by John Rhode
Dr Thornborough smiled a trifle wanly. ‘Nobody in Adderminster is ever very much surprised at what Alfie does. Besides, he’s a sufferer from claustrophobia, and I happen to know that sometimes he spends his nights in the field adjoining this house.’
‘Do you happen to know whether he spent last Friday night there?’
‘I don’t, for I never look to see whether he’s there or not. Officially I know nothing about it, for I suppose that technically he’s trespassing. But he isn’t doing any harm, and from the medical point of view it’s better for him to sleep out than in.’
‘He was coming out of that field when you saw him, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes. He crossed the road into the orchard opposite, and I didn’t see any more of him after that.’
‘You’re perfectly certain that the man you saw was Alfie?’
‘Oh, anyone who knew him would recognise him a mile away. He always wears a filthy old army greatcoat, so ragged that it’s literally dropping off him. And as soon as I caught sight of that coat I knew it must be Alfie.’
‘Where were you coming from when you saw him, doctor?’
‘I’d been to Mark Farm. Mrs Hawksworth, the farmer’s wife is one of my patients. I’d been to Weaver’s Bridge and I drove up to the farm from that direction. I was there about a quarter of an hour, I dare say, and then I came home through the gate at the end of the road.’
‘Did you see anybody else besides Alfie?’
‘Not a soul. It’s a dead end, you know, unless you happen to be going to Mark Farm.’
‘Do you happen to know the tenant of the cottage on the other side of the road?’
‘I can’t say that I know him, but he came here to see me about three weeks ago. He cut his thumb rather badly, chopping wood. I bound it up for him, and wrote him out a prescription for a salve. He told me that his name was Willingdon, and that he only came down here for the weekends. I thought he seemed quite a decent young fellow.’
‘I hope I’m not taking up too much of your time, doctor,’ said Jimmy. ‘I’d like to ask you one or two more questions and then I’ve finished. By the way, do you mind if I smoke?’
‘Not a bit,’ replied Dr Thornborough heartily. ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you a cigarette though, for I never smoke the things myself.’
‘Oh that’s all right, I always carry my own,’ said Jimmy. He produced his cigarette case, opened it and suddenly looked blank. ‘Blest if it isn’t empty!’ he exclaimed. ‘I must have forgotten to fill it.’
‘You cigarette smokers are always doing that,’ the doctor replied. ‘Wait a minute, there are plenty of cigarettes in the drawing-room. I’ll go and get you one.’
Dr Thornborough left the room, to return a few moments later with a silver box which he held out towards Jimmy. ‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘They’re my wife’s. I don’t know whether you’ll care about them.’
Jimmy took one of the cigarettes and lighted it. ‘Black’s Russian Blend, I see,’ he said. ‘I used to have a fancy for them myself at one time. Does Mrs Thornborough always smoke them?’
‘No, she smokes Player’s as a rule. But her uncle, Mr Fransham, sent her a hundred of these last week. I don’t think she cares about them much, though.’
‘They’re an acquired taste. By the way, doctor, why did you have a brick wall built on one side of your property and not the other?’
Dr Thornborough, as well he might, looked slightly astonished at this question.
‘The reason’s a very simple one,’ he replied. ‘On one side of the house, as you may have noticed, are the public gardens. They will never be built upon. But the land on the other side is for sale in building plots. Sooner or later somebody will put up a house there. Hence the wall, which I had put up in order to avoid being overlooked.’
Jimmy smiled. ‘I might have thought of that for myself,’ he said. ‘There’s just one thing I’d like to mention, doctor. It might be advisable for Mr Fransham’s solicitor to be present at the inquest tomorrow.’
‘The same thing occurred to me. I got on the telephone to him yesterday afternoon, and explained what had happened. He promised to come down by the afternoon train today, and should be here about half-past four. Have you formed any opinion as to how this terrible thing can have happened?’
‘I’ve hardly had time for that yet, doctor. Is Coates, Mr Fransham’s chauffeur, still here?’
‘I sent him down with Fransham’s car to the Red Lion. And told him to stay there till further orders.’
‘That’s just as well, for his evidence will probably be wanted at the inquest. Do you happen to take the British Medical Journal, doctor?’
‘Yes, I do. There’s this week’s issue lying on the table in front of you.’
‘I wonder if you could find me the issue of May 22? There’s an article in that number which I’m particularly anxious to read. We policemen have to try and keep abreast of certain branches of medical knowledge, you know.’
Dr Thornborough went to a bookshelf upon which lay a pile of back numbers. He ran through these twice without finding the one which Jimmy had asked for.
‘That’s queer,’ he said. ‘That particular number must have got mislaid. But I’ll have a hunt for it and send it along to you when I find it.’
‘Oh, please don’t trouble. I’ve wasted enough of your time as it is.’
Jimmy left the house, being escorted to the front door by the doctor. He then crossed the road and knocked at the door of the cottage, which stood by itself in a small garden surrounded by trees. After a few minutes the door was opened by a noticeably pale young man, wearing a tennis shirt and a pair of grey flannel trousers, who remained in the dark background of the hall, from which he peered at his visitor disapprovingly. ‘This isn’t my at home day, you know,’ he said.
‘I hoped it might have been,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Are you Mr Willingdon?’
‘Such is my ancestral name. My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism christened me Francis. To the denizens of the low haunts which I frequent I am known as Frank. And who are you that so blithely disturb my Sabbath rest?’
‘I’m Inspector James Waghorn from Scotland Yard,’ Jimmy replied simply.
‘Be sure your sins will find you out!’ exclaimed the other in a sepulchral tone. ‘Where are the minions of justice? Where are the handcuffs and the gyves? Where, in fact, is the Black Maria?’
‘Sorry, I forgot to bring it. But I’d be very glad if you could spare me five minutes of your time, Mr Willingdon.’
‘He calls me Mr Willingdon! Indeed, my offence must be rank. Wherein have I transgressed the King’s Peace? Have I driven thirty and a half miles an hour in a thirty mile limit? Have I consumed alcohol during the hours when such indulgence is not permitted? Have I been so lost to all sense of decency as to loiter with intent? Come inside, and tell me the worst.’
He led the way into a room furnished as a lounge, with the curtains drawn across all the windows. When his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Jimmy perceived that at one end of this room was a table covered with a newspaper, on which was laid a tin can, a loaf of bread and a bottle of beer. A faint but penetrating smell of perfume pervaded the place.
‘Observe the preparations for my frugal meal,’ said Willingdon. ‘Care to join me? I dare say I could find another bottle of beer in the refrigerator.’
‘I couldn’t think of depriving you of it,’ Jimmy replied. ‘You’ve heard, of course, of what happened at the doctor’s house across the road yesterday afternoon?’
Willingdon shook his head. ‘While I am in this rural retreat, I am a temporary anchorite,’ he said. ‘That’s what I come here for. Life in the giddy world is so hectic that even the most pernicious of us want a rest sometimes. Don’t you find that, inspector? Nothing untoward has befallen the doctor, I hope? He seemed a very good fellow the only time I saw him.’
‘His wife’s uncle was found dead in his house soon after one o’clock yesterday.’
‘Ho
w very annoying! I should hate any of my well-loved and respected relatives to expire in my arms. Unless, of course, their testamentary depositions compensated for the shock to my nerves. But surely you haven’t come to talk to me about the deceased uncle of the doctor’s wife? Sounds too terribly like a lesson in elementary French.’
‘That’s just what I have come to talk about. It’s just possible that you may have seen or heard something which may throw light upon the man’s death. To begin with, what were you doing between one and a quarter past yesterday afternoon, Mr Willingdon?’
With a gesture, Willingdon indicated the table.
‘Much what I’m doing now, or should have been doing but for the unexpected pleasure of your visit,’ he replied. ‘Replenishing the jaded body with its needful sustenance.’
‘And what did you do when you had completed the process?’
Willingdon pointed to the sofa. ‘I laid myself recumbent on yonder couch,’ he replied. ‘And there I still was when the summons of the door-knocker roused me from my slumbers.’
‘You had a visitor?’ Jimmy suggested.
‘You have divined the truth, inspector. It’s not the first time that people have knocked on the door while I’ve been down here. But, as a rule, I don’t open it and after a time they go away. I had no intention of opening the door yesterday afternoon, imagining that time would abate the nuisance. So it did, but the nuisance reasserted itself. It manifested itself this time by a tapping on the window. I couldn’t stand that, so I got up to see who it was.’
‘What time was this?’ Jimmy asked.
Willingdon frowned. ‘I have always refused to be a slave to that ridiculous convention which you call time,’ he replied. ‘Besides, there’s no such thing, as any of these modern scientific johnnies will tell you. It was sometime in the afternoon, too early for my system to demand the stimulus of tea, and not yet late enough for it to have recovered from its post-prandial somnolence.’
‘Somewhere between two and three o’clock, perhaps?’
‘Very likely. I opened the window, and a husky voice hailed me. “Got any fags to spare, guv’nor?”’
‘What did the man look like?’ Jimmy asked.
‘Nothing on earth. You couldn’t imagine him unless you had read The King in Yellow, which I don’t suppose you have.’
Jimmy smiled. ‘“Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the king,”’ he quoted. ‘Is that what you were thinking of?’
‘Once more you have divined it. There was something kingly in his assurance that his request would not be denied. And the tatters—the yellow tatters! Nowhere but in Carcosa could he have found a garment like that.’
‘Could you describe it?’
‘Words don’t often fail me, as you may have noticed. But for that purpose, I can think of none adequate. It still retained a faint suggestion of military discomfort about the collar, as though some veteran of the Peninsula war had cowered in it behind the lines of Torres Vedras. In colour it was yellow, the yellow of dank and mouldering corruption. It was probably verminous, and most certainly it stank.’
‘Could you describe the man who was wearing it?’
‘Red hair, wandering blue eyes and a pungent aroma of perspiration. Those were my impressions.’
‘Did you give him any cigarettes?’
‘I did. I gave him a handful out of that box you see over there. I thought it was the quickest way of getting rid of him. And he said, “Honourable toff, here’s my best thanks.” I liked that, for he’s the first person who’s ever thought me honourable or considered me a toff.’
‘What happened after that?’
‘“Erupit, evasit, as Tully would phrase it!” He hasn’t troubled me since, I’m thankful to say.’
In reply to further questions Willingdon gave the following information. He had taken the cottage for a month, having seen it advertised in The Times. During that month he had lived in it each weekend, coming down on Friday evening and driving back to London on Monday morning. His leave expired the following week and this was, therefore, the last occasion on which he would use the cottage. He knew nobody in Adderminster except Dr Thornborough, and had only seen him once, when he consulted him professionally.
‘I’d like to know your occupation and address, Mr Willingdon, in case I want to get in touch with you again,’ said Jimmy, as he rose to take his leave.
Willingdon shuddered. ‘Occupation is a disaster which I have always strenuously avoided,’ he replied. ‘I don’t mind telling you in confidence what my trouble is. I’ve got more money than is good for my friends. As for an address, I never stay in one place longer than I can help. But if ever you want to know where I am, ask the girl in the reception office at Harlow’s Hotel. The ugly one, I mean—the one with a mouth like a vacuum cleaner. The pretty one’s more fun, but I’m sorry to say that she’s distressingly stupid. Sure you won’t try a bit of this tongue? It’s the genuine article and not synthetic rubber.’
Jimmy excused himself and left the cottage. He had observed that all the windows in the lounge faced away from the road. It was therefore highly unlikely that Willingdon would have seen any of the events of the previous day, even if he had not been in the habit of sitting with all the curtains drawn. His afternoon visitor could have been none other than Alfie, attired in his now famous greatcoat.
Alfie was becoming a nuisance in more senses than one. It was inconceivable that he should have had any connection with the death of Mr Fransham. And yet his name or presence cropped up at every turn of the investigation. As Jimmy walked back to the police station he made a mental list of Alfie’s appearances.
Between 10.30 and 11 p.m. on Friday evening, Alfie was accosted by a mysterious cove near Weaver’s Bridge. This cove had relieved him of his greatcoat and rewarded him with a handful of cigarettes and half a crown. The only authority for this transaction was Alfie himself.
About a quarter to one on Saturday morning, Alfie had pestered Colonel Exbury for cigarettes. On that occasion he was not wearing his greatcoat. Colonel Exbury, presumably an impartial witness, was the authority for this. About ten minutes past one on the same day Alfie, or someone whom the doctor mistook for him, was seen crossing Gunthorpe Road. He was recognised from the fact that he was wearing the unmistakable greatcoat. But this event depended on the unconfirmed statement of Dr Thornborough, and for the present at least, Dr Thornborough’s statements must be accepted with caution.
Sometime in the same afternoon Alfie had called upon Mr Willingdon and demanded cigarettes. Willingdon’s description could hardly apply to anyone except Alfie and his coat. And begging cigarettes seemed to be Alfie’s passion at the moment.
About seven o’clock on the same afternoon, Alfie had been seen and detained by Linton. He had by then exchanged his old coat for one taken from outside Murphy’s shop.
Finally, at 10.45 on Sunday morning Jimmy himself had found the coat in the corner of the grass field. Alfie had immediately recognised it as his.
Jimmy called at the Red Lion for a hasty lunch and then went back to the police station.
Sergeant Cload was waiting for him. ‘I went round to see Mrs Prince myself, sir,’ he said. ‘I thought she’d better know where Alfie was, in case she might be worrying about him. She was a bit upset when she heard what he’d been up to, but I persuaded her that he was best where he was, out of harm’s way for the present. She said she was afraid when she last saw him that one of his fits was coming on.’
‘When did she see him last?’ Jimmy asked.
‘On Friday evening, sir. He’d been working all the week for one of the farmers just outside the town. But when he came home on Friday, his mother could see that he was restless and not quite himself. She gave him his tea and then he said that he was going out to count the fish in Weaver’s Brook. She knew it was no good crossing him when he was in that mood, so she put a few slices of beef and bread in his pocket. And she hasn’t seen him since.’
‘She w
asn’t worried when he didn’t come back at night?’
‘Not a bit, sir. She’s used to Alfie sleeping out under a hedge somewhere most summer nights. She hoped he’d get over his trouble by Monday morning and start work again then.’
‘What are you going to do about him?’
‘I’ve had a word with the super, sir. He says that I’m to get Dr Dorrington to see him on Monday morning before he comes before the magistrate.’
‘That’s about the best thing you can do. Has Linton come in yet? I’d like to have a chat with him if he has.’
Linton appeared, and at Jimmy’s request gave a detailed account of his experiences in the doctor’s house on the previous morning. Jimmy listened attentively and then began to question him.
‘I’ve been up to the house and I’ve got a pretty good idea of the ground floor arrangements, at all events,’ he said. ‘Now first of all that noise you heard like something being dropped. Could that have been the sound of Mr Fransham falling on the cloakroom floor?’
‘I think it must have been that, sir,’ Linton replied. ‘I’m quite certain the sound came from the ground floor. And while I was up there last night I asked Lucy, that’s the parlourmaid, if anything had been dropped in the kitchen before lunch. She said that it hadn’t, but that she thought she’d heard something fall, too.’
‘That’s good. You looked at your watch directly after you heard the sound, so we can pretty well establish the time that Mr Fransham was hit at seven minutes past one. Now at that time, there were, to the best of our knowledge, four people in the house. Mrs Thornborough, her mother, the cook and the parlourmaid. I’m not counting Mr Fransham. Do you know which rooms these four people were in?’
‘I heard Mrs Thornborough go upstairs just before it happened, sir. I think Mrs Thornborough’s mother must have been up there already, for I could hear somebody walking about overhead when I first went into the consulting-room. The cook would have been in the kitchen getting the lunch ready, and I’m pretty certain that Lucy was there, too, for I had heard her go through the baize door.’
‘Which way do the kitchen windows look?’
