Helen Passes By: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “The most disturbing new fact is the attack on Jane Felgate that does so much look like an intended attack on Helen Adour. Is that going to be repeated? If so, on which of the two of them? And how is it to be prevented? A determined assassin must always win in the end, if he is resolute and patient and watchful enough. The initiative is his.

  “It is a responsibility and I am going to ask permission to sleep at Kindles, somewhere in a corridor as near the rooms of the two girls as possible. But I am not sure that permission will be given. If not, I shall have to sit under their windows all night, I suppose. A policeman’s lot is indeed not a happy one, as has been said before with the most profound wisdom and insight.

  “The most puzzling new fact is the apparent complete disappearance of the Seagull launch. It left its harbour anchorage in the tow of one of the Bain Products barges and seems to have vanished into thin air.

  “The most surprising new fact is the emergence of Haile from troublesome and annoying rival detective into a suspect. I always felt sure he was afraid of something, but I had no idea what and there was nothing to connect him with the murder. But now I wonder, for why has he never said he was in this neighbourhood about that time? Is it possible we have been on a wrong track and the motive behind the murder was neither any rivalry or quarrel about this present-day Helen who seems to have such a power of standing people on their heads, nor anything to do with money, but something between Haile, Itter Bain, and the girl at Mrs. Mack’s? Have Mrs. Mack and Miss Lambert speaking parts or are they merely supers?

  “The most troublesome new fact is the blowing up of Seers and his subsequent retirement into hospital, where I expect he will have to stay, in spite of all protests. Not that any lack of trousers would be likely to keep him there, but lack of ability to stand upright or of strength to get out of bed might be harder to get over. While he was about, I could at least talk to him and get some help. But now I shall have to deal with a deputy scared out of his life of doing anything the Commander mightn’t approve of. As I am afraid he doesn’t approve of me. He is a pig-headed old boy and possesses what is called personality, i.e. supreme, unshakable belief in self. But you have to respect a man who, in order to get a tow rope fixed, can go on sitting on a mine that has begun to tick over. I can imagine seats where one would be more at one’s ease.”

  The letter concludes on a more personal note.

  CHAPTER XXI

  CHANGE OF HEART

  The first visit Bobby paid in the morning was to the Bain Products factory. To the gatekeeper he explained that he wished to see Mr. Mauley Bain. He added that he could find his own way to the offices as he had been before. But out of the gatekeeper’s sight—and mind—he turned off towards the wharf where were loaded and unloaded the barges plying between the factory and Toad-in-Hole Harbour.

  A few men were busy there. Bobby did not speak to them, nor did they to him. He stood watching for a few minutes and then walked away; having made sure again that nowhere was there any sign of the missing launch. Now and again he was conscious of cautious movements behind him, and once he heard a cough.

  When he turned sharply he had a glimpse of someone slipping swiftly away behind the corner of a shed.

  He did not attempt to follow. He went back to where the group of workmen were busy and said to one of them:

  “Have you seen Mr. Mauley Bain? I think he is about somewhere, isn’t he?”

  “I didn’t know he had got back,” the man answered. “Hi, Jim,” he called to another man. “Seen Mr. Mauley? This gentleman is looking for him.”

  “Mr. Mauley? I don’t think he’s back yet,” came the answer. “Better ask at the office.”

  Bobby said he would, thanked them, and moved away. Another of the men called:

  “The office is t’other way, to your left.”

  But Bobby once again had thought he saw someone moving cautiously and furtively amidst the tangle of lorries, discarded machinery, piles of scrap, packing cases, and so on that lay around. He called softly, but got no response, and the silence that followed his summons seemed now to convey a sense of warning and of threat. Someone, he felt sure, who wished to see but not be seen. He turned away and then turned back sharply. This time he was aware beyond all doubt of a hot and angry eye staring at him through the crack of a half-open door. Bobby moved briskly towards it. The door banged suddenly. Bobby shrugged his shoulders and went away. He had no wish nor time to indulge in games of hide-and-seek. But, if the watcher had been Mauley Bain, of which he was by no means sure, then it was as well to know that Mauley wished to avoid him, but yet was interested in his movements.

  Bobby walked on thoughtfully to the office, but there got no information. No one knew if Mr. Mauley Bain had returned from London or not. Mr. Prescott Bain was somewhere about the factory, and most likely he would know, but no one could say exactly where he was. No doubt he could be found if Mr. Owen cared to wait a little. It was remarked with a touch of surprise that Mr. Owen’s was the second inquiry for Mr. Mauley made that morning. Bobby asked who had made the first inquiry and was told it was Wayling, the new potman at the “Good Haul.” He had been so pressing and so sure that Mr. Mauley had said he would be back first thing this morning that to get rid of him he had been told to go and look for himself. He had gone off accordingly in the direction of the wharves.

  So possibly, Bobby supposed, it had not been Mauley Bain who had been watching him, but Wayling. Only why should Wayling do that and why should he be so anxious to meet Mauley? Did that mean there was something between them? Yet another by-path, then, it might be necessary to explore? One of the office staff who had just come back from some errand caught Wayling’s name.

  “The ‘Good Haul’ potman?” he asked. “Has he been here? I wish I had seen him. He owes me ten bob. I can’t think,” he added moodily, “how the little blighter got it out of me. I had only had one glass of the nearly near-beer they give you at the ‘Good Haul.’”

  Bobby went away. No good wasting more time with so much to do. There was the River Farm to visit, as well as Mrs. Mack’s nursing home. The River Farm first, though, as it was the nearer of the two, and there Bobby had to wait while a messenger was sent to find Winstanley, who, it appeared, either was or had been busy lending a hand “spreading muck” on one of the more distant fields.

  “It’s not what the master should be doing and him with his leg and all,” said disapprovingly the housekeeper Bobby had seen on his previous visit. “Master’s eye is better muck than any he can go help to spread. But what can you expect when there’s chits of girls doing field work and glad to get them?”

  When Martin did appear he certainly brought with him an aroma that provided circumstantial and convincing proof of his recent activities. He sent a message in to Bobby to say he was waiting outside, and when Bobby joined him, suggested adjournment to the stable for their talk.

  “Hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but my housekeeper wouldn’t let me indoors like this.” He laughed pleasantly and Bobby thought he looked much brighter and more cheerful than before. He led the way into the stable and produced a couple of buckets to serve as seats. “I can’t offer you a cigarette,” he said. “Sacking matter to smoke in any of the outbuildings—at least, it would be if I dared even say ‘Boo’ to any of them for fear they took offence and cleared out.” He laughed again. “A good crowd on the whole,” he said, “though sometimes the land-girls will try to do more than their strength is up to. Well, you know, I had half a mind to come along to see you, only there’s such a lot of work on hand, and then I rather expected you would be turning up. As a matter of fact, I expected you yesterday.”

  “I did call,” Bobby said, “but you were out and I couldn’t wait.”

  “I know,” Martin said. “It was dark before I got in. My foreman and I were having a row. He thinks I’m heading straight for ruin. When I rang you up, you had gone out, so I went to bed. You have to turn in early if you mean to be up at first light.”

&
nbsp; Bobby looked at him curiously.

  “You must be working long hours,” he remarked. “A lot busier than when I saw you before. Rush orders or something? The Agricultural Committee at you again?”

  “No, no,” Martin answered and flushed a little. “Turning over a new leaf, I suppose. I had got a bit slack. Bad on a farm. If you’re fighting Nature, you have to watch her the way you watch a fighter on your tail. I don’t suppose you came to talk farming, though. It’s about what happened the other night, I suppose? Are you on anything yet?”

  “All sorts of things,” Bobby answered gloomily, “but all pointing different ways. I am wondering if you can help. My information is that you have met Miss Adour on other nights at the same spot. Is that so?”

  “Not met exactly,” Martin answered. “You can’t call it ‘met.’ I knew she sometimes went out for a stroll before bed—especially when it was moonlight. I didn’t think it was altogether safe after what’s happened. I thought I would just go and see if she was all right.”

  “Was that all?” Bobby asked.

  “How do you mean all?” Martin demanded, and then he flushed again and more deeply. “Well, no, it wasn’t all. It was partly just to look at her. I know it sounds damn silly. I suppose it is. All the same, to stand and look at her with the moonlight all around her and the darkness beyond—well, it’s an experience. I suppose cops are a hard-boiled lot, but you try it and see.”

  Bobby let this last remark pass. He said:

  “Did Miss Helen expect you?”

  “Lord, no,” Martin said and laughed. “Not likely. I suppose I ought to say, ‘No such luck.’ I didn’t even mean to speak to her. Just to watch. Just to stand and stare and you may think me as big a fool as you like.”

  “Oh, I dare say I might be moonstruck, too, if I saw the young lady,” Bobby answered smilingly, though to himself he was thinking, “Not me,” and then he thought of Olive and smiled again. “What I’m wondering is, was anyone else hanging around for the same reason?”

  “For the same fool reason, you mean,” Martin suggested. “Don’t trouble to spare my feelings. No one was around as far as I know.”

  “You say you didn’t mean to speak to her. Did you in fact, the first night?”

  “I said I didn’t mean to speak to her, or to let her see me for that matter, the second time,” Martin said. “The first night I pretended to be out looking for rabbits, I think I said. Rather thin. Of course, she knew better. I told her it wasn’t safe for her to be out alone so late. She didn’t take any notice. I think she knows too well the power of her beauty for her to have any fear.”

  “She didn’t say anything?”

  “No. Nothing much. Only good night. She went back towards the house. I watched till she was home safe.”

  “And the second time?” Bobby asked.

  “It was just the same. There is something so strange about her loveliness you can’t help feeling you must look again. At least, that’s how I felt. Not so much now. Jane was there, though, not Helen. She told me Helen thought I might be dodging around and she wanted to be alone, so Jane had come to say would I please get out and stay out, and, of course, I said I would. She made me promise and promise not to sneak back, and I did. Then I cleared off and then I heard Jane cry out—you know as much after that as I do.”

  “Were you and Miss Jane talking for any length of time?”

  “Oh, well, perhaps. I don’t know exactly. Jane told me she knew just how I felt. She’s an understanding sort of person. I told her exactly how it was. Funny thing. After I had told her how I felt, I didn’t feel that way any longer. Jane’s so—so restful. You can tell her anything, I want you to understand. What I mean is, I’m through playing the fool over Helen. That’s finished. Helen had me standing on my head, but Jane’s put me straight again. And if I could lay my hands on the swine who attacked her last night, I would wring his neck with pleasure.”

  “Please don’t,” Bobby said. “I’ve enough on my hands already. Do you think it possible Miss Jane was mistaken for Miss Helen, and that the attack was really intended to be on Miss Helen?”

  “Well, I did think of that,” Winstanley said. “Of course, Jane was wearing that cape thing. I went to Kindles this morning and made her promise never to wear it again. She rather laughed at me. There does seem no reason why anyone should want to attack either of them. Jane says it’s impossible anyone in their senses should want to hurt Helen. It’s not as if Helen had ever given anyone any sort of encouragement. She simply doesn’t know you exist. Perhaps she doesn’t really know that anything exists except her own loveliness. She’s sort of withdrawn into her own beauty. That’s what Jane says. If there really is anyone so crazy as to want to kill Helen to pay her out for being such a beauty, that’s no reason for Jane to run her head into danger.”

  “No,” agreed Bobby. “No proof it’s that, though, and it hardly seems credible. I never heard of anyone wanting to kill beauty simply for being beautiful. An odd world, but surely not so odd as that. And no proof there’s any connection with the Itter Bain murder, which is the job I have on hand.”

  They talked a little longer and then Bobby drove away. As he did so he remembered with some surprise that though Martin said he had gone out at night simply to stand and stare, himself unseen, at Helen’s beauty, now it was Jane’s safety he seemed chiefly concerned about.

  “An odd world,” repeated Bobby thoughtfully.

  CHAPTER XXII

  NURSING HOME

  Mrs. Mack’s nursing establishment was situated about halfway between Toad-in-Hole and the Seashire county town, though it was still known as the Toad-in-Hole Nursing Home, since it was in Toad-in-Hole it had been started. It stood, facing due south, on the edge of a low cliff overhanging a rocky and dangerous shore. On the west the line of cliff rose towards Toad-in-Hole, where it dipped abruptly to the valley of the Adour River. On the east the cliff sloped more gently to a small, pleasant and sandy cove where in happier days there had been a cluster of small holiday bungalows, one of those summer resorts so angrily denounced by some who in general can exercise a freer choice less hampered by considerations of cost and time. Now these bungalows presented a sad spectacle of the waste of war, though war itself had passed them by. They lay waste, desolate and destroyed in a nightmare wilderness of rusting wire, of huge, broken concrete blocks, of trailing iron barricades, of sudden pits; defences against a landing for which this small cove had been thought to offer opportunities.

  Scattered on the slope leading up the cliff where the nursing home stood were a few still-occupied houses and shops; the shops serving also a small scattered population further inland. There was, too, a summer hotel, now almost as busy turning away wouldbe guests as in attending to those who had been graciously granted accommodation—at a price.

  Bobby noticed that the hotel was open to the south, but well protected, both by trees and the lie of the land, from the north and east. The Mack nursing home lay higher, fully exposed in both directions. It did just cross Bobby’s mind that a strong north or east wind and an open window might prove a combination well calculated to release from their sufferings the aged and the senile whose too-prolonged life had become no more than a burden to themselves—and even to their relatives.

  Bobby set such thoughts aside. He had lunched on sandwiches put up by Mrs. Gregson, and, though it was still early, he decided to get a cup of tea at one of the shops near. Tea-shop waitresses are, of course, not in the same class as barmaids. Where barmaids know it all, waitresses hear only a modicum of local gossip, so much more effective is alcohol than tannin as a promoter of chat. All the same, in these small places waitresses often have a good idea of the standing and character of local residents, and Bobby was anxious to know what her neighbours thought of Mrs. Mack.

  He left his car therefore in a convenient spot nearby and was strolling towards the smaller and less attractive of the two establishments announcing “Teas,” for he thought that on the whole there was a cha
nce it might be less concerned with visitors and more with the permanent residents. As he approached, the door of the shop opened and there emerged a buxom, jolly-looking, middle-aged woman, half leading, half carrying one so small and old and frail it seemed as if even the light breeze coming across the sea might have blown her away had she not been held in such warm and comfortable arms. An invalid chair stood nearby. In it the younger woman settled carefully her charge, apparently joking as she did so, for Bobby heard distinctly her jolly laugh and the cackle of the other’s ancient merriment.

  When they had gone Bobby entered the shop and asked for tea. He was soon chatting with the waitress, asking her about the district, the climate, the amenities. Then he asked if that was Mrs. Mack of the Toad-in-Hole nursing home, he had seen going away with an invalid lady.

  “Mrs. Mack and old Mrs. Orchard,” said the waitress. “Poor old soul. You can’t help thinking it would be a mercy if she were took like others. So she would have been long ago only the way Mrs. Mack looks after her—like a daughter to her.”

  “You could depend on Mrs. Mack taking good care,” Bobby asked, “of anyone who needed more attention than can be given in an ordinary way?”

  “Oh, yes,” agreed the waitress, “but she is thinking of giving up. Poor old Mrs. Orchard was very upset when Mrs. Mack told her. She says only Mrs. Mack keeps her going and it won’t be the same anywhere else, even if Mrs. Mack does take her with her. Mrs. Mack is so conscientious. She doesn’t feel as if she wants to carry on here.”