The Golden Dagger: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Well? Well?”

  “Well,” Bobby repeated, “I suppose as a mere layman, I oughtn’t to say so, but it doesn’t strike me as coming anywhere near the ‘Young Bull.’ I can’t see why it’s thought better. To my mind, it hasn’t—I hardly know how to put it—well, life, power. There’s not the sense of drama. At least, if it’s there, I can’t feel it. And the texture of the paint—I can still remember the treatment of the ‘Young Bull’s’ flank.”

  He went back to his seat, wondering a little if this criticism of an acknowledged masterpiece had seemed intolerably naif. Lord Rone made no comment, and he had an air of being somehow a little disconcerted or disturbed. Though why a casual expression of opinion by a passing visitor should trouble the owner of a picture of world-wide reputation it was hard to imagine. The door opened. There was a pause. They all three looked towards it. Maureen appeared. An ‘entrance,’ in fact. Only a spot of limelight was needed.

  She stood there, quite still, and once again she astonishingly succeeded in making her small, slight body give the strangest possible impression of being so much taller and larger than it was. Somehow she contrived to make it seem as if it filled the whole doorway in which she stood.

  “Is this a dagger that I see before mine eyes?” she boomed out startlingly. With a sudden change of manner, while the three men stared, she went on: “No, it jolly well isn’t. It’s an empty glass case. I say, Dad, is that what it’s all about? Someone pinched it?”

  “What do you mean?” her father asked sharply. “Isn’t the Cellini dagger there?”

  “Not a sign of it,” Maureen assured him. “The glass case is locked all right, but no Cellini dagger. Vanished without trace. Nothing to show how or why. And what’s the matter with Linda? She’s dodging about like a white mouse in a panic. When I asked her what was up, she just mumbled something and cleared off—speed top priority. You don’t think she can have pinched it, do you? She doesn’t strike me as that sort. No guts.”

  “We had better go and see for ourselves,” Lord Rone said. “I don’t understand this.”

  He led the way back into the inner hall, that of the glass dome, up a double stair in marble and gilt, and along a wide corridor in which stood several pieces of sculpture, and then into a gallery that seemed to run the whole length of the house. Here stood more sculpture, several suits of armour of superb fifteenth- and sixteenth-century workmanship, Italian and German. There was a fine collection of weapons to rival those in the Wallace Collection and the Tower. There were a number of oil paintings, too, chiefly portraits, and ranged down the centre of the gallery was a series of glass cases. To one of these Lord Rone went at once, followed by the others. A glance showed that one place in it was vacant.

  “Seeing believing, Dad?” demanded Maureen’s voice from behind.

  Bobby was bending down, examining the lock closely. Lord Rone took the keys from Maureen and was about to open the case. Bobby stopped him with a gesture that, a little to his surprise, Lord Rone found himself instinctively obeying. It was Bobby now who was speaking with the sharp authority of a man accustomed to being obeyed. He said:

  “Is there any other key to the case?”

  “Duplicates of all keys are deposited in the bank,” Lord Rone told him. “These are kept in the safe. You saw me take them out. They are not often used. No one could have got hold of them. The safe has a combination lock. No one knows the number of the combination except myself, though I always carry it with me.”

  “The number of your watch?” Bobby asked.

  “How do you know?” demanded Lord Rone, very much taken aback.

  “Oh, it’s often done,” Bobby explained. “Quite common. Useful idea. Or a ’phone number or that of a typewriter or something of the sort. Only you said you always had it on you.”

  He had been closely examining the lock as he talked. He said now:

  “There’s what looks to me like a trace of wax. I shall have to ask you to allow our experts to make an examination. My own idea is that an impression of the lock has been made and a duplicate key manufactured.”

  “What for?” Maureen asked. “The golden dagger is too well known for anyone to try to sell it. Nothing else has been touched. Those gold snuffboxes and the gold christening spoons made for Catherine Howard’s baby that was never born are still there. Why should anyone want to pinch the dagger—except to do somebody in?”

  No one answered this question.

  CHAPTER IV

  REFLECTED GLORY

  NO ONE SEEMED TO know quite what to say in the uneasy embarrassed silence that followed this unanswered question. Bobby was deep in thought and at the same time willing to wait to hear any spontaneous comment either father or daughter might make. Spontaneous comment is often enlightening and there were points about both of them that seemed interesting. Maureen had a little the air now of wishing she had not spoken—a state of mind very unusual with her. Lord Rone was frowning heavily and occasionally throwing unfriendly glances at Bobby, as if holding him in some degree responsible. In a rather dogged sort of way, as if resolutely thrusting out of his mind an unwelcome thought, he said presently:

  “In any event, there’s been no murder here. I think we are entitled to assume that I should have heard of anything of the kind. Death can’t be hidden.”

  “I think sometimes it can,” Maureen said, and suddenly she looked older.

  “Can you tell me,” Bobby asked, “when you saw the Cellini dagger last?”

  “I can hardly say,” Lord Rone answered. “Difficult to be sure.”

  “The servants might know,” Maureen said. “I suppose it’s Linda’s job to do the dusting every morning.”

  “Is that the young woman who opened the door?” Bobby asked.

  “I expect so. I’ll ask her, shall I?” Maureen said. “She’s about somewhere.”

  “Would you please simply tell her that I should like to speak to her?” Bobby said a little sharply.

  Maureen, already halfway to the door, turned.

  “For fear the witness might be suborned?” she inquired, and, though her tone had grown light again, there was still an undertone of unease apparent in the most expressive voice Bobby had ever heard. “Downy bird, aren’t you? Henry, you’ll have to watch your step.”

  Her father glared at this fresh use of his first name. But Maureen was already out of the room and they could hear her voice pealing through the passages. Without seeming to shout, she could use it, as now, like a trumpet, to send her summons rolling through the endless rooms and corridors of this enormous building. To Lord Rone Bobby said:

  “Do you think you could give me a list of all the inmates of the house?”

  Maureen was back again in the gallery now. She said:

  “Linda’s coming. She was just round the corner, hanging about most likely, wondering what was up.”

  Linda appeared—the same young woman who had admitted Bobby and Ford. But now she showed no trace of the alarm, even panic, she had betrayed before. Either whatever had caused it had somehow been removed or she had conquered it so completely that no sign of it remained. Bobby wondered which. He said:

  “I am inquiring into the disappearance of an article of some value from this case.”

  He indicated it as he spoke and Linda came forward to look.

  “The golden dagger,” she exclaimed at once. “Oh, has it gone? That lovely, lovely thing.”

  “Can you say when you saw it last?” Bobby asked.

  “It was there last time I did the dusting,” she answered. “I should have missed it if it hadn’t been, I’m sure. You couldn’t have helped.”

  “When was last time?”

  “Monday morning,” she answered. “I only do in here twice a week; it’s really enough. Monday and Thursday mornings.”

  “It must have been in its place all right Monday afternoon, too,” Maureen interposed. “It’s the pet particular of Uncle Bill; he says the lady talks if you like to listen. I don’t,” she adde
d with just a touch of bravado, as if once she had tried the experiment and had not liked it. “He would have noticed at once if it had gone and he was up here all afternoon and evening nearly. About that article in ‘Arms and Armour’ trying to make out that that old suit of tin reach-me-downs in the corner”—for such was the young woman’s irreverent description of a really magnificent suit of early sixteenth-century armour of Italian manufacture—“had been done up at Brummagen. Uncle Bill was awfully peeved.”

  “This is Tuesday afternoon,” Bobby remarked. “We must try to get it nearer than that. What is your name?” he asked the housemaid.

  “Belinda Blythe,” she answered.

  “And your home address?”

  “I haven’t one,” she explained, looking pathetic. “I’m an orphan—a foundling, I suppose you would call it. I came straight here from Mr Tudor King’s when he gave up his London flat. I had been there seven years. Mr Tudor King, the celebrated novelist,” she repeated, as if she thought the mention of that name should have made a greater impression.

  “Who is he? Never heard of him,” Lord Rone grunted.

  “Oh, Henry,” Maureen protested, her use again of his first name producing automatically her father’s accustomed frown. “You are so out of date. He sells by the bucketful. It’s the most absolute tosh.”

  Miss Belinda Blythe, evidently deeply offended by this aspersion on the literary merits of her late employer, said stiffly:

  “Tudor King’s readers don’t think so.”

  “They would if they could—think, I mean,” Maureen retorted.

  For the moment it seemed as if there were about to develop a literary debate—than which few can be more bitter. But Bobby intervened.

  “We won’t go into that,” he said. “You have your identity card, Miss Blythe? I will ask you to let me see it presently. I think that will do for the present.”

  “I will ask the others about it if you like,” Linda volunteered. “But I don’t think any of them come in here very often.”

  “I think, Linda,” Lord Rone said, “it would be as well for you to leave the matter in Mr Owen’s hands.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Linda said. “I am sure your lordship knows best—and Miss Maureen, too.”

  She had laid a certain emphasis on Maureen’s name as she turned away to depart. Lord Rone watched her go and then said indignantly:

  “Insolence—deliberate insolence. I suppose her references were taken up. From this writing person?”

  “It sounds as if he were very popular,” Bobby remarked. “I think I’ve heard his name. The young woman had probably been basking in his reflected glory and didn’t like hearing it called tosh.”

  “That would be why she was trying to get her own back,” Maureen agreed. “I’m sure she was trying to hint I had done the pinching. What you would call a devoted reader. All the same, the stuff is soppy. The Literary Weekly tore it into little bits the other day and then did a hornpipe on them. Rather a shame, but you couldn’t help laughing.”

  “She had better have a week’s notice,” declared Lord Rone. “There are some things one cannot and should not put up with.”

  Maureen reached up and patted him on the back. He at once had a fit of coughing.

  “You old innocent,” she said. “Giving notice to a maid is obsolete. It’s simply not done, certainly not in the best circles.”

  “If I may,” Bobby said, “I would like to ask you not to send her away. I should much prefer no one here to leave until this business is cleared up.”

  “Coo,” cried Maureen delightedly. “We’re all under arrest.”

  “Maureen,” thundered her father, and Maureen made a face at him.

  Bobby didn’t thunder. He was more subtle. He was getting a little tired of this noisy and self-assertive young woman. He said tolerantly:

  “When you are just beginning to grow up, you like to say things of that sort.”

  Lord Rone had again an air of approving the remark but thinking it should not have been made. Maureen for once made no attempt to retort. She even had a slightly—very slightly—subdued air as she said:

  “Anyhow, Linda did spot it had gone. I don’t believe any of the others would have. It’s a beautiful bit of work, but I shan’t mind much if we never get it back. There’s something about it—the handle, I mean. Sometimes you could think it was alive—watching, waiting.”

  “Nonsense,” said her father. “It’s valuable—heirloom as well.”

  “Cellini’s favourite,” Maureen said. “Whenever he had a specially juicy murder on hand, he always used it. Says so in his book. And we’ve kept up the tradition.”

  “That’s only gossip,” Lord Rone said. “Probably entirely untrue.”

  “One of our ancestors,” Maureen explained to Bobby. “In the Golden Days of Good King Charles. See Bernard Shaw. The Lady Rone of the time got a dagger in her heart one day and it’s always said to have been the Cellini one. Her loving husband didn’t seem unduly disturbed and goodness knows why they didn’t hang him. Silken ropes in short supply, probably.”

  “I wish, Maureen . . .” Lord Rone began, but got no further.

  “O.K., Henry,” she interrupted him, “only Mr Owen might as well know. Murder in the family. Three hundred years ago, but it might crop up again. Not that anyone would ever suspect you, old dear,” she added, giving her parent another thump on the back and so starting him off on another fit of coughing. “So there’s only me. Oh, and Our Mum, too. I do think that’s such an awfully sweet expression, don’t you? All England in two words.”

  “Do you think,” Bobby, ignoring this, asked Lord Rone, “you could give me a complete list of all the inmates of the house—guests and employees as well.”

  “There’s one rather odd thing,” Maureen said. “I expect it doesn’t matter. It’s the Mr Tudor King Linda talked about who has taken the New Bungalow.”

  “Is that near here?” Bobby asked.

  “A mile away,” Maureen said. “More.”

  “Has Mr King visited you at any time—in connection with the letting?”

  “No. It has nothing to do with me,” Lord Rone said. “The New Bungalow is not on the estate.”

  “All the same, it is a bit queer,” Maureen said thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose there’s anything in it really, but it is a bit odd when you think of it—Tudor King turns up here and rents a bungalow he never occupies—no one there except a woman who says she is his secretary and another woman who has vanished now.”

  “Vanished?” Bobby asked sharply.

  Maureen regarded him with grave, startled eyes.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that,” she said. “I just meant she had gone away. I only thought it was funny, him coming and never being seen, and Linda taking a job with us after being with him, and then the golden dagger—well, vanishing. It really is funny. But then, authors are funny, aren’t they?”

  CHAPTER V

  THE COBBLERS CATALOGUE

  BOBBY DID NOT ATTEMPT to comment on an axiom so universally accepted. He had his notebook on the table. He said:

  “I gather you have some guests staying with you at present. Could you let me have their names, if you please?”

  “All of them alive and kicking,” Maureen interposed.

  “Be quiet, Maureen,” said her father automatically. “Well, there are my old friends, Sir William and Lady Watson.”

  “It was Lady Watson I was saved from when Daddy called,” Maureen explained. “She just simply doesn’t seem able to stop talking.”

  “She is not the only one,” Bobby said drily; and Maureen again looked a little—oh, very little, infinitesimally little—abashed.

  “You are probably unaware,” Lord Rone was continuing, either unaware of this little bit of byplay or ignoring it, “that Sir William Watson is one of the best-known historians and archæologists in the country. A very great authority, everywhere so recognized. One of his major works is the Cobblers catalogue, a work of the highest value, kn
own the world over. That is my own copy,” and as he spoke he pointed to three stately volumes on a shelf of the nearest bookcase.

  “Published price sixty guineas,” said Maureen, “and when guineas were guineas, too, and not just meaningless symbols. Not exactly a best-seller. Doesn’t include the Cobblers pictures either, and there are some pretty swell ones here—not counting the fakes.”

  “Sir William would know all about the Cellini dagger?” Bobby remarked.

  “Two photos, one a special plate, and a page of letterpress,” Maureen informed him. “The thing really is a fine bit of work. Nasty, all the same.”

  “I shall be glad to receive it back,” Lord Rone said. “I hope every precaution will be taken to see that it is safe?”

  “I accept full responsibility for its custody,” Bobby assured him. “It will, of course, be returned to you as soon as possible. Is Sir William the gentleman I saw crossing the lawn and then returning again to join the ladies who were sitting out there?”

  “The poor man couldn’t find the wrap Aunt Bella wanted, so she packed him off to look again,” Maureen explained. “He’s the ideal hubby. The more Aunt Bella bullies him, the more devoted he grows. A dog’s life, but he loves it.”

  “Aunt Bella?” Bobby repeated. “Is that Lady Watson? They are relatives, then?”

  “Not really,” answered Maureen. “Honorary rank only. But I’ve always called them uncle and aunt. I was only a kiddy when Uncle William was doing that catalogue—it really is a one-er, you know. He may be a doormat to Aunt Bella and like it, but he knows his onions all right.”

  “Sir William,” Lord Rone interposed, either to explain expressions he apparently thought Bobby might fail to understand or else that he thought should be clothed in more appropriate language, “is one of the greatest living authorities on his own subjects, and he happens to be devoted to his wife. Young people to-day find devotion in a married couple to be extremely comic.”