Crime In Leper's Hollow

by George Bellairs

  “Mr. Alec?”

  “Right again. You amaze me. Yes, Alec. A closely guarded secret, which was only brought to light fortuitously and with strange irony. I will confess to you, Inspector, that I rather went out of the way to acquaint myself with the secrets of my partners. You see, it made my position with them secure. I was indispensible, the confidential man they could not afford to dismiss. They took me in the firm to ensure my silence. I admit it freely. I trusted neither of them. In the game we were playing, I had to fortify myself with some trump cards and use them with skill. I have a large family dependent on me. I was not going to allow myself to be at the mercy of a pair of rascals at an age when it is difficult to change jobs. You follow?”

  “Very clearly. I don’t blame you.”

  “I thought you wouldn’t. I will now tell you something else. I think Kent killed Mrs. Crake. I think with her husband dead, she was very dangerous to Kent. She must have had incriminating evidence...letters, photographs, what-not...and she may have pressed Kent, crowded him too hard and made him lose his head. He was ambitious of late. He aspired to be our next M.P. in Tilsey and even talked of taking silk...he was a barrister...with a view to parliamentary honours. He grew rotten with ambition and neither his wife, his ex-mistress, nor anybody else was going to spoil his chances. I would hesitate to say it publicly and I would deny it if you said I said it, but now you know my views.”

  “And very useful. I’m afraid you’ve almost hit the bull’s-eye with your conjectures...”

  “Inspector, although I do not vulgarly advertise the fact on the firm’s notepaper and brass plate, I am an M.A. of Oxford and I specialized in logic. Most of Kent’s brilliant court work was mine.”

  “What about Simpole?”

  “Ah...I’m afraid I’m going to keep my ladies waiting for their choir practice, but this is too good to miss. I knew Simpole well. I played chess with him. I also had another thing in common which will astonish you...”

  “You were both musicians...?”

  “Is there anything you don’t know?”

  “Not very difficult, sir. I examined his effects after he died.”

  “A very sensitive man, Simpole, and of great integrity. Somebody tried to silence him by threatening his disgrace. He killed himself out of very shame. I knew of his infatuation for Mrs. Crake. I believe Simpole was on someone’s track about these murders. I know his mental acumen as a chess player; he was a stern, clever, but strictly honest adversary. It’s funny that after Mrs. Crake’s death, he should suddenly go to pieces. Why? Because someone found in her effects the means of blackmailing him...disgracing him...”

  “Good! Good! You’re doing well, sir.”

  “Look here, Inspector. Why call on me if you know all the answers? Do you know who killed Kent?”

  “No, sir. I thought you might help me there.”

  “I don’t know. I could mention several people. What about old Doane? If Kent killed Dulcie Crake, the old man might have sought revenge. Or did Kent get from Mrs. Crake some evidence against the old man?”

  “I think we can put him out of court. I was with Doane when Kent met his death.”

  “Ah...That narrows the field. It leaves Beatrice Kent, his wife, who hated him for his infidelity...”

  “She was seen dropping Kent at Beyle in their car and then driving away.”

  “By whom?”

  “Nita.”

  “Bah! Those two are in league. Both very deeply fond of Nick Crake. But why should Beatrice go to Beyle to kill him? She could easily have done it at home.”

  “I think we might leave her for the present. Let’s say Nita told the truth.”

  “Very well. Alec, then? Revenge on his mother’s betrayer. Or did he hate his uncle for some other reason? Money, for example.”

  “Now, sir. What do you know?”

  “I know that the Nicholas Crake trust funds were violated and that Kent got the money for Mrs. Crake because she thought it was hers by right. I know that Kent was mad about her at the time and was persuaded to betray the trust, that he repented and tried to make it good. Perhaps he even killed Dulcie when she refused to hand over the balance of the funds, if any, because, owing to the death of Nick Crake, the whole matter might come to a head.”

  “Might. Wasn’t it sure to?”

  “No. The trustees were Kent and Trotman. Dulcie Crake got the money from Kent. Her Will left all she had to Alec, her favourite. Does that give you any ideas?”

  “Trotman! His son would get it! Do you mean he still felt like a father towards that young man?”

  “Trotman had a daughter who loved Alec Crake madly. They arranged to get married. Then, along comes Trotman and just has to tell them both that they are half-brother and half-sister and the whole thing’s impossible. Frankie Trotman went almost off her head. After all, it is rather a terrible thing...like the tales of the mad and gothic novelists. She was six months in a home for nervous cases, then she married and left the country. She never spoke to her father from the day she learned his secret. Mrs. Trotman forgave her husband. A splendid little woman that! But Frankie, no. Now...on the other hand, Alec Crake got over it better. After the first blow, he took to drink, but he never treated Trotman like Frankie did. I think, somehow, he felt a bit filial towards him. After all, he was his mother’s boy...Trotman was crazy about Alec. He was his son, remember, and Trotman couldn’t get it out of his blood. When Crake stopped subsidizing young Alec’s wastrel career, Trotman stepped in and, through Mrs. Crake, made Alec an allowance. I know. Nothing that passes in that office evades me. I will tell you this without shame. I have seven children. I intend they shall all grow up disciplined, courteous and, if they show promise, clever. They shall all have their chance. I have no intention of having my plans thwarted by men like Kent and Trotman. If they had shown the least inclination to edge me out of the job on which I depend for my plans, I would have blackmailed them just as mercilessly and much more cleverly, I can assure you, than the dirty little parasites you are accustomed to bring to justice, Inspector. I even, when all the staff had gone, went through the wastepaper baskets in their private rooms and pieced together the minute scraps into which they reduced some of the very important secrets they wrote. Luckily, the place is central-heated and they rarely have fires to destroy their handiwork. Blame me, if you like. I’m not ashamed. Was it Buffon who said: This animal is dangerous; when he is attacked, he defends himself!”

  “I appreciate that and I appreciate your confidences, which I’ll respect.”

  “I’ll deny I ever said ’em, if you don’t.”

  There was a tap on the door and a large Juno of a woman entered. She looked under forty, had golden hair, blue eyes and a formidable forehead. An ex-mistress of physical culture in a girls’ school, Mrs. Skrike was several inches taller than her husband and looked quite capable of tying him in knots. She carefully eyed Littlejohn and seemed to approve of him. She did not fancy many of the strange characters who called on her husband for cheap legal advice and to drink his whisky.

  “This is Inspector Littlejohn...You’ve doubtless read of him in the papers, my dear Isabel...My wife, Inspector...”

  Mrs. Skrike took Littlejohn’s hand in a grip of iron and pumped it up and down.

  “I hope you’re getting near the end of the case, Inspector.”

  Grimly she slipped the glass stopper on the whisky bottle, locked it in the tantalus, and kept the key in the palm of her hand.

  “You won’t forget the rehearsal, Caleb,” she said. “It’s well past seven...”

  “I’ll remember...I’m just off...”

  An outbreak of scuffling in the next room reminded her that her brood were unattended and she left them with an apology.

  “Fine woman, my wife, though I say it myself. I was saying, I have many responsibilities and I shall take care that nobody injures my family if I can prevent it. Where were we?”

  “We were discussing the affection of Trotman for Alec...”
r />   “That’s right. Our firm is a queer set-up. The principal partners had been Dulcie Crake’s lovers. One was the father of her son, though the other didn’t, or wasn’t supposed, shall we say, to know it. At the time of her death, both had tired of her, but Trotman was fond of her son for obvious reasons. Now, what do we find? We find, not that they were antagonists for her love. That had died in them. Dulcie Crake was so intense, that she burned-out her lovers and lost them. The quarrel between these two partners was about money. Ten thousand pounds. Dulcie Crake had wormed it out of Kent when he was madly in love with her. He repented and wanted it back. What would have happened if he’d got it? Kent himself would have restored it to the trust and saved his reputation for the polling-booths. But...on Nick’s death the trust money would have gone to Nita, his daughter, to whom he bequeathed it. If Kent didn’t get it, he thought he was ruined. Trotman, his co-trustee, would surely take the matter to court and get him gaoled. He forgot, or didn’t know, that Trotman, however, wanted that money keeping out of the trust. He didn’t want Kent to put it back. He wanted it to belong to Dulcie so that, dead, she could pass it on to his son, Alec, whom he loved, but couldn’t keep subsidizing. Trotman is not a wealthy man; he lives too well...much above his present income. How does that sound to you?”

  “Very reasonable. You remember the day and time Kent was killed?”

  “Very well.”

  “Where was Trotman at the time?”

  “Out. He left the office just before Kent did.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “To Beyle, Inspector. Are you surprised?”

  “No...But how do you know?”

  “It was all arranged...By Doane.”

  “You mean, he planned for one of them to kill the other?”

  “I do. For some reason, greed or fear, he must stay in Beyle. With Dulcie alive he was safe. With her dead, and Nita the owner, he wasn’t sure when he’d be on the street. I think he planned to seize power himself...”

  “Isn’t that a bit absurd? How could he?”

  “He is trustee for Alec under his sister’s Will. You know Alec’s temperament. Let him get hold of his mother’s money and he’d go through it in twelve months. Dulcie seems to have trusted her brother...or else he had some hold over her...”

  “Maybe it was both. He fed drugs to her when he wanted her to give him his own way.”

  “So that was it! Well...with Kent out of the way and the trust money willed to Alec, he’d charge of over twenty thousand pounds. How better invest it than buying Beyle for a mere song from Nita who hated it...?”

  “That’s a theory. But how did he induce Trotman to kill Kent?”

  “I’ll tell you. He rang up Trotman first and told him that Kent had discovered where Dulcie had hidden the gold...Now what that meant, I don’t know. It sounds like a pirate tale to me. But it was enough to send Trotman pell-mell to Beyle.”

  “It’s quite true. I told Trotman that the trust had been robbed and he pretended to pooh-pooh the idea but he must have known. It suited his purpose for it to be robbed, provided the loot was intact for Alec. It was. It was in the form of gold in the bank. Dulcie spent the money Kent handed over, in buying a large collection of gold coins from her brother.”

  “Doane must have told Trotman that and that Kent had found them hidden in Beyle.”

  “That’s it. But what got Kent down to Beyle?”

  “The same thing. Doane telephoned him to say that he had found the trust money in Dulcie’s hiding-place. That got Kent to Beyle in a hurry.”

  “Trotman got there first, hid under the stairs when Kent arrived, but forgot his hat when he hid. He left it on the table in the hall and I found it there.”

  “Did you, by gad!”

  “But first tell me, how did you know of those ’phone calls, sir?”

  “I listened in. You will doubtless have seen my quarters in the office. There are only two private rooms and the lowly third partner therefore was relegated to a small glass pen in the main office. Just outside that greenhouse stands the main switchboard. The girl answers it as a rule, and, as the caller mentions his or her name, she writes it on a pad for filing. Believe me, in my own interest, I keep an eye on that pad. As I work, it is an automatic reaction with me to glance at the pad as she writes names down. That day, when I saw Doane written, I took the earpiece from her and I listened. I’m not ashamed of it. I’ve already told you why.”

  “So Trotman went to Beyle first, and no sooner arrived than his partner turned up. They fought, or else Trotman took Kent unawares and brained him with a croquet mallet...”

  “Oh, Lord! A croquet mallet!! Why, Trotman was quite a champion in his day at that genteel game! What irony. His last shot...!”

  “Where is Trotman now, sir?”

  “Most likely at home. His doctor has told him to take things easy and he spends many of his evenings resting by the fire or in bed.”

  “I must go to see him at once...”

  “I must go to rehearsal, too. My women will tear me in pieces. We are practising Balshazzar’s Feast and next week the local men’s choir is joining them. They are naturally all of a twitter about being the best of the united party...”

  He saw Littlejohn to the gate and there they parted, Littlejohn to the right and Trotman’s home, Skrike to the Public Rooms where the rehearsals were held. On his way Littlejohn puzzled over what he had just heard. Skrike was evidently all out to become sole partner of Trotman & Co. by bowling down his associates like ninepins.

  The family man, fighting for his brood!

  Skrike, too, was excited. He rubbed his hands and chuckled on his way.

  “That’s about cooked Monsieur Trotman’s goose,” he said to himself. “Half fact, and the rest damn’ good theory. Took him in properly...”

  He rehearsed his ladies, like one possessed, for the rest of the evening and then, still beside himself, went to his club, broke all his solemn oaths to his wife, and there slept a drunken sleep on the billiards table. Next day he did not turn up at the office. His wife, at the end of her patience. chastised him herself when he returned home at dawn, and gave him two black eyes which kept him indoors for several days.

  “I fell in the bathroom,” he told his children when he paraded them that evening and marched them, in strict order of age, into the dining-room for dinner.

  Eighteen – The Frightened Man

  LITTLEJOHN might have been expected by the glib lawyer, Skrike, to run all the way to Trotman’s and arrest him at once. In fact, Mr. Skrike half thought to find his partner in gaol the next day. But Littlejohn was too old a dog for that. Mr. Skrike’s nicely conceived solution of the case aroused in the Inspector’s mind a feeling akin to sales resistance. The whole thing was too easy and, to his feeling, too malevolent. With Trotman in gaol, or perhaps executed for murder, the field would be open for Skrike. He would become Trotman & Co. Littlejohn called at the police station on his way. There he found Cromwell enjoying a cup of tea with another detective-sergeant of the local force.

  “We’re terribly pulled-out at present with men and lads stealing lead off buildings,” the Tilsey officer was saying, and Cromwell, in his customary modest and patient way, was open to learn how they laid the criminals by the heels.

  “I’ve another job for you, old man,” said Littlejohn, “and don’t get drunk this time. It concerns the bar of the airport...”

  They parted at the door of the police office. It was raining hard and the asphalt of the town square shone like glass, with the sodium lights turning it to amber and making passers-by look like corpses.

  “Better take a taxi, Cromwell. It’s at least a couple of miles out...”

  They parted. Littlejohn turned up his coat collar and crossed to the official park for the police car. The journey was a short one. The Trotmans occupied a large old house not far out of town. Mr. Trotman disliked the trouble of a garden. He had not even the patience to instruct a hired man how to arrange and fill a
plot of ground. He had, therefore, had the old lawn and beds at the front of the house paved over to form a kind of courtyard with a solitary willow and a sundial breaking the monotony. The former iron railings and gate had been sacrificed to the wartime scrap-iron drive, and Mr. Trotman had now had these replaced by expensive wrought-ironwork which gave a new and attractive appearance to the whole place.

  Littlejohn rang the bell and an elderly maid in cap and apron answered the door. She seemed surprised to see a caller on such a night and at such an hour. Lights glowed behind the curtains of one of the rooms to the right of the door and in one of the bedrooms above.

  “Mr. Trotman can’t see anybody. He’s retired to bed.”

  “Is Mrs. Trotman in?”

  “I’ll see...”

  She took the Inspector’s card and soon returned.

  “Come in, please.”

  He followed her along the deeply carpeted hall, illuminated by a lustre chandelier and furnished in heavy mahogany. She opened a door to the right and bade him enter.

  Mrs. Trotman rose to meet him. She had been playing patience and the cards were spread out on a little card-table by the fire, which burned in a large open grate with iron dogs and a stone surround with a crest in the middle of it. Over the fire, a portrait of Mrs. Trotman in oils, evidently done when she was young. She met Littlejohn as he entered, and shook hands with him.

  “Good evening, Inspector. I’m sorry my husband isn’t well. He’s in bed...Can I do anything?”

  Littlejohn’s first impression of the woman was of her absolute integrity. Somehow the idea of her sitting quietly alone in the great house, playing patience, with the stewpond of murder and her husband’s guilt so close, impressed him. She was small, slightly built, and the fair hair shown on the portrait had now changed to snow white, still worn long and neatly braided. The fine lines of her face remained, but the firm cheeks of the picture and the pink complexion had given place to the looseness of later middle age and the yellow tint of declining health. Her hands were fragile. A comparison between the painting and the woman before him filled Littlejohn with melancholy at the thought of the ravages of time and experience.