The Night They Killed Joss Varran (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  ‘You still drive it?’

  He did not reply, but left it to his niece, who seemed by now fully in charge of the situation.

  ‘He does, now and then, when he feels better. What has that to do with the crime?’

  ‘On the night he died, Joss Varran, making his way to Close Dhoo after dark, was picked up and given a lift by someone in an old Bentley car. Probably the owner was the last person to see him alive, except his murderer.’

  Duffy fumbled for another cigarette.

  ‘It wasn’t me, I can assure you.’

  ‘Where were you both on that night?’

  Sarah Duffy was quick to reply.

  ‘It was not our car. There are other vintage cars on the Island. As for where we were, we were here. My uncle was unwell and I stayed indoors with him from after tea until bedtime.’

  ‘Neither of you went out after tea until the following morning?’

  ‘That is what I said. We have nobody else to give us an alibi. This is a remote place and other people are hardly likely to wander about in these bogs after dark. In any case, why should we produce an alibi? This is no affair of ours.’

  ‘You are neighbours of the Varrans. I can see the chimney of the cottage through the window from where I’m standing now. It is natural that we should ask if you saw anything unusual going on there of late.’

  ‘I told you we were not interested in Varran. Or in his house or what he did there.’

  ‘We’re mainly interested in what he did here. We have it on good authority that he was seen about this house before he went to gaol.’

  ‘We’ve already told you we know nothing about any such visits. Quantrell may know. And now, if you don’t mind, I wish to prepare tea and I think, too, that my uncle has been worried quite enough. So, good afternoon . . .’

  There seemed no point in persisting, so Littlejohn and Knell bade them good day and the Duffys hadn’t even the grace to show them to the door. As they let themselves out, they met Quantrell again. This time he was entering the main gate on a ramshackle old motor bicycle.

  ‘I’m just bringin’ in the milk . . .’

  He indicated a small metal milk can swinging from his handlebars.

  ‘. . . We don’t have a milkman delivering here. I fetch it from Close-e-Cass about half a mile down the road.’

  Littlejohn nodded.

  ‘The Candell place?’

  ‘That’s right. You know them, then?’

  ‘Yes. Isabel Varran went to them for help after she found her brother’s dead body.’

  ‘I’d forgotten . . . Nasty business.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘Not particularly. Certainly not lately. He’d been in gaol up to the time he was killed. Before that, I used to see him around. Never had anything to do with him.’

  ‘That’s strange . . .’

  Littlejohn lit his pipe to allow his comment to sink in.

  ‘What’s strange?’

  For the first time, Quantrell’s good humour seemed to leave him.

  ‘We’ve been told that before he went away and got himself put in prison, he was seen about this place.’

  ‘Who told you that? I’ll bet it was old Candell up in his tower, spying on the locality through his field glasses.’

  ‘But he wasn’t the only one. What have you to say about that?’

  Quantrell gave him a sly wink.

  ‘I know all about it. Joss Varran was a one for the ladies and his fancy ran high just before he went to gaol. He tried to make the acquaintance of Miss Sarah. He didn’t come and knock on the door of the manor, although he’d cheek enough. He used to hang around, all toffed up, trying to meet Miss Sarah when she was out riding. He didn’t succeed, though. She rode past him and if he’d persisted, I’m damn sure she’d have run him down. He came twice with a trumped up tale about seed potatoes and asked me if I’d got any for sale. He asked a question or two about the Colonel and then about Miss Sarah, but he didn’t get much change out of me. I told him I was busy and that the Colonel would be annoyed if he found him around the place.’

  ‘I see. And that’s the only connection he had with you all.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What time do you leave here at night?’

  ‘Around five. Why?’

  ‘You don’t happen to know if the Colonel or Miss Sarah was out on the night Varran died? You see, that night Joss Varran got a lift home from Ramsey in an old Bentley.’

  ‘Have you asked them at the house?’

  ‘Yes. They said they were indoors all night.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I was just checking. They might have forgotten.’

  Quantrell sniggered.

  ‘Was it after dark?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They weren’t out then. They never go out in the Bentley after dark. It’s wired for night use, but I’ve never known them take it out. On the rare occasions they do go out after dark, they send for a taxi from the village. I’d have known if the big car was out that night. I look after it and I’d know if it had been used by the state it was in. You follow?’

  ‘Yes. Are there any similar cars in the vicinity?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. There must be, surely. They hold vintage car rallies sometimes. I’m not much interested in old crocks, except the Colonel’s Bentley and that because I have to clean it and keep it in good condition.’

  ‘How long have you worked for them?’

  ‘Ever since they came here. About three years.’

  He looked uneasy.

  ‘I’d better be off. Miss Sarah will be wanting the milk for tea and she’ll have the skin off me if it’s not there when she’s ready for it.’

  He remounted and wobbled away to the house with some difficulty, for the bike was coughing badly.

  As the two policemen made for the gate, they saw that the Colonel had now found his feet and was watching them anxiously through the window.

  ‘What do we know about Quantrell and his background, Knell?’ Littlejohn asked on the way back to the village. ‘Is he a Manxman?’

  ‘The name has a bit of a Manx sound about it, but the man’s voice . . . He has a Liverpool flavour to me. Perhaps we could find out. Shall we see if P.C. Kincaid is available?’

  Kincaid wasn’t. A visitor had dropped dead in his precinct and he’d gone to sort things out for the inquest.

  A few doors away from the police station there was a small stores, a converted house, modest compared with the larger ones of the village which had grown with the population, but obviously still well patronised judging from the stock on the shelves. Over the door a simple notice. A. Kinvig.

  Knell excused himself to Littlejohn.

  ‘I just want a packet of cigarettes . . .’

  He entered the shop. It was empty and he got a warm welcome from the polite little apple-cheeked woman behind the clean worn counter.

  ‘Well, well. Reggie Knell. What brings you here?’

  They exchanged friendly greetings. When he was a boy, Knell’s uncle had farmed in Scroundal, not far away, and he had always spent a part of his summer holidays there. Amy was his own age and they had played together. Her widowed mother had then owned the shop and Amy had inherited it on her death.

  Knell had a slight feeling of claustrophobia in the crowded little stores. Racks on three sides filled with tinned goods, bottles of toffee, packages of food, spools of thread, and in one corner a small dispensary of patent medicines for counteracting and curing the effects of the foods. Knell leaned, talking, with his elbow on a food refrigerator in which he could see frozen sausages, fish and steak pies. He asked for his cigarettes and Amy produced them from under the counter.

  ‘Do you know a man called Quantrell, Amy?’

  Her tongue clicked against her teeth.

  ‘Has he been up to something again?’

  ‘Why? Does he often get in trouble with the police?’

  ‘Nothing serious, really. He gets drunk now
and then and he’s always awkward when he’s had too much. And he runs an old motor bike and gets in trouble for dangerous driving . . .’

  ‘How long has he lived in the village?’

  ‘About three years. He was born on the Island. I think it was at Cronk-y-Voddey. His father was a blacksmith and Mr. Quantrell served with his father for a bit and then he went across and got a job as an engineer in Liverpool. There was some trouble, nobody seems to know what it was, and he came back here to live and got a job driving the roller on the roads. He gave that up and now does odd jobs, like digging graves when the sexton’s sciatica is troubling him. He does gardening, too, at Ballakee Manor.’

  ‘He’s married?’

  ‘Yes, with two children, but he’s so awkward when the drink is in him that his wife’s left him and gone to live with her mother in Douglas.’

  ‘And he’s living alone?’

  ‘Yes, in a cottage at the head of Ballaugh Glen.’

  ‘Did he know Joss Varran, Amy?’

  She caught her breath.

  ‘Is that what’s brought you here, Reggie?’

  ‘Yes. But you won’t tell a soul that I’ve been making enquiries, will you, Amy?’

  ‘Of course not, if you say so.’

  He knew he could trust her, although all the gossip of the village and beyond was passed around the shop along with the tinned goods and frozen puddings and fish.

  ‘What a pity about Joss. We’re all sorry for poor Isabel. But I don’t think Joss and Mr. Quantrell were friendly. They may have met in the pub. Joss was always in there whenever he was at home and Mr. Quantrell was one of the regulars, too. Joss, of course, was away for a long time, wasn’t he?’

  Knell admired her polite, discreet manner. The way she called Quantrell ‘Mister’ and how she avoided giving Joss the stigma of prison.

  Customers were beginning to arrive and it wouldn’t do to start the ball of gossip rolling, so Knell bade Amy good-bye and she gave him a conspiratorial look to assure him that his secrets were safe.

  When Knell told Littlejohn what he’d learned, Littlejohn wished there were a few more little stores and women like Amy scattered around London to supplement so easily the records of Scotland Yard.

  7

  The Shaking Field

  AS LITTLEJOHN and Knell were leaving the village, they passed Kincaid in his official vehicle and Knell signalled to him to stop. Then he called through the window to him to proceed to the police station where they would meet him and discuss the case so far. They could very well have talked by the roadside, but Knell, who was panting for his afternoon cup of tea, had a crafty idea that Kincaid’s hospitable Manx wife would provide what he needed without even the asking.

  Kincaid’s official headquarters were in the front room of his house, a modestly equipped place with a desk, some cupboards, two chairs and a counter between himself and the public to define the status of Law and suppliant. Framed photographs of Her Majesty and Sir Winston Churchill on the walls together with a lot of official notices and edicts.

  P.C. Kincaid was a young constable, very civil and intelligent, knew his place, but wasn’t intimidated by his superiors, married to a nice wife and he had two young children. He was delighted to meet Littlejohn and to be officially drawn into the investigation of which, hitherto, he had merely hovered on the fringe. Excusing himself, he went in the rear quarters to bring in another chair and at the same time managed to pass a message to his wife about refreshments and to his offspring about behaving themselves during the visit of the V.I.P.s in the front room.

  In a very short time, Mrs. Kincaid arrived, towing behind her a trolley containing scones, soda cakes, tea and home-made gingerbread and, after being introduced and passing round the good things, withdrew and left them to their business.

  Kincaid was a well-built man with a fresh complexion, a dominant nose of almost Wellingtonian proportions and a humorous mouth and eyes. His superiors said he would go far, which was his wife’s independent opinion, too, for she was very proud of him. He was a good gardener in his spare time and in a cabinet in the living-room reposed various cups he’d won at horticultural shows all over the Island.

  Knell briefly filled in the picture of the case so far, and was rather surprised to find that Kincaid knew as much as he did about it all. He definitely didn’t like Quantrell.

  ‘He’s a bit of a mystery and a liar as well. If the Duffys needed an alibi, he’d give them one if they paid him for it. As for his not knowing much about Joss Varran, they were both regulars at the village pub and were often in one another’s company there before Joss got gaoled. I have to keep an eye on Quantrell. He drinks too much and gets noisy when he’s drunk. And he runs an old motor-bike that’s a menace on the roads.’

  ‘You’ve formed your own ideas about who might have killed Joss Varran, Kincaid?’ Littlejohn asked him.

  ‘No, I haven’t, sir. I know what goes on in my patch, and I’m sure nobody would go so far as to kill him. He was an unpleasant fellow, a heavy drinker, fond of the women . . . But, in my opinion, he hadn’t, before he left and got himself in prison, sufficiently offended anybody in these parts to make them run the risk of murdering him. What he did when he was away from here was another matter. It might be anybody, elsewhere on the Island or on the mainland. I might be prejudiced, but in my view we can write off any of the locals . . .’

  ‘What about Quantrell?’

  ‘If he’d done it, he’d have cleared off and left the Island right away. He’s still got connections in England. I know that because from time to time he goes across. I could never find out what he did when he went to England. I’d very much like to know what it was. He’s a wife and two children and he doesn’t keep them on what he earns by odding about at the manor or digging an occasional grave here. He never seems short of money.’

  ‘You’d better keep an eye on him. He and Varran might have been up to something and quarrelled about it. By the way, Colonel Duffy owns a vintage Bentley. Does Quantrell ever drive it? As we’ve told you, Varran got a lift from Ramsey in an old Bentley on the night he died.’

  ‘And the Duffys said they were indoors all that night, sir. Yes. If he thought he’d take the Bentley out, Quantrell has cheek enough to do it. The colonel wouldn’t sack him for it. Who would he get to do what Quantrell does at the manor if he lost him? Such labour is hard to get here, especially when Quantrell is quite skilled at odd jobs and the Duffys don’t care for other visitors at their place. Quantrell can turn his hand to plumbing, joinering, motor mechanic’s jobs . . . No; they wouldn’t sack him for using the car on the quiet, even if they found out, which, knowing Quantrell’s cunning, is unlikely.’

  ‘We’d better have as much information as possible about the people at the manor, Knell; the Colonel, Sarah, and Quantrell. I think you’d better get your people on the job of tracing their past records and movements. As far as I can see, there’s not much use in repeating today’s visit and interrogating the lot of them again. They’ll only tell us what they wish us to know and the rest will presumably be a pack of lies.’

  ‘I’ll see to it, sir.’

  And he gave Kincaid instructions to telephone headquarters right away and set in motion the matter of records.

  ‘. . . And when you’ve done that, Kincaid, come and join us at Close Dhoo,’ said Knell. ‘We’ve left the Archdeacon there and he may have some information for us after he’s interviewed Isabel Varran.’

  ‘I don’t envy him his job, sir. When I tried to take a statement from her and arrange for her to identify her brother’s body, she seemed thoroughly mixed up. She’s a queer, lonely sort and never has much to say for herself. I found her completely incoherent. I’d to guess at most of what she was saying.’

  ‘The Archdeacon will probably do better. He’s an expert at extracting confessions . . .’

  ‘You don’t mean that you suspect her?’

  ‘No, no. I was speaking in general terms. We’ll see you at Close Dhoo, then.�
��

  And after thanking Mrs. Kincaid for her hospitality, somewhat to her confusion, they left for the curraghs again.

  They found the Archdeacon placidly enjoying his tea with Isabel. She had brought out what remained of her mother’s best tea set and asked the newcomers to join them. They thanked her and told her of their meal at the police station, but said a cup of tea wouldn’t come amiss and as they enjoyed it, the Archdeacon recited briefly what Isabel had told him.

  As for Isabel, she seemed completely changed. The opportunity of telling her story quietly and in her own way to a sympathetic listener had done her a lot of good and she even smiled now and then.

  It was quite clear that Isabel knew very little of any use to them in the investigation. Except that interest had been focused on the Shaking Field with its hiding place in the bog.

  Littlejohn said he thought they ought to investigate it right away.

  ‘Do you know exactly where the spot is, Miss Varran? Old Mr. Candell at Close-e-Cass knows it, because he told us that from the tower in which he lives, he could see that the place had been disturbed but it will be as well to check it if you have the information.’

  The family Bible was produced again, but the map in the end was not detailed enough. The Archdeacon had an idea.

  ‘You have the title to this house, Isabel?’

  ‘Yes. It’s up the chimney. Shall I get it down?’

  She produced without trouble the biscuit tin in which her treasures were hidden and the Archdeacon found the necessary papers from among the rest. He read the deed cursorily.

  ‘There’s a clause here giving the owner of this house the right to a spade’s cutting of turf at the statutory period for turf gathering.’

  He chuckled.

  ‘Someone is going to have a task here, if we can’t get more details. If my memory serves me right, the traditional definition of a spade’s cutting is sixty yards, by two yards and twenty-seven inches depth! So, it would appear that we’d better consult old Junius Candell after all. Wait a minute, though . . .’

  On one corner of the back of the deed was written in faded ink, in an illiterate hand, ‘dhrine. fore paces in.’