'I think I'll stay here a bit on my own, Knell.'
Knell looked surprised.
'I'd just like to potter about and get a bit more of the atmosphere. You take these people away with you, and I'll call after and let you know if I find anything fresh.'
'Just as you say, sir. What do I do with them?'
'Anything, old chap, as long as you take them away from here.'
Knell shepherded his charges off the premises and down the shabby path to the car. Queenie, tottering on her high heels, kept turning to look at the place, as though still thinking of her father's comings and goings there. Rudd, with his fancy suit, with its draped jacket and padded shoulders, embodied contempt, lit a cigarette, and wiped his hands on his handkerchief again, as though cleaning off Sea Vista and everything connected with it.
Littlejohn turned back with Trimble.
'That's a dirty little swine, if you ask me. The sort who makes you need to keep an eye on the spoons. For two pins, I'd 'ave shown 'im the door as soon as he came in. Did you want to see me about anythin', Super?'
'Would you mind if I had another look round the place? I'm trying to find out all I can about Fred's existence. For example, what happened here in the winter? Fred came down to a room on the first floor. Did he dine all alone in that large dining-room?'
'Oh, no. He kipped in with us in the kitchen. We all ate together. . . Snook, me, the missus, and Susie. That's the little girl you've seen knockin' about. Twenty, she is, and we've 'ad her five years. Doesn't look 'er age, I admit, but she's too good to let go in the winter.'
'What about the other girl – Maria, is she called?'
'She came at the beginnin' of the season. That is, as a regular, I mean. Durin' the winter, the wife took her on two days a week to keep the rooms tidy. She's Eyetalian.'
'Did she come here from Italy?'
'Oh, no. Matter of fact, born in London. Her father's an Eyetalian. Interned 'ere as an enemy h'alien in the war and liked the place and stopped on as a farm worker. Brought his family over.'
'Could I see the kitchen?'
Littlejohn didn't quite know why he asked it, but somehow, he wanted to see another of Uncle Fred's haunts.
'Yes. They're just gettin' dinner ready, but you can see it for what good it'll do.'
They went along the corridor, past the bamboo hatstand and the Trimbles' little office to a door at the end of the passage. A gust of cooking cabbage, roast beef, and steam met them.
Maria and Susie were busy watching a large gas stove with boiling pans on the top and meat sizzling inside. They turned and looked at Littlejohn. Maria gave him a lazy, challenging stare, the kind she seemed to give every man she met. Susie, wearing a long soiled overall, was sulky and looked as if she resented the intrusion. She had a pale face and large dark eyes with shadows under them. Hardly an orphan of the storm at close quarters! Quite good-looking, in fact. With her hair tidied and her face washed, she'd be very attractive.
Littlejohn looked round. The place was neat and clean in spite of the activities going on. A sash window overlooking the yard; black and white check curtains to liven it up a bit. A red tiled floor; cupboards for dishes on one side; along the length of the other, a Welsh dresser with blue plates on the shelves. A few chairs, a whitewood table, with a plastic top coloured black and white like a chessboard. A large gas-stove in an alcove where once there might have been a kitchen range. Over the alcove, a shelf with brass candlesticks and a couple of old china dogs on it, with a noisily ticking alarm-clock in the middle.
The world of the kitchens. And here Uncle Fred joined the family when the visitors had all gone home and the Island had settled down for its winter sleep. Littlejohn could imagine it all. The room, a bit dingy in the winter days. The party sitting round the chessboard table eating a meal. Uncle Fred didn't talk much. The conversation would drag on. Idle, desultory comments meaning little. Perhaps a word or two about a film one of them had seen, the weather, the chances of the coming high season on the basis of the daily postal bookings which came in for next summer. . . . All meaningless, like the lives of those who dragged out the days there, with the noisy little clock ticking the minutes away. Uncle Fred, who'd first arrived on the Island spick and span, wearing his yachting cap and smart clothes, and then, after he'd given most of his money to Queenie, could only afford a place like Sea Vista, in his old suit, panama, and dirty rubber shoes. An ex-pantomime principal-boy, bored to death with the stale, endless days. . . . A superannuated acrobat. . . . Susie, with her pale classic face, straight nose, and big eyes. . . . Now and then, Maria, arriving for odd days, waking the men up with her challenging body and her predatory eyes. And Uncle Fred had preferred it to his family and his estates in Sussex. He'd thrown them all overboard and had drifted aimlessly and peacefully along there.
'Where were all of you when Mr Snook met his death?'
They all looked up as though Littlejohn had fired a revolver in the place.
Trimble, of course, protested he'd answered that one before. He was in the house. No time for carnivals. After what he'd seen on his travels, he'd no interest in local events. Now, in Nice or Monte Carlo. . . those were the days. . . .
Maria, of course, was out at the carnival.
'What! A false nose? Not for me! My own is nice enough, eh?'
She spoke Cockney; evidently born and bred in London. Susie wasn't at the carnival. The boys had wanted to take her with them. Maria taunted her.
'Every new batch of young men make a pass at Susie. Don't they. . . ? Week after week, day after day, they all want to take her out, and she's too proud to have any of them. Isn't that it, Susie?'
The girl made no answer, but opened the oven door and released a blast of stifling, meat-smelling air which took all their breaths away.
The door suddenly flew open and Mrs Trimble stood on the threshold. Fresh and tempting as ever, with her cheeks flushed from her walk on the promenade, and growing more pink as she found what was going on.
'Good morning, Superintendent. . . . There's a call on the phone for you. A Mr Valentine-Rudd, whoever he might be. . . . And as for you . . .'
She indicated Trimble and the two girls with a sweep of her hand.
'They're all in, waiting for their meal. Get it dished up. It's late.'
Roast beef and two veg, and a large currant pudding boiling in the pan, with rice pudding for those who were unlucky when the boiled one gave out. They started to scurry around, and Littlejohn went to the telephone, which stood on the bamboo hallstand under somebody's overcoat.
'I've talked matters over with Mrs Boycott, Superintendent. We've quite a lot in common. She says she'd like me to stay over here to see to things. She seems to want to be reconciled to my wife. After all, we've nothing to hide, nothing to reproach ourselves with. I can't hear you. . . . Speak up. . . . You'll call. . . ? When. . . ? I can't hear you.'
The lodgers were having to wait for their dinner and to keep them in good temper, Vincent, the accordionist, was at it again.
I left my heart
In the blue-grass country,
Where my buddy
Stole my baby
From me.
Uncle Fred's signature-tune, and Littlejohn was getting fed up with it. He hung up the telephone and went out.
At the end of the road he found himself back again in the holiday world. The blue sea, calm and still, the hot air, the shining asphalt, the shops, the horse-trams, cars gliding along the promenade. . . .Everybody indoors for lunch and the place peaceful and clean. White sails in the bay, a man passing by in a panama hat. It might have been the south of France.
Littlejohn felt suddenly worn out and ready for his lunch as well. He turned in at one of the hotels on the promenade and made for the bar.
'Give me a Pernod.'
He poured the water on the greenish-yellow liquid which turned cloudy, and as he drank it, the bite of aniseed brought back memories.
Yes, it might easily have been the south of Fra
nce.
7
SUSIE
'AND now for some work. . . .'
Littlejohn had dined alone in an hotel on the promenade and felt a lot better for it. The holiday feeling was still there, of course, and his conscience kept goading him not only to help Knell to solve the mystery of Uncle Fred, but also to find some way of allowing the Archdeacon to give him a hand with the investigation. The Reverend Caesar Kinrade was now an enthusiastic amateur detective, but it was certainly infra dig to trail him around on inquiries involving seedy boarders in third-rate diggings and people like Trimble and Valentine-Rudd.
'And now for some work. . . .'
Littlejohn said it to himself as though excusing his languor to an unseen companion.
Not that Knell and his satellites hadn't done any work. In fact, they'd enlisted the whole police force of the Isle of Man, trying to find out anything fresh about the murdered man. It had been an almost door-to-door inquiry, like an invasion of vacuum-cleaner salesmen or an army of insurance agents. 'Did you know Fred Snook?' It sounded like an old music-hall song.
For example, they'd got to know from the Trimbles and everyone who'd seen Uncle Fred on the day he died, what he had been doing all the time.
8.0 a.m.
Got up and ate his breakfast.
9.0
Pottered about in his room and in the boardinghouse, chatting to fellow lodgers.
10.0
Went out and spent two hours on the promenade. Seen speaking to nobody.
12.0
Back at home. Had a wash and then went in kitchen and talked to the two girls, Maria and Susie.
1.0
Lunch. Stayed snoozing and talking until 2.30, according to Trimble.
2.30
Nobody saw him again until he appeared on the promenade just before 3.0.
3.0
Dead.
Knell, sitting in his office brooding over the schedule, grew more and more angry.
'Had his breakfast! Had his lunch! Dead!'
He made as if to tear up the paper into little pieces and then paused and put it in a drawer.
'Fat lot of use that is!'
He might have made it hot for some of his hard-pressed subordinates if Littlejohn hadn't arrived just in time. The Superintendent smiled as he read Knell's time-table.
'Not much to go on, eh, sir?'
'No. . . .'
'I've just put down a list of likely suspects and it looks just as ridiculous . . . .'
Another long sheet of foolscap in Knell's neat hand.
The Trimbles
They might have been after his money.
The Costains
Beneficiaries under Uncle Fred's will.
Mrs Boycott
Anxious to get the estate to herself.
The Rudds
ditto.
Fellow Lodgers
A quarrel about something, or might have been blackmail (e.g. Finnegan staying with woman not his wife).
Others
Mrs Trimble, Maria, Susie (love affair?). Crowds on promenade (robbery, Teddy boys, or mistake for somebody else).
'It all looks so silly when you put it down on paper, sir. The Trimbles don't look like murderers, the Costains certainly aren't, Mrs Boycott and the Rudds are hardly likely to have run the risk of killing him in full view of everybody, and the lodgers . . . well . . .'
'Did you ask them all the routine questions, Knell?'
'Yes. They all said he seemed a decent chap, a bit reserved, didn't mix much, and didn't seem to have an enemy in the world. Only Mrs Nessle, the star boarder, had anything much to say. She seemed upset . . . .'
Knell fished in a file of papers and took out a sheet bearing Mrs Nessle's observations in reply to police questions.
'I seem to have known Mr Snook all my life. I have been coming here on and off for the past fifteen years and have known Mr Snook since he started to live here, it must be five years ago. When he first arrived, he was quite a dandy; wore very good clothes and often a yachting-cap and blazer. His fortunes must have declined, for he got shabby as time passed, although he never complained. He never talked about his affairs or of the past. He was a well-educated man with a great charm of manner.'
'Our man who questioned her said Mrs Nessle sobbed a time or two. She must have been a bit sweet on the old chap.'
Old chap, indeed! Mrs Boycott had said Uncle Fred was about sixty-one. The age at which many men get tender, start to spruce-up in a forlorn last grasp at departed youth, sometimes grow unpleasantly avuncular towards good-looking girls, and boast and throw their money about to compensate for the virility and charm of younger rivals. . . .
Littlejohn suddenly remembered that Rudd was now installed in Mrs Boycott's hotel.
'You might ring up Fort Anne, Knell, and tell Mr Rudd we're calling to see him right away.'
The afternoon sun was hot and bright as they made their way to the hotel, which stood on the flank of Douglas Head facing the river and bay. The quaysides were crowded with trippers, looking in the antique shops like magpies after bright souvenirs and trinkets, and the Head Road was thick with lightly-clad holidaymakers, all in merry mood. There was a minstrel show outside the large hotel right on the peak of the Head, and a huge audience was roaring at the cracks and sallies and singing the choruses of popular songs.
I left my heart,
In the blue-grass country . . .
This time accompanied on a banjo!
The hall-porter met them in the porch of Fort Anne.
'Mr Valentine-Rudd, gentlemen? This way, please.'
Rudd was doing the heavy. He'd booked a suite and had gone to the extent of hiring a typist from an agency in town.
He shook hands with the detectives, asked them to sit down for a minute, offered them cigars, and asked them what they'd take to drink.
'I'm very busy. . . . Got to get some letters away by the next post. Just take a letter, Miss Kissack. . .'
Mrs Boycott entered with Queenie in the middle of it all. She was completely transformed. Rudd had turned on the charm and won her over. She shook hands with the newcomers, too. Queenie looked bewildered and followed suit as though she'd never seen them before.
'I've decided to stay here, gentlemen, until this sad affair is cleared up. The sympathy and kindness of my daughter and son-in-law have touched me. I don't know what I'd have done without Willy.'
It was 'Willy' and 'Mother' now between the pair of them.
'I'd no idea there was so much to do. As sole legatee and representative of my late husband, I find the work overwhelming.'
She paused for breath and smiled at Queenie and Rudd, who was dictating with a flourish just to show off.
'Furthermore, as the deceased's affairs were subject to the control of the Court of Protection, I think it best for you to send a representative over to the Isle of Man at once. . . . Got that, Miss Kissack? Get on with it right away and I'll sign it.'
The girl bustled into an adjoining room and a typewriter began to click.
Rudd looked sleek and important. He'd changed his clothes to something more businesslike; a black suit, polka-dot tie, and every hair brushed in its place. Mrs Boycott and Queenie were in deep black as well. It looked as if Uncle Fred was being mourned with a vengeance now! Littlejohn felt a growing disgust. Mrs Boycott had cut off Queenie with a shilling when she'd married Rudd. And Uncle Fred, when Queenie had appealed to him, had stumped up the money he could ill afford and descended from his yachting cap and blazer to his old clothes and settled down to a drab existence at Sea Vista. It was the last resort of one who'd grown tired of everything. Family, excitement, money, perhaps even of life itself. . . .
The telephone bell rang. Rudd snatched the instrument brusquely.
'Oh . . . Mr Crellin . . . I'll sell the yacht. Yes . . . I know it's dilapidated. It's been in the river basin for seven years. He couldn't persuade himself to part with it and just kept it neat and tidy. But he couldn't afford to run it. Think it
over. We won't refuse any reasonable offer.'
Littlejohn remembered the little craft he'd seen tied up at the old quay. Half unconsciously, he'd wondered whom she belonged to and why she'd got in such a state. Rusty, paint flaking off, brass gone verdigris. . . . The Queenie. He even recollected the name, now. And for Queenie, his daughter, who'd probably in days long gone spent happy hours aboard her, Uncle Fred had given up another joy, sacrificed the money which would have kept his little boat trim and in commission, and gone to strain at Costain's rowing-boat across Calf Sound.
'Well, Superintendent. . .'
Rudd ignored Knell; he was too small fry now that Mrs Boycott's fortune was in the offing.
'You're sure you won't smoke. . . or take a drink? Very well. I understand. On duty, I guess. Well, I'm on duty, too. Too much for a helpless woman to cope with. Isn't that so, Mother?'
Mrs Boycott smiled proudly at him and turned to Littlejohn.
'My late husband led a wild life. I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but he almost ruined us. If I hadn't managed to rescue his business, we'd all have been on the street.'
She gulped for air.
'His business, Mrs Boycott? I gathered your late husband was a man of leisure.'
'In a sense, yes. He had formerly been a mining engineer in South Africa and he made a fortune there. His wealth needed careful handling. . . . Investments, tax problems, his estate management. . . . He'd started to neglect everything before he left home. He would absent himself for weeks at a time and spend money like water. Meanwhile, all his affairs, his letters, his accounts, were standing idle. Of course, he had secretaries and accountants to deal with technical matters, but they needed a firm hand to retain control.'
She almost sobbed to regain her breath.
'He drank a lot. And, I must tell you – because you will surely need to know in the course of your investigations – I must tell you that there were other women involved. I admit I denied it the other day. I was embarrassed and didn't know you were so kindly and understanding. I dislike to say it, but I had to put inquiry agents to work. He would disappear and turn up at Monte Carlo or the Canary Islands spending his means and living a life of debauchery; yes, debauchery. . . It's no use, Victoria. You may sob if you like. But it's true. . . . You were too young to be told the truth, and I had it all to bear alone.'
Corpse At The Carnival (A Cozy Mystery Thriller) (Inspector Little John Series) Page 9