Fall of a Philanderer Read online

  Silence fell. The burly backs in constabular blue that were blocking Alec’s way parted like the Red Sea. As Alec stepped forward, a small, balding plainclothes man in black moved to meet him. At least, he wasn’t really small, only seeming so in comparison with the outsize officers he had brought with him, but he stooped slightly, which added to the impression. He looked like an elderly, amiable vicar. For a moment Alec wondered if he was in fact the incumbent of the parish, come to pray over the remains of his unsatisfactory parishioner.

  “Inspector Mallow, sir,” he said with a benign smile, “Devonshire CID. I’m here to give you whatever assistance you require. Our police surgeon has come too, of course. This is Dr. Wedderburn, from Abbotsford.” He indicated a man lounging at the table, who nodded. “And this gentleman is Dr. Vernon, the local GP, who has kindly come to give us the benefit of his expertise.” He beamed at both doctors impartially.

  Young Vernon’s uncle was as short and slight as his nephew, but his bearing was military—Army Medical Corps, Alec thought. “You don’t need me,” he said gruffly, “since Wedderburn’s here.” The scowl he aimed at the police surgeon suggested a fierce disapproval. “Come along, Andrew, we’ll be off.”

  “I have to stay, Uncle.” Vernon sent a pleading glance Alec’s way. “Mr. Fletcher might have questions about my report.”

  Alec succumbed to the plea. “We’d appreciate Mr. Vernon staying a little longer, sir. Thank you very much for turning out tonight. I may have to consult you later about the medical history of the deceased.”

  “Enderby was not a patient of mine, sir. As far as I know, he enjoyed the rudest of good health.”

  “Well, that’s worth knowing. Thanks, Dr. Vernon.”

  “Good night.” With a stiff little bow, the doctor stalked out.

  Given his small stature, his departure barely eased the crowding. “First things first,” said Alec. “We need room to breathe. Any suggestions, Puckle? We don’t want to drive your wife out of house and home.”

  “Ah,” said Puckle ruminatively. The monosyllable reminded Alec of Tom Tring, but an “Ah” from Tom meant his brain was buzzing along at a great rate and Alec doubted the same applied to Puckle.

  “The parish hall, I should think,” said Vernon, bouncing down from his high chair. “I’ll go and ask the vicar.”

  “No, I want you to go out to the washhouse with Dr. Wedderburn.”

  Vernon turned rather pale but said steadily, “Right-oh, sir.” He took the “wash’se” key from Puckle.

  “Doctor, the wife of the deceased is coming at about half past ten to identify the body. I’d appreciate your having him as much as possible in a fit state to be looked at, even if you haven’t finished your preliminary examination.”

  The police surgeon nodded silently and hauled himself to his feet. As he passed, Alec smelt whisky on his breath. Was that why Dr. Vernon so obviously disapproved of him? Perhaps it would have been wise to retain the GP’s services. Frowning, he watched Wedderburn and young Vernon go out through the back of the house.

  Next, he sent Puckle to ask the vicar’s permission to use the parish hall and to rouse out the sexton to unlock it and light the lamps. Then he turned to the inspector.

  “Thank you for your patience, Mr. Mallow.”

  “Not to worry, sir. You’ve cleared the decks, nicely, if I may say so.” He lowered his voice. “I noticed as you wasn’t too happy about the doctor, sir. He’s all right. The Jerries shelled his Red Cross tent in the Salient, right in the middle of cutting off some poor chap’s arm, and now he needs a bracer before he tackles anything in the way of a mangled body. Give him a rheumaticky old woman or a kiddy with the measles and he don’t turn a hair, and that’s what he mostly has to deal with, after all. We don’t get too many mangled bodies down here.”

  “I see.”

  “Leastways, when we do, they’ve mostly been in the sea for a while, and after a good dousing they don’t seem to bother Dr. Wedderburn.” He beckoned forward a plainclothes man Alec hadn’t noticed in the crush. “This is my sergeant, Horrocks, sir. My left-hand-man, I always say, being left-handed. And the super had me bring these two constables in case you might need ’em.”

  “I may. I don’t know much about what’s going on at this early stage, but let me put you and Sergeant Horrocks in the picture.”

  Alec waved the inspector to a chair. Horrocks, a young man who looked more like a farmer than a police detective, perched uncomfortably on the windowsill and took out his notebook. The uniformed constables retired to the nearest thing to a discreet distance possible in the small room, behind the high desk.

  Even stripped of theories, Alec’s story was comprehensive enough to earn Detective Inspector Mallow’s admiration.

  “Well, sir,” he said, “it looks to me like you knew who done it before it even happened. All you’ve left for us is to put this Anstruther chap behind bars.”

  Suspecting mockery, Alec gave him a hard look but, at least by the murky light, his eyes were as guileless as Daisy’s. As misleadingly guileless? No doubt he’d find out in the course of the investigation.

  “Not so fast,” he said. “It may come to that, but for all I know, Anstruther spent the afternoon pouring out his soul to the vicar. There are other people with reason enough to wish Enderby to the devil. His wife, for instance. Mrs. Enderby was present when Anstruther went for him in the pub, and I can vouch for it that she didn’t look as if she was prepared to lift a finger to save him from strangling.”

  “Do you reckon she already knew, then, sir? About him straying, I mean.”

  “Perhaps not about Mrs. Anstruther specifically, but she certainly knew he had mistresses. The two of them had a row about it the other day, in the course of which she mentioned a farmer’s daughter.”

  “Why, he was a regular rake!” DS Horrocks muttered. “I wouldn’t blame anyone as done him in.”

  “Now, now, Horrocks,” Mallow said soothingly, “it’s your bounden duty to take up them as pushes people over cliffs, without fear nor favour.”

  “And so I will, sir.” Pencil poised over his notebook, Horrocks demonstrated his zeal: “What’s this farmer’s name, sir?”

  “I don’t know,” Alec said irritably. “I arrived in Westcombe just yesterday and I haven’t had a moment to talk to people since I found the body. Here’s another name for you, though—Donald Baskin. He’s a visitor here and he’s been making enquiries about the Enderbys.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, sir,” said Mallow, “you’ve already found out a wonderful lot, considering. It’s a pleasure to see how Scotland Yard works.”

  Alec simply couldn’t make out if the saintly-looking inspector was being sarcastic, or if, unlike most of his provincial brethren, he genuinely admired Scotland Yard and appreciated the chance to work with a Met detective. In any case, Alec was not going to accept credit where no credit was due. “My wife has been here for a week and happens to have come across a few snippets of information which may prove useful.”

  “Very handy, sir. Gives us somewhere to start.”

  “Yes. We must also take Enderby’s past into account. Puckle informs me that he arrived in Westcombe only three years ago, with a woman claiming to be his sister. Gossip says their relations were not such as ought to exist between siblings. I don’t know if she left him or he dropped her when he took up with the lady-innkeeper. It’s a long shot, but it’s always possible that affair had some connection with his death.”

  “Hard to trace her when we don’t know her real name,” Mallow observed, “and after three years, too. But there, I expect the Yard does it every day.”

  “Not infrequently. Unless Enderby also was using a false name, it shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s not as if he was a John Smith. But first we’ll find out if the rumour has any basis. I don’t want to trouble Mrs. Enderby with a question of that sort if we don’t have to. Horrocks, how do you get on with chamber-maids?”

  “Not bad, sir. If they’re
young, you make up to ’em, and if they’re old, you let ’em mother you.”

  “You’ll go far, Sergeant. As soon as Mrs. Enderby arrives to identify the deceased, go over to the Schooner Inn.” He wouldn’t have had to explain what he wanted to Tring. “Most important is to find out where she was between two and four this afternoon. Pick up any gossip about Enderby, especially the identity of the farmer’s daughter and any other females he may have made the object of his affections, but don’t press for it at this stage. Make sure you talk to all the staff available and get the names and addresses of any not on the premises, including the chamber-maid of three years ago if she’s left since. You’ve got that straight?”

  “Yessir!”

  “Excellent. Inspector, you’ll see what Anstruther and Baskin have to say about their whereabouts this afternoon.”

  “I thought you’d want to take them yourself, sir, seeing you know them already.”

  “That’s precisely why I don’t, at this stage. For one thing, they don’t know yet that I’m a copper. It’s a damned uncomfortable situation, my staying at the Anstruthers’, but I don’t see any alternative at present. Which reminds me, we’re going to have a hard time finding somewhere for you and your men to sleep. I wonder if the Puckles have a spare room. These village police houses usually have two bedrooms.”

  “Mrs. Puckle’s already offered it, sir. There’s a bed for me and a cot for Horrocks.”

  “And your constables?”

  Mallow frowned around the tiny room. The floor space would cramp the slumbering form of one of the large uniformed officers, let alone two. “I suppose they’d better doss in the parish hall.”

  “I should think the inn might have a spare cot or two to lend,” Alec suggested, “or at least some blankets. See to it, will you, Horrocks?”

  “Yessir!”

  Alec told the inspector how to find the Anstruthers’ house and sent him off. Except for advising a close examination of Baskin’s walking stick, he didn’t insult him with precise instructions, trusting to his intelligence, diligence and discretion. If his trust proved misplaced, he would just have to deal with the damage and reconsider calling in Tom Tring. However, he did take the precaution of sending along one of the constables for protection, just in case Peter Anstruther should take Mallow’s questioning amiss.

  “I’m going to see what Dr. Wedderburn has to say,” he told DS Horrocks. “Wait here to show Mrs. Enderby back there when she comes, then pop off to the Schooner. Constable … ?”

  “Smith, sir!” PC Smith saluted sharply.

  “Smith, you will wait until Puckle returns. Have him leave directions to the parish hall for the rest of us. Then take whatever useful supplies he has—paper, pens, et cetera—accompany him back to the hall, and set up tables and chairs. If you’re lucky, DS Horrocks will come and fetch you to carry a couple of cots from the Schooner.”

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir. Uh, sir?”

  “What is it?”

  “Breakfast, sir?”

  “Horrocks will arrange for you to get something at the inn. Great Scott, did you all miss your supper, or tea, or whatd’youcallit?”

  “No, sir.” Horrocks assured him. “We stopped for a bite in Abbotsford while we were waiting for the ferry.”

  Alec remembered why he so disliked investigations in isolated country places: One often spent as much time and effort billeting the troops as solving the case.

  He knocked on the door at the back.

  “Come in,” called Mrs. Puckle. “Oh, you’ve come for your bite o’ fish pie, sir. You must be famished.”

  “I am, Mrs. Puckle, but I haven’t time right now.” And after reviewing the medical evidence, he’d probably have lost his appetite. “I’m sorry about all the tramping back and forth through your sitting room.”

  “Not to worry, sir, I married a policeman for better or worser and there’s no sense fussing when your wash’se gets used for prisoners or a body. But I do hope, sir, as they won’t be cutting him up back there.”

  “No, the post mortem will be in Abbotsford, I imagine.”

  “Well, that’s a load off me mind, I don’t mind saying. Somehow I couldn’t fancy doing me laundry where they’d cut him up. Mind the clothes-line, sir.”

  Alec went out into the yard, ducked under the clothes-line and, by the light from the windows of the house and the washhouse, found his way to the door of the latter. As he entered, Wedderburn was washing his hands with carbolic soap at a stone sink, next to which hung a laundry copper.

  “Dr. Wedderburn says I was right!” crowed young Vernon. “About Enderby being hit on the back of the neck with a piece of wood, I mean.”

  “Looks like it,” the doctor confirmed. Brisk and businesslike, he seemed to have recovered his sang-froid. “But I can’t tell whether it was the cause of death, or very shortly before or after death.”

  “Will the autopsy make that clear?”

  “Perhaps, but I can’t guarantee it. I can tell you he didn’t drown, so you can take it he fell down the cliff. Practically every major bone in his body is broken. He must have received so many blows in such a short time that which impact caused his death may be impossible to determine.”

  “I see.”

  “He died between six and ten hours ago. Rigor is just beginning in the facial muscles.”

  “That fits. Will you … can you … ?”

  “Do I perform autopsies? Yes, Chief Inspector. By the time I’ve done a thorough examination, anything else I do to the poor devils seems—I suppose meaningless is the word. Irrelevant. They’ve already lost all their dignity, their humanity even. I’ll cut him up for you tomorrow if you’ll let me know when you’ve got him to Abbotsford. And now I’m off. I won’t stay to see the widow, if you don’t mind.”

  “Have you somewhere to stay the night?”

  “I motored over and will motor home. Don’t worry, I’m not inebriated. Good night.”

  “Good night.” Alec shook his hand. “And thank you.”

  As Wedderburn left, Alec stepped over to the table. A neatly sides-to-middled sheet had been draped over the neatly rearranged body and turned down to reveal the upper part of the face, the lower part remaining hidden. In addition, over the right side of the lower abdomen a hole had been cut in the sheet, through which an old, jagged scar was visible.

  “Probably shrapnel, he said.” Vernon’s voice was hushed. “Not appendectomy, anyway. He said Mrs. Enderby should be able to identify it. Sir, he said I can help him with the post mortem, with your permission.”

  “You have it. In return, I want to ask a favour.”

  “Anything, sir!”

  “Wait till you hear. I’d like to put you in charge of getting the body to Abbotsford.”

  “Gosh. Er—how? I mean, do I need a coffin? Should I take the ferry or hire a car? I mean, I can’t just squish him into my little runabout, don’t you know. And where—”

  “It’s precisely all that detail I haven’t time or manpower for. Can I trust you to find out the how and where, and to accomplish the task with decency and respect?”

  “Right-oh, sir,” Vernon said manfully. “Just leave it to me. I’ll ask Uncle Ben.”

  “That sounds like a good starting point. Keep a note of any reasonable expenses and I’ll see you’re reimbursed. Thank you. You’d better hop it now, before Mrs. Enderby arrives.”

  A good lad, Alec thought. Perhaps he actually would become a second, non-fictional Dr. Thorndyke.

  Alone at last, with a few minutes to think, Alec found his mind dwelling on Mrs. Puckle’s fish pie. If he went asking for it now, Mrs. Enderby was sure to arrive when he had his mouth full. He should have eaten the tea provided by Mrs. Anstruther, but though he had drunk from the Thermos, it had not seemed decent to consume buttered scones and fruitcake while mounting vigil over the remains of George Enderby.

  What had he done with his knapsack? He remembered taking it off as he approached the police station, entering with it dangl
ing from his hand. He must have set it down on the floor somewhere. The camera was in it, with the photographs which might or might not prove useful. He’d have to get them developed in the morning. Was there a photographer or a developing chemist in Westcombe? If not, he’d ask Vernon to take the film to Abbotsford. Making a mental note—one among dozens—he wished he had DC Ernie Piper at his elbow with his notebook and his endless supply of freshly sharpened pencils.

  Alec’s reflections on the quickest way to discover the identity of the farmer’s daughter were interrupted by a knock on the washhouse door. PC Smith ushered in Mrs. Enderby.

  The proprietress of the Schooner Inn had not taken the time to change out of her working frock, but she had tied a dark scarf over her flamboyant hair. Though her face was calm, Alec noticed her hands were clenched together tightly enough to whiten the knuckles. Considering the errand she had come on, he didn’t read anything into this sign of tension.

  “I’m sorry to have to ask you to do this, Mrs. Enderby.”

  “For God’s sake, let’s get it over with.” She moved towards the head of the table, but her attention was caught by the neat hole cut in the sheet. She stared down and one hand went to her mouth. “Oh, my God! It’s him. I was sure he’d turn up again like a bad penny, but that’s the scar he got when he copped a packet at Wipers.”

  “You’re quite certain?”

  “I’d reckernize it anywhere. He didn’t like talking about it, but I used to tease him that he got hit by lightning, not the Jerries. ’Cause of the shape, see?” Two steps took her to the half-concealed head. “Georgie!”

  She reached out to pull down the sheet but Alec had expected the move and caught her arm. “Don’t,” he said gently. “You don’t want to see any more.”

  “Georgie!” Her voice came from a tight throat and tears glinted in her eyes. “I loved the bastard once, you know? Oh, he was a charmer, a smooth talker. And he helped me get the Schooner into shape, I’ll give him that. If only …”

  Alec handed over his handkerchief. He usually carried a spare when on a case, but this afternoon he’d set out for a peaceful walk and a picnic tea, dammit!