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

by George Bellairs

  They met the Archdeacon at Ballaugh. He had remained at Grenaby to finish his next Sunday’s sermon and promised to join them later. One of his parishioners had driven him there.

  When they reached Close Dhoo washing was hanging on the line in the garden and Isabel Varran was feverishly gathering it in lest the visitors should see and identify her underwear. She greeted them in her usual fashion. She welcomed the Archdeacon with special cordiality.

  ‘I’ll make some tea.’

  They told her they hadn’t time to stay, but she ignored the information and spread out her best tea-set again and produced cake and drinks before she would listen to them.

  ‘We called to ask why Mr. Handy went to London to see him not long after Joss had been put in gaol.’

  ‘I don’t really know, Mr. Knell. He wrote to Sydney and said he wanted to see him on family business. He said in his note to Syd that nobody else must come and that me and Rose would get lost in London and upset with the prison and him inside it. I couldn’t get a proper tale out of Syd. He said it was something and nothing when he got to the prison and he thought that Joss was feeling a bit homesick and wanted to see somebody from the family . . . Syd got properly annoyed when Rose and me tried to get more out of him. So we left him alone. He said Joss was all right and looking forward to getting home, although he was decently treated in prison.’

  She thanked Knell for his kindness to her at the inquest.

  ‘The funeral is tomorrow . . .’

  She was completely different from the woman they had met for the first time a few days ago. Her plaintive manner and shyness seemed to have gone under the influence of her new independence and the end of the worry caused by her brother and his unruly habits.

  ‘Have you seen Mr. Handy lately?’

  ‘No. He hasn’t been near. Rose has done most of the arrangements. He says he’s too busy on the farm, him being on his own there and having everything to do himself.’

  ‘That’s a bit thick,’ said Knell. ‘When we first met him after Joss died, he was acting as though he was in sole charge of the family affairs. He could find time to spend the morning at Close-e-Cass arguing with the people there and throwing his weight about.’

  ‘What makes it all the more funny is that before Joss came home and got himself killed, Sydney was never away from this place. It all started after he’d been to London to see Joss in prison. I think perhaps Joss asked him to keep an eye on me. I don’t know why. Syd said he didn’t like the idea of me being on my own. He even offered to take me in at his farm. As though I hadn’t been alone here for most part of my life. He’s a queer man and I don’t know how our Rose puts up with him.’

  ‘What did he do before he took to farming?’

  ‘He was in the army when he met and married our Rose. Before that, I believe he lived with his mother and helped her with a shop near Stockport in England. He used to say they dealt in antiques, but our Joss always said they kept a junk shop, buying and selling old rubbish.’

  They thanked her and left her to arrange her washing on the lines again, and made for Narradale. As they approached an acute corner of the steep winding road, a bell clanged furiously and Knell drew in to the side. An ambulance pulled up beside them and Kincaid, sitting beside the driver, thrust his honest, healthy face through the window.

  ‘Sorry, we can’t stay. We’ve got Sydney Handy inside. He’s had an accident. Some sacks of oats fell on him from the loft. I think his back’s broke. He’ll be lucky if he’s alive when we get to the cottage hospital.’

  He addressed Knell.

  ‘The representative from the corn merchants, Kinnish, found him. He must have been lying there for quite a while. I left Kinnish holding the fort. I’ve not looked over the place, sir. Would you mind . . .? Just until we can get him to Ramsey . . .’

  The Archdeacon offered to sit with the injured man and the attendants seemed glad of it. Sydney Handy was dead when they arrived at their destination.

  Littlejohn and Knell found the bewildered Kinnish waiting for relief in the gateway. P.C. Kincaid had told him as he left to touch nothing.

  He was doing his best, walking up and down in the shabby unkempt farmyard, smoking one cigarette after another. A small, dark, middle-aged man, normally professionally pleasant and persuasive, now out of his depth and eager to share his worries with someone else. Attached to the farmhouse was a dilapidated stone barn, with an outside flight of stone steps mounting to a loft with a loading doorway on the first floor, over which hung a primitive derrick. In the yard directly below, a small heap of sacks filled with oats. Kinnish pointed to this even before he had greeted the newcomers.

  ‘Those fell on him. He must have been lowering them from the loft, lost his footing and they fell down on him when he released the rope. I found him. I don’t know how long he’d been there. He was unconscious and in bad shape. I had to move the sacks but it wasn’t any use. I drove down for P.C. Kincaid. There’s no ‘phone here . . .’

  He seemed relieved after unburdening himself of this information and Knell produced a small bottle of brandy from somewhere in the car and gave him a drink from it.

  ‘Will you need me any more?’

  ‘Not at present. We know where to find you, Mr. Kinnish. I’ll get in touch.’

  Knell gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and saw him to his little car. Kinnish left them, driving at a slow respectful pace, as though he were already in the funeral procession.

  There was an ominous silence about the place, punctuated now and then by the lamentations of the hens scratching about the yard and the snarling of the savage dog chained to his kennel. The shabbiness of the farm and its outbuildings contrasted sharply with the grandeur of the surrounding hills, with cattle grazing on the slopes. There was an atmosphere of melancholy and defeat about the whole set-up. Akin to Close Dhoo and the scene of as savage a climax.

  Littlejohn and Knell wandered about the place as they waited for the return of Kincaid. They climbed into the loft whence Handy had apparently fallen. It contained a few sacks of oats and meal.

  ‘I wonder what he was going to do for winter feed,’ said Knell. ‘There’s not enough to last here until the end of the month. Handy must have been on his beam ends by the looks of things.’

  The place was dirty and dust from the provender lay everywhere; much of it was trodden hard on the floor and it was impossible to trace footsteps in it. Littlejohn examined the derrick and the remaining bags in the loft. Then he looked down from the open door above the yard to the scattered pile of four bags which presumably had fallen on Handy.

  ‘This is a simple derrick, Knell. At a guess I’d think it was adequate for lowering a couple of bags. Any more and it would get completely out of control and the load would crash to the ground below. You might just as well fling the bags down without using the crane. The same would apply if you were hoisting them up into the loft. Two bags would be as much as one man could cope with on a primitive affair like this.’

  ‘And Handy was handling four . . .’

  ‘He was presumably lowering them for use below. Otherwise, if he was hoisting them to the loft for storage there’d probably be some vehicle below from which he was removing them. There’s no vehicle there. If he was lowering four bags with the help of that contraption they’d reach the ground, out of control, before he did, assuming he slipped and fell down. Kinnish found him under the bags.’

  ‘Do you think someone else was here and arranged what he thought was an ingenious murder?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, Knell. But Sydney Handy has become a more important character in the Close Dhoo affair than we thought at first. He was obviously on the verge of bankruptcy, bitter, and almost out of his mind with worry. He, too, was the only member of the family – in fact, with the exception of Sarah Duffy, he was the only outsider – to visit Joss Varran in gaol. Joss sent for him. Why? The answer to that question might give us a lot of help.’

  ‘Perhaps his wife knows.’
>
  ‘I wish Kincaid would hurry and relieve us. We’ve a lot on our hands. We ought to be talking with quite a lot of people again on the strength of our morning’s work. The Colonel, Sarah Duffy, Quantrell and now Mrs. Handy.’

  Distant sounds of a hard pressed car climbing the hilly road, and then Kincaid arrived with another constable to relieve Littlejohn and Knell.

  Kincaid didn’t ask any questions, but simply reported that Handy had died on his way to hospital.

  ‘He was unconscious all the time and never spoke a word. I met Kinnish, the commercial traveller who found Handy, on my way back here. He stopped to tell me you were waiting for me. I asked him if he’d passed anybody on his way to Handy’s place but he said he hadn’t. He didn’t see a soul all the way up after he left Ginger Hall on the main road.’

  ‘Is there another way here besides the main road?’

  Kincaid rubbed his chin.

  ‘There is, but I wouldn’t like to try it in a car. It’s one of what we call the back roads. It gave access to some old crofts, long neglected and ruined now, and I doubt if anybody ever uses it these days. The last time I was there, about some lost sheep, was around three years ago. It was rough and overgrown then. I don’t know what it will be like now. In any case, it doesn’t lead here. You have to walk about a mile across rough ground and there’s a stream to cross. It’s wild country. They call it the Park-ny-Earkan district . . .’

  ‘Did you advise Douglas of this affair?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I thought you’d wish that. They said they’d send out the technical squad right away, Inspector.’

  ‘You did right. We’re going back to the village now. Tell the men when they arrive to follow the usual procedure, but to treat this as a murder case. We’re not saying it is murder, but as it’s connected with the Close Dhoo affair we can’t be too careful . . . And, by the way, tell them to take a look at that back road and particularly for traces of a vehicle or footprints.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘We are going to the manor to see Colonel Duffy. If you want us urgently, you’ll probably find us there within the next hour. If not, please report to us at your office. We’ll call around three o’clock if we haven’t seen you before. Have you been able to contact Mrs. Handy, by the way? Her sister said she was in Ramsey arranging about Joss’s funeral tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes. We called at Close Dhoo on the way back and found her there with her sister. The Archdeacon broke the news to her and she was for going to the cottage hospital right away. But Miss Isabel and the Archdeacon persuaded her there was nothing she could do there, as Syd was dead and she’s staying with Isabel for the time being. I left the Archdeacon there.’

  ‘We’d better call at Close Dhoo, then,’ said Littlejohn.

  They found Rose Handy there. She was obviously stricken, but an undemonstrative woman who kept her grief to herself and held her feelings well in check. She was dressed in black from head to foot for Joss. A more energetic woman than her sister, thick-set and stout, with the asthmatic voice and cyanosed cheeks of a heart patient. No doubt her life with Handy, living on the edge of ruin and subject to his ill-temper and bullying, had worn her out.

  Knell and Littlejohn expressed their sympathy. Helped by the Archdeacon’s presence there she had not given way to her shock and grief and was quite lucid.

  ‘I don’t understand what happened. The policeman said some bags of oats had fallen on him in the haggart from the loft and killed him . . .’

  She used the old Manx word for farmyard, the haggart, and spoke in the lilting intonation of the older natives.

  ‘What was he doing with sacks of corn falling on him?’

  ‘There were four of them down in the yard, as though he’d been lowering them on the derrick.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t have been handling four at once. He used one at a time and dragged it to the door and dropped it down. He didn’t use the crane. As for four . . . He’d never do that. He had a rupture and was always careful about lifting. What made him do that with four . . .?’

  ‘We’ll have to find out.’

  ‘Do you feel able to answer one or two questions, Mrs. Handy?’ asked Littlejohn.

  ‘I’ll try. Although the shock of it all has made me mixed up in my mind. Why did he do it? He’d never have . . .’

  ‘Has he seemed strange lately?’

  ‘Yes. He was proper upset about Joss. He got morose and couldn’t sleep at night through thinkin’ of it. But, if you think it would make him do away with himself, you’re mistaken. He wasn’t that sort. He was just worried, temporary like, and would have got over it.’

  ‘Has anybody visited him lately?’

  ‘No. Only the police since Joss’s death.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’ve always been at home. Except, there was Joss’s death and funeral to see to. I’ve had more experience of such things than Isabel, so I went to Ramsey two or three times. Syd might have had callers while I was away. He didn’t say.’

  ‘Was he at home all night at the time of Joss’s death?’

  Mrs. Handy paused and then suddenly began to weep. Hard, bitter sobs which convulsed the whole of her body. Her sister rose alarmed, crossed to where she was sitting and put her arms round her. She looked at Littlejohn reproachfully.

  ‘Can’t you see she’s beside herself and isn’t fit to be worried with questions?’

  Rose disentangled herself from Isabel’s embrace.

  ‘No, I can manage. It only struck me as strange that I can now say anything I like without Syd telling me to be quiet. You asked if he was at home the night Joss died. He wasn’t, and he told me if I was asked, I’d to say he was.’

  ‘Where did he go and at what time?’

  ‘He went off in the van at two o’clock and didn’t get back till about eleven at night. He said he was going to a farmers’ meeting in Ramsey. I thought it funny, as he’d never been to the likes before. He wasn’t a sociable man and hated meetings and things. I asked him when he got home if he’d seen our Joss and he flew in a temper and said he hadn’t and it was no business of mine what he’d been doing.’

  ‘Did you know when Joss expected to be back?’

  ‘Joss never wrote to tell us when he was coming. I thought Syd might know, him having visited Joss, but when I asked him, he flew in such a rage that I never mentioned it to him again. So, I took it upon myself to ask the vicar if he could make some enquiries for me. Which he did by telephoning the prison chaplain. That’s how we got to know the day he was released and when to expect Joss.’

  ‘Your husband knew that?’

  ‘No. I daren’t tell him and I asked the vicar not to tell anybody.’

  ‘You said nobody visited the farm between the death of Joss and that of your husband?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could the rag-and-bone man have called in your absence?’

  ‘Cojeen the Rags, you mean? It’s funny you should mention that. When I heard our Joss was dead I went down to see Isabel right away. When I left home there was a pile of old iron from some old machines in the haggart. Syd had kept saying he’d sell it for scrap, but never did anything. When I got back the old iron had gone. I asked him if Cojeen had been and he said no, and got in one of his usual rages and asked what it had got to do with me anyway.’

  Knell gave Littlejohn an admiring look as the picture began to take shape in his mind. Cojeen the Rags; Cojeen the Liar!

  ‘Just one more question, Mrs. Handy, if you don’t mind . . .’

  ‘I don’t mind, sir, if it’ll help you.’

  ‘During the first year of his imprisonment, Joss wrote to your husband and asked him to visit him in gaol. What was it all about?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wish I did. He’d tell neither Isabel nor me a proper tale about it. All he’d say was that Joss seemed a bit homesick and wanted to see somebody from his family and get all the news of the Isle of Man. We never got to the bottom of why Sydney went. But he never seemed quite
the same after it. Whether it was seeing what went on inside prison, or the sight of our Joss in his cell or among a lot of convicts turned his mind a bit, I don’t know. He was moody and one minute saying better times were round the corner and the next down in the dumps. He was hard to live with, though I shouldn’t say it.’

  Littlejohn thanked her and they all prepared to take their leave.

  ‘I’d like a word with Cojeen the Rags. I wonder where we can find him; I guess he’s wandering all over the Island.’

  ‘Not today,’ said Isabel. ‘There’s a farm sale at Ballajack, Ballaugh. He’s sure to be there waiting to pick up the odds and ends that nobody wants.’

  They found Cojeen and Bessie, his little donkey, at Ballajack farm among a crowd of farmers, most of them dressed in their best, bidding with crafty diffidence as though they didn’t care whether or not they’d secure the lots they’d set their hearts on. Knell sorted out Cojeen and took him aside, like a good sheep-dog cutting out a solitary sheep from the flock. This intrusion of the police in the middle of a murder case distracted interest in the auction, and one or two of the more cunning in the group secured bargains whilst the bidding flagged.

  ‘The Chief Superintendent wants to ask you a question, Cojeen. Come along.’

  ‘Me? Always glad to be of assistance to the law. Lead me to him.’

  He greeted Littlejohn and the Archdeacon like old friends and the smile didn’t even leave his crafty face when Littlejohn asked him:

  ‘Why did you tell us that you saw Joss Varran being picked up by an old Bentley car on the night he returned here, when all the time it was Syd Handy’s old van?’

  ‘I’m certain I told you nothing of the kind, sir. I said I deduced it was a Bentley, not that I was sure. Facts are facts and deductions are deductions. One is proved, the other needs proving, sir.’

  ‘Don’t bandy words with me, Mr. Cojeen. After you saw Handy pick up Varran and then heard Varran had been killed, you thought you’d got a fine chance to squeeze Handy in exchange for your silence. He paid you well not only to keep quiet about seeing him, but also to say it was an old vintage Bentley that gave him the lift . . .’