Murder Makes Mistakes (The Inspector Littlejohn Mysteries Book 10) by George Bellairs

Author:George Bellairs [Bellairs, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Agora Books
Published: 2016-05-30T04:00:00+00:00

10

FRIENDS FALL OUT

Before he left Siseley, Littlejohn entered the telephone box near the village green and put through a call to the Wiston police. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Stubbs watching him through the window of the Royal George, obviously wondering what it was all about and why the Superintendent hadn’t used the instrument in the pub.

“Hello!”

A bored voice answered at the other end of the line. The police clerk soon changed his tune when he learned who was speaking.

“Yes, sir. Inspector Tandy happens to be in. Excuse me. I’ll get him.”

“Any news, sir?”

Tandy couldn’t wait for an exchange of civilities. He sounded disappointed at Littlejohn’s questions.

“Yes, I know who Wise’s doctor is; I’ve seen his car at Wise’s gate of late. He’s been ill, you know. It’s Dr. Cruickshank, of Wiston. Yes...”

“Yes, sir. Flowerdew has acted as locum for him now and then. Why? Have you traced the anti-clotting tablets?”

Littlejohn thereupon asked the date of the last Siseley hunt ball and if Flowerdew had deputized for Cruickshank recently.

Both inquiries were easy to answer. Tandy had been to the hunt ball himself last December. And as for Cruickshank, he’d been away to the Bahamas for a month in March, and Flowerdew had taken on part of his work; in fact he had attended Cruickshank’s patients in Rushton Inferior and Superior. They were near his home. Yes, he’d probably attended Wise.

Tandy delivered a parting shot.

“The news about Mr. Twigg’s death and the autopsy were given to the newspapers last night, sir. The reporters had got on to it somehow and there didn’t seem any sense in keeping on denying it. The village should know all about it by now. It’ll be in the late morning editions. That’ll shake ’em a bit.”

At Rushton Inferior, the atmosphere had certainly changed when Littlejohn got back. Mrs. Groves, for one, was annoyed with him and let him know it.

“You might have told me last night. I would have kept it secret till you said I could tell people. You are a very naughty man.”

Two reporters from London had booked rooms at the Weatherby and another couple from Manchester were staying at the village pub. One was sitting in the lounge writing near the window with one eye on the street. Another was in the telephone box dictating to his paper. And a press photographer was emerging from the chemist’s.

Mrs. Groves kept flitting from one to another, smiling and chirping in her usual fashion. Then, the chairman of the Rural District Council arrived and asked for Littlejohn. At the mention of the Superintendent’s name, all the newspaper men abandoned what they were doing and crowded round.

But the Chairman was going to have his say first. He was an old man with a grey goatee beard and nicotine-stained teeth.

“I hope you’ll soon find out who’s done this dastardly thing. It gives the locality a bad name. Who are all these men in raincoats?”

“Reporters.”

“Good God! The whole of England will be reading about the affair for days now.

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