The Case of the Seven Whistlers

by George Bellairs

  “But—but … Oughtn’t we to bring him round first, sir? It’ll be easier then.”

  “Do as you’re told, Smith. Bed and a doctor’s what’s wanted right away.”

  They took Littlejohn under the armpits and settled him in the car.

  “Like me to come with you, sir?”

  “No. I’ll manage him, Smith. You see to things here.”

  Instead of the hotel, Gillespie took Littlejohn to his own home. And he tied him up properly with Mrs. Gillespie’s clothes-line.

  When Littlejohn came to himself he was seated in a chair near the dining table and Gillespie was pouring brandy down his throat from a tumbler.

  “Sorry to do this, Littlejohn, but it had to be. Drink. You’ll feel better after it. Don’t struggle with the ropes, you’ll only hurt yourself. You can’t get free. I’m good at knots.…”

  There was a revolver on the table beside the brandy bottle.

  Gillespie was pale but very collected. By his manner the pair of them might still have been collaborating on the case.

  “I want a long talk with you and I’m sorry I’ve had to truss you up … I know you’ll not shout. You’re not that sort. But if you do, I shall stick a dirty duster in your mouth, so you’d best not.”

  There was almost an air of benevolent jocularity about the man. He was either greatly relieved or going demented.

  “When I got in last night, the sergeant told me you’d been enquiring about Robinshaw and Quinland. I knew then the game was up. I spent all night deciding what to do. The decision’s very simple. But first, I want a long talk with you. Don’t worry; this isn’t going to be like a bit of sensational fiction. I want to exchange information, Littlejohn, as professional to professional, and then I’ll tell you what I propose to do.…”

  “I suppose I ought to tell you, Gillespie, that you won’t get away with it. However, carry on. Get it over quickly. I haven’t slept all night, either, and that knock-out provided the finishing touches to a very unpleasant headache.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The house was as quiet as the grave, except for the purring of an electric clock over the fireplace.

  Outside in the road, people were going about their morning business. A woman pushing a perambulator and holding another child by the hand. An elderly man in a battered felt hat carrying a string-bag full of what looked like brussels sprouts. A telegraph boy on a bicycle.

  “What started you on this new tack, Littlejohn?”

  “I seemed to be chasing my tail all the time, when suddenly the laugh you gave when I was almost caught in Small’s place stopped me. And the fact that nobody but the police knew I was going there.”

  “Yes. I must own up, I slipped there. I almost slipped up, too, in the case of the flag. You remember the Children’s Home flag that was found with the body? That was mine. I’d forgotten all about the thing till you suddenly turned up with it. You made me sweat for a bit until it fizzled out.”

  “Suppose we’d arrested Mrs. Doakes?”

  “We couldn’t have done. Not enough evidence.”

  “I agree.”

  “I knew you’d never find the jewellery. As soon as the robbery occurred I began to watch Grossman. I’d had an eye on him for some time. I knew of the visits of Captain Cornelius and thought they were for no good. That’s what started the whole trouble … those jewels.”

  A taxi had drawn up at the house next door. The driver jumped out and rang the bell, and the next thing, he and the owner came staggering down the path with a large trunk which they fastened on the luggage carrier.

  A man in a peaked cap on a carrier-bicycle passed, ringing his bell. A woman with a child bought two packets of ice-cream from him, and she and the youngster started greedily to gobble it up.

  “Yes; it was the jewels started it all. I knew Birdie Jameson had been seeing Grossman about them …”

  “From Miss Curwen?”

  “Ah, you know that! Yes, she told me. So I tackled Grossman. He produced a packet of letters I’d written to Miss Curwen. I was to pay for part of them and the rest would be security for Grossman’s activities as a fence.…”

  “I thought it might be something like that.”

  “Yes. I can tell you everything and then you’ll see how far your own deductions were right. We shan’t be together much longer, you and I, so you might as well have the whole tale.”

  “You were Barbara Curwen’s lover?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. We met in connection with an attempted robbery at Laurieston. We seemed to take to each other and almost before we knew what was happening, we were in love.…”

  It was a different Gillespie now speaking. In spite of the situation, he had acquired a new dignity, somehow assuming his manhood again after the domination of a masterful wife.

  “I’ve not much to say in excuse for what I’ve done. Barbara gave me the only happiness I’ve had in untold years. And now she’s dead. And I don’t care what happens to me.…”

  Almost subconsciously, Littlejohn wondered how this affair was going to finish. Was Gillespie going to try to make a break for it? Or.… A funny thing, Littlejohn always began to think of his insurance and how Letty would go on if he suddenly met the end. Somehow, Gillespie didn’t look like trying to avoid what was due to him. He was too resigned.

  Two women next door were going down the path to join the taxi. They were loaded with raincoats, umbrellas, carrier bags and large handbags. They scrambled into the car, which drove off.

  “It’s all so simple, really. I know I’ve a reputation for being moody and disagreeable. It’s arisen out of sheer unhappiness. When I joined the force I made up my mind to get right to the top of the tree. I worked damned hard. At thirty I was well on the way—an Inspector. Then I got married. Here I am—buried in Fetling …,”

  Littlejohn didn’t know what to say. This was probably the first time Gillespie had opened his heart to anyone. And the last. He didn’t look the sort for confidences. He seemed all dry and tight inside.

  “I’m not saying anything about Mrs. Gillespie. We’re all as nature made us. We can’t help or change ourselves. It’s been my fault, too. I’ve asked for too much. Like drawing a cheque when you’ve not got money in the bank. It comes back with a smack in the eye.…”

  “Oh, come, come, Gillespie. Life’s not as bad as that!”

  Littlejohn forgot that he was talking to a self-confessed murderer. Gillespie’s intensity carried him away.

  “But suppose you get on with the account of the crime.”

  “You don’t want my woes, I know. Barbara Curwen and I were in love. She used to confide everything in me. It was pleasant to have somebody I could talk to as well. I’m not a very confiding sort by nature. She told me about Grossman having met Birdie Jameson at his flat. She was there at the time. She told me he’d been advising her about the sale of the old man’s antiques. She also telephoned me from London on the day I killed him, to say that she’d learned he was going down by the 7.45 train. Said he’d wired her. They were to meet and discuss the sale of some of her things at a London auction.”

  “I see.”

  “I can tell by the sound of your voice that you think I’ve been a mug. I have. A real mug. I didn’t know, until Scotland Yard found out, that Barbara Curwen had been carrying on with Grossman, too. She swore it ended before I came along. I saw her just before she died. I told her I’d finished with her. I know she suspected that I’d done for Grossman. I told her outright I had done it, and that she was the cause of it. Yes, it was suicide all right. She must have gone straight from me to Blight Head. When I saw her dead I realised that what she’d said about Grossman and her was true and that she’d loved me. I knew, too, that I’d never love anyone but her and that it wasn’t worth going on without her. So here we are.…”

  Two property repairers slowly ambled past, pushing a hand-cart full of ladders and scaffold-boards. One of them shouted a saucy remark to a passing girl, who tossed her head b
ut looked pleased at whatever was said.

  “Your turn now, Littlejohn. Tell me how I did it.…”

  “Roughly, I’d say that your position was intolerable. You couldn’t have Grossman with a hold over you, carrying on activities as a fence, extracting money and all the implications of blackmail. How did he get the letters?”

  “Must have rifled a drawer or something at Laurieston. Barbara was surprised when I told her. But it was true. The letters had gone. They told the truth about my feelings and happiness. It wouldn’t have done for them to be made public. I’ve hardly a bean to call my own. Just enough life insurance, that’s all. This place is bought on mortgage. My wife has money of her own, but at the rate we live I just make ends meet. I’d got to eliminate Grossman, you see. Well … go on.”

  “You know my views for the most part. I’ve already told you how I thought Mrs. Doakes boarded the train unseen, laid Grossman out, put him in the box to suffocate, and got out at the next stop and came back to Fetling. The same applies to you, I guess.”

  “That’s it. I hatched it all out in a. matter of minutes. I saw the box which they said was going on the same train as Grossman. Barbara had told me the train he was travelling by. I went through the goods yard, crept along the line on the side farthest from the platform, quickly undid the packing and got in the box. It was a large chest, but a tight squeeze.”

  “I’ll say it was.”

  “The guard went out and I emerged from the box. The corridor was dark and I was lucky in finding Grossman quickly. If I’d been spotted, I’d have said I was going to the next station, and I’d have had to wait till another time. I wasn’t seen.…”

  In the garden opposite, a man in flannels and a sweater was clipping the privet hedge and a woman at the door was telling him how to do it. He went steadily on with the job without heeding a word.

  “Grossman nearly had a fit when he saw me. I asked him where the letters were. He said I didn’t think him such a fool as to carry them with him. He had a smile on his face I wanted to knock off. I’d put a truncheon in my pocket and I let him have it almost before I realised what I was doing. Then, it dawned on me … If Grossman were dead we, the police, would search his flat. I’d find the letters. I did later.”

  “So you …”

  “He was unconscious and breathing heavily. I just couldn’t kill him with my hands, in cold blood. I took him under the arms and dragged him to the van. If I’d been spotted I’d have said he’d been taken ill. I put him in the box and locked it.”

  “With the key Miss Curwen had given you long ago.”

  “Yes. How did you find that out, by the way. The last nail in my coffin, wasn’t it?”

  “Lucy, the maid, overheard you when Miss Curwen gave it you.”

  “You know, Littlejohn, I admire your thoroughness. To think of you getting on that. What a damned pity this is ending as it is for you. You know, if it hadn’t been for Lord Trotwoode flaring up at the Chief Constable because the dinner at The Saracen’s Head was foul, I don’t think Scotland Yard would have been approached. We’d have handled this ourselves. It would have died a natural death, unsolved. Barbara would still have been alive, and I—I—I’d have been free with her. It’s funny how little things—pudding-cloth in this case, according to the tale—how the little things upset life.”

  “Much oftener than the big ones.”

  “Yes. Well, I put Grossman in the box, locked him in and stitched up the wrapping …”

  “With the help of that little bachelor-companion I saw you using to stitch on a button on the night you ’phoned Small about my entering his place?”

  “You don’t miss much. Yes. I always carried it about. My wife seems too busy to bother with my buttons. And I’m sorry about that ’phone call. Shows how desperate I was. I wanted you out of the way and that was all I could think of.”

  “If it had come off, I’d have been in a pretty fix.”

  “I’m glad it didn’t now.”

  In the hall the telephone bell began to ring. Prr-Prr. Prr-Prr. Prr-Prr. They sat in silence until it stopped. Gillespie made no move.

  “Wonder what that is?”

  The house seemed a world apart. Through the window life went on and you didn’t seem a part of it at all. Like being on another planet and watching through a powerful telescope strange beings behaving in their own little ways. A window cleaner slowly reared his ladder against the house next door and set about the windows with a washleather. Littlejohn’s faculties seemed intensified and small things struck him. The window cleaner wasn’t reaching the corners of the panes at all. Just skimping the job.

  “I let you go on working away on the Mrs. Doakes angle. If you’d got her hanged I wouldn’t have cared. A useless, loose sort of woman, all out for her own ends and good for nobody. Better out of the way. But I’d underestimated you. When I heard that you were after Robinshaw and Quinland, the red light shone. I knew then it wouldn’t be long. I worked with you intimately enough to know when once you’ve got your teeth into a thing you worry it like a terrier. I saw my time was limited and you were approaching relentlessly.”

  “And now, Gillespie, what about untying me? I’m not scared for my own skin, but you might as well save yourself a lot of trouble. You can’t get away, you know. If you kill me, the rest will get you. You see, there’s someone knows who did it besides me.…”

  “I know. I had a talk with the night-porter of The Saracen’s Head earlier on. You spoke to your wife in the night. He listened-in on the switchboard to kill time waiting for you to finish. He didn’t know what it was all about, but I guessed. You told your wife.”

  “Well? I guess that call, Gillespie, was from the police station trying to find you. She should be here by now and has probably learned that you and I are out together and that you carried me to your car.…”

  “You think of everything, don’t you? Well, they should be along any minute. So … I’d better do what’s got to be done quick and clean. First, there’s a full confession in my drawer at the station. The key’s in my pocket. There’s a key to this house on the mantelpiece of my room. Just excuse me.”

  Gillespie went in the hall and could be heard twisting the dial of the ’phone.

  “You, Smith? She has, has she? Oh.… Very well. I’m at my house and I want you to come here right away. Let yourself in. There’s a key to the house on the mantelpiece of my office. Got it? Right. Good-bye, old chap.”

  At the other end, Smith passed a huge paw over his face and went to find the key and follow instructions.

  “Old chap!” Things were looking up!

  “Your wife’s just gone hunting for you at the hotel where they think I might have taken you. But she’ll be here soon, I guess.…”

  Littlejohn wondered what the next move would be. The window cleaner had finished already and was carrying away his ladder. He peered curiously into the room where the two police officers were sitting, but apparently couldn’t make out what was going on. Then he reared his ladder against the Gillespie house and climbed slowly to the upper windows. They could hear his leather squealing on the panes.

  “I’m sorry I’ve held you in suspense, Littlejohn. I should have told you my way out. But I couldn’t resist the last bit of drama. Holding the curtain to the end. Although you wouldn’t think it, I used to be a good amateur actor once … once …”

  “Well, that’s all. The confession. The key. And not much time. I don’t suppose you’ll want to shake hands with a murderer. In any case, you’re too well tied up. I wish we’d been on a more savoury case together; I’ve grown quite fond of you.…”

  Gillespie crossed the room, and taking Littlejohn by the shoulder, gave it an affectionate squeeze.

  “They’ll soon be here, and then you’ll be all right. Good-bye.”

  And with that Gillespie took up the revolver from the table, put the muzzle to his temple, and fired. It all seemed like one sweeping movement.

  He stood there for a moment, tottering
. Then Littlejohn watched the light die from his eyes, and the body sagged to the ground.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1948 by George Bellairs

  Cover design by Elizabeth Connor

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-9071-4

  This 2014 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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