The Case of the Headless Jesuit

by George Bellairs

  They all parted very quietly and, on the way to the inn, Cromwell voiced Littlejohn’s own thoughts.

  “Miss Fothergill?”

  “Yes. She must have seen him hangin’ around Mrs. Alveston’s and, maybe, carrying off food. So, to make believe Mrs. Alveston wasn’t shielding him and in case we came across the tinned food and such and brought it home to the old lady, she concocted the tale about Polly Duckett.”

  “That would fill the bill. Yes.”

  “But why did she kill Alveston? Why didn’t she leave him to us? Surely, she must have known we’d get him and save her all the trouble.”

  “She must have had her doubts and feared he’d get away. Wait a minute.… My questions made her take out her brother’s papers … his diary and notes … and read them through. They must have contained an account of Miss Margaret’s tragedy and how the doctor had loved her and how Alveston had beaten him up in the dark and caused his early death from the shock. Then, she saw red, went to the Hall, waited for him and killed him.”

  “How can we confirm that, though?”

  “To-morrow.… Leave it till to-morrow. We’ll find a way.”

  Littlejohn was unwelcome when he called at “Fothergills” early next morning. Felicity Grimes, Miss Fothergill’s maid, had all her boxes packed ready for a holiday at home in Dorset and had little time for talk.

  “My train’s due in half an hour,” she said.

  “I’ll give you a lift to the station,” said Littlejohn. “But I must insist on a word with you.”

  “Well, be quick, then.”

  “What does Miss Fothergill usually do at nights, Felicity?”

  “What’s that to do with you? I ain’t one to talk behind the back o’ my mistress.”

  “You’d better, please, or else there’ll be no train today. I’ll have to take you to Thorncastle police station for questioning.”

  “Oh dear.… And my father’ll be at Dorchester to meet-in my train. What do you want to know?”

  Littlejohn told Felicity the day and the hour of Alveston’s death, without however, mentioning the events.

  “I don’t recollect.…”

  “Think again.… You’ve only ten minutes more and then we’ll have to be off, either to Dorchester or Thorncastle.”

  “She went to Mrs. Alveston’s. I remember now.”

  “How do you remember, Felicity?”

  The girl blushed and looked awkward.

  “Have you got a boy friend, Felicity?”

  “What of it? I can’t ’ave him in when the mistress is at home. So, I go and stand with ’im at the back fence on his night off. Keep poppin’ in the kitchen to see all’s right and I’m not wanted. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  “No. He must be very fond of you to do his courting that way.”

  “Oh, I get Saturday or Sunday every week, as well. We do it proper then.”

  “Oh, do you? And on the night I mentioned, you had the house to yourself and invited him in the kitchen?”

  “Yes. I’d made a pie.”

  “Supper, too. Well, well.… But how did you know Miss Fothergill had gone to Mrs. Alveston’s?”

  “Dennis saw her goin’ up the garden at their house. That’s why I let ’im in. I knew they’d be at it for a bit. They were friends and liked a chat.”

  “Who is this Dennis?”

  “Dennis Pratt.… He works at the village branch of the Thorncastle Co-op. Learnin’ to be a grocer, he is. Goes to night-school, too.”

  “Did Miss Fothergill go often to Mrs. Alveston’s?”

  “On and off. She went three times that week. Told me where she was off the first time. Second time, she let out where she’d been. Third time, Dennis saw her.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Stayin’ in London with friends to give a concert. Must be plannin’ a long stay. Took her trunk this time. Never known her do that before. And told me to sheet the furniture. Most unusual, that.…”

  “Well, come along, Felicity, I’ll put your bags in the car and run you all the way to Thorncastle. I’m going there myself.”

  “Oo.… That’ll be lovely. Mind if we just stop at the Co-op on the way? Then I can tell Dennis another good-bye for the present.”

  They halted at the grocer’s and there, Dennis, in his long white apron, jealously eyed Littlejohn for driving his girl about in a nice little police car.

  “I don’t like it …” he told Felicity, who smiled, woman-like, but said nothing.

  Dennis was a tall, loose-limbed lad with a highly polished, ruddy face, a calf-lick of hair and a pencil behind his ear. His boss, who was a tartar, eyed him malevolently from behind a stack of breakfast cereals and pots of plum jam.

  “Yes. Saw ’er with my own eyes going in Alveston’s. Didn’t go right in, as far as I could see. Sort of sneaked along by the bushes. Not that I was concerned much. I thought it a grand chance for Fel. to get a free ’alf-hour. So I nipped along and rang the door-bell. O.K.?”

  “Yes, that’s all, Dennis, thanks.”

  “O.K. Well, so long, Fel. Beseeinyer. Send us a post-card. O.K.? And don’t forget what I told yer. I’m not foolin’. O.K.?”

  “O.K.,” answered Felicity, and with such terms of endearment, they parted. The head grocer thereupon emerged and, as the car gathered speed, Littlejohn, through the driving-mirror, could see him ticking-off his apprentice.

  “Dennis is that jealous,” said Felicity, eyeing the car with envy. She snuggled down comfortably for the short journey and left Cobbold and the grocer’s assistant for ever.

  At Thorncastle Percival gave Littlejohn a cordial greeting.

  “I’m glad to see you. I got your reports, but I’m glad of a talk. Getting any forrader?”

  “Do you know Miss Fothergill, who has a house of the same name at Cobbold?”

  “Yes. Knew her brother, too. Used to be village doctor.”

  “That’s the one. She’s gone to London to give a concert. Left no address. Can you send out a message to ports and airports? She’s not to leave the country, yet.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “I’m afraid she caught up with Alveston before us and killed him.”

  “No!”

  “Everything points that way.”

  Percival got busy.

  Meanwhile Littlejohn, by a sudden inspiration, rang up his wife in Hampstead.

  “Do you happen to know any exponents of something called the twelve-note scale, Letty?”

  “Good gracious! You’re not thinking of taking that up, Tom?”

  “No. I want to know if a Miss Fothergill’s given any recitals in London lately and, if so, where she’s to be found.”

  “Tall order. All the same, I know Mrs. Askew, in the next block, pretends to be keen. I’ll ask her. She’ll know, maybe. I’ll ring you back.”

  “Briefly, it amounts to this, Superintendent,” said Littlejohn to Percival later, when, visiting the police canteen, they sat together over pints of beer. “Alveston, abroad in the dark at New Year, presumably foraging for food, stumbled across Granville Salter taking a walk. Alveston was in the village, bleeding his wife of money with which he hoped to leave the country. He had been wanted in the past for embezzling Salter funds when he was bailiff. He was hiding out at the Hall in a priest’s hole he knew. Whilst he was there, he was surprised by Plucock, who had been told by the village parson in a burst of alcoholic confidence—he’d drunk too much rhubarb wine by mistake!—of the Salter Treasure. Poor Plucock couldn’t get the idea of getting rich quick out of his head and was always ferreting around the Hall. He and Alveston came to blows, Alveston somehow got Plucock’s truncheon, knocked him out, and threw him in the dyke, where he drowned.”

  “So that was it. Poor Plucock.…”

  A number of officers off duty began to play snooker rather self-consciously with one eye on their chief and the big man from Scotland Yard. They wondered what was on!

  “Salter had also been round the Hall treasur
e-hunting as a pastime and found Alveston’s hideout. Alveston was away, but Salter found the truncheon. When he met Alveston he accused him and got a knife in his heart for his pains.”

  “This made it more than ever necessary for Alveston to keep absolutely hidden. He got word to his wife and told her to bring him food. She was doing that, followed by the Rev. Smythe, who’s an interest in her as the mother of Phyllis. He’s keen on the girl. She was doing that, as I said, for the last time when she and the parson found Alveston dead. He’d previously come across Barney and killed him, too, to save being caught. Barney must have found him on the prowl. Meanwhile, Miss Fothergill, who was a frequent visitor at Mrs. Alveston’s, discovered that the old lady was taking food to the Hall. She suspected why and, to shield Mrs. Alveston in case we found the food, concocted a tale about Alveston’s bullying a so-called half-crazy girl who runs a little shop, to keep him in chocolate and tinned goods. In my first interview with Miss Fothergill, I persuaded her to examine her late brother’s diary for records of the Salter family. He was their doctor. This she did and, I deduce, discovered his love affair. He loved Margaret Salter, aunt of Granville, and mother of Phyllis Alveston. Alveston himself was the father of the illegitimate child.”

  “Well, I’m blessed!!”

  The shots of the snooker players snapped and clicked as they strode round and round the table and recorded their scores on the marker.

  “Good shot, Reg!”

  “Yes. There was a quarrel between Alveston and the doctor about it. Alveston after getting a thrashing by Fothergill, waylaid him in the dark and half-killed the doctor. Fothergill never recovered and died not long after from shock. Miss Fothergill was passionately fond of her brother and, coming across this account for the first time, must have gone half mad. Incensed by the murders and knowing from me we’d traced Alveston to the Hall, she waited until Mrs. Alveston was due to leave with fresh supplies for her husband and, hurrying ahead, found him waiting. There’s a tool-shed behind the house where Miss Fothergill has a plentiful supply of hammers and crowbars. No doubt she armed herself.

  “Well?”

  “A warrant, I think. I hope we find her, though she’s had long enough in which to escape. Her house is all shut up and the goods sheeted and she’s taken away a large trunk of belongings. I wonder if she’s managed to give us the slip.…”

  An officer hurried in and saluted.

  “Inspector Littlejohn wanted on the telephone. Mrs. Littlejohn.”

  Letty had rung up Mrs. Askew.

  “She says Miss Fothergill gave a recital two days ago with Bruno Auerhahn at the piano. She was there. They’ve left for a Continental tour together. Caught the channel boat yesterday. There was a sort of reception after the concert and Miss Fothergill said they were going abroad.…”

  “Too bad!!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “She’s given us the slip after all.”

  NINETEEN

  THE RELUCTANT FUGITIVE

  A FINAL visit to Mrs. Alveston finally clinched Littlejohn’s case against Miss Fothergill. He disliked calling on and questioning the invalid woman. She seemed to have been the focus of all the trouble in the place and that, involved as it was with the infidelities of her husband, his crimes, and his final death, had, thought the Inspector, been a large enough burden to bear without a lot of police questioning. All the same …

  “You were a friend of Miss Fothergill, I believe,” he said to Mrs. Alveston on his last visit.

  She was sitting up in an arm-chair. They had managed to obtain another daily help, but she needed watching, having shown a tendency to hide the dust of her labours under the carpets instead of in the bin and to satisfy a voracious appetite by trips to the pantry when nobody was looking, to say nothing of a search for liquid refreshments such as tea, wet or dry, and brandy. So, Mrs. Alveston was keeping an eye on her.

  “Yes. I’ve known her since she was young, sir, She was in the village when I come ’ere with my father, nearly fifty years since. She’s been very good to me while I’ve been in ill ’ealth.”

  “She called often?”

  “Two or three times a week.”

  “You confided in her much?”

  “Well, yes, sir. I’ve few friends and such as they are, aren’t very sympathetic. They often as not talked about pullin’ myself together and forgettin’ my troubles.… As if I could, with my ’usband gone and me that bad.…”

  “She was sympathetic, eh?”

  “Very. And with ’er knowin’ me as a girl, as you might say, I felt I could talk to ’er. Bein’ a class above us, she never got spiteful or jealous.”

  “You told her all about your husband and how unhappy he’d made you?”

  “Why … yes. How did you know?”

  “Just guessed it. Did she know you were taking food to the Hall and that he was hiding there, Mrs. Alveston?”

  “Yes. I told her. She could be trusted, you know. She’d never tell.”

  “No, I don’t suppose she would.”

  “What did she think of your husband?”

  “Not much. Blamed ’im for what he did to me. But I wouldn’t let ’er say ill of him. After all, I bore ’is name.”

  “She called here the week of the crimes?”

  “Yes.… What is it you’re wantin’ to know, sir?”

  “Just what she was doing on the nights of that week. I’m checking on all the prominent people who might have had to do with Salter and your late husband.”

  “She was here three nights.…”

  “Three!”

  “Yes. The night Alveston was killed she was in to see me. Early it was. She offered to take the stuff to the Hall for me. I said ‘No’. It was my own business, him bein’ my ’usband, however bad he treated me. I wasn’t havin’ anybody else getting theirselves in trouble on his account. I told ’er so.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Looked queer and said, if that was the way I wanted it …”

  “Had she many friends in the village?”

  “No. Once she was friendly with all the county folk, but of late kept herself to herself. I’d think I was about the only one she visited ’ere and stayed with any while.”

  “Have you seen her since your husband died?”

  “Funny enough, no. She’s in London, I hear. Mr. Smythe did tell me he went to ’er for help after I’d passed-out when he brought me from the ’all the night we found Alveston. But she was out.…”

  There was little else for it, but to put in motion the machinery of the law, hunt down Miss Fothergill and question her. In Littlejohn’s pocket was the warrant for her arrest and he was ready to put it into effect, if he could find her. If …

  Miss Fothergill had told her friends that she and her violinist friend, Auerhahn, were crossing to the Continent by boat. Actually, they had booked seats on the Paris ’plane. Thence, Auerhahn would see her off to wherever she wanted to go.

  But Miss Fothergill was a reluctant fugitive. Nearing seventy you don’t want to be chasing all over the earth out of the way of the police. True, she had a friend in an ideal spot. Pablo Besso, the artist and specialist in Inca work, lived in Lima, but who wanted to end one’s days in Peru, with Pablo, who, whilst admiring Miss Fothergill immensely, was a bit of a cad and a shocking bore? Still, one might try it and end up with a final adventure.

  When Miss Fothergill confided to Auerhahn that she wished to see Pablo Besso, maybe for the last time, he was not greatly astonished. She was always up to something funny and this was simply her latest. Then his eyes lit up. He offered to take her to Paris and see her off thence, via Lisbon to South America by ’plane. She said she wanted peace and a long rest. They agreed to tell nobody of her ultimate destination. They gave it out that they were off to Paris by boat and booked tickets on the ’plane. Miss Fothergill thought she could trust Bruno Auerhahn.…

  There was, of course, the problem of money. They only allowed you a few paltry pounds. That was no us
e when you were off abroad for good. So, Miss Fothergill, who had contacts with strange people, many of them twelve-note addicts, bought diamonds, placed them in a large fancy green bottle, with a glass stopper, poured smelling-salt liquor over them and passed them off as the real thing, carried in her handbag. Enough to keep her going for a while.…

  Auerhahn, small, bald, dapper and with the look of a rather elderly dirty dog, carefully explained the currency regulations to his travelling companion.

  “Maybe, I can do something for you in Paris.… You pay me here and I have friends there who’ll see you right.”

  Miss Fothergill hesitated and then decided against it.

  “Pablo will see to all that.…”

  And there the matter was dropped.

  At the airport, the control-of-currency officer took one look at Bruno and nodded to a companion. They led Auerhahn off to be searched. News of his Paris associations had reached them. He was suspected of smuggling out currency. But they found nothing. They turned to his companion.…

  Miss Fothergill had a lot of music with her. They found it copiously interleaved with five-pound notes. Just a paltry three hundred pounds, but that was quite enough. She was dumbfounded.…

  “Bruno!” she said, and the look Auerhahn gave her was sufficient. She smote him hard on the bald head with her umbrella and they took him away for first-aid. During the search, Miss Fothergill had been watching her companion. She thought hard and came to many decisions when his perfidy came to light. One of them she put into effect at once.… When they got Bruno to the dressing station, he was still dazedly sniffing at some smelling salts which somehow had found their way into his hand. The customs officer who was keeping an eye on him casually impounded the green bottle and that eventually put Auerhahn out of circulation for some time.

  The police half-believed Miss Fothergill’s story. She was granted bail. As she left the court, news was passing to and fro that she must be stopped from leaving the country. Miss Fothergill didn’t want to leave. At her age it was a gamble.… And now, she felt twenty years older. In fact, finished! She bought a writingpad, envelopes and a pencil. All her luggage was gone and she’d just twenty pounds left in the world. She sat down in St. James’s Park and watched the ducks on the pond for a while. They seemed just the same, unperturbed and ageless as in days gone by. Uncle George had once brought her there in a hansom cab and they’d broken bread and thrown it to the birds. A woman nearby had watched hungrily as they did it. Miss Fothergill had been too young then to realize the wretch was starving. A tall gentleman had strolled past, too, and Uncle George had said, “That’s Mr. Balfour, Madeline.…” Madeline.… Nobody had called her that for twenty years.… Even her cronies of the musical circles called her Miss Fothergill, or sometimes, familiarly, “Fothy”. A little girl and a very old man toddled past and began to call and feed the ducks. The sun went in behind a cloud and it grew cold. Miss Fothergill wrote swiftly in a large, characteristic hand.… She sealed the letter, walked slowly to the embankment, taking in the old landmarks, despising the new, thinking how one by one the former things had gone and left her alone. The crowds bustled past, jostled her, made no apologies. It felt terribly cold.… The leafless trees of Parliament Square shook in the breeze; Big Ben struck three quarters.