Helen Passes By: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Oh, he had been expecting to have to look for another job,” Wayling explained. “If the bank took over, that is. If they did, they would be sure to close down here and amalgamate Bain’s with Tomlinson’s in London. Rationalization, you know, that sort of thing, and the extra staff out on their ear. But it’s the bank that’s out instead. Prescott turned up yesterday with nine thousand pounds in cash and cleared the overdraft.”

  “Did he, though?” said Bobby, interested. “I wonder how he managed that? Is that what Mauley Bain has been in town for?”

  “It doesn’t look as if Mauley had anything to do with it. He’s still away, unless he got back last night. Prescott just turned up with a couple of suitcases stuffed with banknotes, got this bloke who was in here last night to help him count them, and then bunged it all in at the bank. Funny when you come to think of it. If he got finance from someone, why not a cheque? Why pound notes packed in suitcases?”

  “Does seem unusual,” Bobby agreed and looked thoughtful. “Hadn’t the man who told you about it any suggestion to make?”

  “What he said was that now his job was safe and he didn’t give a damn for anything else. Prescott might have pinched the lot for all he cared.”

  “Oh, well,” Bobby said, not wishing to start more talk. “Not our business, I suppose. Probably whoever found the money didn’t want his name known.”

  Wayling thought in that case the transaction would generally have been carried out through a solicitor, and Bobby agreed that would have been more usual, but no doubt there were good reasons. Anyhow, Bain Products seemed to be on the map again, and that was all to the good. When Bobby nodded farewell and strolled away, while Wayling, having finished his polishing, departed in search of the rasher of bacon the manager of the “Good Haul” would never know had once been his. Nevertheless, though Bobby had not wished Wayling, for whose tongue he had equal respect and dread, to think so, he was a good deal disturbed and worried by this news.

  Whence indeed had so large a sum, packed in two suitcases, so suddenly emerged? Was there connection with Itter Bain’s murder? Was the vulgarity of money, and not the strange disturbing influence of a woman’s beauty, the secret cause and hidden motive of what had happened? It did appear there had been quarrelling and ill will among the three partners. Probably, as so often happens when things begin to go wrong, each blaming the others, each thinking the others responsible. If so, where did the previous night’s events fit in? Profoundly disturbing, those, with their dark suggestion that the climax of events had not yet been reached.

  Greed for money, the sex urge, are two strong motives, and what part had each or both or either played in the tragedy of Itter Bain? What part had they still to play in what was yet to come?

  Bobby went back to where his car was garaged and got it out. First, he drove to the Bain factory. But, as it was a Sunday and war work no longer pressed with such clamorous need, the place was closed. After some trouble, Bobby discovered an old watchman, who evidently bitterly resented being disturbed in his peaceful routine, and was either the district’s champion imbecile or else giving a very good imitation thereof. He knew nothing of any launch, this wasn’t a yachting club, and he wasn’t going to let anyone go poking round his factory, not without orders, so he wasn’t. That was that, and Bobby had to retire defeated. Not that he supposed “poking” round the factory would be much good. If the Seagull had been removed purposely to avoid a police examination, then it was probably well hidden. If not, and its removal had been innocent and purely for the purpose of effecting required repairs, then there was no hurry and to-morrow would do as well.

  Bobby knew Haile’s address, and thither he drove next. When he knocked his summons was answered by a lady who regarded him with no favourable eye when he asked if Mr. Haile was in.

  “In, and snoring still in my drawing-room or what used to be my drawing-room before he planted himself here,” she told him.

  “Too bad,” said Bobby sympathetically. “Do you think you could wake him? It’s rather important.”

  “It’s no good knocking. He takes no notice,” the lady answered. “And the door’s locked or I would have had him out long ago. How can I get through my work,” she demanded bitterly, “with him upsetting everything?”

  Bobby said he couldn’t imagine. It must make things very difficult. And was there a window? He was, he explained, like Field-Marshal Montgomery, a great believer in the flank attack, and windows sometimes offered such opportunities. The suggestion was received with surprise, but not with disfavour. There was a window, it appeared, and Bobby could certainly be shown it. He expressed gratitude, and, when he had promised faithfully not to scratch the paint, it was pointed out to him. Fortunately, it was easy of access, and Haile was sufficiently a believer in fresh air to have left it slightly open. So, while the lady of the house looked on with a certain grim approval, Bobby pushed up the sash, thrust the curtains aside, placed carefully on the floor a really magnificent aspidistra, climbed in, and roused the startled Mr. Haile from profound slumber by jerking off the coverings from his extemporized bed of a couch and two chairs.

  CHAPTER XIX

  BEAUTY UNDER THE MOON

  Thus unkindly roused from his peaceful slumbers, Haile sat up and stared around. Clutching his pyjamas to him, he blinked at Bobby. Slowly recognition came.

  “What the devil … ?” he began and paused.

  “Not at all,” protested Bobby, his feelings slightly hurt. “Far from it. It’s only me.”

  Haile swung his legs off the bed and sat staring at Bobby, and once again Bobby saw fear leap into his eyes, fear that drove all sleep instantly away.

  “What do you want? How did you get in?” he asked, and, when Bobby nodded at the open window, he said: “You had no right. Police have no right to enter private property without a search warrant. You’re trespassing. I can order you out.”

  “Not at all,” Bobby explained blandly. “I have the householder’s permission. Hadn’t you better get dressed? You’ll be catching cold like that. I’ll shut the window, shall I?

  He did so. Slowly Haile began to dress, and, as he did so, still watched Bobby warily.

  “What’s it all about?” he asked.

  “Oh, I just wanted a bit of a chat,” Bobby answered. He wandered over to the mantelpiece, where, incongruous amidst a medley of fiddling china ornaments stood a shaving brush, a safety razor, and other toilet articles, among them a small bottle of a well-advertised brand of hair oil. “This stuff any good?” Bobby asked, picking up the bottle and showing it to Haile.

  “Why? What do you want to know for?” Haile retorted. “What are you trying to get at? I know you,” he said bitterly. “You ask questions.”

  “Well, it’s the only way, isn’t it, if you want to get answers?” Bobby protested. He put the bottle down and went to sit by a small occasional table on which he had noticed a brush and comb. “I expect,” he remarked meditatively, “lots of people use the stuff. I might try it myself, only I know my wife would kick up a row—pillow cases and all that sort of thing. Of course, you’re a bachelor, so you’re all right.”

  Haile grew suddenly angry.

  “What the hell’s it got to do with you if I’m a bachelor?” he almost shouted. “What are you up to? What do you want? If you’ve anything to say, say it. If you haven’t, get out and leave me alone.”

  Bobby opened the small dispatch case he had with him and showed Wayling’s cap.

  “See this?” he asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Do you know whose it is?”

  “Looks like Wayling’s.”

  “Correct,” said Bobby. “Wayling says he lost it last night. There seems to have been some sort of row or another at the ‘Good Haul.’ Wayling says you were there. Can you tell me anything?”

  “Not much. Nothing much to it. A put-up job if you ask me. There’s a girl there the cellarman is sweet on. Bessie, I think they call her. Wayling’s been making the pace with
her. Automatic with him. Women fall for him just as they fall for a lost kitten with a lame leg. Automatic with them. They don’t know Wayling has claws. Not that he means it. It just happens, just as a kitten can scratch without meaning it. All the same the cellarman got ratty, and he fixed it up with a pal to make a bit of a fuss in the private bar and got Wayling sent in to see to it. Wayling bustled in all set to do his stuff and the cellarman’s pal took the poor little devil by the scruff of his neck and threw him out on his ear. The big idea was to show up Wayling. The result was to make Miss Bessie more sorry for Wayling than ever, more maternal than ever. If she doesn’t look out, he’ll have her maternal in good earnest.”

  “He told me about that,” Bobby said. He had turned in his chair slightly and was fidgeting with the brush and comb on the small occasional table just behind where he sat. He said: “Wayling’s version wasn’t quite the same, though.”

  “It wouldn’t be,” agreed Haile, grinning, and then suddenly grew angry again, and frightened, too. “What are you doing?” he cried. “You leave my brush alone.”

  “Only a souvenir,” Bobby explained. “A lock of your hair.” He had collected a few stray hairs from the brush and comb. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Yes, I do,” Haile said. He was nearly dressed now and his tone was low and menacing. He came angrily and threateningly towards Bobby, his fists clenched and ready. “Hand that over,” he said, and repeated: “Hand that over.”

  “Can’t be done,” Bobby answered. He looked up at Haile. He didn’t move or try to rise from his chair. He said quietly: “I wouldn’t try that if I were you, Haile. You ought to have more sense.”

  Haile went back to his makeshift bed and sat down heavily. He was still very pale, there was still that same frightened look in his eyes. In a low, muttering voice, he said:

  “You devil.”

  “No,” Bobby said gravely. “Only a plain man doing his duty as best he can, so that other plain men can go their ways in peace and safety.” He was silent as he busied himself replacing carefully Wayling’s cap in his dispatch case, equally carefully putting in an envelope the few hairs he had collected from Haile’s brush and comb. Haile watched him moodily, fearfully. Bobby said: “Murder. That’s a thing apart. Killing, ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood.’ … You remember? That’s still valid, even if we don’t bother much nowadays about the Book it comes from.” He closed his dispatch case and stood up. “Nothing you would like to say?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t mean a thing,” Haile said, “if you do find a few of my hairs in that cap. And you said yourself there’s plenty use that hair oil. You’re only wasting your time fooling about.”

  “Now, look here,” Bobby protested, “you have seen something of Intelligence work, which must be a bit like detection, though much simpler, of course, and you must know quite well that ninety per cent, of it is always just fooling about. Well, I’ll be going. Think it over. You know where to find me any time you want me. If you’ve anything you care to say. We may be cops,’ but all the same we are, or at least we try to be, friends and helpers to all decent people. It’s only the others who need say, ‘You devil.’”

  He nodded, and, opening the drawing-room door, went out, and back to his car. That Haile was disturbed, frightened, was clear enough. Less clear, Bobby thought, was the reason. Now it would be necessary to go more carefully into the story that Haile had been seen in the neighbourhood before the murder took place. Yet what motive could he have had? Bobby shook his head dolefully as he reflected that the problem seemed only to grow more complicated, the more he discovered. This cap of Wayling’s, for instance, and the sudden production by Prescott Bain of so much money in the form of bank-notes stuffed into suitcases. It all seemed to cut clean across the provisional theory that had been beginning to take form and shape in his mind.

  So ran his thoughts as he drove back to Kindles, where, however, he found only Jane to receive him. She explained that Lord Adour and Helen lunched invariably on every alternate Sunday with an aged great-aunt, who exacted—and received—much deference by reason of her age. She was over ninety, still as brisk as ever and even more authoritative, one might even say totalitarian. Also she was a rich woman and had entire control of her property, together with a tendency to change her will every now and again. So this fortnightly lunch was not lightly to be forgone and Lord Adour and his daughter had left in good time, since unpunctuality and a new will were apt to be closely associated in the great-aunt’s mind. All this Jane explained, and Bobby said regretfully that he seemed somehow to have bad luck in trying to meet Miss Helen. Jane said it was a pity this Sunday happened to be great-aunt lunch Sunday, and Bobby asked how she felt after her terrifying experience of the previous night.

  Jane said she was all right, but she tried not to think of it, and, though she had been pale enough before, she grew paler still as she spoke. She admitted she had never managed to get to sleep all night, or, rather, if she did manage to close her eyes, immediately she saw again that dark and strange figure leaping at her from out of the nighty Her uncle had insisted on her seeing their doctor, and he had given her some medicine for her nerves and to take before she went to bed. If Mr. Owen wished to ask her any more questions, she felt quite able to try to answer them. But she didn’t think there was anything she could tell him beyond what he knew already. It had all happened so suddenly, almost simultaneously. The dark form leaping at her, the sure conviction that intention to kill was resolute and purposed, the descending blow that crashed so near, missing by only the fraction of an inch and yet leaving her unhurt except for the tiny wound that was now almost completely healed. Nor could she offer any explanation why a blow so resolute and purposed, so deliberate, so full of deadly intent, had been allowed to fail in its aim.

  “Difficult to understand why,” Bobby reflected aloud. “Or why, if he really meant it, why he did not try again?”

  “I thought perhaps he heard you coming and that frightened him away,” Jane suggested, but Bobby shook his head.

  “I knew nothing about it,” he explained, “till I heard you cry out. Nor apparently did Mr. Winstanley, and Lord Adour says the same. It might be your own cry for help frightened him off. Not very likely. He could very easily have struck again before he ran. The main thing is that he didn’t and that you are safe. There are one or two other points I wanted to ask Miss Helen about, but perhaps you could clear them up for me as she isn’t here. My information is that Miss Helen met Martin Winstanley in the same place the night before. Do you know if that is so?”

  Jane looked startled and uneasy and it was a minute or two before she replied. Then she said:

  “Well, yes. How did you know?”

  “But it was you who met him last night,” Bobby continued, ignoring this question. “Gould you explain how that came about?” Jane, still very startled and uneasy, did not answer. Leaving that for the moment, Bobby went on: “You had on Miss Helen’s swansdown cape. Miss Helen quite possibly wore it the previous night. Do you think it may be that you were attacked in place of Miss Helen, mistaken for her, and that the blow aimed at you was diverted at the last moment when it was seen who you really were? It might be that your voice was recognized when you called out.”

  “I did wonder,” Jane admitted. “I don’t know.’

  “If that was it,” Bobby continued, “do you think that was why a club was used—a pick handle, in point of fact?”

  “Oh, no,” Jane cried and shuddered as she spoke. “Oh, no,” she repeated. “I know what you mean,” she said. After another pause she said: “Helen is so lovely, you think she must belong to another world.”

  “There may be an explanation there if only we could think it out,” Bobby said slowly.

  “I don’t know what that means,” Jane said in a troubled voice. “So far it’s all guessing, groping in the dark,” Bobby went on, without attempting to explain. “You haven’t told me yet why you took Miss Helen’s place last night—that is, if you did,
and if she wasn’t there as well.”

  “Oh, she wasn’t,” Jane said. “I’m sure she wasn’t. How could she be?”

  “Why not?” Bobby asked. “There’s nothing to show that, even if she went up to her room, she stayed there.”

  “Oh, well,” Jane said, and again she had a troubled and a doubtful air. Then her expression changed. “Oh, yes, she was there all the time,” she exclaimed. “I asked her and she said so.” This seemed a trifle less decisive to Bobby than apparently it did to Jane, to whom evidently the possibility that Helen had not told the whole truth had not occurred. Bobby went on:

  “What is in my mind is whether there is anything between Miss Helen and Martin Winstanley? Are they in any way in love with each other?”

  “Oh, no,” Jane exclaimed immediately, and seemed amused at the idea. “Of course, Martin is. I mean in love with her. All men fall in love with Helen when they see her,” and Bobby heard as it were a small and gentle sigh that fluttered between the words, as she added: “Martin, too.”

  “But not Miss Helen with Mr. Winstanley?” he asked.

  “Oh, no,” Jane answered. “Helen is in love with no one.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure.” Jane answered at once. “Helen loves her own beauty far too much ever to think of sharing it with anyone else.” Bobby thought over this in silence for some moments. He did not feel he understood. He was not sure that he believed. He was sure Jane did. His impression of her was that she simply did not know how to lie. Presently he said:

  “You know, I don’t follow that. It’s strange.”

  “Beauty like Helen’s must be, I think,” Jane said. “Very strange and a little dreadful, too.”

  “If it’s like that,” Bobby asked, “why did she go out to meet Mr. Winstanley?”

  “I don’t think she did,” Jane explained. “I’m sure she didn’t. It was Martin. I expect he was hoping he would see her. I suppose he knew.”

  “Knew what?”