He'd Rather Be Dead

by George Bellairs

  “Looks black for the doctor, I’d say. Motive is there. Opportunity, too. Then, his dispenser, who, having access to his poison cabinet and knowing his movements, must have known what happened. She might have threatened him with exposure, and been killed, too. Have you smashed his alibi?”

  “Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?”

  “Well … will it take long? It’s lunch time, isn’t it? What about something to eat here and then a talk over coffee?”

  “Admirable. I’m sorry I didn’t give a thought to food, although now you mention it, I’m damned hungry. This air gives one an appetite and no mistake. Let’s eat, then.”

  After lunch, in a secluded corner of the lounge they resumed their conference.

  “The whole business began in Hull about forty years ago,” said Littlejohn when they had lit their cigars, the first they had smoked there at the Corporation’s expense. “Ware was then a penniless bricklayer and was courting a girl called Mary Wilson. He seduced her, ran out on her, and left her to bear the brunt alone.”

  “Just like him!”

  “Wait a bit! As the Hull police have told us, also Lady Ware, this girl was turned-out by her father and left the town. She next turned-up at Dimpsay in Norfolk, where the child was born, a boy. There she settled for a time, a decent, respectable person, working hard to bring up the kid. Meanwhile, Ware had struck lucky and started his upward climb to fame and fortune …”

  “Disgrace and misfortune, you mean.”

  “Have it as you like. Ware had never quite silenced his conscience about his treatment of the girl. He married, however, a very fine woman who had a big influence on him and whom he vastly respected and, I must conclude, loved very dearly. He told her of his escapade and treachery. She must have persuaded him to try to make amends, with the result that solicitors were sent to trace Mary Wilson. In some way or other, they caught up with her at Dimpsay, but she bolted before anything could be done, changing her name in the bargain. Thanks to Cromwell, we know she moved to Follington, in Essex.”

  “A bit of damned good detective work, that, if you ask me.”

  “Cromwell is damned good. You must meet him one day. You’ll take to him right away. But this is the first surprise for you. Do you know what the new name of Mary Wilson was? Mary Fenwick!”

  “Good Lord!”

  “Yes. I thought that would astonish you, Hazard. Cromwell found out that Alan Fenwick was Mary Wilson’s son, who became a dentist in Follington. Alan Fenwick is Gideon Ware’s son.”

  “By Jove! That puts a new light on things, doesn’t it?”

  “It does, with a vengeance. You know what Fenwick is. A strange sort of chap. Inhibited and, if I may use that hackneyed term, one with an inferiority complex and a mind that plays merry hell with him all the time. Fenwick must have discovered who was his father. Perhaps his mother told him, or else he found it out himself. He made up his mind to make Ware pay for what his mother had suffered.”

  “But the fellow’s been here for years. Why didn’t he get on with the job?”

  “Opportunity, for one thing, I think. He must have been pondering the perfect crime. As far as I can see, he never approached Ware and disclosed who he was, for if he had done, Lady Ware would surely have known. Now, in the light of our information look at the crime …”

  “I say, Littlejohn, what made him decide to kill when he did?”

  “First of all, Ware changed his dentist and tried Fenwick. Thus, he played right into Fenwick’s hands. Secondly, and very important in the case of a lonely chap like Fenwick, Ware caused the death of his dog. Are you a dog-lover, Hazard?”

  “Yes. Our bull-pup’s one of the family.”

  “Well, then, remember Fenwick’s best friend was his dog. He was too stunned to realise what had happened at first when the dog died. He didn’t even go and slang Ware for what he’d done. He just went home and started planning to kill him. He bought a book on poisons quite recently and must have been picking his dose. Then, along comes Ware. Fenwick does half a job to get him back in the surgery after he’s made a few preparations. He studies his toxicology book and, when the patient arrives, gives him an injection of strychnine. But, it won’t do for Ware to die on Fenwick’s hands. Now, one of the developments of modern dental anaesthetics is the use of adrenalin, which seals off a portion of the circulation from the main blood-stream for a time. Fenwick gives Ware a dose of adrenalin first, following it by the fatal shot of strychnine under cover of giving a local anaesthetic. The adrenalin slows up the action of the poison, and not until the effect of it wears off, does the strychnine begin to work. By that time, Ware’s on his feet making a speech at his banquet.”

  “Ingenious!”

  “Yes, but that’s not all. At first, it looks as though Fenwick is in luck and someone else is going to take the rap for his crime. You see, Preedy, the doctor, has used a hypodermic on Ware the same day and could easily have done it. Furthermore, Fenwick hasn’t any stock of strychnine, but Preedy has, and it’s a fatal dose short on his records. Fenwick pinched that dose, I’m sure, when he took Preedy home drunk after the club dinner a few weeks before.”

  “Fenwick must have been a cold-blooded fish to try to frame his own pal.”

  “His pal who’d stolen the girl he fancied. Miss Latrobe’s friend tells me that Fenwick was in love with Miss Latrobe, but that she turned him down for Preedy.”

  “So, he framed Preedy for Ware’s crime and … why, he must have killed Grace Latrobe!”

  “Yes, I think so. I don’t actually say he was clever enough to frame Preedy. Circumstances just helped him. Preedy struck me as being patently honest, however, although he’d no love for Ware. His alibi, too, was clean-cut. But Fenwick, like these introverted types, had it worked out too pat. He’d planned to steal the poison after the dinner. So, to prevent himself having to drink too much, started a tale about being off alcohol on account of an ulcerated stomach. Yet, we see him eating lobsters at the Jolly Sailor. The thing just doesn’t tally.”

  “You don’t miss much, do you, Littlejohn?”

  “It’s our job to notice little things. But this is more important. When he got Preedy home blind-drunk, Miss Latrobe was there, working late getting out the doctor’s bills. When the strychnine was missed and Preedy was suspect, she rallied to his aid. She remembered something that happened on the night of the dinner and faced Fenwick with it. I learned that before she went to the amusement park, Miss Latrobe visited Fenwick. She must have accused him of taking the strychnine and threatened to expose him. That put him properly in a jam. He’d got to kill her before she could talk. He followed her on his bike to the pleasure beach, saw her go in the House of Nonsense, and went in by the back exit. The place was dark and he sneaked up on her and throttled her. Next, he hurried out, cycled off to the links and created what he thought was an alibi, by calling the attention of two players to the time and saying he was on his eighth hole. Don’t you see, Preedy might easily have taken the blame there, too, and been suspected of killing Miss Latrobe to silence her about what she knew of him? But I’ve had my eye on Fenwick of late. He’s been following me about. It’s just the same thing as the criminal revisiting the scene of the crime. In this case, he’s fascinated by the machinery which is slowly moving upon him. He wears a black slouch hat. I saw that hat one night from my bedroom in front of the hotel. It would be about two in the morning to be precise. Fenwick, wondering which was my room, no doubt, and morbidly hanging round. He was trailing us when we went to the pictures the other night. I called your attention to it. He’s met me a time or two in the hotel lounge. We saw him in the Winter Gardens and the Jolly Sailor. He was cashing a cheque at the bank the day I called to see Oxendale. It’s not all coincidence, you know.”

  “The man must be mad …”

  “Not mad, but just too clever by half. He thinks he’s keeping up with us on the case.”

  “Incidentally, Littlejohn, one thing’s puzzled me. Why didn’t you get on to t
he medical report about the hypodermic injections right away? There was quite an amount of time wasted through our thinking he’d taken the strychnine at the banquet in food or something.”

  “That was Boumphrey’s doing. He’d got the proper report, but said he hadn’t, and gave me a word-of-mouth account, omitting the injection part.”

  “Whatever for? Although knowing Boumphrey as I do, I’m not surprised at anything.”

  “Well, prepare yourself for a real surprise now. Boumphrey was in the police force at Follington when Fenwick and his mother lived there. He must have discovered in some way that they were connected with Ware, for he blackmailed Ware into getting him the job here.”

  “I thought there was some jiggery-pokery about that appointment.”

  “He told Ware he didn’t know the whereabouts of his son. But he must have known. He got Fenwick out of some trouble with a girl in Follington. He was most kind, I believe, and prevented a court case, by acting as intermediary between the parties. Cromwell saw the girl, name of Cherry, this morning and phoned me again. I think Boumphrey’s reasons for intervening were to keep the affair out of the papers. He didn’t want Ware to see anything about his illegitimate son in the press, although Fenwick, as a name, wasn’t likely to excite Ware’s curiosity. But things might have got out if the case was aired. I’m prepared to bet that Ware must have found out just before he died that Fenwick was his son. You remember, Father Manfred said that Ware’s dying words were ‘My son!’ Not the one with the R.A.F. in Canada, but Fenwick!”

  “Boumphrey mustn’t have told Sir Gideon who Fenwick was. Perhaps keeping it up his sleeve as a trump card … At any rate, when he heard from the doctors that Ware had been poisoned, especially as it was by an injection of strychnine, he thought of Fenwick right away and must have held back the precise manner of death from me until he could cook up a tale. He also took some information from his private file on Ware before he lent it to me. That was probably about Fenwick’s being Ware’s son.”

  “What are you going to do … with Boumphrey, I mean?”

  “I’m going for Fenwick first. You might see the Chief Constable and tell him. Then obtain a warrant and join me at Fenwick’s house. I don’t want to see Boumphrey yet, until I’ve spoken to Fenwick. You’ll attend to that then, will you?”

  “Yes … and talk of the devil. There’s Fenwick now. Crossing the promenade apparently on his way home.”

  “I’ll be there almost as soon as he is. You’ll be sure and get the warrant meanwhile, Hazard?”

  “Sure. I’ll see you at the dentist’s. Keep your eye on that syringe while you’re there, Littlejohn!”

  “Trust me, Hazard.”

  And Littlejohn disappeared through the revolving-doors of the Grand Hotel on the track of his quarry.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - THE DANCE OF DEATH

  “He’s seeing a patient,” said the old lady at the door, as Littlejohn asked for Fenwick.

  “I’ll come in and wait,” answered the detective, and put his words into effect by brushing past her.

  As he entered, he observed that the door to the room opposite the surgery was open and, glancing in, saw on the mantelpiece an ancient, faded photograph in an old-fashioned frame.

  “You can’t go in there,” quavered the attendant. “That’s private. I’ve just been turning it out. The waiting-room’s here.”

  But Littlejohn took no heed. He was interested in the photograph. It was of a young woman, primly posed before a drop-scene representing a luscious garden, and with a cardboard sundial by her side. The artistic fashion of a bygone age. The artist himself was announced in gold print beneath his handiwork and his address was in Hull.

  The old woman was still by Littlejohn’s elbow, trembling with anger as though afflicted with the palsy.

  “I’ve cleaned this place out. It’s private. You’ll have to go to the other room …”

  “Do you remember Sir Gideon Ware calling here the other day?”

  The woman hesitated and then closed her little, thin mouth like a trap.

  “Mr. Fenwick told you not to tell he’d been here, didn’t he?”

  No answer. The woman remained dumb and immobile as one of those little wooden figures of peasant women bought by travellers as souvenirs in the Black Forest.

  “I know all about it, so you may as well speak up.”

  “If you know all about it, why ask me?”

  “Did Ware wait in here?”

  “Yes. Being the Mayor, I put him in the best room. Mr. Fenwick was cross about it when he found out. How was I to know?”

  So, Ware had recognised Mary Wilson’s photograph and, putting two and two together, had realised that Fenwick was his son.

  ‘My son! My son!” he had said in dying to Father Manfred, trying to convey the name of his murderer. And nobody had understood.

  “Things are very quiet in the surgery,” said the Inspector to the woman, who had apparently made up her mind to hang around Littlejohn until he did as he was told.

  “I don’t know who’s in. Mr. Fenwick said he wasn’t to be disturbed.”

  Littlejohn was out of the room in two strides and made for the surgery. The place was empty. No sign of a patient or of the dentist.

  “Where is Mr. Fenwick?”

  “Don’t ask me. Thought I heard the back door slam, but then I thought I’d imagined it.”

  Littlejohn made a quick search of the house, but found no Fenwick.

  He was preparing to ring up the police station and give the alarm, when the telephone bell rang.

  “That you, Inspector Littlejohn? I thought I’d find you there. This is Fenwick …”

  “Where are you?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know? You chose a most unlucky place in which to give Hazard your confidences. The panelling there is hollow behind, and just covers an old doorway they blocked up because of the draught. I was sitting in the next room on the other side of the panel. Of course, you couldn’t be expected to know the geography of the Grand Hotel, could you? I heard all you said and that you were coming for me, so made off.”

  “It’s no use, Fenwick. You can’t get away, you know …”

  “Let me speak. I’m going to create an even bigger sensation than my late-lamented illegitimate father did when he died. So look out. You’ll hear more of me. Sorry, I can’t talk all this over with you. I like you, Littlejohn, and I’ve been in your company a lot of late, unseen, of course.”

  “Not so much unseen, Fenwick. I’ve seen you.”

  “You must have eyes at the back of your head, then. But you didn’t see me in the coffee room today and that’s all that matters. But even if I hadn’t overheard you then, I knew it was all up. I could see you coming closer and closer, you devil … you honest-faced devil! Well, I must be off. Just wanted to say good-bye and good luck. By the way, all that stuff you told Hazard … or as much as I could hear of it, was damned good. You’ll find it all confirmed in ‘Memories from Beyond the Grave … Chateaubriand,’ you know. Good-bye again.”

  The line went dead. Littlejohn was about to dial the exchange but realised that it was automatic. It would take hours to trace the call.

  Just then the bell rang again. This time it was Hazard.

  “I say, Littlejohn, I’ve just seen Fenwick. He was hurrying along the promenade like one in a dream and turned-in at the Winter Gardens. Thought I’d try to catch you, but had to wait. Your line was engaged.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Phone box near the Winter Gardens.”

  “Get some men and station them unobtrusively round the place. Fenwick’s to be taken if he tries to get out. Then meet me at the main entrance. We’ll have to search the place. I suppose it’s teeming with people.”

  “Packed. There’s a gala on.”

  “Damn the gala. Meet me there then.”

  “Memories from Beyond the Grave” … Of course! Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe … Littlejohn hurried out of the surgery and called the old woma
n again.

  “Where does Mr. Fenwick keep his books?”

  “In the room you wouldn’t clear out of. There’s a locked case of them there. You can’t go in again. I’ve cleaned it.”

  Littlejohn took no heed but sought the book-case and forced it open. After a search among the titles he found the one he sought, turned over the leaves, nodded with satisfaction and, pocketing it, greatly to the anguish of the agitated woman at his side, hastened away to meet his colleague.

  *

  Alan Fenwick hurried along the promenade intent on his purpose. Passers-by paid little heed to his eager, feverish appearance, for they were absorbed in their own pleasure-seeking and the hundred-and-one other devices provided by enterprising Westcombe. Only an eccentric and aged philosopher who had not long to live and knew it, observed the look in Fenwick’s eyes and said to his companion, “That young man’s looking on death.” Whereat, the person addressed said in his mind, “The old chap’s more loony than ever. We’ll soon have to put him away.”

  The day was hot and sunny and the beach was full of sunbathers. The Beach Mission was just beginning its afternoon session with a hymn and Mr. Gaukroger, muffled in an overcoat in spite of the hot weather, was bawling the words of the first verse to a huge crowd.

  “Two pills in the morning; two after lunch; and three when you’re getting in bed for the night, and good-bye to your kidney complaints. I don’t ask a guinea a box. Sixpence is my price. Lady over there …” yelled the professor of herbs on the next pitch.

  Nearby was a Punch-and-Judy show. The incoherent, twittering voices of the dolls, the busy thrashing of Punch’s stick, the yells of delight from the young audience.

  The Mission opened out in full blast and drowned all else, like the great breakers of an incoming tide.

  “Yes, we’ll gather at the river,

  The beautiful, the beautiful river.

  Gather with the saints at the river,