“Oh, yes,” Bobby said profoundly; and the indifferent woman by the table turned to scowl at him over her shoulder and then turned back to sink again into her own gloomy reverie. Bobby had the fanciful idea that she resembled one of the ancient Daughters of Night, grown old and decrepit and powerless, but still seeing aimless visions of ill to come. “Yes,” he said, again in a brisker tone, closing his note-book and looking up at Jasper.
This time, however, the production of the note-book did not seem to have had much effect. Jasper’s tone was of undisguised mockery as he said:
“Anything I say may be taken down in writing and used in evidence against me. Is that it?”
“Well, you haven’t got it quite right,” Bobby explained amiably. “We never say ‘against you’. Wouldn’t be considered at all proper. And surely you don’t feel we’ve got so far that I feel a warning is required? Not at all, not at all,” he protested, returning mockery for mockery as he waved a protesting note-book in the air. “Just a friendly little chat in case you can help us.” he went on. “By the way, I was wondering what about it if the Enemy of Society received a visit from those other Enemies of Society, more commonly known as gangsters, with their playful habit of tying up their host in a corner while they have a look round for any hidden valuables available?”
Jasper looked so startled at this that Bobby was almost inclined to think that something of the sort had happened, or that Jasper believed might happen, or that at any rate he had said something Jasper had found disturbing. Though what that might be Bobby had no idea. And, too, he had become aware that the silent woman by the table was not indifferent, not lost in her own private thoughts as he had supposed, but keenly alert, sharply attentive. But now Jasper no longer showed any sign of unease. If he had felt worried in any way, or been disturbed or upset by anything said by Bobby, he had recovered, so completely and so instantaneously, that Bobby could not feel sure his first impression had not been mistaken. That in fact what he had thought to glimpse in Jasper of unease, even of fear, had not been a mere effort of imagination on his part. In his usual loud confident tones, Jasper was saying:
“Gangsters? Criminals? Enemies of Society? Nonsense. The brutal tag Society tries to tie on those it has made its outcasts and its victims. Rationalizing its own profound sense of guilt. Poor devils. Only too glad to climb back into Society if they were allowed half a chance. Never had it. No wonder they react. There are no criminals, only a criminal society. I’m on their side.”
“Are they on yours?” Bobby asked.
“They would be if they understood,” Jasper retorted. “Some of them do already. Some don’t, of course. But: (a) There’s nothing here worth taking. Not a thing to fetch more than a shilling or two at a junk shop. They can see that for themselves. (b) I’m ready to tackle anyone who tries to make trouble. I’m no beauty, am I, ma’am?” This last was to the silent but attentive woman on the chair near by. “But I’m no pacifist, either.” He grinned formidably and held out those muscular abnormally long arms of his, ending in huge, powerful hands. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve thrown would-be jokers out on their ears,” and he had very much the air of hoping to get some excuse for trying to do the same to Bobby and to Ford.
“Well, don’t forget we’re always ready to rush to your assistance,” Bobby told him ingratiatingly, and Jasper grunted—disdainfully. Bobby went on: “What I really came to ask though, is what you can tell us about a man called Bert Abel?”
This time it was the woman whose sudden involuntary movement where she sat seemed to suggest that the question meant something to her. But nothing apparently to Jasper, who only seemed surprised and a little puzzled.
“Bert Abel,” he repeated. “Who’s he, anyhow? I don’t remember any Bert Abel. What about him?”
“He gave this address. He said he could be heard of here,” Bobby explained.
“Oh, well,” Jasper told him, “that’s nothing. Complete strangers to me do that sometimes. I’m well known, and people know I’m always willing to take in letters—or even parcels and suitcases for that matter. I get called the Jordan G.P.O. Especially,” he grinned defiantly, “if it’s some poor devil on the run. Never ask questions. That’s my motto.”
“Got any now?” Bobby asked.
“And that’s my affair,” Jasper retorted. “None for any Bert Abel though. Don’t know the name.”
“I see,” Bobby said thoughtfully. “Then you tell us that your address was given without any knowledge on your part by a man you know nothing about and have never heard of, but who seems to have believed that any message left here would reach him immediately. It was a telegram he was expecting by the way.”
“You state the case,” Jasper informed him, again mockery in his tone, “with a truly remarkable clarity. Any court would find you an admirable witness. Mr Abel—if he really exists, if he isn’t a pure invention—could have rung up to ask if there was anything for him. If he did, I don’t remember it. I don’t expect I should. No reason to.”
“Well, thanks very much for what you have told us,” Bobby said, getting to his feet, and this polite remark earned no more than an even worse scowl than usual from the Enemy of Society, who plainly suspected irony. “Sorry to have had to trouble you, though just possibly we may have to again. I’m sure we both hope not.”
“Always glad to see you,” Jasper assured him. “The seldomer the better.” By now Ford, too, was on his feet, ready for departure. The woman on the chair by the table twisted round, and stared at them in her hostile, angry way, rather as if relieved to see them going.
“Asking a lot of questions all about nothing,” she complained. “Nosey Parkers. What’s it all about, anyway?”
It was the first time Bobby had seen her so clearly, for till now she had kept her back turned to him except for occasional glances over her shoulder. Clearly not an educated woman. That was plain. Not, he thought, in business of any kind, too slow and heavy in every way for that. Nor a factory worker either. Her hands, fat and pudgy, were not those of one who did work of that kind. Yet of a fairly prosperous appearance as of one who earned good money. He wondered if he dared make a guess. He said to Jasper:
“Won’t you introduce us?”
“Meet, ma’am,” said Jasper, grinning as if he thought this request rather a joke, “Mr Owen and Mr Something Else, both of the Snoopers’ Own, often known as the Metropolitan Police. Mrs Adam, Mary Ellen Adam, I think. One of my oldest friends,” and at that he grinned again.
“Adam?” Bobby repeated. “Interesting coincidence. Biblical too, like Abel, and the same initial. No chance of the two names getting muddled, one for the other, I suppose?”
“He’s calling you a liar,” the woman said.
“Not at all, not at all,” Bobby protested. “Easily confused. Biblical both. Adam, the first man. Abel, the first of us all to be a murderer’s victim. No C.I.D. in those days to go snooping round. So Higher Authority intervened. No chance of its going unsolved like the Hugh Newton case—up to the present.”
“The gentleman’s doubtful,” Jasper said; and now his tone was faintly uneasy, as if he felt that perhaps he had gone a little too far in trying to score off his visitor. “Oh, well, let him see your identity card. Satisfy him perhaps. Nothing like obliging the police. Duty of every good citizen—like us.”
“I’m sure that would be very kind of you,” Bobby said, a trifle surprised though by the suggestion. “If you’re sure you wouldn’t mind,” he added to Mrs Adam.
She hesitated, looked at Jasper as if for advice, then seemed to make up her mind, began to fumble in her handbag, and finally produced it. Bobby gave it a glance, saw the name was Mary Ellen Adam, that the address was that of an hotel in the King’s Cross district, and handed it back. He decided to risk a guess—a deduction he himself would have called it—founded partly on the address being that of an hotel, since Mrs Adam had not much the air of one likely to be a resident at even a cheap hotel, partly from her general a
ppearance, which did seem somehow suggestive.
“So kind of you,” he had said as he returned her the identity card, and now he added: “Occupation—cook?”
“Well, what about it if it is,” she demanded resentfully, suspiciously. “Plain roast and boiled, that’s me, and none of your fancy fallals.”
“Get to know it all, don’t you?” Jasper growled, obviously disconcerted, and blissfully unaware that it was his own suggestion about the identity card and Bobby’s consequent knowledge of the hotel address that had caused Bobby to risk a shot that had clearly scored a bull.
CHAPTER XII
THE LARGE SUIT-CASE
“YOU STAY here,” Bobby told Ford the moment they reached the street. “When Mrs Adam comes out, trail her. I want to know where she lives. The address on the identity card is probably an old one. I’m ringing up to ask for a plain-clothes man to be sent along to take over. We’ve been on the job long enough.”
Ford was, gratefully, of the same opinion. So he retired into a convenient doorway, from which he could keep an eye on the J. J. habitation, and Bobby hurried away to the call box just round the corner in the next street. There he made known what he wanted, was told the best man available would be sent along at once, expressed his thanks, and went back to tell Ford a relief was on the way and he could go off duty as soon as the relief arrived.
“Warn him to keep a sharp look-out,” Bobby added. “Looks to me as if something might break to-night.”
However, it was a somewhat crest-fallen Ford who made his appearance in Bobby’s room next morning.
It seemed that soon after Ford had gone home, Jasper, the self-styled ‘Enemy of Society’ had emerged from his basement home, carrying a large and apparently heavy suit-case. As nothing had been said about following him, and as indeed it would not have been possible to do so without giving Mrs Adam full opportunity to leave unseen and untrailed, Jasper was allowed to depart in peace. Later, about midnight, no sign having been seen of Mrs Adam, Jasper returned, carrying with him the same apparently still heavy and well-filled suit-case. This he took down the area steps to his rooms and presently emerged again, proceeding then to walk slowly and deliberately up and down the street. Every dark corner, every shadowy doorway, he came to he examined carefully, obviously searching for a watcher. It did not take him long to find where lurked the C.I.D. man, and this discovery he hailed with tempestuous and delighted laughter. After a series of remarks that but for the C.I.D. man’s strong sense of discipline would certainly have resulted in a breach of the peace, Jasper informed him that Mrs Adam had gone off some hours ago, and that he, the C.I.D. man, must have been asleep not to see her. There was also an invitation to visit the basement and make sure for himself with the added promise of a cup of cocoa, just to show there was no ill-feeling, and earnest and grinning advice to go home to bed, which was, after all, the best place for those not fit to be trusted out with no nurse to look after them.
“What probably happened,” Ford explained ruefully, “is that Jordan helped Mrs Adam get out over the back-yard wall into the bombed house behind and into the street running parallel.”
“I expect so,” Bobby agreed, equally ruefully, “we ought to have thought of that,” and Ford cheered up a little at this use of the word ‘we’. Indeed, Bobby’s readiness to take his full share of responsibility when things went wrong, instead of passing all blame on to subordinates, was one reason why he was accorded by them the rare and high praise, seldom awarded to seniors, of being considered ‘not such a bad sort at bottom’. And this in spite of the fact that no one could be more severe on any real carelessness or neglect of duty. Bobby went on: “Most likely our Jasper wanted to attract attention and give Mrs Adam her chance to get off unseen. I would like to know what was in that suit-case though.”
“Bricks?” suggested Ford.
“Might be,” Bobby said thoughtfully. “Only was it?”
“He brought it back seemingly heavy as before,” Ford pointed out.
“Yes, I know,” Bobby said. “There might have been another smaller suit-case inside the first, and that may have been left somewhere, handed over to Mrs Adam even if they had arranged to meet. Jordan must know he would be easily remembered and identified if he showed himself. Not a face to be forgotten, and if it ever launched a thousand ships it would be from panic more than from anything else. You remember he did mention that he took in parcels sometimes for strangers, and no questions asked. He may have accepted it recently and now be a bit uneasy about its possible contents. He has search warrants on the brain all right, which suggests he’s been really afraid we might have one.”
“Yes, sir, but—well, that means it would have to be something valuable, wouldn’t it?”
“It would,” agreed Bobby, “and I thought he didn’t like it when I happened to say something about concealed valuables crooks might come after and he had better be prepared. He may have begun to think that that special parcel or dispatch-case would be safer somewhere else—with Mrs Adam, for example, as she was there and handy.”
“She could leave it in a cloak-room for him or somewhere like that,” Ford said. “She wouldn’t be noticed or remembered. Dozens of women like her.”
“Or keep it herself for that matter,” Bobby said. “When Jordan came back, that might be when the big suit-case had bricks in it or something of the sort. If there was a smaller dispatch-case inside, that could have been taken out and left somewhere. All very difficult. But we do seem to be getting somewhere, goodness only knows where. We know Kenneth Banner disappeared immediately after the murder. Jordan certainly comes in somehow, and other useful connections established. The dead man’s chef’s cap and apron and the travel-agency advertisements carefully removed from the flat led us to the Banner Travel Agency and to the identification of Hugh Newton and Bert Abel as the same man. Miss Guire may not have known Abel was a first-class cook, but Ossy Dow and Stan Foster must have known, and neither let on. Kept it back for their own reasons, crooked reasons it goes without saying. Now, too, we know there are three women in it—Mrs Adam, Imra Guire, and Doreen Caine. Mrs Adam is a cook. I imagine a jolly bad one. But it means she can get a new job anywhere at any time in any name she likes to take for the time. The perfect background for doing the vanishing trick. From what we got to know at Southampton she must be the woman who was there just before the murder, trying to track down a husband dodging payments due under a maintenance order and hating him as only wives and husbands can hate each other. Brood on your grievances and disappointments, and they can grow bigger than Mount Everest.”
“Choking a man with feathers,” Ford said, “could be a woman’s trick, same as you say, sir. And Jordan could have done the knocking out. He’s tough enough.”
“It’s possible,” Bobby agreed. “Or Ossy Dow. He’s fat, but he’s one of those fat men who have plenty of muscle left. Light on his feet I noticed. Or Kenneth Banner, though Ossy called him a light-weight. Light-weights can hit hard and often, but don’t get in smashers like the one that knocked out Abel. Well, there it is. Then there’s Imra Guire, a queer, dark, troubled girl who, I think, does not sleep too well. And Doreen Caine, also a cook, and I hope the name’s not symbolical.”
“Not what, sir?” Ford asked.
“Symbolical,” Bobby repeated. “There was a Cain once. Not spelt the same way, but having something to do with an Abel. Adam, Cain, and Abel, all very biblical. We needn’t bother about that. She wanted the case re-opened, and has managed that much all right. Why? Because she was in love with Newton-Abel, and means to see his murderer brought to justice? If it’s that, is it Kenneth Banner she thinks is guilty?”
“He’s done a bunk,” Ford said. “Looks that way to me, only you never know. All this cooking though. Beats me. It might all come out of that Mrs Beeton my old woman’s always talking about. Sort of a Bible to her. Cooking and murder. I don’t get it. And that Imra Guire. A nightmare.”
“Not so much a nightmare as lives in one,”
Bobby said. “Now consider the men we’ve come across—or haven’t, when it’s Mr Kenneth Banner; and what’s become of him and why? Next Newton-Abel and who killed him and why? and we do know that a wife who hated him was on his trail and perhaps she found him. Anyhow, she doesn’t seem inclined to have anything to do with us if she can help it. Then Ossy Dow, Kenneth Banner’s partner, and a wrong ’un if ever I met one. Next that little rat of an engineer.”
“Stanley Foster?” Ford said.
“Yes. Well, what he knows he means to keep to himself, and it looks as if he had been doing pretty well out of the yachting. He can hardly be the murderer though, as he doesn’t seem to have left Seemouth—been there all the time. Last, Jasper Jordan, enemy of society by profession, and where is the thread to bind all that together?”
But this was a rhetorical question, to which no answer was expected or required. Bobby got to his feet and looked sadly at his desk, covered with enough documents of one sort or another to keep him busy for the rest of the day if he gave them the attention they ought to have. Ford observed with some satisfaction that he was putting these papers into two separate piles. He thought this indicated that further action was in contemplation. When Bobby had completed this task, he said, indicating the larger pile:
“Cut across to Mr Sandford with this lot, Ford, will you? Give him my compliments, and ask him if he can please deal with them. Don’t tell me what he says. Just dump them on his desk and run for your life. This other lot I’ll have to tackle later on. Means I’ll have to stop to-night till all hours.”
Strange Ending: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 9