Death Sends for the Doctor (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  “The vicar didn’t see everything, though. He merely saw Mr. Vincent Pochin defend himself against an attack by the doctor.”

  “Very nice of you to put it that way, Superintendent.”

  Vincent looked quite pleased with himself, and Sam nodded approval.

  “To understand the full story, we must go back many years, to when Grace Beharrell, the doctor’s wife, was supposed to have run away with Gilbert Cranage. The doctor returned unexpectedly that night, however. He’d been suspicious for a long time. He caught them in the house, presumably in a compromising situation, and killed them both.”

  Lydia Horninglow turned pale and tense, expecting Littlejohn to ask her to bear this out from her experience of the fatal night, but, as nobody challenged the statement, he went on.

  “Beharrell had to get rid of the dead bodies. He threw Cranage down the well in the garden, but he’d some scruples about doing the same with his wife. He’d probably killed her in a rage and, after all, he’d loved her once. The idea of disposing of her and her lover in the same way perhaps repelled him. There was a disused strong-room, a relic of the old bank which once occupied his premises. He was the only one who held a key. He put his wife’s body there, and there it remained until last week. Beharrell must still have loved his wife and developed a form of madness or fear, which prevented his disturbing her remains, even when it was folly to leave them there.”

  Macfarlane looked up with a sneer on his lips.

  “You’re wrong, you know, Superintendent. I told you.”

  “Please let me go on, doctor. You’ll be given your chance later. When the news got out, some people didn’t believe the tale of the runaway love affair. Where could the pair have gone? Cranage, now a deserter, was sought after by the R.A.F., and the doctor was supposed to have pursued extensive enquiries about his wife. They’d been seen going in Bank House; they were never seen coming out. The police, however, on the strength of statements by Beharrell, fully believed the story of the elopement and the case ended in the official belief that the unhappy couple had fled to London and met their deaths in the bombing, which, at the time, was at its height.”

  The Chief Constable was checking every statement and writing busily on Plumtree’s scribbling-pad.

  “Who told you about their going in the house and never coming out?”

  “Miss Horninglow can testify later. It’s quite true, though.”

  Lydia merely nodded.

  “Among those who didn’t believe the elopement story, was Mr. Vincent Pochin. He’d been in love with Grace Brodribb before she married Beharrell, remained her good friend, and wasn’t satisfied. For years, he tried to find the truth. In devious ways, he attempted to break in the strong-room, which, by a process of deduction and his knowledge of the old house, he suspected had been used as a hiding place for one or both dead bodies.”

  “That’s right.”

  Vincent suddenly gave tongue, but the Chief Constable wasn’t satisfied.

  “Why didn’t Pochin tell the police, then? That was the obvious thing to do.”

  Again the reedy voice interrupted.

  “I’d to have positive proof first. The case had been investigated once and dropped. If I’d told the police of my suspicions, they’d probably have re-opened the case, but what would have happened if I’d been wrong? I was supposed to be a friend of Beharrell. What would he have thought of me? He might even have sued me for slander. In any case, until I knew the truth, I wasn’t going to arouse his suspicions.”

  They had to let it rest at that. Vincent Pochin was a man with his own peculiar ways of looking at and doing things. Littlejohn continued.

  “Beharrell eventually discovered that someone was unduly inquisitive about the contents of the strong-room. The house was broken into and the conscience-stricken doctor could only think of one reason for it. So, he started to keep house and never left the place long enough to allow the vault to be forced open. And there was the well, too … Beharrell, as soon as he could after he’d disposed of Cranage’s body in it, had it filled in. When the water-board insisted on re-opening it, he moved heaven and earth to prevent it.”

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree, I tell you. I know all about the skeleton,” shouted Macfarlane, unable to control himself any longer.

  Littlejohn brushed him aside again.

  “Your time will come, doctor. Fortunately, the foreman of the excavating party from the water board was a patient of Beharrell’s, and a very grateful one, too. He settled the difference between the doctor and the water board by doing Beharrell a favour. The doctor told him, in desperation, that he’d once thrown a skeleton down the well, an anatomical model he’d used in medical school. He’d be grateful if, when the foreman found it, he’d let him have it back, as it might easily prove an embarrassment. The foreman, suspecting nothing, found and quietly handed over to the doctor the bones of a large man. And, mark this, they were all separated, not wired together, as students’ models are, as a rule … And now, Dr. Macfarlane … You told me you personally had arranged, at Beharrell’s request, for this awkward relic of student days to be thrown down the well. I can’t understand how Beharrell brought himself to part with it. He was a hoarder. What he had, he kept, in almost a psychopathic way. He even couldn’t part with a rocking-horse he’d had when a child. He kept it in the attic. Why did he want to throw down the well a skeleton he could have sold, or, true to his usual fad, kept as a memento of his days at medical school.”

  “I don’t know. All I know is, he asked me to dispose of it and said it was one he’d used at the university.”

  “I’d advise you to think again, doctor. I’ve something else to say to you later. Meanwhile, I shall assume that the bones of Cranage were unearthed from the well and disposed of elsewhere, we don’t know where, by Beharrell.”

  “Think what you like. I stick to my statement.”

  “We shall see. Then the doctor’s mother died. He went to Peterborough several times and Mr. Vincent Pochin took his chance one day, thinking the doctor would be away long enough to permit him to break down the door of the strong-room. Mr. Pochin managed to do so, he found the remains of Mrs. Beharrell, gently packed them, and was proceeding with his plan to inter them properly in his own family vault at St. Hilary’s … Then, presumably, he would have told the police.”

  “That’s right. I intended to notify the police.”

  “Instead, he was disturbed by Dr. Beharrell. As Mr. Pochin reached the bedroom from which secret steps descend to the strong-room … a method originally used by the bankers for easy access to their valuables … Beharrell appeared and they fought. Mr. Pochin struck him, and the doctor either fainted, had a heart attack, or the blow was very severe. It was this scene which the vicar saw. He knew Mr. Pochin had struck the doctor down, and didn’t wish to betray him personally.”

  “Very decent of him.”

  Pochin nodded appreciatively.

  “So the vicar wrote to the police and left it to them. He wrote anonymously, but we didn’t find it hard to trace it to him.”

  Littlejohn paused to fill and light his pipe again. You could have heard a pin drop in the little stuffy room. Outside, the square was dead silent as though brooding on the events of the past week.

  “Having silenced Beharrell, Mr. Vincent went about his business with the remains of the woman he’d once loved. But it didn’t end there. Mr. Hope of the Red Lion had a bone to pick with Dr. Beharrell. He suspected his wife was too friendly with the doctor.”

  “You’re putting it mild, aren’t you? And I don’t want any dirty linen washin’ in public, either. I’ve my reputation to think of.”

  Hope might just not have been there. Everybody ignored him as he sat sulking in his chair, and waited for Littlejohn to go on. His wife, quite unperturbed, smiled at the Chief Constable, whose neck flushed red.

  “Hope was in the bedroom waiting to have it out with the doctor, when, suddenly, he heard two people approaching. Mr. Pochin from
behind the wardrobe, whence a secret door led down to the strong-room, and Dr. Beharrell, coming up the proper way. Hope got cold feet, hid in the wardrobe, and heard, but didn’t see all the tragedy which followed.”

  Sam Pochin looked up and started to make notes as well.

  “Hope will tell you he heard the scuffle which the vicar saw. He heard Pochin, whose voice he recognised, leave by the ordinary door with his burden. Then he heard other footsteps enter by the main bedroom door, stop briefly, and then go through the now open door to the stairs and vault. They then returned, there were sounds of blows and the moving of some heavy body, a smaller object fell down the stairs, the wardrobe with Hope still inside it, was put back in position. Then the intruder left. Hope beat a hasty retreat home.”

  Hope just grunted to show he neither agreed with his treatment nor disagreed with the story.

  “We assume that after Pochin left, a newcomer, X, entered, saw the unconscious doctor, hurried to see what had been going on through the open secret door, descended, found the safe rifled … And then, he did a strange thing. He picked up a piece of lead piping left by a plumber who’d been doing a job a week or so earlier, climbed back in the room, and beat the doctor to death … Then he hid the body and fled.”

  Littlejohn turned to Macfarlane.

  “And now, doctor. You have something to say?”

  “Yes. I insist that the skeleton in the well was an anatomical specimen. I also repeat what I told you, that Beharrell once showed me the inside of the strong-room. He opened it with a key, on the spur of the moment, and showed me inside. He hadn’t a chance to move anything beforehand.”

  Littlejohn turned to Pochin.

  “Mr. Vincent. In the course of your persistent enquiries, did you ever ask Dr. Macfarlane about the secret of the well and of the strong-room?”

  Vincent blinked.

  “Yes, I did. I left no stone unturned. I must confess that he told me exactly what he told you.”

  “And why did you persist in wanting to get in the strong-room, then?”

  “I wanted to see for myself.”

  “In other words, you didn’t believe Macfarlane?”

  “Look here. I won’t …”

  “Please be quiet, doctor. Well, Mr. Vincent?”

  “I don’t like Macfarlane, so there … He may as well know. I don’t like him. Beharrell didn’t like him, either.”

  “Why?”

  “I think he was a bit afraid of Macfarlane. I got that impression. I asked Beharrell why he didn’t get rid of him, but he said it wasn’t as easy as all that. I don’t know what he meant and he wouldn’t explain.”

  “I suggest Macfarlane was blackmailing Beharrell. That’s why the old doctor didn’t like him … or was even afraid of him. Don’t interrupt, Macfarlane. You knew all the time what the strong-room contained. You often had the house to yourself and you must have been curious. It was said Beharrell held the only key of the room, but you surely had the chance of laying your hands on it and once you’d found out the contents, you began to apply the screw.”

  “It’s a lie! I’ll have you up for slander for this.”

  “You had to tell me what you’d already told Mr. Vincent. I might have asked him, and your story had to be consistent. But Pochin did get the remains from the vault and put them in his family tomb. They’ve been identified. You told me a lie because to confess that you knew the contents of the strong-room, would have betrayed your compounding a felony.”

  “I told the truth.”

  Macfarlane’s eyes were shifty now and denied what he was trying to prove by a show of bluff and bluster.

  “How does an almost penniless young doctor suddenly blossom with an expensive car and a splash of money? It was blackmail. You pressed the old doctor hard.”

  “I deny it and you can’t prove it.”

  “Dr. Beharrell’s accounts will show it. That’s someone else’s business. I’m after Mr. X. He was seen by a rag-and-bone man who was there all the time the murder was going on. Tommy Drop was out collecting odds and ends when this drama was beginning. Foraging around in his usual dishonest way, he found the back cellar door of Bank House unlocked, and entered for what he could find. He was inside, helping himself, when footsteps started to come down the secret stairs. Tommy had entered after Pochin left for the last time and was disturbed by X, as he descended to find out what had been going on. Tommy hid. He saw X, watched him pick up the lead pipe, saw him return to the bedroom, and heard him batter Beharrell to death. Then X returned with Beharrell’s body and dumped it on the top step of the stairs. As he did so, he let fall the weapon he’d used, the piece of lead piping. Before X could retrieve it, the doorbell rang, and he had to flee in haste without recovering the weapon. Tommy Drop gathered up all the loot he could lay his hands on, including the lead pipe, and fled as well. When the body of Beharrell was discovered he returned to blackmail the murderer, who told him to come back after dark. X then killed him. Later he moved the dead body to the square by the same route he followed when he shot Plumtree; through the empty church.”

  The Chief Constable was growing impatient.

  “All this is pure theorising, Littlejohn. We want to know who X is. That’s the point. Who’s X? Do you know?”

  “All this is fact, sir, as you’ll find later in my report. As for X. It might have been any one of us here. Mr. Vincent Pochin, for instance. Or Dr. Macfarlane, whose fingerprints were found on the weapon.”

  Vincent Pochin and Macfarlane were both trying to speak at once and the doctor shouted down his reedy opponent.

  “Nonsense. I’d often handled that piece of pipe. It was lying about there for a fortnight. I picked it up several times.”

  “Lucky for you, doctor, and lucky too that you were seen at the window of Bank House whilst Plumtree was being shot … As for you, Mr. Vincent, I agree, you were in hospital when the body of Tommy Drop was found, but not when he was killed. But you were in gaol when X tried to kill Plumtree … or rather pretended to kill him ...”

  “Pretended ...?” Two or three of them said it together.

  “Yes. Someone wished to give Mr. Vincent a real alibi. You must all admit that he was suspect No. 1. He had Beharrell at his mercy on his own confession. Beharrell who’d killed the woman Pochin loved. He might easily have returned and finished the job in a rage.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “No. You didn’t, sir.”

  “Who did it, then?”

  “There was one man interested in Vincent Pochin. Vincent was said to be the weakling of the family. One who needed constant support, melancholic, neurotic, artistic. His brother Sam was his constant protector and friend. In fact, he ended by completely managing his brother’s life and was a most powerful influence over him.”

  Sam sat up. He looked pained and surprised.

  “Really, Littlejohn. What is a brother for but to stand beside his family in trouble? I do deny, however, that I treated Vincent like a child. He valued my advice, but he was a perfectly free agent.”

  “That’s true.”

  Vincent answered like an obedient echo.

  Littlejohn went on as though they hadn’t spoken.

  “Mr. Samuel Pochin always watched his brother closely. It was necessary, because others in the family had, in the past, behaved in eccentric ways and Mr. Vincent showed a tendency to do the same.”

  “Really, Littlejohn, this is unfair.”

  Sam looked full of reproach, but not anger.

  “Unfair,” said the echo.

  “Mr. Sam followed his brother on the day he opened Beharrell’s strong-room. He knew all about Vincent’s idée fixe, his obsession with the fate of Grace Beharrell and his tendency to be unreasonable about all matters concerning it. He was anxious that he shouldn’t land himself in gaol either for attacking Beharrell, or even attempted robbery. That day, he shadowed Vincent, was on his heels unseen, keeping, if you like cave, because he knew he couldn’t stop Vincent in his insane search. He
followed his brother in the house and heard or saw Vincent attack Beharrell and flee. He suddenly realised the consequences of Beharrell’s recovery. With the remains of Grace gone, Beharrell was free. He could accuse Vincent of outright robbery, robbery with violence. And, if Vincent tried to explain his purpose in breaking in or excuse his attack, Beharrell could deny such a crazy tale. The police might even find the bones and lay the blame on Vincent, accuse him of the murder of so long ago. After all, he was locally spoken of as being slightly mad in certain quarters. The integrity and power of the local doctor would weigh heavily against Vincent. In a word, he might end in an asylum like others of his relatives.”

  Sam Pochin was no longer the mild, protective brother. His eyes glowed with a queer light, he drew back his upper lip and revealed his long canines, his hands twitched.

  “Sam didn’t find it difficult to finish the job. After all, he, too, had hated Beharrell, because, in a quieter more intense way than Vincent, he, too, had loved Grace.”

  “Liar! You’ve not found the guilty one, so you’re trying to put the blame on me. I’ll see you broken for this, Littlejohn. The Chief Constable has heard it all. You’ve not a shred of proof.”

  “The murder of Tommy Drop falls into place. When I mentioned in hospital this afternoon that Vincent wasn’t free from suspicion, or hadn’t an alibi for Tommy’s death, even if he was in hospital when the body was found, you made up your mind to clinch the matter. You didn’t think I suspected you at all. You thought I still had my eye on your brother. So you went out and shot poor Plumtree. You didn’t want to kill him, so you put a bullet in his leg. Just to give Vincent, safely in gaol, a cast-iron alibi.”

  “Liar again. I wasn’t out when it happened. I was indoors, having my supper. When your colleague called, he found me in my dressing-gown and slippers, ending the meal which had taken over half an hour.”

  “But you’d just come in all the same.”

  “I hadn’t. You can’t substantiate that at all.”

  “My colleague told me when he came in with you that when he called for you, your hat was hanging in the hall of your flat. The inside hatband was wet with sweat. It would have been dry if you’d even been indoors ten minutes.”