by Bruce, Leo
‘Thirty years ago.’
‘Don’t be funny, Mr Flipp. What time to-day did you start?’
‘All day on and off. Wife deserted me. But I’m sober enough to see Chickle.’
‘How long have you been asleep?’
‘Few minutes. Dropped off about eight o’clock.’
Chatto indicated to Watts-Dunton with a nod that he should stay with Flipp. The rest of us started to search the house. It soon became clear to us that Flipp had spoken the truth when he said that his wife and servants had left him. In their rooms the cupboards and drawers had been emptied and a confusion of unwanted clothes and packing paper was left on the floor and furniture. But no one was in the house. We conscientiously looked in every space large enough to conceal a human being.
I found a large tin trunk in one bedroom and was proceeding to prise it open when Beef asked what I expected to find in it.
‘Think Chickle’s inside?’ he asked grinning.
It was scarcely large enough to hold a man even of the little watchmaker’s size, so I asked Beef if he’d ever heard of corpses being cut up. This must have flummoxed him, for he laughed and walked on. The box was full of empty bottles.
At last it was clear that we should have to look elsewhere for Chickle, and we gathered in the hall.
‘You’ll have to stay here to-night,’ said Chatto to Watts-Dunton. ‘I’ll get a warrant out for Flipp first thing tomorrow.’
Watts-Dunton returned to his charge and the three of us went out again into the chilly and dismal night. It seemed that the wind had dropped a little as we stood outside, or else that the shelter of the trees produced a certain quietness. At all events I was conscious of night sounds – the hoot of an owl and what sounded like a horse kicking the wooden partition of his stall in the shed near which we were standing
Chatto was planning that we should go to ‘Labour’s End’ by the route which Chickle would have used when Beef suddenly gave a signal for silence and said ‘Ussh!’
We stood there looking at Beef and wondering what on earth he had heard.
‘Flipp hasn’t got a horse, has he?’
‘Shouldn’t think so; why?’
‘That’s not a horse, anyway,’ he said excitedly, and made a bolt for the door of the shed near which we were standing. It yielded to him, and by the light of Chatto’s powerful torch we gazed into the interior.
Has the reader guessed? If so he has more perspicacity than I had, for to me the sight was utterly unexpected. There were stout beams across the shed, no more than eight feet from the ground. From the one of these nearest to a partition was hanging the body of Wellington Chickle, his feet beating the horrible tattoo which we had heard from outside the door. Like Flipp he was fully dressed and wore a greatcoat, while his felt hat was ludicrously pulled over his eyes. An old wooden chair lay toppled at his feet as though he had kicked it away from under him.
In a moment Chatto had pulled out a claspknife and cut the rope while Beef lowered the little man to the ground. I waited breathlessly while Beef stooped over him.
‘Dead as mutton,’ was his vulgar and irreverent verdict when he had made his examination.
S.B.—6
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Chatto gets his Warrant
FOR some moments we stared down at that grotesque little figure. Then Chatto threw the light of his torch on to a white square of paper roughly pinned to the left lapel of the coat and we read three words written in big childish letters: ‘I have failed,’ If this was suicide the dead man had chosen a singularly curt message, and I at once wondered why it was written in these big square letters when normal handwriting would have served as well.
The crumpled body in its neat black clothes was not without pathos, I considered, though the protruding eyes and hideously stretched lips made it seem more macabre than pitiful. And I realized how little we knew of this urbane old man who was in some mysterious way bound up with the crime we were investigating, and who, according to his housekeeper, had changed so drastically since the afternoon of the murder.
‘That settles it,’ said Chatto curtly. ‘If I’d had any doubts about arresting Flipp this would have been enough. Unless I’m very much mistaken this is Flipp’s third murder.’
‘Think so?’ said Beef. ‘What makes you think this is murder?’
‘What else could it be but a murder meant to look like suicide?’
‘It could be a suicide meant to look like murder,’ asserted Beef.
Chatto made that interesting sound usually reproduced by novelists as ‘Pshaw!’
Beef stooped over the corpse. ‘You think this label was pinned on him?’ he asked.
‘I do,’ Chatto told him.
‘Well, here’s a clue for you. If it was pinned on by another person he was left-handed.’
‘How d’you make that out?’
‘It’s a little towards the left breast and the pin runs from left to right as you face Chickle or from right to left as he would handle it himself. Try handling a pin on yourself and then on someone else and see which way you instinctively put it.’
All our tempers, I think, were a trifle frayed, for it was nearing midnight and we were tired and anxious to be in warm beds
‘And you seriously ask me to decide that Mr Chickle committed suicide because the pin on that label runs in that particular direction?’ Chatto’s voice was loud in exasperation.
‘I don’t ask you to decide anything. In fact what I’m doing is to suggest that you should not decide yet. You’d more than half made up your mind that it was murder.’
‘I had. And I still think so. What’s he doing here otherwise? We know he set out to see Flipp. It may be that while he was away he’d found out something about Flipp. Or it may be that he’s known all along and suddenly decided to speak to Flipp. At all events he came here and found Flipp alone. We can guess what happened. It would not have been hard for that big fellow to have choked the life out of the poor little bloke, then strung him up in his shed and pinned that label on him and gone and got himself drunk.’
‘All that could have happened,’ admitted Beef. ‘But I don’t think it did. I’m interested in the words on that piece of paper – I have failed. They don’t seem to me exactly the message that would be chosen by a murderer for his victim if he wanted it to look like suicide. There’s something very real about them.’
Chatto ignored that and rather impatiently began to go through the dead man’s pockets. Nothing. There was not even a handkerchief in them.
‘That cuts both ways,’ observed Beef.
‘We’ll lock this shed up and leave everything as it is till the morning. Then we’ll get the medico out and have a proper examination. It’s past midnight now and I’m not going to drag him out here to-night.’
The key was on the outside of the lock, so this was quite easy. But before leaving ‘Woodlands’ we crossed again to the house and found Constable Watts-Dunton sitting peacefully in a chair reading by the light of the oil lamp. Flipp was still lying on the floor breathing stertorously. Chatto called the constable out of the room and told him in a hurried whisper what we had found. The long, serious face of Watts-Dunton did not change as he heard it.
‘I’ll keep an eye on the shed till you all come up in the morning,’ was all he said.
‘Happen to know if anyone connected with this case is left-handed?’ asked Chatto. I smiled to perceive that he had been more impressed by Beef’s little argument than he had admitted at the time.
‘I don’t recall anyone. He wasn’t,’ he said with a contemptuous nod at the figure of Flipp. ‘I know that because he once turned out for the cricket team. Nor’s Bridge. He plays every week. Can’t say about Mrs Pluck, of course.’
‘Better wake him up. There’s something I’ve got to ask him at once.’
This was not so easy as it sounded, but after a good deal of shaking from Watts-Dunton, Flipp eventually opened his eyes.
‘What is it?’ he asked drowsily.
&nbs
p; ‘Have you been across to your mixing shed this evening?’
‘Yes. Course I have. Fed the chickens. My wife’s deserted me.’
‘What time?’
‘About four o’clock. Why?’
‘Never mind why. All right, constable. We’ll get along.’
I noticed that Flipp’s head dropped back and his eyes closed automatically even before we had left the room.
We started the walk home with the wind behind us and were soon out on the road. We had not gone half a mile, however, when we heard someone whistling a tune ahead of us and recognized Joe Bridge. Chatto stopped him.
In the light of certain events of this evening about which you will doubtless hear later,’ began Chatto, ‘I’m afraid I must ask you where you have been, Mr Bridge.’
‘All right. I’ve been to see my uncle in Barnford.’
‘Funny time of night to pay a call.’
‘Yes. Wasn’t it? Good night,’ returned Bridge cheerfully, and recommencing his whistling he strode on.
I was scarcely awake next morning before Beef was in my room saying that we had a job to do and adjuring me to jump into my clothes quick. I obliged him as far as I conveniently could though I would not renounce my shave. He led me off at a fast pace, and it was scarcely seven before he was knocking at the door of Mrs Wilks’s cottage. I was relieved when the door was opened by Mrs Pluck.
‘Something to tell you,’ Beef mumbled,
‘What is it now?’
‘Mr Chickle’s dead. Thought you’d better know at once.’
‘Oh, my God. How?’
‘Hanged.’
‘You mean he hanged himself?’
‘That or – well, the police think it may be murder.’
‘Wherever’s this going to stop?’ cried Mrs Pluck. ‘First one, then another.’
‘It will stop when Shoulter’s murderer is arrested. Now I want you to come up to Chickle’s house. I want to have a good look round. He may have left something interesting.’
‘All right. Wait here. I won’t be a minute.’
Her prediction was almost accurate. In a very short time she had joined us, wearing the rusty black hat and coat she had had on when she had called at our inn on the previous night – which seemed an age ago to me. She proved herself the farmer’s daughter we knew her to be on her way up to ‘Labour’s End’, striding along ahead of us so that I was soon panting in my efforts to keep up.
Inside the bungalow she became the efficient housekeeper.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve either of you had a cup of tea, have you? Sit down while I get a kettle boiling. Poor old chap – I’m not surprised though. I .told you he’d been funny lately and yesterday when he came in he looked right down queer.’
‘You don’t think it was murder then?’
‘Who’s going to murder him? The other one I could understand. But Mr Chickle was a kind little soul. Friendly word for everyone. I’m sure he hadn’t an enemy in the world.’
We were soon drinking hot sweet tea and munching some bread and butter. Mrs Pluck seemed thoughtful, but not unduly distressed.
Then Beef made a systematic search of Chickle’s room, turning out drawers and cupboards, and examining papers. He did not hurry, but he did not seem to find anything to interest him. Papers were arranged methodically and were not in any case abundant, so that the search took less time than I had anticipated. It was then extended to the rest of the house with as little result.
‘You’d have thought he’d have left a letter, wouldn’t you? He was that sort.’
By the time we had returned to Barnford the village was stirring and I saw a motor-cycle outside the police-station.
‘Looks as though Chatto’s got his warrant,’ remarked Beef.
As we were finishing breakfast I decided to attempt the usually unprofitable business of pumping Beef on his theories and conclusions. He made his usual retort .that I knew just as much as he did, so that my guess was as good as his.
‘Do what your readers have learnt to do,’ he suggested, ‘and choose the least likely of the lot, then see where that gets you.’
‘I suppose the least likely is Aston,’ I suggested tentatively.
‘What about the youth Ribbon?’ grinned Beef.
‘I hadn’t thought of him.’
‘Then there are Mrs Pluck and the two servants and Mabel Muckroyd…’
‘I refuse to suspect her.’
‘Why? It’s been known to be ever such nice people before now.’
‘You think you know who murdered Shoulter?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I think I do.’
‘Then why don’t you go to Chatto and tell him your theory?’
‘Because it’s not complete yet. I’ll tell you one thing. As I see it, one of the keys to the whole thing is that little inscription,’ have failed. And another’s that pair of outsize shoes. And another is the Christmas card which Miss Packham sent to Flipp.’
‘Now you’re only making it more difficult.’
‘Well, it is difficult. I doubt if we shall ever prove the thing conclusively. It’s an unusual case, as you’ll realize.’
‘Mm. You think Chatto’s making a mistake?’
Beef grew more genial as the police were blamed.
‘He’s ignoring too much evidence,’ he said. ‘He chooses what suits his notions and leaves out what doesn’t.’
Speak of the devil, I thought, for at that moment Inspector Chatto walked into the room. There was a considerable change in him since the previous night-he looked fresh and sleek and smoothly shaved, and he was smiling amiably.
‘I thought you two would like to be there when I make the arrest,’ he said. ‘Since you’ve helped me with two or three little bits of evidence. I’ve got the warrant and I’m going up in a few minutes.’
‘I should like it,’ agreed Beef. ‘It’s always interesting to see how a man behaves when he’s accused of murder.’
Chatto grinned.
‘Especially when he’s wrongly accused, eh? Well, come along the pair of you and you shall see for yourselves. I’ve got a police car this morning.’
We needed no second invitation. We pulled on our greatcoats, for it was a bitterly cold morning, and followed the inspector out.
S.B.—6*
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Mr Flusting Talks
FLIPP had sobered up and had had a wash and shave before we arrived at ‘Woodlands’. Indeed, he looked a great deal fresher than Constable Watts-Dunton. He showed little surprise or emotion as Chatto brought out the whole portentous formula, ending with its warning that anything he said might be used in evidence against him.
‘I thought you suspected me,’ he remarked dully.
Chatto had read out all three of the names he had used, and although he took no apparent notice of the Philipson and Flipp, he asked, rather anxiously I thought, why Chatto had called him Phelps.
‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten that,’ said Chatto calmly. ‘It was the name you used to sign the poison book in Shoulter’s shop.’
I was watching the wretched man intently and saw that this quiet statement had had its effect.
‘I want to see my solicitor – Mr. Aston,’ he said, and there was a slight trembling noticeable.
‘You can telephone for him from the police-station,’ conceded Chatto. ‘We’re taking you over to Ashley.’
Watts-Dunton brought his coat, and Flipp made a great point of locking up the house. He was accompanied from door to door after he had carefully shut the windows from the inside. It was without further conversation, however, that we left ‘Woodlands’.
That afternoon, in response to a telegram from Beef, there arrived at Barnford the last of the many people we had to meet in this case. Recalling it now I have to admit that I could see no point in sending for Mr Flusting, that friend of Chickle’s who had been mentioned more than once in the course of our investigation. He had been quoted as a lifelong friend of the little watchmaker who had been
a neighbour of his during all the years in which Chickle had built up his thriving business. But I could not see how he would throw any light either on the murder of Shoulter or on the death of Chickle himself. Beef, however, set great store on the talk he would have with Mr Flusting, and even spoke of the last link in the chain.’
He arrived at Barnford by the now fateful train, and Beef was on the station to meet him. He was a tall, thin, grey-haired man who wore old-fashioned rimless pince-nez, a black overcoat and a starched collar too large for his thin neck. His eyes were blue and rheumy and he spoke in a high-pitched voice which he attempted to modulate into a tone of solemnity in speaking of the dead man.
‘Thought you ought to know at once,’ said Beef as we walked away from the station.
Mr Flusting’s next words surprised me.
‘Suicide, I suppose?’ he said. It was clear that he saw nothing inconsistent in this.
‘That’s what I think it is,’ said Beef. ‘But the police have other ideas.’
‘No, no. Suicide, I’m afraid. In fact, I will go so far as to say I saw it coming.’
‘Did you indeed?’
‘Yes. He has just been to see me, you know. Stayed a few days. He was very far from normal, Sergeant. Very far from it.’
Beef did not want to hurry Mr Flusting into any sketchy talk, I thought, but was determined to have the whole story from him in detail.
‘Suppose we go and have a cup of tea,’ he suggested. ‘And you tell me what you can? You see, Mr Flusting, I’m of the opinion that your knowledge of the dead man will be of the greatest assistance to us in clearing up the mystery surrounding these two deaths. I don’t know the police opinion on that, but I know mine. And if you would be so good as to tell us what you knew of Mr Chickle, both in the past and more recently, it would be very valuable.’
‘I’ll certainly tell you all I can,’ replied Mr Flusting. ‘But I have begun to wonder lately whether I really knew Chickle at all. There were depths in that man…’
‘Not another word till you’ve had a cup of tea,’ exclaimed Beef as we arrived at the Crown.