Discipline again! Edgell was arrogant about it; a man who seemed to despise human weakness.
“So, he asked you to pay the rent for Miss Mander. Did she allow that? I gathered he seriously wanted to marry the girl. She turned him down. Didn’t she also turn down the rent from Bunn as well?”
“No. I paid it direct to Medlicott and she must have overlooked it.”
“Overlooked it! Surely she knew who paid the rent, sir, and if she’d sent Bunn about his business, she’d have no more money from him.”
Edgell shuffled in his chair. His long fine, brittle-looking hands gripped the arms and he pouted again.
“What has all this to do with the murders? Bunn’s love affairs are over and done with. You surely don’t think these were crimes of passion. They were crimes of greed … done for money.”
Littlejohn removed his pipe and looked straight at Edgell, whose patience seemed at an end.
“Money? I can quite see Medlicott killing his brother-in-law to get his wife’s share and make ends meet, but why kill Browning?”
“Hasn’t Medlicott already told you, Browning saw him in town on the night of the crime, prowling about near Bunn’s shop?”
“Yes. But how did you know, sir?”
“I’m Medlicott’s lawyer. It’s my business to know things.”
“I see. Medlicott told you?”
A faint hesitation, a flicker of the cold grey eyes.
“No. Browning told me the day he died. I had him in to see me about a debt he owed to the furniture company for hire purchased goods. He called to ask for advice. At the same time he seemed talkative about the murder of Ned Bunn and mentioned having seen Medlicott in town on the night of the murder. You recollect, I asked you to have me present if you suspected and questioned Medlicott. You didn’t, did you? You questioned him without my being there. I shall make a point of that if Medlicott is charged.”
“If we contemplate an arrest in that direction, I’ll let you know, sir. Medlicott had every reason for wishing his brother-in-law dead, I admit. He’s on the short-list of suspects.”
“Who else is on it, if I might ask?”
“Blowitt, Hetherow, Flounder, Miss Mander … Even Mrs. Medlicott.”
Edgell bridled.
“I warn you, Inspector. Don’t try to make a fool of me. You’re simply reeling off a list of names as they come to mind. Blowitt, indeed! What reason might Blowitt have for killing Ned Bunn?”
“Another crime of passion. A matter of a barmaid, I gather …”
“Ridiculous! This is a serious affair, Inspector. You seem to be treating it with levity. I was a bit surprised when they called in Scotland Yard. Local colour’s what’s required to solve a job like this one. Not a lot of crack-brained theories.”
“You think I haven’t gathered any local colour during my stay in Enderby, sir? Very well, we shall see. Meanwhile, to get down to practical matters. Where were you on the night and at the time Mr. Bunn met his death?”
Edgell was on his feet in a flash. His polite, engaging hospitality of the start had evaporated.
“What is all this? Do you think I killed my old friend? Because if you do, out with it and no more beating about the bush.”
Littlejohn puffed leisurely at his pipe. He found it a bit difficult to appear calm, but that was what was wanted.
“No, sir. Not at all. Just a routine enquiry; one I ask everyone I encounter in this case. Part of our practical work.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you where I was. I was out of town. I was at Melton with Mrs. Wilkins. She asked me to call about her new will. I left there at ten o’clock and got here at home at ten-thirty. Will that suit you?”
“Driving your own car, sir?”
“Yes. I nearly always do. I was nowhere near Enderby when Bunn was killed. As for Browning, if you’re hunting alibis there, too, I was here, indoors, sitting where I am now, before the fire. Nobody entered, because the staff have orders not to disturb me after dinner until I’m ready to retire. I read a lot, as you will see and …”
“That’s quite all right, sir. I’m not asking you for a cast-iron alibi. Why should I? You didn’t murder Bunn and Browning.”
“One would think I had done, the way you go on, Inspector. Is that all? What I thought was a friendly call seems to have degenerated into an unpleasant argument and I’d rather put an end to it.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I simply called to ask for help in filling-in gaps in the enquiry.”
“I’ll see you to the door.”
Edgell did more than that. Although wearing slippers and a smoking jacket, he accompanied Littlejohn down the drive to the gate. He seemed anxious now to smooth matters over.
“You’ll admit, Inspector, it’s a bit irritating to be disturbed just before bed by a reminder and a lot of questions about Ned Bunn. It’s worried me a lot. We’d been friends a long time, you know. No ill feelings, I hope.”
“Not at all, sir. Thank you.”
He shook the dry, brittle hand Edgell held out to him and hurried off in the dark. At Medlicott’s flats, Cromwell met him in the garden.
“She’s not in, yet. It’s nearly eleven, but I guess the night’s yet young to her. I put my head indoors once or twice. The telephone in her flat’s been ringing like blazes, on and off, for the last quarter-hour.”
“I thought it would! You’d better stay with me. We’ll wait until she gets back.”
If Violet Mander was a late bird, Yewbert hadn’t been brought up that way and his father still held him under his thumb. At eleven-fifteen the fast little car drew up at the gate. Yewbert held open the door for Violet and together they walked up the drive to the front door. There was an eloquent silence as Yewbert embraced his companion in the dark, and a sound of scuffling as she broke free and unlocked the door.
“Wednesday night, then, Vi?”
“I’ll let you know if you ring me up. Good night.”
“S’long, Vi …”
Yewbert almost tripped to the gate in his new-found amorous energy. Littlejohn and Cromwell were at Violet’s side before she’d turned the key in her own lock.
“Sorry, Miss Mander, but I’ll have to trouble you again.”
She turned. She still looked fresh and smiling, although Yewbert’s fumblings had smeared her lipstick round her mouth and there was even the shape of his lips or moustache in red on the nape of her neck!
“Come inside. I don’t know what the other people in the flats will think about callers at this hour. However …”
She was wearing a modest fur coat which she flung on a chair, revealing her black evening gown, from which her head and bare shoulders and arms seemed to emerge like a flower. She kicked off her brocade shoes, dusty as if from dancing somewhere, and flexed and unflexed her feet before putting on house slippers. Perhaps the eager Yewbert had been tramping upon them to the sound of jungle music.
“What did you want, Inspector?”
She stood by the gas-fire without asking them to sit down, perfectly natural, asking a perfectly natural question.
“Why did you tell me Medlicott was your lover, when all the time he wasn’t? And it wasn’t true, either, that he let you off the rent. Now, Miss Mander, this is very serious. I want a perfectly truthful statement here and now, in the presence of my colleague, and if, later, it proves incorrect, there’ll be trouble.”
For the first time, she looked afraid and a bit lonely and defenceless. She feverishly tapped the cigarette she had lit and her eyelids started to twitch.
“I … I don’t know. I …”
“You had been asked to tell the tale you told me. You never were Medlicott’s mistress, he never pestered you with his attentions, he never let you live here rent-free. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
They could hardly hear the answer.
“Who is at the back of all this? Wait! Don’t tell me Edwin Bunn, if it wasn’t Bunn at all.”
“Mr. Bunn did pay me attentions. He did ask me if I’d like to marry him. And, if he hadn’t died, he would have bought Maison Mimi from Mrs. Ladbroke, because he told me he was going to own it and then we’d see who was boss. Those were his very words.”
“Who got you the job there?”
She hesitated.
“It was Mr. Edgell. He came with Mr. Bunn to the theatre at Melton and was very nice to all the players, specially to me. He offered to find me work and a few days later wrote to offer me the job with Mrs. Ladbroke.”
“So, it wasn’t Bunn?”
“Not at the time.”
“But Edgell told you to say, if anyone asked about it, that Bunn was acting through him?”
“Yes.”
“He also paid the rent and said Bunn had done it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Do I have to answer that?”
“Yes.”
“He asked me to marry him.”
Another! Littlejohn let his arms fall limply by his sides. Would it never end?
Violet Mander showed spirit for the first time.
“It wasn’t what you think. I doubt if he loves me in the way the others say they do! He has never said so. He’s never tried to kiss or maul me like the rest. Hubert Stubbs … faugh …”
She rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth in a flash of temper, smearing the lipstick across it.
“He said, if I’d been younger he’d have adopted me as his daughter. I reminded him of someone he once knew. He was lonely, with no relatives, a large house, a lot of money with nobody to leave it to. He couldn’t do a thing about it unless I married him. He told me to take my time and I haven’t given him an answer yet.”
“He asked you to help entice Medlicott out of doors the night Bunn was killed, didn’t he?”
“Yes. He said Browning had been talking about my relations with Medlicott and I’d better ring up Mr. Medlicott to come and talk it over at the shop. Browning came after I’d rung up and told me it was all a mistake. I could go home and he’d apologize to Mr. Medlicott.”
“Why did you lie to me about your relations with Jubal Medlicott?”
“Mr. Edgell said if ever anybody asked about who paid for the rent and such things, I must on no account mention his name. On the spur of the moment, I made up the tale about Mr. Medlicott. You see, he sort of suggested it by pleading on the stairs for the rent. You suspected something, and that gave me a chance with the story.”
“On the night Browning died, you had someone in the room when I was talking to Browning downstairs. Was that Edgell?”
“Yes.”
“What was he doing here?”
“I don’t know … Honestly, I don’t. But he came in and said he wanted to stay till the police had left. He tried twice to get away by the back door. The second time, he managed.”
Littlejohn pointed to the large cupboard.
“He wasn’t in there when I called? Who was?”
She smiled for the first time.
“I told you the truth, Inspector. It was mice. There are some about and that night there was a mouse in the cupboard. I was terrified. I almost asked you to open the door and catch it.”
Littlejohn could have laughed outright. Hitherto, the mouse had been Edgell’s alibi in Browning’s murder. If he’d been in the wardrobe all the time, he couldn’t have been throttling Browning! Now …
“How was Mr. Edgell dressed when he called on you, Miss Mander?”
“As usual … In his grey suit and coat.”
“Did anything in his get-up strike you as unusual or incongruous? His shoes, for example.”
She hesitated.
“Yes, now I come to think of it, there was something funny. He had on a pair of spats. I’d never seen anybody but Mr. Medlicott in spats before.”
The telephone rang urgently. Miss Mander crossed the room and took the instrument from under the silken skirt of the blue doll.
“Leave it!”
She stopped in the act of taking up the receiver.
“Let it ring …”
They stood transfixed whilst the bell rang and ended in apparent exhaustion.
“But why?”
“It’s not safe, Miss Mander. And now, I don’t want you to stay here overnight. There’s a desperate murderer about and I can’t run any risks. Have you any friends you can stay with?”
“Not at this hour, Inspector. Besides, what would I say about turning up so late with a tale like that?”
“My colleague here will take you over to Melton right away. Pack a bag for the night and he’ll see you safely to an hotel.”
Still amazed, Violet Mander threw a few things in a case and Cromwell set out with her in the police-car for Melton Mowbray.
Littlejohn switched off the lights of the flat and turned out the gas-fire. As he left, the telephone started to ring again.
18
“THROSTLES NEST”
CROMWELL hadn’t much difficulty getting a room for Violet Mander at The Greenwood Tree in Melton Mowbray, although the night-porter, after a look at his companion, gave Cromwell an artful leer which made him go hot under the collar. If the sergeant hadn’t wanted to ask the fellow a favour, he would have ticked him off for his cheek.
“There isn’t a telephone in the room, is there?” Cromwell said, after his ward had been comfortably established and they had wished each other good-night.
“No. Wantin’ one?”
The porter was old and decrepit and had a tired, disillusioned look, as though he’d served every night of his life in hotels of ill-repute and you couldn’t tell him anything he didn’t know.
“That’s just the thing I don’t want. The lady’s highly-strung and she’s being pestered by a fellow she doesn’t like. On no account must she be disturbed.”
The porter nodded sagely and spat on the two half-crowns Cromwell slipped in his hand.
“And another thing; if she comes down and asks for the phone, don’t let her use it. Say it’s engaged … Any excuse. I’ll be here first thing in the morning and I’ll see you right if you help me.”
The porter thereupon closed one eye.
“Looks as if you was wantin’ her kep’ away from the said pesterin’ feller. Maybe, yore in the runnin’, too, eh? Can’t say I blames yer. She a redlar smasher, an’ no mistake. Trust me, mister …”
Next morning Cromwell and Littlejohn were at The Greenwood Tree early and Miss Mander found them waiting for her at breakfast. She looked cool and fresh after the night’s adventure. She never seemed to look anything else. Two sleepy commercial travellers eyed her and her companions with amazement, for she was still wearing her evening gown.
“I’ve telephoned Mrs. Ladbroke that you won’t be at the shop to-day. Your aunt’s sick …”
Cromwell smiled and poured her out a cup of coffee.
She looked puzzled.
“But why?”
“We’re taking you back with us, but we want you to attend a gathering we’re arranging in connection with the death of Edwin Bunn. Some of the things you’ve told us have an important bearing on the case.”
Littlejohn told her quietly and nodded reassuringly.
“Very well. Since it’s all settled …”
Neither of the two detectives knew Melton Mowbray, but the police were very helpful and quickly told them where Aunt Sarah lived. Throstles Nest, just outside the town. The local superintendent sent a constable to show Cromwell the way. The bobby was so overawed by the presence of Scotland Yard that he barely spoke a word there and back, but cleared his throat loudly as though getting ready to sing a solo and tugged at his collar nervously until he almost choked himself.
“Nice day, sir.”
“Busy at the Yard nowadays?”
“Nothin’ ever excitin’ happens here, but I must say I like the place.”
“That’s the house over there.”
Cromwell might have expected it. A typical Bu
nn residence. Square, ugly, built behind walls. To prevent the public from spying on what was going on inside, the interstices of the wrought-iron gates had been boarded up, like an asylum or mysterious foreign embassy.
Cromwell let himself in. Beyond, the house was set in a large well-kept lawn, relieved by flower beds. It was a tidy, solid structure with sash windows at which were draped long, expensive, plush curtains of a bygone generation. The front door was closed and, although there was no strength in the autumn sun, there was hung before the door a large striped blind to protect the paint. A massive, prosperous-looking place, with a wrought-iron balcony on the first floor. Gravel paths and a coach-house and stables converted into a garage. You could imagine old furniture indoors and perhaps a trim maid or two and a manservant. Instead, from somewhere at the back there emerged a bent old man in a shabby jacket and corduroy trousers held up by a belt with a tarnished brass buckle. He made belligerently straight for Cromwell.
“Hi! You be trespassin’. This be private property.”
“I’m not trespassing. I want to speak to someone in charge.”
“If you be sellin’ anythin’, the missus be away.”
“For how long?”
Cromwell pretended to be a stranger to the affairs of Throstles Nest, but, from his knowledge of Aunt Sarah, he could have told them a lot about it. Stuffy, full of old-fashioned, heavy, ugly furniture, antimacassars, skin rugs, family photographs in frames. And perhaps copies of the Financial Times, for Aunt Sarah’s regular estimate of her wealth in investments and to enable her to sum up what to buy and what to sell.
“For how long?”
“She didn’t say. She never tells me anythin’. Better ask the missus.”
“Is your wife in?”
“Yes; but if you be sellin’ anything she’s an ’oly terror. Better teck my advice …”
The party was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Hinksman’s better half. She was breathing heavily as though she’d been hastily summoned and had run all the way.
“These men be askin’ for Mrs. Wilkins, missus.”
“And might I h’ask your business?”
A woman who evidently fancied herself and tried to talk accordingly, and flinging aspirates about in the effort. Grey-haired, with an abundant bosom and rear, she’d probably married Hinksman, the gardener, as a last resort, thought herself a cut above him, and despised him because she now had the idea that she might have done better.
Corpses in Enderby (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Page 18