The end of Haythornthwaite brought relief to many people. Young Haythornthwaite, for example, abandoned his drinking habits and joined the R.A.F. He has been over the Ruhr on several occasions and whenever there is a foundry to bomb, he is in his element. His mother, although the recipient of gestures of sympathy and goodwill on every hand, fled from the valley of her fear, and settled down in a small village in Sussex.
The half-finished Haythornthwaite Gardens, which Sir Caleb had been subsiding as a memorial park to himself, was turned into allotments by the embarrassed local council. Emeritus-Inspector Entwistle, now a local celebrity for his share in bringing to book the viper in Hatterworth’s bosom, was elected nem. con., as president of the Hatterworth Fur and Feather Club, an honour which he seemed to appreciate all the more by its being vacated through the decease of Haythornthwaite, who was patron to most institutions in the valley, whether he knew about their objects or not.
The foundry was bought, lock, stock and barrel, by a syndicate, and somehow, the absence of the bilious, conscience-ridden knight from its offices and workshops created a new atmosphere about the place. Even the lifetime sycophants of the late boss, whose funeral they had not attended—it was conducted without fuss and in a humble grave—were heard publicly to declare that the new management was streets ahead of the old, and that it was a pleasure to work for them.
The excitement of events in Hatterworth passed quickly. Anybody travelling through, early in January 1941, would have been greatly surprised if he’d been told that that quiet little place had recently been shaken by bloodshed and scandals. But people were too busy on war work, digging for victory, sorrowing for their lost ones, wondering about the progress of the conflict which was shaking the world, to bother about past history. Time had brought other cares, joys, sorrows and labour.
Littlejohn and his wife departed quietly for London shortly after the end of the case. The train arrived at Waterfold more than two hours late, after battling through drifts and staggering across frozen points. More and more snow had fallen in those last days, and from the platform of the station at Waterfold, which is like a terrace, they had their last view of the lovely expanse of Pennine hills covered in their deep mantle of white. Littlejohn carried a large parcel presented to him by Mr. Simeon Mills on the day before his departure. The last letter written by Mrs. Myles before she took her life, gave instructions to her lawyer that the detective was to inherit the picture “The Moorland Road”, which hung on the wall of her room. Littlejohn’s first task on arriving at their renovated flat in Hampstead, was to hang it in the dining-room. Besides giving him intense pleasure as a work of art, the picture reminds him of a very gallant old lady, and one of the strangest cases he has ever handled.
The Murder of a Quack
Epigraph
With the help of a surgeon he might recover and prove an ass.
—Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
from which the quotations heading
the following chapters are taken.
Never excuse; for when the players are all dead,
there need none to be blamed.
—Act V. Sc. II.
Chapter I
Policeman
Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;
But wonder on, till truth make all things plain!
—Act V. Sc. I.
P.C. Mellalieu, representative of law and order in the village of Stalden, sat with his stockinged feet resting on the mantelpiece of the living-room of his cottage and gravely pored over the daily paper. He had a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles half-way down his large, bulbous nose and a short briar pipe, which he puffed enjoyably, between his teeth. The light of the summer evening was fading and he gradually drew the newspaper nearer and nearer to his eyes. Now and then, he gave a contented grunt, not quite knowing why he did it, but expressing his happiness thereby and from time to time he took a draught from the glass of beer at his elbow. After each drink, he gathered his moustache into his mouth with a large underlip and sucked the drops from it. He was a tall, heavily-built man and every time he moved, the arm-chair which held him creaked ominously. In his shirt-sleeves, bootless, his pipe burning beautifully and his beer nice and mellow, the bobby had been granted the very circumstances in which to enjoy his liberty. His wife had gone with her sister to the nearest town, Olstead, to have a good weep at the pictures and his three kids had gone with a tribe of others and a teacher to pick foxgloves for the war effort. Like a small boy in mischief, P.C. Mellalieu counted the precious minutes of peace yet to go. In half an hour, all the family would be back. Better be in uniform and his boots on by then, otherwise Mrs. M. would have something to say.
The constable’s wife was as proud as could be of the exalted position of her husband, William Arthur, but prouder still of the new police-house. Up to twelve months ago, it had been a small cottage hardly capable of holding their growing family, to say nothing of temporary prisoners. Then, the County Authorities had decided to erect a brand new home for the policeman. It had three bedrooms, a kitchen and a parlour, a cell, a greenhouse, a bathroom and hot and cold. Mrs. Mellalieu could only be persuaded with great difficulty ever to leave the place. She seemed to think that once she was out of sight, some jealous neighbour might squat in it with her family, or else remove it on a magic carpet. Also, she expected her husband to be as trim and spry as the house and he was rarely allowed even to unfasten the collar of his tunic. She would, had she dared, have insisted on William Arthur wearing his helmet, that symbol of his office, all the time! He was only allowed to relax when doing his garden. There seemed acres of it to the sweating constable as he dug his potato and bean rows and hoed his flower borders.
To-night, Mrs. Mellalieu’s more masterful sister from the next village had called and whisked her off, protesting, to a most pathetic film in town. In departing, his wife had given the P.C. a last word.
“Don’t forget them potatoes want rakin’ up a bit, Will. They’ll all be green when we get ’em else. You’ll jest mannige it afore I get ’ome.”
“Oh cripes!” groaned the bobby, who had been hoping for an hour or two of perfect peace. The only thing was to get a move-on over the job; and move he did. Rushing hither and thither down the potato rows like someone demented, P.C. Mellalieu did the work in half the scheduled time and here he was, gently cooling-off, sipping his beer and priming himself with the strategy of the war ready to tell the folk he met on the morrow a thing or two.
“The grand strategy of the war…” said he, without taking his pipe from his mouth. Then he removed it. “The grand strategy of the war.” He rolled it on his tongue sonorously. Somebody was going to get it on the morrow. He sipped his beer.
“Ah…ahhhhhhh…” and he gave a sharp intake of breath and a sweep of his nether lip, whereat his moustache leapt into his mouth as into some strange vacuum cleaner. Like a great comfortable cat the policeman wriggled his body in the cushions and flexed and relaxed his feet and toes in his heavy grey socks…Then the telephone bell rang!
P.C. Mellalieu’s eyes flashed fire.
“Oh ’ell,” he groaned and the bell persisted. “Sharrup! Sharrup! I’m comin’…wot the ’ell…” And still muttering and grumbling he walked softly across the room and took up the instrument. Why couldn’t they leave him alone on a night like this! With every prospect pleasing and then this…
“’Ello. Yus, perlice. Yus. ’Oo? O Yus, Mrs. Elliott and wot can I do for you?”
An excited voice quacked in his ear at great speed.
“’E has? Can’t you make ’im ’ear? Can you see anythin’ through the window?…Haven’t you got another key to the room? Well, I’d better come round. Right. I’m on me way, Mrs. Elliott.”
The constable slowly replaced the receiver and reached for his boots and tunic.
“Bet the old cock’s not in the room at all,” he muttered as he dressed h
imself properly.
As the constable hurried heavily down the village street to his destination, heads bobbed over garden walls and hedges following his progress with inquisitive eyes. Women seeing the bobby pass, peeped round curtains or came to the doors of their cottages and then compared notes with their neighbours, for it was unusual to see Mellalieu hurrying, especially at this time in the evening. The village main street was a secondary road, macadammed, with causeways of moss-grown cobblestones. Houses lined it, small dwellings for the most part, until eventually it widened into a small square, bordered by a few shops and several large, old houses, sedate and well preserved. There also stood the village inn, The Mortal Man, the doctor’s house, and the village hall. Behind the latter and well off the main thoroughfare, were the village green, the market-cross, the vicarage, and finally the church.
The house to which the constable was making his way was the last of the larger dwellings in the square. It had no front garden, but gave boldly on to the cobbles of the footpath. Small beds under its wall held tiny bushes, lichens and other rock plants. The building itself was three-storeyed, with sash windows dotted in its red-brick façade. The main door had a bright brass knocker and was painted cream and very clean. The whole place belonged to a gracious past, when builders had time to pursue their trade with care and solid materials. The date over the graceful fanlight was 1787.
Let in the wall to the right of the door was a large brass bell-knob. The policeman heaved at this and could hear the jangle of the bell indoors. Mellalieu whistled tunelessly to himself as he waited and cast his eye down the three brass plates which adorned the door. The first of these was scarcely legible, so well had time and metal polish done their work.
theodore wall
farrier
The next in succession was also weathered but easily made out.
samuel wall
bonesetter
Finally, bright and comparatively new,
nathaniel and martin wall
bonesetters
The three plaques, one beneath the other, constituted the family tree of the Walls since their arrival in Stalden years ago.
The door opened and an elderly lady, Nathaniel Wall’s housekeeper, appeared. A small, wiry, trim woman of sixty or thereabouts, with bright eyes, now anxious, a healthy wrinkled face with a small nose and pointed chin. Her hair was white and gathered straight back, in old-fashioned style from her brow to a knob on the crown of her head. Her dress was black and voluminous in an out-of-date fashion. She was evidently in a fearful stew about something as she greeted her visitor.
“Come in, constable. I’m sure there’s something wrong with Mr. Wall. The surgery-door’s locked and I can’t get any answer. He must have had a seizure or something, for I’m certain he’s inside.”
“Now, now, calm yourself, Mrs. Elliott,” said Mellalieu heavily, raising his great hand as if in blessing. “Everything’s probably h’allright. ’Ow long ’s this bin goin’ on?”
“Well, constable, I was away last night. I went over to Sleeby to see my sister yesterday afternoon and they asked me to stay. I said I couldn’t on account of the master, though I’d left his supper on a tray and all he needed was to open his bottle of ale. They pressed and, in the end, my brother-in-law telephoned the master to ask if it would be in order for me to stay overnight and come back this morning, like. Mr. Wall said certainly. If I got back in time to-night to make his bed, I could stop all day there to-day as well. It was a bit since I’d had a change and he’d go for his meals to The Mortal Man. I was very pleased. Very nice of the master. I got back at eight o’clock to-night, cleaned up the supper dishes, made the bed, and then went to tidy up the surgery, thinking Mr. Wall had probably gone out, me not having heard anything of him moving about. The door was locked. The master never locks that door…I thought a bit and the more I thought the more anxious I got. I banged on the door and tried to peep through the window from the front. Then I found the blind was down, which I hadn’t noticed before. So, I rang you up.”
“Quite right, too, Mrs. Elliott. Quite the right thing to ’a done. Probably it’s h’allright. I’ll jest knock on the door fust.”
The bobby solemnly approached the offending article and smote it with his closed fist.
“Anyone in?” he asked timidly at first and then more boldly. “H’anyone in?”
There was a chilling silence, punctuated by the steady ticking of the great case-clock in the hall.
Mellalieu applied his eye to the keyhole, after removing his helmet, without which he looked almost naked.
“Carn’t see a thing, Mrs. H’Elliott.” He shook the door with increasing vigour, first with one hand, then with the other and lastly with both. “Hey! hey…!” he grunted, as though expecting to make the occupant relent and speak-up. Finally, he dropped his hands to his sides in a hopeless gesture.
“No good,” he panted. “Sure Mr. Wall didn’t lock it and go out?”
“Why should he lock it? There’s nothing in there to lock it for. I don’t like it. I think you ought to force it.”
It was gradually dawning on the brain of the constable, which ground slowly but exceedingly small, that force the door was what he ought to have done from the start. Instead, he had dilly-dallied and talked all round it when a man’s life might be in danger. Suppose old Wall had had a stroke or something…Beads of sweat broke out on the officer’s brow and bald head and he reacted vigorously.
“Right oh, Mrs. Elliott, provided you say so…provided you say so.”
“I do,” replied the woman wringing her hands.
Mellalieu gathered himself together in a mighty effort, coiled his body grotesquely and then unwound himself in a mighty heave. There followed a terrible anti-climax, in that the old screws which held the lock gave at once and precipitated the policeman full length into the room. The blind was drawn and no light showed within. Mrs. Elliott switched on the electric light, screamed and fell in a dead faint on the floor. The bobby recovered himself, seized his helmet with one hand, and still on one knee like a worshipper genuflecting, raised his head to see what Mrs. Elliott was doing. Instead, he saw something which made his blue eyes pop almost from their sockets. He gave a strangled cry and sprang to his feet with remarkable agility.
Dangling from a rope passed over a pulley in one of the beams of the ceiling was the stiff body of a man. As Mellalieu looked at it, the draught from the open door caused it to turn and face him. It was the livid-faced corpse of Nathaniel Wall!
Chapter II
Victim
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
—Act V. Sc. I.
The usually quiet house in the square was, less than half an hour after the discovery of the body of the dead bonesetter, over-run by an army of police officials. Headed by Inspector Gillibrand of the Olstead Force, they sought for fingerprints, clues and anything else which might enable them to solve the crime. For Dr. McArthy, the police surgeon, had provisionally stated that the victim had been murdered.
“Strangled first and then slung-up, I should think,” said the doctor, after a preliminary examination. “A rope wouldn’t make marks like that on a man’s neck. Although whether or not he was dead when the murderer hoisted him aloft, is another matter. The autopsy will throw more light on that.”
Inspector Gillibrand examined the marks on the neck of the corpse and grunted. He was a tall, thin, fresh-complexioned man, with dark hair and eyes and a very persistent beard which he shaved off only to leave himself with a blue chin and upper-lip which he had to deal with twice a day sometimes to keep well-groomed. There was something Wellingtonian about his nose, a fine handsome organ. His broad brow denoted intelligence and breadth of outlook. He was well-liked by his subordinates and respected by his chiefs.
“How long would you say he’s been dead, doctor?” asked Gillibrand, gently prodding one of the limbs of the co
rpse, now decently laid out on the couch.
“Since last night, probably twenty-four hours ago. That’s as near as I can get now. He ate his supper, presumably at the usual time, which the housekeeper says was ten-thirty. That being so, when I’ve opened-up the stomach we may be able to get a bit nearer. Rigor’s set-in pretty furiously and hanging there hasn’t improved matters. I’ve finished if you care to ship him off to the mortuary.”
So, P.C. Mellalieu, who had by his excited and incoherent telephonings, let loose the full force of the law on the little village, was called from the kitchen where he had been taking refreshment and sent to obtain the ambulance, which in Stalden was a dairyman’s motor-van convertible in a few minutes into an A.R.P. casualty conveyance. As the village bobby trod the high street looking busy and important, small knots of villagers tried to intercept him and obtain fuller particulars of the event which had mysteriously become news in record time. The contents of the snug and bar-parlour of The Mortal Man teemed into the road to meet him. Some had darts in their hands; others carried out their beer-pots as though prepared to settle down for a long interview. But Mellalieu brushed them all aside with a comprehensive sweep of his huge hand.
“I ain’t in any position to make a statement and I’m just engaged in important business. Let me pass…”
There had never been murder in Stalden before and the new event bewildered and baffled everybody. The constable’s sealed lips did not improve his popularity and there were murmurs against him as the crowd parted to let him proceed on his way.
The Dead Shall be Raised and The Murder of a Quack Page 17
