The horror of Emmanuel Claypott’s last years had seared itself into the minds of all his children and affected each differently. Alternate bouts of heavy spirit drinking and repentance with loud anguished prayers far into the night … Cirrhosis of the liver and a dreadful end. Then, an estate leaving next to nothing instead of opulence for the family who had never learned to work. Leah had gone soft in the head … Harold, madly in love with Helen More and rejected for another, resorted to his father’s habits of drinking and sullen remorse. Constance, back to the wall, fighting to preserve all that was left of the wreck.
“What do you want, Inspector? My brother hasn’t. …”
“Don’t alarm yourself, madam. I merely want his help in a small matter. He was on the train when the murder occurred.”
Constance Claypott started slightly and her small nose quivered. Harold was always on the train. He took his drink out of town by night and then came home late. Sometimes he lit the fires they had laid for the next morning. That was when he took awkward. Once he had pulled over the grandfather clock on himself. He fell downstairs sometimes and the two women had to struggle to get him in bed. At others he slumped in the first armchair he could find and there they found him snoring when they got up.
Occasionally, Harold grew maudlin and religious, calling loudly on God with tears in the small hours, hunting out bibles on which to swear future pledges, dragging his sisters from their beds to bear witness.
“My brother has had a lot of trouble. A girl treated him very badly and he never got over it. He behaves strangely sometimes …”
Constance was on the defensive, gallantly protecting her brood.
“Did he know Bellis?”
“Yes, and despised him. My brother may get the worse from drink sometimes, but he has never been immoral.”
Littlejohn felt at a loss and wished he hadn’t come inside. Here he was having to make conversation and Constance probing to know exactly what he was after.
“I’m sure my brother had nothing to do with the murder. He had been with friends at Mereton and was the worse for drink when he got home. I heard him come in … They shouldn’t play on his weakness. He has never been strong and cannot take drink like other men men …”
“Did your brother know the late Mrs. Bellis?”
“Yes. They were friends in their younger days.”
The look she gave Littlejohn told the rest of the tale.
“I believe Mr. Bellis treated her badly.”
“Very badly. Harold was very agitated … An old friend, you know. But he could not interfere between man and wife …”
Her voice trailed off as she realised she was perhaps saying things damaging.
“Connie … Connie …”
Leah was plaintively wailing on the other side of the door. Constance hurried out and Littlejohn heard them talking in low voices in the lobby.
“No … no. It’s only a little information he wants … Harold hasn’t done anything wrong …”
Leah was quizzing anxiously about Littlejohn’s visit.
Quietly Littlejohn walked to the typewriter. He examined the pile of addressed envelopes, and took one from the middle.
Cardus Chaunt, Esq.,
The Gables,
Tite Road, Salton.
Cardus Chaunt! What a name! Like an amateur detective.
Littlejohn pocketed the envelope.
Footsteps on the asphalt and a key being inserted in the lock. It was Harold home from the bowling-green. He was on the committee of the Salton Temperance Bowling Club and spent his afternoons hanging about the billiards-room, used on winter nights and in wet weather by the frustrated bowlers. He was often alone, but there was no bar and he fought a solitary fight against fierce inclinations to take to the bottle before the appointed hour. In the mornings he did book-keeping jobs for small tradesmen …
“You want me?”
Claypott wore a raincoat and his bowler hat was still on his head. He removed it and revealed a long skull thatched in grey hair, and a good brow. Thence the face tapered into weakness. The typical Claypott features. Jaw like a pike, with receding chin and prominent lips and teeth. And the small nose, like his sisters’, but altered in constitution by his habits, livid purple and coarse pored like a piece of pumice. Perched before his watery blue eyes an old fashioned rimless pince-nez with bleary glass and pinched deeply into his flesh.
“You want me?”
He stood there like a petulant schoolboy, his well-kept fingers never still, twitching, jerking, picking …
“I believe you were on the last train from Mereton on the night Mr. Timothy Bellis died, sir.”
Claypott didn’t know what to say, so took refuge in anger.
“I don’t want to hear anything about Bellis. Scum … Swine. Not fit to live. Better dead …”
The voice rose to a shrill treble and Claypott beat the air with his hands and arms like a man driving off a swarm of bees. The day was getting on and he was feeling the frantic need of his usual remedy to give him strength to carry on.
Constance entered and Leah peeped round the door. Harold grew quiet and sullen.
“You were friendly with Mrs. Bellis in the past, your sister says …”
Claypott glared at Constance who returned his stare without flinching.
“What has that to do with it?”
“I wonder if you could suggest anyone who might have taken revenge on Bellis for the way he treated his second wife. She had many devoted friends …”
That got Harold on a raw spot and Littlejohn felt bad about rubbing salt in an old wound.
“Well, I didn’t kill the swine, even if she was my friend once. No business of mine. Wouldn’t have thanked me for meddling. Why don’t you go to Dr. Cooper or some of the others. Cooper was mad about her and wanted to marry her once. Go to him. Why pick on me?”
“So you think Dr. Cooper …?”
“Who said I thought Dr. Cooper …? For God’s sake leave me alone. What’s it got to do with me? I didn’t stop the train and kill him …”
“How did you know the train stopped? I heard you were asleep in the guard’s van …”
“So some kind friend’s told you that, have they? No doubt they told you I got up with the guard there and stopped the train without him knowing. And then I got out, killed Bellis and got back without the guard seeing me. I’m not the invisible man!”
“Now, Harold. Don’t be annoyed with the Inspector. He only wants to know if you saw anything that night. He’s not accusing you, are you, Mr. Littlejohn?”
“No, I’m not, Miss Claypott. . .”
Outside, Leah could be heard whimpering as though the lot of them were being arrested.
“Well, what’s he badgering me for? I know nothing about it.”
“You’d been making merry that night and your friends saw you to the train?”
“You seem to know it all.”
“Do you recollect anything that might be helpful to me?”
“No. I’ve told you I don’t. The fresh air took hold of me when I got out of the club and my friends helped me … I must have fallen asleep … I don’t remember anything till the guard woke me at Salton and then I went home.”
That was putting it mildly! Littlejohn didn’t press the point.
“So you can’t suggest who might have killed Bellis?”
“How should I know? Scores of people hated him. He swindled ’em out of their savings. Thank God we’d nothing in his blasted building society …”
“Don’t swear, Harold dear …”
Constance stroked the lapel of his raincoat gently, like calming an unruly boy.
“I’ll swear if I like … And don’t you keep butting in. I can’t help at all. I don’t want pestering any more. … I’ve to go out to-night and I want my tea . .”
“You shall have it, dear. It’s all ready for you. Some nice cowheel pie … the sort you like.”
“What again! I don’t want cowheel pie again. Boil m
e an egg!”
Littlejohn was embarrassed. The sooner Harold drank himself to death and put his sister out of her misery the better, it seemed. Although probably it would break her heart.
“Well? What more do you want? Haven’t I said enough? I can’t give you any idea who did it. I didn’t like Bellis, I hope he rots in hell and that’s all there is to it…”
“Harold!”
“Leave me alone … Nag, nag, nag. Can’t I carry on my own business without being treated like a child? And now, Inspector, I’m going to have my tea, and unless you want to stay and have it with me, I’ll wish you good-day … Well, what are you standing there for, Connie? Get my egg on …”
“We haven’t any eggs … You’ve had your ration for the week and the new ones don’t come till tomorrow.”
“You mean the pair of you’ve eaten ’em …”
“You know you’ve had ours as well as your own …” Littlejohn might not have been there at all.
“I don’t want any tea, then …”
“Excuse me. I must be off. Thank you very much. …”
Littlejohn made an exit like an amateur actor who’s forgotten his lines.
“I never saw such a swine in my life,” he told Forrester when he reached the police station. “How they put up with his tantrums, I don’t know. They ought to hit him on the head with the poker …”
“Inspector!!”
Littlejohn grinned.
“By the way, Claypott has a typewriter. I got a sample of the type …”
He handed Forrester the envelope he had stolen from the pile on the desk, hoping inwardly that Constance didn’t suffer thereby.
Forrester took the anonymous letters from his drawer and with a magnifying glass compared them with the sample.
“By Jove, Littlejohn! Just look here. We’ve found out who wrote these letters. They were done on Claypott’s machine!”
Chapter VIII
Brewerton Camp
Cromwell threaded his way through the mud of the camp like a cat on hot bricks. When he reached the orderly room where Harry Luxmore was a clerk, they told him Harry wasn’t in.
“He’s probably down at the Green Man in the village,” said an upstanding young sergeant. “That’s his haunt, I believe, when he’s off duty.”
The Green Man was packed to the door with service men and girls. Cromwell was passed from one to another in his search for his quarry. Finally he ran him to earth at a table with two Waafs. They were all drinking double whiskies. Luxmore was doing all the talking, swanking to the girls who giggled and rolled their eyes at him.
Luxmore was tall, thin and pasty faced, like a second rate dance-band maestro. Black hair, plastered down and combed back from a narrow forehead, straight nose slightly askew, little heavy-lidded eyes, a big mouth with loose lips and a streak of black moustache on the top lip, and hardly any chin.
The main thing you noticed about his companions was their elaborate coiffures, straw-coloured and escaping from beneath their service caps.
“Want me?”
Luxmore gave Cromwell a bold look, fortified by the drink he had absorbed.
“I’m from the police. I’d like a word with you.”
That took the wind from Luxmore’s sails. There was apparently a soft spot somewhere in his conscience.
“Can we talk privately?”
“Come outside. We’ll sit on the bench by the ’bus stop. Won’t be long, girls. Order again if you like …”
Cromwell told Luxmore what he wanted. The man’s confidence returned when he found he wasn’t involved.
“Bellis? Oh yes, little Alice Bryan’s fairy grandfather. Saw in the paper that somebody’s done for him. But I don’t know a thing about it.”
“I didn’t say you did. But we want to know as much as we can about the life Bellis was leading. You were once friendly with Alice Bryan, weren’t you? Perhaps she said something at one time or another that might throw light on the case …”
Luxmore grew quite matey. He put his hand on Cromwell’s shoulder, breathed whisky in his face and looked sorry for himself.
Cromwell didn’t even trouble to look at him.
“Nice little gel, Alice. In fact, I quite fell for her in a big way. A chap’s got to have a bit of feminine company in a dump like this, but I could have gone a long way with Alice. Thought she was the same, but after her illness, she kind of got queer …”
“Queer?”
Luxmore looked at his well manicured nails, breathed on them and rubbed them on his pants.
“Yes, queer. Seemed to want to get her ticket as soon as she could and get out of the service. I couldn’t understand it. She used to enjoy herself once. A little sport …”
“Was that when she was in hospital …? I take it she did go sick?”
“Oh, yes. She went sick right enough. They had her in bed for a month. Ulcerated stomach, or something. Then she got leave and came back for a medical board. She’d changed when she returned. Gave me the icy mit. I was damned mad about it. We’d got on so well before.”
I’ll bet you were mad, thought Cromwell. A conceited ass like you couldn’t understand a snub.
“What do you think changed her?”
“I think somebody had been putting her off me at home. You see, I went over to Mereton to see her when she was on leave. Took her all her time to be civil. I asked her what was up. Oh, just that she didn’t think we were suitable and couldn’t make a go of getting married.”
“You were prepared to go so far?”
Luxmore flared up and his little eyes glowed dangerously.
“What the hell do you mean, go so far? I said I’d fallen for her in a big way, didn’t I? We were going to get married when we got back in civvie street.”
“What do you do in civil life?”
“My father’s a bookmaker. Turf agent, you know. P’raps you’ve heard of him … Ted Luxmore …”
“Can’t say that I have.”
Luxmore looked pityingly at Cromwell.
“Everybody knows Honest Ted Luxmore as they call him. He had to go on munitions when war broke out … Carries on a nice little business at the works as a sideline. He’ll be back on the turf soon and then I’m joining him when I get my ticket. I’ll be in the money then.”
“I see. So Alice Bryan got cold feet.”
“No need to be offensive about it! I think she got thinking a bit above her station. I wasn’t good enough for her.”
“Did it ever occur to you that there might be somebody else?”
“No. Why should it? I never got a hint of it. I just think she was flyin’ a bit high and a plain L.A.C. wasn’t good enough.”
“Seems like your imagination, if you haven’t anything concrete to work on.”
“I think it started with the things her fairy grandfather used to send when she was in hospital. Bellis was her aunt’s boy friend, you know, and used to send her parcels. Grapes at two quid a pound; peaches at five bob apiece. Just damn silly. What the hell does anybody want with fruit at that price? It doesn’t do ’em any good.”
“But perhaps it was the thought that appealed to her. Didn’t you ever take her presents when she was laid up?”
“Took her a bottle of port to put the roses in her cheeks. Two quid I paid for it under the counter. The nurse said with her complaint she couldn’t drink it, so I took it back and drunk it myself.”
“H’m. Did Bellis come here to see her?”
“No. Her aunt came a time or two, but I never saw Bellis here. I met him when I called at Mereton. Old bloke with one foot in the grave. Seemed crackers on Alice’s aunt. Do anything for her, he would. She was a good lookin’ bit, if you like ’em full blown. Personally, I like a bit less of ’em. Alice suited me down to the ground. In fact, I’ve not got over it. I’m damned sore about the way she treated me after the good time I gave her.”
“Sore enough to do damage to anybody who got in your way?”
“What d’yer mean? Suggesting
that somebody chiselled in and pinched her. Get that out of your head. If they had, I’d have known. Trust Harry Luxmore. Know too much about gels …”
“So you don’t think that the fairy grandfather, as you call him, put her off you?”
“What!! Bellis? Him! Don’t make me laugh. Alice’s aunt just had him where she wanted him … He’d eyes for nobody but her.”
“Where were you between ten and eleven on the night of the murder?”
“Wot? You don’t think I did it! Why should I? What had I to get by doin’-in a doddering old geezer …?”
“I don’t know what you had to gain, but where were you?”
“Here. In the Green Man. Flo and Jessie, the two bits I was just with when you came in, were here. They’ll tell you. If you think you can pin this on me …”
“Nobody’s trying to pin anything on anybody. You were mad at losing Alice, weren’t you? I just wanted to find out how mad. Seems you’ve got over it, haven’t you?”
“I’ll say I have. Plenty of good fish in the sea, ole man.”
Luxmore was getting matey again and looked ready to tell extracts from his amorous repertory. Cromwell got to his feet.
“Just let’s have a word with Flo and Jessie.”
The girls confirmed Harry’s tale. They were emphatic about it, puffing their cigarettes violently, drinking their whisky without a qualm and trying to look like perfect women of the world. Cromwell, a good husband and father, shuddered as he tried to imagine them in homes of their own.
Luxmore took Cromwell back to the door.
“I’ve nothing more to say about this affair. Can’t help. I’ll not be bothered any more, will I? Looks bad having the police around.”
“No. You’ve not been much help, I’m afraid. By the way, did Alice Bryan go anywhere convalescent …? The seaside or country, I mean.”
“Yes. I think she went to Brighton for about ten days. Didn’t even send me a postcard. Told me when she got back to camp. I might have gone down there and given her a good time if I’d known …”
Death on the Last Train Page 8