Death on the Last Train (3 page)

FISHING GROUNDS … BUOYS AND LIGHTS …

MINES … WRECKAGE WASHED IN BY THE TIDE …

HIGH TIDE THIS DAY. . . And then a blank. Somebody was keeping it a secret! Littlejohn's dim eyes roamed from one poster to another. All illuminated by a solitary bleak electric lamp shaded by a hideous old-fashioned bell-shaped affair of opaque glass.

Tea arrived in a large brown teapot with thick cups and huge saucers. There was a bottle of rum on the tray. The atmosphere took a turn for the better.

Midnight is a bad time to start investigating sudden death. The best that Kenneth Forrester could do was to send for the police surgeon and ask him to make sure at once that it was suicide, as indicated by all the evidence, and gather the names of as many travellers on the train
and of station personnel as possible. An immediate interview with Bessie Emmott was also desirable. Littlejohn had mentioned that the large blonde had seen Timothy off at Mereton. No need to say more. All Salton knew about Timothy and Bessie.

They had hardly settled down after putting their wet clothes to dry in the charge room, before Dr. Cooper was in after making his preliminary examination of the body.

“Thought I'd better let you know all's quite consistent with suicide. I'll make a proper job of it later, but superficially the wound could very well have been self-inflicted. And in the circumstances …”

Cooper pulled up a chair to the table, poured himself a cup of dark-coloured tea and laced it well with the rum.

A phlegmatic physician of the old school, about sixty years of age and running a large practice as well as serving the police. Tall and as heavy as the Chief Constable, but whereas Forrester was fair and ruddy, Cooper had a good shock of grey hair and a sallow complexion. He looked like a white nigger, with his thick lips, heavy snub nose, dark eyes and clean ready smile. He was well-groomed and, considering the late hour, looked very fresh and alert.

“. . . Position of body, gun fallen from his hand, angle the bullet entered the temple and powder burns, seem conclusive.”

“All the same, I'm worried, doctor,” answered Forrester. “You know how Bellis has been of late.”

Forrester turned to Littlejohn.

“I admit the doctor's case, Inspector. Tarrant, Bellis's man, identified the revolver as his master's, but swore by all his gods that it wasn't suicide. That, of course, doesn't count for much against the circumstances and Dr. Cooper's report, but what worries me is that I feel responsible for it in a way …”

“Responsible?” asked Littlejohn. He was wondering what all the fuss was about and why he'd almost forcibly been retained in the case.

“Now, don't be silly, Forrester,” said Cooper bluntly.
“You've been up all night and you'll feel better in the morning. How can you be blamed if a fellow kills himself on a moving train? We know that since his wife died Bellis has gone downhill. He treated her damn badly during her life-time, but down at bottom he must have thought a lot of her. Folks are funny, aren't they? He must have got to the far end and taken the quick way out.”

“It's just this, gentlemen,” replied Forrester miserably. “In my view Bellis was driven to suicide. I knew he was being driven and I've done nothing to prevent it.”

“What do you mean?”

The Chief Constable opened a file at his elbow and took out six sheets of cheap paper. Common stuff with messages typed across it.

“Just after his wife's death, Bellis received that letter. No finger prints on it except his own; no means of tracing whence it came. The other five were equally uninformative.”

Littlejohn took the paper, scrutinised it and passed it to Cooper.

YOU KILLED YOUR WIFE, BELLIS, AND NOW, BY GOD, YOU'LL PAY.

“Just the usual vindictive, anonymous letter, eh?” muttered the surgeon. “Written by the usual amateur purveyor of justice …?”

“Yes, but wait a minute. Here's another.”

I'VE TOLD YOU YOU'D PAY. YOU'VE NOT FINISHED YET.

“Well …? Just another threat.”

“No. Look at the date pencilled at the bottom. After he got that note, Bellis came to me and I put on the date of receipt. It was three days after the Salton Building Society crash. The bulk of Bellis's money was in that.”

“Well, I'm damned! Might have been a coincidence, and whoever wrote that note took the chance to gloat a bit …”

“You might not have come across the details of that affair, Inspector.”

“No. I can't say that I have.”

“The Salton Building Society was run almost like a bank. Good rates of interest, bulk of the deposits on demand, high local prestige and most of its assets in local mortgages. Somebody started a whispering campaign against it. In spite of every effort by officials, there was a run on the society. Its affairs are still being wound-up. Given a chance to liquidate its assets normally, it would have paid twenty shillings in the pound. The panic, however, reduced the dividend to an estimated ten shillings. There were rumours that Bellis had made a pretty penny in director's fees and such like, but there was no legal way of getting at him. Those who lost money on it, however, hated him.”

“A few weeks after the crash, he got this …”

YOU'VE PAID YOUR FIRST INSTALMENT. BUT YOU'VE NOT FINISHED YET BY A LONG CHALK.

The doctor turned the paper over and back in his heavy fingers.

“This is damnable. And it might happen to anybody. You or me, or you, Inspector. What's to prevent the husband of a patient I've lost or a felon who's done a stretch through your efforts starting on us. No way of detecting him. It's frightening … In fact, if this is the cause of Bellis's suicide, it takes on the form of murder.”

“Well, we might have an idea who'd taken offence at
us
,” said Forrester. “We could make a list and perhaps trace the culprit by a process of elimination …”

“Yes,” interposed Littlejohn. “Threats of that kind are a part of our job, but in this case I suppose there would be almost the whole town to go at.”

“Yes. Everybody knew what a swine he was to his wife. Hundreds suffered in the building society affair and blamed Bellis. The letters were all posted at the main post office, Salton. Not a clue on the paper or the envelopes. And there are hundreds of typewriters in the town.”

“Any more letters?”

“Yes. His house was burned to the ground. As plain a case of arson as you could wish.”

“He'd be insured, wouldn't he?”

“Yes. But he'd a devil of a job with the insurance company. Their assessor found what might well have been the remains of a fire-raising gadget in the ruins. Looked like being a court case. They settled at a compromise figure. There wasn't definite proof that it was Bellis who started the fire.”

“Well, it was an old house; a big rambling affair. He'd get enough out of the company to set himself up in a cosy modern one. By the way, how did the house get so well alight as to be completely gutted?”

“Bellis was at Mereton, visiting his light o' love. Tarrant, who wasn't supposed to leave the place empty, dodged off for an hour or two with his cronies. Whoever did the job made quite sure there was a big blaze. And as to Bellis getting himself enough to build a new house, that wasn't the point. His collection of pottery, furniture and pictures was completely destroyed. You recollect how proud he was of his Turner, his Crome and his Corot. He'd a precious lot of china and such, too, picked up here and there with infinite pains and often at great expense.”

“I remember, now. He used to put it in the local paper whenever he'd secured some new treasure.”

“Yes. It was all going to be a monument to him when he died. It was left to the town in his Will. The Timothy Bellis Bequest. His Ralph Wood and Whieldon figures, Toby jugs and the like, were priceless and irreplaceable. And he'd Sheraton and Heppelwhite furniture with the makers' receipts to show they were genuine. All those went up in smoke at the fire. However much insurance he drew, he couldn't replace it. On the one night Tarrant took a brief spell off, that happened.”

“His unknown pursuer meant business. That's obvious.”

“Bellis got so scared he was never off our doorstep. We did all we could. We put a man on watching his
house and another keeping an eye on his movements. Then this arrived.”

POLICE PROTECTION, EH? MUCH GOOD WILL IT DO YOU. MORE TO FOLLOW.

“And did more follow?”

“Not at once. There was a lull for two months. Just as Bellis was beginning to feel he could breathe again, came this.”

WHAT DOES BESSIE EMMOTT DO WHEN YOU'RE AWAY? YOU SURELY DON'T THINK YOU'RE THE ONLY PEBBLE ON THE BEACH.

“Trying to bust up his relations with his mistress, too, eh?”

“The writer failed that time. Bessie seemed to convince Bellis that she was true to him. I've no doubt she was. He'd taken to drink and was a bag of nerves. She was the only friend he'd got left. He was so shattered by the time he got that letter that he wouldn't stir a foot alone after dark, and slept with a revolver—the one we found with the body—under his pillow. He kept up visiting Bessie, but Tarrant, his bodyguard, met him at this end and Bessie always saw him safe on the train at Mereton.”

“What about epistle number six?”

“Here it is.”

THINGS ARE DRAWING TO A CLOSE. YOU'VE PAID WITH NEARLY ALL YOU'VE GOT EXCEPT YOUR LIFE. I'LL BE SENDING THE BILL.

“If he hadn't killed himself last night, this might have been very ominous,” said Cooper.

“True. As it is, I think this series of letters has gradually driven him to suicide. The police have been helpless. We worked like blacks to get a line on the writer, without results, and we've let Bellis be slowly driven to taking his own life. I don't intend to let this drop and that's why I'd like you to help me, Inspector Littlejohn. I hesitated about calling in Scotland Yard, but now that you've been delivered on the doorstep, so
to speak, I very much want you to stay and help me clear my conscience. As you say, doctor, the whole business is frightening. Like putting the evil eye on somebody. … What the blazes is that? Less noise out there!”

There was a great commotion in the adjacent charge-room. The shrill voice of an angry woman arguing with the gruff and laboriously polite one of the sergeant in charge.

“Now, now, now. What's all this here. The Chief's engaged on h'important business. Can't be disturbed.”

“
This
is important, you great big lump o' beef, you. I been sent for, haven't I?”

“Yus. But all in good time … 'ere, where you goin '? Come out o' that …”

Before the sergeant could stop her, Bessie Emmott charged into the room. She was magnificent in her fury. Her eyes flashed, her nostrils dilated, her deep bosom rose and fell.

Littlejohn recognised the woman he'd seen with Bellis at Mereton.

“Which is the Chief Constable?”

“I am. … All right, sergeant, you can go.”

The sergeant glared at the interloper, blew through his moustache, turned, and stumped off, breathing fire and fury to himself.

“Now?”

“I'm Bessie Emmott …”

“Sit down, Miss Emmott …”

“I'd sooner stand. What's all this about Mr. Timothy Bellis killin' himself?”

She had been weeping, but the anger at the news and the resistance she had met in the outer office had driven grief temporarily from her mind.

“I'm sorry to say we found him dead on the 11.04 train in from Mereton to-night. He'd shot himself.”

“It's a damned lie! He never shot himself. He was murdered. They can't get away with it …”

Rage now turned to grief again and Bessie wept noisily
and copiously, her tears washing away her powder in runnels down her cheeks.

“Here is Dr. Cooper, who's just finished the post mortem, Miss Emmott. The finding is suicide …”

“It's a lie, I tell you. … The last thing he promised me was he'd not kill himself, and he wouldn't have made a promise to
me
and not keep it. … Somebody killed him.”

“Now just calm yourself, Miss Emmott. I'm very sorry all this has happened, and appreciate your grief.”

“Appreciate my grief, do you? You and your suicide. Shut up with your suicide and listen to me. Tim Bellis was killed by the one who's bin hauntin' him all these months, and well you know it. I know all about everything. How 'e came here for help, and little he got. Worried out of 'is wits, too, and only me to confide in. Except Tarrant, who was faithful enough, but didn't understand what Tim was goin' through. Tim and me was goin' to get married next month, for me to look after him properly. … He said if he hadn't me he'd have done himself in long ago. But I made him promise 'e'd do no such thing and he wouldn't 'ave let me down. … Anybody else, perhaps, but not me …”

“Yes, Miss Emmott, I quite appreciate that,” interposed the doctor. “But in these cases, the balance of the mind becomes deranged and the thing is done. The evidence pointed to death by his own hand. We can't go against the facts simply because Mr. Bellis made a promise to you.”

The woman appeared to realise the sense of the argument and all her energy seemed to leave her. She sagged in her chair and wept copiously again. Dr. Cooper poured out a cup of tea and passed it to her. It was strong and almost cold, but would do in the circumstances.

“Drink this and you'll feel better, Miss Emmott …”

Bessie ignored the offer and gazed wildly around as though wondering where she was.

“Can I see 'im?” she asked simply.

“Yes, Miss Emmott, if you feel up to it. You can identify the body officially, if you will. His brother has been informed by telephone, but lives forty miles away, so won't be here until noon.”

The mortuary adjoined the police station and they formed a little procession, walking the long cold corridor in silence. Littlejohn was utterly fagged-out. He followed the rest hardly conscious of what he was doing.