Death on the Last Train (16 page)

She decided on the parlour.

“All right then, seein' as you've come to apolergize … Nobody can say that I bear ill feelin' and can't forgive an injury. What d'yer want?”

“I've been thinking that if you and I got together, you with your local knowledge and experience and I with my official powers and position, we might do something
to put an end to this affair that's wearing down Miss Emmott.”

“How?”

“We might talk it over.”

“I'd do anythin' to help the pore thing. A proper raw deal she's had … Well, you'd better come in. Finished yer tea, Mrs. Medlicott?”

The last sentence was addressed to a hook-nosed, anguished-looking woman with a pock-marked face and fluffy hair, who was sitting like a pillar of salt before a mess of tealeaves poured into a saucer. A lot of the followers of Mr. Lambert Hiss spent a weekly half-crown listening to Mrs. Bindfast telling them how their chances stood in the stars and tealeaves of becoming the trombonist's next. This lady was one of them. She had got very low and Mother Shipton had just been about to make a startling and invigorating revelation when Littlejohn knocked at the door.

“Finished yer tea yet, Mrs. Medlicott?” repeated the soothsayer, with a dark glance meant to imply that the fluffy widow had better play up and quickly.

“Tea? Eh?” muttered the dazed visitant, halted right on the threshold of hope.

Mrs. Bindfast threw a verbal hand grenade at her.

“This is Inspector What's-his-name from the police …”

Mrs. Medlicott rose like a sleep walker, made fending-off motions with her hands, and backed through the door and out into the night.

“Proper callin' place this is for people seekin' comfort and I allus gives 'em a nice cup o' tea and let 'em open their 'earts to me,” smiled Mrs. Bindfast casually picking up half-a-crown from the tablecloth and slipping it in her skirt pocket.

“How nice for them …”

“Would you like a cup o' tea?”

“No, thanks, Mrs. Bindfast. I can't stay long, but I'd like you to tell me as much as you can about Miss Emmott and her affairs. I've not come gossiping.
I want to know as much as I can about everybody connected with the late Mr. Bellis …”

“Tall order, that is. And besides, I'm not the one for broadcasting the confidences of pore souls as comes here to unburden themselves of their troubles. I don't talk about my friends behind theys backs.”

To tell the truth, Mrs. Bindfast didn't see why she should retail free of charge a vast fund of information which could be sold piecemeal at half a crown a time with the help of tealeaves and cards.

Littlejohn looked round the room. It was a stuffy, gloomy place with patches of damp on the walls and cluttered up with odds and ends of furniture. A photograph of a meek-looking, moustached man in brass-band uniform dominated the room from over the fireplace. He was clutching a euphonium. Presumably the absent or late Mr. Bindfast.

“Come, come, Mrs. Bindfast. I see you've just been fortune-telling for money …”

“Why, I never … You can't bully me … I know me rights …”

“You'd soon have a chance of testing them, too, if I told the local police. Now, suppose you give me a free seance. You needn't bother about the cards or brewing some more tea and I shan't accidentally leave half-a-crown on the table as I go out …”

“You … you … You can't prove a thing. All I does is done graytiss and free of charge. A bit o' fun …”

“We'll see about that when we question Mrs. Medlicott …”

“I was just saying when you was so rude as to interrupt me, I was just sayin' that seein' pore Bessie's in such trouble, I don't mind trying to make it easier for the pore dear. What d'you want?”

“First of all, had Miss Emmott any admirers besides Bellis?”

“Meanin' as was so jealous as they'd do him in to get
him out o' the way. This is Warrender Street, Mereton, not the Corsican Brothers, mister.”

“All the same, though I'm not seeking melodrama, I do want to know all I can about Miss Emmott's past and present and, as she's too upset at the moment to answer questions properly, as you well know from what happened this afternoon, I'd like you to fill the gap.”

“And you've come to the right one. Me with me seven children pickin' up news and with me work at lyin's-in and layin's-out, I gets confidences like. Most of the news comes my way sooner or later.”

“I'll bet it does!”

“Say that again! I'm no gossipin' nosey-parker. What comes my way comes in the ordinary course of me business and freely given. And I'll have you know it.”

“Let's get on with it then, Mrs. Bindfast.”

“What did you want to know?”

“What I said at first. Had Miss Emmott many admirers?”

Mrs. Bindfast seated herself on the couch, quite a performance of its kind, for it had to be done slowly and carefully for the sake of the springs and Mother Shipton's equilibrium. She fixed her eyes ahead like a medium going under, and drawing her dropsical ankles together, gave utterance.

“I see three or four admirers … a small dark man and …”

“Here, here, here, Mrs. Bindfast. This isn't a professional seance. Come down to earth and just talk …”

Mother Shipton gave Littlejohn an affronted look, like an artist told to paint a scene and merely handed a whitewash brush with which to do it.

“Well then, Bessie had two or three men after her besides Bellis. But she was loyal to Bellis, was Bessie. Oh yes, one man at a time for her … A one-man woman, so to speak, she was.”

“Go on …”

“Gimme time to think. They've been friendly, oh,
I'd say five years or more. It was goin' on before my 'usband was tuck and that's five years come six weeks. She moved in the shop about four years since. Previously lived in the end house of the next row down the street. She was sort of barmaid at the Union Club. A rare bonny girl and that good hearted …”

“What about the admirers?”

“I'm comin' to that if you'll give me a chance. Some o' the gents at the club would 'a been glad to marry her. Of that I'm sure. Very popular there was Bessie. Then she took up with Bellis, and before we knew what was happenin' she'd moved into the off-licence where she is now. Bellis paid for it … must 'a done. And then he started callin' there regular.”

“Yes, but what about the other admirers. Their names?”

“There was a chap called Shorecross got to bringin' her home in his car at nights after she done at the club. He was cashier at the local Co-op and got wrong in his books. Spendin' too much time and money at the club, I suppose. Anyhow, he got sent down for a six months' stretch and never come back here after.”

“Any more?”

“A chap as must 'a been a lot younger than Bessie. Turncote or somethin' his name was. Joined up when war broke out and got killed in 1940. So that was the end o' that.”

“What else?”

It was like wringing blood from a stone. Mrs. Bindfast just couldn't get out of the tricks of the trade. Half a tale and then another half-crown for more.

“And then there was Mr. Lambert Hiss …”

“Who?”

Littlejohn almost swallowed his pipe!

“Lambert Hiss. Finest trombone player ever in these parts. Finest in England, I'd say. Prizewinner all over the place. Crystal Paliss, Belle Vue, and I don't know where.”

“What about Hiss and Miss Emmott?”

“Well, Lambert's always bin a bit of a lonely man. You see, his wife was an invalid, often bedridden, on account of a number of operations, for the best part of ten years before she died …”

“So Mr. Hiss sought his pleasures elsewhere?”

“What are you suggestin'? Nothin' o' the kind. Mr. Lambert Hiss is a good man. A proper gentleman.”

“Yes, but he sought his diversions at Crystal Palace, Belle Vue and such places …”

“Oh, I see what you mean. Yes. He worked on the railway and then they'd the shop, which was a little gold mine before rationin' started. Mrs. Hiss minded that till she couldn't do it any more and then her sister came to live with them and looked after 'er and the shop. She left after Mrs. Hiss died and glad to go, if you ask me, after the cold-shouldering some o' them Mount 'oreb women gave 'er. But Lambert didn't and don't want none o' them 'orebers. Much though they fancied their chances. Lambert wanted Bessie.”

“You don't say?”

“I do. He usedter be a member of the Union Club, havin' a fair bit o' money from the shop and his job at the station. Besides, he was well thought of on account of being such a good musician. Moved among his equals at the club, did Lambert, though all the nibs of the town's members there.”

“And that's where he met Bessie?”

“Yes, I think so. Quite like a young lad he was about it. None o' your sweep 'em off their feet about Lambert. Steady and polite always. You'd see 'im pretendin' to take the dog for a walk along Warrender Street just at the time Bessie was turning out to go to the club. And on Sundays he'd be hangin' around. But the soul of honour, was Lambert. Faithful friend and lover, I allus said he wanted to be, and no disrespect to Mrs. Hiss, invalid though she was.”

“What happened?”

“Nothin'. It jest went on and on. Him seein' her at
the club and now and then walkin' home with her. Face beamin', just in his seventh heaven.”

“And Bellis stole her from under his very nose.”

“Well … Bellis was an old hand at the game. Just cut 'im out. Not that Bessie ever encouraged Mr. 'iss. It didn't make much difference to him, though. Right up to Bellis bein' killed, Mr. Hiss would come round here for his walks and quite happy if he see Bessie to raise his hat to.”

“Hoping, perhaps, that one day Bellis would die, or …”

“'ere. What you suggestin'? Last man in the world for a murder, is Mr. 'iss. Don't you be thinkin' things about him. Naturally, he hoped Bellis would get tired of Bessie or die a normal death. That's understandable. Especially after Mrs. 'iss passed on.”

“But he didn't intervene actively?”

“Say that again.”

“Mr. Hiss didn't try to interfere between Bessie and Bellis?”

“Not 'im. Not pushin' enough for that. Now, I wouldn't be surprised now that Bellis is dead if Lambert didn't try his luck. With his wife gone and Bellis out o' the way, there's no reason …”

“I'm a bit surprised to hear this. Didn't think a woman of Miss Emmott's type would appeal to Mr. Hiss.”

“Oh, you men! What a lot you are, to be sure. Love doesn't come by saying ‘I jest wish to fall in love with so-and-so.' It hits you like a ton o' bricks and neither you nor anybody else is goin' to know who's the lady till it 'appens.”

“You really think that it was love with Hiss?”

“Nothin' plainer. Love, pure and simple.”

“At his age?”

“Age? age? What's age got to do with it? Older the madder. If you knew some o' the things I've seen. Why …”

“All right, all right, Mrs. Bindfast. Let's get down to brass tacks.”

But Mrs. Bindfast was on her favourite topic, and not to be easily turned aside.

“An' it's not the nasty old men that gets it worst. Nice, decent, comfortable fellers—like Mr. 'iss—falls for it. It didn't matter what Bessie was, or 'ad been. To Mr. Hiss she was the woman who could make 'im 'appy. Good luck to 'im, I said at the time. All them 'orebers comin' asking what chance they got. An' me laughin' up me sleeve at 'em. Fat lot o' chance you got, I thinks, with Mr. Hiss set heart and soul on Bessie, and patient as the grave …”

“Patient as the grave, did you say?”

That was a new one!

“Yes. Ready to wait any length o' time, but all come to it.”

“Dear me!”

“It was a bit pathetic, you know. Mr. 'iss an artist, a musician to his very finger-tips. Got the temperament. They say it affected his playin'. Made 'im more meller, like, and a bit sorrowful. There was hardly a dry eye in the place when he'd play ‘Parted' or ‘Love's Old Sweet Song.' Sort o' playin' it for Bessie, he'd be, and those of us who knew it was cut to the quick …”

“Were you, indeed!”

“Yes. And don't you be mockin' either. Police or no police. I won't stand for that. I know a good piece of music when I hear one, and used to attend all the concerts the town band gave 'ere. See that 'armonium …?”

She pointed a fat finger at a strange piece of furniture in one corner, so cluttered up with rubbish that it was impossible to make out what it was.

“See that 'armonium? I usedter play that myself.”

“Sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. I was just astonished at your story.”

“Every bit of it true, and don't you dare doubt it. Bessie must 'ave known, but give 'im no encouragement. Just an 'opeless case of 'opeless luv.”

Mrs. Bindfast's huge bosom rose and fell with emotion,
and the springs of the couch groaned as she rocked herself to and fro in a spasm of sentimental anguish.

“What'll happen now that Bellis is out of the way, 'oo knows?”

With this candid denial of her reputed powers of seeing into the future, Mrs. Bindfast laboriously got to her feet, opened a corner cupboard and produced a bottle of gin.

“Will you take a drop?”

“No, thanks, I must be off.”

“You won't mind if I take a dose. Doctor's orders. ‘A tot o' gin now and then, Mrs. Bindfast,' he sez, ‘ 'll do you a world o' good. Keeps up the appetite and keeps down the blood pressure.' No use payin' for advice and not takin' it, is it?”

“No.”

Mrs. Bindfast poured a substantial dose in a cup and downed the lot with the ease of long practice.