Death on the Last Train (6 page)

“Poetry … No use for that stuff,” belched Tarrant peering over Littlejohn's arm.

“Shut up!” rapped Littlejohn. Tarrant recoiled like one who has been suddenly bitten by a docile looking dog.

“I wasn't doin' anythin'. No offensh meant.”

“Do you know this writing?”

“Never seen it before. Not Mrs. Bellis's … Not the boss's.”

“Could it have been Mrs. Bellis's first husband's?”

“No … I remember the boss finding some letters of his in the missus's desk after she died. Showed 'em to me. Couldn't hardly read the writin'. Now
that
, you can read …”

He pointed to the inscription in the book which Littlejohn was still holding.

“You can read that … I can read it meshelf … Helen, thy beauty ish …”

“That'll do, Tarrant,” said Littlejohn snapping the book. “I'll keep this.”

He slipped the volume in his pocket. He didn't really know why, but felt it would save its being mauled about in further searches and perhaps the inscription read by louts like Tarrant. He locked the desk and bookcase and pocketed the key.

“I'm going now, Tarrant, and if I were you, I wouldn't take any more of Mr. Bellis's whisky,” he said in leaving. “His brother's due any time and may not like it.”

Littlejohn left him staring vacantly at the empty bottles and let himself out into the rain.

The Inspector soon finished his business at Ellinborne and returned to Salton in the police car in time for tea. He had arranged by telephone that morning for his colleague, Sergeant Cromwell, to join him in the investigation and, thinking his assistant might have better luck in travelling than he himself had enjoyed yesterday, he strolled to the station to meet the 5.45 train in.

It was still blowing a gale, with intermittent showers of driven rain. Pedestrians struggled to keep on their feet and fought the wind. The harbour was full of small craft sheltering until an improvement in the weather.

The Inspector was in good time at the station and spent the quarter-hour he had to spare looking over again the railway carriage in which Bellis had been murdered and which stood dripping in the open siding behind the platforms.

The policeman on duty was sitting in one of the carriages munching sandwiches and drinking tea from a Thermos flask. He jerked to his feet like a spring-heeled-Jack
when Littlejohn tapped on the window. Frantically he chewed a mouthful of food trying to dispose of it and give tongue.

“Don't disturb yourself, officer. Just give me the carriage key, please. I want to look over the compartment where the crime occurred. Get on with your tea, man …”

The bobby struggled frenziedly in his hip pocket, which his ample rolls of flesh seemed to fill and keep tightly closed, and finally brought out the key. He was trying to salute, put on his helmet, conceal his food and drink and comport himself deferentially at the same time. Littlejohn left him to sort himself out.

The Inspector climbed into the compartment without much difficulty. He carefully noted the span from the permanent way to the first step into the carriage. It was not excessive. In fact, a child could have managed it. The rain had completely washed away any traces that might have remained on the outside. Not that there would have been any distinctive ones on the battered, badly painted exterior.

It was the same inside the compartment. Everything had been left as it was when the murder was discovered. Filthy piece of worn carpet on the floor, presumably to distinguish first from third class … Cigarette ends, spent matches, bits of paper. Blinds torn and bedraggled and the netting of the luggage rack dangling in large holes. Pictures of holiday resorts fading in frames above the seats, Llandudno, Ribble Valley, Bournemouth and Port Erin, I.O.M. A cracked mirror with a label stuck on it.
Repair: broken mirror.

A really sordid setting for what looked like turning out to be a sordid crime.

The whistle of an incoming train sounded and Littlejohn locked the compartment. After the inquest on the morrow it would probably be put back into service, bloodstains and all.

The guardian bobby had his mouth empty this time and his helmet on. He sprang to attention and saluted
smartly, hand and arm trembling with tension. Littlejohn gave him a cheery nod and handed back the key.

“That was better,” muttered the constable to himself. “Impressed him that time.” And he set about his meat and drink again with relish, consuming both at once, copiously.

Littlejohn was just in time to see Cromwell step from the train and have his hat blown off by the gale. He caught sight of his assistant's bowler and what he called his showerproof—a cross between an overcoat and a fawn raincoat—with a large expanse of white collar above it. Then the wind seized the hat and blew it right out to sea. It was later found in a dock basin many miles up the coast and, suspecting a suicide, the powers-that-be there dragged the water unsuccessfully …

Cromwell was disconsolate and needed dinner and a drink before he regained his good spirits, which were not
allegro
at the best of times. Littlejohn told him all about the crime over stewed mutton, carrots, soapy potatoes and spongy rice pudding. Fortunately the beer was good.

“So now, Cromwell, I propose to pay a visit to Miss Emmott at her home and discreetly find out something about the private life of Mr. Bellis. I don't know what sort of a house she lives in. 21, Warrender Street, Mereton, is the address Forrester gave me. A place where a virtuous policeman must take a chaperon. That'll be you, Cromwell.”

“Yes, sir. When do we start?” said the sergeant, who seemed to be washing the beer round his mouth to take away the flavour of the pudding.

“As soon as we can. The police car's calling at seven-thirty.”

“I've not got a hat … and the shops 'll all be closed. I'll have to put my cap on …”

They started out with Cromwell wearing a check tweed cap, which suited him very well but which embarrassed him as being unsuitable gear in which to investigate murder.

They were in for a surprise at Mereton. 21, Warrender Street was a shop. Littlejohn shone his torch on the sign above the door.

BESSIE EMMOTT,
Licensed to sell Ale, Porter and Tobacco.
To be consumed OFF the Premises.

There was no window display. Only an orderly row of empty beer bottles and advertisements for ale, stout and tobacco.

A spring bell over the door rang as the two detectives entered. A woman was standing on the customers' side of the counter with two empty jugs before her. Three beer pumps fixed at the end of the counter. Bottled beers and stout, packets of cigarettes and tobacco on the shelves behind. Little else for sale.

Nobody answered the bell. The woman, a little shrivelled shrimp with a shawl thrown over her head, had apparently been making no effort to attract attention, for there was the sound of voices raised in the room behind.

It was difficult to make out what was being said, but now and then a word or two escaped through the glass panelled door covered by a red curtain which divided the front from the back.

“Ought to be ashamed of yourself …”

“I'm not being
your
servant …”

“Better pack up and get goin' then … want no idlers here …”

Littlejohn caught the eye of the eavesdropping woman, who looked sheepish and beat the counter with the bottom of her jug.

“Shop!!” she bleated.

There was silence in the room next door and then a rush of feet hurrying upstairs.

Bessie Emmott entered, her face red with rage, her hair a disordered golden mass as though somebody had just run angry hands through it.

Without a word she drew two pints of beer for the
woman in the shawl, took her money and dismissed her with a look. The woman backed to the door, like someone mesmerised, probably hoping for a confession or expression of opinion concerning the party with whom hostilities had just been broken off. But none came and she reached the door and the darkness beyond into which she vanished with her supper drinks.

“What do
you
want? Thought we'd settled all our business.”

Bessie was in no mood for courtesies.

“You remember me, then, Miss Emmott?”

“Not likely to forget last night for a long time. Better come in the living room. Doesn't do respectable people any good bein' mixed up with the police … 'specially when you keep a shop.”

“Thank you, Miss Emmott. This is my colleague, Sergeant Cromwell.”

Cromwell, forgetful, tried to raise his cap like a bowler and failed miserably. He followed Littlejohn and Miss Emmott into the back room.

A cosy sort of den with a couple of easy chairs by the fire. A modern grate, cheap oak dining table and new yellow oak suite and sideboard. Brewers' almanacs on the walls and two sentimental pictures, reproductions, in dark oak frames.
The Tryst,
showing lovers draped over a stile in costumes like a fancy-dress ball, and
The Reconciliation,
an aged and angry father, with a sword in one hand and the hand of his eloping son-in-law in the other, embracing his daughter in a sort of gymnastic feat. Ugly modern jugs and cups and plates described as Presents from Eastbourne, Southport or Penzance on the mantelpiece and on brackets fixed here and there on the walls.

So Timothy Bellis, would-be connoisseur of pictures and china, had come down to this!

There was a circulating library romance, some magazines, the evening paper and an empty beer bottle and glass on the table. Bessie cleared them away almost with
a sweep of the hand, and dumped them on the top of the wireless set in one corner.

“Can't say I've not been expecting you. I suppose you'll not be off the doorstep till the affair's cleared up …”

“I wouldn't say that, Miss Emmott. We wanted a bit of information about Mr. Bellis's past life …”

“Dirty past, I suppose you're thinkin'. Well, there's none of that about it. The best o' friends was Tim and me and I'm not the one to be washin' dirty linen with him not cold in his grave …”

Tears flowed again and Bessie wept into her handkerchief, her large bosom shaken with sobbing. She leaned against the tiled mantelpiece for support. Then, as suddenly, the tears ceased and she sniffed and blinked her eyes.

“Sit down then, both of you. What do you want to know?”

Overhead they could hear footsteps going to and fro in the bedroom. Opening of drawers and bumping and banging as though someone were loading a suitcase. The bell in the shop rang.

Bessie Emmott walked to the foot of the stairs, which rose from the living-room behind a partition with a door shutting them off at the bottom.

“Alice! Come and mind the shop. I've somebody here on business.”

Footsteps descended the stairs slowly and then a girl appeared, carrying a canvas kit-bag with leather handles. She was tall and slim with a heart-shaped face, healthy red cheeks, a small clean-cut nose and large liquid brown eyes. She wore a skirt and a jumper through which her small breasts showed plainly. She stood at the door to the staircase and looked boldly at all of them.

To Littlejohn the newcomer looked astonished. He wondered why at first. Then he realised it was the slant of her eyebrows. Their acute, artificial angle gave an otherwise pretty face a perpetually surprised appearance.
Some would, no doubt, find it attractive. To Littlejohn it seemed a pity.

“I'm going,” the girl said to Bessie.

The big woman started sobbing again.

“Don't go, Alice. These men are from the police. I'm in trouble. You wouldn't leave me like this? I've nobody left now but you … I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said …”

“Shop!!” yelled a shrill voice from beyond the red-curtained door.

“Oh, all right then,” said the girl, dropping the bag with a thud of disgust. She went in the shop. Evidently this sort of squabbling and packing-up to go was a regular thing, easily settled by tears and pleading.

“That's my niece. Alice Bryan. My sister's girl. She's just been invalided out of the W.A.A.F. Been in two years. Her mother died when she was in the forces. Father died years ago. She's only got me now. Had a delicate stomach, so got her ticket. She's, been livin' with me about three weeks. A good help in the shop …”

Littlejohn sat down in one of the big chairs. The springs were unsteady as though frequently used by somebody heavy. Perhaps Bellis had used it … The place was very cosy in spite of the uncomfortable modern dining suite. There was a lazy, easy-going atmosphere. The hot fire lulled one. The air smelled of cigarettes, beer and scent. Bessie used scented powder pretty thickly. Young Alice didn't need much, if any. Her complexion was the gift of nature; Bessie's of art.

Bessie sat at the table, leaned her elbows and supported her ample bosom on it.

“Would you like some beer?”

“No, thanks. We've had some for dinner. It'll make us sleepy.”

Littlejohn could see it all in his mind's eye. Bellis arriving, hanging up his hat and coat, and sitting in his chair. Would you like some beer? And she would bring in bottles from the shop and there they would sit in the
warm, heavy room, with its cheap ornaments and pictures.

Alice stood in the doorway again. Drilling and discipline in the forces had given her poise and a good carriage as well as a glow of health. She looked defiant and her eyes were red-rimmed as though she'd recently been weeping. She gave Bessie a straight look which plainly intimated that details of the peace would be settled when the police had left.

“If you don't want me, I'd better go up and unpack again. I'll come down and answer the shop bell if customers come …”

“These two gentlemen are clearing up Tim's death … I don't think they'll want you … eh?”

“No. That'll be all right, Miss Bryan. I'll get your aunt to call you if we do need you …”