Six Were Present: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “I’m afraid we haven’t either,” Bobby admitted. “All clear-cut and simple as far as it goes, and then the complete dead end.”

  “Well, but is it?” Ludo said. He looked at his cigarette, appeared to notice with some surprise that it had gone out, and threw it into the grate. “You police chaps go on and on about it must have been one of us six. Well, must it? You’ve been in the summit room over there at Freres. Ever notice the windows?”

  “I noticed they all had closely fitting shutters, if that’s what you mean,” Bobby answered. “To keep out the light, I suppose.”

  “That’s right,” Ludo said. “Made the room dark as hell, but that’s not what I was thinking of. They all had curtains as well, thick and heavy as they make ’em.”

  “Yes. Well, what about it?” Bobby asked, still slightly puzzled.

  “What about,” Ludo retorted, “some bloke being behind them, slipping out—it was dark as pitch, so he couldn’t be seen, and the gramophone going like one o’clock so he wouldn’t be heard—doing the job, slipping back again and then when Baynham opened the door and rushed off to ring a doctor and you blokes, slipping out again and off.”

  “Rather too much slipping in and out, isn’t there?” Bobby suggested, not as much impressed by this theory as Ludo had evidently expected. “The idea was considered, I believe, but the curtains fit as closely as the shutters. No one could possibly hide behind them without it’s being immediately obvious.”

  But Ludo stuck to his theory.

  “Of course,” he agreed. “If you looked you would spot it at once. The point is, no one looked or thought of looking except Peel. And he wouldn’t because he knew and had helped fix it all up.”

  “Why should he?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, just think,” Ludo admonished him in much the tone in which he admonished prospective clients to think of all the advantages he was offering them. “There’s that goldmine yarn, isn’t there? And the map showing where it may be that Rosy says isn’t now in the bureau drawer where it used to be. Maps of undeveloped possible gold-mines command a high premium in the City.” He paused, and once more there had come into his voice that note of anger and resentment—even fear—Bobby thought had been there once before. “I happen to know Peel’s not above a spot of blackmail, and blackmail’s not so far off murder.”

  “A little more discreet, that’s all,” Bobby agreed, ready to keep Ludo talking so long as he remained in his present loquacious mood, for often there is more in talk than the talker knows. “Can you be a bit more explicit?”

  But now Ludo seemed to feel he had said more than he had ever intended to, more perhaps than was altogether wise, and he shook his head in answer to Bobby’s question.

  “No,” he replied at once, a little too loudly and too quickly indeed. “Nothing to do with me; not my pigeon at all. Just what I’ve heard. What I do say is: Find that gold-mine map and your man won’t be far away.” He paused and, when Bobby did not speak, went on: “All hunkadory? Anything else I can tell you? Only too glad to help. Means a lot to me to get it all cleared up. Horrible business altogether. It’s funny, though. V.I.Ps. I couldn’t get near before want to hear all about it, and after I’ve told ’em all I know and a bit more—well, they can’t very well refuse to sign on the dotted line. What do you make of that?”

  Bobby made nothing of it, and as he felt that there was no more to be learnt from Ludo for the present, he took his leave.

  Back at the County Police Headquarters, Bobby asked for the rapidly growing dossier of what the papers were beginning to call ‘The Impossible Murder’ and whereto the latest addition had been the report of the two police officers Nixon had sent to interview Ludo. It was this which Bobby specially wished to study; and to it, aided by cups of tea from the canteen of an almost Herculean strength and a plate of toast most exceeding thick, he gave a prolonged, meticulous examination, weighing every word, considering every phrase, comparing word and phrase alike with those Ludo had used in talking to him, trying to distil from both the hidden significance that might mean so much—or so little.

  Then he wrote his own report, added it to the dossier, sent it back to its appropriate pigeon-hole, and wrote a letter to Nixon, stating his opinion that there must be some deep underlying cause for the complete change in Ludo’s tone and attitude that had taken place in the brief interval separating the two interviews—that he had had himself and that earlier one with the two police officers. For his part, Bobby wrote, he thought this change in tempo, so to speak, must be connected with the animosity shown to Teddy Peel, the suggestion that Peel might have been an active agent in the murder, the accusation that he practised blackmail. But all this, Bobby was careful to point out, might have nothing to do with the present investigation. It might mean that Peel had got to know of the elder Manners’s imprisonment.

  “Nevertheless,” Bobby concluded his letter, “I should, I think, pay special attention to Ludo’s remark: ‘Find the map and your man won’t be far away’.”

  All this took time, and it was late before he was able to return to Constant House. He had rung up earlier to say he had been delayed and was not likely to get back much before midnight, but he found Rosamund still up and still busy, though what with did not appear. She was wearing a big apron over an overall, rubber gloves, her hair tied up in some kind of wrapper. She emerged from somewhere in the back regions when he entered but she did not speak, and for the moment they stood still looking at each other in silence.

  “You’ve got back,” she said at last, and then he knew that she had been waiting with great fear, a great, consuming fear that showed so plainly in her eyes, in her whole still, strained attitude.

  “I hope I have not kept you up,” he said. “I would not if I could have helped it,” and to this she made no reply, but he thought those few commonplace words had relieved the tension he had seemed to sense in her.

  “There’s some bread and cheese in the breakfast-room,” she said. “Would you like coffee or cocoa—or beer? I think there is some left.”

  “I should like you to go to bed,” he said gently, “where I think you should have been long ago.”

  “Bed?” she repeated. “Why? Bed’s for sleep,” she said and went away, returning presently with a jug of cocoa freshly made with milk. “It won’t keep you awake,” she said. “Coffee might. It’s bad to stay awake and think all night.”

  “Will you tell me one thing?” Bobby asked. “How did you know the medicine bag wasn’t in the bureau drawer any more?”

  “There was always a smell,” she replied. “Now there isn’t,” and turned and went, nor did he see her again that night.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  THE DARK ONES

  BOBBY SLEPT LATE next morning. There was no alarm clock to waken him for a morning run round the park, and, for that matter, no park for him to run round. The first thing that struck him as he began to dress was that everything in the room had been redusted, repolished till it all shone and shone again, like the boots of a guardsman on inspection day.

  In the bathroom it was the same. Everything shone, and so it was with the stairs and passages. It pleased him not at all. Rosamund must have spent the whole of the preceeding day cleaning the already clean, polishing the already polished, sweeping and dusting where there was nothing left either to sweep or to dust. He felt there had been on her part a frenzy of determination to allow herself no time to think. And what thoughts were they her urge was so great to keep at bay? He remembered then that deep-seated fear, that near-panic he had seen in her when he returned the previous night.

  His mood was gloomy as he descended the stairs, for he dreaded the denouement almost more than he dreaded failure to resolve it; and now, as he reached the foot of the stairs, Rosamund appeared from the kitchen, carrying a tray with a dish of sizzling bacon and eggs on it.

  “I heard you getting up,” she said. “Would you like coffee or tea? The coffee’s ready, but the kettle’s on the boil if you would rathe
r have tea?”

  He did not answer for the moment. He was looking at her, shocked by her drawn and tense expression. At the corners of her usually firm mouth a nervous trembling came and went, and he could see that this proud and lonely girl was not far from a breakdown.

  “Well?” she was saying impatiently. “Well?”

  “Oh, coffee, if it’s ready,” he answered then, but stopped her with a gesture as she turned to go. “Rosamund,” he said, “I could be more help to Myra and to you if you would be more frank with me. For I think something has made you more afraid then you were before.”

  “I’ll fetch the coffee. Those eggs are our own,” she said, and then suddenly, abruptly: “Mother saw a light in Freres last night.”

  “Is she sure?” he asked.

  She hurried away without answering and returned with the coffee.

  “Why aren’t you eating your breakfast?” she said. “I got the eggs from the nests this morning.”

  “If you don’t stop talking about those damned eggs, I’ll throw them at your head,” Bobby exploded in wrath; and Rosamund looked very startled and backed away, as if fully expecting him to put his threat into instant execution.

  When he did not, she said indignantly:

  “You needn’t talk like that. It’s very rude.”

  “I daresay it is,” Bobby grumbled. “But when a fool of a girl works herself into near hysterics she needs talking to. If we’re ever to get to know the truth, you’ve got to help for the sake of all concerned. Understand?”

  “You think it was me, don’t you?” she asked then, half sullen, half defiant.

  “I’m not concerned with ‘thinks’ at present,” Bobby told her. “I want facts, and one fact is that you’re more panicky to-day than you were before and you haven’t told me why.”

  “I’m not,” she interposed, “and I never will, never.”

  “Another fact,” he went on unheeding, “is that your mother says she saw a light in the Freres ruin last night. I want to ask her about that.”

  “Well, you shan’t,” Rosamund said. “I won’t let you. Never.”

  “A third fact is that you say the medicine bag your father had gave out a strong smell and it was because you missed this smell that you knew it wasn’t there any more.”

  She had seated herself by now and was listening intently with both elbows on the table. Her sole comment was a muttered:

  “Well?”

  It was quite plain she did not mean to be helpful. Probably, Bobby thought, because of what she had seen or heard or learnt the previous day and that had apparently so intensified her fears. Not in all probability anything directly involving herself, for to that, he felt, she would react with defiance rather than with terror. Nor yet B.B., if, as Bobby believed, she was fighting against a dawning attraction drawing her towards him, for that would help her in her resistance. Her mother, then? On the whole this seemed more likely. Perhaps simply the light Myra claimed to have seen in the Freres ruin during the past night? But why should anything her mother had seen so much distress Rosamund.

  He was busy with his eggs and bacon while these puzzling and disturbing thoughts were passing through his mind, and he still took no notice of Rosamund’s questioning ‘Why?’ She also was silent, watching him intently, evidently puzzled in her turn by his silence. Then she got up and began to move towards the door. He called after her:

  “I must have a talk with Myra this morning. You might tell her, will you? As soon as possible. There are things I must ask her.”

  “You can’t. I won’t let you. She’s not fit,” Rosamund repeated, still defiant.

  “Don’t be a little fool,” Bobby snapped. “Do you think you can stop her being questioned? I suppose you know an inquest will be held? Or don’t you? Mr Nixon will need to take a formal statement, and I’m sure it would be better if I had a quiet chat with her first. Now run along and tell your mother, and don’t make any more difficulties, or I shall be wondering still more than I am now what it is you are trying to hide.”

  She did not answer, though she had paused to listen. Still silent, she closed the door behind her, leaving him to finish his breakfast alone. He lighted a cigarette then and settled down to think things over and to wait for Rosamund to return—if she meant to, that is. He would give her, he thought, half an hour, but no more. He had to wait only half that time. Then she returned bringing with her the morning paper just delivered.

  “I’ve told Mother about you,” she said. “She’s getting up. I don’t think she ought to, she’s not really fit, but she says she will. I expect our doctor will be furious. I asked her if she was sure she saw the light and she said of course she was. It was quite bright and kept moving.”

  “Did she say if she heard anything?” Bobby asked. “A car for instance?”

  “I didn’t ask her,” Rosamund said. She put the paper on the table and picked up the tray, on which Bobby had piled the crockery ready for removal. “I’ll let you know when Mother’s ready,” she said.

  “I’ll come and help you wash up, shall I?” Bobby asked.

  But Rosamund, though much subdued, had not gone as far in submission as that.

  “No, thank you,” she said coldly, and added: “Those reporter men were here all day and people staring. I had to get Dewey to ask them to go away, but they all came back. There’s a horrid picture of him in that paper, and one of a girl, and they’ve put my name under it. I don’t know who it is, but it isn’t me. Do you think it could be someone like that with the light Mother saw?”

  “Well, it’s possible,” Bobby admitted. “Newspaper men are up to anything. I’ll inquire.”

  Rosamund went away then, taking her tray with her. This time it was longer before she came back to say her mother had come downstairs and was in the front room. So thither Bobby proceeded, followed by Rosamund, who evidently had no intention of leaving him alone with her mother. As soon as he entered the room he was again struck by the air of calm and tranquillity that surrounded her as of one who had come to journey’s end and now could rest.

  “It was certainly a light I saw,” she told Bobby in answer to his questions. “It went out occasionally and then came on again. I thought it might be you. Rosy says you told her it wasn’t. It’s dangerous—Constant Freres, I mean. Bits of it are always coming down.”

  “I know,” Bobby said, grimly enough. “Mr Baynham very nearly landed a chunk of it on my head.”

  “Such a good thing it wasn’t worse,” Myra said. “Rosy says you looked such a sight. What was Mr Baynham doing there?”

  “He saw someone,” Rosamund interposed quickly. “I expect it was Cousin Owen trying to find out things. It’s what he’s doing all the time.”

  “Yes, dear, I know,” Myra answered her. “I expect he will. I am sure I hope so. So much better for everyone.”

  She said this as simply and brightly as before. Bobby did not quite know what to make of it, but felt the remark troubled Rosamund. There was a silence neither of the two women seemed inclined to break, and then Bobby asked:

  “I’m rather wondering about the medicine bag Val had in a drawer of his bureau. Did he ever talk to you about it.”

  “Well, no, not exactly,” Myra answered. “Of course, I knew all about it. Rosy says it’s gone. Someone must have taken it. Such a silly thing to do.”

  “Why?” Bobby asked.

  “There are things best left alone,” she answered slowly, and for the first time seemed a little troubled.

  “Rosamund says it gave out a peculiar smell? Have you ever noticed that?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed. When Val first got it. After that you got used to it.”

  “I didn’t,” interposed Rosamund.

  “Did Val ever say what could cause it?” Bobby asked.

  “I think he thought it was probably some sort of poison. The Africans make all sorts of horrid things from plants in the bush Europeans know nothing about. Sometimes they do wonderful cures.”

  “Val to
ld me,” Bobby went on, “there was a map in it showing where there was a new uranium field? Did you know that?”

  “Well, not a map exactly. It wasn’t, was it, Rosy dear?”

  “I don’t know,” Rosamund answered, not too willingly, Bobby thought. “Something of the sort. I asked him once and it made him cross and he said more likely it was only rough notes, and anyhow no one would ever know and I wasn’t to say anything about it, and I never did. I hated the beastly thing.”

  “There’s a dead man’s hand in it,” Myra said. “At least that’s what Val was told. Some of the Africans say—but only whispering among themselves—it’s the hand of a white man who had found out something they thought he oughtn’t to know, so when he went on a trip alone they got hold of him and buried him alive as a sacrifice to the Dark Ones. Then they reported he had died of fever, and nobody could prove anything else. Afterwards they dug the body up and took the heart and the right hand, and cut off the feet so he wouldn’t be able to run after them, and buried him again and no one ever knew.”

  “Good Lord!” Bobby exclaimed, and was silent.

  “It’s what they believe,” Myra said as placidly as before. “They don’t want to, but they feel they must to save themselves from the anger of the Dark Ones. They wouldn’t hurt a fly generally. That’s how it was with my boys. They had to be given to the Dark Ones to make the world safe. It’s a little like that hydrogen bomb thing everyone’s always talking about, only different, of course. But the boys are safe now. Rosamund told you of what the old medicine man said before he died, didn’t she?”