A Knife For Harry Dodd

by George Bellairs

  ‘Mr. Pharaoh’s dead…Body washed up at Lowestoft this morning. Miss Jump here has just heard from the Lowestoft police. I’m trying to get them now over the wire.’

  Joan Jump, although a barrister, was highly emotional where Mr. Pharaoh was concerned.

  ‘What has he done to deserve it, Inspector?’ she asked through her sobs, as though somehow Littlejohn had in his possession some explanation concerning the rights and

  wrongs of her employer’s decease. ‘He wouldn’t have hurt a fly…’

  Littlejohn wasn’t inclined to talk about the just and the unjust. He patted Miss Jump’s comely bowed head, which made her cry all the more.

  ‘How did it happen?’

  Outside, in the courtyard, a policeman was showing a little girl the way to the wire-netting cage in which the lost dogs were impounded, and she recognised her own erring pet right away. It was a touching scene as they took him from among the rest, to see his joy; touching, too, to see the ones left unclaimed behind, pawing the wire to get free. Another policeman in the wash-house had soap in his eyes and was groping for the towel like a blind man.

  ‘He must have been caught by the swinging boom or something. They found him washed up on the beach and the boat was miles out at sea. A fishing vessel towed it in; it was drifting, unmanned…’

  ‘Was he drowned or…?’

  ‘The Superintendent is just going to find out. They rang me up right away to check who it was. They found his card in his pocket…I… I…’

  Miss Jump couldn’t go on any further. Her eyes were all red and swollen and she kept taking off her spectacles and putting them on again in pathetic little gestures.

  ‘He was so happy going off on his little trip…’

  The telephone broke in on her reminiscences. It was Lowestoft police for Judkin. They did all the talking. Judkin hardly said a word; just kept grunting and saying ‘ah’.

  ‘Indeed!’ he said at length, in surprise. ‘Yes, I’ll arrange it.’

  He hung up thoughtfully.

  ‘There’ll be an inquest, of course, and they want somebody to identify him,’ he said.

  Miss Jump gulped.

  ‘It’ll have to be me. He had no family except a sister in Canada. He lived with a housekeeper…’

  Judkin thumbed his chin and scraped his stiff whiskers with a grating sound.

  ‘That’s not all, though…The Lowestoft police say that he must have been dead when he hit the water. The doctor says there’s a bad fracture of the skull…In a place where they can’t see how the boom could have caught him. A long narrow wound which might have been made by a piece of lead piping instead of a massive object like a boom…They think it might be foul play. They’ll let us know…’

  Joan Jump was on her feet instantly.

  ‘I’m sure it’s to do with Harry Dodd! When will it end? Dodd, his father, and now Mr. Pharaoh…’

  ‘Was he closely connected with Dodd?’

  ‘They were friends and Dodd had been in and out a lot of late. Mr. Pharaoh did his legal work.’

  ‘Did you know what it was about…? I mean, why did Dodd keep calling?’

  ‘There was a settlement on the Nicholls woman. You know about that.’

  ‘Yes. Do you know Peg Boone, Miss Jump?’

  Joan Jump’s eyes opened wide behind her spectacles.

  ‘Yes, I do. How did you come to know her, Inspector?’

  ‘The Aching Man was an address found in the pocket of the late Walter Dodd, Harry’s father. I went there and found Miss Boone. She told me quite a lot of things about Harry Dodd.’

  ‘I’m sure she did, Inspector. Mr. Pharaoh arranged a settlement for her from Dodd as well, not long ago.’

  ‘Where did all this money come from? He surely didn’t borrow it all from his divorced wife. I know he borrowed some for what he called research in metallurgy, but borrowing to settle incomes on his various women hardly seems right coming from Mrs. Dodd, does it?’

  ‘No, Inspector. I think Mr. Pharaoh arranged it for him some way. It was between them, and I didn’t enter into it at all.’

  ‘You mean Dodd had some other source of capital; other than his wife and his own income?’

  ‘He must have had. He raised over ten thousand pounds, from what I know, to settle on the Nicholls and the Boone women.’

  There was a silence as if they were playing a guessing game and trying to think where Harry Dodd had got all his money from. Outside, the sun was shining and shoppers were beginning to fill the streets. Clerks crossed the road to a coffee shop for their morning break, a bank porter was going the round of the banks changing cheques, and over the Conservative Club the flag slowly rose to half-mast, broke, and fluttered in the breeze. People looked up and turned to one another questioningly. The news of Mr. Pharaoh’s death had reached Helstonbury.

  ‘Excuse me…Excuse me…’

  Drane, the polite constable, was on duty again, bringing in tea in large thick cups. He was more mannerly than ever on account of Miss Jump’s presence there. He blushed.

  ‘Might I offer you a cup of tea…?’

  They all thanked him, except Judkin, who wished he’d make less fuss, and started to sip the hot, strong brew.

  ‘Excuse me…’

  Drane made a confused exit with his tin tray over Cromwell’s outstretched boots.

  ‘Are you going to carry on Mr. Pharaoh’s practice, Miss Jump?’

  ‘Yes. We were just arranging for me to enter as junior partner. Now, I’ll take his place, because he said he’d left his half of the practice to me in his Will. I’d rather he were alive…’

  The pretty lawyer thereupon broke down and cried again.

  ‘Perhaps you may be able to help us when you come to go through Mr. Pharaoh’s private papers. There may be some clue to all these crimes there…’

  ‘I’ll only be too willing, Inspector. The sooner the better. I have an emergency key for his private safe. I’ll go right back and open it.’

  ‘Do you mind if I go with you? From all appearances, someone has taken fright badly and is beside himself… or herself… to wipe out all traces, including people, of the reason for Harry Dodd’s death. It might be safer if I came along…’

  Joan Jump smiled for the first time.

  ‘It’s very nice of you, Inspector, but the staff are in the office and will protect me, I’m sure. If you care to come and look through the papers, you’re very welcome, though.’

  They crossed to Sheep Street and into the offices over one of the banks there. Up the familiar stairs and into Mr. Pharaoh’s room. There was an atmosphere about it as though the little fat lawyer had just slipped across the road and would soon be returning. The ship on the mantelpiece, the pen on the pad where its owner had hastily laid it down as he rushed to join the Betsy Jane, the homburg on the hat-stand which Mr. Pharaoh had left behind when he put on his yachting cap, and the half-smoked pipe he’d forgotten in his hurry…

  ‘Did he come back to his rooms after he left me, when we’d been to Cold Kirby together, Miss Jump?’

  ‘Yes, he did. You remember he said he was just off, and left everything to me. He phoned me later to say he’d been in the office to look up some papers about Harry Dodd. He also put a conveyance in the safe and told me where to find it.’

  ‘Harry Dodd again, eh? Well, well. Shall we open the safe?’

  It was a simple, but strong, personal safe, opened with a single key. Miss Jump took this from an envelope in her pocket.

  ‘We kept it at the bank and I’m authorised to take it out in case of extreme need. This is such a case.’

  She inserted the key and swung open the door. Someone had been there already! The papers were strewn all over the inside of the coffer, tossed here and there, pink tape cut, bundles torn and rifled…

  ‘Someone’s beaten us to it, Miss Jump. Someone who took your chief’s keys from his dead body, by the looks of it.’

  He stopped and picked up from the floor a ring full of ke
ys.

  ‘Those were Mr. Pharaoh’s. He carried them everywhere.’

  ‘So it’s murder, then. Don’t touch anything. There may be fingerprints on that stuff, though I doubt it…’

  Littlejohn was right. When the papers were tested by the experts, there wasn’t an alien print to be found.

  ‘Did Mr. Pharaoh keep other private papers at home or at the bank?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. I’ll keep in touch with you. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to straighten things out a bit…’

  Joan Jump’s upper lip was beginning to tremble and Littlejohn, knowing she wanted to be alone to have another good weep, left her in peace.

  Back at the police station, Judkin had received more news from Lowestoft.

  Mr. Pharaoh had apparently arrived there well past dark. The man who looked after his boat had seen him safely on board. Then the landlord and a number of his nautical friends at the Albion Inn on the quayside stated he had joined them in his yachting cap, and they had spent half an hour together, having a drink and a yarn. You’d never have thought Mr. Pharaoh was a legal high-up; he was so free and easy. A proper gentleman…

  It was late, and soon Pharaoh had bidden them good night, after telling them he was sailing on the morrow and competing in the race in the afternoon. They heard him strolling back to bed on his boat, and that was the last they’d seen or heard of him, until one of them found him dead on the tide-line early in the morning.

  Later, a fishing-boat had towed in the Betsy Jane. She had been drifting about three miles out. When they came to examine her, they found the boom was made fast. It couldn’t have been that which knocked out Mr. Pharaoh. The police had been all over the boat and could find no traces of intrusion. Mr. Pharaoh’s supper, a bottle of beer and some pork pie, was on the table. The berth hadn’t been slept in. It looked very much as if somebody had lain in wait on the boat for the little lawyer and then struck him down when he came aboard.

  Then the murderer had thrown Mr. Pharaoh’s body over-board, and the ebb-tide had taken it out, only to bring it back on the flood. A clumsy attempt had been made to make it look like an accident. As though the owner of the Betsy Jane had fallen overboard. Only the killer had forgotten to unlash the boom.

  Judkin had made copious notes and recited his piece carefully in a monotonous voice, like somebody reading an incantation. He put down his papers.

  ‘Well? Looks worse than ever. Who’ll be the next? That’s what I’m wondering. There’s a mad killer loose.’

  ‘Not mad. Just frightened out of his wits. He’s taken panic, and now we’re going to get him.’

  ‘If he doesn’t get us first.’

  ‘Eh?’

  Cromwell uttered it involuntarily. After all the dangers he’d been through, he was disgusted at the thought of anybody ‘getting’ Littlejohn in a small, one-horse town like Helstonbury.

  Before they could answer him, the telephone bell rang again.

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Judkin in answer to the voice at the other end of the line. And then to Littlejohn and Cromwell:

  ‘That’s the constable at Brande. Somebody’s burned down Mon Abri…the Nichollses’ bungalow!’

  When they arrived on the spot in the police car, P.C. Buckley and an assistant he’d collected from somewhere were having a busy time. A crowd had gathered, the village fire-brigade were struggling with a large hand pump, there was furniture on the roadside, as though somebody had been evicted, and Uncle Fred was laid out under the hedge in a state of collapse.

  Mrs. Nicholls ran to Littlejohn, to whom she was accustomed to address herself, for she regarded him as an equal and ignored Judkin.

  ‘Somebody’s set the place on fire…We just got home from Helstonbury and found all this mess. It was deliberate…’

  Dorothy didn’t seem very upset. She was with the firemen, rolling her eyes at them and urging them on, although they had by now put out the fire. All that was left was a brick shell. Everybody was talking at once.

  ‘Somebody set it alight with petrol. They’ve found the tin…’

  ‘The gent in the hedge-bottom there found it. ‘E telephoned for the fire-brigade and police, and then started to shift the furniture…’

  Littlejohn looked at Uncle Fred’s handiwork. Chairs, tables, beds…The little lamps with pink shades and the pink cushions. He’d even got the sideboard out on the lawn.

  ‘‘E’d got the pianner as far as the door, and then it stuck. He struggled so ‘ard with it, he give himself a twist and collapsed.’

  Uncle Fred was coming round under the ministrations of the district nurse, who had appeared from somewhere, fully uniformed. His waxed moustache was now Z-shaped, one point up and the other down. His bicycle was among the salvage, and he still wore his cycling-clips gathering his pants round his thin projecting ankles.

  ‘Have they got the piano out?’ were his first coherent words as he came-to.

  The nurse sighed and sadly eyed the smoking mass of wood and wires still wedged in the charred doorway. Uncle Fred was very attached to it and, in better days, had played Melody in F and A Little Love a Little Kiss on it, by ear, when he called.

  ‘Did they get ‘im?’

  ‘Who?’ asked Littlejohn.

  Uncle Fred raised himself on hearing Littlejohn’s voice.

  ‘I’m glad you’re ‘ere, Inspector. The local police are no good on a job like this. Delib’rate arson, that’s what it is. I saw ‘im runnin’ into the wood behind the house as I got here on my bike. Wish I’d been here two minutes sooner. I’d have murdered him…’

  He collapsed again with emotion, and the nurse made as if to give him another dose of sal volatile.

  ‘Try this,’ said Littlejohn, handing over his brandy flask. It acted like magic. Uncle Fred rose to his feet like a giant refreshed, and they had to restrain him until he saw the wrecked piano. Then they had to give him the remaining contents of the flask.

  A crowd gathered round him. He was the hero of the day.

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘I couldn’t see his face. Middle built. Wore a check suit and he ran like a hare. Poured petrol on the place and lit it. It was a sheet o’ flames in no time.’

  He eyed the ruin with smoke-ringed eyes. How he’d got so much stuff out of the holocaust was a mystery!

  ‘I’m proud of you, Fred. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’m ‘omeless now, Fred…’

  The old lady was worked up and putting on an emotional scene. Some people patted Uncle Fred proudly on the back, and others tried to comfort Mrs. Nicholls. There was talk of passing the hat round on the spot.

  Cromwell suggested that Uncle Fred might be better accommodated at the village pub than on the roadside, and that they take him down in the car. Uncle Fred accepted the offer with alacrity, and Mrs. Nicholls having been helped to a neighbour’s house, Dorothy, torn from the company of the firemen, was persuaded to follow her. The smoking ruins were left to the firemen and village police.

  ‘I’ll have to report to the insurance. Dodd told my sister it was covered… well covered… so I’ll have to see to the claim…’

  The excitement of drawing the insurance money acted adversely on Uncle Fred, and he started to talk to himself deliriously. They had to calm him down with more stimulants when they reached The Bear.

  ‘The drinks are on me,’ said Mr. Mallard. ‘I’ve ‘eard of yore gallant conduct, sir. Allow me to shake you by the ‘and. Proud to know you, sir.’

  He pumped the bewildered hero’s arm up and down.

  Uncle Fred paused and then spoke gravely.

  ‘He was after somethin’. Who could he be?’

  Littlejohn removed his pipe.

  ‘What was he after?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, that tin box up in the loft where ‘Arry slept. He’d smashed it open. I saw it. I tried to get the oddments down but couldn’t get ‘em through the trapdoor. There was the box, broken open. It’s been melted since by the ‘eat…’r />
  ‘It was empty when we looked at it the other evening.’

  ‘But he didn’t know it. Can’t have been an ordinary burglar. Why should he pour a can of petrol over the place and set fire to it, if he was just after robbery? I don’t know what you gentlemen of the police think, but it’s my view he was after documents, secret papers, or something. Something he badly wanted. Somethin’ incriminatin’, if you follow me. And when he couldn’t find where they was hidden, he burnt the place down in the hopes of destroyin’ them…’

  Uncle Fred thereupon started to babble again, and Mr. Mallard ran for more brandy.

  ‘That’s enough of that,’ said Cromwell firmly. He was a member of Scotland Yard Ambulance Brigade. ‘Brew him some tea and sugar it well…’

  ‘Tea?’ said Uncle Fred feebly. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Yes; tea,’ replied the sergeant.

  It was Harry Dodd’s funeral that afternoon and the detectives were anxious to get away. They therefore resigned Uncle Fred in the care of Mr. Mallard, who, making him comfortable, insisted on his removing his raincoat. This revealed that beneath it, Uncle Fred was wearing his mourning suit, the sight of which excited him again.

  ‘My hat. I’ve lost my billycock in the fire. Whatever shall I do? I’ve a funeral…’

  They left him trying on Mr. Mallard’s, which, with a bit of stuffing under the lining, fitted in a fashion. Packed from within, it looked to hang in mid-air close to his head without, however, touching it.

  12—Good-bye, Harry Dodd

  Littlejohn attended Harry Dodd’s funeral at Cambridge. It seemed the right thing to do, apart from any light it might throw on the murder. Littlejohn had lived so much with Harry Dodd and learned so much of him since he arrived on the case, that it was like witnessing the rites of an old pal. With the personal impression, created by the photograph he’d taken from Dorothy Nicholls’ bedroom, he could picture in his mind’s eye the chubby, little, sloppily-dressed man hanging around Mon Abri, avoiding his two women when he locked himself in his attic, trudging home from a session at The Bear with his buddies, tinkering in the shed at The Bell, turning up at The Aching Man and being polite and kind to Peg Boone and playing with their child…A pub-crawler with a purpose.