“The letters again?”
“Exactly. The murderer had taken the letters from your husband’s body. In fact, he or she, may have killed Arthur Kent to get them. Simpole was given his choice. To keep silent or have his letters published. He took an unusual way out. He killed himself. He was overwrought. He couldn’t take one course, because as a conscientious officer of the law it was against his principles. The other course meant the end of his career, which was his very life. He left no suicide note, but in his diary he left clues which any self-respecting detective could read like a book.”
“But who could have wished to kill my husband...?”
She was showing signs of strain. She clenched her hands until the knuckles showed white through the skin.
“There are plenty...For example, where were you when the crime was committed, Mrs. Kent?”
“Am I suspect, then?”
“No. I shall have to ask everyone who could have killed Mr. Kent. You had good reasons for doing it, you know.”
“I have no alibi. I could have returned and done it. I could have blackmailed Simpole to death. But I didn’t. I was going to divorce Arthur when all this was over and cite Dulcie, alive or dead! Elspeth had promised to give evidence. That would have been my revenge on Arthur Kent for all he did to me and mine.”
Her eyes were blazing and her voice was harsh and loud. It startled Littlejohn.
“Elspeth promised? Then who might she not have told? Knowing what was to happen, Alec, or even Nita might have killed Kent to protect Mrs. Crake’s name. Only Bernard has an alibi. He was with me. Nita was downstairs, alone. She wasn’t fond of Dulcie, but the thought of what Arthur Kent had done to her father...well...”
“You don’t suspect me any longer, do you? I wanted him to live. That’s why I didn’t betray him. They would have hanged him. I wanted him alive. I wanted him to eat the fruit of humiliation before everybody in this town. I wanted to ruin him and make him pay to the last farthing...I wanted...”
She pulled herself together.
“I hated him too much to wish him dead.”
Fifteen – Julius Simpole Claims the Body
SUPERINTENDENT SIMPOLE had, it appeared, an only brother Julius, whom he had made sole beneficiary and executor, in a sixpenny will form, executed two years before his death. Julius resembled his brother only in the bright glistening eyes and long nose. Otherwise, he was small and fat. Julius had read the news of his brother Henry’s death whilst travelling for breakfast cereals and had hurried to Tilsey post haste.
“What have they been doin’ to ’arry?” he asked, indicating nobody in particular but presumably suspicious of the Mayor and Corporation of the town.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said to Littlejohn. “Bein’ like ’arry, one of the police, you’ll understand. He was worked to death...No mercy on the police these days, ’ave they? More crime than they can manage...”
He was a timid, bewildered little man with a shiny bald head and he expressed a wish to take his brother’s body away as soon as possible and bury it in the family grave at a place called Heckmondwike, somewhere in the North.
The presence of Julius made the examination of Simpole’s effects much easier. Littlejohn accompanied him to the late Superintendent’s lodgings in the upper part of the town. Since his mother’s death, Simpole had lived in a long road of semi-detached Victorian houses, once homes of the fairly well-to-do, now dilapidated and badly in need of paint. Many of them had been converted into seedy-looking flats.
The woman Littlejohn had seen at the inquest admitted them. Her name was Miss Gill, a faded middle-aged lady with a goitre and the obsequious manners of one who must please to survive. She had lost the lodger with whose help she managed to live and support a sick sister. She thought, at first, that Littlejohn and Julius were applicants for the now spare rooms she had advertised and her face fell when she learned their business.
“I would be grateful if you could get his things away. Not that I’m hurrying you, but there are others who want the rooms.”
She smiled wanly and apologetically and bade them follow her. The hall was covered in old linoleum with a threadbare strip of carpet running down the centre of it. You could hear someone coughing in an upper room; otherwise the house was strangely still.
Julius eagerly pranced into the room as soon as Miss Gill opened the door. He looked round like a valuer sizing up the contents.
“Quite cosy!”
Simpole must have furnished it with odds and ends from the former home he had sold. Comfortable armchairs, a sofa, a round table and a large desk. It was just as he had left it, even to his pipe, half-filled on the mantelpiece. Over the fireplace was a portrait of a young, dark, intense-looking woman.
“That’s a good one of mother when she was in ’er twenties.” commented Julius and started to examine the books in shelves on each side of the fireplace.
“He was a bit religious at one time,” he said, as though excusing a Bible and some devotional books in Morocco leather standing in a prominent place. “I’ll get a bookseller in an’ see if he’ll buy the lot, as they stand.”
On the mantelpiece, a photograph of Simpole and his mother, standing rather woodenly under a back-porch. There were framed photographs of groups of policemen on the walls and one of Simpole, strangely incongruous, in flannels and a cricket cap. He was holding a bat.
“’Arry was one of the best medium-pace bowlers I ever see,” explained Mr. Julius Simpole, like a guide. “Perhaps we’d better open his desk. ’Ave you the key?”
Miss Gill was fluttering anxiously around.
“Ahem. I hope you don’t mind my mentioning it, but Superintendent Simpole...I mean, he really owes me a fortnight’s rent. You see...I mean...he took the rooms by the month and as this is only month-end and they ran from the fifteenth of each month...well...I...”
She wasn’t used to such situations.
Mr. Julius looked horrified.
“Reely. I hardly think this is the place or time...”
He bent again to open the desk.
Miss Gill turned red.
Littlejohn opened his notecase and gave her five pounds.
“Will that...?”
“I’ll just get you the sixteen shillings...”
“Don’t bother. I know you’ve had a lot of trouble, Miss Gill.”
Miss Gill burst into tears and ran from the room.
Julius had opened the top drawer and was greedily fingering a large gold coin he had taken out.
“Whew! That’ll be worth a packet at the present price o’ gold.”
Littlejohn took it from him.
It was an old Spanish gold coin.
“I shall want to keep this,” he said.
“But why? This ain’t good enough. What use is it to the police? And when do I get it back?”
“Mr. Simpole, you owe me five pounds for your brother’s back-rent which I’ve just paid. You can call that in part payment, but I want the coin. It’s connected with your brother’s death, if you want to know.”
Julius Simpole’s thin eyebrows rose.
“So there was dirty work, eh?”
“And now, please, let me do the searching of the desk. You can stand by to see I don’t take what I shouldn’t...”
“Oh, Inspector, please don’t think..”
But Littlejohn was examining a newspaper cutting which presumably had been with the coin. It was taken from a Police Gazette of twenty years earlier.
A valuable collection of coins was removed in the coolest manner from the Museum at Toledo on the 24th of this month. It had been bequeathed to the city by Don Pedro Guzman, an eminent collector, and was valued in intrinsic worth alone at over five thousand pounds. The caretaker testified that on the day in question, two men, one scholarly-looking middle-aged and the other of a rough working-class type, entered the museum and pretended to examine the furniture which was in the same room. On returning, he discovered that the glass in the coin case had be
en skilfully cut and the contents removed. The men had disappeared. The police are making inquiries.
Attached to this was another cutting, dated a fortnight later.
A notorious local thief, Juan Casado, was arrested on the 3rd instant in connection with the Toledo museum robbery. He resisted arrest and stabbed a policeman in the course of a scuffle. He was found to have in his possession a diamond glass-cutter...
And then another:
Juan Casado, arrested in connection with the Toledo museum robbery, was yesterday sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. The police officer whom he wounded in the scuffle on his arrest, died two days ago. None of the gold and silver coins have been recovered. Casado confessed that he had an accomplice, whose name he said he did not know. The man had disappeared with the booty whilst Casado was finding a cab to take them from the city...
Littlejohn whistled. No wonder Uncle Bernard was desperate to keep in his hiding-place, with Casado hunting for him after his release! And his so-called inheritance of coins was really the Toledo loot.
Littlejohn pocketed the papers and went on with his searching, Julius watching him closely and breathing hard by his side.
“What was that?”
“Some important papers connected with police work.”
The rest of the contents of the desk were trivial; family souvenirs, bills, keepsakes, and, in the bottom drawer, a violin and bow without a case.
“’Arry did a bit of playin’ when we were all at home. We had a little quartet, mother on the piano, dad on the ’cello, ’arry the violin, and me on the flute an’ piccolo.”
Superintendent Simpole, the real Simpole, was gradually coming to life as a warm-blooded man, in spite of his frosty manner.
In the top of the desk were Henry Simpole’s bank-book, showing a very tidy balance, a note-book with a substantial list of investments, a cheque-book, and various police documents, certificates of merit, a letter from the Lord Lieutenant of a county congratulating Simpole on his gallantry during air-raids in the war, and then, the Police Medal, for distinguished service.
The piccolo player wasn’t interested in his brother’s fine record. He was totting-up the note-book and bank-balance.
“Six thousand! Phew! I never knew...”
He rubbed his hands and seemed to grow inches taller. Then greed came in his eyes, he gave Littlejohn a queer look and pocketed the lot as if the police were going to impound it as well.
It was evident that Simpole had tidied up his affairs before killing himself. There were no letters; no evidence of his connection with Dulcie Crake; nothing...except the coin and the news-cuttings. Again, it seemed that Simpole had left for Littlejohn just the necessary clues to guide him, like a thread through the maze of Beyle. The coin and the cuttings must have been a powerful weapon in Simpole’s hands against Uncle Bernard and Dulcie had he cared to use them. Instead, he had stuffed them away in a drawer.
“Funny, he never got married. I don’t believe ’e ever had a girl. Didn’t seem to appeal to ’im at all. His job was all ’arry lived for...”
Julius was looking round for anything else of value. He eyed two silver cups on the sideboard.
“I wonder if he won these two outright...”
“I imagine so,” said Littlejohn sharply. “They were for the long-jump in 1921!”
He wished the piccolo player would himself take a long-jump and leave him to think about the new Superintendent Simpole he was getting to know.
Littlejohn stopped and picked a scrap of paper from the carpet. It must have fallen from the news-clippings. It bore in pencil a name and address.
W. J. EARP,
Gallowgate. 22.4.1948.
The Inspector slipped it in his wallet.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing of value...”
Littlejohn took up the directory beside the telephone on the top of the desk, and thumbed the pages.
W. J. EARP, Jeweller and Watchmaker, 12 Gallowgate. Tilsey 5657.
Miss Gill had returned, rather red about the eyes and pale in the cheeks.
“Is there anything I can do, gentlemen?”
“No,” said the piccolo player.
“His bedroom, Miss Gill?”
“It’s in the next room. He was so kind. He asked if he could have it there instead of upstairs. Then, if he were called out in the night, he could go quietly or return quietly and not disturb us. He was the kindest of paying guests I ever...”
She began to weep again.
“I’ll see these things cleared out as soon as I can...”
Julius indicated the contents with a sweep of his hand. With his new fortune he had grown masterful and aggressive. “What the Inspector gave you will cover it meantime.”
“No, it won’t,” said Littlejohn. “Miss Gill needs this room for letting.”
There was some loose money from the desk which Julius had been counting when Miss Gill interrupted. About a dozen pound notes. Littlejohn took five more and gave them to the woman.
“’Ere...What you doin’? Those are mine now.”
“I don’t care whose they are, Mr. Simpole. You owe Miss Gill for the rooms until you clear them and this is the least you can give her for all the trouble she’s had.”
“I shall report you for this.”
“By all means do so...”
Miss Gill stood clutching the money eagerly.
“That will be all right, Miss Gill.”
The bedroom was completely barren of anything useful in the case. Simpole’s clothes, all neatly brushed, pressed and hung in the wardrobe; his underclothing and shirts in the drawers; his shoes in a row under the window; his shaving and toilet tackle in a cupboard over the washstand.
“So kind...He paid himself for the hot and cold basin...”
“I’ll ’ave to see about somebody coming to buy all the clothes...”
The dead Superintendent had made a clean sweep of all the clues to his life in Tilsey.
“Did he ever have visitors, Miss Gill?”
“Never. I don’t remember anybody since he came here eighteen months ago.”
“I think that will be all, then, for the time being. You haven’t anything more to tell me about his way of life before he died? Anything you didn’t say at the inquest?”
The woman pondered.
“I think not. A very tidy man, he was. No trouble. Never complained. A day or so before he...he died...he burned a lot of papers. So kind...He cleaned all the ash from the grate and put it in the dust-bin.”
“Is it still there?”
“No. The men called yesterday. They were earlier this week! I think they were after their Christmas boxes, you know.”
“Do you know what he burned, Miss Gill?”
“They seemed to be letters. He was busy when I came in with his supper.”
“Did you see any of them?”
“Yes, I did. He had them on the rug. He was kneeling before the fire and seeing they burned to the end. There was a little pile of them...I saw one envelope on the top. Funnily enough, it did seem to me to be in his own hand, as though he’d got some letters back he had sent to...somebody dead...”
Her voice was almost a whisper.
“Somebody dead? What do you mean?”
“The letter was, I think, addressed to Mrs. Crake, Beyle House...Shouldn’t I be talking like this?”
“Of course. Are you sure of this?”
“My eyesight is very good for one of sixty. I could see it quite plainly. As a matter of fact, had it been on the table and not on the rug, I couldn’t have read it, because my near sight is defective...”
Julius was standing with goggling eyes.
“You don’t mean to say that after all, ’arry was...”
“Harry wasn’t!” snapped Littlejohn.
Miss Gill looked gratefully up at him.
“Shall we go, then?”
On the way out, Miss Gill took Littlejohn aside.
“One thing rather wo
rries me, Inspector. About six months ago, Superintendent Simpole bought new carpets for his bedroom and living-room. He said, if ever...They would be mine, if ever...”
“Then for goodness’ sake, Miss Gill, don’t tell the flutist...”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Don’t tell Mr. Julius. He’ll have them up and sold. If that’s what the Superintendent said, take it as right. They’re yours, Miss Gill. Not a word.”
“He was so kind...”
Littlejohn asked Julius which way he was going and then said he was taking the other. The little bald-headed man was beside himself with his legacy.
“At least, let’s ’ave a drink together. On me. I feel I want to celebrate.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Never do it on duty. I’ll probably be seeing you later.”
“I’ll be back next week for my brother’s things. I’m off to-night. Takin’ the body to ’eckmondwike. Family grave, you know. I never thought ’arry was such a warm man. Must have had a good screw to save so much...”
He tripped off lightly to the nearest pub.
Littlejohn soon found Earp’s shop. Mr. Earp was in attendance himself, selling a lady a cameo.
“They’re antiques as well as fashionable jewellery, you see. Nine pound’s my price an’ I’d be losing if I let it go cheaper.”
An oily little man with a big head and shifty eyes which he hid behind large black-rimmed glasses. He kept putting the spectacles on and off nervously, tapping his even, white dentures with them, chewing the sidepieces, waving them about.
“Right. I’ll keep it a day or two, till your husband can call. Good morning...”
Then he saw Littlejohn. It was obvious he knew the Inspector either from pictures in the local paper or having him pointed out. He looked scared.
“Good morning.” He rubbed his hands and tried to look as if Littlejohn wanted a cameo as well. “And what can I do for you, sir?”
“Good morning. Did you ever have any dealings with my late colleague, Simpole?”
Littlejohn handed the jeweller his card. Mr. Earp read it upside down and placed it on the counter with trembling fingers.
“Can’t say I had the pleasure.”
His teeth evidently didn’t fit properly and he cast up a spray of saliva as he spoke. It reminded Littlejohn of a fizzing soda-water syphon.
Crime In Leper's Hollow Page 19
