Corpses in Enderby (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  “Ah, yes … So sorry …”

  The folder was full of papers and it took Mr. Edgell quite a time to find the ones he required. Even then, he didn’t open and read them; he held them in his hand as he spoke as though they gave him confidence.

  “This is also strictly confidential until I read the will after the funeral.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Mr. Edgell got to his feet, stood with his back to the fire, and read Littlejohn a lecture, which he punctuated with his forefinger.

  “Jeremiah Bunn had four children; two boys and two girls. He married Mary Wood, but only three of the children were his … I heard all this from my late father and it is borne out by the nature of the trust. Before Jerry Bunn … he owned the same shop over the way and made a large fortune in it … before Jerry Bunn married her, Mary Wood had been seduced by a friend of her brother’s, who ran away and left her in the lurch. A child was born and he was baptized Edmund .. Edmund Wood. Jerry Bunn came of a strait-laced family and his own moral views were a bit rigid, but he was mad about Mary Wood and determined to have her. He took her and her child, gave Ned Wood the name of Bunn, and brought him up as his own. But … But … when he made his will he wasn’t going to treat Ned just like his own flesh and blood and give him an equal share of the family fortune. The other three inherited twenty thousand pounds apiece … A tidy sum, but remember, Jerry Bunn not only sold screws and nails, but every type of agricultural machinery and also was sole agent for certain firms of textile engineers at a time when industry was booming … He cashed-in properly … Ned Bunn took over the business on a mortgage to the family and has since repaid it. To cut a long story short, Ned Bunn received the income on twenty thousand pounds for life and, on his death, the trust ends and the money is divided among his surviving half-brother and sisters. The beneficiaries all know it …”

  Mr. Edgell tittered and hunted for his spectacles again.

  “There’s a bone for you to worry, Inspector.”

  As Littlejohn made his way down the drab staircase, he smiled grimly to himself. So, Ned Bunn was really Ned Wood! He wondered what those of the townsfolk who had trembled all their lives at the very name of Bunn would do when they heard it should have been Wood. It seemed like being held up with a revolver and finding that it was a water-pistol after all, or being terrified by a masked intruder and discovering it was a practical joke played by Uncle Joe!

  All the same, Bunn or Wood, Ned had been murdered, and that was no joke.

  4

  THE MAN WHO SAID HE’D SWING

  “HETHEROW said he’d swing for Ned Bunn …”

  Mr. Blowitt, the landlord of The Freemasons’ Arms, leaned over the brass rail at the foot of the bed and searched Cromwell’s face to see if he’d startled him. The sergeant didn’t move a muscle.

  “Oh … and who’s Hetherow?”

  Cromwell wasn’t in too good a temper. He’d been arguing about accommodation with Mr. Blowitt.

  “We’ve only one room with a double bed in it and I doubt if you’ll find anywhere else to suit you in Enderby. We don’t get many class visitors.” He thereupon showed the sergeant the room, which was satisfactory in every way, except that the bed wasn’t big enough. Besides, he and Littlejohn had never slept two in a bed on any of their previous excursions, and a little whippersnapper like Blowitt wasn’t going to start them doing it now.

  “That thing’ll collapse if my chief and me get in it. Nearly thirty stone together. We’ll end up in the room below. Better put another bed up.”

  “We haven’t got one.”

  “Well, buy or borrow one, then.”

  Mr. Blowitt thereupon had a bright idea. Ned Bunn was dead and wouldn’t need his bed any more. He’d borrow that.

  “O.K. I’ll borrow one.”

  The landlord of The Freemasons’ having settled that point, then leaned over the bed-end and started to pump information into Cromwell. He slung his short arms over the brass rail between the two brass knobs. He had a habit of opening his eyes and his mouth together spasmodically as he spoke, like some strange fat fish.

  “Hetherow said he’d swing for Ned Bunn.”

  “Who’s Hetherow?”

  “Owns the draper’s shop next door to Bunn’s. Ned Bunn lent him money on mortgage knowing all the time he’d never get it back and meanin’ thereby to foreclose and turn ’Etherow out. Bunn wanted to extend his own shop …”

  “And Hetherow objected …?”

  Cromwell opened his suit-case and started to stuff its contents in the drawers of a rickety chest. Volumes of criminal and forensic works, handcuffs, a box containing equipment for everything from fingerprinting to setting a broken limb, a book on Yoga, some chest-expanders, and two tins of patent food. Mr. Blowitt watched it all, his eyes and mouth making gasping movements … Finally, a revolver over which Cromwell pondered a second before throwing it up in the air, catching it, and slipping it in his pocket …

  “Like ’ell he objected. Wouldn’t you? If you was losin’ the shop you got your bread and butter by. And Hetherow with a sick wife on whom he dotes, an’ two kids still at school. He’s never done any other job in his life, ’asn’t Hetherow … His shop’s been ’anded down from father to son. Not that it pays ’im now. Times are bad, what with multiple stores and such.”

  “You’d think he’d be glad to get out if he was losing money.”

  “It’s not that. It’s the way Bunn did things. He went to church regular, but was never above a bit o’ money-lending on the side. He must have known when he lent ’Etherow money, what he was goin’ to do. What Hetherow thought was just a temp’ry setback became a permanent one, and Bunn put on the screw.”

  “All the same, if the shop didn’t pay …”

  “Yes, but ’Etherow lives there, you see. And his wife’s bedridden … dyin’ of cancer, between you an’ me … and how in the world is a man to get another house to let under present conditions? If Bunn had put him out, even if he had a place to go to, Mrs. ’Etherow would have folded up an’ died. You see what I mean?”

  Cromwell nodded and snapped the catches of his suitcase.

  “So, rather than put up with it, Hetherow said he’d swing for Ned Bunn. That it?”

  “Yes.”

  “When and where was this said?”

  Mr. Blowitt caressed his unshaven chin with his fingers.

  “More’n once, but he said it in front of a number of us the night Bunn was killed. In fact, he’d come seekin’-out Ned Bunn to tell ’im so. He was a bit drunk and I ’ad to chuck him out.”

  “I’ll look into it. By the way, if the Chief agrees and if you put another bed in here, the room will suit us. You’ll see the food’s good and I’ll have to have a word or two with you or the cook about my diet. I don’t eat white bread, tinned stuff, or anything cooked in aluminium pans … and just one or two other little odds and ends … I’ll tell you later.”

  Mr. Blowitt’s eyes and mouth opened spasmodically.

  “It’ll be a pleasure,” he said in tones which belied the words, and he hurried downstairs to make arrangements.

  “I’ve never met anybody from Scotland Yard before,” he told his wife, “an’ I hope this is the last. He’s mad. Chuckin’ revolvers up in the air, won’t eat off aluminium, an’ he’s got what looks like a strait-jacket in ’is bag. I ’ope we’ve got the right chap and not somebody who’s escaped from a mad’ouse and thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes.”

  His wife’s tight lips did not relax.

  “He’s no worse than some I could name.”

  She was a heavy, temperamental woman with a tired, made-up face and hair hennaed to a deep purple. She had once been a small-part actress and still spoke as though every word were out of some lines she’d learned.

  “Oh, come off it …! Nag, nag, nag … Will it never end?”

  He was leaning on the bar, tearing at the tufts of hair on the sides of his bald head when Cromwell descended the stairs. His wife was striking an attit
ude; her bosom drawn up, her hands over her heart, her face twitching.

  Hetherow’s wasn’t hard to find. A shabby, old-fashioned shop across the way, with braces, overalls, corduroy trousers and cheap blazers hanging outside. Bargain Lines. Cut Prices. The woodwork had lost all its paint and the goods in the windows were higgledy-piggledy and shoddy-looking. Cromwell cast his eyes around the square. There were three similar shops and a multiple store within a stone’s throw. No wonder Bunn had made sure of getting the premises before he lent the money.

  The shop was dark inside and somewhere in the depths as he entered, Cromwell could hear footsteps and fumbling. Hetherow appeared from behind a barricade of soiled men’s vests and pants piled up on the counter and marked, For the Cold Weather—Half-Price While They Last. They looked like lasting for ever! There was nobody else in the shop, and Hetherow grew convulsive to oblige. He rubbed his hands. “Well, sir …?”

  He only seemed pleased with his mouth and teeth; the rest of his face was haggard and sad. His head was bullet-shaped, with a tuft of wiry grey hair on the top. He wore strong cataract glasses and you couldn’t see properly what his eyes were like, for they seemed, through the lenses, to be deep in his head like stones in a pool. He was sallow and tired and kept looking from side to side, as though, among the rows of raincoats, frocks, carpets and shirts, relief were hidden and ready to emerge and save him. The nails of his stumpy hands were bitten to the quicks and his clothes hung on his thin frame like shapeless garments on a coat-hanger.

  And this was the man who had said he’d swing for Ned Bunn!

  Hetherow showed no sign of emotion when Cromwell said who he was. Only the corners of his lips turned down and the teeth vanished. He had reached the bottom of his endurance and anything else didn’t matter much.

  “You knew the late Mr. Bunn, sir?”

  Mr. Hetherow started to giggle. A hard, dry, sobbing noise. He took off his spectacles and wiped his eyes. His appearance changed completely without the glasses. The eyes were small, twitching and expressionless.

  “Did I know Ned Bunn! You’re joking, sir. He lived next door, and, had he continued to do so, would have put me and my family in the street next month. I don’t suppose for a moment he’s left me anything in his will, but his daughter will be better to deal with. She’s a friend of my poor wife’s … unknown to her father, of course … and, on that account, I’m glad somebody killed Bunn.”

  “You didn’t do it yourself, sir?”

  There was a hush. It was as if death were in this place, as well as next-door. The overalls swayed about like men on the gallows; the white shirts hanging at the back of the shop looked like a cohort of wraiths; and, to crown all, somebody had broken the head from a fully-dressed male dummy and he stood in a gloomy corner like one who had risen from the executioner’s block to finish off one or two jobs before yielding up the ghost.

  Upstairs, where life and laughter and the voices of children had sounded in better days, there was dead silence.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, sir. You threatened to kill Bunn, didn’t you?”

  Cromwell found it difficult to put it in the way Blowitt had done. He’d swing for Bunn. Hetherow didn’t seem the type who would use the expression. He was obviously a well-educated man, one who had been to a good school paid for by the profits of this now decayed business. He’d known better times, which made it all the more difficult for him to face the present hopelessness. Cromwell looked at the close-bitten fingers, the wild topknot of hair, the deep unfathomable eyes, which, when the spectacles were removed, had a blank, mad expression.

  “I said I’d kill Bunn? Yes, I did. I was drunk, but I remember it. I recollect Blowitt putting me out of his hotel. I’d been pleading with Bunn. He wouldn’t see me, so I went where I knew I’d find him; with his cronies having a drink. I took one or two bracers of whisky to give me dutch courage. Bunn laughed at me in front of his friends. As I went I tried to dramatize the event. I turned and said I’d kill him. And he was killed. I can see the folly of it now. But I didn’t do it, I assure you. I might fire a revolver, but I could never hit anything with it …”

  “Where were you when it happened, sir?”

  “I came straight in from The Freemasons’. I must have been making myself a cup of black coffee. I daren’t appear before my wife half-intoxicated. Fortunately she was asleep when I got in. She’s an invalid …”

  A spasm of anguish crossed his face, as though sometimes he could forget it, and then when the truth returned to his mind, it was too bitter to bear.

  “Did you hear any noise next door, sir? A shot, or anything?”

  “No. It was blowing a gale, you’ll recollect … Or perhaps it wasn’t at Scotland Yard …”

  His voice trailed away. He began to fold up some shirts on the counter with fussy, concentrated movements, as though the world depended on their being straight and properly put away.

  He suddenly lifted his head and looked at Cromwell; the concentric rings in his pebbled glasses were like spirals boring into his head.

  “Who sent you here? Was it Blowitt?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. His mild, tired voice gathered strength and venom.

  “Did Blowitt happen to tell you, as well, that he himself hated Bunn? Did he tell you that they had a good-looking barmaid at The Freemasons’ Arms and that Blowitt became infatuated with her and nearly ruined the business by spending so much money on her; and that Mrs. Blowitt used to make scenes and throw hysterics about it in front of customers; and that Blowitt was ready to run away with the girl …?”

  Cromwell was amazed at the vehemence of the little humble man. His face had grown flushed and he was throwing his arms about wildly. A customer looked in at the shop door, saw what was going on, and hastily retreated.

  “Yes … He was ready to run away with the girl, but she ran away first. One morning Blowitt got up and found she’d gone. He was like one demented. Then it leaked out. It had been known that Ned Bunn, a nasty one where women were concerned, had taken a fancy to her and she wouldn’t have anything to do with him. She preferred the little half-bankrupt publican to Bunn. So Bunn took his revenge. He made enquiries about her from her previous places. She’d been in prison for helping herself to a till, and she was already married but had left her husband. Bunn bullied her out of town in a rush. Then, he boasted about it … How do you think Blowitt feels about Bunn? It wasn’t as if the girl had proved flighty and unfaithful … She was just chased out.”

  Hetherow folded the last of the garments, gave it a slap with the flat of his hand, and smiled a crooked smile at Cromwell.

  “Now! Think about that when you start suspecting people. Blowitt was once a sergeant-major in the Army. He can handle a revolver, believe me. I never thought of shooting Bunn. That’s not my strong point. I might have tunnelled into the shop next door and blown it sky-high and Bunn with it … A sort of Guy Fawkes … I hadn’t got down to details though …”

  He started to laugh hysterically. Another customer, a woman this time, thrust her head round the doorway and was about to withdraw. Hetherow cut off his laughter suddenly, like switching off the radio, and ran to bring her back.

  “Come in, Mrs. Keith … Come in … Don’t go …”

  Every penny counted in the takings of this bankrupt shop, and Hetherow even had to beg customers to come in. Cromwell bade him good-morning and went away. He came upon Blowitt quarrelling with his wife again.

  “I tell you I never touched Annie. Every barmaid we get you’re jealous of. We’ve got to have a barmaid; we can’t afford a man. Nag, nag, nag …”

  They saw Cromwell and stopped. Mrs. Blowitt had one hand on her bosom again, as though her breathing troubled her; the other she passed across her brow in the conventional fashion of melodrama years ago. Then she bit into her handkerchief and stumbled from the room, like someone making an exit amid sympathetic applause.

  Blowitt shrugged his shoulders at Cromwell.

  “Women!�
� he said. “Are you married?”

  “Yes.”

  The way Cromwell said it shut Blowitt up.

  “You weren’t fond of Mr. Bunn yourself, were you, Mr. Blowitt?”

  The landlord suddenly sprang into life. The hopelessness of his married state was forgotten.

  “’Ere. Who’s been tellin’ you things? Is it that little perisher, Hetherow, gettin’ his own back because I chucked him out?”

  “I don’t know about that, but I did hear about Bunn being a bit vindictive about a barmaid you once had.”

  Blowitt’s jaw dropped and his mouth slackened. He seemed to grow smaller somehow, sagging at the shoulders, like somebody stabbed in the back.

  “Effie!” he muttered, turned on his heel, filled a tumbler full of whisky at the bar, and drank it off in two quick gulps.

  Then he dashed the glass to the floor, where it smashed to pieces. He staggered away to a room behind, slammed the door, and Mrs. Blowitt emerged and swept up the broken glass silently.

  “Have you fixed us up?”

  Littlejohn had entered unseen during the commotion, and stood watching the landlord’s wife working with the brush and dust-pan. For all her bulk, she somehow contrived to get down to it gracefully and enact a touching scene, mingling her tears with the debris. Two men arrived carrying an enormous bed with brass knobs. They shuffled upstairs and then another followed struggling with a spring-mattress. He must have been the town comedian, for as he got half-way upstairs he saw Mrs. Blowitt and pretended to play the harp for her on the mattress.

  “That’s your bed going up, sir,” said Cromwell. “I wonder where he’s got it from.”

  “I saw them trundling it across as I came here,” replied Littlejohn. “And it’s your bed, not mine. It was presumably the connubial, and later the widowed bed, of the late Ned Bunn and it’s all yours …”

  The man was still playing the harp on the mattress and Mrs. Blowitt, thawed by his attentions, stood with a shovelful of broken glass in one hand and threw him a theatrical kiss with the other.

  In a room behind, somebody started to play the piano. Schumann’s Papillons, beautifully played.