Corpses in Enderby (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  He had postponed a further visit to the Brownings’ flat. He was reluctant to worry a bereaved household and, besides, he wanted to give the objectionable Mrs. Thewless time to get to her own home. He was disappointed, however, for the old lady opened the door in answer to his knock.

  “Oh, it’s you again. You’ll have to look sharp. My daughter’s just packin’ a bag and comin’ home with me. You can’t expect her to stay ’ere after all that’s gone on …”

  She looked annoyed about something and was untidy and half-washed. Her daughter emerged from the bedroom carrying a cheap fibre case, which she put down when she saw Littlejohn. She smiled politely at him.

  “You’re only just in time, Inspector. Mother insists on taking me home with her and we were just …”

  The old woman cut in in a hectoring voice.

  “I should just think so. With a murderer hangin’ round. You might be the next. You’re not stoppin’ ’ere on yer own.”

  They were both in black, which heightened the pallor of the younger woman. Littlejohn rather liked her. A gentle, well-mannered sort of girl, who evidently took after her father. In the full light of the room, she looked very young to have so many children and so much trouble. Mrs. Thewless drew the curtains violently. She was angry at the delay.

  “I’m sorry to call at an inconvenient time. I’d no idea you were …”

  Mrs. Browning pointed to a chair.

  “Do sit down, please …” And then to her mother, “Would you mind clearing the tea-things, mum, and just rinsing them? We can’t leave them like that …”

  There were the remnants of a light meal on the table; cups, some scraps of bread and butter, and a jam dish. Mrs. Thewless, more annoyed than ever, scooped them all on a wooden tray and took them in the kitchen. Water started running and they could hear the rattle of dishes being roughly thrown in the washing-up bowl.

  “You’ve come about my husband, sir?”

  Her lips began to quiver and she ran to her handbag on the table, took out a handkerchief, and sobbed in it.

  “It can wait till later, Mrs. Browning.”

  She insisted, though.

  “I may not be back for a bit. Can you tell me what you want before mother …?”

  From the rattle of cups and plates going on, Mrs. Thewless wouldn’t be long!

  “I just wanted to ask if your husband was interested in anyone else besides Mr. Medlicott? You said he was working as a kind of investigator … Was he looking into the affairs of anyone else?”

  She answered at once, without any thought.

  “Yes … Miss Mander in the flat above.”

  And then she blushed.

  “Please don’t mistake me, Inspector. My husband was only interested in her from a business point of view. You understand … Somebody must have asked him to give them information about her. He was a good husband and father. There was no question of …”

  She struggled again with her self-control and regained it. Then she dried her eyes and blew her nose in her little handkerchief.

  “Of course … I quite understand, Mrs. Browning.”

  The outer door was opened and closed. Twittering voices in the hall, and then feet ascending the stairs. Littlejohn paused and listened. It was the Medlicott girls, but he couldn’t hear their father’s heavier footsteps. He raised a finger at Mrs. Browning, went to the door of the flat, and gently opened it. Polly and Dolly were ascending the dim flight, slowly, because they were talking and gesticulating so much. They turned to each other, waved their hands, pushed one another playfully, giggled and chuckled. They never seemed to take anything seriously.

  Littlejohn was back again.

  “Did your husband say who employed him on any of his jobs, Mrs. Browning? Or did he ever hint why he was watching these people?”

  She had been lost in thought and started at the question.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He repeated it.

  “No. He always kept his own counsel about such things.”

  She spoke nicely and chose her words well. Littlejohn wondered what she had done before Browning married her.

  The old woman was back.

  “Come on, now, we’ve a bus to get.”

  “Just be putting your hat and coat on, mum. We’ll have finished by then.”

  “I know when I’m not wanted, my girl. But don’t come to me if you get yourself in a mess through talkin’ too fast to the police.”

  She had evidently been drinking something in the kitchen, for she hiccupped loudly on her indignant way out.

  “I do remember one thing, Inspector. My husband came home one night a bit the worse for drink and said he’d got a job for Mr. Blowitt of The Freemasons’ Arms. That’s how he’d got the drink. Mr. Blowitt must have given it to him as he talked. He never said what it was about, though.”

  The front door opened, closed, and then opened again. First, light footsteps on the stairs followed by heavier ones, hurrying. Littlejohn gently opened the door of the flat.

  Voices whispering. The Inspector looked up the staircase. It was Jubal Medlicott talking softly to Violet Mander, who was struggling with her key in the lock of her own door.

  “Don’t keep following me. People will see us and talk.”

  “But Violet …”

  Medlicott was pleading, beseeching in a low voice.

  “I tell you, no. It’s not fair of you to keep pestering me …”

  Her voice sank out of hearing.

  “But … I swear I’ll kill myself if you let me down.”

  “Don’t be silly. Can’t you see … The police … Leave me alone …”

  She slammed the door in his face. She was only an angel when it suited her.

  Medlicott seemed to age visibly under the dim landing-light. His shoulders sagged, his head bent and he slowly climbed the remaining stairs, one at a time, like somebody stricken with an illness.

  There was a bus-stop in front of Whispers and Littlejohn carried Mrs. Browning’s case to the gate. She gave him her mother’s address in case of need and he wished her well and good-bye.

  The old woman remained sulky and hardly spoke.

  Then he returned to the flats.

  At first there was no answer to his knock and he stood there in the dark passage full of stale air and the cooking smells of evening meals being prepared in the rooms. Bacon, kippers, onions again, and then the whiff of something burning—perhaps milk or a rice pudding—which overwhelmed everything else.

  “Who is it?”

  The shuffling of slippers across the floor. The voice had a hard, metallic tone. Violet Mander thought it was Medlicott back again.

  “Inspector Littlejohn.”

  “Oh, it’s you … Wait a minute please.”

  The door opened. She had slipped off her costume and appeared in a wrapper and red feathered mules. She gave him a friendly smile and made way for him to enter. This time, she didn’t bother to draw the wrapper together and disclosed her firm white throat and bosom, with a thin brassière across it. She spoke with familiarity as though they were pals.

  “Come in. I’m just making some coffee.” There was a percolator already starting to bubble in the hearth and she hurried in the kitchenette and returned with another cup and saucer.

  “You’ll have a cup …?”

  She seemed naturally tidy and the room was neat and clean. A picture of the Eiffel Tower over the fireplace and a lot of framed photographs on the walls. Love to Vi from Pablo. To my darling; Monty. All my love, Alf. Mostly pictures of theatrical fancy-men with superlative expressions of devotion autographed on them.

  “You looking at my pictures? I was on the stage for a time. In a repertory company. I was never any good at it.”

  She handed him the coffee and the movement sent a draught of heavy, exotic, expensive scent in Littlejohn’s direction. Then she offered him a cigarette from a silver box. Her china-blue eyes held Littlejohn’s as she gave him a light from a lighter and she smiled archl
y, baring her fine, even teeth. She must have been in her early twenties and had the charm and sophistication of a much older woman. Littlejohn stood by the fireplace, his cup balanced on the mantelpiece. Violet Mander bent with studied art to adjust her slipper and the wrapper opened again.

  There was a cord stretched under the mantelpiece and on it, clipped by small spring clothes-pegs, half a dozen nylon stockings. The Inspector gently removed one of the clips, quietly took hold of Miss Mander’s wrapper just below the chin, and applied the clip to hold it together.

  “Now, suppose we get to business, Miss Mander. This is a professional call, you know.”

  He smiled at her, but inside he felt rattled that she should try the old technique to avoid a lot of awkward questions.

  She pouted and shrugged her shoulders, sat down with a resigned air, and sipped her coffee.

  “I saw you with Mr. Medlicott on the stairs, Miss Mander.”

  “I know you did. I saw you, too.”

  So that was it! She had something to hide and was trying a diversion.

  “Suppose you tell me just how far things have gone between you and your landlord.”

  “He’s rather a dear and a bit of a fool. If he’s kissed me now and then, that’s as far as it’s gone.”

  The eyes were wide with innocence.

  “Was that when he called for the rent?”

  She simply pouted and tried to look hurt. There didn’t seem to be any anger in her make-up, only pained looks, as when you strike a child for things she hasn’t done.

  “That’s cruel of you, Inspector.”

  “No, no, no. Let’s be truthful. It’s better that we should know everything here than have to drag it from you at the adjourned inquests of the murdered men.”

  Her eyes opened wide again, this time with fear and surprise.

  “You don’t mean Mr. Medlicott killed …?”

  “No. But we have to get to the bottom of the whole business, either quietly or in court. You did have an affair with him, didn’t you? Otherwise, why was he pleading and threatening suicide on the stairs a few minutes ago?”

  She nodded her head.

  “He was very kind to me when I came to Enderby at first. The company I was acting with went bankrupt, I was out of a job, and when I got the place as saleswoman in Mimi’s hat shop, I hadn’t a bean to call my own. I came here to try to get a flat. Mr. Medlicott befriended me at a time when I badly needed help. He was very kind and pathetically lonely.”

  “And you don’t pay any rent here?”

  “I’ve offered it … I’m trying to get a new flat, but they’re hard to get in Enderby. I can’t go on like this, now. I’ll have to leave town and get a new job if things don’t alter. Mr. Medlicott won’t leave me alone. It’s awkward …”

  China-blue eyes, golden hair, innocent ways, in every sense attractive and desirable, yet with a heart of ice and a mind centred on the main chance!

  Littlejohn put down his coffee cup.

  “Some more?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You aren’t annoyed with me?”

  “Why should I be? It’s no business of mine, except where it affects my work on these cases. But I do advise you to get out of Enderby when all this is over. Where did you meet Medlicott in the past? Here?”

  She was on her feet with the first show of indignation.

  “Certainly not! Under his own roof? I’m not that bad.”

  Littlejohn smiled wryly.

  “I don’t want to discuss the ethics of it, Miss Mander. Where did you meet, please?”

  “At the shop. There’s a room behind. I lived there for a few days until I came here. It’s too noisy and stuffy at the shop; I couldn’t sleep.”

  The whole house shook convulsively as a large train hurled itself at the tunnel behind. Littlejohn thought of the stuffy stairs, too.

  “I agree it’s nice to have a home of one’s own. Is there a telephone at the shop?”

  She looked perplexed.

  “Yes. Did you want the number? Enderby 4324.”

  “Thanks. But I just wanted to ask if on the night Mr. Edwin Bunn was murdered, you telephoned Mr. Medlicott from the shop at half-past nine to ask him to meet you there?”

  She was visibly shaken.

  “How did you know that?” she whispered.

  “Is it true?”

  “Yes; but it was called off. He didn’t come.”

  “Why?”

  “I cancelled it.”

  “How? If he’d gone out in answer to your first telephone call, how could you get a message to him?”

  She looked bothered. It was a bit too complicated for her simple wits. Her face brightened.

  “Mr. Browning called to say it was all right. I needn’t bother. I could go home and he’d wait and tell Mr. Medlicott it was a false alarm.”

  Littlejohn sighed.

  “Let’s get this quite clear, please. Who asked you to make the call in the first instance, and why?”

  “Mr. Browning. He rang me up here and said he must see me right away at the shop. He’d heard Mrs. Medlicott was going to sue for a divorce and that I was involved. I was to ring up Mr. Medlicott and talk it over at the shop.”

  “And then?”

  “A short time after I’d rung, Browning called at the shop again, where I was waiting for Jubal, and said it was all right. The information he’d got was all wrong and I could go home. He said he would be about and would tell Jubal everything was O.K., and that I’d gone.”

  “And that was all? You went straight home and didn’t see Medlicott again that night?”

  “That’s right.”

  She looked at the travelling clock on the mantelpiece.

  “Will that be all? I have to go out soon.”

  “How long have you been in Enderby, Miss Mander?”

  “Almost two years.”

  “And all that time you’ve been in Mimi’s shop?”

  “Yes.”

  She screwed up her eyes and studied Littlejohn’s face, wondering what he was getting at.

  “Who is Mimi, by the way?”

  “The shop is owned by a Mrs. Ladbroke of Enderby. She started it herself and it did well. Then, when she married Mr. Ladbroke, she took on an assistant and only came to the shop for an odd hour or two during the day.”

  “And how did you get the job? Through an advertisement?”

  “No. I was recommended.”

  “By whom?”

  She looked at the clock again.

  “Could we talk whilst I change into my evening clothes? I’m due out in twenty minutes. I can leave the door of my bedroom open.”

  “Very well.”

  She took down the stockings from under the mantelpiece, opened the cupboard in which the “mice” had performed on the first night Littlejohn called, took from it a black evening gown on a hanger, and with a parting smile, entered a little room to the right, presumably her bedroom, and left the door open. Littlejohn could hear the bed behind the door creak as she sat on it and then she seemed to take off her slippers and fling them down. A pair of stockings flew from where she was sitting and landed on a bedroom chair within sight through the doorway.

  “Who recommended you to Mimi?”

  There was a pause. There seemed to be running water and a basin in the bedroom, for there came the sound of a tap and then the splashing of a sponge or something.

  “What did you say, Inspector?”

  “Who got you the job at Mimi’s?”

  “Mr. Edwin Bunn.”

  So! Now that they had reached dangerous ground, she preferred to give her answers out of sight, like a penitent in a confessional-box. There was silence in the bedroom as she waited for Littlejohn’s reaction and next question.

  “Put your dressing-gown on again, decently, and come here, Miss Mander.”

  “But I …”

  “Never mind your boy-friend. This is more important. Please do as I ask you.”

  She reappeared, combing
her hair as she walked. She was gathering up her negligée and had changed into black underwear. She had washed off all her make-up and even then, her skin was clear and flawless. Her cheeks were quite pale and this gave her added attraction if she’d only known it. She seemed to have everything: fine figure, good looks, a teasing smile, voluptuous, animated … Everything except brains and heart. A lovely, empty, greedy …

  Littlejohn paused in his thought, at a loss for a word. He had a faithful bitch waiting anxiously for his return and the term to him was one of high respect.

  “Sit down and answer my questions.”

  “How did you come to be associated with Edwin Bunn?”

  She looked as innocent as ever, but there was a trace of cunning in her look. She didn’t wish to be mixed-up in the local scandal of Ned Bunn’s murder.

  “It was quite simple, Inspector. I was with a repertory company at Melton Mowbray. They’d been touring but only lasted a short time at their last place. In the end, the organizers couldn’t pay us our salaries. News got out and that brought the creditors along. Mr. Bunn was one of the largest creditors. He’d supplied the theatre and the production with fittings. He arrived with his solicitor and he met the players, too. He was rather kind to us all. He helped several of us to get work … It seemed that Mimi’s wanted a shopgirl. Before I took up acting I was in a London stores.”

  “And after you settled down here, what then? Did Mr. Bunn inflict himself upon you? Did he make himself a nuisance to you?”

  “Not at first. Then he called a time or two at the shop to see if I was settled down. He tried to take small liberties, like pressing my hand. Then he asked me if I’d like to go out to dinner with him … I didn’t want to start anything there, so I said I couldn’t. He went off in a rage and I didn’t see him again for months. Then, a month or so ago, he called again. He asked me to dine and said he was serious. He said he had in mind asking me to marry him.”

  The china-blue eyes opened wide and she shrugged her shoulders, as though still in a quandary about Ned Bunn’s sudden infatuation.

  “Of course, you declined.”

  “I did it nicely. I said I was honoured. But he took it badly. He talked about Medlicott and said he’d see that his little game was stopped. He said I’d better look out and that if an honourable proposal didn’t suit me, he’d see there was no more dishonourable behaviour in the town.”