The Case of the Demented Spiv (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  “Very well. If anything strikes you, just let me know.”

  “Such as…?”

  “Such as somebody taking away stuff under cover of dark that they wouldn’t have moved in the daylight. Good night.”

  “Hey! Nobody ever came or went there who wasn’t one of the mill ‘ands.”

  “I didn’t say they did.”

  Littlejohn walked through the main gates again, past the reservoir, still steaming from the engine exhaust, and on to the far side of the mill which stood on the river bank. The whole had a forlorn, neglected aspect and the water was almost the colour of ink. There was no traffic. At a little distance from the mills, two fishermen sat patiently watching their lines. There was no way across from the mills to the other bank, beyond which ran the railway with a jumble of goods-yards and sidings.

  Littlejohn walked down the river path until he came to the first bridge, which he crossed, and then he returned to a spot opposite the mills. A pipe from the engine house emitted hot water and steam. Presumably they also drew water from the river.

  Almost opposite the mills, a gate with a stile by the side and a rutted dirt track leading towards the railway. Littlejohn followed it until he came to a level crossing, with a signal cabin standing beside it. The crossing-gates were closed. The signalman opened the window.

  “Bit better now,” he said, talking of the weather and evidently seeking companionship.

  “Yes. May I come up?”

  “Against the rules.…”

  “I’m a police officer. I’m coming. Want a word with you.”

  “O.K. Kim on.”

  A cosy sort of place with a stove burning. Pots with geraniums and cactus on the window-sills. A small table with the remains of a rough meal still on it. About a dozen levers and a large wheel for operating the crossing gates.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Do you remember the night Ambrose Barrow was killed at the mill?”

  “Aye. I was on duty here. Saw nothing.”

  “It was a bad night.”

  “Yes. Rainin’ cats and dogs and as black as ink.”

  A goods train passed and they had to suspend the session; you couldn’t hear a thing for the roar and rattle of the waggons. The signalman released three levers when the whole had passed and then went to the wheel and opened the gates.

  “Do you get a lot of people passing?”

  “Not many. It’s the way from the river bank to the top of the town. That’s the station there, with the goods yard, but if you keep to this path you come to the main road out of Brockfield.”

  They looked through the window over the wheel.

  “I suppose traffic for the station and yards mainly uses this way from the various mills.…”

  “That’s right. That road there goes to the station. At the fork the way to the right narrows to a path. That’s the one that goes up town.”

  “You see most that goes on?”

  “Oh, aye. I’ve not much to do between trains. Specially after the yards close at half-past five. When it’s a nice night I don’t miss much. There’s a gas-lamp just by the gates there. See it?”

  “Yes. Now throw your mind back to the night of the crime. Did anybody pass this way between say six and seven?”

  “Now you’re asking me! It’s so long since and it was such a rotten night.…”

  The signalman paused to meditate. A pleasant fellow, small, wiry, sharp-eyed, dressed in the regulation uniform with a sleeved waistcoat with shining buttons.

  “There was one thing I remember. Never connected it with the business at the mill. Don’t now, because there’s no way from the mills to this side without going half a mile down the river path and crossing the bridge and coming back.”

  “What did you see?”

  “A fellow climbed the crossing gates. As I said, it was as black as ink though the gas-lamp was on. Well, this chap mustn’t have known his way across here else he’d know there’s a little wicket at the side for foot-passengers, at their own risk, to use when the gates are closed for a train. I had ’em closed then, and this bloke climbed the big gates and crossed the line and off before I’d time to call out.”

  “What made you notice him?”

  “When anything shakes the gates it sort of vibrates along the gear from the wheel and a rattle started, so I went to look what was ’appening.”

  “I see. And what sort of a man was it?”

  “I tell you, I couldn’t see proper. Sort of crouching as though he’d got wet through and was in a hurry. He was over the gate when I see him and careered off across the crossing like a rabbit.”

  “So you couldn’t describe him?”

  “Sorry, guv’nor. Don’t blame me. What a night!”

  “I understand.”

  “But he couldn’t surely have come from the mills. He’d have had to swim the river!”

  “Exactly. That’s probably what he did do.”

  “Go on! Not a thing as ’ud tempt me on a night like that, though anybody out in that rain couldn’t have got wetter, even by takin’ a header in the river. Granted it’s not all that wide and only deep in the middle. But I wouldn’t like to swim it in the dark.”

  “Neither would I. Thanks for the help. Good night.”

  “Cheerio! Well.… I’ll be damned. Swimmin’ the river. Wot next?”

  Littlejohn left the box and followed the path indicated by the signalman as leading to the upper part of the town. It passed through a few squalid streets by the railwayside and then changed into a paved thoroughfare which joined the main road, with buses and traffic hurrying to and fro. Littlejohn recognised his surroundings. A few yards along the highroad stood the main gates of the Old Hall.

  All the Fennings were at home. The old man’s funeral was on the morrow and things were at sixes and sevens. Some relatives had arrived and were being entertained for the night.

  The maid who answered the door put Littlejohn in a small cosy ante-room and brought Mary to see him.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Fenning. I’m here again.…”

  She was wearing a navy-blue twin-set and a tweed skirt. She looked fresh and poised among all the confusion.

  “Sorry to call at this time, but I’m anxious to check up one or two points.”

  “Please don’t apologise. We’ll help all we can.”

  “I’m wanting to know, as a matter of routine, exactly where you all were when Ambrose Barrow met his death. Were you all indoors?”

  “Yes. Mr. Fenning senior was having his dinner in bed. Mr. Andrew and I dined together in the dining-room and Mr. James had a tray in his study, where he was working on his book.”

  “He’s very keen on his book, I gather.”

  Mary gave Littlejohn a strange look.

  “Yes. It’s practically his main interest outside the mills. He spends a lot of time on it. He’s very keen on the family and its history.”

  “And often has his meals whilst he works?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he in his study now?”

  “No. He’s with the guests in the drawing-room.”

  “May I take a peep in this holy of holies?”

  The girl looked puzzled again.

  “Of course, if you wish. Come this way.”

  Along a corridor to a heavy, panelled door and then into a small, cosy, book-lined room with a broad bay-window. Littlejohn examined the sashes which worked perfectly.

  In one corner stood a large steel cabinet. Apparently James’s records. On the table was a conglomeration of papers and manuscripts.

  “So this is it? Very nice, too.”

  “That all you wish to see?”

  “Yes, thanks. Is Mr. Andrew in?”

  “Yes. Shall I bring him?”

  “If you please.…”

  Andrew looked puzzled but was as good-tempered as ever.

  “I’m just checking details of the night of the crime.…”

  “What again! Thought you’d gone all over that once.
”

  “Yes. But I must get a bit closer to things. You said you were all at home when the crime occurred?”

  “Yes.”

  “You and Mrs. Fenning dined in the dining-room and Mr. James in his study.”

  “Yes. Who told you James was in the study?”

  “Mrs. Fenning. I just asked her.”

  Andrew looked nettled for the first time and Littlejohn knew why. He’d originally given the impression that James had eaten his meal with the rest. Now, it turned out, he ate it alone.

  “How long did the meal take?”

  “Half an hour. Why…? Now look here, you’re not implying that one of us left here and sneaked to the mill and killed Barrow, are you?”

  “No. But Mr. James was here on his own for half an hour at least, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. But I called in about half-way through the meal. We’d got up a bottle of Sauternes of which James was very fond, and I brought the bottle along to give him some.”

  “I see. Very well, thank you sir. That will be all.” Andrew Fenning rubbed his chin and smiled. Littlejohn didn’t like the smile. It wasn’t in keeping with the rest of Andrew. A bit self-satisfied and triumphant.…

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE SHADY LAWYER

  THE Lacklands lived in a semi-detached, substantial old house in the upper part of the town. Vera Lackland answered the door. She looked surprised to see the Inspector.

  “Hullo! Fancy seeing you again! Is it me you want to see?”

  “No, Miss Lackland. Is your sister in?”

  “Janet? Why, yes. Come in.”

  The furniture was old fashioned, probably dating to the time when the parents had set up house. Vera showed Littlejohn into a parlour without a fire. Evidently used for state occasions and a bit damp and musty in the meantime. The suite was in leather, very cold-looking; the sideboard, heavy mahogany; the pictures on the walls, sentimental prints popular thirty years ago. Funny, the girls hadn’t altered all that. Perhaps the father was a strong-minded man.…

  Here he was!

  Old Lackland wasn’t going to have the police visiting his daughter without knowing what it was all about.

  “Good afternoon,” very stiff and formal and forbidding.

  The old man was iron-grey haired, tall, heavy and wore old-fashioned spectacles perched on his nose. He had a newspaper in his hand, as though disturbed reading the news. His hair was unruly.

  “You wanted to see my daughter?”

  “If you please, sir.”

  “What’s it all about?”

  The old man looked ready to ask Littlejohn what his intentions were!

  “I’m on the Barrow murder case. I want to ask her a few questions about the office.”

  “I see. Well, go easy. She’s highly strung and this affair has upset her. I’ll send her.…”

  Janet Lackland looked pale and ill as though her nights were spent in weeping.

  “Hullo,” she said, like greeting a friend.

  “Hullo, Miss Lackland. How are you? I’d like to ask you a few more questions, if I may.”

  “I’ll do what I can, Inspector.”

  “Well.… I’m afraid they’re going to be rather personal ones. You and Mr. Barrow were in love? Please tell me frankly. I’ll respect any information you may give me.”

  “Yes.…”

  Tears began to flow again.

  “And had he been free, you’d have been married?”

  “Yes.…”

  “Mr. Barrow was taking steps to get his freedom.”

  The girl looked scared.

  “Please, Inspector, now that he’s dead, don’t let that get abroad. My father’s very strict and he didn’t know about Ambrose and me. Ambrose was going to get a divorce first and then, after a time, tell father. If father hadn’t agreed, we would have married without his consent.”

  “Well, I know that Mr. Barrow had grounds for divorce, but that owing to his position at the Fennings which he didn’t wish to lose, someone else was being cited as co-respondent.”

  “I knew that.”

  “Who was the real co-respondent?”

  “I work at the Fennings’ still and have a good job. I wouldn’t like.…”

  “Was it James Fenning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not Andrew?”

  “No. She’d had an affair with Andrew, but there was no proof for divorce. But Ambrose found a letter from Mr. James to his wife which was conclusive. He saw Mr. Miles about it and told him he would sue for divorce.…”

  “And what happened?”

  “Mr. Miles was furious. Not only with James, but with Ambrose. He said he couldn’t have his family-disgraced like that and wanted to pay Ambrose to keep quiet. But Ambrose and I wanted each other, so Ambrose wouldn’t drop it.”

  In the heat of the technical discussion, the girl forgot her own troubles and her face grew pink with animation again.

  “And then?”

  “Mr. Miles said he’d arrange it all so that Ambrose would get his divorce, but someone else would appear in court as his wife’s lover.”

  “Dr. Martindale?”

  “Yes. And Mr. Miles said Ambrose could keep his job. Otherwise he’d sack him and see to it that he didn’t get another job locally. He said he’d tell the truth about Ambrose and me, too.…”

  “So that was it.…”

  “We hadn’t done anything wrong, but in a town like this where they thrive on scandal.…”

  “Rather. Then did something go wrong?”

  The girl hesitated.

  “Yes.…”

  “Well?”

  “Well, everything happened at once. Ambrose didn’t want his wife to be battered about from pillar to post in it. He was such a decent man.… He understood from Mr. Miles, that after the divorce, James would marry Flo. Well… James said he wouldn’t. It was only a passing affair and he wasn’t.…”

  “Ah. So what happened then?”

  “Ambrose had a cousin in London, who said he could get him a job. That made Ambrose independent of the Fennings and he told Mr. Miles that he would cite Mr. James after all. There was an awful row.…”

  “I’ll bet there was. So it ended that Ambrose would cite James, obtain a divorce, marry you and take a job in London?”

  “Yes. And that was on the Monday. On Saturday, that horrible little man killed him.”

  “Do you think the Jew did it?”

  “Who else?”

  “Has it never dawned on you that one of the Fennings might have done it to save their skin?”

  A look of horror came on the girl’s face and she turned dead white again.

  “No. How horrible!”

  “Why didn’t you come to the police with all this information, Miss Janet?”

  “I never thought.… And I didn’t want to be mixed-up in a lot of scandal. Father would have been furious. It would be enough to make him turn me out. He turned out my brother once for less.…”

  As though hearing his name, Mr. Lackland appeared.

  “Now, have you finished? You’ve been quite long enough. And I want my meal, Janet. Better be getting it ready. As for you, sir, I hope you’ve done with my daughter now. We don’t want to be mixed up with the police here.…”

  “I’ve done. Thank you very much, sir. Good-day and thank you, Miss Janet.”

  Littlejohn felt that Janet was in for a third-degree from the parent who believed that the way of transgressors was hard, as soon as his back was turned.

  Mr. Barnard Dobb looked daggers when Littlejohn again entered his little office.

  “I told you all I knew at the last interview. I’m a busy man.”

  “Not quite all, Mr. Dobb.”

  “All that matters.”

  “No. Unless, of course, you’d like it airing in court.”

  “What the hell do you mean?” he said very unprofessionally.

  “You forgot to tell me that the Barrow divorce case had a change in the name of the co-respondent.
It wasn’t Dr. Martindale, it was Mr. James Fenning.”

  “Who told you that?”

  Dobb’s voice suggested pooh-pooh. He was trying to bluff it out.

  “I got it from a good source. Mr. Miles paid you to delete the name of James after Barrow’s death, I suppose. Just in case the police.…”

  “Look here, are you suggesting…?”

  “I’m suggesting nothing. I’m telling you, that you didn’t give me a proper tale last time I called.”

  Mr. Dobb melted and wheedled.

  “Well.… I didn’t see that it mattered much whose name was given. Barrow was dead and the case dropped.”

  “It mattered this, that it’s taken me a week longer than it should have done to find out all the facts of the case. Why did Mr. Miles leave Mrs. Barrow the legacy?”

  “I don’t know. I guess he thought she’d been wronged by his family some way.”

  “Yes. Because Andrew and James, particularly James, wouldn’t marry her after all. Wasn’t that it?”

  “Yes. He did it when he got Martindale to take the rap.”

  “Why the legacy? Why not hard cash?”

  “He was close-fisted. Wouldn’t pay a lump sum. So-much a month and then, as he said he wouldn’t live long, he altered his Will to provide.…”

  “Very well. And let me give you a word of advice, Mr. Dobb. If you hope to remain in practice, make a point of telling the police the truth in future. Good morning.…”

  Faddiman turned grey when Littlejohn asked him to swear out a warrant for the arrest of James Fenning.

  “But surely.… Not James.…”

  “Yes. And I think you might have been a bit more helpful, Faddiman, if you’d wanted to be. You’ve left me all the work, especially finding out the Fenning background. With your daughter as one of the family, you could have filled in a lot of the gaps.”

  Faddiman sank in his chair overcome.

  “I’m sorry, Littlejohn. Dreadfully sorry. But I had my girl to think of and she’s all I’ve got in the world. I’m so proud of her.”

  “But surely, no harm could have come to her. It was James Fenning, not your daughter.”

  “I guess I’d better tell you. You’ve told me about the divorce. The reason James wouldn’t marry Flo. was that he wanted Mary to marry him. He suddenly started pestering her and since then.…”