“Oh yes, I do know what it feels like. No use appealing to that side of my nature. I’m here in the course o’ duty and my duty I’ll do. Where was your Jessie on the night o’ the crime between say nine thirty, pee hem, and ten?”
“Out with Johnny Hunter.”
“At that time precisely?”
“Yes. And he wasn’t very nice to her. Came in and found her lying on the bed cryln’ her eyes out.”
“Too bad! What had he been doing?”
“Don’t ask me. She wouldn’t tell me a proper tale. All I know is, he’s not been nice to her of late. Why he keeps comin’ for her and why she puts up with it I don’t know.… There’s as good fish in the sea, I keep tellin’ her. And fish as worships the ground she treads on. So there!”
Mrs. Fairfield sniffed and proudly thrust her nose in the air.
“Such as …?”
“Why will you persist in asking questions you already know, Joe Costain? Everybody knows that Mr. Shortt’s crazy about her, although I shouldn’t talk like that myself. He’s that friendly with me. Asking us both to come up and see his bungalow and take tea, and wantin’ to take my Jessie to the theatres and places in Melchester. He’s a nice man is Mr. Shortt and would make any girl a good husband, even if he is a writer.”
“I’m sure he would.”
“Yes … Quiet and gentlemanly, too. You wouldn’t think he was that sort if you was to read his books. I got one or two from the local county library. My goodness! Talk about passion! Still waters run deep with him and no mistake. The last I read was about a man and a woman who hated him bein’ entombed in a cellar in the bombing of London. Before they was rescued she was like putty in ’is hands. Swept her off her feet …”
“Yes. Yes. Pity he doesn’t use a bit of his technique in real life, eh?”
“What do you mean, Joe Costain? My Jessie’s a good girl, I’ll have you know.”
The band from the circus was in the village again. A few players blowing bleakly, followed by the elephant, a camel, a dancing bear and a moth-eaten lion in a cage on wheels. A motley procession of clowns, a woman riding on a barebacked white pony and a lorry with three acrobats throwing themselves about as it went along. Then a crowd of small children and women with babies in arms gaping with astonishment and eagerly accepting the handbills distributed by a man in a top hat, riding boots and a coat with an astrakhan collar. They passed by and peace descended again.
“I wasn’t saying anything about your girl’s morals. I merely meant that it sometimes doesn’t do to wear your heart on your sleeve like Shortt’s doing. Johnny Hunter with his indifference seems to be succeeding better. It’s often that way. Peculiar fact o’ life.”
Costain paused astonished at his own wisdom. Perhaps he’d have done better himself with Mrs. Costain if he hadn’t been so soft-hearted. However, she’d been a lot better since she thought he’d got strangled, when all the time it was Will Butt.
The front door opened and Jessie entered. She was listless and flung her gloves and shopping basket casually on the table. She expressed no surprise at the sight of Costain. He was small fry compared with the problems exercising her mind at the moment.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Costain. Not often you call.”
“Good afternoon, Jessie. You’ve just arrived in time. I’m wanting a word with you.”
She was on the defensive right away. Her cheeks flushed and she drew in her breath, bracing herself for an ordeal.
Jessie was very like Mrs. Fairfield, only more delicately built. Her hair had an attractive wave in it and her fine, white teeth set off her dark, flawless complexion. Her figure was slim and supple and she had a daintiness and poise missing in her more excitable mother.
Johnny Hunter’s a damn’ fool and Shortt’s too slow to carry cold dinners, thought Costain to himself.
“I was just wantin’ to know where you were on the night Ronnie Free was killed, Jessie. Between half-past nine and ten, to be precise.”
“With Johnny.”
She said it firmly, as though she’d made up her mind properly.
“Sure? All the time?”
“All the time.”
“Did he bring you home?”
“ Nearly to the door.”
“Why didn’t he come in with you? He was comin’-in, wasn’t he?”
Coming-in was an important stage in Ravelstonian wooings. The half-way house between dalliance and getting engaged officially.
“Of course he was comin’-in,” said Mrs. Fairfield indignantly.
“Very well. Why didn’t he come-in that night?”
Jessie’s cheeks flamed and her lips trembled.
“He didn’t want to that night.”
“Why?”
“I won’t have her bullied, Joe Costain.”
“Do you mind leavin’ me to do this, Mrs. Fairfield? Else …”
There was a deep threat in Costain’s voice. But he was too late. Jessie had rushed upstairs. Presumably to throw herself on the bed again and cry her eyes out. Costain looked more melancholy than ever. He couldn’t bear women crying.
“Look what you’ve done now, Joe Costain.”
“I can’t help it. I’ve got my duty. I want to be sure about that alibi.”
“You’re not thinking Johnny …?”
“Of course not. Don’t be silly. But alibis has to be checked. Else, what good are they? I’m very put out, Mrs. Fairfield. Very put out indeed about this.”
“Well, she’s told you she was with him all the time. What more do you want? Her Bible oath or somethin’?”
“ No. A proper straightforward answer and not so much blushin’ and stammerin’ and playin’ about. You’d better have another talk with her yourself. Tell her I’ll be callin’ again and that next time I want a full account of where they was and their movements. And now I’ll be off. And see to it that there’s no more o’ this devil’s business agen’ Laura Cruft … Or you’ll hear more from me.”
With that the bobby took a very dignified leave.
Once outside, however, Costain felt sick and tired of it all. Here the Scotland Yard man had given him a job to do and he’d only half done it! What Mr. Littlejohn would say, he didn’t know.
But when Costain met the Inspector, Littlejohn didn’t seem at all put about by Costain’s report. He appeared to be impressed and interested.
“I see, Costain. So you don’t feel convinced. Well, we’d better take up things from another angle. So far, we’ve not got a single bit of evidence to assist us, but there’s a vague sort of uncertainty in some directions that’s cheering. You know, I think a word or two with Shortt might do no harm. If he’s on the prowl after young Jessie, he might have something useful to tell us. These earnest lovers are very sensitive sometimes, especially when they’re of the artistic temperament.”
“Yes, sir. I see. Can I do anything more, sir?”
“Not at the moment, Costain. Get on with your routine duties and keep your eyes and ears open. We’ll be stumbling across something that will alter the whole course of events. I feel it in my bones that we’re getting warm, although in which direction I can’t for the life of me say.”
At the police station there was a message for Littlejohn to telephone back to Scotland Yard.
It was Cromwell with news about Paget, the thriller merchant. They’d drawn a blank at the London end.
Paget had been easy to pick up at the London terminus when he arrived from Ravelstone. He had been followed to Seven Dials, where he entered a public house, the George Canning. That seemed a bit fishy. Men like Paget didn’t frequent the Seven Dials direction for the benefit of their health. Perhaps he was in some racket or other.
But it all turned out quite simple and reasonable. Cromwell had had a drink and talked to the woman at the bar, who was also a sort of manageress. Paget had disappeared somewhere in the rear of the premises. Cromwell had just asked who he was as he passed by, he was sure he’d seen him before.
“Oh, that
’s Mr. Paget, the owner of the place.”
Cromwell, with his throat full of beer had been so taken aback that he had almost choked and had to be vigorously slapped on the back by the buxom, heavy-handed woman in charge.
It seems that a certain Mr. Danks who owned the George Canning had been a Raid Warden with Paget during the bombing of London. Paget had conscientiously come down from the country three nights a week to do his bit in the stricken City. Good fellow! Well, one night he’d rescued Mr. Danks from a cellar in which the publican had been trapped, and saved his life. Danks, a bachelor with no dependants, had left Paget his prosperous little pub in his Will out of sheer gratitude and then got himself completely wiped out in a later raid. The place paid so well that Paget had kept it on and put in a manageress.
So that was that. The author was supplementing his perhaps meagre earnings from the prosperous little “public” at Seven Dials.
“Well, well,” said Littlejohn. “Wonders never cease. The more you do our job, the more surprises you get!”
Paget was a decent fellow after all. Not a philanderer making secret trips to his lady in London. Suppose he loved his wife and had heard about young Free and his affair with her, and being a bit of a criminologist, had tried to concoct a perfect crime.
“Well, I’ve another job for you now, Cromwell. You might go down to Dintling in Worcestershire, and see what information you can gather about a man called Spry, David Spry. Left Dintling about fifteen years ago. It’s a bit of a trip. Not far from Tewkesbury, I believe. Do your best, old chap …”
So far, every trail had petered out. All the same, new ones kept opening. One of them would surely bring results at the end.
Mrs. Costain appeared with some more tea and scones and this time she was much more pleasant about matters.
“Smoke if you like,” she said.
Costain’s mouth fell open. He could hardly believe his ears! Mrs. Costain gave him a proud, possessive smile as she left the room.
There had been a lot of talk around the village about the well-known detective from London. Somebody had even retailed a few of his best cases and told how he had brought unexpected criminals to book. And Joe Costain, collaborating like mad, had come in for a large measure of reflected glory. Mrs. Costain was being treated with greater respect, even deference, in certain quarters. There was a suggestion that at the next general meeting she would be put on the committee of the Women’s Institute.
Joe wasn’t such a dud, after all. Mrs. Costain was proud of him!
17.
A WRITER OF ROMANCES
“Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.”
SAMUEL JOHNSON
LITTLEJOHN got a bit of a surprise when he met George Shortt. If he expected the “Maude Temple” of romantic fiction to be an effeminate, neurotic slip of a fellow, he was mistaken. Shortt was six feet high, forty or a little more, well built and with a sun-tanned face. His fair hair was receding from a high forehead and his blue eyes were troubled and innocent. He wondered what the police wanted with him.
An elderly housekeeper showed Littlejohn into a room furnished expensively. Somehow, you didn’t expect Shortt to be cared for by a pretty young maid. He looked too prim. He was carefully dressed and had fussy, fastidious ways with his hands and feet.
Over the fireplace was a good oil painting of an elderly, grey-haired lady. Shortt was a bachelor. The kind who remains under his mother’s influence until late in life. A sort of Sir Galahad, who, when the influence is removed by death, falls for a girl and right away places her on a pedestal.
You couldn’t call Shortt girlish by any stretch of imagination, but both his literary work and his home bore striking evidence of feminine domination.
When Littlejohn asked him about Jessie Fairfield, Shortt blushed and looked awkward. Then he pulled himself together with a great effort.
“You’re a friend of Miss Fairfield’s, sir?” asked Littlejohn blandly.
Better put it mildly, he thought.
That seemed to please Shortt.
“Yes,” he replied eagerly as though the admission were somehow furthering his cause.
“You know, then, that she’s practically engaged to Johnny Hunter?”
Shortt’s face fell this time.
“I’ve heard something about it, but placed no importance on it. There’s so much gossip goes on in this place. And nowadays engagements seem only to be made to be broken.”
Hope springs eternal, thought the Inspector. Shortt couldn’t face the fact, obviously, so tried to pass it off lightly.
“Now, sir. I’m anxious to know where Miss Fairfield was between 9-30 and ten o’clock on the night young Free was killed. Where were you at that time, by the way?”
The question was so unexpected that Shortt took it like a blow in the face. He stepped back a pace and then turned his back on Littlejohn and looked through the open french window across the lawn.
The view was a beautiful one. Shortt’s bungalow was shielded from the road by a thick hedge. Between that and the house, a lawn like a green carpet, flanked by well-kept flower beds. These were bright with late blooms in spite of the early frosts.
Behind there were fruit trees and then the land fell away to a deep glen with a thin stream rattling over stones at the bottom of it.
Trees in their autumn glory everywhere. In a dovecote on the lawn two doves were sitting. They must have been very old, or their love had grown faint and fretful, for they never moved. Only the flicker of their eyes betrayed that they were alive.
Shortt had made money out of fiction and knew how to get the most for it.
The house was the same. Plenty of good furniture, good books, pictures of no common type, comfort and well-being everywhere. No wonder Mrs. Fairfield favoured Shortt’s suit.
Littlejohn followed the novelist to the window.
“Lovely place,” he said with appreciation.
“Yes, isn’t it?”
There was a lovelorn sigh about the reply. Littlejohn smiled.
“You haven’t answered the question yet, sir.”
“What does it matter to you? I’m not suspected, am I? Hardly knew young Free.”
“Leave me to judge its importance, sir. Where were you?”
“I was out … Walking in the village.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
Littlejohn looked him in the eyes. Shortt quailed. The Inspector knew he wasn’t getting a full tale. Why?
“Which way did you go? Please be precise. We know the movements of quite a lot of people and it’s as well to be careful.”
“I went down to the centre of the village, posted a letter to my publishers and then strolled back.”
“So you passed the scene of the crime?”
“Come to think of it, I did.”
Come to think of it! Littlejohn was sure the fact had given Shortt many a qualm. There was no question at all of coming to think of it.
“Did you see anything or anybody?”
“No.”
“Quite sure?”
“Certainly. Why?”
“You didn’t by any chance meet Miss Fairfield on the road, sir?”
The shot landed home. Shortt almost reeled. He was a queer sort. Most unimaginative looking, yet hiding beneath a harmless enough exterior one of the best minds for sensational fiction in the literary world.
“Who? Me? Meet Miss Fairfield?” Littlejohn glowed with inner satisfaction. Shortt’s way of saying Who? Me? showed he was trying to gain time.
“Certainly not! I was alone all the time.”
“Think again, sir. Did you meet Miss Fairfield about the time stated? It’s important. If you didn’t, she’s likely to have some trouble.”
The threat to his darling roused Shortt at once. He flushed scarlet. Like a hen defending her brood.
“What’s all this? Because if …”
“I’ve reason to believe that Miss F
airfield was roaming alone near the scene of the crime at the time it was committed.”
Littlejohn hadn’t reason at all. It was just a long shot and it got home.
“Why … Jessie … er … Miss Fairfield hadn’t anything to do with it! If you’re insinuating … By God!”
“I’m insinuating nothing. I want to know the movements of anyone alone in the village at the time of the crime. If you saw Miss Fairfield you’d better tell me, sir, for her sake.”
“All right then. I did see her.”
“And she asked you to say you hadn’t. Is that it?”
“What the hell’s that got to do with you?”
A sufficient answer. Littlejohn didn’t press the matter.
“Where did you meet her?”
“At the bottom of Gallows Hill, just where it turns into the village street.”
“What was she doing?”
“Going home, of course.”
“So Hunter had sent her packing, or else left her to her own devices?”
“ I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. All I know is I saw her home.”
“H’m. Was she distressed?”
“How should I know? It was quite dark.”
“How did you recognise her, then?”
Shortt blushed again and ran his finger around the front of his collar.
“I called good-night and she answered.”
“So you walked home with her. Thanks very much, sir. That’s very useful. What time would that be, could you say?”
“Around nine thirty. The clock hadn’t struck half a minute before. Is that all, because …”
“Yes. That’s all, sir. Many thanks.”
Littlejohn got a cold reception at the old school house when he called there. Mrs. Fairfield and her daughter were afraid this time. They weren’t dealing with Costain, and were scared.
“Why did you say you were with young Hunter at the time of the crime the other night, Miss Fairfield?”
Littlejohn went into the attack right away.
Jessie Fairfield had a teacup and saucer in her hand. The cup rattled and she almost let it fall. The mother was quick to the defence.
“Why can’t you leave her alone? She’s had enough trouble as it is.”
Outrage on Gallows Hill Page 15