“Who gave him his food and cleaned his room and such, then?”
“I did that whilst he was in the surgery for his treatment. He wasn’t always in bed, of course. I took up his meals on a tray, too. The master said I wasn’t to go in on no account. Just leave the food on the table by the door and go. I didn’t try to spy on the patient. All I thought was that perhaps he was such an ’orrible mess from some accident or through the treatment, that he wasn’t fit to be seen. Then, one day, the room was empty and the patient gone. Mr. Wall said he was cured and a good cure, too.”
“Is that all you can tell me, Mrs. Elliott? You’re sure you never saw Bollington.”
“Sure, sir. Honour bright, I didn’t. I wouldn’t tell you I didn’t if I did…”
“All right, Mrs. Elliott. Thank you very much.”
On the return journey in the ’bus, Littlejohn asked himself a string of puzzling questions.
Why did Wall take such pains to hide “J.B.”?
Why, having seen the account of the bank robbery, with violence, had Wall taken in “J.B.”? Or, if he had only discovered the crime after the patient had settled-in, why hadn’t Wall handed him over to the police, or, at least, turned him out?
Was “J.B.” really the bank-robber? The answer to that was the easiest. It was extremely likely that Wall had harboured a criminal and known that he was doing so. Why?
Had the thief some hold over Wall? This seemed likely, for why make for Stalden at all, and above all, the house of the very man who not only took him in in spite of his crime, but altered his appearance in a fashion which enabled him to evade the police?
It was all very baffling and the trail had grown cold by the lapse of time. Cromwell, his assistant, was pursuing certain inquiries which might throw some light on the matter. Better wait for his report which should arrive at any time.
Meanwhile, Littlejohn felt that a visit to the masterful Mr. Rider would not be amiss. In the course of interviewing the local notables, he could not afford to overlook the man whom the late Mr. Wall had disliked and tried to frustrate in matters of the heart. The ’bus halted near Rider’s cottage and the Inspector could see the occupant vigorously clipping the box hedge which sheltered it. Littlejohn descended and crossed the road to his quarry.
Rider eyed the newcomer without enthusiasm, did not ask him to enter, but held the conversation in the open air and on the public footpath which passed his gate.
Chapter XIII
Lover
We shall be dogged with company, and our devices known!
—Act I. Sc. II.
Rider snipped rudely away at the hedge whilst Littlejohn endeavoured to engage him in conversation. Watching him as he talked, the Inspector was puzzled to know why a good-looking and eligible girl like Betty Cockayne should decide to throw in her lot with the eccentric-looking artist—or pseudo artist—now so obviously making a show of insolence.
On closer examination Rider’s appearance did not improve. He resembled certain oddities who, a number of years ago, could be found in Bloomsbury writing formless poetry and biographies and essays for eccentric and short-lived periodicals which sprang-up like exotic plants and as quickly perished. His curly auburn beard mingled with his foulard bow-tie. His face was long and pasty, with heavy ears. His forehead was narrow, wrinkled and bald and then came thick, brown, lifeless-looking hair, worn fairly long and untidily spreading over the collar of his jacket. The colour of his small eyes was hidden behind Crookes’s lenses in round gold frames. He was tall, well-built and his shoulders had a tired, scholarly stoop. He wore a baggy tweed suit and had sandals on his feet.
Littlejohn decided to leave to the gossips the matter of the origins of the Cockayne-Rider affair. His main purpose at present was to sum-up the character of the rude man before him and to find out, if possible, whether he had any connection with the crime.
“I’d like a word or two with you about the recent tragic happenings at The Corner House, Mr. Rider, if you can spare me the time,” said Littlejohn pointedly, for Rider had answered his greeting amid a tornado of box-clippings and shear-snapping.
Rider turned and faced him, lowering his implements as he did so.
“And what might I have to do with that, pray? I might also add, I don’t like your tone, Inspector.”
“I might reply that I don’t like your manners, Mr. Rider,” answered Littlejohn bluntly. “I’m not tramping the village in this hot sun for the benefit of my health. I’m investigating a crime, and I look for co-operation from everybody interested in bringing the criminal to justice. I would be glad if you’d answer a few routine questions, sir, and it’s impossible to carry on a conversation if you persist in turning your back and creating as much noise as you can.”
Rider looked ready to impale Littlejohn on his hedge-clippers, and then his mood seemed to change. He bared his long yellow teeth and showed his red lips through his beard.
“What have I to do with the murder, may I ask?” he said superciliously. “I know old Wall objected to my marrying Miss Cockayne, but that’s no reason for my wanting to string him up in his surgery. He’d always been a bit sweet on her himself and resented my intrusion. Neither of us cared a hoot what he thought about our getting engaged. More likely he wanted to murder me, not me murder him. I was the lucky man.”
The sight of the fellow nauseated Littlejohn. He struggled to turn the conversation into different channels.
“I’m not suggesting for a moment that you had any wish to kill Mr. Wall. But I gather that, of late, you have seen more of him than formerly. I hear that you and Mr. Wall have called on each other…”
“Been sounding the local gossips and gasbags, eh? What a way of collecting evidence! I could have spared you that, Inspector. The old chap and I did see each other more than usual after my engagement to Miss Cockayne. He asked me to call on him and tried to persuade me that we weren’t suited. How’s that for a bit of cheek? I told him to go to hell.”
“You don’t seem very fond of Mr. Wall.”
“As a matter of fact, I wasn’t interested in him much until he started meddling in my affairs. I didn’t want much truck with a quack who earned his keep from superstitious or gullible country ignoramuses…”
“According to my information quite a number of intelligent people were glad to be patients of Mr. Wall, Mr. Rider. And derived a lot of benefit from his treatment.”
“That’s as may be, Inspector. I wasn’t much interested. As I said, I never bothered my head about him until he started trying to teach me my business. After I’d told him in plain language what I thought of him, he wouldn’t let the thing rest. Called on me for further conversations. I showed him the door.”
“H’m. Did he tackle Miss Cockayne, too?”
“You know that already, so why ask me?”
Littlejohn ignored the snub.
“Where were you at the time of the murder, Mr. Rider?” he asked.
“Ah, I thought that was coming. I’ve been waiting for it.”
“Will you kindly answer it, then?”
“Under protest. The question’s offensive. I was with Miss Cockayne all the evening. She’ll confirm that. We’re not married yet, so legally her evidence will be allowed. We’re both interested in music and there was a concert being broadcast we particularly wanted to hear. I arrived at Miss Cockayne’s at nine, heard the news and the postscript. The concert began at 9.30 and went on until 10.45. We settled down and remained together from start to finish.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rider. That seems all right. I’ll just check-up on it as a matter of course…”
“I can even give you the programme, Inspector, although I don’t know why I’m bothering to do so. Overture: Ruy Blas. Then, Harty’s arrangement of Handel’s Water-Music; Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Strauss’s Don Juan. Then ‘God Save the King,’ a cup of coffee, and home to be
d about eleven-thirty.”
“Good. Just one more question, Mr. Rider. Did you know of any reason why Mr. Wall should be murdered?”
“Haven’t I told you, I wasn’t interested in the old chap? How was I to know anything about him or other people’s feelings towards him? I rarely met him about the village. I don’t listen to gossip. My only encounter with him was when he started meddling in my affairs. Then I told him where he got off…Now, if there’s nothing more, I’ll get on with my work. The weather might break at any time and there’s a lot to be done; so I’ll bid you good-bye.”
Littlejohn left Rider without more ado. As he passed the wrought-iron gate which broke the thick hedge on which the man was working, Littlejohn saw a well laid-out garden, with close-clipped lawns and gaudy flowers in beds surrounding them. A pretty spot for such an uncouth owner.
On his way home to his lodgings, the detective stopped at Miss Cockayne’s place and received a full confirmation of Rider’s alibi. The lady seemed amused at being asked to corroborate, but replied to the Inspector’s questions without hesitation and in a candid manner which seemed to preclude deceit or collusion. Nevertheless, Littlejohn, when he reached The Mortal Man used the telephone again, this time to ask Scotland Yard to check up the B.B.C. programme on the night of the murder and also to confirm the timing of the items and report on anything else which might be of interest in them. Then he went in the bar in search of gossip more than liquid refreshment before his lunch.
Goodchild the cobbler was the only occupant of the place and his face was buried in a pint pot as the detective entered.
“Hullo,” said Goodchild. “Still snoopin’ around, Inspector. Foundout ’oo did it yet?”
“No, Mr. Goodchild. Solutions to crimes don’t grow on trees. They call for hard work.”
“Pursuin’ line of inquiry, then, as the newspapers ’aveit. Wish I’d been a policeman. Easy life.”
“I was just thinking the same about cobbling, myself,” retorted Littlejohn.
“One up on me, sir. One up on me. Well, well, we all think t’other chap’s job’s the best, eh? Now look at Mr. Rider, the one you was talkin’ to as I came in fer me refresher. He’s got an easy life, if you ask me. Writer or somethin’. Lovely ’ome, any amount o’ time on ’is ’ands and no kids to bother the life outof ’im and spoil ’is peace o’ mind. And to crown all, he’s goin’ to marry a girl with a fortune and good looks in the bargain. Some fellows ’as all the luck. Nice bit o’ stuff, Miss Cockayne…”
Goodchild leered and then drowned his sorrows in ale.
“Quite a romance, eh?” said Littlejohn. “Have they been lovers long?”
“Romance, did you say? Come off it! She’s perhaps fancying she’s got a romance, though I doubt it. She’s never lived far away from this village and she’s flattered at bein’ asked by the great author. Wot he’s the author of, nobody seems to know. Writes under another name. Suppose some of us’d get a shock if we knew wot ’e wrote, eh? At any rate, he’s regarded as somebody in the village. A bit of a mystery, I’d say. Normally, Miss Cockayne wouldn’t a’ looked at him. But having been sweet on Squire Deverel’s son for a long time and havin’ done a bit of courting with him until we all expected ’em makin’ a match of it. And then young Mr. Deverel goin’ off and marryin’ a chorus girl…well…she just tuck Rider to show she didn’t care wot Deverel did. That’s my way o’ thinkin’ at any rate and there’s many more thinks the same. As for Rider, he know which side his bread’s buttered. Marryin’ money. Some folk ’as all the luck.”
Whereat Mr. Goodchild banged down his empty pot and made a morose exit, mumbling something about a matrimonial lucky-bag and not having picked a winner.
So that was it! Allowing for the exaggerations of gossip, Littlejohn could well imagine Rider’s head and not his heart choosing the girl with the money. And she, jilted by a local youngster she fancied, was prepared to make a martyr of herself by marrying a freak just to show the faithless one she didn’t care a rap about him or his choice of the chorus.
Rider’s occupation intrigued the detective. Author, publisher’s reader. Nobody seemed to know what he wrote or what he read. He kept his business to himself and didn’t even enlighten his fiancée. Yet, all the village seemed to take him at his own valuation. He would bear closer investigation, even if he had no connection whatever with the crime.
Perhaps the post-office could throw some light on the matter. Littlejohn had heard that the postmistress was somewhat of a gossip and once in full cry was difficult to hold back. Nevertheless, the ordeal must be faced. After lunch then, he’d buy some stamps and turn on yet another flow of scandal.
The perky maidservant announced that lunch was ready.
“There’s pork to-day. ’Ome-fed in the village, sir,” she said, flashing her eyes at him.
“Lead-on, Macduff,” said Littlejohn and followed her to the dining-room.
Chapter XIV
Postmistress
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;
Wink at each other; hold the sweet jest up:
—Act III. Sc. II.
Stalden Post Office, with the first word, a mere ghost of it, peeping through the streamer of white paint with which it had been obliterated in the national interest when invasion was expected. Beneath the headline in smaller lettering: “Agatha Mullins, licensed to sell tobacco.” The licensee was also the postmistress of the village. Had not war broken out, demanding all government officials to stay put, Miss Mullins would have fled the place. As it was, she stuck it out, bravely living down the ridicule heaped on her by jocular or spiteful natives. For Miss Mullins had made history, a perfect opera bouffe of it, in the spring of 1939.
In July 1931, Miss Mullins went to Paris and Dinard with her uncle, Felix Potts, F.R.G.S., who earned his money by trailing conducted parties round English-speaking parts of the Continent in summer and autumn and lecturing, with the aid of lantern-slides, on the glories of the departed season to anyone who would listen and pay during the winter. Paris affected Miss Mullins so much, that she wished she were French herself. She even tried to alter the pronunciation of her name to Moulin and was jealous of the local bobby for possessing a better version of a corrupt French surname than her own. Whenever the buds began to burst in Stalden, her eyes grew dim thinking of the boulevards and the dear Champs Elysées; the smell of drains or cabbage water reminded her delicately of the Impasse S. Didier, where had once been the selected pension, the dear Pension Didier, of Felix Potts, F.R.G.S. She always ate a French breakfast of home-made croissants and french coffee and she had several times unsuccessfully tried to shop by post with the Samaritaine.
The better to promote her nostalgia, Miss Mullins attended French classes at the Olstead Technical Institute for five years. At the end of that time, she began to teach the language herself. Meanwhile, she interlarded her talk with French as far as the locals would stand it. With the exception of the curate, there was only Tommy Mather in the village capable of sustaining a hundred per cent Gallic conversation. To tell the truth, Tommy’s efforts were about in the ratio of 40–60: Bad French; Frenchified English. He had served in Rouen throughout the last war and chaffered in the market there for the company’s rations.
In May, 1939, Miss Mullins herself took a party to Paris. There were fourteen of them, consisting of three pupils (advanced), five pupils (elementary), three parents and three hangers-on, one of whom was Tommy Mather. Preparations lasted eight months and nearly broke down at length, for uncle Felix had died from a surfeit of stale langouste at St. Malo during the previous summer. At last the great day arrived. Half the village saw the party off at the ’bus-stop. They departed in triumph led by Miss Mullins and returned in dudgeon shepherded by Tommy Mather. The Parisians apparently didn’t speak French, for Miss Mullins had been unable to make them understand a word! But for Tommy, who rose vociferously and ungrammatically to the occasi
on, the tour would have been a complete and tragic flop. Heaven knows what would have happened to the ladies in that wicked city had not Tommy pidginned-in to the rescue!
The village was still very hot about Miss Mullins and her French when war broke out, and she was already looking round for another business far away, perhaps in dear Dinard…
But enough. Miss Mullins was weighing rice at the counter when Littlejohn entered the stores. She was a little, thin woman, with untidy grey hair, quiet grey eyes, pink faded cheeks and a nose and mouth so small that a caricaturist would have passed them off with a tick and a dot of his pencil. A lonely woman, used to no work until her father, a wine merchant, had died when she was forty. He left her like a fish out of water, floundering among his debts. Only the vicar of Stalden knew what she had gone through in fifteen years. As if fate had not played scurvily enough with her, there was added the last ironical joke of the Paris fiasco…Nay, the patron of the dear Pension Didier had even presented Miss Mullins with an unpaid account forgotten in death by her uncle Felix!
“Good morning,” said Miss Mullins to Littlejohn and she bolted swiftly in and out of the back quarters of the shop to turn-off the wireless which was playing Debussy’s En Bateau.
“Good morning, madam,” said Littlejohn. He had heard part of Miss Mullins’s tale from the tipsy ignoramuses of The Mortal Man, but he knew when he saw her that he could trust her. He told her what he wanted right away.
“I suppose it’s all right, Inspector, giving you the information, although as a civil servant I’m sworn to secrecy. Sous le manteau de la cheminée, of course…I mean, confidentially, you understand?”
“Quite…sous le manteau.”
“You speak French?”
“A little, but let’s continue in English.”
Littlejohn knew French well. The neighbours in the next flat at Hampstead were French and during bridge evenings had taught him quite a lot. All the same, no sense in conducting inquiries in a foreign tongue. He held Miss Mullins on the rails.
The Dead Shall be Raised and The Murder of a Quack Page 25
