Death in Dark Glasses (Inspector Littlejohn)

by George Bellairs

  Death in Dark

  Glasses

  George Bellairs

  © George Bellairs 1952 *

  *Indicates the year of first publication.

  CONTENTS

  1. THE MISSING CLIENT

  2. THE SILENT HOUSE

  3. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LYSANDER

  4. THE SHADY DEALER

  5. BRANCH BANK IN PIMLICO

  6. THE BARMAID AT THE NAKED MAN

  7. NELLIE FORTY

  8. DALBAY HALL SCHOOL

  9. THE CHAPEL AT SNUFF THE WIND

  10. NO MORE TEARS FOR FINLOE

  11. ARSENIC AND HANDWRITING

  12. MRS. FAIRCLOUGH

  13. BLUE SPECTACLES

  14. THE ANXIOUS PASSENGER

  15. THE VICAR OF GRENABY

  16. THE ARRIVAL OF MR. CARDONNEL

  17. THE CAFÉ IN KING'S ROAD

  18. SIMPLE EQUATION

  19. CATASTROPHE AT GRENABY

  TO THE MEMORY

  OF

  AGNES PLATT

  DEATH IN DARK GLASSES

  MURDER, impersonation, disappearance, forgery and embezzlement! These are the ingredients of this swiftly moving thriller.

  It is the task of our old friends Inspector Littlejohn and his colleague, Cromwell, to unravel the mystery, which they do in their own inimitable way.

  1

  THE MISSING CLIENT

  THE defalcations of John Wainwright Palmer at Silvesters' Bank, Rodley branch, were of small dimensions compared with the hornets' nest of crime they set buzzing in the town. Only two hundred pounds, taken from the till and hidden in the accounts with moderate skill, yet in the mind of the dishonest bank cashier, they had assumed such enormous proportions that, learning the Chief Inspector of the bank was closeted with his manager and then being told the pair wished to see him in the private office, Wainwright Palmer bolted. In his panic and haste to the station, he failed to see a bus, fell beneath it and was picked up dead.

  The Chief Inspector of the Bank had called to discuss Palmer's career with the manager of Rodley branch and they were about to offer the cashier promotion in the shape of the managership of a highly sought-after seaside branch. Beautiful, tragic irony of life!

  It seemed obvious that Palmer must have had something on his conscience and that, to the bank, meant only one thing. An alarm was sounded which brought to Rodley a large team of investigators from headquarters. Had he lived, Palmer might, out of fear, hope or remorse, have laid bare his whole scheme of modest fraud. Now, the branch had to be turned upside down to trace the causes of the cashier's flight. The process was far from easy. The balances of all the clients who could be contacted were verified. It was proved that Palmer had forged cheques on rarely-used accounts to square his books. Finally, all the customers but ten had been covered. Seven of these were abroad and inaccessible; two were dead; and one would not reply to letters. It was thought better in these cases to call in a handwriting expert to examine the cheques drawn on their accounts. They had specimens of Palmer's writing and in a very short time had sorted out the whole affair. Entries were passed to make good the fraudulent withdrawals, the bank wrote off as bad the unlucky debt created by their faithless servant, and the manager of Rodley breathed again. But not for long.

  Mr. Hoffman, the handwriting expert, was still uneasy.

  "I can't make this out, Mr. de Lacy," he said, passing his soft white hand over his large bald head. He had a tic in one eye and winked at the manager, who, after weeks of strain, winked mirthlessly back. Mr. Hoffman placed three cheques on the official writing-pad.

  "These are forged, too, if the specimen in your signature file is authentic," he said. "But Palmer didn't do it."

  Mr. de Lacy slumped in his chair.

  "My God!" he managed to say and he placed his hands flat on his desk and gazed blankly into space like a cataleptic.

  The cheques totalled seven thousand pounds! They had been drawn to "Self" on the account of one Finloe Oates and they had exhausted the whole of his balance. Nay, with accrued charges, Finloe Oates owed the bank nine shillings and threepence.

  After bracing himself by drinking most of the brandy in his first-aid box, Mr. de Lacy rang the bell.

  "Bring me Mr. Finloe Oates's file. . . ."

  No sooner said than done. The file revealed that five letters, all unanswered, had been sent to this customer in the course of investigations arising from Wainwright Palmer's misdeeds. The manager, his eyes wild and his thin hair dishevelled from his tearing at it, ordered them to get the Chief Inspector on the telephone.

  "Hullo, de Lacy. . . . How are you?" came a cheerful voice from Head Office.

  "I'm not so well," answered the manager and fell unconscious under the desk.

  The Chief Inspector arrived later that day and this time he was far from cheerful.

  "Where does the man live . . . this Oates fellow . . . ?"

  He spoke as though poor Finloe Oates had himself caused all the trouble.

  "Netherby . . . about five miles away in the country . . . "

  They had given Mr. de Lacy more stimulant; so much, in fact, that he was a bit truculent.

  "Why wasn't somebody sent out to see him when he didn't answer letters?"

  "So busy and confused by all the fuss . . . I mean, all the worry of the investigations, I quite overlooked it. And if I overlook anything, nobody else finds it. I'm not getting the support I ought to get from Killgrass . . ." he said between paroxysms of nervous coughing.

  "Very serious. . . . Very serious indeed. Seven thousand pounds! Whatever were you thinking of . . . ?"

  The Chief Inspector might have thought Mr. de Lacy had himself put pen to paper and forged Oates's name!

  "Send a man out right away. . . ."

  They rang for the assistant manager, Mr. Killgrass, who entered braced for the fray. He was a clean, bald, tubby man with the folds of his heavy face set in lines of irony and disappointment. He objected to being assistant to a manager like Mr. de Lacy. He felt he could manage better himself. They told Mr. Killgrass the nature of his mission, waved aside his expostulations, and meticulously instructed him what to say and do, like potentates sending an emissary into a distant alien land.

  "We depend on you. . . ."

  Mr. Killgrass took a taxi in a show of efficient haste. "The bank can stand it," he thought to himself, and, after all, he was in a hurry.

  Netherby is a small village which once boasted little else than a pub for refreshment, stocks for evil-doers, a fine church, and a few workmen's cottages. Now, however, it had grown into a dormitory for Rodley's professional and monied classes. Large, imitation period-houses had sprung up solidly in the middle of the village, surrounded by an outer, more attenuated ring of pseudo-manors and sham-castles in magnificent bad taste, like their owners. Most of the wealthy elders of the community moved about it in large, opulent cars and their offspring tore about it in racing models. Mr. Killgrass, after a pint and a few inquiries at the inn, found that Mr. Finloe Oates lived in a bungalow named, for some obscure reason, "Shenandoah," and situated about a mile outside the village in a country lane, along with three or four similar houses built by a speculative builder.

  Shenandoah was closed. Nobody answered Mr. Killgrass's knock. He looked around the place. It was a rustic-brick structure; two living-rooms, two bedrooms and the usual offices. Behind, a small orchard and a vegetable patch; in front, what must once have been a very pretty lawn and garden, but now it was a wilderness. The grass was like a meadow, with coltsfoot and plantain romping merrily all over it; the round rose-bed in the centre was running riot and sprouting burdock; the flowers on the bord
ers had gone wild and were choking under the weight of stitchwort and coarse grass.

  Mr. Killgrass was a man of imagination. He had read books by Walter de la Mare, Sheridan le Fanu and Ambrose Bierce. He believed in the benevolence or malevolence of bricks and mortar and knew that houses bore personalities endowed upon them by powerful occupants. There, on a hot afternoon, with no birds singing; with not a soul about but the taxi-driver snoozing in his cab, a fag dangling in his mouth; with somewhere the sound of water running from a pipe and falling from a height; he felt that the house was watching him and that the forsaken, desolate garden was trying to tell him something he could not interpret. He shook off the feeling, remembering that he was expected to return with an answer of some practical kind. He took the liberty—not without looking furtively around to make sure he wasn't overlooked—of peeping in through the windows. The living-rooms were tidy. Over the fireplace of one, a dark portrait in oils looking straight at him, made Mr. Killgrass recoil like one discovered doing wrong. The blinds of the bedrooms were drawn. The kitchen bore signs of habitation, but it must have been a long time ago. The table was laid. On a soiled cloth were the remains of a meal; dirty dishes, a half-empty jar of marmalade, a piece of mouldy cheese, and a loaf of bread turned almost to fungus. There was a mouse busy eating the cheese. Instinctively, the banker tapped on the pane with his finger-nail and the mouse bolted to a dark corner and was gone. The place obviously hadn't been occupied for weeks—nay months, and someone had left it in a hurry.

  Mr. Killgrass then peered through the letter-slit in the front door. There was a small pile of letters on the floor and among them he recognised two of the bank's envelopes with the familiar crest on the flaps.

  "Wantin' somethin'?"

  Mr. Killgrass raised himself and spun round. As if in answer to a prayer, it was the postman himself, a little, stringy fellow, with mean, inquisitive eyes and a face like a wizened nut. His jaws rotated as he chewed and then he spat out a quid on the grass to facilitate articulation.

  "I'm trying to find Mr. Oates. . . ."

  "Funny place to look for 'im. Ain't been 'ere for near on two months. Went away an' said nothin'. Not even left 'is address. Put a note on the door for the milk-boy. 'Gone abroad,' it said. As if that were any help. What's 'e want goin' abroad for . . . a feller of 'is age? Made 'is money in distant parts, but never bin away from 'ere since he married and settled down more'n a dozen years since. Seems 'is wife dyin' turned 'is 'ead, if you ask me.

  He seemed affronted by the fact that the vanished tenant of Shenandoah had not taken him into his confidence before disappearing. He eyed Killgrass up and down.

  "What you wantin'?"

  Mr. Killgrass replied by another question.

  "Do you still deliver the letters here, then?"

  The postman's thin lips disappeared altogether as he compressed them in stubborn malice.

  "Course I do. Can't do no other, 'cept burn 'em. Serve 'im right if I did. Why didn't 'e tell me? He could tell milk-chap. I'm more important than milk fellers, ain't I? So, as 'e didn't tell me, I keep on puttin' his letters through the slit in the door. Not that 'e gets many now. All 'is dividends stopped comin' a while since."

  Mr. Killgrass started.

  "What do you know about his dividends?"

  The postman spat maliciously on the grass.

  "Don't get no ideas as I opens 'em. I can tell divi letters. Smooth and sleek, like, with, like as not, name and address printed on 'em, 'stead o' written. Mostly circulars now, with penny stamps, or a letter or two from the bank. P'raps he got 'isself overdrawn. Anyhow, by the look o' things, bank'll 'ave to whistle for their money. Somethin' tells me we won't see Finloe Oates agen. . . ."

  Mr. Killgrass looked at the postman with respect. His comments on the letters had been worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself! Perhaps he knew. . . .

  "When 'is wife up an' died early in the year, Oates tuck funny. For a week or two after the buryin', he was normal. Nay, 'e was more chirpy than usual. As if his missus's death 'ad give 'im more freedom. Then, of a sudden, overnight like, he shuts 'imself up indoors and won't come out. I knew 'e was there. Saw 'im through the winder, moving round. Heard 'im, too. Letters went from behind door and milk was tuck in. I recollect parcels, too. Registered 'uns. 'Leave 'em on the mat,' 'e sez. 'Not me,' I sez. 'You got receipt to sign.' So 'e tells me to put it under the door; then 'e signs it and shoves it back without showin' 'imself."

  "You didn't see him, then?"

  "Not close to. But 'is writin' on receipt . . . that was 'is. I'd know it anywhere. Gone queer with broodin' and bein' alone after Mrs. Oates got tuck. . . ."

  He waved a grubby hand like a talon at the garden.

  "Look at all that. Wrack and ruin. An' Oates that proud of it once. Nobody more proud. In it from morn till night till just after 'is wife died and 'e tuck funny. Even photographed it an' won prizes in ladies' papers for best gardens. . . ."

  The postman spat again.

  "Since she died . . . well . . . as I said, he was normal for a bit. Mowin' the lawns like mad and weedin' them beds like a good 'un, as if it comforted 'im. Then, he stopped, and never done a 'and's turn at it since. I can't understand it. You thinkin' o' buyin' this place, because I don't know whose goin' to sell it to yer if they don't find Oates . . . ?"

  Mr. Killgrass informed the postman he wasn't going to buy. He didn't quite know what to do. The thought that the taxi was still at the gate ticking away the bank's sixpences, spurred him to action, however. He bade the postman good-day and hurried off. Whereupon, the postman, assured that nobody was looking, went behind the house, cut a fat neglected marrow from a wilderness of nettles, grass and weeds, stuffed it in his bag, and made off as well.

  "Hadn't we better have a word with the police about this?" said Mr. de Lacy to the Chief Inspector when Killgrass had made his report.

  "I think so. . . ."

  An hour later the telephone in the lobby of Netherby police-house rang. P.G. Albert Mee, digging in his garden, rose to the perpendicular, dusted his hands, and lumbered indoors.

  "Telephone, Dad," said his wife from somewhere upstairs.

  "I know. . . ."

  P.C. Mee always knew. They called him "Johnny Know-all" in the village.

  "Yes, Mee speakin'."

  "Yes, but who is it?"

  "You know very well 'oo it is. . . . What do you want?"

  The man at the other end of the line laughed. It was a perennial joke. "The Super wants a word with you. . . ."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I believe the bungalow, Shenandoah, in your village is deserted. . . ."

  "I know, sir. . . ."

  "Don't interrupt, Mee. It seems an official from one of the banks here called there to-day, couldn't get an answer, and said the place looks as if it's been empty for weeks. . . . The postman said the owner, a man called Oates, is abroad. Is that so?"

  "Yes, sir. I knew that. Went away about two months since. I've been keepin' an eye on it."

  "Do you know he's abroad?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Did he tell you so before he went?"

  "Not exactly, sir. He left word with the milk-boy. Wrote it on a card and left it. . . . Didn't want any more milk, sir."

  There were tearing noises at the other end of the wire.

  "Any idea where Mr. Oates went?"

  "South o' France, I think."

  "You think! Do you know?"

  "Not exactly, sir. But 'e always talked of how easy gardenin' was there. 'E'd lived there, or somethin'. . . ."

  "Don't make wild guesses, Mee. Better go up and see what's going on there. Take a good look round and get inside if you can without breaking-in the door. Speak to me again if you don't manage it. . . ."

  "I'll get in, sir. I know 'ow. . . ."

  "Remember, no breaking-in without my permission. The chap may be dead or something, inside. I'm surprised you haven't seen to it before. Go right away. . . ."

  P.C. Mee was annoyed. Insinuati
ng that he didn't look after his village properly, were they? He'd show 'em.

  "I'm just going up to Oates's place, missus," he called upstairs. "Won't be long. 'Ave me tea ready about five. . . ."

  "Somethin's not right there," shouted his wife over the landing rails. "Miss Featherfew who lives next door . . . "

  "I haven't time to listen to what old Featherfew thinks," said Johnny Know-all rudely and then relented, bade his wife a civil good-bye, and pedalled off on his bicycle.

  On the strength of the message produced for his information by young Belcher, the milk-boy, P.C. Mee hadn't worried much about the absence of Finloe Oates. He'd heard about Oates becoming a recluse shortly after his wife's death. Well . . . he'd a right to his grief in peace, hadn't he? He'd get over it. He'd told one or two busybodies who'd wanted him to investigate matters at Shenandoah that. Leave 'im in peace with his memories and his sorrow. He'll get over it. And he'd been right. Oates had gone off for a holiday to the South of France. Or, that was where P.C. Mee imagined him, sporting on the beach with the pretty bathing girls like they showed on the advert. at the station. Maybe, Oates had seen the advert. for Nice on the station. Yes, that was it. Provided the bungalow was secured, hadn't been burgled, or set on fire, P.C. Mee thought he'd no cause to interfere. Besides, Johnny Know-all didn't miss much in his village. No, sir. He'd tell the Super a thing or two in his report. Returning from night patrol on his bike at five o'clock one morning, he'd seen Mr. Oates on his way to the station to catch the first train. You have to get an early train when you're going abroad from Netherby. . . . He'd shone his light on him. . . . Mr. Oates in his big coat and soft hat with his limp, too. . . . When the milk-boy told P.C. Mee, he'd been able to say "Yes, I know. . . ."

  Still pondering his case, P.C. Mee parked his bike at the gate of the bungalow. Funny, Mr. Oates hadn't told him properly, though. Always before, when Mr. and Mrs. Oates had been going away for a day or two, Oates had telephoned to say the house would be empty and if anything happened . . . well . . . Mee knew where the key was. . . .

  P.C. Mee boldly approached the rockery at the side of the house. Beneath one of the large stones was the hiding-place known only to the Oateses and Mee. He raised the rock, peered in the cavity, and brushed away a couple of woodlice and a centipede. Nothing there. Mee was annoyed. He moved a few more rocks without success. At this rate he'd shift the whole rockery! He rose and dusted the soil from his hands and knees. Funny; yet perhaps not. Poor old Oates had taken it on the chin when his wife died. Everybody in the village was sorry for him. The bobby looked round to see that nobody was looking and then carefully put the rocks back in their holes. Then he made no more ado, but took out a large clasp knife, opened it, went straight to a certain window and forced the catch with great ease. He'd done it once before when the Oateses went away and left the cat in. After that, they'd hidden the key for him, just in case. Mee winked to himself and climbed in.