"Who was up and about, Mrs. Keggin?"
Littlejohn's voice had lost its joviality. He knew Maggie was hiding something.
"It was me. . . . I got up. . . . To close a window that was bangin'."
Her eyes met his in challenge.
"I thought they were all sash windows here; the kind that don't swing in the wind."
"It was a door. . . . The pantry door. . . ."
She put more beans in the mill and started to grind them. The coffee crunched. Littlejohn felt he wanted the sensation again. . . .
"Give me that mill, Maggie. Let me have a try."
He took it between his knees and started to turn.
"The noise I heard was outside. . . . In the old stables, I think. Is there a pony there?"
She looked scared and wrung her old tired hands.
"No. . . . No pony. I heard nothin' there. It was a door. That's what you heard."
"Could it have been one of those funny things that happen in Grenaby at night?"
He had recovered his good humour again. He pulled out the little drawer from the mill and emptied the fine-smelling, ground coffee into the caddy Maggie kept for the purpose.
She was looking at him sternly.
"Don't joke about it. It's true. Grenaby's a queer place and queer things go on here. This house is safe because a saint lives in it, but outside . . . some nights . . . I wouldn't stir out. Jimmy Squarefoot's around. That's who was out last night in the garden. Jimmy Squarefoot. . . ."
"Whoever's Jimmy Squarefoot?"
He laughed outright. The name was a joke in itself.
"A man with a pig's head. The Purr Mooar, the old folks called him . . . the great boar. Terrible destructive, he is. . . ."
She had lapsed into Manx brogue in her excitement.
"You needn't believe me, if you don't want. But he was round last night. I've heard him before, and people in the village has been follahed by him. Last night he was right at the door here. Sniffin' and snortin' to get in. I got up to put the bolt on. Perhaps you heard us talkin'? 'Let me in,' he says. 'It's not safe out here.' I said a little prayer to give me strength, and put another bolt on the door. . . ."
"Did he go to the stables, then?"
"I heard him snortin' and shoutin' as he made off. Next, I heard him in the stables. And bang, and he's gone and it's all quiet again. . . ."
"Maggie!"
They both turned. They hadn't, in their excitement, heard the Archdeacon arrive. He was standing at the kitchen door, fully dressed, gaiters and all.
"Maggie! Has Kenneth been here again?"
She started to sob and her thin, sturdy frame shook violently. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Come here. . . ."
The parson's voice was quiet and stern. She walked to where he stood like an obedient child. He took her face between his hands and looked sadly in it.
"You know what I said would happen if he came here again. . . ."
She sobbed more loudly.
"Just one more chance, parson, please . . . please. He's not a bad lad. Only a bit wild. If you send for the police, it'll make a criminal of him proper, besides makin' me not able to hold up my head any more."
"Very well. The Inspector is the police. You can make a clean breast of it all to him. And remember this. . . ."
His voice was like thunder.
". . . Remember this; the Inspector is our guest, and whilst he's under this roof he'll be told the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I will not allow you to tell him lies. Now . . . tell him the truth. . . . And you can make us a cup of coffee while you're doing it."
"But it's true about Jimmy Squarefoot, parson. You know it's true. . . ."
"I don't care a hoot about Jimmy Squarefoot, false or true. That's an old wives' tale. . . . Now, tell the Inspector."
She bent her head over the coffee-pot and talked between her sobs and sighs.
"My grandson Kenneth came back to the Island from over in the Spring. He was always wild. . . . He got in bad company. It was the war did it. I think he was runnin' away from somethin' he'd done."
"Go on, Maggie. The Inspector's listening."
"He came here when the parson was out and asked me for his fare back to the mainland. I gave it to him. . . ."
"And since then, he's been back for several more fares, hasn't he? And he's not yet bought himself a boat ticket. Last time he called, I happened to be around and I gave him his fare. I also said if I ever caught him around again, I'd turn him over to the police for vagrancy. I don't mind charity, but I will not have a dear old friend of mine blackmailed and terrorized by a young good-for-nothing at a time in her life when she ought to be enjoying her peace."
"He didn't mean anything wrong, sir. He swore on his oath he'd get the mornin' boat. . . ."
"He did that last time. You'd have thought to hear him, that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. He's a young scoundrel."
"That he isn't, parson, and don't you be saying it. The war did it to him."
"I won't argue any more with you, Maggie. I'm ashamed. I heard you down in the night at the door, and you gave the Inspector a very disturbed sleep by it when he wants all his wits about him to capture the Deemster's murderer."
She handed round the coffee cups and sniffed, eyeing her master timidly, waiting for the verdict.
Littlejohn sipped the hot, invigorating brew.
"Were you awake during all the disturbances, sir?"
"No. . . . I heard Maggie close her door. I knew she'd been up and what she'd been up for. . . . I fell asleep again, having made up my mind to take it up in the morning. Then I heard you getting up, so I got up as well. What shall we do with this foolish, kindly woman?"
Littlejohn smiled over his cup.
"Let's hope Kenneth gets the boat and bothers her no more. He seems to have slept in the stables, or something, though. There was a lot of noise from that direction in the night."
Maggie turned sharply from the stove where she had started to cook bacon.
"He wasn't over there at all. He went straight for the road. It was after that the noise was in the stables. It must have been the rats upset something. But, I'm very much obliged, Inspector, to you for takin' my part. I'm sure Kenneth will be good in the future. He promised this time, and I know he'll keep it."
Parson Kinrade had been thinking.
"Better get your boots on, Inspector. We'll go and see what's been on in the stables, whilst breakfast's preparing. The grass is too wet for those light travelling slippers. Get your boots on. . . ."
Littlejohn went upstairs and simply changed his slippers for his shoes. Then he joined the vicar and they crossed the rough grass under the old apple trees. A rabbit bounded from under their feet, and a sandy Manx cat with no tail, which had been stalking it, turned in disgust and strolled to the kitchen.
The buildings were dilapidated, but kept in tidy condition for storing garden produce and holding tools and barrows. A magpie flew from perching on the half-open door of the coach-house.
"The bird of ill omen," muttered the parson.
"Like Jimmy Squarefoot, sir?"
"Get along with ye. . . ."
The stables were festooned with cobwebs and the empty stalls held an assortment of implements and garden tackle. Fruit nets, cans of fruit wash, bean poles. . . . Some of the tiles had fallen from the roof and you could see daylight through the holes. An old, rotting horse-collar hung from a peg. . . .
"Nothing here, Inspector. . . ."
They passed to the coach-house, next door. It held sacks of potatoes and fertilizer. . . . Sprawling face downwards, his fingers gripping the cobblestones of the floor, was the body of a man. They knew he was dead before they touched him. His skull had been smashed by a savage blow from behind.
The parson and the Inspector both gasped, but said nothing else. Littlejohn kneeled and examined the body.
"Dead !"
The parson folded his hands before him and sank his beard on his chest.<
br />
"Oh, dear! It's the man who called to ask for you last night, Inspector."
"Alcardi? Yes. . . . That's right."
"He must have been terribly afraid of this happening, and came here for your protection. . . . And he found you weren't here, so he fled into the wilderness. Why did he come back, I wonder?"
"I don't know, sir. But there's one thing we must do at once. . . ."
Littlejohn looked at his wrist watch. Eight-thirty.
"We must stop Kenneth from leaving by the morning boat, sir. I don't say he did this, but he was here about the time I heard the noise going on. . . ."
He turned over Alcardi's body. Beneath it lay a small automatic. Littlejohn picked it up in his handkerchief, sniffed at it, and opened the magazine.
"One shot fired. That's what I heard. Alcardi must have tried to protect himself, perhaps missed, and had no time to fire again. . . ."
"This will be an awful blow to Mrs. Keggin, poor woman. The telephone's in the hall, Inspector. Ask for Constable Crellin. He knows young Kenneth Fannin . . . that's Maggie's grandson . . . and he'll be able to pick him up on the boat without any fuss. That is, if Kenneth's on it."
Kenneth was aboard the nine o'clock boat for Liverpool. Those already there hardly noticed anything unusual. A plain-clothes man quietly crossed the gangway, looked around, approached an unruly young fellow like a sailor, and asked him to accompany him back to Douglas police station. Fannin made no fuss. They drove him straight down to Grenaby on Littlejohn's instructions, but that did not end the morning's excitement.
A farmer taking his cows to pasture on the country road just above Grenaby, found an empty police-car parked through a gateway off the highway. He reported this to the vicarage at once. It proved to be the car Knell had been using with Littlejohn, and the police from Castletown were sent for to make a search for the missing detective, whose mother told them he hadn't been home all night. Millie Teare, whom they contacted at the village school where she was a teacher, indignantly told them that Mr. Knell was of no interest whatever to her. He had, she said, on the previous evening, taken her to the pictures in Douglas and, just before the show ended, with a brief "Excuse me", had completely disappeared, leaving her to find her way home as best she could and alone, which entailed a four-mile walk up hill all the way from the bus stop at Ballasalla. Her voice changed, however, when she heard Knell was missing. The children in her class were surprised when she burst into tears in the middle of a lesson in vulgar fractions. . . .
They found Knell not far from where Alcardi had fallen, but the sergeant had been more fortunate. The blow, a glancing one, had simply put him to sleep, and he suddenly appeared before the amazed search party, his face stung all over by the nettles in which he had fallen behind the stables, and a lump on his head like an egg. He was rambling in his speech. "I'll soon be back, Millie," he said. He was rushed to hospital in Douglas where, later, he awoke to find Miss Teare at his bedside, with a large bunch of flowers.
"I won't be long away, Millie," he said. "Millie, my girl. . . . Millie, my chree. . . ." And Millie bent and kissed him.
That afternoon, to the horror of the nurses, Knell got up, dressed himself, and deaf to all protests, walked unsteadily from the hospital by the front door.
"I've seen it done regularly on the movies, but never in real life before," said the sister.
After calling at the vicarage at St. Mark's on a small matter of banns, Knell set out to find Littlejohn, to whom he was determined to report for further duty.
"Solve it, or bust," he was heard to say by the kindly constable, who, although off duty, had volunteered to drive him all over the Island, if needs be, in search of the Inspector and the investigation into Deemster Quantrell's death.
7
THE ESCAPADES OF DETECTIVE KNELL
KENNETH Fannin was annoyed with his grandmother when he arrived with his escort at Grenaby vicarage.
"So ye set the police on me, after all. . . . Well, it'll be a comfort to ye to have a grandson who's a jailbird. . . ."
Mrs. Keggin thereupon burst into tears, threw her apron over her head, and stumbled from the room.
"How dare you, Kenneth Fannin, abuse your grandmother in my house, you wicked lad? Speak civil and behave. . . ."
"I haven't done no wrong, parson. All I did was to call and ask the old lady to help me with my passage to Liverpool, where I've got a job offered me on a boat for South America."
Fannin was tall, strongly built, curly haired, and had a tanned square face. He was clean, but needed a shave, and wore a sailor's rig-out, blue jersey and bell-bottomed serge trousers. He carried a cloth cap and a battered fibre suitcase.
The study at the vicarage seemed to have become police headquarters. A constable guarded the door, the parson sat by the fire, stroking his silver spade-beard nervously, and Littlejohn sat astride a chair at the desk.
"Sit down. . . ."
Fannin started and looked at the Inspector. He'd expected rough handling, now he felt easier. He swaggered to a spare chair and sat down with his legs apart.
"Not that one; this near me, and put down your case and cap. . . ."
"What were you doing round here again last night?"
"I came to ask herself for the fare to Liverpool. I said so. . . ."
"What were you doing at four o'clock? You didn't expect to find your grandmother up and about at that hour, did you?"
"I had to walk from Douglas. . . ."
"It was foolish of you to think of burgling the place, Fannin. That's what you were after, wasn't it? You couldn't have got away from the Island in time. . . ."
Fannin looked truculent. He hadn't been caught red-handed and thought he was safe.
"I never . . ."
"Don't deny it. Why, if you were honestly seeking help, didn't you ring the door-bell, instead of trying to force open the kitchen window?"
"I swear I never . . ."
"Don't perjure youself. Come here. . . ."
Littlejohn led Fannin to the kitchen and out by the door. The housekeeper, still sobbing, sat limp in an armchair, unheeding.
"That's a fresh scar from a small crowbar . . . a jemmy, isn't it?"
Littlejohn pointed to the joining of the two sashes and the parson who had followed, put on his spectacles and carefully examined the place.
"I saw that when I got up this morning. I heard you in the night. You only stopped when your grandmother came down and bought you off with her savings, didn't you?"
Fannin stood mute and sulky.
"Didn't you?"
Littlejohn gripped Fannin's jersey over the chest and shook him. Fannin's eyes opened wide at the strength of the shock.
"I didn't get in. You've not got anythin' against me. I only wanted to get to the old woman and wake her without rousin' the house. . . ."
"Unless you change your tune and help us, you'll be charged with house-breaking, so you'd better make up your mind, Fannin."
"What do you want?"
"How much did Mrs. Keggin give you?"
"Five pounds. . . ."
"Give me your wallet. . . ."
Sulkily Fannin produced a purse from his trousers pocket. Littlejohn opened it. It held fifteen pounds and some change.
"Take it back to Mrs. Keggin and give her all the notes. . . . Go on. . . . Do as I tell you. . . ."
The procession wound its way back to the kitchen and Fannin put the notes in his grandmother's lap without a word. She looked up at him, laid her hand on the money, but did not speak, and the trio passed on to the study again.
"You know there was a murder committed in the garden at the time you were prowling round here last night?"
Fannin's mouth opened and all his control left him.
"I know nothin' about a murder. I didn't do it. I didn't touch anybody. . . . I swear on the Bible I didn't. . . ."
"Keep the Bible out of this, Fannin, and behave like a man instead of a hysterical female," shouted the parson in his face. The old m
an was almost beside himself with dismay at the old woman's distress and his own disappointment with Kenneth Fannin.
"You walked from Douglas and got here about four. What time did you leave Douglas?"
"Midnight, about . . ."
"What were you doing until so late?"
"I went for a drink. . . ."
"Where?"
"The Eagle and Child on the quay. The landlord'll tell ye I left just about eleven. I wandered about the town a bit after. . . ."
"It didn't take you four hours to get here, did it?"
"I had a sleep in a field at Kewaigue. I didn't know what time it was when I woke and I didn't know what time I got here, till my grandma told me when she came out. I wasn't clear in me wits after the drink I'd took. . . ."
"You came intending to break in, else why bring a jemmy with you?"
"Only to wake the old woman. . . ."
"Where's the jemmy?"
"It wasn't a proper jemmy. It was a spike I pulled off the top of some iron railings in Ballabeg. . . . I can show you. . . ."
"You needn't bother. We found it in the garden. Lucky for you there's no trace of its being used to brain the poor fellow who's now lying in Castletown mortuary. . . ."
Littlejohn slowly filled his pipe and lit it.
"Did you see or hear anything about here last night when you arrived, Fannin?"
"No. . . ."
"Sure?"
Fannin hesitated.
"No."
"Very well. Constable, take him to the police-station and charge him with suspected murder. . . ."
The parson's eyes opened wide and so did the constable's. Surely, Littlejohn hadn't solved it all already !!
Fannin, however, broke down. He shouted and sobbed and begged for mercy.
"I didn't intend to kill him. He scared me. Jumped on me as I crept out of the gate. I hit him with my . . . my . . ."
"Your what?"
"My cosh. I had it in my pocket. I dropped it overboard on the boat before they took me."
"Who did you hit? Did you see him?"
"A copper. At least, I couldn't see his face, but I saw his car. I could just read POLICE on the sign."
"Where was this?"
"At the gate. . . . Just round the corner."
Half-mast for the Deemster (Inspector Littlejohn) Page 8