The Case of the Headless Jesuit

by George Bellairs

  “I’ll make that Polydores pay for all this,” Uncle Enoch had said by way of consolation.

  “Oh shut up,” came the ungrateful reply.

  “Hope you’re feeling better,” said Cromwell when they were alone and the door closed.

  “No, I’m not. I’m bad. I’ll kill Polydore for this. I’ll wreck his shop. I’ll … I’ll …”

  “Now, now, now, Mr. Whatmough. Calm yourself. You’ll soon be out and about again.”

  “I won’t soon be out and about. This is going to be a long job. I’ll make Polydore suffer for this. Unprovoked attack, it was.…”

  “All right, then. Do as you like. But answer me a question or two first.”

  “What? I hope it’s about the assault. You’re not letting it rest there? And what’s up with Mr. Qualtrough? Hasn’t even been to see me. And me as good as saved ’is life. If it hadn’t been for me, Polydore would ’ave … I hope you’ve got a note of that. Attempted murder by Polydore.…”

  “Come along, now.… You remember some time since, saying you saw the Headless Jesuit at the Hall …?”

  “And was laughed at. If that’s all they can do … Besides, that’s beside the point. It’s me, now. Polydore did the crime.… You can see how desperate he is. Stop at nothing.… He did ’em. After the treasure.…”

  “What do you know about the treasure?”

  “It should have been in the hiding-place where we found Polydore. He’s had it. That’s why he tried to kill me. Knew it was the Coroner’s by right.…”

  “The Jesuit we were talking about.…”

  “I did see him. No imagination.… Runnin’ across the lawn, he was.…”

  “What did he look like?”

  “A Jesuit, of course.”

  “What does a Jesuit look like? I’ve never seen one to know him.”

  “They’re monks. This one was a monk.”

  “You mean he had on a sort of monk’s gown and girdle?”

  “It was dusk.… I couldn’t see the belt, if there was one. How could I? It was dusk, I tell you. But, as he ran, I could see sort of skirts flapping.…”

  “A sort of cassock?”

  “I don’t know. Like a monk.”

  “But you said he was headless.…”

  “I couldn’t see his head.”

  “Perhaps he’d sunk it on his breast so as not to be recognized.”

  “Could have been … I don’t know. My nerves are bad. I hope that’s all you’ve got to ask. I’m not fit … I’m …”

  “Just one more. When was this?”

  “Night before I told you and you all laughed.…”

  “You mean the day of the Granville Salter inquest?”

  “Yes.”

  Alveston wasn’t dead then, according to medical evidence and Barney Faircluff hadn’t then been killed, either.

  “Talkin’ of inquests, to-day, were you there at Alveston’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Adjourned, of course.…”

  Whatmough flailed the air impatiently, tore at the patchwork quilt and clawed at the throat of his nightshirt.

  “I don’t mean that … I don’t mean that.… How was it conducted?”

  “All right. No complaints. The Coroner had another clerk with him.…”

  “Flitcroft! Blast ’im. Blast Polydore.… Blast everybody.…”

  And with that, he sank in the bed and turned his face to the wall. From below a shrill voice:

  “Are you all right, Mortimer …?”

  Cromwell descended hastily and made for the door.

  “He doesn’t seem so well.… Maybe a dose of medicine.…”

  “Me pore boy.…”

  Mrs. Whatmough hastily tramped up the stairs.

  By the fireside the Tyles were still brooding. Mrs. Tyle was deep in the dregs of another cup of tea.

  “Money’s comin’ to Mortimer.… Money.… An’ weddin’-bells in a month.…”

  “To ’ell with weddings.…”

  “They’s a funeral here, too, afore long.”

  “That’s more like. It’ll be that Polydores. He’ll fold up and die when I’ve done with him.…”

  “Good afternoon,” said Cromwell.

  “Good afternoon,” barked Mr. Tyle. “See you in court when the time comes.…”

  “Phew!” said Cromwell to himself as he got the right side of the closed door between himself and the motley crew at the Whatmoughs’. He gulped in lungfuls of fresh air.

  Upstairs he caught sight of the curtains moving and round the edge appeared the face of Mrs. Whatmough watching him depart. It gave him quite a shock, for her eyes were full of hate.

  SIXTEEN

  MRS. PAWKER GIVES NOTICE

  THE Rev. Augustus Smythe, known to the schoolboys as Gussie, was not at his lodgings when Littlejohn called to see him just before dinner on his return from London.

  “’E’s gone off to Thorncastle,” said Mrs. Pawker, Smythe’s landlady. “Spends a lot o’ time there nowadays, if you ask me. It’s not right, it isn’t, with the old vicar in his dotage and so much to do in the parish. Them atheists and communists wants watchin’. Wot is parsons for but to keep the banner of the Lord flying? And if they aren’t there, who’s …?”

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Pawker, but would you mind asking him when he comes in, if he’ll kindly call at the police station; I want a word with him?”

  “Oh dear! I ’ope ’e’s not been doin’ somethin’ wrong. They’s enough wrong been done in this village already.…”

  “No; nothing wrong. Just a word, that’s all.”

  “Wot a relief. A nice man. I never ’ad a better lodger. Never. So considerate, like. But ’e’s sweet on Phyllis Alveston and never off the doorstep of the place she works at in Thorncastle. Poor chance he’s stood so far, with the gentry in competition. Now, maybe, things’ll be better for ’im. We’re only young once, are we?”

  “That’s true. Thank you.…”

  Littlejohn was going to say good-bye, but Mrs. Pawker had been washing other people’s small-clothes all day and was now ironing them. This had kept her indoors and she’d missed her tour round the village and her talk to her cronies. The gossip was all bottled up inside her and Littlejohn looked a nice man. She wasn’t going to give in so easily. She ignored his gestures of departure.

  “As I was sayin’, he’s a nice young man. Not that Miss Phyllis isn’t a nice young woman. A good pair they’ll make, I say. But Phyllis is a bit of a jumped-up one, if you know what I mean, sir. Most other girls in the village as ’ad laid-up mothers, would ’ave done for them and kept the ’ouse nice at nights when they’d done they’s work. But not Miss Phyllis. Oh no. A daily ’elp is what they ’ave. All the work, and when Miss Phyllis goes out o’ nights, somebody pops in now and then to see Mrs. Alveston doesn’t want anythin’. That’s what I been doin’ for nigh on twenty years. Ever since Phyllis was a child. And I’m gettin’ fed-up with it. ’S matter of fact, I give me notice to-day.”

  “You do for Mrs. Alveston, Mrs. Pawker?”

  “Did, you mean, although they asked me to consider me decision. But they’s plenty of other good jobs where they don’t deceive them as helps ’em.”

  “Deceive?”

  “Yes.… But come in, if you like, sir. No use standing out in the dark and cold.…”

  She led Littlejohn into her cottage. A neat two up and two down place, clean as a new pin.

  “Sit down, sir.… I was just goin’ to brew. Will ye take a cup, sir?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Pawker.”

  Mrs. Pawker’s ironing was hanging on a clotheshorse and there were piles of it on chairs and in a basket. The room was choc-a-block with old-fashioned furniture. The walls were like a photographic exhibition. The late Pawker, a roadman, had been knocked down and killed by a dray in the course of duty, leaving his wife with five children to bring up, which she did most gallantly. Now they’d all married and were scattered. The walls were c
overed with little framed photographs of the weddings of the three male and two female Pawkers and then followed the results of such events, seventeen grandchildren, displayed on the walls in various stages of evolution, from lying flat and naked on their bellies and alone, to gathered together in their respective droves with parents standing proudly in the groups. The last picture showed the eldest grandson in R.A.F. uniform with a buxom wife and two kids of his own. To add an air of legitimacy to the whole exhibition, there was, over the fireplace, in the seat of honour, a huge framed enlargement of Mr. and Mrs. Pawker, Senior, taken on their wedding day, she in white with a huge hat sprouting flowers, and he, looking like someone taken from cold-storage, in an antique billycock, white tie, dickey and high collar, and what looked like his father’s mourning suit. There was an astonished look on the face of the progenitor of the enormous framed brood which faced him, as though he’d somehow started something he was powerless to stop.

  “’Ere we are.… Good and ’ot and strong, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Pawker. Don’t let me stop you ironing. We can talk as you work.”

  Oh, no. None of that for Mrs. Pawker. No half-measures. The gossip was going to be full to the brim and overflowing. She sat heavily down in the armchair facing Littlejohn, took a good swig of tea, and relaxed, which mainly consisted of allowing her enormous bosom to rest on her knees.

  “You’re discontented with the Alvestons at present?”

  “I am that. Come wot may, all weathers and all times, I’ve stuck by ’em. Even when me rheumatics nearly crippled me, I went. Not that Mrs. Alveston couldn’t ’ave done a bit more for ’erself. Let ’erself go when Alveston left ’er. With a ’usband like ’im, she oughter bucked-up when he went … yes, an’ set about and found another. When my old man was killed, I’d several offers meself from nice men in Thorncastle, till I told ’em about my five. Well … you couldn’t expect …”

  “What’s wrong at the Alvestons’?”

  “The people as I does for usually treats me as one of the fambly. Takes me into their confidenks, like. That’s ’ow it was at the Alvestons’ till lately. Now she’s started holdin’ back on me, deceivin’ me, that’s what she’s done. Deceived me.”

  Mrs. Pawker took another draught of tea and exhaled loudly to show her approval of it.

  “I’ve known Mary Ann Alveston ever since she come to the village. About fifteen she’d be then. Her dad came as postman from somewheres in Kent, I think. Lame, ’e was, and got about with a stick. Well, for one thing, that’s gone.”

  “What’s gone, Mrs. Pawker?”

  “The stick. It was allus there in the ’all stand. Sort o’ curio. It must ’ave wore down a lot with Bill Trumper usin’ it so much, so he put about three inches o’ lead pipe on the end instead of the ferrule thing, like. A day or two since, it was missin’ from the stand. ‘Where’s yore pore father’s stick? It’s gone,’ I sez to Mrs. Alveston. ‘I’m sure I can’t say,’ sez ’er ladyship, ’igh and mighty. O’course she knew! Else she’d’ave been in a tear about it. She treasured that stick. Reminded ’er of the ole man. But to talk to me and ’old out on me like that! I knew ’er when ’er and ’er dad ’adn’t two ha’pennies to rub together.… But that’s not all.”

  Littlejohn sipped his tea. It was a strong brew, the kind a spoon would almost stand upright in. It left a slightly metallic coating in the mouth and throat.

  “… All them tinned things, too. Durin’ the war when things was so bad to get … and after, too, for that matter … I allus got ’er what I got meself. Sorry for them, I was, with all this rationin’ and queuein’. I laid-in a shelf o’ sardines, tinned beefs, stewed steaks, and the like. Well, they’ve half of ’em gone.…”

  “You don’t say, Mrs. Pawker?”

  “Yes, they ’ave. I allus said to ’er: ‘Be careful o’ those tins,’ I sez. ‘They’s worse times comin’. So keep as many as you can. Wot with this government, and strikes, and whatnots, we’s all starve afore we’ve done. So, you keep them tins.…’”

  “Quite right, too.”

  “Well, a good dozen of ’em’s gone. Corned beef, sardines, tinned mackerel.… And the Snooks left behind. I wouldn’t ’ave minded the Snooks.…”

  “Where have they gone, Mrs. Pawker?”

  “All in good time.…”

  She was enjoying it. She sipped her tea and added to it an even more horrible, standing brew from the teapot. It was as black as ink.

  “More tea? No? Well, as I was sayin’, the tins went and when I asks ‘Whatever’s ’appened to that shelf o’ goods I got you?’ her ladyship up and sez some they’d ate and some must ’ave been took. Took! ’Oo could ’ave took ’em? Me, I expect, or Andy Pennyquick, ’as is allus in and out o’ the Alvestons’ since the murders, or maybe, Mister Granville or the Reverend Smythe.… Took! She give ’em away, and I know ’oo to.”

  The climax was coming! Littlejohn sipped his unholy brew. He had to admit that it perked him up. It acted like a tonic on his nerves, otherwise this long-winded harangue would have …

  “I knew ’oo. She tuck ’em to Alveston herself.”

  “But she’s bedridden.…”

  “Bedridden when it suits ’er. It don’t stop ’er goin’ to see her sister now and then. An’ it don’t stop ’er gettin’ up when nobody’s about and in the dark o’ night, goin’ over to the Hall to give my tinned stuff to that good-for-nothin’ as is hidin’ there from justice. Ever since Alveston come back to the village, she’s been all of a twitter, worryin’ and wonderin’. And then, when ’is vittles give out, she gives ’im my tins … and tells me lies. Deceived me, that’s what she done. So I give notice.…”

  “But how do you know she went to the Hall herself? He may have called for them.”

  “Not ’im. She went. Now as we knows ’oo done for Plucock and Mr. Granville.… Oh, we know; it’s got out.… Now we know as Alveston did it, no wonder ’e daren’t show ’is nose. She went to ’im.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, in the first place, she must ’a gone through the field-path behind ’er cottage to the ’all. That dirtied ’er boots. So she cleaned ’em herself.”

  “Well, what of that?”

  “I allus cleans the boots there, first thing. Includin’ Miss Phyllis’s. Nobody uses the cleanin’ tackle but me. It’s in a wood box. I know when anybody’s bin at that box. I’m a tidy woman. I leaves it all neat; tins, brushes, cloths, all apple-pie, like. Somebody mixed ’em all up. And, it wasn’t Phyllis, becos I asked ’er and she said no, why should she?”

  “I see.…”

  “And that’s not all. Two nights since I went over to the Alvestons’ house with the laundry. Nobody was downstairs, so I thought Miss Phyllis must be out. So I lets myself in with me key. I allus ’ave a key on account of the old lady bein’ in bed. I lets meself in. Missus must be asleep, I thinks. It was so quiet. I just went up quietly to see she’s all right and lo and be’old the bed’s empty! She’s gone out. And ’er with a bad ’eart. Whatever else she’s got or whatever else the doctor sez, ’er heart’s bad. I know it. She’d gone to the ’all with some more tins of mine. That’s what she done. I left the washin’ and off. Next day, I sez nothin’. Neither did me lady. That’s the last straw, I thinks, I’m off. So I gives me notice and tells ’er I got me pride. What do I mean? she sez. You knows very well, I sez, and with that I takes me apron and I leaves there and then.”

  Littlejohn sat very quietly thinking and still sipping his tea.

  “Let me warm up yore tea, sir.…”

  “Eh? No thanks, Mrs. Pawker. That’ll do very nicely. And now, I mustn’t keep you from your work any longer. I’m grateful for the tea and the chat. It’s been very nice.”

  Two nights since. That was the time, according to medical evidence, that Alveston had been killed. And his wife had been up and about.…

  “What time would that be when you called and found Mrs. Alveston out?”

  “I listened to th
e nine o’clock news and then went straight.”

  “Between a quarter and half-past nine, then?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “What does she usually wear when she goes out?”

  “Nearly allus ’as a black dress on an’ a black coat. Very partial to black. Suits ’er melancholy, too, I guess.”

  “And a hat?”

  “A ’at when she goes to her sister’s. But maybe she’d put ’er shawl over ’er head if nobody was seein’ her; it bein’ a bit cold.”

  “What kind of shawl?”

  “Black, knitted, woolly one. Why?”

  “It’s interesting, that’s all.… Good night, Mrs. Pawker, and thank you again.”

  At the “Royal Oak” he met Cromwell and they ate a rather belated meal, exchanging notes and information as they did so.

  “Mrs. Alveston! Up and about and taking food to Alveston! That’s a corker and a lucky thing you called at Pawker’s.”

  “Yes. Probably that’s who Whatmough saw, too. He said a black sort of cassock, didn’t you tell me? And no head. Mrs. Alveston was in black skirts and a shawl, maybe crouching her head in her shoulders on account of the cold. She’d evidently been a time or two and Whatmough must have spotted her.”

  “Yeeees. Maybe. That could account for it.”

  “And the heavy postman’s stick, loaded, to all intents and purposes with a good, solid block of lead piping. The weapon which killed Alveston wasn’t found.”

  “You don’t mean to say …?”

  “Mrs. Alveston? Hardly. I was just playing with theories. We’ve cleared the ground about Plucock, Salter and Barney Faircluff. That leaves us to find the murderer of Alveston. And we’re about as near to that as we were when we started.… Come on. Let’s call on the Pennyquicks. I’ve arranged for Smythe to be there when he gets back from town. He’s out pursuing the lovely Phyllis in Thorncastle at present.…”

  The arrival of the two Scotland Yard men at the police-house relieved the tension. It had been growing all day and now was likely to cause an eruption. Over the Christmas holidays as she watched the comings and goings, the flirtations, and the pairings-off of the young of the village, Mrs. Pennyquick had been seized with maternal apprehension. Four daughters, the eldest twenty-three, the youngest sixteen, and not one of them had yet “got off”. It was high time. Mrs. Pennyquick, knowing there weren’t any better-looking girls in the county than her own, began to question her intelligence and conscience. It was a great worry; almost a family disgrace. In fact, a personal affront to herself by the eligible males of the county. Her husband didn’t agree. There he sat among his daughters, smiling a soft, self-satisfied sort of grin, and they chaffed and waited on him and cheeked him and said he was the only man they loved. And when she mentioned her apprehension to him, he just laughed and said something about their having their heads screwed on right and knowing what they wanted and not being manmad. He sounded proud of it all!