The Body in the Dumb River

by George Bellairs

‘Except last week. Lane made his first withdrawal then. He took out two hundred pounds. Could it be blackmail, Diss?’

  Perhaps Martha Gomm had guessed right, after all.

  3

  Wife and Family

  The best way to get to Sheffield was by the Harwich boat train, which, they told Littlejohn, stopped at Ely just before ten in the morning. A farmer took him to Ely to catch it. He was half asleep. He’d spent two hours in bed at the inn in Tylecote and, as he sat in the bouncing vehicle, he was too bemused to notice the devastation on either side. He sat smoking his pipe, his hat on the back of his head.

  The road was under water part of the way. Sometimes it was like fording a river with the flood up to the axles; at others, where the torrent had broken the tarmac, streams crossed the road and joined the overflowing ditches. On each side, huge lakes where once the fields had been. In some of them, bewildered cattle stood knee-deep, waiting to be rescued and in many of the trees on the wayside, frightened hens were perching, looking down, wondering what to do next.

  Littlejohn had spoken to Cromwell, who hoped to arrive at Tylecote about noon. He had given him instructions and left him to it.

  The train reached Ely half an hour late and Littlejohn fell asleep almost at once. He awoke half-way to Sheffield. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a trace of rain or floods. There was a dining-car on the train and he lunched. At Sheffield, he had just time to catch the local diesel. Basilden was a small manufacturing town on the Yorkshire side of the Pennines.

  At Basilden, he was the only traveller to descend from the train. It was four o’clock and the sun was still shining. In spite of late October, it was warm and dry. The ticket collector had a rose in the lapel of his coat. Littlejohn asked him the way.

  ‘Teasdale? You mean the arty-crafty shop? Follow the road to the roundabout in the centre of the town. Then turn right. That’s the main shopping street. High Street. The shop’s just past the church on the left. You can’t miss it. The name’s over the window.’

  Dusk was on the way and the sun was a dark copper colour. It added a touch of melancholy to the seedy street of shops leading to the town centre. In the distance, a range of low Pennine hills formed the background.

  Littlejohn made the journey on foot. Grocers, butchers, little jewellers’ shops selling knick-knacks instead of the real thing, sweets and tobacco, drapers, herbalists… All looked to be scratching for a living. Like James Teasdale had done before he took to the fair.

  He followed the ticket collector’s instructions, turned right at the cross-roads, and there it was. A large shop-window with a door on the right. The whole place needed a coat of paint. The window was untidily dressed with out-of-date pictures, reproductions, prints, with a Van Gogh looking out of place among the rest of the copies. The window-bottom was choc-a-bloc with paint-boxes, packets of drawing-pins, camel-hair brushes of all shapes and sizes, fretwork tackle, bookbinding leather. They looked as if they hadn’t been disturbed for years. Over the window a large sign; faded gilt letters on a black background. j. teasdale. On one side of the name, arts and crafts; on the other, photographer.

  Behind the glass panel of the shop door, rows of photographs had been fastened on a dark background with drawing-pins. They were studio portraits of men, women, and children taken years ago, judging from their out-of-date style of dress. Some of them, improperly processed, had almost faded out. Martha Gomm had said James Lane hadn’t made much of a success of photography. Littlejohn entered. Somewhere in the dim back quarters, a bell began to ring and continued until he found he hadn’t properly closed the door. When he did so, the noise ceased.

  He stood for a while in the shop. It was as if those in the rear premises were recovering from their surprise at the arrival of a customer and mustering courage to attend to him. The shop itself was cluttered up with more framed prints and on the counter were spread books of sample Christmas cards, presumably for orders for the coming season. The expanse of stuff packed in the window shut off most of the light and it was difficult making out the contents of the interior.

  Suddenly, the door to the back quarters opened and a plump girl of about twenty-five emerged. She must have been washing her hair, for her head was swathed in a turban of towelling. Littlejohn could hardly make out anything but a buxom silhouette until she switched on a naked lightbulb, which illuminated the shop and exhibited its stark untidiness and air of defeat.

  The girl was fair and blue-eyed, medium built and pretty in a heavy sort of way. She seemed a bit out of countenance on finding Littlejohn there.

  ‘You must excuse me. I’ve just been washing my hair.’

  She wasn’t made-up but her complexion was good. There was a lazy look about her as though most things were too much trouble. She took up a position of salesmanship behind the counter.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘May I see Mrs. Teasdale, please?’

  ‘What name is it?’

  A voice from the room behind.

  ‘Who is it, Barbara?’

  And Mrs. Teasdale stood in the doorway, red-eyed with weeping, biting her lips to prevent another breakdown, a handkerchief rolled in a damp ball in one hand.

  ‘My name’s Littlejohn, madam. Superintendent Littlejohn. Could I speak with you in private?’

  ‘Is it about my husband…?’

  Her voice trembled. Littlejohn nodded. She stood aside and made a gesture with her head to invite him into the living quarters. Barbara scuttered ahead of them and hastily removed a large bucket from the hearthrug. Littlejohn never knew what it contained. Surely she hadn’t been washing her hair in it!

  Mrs. Teasdale was a woman of fifty-five or thereabouts. A plump type, fair hair turning grey, with a long face and a self-indulgent mouth and chin. She was dressed in a black silk gown, obviously in mourning already, but wore a pair of house slippers in which she shuffled about as though too lazy to pick up her feet. Her hair was slackly gathered in a bun at the back of her head.

  Barbara had vanished. They could hear her in the room behind, rattling bottles and opening drawers, presumably finishing her toilet.

  There were articles of sewing on the table. All black, as though the news had caused them to rummage among the crêpe and black braids of a workbox and start to stitch them together for a funeral. The furniture was old-fashioned and worn. On the wall above the fireplace, a dim picture of still-life, with initials J.T. in one corner. James Teasdale had won prizes for art. Littlejohn wondered if this were one of his chefs-d’oeuvre. He couldn’t make head or tail of it. The colours were faded and dirty from the smoke which now and then puffed from the fire below it. On the opposite wall, above a cheap sideboard, a large photograph of a wedding group. It contained a complete family turn-out, from the looks of it. Forty or more people, in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, with the bridal pair in the middle front. Littlejohn recognised the younger version of the man he had last met on the mortuary table. The bride was hardly identifiable with the woman now sitting in the rocking-chair before him, slowly swinging to and fro, comforting herself from the motion. James Teasdale, in the picture, looked the meekest of the lot. It might have been a shotgun wedding!

  On the cheap upright piano, with brass candlesticks screwed on its front, was a portrait of the Teasdale family. Mrs. Teasdale nursing a small baby, with a daughter on either side. It must have been a photograph by James himself, for he wasn’t in it and the figures were slowly fading out in a halo of improper fixing.

  ‘I gather the local police have passed the sad news on to you, Mrs. Teasdale. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘They said he had met with an accident and was dead. They told me that the part of the country where it happened was flooded and difficult to reach. They forbade me…yes, forbade me to go there and said you would be coming to tell me about the arrangements. Is it…?’

  She spoke well, in an educated voice, and rolle
d the damp handkerchief in her hand, ready to use it if the occasion called for it. She seemed to be suffering more from shock—perhaps a sense of indignity, too—rather than grief.

  ‘I will tell you anything you wish to know, madam, but I must ask you to be brave. Your husband was murdered at Tylecote yesterday.’

  She stiffened and turned her terrified eyes on Littlejohn.

  ‘Murdered? The police said it was an accident. They should have told me… Who did it? Have they made an arrest?’

  ‘Not yet, Mrs. Teasdale. We are busy on the case at present.’

  ‘Where is Tylecote?’

  ‘In Fenshire.’

  She relaxed.

  ‘There’s been some mistake. It can’t be my husband. He had no business in Fenshire. In fact, we had from him this morning, posted in Nuneaton last Friday. He was travelling there for his firm.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Teasdale, but there’s been no mistake. I have seen his body and I recognise him from the group on the wall there. Also, he carried a car licence bearing his name and this address. I wish it had been a mistake.’

  ‘But what has happened? What was he doing in…where was it?’

  ‘Tylecote.’

  ‘Tylecote. Can you explain it all?’

  ‘I know nothing, yet, Mrs. Teasdale. I happened to be there on another matter and, as the police are fully occupied with the floods, I offered to help them by coming to see you…’

  She was on her feet, her grief forgotten, consumed by urgent curiosity.

  ‘Barbara! Barbara!’

  The girl appeared at the kitchen door. She seemed in no hurry. She wore a dressing-gown now and a blue net over her hair.

  ‘Pack me a bag, Barbara. Your father’s body is lying murdered in Tylecote and nobody there to look after him.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Mother. You know…’

  ‘It is true that your father has been murdered, Miss Teasdale, but you must persuade your mother to wait until his body is brought home. It is almost impossible for her to travel to Tylecote. There are extensive floods there and I can’t promise she’ll get there.’

  ‘Murdered!’

  Barbara looked ready to dissolve into hysterics and then her eyes fell on her mother, who was now busy rummaging in drawers, throwing things about, presumably packing for the journey.

  ‘You heard what the man said, Mother. You can’t get there. Besides, what are we going to do at a time like this with you on the other side of England?’

  She seized all the things her mother had unearthed and rammed them back in the drawer. A brief scuffle occurred, as the two women tugged and snorted, one removing things from the drawer, the other thrusting them in again. Finally, Mrs. Teasdale broke into hard sobbing and flopped down in the rocking-chair.

  ‘That’s all the consideration I get in my trouble.’

  ‘Never mind that, Mother. We’ll have to get Irene and Christine home.’

  Littlejohn had forgotten the other two girls, who, presumably had gone to work.

  ‘Where are your sisters, Miss Teasdale?’

  ‘Irene is a teacher; Christine is a receptionist at a dentist’s. I’ll just go next door and telephone for them. Excuse me.’

  She put a coat over her deshabille and was off without another word.

  Mrs. Teasdale sat gently rocking to and fro in the chair. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, her hands still occupied with the sodden handkerchief.

  ‘Do you feel able to answer one or two questions?’

  ‘Yes. Will there be an inquest?’

  ‘It will be held tomorrow at Ely, madam.’

  ‘I must go to identify him. You see, it will be necessary for me to go, and I can bring his poor body home afterwards.’

  She sobbed again and mopped her eyes slowly.

  ‘Very well. You or one of your daughters will have to do that, but take it easy just now. Don’t rush around and distress yourself. We will travel overnight and I can arrange for transport by the local police.’

  ‘Barbara had better come with me. I can’t bear it alone.’

  ‘Your husband was away often?’

  ‘Yes, he travels the southern counties as representative of Oppenheimer, of Manchester. A very responsible post. He is away all week and returns, as a rule, on Friday evening or Saturday morning, according to the distance he has to come. Then, he leaves on Sunday for his duties again. I can’t believe…’

  ‘He also ran his business here?’

  ‘Barbara is in charge of it. People have lost the taste for art, for good pictures, nowadays, and my husband had not enough to keep him occupied in his own profession. So, he took another post to keep him busy.’

  A different tale from the one Littlejohn had heard from Martha Gomm. He felt he daren’t even mention Martha. The fat would be properly in the fire then and he didn’t wish to be mixed up in any domestic scenes. In any event, probably the truth would be hotly denied, just as, at first, the murder and identity of the dead man had been.

  ‘Why should anybody wish to kill my husband?’

  She said it in a forlorn wail, shed more tears and mopped them off with the handkerchief again.

  ‘He hadn’t any enemies?’

  ‘Certainly not. He was a peaceful man, who never quarrelled with anybody. A good husband, fond of his family, well thought of by all who knew him. He hadn’t many friends, either. Except the members of my family and his brother. With those exceptions, we didn’t mix much with people. We have known better times than these present ones, full of self-seeking and vulgarity…’

  She straightened in her chair and gave him a look of proud dignity, as though she had known better days and better places.

  ‘Your family…?’

  ‘My father is still living. He is past seventy, in splendid health, and an ex-major in the army. I have also two sisters. My brother was killed in the First World War. A great loss…’

  She was obviously on her favourite topic; reciting her pedigree and family glories. The kind of things she probably did when her husband was at home, running a failing business, depriving her of the life and ways to which she’d been accustomed before she married him.

  ‘His brother…?’

  ‘Is secretary of the local Water Board.’

  She said it as though water was something undignified, and then she shut up, as though anxious to change the subject.

  ‘How was…how was my husband…? How did he die?’

  ‘He was stabbed, madam, and his body thrown in a flooded river. It was found soon afterwards by some passing farm-hands.’

  ‘Farm-hands…?’

  Another indignity!

  ‘Were they the ones who killed and robbed him?’

  ‘He was not robbed, madam. His things were all there, apparently untouched. We don’t know yet who was responsible for the crime.’

  Barbara was back.

  ‘I’ve ’phoned them both. They’ll be here in half an hour. Irene is seeing the headmaster right away. Chrissie says they have a man under gas and she won’t be able to leave till he comes to…’

  ‘Under gas…?’

  Mrs. Teasdale didn’t seem to understand.

  ‘I also telephoned Grandfather. He’s very upset. He says he wants to see the Superintendent right away. Could you manage that, Mr. Littlejohn? Grandfather is…well, he’s the head of the family and now that father’s gone…well…’

  She burst into tears, too.

  The two women, mother and daughter, embraced and wept on each other, and then Mrs. Teasdale broke away.

  ‘We’ve to go to Lincoln…’

  ‘Ely, madam.’

  ‘It’s the same… We’ve got to identify your father, Barbara… He’s among strangers and we’ve to go and bring him home. The Superintendent and the local police are going to take us to
him tonight. I really don’t know how I can bear it. You must come and support me.’

  ‘I’ll have to let Alex know. I was meeting him tonight. Alex is my fiancé, Superintendent. He’s a doctor. I’ll have to telephone him. He’ll be at the cottage hospital. All this has upset Alex very much…’

  She hurried out again to telephone from the pub next door.

  ‘A nice boy. They are very devoted. He’s like a son to me…’

  ‘Your two sisters are married?’

  ‘Yes. One to a wholesale corn-merchant; the other to the local registrar of births, marriages, and deaths. Ought we to inform Walter?’

  ‘Walter?’

  ‘My brother-in-law. Walter Cornford. The registrar…’

  ‘That will come later, madam. After the inquest.’

  Barbara was back again. Still in her coat and dressing-gown. She looked a bit of a ragamuffin.

  ‘Alex had just been operating on a man with hernia…’

  ‘Barbara!’

  ‘Well, it’s his work. He’s very upset. He says he doesn’t approve of our going through such an ordeal. It’s a man’s job.’

  Mrs. Teasdale took up a dramatic pose.

  ‘No! He’s my husband. I shall do it. You’d better ring up the family, Barbara. Uncle Walter, Uncle Sam… They’ll be at their offices. And tell Uncle Walter we’ll report the death officially on our return. They’ll tell Phoebe and Chloe.’

  ‘What about Uncle Bertram?’

  The man from the Water Board!

  ‘Yes. Tell him, too. But ask him not to call round tonight. Please. I couldn’t stand Bertram and Ethel just now. In fact, tell them all not to call. Tell them I’m going to Lincoln…’

  ‘Ely.’

  ‘It’s the same. Tell them I’m going to Ely with the police to bring your father home. Tell them…’

  Littlejohn was bewildered by the family ramifications. He lost track of the argument completely. He gathered that a meeting of the clans was threatened and that he might be involved in some awkward questions.

  ‘I think perhaps I’d better call on the local police, Mrs. Teasdale, and report and also make arrangements for transport to Ely later this evening. Is there anything more I can do?’