Surfeit of Suspects

by George Bellairs

  Wood began to gather his things together. It was time to go home. To say good night to the pigeons up aloft and then be off back to his silent house, which he kept as spick and span as it had been in his wife’s days.

  Littlejohn and Cromwell bade him good night and stepped out into the rain again.

  There was nobody about. The gas-lamps were on and the rain surrounded each of them with a nimbus of small drops. The Excelsior works, all old brick punctuated with large windows which needed cleaning badly, reared itself above the neighbourhood like a huge shadow.

  As Littlejohn and Cromwell reached the car a nearby door opened and emitted a shaft of light. Someone was putting out the cat for the night.

  Five

  Dynamite

  ‘I still think Fred Hoop’s the one we ought to watch…’

  Inspector Tattersall confided this to his local Superintendent to whom he conscientiously reported every step of the Excelsior enquiry. That was what it was labelled in the files: Excelsior Joinery Case. As though it involved petty larceny or book-cooking instead of three men being blown to Kingdom Come.

  Tattersall hadn’t a grain of malice or jealousy in his make-up, but he still thought that Littlejohn wasn’t giving Fred Hoop enough attention. To make up for this neglect, he secretly put a detective constable on Fred’s tail and had him followed all over the place.

  Fred Hoop had once travelled around in an expensive car, financed, it was said, by his wife. Now, however, as though to show the creditors of the Excelsior that he was doing his best for them, he’d taken to a bicycle. This was very embarrassing for Longman, his shadow. He couldn’t keep up with Fred on foot and a police car travelling at bicycle speed was ridiculous. So, Longman had to take to a bike himself and indulge in a furtive Tour de France after Fred. Naturally, it ended in Fred spotting his pursuer and complaining. His complaint was conveyed to the police by Mr. Boycott, the senior lawyer of the town.

  Whatever had been said by Mr. Hartley Ash to Fred Hoop and by Fred to Hartley after Littlejohn left them in the little room at the police station, was never known, but it had obviously ended in a row, for Fred Hoop changed his lawyer after it and turned to his father’s solicitor for guidance. Mr. Boycott therefore appeared in the little room allotted to Scotland Yard to present his protest. He was small, grey, and talkative. He reminded Littlejohn very much of Herbert Rowse Armstrong, another solicitor of greater fame, who had poisoned his wife in 1921, and been hanged for it.

  Whatever Littlejohn thought of him, Mr. Boycott seemed to think well of Littlejohn. He took a fancy to him right away. He shook hands and spoke in a piping voice.

  ‘I’m ready to give you any information you may need which I think can reasonably be divulged. Contrary to what you might think, my client doesn’t wish to hold anything back from the police. He wishes to co-operate. His conscience is quite clear. Ask me any question you like, but first please answer one for me. Why are you having my client followed all over the place? He’s quite innocent of crime and is hardly likely to decamp.’

  Whatever Fred Hoop was, his lawyers, Ash and Boycott, were a couple of ingratiating fellows!

  ‘I’m afraid it was a bit of undue enthusiasm on the part of the local police. Naturally, from the little they know, Mr. Fred Hoop hasn’t gone unsuspected. They wished to make sure he didn’t disappear again when he was needed for questioning.’

  ‘Disappear? I’ve heard nothing of his disappearing.’

  ‘At a time when it was most important that we should have all available information and help, Mr. Hoop showed an inclination to take long bicycle rides in the country…’

  ‘He was merely visiting his wife who’s living at her mother’s place in Brantwood for the present. He didn’t wish to be seen driving about in a large car when his company was said to be in financial difficulties. That was all.’

  ‘I’ve heard that since.’

  ‘You mention his being suspect. Why?’

  Mr. Boycott drew out a large handkerchief and trumpeted in it, polished his moustache vigorously, and restored the handkerchief deep into an inside pocket.

  ‘There have been various theories as to why the offices were blown up. It might have been vandals. It could hardly have been safe-breakers operating with three directors in the room occupied by the safe. There was, therefore, an idea that it might have been an act of revenge. Dodd seems to have been having an affair with Mrs. Fred Hoop.’

  ‘So Fred threw a stick of dynamite, or whatever it was…’

  ‘It was, I’ve now heard from our experts, dynamite. Blasting sticks.’

  ‘So, Fred, knowing, I presume, that Dodd wasn’t alone, but in company of what might be called old friends of the Hoop family, threw a stick of explosive in the midst of them. Ridiculous! You’ll have to do better than that, Superintendent.’

  ‘As I said, sir, the local police got a bit too enthusiastic about the theory. I’m sorry if Mr. Fred Hoop has been embarrassed.’

  ‘Let’s forget it, then. Is there anything else?’

  ‘Are you solicitor to the Excelsior Joinery Company, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘I gather they’re in a bad way financially.’

  Mr. Boycott sat down and started to polish his gold-framed glasses. Whenever he wished to think hard, he either did that or blew his nose.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘It’s all over the town, sir. Naturally, when the workmen don’t know whether or not they’re going to draw their wages at weekend, someone puts two and two together.’

  ‘Very well. The company is, at present, financially embarrassed.’

  ‘Dependent on the bank for its continued survival?’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

  ‘It’s common knowledge in the town, sir.’

  ‘Right then. What you say is true.’

  ‘How much do they owe the bank?’

  ‘That, too, will come out sooner or later. I’ll tell you in confidence, then. Five thousands pounds.’

  ‘Secured?’

  ‘Yes and no. I dealt with the matter when security was deposited. Whether or not such security was full cover for the loan is doubtful. Is that all?’

  ‘Could I ask why it is doubtful, sir?’

  Mr. Boycott sighed and went through the pantomime of blowing his nose again whilst he sorted things out in his mind.

  ‘I’ll explain. First, the main security was joint and several guarantees for three thousand pounds, later increased to five thousand, signed by all five directors. You know the significance of the term joint and several. It means if they can all pay up, they share the liability equally. If any of them can’t, the rest are liable for the whole debt between them.’

  ‘Could they all meet it?’

  ‘No. None of them could. The lot of them together couldn’t, except that…’

  Mr. Boycott sighed again as though the whole thing were a bore.

  ‘The Hoops, Fallows, and Piper had put all they had in the company to keep it going. If the bank had decided to send in the bailiffs, their personal assets, furniture and such, together wouldn’t have raised a thousand pounds. Fred Hoop’s furniture belongs to his wife, as does his house. The others mortgaged their houses to the hilt in the past to provide ready cash for the company. Dodd occupied a house owned by his wife and the furniture is also hers.’

  ‘The bank weren’t very bright when they granted the loan, were they?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. They’ll get all their money back. Lucky for them.’

  ‘How will they manage that? I thought…’

  ‘Let me finish.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘At first, the directors of the Excelsior arranged for an overdraft of a thousand pounds. They signed a guarantee and, as I’ve said, could, all together, probably have raised that amount if
necessary. Then they asked for more. Another two thousand. It was either that, or bust. The bank asked for a further guarantee to cover and for security to back the guarantee. There wasn’t any, except a policy for £5,000 on the life of John William Dodd, recently taken out and of little value unless Dodd died. That was charged to the bank and the company agreed to pay the premiums instead of Dodd. Subsequently Roper allowed them to borrow up to £5,000, or a little more. Dodd’s death will bring in five thousand pounds and that, plus other odds and ends should pay off the bank overdraft.’

  Mr. Boycott started to cackle.

  ‘I’m sure you won’t start suspecting the bank of throwing in the dynamite. Banks don’t usually make good their bad debts by killing off their clients, do they?’

  ‘No, sir. But what would have happened if the company failed before Dodd died?’

  ‘The bank estimated that by selling up the machinery and other assets they could raise enough to obtain repayment of the loan. I doubt it. You see, the property is on lease to Excelsior and belongs to the daughters of the former owner of the company, Mr. Henry Jonas, who left it to them on his death. The rest was in rather out-of-date machinery which would have sold at scrap prices. No; I admit the bank would have had a hard task in raising enough to see them clear.’

  Mr. Boycott put on his bowler hat to indicate that whatever Littlejohn was going to do next, he himself was off.

  ‘I must get to court.’

  As he left the room, Tattersall entered. He must have been waiting on the mat with his news.

  ‘We’ve been going into the matter of the dynamite. About three months ago, the explosives shed at the Rosealba quarries, near Evingden, was broken into and several sticks were stolen…’

  ‘It might have been teddy-boys from the neighbourhood. It surely wasn’t professional safe-crackers. They’d use something more efficient than dynamite. Have you had teddy-boy trouble locally?’

  ‘Plenty. The new town’s full of them.’

  ‘Any previous cases of dynamiting in the locality?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, we’re as far away as ever.’

  ‘Wait a minute. I’m wrong. Somebody tried to dynamite the safe of the new Home Counties Bank in Queen Elizabeth Street, the main thoroughfare of the new town. It didn’t come off. We were sure it was the work of amateurs but never caught up with them. I’ll get the file.’

  Tattersall rushed off as though someone had dropped a stick of dynamite in his pocket. You could hear him calling for men and files in the next room.

  The file was a very ordinary affair. It revealed that on Sunday August fourth that year, the day before bank holiday, the new branch of the Home Counties Bank in Queen Elizabeth Street had been entered by forcing the back door, and the large cash safe dynamited without any success.

  The new premises had been erected to serve the new town, the original ones being situated in the old part, now inconvenient for the business and shopping quarters. The centre of gravity of Evingden had shifted with the reorganisation and the wave of new population.

  The new bank had opened in June and its cash and books were kept in large safes pending the completion of a strongroom, work on which had been held up for the arrival of the main door.

  The attack on the safe, which was in the cellar, had obviously been the work of amateurs, who had used dynamite. Professionals would have normally worked with gelignite, a better medium for precise work. The file stated that the thieves had, according to the experts’ report, not tackled the lock of the safe at all, but tried to blast it open by fixing a charge to the back of it.

  No tools left behind, no fingerprints, not a thing to work on, except the ignorance of the operators.

  This had led to enquiries at likely places for obtaining explosives. It had turned out that a short time before, the explosives room of Rosealba quarries at Baron’s Sterndale had been broken into and about four sticks of dynamite taken from an already opened box.

  The Rosealba quarries stood about two miles from Evingden on the Brighton side, and a mile from the main road. They were small and old-fashioned and mainly concerned with freestone. The owners and operatives were elderly and adhered to the use of dynamite, instead of more modern mixtures when occasions arose for blasting.

  The case had gone no further. The file ended—or rather petered out—with a pencil comment of some senior officer who had read it before committing it to the archives.

  Amateur work? Probably local small fry who decided to have a go at a bank, stole the explosives, cased the bank and then after getting inside, didn’t know what to do with the safe.

  There were a few photographs in the file. The wrecked cellar with the unopened safe triumphant in the ruins. Then a time schedule, revealing that the charge had gone off at five o’clock in the morning and roused the neighbourhood. The police had arrived almost right away but neither they nor anyone else they’d interviewed had seen the operators. The whole thing was, from the point of view of the criminal profession, a dismal flop.

  Littlejohn closed the file and then filled and lit his pipe. He wondered how long the case was going to hang fire. In any event, he didn’t like cases involving explosives. All murder was dirty business, but blowing up a victim was the limit. It often involved other innocent parties and was particularly difficult to investigate. He remembered his own involvement, when an Inspector, in the I.R.A. ‘S’ plan crimes, and in a particularly nasty affair where a man had blown up his father in a bath-chair…

  Someone had obviously blown up Dodd and involved his two innocent co-directors at the same time. Fallows and Piper were honest-to-goodness workmen with little in their lives to call down murder on them. Or so he’d been given to understand…

  The file said so. Perhaps they’d better check it themselves.

  He sent Cromwell out to do the job and decided, himself, to go and have a talk with Mrs. Hoop at her mother’s in Brantwood.

  Tattersall offered to go with him, but Littlejohn put him off. He felt he’d rather do it his own way, and besides, the inquest on Dodd and his colleagues was due later in the day and Tattersall had the routine to prepare and the coroner to attend to.

  ‘I’ll manage, thanks. I’ll take it easy. Who knows what might come out.’

  ‘You’ll find Bella at her mother’s in Brantwood. Ever been to Brantwood? No? Four miles along the Brighton Road and then you’ll see the signpost where you turn to the right and you’ll find the village a mile along the side road. It’s worth a visit. Quiet and still unspoiled, although the speculative builders and land sharks will soon ruin it if they get a chance. Old Morris Sandman, Bella’s father, had bought a house in the main street there as a speculation, but died before he could sell it again. Mrs. Sandman moved into it and sold the flashy mansion he’d built for himself in Little Evingden. It’s smaller and it’s quieter in Brantwood, added to the fact that it was Mrs. Sandman’s old home. She comes from a good local family.’

  They offered Littlejohn a driver for the police car, but he preferred to do it himself. He wished to take his time, to explore without being pushed by a companion or hampered by a schedule. He followed Tattersall’s directions and took the busy Brighton road out of Evingden, turned at the signpost, and followed the by-road into Brantwood. A quiet, provincial little place which might have been a hundred miles from London. There was an old-fashioned pub in the high street and Littlejohn went inside for his lunch.

  There was nobody else in the dining-room but a trio who looked like commercial travellers, men with their heads together telling tales or comparing notes on the possibilities of Brantwood. They looked up and stared hard at Littlejohn and then began their subdued conversation again.

  On the opposite side of the street they were pulling down an old house and there was a sign in what had once been the garden: Blowers and Co. Demolitions.

  Littlejohn was in no hurry. A waitress
took his order, but the landlord felt he ought to greet him as well. A tall, fat suave man with a hoarse, fruity voice who looked like a promoted head-waiter.

  ‘Would you care for a drink before the lunch, sir?’

  ‘Yes, please. Sherry. The driest you’ve got. Care to join me?’

  ‘That’s very nice of you…’

  He floated off for the drinks and was soon back wishing Littlejohn all the best.

  ‘Does Mrs. Sandman live in Brantwood?’

  ‘Yes. Just across the street in one of the old Georgian houses. You can’t see it from here. A very nice place. I don’t suppose it’ll be here much longer. The main street’s being developed and I guess before long she’ll be made an offer she simply can’t afford to refuse.’

  ‘How long has she lived here?’

  ‘Her husband died five or six years ago. Until then, they used it as a sort of country cottage, if you can call it such. They lived in Evingden, but Mr. Sandman, who used to be a good customer here, got possession of Pochins – that’s the name of the house – through calling in a mortgage. He seemed to take a fancy to the place and he and his family came as often as they could, especially when they started to add the new town to Evingden. After his death, his widow sold the house at Evingden and came to live here.’

  ‘Do you know his daughter, Bella?’

  ‘Mrs. Hoop? Yes. She is living in Brantwood with her mother now. I hear there’s been a bit of trouble in Evingden involving her husband’s family. An explosion in which three men were killed. It’s said she’s come to her mother’s until the affair blows over. But I don’t know. She was over here most of her time before the explosion. There are rumours that she and her husband don’t hit it off very well.’

  He paused and looked hard at Littlejohn.

  ‘You’re from the police, aren’t you? You’re… don’t tell me… Your picture was in last night’s paper… Superintendent Littlejohn. Scotland Yard. Am I right?’

  ‘Right first time.’