The Body in the Dumb River

by George Bellairs

  Two men turned to greet them. The building had been cleaned up and tidied. Along one wall, a couple of old-fashioned vats had been left from the days when they made home brew there, and a large porcelain sink which had obviously just been in use. Whitewashed walls and a stone floor. Overhead, a large electric bulb threw a dazzling light on the trestle table beneath it. The body of the dead man was lying on the table covered by a sheet.

  Both doctors had washed and changed after their examination and were smoking cigarettes. One of them, the police surgeon, was elderly and squat, with a mop of unruly white hair and a healthy pink face. The other, a pathologist, was in formal black jacket and grey trousers, dark and sleek-haired. He looked like a corpse himself.

  They all shook hands.

  The elder of the two apologised for what might have seemed undue haste in getting down to work.

  ‘When it was reported by the coroner’s officer, I said we’d better get on with the job right away. So, I got Harkness up and we made a start. If this rain persists and there’s widespread flooding in the district, travel from place to place will be difficult. Besides, there’ll be other work for doctors to be doing for the living, without dealing with the dead.’

  The attendant policemen were packing the doctors’ bags and whispering together in a corner, as though the funeral had begun already. The younger doctor was obviously eager to be getting away. He couldn’t keep still. He walked up and down as though anxiously waiting for someone, and now and then nervously rubbed his palms together. The elder was more composed. He acted as spokesman.

  ‘A stab in the back. Might have been done with a butcher’s knife or something similar. It passed through the heart. Quite a healthy man, though not used to hard work. Nor, I’d think, capable of much physical endurance. I’d guess he was attacked; there are bruises on the body which indicate rough handling. Of course, the debris in the water might have caused some abrasions and contusions, but we both think that, apart from that, he’d had a rough-house from someone. The bruises were, in our view, inflicted whilst he was alive. It’s a bit difficult to be precise about the time he died on account of his immersion in the river. He’d eaten a meal of corned beef and tomatoes not long before his death. Probably some time Sunday night or early Monday morning. He was dead when he reached the water. The state of the lungs proves that.’

  Harkness was getting anxious. He put on his hat and raincoat and struggled into his gumboots.

  ‘I really must be going.’

  He sounded like a castaway eager to get back to civilisation.

  ‘I want some sleep. If this damned rain keeps it up, we’ll have a few sleepless nights before we’ve finished.’

  ‘Take a look at the body, then, Superintendent. As Harkness says, we’d better be off.’

  The body was naked. The tête-à-tête between Littlejohn and James Lane was very brief. The Superintendent was aware of the sutured incisions without even looking at them. There was a patch of plaster here and there and neat livid lines where the scalpels had cut their way and the needles neatly finished it.

  The victim was not as large as Littlejohn had imagined. Not the fairground type at all. A little man, lightly built, white-fleshed, small-boned. More like a clerk or a modest shopkeeper. Bony, too. Almost undernourished and flat-chested.

  The eyes were closed. The hair was fair, turning grey over the temples. It had been closely cut and was strong and bristling. A good forehead and a large nose with a narrow, firm chin. The pale lips were thin and the mouth wide.

  Littlejohn gently replaced the sheet. By some strange flight of imagination, he imagined Lane’s companions of the fairground calling him ‘Little Jim’.

  The doctors left them, and they could hear them splashing across the courtyard and then shunting their cars about and driving off.

  ‘Did Lane wear spectacles, Diss?’

  Diss raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I noticed a red mark across the bridge of his nose.’

  ‘Yes, he did. I remember last time I saw him on the fairground a year ago, he had them on. He took them off, too, to clean them, and his eyes were so deep-set, he looked a completely different chap without them. He peered about him, too, as though he were half-blind with them off. He must have had weak eyes, because he wore sunglasses clipped over his spectacles, although it wasn’t sunny. He’d no glasses on when they brought the body in. If he had them knocked off in a fight, he’d be severely handicapped, I’m sure.’

  ‘How was he dressed?’

  ‘He was by way of being a bit of a dandy. We’ve put his things to dry in the pub. They were a sorry mess after being immersed in the river. But he had on the same suit he wore when I saw him here before. A kind of grey light-woollen cloth with a pretty loud check pattern. And he wore a soft shirt of the non-iron sort and a silk bow-tie. He’d a natty tweed hat on, too, as a rule. More like an artist than a fair-man. I’d say he was a cut above the average fairground johnny.’

  ‘What was his line?’

  ‘Rather a degrading catch-penny affair for a man of his type. A game called hoop-la. You throw rings over objects like cheap china ornaments, gimcrack jewellery, little dolls, and packets of chocolate. Sixpence a go, and the odds you land anything definitely against you.’

  ‘He did well at it?’

  ‘I guess he did. It was a one-man show and regularly appeared at all the fairs in the neighbourhood. All the lads of the village would have a bash at Little Jim’s hoop-la when he was here. Some got fascinated and played for hours. Especially if they’d girls with them who took a fancy to some of the gaudy knick-knacks on the stall.’

  ‘Where did he come from originally?’

  ‘Yorkshire, judging from the address on his driving licence. A place called Basilden. His name wasn’t Lane, either. It was James Teasdale.’

  ‘Did he live in a caravan?’

  ‘No, he took digs in the village. Here, he lodged regularly with Mrs. Southery in Mill Lane. We’ll ask her in the morning whether he’d checked in with her before he died.’

  ‘Are there any fairground people here now?’

  ‘No. If some of the usual travelling toughs had been here, I’d have suspected some of them had been at Lane. He’s had a nasty beating up from all accounts. But only three showmen arrived yesterday, and when they saw the state of the fairground, they cleared off right away.’

  ‘Had Lane any family?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll find out when we speak with the local police at Basilden.’

  ‘What about identification?’

  ‘I guess someone from his home town will come to see the body. Although there’s a woman travels with him who’d do it, if she’s still around. A decent girl, much younger than Lane. Name of Martha Gomm. She used to look after Jim’s pitch when he took time off. She travelled as Martha Lane and I do believe Mrs. Southery thought they were married. They used to occupy the same room from all accounts.’

  ‘Is she likely to be somewhere in the vicinity?’

  ‘She’ll not be far away, unless, of course, it’s her who killed Lane. She’s not the type, but you never know with women.’

  They returned to the bar. The men they had left behind had gone and another rescue squad was standing around the fire, which had been made up. Men in waders, gumboots, and waterproofs, drinking tea with rum in it. They looked to have been wallowing in mud and hurried off as soon as their drinks were finished.

  ‘The cattle and sheep are knee deep in parts and if it keeps on like this, most of the ground floors of the houses in Tylecote will be under water,’ said one of them before he splashed off to duty again.

  A tall, flushed constable detached himself from the group and saluted the Chief.

  ‘This is Clifton, our local constable, Superintendent…’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, sir. Bit of a corker, this.’

  He blew t
hrough his moustache heavily and, with one hand behind his back, pitched a half-smoked cigarette accurately in the fire.

  ‘You got your grandmother to safety, Clifton?’

  ‘Yes, sir. She didn’t want to leave her cottage and said she’d far rather we put her to bed upstairs till it was all over. But I ’ad to insist. Now, she’s tucked in, cosy and asleep, in the girls’ room and the girls are up in the attics.’

  Diss lit a cigarette and offered Littlejohn and Clifton one apiece from his public packet.

  ‘Had Lane booked in at Mrs. Southery’s this time, Clifton?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Was Martha Gomm with him?’

  ‘Yes. She arrived Sunday morning to wait for him. As usual, he’d been up north for the week-end. He didn’t put in an appearance, and Martha thought he’d been held up by the floods.’

  ‘You called at Mrs. Southery’s on your way back from seeing to your grandmother?’

  ‘Yes. I just asked a question or two, but I didn’t break the news about Lane being dead, Inspector. I thought that had better be done officially in the morning. Mrs. Southery’s in enough trouble as it is, without Martha faintin’ and havin’ hysterics on her hands. The water’s up to the front door. She was up when I called and the pair of them were carrying the furniture upstairs. I thought the time inopportune, to say the least. Was I right, sir?’

  ‘Quite right, Clifton. It can wait. I hope you agree, Superintendent.’

  ‘Certainly. There’s little else we can do about Lane until morning. But Clifton might get on the telephone to the Basilden police and ask them if Lane had any connections there and, if so, notify them of his death. If he’s a wife in Basilden, she’d better not come here. There’s enough trouble about without her adding to it. Tell her the body will be sent north, if necessary, after the inquest. We’ll probably have to make a journey there before this case is over.’

  The landlord and his wife were still busy brewing tea and making sandwiches.

  ‘Good job we’d laid in a lot of vittles for the fair,’ Goodchild was saying. ‘We’d have had all this left on our hands but for the rain. One door never closes but another opens…’

  He had been drinking too much of his own rum and didn’t quite know what he was talking about. Clifton gave him a withering look.

  Outside, they could hear another car pulling up, driven by somebody in a hurry. A door slammed and a giant of a man, obviously a farmer, entered. He wore oilskins and rubber boots and shook himself like a great dog on the threshold.

  The Chief Constable greeted him familiarly, for he was a J.P. of the county.

  ‘Well, John. You seem like a man in a hurry.’

  ‘Evenin’, Humphrey. Sorry. Can’t stay. My brother’s lower fields are under water and it’s a matter of getting his herd on higher ground, because God knows what it’ll be like by morning if this rain keeps on, and the Lark bursts its banks down there. He ’phoned me for help. I’m taking a gang of men along in the van. I heard that you’d found a murdered man in the river. I called to tell you that there’s a deserted car standing on the road between here and Leete, two miles from my place, just where the road approaches the Dumb River. Two of my men recognised the car as belonging to the dead chap, fellow called Lane, isn’t it? Thought you might like to know. Might find a clue in it, or something. And now I must be off. It’s still coming down like hell…’

  He swished out and they could hear him yelling to his men to get aboard again, and then the van roared away.

  The Chief Constable turned to Clifton.

  ‘Better have it towed to a safe place, Clifton. Take a man with you and mark out the spot where you find it with wooden pegs. It seems a waste of good men at a time like this to put them on guarding the car.’

  The bobby hurried to the door and cast a grateful look over his shoulder. He left the room and could be heard talking to someone outside.

  ‘You ought to be in bed. You’ll get your death of cold. Go home till mornin’, that’s a good girl.’

  But the good girl, whoever she was, took no heed. Instead, she pushed past him and entered the room. The light of the bare electric bulb fell on her streaming hair and her large, dark, troubled eyes glinted under it.

  She looked at the group of men standing round the bar and then at the Chief Constable and his party by the fire.

  ‘Mr. Lander just called to see if we were all right. He said James Lane has been found dead in the Dumb River. Is it true?’

  She looked round the room again and there was a pause. As though each man were leaving the breaking of the news to someone else. Sir Humphrey took a step towards her, but she knew from the silence and the gentle gesture of sympathy the Chief Constable made with his hand as he approached her.

  She seemed to freeze where she stood, uttered a great sob, turned, and went back into the darkness. The sound of her movements was silenced by the steady hissing of the rain, and she departed like a ghost.

  ‘Poor Martha Gomm,’ said someone.

  Littlejohn followed her out into the night and nobody went with him. They seemed to understand that this was his business and that he might wish to deal with it undisturbed.

  2

  Martha Gomm

  Tylecote police station stood on high ground and the water had not, as yet, invaded it. The door was open, emitting a shaft of light which shone across the flood water in the road and down the path through the constable’s garden, through which a small stream was pouring to join the main deluge in the highway.

  Martha Gomm was standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the brightness of the hall, waiting for Clifton to finish whatever business he had in hand and attend to her.

  Littlejohn splashed his way over the road, the water almost up to the calves of his gumboots. When he reached her he took her by the arm and drew her inside.

  ‘You’d better come in out of the rain, Miss Gomm. I’d like to talk to you.’

  Inside, Clifton had finished ordering a vehicle to help him tow away the abandoned car at the scene of the crime.

  ‘It’s goin’ to call here for me, sir, and I’ll see the spot is marked out good and proper.’

  ‘Have you rung up Basilden police yet, Clifton?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They’ll see the news is passed on. Then they’ll ring us back.’

  He looked a lot smaller without his helmet and cape, which hung dripping behind the door. In the room above, children were talking in high piping voices, excited by the stir at that late hour and a woman could be heard comforting them and telling them to get back to bed.

  The room itself looked like the lost property office at a railway station. Jammed between the official desk, chairs, and files, with a coloured print of Her Majesty looking down on them from over the fireplace, were a formidable leather upholstered chair, two tin trunks, a small mahogany chest of drawers, a large framed photograph of an angry old man in whiskers, and a silver-plated teapot surrounded by a tea service. There was a gilded parrot cage on the constable’s desk and the occupant sounded wide awake in spite of the cloth which covered it. He kept making noises like the popping of corks and the pouring out of drinks. Now and then he shouted, ‘Jolly good health to you and me.’

  Clifton thought he owed an explanation.

  ‘The old lady’s things, just put there tempr’y, sir. She wouldn’t come without them and we ’ad to load them in the van with her to humour her. She’d have brought her bed, too, if we could have found room to get it in.’

  Martha Gomm stood in the doorway of the room, seeming neither alarmed nor surprised at finding herself there. She had obviously been disturbed in rescue work of some kind, for she was wearing a blue duffle coat, riding breeches, and rubber boots. Her head was bare and her dark straight hair fell almost to her shoulders.

  ‘Did you wish to speak to me about James?’

  The voic
e was deep and husky. She was of medium build and well made. Her mannish get-up was counterbalanced by a refined feminine face. She had a foreign look, perhaps due to gipsy blood. High cheekbones, pointed chin, ivory complexion, and a straight nose, rather too long for prettiness, but adding a touch of character to her features. Certainly no fairground wanton, but a woman who might have known better places.

  She spoke without a smile or a greeting.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘His body was found in the Dumb River, Miss Gomm. He’d been murdered.’

  She didn’t faint or make a scene. Her eyes just opened wider in puzzled horror and then she took a hold of herself.

  ‘How…?’

  ‘He’d been stabbed. When did you see him last?’

  ‘He left for the north about three o’clock on Friday afternoon. We were at Midhurst then. I came here from Cambridge, where he dropped me on his way, and I caught a bus. I never saw him again. Why should anybody want to kill him?’

  There was no excitement at all in the question. Only despair. She sounded like someone lost, but remained perfectly calm. Her large, dark eyes were fixed on Littlejohn’s face, fascinated. Violence, murder, distress might have been parts of her everyday existence and she had perhaps learned to take them as they came, half expecting them.

  Clifton found chairs for them and then went in the back room and came back with cups of tea. Martha Gomm sat with her cup between her two palms, enjoying the comfort of the warmth.

  ‘Do you think you could answer one or two questions? I’m sorry to press matters just now, but it is urgent.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Where have you been all day?’

  ‘Since James left I’ve been with Mrs. Southery. She’s afraid the flood will reach her house and cover the ground floor. We’ve been moving the furniture to the upper rooms. It took all day and then we went to help the woman next door. She’s not well and can’t lift her belongings.’

  ‘You knew James Lane well?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For how long?’