The Body in the Dumb River Read online

  ‘I don’t understand why anybody wanted to kill James.’

  ‘We’ll try to find out, Mrs. Teasdale.’

  ‘I still think it’s a matter of mistaken identity. When I see the body, I’m sure it won’t be his.’

  Outside, the sun was struggling through a mist which rose from the sodden earth. The cathedral towered over the housetops. People were about their business on the streets as though everything were ordinary and the tragedies of the floods and murder were far away. Now and then a squad of police or firemen rushed past in a car.

  A police sergeant called to take them to the mortuary.

  ‘I can’t face it.’

  Mrs. Teasdale stood like someone in a trance at the door of the hotel.

  Barbara took her in hand.

  ‘What have we come all this way for? Pull yourself together.’

  Opposite the mortuary was a café in which people were drinking morning coffee and reading the daily papers. Mrs. Teasdale seemed to see nothing of what was going on around her. She was concentrating on the task in hand, her lips in a firm line, her leather handbag tightly gripped in her fingers.

  The coroner’s officer joined them and muttered condolences. Mrs. Teasdale didn’t seem to hear. Barbara thanked him instead.

  Littlejohn dreaded his second meeting with the dead man. Now that he knew more about him, he was filled with compassion for him. James Teasdale had been knocked about from pillar to post by his wife and her family; dogged by ill-luck in business. A no-good bum, his father-in-law had called him. Then, he’d found a bit of peace with Martha Gomm and some respite from his creditors and his extravagant family in a job which the Scott-Harris clan couldn’t believe existed. He’d fled from the torture of the life in Basilden and found happiness in a roving existence. And now he’d ended up on the slab in the morgue…

  They were there. The attendant and the rest were speaking in whispers. The body was on a trolley covered by a sheet. Mrs. Teasdale stood for a second, holding her breath. Then she looked at the calm face of the dead man.

  She didn’t even cry out. Neither did Barbara, who peeped over her shoulder. They were all waiting for what the widow was going to do. Her reaction was surprising. She turned brusquely to Littlejohn.

  ‘It is my husband. How dare they strip him naked? I never saw him naked before in my life. He was not that sort…’

  Barbara wondered what was coming next. She hastily took her mother by the arm and led her out. The men in attendance gave each other blank looks. One of them shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

  ‘She’s a queer one. Not a tear or a sigh. Instead, she’s worrying about him bein’ in his birthday suit!’

  Littlejohn stooped and picked up the black leather handbag which had slipped from Mrs. Teasdale’s hands as she faced her dead husband. The leather still bore the marks—eight of them—where she had driven her fingernails as she faced the ordeal.

  ‘At a time like this, people don’t know what they’re saying. They say anything,’ he said. And he followed the widow into the open air.

  6

  Ticket to Norwich

  Littlejohn was quite at a loss. The coroner had adjourned the inquest after Mrs. Teasdale had given evidence of identification and the police surgeon had made his report. The doctor seemed sure of only one thing; that Teasdale had been murdered. And, of course, that probably an hour or two before he died, he’d eaten a meal of corned beef and tomatoes, and washed it down with tea. The time of death was uncertain. The body had been immersed and tossed about in the cold waters of the river. Temperature was, therefore, not a sure way of determining the precise hour.

  Cromwell had carefully checked the movements of everybody who might have been concerned and had business with Teasdale. It might have been reasonable to think that Martha Gomm and Teasdale had quarrelled and that she had stabbed him. But Martha Gomm could account for her movements between six in the morning and the time she’d met Littlejohn. She said she had been awakened at an early hour by the floods and that she and her landlady had been together, engaged in salvage and precautions all the rest of the day. Mrs. Southery and a number of villagers with whom she had worked confirmed it.

  Corned beef and tomatoes! And according to medical evidence, eaten an hour or two before death. Cromwell, with his usual energetic initiative had, during Littlejohn’s absence, enquired in most of the cafés in Ely if Teasdale had eaten there on the day he died. An hour might have passed quite reasonably between his eating in Ely and reaching the spot where he’d been murdered. No results.

  The rescued rattletrap of a car found by the riverside, the car in which Teasdale and Martha Gomm had travelled from fair to fair, had been carefully examined. The only reason for its giving out had, according to experts, been shortage of petrol. The tank was empty.

  Mrs. Teasdale had recovered her equanimity very quickly after her visit to the mortuary. She had appeared in the coroner’s court spruce and tidy and had given her evidence sensibly and clearly. No scenes; no tears. She attached herself to Littlejohn as they left the court.

  ‘What do we do now? Can I take his poor body home with me?’

  ‘Yes. I gather the undertakers have made all arrangements. It is already in a coffin and can travel on the same train with you, if you wish.’

  ‘I would like that.’

  The formalities were ended and there was a train at two o’clock or thereabouts. They had booked a room for Mrs. Teasdale at The Bell, although she wasn’t staying the night. She and Barbara seemed without friends and forlorn and Littlejohn suggested that they lunch with him and Cromwell at the hotel.

  ‘I think Mother would like to lie down in her room till train time. Perhaps they would send up a light meal and some tea for her. I’m sure she doesn’t feel like eating much…’

  They arranged it the way Barbara suggested and the remaining three of them took their meal in the dining-room.

  Littlejohn didn’t know what to do next. Did the solution lie at Martha Gomm’s end of Teasdale’s affairs; or was it hidden somewhere back at Basilden?

  Over coffee, he opened the matter again.

  ‘Do you feel able to answer a few more questions, Miss Barbara?’

  Barbara and her mother, for that matter, didn’t seem prostrated by Teasdale’s death. They took it very philosophically. Perhaps because he’d been so little at home in late years and they’d managed to do without him. His many absences had almost divorced him from the family in High Street and now that the first shock was over, they had quickly recovered.

  Barbara even smiled.

  ‘Yes. I want to help to clear matters up. Whoever committed the crime oughtn’t to get away with it.’

  ‘What time, then, did your father leave home on Sunday evening?’

  ‘Around seven o’clock. Irene hadn’t long been gone to church, which starts at 6.30.’

  ‘Did he usually come home in his car?’

  ‘Yes. It was a bit of a disgrace and we tried to persuade him to buy another, even if he’d to get it on the H.P. But he said the one he had was all right and gave him very little trouble. It was an old one, I know.’

  Probably Teasdale had thought a new car too opulent for his use at fairs and had stuck to the old one. Of course, his family hadn’t known that and he hadn’t been able to explain. Littlejohn could well imagine the family, particularly Barbara and her medical consultant, wishing he’d change it and stop putting them to shame!

  ‘He left in it last Sunday?’

  ‘Yes. He garaged it in a wooden shed in the yard behind the shop.’

  ‘Did he have a meal before he left home?’

  ‘Yes. The doctor mentioned it in court.’

  Littlejohn paused in filling his pipe.

  ‘Corned beef and tomatoes. I felt so ashamed. It sounded so common. But he’d had a good high tea at about five. Then, about half
an hour before he was due to go, Mother told me he said he’d better have a snack, as it would be breakfast before he ate again. We’d only tinned stuff in. The joint was finished for lunch. He liked corned beef and had a weakness for tomatoes.’

  She talked on and on, excusing herself for the vulgarity of the contents of the dead man’s stomach, which had come out so pointedly in the coroner’s court.

  Littlejohn wasn’t listening.

  Teasdale’s supper had only been half digested when he died. And his body had been found in the Dumb River. He could not have covered the distance from Basilden in an hour.

  So, someone had brought his dead body there!

  Cromwell had understood, too.

  ‘Had I better tell the local police to let the Tylecote people know you’re going back to Basilden, sir?’

  ‘Please do, old man. And then go back to Tylecote and see if you can find anything more about Mr. Teasdale’s movements and background there and on his travels. Talk with Martha Gomm again…’

  Barbara paused with her coffee cup half-way to her lips.

  ‘Martha Gomm? Whoever’s that?’

  ‘The woman who worked for him at the fairgrounds. She looked after the stall when he was away. You saw her in court this morning.’

  Barbara blushed and looked him in the eyes angrily. She understood, but didn’t say any more.

  ‘I’ll go and see to Mother.’

  ‘Very good. We’ll meet in the porch. I’ll order a taxi to the station.’

  He was sorry when the time came and he had to say good-bye to Cromwell.

  ‘Telephone me at the Basilden police station, old chap. If you exhaust the possibilities in Tylecote, I’ll probably ask you to join me in the north. I’ll need some moral support, I’m sure.’

  It was dark when they reached Basilden. A coffin-car was waiting for the remains of James Teasdale. Here, he wasn’t Jim Lane, fairground operative, any more. He was James Teasdale, commercial traveller, Jack-of-all-trades, the no-good bum, as old Scott-Harris called him…

  The coffin was going to someone’s funeral parlour for the night, until arrangements could be made.

  The journey north had seemed interminable. Littlejohn had spent much of the time in the corridor smoking his pipe, the very sight of which had made Mrs. Teasdale start coughing. She had sat silent for most of the way, gripping her black leather handbag, now and then shedding a few tears. Sometimes, she’d speak, mainly about funeral arrangements. Who to invite, where to hold it, the pros and cons of cremation or burial. She’d even got the menu for the meal afterwards. By the time they reached Sheffield, it had all been tidily arranged. Barbara had made a list of mourners and memoranda about the sequence of events. A schedule of the day’s formalities.

  The station was deserted and the funeral men performed their duties in silence, reverently panting and heaving as they unloaded the remains. The stationmaster was on duty and arrived to express his condolences with the widow. He was a tall, dyspeptic-looking man with a long red nose and sighed again and again as he watched the gruesome task unfolding. Now and then, he warned the handlers to be careful. The engine driver was impatient to be off. He was late already. He even left his locomotive to find the guard and complain. ‘We’ve not got all night. I could have done it quicker myself.’

  Littlejohn took the stationmaster aside.

  ‘I’d like a word with you later, in private.’

  The stationmaster examined him carefully under the gas-lamp.

  ‘I’ll have to see this business over first.’

  He was sucking peppermint lozenges and breathed a blast over Littlejohn.

  ‘Later, then. When the ladies have gone.’

  Littlejohn saw them off in a taxi.

  ‘I’ll follow on foot.’

  The stationmaster was called McHarry and led Littlejohn to his office. A small, stuffy room, smelling of peppermint and old air, littered with forms and ornamented with ancient posters. Come to Skegness. Blackpool in the Autumn. Five Days in Paris for Ten Pounds. That must have been a long time ago!

  ‘Well, sir. I suppose you represent the police.’

  ‘My name’s Littlejohn. Superintendent Littlejohn, of Scotland Yard.’

  It put the stationmaster out of countenance. He whistled.

  ‘By jove! They intend to find out who did for poor Teasdale, don’t they? Scotland Yard, eh? That’ll give them something to talk about!’

  And he rooted about until he’d found a moth-eaten old cushion and placed it on his official plain-wood chair.

  ‘Sit down, sir.’

  ‘I just wanted to ask you if you’d issued any tickets to one place or another lately.’

  ‘We issue them to all over the country here. You’d be surprised.’

  Littlejohn took out an old envelope on which he’d copied out the recent schedule of Teasdale’s fairground visits.

  Lowestoft, Banbury, Blisworth, Evesham, Midhurst…

  Mr. McHarry looked flabbergasted.

  ‘What’s all this about?’

  ‘It’s confidential, but I assure you, has to do with the case we’re on about the murder of James Teasdale.’

  The stationmaster looked at Littlejohn as if he’d gone mad. He took off his official cap and slapped his bald head as though trying to stimulate his brain to a clearer understanding. He looked better without his cap, which was a size too large for him.

  ‘Well, you know best, but it seems queer to me.’

  He took out a bunch of keys and went and opened an old safe under a desk along one side of the dismal room. Then he turned and brought with him a large dog-eared book. His stomach rumbled in protest and he slipped another white tablet in his mouth.

  ‘This is the record of tickets issued. Blessed if we’ve issued tickets to any of those places in the last few weeks. They’re summer resorts by the sound of them. Nobody in Basilden wants to go so far at this time of year. However, we can only have a look.’

  He cleared a space among the decaying waybills and circulars which loaded the desk and began to thumb the ledger.

  It took a long time. Mr. McHarry was a resolute and finicky man. When he made a statement, he was always sure it was right. He checked the entries three times before he made a pronouncement.

  ‘We’ve not issued any tickets to those places since summer. Before then, I wouldn’t know without going back in the book.’

  There was a large map of the British Isles on the wall, flyblown and soiled from many years of hanging there. Littlejohn went over to it and stood contemplating it. Mr. McHarry joined him and contemplated it with him. They sought and found each of the places on Littlejohn’s list. It seemed a forlorn search. Littlejohn was wondering if anyone who knew Teasdale in Basilden had visited one of the fairs and come upon James Lane at his hoop-la pitch and had somehow become involved in the great deception.

  He drew an imaginary circle round each place and examined the towns within it. Mr. McHarry stood breathing down his collar, wondering what eccentricity his visitor was up to.

  Then they began to play a kind of game. Littlejohn recited the names of towns near Teasdale’s stopping-places at fairs and Mr. McHarry looked in his book.

  ‘No… None there… Nothing to Oxford. Nothing to Leamington…’

  The stationmaster was getting rattled. Trains came and went and the porter on the platform kept entering and leaving the office with queries and questions, which his inquisitive mind had concocted to enable him to find out what was going on. He received no satisfaction. In the end, Mr. McHarry, exasperated by events, told him to clear off and stay out. The porter withdrew, contemplating making a complaint to his union.

  ‘Norwich…’ It wasn’t far from Lowestoft.

  Mr. McHarry almost shouted with triumph.

  ‘Yes! Second return, exactly ten days ago.’

 
‘Can you tell me who you issued it to?’

  The stationmaster sighed wearily.

  ‘I’m not the booking-clerk. He’s gone off duty and I’m only doing it temporary tonight because his wife’s having a baby and I let him off, see? But I think I know who booked it. It was Harry Wood.’

  ‘Who’s Harry Wood?’

  The stationmaster obviously pitied Littlejohn for his ignorance.

  ‘He’s the best bass singer for miles round here. He’s won prizes at musical festivals all over the country. It was in the local paper that he was going singing at Norwich musical festival. He didn’t win anything. Do him good. He’s got a bit swelled-headed, has Harry. A set-back now and again is good for a swelled head. Don’t you think I’m right?’

  ‘I’m sure you are. Where does this Harry Wood live?’

  ‘Seymour Grove, just off the Birkbeck Road. Anybody’ll tell you. I can’t be sure it’s him, but he’s not got a car, so he’d have to go by train. I’ll check it with Arthur—that’s the booking-clerk—when he turns up in the morning. And I hope his kid’s come into the world tonight. He’s been wrong in his tickets for more than a fortnight with his worries. It’s his first, and both him and his wife are nearly forty. So it’s been a strain.

  ‘Will that be all, Superintendent? I’ve a lot to see to and I’ll have to be getting to my duties…’

  Littlejohn strolled down the long, dingy road to High Street again. The shops were all closed, but there were lights on in the houses and pubs. There was hardly a soul about. The dismal lighting of the streets made the place look like somewhere in the underworld. Now and then a car passed, driven as though the owner were anxious to get away from it all.

  There would probably be another family gathering, an orgy of reproaches and lamentations for the returned James Teasdale. Littlejohn felt he couldn’t face it. It was past seven o’clock and he had to arrange for dinner and a place to stay the night. He also wanted to telephone to Cromwell and tell him to enquire from Martha Gomm if Teasdale had, during the past few weeks, encountered someone he knew from Basilden during his tour of fairs. He turned in at the police station.