“What was that you were saying about his job?”
“Ah never asked you if you’d ’ave a bit of oat-cake with yer tea, mesther.” Littlejohn looked-up at the thin bannocks, hanging, like little dry cloths over the empty clothes-rack overhead, and declined with thanks.
“His job, you were sayin’. Oh, yes. Well, Caleb Haythornthwaite used to be manager for Mrs. Myles at the foundry, and wi’ so much war work about, he wanted to start-up on his own. Old Luke Cross, who was gettin’ on in years and had a foundry down th’ valley, offered Caleb a partnership. So, Caleb went and took Enoch with ’im. Enoch was one of his best men at Myles’s and he begged ’im to go with ’im. Enoch said he’d go if Jerry could go too. So they both of ’em went. Caleb paid our Enoch well, too. Ah were surprised when ah found out how much he’d left me when th’courts said ah could presume him dead.”
“Enough to leave you comfortable?” ventured Littlejohn, knowing that he was on delicate ground, but wondering how a fellow in his late twenties had come by such a nest-egg.
Mrs. Sykes hesitated. “A pound a week for life through a post-office annuity, it brought me,” she said proudly.
“That’s very good. Very good indeed. I’m glad you were left free from want, at least…”
“Of course, ah’d to make-up with a bit o’ cleanin’, but now ah’ve got old-age pension, so ah’m allreet.”
“Your son never talked much about his job, I suppose?”
“Well, it’s a long time since, mesther. They were on shells at th’time, ah remember. But it were after the war that Caleb Haythornthwaite were thinkin’ of, ah reckon, as well as during war-time. You see, both Myles and Crosses were loom-makers and they were competitors, too. Mrs. Myles would never ’ave taken Caleb into her firm. It were an old family concern with no room for outsiders. But Cross jumped at th’ chance and it paid him. By gum, it did that. For, when th’ war were over, and things got a bit normal agen, Crosses went ahead like wildfire and Myles went backwards, until th’ old lady had to sell-up to keep her creditors quiet. She’s a rare ’un is Mrs. Myles. Carried on th’ business after her husband died for many a year. She’d two boys, you see, and was keepin’ it goin’ for them. And then they was both killed at th’ war. Not much use goin’ on after that. She’s still alive and well-nigh on eighty.”
“Well, Mrs. Sykes, I don’t think I’ll trespass on your time any longer. Thanks for the tea and for all you’ve told me. We’ll do our best to find the man who committed the crimes. Your son had no enemies, I can take it?”
“No. There never were a better liked lad until he left Myles’s. Then, of course, there were some jealous of his gettin’-on. There always is, isn’t there? But none of ’em would a’ thought o’ shootin’ him. No, if he’d any as wished him evil, ah never knew of it. After he got his new job, he kept more to himself and told me less.”
They moved to the door. A framed photograph of a bullet-headed man with a large moustache, a white tie and an aggressive look hung over the sideboard. A memorial card “Enoch Sykes”, and dates of birth and death, had been inserted under the glass. The verse caught Littlejohn’s eye.
We think of you, dear father,
Your name we often call,
But there’s nothing left to answer,
But your photo on the wall.
“My husband. Died when Enoch were a lad,” said Mrs. Sykes simply. Littlejohn bade her good-bye and departed. On the way to Haworth’s home, he puffed his pipe and thought about the points of the interview.
A struggling widow, left with a young lad who took her less and less into his confidence. The new job, which cost him his girl and his friend, and made people talk jealously about him. The change in character as well as in occupation. He did something for which he got himself killed and then left his mother enough to provide a pound a week for life. That was at the root of it all?
Mary Tatham, Sykes’s old flame, could perhaps throw some light on the cause of the quarrel and the change in her old lover’s nature. Littlejohn decided to call on her that afternoon.
Chapter VIII
The Old Love
I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin;
I daurna think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin;
But I’ll do my best a gude wife ay to be,
For auld Robin Gray he is kind unto me.
—Lady A. Lindsay
Littlejohn felt very curious and not a little excited as he made his way to the house of Mary Ryles, the Mary Tatham who had been successively courted by the two dead men. The sweetheart they both had fancied since boyhood. The cause of their bitter quarrel. The girl whom even the mother of Enoch had defended and described as nice. The one who, six months after the murder of one and the disappearance of the other of her lovers, had wed another, Josiah Ryles!
Marble Street was a cut above William Henry Street. Its houses were in rows, but had small gardens instead of fronting starkly on the pavement. Plots of sour earth, some moss-grown, covered in sham rockery, or sprouting coarse plants, others overgrown with shrivelled grass or too fouled by the caustic attentions of cats even to yield weeds, rescued them from the title of cottage property in the books of estate agents and gave them the doubtful honour of being messuages. Cast-iron railings, mounted on low stone parapets, separated the plots from each other and from the street. The houses seemed to boast small, dark sitting-rooms at the front, too, and the outlet-pipes sprouting from the walls here and there testified to the presence of what are advertised as modern conveniences.
Littlejohn raised the stiff knocker attached to the letterbox of No. 21 and knocked. The sound of children’s voices inside ceased and a silent and urgent expectancy seemed to prevail behind the closed door. Slowly it opened. A woman, with a small child clinging to her skirts, stood there eyeing the visitor suspiciously. Littlejohn took her in at a glance. Calculations put her down at about forty-two; she looked nearer fifty. Fat and ungainly, with straight bobbed hair, badly cut, as though some amateur had put a basin over her head and clipped off all not covered by it. A round face, with healthy cheeks, grown puffy, and dark, placid eyes, with a look combining innocence and ignorance. Her figure had gone altogether. Heavy limbs, protruding stomach, great breasts flopping beneath her dress. A hard-working woman, weary with child-bearing and gone to seed before her time. She had five children and her husband was a plumber.
“Mrs. Ryles?” said Littlejohn. “I’m a police officer. May I have a word with you?”
The woman still regarded him placidly and opened the door wider. She had been expecting something of this kind. News travels fast.
“Come in.”
A black cat, rubbing round the child’s ankles, fled down the dark passage and rushed up the dim stairs.
“Go into th’ kitchen and stay with your grandma,” said the mother to the child, who obediently toddled-off at her bidding.
They entered the parlour, stiff with cheap, little-used furniture in imitation green leather, with a yellow oak sideboard with a bowl of artificial fruit in the centre and a gallery of photographs of children in various stages of development, and here and there a family group. In the corner, a whatnot filled on three tiers with small knick-knacks and ornaments of every shape and size. Over the fireplace, a framed plumber’s diploma.
At first, the detective was not invited to sit down. The woman was agog with curiosity and kept him standing hesitantly on the hearth-rug. When he explained briefly the purpose of his call, she offered him a chair, but remained standing herself, until she realized that he would not sit until she did. Then she flopped on the edge of the green-cushioned chesterfield, her hands picking at the folds of her apron.
At close quarters and in a lighter room, Littlejohn could see that, until domesticity and middle-age added to her weight, she had been good-looking. Sic transit gloria…The eyes were still bright and, beneath the nervous exterior, there seemed to be a genu
ine happiness.
From the back room could be heard the noises of children warming-up to their play again, and now and then the louder, querulous voice of grandma, keeping them at a deferential pitch of control on account of the visitor.
“I’ve called about a very old story, Mrs. Ryles,” said Littlejohn, “and if it embarrasses you, please believe me, I’m not poking and prying out of idle curiosity, but out of necessity. We must, if we can, lay by the heels the murderer of Sykes and Trickett, though a lot of water’s gone under the bridge since the time.”
The woman nodded. She didn’t seem to know what was expected of her or what to say in reply.
“You were, I gather, more or less engaged to both the dead men…ahem…in succession.”
“That’s right.”
Mrs. Ryles smiled. At first, it was inscrutable and faint, as though she were casting back her mind to events in those past amours of twenty years ago. Then, her look became almost coquettish. The pride of a woman who had past conquests to her credit, whatever the present might hold.
“You quarrelled with Sykes. Do you mind telling me, as fully as you can, what change in his character caused you to give him up? You told the coroner years ago that he had changed, didn’t you?”
Mrs. Ryles blushed and wrung her hands awkwardly.
“Well, it’s hard to say, really. It were the way ah felt about it at the time. You can’t help your feelin’s, can you? Ah felt ah were takin’ second place to his other love, his big ideas of makin’ money an’ gettin’-on. Ah’d ’ave been content with a little house and enough to manage on. But he wanted to be a fine gentleman and me a fine lady. Above our stations, like. He seemed to ’ave plenty of brass to spend, but kept sayin’ there were lots more comin’ his way and one day he’d be th’ foundry-master himself. A partnership was what he were after, nowt less, and then we’d be rich. To tell you th’ truth, mesther, ah got scared of him. Burned up with big ideas, he seemed to be.”
“Did you know where the money was coming from?”
“No. That were another thing, too. Once, when he were at Myles’s, we’d all in common and he told me everything. Them were our ’appiest days together. After he left there, he got close and full of his own secrets. He just shut me out of his heart.”
“So you gave him up?”
“Yes. Ah knew ah’d never be happy that way.”
She spoke the last words softly, as though remembering some old happiness of first love. Her voice was another charming thing about her. She spoke the plain speech of the valley, but in a low contralto key.
“Was Trickett the same about his change of job?”
“Ee, no. Jerry were more ’appy-go-lucky. He’d be content wi’ a livin’ wage and a home and children and now and then, a bit of shootin’ when he was of a mind. ’E were a caution, were Jerry.”
Again, the soft sadness, but this time, her eyes twinkled in recollection of some light-hearted incident of long ago.
“The two quarrelled about you?”
“Partly that. But they’d not bin so friendly for some time before that. Enoch were treatin’ Jerry like ’e treated me. No time for his old pal, too busy with his own big ideas.”
“Facts have now proved that one didn’t kill the other…”
Vehemently the woman interposed.
“Neether of them ’ad it in him to murder anybody. A couple of better men never lived…until they left Myles’s, and that started all the bother between them.”
“You’ve no idea who might have borne a grudge against either or both?”
“No. Both of ’em were well liked. Mrs. Myles took it hard their leavin’, specially as she’d lost Haythornthwaite, too. She wanted to make Enoch under-manager. But ’e wouldn’t be persuaded. Wanted to go with Haythornthwaite. So Jerry followed him.”
“Were they great friends of Haythornthwaite?”
“No. He fancied himself a toff, did Caleb, the foxy, stuck-up nobody. Bein’ manager of th’ foundry, he didn’t mix with the likes of us outside. But at th’ works, he was as thick as thieves with Enoch. They spent a lot of time together, an’ if you ask me, Caleb were pickin’ Enoch’s brains good and proper. Ah never liked Haythornthwaite. And that was another cause of bother between Enoch and me.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“So you’ve not met owd Caleb? See if you like ’im when you come across him.”
“Hm. There’s nothing else you could tell me which might help me or throw any light on the subject?”
“Ah think not. It’s so long since it all ’appened. Ah must be goin’, too. There’s my husband’s tea to be got.”
“Yes, I’m sorry I’ve worried you and kept you from your duties.”
“Aye, that’s all right, mesther. You’re welcome. But it all ’appened so long since, didn’t it?”
Looking at her, Littlejohn thought she seemed to have entered calm waters after the storm of her early years, even if her looks and circumstances had changed considerably. He bade her good day and she saw him to the door.
Dusk was falling and the workpeople were on their ways home, pouring out of factories and workshops, their shoes and clogs rattling on the flagstones, their chatter and banter ringing down the mean street. As Littlejohn closed the gate, a little man with a pleasant, ruddy face appeared on the scene and bidding him how-do, turned-in there. Apparently Mary Ryles’s husband, Josiah. The one she had taken six months after the death of her ambitious and happy-go-lucky former lovers.
The little plumber had a grey moustache, wore a cloth cap and carried a workman’s bag of tools, from which protruded the nozzle of a blowlamp. A short briar was wedged in his mouth and he puffed it contentedly. A good-natured chap, by the look of him. He had probably finished his day’s work, unless he had returned for some forgotten tools, which was unlikely at that hour. He was evidently anticipating his tea and the company of his wife and family with eager, cheerful relish.
Looking at him there, the honest north-country working-man, Littlejohn understood the reason for Mary Ryles’s placid, contented look. With a man like Joss Ryles, she was safe and wouldn’t go far wrong.
Chapter IX
The Iron Man
O what can ail thee, wretched knight!
So haggard and so woebegone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
—Keats
Over their pipes and glasses and before a warm fire, Littlejohn and Haworth discussed the results of the Scotland Yard man’s enquiries, whilst their womenfolk, their voices rising and falling in the next room, knitted scarves and balaclavas for the forces.
“One thing’s quite certain,” said Littlejohn, “and that is, the sooner I interview Sir Caleb Haythornthwaite, the better. His name keeps cropping-up and the whole series of incidents leading to the quarrel between the two friends and their murders, seems to start with his leaving Myles’s and taking them with him on his new venture.”
“Yes, Littlejohn, and there you’re up against it. Sir Caleb is a most difficult man to approach. Hard as nails and as sour as vinegar. His success has brought him no happiness, I’ll tell you. There’ve been some unpleasant tales about him in these parts at one time or another.”
“Such as…?”
“Well, in the first place, the circumstances under which he left Myles’s. Years before, Jonathan Myles had died, leaving his wife with two growing boys to look after and the whole of his foundry business. A very strong-minded woman was Mrs. Myles—and still is, in spite of her years—and she ran that place like a heroine. She’d been a bit interested in it before her husband died, but afterwards, went into it heart and soul. Of course, she aimed at keeping the business together until the boys were old enough.”
“But surely, a woman among all those foundrymen would find it a hard furrow to plough?”
“Oh, she was quite up to it. She could hold her own with the best of them. Sir Matthew Hardcastle’s daughter, real county gentility and out of the top drawer. But, as you say, she needed a man about the place. That’s where Haythornthwaite came in. He’d risen from an apprentice in the shops and knew the business from A to Z. But a mere manager’s job wasn’t enough for him in the end. He hankered after a share in the firm. You can guess his ability, when I tell you that at that time, he wasn’t forty. It is rumoured that he asked Mrs. Myles to marry him, although she was years older than he was. Whatever the cause, they had some quarrel or other. It leaked out that she was going to haul him before the courts when he left, but the thing was hushed-up. Nobody quite got to the bottom of it.”
“And Myles’s business went downhill after Haythornthwaite left?”
“Not at first. There was enough business for all of them, what with war work and one thing and another, at the time. But, you see, both the Myles boys joined the army and both were killed. The bottom fell out of Mrs. Myles’s world after that. Things seemed to go from bad to worse at the foundry and, whilst Haythornthwaite prospered, Mrs. Myles met her creditors and just managed to pay twenty shillings in the pound. Marvellous the way she’s kept her chin up, though. She lives at a house just outside the town, with a couple of servants and I believe she’s too frail to turn out now. She’s well over seventy.”
“Perhaps I’d better pay her a call, too, if possible, Haworth. She may be more disposed to discuss past history now.”
“Even if she won’t, the visit will be worth while. She’s a real character…an old tartar, when she sets that way.”
“And Sir Caleb…?”
“Oh yes. He made money right enough, and quickly, but somehow, troubles have come with it. He married Luke Cross’s daughter. It wasn’t a love match, as you can guess. They haven’t seemed to hit it off for years and are never seen together. There’s a saying in these parts: ‘Clogs to clogs in three generations’. Well, in this case it won’t be as long as that at the rate things are going. Young John Haythornthwaite, Caleb’s only child, specializes in whisky, fast cars and fast women. His father’s always getting him out of scrapes. The foundry belongs to Caleb altogether now and it’s not likely to last long when he’s gone.”
The Dead Shall be Raised and The Murder of a Quack Page 7
