Death in the Fearful Night (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  “What kind of a man was he? Did you ever visit one another?”

  Cropstone gave him a sidelong look. He was, from all appearances and the way he spoke, a crafty man, who weighed each word carefully, and anxious that nothing he said should in any way implicate him.

  “No, we weren’t on neighbourly visiting terms. I never went there, except once when my cattle strayed on his land and I wanted to see him about the fencing. An ill-tempered fellow, he was. He’d have nothing to do with his distant relations, the Huncotes, and as for me, he kept me standing at the door in the rain and said I’d better fence against my own livestock straying. In my view, he didn’t want visitors. He wished to be quiet and undisturbed for his own purposes.”

  “What purposes?”

  Another sly look.

  “Women. Bracknell was a ladies’ man. One or two of the fair sex have been seen coming and going down Dan’s Lane to the Folly.”

  He said it with relish and a lascivious smile and Littlejohn wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that Cropstone was a philanderer, as well, when opportunity arose.

  “Nobody has said anything to the police about this.”

  “Perhaps they haven’t been asked.”

  “Is it well-known in the village?”

  “I hardly think that’s likely. Carryings-on of that sort are done in secret in a small community like this.”

  He sounded to speak from experience.

  “Might I ask then, sir, how you came to know of them?”

  “Me and my men are always about the fields, you know. They adjoin ours and in some of them we overlook Dan’s Lane. Matter of fact, this is the only side that Freake’s is visible from. The rest is either concealed by trees or there’s no view on account of the hollow.”

  Littlejohn looked through the great window at the end of the room which gave a full view in the direction of Freake’s Folly. He also noticed a case of binoculars standing on a chest of drawers nearby. From the room above the one in which they were sitting, the Folly would be wide open to anyone who cared to spy on it. And he was sure that Cropstone was a Peeping-Tom, who might even have taken his binoculars nearer the house in the wood than his upstairs windows.

  “Were any particular women, women you can name, concerned in these affairs?”

  Another pause.

  “No. Those who saw them weren’t near enough to recognise them.”

  The man knew more, but the blue eyes were hard and glassy, although his mouth was still grinning, exposing two even rows of false teeth. Cropstone wasn’t going to be mixed up in any unsavoury business concerning the murdered man. In fact, he was getting uneasy lest further questions might be awkward. He began to gather the empty teacups and put them back on the tray as an indication that the session was over.

  A little car was drawing-up in the yard and stopped at the side gate. A woman got out and walked slowly across the cobblestones. She wore tweeds and a soft felt hat, from beneath which wisps of grey hair strayed across her forehead. She had been very good-looking once, but now her fine grey eyes were dark-ringed and her clear complexion wore a shrivelled pallor which might have been due to anxiety or unhappiness. Cropstone introduced his visitors to his wife.

  “They’re here enquiring about our late neighbour, Bracknell. The local police have called-in Scotland Yard, you know.”

  She seemed tired and anxious to get indoors, so they bade her good-bye.

  “She’s been a bit under the weather of late. This murder so near our own place has upset everybody.”

  He took them to the gate of the courtyard and pointed out the short cut across the fields to Freake’s.

  “It’s not been much used since the Folly was put up more than a hundred years ago, but before that it was a short cut from here to the town and led you to Dan’s Lane. When they took the land for Freake’s from this farm, they closed the road at one end. It’s overgrown now and hardly visible, although they do say that from the air you can see it as plain as a pikestaff and it looks as if it was metalled.”

  They said good-bye to him and were sure he was glad to see the last of them. He returned to the house, now and then casting a glance over his shoulder on his way.

  Littlejohn and Cromwell followed the old path Cropstone had indicated. It started in a pasture of short springy grass and then ran across the foot of a large field of stubble, the healthy soil of which crumbled and crunched beneath their feet as they walked. Finally, they reached an old gate, which they opened, and thence the very nature of the ground underfoot indicated they were in the few miserable barren acres which surrounded Freake’s Folly. It was hard underfoot and untilled and, as they moved across it, deteriorated into swamp sprouting rank grass, thistles and rushes. The ditches were overgrown and must have repeatedly flooded the land in rainy weather. Soon, they entered the shadow of the trees surrounding the ruin and, in the light of the fading day, they seemed to be walking in the dusk.

  They had been chatting almost merrily as they walked, but in the gloom of the woods, silence fell upon them and they grew busy finding their bearings. Suddenly they were in daylight again and the Folly stood right in front of them.

  The first thing they noticed was a fine, thoroughbred mare, tied to a ring near the doorway. Then, the open door, a thread of smoke rising from one of the chimneys, and the sound of footsteps walking up and down across the bare floors.

  3

  THE INTRUDERS

  ANOTHER WOMAN in riding kit! She must have overheard their footsteps entering the yard, for she appeared, flustered and a bit annoyed-looking, as though Littlejohn and Cromwell, and not she, were intruders. The mare whinnied to greet her.

  A tall, very beautiful, well-built woman in her thirties. She was bare-headed and her short hair was crisp and almost artificially fair. High cheek-bones, blue eyes, and a haughty aquiline nose. She wore jodhpurs and a dramatic black jumper which accentuated her prominent breasts. She stood in the doorway aggressively waiting for them and giving them defiant looks. There was a key in the door.

  “Good afternoon, madam.”

  Littlejohn raised his hat and smiled.

  “What do you want?”

  They might have been a couple of hawkers!

  “I think I might be asking you the same question.”

  “More newspaper men from the looks of you.”

  She seemed more concerned with pulling-on her gloves than with the two officers and turned to untie the mare as she spoke.

  “The police, madam …”

  The hand holding the reins trembled for a second and then was firm again. She turned and looked them full in the face.

  “I expected to find you here when I arrived, but as the place was locked-up, I took the key and went in.”

  “And lit the fire?”

  The eyes were still defiant, but there was a touch of something different about the look. It might have been anxiety or even resignation.

  “I called to pick up a book.”

  “And burned it?”

  She flared-up this time.

  “You are being insolent. I haven’t to account to you for my movements like a suspect, I hope.”

  “You have entered private premises, madam, the scene of a crime and, therefore, under police jurisdiction.”

  “The key was on top of the lintel, its usual place. I let myself in.”

  “You must have been a regular caller here then during the lifetime of Mr. Bracknell.”

  “I refuse to discuss the matter with you. I didn’t murder him and you can’t question me like a criminal.”

  “I’m not treating you as a suspect. If you were a friend of Bracknell’s, you might be able to help us. I’m asking for your co-operation, that’s all.”

  Cromwell had meanwhile been in the living-room of the Folly and returned with the charred remnants of a book, which, judging from his blackened hands, he had extinguished with difficulty. About half of it was left and the title was still legible. Mumphrey’s Midshire Songs and Ballads. H
e handed it to Littlejohn.

  “Is this the book, madam?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wanted it back lest someone should learn of your connection with the dead man?”

  She laughed ironically.

  “Whatever makes you think that?”

  “You seem to have torn out the fly-leaf first and burned that before you set fire to the rest of the book. Perhaps it bore some intimate or affectionate dedication which might have …”

  “You’re being stupid now. May I go?”

  “You were very eager to burn the fly-leaf and the whole of the book for that matter. So eager that you couldn’t wait until you got home to do it. I see there are notes in what is perhaps your handwriting on some of the pages. Did you think we might trace you by it?”

  “If you’ve quite finished, I will go.”

  “First of all, I think you’d better answer one or two questions.”

  “I am suspected then? In that case, I shan’t answer anything without a lawyer. And now …”

  She put her foot in the stirrup and quickly mounted. Littlejohn gently took hold of the bridle.

  “I hope you don’t propose to detain me by force. That would amount to assault, I think.”

  “Better leave your name, madam.”

  “Why?”

  “I suppose it is Marcia Fitzpayne. It’s on the title page, along with a dedication from the author.”

  “In that case … Please unhand the bridle.”

  Littlejohn smiled again and did as he was asked. The woman rode away without looking back, a fine figure in the saddle.

  “Well, well … There goes a tartar, Cromwell. Bracknell seemed to have good taste in his women’s appearance and style, if not their manners.”

  “There’s nothing else in the ashes, sir. She seems to have burned some letters or another book, too. Why choose to do it here?”

  Littlejohn entered the house again.

  Cromwell had been poking among the burnt paper in the fireplace with a stick.

  “It might have been a diary she burned and used pages from a book to make up a fire for the purpose. She’s a cool one to come here and open-up as soon as the police-guard has gone. I’ll bet Gullet’s told all the town that his duties at the house are finished …”

  “Psst …”

  Cromwell hissed to warn the Superintendent. There was a sound of a motor coming down Dan’s Lane and before they could even close the door, a newcomer arrived and parked her scooter in the yard.

  Bracknell’s liking for women must have been very catholic, if this was another of his lights of love.

  A buxom country-girl, this time, with chubby apple cheeks, a little retroussé nose, firm flesh, and brawny arms and legs. She could hardly believe her eyes when she saw the open door. She called almost instinctively.

  “Is anybody at home?”

  It gave you the impression that she thought Bracknell had risen from the dead and installed himself in Freake’s again!

  “Yes. Come in.”

  She looked even more put-out at the strange voice, but she obeyed hesitantly and finally appeared in the doorway of the living-room, a bit like a chubby china doll, her eyes wide and her moist lips slightly apart. She was wearing an emerald green dress which was almost entirely concealed by a white overall like that of a dairy-maid. A roll of pink flesh, like a sausage, showed between the top of her black rubber boots and the hem of her frock.

  Normally she would have entered with a sunny smile, no doubt, and Bracknell fascinated by her lack of subtlety and her red hair, might have greeted her with an embrace. Quite an armful, as Cromwell said later!

  Now she was nonplussed.

  “Have you called for a book, too?”

  It was too ridiculous!

  “Book? No.”

  “Why are you here, then, Miss …?”

  “Miss Jolland. Lucy Jolland.”

  “Well, Miss Jolland? Did you leave something behind, too?”

  “My driving-gloves.”

  Then she put her hand to her mouth as though to thrust back the words which had slipped out.

  “Who are you? Are you from the auctioneer’s?”

  “Auctioneers? What makes you think that?”

  “Gullet’s saying that the police have finished here.”

  “I thought he might.”

  “I met him on the road and he said thank God his unpleasant task was finished, or something of the kind. He seemed to be telling everybody he met on the way to town.”

  She was leaning against the door and obviously feeling more at ease. Her smile was coming back.

  “Dad said, as soon as the police got out, there’d be a sale by auction of all Mr. Bracknell’s things. I thought I’d better get my gloves back. I left them one day by mistake.”

  “When were you last here, Miss Jolland?”

  “The morning of the day Mr. Bracknell died. I called with the milk.”

  She’d called with the milk! And to see the innocent look in her round forget-me-not eyes, you’d have thought that was all there was to it.

  “Mr. Bracknell was a friend of yours?”

  “Yes.”

  Her lips trembled and suddenly, as though she’d turned on a tap, tears began to run down her chubby cheeks. They had to wait until she’d had her cry and then she wiped her eyes and sniffed.

  “I’ll just find my gloves and go, please.”

  “The police have taken them in Carleton, Miss Jolland.”

  “Police! Are you police?”

  She gave Littlejohn an appealing look as though begging him to deny it. Perhaps her distress was showing her off to advantage, but now, with her lips closed and a frown which made her eyes less naïve, she might easily have turned the head of a lonely man like Bracknell. She must have been nineteen or twenty. Quite a change from the sophisticated and haughty Miss Fitzpayne.

  “Did you meet Miss Fitzpayne on your way here?”

  “Yes. She was riding home along the main road.”

  “Was she a friend of Mr. Bracknell’s, too?”

  The girl smiled to herself. There was something feline about it.

  “She’d have liked to be. I think they were a bit friendly once. The way she threw herself at him was the talk of the town at one time.”

  It was obvious there had been rivalry between the pair of them at some stage or other, but Lucy was quite sure of her triumph. It shone from her face. Then a worried look again. “You don’t think because I left my gloves, that I had anything to do with … with …”

  “Of course we don’t think you killed him. But if you took off your gloves and left them last time you were here, you could hardly have been simply leaving the milk on the doorstep and departing, could you? You must have been in the habit of staying for some time.”

  “Yes, I did. We used to talk together.”

  She watched Littlejohn closely to see what sort of impression her answer made on him.

  “Was that all you did? Just talk.”

  Her face clouded, but not too much.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he use to make love to you, as well?”

  “Sometimes he’d …”

  Then she paused and changed her tack.

  “He was always a perfect gentleman,” she said in an artificial voice she might have used in the local dramatic society.

  It was growing dark, but now that they’d got down to discussing Bracknell personally, the girl didn’t seem disposed to go.

  “What did you talk about, Miss Jolland?”

  “The places he’d been to. You see, he’d travelled quite a lot …”

  Cromwell had walked to the window and now began to whistle softly between his teeth … and tales of fair Kashmir …

  “What kind of a man was he?”

  “Sam, you mean?”

  “Yes. Did he call you Lucy?”

  “We were good friends. I haven’t got a photo of him, or I could have shown it to you …”

  She
didn’t quite understand what Littlejohn was after. He probably knew much more about Sam’s appearance from what he’d seen at the morgue, but that wasn’t quite it …

  “I mean, was he a recluse, a secretive man? Did he ever tell you about his past?”

  “Oh, yes. Some people said he was a mystery. He didn’t confide much in strangers, but he talked a lot to me. About his days in Australia … West Australia. He said he got a bit tired of roughing it and decided to come over here and see the old places his mother used to talk about. He liked it and, as he inherited Freake’s Folly, he settled in.”

  “He was a bachelor, I believe.”

  “I never asked him. He never spoke of that part of his life. He never mentioned any women to me.”

  “Had he enemies, that you know of?”

  “He never said anything about having any. I’m sure he’d have told me if he had. He was such a nice man …”

  Another tear and another sniff or two.

  “How often did you bring the milk?”

  “Every day.”

  “Did you ever see anybody hanging about the place …? Anyone suspicious-looking?”

  “No. It was always quiet here and he liked it that way. I got the impression that he didn’t know many people around.”

  “How long did you stay when you came here with the milk?”

  A pause as though she were going through it all again.

  “Not more than twenty minutes or so. Sam was always ready for a chat. He must have been lonely and liked a bit of company. I didn’t stay over-long. If my dad had got to know he’d have …”

  “I’m sure he would,” said Littlejohn finishing her train of thought. “Where do you live, Miss Jolland?”

  “Pinder’s Close Farm, just to the left out of Dan’s Lane in the direction of the town. Dad farms there. We have a milk-round in the neighbourhood.”

  “And you called for the gloves, just in case the police found them and asked awkward questions?”

  She looked surprised.

  “I didn’t think that at all. I’m the last person to wish to do any harm to a nice man like Sam …”

  Her voice trembled again.

  “I thought Gullet might show them to my dad, and then the fat would have been on the fire. Please don’t mention them to dad, will you?”