Such Is Death

by Leo Bruce

  “What did he do?”

  “It wasn’t so much what he did but the things he said. I told him, that last time he was in; ‘Don’t you come in here again, I said, else you won’t be served’. He’s really a terrible old man. You should have heard the way he spoke to Vivienne, didn’t he, Vivienne?”

  “Mmmm,” admitted Vivienne.

  “Ever so rude, he was. I should have liked Vivienne’s husband to have heard him, that’s all. But then he’s like that with everyone, I believe. I know they won’t have him in the Chequers now.”

  “I believe he lost his only son in the war.”

  “That’s no excuse,” said Doris with unaccustomed severity. “There’s lots did that and still know how to keep a civil tongue in their head. Besides it’s a good many years ago now.”

  “Still,” said Vivienne melodiously, “they say that’s what turned him.”

  “I don’t know what turned him, I’m sure. Someone did tell me he thought the world of his boy and the two was always together in his boat and that. But I can’t see why we have to put up with his language all these years later. So long as he doesn’t come in here.”

  Carolus invited them to have a drink.

  “Mmmm,” said Vivienne, adding graciously, “I don’t mind. Plain gin.”

  “Well, that’s very kind of you,” said Doris cheerfully. “I’ll have a small gin and french same as I always do. Scotch for you? Yes, that old Bodger. He’ll get into trouble one of these days.”

  “I hear he has been in trouble.”

  “Oh, that. I meant the way he speaks to anyone.” Suddenly she leaned across to Carolus. “This is Mr Lobbin coming in now,” she whispered. “Yes, it is a cold night,” she added loudly to Carolus. Then to the newcomer, “Good evening Mr Lobbin. Cold out?”

  “It is cold,” said Lobbin.

  Carolus studied him. He was six foot tall or a little more and his face had a rough untidy look about it, a wayward moustache, disorderly eyebrows and irregular features. His eyes had a hurt, wondering expression and his hands were large and powerful. Yes, Carolus could well believe he was nagged by his wife, though there might be a dangerous limit somewhere to his patience.

  Carolus decided not to speak to him this evening or until he had made more progress with Rafter’s own family. But he watched him go at once into an intimate conference with Doris which lasted several minutes before it was broken up by Doris’s loud, “So that was it? Well, I’m not surprised really.”

  Lobbin was, Carolus grudgingly supposed, the nearest he had so far to a ‘suspect’, yet on the face of it he could not take the supposition very seriously. True, Lobbin had known Ernest on the Burma Road, knew of his treachery and had perhaps suffered from it. True, he had seen him in this bar on the night of the murder, as Doris said ‘could scarcely take his eyes off him’ and so probably recognized him. True he was on the promenade shortly before the murder. But to argue from these that he had gone down there, found Rafter and murdered him, seemed to Carolus far-fetched. Besides, what about the coal-hammer? Did he customarily walk about with a coal-hammer concealed on his person in case he should meet a man who had behaved badly as a fellow-prisoner of war nearly twenty years earlier? There had not been much time, one would think, between Lobbin’s leaving the Queen Victoria at ten o’clock and his being seen near the Palatine Cinema also at ‘about ten o’clock’. At all events there had scarcely been time for him to walk to his home, provide himself with the coal-hammer, and reach the promenade.

  The more Carolus thought about it, the more it seemed to him that all his vague suppositions were misdirected. The Rafter family, the people recognized by the policeman on the promenade, were all he had at present to consider as suspects but he could not make himself take their so-called motive seriously.

  When a few minutes later a man and woman entered the bar, whom he recognized at once from Moore’s description as Mr and Mrs Bullamy, he felt even more that he was among improbabilities. Mr Bullamy was a jolly little man and his wife looked like a female impersonator. Mr Bullamy made a joke with Doris and his wife laughed whole-heartedly at it. They both drank Guinness and seemed to enjoy it. What in the world could there be to connect such a commonplace couple with a brutal and cowardly crime except that by chance they had walked along the promenade on a night which was, admittedly, one of blustering wind, shortly before a man was murdered there?

  He noticed, however, that they greeted Lobbin at once and the three sat down together. Mr Bullamy ceased to joke and chuckle and listened gravely to something Lobbin was explaining. Mrs Bullamy became rather tense. But then, Carolus reflected, they had all three recently been questioned by the police and had in common the anxiety and disquiet which such questioning might rouse in even the most innocent persons.

  On the whole he felt he had done enough for today. Tomorrow he would start from quite a different angle and leave both the family and this pub for a time while he saw one or two even less involved people whose names had been connected with the thing. But he knew he was floundering about in the dark.

  9

  NEXT morning Carolus went by appointment to call on the Reverend Theo Morsell at the Vicarage of St Giles’s. He found this to be a stucco villa on the outskirts of the town.

  Mr Morsell was a vigorous-looking man in his early forties whose hair was thinning fast and whose eyes had a hungry look, as though they were spying out occasions for exercising his bounding energies. He had an embarrassingly warm and boisterous manner, called Carolus ‘old man’ or ‘old chap’ and seemed accustomed to being popular, uncontradicted and admired.

  It very soon became apparent that, so far from thinking that Carolus had approached him as someone who might

  be considered a suspect, he assumed that he was being consulted for his sagacity and experience.

  “I’m a bit of a sleuth myself,” he said in a hearty way as he lit a large pipe. “Always interested in this sort of problem. In my job I have to know something about human nature at its best and sometimes at its worst. So I’ve made a bit of a study of crime and criminals. It has enabled me to lend a hand here and there, too. I’m delighted to say that at least five of my regular congregation have done time and two of my choir are ex-Borstal boys. Grand fellows, all of them. Grand. So I’m not exactly a novice. May be able to help you quite a bit, old man. You tell me where you’ve got to and I’ll see whether light breaks.”

  Carolus inwardly squirmed but remained civil and businesslike.

  “I’ve got to that night on the promenade,” he said, “and I understand that you …”

  “Ah, that night,” said Mr Morsell. “Now the first thing we should notice about it was that there was a blustering cold wind. Not at all a night on which people would be walking up and down the promenade by chance.”

  “Yet you …”

  “The second thing was the time. Just after closing-time, you notice. Just when anyone who wanted to cool his head might take a blow.”

  “Is that why you …”

  “But the key to the whole thing as I see it is the coal-hammer. If we could find where that coal-hammer came from, we should be well on the way to the murderer.”

  “Obvi …”

  “Unless he’d been clever enough to steal it to involve someone else. If I were you I should go all out on discovering a home from which a coal-hammer is missing. The police should go about it systematically and try every door in Selby. Someone must have noticed it by now. If you hear of one missing it would narrow down your suspects to those who have had a chance to steal it, wouldn’t it?”

  Carolus gave up, for the moment, any attempt to ask relevant questions.

  “You think it was pre-planned, then?”

  “My dear old chap, of course it was. And with a cunning given to few. The murderer was no sadist, but someone with a very good reason for wishing this man dead. If he had been a paranoiac there would have been an element of sexual perversity in the crime, whereas it was a shrewd and clever thing, a trium
ph of mind over matter which he thought would remain immune from discovery.”

  “What was the motive, then?” asked Carolus.

  Mr Morsell shrugged.

  “Revenge,” he suggested, greed, fear, pride, it could have been any of the usual motives. No power on earth would make me believe there was not a valid reason. There was too much logic and skilled reasoning in the affair.”

  “That almost means you suspect one of the family.”

  “My dear man, I suspect no one yet. I am much too old a hand at this sort of thing to fix on anyone. All I can say is, this looks to me like a cold-blooded affair and not the act of a sadist or exhibitionist. So a motive has got to be found. That’s where you come in, you field detectives, accustomed to dealing with these things in a practical way.”

  Carolus made a resolute attempt to put his first question.

  “I understand you were on the promenade that evening.”

  “I was indeed,” said Mr Morsell. “But unfortunately I saw nothing which could be at all helpful to you. A pity, because my powers of observation are unusually keen and if there had been some little incident or encounter which would give you any scope for enquiry I should have noted it in detail. But there wasn’t.”

  “Perhaps you will let me decide that,” said Carolus, driven towards exasperation at last. “What time did you go down to the promenade?”

  “My dear old boy, I’m hopeless at remembering times. As my wife will tell you, she has to remind me of every appointment. It’s a congenital weakness of mine. But I should guess that in this case we left here soon after nine o’clock. We dine about eight. When I say ‘dine’ I mean we have our evening snack. That night we sat for some time over it before deciding to face the elements. I may say we didn’t realize, quite, what a disagreeable night it was. The wind must have come up in the late afternoon. Yes, we can call it nine o’clock, or soon after.”

  “How long were you down there?”

  “There again, you’ve come to the wrong shop for detail. We drove down from here, parked the car by the pier and set off with that wind in our faces. I should think we walked for about fifteen minutes before turning round.”

  “How far did you get?”

  “Not unfortunately, as far as the last shelter or we might have seen something useful. But I can tell you the point we reached to an inch. We went as far as the public lavatory. I know that because I intended to make use of it but found it closed.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “My dear old chap, I don’t know whether you suffer from a weak bladder. If you do you will guess what I did—got over the railing and dropped on to the beach for a moment out of the light.”

  “So your wife was waiting alone on the promenade? Did anyone pass her?”

  “You must ask her that for yourself. She’ll be bringing us in a cup of coffee in a moment. We always indulge ourselves at eleven o’clock in the morning. You’ll join us, I hope? I know how exhausting this kind of teaser can be.”

  “Thank you. So that was as far as you went?”

  “Yes. Pity, isn’t it? If we had covered the next hundred yards or two it would have brought us to the last shelter, and then who knows what my observant eye might have seen?”

  “Who indeed? The man was being murdered about the time you were on the beach,” said Carolus, but again apparently failed to suggest to Mr Morsell that this was anything but a consultation with a fellow expert.

  “How absurd! To think that I might …”

  “You turned back immediately?”

  “As soon as I rejoined my wife, yes. It was good to get the wind behind us.”

  “Did you meet anyone during the whole of your walk?”

  “I can’t be too certain about this because we go down to the promenade about three evenings a week. I remember that as we were walking against the wind we were caught up by a very short fat man who was stepping out briskly in the same direction. So briskly that he was soon out of sight ahead of us. And I seem to remember meeting a policeman at some point. I have an impression that there may have been one or two others but I can’t be sure.”

  “You did not speak to anyone?”

  “Only to a parishioner,” said Mr Morsell as though certain that this could have no bearing.

  “Who was that?”

  “My dear old boy, I can’t see that it can have the remotest connection with your problem. It was a parishioner of mine.”

  “So you said. It was the name I wanted.”

  Mr Morsell laughed.

  “You sleuths!” he said. “You must find a few wrong trees to bark up, I suppose. What noses you have for red herrings! Here was a man who sings bass in my choir, born and bred in Selby, who has worked in the same ironmonger’s shop for twenty years, and who chanced to take a stroll that evening. Yet you want his name. But I like you for it, old chap. I like thoroughness even when it’s misplaced.”

  “Thank you. What was his name?”

  “Oh really!” said Mr Morsell, a touch of irritation coming into his manner. “Aren’t you going rather far? I don’t want my friend upset by a lot of questions when he cannot possibly be concerned.”

  “You decline to tell me whom you met that evening, Mr Morsell?”

  “I’m sorry, old fellow, but I don’t think you have much sense of humour. If you could see the person concerned! “Mr Morsell laughed. “Oh dear! “he added chuckling.

  “Did you tell the police about this?” asked Carolus, whose face had not changed.

  “The police? My dear old boy, what do you take me for? Do you think I want to make such an ass of myself? The police would have told me not to be ridiculous.”

  “I see. Then since you refuse to tell me I shall have to inform them that you know of someone on the promenade whose name you do not wish to give.”

  “Hoity toity!” said Mr Morsell. “Now you’re becoming very public-spirited. I respect your sentiments but I wish you could see how absurd the whole thing is. The man’s name was Stringer. But please, my dear old chap, don’t go after him with a deerstalker. He’s a good, quiet little man, fond of reading and devoted to his wife and children.”

  “Thank you,” said Carolus again.

  “What we have to think of is not these diversions, surely, but the real murderer, who must be splitting his sides by this time to see you and the police barking up every tree but the right one. He certainly seems to have had either extraordinary intelligence or extraordinary luck.”

  “Exactly,” said Carolus. “One of the two.”

  “Or both,” went on Mr Morsell. “Unless you find out from whence that hammer is missing I don’t see him ever being discovered.”

  At that moment, as the clergyman had predicted, his wife entered with a tray. She was a gloomy-looking woman, heavy and with cheeks of a dull yellowish texture. She produced a grudging smile for Carolus.

  “Beryl, my dear,” said Mr Morsell while his wife was pouring coffee, “Mr Deene has been asking me all sorts of searching questions about the night of the murder. I’ve told him that I had to leave you for a few moments….”

  “When?” asked Mrs Morsell blankly.

  “You remember. During our walk. When we found the public convenience locked.”

  “Oh yes. I told you it would be.”

  “So you did,” said Mr Morsell brightly, “and I didn’t believe you. But not for the first time I was wrong and you were right. You remember I went down on the beach for a few moments?”

  The ‘few moments’ were a trifle stressed, Carolus thought.

  “Yes,” said Mrs Morsell.

  “Mr Deene wants to know if anyone passed you.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Beryl Morsell dully.

  “How long were you waiting, Mrs Morsell?”

  “It seemed a long time,” she sighed.

  Mr Morsell laughed.

  “I expect it did. All on your own in that wind!” he said.

  “How long?” asked Carolus.

  �
�It seemed hours,” said Mrs Morsell.

  “You see?” said her husband delightedly. “She’s even worse about time than I am. It was about three minutes, wasn’t it, Beryl?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “That’s what you sleuths are up against,” laughed Mr Morsell. “Three minutes become ‘hours’ if you don’t nail your informants down. And did no one pass you?”

  “There may have been. I don’t remember anyone. I was cold.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear! If all your witnesses were as vague as that, where would you be, eh, Deene? It’s a good thing I know what kind of information you require.”

  “Do you often go out on the promenade at night?” asked Carolus, unmoved by the clergyman’s complacent flippancy.

  “Quite often, yes. We both benefit from sea air. I’ve said many times, there’s no point in living here if we don’t take advantage of it.”

  “Always at the same time?”

  “No, no. It varies widely. Sometimes we go just after tea. Never later than we were that evening. Whenever we can fit it in.”

  “Had you seen the people you encountered that night on previous occasions?”

  “Yes. The policeman certainly, and I think the little muffled-up man. Yes, I’m sure of it.”

  “What about Stringer?”

  “Forever Stringer, eh?” chuckled Mr Morsell. “I happened to mention to Mr Deene that we saw poor Stringer that evening, my dear, and he has seized on it!”

  “Did we?” asked Mrs Morsell rather vacantly. “I don’t remember.”

  “Yes, you do. Just when we were about to go back to the car.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Do you remember anyone else, Mrs Morsell?”

  “You don’t, do you, dear?”

  “Wasn’t there a policeman?”

  “Apart from him,” said Carolus.

  “I don’t think so,” said Mrs Morsell.