Death on the Last Train (15 page)

“Police?” he said.

Littlejohn nodded.

“We've been expectin' you. Come to see Alice haven't you? We've bin prayin' for Alice … We've
'ad her before the Throne of Grace. Our lamb's come home.”

Littlejohn couldn't quite gather what it was all about, for he didn't know all the family background. There had been a tussle between Bessie, representing the sinners' side of the family, and the Binnses, the righteous, and after a temporary setback Solomon and Priscilla had won.

Will you go, oh, will you go …?

“Priscilla!”

The singing ceased at Solomon's shout and the little woman popped into the shop from the back room, which constituted the living quarters of the couple.

“You said that Bessie would set the police on Alice, Priscilla. Here they are …”

Mrs. Binns' face, high cheek-boned, pointed chinned, with steel-grey eyes, lit up.

“That's what we wanted. She's told me everything. Indeed she has. Very wrong she's been, but not past redemption. She must confess to the proper quarter, take her punishment and then start with a clean slate.”

“I hope it's not as bad as that, Mrs. Binns … Where is she?”

“In the back place. Sorry she is, and ready to tell you all.”

Littlejohn got the feeling that this pair had been putting Alice through some sort of religious third-degree. He would have liked to interview her alone, but that didn't seem possible.

Binns had been quietly rocking again, but now rose to his feet.

“Come along, Inspector …”

They made their way through stacks of old furniture, bedding and upholsterer's tackle, like the stragglers of the Children of Israel breasting the Red Sea.

The room behind was surprising. In the course of his lifetime as a furniture dealer, Binns had collected a number of very fine pieces and had them arrayed and well cared for in their own quarters. Corner cupboards, case clocks,
an antique chest and a very fine mahogany mule-chest used as a sideboard. There was some valuable china in a display cabinet and a number of figures, Dresden, Bow, and Staffordshire, scattered about. All shining with good care and polishing, probably the work of Mrs. Binns to the accompaniment of inspiring hymns.

Alice was sitting before the fire. She had lost all her spirit and sparkle. Her eyebrows were as astonished as ever, but her colour had gone. Her eyes were ringed with dark circles.

“Hullo, Miss Bryan …”

“Good evening, Mr. Littlejohn. Uncle said you'd be comin'.”

“Yes. Your aunt Bessie didn't send me, of course. I'm here following information that you were friendly with the dead man in his last days and want you to tell me as much as you can about it.”

Solomon Binns regarded them benignly from the doorway. Then he rolled to another rocking chair and got busy again. Bumpity-bump. Retired Professor Rain-rider, that great scholar whose discovery that Shakespeare spelled his name Shagsper shook academic circles forty years ago, and who used to call at the repository hunting for bargains, never called Binns anything but Jérôme Coignard. He had even gone so far as to show Solomon a woodcut of the Abbé in a fine-art edition of the works of Anatole France. Mr. Binns, thinking that profligate priest was a French saint, regarded this as a compliment. He would have preferred him to belong to his own sect, the Pentecostal Wrestlers, instead of Rome, but one couldn't have it every way …

“Open your heart to the gentleman, Alice
bach
,” said her aunt, and Mr. Binns nodded his head in benediction.

“I wonder if I could have a word with her alone,” said Littlejohn, taking the bull by the horns.

He had no wish to make the event into an Inquisition.

Mr. and Mrs. Binns seemed quite at a loss. They had looked forward to giving Alice a sort of moral dry-cleaning
with the police there to support them. Solomon stopped his rocking halfway with such a start that he only recovered his balance with difficulty. His wife's face set like granite.

“But …but …”

“
Please
, Aunt Priscilla …
Please
, Uncle Solomon …”

“I must ask you to do this, if you will. I think she'll feel freer to talk if we're alone. If you like, we'll take a turn down the road …”

The Binns couple looked horrified at the thought of it.

“No,” said Solomon quietly. “You two stay here. We'll go in the shop …”

“But she's not fit to be left … Her health …”

“Come.”

Solomon having put his foot down, his wife followed him.

Littlejohn rose and closed the connecting door.

“Now, Alice. Let's get it over. You feel all right?”

“Yes, Mr. Littlejohn, but I don't quite know whether I'm on my head or my heels. I'm not a bad girl …”

“I know you're not …”

“But they make me feel filthy some way. Keep on at me about being a sinner, and bein' washed white, and strayin' from the fold …”

“Forget it. You've just struck a packet of bad luck being mixed up in this affair. You'll get over it. You're young enough. Now, Alice, tell me about you and Mr. Bellis and you and young Luxmore.”

“I've finished with Harry Luxmore. I never did worse than have more drink than was good for me with him. When he tried taking liberties, I slapped his face and told him I'd done. Most of us had boys at the camp. I got knocking about with Harry. But I found he wasn't my sort. Always boastin' of his money and showin' off. I got fed up. That's all there was to it.”

“And when you broke with him, did Luxmore get nasty?”

“A bit. Not bad, though. He just couldn't understand why a girl should give him the go-by. Thought
you'd just be tumbling over yourself with his charm and the money he spent. Some of the girls were always ready for him to pav for drinks and maul them. I got I couldn't stand him. He said he wanted me to go places with him. He might even settle down, he said, and perhaps marry me if I'd be nice to him. His ideas of bein' nice and mine weren't the same.”

“I see. And what about Bellis?”

Outside Mr. Binns' rockers could be heard hard at it.' But his wife was not singing. She was hanging over the counter, scowling like mad.

“Oh, stop that rockin'. Can't hear a thing for it. It's getting on my nerves. Indeed it is.”

Solomon almost rolled from his perch at such backsliding.

“I met 'im at Aunt Bessie's when I was on leave once. He gave me a pound when I went back and said I was to regard him as my uncle. Then, when I was ill in hospital, he sent me things. Flowers and fruit. A girl likes to think somebody's thinkin' about her, especially when those who should be doin', send the wrong things. Harry sent a bottle of wine and got shirty with the nurse when she said I hadn't to touch alcohol. Tried to force me to have a drink …”

“Yes. And then Bellis …?”

“Well. I was sent to the rest camp near Brighton. One day Mr. Bellis turned up and said he was staying at Brighton for a week for his health, too. Could he call every day and he'd try to give me a good time? He seemed to have plenty of money … I couldn't say no to him, especially as he was Aunt Bessie's friend. We went for rides in the country and he took me out to meals. So considerate he was about the food, too, me bein' on a diet. Beautiful manners, he had. Sort of old-world …”

“So I believe. It was a way he had …”

“Never took any liberties, except that he wanted to kiss me when he left me … And he got sort of hintin' that this was better than being with Aunt Bessie. I told
him I wouldn't come again if he talked like that about Bessie. He said he didn't mean it and on the last day, he bought me a lovely leather bag. Cost quite a lot. I was so surprised that I forgot to thank him proper for that and the good time he gave me. So I wrote 'im a letter. Aunt Bessie got the letter an' accused me of carryin' on with him. As if I would …”

“Have you two finished yet?”

Mrs. Binns' anxious head appeared round the door. She gave them a spiteful, scrutinous look, as though trying to read their thoughts or induce them to ask her to join in.

“Not quite, Mrs. Binns. Give us another minute. We're getting along fine.”

There was a sniff and the door closed again.

“You remember my first call, Alice? Had you and Miss Emmott quarrelled about the letter then?”

“Yes. But I told her there was nothin' wrong. Nothin' to go on like that about. At first she took my word and calmed down. But it seemed to rankle. She'd flare up and accuse me of all sorts of awful things behind her back. We'd have another set-to and there'd be tears shed and we'd make it up. But it got too much for me. I packed my bag and came here. It's the only other place I've got. I wish sometimes I'd stayed with Bessie. She does come out with it and say what she means. But Priscilla and Solomon won't call a spade a spade. It's all sin and flesh and forsakin' the path. I might never have tried to be decent.”

It was pathetic. The large troubled eyes and those eyebrows at such a silly angle giving the face an astonished look. And the Binnses carrying on a softening-up process with their revivalist gunfire.

“You really ought to have stayed with Miss Emmott, you know. She's badly in need of you. Last time I was there … earlier to-day, in fact, she was quite ill and had to get a woman in from down the street to look after her. You'd be good for each other, the pair of you. No business of mine, of course, but …”

“Can I come back as you go?”

“What will the Binnses say? They'll think I'm leading you astray again.”

“Let them. Can I come?”

“If you like.”

“Right. I'll pack …”

“First of all, though … were you in when Miss Emmott got back home after seeing Mr. Bellis to the train on the night he died?”

“Yes.”

“How did she seem?”

“At first she looked all broken up. Awful. No colour and just flopped down in a chair and cried. I heard her come in, so came downstairs. The shop was shut and I was gettin' ready for bed. She turned on me, showed me the letter he'd dropped and she'd read, and then we had an awful row. We were still at it when the police car came for her. I stayed on, because I couldn't very well leave her like that … and besides, I couldn't roam the streets at that hour, though I felt like it.”

“You were in when the police arrived?”

“Yes.”

“Did they tell her he was dead?”

“Yes.”

“How did she take it?”

“Awful. Just wouldn't believe it. Said she'd seen him safe on the train and he was all right when it went. She said somethin' about those who wrote the letters killin' him. I didn't know what it was all about …”

“And you think she seemed genuinely surprised and distressed when she heard he was dead?”

“As sure as I'm standing here.”

“You don't think she killed him for what she thought you and he had been doing?”

“Never. She was too soft hearted for that. Had a terrible temper when she was roused, but never lost control of herself enough to kill anybody.”

“And since then, has she shown any sign of guilt?
I mean, remorse or talking about it … You understand what I mean?”

“Yes. I understand. I'd just as soon think I'd done it myself. She's the last person … In fact, even with what she thought had been goin' on, she loved him. Funny …”

“Right. Thanks, Alice. And now, if you're coming back in the police car with me, you'd better talk to your relatives and get packed.”

The Binnses took it very badly. Mrs. Binns even broke into Welsh invective at Littlejohn and then switched back into English. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing, an agent of the devil, a corrupter of innocents …

Mr. Binns continued rocking, his eyes on Littlejohn's face. The Inspector thought now and again that there was a flicker of understanding and sympathy in the mild blue eyes.

Alice came downstairs with her grip packed and thanked her relatives and bade them good-bye. Mrs. Binns didn't speak, gave her a perforating glare and hurried upstairs slamming the door. Solomon stood on his tiptoes, thereby managing to reach the girl's cheek, and kissed her.

“Be a good girl,” he said. “I'll be prayin' for yer.”

And then he started business in his rocking chair. Bump, bump, bumpity-bump. Just like M. Jérôme Coignard, he thought. How right he was!

Littlejohn made a final call after he had seen Alice safely reconciled to Bessie. Mrs. Bindfast had retired to her own home a few doors down the street. She was the one he wished to see. She was apparently the wise woman of the neighbourhood, the Mother Shipton,
the midwife, corpse-washer and oracle rolled into one. She had left Miss Emmott greatly comforted by ascertaining from the leaves of a nice cup o' tea that good times were ahead for Bessie, that small dark men and tall fair ones were about to compete strenuously for her hand and that she was about to leave the off-licence for a little grey home in Mereton West and raise a brood of children.

Mrs. Bindfast could hardly believe her eyes when she opened the door and by the dim light saw Littlejohn standing there. She thought there was something unpleasant afoot. She was in the habit of crystal gazing, horoscope casting and palm reading for money and knew it would never do for the police to find out.

“Go away!” she said rudely. “You and me's had enough to do with one another for one day.”

Littlejohn was in the little dark lobby before Mrs. Bindfast could say Jack Robinson.

“Good evening, Mrs. Bindfast. Could I have a word or two with you …? I'm sorry about our little tiff earlier on. We were all keyed up, weren't we? Miss Emmott fainting and all that.”

Mother Shipton paused significantly. Littlejohn wondered whether or not she was going to use force to get him out. Actually, she was thinking hard. She had a woman half way through the tealeaves in her little parlour, whilst on the kitchen table were spread out the tools of her horoscopical trade, a tablecloth embroidered in red with the signs of the zodiac, a strange instrument almost a cross between a compass and a sextant used for casting horoscopes, and a large book filled with symbols, mumbo-jumbo and jiggery-pokery.