'Was the house burgled?'
'No. I asked her when and by whom she thought the letters were taken. She told me quite plainly that she thought either Bottomley or Walmer of the Bishop's Arms had stolen them. It seems she, too, had a collection of china figures, as well as one or two Toby jugs. Walmer must have heard of this and called to ask if he might see them. She showed them to him. He offered to buy them. She said she had grown tired of washing and caring for a lot of her china and had already decided to offer some of it for sale. Walmer bought several of the jugs. There were some Chelsea figures there, too. Walmer mentioned that he had a friend interested in buying fine china figures. Could he bring him along. That's how Bottomley entered the affair.'
'They rifled the escritoire!'
'As you so melodramatically put it, Littlejohn, they did. They called as she was writing at the desk, with the keys in the drawer containing the letters I've mentioned. She left the room to get a figure from upstairs. Bottomley bought several figures. After they'd gone, she locked the desk, but before doing so, opened the drawer. The letters were missing. As she asked me, what could she do? If she told the police, the whole affair might have come out. She'd nobody to confide in, and she didn't think of me, as she said, with an apology for not remembering me. She didn't wish to worry Croake. She decided to wait and see what happened. Nothing did. As far as she was concerned, that is. Instead, the blackmailers turned to John Charles Croake. You can guess why. As you told me, Bottomley hated Croake and wanted to make him squirm. Here was his chance. It was full of delightful possibilities for him. He held letters about the infidelity of Mrs. Foster-Leneve, about John Charles's illegitimate son, about the paternity of Joseph Croake, and a chance to cause even greater distress by insisting on payment in china figures from the famous Croake collection. These, sold in the right places, would have made him rich indeed. No wonder he chose Croake instead of Margaret! '
'Were Croake and Mrs. Foster-Leneve still friendly?'
'More than that. Their once passionate liason, after their mistake, developed into a kind of idyllic loving friendship. They never wrote to one another, she told me. They sometimes met at public functions. They spoke to each other over the telephone now and then. They must have obtained some kind of mental comfort from their harmless relationship. He for his perpetual celibacy; she for her unhappy marriage with a roue who cared for nothing but her money.'
'Did she never tell her husband about the love affair in the past and its results.'
'No. She felt he would only use the information to his advantage and felt justified to a certain extent in keeping secrecy, in view of his own immoral life. She was very distressed about the whole matter when it came to confiding in me. But, as I had told her, by being quite frank about it all, she could perhaps help you to run to earth the murderer of her best friend – I call him that out of charity – and she agreed to my telling you, also relying on your discretion.'
'I suppose the blackmailers threatened to tell Foster-Leneve the whole story and John Charles paid up to avoid distress to Margaret.'
'I suppose they did.'
'And he suffered all of it for her sake. No use asking why he didn't go to the police. They never do.'
'They never do, because, regarded objectively, as the police are in the habit of doing in such matters, it would have been just another case, just another opportunity to help someone out of a dilemma. But regarded subjectively, as the victim must do, the threat becomes a nightmare which blackens the whole of existence and makes them unable to think rightly.'
'The great question now is, what happened to cause the death of John Charles Croake?'
'My guess is that he turned on his tormentors. He got a chance to do so and they struck him down.'
'What chance, sir?'
'A week before Croake's death, Peter Foster-Leneve was in Bone, Algeria, consulting with a Moslem expert on a matter of some desert ruins in which they were interested. As they left the museum they were shot down by gunmen. Foster-Leneve was dead when Croake next met his extortioners. The letters had lost their value. He turned upon his tormentors, and they executed him.'
16
The Elder Brother
AFTER LUNCH, they met Mrs. Littlejohn, who'd been giving a talk to a Women's Institute, and set off again to Ballacroake.
It was far too nice to be working on a murder case. Littlejohn told his companions as much and they both agreed. All they felt like doing was sitting in the car and quietly admiring the magnificent views of the distant hills and the blue sea with waves lapping against the rocky coast.
As they approached Ballacroake by the long drive from the road, Littlejohn noticing again the old, settled, timeless look of the great house, felt that it would have been far better approached in one of those patient old country horse-traps which seem to make time spin out. At last, they reached the gate to the courtyard and then drove in. The sun was shining full on the white front of the mansion, there was nobody about, and the noise made by the car seemed magnified in the silence and caused the birds in the rookery behind the house to launch themselves, cawing, from the trees, and then, after a disorderly flight, to perch back again over their untidy nests.
Across the valley from the house, the sunny mass of the Manx hills rose steeply. The high peaks were coloured in the purple of the heather and the brown of the sun-baked bracken. To the left, the flat lands to the Point of Ayre and the mass of the Mull of Galloway across the water, looked like scenes painted on a back-cloth.
Nessie answered the bell and stepped aside to let them enter. The house was quiet, as though itself listening for something. Nessie showed them in the sitting-room which, in its spaciousness and contents, looked more like a French salon than the parlour of a country house.
'It's quiet, Nessie. Is there anyone at home?'
'Mr. Ewan, Archdeacon. Mr. Reuben and Mr. Joseph have gone to Ramsey. Juan's somewhere about the place. He's been very quiet since the funerals.'
Nessie looked pale and quiet, too, and was more taciturn in her manner. As though tragedy were hanging over Ballacroake still. She had little to say and, after asking them to be seated, went to find Ewan Croake.
He came right away, running almost soundlessly down the long staircase. His thick white hair was dishevelled and his face was paler and the eyes heavily ringed with dark circles.
'We've brought Mrs. Littlejohn again, this time to see the collection of Dresden figures. Could we leave her with Nessie and have a talk with you?'
Ewan looked at the Archdeacon blankly, as though he might have addressed him in a foreign language which he didn't understand. Then suddenly he seemed himself again.
'I'm sorry, Caesar. How are you all? Talk, did you say? Come upstairs to my room. We'll be quiet there.'
He called to Nessie, told her to make Mrs. Littlejohn welcome, and, after that, get ready some tea.
Ewan Croake's study upstairs faced the south and the Manx hills in front of the house. It was a large room with an Adam fireplace on each side of which books were ranged on shelves from floor to ceiling. There was a large mahogany desk under the window, a four-poster bed in an alcove, water-colours of Manx scenes on the rest of the walls, two tallboys and a huge Georgian wardrobe. Croake motioned to two easy chairs and himself sat in an armchair with his back to the desk.
'What is it, Caesar?'
He said it in a weary voice, as though at the end of his tether with other people's worries and his own. He put on a pair of large gold-rimmed spectacles, the better to see what was going on, and this removed the peering look he had when without them.
'I'd like you to hear a first-hand account from Littlejohn of what he has discovered about your brother's death. I've no doubt that some of it isn't new to you. I'm sure it's on your conscience, Ewan. You have been withholding information from the police, which might have resulted in a young man being convicted of a murder he didn't commit . . .'
'What are you talking about, Caesar?'
But he k
new. He looked afraid in spite of his efforts to remain calm.
'Tell him, Littlejohn.'
'How many people know, Mr. Croake, that your nephew Joseph was the son, not of your brother Edward, but of the late Mr. John?'
No use denying it. Ewan Croake saw that. He paused for a minute, wondering whether to refute it and then took off his glasses.
'As far as I know, nobody but John Charles, my late sister, myself, the child's mother, my brother Edward and his wife, and Clucas Kallen, who drew up a settlement and arranged the adoption.'
'Did Joseph know?'
'He did not and still doesn't and I'd be grateful if, now that you've found out in some way, you'd respect the secret. Had Joseph been a stable, dependable man, we'd have told him long ago. As it is, he's wilful enough to use the information for his own purposes. He has been a great trouble to the family, without giving him reason for being a bigger nuisance. What of it all?'
'The secret got out, however. It seems your late brother, John, exchanged letters which must have contained all the information about the birth, parentage, and adoption of Joseph, with his mother. Those letters were stolen from a drawer in Mrs. Foster-Leneve's desk and used to blackmail Mr. John. . . .'
Ewan's face slowly turned livid with rage and he stood up and towered over Littlejohn.
'Why wasn't I told the full tale before? I'd an idea that something was wrong and that John and Bridget were up to something before they died. If you knew what it was, you should have told me. I'd a right to know.'
'Please sit down, Mr. Croake, and let's talk calmly about this. I've only just found out what was happening.'
'How have you found out?'
'I'll tell you later. The urgent matter is, exactly how much you know of what your brother John Charles did to cause his own death.'
'I don't know anything. You must believe me. I don't know.'
'Let me tell you how far we've gone, then. We know that years ago, during the absence of Mrs. Foster-Leneve's husband on a prolonged trip abroad, there was a love affair between her and your brother. A child was born and adopted by Dr. Edward Croake and his wife. The whole matter was hushed-up and kept a profound secret, I presume to avoid a scandal which would have dealt hard with your family.'
'That is true. It had to be handled cautiously, discreetly, otherwise we'd never have held our heads high on the Island again. Also, it would perhaps have involved my brother and Margaret in divorce proceedings. She is not the kind to tolerate divorce in any circumstances, but a scoundrel like Foster-Leneve would have made capital out of it and squeezed every drop of advantage from it. John Charles, at the time, did wish to go on with the divorce. He always loved Margaret and wouldn't have any other woman. She refused. We all found it difficult to prevent John Charles from acting unwisely. However . . .'
'The letters appear to have been stolen by one of two men, or perhaps both of them. One was Walmer; the other Bottomley.'
'So that was it! Is that why he began to frequent Walmer's low public-house in Douglas?'
'It's hardly low, but not the place you'd expect to find your brother drinking in.'
'He was a total abstainer. . . .'
'For goodness sake, Ewan, don't be so pompous! This is a matter of murder, not of offending the tastes of Methodist trustees. John Charles did drink lemonade when he was at the Bishop's Arms. He never, from all accounts, got drunk. It might have done him good if he had, now and then. He might have mustered strength to tell those two rascals to do their worst. As it is, he's dead and he wasn't murdered by a teddy-boy.'
Ewan took it all with his head down.
'He might, at least, have told me of his troubles.'
'If he had done so, you would probably have upset the applecart by your impulsive temper. He told his sister. In fact, he had to do so. His blackmailers insisted on being paid, not in the coin of the realm, but in figures from the Croake collection of Dresden. Bridey's collection. Bottomley, I gather, hated your brother like poison for throwing him out when he tried to make love to Nessie. He took a sweet revenge. He made John Charles pay his blackmail across the table of the Bishop's Arms in Bridey's Meissen figures. Not only did it humiliate John Charles, it made Bottomley and his partner rich without causing the publicity incurred when large sums of money are involved. The figures taken to Bottomley were replaced by cheap fakes in the cases downstairs. None of you, except Bridey, ever opened the cases or handled the contents. One figure was as good as another to you and the rest. But not to Bridey. She was growing blind, fretted about the vanishing figures, but gladly parted with them for John's sake. When, on top of it all, John lost his life, she couldn't stand it any more, and she took her own life. All that is the reckoning due from Bottomley and Walmer, and Littlejohn is going to see that they pay it.'
Ewan Croake raised his grief-stricken face and his sorrow turned to rage again.
'I will do that! I'll kill them for this! '
'Be your age, Ewan! Be civilised! If you kill either of them, you'll land in gaol. You'll make a proper job of disgracing the family you've tried so long to protect and keep in its lofty place in Manx society. Did you know about the disappearance of the Meissen figures?'
'I did not. I never gave them a minute's thought. They were Bridey's. I always regarded them as her toys, her playthings. She called them her little people. I thought she was merely being childish.'
'I'm sorry I've taken all the talking in my own hands, Littlejohn. You'd better tell Ewan what you propose to do about all this. Anything rather than have him chasing the pair of scoundrels around Douglas with a shot gun.'
Littlejohn was smoking his pipe. He was amused secretly at the way the Venerable Archdeacon had, in his enthusiasm, taken the case out of his hands and questioned Ewan Croake in a truly professional fashion.
'There are one or two matters still to be cleared-up. Once or twice when I've been speaking with her, Nessie has mentioned a "ghost" which walks in Ballacroake. And one night your man, Juan, seems to have had difficulty in keeping his dogs quiet, as though there were prowlers around the house. This happened after the death of your brother. Have you heard any sounds in the night which might have, say, been attempts to break in here?'
'I cannot say that I have. I am usually a sound sleeper and I must say that even the tragedies of recent weeks have not prevented my sleeping. I haven't found any traces of intruders, either.'
'As a matter of fact, your sister seems to have been disturbed by noises in the night before she died. Juan, for that reason, took a bed to the guest-chamber across the yard and slept there for several nights in case of further alarms.'
'I have since heard that.'
'Now that we have discovered why your brother frequented the Bishop's Arms at certain times, we can get on with the job of questioning Walmer and Bottomley. I hope in this way we'll be able to clear-up the mystery of your brother's death. The assassination of Foster-Leneve recently made it possible for your brother to turn the tables on his blackmailers. Obviously, with the husband out of the way, the letters became worthless to Bottomley and Walmer. Was your brother a violent man? Might he have attacked them, do you think?'
'In his younger days, he was a passionate man. He was prone to lose his temper against, let's say, certain acts of injustice and wrong. He was certainly a very powerful man even at his age of past sixty. In his youth, he was at Cambridge, where he boxed and fenced for his college. He was very fit at the time of his death. But if you are suggesting that he might have entered into a brawl with these two men, I'm sure you're wrong.'
'We will see. I'll call at the Bishop's Arms on our way back to Grenaby. Perhaps you'll allow me to telephone. I want to take Inspector Knell along with me. This has now become a matter for the official police. I've only been helping them in the case.'
'Of course. The telephone is in the hall. Shall we go down and see if there's any tea for us? There's nothing more you want to ask me?'
A strange man, Ewan. Right in the middle of a dramatic cl
imax, and he bothered about his tea!
'No, sir . . . Except one thing. The matter of the inventory. When we were last here, Mr. Reuben offered to let us see the inventory. When he went to look for it in your late brother's desk, it had been removed, he said. I have reason to believe that Mr. Reuben had taken it and hidden it himself . . .'
'But that is ridiculous! What good would it do him to hide the thing? Wait. He and Joseph are just returning from Ramsey, I can see the car coming up the street . . .'
He hurried to the door and called downstairs.
'Nessie! When Mr. Reuben comes in, please ask him to join us here for a minute.'
It was not long before Reuben Croake arrived. He hadn't been drinking and seemed very pleased with himself.
'We've just been fishing in Ramsey Bay. I caught fifty young plaice. Not a bad day's catch, eh? Good afternoon Archdeacon . . . Littlejohn . . . What brings you here?'
His brother faced him sternly.
'Reuben, do you remember last time the Superintendent was here you offered to let him see the inventory of Bridey's china? Then you returned saying that someone had removed it from John's desk.'
Reuben pretended he'd forgotten and had to think hard – so hard that it made him squint.
'Yes. I remember. That's right.'
'I've reason to think you hid it yourself. Why did you do that?'
Littlejohn intervened.
'Also, Mr. Reuben, was it you who placed one of the Meissen figures in Joseph's drawer in his room? Perhaps in case of a search, it might have been discovered and the whole theft of the figures laid at Joseph's door.'
The Tormentors (A Cozy Mystery Thriller) (Inspector Little John Series) Page 17
