Toll the Bell for Murder (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  The vicar lived alone and a woman from the village came daily to attend to his needs. The vicarage itself was cold and damp, a little square-built stone place in a wild garden, set in a ring of old trees, with a lot of windows, un-curtained because the rooms were empty. There was a dark pool overhung by a twisted tree with limbs like long clawing fingers in one neglected corner. Rats scuttered about the dead leaves of past summers and there was a sudden splash in the black water of the pond.

  A dim glow shone through the fanlight of the house. P.C. Killip beat on the stiff rusty knocker. Nobody replied, so he tried the door, found it loose, and entered. The hall smelled of mildew and neglect and was covered in the old linoleum left by the previous tenant, a miser who had been found dead behind the door. There was a bamboo hat stand against the soiled whitewashed wall with a few coats hanging from pegs, with some walking-sticks and old umbrellas in the lower part. A staircase rose into the dark upper regions. The whole was lighted by a small smoking paraffin lamp set on a chair beside the hat stand.

  P.C. Killip stood and listened. The hair rose on the back of his neck. From a dark room to the right of the hall emerged a noise like something whispering signals in Morse code. Now and then the sound changed to a wail or a great sob. The bobby’s heart began to race and his feet were glued to the floorboards. Funny things happened in the curraghs. He remembered old Standish, the miser, dead behind the very door now open at his back. And ghosts and wild cries of monks brutally tortured and strangled there long ago, as their pursuers ran them to earth in their fenland hideouts. The phosphorescent wraiths of travellers, too, murdered by the Carashdhoo men. He pulled himself together, turned the beam of his lamp in the room, and met the agonized eyes of a man on his knees, praying.

  “You’ve left the lights on in the church, sir.”

  It was an anti-climax and sounded out of place somehow.

  The vicar seemed to think so, too, for he made no reply, but knelt there, transfixed, staring blankly at the torch without even blinking. The policeman raised him gently to his feet.

  “You’re not very well, Mr. Lee, are you? Better come along with me, then. We’ll get somebody to make you a nice cup of tea, or maybe take you in for the night.”

  Mr. Lee allowed himself to be led like a child. P.C. Killip helped him on with his threadbare coat and even had to put his hat on his head for him. It was back to front and gave the priest an even wilder look.

  “Give me the keys of the church and we’ll switch off the lights.”

  No reply.

  “The keys, please, sir.”

  “The keys? No! No!”

  The parson recoiled into the blackness beyond the rays of the lamp.

  “Come now, sir. Nobody’s going to hurt you. You’re with friends.”

  “No!”

  This was ridiculous. Arguing with a dotty priest in the small hours. To make matters worse, Killip’s lumbago was beginning to twitch. His wife had only just rubbed it away with a secret embrocation supplied by a wise woman in Smeale, and here he was.

  “Give me the keys, reverend, in the name of the Law!”

  “The Law! God forgive me. I’d forgotten the Law.”

  P.C. Killip didn’t understand what the man was getting at but he took the keys obediently handed over by the parson.

  “Now come along with me, sir.”

  Killip closed the door behind them and they set off back between the graves and joined the working-party in the churchyard. Killip left the vicar with the rest and was making for the church again.

  “No! No!” shouted the parson, tore himself from the group, and leapt after Killip with large bounding jumps. “Like a bloomin’ kangaroo”, was how Mr. Armistead later described it to his loving wife. Killip turned and faced him.

  “Take him away and keep him quiet.”

  Ten or a dozen hands seized the now demented man, who was babbling and praying incoherently in turn. Killip unlocked the door, sought the switches in the porch, and turned them off with hardly a glance inside. Then he paused. There was a small vestibule to keep out the draught and then a padded swing door into the main building. Killip turned again, opened the inner door, and shone his lamp round the dark church. A gust of warm air, smelling of stone and old books emerged. A few rows of plain wooden pews, with prayer and hymn-books on the racks in front of them. A large coke-stove in the middle of the aisle. Memorial tablets on the walls. Peter Killip, who died in Burma. His cousin Pete. And then the simple chancel, carpeted, with the altar in the background, its brass candlesticks and pewter chalice and paten reflecting the beams of the constable’s lamp. A pause, a gasp, and then Killip rushed back and put on all the lights.

  A body lay sprawled, face upwards, across the steps of the chancel. Killip hurried to it, gently touched it, recoiled, and then hurried out.

  “Hey! Come here, two of you. I said two, not the lot.” Armistead was first, hurried in, and then quickly hurried out to be sick.

  He had seen quite enough of the body of Sir Martin Skollick. Half the head had been blown away by a shot-gun. The gun was there beside the body. The one which had been given to the ladies of Mylecharaine for the jumble sale.

  2

  THE NIGHT THE BELL TOLLED

  WHEN LITTLEJOHN GOT out of the ’plane at Ronaldsway airport the first person he saw was the Rev. Caesar Kinrade, Archdeacon of Man and his very dear friend.

  He was standing beside the operator who, by brandishing a couple of objects like ping-pong paddles, indicates exactly where the ’plane must come to rest. There was no mistaking the parson, with his froth of white whiskers, his fine way of holding high his head, his easy gracious manner, and his shovel hat and workmanlike gaiters.

  The Archdeacon met him as he descended from the ’plane, both hands outstretched.

  It was always the same. As soon as Littlejohn set foot on Manx soil it was as though he had never been away; as though, somehow, the time between one visit and the next had vanished and didn’t count.

  “I felt sure you’d come, Littlejohn.”

  The letter from the Archdeacon had only arrived that morning, just as Littlejohn was ruefully contemplating a few days’ holiday in the Fens, where his wife’s youngest sister was just about to produce her eighth child. Mrs. Littlejohn had gone on ahead, as usual, to keep up the morale of her brother-in-law, a Canon of Ely. It only needed a telephone-call to her to switch Littlejohn’s arrangements.

  In his letter the Archdeacon had asked Littlejohn to come over and help him with the problems of the Rev. Sullivan Lee.

  He is a highly-strung man, who at times manifests a perverted sense of duty. He seemed completely off his head when the constable arrived on the scene. He had been ringing the church bell at long past midnight and local people now speak of the night when the bell tolled. He was known to detest the dead man, whom he had often accused of perverting the district. He refused to defend himself or speak of his whereabouts at the time of the crime. He has been arrested and committed for trial at the next Court of General Gaol Delivery-our Assize and is now lodged, calm and collected, in prison in Douglas. But I cannot believe he would, in any circumstances, take the law in his own hands and kill a sinner to prevent his continuing in his evil ways.

  So here Littlejohn was and the usual routine of his arrival on the Isle of Man was unrolling. He was already wellknown there and a number of people came to shake hands with him and welcome him. Two small boys approached with autograph-albums and the sergeant-in-charge of the police-post at Ronaldsway quietly entered his office and picked up the telephone.

  “Give me Douglas police. Inspector Knell.” Teddy Looney’s old taxi was waiting for them at the entrance.

  “Good to be puttin’ a sight on ye again, Inspector,” said Teddy, a conservative Manxman who hadn’t got used yet to Littlejohn’s official promotion.

  The sun was setting over the gentle Manx hills and casting shadows across the little fields which seemed to climb almost to their summits, as the car turned into the
quiet interior, past the signpost to Grenaby, through the domains of Ballamaddrell, Quayle’s Orchard and Moaney Mooar, and then over the bridge and through the trees to Grenaby vicarage.

  Maggie Keggin, the Archdeacon’s housekeeper, was waiting for them at the door. She was overjoyed to see Littlejohn again, but wore a slightly exasperated look, as though something in the events of the day had annoyed her.

  “Let me take your things, Inspector.”

  Here was another who called him Inspector, deliberately, too, because she associated Superintendents with Sunday Schools, and Inspectors to her mind were better sounding and more dignified.

  The table was laid. White linen, silver, an old tea-service of the finest china. Someone had that day brought the Archdeacon a choice salmon-no questions asked-and it reposed on a silver trencher surrounded by a most appetizing salad.

  “You must be hungry, sir.”

  No reference had been made to the case of the tolling bell or to anything else to do with crime and nothing was said until the meal was over. The only hint of why Littlejohn was there at all was dropped by Maggie Keggin who casually mentioned in an acid voice to the Archdeacon that he had been on the telephone.

  “I gather you mean Knell, Maggie?”

  “Who else? As soon as Inspector Littlejohn shows his nose in Grenaby, that Knell’s buzzin’ around like a wasp over a ripe pear. I told him you wasn’t here yet, and he could wait till he was told to come. I said we’d telephone.”

  She halted, her lips tightened, and she clasped her old hands across her stomach in a gesture of disgust. A police car was drawing-up at the gate.

  There emerged a tall, powerful man, with large teeth and a perpetual, pleasant smile. He wore a raincoat and a soft black hat with the brim turned down all round, like Littlejohn’s. It was Inspector Knell of the Manx C.I.D. He always reminded Littlejohn of Fernandel.

  Knell, unaware that he was watched, trotted up the garden path, joyfully seized the knocker of the front door, and beat upon it a cheery rat-a- tat.

  “You can wait,” replied Maggie Keggin to herself, and she proceeded to clear the table and serve coffee.

  Knell looked puzzled at his reception, then listened for sounds from within. Then he trotted to the dining-room window, looked in, and came face to face with Maggie Keggin, her nose pressed angrily to the pane. Quite unperturbed, he indicated that he would like her presence at the front door. Then he saw Littlejohn in the shadows, and pantomimed a joyful greeting. He made as if to raise the sash and enter that way, whereat Maggie Keggin surrendered and let him in by the proper entrance.

  “And now, that will do,” said the Archdeacon to his housekeeper, for he saw signs of the eternal Keggin-Knell feud breaking out again. “You can kindly give Knell some coffee, Maggie, and then leave him in peace.”

  Knell was not as reticent as the Archdeacon about the murder. He made it clear right away that although Scotland Yard had not been called-in on the case, Littlejohn was persona grata as far as the Manx police were concerned and that Knell and the rest of them would be very much obliged for anything he could do in the way of proving that the obstinate Sullivan Lee was either innocent or guilty.

  A pause. It seemed as if Littlejohn were expected to ask questions right away.

  “When did it happen, Knell?”

  “In the early morning of Wednesday, the 14th of April.”

  “And now it’s the 21st.”

  “Yes. We never dreamed of accusing the Rev. Lee at first.

  We simply thought he’d come across the dead body and taken it in the church to pray over until somebody arrived. Then, when he thought nobody was going to turn up and he’d finished his prayers, he’d raised the alarm by ringing the church bell.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, sir. There was the gun. There weren’t any other prints than those of the parson on it. It had been locked up in the schoolroom overnight. It had been given along with a lot of other stuff for a jumble sale to be held by the Mylecharaine women next day.”

  “Who had the key?”

  “The vicar had one, Miss Caley, secretary of the Women’s Union, another, and Mrs. Dalgleish, from the village, who cleans the place, had the third.”

  “And you suspected the vicar had entered the school after they’d all gone, and taken away the gun?”

  Knell shrugged his shoulders apologetically.

  “That and other things made it we could do no other.

  Mr. Lee was said to have hated Sir Martin… that’s the murdered man, sir. Sir Martin Skollick, of Myrescogh Manor.”

  “A comeover?”

  “Yes. He bought the manor and farm about four years ago. Said to have come from the south of England. A wealthy man, over here to save himself on income-tax.”

  “Was he popular?”

  “You couldn’t call him that. He had a way with the ladies, though. Or, at least, some of them. He was in his late fifties, but the young ones still seemed to find him fascinating. There’ve been two scandals already in the locality. Two good-looking farm girls were mixed-up with Sir Martin and it became the talk of the whole neighbourhood. They left the island in the end; one rather hurriedly, it’s said. It was whispered she was in the family way.”

  “A typical melodrama squire.”

  “Beg pardon, sir?”

  Knell raised bewildered eyebrows. He’d evidently never heard of rascally squires or of droit de seigneur.

  “It doesn’t matter, old chap.”

  Knell flushed. Old chap! Things were looking up. “He was married?”

  “Yes. Lady Skollick is a real lady. One of the best. It’s a shame he treated her so badly.”

  “Badly?”

  “Well. Going off after other women.”

  “Did she know?”

  “We asked her was she alarmed when he hadn’t arrived home in the early hours. She said she wasn’t, as he sometimes stayed opt all hours of the night.”

  “Where?”

  “In Ramsey. The police there knew all about it. A woman called Mrs. Vacey, widow of an army officer who retired there. She’s in her forties, but you wouldn’t think so.”

  “Sir Martin apparently didn’t think so, either.”

  “No.”

  “Had he been there the night he was killed?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In his car?”

  “Yes. He’d left Mrs. Vacey’s place just after midnight, she said. His car was found, locked, on the main road just through Lezayre. He’d run out of petrol.”

  “So he had set out to walk home. How many miles?”

  “Four or five.”

  “An energetic man.”

  “He’d plenty of energy of one kind or another. Besides, it was well past midnight.”

  “He’d forgotten to fill-up his car?”

  “Or else somebody had emptied it for him.”

  “Thus making the crime premeditated.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now to return to the Reverend Lee. He disliked Skollick naturally.”

  “Disliked is putting it mild, sir. He hated the man with a fanatical sort of frenzy. He said he’d demoralized the whole neighbourhood.”

  The Archdeacon, who had been smoking his pipe quietly and listening to it all, intervened.

  “As I told you, Littlejohn, Lee was not the kind who would take the law into his own hands. He would wait for divine retribution.”

  Knell shook his head.

  “But we couldn’t depend on that, your reverence. In the first place, Mr. Lee wouldn’t explain how he came by the body. We gave him every chance, He’s just remained mute ever since the crime. He wouldn’t say where he was at the time when the big explosion was heard. Neither would he say whether or not he fired the shot. Nor would he explain the presence of the gun in the church with two discharged cartridges in the breech. He hated Sir Martin and had been heard to say he wished he were dead...”

  “Not quite, Knell. His reported words were, he wished the Lord would
smite him down.”

  Knell said nothing, but his look implied that there wasn’t much difference between the two.

  “So, he was arrested.”

  “What else could we do, sir? He’d packed his bag and was off. One of our men spotted him making for the morning boat and detained him. Even then, he wouldn’t say what it was all about or where he was going.”

  “Did he seem normal?”

  “Yes. Cool as a cucumber. We had to put him in gaol and he had to appear before the magistrates so that we could keep him under lock and key. Otherwise, he’d have bolted again. Whether or not he’ll put up some defence when he appears before the Deemster, I can’t say. It’s all very awkward.”

  “Do you believe he’s guilty?”

  “Well, no, I don’t.”

  “Why?”

  Knell hemmed and hawed.

  “Well. he’s not that kind. I doubt if he knows the right end of a gun. He’s the sort who’d fire both barrels at once in his ignorance, but he’s a mild, kindly man. In spite of his adventures and loss in the bombing of London, he’s a pacifist.”

  The Archdeacon might have claimed a tactical victory over Knell, but he didn’t.

  “That’s why I asked you to come, Littlejohn. If Lee won’t talk, then we want someone who will deduce what happened. You are the man, my friend. We’re relying on you. Aren’t we, Knell?”

  Knell nodded vigorously.

  Night had fallen and outside all was silent. The curtains were drawn and the lamp had been lit. When there was a lull in the talk, there was no sound at all, except the steady tick of the old clock in the hall and the breathing and crackling of the log fire.

  “I suppose you’ll want to start right at the beginning, sir?”

  Knell knew Littlejohn’s methods, if such they could be called, and was prepared.

  “If you don’t mind. I suppose you’ve worked very painstakingly, old chap, and accumulated a lot of evidence and interviews for the files, but I’d like to go and work on the spot and absorb the atmosphere. It all happened in the curraghs, I believe.”