Death Before Breakfast Read Free Page A

been questioned when Littlejohn arrived. A little, happy man, with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, called Hibbs. He must have passed the spot less than ten minutes after Mrs. Jump. Absolutely nothing unusual.
    Besides, there seemed to be nobody missing. Or, at least, nobody had reported anything of the kind to the police during the morning. If there had been a body in July Street before Mass, who’s was it and where was it?
    It looked as if Mrs. Jump had fancied it after all.
    And yet, Mrs. Jump wasn’t that sort. She’d neither screamed nor roused the whole neighbourhood when she came across the body, or whatever it was. She wasn’t the kind to start a scare to attract the limelight. All she wanted was to be left alone. She’d kept quiet about it in the first place to avoid trouble for herself. The fact that she’d mentioned it casually for something to say and had unthinkingly chosen a policeman’s wife for her confidences, had triggered-off the whole affair.
    Littlejohn called back home on his way to Willesden, just for the sake of seeing Mrs. Jump in daylight.
    She was there after her first job of the day at the bank. Impassive as ever, washing-up in a cheap flowered overall. She looked very different without her grim black hat and mourning clothes. She had a tight bun of grey hair which made her look older, and without the protection of her hat, the light fell full on her pale face and revealed lines of age and difficulty and her blue washed-out eyes. She smiled, however, when he bade her good morning and asked her if she had slept well after her excitement of the previous day.
    He asked her if she still persisted in her story of the night before.
    She turned her pale eyes on him and her mouth tightened.
    â€˜I’m sure I haven’t made it up and I didn’t imagine it.’
    And she turned and began to wash-up again, removing the dishes vigorously from the sink and thrusting them viciously in the draining-rack.
    He gathered that she thought now that he was doubting her word, so he said good-bye and went on to Willesden.
    July Street looked a different place in daylight, instead of under yellow electric lamps. Two blocks of eight houses each on both sides of the street. Some of them tumbledown and badly short of paint and carpentry. Others, interspersed indiscriminately among the shabby ones, were trim, painted in all the colours of the rainbow by their owners, and generally well turned-out. This strange contrast was caused by Hollows’ Building Society, as the owner liked to describe it.
    Mr. Hollows, the agent, was, when new applicants applied for an empty house, in the habit of encouraging them to buy it for the same amounts in weekly instalments as tenants paid in rent. The snag was, that Mr. Hollows was responsible for the painting and repairs of the let properties, which he never painted or repaired, but left to rot. Thepurchasers paid for everything; every hazard, inside and out. Owning a house of their own, most occupiers developed a pride of possession and spent much of their spare time in embellishing it. There was even keen competition between them in painting and otherwise ornamenting their property.
    The street was full of children, some of them in magnificent perambulators, flourishing in the fetid air. Others, sturdy ragamuffins, were nearly all in mischief, watched nonchalantly in places by slatternly women. Five-year-olds scrambling over walls and railings, tormenting one another, fighting, engaged in mock gun duels in the street, even pilfering anything loose. One boy, larger than the rest, had climbed a downspout and was standing on the roof of a house, clinging to the chimney, unable to move, waiting for the fire brigade to arrive and get him down. …
    The body had been seen, according to Mrs. Jump, on the verge of the pavement in front of No. 20. Inspector Mann, of the local squad, who accompanied Littlejohn and Cromwell, had brought the key with