Corpses in Enderby (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Read online

  Corpses in

  Enderby

  by

  George Bellairs

  To

  ANN and CECIL

  and the happy memories

  of GLENDOWN.

  1

  THE NIGHT OF THE STORM

  MONDAY, October 26th, was a pleasant autumn day, but there were gale warnings on the six o’clock news. At eight o’clock, the storm broke at Enderby, with high winds and driving rain. It kept it up all night and quickly cleared the streets.

  Rising above the Market Square was the steeple of the church clock, its hands at fourteen minutes to ten. The last bus to Rutland was standing in one corner, its windows streaming with rain, which made it look like a large illuminated aquarium. Inside, the driver and conductor were smoking and talking to the solitary passenger. The conductor put his head out and looked at the clock, the driver appeared, climbed down and ran and mounted his cab. The bell rang and the bus swished away, casting a feather of spray on each side. Then, the place looked gloomier than ever.

  The square was illuminated by naked electric bulbs on the tops of high standards, which threw down a dim diffused light on the wet pavements. One of the lamps stood before a large old-fashioned shop in the best position in the block. A sign in the shape of a large key swung to and fro in the wind and on a board over the door the words, E. Bunn, Ironmonger, were just visible. Somewhere in the dark a loose shutter banged rhythmically.

  The light on top of the police box under the churchyard wall began to flash and a policeman who had been sheltering in a doorway appeared, ponderously crossed the square, and took out the telephone. Someone had locked a dog in an empty house in Queen Street and it was howling the place down. The constable blew through his moustache, swore into the wind, and made off, his cape streaming with water.

  Opposite the ironmonger’s, lights were showing in a pub, with Freemasons’ Arms etched on the ground-glass of the vestibule door. A car drew up, the door opened and was hastily slammed and a hurrying figure vanished inside the hotel. It was Dr. Halston, a local practitioner, arriving for his nightcap.

  The bright lights indoors dazzled the doctor and he screwed up his eyes. There was a long passage with a bar at the end and behind the glass front the landlady, a huge blonde woman with her bust supported on the counter, was counting the money from the cash-register. The landlord, Blowitt, was leaning against the front of the bar in his shirt sleeves, a little tubby man with a black moustache.

  “Evenin’, doctor.”

  The landlord looked too depressed to move.

  “Evening, Blowitt. Evening, Mrs. Blowitt. Shocking night.”

  “Bad for trade. Nobody in all night except your little lot.”

  “Bring mine in, will you?”

  The doctor opened a door on the left and entered a small private room. Three men, sitting round a table, gazing reflectively into the fire, looked up and greeted him.

  “Evening all. You look very cheerful.”

  “What’s to be cheerful about, doc?”

  Snipe, the man who spoke, was thin and sanctimonious-looking and he could take any amount of drink without the least visible effect. He kept a faded outfitter’s shop in a side street, drank a lot, and nobody knew where he got his money from.

  Another of the party was half-seas over, a town councillor called Dabchick and the next man for mayor. He was short and stocky with a fleshy mouth and a ragged moustache, and a club-foot gave him a bad limp. He merely greeted the doctor with a wave of the hand and then subsided to brood over his almost empty glass.

  “This’ll kill ’em off for you, Halston.”

  There was no mistaking from the loudness of the tones and the trace of insolence in them that the speaker was the bigwig of the party. This was Edwin Bunn who owned the business over the way. His great bulk filled the large armchair and he was tolerably sober. His suit was of good grey cloth of a conservative cut, his linen white, his face pink and properly shaved, his crisp hair neat, his moustache trimmed. He made the rest of them look shabby, even the doctor, whose long grey hair, hollow cheeks, old shoes, and general air of untidiness gave him the appearance of a broken-down musician.

  A buxom barmaid entered, holding a tray with a double whisky in one hand and patting her platinum hair with the other. It was only then that Bunn showed any signs of interest. He turned his head, gave the girl a mysterious twisted smile, looked her boldly in the eyes, and put her out of countenance.

  “Your whisky, doctor,” she said, and, as the doctor fumbled in his pocket for the money, she swayed selfconsciously, aware of Bunn’s scrutiny from head to foot and then back again. She backed out awkwardly and silence fell again as the men drank up. It was as though the weather had drowned every topic of conversation; the rain was pelting down and the shutter still banging.

  Before anyone could try to start the ball of sociability rolling, voices rose outside. Blowitt, the landlord, was getting annoyed.

  “You can’t have any more. You’ve had enough as it is.”

  “Where’s Bunn? Is he in? I wanna see Bunn … I know he’s ’ere.”

  And before they could stop him the drunken man was in the room. He was soaked with rain. A little sandy fellow with pale blue eyes, wearing a dripping raincoat and a velour hat too large for him, with the brim turned down all round. He went straight for Bunn with Blowitt making up the rear.

  “Don’t you bother Mr. Bunn, else I’ll have to chuck you out, Mr. Hetherow, and that would be just too bad.”

  But Mr. Hetherow wasn’t listening. He was talking to Bunn in a whining voice.

  “Bin tryin’ all day to raise the money and can’t. This weather’s put the tin-lid on it, Mr. Bunn. I can’t go anywhere else to-night. I’ll ’ave it in a week.”

  Hetherow owned the shop next to Bunn’s and Bunn held a heavy mortgage on it. He was going to foreclose and take over the premises for extensions.

  “Don’t bother me here, Hetherow. We’ve had all this out before. What’s the use of keeping your bankrupt draper’s going. I want the shop and I intend to have it.”

  The man in the large velour swayed unsteadily. He could only think of one thing; he didn’t want to leave his shop.

  “It’s been in the family for nearly two hundred years, Mr. Bunn. What am I to do if it’s sold up? At my age, with an ailing wife …”

  “You’re not old, Hetherow … You’ll find work. I’m taking over the premises, whatever you say, in a month’s time, so you’d better arrange things. And now you’d best be off to bed. You’ll get your death …”

  The sopping figure before them suddenly seemed to sober up.

  “Is that your last word?”

  “Yes.”

  Bunn looked pleased about it. He stretched out his legs to the fire, smiled to himself, thrust out his chest, and put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat.

  “I’ll kill you before I’ll give up the business that’s been in the family for …”

  He was pointing threateningly and Blowitt seized the chance to take him by the arm and tow him to the door.

  “Touch my premises and I’ll kill you …”

  Hetherow managed to get it out and then the door closed. He argued loudly with Blowitt who steered him to the vestibule and gently pushed him in the direction of his darkened shop.

  “I’m going, too. Bed’s the best place on a night like this.”

  Bunn rose and stamped his feet to restore circulation. He was almost six feet tall and florid. He was a bit merry from his drinks. He slipped on his overcoat and set his black bowler carefully on his head.

  “Good night!”


  The others looked up as if they couldn’t believe it. Dabchick’s voice had a note of disappointment.

  “Don’t go yet, Ned.”

  “Good night.”

  Bunn halted in the vestibule for a minute to brace himself and then crossed the road to his shop. All the blinds were drawn and the only trace of light was a small halo in the middle of the door, caused by a peephole cut in the blind. Bunn put his eye to this and snorted. He took out his keys, selected one and slid it in the patent lock. Then he snorted again, this time more loudly. The door was already unlocked.

  The ironmonger softly entered and crept through the shop to the door of the living quarters behind, beneath which a chink of light was showing. He hastily turned the knob and flung it open.

  “So … I thought so …”

  The room was small, cosy, and almost brimming over with heavy nondescript furniture. There was a large fire in the grate, and a table-lamp cast a circle of light on a couch on which Bunn’s daughter, Bertha, and his shop assistant were still sitting in close embrace as though Bunn’s sudden appearance had converted them into pillars of salt. There was in their eyes a momentary, questioning look, like that of actors who wait for the producer of a play to tell them their caresses are realistic enough. Then they both stood up to face the music.

  Bertha Bunn was well on the way to forty and she and Wilfred Flounder, the shopman from whose arms she now disentangled herself, had been in love for over ten years. She was a big, fair girl with a good figure and regular features and since Flounder, who was a few years younger and two inches smaller, thin and pale, had arrived, she had taken complete possession of him, courted and mothered him, greatly to his joy and satisfaction, for Wilfred was short of initiative and was content to leave it all to Bertha.

  “What did I tell you both …?”

  Bunn had told them often enough. Not a penny for Bertha and the sack for Wilfred Flounder if he caught them at it again, to say nothing of letting them get married. Mrs. Bunn, a pale shadow of a woman to whom her daughter was devoted, had been dead six months. Until then, Bertha had put up with her father’s bullying for her mother’s sake. Wilfred, of course, was a cipher in the whole affair. Now, he stood blinking through his glasses, making up his mind.

  “Look here, Mr. Bunn …” he said at length. His chin was set and it looked as if they were going to have it out once and for all. Bertha had inherited five hundred pounds from her mother and they’d already planned to leave the old man if he wouldn’t change his views.

  But Bunn had had enough of talking. The veins on his forehead stood out like cords and a pulse started to throb in his temple. He pulled himself up and looked two inches taller and he towered over Wilfred Flounder for a minute and then seized him by the collar.

  Bertha Bunn started to scream and then, impelled by a spasm of maternal solicitude, began to beat her father’s back with her fists. Meanwhile Wilfred, his feet off the ground, wriggled and twisted in Bunn’s grip. The old man shook off his daughter, kicked open the door of the living-room and, holding Flounder with one hand, turned the key with the other and locked Bertha in.

  “Now, my lad … I’m throwing you out and you stay out. You’re sacked. I’ll send you a month’s wages and your cards to-morrow and if I see you about here again, I’ll horsewhip you. Get that?”

  “Look here, Mr. Bunn …”

  Bunn did not heed him. He flung open the outer door, took a few short running steps, and propelled Wilfred Flounder half-way across the pavement, leaving his momentum to do the rest. Flounder vanished into the dark and rain and before he could gather himself together, Bunn was back’ on his own doorstep and entering the shop.

  Then, it happened.

  At first, it looked as if some invisible man were throwing out Edwin Bunn in exactly the way he had dealt with his daughter’s lover. There was a crack, like that of a whip, a flash inside the shop, and Bunn made another run for the street, flew through the air, pitched into the gutter, and lay still.

  Everything seemed to start at once after that.

  Bertha Bunn managed to break out of the room behind and rushed screaming through the shop. Wilfred Flounder materialized from the dark and started to mill around in the rain calling plaintively for Bertha and Mr. Bunn. P.C. Burbot appeared on his way back from pacifying the dog and the door of The Freemasons’ Arms opened and emitted a crowd of unsteady customers. The wind still blew and the rain was coming down in torrents.

  “What’s goin’ h’on?” asked P.C. Burbot. He had to shout at the top of his voice and even then he didn’t get an answer. So, he turned on his torch and revealed the white face of Wilfred and the red one of Bertha, whose eyes glowed with horror, like those of a rabbit caught by headlamps in the dark.

  “’Oly mackerel!”

  P.C. Burbot couldn’t think of anything else to say, but he acted promptly to the tune of rushing in the shop, turning on all the lights, and pulling up all the blinds. The blaze of illumination revealed Edwin Bunn lying in the gutter with a stream of water flowing over him.

  In no time at all, a crowd had gathered. Stragglers from the local cinema, which had just turned out a thin audience, joined the clients from The Freemasons’ Arms and, in spite of the drenching rain, they formed a ring, two-deep, round the body of the prostrate ironmonger.

  “Now, now … Make way …”

  P.C. Burbot started to shout almost as soon as he left the police-box by the church, whence he had been summoning help from the police-station behind the square. Nobody heard him, but they gave way to him when he arrived. He was followed by Dr. Halston, who happened to be police surgeon and, therefore, took charge at once.

  “Get him in the shop.”

  They picked up the dripping body of Edwin Bunn. Now that there was somebody to give orders, there were more offers of help than were needed. Eight men started to carry Mr. Bunn and began to jostle one another for right of place.

  “Four will do … You’ve sent for the ambulance, Burbot?”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  The quartet of picturegoers, chosen because they were sober and steady, shuffled indoors, bore the body through the shop, and into the living-room behind. Then they stood there, their raincoats dripping and making little pools on the carpet.

  “That will be all. We won’t need you any more.”

  The helpers filed out. Faces were pressed against the panes of the shop window; pale, wet faces, with questioning eyes and fearful stares; faces with lank hair, like some strange monsters from the deep.

  “Move along there. You can’t do any good gettin’ soaked in the rain. Get ’ome!”

  P.C. Burbot drove them all away and they vanished into the night like wraiths.

  Inside, when the constable returned, he found Bertha Bunn sobbing hoarsely on the breast of Wilfred Flounder, which, on account of their different heights, was rather a difficult feat. Dr. Halston had told them that old Bunn was dead.

  Bertha raised her streaming face.

  “But how did it happen? I know he was quarrelling with Mr. Flounder and was annoyed because he found us together …”

  In spite of the shock, Bertha’s tones grew a bit bashful as she skated over the circumstances of the discovery.

  “… He was annoyed to find us here at this hour and was showing Mr. Flounder to the door. He got in a temper … Did he …? Did he have a stroke, doctor?”

  Dr. Halston rubbed his chin and tightened the muscles of his face. His long grey hair was wet and matted, for somewhere in the dark, he had lost his hat.

  “No, Miss Bunn. It wasn’t a stroke. I’m afraid he was murdered. You see, there’s a bullet-wound in the head .. in the base of the brain. He wouldn’t know it had hit him …”

  “Eeek!”

  Bertha made one shrill sound, looked hard at her lover, and then collapsed in a dead faint.

  Dr. Halston looked round at the room crowded with furniture, the body on the sofa, with Wilfred Flounder’s trilby hat beneath, just where he’d put it before
he started to embrace Bertha in the old man’s absence.

  “Isn’t there another room somewhere? Take her to it and get her in bed.”

  Wilfred Flounder and P.C. Burbot looked at each other fearfully. True, Wilfred was Bertha’s lover, but he hadn’t bargained for this! And P.C. Burbot had only just started courting!!

  “Is there anythin’ I can do?”

  It was Mrs. Blowitt from over the way. Just in time, she took it in hand and after the two men had manoeuvred Bertha to her room above, she set about making the unconscious woman conscious again by slapping her face. Over the fireplace, a portrait of the late Bunn glared down on Bertha’s bed, and Mrs. Blowitt turned it to the wall and then she descended to make some cups of tea.

  P.C. Burbot was a young, fresh-complexioned bobby with a large handlebar moustache. The situation was a new one for him. He had never been in at a murder before and he didn’t know what to do. He whistled softly through his teeth as he waited for his superiors to arrive. The doctor stood with his back to the dying fire, drying his hair with his handkerchief. Flounder was sitting in an armchair with an antimacassar on the back, stiff and solemn, like somebody awaiting his doom.

  “It looks bad for me, doctor, but I didn’t do it. I haven’t got a revolver …”

  “Nobody’s accusing you.”

  “Yes … But … There was only me about. It looks as if I did it. Well, I want you to know I didn’t.”

  “It’s nothing to do with me. That’s the business of the police.”

  The door of the shop blew open and the signal bell over it rang lugubriously. The wind rushed through the place, causing the buckets, saws, chains and other ironmongery hanging from the beams to clash together like the drummer’s odds and ends in a jazz band. Then the ambulance drew up and a police car. The body was removed to the morgue and the Inspector-in-Charge took off his dripping cape and his wet hat, hung them over a chair in the shop, and returned to the fire in the room behind.

  Inspector Myers was about forty-five and well thought of by his superiors. He was tall, well built and quick on his feet. His face was large and square, with a strong chin, broad forehead, and a determined projecting lower lip. His eyes relieved the stern set of his features; grey, straight, with an ironical twinkle, as though he knew all about it beforehand but just asked questions to confirm his own thoughts.