In the next room, confusion. This must have been Peg’s and smelled of scent and greasy face powder. The dressing-table was untidy with bottles of cosmetics and perfume. The bed was unmade, but Peg wasn’t in it. The drawers of the chest and wardrobe were open and empty, the wardrobe rifled. Clothes scattered all over the place, as though Peg had been doing some sorting out.
Cromwell scuttered back along the passage and almost descended the stairs in a single bound.
Sid had been drinking again. He lolled over one of the marble tables, his eyes open, his mouth sagging, a picture of despair. Cromwell seized the soda-water bottle again. Sid leapt to his feet and faced him unsteadily. Cromwell might have been preparing to kill him in cold blood with a gun. He stretched out his hands in a terrified fending-off gesture.
‘No…No…No more. I didn’ do anythin’…It wasn’ me…They lef’ me…All alone…Nobody in the world now…All by myself…Don’ shoot…’
Cromwell put down the bottle and seized Sid by his waistcoat V again. He shook him.
‘Where are they?’
‘I dunno…Lef’ me for good. Nobody lef’ in the world.’
‘What happened?’
‘I dunno…’
Cromwell picked up the syphon.
‘Keep off…Don’t shoot…I’ll tell…’
Cromwell suddenly realised that Sid Boone hated water more than anything else in the world!
‘Talk, then.’
‘Somebody rang up. Peg got scared. Packed up and left.’
‘Who rang up?’
‘Shoofoot…I answered the phone. Said he wanted Peg. Told her somethin’ that mus’ave been ‘orrible. She took all the money an’ all her things, sent for a taxi, and went off.’
‘Did she take the kid?’
‘Eh?’
‘You heard. The kid.’
‘I’ll never see my li’l Nancy again. They’ve taken her away…’
At the sound of the word Nancy, the parrot suddenly roused herself in the next room.
‘Nanceeeee! I want Nanceeee. Pretty Poll. Pretty Cora. I’m wild about Harry and Harry’s wild about me. Harry Dodd. Where’s Harry? I want Harry.’
A real mouthful, awful in its reminiscences of Harry Dodd and his times there in the past. Now they’d all gone and left Sid with only Cora, with her ghostly chatter, for company. Sid was blubbering with self-pity.
‘What am I to do? I’m all on me own.’
He looked round at the dirty glasses, the empty beer bottles, the red corrugated metal caps. It seemed years since Littlejohn had talked about the red caps, and Peg had seemed so decent and co-operative.
‘Who took the kid?’
‘I dunno…Don’t shoot…Put it down. I dunno who took ‘er. A big car drove up and took her off. An old lady came and asked for Peg. Peg had just gone. Then she asks where Nancy is and I said gone, too. But jus’ then Nancy came out lookin’ for her maw. So the old lady takes her off without so much as a by-your-leave. I won’t stand it. I’m Nancy’s guardian now her maw’s gone, an’ I’m goin’ to see my lawyer. Got to have her back. Don’t want to be on my own.’
He blubbered again.
Three hikers walked in, looked around, and sat at a table. Their mouths fell when they saw Sid, tears running down his face, a bent fag in his mouth, which he was trying to light as well. Cromwell left them all together and drove off to meet Littlejohn. A policeman with a bicycle was standing at the crossroads which they’d arranged should be the rendezvous.
‘Sergeant Cromwell, sir? Inspector Littlejohn left a message.’
He handed Cromwell a note scribbled on a sheet of a notebook:
Meet you at Helstonbury Police Station. Meanwhile get report on movements of Peter Dodd from man put on his tail. On no account must Dodd be lost. Ask Miss Jump for as much as she knows about Peter Dodd.
T.L.
‘Where is the Inspector?’
‘He met me here. I was just on patrol. It wasn’t above five minutes since. He’d been in Dr. Macfarlane’s and said he was going to see Mrs. Dodd, but to give you the note.’ Cromwell placed the note on the top of the car and scribbled a reply on the back.
Message received. Acting. Peg Boone’s alibi faked. Peg Boone left for unknown destination. Nancy taken away in car by ‘old lady’—Mrs. Dodd?
R.C.
‘Could you take that for me to the Inspector at Mrs. Dodd’s home, please?’
‘Yessir.’
The bobby flung himself on his bicycle and pedalled off as if all hell were at his heels.
21—The Prodigal Son
There was a tension about the Dodd house when he arrived which Littlejohn had never felt before. As soon as the old maid greeted him on the threshold, he knew it and, when she led him in to Mrs. Harry Dodd, it was intensified.
Mrs. Dodd looked very much older. Her face was pinched and of a leaden pallor. The dog growled.
‘Is Mr. Peter in, madam?’
She sensed the loss of friendliness in Littlejohn’s voice and looked hard at him.
‘No. I don’t know where he is.’
‘Is he in town?’
‘I can’t say.’
It all seemed different. Littlejohn knew he wasn’t welcome.
To think of smoking his pipe here, as in days past, would have been taking a liberty.
‘Relations seem to have changed between you and me, madam.’
He was at a loss how to start.
‘I don’t wish them to be. You have been a most helpful and considerate officer, Inspector. I don’t wish you to think…to think…’
‘To think, madam, that you’re concealing something from me?’
Outwardly impassive, Mrs. Dodd nevertheless showed signs of strain. Her thumbs moved across the insides of her fingers, like someone feeling material.
‘What can I be concealing? I told you all I knew last time you called.’
‘All you knew at the time. But you know a lot more now, madam. For instance, you know that the little girl at The Aching Man wasn’t your husband’s daughter. She’s the daughter of your son, Peter.’
She grew rigid; then she relaxed and sat down.
‘Sit down, Inspector Littlejohn. How did you find that out?’
‘It’s obvious, madam. The child resembles you; not your late husband. She’s the child of one of your children, and the likely one, by elimination, is Mr. Peter. Is he your favourite son?’
She stared hard at Littlejohn, trying to fathom how much he knew.
‘I have no favourite son.’
‘But Mr. Peter was. He has since forfeited the right? But he’s not yet lost your protection. He lost his rank as your favourite child after you discovered that he’d murdered his own father!’
She sprang to her feet and rang the bell.
‘How dare you, Inspector ! My own son in his own home. How dare you accuse him of…’
She hesitated. The maid appeared at the door.
‘You rang, Missisdodd…?’
‘No. It was a mistake.’
She had recovered herself and found it might be dangerous to break off relations before hearing Littlejohn out.
‘By what right are you accusing Peter?’
‘We have a concrete case against him, madam. And he tried to build himself alibis, after his usual fashion of considering nobody but himself. I’m sorry, Mrs. Dodd, but I must speak candidly. This is no time for mincing words.’
‘I agree. But the alibis…?’
‘I think you know, Mrs. Dodd. If you don’t think they were concocted to save him from accusations about murder, Mr. Peter told you some other tale, a tale like he told Dr. Macfarlane, who lied believing he was shielding the honour of a married woman.’
‘I know nothing about such a tale. How did I give him an alibi?’
‘He made you real coffee, instead of the harmless substitute. He made you ill to get an excuse to go out to the doctor’s and to Brande. He could do it in half an hour in his fast little car. He returned,
gave you the medicine, and convinced you he’d only been away a minute or two by altering the clock at your bedside. You said he called your attention to it. He blackmailed Dr. Macfarlane into supporting him.’
She seemed utterly bewildered.
‘Blackmail? How came that about?’
Littlejohn briefly told her of the road accident and the death of Comfort. She sat frozen with horror.
‘Not other deaths? Not that!’
‘Yes. Not only his father, but his grandfather and Mr. Pharaoh. Once having killed, he took fright and, in trying to hide his tracks, he started to slaughter indiscriminately those who’d never done him any harm…’
‘Stop! He wasn’t alone and he was always weak. I’m not saying he killed any of them, but please remember he was the weakest of us all, the one who, somehow, took after neither Harry nor me.’
‘Why?’
‘He always had a profligate streak in him. He was a bully and a coward at school…yes, you might as well know…and at the university he got a girl into trouble and brought great sorrow on us all. She tried to kill herself, and the baby died. Then we settled him, as we thought, in practice. He lived far beyond his income, took trust funds from his firm. and I had to make good his defalcations to the tune of over ten thousand pounds. Then he joined the forces, made a totally unsuitable marriage with a very nice girl, and treated her abominably.’
‘And lastly… Peg Boone?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did his father take all this?’
‘He stood by him to the end. I would have made Peter take his medicine for some of his tricks, but Harry excused him. When we paid up the defalcations, I cut Peter from my Will. I created a trust to be quite sure he didn’t touch any capital. I also made the trust income small enough to keep Peter working. I was very fond of him…once…But I didn’t know about the child at The Aching Man until after you mentioned it. I asked Peter and I forced the truth out of him. We had drawn closer together, I thought, of late. He was the only one whom I told about his father and me remarrying. After Harry first wrote about the family Bible, Peter was the one I told I’d like to see Harry again, and he took me to meet him. I can’t understand…’
She was bewildered and looked at Littlejohn, as if expecting an answer.
‘He took you for the first meeting, little thinking that you and Mr. Dodd both, in your hearts, wanted each other again. Do you think, if Peter had known you were likely to remarry, he’d have cooperated? Not likely, Mrs. Dodd! He’d have done all he could to keep you apart. With you out of the picture, and nobody to leave his money to, Harry Dodd made a Will bequeathing over twenty thousand pounds to his grandchild, the child of Peter and Peg Boone. With you back in the picture, he was going to alter his Will and leave it all to you to disburse. Mr. Pharaoh told Peter that, I’ve no doubt, because Peter was always in and out at Pharaoh’s, supposed to be keeping in touch with family affairs. As soon as you and Harry Dodd decided to remarry, poor Harry Dodd was doomed.’
She broke down and wept, and Littlejohn left her in quiet with her grief. He stood at the window and looked out over the decaying outbuildings and the old trees, and tried to imagine what it had all been like long ago.
‘I got the truth out of Peter about the child. He had, it seems, been friendly there a long time, before his marriage, even. When he came back from the war, there was an affair and the child was born. He offered to marry Peg Boone when he was free, but she said until he got a steady job and enough to keep her and the child in decency and comfort, she wouldn’t marry him. He was, and still is, mad about her. She is his evil genius, a girl who looks like a Botticelli angel and yet has been the downfall of us all!’
‘In what way? You mean she egged him on to murder?’
‘I don’t admit he ever committed murder. He couldn’t settle down for the madness in his blood about her. He was never away from the place after dark. He said he went after closing hours and stayed there all night, pretending he was at his flat.’
‘He told his father about the child?’
‘Yes. To borrow money from Harry…Peter, as you know, was at one time the only member of the family in touch with Harry…He went to his father, told him about the child and asked him for money to help bring her up decently. Harry went to see Nancy, and they took to each other right away. Harry was so delighted with her, Peter told me. She was his only grandchild. It gave him an interest in life and he took up with the man with a system of speculating on the Stock Exchange with a view to making money. He did so well that he was able to settle five thousand on the child.’
‘I wonder where that money is now?’
‘So do I…’
‘Not only that, Mrs. Dodd, he accumulated more money, hoping, perhaps, to get Nancy away to school and such like. He held it himself and in case of death, it was willed away to his grandchild. He was a fine man, Harry Dodd, and to save their own skins after his death, that pair, Peter and Peg, told the police that Nancy was Harry Dodd’s child. That is what they’d come to and what they did to Harry Dodd!’
There was a pause. Each of them waited for the other to speak.
The clock raced on the mantelpiece, the dog on his cushion snored and kicked his legs about as he dreamed; somewhere outside a car backfired.
‘I don’t know whether or not Peg Boone was with Peter when Harry Dodd was killed. I’m sure, however, that she was his evil genius and engineered it all. I shall know before very long. My colleague is at The Aching Man now.’
Mrs. Dodd looked hard at Littlejohn. The Inspector caught in her glance the first trace of cunning he had seen. He couldn’t understand it.
‘Do you know Peg Boone, Mrs. Dodd?’
‘No. But I know that Harry disliked her. Peter told me he tried to persuade his father to agree to their marriage, but Harry refused, nor would be find any money for it. He preferred an illegitimate grandchild to seeing his son and Peg Boone married.’
‘I wondered…Have you seen your grandchild, little Nancy?’
‘Where is this leading, Inspector? What I want to know is have you arrested Peter or is he likely to be arrested?’
‘He is likely to be. So far, I haven’t arrested him. I wanted to speak with you first. I wanted you to know how your husband was killed and by whom.’
‘I still don’t believe it!’
She wrung her hands.
‘I think you know more than you’ll tell. Did you, or did you not, know that Peter cheated you about the coffee and the clock on the night his father died?’
‘Yes, I did. I knew that, normally, he would never be so stupid as to forget that I didn’t take real coffee. I also knew that he’d moved the clock, presumably in altering the time. It wasn’t in the same position on the bedside table as when I fell asleep. It was behind a photograph of my sister which is there, instead of in front. Furthermore, I know that he put sleeping tablets in the coffee… only a light dose to make sure my wits were dim enough not to scent the trick he was playing. I knew, because I gave the dog some of the coffee. He adores it. He always jumps up on my bed and sleeps at the foot, but on that night he fell asleep on the doormat as he entered, and he slept as I carried him to bed.’
‘Did you tax your son with it all?’
‘No. I thought he was up to some trick or other. In fact, I thought he’d got bored with my company and was anxious to get me to bed and leave him free to do as he liked.’
‘You mean he’d go so far as to make you ill and drug you…?’
‘You said yourself he thought of nobody but himself…You were right.’
Littlejohn was still uneasy about the atmosphere of the interview. With a little spasm of alarm he wondered if Mrs. Dodd was hand in glove with Peter in murdering Harry. Suppose, after all, Harry had led her on and then let her down in the matter of marrying her again…? Or suppose she’d always cherished the idea of revenge…? He shook himself.
‘You believe me when I say that your son made himself an alibi for the time when hi
s father was killed?’
‘It is difficult not to believe it now. But I know nothing of this case except the disjointed bits I’ve gathered in conversation with you. Suppose you tell me what happened.’
‘It seems simple enough now, madam. It has eluded us for a long time, due to the fact that I simply couldn’t believe that Peter could murder his father. It wasn’t until I saw the little girl that I knew the truth. You already know that your husband had found his grandchild, was very fond of her, and wished to do his best for her. Of late, the two women he lived with at Brande had noticed his being restless and preoccupied. He spent a long time trying to discover a patent way of welding steel. At the same time, he also turned to the Stock Exchange. He’d met a man with a good system but no capital. So they formed a partnership which was a huge success.’
‘Was it in London?’
‘No. In Helstonbury. A little corn chandler called Lott. They made a fortune apiece, Harry Dodd provided their first capital. He did it for fun at first, I think. But after he found Nancy, he started in earnest.’
‘And my husband was stimulated to do this by his love for his grandchild…?’
‘I believe he was. He was an outcast from the rest of his family. Peter had no money and no job. Harry Dodd made up his mind that little illegitimate Nancy should not suffer, and she was his inspiration in this wild-cat money-making scheme which came off.’
The maid brought in tea things, but they didn’t notice her. They were living again with Harry Dodd.
‘Peter and Peg, who, I think, had the idea of telling Peter’s father the sad tale of little Nancy, didn’t know Harry would go as far as he did. They’d expected perhaps a hundred or two, because, after all, Peter knew his father only had his allowance as a remittance-man; a few hundreds. Instead of which, Harry Dodd went mad. A lonely, ageing man, bored with the two women fate had thrust on him, but whom, with characteristic simple sense of duty, he treated fairly…more than fairly…Bored, I say, he suddenly finds an interest on which he focuses all his powers; the child, Nancy. His grandchild takes to him and from then on, Harry can’t do enough for her. He, metaphorically speaking, breaks the bank at Monte Carlo, gives Peg Boone a lump sum for Nancy, and lets her know, or tells Peter there’s a lot more where that came from, invested and, in case Harry Dodd isn’t there to dole it out, left to Nancy, or her trustee, Mr. Pharaoh, in his Will.’
A Knife For Harry Dodd Page 25