The Crime at Halfpenny Bridge

by George Bellairs

  The town hall clock struck twelve. All the tumult in the neighbourhood of the docks had died down. The wife-beater from Pleasant Street was sleeping in the cells below, for, stung to a new fury of sadism by the night’s events, he had surpassed himself and had been gathered-up by the police, homeward-bound from the murder case, just as one who rises surfeited from a sumptuous feast, picks up and chews with apparent relish a morsel of bread left over from the first course.

  “I’ll do the two autopsies first thing in the morning,” Swann was saying. “I’m too fagged to make an all-night job of it. But as far as I can see, the man was hit over the head with a sandbag or the like and drowned in the basin before he recovered consciousness. As for the old lady, we know her heart was bad. If the tale of the unpleasant woman who lived with her is true, she was left in a faint, and then someone came in and finished her off by smothering her. The post-mortem might show suffocation. I don’t know.… A job to tell in cases where the heart’s so bad.”

  The doctor was a tall, thin man with corvine features. Black hair round a tonsure of baldness, thick black eyebrows and a black complexion caused by a vigorous beard which shaving could not control. He kept rubbing his long nose as though it annoyed him.

  “Well, Hoggatt, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be off. I’m dead tired … called-out last night and had to operate right away.…”

  He yawned.

  “Right-oh, doctor. Take this with you, too, will you, and let me know whether or not it’s harmless …?”

  The Superintendent handed over a bottle containing what looked like milk.

  “This what was in the glass on the sideboard?”

  “Yes, doctor. Tastes a bit funny to my thinking.”

  Hoggatt was a fresh-faced, upstanding young fellow with an open countenance and a straightforward manner. He was a local lad who had made good in distant parts and had returned with honour as head of the force in his own town. He was about the same height as the doctor, but heavier in build and his fairness was accentuated by the deep swarthiness of his companion.

  The surgeon was tasting a drop of milk from the tip of his finger. He smacked his lips and rolled his tongue round his mouth.

  “H’m. Now, what could it be? Strychnine? Or … Wait a bit. Digitalis.… I’ll bet it’s that. Can’t be sure, though. Better wait till I’ve opened-up the old lady. That is, if she drank any of the milk. If you’re questioning that Prank woman you might ask her if the old woman’s doctor was giving her anything for her heart and if so, where the medicine is.… And also ask if any of the milk had been taken.”

  “Very good, doctor.…”

  A young constable entered gingerly carrying the glass which had contained the milk and placed in on his chief’s desk.

  “Any luck, Judson?”

  “Yes, sir. Fingerprints of the deceased lady, as though she’d drunk from it, and those of Miss Jane Prank, who says she gave it to her for her supper. But there’s another lot, too. Look like a man’s prints, sir. He must have had a short forefinger, because there’s three and the thumb and then a sort of smear with no proper print.…”

  Dr. Swann standing listening with his hat on the back of his head and his eyes glazed from want of sleep, thrust forward his black jowl.

  “What’s that? Three fingers? Just slip into the mortuary and get the prints of Sam Prank, the sailor lying on the first slab. He’s only three fingers and he’s related to the old lady. They must be his.… Well, I can’t wait to hear the results.… Good night.”

  “Good night, doctor. Do as the doctor said, Judson, and let me know. And now you can bring in Miss Prank.… Jane, I mean, not the body.”

  The constable made a whooping sound supposed to denote amusement, although he couldn’t see anything funny in the remark.

  “And send Lester in, as well, to take some notes, please.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Jane Prank was a dreadful sight. Weeping had puffed-up her normally heavy face and waiting for questioning by the police had frayed her nerves. Somebody had given her a cup of tea and the hot drink had brought her out in perspiration. Unwholesome and repulsive and ready at any moment to seek refuge in noisy weeping again.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting so long, Miss Prank, but this has made us very busy. Believe me, I sympathise most deeply with you.”

  The woman produced a soaking handkerchief and sobbed noisily into it without speaking.

  “Sit down, Miss Prank. Would you like another cup of tea?”

  “No.… I’ll be all right. I’m tired out an’ don’t know properly what I’m doin’.… Could we leave it till to-morrow?”

  Hoggatt was a bit undecided what to do about Jane Prank. They only had her word for it that she hadn’t put the cushion over the victim’s face. She stood to benefit by the old lady’s death and might have engineered it. Also, the milk in the glass hadn’t been untainted. Had the woman before him doctored that? Circumstantial evidence was certainly against her, and a crafty unpleasant one of her type might not hesitate.… All the same, she looked too lazy to make a bolt for it. Probably, if she had done it, she’s sit quietly and cunningly and hope for the best.

  “There’s just one or two questions I must ask you to-night and then you can go, Miss Prank. Don’t agitate yourself, now. It’s quite simple. I’m not trying to trip you up. Give me a straight answer to my queries and everything’ll be all right.”

  Jane Prank sniffed, mopped her eyes and looked as though she didn’t know where she was. She wrung her ugly hands and rolled her head and eyes in what seemed to be paroxysms of agony and grief.

  “So far, we’ve got your story as follows. Your aunt had a bad heart and was subject to fainting fits … syncope, the doctors call them, I think. To-night you went upstairs and returned to find her in one of these attacks. You’d run out of brandy, which you use on such occasions, so went next door for a drop. When you returned your aunt was dead, but there was a cushion over her face which you state you didn’t put there, and which was on your aunt’s chair when you left her. That right?”

  “Yes,” snuffled the woman.

  “How long were you in next-door?”

  “Ten minutes, I’d say. Couldn’t be sure though.…”

  “That was a long time and your aunt ill, wasn’t it?”

  Jane Prank turned her weak, crafty eyes on the Superintendent as though trying to fathom some hidden meaning in the question.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” she said in anger. “The Dabchicks took such a long time to make up their minds. One’d think nobody ever was goin’ to ’ave a baby besides them. Fussin’ around and arguin’ as to which should come in with me.… As if I wanted either of ’em. What I wanted was brandy.…”

  “I see. They were a bit fussy and took time making up their minds. Did you hear anybody enter next door whilst you were at the Dabchicks’…?”

  “No. I ’eard people passin’, but had to close the door as I went in on account of the blackout.…”

  “Miss Prank was under the doctor for her heart?”

  “Yes. Dr. Muschamp.”

  “Was she taking medicine?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  Hoggatt ignored the question.

  “Do you know what the medicine was?”

  “No. They were tablets the doctor gave ’er. Mornin’ and night she’d to take ’em.”

  “How? In water, or what?”

  “She tuck them dry and washed them down with a drink.”

  “Had she taken her tablet before she had the attack?”

  “Yes.…”

  “There was a glass half-full of milk on the sideboard when we arrived. You remember, the one you had picked-up and were taking into the kitchen when I asked you to leave it with me?”

  Another sly look from Jane Prank.

  “Yes. I only tuck it away tidyin’-up, like. One would think I did it deliberate, to hear you talk.…”

  “Nothing of the kind, Miss Prank. I want to get this clear. Had your a
unt drunk from that glass before she fainted?”

  Jane licked her lips.

  “Yes. I gave it to her full about ten minutes before she ’ad her ‘do.’ She took one of her tablets and washed it down with a drink. She always had a glass o’ milk just before she went to bed. To-night she left half of it to ’ave when she was ready for upstairs.”

  “Nobody else handled it?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Do you know Sam Prank?”

  An expression of distaste and malevolence crossed Jane’s face.

  “Yes. He’s a cousin of mine. Cousin Harriet was his aunt.”

  “Did he visit you at all to-night?”

  “No. He’s in town, I know, because his ship docked yesterday afternoon. It’s a wonder he didn’t call.… He was always round after cash from the old lady whenever he was in Werrymouth.”

  “To your knowledge, then, he’s not called on your aunt …?”

  “Miss Prank was my cousin.…”

  “Your cousin, then.… He hadn’t called on your cousin to your knowledge?”

  “No. If he’d been I’d have seen ’im, because I’ve been in all day, except when I went for the brandy.”

  “Sam Prank was very friendly with your cousin?”

  “Only for what he could get. She made no secret of it that he’d not been forgotten in ’er Will, though why, I don’t know. He was always a spongin’ good-for-nothin’.”

  “Would it surprise you to hear that his fingerprints were found on your cousin’s milk glass?”

  Jane Prank’s eyes almost popped out of her head.

  “What! Then he must ’a been in while I was in the Dabchicks’.”

  “So it would seem, wouldn’t it?”

  “It was ’im that put the cushion …! Yes, it was! I wouldn’t put it past ’im. Just in ’is line, that. Murder-an ’elpless old lady what couldn’t ’elp herself.… I hope he swings for it. Thought ’e’d get his money by a short cut, did ’e?”

  “Well, he won’t get it now, Miss Prank. He’s dead.”

  Jane Prank rose to her feet, rigid, horrified.

  “Dead! Dead! Oh, dear Lord! Two of the family in one night! Somebody’s out to wipe-out the lot of us. Whatever shall I do?”

  Hoggatt thought it best to get rid of the woman before another scene developed.

  “Where are you sleeping to-night, Miss Prank?”

  “With a friend of mine from chapel.… I couldn’t sleep in Pleasant Street now.… Sam dead? How did he die?”

  “He fell off the quay into the basin and was drowned.”

  “Poor Sam.… He wasn’t all that bad. A jolly sort of chap.…”

  Jane was turning remorseful and Hoggatt thought he detected a note of hope, of pleasure in her tone. Probably one less in the family would mean more for the survivors in the share-out of Harriet Prank’s fortune.

  “Tell Judson to see Miss Prank home to wherever she’s going,” ordered Hoggatt to the constable who had been quietly taking down the woman’s answers. “I’ll probably see you again to-morrow, Miss Prank, and I’ll get you to sign a statement. That’s all for now. Good night.”

  Jane shambled off in better shape than when she arrived. Hoggatt opened the window to let in a little fresh air.

  The Superintendent sat down again at his desk and gazed at the few notes he, too, had taken on the pad before him. He dotted a few i’s crossed a few t’s and then began to draw horses’ heads on his blotting-pad. He was an honest-to-goodness police-officer, very efficient in routine, punctillious in maintaining order in the town, a man who had started from the bottom rung of the ladder and been promoted for his integrity, smartness and bulldog qualities.

  Had the case in which he had been suddenly plunged been the result of a quayside brawl, he’d have felt happy in putting everybody through the mill. But here was something more subtle. Family matters. A Will and a lot of people waiting for an old woman to die. One member of the family sandbagged and thrown in the dock to drown. Another poisoned, smothered, or died from natural causes, he didn’t know which.

  In the south coast town in which Hoggatt had last served as an Inspector, he had encountered a murder case in which, after a week, the baffled local Chief Constable had decided to call-in Scotland Yard. The detective from London had shrugged his shoulders and eventually had to give it up, too. The trail had been allowed to cool for too long. There had been nothing left for Scotland Yard to fasten on to after a week of everybody else’s catch-as-catch-can.

  Confined to a local seaside town one didn’t get much experience in dealing with murder.…

  Hoggatt ran his handkerchief round the inside of his collar. Then he took up the telephone and dialled Werrymouth 1523.

  He told the Chief Constable what had happened and what he felt about it. They talked a lot, reached unanimity and the Superintendent at length hung-up, sighed softly to himself and dialled again.

  “WHITEHALL one-two, one-two.”

  When Scotland Yard came through, they ended by telling Hoggatt that luckily one of their good men was just finishing a week’s holiday at a nearby fishing village. They would instruct him to report first thing in the morning.

  “Inspector Littlejohn’s his name. The very man for you.”

  Meanwhile, in the adjoining charge-room the sergeant on duty was taking statements from O’Brien and Creer.

  The Irishman was holding the floor and making a great song and dance of it, too. He paced back and forth, like a restless artist in an effervescence of creation and dictating his inspiration to a secretary.

  “Put down … put down that me friend and oi was biddin’ one another farewell after a convivial evenin’, after a resumption, yes, a resumption of old friendship.…”

  “… was parting company after a night at the ‘Welcome Home,’” translated the sergeant, writing heavily.

  O’Brien was so obsessed that he failed to observe the editing that was going on.

  “Have ye got that? Then put down … put down … Suddenly, phwhat do we hear?”

  The sergeant snorted as the Irishman paused dramatically. There was a silence as though all were tensely listening for the fatal sounds. A very efficient-looking clock with “J. Waldteufel, Maker, Werrymouth” boldly inscribed on its dial, ticked with a noise like a bouncing ping-pong ball.

  “It’s heavy footsteps we hear, approachin’ the waterside. Thinks oi to meself.…”

  The sergeant could bear it no longer. With a loud explosive sound he flung his pencil down on the desk.…

  “Put a sock in it, O’Brien! Cut it out and get on with a proper straight tale. I’m writin’ this down and want none o’ your blarney and long rigmaroles.”

  “Oi refuse to testify then, if me words is to be transmogrified.…”

  “Aw, come on, Mike,” rumbled Creer, who, humbly taking a back seat and grunting confirmation now and then, was anxious to be getting to his lodging and bed. He was terrified of the widow who was his landlady. It was already well past midnight and like as not she’d already locked him out. She belonged to a religious sect which associated late hours with carnal sin.…

  The bridge-keeper, also present for testimony, had by this time fallen asleep awaiting his turn and was snoring like a pig in one corner.

  Eventually, it was arranged that O’Brien should tell his story, the sergeant make a précis of it and read it over to the Irishman and his pal who would both sign it.

  O’Brien protested against the syntax and style, but finally did as he was bid. Creer, whose powers of description at any time were scant, now, in the official presence, dried-up altogether and ended by confirming the statement in huge script, laboriously executed, with tongue hanging out and gripped between his teeth.

  Then the mariners departed, O’Brien to climb into his lodgings through an open kitchen window; Creer to rouse his landlady, who, appearing in curling-papers and in a roaring temper, dispelled a very vague idea cherished by the Manxman that one day, when he could find words enough to bro
ach the topic, he might marry her and settle down.

  The bridge-keeper was annoyed when they shook him and he discovered that he wasn’t in his own bed.

  He told the same tale as the two sailors, adding his own share of finding the body and interjecting yawns and protests at the tempo of the sergeant’s writing.

  “Wot more can I say?” barked the man when they asked him at length if that was all. “Except that I bin deetained ’ere far too long by red-tape and slow writin’, and my wife and family’ll be scared out of their wits thinkin’ I’ve bin and gone and fallen off me own bridge.”

  With that, he signed his name ponderously and flourished what looked like a lover’s knot beneath it. Then he shambled off home, where he was forced to finish his sleep on the couch downstairs, for his wife, attributing his late return to intemperance and infidelity, had locked the door of the connubial bedroom and refused to listen to the truth.

  IV

  SUNDAY MORNING

  LITTLEJOHN had been spending a week’s holiday with an old crony, Inspector Playfair, who had retired on pension from the Yard and had gone to live a bachelor life at a spot on the coast three miles from Werrymouth. There, in a modernised fisherman’s cottage, the superannuated detective spent his time gardening, sailing a small boat he had bought, and scouring the countryside for antiques at bargain prices with which he was converting his home into a museum.

  On the last morning of his stay, Littlejohn was regretfully eating an early breakfast of dabs which they had caught on the previous day, when a youngster arrived from the nearby pub to call him to the ’phone. It was Scotland Yard instructing him to take over the Werrymouth murder case.

  “A sailor there, apparently after murdering his aunt, was himself knocked senseless and thrown into the river and drowned. The local Superintendent is a young chap with his way to make and apparently wants us to help him do it right away. Being near, your might as well go down there and give them a hand. I’m sending Cromwell down, too. By the way, how’s old Playfair …?”

  That from Chief Inspector Shelldrake.

  Playfair was delighted.

  “Better stay on here, old chap. There’s a good ’bus service, weekdays, but they don’t start till noon on Sundays. You can use my bike. It’s in the tool-shed. It’s a lovely run in this autumn weather along the coast road from here to Werrymouth.”