Death Before Breakfast

by George Bellairs

  It was Willesden police station, passing-on Stopford’s news. It left Cromwell more baffled than ever. Still waiting for the report on the bedding, he went for his lunch and mechanically made his way through steak-and-kidney pie and sponge pudding. His lack of interest in his meal startled the waitress, who was in the habit of exchanging pleasantries with him.

  ‘Is anything wrong, Mr. Cromwell?’

  ‘Eh? No. Nothing wrong. I think I’ll have saddle of mutton. …’

  ‘But you’ve just had some sponge pudding!’

  ‘Have I?’

  He suddenly came to life and apologised, paid his bill, and went back to Littlejohn’s room. Peeples! He kept saying the name to himself and wondering what the little man was playing at. The report on the bloodstains arrived and occupied his mind for a while.

  The stains on the bedding were indeed blood. Of the same group as Jourin’s, too, and several days old. It looked almost certain that the French thief s body had been hidden in Barnes’s back room. But why in blankets and with a pillow? It was obvious that he’d been laid-up there, wounded, and had probably died there, too. How had he got into July Street for so brief a period, then?

  Peeples! The name came back suddenly. The thought of the little man whose children had suffered from whooping-cough wouldn’t leave Cromwell’s mind.

  And now, here was Stopford’s report. The children had been with their mother at Chatham since early in the week. At the time when Cromwell was sympathising and prescribing in July Street, they weren’t there at all! They weren’t even, according to Stopford, coughing their hearts out in Chatham, but playing merrily in Medley Street.

  There must be some mistake.

  Another interruption. Records department had sent a messenger with the old files about the Willesden accident which involved Dr. Macready. It was all there. The death of the young cyclist, the evidence of the witness who’d been sure that he had seen Macready’s car near the spot where it occurred. Macready’s appearance in court, and the subsequent testimony of another witness, a patient, who had been visited and examined by the doctor at the very time of the tragedy.

  Macready had never been himself since the affair. Could it have been that he really had killed the boy, obtained a phoney alibi, and then never been able to satisfy his conscience afterwards?

  There was a note in blue pencil at the bottom of the file, calling attention to a further record over a year later. It concerned another road accident in which a motorist had been killed. He had died in hospital, but before his death, had asked for the chaplain and confessed that he was the man who’d knocked down the cyclist in the previous report. He had driven on and been too scared to appear with his story, even when Macready was involved. When the doctor was cleared, the real culprit had felt easier about it, but now, facing the end, he wished to get the guilt from his mind.

  So, that was that. Macready hadn’t, as he said, caused the accident, and nobody could hold it over his head.

  Peeples! The name came back again and Cromwell’s lips tightened. He was going to get to the bottom of Lionel Peeples’ strange behaviour, even if he had to forget regulations. He opened a drawer in the cabinet in which Littlejohn kept souvenirs of cases and encounters, and removed a metal object which he knew was there. It was an ingenious pick-lock, a rossignol, which Littlejohn had retained after an enquiry in which he’d been involved in the South of France. He slid it in his pocket, together with a bunch of skeleton-keys, another souvenir from a Norfolk burglar. Very soon Cromwell would be a burglar himself!

  It was almost dark when he arrived in a police car in the old familiar district. He told the driver to park in front of the church in Sackville Street, and left him there. Cromwell strolled down August Street into the main Willesden Road and made his way past Barnes’s Garage on the opposite pavement. The place was illuminated but half the staff seemed away. It was Saturday night and, although the traffic was busy, the garage was only running a skeleton service for petrol and oil.

  Barnes was back. Cromwell could see him talking to a workman in the lighted interior. He seemed in his usual bad temper and the man was almost cringing under some rebuke.

  The houses in July Street and its surroundings had backyards approached by alleys behind the properties. Cromwell made for the one behind the terrace occupied by Peeples, watched his opportunity, and slipped down it.

  Long rows of yard-gates with latches and fastened by bars inside. Number 25, the Peeples’ place, was the same. The gate to the yard was rotten and almost falling from its hinges. A good kick would have burst it open, but Cromwell couldn’t risk it. He looked to right and left. Nobody about. The houses on either side were lit-up and the back blinds drawn. He sprang at the rickety gate, flung his leg over the top, and silently dropped in the yard.

  It was a small place, almost completely occupied by a coal-shed, a disintegrating dust-bin, and a lot of old packing-cases. There was a rusty old bike without tyres and chain propped against the wall. The area was flagged and squalid from want of a good cleaning. On the wall between Peeples’ house and next-door a large tom-cat was stretched, and casually watched Cromwell at work. He couldn’t bear to be overlooked and flapped a hand at the animal, which was so surprised at the unexpected assault, that it fell off the wall and he could hear it scuffling and wailing on the other side. The back-door of the house, where the cat presumably lived, thereupon opened. Cromwell crouched in the gloom of the yard, and an angry householder almost kicked the animal into the warmth indoors and slammed his way back. Silence returned. Cromwell was warned, however, that he’d better operate noiselessly, otherwise the angry tenant would be out investigating again.

  The lock on the back-door of Peeples’ house was another ramshackle affair and would have yielded to a good push. But Cromwell had to resist the impulse. The rossignol opened it almost at once. Cromwell silently fumbled his way in.

  The stuffy smell of the kitchen was appalling and Cromwell held his breath as he passed through it. He had turned on his torch and cautiously illuminated his route, but he had to be careful. There were pans on the scullery floor, boxes of unsavoury vegetables, polishing tackle, a plastic rubbish bucket which hadn’t been emptied for weeks and reeked to high heaven.

  Beyond the scullery it was better and Cromwell was familiar with it from previous visits. Peeples’ relatives had apparently had the run of the ground floor, except the cooking-department, during their tenancy and had cleared-out anything worth while when they left.

  The stairs were covered with old newspapers. Cromwell tiptoed aloft. The stairs creaked madly and in the stillness it seemed to him that the noise would sound all the way down July Street. The landing was the same; here and there the floor boards were giving way with rot.

  Three doors. One was a small junk room. It had a bath in it, among a litter of other things, but there were no visible signs of plumbing. Probably they had to carry the water whenever it was used. The other two were bedrooms, furnished with iron beds and a lot of cheap rubbish of furniture. The small circle of light from Cromwell’s torch fell upon one thing after another. A photograph of what must have been Mr. and Mrs. Peeples on their wedding-day. She wore a wreath and veil; Peeples was hugging a pot-hat over his heart. He looked better nourished and healthier in those days. This was, then, the connubial bedroom of the pair of them. The bed hadn’t been made and the bedclothes were incredibly soiled and shabby.

  Cromwell was beginning to wonder what he’d come for. Now, in the chilly darkness, he began to feel that he’d made a bit of a fool of himself. If he was caught at it, he’d had it. If he wasn’t, what was he here for, in any case?

  He opened the drawers of the chest and washstand, on which stood a hideous ewer and basin of a long gone generation. He’d never seen such a jumble of old clothes in his life. In the wardrobe, there were one or two old dresses, a spare suit of Peeples’, and a pair of overalls dangling like a man who’d hanged himself. The window was closed and the air was stuffy and smelled of many n
ights’ sleep.

  The next room was the same. Cromwell, a man who guarded his health, breathed in short gasps and as little as he could. The place was presumably still infected with whooping-cough, he thought to himself. And yet. … If what Stopford said were true, the children weren’t in it when he’d called on Peeples and recommended mouse-ear!

  An iron bedstead on which the children slept. The bed was made and neatly arranged, presumably by the mother before she left with the kids for her parents’ home in Chatham.

  Cromwell did a lot of thinking in the dark. If the children weren’t there, who was coughing and whooping when he called? He reminded himself that he’d better be making himself scarce and finish his exploring. Another chest of drawers. He examined it and the contents. Nothing but children’s clothing and a few pathetic toys and treasures.

  There was a wardrobe there, too, with little in it. Cromwell shone the light well over it, inside and out. On the top of the wardrobe, a number of boxes, including a decaying leather hat-box. Surely Peeples didn’t own a topper! Cromwell pulled it down. It was heavy and he took it to the bed, opened it and looked inside. He got a surprise!

  A tape-recorder clattered on the shabby eiderdown!

  Cromwell hadn’t the patience to take the contraption with him and try out the tape which was fitted in it. He fiddled with it a bit and then turned it on, after removing his raincoat and muffling the sound with it. Silence for a moment, and then the recorder began to cough. A terrific spasm of whooping-cough, gasping, more whooping, exhausted silence, then more coughing and heaving.

  He’d solved the problem which had worried him, but more questions rose in his mind. Who in the world had provided Peeples with the recorder and, most of all, with the tape-recording of a patient suffering from whooping-cough?

  It was certainly not Peeples’ idea. He wasn’t intelligent enough to think of it. And besides, why pull a trick like this on the police? Could it be … ?

  Cromwell replaced the recorder in the hat-box, and put it back on top of the wardrobe. Then, he turned back the eiderdown and examined the bedclothes under it. They were as soiled as those in the other room and, in addition, were stained with what was surely dried blood. The pillows were the same. Blood again. What had Peeples been up to… ?

  Then came a disturbance. Cromwell had taken the precaution of pulling down the blinds of the rooms he’d entered before he turned on his torch. But that wasn’t enough for the nosey occupants of July Street. Judging from the noise at the front door, one of them had spotted a glimmer of light and was here with a bobby!

  There was a thunderous knocking on the front door.

  Cromwell crawled his way downstairs and through the scullery again. He hoped there was nobody at the back; or else the fat would be properly in the fire. He imagined himself before the Board, quite unconvincing in his arguments that he was trying to do his duty. … There was another knock on the door.

  ‘You’ll have to break it in. It ain’t likely that whoever’s broke-in’ll politely open the front door to you. Now, is it?’

  It was the man with the cat, next door.

  Cromwell found the entrance to the noisesome kitchen again, carefully operated on the door with the rossignol and left it locked, leapt down the yard on tiptoes like a competitor in an obstacle race, and was over the gate in one. He appeared at the end of the alley at the Willesden end and did his best to walk with innocence and dignity to the waiting car in Sackville Street. The bobby was still banging on the door of No. 25.

  ‘You must have imagined it,’ the constable was saying. ’ I can’t hear a sound and there’s no sign of a light. …’

  Littlejohn was waiting for Cromwell when he got back to The Yard. The sergeant, as was his custom, confessed all to his chief. Littlejohn laughed.

  ‘You’ve been a bit impulsive, old man. All the same, it’s probably been worth it.’

  He looked at his watch.

  ‘It’s a bit late and we’ve had a hard day, but I think we’d better make a trip to Chatham whilst the trail’s hot.’

  * * *

  It was nine o’clock when Littlejohn and Cromwell arrived in Chatham. The shops were shut, the children were in bed, and Mr. and Mrs. Peeples had just returned from the pictures. Mr. Peeples’ father-in-law answered the door of the house in Medley Street. A little man, thick-set, with a shock of white hair, a clean complexion and a ragged moustache, who worked at the dockyard.

  ‘Is Mr. Peeples in?’

  ‘Bit late, aren’t you? We’re just goin’ to start our supper. What name is it?’

  ‘Littlejohn. This is Mr. Cromwell.’

  Mr. Peeples must have been listening at the door of the kitchen along the lobby. He suddenly materialised, illuminated by the light of the room as he opened the door. When he saw who was calling, he sagged at the knees and clung to the door-frame. Then he emerged, slowly walked along the lobby, and stood beside his father-in-law.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘We’d like to speak to you.’

  ‘Won’t it do to-morrow?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Mr. Peeples.’

  ‘Who are these men, anyhow?’

  His father-in-law thought Mr. Peeples needed support and he was ready to give it. The door at the end of the lobby opened again to reveal two women, one young and thin; the other ageing and fat. Peeples’ wife and his ma-in-law. The elder of the two gave tongue.

  ‘Wot is it, Lionel?’

  Peeples by now looked ready to collapse.’

  We’d like a private word with you, Mr. Peeples. Is there anywhere. …?’

  ‘Is that all right by you, Lionel?’

  His father-in-law was only a little man, but he’d obviously plenty of guts. He looked ready to mop the floor with the intruders if called upon.

  ‘Yes, dad. Mind if we use the parlour? It’s all right. I know them both.’

  Eventually they got Peeples to himself, looking a bit better, sitting on the antiquated couch of the parlour, as they called it, ready for the worst.

  The room was a family portrait-gallery. Soldiers, sailors, policeman, Wrafs, Wrens, nurses. The Moffats looked to have a private army of their own. They had nine children and Mrs. Peeples was the youngest. Peeples’ picture was among the rest. On his wedding-day with his pot-hat. There was an old piano in the room, too. Mr. Peeples had been playing it earlier that evening. In his younger days, he’d been a pianist at a picture-palace. Those days were long gone. Now, he looked like a corpse.

  ‘What do you want to come here for? I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not fair to show me up in front of my wife’s family. They’ll take it bad.’

  He looked round at all the photographs, like a guilty man counting the firing-squad.

  ‘You’re a bit of wretch, aren’t you, Mr. Peeples? You deceived Sergeant Cromwell into thinking your children had whooping-cough, when all the time they were here, as healthy as a couple of kittens. Why did you do that?’

  Peeples didn’t know what to say. In his misery, his memory and speech seemed to have deserted him.

  ‘Shall I tell you? Someone wanted to use your house for a particular purpose and wanted your wife and family out of the way, didn’t he? He’d a very sick man on his hands and didn’t know where to put him. So, he chose your place.’

  ‘I was only doin’ him a favour. No harm in that, is there?’

  ‘No. And I guess he paid you well.’

  ‘He made it worth my while. I’d to get my wife and kids away at nearly a minute’s notice.’

  ‘What did your wife say?’

  ‘She didn’t mind much. We’d promised my mother-in-law we’d come in the summer, but money was scarce. It was just the chance we wanted. The missus didn’t need much persuadin’. Specially as the money came in useful.’

  ‘But why all the paraphernalia about whooping-cough?’

  ‘They’re such a nosey crowd in July Street. They’d have wanted to know why the wife and kids had gone so suddenlike and the women around w
ould have started, as they usually do, wantin’ to do the house for me and bring in food.’

  ‘Decent of them. Very neighbourly. And you couldn’t afford to have anybody with the run of the house, when you’d got a wanted criminal, wounded, in the bed upstairs. …’

  Mr. Peeples looked miserable.

  ‘It was an act of charity. You can’t deny that. I didn’t know he was a wanted man. Until I saw it in the papers, I thought I was just givin’ hospitality to a friend of the doctor’s who’d been injured in a street fight. That’s what they told me.’

  ‘Doctor Macready?’

  ‘Yes. He called after dark on Monday night. He said he’d got a wounded man who’d been picked up and carried into Barnes’s garage and would I take him in, until he was well enough to be moved elsewhere. I said, what about a hospital? He went away, then, and came back with Sammy Barnes. Sammy’s my landlord and I work for him. He said I’d better do as I was told and not ask questions. What could I do?’

  ‘And you were forced to do as they told you and bundle out your wife and family at a moment’s notice?’

  ‘As I said, my wife didn’t mind on account of the money we were to get for it. Sammy Barnes sent them all off in a car to Chatham.’

  ‘They went in the dark; and then this whooping-cough idea was invented to explain their absence?’

  ‘The youngsters play with kids in the street, who call for them. We didn’t want that. So, we said we’d put it about they’d got whooping-cough. I couldn’t say my wife was away. If I did, well, as I said, we’ve neighbours who’d have started coming in to help with the housework and give me meals. They always do when the wife’s away. So, I had to pretend we were all at home, and that the kids were in bed and the wife nursing them.’

  ‘Who’s was the idea of the tape-recorder?’

  ‘Sammy Barnes’s. He lent it to me and the doctor got the tape. There’s a lot of whooping-cough about just now and it was easy. Sammy said it would add a bit of colour to the tale we’d told.’