“As far as I’m concerned, Littlejohn, the case is all yours. If you need any help, just ask for it. But I don’t believe in cluttering up the wicket. You can’t see wood for trees with men crawling all over the place. Plumtree will help, of course. He knows Caldicott like the palm of his hand. How and why Beharrell was murdered, just beats me. We haven’t a clue so far. I freely admit it. You perhaps think we’re playing at investigating this case. But remember we haven’t the experience and organisation of Scotland Yard. The local police are more used to crime disposed of at the petty sessions than murder. Whoever murdered Beharrell might have waited a bit longer. I’m due to retire in six months!”
Which was only to be expected. With the exception of Plumtree’s notes after his enquiries, and the three warning messages, there seemed to be no tangible means of starting the case. One thing, however, was cleared up. The two envelopes sent to the Dofford and Caldicott police were clearly post-marked and had been posted at the main office in Caldicott in time for the last clearance at nine o’clock on the night of Beharrell’s murder.
Outside, the square was beginning to liven up. Whitey, the blackbird, was singing in the tree opposite the police station. The seats in the little enclosure round the bronze soldier were all full of old men, eager for news. Word had gone round that Scotland Yard officers were at work on the case of Dr. Beharrell. Eyes were all glued on the police-station and tongues were wagging. A lot of theories were bandied about. A coal-cart drew up and began to discharge bags in the basement of Dr. Beharrell’s house, and the tactlessness of the delivery, at the very time of his inquest, tickled the spectators round the war memorial, who shouted jests and insults at the coalman. He bared the white teeth in his black face and said he couldn’t care less.
Mr. Nutt, père, passed, dressed in his black funeral suit and tie and wearing a bowler hat. The Coroner had originally called on the sons and nephew to give evidence as well, but Mr. Nutt, senior, after threatening to write to his M.P., had been given permission to represent the rest. The Coroner himself then emerged from the offices next door to the barber’s shop, and bearing the plate POCHIN, SHILLINGLAW AND POCHIN. A tall, thin, irascible-looking man with white hair and a limp from a first-war wound.
“That’s Shillinglaw, the Coroner,” said Major Jessop. “It’s time we went to the inquest. Perhaps you’d care to come, Littlejohn. It’ll give you an idea of what the dead doctor was like.”
“Is he a lawyer?”
“Yes. Pochin, Shillinglaw and Pochin, just over the way.”
“Pochin? We met one of the partners in the train last night. Vincent Pochin …?”
“That’s right. A good sort, but not much of a lawyer. He’d rather play the country gentleman. Sam Pochin and Shillinglaw keep the firm alive. Best lawyers in town. Shillinglaw married a Miss Pochin. He’s brother-in-law to his two partners. Well … Shall we go?”
Sitting in the sunshine in the little flower-garden, the pensioners were having a red-letter day. Coroner, witnesses, and now the police in procession with the two London chaps. Some of them stood up to get a better view and then, at the suggestion of one of their party, they all rose and hobbled over to the Guildhall to attend the inquest in person.
“That’s the vicar,” whispered Plumtree to Littlejohn as they neared the Guildhall. A tall fat man, wearing an overcoat in spite of the nice morning, and a black felt hat, was closing the vicarage gate. He paused to look up at the scaffolded tower, and slowly made his way past Beharrell’s house without so much as a glance at it, or at anything else in the square, for that matter. A pink, heavy face, white hair showing under his hat, and a troubled, abstracted look, like someone in a dream.
“Rev. Horninglow … Canon Horninglow, to be h’exact. A terribly absent-minded man. A widower. Needs another wife …”
With these words of wisdom, Plumtree ushered them into the Guildhall, the clock of which then struck half past ten. The Coroner enjoyed the hospitality of the petty sessions court, which, when the police entered, was jammed to the doors. A smallish room, furnished in heavy pitch-pine and smelling of floor polish and human bodies. The pensioners from the public gardens were now crushed in the small gallery which hung over the back of the court.
The Coroner entered and the audience rose, except the occupants of the gallery, who were packed so tight they couldn’t get on their feet in time. Having settled himself and seen that his clerk and a policeman were near at hand, Mr. Shillinglaw ordered all the windows to be opened and the lights extinguished.
“It’s a waste of public money on a sunny morning.”
The sun shone through the large stained-glass windows, which depicted scenes from the past greatness of Abbot’s Caldicott, and suffused the faces of the congregation in blues, yellows, reds and golds.
Mr. Shillinglaw sat with a jury, dressed in their best and looking very self-conscious. One of their number was a member of the club which regularly held its meetings sitting round the bronze soldier, and his friends in the gallery gave a gratified grunt when he put in an appearance. The jury had inspected the body. The dead man had no surviving blood relatives, so Mrs. Trott and Dr. Macfarlane gave evidence of identification.
The police surgeon stated that death had been caused by a fracture of the skull and lacerations of the brain inflicted by a heavy blunt instrument.
“Has this instrument been found?”
“There was a heavy crowbar in the cellar, which might have been used.”
“The police found it. There were, I believe, no fingerprints on it.”
“A poker, or a piece of lead-piping, too, could have caused such injuries. They could not have been self-inflicted. The crowbar did strike me as being too cumbersome altogether.”
“And the time of death?”
“Friday, the 18th instant. Some time in the late afternoon, as deduced by the police, would coincide with the state of the body.”
“Which was found yesterday noon. How can you be so precise, doctor, as to the time on Friday the 18th?”
“Mrs. Trott, I believe, has stated she left the dead man’s tea ready when she went out, in case he returned. A cold, light meal, which he usually ate at five thirty, dining later at eight. A very methodical man. The stomach was quite empty when I examined the body. I assumed the mid-day meal had been completely digested. He was stated to have left Peterborough at about three o’clock and, normally, would have eaten his afternoon tea at five-thirty. He probably died between four and five-thirty.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
Mrs. Trott, Mr. Jeremiah Nutt, and Sergeant Plumtree then spoke of discovering the body of Dr. Beharrell, and departed. Mrs. Trott had made it quite plain that, until she tried to move the built-in wardrobe, in the hope that the newer large one could take its place, she had been unaware that the secret door behind it would open. She had seen the secret staircase which led from the cellar, often enough, but the top of the stairs was in the dark and she always thought the door there had been bricked up long ago.
Mr. Shillinglaw, handling the case with exemplary skill and patience, had dealt with identity, cause and time of death, and, at the request of the police, had gently skated over the matter of the three warning notes. Now, he set about motive, within the jurisdiction of his court.
Mr. Elijah Twigg was called. He was a locksmith and those who knew his skill were glad he was on the side of law and order. He was a stocky little man, dark and hairy, and he wore powerful spectacles which made his eyes look like small shoe-buttons at the bottom of a pool.
“You inspected the strong-room in the cellar of Dr. Beharrell’s house, Mr. Twigg?”
“Yes, sir. You’d ’ardly call it a strong-room. More like a sardine-tin, by all modern standards.”
The pensioners in the gallery thought that was a good one, and made so much noise in laughter and applause, that the Coroner warned them that one more chirp from their direction and they’d find themselves sitting once again around the bronze soldier.
“You
examined the strong-room? We’ll continue to call it that for convenience.”
“Yes, sir. It had been forced open.”
“The lock had not been tampered with?”
“No, sir. It was intact. The whole door had been forced open by somebody usin’ a large crowbar, I should say. It was easy, sir. The door was a couple of hundred years old, maybe. A thick sheet of wrought-iron on very good hinges. The doorway was of good blue brick and the door was set in it. Whoever broke in, chopped out the bricks just near the lock, used the crowbar as a lever against the door, and by throwin’ his weight on the lock, snapped off the tongue, and he could then open the door. As I said, it might have been safe enough in the days when it was built, but now … It would be chicken feed to a proper cracksman.”
“You think, then, the motive was burglary?”
“I can’t understand it at all, sir. I could ’ave picked the lock in two shakes, and I’m only an ironmonger, not a professional.”
There was another shout of mirth from the gallery, but Mr. Shillinglaw chose, this time, to ignore it.
“If a burglar knew there was a safe in Dr. Beharrell’s cellar, he’d go prepared, sir. And by that I mean with tools for opening the lock, not pullin’ down the whole bloomin’ strong-room … beg pardon, sir. Tools, sir, not a crowbar …”
“So, the intruder was an amateur?”
Mr. Twigg seemed to be looking for a place in which to spit out his contempt.
“Not even an amachewer.”
He scratched his bald head.
“I don’t know who it ’ud be. It’s got me beat. Not only did he use a crowbar, but once inside the strong-room, he packed up. There was a sort of coffer there which you’d say was where the real valuables was kept. What does he do, sir? He ignores it, although with the same crowbar, he could have got in it like openin’ a tin of salmon.”
“That’s right. He didn’t open it, because he was perhaps disturbed by Dr. Beharrell, whom he killed, and that forced him to flee and leave the job undone. I understand that the coffer has since been opened. Is that right, Sergeant Plumtree?”
“Yes, sir. With Dr. Beharrell’s key. It contained … well it was chock-full of banknotes, only they was the notes of a bank in Caldicott that went bust … I mean bankrupt, over a hundred years ago. They wasn’t worth the paper they was written on, sir.”
“Thank you, sergeant.”
It might have been quite an easy verdict. Someone had heard of the old strong-room in Dr. Beharrell’s cellar and tried, with primitive tools, to get inside it. The doctor had returned unexpectedly, surprised the intruder, and had been murdered by a blow on the head, perhaps with the very crowbar used to force open the door. And then the murderer had fled. Just plain, sordid robbery by a burgler who didn’t know his job properly.
Only the jury and the audience didn’t know about the warning notes, which, after all, might have been written by a witness to the crime, or even by a penitent lunatic who had done the murder himself and was seeking an outlet for his emotions.
The inquest was adjourned for further enquiries and all that came out of it was permission for the decent burial of Dr. Beharrell.
1 Corpses in Enderby by George Bellairs (John Gifford, 10s. 6d.)
4
THE OLD BANK HOUSE
THEY had lunched at the Red Lion with the Chief Constable, who had never ceased over the meal from discussing the case. As they ate, they could see the experts from the C.I.D. at Dofford going over Dr. Beharrell’s house again for more photographs and fingerprints. The first lot had revealed nothing at all, and the Chief Constable had sent them back again for a closer inspection. Finally, Littlejohn and Cromwell were left to themselves with a parting injunction from the Chief to make good use of Plumtree.
The pair from Scotland Yard stood at the door of the hotel looking round the square. It was a bit dilapidated now, but in its heyday, it must have been a pleasant spot. The houses facing the Guildhall had all neat little wrought-iron balconies outside their first-floor windows and you could imagine the ladies of fashion of long ago sitting there watching the civic functions and parades going on over the way. The long stretch of pavement in front of the church of St. Hilary was known as the Parade. In days of past prosperity and strict social distinction, the carriages of the patricians of Caldicott must have drawn up there after service, whilst their owners displayed their Sunday bonnets and other finery to the world around.
Littlejohn was caught up by the atmosphere of the whole place. This had evidently been a little metropolis for the villages from miles around. The local bigwigs had lived here and done their civic business. The bank, the mayor’s house, the posting inn, the doctor. History was written on the very walls of the houses, some of which still bore the corroded remnants of extinguishers for the linkmen’s torches, and their extensive basements told of cheap and adequate staffing. Here and there, an old iron ring hanging from a wall indicated where travellers had tied up their horses. The town council still had the good sense to forbid alterations to the frontages of properties in the square without permission, and the parking of cars there was forbidden.
Littlejohn was sure his work lay in this old square, among the inhabitants, the neighbours of the late Dr. Beharrell, until he knew them all like old friends and as though he’d lived there all his life. By the time his task was finished, they would probably have few secrets from him.
“Let’s go across and take a look at Dr. Beharrell’s house.”
It was two-thirty according to Littlejohn’s watch, and there were no surgery hours at Bank House, the doctor’s place, in the afternoons. As they had lunched, they’d seen Dr. Macfarlane bring his car from the park behind the church and drive off, presumably going on a round of visits.
Mrs. Trott answered the bell. Her face was set as she opened the door, but softened as she found she hadn’t would-be patients to deal with. At closer range and now that her ordeal of the last few days was almost over, she was less forbidding. She was tall and scraggy, admitted, but her face in repose was kindly and resigned and she seemed anxious to help if she could.
“Could we look over the house, Mrs. Trott?”
“Yes. Now that all those men from the police have gone, dustin’ their powder over everythin’ and frightening the life out of you with their explodin’ cameras, the place is more like its old self again. Did you want to see anythin’ particular, sir?”
“No. Just to browse over the rooms and get an idea of what the doctor’s life was like.”
The woman sniffed.
“He was a good master. Never a better. But there was nothin’ much about his life that wasn’t ’umdrum, I can tell you. Regular as clockwork always. Up at seven. Breakfast at eight. A faddy man. If you spilled coffee in his saucer, he took on like anything. Very clean and tidy in his ways. And very fond of his home, in spite of bein’ alone. Always in a hurry to get back to it, and never went on holiday as far as I remember for ten years or more.”
She paused.
“But I was forgettin’. This way, sirs.”
A well-kept, scrupulously clean house, with a lot of dusting and polishing expended on it and its contents.
A large hall and broad staircase gently curving up to the first floor. A graceful mahogany handrail topping fine wrought-iron bars. A grandfather clock steadily ticking, some brasses, a hall-stand, and beside it an old engraving of the interior of an office.
“That’s the old bank that used to be here, sir. Pochin’s Bank. That’s a picture of what the dining-room used to look like …”
Quite unlike a modern bank. A large, comfortably furnished room, with contemporary figures perambulating and chatting together in the foreground. Behind them, two large desks at which clerks were sitting, one with a ledger, the other with cash and notes which he was handing to a dandy lolling in a chair nearby. A man in sober black with white linen and a wig, presumably the banker himself, amiably talking to another foppish man in a wig and holding two dogs on a lead.
/> “This is the room. Dr. Beharrell lived here all the time, dined, and did his work here, as well.”
A vast room, changed, but still recognisable from the picture. It occupied the whole front of the house and there was a large open hearth with an unlit fire of logs in it. It was entered by descending a step and this gave the ornamental ceiling a lofty look and added dignity to the whole place. The tall white walls were covered on three sides in books. Mats on the parquet floor, and antique furniture, some of which must almost have been priceless.
“Most of the furniture was in the house when the doctor’s grandfather bought it. I did hear it said that it went for a song in those days, but some of the offers Dr. Beharrell’s had for it of late years … well … it’s worth a fortune. Mr. Gralam, the antique dealer, two doors away, said it made his mouth water.”
Chippendale and Sheraton cabinets and dining-furniture, bookcases and cupboards. Pieces of Dresden, Bow and Chelsea china scattered about. Two antique wing armchairs before the fire. Littlejohn could imagine Beharrell, after his evening meal at the pedestal dining-table, adjourning to one of the chairs with a book, until a call from some patient or other disturbed his peace.
“The doctor was a recluse?”
“Yes. He never went far from home.”
“Why?”
The old woman looked nettled, not at the question, but at the lack of a satisfactory answer.
“I really could never find out. I’ve been with him since 1941, after his wife left. He used to go out then. He even went on a holiday every year. I believe when his wife was here they did a lot of playin’ bridge and visitin’ friends. Then, all of a sudden, the doctor lost all interest. If he had to go out, he seemed to want to get back as soon as he could. He stayed in every night readin’ till past midnight. Sometimes, I’d hear him up in the night, too, walkin’ about as though he couldn’t sleep.”
Death Sends for the Doctor (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Page 4