Dead March for Penelope Blow Read online

  Dead March for Penelope Blow

  George Bellairs

  Copyright © George Bellairs 1951

  The right of George Bellairs to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  First published in the United Kingdom in 1951 by The Thriller Book Club.

  This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!

  I might have saved her; now she’s gone for ever!

  King Lear, Act V, Sc. III.

  Table of Contents

  Dead March for Penelope Blow

  George Bellairs

  Chapter One - The Persistent Spinster

  Chapter Two - Dead March

  Chapter Three - Post Mortem

  Chapter Four - Arsenic

  Chapter Five - The Cross-Eyed Window-Cleaner

  Chapter Six - The Window-Box

  Chapter Seven - The Citadel

  Chapter Eight - The Jovial Salvationist

  Chapter Nine - Mr. Claplady Confides

  Chapter Ten - Try it on the cat!

  Chapter Eleven - He wouldn’t stop talking

  Chapter Twelve - Select Apartments

  Chapter Thirteen - Doubleday, Ward & Co.

  Chapter Fourteen - Two Women

  Chapter Fifteen - Orchard House Again

  Chapter Sixteen - Parcel Post

  Chapter Seventeen - The Forger

  Chapter Eighteen -‘Nobody tells me anything’

  Chapter Nineteen - The Return of Honoria Blow

  Chapter Twenty - The Madness of the Blows

  Extract from A Knife for Harry Dodd by George Bellairs

  Chapter One

  The Persistent Spinster

  A lovely spring afternoon in London, with the trees by the Thames bursting their green buds and the Embankment Gardens looking fresh and attractive after the long winter. The first holidaymakers of the season strolled along the pavements feeling it was good to be there in the sunshine, and cast glances of mild awe at the great gateway and bright plate which. indicated Scotland Yard. Inside, the attendant policeman was not quite so happy. The same lady had called for the third day in succession and asked for Inspector Littlejohn and showed increasing distress every time he told her the Inspector was away. Now, here she was again...

  ‘Is Inspector Littlejohn in, please?’

  Just the same as before. The same gentle voice, timid and full of alarm, the same sideways cocking of the head, the same kindly, watery eyes, the same little beaky nose. As she approached him the policeman shook his head sadly at her to indicate the answer was unchanged.

  ‘No, madam. He’s still away...’

  Her eyes filled with tears this time. The constable wished she’d only been ten minutes later. He’d have been off for his tea then and someone else could have broken the news. He was a kindly man, father of a family, and his mother had slightly resembled the troubled little woman now hugging her handbag and struggling with her umbrella before him.

  ‘Anythin’ I could do, madam? I’m sorry he’s not in. He’s on business out of town...’

  ‘Where could I find him, please? It’s so desperately urgent.’

  Littlejohn was at Lewes at a murder trial, but, of course, the bobby couldn’t disclose that.

  ‘Sorry, madam. Won’t anybody else do?’

  By the set of her mouth and her general bearing, he knew what the answer would be. This type were so innocent looking, but so fixed and determined in their ways. No good...

  ‘I’m afraid not, officer. I must see him. Mr. Claplady said he’d understand and help me best. And be discreet. I can’t tell it to anybody else. You are so kind, but I can’t really...’

  The officer managed to get in his question.

  ‘Mister ’oo?’

  ‘Claplady. The Rev. Ethelred Claplady, a friend of Inspector Littlejohn, who recommended him to me.’

  ‘Would you spell it, please, madam?’

  ‘C-L-A-P-L-A-D-Y...Claplady.’

  The constable took a pencil from his top pocket, did not lubricate it on his tongue as such officers are supposed to do, and wrote it down on an old envelope in a good, steady hand.

  ‘There! I’ll tell him when he comes in...’

  ‘Will he be long?’

  Oh dear! Patiently the constable explained that Littlejohn was nearly always out. He did it in the tone of voice he used to his children, slowly, paternally, with just a note of pride, because he, for one, was proud of his acquaintance with the Inspector. Just like one of the Old Guard, who used to boast intimate friendship with Napoleon even if he’d only cantered past him on his horse.

  ‘I can’t call again. I’ve overstayed my arrangements by a day already to see the Inspector. I must get back home. But would you please ask him to telephone as soon as he returns? Here is my card...’

  She fished in her large reticule and produced a thin strip of pasteboard. The constable took it between an enormous thumb and forefinger and perused it as though it were a curiosity.

  Miss Penelope Blow,

  The Old Bank,

  Nesbury.

  ‘Very good, madam...’

  ‘The number is Nesbury 0564...’

  ‘Nesbury, Oh, five, six, fower...’

  He wrote it on the card.

  ‘And tell the Inspector he must please not ask for me, but for Minshull...Mrs. Minshull, the housekeeper. You see, there are others who might answer the telephone, and it would never do for them to know I’ve been to Scotland Yard. I can trust Minshull and she will let me know that Inspector Littlejohn has returned and I will then ring him back from a call-box...’

  The bobby’s eyes goggled at the complicated instructions and he wondered how one so guileless-looking could concoct such a cunning scheme.

  ‘You’re sure you’ve got that, officer? It’s most important. I’m sorry I can’t say more. I will tell the Inspector when he gets in touch with me, however...’

  She looked up at the constable and fear crept in her eyes.

  ‘I must go now. Thank you so much, and please do let the Inspector know...I cannot call again...I must go back to Nesbury by the five train. Thank you again, and goodbye...’

  She turned and then halted in her steps as though faced by some new problem or other. Slowly she unclasped her bag, took from it a small purse, extracted two pennies from it and pressed them in the bobby’s palm.

  ‘Thank you, again,’ she said, and gathering herself together with her umbrella at the slope, she walked down the corridor and through the door into the fading afternoon.

  The officer watched her with a flush of pity in his heart. She seemed helpless and alone, like his own mother after they’d told her of his father’s death at sea...He suddenly became aware of his palm. He opened it and gazed at the two pennies.

  ‘Well...I’ll be blowed...Tuppunce!’

  Miss Blow hurried away along the Embankment. She had a one-track mind and could only think of one thing at a time.

  ‘Number eleven...’ she said to herself over and over again.

  In Parliament Square, she boarded a No. 11 bus to Sloane Street. ‘Egton Mews,’ she kept muttering all the way. The bus put her down at length and, hurrying anxiously still, she threaded her way through two squares and, turning down an alley and under a porte cochѐre, pulled up before a black-painted door with a large semi-circle of fanlight over it. This was where she stayed whenever she came to London, the home of a former cook at her home. In the window stood a fly-blown card: Mrs. Buckley, Select Apartments. Mrs. Buckley was as much a spinster as Miss Blow, but, having served as cook in a good family, was entitled to
an honorary matrimonial degree.

  The door was loose and Miss Blow quietly let herself in. The long, dark corridor was cool and quiet. The house itself seemed expectant, watching and waiting for something. Two doors, leading from the passage to ground floor bed-sitting rooms, were closed. Their occupants might have been out, or what seemed more likely today, sitting behind them listening for what was going to happen next. At the far end, the kitchen door stood ajar. Still, not a sound. Miss Blow slid her umbrella in the hall-stand and the ferrule, encountering the drip-tin at the bottom, created a rattle, which, in the silence, seemed fit to wake the dead. Half-timidly she made her way to the rectangle of light at the far end of the lobby. A large baize-covered screen stood between the door and the room. Behind this Mrs. Buckley was in the habit of lurking, and it kept off the draughts whilst enabling every sound in the building to reach her.

  Yes, she was there, sitting in a wicker armchair, her hawk’s face and insolent eyes set like a bird of prey waiting for the victim. Miss Blow looked at her and then recoiled with a little squeak of panic. Lolling on the old leather couch under the window was a second occupant. A tall, heavy man in his mid-forties. He had a large head with a globular forehead and his eyes were set still and deep in it. His nose was snub and his mouth wide and thin-lipped. You immediately thought of a hydrocephalic child. He was lying there, his legs crossed on the end of the sofa, above the level of his head, which he supported on one hand held at the back of it as though it were too heavy for his neck to bear. The other hand trailed on the floor beside the couch. The only movement seemed to come from the wisp of smoke rising from the cigarette between his fingers. He raised it and took a puff, ejected the smoke slowly and turned his eyes on Miss Penelope.

  ‘Well...?’

  ‘Harold!’ she gasped.

  Mrs. Buckley snapped her lips and looked about to enjoy the scene.

  ‘Where do you think you’ve been?’

  ‘I...I...’

  The hesitant timidity of the frail creature before him seemed to enrage Harold. In one bound he was off the couch and towering over her.

  ‘You WHAT? What do you mean by running out on us like this? We’ve been hunting all over the place for you.’

  ‘I only wanted a change, Harold. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I’m tired out...’

  ‘Tired out! What about us? Why didn’t you tell us where you were going, or that you were tired out? Then we could have done something. As it is, we’ve been scared to death and Honoria’s nearly died...’

  ‘Oh...How is Honoria...?’

  The name seemed to sting Miss Blow to the quick. She looked wanly round as though seeking a friend, and found none. It was obvious on whose side Buckley was playing. As ever, she backed the winner.

  ‘It was only this morning that we got Buckley’s letter...I came down by the next train. If this is the way you carry on we’ll have to...have to...’

  He paused sadistically.

  ‘Have to what...?’

  The little woman whispered it, terrified.

  ‘Never mind. Where’s your bag? We’re going back to Nesbury by the five train, so we’ll have to be quick.’

  He paused and then slowly drawing nearer to her thrust down his large face and spoke with terrible precision.

  ‘And what were you doing at Scotland Yard, may I ask?’

  ‘I...I...Oh, please don’t be angry with me, Harold. I didn’t mean any harm.’

  ‘Buckley tells me you’ve been inquiring the way there from her. What have you been doing there?’

  ‘Mr. Claplady asked me to call and give his best wishes to an Inspector there, Harold. But he wasn’t in. So, I did nothing...’

  ‘You’re a poor liar, Auntie. Well...I’ll talk to you later. Get your things together; we’re going. I’ve ordered a cab and I don’t like waiting.’

  They said little more. Mrs. Buckley rose to see them off. She was very self-satisfied with what she had done, but as was her habit, she kept a foot in both camps, just in case...

  ‘I had to send word, Miss Penelope,’ she whined. ‘It’s not safe for you in London on your own. I only let the family know for your own good.’

  Miss Blow ignored her, not from anger or pride, but from sheer fear and bewilderment. The taxi arrived and they bundled her in with her luggage. Harold Blow slipped some notes in Mrs. Buckley’s talon and spoke to the driver.

  ‘Paddington...’

  They drove off without another word. All the way to the station her nephew didn’t speak to Miss Blow. First, she lowered her eyes and then turned them up to his own, which looked dead, filmed by his own thoughts. He relished torturing her by his silence, lighting one cigarette from another, throwing the stubs from the window and puffing the smoke about her head until she felt faint from the sickening heaviness of it.

  At Paddington, he hustled her in a first-class compartment, bought two cups of tea from a trolley and gave her one.

  ‘Thank you, Harold...So kind...’

  She was trying to please him, like stroking an angry dog. He did not respond, but got an evening paper and read it for an hour of the journey. Miss Blow looked sadly through the window at the Berkshire scene flying past. Then she hunted in her large bag, found some letters in battered envelopes, read them over and over again until she grew tired, and finally sat back, gazing in a dream at the picture in the panel opposite. She passed to the framed advertisement for railway hotels, reciting the names softly to herself and trying to remember whether or not she’d ever been there...

  ‘Why did you go to Scotland Yard? Is that what you came to London for?’

  ‘I told you, Harold. It was to see Mr. Claplady’s friend, Inspector Littlejohn. He was away...’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Aunt Penelope. You don’t expect me to believe a tale like that! Mr. Claplady knows a Scotland Yard man, so Aunt Penelope runs away without telling anybody and stays in London three days just to say how-de-do to him. What did you want with him?’

  He cast up the last sentence viciously, as though, if they’d been secure from interference, he’d have forced the answer by violence. Miss Blow gathered up as much dignity as she could.

  ‘Harold! I won’t have you speak to me like that. I’m much older than you. If your grandfather had been alive, you wouldn’t have dared.’

  ‘But he isn’t, and I am daring. You’ve been queer for a long time now and you know what they do with people who get queer and do queer things...Come on now, what did you go to Scotland Yard for?’

  ‘Dinner is ready...First sitting...’

  The dining-car attendant had opened the door and repeated the cry he’d passed all along the train.

  ‘Oh yes, yes...Dinner, Harold. I’m hungry...’

  ‘Meals on the train are foul. I don’t want any. Better wait till we get in. I told Minshull to have something ready...’

  ‘But I had such a nice meal coming down. It wasn’t foul at all. There was lovely tomato soup...’

  ‘Oh, shut up…!’

  They didn’t speak again till the train drew up at Nesbury. Blow gathered the bags, left his aunt to scramble out herself, and hurried out to find a solitary taxi in the station yard. The stationmaster, seeing Miss Blow in difficulties, gave her a helping hand.

  ‘Evenin’, Miss Blow. Been havin’ a little outin’?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr. East...Yes...I’ve been to London...’

  ‘Fam’ly don’t seem so pleased about it, by the looks of ’em, miss. You been gallivantin’ off without a by-your-leave?’

  He was a stocky little man with a large black beard, through which his thick lips showed scarlet, and little twinkling shifty eyes.

  ‘Come on! The taxi’s here. Can’t wait all day.’ They reached the town hall square at Nesbury in ten minutes. They lived there, the whole family of them, in the large house adjoining the bank. In the old days it had been a private institution, well-known for miles around, Blows’ Bank. When the Home Counties Bank took over the business, in the ’twenties,
the residence was far too large for a mere manager, so the retired banker and his family stayed on as tenants. It was an imposing stone building, three storeys tall, fronting on the street, but with a large walled garden along one side and behind. Harold Blow ran up the three steps, beat on the brass knocker and waited without turning to see how his aunt was getting along. She, in turn, struggled out of the cab and the driver followed with the bags.

  The door opened and there stood Minshull, the housekeeper, clad in her stiff black dress, her wrinkled healthy face aglow with anxiety. She almost ignored Harold.

  ‘Oh, Miss Penelope...Whatever did you…?’

  ‘Let’s get in and close the door, Minshull. We don’t want the whole town around quizzing.’

  Harold shepherded them all in the gloomy, panelled hall. On the walls were framed pictures of dead and gone Blows, generations of Nesbury bankers, all prosperous-looking, portly and severe.

  ‘How’s Honoria? You did look after her?’

  ‘Yes, yes...’

  Minshull had grown cautious, almost crafty, watching the vanishing form of Harold to make sure he was out of earshot.

  ‘I saw to her food myself and she’s so much better. The doctor’s here and he’s brought a specialist. They’re in with her now.’

  ‘I must go to her...’

  With only time to remove her black felt hat and heavy old-fashioned coat, Miss Penelope made for the stairs.

  ‘I wouldn’t, miss...’

  ‘I shall...I shall...I must see them...’

  She sped upstairs and hurrying to a heavy door, opened it. The room was stuffy and smelled of used air and medicines. It was large and solidly furnished. In a heavy four-poster, a small-featured, pale, spoiled-looking woman was sitting up, clad in a bed-jacket and wearing a pout on her lips as though claiming more attention than she was already getting. The last daylight from the big sash window fell full on the bed and its occupant and a lamp overhead exaggerated the shadows on her thin face. She wore a net over her grey hair and her features were similar to those of her sister, Penelope, only more embittered by self-pity and sulking. Minshull hurried to her to straighten the bed-clothes and reassure her. In contrast to the dumpy, buxom little housekeeper, the invalid looked almost transparent. The bedside table was a combination of altar and medicine chest. A bible, a prayer book, a little silver vase of primroses, a bookmark embroidered with a sacred text, all mixed up among bottles of yellow liquid, pill-boxes, phials, glasses and bed-cups. Miss Honoria pointed to the table.