Death Before Breakfast (16 page)

‘And Barnes was afraid you'd take too much and give the game away?

‘He saw me a time or two in the
Admiral
and it seemed to get him mad. Finally, he came to me and said that as I'd been under some strain, he was goin' to give me a holiday with pay and he'd take me to join the family here. I thought it was a generous offer and I accepted right away. It didn't strike me that he was afraid the police would ask me to co-operate and I'd agree.'

To hear him talk, you'd have thought they were going to sign him on at Scotland Yard!

‘Who killed Etienne Jourin?'

‘Beg pardon. Who's he?'

‘The wounded man.'

‘Was he a foreigner? I didn't know that. You see, all the time he was with me, he never spoke. He was unconscious.'

‘Who killed him?'

‘I suppose whoever left him in the road in front of Sammy Barnes's garage.'

‘Is that what Sammy told you? '

‘I said so before, didn't I?'

‘That's right. Who drove the body away on the milk runabout?'

‘Trodd, the garage foreman, I think. The runabout had been parked at the garage overnight, you see. I thought they were takin' it to the mortuary. You can guess what I felt like when I read in the paper that it had been hooked out of the canal. It was that that broke my nerve and made me start drinkin'. I knew the mess I might be in, you see. You'll see me right, won't you? You promised you would.'

‘We'll do our best for you, if what you've said's the truth.'

‘I swear it.'

‘You needn't bother, Mr. Peeples. We'll soon know if it's not true.'

‘Is that all?'

‘Yes. You can go and get your supper now.'

‘What shall I tell my wife and in-laws?'

‘Tell them what you like, Mr. Peeples. You might say we just came to seek your co-operation in connection with a crime in July Street. Will you kindly see us to the door?'

He saw them out and wished them good night. It was only after they'd vanished round the corner that Mr. Peeples suddenly remembered a question which
he
wished to ask. How had they found out about the tape recorder?

Sunday morning. All the bells jangling in the vicinity of July Street didn't seem to tempt anybody out to church.

It was ten o'clock when Littlejohn arrived there and it was still drizzling. The milk had been delivered later than usual and there were bottles on many of the doorsteps. It seemed as if most of the householders had just peeped round the blind at dawn, found the kind of weather awaiting them, and returned to bed. At two of the doors, men in their shirt sleeves were eagerly reading the sports pages of their Sunday papers. Cats were waiting to be let-in and a large dog, which looked as if he'd been out all night, sat disconsolately on a doorstep, whining intermittently. Traffic passed noisily along the main roads, some of it
heavy goods, some of it small cars determined to reach the sea whatever the weather. The man from No. 11, wearing a cap and a plastic mackintosh, wheeled out his old bike, to which was tied a home-made rod, and pedalled off to fish in the canal.

Littlejohn knocked at the door of No. 19. He looked across at the spot where Mrs. Jump's dead man had lain so briefly. It didn't seem to be of much importance now. All that mattered was to sort-out the mystery hanging about the compact little quarter surrounding July Street; to ask questions and get the proper answers; to find out how Barnes, Peeples and Dr. Macready were connected, and what they'd been doing at the time Etienne Jourin visited the neighbourhood.

All the usual routine work had been done and proved fruitless. The local police had combed the district enquiring for anybody who had seen Jourin arrive in the vicinity. Nobody had. The airport lists had been checked and Jourin's photograph flashed about among the customs and passport men. Not a flicker of recognition. The boat-staffs had been equally fruitless. One item had come to light, for what it was worth. In the course of checking flights to and from Paris at airway offices, it was discovered that Grace Macready had booked a seat on the morning 'plane to Paris, on the day after Jourin's death, but had not claimed it.

‘Jourin must have been disguised, or else come over in a rocket,' one weary searcher had remarked to cheer himself up.

Littlejohn knocked on the door again. This time someone looked round the curtain at the window of the doctor's room. A minute afterwards, the doctor himself appeared at the door. He was just a silhouette against the dark corridor behind him, and then he came into the light.

‘Did you knock before?'

‘Good morning, doctor.'

‘Good morning. I thought you'd be here again. What is it this time?'

He was properly dressed, washed and shaved, now. A dark suit of a rather old-fashioned cut, a white shirt, and a dark tie. A monocle hung on a cord round his neck. He looked a different man. His long thin face was distinguished, almost aesthetic. The face of a dreamer, a man of imagination. Now he was better for a summing-up by Littlejohn, who, from his first visit to No. 19, had gathered little to remember the man by. An untidy room, a mess of breakfast, stuffy air smelling of warm bedclothes and stale tobacco, and a man, lolling there, a bundle wrapped in an old dressing-gown.

‘Is your sister in?'

‘No. She's gone to visit friends.'

‘I'd like to see her. Can you tell me when she'll be back?'

A slight movement, almost a shiver of the features, and the doctor was himself again.

‘Can I do anything? She won't be home till around noon.'

‘I'd be glad of a word with you then, doctor.'

A brief hesitation now. Then the doctor made a movement with his head.

‘Come in.'

He led the way to the room behind, in which Littlejohn had first interviewed Grace Macready. The curtains were still drawn and the doctor hastily pulled them aside, revealing the backs of the houses in June Street and the doctor's back-yard. Some effort had been made to improve the outlook. On a kind of platform under the window outside, stood three green tubs, each with a small cypress in it. The result was, at present, to make it all more melancholy. Rain dripped from the branches already soiled and heavy with
soot. Inside, in the oblong of the bay window, a small indoor garden of plants in pots arranged in a wrought-iron frame.

The scent Littlejohn had associated with Grace Macready was still faintly on the air. The place hadn't been tidied. An ash-tray full of the stubs of Russian cigarettes, some sheet music strewn over the couch, and more music on a metal music-stand behind which stood the harp.

‘Sit down.'

Littlejohn tried to make himself comfortable on one of the coloured chairs which gave him the insecure feeling that it would disintegrate under his weight and somehow spoil the dignity of the interview by casting him full-length on the floor.

‘You want to ask me something?'

The doctor sat on another of the strange chairs and lit a small cheroot.

‘I gather you knew the murdered man before he arrived in England, doctor.'

That was a petard indeed! The doctor looked at Littlejohn amazed.

‘What did you say?'

‘You heard me, doctor. You'd met Etienne Jourin before he arrived in England last week.'

The doctor rose to his feet and slowly moved to the window. He looked out blankly on the miserable background of squalid streets with the tall chimney of a nearby hospital pouring out smoke over everything.

‘Who told you?'

‘I've just returned from Sens, sir.'

Macready turned back in the room and stood over Littlejohn. He was smiling faintly as though the whole business were becoming amusing.

‘Who sent you there, Littlejohn?'

‘Etienne Jourin was a native of Sens. We went to try
to get to know something about him. We learned quite a lot.'

‘About my sister and me, too, it seems. You've been talking to those gasbags at the Cathedral Hotel, have you? And you know the whole stupid story about my sister and Jourin.'

‘I do, sir. And now, will you tell me what Jourin was doing in Willesden at the time he was murdered and whether he called here or not whilst he was alive?'

‘Have a cheroot? I quite forgot. Please excuse me. As you'll guess, I'm very worried about the whole business.'

‘I'm sure you are, doctor. Did Jourin call here after his arrival in England?'

Macready was quite calm. He sat on the crooked chair again.

‘No. He didn't call. Had I not been at home and intercepted a telephone call he made to my sister, he'd probably have been along or else arranged a rendez-vous with her elsewhere. …'

He hesitated and gave Littlejohn a light for the cheroot.

‘I hope you'll believe me, but he seemed to have fallen madly in love with my sister. Strange for a man of his type, a man of the world, one who'd probably had dozens before and left them in the lurch. But it is true. …'

And then Macready was suddenly seized with a fit of rage. Not the tempestuous, roaring rage, half of which is usually an act; but the cold, hard, incisive fury which never forgives.

‘You know of the incident of their running away to Cannes, I suppose. …'

His voice had changed. There was a hiss in it.

‘Yes.'

‘Luckily I arrived there in time to bring my sister home before … before anything serious, anything irrevocable had happened. I brought her back with me. She objected,
of course. She seemed to think she'd found the love of her life, and he'd actually told her he was a thief and was going to turn over a new leaf for her sake. The new leaf, as he called it, was probably the cause of his death. He'd committed, according to the newspapers, a fantastic jewel robbery in Paris and fled to this country. He must have been followed and killed by an accomplice he'd tried to leave in the lurch.'

Outside, one lot of bells had ceased and another had started, one bell only, which seemed to toll an accompaniment to Macready's hymn of hate.

‘I told Jourin that if I ever caught him around my sister again, I'd kill him. It seems he did come around again, but someone else killed him. …'

‘Who killed him?'

The doctor relaxed for a minute.

‘Now, Littlejohn, don't try the third-degree investigation with me. I don't know. All I know is, that if someone hadn't done it and I'd caught him up to his tricks with Grace again, I'd have had no compunction at all. I'd have murdered him. You can't arrest me for that.'

‘Did you or your sister see Jourin at all?'

‘I told you. He tried to make an appointment with Grace, but I happened to overhear her on the telephone. I knew by the tone of her voice who it was. I took the instrument from her and spoke, but the swine hung-up. That ended the affair. Grace wasn't by any means pleased. There was the usual talk about her being free to live her own life. …'

‘He had fled to England for refuge from the French police, I suppose, and made for your place in the hope of seeing your sister.'

‘Exactly. He couldn't have expected to find shelter in this house. He knew how I'd have received him. With violence. I admit I'm no match for him physically, but there are other ways.'

‘You did see him, though. After he'd been stabbed. … Please don't deny it, doctor.'

‘I'm not denying it. I admit it. I'm prepared to tell you all about it, Littlejohn.'

There was a pause. The doctor was wondering what was coming next. A curious, earnest expression crossed his face. He didn't know how much Littlejohn knew.

‘Please begin by telling me what happened last Tuesday evening. I take it that was the time when Jourin was stabbed and you were called-in to attend him.'

Macready hesitated. He seemed to be putting his thoughts in shape in his mind. The interview was now assuming the nature of a contest.

‘On Monday night I was sent for to Barnes's garage. A man had been stabbed in the street nearby and carried in there. He was on an old mattress in Barnes's office at the back of the place and he was in very bad shape indeed.'

‘Why did they send for you, doctor, and not a man in active practice?'

‘I suppose I was the nearest available.'

‘And, instead of sending the wounded man to hospital, you had him moved to Peeples' house down the street.'

Macready flushed, either from shame or anger.

‘I did what I thought best in the circumstances.'

‘I don't think you did. You were conniving in the concealment of a crime, and perhaps other things. You'd better tell me the truth.'

Here was a proud man, one used to giving the orders, now placed in a position where he felt he was being questioned like a common criminal. He didn't like it. Littlejohn could see him swallow his anger and take control of himself.

‘The wounded man begged us not to send him to hospital. …'

‘You recognised him as Jourin as soon as you saw him?'

‘I did. And I wasn't pleased at all about it. It meant he'd been hanging around my place seeking a meeting with Grace at the time he was attacked.'

‘Who do you think attacked him?'

‘His accomplice. There might have been more than one. Who knows? I later learned from the newspapers that he'd recently committed a jewel theft near Paris. Presumably he'd evaded the police and fled to England, followed by the associates he'd cheated. No doubt, they caught up with him, stabbed him, and took away the booty with them, There were no jewels on the body when it was found.'

‘How do you know?'

Macready reared.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean, doctor, that the removal of the victim's property might have been attended to in the same way that information of the stabbing affray and the presence of a wanted criminal at Barnes's garage was illegally withheld from the police. To say nothing of concealing him at Peeples' home and omitting proper medical attention.'