Toll the Bell for Murder (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  The atmosphere had suddenly changed. Pakeman had become an angry, affronted man.

  “I don’t know why you’ve all called. After a night of work, I’m not in much shape for answering a lot of silly questions. I appreciate your coming to tell me the sad news, but if you don’t mind, I’ll try to get an odd hour’s rest before I make my morning calls. I’m all-in, sorry to seem rude, but I’m sure you’ll understand.”

  Knell and the Archdeacon rose ready to go, but Littlejohn remained seated.

  In a quiet, monotonous voice, as though he himself were tired-out, Littlejohn spoke.

  “Have you nothing you wish to tell me, doctor? Nothing you want to get off your mind?”

  Pakeman looked flabbergasted, as though Littlejohn had taken leave of his senses.

  “What do you want me to say? That I followed Mrs. Vacey to Grenaby? That I murdered her? I thought you said there’d been an accident.”

  In the kitchen behind, Mrs. Vondy had switched on the radio. A suave voice was trotting out recipes and other domestic advice. Pakeman’s nerves were on edge. He went to the door and called out to his housekeeper.

  “For God’s sake turn off that noise, Mrs. Vondy!”

  The broadcast ceased suddenly and a shocked silence reigned in the rooms behind.

  “If I tell you, doctor, that the accident was caused by Casement’s big dog, Moddey Mooar, will that give you a clue as to what I want you to talk about?”

  Every face was strained and Knell’s and the parson’s registered puzzled surprise.

  “No. Why should it? What’s come over you, Littlejohn?

  I’ve never known you like this.”

  “I have never been like this before. Will you please sit down, doctor, and you and Knell, too, if you please, Archdeacon?”

  It was said quietly, but might have been an order. All three men slowly subsided.

  “Was Skollick dead when you found him injured at Mrs. Vacey’s on the night he died?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Listen to me! If you won’t explain what happened, I will. First of all, Casement’s letter to the Archdeacon, which was expected through the post this morning, did not arrive.”

  Slowly and in an effort to hide his feelings, Pakeman drew a deep breath and trembled.

  “It was delivered by hand yesterday by the postman on his way to church.”

  Pakeman changed colour; this time the blood drained from his face until he almost looked jaundiced. He tried to speak casually, but was too hasty about it.

  “Old Kilbeg mentioned it yesterday when I called to greet him on his birthday, but I thought it was a bit of gossip. I wasn’t interested.”

  “Yet you told Mrs. Vacey that it was on the way. Please don’t deny it. She was out to intercept the letter when she met her death. She held-up the postman, took all the Archdeacon’s mail, and would have got away with it, had not the dog leapt on the fast-moving car and made her swerve.”

  Pakeman waved his hands, dismissing the subject.

  “That has nothing to do with me. Why go into details all over again?”

  Littlejohn didn’t answer at first and the silence only heightened the tension.

  “If you won’t tell me, I must tell you then, doctor.”

  Ellen Fayle had a child by Sir Martin Skollick. Becoming a father was an experience quite new to Skollick. He was fond of children. He made up his mind to become a family man, turn over a new leaf, and marry Ellen. He had to finish with his mistress and then get a divorce from his wife. He tackled Mrs. Vacey first. There were words, a quarrel, and then a scuffle. She struck him down and apparently with some justification. He mauled her badly and bruised her arms from top to bottom, trying to hold her. She must have lost her temper and control and hit him with some heavy object. He ended either dead or unconscious. Which was it, Pakeman?”

  Everybody was deadly calm now. They were all thunderstruck and their strained faces made them look as if they hadn’t slept for a week.

  “Are you trying to make out that I had something to do with Skollick’s death?”

  “Yes. You either killed an unconscious man or butchered the dead body. Mrs. Vacey had very long nails. Like claws, in fact. In the course of the struggle, I presume she scratched Skollick’s face badly. Had the police found the body at once, their thoughts would have turned to the mistress with the long, vicious nails. The marks on Skollick’s face had to be eliminated. In fact, the face had to be removed!”

  Pakeman sat taut and scowling, but did not speak. He seemed to be searching in his mind for something to say.

  “You gave me an account of your movements on the night Skollick died, doctor. It was correct only until the time you arrived home from Andreas. After your meal, you didn’t fall asleep in your chair. You were called-out at midnight by telephone. Mrs. Vacey had the unconscious or dead body of Sir Martin on her hands and wanted your help. You answered the call at once.”

  Pakeman leapt to his feet. He was obviously under a great strain, but had not lost his self-possession.

  “This is ridiculous. I’ve no more time to listen to it. You must have gone mad.”

  “It was very foolish of you, Pakeman, to try to draw the limelight from Mrs. Vacey to Lady Skollick, by pretending that you loved Lady Skollick. To bear this out, wasn’t it a bit childish to steal records from Myrescogh and have them lying about here to call my attention to your devotion and then when I asked if you loved Lady Skollick, to be so eager to bare your private sentiments.”

  “I don’t understand you, at all, Littlejohn. I thought we were friends. At least, I’ve always thought well of you. Why try to pin these crimes on me, when it’s so obvious that Mrs. Vacey killed Sir Martin in self-defence?”

  “What about Casement’s death, though?”

  “I know nothing of that. It might have been an accident.

  There’s no proof that he was murdered.”

  “There never will be any proof of how he died, now that Mrs. Vacey is gone. But this we know. Casement was going to meet someone, someone he thought might do him violence. He made his will before he went to the rendezvous and that, not a statement about who killed Skollick, was what he sent to the Archdeacon before he was killed.”

  Pakeman turned grey.

  “So, Mrs. Vacey died for nothing. I was right. I’ve always been right. Skollick was doomed, and anybody who had anything intimately to do with him was doomed as well.”

  “Including yourself, doctor?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Gillian Vacey called you out on the night Skollick died.”

  I grant that you might have found him dead.”

  “I did. I may as well tell you what happened. She rang me. I am her doctor. I found Skollick dead. He had, in a scuffle, stumbled backwards over the hearthrug, fallen, and struck his head against the marble kerb. Mrs. Vacey was in a fearful state. He had bruised and battered her in his efforts to free himself from the mad attack she had made on him when he told her he was finishing with her. Skollick in turn, had his face torn from eye to chin by Gillian’s nails. It was a shocking affair.”

  “Why didn’t you report it to the police? They’d have believed the story of self-defence, surely.”

  “Gillian was hysterical and half drunk. She said that the past relations she’d had with Skollick were well known and it would come out that he had broken with her. Her account of the struggles and Skollick’s death might not be believed. She asked me to get rid of the body.”

  “And you, willing to do anything for her, infatuated by her, obeyed.”

  “In the heat and excitement of the minute, her point of view seemed reasonable.”

  “So, you took the body by car to a deserted spot. Narradale, in fact. It was a lonely place, where the shots of poachers by night are a commonplace. And with Skollick’s own gun, which he carried in his car, you shot him in the head badly enough to eliminate all traces of the claw-marks of Mrs. Vacey.”

>   “I resent your sarcasm, Littlejohn. She’s dead now, and although she and I quarrelled and parted in anger before she died, I still respect her and object to your contempt for her.”

  “You set-out from Ramsey with the body in Skollick’s car, intent on clearing Mrs. Vacey completely by making the death look like an accident. You drove the car, and Mrs. Vacey followed in her own to bring you safely back after you’d planted the body and concocted the mock misadventure. You must have had a shock when the car ran out of petrol. You forgot that Skollick was in the habit of filling up on his way home and had almost let his tank run dry.”

  “I had to transfer the body to Mrs. Vacey’s car and leave Skollick’s on the road. It didn’t alter the plan very much. It was far enough away from Ramsey and it looked as though Skollick had walked home. The trouble was with Gillian. She was hysterical. I had to slap her to keep her quiet and then I put the body in the boot.”

  “Then off to Narradale. Casement was there poaching and saw and heard what went on. When you had finished with the body and loaded it back in the car, he was curious about it all. He went off cross-country like a hare and caught up with you as you were planting the corpse near Mylecharaine and staging things to look like an accident.”

  “I suppose I shall be regarded as an accessory to the whole affair. I ought to have reported it right away. I admit it was my duty. But you’ve only to put yourself in my place.”

  “Loving Gillian Vacey, under her spell, and hating Skollick for what he’d done to her in the past and present, you’d no objection at all to blowing a dead man’s head off, had you, Pakeman?”

  “I admit, I was foolish.”

  “You were indeed. But the pair of you might have got away with it if Casement hadn’t been abroad, or, what is more fantastic, Sullivan Lee prowling in the schoolroom after his reading glasses. He saw you halt your car and light a cigarette.”

  “It was Gillian who lit the cigarette. She said she must smoke. She had Skollick’s lighter with her and as she flicked it alight, I dashed it out and it fell from her hand and was lost. We’d no time to wait and hunt for it.”

  “Lee made out your face in the brief glimmer of the lighter. He saw you, a shadow in the darkness, get out and hoist Skollick from the car. He thought Skollick was drunk and there ensued what Lee thought was a scuffle between you. He saw you arranging the body, to be exact, and when you took out the gun, he rushed to prevent your using it, for he thought the pair of you were fighting. He fell, and the gun he was carrying to protect himself against Casement’s dog, which was prowling about and which he thought was some spectral hound or other, went off. By the time Lee had gathered himself together, you had made off.”

  “I heard the shots.”

  “Lee thought he’d killed Skollick and went berserk. You know how he behaved. He wouldn’t make a statement about his movements at the time he found the body. He went to gaol instead. He was sure that if you had killed Skollick, you would come and clear him. He trusted you that much. Instead, you left him in prison and he was only released because we proved he could not have killed Skollick with the gun he fired.”

  “I wouldn’t have allowed him to.”

  “You ought never to have allowed him to go to gaol at all. He is a simple, decent man, whose mind was deranged by the horror of events. You let him fight it out alone.”

  “Well, he’s cleared now.”

  “You won’t forget, though, that Casement was on the spot, too. He arrived hot-foot from Narradale and added to the confounding of your plot by carrying away Skollick’s gun which you’d placed with the body and which Lee, when he took the corpse to the church, left behind. So all your scheming went awry and instead, Lee was left to take the blame.”

  “I admit I was wrong. I’ve said so before. I’m prepared to take my punishment for my share in the whole sorry affair.”

  “For Casement’s death, as well?”

  Pakeman stiffened and he seemed to hold his breath like someone hiding and trying to prevent discovery.

  “I’m afraid you can’t pin that on me, Littlejohn. It was apparently an accident. He was out poaching, tripped over one of his own snares, and the gun went off.”

  Littlejohn’s turn to stiffen now. There was another dead silence. Cars hummed past outside, the birds sang in the garden, and a bee entered the room and droned its way here and there trying to get out again, just as Pakeman was doing in the turmoil in which he was involved.

  “Who told you Casement tripped over one of his snares?”

  “I don’t really know. Mrs. Vondy, I think, got the full tale and passed it on to me.”

  Littlejohn strode to the door and called to the kitchen. “Are you there, Mrs. Vondy? Can you spare us a minute?”

  Mrs. Vondy arrived slowly. She had been weeping. Pakeman’s anger with her about the radio was something new and she couldn’t understand or bear it. She stood at the door, avoiding the doctor’s eye.

  “Mrs. Vondy. You heard of the death of Casement? How did he die?”

  She looked stupefied, her mouth opened, and she shook her head.

  “I hope I didn’t do anything wrong. The news came with the postman. I told the doctor, who didn’t know. He can tell you what I said.”

  “Of course I can. You can go, Mrs. Vondy. The Superintendent has no right to bully you.”

  Pakeman was standing beside Littlejohn now, waving his hand at Mrs. Vondy in dismissal.

  “Kindly go and sit down, doctor. This is my business.

  Knell, please take the doctor to a chair.”

  In the diversion caused by Knell’s confused attempt to deal with Pakeman, Littlejohn asked his simple question. “Did you tell the doctor that Casement tripped and was killed by his own gun?”

  “No. I said he’d accidentally shot himself in the dark.

  Nobody knew how. I never said he tripped because I didn’t know.”

  “Did you know he put snares down in the fields?”

  “Yes. We thought he might have been out seeing if there was anything in them. The postman said he might have bent down to put in a snare and his gun went off.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Vondy. That will be all.”

  She went away quickly to the refuge of her kitchen, dosed the door, and was quiet again.

  “Well, Pakeman? Nobody knew about the snare, but the police and whoever committed the crime. I suggest that Casement telephoned you and either charged you with being involved in the killing of Skollick, or else asked you some other awkward questions. And you dealt with him after the pattern of Skollick and faked another accident.”

  “You’ve no proof of that! As we said, with Mrs. Vacey dead, nobody will even know the truth. I didn’t kill Casement. I say it again. I didn’t. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m busy.”

  Littlejohn ignored him.

  “I agree Mrs. Vacey won’t now be able to deny responsibility for Casement’s death or even produce an alibi. Her death has made you very sure of yourself.”

  “I’ve said I’m busy.”

  “You know what caused Mrs. Vacey’s death, Pakeman. It was Casement’s Great Dog, as I said before.”

  The Archdeacon, who had been sitting there without a word, raised his eyes to those of Littlejohn, as though sensing a climax.

  “Moddey Mooar was, in this case, just as much a lethal weapon as a gun or a knife.”

  “Except that the weapon was not wielded. It was alive and acted on instinct. And don’t you think this has gone far enough, Littlejohn?”

  “Not quite. Let me just finish it. You evidently know exactly how Casement was killed. And yet, you did not kill him.”

  “I told you I didn’t. Why persist?”

  “Mrs. Vacey shot Casement. He didn’t see either of you on the night she killed Sir Martin. It was only the chance flare of the petrol-lighter that showed your face to Sullivan Lee. It was Mrs. Vacey’s car that Casement recognized and, after he’d thought matters out, he made up his mind to have it out with her. He rang he
r on the telephone. What he said to her, I don’t know, but it sealed his fate. She arranged to meet him, shot him, took the body to the curragh, and we know the rest.”

  Pakeman nodded and sighed.

  “I’m glad you aren’t making the mistake of accusing me.

  Why don’t you? You’re working on theory. Why not accuse me? It would be as sensible as the rest of your fantastic deductions.”

  “I’m not accusing you, because Casement’s dog showed no interest in you whatever. Moddey Mooar was present when his master was killed. He knew who did it. He also recognized the car when he saw it in Grenaby. Because it smelled of his master and his master’s blood!”

  Pakeman recoiled, wide eyed, his hands before him as though fending off some evil.

  “What did Mrs. Vacey tell you when she rang you up, afterwards, Pakeman?”

  “She told me.”

  “Go on. You may as well. She’s dead now and is past human judgment or retribution.”

  “She rang me up from the telephone-box near Sulby.”

  “She was in a terrible state and said she’d collapsed. I went out and found her nearby, sitting in her car, with the lights out. Casement had rung her up. He’d said he wanted to see her at once about what happened to Sir Martin. She’d tried to get me on the telephone to help her, but I was out on a confinement. She arranged to meet him in Sulby Claddagh, which is lonely and safe from interference after dark. We both knew that Casement was around when we took Skollick’s body to the curragh. We saw the dog, too, but were sure that, in the dark, he’d not recognize us. We were reassured when he didn’t come forward after the arrest of Lee.”

  “Yes?”

  “She said she’d shot Casement as soon as they met. He’d his gun across his arm and she was certain he meant to kill her. She was as hard as nails. Both dogs were there. The little one ran off into the darkness when she threatened him, but the big one attacked her. She struck him down with the barrels of the gun and left him, she thought, dead. She loaded Casement’s body in the boot of the car, took it to the curragh, and, seeing a wire snare half out of his pocket, she used it in arranging the scene to make it look like an accident.”