Corpses in Enderby (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Read online

  “More of ’em …”

  Mr. Blowitt was still standing at the window watching the procession of Bunns coming and going at the shop opposite. The coffin with the corpse had just been taken in and figures in black kept entering eagerly and coming out with either tearful or resigned expressions. A large taxi, like a hearse itself, drew up bearing a black burden of such weight that the vehicle heeled over dangerously.

  “Hullo. Aunt Sarah’s come.”

  Several of the family emerged, fawned on the contents of the taxi, and then hoisted out an enormous woman, larger than any two of the reception committee. A fat face under a black bonnet, a lot of double chins, and a look of perpetual annoyance.

  “She’s the next to die on the list, chronologically, as you might say. Worth a lot of money. The family all keep well in with ’er.”

  Mr. Blowitt’s roving eyes suddenly fell on his wife and opened wider. His mouth followed suit.

  The man who had on the previous day brought in the mattress and pretended to play the harp on it was holding a whispered conversation with Mrs. Blowitt.

  “Go on with you!” she said, and gave him a playful push.

  The bed-man, small, slim, frisky, with a face like a robin, eyed the hennaed hair with admiration.

  “I mean it,” he said, and buried his little beak of a nose in his pint pot.

  He was a widower and the mock kiss blown to him by Mrs. Blowitt the day before had shaken him.

  “Hey!” said Mr. Blowitt loudly. He could flirt to his heart’s content, but his missus must be beyond reproach.

  The little man slowly removed his face from his mug of beer, which he carefully placed on the counter.

  “Hey, wot?” he said, rocking on his heels in challenge. He violently thrust out his arms before him to jerk back his cuffs, ready for a set-to if needs be.

  Mr. Blowitt climbed down.

  “No wastin’ time,” he said, and left the room.

  The little man tittered, shook down his sleeves again, and tipped his pot-hat over his left eye. Then he chucked Mrs. Blowitt under the chin.

  “Still say it. This is no place for a fine woman like you. You oughter …”

  “Go on with you …”

  “Excuse me …”

  Cromwell was fed-up with the amours and jealousies of the Blowitt ménage. He wanted Sarah Agnes Fearns’ address and said so. Mrs. Blowitt gave it in a dramatic voice.

  “Thank you …”

  “Very pleased, I’m sure.”

  Outside, the square was almost deserted. A multiple tailor’s was giving jigsaw puzzles as advertisements and a queue of boys was forming. A newsboy stood near the church with a sheaf of papers and a placard: ‘Daily Trumpet’. Brompton Murder. Dooley to Hang. Nobody took any notice. They had a murder of their own in Enderby.

  The Fearns family lived just outside the town in a large, square, brick house surrounded by a high wall and a trim garden. All the family did the gardening and Mrs. Fearns saw to it that they mustered frequently for the purpose. There wasn’t much left in the way of flowers. A few chrysanthemums and a clump or two of Michaelmas daisies. Dead leaves all over the lawns and paths. Mrs. Fearns was too busy at the time to bother with the garden. All the curtains and blinds of the house were drawn.

  Before Cromwell could ring the bell the door opened and Mrs. Fearns appeared letting out the cat violently. At the sight of Cromwell she halted. She was wearing an apron which she hastily removed. Cromwell couldn’t quite gather whether he or the cat was the cause of Sarah Agnes’s sour looks. In her black ready-made frock she looked like a tall, scuttering cockroach. Her pug’s face was set in grim lines and, above it, her hair had just been waved ready for the funeral.

  “Well?”

  She seemed to mistake Cromwell for some underling connected with the forthcoming ceremonies. He is frequently taken for an evangelist, theological student, or undertaker.

  He handed Mrs. Fearns his card.

  “Come in.” She didn’t sound pleased. “This way …”

  Through a porch and a vestibule shut off from the hall by a door with a stained-glass panel. The hall was wide and full of odds and ends. A heavy barometer on the wall and three large pictures, badly painted. The brass lamp hanging from the ceiling was corroded and looked ready to fall down. There was a large, wilting palm in a pot at the foot of the stairs. Sarah Agnes almost pushed Cromwell into a room on the right. There was no fire, the place smelled of damp and stale cigar smoke and was heavy with Victorian furniture. Over the fireplace was a framed photograph of a formidable, middle-aged woman, in a freakish Edwardian get-up. The glass was broken slightly in one corner. It was of Aunt Sarah, Mrs. Wilkins, née Bunn. The usual Bunn face, even more puggy than usual. Until to-day it had been in the junk room, but Aunt Sarah had just arrived to stay at the Fearns’ house over the funeral. Cromwell could hear her in the adjacent room.

  “Who was it?”

  The reply was inaudible.

  “Speak up!”

  “A man on business.”

  Mrs. Fearns closed the door and stood with her back to it.

  “What did you want?”

  She seemed anxious to get it over and didn’t even offer Cromwell a chair.

  Cromwell gave her his best smile.

  “Sorry to trouble you at a time like this, madam, but I’m sure you’re as anxious as we are to get your late brother’s death cleared up.”

  “Yes?”

  “We’re just checking where the various members of the family were on the night Mr. Edwin Bunn died.”

  Sarah Agnes folded her scraggy arms over her tightly-laced bosom and advanced a step.

  “Do I understand that you think some of us might have done it? Because if you do, you’re mistaken.”

  She sucked in the saliva from her lips and shook her head aggressively. The permanent waves of her grey hair trembled like a lot of springs.

  “Oh dear, no, madam. Just a formality. We have to do it, you know. It’s part of the regulations.”

  He smiled again. Sarah Agnes’ face softened to the extent of two lines disappearing from the root of her short nose, and her tight nether lip slackened and became fleshy.

  “We were all at home … every one of us.”

  Cromwell sighed. ’Ome-lovers, Mr. Jasper had said. Proper ’ome-lovers. He wondered if every member of the Bunn clan was tightly hedged behind a home-lover’s alibi for the night of Ned’s death.

  “Your son and daughter, too?”

  “Of course. Did you think they’d be walking the streets?”

  Her voice rose in a crescendo.

  Cromwell didn’t know what he thought.

  “No … I just want to be sure. Were you entertaining, madam?”

  “Yes. We had visitors … The Mayor, his wife and their son.”

  From the way she said it, Cromwell judged that Sarah Agnes was very well satisfied about the Mayor and his family.

  The tête-à-tête was interrupted by the arrival of Aunt Sarah, who thrust open the door of the room without knocking and entered slowly, panting, her eyes all over the shop. They fell upon her portrait in its place of honour and she malevolently noticed the cracked glass.

  “What does he want?”

  She panted and hissed as she spoke and her many chins shivered like jellies. She was enormous and walked with the help of a stick which she now pointed at Cromwell.

  Her eyes were everywhere, curious and contemptuous. She raised her free hand and revealed an ear-trumpet which she elevated to her head to get the answer.

  The huge bulk of the old woman had completely hidden the girl behind her who now advanced to pacify her. Cromwell had heard of Helen Fearns’ good looks, but he hadn’t imagined anything like this. It quite took him aback. Like a lovely sunset, or sweet music, or a fine picture … beauty that made you a bit melancholy, he told himself later by way of excuse for his susceptibility.

  She was medium built, slim, and of the dark fine beauty of old Spain. Her hair was almos
t black, the eyes large, brown and clear, the eyebrows gracefully curved, and the brow broad and serene. The bone formation of her face was exquisite and tapered from the high cheek-bones to a short firm chin. The delicate arched nose, the fastidiously chiselled nostrils, the generous mouth and full red lips, the tender lines of the neck and shoulders … These were what caused Helen’s mother so much apprehension.

  Cromwell had seen both the father and mother of the girl, who seemed in her middle twenties. He found himself soundlessly whistling Sally in our Alley …

  How such a couple could beget,

  One half so fair as Sally …

  “Eh?”

  “Just a gentleman on business about uncle’s funeral.”

  Helen spoke right in the ear-trumpet. Her voice was quiet, with a faint deep huskiness, but Aunt Sarah saw no charm in it.

  “No need to yell …”

  Helen looked at Cromwell, the corner of whose lip curled, and she shrugged her shoulders slightly.

  “Come on, Auntie. You’ll get cold in here.”

  “Yes. Go on, Aunt Sarah. I’ll soon be back.”

  Sarah Agnes, half-named after the old woman, added her assistance in persuasion.

  “I’m not goin’ to be told what to do by anyone … Do you hear, anyone … Not even YOU.”

  She pointed her stick at Cromwell as though he were a vigorous party in the campaign to get her out of the way.

  “And you needn’t think I don’t know about you trying to hook up your Helen with the Mayor’s son, because I do. Jasper told me and I don’t approve of it. I don’t like Jabez Stubbs, Mayor or no Mayor, and as for his son, Hubert, I like him less. Him with his little moustache and his pimples … I don’t like him, even if he does go to Salem Chapel twice every Sunday. They’ll get no money of mine if they get wed … Remember that … If they get wed, no money.”

  Crimson to the roots of her hair, Helen did her best to tow the old woman to the door. Panting and snorting, Aunt Sarah delivered herself of a verbal broadside at Sarah Agnes with every step until finally she left the room, Helen manoeuvring round her like a graceful tug round a battleship.

  “And don’t you let ’em, Helen. If they try to make you, you tell me … Not a penny of mine if …”

  The door closed and they could hear the muffled roaring going on in the next room.

  Sarah Agnes, white with shame and embarrassment, breathed heavily, wiped her lips on her handkerchief and looked hard at Cromwell to see how he had taken it.

  “She’s old and queer in her mind … She doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time.”

  It all seemed very intelligible and sensible indeed to Cromwell, especially when, afterwards, he compared notes with Littlejohn and heard about the history of Helen’s forlorn love affairs. He also had a word with Hubert Stubbs, the current runner in the matrimonial field, later, and his admiration for Aunt Sarah grew considerably after that.

  Jabez Stubbs and Son (Enderby) Ltd., Silk and Nylon Manufacturers. Cromwell had found their mills just behind the police station and now stood in the office waiting for father, or son, or both. They arrived together. The mills seemed old but very busy. The sound of machinery filled the air like the rush of many waters. The offices were of new brick and up-to-date in a flashy kind of way. Light woodwork, green decorations, a lot of chromium chairs and fittings. Like a modern picture palace. When you saw Stubbs and Son, in person, you understood why.

  Mr. Jabez Stubbs, Mayor of Enderby, was a little, fat, prancing man, full of his own importance. His face and neck were fat, too, and he had blue, watery, roving eyes, which reminded you of poached eggs. He wore a heavy, light-grey tweed suit and light brown boots. He had made a lot of money out of his nylons and was spreading himself in all directions. A large car stood at the door.

  “Well, officer … Come in, come in … Come into the office … into my private room … Drink? Cigar? No? Take a few then … I know you can’t smoke on duty … Take a few for after. They’re good ones.… Here, put these in your pocket … Don’t be shy.”

  Cromwell shook Mr. Stubbs off with great difficulty. He clung like a leech with his embarrassing ministrations and patronage. He screwed your nerves up so much that you felt like hitting him.

  “This is my son, Yewbert.”

  Hubert wasn’t quite as bad as his father, but he was bad enough. He stood around like an apprentice or understudy, domineered by his parent. He wore a check sports jacket of the hacking variety, a yellow pullover, and corduroy trousers. He was on the small side, too, and had sandy hair and eyebrows. A small sandy moustache sprouted from his upper lip and his chin receded. At his father’s age, Yewbert would also have poached blue eyes; now they were bleary with beer and late nights. There was a livid pimple in the middle of his forehead. Cromwell ranged himself on Aunt Sarah’s formidable side at once.

  “Cigarette?”

  Hubert flashed a gold case in Cromwell’s face; a kind of attenuated version of his father’s act with the cigars.

  “And now … What can we do for you?”

  Mr. Stubbs was overflowing with unction and oily good will.

  “Well, sir. We’re just checking alibis, purely formal, for the night Mr. Edwin Bunn was killed.”

  Mr. Stubbs flung up his hands and threw back his head, revealing two even sets of dentures and hairs sprouting from his nostrils.

  “Dear me! Terrible, terrible … I say, ’orrible … Ned Bunn and I were good friends … almost like brothers.”

  Hubert thought he ought to speak.

  “Just like that.” He laid his index finger on top of the second and thrust them in Cromwell’s direction. His father eyed him curiously. Was “junior”, as he fondly called him, was “junior” mocking him … trying to be a bit funny?

  “Sure you won’t have a drink … Whisky, sherry?”

  Cromwell shook himself free again.

  “What can we do to help the police, then, in this shockin’ affair? As Mayor of this town, I feel it my duty to do all in my power to end once and for all the dreadful state of suspense and anxiety which prevail.”

  Mr. Stubbs reeled it off like a speech on a political platform or at the weekly meeting of the Town Council. He was carried away by his own eloquence.

  “Excuse me, sir … I just wanted to know if you could confirm your visit to the Fearns’s home on the night Mr. Bunn was killed and how long might you have been there?”

  Mr. Stubbs applied the brakes and smiled benignly at Cromwell and then conspiratorially at his son.

  Hubert cleared his throat, stood with one foot—clad in a suede shoe with a sole of rubber an inch thick—on a chair, and massaged his little moustache.

  “Of course. Very glad to assist. We was at the Fearns’s home on that night. In fact, we got there at about nine and we were just having a bite of food when the phone rang to announce the ’orrible news. Yes, we was there.”

  “Thank you, sir. And were all the family—Mr. and Mrs. Fearns, Mr. Henry and Miss Helen—present, too?”

  Mr. Stubbs thrust out his chest like a pouter pigeon and smiled across at his son, who glanced back nonchalantly.

  “Oh, yes. All there. As a matter of fact, officer, it was somewhat of an ’appy occasion, spoiled, I regret to say, by the ’orrible news which broke on us. My son, Yewbert, and Helen Fearns, have long been friends … Been brought up at Salem Chapel and Sunday School since they was that high.”

  With a podgy hand, Mr. Stubbs denoted the exact height from the ground of the happy couple when they first met. He did not say, or perhaps he did not remember, that for his violence to a doll which Helen had carried everywhere in those days, Yewbert had arrived home with a broken nose.

  “Since they was that high …”

  Mr. Stubbs’s eyes grew more poached from sentimental wallowing.

  “They’ve always been very fond of one another and now … well … it’s changed to something else, officer. This was a special family gathering … an ’appy little affair to celebrate
what we hope will soon be a betrothal.”

  Yewbert, his back to the fire, was looking like a man of the world, fiddling with his moustache, trying to appear as if he was a bit bored by it all.

  “So, you see, we’ve good reason to remember every detail and can easily confirm the times. Oh, yes, you can put me down for confirmation of the alibis when the time comes, officer, and very glad to be of assistance.”

  Cromwell’s eye fell on the glowing pimple in the middle of Hubert’s forehead. His mind went back to Aunt Sarah.

  “Thank you very much, sir. I’m very grateful for your help.”

  “Not at all. And, by the way, when he can spare the time, please tell Inspector Littlejoy I’ll be very glad to see him at the Mayor’s Parlour. We don’t often get famous detectives down here, thank God, and I’m anxious to do ’im the honours.”

  That put Cromwell definitely on the side of Aunt Sarah! In fact, he almost felt like going to Fearns’ home and telling her so.

  “The name’s Inspector Littlejohn, sir, and I’m afraid he’s very busy.”

  The Mayor looked at Yewbert and then at Cromwell. He scented an affront but couldn’t be quite sure.

  As he left the flashy offices of Stubbs & Son, Cromwell was whistling under his breath:

  And when my seven long years are out,

  Oh, then I’ll marry Sally …

  But not in our alley! It was in Aunt Sarah’s alley, however, for Cromwell read in The Times almost a year later that Helen had been married from the home of her aunt, Mrs. Wilkins, Throstles Nest, Melton Mowbray, to a barrister called Shakespeare.

  8

  “WHISPERS”

  WHEN Jerry Bunn married Mary Wood he bought for their home a large, old house surrounded by matured trees on the edge of Enderby. Mary was romantic in those early days and called the place Whispers because of the gentle noises made by the trees. She never told anyone what they whispered to her later when her husband’s fancy began to roam.

  Jerry Bunn left Whispers to his daughter, Anne, to repay her for her past labours in the shop. When the Medlicott family moved in, they had enough money to keep-up the place, but after Jubal had dissipated his wife’s fortune, the great house became a millstone. Finally, it ended as a block of flats, six in all, with the Medlicotts occupying the top rooms because they commanded a good view and fresher air.