The Case of the Demented Spiv (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

The landlord was set for talking all the rest of the day and night. Somebody had paid for a drink or two for him and he was half-seas-over already. Littlejohn guessed it wouldn’t be long before the licence changed hands. Probably he was drinking away all the profits and more besides.

  The telephone bell rang in a box at the end of the bar.

  “Is Inspector Littlejohn here? Inspector Littlejohn.…”

  Everybody looked up and a score or more pairs of eyes fixed themselves curiously on Littlejohn. He took the call in the box and the eyes remained fixed on him as though trying to read his thoughts.

  It was Mrs. Barrow on the telephone.

  “I say, Inspector, it seems a shame to waste this good steak. Even if you are staying at The Queen Anne, you might like a meal here. I can promise a better spread than old Spencer’s any day. Will you come? I can perhaps tell you something useful, too, whilst you’re here.”

  “But I’ve got to see Inspector Faddiman almost at once. I’ve only just got here to settle in.…”

  “Ring him up and tell him you’ll be a bit late.”

  Littlejohn sighed. Of all the determined women he’d ever met!

  “Very well, Mrs. Barrow, thank you.…”

  “The address is forty-one Farleigh Grove. About five minutes’ walk from where you are now. The landlord will tell you how to get there. Or, I could walk down and show you the way.”

  “No, no, thanks. I’ll find it.…”

  He didn’t ask the landlord, however. He’d had enough of Spencer for the time being. It was raining so he took a taxi.

  “Chuckin’ the country’s money around,” said the driver when he got back among his pals in the local cabmen’s shelter. “Gettin’ me out in all that rain for a three minutes’ trip and a bob fare. Ruddy shame, I call it.…”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  STEAK FOR TEA

  THE taxi was out of the town in a couple of minutes. This was the suburban part of Brockfield, where the clerks, officials, prosperous traders and better-class artisans lived. Small detached or semi-detached houses, each with its formal little garden, so many to the acre, as laid down in some planning scheme or other. Many of the avenues had not yet been adopted and paved and traffic had churned them up badly. The taxi bounced over potholes which the rain had filled with liquid resembling cold tea.

  The afternoon light was fading and added a dismal air to the scene. Electric lamps with naked bulbs, posted here and there on the estate, had been switched on by time-clocks and their light shone weak and desperate against the remaining daylight.

  They halted at a small detached house in the middle of a road. Small cars stood at the gates of other villas, as though their owners had brought them out and parked them there just to show they owned them. Number forty-one Farleigh Grove was like all the rest. Box hedge, wooden gate, with “Forty-One” in full on a plate made of the individual letters held together in a frame. A few dripping poplars and bushes surrounding a small patch of lawn with bedraggled and neglected flower-beds at the edge. There were heavy green curtains at the windows and on the window-sill inside, two glass vases of flowers with a plaster figure of a Greek athlete between.

  Littlejohn paid off his taxi and walked along the crazy-paved path to the front door. The bell was a clockwork thing which you wind up by turning it round and round inside.

  “Will you please come in? My daughter won’t be a minute.”

  Littlejohn guessed that it was Mrs. Barrow’s mother. A little, grey-haired, faded woman, with bright inquisitive dark eyes. She spoke with a trace of some dialect or other. She was serious and a bit overawed by her visitor. There was an air of refinement about her worried face and you could see from whom her daughter had inherited the delicate arched nose and regular features.

  As he entered the house, Littlejohn was enveloped in a warm smell of cooking. Steak and chips for tea, with something connected with hot custard to follow! Upstairs, you could hear someone, presumably Flo. Barrow, hurrying here and there, dressing herself up specially for her visitor.

  The passage was gloomy and the old lady switched on a light, a wrought-iron lantern with orange-coloured glass. The first thing that caught Littlejohn’s eye was a fine little etching hanging beside a modern oak hall-wardrobe. The rest of the furniture was nondescript. Mock-jacobean umbrella stand, a small dinner waggon with a plate glass top, and a green and black carpet.

  “Let me hang up your hat and coat.…”

  Littlejohn handed them over with a smile, whereat the old lady thawed and smiled back. Her face, relieved of strain, assumed quite an air of distinction. The hall-wardrobe was chock-full but she managed, by ramming the contents tight, to find room for Littlejohn’s clothes.

  “In here, please.…”

  The old lady indicated an easy chair near the fire and bustled off to hurry along her daughter. You could hear her climbing the stairs.…

  Littlejohn looked round the room. To him, it indicated a struggle of tastes. Flo. Barrow on one side and her husband, and perhaps her mother, too, on the other. Flo. influenced by Fenning, a man of the world and by all accounts, a connoisseur; and Ambrose Barrow, a philistine who played the organ at chapel, looked like a waiter when he put on his evening clothes, and was content with the standards of small-town life. You could imagine the tussle when they set up house.

  There was an enormous, dim oil-painting on the wall. It dominated the room from a heavy gilt frame. Probably Barrow had been very proud of it and hoped that one day some expert would proclaim it a masterpiece and buy it for a fabulous sum. It completely overshadowed two small, exquisite woodcuts, which perhaps Fenning had given to Flo. at some time or other. The carpet was fitted and of rust colour, which, toning after a fashion with the mahogany furniture, brought out none of the colour or lustre of it. Blue would have been better. The piano was a good one. Barrow had been a musician and presumably used it a lot. There were still two or three oratorios lying on top. You could divide the room in two. Furniture, heavy and unimaginative, with carpets and fittings by Barrow. Odds and ends, like ornaments, by his wife. A conglomeration of warring styles.…

  Then, Littlejohn realised that he might be doing Barrow an injustice. Perhaps he hadn’t been responsible for the set-up at all. Maybe, Flo.’s taste was reflected in the main scheme and Fenning had merely imposed a little here and there by an odd gift or two. His education of the small-town girl might not have gone very far. She might have been too stupid from the start.…

  “So, we meet again, Inspector.”

  She was still wearing black, but it wasn’t a mourning order this time. It was a model frock, caught at the neck by an exquisite opal brooch and she wore fine silk stockings and shoes which set off the lot. Her dark hair shone under the lamplight and her make-up, down to the very shade of her lipstick, was just right. Littlejohn’s runaway imagination saw the finger of Fenning in it all.…

  They shook hands. Mrs. Barrow looked quite at ease, but she seemed to have arranged everything beforehand.

  “Sherry?”

  She produced a bottle and two glasses. The glasses were poor; the sherry excellent. It was Fenning’s favourite brand! Again the conflict of tastes. A really fine drink served in glasses bought from a sixpenny store before the war!!

  Outside, you could hear the old woman bustling around, rattling plates, spreading cups and saucers, rushing in and out of the kitchen, looking after the meal. The nice steak.…

  “I wanted to talk with you before you started your investigation, Inspector.… But, excuse me, I didn’t ask if you found The Queen Anne all right.”

  She smiled a bit spitefully, knowing the answer she would get.

  “Passable, that’s all, Mrs. Barrow. I don’t know what the food’s like, but the place strikes me as decidedly dim.”

  “I thought it would. However.… What do you think of Brockfield?”

  “Well.…”

  “A bit dim, too? Don’t bother to be polite. I think it’s a dreadful place. Nobody.…”


  “It’s ready.…”

  The old lady’s head appeared round the door and vanished again.

  “This way.…”

  The dining-room was just the same. No-account furniture and a few surprises. For example, the Wedgwood willow service and the fine china cups and saucers.

  The steak was served, garnished with chips and grilled tomatoes. A fine, white tablecloth, silver tea-service, spotless napkins. Flo.’s mother, Mrs. Harrison, didn’t look comfortable. Either she was a bit scared of Littlejohn or else she wasn’t used to a show such as her daughter was putting on.

  “Will you have a bottle of beer, Inspector?”

  As Flo. Barrow went to the kitchen to fetch the drink her mother shook her head and clicked her tongue against her teeth.

  “I never touch drink,” she said testily. “Neither did Flo. until she.…”

  And then Mrs. Harrison stopped.

  • • • • • • •

  They were sitting in the lounge again, taking coffee. Mrs. Barrow had offered Littlejohn brandy and cigars, but he had refused the drink and was smoking his pipe.

  Impossible to believe that but a short while ago, the master of the place had been strangled. It was so quiet and settled. You’d have thought that trouble was safely shut outside.

  “Had your husband any enemies, Mrs. Barrow? Anyone who might have wished him ill or borne him any grudge?”

  The same old question and the same old answer.

  “No.…”

  She was sitting with her legs crossed, smoking a cigarette and staring in the fire. The look she gave Littlejohn as she answered was untroubled. Outside, her mother was washing up in the kitchen.

  “What was he doing at the mill at that hour?”

  “According to the evidence at the inquest, he was there selling some oddments of cloth to the dealer who could only come for them on Saturday night.”

  “Was he in charge of that kind of thing? One would have thought the warehouseman.…”

  “Yes. But with cash passing for the transaction, my husband probably wished to lock it in the safe. Only he and the directors had keys.”

  “It seems a bit strange, though. Surely Mr. Barrow wasn’t in charge of the warehouse.”

  “You’re thinking of the story that my husband was dishonestly selling the company’s goods, aren’t you? I won’t believe that. There must be some satisfactory explanation. He was too honest. There wasn’t a straighter man anywhere. The insinuation is scandalous and that’s why I hope you’ll do better than the local police and clear his name at the same time as find his murderer.”

  Flo. Barrow’s cheeks flamed and she grew excited. But she showed no sign of grief. Merely indignation.

  “What is this matter about his being disguised… made up with the dramatic society’s grease-paints and false-hair? Was he an actor, then?”

  Mrs. Barrow looked ready to laugh.

  “Ambrose an actor? Not at all. His association with the church dramatics was as a musician. He ran a little piano quartette which played between the acts. He couldn’t have taken a part to save his life.…”

  She said it almost contemptuously.

  “Why?”

  “He wasn’t that kind. Stolid, unimaginative. He was a good musician technically, but quite uninspired.…”

  Littlejohn looked at the woman facing him. Good-looking, passionate, well-dressed, with a measure of surface sophistication and probably boundless ambition.

  Yet, she married Barrow. Unimaginative, stodgy, provincial to his finger-tips. A real, self-satisfied bore. You could imagine him coming home, sitting by the fireside in his slippers, playing his piano, talking about his day at the office. Now and then going out to choir practice, or to rehearse his little orchestra. And sometimes he’d go upstairs and put on his evening clothes and attend some local function. And he’d come down looking like a waiter!

  “What was your husband doing disguised then?”

  “I don’t know. If it weren’t so tragic, it would be comic.”

  Littlejohn wondered what was going on in this woman’s mind. What was under the cynical show of case-hardening she assumed?

  “What did you do when your husband went out practising his music and such like, Mrs. Barrow?”

  “I stayed in or visited friends.…”

  “You didn’t share his musical interests then?”

  “The church choir? No, thank you. They didn’t want me there.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. Littlejohn knew. Probably there was a commotion and a lot of talk at the chapel when Barrow married the girl he did. Not the chapel sort.… Decidedly not.

  “What happened on the day he died?”

  “We had a meal and he went to the church to play for a special service. I had a cold so stayed at home. Otherwise, I’d probably have called to see friends. The next thing was the telephone message from the police.”

  “Had your husband been in touch with anybody from the dramatic society that night? I mean, could he have picked up his disguise on the way?”

  “No. That was fully gone into. There wasn’t anything else on at the church but the special service. It wouldn’t have done for things to clash, would it?”

  “Who’s in charge of the dramatic society?”

  “A Mrs. Allen is secretary. She lives at Albion Place in the town. She may be able to tell you more.”

  So it went on. Just ordinary conversation, as though they were discussing something in which they both weren’t vitally interested.

  “Now, Mrs. Barrow, please tell me if your husband’s finances were in order at the time of his death.”

  “Quite in order. If you mean, had he been spending a lot, or presumably putting a lot away from ill-gotten gains, you’re quite mistaken. Ambrose was a thrifty man, who put by a fixed sum from his income every year. His life policies were all in order and his capital regular. No large sums, no large outgoings.”

  “Thank you.”

  “May I ask what he earned?”

  Flo. didn’t look very surprised at the question.

  “About eight hundred a year. We managed all right on it.”

  An etching hung on one wall. It put all the rest of the pictures in the house to shame. Littlejohn pointed to it.

  “Was that your choice… or Mr. Barrow’s?”

  “Mine. He didn’t bother much about pictures. Do you like it?”

  Littlejohn rose and looked carefully at it.

  “Beautiful. I won’t ask what it cost. It’s a Whistler, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. And it cost five shillings.”

  Littlejohn opened his eyes wide.

  “How?”

  “Among a lot of junk at a local auction-sale. A friend of mine saw it and bought it. It was among a stack of stuff which was being sold merely as wood and glass. My friend gave it to me.”

  “Did she know she was getting a Whistler?”

  “He did.”

  No need to ask who he was.

  Littlejohn was beginning to feel a bit disgusted with developments. He thought about Faddiman, too. What would the Inspector be saying? Here was a Scotland Yard man down to help in the investigation and they hadn’t, as yet, got their heads together and discussed the problem. Was it going to turn out to be a sordid little triangular affair? Two males fighting over a female and one slaughtering the other!

  Mrs. Harrison had finished in the kitchen and could be heard pottering about outside, making up her mind whether or not to enter the room.

  “Shall I make up the fire, Flo?”

  “I must be going.”

  Littlejohn rose to greet the old lady and knocked out his pipe in the fire.

  “You’re not going yet, are you? I thought maybe you’d have some more questions to ask me.…”

  “What kind of questions, Mrs. Barrow?”

  “I don’t know. But I thought.…”

  She had asked him up to size him up! That was it. Did she wish to know what kind of an all
y she had…? Or was it adversary?

  The old lady seemed to think that some apology was due for her daughter’s calmness.

  “It’s been a sad blow to Flo., sir. She’s not herself at all. Since Ambrose was taken.…”

  “Please be quiet, mother. The Inspector knows all about it.”

  Littlejohn looked at Barrow’s things, still scattered here and there. Furniture, piano, heavy books in shelves on each side of the fireplace, some pipes in a rack, the oratorios on the piano. It was as if he were still alive, had just gone out to choir-practice, and would soon be back.

  “How long have you lived with your daughter, Mrs. Harrison?”

  “I have my own house. I just came to keep her company after Ambrose.… She couldn’t be alone, could she?”

  “No, she couldn’t.…”

  “Have the police any clues? Any suspicions?”

  Flo. tried to say it casually, but there was strain in her voice she couldn’t hide.

  So that was it! The meeting at the station, the pestering and badgering of Faddiman, the insistence on Littlejohn’s early visit. She was afraid of something.

  “No, Mrs. Barrow. We haven’t a thing to guide us. But sooner or later, we’ll find what it was all about.…”

  They saw him to the door and the pair of them stood there, framed in the hall light, until Littlejohn had walked almost to the end of the avenue. It was still raining hard, but the Inspector preferred to walk. He turned up the collar of his raincoat, pulled down the brim of his hat and struggled against the wind and rain till he reached the police station.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HAMLET IN MODERN DRESS

  LITTLEJOHN found Penelope Allen attending a rehearsal of the BAPS; Brockfield Amateur Players, to give it in full. After a brief interview with Faddiman, who seemed quite resigned to the strange ways of Scotland Yard detectives, he had called at Mrs. Allen’s home and been told she was at a rehearsal at the school behind the Oddfellows’ Arms, of which we have already said quite a lot.

  The Inspector was anxious to learn a bit more about the murdered man and his activities and also, if he could, to get to the bottom of the strange affair of the disguise.