The Case of the Headless Jesuit

by George Bellairs

  “Well, Bedford, could you please tell me what you know about the late Mr. Salter? His reputation, friends, occupation … and so on.… As much as you know.”

  “Won’t you sit down, sir?”

  Littlejohn did. It was obvious that Bedford liked sitting by the fire better than work or anything else. The ex-C.S.M. sagged in the arm-chair again.

  “Hope you don’t mind the big fire, sir. Got a touch of the old fever in me bones again.… Relic from active days abroad.…”

  “Carry on.”

  “Mr. Salter was a good tenant. Quite a gent. Must have been a bit short of ready, though, to take up in a place like this. Not his class. But I will say his flat’s nice. Done it up, he did. Quite the best of the lot now, though it is top-floor.”

  “What did he do for a living?”

  “That I can’t say, sir. Spent a lot of time out and came home late. Left just after breakfast. Kept himself to himself. It’s not hard makin’ friends with these sort of tenants. Cadgin’, spongin’, and the women hunting for blokes to take ’em out.… But he kept out of it all.”

  “Did he ever have visitors?”

  “Very few, sir.… Men they were, and I never knew any of ’em.”

  “I see.…”

  From above, the charwoman’s strident voice filled the hall.

  “I’m goin’, Mr. Bedford. I’ve done.…”

  “’Ave you mopped the stairs?”

  “What d’yer think I’m here for? O’ course I done ’em. The milk’s ’ere, too.”

  “Put it in the usual place. That’s all. I’m busy now.”

  “All right … saucy!”

  “Mr. Salter paid his rent regularly?”

  “Yes, sir.…”

  “I’d better see his flat, then.”

  “Mind if I don’t come, sir, seein’ as you’re the police? My limbs ache with this old fever.…”

  “Very well. Which one is it … and is it open?”

  The C.S.M. wasn’t going to labour up and down four flights of stairs if he could help it. He’d got everything nicely organized on a labour-saving basis and directed operations from a chair by the fire.

  “Here’s the key, sir. There’s only one flat on top. Was a studio once. Mr. Salter made it nice.…”

  He certainly had made it comfortable. After toiling up the steep stairs, which gradually grew rougher and narrower as they ascended, Littlejohn was glad to sink in one of the cosy arm-chairs and look around as he rested. On the way up he’d run the gauntlet of a number of inquiring fellow-lodgers of the late Salter. A fat man, like a decrepit company-promoter gone to ground, with his face half-lathered, hurrying from the bathroom; a woman clad only in a soiled wrapper and with tousled bleached hair, leaning out from a half-open door for a small bottle of milk and baring her opulent bosom in the process; a small shabby man taking out a bad-tempered Pekingese for an airing; two scruffy, bearded youngsters in dirty flannels and seedy sports-coats trying to look like artists.… A motley crew.

  Salter’s room smelled fresh and clean after the fug of down below; stale smoke, airless bedrooms, dirty linen. The walls had been distempered off-white and held a good picture or two. There was a large Indian rug on the floor of the living-room, cosy chairs, a small mahogany round table, a gramophone and a chest of drawers. All apparently picked-up cheaply here and there. Overhead, the bare rafters and beams, also distempered. The place was lighted by large windows in the roof, perhaps added at some time by a tenant who saw the possibilities of making a good studio there. Salter had evidently tidied up the room before leaving; there was nothing out of place.

  At the far end, another door. Littlejohn rose to investigate. This led to a small kitchen, little larger than a good-sized cupboard. There was a food cabinet and a gas-ring, with a sink with a dripping tap in one corner. This, too, was spick and span, evidently tidied after the last meal. Littlejohn opened the food-safe. A piece of mouldy cheese on a plate, a packet of breakfast cereal, some dog biscuits, half a bottle of milk, turned sour and solid. Nothing more. Plates, cups and saucers, a dog’s bowl, and a few odds and ends of cutlery on an open shelf. Under the sink a refuse bucket and an old-fashioned hip-bath. You got hot water from a gas-geyser connected to a shilling-in-the-slot meter. A small mirror hung on the wall. Evidently the bathroom as well.

  Next door, in a glorified boxroom, was a single bed, made and tidied, too. Salter seemed pretty thorough in his housekeeping and liked an orderly home. The bedroom held a cheap chest of drawers and a washstand with a ewer and basin. There was water in the ewer and two soiled towels on a rail.…

  Littlejohn heard the door of the next room open and turned to greet the intruder. It was the woman in the soiled wrapper. She held the latter closely to her and a cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth.

  “Oh … I didn’t know.… You a new tenant?”

  “No. I was just looking round. Can I do anything for you?”

  “No. I just wondered if you were anybody connected with Mr. Salter.… Pity about him.… I saw it in the papers.…”

  Her profession was evident. She spoke with a drawl in a “refined” voice, with an echo of the streets beneath it. Probably quite a decent sort, but with an eye to the main chance.

  “He borrowed five pounds from me before he left and I was wondering …”

  “Sorry, I can’t help you. That’s a matter for his lawyers. I’m from the police.”

  “Thought you’d be round. Bit of a mystery, Mr. Salter. Quite a gentleman, but a bit on the rocks, I’d say.”

  “Why?”

  “I was thinking of the five pounds he borrowed.…”

  “Did you know him well?”

  “Not reely. Very reserved. We met on the stairs now and then and had a bit of a chat. Can’t say we got far. Literary bloke, I think he was.”

  “What makes you think that, Miss … er … er …?”

  “Deborah James.…”

  “My name’s Littlejohn—Inspector Littlejohn.”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  Miss James took another loose cigarette from the pocket of her garment and lit it from the stub of the first one.

  “You were saying, Miss James, you thought Mr. Salter a literary bloke. Why, pray?”

  “I once saw him coming out of the British Museum and when I asked him whatever he was doing there, he said a bit of literary research.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Yes.… And it must have been something historical, maybe a novel or scenario he was on. I remember coming up to borrow some milk and he had the table littered with books and papers. When he went for the milk I just took a peek at them. They were old books, smelled of must and dust and had old bindings and queer lettering. F’s for S’s, you know, kind of thing.”

  “Yes. I know what you mean. What were they all about?”

  “I haven’t the faintest. He was back with the milk and I never saw them again. Besides, I’m not interested in the dim past. Quite enough with the present if you ask me.”

  Miss James stubbed out the lipstick-stained butt of her cigarette in an ash-tray and began to search her person for another. Littlejohn supplied her with one and lit it for her.

  “Ta. Well, if that’s all, I’ll toddle. By the way, I only made up the tale about the five pounds. I was curious about what was going on and wanted an excuse to come up. Salter was murdered, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I don’t know. There’s been something funny going on here for months. He’s been shutting himself up for days at a time with his books and papers and writing to places. I know that because I’ve seen him rushing out to post letters at the post-box. You mightn’t see much funny in that. But in this place we’re all interested in one another. We mayn’t even be on speaking terms, but we watch one another and put two and two together and make five from it. We know one another’s little habits and we know a hell of a sight more about one another than each of us thinks. See what I mean?”

&
nbsp; “Yes.… Well?”

  “It’s just that Granville Salter suddenly changed. From an ordinary come-day, go-day tenant like the rest of us, a bit bored and browned-off with life, he suddenly got very busy and excited, as though he’d got on to something. That’s the only way I can describe it. Maybe, some crooked dodge of making money, or a girl, or his luck on the horses changed. Come to think of it, his sudden spate of letters might have been to his bookie. I wouldn’t know.…”

  “Did he have any visitors?”

  “Not that I recollect. He seemed very quiet that way. I do remember one thing, though. He took me out once. Matey, like; nothing else. It was my birthday and I’d met him on the stairs. I was a bit down in the mouth and told him so and why. He took me to a place behind Russell Square for a meal. We had some wine, too, and we got a bit maudlin. I started to talk about the old days and the old folks at home. I’ve got to have it bad to get that way.”

  “And so …”

  “He got a bit talkative too. Started to tell me about a girl he was fond of. He was a bit pickled or he wouldn’t have talked the way he did. It just didn’t make sense. Something about his happiness depending on his family. But he hadn’t got any family, he said. So what? His happiness depended on his sorting out the family. Not long after, he started the hectic ways I told you of. Then, he went away and didn’t come back, and the next thing I heard he was dead. He wished me a Merry Christmas when we met on the stairs and said he’d be back, and maybe things would be better for him in the New Year if what he thought was true. It’s all just a mix-up. I can’t make head or tail of it. Who’d want to do him in?”

  “That’s what we’ve to find out. By the way, Salter was a very neat and tidy chap, wasn’t he? This flat’s spotless.”

  “To tell you the truth, I did it. Thought it would be nice for him to get back to a clean place. I owed him a good turn.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “Bedford let me in. I told him I was going to clean up. Bedford’s not fussy.”

  “So it seems.”

  “Well, if you don’t want me any more, I’ll go and get some clothes on and a tidy up. I haven’t eaten yet. Care for a cup of coffee with me?”

  “No, thanks, Miss James.”

  “I thought not. Be seein’ you.”

  With that she walked right out and Littlejohn heard her enter her own flat and slam the door. What had she been up-to in Salter’s flat in his absence? Maybe foraging for food, or something more worth while.…

  There was no desk in the place, so Littlejohn turned to the chest-of-drawers, an old-fashioned article with old-fashioned locks, but every drawer fast. He took out his own bunch of keys and encountered very little resistance, except that in the intricacies of the ancient levers he had difficulty in withdrawing the keys which worked.

  In the top drawer, collars, ties, handkerchiefs and other odds and ends of clothing. Beneath the lot, a service revolver. He’d not taken that with him; apparently not anticipating the need for it. That was good. His mission perhaps didn’t involve anything dangerous. The next drawer also held collars, shirts, underclothes and other light articles of clothing. No more than that. Finally, the bottom one, very heavy and difficult to move. Its contents took Littlejohn an hour to go through.

  Books, papers, deeds, manuscripts, records. Scores of them, all jumbled higgledy-piggledy. Notes on scraps of paper and addresses of various people in Cobbold and elsewhere. The lot smelled musty with age and damp. Heaven knew where Salter had got them all. Presumably the family papers and a lot of other references. Salter looked to have been preparing a book or a detailed family history. But to Littlejohn, it seemed to mean more than that.

  Granville Salter had been trying to satisfy himself whether or not the girl he loved was his own close relative or not! It all seemed plain. Family trees, parchments and diaries. What could he hope to find there? One book-mark revealed the tale of the Salter Treasure. Another, the legend of the Headless Jesuit. Where did it all lead to? Surely, Salter had not been intent on restoring the family fortune by finding the mythical treasure and, at the same time, clearing the way for marrying Miss Alveston, who some said was his sister!

  All this stuff, Littlejohn told himself, must merely have been the husks of the game. Salter would have sorted out what he wanted from the mass of material and taken it with him to Cobbold. If so, they might find something in his luggage there. He bundled all the papers back in the drawer, retaining only the rough notes for perusal in the train back. Then he turned to the bedroom.

  Two suits hung behind a curtain across one corner; a dinner suit and a shabby lounge one. The cheap chest-of-drawers was unlocked. It held more underclothes, some towels, some toilet odds and ends. And an old wallet. Littlejohn turned the latter inside out. It contained nothing but a card. Maybe Miss James had seen to the rest. Maybe, not.… The card was grubby and significant.

  James Cooney,

  Private Investigator.

  2C King’s Weighhouse Lane,

  London, W.C.2.

  Littlejohn picked up his hat and put on his overcoat.…

  Mr. Cooney was in. Four flights up a dirty staircase, with his name alone painted on the dingy door.

  “Come in.…”

  Mr. Cooney was sitting at a battered table in a frail battered chair. He had his hat on.

  “Just in time.… Huuuulllllo, Inspector.”

  “Well, well, well. Just imagine you a detective. I am glad to welcome you to the fraternity.”

  “Now, Inspector, don’t get sarcastic. I’m on the level these days, doing a nice, steady job.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, Barney.”

  “Not that! Barney’s buried with the murky past. Now I’m Jimmy Cooney, at your service. Reduced terms to the force.”

  Before serving time for buying a car with a dud cheque and selling the same car before the cheque bounced, Mr. Barney Faircluff had described himself as an Agent. This had included the turf, finance, black market, and, the police suspected, stolen goods. It was surprising anybody ever trusted him, for with his snaky body, weasel’s face and eyes, card-sharper’s hands and hyena’s laugh, all set off by a natty check suit, a jaunty soft hat, pointed shoes and smart-alec’s walk, Barney, alias Jimmy, seemed blessed with all the attributes and tastes of a born wrong-’un. Yet he could talk himself into and out of anything. That was his salvation. Now, he was presumably doing a bit of snooping for divorces and any other disreputable trade he might find profitable, and, most likely, combining a bit of blackmail with it.

  “I was just going out.… I’m busy on a case.…”

  “It can wait a minute or two. If I waste your time, maybe I’ll give you a lift with the case myself. What is it?”

  “Confidential. Divorce on the highest level. That’s all I’m at liberty to tell you.”

  “I’ll bet it is!”

  Barney bared his teeth. They were triangular, like little fangs, as though he’d specially filed them down to points.

  “What do you know about Granville Salter, Barney?”

  “Don’t keep calling me Barney. I tell you, Inspector, it’ll do me harm. What about Salter? Never heard of him.”

  “Come, come, Jimmy. It is Jimmy, isn’t it? Funnily enough, Salter was murdered and your card was found in his wallet.”

  “Here, here, here. Come off it. There’s scores of my cards all over London, but that’s my way of making myself known. You can’t pin this on me.”

  “I’m not trying to, Barney. Beg pardon, Jimmy. I want to know what you were doing for or with Granville Salter. Now, you wouldn’t hamper the police on a murder case, would you, Jimmy?”

  “Of course not. You know me better than that, Inspector. I really haven’t a clue what Salter was wanting. He died too soon.”

  “You mean …”

  “I mean, some pal evidently put him on to me. He came here and asked my line. I told him. Discreet inquiries, to put it in a nutshell. Just before Christmas, it was. He was going away
and when he got back maybe he’d have a little job for me to do.”

  “Such as …?”

  Barney pushed his hat to the back of his head, bit the end off a cheap cigar, lit it, and slowly ejected the smoke through all his teeth.

  “He wanted me to see if I could find a bloke who vanished after the last war. I said maybe. He asked how much. I said five quid expenses for a start and the rest by results. He said he’d let me know. He didn’t. He got killed instead.”

  “And the name of the man?”

  Barney shrugged his shoulders and worked the cigar from the left to the right side of his large jaw.

  “Dunno.…”

  “Come again, Barney. He left a five-pound deposit. I know you of old. Who was it and how much do you know?”

  “Have a heart, Inspector. You’d take the food out of my mouth. Rifle the kid’s money-box, you would. Oh, all right then. The man’s name was Alveston. Hadn’t been seen since the last war. Salter knew his regiment and had his photo. That’s all. I tried to trace him through the British Legion. They did me proud, but the trail petered out at a place called … let me see …”

  Barney consulted a small, grubby note-book.

  “Barby, in the Midlands. And now, please can I go? I’m hot on a trail and they’ve a rendezvous in half an hour. You wouldn’t stop an honest man earning an honest penny, would you, Inspector?”

  “No, Barney, I wouldn’t. Only see that it is honest. Thanks for the information. One day, maybe, I’ll be able to do the same for you.”

  “Sez you,” rudely retorted Barney Faircluff.

  Littlejohn dined on the train home. They seemed to serve the meal as they were passing over the roughest part of the track. The attendants danced grotesquely and capered like macaws, spilling soup and food all over the place and the beer jigged and jumped over the edges of the glasses and slopped over the tablecloths. It was quite a time before he could settle down peaceably and sort out the mass of notes left behind by Granville Salter. They proved, as far as Littlejohn could see, almost useless in the case he had in hand. Dates and details of the two legends which were becoming an obsession in the whole business and, as likely as not, a perfect red-herring. The Salter Treasure and the Headless Jesuit. Granville had scribbled the references and variations on the themes and neatly added in brackets their sources. Not much use in solving the very commonplace murder on which they were engaged. The last sheet of paper, however, was a bit more interesting. It contained a column of names, some of them familiar, in which Salter must have found some clue or who might be able to help in his researches.