The Case of the Demented Spiv (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Read online

  “You were afraid there might be some scandal if it all came out.”

  “Yes. What could I do? I’ve had a hell of a time, choosing between duty and Mary.”

  “Making mountains out of molehills, you mean. You could surely have told me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, let’s get the warrant sworn.…”

  “But why?”

  “Flo. Barrow was Andrew’s friend for a number of years and then James started joining the party. They went to a place in Burstead and after a time James trotted along there with them. I guess Andrew got tired of Flo. Anyway, she turned over to James. First Andrew started to furnish her house with costly knick-knacks, then James. And Barrow didn’t say anything because they were his employers and he thought, or pretended to himself, that their interest was merely friendly. Then, Barrow fell in love and got evidence for a divorce. Old Miles got wind of it and tried to cook the affair to keep out his family. He used pressure on Barrow, too, who didn’t at the time want to lose his job.”

  Faddiman sat with staring eyes. All this had been going on under his nose and he hadn’t spotted a thing.

  “Miles paid Dr. Martindale to take the blame. But Barrow learned that neither of the Fennings intended to marry Flo. when she was free. At the same time he got an offer of a job in London. He got his back up and said he’d cite James Fenning. James happens to be crazy about family honour and such like, although he doesn’t mind having his good times if he can keep it dark.… So, I reckon, James killed Barrow.…”

  “But how…? He’d got an alibi. Andrew.…”

  “That family stick like glue. Andrew said they were together at dinner when the crime occurred. But your daughter let slip that James had his in his room whilst she and Andrew were in the dining-room. James could have slipped out by the window, killed Barrow and returned.… When I faced Andrew with the lonely meal, he stood by his brother by saying he came in his room half-way through the meal. I don’t believe him.”

  “But the disguise?”

  “This is how I figure it. There’ve been funny things going on at the mill lately. An old lady sick-nursing nearby, and a shrewd woman, too, says she heard lorries moving out at nights. It looks to me as though James, or James and Andrew were selling stock on the quiet. The old man controlled the mills and was as tight-fisted as could be. He kept the sons under his thumb and presumably said what their incomes had to be. The rate those two lived probably took more than the old man granted. So they found other ways. Everybody at the mill’s as close as an oyster about it. That shifty watchman, Haxley, has something he won’t tell.…”

  “Still.…”

  “Suppose James were actively interested in this secret stock-lifting. He’d go to superintend, perhaps. Dressed in old clothes, a cap and maybe, for those he didn’t want to guess his identity, whiskers… and make-up, if needs be. As good as a burglar’s mask and not half so melodramatic.”

  “But what about Barrow?”

  “When Barrow decided to name him in the divorce case, James made up his mind to kill him. He arranged for Barrow to go and meet the Jew dealer, but was waiting there himself. He killed Barrow and cleared off. But.… He’d gone down dressed in his make-up in case anyone spotted him entering the mill gates. Someone did. And that scared him. Dr. Martindale was smoking a cigarette at the door of one of the houses opposite. James thought he might be there when he came out. He didn’t know how much of him Martindale had seen either. So, having killed Barrow, he made him up roughly to look like the man Martindale had seen enter.”

  “But how did he get out without Martindale seeing him?”

  “Swam the river and beat it along a narrow path home. His clothes were soaked, of course. He’d not expected that, but had to do it, he thought, to save his skin. He hid the clothes and burned his sopping underwear. Andrew found the suit, hidden behind the hot-water cistern. He must have known then who killed Barrow. But he did his damndest to shield James. As I said, they stick, those Fennings. They even concocted a silly plot to involve Barrow in a black-market racket. They tried to make it look as though he’d been cooking the books and selling the stuff. And James had hoped the little Jew would be blamed for the crime. In his panic, however, James forgot or hadn’t taken the trouble to find out what the Jew was like. He couldn’t physically have killed Barrow, but a hulking fellow like James could. Especially when he’s half a madman.…”

  “Madman! What do you mean?”

  “Have you seen his eyes. He’s all on fire inside. He’s got a craze for the family, too. That would be quite enough.…”

  “Well.… I may as well tell you. He is a bit dotty. I found out too late that there’s a queer streak in the family, to say the least of it. Mr. Miles’s father used to have to go away to a ‘nursing-home’ at times, and, more than once, they’ve had to lock James in his room for days together. But what about Old Miles? Did James kill him?”

  “Yes. Andrew may have told him, or he may have guessed, or anything. He was a shrewd old man. He must have taxed James with it and said he’d have to take the consequences. Maybe he said he’d have to marry Flo. now.… Anyhow, I think James got the poison from Dr. Martindale. The doctor was careless when he was drunk and left his poison cabinet open one day when James was there.… And James, who by way of being a good chemist, could easily concoct the pills. Well, what about that warrant?”

  “All right, Littlejohn. I’ll get it. Gladly, too. The sooner I get Mary out of that place, the happier I’ll be.”

  “So will someone else, or I’m mistaken.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dr. Martindale.…”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE DIARY

  THE housekeeper was in a great stew when she met Littlejohn and Faddiman at the door of the Old Hall.

  “I’m so glad you’ve come, gentlemen. Somethin’s wrong. Mr. Andrew left for London this morning and since then Mr. James has been very queer. He’s had one or two bad do’s in my time, but never so bad as this. Mrs. Fenning’s had a terrible job with him.… He’s been shouting and swearing what he’d do.… They’re in the gymnasium, now. She’s seemingly taken his mind off things by fencin’ with him. Can’t you hear them?”

  From the room upstairs you could hear the sound of steel on steel. But it didn’t sound like a sporting contest. There was a stern clash and urgency about it which seemed to bode no good.

  “Haven’t you been up, Mrs. Holgate?”

  “Yes. But they’ve got the door locked. I asked if they wanted anything, but nobody answered. Too busy, I guess.”

  The officers mounted the stairs two at a time.

  The heavy oak door was locked. Littlejohn put his shoulder to it but it was solid and didn’t move a fraction of an inch.

  “That you, Mary?” called Faddiman.

  On the other side of the door you could hear the contestants tramping and now and then a startled exclamation but always the earnest clash of the foils.

  “Help!”

  It was Mary’s voice.

  “Get something to break-in the door. Quick!”

  They found an oak settle down in the hall, light enough for the pair of them to carry up. Moving with all speed they brought the battering-ram into action. It needed some efforts, for the door was solid and old and resisted stubbornly. Then, it began to crack.…

  But before that, silence behind the door, a pause, a cry and a sob, and then moving footsteps.

  Mary Fenning turned the key in the door and flung it open. She had a foil still in her hand and the tip was covered in blood. On the floor behind her lay James Fenning, bleeding from a wound in the chest. His left arm, too, lay stretched beside him with a wound through the biceps.

  Mary did not faint or cry out. She pointed to James, asked them to look after him and ran downstairs to telephone Dr. Martindale.

  James wasn’t in too bad shape. The wound was between the ribs but didn’t seem to have penetrated any of the organs; he had fainted from l
oss of blood from the arm.

  “He has been queer all day,” said Mary, after they had sent him off in the ambulance with two policemen to watch him. “But at noon, he asked me to the gymnasium and told me he had something he wanted to show me. It was his diary. There it is.” She handed to her father a small loose-leaved notebook bound in black morocco.

  “Tell us what happened before we look at this, Mary.”

  Dr. Martindale was there, too. Having attended to James, he showed no inclination to leave, so had been invited to have a drink. He had chosen coffee.

  “He gave me his diary and insisted that I read it then and there. It was evidently one of a number of such books and contained the most startling entries. About how he murdered Ambrose Barrow to save the family honour. And then, his father, who, it seemed, guessed he was the murderer and accused him of it. He confessed and said it was for the family’s sake. To which his father evidently replied that unless he married Flo. Barrow, he would denounce him. He refused, because, he said, he wanted to marry me.”

  Dr. Martindale thereupon swallowed more coffee than was good for him, coughed, muttered to himself and was silent again.

  “James has asked me to marry him several times. I told him the last time that if he did it again, I would leave the Hall and go to live with my father.…”

  “Why didn’t you, Mary? If I’d only known.…”

  “I liked it here and I think I was the only one old Mr. Fenning would be good for.…”

  Then she turned to Martindale.

  “According to the diary, you were very careless about your poisons. You left James alone in the room with the door of your cupboard open and he took enough poison to kill three men. Just in case he ever needed it, he said. He made some lethal pills for his father’s bottle, he said, and just waited.”

  “The story of the murder of Barrow is very confused. All about his robbing the warehouse to make up his income and disguising himself so that he wouldn’t be recognised on his way to the mill. He thought that very clever. I think it’s very stupid. But he was seen entering the mill when he killed Barrow, so had to leave someone behind like himself. He put his disguise on the dead body. Only someone crazy would have done that. And he had to swim the river to get home.”

  “Yes, we know all about that,” said her father. “The Inspector worked it all out, just as the diary says.”

  “But what’s all this duelling business?” asked the doctor, who couldn’t take his eyes from Mary’s face and whose own face seemed to have grown younger by shedding the lines of worry and dissipation.

  “Well, as I said, he insisted I read the diary in the gymnasium. I was horrified. But he didn’t seem to mind. He must have thought my looks were of admiration. He asked me to marry him again. And then he seemed to lose his balance altogether. Talked about children to carry on the family name and how he’d rebuild the family fortune and be lord of all the place like his ancestors used to be. He could only do that with me as his lady. That was why he’d let me read the diary. He wanted me to know what he’d done for me and the family.”

  “The swine!”

  There is no need to report the name of the interjector!

  “I could see that he was quite mad. I knew that in the past he had had queer bouts and they’d locked him in his room for days together, but now he seemed quite possessed. I tried to humour him, but he wouldn’t listen. He got up and locked the door. ‘You know all the details now, Mary,’ he said. ‘Promise to marry me and all will be right. A wife can’t testify against her husband and once the diary is burned I shall be safe. Refuse and I shall kill you. For two reasons, I’ll not let anyone else have you, and I won’t let you tell what you know.’ I tried to humour him again and he must have guessed I loathed him.…”

  Mrs. Holgate entered with a telephone message that the hospital had rung up to say that Mr. James wasn’t in any danger. The chest wound was superficial.

  “Please go away, Mrs. Holgate,” said the doctor, greatly to her surprise and that of all the rest. She made a dignified exit with her nose in the air. “Well… I never.…”

  “He took one of the foils from the wall and removed the button. ‘I want your promise, or…’ and he came for me. I snatched one down myself, intending to keep him off, but he pressed so hard, that I realised in the end it looked like being a fight to a finish. What could I do? I removed the button from my foil, too.”

  They looked a queer audience. Martindale hanging on Mary’s every word with a bellicose look on his face and his veins swelling with rage; her father sitting on the edge of his chair his eyes full of apprehension and living the events again; and Littlejohn smoking one of old Miles Fenning’s excellent cigars and smiling admiring approval of the very efficient young lady telling the tale. He wished he’d had a daughter like her!

  “James is a good swordsman, but presses too hard. He’s always been that way. Out for a quick kill, instead of a well-executed one. I thought several times he would get me, but at last I got him through the arm. He bled profusely, but otherwise, I might just as well have never touched him. He fought with greater frenzy than ever. He swore and threatened and shouted. I’ve never been in such a duel… never. In the end, I just had to make one desperate effort. My strength was going in the fury and James seemed as fresh as ever. I tried to avoid a vital spot, but I thought when I touched him, I’d got him in the heart. However.…”

  And with that, she fainted.

  “Good job we’ve got a doctor here,” said Littlejohn as Martindale carried her off to bed.

  “Don’t be callous,” said Faddiman, bristling and hurrying after them.

  That night Littlejohn slept for the last time in his rickety bedstead with the brass knobs. They gave him sausages for breakfast, too, and the landlord was half-drunk when he paid his bill.

  He heard nothing more of Flo. Barrow, but later was one of those responsible for seeing James Fenning under lock and key at His Majesty’s pleasure.

  Faddiman saw him off to the station. He made an awkward little speech which caused them both great embarrassment just before the train came in.

  “I’m really sorry I doubted your powers, Littlejohn. You see, I’m not used to cases of this sort and being involved in what you might call a family trouble along with the rest, I was scared to death from the start. You’ve handled this really well. I congratulate you and I’m very sorry for the poor show I’ve made.…”

  Thereupon the train came in.

  Littlejohn leaned through the window.

  “Good-bye, Faddiman, and say no more about it. I quite understand your difficulties. It’s all tied up now and ready for delivery. Glad to have worked with you. And by the way, let me know any other developments, won’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see.…”

  Faddiman did. He wrote later to Littlejohn to tell him that Mary and Dr. Alec Martindale were getting married in the Spring.

  Littlejohn sent them an etching, but it wasn’t a Whistler.

  An extract from George Bellairs’

  Death in High Provence

  As was his custom on arriving outside his flat in Hampstead, Littlejohn knocked out his pipe against the street-lamp by the door. It was a mild evening in early summer, and he paused to sniff the fresh air of the Heath, which smelled good after the petrol-laden atmosphere of London itself. He was a bit late home and the church clock at the end of the road struck seven as he started to climb the stairs to the first floor.

  He knew right away that something unusual was going on in the flat. Meg, his bobtail sheep-dog, which usually greeted him joyfully in the vestibule, began to bark apologetically from the kitchen at the sound of his steps, which meant there was somebody there who found her de trop.

  As he took his key from his pocket, the door opened and his wife met him. Instead of the usual cheerful smile, she gave him a grave, almost comic look which signified that callers had interrupted their evening meal.

  “There’s
a V.I.P. here. . . .”

  She even forgot to ask the usual question about what he’d had for lunch.

  Inside the dining-room a man was standing examining the Toulouse-Lautrec which hung over the fireplace and which Littlejohn’s friends of the Paris Police Judiciaire had given him as a memento of their war-time association. He turned to face the Chief Inspector as he entered.

  A tall, athletic man, with a strong nose and chin, heavy determined lips, dark pouched eyes, and a fine head of dark brown hair. He was apparently in his mid-fifties. He wore a loose-fitting suit of fine grey worsted with elegance and, as he turned to greet Littlejohn, he removed the black horn spectacles and gave him the half-haughty, half-surprised look which the caricaturists captured almost every day. It was Spencer Lovell, the Minister of Commerce.

  The dog barked again, and Littlejohn understood why. Lovell, a bachelor, owned half-a-dozen cats and had written a book about them. He had openly confessed his contempt for dogs.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you so late and in your leisure, Littlejohn.”

  “That’s all right, sir. Sit down, please.”

  Mrs. Littlejohn entered with the sherry. She wore her hat and coat.

  “Don’t let me drive you out, Mrs. Littlejohn.”

  “You’re not doing, Mr. Lovell. I’ve a call to make.”

  Littlejohn gave his wife a grateful look, rose, and let in the dog. He had, in the past, visited the Minister in his own flat in connection with a burglary, and had emerged covered in cat hairs. Lovell’s cats hadn’t been locked up on that occasion! Meg entered, altogether ignored the V.I.P., and, after greeting her master with a friendly butt in the knees, stretched quietly by his side and started to snore.

  Lovell lolled in his chair, sipping his sherry.

  “Cigarette, sir?”

  “I prefer my pipe, if I may.”

  They both started to smoke.

  “You’re a bit surprised to see me here?”

  They smiled at one another. They were the same build and about the same age, and they got on comfortably together.