Suddenly something moved from behind the ancient contraption, and Sam Callister gasped and put on his brakes. Knell cautiously raised his head above his barricade of tyres and herbs. A huge dog was standing in the road ahead, sniffing the air. It was wild and unkempt as it slowly turned its head, divining the scent of what it was seeking. Then, before the red van reached it, it grew tense, turned its nose to the north, howled dismally, bounded off into the wasteland, and was lost in an instant.
Knell broke into a cold sweat. It was Casement’s Great Dog, on the trail of his master’s killer, and the killer was somewhere nearby!
“Looks like a giant sheep-dog gone wild,” said Sam, accelerating for the last lap.
“Did you ever see the likes of that for size? Queer things always goin’ on in the region of Grenaby.”
He was feeling better. In fact, almost blithe, for the gauntlet was run and the danger was over. Only the tunnel of trees, the bridge over the stream, and there were the houses and the vicarage. The hold-up hadn’t come-off.
Knell was puzzled, too. The murderer was obviously somewhere about. If not, what about Casement’s dog? He was otherwise unlikely to be hanging around Grenaby, so far from his home ground. He wondered what all the scouts on the route were doing, and Littlejohn and the Archdeacon, parked and hidden in the last by-way in the loneliest part of the moor.
They were at the bridge and crossed it and the van pulled up at the house of Joe Henn, a recluse from Yorkshire who was gradually losing his wits in isolation. Joe was waiting at the gate for his mail. He wore a cap and a muffler, and his nightshirt was tucked down his trousers. Sam had a mere postcard for him from a nephew who was after his uncle’s money. A view of Bermuda in vivid colours. “Having a lovely time. Wish you were here. Love from Walter and Lil.” Joe merely looked at it, viciously tore it up, and threw the pieces in the river, for he had been expecting a dividend warrant. Then he went indoors for his breakfast.
Two letters and a parcel of books for the Rev. Caesar Kinrade. No use starting the van again for those. Sam picked the three from the remaining odds and ends, began to whistle, and walked to the parsonage with springing strides. He left Knell in the van, still wondering when things were going to get hot.
Sam opened the gate between the two thick fuchsia trees and halted. At the exact spot where the bushes concealed the path from the gate and the house, the two barrels of a gun were poking from the very body of a yew tree. Sam had just time to notice a pair of trousers and brown-brogued feet visible beneath, when a gruff voice spoke.
“Turn your back to me.”
Sam obeyed mechanically, half wondering what it was that the heroes did in such circumstances in his boys’ comics. They spun round and ‘drew’ as they spun. But then Sam had nothing to ‘draw’. He wished he had as he turned his back square to the menacing barrels. A gloved hand took the letters from his own.
“Now, stay where you are until I say you may move.” Sam stood there, frozen to the spot, waiting for the next order. None came. Instead, in the old neglected lane which ran under the vicarage wall and which had, long ago, been the drive to the parson’s coach-house, there was the noise of a car starting-up, of an engine furiously driven, of the grinding of changing gears. Then a pause, shouts, squealing brakes, a resounding crash. A brief silence, a scream, and then two shattering reports from a sporting gun.
Sam thought it was time to turn round and found himself face to face with Maggie Keggin.
“Sam Callister! Whatever have you been up to?” Knell had, like Sam, begun to think the whole business had become a farce. Just a lot of melodrama for nothing. And yet, Littlejohn had been so sure that the trap would attract the killer. He sat up in the van and thrust his hand in his pocket for his packet of cigarettes joust as the postman opened the parsonage gate. As soon as Sam returned, he would climb down, stretch his legs, and call to see what Maggie Keggin had in the oven for breakfast. He could smell the ham and eggs already.
When the engine of the hidden car sprang into life among the vicarage trees, Knell didn’t think of anything exciting. It might be the Superintendent and the Archdeacon who’d changed their plans and were now coming into the open after the whole affair had proved a frost.
The concealed car came out into the road. A small, fast sports model driven by a young man in a cap and with a scarf wound round his face showing merely his eyes.
“Hey!” It was the only strangled exclamation Knell could utter as he climbed into the driving-seat of the red van and pawed at the self-starter to go in pursuit. The word froze on his lips. He had a ringside seat for what followed.
Just beyond the lovely little stone bridge which crossed the river near Joe Herin’s house, rose a grass bank leading to a plateau of cultivated land reached by a rough path with a gate at the top. As the sports car turned from the vicarage at a breakneck and still increasing speed, there appeared at the top of the bank a huge dog. It did not hesitate or halt in its tracks, but plunged downhill in time to stand in the very centre of the bridge, with hair bristling and fangs bared in a hideous snarl, as the car approached.
Instead of fleeing from it, the dog, without pausing, launched himself straight at the approaching vehicle, cleared the low bonnet, and crashed against the windscreen.
Knell briefly saw the masked face and the wild, staring eyes above the driver’s scarf, and then the car swerved, hit the stone parapet a glancing blow, turned a complete somersault, and plunged into the stony river bed below.
Knell sprang from the van and scrambled down the bank of the river to the tangled wreckage. Joe Henn appeared, still masticating his breakfast, took in the scene, ran indoors again, returned with a gun into which he was driving a couple of cartridges as he ran, and shot the great dog which lay twitching in the road. So Moddey Mooar was buried with his master, as Casement had wished.
The usually silent little village suddenly became alive with police. Two cars drew up by the bridge and officers poured out. Littlejohn’s was next and he and the vicar hastily emerged. Then policemen on bicycles. It might have been a policeman’s picnic.
Knell stood waist-deep in the middle of the river. He bent over the wrecked car and, through the door which he had now forced open, he drew the body of the occupant, gently took it in his arms, waded to the bank, and carefully laid it on the damp grass. He shook his head.
“Dead.” he said. “Broken neck and drowned before I could get the door open”
He had not examined the body carefully, but seemed instinctively sure.
Littlejohn hastily removed the cap and unwound the scarf. There was a concerted gasp from the surrounding police. A tangled wet mop of dark brown hair slid down and parted, revealing a calm pale face with tired closed eyes.
It was Gillian Vacey.
Knell’s intuition had been right. The neck was broken, the woman quite dead. They gently carried her to the vicarage and someone telephoned to Castletown for an ambulance and a doctor, not that he would be much use.
“She doesn’t look the sort who would kill anybody and come to a bad end,” remarked a constable, just for something to say. Invisible rooks in the vicarage trees cawed and answered his voice.
Littlejohn and the Archdeacon were left alone, guarding the body of Gillian Vacey. The Superintendent gently drew aside the sheet which Maggie Keggin had provided for a decent covering, and carefully thrust back the sleeves of the canary-coloured jumper one after another. The arms were both bruised cruelly and as he covered them again he made a clicking noise of pity through his teeth.
Then the shapely hands, with their long, carefully-manicured and red-varnished nails. Littlejohn held them in his own for a second and then crossed them over the breast.
The two men looked at each other silently and in the warm daylight their faces appeared leaden and drawn. They looked through the window over the empty mute garden and seemed to understand each other’s thoughts even without words.
The old house appeared as peaceful and quiet as ever. The
constables had gone. Only an Inspector and Knell remained and were in the kitchen, speaking in whispers, whilst Maggie Keggin, white-faced and erect, was putting on the kettle to make some tea.
“So this is the end of the case.”
The Archdeacon’s voice was full of sorrow. It may have been for the tragic ending or perhaps a little, too, that their work together was finished, and so lamentably.
Littlejohn seemed to wake from a trance of thought. He slowly covered the body again with the sheet and pulled himself up to his full height.
“No, sir. There’s still a lot to be done. And I hope I haven’t made a ghastly mistake. Excuse me.”
He walked to the kitchen almost on tiptoe, as though anxious not to disturb the peace of death. Knell raised his troubled eyes.
“Knell. Where did Casement do his shooting by lamplight?”
The Inspector gave him a strange questioning look. He’d thought it was all over and done with, and the case neatly solved. Now, Littlejohn didn’t seem satisfied. He’d never seen him look so worried.
“As far as I know, sir, it’s Narradale. That’s a wild upland above Sulby, on the left of the road as you travel from Ramsey.”
“Near the curragh where the body was found?”
“Right overlooking it, with the main road between. I’m sure it was Narradale, because I recollect Casement being caught there by Skollick and the local constable at the time Sir Martin was hounding him for poaching. He was prosecuted and fined.”
“And suppose Casement wished to get, say, to the manor at Myrescogh in a hurry, which way would he go?”
“There’s a good road right up to the hills. In fact, Skollick and the police went up there in Sir Martin’s car the night they caught Casement. He was shooting not far from the road.”
“But if Casement were in a hurry?”
“The road winds, because the gradient’s so steep. A man like Casement would take the hill paths if he were in a hurry to get down to the main highway again. There’s any number of old sheep tracks and Casement knew them like the back of his hand. Cross-country, he’d be down as quick a car going by the main Narradale road, because the curves and corners won’t permit fast driving, unless you’re a madman.”
Littlejohn nodded his thanks and, taking Knell by the arm, led him into the hall.
“This is your case, Knell, and any further steps are your business. You realize, however, don’t you, that it isn’t ended by Mrs. Vacey’s death?”
Knell nodded.
“There are one or two things I don’t follow. I thought, maybe, when all this fuss is over and the body’s been taken away, you’ll just explain them to me.”
Knell smiled modestly, as though he’d every trust in Littlejohn and that whatever he did was right.
“We’d better get off to Ramsey right away. Then, news of Mrs. Vacey’s death mustn’t get around until we’ve finished the job. You warned the police from Castletown and the postman?”
“I did, sir. One or two of the village folk know, too, but they’ve no telephones, so any news they pass on will have to be on foot.”
They waited for the ambulance to take away the body of Mrs. Vacey and then the Archdeacon joined Littlejohn and Knell.
“We’ve one more job to do, parson. Some questions to put to Dr. Pakeman, and then all should be tidy.”
Dead silence fell over the old grey house again. The three stern-faced men set out for Ramsey just as there was a shrill and eerie whistling in the kitchen to give the signal that Maggie Keggin’s kettle was boiling.
15
THE HORROR AT NARRADALE
LITTLEJOHN’S BULKY FIGURE seemed to fill the whole of the car as he sat slumped beside Knell on the familiar road to Ramsey again. Nobody spoke. The Archdeacon, comfortably settled in the back, was smoking his pipe and lost in thought. Knell was paying full attention to his driving. Littlejohn had asked him to get there as fast as he could.
“And I’d like to call on old Mr. Kilbeg, too, on the way.”
Knell had never seen Littlejohn so pale and drawn. His face was grey, as though the strain of a long and trying case had drained all his energy away. His cold pipe dangled from his mouth and his hands were thrust deep in the pockets of his raincoat.
“Can’t we go a little faster, Knell?”
They had done sixty along the straight moorland road over the Barrule plantation to Foxdale and the passage through the village was a bit tricky. All the same, Knell accelerated again and with his horn blowing, shot past the groups of housewives gossiping at their doors. The village bobby appeared, looking ready to pursue them on his bike, until he saw the sign Police on the car. Then, he gave it up as a bad job.
Littlejohn didn’t wake from his thoughts until they drew up at Old Juan Kilbeg’s cottage. His wife was at the door shaking the mats and sweeping out the debris of the previous day’s celebrations.
“Don’t stop the engine, Knell. I won’t be a minute.” Mrs. Kilbeg stared hard at Littlejohn.
“You don’t look so well, Superintendent. I’ll make you a cup of tea if you’ll wait a minute.”
“Please don’t trouble, Mrs. Kilbeg. I’ve already had one.
Is Mr. Kilbeg all right after his party?”
“He certainly is. He was awake at seven asking for his breakfast and wanting to get up and go through all his birthday presents again. He’ll be terrible cross if he knows you’ve been and not put a sight on him.”
“Just for a minute, then. We’re going to Ramsey and I thought I’d enquire about him.”
“Come in. What about the Archdeacon and Mr. Knell?” So, they all had to call and greet the old man. He was sitting up in bed, wrapped in a quilted purple bed-jacket, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson J. Kilbeg, of Honolulu, sent by post because Jeff J. was too far away to bring it in person.
“Ain’t it fine and dandy?” said the old man before he even bade them good morning. He also showed them an alarm clock which would brew a pot of tea, pour it out, and then switch itself off, after playing Happy Birthday to You on a musical-box. This from Robert E. Lee-Kilbeg, another absentee, travelling for hardware in Alaska.
“And there’s a good, warm Manx rug from Lady Skollick and a pound of my favourite baccy from Dr. Pakeman”
“Did Mrs. Vacey call?”
The old man’s face blackened. “Nope!”
He’d learned the negative from Wash. Kilbeg and was proud that he said it like a real American, or so they told him.
The old clock in the hall struck eleven. Then it decided to have a repeat performance and struck eighteen.
“Don’t take any notice of that clock. It’s old and ticklish on its feet and gets upset now and then when shook up, like me. Somebody must have kicked it in the shindy yesterday.”
All the same, it gave the visitors a chance to talk about leaving and, after promising Old Juan to return before long, they went on their way.
The walled garden of Tantaloo looked sweet and fresh in the morning sunshine and the air was full of the scent of flowers. Mrs. Vondy’s face appeared at an upper window as they walked down the path and she opened the door before they had time to knock.
“Is the doctor in, Mrs. Vondy?”
“Yes. He’s just finishing his breakfast. I know it’s late, but he’s been called out twice in the night, which doesn’t happen often these days.”
“By telephone?”
“Yes, both by telephone.”
It was the doctor’s voice which gave the answer and he appeared from the shadows of the hall and stood on the doorstep before them. He, too, looked drawn and grey. Littlejohn was surprised at the change in him. Even his moustache seemed to droop with fatigue.
“You’d better all come inside. Would you care for some coffee?”
The newcomers excused themselves. Mrs. Vondy looked anxiously at the knot of grim men as they filed into the front room.
“Will there be anything?”
“No, Mrs. Vondy. You can clear my breakfast dishes an
d then get on with what you were doing.”
The doctor was nervous and impatient as he waited for his housekeeper to gather up the dirty dishes. Finally, he helped her himself to load the tray and carried it out for her.
At last they were alone, the four of them, and the doctor spoke first.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this early visit?” He said it wearily and sat down as though eager to feel the comfort and support of his armchair.
“Mrs. Vacey died this morning.”
Pakeman made no impulsive or astonished gesture. In fact, he hardly moved. He gave a faint sound like that of a brave man who suffers pain and stifles his cries, and turned his head so that his cheek rested against the leather back of his chair. Then he pulled himself together, and more drawn than ever, looked full at Littlejohn.
“How did it happen?” It was said in a whisper.
“She skidded into the bridge at Grenaby, her car overturned, she fell in the river-bed, and her neck was broken.”
Knell turned and looked hard at Littlejohn, wondering at the careful recital of so many details, but there was no anger in the Superintendent’s face.
Pakeman turned his cheek to the chair-back again as though finding comfort in the cool leather and this time put his hand across his eyes and squeezed his temples until the knuckles grew white.
“Where were you last night, doctor?”
“Am I supposed to provide an alibi even when someone is killed by accident?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if you must know, I had two patients to see. I was called out at one o’clock to a heart case. I got back at two, went to bed, and was out again at five at a difficult confinement until eight.”
“Did you call on Mrs. Vacey on your way to either of these patients?”
The shock of the question seemed to electrify the other three. Knell’s mouth fell open and Pakeman grew red and raised his head angrily.
“Certainly not! Why should I? Both calls were urgent and, if you don’t believe me, you can check them in every detail. I’ll give you the addresses. I’d no time to be making social calls, even had I wanted to.”
Toll the Bell for Murder (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Page 19