Death of a Busybody

by George Bellairs

Meanwhile, Mr. Lorrimer having left his home immediately after breakfast on some unknown errand, a man who stated that he was the local A.R.P. inspector sent to examine garrets to ensure that all the inflammable lumber had been removed, arrived at Holly Bank and was allowed upstairs by the servants. He was so keen on his work, that he opened bedroom doors, too, greatly to the puzzlement of Alice, the kitchen-maid, who was sent to see that he did not run away with anything. In the box-room, the A.R.P. official took a strange interest in a small object, almost like a harmonium, which stood in one corner half hidden by trunks.

  “That’s a funny-lookin’ thing, that is,” said the visitor. “Better just look at it to see that it’s not inflammable, or a petrol-driven engine or the like. Let’s see. Whatever is it?”

  “It’s an orgin, I think. One of them things you plays on. Like a musical box. You know, a hurdy-gurdy,” said Alice, who was thrilled by her job as guide to a handsome young man who smiled admiringly at her.

  “Hurdy-gurdy. Well, I’ll be blowed. Will it play?”

  “Now don’t you be doin’ nothin’ with that there. The master’ll be woild if he even knows you bin in this room at all. Nobody’s to meddle with his music. That’s his instructions and he gets mad if he’s not obeyed.”

  “How long’s he had this thing…lemme see, wot’s yer name?”

  “Alice.”

  “Nice name for a nice gel. Well, Alice, how long’s he ’ad this thing? Must be out o’ date, eh?”

  Alice’s face glowed with pride.

  “Oh, he’s ’ad it about a year. I ain’t never heard ’im play it. I never even seen it out of the room, except twice. But I did hear the master say he wanted it so’s he could play duets by ’imself. Sounds mad to me.”

  “Queer folk some o’ these toffs, ain’t they, Alice?”

  “I’ll say they are. But you should ’ear the master on the pianner. Make it talk nearly, ’e can. Sometimes, when he’s playin’ the sort o’ pieces they plays at the pictures like, you know, when the ’ero’s tellin’ his gel he loves ’er, sometimes when he plays like that, I cry me eyes out…”

  A loud voice from below broke Alice’s sentimental dream.

  “Hey! Wot you two doin’ up there so long?” shrieked Grace peevishly. “Thought you was inspectin’ the garrets. It ain’t proper you two hangin’ about the bedrooms. Come you down at once, Alice, and let me ’ave no more of it.”

  The poor Alice fled below in confusion and P.C. Penrose, of the Evingdon force, hastily thanked the scowling Grace, bade her good morning, received no reply, and made his exit.

  Littlejohn and Oldfield were, meantime, learning something about player-pianos from Major Crabtree, jack-of-all-trades of Evingdon. Mr. Crabtree’s father, an ex-member of the Trentshire Yeomanry, had desired for his son a high army rank which his means were inadequate to procure. He therefore gave him Major as a Christian name, by which he had been known all his life, except during a spell as a conscript in the army, when he was ordered to assume the name of Wilfred by an outraged sergeant-major.

  Crabtree received the two detectives in his shop, which was a mixture of antique-dealer’s, marine-store, music emporium and second-hand bookseller’s. Littlejohn wouldn’t have been surprised if the owner had been a “fence” as well. “The Major” was without collar and coat, but he wore a black tie round his thick neck. His head was orange-shaped and covered with fine down. Teeth scattered and long, like diminutive piano-keys, yellow with age. Heavy paunch and thick arms and legs. He leered at his visitors. “Now, Inspector Oldfield, and what can I do for you this fine day, sir?” Major Crabtree did many things in the time at his disposal. He was a dealer, highly respected for his knowledge and shrewdness among the local fraternity. He was well read. He was a jeweller, too, and shy courting-couples, seeking a cheap engagement ring in private, invariably found blissful satisfaction in the room at the back of the junk-shop. He played the piano “by ear”, and tuned most of the instruments in the town. He was also a good locksmith. On one occasion, he had opened the vault of a local bank after a clerk had lost the key, which feat caused the removal of the manager to a remote outpost and the replacement of the entire strongroom door by its outraged owners.

  “Have you a player-piano in stock, Mr. Crabtree?” asked Oldfield, “because if you have, we’d like you to explain the mechanism and how long it takes to play a—a—record, do you call ’em?”

  “Well, strike me! What’ll you perlice be wantin’ next? First of all, though, if I give advice, it’ll be as an expert witness. Fee: five bob.”

  “Come, come, Major. No time for haggling. Let’s get to business.”

  “Yes. I’ve got a player in the back room. Step along.”

  The dealer led the way through a maze of old furniture and odds and ends of all kinds, most of them reeking of decay and neglect, to a room even more cluttered with junk than the shop. In one corner stood an upright piano. The broker cleared a passage for himself and his visitors, who scrambled their way to the instrument.

  “Not wantin’ to buy one, are you, Inspector? I’ll sell you this one cheap. Twenty pounds…complete with fifty rolls of the choicest music.”

  “No…I’m not interested in that aspect…”

  “Fifteen quid then, take it or leave it…”

  “Will you shut up and let me talk, Major.”

  The orange-headed man leered and chuckled, and lapsed into a teeth-sucking silence.

  “Now I want to know what is the maximum length of time that one of these things will play, without changing the record or roll or whatever you call it.”

  “Well, that depends, Inspector. Rolls vary, o’ course. Ten minutes, half an hour, three-quarters, even. Let’s find the biggest o’ the ones I got in stock, and we’ll have a go, eh?”

  The detectives had no wish to sit through a piano recital in the frowsy room, but this seemed to be the only way of checking their theory. Major Crabtree was fitting a roll in the contraption in anticipation.

  “Very good then, Major. Get on with it, will you?”

  The junk dealer drew up a battered music-stool and seated himself, portentously and with snortings, before the piano. He pushed back the frayed cuffs of his shirt, pulled up his shapeless trousers and sought the pedals with his feet.

  “This is the longest piece I’ve got. Jetty di Yew, it’s called. A good ’un. One of my favourites. Here goes.”

  Littlejohn glanced at the label of the empty case. Jet d’Eau. Proudly Major Crabtree trod out his masterpiece, an air with innumerable variations, apparently representing every kind of waterjet from fountains and geysers to garden hose and waste-pipes. On and on went the tinkling tune, sparkling cascades of sound, rippling, rumbling, rushing and roaring, with Mr. Crabtree quite immersed and oblivious of the group of small boys anxious to buy his foreign stamps, or the two women eager to dispose of household utensils. The Inspectors, having timed the start, waited anxiously for the end. It came at length, with the roll leaving the instrument with a crack and a whizz. Mr. Crabtree relaxed, reversed the gears and pedalled the broad strip of punched paper back on to the roll whence it had unwound. “Luvely!” he said, “Luvely! Twelve quid the lot. Bargain! Your last chance. Go on, ten quid. I’m losing money!”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Major, dry up,” said Oldfield, laughing. “That’s taken nearly half an hour. Is that the average?”

  “As I wuz sayin’, Inspector, you can get ’em longer than that. Long Sonaters, List’s Hungarian Rapsodaisicals, Chopine’s Polonies, and sich like. Just depends on the piece. But when you’re entertainin’ company, barrin’ dance tunes, who wants to sit for longer than half an hour listenin’ to one piece on a pianner? Now, I ask you!”

  “Well, we’re both very much obliged for your help, Major, and remember, I owe you a good turn after this.”

  “Oh, don’t mention it, Inspector Oldfield. Allis ready to ’e
lp the force. You know that.”

  On the way out, Littlejohn picked up a copy of Twenty Five Years of Detective Life, by his old favourite, Jerome Caminada, once of the Manchester police. He gave the Major a shilling for it and took it off in triumph for his friend Cromwell, of Scotland Yard.

  Back at the police station quite a wealth of reports and information awaited them.

  Harriwinckle had telephoned to say that he had searched fruitlessly round the village for anyone who had seen Lorrimer abroad at the time of the crime. He had also tried an experiment, suggested by his superiors over the telephone, and had successfully sneaked from Holly Bank to the stile on the Evingdon road and back, without being seen—or so he thought. Then, he had crept along the by-path behind the smithy to the scene of the crime, also unobserved—so he also thought.

  P.C. Penrose had returned, changed back into uniform, and reported that he had found a player-piano in Holly Bank.

  “That settles it,” said Littlejohn. “Our next port of call is Holly Bank, again. I’m afraid Mr. Lorrimer’s going to have to answer some difficult questions. By the way, before I go, did you go further into the matter of the manager of the bank in Pandalu?”

  The sergeant-in-charge then told them that, as instructed, he had, during their absence, rung up the London Office of the English and Australian South Sea Bank. They had never heard of a Mr. Mossley. “Furthermore, neither they nor any other bank have a branch in Pandalu. There’s a shipping and money-changing agency there, but no branch of any bank.”

  “The sooner we get to Holly Bank, the better. If Lorrimer can’t give a satisfactory answer to our questions, we’d better arrest him. I think we’ve enough to support detention on suspicion. What do you say, Oldfield?”

  “Yes. If you’ll wait a minute, I’ll swear out a warrant, just in case…”

  Half an hour later, the two detectives entered the gravel drive of Mr. Lorrimer’s villa and hurriedly rang the bell. Alice answered the door and Grace followed hard on her heels.

  “Mr. Lorrimer in?” said Oldfield briskly.

  Grace pushed her subordinate aside.

  “No, he’s not, sir. He went off about half an hour ago.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Can’t say, sir. He came runnin’ in all hot and flurried like. ‘Has anybody called while h’I’ve been out?’ sez he, and Alice tells ’im about the A.R.P. man and ’im so interested, like, in the organ thing upstairs. Almost ’it pore Alice, he did, in his temper. I’ve never seen ’im so mad and put about. Upstairs he goes and then down agen with his luggage. Two suitcases full. He went off in the car, then. ‘I’ll be away for a bit,’ sez he, ‘and if I’m not back by week-end, you two better take notice.’ An’ he gives us a five-pound note apiece, in spite of the fac’ that Alice only gets half the wages I do. I never hear of nothin’ like this. We’re both packin’ an’ goin’ to-day. We won’t stop another day, not after the way ’e carried on…”

  “All right, all right. Which way did he go?”

  “Tuck the ’ilary Parver road…that leads to Evin’don; rahndabout, but quiet…”

  Oldfield picked up the telephone and asked for Evingdon police station. Quickly he gave a description of Lorrimer and ordered an all-stations call to hold up the blue two-seater Benson coupé, described laboriously by the two maids. At length he hung up.

  “Well, Littlejohn. Looks as if you were right, after all.”

  “Yes, the fox has gone to ground, Oldfield. Now we’ve got to dig him out.”

  Chapter XV

  Commotion at Upper Hilary Farm

  P.C. Harriwinckle, hot and despondent, dragged his heavy, perspiring feet along the Evingdon road in the direction of home. He had always regarded himself as the custodian of the villagers of Hilary Magna and the thought that one of them should escape his vigilance and hide himself successfully at the time when he was wanted by the law, was gall to him. Mr. Lorrimer seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth in a very short time and all the efforts of the police had not brought to light the slightest clue as to his whereabouts. Since his flight had been discovered, most of the county constabulary had been hunting the elusive little musician. Busmen, pedestrians, road-scouts, people in houses along the roads had all been questioned concerning the Benson coupé, but nobody had seen it.

  “The thing couldn’t a’ took wings and flown,” said P.C. Harriwinckle disgustedly to himself. On the way back to his station, he still persisted in his roadside enquiries without success. The stationmaster at Evingdon had been almost insulting.

  “I war on duty frum nine, hay hem, until the last train at eleven, and if anybody boorded a train I’d a seen ’em. No use yew labourin’ the point, Sam ’Arriwinckle. You’ll not get me to admit as I might a’ missed an odd one or two. This is a closed station, see, and nobody gets on it without showin’ a tickut…I tells ’ee, Master Lorrimer caught no train yesterday or noight from ’ere. An’ now yew stop botherin’ me. Wot I’ve said, I’ve said, see, and ’taint no use yew a-tryin’ to catch me…”

  Poor Sam’s sergeant’s stripes, which had dangled in his imagination since his prophetic dream, seemed to recede into the uncertain distance. During the past few days, when alone on his beat, the constable had amused himself by conducting imaginary conversations, in which he was addressed by a number of people as Sergeant Harriwinckle…Sadly he regarded a field pond in which cattle were standing knee-deep.

  “Fer two pins, Constable ’Arriwinckle, I’d make an ’ole in that there water,” he muttered, his morale broken by his lost hope and by his feet, which felt like two of his wife’s suet-puddings, hot, heavy and sloppy. He halted at the by-road which led from the main thoroughfare up to Upper Hilary Farm. The highway was quiet; not a soul was in sight. Sheepishly the bobby looked to right and to left, furtively opened the gate, nipped through it and, squatting behind the tall, dust-covered hedge which divided the first field of the farm from the road, removed his boots and socks, took from his tunic pocket a fag-end, lighted it at the great risk of setting his moustache on fire, and relaxed. The grass was cool to his feet, the balmy air cleared his unhelmeted head and the tobacco gently stimulated him.

  “Ahhhhhh…” said P.C. Harriwinckle and gently chid himself for being despondent. “Worse things nor that at sea,” he said in an undertone and, with that philosophic consolation, he gave himself up to contemplating the scene.

  The ground sloped gently away from the constable’s pitch and he had a good view of the small farm and its buildings, which rested snugly in a small amphitheatre, for beyond the house, the land gently rose again. The homestead was of weathered, red, local brick, with a lichen covered, tile roof and gaunt chimneys. The house and dairy formed one side of a square; the barn, shippons, stables and coach-house making up the other three. The back door opened into a farmyard; the front, on the side remote from the constable, overlooked a small garden surrounded by tall trees and hazel bushes. The whole place might have been constructed to withstand a siege, so compact and enclosed did it seem.

  The watching officer took it all in dreamily. He even noticed that the blinds of the house had not been drawn, although the late owner was lying in the mortuary. Mrs. Weekes had taken things strangely. She had not entered into mourning with the zeal expected of her by the village. Sure enough, everybody knew that the pair did not hit it off during the farmer’s lifetime, but that was no reason for not assuming at least a semblance of grief at his decease in such a violent fashion. Mrs. Weekes seemed to bear her late husband a grudge for his hasty departure. He was to be buried from the morgue, even, and not to return to his farm. Furthermore, she had carried-on with the farm work as if nothing had occurred. Even as he meditated on her strange behaviour, Harriwinckle saw Mrs. Weekes emerge from the house and empty a bucket of garbage on the manure-heap in the middle of the farmyard. As she returned to the kitchen and closed the door, the constable’s roving eye
s turned to the tall chimneys. Several of them were smoking, white columns of wood-smoke rising straight into the still air. Sam Harriwinckle knew the farm well. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the fires beneath the chimneys. The old brewhouse fire was hard at it; probably they were boiling water for calf meal on it, as they did in better days when he frequently called there. The kitchen, too. Cooking the dinner. The eccentric woman was going to have a hot meal, although alone and bereaved! Smoke was rising from the living-room fireplace, as well. Harriwinckle imagined the table laid for one and, as he dwelt upon the thought, he grew hungry himself. His hand strayed in the direction of his boots and then paused in mid-air. One of the bedroom chimneys was smoking, too!

  “That’s damned funny…she must have gone dotty. Never bin usedter ’avin’ fires in their bedrooms…too greedy fer that…now what the hangment can that be for…?”

  The constable assured himself that there was not another puff left in the quarter-inch of cigarette which remained and he thoughtfully ground it into the earth at his side. He meditatively drew on his boots and laboriously laced them. He put on his helmet, rose and straightened his tunic. His thoughts were elsewhere than on what he was doing, however. His sergeant’s stripes loomed large again. His slow mind was working like a piece of heavy machinery. A thought seemed to strike him. He pondered it, his head on one side. Then, he apparently came to a decision and grew excited. Stirring himself into vigorous action, he picked up his rejuvenated feet and strode off in the direction of the farmhouse. As he entered the gate of the farmyard, the face of Mrs. Weekes appeared round the curtain of the kitchen window. She looked wild and scared. Her expression encouraged the constable in his business. He pulled up his belt, instinctively groped to see that the strap of his truncheon was handy and then knocked on the door. Better lift the latch, just in case…As he pressed his finger on it, he heard the woman fumbling with the bar, as though to fasten him out. Harriwinckle threw his weight against the door and thrust it ajar.