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

by George Bellairs

  "I won't trouble him at all, if you say so, doctor. But perhaps he wants to get it off his mind. I don't suppose the future is very clear for him just at present?"

  "Strangely enough, it is. . . . He is comforting himself a little by thinking of it. To tell the truth, he's eaten out his heart here in general practice. The man's a born teacher and research specialist. He only left it for his wife's sake, and hid himself. Only last week he had an offer of a job in one of the great mainland teaching hospitals. He was thinking it over and now, I'm sure he'll go. . . . You'll find him in the next room. . . . "

  You had to hand it to Fallows. He could take it. Littlejohn had expected to find him broken and confused by events. Instead, either from pride or restraint, he was calm and self-possessed. The domestic turmoil and emotional chaos of years was suddenly over, the blows of his unseen opponents had ceased, and he was already regaining moral strength and poise.

  "I'm terribly sorry about all this, Dr. Fallows. . . ."

  Fallows hung his head a moment and then offered his hand to the Chief Inspector.

  "You were always most kind to me. . . . In fact, in spite of the duty you had to do, you treated me almost like a friend, Inspector. I shall never forget it. . . ."

  The doctor gathered himself together.

  "There are one or two things I ought to tell you . . . "

  "Another time will do, if you like."

  "No. Better get it over. There's very little. You know, of course, who killed Levis. You've known all along, but you hadn't enough proof. All my efforts to trail red-herrings were useless. I know that."

  "That's right, doctor. But . . ."

  "I have tried to seal off my emotions for the present. I dare not face them . . . but you know I was utterly devoted to my wife. She had been a weakly child and was spoiled in her early days. Then, the war made mincemeat of established codes. . . . I . . . I . . . I was so much older than she was and of a different world. She married me on the rebound. A flying officer. . . . He was killed. . . . I was content to take her on those terms. . . . I must share the blame. . . . I. . . ."

  He was getting a bit off the rails.

  "How did the murder occur, sir?"

  Fallows paused and pulled himself together.

  "Levis was a perfect bounder. He wouldn't leave my wife alone. I admit I perhaps neglected her a bit. There was an affair. I found out, and didn't know what to do about it. Fate took a hand, however. Pamela broke it off with Levis. She told me all about it, and she said she'd do what I wanted . . . leave me or let me divorce her. I couldn't bear either. I asked her to stay. I am sure she broke it off with Levis out of a sense of duty . . . wanting to do the right thing by me and the children . . . feeling she'd been weak and gone off the rails a bit and trying to make amends. I shall always think that and cherish it. . . ."

  He was breaking down again. It seemed a bit callous of Littlejohn, but there was nothing else for it.

  "The murder, sir. . . . "

  ''Eh? Oh, yes. Levis still loved her. She told me all this before she . . . before she . . . left . . . Levis was mad about her. He tried the tactics of flaunting other women, but he pestered Pam to return to him. She told me so. And then he telephoned to say he was leaving the Island, going to get married and leave for good. He had some of her letters. Would she meet him at their old rendezvous and say good-bye, and he'd give them to her? She ought to have known him better. It was a trick. She ought to have told me. But she said she didn't want me to see the letters. . . . "

  The doctor told his tale colourlessly. He might have been relating the story of a third party . . . some patient or other . . . instead of his own dreadful unhappiness.

  "She begged him to post them. He wouldn't. She agreed to meet him to get them back. When she got there, Levis started to make love to her all over again. She said he was violent . . . like a madman, begging, imploring her to come back, threatening to kill himself. . . . And then, he tried to force her . . . they had a struggle and Pamela hit him with a rock. It killed him."

  "I've heard the full account from Ned Crowe, sir. It tallies with your own. . . ."

  "Yes; but who would believe it? A woman whom all the Island knows has been Levis's . . . Levis's . . . I mean . . . "

  "I understand."

  "You see what I mean. . . . If she'd gone to the police, and said she'd killed Levis . . . Well . . . "

  "They wouldn't have believed she was defending herself against the man who had been her lover. Instead, they'd have said she'd killed him because he'd thrown her over."

  "Exactly. She came home like one in a dream. She roamed about the house. I heard her screaming in her sleep, walking her bedroom, weeping. Finally, one night I heard her go down to the surgery and I followed. She was just taking a whole palmful of sleeping-pills, when I caught her. I took her by the throat and stopped her from swallowing until I'd scooped them all out of her mouth. Dreadful. . . ."

  Fallows put his head in his hands and shuddered.

  "Have you had enough, doctor? It can wait."

  "No, no, no. It's nearly over. It can't wait. I've got to tell you. She confessed what she'd done. But that was after three days and no news of the murder had come through. We couldn't understand it. She said the struggle occurred above the tideline and she left the body where it fell. It couldn't have been washed to sea. . . . Next day, at dawn, I went there. No body. I thought she'd imagined it. Then . . . ."

  Fallows gulped and seemed to hesitate to live it all over again.

  "Then, one afternoon, the police rang up. A scallop dredger had found a body on the beds. I knew without being told. I went and met the boat, calmly did my work in the mortuary, removed the one means of identification, a sleeve-link, made a report, and went quietly home convinced it was all over. . . .

  "You know the rest, Chief Inspector. A week or so later, Perrick called. He was quite calm, as usual. He asked to see Pam and me together. 'You know of course, whose the body was that Tom Cashen found on the beds?' he said. 'It was Levis. And I know who committed the crime. It was you, Pam. . . .' He called her Pam. I'll tell you why in a minute. . . . "

  "I know, sir. Had Irene Hartnell lived, Perrick would have been your brother-in-law. . . ."

  For a second, the doctor's eyes glowed with admiration at Littlejohn.

  "You know, Inspector, you did make a thorough job of it. And in spite of all of us being against you and drawing our red-herrings across the trail."

  "I can't understand one thing, though, doctor. Why wasn't it known that Perrick had close associations with you? Surely the whole Island would know the connection."

  "No. Pam wasn't very kind to Perrick. She didn't want Irene to marry him. She thought it infra dig . . . a policeman. She and Irene quarrelled about it. I liked Perrick. We got on well together. But he never came to visit us socially. . . . Pam held it against him that if Irene hadn't been in London shopping to marry Perrick, she'd never have been killed. Rather stupid, you think, but women think differently from us. I shall never forget all I owe to Perrick. A fine man and a fine officer. . . ."

  "Why did he do so much for your wife, then, if she treated him so badly?"

  "It was like him. I got in trouble in my London job. I'm a bit hot-tempered. I hit a colleague. He was unconscious. I had to resign. . . ."

  Littlejohn knew all about it. He made no comment.

  "As far as I was concerned, I couldn't expect any other post like the one I was leaving. Perrick, who always seemed to take a kindly interest in us, came to see me. He mentioned the Isle of Man. He was devoted to his native land. The picture he drew of it, combined with the fact that it was remote and out of the way of gossip, made up my mind. I'd start again here. There was a practice going in Peel. I wish to God I'd never seen the place."

  "You can't say that, doctor. It might have happened elsewhere . . . all this, I mean . . . and no Sid Perrick to put things right."

  "That is true. One of the last things Perrick said to me was that Irene had once told
him how impulsive and unstable Pam was. She'd said how since they'd been kids, Irene had always protected Pam, got her out of scrapes, looked after her. 'When we're married, there'll be two of us to do it,' she'd told Sid. Then she got killed. Perrick never seemed to have loved any other girl. Her death just turned him into a kind of automaton, his whole life in his work and nothing else. I sometimes think he got us over here so that he could keep an eye on Pam. Just as Irene would have done. Perrick did it all for Irene. That's all there is to it."

  "And when he called about the murder?"

  "He said they were holding somebody on suspicion; but he would be released. Until the affair blew over, he would protect Pam all he could, and provided nobody else looked like taking the blame, Pam would be safe. Then, one night, he called to say you had come over. I've never known him scared before. He was a brave man. But your arrival gave him a bad turn. He tried to stand between you and Pam, but you got closer and closer. And as you got nearer to the truth, my poor wife seemed to lose her head. She said one night she'd kill you for your interference. That but for you, it would all blow over. . . ."

  Littlejohn didn't mention the rifle and the car escapades. Fallows had quite enough to bear without them.

  " . . . Perrick got to know from you all that was going on in the case. He carried off all Levis's papers from the house at Bradda and destroyed all that referred to my wife. He said he even had to obstruct you now and then. He didn't like that. It was distasteful to me, too. I got desperate about it and told you I'd committed the crime. But even then, it turned out wrong. You presented me with an unwanted alibi."

  "And the accident to Ned Crowe?"

  "Perrick said Crowe had seen Pam actually kill Levis, but that he'd persuaded him to keep quiet, because they might have said Crowe himself had killed Levis because of Margat, whom Levis said he was going to marry. But Crowe had a conscience and took to drink. One day he stopped Pam in the street in Peel. He was half drunk then. He told her he knew all about her and would see that nobody else suffered for her sin. She was afraid, and went one night to see Crowe. He turned her away rudely. She waited a bit in the car outside. Crowe came out, she followed, intending to make another appeal. Then, she said, she stopped him outside Peel and he was more than rude. He called her some vile Biblical names. She said it all went black, she let Crowe get ahead, and then ran him down. I knew she was out in the car. I took the blame."

  "Did she ever go out in any other car than your own?"

  Fallows looked puzzled for a minute.

  "Oh, yes. Sometimes when I needed the car and she wanted to go out, we'd borrow a hire-and-drive car in Peel for one or the other. A couple of nights ago, Perrick rang up after midnight. Something had happened and he wanted to see her. I was out on a case. She took the hired car to Douglas. . . ."

  That was it! Littlejohn said no more.

  "Then, last night, Perrick called to say it was all up. You knew who'd done the murder and also that he was implicated. It seems he had the telephone lines tapped and overheard you telling Scotland Yard. He'd arranged a passage to France for Pam in a boat tied-up in Peel. He had some hold over the skipper. Smuggling, or something. I said I wouldn't allow it. The night was the worst I ever remember. It was that, or an arrest, Perrick said. He'd stay and face the music, but Pam was to go and I could join her one day. . . . Perrick had fixed it all, and took Pam away. She never made it. I must be callous, Chief Inspector, because I feel relieved. Poor Pam. . . . It's over and done with for her. All the mix-up, the torture, the hunting, is done with. It's over, and she's gone. . . ."

  Fallows could bear no more. He shook with sobs and beat the arms of the chair with his fists.

  Littlejohn called in Dr. Lennox and left him to deal with his friend.

  The wind had eased and in the sheltered valley of Grenaby, it was quite calm. People were about, gathering the broken branches and boughs after the gale, the birds were singing, and the vicarage cat, which always ran away before rough weather, was home again, calmly snoozing by the fire, disturbing Meg by her unwanted presence on the rug. In spite of the disasters of the previous night, the atmosphere of the old house seemed happier for being cleared of the turmoil and tension of unsolved crimes. Mrs. Littlejohn and Maggie Keggin were in the kitchen preparing lobsters for evening, the parson settled in his study to polish up his forgotten sermon for the coming Sunday, and Littlejohn took Cromwell for a walk to Ronague. . . .

  First thing next morning, Littlejohn gave the Chief Constable a full account of the Levis crime and its solution. Ned Crowe's testimony, the collaboration of Littlejohn and Perrick, the flight of Mrs. Fallows, the loss of the Robert Surcouf. Dr. Fallows didn't enter into it, and a few days later left for the mainland and his own people.

  Sid Perrick's body was washed ashore at Dalby. There was a smile on his face and he looked a bit strange in his oilskins instead of his raincoat. He was buried in the soil of the Island he loved and his heroism on the night of the St. Matthew's Gale was mentioned at the service and in police records.

  The body of Pamela Fallows was never recovered, nor was that of Captain Camus, who went down with his ship and his five hundred pounds.

  A few days later, Littlejohn and Tom Cashen made a day of it at the tanrogan beds. Cromwell was persuaded to go with them. The sea was choppy and Cromwell, a poor sailor at the best of times, never saw a scallop afterwards without a queasy feeling inside.

  Dear Reader,

  My name is Tim Binding. I am a novelist, but I want to tell you about George Bellairs, the forgotten hero of crime writing

  George Bellairs was bank manager and he wrote over fifty novels in his spare time. Most of them were published by the Thriller Book Club run by Christina Foyle, manager of the world famous Foyle’s bookshop, and who became a friend. His books are set at a time when the real-life British Scotland Yard would send their most brilliant of sleuths out to the rest of the country to solve their most insolvable of murders. Bellairs’ hero, gruff, pipe-smoking Inspector Littlejohn appears in all of them.

  Many of Bellairs’ books are set in the Isle of Man – where he retired. Some take place in the South of France. All the others are set in an England that now lives in the memory, a world of tight-knit communities, peopled by solicitors and magistrates, farmers and postmen and shopkeepers, with pubs and haberdasheries and the big house up the road - but though the world might have moved on, what drove them to murder, drives murder now: jealousies and greed, scandal and fear still abound, as they always have.

  So, if you liked this one, dip into the world of George Bellairs. In the coming months and years there’ll be plenty of books to choose from. Why don’t you join me, and sign up to the George Bellairs mailing list?

  •First thing you’ll get is a free book.

  •Then, from time to time I’ll send you publishing information.

  •In the New Year I plan to visit the George Bellairs’ archive. Who knows what I’ll find there. Letters, unpublished work? I’ll let you know.

  So join me in forming a George Bellairs community, you can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/ba6DNn

  I look forward to hearing from you.

  Tim Binding