand. He it was, in Barney’s divorce business, who snooped round doors, keyholes, lighted windows and hotel bedrooms. He was small, fat, and his bloated countenance spoke of titbits of information gathered over pints of beer at bars.

  “Don’t know what ’e was doin’ rahnd ’ere,” he said with an exaggerated expression of innocence, when questioned by Littlejohn.

  “Come on,” chimed in Cromwell. “Don’t give us that.”

  “I don’t know. And don’t you bully me. I’ve been a lawyer’s clerk, so don’t try it on.…”

  “When?”

  “Never you mind. Mr. Cooney dealt wiv this case himself, see?”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Yes. Some bloke got ’im checkin’ up on a bloke as once lived rahnd ’ere. He must ’ave come across sometin. Set ’im all of a dither. Didn’t tell me nothink.…”

  Littlejohn had turned out the contents of Barney’s pockets. He passed a snapshot over to Mr. Moss. It showed Barney wearing a paper cap walking along the promenade of some seaside resort with a girl got up to kill. She also wore similar headgear with the addition of a label on the front of it: “Kiss Me.” Mr. Faircluff looked as though he’d already done that several times. They were thoroughly enjoying themselves and had been snapped by a tout.

  “Know who that is, Mr. Moss?” said Littlejohn, pointing to the girl.

  “Never seen her in my life.…”

  “Well, well.… I have. Her name’s Deborah James and she lives in a flat below the man who hired your boss to trace the bloke as once lived rahnd ’ere, as you call him.”

  “Nothin’ to do wiv me. I was ’is clerk; knew nothin’ of his private life.”

  “Ever seen that before?”

  Mr. Moss took the paper in his nail-bitten fingers.

  “Poetry,” he said and looked nauseated. “Nothin’ in the boss’s line … or mine.”

  “I’ll bet it wasn’t, but it was in Mr. Cooney’s pocketbook. Ever seen it lying about at the office?”

  “Nah.… Wot’s it orl abaht?”

  “We’d like to know that.”

  The sheet contained in the writing of Granville Salter the same old rhyme:

  Salter Treasure,

  Coward, let be.

  Brave man,

  Symbols three.…

  With it was a plan of the Salter house. On sheets of paper, both Salter and Barney had been trying their hands at solving the enigma. There was no indication as to how far they’d got.

  They let Herbert Moss return to London after he’d claimed his expenses and quarrelled fiercely about them. Cromwell travelled on the same train, but not in Herbert’s company.

  Ex-Company-Sergeant-Major Bedford was still in his chair, running the flats by remote control, when Cromwell called upon him.

  “Miss James at home?” he asked after making himself known.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Tell ’em by their footsteps on the stairs. She’s come in and not gone out again.”

  “You certainly have mastered the art.…”

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, nothing. Mr. Salter’s flat still vacant?”

  “Yes. ’E paid the rent to month-end. Besides, the police …”

  “Of course. We were forgetting the police, weren’t we?”

  A cat, as large and lazy as his master, sprang down from a great height on the sideboard shelf and started to rub round Cromwell’s trousers.

  “Get away, cat!”

  Cromwell isn’t fond of cats and knew of its presence as soon as he entered the room. The creature took a flying leap back on the sideboard and fell asleep.

  “Ever go up to Mr. Salter’s room, Bedford?”

  “Of course. Got to see that all’s right now and then. I got a pass-key. Any objections?”

  “No. Ever let any deputies go in to see that all’s right now and then?”

  “Waddyer mean?”

  Mr. Bedford was getting rattled. At the back of his mind he sensed that someone was trying to disturb his peace and he resented it.

  “I mean, to save your legs, do you ask any of the other lodgers to take a peek in and see that all’s right now and then?”

  “What you gettin’ at? Look ’ere …”

  “You look here yourself. This is a murder case, so no messing about. Did you or did you not lend Miss James your key to get in Mr. Salter’s rooms?”

  “The window was open and it looked like rain. She said …”

  “She said she’d do it for you. She even suggested it looked like rain and the window was open, didn’t she?”

  “Well … nothin’ wrong in that. My old leg wounds bother me, and them stairs …”

  Whereupon Mr. Bedford rose and took a turn round the room to show how much he limped and how bad he was on his legs.

  “Of course. That’s all I wanted to know. Now I’ll pay Miss James a visit, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind a bit. Do it and welcome. And if there’s any bother, don’t forget, I let her do it because me legs are bad.”

  “I won’t forget. While I’m up, are there any other rooms you’d like me to see to for you?”

  “’Ere, you! I’ll report you, I got me friends, see?”

  “All right, all right. Don’t get rattled. I’m not going to spoil your nice, cushy job.”

  “Better not. I got good friends as’ll …”

  But Cromwell was knocking at Deborah James’s door.

  There were noises of shuffling about inside. A wireless set was playing a soft sentimental song. Someone switched it off. A thick voice called out:

  “Who is it?”

  “Police.”

  The shuffling turned to a wild scrimmage.

  “Wait a minute.”

  Deborah James opened the door. She was wearing the same dress as when Littlejohn had talked with her. A worn wrapper covering very little else in the way of clothes, her legs were bare and she had shabby mules on her feet. She had been weeping and her face was red, swollen and bedraggled.

  “Come in,” she said to Cromwell. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “Why?”

  “I saw it in the paper that Barney’d been killed. I guessed sooner or later you’d be here.”

  “What was Barney to you?”

  Cromwell looked round the room. It combined living and sleeping quarters and there seemed to be a small scullery through a door at the far end. The divan bed hadn’t been made, there were articles of clothing and newspapers littered all over the shop. A portable wireless-set on the hearthrug and a cheap gramophone tucked in one corner with records scattered round it. A bottle of gin and a glass, too. Deborah had been drinking, playing sentimental tunes and, in this fashion, weeping and mourning for Barney.

  “A friend of mine,” she replied in answer to Cromwell’s question. Then, for no reason whatever, she seemed to get annoyed.

  “I know what you’re th
inking. You know the sort I am and how I earn my living. But it wasn’t that way with me and Barney, see? I know enough about men never to want to see another. But not Barney. He was different.… He was me chum.…”

  Cromwell showed her the snapshot taken at the seaside. She began to cry again.

  “Yes.… Best friend I ever had.” She was almost bawling between her tears. “That was just after I met him. We got together on the boat, going for a daytrip to Margate. We’d have been married by now, only Barney had a wife somewhere. She was no good to him. He give me back my self-respect. Made me feel I was a woman again, instead of what others used to think me, judging from the looks they gave me. Now, it’s all over. I was just thinkin’ of the gas-oven when you came in.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Cromwell. It seemed all he could say. He was just pondering on the strangeness of life. Here was a woman whose self-respect had been restored by a jail-bird, a cheap racing tipster, a shady blackmailing snooper.… And now he’d gone too far and got himself murdered for his pains and left her worse than she was before he found her.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do now. He paid for all this, you see. I’ve been ill and he looked after me. Came every day, he did. Even cleaned up the room and bought me a gramophone. I was just playing the tunes he liked best when you got here. ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’, ‘Waggon Wheels’ and ‘Pistol-Packin’ Momma’.…”

  And she started bawling again like a lost child.

  “So you’re on our side?” asked Cromwell.

  She stopped her noise and looked at him queerly through her tears.

  “What you mean?”

  “I mean Barney was murdered and you want us to find out who did it.…”

  “You bet your life. I’m with you there. Like hell I am.”

  She had changed from howling to roaring now, like a wounded tigress.

  “… But don’t expect me to say anythin’ about Barney. He was my pal. I won’t have him harmed.”

  “Of course not. Past harm now, isn’t he? Now I want to know what lead up to his going to Cobbold—that’s where he was killed—up to Cobbold and meeting trouble. Any ideas?”

  “It all started with the fellow upstairs. The one who got killed, too. Salter, he was called.”