“Did you give that number to the Superintendent?”
“Yes. I told him they might help him. I wasn’t familiar with London practice to that extent, but they’d tell him how to get the transfer, if possible...”
“Who handled the deal at Trotman & Co.?”
“Mr. Kent, I think.”
“Many thanks...”
Mr. Sharp pranced before Littlejohn and opened the door for him. In the outer office, a ticker started to pour out slips of tape...
Back at the police station in the Town Hall, Littlejohn telephoned to Scotland Yard, described the investment and the transfer and asked them to get it, if possible, from the Bank of England.
“I’ll send you specimen signatures of the two parties. See if the ones on the transfer are genuine, please.”
It wasn’t difficult getting signatures of the two lawyers from the court archives. They were always signing something.
“And, by the way, you might do something else for me. This is a bit more difficult and you may not be lucky. But, contact Spain...Yes, Spain. I want as much information as I can get about a Dr. Bernard Doane. He left Spain, I gather, about twenty-five years ago. The starting place should be Madrid University, where he says he graduated in medicine. Also, was there ever a Doane on the Spanish consular staff...? Yes, I know it’s a tall order and may come to nothing. On the other hand, we may be lucky!...Thanks...”
As he telephoned, Littlejohn had been watching a constable who had entered and apparently wanted to speak to him. The bobby stood first on one foot, then on the other; then with both feet on the ground he performed a little heel-and-toe dance which made the room tremble.
“What is it, constable?”
“A Mr. Alec Crake has called asking for you, sir.”
“Is he sober?”
The constable’s mouth opened; then he grinned. The Inspector would have his little joke!
“Oh, yes, sir. He told me to tell you he knew how somebody murdered Mr. Kent without being seen.”
“He did, did he? Well, that’s something fresh. Sober and co-operating. Good. Show him in, please.”
Alec Crake must have been right outside the door. He entered at once, sober, washed, shaved, dressed in a decent suit, and looking steady and a bit chastened.
“A great shock, Inspector...Arthur Kent...and now Simpole...”
He opened his mouth as if to speak again, but instead, he pitched forward on the floor in a dead faint.
Eleven – The Terrified Prodigal
FOR a minute, Alec Crake lay on the floor like one dead. No vestige of colour in his face; his cheeks sunken and corpse-like; his nose pinched; his closed eyelids, charred-looking, dark rings under them; and his upper lip drawn back in a half-grin over his even teeth. Littlejohn slipped his pocket-flask from his hip and poured a few drops of brandy between the clenched teeth. Almost at once, a pink tint returned to Alec’s skin; then he opened his eyes and tried to get to his feet.
“Steady...Let me help...”
“I can manage...I feel a damn’ fool. Did I faint?”
“Yes; how long is it since you had a decent meal?”
“Two days...”
“Meanwhile, you’ve lived on gin or whisky?”
“That’s about it...”
“Then, as you say, you’re a damn’ fool. Whatever’s got you in this state?”
“I just felt everything was on top of me. I feel a lot better now. I came to see if I could be of any use.”
“Good! But why this change of heart?”
Alec looked a bit awkward.
“Things have brightened up a bit for me. I got this telegram an hour ago. It was like a tonic to me...”
He pulled from his pocket a ball of crushed paper, smoothed it out, and handed it to Littlejohn. It was a cable from Paris.
SO SORRY TO HEAR OF MOTHER’S DEATH. WAITING FOR YOU TO BRING ME HOME. DON’T BE LONG. LOVE. GINETTE.
“Well?”
“I was engaged to Ginette. She threw me over just before father died. Took up with a chap who called himself my pal. I took it badly, I guess. She was everything to me. I was just bringing her home to meet mother when she walked out on me. Now, it seems all right again...”
It was obvious that something violently emotional had happened to Alec. He was sober, his eyes were bright, and he was full of a new and feverish vigour.
“That’s why you made a thoroughgoing beast of yourself instead of supporting the family in its trouble?”
Young Crake gave Littlejohn an odd, slightly apologetic look.
“Yes...”
“So, it wasn’t grief at the death of your parents?”
“Don’t be callous, Inspector. My mother’s death was a ghastly blow on top of Ginette...”
“Why not your father, too?”
“That was different.”
“You didn’t care much for him?”
“Let’s not discuss that now. I hear that Simpole’s dead. Is it right he killed himself?”
“Quite right. By the way, what was it you said about your knowing how Kent was killed?”
“You searched the house, Nita said. All the rooms the murderer might have hidden in, and he couldn’t have got upstairs without passing uncle’s door, and you were in the room with uncle. Even the stairs to the servants’ quarters are visible from uncle’s room. That right?”
“Have you been going into this with Miss Nita?”
“Yes. After I got Ginette’s telegram, I went home and talked to her. Then I came straight after you. I want to help clear all this up. Now that Simpole’s out of the way, I’m scared. If I’m not careful, I’ll be the next.”
“Why?”
“There’s a plot to wipe us all out. I’m quite sure...We’re all doomed. I didn’t care before, but now that Ginette...”
“Don’t be silly. And don’t get hysterical. Tell me about where the murderer hid himself whilst we were hunting for him.”
“In the room under the stairs. You’ll have noticed that the staircase is all panelled-in. Well, there’s a hidden door which gives into the cavity under them. We used to play in it when we were kids. It’s not been used for years. There are old golf-clubs, croquet tackle and the like...relics of happier days, you might call them...stored there. Well, I opened the place this morning. Someone’s been in lately. There’s a patch of dust gone where he sat on an old hall-chair that was there...”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes...I told the bobby who, since mother died, has been a sort of shadow hanging round the place. They keep relieving him, but he keeps turning up again like a bad penny. I told him and he said he’d telephone the fingerprint men. I hear the technical staff with their cameras and gadgets haven’t been much use, so far. In other words, science hasn’t been able to help you.
“That’s quite right, but that doesn’t say it won’t later on. So they’re in the cubby-hole already. That’s good. You’ve saved me a bit of trouble. This means that, if the murderer did hide there after he killed Kent, he was someone familiar with the house.”
“Yes...I suppose quite a lot of people knew of the place. It was always being opened in the old days, to get out the tackle for games on the lawn, but I guess that for over a dozen years, nobody except Elspeth, chasing dirt, has ever been in.”
“Where is Elspeth these days?”
“Still at her sister’s in Oddington. She’s scared of the house now.”
“Which reminds me, you said you hadn’t had any food. We’d better see about a sandwich or something for you. Could you eat something?”
“Yes, if I could have some tea with it. I’m dying for tea.”
Littlejohn rang the bell and a policeman put in a rather scared face at the door. Only Simpole had been used to ringing that bell and it had given him quite a turn! He smiled with relief.
“Could you get this young man a bite of something from the canteen, please, constable...and some tea?”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
It wasn�
�t long arriving and Alec tackled it ravenously.
“Will you answer a few questions now?”
“Yes...”
He eagerly poured out more tea and drank deeply.
“What did you want to know?”
“Some very personal things. Tell me something of your early life...The way you were your mother’s companion as a child...How she took you away from boarding-school and gave you a tutor in Tilsey to have you near her...”
“Who’s told you all this?”
“Uncle Bernard.”
“Have you been quizzing that old loafer? All he can do is talk, mainly about himself, or fantastically try to analyse other people, like he does his rats and mice. A very unpleasant object is Uncle Bernard. And yet, my mother was truly fond of him. He seemed to be the only relic of her happy childhood. I really think she loved him.”
Littlejohn was leaning against the wall by the window as Alec finished his brief meal. Outside, the thin wintry sun was shining. A man up a ladder was erecting a hoarding outside the bank. “SAVINGS WEEK. BUY SAVINGS BONDS AND CERTIFICATES!” On a smaller board leaning against the wall at the foot of the ladder, another poster in large uneven scrawl. MYSTERY OF DEAD POLICE OFFICER. Simpole and Savings Week seemed to have got together!
“Did your mother suffer from some kind of malady, a relic of childhood?”
Alec laid down his cup carefully, like a man slowly and deliberately gathering himself for a fight.
“What did you say?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear. Did she?”
“Who told you that?”
“Again, Uncle Bernard. It may seem strange to you, but there’s been nobody available, or willing to tell me anything but your uncle.”
“He’d tell you quite a lot. Whether or not it was true didn’t matter.”
“Was the dancing mania story true?”
“Dancing mania? Is everybody mad, or am I?”
“Let me put it another way, then? I’m a bit dubious about the tarantula bite myself...”
“Tarantula? I don’t know a thing about tarantulas. What is a tarantula, anyway?”
“Never mind...Did your mother take drugs?”
There was a deathly silence. Alec gulped.
“She’s past suffering now...Yes, she did.”
“So, that’s it. Where did she get them? Uncle Bernard?”
“Yes. She got so she couldn’t live without them. Her nerves were shocking. He gave them to her and he also had some way, some mixture or other he gave her, which put her right quickly after she’d had. them.”
“That explains a lot. A big lot...”
“Yes, it does. It explains the downfall of our family. It seems she started not long after uncle came to live at Beyle. I’m sure he began it all to get her in his power, so that he could keep on living at our place. I’ve heard Elspeth say my father turned him out, but my mother always brought him back. He had her completely in his grip. In the end, father got resigned and lived his own life. Uncle saw to it that she was somehow presentable to the public, if you get what I mean. But morally, it completely undermined her. The queer thing is, nobody had the strength to rescue her, turn out that old sponger, take mother in hand, and save her. We just let it go on. We’re like that. It’s a weakness in my mother’s family...No backbone; just moral jellyfish.”
“You were her companion everywhere as a boy?”
“Yes. We went about a lot together...”
“Had she any particular friends?”
Alec hesitated.
“Meaning men, I suppose. Yes, she had. Quite a number.”
“Who, for example?”
“There wasn’t any particular one. I mean, there was a gang of them, rather a lively lot, cocktails, cards, visits to London, dancing, night clubs...”
“Who was in it?”
“They’ve most of them gone now, either dead or moved away. Alkenet, our neighbour, was one. Then, Mr. and Mrs. Trotman were in the gang. The sight of Trotman now wouldn’t make you think he was once a bit of a lad, would it? But he was, damn him.”
“Why damn him?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t concern you, anyway.”
“It does very much. I want to know all about everybody in this town who had any connection with your mother or her family. I want to know about Trotman.. . .”
Alec’s mouth tightened into a thin line.
“No...”
Littlejohn had been eyeing Alec’s profile for some time. He wondered what it reminded him of. Some vague, unformed notion pervaded his mind. The lack of emotion or family bond between Alec and his father. The money saved for Nita alone. Beyle left to Nita and not Alec. The profound air of gloom and secrecy hanging over Beyle. The silence between husband and wife. The wild degradation of Dulcie Crake...He made a blind guess...
Littlejohn walked over to Alec Crake, still sitting at the table with the remnants of the meal before him. He seized him by the shoulders, almost lifted him to his feet, and stared him straight in the eyes.
“Damn Trotman, because he’s your father, isn’t he?”
Alec flung off Littlejohn’s hands in a sudden burst of strength.
“How did you get to know that? From the dead? Or from Uncle Bernard? Nobody’s supposed to know, except Trotman and me, now that the rest are dead.”
“I didn’t know; just guessed it on the evidence. But now that I do, will you tell me more? It will help you to talk about it, and help me, too, in this case.”
“Don’t think Trotman killed my mother. He’s too big a coward. Soft...Pah! I wish I could wash out of me all the blood, the inheritance he gave me. I feel foul!”
“Pull yourself together! Talk sensibly about it and stop being so damned sorry for yourself. How did you get to know?”
“It was like a cheap drama at a second-rate theatre. Trotman had a daughter by his own wife. We were brought up together. Why, I don’t know. It was the foulest thing my mother and Trotman ever did. Worse than having me, between them. Frances Trotman...We called her Frankie. She’s married to a fellow in Kenya; they grow tea or coffee or cocoa or something. What the hell does it matter what they grow? I loved her better than anything in the world, before or since. And she turned out to be my half-sister! Just imagine it. We’d decided to get engaged. She was eighteen and I was twenty. We seemed to have always loved one another. I told my father first. He seemed delighted, because he was fond of Frankie. And she told her mother, who was equally pleased. But when it came to telling the other pair. My God! What a shemozzle! I think, somehow, my father and Mrs. Trotman expected something of the kind. Past history was remembered. But not quite so bad as that! It all came out. I wasn’t Nicholas Crake’s son at all; I was Trotman’s little by-blow! Do you wonder I took to drink? My father...I mean Nick, was splendid about it and so was Mrs. Trotman. No scandal...nothing...Just a sort of terrible heartbreaking silence, a rift in everybody’s existence, and they sent Frankie away somewhere. I never saw Frankie again. I got over it, in a way, in time. Then I met Ginette, a model in Paris. I turned over a new leaf. She walked out on me. Now she’s back and everything’s lovely. How long will it stay so? Since the shock of my parentage, nothing is too big for me in the way of eruptions in my life. I expect them...”
“And the news never leaked out in Tilsey, then?”
“No. There was father’s...I mean, Nick’s position, and Trotman’s. It’s a small community and, had the scandal been made public, it would have ruined Trotman and mother. My...Nick was the sort who always took the broad, kindly view. Mrs. Trotman was a quiet little thing who really loved Trotman and didn’t want to lose him whatever he did. So it was arranged. They’d no idea that it would have to come out through Frankie and me. I wish I’d never been born, rather than hurt Nick the way it did. Can you imagine it? Living and thinking I was his son for twenty years and having a daughter of his own by the woman who’d made him a cuckold...My God! I’d have killed the pair of them! Will you believe me when I tell you that I
respected Nick Crake more than any other living creature. And now, he’s dead and out of it!”
Alec thereupon broke down, covered his face and sobbed, a harsh, dry, awful weeping. Littlejohn looked through the window until the storm was over. Outside, the man was still struggling with his National Savings advertisement and a small crowd had gathered and was taunting and encouraging him. The board he was erecting was too big for him to manage and he performed like a comic turn in a music hall...
“I’m sorry. I feel better for the talk with you. I guess I’m not much more use to you. I’ll be off...”
“Wait! You were in your mother’s intimate confidence, weren’t you? Was your uncle once her lover? I mean Arthur Kent...I’m sorry to be so brutal, but it seems quieter ways don’t yield any fruits.”
“Yes...She and Nick lived separate lives after the Trotman affair. He was the same, kind, generous husband to her, but they went their own ways and lived in different parts of the house. Mother just couldn’t exist without some man running about after her. She started temporarily painting the town red with Trotman when Nick started his book...his great book...Then, one after another, most of them just came dangling after her without being her lovers. Only Alkenet and Kent, I think, ever went the whole hog...”
“They were lovers when she died?”
“No. I think Kent had cooled off. He was mad about her once. Always at the house when he thought nobody was about. But later he tired. I think Aunt Bee talked of a divorce. That wouldn’t have done at all. It would have ruined him...”
“Now another question...Did your mother ever speak of letters...I mean love-letters? Did any of these men write to her and did she keep their letters?”
“Blackmail?”
“I don’t know. Were there letters?”
“Yes. She even read some of them to me. They amused her. She kept them all in her desk. I wanted to get them and destroy them, but the policeman on duty won’t let me touch a thing. Uncle Arthur was too prudent to write letters; but there were some from Simpole...He was very fond of my mother.”
“In love with her?”
“I don’t know. A very undemonstrative man, Simpole. But he called a lot and wrote letters to her, letters which, if anybody had got them and made them public, would have shown him in a new and rather ridiculous light. I wondered...I wondered if somebody had got them and tried to blackmail Simpole and driven him to suicide.”
Crime In Leper's Hollow Page 14
