The sergeant-in-charge was getting red.
“Applied brakes...skidded...Got away! Why didn’t you say so at first that the dog ran off. What’s the use of makin’ a long ramblin’ deposition like this, if there ain’t no dog’s body...no corpus dee...licktie...”
Twenty – The Bell at Beyle
THEY couldn’t have sent a more unsuitable relief man to Beyle than P.C. Wigg to help P.C. Harkuss. From behind they were as alike as two peas in a pod, but face-on they were complete opposites. Harkuss was a profound thinker, very concerned with the world and where it had come from and where it was going. He pondered the problems of anatomy and physiology and how to keep in good health. He was worried about eating animals for food and, now and then, as his meditations on the matter reached a climax, he became a vegetarian and lived on fruit and nuts. His open, homely, moustached face wore an eternally troubled look, as though all the cares of the world rested upon him. Wigg, on the other hand, never read a book, never brooded on a problem, didn’t care a damn. Now and then Harkuss would revolt against Wigg’s carefree acceptance of existence. He would doubt the virtue of a democracy which allowed the Wiggs of life to vote at all, or, turning to a colleague, would say, indicating Wigg, “There ’e goes...Nice, intellekchule specimen, ain’t ’e?” And Wigg, taking this as a compliment, would flush with pleasure and tell people that Harkuss was “a cut above an ordinary constable.”
When Wigg cheerfully arrived at Beyle, Harkuss groaned. He liked night-watching alone; he pondered life’s problems very deeply in the still, small hours. Now...
Wigg removed his helmet, hung it on the hat-stand and joined his colleague in the kitchen. He carried a small fibre case in his hand and immediately opened it, revealing a large packet of beef sandwiches. at which Harkuss glared, for it was one of his fruit and nut periods. Furthermore, Wigg had been a father for three months and, to his adoring parent, little Albert Wigg was a phenomenal baby...a comedian, too.
“Is there any tea brewed?” asked Wigg, looking anxiously round for the jug.
“No,” said Harkuss, who thought tea was slow poison. He drank a beverage called Strength-Oh, and had brought a tin with him.
“Never drink tea. Rots your guts. Like to try some o’ my Strength-Oh?”
“No, thanks. I think I’ll make a brew. Know where there’s the needful...?”
Harkuss passed a huge paw airily over a shelf which contained the tinned milk and dry tea, as well as a jug and a mug, left there by a previous constable on duty.
“Kettle?”
“On the ’ob there...Can’t you see it?”
Wigg still smiled broadly, presumably at his own thoughts. He poured the boiling water over his mixture, drew a chair beside that from which Harkuss was keeping an eye on the hall through the open kitchen door, and settled himself.
“I laughed...” said Wigg.
It was coming! Every fresh episode in young Albert Wigg’s life was prefaced by his father’s mirth. “I laughed...” It was the overture to more long tales of infantile wonder.
“I laughed...when I got ’ome last night, there was young Albert sleepin’ the sleep o’ the just and my wife wet-through. He’d pulled a pint o’ milk all over her...She was bending down, like, with him in ’er arms and he...”
P.C. Harkuss groaned.
“I’d better take a look round,” he said and took himself off. He wished the high-ups had left him alone on the job. Now...Well...It looked as if he’d have to wander all over the place all night avoiding Wigg and Albert, instead of reading his nature-cure papers by the kitchen fire. He couldn’t abide the thought of a whole night of Albert’s humorous carryings-on; it would drive him off his nut. He paused at the foot of the stairs. The young lady and gent still seemed to be packing. They were hurrying from room to room, gathering things...And the old man...he sounded very quiet. Harkuss shuddered as he thought of Uncle Bernard and his rats and bottles. He breathed deeply, counted ten as he did so, held his breath as he counted out fifteen more, and then breathed out in ten jerks. It was the method advocated in “Breath is Life”, to which he was addicted. It made him feel buoyant and light-headed.
The telephone rang in the hall. Wigg came from the kitchen at the double.
“All right, all right. I’m ‘ere,” said Harkuss.
“’Ello...’ello. Who? Oh, yes...He’s in...Jest a minute...”
He carefully laid down the instrument as if it might be brittle and tiptoed up the stairs. The place filled him with a certain amount of awe and he moved here and there reverently.
Alec was strapping up a bag in his room with the door open.
“Wanted on the ’phone, sir...”
“Who is it? I’m busy...”
P.C. Harkuss looked coy.
“Young lady, sir.”
Alec impatiently got to his feet and ran downstairs.
“Yes...?”
He listened with indifference.
“Is that you, Mr. Crake...Alec...?”
“Yes...”
“Maudie Hankey...You remember me, Alec? The airport bar last September and in your car...?”
Alec took a cigarette from his pocket with one hand and lit it by a similar feat. He looked bored. Maudie Hankey! What a name! She talked as if she had been the only woman in his life.
“I’m engaged, now, Alec...”
“My congratulations...What do you want?”
“You don’t sound glad to hear me. And after all that went...”
“I’m busy packing, Maudie. I’m leaving to-morrow.”
“Oh, very well. I’ll ring off.”
“Look here, Maudie. Tell me what it is, that’s a good girl. I’m sorry I was a bit rude. I’ve been through a lot, you know.”
He couldn’t resist a conquest even over the telephone!
“I’ve got to go. I managed to slip out...I just wanted to tell you the police have been round at our place askin’ questions about you...”
Crake turned white and gripped the instrument spasmodically.
“What’s that?”
“The police. Mr. Doane rang up Mr. Kent and Mr. Trotman on the day Mr. Kent was killed. A policeman...Littlejohn, I think he’s called...was here to-night. He knew I was in Trotman & Co.’s office and wanted to know if the call was from you or Mr. Doane. I didn’t say anything, Alec. You know me better than that. But as it was about a very good friend of mine, I thought I ought to ring him up and tell him...”
Alec hung up the telephone on her as she spoke. Panic seized him. His head began to throb and he could not gather his thoughts.
“All right, sir?”
Alec looked blankly at P.C. Harkuss, rather deflated without his helmet.
“Yes...”
He slowly climbed upstairs. his face growing more evil with each step.
Uncle Bernard was sitting in his room reading a book on salamanders. The fire crackled on the hearth and the soft glow from the oil lamp, which he preferred to electric because it added a touch of shaded mystery to his retreat, fell across his book. Now and then, as some passage pleased him, he grunted with satisfaction and from time to time took a pencil from his pocket and marked it or made a note in a margin.
Suddenly Alec Crake entered. He closed the door after him, turned the key, and stood over his uncle. It was then that Uncle Bernard observed that Alec had a revolver in his hand and that his eyes were wild.
“What is it, Alec?”
“I have no time to talk now. Listen. One cry and I’ll shoot. I want the ten thousand in cash my mother gave you for your beastly gold coins...”
“I haven’t got it. Shoot away, Alec. Those men downstairs, they’ll get you before you reach the door. Shoot, I say...”
“The money! You don’t keep a banking account. It’s hidden away somewhere here. Tell me, or I’ll shoot. I must have it. I’ve got to go away at once...”
“The police?”
“Yes. Give me the cash and you can have your gold back.”
“Neve
r! I’d enough trouble getting rid of that as it was. I had to throw in the ruby crucifix as well...”
“That will do. No more of your talk.”
The old man cackled and rubbed his long hands together.
“Shoot, Alec. Your bullets can’t hurt me. I’m impregnable.”
“I’ll give you till I count five. Then I’ll shoot, and ransack the place for the money.”
Alec’s eyes were bright and shifty. Drops of sweat shone on his forehead and upper lip.
The old man was enjoying himself. He’d expected this. One by one they would all go. Nick, Dulcie, now Alec, and then Nita. Beyle would be his...
“SHOOT!”
Alec’s revolver went off with a roar, and then again until he had emptied the magazine.
Uncle Bernard still sat laughing.
“I knew you for a murderer, Alec. If Kent hadn’t killed your mother, you would have done. You killed your uncle. Nita saw you crossing the park at the back, like a silly Indian brave, dodging from tree to tree...and she was in the morning-room off the hall when it all happened. She’s your friend, Alec. She never betrayed you to anyone but me. And I bluffed her into thinking it wasn’t you, but Trotman. Do you think I haven’t seen you rifling your mother’s papers...and then ringing up Kent and Trotman and setting them against one another. I was here when you killed Kent. I found him, my boy. I knew Trotman was hidden somewhere and I knew who killed Kent. And now I’ll give you twenty pounds and you can be off.”
“Twenty!”
Alec’s mouth fell open and then he sprang at the old man and clawed for his neck. Uncle Bernard, wonderfully wiry, rose from his chair with Alec still clinging to him, like an old stag at bay with hounds at his throat. They rocked to and fro, finally stumbled over the rug, fell and overturned the table. The lamp rolled across the floor, struck the wall and exploded into sheets of flame, which spread to the curtains and the bed. Soon the room was a holocaust.
“Let me go...”
Uncle Bernard was anxious to be free to save not only his money, but the strange paraphernalia in the next room, the purpose of which nobody knew but himself.
The policemen were busy drinking tea and Strength-Oh in the kitchen. The shots had not disturbed them, muffled by the thick walls and distance.
“Sound to be ’ammerin’ somethin’ up,” said Wigg.
“Packin’-case, as likely as not,” replied his colleague, carefully measuring out a tablespoonful of his cure-all.
They were quite surprised when, a few minutes later, Nita appeared at the kitchen door, a slight figure in nightdress and dressing-gown, with little red slippers on her feet.
“Uncle...His room’s on fire. He and Alec are in there and sound to be fighting. The door’s locked and I can’t make them hear...”
Her dark eyes had grown larger and her black hair, flying, loose and a bit dishevelled, combined with the pure whiteness of her skin and the simple elfin look of her attire, gave her a wild beauty and a look of helpless childishness which caused both the bobbies to goggle in astonished admiration.
“Well...Do something. The place is burning down and uncle and Alec will be burned to death...”
“Come on, Wigg...”
Harkuss rose with a melodramatic gesture like an officer leading a cavalry charge.
The two policemen lumbered out and up the stairs.
The original founder of Beyle had a terror of fire and, to call as much help as possible from the surrounding country to his isolated home in case of an outbreak, he constructed a bell-tower on the east gable. The old bell still hung there, rusty and stiff, with a frayed rope hanging from it. It had been restored during the war as an air-raid signal.
Nita, in her little red slippers, ran to the tower and frantically tugged the rope. Littlejohn and Cromwell, speeding to Beyle in the black police car, heard it.
“Sounds like a fire...I’ll bet it’s at Beyle,” said Cromwell. “It only needs the place and all of ’em to go up in smoke and make a spectacular finish...”
“It is Beyle...”
They could see the upper storey of the mansion now fully alight. There was mist in the valley again...in Lepers’ Hollow...and the glare of the fire tinged it with red like the demon king’s abode in a pantomime.
As the two officers arrived, the wing occupied by Uncle Bernard was fully ablaze and in the distance the bell of the Tilsey fire-engine, hurling its way through twisting country roads, could be heard answering the bell at Beyle. Littlejohn and Cromwell met Nita at the front door.
“Uncle and Alec...upstairs, locked in uncle’s room...”
They ran aloft side by side. The two constables were struggling to open the door, which resisted their weight. “We can’t make it budge. Where’s a h’axe...?”
Littlejohn turned to Nita.
“The linen-room key?”
She hurried and brought it.
“In panic I forgot it...”
It was as if the two men inside had been waiting under pressure for release, for, as Littlejohn inserted the key and opened the door, they both ran out. Alec was desperately anxious to kill his uncle, on whom, once dead, he might have put the blame for the murders. Furthermore, Alec was now too frenzied to care for anything but the destruction of his antagonist.
Uncle Bernard, hair flying, eyes protruding, was holding in his arms a large glass vessel, clear and iridescent, apparently empty, a kind of retort the shape of a face with inflated cheeks with a spout like an elephant’s trunk, protruding from it.
Like two running a race, Alec and Uncle Bernard pattered past the astonished new arrivals, ran up the servants’ staircase, and could be heard careering through the corridor above. Uncle Bernard’s breath came and went in little screams; Alec was grim and silent, intent on his purpose.
Cromwell hurried inside the old man’s room as the others followed the two madmen on their wild chase. Five shots sounded from Cromwell’s revolver and he reappeared muttering to himself. “Better that than fry...poor little devils.” He had shot Uncle Bernard’s menagerie of rats and guinea-pigs. The firemen were below, unrolling hoses, seeking water, getting out their fire-fighting tackle.
Cromwell ran up the further flight of stairs which Littlejohn, the policemen and the two demented men had followed. On the way he met Wigg returning.
“Inspector sent me down to tell the firemen to ’old one of their jump-sheets ready...They gone on the roof...Trapdoor at the top of the ladder at the end of the corridor...”
He cluttered noisily downstairs.
Cromwell followed the directions. Down below you could hear the firemen bringing up their apparatus to the burning wing. The fire had, by now, burned its way through the ceiling of Uncle Bernard’s room and was breaking out in the attic. The glare lit up the sky and as Cromwell reached the roof a strange sight met him.
Uncle Bernard and Alec had crossed the flat gutter which led between the two pepperpot towers and Uncle Bernard, now faced with jumping over the gable end, climbing the slates of the pepperpot, or crawling over the sloping roof into the next gully by a fixed cat-ladder over the slates, had chosen the latter. He was slowly creeping upwards on his hands and knees, followed by Alec.
“Come down, you pair of fools,” yelled Littlejohn on their heels. Uncle Bernard seemed inclined to follow the advice, but finding his retreat cut off by Alec, kept grimly on...
Cromwell had merely to cross to the next gully by way of the parapet which ran round the building and wait there, in the dark, for Uncle Bernard to descend. It was easier mounting the high pitch of the roof than descending it and half-way Uncle Bernard missed his footing and slid down the slates into Cromwell’s arms.
“Got you!”
Uncle Bernard fought like a tiger, for he had not recognized his antagonist. He seemed to think that somehow Alec had taken a short cut...
“Mercy...Mercy...” he breathed hoarsely.
“Come on, now, Mr. Doane. That’s enough of it. Come down quietly. It’s dangerous up here.
..”
The old man grew limp, and gave in.
“Is it Mr. Cromwell...?”
“Yes...”
“I’ll come down, but I want my globe. I put it at the corner of the roof for safety. It contains an invisible essence which I have distilled...a food for the sylphs, the spirits of the air, which visit me...My globe...“
Cromwell had no time for Doane’s fantastic talk; he could hear scuffling on the other side of the roof. The old man was docile enough and seeking his glass bottle; Cromwell again hurried to the first ridge. Alec, finding his own way barred and Uncle Bernard in safe hands, now turned to his own escape. He stood silhouetted by the firelight high on the sharp edge of the roof, took a few desperate paces along the top and balanced at length, after sliding down the tiles, on the two-foot coping which ran round the house. There, with space before him and Littlejohn and a constable behind, he swayed a minute and then leapt. He gave a wild cry as he fell...The firemen below, breathlessly directed by P.C. Wigg. caught him in their safety sheet, lowered him to the ground and P.C. Wigg had him by the collar before he could recover himself. Then Alec raged and tore about like a lunatic. It took Wigg and two firemen to hold him.
“Where’s Doane?” asked Littlejohn as Cromwell joined him.
“Hunting for his sprites or something. He says he’s got them in a bottle. I left him...He must have gone down.”
Uncle Bernard had gone downstairs and, pushing aside the firemen at the door of his room, entered. It was like a furnace.
“My books...My papers...My essences...My rocket...”
“Your what?”
The firemen had followed him and were dragging him out by force.
“Half my life I have fashioned a rocket which would fly out of our tainted atmosphere and return with refined sun essences, on which the nymphs and sylphs feed and on which I shall feed myself when I dematerialize...”
The three of them, Uncle Bernard and his fire-fighting captors, were smoke-grimed and sweating. All the first fireman could do was to tap his forehead significantly and look at his pal. Then the pyrotechnics began.
Crime In Leper's Hollow Page 25
