"The thousand pounds mentioned here. . . . Didn't Mrs. Cottier say Crennell had saved about that amount?"
"That's right, sir."
"Where did he bank, I wonder."
The local constable knew all about it.
"The Post Office, sir. I've seen him going in there and pulling a savings book out of his pocket as he went in."
"That means waiting till to-morrow, then, before we can find out if he made any big withdrawal."
"Not necessarily, sir. I saw the postmaster this mornin' on his way home to lunch. We might catch him on the telephone."
"Try, will you?"
Finlo Crennell had drawn a thousand pounds of his own money from his Post Office account two days before his disappearance!
"And why would he do that?" asked Knell rhetorically.
Back to Grenaby through the thin autumn sunshine. Knell blew the car horn at the vicarage gate and brought out an angry Maggie Keggin.
"Less noise, young man. The pazon's takin' his forty-winks after a hard mornin's work and is not to be woke. . . ."
But the Archdeacon was already at the door putting on his hat and coat. They told him how he could help and the gaitered legs were soon scrambling in the back of the car.
They joined the main Foxdale road and turned on the T.T. course at Ballacraine. The fine weather had brought out a lot of trippers and the roads were busy. Before reaching the village of Kirk Michael, Knell turned to the right and they began to climb the steep ascent to the inland hills.
The uplands were clear of mist and, as the car mounted, the whole panorama of Manx hills unfolded, patterns of greens, browns and purples under the afternoon sunshine and changing as the cloud shadows passed over them. The road skirted deep lonely valleys until it reached an isolated cottage, Brandywell, where it forked in three at a junction. A signpost marked the twisting track to the left. Druidale.
The three men in the police car spoke little. They all seemed occupied in admiring the view and enjoying the pleasant afternoon's jaunt. They might have been on a pleasure trip instead of the grim business of Finlo Crennell's murder.
The road soon wound out of sight of civilization. A wide expanse of silent and beautiful desolation. They were in a kind of hollow surrounded by hills everywhere, with now and then to the west a view of the sea between two peaks. On the rising land, sheep were grazing until it reached a height where no more vegetation would grow. The wide moorland was covered in a dozen different shades of green and stunted gorse still in bloom. Here and there a ruined cottage, deserted after a struggle by the crofters who could not raise a living from the hard soil.
In the valleys where the vegetation was better and where good trees would grow for shelter, one or two sheep farmers were holding out and it was to one of these homesteads that Knell was making his way.
The road descended to a mountain stream where they forded, rose again, and finally forked at a green gate. Half a mile down the side track stood Charlie Cribbin's farm.
A ring of stunted trees protected the cottage. The entire place was built of stone. A cowshed, a stye in which the pigs were rioting for a meal, a henhouse, and the home itself, with a window on each side of the stone porch and three upstairs facing the moor.
Nancy Cribbin must have seen them as they turned in the by-road, for she was waiting in the porch for them to enter the yard. She held a baby in her arms, a child of about two, who buried his head in his mother's shoulder when the strangers arrived.
The woman seemed apprehensive as the men got out of the car and her look changed to one of surprise when she saw the Archdeacon.
"It's not Charlie, is it?" she said before she even greeted them.
"Why should it be Charlie, Mrs. Cribbin?"
"He's not been home all night."
A brief silence as they all thought out the implications of this new information. In the distance a curlew cried.
She didn't ask them in and they stood round the porch, a ragged little gathering, nobody quite knowing how to begin. From the house two more children appeared; a boy of about five and a little girl, fair, with long hair, who looked about three. The noticeable thing about the Cribbin family was that in spite of their remoteness from the world, they were all dressed in their Sunday best, like pioneers who in a far outpost, persist in the conventions of home.
Littlejohn watched Nancy Cribbin as she gathered her children round her. She was beautiful and she was afraid. She even made the cheap Sunday frock, which might have been bought from a chain-store, look elegant. She was tall and well-built and as dark as night. Jet black hair, large dark eyes, a straight nose, and full large lips. The type you might find far from Druidale on the Mediterranean. Difficult to think that Finlo Crennell and Mary Gawne, in a casual bout of illicit pleasure, had brought such a beauty into the world. Behind the ex-harbourmaster of Castletown or the common flighty Mary, must have been a better ancestry than either of them manifest. . . .
"What did you want?"
She spoke softly with the Manx intonation.
The Archdeacon took control of the situation.
"We want to come inside and talk to you, Nancy."
"I'm sorry. I ought to have asked you in."
The living-room was tidy in a frugal way. Wooden cottage chairs, an old Manx wooden armchair, a modern grate in which logs were burning, a plain deal table covered with a chenille cloth. Two large photographs of a stern-looking man and woman, stiff in their best clothes, fierce before the camera. In patches, the wallpaper was peeling off with the damp. A cat with two kittens in the hearth and a half grown chicken in a box by the fire, lying on a piece of blanket.
The eldest child picked up the box with the pullet and showed it to the parson.
"It's sick."
In spite of the cleanliness of the house, there was a smell of straw, decayed leaves and manure, and a feeling of damp. Outside, the branches of the leafless trees shook in the breeze. A cow cried in the shed and the pigs were still squealing for food. Now and then, one of the hens would enter the room through the open door, pick around, and disappear again.
"I wasn't expecting anybody. You must excuse us not being straight. With Charlie not coming home, I've had to milk the cows myself and then there's the children. . . ."
She spoke well and behaved with a kind of native courtesy. Littlejohn wondered if Crennell had paid for her education at a good school somewhere.
"Please sit down. . . ."
They settled on the wooden chairs and Nancy brought another chair with a straw seat from the next room for Littlejohn, whose head, as he stood there, almost touched the ceiling.
"You can go and feed the hens, Harry."
The eldest child vanished in the room behind, returned with a can of corn, and took his sister outside. They could hear them talking to the fowls.
"Chuck, chuck, chuck. Don't let Blackie have it all. Drive her away. . . ."
The woman still carried the youngest child in her arms, which were too white and shapely for the rough life she was leading. She seemed to hold the baby more firmly than was necessary, as though, in her fear, trying to find comfort in clinging to something she loved.
"We're sorry to have to tell you, Nancy, that your father died last night."
The healthy pink of her complexion turned to chalk white, but it was evident at once that she had been expecting something even worse.
"I thought . . . Charlie . . ."
And then she gathered herself together.
"How did it happen? Did he come home? He went away, I know. They told me . . . "
"He was found in London. He'd lost his memory. This is Chief Inspector Littlejohn, of the London police, who brought your father home. Last night, your father went out alone and was . . . "
The Archdeacon put his hand on Mrs. Cribbin's shoulder and gently said the rest.
"Somebody shot him. He's dead, Nancy. They're burying him on Tuesday."
Nancy Cribbin sat on the only free chair and this time she hid her
face in her child's shoulder and sobbed.
"Why couldn't they have left him alone? He was always a good man. He was good to me and the children. . . ."
"Who do you mean by they, Nancy?"
"Everybody. Everybody interfering with him and taking their troubles to him. As if he hadn't enough troubles of his own."
"What troubles had he, then?"
She looked the parson full in the face.
"Me. I was his trouble. They all blamed him because of me."
"These two gentlemen are going to find out who did it. You know Mr. Knell, of the Douglas police, don't you?"
"Can't say I do. Pleased to meet you."
"I'll see that a car comes to pick you up for the funeral, Nancy. You must come. I shall be there, so you'll have a friend. And Mrs. Cottier will be there, too. Don't worry about the rest."
"I'll have to get somebody to mind the children. But . . . "
"What about your husband, Mrs. Cribbin?"
Littlejohn had been watching her eyes. She was still afraid.
"He hasn't been home all night. It's happened before, but he promised it wouldn't occur again. Last time, he went with some friends to an auction sale in Glen Helen. He stayed all night at his mother's in Michael. He said he wouldn't do it again. . . . "
Knell had told Littlejohn he didn't think much of Charlie Cribbin. Now his look was full of I told you so.
"With his going off the drink and saying he'd stop that way for good, I thought something bad had happened."
"When did your husband leave?"
"Yesterday afternoon. It was Saturday and he sometimes went down to Ballaugh through the glen. It's quite a walk, but he said he'd better do it on foot. It was very misty on the tops and the road is narrow. I daren't leave the children to go and see what happened and there's been nobody up here all day."
"Did he say he was calling anywhere particular, Nancy?"
"No. But he might have taken the bus at the bottom and gone to Michael to see his dad and mother. I'm that worried. . . ."
She had kept control of herself so far, but the strain was beginning to tell, and talking of it made her worse. A touch of hysteria rang in her voice.
"We'll go and see what we can find out. Don't worry, Nancy!"
"Have you seen your father lately, Mrs. Cribbin?"
Littlejohn felt he must ask it before they left her for a day or two.
"He came one day just before he disappeared."
"Did he seem all right?"
"Yes. He used to come about once a month."
She seemed to be evading the issue.
"Did he seem all right, Mrs. Cribbin? This is important."
She was almost angry as she turned on him.
"What do you want me to say?"
"The truth."
She paused.
"He had a long talk with Charlie, if that's what you want to know."
"What was it about?"
"I don't know. They stood in the yard as they talked. Charlie had been worried for a long time. I asked him what was the matter, but he wouldn't say. After he spoke to my father, he seemed easier in his mind. He slept better and stopped moping about."
"Do you think your father was going to help him? I mean, had your husband any money troubles and was your father going to put him straight?"
"That may have been it. We haven't done very well since we came here five years ago. The winters have been bad and we've lost a lot of sheep. It worried Charlie."
"And that is all?"
She looked at him candidly.
"Yes. Should there be anything else?"
Outside, the children were still feeding the hens, chasing off the greedy ones, encouraging the timid. "Chuck, chuck, chuck." The child in Nancy Cribbin's arms was asleep.
The three men rose as though at a signal.
"Well, Nancy, be brave. I'll send a car for you, as promised, in time for the funeral. Have you some black clothes?"
"Yes, Archdeacon. Thank you for all you've done."
"And now we'll go and inquire about your husband."
They all went to the door. The child in arms began to whimper as Mrs. Cribbin moved. The other two ran to their mother and stood by her.
"How far does your land extend?"
Littlejohn stood at the gate, looking over the landscape. A vast stretch of moor. Here and there a fertile green patch, then heather and blaeberry, with dark brown, rotten peaty soil between. Sheep dotted about. Then the rising ground to Snaefell and the high hills. Through a gap between two hillsides the road to Sulby down Tholt-y-Will was visible, with cars slowly climbing it.
The Archdeacon gave the children a shilling each and the two elder ones looked up at their mother, questioning what to do with the money. There were no shops and they hadn't had the experience of spending. They thought the bright coins were some kind of new toy.
"Good-bye, then. We'll let you know, Nancy. God bless you all."
The parson entered the car.
"There are five hundred acres, all told, but it's not all good by a long way."
Nancy Cribbin had suddenly remembered Littlejohn's question.
"Do they go as far as the house by the ford?"
It was Knell who spoke. There was an eager look in his face . . . eager and anxious.
"Not really. But Charlie has the key in case anybody wants to see it and they let him use it for storing sheep hurdles and wire and such while nobody else wants it. Why?"
"I was just wondering. It's nothing."
They said good-bye again and drove to the end of the farm-street.
"What's this about the cottage, Knell?"
"I think we ought to go back there before we go down to Ballaugh to inquire about Charlie Cribbin. You remember there's a gated road just past the ford. Montpellier, it's called. As I got out of the car to open the gate, I looked at the old house. The key was in the door. I didn't think much about it at the time, but when she said Charlie wasn't home, I suddenly thought we ought to go and see if all was right, there."
"Very well. Drive back."
The house stood empty and boarded-up near the ford on the winding road facing Snaefell. Through the gap on the rising moor opposite they could see Cribbin's farm in the hollow by the trees.
A rather large house, with a porch and five windows on the front. "J.B. 1875" over the door. A holly bush to the right of the door, dark and overgrown, and behind the house, a copse of tortured trees. Ruined stone buildings, sheep-pens, outhouses. A cement face and a grey slate roof, surrounded by a dry stone wall, crumbling in places and repaired by iron bed-ends. Rushes in the overgrown garden, invaded by sheep and trippers in the season. Tall chimneys. . . .
The crackle of leaves and the squeaking of twined branches in the bare trees made them start and turn round. They felt there were footsteps following them.
The place was evidently the haunt of picnic parties and lovers. In the garden the charred sticks of summer fires; on the cement of the walls the vows of courtship. Ken Cowley loves Lily Tyrer. Two hearts transfixed by an arrow. Initials, V.B. on one side and A.H. on the other.
The three men stood looking at the house for a minute and then approached through the side gate; the front one was wired-up and the gateway piled with debris.
There was the key in the door, as Knell had said. They turned it and went in. Knell took out his torch and shone it into the darkness. A decrepit staircase and a room off each side of the hall. They entered the one to the left. A jumble of wooden hurdles, tins of sheep-dip and paint, rolls of barbed wire.
They didn't notice the details of the other room. Stretched on the bare boards of the floor, face downwards, arms outspread, was a large, well-built man in his best suit, bright leather leggings and heavy black boots. He was lying as though someone had carried his inert body and pitched it there like a sack of rubbish.
"Charlie Cribbin. . . ."
He had been shot through the head, like Finlo Crennell.
6
THE AFF
AIRS OF CHARLIE CRIBBIN
THINGS couldn't have turned out more awkward. Instead of being able to return to Grenaby, the party had to get busy and set in motion the usual machinery of the law. There wasn't a telephone for miles; the nearest policeman was at Ballaugh, six miles or more across the moor; there was the bad news to break to Nancy Cribbin; and the Archdeacon to get home to Grenaby for the evening service.
On top of that, Knell stood at the door of the empty house, looked to the west where the sun was already setting in a magnificent coloured haze, and sighed.
"The mist's coming down again. It'll be thick in an hour's time."
Out at sea, they could see it forming already. The water was not visible from where they stood, but above it, a long roll of grey haze like a folded blanket.
And then they had a bit of luck. The sounds of an approaching car came from the direction of Brandywell cottage and a large saloon drew in sight, almost too big for the narrow road. At the ford, it halted, as though the driver hesitated to wet the wheels or splash the bright bodywork. Like a horse which jibs at a water-jump in a steeplechase. Then the car moved slowly through the stream, topped the rise, and came to a halt at the gate across the road. A woman in a fur coat climbed out, opened the gate, the car ran through, and she closed it.
Littlejohn hurried to them and held up his hand.
His eyes met the slightly mongolian ones of Mr. Nimrod Norton!
"I'm a police officer and would like your help. There's been an accident in the house there."
He didn't say a murder, because the woman sitting by Norton's side looked timid and apprehensive, as though she almost scented disaster.
The Big Shot was obviously annoyed and petulantly slid on the hand-brake.
"This is a nuisance and you won't have to be long. I can't spare the time. We've a call to make and we want to be back before dark. Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"
Nimrod Norton was wearing a heavy camel-hair overcoat which made him look larger than ever, and a jaunty cloth cap.
"I'm sorry, sir, but this is in the name of the Law."
"Be quick, then. What's it all about and what do you want of me?"
"What is the matter?"
Littlejohn found himself looking into a pair of frightened blue eyes. Mrs. Norton had been good-looking in her youth. Now, her fair hair was obviously bleached and she was heavily made-up, but there were still traces of beauty in spite of the weight of middle-age. She cast a momentary glance at her husband, as though asking permission to intervene from a habitual bully.
Death Treads Softly (A Cozy Mystery Thriller) (Inspector Little John Series) Page 6