Corpses in Enderby (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  “What’s been happening?”

  The doctor told him, and Flounder then added his own tale of what went on before Bunn met his death.

  “Did you hear anybody moving about in the shop whilst you were in the room behind? I take it you were courting, Mr. Flounder?”

  The ironic grey eyes met Wilfred’s steadily.

  “Yes, we were. And we didn’t hear anybody. In fact, the wind was so wild, we wouldn’t have heard much above it unless there was a big noise.”

  “Where were you when this happened?”

  “Mr. Bunn was mad at finding us together in the house alone. He ordered me to leave and he got a bit rough and pushed me through the shop and into the street. I stumbled when he pushed me and fell in the gutter.”

  Again the ironical, searching eyes.

  “Tell me, Mr. Flounder, did the old man chuck you out?”

  “Yes, he did, if you must know.”

  “Why didn’t you say so, then? We must have the truth.”

  “Well, it’s not very pleasant for a man like me.”

  The Inspector didn’t seem to hear.

  “And as you were picking yourself up, you …?”

  “I heard Mr. Bunn go in the shop, and then he came out, as though somebody had thrown him out, too. There was no light except from the street lamp and that was swinging in the wind. He seemed to fall and I went in his direction. Then Bertha … I mean Miss Bunn, came out and things started to happen.”

  “Have you a revolver, Mr. Flounder?”

  “No. What would I do with …?”

  “Let me ask the questions, please.”

  The doctor was getting restive; his hair was still wet, he felt a cold coming on, and he wanted his own fireside and another stiff whisky.

  “If you don’t want me, I’ll …”

  “Quite all right, sir. See you to-morrow. Miss Bunn is here, I think you said?”

  “Yes. In bed. She took it badly and fainted. Nothing I can do. Mrs. Blowitt’s with her … Good night!”

  “We were talking about revolvers, Mr. Flounder … Do you sell them in the shop?”

  “Yes. You have to have a permit, of course, but we did get them for people who were allowed …”

  “Have you any in stock?”

  “Yes, I think there’s one. It was ordered and the man who wants it hasn’t called for it yet. There’s ammunition, too.”

  “Where is it?”

  “This way …”

  They passed into the shop again and Flounder, hidebound by custom, went behind the counter and faced the Inspector across it. He almost said “What can I do for you …?”

  But Inspector Myers wasn’t interested in Flounder any more, for there on the counter, like an exhibit in a collection, lay a very efficient-looking little revolver, loaded in every chamber and with one shot fired.

  2

  SEND FOR SCOTLAND YARD!

  IN the afternoon following the murder of Edwin Bunn, Wilfred Flounder took a rope from the shop and prepared to hang himself. He was highly-strung and impulsive, and he thought he might as well get it done before the public hangman did it for him.

  The storm had blown itself out in the night, the sun was shining, and the pale blue sky, flecked with high white clouds, looked as if somebody had given it a shampoo. Bunn’s shop was closed, but the town was busy; it was market-day and stalls had been erected in a cobbled corner of the market-place. Regardless of the tragedy, the stallholders were shouting their wares: fruit, vegetables, clothes, carpets, cheese, eggs and pots. All eyes kept turning in the direction of the ironmonger’s shop and when anything happened there, silence fell expectantly, leaving only the hucksters’ voices still yelling. “Oranges … Every one’s a Jaffa!” “Nylons, lady?” “Monkey Nuts! …”

  Wilfred Flounder took no heed of it all. He had been with the police all morning and his stamina had ebbed away. Had Bertha supported him, he felt he could have borne it; but since the discovery of her father’s dead body, she hadn’t spoken a word to him, except “Go away!” Her eyes accused him of the crime and she kept him at arm’s length when he tried to approach her and protest his innocence.

  “You’d better not leave town; we shall want you again,” the police had told him in far from friendly tones. In fact, Inspector Myers had looked ready to arrest him, but the Chief Constable of the County had stopped him. Colonel Cargrave was a cautious man, who had once been a party to a wrongful arrest with dire results. Now he never acted without being quite sure. A tall, austere official, who might have been mistaken for the Duke of Wellington during the Peninsular Wars, huge nose and all.

  “I don’t believe that fellah did it,” he told Myers. “Too timid; too rabbity. Everything seems to point his way except the fellah himself. Better not arrest him yet. Keep a man to watch he doesn’t bolt.”

  “But, sir …”

  “Do as I say.”

  Inspector Myers shrugged his shoulders and after the Chief had left the room, he sat back and swore horribly. He ran over the case again in his mind and tried to find the flaws in it. Outside, policemen kept tramping in and out of the charge-room, booking parking offences of which there were a lot every market-day. At the end of the street an old man was playing a violin—”Scenes that are brightest …”—and pausing now and then to thank passers-by who put something in his hat. Whenever he halted, he started at the beginning again.

  They had brought Wilfred Flounder in for questioning before nine that morning. The shop assistant had seemed determined to incriminate himself. In the middle of the interview, the vicar had arrived to testify to Flounder’s good character and say how truthful and honest he had always been. It didn’t do Wilfred much good.

  They got him to tell his tale without interrupting him. Then, a policeman took it down in shorthand, typed it out, read it over, and Wilfred signed it.

  “You didn’t like Mr. Bunn, did you, Mr. Flounder?”

  “No, I did not. He was mean, and he treated me more like a shop-boy than his assistant. I’m thirty-three and I’ve been with him more than ten years.”

  “Are you engaged to Miss Bunn?”

  Flounder’s Adam’s apple moved up and down and he pulled the joints of his fingers and made them crack.

  “Not exactly … Unofficially, I mean. Her father wouldn’t consent to it.”

  “Why?”

  “He said I was after her money. I assure you I wasn’t. We’d arranged to leave him and go away and get married, even if he cut her off without anything. We couldn’t stand it any more …”

  “So you kept on at Bunn’s shop and didn’t try to get another job, simply to be near Miss Bunn?”

  “Yes. She asked me to stay. Her father didn’t want her to get married. She used to nurse her mother who was an invalid. Then when her mother died, her father said she’d to remain and look after him.”

  “And you didn’t assert yourself and resist the old man?”

  Flounder missed the slight note of contempt in Myers’ voice, but the irony in the grey eyes was not lost. He flushed.

  “Did you know Mr. Bunn? He was a snorter. If he didn’t get his own way, there was a shocking flare-up. Sometimes, you just had to give way for fear he’d have a stroke.”

  “Yes, I knew him. Perhaps you’re right.”

  So it went on and on until Wilfred Flounder grew limp and lost all his colour. They gave him a cup of tea and then it started again.

  “… When Mr. Bunn saw me and Bertha sitting on our own in the room at the back of the shop, he seemed to see red and he just got hold of me, rushed me through the shop, and threw me in the street. I was helpless. He was big and heavy …”

  “You’re sure you didn’t see or hear anybody else in the shop?”

  “I told you before, I didn’t. The shop was in darkness and the door to the room behind was closed, because Mr. Bunn had locked it to stop Bertha interfering with his throwing me out.”

  He told it all in a meek and mild way and in a monotone. Beads of sweat
stood on his forehead and he had to keep taking off his spectacles and polishing them because the heat he was generating steamed-up the lenses.

  The policeman at the side-table was taking it all down in shorthand, the tip of his tongue appearing now and then at the corner of his mouth as he made some tortuous outline or other.

  “And now about the revolver again … It’s funny there were no fingerprints on it except yours, if you say you hadn’t used it.”

  Flounder looked nettled and cross.

  “Look here … I told you already, my fingerprints would be bound to be on the pistol. It was kept in a drawer under the counter till Ericson, the man who’d ordered it, called for it. I’d handled it several times, cleaning it and moving it about …”

  “Oh, yes. I remember. When did you last see the gun?”

  “Yesterday morning. I went to the drawer to get out a new pair of scissors. I moved it then. Can’t you see, my fingerprints would be bound to be on it?”

  Myers rubbed his chin as though in doubt, but he knew the explanation was reasonable. He persisted.

  “How came it to be loaded? Did you load it?”

  “No. But the box of cartridges was with the pistol in the drawer. Anybody taking the pistol could have got them.”

  Flounder irritated Myers by calling the weapon a pistol. He turned to the shorthand-writer and shrugged his shoulders wearily.

  “It’s a revolver, Mr. Flounder. I thought you’d know that.”

  Flounder looked at the Inspector with glazed eyes.

  “Yes …”

  “Did anybody else know it was in the drawer?”

  “Oh, yes. I can’t say exactly who, but we always kept the pistols … revolvers there. Bertha knew, of course, and a lot of others … I’d say anybody familiar with the shop would know.”

  “H’m … And you found yourself in the street and were just picking yourself up when Mr. Bunn was shot and followed you in the gutter?”

  “I said so before. Do I need to keep on …?”

  “Not much longer. I just want to be quite sure. Mr. Bunn had turned round after leaving you. Had he got right in the shop?”

  “I don’t know. I was a bit confused and my glasses had got rain on them. He seemed to just get in the shop and then staggered out again and fell. I was nearly on my feet by then.”

  “And even though the lamp was on just in front of the shop, you didn’t see …”

  “My glasses were streaming with water, I tell you. Do you have to keep on and on …?”

  Just then the Chief Constable arrived. He eyed Flounder and then Myers and sat down.

  “Getting along all right?”

  “Just taking a statement, sir.”

  The Chief’s eyes lost their good humour as he eyed Wilfred Flounder over.

  “You feeling all-in, Flounder?”

  “A bit, sir. You see, I’ve been here three hours making a statement and now they’re checking it.”

  “Read it over to me, Bradley.”

  Myers grew red and Bradley coughed and began to translate his notes in a loud, formal voice. Outside, they were bringing in a pair of drunks who had been fighting in the market. One was threatening to murder the other.

  “I’ll swing for you …”

  Flounder started and turned a dull yellow at the sound of the threat. It was like a prognostication of his own fate.

  “That’ll do …”

  Colonel Cargrave’s face was grim.

  “That what you told the Inspector, Flounder?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let him sign it and then send him home for a meal and a rest, Myers.”

  Myers looked put out.

  “Could I have a word in private with you, sir?”

  “Yes. Bradley, take Flounder and give him a spot of stimulant, brandy or something. He looks all-in.”

  Flounder was led off to the charge-room.

  “Now, Myers. What is it?”

  “In my view, sir, Flounder’s likely to be our man. He’s no alibi, nobody saw what he did at the time Bunn was shot, and we’ve only Flounder’s tale to go on. Bunn had laid hands on him, after abusing him in front of his girl. The old man also seems to have led Flounder a dog’s life, because he wanted to marry Bertha Bunn. He threatened to turn them both out if they persisted and cut Bertha off with a shilling, so to speak. The pair of them had planned to run away. The old man caught them … ahem … I suppose they were canoodling … and he chucked Flounder out. What more likely than Flounder losing his temper, getting out the gun from the drawer under the counter, and taking a pot at Bunn in temper? Flounder’s one of those chaps who stands a lot and then goes all beserk and does things …”

  “You think that?”

  “Well, he’s shown signs of temper here this morning. Looked ready to attack me at times.”

  The Chief smiled sadly.

  “That’s not proof. Don’t get over-enthusiastic about theories, Myers. Festina lente, as we used to say. Slow but sure. What did Miss Bunn say about all this?”

  “She was locked in the room at the back of the shop. The old man shut her in the better to deal with her boy-friend.”

  “And her father was dead when she got out?”

  “Yes. She thinks Flounder did it, I’m sure. She won’t have anything to do with him. They were here together and he kept pleading with her to believe him, but she said there was nobody else there, and he must have done it. She went off home in distress as soon as we’d taken her statement.”

  “She had no idea that somebody else might have been in the shop, hiding, say?”

  “No. As I said, it all points to Flounder, who must have done it under extreme provocation … One might almost say he was defending himself …”

  Myers’ eyes had a questioning look, which the Chief shrewdly interpreted at once.

  “Now, now, Myers. Gently. You’re not going to persuade me into allowing an arrest yet. More work to do, more enquiring, more search for anybody who might have been there. Let Flounder go home now and tell him to stay around. He’ll not bolt. He might be a timid customer, but I’ve a feeling that there’s a stubborn streak in him. Let him go for the time being … and watch him.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  Myers was disappointed. He felt sure that, given time and patience, he could break down Flounder’s story. But he had to obey orders.

  Once released, Flounder’s main idea was not of flight, but to restore Bertha’s confidence in him. He went back to the shop. The door was locked, so he hammered on the panels. Bertha’s tear-swollen face appeared at the hole in the blind and her mouth moved in words of dismissal. A small crowd gathered and started to enjoy the scene. Flounder took no heed. Finally, he went to the extent of kneeling in the doorway, applying his lips to the letter-flap, and shouting through it.

  “Let me in. I want to get my things.”

  The door opened and a voice from behind spoke huskily.

  “Keep away from me. Murderer …”

  The spectators round the shop-front recoiled and then looked at one another. Word started to spread around that Flounder had killed his boss and was going to be arrested. Nobody had liked Ned Bunn and normally his death wouldn’t have stirred them at all. But now, they were like a wolf-pack out for blood.

  “Come out and take your medicine, you little swine!”

  Somebody started to kick at the door and then the police arrived and broke up the party.

  Inside Wilfred was pleading. He was worn out after his police examination. All he wanted now was the comfort of Bertha’s motherly arms and soft bosom, just as in the past when he despaired at her father’s treatment of him.

  “Get away … I never want to see you again. If you’d hit him and it had been a mistake I might have … But to shoot him from behind … After all, he was my dad and I thought a lot about him, even if he did …”

  Bertha was now finding a lot of virtue in old Bunn.

  “But I didn’t …”

  “Get out.
I never want … I’m going to live at the Blowitts’ till this is over and you can keep away. Get your things and go …”

  And she ran upstairs and locked herself in her room.

  Wilfred Flounder felt himself collapse inside. He stood there like one in a dream, recalling his happiness and comfort only twenty-four hours before; looking at the familiar objects of the room; remembering the terms of endearment between himself and Bertha; eyeing the couch on which they had embraced; thinking of their plans. He slowly walked to the shop, fumbled under the counter to where the clothes-lines were kept, and took one out, a solid bale of rope with a ring on one end with which to hook it up on washing-day.

  There was an old shed at the bottom of the yard behind the shop, which had originally been a place where they took down and cleaned lawn-mowers. The structure was held up by a large beam and there were hooks in it …

  Flounder picked up the invoice pad and pencil from the counter and scribbled hastily:

  Bertha,

  If you don’t believe me, I don’t want to go on living. Please forgive me taking this way out.

  He thought a bit, drew himself up, and then wrote with a flourish:

  As faithful in death as in life, your loving Wilfred.

  Then he went to the shed.

  Wilfred Flounder, having made up his mind, now started with his customary thoroughness to do a good job. He made a noose he’d learned when he was a boy scout.

  He found the grass-box of an old mower, cleared a space beneath a large hook which held chains, threw the latter in a corner, and tested the strength of the hook. Then he fixed the ring on the end of the line to the hook, put the noose round his neck, stood on the box, closed his eyes, and jumped from his perch …

  Bertha Bunn, hearing noises beneath her window, pressed a tear-stained face to the pane and saw through the open door of the shed what was going on. She screamed and rushed downstairs. As she reached the back door there was a reverberating crash as though someone had dropped a bomb in the yard.