Corpse At The Carnival (A Cozy Mystery Thriller) (Inspector Little John Series)

by George Bellairs

  'There's no sense in settling down here at this hour of night. We all want to get to bed. I've had a bad time and it's taken it out of me. What do you want to know now? Haven't we answered enough questions? It's time you took Susie to the police-station and charged her with attempting to murder me and, if I'm not mistaken, stabbing Fred Snook, too.'

  'But she didn't kill Snook. That's what I'm coming to. I'm just going to tell you all what we've found out in the course of our inquiries and you can correct me if I'm wrong. It's got to be settled now. All the boarders leave by the nine o'clock boat. It's got to be over by then.'

  A look of wild uncertainty came into Mrs Trimble's eyes and she ran two hands across her forehead.

  'I'd forgotten the day. Don't take any notice of me. I've been through hell lately, with Snook, Mr Trimble, and now this little ungrateful devil. . . What were you saying?'

  'Ten years ago, Fred Boycott ran away from his wife. He was tired of the life she led him and even willing to leave all his money and his nice home behind to get a bit of peace. He went off with another woman and settled in Leicester under the name of Snowball, so that he couldn't be traced. There they lived for two or three years. They didn't get on for long. She nagged him and he found he'd jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire. He ran away again . . . .'

  'I don't know what all this has to do with us . . . . Uncle Fred never told us much about his past, so I can't confirm what you're saying. Anybody want a drink? No? Then I'll help myself. . . . I'm dead beat.'

  Mrs Trimble groped about for words and then for the bottle, which came to light in a cupboard. She poured herself a liberal dose of gin and drank half of it in one gulp. Then she sat down and crossed her legs.

  ' . . . We don't know where Uncle Fred fetched up just after reaving his girl in Leicester. But around eight years ago, he found the Isle of Man, changed his name again, to Snook this time, and discovered here the peace he'd always sought. The place got hold of him and he used to cross backwards and forwards, calling to see a friend he'd made after his own heart, John Costain of Cregneish, who owned a boat. Together they spent idyllic days on the Calf and around the village of Cregneish. Uncle Fred was happy at last with his boat, his fisherman companion, and the lazy times they spent together. But he hadn't much money. His love affairs and his running away from his women had cost him too much. He'd only enough to live on modestly. Then, one autumn, when all the hotels and places in the south near Cregneish were closed and there were only one or two open in Douglas, he turned up at Sea Vista.'

  'Who told you this? But it's true. He came in November, of all times. And here he stayed ever after.'

  Mrs Trimble, having drunk all her gin, was now less depressed and more talkative. She seemed proud to tell them all that Uncle Fred had chosen Sea Vista out of all the places he could have found.

  'There was one thing lacking in Fred Snook's life. A woman. He was always fond of women and even the beauty and peace of the Island and the friendship of Costain couldn't make up for that. At Sea Vista he found what he sought. Otherwise, he wouldn't have stayed so long. He'd have moved nearer to the Calf of Man and his friends at Cregneish. What he found here made him stay.'

  Mrs Trimble, groping in the cupboard for more gin, turned as she filled her glass up and smiled.

  'Yes. . . . And it wasn't Susie, either.'

  They all jumped and looked at her strangely. She didn't seem to care where the tale was leading. It looked as though her mind was going, or else she'd had a lot more to drink than they thought. She sat down.

  'Go on, Super. I want them all to listen to this.'

  'Sea Vista was owned by Mr and Mrs Trimble, who came here when they left the stage. He'd been a handsome man and quite a top-ranker in the circus and vaudeville world. She'd been a variety artist and pantomime principal boy.'

  'Right again. I was good in my time, too. I could have married into the gentry, but I preferred Ferdy. . . . He was a good trouper. He understood me.'

  She started to cry. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she wiped them away with the sleeve of her gown.

  'Trimble was a wreck when he came here. He'd had a bad fall. He never performed again after it. He went to seed. A shadow of his old self. Loafing about, doing domestic work in his boarding-house, and tippling on the sly.'

  'Here! Whatever he was, I won't have you speak ill of him now. He's dead. Let him rest.'

  'Did you let him rest, Mrs Trimble, when he was here? He worked all the time. He was only half a man after his accident. You were still very good-looking and attractive. Fred Snook fell for you completely. There was soon an affair going on between you behind Trimble's back, although I wonder if he'd have cared if he'd found out.'

  'Of course he would. He loved me to the end. And don't you try to take my good name away. Fred Snook and me would have been married if Trimble hadn't been alive. And from all accounts, he should have died long ago. After his accident, the doctors gave him a year. That's why he didn't care about anything. He wore a sort of harness to keep his back in shape and the doctors said his backbone might go at any time and he'd pop off like that.'

  She snapped her fingers and took another drink.

  'So, you see, he'd a right to his drink, as much as he wanted. It was his only pleasure. Uncle Fred being about the place made it easier for him. He'd somebody to talk to all the year round, instead of moping in this empty barn all the off-season. . . . He accepted things as they were. And we were all happy together, until this little devil set her cap at Uncle Fred. Yes . . . I mean you. You needn't look so innocent. And when Fred didn't fall for her, she killed him in a rage.'

  'You know very well, Mrs Trimble . . .'

  'Be quiet, Susie, please, and let me go on. Life here became settled, as you say, Mrs Trimble. The lazy, easygoing way suited Fred. He went off regularly on his trips to the Calf and out in the boat, and came home to the bosom of Trimble's family when the happy day was over and it was as inconsequential here as it was elsewhere. Then two things happened. He took a fancy to Susie.'

  'Never! He wanted only me right to the end. He loved me, did Fred, and he wouldn't let me down.'

  She burst into tears again, sniffing, blubbering and weep-ping in her gin. It was painful. Littlejohn wished there wasn't such an audience there to see it working out, but they were essential for what he'd got in mind.

  'He didn't fall in love with Susie really. But he thought her too nice a girl to be spending her time in a place like this, half alive, waiting on all kinds of second-rate people in the season, wasting her time sitting around in winter. Gradually becoming as idle and ineffective as he'd become himself. He planned to make something better of Susie and he was ready to help her with the last of the money he possessed. He gave her a ring which was his mother's, a very valuable one, which, if anything happened to him, she was to use to educate herself. Meanwhile, he did what he could in his own tinpot way, to make her more of a lady.'

  Susie was sobbing now. But Mrs Trimble wasn't. She was furious.

  'You little cheat! You never told me about the ring. I knew he was always trying to tidy you up . . . and you needed it when you came here, my girl. A proper little guttersnipe, you were. . . . And you can't say I didn't do my best to make you better. Can you now?'

  Susie looked at her without answering, tears still rolling down her pale haggard cheeks.

  'The other thing was, John Costain was taken ill. He took to his bed last autumn and is still there, out of commission. Uncle Fred was a sociable man. He wanted somebody comfortable, on his own free-and-easy wave-length to talk to, somebody to whom to express his feelings about the wonder of the country, the sea and the birds, somebody to tell about his past miseries and how he'd now settled down and was happy, idling and passing timeless days in peace. He tried Trimble. He took Trimble off with him on his jaunts, and Trimble, instead of loafing and drinking at home in the off-season, gradually found that Uncle Fred's company and simple pleasures suited him, too. They became chums, exchanged con
fidences, spent glorious hours together. . . . And Uncle Fred began to like and understand Trimble. This decrepit acrobat wasn't only the man who shuffled and tippled his time away at Sea Vista, despised by his wife and a figure of fun to his boarders. He was a man who'd seen a lot of life and found it inadequate, just as Uncle Fred had done. Trimble talked to Fred about his own colourful past and his adventures. Together they were happy. Uncle Fred's conscience started to trouble him. He grew to regret his affair with Trimble's wife behind his back. It didn't seem right. He started to avoid and cold-shoulder Mrs Trimble and she thought it was all due to Susie. She didn't understand Uncle Fred, or Trimble for that matter.'

  Mrs Trimble didn't say a word. She just gaped at Littlejohn, as though she couldn't understand what he was talking about. Under the drink she'd taken, her thoughts must have been hard to collect. Like looking through a mist. She got up to get another dose from the bottle.

  'That will do, Mrs Trimble. You've had enough. Please sit down.'

  The parson intervened and gently led her back to her chair. She flopped down like a sack in it, too taken aback to protest. She moved to the table and, sitting up to it, put her elbows on it and her head between her hands. Susie made an uncertain gesture of placing her hand on Mrs Trimble's shoulder, perhaps out of sympathy or to encourage her. She jumped and pushed her off.

  'Get away from me, you little rotten brat! Leave me alone.'

  'Last Saturday among the boarders there arrived Finnegan with Miss Crawley. Miss Crawley was the sister of Fred Snook's woman in Leicester long ago. She had died and left a daughter, Fred's daughter. Miss Crawley had traced Fred here with the help of her friend, Finnegan. Finnegan, a disreputable chap at best, saw his chance to pester Fred, disturb the peace he'd found, and briefly, blackmail him. Between the two, the child in Leicester – and remember, Fred was fond of children, first his own daughter Victoria, and now little Bertha in Leicester – and Finnegan pestering, he found he must have money, and a fair amount. He thought of Susie's ring and asked her to let him have it. In exchange,' he'd give her some cash from securities he'd sell. The ring was immediately convertible into money; the securities would take a little time. This happened on Monday, after lunch, with all the lodgers going out to the carnival.'

  Mrs Trimble stood up suddenly, panting, fighting for air. She looked ready either to faint or have a fit. Then, she saw Susie, reached out her hands for her, drew her to her, and buried her head in her breast.

  'You didn't take him from me, Susie . . . did you . . . ? You didn't. . .'

  She sounded to be choking, speaking into the cloth of the girl's dress. In all his career, Littlejohn had never known anything so distasteful. It was horrible, but it had to be finished.

  'Susie took Fred upstairs to get the ring. When she looked at it again she didn't want to part with it. They argued. She wept. He persuaded her, and finally came away with it. Down the attic steps. And, waiting for him below, was someone with a pair of scissors. Someone who'd been mending the curtains in Mrs Nessle's room. Someone who thought the worst about Uncle Fred's being in Susie's bedroom, who met him in a rage, leapt at him in the dark corridor, and stabbed him in the back. Take that! He took it, knew who'd done it, and tried to protect her to the last by struggling as far away from Sea Vista as he could. With the mists gathering round him, he snatched Greenhalgh's raincoat from the hall-stand, covered his bleeding back with it, and dragged himself to the promenade where, after being jostled and trampled upon by the rabble of a carnival, he died.'

  Mrs Trimble, sobbing and clutching Susie, turned and looked up.

  'And me thinking all the time . . .'

  'You thinking it was Susie who'd stolen his affection?'

  Susie kept holding her, although she looked ready to drop herself. The shadows under the girl's eyes were deeper than ever. Charlie, the bobby, in his turn, put a compassionate hand on her thin shoulder and pressed it.

  Mrs Trimble had lost the thread of what was going on. First she clung to Susie, then she flung her off again. Finally, Susie fainted, just quietly folded up and ended hanging, her hair over her face, across Charlie's arm.

  'Take her away and look after her, Charlie. I think Mrs Nessle's about. Find her and tell her to put Susie to bed.'

  Strangely enough, Charlie seemed delighted. Susie married him in the autumn, and Knell gave her away at church!

  Littlejohn wished he could pack up and go for good. Instead, there were the unpleasant formalities of arresting Mrs Trimble after the case had been brought home to her and her guilt finally established.

  There were just the three of them with her now; Knell, haggard and struggling to keep awake and alert, and the Archdeacon, his kind eyes on Mrs Trimble, wondering how he could help her. She raised her face from the table where she had been lolling since Susie's collapse. Her forehead and cheeks were bathed in tears and sweat.

  'I'll tell you, Mr Kinrade. I'll tell you . . . . I can confess it all to you. . . . You've always been kind about things. . . . You'll understand all about it and not blame me. I heard them go up to her room. I thought only one thing. How was I to know about the ring and he needed the money? When he came down from the attic, he looked so satisfied with himself that I saw red. I'd been sewing. I'd the scissors in my hand. I struck at him without a word and then I said "take that". . . . He caught my arm and stopped the blow. We struggled . . . I must have been so mad, it gave me strength. Before I knew what I'd done, he was staggering down the stairs and he went out. There was blood on my hands. I went up and washed it. Then I followed him. I didn't know he was dying. I didn't even know I'd wounded him, if it hadn't been for the blood. . . . He was nowhere about. There was a crowd on the promenade. I got mixed up in it and I couldn't get away. Later, I heard he was dead. I was afraid. I kept quiet. . . . That's all there is to it.'

  She was clinging to the Archdeacon now and he was holding her gently by the shoulders.

  'But your husband knew, didn't he?'

  'Yes, reverend. He was in at the time, knew where I was, and put two and two together. He told me he knew and that he would keep quiet.'

  'But the strain was too much for him, wasn't it?' said Littlejohn gently. 'He felt he'd break down under questioning. He was afraid of himself. After I questioned Susie in private, he thought she'd given vital information. So he bolted to where he'd once had peace with Fred. You guessed where he'd gone. You followed him.'

  'That's it. . . . I wanted to know what had become of him and why he'd gone. But I thought I'd be followed.'

  'So, you disguised yourself in sun-glasses and an old wig from the stage properties you'd kept. Then you burned the wig and coat you wore, and unluckily set the chimney on fire.'

  'Yes. . . . You seem to know it all . . . . I didn't kill Ferdy. I found him on the Calf near the old lighthouse. He'd been drinking. He was standing on the cliffs staring out to sea with a wild, queer look. When he saw me, he just said, "Go away. . . . I can't bear it any more," and he tried to run. He was never safe on his feet and he just crumpled up and fell. . . . He slid down the rocks and over the edge of the cliff. I could see him stretched out below, awful and still. I knew he was dead. I ran back to join the boat that was ready for leaving and I hurried back home. I was afraid of what they'd do to me if I was found out. I didn't kill Ferdy, but they'd have said I pushed him. I wouldn't have done that to him.'

  'And you made up your mind to try and get away with it, Mrs Trimble?'

  She looked at him with eyes which seemed dead.

  'While I thought Susie had taken Fred from me, I made up my mind to keep it dark. I thought Fred had deserved it. As for her . . .'

  'When you thought we might find out about you, you tried to engineer a theatrical scene and make it look as if Susie wanted to kill you, as well. It was your idea of revenge and it was a very poor one. She might very easily have been suspected of killing Uncle Fred. She was the only one, besides your late husband, who was thought to be indoors at the time Fred was stabbed. But we found anot
her witness who heard all that went on and her testimony put Susie in the clear and made it almost certain that you were the culprit.'

  'Who was that? Nessle?'

  'Miss Arrowbrook.'

  'I forgot her and her funny ways! First she's in, then she's out. You never know where she is two minutes together. So, she split on me, did she?'

  'No. I had to drag it from her.'

  'Well. . . so long as Susie and Fred weren't. . . Well, now I know Fred still loved me when he died and I don't need any revenge on Susie, it's easy to confess. I want to atone and take my punishment for what I did to Fred.'

  The idea of punishment hadn't struck her before and now she sat frozen.

  'They'll not. . . they'll not say it's murder and. . . and. . .'

  She was on her feet again, raving, her eyes popping.

  'Not that. . . . They'll not. . .'

  They didn't. She got a good lawyer, who emphasized the fight on the dark stairs, the domestic bliss of Sea Vista until Uncle Fred arrived, the seduction of the accused, with Mrs Trimble, now neat and trim, playing a part for the jury . . . . It was manslaughter; four years.

  Formalities, a caution, and the words preceding arrest, and then Mrs Trimble went quietly away with Knell and Charlie in a police-car.

  Littlejohn and the Archdeacon drank a cup of tea made by Mrs Nessle, who was still about. Miss A. arrived at five o'clock and after being informed that Mrs Trimble had gone, took a hold of matters, and started the little boarding factory of Sea Vista throbbing again, making out bills for the departing, cooking breakfasts for early arrivals, seeing that guests were knocked up and early tea served.

  As Littlejohn and the parson left, dawn had broken over the silent town. The tide was in and a chill early wind swept the long promenade. The early sun was shining on the eastern slopes of the little hills of Man behind Douglas. At the pier, the midnight boat from Liverpool was tied up and the first arrivals of the new week of holidays were crowding off. Buses and porters already afoot were picking them up. A taxi drew-up at Sea Vista and a little fat man in flannel trousers and blazer, and wearing a white soft hat, jumped out. He had the sodden look of one who'd been up all night on the boat and had amused himself all the way in the bar.