Corpses in Enderby (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

“I want to talk to you about these murders. I don’t think any of the family did them.”

  Mrs. Wilkins went straight to the point. She smiled at Cromwell, who had been very quiet since his arrival.

  “Your assistant has been very kind to me, Inspector, and I want you to make a note of it … Most kind.”

  She took out a snuff-box from somewhere in the volume of her clothes and noisily sniffed a pinch up each nostril.

  “Like to try some? No? I was saying about Mr. Cromwell. A man after my own heart. If he’d been single, I’d have been delighted to see him fixed up with my favourite niece, Helen, and leave ’em all I’ve got. As it is, he’s married and has a family.”

  Littlejohn gave Cromwell a sideways look and raised one eyebrow. The usually imperturbable sergeant thereupon blushed like a lobster suddenly flung in boiling water.

  “I won’t have her wed to that Hubert Stubbs. If I die in the effort, I’ll stop it. As for the rest of the family being murderers … well … You’ve seen them, Cromwell. What do you think of ’em? Can you imagine that miserable lot of psalm-singers firing guns or throttling people? Name any one of them … I can’t. Jubal Medlicott comes from a crazy family, but he’s milk and water.”

  She licked her lips and looked from one to the other.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s going to be quite a problem.”

  “Problem? Where’s the problem? There isn’t one. You’ll have to look outside the family, Inspector. That parson, Hornblower … A man who’s lost his faith through trouble … Lost his son through Ned’s interference … Or one of the many people in town who owed money to Ned Bunn. People he bullied and harried because they were in his grip. This man, Blowitt … Oh, yes, I know all about Ned’s carryings-on in this town. You see, we Bunns are great letter-writers. The family’s linked by letter-writing. I don’t know why we do it. Not out of love for one another, I assure you. It’s a sort of inborn instinct… a family duty … Also, I guess, they keep me warm because of my money. They must write to keep in my good books and as they haven’t anything cultural or literary to put in their letters, they fill them with gossip about one another … So, I know all about everybody and I tell you that, though many of the family wished Ned out of the way, they’d only go to the extent of praying to the Almighty to do the dirty work by striking him dead. They wouldn’t have the guts to kill him themselves.”

  She went on and on, like a gramophone, asking no advice or opinions, but simply pumping views and information into her hearers.

  “They keep suggesting that Flounder might have done it. Poor little rabbit of a man. A vegetarian, he is, without any blood in his veins … They’re out to stop him marrying Bertha, but I’ll see right done there.”

  Aunt Sarah waved her stick and just then her taxi appeared outside and the melancholy driver started to “pip-pip” dismally on the horn.

  “I’ll see that Bertha gets wed this time, if I die in the attempt. The sooner it’s done the better, before she gets too old to have children who can inherit her fortune properly, instead of more distant relatives squabbling and snarling for the leavings.”

  She fished among her outer garments again, took out a large purse, twisted it open, and extracted half-a-crown.

  “Pay for the tea, Cromwell,” she said. “And if Blowitt tries to charge you more, black his other eye … I’ll see you to-morrow, then …”

  And with that Aunt Sarah rustled from the room, emerged on the pavement, and was shoved in the taxi by the thin chauffeur, who drove slowly away with a list to port this time.

  “You seem to have made a conquest there, Cromwell.”

  Cromwell blushed heavily again.

  “Where’s it get us, though, sir? If the Bunns didn’t do it, who did?”

  Littlejohn slowly filled his pipe.

  “The Bunns are a remarkable family,” he said. “Having done their best to provide each other with alibis, they now, in case we distrust their statements, send their principal advocate, Aunt Sarah, to convince us that they’re temperamentally exempt from committing murder. The Bunns need watching. They’re a closed corporation and unless we break them up, we’re going to get nowhere.”

  11

  THE AFFAIRS OF RONALD BROWNING

  THE local police had been at Whispers asking a lot of questions from the tenants, but had gathered little to help them. Nobody seemed to have seen or heard anything of the happenings outside the flats which had led to the death of Browning. One thing they did discover, however, was that Mr. Jubal Medlicott wore size sevens in shoes and that this tallied with the imprints found in the garden at the scene of the murder. They hit the right shoemaker first bang off. The little shop next-door-but-one to Medlicott’s.

  “Yes. Medlicott wears a seven shoe. Same make he buys, every time. My motter’s the same. When you find the right shoe, stick to it,” said the shopkeeper, a faded, bilious little man with a shock of tow-coloured hair and a worn-out look from constantly fighting and worrying about competitors. He produced the very style favoured by his neighbour and the police found it fitted exactly with the model they had made. Littlejohn persuaded the eager local Inspector to hold his hand a bit until he himself had carried out investigations in his own way.

  It had been raining again when Littlejohn and Cromwell got up and although it ceased over breakfast, the wan trees of Whispers shed showers of stained water on the Inspector as he made his way under them to the flats.

  The blinds of the Brownings’ ground-floor rooms were drawn. The children had been sent to a distant aunt’s and Mrs. Browning’s mother had arrived to keep her daughter company. She was a little, stocky witch of a woman, none too clean, and she had a reputation among her cronies for seeing into the future through the medium of tea-leaves. This Mother Shipton answered the door and barred the way against Littlejohn.

  “Are you a reporter?” she said, “Because if you are, you’ll ’ave to pay well in advance, and we shan’t tell what we know right away. We’ll ’ave to think it over after we’ve got some more offers.”

  She stood there, slightly redolent of gin and scratching her dishevelled hair voluptuously.

  “What is it, mother? … Do come inside and let me talk to ’im.”

  Even in her grief and helplessness, Browning’s wife was ashamed of her mother, who’d arrived and taken things in hand uninvited. The younger woman was consumptive-looking and thin, with a long face and washed-out grey eyes. Until poverty and her shiftless husband assailed her, she had probably been quite pretty. Her mother had no patience with her and she had never liked Browning, who had never acknowledged any liability to support his wife’s parents.

  “I said ’e’d come to a bad end. The stars was always agin him,” muttered the old hag.

  “I’d like a word with Mrs. Browning alone,” cut in Littlejohn. “Police …”

  The crafty old woman backed out. Her eyes never left the Inspector’s face until she was through the door into the other room. She was afraid of the police, who were always on her track at home for illegal fortune-telling. With her disappearance, the smell of gin and unwashed linen also went.

  The flat was untidy and in the half-light of the drawn blinds he could make out a lot of children’s toys scattered here and there; a battered doll, a doll’s carriage bought perhaps in a spell of opulence, and a home-made truck knocked together from a soap-box. Browning was always leaving things unfinished, half-done. He plugged walls for pictures and cupboards and they fell down … Over the broken tiles of the mantelpiece was an unpainted motto he had made in fretwork: Home Sweet Home.

  The large, fine eyes of Mrs. Browning were fixed on Littlejohn.

  “Was it about Ronnie?”

  “Yes … I’m so sorry. If there’s anything I can do …”

  She looked surprised.

  “Not that I’d know of. My dad’s helping me … Dad’s always been good to me … Not …”

  She paused. She was going to say he wasn’t like her mother, but
it didn’t seem right outside the family circle.

  “What did your husband do for a living, Mrs. Browning?”

  “He was really a french-polisher by trade, but work was hard to come by. You see, it’s done now by spraying-machines and Ronnie only used to get work now and then … The rest was casual and sometimes he’d go on the unemployment pay.”

  “Whom did he do casual work for?”

  She paused.

  “Please answer me truthfully, Mrs. Browning. After all, nobody can harm him, now, and it will help us to find who is responsible for his death.”

  “Well … He did a bit of work for Mr. Cuffright upstairs. Mr. Cuffright’s a commission agent and Ronnie did errands for him.”

  A bookie’s runner!

  “… And sometimes he got odd jobs for others, as well.”

  “Such as .. ? I’m particularly interested in what he was doing at the time of his death. He told me he’d had his eye on Mr. Medlicott of late …”

  “Yes. It was a bit of a mystery to me, sir. I don’t know what it was all about, but he did seem to be watching what Mr. Medlicott did for somebody; he didn’t say who. Ronnie was a bit close about his business affairs, but now and then, when I complained about it bein’ hard to make ends meet, he’d say he’d soon have enough money … I know the day he died, when the men came about the furniture, he pleaded with them to leave it till he could collect some that somebody owed him. He said it was quite a sum … In fact, he was very bitter and talked of putting the screw on somebody he knew … I don’t know if I ought to be talkin’ like this. After all, he was my ’usband.”

  She had long hands and feet and kept twisting her fingers. The voice came in a regular monotone. The atmosphere of the dim, untidy room was close and airless. The whole business was depressing.

  “Your husband confided in you now and then? When he wanted to cheer you up …”

  In other words, Browning was addicted to fits of swanking and boasting to justify himself when anyone complained!

  “That’s it.”

  “Did he ever mention Medlicott?”

  “Oh, yes. Whenever the rent was due. This time especially. Mr. Medlicott had been pressing. Ronnie said Medlicott wasn’t all he tried to make out. He hinted there was some other woman and that Ronnie was keeping an eye on Medlicott about it … Whether it was about a divorce, I don’t know … But he used to go out on the stairs and watch Mr. M. comin’ and goin’ and say things about him to me after.”

  “Your husband knew when I called to see the Medlicotts just before he was killed. He was waiting for me on the stairs to tell me about Mr. Medlicott’s movements. Did he say anything to you about it?”

  “Yes. He said if I heard you coming down, to tell ’im. But he was so jumpy about catching you that he ended up outside the door of our flat waiting for you.”

  There was a muffled cough behind the inner door, where Mother Shipton was posted, listening to all that was going on.

  “So you’ve no idea who was employing your husband to keep an eye on Mr. Medlicott … He never dropped a hint?”

  “No, sir. I’ve wondered … but I might be wrong … but I’ve wondered if my husband was doin’ it on his own account. He hated Mr. Medlicott because he was nasty when we couldn’t pay the rent and Ronnie said Mr. M. wasn’t the one to be remarkin’ on other people’s sins when he was what he was, so to speak.”

  “I see …”

  They were interrupted by someone inserting a key in the lock, and a little, stocky, chirpy man entered. He was elderly and had a grey moustache and a bald head with a fringe of white hair round it like a tonsure. He wore cheap black clothes and a bowler hat which was obviously kept in cold-storage for funerals, weddings and the like. He was bow-legged and rolled as he walked.

  “Hullo, gel. I’ve seen to things. The police say we can bury ’im to-morrer … Oh … Didn’t know you’d got company.”

  He hadn’t seen Littlejohn in the darkness and now stood silent and a bit abashed.

  Mrs. Browning introduced Littlejohn. The newcomer was her father, Mr. Jack Thewless. A decent artisan of the best type. He shook hands with the Inspector; a hard, clean little hand.

  “I’ve just been to the police-station myself. They’re a very decent lot … Don’t fret, gel, nobody’s goin’ to do any thin’ to you. Your dad’ll look after you.”

  Father and daughter were evidently close friends. Mrs. Browning started to sob bitterly.

  “Bloody shame,” said her dad under his breath and then Mother Shipton appeared on the scene. You could feel the old man dry up, almost recoil. He never knew what she was going to say next.

  “You’ve been a long time. Where’ve you been?”

  “I’ll tell you later, maw. I’m just havin’ a word with the Inspector, ’ere. I’ll be with you in a minute …”

  “So, you want to be rid of me, do you? Well, wot’s to be said concerns me jest as much as you, don’t it? I’m ’er mother, ain’t I? Well …?”

  She’d been at the bottle in her absence and brought with her an aroma of gin like an accompanying cloud. She sat firmly down on a chair and folded her arms.

  The same old tale of domestic torment and slavery! The little man didn’t know where to look or what to say.

  “Let’s smoke a pipe in the garden.”

  The old woman looked at Littlejohn as if she couldn’t believe her ears.

  “Well!”

  But she couldn’t say anything else. The two men went outside and walked under the trees to the back and round the block again. The whole property was in a weary state. The back was worse than the front. The rusty pipes of the plumbing system crawled down the rear, and the ground beneath was sour, with the grass worn away and weeds a yard high sprouting all over the shop. The dust-bins hadn’t been emptied for a long time and their contents overflowed and leaked out in piles all round them. Rusty tins, tea-leaves, bottles …

  Jack Thewless filled his little briar from Littlejohn’s pouch and lit it.

  “Aye …” he said. A sigh of relief and perhaps satisfaction, for the little man seemed to have within himself some source of strength and cheerfulness which his hag of a wife could not suppress.

  “I was only sayin’ to Ronnie at th’ football match last Saturday, that no self-respectin’ chap should be carryin’ on a job like he was … I’d rather hump coal or hawk newspapers than earn me livin’ spyin’ on other folks.”

  “He told you what he was doing, then?”

  “Not exackly. But he said he was runnin’ an enquiry agency. Whether it were on his own or for somebody else, he didn’t say. But I gathered he got information for people about other folks’ private lives. It’s like a cat huntin’ in dust-bins, if you ask me. Scavengin’, that’s what it was.”

  “Did he mention who he was watching?”

  “Quite a number, he said. And he added, you’d be surprised at the things folk did. Medlicott, his landlord, for instance. From what Ronnie let drop, in a casual sort of way, his wife’s family weren’t too happy about his carryin’s-on and were havin’ Ronnie to watch him and report. Some other woman, I think. I believe in mindin’ my own business, so I didn’t press it, though Ronnie was eager for me to do so. A funny chap, Ronnie. He’d keep his doin’s secret till he couldn’t bear it any more and then he’d start swankin’. Poor chap, I guess he ’ad to justify himself an’ make out how well he were doing. Now he’s let on somethin’ dangerous and he’s left a wife and three little children. He should have took my advice. Still, advice is easy to give an’ hard to take …”

  He puffed at his pipe, making little noises of satisfaction at the way it was drawing.

  He looked up at Littlejohn almost tenderly.

  “You’ll see that my girl’s done right by, won’t you, sir? I’m very fond of that lass. Her mother hasn’t been to her all she should be, you see. I’ll be quite candid about it. You’ve no doubt seen for yourself; everybody does. We lost a little boy a long time ago an’ since then my wife’s
not been the same woman.”

  He looked up at the Inspector again and they both nodded in understanding.

  They parted at the door of the flat; Mr. Thewless went inside to take his medicine and Littlejohn climbed the stairs to see Mr. Cuffright. He knocked on the door. There was a lot of scuffling and scurrying in the room behind. The bookie was obviously shifting all the incriminating books and slips, for he had been watching the Inspector from the window.

  “Who is it?”

  “Police.”

  More scrimmaging and then the door opened.

  “Good morning.”

  Mr. Cuffright was a heavy, common man with a glowing complexion, crops of pimples all along his collar at the back, a close-clipped head of hair, and a large boozy nose. He was puffing a cigar.

  “Come right inside.”

  Mr. Cuffright was ingratiating. He knew Littlejohn was on the Browning case, so there wasn’t much likelihood of any inquiry into his business dealings. All the same, you can’t be too careful.

  A thick green carpet, a lot of yellow furniture, a closed desk; and a girl with hair the colour of aluminium and a frilly open-necked blouse which showed far too much of her femininity, was working at a typewriter. She paused, looked at herself in a mirror, appeared satisfied that she was presentable after Mr. Cuffright’s habitual fondling of her, and then turned to Littlejohn and bared her teeth at him like a dentifrice advertisement.

  “You get on with your work, Marlene.”

  Mr. Cuffright was jealous even of the police. He frequently threatened to swing for Marlene if she proved false.

  “And now, sir. What can I do for you? Drink? Get the whisky, Marlene, that’s a good girl … No; leave it then, Marlene, the Inspector won’t … Get on with your work … Now, sir.”

  The telephone rang. Mr. Cuffright looked frightened. Probably somebody placing a bet.

  “Tell them I’m not in, Marlene. I’ll ring back.”

  She undulated to the telephone followed by Mr. Cuffright’s hot, pouched eyes, made movements like those of an Eastern dancer, displaying her various charms one after another, and then speaking in an affected, soothing voice to whoever was calling. Finally, her boss could stand it no more, snatched the instrument from her, and jabbed it down on the hook.