Death Before Breakfast Read online

  ‘Of course. …’

  He was mollified, poured out two more glasses, added soda, and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

  ‘You don’t understand. I’m not a man like the rest of ’em round here. Three quarters of ’em were born in these parts and haven’t been outside ’em beyond the three-mile limit. I’ve been all over the world and done all sorts of jobs. Then I got a wound in the war and it seemed to take all the guts out of me. I had to settle down. That’s why I’m here. And perhaps my ugly body might be comfortable, but my mind isn’t. It’s travellin’ all the time to the good places I’ve been to, the things I’ve done there, and the women I’ve known. To look at me now, you wouldn’t think I was once a devil with the women. … You’re not listenin’!’

  Barnes was losing his temper again. He took a large gulp of his whisky, choked, hawked, and spat on the floor.

  ‘I’m listening, Mr. Barnes. That’s why you took a fancy to Dr. Macready. He’s different, too. And so is his sister.’

  Barnes didn’t answer for a minute and then he burst out again.

  ‘What the hell are you gettin’ at?’

  ‘You were going to tell me that, weren’t you? Excusing yourself for being friendly with such a queer, such a different couple from everybody else round the place.’

  ‘I’m not making excuses.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re not.’

  ‘Well, then. What are we gettin’ ratty about?’

  Barnes was a queer type, with his round head and a solid skull, which looked to be made of hard bone all the way through. His cunning eyes, too, were like those of some country horse-dealer of days gone by, trying to sell an old nag, sizing up the buyer and how far to go with him, and next minute looking as innocent as a child.

  ‘What made you call here to-night?’

  He asked it quietly, as though rather surprised at the honour of the visit. And then he burst out again, the veins in his neck swelling like a tyre being inflated.

  ‘You’re trying to fix this crime on me … Well, we’ll see.’

  He rushed to the door.

  ‘Ada! Ada! Come here.’

  His wife entered slowly like someone intruding.

  ‘Come in. Don’t stand there lookin’ as if you’d never seen the place before. It’s your house. And I’ve already introduced you to the Super. He’s trying to fix the July Street murder on me. …’

  She didn’t seem surprised. She behaved as if she were used to it. As though he’d done it all before, over and over again. She turned her pale negative eyes on him and stood there waiting in her shabby dress, her hair hanging in wisps, as sad and out-of-date as the house itself and the furniture in it.

  ‘He wants to know where I was on Tuesday night from ten o’clock till eight next morning. Tell him.’

  She tried to smile, to join in the joke, but it was a poor effort.

  ‘Go on. Tell him.’

  ‘You were in bed till half-past seven and then you started to dress.’

  ‘Tell him how you know. Go on. Don’t be afraid. He won’t bite you.’

  ‘I was with you.’

  ‘Where?’

  Littlejohn didn’t say a word. He looked at her and somehow, beneath the weary shabbiness, he could see the woman she’d once been before she got mixed-up with Barnes. Probably from a good family, well brought-up, decent mannered, even somewhat of a beauty, otherwise Barnes wouldn’t have taken to her. She hesitated and tried to smile again.

  ‘We’d gone to bed.’

  ‘That’s it. We were in bed and I couldn’t have got up without you knowing, could I?’

  ‘No. I’m a light sleeper, you see, sir.’

  ‘No need to call him “Sir”. “Super.” will do.’

  She smiled at Littlejohn apologetically.

  ‘I can go now?’

  ‘Yes. You don’t seem to want to be sociable.’

  ‘Good night, Superintendent.’

  Her voice was pleasant and cultivated. Littlejohn felt that for two pins he could knock Barnes down for his treatment of her. Then, probably she’d get mad with Littlejohn and pick Barnes up and try to comfort him. It was obvious she still thought a lot of him.

  ‘Good night, Mrs. Barnes.’

  She left them quietly, without looking back, and he heard her enter the room over the passage and close the door.

  Barnes sat back again, drank more whisky, and then sighed heavily.

  ‘I shouldn’t speak like that to her, but she riles me so much. All the money she wants she can have and yet behaves as though she was a servant. I know I’ve upset her and I’ll have to make it up to her some way. God knows how. No use bringing her flowers or a present. She wouldn’t know what to do with them.’

  ‘Suppose you tried it.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I said, suppose you try it. I must be going. Thanks for the drinks and what you’ve told me.’

  ‘Do you suspect anybody?’

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘Why ask me? I was in bed when it happened. How many more times have I to tell you.’

  He hesitated and looked ready to say something more. Then he decided not.

  ‘I’ll show you out, then.’

  ‘Don’t disturb yourself. I can find my own way.’

  Barnes rose heavily.

  ‘Don’t be so damn’ snooty. You may want me yet.’

  ‘I may. If so, I’ll call again.’

  Their eyes twinkled at each other. It was growing into a kind of humorous challenge, perhaps concealing some strange implications.

  ‘Good night, Super.’

  Barnes rolled to the front door with him, opened it, and they stood for a minute in the doorway.

  ‘Good night, Mr. Barnes. Give my regards to your guests, Dr. and Miss Macready.’

  Barnes couldn’t find the right swear-words in his rising anger, and before he could shout them, Littlejohn had vanished in the darkness.

  Chapter 7

  Mr. Peeples is Nervous

  With the murder definitely established and Mrs. Jump’s ghostly dead body now materialised and clothed in flesh, the tedious routine which Littlejohn least liked began. The district police and Scotland Yard together took the case in hand and the wheels of a full-blown investigation started to turn.

  The whole neighbourhood around July Street entered a nightmare of further police enquiries, which extended to other streets bearing the names of months, and far beyond.

  All the shopkeepers were questioned, the pubs, the garages, the hotels and boarding-houses. Photographs of the dead man were flashed about. Had anybody seen him or spoken to him, a Frenchman probably with an appropriate accent? Not a soul had anything useful to declare.

  There were a number of French families resident in the area. They could all give good accounts of themselves and they certainly didn’t admit to knowing or being relatives of the man in the picture. They didn’t look it, either.

  A full medical report on the body estimated that death had occurred somewhere about the time Mrs. Jump found it. Allowing for the time between seven and when the corpse had been found in the canal, the estimate was reckoned a fair one.

  Commissaire Luc had sent Jourin’s file by the first ’plane after Littlejohn’s enquiry. It was quite a substantial one.

  Etienne Marie Jourin, aged 46, born Sens, Yonne.

  His mother was a respectable widow, who still lived in Sens. He had a sister and a brother, both married and living in Paris and Avallon, respectively. His criminal record had begun after the war. During the war he had served with the Resistance, stationed in Upper Savoy. Record, distinguished.

  Three terms in gaol, for petty thieving. Then four robberies attributed to him, from technique and descriptions of witnesses, one confirmed by a thumbprint.

  A note added by Luc stated that, as far as they knew, Jourin had no connections in England, but might easily have fled there and hidden, as his complete disappearance from circulation in France indicated some good hideout
from which he operated. The four robberies had all been committed within the last three years. Jourin had, in private life before the war, been a watchmaker and had, in his crimes, worked with the care and precision of a well-trained and orderly workman. As far as the police knew, Jourin had had, in his time, a regular mistress or two, but none of the women in question had seen him for two years. He was described as a man with expensive tastes who, until he turned to crime, had never been able to make ends meet. Some of his lady friends were quite eloquent about his character, especially the last one, whom he had left in a hurry, taking with him her savings of about two hundred pounds.

  Luc in a cordial covering letter, complained about the number of years over which he and Littlejohn had not met.

  ‘… I am, at present, called back to duty owing to prevailing uncertain conditions in Paris. My old place has been filled by a man I dislike, and the feeling is mutual. My duties take only part of my time. I think a visit to Jourin’s old haunts at Sens might be profitable for both of us. It is a pleasant place and there is fishing in the Yonne between times. …

  Fishing in the Yonne! One of Luc’s little jokes! Outside, it was still drizzling and the Thames was invisible through the mist. People were wearing topcoats and hugging them closely to keep out the raw November weather. The chestnut sellers were out on the Embankment and last weekend, football matches had been abandoned because of the impossible state of the grounds. He couldn’t imagine it being much better in Sens, to say nothing of fishing in the river.

  All the same the trip sounded tempting. Anywhere rather than London on a day like this!

  Cromwell entered and he showed him the letter.

  ‘Got your fishing tackle handy, old man? Before we think of going to France, let’s find out how many of the regulars around July Street have been there over the past two years. Get in touch with the passport office and ask them to check the list of people the police have visited. Then, we’ll take a look at the passports of any of them who are likely.’

  Then, he took the car back to July Street.

  He liked it better in the dark than in the light on a day like this. It was quiet and sinister after dusk and he got the atmosphere better. Besides, everything strange seemed to happen there after the street lamps had been switched on, as though the sombre lighting put the inhabitants in the mood.

  Sammy Barnes was standing in the doorway of his garage superintending the arrival of fresh supplies of petrol for the pumps. A tanker was discharging and the short pipe in his teeth had grown cold. He grinned at Littlejohn.

  ‘You’re welcome to your job on a day like this. Wanderin’ about in this weather wouldn’t be much in my line.’

  Littlejohn strolled past him into the garage. Barnes followed. He called to one of the men working inside.

  ‘Come and check this petrol, Ernie. It won’t do to let the Super. wander about the place on his own. He might swipe somethin’.’

  A large brick erection with an asbestos roof and two huge windows to let in the light. The workshop was a shambles and three men were busy with the overhaul of a car, jacked-up, with the engine rising slowly on a crane slung from the rafters. Trodd was with them and Littlejohn was able to take a better look at him under the bright light. He seemed in a surly mood and pretended to be so busy with the job that he hadn’t time to bid Littlejohn good-day. His dark eyes were small and close together and at some time in his life, his nose had been broken and badly set.

  The place was stocked with a few second-hand cars and accessories and the work benches along the sides were well fitted-up with electrical tools and apparatus. Tyres and inner tubes hanging from pegs on the walls and piles of new tyres stored along the back of the shop.

  ‘You sell cars, too?’

  Barnes removed his pipe and spat on the floor.

  ‘We’ve not got any big agency, if that’s what you mean, but I’m always ready to do a deal. I hope you don’t think these cars have been pinched, because most of them are here for repairs and a bright lot they are, too. This isn’t the neighbourhood for posh stuff.’

  The office was at the back of the building, a broad and narrow place, cut-off from the main shed by glass partitions. It was well-lighted. A clerk was busy posting invoices in a ledger. Littlejohn entered. It seemed neat and tidy and through an open door behind, he could see wash-places and a canteen of sorts with cheap chairs and a large plainwood table strewn with dirty cups and saucers and a large teapot.

  There was another door to the left. Littlejohn tried it and it opened inwards on a dark room.

  ‘My little cubby-hole, when I care to use it.’

  Barnes was still following him, now a bit impatiently.

  ‘Nothing in there to interest the police. In any case, what are you after? Nosing round my place won’t help you to find out who killed the Frenchie in July Street. You’re just wastin’ your time.’

  Littlejohn didn’t reply, but fumbled for a switch, found one, and flicked it on. The room was lighted by a single bare bulb from the middle of a false ceiling composed of hardboard to reduce the height. There was a trapdoor in the ceiling, probably to a store-room. He looked around.

  A table and a wooden armchair, a small safe in one corner, all kinds of junk hanging from nails in the walls or lying on the floor. Carboys, old inner tubes, worn tyres, some tools on a bench, and a trickle-charger, long disused by the looks of it. Along one side, a camp-bed without pillows or blankets. Barnes followed Littlejohn’s eyes with his own.

  ‘We used to have a night watchman, till he got himself knocked down on the road and left. I haven’t taken-on another yet, but judging from the way this locality’s behavin’, I’ll soon have to be thinkin’ of having somebody here all night again. Want to buy a camp bed, Super?’

  The place was clean, in spite of the rubbish dumped here and there.

  ‘Do you ever sleep here yourself, Mr. Barnes?’

  ‘No. What did I tell you last night? Without my old woman to keep me company in my big bed, I wouldn’t sleep a wink.’

  He had recovered his temper and seemed quite content if the visit went on for ever.

  ‘You’re wastin’ your time here, Super. What do you expect to find? The knife that killed the Frenchie … ? Or the jewellery he’s said to have had with him .…?’

  ‘How do you know he had jewellery with him?’

  ‘Now, now, now. Not so fast, Super. It’s in the papers all about it this mornin’. Including some nice comments about you, too. But if you keep on treating me as a suspect, my comments won’t be so polite. The Admiral’s open by now. What about us having a pint together? Better way of spending your time than wasting it here.’

  After all, why not?

  The machinery of ordinary police routine was in motion and in skilled hands. Cromwell was on the job, too, and knew exactly how Littlejohn wished the machine to go. Littlejohn had a horror of routine, of rule of thumb. He liked best to come and go patiently at the scene of the crime and among those affected by it until the whole background held no more secrets from him.

  ‘All right, then.’

  The Admiral Rodney was being cleaned-up for the weekend after last night’s crowds; a meeting of Oddfellows and a farewell party for a man who was emigrating to Canada. The potman with the large teeth and two women were mopping up and polishing.

  ‘Landlord and his missus ’ave gone to town. They’re buyin’-in for a wedding feed to-morrer.’

  Sam Barnes looked annoyed at the delay.

  ‘That doesn’t stop you from servin’ us, does it? Two double whiskies, and jump to it.’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Barnes. No offence, I’m sure.’

  There was another customer at the bar: Mr. Peeples, gravely drinking whisky this time, and half-seas over already.

  ‘Mornin’, Lionel. Beginnin’ the day well, I see. And on whisky. I’m surprised at you, and a family man, too. How’s the kids?’

  Mr. Peeples giggled and looked like a scared rabbit. His eyes never left Barnes’s f
ace. Littlejohn, watching the pair of them, noticed that although Barnes was smiling with his teeth, his eyes were stone cold and he was biting the stem of his pipe hard. The very sight of the little frightened man was like a red rag to a bull to Barnes.

  ‘The kids are fine. Would you believe it, but …’

  ‘I know. Somethin’ a bobby gave you cured it in no time. So you start celebratin’ it in whisky and makin’ a beast of yourself. Drink up and go home, Lionel. Spend your money on somethin’ that’ll do you some good.’

  He almost thrust Peeples from the bar and led him roughly by the elbow to the door.

  He returned panting and still looking like thunder.

  ‘Lazy little devil. As if he hadn’t enough to do with his money without drinkin’ it all away. If his kids are better, he ought to get back to his work.’

  ‘What’s his job?’

  ‘He was a French polisher, and a good one, too. But that sort of work isn’t much in demand nowadays; they spray polish on instead of lovingly rubbin’ it in like they used to do. Peeples does work for me now and then. Bodywork on cars, you know. He’s good at it and turns out a proper job. Have another?’

  ‘I must be off.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I’ve work to do. You’ll be calling me a lazy devil next.’

  ‘What’s your hurry? Have you got a theory about the killer or are you on his trail?’

  Littlejohn shrugged.

  ‘No. Your guess it still as good as mine. But this isn’t the only case I’m on, you know. I’ve routine waiting for me at The Yard. Thanks for the drink.’

  Barnes saw him to the door and stood there, looking up and down the road, before they parted. He seemed to know everybody and greeted them loudly.

  ‘Mornin’, Joe.’

  ‘Morning, Sammy.’

  ‘Your car’ll be ready in the mornin’. I’ll be away, but Trodd’ll see you right.’

  He turned to Littlejohn.

  ‘In case you’re thinkin’ of havin’ me shadowed, or want to know my movements, to-morrer me and the missus is off to Eastbourne. A breath of sea does ’er good now and then. I think I told you she’s not been well.’

  ‘I hope you enjoy it and it does both of you a lot of good.’