“But he didn’t know who I was. I disguised myself.”
“When he was a boy, he used to like dressing up. He was always a good mimic and actor,” chuckled Sam.
Brodribb groaned. He was sure he was dreaming … a nightmare. That was it! A nightmare. Cigars, which he thought he was pinching unseen … The tale Vincent Pochin had previously told him, quite simply, that he was sure Beharrell had killed Grace … And now, here was Pochin revelling in all the details, boasting even how clever he’d been dressing up as a burglar, probably in whiskers or a mask and a false moustache, and breaking in houses … Yes. A nightmare. He’d wake up in his cosy bed in Peterborough and find it was all a silly dream … He re-lit his stolen cigar and determined to take it easy. His own advice. Take it easy.
“You played hide-and-seek for years trying to get at the safe and open it. But Beharrell always came back too soon. You even spied out the land in Gibbet’s cellar and had an idea of getting in Beharrell’s premises by pulling down the dividing wall.”
Pochin chuckled.
“Yes, I did. It was over a yard thick. No use, that. I got in through the area door again and Beharrell came for me with a revolver. I thought my number was up that time.”
“Finally, the doctor’s mother died. Surely, you thought, this is my chance. He’s bound to stay there for some time with his own mother lying dead and without another relative in the world. But Beharrell knew that watching his strong-room was more important.”
“So much the worse for him.”
“The house was empty. Mrs. Trott away and Macfarlane on his rounds. You made a final desperate attempt. By this time, you were an expert at breaking in Beharrell’s. He daren’t tell the police, for fear of betraying his secret. He had to be his own watchdog.”
“It took me two hours to open the door. It was easy once I’d got a leverage with the crowbar.”
Samuel wasn’t satisfied.
“How did you get in?”
It was like a couple of boys telling tall tales and exciting one another.
“I’d got a key to the back door. I saw to that once when I broke in through the bathroom window and was chased out. I ran down the stairs and through the back door which I unlocked in my flight. There was a key on the inside of the lock. I wasn’t in too big a panic to forget that key might one day be useful. I took it …”
“You entered the back door … What then? … Tell me, Vincent.”
“I found the cellar door locked and no key. I’d either to break it in or … And I suddenly remembered the door at the back of the old wardrobe. I knew of its existence from the old history of Pochin’s Bank. I went up and got to the safe down the stairs. I opened the safe, and … and …”
He couldn’t go on. He paused, horrified.
Littlejohn resumed.
“You found the remains of Grace Beharrell there.”
Brodribb was on his feet pawing the air. This wasn’t a dream! It was horrible reality.
“You mean to say Beharrell murdered Grace!”
As if they hadn’t been telling him that all along!
“My God! I wish he were alive. I’d kill him with my own hands. Or, no … I wouldn’t … I’d denounce him and I’d prosecute him in court. I’d beg to be allowed to do it. I’d drag him through the mud. I’d make him sweat … I’d …”
Brodribb slumped down sweating and panting himself, a broken man at the horrors of his own imagination. His sister murdered … And buried for years in a strong-room in the house across the way. Brodribb got up and walked about in a frenzy again and then, putting his hand in his jacket pocket, he found Beharrell’s cigars. He took them out, tore them into shreds as though tearing Beharrell limb from limb, and cast their hated remnants all over the floor. Plumtree’s eyes stood out like organ stops. He’d never seen anything like this before. The trouble was, that when poor Plumtree told his wife in bed that night, including many dramatic incidents in which he figured and scenes which he dominated, she fell asleep half way through, and he didn’t discover it until he’d got to the end and was waiting for her applause!
Brodribb was disgusted.
“You simply told me that you quarrelled with Beharrell and hit him. Do you call that fair, Pochin? You ought to have told me the full story … I wash my hands of it … But, Grace … I’ll never get over this. It’s a nightmare.”
He sat down again, found he’d still got a cold cigar in his mouth, and flung it across the room.
“I found Grace …”
Pochin was sobbing quietly.
“She hadn’t been buried alive there, had she …? Don’t say she’d been …”
“No. Not that, Brodribb. There was no sign of that.”
“What did you do with her remains? You ought to have let me know … It’s an outrage.”
Littlejohn interrupted quickly.
“Let us get on … You found the remains … Then, Beharrell came back … You killed him with your crowbar.”
“I didn’t … I didn’t … I didn’t kill him … I came up to the bedroom, found a sheet, returned, and wrapped poor Grace’s remains in it. As I reached the top of the secret stairs to take them away, Beharrell appeared at the door of the bedroom. He was mad with fury. Like one possessed. He didn’t even pause … He flew at me as soon as he saw me. All I’d thought about was disposing of the poor bones of Grace decently. I didn’t even think at the time of Beharrell or killing him. But I wasn’t having any interference.”
Pochin gulped.
“I was never any use at violence, but I was always afraid of someone doing me injury. So, when I was younger, I took a course of ju-jitsu with a Jap, who lived in Caldicott.”
“Oh, yes. The man who used to test the sex of chickens.”
Sam Pochin was almost as simple as his brother. He couldn’t stop explaining every detail left half done. Cromwell shrugged his shoulders at Littlejohn. He gave it up!
“That was the man, Sam. You remember him. He taught me. Beharrell went for me. I pushed him back and he staggered towards his dressing-table. I thought he was going to a drawer for a revolver. I remembered a trick the chicken man taught me. I gave Beharrell two chops with the side of my hand at the top of the spine. He fell like a log.”
“And you slugged him with the crowbar!”
Everybody jumped. It was Plumtree putting in his motto. He couldn’t wait for the tale to go on.
“No. I didn’t. I left him there. All I wanted was to give dear Grace a proper resting-place and leave her in peace. I left Beharrell unconscious on the bedroom floor. I didn’t care …”
This was just what Canon Horninglow had seen from the tower! No more and no less.
“I didn’t care about Beharrell. Blast him! I’m glad someone else came and murdered him, just as he’d done to poor Grace …”
Brodribb was up again.
“What did you do with the remains, Pochin? Tell me at once. I hope you didn’t put them in the well again … Because, if …”
“Of course I didn’t, you fool. I took them to our family vault. That’s where she would eventually have rested if she’d only listened to me and not chosen Beharrell instead. I read her the burial service and then I laid what remained of her in a vacant casket and left her there.”
“You’d no right to, Pochin. You should have informed me. I’m the one to decide what to do with the remains of my family.”
It was more than Plumtree could bear. A lump had risen to the good sergeant’s throat at the thought of poor old Pochin who’d never married because of unrequited love of a lady, and who’d avenged her at last and laid her decently to rest. It reminded him of the gruesome novels he used to read when a boy. And now, here was Brodribb spoiling it all.
“Oh, shut up!” he cried, thrusting his face in that of the Q.C. “Shut up. You spoil everythin’, you do. If you don’t shut up, I’ll lock you up … S’welp me, I will …”
He paused, suddenly realising what he’d said and done. Brodribb couldn’t believe his
ears. A mere bobby, now, giving him cheek! Yes, it was a nightmare.
Outside, a dog was howling in the square and in the constables’ room there was a commotion going on. A knock on the door of the private-room and Hubbard’s head appeared.
“Excuse me, sergeant … Hope at the Red Lion’s got the D.T’s., and he’s set the place on fire.”
Smoke started to pour past the windows of the police station.
13
JIMMY-IN-THE-WELL
THE interlude created by George Hope was soon over. Littlejohn, leaving Vincent Pochin in the charge of Cromwell and his brother, hurried with Plumtree to the Red Lion, to find peace and quiet restored there. Hope, it seemed, had been drinking heavily and had finally climbed to his own bedroom with a bottle of whisky, locked the door, and made himself violently drunk. Then he’d started to smash up the furniture. Not content with that, he had tried to light a cigarette and had set fire to the curtains. His wife had found a duplicate key for the door, and enlisted the help of two customers and Doctor Macfarlane. Now, order prevailed and Hope was sleeping under a sedative.
“’ope ’as somethin’ on his mind these days,” was Plumtree’s sage opinion, as the pair of them returned to the police station.
Littlejohn did not reply. He was thinking of the distraught state of Claudine Hope and the desperate, fearful look she had given him when he arrived at the hotel after the commotion was over.
“I’d like to see you some time soon,” he had said to the doctor, who was busy packing his bag.
“How about after surgery tonight? Say nine o’clock. I’ll be in, sir.”
“That will suit me, doctor.”
Dusk was falling and the square was empty. The air was fresh after the storm and the scent of the battered wallflowers was pleasant. The place seemed too peaceful to harbour in its gaunt old grey houses so many passions and emotional cross-currents.
At the police station, things were just as Littlejohn had left them. Cromwell was smiling slightly to himself, from which Littlejohn guessed the remaining three men had either been quarrelling among themselves or trying to bully him. The reason became manifest right away.
Brodribb, looking like a turkey cock, met Littlejohn almost head-on.
“Look here … How much longer is this going on? I’ve got to get home. I can’t be wasting my time here like this.”
“You can go as soon as you like, sir.”
“But you said you hadn’t finished with me.”
“I’ve changed my mind, sir. You can go if you wish. I’ll get in touch with you if I need you again.”
Brodribb was speechless for a minute.
“You’ll not hear the last of this. I’m going right away, but I’ll see to it that your impertinence isn’t overlooked. I’ve friends at the Home Office … Where’s my hat and coat … Oh, damn it! I’ve left them at Beharrell’s.”
“May we go, too, Superintendent?”
Samuel Pochin was acting as spokesman for his brother, who now seemed thoroughly dazed. But Brodribb was going to make a proper exit, instead of creeping away.
“You’d better come with me, Pochin. Both of you. The police can’t hold you.”
“All the same, sir, I haven’t quite finished with them.”
“I’m going across to Bank House and I’ll wait ten minutes for them there. If they haven’t appeared by then, I shall ring up the Chief Constable at once.”
He stalked out and slammed the door and that was the last of Brodribb. He felt the need of some more of Beharrell’s old brandy and made straight for the bottle when he reached Bank House.
“You wanted us? Are there any more questions?”
Sam Pochin seemed embarrassed by his brother’s account of his tussle with Beharrell. He thought it best to ingratiate himself with the police for Vincent’s sake.
“Why did you try to run away after you’d told Mr. Brodribb the story of your encounter with Beharrell, Mr. Vincent?”
“Eh?”
Sam took up the tale.
“He’s not himself. I can answer that. We were afraid if you came and questioned my brother, you would arrest him on suspicion. Brodribb had advised him that the truth must be told, but Brodribb said my brother had better go home before you arrived and he would tell you everything and fix matters up.”
“But why didn’t Mr. Vincent stay and make a clean breast of it all? Why run away and hope that Brodribb would somehow persuade me to leave your brother in peace?”
“It’s our mother, you see. She and Vincent and I live together. She is over eighty … Eighty-four, to be exact, and anything like this … I mean, if she got to know that Vincent had been arrested, or even of his share in the Beharrell tragedy … Well … It would kill her. Her heart …”
Vincent Pochin seemed to wake up.
“I couldn’t have mother upset by all this, Littlejohn.”
He said it defiantly as though he proposed to resist arrest at all costs. He looked like a barnyard cock getting ready to crow.
Littlejohn filled his pipe and lit it.
“Very well. You may both go, for the present. But I shall hold you responsible for your brother’s behaviour, Mr. Samuel. No more running away … Nothing stupid … You understand?”
“I promise, Littlejohn, and I’m grateful.”
Vincent drew himself up to his full height.
“You have my word.”
“I think I ought to tell you both that the scene between you, Mr. Vincent, and Dr. Beharrell was witnessed by Canon Horninglow from the scaffolding around the clock.”
“Ha!”
Littlejohn looked Vincent Pochin in the eyes.
“What is the meaning of that?”
The two brothers looked at each other questioningly.
“You’d better tell the Superintendent, Vincent.”
“Very well … No use withholding anything more. The canon, although I’m a warden of his church, hates me. I suppose he told the police right away.”
“No. He sent anonymous letters to me, to Plumtree here, and to the Chief Constable of the Soke.”
“He would. Didn’t want to get himself involved, but couldn’t resist getting one in at me.”
“Why does he bear you a grudge?”
“It’s more than a grudge. I was once engaged to his daughter, Lydia. It was after Grace married Beharrell. When war broke out, Lydia insisted on ‘doing her bit’ as she called it. She joined the W.R.A.F. We were going to be married when it was convenient. I admit, I was in no hurry. Once engaged, she began to order me around. She was a masterful woman.”
Sam Pochin coughed.
“Never mind that, Vincent.”
“Very well. I’ll make it brief. She joined the W.R.A.F. and at camp met some young blood and fell for him. She must have fancied he meant marriage and stopped thinking of me. She soon found there was a child on the way … And then the fellow turned out to be married. Her father was distracted. Tried to persuade me to go on with the marriage and, after the child had been born, to get it adopted in some distant place and carry on as though nothing had happened. It didn’t suit me that way. I helped them all I could. What else could I do? I was sorry for the old chap. Lydia went away and the baby was born. I found it a home through a friend who’s interested in adoption societies. But there the matter ended. I said I couldn’t go on with the engagement after that. Lydia and the old man took it badly. They must hate me past all telling. But you couldn’t blame me, could you?”
Nobody answered the question. Pochin sounded so self-righteous and cold-blooded about it. None of them, not even Sam, had any sympathy to spare.
“So that’s probably why they told the police about the matter.”
“What did you expect them to do, sir? Hush it up?”
“Not exactly. The canon did it for spite, and not only that, he wrote to one of the best detectives in the country at Scotland Yard. He wasn’t taking any chances of my not being found out, was he? Did he mention my name?”
&nbs
p; “No. But I found out that he wrote the notes and I insisted on a full story. He didn’t wish to give your name.”
“So he said. He wanted you to do all the work and no blame to attach to him.”
“That will be all, sir. You can both go.”
“Eh?”
“I said you may both go.”
“Oh …”
The two brothers left without more ado, Sam solicitously helping Vincent out, just as he’d always done since they were children.
“I’ll look after him, Littlejohn.”
“By the way, the Coroner will be informed about the remains of Mrs. Beharrell, which your brother placed in your family vault.”
“Very well. Shillinglaw is our brother-in-law. He will attend to everything.”
The door closed.
Plumtree coughed.
“Will there be anythin’ more, sir, for now?”
“Yes. You might please advise the Coroner and the police surgeon at once about Mrs. Beharrell’s remains. I want to know the cause of death if that is possible, after the body, or whatever is left of it, has been identified.”
“Very good, sir. If I may say so, too, it’s after your dinner time, sir. Whatever happens at the Red Lion, Mrs. ’ope always sees her guests is well fed.”
Plumtree was right. They put on a good meal for the few guests at the Red Lion. Mrs. Hope was, however, nowhere to be seen. She was, presumably, engaged in the kitchen and in looking after her unruly husband. They were served by a smiling flat-chested waitress, one of the ageless types who work in remote country hotels, who took a fancy to Cromwell.
“Don’t have the steak-pie. It’s the remains of yesterday’s joint. The mutton’s good … And there’s a bit of nice Stilton, too. We keep it for special customers who know a good cheese when they taste one. I’ll get it.”
Death Sends for the Doctor (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Page 15
