The Crime at Halfpenny Bridge

by George Bellairs

“At first, I myself suspected Miss Emmott of committing the crimes in fits of dementia. Mercy assured me, however, that Nancy was never so bad. Then, this afternoon, I saw her attack her brother. I realised that she could never have struck either Prank or Lee the blows that rendered them unconscious. Her method of attack was too unpracticed, too feeble by half and her strength was far from demoniac. You preyed so much on your sister’s mind that she was even prepared to attack you, whom she thought her best friend, rather than risk capture and the asylum you cunningly dangled before her.…”

  “It’s a damned lie! You can’t prove it. Why should I do it. Father, order this man out … or let me deal with him.…

  The old man said nothing.

  “Now, listen to me, George Emmott. Mercy tells me you were the cause of the quarrel between your elder brother, Henry, and your father, with the result that … no, no, don’t interrupt me … with the result that Henry was cut-off with a shilling and went to sea. Police records show that another older brother died from a gun accident, the verdict of which was accidental death, though many said it was suicide. You found the body. You’ve been discreetly preparing the way for this final perfidy on your sister, by whispering it round the town that there is insanity in your family. You needn’t deny it.… I have reputable witnesses.…”

  “What does this mean?” thundered old Emmott now livid and writhing in his chair.…

  “Your son has put it abroad that another member of the family, your brother, sir, is in an asylum suffering from an hereditary taint. I learn from Mercy that that, too, is untrue, as Mr. Simon suffered head injuries which made him epileptic.…”

  “That is the truth and if George told otherwise …”

  “I did no such thing, father.… Can’t you see it all is a put-up job.…”

  “Let me go on, please. You can argue afterwards. The last-mentioned statement has undoubted authority behind it.”

  “You swine.… Are you trying to pin Leonard’s death on me, too, because I happened to find him?”

  “I’m suggesting nothing, except commenting that one by one the other members of this family have been eliminated in spectacular fashion from between you and your father’s money and the farm.…”

  “You can’t prove a thing, even if there’s any truth in your crack-brained idea, which there isn’t.…”

  “I grant that the misfortunes of your two elder brothers are past history and cold mutton as far as this case is concerned, but your sister is a different matter. Murder in hot blood is one thing; cold premeditated murder is another. But calculated devilment of the kind I’m now explaining is the most damnable of all. To take a mind not too strong to begin with, break it down until it doesn’t know whether or not the body is in some way acting independently of it, and then coolly to pin two ghastly crimes on the victim is about the most fiendish device of all. I’m quite convinced in my own mind that you did that, George Emmott, and I shall not rest until I’ve proved it one way or the other. And if I find to my satisfaction that my theory is correct, I’ll see you hang for it.…”

  Littlejohn had let himself go more than he intended. The two men, Saul Emmott, seated, and George, still standing aggressively holding the gun, were like carved figures. The old man, paralysed by the horror of what he was hearing; the younger, speechless with rage.

  “Why … you … you …”

  Another convulsion shook George and he poked the gun at Littlejohn

  “George! Stop! Let the Inspector continue. You shall have the opportunity of defending yourself later.”

  The old man was sitting in judgment on the pair of them now. He exercised an uncanny control over his excitable son, and Littlejohn himself had never felt in all his experience of judges, such a sense of being weighed in the balance by stern justice.

  “Your sister alone remained in the end to share the inheritance with you. You were terrified lest she should marry and bring a husband to take her part. You even put it around covertly that there was insanity in the family, as I just remarked, and broke-up at their beginnings, chances she had of romance, if not marriage. Finally, Boake’s letters entered the scene. You’d long been afraid of Prank. Nancy had apparently set her mind firmly on him and you couldn’t dislodge him as you’d done the rest. He, too, perhaps fancied her or her prospects of wealth. When he started to flourish Boake’s letters about, he put the last nail in his coffin. You’d long hated him. This was the last straw. You knew he was to meet Boake’s messenger on the dark quay at a certain time, and you were there. You not only killed him, but threw suspicion on your sister, because he’d not only stolen her letters, but affronted her by trying to sell them on top of jilting her. In a fury at Lee, you did the same to him. You found killing easy after the first success. All you wanted was to put Nancy in an asylum, and get the farm and your father’s wealth for yourself when he died.…”

  Littlejohn knew he was taking risks in speaking his mind. Such thoughts had come to him since the death of Nancy, and Mercy had strengthened them. There was, however, great danger in voicing them, but it was all or nothing now for the Inspector.

  “Well, George?”

  The old man cast a searching glance at his son.

  “Well what?”

  “What have you to say? One or the other of you is crazy.”

  “It’s all lies.… Not a word of truth in it. Can’t you see he’s trying to trap me …?”

  “You’re lying, George. You never were a good liar. I always know when you’re lying. Now … the truth!”

  George suddenly lost control under his father’s glassy stare. “I fear thee and thy glittering eye.” Littlejohn had to confess to himself that he, too, felt the stern compulsion of the old man’s look, like that of the Ancient Mariner.…

  “Oh, stop badgering me! I’m not a kid any longer that you can bully and push around. I did do it, if you want to know, and I’m glad of it. I killed Prank because Nancy said she would marry him whatever he did and whoever he was! Lee, I killed because he saw me on the quay at the time of the crime and asked what would I pay him to keep quiet. This farm’s been ours for generations. What would Prank have made of it? If Nancy’d married, he’d have frittered it all away.…”

  He pointed a thick finger at his father.

  “What did you want four children for? Two hundred acres and a house between four! It makes me sick. Where would it have been? Nowhere. My heritage, fifty acres and a quarter share of a house …! In any case, Harry wouldn’t have made a farmer. Leonard was a waster and would have squandered it on booze and women. Nancy was a spoiled darling, wanting only to be humoured and waited upon. But me … the land’s a part of me. I seem to grow out of it. It’s mine. But you insisted on sharing it out. It’s all your fault this has happened! I had to stop you carving it up. By God, I did! I’ll stop anybody else who threatens my birthright, too. That includes you, as well, Mister clever Scotland Yard.… I’m going to blow a hole in you now large enough to drive a horse and cart through, for all your pains. And I shall say it was an accident. My father will confirm it, won’t you father? You won’t part with the last of your children and have nobody to take over Headlands when you’ve gone, will you, dad? But from now on, I’m boss. I’ve proved I’m worthy to be the boss instead of you, father, so here’s where I take over.”

  George Emmott turned his back on the old man, faced Littlejohn full-square, and levelled the gun at him.

  Littlejohn felt himself go suddenly cold all over. Here was a maniac indeed, crazed with rage and frustration, one who would stop at nothing. The Inspector felt curiously detached, as though his spirit were watching his body in a tight corner. He found himself wondering if Letty would manage on his life insurance.…

  Suddenly occurred something so astonishing, that it was as much as Littlejohn could do to keep from warning George of it by an expression or cry of surprise.

  Saul Emmott, his face contorted by a violent spasm of energy and effort, raised himself to his full height by bracing his arms
on those of his chair and suddenly straightening them. He towered above his son for a fraction of a second and then, as George half-turned in alarm, scenting danger, fell full length on top of him.

  The gun went off with a mighty roar and a picture on the wall, just to the left of Littlejohn, received a full charge of shot. One minute two stern looking gentlemen in top hats and frock coats were staring fixedly from their frame; the next there was just a hole where they had been. Cromwell and Hoggatt tore in alarmed, took in the situation, and pinioned George Emmott. Littlejohn gently raised the old man and seated him in his chair.

  Saul Emmott regarded his son with furious contempt, and gave judgment.

  “Take him away and hang him,” he said and collapsed unconscious.

  “You can’t prove anything. You can’t prove a thing,” yelled the livid and demented captive struggling in handcuffs between Cromwell and Hoggatt. “My father is a half-dotty old man, who won’t testify against me and nothing on earth can make him. I shall deny anything you tell, Littlejohn. My sister committed the crimes as I told you, and you can’t prove it otherwise. I haven’t said anything different from that and nobody else can say I did.…”

  From the larder tottered a little figure with a grim, yellow, wedge-shaped face, the lips of which were tight pressed with determination. Her eyes were red with weeping.

  “I heard it all.… I heard it all. Every bit of it, I heard. I knew it all before you said it. I told the gentleman so. You did it all yourself and druv poor Miss Nancy mad and to her grave with your cunning. I’ll tell the judge all of it, I will, in the court. I’ll testify on my oath.… I heard all you said just now, and I’ll say I did when the gentleman tells the judge.”

  And Mercy, the meek guardian of the family in the past, walked to the raving George and soundly slapped his face.

  “There. Take that and stop your noise.… It’s a long time since I gave you one of those, isn’t it? But you’ve deserved that one.”

  The effect was strangely instantaneous. George grew quiet and surly like a whipped child and allowed himself to be led off without another word.

  George Emmott’s counsel tried to convince the jury that he was insane. It was proved that there was no hereditary madness in the family and that George’s principal mental handicap was a violent and unruly temper towards all who frustrated him, except his father.

  Mercy, in the case, proved singularly merciless in her testimony. By her simple honesty in telling the tale of George’s slow breaking of his sister’s mind, combined with the letters recovered by Littlejohn from the hidey-hole and the sordid story of the drunken veterinery surgeon, she fashioned a rope for young Emmott’s neck. He was sentenced to death and hanged.

  Henry Emmott came home from the sea to his father and the farm. The old man is as well as can be expected and Mercy looks after them both.

  Further items of gossip might be recorded for the satisfaction of those who are interested.

  The Coroner had a lot of tidying up to do when the police had caught the criminal.

  For one single great day, the Prank-Lee affair totally eclipsed Hitler and his war in the Werrymouth Observer. As if the resumption of the inquest on Harriet Prank, with the story of Jane’s perfidy and ultimate removal in a plain van, were not enough, Mr. Jackson gave overflowing measure by passing on to the inquests on Mr. Boake and Nancy Emmott.

  This spate of enquiries shook the town. The edition of the local paper was sold out almost before it left the presses. The Coroner and his lady immediately took on a new lease of social distinction and had the satisfaction of seeing the report of Lady Bromiloe’s garden party for bombed-out cats and dogs crowded out of the news and held over for three days.

  Instead of a press snapshot showing her Ladyship declaring the fête champêtre (as she called it) open—a performance for which she posed alone and had the platform cleared for the purpose—there appeared a more sensational substitute showing Mr. Jackson entering the Ancient Mariners’ Hall for the inquests. The photographer caught him unaware. He looks furtive, you will observe, if you are lucky enough to see the picture of him. Like an adulterer stealing in by the back door at Pleasant Street. Perhaps there were seagulls about, poised for a further anointing.…

  Playfair wanted his old friends to stay on a little longer but they had had enough of Werrymouth and district.

  It’s twins this time, wrote Mrs. Littlejohn from Rugby. Yesterday I made some plum jam. Heaven knows they’ll need something to fill all these mouths on one parson’s salary and the offertories on the down grade. Won’t you call on your way home and try the jam, even if you’re not enthusiastic about the twins …?

  Like a breath of fresh air from a saner world! Littlejohn and his colleague hastily packed and got the train for London, via Rugby. Cromwell was carrying a box of dabs which he had caught for his wife at first light, believing them to be very nourishing. As we have probably stated earlier, Cromwell’s wife was shortly expecting to make him a father. Cromwell was sure it would be a boy and in his anxious enthusiasm, left his dabs on the rack when he changed trains.

  A little while ago, Littlejohn became godfather to Miss Jane Elizabeth Cromwell, a piece of interesting gossip for those who admire Cromwell, but nothing whatever to do with Sam Prank and Rosie Lee, thank God!

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1946 by George Bellairs

  Cover design by Elizabeth Connor

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-9074-5

  This 2014 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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