Lord Adour had no air of welcoming this suggestion. Was it really necessary? he asked. Bobby thought it desirable. Lord Adour hoped it was realized how deeply Miss Adour had suffered, both from the shock of the event itself and from all the talk and gossip that had been going on. Bobby said he did indeed realize it. Both Lord Adour and Miss Adour had his deepest sympathy. But there it was. A murder had taken place. Unhappily, the victim’s name and that of Miss Adour were being mentioned together. One never knew, once gossip began, where it would end. A touch here and a touch there, and some most monstrous fabric would come into existence, in time to be accepted as the truth. Didn’t Lord Adour think it most desirable, both in his daughter’s interest and his own, that the whole business should be cleared up as soon as possible? Lord Adour agreed that that was what they both desired more than anything else. But there was still reluctance in his voice as he repeated that he didn’t see how Miss Adour could possibly help. Bobby said he thought her personal impressions might be valuable. Lord Adour continued to hesitate. Bobby judged it necessary to put a sharper edge to his voice. Lord Adour said that, of course, if it was really necessary, there could be no possible objection, and he would go and find her at once, if Bobby wouldn’t mind waiting a moment or two. Therewith he departed, with a final assurance that he wouldn’t be long.
“Which means of course,” Bobby said to himself, “that he intends to warn her to be careful what she says. Now, does that mean they have something to conceal? And if so, what? A love affair? With Itter Bain? With someone else? Or is it something to do with the murder? Or is it only to tell her to come in full war paint, so as to stand me on my head, as apparently happens to everyone else?”
He got up and went again to the shelf on which were ranged all those works on seamanship and navigation. They interested him. Why had Lord Adour, so keen a pre-war yachtsman, decided suddenly to sell his motor launch just at the moment when yachting was about to become possible again? And why had Itter Bain bought it and been willing to pay what to Bobby seemed so high a price? Double its market value, apparently, to judge from Prescott Bain’s offer to sell it for half the price paid. Of course, Prescott Bain’s offer might have been more an expression of annoyance than seriously meant. All of it susceptible of perfectly simple and innocent explanation, no doubt. One should not, Bobby told himself, attach too much importance to such incidents. Yet against the background of a murder, who can say what is innocent and simple and what is far otherwise?
Only, again, if Lord Adour were giving up yachting, as the sale of his launch indicated, why had he procured what looked like a set of brand new charts? Charts, too, that Bobby was fairly certain were not yet generally on sale. Lord Adour must have gone to some trouble and probably pulled a few strings to get hold of them. It seemed inconsistent, and Bobby disliked inconsistencies. He had once been told that to dislike inconsistencies was to dislike life, which is wholly composed of inconsistencies. To which he had retorted that the inconsistencies of life are resolved as soon as understood, and it was the business of a detective to resolve those he met with in committed crime. He picked up the topmost chart and looked at it. During the war it would have been a gross indiscretion to have in one’s possession, so near the coast, any chart or map of any description. No harm now, of course. Bobby noticed that the chart he was looking at was one only recently printed and certainly not as yet on general sale. Lord Adour must have secured it privately through some friend or another. Why not? Very possibly in recognition and recompense for others he might have handed over to authority at the outbreak of war, when every chart was worth its weight in banknotes. The chart was one showing a part of the Normandy coast, and on it faint pencil lines had been drawn, indicating apparently a course to be followed. Not a course, Bobby noticed, that led to any of the ports or coastal towns, but, as it seemed, to a spot remote and lonely, far removed from any village, even from any house.
Bobby began to look thoughtful, even worried, and the longer he looked, the more worried he felt. Easy, though, to draw imaginative inferences from pencil lines on a chart. He laid it down and went back to his seat. The door opened and a young woman came briskly in and then paused.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she exclaimed. “I thought Lord Adour was here. They said he was looking for me.”
A presentable young woman enough, Bobby thought. A pleasant, sensible face, the best features the bright, clear eyes, of so deep a brown they were nearly black. There was a dimple, too, in the small, well-shaped chin that looked as if it were waiting eagerly for a chance to join in a smile. But certainly, to Bobby’s mind, this young woman was no world-beater; nothing about her, he thought, calculated to set every young man who came near “standing on his head.”
“I think Lord Adour has gone to see if he could find you,” Bobby said, rising from his chair. “I asked him if I might have the pleasure of a few words with you about this unfortunate affair.”
“With me?” the girl said, and seemed surprised. “Do please sit down. But why with me?”
“Possibly you would rather wait till Lord Adour is present?” Bobby suggested. “I think it would be better. I must introduce myself though. My name is Owen and I’ve been sent by the Home Office to see if I can help Commander Seers in his investigation of Mr. Itter Bain’s death.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” the other answered eagerly. “I heard someone was coming. Oh, I do hope you can do something. It’s been awful for us all. People stare so, and you know they are all talking all the time. Oh, and the reporters.” She paused for a moment as if horror and dismay could no further go. “Uncle’s most terribly upset and Helen, too.”
“Uncle?” Bobby repeated. “Oh, I’m sorry. … I thought you were Miss Helen Adour?”
“Oh, no,” the girl answered and began to laugh—a pleasant, low, bubbling laugh in which the dimple joined, hurrying to seize the opportunity it had been waiting for. “I’m just Jane. Plain Jane. Dear me, I ought to be most awfully flattered. No one has ever taken me for Helen before. She’s beautiful,” and there was almost a touch of awe in the girl’s voice as she said this. Then she said: “That’s what’s so upsetting.”
“Stupid of me,” Bobby said apologetically. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not her fault, you know,” Jane went on, pursuing her own train of thought. “She never takes any notice of men. I don’t honestly think she ever notices they are there even. And then all this happens, and I do think it’s such a shame the way people talk. She can’t help it if men go all soft and silly.”
“No, of course, no,” agreed Bobby, but wondered; for beauty may not be able to help being armed, but all the same may have a say in the way in which those arms are used.
“You can understand it,” Jane said. “She is so lovely. I mean, girls see it, feel it, too. They don’t compete, they just sit and wonder. I know I do. Even really pretty girls, too, not only just us others. It makes you think of being in church or sunsets or of great music. And then this happens and people talk and stare and talk, and I think it’s beastly, and I do hope you can stop it. Even if Mr. Bain did shoot himself, how could Helen help it? You can’t marry a man simply because he says he’ll kill himself if you don’t.”
“Had Mr. Bain threatened that?” Bobby asked.
“They all do,” Jane said comprehensively. “On our doorstep as often as not.”
“There was no weapon found near the body,” Bobby reminded her.
“You mean Uncle’s gun? Couldn’t someone have gone off with it? It would be worth a lot of money, especially just now. Uncle paid a lot for it before the war, he told me. I expect it would bring double to-day. There are the men working at the docks and at Mr. Bain’s place and there have been a lot of complaints. Pearson says some of them would rob a blind man of his last penny.”
“Who is Pearson?”
“He’s our chauffeur and gardener, too, and now he’s everything else as well. He says that’s how it must have happened. He says he’s worked it all out.
Mr. Bain shot himself—‘temporary insanity,’ they call it. And then one of these men at the docks or somewhere found him and saw the gun Mr. Bain had used after Uncle put it down when he ran back for his camera. Whoever it was would pick up the gun and then he would think about his fingerprints being on it, and the gun being worth a lot of money; and he would think how much easier and safer it would be to go off with it than to stop there and be suspected perhaps. Pearson says he’s worked it all out, and he’s as sure as sure that’s how it happened.”
“It might be possible,” Bobby said cautiously, though he didn’t think so. “I must ask Pearson if he has any more ideas.”
“You’ll have to be careful,” Jane warned him. “Pearson’s an awful old crab-stick. Uncle wants to pension him off, but he won’t go. He won’t tell you a thing if he doesn’t want to.”
“I’ll remember,” Bobby promised; and then Lord Adour returned, and looked surprised to see Jane.
Jane explained she had been telling Mr. Owen he simply must find out the truth, and Bobby said he had promised to do his best. Lord Adour said he hadn’t been able to find Helen, and Jane said she might have gone into Drinks to do some shopping or she might be sitting quietly in one of her cubby-holes.
“She likes to get away and sit all by herself somewhere quiet,” Jane explained. “I think it’s so as to be away from people because she gets so sick of being stared at as if she were on exhibition in a museum or somewhere.”
“Do you think you could find her?” Lord Adour asked.
“I could try,” Jane said doubtfully, “but it’s rather difficult if she doesn’t want to be found. She sits so quiet and still.”
Jane went away then on her errand, taking with her the swansdown cape with the remark that it belonged to Helen and Helen had been looking for it. When she had gone, Bobby said to Lord Adour that he hoped he would be allowed to have a talk with Miss Helen later on, if she couldn’t be found now. Perhaps an appointment could be made. He would make his convenience suit that of Miss Adour. Meanwhile, might he trouble Lord Adour to come with him as far as Goldstone Spinney and there point out exactly where it had all happened? Again Lord Adour didn’t seem to like the suggestion very much. He said he believed the spot where the body had lain had been marked off with tape and with pegs to show the precise position. Bobby agreed that was so. Most efficient work on the part of Commander Seers, if he might say so. But still it would be a great help if he could be shown exactly where Lord Adour was standing when he saw the bird that had attracted his attention and put down his gun, and how that position was related to the spot where Itter’s body had lain. Still somewhat reluctantly, Lord Adour agreed, and the two of them left the house together.
CHAPTER XII
PRECISE POSITION
The distance was not great across the garden and the two fields beyond to where the spinney lay, its shade cool and pleasant now that the sun had come out suddenly with abrupt and unexpected warmth. Bobby, to relieve the tension as he and Lord Adour walked along, made one or two casual remarks about the pleasant surroundings, but did not draw much response from a companion who was clearly not inclined for conversation. When they reached the spinney, Bobby asked one or two questions about the direction of the paths that traversed it. Lord Adour answered as briefly as he could, but sufficiently clearly. He showed, too, how the path to River Farm, taken by Helen Adour as she went for the eggs she wanted, ran a good twenty yards or so from the spot where Itter Bain’s dead body had been found the next morning.
“Malicious suggestions are being made, I know,” Lord Adour said resentfully, “that Helen must have seen the body as she passed by. You can see for yourself that no one walking along the path could possibly have noticed anything, even if the body had been there at the time, and there’s nothing to show it was. It probably all happened much later.”
“All the times are very uncertain, I know,” Bobby agreed. “Times almost always are. No one notices the exact time unless there’s some special reason, like the dinner gong going or the factory whistle sounding. You can sit in a room with a striking clock and never hear it, or remember if you did. Accustomed sounds are very often unheard sounds. Neither Mr. Winstanley nor Miss Adour in her statement seem to be able to say more than some time about the middle of the afternoon.”
“Well, I can’t either,” Lord Adour commented. “One doesn’t go about with a stop-watch. Even Jane isn’t sure, and she’s a very accurate sort of person. It’s unlucky she didn’t go on to the farm with Helen.”
“Oh, did they start out together?” Bobby asked, casually enough, but interested, for this was something new.
“Jane was going to call on Mrs. Eaton, so they took different paths through the spinney. Jane went that way to Toad-in-Hole and Helen took this other path to River Farm. Mrs. Eaton is the Vicar’s wife,” Lord Adour added.
“Did Miss Jane—I don’t think I know her other name?”
“Felgate,” Lord Adour said.
“I was wondering if Miss Felgate came back the same way?”
“No. She returned by the river path. She told Commander Seers when he asked her. It’s a little further, but it’s more open.”
So Commander Seers had questioned her, but had not thought it necessary to include her statement in the dossier of the case. Not quite satisfactory, Bobby thought. His mind flew back to that cigarette case with the inscription “From J. to I.” Did those initials mean from Jane to Itter?
“Were Miss Felgate and Itter Bain friendly?” he asked.
“Well, they haven’t seen much of each other since they broke off their engagement,” Lord Adour said, “but they kept perfectly good friends. They soon made up their minds it was a mistake on both sides.”
“Oh, yes,” Bobby said, and yet he wondered.
So Jane Felgate and Itter Bain had been engaged at one time. That explained the cigarette case. Was it possible the parting had been less friendly than Lord Adour believed? Than it had appeared on the surface? Had Jane Felgate acquiesced in fact so amiably in her displacement? Or had she nursed her anger against the man who had thrown her over? Some truth, Bobby believed, in that old, well-worn saying about the woman scorned. If, that is, Jane Felgate had been scorned. Possible the scorning had been on her side. But how to tell? She did not look like a murderer, but then murderers so seldom do. Bobby remembered the description he had once been given by a colleague of quiet, pleasant-spoken, meek, subdued little Dr. Crippen. Not that Jane Felgate in any way resembled that picture. A young woman of considerable force of character, he was inclined to think, as he remembered her direct gaze, the strong lines of her mouth and chin. There’s another old saying, too, that has truth in it: “Still waters run deep.” Well, it would have to be followed up, he decided. Not very likely there was anything in it, but in a case like this, not even the faintest possibility can be neglected.
By now they had penetrated well within the spinney. Lord Adour showed, with a slightly impatient air, as of one who felt all this was a rather foolish waste of time, exactly where he had been standing when he had seen the kingfisher. The spot was a small glade or clearing facing south. Lord Adour pointed out the tall beech tree at a little distance on which the kingfisher had been perched. He had been able to see it clearly. To the right lay the River Farm path, cut off by a fairly high growth of young trees and a screen of undergrowth that had been allowed to spring up in these war years when there was no spare labour to keep it orderly and trimmed. Directly on the left, behind yet another tangled growth of bush and bramble, was the spot where Itter’s dead body had lain.
Bobby looked around gloomily. The thought in his mind was that originally the place must have been fairly plastered with clues of one sort and another, all quickly destroyed by the excited running to and fro that had followed the discovery of the body. He told himself that if he had been on the scene in good time, probably there would have been no mystery at all. Now the mystery was likely to remain one, insoluble. Nothing to be done now about t
hose vanished clues.
One thing was however perfectly clear. The suicide suggestion put forward by the redoubtable Pearson was not acceptable. The shot killing Itter had undoubtedly been fired at close quarters, but equally certainly at a distance of ten or twelve feet. And within ten or twelve feet of the dead body there was no support on which could have been fixed any mechanical arrangement whereby the gun could have been fired from a distance. Nor any reason why a man contemplating suicide should have arranged anything of the sort or, again, any reason why any thief, removing the gun, should have removed also all trace of any such contraption.
“Do you think you could show me exactly where you put down your gun?” Bobby asked his companion.
Lord Adour answered wearily that he didn’t think so. He had just put it down. He hadn’t noticed. Against a tree, he supposed. Almost certainly against a tree. Certainly not on the ground. Nor yet on the top of any of the bramble bushes near. So against a tree. Impossible to say which tree, though. He couldn’t even remember whether he put his gun down when he first saw the bird and crept cautiously nearer to make sure, or when he decided to run back to the house for his camera. Was it of any importance, he asked, and his tone clearly implied that it most certainly wasn’t—mere fussiness and red tape. Bobby said that most likely it didn’t matter in the least, but all the same he would like to know, because you could never tell. Lord Adour looked rather helplessly round the circle of trees, mostly young beech with a few older ash. Then he said:
“There’s someone watching us over there. I can see his shadow behind those trees.”
“Yes. So there is,” agreed Bobby, annoyed, for he had been aware of the fact for some time but had been hoping for developments, which now would not happen, now that Lord Adour’s loud voice and pointing hand had shown their knowledge.
Helen Passes By: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 9