“If it was, I wouldn’t tell you,” Jasper roared, glaring furiously.
“Then I’ll be off myself,” Bobby said, jumping to his feet, for he was really afraid that soon Jasper’s self-control might break down completely. “Oh, by the way,” he asked with his hand on the door-knob, “know anything about limpets?”
“Limpets, limpets,” Jasper repeated, so surprised he almost forgot to be angry. “What are you talking about now?”
“Limpets,” Bobby said again. “A sort of shell-fish. Also the name given during the war to a kind of mine stuck on the bottom of ships by a one-man operation. Not a job I should have been in a hurry to undertake.”
“Some more of your being clever, I suppose,” Jordan growled, and he seemed genuinely puzzled. “May make sense to you—if anything does,” he added doubtfully. “Talking through your hat most of the time, aren’t you? Are you trying to make out that poor devil of a Hugh Newton was killed by a bomb?”
“I am sure he wasn’t,” Bobby answered. “Suffocated by feathers pushed down his throat while he was unconscious after being knocked out. The knocking out done by a man. The feathers—would that be a woman, I wonder? If so, both equally guilty. Well, I’ll be off, though I may have to see you again. And I think the moment is appropriate for reminding you again that withholding evidence is a serious offence, especially in a murder case, and may lead even to a charge of being an accessory after the fact.”
“I don’t need you to teach me the law,” Jasper retorted. “I know nothing about it all, and it’s no business of mine.”
“It might come to be so,” Bobby answered. “Yours or anyone’s, if whatever led to Newton’s death is not stopped. It may spread to others—even to you.”
“Rubbish, nonsense,” snarled Jasper, but with a little less self-assurance than was generally apparent in all he said; and as soon as he was outside Bobby went running round the next corner, into the badly bombed street, still unrepaired, that ran behind and parallel to West King St.
He had not long to wait. Soon sounds of scrambling, of stumbling, of the fall of displaced bits of stone or rubble became audible. From the shadows in whose shelter he had ensconced himself, Bobby watched. Soon, through what once had been the imposing entrance to a large Victorian mansion, there emerged over a heap of rubble, under a placard announcing ‘Danger’, the figures of a man and a woman. They halted near a street-lamp. Bobby recognized Jasper and Doreen. Jasper was saying, every word clearly audible in the evening quiet of the deserted street:
“Rough going, worse than I thought. It’s getting worse all the time—usual shocking neglect, of course. You’ll be all right now though, won’t you? I want to go back the same way. I don’t want that meddling police fellow to get any idea I’ve a handy back door.”
Doreen made some reply, but Bobby could not catch what she said in her low voice, such a contrast to Jasper’s roaring tones. Jasper’s reply, however, Bobby could hear distinctly.
“Oh, him,” Jasper was saying, and the ‘him’ Bobby correctly took for a reference to himself. “Oh, yes, Mr Funny Clever. No fear of his trying to follow you. He’ll be there, opposite my place in the darkest doorway he can find, waiting to see if anyone comes out. Well, he’ll see me come out presently and poke a stick into every corner till I get him, and then I’ll have a good laugh—shoving his nose in where it’s not wanted.”
They parted then, Jasper returning for his none too easy and even slightly dangerous clamber through the ruined house, and Doreen continuing on her way to the nearest point where she could hope to catch her ’bus. Bobby hurried to overtake her. She heard his step close behind, but did not look round. Her work took her out too often late in the evening for her not to have learnt that complete indifference was the best technique for dealing with any unwanted and obtrusive male. Bobby said:
“Good evening, Miss Doreen. Do you mind if I walk along with you?”
CHAPTER XVI
STRIKING A BARGAIN
DOREEN TURNED sharply. That accustomed technique of hers, complete indifference, of no use this time, for she had recognized the voice at once. The dismay in her own voice was undisguised as she stammered out:
“Oh, it’s you . . . you . . .”
For a moment indeed Bobby was afraid she was going to take refuge in flight, a manœuvre which would have left him helpless, at any rate for the time.
“Oh, please, Miss Doreen, please,” he said. “It’s all right, it’s only that I’ve got to ask you a few more questions. Necessary, I’m afraid. Now, if you like, if you will let me walk along with you. Or I can call to see you to-morrow morning. Or you can come and see me at Scotland Yard. Whichever you prefer.”
“How did you know . . .”? she began, and paused. “I mean . . .” and again she left the sentence unfinished. “Have you . . . is it anything else besides me?” and this time Bobby guessed what made her voice sound so weak, so terrified.
“We haven’t arrested Mr Banner, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “I saw him leaving Jordan’s place, but he was off in a passing taxi before I had time to do anything.”
“What made you think it was Mr Banner?” Doreen asked. “Besides, it wasn’t,” she added, recovering now her shaken self-possession.
“Well, I didn’t guess who it was at first,” Bobby admitted. “I was only sure when I knew you were at Jordan’s too.”
Doreen was silent for a moment or two. Bobby felt she was half-inclined to deny that she had been there, but if she really had such an idea she abandoned it. Instead she said:
“I don’t see how you did know, I don’t believe you did, I think you are just guessing.”
“I never guess,” Bobby protested. “Never. Deduction from observed facts. What I always tell people. Much the same really, but it sounds a lot better. I’ve always suspected you were more or less in touch with Mr Banner, and if that had been Mr Banner who was in such a hurry to get off, then it was fairly certain you wouldn’t be far away. Obvious there had been a woman visiting Jordan—and of course I had seen you there before, so it was pretty certain that woman was you.”
“How could you possibly know that?” she flashed. “I’m sure Mr Jordan wouldn’t tell you.”
“He wouldn’t,” Bobby agreed, “and he didn’t. How much easier it would all be if people told us things. They don’t. Not even nice young ladies. Dumb as destiny, all of them. But you did leave plain evidence that a woman had been there just before I arrived.”
“I’m sure I didn’t,” Doreen protested. “I mean I’m sure I never would if I had been.”
“Anyone with half an eye could see the place had just been swept and dusted,” Bobby pointed out. “There was even a brush and dust-pan still there in one corner. Fact is, some women don’t seem able to keep their fingers off a broom if there’s as much as a speck of dust visible.”
“Speck of dust indeed,” Doreen protested indignantly. “It was inches deep everywhere.”
“So it was,” Bobby agreed. “I didn’t think it would be much good asking for a talk with you there and then. Simpler to wait outside, which is what I did.”
“Mr Jordan said you would be,” Doreen said. “Waiting. That’s why he took me out the way he did. Only you were there, too, weren’t you?”
“I was,” Bobby agreed again. “Jordan had played that game before, but you don’t often take a second trick with the same card.” He added, not without satisfaction: “I expect Jordan at this moment is hopefully poking sticks into every doorway in West King Street. An innocent amusement. Well, why is Mr Banner hiding? Till now, I wasn’t sure about it. Now I know he is—well, rather suggests he’s guilty, doesn’t it?”
“He isn’t—I know he isn’t,” Doreen said with passion. She did not raise her voice, but it was vibrant with a strange intensity of feeling. “It doesn’t matter what he says, he isn’t.”
“How do you mean—no matter what he says?” Bobby asked, puzzled by the phrase. “He ought to know.”
Doreen
only shook her head and walked on in silence, quickening her pace, though more as if she wished to leave her own thoughts behind rather than in the hope of outstripping Bobby. He was silent, too, wondering if she was so certain of Kenneth Banner’s innocence because she knew who was in fact the murderer. Doreen said suddenly:
“I expect you think it wasn’t true about me not knowing where he was. Well, I didn’t. I don’t now. He rang up. He said it was to say good-bye. That was a day or two after—after—”
“After the murder?” Bobby asked, seeing that the word troubled her.
“After it happened,” she said. “And I didn’t want it to be good-bye, not like that. So I put an advertisement one day every week in the personal column of the Announcer I knew he used to read. And there was no answer. Nothing happened for weeks and weeks, and then he rang up and said I was to forget him and he was leaving the country, and I said can’t we meet, if only for just once more, and we did—at Mr Jordan’s. I couldn’t ask him to come to the house because it would have upset mother so, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else. He said all right and he came, and then the ’phone went, and it was to tell Mr Jordan you were coming, and Kenneth said he must go, and he did.”
“If he is not guilty, he is a fool,” Bobby remarked, and Doreen said, very angrily:
“All very well for you to talk, you don’t know, you don’t know anything at all!”
“If I did—know anything at all, I mean,” Bobby answered, “I might be able to help you. Sometimes an officer of police can prove that that’s one side of his duty—to help those in trouble, to protect them sometimes. Why not give me a chance to know something? By telling the truth, the whole truth. Think it over. In the meantime, are you still in touch with Mr Banner? Can you communicate with him? If you can, will you advise him to come forward at once? It will be necessary now to make it public that we want to hear from him. ‘Because we think he may be able to help us over the Hugh Newton murder’ is how it will be phrased. It will mean his name and description outside every police-station in the country. There must be plenty of his old shipmates who knew him in the war who could recognize him. And the Naval authorities could tell us a lot, I expect. We shall be sure to get all the information we need before long.”
But Bobby spoke with more confidence than he felt, for he knew well how easy it is to disappear in the crowded cities of to-day, where so many busy millions pass each other by every hour and never even think of giving each other a second glance.
They had been walking on all the time they were talking thus, and since the distance was not great, they were now near where Doreen lived with her mother. There had been a long silence. Doreen said:
“If I can get hold of him again and tell him, and if he says I can bring you to meet him somewhere, will you wait for a day or two before—before—”
“Before making it public that we want to find him?” Bobby completed her sentence. “Well, yes, I think I can promise that. But not longer,” and he thought to himself that the delay would not be of much importance, since it would take almost the day or two mentioned to prepare such a general and widespread announcement as he contemplated.
“And you must promise,” Doreen went on, “that if he says I may and I take you to meet him, you won’t try to do anything horrid.”
“Well, I’m afraid that would be rather a wide undertaking,” Bobby told her smilingly. “So much depends, doesn’t it, on what could be called ‘horrid’. I can’t promise anything at all, except with the plain understanding that what I feel to be my duty must come first.”
“I do think you’re a most awful prig,” Doreen said indignantly.
“Oh, am I?” Bobby asked, considering this accusation and rather depressed by it. “I don’t know. Anyhow, we must leave it at that. If you let me know within forty-eight hours that Kenneth Banner is willing to meet me immediately and give me his version of what happened, nothing more will be done till I’ve seen him.”
“You’ll come alone?” Doreen interposed.
“Oh, I’ll come alone all right,” Bobby promised. “Understand though, if I don’t hear within the forty-eight hours, the notices will go out.”
“Very well,” she said, in a small subdued voice, and then, with that sudden suppressed, yet vibrant passion he had heard in her voice before, she added: “I don’t care, I know he didn’t. It’s not—it’s not—not him.”
“Well, that’s a first-class, very good personal reason,” Bobby said. “But not much good to judge or jury.”
At that Doreen suddenly stood still. She turned to stare at him. It was as if those last two words had startled her, as if they had brought before her a vision of a court, of a judge in wig and robes, of twelve grave-faced men called upon to decide a fellow creature’s fate. Bobby thought he knew well who in that picture, if it were really in her mind, stood in the dock. Doreen turned away and hurried to the house. Over her shoulder she said:
“I must go in. Good night.”
“One moment,” Bobby said, as she was fumbling in her handbag for her key. “Tell me, why did you say you don’t care? Care about what?”
“I don’t care what anyone says—anyone,” she answered, and repeated with emphasis: “Anyone, anyone,” and her voice had grown high and shrill.
She had her key in the lock now, but again Bobby checked her.
“One thing more,” he said. “Do you know anything about limpets?”
“Limpets,” she repeated. “What limpets? Why? Do you mean shell-fish, aren’t they? Or those things they used to stick on ships in the war under water so as to blow them up? Do you mean about Kenneth? He was given a medal because of doing it.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that,” Bobby told her. “I was thinking of the shell-fish just then, and wondering if they were ever used in cooking. Are they?”
“Not that I ever heard of,” she answered curtly, and now she had the door open, and she went in quickly and closed it behind her as if half-afraid he might follow her.
“A poignant little scene,” he reflected as he walked slowly away. “And what did she mean by her ‘didn’t care what anybody said?’ Someone been telling her something? Well, who—and what?”
CHAPTER XVII
THE HOVERING SHADOW
THE FOLLOWING morning, when Bobby informed his immediate superior of the arrangements made with Doreen, he did not find the news greeted with any marked approval.
“Seems to me,” grumbled Superior Authority, “you are as likely as not heading for trouble. I take it you’ll arrange to be followed by another car just in case?”
Bobby shook his head.
“Oh, no,” he said. “Put the hat on the whole thing. No good trying to pull off anything like that with Miss Doreen. A very wide-awake young lady. As quiet and yielding and all that as water, and as impossible to stop as flood water when it gets really going. If there was a car following she would spot it in quick time, and that would be the end of the whole show—and the end of the kind of mutual confidence I’ve been trying to build up between us. Got to play fair, or it’s no good.”
Superior Authority nodded with complete though somewhat reluctant understanding. There is in fact a strange, in a way, incredible psychological situation that in an investigation can develop between questioner and questioned. In it each grows to know intimately the other, in a sense they come to trust each other, and to know, too, that certain rules and conventions will be observed, though neither one could say what those rules and conventions are, and though each is well aware what hangs upon the outcome of their talks.
“Looks to me,” Superior Authority went on, however, “as if this girl of yours may be leading you straight into a trap of some sort. They may be thinking it’s time you were stopped before you got any nearer, and the girl may be just a decoy. The cheese for the mouse—you.”
“Some mouse, don’t you think?” Bobby retorted, remembering a certain famous speech. “It wouldn’t be the first time anyhow that that bright idea has occur
red to some people. Professional risk, but very small this time.”
“Oh, well, have it your way,” grumbled the other. “What do you propose to do if the young lady lives up to her word and does produce the chap?”
“Hear what the chap has to say,” Bobby answered promptly, “and then bring him back here to say it all over again.”
“Taking it for granted that he’ll be willing to come?”
“Oh, dear, no,” Bobby protested gently. “I never take anything for granted. Except that if he’s there he’ll come all right—willingly or unwillingly.”
“I don’t like it,” declared the other. “This girl, too. An unknown quantity. Girls always are, of course. No, I don’t like it.”
“Such a lot of things in life one doesn’t like, don’t you think, sir?” commented Bobby. “Almost everything in fact—except not getting up in the morning.”
“Well, don’t blame me if you and your girl friend both come back in your coffins, that’s all,” was the final comment with which the interview closed.
Returning to his own room, Bobby settled down to the routine work of which there was always plenty needing his attention and to await word either from Doreen or from one or other of his assistants he had working on what was coming to be known officially as the Mayfair Crescent Case (Reopened) and privately and off the record as ‘Bobby Owen’s special’. Nor was it so very long before reports began to come in.
The first was to the effect that Mrs Adam, traced to the small and rather grubby hotel where she had been working as cook and not giving any great satisfaction, had failed to arrive at her usual time the night before. As a consequence, the proprietor had had to undertake the preparation of the dinner himself, and, as a further consequence, the guests had fared even worse than usual. An urgent message sent to her lodgings had revealed that she had left in a taxi early in the afternoon, taking with her all her possessions in one large suit-case and various bundles; and giving Waterloo Station as her destination. Efforts to trace her farther had so far failed completely. It seemed, however, that shortly after her departure from her lodgings she had been inquired for by a man, the oddity of whose appearance had made him well remembered and whose description made it fairly plain that he was Jasper Jordan. It was added that he had seemed equally annoyed and surprised when told that she had left.
Strange Ending: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 12