"It had better be, Greenhalgh. Don't want to miss our 'plane. . . ."
Littlejohn slipped out after Greenhalgh and left him sorting out the travel problems of the large man he had seen on the terrace. He and the equally large woman with him seemed to be the only guests at the Claddagh Hotel.
The Chief Inspector gathered up his family and he drove them to Ramsey through the fine avenues of trees on the Lezayre Road. Ramsey always reminded him of a Breton fishing town. Even the styles of the residential houses resembled those of the villas of the middle-class French. Palm trees, hydrangeas, pampas grass in the gardens, neat lawns, a quiet, respectable air. And the tall houses of the town and waterfront, lacking only the names of well-known apéritifs across their white gable-ends. . . . The sky was clear, the air like wine, and the sea of the vast lovely bay sparkling and blue in the noon sun. Mrs. Littlejohn went to look at the shops as her husband made his familiar way to the police-station. The Inspector there knew him well from a previous case and was delighted to see him again. Until Littlejohn mentioned the raid on the Claddagh Hotel; then the Inspector got a little bit official.
"I'm sorry, sir, I can't give you the names of those we didn't prosecute. They were staying the night in the hotel and were allowed drinks. The register was checked, of course, but the names weren't taken. You wouldn't do it on the mainland, would you?"
The officer sounded a bit hurt.
"Of course not. I just wondered, that's all. . . . Thank you for your help, Inspector."
"Sorry, sir, we can't do more."
"Levis, the man murdered in the Peel case, was there. I thought someone might remember the name of his companion at the hotel."
"The point was raised, sir, in the investigations of Levis's murder, but the two officers who called that Sunday night didn't recollect her. Sorry again."
"Don't worry, Inspector."
Littlejohn made his way to the quay on which he'd arranged to meet his wife. He was very thoughtful. Apparently the Manx police had anticipated everything and each new line he started turned out to be, in fact, an old one. Another blank! The dog, leaping to greet his reappearance, wakened him from his reverie and he brushed Levis aside as the beauty of the waterfront took his fancy.
7
THE RETURN OF EDDIE KERMODE
LITTLEJOHN had decided to take things easy the following day. There was something soporific and relaxing about the quiet atmosphere of Grenaby. It seemed quite out of the world and you felt time didn't matter. Traa dy liooar . . . Time enough. Littlejohn ate his breakfast in bed at nine o'clock and then lit his pipe and settled down to smoke and listen to the rush of the water of the Silverburn driving its way under Grenaby bridge, and the swishing of the wind in the trees outside the bedroom window. On Moaney Mooar farm nearby, the Englishman who rented the shooting was already about, wasting cartridges. He was a poor shot and always fired both barrels of his gun in rapid succession and scared all the birds of the parsonage rookery.
"You're wanted, Tom. . . ."
Mrs. Littlejohn appeared, spoke in a whisper, and looked ready to tell the caller that her husband was asleep.
"Who is it?"
"Inspector Perrick."
"Again! All right, I'll come. . . . Or, on second thoughts, Letty, send him up."
"Here? But he's come to take you out. It seems Kermode, or somebody, has arrived from England. Mr. Perrick says you know all about it."
"In that case, I'd better get up. No peace for the wicked!"
Littlejohn slid out of bed, put on his dressing-gown and slippers, yawned loudly, passed his hand through his thinning hair, lit his pipe, and made for the bathroom. From the landing-window he could see Perrick, wearing his raincoat, munching an apple, chatting to the Archdeacon.
The Chief Inspector scowled at himself in the mirror and then started to lather his face.
So Kermode was back. That would probably mean the release of Johnny Corteen. Littlejohn knew those little close-knit seagoing communities very well. A fisherman would swear black was white to save a pal from a landlubber. And in any case, Corteen was probably the last on a long list of possible murderers of Levis. There were deeper waters than those of the noisy, drunken young brother of the girl Levis had seduced. Dr. Fallows, Pamela Fallows, Dora Quine, were all involved in an intrigue of jealousy and hate. And the beautiful dark girl, the stranger Greenhalgh had mentioned, what new fields did she open?
Littlejohn dried his razor and washed himself vigorously.
At the back of his mind lurked an uneasy feeling about his reception by the Ramsey police the day before. In the previous case in which he'd collaborated with them, they had been the most courteous and helpful colleagues. Now. . . it seemed they resented his unofficial entry in the Levis affair. He couldn't quite make it out. Perhaps he was just being a bit touchy, or feeling his position as an outsider, an amateur interfering. . . . He wouldn't mention it to Perrick, yet. It might seem small-minded or get someone into trouble. . . .
Perrick had no more news when Littlejohn joined him, except that he was on his way to Peel to meet Kermode.
"I thought you might like to see him along with me, sir. He got in by the last 'plane from Blackpool yesterday. His ship docked in the afternoon."
Eddie Kermode was waiting for them in the police-station at Peel when they arrived. A short, stocky, dark sailor of around thirty. He had the thickset, powerful frame of a small gorilla.
"It's only for the sake of Johnny I've come over so quick. Who's going to pay my expenses, I'd like to know . . ." he was telling a sergeant, who looked puzzled about the financial aspect of the problem.
"Hullo, Eddie. Good of you to come so quickly."
"Good day to you, Mr. Perrick. It's only on account of Johnny being in the gaol that I've come. What do you want me to say? The police at Fleetwood said it was important."
"Yes. You know there was a murder the day before you left the Island, Eddie. A man called Levis. . . . "
"I knew him. A little rotter. And they've been sayin' that Johnny did it on account of Fenella. Well, that's a lie."
Kermode eyed Littlejohn up and down uneasily.
"This is Chief Inspector Littlejohn from Scotland Yard. He's helping us on the case."
"Is it that bad, then? Does he want to question me, lek?"
"No. We just want to know exactly what happened on the night of August 21st."
"That's easy. Johnny and me had too much of the drink that night. We was drunk when we left the Captain Quilliam. I must have invited Johnny to stay at our house, his mother being terr'ble upset on account of his takin' too much of the drink. When we got home, my wife sobered us good and proper with her tongue. She told us both what she thought of us ezzac'ly, packed-up, an' off to her mother's, and lef' us with the place to ourselves."
"You were sober enough to remember that, Eddie?"
"Sartainly. After my wife had finished with us, we was both sober. But then, we started again. . . . "
"What do you mean?"
"I got mad, Mr. Perrick. I told Johnny that no woman was goin' to tell me what to do in my own house. So I got out a bottle of rum an' we had some more drinks. Johnny took worse than me. I could recollect what we was doin', but Johnny was helpless. I put him on the sofa to sleep it off and settled myself in the chair by the fire."
"What time would that be?"
"About two. What with quarrellin' with my wife and drinkin' again, it took us quite a while to settle down."
"How came it, then, that Johnny Corteen was found by the police outside Peel and under a hedge at five in the morning?"
Kermode scratched his head.
"Easy, Mr. Perrick. Johnny an me fell-out later on. I woke around four and there was Johnny unlockin' the house door and on his way out. The noise he made must have wakened me. He was still drunk and very contentious with it. He set off, not in the direction of his own home, but makin' for the country. I follahed him, tryin' to get him to come back, but he wouldn't hear sense and kep' on wa
lkin'. . . . In the end, after arguin' a bit, I left him. In fac', I told him to go to hell, and went home and slep' till daylight. You know the rest. I found my wife at Fleetwood, we made it up and are back on the Island again. All I want is to see Johnny out of gaol. . . . "
"What time did you leave Johnny?"
"Half-pas' four, or thereabouts. It wanted a quarter to five when I got in home again."
"You're sure?"
"Sartin. I was sober by then. The police must have come upon Johnny within a quarter of an hour after I left him."
"Right. We'll want a signed statement from you, Eddie, but what you say seems to put Johnny in the clear. Thanks."
Perrick picked up his hat and together he and Littlejohn went into the street.
"I guess I'll go back to Douglas now and see about releasing Corteen. Care to come, sir?"
"I think not. I'll see him when he gets back to Peel, perhaps."
"Very well. Have a good day at Ramsey yesterday, sir? The police there told me you called. . . ."
Perrick's voice grew a bit mournful.
"You know, sir, if you want to know anything, I'll always do my best to help. Ramsey didn't know you were on the case unofficially and were a bit surprised when you walked in there. You'll have to excuse them if they weren't as helpful as they might have been. . . ."
"I've no complaints, Perrick. Inspector Lace was his usual courteous self."
"They told me you'd been asking about the raid on the Claddagh Hotel and who was with Levis that night. It's most annoying that the men who did the job didn't take the names of all who were there. That means we've missed a very important clue, I think. However, no use crying over spilt milk. We'll find out some other way. I'll let you know any developments. Good-bye for the present. . . ."
The police car vanished down the narrow street and Littlejohn was left to his own resources. He filled and lit his pipe thoughtfully. It was obvious Perrick didn't need much help! Here, there, and everywhere, he seemed to be on the track of Littlejohn as well as the killer of Levis! An example of what the Archdeacon called Manx curiosity, their love of knowing all that happens and of good gossip . . . a li'l cooish.
Littlejohn thrust his hands in the pockets of his coat and with his pipe between his teeth walked down to the promenade. With the exception of a few belated holidaymakers religiously taking the sea air, there was nobody about. The tide was coming in and the clear air set off sharply the ruins of the cathedral and castle on their islet. The sun, shining on the local red sandstone, cast a pink glow over them. The Inspector was seized with a whim to walk round the river and wander over the ruins, and he started in that direction.
On the way to Peel Island, Littlejohn passed groups of sailors and longshoremen taking the air and gossiping. The riverside was busy. Two herring-boats were tied up for repairs to their scallop gear and a blacksmith was working on the dredging harrows. Another French boat had put-in and the crew were cleaning her down; there was washing hanging from a line across the deck.
Littlejohn turned in at the Captain Quilliam. The landlord greeted him and he ordered a glass of whisky. Some ten or a dozen men were already standing at the bar, drinking their morning beer or rum and talking to the captain of the French boat and his mate. They were discussing the main local topic, Levis's murder. They gave Littlejohn sidelong looks and seemed less cordial than the other night.
". . . And Johnny Corteen still in the Douglas prison. We all know Johnny wouldn't hurt a fly. And the murderer still at large. Why don't they arrest them as was more likely to have done it than Johnny? What are they waitin' for? Is it because the others are moneyed folk and are local nobs, or what?"
Littlejohn drank up and left the place. On the way out the landlord tapped his elbow.
"Don't heed them, sir. They're a bit sore about Johnny being kept in gaol. It'll blow over."
"You can tell them he'll be out by to-night and they'll be able to get him blind drunk again. . . . "
He wandered along the waterfront watching the rising tide, crossed the bridge, and walked along the West quay past Peel Hill, to the castle gates and paid his threepence admission money. He didn't feel like making a thorough and systematic tour of the ruins. Just a quiet round of the place and to admire the view across the harbour.
He passed through the guard-room of the castle, strolled past the round tower and turned to the cathedral. There he descended to the crypt and then, standing in the centre of the ruins under the tower, amused himself by translating laboriously from the Latin, an epitaph on a brass plate screwed to a tomb.
In this house which I share with my brothers the worms lie I, Sam, by divine grace Bishop of this Isle, in hope of resurrection.
Stay, reader: Look and laugh at the Bishop's palace.
Died May 30th, 1662.
"Lookin' at the bishop's grave, sir? Bishop Rutter, they say. The lines are supposed to be witty to them as can read them. . . ."
Littlejohn turned and found, almost at his elbow, a tall, wiry, middle-aged man with a kindly face, leathery skin and sharp grey eyes. He wore a fisherman's jersey under a blue reefer coat, and a peaked cap on his head. Littlejohn had seen him before. In fact, the gossips had made a point of trying to impress the Chief Inspector by saying they knew Tom Cashen, the man who found Levis's body, very well.
"Mr. Cashen, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir. I suppose you'll be wondering what I'm doing here. I followed you round for a quiet word. . . . "
The man was obviously forcing himself to speak. Shy and reticent in his talk, he would not have approached Littlejohn except for something serious.
"Captain Cashen, is it, by rights?"
The man laughed.
"Admiral, if you must stand on rank, sir. I'm Admiral of the Fleet at Peel, for which I receive a salary of five pounds a year. Not that it's much of a job now, with only four of us in the herring fleet. In days when the harbour was full of craft—nobbies and nickeys—and 2,000 hands manned 'em, it was somethin' like a post and they couldn't shoot the nets without the Admiral said so. . . ."
"Well, Admiral Cashen, what can I do for you?"
"I suppose you know, it was me and my boys that found the body of Levis. I'm skipper of the Manx Shearwater, the boat you see tied up just past the steps there on the West quay. . . ."
"Yes. . . ."
Littlejohn paid close attention. Tom Cashen was a man who only spoke when it was necessary and every word counted.
"I was thinkin'. . . . I was thinkin', first of all, we've got to get rid of the suspectin' feelings that are all over the town. Everybody knows Johnny Corteen and everybody knows he didn't kill Levis. But we want to find who did and get the matter settled, lek. The police aren't too popular in this because they arrested Johnny and that's why I'm here with you in a quiet spot. I'd likely be unpopular, too, if I was seen. But I jes' want to put a suggestion to you, sir. . . ."
He paused, wondering if he might be taking liberties.
"Go on, Tom."
The easy address did it. Cashen opened out.
"It's this way. Everybody's busy sayin' who did it, but they haven't said how he did it. The man was killed on land. Or so you'd think. And he was rowed out to sea and sunk. If we hadn't happened, lek, to be dredgin' in that part, there the body would have been till it rotted away or the fish completely ate it."
"That's right."
Cashen tapped Littlejohn's chest with his cold pipe.
"Where was the man killed, sir? And when?"
"You tell me, Tom."
"As to when, lek as not, he was murdered by day. The nights was pitch dark around the time it was done, and you'd find it hard to tell one man from another. If it was done by day, would you, sir, have rowed it out an' dropped it in the full light for everybody to see?"
"No, Tom, I wouldn't."
"No. You'd have hid it and took it out, maybe at dusk, maybe at first light, so's you could see what you was doin', lek, and where you was goin'. . . ."
"Well?"
<
br /> "Where was the body hid, sir?"
"Go on."
"Will you kindly follow me, sir?"
Cashen led the way out of the ruins across to the mound of turf which rose in the centre of the islet and when they had climbed it, pointed with his finger northeast over the great curtain wall which surrounded the fortress. Before them lay a superb view of the Isle of Man. A background of rolling hills ending suddenly where, in the Sulby Valley, the ground levelled to the curraghs and fens. In the foreground, a long stretch of coastline from Peel city to Jurby Point, with Jurby church making a solid white landmark on the cliffs. Beyond that, the northeastern slope of the coast to the Point of Ayre. Littlejohn's eye followed the changes in structure; the red sandstone cliffs of Peel, the white beaches dotted here and there and, midway, a break in the colour where the softer stone changed to rock. Cashen was indicating this spot.
"You see the place there on the coast where I'm pointin'? Where the sandstone cliffs change to darker rock? Get it? That's the Gob y Deigan, sir. Manx for Devil's Mouth or Devil's Hole. There's cliffs there covered on the top with turf and down below the Lynague Caves, some of the biggest on the Island."
They looked across the sunlit water in silence for a minute.
"I might 'a brought my glasses, if I'd thought, sir, but that's a first-rate spot to hide a body. The caves are cutoff at high tide, which is the time when you can take a boat in them and row out to sea. I've been thinkin' somebody might hide a corpse there till dusk and row out and dump it. Besides, as the crow flies, it's the nearest land to the spot where we found the body."
"Now we're learning something, Tom. That sounds a good bet as to what happened. . . ."
"Not only that, Inspector. The road, the main road from Peel, passes within a quarter of a mile of Gob y Deigan. At a twist called Devil's Elbow, there's a valley leads down to the shore. You sartainly ought to put a proper sight on those caves and the whole place, sir."
"I feel like going without delay. . . ."
Cashen hesitated. He'd something on his mind and was seeking words to express it.
"Tell you what, sir. We're sailin' for scallops in the Shearwater in less than an hour. Why not come along with us? We'll show you the ezzact spot where we found the body and then, as we'll likely anchor and stay the night aboard, I'll row you ashore. That'll cover the track in reverse of whoever rowed from Gob y Deigan to sink the body. You'll unnerstand it a lot better if you see it all from the sea."
The Cursing Stones Murder (A Cozy Mystery Thriller) (Inspector Little John Series) Page 8