‘You are sure, then, that Dodd was the chosen victim?’
‘Of course I am.’
‘Why?’
‘Why! Piper and Fallows were decent men without an enemy in the world. They were church deacons. All the workmen liked them and would have done anything for them. Their private lives were simple and blameless. It was that scoundrel Dodd they were after, believe me.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘That’s up to you. It certainly wasn’t my son. He wouldn’t…’
‘He wouldn’t have the guts. Is that what you’re going to say, sir?’
It seemed a bit too bad, with the old man just holding himself together after his attack of flu or whatever it was. But he seemed intent on raising his son’s stock uselessly. And Littlejohn had grown to know Fred Hoop. A nonentity you’d pass in the street without a second look, and forget. Intent on his wife’s money, even to the extent of removing the good furniture in her house and hiding it somewhere in case the bank took it to meet his guarantee. A nobody who sheltered behind his lawyers and his dad. Perhaps with just enough courage and initiative to throw a stick of dynamite at his enemy, and then run.
‘I’ve had enough. I’ve finished. You’re insulting and offensive and I shall mention this to the local Chief Constable. You’ll pay for this.’
He hoisted himself to his feet, picked up his ebony stick from the floor beside his chair, and beat on the table top with it. This brought in Bella like a jack-in-the-box. She must have been waiting behind the door.
‘That’s a good table! No need to take your bad temper out on the furniture…’
‘Where’s my hat and coat?’
‘In the hall where you left them and you can put them on yourself…’
Her voice rose from that of the gravelly contralto to a shrill soprano. She was working up to a scene.
‘When I married into your family, I told you you’d always be welcome in my home. I take that back. Never come here again. Neither you, nor your precious Fred, nor any of you. Specially tell your Fred to keep away. Him and his sticks of dynamite. Nobody’s safe. It’s like him to…’
She couldn’t get the words out. She’d been winding herself up for hysterics and now they came. Yells and screams and then a hysterical heart attack. She clutched her abundant chest and said she was dying.
Mrs. Sandman entered serenely, slapped her hard on the face, and pushed her in an armchair.
‘Control yourself, you silly!’
And Bella did.
Tom Hoop fought his way into his large overcoat with the help of Littlejohn.
‘Leave me alone. I can manage to put it on myself. Leave me alone!’
Littlejohn almost asked Mrs. Sandman to hit old Tom on the jaw as well.
‘Where’s my hat?’
It had rolled under the hallstand and Littlejohn had to crawl on his hands and knees to rescue it. It was ridiculous. He bundled Tom Hoop quickly out to his taxi. As the driver was starting the engine, Fred Hoop arrived on his bicycle. Whatever else he was, Fred was a tryer! He’d come to raise the week’s wages! The shop stewards at the Excelsior had told him what they’d do to him if he didn’t.
Littlejohn left old and young Hoop in conference at the open door of the taxi. Whatever went on between them ended in Fred’s defeat, for he didn’t ring the bell at Pochins.
Littlejohn was indoors again, interviewing the two women this time.
Bella had recovered from her hysterics and was trying to behave as though she’d never had them. She offered Littlejohn more sherry, but he said he’d rather not, thank you, as he was really on duty.
‘Your husband was here, I gather, at eight o’clock on November 8th, the time of the explosion in Green Lane.’
‘Yes. He arrived about half-past seven. I really ought to refuse to give him an alibi, you know. He was so beastly to me.’
Littlejohn was nettled at the coy way in which she said it. Did she expect him to coax it out of her?
‘You have no choice, Mrs. Hoop. If you don’t care to answer me now, you could be called upon in court under oath if your husband were accused.’
She didn’t seem interested in the legal niceties of the matter.
‘The sacrifices I’ve made for him since we were married. It was bad enough taking on a ridiculous name like Hoop. But there was worse…’
Mrs. Sandman thought it time to intervene.
‘Superintendent Littlejohn is merely asking you to confirm that Fred was here, Bella. If you don’t wish to do so, then I will. He was certainly here, Mr. Littlejohn.’
‘Thank you. He came to ask for help in providing wages for the men at Excelsior?’
Bella Hoop shrugged and her ear-rings flashed.
‘Among other things. He tried to blackmail me into signing a cheque. He finally said he was in a position to divorce me. He said awful things, lies, about me and John. That was after he’d eaten his supper. He took care to do that before he became offensive. Otherwise I’d have sent him away hungry.’
‘John is Mr. Dodd, Superintendent. And I don’t think the Superintendent is interested in…’
Bella was determined to tell Littlejohn the lot. She shouted her mother down.
‘He said he was going to dismiss John Dodd and start divorce proceedings unless I gave up my friendship with him…’
Mrs. Sandman’s lips tightened. It was evident that she herself thought the friendship was a broad one.
‘I told him to get on with it. There are no children to think about, except John’s, of course. I told my husband that without John, the whole Excelsior business would collapse.’
As if it hadn’t collapsed already.
‘I also said he was getting no more money from me. It would only go where all the rest I’d lent him had gone. Gone with the wind…’
She made a butterfly gesture in the air with her hand, presumably supposed to denote the flight of her capital.
She’d got herself confused. It could be assumed that Dodd had dissipated the money Fred had raised. That fact didn’t seem to dawn on her.
‘What time did your husband leave here?’
‘Just after nine.’
‘Without the money, I assume.’
‘Of course. He even had the nerve to approach mother for a loan.’
Mrs. Sandman said nothing. She seemed mainly anxious to get it over and remove Bella from the stage.
‘Had Mr. Dodd any enemies to your knowledge?’
‘He certainly had Fred, who was an extremely jealous husband and couldn’t even stand me to speak to another man. He would have kept me under lock and key almost if I’d allowed him…’
She lowered her voice as though about to impart an important secret.
‘Have you ever read Proust, Superintendent?’
Neither had she! She had heard of him recently for the first time at a lecture at the Ladies’ Luncheon Club. Her mother sighed. Bella was at it again and in full spate.
‘No? There was a girl called Albertine. Proust actually locked her up in his house because he couldn’t bear any other man to see her…’
Mrs. Sandman gave her a despairing look. Bella had been like this since she was a little girl. Playing a part all the time. When the idea of being a bride appealed to her, she’d taken Fred Hoop because the man of her choice hadn’t come up to scratch. And when she’d got bored and the idea of a lover seemed fashionable, she’d flung herself in the arms of a second-rate nonentity like John Willie Dodd. Now, she was imagining herself as a prisoner of the jealousy of Fred Hoop!
‘The Superintendent isn’t interested in Proust at present, Bella. He is simply asking you if Dodd had any enemies. Fred wasn’t likely to kill him out of jealousy for you…’
She actually laughed at the idea.
‘Well, I was only trying to explain. John’s wif
e doesn’t understand him either, but I’m sure she doesn’t hate him.’
‘Had Dodd plenty of money?’
‘He had invested his all in the company.’
‘And yet, I’m told he managed to live very comfortably. Rather different from his co-directors and the workmen in the factory.’
Bella brushed it aside.
‘We never discussed those things.’
‘Did you ever lend money to Dodd?’
‘Certainly not. How could you ask? He had his pride!’
Littlejohn could imagine it. Dodd asking for a fiver in the middle of a clandestine meeting!
‘I think he had means… perhaps investments. He never seemed short of pocket-money. Mr. Roper at the bank was a great friend of his. Perhaps he helped him with investments. I remember once, when we were lunching together… We used to meet sometimes to discuss Excelsior affairs… I’m a large shareholder, you know. So is mother. It was useless trying to get any information from Fred. He was hopeless in financial matters…’
‘But Dodd never met me and gave me lunch whilst he reported on his stewardship…’
Mrs. Sandman said it in a tired voice.
‘Where was I? As I was saying, when we lunched once together, John pulled out a new five-pound note and said in his humorous way, “Good old Roper”, as though the banker had given it to him.’
They all looked blankly at each other. Littlejohn didn’t even know whether the little exhibitionist was telling the truth or a pack of lies. Judging from Mrs. Sandman’s face it was the latter.
‘I think that will be all, then. Thank you both for your patience. I’ll call again if I may, should anything further crop up.’
‘Do that, Superintendent. We will always be glad to see you…’
Bella extended her hand limply to indicate the audience was at an end.
Mrs. Sandman saw him to the door.
‘I’m sorry this has taken so much of your time, Superintendent. Bella is a little overwrought. Things of the past few days, you know…’
‘I understand. Thank you again, Mrs. Sandman.’
As he made his way back to his car, he realised that Bella had expressed no regret, shown no grief about Dodd or any of the other innocent victims of this tragedy. Not a tear, not a sympathetic reference. She took it all as a part of the game.
There were other sensations that day.
Fred Hoop struck oil when the bank agreed to find the elusive wages for the Excelsior workmen, but when he arrived home from Brantwood, old Tom Hoop had a heart attack and died.
Seven
Overdrafts
The branch of the Home Counties Bank in the older part of Evingden had been built in 1898 and still bore on its cornice, chiselled in the stone, the coat of arms of the East Sussex Bank, which the Home Counties had absorbed in 1920. It was a cramped and inconvenient building for modern purposes, one day to be superseded by the fine new office in the new part of the town, already opened, flourishing, and full of every modern convenience.
That was the trouble with George Frederick Handel Roper, the manager of the 1898 branch. They hadn’t made him chief of the new branch when they opened it. At first, he’d expected the directors would appoint him manager of both offices. Instead, they’d left him in the lurch in his stuffy little room in the old decaying part of the town. He’d only four years to go before he retired. He resented the snub.
Littlejohn found Mr. Roper sitting in his office contemplating statistics which showed that his business was declining. People were gradually moving away from the old to the more pleasant and commodious branch in the high street and Caffrey, the new manager, was doing his best to keep up the one-way traffic. Already, Caffrey had a staff of seven; Mr. Roper’s personnel now stood at six, including himself, and Head Office were talking of taking another man away from him.
Mr. Roper received Littlejohn cordially, for he thought he was a new client bringing a new account. When he learned he was from the police, he lapsed into his habitual disappointed lethargy and rather brusquely offered him a seat.
The room was dark and shabby and the carpet was a bit threadbare. The windows were set high in the walls and from where they were sitting they could merely see the roofs of old buildings and the square tower of the church of St. Michael and All Angels. It was dismal and depressing at that time of year. The branch was running down like the management and soon the residue of the business and everything else would be transferred to the new premises.
‘I’ve not much time to spare. We’re very busy at present. Staff shortages play the very devil…’
He was a portly little man who’d been at the same office in Evingden as cashier, then manager, for twenty-five years. He had started his management with great expectations. A major in the army with a decoration in the second war, he’d been full of initiative and a sense of his own importance. But somehow the great expectations hadn’t blossomed. The same office, the same walk to and from home daily, the same customers, the same accounts through all the years had gradually run down his spirits and his temper.
Now, he was marking off the days to his retirement with grim and bitter regularity on his private calendar and hoping that nothing would happen to trip him up before the race was ended. He didn’t even seem curious or excited by the visit from the police.
Mr. Roper wore a dark green worsted suit of a slightly racy cut. On a hook in the corner hung his bowler-hat. It was of an obsolete sporting style and had a ventilator like a sieve on top. It was a memento of his palmy days when he’d moved proudly with his first wife among the county people who banked at his office. They had since left Evingden for quieter country. He hadn’t been as successful socially since his first wife died. The second was more aggressive and ambitious and had quarrelled with many of his old friends. His business had suffered through it and he drank more heavily to forget things. When he faced realities, Mr. Roper had to admit that he’d missed promotion through indifference; sometimes he even admitted incompetence as well.
He brushed his moustache thirstily. He had a dim impulse to offer Littlejohn a drink and then he decided against it. He’d better be official instead of sociable. He put on his military manner.
‘Well? What is it?’
‘Excelsior Joinery, sir.’
Mr. Roper frowned. It was a name which had lost him some sleep over recent years. Now… Well, it was all over now. He’d get his money back, but only by a sheer stroke of luck.
‘What of them?’
‘I called to ask if you could help us about the financial situation of the company, sir.’
‘I can’t divulge any information whatever on that score. It’s private and confidential. The bank never does that. Not even to the police. As a senior officer, you ought to know it.’
‘We know quite a lot already.’
‘How much?’
Mr. Roper suddenly softened. He produced whisky soda, and glasses from a cupboard in his desk.
‘Will you join me in a drink, Superintendent? We might discuss this informally.’
‘No, thank you, sir. I’m on duty.’
‘Of course. Mind if I have one? This business has shaken me.’
He filled his glass and drank heavily.
‘Ah… Four directors out of five dead…’
He snapped his fingers.
‘Dead. Just like that. We never know, do we? I’ve just heard old Hoop’s gone. That leaves Fred Hoop all alone with the lot. Have you found out anything fresh about the explosion, Superintendent?’
‘Only that we think it was murder. As far as we can discover, the company wasn’t in the habit of keeping explosives in its office. It looks as if the dynamite was planted there or thrown in. It’s local knowledge that the Excelsior was heavily indebted to your bank. And also that the bank will lose nothing, as the loan was secured.’
Mr
. Roper drank again, wiped his moustache on a silk handkerchief, and looked grave.
‘It was a jolly good job I insisted on being fully covered. Recent events will probably see the end of the company. It’s been in its death-throes for some time. This will finish it.’
Mr. Roper looked to be in the throes of something, too. He had turned ashen as though contemplating the situation if he hadn’t been fully secured.
‘It makes me ill to think of it. I may be on the way to recovering all the loan, but I never wanted it this way. I’d rather have lost the lot. It was damned bad luck on them all. I feel sorry for Fred Hoop. He’s not of the calibre to see things through. It’ll kill him if he’s not careful.’
‘What was your opinion of Dodd?’
Mr. Roper looked hard at Littlejohn.
‘It’s difficult talking of one who’s not yet… not even in his grave, isn’t it?’
He poured himself another drink and took a good swig of it.
‘I mean… Well…’
‘I understand. But this is very necessary, sir. We want to find out who killed Dodd and his friends. The sooner the better. Every day counts in a case like this.’
‘If you ask me, you ought to be looking among the roughs in the overspill population. We’ve imported a lot of toughs of late. In my view they’d been trying to blast the safe at the Excelsior office, had been disturbed by the directors’ arrival, and had to leave the explosives, which went off. That’s my opinion for what it’s worth.’
‘We aren’t neglecting that angle, sir. We were speaking of Dodd.’
Mr. Roper swallowed hard. At first, Littlejohn thought he was going to protest again.
‘I didn’t care for Dodd, I must confess. But I never wished him an end like this. He was really the ruin of Excelsior. Took too many risks, spent too much money…’
‘Did he bank with you, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘You lent him money personally?’
Surfeit of Suspects Page 8
