Death Sends for the Doctor (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  “Thank you. I’ll keep it to myself, but it may be useful later. What of her husband?”

  “He used to be the doctor’s chauffeur and thought a lot of his old master. I heard he met Mrs. Hope in France when he and the doctor were staying somewhere on the Riviera. Madame Jocelin said one of her customers described George Hope as a cocu complaisant, an affable fool, but I believe he has beaten his wife a time or two. She has her hair done at Elise’s and Elise has seen the bruises on her arms.”

  “And was this going on until the doctor’s death?”

  “As far as I know, yes. It’s only a few weeks since Elise mentioned the bruises to me and Mrs. Hope was trying to hide them and said she’d fallen in one of the bedrooms.”

  They shook hands.

  “Thank you again, Mrs. Alcardi. You’ve been a great help …”

  She saw him to the door and he made his way downstairs. A blast of aromatic shampoo accompanied him to the main door. Through the glass panel of the hat-shop he could see Madame Jocelin busy trying on model hats for expensive clients. A Rolls-Royce was drawn-up at the door with a patient husband sitting inside it. In the shop the information bureau was hard at it.

  10

  THE BARBER

  MR. ERIC GIBBET carried on his coiffures modernes in a large house, very like the rest in the square from the outside, but very different inside. This house had a tired, faded look; its occupants packed up and went home every evening and left it deserted. The walls of the hall and staircase were decorated in dirty brown paint, the stairs were covered in old linoleum with metal treads to protect the wood, and an indescribable smell pervaded the place. It was a mixture of steam and singeing cloth from the tailor’s on the top floor, and the scent of cheap setting lotions and hair pomades used by Mr. and Mrs. Gibbet, who jointly ran the male and female sections of their business.

  Mr. Jack Hyman on the top floor was the best tailor in Caldicott. He advertised a Savile Row apprenticeship, the best people took his word, and endured the two flights of stairs to his workshop for the benefit of his fittings. It was his boast that he “dressed” the Pochins, the Shillinglaws, the vicar, and the county court judge, and that even the Chief Constable came from Dofford to be tailored. And now, some of the monied working classes from the lower town were becoming his customers, too, and he was prepared to make a natty suit as well as “build” a model.

  On the middle floor, Mr. Munro, the osteopath, saw patients by appointment and during his consulting hours, the better classes could be met on the stairs, along with Mr. Hyman’s customers, carrying their rheumatics, arthritis, slipped discs, loose cartilages and displaced bones to Mr. Munro for manipulation. Now and then, as Mr. Munro warmed to his work, loud bumps and cries could be heard below in Mr. Gibbet’s barber’s shop, whereat Mr. Gibbet would pause and wave his fist at the ceiling.

  “That butcher’s at it agen …” And the grateful victims would now and then reel downstairs like automatons, or else be assisted down to their conveyances by Mr. Munro’s lady attendant, an unctuous blonde on whom Mr. Gibbet had secret designs, which he tried to hide by questioning her relations with Mr. Munro.

  When Cromwell entered the barber’s shop it was empty save for the owner, who was studying a tourist handbook.

  “Roll on, Saturday,” said Mr. Gibbet, by way of greeting, “I’m off to Yewgoslavia for me holidays … Ever been to Yewgoslavia?”

  Then, recognising Cromwell from his picture in the local paper, he laid down his booklet and greeted him.

  “Good mornin’. It’s an honour to meet you, Mr. Cromwell. I hope the case is comin’ along fine.”

  Cromwell passed the time of day, ignored the enquiry, and said he’d like a haircut. Mr. Gibbet motioned him to a chair, spread a cloth about him, and carefully studied the structure and lie of his victim’s head. “Ha!” he said, and took up the clippers.

  In the room across the hall, Mrs. Gibbet attended to the ladies, but such was the nature of her husband, that he had to cross to inspect her handiwork and approve it from time to time. Then he said, “Jest excuse me,” to his own customer, and left to greet the lady under treatment. If she pleased his eye, he caressed her locks and smiled on her, much to the anger of his wife, a large, jealous woman, who, knowing her husband’s weakness for the opposite sex, hardly ever allowed him out of her sight and had decided, much to his disgust, to go with him to Yewgoslavia. “You’ll not enjoy yourself at all. It’s a long way and the travel’s tiring; the food’s strange and won’t suit you; I don’t know what the ’otels are like; and of course, it’s Communist, you know …” “What are you goin’ for, then?” she had asked, and started to pack her own bag as well as Mr. Gibbet’s.

  Mr. Gibbet was a tall, thin man with protruding grey eyes, which were always on the move, a bald head, which was a poor testimony to the hair restorers he made and retailed, and long cold hands. Cromwell shivered as Mr. Gibbet laid them upon him.

  “Find it cold in ’ere, Mr. Cromwell? I’ll light the gas-fire.”

  “No, no. Don’t bother. I’m all right.”

  But the barber insisted on leaving him whilst he wrestled with the fire, which back-lit every time he applied a match and which he had to give up as a bad job eventually. “It’s the force of gas that’s wrong, Mr. Cromwell. That Jack Hyman uses it all with his big flat-irons. I’ve complained, but you know how things are these days.”

  Cromwell began to regret that he’d ever called at all. He disliked Mr. Gibbet and the gaudily decorated saloon with its heavy atmosphere of hair oils, shampoos and pomades, and its air of shoddy finery imposed on the damp and dry rot of the old house. There was another pause as Mr. Gibbet whispered some instructions to his assistant who had just entered and resembled a Teddy-boy. Something about going to the local infirmary to cut a special customer’s hair. “O.K.,” said the new arrival, whose hair style, parted back and front, resembled two feathers lying behind his large ears. “O.K.,” and he went out for the rest of the session.

  “You’re a tenant of this place, Mr. Gibbet?”

  “Yes, and the rent’s far too ’igh.”

  The barber then opened-up about the rates, the condition of the premises, the things he had to put up with. They were even too snobby in the square to allow him to put out a long barber’s pole, and he’d had to compromise by a small red-white-and-blue toffee-stick of a thing which revolved in a glass cylinder by the side of the door. It wasn’t good enough … “Not too much off the top?” interpolated Mr. Gibbet. “Not too much off anywhere. Just a trim, that’s all …” Cromwell seemed not to hear a discourse on a small quantity of dandruff Mr. Gibbet pretended to find, and the remedy for it contained in a bottle which was indicated.

  “Did you find Dr. Beharrell a good neighbour?”

  “Never a bit of trouble. A good customer, too. Kept to his job, did the doctor. He’d come in ’ere and talk as man to man with me. ‘What’s good for slight baldness, Eric?’ he’d say. And I’d tell ’im. No argument. I liked the doctor. The only objection I had, was that his place seemed to attract the burglars. Always somebody tryin’ to break-in …”

  He paused.

  “Do you know, Mr. Cromwell, on one occasion, a burglar actually tried to get in the doctor’s by knockin’ down the wall in my cellar. Sort o’ tunnellin’ in, see?”

  “No! Was he successful?”

  “Of course not. The walls are feet thick in these old houses. It ’ud take you days and days. Luckily, Munro, the chap on the floor above, came back that night and heard the noise in the cellar. He’s a timid chap, is Munro, although to ’ear the way he chucks his customers round sometimes, you wouldn’t think so. So he went over to fetch the police. Of course, when they got ’ere, the man had took alarm and gone.”

  “How did he get in this place, though? Nobody lives here at night, do they?”

  “No. He must ’ave had a key or picked the lock. None of the windows was forced. Anyhow, the thickness of the walls must ’ave discouraged him. He’s not be
en since. Instead, he tried gettin’ in by the doctor’s basement, but they disturbed ’im again. He was a persistent bloke, if it was the same chap each time.”

  “Let me see … Mr. Pochin lives on the other side?”

  “Yes, the landlord. A bit of a dark ’orse is Mr. Vincent Pochin. His brother’s all right and so is Mr. Shillinglaw. But Vincent … I could tell you a thing or two. He’s got a flat there and stays at nights sometimes.”

  “You mean …”

  “Of course. Women … You don’t mean to tell me that when a man lives only a few miles from town and ’as a fine Bentley to take ’im home, he’s goin’ to start a flat here, if he isn’t up to somethin’ … Well?”

  Here Mr. Gibbet had to pause to give particular attention with the scissors to a portion of Cromwell’s head. The sergeant shuddered again as the cold fingers clung to his neck and the sides of his face. Mr. Gibbet began to strop a razor.

  “I don’t need a shave. I’ve done it myself.”

  Mr. Gibbet turned patronisingly.

  “And if I may say so, Mr. Cromwell, you look it. You’ve tore your left cheek and under the chin ’orribly. I’d recommend a bottle of this after-shave lotion.”

  Cromwell ignored the criticism and sales-talk and Mr. Gibbet thereupon began to chop about on the scalp with his razor, removing rolls of hair to the anxiety of the patient.

  “We were sayin’ … women …”

  “Anybody in particular, Mr. Gibbet?”

  “Nobody that I’d know, Mr. Cromwell, nor would you. Nor, would we want to know. Street-women, Mr. Cromwell. That’s Mr. Vincent Pochin. He’s too sly to get involved with the good-lookin’ women of ’is own set. There might be a scandal, you see …”

  “You’ve seen all this going-on?”

  “Of course. I ’ave to come back at nights often. There’s work to be done. I’ve no time in the day to make my ’air creams, lotions and the like. I ’ave to work overtime, you see. My workroom’s on the back; the little room behind this. It overlooks the wing of Mr. Vincent Pochin’s house and looks right on his bedroom. I’ve seen ’em before they drew the blinds …”

  Mr. Gibbet was a peeping-Tom and well-known for it in the town. He had, on one occasion, had his eyes blacked by a decent young fellow courting his girl on Caldicott Common.

  “But there were other funny goings-on I’ve seen from my workshop, Mr. Cromwell. I’ve been ’ere a long time and seen some queer ’appenings. But the limit was the affair of Dr. Beharrell’s well. Talk about spyin’—it beat the Gestapo. The water board made him open it up again after he’d ’ad it filled in. It’s some years since. You’d be surprised how keen Mr. Vincent Pochin was on what was going on when they dug up the well again. He never left that back window! When I was ’avin’ my midday meal in the room behind, I’d keep seein’ his face appearin’ round the curtains watchin’ the men diggin’. And, at night, I’d see the lights on in the flat. Pochin watched the whole operation from start to finish, as though there was a treasure buried in that well and he was goin’ to ’ave it if they brought it to the light o’ day. It puzzled me how he managed to eat and sleep while it was goin’ on. A proper feat of endurance.”

  “Funny.”

  “Yore tellin’ me … Excuse me.”

  Mr. Gibbet ran into the room across the passage which a young blonde lady had entered ten minutes ago. There was a pause and then the barber returned, rubbing his hands and baring his false teeth in a delighted leer.

  “’ave to keep an eye on the ladies’ section. Got to see the cwoffyures are bang up-to-date, else they go elsewhere. There’s another place in the square, run by a bit of a chit as calls ’erself Elise. Elise, indeed! Born in the lower quarters of Caldicott … I’ll show ’em. Bang up-to-date, ’ere. Latest styles …”

  He rubbed his long obscene hands again.

  “Anythin’ on the hair, sir?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Mr. Gibbet, with no more customers as yet, for they mostly came before and after business or else mid-morning, began to clip and snip round Cromwell’s head to waste time and continue the gossip.

  “Not that Mr. Vincent Pochin isn’t a regular customer of mine. All the upper class are.”

  He indicated a battery of little cubby-holes, like large sections of honeycomb, in which reposed the private shaving pots, brushes, and razors of his select clients, each with his name attached. Mr. V. Pochin; Mr. Shillinglaw; Mr. S. Pochin; Mr. Waddylove; Mr. Gralam … a score or more of them. Some of the owners, including Dr. Beharrell, were dead, and their paraphernalia remained there like memorial tablets in a graveyard.

  “Did Dr. Beharrell know that Pochin was watching the well?”

  “Eh? Oh, yes. The well. I shouldn’t think so. Why should he? He was busy with his practice and I don’t suppose he’d time to be lookin’ through his back window findin’ out who was lookin’ through theirs at wot was goin’ on.”

  Mr. Gibbet cackled at his own humour.

  “The pair of them were friends, weren’t they?”

  “Yes, I think they were. They were both natives of Caldicott and brought up together. And yet, you know, I’m sure Dr. Beharrell was frightened of somethin’. You know how you get a feelin’ about somebody. A barber is in a good position for studyin’ his customers, Mr. Cromwell. In the chair and under his hands, clients sometimes become an open book to ’im. He knows the state of their nerves and general constitution. The hair itself, too, h’offen gives a man away. Limp, poor ’air, shows a nervous, limp physique, Mr. Cromwell. And vice versa, strong ’air and a steady nerve under the razor or clippers shows a good state of ’ealth. You’d be surprised.”

  “I am.”

  “You, yourself, Mr. Cromwell, have strong, steady nerves, but if I may say so, you are a bit fussy and particular. I get that from the care with which your fingernails are done, the spotless shirt and collar you wear, the careful way in which yore tie is knotted. A barber notices all these things, if he’s worth his salt and intelligently interested in his clientele.”

  “We were talking about Dr. Beharrell being afraid of something, Mr. Gibbet. How did you know that?”

  “As a barber, I found ’im very nervous and jumpy. ’ad to watch him under the razor, else I’d have snicked ’im. Impatient when havin’ his hair cut, too. But the main thing was a habit he had of seeming to look back over his shoulder, as though he was afraid of bein’ followed. The way, too, he never left home for holidays. Now, to me, a holiday is the spice of life. I go abroad and come back with new ideas about male and female ’airdressin’, and with somethin’ interestin’ to talk to my customers about. But the doctor was always at home, always alone in that big house, as though haunted by somethin’.”

  “What do you think haunted him?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know. But, I think he was a bit afraid of Mr. Vincent Pochin, for some reason. It might have been about money or a natural sentiment about lawyers … I don’t know. I remember one time, however, I was shavin’ the doctor and I happened to say that Mr. Vincent Pochin was going away for a three-week holiday to Switzerland. Believe it or not, Mr. Cromwell, I felt the doctor relax under my hand. He seemed delighted and gave a sigh of relief and the kind of tension I usually felt when he was in the chair, all went. Funny, wasn’t it?”

  “It certainly was.”

  Mr. Gibbet removed the large cloth and released Cromwell, shook away the hair, brushed the sergeant down, and indicated that the job was finished by asking him for half-a-crown. Two other customers arrived; a woman with a small child for his hair cut, and an old man with a white mane which would keep Gibbet busy for some time.

  “Good afternoon, sir. Call again, any time. Most pleasant to be of service.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Gibbet. Happy times in Yewgoslavia,” chuckled Cromwell, and hurried into the open air again.

  The square had wakened up now. The usual occupants were lounging there in the sunshine, old men, nursemaids and mothers giving children their airings, and old la
dies promenading with their dogs. The funeral party had returned and the door of Bank House stood open. Littlejohn was waiting for Cromwell in the lounge of the Red Lion.

  They began to exchange notes and information.

  “A pretty crowd of gossips in Upper Square, aren’t they, sir?”

  “They are, but it will all be useful. I like Gibbet’s lecture on psychology from the barber’s chair.”

  “Self-opinionated, repulsive chap. He doesn’t seem to like Vincent Pochin.”

  “I’m sure with the vicar’s story, and the odds and ends we’ve collected about Pochin and Beharrell and their relations, we’ve enough information to challenge Pochin. But he’s been in the company of Brodribb all the day. I want a word with Brodribb, too, before he goes home. As Beharrell’s brother-in-law, he should know quite a lot.”

  Littlejohn rose.

  “I’ll just go up to my room for some more tobacco. I’ll be back in a minute. Then, I’ll get across and meet Brodribb. Meanwhile, you might ring up the Yard. Ask them to find out all they can about Miss Lydia Horninglow, who was a W.R.A.F. officer in the camp at Mareham-le-Fen some time during the war. They’ll perhaps need to go to the Ministry for her record. At the same time, I’d like a list of commissioned R.A.F. officers stationed there when she was in camp. It might be a big job, but it’s necessary.”

  He strolled into the hall. From where he stood he could see Hope standing in the public bar at the rear of the hotel. It was out of hours, but he was talking to some men who looked like brewery travellers lolling at the counter. Mrs. Hope was in the office doing her accounts. He went in his room on the first floor, took his tobacco, and left. The chambermaid passed with an armful of linen.

  “Where is the landlord’s private bedroom?” he asked.

  She looked a bit startled.