Death in Room Five (A Chief Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  ‘He seems to have led a sort of Jekyll and Hyde existence, as far as I can make out, sir. Everybody says how well he was thought of in Bolchester by the general public, and yet…There’s always a fly in the ointment.’

  ‘That’s right, Inspector. You can only take a man as you find him. Some must have seen his better side and judged him accordingly. Don’t let my views influence you.’

  ‘Did Dawson have much to do with your Building Society?’

  ‘Yes. To tell you the truth, he was a bit of a nuisance.’ Mrs. Currie’s cheeks began to glow.

  ‘A bit, did you say, Martin? You know he was a perfect pest to you. Interfering in the office and throwing his weight about.’ Currie smiled wryly.

  ‘That’s over now and I’m almost tempted to say “thank God”. But we shall miss him coming in every other day, telling us how to run the business, bullying the staff and pretending all the time it was for their own good. If there hadn’t been other directors who were jealous of Alderman Dawson and saw to it that he didn’t chuck his weight about too much, life in the office wouldn’t have been worth living.’

  ‘There were other prominent men in the town who disliked him, then?’

  ‘Well…You know what it is in a small provincial town like Bolchester. All the jockeying for position and prominence that goes on every day and everywhere…’

  ‘I see.’

  Littlejohn was glad he’d made up his mind to go to Bolchester. Perhaps the answers to a lot of questions, if not the solution to the crime, would lie there.

  ‘What sort of a place is Bolchester? I’ve never been there.’

  ‘A bit stuffy, but we like it there, don’t we, Bella? It’s a bit ecclesiastical, too. We’ve got a Minster, you know, and a very good public school, where our boy, Peter, goes…’

  ‘I suppose Dawson was a governor of the school.’

  ‘Oh dear, no. The local Secondary School was his pet hobby. Bolchester Edward the Sixth School was anathema to him. He was a big nonconformist, you see, and couldn’t stand the Minster set. I think they must have looked down their noses at him some time or other and the Canon and the Rural Dean, who’re big shots at the King Edward School, are like red rags to a bull with Dawson. When a new Mayor’s elected and makes the usual procession to church on Mayor’s Sunday, Dawson always stays away if they go to the Minster. You’ll excuse me talking as though Dawson were still alive. It’s difficult to think of Bolchester without him, you know.’

  ‘And you’ve no suggestions to make regarding Dawson’s death?’

  The Curries looked at one another a bit puzzled.

  ‘Not a thing. We were indoors with the rest when it happened.’

  ‘Thank you very much, both of you. Are the Misses Hannon in?’

  HANNON, Mary. 30. School Teacher.

  HANNON, Elizabeth. 28. Librarian.

  Spinsters living together with the sands of matrimonial chances running out. Mary was good-looking and fair, and she knew it. They both looked well-bred and Mary had good taste and a trim figure. Her sister, on the other hand, was a bit nondescript and plain and given to giggling to attract attention. Mary faced Littlejohn with her nose in the air; her sister was arch about it.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to arrest us, Inspector. We had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Elizabeth. Of course he isn’t.’

  Littlejohn spread out the dossier in front of him and tried to make it look as if he had to have the information.

  ‘You both live together?’

  It didn’t make any difference where they lived, but he felt he would like to know a bit of the history of this queer pair. Why hadn’t the good-looking one got married, for instance?

  ‘Yes. Since dad died we’ve had the house to ourselves.’

  Elizabeth was so anxious to ingratiate herself with Littlejohn that, if the other didn’t interfere, he’d soon have the story behind their lives.

  ‘You were born in Bolchester, Miss Elizabeth?’

  ‘Yes. My sister is a mistress at the girls’ school there and I’m first assistant in the library.’

  ‘You’ve known Alderman Dawson long?’

  Mary Hannon looked hard at her sister. In spite of her good looks, hers was a hard face. The lips were too thin and set in a bitter line.

  ‘Yes. He was a friend of dad’s before dad died. They were both natives of Bolchester and went to school together.’

  ‘Your father worked in Bolchester?’

  Mary was getting impatient.

  ‘Is this really necessary, Inspector?’

  ‘If it weren’t, I shouldn’t be troubling you, Miss Hannon.’ Elizabeth was nodding her head jerkily.

  ‘Yes, of course I’ll tell you. He was the borough treasurer of the town. He had a breakdown and died. Mother had died two years before and it’s just four years since dad died.’

  She sniffed slightly as though stifling a tear. Her sister gave her a look of contempt.

  ‘This is the first time we’ve been abroad and we won’t want to come again in a hurry.’

  Elizabeth tittered this time.

  ‘Dad never let us go away on holidays alone. He always went with us. He was a very strict man until mother died. Then, he seemed to go all to pieces.’

  ‘There’s no need to tell all the family history, Elizabeth. The Inspector’s not interested in us and the narrow life we’ve led.’

  Mary was bitter about it. You could almost fill in the gaps of the tale. The strict father domineering his brood, probably kicking out the suitors. Then the death of the mother; the girls at home; the old man hardly able to let them out of his sight. Then he’d had a breakdown…

  ‘Did Dawson enter much into your family life? Did he keep up his friendship with your father?’

  The two women looked at one another. Mary was anxious to keep quiet; Elizabeth wanted to talk and didn’t wish her sister to be annoyed or butt in.

  ‘He wasn’t very nice to dad in his later years. Dad’s breakdown made him have to stay away from the office. You’d have thought that after forty years in the service of the borough, they’d have been a bit easy. But Alderman Dawson —Councillor, as he was then—was the chairman of the finance committee, and he said dad ought to resign. He was pensioned off on a miserable pittance.’

  Littlejohn wondered if the old man had taken to the bottle and his peccadillos were called a breakdown and hushed up. His two girls might have been brought up a bit above their station. The way in which the younger was perpetually called Elizabeth… not Betty or Lizzie, but the full length of it. The Inspector could almost hear the old man calling her. Elizabeth! do this or that. And the girl had probably obeyed in her good-natured way and gone a bit soft from the repression. Mary, on the other hand, had been rebellious, but to little purpose. Now, she was dallying with a married man.

  ‘You were with Mr. Gauld at the time Alderman Dawson was attacked, Miss Mary?’

  Elizabeth gave her sister an arch look this time. Mary’s nose went up in the air and she flushed.

  ‘Yes. What of it?’

  ‘Nothing. It gives you an alibi…and gives Gauld one, too.’

  ‘We’re not suspected, are we? We’d have no motive. In any event, a knife is absolutely repulsive…it’s cruel. Neither my sister nor I, nor Mr. Gauld, for that matter…’

  ‘We couldn’t kill a chicken. When dad kept hens in the war we had to send for a man to wring their necks.’

  ‘Oh, do be quiet, Elizabeth. The Inspector isn’t interested in when we kept hens. Have you done with us?’

  ‘You were a friend of Mr. Gauld?’

  More arch looks from one and angry blushes from the other. ‘We know each other in Bolchester. We attend the same classes in psychology.’

  Littlejohn felt like asking if Dawson was the psychology tutor, or at least the class secretary! The Alderman seemed to have a finger in every Bolchester pie.

  ‘You won seats in the ballot of the Turnpike Trust?’ There was a pause.<
br />
  ‘Not exactly…’

  Elizabeth was volunteering the explanation again, with Mary looking uneasy and self-conscious this time.

  ‘The girl under me in the library won it. She had hoped to take her mother, but her mother is a semi-invalid and they were a bit anxious about bringing her so far by motor coach. Mary wanted to come abroad this year, so we bought the seats from Ada and she took her mother to Cleethorpes with the money. I wish we hadn’t now. Not that I wish Ada...Well, you know what I mean.’

  She wandered off into shoulder-shrugging and giggling.

  So, it had been Mary who’d cooked up the trip. Probably to be with Gauld, who, even if he’d wanted her with him, could hardly have offered her his wife’s ticket in the full limelight of a coachload of Turnpikers. But when they’d heard that Ada had tickets and an invalid mother, it had been a godsend. Elizabeth, a twittering chaperone, making things respectable for Mary and Gauld. And Dawson…What had he had to say about it?

  The rest was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Mrs. Beaumont. She wore an ugly hat and carried a large reticule. Her face was flushed and her jaw set.

  ‘If you want to speak to me, Inspector, you’d better hurry. I’m going out. I’m not staying cooped up here for anyone, police or no police. I would have thought that as a Turnpike Trustee, I’d have been the first to be interrogated.’

  Littlejohn didn’t turn a hair.

  ‘All right, Miss Mary and Miss Elizabeth. That’ll be all for the present. Thank you for your help.’

  Mrs. Beaumont followed them out with a jealous, flashing eye.

  ‘Much use will those two be to you! One too big for her boots, the other a silly giggling little hussy. Librarian, indeed! All she’s there for is to roll her eyes and flirt with the men who come in. It’s a disgrace. As for the other…Ordinary decent Bolchester boys aren’t good enough for her. She wants married men. Scandalous! I shall report her carryings-on to the trustees when I get back. In future, we shall carefully scrutinise all the lists of winners. We want no scandal. My late husband…’

  Her breath thereupon gave out and as she gulped in more air, Littlejohn was able to get his word in.

  ‘I didn’t ask to see you, Mrs. Beaumont, because we’d already had a long talk. You were, you said, in bed when it all occurred. There seemed little more to be said.’

  Mrs. Beaumont beat her handbag on the desk.

  ‘I am the official representative of the Turnpike Trust. It was only courtesy to deal with me first on the official list. I could have told you quite a lot about the various parties on this trip.’

  I’ll bet you could! thought the Chief Inspector.

  ‘The father of the two hussies who’ve just left drank himself to death. If it hadn’t been for Alderman Dawson, he’d have been carrying on a lot of drunken accounting in the borough books. Until he died, he practically kept those two girls prisoners in the house. He was a strict old puritan who saw seduction in every young man who smiled at them. Well, time told. He wasn’t so good himself when it came to temptation and the bottle mastered him…’

  Everything relating to Mrs. Beaumont’s pet aversion, alcohol, was heavily scored in her speech and she spat out the word in contempt.

  ‘That’s why they never married and the elder one seems to have a preference for married men herself.’

  ‘Has she had some affairs, then?’

  He almost held his breath, anticipating news of more wrong-doing by the ubiquitous Alderman Dawson!

  ‘There’s the way she’s behaving with Gauld. Disgraceful!’

  ‘But that’s only one.’

  Mrs. Beaumont drew herself up and her heavy bosom ballooned upwards under her rustling silk frock as she breathed indignantly.

  ‘Isn’t one enough! Really, Inspector, I’m surprised at you. Very surprised and disappointed. I thought…’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Beaumont, I’ve another…’ He almost said ‘customer’, but changed it in the nick of time. ‘…I’ve another suspect to interview and time’s passing.’ In her curiosity, she overlooked the polite dismissal.

  ‘And who may that be?’

  ‘Fowles, the driver.’

  ‘Ah! The drunken sot. To think that the trustees took on a drunkard. Unfortunately, our usual driver was booked in advance for another trip. I always suspected Fowles of the habit, but never caught him red-handed. I shall see that he doesn’t get the job again. He is, of course, only the paid driver. Mr. Brewer, of Bolchester, owns the coach…Mr. Brewer is a big temperance man.’

  ‘Indeed!’

  She looked hard at Littlejohn, but he was looking at the dossier.

  ‘And now, Mrs. Beaumont, if you don’t mind…’

  ‘I know when I’m not wanted, Mr. Chief Inspector. But I’m glad we think alike. I have always suspected Fowles and I hope you will give him a thorough examination and prove his guilt. I know the late Alderman remonstrated with him at Avignon on the way here. Fowles had actually been drinking when we stopped for lunch. Disgraceful, and with a load of passengers and their lives in his hands.’

  ‘What did Dawson say to him?’

  ‘Alderman Dawson told him he’d see he lost his job when he got back to Bolchester. He wasn’t fit to drive. Fowles began to whine about his wife and four children, but the Alderman was adamant. Nobody who takes drink ought to be allowed a driving licence, he told Fowles and I fully endorsed it. He made Fowles drive slowly all the way to Cannes after that.’

  ‘Fowles has an alibi, of course, for the night of the crime.’

  ‘A drunken alibi, Inspector. An alibi given by drunkards, which isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. You understand that, I’m sure. And now, I’ll go, but I rely on you to see that Fowles doesn’t touch another drop until he gets us all safely home to Bolchester. Good afternoon to you.’

  FOWLES, Alf né Alfred. 37. Motor Driver.

  47, River Bottoms, Bolchester.

  The greffier had taken it all carefully down.

  ‘It was jest my joke, sir. River Bottoms. It’s reely River Street, but I was always a one for…’

  ‘This is too serious to be funny, Fowles. What was the cause of the row you had with Alderman Dawson at Avignon?’

  Fowles was a little strip of a man with bad teeth. Although he knew he could get cheap dentures, he was afraid of the dentist. He’d only had one tooth extracted in his life and he and the dentist had ended rolling on the floor. All the same, Fowles was a bit of a humorist. The life and soul of any party; but not the Turnpike party, in which he’d got by mistake. Or so everybody thought except Mr. Brewer and Fowles’s predecessor, William James. ‘If that ruddy old Bewmont’s goin’ agen, I’m resignin’, and that’s straight’, Bill James had said. ‘I’ll take the Blackpool lot this year and let Fowles do the Turnpikes. It’ll do ‘im good…‘e knows French, too.’ Which was true, more or less. Fowles had been in France in the war and by a few words and a lot of pantomime managed to get along. That was how he’d got drunk and got his alibi attested on the night of Dawson’s death.

  ‘Me, ‘ere, mossoo, nine hours to midnight, drinkin’ avec voo. Savvy? Compris? La belle mademerselle, aussi, savvy, eh?’

  And the patron of the bar, the barmaid, and six or seven customers had thoroughly understood and vociferously testified in favour of Fowles.

  ‘Why should I wanter kill ole Dawson, even if ‘e did threaten to git me the sack? Tuck objection to me havin’ a glass or two of wine with me meal at Avignon. I know me way about France, see? Was ‘ere in the war. Glass o’ vin rooge never did anybody ‘arm. I wasn’ drunk, but that ole cow, Bewmont, took on somethin’ shockin’. Dawson said he’d see Brewer give me the push when we got ‘ome.’

  ‘What did you think of that idea?’

  ‘Tell yer the truth, Inspector, I couldn’t care less. I can always get a job in my trade. I’m a mechanic as well as a driver, see? Not many o’ my sort on the road. Took to driving because I got bad lungs. Orful cough in winter, see?’
/>   ‘All right, Fowles. I’ll grant your alibi. But did you see anything suspicious going on during the trip down?’

  Fowles inserted a fag in the corner of his mouth and lit it. Then he looked round the room to see if there was anything to drink, sighed when he drew a blank, and sprayed out a jet of smoke.

  ‘Such as wot?’

  Littlejohn left it to him.

  ‘That little perisher Marriott ‘ates Dawson’s guts, if you ask me. You see, I’ll give it to Dawson; he knows ‘is way about France. Served ‘ere in the war, and in these parts. Got swankin’ to the ladies a bit on the way. Sort o’ read ‘em a lecture on France and as we got down south, he got more and more lecturing, like. It got on Marriott’s nerves. Kep’ trying to change the conversation and every time we stopped, Marriott kep’ complainin’ to me about wot a bore ole Dawson was. “I could wring ‘is blasted neck,” he sez.’

  ‘Perfectly natural, I suppose.’

  ‘And then there was Gauld and that stuck-up Hannon girl. Good-looker and no mistake, but the cold and standoffish sort. Can’t stand ‘em that way meself. Like ‘em a bit hot, like the one in the Bivouac Bar, jest behind, ‘ere, the one who give me the alibi. Bertine’s ‘er name and…Oh boy . .!’

  He whistled shrilly through his bad teeth.

  ‘I don’t care ‘ow long we’re stranded ‘ere, between you an’ me, Inspector.’

  ‘What about Gauld and Miss Hannon?’

  ‘There’s somethin’ going-on there. Bit of a nerve, you know, bringin’ it on one of the Turnpike outin’s, but then luv is luv, ain’t it, Inspector? It’s been goin’ on quite a bit at home. My boss, Brewer, runs a taxi business as well as motor-coaches, and some of the taxi drivers could tell you a thing or two about Miss H. and Gauld and the trips they make out of town. Not that the taxi boys talk. Wot goes on in the taxi line is nobody’s business, see? But I’m jest tellin’ you.’

  ‘But how does that affect Dawson?’

  ‘‘Ow does it affect Dawson! I’ll tell you. There was a ruddy row between Dawson and Gauld at Lyons, where we put up the second night. The Alderman had been playin’ the watch-dog over the morals of the party and Gauld got mad. Somethin’ must have been said about Miss H. and ‘im. I’d been round the town and got in about midnight. There was nobody about in the hotel ‘cept Gauld an’ Dawson, goin’ at it ‘ammer and tongs in the hotel lounge. I didn’t ‘ear much except Dawson shoutin’ at Gauld. “I know about your carryin’s on with Miss Hannon in Bolchester and you’re not bringin’em on this trip. If I’d known, I’d ‘ave seen you didn’t come with us. We’re respectable people…” Somethin’ like that. I went up to me room. Didn’t want to get mixed-up.’