Death Sends for the Doctor (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  Friendly relations seemed to have been restored between Hope and his wife, too. They might have had a conference, agreed that unusual behaviour before the detectives would arouse suspicion, and arranged to smile at one another when anyone else was about. They smiled too much and overdid it a bit.

  “Hope and his missus seem pleased with themselves,” said Cromwell, pouring out coffee and milk from little earthenware jugs.

  “Too pleased, old man.”

  The funeral party hadn’t yet returned and were presumably lunching somewhere en route from the crematorium.

  “Until Pochin and Brodribb get back, we’ll spend the time with the other neighbours in the square,” said Littlejohn. “It looks as if the whole solution is hiding out in this neighbourhood. We’ll comb it thoroughly. You look as if you need a haircut, Cromwell. Go and consult the barber and see if you can get any gossip out of him. I’ll go and see Madame Alcardi.”

  “Going in for bel canto, sir?”

  “If necessary, yes. Everything seems quiet, both at the barber’s and the singer’s. This might be a good time.”

  Upper Square was silent and deserted as Littlejohn crossed it to Madame Alcardi’s. The children and workmen were having their mid-day break, the habituals from the seats in the memorial garden were away at lunch, the shops were closed. Only the bronze soldier remained there like a figure from the Sleeping Beauty, transfixed where he stood on his warlike way to Sheep Street. Even the birds were quiet.

  This was another large house, very much like those of Pochin and Beharrell, only with a different atmosphere. The ground floor was occupied by the modiste who made fashionable and expensive hats and showed them one by one in the window to the left of the door. The first floor was Madame Alcardi’s flat, and above that a ladies’ hairdresser had rooms, which, when illuminated and overlooked from neighbouring attics, showed rows of cubicles, with here and there a woman under a large hair-dryer looking like a fantastic helmet for a space-ship. Right at the top, two small, shabby rooms were frequented by a bookie and a fortune-teller.

  The moment you crossed the threshold of the building, you were enveloped in an exotic warmth, the indescribable atmosphere of scented artistry and women’s finery. It was difficult to sort out all the smells as they pervaded the landings and hallway and poured gently into the street through the open door. The heavy, insinuating scent of shampoo, the thick aromatic weight of brilliantine and hair oils, the lingering voluptuousness of perfumed ladies trying on hats, the gentle intermittent whiffs of gin from the brush cupboard under the stairs to which the charwoman frequently retired. When Littlejohn entered, the whole was swamped by an odour of well-made coffee.

  He climbed to the first floor and rang the bell. There was a scuffle within. A woman answered the door. She was small, plump, and vivacious, with dark sparkling eyes and jet black hair brushed back from a broad low forehead. She wore a full black skirt and a canary-coloured sleeveless blouse, cut generously low across her flowing bosom. Her arms were exceptionally white and shapely but disfigured by vaccination marks.

  “Madame Alcardi?”

  “Yes. You are the detective from London?”

  They all called him that now. The detective from London. As though from time to time, all the occupants of the square held a kind of general meeting and compared notes and talked about interesting visitors by special cognomens.

  “I thought you might be calling. You have been to most other houses in the square already.”

  “You seem to know all about my movements.”

  “Yes. I always have my pupils coming and going and I often have morning coffee with Elise, the hairdresser upstairs, and Madame Jocelin, who keeps the hat-shop below. They have many clients to bring them all the news.”

  Madame Alcardi was obviously part English, at least. She spoke with a faint Tyneside accent. Probably Madame Jocelin and Elise were the same, too, and Mademoiselle Le Mont, the palmist in the attic. A whole houseful of them, assuming foreign names because they thought it sounded more artistic. And the whole rarified atmosphere spoiled by the “commission agent” at the top, Bert Beezer!

  “Will you come in?”

  He crossed the threshold into the overpowering scent of the coffee. It was a living-room used also as a singing studio. A grand piano, a harp in one corner, a highly polished parquet floor with mats here and there, comfortable modern furniture, the walls papered in three different colours with reproductions of famous pictures hanging on them. Over an anthracite stove in blue and white Dutch tiles, a good oil portrait of Madame Alcardi herself as Carmen. Behind the room was apparently the scullery and across the landing presumably a bedroom. The whole place was cosy in an easy-going, slightly exotic style.

  A small table was laid near the window and Madame Alcardi was just finishing her meal. Traces of a meat pie and the remains of bread rolls and butter. A blue check tablecloth, a silver coffee-pot, and a cup and saucer in fine china.

  “You’ve had lunch, Superintendent?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Have some coffee, then …”

  She went in the scullery and returned with another cup and saucer and a strawberry flan. She poured out his coffee, cut the tart, and put a piece of it on a plate for Littlejohn without even asking if he wanted it.

  Beharrell had been very friendly with Madame Alcardi, they said. No wonder. The lonely doctor, with no friends, would find comfort and companionship with this pleasant homely woman who made no fuss at all. Even now, she was sitting opposite the Superintendent, munching tart and drinking, as though they’d been childhood friends. He liked her peculiar manner of speech, too. It was simple and charming, with an almost foreign idiom, captured, no doubt, from her happy days with Alcardi.

  “You are Italian, Madame Alcardi?”

  She laughed merrily.

  “My name was Nora Brown and I was born in Sunderland. I was a soprano in the New World Opera Company and I married a tenor called Alcardi. We were very happy, but my husband failed to become a naturalised Englishman. When war broke out, he was interned, and they had no more sense than to ship him and some of his fellow countrymen to Canada. Their ship was torpedoed and my husband was drowned.”

  She told it all in a matter-of-fact way and quite vivaciously, as though he might one day be coming back again. Or perhaps the pain of it all had disappeared and left memories to cheer her.

  “I won’t keep you long. I suppose you will have pupils coming soon.”

  “In half an hour. There’s no hurry.”

  Littlejohn wondered how deep her relationship with Beharrell had been. His funeral that day didn’t seem to have saddened her at all. Here she was, enjoying her little mid-day meal, eating a second helping of strawberry flan without any worry about its effect on her plumpness. You got the impression that it would need a lot to disturb the peace and quiet of this home and the woman who owned it and had evidently suffered much in her time. Anyhow, Beharrell had left her five thousand in his will. Littlejohn wondered how she’d feel when she heard the good news!

  “You were a friend of Dr. Beharrell, Madame Alcardi?”

  “Yes. I came here just after the war and I got a bad attack of laryngitis. I must have been singing too vigorously … Dr. Beharrell attended me. We became friends. He used to call here when he was lonely. Just as you are calling now … Only you are not lonely; just on business.”

  She had a charming, candid way of putting things. At the back of his mind, Littlejohn wondered why the fool Beharrell hadn’t married her and settled down again. He’d probably have avoided the present catastrophe.

  “He once asked me to marry him, but I told him we would never get on as man and wife. He hadn’t the least interest in music, which is my life, and I’ve even known him fall asleep when I’ve played the piano to him. I am a temperamental woman, Superintendent, and although my late husband and I quarrelled sometimes like cat and dog, we loved one another enough to forgive. Dr. Beharrell wanted me to give up my pupils and move int
o that dark old house. I would have been a bird in a cage there, wouldn’t I?”

  She asked the question as she might ask it of some old respected friend.

  “Yes. I think you would, Madame Alcardi.”

  “Please call me Mrs. Alcardi. You will then sound less like one of my students.”

  “Did the doctor take you into his confidence very much?”

  “In what way? He never talked about his patients, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No. I mean about his past life. His wife ran away from him with an Air Force officer, didn’t she? Did he ever mention it?”

  “Once only. He told me he’d been married before and his wife had left him. He was, I think, getting ready to ask me to take her place. He was a charming man in his own way, but I had already been told how he treated the first Mrs. Beharrell. She, too, was like a little bird in a cage. He was a jealous-natured man. I once mentioned another man friend of mine and he grew quite annoyed. He didn’t come for a long time after.”

  “When did he last call here?”

  “About a month ago.”

  “Was he in any way different from usual?”

  “No. He stayed an hour or so and we had coffee and brandy together. Then, as usual, he hurried away.”

  “You were neither of you in love with the other, then?”

  “No. And I was not his mistress.”

  She said it in a half comical tone.

  “I say that, Superintendent, just in case any of the gossips of the square tell you otherwise. This is a great place for gossip. Many of them have little else to do with their time.”

  “You say the doctor hurried away. To a patient? Or was he always in a hurry?”

  She paused thoughtfully and then poured out two more cups of coffee.

  “More tart, Superintendent?”

  “No, thanks.”

  She rose, carried off the lunch things and left only the cups and saucers.

  “Dr. Beharrell was always in a hurry. I think he would often have liked to stay longer here. He enjoyed it, I know. But he always wanted to get back home. I think he was afraid of something happening.”

  “Such as …?”

  She looked puzzled.

  “I don’t know. He would get fidgety … As though he expected someone to call.”

  “Or burgle his house if he weren’t there?”

  She opened her eyes wide.

  “Do you know, I’ve often thought the same thing. Purely instinct, and yet … Why do you say it?”

  “He’d had burglars a time or two and seemed to have a kind of phobia about it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “In other words, he had something in the house which was very precious to him and he didn’t want it to be stolen. So, he never went on holidays, never left home for even a day, and always showed an itch to get back whenever he was out …”

  “That’s exactly right, Superintendent. How did you find it out in so short a time?”

  “Was he ever away from home for long all the time you knew him, Mrs. Alcardi?”

  “No. I used to tell him a holiday would do him good, but he always said he’d rather work, and sleep in his own bed at nights.”

  Littlejohn rose and looked through the window. The old men were returning to their places in the gardens. People were walking around again, the shop below had opened, and footsteps on the stairs announced that the ladies’ hairdresser was receiving clients. Miss Horninglow was just leaving the vicarage and making for the direction of the town.

  “This is a very nice place, isn’t it, Mrs. Alcardi? Quiet and clean … You live here all the time?”

  “Yes. I have a bedroom just across the passage. I enjoy life.”

  “You can just see Dr. Beharrell’s house from here. Did you notice anything unusual about the place last Friday evening?”

  Her large dark eyes opened wide again.

  “You mean when the murder was committed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was out most of the evening. I’m very fond of the movies, and Elise—that’s the hairdresser who has the rooms above these—Elise and I went to the pictures in the town. Elise, by the way, is Mrs. Clara Bumphrey, but people seem to like French names for hairdressers, I don’t know why. She’ll confirm what I say.”

  “I take your word for it. What time did you get home?”

  “Just before eleven.”

  “Did you notice anything peculiar about the doctor’s house, Mrs. Alcardi?”

  She thought a little while.

  “There was a light on in the first floor room on the front. That was the doctor’s bedroom.”

  “And you went to bed at what time?”

  She looked puzzled. “Midnight or about that. Why, Superintendent? You surely don’t suspect me of doing anything to Doctor Beharrell?”

  “Certainly not. I’m just interested in all that went on at Bank House that night Beharrell met his death.”

  “I can see the same front room from my bedroom over the passage. It was still illuminated when I turned out my own light, because I pulled up my blind when I put the light out.”

  So, Canon Horninglow had been right!

  “Did you ever visit Bank House, Mrs. Alcardi?”

  “Only the front room on the ground floor, the large one the doctor used as a living-room. He asked me over to see his silver and Waterford glass. By the way, those would be a haul for a burglar. There were hundreds of pounds worth of priceless antiques of that kind.”

  Another pause. Outside they could hear panting and shuffling footsteps pass the door and mount the next flight. Mlle. Le Mont ascending to consult the oracle again.

  “I see Miss Horninglow, from the vicarage, is making her way to town. Do you know her?”

  “Not very well. She’s a customer of Elise, who’s told me about her. A very earnest and domineering kind of woman. That’s probably why she’s never married. She’s good-looking enough in a way, but men don’t like the bossy kind, do they? They’d rather be petted and coaxed.”

  She gave Littlejohn a coy smile and he thought how much Beharrell must have liked this cosy room with its lively cheerful mistress.

  “I believe she once half set her cap at Dr. Beharrell.”

  “Indeed! Tell me about that, please.”

  She tried to brush it away.

  “It isn’t fair to laugh at her. They do say she’s very decent, really, and it’s her father who’s prevented her from marrying. Her brother was killed in the war and her mother died of a broken heart after it. She had to come home and look after the canon, who’s a fussy and troublesome old man, by all accounts. It was bound to make her bitter, because she’s the kind who ought to have a husband and children to look after.”

  “Who told you about her liking for Beharrell?”

  “Certainly not the doctor! It was just silly gossip again. As I’ve already said, the tenants here get a lot of local scandal from their clients, who have little else to do than tear up other folks’ characters. Somebody told Madame Jocelin—Flora Jones is her real name—that Lydia Horninglow was very interested in Dr. Beharrell. She’d been to see him professionally about something, and Mrs. Trott, his housekeeper, had told somebody, who in turn retailed it all to Madame Jocelin, that Lydia had been asking her, Mrs. Trott, all kinds of things about the doctor whilst she was waiting for a consultation. She tried to pump her about his wife who ran away and her lover who ran away with her. She asked about the doctor’s habits, and even where his bedroom was and what kind of a house, and how he treated his wife when she was here. All kinds of things. Mrs. Trott shut up like an oyster, because she’s a possessive type of housekeeper, who always let it be known that if another Mrs. Beharrell entered Bank House, Mrs. Trott would pack her bags and go.”

  “And all this was retailed about the town by the furious Mrs. Trott?”

  “Hardly that. She was so wild at the time that she had to let off steam to somebody, who in turn brought the whole tale to the hat shop. It’s
the kind of thing idle women revel in. Tearing other women’s reputations to pieces. And Miss Horninglow isn’t very popular in certain quarters. She’s regarded as a snob, you know. Mrs. Trott was all the more incensed, because Miss Horninglow is the vicar’s daughter and Mrs. Trott herself is a spiritualist with no time for the established church.”

  The little carriage-clock on the mantelpiece was on half past two and there was a knock on the door. Mrs. Alcardi answered it and Littlejohn could hear her telling a pupil to wait a minute in the bedroom over the landing.

  “I must be getting along, Mrs. Alcardi. I’ve wasted enough of your precious time. But may I ask, before I go, whether or not the hat-shop information bureau has ever heard of Miss Horninglow having a … shall we call him a boy friend, at any time?”

  She did not laugh at the idea, but just shook her head gravely.

  “I never heard of it. They’d have been sure to tell me if such a glorious piece of information came to hand. She was away part of the war, you know. In the W.R.A.F. What happened then is anyone’s guess. News wouldn’t reach here.”

  “Where was she stationed? Do you know?”

  “I wasn’t here at the time, but funnily enough, I do. I have a pupil, the daughter of the vicar of St. Andrew’s, a smaller church than St. Hilary’s, at Cold Staunton, nearly four miles from here. She was a child at the time, but remembers Miss Horninglow calling at the vicarage in uniform. Her father was vicar of a church two miles from Mareham-le-Fen at that time. Miss Horninglow was stationed at Mareham. My pupil’s father, Mr. Lightfoot, was a former curate of Canon Horninglow.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Alcardi. You have been most kindly and helpful. I’m grateful for your hospitality, too.”

  “It’s been a pleasure, Superintendent.”

  She still hesitated, tapping her full red lips with her forefinger, as though making up her mind about something.

  “I think I ought to tell you something, although it’s more hat-shop gossip. One ought not to speak ill of the dead … But Dr. Beharrell did have a mistress. One wouldn’t really blame him, a lonely, almost stricken man, but he shouldn’t have chosen a married woman for it. Rumour had it that Mrs. Hope, of the Red Lion, was too friendly with him. In fact, she’s been seen leaving Bank House secretly after dark … Now that’s a really scandalous tale, Superintendent. But you’ve a right to know.”