Read Online Death on the Last Train by George Bellairs - Free Book Online

doorway.
    â€œJust draw three glasses of best mild, dearie. One for yourself, too, if you feel like it …”
    â€œDon’t trouble about us,” said Littlejohn.
    â€œI want you to have a drink before you go. You’ve been very decent and considerate.”
    Alice returned with the beer. She hadn’t filled a glass for herself. She sat on a stool by the fire, crossed her legs and took a cigarette from a packet on the mantelpiece. She smoked boldly like a man, leaving the cigarette between her lips, coughing and screwing up her eyes as the smoke rose.
    The shop bell rang again. They seemed to be doing a roaring trade.
    The girl rose and went to attend to it, her cigarette dangling in her mouth. Her glances at Bessie were still hostile. There had evidently been a lot said before the detectives arrived and there was some settling up between the women due when they left.
    â€œYour good health, gentlemen.”
    Littlejohn started out of his reverie.
    â€œAnd yours, thanks. …”
    â€œGood health,” said Cromwell.
    â€œI don’t think we’ll trouble you any further, Miss Emmott. How did you get home when you’d seen Mr. Bellis off. Walk?”
    â€œNo. Generally got the last ’bus from the station to the end of Warrender Road.”
    â€œAnd Mr. Bellis wouldn’t even venture on the ’bus without you?”
    â€œHe might have done if I’d pressed him, but I didn’t mind the walk and it pleased him.”
    â€œYou’ve no idea at all who might have written those letters?”
    â€œNo. If I had, I’d have stopped their hanky-panky... Even the Salton police couldn’t find out.”
    Littlejohn rose and stretched himself and Cromwell reached for his cap.
    It was still blowing hard outside and the rain lashed the windows.
    They found the shop half-full when they opened the red-curtained door. A man in a rain-soaked jacket and cap, with a cigarette hanging from his lips, was leering at Alice who was drawing him a pint. She turned from meeting his eyes boldly and looked fully at Littlejohn. The same astonished eyebrows … She seemed definitely hostile and in spite of her domestic differences with her aunt, resented the intrusion of the police in their home. She nodded without a smile.
    â€œShe could have a very good time with me,” Bessie had said.
    Sizing-up with a glance the leering man and the shabby group with jugs and bottles crowding round the girl, the women a bit spitefully, the men hungrily taking in her beauty, Littlejohn wondered …

Chapter V

The Day of the Inquest
    When his wife was not there, The Rev. Bernard Beaglehole was a cocky little man. The miserable stipend he received from the decayed living of St. Stephen’s would certainly not have kept him, his wife and four daughters in the way in which he lived. Money, however, in the shape of Mrs. Beaglehole, had married him, brought him a houseful of handsome Victorian furniture and the reputation for being the most horribly henpecked man in the shire.
    Mrs. Beaglehole was like one of those predatory female spiders who, having consummated their love, fall upon and consume their fascinated mates. It was even said she censored the vicar’s sermons. Fortunately, Mrs. Beaglehole was a J.P. on the Salton bench and her frequent absences to deal with malefactors gave the rector freedom in which to expand. He was standing on the hearthrug of his study, legs apart, hands in pockets, stomach thrust out, a cherrywood pipe full of herbal smoking mixture between his teeth, toasting his clerical pants when Littlejohn entered.
    â€œGood-morning,” said Littlejohn.
    â€œGood-morning, Inspector,” answered the parson, and he waved his visitor into an opulent club chair inherited by his wife from her late father who had made a fortuneby dressing tripe. Mr. Beaglehole seated himself at his desk on which reposed the funeral sermon of the late Timothy Bellis. His wife,