Dr Morelle and Destiny

by Ernest Dudley

  When they got down they were hidden by the river wall at their back and on two sides, and in front by the wild grasses lining the inlet. Except for one end where a narrow sandspit ran out. Lucilla led Johnny towards this. He sank down on to the grass but before he could pull her down beside him, she kicked off her shoes and stepped across to the sand, until the water ran round her slim ankles.

  “It’s heaven,” she said.

  He grinned at her, raising himself on one elbow.

  She began splashing her bare arms. She looked up suddenly, appealingly, and as if on some daredevil impulse. “Darling,” she said, “let’s take a dip.”

  His grin broadened. “Sounds okay, only I don’t happen to have a swimsuit.”

  “Neither have I. What difference does it make?” She began slipping out of her blouse.

  He sat up, unbelievingly.

  “Say, you really mean that, hon, don’t you?”

  “Not a soul can see us,” she said.

  She stood a yard from him. The evening light glowed around her turning her slim figure to curves of gold. He would have done anything to please her. The moment, the place, the girl suddenly caught him in a spell which swept everything else from his mind. He wasn’t his own boss anymore. Just for a moment he’d forgotten the inn and why he was there. He stood up, peeling off his jacket.

  “Say, why not?” he said, and threw his jacket to the ground. “If you want to play, kiddo, so will I.”

  She saw the holster under his left armpit as he took his draped jacket off. She stared at it, a fixed smile on her mouth, until his little laugh dragged her eyes to his face, and the look on it as he came towards her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  P.C. FRANCIS PUT down the telephone and scowled at the notebook on his desk. Everything always came at once and at the wrong time. After weeks without even an incident worth mentioning, he was suddenly inundated with calls, instructions and journeys, just when he needed to spend every spare moment with his sweet peas. There was no end to do before the flower-show at Thallerton a week hence. And he’d had every hope of carrying off the top prizes in the classes he was entering.

  He loved his garden, and when he had been transferred from the busy town of Sharbridge to Pebcreek a year before, he thought he had found the haven that would comfortably see him over the last few years to his retirement. The house had been up no more than three years and had every convenience for his wife, the garden was large and already well cultivated, and Pebcreek was a quiet backwater.

  The job was smooth, routine. More paper work than at headquarters, of course; farmers’ livestock movement records to sign, cattle and pig movement licences to issue, and reports for H.Q.; such items were straightforward enough once he was used to them, and if the area of his rural beat was a world of difference from his town patrol, it was pleasant country. He didn’t dislike the cycling that made up much of his working hours. Even the night duty, when on occasion he had to rendezvous with the sergeant from Thallerton and his own opposite number from Cannel at their conference point, was better than patrolling about the town, trying the doors of shops and other business premises to see that they were secure, apprehending a drunk, or reporting a traffic offence.

  He read the details he’d just recorded in his notebook again. Obviously headquarters thought the find important. The super at Sharbridge had been on the phone himself. Had only just given him all the details. He’d treated the matter urgently.

  With a deep sigh P.C. Francis got up from his desk, glanced round the little office for his helmet, and grabbed it from the peg behind the corner. He’d have the super and the sergeant and various other official bods on his heels over this, that was for a cert. After months of plain routine it had to happen now, just when the show was coming. And to make things worse the damned greenfly earlier that evening were getting at the sweet-peas.

  His inspection of the vestry and the underground hiding-place for the sacking-covered chunk of machinery hadn’t got him very far. Not that he thought it would. The discreet inquiries which he had subsequently made among the one or two likely sources of information in Pebcreek hadn’t got him much further either. He had come back, unmoved by failure, knowing that his colleagues in the other areas of the division would get the same reaction.

  There was no time to sit down to tea with his wife, let alone to see how the sweet-peas were making out. He drank a cup of tea in the kitchen, swallowed a piece of cake and went off again on his bicycle. It had been a hot day. Now a light breeze was blowing up-river from the east cooling the heat of the afternoon sun. P.C. Francis liked the river road, even in winter. He liked to hear the wildfowl calling to each other across the marsh. Often he’d stopped to admire a flock of mallard silhouetted against the cold evening sky, winging their way towards the coast.

  But his mind wasn’t occupied with such things now as he dismounted and began pushing his cycle up the incline past the ruined church. He was thinking that the superintendent had acted quickly enough. Within a few minutes of his own arrival at the church earlier, a police-car and van had arrived and the super, a sergeant and a detective-constable had made a thorough examination of the place. Eventually everything had been loaded into the van and they had all returned to Sharbridge. He had been sent back to Dormouse Creek to carry on with routine inquiries which might yield some hint of the identity of whoever it was who’d stuck that darned lot of machinery there.

  He paused now in the shade of the trees fringing the old graveyard to mop the perspiration from his brow. He couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, even if a blessed printing-press had been found there. But it seemed that the gaunt, unsmiling individual who’d driven up in a mustard-yellow car while the super had been there and had gone into a brief conference with his nibs, attached quite a bit of importance to it. The famous criminologist, Dr. Morelle, he was down from London. He’d heard the sergeant tell the detective-constable that he was visiting the Moya.

  He knew the owner of the Moya. The bird-watching woman. Bit eccentric; it occurred to him that a lonely houseboat on the mud in a creek was a queer sort of haunt for the sort of big shot this Dr. Morelle was supposed to be. Then there was somebody else on their way down from London, too, probably to-morrow. A friend of Dr. Morelle’s from Scotland Yard.

  P.C. Francis brushed a gnat off his nose. Of course it was Dr. Morelle’s secretary who had found the secret of the vault, he remembered. She was staying on the Moya. That explained, he supposed, why her boss had shown up, and it was his secretary who’d seen the mysterious someone in the church ruins. She had seen a limping man while she’d been sheltering from a storm. She had tipped off Dr. Morelle with the result that there was this commotion. The Scotland Yard inspector was coming down to take a look at things, unofficially. Headquarters hadn’t called in the Yard yet. The super was handling the case. But the Scotland Yard bloke must have some good reason for poking his city-slicker’s nose in.

  P.C. Francis pushed his helmet further back on his head. Limping man? He’d never seen any man with a limp on his beat. What could the young woman have been talking about? Imagining it all, he reckoned. He knew everyone around these parts, and there just wasn’t a man with a limp. There was an old boy with a crooked shoulder who lived the other side of Pebcreek, some chap who’d come from over Ipswich way, who’d bought a farm-worker’s cottage; and there was Mrs. Dice in the village with her poor club foot. He took off his helmet and wiped the inside of it with his handkerchief.

  He glanced around the churchyard and shook his head before pushing his helmet back on it. There was nothing he could do here. He had entertained the idea that he might nose around and pick up a clue. But the lot from Sharbridge must have given it all a thorough going-over. He had about as much chance of finding anything they’d missed as he had of meeting this limping man. He was about to turn and get on to his bike when there was a sudden movement behind him that brought his head round. Suddenly, although it was warm, he felt a chill in the air. He gave a litt
le shiver and wheeled his bicycle along the path towards the vestry. He could see the door, closed now. But there was nothing else. Then there was the movement again, a scuffling in the weed-infested hedge beside him, and then a bird flew out squawking in alarm. Must have been a fox or a stoat disturbed it, he decided, and swallowed, relaxed again.

  With a sheepish smile to himself, he turned the bicycle back along the rough path, pushed the machine to the crest of the rise, and mounted. He was able to free-wheel practically right back into Dormouse Creek. He was thinking about his sweet-peas.

  He rode up to the village store, just in case old Greer had thought of anyone since he’d called there earlier in the day. Friendly, helpful type, old Greer. He’d had the little business for years and knew everyone and everything that went on around him. If there had been a limping man in the vicinity, he would have known about it. He saw him through the back of the shop in the store-shed, his wife was serving. P.C. Francis chatted with her, until her husband appeared, stroking the faint stubble on his chin, his fingers making a rasping sound.

  “Can’t say I’ve any new ideas,” he said. “No strangers around that I can recall who walked proper, let alone one with a limp.”

  P.C. Francis chatted for a bit more, mostly about the flower-show and his prospects, and then got on his bicycle and rode away homewards. The large nickel watch on his sunburned wrist said seven twenty-five. But it was a bit slow. Passing The Wildfowler he eased his speed, wondering if he should look in there again, in case the limping man had appeared in the bar, asking for a pint. P.C. Francis grinned to himself at his little fancy. He remembered the sense of urgency in the super’s tone over the wire from Sharbridge and all the notes he’d jotted down.

  The super didn’t seem to understand that if there was a stranger in the neighbourhood, especially someone with such a distinguishing feature as a limp, the whole of Pebcreek would know about it. Talk about the underworld’s grapevine, it was nothing to the speed and the wide range of village gossip.

  Still, he put his foot down to balance himself while he deliberated, should he call in just to make sure the man at the Wildfowler hadn’t misremembered something which might prove a bit of a lead. The Wildfowler chap wasn’t a real local, after all, some ex-army type or something, who’d bought the little pub with his gratuity. So he wasn’t likely to know when a stranger was around.

  He thought of his sweet-peas. And as if to clinch it for him he caught sight from the corner of his eye, a tall, purposeful figure approaching the pub. He turned to make sure who it was. Yes, it was him all right, he’d only glimpsed him for a few moments as he’d got out of his rakish-looking yellow car earlier that day, but he was the once-seen-never-forgotten sort and no mistake.

  P.C. Francis watched Dr. Morelle pause briefly on the threshold of the Wildfowler, and then go in. P.C. Francis decided that the great man from Harley Street hadn’t called there just for a drink, and fully persuaded that he could safely leave any little matter of eliciting further information that might be available from that quarter to Dr. Morelle, he pushed off on his bicycle, his thoughts fixed firmly now on his sweet-peas.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “IT HAS HARDLY been much of a holiday, you must admit, Dr. Morelle,” Miss Frayle had said, as the Duesenberg purred along the lonely road back to Pebcreek. Dr. Morelle had smiled down at her bleakly, but offered no comment. She guessed that his mind was occupied with the outcome of the meeting that had not long come to an end at the Sharbridge police-station. She had thought she had better offer to accompany Dr. Morelle when he had informed her on their return to the Moya following the discovery under the old church. He must acquaint the local police, as well as Inspector Hood at Scotland Yard, of this new development which he suspected was linked with the presence of Johnny Destiny in the vicinity, Miss Frayle’s account of the limping man and a certain individual named Danny Boy.

  Rather to her surprise he had accepted her offer to go along with him, she had fully expected him to reply that he could manage to confer with the local police without the stimulation of her presence, or words to that effect. But, no. “There may be a few notes which I should be obliged if you would make, Miss Frayle,” he had said. “If you could forego whatever excursion you were planning with your friends for this evening.”

  In fact, Erica Travers had complained that she felt a bit of a cold coming on. She must have got chilled as a result of the swimming-party at the Dormouse that morning. “You’d better stay out of the breeze,” Aunt Edith had said to Erica. “Make an early night of it, you don’t want it to develop into a bad cold.”

  And so after tea Erica had pushed off to bed. “Not to worry about her,” Aunt Edith had said to Miss Frayle. “You pop along with the Doc, I’ll look after Erica.” Miss Frayle had smiled at the expression on Dr. Morelle’s saturnine features as he caught this abbreviated reference to himself.

  And so, leaving Aunt Edith to fuss over Erica, Miss Frayle had accordingly set off with Dr. Morelle for Sharbridge. She had no inkling in her mind of what lay behind Dr. Morelle’s ready acceptance of her offer to accompany him. It had not occurred to her that he felt less uneasy knowing that she was under his watchful eye, while Erica was also safely aboard the houseboat, against the possibility that Johnny Destiny might learn of their presence in the vicinity and take appropriate measures to deal with two people whom he would consider a distinct threat to his freedom.

  In fact, there had been no need for Miss Frayle’s assistance when she and Dr. Morelle had arrived at Sharbridge. She had waited about outside the superintendent’s office, while Dr. Morelle talked to the superintendent himself and two or three other police-officers who popped in and out. She knew that Dr. Morelle had spoken on the telephone to Inspector Hood at Scotland Yard, and she had asked him to give her love to the other. Afterwards when she and Dr. Morelle were in the car, heading back to the Moya, he had mentioned that he had conveyed her greetings to Inspector Hood and that he would be coming down from London next morning.

  It had been stuffy at the police-station and she had been glad when at last she was in the Duesenberg once more, Dr. Morelle silent and brooding beside her. Idly she watched the changing pattern of the scene go past: meadowland and cultivated fields, marshy pastures and reed-fringed dykes; the shady pools and tidal creeks, everywhere there was so much space in which to breathe. The great expanse of sky ahead that heralded the approach of the sea, the rich blue sky with darker hues low down across the eastern horizon, tinged with pinks and mauves and just above them, faint reflections thrown up by the sinking sun.

  A light breeze blew across her face full of the scent of sea and marsh. But it did not sweep away the enigmatic expression Dr. Morelle wore.

  A couple of miles the Sharbridge side of Pebcreek they met a police-car. The patrolmen saluted as it went by and Miss Frayle was intrigued that Dr. Morelle should be recognized in the brief moment of passing. Though, of course, they would recognize the car. “It looks as if we’ve started things moving round here,” she said. He gave her a silent nod. She observed the breeze whip at the greying hair of his temples beneath the pulled-down brim of his dark hat. There was a little colour in his usually ivory features, and she thought he might have been caught by the sun.

  There was little traffic on the road, and Pebcreek village presented the same sleepy appearance she had come to know. They drove through it slowly. There were few people about. Some children on the green, and an evening fisherman putting off in his boat. Was it only the day before yesterday when she had arrived and viewed the rainswept scene with sinking heart? Was it such a little while back since she had stumbled about the old graveyard, full of twilight shadows and fears? It seemed as if she had been there for weeks, so much had happened. And as she had said, it hadn’t been much of a holiday, so far. All the same, she had to admit, with a glance up at Dr. Morelle, she was enjoying it.

  The powerful engine of the 1934 model SJ, super-charged Riviera phaeton took the gradient without the sli
ghtest change in its throbbing rhythmic note, it crested the top, and down the other side.

  The discovery under the old church might appear a somewhat unlikely set-up for a big-time operation planned by the last remnants of the Transatlantic gang, Dr. Morelle was thinking, but because it was unlikely it had from the counterfeiters’ viewpoint that much in its favour. Such a place as the old church might well appeal to Johnny Destiny, if he had run his ex-confederate to earth in this isolated part of the world. The manner in which he had covered his tracks on the way to England, revealed that he had a good reason for coming over. Dr. Morelle felt confident that Destiny would not have been in the vicinity unless he had a strong motive.

  He wondered where the artistic-minded Danny Boy could be. The counterfeiter, whose skilled fingers could achieve such convincing effects, certainly might have chosen a worse place than this part of the world in which to hide himself. It seemed to Dr. Morelle that it possessed only one disadvantage, which was that by virtue of its very isolation a stranger appearing in the neighbourhood might be expected to excite some notice and comment. On the other hand, Dr. Morelle reflected, it was all of three years since Danny Boy had last been heard of. Time enough in which to become part of even the smallest community, so that he would by now no longer be regarded as a stranger.

  Arrived back on board the Moya, Aunt Edith showed a sudden interest when Miss Frayle mentioned that Inspector Hood of Scotland Yard would be coming down the following day. “Meaning you’ll be here to meet him?” she said to Dr. Morelle. He nodded. “Meaning you’ll want somewhere to stay the night?” He looked at her as if this hadn’t occurred to him, and Aunt Edith went on. “Better stay here,” she said.