Death Drops the Pilot

by George Bellairs

  “They catch ’em at the point here,” said Silence. “Devils they are, too, if you don’t watch out. Bite like a dog.”

  A passing tramp offered Cromwell a bunch of bullrushes.

  “Threepence the rush.”

  At the Barlow Arms the landlord met them at the door. He nodded to Silence and raised one eyebrow. A huge man, fattened by beer and lack of exercise, with a large moustache and sly little brown eyes. He was in his shirt sleeves.

  “Have you two rooms free?”

  “How long for?”

  “A few days.”

  The landlord who, according to the licence-notice over the door, was called Frederick Braid, eyed the three of them up and down.

  “I’ll see.”

  Littlejohn didn’t like the man and was just about to suggest to Silence that they tried one of the cottages or boarding-houses instead, when the landlady arrived. She looked like Braid’s mother and was obviously the boss. A pleasant, elderly woman, clean, efficient, countrified, and with a smile.

  “We’ve two nice rooms facing the sea.”

  The inn smelled of spirits and cooking. There were a lot of flies buzzing about. A modernized place, constructed from an older foundation. A bar, a homely dining-room, and a kind of parlour where the locals gathered. In the latter four men were playing darts and drinking beer.

  Fred Braid was back with a shabby hotel register.

  “Better sign in.”

  He eyed Silence up and down to show he was keeping to regulations. The two newcomers filled in particulars. Fred Braid turned round the register and read it. He eyed them both slyly, but his impudence had vanished.

  “You the famous Scotland Yard chap? My name’s Braid, but call me Fred.”

  The men in the parlour had stopped playing darts. Two of them looked uneasy; loafers probably up to no good.

  “You here on the Old John case?”

  Silence intervened.

  “Don’t be so inquisitive, Braid. It’s your job to make the two gentlemen comfortable, not to be quizzing as soon as they get here.”

  Braid shrugged his shoulders and went to the foot of the staircase, a broad affair with a graceful handrail, probably part of the original structure.

  “Lucy! Carry the gentlemen’s cases to their rooms.”

  He made no attempt to do it himself.

  “We’ll do it...”

  “That’s what she’s here for. Let her carry ’em.”

  A tall, well-built maid appeared, bent her head as she saw the detectives, seized the bags, and hurried aloft. Braid’s little eyes followed her until she vanished round the turn in the stairs.

  The dart-players were shuffling out after drinking up from their glasses. Two young fellows, a man like an old salt with a reefer jacket and shabby old trousers, and finally a middle-aged man with a bald head and reddish hair surrounding it like a halo. He was sloppily dressed and flabby, gone to seed through drink and idling. His glassy grey eyes watered as he looked at the new arrivals. A little snout of a nose and ruddy cheeks hanging from his jawbones.

  “You the two Scotland Yard men?”

  His voice was educated, but husky from drink.

  “Yes.”

  “The police said you were coming. I didn’t catch your names.”

  Silence introduced them in a mixture of respect and disdain.

  “Mr. Brett, the parish clerk.”

  “Have a drink with me?”

  “No, thanks, sir. We’re just going to see our rooms.”

  “You’ll be comfortable here. Old Mrs. Braid’s a good cook. Perhaps you’ll have a drink another time. So long then. Official duties call me.”

  He left the place with uncertain steps, lingered on the doorstep smelling the air, and then disappeared in the direction of the village.

  The two detectives, led by Braid and followed by Silence, mounted the stairs to their rooms. As they turned the corner of the corridor, Littlejohn came face to face with Lucy, the maid. She started and hurried past.

  Littlejohn was sure he’d seen her somewhere before!

  3 THREE POSTCARDS

  BEFORE returning to his duties across the water, Inspector Silence took his two colleagues on a sightseeing tour of Elmer’s Creek.

  From the jetty, the road followed the coast past the Barlow Arms for about half a mile and then forked. A sign-post indicated Pullar’s Sands along the coast-road and Peshall to the right of it where the main highway turned inland.

  The tide was out leaving a vast tract of shining sands right across Balbeck Bay, which swept to the north for miles and ended in a dim range of hills rolling inland. Already fishermen were digging for bait and women were picking sampire. There was a diminutive promenade, a rough affair of asphalt, stretching as far as the signpost at which the village ended. One or two seats on which idlers were enjoying the fine day. Two navigation marks between the benches, large wooden diamonds seen far out at sea.

  The village itself consisted of a number of cottages built along the river bank, their front garden-gates almost reached by the tideline. Half a dozen modest boarding-houses along the road to Pullar’s Sands. A village stores, which also held the post office, a couple of second-rate cafes with seedy chairs set out in front, and two Methodist churches. Difficult to imagine whence, in their heyday, the chapels drew their congregations. Now one of them, with a foundation-stone marked Bethel United Methodists, had been turned into a factory. Drink and Enjoy Grebe’s Dandelion and Burdock. Health in Every Glass.

  Littlejohn paused.

  “Grebe? Is that anything to do with the murdered man?”

  Inspector Silence nodded.

  “His brother. They weren’t on speaking terms when John Grebe died.”

  “Why?”

  “Tom Grebe, that’s the owner of this place, is a big Methodist and he didn’t approve of his brother’s carryings on. I believe when he spoke to Captain Grebe about it, the captain kicked him out of his cottage.”

  “Drink? Or language? Or what?”

  Silence shook his head and smiled.

  “Women.”

  “Oh. A lady-killer?”

  “Not exactly. From time to time he’d go on leave. Nobody knew where he went. But this spring, he came back with a woman. The girl you saw at the Barlow Arms. Lucy. He persuaded Mrs. Braid to find her a job. She was a waitress and a good one, and as such girls are hard to come by these days, Mrs. Braid didn’t hesitate.”

  “What was wrong about that?”

  “Well...In a village like this...People soon got talking. She used to call to see the old man at his cottage. Tom Grebe objected and got kicked out for his pains. I don’t say there was anything wrong between Old John and Lucy, but you know how folks are. There’ll be more talk when they hear about Old John’s will. He’s left all he has, cottage and money, to Lucy. Tom doesn’t get a cent.”

  “Who has the will?”

  “Flewker, the lawyer in Falbright. Old John wasn’t buried till yesterday and the Superintendent asked Flewker to keep the will quiet for a bit.”

  “Was Old John a wealthy man?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Perhaps a thousand or two, but you never know.”

  A man had appeared at the door of the soft drink factory and nodded to Silence and eyed his companions suspiciously.

  “Morning, Inspector.”

  A tallish, flabby man with an unctuous manner. Bald head, long red face, heavy red nose of an alcoholic rather than a teetotaller, and small blue eyes, which remained hard although the face wore a continual smile.

  Silence introduced Littlejohn and Cromwell.

  “They’re here to investigate the case of your brother’s death.”

  The little eyes grew shifty, almost afraid.

  “Very sad. A great grief.”

  The voice reminded you of lather, rich and oily.

  Tom Grebe didn’t seem to want to talk. He kept looking up and down the road.

  “Expecting a load of stuff from the railway.”

/>   He indicated a small edifice which Littlejohn made out to be a station. A single line ran from the sheds away into the country.

  “We’ve a light railway here, sir. Used to carry passengers, but the buses have put it out of fashion. Now it’s just for goods. Runs to Freckleby Junction where it joins the main line.”

  Silence was having to make conversation. It was obvious Tom Grebe was uneasy about something and was anxious to get rid of his visitors. He opened the large main doors of the building, revealing the dismantled chapel, with brewing and mixing vats, casks, bottles, carboys and boxes. The interior had been whitewashed, but the gothic windows had been retained and dimly through the whitewash above the three at the far end could be read, like a truth which human effort could not eliminate. Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.

  They bade the soft-drink merchant good morning and left him.

  “He seems a bit put out, sir. Perhaps he thinks you’ll suspect him for quarrelling with his brother.”

  They had reached three detached houses at the end of the village. One a bungalow, occupied, Silence informed them, by a retired bank manager. The other two needed no explanations. A brass plate on the gate. A. Horrocks, M.B., Physician and Surgeon. The plate was tarnished and the lettering almost obliterated by weather and metal-polish.

  “Dr. Horrocks is getting a bit past it now. Not that he ever had much of a practice. He’s money of his own and spends a lot of time fishing in his boat, or at the Barlow Arms.”

  Next door, a neat red building with a signboard in the garden. Swine Fever. Join the Civil Defence. Pause before you Cross the Road. A tidy garden full of autumn vegetables and potatoes and among them the large rear of a man rooting up a row of carrots. He straightened himself as he heard foot-steps approaching.

  “Morning, Dixon.”

  P.C. Dixon was speechless for a moment. He wasn’t used to morning calls from his superiors and he hadn’t been forewarned officially of the arrival of Scotland Yard, although there had been rumours.

  “Mornin’, sir. Mornin’, gentlemen.”

  He sniggered and regarded his dirty hands as though wondering if they were really his and how they’d got in such a state. Behind him, at the window of the police house, appeared the faces of his three children, enjoying a holiday locally known as ‘teachers’ rest’, with their mother in the background, buxom and pretty.

  Dixon himself was huge and ruddy and was wearing an old regulation suit, minus the official buttons, from which he looked about to burst at any minute.

  “Just enjoyin’ an hour off, sir. Got to keep the garden tidy...”

  Silence introduced the two Scotland Yard men. Dixon looked at his soiled hands again, but Littlejohn stretched out his own and was seized in a huge iron grip.

  “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

  Cromwell was eyeing the soil. He was a bit of a gardener himself when not engaged in his other hobbies: birdwatching, Lads’ clubs, rifle-shooting, yoga, and singing in the choir of the Metropolitan Police.

  “Good for carrots? Nice and sandy, eh?”

  Dixon smiled.

  “You should see my asparagus.”

  Silence coughed. He hadn’t all day.

  “These two gentlemen’ll be staying at the Barlow Arms for a bit, Dixon.”

  “Yes. I heard so.”

  “They’ve only just decided...”

  “News travels fast in Elmer’s Creek, sir. Mr. Brett passed on his way home, sir, and told me.”

  “Hm. Well, it’s up to you to see they have all they want and any help they require, Dixon, although I’ll be coming over quite a lot.”

  “Very good, sir. I’ll jest get into me uniform, then.”

  “No need to bother for the present, Dixon. We’ll go back as the Inspector goes. It’ll soon be lunchtime. Get on with your digging.”

  Dixon smiled broadly at Littlejohn.

  “Very good, sir. I’ll be along soon, then. I’ll ’ave a word with Braid, like. If I ’ear any complaints about you not bein’ comfortable, God ’elp him.”

  He turned and saw the fixed, round eyes of his offspring watching through the window, and waved to them officiously. They all disappeared like a conjuring trick.

  “It’s rude to stare like that,” he told them all later. “You’ve been through Grebe’s cottage, Silence?” asked Littlejohn on the way back.

  “Yes, sir. Just superficially, like. There were no letters of any importance. Nothing in the way of clues.”

  Silence uttered the last word with emphasis.

  “But perhaps you’d like to see over it, sir. You might find something that we’ve missed, though I doubt it.”

  “I’m sure you’ve not missed anything but, all the same, it’ll be interesting to see where the old man lived. Give us a bit of background about his life and habits.”

  The cottages were approached by a path on the river bank. The traffic of the estuary passed the front door and as they made their way fishing boats, the ferry in mid-stream, and the dredger were visible.

  Three small whitewashed houses with their gables tarred to keep out the weather. Grebe’s was the middle one and was larger and better kept than the other two. There was a net spread out to dry in front of the end one.

  A small garden in front, untidy, with a fuchsia hedge and the dead plants of summer lying across the beds. A black door with a large keyhole, a brass knocker and letter-slit, and an old-fashioned latch. A bow window overlooking the river from the ground floor and two small sash windows upstairs.

  Silence took a large key from his pocket and unlocked the house.

  “Perhaps you’d like to keep this, sir?”

  He handed the key to Littlejohn.

  A small passage with two doors leading into the downstairs rooms. The stairs rose straight and narrow from the end of the lobby. A hat stand in the hall and an old-fashioned sea-picture hung on a nail. A barometer and an old wooden sextant on the wall.

  The place smelled damp and airless and Silence left the front door open.

  A living room in front and a kitchen behind. They turned in at the first door. A snug place with old-fashioned armchairs, a table covered with a green plush cloth, chintz curtains at the windows, and a few geraniums blooming on the window sill. An array of dishes on a welsh dresser, a tallboy, a grandfather’s clock still ticking, a shelf of books, with Pilgrim’s Progress and a Bible prominent among them. A worn carpet on the floor and a rug made of pieces of rag in front of the hearth. The fireplace was an old broad iron one with a dead fire in it. On the mantelpiece a ship in a bottle and some photographs, faded from sun and sea air.

  “The chest there has linen in it and the dresser drawers have the cutlery and such like. There were some bills in one of them, too. Perhaps you’d like to look through yourself some time, sir.”

  “Yes.”

  Littlejohn was imagining Old John Grebe about the place, especially at night after the last ferry had gone. There was an oil lamp on the sideboard, a brass affair with a large white porcelain shade. The place was wired for electricity and there was a bulb with a coloured bead shade hanging from the roof in the middle of the room. But Grebe seemed to prefer his old lamp.

  Pipes on the mantelpiece, too. Short, stumpy ones with well-bitten stems and battered bowls. Over the mantelshelf a framed picture of an old woman, perhaps Grebe’s mother. On the wall opposite, a framed sampler of an embroidered house and all the letters of the alphabet in stitching. Ann Bowley, her work, 1868. Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.

  Littlejohn looked round the room again. Two old newspapers under the cushion of the spindlebacked armchair by the fire, a pair of leather slippers, twisted spills of paper in an old jam jar in the hearth.

  He could see the old man sitting there before bed, wearing the steel-framed spectacles still on the chest, his slippers on, his old pipe going, reading the news by the light of the lamp. And the passing boats could see his windows from the river.

  The kitchen was tidy and strictly utilitarian. A s
mall electric cooker, pans, a kettle. A worn porcelain sink, a rough wooden table, a larder with a few eatables still there. Just enough for one man and his wants.

  The narrow stairs with a strip of carpet down the middle led to a small landing from which two rooms were entered. Only one was furnished. A large iron bed with brass knobs, perhaps a family inheritance, chairs, a chest, a wardrobe. Oilcloth and a couple of mats on the floor and a seaman’s chest in one corner.

  Silence pointed to the chest.

  “Nothing special in it. His papers...mariner’s certificates and the like, passport, bank books, some old letters from pals he must have had at one time, but they weren’t important. They’re still there. He might have expected something to happen to him, because if he had any letters or papers that would lead us anywhere, he’s got rid of them. We searched his pockets. The stuff’s still at the police station. Nothing much.”

  They stood in the spartan bedroom wondering what they were doing there. Littlejohn felt a vague feeling of depression. The damp house, the forlorn property of the dead man looking as though it was going to remain there forever, the feeling that Old John Grebe might return at any time and ask them what the hell they were doing among his private things. And, on top of it all, the same question, over and over again: Why would anybody want to murder Old John?

  The other room was a lumber dump. Odds and ends of furniture, an empty trunk, a suitcase, empty boxes, old magazines and books, and in the middle a large tin bath where, presumably, Old John took his daily or his weekly tub. Three pairs of sea boots, all clean, and a very old leather hat-box. Littlejohn opened it and revealed an antique silk hat.

  “Hullo...Hullo...Anybody there?”

  A quavering voice from the hall below. Littlejohn looked over the landing rail and could see the foreshortened form of a little old woman looking up at him.

  “What are you doin’ up there?”

  Silence joined Littlejohn and looked down, too.

  “It’s just us, Mrs. Sattenstall. I’m showing the Chief Inspector over the house.”