Death in Dark Glasses (Inspector Littlejohn)

by George Bellairs

  "Anything wrong?"

  "No, Len. This is Inspector Littlejohn from Scotland Yard. He's called about Lysander Oates, who seems to have vanished into thin air, taking with him ten thousand pounds of his brother's money which he paid to credit on forged endorsements. . . ."

  "Crikey! I beg pardon . . . dear me!"

  "We're trying to lay him by the heels as quickly as possible, Mr. O'Brien, and recover the funds. Mr. Macgreggor wants to ask you if you dealt with Oates about some foreign currency before he left."

  "You mean, he bolted abroad? No; he didn't come to us for funds."

  "Thanks. We won't keep you, Len. . . ."

  "Cheer up, Mr. Macgreggor. Things'll turn out all right. . . ."

  "I hope so, Len. . . ."

  O'Brien gave his manager a comforting, affectionate pat on the shoulder and left them.

  "I think that's all for the time being, sir. It looks as if Mr. Lysander Oates won't be doing much banking with you again. He's hardly likely to call to draw his balance now."

  "No; nor to claim his Will, as far as I can see. . . ."

  "His Will?"

  "Yes; we hold a sealed envelope here in safe custody for him. It's marked 'Will' on the cover."

  "That would be interesting. I don't suppose I could borrow it?"

  Littlejohn smiled a wry smile; Macgreggor smiled back.

  "Hardly. Our authority doesn't extend to that, even for the police. Mind you, I think in his hurry he forgot all about his Will and it's likely to stay here till it rots away. But that doesn't make much difference; I can't help you there."

  "What had I better do about it, then? It's vital that we see that Will. It may give us a valuable clue."

  "I can only suggest one thing; there's the name of a solicitor on the outside of the envelope, I'm sure. It looks as if it was done in a lawyer's office, sealed there and brought straight here. Just a minute, I'll get it up."

  Macgreggor hurried out, leaving Littlejohn alone in the room. If only for the young banker's sake, he felt he must do something about tracking down Lysander Oates and recovering as much of the stolen funds as possible. He felt he would like to write a letter to the Home Counties head office and tell them how useful their Pimlico manager had been and to suspend judgment until later. But they didn't need a Scotland Yard Inspector to tell them that; they were wise enough to know it without. Littlejohn was looking at a framed photograph on the mantelpiece when Macgreggor returned.

  "My wife and two boys," he said, indicating a pleasant smiling woman with a boy of about five on one side and a three-year-old on the other. "I'm worried, Inspector. . . ."

  "Keep your chin up. We'll soon have whoever did it."

  "The package, sir. Here it is."

  A blue, foolscap envelope, endorsed "Lysander Oates. WILL." On the flap of the cover: "Mathieson, Curtiss, Leader and Mathieson, Gedge Court, S.W.1."

  "They're sure to have a copy, sir. I'd call there, if I were you. Quite decent people. Mention my name if you like."

  "Thanks, Mr. Macgreggor. You've been very helpful and remember, if I can be of any help, let me know at once. I'm even prepared to call on your General Manager and put your case in its proper perspective, if you need me! It's one big mistake, not just an isolated episode at the Home Counties Bank, Pimlico, and when the whole is solved, you'll be all right, I'm sure. . . ."

  Macgreggor's voice was quite husky when he spoke again.

  "Awfully decent of you. I'll not fail to let you know if I need your help. Meanwhile, anything more I can do?"

  "Just one thing. Have you any specimens of Lysander Oates's writing, sir. And, come to think of it, of Gamaliel's as well. This is a forgery case, you see, and if we can get samples of the writing of all concerned . . . Not just signatures, I mean, but a fair and varied sample."

  "I think I can help. Gamaliel travels about a bit and writes now and then for money to be sent by post. And we'll have the letters Mr. Oates sent with the drafts he paid in. Excuse me."

  The manager went off again and returned after a minute or two with two sheets of paper; one bearing a sample of Oates's hand and the other of Gamaliel's. The first was done in a neat, educated hand, almost that of a scholar whose studies have turned his style to Greek lettering. Gamaliel's was aslant and sprawling, as if he'd written it with his head resting on his left arm and driven the pen along without much care about how or what he was writing.

  "Gamaliel's a shocking fist, hasn't he?"

  "Dreadful. . . ."

  Littlejohn pocketed the specimens and the banker saw him to the door.

  "Good-bye and thanks. And don't forget, Mr. Macgreggor. If you need me . . . "

  "I won't forget. If I can do anything, let me know. . . . "

  Gedge Court was one of those amazing little jewels tucked away in the heart of Pimlico among tall, ugly houses. A passage and then a courtyard surrounded by plane trees, a garden in the centre, and a fishpond and sundial to round it all off. Golden carp were lying idly in the water. They looked hundreds of years old and, together with Gedge Court, had survived bombs, V.1s and V.2S and the rest of Nazi devilry throughout the war. Littlejohn found the plate of the firm of lawyers who had been there in practice as family solicitors since the days when Pimlico with its wealth kept a multitude of prosperous partners busy every day.

  There wasn't a single remaining Mathieson, Curtiss, Leader or other Mathieson in the firm. Instead, Mr. Wilmott Hazlett bore on his narrow, humped shoulders the burden of the lot. He looked busy when the inky junior ushered Littlejohn in the lawyer's office. Japanned boxes, filing cabinets and stacks of old documents littered the place. The table, which was large enough to hold a whole board of directors, was stacked high with parchments and conveyances of all kinds; they even hung over the edges like laundry out to dry. One wall was full of law books and in odd patches on the dirty walls hung framed and flyblown pictures of dead and gone lawyers and painted caricatures of men in legal wigs and gowns. Frowning down on the lot, a lithograph of Blackstone. In the midst of all this mess sat Mr. Hazlett, a small space cleared before him to enable him to manipulate a pen or fumble with a document. A few chairs, leaking horsehair, scattered here and there, reminded you that the many partners, gone, but not forgotten on the doorplate and stationery, must surely have risen from them for the last time æons ago, and since then they had not been sat upon. . . .

  "Good morning. . . . Whatissit?"

  Mr. Hazlett was small, slightly humpbacked from bending myopically over deeds and briefs, and he had the complexion of a corpse. His bony body looked like a skeleton clad in black, his stiff white hair reared from his pate like a shaving brush, and he wore white spats.

  "Whatissit?"

  Like the hiss of a cobra.

  But Mr. Hazlett wasn't all that bad. Although nearly sixty, he still liked a game of tennis; the rattle of his bones on such occasions must have been terrifying. He was unmarried and the favourite uncle of a large number of pretty nieces. He also wrote theatrical criticisms under another name for a prominent daily and he had broadcast under his pseudonym in a Brains Trust and put the rest of his team to shame by his erudition.

  Littlejohn told the lawyer why he had called.

  "Oh. . . ."

  It was a cry of wonder and relish.

  "He! So Lysander's vanished, has he? I knew that one day he'd do something very adventurous. Did you ever meet him? No? Pity. Would have made a good sea captain. Short, stocky, good chin and blue eyes that seemed to be scanning far horizons. Do I sound melodramatic? Forgive me, Inspector. I mustn't waste your time."

  "You're not, sir. Please go on. . . . "

  Lysander Oates was taking shape at last.

  "Had a brother. Seen from behind, they were as like as two peas in a pod. Front view, however, much better in Lysander. I knew them in the old days. Did their bits of legal work. Finloe was mean-faced. Eyes too close set. . . . What do you want?"

  "Did you make a Will for Lysander, sir?"

  "I drew one up, y
es. Why?"

  "The original's in the Home Counties Bank and, therefore, inaccessible. I'd like to know how the Will runs. It may prove a valuable help in tracing Mr. Lysander."

  "In what way?"

  "We might have a word with any beneficiaries, sir. Those to whom he left his money may have been close to him, you know."

  "H'm. Ahem. Bit irregular. All the same, I'm an officer of the Court and I must help all I can. I'll tell you the contents, although you can't see the copy. That would be going too far. The contents run roughly like this. . . ."

  Mr. Hazlett reeled them off from his marvellous storehouse of memories. It had been his undoing as a broadcaster, because, after all, he'd been supposed to be a member of a team, but had proved a talking encyclopædia, which made his fellow-brains-trusters very peevish.

  ". . . First of all, five hundred pounds to his old friend, Nellie Forty. Know who she is?"

  "Yes; I heard all about her yesterday. An old family servant."

  "That's right. Nellie was seventy-five last October and married Forty in 1914. She . . . But there, this is getting us nowhere. . . . Next: One hundred pounds to a certain Mortimer Gamaliel, bookseller, of Risk Street, Pimlico. . . . To enable him to buy himself a Chinese set of chessmen in ivory in memory of their games of chess together. In May, 1948, Gamaliel became involved in a risky business of selling fake masters, Cezanne and Van Gogh, and narrowly escaped prison. . . . But that's irrelevant. . . ."

  A young lady entered in response to a hidden bell.

  "Bring in the sherry, please, Miss Minter. You must have a taste of my sherry, Inspector. Excellent. Stop me if I start to talk wines. I'm a terrible old gasbag. . . . Where were we? Next, five hundred pounds to my lifelong friend, Theodore Hunt, schoolmaster and bachelor of science, of Bishop's Walton, Yorkshire. They were contemporaries at school. I remember Oates telling me when we drew up the Will, that they often spent holidays together. Hunt is not only a bachelor of science, but also a bachelor in the matrimonial sense, shall we say. He lives with an epileptic sister who has, I believe, been a great trouble to him. It has prevented him from marrying and kept him out of the world in a quiet school . . . a preparatory institution. He not only teaches and claims a good share of scholarships for his boys, but writes sermons for illiterate clergy and essays for the loftier reviews. He has also made several unsuccessful attempts at novel writing. I gather his masterpieces were too erudite for the vulgar reader. But there I go again. I would see Mr. Hunt, if I were you. No need to fear his sister. She is afflicted by what is called petit mal, not grand mal. Which means she does not suffer from the more dreadful forms of fits, but from black-outs during which times she is unaware of what she is doing and when she recovers, doesn't know she's had 'em. A terrible tie for Hunt. And again . . ."

  Here Mr. Hazlett lowered his voice and had the air of imparting a mysterious secret to Littlejohn.

  "And again . . . such blackouts are sometimes the features of homicidal mania! Crimes are committed, crimes of the most horrible, crafty and violent kind . . . all with the perpetrator unaware of what he or she is doing. . . . Terrible!"

  Mr. Hazlett pulled himself together and his eyes sparkled again. There was an excited, malevolent look in them, like that of a vindictive old gossip.

  "Lastly: Residue . . . not to his brother as you'd expect, but to his sister-in-law, Marion Mankelow Oates; failing her, to his brother, and failing the pair of them, to endow a bed in the Pimlico Hospital in memory of Marion Mankelow Oates. And as he said that, Lysander whimsically remarked, that he wished she'd taken the Oates from him, instead of from Finloe. . . . "

  He cackled and then grew solemn.

  "Lysander Oates loved his brother's wife, you see. They both wanted her but that narrow-eyed Finloe got her. No accounting for women's tastes, is there? Never married myself. I'm scared to death of women!"

  They sipped their sherry and Littlejohn praised the wine.

  "Knew you'd like it. Don't let me get talking about it or you'll be here all day. If I've told you all you need, you'd better go. I've work to do and with a kindred spirit at my elbow, I'll never finish."

  He caught Littlejohn glancing down into the courtyard from the tall, narrow window of the room.

  "Nice spot, isn't it? Wonder to me how it missed the bombing. Narrow escape once or twice. I remember one night when I was fire-watching I thought we'd have boiled-fish from the pond there next morning. Incendiaries. . . . Better go. I can't stop my flow of reminiscences if there's anybody here to listen. Good day, Inspector. I'll know all about you now whenever I read of your cases in the newspapers. You're fifty, live in Hampstead, near the Heath, married, no children, born near the Lakes, in Lancashire, educated local grammar school and Manchester Police Force, very highly thought of by the Commissioner at Scotland Yard and, I may say in confidence, by the Home Secretary. Likely to go far. . . . "

  "Really. . . ."

  "Ever read Sherlock Holmes?"

  "Yes, sir. . . ."

  "So do I. But I didn't deduce all that. I was interested in your handling of the Blow case at Nesbury and looked you up. I have my ways of finding out. . . . "

  "So I gather. . . ."

  "And now, be off. I'm taking my niece to the Haymarket later to a first night and I've no time to waste on trifles. Good day, Inspector."

  And before Littlejohn was half-way down the stairs, Mr. Hazlett was totally immersed in trying to prevent a butcher of Devonshire from suing a bishop for slander.

  6

  THE BARMAID AT THE NAKED MAN

  THE Rodley police were obviously relieved when Littlejohn and Cromwell arrived there to take over the case. Montacute wrung their hands until they both winced.

  "I'm glad to see you both. This is a pretty kettle of fish and no mistake. The thing's boiled over properly since I wrote to you. I've just got the post-mortem on Finloe Oates and, believe it or not, the odds are he died a natural death. What do you think of that?"

  Although it was a hot day, the private office was dark and cool and all the bluebottles in Rodley seemed to have sought refuge in it. They kept buzzing round and beating themselves against the window-panes. Now and then, Montacute raised a large hand and flailed it round his head uselessly to drive them off.

  "You can always tell when there's a body in the mortuary, next door," he said cheerfully.

  Across the square you could see the fine town hall set in an avenue of trees and green lawns, with Silvesters' Bank right opposite on an ideal site. Mr. de Lacy was looking through the window wondering when he might receive another attack from the police. He regarded their present quiet as ominous.

  "Will the pair of you be staying here, because, if so, I'd better . . . ?"

  "I don't think so, sir. This case doesn't seem centralised in Rodley and there's a quick service to London and plenty of trains."

  "That's right. And now that's settled, I'll tell you what's happened since I reported to you. As I said, the doctors think Finloe Oates died of a heart attack. His corpse was a pretty mess when they got at it, after being in a sort of old tanpit for months, but they say there didn't seem to be much superficial damage. His heart, however, was in fearful shape and it's as likely as not, he received some shock or other and died. It looks as though, let's say, Lysander and he had a struggle and Finloe's heart gave out. Then, Lysander got wind-up and hid the body."

  "Or else, if he knew of Finloe's money, he hid the body, rather than report it, and set about obtaining his brother's little nest-egg for himself. Finloe mustn't have remembered Lysander in his Will, Montacute, so Lysander wouldn't report his brother's death and let the law dispense the legacies. . . . By the way, did Finloe leave a Will?"

  "He made one, but wrote to the bank for it, or rather, Lysander wrote for it. The letter went to the bank asking for it to be posted to Netherby, which it was, before Lysander started liquidating Finloe's fortune. So, what you say is right. Lysander first found out where the money was going, must have seen he didn't inherit, so st
arted to help himself."

  "Wasn't there a copy of the Will anywhere? Say in the house, or in some local solicitor's office?"

  "We've combed the town. No solicitor in Rodley drew it up. We can't think where to look now."

  "I may be able to help. May I use your phone?"

  "Whatissit?"

  Mr. Hazlett was in his office in Gedge Court when Littlejohn got the call. The Inspector could imagine him, with his shock of shaving-brush hair, fumbling and rooting among the tremendous mass of papers on the large table.

  "Oh, hello, Inspector. What are you after again?"

  Yes; Mathieson & Co. had been Finloe's solicitors, too. In fact, the lawyers for the Oates brood for generations. Mr. Hazlett hadn't thought to mention it at the time.

  ". . . That will be simpler than Lysander's behest. Quite simple. I have a copy here and we added a codicil about eighteen months ago. Where's the original?"

  "That's been withdrawn from the bank, and presumably burned. Whoever occupied the bungalow after Mr. Finloe's death seems to have burned everything, family photographs, too. . . ."

  "At first, Finloe left all he had to his wife, with one exception. He added a codicil bequeathing one thousand pounds to a certain Florence Judson of Netherby. After his wife's death, he almost at once added another codicil, pending his call to check a new draft I was preparing. This time he left ALL to sweet Florence, whoever she may be."

  "Is that all, sir?"

  "I hope so . . . I hope so. . . ."

  Florence, or rather Florrie Judson! Montacute almost fainted! He took a drink of water from a carafe on the table and then announced that Florrie was the barmaid at the Naked Man, the village inn at Netherby.

  "We'd better have a word with Florrie," said Montacute. "But first, let me tell you something else. It's about the forgeries. You'd left the Yard after the report came through. From the specimens of Lysander Oates's writing you got, they say that the three drafts on London and the insurance cheque were endorsed, they think, by Lysander."

  "What did they say about the specimen of Gamaliel's writing?"