“When did this sudden change occur?”
“We had a burglary in 1948, and after that the doctor seemed scared.”
“Did the burglars take anything?”
“No. That’s the funny part about it all. Not a thing. And what if they had done? The stuff is insured. You’d have thought the doctor couldn’t afford to replace anythin’ that was stolen. Instead, he preferred to stay indoors. Perhaps it did do some good, after all. We’d two more attempts to burgle the place after that, but the doctor was in and disturbed whoever it was … Mr. Gralam used to say the doctor was a proper burglar-alarm.”
Littlejohn slowly filled his pipe and lit it.
“Tell me some more about these attempts to get in the place. What happened?”
“The first was, as I said, in 1948. Somebody got in through the basement. The doctor himself was out, but he had an assistant, Dr. Pine, livin’ in. Deputy for Dr. Macfarlane, he was, while he was on holiday. I was out, as well. Dr. Pine heard somethin’ fall in the cellar and shouted down, askin’ if it was me. Whoever was there took to his heels. But we found a broken window after.”
“The police were told, of course?”
“No, sir.”
“Why?”
“The doctor got quite annoyed when we talked of sendin’ for the police. He said he didn’t want the peace of the place disturbed by bobbies trampin’ all over …”
She sighed.
“I wonder what he’d say if he saw it now.”
“And the other two attempts?”
“Just the same, sir. One in 1950 … I remember it … In November. My sister had died and I’d just got back. Dr. Beharrell was out again. Somebody got in his bedroom, this time, and as he returned, he could see a dim light behind the blind. He went up and whoever it was ran along the landing and out at the little window and off at the back.”
“Anything missing that time?”
“No, sir. He must just have got in when the doctor returned. He must have left a way of retreat. I was in my room and I was proper scared. I asked him to tell the police … In fact, I said I’d leave unless somethin’ was done.”
“And was it?”
“No, sir. The doctor stayed in more. In fact, unless his assistant was on holidays, he stopped takin’ night calls at all. Said he wasn’t up to it; he was getting older.”
“He was only sixty when he died, they tell me.”
“That’s right. He’d got eccentric …”
“Did he get peculiar in any other way?”
“Not that I’d know. He seemed to get older and more nervy. He never seemed to get over the first robbery.”
Littlejohn stood looking through the window into the square which had become the stage of the case on which he was now employed. The little garden surrounding the war memorial was full of old men again, smoking, chatting and enjoying the sunshine. A maid passed pushing a perambulator. A man with a dog … The vicar again, going home this time. A haunted looking man, the vicar, carrying some burden about with him; lack of money, family troubles, or a professional secret locked in his mind.
“And the third robbery?”
“A month ago. We were all in bed. It was two o’clock. This time, there was an awful crash. It woke us all. The doctor was comin’ up from the cellar when Dr. Macfarlane and me got up. Someone had tried to get in the basement again. The doctor had his revolver.”
“What did he say?”
“He said it was the cat had upset a pile of old tins down there. I didn’t believe him. The lock had been tampered with. I looked at it next day when the doctor was out. It’s my opinion that somebody broke in down there again and the doctor didn’t want me to know because I’d have left, and no arguin’, if he hadn’t told the police. As it was, he’d got up before us next mornin’ and put the door right. He was quite a hand with woodwork tools. But I could see somethin’ had been done at the lock. I know it had been forced and the doctor had disturbed the burglar once again.”
“Were there any other robberies in the neighbourhood?”
“Not that I knew. There’s nothing else to rob. Mr. Gralam at the antique shop has all his valuables in a modern safe. Then there’s the barber’s, the rooms let to lawyers and doctors, the hat shop … and the rest. They’re not worth burgling. As much as the bargain if they have enough to pay the rent, some of them!”
“Have you any views on all these attempts?”
“Yes, I have. The doctor has a lot of valuable silver in these cases and cupboards. It’s well known he has them. And who’s to stop some of the local riff-raff having a try to get them.”
She flung open one of the Chippendale cupboards and revealed a solid silver tea-set, coffee service, sugar basins, silver dishes and spoons.
“I said he ought to put them in the bank or tell the police. He never used them, but I had ’em to clean. It was silly of him.”
All around them, the house was absolutely silent. Even their voices had a muffled sound.
“Tell me something about Dr. Beharrell. What did he look like?”
They had seen the body at the town morgue, but it gave no idea of the man who had died. The closed eyes, the bloodless features, the smashed head now bound up, they gave away nothing of Beharrell in life.
“He was a small man, sir.”
Funny. Littlejohn had imagined the doctor to be tall and thin. But then he’d only seen the face and the bulge beneath the sheet which covered the body.
“Come in the next room … It’s Dr. Macfarlane’s sitting-room. He won’t mind.”
A small morning-room overlooking the back of the house. The old banking hall which Beharrell had used as his quarters, had filled most of the ground floor, and the banker’s family must have used the first floor for entertaining, unless, of course, they converted the banking chamber for their social functions after business hours. The little den at the back had been a retiring-room, perhaps for private customers.
A cosy room which looked to be happily lived in. Books on the walls, mainly medical, an old comfortable armchair, a table, photographs of university groups, a bag of golf clubs … The study of a young man, an extrovert, exactly the opposite from Dr. Beharrell.
Over the fireplace, presumably thrust there because Beharrell didn’t want it in his own room, was an oil portrait of the dead man himself. Head and shoulders, with thin, regular features, a long aquiline nose, a large, thin-lipped mouth, and eyes of a striking cornflower blue which seemed to follow you wherever you went. The white hair was worn rather long and brushed straight back in some disorder. A fastidious, thoughtful face, with a trace of hardness about it.
“He was a thin man and only stood about five feet eight. But his smallness didn’t stop him bein’ determined. Once he made up his mind, there was no movin’ him. All the same, I’m sorry he’s dead. It was a dreadful thing to do to him, who never did anybody any harm. On the contrary, he was a kind man considerin’ how his wife treated him.”
“What happened?”
“She ran away with an R.A.F. officer who used to come here. The doctor entertained a lot of them. There wasn’t much to do in Caldicott, so he gave them open house. That was his reward for it. They went off and was never seen again.”
“It made him a bitter recluse?”
“Not bitter. And he wasn’t a recluse, as you call him, until a year or two after she left him.”
“What could have happened to make him shut himself in his shell that way?”
“I don’t know. You can say it was the burglars … But I think bein’ on his own and broodin’ and not knowin’ what had become of his wife, made him odd. They do say he was terribly fond of her. She was a lot younger than him. He might have known somethin’ of the kind would happen.”
“Why? Had she a reputation for being flighty?”
“Oh, no. Don’t run away with that idea. It was a shock to everybody. They say she seemed very fond of the doctor, too. But twenty years between them. It’s not nacherall …”
&n
bsp; Cromwell, silent, taking it all in, was looking through the window, which gave a view of a well-kept formal garden, with a lawn, a few apples trees, a flower-bed or two, a summer-house, and a lot of terra-cotta ornaments and pots sprouting geraniums and nasturtiums. In the middle of the lawn stood a fine wrought-iron wellhead.
“Is that a well, Mrs. Trott? It looks very pretty.”
She joined Cromwell at the window.
“Yes. It takes a man all his time keepin’ that place straight, but it’s worth it. In full summer, with it all in bloom, it’s a picture.”
A walled garden, with, just visible over the wall at the end, the vast stretch of flat fen country also to be seen from the Red Lion through the gap in the buildings.
“Is there water in the well?”
“Yes. There was nearly a lawsuit about it some years ago. In 1947 … The corporation and Dr. Beharrell had a terrible row about it. He had to give in, though. His lawyers said he wouldn’t stand a chance in court.”
“Why?”
“Well, you see, there’d been a big building estate put up just outside the town. A new factory and the new R.A.F. station and what-not. What they didn’t seem to think of when they built it was that the water supply here was only just enough to keep us all goin’ … Then came the drought in 1947. We’d only a fortnight’s supply left …”
“So they wanted to get it from the well, and the doctor objected?”
“That’s about it. But it wasn’t so easy. You see, in the old days the well supplied this house and the one next door, which also belongs to the doctor. The surgery and waitin’ rooms are there. It’s the oldest well for miles, and the best. It never dried up, however bad the drought. Then, when the pipe water came to Caldicott, it was no more use. The doctor had it filled in; he said it was deep and dangerous.”
“When was this?”
“When he had the garden laid out in 1942 … It was a wilderness before, but the doctor had it turned over to grow vegetables and the like on account of the grow-your-own food drive. A few flower-beds, and the rest cabbages and such. After the war, he had a lawn and flowers instead.”
“You’d have thought the well would have been useful for watering the vegetables.”
“You would, wouldn’t you? But the doctor said what with the gardener and other people potterin’ about there, it wasn’t safe. You see, there was only a little rim round it then and a big wooden lid … He got that fancy iron arrangement and had it put over, but he had the well filled in with stones and then concreted over the top.”
“And what about the corporation?”
“In the drought things was well-nigh panic here. Then somebody remembered this well and the corporation sent some sort of official notice about tapping the spring and piping it off to a stand-pipe in the square. The doctor nearly went mad at the idea of disturbin’ the garden again. It went on for weeks and meantime it started to rain and never stopped till they was prayin’ the Lord to hold back the deluge where once they’d been prayin’ for water.”
“So, the well was left?”
“Oh, no. If you care to go and see, it’s full of water again. The doctor gave way and the corporation opened it up. The doctor supervised it all. Said he wasn’t havin’ his garden ruined. It was rainin’ like mad all the time they were diggin’ it out. But they kept on, because they said it might stop at any time and the reservoirs weren’t half full enough for what they wanted. They’ve made a new reservoir and put up the rates since. So now the well’s just doin’ nothin’ …”
“Much ado …”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Just thinking aloud …”
“Would you like to see the rest of the house?”
They went upstairs, the high broad hall echoing to their footsteps, and looked at the other rooms. The police had been busy all over the place and Littlejohn had seen some of the photographs. The dead man’s room, with the secret door still open. The plain wooden secret back stairs which the banker had long ago used to descend to his strong-room without anybody knowing … Littlejohn and Cromwell went down into the cellars, saw the open iron door, the bare strong-room with walls of blue hard brick, the iron chest in which had been found the notes of a bank which had failed more than a century ago. The entrance had been effected by someone, as described at the inquest. The police had searched for fingerprints and found none.
The cellars were large, but lighted by electricity. They were quite empty. Not even a bottle of wine or a heap of coal.
“Where do you keep the coal and wines, Mrs. Trott?”
She seemed surprised.
“There’s a coal-shed in the yard. The doctor said it was dangerous coming down for coal. The main steps are steep, too. The wine is in the cellar next door, such as there is. It’s a proper wine cellar with racks. Better than this …”
“From outside, there seems to be a servants’ basement, Mrs. Trott.”
“Yes … This part is at the back of the house. The private stairs come down two storeys from the doctor’s bedroom. I always thought the door at the top had been bricked up. It’s quite dark up there, you see, and I never went up. They’re too steep for me and I never had any head for heights. I thought the wardrobe on the other side was built in when they blocked up the door …”
Another door in the far corner led to a small passage at the end of which was an exit to the area which Littlejohn had seen in the square. To the right, another door led into a large room evidently the servants’ quarters in the old days, with a small butler’s pantry leading off it. Mrs. Trott indicated the area door.
“That’s where the burglars tried to get in twice. Once in, they could climb those stairs.”
She indicated another staircase, this time a strong one of stone.
“It leads up behind the hall to a door in my room, which is the one opposite Dr. Macfarlane’s under the stairs. The kitchens are on that side, too.”
“And Doctor Macfarlane’s bedroom is on the same floor as the one Dr. Beharrell used?”
“Yes. Mine, too. We don’t use the old servants’ bedrooms now. They’re full of all sorts of old junk. Come up and see, if you like.”
They climbed back into the doctor’s bedroom and visited the others. It wasn’t much use, but it gave an idea of the way Beharrell and his household had lived.
The attics were vast and had great roof-beams and skylights, through which the sun shone in bright rectangles and diffused light over the plain deal floors. They were full of all kinds of relics, which Beharrell must have found it hard to part with. Boxes, trunks, cases, bundles tied in paper and old sheets. Sporting guns, cavalry swords, old furniture. And in one corner the remnants of a nursery; rocking-horse, a child’s chair, beads on a frame like an abacus …
“But I thought there were no children, Mrs. Trott?”
“There weren’t. This used to be Dr. Beharrell’s old nursery. He must have saved those for his own children. Instead of which …”
She shrugged her shoulders.
A dead doctor, a dead house, a dead past …
Littlejohn felt a great wish to be in the sunshine with people living and moving around him.
They went down the long stairs again and into the fresh air.
5
FRENCH PORCELAIN
Back at four o’clock.
The postcard bearing the notice was stuck on the glass panel of the shop door by a gelatine lozenge.
Cromwell and Littlejohn had turned left from Dr. Beharrell’s in the hope of seeing the owner of the adjacent premises, Mr. Swithin Gralam, who kept the antique shop.
“He’ll be across at the Guildhall,” said a passer-by, a small, inquisitive man with a squint. “There’s a meetin’ of the town council.”
“Thank you.”
The little man looked ready to open a conversation, but changed his mind and crossed to join his cronies on the seat near the war memorial. The main topic in this forum was obviously the case of Dr. Beharrell. You couldn’t miss k
nowing it by the way the eyes of all the members followed Littlejohn round.
The square was more animated. Genteel old ladies in clothes slightly out of fashion were taking their afternoon strolls, a number of women had arrived and parked perambulators by the seats under the trees and were gossiping and knitting. Children were playing in the little garden round the bronze soldier, chasing one another up and down the gravel paths. On the metal scaffolding which surrounded the clock tower of St. Hilary’s Church, two men were fitting in a segment of the dial to the discomfiture of the nesting jackdaws.
The church clock chimed and struck four. A few minutes later, the one over the Guildhall did the same. Littlejohn looked at his watch. Ten past … A group of men emerged from the Guildhall just as Littlejohn and Cromwell reached the door of the Red Lion. The little cross-eyed man from his pitch in the gardens, whistled to Littlejohn and pointed to the knot of councillors, apparently to indicate that the civic gathering had finished.
The central figure of the party at the Guildhall looked up sharply, saw Littlejohn, excused himself to his companions, and hurried to join the Superintendent. He stretched out a plump hand.
“Superintendent Littlejohn? My name’s Henry Percival. I’m Mayor of Caldicott. Welcome to our town, sir, and thank you for coming to assist the police on what must be a difficult case, I’m sure. If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.”
An obvious gasbag. And so tall and fat, that he looked quite unable to see his own feet and the ground they walked on. A smooth, round, self-indulgent face, and a silky voice with which he talked himself out of all his difficulties.
“Thank you, sir. It’s very kind of you. Does Mr. Gralam happen to be in the group at the Guildhall door?”
“Yes. That’s the one with the white hair and no hat. The rest are the Borough Surveyor, the Town Clerk, the Borough Treasurer. Like to meet them, Superintendent?”
Cromwell was smiling softly to himself at the thought of Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, and the Mayor, catching his eye, coughed, reddened, and after that held a dislike for Cromwell, whom he described as “that cheeky feller from London.”
Death Sends for the Doctor (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Page 5