“Can we come through and have a word with him? This is Inspector Littlejohn, of Scotland Yard; Mrs. Pickersgill.”
“Good mornin’.” Scotland Yard and its famous personnel left the stern-faced woman unmoved. She had lived with policemen all her life.
“Aye. You’d better come through. Wipe your feet.”
She led them through a narrow hall into the dining-room, which overflowed into the back quarters. The place was so full of furniture that it seemed to leak at every entrance. In passing through, Littlejohn got a photographic impression of the place and a sense of constriction. He was a north-countryman himself and had seen some strange households in his own parts of Lancashire; but this beat the lot!
Stockings on the table-legs to protect them from unruly feet! Coconut matting on the floors, for the best carpets were only unrolled and used at week-ends, when the best fire-irons of shining brass were also laid-down at the hearth. The furniture was of highly polished old mahogany. A fine mule-chest served as a sideboard. A number of uncomfortable chairs precisely placed about the room. On the walls, two framed pictures from Christmas almanacs and depicting strangely dressed characters indulging in “Love’s Young Dream” and “The Tryst”, respectively. A large steel engraving of Derby Day and a laborious fretwork plaque announcing “East West Homes Best”. A mantelpiece full of brass candlesticks of all shapes and sizes, fussily arranged in order of height. The whole place shone with elbow grease. Too clean and prim to be cosy! No wonder the men preferred the hen-cotes.
Haworth and Littlejohn followed the woman through a scullery in which were standing a number of uncooked apple-pies waiting to be capped with pastry and put in the oven. The fruit looked meticulously chopped and arranged. Mrs. Pickersgill indicated the largest of a number of solid-looking sheds, spread in a tidy, grass-covered plot about twenty yards or so from the back-door.
“You know where to find them, doan’t you, Mr. ’aworth,” she said and returned indoors. Littlejohn, from the corner of his eye, saw her seize a carpet-sweeper and begin vigorously milling over the matting on which they had trodden in passing through.
At the bottom of the garden, a saucy-looking stovepipe emitted a trail of smoke. Haworth made for it and knocked on the door of the shed, where the occupants were evidently enjoying the warmth of the furnace and immunity from feminine chatter.
“Come in,” called a hearty voice.
If Littlejohn expected to see a timid man, decimated by years of nagging and domestic dragooning, he was mistaken. Haworth introduced him to a tall, heavily-built fellow, with a large, grey moustache. Bald head, surrounded by a fringe of silvery hair. Twinkling, brown eyes under shaggy brows. His companion was a stocky old man, with slightly protruding blue eyes, a shock of white hair and a torpedo beard to match. An aged edition of the legendary Captain Kettle. His knotted, dark-veined hands spoke of great age. Both ex-policemen had healthy, red faces.
The pair were seated side-by-side on a wooden bench, rendered comfortable by a long cushion. They wore cloth caps. The younger was smoking a long, curved pipe with a large reservoir attached for straining-off the liquid by-products. His aged companion had a battered, foul little briar wedged between his few remaining teeth.
The warm shed was apparently the headquarters of a complicated system of hen rearing and egg producing. In one corner, a large incubator. Bins of foodstuffs all over the shop. Pot-eggs on shelves. Two rat-traps, an old birdcage, and a storm lantern hanging from the roof. All around were scenes of feathered activity. Hens rooting for grain in the dry chaff spread ankle-deep on the floors. Their owners were watching them with dreamy ecstasy when the visitors entered. The business of laying eggs was, judging from the cries of triumph and quarrelling, going on enthusiastically in the neighbouring nesting-houses. A cock was strutting among his hens and gave a throaty, growling cluck as the intruders arrived. To make himself the centre of attraction, the great bird was pretending to find scraps of food and continuously calling his protégées to come and get it. They ran to him eagerly each time, only to return empty, but hen-like repeated the caper indefinitely. One white hen monotonously leapt at a hanging cabbage, pecking-off bits at each jump, like a little clockwork toy.
Now and again, the old man spoke to the hens, calling them by their names and during the ensuing conference, punctuated it with a running commentary on the behaviour of individual fowls. He was a curious mixture of dotage and shrewd intelligence. With the exception of the poultry, he appeared to have little interest in current topics. He lived in the past and his memory in this respect was wide, precise and boring.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Littlejohn,” said Pickersgill, smiling a welcome and drawing-up another wooden bench to accommodate his guests. Littlejohn and Haworth took their seats and filled their pipes.
“Never called-in Scotland Yard in my day and not so many wrong ’uns got away from me, ah can tell you,” said ex-Inspector Entwistle.
Pickersgill winked at the visitors.
“Nothing but drunks, poachers and petty larceny when you were in collar, Dad…Now, what about a bottle of beer?”
The old man’s eyes glistened and he forgot to pursue his argument.
“I’ll not be a minute,” he answered, and stumped off to the house to return with four bottles, glasses, and a large slab of parkin on a plate.
“She’s dustin’ in the front, so ah’ve got away with some tar-cake as well,” he chuckled, like a boy playing a prank. “There’ll be hangment to play when she finds out, but it’ll be safe in our bellies by then.”
They filled their glasses. Mrs. Pickersgill could make cake if nothing else!
“So you want to know about the murder of Jerry Trickett, eh?” said Pickersgill, wiping his moustache on the back of his hand. “Well, I remember it as if it were yesterday. I’ve good reason to. It was the first murder case I ever had, and blow me, if the murderer didn’t give us the slip, or rather, we thought he did. But from what I can gather, the whole thing’s altered now and our old theories are blown sky-high. Funny thing, that.”
“Nowt funny about it,” chimed-in the octogenarian, mopping the beer and crumbs from his beard. “I always told you, facts is what you want, not theorisin’. A bird in the hand’s worth two in the bush…Hello, Biddy’s gone lame again. That means she’ll lay a double-yoked egg to-morn. Always goes lame when she’s goin’ to drop a double-yoker.”
He indicated a hobbling Rhode Island Red with the stem of his pipe.
“Now, Dad. Don’t you keep putting-in your motty about things that doan’t matter. We’ve only half an hour to dinner time and Alice’ll play hell if we’re behind-hand. So let’s get down to business.”
“Yes,” interposed Haworth. “Perhaps you’ll tell us, as far as you can recollect, what happened and how far the police investigation went.”
“Good job Home Guard dug-up Enoch Sykes when they did,” chipped-in the irrepressible old man. “Many as were involved in that enquiry have gone uphill to Hatterworth cemetery and a lot more of ’em have one foot in the grave. Twenty or more years is a long time. Come to that, ah’ve not got much longer to go myself. Ah’d like to make this th’ last of my cases. So hurry-up before ah’m carried-off, too. Ah always told Charlie there that he was barkin’ up the wrong tree huntin’ far and wide for Sykes. Look nearer home, ah says, look nearer home, and he can’t say ah didn’t. Now it’s up to you chaps to settle this once and for all, and show ah was right before ah die.”
“We’ll be glad of your help, Mr. Entwistle,” politely interjected Haworth. “But, as time’s short, perhaps Charlie had better be getting-on with his tale.”
“Well, in October, 1917, the body of Jerry Trickett was found on the moor. Early in the morning it was, and a farmer passing in his milk-cart spotted him and gave the alarm. Doctor said he’d been killed about dusk the night before. Enoch Sykes was naturally suspected. The two had been pals, but had quarrelle
d about a girl. Mary Tatham. She married Josiah Ryles later. Both Trickett and Sykes were ironworkers—fitters at Myles’s Foundry. They left there when Caleb Haythornthwaite—now Sir Caleb—who was manager at Myles’s, went into partnership with Luke Cross.”
“Aye. Myles’s Foundry never looked up again after Caleb left ’em” interposed Mr. Entwistle. “Of course, Mrs. Myles was a widow at the time and quite depended on Haythornthwaite to handle the men and generally keep the place going. Caleb and old Mrs. Myles quarrelled, it’s said, but nobody got to th’ bottom of what happened. Anyhow, Caleb never looked back after joining Luke Cross.”
Pickersgill silenced the old man’s garrulity with a look.
“Well, as I was saying, Sykes and Trickett were pals. They did a bit of poaching together in their young days. Grouse on the moor, which is preserved, and now belongs to Sir Caleb himself.
“On the night of the crime, Buller, the gamekeeper, saw first Sykes and then Trickett on the moor. You can tell how well Haythornthwaite did when, from Myles’s manager in 1915, he managed to earn enough in two years to afford a shoot and a keeper. Well, Buller saw th’unlucky pair separately on the moor and heard shots, but thought they were after birds. Having followed Caleb to his new works, they were allowed free access to his preserve, so Buller thought no more about it.
“Buller had previously warned-off a tramp, known locally as Bill o’ Three-Fingers, about a quarter of an hour before the gunfire. We roped-in Bill at the time, but he’d nothing to say.
“Now for the girl. She’d been doing a bit of courting with Sykes and then, of a sudden, Trickett took a fancy to her and pinched her from under his pal’s very nose. The men stopped speaking to one another after that, and from going everywhere together, weren’t seen in each other’s company again, except on the day of the crime. That was at the Horse and Jockey, a moorland pub. Sykes was having a drink there that evening after a bit of shooting and Trickett walked-in. Sykes went for him and they came to blows. The landlord chucked ’em out and heard Sykes tell Trickett he’d do for him. You can’t doubt that after the murder, the first man we wanted a word with was Sykes. He’d disappeared, however, which made us more sure of his guilt. We thought he might have joined the forces and hunted in the Army and Navy after him. At last, we’d to give it up as a bad job and admit that he’d given us the slip. No wonder we were baffled, with him lying there as dead as Trickett all the time. I’d say they were killed almost together, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” answered Haworth, “I can’t conceive it otherwise. Either one killed the other and then a third party did for him, or else—which is more likely—the third party shot the pair of them. Why?”
“Ah, there you’re asking me! We’ve to find a motive first.”
Old Entwistle chimed in again.
“That murder was the most excitin’ thing that happened in these parts and events’ll still be impressed on the memories of those who are still alive. You ought to make a start with Mary Tatham that was, and then run through the list of others that’s left.”
Haworth took out his notebook.
“Just let’s jot down the names,” he said.
Pickersgill took up the tale.
“Well, as Dad says, there’s Mary Ryles. She lives with her husband in Marble Street, down the town. You’ll wonder, when you see her, fat and middle-aged, how two young chaps could have come to want to murder each other for her, but she was a beauty in her prime. Bill o’ Three-Fingers is knocking about too. So’s Seth Wigley, the landlord of the Horse and Jockey, although his married daughter keeps the pub now and he lives with her and her husband. He’s getting-on in years. Buller, the gamekeeper is dead. Sir Caleb is alive and lives at Spenclough Hall, about two miles from here. And old Mrs. Myles, who’s getting on for eighty, is still alive, living at a little house in Moor Lane and mostly confined to her room. That’s as far as I can go for the present.”
Haworth looked crestfallen. They had certainly expected something more exciting than Pickersgill’s half-baked account. He turned to Littlejohn.
“Any ideas on the subject, Littlejohn?”
Inspector Littlejohn removed his pipe. He had been watching old Entwistle, who seemed to have lost interest in his son-in-law’s tale and was busy scratching the neck of a very tame little hen which had sidled-up to him and was pecking the eyelets of his boots. Suddenly, he raised his head. His little eyes were sparkling and he glanced humorously at his son-in-law.
“Charlie never were much of a talker,” he said, “and his memory’s not as good as it was. Why not ask him to lend you his old notebooks on the case and the diary we used to write up when the two of us used to discuss things together? You see, Charlie and me used to go over his problems. I was a bit useful to him in those days, havin’ been Inspector here myself, and we wrote things down as we went along to get them clear, like.”
Pickersgill’s face lit up. He was feeling that he’d put up a very poor show in the matter and here was a readymade solution.
“I’ll be right glad to do that,” he answered. “We’ve got ’em all here and you may as well take ’em with you now, Frank.”
He rose and unlocked what appeared to be his treasure-chest. It was an old bee-hive, covered in zinc-plate inside and out and as dry as a bone. A lock had been fitted and it contained what had apparently been the ex-Superintendent’s private notebooks and also a number of diaries, bound in stiff board. Without much difficulty, Pickersgill selected a notebook and a diary, each carefully bearing the dates of its contents on a label.
“There you are, Frank. If you read those two together, along with such records as you’ll have sent for to th’ County Record Office, you’ll know as much as I did about the case.”
A shrill blast on a whistle startled the four men.
“Dinner’s ready,” said the old man and he and his son-in-law showed signs of uneasiness. Haworth, who opened the door of the shed, saw Mrs. Pickersgill’s angular form disappearing indoors, after her novel way of calling the two hen-fanciers to a meal. Both were apparently scared of being a minute late.
“Thanks for your help, Charlie,” said Haworth. “We’ll let you have these back as soon as they’ve served their purpose.”
“And see you come round again and let us know how you get on,” interposed Entwistle, who was standing with a basket of eggs and waiting eagerly for his visitors to leave and free him for his dinner. “This is my last case, as ah’ve told you, and ah want to be in at the kill.”
“We’ll keep you informed, Mr. Entwistle.”
And the two younger officers bade their elders good morning and hurried off to relieve them from anxiety.
Chapter V
October, 1917
O, but let me see his villain’s face!
When I meet him, may God give him grace.
If he at the church-gate show his head,
With this bludgeon do I strike him dead!
—Hungarian Folk Song
Frost covered the pavements of Hatterworth with a thin, treacherous film of ice and on the day following his visit to his predecessor, Superintendent Haworth slipped on the steps of the police-station and sprained his ankle. Littlejohn found him in his dining-room, his foot swathed in bandages and resting in an old slipper supported on a stool. He was fuming at his enforced inactivity.
“Here’s a bonny kettle o’ fish,” growled Haworth after greetings had been exchanged. “And just as we were in the middle of a fresh case. I suppose it’s been unsolved for twenty years or more and a few more days won’t do it any harm, but it’s damned galling, all the same. After I left you yesterday afternoon, I got the records from County Headquarters and I spent until the small hours of the morning building up a story with the help of Pickersgill’s notes and diaries. Now, it looks as if I’ll have to pass it on to Ross for the time being, although God knows he’s up to the eyes in routine as it is…”
Littlejohn detected an invitation in his friend’s tone and accepted it right away.
“Look here, Haworth, there’s no point in worrying yourself to death about what can’t be helped. Here you are and here you’ll have to stay until the doctor gives you a clean bill. Meanwhile, I’ll do the running about for you, unofficially, of course. We can discuss the results of my enquiries together afterwards and perhaps, between us, we’ll have a solution before you’re on your feet again.”
“But this is a holiday for you, Littlejohn. It’s not fair to take your time, and besides, what about your wife? She wants your company in the short time you’re here…”
“She’s determined to return to London with me when I go back, and has plenty to keep her occupied in the way of social calls and the like when I’m busy…”
They argued for a time and, finally, it was agreed that Littlejohn should take the investigation of the case and together the two of them would digest and compare results.
“Now that we’ve decided on a plan of campaign,” said Littlejohn, “you can give me a picture of the old case as it happened twenty or more years ago. If, as you say, you read and compared the mass of records, you’ll have some idea of the background. As a beginning, it will save me a lot of time if you can tell me what transpired.”
The Dead Shall be Raised and The Murder of a Quack Page 4
