Death Sends for the Doctor (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  “I think …” said Cromwell, and then he paused. They could hear the noise of heavy feet descending the stairs. Slowly, one foot at a time, they drew nearer, paused in the hall, and then an apparition appeared at the door of the dining-room. It was George Hope, his trousers drawn over his pyjamas, his hair dishevelled, his eyes wild. He pointed at Littlejohn.

  “I want you. I want you. I’ve somethin’ to say to you.”

  He licked his lips and staggered a few paces nearer.

  “Whatever my wife says, I didn’t kill the doctor. I swear I didn’t. I’ve got to tell you what happened, or else I’ll go off my chump. I’ll do away with myself if I don’t get it all straightened out. I want to make a clean breast of it all, now … now.”

  “Sit down, Hope. Your wife’s making some coffee. A cup will do you good.”

  Hope stood where he was.

  “She won’t speak to me. She thinks I killed Beharrell. If I can’t convince her and you I didn’t, you might as well take and hang me. I don’t want to live any more. Life’s been ’ell enough lately without bein’ accused of a murder I didn’t do.”

  In his pyjama top, trousers with braces dangling behind, a pair of heavy shoes over his bare feet, his hair tousled, and his eyes with heavy bags under them, Hope looked a comic figure everywhere except in his eyes, which were tragic and appealing.

  “Sit down, I said.”

  Hope joined them gingerly and sat on a vacant chair. His wife appeared, almost dropped the coffee, and looked at the three men wild-eyed.

  “Please get cups for you and your husband and join us. We’re going to have our little talk before we go to bed. And then we can all sleep … Please do as I say.”

  Without another word, Claudine Hope left the room.

  “That’s a change,” said Hope. “She’s actually not looked at me as if my ’ands was red with blood.”

  He looked despairingly round the room as though he’d never seen it before, and started to whimper.

  15

  GEORGE HOPE CONFESSES

  WHEN Claudine Hope returned, her husband suddenly grew aggressive and his misery left him.

  “Tell them what you’ve been accusin’ me of … They might as well hear it from you as from me.”

  She didn’t say a word, but poured out the four cups of coffee and handed a glass of old brandy each to Littlejohn and Cromwell. There was none for her husband or herself.

  “Tell ’em.”

  Hope was growing excited.

  “Perhaps you’d better, Mrs. Hope.”

  “Very well, Mr. Littlejohn. It can be done in few words. On the night of Dr. Beharrell’s death, just after five o’clock to be exact, I saw my husband in the doctor’s bedroom. I wanted something in our own room and I went up for it. I didn’t put on the light, and I happened, as I often do, to look out. There was a light on in Dr. Beharrell’s bedroom and I distinctly saw my husband lift up the limp body of Dr. Beharrell, strike him again and again, and then drop him and creep away. I was horrified.”

  Hope raised his head and snarled.

  “No need to be. You know I’d reasons enough for breaking every blasted bone in your precious doctor’s body, but I didn’t.”

  “I said I was horrified.”

  Hope might not have been there. His wife simply looked through him.

  “I ran out of the room at once and across to see what had happened. I rang the bell, but nobody answered. I was just going to go for the police, when I saw my husband come round the corner. He must have left by the back entrance of the doctor’s house. I followed him here, accused him of killing Dr. Beharrell. He denied it. He will tell you his story, I have no doubt. You may believe him if you like. I never will. I saw it with my own eyes. His fantastic excuses are like a fairy tale. Ingenious, but mere excuses.”

  “Think what you like. I don’t care what you think.”

  Hope flapped his hand in his wife’s direction.

  “For years she’s deceived me with Beharrell. She’s a lot to talk about committing crimes! Do you know what she says? She says that unless I confess to the murder of the doctor before anybody else is arrested, she’ll tell you everything herself. ‘Get on with it’, I said, and I got as tight as a drum and set the bedroom on fire. Didn’t I, Claudine? And now I’m goin’ to tell you my story, Mr. Littlejohn, because I’m fed up with all this arguin’. Not because she wants it, but because, if you don’t believe me, you can arrest and ’ang me, see? I might as well be ’ung as nagged to death. And if you do believe me, she’s goin’ down on ’er bended knees and beggin’ my pardon in front of the both of you, and then I’m packin’ my bag and goin’. I don’t know where I’m goin’, but anywhere out of the way of her, the she-devil.”

  Claudine Hope sat like a figure of stone, sipping her coffee, taking no heed of her husband’s shouts.

  “Are you ready? Well, it’s this way, and I’m wrappin’ nothin’ up. Until we took over this place, I was Dr. Beharrell’s chauffeur. Ten years I was with ’im, except the three years I spent in the army from 1940 till I was wounded and invalided out. I was engaged at the time to the nicest girl you ever saw, and when I think of ’er and what’s ’appened to me since, I feel like puttin’ me ruddy head in the gas oven …”

  He paused and gulped down his coffee. St. Hilary’s struck one.

  “… Instead, I killed her. Dr. Beharrell was in the habit of lettin’ me have the use of the car on my day off, and I used to take Bessie—that was my girl—on runs in it with me. One day, we went to Peterborough, met some friends, and I took a drop too much. I had a smash-up, ran the car into a telegraph pole, and killed my girl. There was a court case, and I was up for drunk in charge of the car. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Beharrell, who, lucky for me, was the doctor sent for to the accident, sayin’ I wasn’t drunk at all, in spite of the fact that I was, I’d have gone down for a stretch for manslaughter. As it was, I got dangerous drivin’, the Quarter Sessions said it was a bad case, and I got twelve months and my licence suspended indefinite. They’d no need to suspend my licence. I never wanted to drive again after what I did to Bessie, and I swore I wouldn’t.”

  Hope paused, dashed his hand across his face, and looked at his wife.

  “Can I ’ave a drink ...? Whisky?”

  “No.”

  “To ’ell with you, then. Where was I? The year I was doing time, the doctor had to drive himself on holidays. He went to France, didn’t ’e, Claudine? And there he met her ladyship. A pair of proper love-birds, they was, it seems, and with a view to carryin’ on in England where they left off in France, they hatches an idea, and poor old George is the bloomin’ mug. When I come out of gaol, the doctor is most kind. ‘What are you goin’ to do now, George, on account of not bein’ able to drive any more?’ he says and he provides the answer. The Red Lion is goin’ cheap, and do you know why the breweries haven’t a chance to buy it? Why, the doctor has bought it himself. He’s bought it to stop Mr. Vincent Pochin buyin’ it. Mr. Vincent, it seems, has developed an ‘obby of buyin’ up all the property in the square and the doctor isn’t goin’ to have him ownin’ the Red Lion, where, by standin’ at the window, Mr. Vincent can overlook Bank House and see all the doctor does.”

  The tale was thereupon interrupted by the appearance of a young policeman, who thrust his head round the door, looked astonished, and was about to withdraw.

  “What the ’ell do you want, Cudlip?”

  “I saw the light as I was doin’ my patrol and wondered if it was all right.”

  “Well, it is, see? Good night, or good morning, whichever you prefer.”

  “I was only doin’ my duty.”

  “So you were, Cudlip, and there’s no need for rudeness on the part of Mr. Hope, who apologises, don’t you?”

  Littlejohn smiled blandly at Hope.

  “Oh, very well. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right. Good night all.”

  “Where was I? Oh, yes, the doctor suggested I took over the Red Lion, He
’d renovate it, bring it bang up to date, and set me up. ‘All you need, George, is a good wife to support you?’ I said I didn’t. I’d lost Bessie through my own damn fault, and I didn’t care for another. And then, he tells me there’s plenty of time, and that he’s goin’ to France for a holiday and will I come with him. That was just after the war, before the doctor took to always stopping at home and never takin’ any more holidays. At first I declines, see? I can’t drive and he knows it. ‘Don’t worry about that, George’, he kindly says. And tells me he’ll drive. He enjoys drivin’. I’m to do the mechanicking, and generally odd about with the garages. It seemed O.K. I was at a loose end, so I went. We lands up at the Bon Pasteur, Cagnes. We stays a month, and the landlord has a lovely niece. A peach. I admit it. A peach. She seems to fall for me right away. I’m flattered a bit. The doctor suggests what a fine landlady of the Red Lion she’d make. Jokin’ like, but it sinks in. I end by askin’ her. She jumps at it. Didn’t she, Claudine?”

  No answer. Instead, Mrs. Hope rose and brought a box of cigars and offered one each to Cromwell and Littlejohn, who lit them.

  “What about me?”

  Hope snatched one, bit off the end, and started to smoke, too.

  “It later turns out that it’s all a put-up job between ’em. All they want is to be together in Caldicott. She won’t make a doctor’s wife, especially as the doctor don’t know whether or not he’s a married man, on account of his wife havin’ run away. But she’s good enough for George. Oh, yes, and she can still carry on with the doctor, on the q.t. I wondered why her uncle seemed a bit funny when I asked him if I could take her with me and marry her. He refused. So we eloped. It was funny …”

  Hope took savage puffs at his cigar which had gone out, lit it again, and began afresh.

  “We married and settled in.”

  “And I was as faithful to you as any woman could be. I admit the doctor was my lover that first summer when he came to Cagnes, but after I consented to marry you, I told him that it was all ended between him and me.”

  Hope didn’t seem to hear his wife’s interruption.

  “About three years after, a pal of mine here wanted to take his family to the South of France. What more natural than me recommendin’ the old Bon Pasteur? They went and ’ad a real good time. But my pal comes home with a very funny tale. It seems it’s all over the place about my wife and the doctor. As soon as he mentions them and me, people start to laugh. One night when he’s had one over the eight, my pal gets confidential and tells me the whole tale. I threatened to push his face in, but I understood, all the same, why Beharrell was so keen on me and Claudine gettin’ married.”

  “Instead of coming to me and asking or accusing me, you began to drink heavily and associate with loose women. I stood it as long as I could. The doctor always pestered me and, at last, I yielded in despair. He, at least, was kind to me and I was in a strange country.”

  “How sad! Do we all start to cry our eyes out now?”

  “That will do, Hope. Get on with your story. It’s late.”

  “I carried on at first as though nothin’ had happened. We stopped livin’ as man and wife; just went on workin’ and losin’ money on this blasted white elephant of an hotel. Then, one day, it came to me what a mug I was. Everybody laughin’ at me behind my back. So I went across to see Beharrell. I told ’im I’d break every bone in his blasted body if there was any more of it. He laughed at me and denied it. Said I was jealous. She’d been visitin’ him as a patient. A patient! I ask you … I told him agen what I’d do. It stopped for a time, then. A week or so ago, it all started again … or I found it out again. She said she was goin’ to Peterborough. I kept my eyes open and, sure enough, at the time the last train was due in, she was leavin’ Beharrell’s by the basement door.”

  “I have told you, he had done what you asked. He left me alone. In fact, he had grown keen on Madame Alcardi, who would have none of him, however. So, he tried to take up with me again. He said he would foreclose on the mortgage here. I went across to plead with him. I went to Peterborough, but returned early. I had to keep it from you. You were angry and unreasonable, and would have left this place after all our work here, if you’d heard of the threat.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have killed him. I’d ’ave swung for him as I ought to’ve done long ago.”

  “You were never sober. I knew you’d do something rash.”

  “Never mind that, now. I decided to have a showdown with Beharrell. I went over last Friday about five in the afternoon, when I knew he’d be in for his tea. The place was deserted. I tried the back, and the door there was loose for some reason.”

  Littlejohn nodded. Pochin had left it unlocked on his way in.

  “I went in, intendin’ to wait. I’d screwed myself up and wasn’t goin’ back. I heard noises upstairs, so I went up to what I knew was Beharrell’s bedroom. I thought I’d catch ’im there. It was empty. Just as I was gettin’ ready to leave, I heard the front door open and close. And, at the same time, believe it or not, the sound of feet climbin’ stairs somewhere behind the bedroom wall. It sounds crazy, but wait till I’ve finished. You’ll see …”

  Hope mopped his forehead with the sleeve of his pyjamas and licked his lips.

  “I suddenly thought how sick I’d look if I was caught in the bedroom. There’d been rumours of burglars in Upper Square and I stood a good chance of being accused of the lot. So I nipped inside the big built-in wardrobe that would hold five like me, and I waited my chance to get away. S’welp me, if a minute after, the wardrobe didn’t start to move of its own accord, like one of those things at a spiritualist sittin’. It was as much as I could do, not to rush out and risk bein’ caught. However, I held my breath and waited.”

  Hope puffed at his cigar and paused to light it again.

  “Somebody came in the room from a secret panel, or a door which I found after was a secret one, hidden behind the wardrobe, switched on the light, messed about a bit, and then went out, leavin’ me and the wardrobe as we was, somewhere in the middle of the room it seemed to me. I was just goin’ to make a bolt again, when I heard the main door of the room open and the feet on the secret stairs at the back of the wardrobe comin’ up again, slow and heavy, this time. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t one of those daft nightmares you have after a ’eavy supper, or a comic stage play where they keep chasin’ one another in and out of doors … The two men met. I ’eard the doctor’s voice, wild with rage, shoutin’ the odds at somebody. And then, blow me, if Mr. Vincent Pochin’s voice doesn’t answer and start cursin’ the doctor up hill and down dale. I couldn’t believe my ears. They sounded to be ’avin’ a scuffle. There was a sound of blows, and then all went quiet. I took a peep out, and there’s the doctor out for the count on the floor. I tried to get him on his feet, because he was breathin’ proper, and I thought he’d fainted. His lips was blue like he’d had a heart attack. That’s where the missus started to spy on me from over the way. I slapped Beharrell’s face a time or two to bring him round, and them’s the savage, murderin’ blows she talks about.”

  Hope flung away his chewed cigar end and lit a cigarette.

  “As I’m doin’ my best, I hear more footsteps. Now, what would you have done? If I’d been caught, I’d have been booked for a good stretch. Robbery with violence. I laid the doctor down and went back in my hidey-hole, the wardrobe. Somebody else came in the room by the main door, seemed to stand takin’ it all in for a minute, and then went down the secret stairs and up again. Then, I hear the sound of more blows. I daren’t come out of the wardrobe. I just ’ad to wait my chance. I think it was Mr. Vincent who came back, but I wouldn’t swear. I daren’t even peep out. Then all of a sudden, the front door bell rings. Whoever’s in the room gets damn busy. I hear ’im gruntin’ as though he’s carryin’ something heavy. He goes to the top of the secret stairs, and I hear ’im grunt again. There’s a sound of somethin’ heavy fallin’ down the steps.”

  “Wait a minute,
Hope. What kind of a sound? A falling body, would you say?”

  Hope gave Littlejohn a nasty look for interrupting his dramatic recital, into which he was putting all he’d got.

  “No! Like a weight, bump, bumpin’ down step after step. Then, of a sudden, me and the old wardrobe starts to revolve back to where we was. Whoever it is goes quietly out, and I hear the bedroom door close. As soon as I’m sure the coast is clear, I’m off. The front door bell rings again, but I don’t stop to answer it.”

  “Wait again. How many times did you ring, Mrs. Hope, and how long did you stay on the doctor’s doorstep making up your mind to go for the police?”

  She thought a minute.

  “Three times. I waited perhaps five minutes wondering what to do.”

  “That’s all, gents. I went out and met my wife comin’ away. She accused me of murderin’ the doctor. I told ’er what had happened, that I’d found him in what looked like a heart attack and tried to revive him, and that it seemed to me that while I was back in the old wardrobe, he’d come round and went away.”

  Hope glared at his wife and crushed out his cigarette.

  “When news of the murder got out later, she wouldn’t believe it wasn’t me who did it. Do you, Superintendent? That’s what I want to know. Do you believe my tale?”

  Littlejohn paused. Hope’s strained, debauched face came close to his own. He still reeked of stale alcohol.

  “Yes, Hope, I believe you. Your story tallies, more or less, with many things I’ve found out. I don’t know who struck the final blow and hid the body behind the secret door whilst you were in the wardrobe. So, I warn you, you must not leave Caldicott until I say you may. You’ve been talking a lot about packing up and going. That’s all off until this case is ended.”

  “Suits me. I feel a lot better. I’ve got it off my chest and I’ve been believed for a change. And now, Mrs. Hope, I’m waitin’ for my apology.”

  His wife made no reply. She rose with a pale, set face, and made for the door.