The Cursing Stones Murder (A Cozy Mystery Thriller) (Inspector Little John Series)

by George Bellairs

  "What blame?"

  She repeated it quietly. His hand was resting on the edge of his desk and she clapped her own over it almost violently. Fallows looked surprised, but didn't move.

  "He's just blaming himself for making a mess of your lives, Mrs. Fallows."

  If Fallows wouldn't speak up for himself, Littlejohn would!

  "We'll discuss that later, Leonard. Just now, I'm thinking of what Archdeacon Kinrade's been telling me. Is it true you are trying to take the blame for the murder of Cedric Levis?"

  "I'm not taking the blame from anyone. I did it."

  "Don't be foolish, Len. You know you were out on a case nearly all day. You hadn't come in at half-past three when I went to meet Cedric. He was leaving the Island with another woman and I wanted my letters back. He told me to meet him at our old rendezvous at four o'clock. When I got there, I found him dead on the beach. You couldn't have been there."

  Fallows faced his wife angrily again.

  "Why didn't you tell me this before? We could have found a way out of it together. Instead of which, Ned Crowe saw you bending over the body. He's unconscious in hospital after . . . after what I did to him to keep him quiet."

  Littlejohn intervened again.

  "He'll recover very soon. . . ."

  "Please keep out of this, Inspector. If he recovers, I'll get away with it, but my wife won't. . . ."

  "I didn't kill Cedric, Len, and they can't do anything to me if I didn't. Can they, Inspector?"

  "The law has a way of finding out the truth. We'd better get busy discovering who did do it. Did you see anyone around when you left the body, Mrs. Fallows?"

  "No. As soon as I saw he was dead, I was so frightened I ran back to the road and drove home like mad. I didn't look to left or right. I only wanted to get away. But I don't think anyone else was there. That is . . . I suppose Crowe was spying somewhere but I didn't see him."

  "And the letters. Did you get them?"

  "No, Inspector. Cedric's coat was on the ground beside him. He must have been carrying it on his arm. The letters weren't in the pockets; I had the presence of mind to feel in the coat before I ran. They weren't there."

  "Did you expect them to be, with a cad like Levis?"

  Pamela Fallows made no reply to her husband's taunt.

  "How did Levis get to Gob y Deigan? He didn't walk. His car isn't in the garage. He must have used it to get there and yet nothing's been seen of it. Whoever killed Levis removed all traces, including the car. I wonder what he did with it?"

  Fallows wasn't concerned with the case any more.

  "Will you swear to me you didn't kill Levis, Pam?"

  "Of course, I didn't. You didn't think I did, did you?"

  "No. I just told the Inspector you weren't cruel and insensitive enough. No; I never believed that."

  "All the same, I think it was very sweet of you to try to take the blame and shield me. Thank you, Len."

  "Don't, for God's sake, thank me. I'd do it again. I'd kill anyone who dared accuse you. I'd . . ."

  Fallows was going off the deep end again!

  "Don't the pair of you think you could get out of this difficulty better if you pulled together?"

  The Archdeacon looked from one to the other as he said it.

  "I'm grateful, sir, but I don't need your help in peacemaking. It's my fault. I've been too immersed in my work. My wife's still young and wants to enjoy life. I've been a bit of a bore, I know. I'll try in future . . . "

  "Oh, Len, stop it! It's all my fault."

  "Don't start quarrelling again, you two. Perhaps the parson and I had better leave you to thrash it out between you."

  "Thanks, Chief Inspector. Since I found Cedric Levis dead, I've been scared stiff. I've had enough fun, as they call it. I've longed to ask Len for his protection, and to tell him all about it, and ask him what to do."

  They weren't a romantic couple, Fallows in his baggy suit and owlish spectacles, and his wife with tears in her eyes, a shiny nose, and a smudge of tracing ink on her cheek. They were too old and disillusioned to play a passionate scene of reconciliation, but as the parson and the Chief Inspector left them, the harassed husband and wife looked ready to make a fresh start if they were given a chance, and Littlejohn had made up his mind to see that they got it.

  13

  DORA QUINE

  "PAM rather made a fool of me with Cedric Levis and I see no reason why I should try to shield her in anything connected with him."

  After leaving Dr. Fallows and his wife at Peel, Littlejohn and the parson drove to Douglas.

  "It might be a good idea to find a bit of background about Levis from Pamela Fallows's partner. He threw one over, it seems, in favour of the other. Let's get a woman's angle on it," the Chief Inspector said.

  Dora Quine was in her office in a block on Prospect Hill, just near the House of Keys. A large room, with plain-wood chairs, two drawing-desks, and the usual odds and ends of an architect's profession; drawing-boards, measuring-staves, filing-cabinets, and lights with green shades. When Littlejohn knocked and entered, Dora Quine was checking some plans with a girl clerk, the only other occupant.

  "Could I have a word in private with you, Miss Quine?' said Littlejohn after greetings had passed. Dora Quine seemed quite pleased to see him.

  "Just take a walk along the promenade for a quarter of an hour, Carrie," said the young lady. It was a good and forthright solution. Outside, the Archdeacon sat in the car, smoking his pipe and reading the news of the North in the Ramsey Courier.

  Dora Quine drew up a chair to the fire and told Littlejohn to do the same. She lit a cigarette and he his pipe. They might have been friends for years. She wore a smart green smock over her costume. It suited her. Away from Pamela Fallows with her dominant personality, Dora Quine was quite attractive. Small, well-built, dark, with regular features, a straight nose and a good complexion tanned by the sun and wind, she might, had she been an inch or two taller, have reminded you of those comfortable, plump, classical beauties beloved of the Lord Leighton school of painters. There was nothing melancholy about her, however. No Last Watch of Hero! She seemed to enjoy life thoroughly. She poured out a cup of tea from a pot on the hob for the Chief Inspector and, without asking his preferences, added a dollop of Swiss milk from a tin to the dark fluid.

  "We've just brewed it."

  "I hope you'll forgive this intrusion, Miss Quine, and also any personal questions I might ask you. I've no authority whatever for doing this. In fact, you might think I've a devil of a cheek. But it's second nature to me to want to tidy up a case properly, and I'm curious to know who killed Cedric Levis."

  "So am I, Mr. Littlejohn. I don't mind what you ask and I'll try to answer. What do you want to know?"

  "You were, I believe, friendly with Levis at one time."

  Dora Quine laughed. It might have been a huge joke.

  "Who told you that?"

  "Things get about here, don't they?"

  "I'll say they do. Yes, I once had the honour of having my name in Mr. Levis's notebook and, I think, my telephone number, as well. I was one of his lady friends. He wanted it to go farther, and that's why we parted company."

  "Not because Pamela Fallows cut you out, then?"

  "You don't believe in wrapping things up, do you, Inspector?"

  "I warned you, Miss Quine. I'm trying to get at what I want to know in the quickest possible way. I hope you don't mind."

  "Not at all. No. It was more or less all over between Cedric and me before Pamela ever came on the scene. I wasn't in the least heartbroken when they took up together, though, I must say, I didn't approve of their carryings-on. Leonard Fallows is a bit stuffy, but he didn't deserve that, and he's been better about it than Pam ever deserved."

  "Did he ever talk to you about it?"

  "He used to ask me where she was whenever I met him about the place. I knew what he was thinking. I once told him quite plainly that I wasn't his wife's keeper, even if I was her partner."

/>   "And their carryings-on? What do you mean by that?"

  "Pam Fallows and Cedric Levis were alike in one thing. They spared no expense or pains to get their own way. Levis met me, for example, at a dance at the Villa Marina here. He bore all the signs of being smitten at once. So he had a wing added to his already adequate bungalow at Bradda and got me to do the job, just so that he could have me around and take liberties . . . or so he thought. He got to calling here for me and taking me to Port Erin to his place on one pretext or another . . . studying plans, surveying the site, helping him to make up his mind on this or that scheme. On the way, he'd want to stop for lunch somewhere. Then it got to slipping an arm round my waist in the car, inviting me to dinner-dances in the evening, buying a lot of wine, and then suggesting we stayed the night at the hotel, because he felt it wasn't safe to drive home after so much alcohol. I left him there and drove home myself in his car. After that, I brushed him off. I'm engaged, you see, and I thought things had gone far enough."

  "I understand."

  "I don't wear a ring, because my fiancé hasn't been home yet to buy me one, that's all. He's in Canada in a job. We were friends before he left, and he proposed by post. You naturally wouldn't expect him to send a ring all that way. We're being married in spring."

  "I hope you'll be very happy, Miss Quine."

  "There's no reason why we shouldn't. He's Manx. Name of Mylchreest. But that doesn't answer your questions. Any more, Mr. Littlejohn?"

  "How did you and Pamela Fallows get together?"

  "She fell for Levis, it seems. They met somewhere and she was completely smitten. Husband, children went completely by the board. She had to have him. She was very ingenious about it and paid a lot for the experience. She must have found out that I was working on the bungalow at Bradda and one day she called here and asked about coming in with me. I was busy at the time and guessing she might have heard I was getting married soon, I thought she might have the idea of taking over later. She paid me five hundred for a share. The money was welcome and she was well qualified and smart at the job. But all she wanted at the time was to get to Bradda and Levis. She had, as I say, a way with her. She'd soon captivated Cedric, though she didn't reckon with his light and fickle fancy. Before long it was on the rocks and Pamela found herself left in the lurch."

  "Who was Levis's new love?"

  "I don't know. It was said she was a girl from the other side of the Island. I heard she was a good-looking, young one. Then Levis disappeared. After that, there was no doing any good with Pam. You'd have thought she was really in love with him, in spite of his being such a bounder."

  "Or that she knew something about his disappearance?"

  Dora Quine's eyes opened wide.

  "You're not suggesting that she . . ?"

  "No. But she might have known or suspected something about what had gone on."

  "Everybody thought at first that Levis had left the Island and gone abroad."

  "Had he talked about it, then?"

  "Oh, yes. He was going on the Continent. He'd told his housekeeper and she soon spread it around."

  Littlejohn rose and put his empty cup on the desk under the window. There was a boarding-house over the way and from the second floor a woman was shaking an eiderdown. A man and his wife and two children were ringing the bell at the front door, their suitcases in a line on the doorstep. Mrs. Mulloy. Sea View. Apartments. A card in the window, Vacancies. Littlejohn casually wondered where they saw the sea from. . . . Below, in the street, a thin stream of passengers from the boat which must just have docked, was winding its way uphill.

  "Where were you on the afternoon of August 21st, Miss Quine?"

  He turned and said it suddenly. Dora Quine looked quite taken aback. Her smile faded and her eyes grew angry.

  "You're not suggesting that I had anything to do with Levis's death, are you?"

  "No. That would presuppose you were a woman scorned, if you'll forgive my putting it that way. You weren't, and never had been in love with Levis, so revenge doesn't enter into it. Did you ever go with him to his cottage, or caravan, or whatever he called it, at Gob y Deigan, Miss Quine?"

  A change had come over Dora Quine. Much of her self-confidence and good humour had gone. She was worried about how much Littlejohn already knew!

  "This isn't fair, Inspector. I've already told you, I'm going to be married. It's not right to suggest that . . ."

  "You did go down to Gob y Deigan, though?"

  "Yes. He said he wanted me to see the spot. He'd a sort of summer house, a wooden place there, and thought of erecting a brick one. I went. He tried getting fresh and I told him I was going home. And I did . . . in his car . . . and he'd to walk part way and take a bus the rest."

  "What kind of a car was it?"

  "A Bentley. He didn't do things by halves."

  "Have you seen it since he died?"

  "What a funny question."

  "Not very funny. It's completely disappeared. He must have gone to Gob y Deigan in it and met his death there, but the car was never found. What happened to it?"

  "Don't ask me. I didn't take it."

  "Do you think Pamela Fallows capable of murdering Levis?"

  "No."

  "Why?"

  "She's too fastidious, and all the time I've known her I've never seen her violent or even in a temper. She is normally as cold as ice. I wonder how Levis found her? I never knew her anything but frigid and just a bit scornful of any show of emotion. She's certainly not a killer."

  "So her husband says, too."

  "You've even asked Leonard! She doesn't deserve a man like Fallows. She treats him like a dog."

  "Perhaps after Levis she'll change her mind and be a good wife in the future. Meanwhile, you haven't told me where you were the day Levis died."

  She grew flustered again.

  "I don't know. It's so long since."

  "Please think again. It might be most useful."

  "I can't see in what way."

  "Have the local police questioned you at all, Miss Quine?"

  "Several times. Inspector Perrick has thoroughly grilled me, I can tell you."

  "And he didn't ask where you were on August 21st?"

  "Yes. Inspector, you're a fearful nuisance with your questions. You've caught me out because I told Mr. Perrick I was here in the office alone and I guess I should have told you the same when you asked."

  "You weren't here?"

  "Look here, Inspector, you don't suspect me . . ?"

  "No. Why should I?"

  "I thought you might still think I loved Cedric. Well I didn't. I never loved him. He'd a sort of fascination . . . like a snake, but I got out of the toils in time. I swear I didn't do it."

  "All the same, why keep trying to put me off the track of where you were at the time I mentioned?"

  "If you aren't the official police, you can keep it dark if I tell you. You won't let it get out, unless it's a matter of life and death?"

  "I'll see. I shall use my own discretion, you know."

  "I hope you don't think I'm mean and a sneak when I tell you, but I was at Gob y Deigan."

  "Ah! Now we're learning things. Go on."

  "I'd nothing to do with the crime, though. That morning I was down at Peel, at Pam's place. She has an office there where she does some of our work. Leonard was on his rounds and suddenly the telephone bell rang for her. She closed the door as she went out to take it, but I crept up, gently opened it again, and listened. It sounds all so mean here, in cold blood, but then it was frightfully exciting. You see, I knew Cedric was leaving the Island and I wondered if he was wanting to see Pam again before he went. It was Cedric on the 'phone!"

  "And he wanted to meet Mrs. Fallows?"

  "I heard her say she couldn't and she didn't want. Then he said something else and she called him a beast. Finally, she said something like 'If you bring them with you, I'll be there at four, but I shall just collect them and go . . .' I hurried back and she came in the room agai
n. She looked angry and excited, more passionate than I'd ever seen her. I left just after noon, lunched, and went down to Gob y Deigan in good time."

  "May I ask why, Miss Quine?"

  "I couldn't help myself. I know it sounds dreadful spying on my partner, but I thought it was all starting over again and that perhaps Levis was running away with Pamela . . . taking her with him on the Continent. You see, as I said before, Dr. Fallows is older than Pam and a bit stodgy, but he's so decent . . . well . . . I had to make sure he wasn't going to be fooled again. Say what you like about it, Inspector, but that's it."

  "I'm not particularly interested in your motives, just now, Miss Quine. That's your own business. But I'm keen to know what you saw at Gob y Deigan. Why didn't you tell Inspector Perrick what you're telling me?"

  "It didn't seem of any importance. I didn't see the crime or anything. All I saw was Levis, strolling on the little beach there, waiting. Inspector Perrick is so severe and domineering, I was afraid to say much, lest he took me off to prison or something. So I simply put him off by saying I was here."

  Her eyes grew wide and appealing and Littlejohn smiled as he thought of her giving Perrick such a look in similar circumstances, only with a different tale.

  "What did you see, if you didn't see the crime?"

  "I saw Levis, as I said, waiting. He'd his coat over his arm because of the hot weather and kept looking up the path from the glen as though he expected somebody. Then just as I'd settled to wait and see Pam arrive, I saw a man crossing the field to the edge of the cliffs. I was at the top of the glen, hidden by gorse bushes from where I expected Pam would come, but the man who was approaching would see me if I didn't move. The result was, I'd to creep round the other side of the bush where I couldn't see a thing, except Pam just passing."

  "Let's get this straight. Who was the other man you saw?

  "A short stocky man, like a fisherman, who came from the farm near Gob y Deigan. . . . "

  "Ned Crowe."

  "I don't know his name."

  "The man approached you, and to avoid being seen, you moved round the bush."

  "Yes."

  "Which cut off your view of the beach and Levis, but gave you still a sight of the glen and Pam Fallows when she arrived?"