The Case of the Famished Parson (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  The man looked in a state of collapse. He was wet through and bare-headed. His dark, long hair was so heavily oiled that the rain formed in globules on it and ran down his face and back instead of soaking in. Narrow slits of eyes, a thin, long, pointed nose, and a fleshy-lipped mouth with a streak of dark moustache across the top of it. Dazzled by the light and apparently thrown into confusion by some unknown terror, he grimaced and twitched like an idiot. The rain ran from his clothes and formed a pool round his feet.…

  The customers of the pub looked hard at him and summed him up. A cheapjack, a street-corner boy, the sort who stood on the local open-air market selling odds and ends of jewellery, and, on the sly, clothing coupons. They gave him the collective cold-shoulder at once. They were all honest-to-goodness working folk and there was no place for an easy-money boy among them. They eyed his clothes with disdain. Heavy overcoat of light cloth, with high padded shoulders and waist pinched in like a pair of corsets; limp, soaked, baggy trousers escaping from beneath the coat and falling low on a pair of long, brown pointed-toed shoes. The trembling hand holding the double rum was long and mean, but the finger-nails were effeminately manicured.…

  “Give me another.…”

  The landlord reluctantly did so. The chap was so obviously all-in, it seemed a kindness to do it. Especially after singing a hymn.…

  The outer door opened and closed and P.C. 132 stood with his huge back to it, taking all in before enquiring what it was all about.

  “Spiv.…”

  One of the party more impudent than the rest and made bold by beer, uttered the word like an expectoration. The rest sniggered and looked pleased at the joke.

  The word seemed like the last straw to the strange figure in the padded coat. He removed the glass, from which he was gulping, from his mouth with a gesture so quick that it spilled the contents half-way across the room.

  “Spiv, did you say…?”

  The man who had been bold, braced himself against the wall behind his chair as though expecting a sudden assault.

  “Spiv.… Yes, I am a spiv. That’s what they all say. They stop in the street and shout it after me. Well, they’re right. I am a spiv. I’m a spiv… spiv… spiv.…”

  He shouted the word as though it pleased him, like someone who has earned a degree or received a title mouthing it to himself with deep satisfaction. He stood there, the rain dripping from him, his slits of eyes now widened and round, terror in every line of his body.

  “’ere, ’ere, what’s all this?”

  The huge figure of the law stood in the doorway. Everyone sighed with relief. They didn’t quite know how to deal with the situation. P.C. 132 looked ready for anything.

  “What’s all this?”

  The newcomer turned and faced the officer.

  “I’m a spiv.…”

  “Well, now, who’d have thought it?”

  The bobby was being heavily jocular, but the man in the waisted overcoat was deadly serious.

  “Yes.… But whatever I’ve done, I never killed anybody. I didn’t do it.… I swear I didn’t.…”

  The constable stiffened and towered over the man.

  “Who says anybody’s killed somebody?” he said in his best constabulary style.

  “I didn’t do it.… He was dead when I got there.…”

  The drinkers round the fire were petrified. They all sat there like the cast of “The Sleeping Beauty” struck immobile by the witch’s curse.

  “Where’ve you come from and what you been doin’?”

  “Fennings’ Mill.… I didn’t do it.…”

  The constable placed a warning hand on the stranger’s shoulder and it seemed that that was all that was needed to crack him up altogether. As though the huge paw were a ton in weight, the man crumpled under it, sank to the tiled floor and sat there talking to himself.

  “He was dead, staring at me. I didn’t do it. I’m not a murderer; I’m only a spiv.…”

  The embarrassed bobby stooped with difficulty, for his cape and his paunch impeded any bending movement, and tried to raise the man.

  “He’s gone off his rocker,” said someone.

  There was a murmur of general assent.

  The constable looked angrily at the figure on the floor, jerked back his helmeted head as though seeking guidance from heaven, and then rubbed his chin with the back of his hand.

  “I’m phonin’ for help,” he said. “You lot look after ’im till I get back.”

  And he stamped purposefully out and across to the police-box. Something was happening with a vengeance now!

  Back at the inn, the occupants of the bar parlour, men and women, were on their feet and had gathered round the stranger, like participants in a parlour game. The man on the floor was sitting there, fully conscious, talking to himself an unintelligible gibberish, but in a tone of self-comfort and excuse.

  Two more constables soon arrived and the little posse picked up the spiv, carried him out, dumped him in his own van and drove him to the police station, where, in due course, the surgeon with the concurrence of a colleague, certified him as having the balance of his mind disturbed, to say the least of it, and committed him to the asylum under police guard.

  “Better have a look at Fennings’ Mill and see what he’s been at,” said the Inspector on duty to P.C. 132 after hearing his report. “Expect it’s just a mad tale, but we’d better look round.”

  Fennings’ Mill was an old stone factory, chiefly engaged in weaving cotton for shirtings, and stood just behind the police station. It was approached by a maze of narrow streets, terminating in a large walled croft on which stood the mill, with dumps for coal, packing cases, warehouses and a small reservoir for the engines, surrounding it.

  There was no watchman on duty, but the constables found the iron gates which broke the surrounding wall wide open.

  “Hullo,” said P.C. 132 gruffly.

  “Hullo,” said his colleague, 124, in another key.

  “So there ’as been somethin’ up!”

  “Looks like it.”

  There was a gas-lamp burning near the gates. It threw long shadows down the alley and illuminated a few scuttering rats. Otherwise there was nobody about. The rain was still coming down in torrents. A real night for keeping people indoors.

  The constables turned on their torches and cautiously walked across the cobblestoned mill-yard. All was still. The first building was a block of stone offices, single-storied, the lower halves of its windows covered in gauze screens with W. & H. J. Fenning, Ltd., printed across them in gilt. The bobbies tried the doors, which they found locked.

  Next, the main entrance to the mill itself. Doors locked here, too. No signs of disturbance at all. Then the boiler-house, where they fired the great furnaces to drive the engine. This was secure and safe behind its drawn steel shutters. Beyond, you could hear the crackle of the fires, damped down for the week-end. Steam hissed somewhere, gently like a distant angry snake. Otherwise, not a sound.

  “Urn,” said P.C. 132.

  “Aye,” assented 124.

  “Better try the warehouse. Looks like a false alarm.”

  They tramped across the yard to the square, two-storied block which held the raw yarn and the finished products awaiting delivery.

  The door was open!

  The two policemen entered shoulder to shoulder, as though expecting a massed attack of startled intruders. All was quiet, however, but on the floor, about a dozen paces from the door, lay a figure, staring at the ceiling. The open eyes and the livid face gave the constables quite a turn. They groaned with surprise.

  “Jeepers!” said 124.

  “Wot?” said 132.

  “I only said ‘Jeepers’.”

  P.C. 132, his mind momentarily removed from the horror at his feet by his comrade’s strange utterance, looked puzzled and then switched back to business.

  “Bin strangled by the looks of it.…”

  “’orrible.…”

  “I’ll say. Better ring-up
the station. Is that a ’phone in that corner over there?”

  Whilst his colleague telephoned for help, P.C. 132 knelt with an effort and cautiously examined the body.

  “We found a dead body ’ere in Fennings’ warehouse. Yes, stone dead. Strangled by the look o’ things. Very good, sir.…”

  “Hey, look at this,” shouted P.C. 132 to P.C. 124.

  “What?… Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. But look at this.”

  With a heavy finger the constable indicated the upper lip of the corpse. It was covered by a large dark moustache, obviously a false one. The constable touched the cheeks, too, and then looked at his finger under the light of his lamp.

  “Theatrical paint!” he murmured as though to himself. “He’s disguised himself or somethin’.…”

  “Rum go, isn’t it?”

  “I know that face. Seen it before somewhere. Now.…”

  The policeman pondered and then, suddenly growing impatient, bent and pulled off the false moustache.

  “Got to come off anyhow. Might as well,” he said as though excusing himself to himself.

  “See who it is? See who it is?”

  P.C. 124 was almost beside himself with the delight of discovery.

  “Why, it’s Ambrose Barrow, secretary of this ’ere mill.”

  “Right you are, Joe.”

  “No wonder they was runnin’ about like a lot of loonies at Hake Street Chapel to-night. He’s organist there and they’ve some sort o’ special service on. Put ’em in queer street when he didn’t turn up.”

  “I’ll bet it did, Joe. And them little thinkin’ he was lyin’ here, dead. Strangled.…”

  “I wonder if that spiv done it.”

  The two policemen drew closer together. It was eerie in the dim light, with the rain dripping monotonously outside and the rush of water in the gutters overhead. Somewhere, the yowling of a cat split the air. Rats were scuttering about on the floor above.

  “No wonder ’e went potty and they had to put him away,” said P.C. 132.

  “I’ll say,” answered his mate.

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  George Bellairs was the pseudonym of Harold Blundell (1902-1985). He was, by day, a Manchester bank manager with close connections to the University of Manchester. He is often referred to as the English Simenon, as his detective stories combine wicked crimes and classic police procedurals, set in small British communities.

  He was born in Lancashire and married Gladys Mabel Roberts in 1930. He was a Francophile which explains why many of his titles took place in France. Bellairs travelled there many times, and often wrote articles for English newspapers and magazines, with news and views from France.

  After retiring from business, he moved with Gladys to Colby on the Isle of Man, where they had many friends and family. Some of his detective novels are set on the Isle of Man and his surviving notebooks attest to a keen interest in the history, geography and folklore of the island. In 1941 he wrote his first mystery story during spare moments at his air raid warden’s post. Throughout the 1950s he contributed a regular column to the Manchester Guardian under the pseudonym George Bellairs, and worked as a freelance writer for other newspapers both local and national.

  Blundell’s first mystery, Littlejohn on Leave (1941) introduced his series detective, Detective Inspector Thomas Littlejohn. His books are strong in characters and small communities – set in the 1940s to ‘70s. The books have strong plots, and are full of scandal and intrigue. His series character started as Inspector and later became Superintendent Thomas Littlejohn. Littlejohn, reminiscent of Inspector Maigret, is injected with humour, intelligence and compassion.

  He died on the Isle of Man in April 1982 just before his eightieth birthday after a protracted illness.

  If you’d like to hear more from George Bellairs and other classic crime writers, follow @CrimeClassics on Twitter or connect with them on Facebook.

  ALSO BY GEORGE BELLAIRS

  The Case of the Famished Parson

  The Case of the Demented Spiv

  Corpses in Enderby

  Death in High Provence

  Death Sends for the Doctor

  Murder Makes Mistakes

  Bones in the Wilderness

  Toll the Bell for Murder

  Death in the Fearful Night

  Death in the Wasteland

  Death of a Shadow

  Intruder in the Dark

  Death in Desolation

  The Night They Killed Joss Varran

  This edition published in 2016 by Ipso Books

  Ipso Books is a division of Peters Fraser + Dunlop Ltd

  Drury House, 34-43 Russell Street, London WC2B 5HA

  Copyright © George Bellairs, 1949

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  CONTENTS

  I. THE TOWER ROOM

  II. BOLTER’S HOLE

  III. THE DIRTY SHOES

  IV. THE BOY WHO GOT ON

  V. THE CARD PLAYERS

  VI. GAITERS

  VII. CRANAGE FARM

  VIII. OFFICIAL HELP

  IX. THE SNIPER

  X. THE COTTAGE HOSPITAL

  XI. THE REMITTANCE MAN

  XII. COUNTRY RAMBLE

  XIII. CATHEDRAL CLOSE

  XIV. THE MAN WHO CAME BACK

  XV. THE “PATRICK CREEGAN”

  XVI. THE SAILOR WHO SQUINTED

  XVII. THE DEPARTURE OF THE “PATRICK CREEGAN”

  XVIII. BENSON’S MEWS

  XIX. THE RETURN OF THE “PATRICK CREEGAN”

  XX. THE LAST GAME OF CARDS