Outrage on Gallows Hill

by George Bellairs

  “Crime passionnel!” said Littlejohn. He didn’t know quite why he said it. He felt a bit frivolous. Another man in gaiters had entered. Perhaps the dean. The newcomer bared his teeth at the bishop and they began palavering and pollydoodling together like mad. A fresh plate of cakes arrived and the two clerics set about them with gusto.

  Stanley had his back to the new arrival, so he didn’t see him.

  “Crime …? Oh, yes, yes. Cherchez la femme, you mean. Or is it le femme? So long since I did any French. Well, as I was saying, Free had just got himself engaged. The girl told us that. Very cut-up, she was, too. Taken her all that time to make up her mind and then, just as she’d made her choice, somebody choked him …”

  Stanley sniggered at his own wit. The bishop and the dean must have made a joke, too, for they burst into roars of laughter, the higher dignitary neighing like a horse and the lesser hooting tremulously like an old owl. The noise seemed infectious, for the whole place was soon shaking with mirth. The thing was fantastic! Here was Littlejohn on a murder case …

  “As I was saying.… They’d got engaged. Young Free had just got a teaching job. He’d graduated at Melchester University. If you stand up you can see the towers just over the left end of the chapter-house there … See it?”

  The little fat dean stopped laughing and looked anxiously at Littlejohn, as though suspecting him of having designs on the fabric of his cathedral.

  “Hullo, I hadn’t seen the dean come in. That’s the dean with the bishop.”

  Littlejohn was getting a bit fed-up.

  “You say Free graduated at the University. What then?”

  “Oh, yes. Laura Cruft was a fellow student there, too. That’s how they met, I believe. He was taking a degree in literature, they say. She was studying Lord knows what. Her people have plenty of money. Rich farmers. Her mother married a second time. Fellow called Spry. Laura’s father died when she was fifteen and left a pile. Spry was bailiff on a nearby farm, moved in and, so to speak, hung his hat up. He’s been a good father to her …”

  “How was the money left? Outright, or in trust till the girl reached a certain age?”

  “Haven’t taken that up, yet. The murder only happened last night!”

  Stanley sounded hurt and cast a glance at the fair girl again as though to derive consolation from the sight of her.

  “Go on, then …”

  “A lot of the chaps at the University were after Laura, as well as Free. And if the tales are right, she was a favourite with one or two of the professors as well …”

  “Good Lord!”

  “Bit of a mess, isn’t it? This’ll need a bit of tactful handling, sir.”

  “Will it?”

  “Free’s people live in Ravelstone, too. His father’s in business on his own as local joiner, undertaker and the like. Ronald was a bright lad and won scholarships to college. His people aren’t too well off and made sacrifices for him … They’re very cut up.”

  “I’m sure they are. Was he their only one?”

  “Yes. They didn’t much care for Laura, either. From what I gather, they thought she was a bit too flighty for him … You know … all airs and fancy dress and not much of a housewife …”

  “I see. Was she taking literature, too?”

  “General Arts degree, she told me; interested in psychology as well. We’ve got a good chap on psychology here. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. Him and his wife write books … Professor D’Arcy Lever. Classes packed-out. Gives lectures out of hours as well. Great favourite with the women. These psychology chaps usually are, aren’t they?”

  “Are they? I don’t know any …”

  “Oh … A lot of the University staff live out at Ravelstone. It’s only three miles away, you see. Pretty village. Lot of writers and artists there, too.”

  “Just a minute … Did anybody see young Free before he was killed?”

  “Not as far as we know. Laura was the last to see him alive. I feel sorry for her … A very nice girl …”

  Littlejohn imagined Stanley dispensing comfort and tact to the stricken one. Straightening his fancy tie and apologising all along the line.

  The bishop and the dean had finished and were jocularly quarrelling as to who was to pay the bill. Their wives had already left them. The bishop won and departed with his colleague, dispensing smiles and unction on his way out, like a pontiff in a sacred procession.

  No use trying to concentrate on the case in The Mikado. The local beauties passing in and out were a source of constant distraction for Stanley, of whom Littlejohn had formed a very poor first impression. He wondered how the man had earned his promotion. Actually, the young Inspector was a graduate of Melchester himself, a very clever chemist and fingerprint man, and keen on his job. He was, at his own request, being given a turn on the outside staff. He was doing temporary duty, for the local force was decimated by ’flu.

  “I think we’d better be getting along to Ravelstone, Stanley. Waitress! the bill.”

  “This is on me, sir.”

  Littlejohn wasn’t disposed to quarrel about it and they left together to pick up Stanley’s car from the car-park.

  “Do you want to see the body, sir?”

  “Not just now, thanks. We’ll leave that till later.”

  Stanley shrugged his shoulders. All good detectives wanted to see the body. Littlejohn was a decent sort of chap personally, but as a detective … well …

  Quite a number of others had thought that and finished on the end of a rope!

  The car threaded its way through the streets of the city. They passed the police station, but as the Chief Constable was out and the Superintendent in bed with ’flu, it wasn’t much use calling then. Stanley pointed out the sights of the town … The old Corn Market, the Butter Cross, the Guildhall, the archdeacon, the dean again, and a millionaire who had come to live in a house in the cathedral close.

  “And that’s the local M.P. There’s a big rally today …”

  Littlejohn yawned. He must get rid of Stanley soon; otherwise this conducted tour would go on for ever.

  “What about my room for the night? I suppose I’ll have to stay for a time …”

  Stanley grinned.

  “Looks like taking a long time, this affair, sir. There’s quite a fine country hotel in Ravelstone. Golfers stay there and play on the local links, which are quite good. Do you play?”

  God! thought Littlejohn, I wish they’d sent somebody else on this case.

  They were in the country at last. Up two hills and down again and then you could see the village of Ravelstone. Clumps of trees, farms, the church poking its towers through the tree-tops, cottages clustered about and a number of new, red brick villas flung up irrespective of site and taste.

  The air was heavy with the smell of autumn. Wood smoke, dead leaves, manure, all mixed with the smell of petrol fumes from Stanley’s car, the exhaust of which seemed to leak into the interior.

  “This is the Frees’ place.”

  The car pulled up before an old brick cottage with a small garden at the front. On one side a wooden lean-to shed with a timber yard constituted the father’s workshop and store. Inside the shed a stocky, red-faced man with a shock of untidy grey hair was planing wood. He was in his shirt sleeves and wore a bowler hat. He worked mechanically, seeming not to know what he was doing.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Free.”

  The man turned. His eyes were red-rimmed from grief and looked lifeless.

  “This is Inspector Littlejohn, from Scotland Yard, who’s here to help us clear-up this ghastly business.”

  “Pleased to meet you …”

  Old Free extended a large, hard hand automatically. There was no strength in his grip.

  “What do you want? I don’t feel up to talking … Better see mother …”

  Indoors they found Mrs. Free. She had been weeping, and two other women were sitting by the kitchen fire trying to comfort her. There were empty teacups on the table.

  Mrs. F
ree was a stiff little grey-headed woman, buxom and healthy-looking. She was in a daze and couldn’t realise what had happened. Littlejohn shook hands with her.

  “Will you have a cup of tea? There’s some brewed. You must excuse our being in such an upset … You see …”

  She burst into tears again.

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Free.… I just wanted to say how sorry I am about all this,” said Littlejohn. “I’ll see you later.”

  The woman clung to his hand like someone drowning.

  “Why? Why did they do it …? He never hurt anybody …”

  The two attendant women gathered round and caressed and comforted the stricken one.

  Stanley looked at Littlejohn and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Come along, Stanley. Let’s get to the hotel. If you want me, Mrs. Free, I’ll be staying in the village.”

  “All right, Inspector. I’m sorry …”

  “You’d better meet the local bobby, if he’s in.”

  “What about the hotel?”

  Stanley gave Littlejohn a reproachful look and pulled up before a large, modernised old house with a garden abutting the road.

  “Here we are.”

  Men in plus-fours and flannels hanging round the bar. Golf clubs lying about in the hall. Loud voices analysing the last round in the lounge. A group of men yelling their heads off at a dirty joke one of them had just told.

  “Book for one night,” said Littlejohn.

  “Why?”

  “I’ll see how I like it.”

  “Oh, it’s a good place—jolly comfortable and plenty of cheerful company.”

  “So I see.”

  The porter carried off Littlejohn’s bag and he paid for a drink for Stanley. It was apparently the fashionable thing to do. Stanley seemed to know most of the men standing around. One of them wanted to tell him the dirty joke.

  “Did you hear that one …?”

  “Excuse us. We’re just going.”

  Stanley turned to Littlejohn.

  “Well, what do you want to do next? Police-station? Scene of the crime? Or call on Laura Cruft? You have your own way of working, I suppose, sir. Just say the word.”

  “I think I’ll have a wash and a snack first. You can leave me here. I want to think over things a bit.”

  Stanley was flummoxed.

  “But—will you be doing anything after? Like me to call after tea, or I could stay and have a meal with you?”

  “No, I’ll be all right, thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow. Give you a ring on the telephone in the morning.”

  “Very good, sir. I thought that perhaps …”

  “Thanks for all you’ve done, Stanley. I’ll be seeing you.”

  The Melchester man went off a bit crestfallen. Littlejohn felt churlish. After all, the chap was doing his best. All the same, this parade couldn’t go on. He must work at it in his own way.

  “Waiter! Could I have a sandwich in a quiet corner?”

  The waiter looked astonished.

  “Sorry, sir. There’s nothing till dinner. I could get you a drink. And I’m afraid all the public rooms are full of people. The golfers, you know …”

  “Oh, yes, the golfers. Right, thanks.”

  Littlejohn had a wash and sought the village pub, where they found him something to eat and a glass of decent beer.

  He moved there the following morning. It was quieter.

  3.

  COSTAIN COLLABORATES

  Within thy gates nothinge doeth come

  That is not passinge cleane,

  Noe spider’s web, noe durt, noe dust,

  Noe filthe may there be seene.

  15TH CENTURY HYMN

  P.C. COSTAIN saw Littlejohn and Stanley in the village and returned home to the police house in case they needed him. His wife was surprised to see him indoors at that time of the afternoon.

  “Have you wiped your feet? What are you doin’ home at this hour?” she asked, her voice strident with curiosity and suspicion.

  Costain told her.

  “Oh dear! What a nuisance!” was the only reply, and Mrs. Costain, picking up dust pan, brush and polishing mop, began cleaning and tidying up like mad. Not that the place needed any more elbow grease. It was as clean as a new pin after Mrs. Costain’s earlier assaults upon it, which had lasted from seven that morning until the time when her husband made his surprise return.

  But Mrs. Costain was that way. The only place where the poor bobby found any peace was in the potting-shed at the bottom of the back garden. There at least he didn’t have to take his boots off lest he scratch the linoleum or soil the carpet; he could loll and smoke in an old cast-out chair without being glared at every time he struck a match or puffed his pipe; and he could sit down without his wife finding him some fiddling job to do just when he was settled, and shaking out the cushion with resentful violence every time he rose.

  Costain was tall, thin, hatchet-faced and melancholy. Probably the sadness in his eyes and the compassion in his heart were the reasons why the villagers of Ravelstone thought so much of him. He was very popular, greatly to the annoyance of P.C. Butt, of Ditchling Episcopi, who was ambitious and officious.

  He had been in the Manx police until he picked up Mrs. Costain, then a fluffy, pretty thing on a holiday. She had come from somewhere near Liverpool and couldn’t bear the thought of being tucked away on an island all her life. So, Costain, in a fury of love, had agreed and transferred to the mainland. He had never got over it.

  It wouldn’t have been so bad if he could have looked forward to getting back to his native soil when he retired, which wasn’t far away. But, no, Mrs. Costain was vociferously going back to Liverpool or nowhere. And there was P.C. Costain’s old father with his nice little farm near Ballaugh, ready to turn it over to Joe when he liked.

  No wonder Costain nursed in his bosom a worshipping, innocent fondness for the doctor’s wife. She somehow seemed to understand his difficulties and always had a friendly word and an encouraging smile for him when they met. His love wasn’t, of course, of the desperately hopeless kind that once made a man fling himself into the Seine after his first look at Monna Lisa in the Louvre. It was just a quiet, melancholy delight which added great joy to the policeman’s otherwise bleak existence and caused him to burst into poetry now and again.

  “Wipe your feet!” shouted Mrs. Costain.

  The bobby winced as though she had struck him. Mrs. Costain was a small, dark shrew, merciless of tongue, and with none of the fluffiness of yesteryear left.

  P.C. Costain hated all this yelling from room to room, and pretended not to hear.

  “Are you listenin’? Wipe your feet!”

  The constable began frenziedly looking for his black notebook, which he’d left at noon on the sideboard after carefully writing-up his log of last night’s events.

  “Where’s my notebook, ’Liza?”

  “Where d’you think it is? Where it ought to be, in the sideboard drawer, not lyin’ about cluttering up the place. I can never keep the house tidy.”

  Sadly Costain shrugged his shoulders to himself.

  “I was proceeding down Gallows Hill in the course of routine patrol. The time was 9-45 p.m.…”

  Slowly the bobby read over the account of his adventures.

  At Ballaugh they would just be starting milking. He could hear the rattle of the buckets, the placid cows munching the hay in the stalls, the clink of his old dad’s hobnailed boots as he crossed the yard from the little white farmhouse to the cowshed. The afternoon train went past … so leisurely. Time enough! And you could make out all the people in the carriages, and friends would wave as they went by.

  “Do you hear? When are they comin’?”

  “Aw. How should I know?”

  “Well you needn’t get mad about it! I only asked a civil question.”

  Littlejohn found P.C. Costain standing at the garden-gate waiting for him. The bobby greeted him shyly.

  “You Costain? Glad to meet you. You Manx, like
your name?”

  “Aw, yis. Ever been to the Island, sir?”

  “Yes. Once went on a case … Man murdered on the road to Port Soderick … Lovely place you come from. Whatever made you leave it?”

  “Come in, sir. Come in.”

  Costain’s cup of joy was full.

  Upstairs there were sounds of brushing and dusting and moving furniture.

  “Only the wife doin’ a bit o’ cleanin’,” explained the bobby.

  “I just called to meet you, Costain. We’ll be seeing quite a lot of each other until this affair’s settled. Now, can you tell me exactly what occurred last night. No, don’t read it from the book. Just tell me in your own words.”

  The constable told what had happened in his slow, deliberate way.

  “And now, Costain, have you any ideas of your own about the affair? Motive and possible murderer, I mean.”

  Costain rubbed his chin.

  “Can’t say I have ezactly. Maybe it was a matter of love. Then, maybe it wasn’t. Perhaps it was money.”

  “And from what the doctors say, the crime must have been committed just before you came on the spot?”

  “Yes, and Miss Cruft confirms that, sir. I must have been there just a minute or two too late.”

  “You neither saw nor heard anyone about?”

  “No, sir.”

  Littlejohn filled and lit his pipe and passed his pouch to Costain, who did the same, carefully gathering up the spent matches and throwing them on the fire. He sat on the edge of his chair like a stranger in his own home.

  Upstairs all was silent. Probably she knew by instinct that they’d lit up, and was wondering if they were making a mess of the place!

  “Love or money? Well?”

  “You see, it’s this way, sir. Laura Cruft’s turned the heads of a few chaps from this village and from Melchester. Young Free’s been after her a while and seemed the favoured one of late. But she’d had one or two regulars before. F’rinstance, Tim Blaize, son of the landlord of the village pub, The Bird in Hand. A proper surprise when she took up with Tim. Bit of a wastrel, but good looking and got takin’ ways. Started drinkin’ heavy when she threw him over for Free …”