The Case of the Headless Jesuit Read online

  Margaret Lacey was tall and, in spite of advancing years and little vigorous exercise, had kept her figure. She must have been a beauty in her youth, for, in the fifties, she retained the clear skin, firm, delicately modelled features, fair complexion and fine blue eyes which had attracted so many to her in her heyday.

  A chauffeur in wispy moustache and sideboards, like a South American dancer, who was polishing a flashy car in the former stable under the Lacey flat, didn’t even remove his cigarette when Littlejohn asked for her. He just jerked his head to show she was up above and went on with his rubbing. The car didn’t belong to the Laceys, who, to the chauffeur’s way of thinking, were no-accounts. All breeding and no cash.… Now, his boss, who lived round the corner, in a large house formerly occupied by a lord, had made a cool million in floating companies, and cabinet ministers ate out of his hand.…

  Littlejohn rapped on the little brass knocker on the green door of the flat. Mrs. Lacey answered it herself and asked him in. The place was modestly furnished in exquisite taste, with odds and ends, bought all over the world during half a lifetime of collecting lovely things.

  “I’ve seen you before, Inspector.… At my nephew’s funeral.…”

  It was quite true. She had been pointed out to the Inspector on the day before, but he preferred a trip to London rather than an interview on the spot at an unsuitable time.

  “I called to ask you one or two questions about your nephew, Mrs. Lacey. I had to come to town, so thought it best to call.…”

  “Yes. I got your message that you’d be coming. What can I do to help? I’m afraid Granville and I didn’t meet much. I’m abroad most of the time. Even now, I’d be back in Paris if it hadn’t been for poor Granville’s death. A shocking business. I hear you’ve an idea who killed my nephew.…”

  “We have. Though the motive eludes us still. We think it was Alveston, the former bailiff.”

  “I never liked him.… Always a surly, insolent man, though good at his job. I give him credit for that. And now he’s been killed, too.”

  “Yes. We’ve still to find his murderer and we haven’t an idea.”

  “So you think I can help you.”

  “I imagine so, although some of the questions will be rather painful.…”

  “Suppose we have a cup of tea. I’m just making one for myself and the kettle’s on.”

  She hurried to the kitchenette and soon returned with a tray of silver and china tea-things.

  “Now, Inspector,” she said, when they were settled.

  “In the first place, Mrs. Lacey, how long is it since you saw your nephew last?”

  “Just before Christmas. He wrote to me in Paris asking me certain questions about the family. I replied that I didn’t care to write.… Besides, it was a bit complicated. So I’d tell him when I came over for Christmas. That brought him here.”

  “What were the questions, please?”

  “He was in love with Phyllis Alveston and called to ask if she was in any way related to him.”

  “Why?”

  “Her mother would not hear of their marriage and, as there have been rumours about her parentage, Granville wanted the truth.”

  “And you told him, Mrs. Lacey?”

  “No. Do you know the truth?”

  “I do, madam. Why didn’t you tell him?”

  “She is my daughter. Needless to say, she’s illegitimate and my husband knows all about it. I tell you that because of what follows.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t tell Granville, because there were both Phyllis and Mrs. Alveston to be considered. When the Alvestons adopted my daughter, they became her parents. There was an arrangement, both moral and financial, and it was agreed that the secret should be rigidly kept. If Mrs. Alveston did not choose to tell Granville, I’d no right to do so. I doubt if Phyllis knew, and if she did, I laid no claims whatever to her love or duty. Those belonged to her mother by adoption. It cost me a lot to take such an attitude, because nothing would have pleased me better than for them to wed, cousins though they were. Granville was a very decent boy.… But, I wanted to see Mrs. Alveston before breaking the secret. And, as Granville was staying with her at Christmas, it was naturally a bit awkward. I let it wait, intending to write to the Alvestons later.”

  “I follow.”

  “He was killed before I could do so.”

  “What motive could Alveston have had for killing Mr. Granville?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “I have my own theory. Alveston was hiding at the Hall. He thought the police were after him for embezzlement of the family funds in days past. He encountered the local constable, Plucock, and, in a scuffle, stunned him and threw him, unconscious, in a ditch to drown. In the fight, the policeman’s truncheon was dropped in Alveston’s hiding-place. Granville found it and must have accused Alveston. For that, Alveston killed him.”

  “But why all this skulking in hiding-places?”

  “In the first place, Alveston went to Cobbold to wring money from his wife. He had to hide and, knowing the secrets of the Hall, concealed himself in a priest’s hole there.”

  “Ah … I see.…”

  “Plucock, the constable, had become obsessed by a treasure said to be hidden there. The secret of the Headless Jesuit.…”

  “Yes. A great thrill in our young days.”

  “He must have been prowling about the house when Alveston emerged from his hideout.”

  “Granville talked about the priest’s hole when he was here. He said it was a kind of sideline he’d encountered in his searches in family records for some trace of Phyllis’s birth. He had the little jingle, said to have been written by Simister Salter with him. I was able to give him a clue. You see, my husband is a bit keener witted than our family and when I mentioned it once, in fun, he suggested that one number might be stairs on the staircase and the other panels.… I told Granville and he wrote it down.”

  “That accounts for a lot. He evidently tried out the solution, succeeded, and discovered Alveston’s hiding-place with the truncheon in it. He must have left the note with his papers, because another fellow, you remember him no doubt—the little private investigator who was found killed in the Hall—also disturbed Alveston and met his fate. The victim, Barney Faircluff, had been rummaging among Mr. Granville’s papers and must have found your clue, too.”

  “Oh, dear! What tragedy from such a simple thing.”

  “Have you yourself heard or seen Alveston lately, Mrs. Lacey?”

  “I was coming to that. The Alvestons received three hundred a year for Phyllis until she married, from a family trust. When Alveston ran away, his wife tells me, she sent half the money to him after he’d written and demanded it as the price of keeping silent. Then, that wasn’t enough. He wanted it all. She sent it and had to open her little business to make out. That seemed to satisfy him for quite a while.…”

  “He was in a profitable business for a long time and, I guess, was quite well-off. Then, he started drinking and fell lower and lower. He lost his business, but his competence got him a job … quite a good one … with a Corporation. His drinking lost him that eventually. He then decided to go abroad.”

  “When was that, Inspector?”

  “In the late autumn, as far as I can find out. When he got short of cash, he went to Cobbold and began to pester his wife.”

  “And me, too.…”

  “You mean …?”

  “He tried blackmailing me. It was late autumn, too. A letter from him was forwarded to me in Paris. He said unless I sent him five hundred pounds, he’d tell my husband about Phyllis. I was foolish enough to reply that my husband already knew. I then told my husband and had great difficulty in persuading him not to inform the police. I got another letter from Alveston. He said he’d tell all the village, then. I burned it. I didn’t even tell Henry. He got so cross. I wish I had, now.”

  “Did you hear any further?”

  “No. By that time, things we
re happening to him in Cobbold, apparently. I inquired if he’d been seen there. He hadn’t, however.”

  “Who did you ask?”

  “The curate, Mr. Smythe.…”

  “Smythe! You know him well, then?”

  “Of course. He’s my regular correspondent and source of information.”

  “But surely, Mr. Worsnip, as an old friend …?”

  “No, no. In his dotage. Smythe is indirectly connected with the family. He’s the son of Meek, who used to be our tweeny … the maid who had to leave because she got herself into trouble and the man deserted her.”

  “And the trouble was Mr. Smythe …?”

  Mrs. Lacey laughed.

  “If you want to call him that. You see, Inspector, I’d been through all that agony myself. I befriended Meek. Got her rooms far enough away and, when her baby was born, I looked after him. He was put in a good home for babies and, later, I kept an eye on him and, as he proved a very clever lad, I sent him to college. He did well and, as the living at Cobbold is, or was, one of our family perquisites, I got him made curate there. Meek married a very decent fellow later and went to Australia.”

  “And you and Smythe remained very firm friends, Mrs. Lacey?”

  “Yes. He’s devoted to me. Might be my own son. I couldn’t have children after Phyllis was born, so I suppose I’ve lavished mother-love on my foundling a little.”

  “You know, of course, Mrs. Lacey, that Smythe’s in love with Phyllis Alveston, too. That’s what her mother told me.”

  “Yes. Poor boy. He knew she and Granville were fond of one another, too. It was rather hard on him.”

  “He didn’t know, of course, who Phyllis was?”

  “I’m afraid he did.…”

  “You told him?”

  “Yes. Some time ago, under promise of the strictest secrecy. I could trust him implicitly.…”

  “But why?”

  “He was always worried about his parentage. He asked me over and over again.… In the end, I promised to tell him when he graduated. I did. He was terribly distressed. He’d already developed an inferiority complex, in spite of all my efforts. Naturally, of course, not knowing who his father and mother were. I consoled him, and, to show him he wasn’t the only one, I told him of Phyllis. He met her later, and fell in love with her. They’d a bond in common … illegitimacy, you see. I guess he felt that, loving her, if they married it would level things up.”

  “Did he come to see you much?”

  “Well, no. We are away so often. But whenever I crossed home, I let him know and he came up to London for a day or two and saw me.”

  “He never mentioned Alveston, or showed any great hatred of Granville … or … well, developed signs of bitterness?”

  “No. I was very proud when he got decorated in the war. He was always a shy, timid boy, but could brace himself for desperate efforts.… I guess it stood him in good stead when he was with the troops on ’D’ day.”

  The chauffeur had, apparently, cleaned his car and now started the engine. The whole place shook with dull throbbing and then, as the roar increased, you couldn’t hear yourself speak. It was as well the Inspector and Mrs. Lacey had finished their talk. He left her getting ready to pack for her return to Paris to-morrow.

  Whilst all this was going on, Cromwell, left behind, was paying a visit to one of the casualties of the battle at Salter Hall. Mr. Whatmough lived with his mother in an old black-and-white cottage in one of the many narrow sidestreets of Thorncastle. He had been unable to attend the inquest on Alveston owing to his appearance after the fray. A black eye, scratches on his face and a nose almost twice its already outsize.

  Cromwell knocked at the door. A little old woman opened it. She didn’t in any way resemble her dark, lanky son. She was grey, with sandy and grey eyebrows, a little pinched face with high cheek-bones, and a hooked nose. She looked like a small witch and might have been expected at any time to seize a besom and become airborne. But she lacked the confidence of a black artist. She was very humble and fawned upon Cromwell as soon as he told her who he was.

  “Come in, sir. Come in. I do hope, sir, you’ve come to do somethin’ about the ’orrible thing that scoundrel Polydores ’as done to my boy. A shame it is, and him so ’armless ’imself. Wouldn’t ’urt a fly, sir, and so good to his poor old mother. Come in, sir.”

  The windows were small and the room was dark. You could only see about a yard from the windows, and where the large fire in the old grate cast a glow about itself. By the fireside were seated another strange pair. A little man with a totally bald head and a face like Punch and a little woman who, with the exception of a large, hairy mole on her chin, was a replica of Mrs. Whatmough.

  “This is me sister and brother-in-law, sir. They’re all we’ve got left of the family. A great comfort to me in me time of trouble, sir.”

  To prove what a comfort he was, Punch, otherwise Mr. Enoch Tyle, leapt to his feet and in a shrill voice began to get very angry.

  “Someone is goin’ to sit up for this, sir. I don’t care ’ow wealthy and influential that rascally Polydores is … I’ll ’ave ’im before the Law. He shall pay, sir. He shall pay if it costs me every penny I’ve got. I’ll even sell my shop.…”

  “Ow … ow … ow …” moaned his wife, as though she already saw what was left of their small and unprofitable grocery business being sold up. “Ow … ow … ow … It ought to be his master, Mr. Qualtroughs, ’oo pays. He was injured in the course o’ duty.…”

  “Be quiet, Nellie,” hissed Mr. Tyle. “Leave all to me. I’m a business man. I know.”

  “But I see it in the teacups,” protested his partner. “I see it in the tea-leaves as Mortimer was comin’ into money and weddin’-bells in a month, so …”

  The thought of losing her boy as a result of her sister’s soothsaying was too much for Mrs. Whatmough. She started to howl, as well.

  “Weddin’ bells! Ow, ow, ow.… Me boy. I don’t want to lose me boy to a schemin’ woman. He’s the joy of me old age. Such a clever boy, sir.… Such a clever boy.…”

  “Could I see him, please?” said Cromwell, thoroughly fed-up with the scene and half suffocated from the hot, airless atmosphere into the bargain.

  “The doctor said ’is nerves was bad and to stop in bed a day or so. It’s that Polydores …”

  “Leave ’im to me.… Leave ’im to me.… I’ll make ’im sit up. I’ll make ’im bounce! Every penny he’s got I’ll ’ave out of ’im in damages for this.… Nobody’s goin’ to do damage to a relation of Enoch Tyle’s without bein’ made to suffer.…”

  Punch’s voice rose like the cawing of an old crow. It caused a disturbance upstairs.

  “Hey! Hey, there. What’s goin’ on down there …?”

  Mr. Whatmough, from his couch of pain, was getting angry.

  His mother rushed to the foot of the staircase which mounted aloft from the living-room.

  “All right, Mortimer. All right, love. It’s a Mr. Cromwells called from the p’leece. Wants to see you.…”

  “Well, why the ’ell ’asn’t he been sent up? Kicking up all that row. What will he think you are, all of you?”

  “Don’t swear so, Mortimer. You wasn’t brought up that way. ’E wasn’t brought up that way, I’m sure, Mr. Cromwells, sir, but that Polydores ’as made his nerves that bad.…”

  “I’ll swear if I want. What’s he waitin’ for? Send him up.”

  “Would you be so kind as to go up, sir? Good of you to call at our ’umble ’ome to see my boy. He’s a good, clever boy. Rose from office-boy with Mr. Qualtroughs to be his right-hand man. Mr. Qualtroughs depends on ’im, sir. I don’t know ’ow he’s doin’ without ’im. And an inquest on that there Alvestons to-day, too.”

  And the couple by the fireside chanted like a dismal Greek chorus.

  “I’ll knock ’is money out of that wicked Polydores, if it costs …”

  “Ow … ow … ow …”

  “What the ’ell …?” fluting from ups
tairs. “Shut up crying and send ’im up.…”

  Cromwell mounted the stairs and, guided by the old lady who hovered in the background like a wraith, turned into the best bedroom.

  “No need for you, mother. This is private.”

  “All right, Mortimer love. Did you take your medicine as the doctor said? And the ’erbs your aunt Nellie brewed you? Do you want anything? Are you comfortable …?”

  “Oh, yes, yes, yes. Can’t I be left alone?”

  Whatmough was best left alone. He was an awful sight. Added to the disfigurements of his by no means prepossessing face inflicted by Mr. Polydore, Mortimer was angry and dishevelled. His lanky hair stood on end and the elegant moustache which he took such a pride in fixing and twisting to two long points, one on each side, had been combed out and now looked like a piece of bushy black knitting stuck on his upper lip. He was sitting up in bed the better to denounce the causes of the turmoil and had gathered the patchwork counterpane round his shoulders. He looked like Joseph in his coat of many colours after a bad night out.

  “Well?” he shouted at Cromwell.

  Whatmough hadn’t recovered from the shock and humiliation of being bested by Mr. Polydore, but what was worse, he had been laid up and prevented by his doctor from attending an inquest, and that on Alveston.

  Mr. Qualtrough, to add to Mortimer’s heap of misery, had been too busy with his affairs even to inquire or call about the health of his underling. In fact, he had been more chirpy and talkative in court than ever before, revelling in the freedom of being without his watchdog. And the last drop in this bitter cup had been the report of Uncle Enoch, who had been sent to the inquest, that Flitcroft, the hated rival of Whatmough and his junior in the office, had assisted Mr. Qualtrough in his place.