Murder Adrift (13 page)

‘. . . . You've made it all up to discredit him. He wasn't blameless in his private life, as you well know and for which you must take much of the responsibility, but he would never stoop to such a thing as the one you mention. You are taking a mean revenge for what you think is his shabby treatment of you, but I tell you, in front of these gentlemen, that you were far from blameless yourself. Trying to seduce his own brother in this very house. . . .'

Littlejohn had heard quite enough.

‘If you'll excuse me, we must be going. You are both overwrought and we had better leave the rest for a later visit. . . .'

‘You'll not make any more visits here to listen to madam, sir. She is leaving this house at once. She's no longer a member of my family. We have no room for traitors and liars under this roof.'

‘You need not worry, mother. I've already booked a room at the
Trident.
As soon as I'm granted a little privacy I'll dress and go and I'll send for my belongings later in the day. As for the flat and its contents, that can wait until after the funeral.'

She might have been speaking of a wedding or a carnival, judging from the flippant tone she used, which completely gave the lie to Mrs. Todd's tale about her being prostrated by grief at events.

Littlejohn didn't quite remember afterwards how he and Hopkinson got away. They thanked and wished the two women good-bye and the elder one made no reply. The other thanked them in return and as they descended the stairs she leapt from her bed, rapidly wheeled Mrs. Todd
and her chair out of the room, parked them on the landing and slammed the bedroom door.

‘Did you get all that down in your little book, Hopkinson?' asked Littlejohn as they made their way to the front gate.

Outside a sea mist was blowing in, which made Pollitt's Sunshine Homes, a few occupied and many vacant, look forlorn. The half-finished ones were like grim skeleton dwellings of a wasteland. Somewhere a foghorn was booming.

A solitary figure joined them from the shore. The doctor, taking his dog for an airing.

‘How did you get on at the Todds?'

‘More than enough, doctor. Things are going to be awkward there in future.'

‘Why?'

‘The two women are quarrelling like Kilkenny cats and old Mrs. Todd has told Lucy Todd to get out right away. Lucy has booked herself a room at the
Trident
.'

The doctor halted to light his pipe, with Hopkinson's back for shelter against the wind.

‘No need to worry. That's the usual pattern. The old woman turns her out regularly once a month. She never gets farther than the door of the Big House. You see, Mrs. Todd senior is no longer the boss there. Kenneth has taken over since the old lady's stroke. She'll have another, too, if she goes on as she is doing at present. Kenneth wouldn't allow Lucy to be turned out. The family name, you know. It wouldn't do in a place like this.'

‘Between ourselves, doctor, Mrs. Todd flung in Lucy's teeth the fact that she has tried to seduce Kenneth. Was that just a taunt or is there any truth in it?'

The doctor shook his head and laughed.

‘When a loving pair are 50 or thereabouts there isn't much left of love's young dream, is there? Under the same roof, if in different parts of the place, with Kenneth madly in love with Lucy and a sworn bachelor because he lost her, has caused some talk in the town, but hardly a sensation. All the same, during my many years in practice in this town I've come across some fantastic and incredible affairs. Some have made me laugh; others have made my hair stand on end. Here we are. . . .'

They had reached the doctor's gate. The lights were on in one of the rooms and Hopkinson peered in through the window surreptitiously, hoping to see the girl who had taken his fancy.

‘One thing more, doctor,' said Littlejohn. ‘Pollitt, the mayor. There are a number of things I want explaining in that direction and I wish to question him as soon as possible. As it is, I'm sure he'll shelter behind his present shocked condition and try to avoid the issue. What had I better do?'

‘My own view is that he was unsteady after the dinner and came a cropper in the street on the way home. Why he wishes to make the affair into one of assault I can't imagine. There are no bones broken; nothing wrong, but some abrasions on his forehead and a black eye and a broken bottom denture. He is perfectly fit to answer any questions you care to put to him. If he resists and pleads illness then you must persist. He cannot go on obstructing a murder inquiry, if that's what you wish to see him about.'

‘Right. And many thanks for your help. I think I'll call on Mr. Pollitt right away.

He turned to Hopkinson.

‘Will you go back to the
Trident
and try to find out from the barmen or whoever was around what condition
the mayor was in when he left last night and if he went off alone. You might also inquire if he was in company with or talking with anybody in particular before he went out.'

‘But he must have been chatting with all and sundry at the dinner. It was his great night and I saw him myself showing off all over the place.'

‘Something must have happened last night to damp his spirits and I've an idea that somebody might have put the fear of God in him and made him try to dodge our questioning. You follow?'

‘I think so. I'll do my best, sir.'

Mrs. Roper, the daily help, answered the door of the mayor's house again. She was quite unimpressed by the police, but looked affronted by this second visit so soon.

‘He's still not well. I'll have to ask him.'

She waddled off in the direction of the room on the right and Littlejohn followed her in without waiting.

‘It's that policeman again. . . .'

She must have been trying to obey a gesture by Pollitt, for she already had a whisky bottle and glass in her hand; she was taking them to the sideboard to conceal them. She turned and saw that Littlejohn was already in the room.

‘I didn't say you could come in. It's good manners to wait till you're told to enter. . . .'

All he could see of Mr. Pollitt was his large contused face protruding from a bundle of clothes. He had a blanket round his shoulders over his heavy dressing-gown and a carriage rug round his legs. He was huddled in the chair before the fire.

‘Go away!' he said to the daily help petulantly, and she shuffled out at once, muttering about giving her notice and carrying the whisky out with her. Then she returned and placed the bottle prominently on the table.

‘You'll be wantin' that?' she said peevishly.

Littlejohn, feeling the time for sympathy was past, burst out genially.

‘Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. You're feeling better, I hope.'

Mr. Pollitt had a debauched look and his eyes were bleary and sunk deep in their orbits, one white and the other black.

‘I'm feeling very bad. It's the shock. Won't it do tomorrow, when I'll perhaps feel more like myself again?'

He pressed one hand to his forehead and fingered his black eye as though assuring himself it was still there. Then he groaned.

‘I hope you're on the track of who did this to me. He must be a madman.'

‘We're doing our best and I'd like to ask you one or two questions which can't wait. After all, you do wish us to solve this problem as soon as possible, don't you?'

‘All right. I'll do my best. But the shock seems to have affected my memory. I can't seem to concentrate. . . .'

He looked ready to weep again. He seemed fully dressed, for Littlejohn could see his trousered leg potruding from the rug. He hadn't had a shave either and his collar was open at the neck and without a tie. Had Littlejohn not known that he was putting on an act of sorts he would have left him until next day.

Suddenly the mayor sat upright and his eyes opened wide in fear.

‘Has anything else happened?'

‘No. But we're nearer a solution of the murder and your misfortune.'

‘When I'm ready to go out of doors again I might have to ask for police protection. He might try again.'

He tried to look in a funk, but his voice was firmer.

Littlejohn thought that the charade had gone far enough.

‘Were you a friend of Mr. Hector Todd, sir?'

The mayor looked as if he couldn't believe it! He flushed and seemed to have forgotten his own pitiable state.

‘What has that to do with what happened to me? Unless it was done by the same man. I had nothing to do with Todd's murder. He wasn't a friend of mine. I'm particular about the company I keep.'

‘How was it, then, Mr. Pollitt, that you were prepared to lend him several thousand pounds to buy a boat?'

The mayor grew suddenly rigid. He looked ready either to have a brainstorm or else a complete collapse. Instead he got up from his chair as though nothing ailed him, crossed to the whisky bottle and took a good drink.

‘Have one?'

Littlejohn shook his head.

Pollitt took another drink and then returned to his seat.

‘Several thousand pounds? To Heck Todd? Do you think I'm mad?'

‘You deny that you lent him or gave him the money?'

Pollitt drew himself up to the best of his ability and tried to look affronted.

‘Don't you believe me?'

‘No. We can prove that you did lend him the money. You'd better be quite frank with me about the transaction, sir. Otherwise we'll have to finish this discussion at the police station.'

Pollitt went limp in his chair as if someone had punctured him. With his rug round his shoulders, his gown hanging on him like a ragbag and his trousers corrugated, he looked like a comic figure in a marionette show.

‘Pull yourself together, sir. Now, tell me why you lent a wastrel like Todd several thousand pounds and also explain how you met with last night's accident? Don't jump up again. Take it easy.'

The mayor looked like a trapped animal, first glancing at Littlejohn and then at the door of the room as though he expected someone to enter and relieve him of his trouble.

‘It was a business deal.'

‘It sounds like bad business to me. Go on. . . .'

‘Heck Todd met me in the
Trident
and asked me to lend him £6,000. I told him he must be joking. He said he wanted to buy a boat at a bargain from a friend who was leaving for Australia, and hadn't the ready money. I told him nothing doing. I also told him even if he bought the boat I knew he hadn't the cash to run her. He said he didn't intend to run her. Just sell her at a profit. I still said no.'

‘When did all this happen?'

‘About six months ago.'

‘So, at the end of six months, Todd still had the boat. He didn't sell her after all?'

‘No. I got after him. I wanted . . . wanted . . . '

‘You wanted your money? You lent it to him after all?'

‘Don't keep chipping in. You're mixing me up. I lent him half the money. The fellow he was buying it from was called Haddock. Well, Haddock said he would accept half in cash and the rest in an I.O.U. with a promise to pay in six months. Todd had to sign it and I'd to back it with my signature, too.'

‘You did that? Why? What security had you?'

‘I didn't exactly do that. Haddock, when we met to do the deal, said he'd changed his mind. He wouldn't accept
the I.O.U. I had to give him a post-dated cheque due six months hence for the balance, and he would either make the boat over to me or else Todd could give me a mortgage on it for security.'

‘I thought you were a business man. You knew Todd couldn't afford to run it? You issued a post-dated cheque when all the time you were hard up? You as good as lent £6,000 to Todd with no margin of security and . . . .'

Pollitt pawed the air.

‘Who told you I was hard up? And who told you about the boat? It was all supposed to be private. . . .'

‘It's known in the town that you're short of money. What will happen when the post-dated cheque comes round?'

‘I'll meet it . . . I tell you. . . .'

‘With all those houses empty? You know you're in difficulties already. . . .'

The mayor grew indignant.

‘It's not good enough when I'm in this condition, hectoring me and mixing me up. I'm not myself. . . .'

‘Shall I tell you what I think it was?'

Pollitt's mouth fell open and his eyes bulged.

‘Didn't Todd make you a proposition? He wasn't going to sell the boat at all, but use it in a very lucrative trade and he offered you a share. You were almost broke and this was a chance to set your fortunes in order. You were going in business together in bringing illegal immigrants into the country and using the boat for that purpose. . . .'

Pollitt rose to his feet again and stood among his jumble of clothing, his hair dishevelled and his eyes wild, like some strange old spectre in a gothic tragedy.

‘No!' he shouted. ‘No!'

The next thing ought to have been his complete collapse
from a stroke or a heart attack. Instead he was robbed of the limelight.

The door of the room had been ajar; now it opened at full. There stood Mrs. Pollitt in her nightgown with her hair in curling rollers. She staggered in with her finger pointing at Pollitt.

‘No! It's not true!'

‘Get out!' shouted Pollitt, and then she collapsed and deprived him of the climax.

The Daily help materialised from somewhere in the back quarters and Littlejohn sent her for the doctor. Macmannus arrived quickly, as though he'd been waiting for something of the kind to happen. He nodded to Littlejohn and shrugged his shoulders. Then they hoisted up Mrs. Pollitt and put her down on a chair. Meanwhile, the mayor, looking like a pillar of salt draped in old clothes, stood there trying to recover from the shock of Littlejohn's questions. He didn't seem worried about his wife's condition. Neither did the doctor, for that matter. They were used to her tantrums and hysterics. Already she had opened her eyes and then suddenly recovered and remembered what she had overheard.