Toll the Bell for Murder (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  “Is Lady Skollick at home?”

  “Better go to the ‘ouse an’ ask.”

  He resumed his work without another word, following Littlejohn with his eyes all the way to the front door. Jinnie answered it. She had the same frozen face as before and made it obvious that the police weren’t welcome there.

  “Is Lady Skollick at home?”

  “Yes, but she’s not well.”

  “Please take in my card and ask if I may have a minute or two of her time.”

  “Very well, but I don’t think. You’d better come in.”

  She left him standing in the hall whilst she went upstairs.

  There was an extraordinary silence in the house. A delay of a minute or two and then Jinnie was back.

  “She’ll see you. This way.”

  There was nothing much wrong with Jinnie. An honest-to-goodness countrywoman, hard-working and doing her best. She had had no training as a servant and had survived there when the rest had gone to seek work where there was more excitement. Miles from anywhere and lost in the curraghs, Myrescogh Manor was no place for anyone who wanted high-life.

  They climbed the staircase, large and yawning, crossed the broad landing and Jinnie opened the door to let him pass. Littlejohn entered a huge room lit by two windows, situated over the front of the house, with an outlook across the vast sweep of the Manx hills from the coast at Ramsey to far inland. It was a mixture of a study and a boudoir. Books on shelves, a grand piano in the middle of the floor, a large, antique desk covered with papers, a huge cabinet along one wall filled with what appeared to be musical scores of all shapes and sizes. And on the walls, photographs of every phase of opera, from singers to the insides and outsides of opera houses and stage sets. The place was stuffy and two electric radiators supplied the heat. There were expensive Persian carpets on the floor and, were it only known, the furniture was the very suite used in the production of Tosca at Vienna in 1904. Littlejohn paused a moment to sort out the occupant from the mass of furnishings, papers, bric-ä-brac, souvenirs, and photographs, including those of Chaliapin and Caruso autographed in affectionate terms. She swept to the door to meet him as though his were the next entrance and, like a villain in the best Italian tradition, were about to sing affectionately to her and then assassinate her.

  “Good morning, Superintendent. It is good of you to call.”

  The whole place had a theatrical, unreal style. Even Lady Skollick herself looked like a younger woman made-up to take the part of an ageing marquise. She was tall, slim and melancholy. She wore an expensively tailored grey costume. Why, Littlejohn couldn’t guess; she was supposed to be confined indoors and unwell. She was beautifully turned out and one almost imagined she kept a coiffeur and a beauty specialist hidden somewhere in the manor. The photographs in the room below and here, and even the picture at the horse-show taken by the newspaper, made her look younger and better preserved than she really was.

  And yet, much beauty remained in her. The high cheekbones and fine arched nose were there, the well-preserved figure, the pointed chin and the fine eyes, now seeking sympathy from Littlejohn. The thin lines of middle-age showing on the skin, the dryness of the proffered hand, the sagging of the muscles of the neck had been missed by the camera.

  She waved him to a chair and sat down herself.

  “Help yourself to a drink, Superintendent, and I’ll join you.”

  She waved again, this time to whisky and soda standing on a tray on her desk. Littlejohn rose and mixed two drinks.

  A grey cat with golden eyes on a red cushion on one of the chairs slowly opened them, regarded Littlejohn casually, and then settled down again.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t well enough to see you when last you called. I’ve had a lot to go through of late.”

  The voice was quiet, natural and relaxed. In fact, the ease of it was out of character. Littlejohn realized it was probably alcoholic.

  “I’d like to offer you my deepest sympathy, Lady Skollick. I called to see if you could help us in the investigations about the death of Sir Martin. I’m not in charge of this case, but I’m a friend of the Manx police and am rendering what help I can.”

  “I shall be happy to answer any questions you care to ask, Mr. Littlejohn.”

  She took a good drink of her whisky and soda. She was used to it and relished it. She re-filled her glass.

  “You’ll excuse me, Superintendent. I haven’t been well and a little whisky is a tonic.”

  “What made you and Sir Martin come to live here?”

  “That’s an easy question. To keep up our standard of living. My late husband lost most of his money several years ago. I had a little of my own which, on the mainland, after taxes, would have meant considerable economies. Here we managed and, besides, we were not pestered by friends and callers much. We couldn’t afford the lavish entertainment we once indulged in.”

  So, it had been a bit of each. Reduced taxes and avoiding awkward encounters.

  “I believe your husband’s financial troubles in the past caused ruin to quite a lot of people. Has he ever been threatened?”

  “You mean, in danger of his life? No, certainly not. People don’t shoot one another these days when speculations prove unlucky.”

  Here was another playing down Sir Martin’s financial swindles! He seemed to command the loyalty of his women, at least.

  “Were you at home when Sir Martin met his death, Lady Skollick?”

  “Yes. I was asleep in bed. I sleep badly. On that night I took two of Dr. Pakeman’s tablets and fell off around eleven. Jinnie, the maid, will confirm that, if you wish. She was indoors all the time and attended to my needs till I fell asleep.”

  “Dr. Pakeman is a great friend of yours, my lady?”

  “A very dear friend.”

  “Your husband was, of course, out all the evening?”

  “Yes. He often spent the evening in Ramsey. I never waited up for him.”

  This was just fencing. Littlejohn would have to be blunt, and, as she was again filling-up her glass with whisky and soda, time was precious.

  “Was there any talk of divorce between you, Lady Skollick?”

  A pause. She remained silent and calm, and then took a slow drink.

  “I’m sorry to have to put questions which might pain you, but they are very vital.”

  “There was no talk of divorce.”

  “Are you sure, Lady Skollick?”

  The fine eyes opened wide and the chin lengthened. “Are you suggesting...?”

  “I have been told there was talk of divorce.”

  “That may have been outside this house. Tittle-tattle among other people. Never between my husband and me.”

  “Again, I fear I must be frank with you. We know that Sir Martin has given you ample grounds for a divorce.”

  “This is pure gossip, Superintendent. I’m shocked and surprised that you give it any credence.”

  “You are fully aware of Sir Martin’s relations with Mrs. Vacey? And of the existence of a son by another woman?”

  Lady Skollick was on her feet in a fury. Her face grew mottled and her breathing laboured. She looked about to create a full-blown theatrical scene. Then she calmed down and faced Littlejohn, who was also on his feet waiting for the storm to burst.

  “Whatever happened and I admit nothing, whatever happened, I would never have divorced him. He was a weak, sometimes pitiable man. He had ideas of his own about things. He was even unfaithful to me now and then. But he needed me, and he knew it. He knew I loved him, and he loved me. Without each other’s support we would have been lost. We’d have died of boredom. Here, shut up, away from the old life we loved, all that remained to us was each other.”

  Littlejohn remembered that during Skollick’s years in gaol this woman had stood by him and waited for his release. Then she’d followed him to the Isle of Man to get out of the way of accusing old friends, creditors, and taxes, and exiled herself for his sake. Now, she was watering down his conduct and
the wretched way he’d treated her, dramatizing the situation, gesticulating about it, waving her arms about.

  “Your late husband was making a large estate here, I believe.”

  “He wanted to extend the grounds and have it private and remote. He met with little success. The local landowners took it amiss, opposed him, and quarrelled fiercely with him for trying to corner land, as they called it. Much of it is wasteland, but that they would not admit.”

  “Were you aware, Lady Skollick, that your husband had enemies locally, men he had quarrelled with about land and other matters?”

  Another glass of whisky. She brooded over her drink and almost gaily reproached him for being a slow drinker.

  “Are you sure you won’t fill-up your glass, Superintendent? No? Then, you’ll excuse my taking another. My nerves have been thoroughly upset since my husband’s death and I must confess that I find an odd glass of whisky now and then does me far better than my dear old friend’s drugs. Besides, the drug habit isn’t a good one to get into. A friend of mine, a Harley Street man, always said a toddy of whisky now and then. Oh, I beg pardon. You were asking?”

  “Your husband’s local enemies?”

  “Negligible.”

  She dismissed them with a wave of her glass.

  “None he couldn’t deal with. Certainly none who would want to pull a gun on him. But I do want to emphasize, Superintendent. I do want to emphasize.”

  She made an energetic gesture with her free hand, and declaimed the words like a tragic actress busy with a funeral oration.

  “…Emphasize that he loved me and I loved him to the end. Divorce? Never! Apart, we’d have died of boredom.”

  Judging from her present state, she wasn’t far from right.

  At this rate, with Skollick gone, she’d slowly degenerate to a sordid finish. No wonder Pakeman had hurried ahead of Littlejohn and Knell on their first visit and then said it would be as well if they didn’t see her for the time being.

  Jinnie came back to see him out. Lady Skollick in a dash of bravado insisted on checking in front of Littlejohn her movements on the night of her husband’s murder. The maid seemed amazed at her questions.

  “Of course you were in the house, and in bed by eleven! You know very well you were. Didn’t I give you your pills and weren’t you fast asleep when I came to wake you about three o’clock and tell you about Sir Martin’s bein’ dead? I’m surprised you need remindin’. I’ll never forget it. I have nightmares about it every night.”

  As they made their way down the stairs together, Jinnie turned back for a moment and he could hear her speaking to her mistress.

  “Are you goin’ to eat up the liver I cooked yesterday for your lunch, or shall I give it to the cat?”

  8

  THE MAN WHO LOST HIS FAITH

  IT WAS A relief to be in the fresh air again after the sultry faded atmosphere of the manor house. Littlejohn had a feeling that had he not kept the interview well under control he and Lady Skollick might have held a sympathetic session over the whisky bottle, grown sentimental, and ended by slapping each other familiarly on the back.

  He wondered what was happening in the room upstairs now that his back was turned. Was she still smiling languidly over her re-filled glass? Or, alone with Jinnie again, had her temper changed and was she raging about yesterday’s relics of cold liver or the impudence of the police in asking her for an alibi?

  He made his way to the main road again so deep in thought that he had passed through the curragh lands and was almost back in Sulby before he realized that he had walked so far. A small police-car was standing in front of the hotel from which Knell was emerging. The door was not visible from where Littlejohn stood and Knell appeared to walk through the wall. His face lit-up when he saw the Superintendent.

  “Everything all right, sir?”

  It was obvious from his expectant smile that he thought the case was in the bag!

  Littlejohn was glad to see him. His early rising had made the day seem very long already and his solitary investigations had made him very much on his own. He longed for the company of the Archdeacon.

  “I’ll be coming back with you, Knell. I’ve done all I wish to do here for the time being.”

  “I’m very glad to hear it, sir. What about lunch?”

  “We’d better stay and take it at the hotel. It’s past noon and we may as well.”

  “There’s the Venerable Archdeacon, though. I left him at Maughold, sir. He rang up this morning and seemed anxious to be putting a sight on you again. Said it was a bit lonely, like, without you. I told him about Mrs. Joughin, the woman who used to be Dr. Pakeman’s servant, and how you wanted a talk with her about the doctor. The reverend said he knew her well. In fact, he married her to her now deceased husband when he was vicar of Andreas. So, I picked him up this morning and dropped him off on the way here. I hope that’s all right?”

  He looked desperately anxious about having done the right thing.

  “Good! I want to call on the doctor again on our way and then we’ll pick up Archdeacon Kinrade at Maughold and lunch in Ramsey. That do, Knell?”

  It was a matter of minutes paying the bill and thanking the landlady for her hospitality. She was disappointed at the curtailing of the stay and said so. The hotel had been for a short time the metropolis of the case, the headquarters of Scotland Yard. Many callers had turned-up for lunch or for drinks on the off-chance of seeing the famous detective ‘from over’ and now the excitement would die away.

  “I’ll be back,” said Littlejohn.

  “See that you are, sir.”

  “We heard from London, sir, about Skollick and the Reverend Lee. Nothing we don’t know already. Sir Martin had been share-pushing, they said, and went to gaol for selling stock in a company that didn’t really exist. As for Mr. Lee, he seems to have led a perfectly normal and good life in his London parishes. An exemplary man. Lost his wife in the bombing and was sent to the Island after a breakdown. Nothing to help us there. Sir Martin, as we know, ruined quite a number of people by his frauds, mostly small investors.”

  “Who probably never thought of murdering him when he came out after serving his sentence.”

  “If they did, sir, it’s taken them long enough to trace him and make up their minds to kill him. It’s years since he left gaol.”

  They pulled-up at the door of Pakeman’s house in Lezayre.

  “He’s in, sir, but he’s in the surgery at present seeing a patient.”

  “We’ll wait, Mrs. Vondy.”

  “He won’t be long. I’ll tell him you’ve called.”

  As she spoke, the door of the conservatory which led into the patients’ department opened and a large pregnant woman like a farmer’s wife emerged holding a small boy by the hand. His head was bandaged, but he was not too sick to smile and show his mother the shilling the doctor had given him for behaving himself.

  The doctor appeared at the front door almost at once.

  “Come in, come in. Glad to see you again. Stay to lunch with me?”

  “I’m sorry, doctor, we’ve arranged to meet the Archdeacon and are already on our way. I just wanted to ask you another question or two.”

  “You’ll have a drink, then.”

  The same room overlooking the garden and the same delicate scent of wallflowers on the air. The doctor produced whisky and glasses.

  “Good health, Superintendent, and yours, too, Knell. I’m sorry you can’t stay. I hear you’ve been at the manor.”

  He said it casually, as though he didn’t mind one way or the other, but somehow the atmosphere seemed to grow more sombre. It may have been Littlejohn’s mood, or it may have been the fact that the sun had gone in and the tall trees of the garden were adding to the gloom.

  “Yes. You didn’t tell me, doctor, that Lady Skollick was somewhat of an alcoholic.”

  Littlejohn said it blandly, without a trace of challenge, but Pakeman lowered the glass from which he was about to drink and gave him a queer
look.

  “Lady Skollick rang up for some more tablets when next I am near the manor. She said you’d called. She’s been a bit over-wrought since Skollick was murdered. It’s natural, isn’t it? It’s made her drink rather heavily.”

  “She didn’t drink much before?”

  “Not so much as now.”

  “She described you as her dear old friend, doctor. Do you feel you can tell me something about her without betraying friendship or professional secrecy?”

  “Try me and we’ll see. Another drink.”

  He filled up the glasses and splashed in the soda. “Your very good health, both of you.”

  He sat down again and crossed his legs, looked expectantly at Littlejohn, and pulled out his pipe and began to fill it.

  “Is Lady Skollick quite normal?”

  “Mentally, you mean? Well, Littlejohn, you must confess that this is a bad time at which to meet her. She’s been through quite a lot of late.”

  “So she told me, doctor, and I agree. Did she and Sir Martin get on well together?”

  “I think I told you when you were last here that when he was sober, he was most kind and considerate; when he was drunk, he was somewhat of a handful.”

  “There was talk of a divorce, however.”

  The doctor sat upright and stared hard at Littlejohn. “Did she tell you that?”

  “No. She denied it.”

  “I’m amazed that you asked her. She was devoted to him and such a thing would be quite out of the question for her.”

  “He wished for a divorce, however.”

  “I never heard of it. Who told you, if Lady Skollick didn’t mention it?”