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

by George Bellairs

  "Yes."

  "Did she arrive long after Crowe?"

  "Five minutes."

  "Did you see Crowe return?"

  "No. He must have gone down the cliffs. He wasn't about when I left and he hadn't gone back the way he came."

  "So you saw neither him nor Levis again?"

  "No. Only Pam. She went down the glen. I daren't move because I didn't want to meet her or the man or Levis coming back. I just stayed put. Then Pam came running back, stumbling and scrambling to the road. She was as white as a sheet and I've never seen her in such a state of panic. I thought Levis had been trying something on . . . assaulted her, or something. It was only when I heard he'd been killed that it all came back."

  "Why didn't you tell the police?"

  "What was there to tell?"

  "You were apparently the last to see Levis before he was killed. Either the man from the farm or some other intruder murdered him, and Pam Fallows found his body on the shore when she arrived."

  "Who says she did?"

  "She told me. I've questioned her."

  "I didn't dare tell the police. I don't know why I'm telling you. I don't want my part as spy on my own friend to be made public. I hope you're going to keep your word, Mr. Littlejohn, and not spill the beans unless it's absolutely necessary."

  "I'm watching this case and if anybody is likely to suffer through your silence I shall have to tell Perrick. I'll have to think about it and if I decide the facts of your case are vital, I shall ask you to go to the police and make a clean breast of it."

  "Thank you so much, Mr. Littlejohn. I'm very grateful."

  "Can you think of anyone else who might have had it in for Levis?"

  "I can't. He's gallivanted with a lot of women over on holiday, I do know that, and got a bad name on the Island, but I can't think of anybody who might wish to kill him."

  "Not even Dr. Fallows?"

  "Len? Whatever makes you think that? Len's too detached and above that sort of thing."

  "But he still loves his wife."

  "No doubt about that, but Len's not a killer. Besides, he's a doctor."

  Littlejohn wondered what that had to do with it and remembered the passion with which Fallows had defended his wife and threatened her accusers.

  "Well, thank you for telling me a straight tale, Miss Quine. It's been a great help. I'll let you know if I want you to to repeat it to Inspector Perrick."

  "Uh! I hope you don't. You're much easier to talk to than Mr. Perrick. He's as hard as nails and hangs on like a terrier. I know he's a first-rate detective, but he might be a bit more human. He's just a machine."

  "I find him very helpful and I like him."

  "He's suffered a lot, I know. He was going to marry a WREN girl he met here during the war and she went back to London to buy her trousseau and was killed in a raid. They say they didn't even find the body. He's never looked at a woman since; just lived for his job."

  "And you say he isn't human! He must find comfort in his work and he's a wise man. I wish I had him at Scotland Yard. We need men like him."

  The girl known as Carrie now returned, rather nervously, for her walk had taken an hour instead of a quarter. She had met a bank clerk on the promenade, and love's young dream had made time seem short. The youth was now suffering a much less hearty welcome from his manager. . . .

  "Thanks again, Miss Quine, and good-bye."

  "Good-bye, Inspector. I hope you don't think I've been disloyal to Pam talking as I have done. 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."

  She almost whispered the last part to prevent Carrie's overhearing, but she needn't have worried. Carrie was still in a happy daze.

  Littlejohn paused on the mat.

  "A fool? I thought you didn't care, Miss Quine."

  "I didn't, but she was so mad to get Cedric to herself, she didn't mind making me small when we were all together. I used to see the builder's men eyeing us, looking at me almost pityingly, and then muttering out of the corners of their mouths about us. It wasn't nice. Pam might have been a bit more discreet. That's all I meant."

  In the car below, the Archdeacon was asleep. His gentle snores mingled with those of Meg on the back seat. The dog awoke first and her joyful noises roused the parson.

  "Well? Had a good interview, Littlejohn?"

  "A puzzling one. Dora Quine didn't want Levis herself because she's getting married next spring. But she was annoyed that Levis should suddenly switch his interest from her to Pamela Fallows, all the same. Her pride was hurt, I guess. That made her rather more talkative to me than the police. I mean the official ones."

  "And did you get any useful information from her?"

  "Yes. She, too, was at Gob y Deigan on the fatal afternoon that Levis was murdered there."

  "Another!"

  "That's right. Only she didn't see much. She overheard Mrs. Fallows making a reluctant appointment with Levis for four o'clock . . . presumably to get the letters she told us of . . . and Miss Quine followed it up by appearing there herself. She says she wanted to be sure Pam and Levis weren't going to take up their affair where they'd left off and she was anxious that Dr. Fallows shouldn't be wronged again. All of which may be quite true, or it may have been a little morbid but perfectly human and feminine curiosity; or again, jealousy prompting Miss Quine."

  "But she's engaged!"

  "Her fiancé's in Canada and they've got engaged by post. I'm not for a moment suggesting she's giving him a double deal or being in any way disloyal to him, but she admits that Levis was fascinating. So is Dora Quine. Given, say, two more inches, she would be extremely beautiful. Her small stature is a bit out of proportion to her development. . . ."

  "Really, Littlejohn!"

  "Yes, sir! Levis must have found her very attractive, but she also had a conscience and she repulsed his unseemly advances, as they used to say in the old melodramas. Or was it dastardly suggestions? However, she was flattered and felt Pamela Fallows had made a bit of a fool of her when she stole Levis away. But the main point is this: before Pamela arrived on the scene to meet Levis, Ned Crowe had, according to Dora Quine, arrived and, apparently gone down to the beach. That's not what Crowe told Dr. Fallows. He told Fallows he arrived and found Levis dead and Pamela bending over him."

  "Which means that Dora saw Levis alive just as Ned Crowe arrived, and he was dead shortly after Pamela got there. Crowe saw it all, the murder included, or else . . ."

  "Yes. Or else, Crowe killed Levis. And the motive stares us in the face. Margat was going away with Levis and Crowe killed him to prevent it."

  "And Crowe is in hospital and likely to talk at any time and throw the blame on Mrs. Fallows!"

  14

  A JUMP AHEAD

  IT was late afternoon when Littlejohn and the Archdeacon arrived back at Grenaby. From the distance, the place looked dead or asleep. All the doors shut and not a soul about. Then, as they crossed the bridge, it was as if everybody had been awaiting their return. Women came out and waved to them as they passed the cottages, Joe Henn emerged from his summer-house, locally known as the 'ut, and gesticulated to indicate that he wanted a talk with them, and Meg awoke from a deep sleep on the back seat, began to bark joyfully, and roused an answering chorus of other dogs. The wanderers were home!

  Mrs. Littlejohn was out at tea with a neighbouring farmer's wife and Mrs. Keggin, the housekeeper, received them rather bitterly.

  "You didn't say you were stayin' out for lunch and I made it and it spiled. And that man's been again. He left this."

  She handed Littlejohn a note written on a sheet of a pocket-book. It was from Perrick.

  Dear Chief Inspector,

  I called and sorry I missed you. Ned Crowe is better, but unable to speak or remember much. I tried to get something out of him but no use. A constable at his bedside, just in case, but the doctor won't allow visitors. Crowe seems to have turned religious and keeps askin
g for his Bible. I will get it for him from Cursing Stones. On my way to see Dr. Fallows. Will call on my way back.

  S.P.

  "When did he call, Mrs. Keggin?"

  "He's not been gone half an hour. He waited a bit an' kept askin' where you'd gone. I didn't know, so couldn't tell him. Then he wrote the note and went off."

  The Archdeacon looked bothered.

  "I think I ought to go and see Ned Crowe, in spite of what Perrick says. The note says he's asking for his Bible. He must be seeking spiritual comfort or suffering remorse for something. There ought to be someone there to help him. I'll get Looney to drive me down whilst you wait here for Perrick's return, Littlejohn."

  And he was at the telephone hiring Teddy Looney's old car before they could stop him.

  Before they had finished a hasty tea, the rattletrap shook its way up the drive and bore off the parson to Noble's Hospital in Douglas. Littlejohn was left to wait alone with the dog until Perrick returned. He paced the floor restlessly, something quite unusual for him. Picking up ornaments, putting them down again; taking out books from the shelves and replacing them after scarcely reading the titles; examining the pictures on the walls with half-seeing eyes. He was quite at sea in the case!

  Had Fallows cooked up an alibi for himself and persuaded the people at Eairy Cushlan to say he'd been there all day? The idea was preposterous and yet . . . Littlejohn shook himself. To doubt the integrity of a decent old man like Billy-Bill-Illiam and his nice daughter was almost a sin.

  Could it have been Johnny Corteen, after all? With the clannish ways of fisherfolk against landsmen, had Johnny got support from his friends in Peel and was his alibi a fake?

  Or Pamela Fallows? Had she murdered Levis at the moment when Dora Quine and Ned Crowe weren't looking? Did Fallows himself know the truth?

  Or Ned Crowe?

  Or . . ?

  A thought struck Littlejohn, a fantastic idea, and he hastily thrust it aside, like someone who hides a shameful thing. The room seemed to grow cold, a vague fear filled him, although he was a brave man. The dog was looking up at him with a fond, possessive look, and he felt glad she was there and grateful for her company and her love. But he could not put from his mind the figure which haunted it. A figure with its back to him, crouched over the oars of Ned Crowe's little boat, straining out to sea, with a grisly cargo of death on the other seat.

  The gate clicked and he saw Perrick's face smiling at him as he walked jauntily up the path. Littlejohn felt thankful for the Manx Inspector's company and, before he could ring the bell, hastened to the door and greeted his colleague on the mat.

  "Hullo, Perrick. I didn't hear you arrive."

  "I left the car just down the road. Thought I'd be stretching my legs a bit. I've been crouched in it all day."

  An indescribable feeling of relief filled the Inspector as Perrick joined him. He couldn't understand it. It was as if danger had been around and had, with the arrival of law and order, fled away.

  Mrs. Keggin ran to the hall.

  "I didn' hear the bell. . . ."

  She, too, looked queer and eyed Littlejohn curiously.

  "Go inside, Perrick. Glad to see you and sorry we weren't in when you called. Could you do with some tea?"

  "I wouldn't say no, sir. I've had a gruelling day with few results. I feel whacked."

  "I'm the same. I just can't see any way through this case."

  Perrick's worried brow cleared.

  "That's a comfort. I'd hate for you to spot some clue, or find a solution, without me having kept abreast. Not that I've had your experience, sir, but I'd like to show you that I'm worthy of my job."

  "Of course. I'll see about some tea."

  Mrs. Keggin was busy already, brewing, and cutting up soda buns. She eyed Littlejohn with a kind of relieved affection.

  "I'm that glad you're all right, sir."

  "What do you mean, Maggie?"

  She passed her old hand across her brow.

  "I felt danger for ye, sir."

  "Danger? Whatever for?"

  "I don't really know. But ye see, I've got the Sight, sir. What they call the Second Sight. It runs in the family. It's known all over that we have it in our family. . . . The Kaighens, of Michael, sir. Ask anybody. I was a Kaighen before I married Keggin. Not much change, Kaighen to Keggin."

  "Now don't try to put me off. What was it, Maggie? What did you see?"

  "It wasn't what I see, sir. It was what I felt. Us that have the Sight knows things that's comin'. I felt for you, master, felt the danger and I couldn' do nothin' about it. It's gone now. But take care. I'm sure there's danger for you."

  Littlejohn took up the tray she had prepared and stood for a moment.

  "Don't worry, Maggie. I can take care of myself. I've been in danger before. I'll be all right."

  In the brief minute, as he carried the tray from the kitchen to where Perrick was modestly sitting by the fire, Littlejohn felt baffled, not by the case, this time, but by what Maggie Keggin had said. By what she called the Sight, she had sensed danger for him and, at the same time, he had felt it, too!

  "Any luck to-day, sir?"

  Perrick stirred his tea and took an appreciative gulp of it.

  "No, Perrick. Every idea seems to lead to a dead end. What about you?"

  Perrick chewed his soda-cake meditatively.

  "I've told Dr. Fallows he'd better not leave the Island. I'm not satisfied about him."

  "Why?"

  "I called to see him and he told me, or as good as told me, to do my damnedest. Just like he did when I called there with you. Unless he talks, and talks quickly, he's going to find himself in queer street. He won't even tell me where he was when Levis was killed."

  "I know where he was."

  Perrick held himself absolutely still and looked Littlejohn in the face. He was thoroughly taken aback.

  "You know, sir? Then you're a jump ahead of me, at last. I thought we were keeping abreast. What do you know?"

  Littlejohn took the poker and stirred the fire into a blaze.

  "I was going to tell you. As for getting a jump ahead, I really ought not to be jumping at all. My work on this case really ended when Johnny Corteen was in the clear, because that's what the parson asked me to look into. By the way, is Johnny in the clear? Had he an alibi for the afternoon of August 21st, as well as the night?"

  Perrick looked impatient.

  "Of course he had. He was boozing most of the day with his pals, celebrating his return. There was one or another of them with him from morning till night. What about Fallows?"

  "He was up at Eairy Cushlan from just before noon till eight in the evening. . . ."

  "What! Why didn't he say so, then, instead of making a fool of me?"

  "I rather think he was trying to take the spotlight off his wife. You know Pam Fallows was a discarded mistress of Levis. It might be that her husband thought she murdered him. Ned Crowe had told the doctor she was down at Cursing Stones on the day . . . the very afternoon Levis was killed."

  The empty cup rattled in Perrick's saucer and Littlejohn, glancing at the Inspector, saw that he was trembling with anger.

  "Everybody seems to be pulling my leg, Chief Inspector ! How did you come to know all this?"

  Littlejohn told Perrick of the note on the doctor's visiting-pad; of Eairy Cushlan; of the testimony of Billy-Bill-Illiam; of the evidence of Fallows and his wife. . . .

  "And what about Mrs. Fallows?"

  Perrick seemed to hold his breath, waiting for the last link in the chain.

  "You'd better have another word with Dora Quine, who was also at Gob y Deigan on the fatal afternoon."

  "To hear people talk, the scene of the crime must have been like a football match! Everybody there when it happened, but nobody looking! Who the hell did do it?"

  "I haven't the faintest notion, Perrick. It looks as if Ned Crowe might have an idea. In fact, he might have done it himself. Has it occurred to you that he has no alibi? And that he'd every
motive in the world for killing Levis?"

  "Motive? Why should Crowe kill Levis?"

  "Did you know his daughter?"

  There was a pause; a long silence. The clock ticked solemnly and the dog snored on the hearth. That was all.

  "Well! I'll be damned! Of course, I knew his daughter. Margat, was she called? I hadn't thought of that! How did you come across all this information?"

  "The neighbouring farm to Cursing Stones, the Kellys'. . . . We took tea there one day and Margat was mentioned. She's left the Island. She was Levis's latest light of love. He threw Pamela Fallows over for her. And when he was murdered, he was on his way to join her on the mainland, and together they were going to San Remo."

  Perrick's face was a study. Littlejohn felt a bit sorry for him. He was like the apprentice who had tried to teach a master-hand how to do the job, and had found himself lacking in the end.

  "You make me feel an amateur, sir. A step ahead of me all the time! You think Ned Crowe might have killed Levis, then? I wouldn't blame any father doing the same to protect his daughter. And no wonder he's turned religious and asked for his Bible. . . . "

  "Did you get it for him?"

  "No, sir. Mrs. Kelly had been before me. She called at Noble's this morning and the sister said Crowe had been asking for his Bible. Mrs. Kelly couldn't see him, but she went back to Cursing Stones and got in the house with a key Ned Crowe once gave her. When he was out, she used to feed his hens and even do a bit of milking for him. She took it back to Noble's and probably gave it to him. Her husband saw me leaving Cursing Stones and said she'd just gone back with it to Douglas on the bus. She's a meddling fool!"

  "Whatever for? It seems a charitable action . . ."

  "It'll get Crowe all upset. He'll get worked up religiously now. So far, he's refused to answer any questions and the doctor says it'll be days before we can press him, because of his head. He gets confused. He'll be more confused after reading the Book of Job! I wish people wouldn't interfere. I'd have taken the Bible with me when I went to see him, and I'd have got in a question or two by asking him why he wanted . . . well . . . why he wanted the consolation of religion, if you see what I mean, sir."