It Might Lead Anywhere

by E. R. Punshon

  He turned and strode away, leaving Bobby and Kayes staring after him. Kayes said:

  “Queer sort of bloke. Don’t know what to make of him, do you?”

  “Just at present,” Bobby retorted, recovering slightly from the shock of Duke Dell’s parting address, “I want to know what to make of you, Mr. Kayes. You haven’t given me a very satisfactory explanation of what you’ve been doing.”

  “I told you,” Kayes answered sulkily. “I had to walk part of the way back. I’ve been in Midwych and I got the wrong ‘bus coming back so I’ve had to walk from where they put me down. When I was passing the cottage I thought I would have a look and I tried the door and it wasn’t locked so I went in.”

  “You went upstairs?”

  “I told you I had a look round.”

  After a moment he added: “There’s a rummy yarn going the rounds about a pile of gold sovereigns you’ve found.”

  “Who told you?” Bobby demanded.

  “Everyone’s talking about it,” Kayes answered. “Is it true? The milkman had the story first thing this morning. He told them at the house. Now it’s in the evening paper.”

  “Oh, Lord,” said Bobby, with resignation, not with surprise. He had known that was to be expected. “You had heard this morning,” he added sharply. “You didn’t say anything when I saw you.”

  “Well, why should I? Nothing to do with me, is it? Only start you off bully-ragging again.”

  “People who keep things back and are found late at night in places where they have no right to be, invite bully-ragging, as you call it,” Bobby retorted. “We think we are entitled to expect that anyone holding the King’s commission should be more helpful than you seem inclined to be.”

  “You’ve no right to talk like that,” Kayes retorted hotly. “I still don’t see what harm there is in my having a look round the place. There’s nothing ‘helpful’ as you call it that I know and I’m not keeping anything back. I mean anything about Brown’s murder. I haven’t told you the full history of my life, if that’s what you mean.”

  “It isn’t,” Bobby snapped. “I mean I’ve found you where you had no right to be and I don’t like it. Do you know Mr. Langley Long?”

  “Langley Long?” repeated Kayes, slightly taken aback by this sudden change in the conversation. “Who is he? Never heard of him that I know of.”

  “He arrived in Oldfordham just about the same time that you did.”

  “Well, what about it? Why shouldn’t he? Are you trying to make but we came together?”

  “No, but he seems to know you so I wondered if you knew him.”

  “Know me? Well, I haven’t the foggiest … is he an Aussie?”

  “I don’t think so. Southern English, I should think.”

  “Well, then,” Kayes said.

  “I think you know Miss Foote, don’t you?”

  “No, and I don’t want to. I told you so before. This morning she gave me the glad eye in the High Street. I think I’m getting nervy. Glad eye all right and meant to be, but it sent shivers all up and down my back. Last time she looked at me like poison and now the sweet come hither, and I didn’t like it. So I pretended I didn’t see her and she knew I did, and then she had the killer look and that’s God’s truth.”

  “What do you mean? The ‘killer’ look?”

  “I’ve seen it before,” Kayes answered slowly. “When it’s you or the Jap—one or the other and you both know it. If you’ve seen it once, you know it all right when you see it again and that girl had it. Now go on and tell me I’m lying or drunk or something.”

  Bobby made no reply. He knew no more what to make of this, or of Theresa Foote herself, than he knew what to make of Duke Dell. Nor was he much inclined to think that Kayes was talking at random. There was an odd accent of nervous intensity in his voice that carried conviction. Yet how to reconcile a ‘killer’ look with the lip stick, the carefully powdered nose, the tiny artfully deranged curl, all the other small feminine tricks in which the flirtatious Miss Foote was so evidently, almost ingenuously, expert. It was as though you went to gather roses and from among them there hissed at you a deadly snake, it was as though sweet music changed all at once to the shrill whistle of falling bombs. Bobby turned to stare into the dim half light in which Duke Dell’s huge form was still faintly visible, for he had gone slowly and heavily. To Bobby this baffling half light, in which so much could be glimpsed and guessed at and yet nothing seen with clarity, was like the half knowledge and dim guesswork in which his own mind laboured. He said to Kayes:

  “Mr. Langley Long knows Miss Foote. He has been seen with her.”

  “There was a tall, thin bloke with her this morning,” Kayes remarked. “I didn’t notice him much. I’ve never seen him before that I know of. What did you mean, telling Dell he could be run in as an accessory?”

  “He told me he knew who murdered Brown,” Bobby answered. “He said he saw something—heard something.”

  “Did he though?” Kayes muttered, and now it was impossible to mistake the note of dismay, of terror even, that was so clearly evident in his voice.

  CHAPTER XX

  FOUR OAKS DINING-ROOM

  On the morrow, Bobby had a busy morning. Various information had come in. Many different rumours had to be traced and checked. It was all lost labour, all of it leading only to dead ends, and so need not be put on record. In every such investigation three quarters, sometimes even nine tenths, of the work done turns out to be either superfluous or irrelevant and so in the end not even worth mentioning. All the same it has to be done, because, by one of the ceaseless contradictions of life, it is not only futile, it is necessary too. As Bobby himself sometimes remarked, when sending one of his men on some errand only too likely to turn out a wild goose chase: ‘It might lead anywhere.’

  All this kept Bobby busy till late in the afternoon. Then he decided that things were sufficiently in order for him to be able to return to Midwych. But when he rang up headquarters to ask that a car should be sent for him, he learned to his dismay that every single police car was out on duty. Of course, as deputy chief, he was accustomed to that. If a junior is ordered by a senior to carry out some duty, he has to be provided with the necessary tools. Otherwise the excuse for failure is too easy. So often enough juniors must ride and seniors manage as best they can.

  The way Bobby managed was to borrow, firmly, the bicycle belonging to the reluctant but sedentary Sergeant Hicks, and to set off thereon. The day was fine and warm; and Bobby would thoroughly have enjoyed the ride, itself so pleasant a contrast to a seat before a table piled high with documents, had not his mind been so ill at ease.

  True, there was at last a hint or semblance of some things falling into place, but also there were many that still remained recalcitrant. Moreover much of what he knew, or thought he knew, was merely a logical construction deduced from facts that might turn out to bear an entirely different interpretation. Not till this possibility was eliminated, not till there had been reached a harmony of all to make a complete and perfect whole, could action be taken. Precipitate action in a wrong direction might bring about a complete fiasco.

  Bobby, as he cycled on, was turning all this over in his mind, in the forefront of it the huge enigmatic figure of Duke Dell and the troubled fear Denis Kayes had shown when he learned that Dell claimed to know the murderer’s name because of what that night he ‘saw and heard.’ His way took him through Chipping Up, drowsing so peacefully in the sun that it seemed impossible that there angry passions should ever rise. From Chipping Up, a secondary road led presently to the main Midwych highway. But by going a little way round he could pass Four Oaks, the residence of Mr. Goodman, and he decided to do this and to call there for a brief talk. A useful pretext would be Mr. Spencer’s injury and Mr. Goodman’s half promise to consult Spencer over the disposition of the store of sovereigns found in Brown’s possession. The real reason was that Bobby wanted to see Miss Foote again. Did she, he wondered, play a part, even a leading part, i
n the secret drama now, he felt, being played out to an end he could not foresee, a secret drama in which the murder of Brown had been merely the opening scene? Another talk with her might help him to make up his mind about her, to form a better estimate of her character—flirtatious or murderous. He wondered if he, too, would see a ‘killer’ look in those wide innocent blue eyes, in that soft round baby face? Difficult to believe. Yet he remembered well enough that strangely derisive swing of the shoulders he had seen mirror-reflected in a shop window as the girl left him the day before, and the still stranger, more disturbing hint of menace she had somehow managed to put into the gesture with which she had lifted her handbag. Her back had been towards him though, so he had not been able to see whether there was a ‘killer’ or any other look in eyes he chiefly remembered as extremely ‘forthcoming.’

  At Four Oaks Bobby dismounted and wheeled his cycle up the short, gravelled drive. There seemed to be no one about. It all looked as drowsy as Chipping Up itself—or as Sergeant Hicks after a good dinner of rabbit pie. The door hung open. Bobby leaned his cycle against the wall and was about to knock when he heard quite plainly a woman’s voice that said:

  “Drop that. Don’t move. Don’t dare.”

  There was menace in that voice, a deadly threat, or so it seemed to Bobby. The voice came through the partly open door of a room on his right, just across the entrance hall. Swiftly and silently—he was a big man but he knew how to move softly enough when need was—Bobby crossed the passage and pushed back the door. It was the dining-room he saw and in it were Mr. Goodman and Theresa Foote, facing each other across the mahogany table, above a great vase of freshly gathered flowers. And in Theresa’s hand showed a small shining automatic, and before Mr. Goodman, on the table, as though he had just put it down, lay a heavy ebony ruler, a formidable enough weapon at need.

  Softly as Bobby had moved, both Goodman and Theresa had heard the door swing back or perhaps were conscious of the vibrations his movements had set up either in the air or on the boarding of the floors of passage and room. Goodman gave a low cry—was it of fear or relief or both? Theresa turned and for that instant Bobby saw what he supposed Denis Kayes called the ‘killer’ look. For just that one fraction of a moment he felt as it were a whisper of death, so balefully glared those wide blue eyes, so deadly a snarl twisted those raddled lips. Then the change. Once again the wide blue eyes were soft and inviting, the lips a pouting smile, the small white jewelled hand where before death had seemed to wait outstretched now in gladsome welcome.

  “It’s that nice policeman again,” she exclaimed in dulcet tones where no threat or menace lingered; and when Bobby looked past her he saw that Mr. Goodman was trembling violently and that drops of sweat showed upon his forehead.

  Remembering this incident, Bobby was inclined later on to count it one of his failures. He ought to have rushed into the room and seized, before she had had time to dispose of it, what he had seen gleam in Theresa’s hand, that hand now empty and outstretched in welcome. But in that moment when he had his first glimpse of the scene the opening door revealed he had hesitated for the fraction of a second as he took in its full significance, as Mr. Goodman cried out and Theresa turned and looked. Also between him and her had been chairs that would have hindered a direct rush and most certainly she possessed a gift of an incredible certitude and speed in action. As swiftly and as certainly as she could change her expression and her mood, so swiftly could she act. However quickly he had moved, she might have been quicker still and the automatic been safely disposed of before he could reach her side.

  Bobby himself, at this moment, could have believed he had dreamed. For now there was nothing but a pleasant room gay with flowers on a table at which were seated an elderly gentleman apparently about to sneeze or blow his nose since his face was hidden in his handkerchief and, opposite him, a smiling pretty baby-faced girl, her eyes, her pouting lips all laughing invitation, her gay, dulcet voice saying:

  “Oh, but I mustn’t call you a policeman, must I? Aren’t you ever so awfully too important?”

  Bobby was at her side now. Her small upturned face still smiled gay invitation, smiled admiring wonder at this great big man towering over her little, little self. No trace now visible of that wicked little automatic he had seen, or dreamed he had seen, just the moment before. He picked up her handbag and emptied it on the table.

  “Oh, how rude,” said Theresa, quite shocked.

  No automatic there of course. Just the usual clutter of feminine belongings that accumulate in a woman’s handbag as naturally as things of another nature accumulate in a school boy’s pockets.

  Bobby said:

  “What had you in your hand just now?”

  “I don’t know—was it this? I think I was holding it,” Theresa said, and picked up from the small pile of her possessions on the table a flat metal lighter.

  She pointed it at him much as he had seen her the moment before level the automatic at Goodman; and Bobby saw clearly in her eyes that she mocked him. He turned to Goodman.

  “Well,” he asked roughly, “have you anything to say?”

  Goodman put his handkerchief away. His face was still pale, his hands were still shaking, but his voice was steady as he answered:

  “No. Why? What about?”

  No help to be expected from him evidently. Bobby turned back to Theresa. Her eyes still mocked him but in her red and smiling lips was an evil invitation. Neither of them spoke, but between their eyes challenge and defiance tossed to and fro. All the same Bobby knew that he was beaten—for the time. Very likely the girl had that small flat deadly automatic hidden on her person and therefore safe from him. He could not search her. He could take her with him of course for the matron at headquarters to search. Useless. She would have innumerable opportunities for disposing of it before he got her there. Again it might not be anywhere on her person. So swift, silent, secret, were her movements when she wished them so, that quite possibly she had got rid of it in some other manner. She might even have passed it to Goodman who seemed to be now her accomplice as before he had seemed likely to be her victim. Bobby picked up the great ebony ruler from where it lay on the table. He said:

  “You could kill a man with this or even a woman.”

  Theresa gave her pretty little scream.

  “Oh, what a horrid thing to say,” she protested. “I shall just simply be ever so awfully frightened now every time I see Mr. Goodman pick it up.”

  Her silvery, girlish laughter trilled out in the quiet room. Neither of the other two responded. Bobby told himself gloomily that there was nothing he could do. Plain enough that between these two, the little smiling girl with the deadly eyes, the elderly, retired solicitor, there lay something hidden, deadly and menacing; but plain enough also that whatever it might be and whatever its nature, they meant to ask no help from him, but instead, to deal with it in their own way.

  Apparent then, that not only did there lie in the past the unsolved mystery of the death of Alfred Brown but also that the future was heavy with the threat of murder still to come. Nor did he see how he was to deal with or avert a threat of which he knew only that it existed, but knew neither its cause nor its object; neither its provenance nor its imminence.

  “I’ll go now,” he said, and stood and looked at them, and neither of them showed by any sign or movement that they had so much as heard him speak.

  He went towards the door. There he paused and looked round. He said:

  “Well, if you want me, either of you, you know where to find me, day or night.” There was no answer. He said very softly: “I think it might be safer for one of you and perhaps for both.”

  They remained unresponsive. He might have been addressing the dead, so still and silent were they. The ugly thought came into his mind that perhaps he was—the living dead, the as-good-as-dead, those for whom life was as near to ending as for the condemned who hear approaching the footsteps of the executioner. He wondered which was executioner and which was
victim.

  “Well, now then, it’s up to you,” he said and went away, and left them there, facing each other across the shining mahogany table, above the vase of newly-gathered flowers.

  CHAPTER XXI

  PLAIN FACTS

  “And what,” asked Olive, looking very bewildered, when Bobby had finished telling her of the events of the afternoon, “what does all that mean? Do you think the girl really was going to shoot Mr. Goodman? Why should she?”

  “I don’t much think she wanted to shoot,” Bobby answered reflectively. “My own idea is that she was defending herself, self defence. Don’t forget the ebony ruler. I rather imagine the last thing she wants at present is Goodman’s death. And I don’t know that I would give an awful lot for Goodman’s chances if she did want to get rid of him.”

  “Oh,” said Olive, and added, with a touch of unease in her voice: “Well, if she’s like that, I hope there’s no one else she wants to get rid of.”

  “Shouldn’t wonder,” said Bobby, thoughtfully sipping his coffee, and pausing for a moment to thank heaven for having provided him, all unworthy, with a wife who really knew how to make it. “Me, for instance.”

  “Bobby, don’t,” snapped Olive.

  “Quite all right,” Bobby informed her. “I only said I shouldn’t wonder and I don’t suppose for a moment she wants it badly enough to have a try. Too risky, too difficult. All the same, I wouldn’t take her on as cook, or sit with my back to the door if I knew she was in the next room.”

  “What did you mean about the ebony ruler? Why had she got to defend herself against Mr. Goodman?”

  Bobby put down his coffee cup, ran both hands through his hair in a sort of gesture of despair new to him, and said:

  “If only I knew that … I’ve been trying to work it out till I feel like resigning and getting a job selling ice-cream or something I could feel I could get really on top of.”