Death of a Shadow (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)
Page 18
Cyril was a bank cashier in London and was keen on money. He had made several attempts to re-establish contact with his great-aunt, with an eye to ingratiating himself with her. After all, the Johnsons had been reputed to be very comfortably off. They had owned a very profitable mine in Plumpton Bois when the lodes were flourishing. His mother’s great-grandfather had, he knew, started a mine of his own, raised himself from a modest miner to a local bigwig, built Johnsons Place, and moved to it from a two-up and two-down cottage. But all Cyril’s approaches to his aunt had been repulsed. She had snubbed him, never answered his letters or his persistent Christmas cards.
Once only, when he had written to say that he would be in the vicinity on holidays and would call on her, had she sent him a formal note. ‘Miss Johnson is unwell and is unable to receive visitors.’ After that, he’d given up.
And now, like a bolt from the blue, the legacy. A house and its contents. And what a house! Large, damp, rambling and shabby.
When Mr. Jeremiah Cunliffe, his aunt’s lawyer in Povington, had written to him and explained that Miss Johnson wished the house and all its contents to pass to her sole surviving relative, Cyril Savage had pictured a fine patrician place. He was due to retire from the bank in four years and maybe he could then settle there, his mother’s family home. But now … Not on your life …
‘You’d better call and see the place and then come back to me and let me know what you decide to do about it,’ Mr. Cunliffe had told him when Savage had called on his way to inspect his windfall. ‘You may find it somewhat neglected. Of late years your aunt has not been at all well and unable to manage her affairs properly. Had I not done my modest share of keeping an eye on things, they might have been far worse …’
Mr. Savage had grown bold.
‘Who inherits the money, if I’m only to get the property?’
Mr. Cunliffe was a small, aged, wiry man with close-cut sandy hair, sandy eyebrows and a benevolent expression for the occasion. His benevolence turned to acid at the question.
‘There was very little left. A few hundred pounds in the bank. No investments and, as far as I can ascertain, no property elsewhere. You are the only one to receive any substantial benefit.’
‘Who gets the bank balance?’
Mr. Savage was a persistent man. Mr. Cunliffe regarded him bellicosely over his spectacles.
‘I do. She and I had been friends for more than sixty years and during that time, I helped her with all her financial affairs. After her legacy to you, she left me the residue. It was in the nature of a mere honorarium, for I collected very little from her in the way of fees during her lifetime. Are you satisfied, or shall I read the will to you? It is quite short.’
Mr. Savage decided that he’d been swindled by a sharp lawyer and that it was no use arguing about it.
‘You needn’t bother. I see your point.’
‘The house and grounds of Johnsons Place have been neglected of late. Miss Johnson’s maid, a woman of over seventy, who’d been with her since she was a girl taken from an orphanage, and nursed your aunt through her last illness, left about a week ago. I would have urged her to stay until you took over, but she had made other arrangements. So, as I couldn’t find a suitable caretaker in the vicinity, I had to leave things. A neighbour is keeping an eye on the place, however. I’m sorry, but I did my best. You see, Plumpton Bois was, until quite recently, an almost deserted village. There are very few domestic workers there, if any. The owners of the properties are either elderly retired people, or else residents from nearby towns who come and go over weekends …’
Mr. Savage had left the lawyer feeling very unhappy and dissatisfied. He had a presentiment that somewhere, something was wrong …
The whole interview came back to him as he stood before the door of the room on the left of the tiled passage. He turned the knob, but the door didn’t move. He put his knee to it and irritably banged it open. When he stepped inside, he recoiled.
This was what must have been a ceremonial sitting-room. It smelled of damp horsehair and decayed curtains. There were stiff little chairs, a brass fender before the fireplace and a skin hearthrug which looked to be suffering from ringworm. A small Sheraton desk in one corner was the only article of furniture worth looking at. The walls and mantelpiece were littered with framed and fading photographs of the Johnson family. Mr. Savage recoiled from none of these, but from the state of the room.
A large mahogany chiffonier had all its drawers out and had been resolutely rummaged. The desk had suffered the same indignity and its locks had been forced. As though seeking a hiding place under the floor, the intruder had partly rolled back the carpet, a worn green affair, and apparently examined the boards under it. He had even been up the chimney, for there were marks of soot here and there in the room, as though he hadn’t minded his dirty hands or gloves.
This was the last straw for Mr. Savage. He made whimpering noises as he paused to recover from the shock and then, ignoring his wife, rushed from room to room, upstairs and down. Without exception, they had suffered a similar going-over, but order had apparently been somewhat restored there. As though the searcher – whoever he was – had originally tried to make a neat job, but that his time had run out as he progressed.
The mattresses and feather beds in the two furnished bedrooms had been opened and plumbed and there were feathers scattered all over the place like relics of a destructive fox in a poultry yard.
Cyril Savage was almost hysterical with rage and confusion until intense hatered of the unknown intruder steadied him. Meanwhile, his wife, infected by the crazy atmosphere created by her husband, had collapsed in an armchair in the dining-room, Miss Johnson’s living place, with a round oak table, straw bottomed chairs and a large Welsh dresser with its drawers gaping wide.
Savage didn’t even bother about his wife. He continued to rush here and there, like a caged rat seeking an outlet. Upstairs and down, to the attics and back. He was not a courageous man, but very impulsive. That was the reason he hadn’t got very far in the bank. He’d made a lot of stupid mistakes during his career, charging like a bull at a gate when faced by a problem. He would have killed the wrecker of his aunt’s house had he found him. That would have been another mistake.
Finally, the only place he found unexplored was the cavity under the stairs, close by a large door, which presumably gave access to the cellars. When Savage tried to open it he found it locked. There was no key. He sought everywhere for it, his anger re-kindled. He was a sorry sight. His face streaked with soot, his eyes staring, his lips twisted in a mirthless grin. He still wore his cap and raincoat; the former askew over one eye, the latter stained with dust, oil and soot picked up during his wild search. He could not find the key anywhere. He put his shoulder to the obstinate door, but it resisted him. He kicked it, but it did not move.
At last, in a transport of rage, he took up a heavy hall chair and smashed at the lock. The door opened suddenly from the weight of the blow.
Mr. Savage paused as though surprised at what he had accomplished. He felt the clammy tainted air ooze from the black yawning cavity and surround him, rancid and full of decay. That was all.
When Mrs. Savage came-to a little later, she sat upright and listened. Not a sound indoors. She screamed her husband’s name which echoed round the empty house. There was no reply. She slowly made her way to the hall, gripping the furniture to hold her up and give her some confidence.
She found her husband dead at the top of the cellar steps from a fearful blow on the head. She gave a great moan and, in a burst of terrified strength, ran screaming from the place.
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George Bellairs was the pseudonym of Harold Blundell (1902-1985). He was, by day, a Manchester bank manager with close connections to the University of Manchester. He is often referred to as the English Simenon, as his detective stories combine wicked crimes and classic police procedurals, set in small British communities.
He was born in Lancashire and married Gladys Mabel Roberts in 1930. He was a Francophile which explains why many of his titles took place in France. Bellairs travelled there many times, and often wrote articles for English newspapers and magazines, with news and views from France.
After retiring from business, he moved with Gladys to Colby on the Isle of Man, where they had many friends and family. Some of his detective novels are set on the Isle of Man and his surviving notebooks attest to a keen interest in the history, geography and folklore of the island. In 1941 he wrote his first mystery story during spare moments at his air raid warden’s post. Throughout the 1950s he contributed a regular column to the Manchester Guardian under the pseudonym George Bellairs, and worked as a freelance writer for other newspapers both local and national.
Blundell’s first mystery, Littlejohn on Leave (1941) introduced his series detective, Detective Inspector Thomas Littlejohn. His books are strong in characters and small communities – set in the 1940s to ‘70s. The books have strong plots, and are full of scandal and intrigue. His series character started as Inspector and later became Superintendent Thomas Littlejohn. Littlejohn, reminiscent of Inspector Maigret, is injected with humour, intelligence and compassion.
He died on the Isle of Man in April 1982 just before his eightieth birthday after a protracted illness.
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ALSO BY GEORGE BELLAIRS
The Case of the Famished Parson
The Case of the Demented Spiv
Corpses in Enderby
Death in High Provence
Death Sends for the Doctor
Murder Makes Mistakes
Bones in the Wilderness
Toll the Bell for Murder
Death in the Fearful Night
Death in the Wasteland
Death of a Shadow
Intruder in the Dark
Death in Desolation
The Night They Killed Joss Varran
This edition published in 2016 by Ipso Books
Ipso Books is a division of Peters Fraser + Dunlop Ltd
Drury House, 34-43 Russell Street, London WC2B 5HA
Copyright © George Bellairs, 1964
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You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Contents
1The Unseen Watcher
2The Two Clings
3Things Past
4Surviving Relatives
5More Family Matters
6At the Ministry
713bis Rue Jacobi
8Mont-Choisi
9Les Plaisances
10Room 14
11Strange Behaviour of Dr. Fauconnet
12Albertine Durand
13Sleight of Hand
14Quite Another Cling
15Intruder in the Night
16Tape Recordings and Other Things
17Home and Finish