“I certainly will, sir, and I’m very grateful for your help and interest.”
“And now I must be getting along, too, Inspector,” said the parson. “I’ve a call to make to take a very old and very aggressive lady a bottle of my port. Otherwise, I’d have asked you to lunch. If you’re staying in the village, I shall expect you at church next Sunday, you know.”
Littlejohn was there.
Chapter VIII
Coroner
I will roar, that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me;
I will roar, that I will make the duke say ‘Let him roar again, Let him roar again.’
—Act I. Sc. II.
On the night before the inquest, P.C. Mellalieu oiled his boots well, for at his last appearance on such an occasion, he had, by the creakings and squeakings of his footwear, brought down ridicule on his head.
“Thank you, Officer,” the coroner had said after hearing him out. “Thank you, and next time, ahem, see that your boots are paid for…” And the whole court had rocked with laughter.
A proper one for a sarcastic joke at somebody else’s expense was Mr. Timothy Shearwater and if he could come out like that at the inquest of such small fry as a bashful farm labourer, father of four, who had put a milkmaid in the family way and rather than face the music, had thrown himself into the local reservoir greatly to the consternation of the consumers, if Mr. Shearwater could come out like that, then, what might he do on the all-important morrow.
This involved thought passed many times through the bobby’s mind in the course of the day, with the result that he set about his number elevens with neatsfoot oil until there wasn’t a sound in them.
“I don’t mind owld Shearwater bein’ sarcastical with others, but on a chap wot’s only doin’ his dooty and not expected to be toffed-up to the nines in glassy kid or patent leathers, well, it’s a bit thick, Ma, it’s a bit thick,” he confided to his wife.
“Well, don’t you go makin’ a fool of yerself again, that’s all, disgracin’ me and the children in the eyes of all the village…” was all the sympathy he received from his masterful spouse.
“He’d be better if he didn’t shout so…People in the next village can ’ear ’im when he starts,” said P.C. Mellalieu, this time to the boot on his fist.
Mr. Shearwater certainly had a good voice and knew how to use it. He roared his way through an inquest like a lion in the jungle. His inquiries were always short and sweet and anyone who wilfully or accidentally tried to prolong them got the full blast of the coroner’s lungs and the whole edge of his sarcastic wit. He was a huge man with a thick black beard, shoulders like an ox and a keen intelligence. At one time, he had been the best pleader in Olstead and in defending malefactors, terrified not only his own clients but the rest of the advocates and the bench. Some shrewd local official had finally struck upon a good idea for giving the Olstead petty sessions a chance, by having Mr. Shearwater appointed county coroner. Since then, his milder partner had done the court work and the ferocious solicitor had had a court to himself to bellow in.
Mr. Timothy Shearwater arrived at the Women’s Institute at Stalden, where he proposed to pitch his tent, in a pony and trap. Since the first day of the war, he had abandoned his car and put the rest of the local petrol-consuming gentry to shame by his example and whipping tongue.
Inspector Gillibrand and the coroner got on well together, for the police officer always rode a bicycle. No sooner had Gillibrand suggested an adjournment than Shearwater agreed. He contented himself by hearing the police, the doctor and Mrs. Elliott. The jury, dressed in their best and having seen the body, were a mere box of puppets and filed-out, disappointed and chagrined like the rest of the audience which crowded the hall. The whole place smelled of jam, for the women of the institute had been boiling and bottling furiously for over a week.
“Don’t be nervous, man,” thundered the coroner at the constable, who had rehearsed a pithy statement of his part in the affair so thoroughly, that he couldn’t remember anything else and then forgot his lines at a crucial point. P.C. Mellalieu assumed the colour of his own beetroots, stammered, coughed, abandoned his script and launched into a long and involved account.
Mr. Shearwater took off his gold-rimmed spectacles, polished them meticulously on a silk handkerchief and took a deep breath. The constable felt himself shrinking like Alice in Through the Looking Glass and waited for the storm to break.
“Thank you, constable, that will do,” thundered Mr. Shearwater. “You behaved with promptitude and good sense…That will do.”
Mellalieu somehow stumbled from the box and as he went on his rounds for many days to come, he trod air. His wife, to mark her approval, gave the police house an extra spring-cleaning, although it was well past midsummer, and made her husband a succession of his favourite apple dumplings, which, by giving his digestion too much to do, counteracted to some extent the lightness of his heart and spirits.
Mrs. Elliott was the next on the list and entered the box darkly. In spite of her attire, she cast no gloom over the coroner nor caused him to pitch his voice in a funereal key. He questioned her with gusto and received her replies with obvious relish. Her evidence consisted of a more or less embellished repetition of what she had told the constable in the presence of the corpse. She recited in a flat voice a summary of events leading to the discovery of the body and gave her opinion concerning the state of mind of the deceased just before she last saw him.
“Did anyone suggest that you should take a day’s holiday visiting your sister?” boomed Mr. Shearwater.
“It was my sister herself, sir,” came the response, all the more feeble and plaintive following the questioner.
“Did anyone know that in advance?”
“Plenty of people, sir.”
“WHO EXACTLY?”
“Well, sir, I should think Mr. Wall told most of those he met during evening surgery and as he was eating his evening meal at the inn or having his drink.”
“I see. Medical evidence mentions something about his supper. Did he have that at home?”
“Yes, sir. Half-past ten every night like clockwork. I left it ready on a tray, just biscuits and the dish of cheese, with a bottle of beer for him to open…”
“So, he must have had it between returning from The Mortal Man and meeting his death, for the biscuits had been eaten and the bottle opened.”
The coroner dismissed the housekeeper.
“I offer you my sympathy, Mrs. Elliott. You have lost a good master and presumably a good post.”
Whereupon the witness burst into tears and was assisted from the box by her attendant sister, also dressed in complete mourning for the occasion.
Dr. John Wall followed, gave evidence of identification, expressed his emphatic opinion that his uncle’s state of mind and the medical evidence precluded suicide and was thunderously scolded by Mr. Shearwater for anticipating the police surgeon, who followed him and gave a technical account of the cause of death.
“Please translate that into everyday terms for the benefit of ignoramuses like myself and the jury,” roared the coroner, benevolently baring his teeth and showing his red lips through his huge beard.
The resulting simple statement of physiological facts caused a stir in court something like a mixture of a deep groan and the murmurs of sympathetic endearment made by certain women in the presence of infants and pet dogs. This noise was really a mass exhibition of grief and condolence and caused Mr. Shearwater to look over the top of his glasses at the packed house and take a deep breath as though preparing to blow them all out of the place. Instead, he uttered a long sigh like the wind in the willows and went on with his writing. He next raised his head and announced an adjournment.
That was all the inquest the villagers got that day. A deaf old man whose daughter had been keeping him posted in a stage whisper was heard to remark in a loud v
oice that “Crowner be playin’ about to make things last longer and tantalize the folk”, and Beales and Meads, who had been glaring at each other across the room throughout the proceedings, now opened noisy hostilities concerning what happened at an inquest on a man who was brained whilst bell-ringing in 1872. Beales, the youngster, finally fled from the field and could be heard in another part of the room telling a juvenile of sixty-eight what happened to Samuel Wall in 1899.
“Flung from his pony-cart he was and broke both his legs. Ted Harrows, the roadman, found ’im in the ditch and swearin’ loike a trooper. Could swear wi’ the best, could old doctor. ‘Nobody’s goin’ to set moi bloody legs but me,’ says Mr. Samuel. ‘So you can put me in that barrow o’ yours and wheel me to me blasted surgery.’ An’ he swore somethin’ ’orrible as Ted lifted ’im, as best ’e could, sayin’ as he were makin’ of ’em worse…hee…hee…hee…”
His mirth was short-lived, however, for from his elbow came the voice of his familiar spirit.
“You’m all wrong agen, there, Ben Beales, as usual…That were Master Theodore in 1852…that’s moi toime, but long afore you was thought of. My old father told me that tale…”
The villagers were sore about the curtailment of their pleasure and some looked ready to throw brickbats at the coroner, who mounted his trap with a vigorous bound and bowled-off to an inquiry in a neighbouring hamlet, where an old man had died of a surfeit of mushrooms and beer before the doctor could get at him. On the way he passed a number of cars parked in front of the pub and muttered, “Howling cads” to himself in a roar which swept the village from end to end.
Returning to the inn, Littlejohn found the post awaiting him.
There was a packet from The Yard giving full details of the crimes reported in the yellowed newspaper cuttings he had unearthed.
The Gray’s Inn bank-robber had never been laid by the heels, but his identity was known. He was Percival Bates, who had already served a term of imprisonment for making counterfeit money. He had evidently found a better way of securing banknotes later.
The identity of Bates had, more or less, been established from the bank manager’s description. Then followed particulars of the man. His right arm had been partially paralysed and his nose broken and turned awry after an explosion which had wrecked a laboratory in which he had worked prior to turning to bad ways. A chemist originally, he had shown an aptitude for metal processing and engraving which had led him astray. The police thought he had slipped through their net and gone abroad. No trace of him had been found since the bank crime. He had served his first term in Dartmoor prison from 1924 to 1930. His record had there been exemplary and he had finished up as a librarian.
As regards the murderer at Redstead, there was little to report. He had lived peaceably on a smallholding near Truro since his release from Dartmoor. The police knew his exact whereabouts. His sister, of whom he had been very fond, had got herself in trouble with a local man, who had treated her badly. She apparently broke down under the strain and drowned herself. Harold Greenlees had thereupon visited the seducer and mercilessly thrashed him; to such an extent that he had died in hospital three days later. He had been found guilty of murder but the jury had made strong recommendations to mercy. Condemned to death, however, Greenlees had found sympathetic support in his own neighbourhood and a monster petition for reprieve had been signed. At the last minute, the sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment. Good behaviour, combined with official broadening of views had resulted in his premature release.
Littlejohn thought hard and studied the records carefully for a long time and then, having made up his mind, telephoned Detective-Sergeant Cromwell at Scotland Yard, giving him detailed instructions concerning certain lines of inquiry he wished him to pursue. Then he took out his notebook, entered certain points in it and studied the whole again.
“What time are Dr. Keating’s surgery hours?” he asked the waitress who cleared away the remnants of his meal.
“Six-thirty to eight,” said the girl, eyeing him critically and wondering what was wrong with the ham and eggs.
Littlejohn laughed.
“I’m not ill, girl. It’s a private matter I want to talk about and I’ve just time before he sees his patients.”
Greatly relieved, the maid burst into a fit of uncontrolled giggling, rolled her bright eyes at the Inspector, knocked over a dish of pineapple chunks on the table and retired in confusion, backing her way to the door like someone exiled from a royal presence.
Chapter IX
Doctor
Out, loathèd medicine! Hated potion, hence!
—Act III. Sc. II.
Alexander Keating, M.B., Ch.B., was standing in his consulting-room drinking whisky when Littlejohn rang his door bell. The doctor had lately ceased from drinking in his wife’s presence; the reproach in her eyes took away half the pleasure of it.
After an undistinguished school career, Keating drifted into medicine mainly through lack of enthusiasm for anything else and through the efforts of a forceful mother, who had a fancy for putting her round-peg in a square hole as a “healer”, as she called him. He failed several times both in inters and finals, but at length scraped through. He lived riotously among the worst sets in the medical school. This was the man whom the examiners and the faculty launched into the world to heal the sick. He soon began to hate the job he had so irresponsibly chosen.
Keating was quite unable to behave with due professional decorum. His former wildness remained dormant in his blood for a time and then burst out again under the strain of holding down a country practice, bought with the money of the girl he had married as soon as he graduated. The sense of frustration caused through competition with his only local rival, a quack, whose unqualified skill and prestige far exceeded his own, was more than he could bear. He had bought the practice from the executors of the last of the Taylors for about £4,000. At first, it yielded a fair return, but the newcomer’s reputation soon spread. His personality and his professional failures were not conducive to retaining what he had inherited from the old and eminent family of country physicians he followed. There was the story of the child and her collar-bone, too, following him everywhere. He chose to blame this incident entirely on Wall, dubbed him a charlatan and thus roused the ire of almost the whole of the area, which was rather proud of its bonesetter. Unable in any legal way to assail his rival or discredit him, the thwarted Keating took to drink. He had taken too much liquor when the maid brought in Littlejohn’s card.
The girl was saucy. She was too young and pretty for her master to resist and Mrs. Keating had given her notice. The doctor’s wife was contemplating handing-in her own notice as well and retiring to her parents’ home.
“What’s he want?” growled Keating.
“Search me!” said the maid with impudent familiarity.
The doctor leered at her over his glass.
“Show him in.”
“Well, Inspector. Am I a suspect then? I didn’t kill him, you know, although I’d damn well have liked to.”
“As you apparently already know, doctor, I’m here investigating the death of Mr. Wall and, as the only doctor in the place, I thought you might be able to throw some light on his activities from a fresh angle.”
“Have a drink!”
“No thanks, sir.”
“Well, if I tell you that, thanks to Wall’s activities, filching my patients and good name—an outsider can do it; a qualified man can’t—he’s reduced the value of this practice to next to nil. Almost ruined me. Now that he’s gone, thank God, it’ll perhaps buck-up. Might just as well have poured my money down the drain as invested it in this one-eyed hole…”
“Yes?”
“Yes. Of course, my predecessor, Dr. Taylor, belonged to a family of local gentry who’d been here since the year One! They had immense local influence and you know what that is. Wall battered himself
against that without any effect. But I came in as a stranger and had to make my way. Hell! It makes my blood boil to think of what I’ve stood from Wall.”
Littlejohn, looking at the shaking hands and shifty eyes of the doctor, added his own inward commentary to the sorry tale. He also noticed that the doctor smoked and drank with the help of his left hand.
“You quarrelled with the bonesetter, I understand?”
“Like hell I did. Gave him the full length of my tongue a time or two. Wouldn’t you if a quack had the bloody impudence to take your patients, treat ’em till they were at death’s door, and then sling ’em back at you for a death certificate that he couldn’t give? Or else because I could perform operations that would land him in quod if he tried ’em?”
The Inspector remembered the collar-bone, but did not mention it!
“So you had a row or two, then?”
“Yes—as I’ve already said. Why keep laying it on? I didn’t string-up the old chap or throttle him, if that’s what you’re at. But I told him where he got off and what I’d do if I ever got a chance, through the police-courts, I meant, not taking the law into my own hands…”
Littlejohn could imagine Keating brawling with his neighbour after lacing himself with courage from a bottle. He could imagine the frigid reaction of Wall, too.
“No, doctor, I didn’t think you’d go to the extent of killing.”
“I don’t know…I felt that way sometimes. You know how you get? I wouldn’t have strangled him, though. Shooting’s more in my line…”
“Where were you between ten and eleven on the night of the crime, Dr. Keating?”
Littlejohn fired the question suddenly, quietly watching the man’s reactions. Keating didn’t like it at all. A queer look came over his features, a sort of tightening of the muscles of his eyelids and a sly sidelong glance.
Keating pretended to think hard. His response was not convincing and bore the hall-mark of a trumped-up tale.
The Dead Shall be Raised and The Murder of a Quack Page 22
