Helen Passes By: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “If what happens to be true?” Bobby asked.

  “I don’t suppose it is for a moment, not for one moment,” declared the other with great emphasis. “But … well, there you are. Seems someone has got to look into it. And now Seers has put up the back of the Seashire Herald, and there’s a suggestion the Editor may get hold of one of those crime-investigating blokes from one of the big national papers. Can’t afford to let one of them poke it out if there is anything to poke out. Of course, Seers sticks to it there isn’t. Says there’s not a shred of real evidence against Lord Adour.”

  “If there isn’t, why worry?” asked Bobby.

  “Yes, I know,” agreed the other, but somewhat uneasily. “Only, Seers has made up his mind and a closed mind is—well, a closed mind. If Seers had seen Adour committing the murder, he wouldn’t believe his own eyes. Bain was killed by a charge of small shot fired at close range. Adour admits he was in the neighbourhood. He admits he had his gun with him. Quite natural at this time of year. Adour farms a biggish bit of land and many farmers take a gun out with them, much as you take an umbrella in Town. His story is that he saw a rare bird of some sort or another—he is president of the local bird-watcher society. He says he saw the bird, put his gun down against a tree, hurried home to get a camera to take a snap, came back with it, bird disappeared, hunted round a bit on the chance of spotting it again, had no luck, and went home, forgetting all about his gun. When he remembered and went back for it, it wasn’t there. Seers accepts the story. He seems to think it’s socially incorrect to suspect a man like Lord Adour of lying. Seers suggests the murderer saw the gun, saw his chance, and that’s that. He is concentrating on finding the gun. Fingerprints, he hopes. Of course, there’s no proof Adour’s gun was in fact used. What Seers really means is that men in Adour’s position don’t commit murders. He’s quite sure of that. But when you’re quite sure you’re right, you’re not too likely to find anything to prove you wrong, are you?”

  “You aren’t,” agreed Bobby, “and you won’t. Any reason known for ill-feeling between Lord Adour and the dead man? Is anything known about him—Bain, I mean. Apart, of course, from being a nephew.”

  “Engineer by profession. Started as a ship’s engineer. Left the sea to start on his own with his brother and a cousin who had a small capital. Bain’s Products, Limited. They’ve done very well out of the war. The dead man is Itter Bain. He looked after the engineering end. His brother is Mauley Bain. He is the production head. The cousin is Prescott Bain. He provided the capital and runs the financial side. The works are at Drinks, three or four miles up the Adour River. Drinks was a big port in mediaeval times till the river mouth silted up. The small fishing village there, Toad-in-Hole, has been developed into an important wartime port the Germans never seem to have found. Takes fairly big ships. Helped Bain Products a lot because of transport. Loaded their stuff on a barge down the river and straight on board ship. Itter Bain helped with the plans for the layout of the new docks and so on. Lord Adour scored, too, because he owns all the land.”

  “Was there any friction between them?”

  “Not as far as is known. No reason apparent why there should be. Their interests didn’t clash. They ran together. Then there’s the girl.”

  “What girl?” Bobby asked.

  “Helen Adour. Ever heard anything about her?”

  “No. Why? Should I?”

  “No, no. Very nice girl. Keeps the publicity hounds at arm s length. Won’t be photographed, except keeping strict control of the copyright. The society papers have done all they know to get her, but she’s not having any. You see, she’s very beautiful. Takes your breath away. Bowls you over. The K.O. You don’t believe it at first, not till you’ve looked again.”

  “Is it genuine?” Bobby asked doubtfully. “I mean, does she really dislike publicity, or is it just a dodge to get more? That’s not unknown.”

  “I think it’s perfectly genuine in her case,” the Assistant Commissioner replied. “I rather gather from what I’ve heard that she has some sort of idea that she must keep her beauty private, that if she makes a public show of it or uses it for any sort of personal advantage, then she will lose it. Or it may be she is jealous of it and wishes it to be for herself alone.”

  “Sounds an odd sort of notion,” Bobby said doubtfully. “A pretty woman generally likes to be looked at, doesn’t she?”

  “Helen Adour isn’t pretty,” the other answered slowly. “Hers is more like a beauty from another world. I think sometimes it terrifies. It upsets people.”

  “Oh,” said Bobby, not knowing what to make of this. “I see.” But he didn’t, not in the least. “Was Itter Bain affected like that? In love with her at all?”

  “Oh, yes. Badly. Everyone is, once they’ve seen her. I am. The women, too. There’s no competition. The girl’s hors concours. Besides, she keeps everyone at arm’s length. Not interested. I expect she will be some day, but not yet. Seers is, head over heels. That’s another complication. He means to keep her name out of it. Or die. Officially or otherwise, for her sake. Glad of the chance for that matter, glad and grateful. They do say it’s the middle-aged who catch it worst if they catch it at all.”

  “You don’t mean there’s any suggestion of a love affair between them?”

  “Oh, no,” said the Assistant Commissioner and looked quite shocked. “Seers is most respectable. Thick-headed and pig-headed, but that s all. Besides, you might as well try to have a love affair with the Matterhorn—lovely and remote. That’s Helen Adour. And both to the ninth degree. There does seem to be some local gossip that Itter Bain had been more troublesome than most and that Lord Adour had been obliged to warn him off. It may be only gossip. But it isn’t gossip that the Seashire Herald is on the warpath and means to get ahead of us if it can. And I’m inclined to suspect Sammy Robinson is behind the Herald. Sammy has connections with the Press, and he could easily get hold of one of these crime reporter blokes. You can see for yourself, Owen, it simply won’t do to let them get in ahead. If the Herald, with the aid of Sammy’s man, manages to rake up something to suggest Seers had been failing to push the inquiry with vigour— I don’t believe it for a moment, not knowingly or willingly, that is—because a man of Lord Adour’s position was involved, there would be the very grandfather and grandmother of all possible scandals. It might get us all the sack, every man jack. It might have political repercussions. One of Jack Cade Junior’s pet ideas is that the police ought to be under direct proletarian control. In fact, if Sammy, blast him, brings it off, if he can make out any sort of case against Seers, who is a perfectly honest, straightforward, pig-headed old Tory jockeyed into a job he isn’t fit for by family influence, there’ll be merry hell to pay—and you and me to foot the bill, because of course the Home Office will leave us holding the baby. How about it?”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “Going to take it on?”

  “Oh, yes, I suppose so,” Bobby said. “Can’t turn jobs down because you don’t like the look of them.”

  CHAPTER IV

  A DOUBTFUL DOSSIER

  Bobby, leaving the Yard, heavy with a sense of the difficulty and the responsibility of the task laid upon him, was stopped by the constable at the door.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” he said. “There’s a gentleman been asking for you. I told him to fill in a slip, but he said he would wait. Very talkative gentleman. I had to tell him I was on duty.”

  “You don’t know who he was, I suppose?” Bobby asked. “No, sir. I asked if you were expecting him and he said, Not yet, but you would be. I don’t know what he meant. That’s him, over there.”

  A tall, good-looking young man, in a blue serge suit, shabby but then that is normal in these piping days of peace—hatless, but with hair so plastered with hair oil one could see it glisten across the street, with a thin, smiling face and a general air of brisk self-confidence, was coming towards them. He said, beamingly, as one greeting an old and long lost friend.

 
“The great Bobby Owen, I believe?”

  Bobby said severely:

  “My name is Robert Owen. We will cut out the great, it you please. It is not impressive. I don’t think I know you. Have you any business with me?”

  “Well, that’s what I’m here for,” retorted the other, unabashed. “I’ll walk along with you if I may. My name is Haile, Harry Haile, H-a-i-l-e, not H-a-l-e. How about a drink? Could you spare a minute to come round to my club—the Garrick?”

  “I could not,” said Bobby with still greater severity.

  “Just as well,” said the other cheerfully. “Especially as I don’t happen to be a member. I knew you would refuse so I knew it was safe to ask.”

  “If there is anything you want to say, please get on with it,” Bobby said impatiently, and would have cut the interview short then and there had he not known by long experience that valuable information does sometimes issue from the most unlikely beginnings.

  “Oh, I have, lots,” Mr. Haile responded. “I’m on the staff of the Seashire Herald.”

  “Indeed,” said Bobby. “Do you mean you are in the employ of Mr. Samuel Robinson, who writes political pamphlets as Jack Cade Junior?”

  Mr. Haile looked slightly taken aback—a rare phenomenon with him, Bobby guessed. But he recovered so quickly that if Bobby had not expected and been on the lookout for such a reaction he would never have noticed it.

  “The Yard always up to date,” Haile murmured. “Does it matter? I think not. You can’t wonder if Sammy is interested in the murder of a nephew. He has no children, you know. Itter Bain and his brother, and their cousin Prescott Bain, are his only relatives. He feels it a duty to see the murderer is brought to justice, and you can’t blame him.”

  “It is our duty to do that,” Bobby said coldly, “and he would be wise to leave it to us. We shall do our best without fear or favour. If you are in touch with Mr. Robinson, you can tell him so from me. You may also warn him that if he intends to try to use what’s happened to bring pressure on the Government to do what he and his friends want, he may find himself heading for trouble. I believe some of them think the present Government too moderate and that a stronger line should be followed.”

  “I say,” muttered Mr. Haile. “You do know it all, don’t you?”

  “No,” said Bobby. “I know nothing about politics, for instance. The sole interest of a detective is to find out the truth; and if politicians or anyone else get in the way, they are liable to be hurt.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” said Mr. Haile, quite perky again. “We are all liable to get hurt, aren’t we? Even crossing the road.”

  “Have you really anything to say?” Bobby asked. “I’ve no time to spare.”

  “Not very forthcoming, are you?” Mr. Haile observed with a touch of reproach in his voice. “It struck me that, perhaps, as we are both on the same job, it might be a good idea if we pooled our ideas—gave each other mutual help. What we both want is to find the murderer of Itter Bain. What about it? I think I’ve already some information you would find useful.”

  Bobby was not quite sure whether to be amused or annoyed by the calm audacity of this proposal. Very nice and convenient, indeed, for Mr. Haile to be working with and under the aegis of police authority and yet remain entirely free of all responsibility.

  “Mr. Haile,” he said, speaking with a somewhat stagey solemnity, “I call upon you in the King’s name to come to my assistance.”

  “What on earth,” exclaimed Haile, staring bewilderedly, “what on earth does that rigmarole mean?”

  “It means,” Bobby told him, and now speaking naturally, “that I am reminding you that if you have any relevant information and keep it to yourself, you are committing an offence of which you have now been officially warned. It is your duty, the duty of every citizen, to give police officers every possible help. Or you risk becoming an accessory. I have no intention of giving any information to irresponsible amateurs. I have no right to, for that matter. It would be a breach of duty. If you would like to join the police force, though, you can get information at any police station.”

  “Well and truly snubbed,” sighed Mr. Haile. “It was more Sammy Robinson’s idea than mine. Still, anything is worth trying once. That’s my motto. Well, I’ll be seeing you. So long. I’ll give you a bit of information though. It’s a warning, too.”

  “Well. What?” Bobby asked sharply.

  “Scored a rise at last,” said Mr. Haile, beaming again. “May save me from being ordered off under threat of a charge for obstruction. Commander Seers is an old fool to get across the Press for nothing. Very sensitive, the Press. What was I going to say? Oh, yes. Keep an eye on Mauley Bain. Took his brother’s death hard. A black temper, and means mischief. If Mauley gets it into his head he knows who the murderer is, he may just possibly try to settle accounts for himself. It’s on the cards. Awkward, though, if he happens to hit on the wrong person.

  “Thank you,” Bobby said. “I’ll remember, and I’ll not forget either that it came from you. Can you say anything more definite?”

  “Afraid not. It’s more a sort of general impression. Mutterings over a glass of whisky and that sort of thing. There’s the money side too. Itter was the engineer and the firm will find it hard to carry on without him. It may mean selling out—probably at a loss. I don’t think either Mauley or Prescott, the other two partners, are up to coping with the turnover from war production to peacetime activities—if any. If I hear anything more, I’ll let you have it. I don’t want another killing any more than you do. By the way, you hurt my feelings a lot when you called me an irresponsible amateur. Flat libel. I was three years crime reporter for the Morning Announcer before the war and I’ve been with the Secret Service since. Anyhow, if we can’t be allies, I’m glad we’ve got as far as non-belligerency.”

  Therewith he nodded farewell, waved to two passing taxis, neither of which took any notice of him, as he was not an American soldier, and then jumped on a passing bus, only to be at once sternly ordered off again by the girl conductor as the bus was already fully loaded. But Mr. Haile had a way with him, a way more successful with girl conductors than it had been with Bobby, and she was still indignantly—more or less indignantly—rejecting his blandishments and repeating her orders when the bus stopped, some passengers got off, and so Mr. Haile was allowed to remain. Though with a warning that no more of his impudence was wanted.

  For his part, Bobby, not quite certain what to make of Mr. Haile, but quite certain it would be well to keep an eye on his activities, went back to the Yard and asked to be supplied as soon as possible with any available information concerning Mr. Henry Haile, formerly on the staff of the Morning Announcer and during the war a member of the British Secret Service.

  Then he returned to his hotel—“priority” had secured him a room—and early next morning took the train to Toad-in-Hole the little fishing village now grown into a busy port, if “growth” is a word that can properly be used to describe such a shooting up, unparalleled since the days of Jonah’s gourd. There lodgings had been arranged for him in the house of a Sergeant Gregson, of the local police, no other accommodation being available in a neighbourhood as overcrowded as any where wartime activities have caused a concentration of population. Bobby was a little doubtful of his probable reception, for he had no reason to think his errand would make him popular with the Toad-in-Hole constabulary. But Mrs. Gregson, who welcomed him, seemed a pleasant and capable woman, the rooms appeared comfortable, and Bobby was inclined to think he was going to be much better off there than in any of the hotels where scarcity of staff and superfluity of guests have produced conditions of doubtful ease.

  The first thing he did was to arrange, not without difficulty, a meeting with Commander Seers for the next morning. It was an interview, Bobby felt, that would have to be conducted with great care and tact. Any false word, gesture even, and he might easily have Seers not merely as the disgruntled and unwilling colleague he was almost sure to be, but acti
vely hostile.

  No use, though, decided Bobby, in crossing that bridge till he came to it, and he settled down to give a very careful reading to the dossier—a very extensive one—of the case. The various reports did not add very much to his knowledge, and he read them with an increasing dismay. To him they seemed amateurish and superficial to a degree. Obvious points had been entirely overlooked. Unimportant details had been worried over with a consequent dreadful waste of time and energy. The doctor’s report was clear and efficient, but for the rest “slipshod” was the word that came into Bobby’s mind. Only too plainly the work of those who had no experience in the handling of serious and difficult crime. A trail cold through the lapse of time and confused by previous incompetent inquiry was not, Bobby told himself ruefully, a very hopeful one to follow up. But one small point did emerge that he supposed might be of interest. The rare bird of which the mere sight had been enough to make Lord Adour stand up his gun against a tree and run off full speed to the house for his camera, proved to have been a kingfisher. Bobby knew very little about birds, but he was inclined to wonder whether a kingfisher was so rare a sight as all that, or the urge to secure a photograph of it so entirely overwhelming. A point to be considered.

  The list of the objects found in the dead man’s pockets seemed of equally little interest. Among the items was a cigarette case, engraved “From J. to I.” Who was “J.”? Bobby wondered, and decided to keep the initial in mind. The inquest on the dead man had been purely formal and had been adjourned in the usual way “for the police to complete their inquiries” and to permit burial to take place.

  Presently he put the papers aside and went out to have a look round the town, to make himself acquainted both with its layout and with the “feel,” so to say, of the place. Among the placards on walls and hoardings which he read with care in order to get an idea of local activities, he found one advertising a meeting of the Communist Party, Chairman, Mr. Prescott Bain. So evidently one at least of the Bain nephews followed in the footsteps of Mr. Sammy Robinson, that formidable and untiring pamphleteer of the extreme left, “Jack Cade, Junior.”