He'd Rather Be Dead

by George Bellairs

  “You got to the club early then?”

  “No, I didn’t. My car’s a Hardern—rather an old model—and the make-and-break springs in the magnetos of that type are very brittle and give a lot of trouble. Too highly tempered and tend to snap now and then. As a rule, I carry a spare, but today, I didn’t. The thing went west right in the middle of Fettlewick Marsh. Three miles from the nearest garage, and as isolated a spot as you can find round here.”

  “But the road’s busy, isn’t it, doctor? Surely somebody saw you …”

  “I know it all sounds daft, but what I’m telling you is the truth. At 3 o’clock I broke down. I was there trying to patch it up myself until 3.30. I think four cars and a lorry passed me meantime. I wouldn’t know them from Adam again. Then I got a bit fed-up and flagged the next car. I was going to ask him to stop at the garage near the toll-bridge and send out a tow for me. Luckily, the chap happened to be a motor mechanic himself, and with the help of an old brake-clip, patched up the job.”

  “You didn’t know him?”

  “Never seen the fellow in my life before. And the funny thing is I didn’t even get his name or the number of his car. All I know is that it was an Osborne 12. And there are thousands of those about. By that time it was 4.30. I went on to the club, had tea and played a round with Dr. Vincent. When I got home, this was waiting for me.”

  Preedy crushed out the cigarette he had only just lighted and slumped down in his chair in despair.

  “I suppose we can confirm the account of the damage by inspecting your car, doctor?”

  “Well, I drove it to the Ferry Garage later and had a proper job done. They’d confirm, of course.”

  “Very good. And would your good Samaritan be crossing the Toll Bridge?”

  “Couldn’t do anything else on that stretch of road.” Preedy’s face cleared suddenly. “Why, yes. The toll-keeper might remember the man.”

  “We’ll look into that, then, doctor. And now, had Miss Latrobe any enemies?”

  “None that I can think of. Of course, being such a good-looking girl, she’d a number of persistent admirers pestering her to marry them. But none of them knew she’d promised herself to me, so why bear her a grudge? In any case, murder was out of the question.”

  “H’m. Another point: reverting to the murder of Ware. You were four grains of strychnine short in the routine check of poisons, doctor. How do you account for it?”

  “I’m stumped, Inspector. There. Miss Latrobe might have been able to help, but she was out when the police called, and now …”

  He passed his hand over his eyes as if to wipe out unhappy thoughts.

  “Sure you’ve no idea?”

  “Certainly. I’m as baffled as you are.”

  “I must say things are looking a bit serious for you, sir. I think I ought to warn you that you mustn’t leave town and you must hold yourself at our disposal until this thing’s settled.”

  “You mean, I’m a suspect …?”

  The doctor rose wildly to his feet, apparently ready to make a scene.

  “Sit down, doctor. Your statements will be verified. You’ll agree that is very essential. Where were you when Ware died?”

  “That too! Well, I wasn’t at his blasted party, if that’s what you mean. I’ve told you all this before. I had cold lunch here. By God! Grace was my only alibi! The housekeeper left the food ready and went off to see her sister who’s sick. Miss Latrobe made coffee … I say, do you think somebody’s trying to pin both murders on me and has gone so far as to kill Miss Latrobe because she could clear me?”

  “If your accounts of your movements are true, doctor, it looks very much like it. To return to our case … Sir Gideon was here at 11.00 on the morning of his death and left at 11.30?”

  “I’ve told you that before. I gave him an injection for a common cold.”

  “How do you know he left at 11.30?”

  “I’d another patient due at that time and commented to her as I let Ware out and admitted her, that she was dead punctual.”

  “I understand that Ware didn’t arrive at the Town Hall until 12.15. Where was he in the interim? It only takes five minutes from here to there, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. Why ask me where he went, though? He didn’t say anything to me about it. All he did was to complain about his colds, how busy he was and how before the season was out, he’d have Hinster’s Ferry in with Westcombe … Oh, yes, and he mentioned the luncheon and wanted assuring that the injection wouldn’t spoil his fun.”

  “You see the position, doctor! You’re short in your stock of strychnine. Four grains is a lethal dose, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, indeed!”

  “Ware’s last call was on you and you gave him an injection. The cause of his death was from an injection of strychnine!”

  “Good God!”

  “Yes. So far, the only puncture on the body is reported to be in the left forearm, doctor. Your spot. Further, if someone had plunged a syringe into Sir Gideon during the lunch, he’d have kicked-up a deuce of a rumpus. He was irascible, self-assertive and liked attracting attention to himself. The only way, therefore, as far as I see it, was for somebody to give him a delayed-action dose of poison. That’s possible, even by hypodermic, isn’t it?”

  “Quite. Plenty of ways of doing it.”

  “Such as, doctor?”

  “Adrenalin. In simple terms, that drug will seal off a portion of the blood-vessels from the main blood-stream for a period. An injection of it, followed by another drug, would, by retarding the latter’s entrance into the blood, delay its action …”

  “So you see, doctor, I’m not being unreasonable when I ask you to remain in town until the investigation’s finished. In fact, I’d be justified in arresting you on suspicion.”

  “Why don’t you, then? You know I’ve a motive, too! My father … you’ve heard about him. Ware ruined him and I believe drove him to suicide. Go the whole hog, Inspector! Haul me off to chokey.”

  “That’s my business, doctor. Don’t get excited about it. I’ll leave it at that … A warning and a request, or rather, an instruction.”

  To tell the truth, that intuition which had so often served Littlejohn in the past, again sounded the warning bell in his mind. He couldn’t persuade himself that Preedy was his man, however black things looked.

  Boumphrey was of a different opinion, however, when Littlejohn returned to report progress. He was all for arresting Preedy on the nail. Only the Inspector’s strong protest prevented the Chief Constable from taking immediate action. As it was, he put a plain-clothes officer on keeping an eye on the doctor. This “shadow” was a man who considered himself well-versed in the art of unobtrusive watching. With an air of what he thought was nonchalance, he strolled about the crescent, his hands in his pockets, his mouth pursed in a soundless whistle, keeping the doctor’s door in sight, like a cat at a mouse hole. Or else, to relieve matters, he would, now and then, gaze at the sky with a preoccupied air, as though suspecting the weather or, having witnessed the Indian rope-trick, expecting at any time the dismembered body of the boy who had vanished in air, to fall at his feet.

  Littlejohn, who borrowed another constable for the purpose, was able before he returned to his dinner, to confirm Preedy’s story of that afternoon’s activities.

  The Ferry Garage agreed that they had removed and replaced the patched-up spring in the ignition of the doctor’s car. He had called at 7 o’clock on his way home from golf and the job had only taken ten minutes.

  Furthermore, the keeper of the toll-bridge remembered the Osborne 12 car and knew its owner in the bargain. He was one Johnson, of the Premier Garage, Fettlewick. Johnson, in reply to a telephone call, said that he was the hitherto anonymous good Samaritan and checked the time of the incident, too, in a reliable fashion, for he knew when he started and when he arrived at his destination and estimated the hour when he met Preedy with precision.

  Dr. Vincent confirmed the round of golf at Hinster’s Ferry links.r />
  “Yes, yes, yes,” said Boumphrey, “but the whole thing might be a cleverly faked alibi. Preedy could have gone to the pleasure beach in his car, killed Miss Latrobe and hared-off to Fettlewick Marsh, bust up his car and come along with a perfectly legitimate tale and a gang of men to confirm it in good faith. Now couldn’t he, Littlejohn?”

  “Yes, I admit it, sir. All the same, it would be rash to arrest the doctor until the case is cast-iron. Things look black for him, I know, but, to me, his tale rings true.”

  “It doesn’t to me, anyhow. Still, the responsibility’s yours, Inspector. Handle it your own way.”

  “Besides, Chief Constable, Preedy’s a prominent local man. There might be hell to pay if he’s wrongly arrested.”

  “I’m willing to back my own judgment, Littlejohn, but we’ll give you another day or two to prove your views, if you can,” said Boumphrey patronisingly. And he left it at that.

  After dinner Hazard called for Littlejohn again.

  “I’ve been going through the House of Nonsense at Boumphrey’s request, to see if it might have been an accident after all!” he said, and slumped down at the table where Littlejohn was sitting finishing his coffee.

  “I feel like a change of air and scene after the day’s efforts,” said the Scotland Yard man. “My brain’s tired out and I can’t think properly. What do you suggest?”

  “What about the pictures?” grinned Hazard.

  “There’s a good crime film at the Astoria! Humphrey Bogart, I think. It’ll be a change!”

  They went.

  As they returned to the Grand Hotel, the streets were still thronged with people. Residents taking their dogs for a final airing. Lovers clinging to each other in the darkness of corners and shop doorways, or, in the case of the more intrepid ones, anywhere where they felt like it. Visitors hanging round the vestibules of cheaper boarding houses, enjoying the last of the evening, loath to go indoors and thus bring to a close one more day of the holidays.

  The moon had not yet risen. People were groping home in the dark. Torches stabbed the black-out. Drunken men hung about lamp-posts. One of them was being violently sick in noisy crescendos of retching. There were bursts of singing all over the place combined with the shouts of men and the squeals of women.

  “So I said to him, mind your own bloody business … Just like that, I said it …” somebody was boasting in an alcoholic, aggressive tone.

  The lamps of the side-streets were dimly illuminated by burners which were obscured by objects like small inverted straw-boaters, only made of metal. By the light of one of these, Littlejohn made out a skulking figure, like the one he had seen the previous night from his bedroom window. As he approached, the man scuttered down an alley and vanished.

  “See that, Hazard?”

  “Yes. What of it? Just another drunk.”

  “I wonder …”

  *

  The following day, open verdicts were returned on Miss Latrobe and on Sir Gideon Ware.

  Dr. Preedy created a sensation by his answers to the Coroner. Injection for a cold cure and his having made the only hypodermic puncture in the body. The missing strychnine and no accounting for its disappearance. Death due to an injection of the same poison. Then, the death of Miss Latrobe, his dispenser. There was a lot of betting in bars later, concerning the number of days before Preedy’s arrest. The jury might have brought a verdict of murder against Preedy on both counts had not the Coroner been masterful and thoroughly known his business.

  The Home Office expert’s report confirmed that of the local men. Death by an injection of strychnine, and the puncture in the left forearm was emphasised. It was stated to be possible to use drugs to delay or defer the action of poisons administered as in the case under review. These deferents were sometimes difficult to trace in the blood. Adrenalin, for example, was a product of the human body itself and the small quantities found in the blood of the deceased might have been self-generated by rage or fright.

  Miss Latrobe had died from strangulation.

  It was a great morning’s entertainment for the holiday-makers. It gave them lots of things to talk about among themselves and when they got home. The Coroner’s court was packed to the very doors, and had payment for admission been imposed, would still have been as crowded.

  The enquiry, apart from apparently incriminating Preedy, raised one paramount question. If what Preedy said was true, Where was Ware between 11.30 and 12.15, when he arrived at the Town Hall?

  On the morrow, a civic funeral was planned for the unfortunate Mayor, and visitors to Westcombe as well as the natives, looked forward to yet another high-spot in a very full week.

  CHAPTER TWELVE - THE SORROWS OF A PUB CRAWLER

  The inquest of Sir Gideon Ware was followed by an outburst of further revelry, such as men indulge in after doing their duty by the dead. The thoughts of coffins, corpses and cerements are dispelled of food, drink and good cheer.

  Nowhere was this mood more acutely manifest than in the Jolly Sailor, an up-to-date Olde Englyshe hostelry on the Old Quay at Westcombe. This hotel was once a tavern frequented by sailors and fishermen, but, falling into the hands of a speculator who saw its possibilities, it speedily changed its style and its customers. Two adjoining properties were acquired with the inn and the whole converted into a restaurant, cocktail-bar, night-club and many other things. Before the war, the red neon signs of the Jolly Sailor illuminated the whole of the river-front, giving it the atmosphere of a pantomime Hell or of one of those strange haunts of the Red Death from the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe.

  At the main bar of this establishment congregate many of the holiday visitors, as well as strange characters permanently resident in Westcombe. The landlord is unscrupulous in a battle with the Ministry of Food, and strange dishes, in addition to copious quantities of ordinary food and drink, may be had for the paying.

  The bar has as many lady customers as men and some of the regulars bring their wives. These ladies, the permanent members of a certain set in Westcombe, vie with each other in attire and their presence creates a type of social ladder, from the rungs of which hang the various notables of the town, patronising those below and keeping them firmly in their places, smiling upwards and envying or admiring those above. The men are unwillingly swept into the toils of this snobbery and intrigue created by their womenfolk. Bonhomie and good will are banished and a spurious heartiness takes their place.

  Many of the women drink whisky with the ease and capacity of the men. In many cases, the latter squabble among themselves concerning who’s to pay.

  “This round on me, old man.”

  “Well, mine’s the next …”

  “Same again, Gus, and this is mine.”

  And so on, in fierce conflict, as in the other spheres of animal life, where the males become ornamental, aggressive, or noisy whenever the female of the species appears on the scene, except that unlike the realms of fur and feather, man enjoys no closed season.

  Hazard had suggested a visit to this place of local colour and Littlejohn soon found himself plunged in the heart of its activities. Gus, the bartender and cocktail-mixer, was solemnly presiding over a noisy gathering, his attendant barmaids hovering round like acolytes as he performed his rites. A vast congregation, the customers surged round Gus, crying for his attention and services. Women smoking, screwing up their eyes and wagging their cigarettes between their lips as they conversed, with practised ease and bad manners, emptied glasses of double whisky and gin with the recklessness and abandon of their male escorts … The place was thick with tobacco-smoke and the noise of chatter was deafening.

  Suddenly, into this bedlam entered Dashwood, the auctioneer. On his arrival, there was a pungent pause in the conversation, then an united roar of laughter, for one side of the newcomer’s fat face was swollen to a great size, as though he were inflating a toy balloon with one cheek only. At the best of times, Dashwood was the ugliest man in Westcombe. Now, his head looked like a grotesque contorted
mask, such as were worn by performers in the carnivals of southern France in happier, more carefree days.

  Hazard had just been showing Littlejohn over the place. On their way through the dining-room, they observed Fenwick, the dentist they had met the other night with Preedy and Miss Latrobe at the Winter Gardens. He was eating a substantial meal in which lobster mayonnaise seemed to predominate.

  “Evenin’, Mr. Fenwick,” said Hazard as they passed the dentist’s table, and then aside to Littlejohn, “By gad, that mess should tickle-up old Fenwick’s duodenum. He’s always shouting about his ulcers …”

  They entered the main bar just behind Dashwood, and it was as well they did.

  ‘Slap – Happy’ Dashwood was a pub-crawling auctioneer and shark. He earned his living by selling ‘bargains’ in faked silver-plate to inexpert holidaymakers with more money than they knew how to handle. Now, he was dressed in a shabby double-breasted flannel suit, with black stockings and brown shoes with white cloth uppers on his feet. Huge, gross and fat, he bore a certain resemblance to Hermann Göring, which had earned him a nickname he didn’t seem to mind.

  He was accompanied by Oscar, an ex-jockey, small, wiry and clad in riding breeches and a horsey jacket and neckwear. Oscar spoke with a stammer at the best of times, but in company, his defect always grew worse and he became like a Demosthenes overcoming his infirmity, not with a solitary pebble from the beach, but with a whole mouthful.

  “Good Lord! What’s the matter with your face, Dashwood?” said a man at the bar, when the laughter had subsided.

  Slap-Happy and his companion, already the worse for drink, tacked their way to the counter.

  “You might well ask …” answered the cheapjack thickly but in loud tones for all to hear. “Here, Gus. This round’s on me. What’ll it be, chums?”

  Those who wanted to drink with Slap-Happy gave their orders. Others left his orbit and rejoined their own parties.