“I thought you would be the next,” she greeted them in her slow, sombre voice Bobby remembered so well.
“Next?” he repeated questioningly.
“Isn’t it because of Mrs Adam?” she asked. “She told me she wanted Mr Dow, and she was going straight to the police if she couldn’t find him.”
“She hasn’t as far as I know,” Bobby said. “Did she say why?”
“She was so excited and upset I couldn’t make out what it was all about,” Imra replied. “I told her Mr Dow was in London trying to sell the agency.”
“Can you give me his address?”
“No, he rang up to say he had left his hotel because it was too expensive, and he would get a cheap room somewhere if he could find one. He said he would ring up again when he was settled.”
Bobby turned to accompany her, as she showed signs of wanting to continue on her way. She did not seem pleased, less pleased still when she noticed Ford was following close behind. Her home was close by, and when they reached it she said ‘Good afternoon’, and seemed to expect them to depart. Bobby explained there were a few questions he wished to put to her.
“We think you may be able to help us,” he said, and she gave him one of those strange, long looks of hers, as of one who saw approaching what she feared indeed but was resolute to face.
“Why should I?” she asked. “Help you, I mean.” And then: “Suppose I don’t choose to answer questions?”
“I hope you won’t do that,” Bobby answered. “It would make a very bad impression. Conclusions would be drawn. There is such a thing, too, you know, as being detained for questioning. Wouldn’t it be better if we talked somewhere else, not in the street. Would you prefer to come to the police-station? It may be necessary to ask you to make a statement.”
“I don’t think I’ve anything to say, even if I wanted to, and I don’t think I care if you do draw conclusions,” she told him, and now there was a certain lofty and defiant scorn in her voice. “No,” she said loudly, and then abruptly, for no apparent reason, she changed her mind. “Well, come in if you want to,” she said.
She opened the door and went in. She did not look back, and made no gesture of permission or invitation. They followed her down a long, drab passage. At the end of it she opened a door and stood aside. It was a small, dull room they entered, reflecting in no way Imra’s enigmatic, vivid personality. She closed the door on them and went away without speaking.
“Making her get-away?” Ford said.
“I don’t think so,” Bobby answered.
“Looks like death,” Ford said. “Looks like a woman in a picture I once saw—ancient queen it was. Offering a choice of a bowl of poison or a knife. Sort of ‘As You Like It’ business.”
Bobby made no comment on this historical reminiscence. He was not without something of the same feeling himself.
“I think she takes things hard,” he said. “A born extremist—puts in all she has, and nothing held back. Dangerous.”
The door opened and Imra returned. She stood for a moment in the doorway watching them. Then she came forward, and with her came that breath and atmosphere of tragedy that seemed the natural air she breathed.
“Well, now then,” she said, and even those commonplace words she managed somehow to invest with an accent of doom. “Well, now then,” she repeated, still standing, still watching.
“You know,” Bobby said gently, “if you stand there like that we shall have to stand up as well. Wouldn’t we get on better if you sat down?”
“Very well,” she said, after a pause, as if considering this suggestion, wishing to ignore it, and yet finding no reason to do so.
“One thing that’s giving us a lot of bother,” Bobby went on, “is that it seems so difficult to keep in touch with people. Mrs Adam, for instance. She has a way of leaving her lodgings suddenly without saying a word. She might almost be trying to hide. From whom? Not from us obviously, if she told you she was going to ask our help.”
“She’s a fool,” Imra said briefly. “If she means to go to you, why not wait till she does?”
“It might mean waiting till too late,” Bobby answered. “You knew probably she was married to Mr Abel?”
“I heard so.”
“Were you on friendly terms with Mr Abel?”
“No. He was no friend of mine,” she said, and stared hard at Bobby, her gaze fixed, blank, unwavering. He waited, for he felt there was more to come. With a slight relaxation of her tense manner, she went on: “He was hardly ever in Seemouth. He lived in Southampton, where our cruises always started. It suited clients better. Us too. There’s no really good anchorage here.” Then she paused once more, and once more he waited. Slowly, as if the words came from her against her will, she continued: “They say he had a way with women. I don’t know. It’s what I heard. I didn’t mean to tell you that.” And now she was looking at him resentfully, as if she felt it was his calm and patient, intent waiting, the forceful suggestion of his hidden will, that in the end had made her speak. “I don’t know why I did,” she concluded.
Bobby did not know either. He did not know that deep down within him there was, as it were, some hidden power of the will, some forceful unknown energy that could at times make speech come from those who had resolved that they would remain silent. May be it was this deep silence of his own, as he waited, watchful and attentive, his thoughts unknown, this intent and potent silence, that made imperative a response from theirs. At any rate, whatever the explanation, it had happened before in his experience, and even more than once; this kind of reluctant and unwilling response of speech to the power of silence.
“I was told that once before, about his influence with women,” Bobby said thoughtfully. “Hard to understand. Some men have it. The male equivalent to feminine charm—glamour—‘It’—I suppose. Have you heard anything, or have you any knowledge of the smuggling we have reason to believe was carried on under cover of the ‘As You Like It’ cruises?”
“It’s all over Seemouth,” she answered. “I expect you know that perfectly well. I know nothing about it. I never went on any of the cruises. Watches, people say. From Switzerland. I don’t know.”
“We have further information,” Bobby continued, “that Mrs Adam recently offered a valuable wrist-watch for sale to a jeweller in London, but left at once when he seemed inclined to question her.”
“If she did, what has that to do with me?”
“You sold some jewellery recently yourself, didn’t you?” Bobby asked.
“That’s my business,” she retorted. “I suppose you’ve been following me about, watching? What right have you to go snooping after people?”
“You have been neither followed nor watched,” Bobby told her, “beyond the fact that your visits to London have been noticed like those of others in the case.”
“What’s that mean?” she demanded. “What case?”
“The case of murder committed at Mayfair Crescent,” he answered. “That is what we are chiefly concerned with.”
“You mean I am what you call ‘in it’?” she asked scornfully.
“Like some others,” he agreed.
“So that’s why you’ve been watching me. Is my selling some old jewellery my aunt left me considered suspicious? If you weren’t watching, how did you know?”
“Jewellers let us know when they are offered valuable jewellery privately. As it happened, we had asked for a look-out to be kept for the Manton jewellery, and one of our people was making inquiries at the shop you went to. There’s another question I should like to put to you. You know a Mr Jasper Jordan. He lives in a basement flat near Mayfair Crescent.”
“I’ve heard of him. I’ve never seen him. A crank, isn’t he?”
“He might be called so,” Bobby admitted. “He seems to have left his flat with the door slightly open, as if he meant to be back immediately. Apparently he did not return at all. Our information is that a car was seen waiting outside the flat about that time. It was driv
en by a woman. Was it you?”
“Why should you think so? Many women drive cars.”
“The description we have might apply to you.”
“I should like to hear it,” she said then, a touch of mockery in her voice.
“Tall and dark,” Bobby said. “A distinctive bearing.”
“Is that all? There must be millions of us tall and dark.” She gave one of those smiles of hers that were like no others. “What is a distinctive bearing?” she asked.
“Hard to define, easy to recognize,” Bobby told her, and went on immediately: “Do you think you could remember where you were the night Herbert Abel was murdered?”
She gave no least sign that this sudden and abrupt question in any way disturbed her. But it was a long time before she answered. She sat as motionless as before, her hands clasped loosely before her. He noticed that even her feet were still, feet that often betray a nervousness otherwise well concealed. She might not have heard, except for the deep, veiled eyes that were so fixed, so intent.
“No,” she said. “It is a question, that. Why do you ask it?”
“I think there was a woman present that night,” Bobby said. “Was it you?” he asked for the second time.
“If it were, do you think I should tell you?” she retorted, and then: “Have you asked Doreen Caine? Or Mrs Adam? Or is it only me?”
This time it was Bobby who did not answer for a moment or two. He could see how closely she was watching him, and he was certain she felt that her last two questions had embarrassed him, even if she did not realize why or how deeply. He had been intending to ask her next to explain how it was she had been able to make the reference she had done when he first saw her to the meal Abel had been preparing before his murder. But now he had the impression that it would be better to wait a little longer. Now she was on the alert, defensive, defiant, wary. At any moment she might refuse to say more. If he let further questioning wait, giving her more time for reflection, she might be more willing to tell all that he was certain she was keeping back.
“Well, you know,” he answered at last, “you mustn’t expect me to give you information about other people. We shouldn’t about you, you know. But why do you mention Mrs Adam and Miss Caine in particular? Is it because you know something?”
“I know Mrs Adam was his wife and was telling everyone what she was going to do to him when she found him. And she says Doreen Caine was one of his women. He had plenty, every fool girl he met, I expect, and why not her? Perhaps she hit back? Did she? Something for you to think about,” she said, and again came that strange dark smile of hers it was so hard to understand—an enigmatic, Mona Lisa smile. “Or why not try to find the missing Mr Jasper Jordan? If he’s not where he lives, he must be somewhere else, mustn’t he?”
“Yes,” Bobby agreed. “Yes. Somewhere.”
CHAPTER XXIX
MR JORDAN’S RETURN
ON THAT doubtful note, their talk ended; and it was in silence, Bobby silent because he had so much to think over, Ford because he did not dare intrude upon the thoughts of a senior so much absorbed in them, that they returned to the police-station, where they had left their car. They were nearly there before Bobby seemed to wake from his abstraction.
“Gives you something to mull over, doesn’t it?” he said to Ford. “But takes it out of you, too. I would rather have a good old rough-and-tumble any day than a talk like that, all hints and allusions, and what have you.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed Ford, though in fact he had felt no such strain, having indeed taken no part in a duel of words of which he had not well understood the significance. He added: “Was she hinting Miss Caine is an A. 1 cook and might have been helping Abel get ready that swell supper of his?”
“Abel seems to have been a swell cook himself,” Bobby reminded Ford. “Hardly likely he would want her help. Possible, I suppose. Garlic seems to have been a sort of bond of brotherhood between them—between him and Miss Caine.”
“Garlic, sir?” Ford repeated, for he hardly knew what garlic was, except vaguely as something that foreigners had for dinner—and just like them. He ventured—apologetically: “You know, sir, I was half-expecting you would press Miss Guire about the supper Abel had got ready that night. Extra special, wasn’t it?”
“I did mean to,” Bobby answered. “But then I thought I wouldn’t. I got the idea all at once that it wasn’t the time. Timing’s everything, you know. Ask a cricketer. Ask a boxer. You are both, aren’t you? You ought to know. One hit will go to the boundary and another rate a lucky single, though you’ve put just as much into it. Ripeness is all as someone said, and ripeness means timing. When you are asking questions, timing is just as important as the question itself.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed Ford. “Difficult though.”
“Everything’s difficult,” Bobby told him. “If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be interesting.” They had reached the police-station now. “I’ll just go in and tell them we’re off, and they’ll say ‘Thank the Lord’, but not out loud.”
It was a long drive back to town, and late when they reached the Yard. Ford—seniors don’t always have the best of it—was sent off home, but Bobby had to set to to write out the notes of the talk with Imra he had been busy making during the drive. These, too, he had to type out himself—a one-finger job for him—as all the typists had gone home. All, that is, except one, and she saw him coming and had time to dodge.
Next morning, however, he found on his desk a memo, marked: “Urgent. In re, Mayfair Crescent Case (re-opened).”
It came from the D.D.I. of the district, and was to the effect that Mr Jasper Jordan, reported ‘absent from residence’, had returned. He had been seen and spoken to by the constable on the beat, who had noticed him leaning over the area gate, smoking a cigarette. Jordan had been aggressively rude. Couldn’t, he had demanded, a man go away to the seaside for a day or two if he wanted a change, without all the police in the place running after him? Why didn’t the police stick to their job, if indeed they had one, which to him, Jasper Jordan, seemed extremely doubtful. Perhaps they would next be asking to see his hotel bill to make sure he had paid up? Well, if that was what they wanted, they could whistle for it.
But at this point the constable beat a retreat, battered indeed, but still unbowed, though a barrage of invective followed him all down the street.
“Touchy gentleman, our Jasper,” Bobby remarked to a colleague who had come into the room to consult him on another matter. “Anyhow, another turn of the kaleidoscope. Why all that about the seaside and the hotel bill? Just possibly means the seaside is where he hasn’t been and an hotel is where he hasn’t been staying, and he hopes we will waste our time looking for them. Which would also mean he doesn’t want us to know where he was. Why? And that hanging about at the top of the area steps looks very much as if he wanted his return to be noticed. I think I had better try to get away in time this afternoon to see if I can get anything out of him.”
“You don’t expect him to tell you anything, do you?” asked the colleague. “Most likely he’s been getting rid of those watches and wants to cover up. Hot stuff, and best got rid of pronto.”
“Better than best—put hot stuff in cold storage,” Bobby retorted, “and often what a man tells you is as much in what he doesn’t say as in what he does.”
The colleague put on a doubtful air, said that was too subtle for him, and retired; and Bobby succeeded in getting away in time to reach West King Street shortly before five—that doubtful hour which is neither still afternoon nor yet evening. He had to wait a little and knock twice before at last Jordan came to the door. Seeing Bobby waiting there, he promptly emitted a sort of muffled shout that was at best, however, but a pale reflection of his earlier full-throated roars. Indeed, he looked very much, Bobby told himself, the worse for wear. Pale he was, his features drawn, a dirty patch of sticking-plaster on his neck, his gait most unlike the vigorous, confident stride Bobby remembered, his former swaggering boisterousness
much reduced. He was plainly doing his best to recover it though.
“My dear old pal back again with his usual search warrant in his pocket most likely,” he was saying. “Never mind showing it. Come along in and tell me what it’s all about this time. Or is it only that you can’t leave decent people alone, but must always be poking your nose into what doesn’t concern you?”
He led the way into the front room Bobby had been in before. There he took up his favourite position with his back to the fireplace, and again Bobby was conscious of an odd impression that somehow the man was oddly shrunken. He seemed to have become a smaller impression of his earlier self, as though he had recently been badly shaken. The room, too, was even untidier than usual, not so much more untidy perhaps as more disorderly. The brand new typewriter Bobby remembered had now become no more than a battered ruin. One of the rickety chairs was in bits in a corner, and in another corner was what remained of the aspidistra Bobby had noticed on his earlier visit. It had apparently been knocked over and trodden on.
“Take a seat,” Jordan said, with a vague wave of his hand round the room. “Suit yourself. Well, what’s it all about?”
Bobby chose one that seemed the most likely to bear his weight, removed from it some tools—a hammer, a screwdriver, screws, two padlocks, a file, a collection Bobby noticed with some interest, since it was the first time he had seen anything to suggest Jordan ever troubled to do anything in the way of odd jobs needing tools—and said:
“Well, you know, Mr Jordan, really and truly, we have far too much on our hands that does concern us to bother about what doesn’t. Item: murder not far from here.”
“Well, I didn’t do it,” Jordan snapped. “I didn’t know the poor devil, never so much as set eyes on him for that matter.”
“Item,” Bobby continued: “smuggled watches of unknown but probably considerable value.”
“Well, I haven’t got them,” Jordan said. “Wish I had. Smuggled indeed. What right have you, has Society, to stop a man buying a watch and selling it again if he wants to?”
Strange Ending: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 20