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

lines of verse, in a faded, clear hand.
    To Helen. June 24th, 1903.
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
To the grandeur that was Rome.
    For a minute Littlejohn forgot the sordid room and the squalid house, with the drunken manservant snorting at his side. He wondered who had given Helen Bellis, then Helen More, the book and inscribed the lines by Edgar Allan Poe. If it were Timothy Bellis, which was unlikely, time had changed things. The faded lines, the hidden book, told a sad little tale …
    â€œPoetry … No use for that stuff,” belched Tarrant peering over Littlejohn’s arm.
    â€œShut up!” rapped Littlejohn. Tarrant recoiled like one who has been suddenly bitten by a docile looking dog.
    â€œI wasn’t doin’ anythin’. No offensh meant.”
    â€œDo you know this writing?”
    â€œNever seen it before. Not Mrs. Bellis’s … Not the boss’s.”
    â€œCould it have been Mrs. Bellis’s first husband’s?”
    â€œNo … I remember the boss finding some letters of his in the missus’s desk after she died. Showed ’em to me. Couldn’t hardly read the writin’. Now
that
, you can read …”
    He pointed to the inscription in the book which Littlejohn was still holding.
    â€œYou can read that … I can read it meshelf … Helen, thy beauty ish …”
    â€œThat’ll do, Tarrant,” said Littlejohn snapping the book. “I’ll keep this.”
    He slipped the volume in his pocket. He didn’t really know why, but felt it would save its being mauled about in further searches and perhaps the inscription read by louts like Tarrant. He locked the desk and bookcase and pocketed the key.
    â€œI’m going now, Tarrant, and if I were you, I wouldn’t take any more of Mr. Bellis’s whisky,” he said in leaving. “His brother’s due any time and may not like it.”
    Littlejohn left him staring vacantly at the empty bottles and let himself out into the rain.

Chapter IV

The Off-Licence
    The Inspector soon finished his business at Ellinborne and returned to Salton in the police car in time for tea. He had arranged by telephone that morning for his colleague, Sergeant Cromwell, to join him in the investigation and, thinking his assistant might have better luck in travelling than he himself had enjoyed yesterday, he strolled to the station to meet the 5.45 train in.
    It was still blowing a gale, with intermittent showers of driven rain. Pedestrians struggled to keep on their feet and fought the wind. The harbour was full of small craft sheltering until an improvement in the weather.
    The Inspector was in good time at the station and spent the quarter-hour he had to spare looking over again the railway carriage in which Bellis had been murdered and which stood dripping in the open siding behind the platforms.
    The policeman on duty was sitting in one of the carriages munching sandwiches and drinking tea from a Thermos flask. He jerked to his feet like a spring-heeled-Jackwhen Littlejohn tapped on the window. Frantically he chewed a mouthful of food trying to dispose of it and give tongue.
    â€œDon’t disturb yourself, officer. Just give me the carriage key, please. I want to look over the compartment where the crime occurred. Get on with your tea, man …”
    The bobby struggled frenziedly in his hip pocket, which his ample rolls of flesh seemed to fill and keep tightly closed, and finally brought out the key. He was trying to salute, put on his helmet, conceal his food and drink and comport himself deferentially at the same time. Littlejohn left him to sort himself out.
    The Inspector climbed into the compartment without