Death Drops the Pilot

by George Bellairs

  Cromwell sheered off the subject.

  “Where did his money come from?”

  “Don’t ask me. He must ’ave picked it up from somewhere. He’s been ’ere as ferry-master ’eaven knows how long and that didn’t pay his expenses, the way ’e drank and carried on. You might say, Mr. Cromwell, that he relied on it purely for pocket money. He was as good as retired. Out of the way in this quiet little spot.”

  Out of the way in a quiet little spot. Yes, that was probably it, and Cromwell remembered it later.

  “Did he make his money at sea, then?”

  “As a tramp captain? I ask you. No; I think he must have done some speculatin’ somewhere. P’raps a bit shady, too. He wasn’t above it, although I won’t speak ill of the dead. Or I’d not be surprised if Horrocks or Bacon or that Jezebel, Mrs. Iremonger, he was so friendly with, might ’ave put him up to somethin’. They were all as thick as thieves, as I told you. People of that class are always findin’ opportunities for increasin’ their money.”

  Tom Grebe gazed sadly in the fire.

  “...Wot does the Good Book say...? To them that ’ave shall be given, and from them that ’ave not shall be taken away even wot they ‘ave.”

  A tear flowed as Tom Grebe thought with pity of his own unpaid bills and empty bank account, as well as the uncertainty of his late brother’s intentions.

  “Where were you the night your brother died, sir?”

  Mr. Grebe couldn’t believe his ears.

  “Eh? Yo’re not thinkin’...?”

  “Of course not. Just a formality. Where were you, sir?”

  Here was a man, financially on the rocks, who had quarrelled with the brother who had regularly subsidized him and whose will he thought might not yet have been altered, in spite of recent high words. He’d fully expect to benefit and, in desperation, might have...

  “I was ’ere, Mr. Cromwell, when the last ferry left. I ’eard the bell go. The wind was in this direction at the time and it was very plain. I recollect lookin’ at the clock.”

  Mr. Grebe thereupon looked at the clock again, as though to get it to speak in confirmation. A cheap case-clock with brass weights and a large brass pendulum, which had punctuated the conversation with a steady tick-tock and struck the quarters with a rusty sound as though the gong had bronchitis.

  “Was your wife in?”

  “No. She was with friends in Peshall. She offen goes there.”

  Mrs. Grebe was welcomed by a certain section of the village on account of her soothsaying, a solitary talent which her husband wished she’d bury and never dig up again.

  “So you’d no alibi, sir?”

  “None, but a clear conscience, Mr. Cromwell.”

  Tom Grebe drew a deep breath and thrust out his chest as though his conscience resided there and was confirming his statement.

  “Wot does the Good Book say? A good name is better than precious ointment. I’ll ask you to bear that in mind.”

  “Your brother never married?”

  Grebe looked a bit put-out. His own wilful past was forgotten, but the mention of “Luv”, as he called it, still embarrassed him.

  “Far be it from me to speak ill of the dead. As the Good...”

  Cromwell was wanting to get away. They’d taken long enough and the airless, musty smell of the house was depressing him.

  “Never mind quotations now, sir. Had your brother any love affairs?”

  “He never went steady with any girl to my knowledge. But his behaviour with that Mrs. Iremonger and Lucy at the Barlow Arms was too free altogether. Perhaps ’e had a girl in every port!”

  Mr. Grebe so far forgot himself as to grow excited at the very thought, and a note of jocularity filled his voice. Then he coughed and suppressed it with a guilty sidelong look at Cromwell.

  “No. Not with my knowledge.”

  “I think that’s all, thank you, sir.”

  “I must be gettin’ along, too. I’ve the lime juice and the ’op ale to see to for tomorrow. This warm spell’s cleaned us out. It’ll want mixin’ and bottlin’ for the mornin’ delivery.”

  Looking across to the tumbledown old chapel where Mrs. Grebe was still rolling her eyes at young Len, Cromwell wondered how Grebe managed to make anything there and how long it would all last!

  Mr. Grebe seemed to read his thoughts.

  “I do ’ope our John didn’t forget me in ’is will. If he did, I don’t know. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t...”

  He paused.

  “Go on, sir.”

  “Nothin’, Mr. Cromwell.”

  They were standing at the door of the house and Cromwell was firmly fixing his bowler hat in place against the sea breeze. He looked Grebe full in the eyes and the guilty look again returned.

  “What does the Good Book say, Mr. Grebe? A living dog is better than a dead lion.”

  And with that he left him.

  7 THE LAST FERRY

  “I CAN’T make it out, at all.”

  In the little group gathered round the fire in the dining-room at the Barlow Arms, Dr. Horrocks was holding the floor. Angular, dark-skinned and tall, he held himself erect like an army man, now and then fingering his small silver moustache.

  “Why should anybody want to kill old John Grebe?”

  The same old question.

  Littlejohn and Cromwell had dined and then Lucy had cleared up and, by pushing back the dining tables, converted the small room into a private lounge. This was the place where Horrocks, Captain Bacon, and John Grebe, when he was off duty, had met with a few friends to talk and play cards.

  Bacon had arrived first, at about half past eight. A tall man, too, with a tanned face and florid cheeks. His thin dark hair was plastered flat across his head. A type of country squire who wore check tweeds and beautifully polished shoes. He walked more like a bandy-legged cavalryman than a sailor. His spaniel, always at his heels, followed him into the room and at once drank the milk put down for the cat.

  Littlejohn was sitting alone smoking in front of the fire when Bacon entered. Cromwell had gone off into the nether regions of the hotel into rooms labelled SNUG and SMOKE ROOM. In the latter, the lowlier elements of the village were gathered for darts. Charlie Withers, Charlie the Cheat, from Peshall Hall, was playing with Fothergill, the postman. Fothergill had his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up. He was a good player and the captain of the local darts team when they met other clubs. He didn’t like Charlie the Cheat, but had taken him on for a bit of practice and as the only one present worthy of his steel. A small cigarette smouldered in the corner of Fothergill’s mouth and looked in imminent danger of setting fire to his large moustache.

  “Evenin’, Mr. Cromwell. Play darts?”

  Fothergill knew Cromwell already and had summed him up from the card he’d seen him post earlier in the afternoon. It was the usual picture-postcard which Cromwell always sent to his wife and family to announce his safe arrival on a case. Fothergill had cleared the box, read the card, ascertained from the handwriting and the address that Cromwell was a modest, middle-class public servant, like Fothergill himself; and worth making a friend of.

  “Play darts, Mr. Cromwell?”

  “Now and then, Mr. Fothergill.”

  The postman puffed out his chest a bit. It was nice to be recognized and addressed by name in front of all the rest, especially by a man from Scotland Yard. Cromwell, too, knew all about Fothergill. ‘Self-opinionated postman you’ve got here...’ he had said to the constable’s wife whom he’d met on the road on his way back from Tom Grebe’s. Fothergill had passed them, walking with the swanking gait of one who knows he’s a somebody in a small community, and greeted them pompously. Mrs. P.C. Dixon could tell a tale once you started her.

  Fothergill took a deep swig at his pint of beer and wiped his large moustache on the back of his hand. Then he drew in a deep breath which sucked the moustache into his mouth where he again squeegeed it dry. He passed a handful of darts to Cromwell.

  “Let’s see
wot you can do, Mr. Cromwell.” He said it like a master testing the mettle of an apprentice.

  In the dining room Horrocks had joined the other two. And then Brett, the parish clerk, had almost sneaked in. He liked to think himself a member of the most select company in the hotel, insinuated himself in the private room whenever he could, and sat there listening, rarely speaking except when he was spoken to. Small, pot-bellied and red-haired, he lived alone in a cottage down the road, ate gluttonously, and could be seen sometimes in summer peeping round the curtains of his front room and lecherously eyeing the half-clad girls who passed on holidays.

  Lucy brought in drinks from time to time. She had returned and settled down to her old job without a word or an explanation, after her interview with Littlejohn. Leo was nowhere about. ‘He’s gone over the river,’ she’d told Cromwell when he asked about her brother. Cromwell had smiled, thinking of the evangelical hymns he used to sing as a small boy. Leo, who was sleeping over the stables until the police said he could go, sought his pleasures across the ferry. ‘This dump gives me the willies’, he kept saying.

  Braid, the landlord, heavy and pear-shaped, entered finally.

  “I’ll see to the rest. You can knock off now,” he said to Lucy, who retired meekly, followed out of sight by the hungry little eyes of Brett.

  The curtains of the private room were drawn and the chairs pulled up to the fire. As a rule, the local party played cards for an hour. Now, with Littlejohn there, they felt more like talking about the murder and how the investigation was going on.

  “Why should anybody want to kill old John Grebe?”

  He’d no enemies. They all agreed about that. A bit surly and bad-tempered now and then, but otherwise, a harmless sort of a man who seemed to want nothing but a quiet life in which to do his job and enjoy his leisure.

  “Did he call here for a drink just before the last ferry left on the night he died?”

  They all looked at one another after Littlejohn’s question, each wondering who must give the answer.

  “Bacon and I left at ten. We usually do. And you went at the same time, didn’t you, Brett?”

  Dr. Horrocks seemed to separate Brett from himself and his friend deliberately, just to keep him at arm’s length.

  “Yes. That’s right, that’s right, that’s right.”

  Brett replied eagerly as though he greatly appreciated being spoken to at all.

  Horrocks took a sip of his whisky and gently and deliberately put down the glass. His hands were noticeably long and delicate and he wore a large intaglio signet ring on his little finger.

  “You see, the last ferry leaves Falbright at ten now on winter schedule, takes a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes to get over here, and then returns at ten thirty. Grebe was never one for a quick drink; he liked to take his time. He’d only ten minutes over here and then he’d to take the ferry back. He used to walk to the top of the pier, just to stretch his legs, he said, and then go back on board. A man of habit.”

  “That’s right. Very set in his ways,” said Bacon, who was also set in his ways and slightly resented the intrusion of Littlejohn in the party which had spoiled the usual game of cards.

  Littlejohn nodded.

  “So you and Captain Bacon left at ten and went straight home, doctor?”

  Bacon raised his eyebrows.

  “You don’t want an alibi from us, do you, Inspector?”

  “It’s as well to gather as many alibis as we can in a case like this, Captain Bacon. You and the doctor walked home?”

  Horrocks answered. He seemed anxious to keep his peppery companion from stirring up trouble.

  “We walked home, yes. Bacon left me at my door. It must have been about ten minutes past ten. He hadn’t his car with him. He’d come in on foot. It was a nice night and he walked home, didn’t you, Bacon?”

  “Yes. Why not?”

  “We were busy talking as we went, Inspector, and I left my stick behind. You can see it in the corner, there. The one with the silver knob. I missed it at the gate and strolled back to get it after I’d told my housekeeper to go to bed. I got here just after they’d closed and Braid will tell you I knocked him up. He was a bit surprised at seeing me, but I’m a bit fussy about the stick. Given to me by colleagues at a hospital I served in years ago.”

  Braid nodded to confirm this.

  Littlejohn made a note on the back of an old envelope.

  “And you, Captain Bacon, you went straight home?”

  “Of course, I did. This is no place to be wanderin’ about in at that time of night. My servants can no doubt confirm I got in before eleven. In any case, I don’t see the point in all this. Why should any of us want to follow old John Grebe back to the Jenny, creep on the bridge, kill him, and chuck him in the river? Ridiculous to me, the whole business of alibis.”

  “Don’t get upset, Bacon. The Inspector’s got the job to do and he knows best. You see, all of us have alibis here, haven’t we, Inspector? We were all seen that night. Braid and I saw one another, the servants saw Bacon, and what about you, Brett? Did you go straight to bed after you left us at your cottage?”

  “Eh?”

  Brett started as though he wasn’t involved in the matter at all.

  “Did you go straight to bed after you left us?”

  “Yes, oh yes . . . yes, yes.”

  Brett answered eagerly without thinking for a moment.

  “You didn’t, you know, Mr. Brett.”

  All eyes turned on Braid, standing about waiting for orders. He cut into the conversation malevolently, with relish, because he didn’t like Brett.

  “What are you talkin’ about? Are you callin’ me a liar, Braid?”

  The fixed grin left Brett’s face and he stood up, uncertainly facing the landlord.

  Braid was like a cat playing with a mouse. He put his hands on his pear-shaped paunch and looked pleased with himself.

  “You want an alibi, now, don’t you, Mr. Brett? It ’ud be dangerous to give the police untrue information, wouldn’t it?”

  Horrocks was on his feet, too.

  “What are you gettin’ at, Braid? Out with it and then bring us another round instead of hangin’ about.”

  Braid flushed.

  “Better ask Brett, then, while I bring the drinks.”

  “What is all this, Mr. Brett?”

  Littlejohn removed his pipe and turned a bland look on the little fat parish clerk.

  “I’d forgotten, Mr. Littlejohn. I took a stroll down to the end of the jetty to watch the last ferry in. I felt I wouldn’t sleep if I didn’t get a breather after sittin’ in here with these two gentlemen all night.”

  “Did anybody see you there?”

  Brett looked uneasy.

  “I daresay. There were quite a few said good night...”

  “Includin’ Miss Clara Lewcock, Mr. Brett.”

  Braid entered with a tray of glasses just in time to add his comments.

  “I’ll trouble you to leave her out of it, Mr. Braid.”

  “I saw you with her, Mr. Brett, walking along the jetty as I stood at the front door. She’s a servant at Solitude—Mrs. Iremonger’s place—and Mr. Brett ’as taken a fancy to her.”

  “Look here, Braid...I warned you. For two pins I’d smash your damned face in.”

  The rabbity Mr. Brett was growing pugnacious under Braid’s taunts and was obviously making threats in his rage which he couldn’t hope to carry out.

  “Why you...you....”

  “That’ll do, Braid. Put down the glasses and then get out. You’ve been offensive enough. Go on...get out.”

  “Very well, Captain, but you just ask ’im.”

  Braid left the room with as much injured innocence and dignity as he could muster.

  “This Clara Lewcock can give you an alibi, Mr. Brett?”

  “I suppose so. I jest walked up the jetty with her. I’d rather she wasn’t asked, though. Don’t want any unpleasantness.”

  Bacon unexpectedly guffawed.


  “Tryin’ to persuade her to join you in your cottage, Brett, eh?”

  “Really, Captain Bacon. As if I’d do such a thing.”

  Outside in the bar, shouts were raised as Cromwell humbled Fothergill at darts. The sergeant, too, was captain of a team which met at a pub in Shepherd Market. It was a red-letter day for the regulars at the Barlow Arms to see the haughty postman well and truly beaten.

  Jumping Joe, the tramp from the marsh, was making most of the noise, too. He didn’t know properly what the excitement was about, but it was infectious and got in his blood. He offered to stand drinks all round.

  “Where’s all your money come from, Joe?” asked Sid the potman, as the jumper produced a pound note.

  “Never you mind. Plenny more where that come from.”

  And he pulled out six or seven more.

  After that they refused to serve Jumping Joe with drink and persuaded him to leave the place. He was getting too noisy and if Dixon happened to find them supplying him in his present condition, there’d be hell to pay.

  “Righ’...I’m off... Don’ want to stop where me company’s nod wanted.”

  With his usual sublime drunken good humour, Jumping Joe rose, hiccupped, and then wobbled out into the dark.

  “You oughtn’t to leave him flounderin’ about in the dark outside, Sid. He’ll break his neck.”

  “I’ve seen him worse than that many a time. He’s safer when he’s drunk than when he’s sober.”

  Sid wasn’t going to miss a minute of the postman’s discomfiture.

  “I’m not very well tonight,” Fothergill was saying. “Some pork I ’ad for my lunch was a bit off. I can’t see proper.”

  “Go on with you, Percy. You’re beat. Admit it.”

  The clock in the hall struck a quarter to ten. Littlejohn rose from his armchair in the dining room.

  “Well...Thank you, gentlemen, for your help and your company. I’ll leave you now. Just take a breath of fresh air along the pier and back before bed.”

  “Have another before you go, Chief Inspector?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll bid you good night and be on my way. Good night.”