How was she to know that the handsome new gasman, who arrived ostensibly to read the meter, was a policeman in disguise, and had a wife and twin little girls in a distant town? The constables of Hatterworth were too well-known to pass as anyone but themselves, so Haworth had borrowed Detective-Constable Blades from another force. Miriam set about him with her fine dark eyes and swaying hips right away. The coalman had once been heard to remark to his buddy that “Mrs. Myles’s bit o’ stuff was too comin’-on; even trying the vamp stuff on a chap with a hundredweight o’ best nuts on his hump. Lord knows what she’d be like behind the cemetery walls,”—which, by the way, was a favourite spot for local couples after dark. D.C. Blades was inclined to agree with the man from the coal merchant’s. It was all, of course, part of his job, but he thanked his stars that his missus and twins were twenty miles away.
“Come to read the meter,” said the bogus gasman, after seeing the housekeeper safely off on the errand of making ninepence for fourpence from the greengrocer and the fish-man.
“New recruit, eh?” said Miriam, rolling her eyes and looking him up and down with approval. “It’s not a quarter since the last chap called. You’re before your time.”
“Oh no, I’m not.”
“Oh, yes you are.”
“Well, I don’t blame a chap wantin’ to call a bit sooner,” said the constable, crossing his fingers and grinning coyly.
Miriam gave-in. “The meter’s in the cellar.”
Blades knew that quite well from previous information from the gas-works. Otherwise, he would have needed to play the role of a sanitary inspector or waterman hunting for a leak.
“I’ll show you the way…”
“Show me the cellar-door and I’ll find it myself, thanks. I don’t want to cause trouble.”
“No trouble.” Miriam had visions of being fondled whilst hunting for the switch.
As they reached the top of the cellar steps, the door-bell rang again.
“Oh, let ’em wait,” snapped the maid, determined not to be frustrated.
“Better see who it is,” said the false meterman. “Might be important. I’ll wait.”
“See you do, then. There’s other things down there besides the gas, and there’ll be a row if I’m caught letting folks free about the place.” And with a fetching glance and a flounce, she went again to the tradesmen’s entrance. Littlejohn stood at the door.
“Did I leave my pouch in the dining-room whilst I was waiting the other day?” he asked, fingering that object in his jacket pocket. Pleasant gentleman, thought Miriam. A bit on the old side, but well-dressed, kindly, and evidently out of the top drawer. Bet he’d make a girl the apple of his eye. She rolled her eyes, bared her white, even teeth, and stuck-out her bosom.
“Come in and we’ll look,” she said, and forgot the gasman.
“Doesn’t look as if you get many visitors here,” said Littlejohn, gazing round the desolate room, whilst Miriam played a game of hunt-the-tobacco-pouch in a fashion which displayed her figure and limbs to the full, and would have earned her the sack on the spot had the housekeeper unexpectedly turned-up.
“No, not at the front door,” said the girl, rising from peering beneath the table, and smiling mysteriously. “But there’s plenty of callers at the side-door…”
Underneath them, Constable Blades was prowling, torch in hand, on rubber-shod soles. The beam of light fell on walls festooned with cobwebs, heaps of coal deposited by the agitated coalman, old boxes waiting to be broken for firewood. In one corner stood a contraption of sheet-metal and wire for holding wines. A few bottles remained on it, separated into three groups. All the bottles were of the same kind, except an odd brandy or two.
“Oh, cripes!” said the interloper to himself, and then he took one sample of each group, except the brandy, and placed his spoils in the large bag which he carried for the apparent purpose of holding the fruits of his penny-in-the-slot customers. He crept noiselessly to the top of the stone steps, and soon his head appeared round the dining-room door. He ignored Littlejohn.
“Hey!” he hissed at Miriam, who had reached the stage of sitting on the table and swinging her legs as shown on the cover of her latest novelette. “Hey! ’ow much longer am I to wait on the cellar-steps?”
The maid put her snub nose in the air and looked at Blades down it.
“I’m busy. Find your own way…meter’s under the steps,” she answered, tightening her lips and closing her eyes as she removed them from the gasman to the gentleman.
Blades vanished and could be heard floundering down below again.
“Does Mrs. Myles ever leave her room these days?” asked Littlejohn.
“Oh, she sometimes potters about upstairs, but the stairs, especially goin’ up them, nearly knock her out. I’ll never forget the to-do last time she came down…in a temper it was, just because me and the housekeeper was in the garden and didn’t hear her bell. But, she comes down sometimes on the quiet. Thinks I don’t know—but she does.”
“Is that so. When?”
“Well, I know for a fact, she was down only the other day. Doin’ something on the sly, I’ll be bound.”
“Thought you wouldn’t find out, did she?”
“Yes. But she’ll have to get up earlier to catch me. She sent me off just after sourpuss—the housekeeper, I mean—had gone down town to pay the bills. Told me to go get her a packet of cigarettes…smoked all hers. Smokes like a chimney, does madam. She got quite mad at me, too, when I told her it didn’t seem right to leave her alone, and perhaps I’d better wait until the housekeeper came back. Ordered me, ordered, if you please. Well, I left the side-door open and the catch up, because I’d only be twenty minutes there and back, and I hadn’t a key. When I got back, the door was shut and locked. Lucky the kitchen window was open, so I climbed in.”
“How do you know it wasn’t somebody else who’d called, found the door open, and just fastened it?”
“I thought the same at first, and felt a bit put-out. Didn’t like the idea of strangers prowling round. So, I snooped about a bit. There was a trail of dirty footprints about leading from the kitchen and up the stairs!”
“Go on!”
“Yes, there was, as sure as I’m standing here. Oho! milady, thinks I, now I see why you wanted to be rid of me. Entertainin’ visitors, eh? But, I kept a still tongue about it. As much as my place was worth to mention it either to the missus or Mrs. Casey, the housekeeper. They’re hand-in-glove, and if I didn’t get well paid, I wouldn’t stop another day playing at being odd-man-out, like.”
“But even then, it might have been somebody just prowling, who made off when Mrs. Myles started stirring above.”
“I tell you she must have come down. Else, why did I find her handkercher’ in the hall near the cellar door? It wasn’t there when I left the house. No, she’d been down and dropped it, the artful old thing, and then stayed mum about anybody calling. Never a word she said, although I asked her if she’d been disturbed while I was out. ‘Why should I be disturbed?’ she says, lahdidah like, and glaring at me as if she’d kill me with a look. ‘Oh, I was just wonderin’, madam,’ I said. ‘You’re not used to being left, and with the tradesmen knocking about.’ ‘Nobody’s bin,’ she snaps, as large as life.”
“When was that?”
“Why are you so nosey?” said the girl, eyeing Littlejohn with suspicious alarm.
“Only I thought I saw you down in town on Tuesday.”
“Did you?” said Miriam, perking-up again and flashing a glance like a dentifrice advertisement at him. “Well, it was Tuesday, but I didn’t go right into town…where were you?”
“Coming up this way.”
“Then it would be me…but, of course, I didn’t know you then, did I? I’ll not miss you next time.”
“Well, it’s been nice to have a talk, and I’m sorry to have bothered you
. I must have left the pouch elsewhere. Shall I go out by the back door?”
“No. Come the front way, but you needn’t hurry. Mrs. Casey’ll be about another half-hour yet.”
Miriam was hoping her visitor would ask her when she had her evening off. Instead, he bade her good day and, letting himself out by the front way, departed without more ado.
Miriam pouted, regarded herself critically in the mirror in the hall, and wondered what other girls had got that she hadn’t. She sighed dramatically. “Men are all alike,” she told her image in the glass. “Ungrateful beasts! Just fool about, and when you’re just beginning to enjoy yourself, they give you the air.”
Then, remembering her second reserve, the gasman, she hurried to the cellar, hoping to take-up the chase where she had left off. But Blades had gone. He was already knocking at the door of Spenclough Hall servants’ entrance. An elderly, plain-Jane of a woman in maid’s uniform answered him. She was lethargic, and merely grumbled that it wasn’t long since the meter-man was there before.
“Yes. We’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves at the gasworks,” said Blades. “If we go on like this, we’ll be meeting ourselves coming back!”
The maid didn’t seem disposed to crack jokes or bandy words, but led him to the cellar door. She made no offer to accompany him, switched on the stairs-light, and left him to his own devices.
“You know where it is,” she said, and returned to her task of turning-out the drawing-room without waiting for a reply.
Five minutes later, Blades clumped back up the cellar steps. The maid heard him, and let him out at the side-door. He had found more wine on shelves, but arranged in neat and orderly fashion, and it gave him little trouble. He left with another bottle in his bag.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Myles had rung for Miriam and was questioning her concerning the noise of visitors, which she had heard going on downstairs. Miriam said it was only the gasman and the gentleman who called the other day, the big, clean, good-looking one. He said he’d left his pouch. No, they didn’t find it.
Mrs. Myles’s eyes blazed.
“And I suppose you did a lot of talking, as usual.”
“No. Just hunted for the tobacco pouch.”
“You lying little slut…I heard you chattering. What was it about?”
“It was private,” said the girl, her cheeks flushing in anger.
Mrs. Myles’s fingers closed round her wrist in a grip remarkable for a woman of her age.
“Leave go…you’re hurting me…let me go…or…I’ll hit you.”
The old woman gave the wrist a deft twist. “Now, out with it, you hussy. Or, it’ll be my turn to talk to the police. Oh, you needn’t look pained. You little fool. Do you think I don’t know where the odds and ends you think I don’t miss have gone? They’ll search your bag, and I shan’t say I’ve given them to you. Don’t imagine because I’m tied to my room, I don’t know what’s been going-on…”
Miriam tore herself free. She had sold the trinkets which she thought wouldn’t be missed. They’d nothing on her. Her pent-up feelings burst forth.
“That’s it…that’s it, you old hag!” she screamed. “Tied to your room, indeed. Tied, my foot! Whenever you’re left to yourself, you’re all over the place. Think I don’t know that, don’t yer? Well, I do. I do, see? And if you want to know, I told Mr. Littlejohn ’ow, only last Tuesday, you got rid of me so’s you could start your games. I told him somebody was here, too, and that you said nobody had been…Thought you’d done one on me, didn’t you? Well, you didn’t. You left your handkercher’ down below, clever…”
Mrs. Myles’s cheeks grew red, her lips trembled in uncontrollable, senile rage. Grasping the walking stick she used to help her about, she swung it and caught Miriam a savage blow across the face. A livid weal sprang on the girl’s cheek almost before the stick had fallen.
“You…you…I’ll kill you for that!” yelled the girl, and catching the bright, inexorable old eye of her mistress, burst into hysterical screams. The door had silently opened, and the next thing the maid saw was Mrs. Casey, scowling, protective of her mistress, and dark in her wrath. The housekeeper strode to Miriam, and struck her a ringing blow on the other cheek with the palm of her hand.
“And now be off and pack your bag, and get out, before I do something worse to you,” she hissed, and Miriam fled.
Mrs. Casey hovered over Mrs. Myles.
“Leave me…leave me…I’m all right. Go,” said the old woman.
Reluctantly, the housekeeper withdrew.
Mrs. Myles sat for a moment, deep in thought and panting from her exertions. She grew calm at length, and remained awhile like a shrivelled graven image.
Then, she stretched out a trembling hand for the telephone and dialled a number.
Chapter XVI
The Gorse Bush
There’s shouting on the mountain-side,
There’s war within the blast—
Old faces look upon me,
Old forms go trooping past.
—W. E. Aytoun
In the police-station at Hatterworth, Littlejohn, Ross and Haworth were standing at the window examining the contents of three test-tubes. The place smelled strongly of rum, for that was the subject of their investigation and their discussion.
“As far as my inexpert eye and uncultivated palate tell me, they’re all three the same,” said Littlejohn. “We’ll send samples off to The Yard at once for examination, but I’m afraid they’ll only confirm our verdict.”
The other two men grunted disconsolately.
“So that means that both Mrs. Myles and Sir Caleb have the same brand of rum in their cellars,” sighed Haworth. “We’re up against another blank wall.”
“All the same,” added Littlejohn, “our little enquiry hasn’t been without results. We’ve found out that Mrs. Myles was downstairs about the time Three-Fingers was in the town. Why did she take such trouble to get the servants out of the house? I’d better go to her place again, and ask her what she was doing. No use skirmishing on the fringe. We can go on like this, fencing and finessing, for ever. We’d better make a proper attack and be done with it. What do you say?”
“Agreed,” replied Haworth, “but, you’re dealing with a wily old bird, you know. You’ll not get much change out of Mrs. Myles.”
The telephone bell rang and Haworth picked up the receiver.
“Yes. Yes. This is Superintendent Haworth…just a minute.”
The Superintendent held his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Talk of the devil! It’s Mrs. Myles. She wants a word with you, Littlejohn.”
Littlejohn took the instrument, and listened.
“Yes. Certainly, Mrs. Myles. I’ll come right away. Alone? Very good.”
“She wants to see me right away, and alone,” he said. “Now things are beginning to move.” He took up his hat and prepared to leave. He was met at the door by Miriam Dewsnap, who charged in like a mad bull. She had no eyes for Littlejohn this time. She made straight for Haworth.
Miriam’s once comely face was distorted with rage and much weeping. A long, angry bruise disfigured one side of it, and the outer edge of her eye was darkening ominously. She carried a shabby fibre suit-case and was dressed in a cheap, flashy coat and a neat hat which was awry on her disordered hair.
“I want to summons Mrs. Myles for assault, the old bitch!” she screamed, and burst into hysterical tears again. “After Mr. Littlejohn had left, she called me upstairs, screwed my arms up my back until I told her what I’d said to him, and then beat me up for it. I’ll make her pay…What am I to do…? She’s given me the sack and I daren’t go ’ome. My father’ll give me another good hiding for losing me job…”
Littlejohn made a hurried exit, leaving Haworth to deal with the woman and her problem, with Ross, the bachelor, hovering awkwardly around.
Mrs. Myles
was waiting for him. Afternoon-tea was laid on a table at her elbow, and she poured out a cup for him and told him to make himself comfortable.
“I dare say you’re wondering why I want you again, Inspector,” she said as she settled back in her armchair. “Well, it’s about this revived murder case, as you might guess, and also about the death of that rascal, Three-Fingers. Things have been moving a bit too fast for my old brain during the past few days. At my age, I want a bit of peace. I’m tired and can’t bear upsets. I want to get something off my mind, and then be quiet again.”
Littlejohn took out his notebook and pencil.
“Can you write shorthand, Inspector?”
“No, madam, I’m sorry to say.”
“Well then, listen first. It’ll tire me and fray my nerves if you don’t listen properly. I can’t have you scribbling there and making me go slow. Take a note or two, if you wish, but come back with a proper statement for me to sign afterwards. That’ll be better. Jot down a point or two now and then as it strikes you, but bear with me and my foibles, please.”
“Very good, madam. But I think I ought to warn you that I hold myself free to take down anything you may say, and it may be used in evidence later.”
“All right. All right. Be done with the trimmings and let’s get on. In the first place, you questioned my maid to-day, and got out of her some information concerning my movements on the day of the death of Three-Fingers. And you heard that I’d been downstairs, didn’t you? No doubt, putting two and two together, you came to the conclusion that I went down to the cellar, doped a bottle of rum, admitted Three-Fingers, gave him the liquor, and sent him packing to his death. You did, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
The old lady grinned craftily, and her face looked like a death’s-head covered tightly with skin.
The Dead Shall be Raised and The Murder of a Quack Page 13