The Secret Search: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Oh, well, well, we’ll see about it,” was Mr Smith’s response to this appeal, and he made it with a faint, slightly pathetic approach to the aged shadow of a swagger.

  With that the interview ended. Bobby and Ford retired, the last sound they heard proceeding from that treasure house of old furniture, and object of strange interest to Cy King and his fellow-gangsters, being the voice of Mrs Day calling out that breakfast had been ready ages and could she serve it?

  “That young lady,” Ford remarked to Bobby as they walked away, “has the old boy completely under her thumb. Eats out of her hand, he does.”

  Bobby thought this presented rather a charming picture of some one held flat under a large and heavy thumb, and at the same time contriving to eat out of the palm of the hand appertaining to the said thumb. He remarked that Mr Smith was beginning to show his age, and Ford said he didn’t suppose Miss Elizabeth Smith would have to wait long, if it was a nice little legacy in his will that she had in mind.

  “Which is my idea of what she’s after,” Ford declared, “and, what’s more, just a bit too fond of giving the glad eye all round. She tried it on you first, sir, and when you didn’t catch on, then she switched to me, if you noticed.”

  “I did,” Bobby assured him. “Just keeping herself in practice, I should say. It must be a bit dull for her, dancing attendance on the old boy all the time. What I didn’t like about her,” he added slowly, “was her nose.”

  “Her nose, sir?” asked Ford, very puzzled, inclined to think there must be some obscure joke somewhere, if only he were quick enough to see it.

  But Bobby, deep in thought, made no attempt to explain.

  CHAPTER V

  “PLEASE COMMUNICATE”

  SOME DAYS passed. No more suspicious characters were seen near The Haven, Acres Lane. No more visits were made to Jimmy Joe’s in Soho. Cy King was reported harmlessly occupied in the little sweet-shop he ran with the aid of a young woman, known as Gladys, who either was or was not Mrs Cy King—no one’s business which, and no one asked. One ‘disincentive’—lovely word—to curious neighbourly enquiry into the matter was the fact that Mrs or Miss Gladys had a name for being handy with the end of a broken beer bottle. It was even reported that Cy King himself regarded her with a wary eye and was not much inclined to risk unnecessarily annoying her. For the jagged end of a broken beer-bottle is a horrid thing to have pushed with emphasis and vigour into your face.

  At the moment, however, Gladys was away—visiting friends in Canada, it was understood. Certainly frequent letters from Canada were arriving. A devoted Gladys, evidently. During her absence her place behind the counter was being taken by her aunt, of whom no one before had heard. Why should they, for that matter? She was a ponderous, ever-smiling, middle-aged woman, who said her name was Smith—Lizzie Smith—did beautiful needlework, described herself as a qualified nurse, and in fact appeared to know something of medical matters. She was fond of saying what a lovely change it was from continually recurring sick-rooms and refractory patients, to serving the dear little children with ‘all sorts’, toffee apples and other delights. It was a pity that the dear little children did not seem much inclined to reciprocate. Even these tough Soho youngsters had developed an odd habit of taking their pennies elsewhere ever since Cy and Gladys had begun to occupy the shop. It was even occasionally a matter for a ‘dare’ to make a purchase there, though no clear reason or any shadow of a complaint had ever been suggested to account for this reluctance. It was just a general unease the children seemed to feel. Nor did this comparative absence of trade seem in any way to trouble either Cy or Gladys.

  Then, Sunday—or Sam Deedes, to give him his proper name—was known to be sedulously pursuing his customary vocation of hawking in the West End such things as jumping beans or toy balloons, or, on occasion, extremely cheap nylon stockings of mysterious origin. Tiny Garden, too, seemed quite innocently and happily working in an amusement arcade, where he was remarkably successful in persuading captious visitors of the totally unfounded nature of any complaint they put forward about the working of the machines. And at The Haven the quiet, placid domestic routine continued unbroken, with Mr Smith poring over the quarterly catalogue from Christie’s he subscribed for, Mrs Day out and about at her shopping, and Miss Elizabeth Smith still winning golden opinions from all by the unremitting and patient care she took of her ageing uncle. Dr Atkins, their doctor—who was also, as it happened, the police surgeon—had remarked in careless chat with the Southam inspector that Mr Smith was likely to live another five or ten years. There was nothing wrong with him except, as Dr Atkins put it, ‘A.D.’. He was frail certainly, there was a growing very slow, almost imperceptible slackening of the vital processes, his chest was inclined to be troublesome. Extremes of cold or damp, or even any violent shock, might of course have immediately serious results. But nothing of that sort was likely to happen—not while he was being looked after with such loving care by his niece.

  “Better luck than any crabbed old bachelor deserves,” declared Dr. Atkins—“getting a niece like her to drop in on him out of the clouds, so to speak. Not every girl would put up so cheerfully with his whims and fancies and grumbling.”

  All this information Bobby had received, read, considered and tucked away at the back of his mind. There he hoped it would rest for ever undisturbed, as he hoped would also rest undisturbed the various reports and documents dealing with the matter he had had filed away in their appropriate pigeonhole.

  At the moment, however, he was looking at an advertisement on which his eye had chanced to fall in the ‘personal’—erstwhile ‘agony’—column of the ‘Daily Announcer’. It was quite short, and merely asked if a Miss Betty Smith, lately arrived from Canada on the liner ‘Queen of the Seas’, would “please communicate” with Mrs Wyllie, who had received her letter and cable, and was still expecting her. A letter box address was given, and Bobby sat and read and wondered, and all the time grew more and more uneasy.

  Betty Smith? Was Betty short for Elizabeth? A second Elizabeth Smith? Well, why not? Very likely there are dozens, hundreds of them. Lizzie Smith in Cy King’s sweet-shop, for example. Recently arrived from Canada? Well, Elizabeth Smith of Southam came from Toronto, and Toronto is in Canada, isn’t it? But, then, she had been in England for months, certainly she had not ‘recently arrived’. And Canada was where the Gladys who was or wasn’t Mrs Cy King, and who had a name for being handy with broken bottles, had recently been visiting on unknown business.

  Bobby didn’t like it, and the more he thought about it the less he liked it. The sort of sixth sense that comes to many engaged in the war with crime, and that sometimes warns them that under the most innocent appearance may lie concealed the most sinister realities, seemed to tell him now that here were hidden dark and evil things. He sat and thought, and hesitated so long that he nearly forgot his lunch. Realizing this, and much startled thereby, he dictated a brief note to his typist to say that the advertisement had attracted attention and that Scotland Yard would be glad to have a talk with the advertiser.

  For a time there was no response, though the advertisement appeared once more. Bobby did not forget, for he seldom forgot anything, but he did tuck the incident away at the back of his mind, there to remain till wanted—if ever. Then, early in the following week, a slip was brought to him to say that one Edward Wyllie, in response to a letter received, had called to see Commander Owen, as requested.

  By way of a change, Bobby’s desk was fairly clear, the ‘In’ and ‘Out’ trays dealt with for the time, and Bobby asked for Mr Wyllie to be shown in at once. Accordingly, there appeared a fair-haired, blue-eyed young man, tall and well-built, with an enormous mouth that utterly ruined any claims he might otherwise have had to good looks, a deep, pleasant voice, huge hands of that type which appear as if they must be extraordinarily clumsy and yet prove to be equally adept with sledge-hammers and with the tiniest of adjustments, and with a very distrustful, even sulky expression, much like tha
t a mouse may be supposed to wear as it hesitatingly approaches the dangling, tempting morsel of cheese.

  Bobby did his best to put his visitor at his ease, offering him a cigarette, waving him to a chair, saying he was glad to see him and how kind it was of him to call, commenting casually on the weather, and so on. These blandishments had small effect. If anything, they merely increased the newcomer’s obvious disquiet. Only too evident that he did not at all like finding himself where he was at the moment. Bobby wondered why. For some of the underworld Scotland Yard does seem to possess that sort of fatal fascination that great depths possess for others or that the moth feels for the candle. But Bobby did not think that this young man was either of that type or that disposition, though, indeed, as Bobby well knew from his own experience, first impressions go often sadly astray. In this case it might be nothing more than shyness, though again this was not a young man Bobby took to be of a noticeably shy disposition. Finally, to bring his visitor to the point, Bobby remarked that the advertisement had appeared a second time.

  “I paid for three insertions,” Wyllie explained, rather with the air of regretting so lavish an expenditure. “It was my mother’s idea. When I got your note I didn’t know what to do. No reason why Betty should show up if she doesn’t want to, and she mightn’t like it one little bit if she knew we had been to the police.”

  “She won’t learn it from us, you may be sure,” Bobby declared reassuringly. “I take it, then, you are Mrs Wyllie’s son, the lady whose name was in the advertisement?”

  “That’s right. She’s rather worried. She sticks to it something must have happened, or she would have heard.”

  “Are you relatives?”

  “No. I don’t quite see we’ve any right to interfere. Betty may have met some one on the boat, or she may have just simply changed her mind or anything. Very likely mother will get a post-card one morning. Only she does worry so. It’s upsetting her. I had to promise to do something.”

  “There was a cable mentioned in the advertisement. Was that from the missing young lady?”

  “Yes. I don’t know we ought to call her missing. She wrote to say she was coming over here on a visit, and mother wrote back to ask her to stay with her as long as she liked. Mother lives at Bournemouth, and she wanted Betty to make it her head-quarters while she was here. Betty wrote to say she would like to, but she wasn’t quite sure when she could get a passage and she would send a cable to say when she was starting. Well, the cable came all right, and that’s the last we’ve heard.”

  “Has Miss Betty other friends here or any relatives?”

  “Not that I ever heard of—except an old uncle she’s never seen and she said in her first letter she would try to look up. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” Bobby answered, annoyed that he had been betrayed into showing signs of uneasiness. No detective, he used to say in the lectures he sometimes gave both in the provinces and in London to C.I.D. aspirants, ought ever to show either surprise or any other emotion. “I just happened to remember something. Coincidence. That’s all. Go on, please.”

  There was a short pause. The two men were looking steadily at each other. A wave of doubt and fear seemed to pass between them. Then Wyllie said:

  “All? Is it all?” When Bobby did not reply at once, Wyllie went on:

  “You made me think for the moment there was quite a lot more.” Bobby still did not reply, but he regarded the young man with more interest. More acute than he seemed, Bobby thought. Wyllie continued: “I don’t quite know what right we have to interfere.”

  “When a young woman,” Bobby told him, “comes to this country and her friends she had arranged to stay with don’t hear from her, there may be no reason for any uneasiness. As you said just now, a post-card may arrive any morning. But also there may be very good reason for uneasiness. Had she any money? Jewellery?”

  “Oh, lord, no! I suppose she will have saved something, and I think her father left her a few hundreds or so. Nothing much. Her father was a lawyer, and she has a job in what used to be his office. It was taken over by another firm when he died. In her letter to mother she said if mother really didn’t mind putting her up she would be able to stay much longer than if she had to pay hotel bills, and she did want to find this old uncle of hers, if he is still alive. Some notion of taking him back with her and looking after him. Women are always wanting to look after something, and I suppose an old uncle is better than cats, anyhow. Fat-headed idea, if you ask me. She’s probably got enough to do to look after herself, without taking on old pauper uncles.”

  “Is he a pauper? If she doesn’t know him, why does she think that?”

  “Well, the last they heard he was bankrupt and a warrant out against him for some bankruptcy offence or another. Trying to start again without letting on he had been there before. Betty didn’t seem to know exactly. I rather imagine that a good deal of Betty’s father’s money went down the drain, too, in the bankruptcy, and he was more than a bit peeved about it. Thought his brother—Betty’s uncle, that is—had been trying to do too much without letting on what he was up to. Changing a good sound little catering business into a string of chain shops, like Lyons, without consulting his brother. And it didn’t come off.”

  CHAPTER VI

  “YOU ARE AFRAID”

  THERE WAS a long silence. From without came the murmur of traffic along the Embankment where the great stream of London’s daily business flowed on by the old river’s side. Bobby was lost in thought—uneasy, troubled thought. So little known, so much to fear. Young Ted Wyllie sat watching him, and in him, too, a dark, brooding fear he had till then hardly acknowledged even to himself was slowing growing, ever darker, ever heavier. His voice had become a little shrill as he burst out suddenly:

  “What’s it mean? What are you—afraid of? You are afraid.”

  “Yes,” Bobby agreed. “Yes, I am. But very likely entirely without cause. Didn’t somebody say once that all our worst troubles never happened? True of our fears as well, perhaps. But I think we would be justified in making a few inquiries. They’ll have to be extremely discreet, extremely cautious, and we shall have to be ready to drop them instanter if it turns out that the young lady is merely staying with some other friends and has just been a little remiss in letting you know. Quite likely. Much the most likely, in fact. All the same,” he added slowly, “I never did like coincidences. The most extraordinary coincidences do occur. But seldom, with any follow-up. I mean you may find sitting next to you in a restaurant neither you nor he had ever visited before an old friend you hadn’t seen for thirty years. But you won’t be likely to find also that that old friend had been looking for you in order to offer you the very job you wanted more than any other.”

  By now Bobby, as had been partly his intention, had talked away that cloud of distressed unease which had been showing signs of disturbing Ted Wyllie’s self-possession. Wyllie said more quietly:

  “Yes, but where does coincidence come in?”

  “Only because in another case we’ve had our attention drawn to, there’s another Elizabeth Smith who came over here to join her uncle some time ago, and we’ve had hints that a burglary or something of the sort may be happening soon where she and her uncle live. Just a coincidence of name,” he explained, waving it airily aside. “By the way, have you any idea where this bankruptcy you mentioned occurred—in what part of the country?”

  “I think it was Bristol, I think I remember hearing that. I’m not sure.”

  “Oh, Bristol,” Bobby said, making a note. “How was it you first came to know Miss Smith? Was there any previous connection? Any introduction? Anything like that? It might give us a starting point.”

  “Her brother was a pal of mine in the R.A.F.,” Wyllie explained. “Decent type. He had his on a bombing raid we did. We were hit by flak, and he died before we could make it. I had to tell Betty. That’s all. He was the best ever—very decent type.”

  Wyllie spoke with a great air of hard-bitten i
ndifference, but the still deeply felt emotion that lay beneath was easy to see. Bobby found and lighted a cigarette for himself and offered another to Wyllie. Lighting a cigarette is sometimes a convenience—gives time for reflection or covers an awkward pause.

  “And his sister?” Bobby asked. “I suppose you met her through him?”

  “Yes, she came over when he did, and she joined up with the Waafs about the same time. She and Bill—that’s her brother—used to spend most of their leave with mother at Bournemouth. They were there when there was the big raid on Bournemouth. Mother always said Betty saved her life.”

  “Did you see much of her?”

  “Well,” Wyllie answered, with some slight hesitation. “Off and on, yes. As much as mother could manage, anyhow. You see, mother had got it into her head that she wanted me and Betty to hitch up. I wasn’t having any. Jolly nice girl and all that, but I had made up my mind I wasn’t going to leave a widow and a baby or two to get along on the sort of pension they’d have. I never expected to get through. None of the chaps did, though not just yet. Only I did. Without a scratch. Besides, Betty didn’t want either. Why should she?”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Toys.”

  “Toys?” Bobby repeated, slightly puzzled.

  “I doubled up with another bloke,” Wyllie explained. “Clever type. Dolls and toy soldiers, mostly. He designs ’em. And the dolls dressed in all the latest rig-out. Retail price a fiver or more. You can’t think where people get the money from—jolly good thing they do. Our toy-soldier line does well in the U.S.—quite a dollar-earner. All of ’em correct to scale in every detail. It’s damn funny, turning raw hell into toys and money. I suppose that’s life. He’s going to try his hand at a toy atom-bomb next. I said, why not a toy hell with a lot of little toy devils running in and out? I look after the selling end. Sometimes I think I’ll get out and try farming, as the only clean job left on earth; only we’re rather booming, piling the coin up. And then you get among farmers and hear ’em talk, and you soon find out what they put across each other and the public.”