Toll the Bell for Murder (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  “Yes. It was actually in the Lezayre curragh. Mylecharaine was once a chapel-of-ease to Kirk Christ, Lezayre, but the Rev. Lee took it over under the vicar of Lezayre, more or less as a full-time job. It’s a scattered little area and as Mr. Lee inherited quite a bit of money from his wife, he wasn’t dependent on his stipend. Or at least, that’s what I’m told. The Archdeacon will know.”

  “That is quite right. Lezayre is the largest parish on the Island and the vicar of Kirk Christ is always glad of a little help. Mr. Lee is officially chaplain-in-charge, although known as vicar by the villagers.”

  “It’s a locality I haven’t visited much. I gather curragh means fen, is that it?”

  “Yes. That’s right. Much of the area has been drained, of course. The curraghs are attached to their separate parishes according to their situation. They’re tacked on to Ballaugh, Lezayre and Jurby. I’ll show you.”

  The old man hauled down old and new books from the shelves and produced ancient and modern maps. Maps with strange and musical place names which made Littlejohn feel he was in a foreign land. Alkest, Regaby, Breryk, Rozelean, Aust and Mullen Lowne. The Archdeacon placed his finger on a spot labelled Ellanbane-White Island-and travelled north with it through lands quaintly studded with symbols of rushes.

  “The Curraghs. Here is Myrescogh, once owned by the monks of Rushen Abbey. It was then a huge lake, studded with islands. Myrescogh means Wood of the Swamp. It has now been drained and Myrescogh manor, which is on the border of Ballaugh, is a comparatively modern place, built around 1780. It adjoins the village of Mylecharaine, composed of isolated cottages and farms, with a knot of small thatched houses in the centre near a little store and post-office. We’ll go to-morrow, if you like.”

  “That will suit me.”

  Maggie Keggin entered with cups of cocoa and a large cake, which although it looked to have been quarried at Billown, ate delectably. She remarked in passing that it was past ten and that she was going to bed, and she nodded her head convulsively at Knell to indicate that it was time he went home. She smiled at him faintly, to show her anger had passed. After all, they were cousins twice removed, and thus their family quarrels were their own business. She said goodnight and turned to Littlejohn as she reached the door and uttered a thrifty reminder.

  “The cheap rate goes off at half-past ten.”

  “Thank you, Maggie,” replied Littlejohn and hurried out to telephone his wife.

  When he returned, the Archdeacon and Knell were discussing the curraghs and exchanging yarns and reminiscences about the people there.

  “We were just talking of the curraghs, Littlejohn.

  There’s no place quite like them anywhere else. The houses and farms stand on little islands of land amid the drained acres and are built stoutly for human protection. In winter they are flayed by the gales from all directions and in the heat of summer they’re scorched by the sun. So the massive walls retain the heat and cold and neutralize the seasons and withstand their fury. At this time of the year, the whole place is ablaze with wild flowers and breathes cool air full of their fragrance and verdure.”

  “I shall enjoy it all.”

  “And the people, too, are a little world of their own. The same families have lived there for generation after generation. Crowes, Curpheys, Casements, Ratcliffes, Corletts, Garretts. Many of their old homesteads are now deserted and in ruins and their gardens bramble-strewn and still guarded by the fuchsia hedges they planted long ago, and the elder-trees-the Manx trammans-which protected all within from evil. Strange, quiet people, living a life of their own, marrying within each other’s families. I have traced as many as fifteen marriages between two families over three generations.”

  “Awful superstitious, too.”

  Knell fell into the vernacular as they spoke of old days. “Yes. The living mingled easily with the dead there until very recently. They missed their departed ones and spoke often of them. The shades were always present.”

  “Aren’t the Kilbegs an old family there?”

  “Yes, Knell. It’s a wonder you didn’t meet some of them crossing on your ’plane, Littlejohn. Old Juan Kilbeg, of Ballaugh Curragh, will be ninety years old next week. He had two sons who emigrated to America and, in their turn, produced seven pure Americans. All told, I believe he has living descendants totalling forty in the U.S.A. Many of them are coming over to celebrate the birthday. Ballaugh, where they are staying, is like a little America for a while.”

  “The old man is hale and hearty, Archdeacon?”

  “Sure enough, Littlejohn. I, at eighty, feel quite a boy before him. His wife’s alive. his second. He married again at sixty, a girl of thirty-five. He’s one of the few native Manx speakers left and has taught his wife. I hear their American descendants have been annoyed now and then by the old man and his wife conversing in a strange tongue about things they wished to keep to themselves!”

  Knell, torn between going home and talking until the small hours, returned to the crime at Mylecharaine.

  “I gather that Sir Martin Skollick didn’t get on too well with the local farmers. He was a comeover and wasn’t at all pleasant to them. He thought money would buy anything.”

  “Yes. He tried to create around his own property a belt of prohibited land behind which he could be alone when he wanted. He wished to build a large estate and tried to buy up holdings from local owners. He didn’t succeed, because the men there hold the land very dear. It is in trust for those who have gone and those who will come. Some fierce conflicts arose between Sir Martin and the other landowners. There was a lawsuit or two about the boundaries of certain treens, as we call them, in which Skollick came off badly.”

  “Yes. And a rick or two caught fire and although the police couldn’t pin down the blame, it was said that Skollick had something to do with it. One nasty habit he indulged in. He used to encourage a half-mad handyman of his to light grass fires when the wind was blowing in the direction of his enemies and cover them with a pall of stinking smoke. One or two peaceable men talked of taking a gun to him.”

  Knell paused and looked startled.

  “He might have been murdered by any of his neighbours, mightn’t he?”

  Littlejohn laughed.

  “The sooner I get in the curraghs and find out what’s been going on there, the better it will be, judging from the looks of things.”

  As he lay in bed later, waiting for sleep and listening to the rush of the river under Grenaby bridge, the sighing of the great trees, and the barking of a dog in the desolate direction of Moaney Mooar, he thought of the lonely curraghs, their strange secret people, their deep still waters, their swamps of terrifying depths, and the mysteries of their deserted homesteads. When sleep at length came, he dreamed he was lost there and that a solitary awful bell was tolling in the dark, and he awoke full of indescribable fear as the clock in the hall was striking four.

  3

  THE SILENT MAN

  A RADIANT SPRING morning. Slow white frothy clouds gently drifting across the clean blue sky and a slight breeze teasing the sea and making it sparkle in the sunshine. The air was like wine and easy going pleasure shone on the faces of the few passers-by on Douglas promenade. A horse hitched to a milk-cart neighed out of sheer joy and a dog, taking a morning stroll, looked here and there admiringly and seemed to smile to himself.

  There are many days like that on the Isle of Man. Days when the atmosphere seems charged with a new vitality and everything possesses a heightened significance and stands out clear and fresh, with all that is commonplace washed away.

  It was the day after Littlejohn’s arrival. Knell had turned up early with a police car and picked up Littlejohn and the Archdeacon for a visit to the Manx prison in Douglas. If they could persuade the Rev. Sullivan Lee to break his silence, the trouble in the curragh might be quickly explained.

  Knell turned off the promenade, changed gear, and drove up a hill to the left, dawn a few pleasant side-streets, and drew-up in front of a smallish
building which might have been a comfortable dwelling-house.

  “This is it.”

  Not a bad place for a gaol, especially with the sun shining through the windows and the clean sea air filling all the cells. They found the warder reading the morning paper and sipping tea from a large mug. The twin headlines of the news hit them in the eye as they entered. Superintendent Littlejohn on the Curragh Case. Calf with Six Legs born at Ronague.

  The warder leapt to his feet, greeted them with a pleasant smile, and put his hat on to show that he was on duty again. He was the only one there for the time being. They weren’t busy. There were only three prisoners at present. A teddyboy, who’d thrown a pal through a shop window, a drunk who’d been sick and was now cleaning out his cell before they’d release him, and the Rev. Sullivan Lee.

  Knell got to business right away. “You’ve told him we’re calling on him?”

  “Yes, as soon as you telephoned.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said it was nice of you.”

  A long passage with linoleum on the floor. The man might have been showing some new arrivals on holidays to their rooms.

  “Here we are.”

  The warder turned the key in the lock and opened the door. A plain, clean cell, with a barred window overlooking a courtyard in which large trees were just bursting into leaf. Birds were singing and someone was whistling happily in the street behind. It all looked nice and comfortable. There was even a rubber mattress on the bed, which had been neatly made. The warder removed an empty teacup and saucer from the table.

  The occupant rose to his feet from the solitary chair. He was well-groomed and recently shaved and wore his cassock which was neat and tidy. He slipped an old envelope to mark the place in the book he’d been reading, and closed it.

  A strange situation. Here was a man who very soon might be convicted of murder and yet it seemed impossible to take it seriously. He looked innocent from the beginning and that altered the whole attitude of his visitors. Even the warder treated Mr. Lee deferentially.

  The Archdeacon offered Lee his hand as soon as he entered, and Lee shook it warmly without hesitation. They might have been visiting a monk in his cell instead of a man accused of murder in a gaol.

  “This is Superintendent Littlejohn, a very dear friend of mine, who’s come over to help us.”

  Littlejohn shook hands as well and he and Lee smiled at each other. Friendly smiles, too. It was fantastic.

  The warder brought in three more chairs and then left them, for the drunk had finished his cleaning-up, and was shouting for freedom.

  They all sat down and the Archdeacon was the first to speak.

  “Well, Lee? How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you, Archdeacon. It’s kind of you all to call.”

  Just as though nothing at all were the matter.

  Lee was tall and heavily built, with his dark hair combed back from a broad brow. He had troubled dark eyes and well cut features. He was calm and self-possessed. He could even have asked, in the circumstances, why Littlejohn was there at all, but he merely smiled and might have been getting ready to invite them to stay for lunch.

  “I said Littlejohn had come over to help us, Lee. I must tell you quite frankly that you’re causing us a lot of trouble by taking the whole of this business on your own shoulders. If you’d only speak and tell us what happened. You’re not the stuff murderers are made of.”

  Sullivan Lee lowered his head under the scrutiny of the Archdeacon’s keen blue eyes. For the first time since the affair had started he seemed uneasy.

  “I’m sorry. Truly sorry. But I don’t wish to say anything.”

  He said it almost in a whisper.

  There was no pose about him, no show of martyrdom.

  “I know, Lee, you’re a high churchman and you believe in confession. Has somebody confessed this crime to you? Are you shielding someone? I’ve asked you this before, but I must persist for your own sake.”

  “I cannot.”

  Lee’s hands lay placidly on his lap and he shook his head sadly as though regretting to refuse the help he was offered. “Very well, Lee. Then we must act without you.”

  Lee looked up sharply.

  “I mean if you will not talk about the matter, Littlejohn will have to start and find out all about it by deduction without your co-operation. He will arrive at the truth and you will have caused him all the trouble out of what I cannot do other than describe as a misplaced sense of duty, even stupidity.”

  “I’m really very sorry. I beg you do no such thing. This is my affair and I will pay the price.”

  Nothing was said by Lee about his being guilty of the crime. He just knew the facts, wholly or in part, and would not disclose them.

  Littlejohn spoke to him.

  “You were in London, sir, before you came over here?”

  “Yes. They have been so good to me. I’m sorry to.”

  “Have you always been in the ministry?”

  “Since I left school and college, yes.”

  “Country livings?”

  “No. Always town parishes. I was curate in two industrial towns in Yorkshire. I was born in Bradford. Then, I got my first living in Bristol, and since then have had two east-end parishes in London. St. Thomas’s-by-the-Wall and St. Andrew’s, Barking. You know them?”

  “Very well indeed, sir. St. Andrew’s was wrecked in the bombing.”

  Lee winced.

  “Yes. So was the vicarage, and my dear wife was in it.”

  “I’m very sorry, sir. Did you like work in the city?”

  “I did, indeed. I’m not a countryman, Superintendent, by any stretch of imagination. I admit, my present work is among country people and in the heart of lovely scenery, but it is the work and the parishioners I love, not the rural pursuits.”

  “The fishing and shooting then, wouldn’t make good hobbies for your off-hours?”

  “They certainly wouldn’t. I have never handled a fishing line in my life, nor will I.”

  He paused.

  “I beg of you, Superintendent, do not try to trick me into giving you information about the tragedy of my parish. I have already said, it is my sole responsibility.”

  “Until whoever committed the crime decides to confess?”

  “I cannot answer that question.”

  “You are prepared to allow whoever did it, sir, to remain free until you yourself might be found guilty? In which case, he will come forward with a confession? If you are acquitted, he will escape scot-free.”

  “Please do not think badly of me. I know my duty.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t, sir. You must be very sure of your man if you can be willing to leave him at liberty all the time you are bearing the present strain. He might even commit another crime, or maybe flee, and leave you to suffer for your quixotic behaviour. Instead, you are content to give the police all the trouble of a most difficult investigation, one rendered all the more difficult by your refusing to co-operate.”

  Lee was now wringing his hands gently. The strain of keeping quiet and allowing nothing in the few words he said to betray him was beginning to tell on him. Littlejohn was not one who favoured a third-degree. He rose and offered Lee his hand.

  “I can see, Mr. Lee that you are either prepared to sacrifice yourself, to go the whole way for someone else, or you trust such a person so much, that you believe he will not let you down. I’m afraid I can’t wait to test your theory or beliefs. I shall try to find out without you.”

  “Don’t think I don’t appreciate what you are doing, Superintendent. I’m very grateful. But I can’t do other than what my conscience bids me.”

  “Neither can I sir. Whoever has allowed you to put yourself in this position deserves the fullest punishment the law can give him.”

  “I tell you, Superintendent, I am a guilty man and I must pay for my sins.”

  “Whatever else you’re guilty of, it’s not the murder of Skollick. I’m sure of that. Am I
right?”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  “Good-bye for the present, then, sir.”

  The Archdeacon shook hands as well.

  “Do you need any books, Lee? I see you’re passing the time reading.”

  He indicated the volume with which Lee had been occupied when they entered, and a Bible and a prayer-book on the table, as well.

  “If you would be so good as to lend me some more books about the Isle of Man. The one I’m reading now is Manx Worthies and I find it most enjoyable.”

  “I’ll send some along right away.”

  “No religious books, please, Archdeacon.”

  The old man turned and faced him.

  “Do you find your Bible and prayer-book enough, then?”

  “My kind warder brought those in. I didn’t bring my own. They are not for me any longer. I am irretrievably damned. I am an outcast.”

  The Archdeacon replied in his quiet serious way.

  “That is foolish talk. No matter whom you are protecting, you know you are doing wrong. You are an outcast, because you are making yourself one, Lee, and the sooner you decide to tell the truth, the sooner you’ll find your faith again. I’ll bring the books myself this afternoon.”

  The door closed behind them and Littlejohn knew the good old man was returning to the fray alone with Lee when next he called. They left the Archdeacon in Douglas where he proposed to visit friends and collect books for the prisoner. They promised to pick him up later in the day.

  Knell now suggested taking Littlejohn to the curraghs and the scene of the crime. As usual, when Littlejohn arrived unofficially to give his friends as much help as he could, he was finding himself once more in charge of the case, with Knell as his official sponsor and apprentice.

  The car took the road through the lovely Baldwin valley, now green with Spring and alight with primroses. A steady climb all the way to the massive graceful hills which form the interior of the island. After passing the beautiful artificial lake at Ingebreck, the local waterworks, the road mounted steeply along a ridge of hills, with wide lonely valleys beneath, to a cottage at the main crossroads. It was a spot with which Littlejohn was familiar, for, in Druidale, for which they were now making, he had once investigated a murder. They drove past the very farmstead, ruined and grim, where the body had been found. It was just the same as it was long ago. Time seemed to stand still in the silences of the Isle of Man.