“Ah thought maybe ah could help a bit,” he said again, looking at his three companions pathetically, his eyes asking a hundred and one urgent questions.
“Good of you to take all the trouble, Inspector,” said Haworth. “We’re just about to hold a conference on the very matter, and you may as well join-in. The background your experience will bring, will be invaluable, I’ve no doubt. You probably don’t know it yet,—it hasn’t gone beyond the three of us—that Mrs. Myles’s death is intimately connected with those of Sykes and Trickett more than twenty years ago…”
“Ah guessed somethin’ o’ th’ sort, but I’d be glad of some light on the subject.”
“Well, I suggest that Littlejohn, who’s been in charge of the investigations—and thank goodness he was on the spot—gives us all an outline of the case, and leads up to the state of affairs as they stand at present. The narrative’ll clarify our minds, as well as giving you a full picture of what’s happened.”
Littlejohn’s admiration for Haworth increased. His courtesy and respect for the long superannuated police-officer were exemplary. But, Haworth knew his man, too. Old Entwistle was no fool. He still had a shrewd brain and a huge fund of local knowledge. He was an invaluable ally in the forthcoming fight with Sir Caleb.
Littlejohn began his tale.
“The case begins really with the death of Mrs. Myles’s husband. She was left with the business to preserve until her two boys were old enough to take over. Meanwhile, Caleb Haythornthwaite became manager. The promotion went to his head. Soon, he fancied himself the be-all and end-all of the business, grew too big for his shoes, proposed to Mrs. Myles, and came a cropper for his pains.”
Old Entwistle omitted a throaty growl, like a good dog dreaming of evil things or hearing them prowling around.
“We know that Mrs. Myles and Haythornthwaite quarrelled and parted company, and that he joined a rival concern in the town. He also took his two hirelings with him, Sykes and Trickett, and other things as well, including certain patents belonging to Mrs. Myles. Goodness knows what else they carried away, too. Maybe, it was portions of the plant, tools, patterns of machinery. Anyway, there was something disreputable about the whole business, because as far as we can gather, Sykes began to blackmail Caleb when he became prosperous enough to pay-up. We’ve evidence of the amount Sykes accumulated from the fact that he left enough to make his mother comfortable for life. He didn’t do that on a mechanic’s wage. Haythornthwaite, when faced with the large sums he’d paid out to Sykes, said they were for patent rights. You know better than I do, and I’ve found it out from his old workmates, that whilst Sykes was an excellent man at his job, and one well worth his place in any foundry, he hadn’t an ounce of inventive genius in him.”
“That’s right,” muttered Entwistle, deeply interested in the narrative and sitting gazing intently at a spot on the floor, his beard resting on his ready-made tie.
“Haythornthwaite was running for local honours. He couldn’t do with a man like Sykes for ever round his neck, with his blackmail and his impudence. Haythornthwaite was going places, as the Americans have it, and Sykes wasn’t going to bear him company, if he could help it. Especially, as by this time, Enoch had quarrelled with his girl, who’d jilted him in favour of his bosom pal, and he’d taken to drink. Trickett, of course, was just a faithful hound to Sykes until they quarrelled, and even then, was ready to make it up, retaining a measure of his old loyalty, as we’ll see later.”
“A decent chap, was Jerry. Nowt much wrong with him, except that he backed the wrong horse…” interposed the old man.
“Well, Caleb was after a knighthood and had bought Spenclough Hall. Time to be rid of Sykes, he thought. He perhaps tried to buy him off. We don’t know. But Sykes was sticking where he was. He was on a good thing, apparently. So Caleb must have contemplated killing him at a favourable opportunity. There may have been plenty of chances in a foundry, with so much dangerous machinery and material about, but perhaps Sykes was too wary…”
“He was lucky, you mean. Come to think of it, there was a mysterious accident there, when a pig of iron, being unloaded, fell from the first floor and just missed Sykes by inches. Lamed the chap standing next to him for life,” cut-in Entwistle, looking-up bright-eyed. “Caleb was blamed for that. The men said he’d been messing around when they were unloadin’, and interfering in things he knew nowt about. Very likely, he pushed-off that lump of iron.”
“There you are, you see,” continued Littlejohn. “But, at last, his chance came. Haythornthwaite was returning from shooting and, crossing the moor with, as he thought, nobody about, he met Sykes, drunk and floundering his way home in the fading light. He let him have it with his sporting-gun. Whether or not they quarrelled, we don’t know, but no doubt, Caleb was getting ready to make it look like an accident, when suddenly he was disturbed. Mrs. Myles, who had discovered that certain of her firm’s patents were being infringed by Caleb’s company, was after his blood, and finding his car parked in a lonely part of the moorland road, stepped out to find him. Caleb fled with her approach, leaving obvious signs of murder.
“But there were others on the moor that evening, as well. There was Trickett, with whom Sykes had just had a public brawl at the Horse and Jockey. He was following his friend, perhaps to try to make peace, who knows? Jerry was a harmless sort of fellow, and seemed anxious to shake hands and be friends again. He must have heard the shot, and hurried to the spot to find Mrs. Myles bending over the dead body of Sykes.”
Littlejohn eased his body in the hard chair, stretched out his long legs, and re-lit his pipe.
“Mrs. Myles was the sworn enemy of the whole unholy trio of renegades. What more likely than that Trickett should think she’d killed Sykes? At any rate, he acted accordingly and accused her of it. He’d plenty of drink in him, and was too stupid to listen to explanations. He poked his gun at her, she resented it, and tried to push it aside. There must have been something of a tussle between them.
“Then number five arrives on the scene. This time, it’s Buller, the gamekeeper, an old servant of Mrs. Myles’s, who, from what I can gather, worshipped the ground she walked-on…”
“Not the only one,” muttered Entwistle in his beard.
“Beg pardon?” said Littlejohn.
“All right, all right, go on, go on…”
“Things must have looked desperate for Mrs. Myles when Buller appeared. Trickett’s gun wasn’t loaded, but he was making movements as if to fire at her. Buller up with his gun, and shot Trickett on the spot. You can imagine what Mrs. Myles and Buller felt like when the heat of battle had died down. Two corpses on their hands. Should they call in the police, explain what had occurred, and accuse Haythornthwaite? Sitting here, conducting an inquest in cold blood, I ask you, gentlemen, can you believe such a fantastic tale? I’d find it hard to swallow, myself, had not a dying woman with nothing much to gain from lying about it, told it to me.”
“If Mrs. Myles said it was so, it was so,” said Entwistle, and Haworth nodded. “What we’ve to do, I take it, is to tear the truth out of Haythornthwaite.”
“Yes. But to go on with my account…Mrs. Myles had a spade in her car. Buller buried Sykes. They removed all traces of their intervention, and left it looking as though Sykes had killed his former pal and bolted.”
“Pah!” grumbled Entwistle. “I remember Charlie Pickersgill sayin’ to me, ‘You keep out o’ this, Dad. You’re on the retired list. It’s as plain as the nose on yer face, and I don’t need any help’. He was too clever in his own eyes, was Charlie. All right for keepin’ law and order, but not much good at owt else. To anybody who knew that moor properly, it was impossible, in the dry weather we were havin’ then, to miss anybody’s tracks, try as they would to wipe ’em out. But no, Charlie was so sure that Sykes had done it that he couldn’t see any farther than his nose-end. Go on, Mr. Littlejohn, don’t mind me. Only a rude old chap butting
-in.”
“So,” continued Littlejohn, “the case rested, apparently solved, but with the killer missing, until the Home Guard dug-up Sykes. Then, Three-Fingers came into the picture. He was number six on the moor on the day of the crime. We know he’d been warned-off the preserves by Buller just before. The girl who was with him that night told me, too, that he recognized somebody—she herself didn’t know who it was and Three-Fingers wouldn’t tell her—prowling about. That must have been Caleb, for, no sooner was it noised abroad that Sykes and Trickett had both apparently been murdered together by a third party, than Three-Fingers was heard boasting about his turn of luck. He’d remembered whom he’d seen on the moor at the time of the crime, and was getting ready to cash-in on it. Not that his evidence would have been a hanging matter for anybody, but it might have caused embarrassing questions and brought to light goodness knows what. He called on his victim, was paid-off, and at the same time given a bottle of doped rum. The bottle was unidentifiable—the sort one might pick-up anywhere. The murderer forgot, however, that the rum was very special stuff. In fact, he probably didn’t know himself, that it was special. He’s reputed to have execrable taste in liquor! Mrs. Myles saw Three-Fingers leaving Spenclough Hall shortly before his death. I guess that Haythornthwaite hoped that the tramp would go on the moor, drink himself blind in the heather, and die there. Instead, he died on my hands and, luckily, we were able to rescue some of the rum. That’s the story, gentlemen. We can take it or leave it. It’s probably true, although we’ve no actual proof.”
“In other words, we’ve to wring it out of Sir Caleb,” said Haworth. “That’s a tough proposition, and no mistake. We’re not allowed third-degree methods here. In fact, we’ve overstepped our powers considerably in taking samples of rum from Myles’s and Haythornthwaite’s cellars.”
“You don’t mean to say you’ve been burgling wine-cellars,” chuckled Entwistle. “Well! That beats the band.”
“We had to do something desperate, Mr. Entwistle,” replied Haworth. “It was a long chance and probably our reputations were at stake. But it’s come off, and yielded results.”
“Oh, aye,” said the ex-Inspector. “But you’ve still the worst to face. Caleb’s goin’ to be a tough nut to crack. He’s landed where he is by bein’ unscrupulous and wily. It’s a problem how to trip him up, and no mistake.”
“Yes. That’s our next big job.”
Entwistle thought a moment.
“Ah remember telling the pair of you, when you came to see us that day in my hen-pen, that ah wanted this to be my last case. Ah’ll take on th’ job of laying Caleb by the ears. Ah know him better than any of you, and none of his ways are foreign to me. I’ve got a plan at the back of my mind, and want a bit of time to think it out. Ah’m an old man and ah’ve no reputation to lose. Ah’ll take all th’ responsibility for this job, if you’ll both trust me.”
Haworth looked at Littlejohn and Ross. Both nodded agreement.
“Right, then, but we’ll want to know all about it before we set to work,” he said.
“Good,” said Entwistle and rose to put on his outdoor clothes. They helped him into his overcoat and swathed him in his scarf. “Ah’ll just be back home in time. The pictures ’ll be out in quarter of an hour, and they’ll find me where they left me, by th’ fireside. Ah want no questions, and Charlie Pickersgill’s to know nothing of this. Ah’ll teach him to push my nose out of cases. Well, I’ll bid you good night, and ah’ll see you all in the morning at ten o’clock. Ah’ll have to tell my daughter ah’m going out to change my library-book. Ah daren’t make a move these days without a full account of my doings. Good night.”
And the lively old man of eighty plunged out into the snow.
Chapter XVIII
Inspector Entwistle Takes a Hand
Give ample room and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
—Thomas Gray
Promptly at ten o’clock the following morning, ex-Inspector Entwistle, otherwise the Emeritus Inspector, as Mrs. Littlejohn dubbed him, arrived at Hatterworth police-station. He was dressed-up to the nines for the occasion, which was probably a high-spot of his declining days, and how he had got past his inquisitive daughter was a subsidiary mystery. He wore a new cloth cap set squarely on his head, a smart dark-blue overcoat of pilot cloth, and a suit of grey homespuns. These were set-off by a new pair of fur-lined, suède gloves, and a hand-knitted scarf, which swathed his neck and ears, hiding a new, ready-made tie. He was smoking a cigar with the band still round it. Evidently the Emeritus Inspector had done well in the way of Christmas presents from his granddaughters! He took the helm immediately, greatly to the secret amusement of Littlejohn. His torpedo beard protruded aggressively, his eyes shone with the light of battle, and he rubbed his hands together, more from relish of the chase than to restore circulation.
He placed a bottle on Haworth’s desk. The Superintendent picked it up, looked in astonishment at the old man, and passed on the object to Littlejohn.
“Well. What are they?” chuckled Entwistle.
“Sleeping tablets,” replied Haworth.
The Emeritus Inspector had already been to Spenclough Hall, for he knew that at that time Sir Caleb would be at the foundry and his lady probably in the town among the shops. The elderly parlour-maid at the Hall was the widow of the son of a second-cousin of Inspector Entwistle, and hence was one of the family. Entwistle rang the front-door bell and his remote relative appeared.
“Well, Clara, compliments of the season, lass.”
“Same to you and many of them, cousin Will. What brings you here so early in the morning?”
Clara Uttley was a lethargic woman of well over forty, and not too contented with her lot and the blows fate had dealt her in robbing her of her husband six weeks after they were married. She it was with whom the pseudo-gasman had made such heavy weather, but with her present visitor she thawed considerably. He was one of the family, so that was different! Besides, he’d always been good to her and treated her like a daughter. She owed him a good turn.
“Ah’ve come to see thee on a bit o’ business, lass.”
“Come in, then. What is it, cousin Will?”
“Now, Clara, ah want the truth. Ah want to know whether Three-Fingers was here last week on the day he died.”
Clara Uttley’s face was anæmic to begin with, but it turned a good deal paler at the question. She wrung her hands and fumbled with her apron. Emeritus fixed her with an innocuous paternal eye.
“Well…? Come on, lass. He was, wasn’t he?”
“If I tell you, cousin Will, you’ll not noise it abroad, will you?”
“Ah’ll see that you come to no harm by tellin’ me, if that’s what you’re after, Clara.”
“Well, he was here. He came to the side-door, as large as life, and asked for the master, as cheeky as you please. He arrived hoity-toity at the back, and went-off cock-a-hoop by the front door. And then Sir Caleb had me in his study after, if you please, and gave me a good dressin’-down for not tellin’ Three-Fingers he wasn’t at home. As if he hadn’t said he’d see him, mind you, when I said he was there axing for him. And then the boss says to me, ‘Clara,’ he says, ‘you’re not to tell a soul about this visit. If you do, or if I hear of it, you’re out of a job and no references given.’ Proper upset he was and jumping and twitching about just like he’d got St. Vitus’ Dance, or somethin’. Well, after that, ah had to keep my mouth shut. At my age, jobs are hard to come-by, cousin Will. So I kept mum. Sir Caleb must have been afraid of bein’ seen associatin’ with such riff-raff, and I’m not surprised eether.”
“Did Three-Fingers take anything with him?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Not a bottle, or such-like?”
“If he did, it was in his pocket. Sir Caleb did go down the cellar, though, and brought up a bottle, but I thought they’d
just be having a tot together, like. He might perhaps have given Bill the bottle. He was a proper old scrounger, was Bill, but the boss doesn’t often part with somethin’ for nothin’, ah can tell you.”
“Did Sir Caleb go right back to Three-Fingers when he came up from getting the bottle?”
“Ah can’t rightly say. When he got up from the cellar, the boss said he’d left the light on below, and I was to go down and put it out. When I got back, he was upstairs doing something in his bedroom. Then, after about a couple of minutes, he came down and let Three-Fingers out at the front door. Let him out himself, too.”
“Now, Clara, can I see Sir Caleb’s room?”
“Eeh, for goodness’ sake, cousin Will! Do you want to get me the sack? There’s only cook and the girl in just now, but if the missus or Sir Caleb returns, ah’m done-for.”
“Just for a minute or two, Clara. If you get caught, I’ll say you didn’t know I’d gone up. Ah’ll take all th’ blame. Which is the room? You stay dusting in the hall and, if anybody comes, start to sing Beautiful Zion, and leave the rest to me.”
“All right. But ah’m warnin’ you, cousin Will…It’s first room on th’ left. If anybody hears me singin’, they’ll think ah’ve gone potty with religious mania or some such like…Hymns isn’t my strong point.”
Ex-Inspector Entwistle mounted the stairs with measured tread. Five minutes later, still unperturbed, he descended them. In his pocket was a bottle he had found in one of the legs of a pair of winter pants under a pile of clothing in a drawer. It bore a local chemist’s name.
The Dead Shall be Raised and The Murder of a Quack Page 15