The Crime at Halfpenny Bridge

by George Bellairs

  XXII

  THE END OF THE AFFAIR

  “I must see you this evening and discuss matters. I wish you to come alone, as what I have to say, although concerning this afternoon’s happenings, is not everybody’s business.”

  The note from Saul Emmott, brought by a farm lad on a bicycle, was like a royal command.

  After the tragedy at the Villa Carlotta, George had asked to be allowed to break the news himself to his father. The police, out of consideration for the old man’s health and age, had agreed and had not again visited the farm. This they proposed to do on the morrow, after old Emmott had had chance to recover a bit.

  Now, here he was writing in peremptory fashion and commanding the Inspector’s presence.

  “I guess he wants it all cleared up at once and will be able to tell you something about why the girl committed the crimes. He must have known her condition and been shielding her as long as he could. Now he’s anxious to get it off his conscience.…”

  Hoggatt had it all pat. Cromwell, who was with them at the police station, however, was not so sure. There was a worried look in Littlejohn’s eye which told one who knew him well that he wasn’t altogether satisfied with things. On the face of it, the case was as clear as daylight. Prank had left Nancy for another girl and had had the cheek to try to cash-in on letters written to her by her best friend. Her mind, always delicately balanced, had become totally unhinged and she had killed Prank and his associate. What more was there to it? Probably after the Chief had seen the old man, he would feel better and the case would be clear.

  “I’ve a call to make before I go up to Headlands. The pair of you had better follow me in about half-an-hour and post yourselves in the bushes in front of the farm. I’ll whistle you up if I need you.”

  They didn’t like the look on Littlejohn’s face as he said it.

  “Why?” asked Hoggatt. “Do you think the old man and young George will cut-up rough when you tell them what they’re wanting to know?”

  “I don’t know, Hoggatt. But I’d be happier if you were both at hand.”

  “Of course, we’ll be there.” Cromwell and Hoggatt said it in chorus.

  Littlejohn, on his way, made a call at the veterinary surgeon’s again. Winterbottom was out, as usual, and the kennel-girl was in charge. So the Inspector had a word or two with her, instead. She was quite open about what he asked her, but he left her with her healthy cheeks a shade redder than natural.

  At the farm, Mercy was hanging over the door of the pig-stye again. Deep silence, except for the snorting and munching of cattle and the musical ring of a bucket as somebody started milking, hung over the place. All the blinds were drawn. A column of smoke rose upright from the kitchen chimney.

  “I’ve just been telling the pigs about it all. They’re the only ones who want to listen to me.”

  Tears were running down Mercy’s cheeks.

  “You can tell me,” said Littlejohn quietly. He asked the old servant a number of sympathetic questions, too, about Nancy and the way she’d lived and behaved during recent months.

  In the distance, he could make out the sturdy forms of Cromwell and Hoggatt winding up the hill.

  He knocked out his pipe against the wall of the stye.

  “You might tell Mr. Emmott I’m here, will you, Mercy? He wanted to see me.”

  Although the body was in the town morgue, death hung over the house like a pall.

  Saul Emmott was in his usual chair by the fire, his silky grey hair shining in the dim light, his head erect. George was sitting on the long oak settle. They looked like wooden images.

  “Thank you for coming, Inspector. I want to get this over.…”

  The old man was the first to speak. His voice was clear and he was fully master of himself and his emotions. George said nothing.

  “I’m very sorry, sir.…”

  Littlejohn was lost for words.

  “You only did your duty, Inspector.…”

  “Damn and blast you all and your meddling …!”

  “George!”

  It was like a stern word of command to an unruly schoolboy.

  “George has told me everything, Inspector. I felt you ought to know exactly what has occurred. I have been kept in the dark far too long.… Things might have been otherwise had I been told what was happening.”

  There was no bitterness in the tone; just weariness.

  “It will be far better if I tell you all there is to tell and then the matter can drop.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather defer it a bit, sir? I know it has been a great shock.… If you feel …”

  “I said I wanted to get it done with. I will tell you the story as I’ve heard it from George. He seems too confused to tell a lucid tale himself.…”

  George gave his father an appealing look. It was evident he had been told exactly what he must do. The head of the house was going to be its spokesman.

  “Nancy was always a highly-strung girl. As a baby, she had one or two illnesses which left her nerves shaken and any excitement always became too much for her and made her unmanageable.…”

  Nothing about the family taint of insanity, thought Littlejohn.

  “You know yourself what a pretty girl she was. Half the boys in town … well …”

  The old man’s pride glowed from his eyes. It was pathetic to see him fumbling among his memories.

  “She was friendly with one or two of them. In fact, once or twice we thought something would come of it, but somehow.… She was hard to please. Yes, hard to please. Like her mother.…”

  George glanced at his father as though wondering when he was going to get down to facts.

  “Then that scoundrel Prank came along. What she could see in him, I don’t know. He was at school with her and that gave him a certain aquaintance with her, I guess. He was an adventurer, couldn’t settle, ran away to sea, came back, and generally upset his family and everybody else. He had a dashing sort of way with him. Perhaps you’d call it a sailor’s way. At any rate, he started waiting about in town on the off-chance of meeting Nancy. He captured her fancy and she’d been meeting him when he got in port for months before George caught them and warned Prank what he’d do.…”

  George was wanting to see the last of Littlejohn and showed signs of impatience.

  “He must have called here,” he interrupted, “for he managed to steal a packet of letters and a snapshot of Nancy which she kept hidden in a hiding-place of her own in the old bakehouse. She must even have told him about that, although she prided herself on the secret.…”

  “When you’ve quite finished, George. I was coming to that … Well, to resume. Sam cooled-off. He’d found some other girl on his travels and stopped meeting Nancy. When she realised what had happened, she wilted like a fading flower. You could see her changing. In fact, the scoundrel broke her heart and the worry got on her nerves. Then, apparently in financial straits, he tried to sell the letters he’d stolen.…”

  “Mr. Boake’s letters, sir?”

  “Yes. Poor Boake had a rough time at home. He married a wife quite unsuitable who bullied him fearfully and made his life a misery. She loved to show him up in public and he, who was used to ruling at the school with a rod of iron, had to kiss his wife’s rod whenever she chose to make him. It’s hard to understand, isn’t it, how a woman can get such a grip on a man? He ought to have chastised her, but he was too much of a gentleman.”

  “You were saying about the letters, sir.”

  “I’m coming to it. There is a period in life when even staid and respectable men sometimes do silly things. Boake, who had sought refuge here, must have found his lost youth in Nancy, I think, for he seems to have gone through a phase of loving her in his decent, gentle way. During a school holiday when he was away from Werrymouth doing work in London for a charity he was interested in, he wrote what must have been love letters to my girl. Nobody but Nancy saw them and I understand you have them now. I trust you will treat them with discretion and
respect for those dead ones whom they alone concern.”

  “You may rest assured of that, sir.”

  “She seems to have valued them and kept them. Boake got over the phase and continued as our friend. Nancy was in love with Prank then, so she didn’t respond to the sentiments of the letters. Those it was that Prank stole. He called on Boake at school and obtained money from him and that spent, even called at the hospital for more. He left poor Boake almost demented. So much so that he confided in George here, who told him to tell the police and that if he didn’t, George would. Nancy, who was outside the sick-room, must have overheard and learned that Prank would be on the quay waiting for the money at the fatal hour. She was there instead, and you know what happened.”

  “And what about Mr. George’s movements on that night, sir?”

  Littlejohn turned from the old man to his son.

  “I called for my coat, as I wanted to see Winterbottom on his way,” answered George, eagerly like an actor as the cue is given. “I found Nancy’s room empty. I guessed what had happened and, making the excuse of needing a change of air, I went the whole way to the quay with the vet. As you know, the evil had been done then. When I got home, Nancy was in bed. She had obviously been up to something, for she was so excited and strange. I thought she might lose her senses altogether if I taxed her with the crime. So I left it at that and did my best to protect her.…”

  The old man, not to be outdone, took up the tale.

  “Then the scoundrel Lee arrived here. He talked about chickens and eggs to us, but getting Nancy to herself, mentioned the letters. She must have struck him down in fury and done him to death in her rage.…”

  “You mean, she rendered him unconscious by a blow of some kind, loaded him in the car and took him down to the bridge and ran over him!”

  The old man bowed his head.

  “What else? I was in bed and didn’t hear the car. George was attending to a cow in the shed on the far side of the farm. She must have run the car down the incline without starting the engine and got quietly away.…”

  “But did nobody hear her return?”

  “No. George didn’t either, did you, boy?”

  “No. I found Lee’s torch in the ditch by the gate. I looked for it after you’d mentioned it when you called here, Inspector. When I saw it, I knew again what had happened.”

  “And you still did nothing?”

  “What did you want me to do? Hand the girl over to you or send her off to an asylum. She was as sane as any of us if she’d been left alone, but people just wouldn’t do it. Between you … Prank, Lee, you damned police, you’ve killed her.…”

  “That will do, George. You’re not helping in the matter by getting in a rage. The Inspector wants the story to complete the case. He’s had it. Now, Inspector, I gather you’re satisfied and will leave me to my grief.…”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I’m not satisfied at all. In fact, Mr. George’s share in matters is far from clear. He claims to have protected his sister throughout. I say that he did the opposite. He used her as a stalking-horse to further his own ends. In fact, I’m so convinced of it, that I’m taking him back to the police station with me.”

  The old man’s jaw fell.

  George scrambled to his feet galvanised by a convulsion of rage.

  “What hellish nonsense is this?”

  “There’s no nonsense about it, Emmott. In fact, the matter is so serious that I have taken out a warrant for your arrest. George Emmott, I arrest you in connection with the murder of Samuel Prank, and I warn you that …”

  George Emmott sprang to the corner where stood a sporting gun and seizing it, covered Littlejohn dramatically.

  “Get out, or I’ll blow the guts out of you. My father has enough trouble without you blasted police concocting more of it.…”

  “Put that gun down, George,” said old Emmott sternly, like one talking to a four-year-old.

  “No. Not until this fellow puts the door between us and him.”

  “I want to know what all this is about, Inspector. You make a serious and ridiculous charge and I want to know why,” insisted Saul Emmott, ignoring George now.

  The old man seemed invulnerable. Either age and surfeit of trouble, or the accumulation of catastrophe had dulled his feelings. Or else he saw a grain of truth in Littlejohn’s accusation.

  Littlejohn, knowing George’s excitable nature, made no move towards the door to summon his colleagues, but stood his ground in face of the gun.

  “Perhaps Mr. George will tell me, then, why he created a false alibi for himself on the night Prank was killed.”

  “What are you talking about?” roared George. “I’ve already told you fully of my movements and had the whole of them confirmed by Winterbottom.”

  “Would it surprise you to know that on that night, Winterbottom got home at ten-thirty blind drunk and was put to bed by his kennel-maid. You thought that since the death of his wife, Winterbottom had lived alone and nobody could check his movements. Now, however, he is philandering with the kennel-girl, who has started to sleep in and who put him to bed, as I said. The day following she overheard you impressing on him details of the tragedy at the swing-bridge and that it was around eleven o’clock when you crossed the swing-bridge together.…”

  “Utter rot!”

  “The girl swears those details are correct. I suggest that you took Winterbottom home, and he was quite oblivious to what was going on around him or the time, by way of the old bridge. You set him on his way home in time for you to return to keep the appointment with Prank. Having disposed of Sam, to give verisimilitude to your tale about Winterbottom, you then hurried round and took a ticket over the swing-bridge. You arranged for me to come upon this ticket, apparently by accident, because you put your own coat under my hat on the peg in the hall, and I took it away with me. You took me in for a time, for I did as you expected; I checked the contents of the pockets to make sure it wasn’t mine, and swallowed your bait by looking into the matter of the ticket. You thought of everything. I must confess, however, I couldn’t understand how I came to take your coat instead of my own.…”

  George stood transfixed as though in wonder at this apparent reading of his thoughts by the detective. The gun remained steady, however.

  Something was holding George in check. Of that Littlejohn was quite sure. Then, it dawned what it was. George was on his best behaviour for his father’s benefit. If he could keep his father’s favour and convince him that Littlejohn’s was a cock-and-bull story, he was safe, for the old man would now leave him as sole legatee under his Will, and master of Headlands!

  “All a fantastic fable,” he said at last. “A damned fairy story. You’ve not a shred of proof. You know my poor sister did it when not herself. Now you want another victim.…”

  Saul Emmott intervened.

  “It seems to me Inspector, George is right. I’ll be glad if you’ll leave us now. I’m too tired to listen to your theories.…”

  “Hear me out, sir, please, and judge for yourself. George knew of Miss Nancy’s hiding-place in the woodshed. After he had killed Lee, he hid the letters there and the rubber truncheon which he had used on both his victims. He took great pains to remind Mercy of the hiding place. Mercy told me that just now. He knew I’d question Mercy and that probably after the way he’d emphasised it, she would be sure to mention it. She also told me that Nancy fled, not because she—Nancy—had found her hiding-place rifled, for to her recollection she’d hidden nothing there for a long time. Not since the letters were stolen from the oven by Prank. No. It was because George told her I’d found the letters and that she would be accused as the only one who knew the hidey-hole. He also told her that they’d put her in an asylum for what she’d done.…”

  “All damned lies. I said nothing of the kind. How long are you going to stand for this, father?”

  “I want to know how much truth there is in this, George. You deny it. But I’ve never known Mercy tell a lie
. If she’s told this story to the Inspector, there must be some truth in it. Now, George, I want to hear what you really did say.”

  “Very well. Mercy told Nancy that Littlejohn had been nosing in the wood-shed. I then told Nancy that I knew what she’d done. I said I was afraid she’d be put in a home if the police found anything incriminating.…”

  Littlejohn was tired of hearing George’s lame excuses. He was anxious to be getting on with the job.

  “Please let me continue.… Mercy also tells me that for some time she has overheard George suggesting to his sister that she was losing her memory. He kept accusing her of doing things she hadn’t really done—or said she hadn’t done, and then he’d swear she had done them and destroy her confidence in herself. He started saying she was sleep-walking.… She’d had a period of similar mental trouble before, I understand, when, unhinged by the death of her mother, she had to be carefully watched.…”

  “That is true,” said Saul Emmott.

  “George took advantage of that for his own dastardly ends. He set about laying a trail of guilt leading to his sister and trying to undermine her own mental state, so that she would be unable to believe whether she had done what she was accused of, or not.…”

  George looked at his father to see how he was taking it. He was still holding himself wonderfully in restraint to keep the old man from being suspicious. Saul Emmott sat there like a figure of stone.

  “You told your sister that you had found her bed empty on the night of the crime and, doubtless, you added you’d found her either wandering on the quay or else coming home. You asked her what she’d done to Lee.… In other words, you drove her half crazy and at the same time used her to cover your own crimes.”

  “Enough of this! Why should I do that to my own sister? Get out, or I’ll fill you with lead …!”

  “Wait, George. Continue, Inspector. This links up with some ideas I’ve had on the matter myself now I come to ponder things. Although I’m tied to my chair, I don’t miss everything.”

  Saul Emmott’s keen gaze left the Inspector’s face and fixed on his son like a gimlet.