‘Yes,’ said Judkin, after ringing up another police station in the vicinity.
But there was a disappointment for Littlejohn and Cromwell when they returned to their inn at Brande.
The landlord, Mallard, studied the gruesome photographs of Comfort and then shook his head.
‘No, that’s not the chap who called here. He had a little moustache and was smaller and thick-set. No…Besides, I remember Mr. Dodd having the accident. It was after Comfort got killed that the bookie fellow called here. I recollect one thing about the accident, too. Dodd’s friends here couldn’t get him to talk about it after it happened. You know how men are over their beer. They tried to pump him for details. But Dodd stayed mum. Ask me, he got proper scared by that accident…’
5—Dodd’s Box
‘Just two more little points before we go back to Brande,’ said Littlejohn. ‘Where did Dodd get his parrot seed, and who was his lawyer?’
Superintendent Judkin smiled. No accounting for the ways of these Scotland Yard chaps! Bothering about bird seed…He could understand a man wanting to know about the victim’s lawyer, but bird seed…Judkin even forgot his manners in his surprise.
‘Drane!’ he shouted, instead of ringing the bell. ‘Drane!’
The attendant constable thrust in a scared face.
‘Yes, sir.’
He looked round the room to see if anybody were ill or being attacked.
‘Come here, Drane…’
‘Yes, sir…Excuse me.’
He thrust himself past Cromwell and stood before the boss at attention.
‘Who was the shopkeeper you said Dodd bought his bird seed from? The parrot seed.’
‘Lott, sir. Ishmael Lott. Just down Sheep Street. Shall I show you the way, sir?’
‘No. The Inspector was asking…’
‘I beg pardon. Shall I…?’
‘Point it out through the window, please, Drane.’
The bobby with eloquent hands showed Littlejohn just where Mr. Ishmael Lott kept his corn stores.
‘And the lawyer…?’
‘Archer and Pharaoh, just over the way, I believe. At least, that’s what the Nicholls women said,’ answered Judkin.
‘I’ll call on them both before we leave town, then…’
There was a batch of very good shops in Sheep Street, the main thoroughfare of Helstonbury, then a tile-fronted picture house, and, after that, the property became shabby and gradually petered out into slum quarters with fish and chip restaurants, greengrocers with their wares spread out on trestles outside their shops, pawnbrokers, old-clothes dealers…At the end of the second-rate batch stood a large corn stores with sacks of meal, hen-food, oyster shells, and bird seed in one window; in the other, white mice, canaries, guinea-pigs, and all kinds of things, from bird-baths and cages, to packets of egg producer and poultry spice. As Littlejohn turned to enter the premises, a large dog took a dog-biscuit from a sack near the door and then lifted his leg in disrespect for the rest. This brought out the proprietor.
Mr. Ishmael Lott was a small man with a hatchet face and a big domed head almost bald. At the crown of his head stood a large shining cyst, like another little dome growing from the main one. He wore a shaggy moustache, from beneath which protruded his little rabbit teeth, and he had a large white apron and bib over his clothes, the coat of which was missing. He emerged peering angrily for the dog through his gold-framed glasses.
‘Yarrooo…Gerroff…Dirtylilldevil…’
He halted, panting, face to face with Littlejohn.
‘Who put those there?’ he asked Littlejohn, pointing to the sack of dog-biscuits, and then, deciding that the Inspector knew nothing about it and that the offending dog wasn’t his, he ran indoors and shouted upstairs.
‘Haven’t I told you not to put biscuits at the door? All the dogs of the neighbourhood are at ‘em again…’
The answer came pat from above.
‘Oh, put a sock in it!’
Mr. Ishmael Lott wrestled with his feelings for a minute or two, overcame them, and turned to Littlejohn.
‘I don’t know why I stand it!’ he said, almost in tears. ‘I ought to retire and get out of it. I can afford it, but… well…’
He didn’t finish the sentence, for it was interrupted by the heavy descent of a thin, peevish-faced woman, carrying a string bag and wearing a moulting sealskin coat and a hideous black hat.
‘I’m goin’ ‘ome, Ishmael, now. Don’t be late for yer tea. An’ stop bullyin’ Clara…shoutin’ about the place. With customers in…I’m surprised at you…’
Her lips snapped as she uttered each phrase and she looked at Littlejohn, smiled acidly to appease him for her partner’s outburst of temper, and then sailed through the shop.
‘Call at the butcher’s for the meat—such as it is!—on yer way up, Ishmael…And bring a lettuce from the fruit shop. I’ll miss my bus if I do it meself…Remember, don’t be late fer tea. I want them chops…’
She fired these parting shots on the way to the door, and finished what she was saying half-way down the street. She was still talking as she vanished from sight.
‘My wife, sir.’
Littlejohn understood Lott’s reluctance to retire and stay at home all day!
‘What can I do for you?’
‘It’s about Mr. Harry Dodd, Mr. Lott.’
Mr. Ishmael Lott brightened up. He was a great gossip when his wife allowed him to get a word in edgeways. There wasn’t much that went on in Helstonbury and twenty miles round that Mr. Lott didn’t know. His corn lorries went all over the neighbouring countryside, and their drivers collected all the tit-bits and retailed them to the boss after every round.
‘Poor Harry…’
Mr. Lott sighed but smiled at the same time.
‘A good customer here, in a small way, sir.’
‘Parrot seed?’
‘Yes…How do you know, and who are you?’ Littlejohn explained and showed his card.
Mr. Lott rubbed his hands.
‘Come into my office,’ he said, like the spider to the fly.
He indicated a trapdoor in the floor, and led the way to the nether regions. As he stepped down the first step, he yelled upstairs.
‘Clara! CLARA! SHOP!’
‘All right, all right,’ came from above, and the new guardian of the place descended with shuffling feet to take charge. She was a younger replica of her mother, with Mr. Dodd’s rabbit teeth betraying his share in her progeniture. She frowned at her father’s face, which was just above ground by then, and flashed the teeth at Littlejohn to show he didn’t share her displeasure. She carried a paper novelette, with a picture on the back showing a cowboy embracing a girl as naked as the publishers dared to allow, and she set about it as soon as she had found a chair. Her teeth as well as her eyes devoured the pages, like the antennae of a strange insect.
Below ground, Littlejohn had never seen such a place. It baffled him at first. The floor was of concrete and the walls were of smooth white plaster. In the middle of the vast cellar stood a roll-top desk, two chairs, a waste-paper basket full to the brim, and a large filing cabinet. Part of the floor was covered in worn coconut matting.
But it was the walls which attracted Littlejohn. They were decorated from floor to ceiling, and their entire length and breadth, with wavy lines, some regular, some erratic, made in black crayon or charcoal. Mr. Lott seemed pleased that Littlejohn had noticed them.
‘Wot are they?’ he asked proudly.
‘Graphs,’ replied the Inspector.
Mr. Lott nodded his head and smiled with satisfaction.
‘Wot of?’
That became obvious. The lines were in sections; about seven horizontal lots from floor to ceiling and eight or nine vertical divisions on each of the four walls. Each graph had its own name. From floor to roof were Consols, various categories of War Loan, and Colonial stocks. Funds, said the heading. Then, Banks, Insurance, Textiles, Mines, Oils, Rubber and Tea, and a lot more all came in
for their ups and downs.
‘My system,’ said Mr. Lott with pride. ‘Weekly averages in graphs form. I’ve got now, after working this so long, that I know when something’s going up, and when down. I’ve made a nice little packet out o’ this lot. Scientific, isn’t it? I’m on Freifontein, just at present…’
He indicated a descending graph, and rubbed his hands.
‘If that goes on goin’ down for another week, I’se buy, and then I’ll foller it, scientifically, and sell when the records says so.’
‘Do you ever make or lose much…?’
Mr. Lott ran his hand through his thin, dusty hair and looked bewildered.
‘I only do it for a hobby. I put the results down in a book, and I reckon if I’d actually done properly what I’ve done as a sort o’ game, I’d have made, to date, two hundred thousand…’
His eyes popped and his little teeth shot out in a grin of delight. He was as pleased with his imaginary investments as if he’d really made them, like somebody playing poker for dried beans and winning a pocketful.
He turned his pathetic face to Littlejohn.
‘Between you and me, I never had the money to start. Else I’d have broken the bank at Monte Carlo good and proper. But since I went bankrupt six years ago, the business and all my assets have been in the wife’s hands and I can’t get her to see that there’s better things can be done than selling corn and bird seed, when you know how…’
He was making for his filing cabinet to show the Inspector how it was all done, but Littlejohn had to call a halt. ‘Shall we talk about Mr. Dodd?’
It was like changing records on a gramophone. Mr. Lott was eager to be starting. Upstairs, you could hear Clara, shuffling round, attending to a customer, the clink of change, then silence as she gobbled up her paperback again.
‘Who did Harry Dodd buy bird seed for?’
‘I never knew.’
That apparently was the end of it.
‘…I know he hadn’t a parrot of his own. It was a present for somebody else’s bird. A bird he called Cora…’
‘Cora? And did he never mention whose?’
‘No. I tried to pump him, but he was mum. A bit of a close fish, was Harry. He’d had a few more drinks than usual when he even mentioned Cora; but he wasn’t too far gone to stop there.’
‘He called regularly?’
‘Every market day. Always a packet of parrot seed. That was all. Bit of an oddity, was Harry. How he got mixed up with such like as the Nichollses beats me. He was a gentleman, was Harry.’
‘Do you sell fishing tackle, bait, and the like, Mr. Lott?’
‘Yes; and I’m a bit of a fisherman myself, too. Why? Do you fish?’
‘Yes…But I wondered if Harry Dodd ever bought gear from you.’
‘No…Come to think of it, we once did talk of fishin’. He liked a yarn, did Harry, when he’d a bit of time to spare. He never did any fly-fishin’. He used to fish for coarse stuff, in some mere or other near where a pal of his lived. But that was all. I recollect him once havin’ his little joke about fishin’. Said it covered a multitude of sins…’
Mr. Lott cackled, as if he was a sinner of the same kind.
‘…I think he made it an excuse to get away, when those two Nicholls women got on his nerves. Why he stopped with ‘em, beats me.’
Funny thing. Here was a man in probably a worse pickle than Dodd, who did come and go as he liked. Poor Lott seemed completely hag-ridden by his wife.
‘Dad!’ shouted his offspring from upstairs. ‘Dad, it’s closin’-time. Mum said…’
‘All right, all right. Mum said…I know wot she said…’
They climbed aloft again, and Littlejohn said good-bye and made for the lawyer’s.
‘Good luck,’ said Mr. Lott, baring his teeth. ‘If you stay here long, let me know, and I’ll take you fishin’…’
Mr. Pharaoh, Harry Dodd’s lawyer, was annoyed with Harry for getting himself killed when he did. Mr. Pharaoh owned a nice little yacht, and travelled to Lowestoft nearly every week to make the most of her. Harry Dodd had inconsiderately caused him a lost weekend, as far as sailing went.
‘This is an awful nuisance,’ said Mr. Pharaoh to the Inspector. ‘My partner’s on holiday and I’m really too busy to deal with the mess…’
He had the figure of a penguin, a livid round face, a fringe of grey hair, a button nose, and shining black eyes like shoe buttons. He dressed as nearly nautical as his profession would allow: reefer coat in navy blue, black tie, and white linen. On Fridays when he was off sailing, he left the office in his yachting cap.
Mr. Pharaoh opened a cupboard and brought out a bottle of Schnapps, which he had smuggled from Holland on one of his pleasure trips. He invited Littlejohn to partake.
‘If you’ll excuse me, sir, I’m on duty. I came to ask if you could throw a little light on Mr Harry Dodd’s affairs…’
The lawyer took a good glass of his potent liquor, and leaned back in his chair.
‘If you’ll do me a favour in turn, I will. I’m due off to compete in a yacht race tomorrow. It means a lot to me. And now Harry Dodd goes and gets murdered. I’m his sole executor, and I ought to be at hand…What am I to do? If you can get me out of this for four days, I’ll be eternally grateful.’
He took another dose of Schnapps and cast his eyes distastefully round his study. They came to rest on a model of a yacht in a glass case on the mantelpiece, and Mr. Pharaoh seemed to buck up at the very sight of it.
‘I ought never to have been a lawyer, but one has to work to pay for one’s fun. I met Dodd yachting, years ago, before he went off the rails, and we started a friendship which improved with time. When he got himself into his matrimonial mess, he came to me, and I did what I could, including finding a place for him to live in with his two women. Silly business! Harry, if he’d known what this race meant to me, would have waited a few days to get himself murdered…’
Mr. Pharaoh raised his glass. ‘To Harry, God rest him…’ And he drank a toast to his absent friend.
‘I think it could be arranged, sir. Harry Dodd’s youngest son is a lawyer, though he says he’s a poor one…’
‘Young Peter?’
‘Yes. I gather he and the family solicitor will be here for tomorrow’s inquest. That ought to be enough. But if you’re going away for a time, I think you ought to tell the police, in confidence, what’s in the Will, how much, if you can, and also, if you can spare the time, go through Dodd’s things with us at the bungalow. Is that possible?’
‘You’re a deep ‘un, Inspector. You know as well as I do, that what you suggest is highly irregular…’
‘All the same, sir, if you’re away, and we have to wait for the slow wheels of the law to turn, the culprit might slip through our fingers.’
‘Very well. What do you want to know, and then we’ll go to that bungalow place with the silly French name and see what we can find. Sure you won’t have a drink? No? Well, go on, then.’
‘Had Mr. Dodd any private money of his own to leave to anybody?’
‘Very little. You’ll find a few hundreds in the bank, and that’s all. Even that didn’t really belong to him. He borrowed it from his wife, his divorced wife…’
‘I thought the family settled money on him…’
‘They did. His elder son and daughter had great ambitions. All they wanted was father out of the way, because they didn’t approve of his mode of life. Harry Dodd was a homely sort. The kind you’d find pottering round the garden in his shirt-sleeves, or inviting men from the works—artisan engineers and such—over to his home for a drink. He liked friendly folk. His children, with the exception of Peter, couldn’t stand it. When they had their fancy friends round for tennis, father would suddenly appear in old clothes, like a scarecrow, wheeling a barrow-load of manure for his roses, and when they held house-parties, he’d sit in the kitchen playing nap with a foreman or two from the works, and suddenly appear seeking a fresh bottle of whisky. As soon as Harry Dod
d slipped-up with that awful Nicholls woman, they were on him, and they made a remittance-man of him. I suppose it was either a good bust-up and get it over, or putting up with father’s plebeian ways for ever, so they chose the bust-up. Before Mrs. Dodd knew where she was, divorce papers were filed, and Harry was in Mon Abri…’
‘Mrs. Dodd was completely under her children’s thumb?’
‘Wait till you meet ‘em. You’ll understand. Once pa was out of the way, the elder boy took over in the works for his mother’s sake. He’s a go-getter, and has prospered. He’s not an engineer, though. He’s strictly executive…And how!’
‘We were talking about Harry Dodd’s money…’
Mr. Pharaoh nodded, took another drink and then put his feet on his desk.
‘Mrs. Dodd wasn’t a bit vindictive. I had the arrangements to make, and she was completely bewildered. It ended by a divorce without alimony. In fact, an allowance was made to Harry Dodd, on condition that he kept his distance. He was the family remittance-man, and got several hundred a year paid into his bank in town here. He saved money—a few thousand—and bought Dorothy Nicholls an annuity. His Will’s a simple one; after a legacy or two, he leaves his love and all he has to his wife, Helena Dodd, with the exception of Mon Abri, which goes to Miss Nicholls.’
‘Simple enough. But why do you say there’s some of Mrs. Dodd’s money in the bank?’
‘That’s just it. The funny part. Over the years, Harry and Helena got together again. In fact, they never ought to have parted. They loved one another all the time. Just imagine the agony of Harry… the Nicholls pair! However, he paid for his little fling, good and proper. Full measure, pressed down, and overflowing, as the Good Book has it…’
Mr. Pharaoh thereupon took out a large handkerchief and trumpeted in it, presumably from emotion.
‘They used to meet. Harry told me that, quite plainly. He asked my opinion on the legal aspect. He was anxious not to bring his wife into any trouble. I reassured him. They met like old friends, and I wouldn’t have been surprised, had Harry lived, to see ‘em together again, husband and wife, whatever his high and mighty kids thought of it.’
A Knife For Harry Dodd Page 6