Death on the Last Train

by George Bellairs

  The Binns couple looked horrified at the thought of it.

  “No,” said Solomon quietly. “You two stay here. We’ll go in the shop …”

  “But she’s not fit to be left … Her health …”

  “Come.”

  Solomon having put his foot down, his wife followed him.

  Littlejohn rose and closed the connecting door.

  “Now, Alice. Let’s get it over. You feel all right?”

  “Yes, Mr. Littlejohn, but I don’t quite know whether I’m on my head or my heels. I’m not a bad girl …”

  “I know you’re not …”

  “But they make me feel filthy some way. Keep on at me about being a sinner, and bein’ washed white, and strayin’ from the fold …”

  “Forget it. You’ve just struck a packet of bad luck being mixed up in this affair. You’ll get over it. You’re young enough. Now, Alice, tell me about you and Mr. Bellis and you and young Luxmore.”

  “I’ve finished with Harry Luxmore. I never did worse than have more drink than was good for me with him. When he tried taking liberties, I slapped his face and told him I’d done. Most of us had boys at the camp. I got knocking about with Harry. But I found he wasn’t my sort. Always boastin’ of his money and showin’ off. I got fed up. That’s all there was to it.”

  “And when you broke with him, did Luxmore get nasty?”

  “A bit. Not bad, though. He just couldn’t understand why a girl should give him the go-by. Thought you’d just be tumbling over yourself with his charm and the money he spent. Some of the girls were always ready for him to pav for drinks and maul them. I got I couldn’t stand him. He said he wanted me to go places with him. He might even settle down, he said, and perhaps marry me if I’d be nice to him. His ideas of bein’ nice and mine weren’t the same.”

  “I see. And what about Bellis?”

  Outside Mr. Binns’ rockers could be heard hard at it.’ But his wife was not singing. She was hanging over the counter, scowling like mad.

  “Oh, stop that rockin’. Can’t hear a thing for it. It’s getting on my nerves. Indeed it is.”

  Solomon almost rolled from his perch at such backsliding.

  “I met ’im at Aunt Bessie’s when I was on leave once. He gave me a pound when I went back and said I was to regard him as my uncle. Then, when I was ill in hospital, he sent me things. Flowers and fruit. A girl likes to think somebody’s thinkin’ about her, especially when those who should be doin’, send the wrong things. Harry sent a bottle of wine and got shirty with the nurse when she said I hadn’t to touch alcohol. Tried to force me to have a drink …”

  “Yes. And then Bellis …?”

  “Well. I was sent to the rest camp near Brighton. One day Mr. Bellis turned up and said he was staying at Brighton for a week for his health, too. Could he call every day and he’d try to give me a good time? He seemed to have plenty of money … I couldn’t say no to him, especially as he was Aunt Bessie’s friend. We went for rides in the country and he took me out to meals. So considerate he was about the food, too, me bein’ on a diet. Beautiful manners, he had. Sort of old-world …”

  “So I believe. It was a way he had …”

  “Never took any liberties, except that he wanted to kiss me when he left me … And he got sort of hintin’ that this was better than being with Aunt Bessie. I told him I wouldn’t come again if he talked like that about Bessie. He said he didn’t mean it and on the last day, he bought me a lovely leather bag. Cost quite a lot. I was so surprised that I forgot to thank him proper for that and the good time he gave me. So I wrote ’im a letter. Aunt Bessie got the letter an’ accused me of carryin’ on with him. As if I would …”

  “Have you two finished yet?”

  Mrs. Binns’ anxious head appeared round the door. She gave them a spiteful, scrutinous look, as though trying to read their thoughts or induce them to ask her to join in.

  “Not quite, Mrs. Binns. Give us another minute. We’re getting along fine.”

  There was a sniff and the door closed again.

  “You remember my first call, Alice? Had you and Miss Emmott quarrelled about the letter then?”

  “Yes. But I told her there was nothin’ wrong. Nothin’ to go on like that about. At first she took my word and calmed down. But it seemed to rankle. She’d flare up and accuse me of all sorts of awful things behind her back. We’d have another set-to and there’d be tears shed and we’d make it up. But it got too much for me. I packed my bag and came here. It’s the only other place I’ve got. I wish sometimes I’d stayed with Bessie. She does come out with it and say what she means. But Priscilla and Solomon won’t call a spade a spade. It’s all sin and flesh and forsakin’ the path. I might never have tried to be decent.”

  It was pathetic. The large troubled eyes and those eyebrows at such a silly angle giving the face an astonished look. And the Binnses carrying on a softening-up process with their revivalist gunfire.

  “You really ought to have stayed with Miss Emmott, you know. She’s badly in need of you. Last time I was there … earlier to-day, in fact, she was quite ill and had to get a woman in from down the street to look after her. You’d be good for each other, the pair of you. No business of mine, of course, but …”

  “Can I come back as you go?”

  “What will the Binnses say? They’ll think I’m leading you astray again.”

  “Let them. Can I come?”

  “If you like.”

  “Right. I’ll pack …”

  “First of all, though … were you in when Miss Emmott got back home after seeing Mr. Bellis to the train on the night he died?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did she seem?”

  “At first she looked all broken up. Awful. No colour and just flopped down in a chair and cried. I heard her come in, so came downstairs. The shop was shut and I was gettin’ ready for bed. She turned on me, showed me the letter he’d dropped and she’d read, and then we had an awful row. We were still at it when the police car came for her. I stayed on, because I couldn’t very well leave her like that … and besides, I couldn’t roam the streets at that hour, though I felt like it.”

  “You were in when the police arrived?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they tell her he was dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “Awful. Just wouldn’t believe it. Said she’d seen him safe on the train and he was all right when it went. She said somethin’ about those who wrote the letters killin’ him. I didn’t know what it was all about …”

  “And you think she seemed genuinely surprised and distressed when she heard he was dead?”

  “As sure as I’m standing here.”

  “You don’t think she killed him for what she thought you and he had been doing?”

  “Never. She was too soft hearted for that. Had a terrible temper when she was roused, but never lost control of herself enough to kill anybody.”

  “And since then, has she shown any sign of guilt? I mean, remorse or talking about it … You understand what I mean?”

  “Yes. I understand. I’d just as soon think I’d done it myself. She’s the last person … In fact, even with what she thought had been goin’ on, she loved him. Funny …”

  “Right. Thanks, Alice. And now, if you’re coming back in the police car with me, you’d better talk to your relatives and get packed.”

  The Binnses took it very badly. Mrs. Binns even broke into Welsh invective at Littlejohn and then switched back into English. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, an agent of the devil, a corrupter of innocents …

  Mr. Binns continued rocking, his eyes on Littlejohn’s face. The Inspector thought now and again that there was a flicker of understanding and sympathy in the mild blue eyes.

  Alice came downstairs with her grip packed and thanked her relatives and bade them good-bye. Mrs. Binns didn’t speak, gave her a perforating glare and hurried upstairs slamming the door. Solomon s
tood on his tiptoes, thereby managing to reach the girl’s cheek, and kissed her.

  “Be a good girl,” he said. “I’ll be prayin’ for yer.”

  And then he started business in his rocking chair. Bump, bump, bumpity-bump. Just like M. Jérôme Coignard, he thought. How right he was!

  CHAPTER XIII

  The Sorrows of Lambert Hiss

  Littlejohn made a final call after he had seen Alice safely reconciled to Bessie. Mrs. Bindfast had retired to her own home a few doors down the street. She was the one he wished to see. She was apparently the wise woman of the neighbourhood, the Mother Shipton, the midwife, corpse-washer and oracle rolled into one. She had left Miss Emmott greatly comforted by ascertaining from the leaves of a nice cup o’ tea that good times were ahead for Bessie, that small dark men and tall fair ones were about to compete strenuously for her hand and that she was about to leave the off-licence for a little grey home in Mereton West and raise a brood of children.

  Mrs. Bindfast could hardly believe her eyes when she opened the door and by the dim light saw Littlejohn standing there. She thought there was something unpleasant afoot. She was in the habit of crystal gazing, horoscope casting and palm reading for money and knew it would never do for the police to find out.

  “Go away!” she said rudely. “You and me’s had enough to do with one another for one day.”

  Littlejohn was in the little dark lobby before Mrs. Bindfast could say Jack Robinson.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Bindfast. Could I have a word or two with you …? I’m sorry about our little tiff earlier on. We were all keyed up, weren’t we? Miss Emmott fainting and all that.”

  Mother Shipton paused significantly. Littlejohn wondered whether or not she was going to use force to get him out. Actually, she was thinking hard. She had a woman half way through the tealeaves in her little parlour, whilst on the kitchen table were spread out the tools of her horoscopical trade, a tablecloth embroidered in red with the signs of the zodiac, a strange instrument almost a cross between a compass and a sextant used for casting horoscopes, and a large book filled with symbols, mumbo-jumbo and jiggery-pokery.

  She decided on the parlour.

  “All right then, seein’ as you’ve come to apolergize … Nobody can say that I bear ill feelin’ and can’t forgive an injury. What d’yer want?”

  “I’ve been thinking that if you and I got together, you with your local knowledge and experience and I with my official powers and position, we might do something to put an end to this affair that’s wearing down Miss Emmott.”

  “How?”

  “We might talk it over.”

  “I’d do anythin’ to help the pore thing. A proper raw deal she’s had … Well, you’d better come in. Finished yer tea, Mrs. Medlicott?”

  The last sentence was addressed to a hook-nosed, anguished-looking woman with a pock-marked face and fluffy hair, who was sitting like a pillar of salt before a mess of tealeaves poured into a saucer. A lot of the followers of Mr. Lambert Hiss spent a weekly half-crown listening to Mrs. Bindfast telling them how their chances stood in the stars and tealeaves of becoming the trombonist’s next. This lady was one of them. She had got very low and Mother Shipton had just been about to make a startling and invigorating revelation when Littlejohn knocked at the door.

  “Finished yer tea yet, Mrs. Medlicott?” repeated the soothsayer, with a dark glance meant to imply that the fluffy widow had better play up and quickly.

  “Tea? Eh?” muttered the dazed visitant, halted right on the threshold of hope.

  Mrs. Bindfast threw a verbal hand grenade at her.

  “This is Inspector What’s-his-name from the police …”

  Mrs. Medlicott rose like a sleep walker, made fending-off motions with her hands, and backed through the door and out into the night.

  “Proper callin’ place this is for people seekin’ comfort and I allus gives ’em a nice cup o’ tea and let ’em open their ’earts to me,” smiled Mrs. Bindfast casually picking up half-a-crown from the tablecloth and slipping it in her skirt pocket.

  “How nice for them …”

  “Would you like a cup o’ tea?”

  “No, thanks, Mrs. Bindfast. I can’t stay long, but I’d like you to tell me as much as you can about Miss Emmott and her affairs. I’ve not come gossiping. I want to know as much as I can about everybody connected with the late Mr. Bellis …”

  “Tall order, that is. And besides, I’m not the one for broadcasting the confidences of pore souls as comes here to unburden themselves of their troubles. I don’t talk about my friends behind theys backs.”

  To tell the truth, Mrs. Bindfast didn’t see why she should retail free of charge a vast fund of information which could be sold piecemeal at half a crown a time with the help of tealeaves and cards.

  Littlejohn looked round the room. It was a stuffy, gloomy place with patches of damp on the walls and cluttered up with odds and ends of furniture. A photograph of a meek-looking, moustached man in brass-band uniform dominated the room from over the fireplace. He was clutching a euphonium. Presumably the absent or late Mr. Bindfast.

  “Come, come, Mrs. Bindfast. I see you’ve just been fortune-telling for money …”

  “Why, I never … You can’t bully me … I know me rights …”

  “You’d soon have a chance of testing them, too, if I told the local police. Now, suppose you give me a free seance. You needn’t bother about the cards or brewing some more tea and I shan’t accidentally leave half-a-crown on the table as I go out …”

  “You … you … You can’t prove a thing. All I does is done graytiss and free of charge. A bit o’ fun …”

  “We’ll see about that when we question Mrs. Medlicott …”

  “I was just saying when you was so rude as to interrupt me, I was just sayin’ that seein’ pore Bessie’s in such trouble, I don’t mind trying to make it easier for the pore dear. What d’you want?”

  “First of all, had Miss Emmott any admirers besides Bellis?”

  “Meanin’ as was so jealous as they’d do him in to get him out o’ the way. This is Warrender Street, Mereton, not the Corsican Brothers, mister.”

  “All the same, though I’m not seeking melodrama, I do want to know all I can about Miss Emmott’s past and present and, as she’s too upset at the moment to answer questions properly, as you well know from what happened this afternoon, I’d like you to fill the gap.”

  “And you’ve come to the right one. Me with me seven children pickin’ up news and with me work at lyin’s-in and layin’s-out, I gets confidences like. Most of the news comes my way sooner or later.”

  “I’ll bet it does!”

  “Say that again! I’m no gossipin’ nosey-parker. What comes my way comes in the ordinary course of me business and freely given. And I’ll have you know it.”

  “Let’s get on with it then, Mrs. Bindfast.”

  “What did you want to know?”

  “What I said at first. Had Miss Emmott many admirers?”

  Mrs. Bindfast seated herself on the couch, quite a performance of its kind, for it had to be done slowly and carefully for the sake of the springs and Mother Shipton’s equilibrium. She fixed her eyes ahead like a medium going under, and drawing her dropsical ankles together, gave utterance.

  “I see three or four admirers … a small dark man and …”

  “Here, here, here, Mrs. Bindfast. This isn’t a professional seance. Come down to earth and just talk …”

  Mother Shipton gave Littlejohn an affronted look, like an artist told to paint a scene and merely handed a whitewash brush with which to do it.

  “Well then, Bessie had two or three men after her besides Bellis. But she was loyal to Bellis, was Bessie. Oh yes, one man at a time for her … A one-man woman, so to speak, she was.”

  “Go on …”

  “Gimme time to think. They’ve been friendly, oh, I’d say five years or more. It was goin’ on before my ’usband was tuck and that’s five years come six wee
ks. She moved in the shop about four years since. Previously lived in the end house of the next row down the street. She was sort of barmaid at the Union Club. A rare bonny girl and that good hearted …”

  “What about the admirers?”

  “I’m comin’ to that if you’ll give me a chance. Some o’ the gents at the club would ’a been glad to marry her. Of that I’m sure. Very popular there was Bessie. Then she took up with Bellis, and before we knew what was happenin’ she’d moved into the off-licence where she is now. Bellis paid for it … must ’a done. And then he started callin’ there regular.”

  “Yes, but what about the other admirers. Their names?”

  “There was a chap called Shorecross got to bringin’ her home in his car at nights after she done at the club. He was cashier at the local Co-op and got wrong in his books. Spendin’ too much time and money at the club, I suppose. Anyhow, he got sent down for a six months’ stretch and never come back here after.”

  “Any more?”

  “A chap as must ’a been a lot younger than Bessie. Turncote or somethin’ his name was. Joined up when war broke out and got killed in 1940. So that was the end o’ that.”

  “What else?”

  It was like wringing blood from a stone. Mrs. Bindfast just couldn’t get out of the tricks of the trade. Half a tale and then another half-crown for more.

  “And then there was Mr. Lambert Hiss …”

  “Who?”

  Littlejohn almost swallowed his pipe!

  “Lambert Hiss. Finest trombone player ever in these parts. Finest in England, I’d say. Prizewinner all over the place. Crystal Paliss, Belle Vue, and I don’t know where.”

  “What about Hiss and Miss Emmott?”

  “Well, Lambert’s always bin a bit of a lonely man. You see, his wife was an invalid, often bedridden, on account of a number of operations, for the best part of ten years before she died …”

  “So Mr. Hiss sought his pleasures elsewhere?”

  “What are you suggestin’? Nothin’ o’ the kind. Mr. Lambert Hiss is a good man. A proper gentleman.”