Free Death on the Last Train by George Bellairs Page A

see ’er two or three times after the row, but she wouldn’t have any more of ’im …”
    Suddenly the trend of the enquiries seemed to dawn on Bessie. She flopped her hands on her hips, glared at Littlejohn and thrust her face close to his.
    â€œWhat are you gettin’ at? If you’re hintin’ that Harry Luxmore was jealous of Tim Bellis and might have done him in, you’re damn well wrong. As if Tim would ’a’ looked at Alice. You’ve a wicked mind to suggest ’im castin’ eyes on a slip of a young girl like ’er. You police’ll do anythin’ to get a case. I’m tellin’ you once and for all, after Tim and me got together he never looked at another woman. True to me, was Tim and I don’t care who knows it. If there’d been anythin’ goin’ on there—which God forgive me for sayin’ such a thing—if there’d been anythin’ going on there, I’d have known it, wouldn’t I? There was nothin’ … see? … Nothin’ … Shame on you for suggestin’ such a thing.”
    Bessie raised her voice to a shrill scream and passers-by in the corridor of the court began to glare at Littlejohn for bullying a woman. Some recognising Bessie, shrugged their shoulders and smirked.
    Miss Emmott fortunately terminated the interview by turning on her heel, stalking out and banging the door so ferociously that it shook down dust and cobwebs from the old beams of the hall.
    â€œLike to look at this?” said Forrester approaching. He handed Littlejohn the medical report which had been read at the inquiry. Littlejohn thrust it into his pocket whilst they discussed the case and the way things had been going so far.
    Littlejohn returned to the hotel with Cromwell and they had a cup of tea together, planned their campaign and then returned to their rooms for a wash. Littlejohn removed the surgeon’s report from his pocket and unlocked his suit-case in which he intended to deposit it until he could study it more closely. He opened and scannedthe three page document before he dropped it in the bag. The bulk of it was typewritten, but at the end, just before Cooper’s signature, was an addendum in the surgeon’s own handwriting. Just a few brief lines, probably an afterthought.
    Littlejohn studied Cooper’s plain, stiff handwriting. Different from the traditional medical scrawl. It looked familiar. He paused and rubbed his chin. Then it came to him. Hastily he rummaged in his case and brought out the volume of poetry he had taken from Bellis’s bookcase yesterday morning.
    Helen, thy beauty is to me …
    The handwriting was the same!
    Doctor Cooper had given the book to Helen Bellis, years ago.
    And he had been in love with her then.

Chapter VI

Four Men and a Girl
    If Mr. Mark Bellis hoped quietly to bury his brother and get home almost unobserved, he made a great mistake. The road to the windy exposed Salton cemetery was lined with sightseers stimulated and curious to see the last of the only person ever murdered in the town. Dockers momentarily downed tools, women left their housework and children halted in their play to see the hearse bearing Tim Bellis’s remains pass by; and they followed it out of sight with their eyes protruding and necks stretched to their full extent.
    At the burial place Mr. Mark Bellis received another shock. He had disappointed Mr. Beaglehole by barring a church ceremony in which the obituary eulogy could be preached. The hearse was followed by one officialmourning taxi containing Mr. Mark himself, his wife, a huge billowy woman who wept on the way but insisted on accompanying her husband to support him, and the Rev. Beaglehole, who was to attend to the committal. To the surprise of the family contingent, however, four other cars joined in the procession on the way. And at the cemetery there disembogued three cabfuls of initiates of a secret society of which