That was one way of looking at it. Littlejohn couldn't help comparing in his mind the different ways various people looked at the Oates brothers. To Nellie they were little heroes, kindness itself. To Flo Judson, Finloe was a sort of knight errant; to Hazlett, he was mean. Lysander was a nice man to Mrs. Kewley at the flats; Gamaliel saw him as a killer and was scared to death of him. His bank manager considered him respectable!
Littlejohn felt handicapped in the interview. Mrs. Forty was old and living in the past. To talk about one brother robbing the other seemed almost profane in the face of her belief in them and her memories of the days when the Oateses were all together and she was happy to serve them. Her old face looked like one of those figures carved in wood, immobile, serene, patient. She sat facing Littlejohn, happy to talk about the boys she had reared, resolute in her faith that they could do no wrong.
"I'll make us some tea."
Nellie had taken to Littlejohn and wanted to please him. She waved aside his protests, levered herself from her chair, and toddled into the lean-to kitchen. The kettle must have been on the boil, for in record time she was back with a teapot, tea-things and some homemade cake, all nicely arranged on a tray. She had been brought up in the true below-stairs fashion of other days. Neat, courteous, knowing her place.
"Like it strong?"
"There was another chap, too, who was sweet on Marion. . . ."
Over the teacups, Nellie expanded. She seemed to take up the tale from a string of reminiscences silently running through her mind.
"His name was Hunt. A special friend of Mr. Lysander's. He taught at a school near where we lived. Used to come to the house. Marion was always in and out and Mr. Hunt—Theo, they called him—was crazy about her. Used to eat her up with his eyes, if you know what I mean. . . ."
Another of them! Gamaliel would be in it next! All the characters in this sorry tale seemed to have been ex-admirers of the late Mrs. Finloe.
Outside in the shed, the rag-and-bone man kept comforting his donkey. "That's my girl. . . ."
"That's Mr. Jealous, the ragman, sorting out his rags and bones and old iron. He rents the stables my husband once had. Talks to that donkey of his for hours on end as he works. Not that Violet isn't almost 'uman, but it sounds that funny. . . . "
"What was I saying? Oh yes . . . Theo Hunt. He hadn't a chance, even if Marion 'ad liked 'im. Such a poor lot, his family. Father died and left Theo to support his mother and a sister who was a bit queer. Then, when his mother died, he was left with his sister to do for. Terrible time, he had. If she didn't get her own way, she had hysterics and threatened to do away with herself. Proper burden to him. He left with her and took a place in a quiet spot up north and we never saw him again. I never liked him, though. Sarcastic spoken, bitter, as you might say. Not without good reasons, I've no doubt, but I never liked the way he looked down his nose at me as though I was a common servant, instead of nearly one of the family. . . . "
Littlejohn sipped his second cup of tea and ate his second slab of Nellie's home-made cake. He let her talk on, giving him more background of the Oateses and their circle.
"Did Lysander do well, Mrs. Forty?"
"Not bad, as far as I could gather. He used to tell me quite open in his letters how things was with him. He was makin' quite a passable livin' from paintin' posters, I think it was. Finloe, of course, made his money somewhere abroad. They neither of them wanted much."
"Did Marion go abroad with Finloe?"
"No. . . . Oh, didn't I tell you? My memory's that bad. Finloe and her was engaged, but Finloe, who was in business in the city, went bankrupt in the slump and they couldn't get married. Or, at least, Finloe wouldn't. It was broken off and Finloe went abroad. Marion waited for 'im, in spite of all the offers she got, and they married after he got back. Made 'is money pretty quick, I believe. Land buyin' somewhere. . . . I told Finloe what I thought of him, goin' off like that and leaving Marion. As I got older, I sort of became a second mother to the boys. I told them what I liked and they came to me for advice."
"And very wise, too, I would think."
"Well, I was the only woman they could talk to. A man needs a woman's advice sometimes. Other men aren't half as good as a woman with experience, and I say it without boasting, I've had plenty of that. What with Forty nearly goin' broke himself and me havin' to turn-to and be a sort of stable-boy because we couldn't afford to pay one, and drivin' the carts around. And then, poor Forty got cancer and lingered on for nearly two years with me nursing him night and day. I know a bit about life by this, Mr. Littlejohn."
"I'm sure you do, Mrs. Forty."
She collected the tea-things and removed the tray to the lean-to again. Outside, the rag-and-bone man was leading off his little fat donkey hitched to a little cart on another round of collecting. "Come on, Vi'let, come on. That's my girl, that's my Vi'let."
"He's lost his wife and his son's missin' in Korea. All he's got left is Violet. Without 'er, he'd go mad, I'm sure."
"Have you had anyone around lately inquiring about Finloe and Lysander, Mrs. Forty?"
"Nobody particular. . . . There was a sloppy sort of fat man round the other week, though. Looked ready to drop dead of a heart attack. He asked if I knew where Lysander was. He wanted to send him some money and Lysander had left his old address. He looked more like a broker's-man to me, so I said I didn't. Which was true."
"That sounds like Mr. Gamaliel. I wonder what he was after."
"What name did you say?"
"Gamaliel. . . ."
"That's it. He left his card. Asked if I'd let him know if I heard from Lysander. I forgot it. . . ."
Nellie thrust two fingers inside a toby jug on the mantelpiece and drew out a piece of pasteboard.
M. Gamaliel,
Bookseller.
9b. Risk Street, S.W.1.
So, Gamaliel was on Lysander's track, too.
"I didn't like his looks at all. . . . Slimy. . . ."
"I've heard of him. . . ."
As Littlejohn was thanking Nellie Forty for the nice tea and bidding her good-bye, Cromwell was sick visiting at Pimlico Hospital. They'd taken Mr. Gamaliel there after his collapse and the doctors said his heart was so bad he'd be detained for some time at the government's expense. This, it appeared, suited the bookseller, who, for some reason, was scared for his life.
"He'll get over it in time, but it's obvious he's been under severe strain for a considerable period," the matron told Cromwell. "You can see him for five minutes, but don't get him excited."
Gamaliel was in the public ward, which was a great relief to him. All he wanted was plenty of people about him. His nerve had completely given way. There were screens around the next bed and a parson furtively passed behind them.
Everybody else among the visitors was carrying flowers and presents for the sick in the ward. Cromwell smiled grimly to himself as he followed the nurse to Gamaliel's bedside. The thought of taking a bunch of carnations to the bookseller was very funny indeed!
"Well?" he said to the bookseller. "How do you feel?"
Gamaliel groaned.
"I'm awful. . . . I shan't be out of here for some time, they tell me. Suits me. The boy next door is looking after the shop. I've worked hard all my life and I've earned a rest, especially now it's free. . . . "
He tried to smile, but failed miserably.
"You're scared, Gamaliel, aren't you? What about? Lysander Oates surely doesn't hate you that much. Besides, he's vanished. Nothing to fear there now."
Gamaliel was too weak to argue.
"I don't know where he is, but he's out for me, I know. I didn't tell you, but two days ago, a brick fell off the top of my building within six inches of my head. I'd have been killed if it had hit me. You might say it was an accident . . . but after I told the landlord the roof was dangerous and he'd straight away had it examined, another brick fell and just missed me. I got coming and going through the back window. It wasn't safe through the door. . . . "
Cromwell smiled. The vision of the flabby man in the bed scrambling over the sash every time he wanted to leave or enter his shop struck him as comic.
"Oh, you can laugh. . . . But I'm staying here as long as I can . . . I've had enough of Risk Street for a bit. I couldn't sleep at night for it. . . ."
An evangelical sick-visitor was travelling from bed to bed dropping a cheery word on his way.
"How are you to-day, friend?" he said to Gamaliel.
"I'm bad," said the bookseller, apparently anxious to convince everybody that he'd better remain there indefinitely.
"Cheer up. . . . We'll soon have you well and out again. You'll be seeing quite a lot of me and if there's anything I can do . . . Any friend you'd like to visit you . . . ?"
Mr. Gamaliel groaned. Cromwell, who seemed in quite a merry mood among all the cheerful patients and nurses, almost asked the reverend to send Lysander Oates to visit Mr. Gamaliel, but thought perhaps the joke would be out of place or produce a relapse.
"Well . . . I'm glad to find you better. . . ."
"I feel bad. . . ."
"Anything you'd like?"
"Yes; tell that blasted painter he's fired. Spying on me all the time and blew the gaff about the revolver. I'll get even with him for that. . . . "
"I thought you were bad. Better not get excited."
Mr. Gamaliel closed his eyes and pretended to be exhausted.
"Keep an eye on him," Cromwell told the nurse. "He's scared stiff of something. I'll call again."
"I'm going north to see Hunt," Littlejohn told Cromwell when they met again at the Yard. "I'm getting tired of all these red-herrings. Forgery, bank swindles, bricks falling on people, family secrets, Lysander out gunning for Gamaliel. We're just wasting time. What we want is to find Lysander Oates and get his story. I've a queer feeling that he's dead, though. . . ."
"Why?"
"He had a partner in this business and ten thousand pounds is a lot of money. Very tempting bait. It might have ended as a huge swindle and little else if only Fish-lock hadn't poked his nose in the house just as the criminal was there and busy. He had to be silenced, and now, it's murder . . . Lysander has either gone very successfully to ground or else he's dead."
"What about the bricks somebody tried to throw at Gamaliel?"
"Gamaliel either knows something he won't talk about, or else he's unwittingly stumbled across something the murderer thinks will betray him. On the other hand, the bricks might have fallen through decayed mortar and force of gravity. . . . "
"When are you going to see Hunt?"
"Now. And whilst I'm away, you might go back to Netherby and just knock around the place and see what you can gather. Try the station and the local bobby. P.C. Mee . . . that's his name, and don't make jokes on it. He resents it strongly. . . ."
8
DALBAY HALL SCHOOL
LITTLEJOHN took the main-line train to York, changed there to the local branch and, after about two hours of slow, ever-stopping travel, arrived at Bishop's Walton. There was a small station at Dalbay Hall which would have been more convenient for his purpose, but it opened only at the beginning and end of school term when boys and their boxes made up the traffic to Dalbay Hall School.
Bishop's Walton was a small compact market town with a single High Street of respectable shops and behind them a mass of small tidy workers' cottages. A fine church, a few gaunt barren dissenting chapels, a basket works, and a factory which processed for the hat trade the skins of rabbits caught on the local heath and moors. The country was wide sweeping and undulating, the houses were of stone, the town was in a saucer of hills and heath, and rheumatism was prevalent.
Dalbay Hall, the famous preparatory school, was two miles from Bishop's Walton, but the town was not out of bounds. The number of tuckshops and outfitters testified that the tradesmen thrived on the scholastic industry. There were a lot of boys about when Littlejohn left the station. Some had purple caps with yellow stripes; others, presumably the élite, were either without hats, which was forbidden, wearing sporting scarlet caps, which denoted a prefecture, or flaunting boaters of straw, the sign of the senior. The boaters regarded the caps with contempt and ate in special tuckshops whence the small fry were excluded. The purple tie of the school was the law, but certain blades removed these and replaced them by flamboyant articles of the prevailing American fashion when they came to town. They also ogled and flirted with the girls of a feminine counterpart of Dalbay Hall, although fraternising with the opposite sex was strictly proscribed by each establishment.
It had not been very hard to find out where Theodore Hunt was employed. A scholastic agency had done the trick and now Littlejohn was on his trail. Presumably Hunt lived out of school with his eccentric sister. The Inspector took a taxi and set off in search of him.
The well-known headmaster, "C. K. B."—Charles Kingsley Bompass—frowned hard at Littlejohn's card. The Head was only forty-five but he looked sixty. His hair was white, he stooped scholastically, he was tall and thin, his eyes were like cold steel and his lips thin and mobile. He believed in discipline, self-discipline, if possible; otherwise forced medicine. He disliked the police because he regarded them as meddlers in what did not concern them. He had been prosecuted twice for flogging. Mr. Bompass, therefore, looked down his nose at Littlejohn's name, tightened his lips, prepared to do battle in the cause of discipline and the birch, and said he would see him.
Mr. Bompass was a bit put-out when Littlejohn entered. He expected a man in a bowler hat which he would not remove and here, if you please, was a gentleman who looked like the parent of a prospective student of Dalbay Hall. He met Littlejohn half-way between the door and his large magisterial desk, as though eager to sweep him out into the passage as soon as he entered.
"Good afternoon. You wanted to see me, Inspector. I'm a busy man. Term-end, you know. . . ."
"I won't keep you then, sir. I wanted to ask you about a member of your staff, Mr. Hunt."
"Ah, Hunt. . . . What of him? He hasn't been criminally misbehaving, I hope."
Mr. Bompass whinnied at his own joke. As a rule, when Bompass whinnied, they all whinnied. He put down Littlejohn as quite devoid of sense of humour from the start.
"Hunt has been at the school quite a long time. In fact, he served under my late father, my predecessor as Head. Absolutely reliable, undoubted integrity, a good fellow; I can assure you on that point."
Littlejohn might have been asking for a scholastic testimonial.
"I wanted to see you on rather a delicate matter, sir. I would ask your discretion and co-operation."
Mr. Bompass looked alarmed this time. All kinds of heinous thoughts crossed his mind. Deception, crime, vice, they all passed through his brain in a kind of pictorial procession.
"Good heavens! Not . . . Not . . ."
Littlejohn had no idea what the Head was fending-off from his school, but he denied it.
"No, sir. Not that!"
"Good. Good. Pray sit down."
As a sign of his relief, Mr. Bompass was going to be polite and co-operative.
"Tell me all about it, Inspector."
Mr. Bompass used the tone he employed to little transgressing boys. Any one of them could have told Littlejohn to beware. You told all; then you got a licking.
Littlejohn looked Bompass in the eyes. The man was scared of him! Why? And then, in a flash of intuition, he saw it all. The school was famous for its successes. The man before him might be a good organiser, with his thin lips and steely eyes, now flickering with doubt and fear, but he was no scholar, certainly no schoolmaster. He depended on others for that. Hunt was Bompass's trump card. Forced to live in retreat because of his sister's infirmity, yet reputed to be a first-class pedagogue. Just the man for the school. Bompass was scared lest the police should deprive him of his good investment, his Hunt.
"An old friend of Mr. Hunt's is missing. I would like to see him and ask if he knows anything about him, sir."
"Is that all . . .?"
The headmaster uttered it on the breath of a great sigh of relief. He strolled to his desk and sat down there, surrounded by what appeared to be reports, account-books, sample text-books and, strangest of all, an assorted pile of cheap, soft-backed novels and strip-cartoon magazines. Every now and then, Mr. Bompass made a raid on the boys' quarters and gathered together their favourite, yet banned, reading matter. Here were Westerns, school tales, Sexton Blakes, Deadwood Dicks and Buffalo Bills, gangsters, and—horrible to contemplate—certain spicy paper-backs with pictures of seductive, half-naked adventuresses, molls and innocents, stark on their covers. Each piece of loot was endorsed with the name of its owner. . . . Johnson, minor; Smith, J. B., Curtiss ii; and, on the naked bosom of the most unctuous blonde, tied to a chair in panties and brassiere, was written the name: Goodfellow, minor. . . .
"Is that all . . . ?"
"Not quite. . . ."
The Head's face jerked with more apprehension.
"We want to know where all the missing man's friends were at certain vital periods in a case we are investigating. A case of murder. . . . "
"What? Surely not Hunt! A mild, one might say, innocuous man."
"Most murderers start by being that. All the same, it's merely routine, sir."
"Very well. What do you wish to know?"
"I'd like to see Mr. Hunt, if I may."
Mr. Bompass swam the breast-stroke in thin air with his arms.
"Not here. Not here, please. Call to see him at home. Hunt's domestic arrangements don't permit his living in the school or acting as housemaster. He lives in the town. You'll find him after school, say after seven-thirty, at his house in Abbott's Walk . . . Number five. . . ."
"Thank you. That will suit me, sir. Now, as regards the movements of Mr. Hunt, perhaps you can help me."
"I'll do all I can. I'm sure they were quite harmless. He's a very good fellow. . . . A bit hamstrung by his sick sister, but an excellent master. A very clever man, but, as I said, frustrated by family troubles. Need I say more?"
"About the dates, sir. Was Mr. Hunt at school all the Easter term?"
"Certainly. Had he been absent, I would have known. In fact, he even stayed on during half-term break to take charge of boys who didn't go home. The boys returned on January 15th for Easter term, which ended, this year, on April 15th."
Death in Dark Glasses (Inspector Littlejohn) Page 8