“That is all very clear and understandable,” Bobby agreed, “but at the moment I don’t quite see the connection.”
But this remark was not altogether true, for already he was beginning to guess where all this careful explanation and defence was likely to lead. There was a brief pause before Lord Adour, still speaking with slow caution, went on with his story. He said: “The very urgent need still remained for me to know exactly how things stood. Itter Bain knew the position. That came about when he suggested my advancing money to his firm to carry them over the very difficult peace period. I explained my own difficulties and he then suggested he might be able to put me in touch privately with some of my former associates. Irregular, perhaps, but not, I think, in any way criminal or disloyal. The war was over.”
“That’s all quite outside my province,” Bobby said. “Did you know Itter was engaged in smuggling or black market activities of some kind or another?”
“I never had the least suspicion,” Lord Adour declared, so earnestly that Bobby was inclined to believe him, difficult though it seemed.
“Surely,” he said, “you must have realized that Itter had to have some connections of some sort over there?”
“Of course, of course. What he told me was that his uncle, a man who writes most objectionable, subversive propaganda under the nom-de-plume of Jack Cade, Junior, was in touch with members of the French Resistance who would be able to help.” A doubtful explanation, Bobby thought—one accepted only because acceptance was desired. Quite obviously, members of the Resistance were not exactly persons to whom one would apply for an introduction to suspected collaborators. As an excuse, it might serve perhaps, though lamely. He made no comment, though that might be necessary later. Lord Adour continued: “Bain suggested that if I let him use the Seagull he would go across in it and try to get me the information I needed. I hesitated at first. I felt I did not care to run the risk of being further implicated. He suggested that my name could be kept out if he became the owner of the Seagull. I didn’t like the idea, but in the end I agreed. It was becoming almost a matter of averting ruin. I may have been too anxious, too worried to make an entirely wise decision.”
“It is only the actual facts of what really took place that is any business of mine,” Bobby said gently. “Itter Bain was running a big risk, both of a French prison and of serious trouble with our own authorities. For what consideration?”
Lord Adour hesitated again. He looked even more uncomfortable than before, though now his former pallor was giving place to something like a blush. Embarrassed and hesitating, he said at last:
“Well, the fact is … I had to think of Helen’s future … unless I could save something from the wreck of my French interests … Helen is hardly fitted for business … it would be very difficult for her without a secure background … her looks, her temperament. It was chiefly of her I was thinking.”
“Yes?” said Bobby when Lord Adour paused.
“I told Itter,” Lord Adour said with a rush, “that if he helped me in this way I would raise no objection to his meeting Helen or to their marriage if he got her consent. I suppose what he expected was that I would do my best to persuade Helen to listen to him and that I would see he had opportunities to meet her.” With an air both of defiance and defence, he said: “I was sure Helen would have nothing to do with him.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
NEARING THE TRUTH
Bobby received this story in silence. It troubled him, for it seemed to bring back into prominence, as a compelling factor in the case, Helen’s strange, disturbing beauty. But he could not as yet see clearly how it affected his main problem, the identification of the murderer. Clearly Itter Bain, secure of the father’s encouragement, might have felt himself entitled to press his wooing with a greater urgency, an urgency that Helen, or Jane for her, might easily have resented or been frightened by— that is, if Jane had really entered the spinney and there met the waiting Itter, who could so easily have taken her for an emissary acting on Helen’s behalf. It was even possible that the kingfisher had been merely an excuse seized upon to persuade Helen into the spinney where Itter would be waiting for a chance to press his suit. But had Helen gone there? Had Jane? Had either or both? If they had done so, what had happened? Dark possibilities seemed envisaged. Bobby could only hope they would recede into the limbo of discarded theories under the light of the further information he hoped for.
For some few moments this silence continued, Bobby deep in uncomfortable thought, Lord Adour still flushed and embarrassed. It was clear he felt he had played an undignified and unworthy part in thus making use of his daughter’s name. No doubt the temptation had been strong, the inducement overpowering. Presently Bobby said:
“Did you mention this promise or arrangement to Miss Adour?”
“Certainly not,” came the prompt and emphatic answer. “I made it perfectly plain that Helen would naturally decide entirely according to her own feelings and wishes. All I promised was that Itter Bain should have opportunities to come to the house—an invitation to dinner, perhaps. Something like that. Or a business talk and then a cup of tea. Nothing more. I made that plain,” and these last words were delivered with even greater emphasis.
But Bobby wondered whether it had been equally plain to Itter. Itter might well have read into Lord Adour’s acquiescence more than Lord Adour had intended. With eager wishes and hot passion to inflame his desires, Itter could easily have supposed that Lord Adour knew Helen had in some way shown herself inclined to regard his suit favourably. If she had entered the spinney, he might have gone to her with all the ardour and passionate eagerness of an accepted suitor; and she, bewildered and alarmed, might have let her fears master her so far as to snatch up her father’s gun for protection. Or much the same thing might have occurred if Jane had been taken for Helen’s messenger. It seemed to Bobby that Lord Adorn: had, however ignorantly or innocently, prepared meticulously all the elements of tragic misunderstanding.
He reminded himself that all this remained theoretical. But it had certainly become even more necessary that Helen should be questioned. Jane, too, would have to be interviewed once more. He said slowly:
“There are still one or two points I should like to be a little clearer about. About this man, Thibaut. I suppose you had known him previously?”
“I think I had met him once or twice. I knew his name. Vaguely. As a kind of confidential agent—a go-between useful in business deals. Preparing the ground beforehand. That sort of thing.”
“Was he himself compromised as a collaborator?”
“I don’t know. He denied it strongly. He did say once that it is easy for activities perfectly proper and legitimate at the time to be represented as criminal in the light of later events. Perfectly true, of course.” Lord Adour paused, and Bobby knew he was thinking of deals he had himself had some part in—deals perhaps even less innocent than those carried through in the City of London when only a day or two before the outbreak of war copper, rubber, and other munition material had been dispatched to Nazi Germany. One felt so sure there would be no war, and even after war had broken out, was it not proudly announced by a responsible statesman that a new way of waging war without bloodshed had been found? The impregnable Maginot Line, the impeccable neutrality of the border states Hitler had pledged himself to respect, the British blockade! As a sensible, realistic people, the Germans were sure soon to realize the futility of war, and since that was so, why not continue business relations with associates who, even though temporary enemies, would be good friends again very soon?
Easy to see how plausible all this had seemed in the period of the “phony war,” and how easily such beliefs could have led to deals that now would bear a treasonable air. Another theory was pushing itself into the foreground in Bobby’s mind. Suppose this had been so, and Itter Bain knew it—from information supplied by his uncle perhaps or possibly through Thibaut—and suppose he had used his knowledge for some sort of blackmail, crude in m
onetary form, subtle in pressure on the father to secure the daughter’s hand?
Bobby felt his mind was becoming less a thinking, observing, calculating machine than a mere hive of buzzing, conflicting, contradictory suppositions, all probable, all lacking any confirmation of the solid fact, proof, evidence, for which he found himself longing with almost passionate intensity. He said at last: “Was Thibaut able to tell you anything?”
“Nothing,” Lord Adour answered gloomily. “He knew nothing. Or said he didn’t. What he had come for was to get me to use what he called my influence to induce our Government to ask the French authorities to stop the investigation they’ve started. Strings can be pulled, I know,” admitted Lord Adour still more gloomily, and Bobby suspected he had done his share of string-pulling in his time, “but not like that. Not to mention that I’ve no influence at all with any of the people now in power. I’m suspect rather. And nothing Thibaut could tell me, or so he insisted, beyond what I knew already—that all books and papers had been seized. Not that that affects me personally. There’s nothing I ever signed they can take exception to.”
“I suppose the arrangement was for Itter Bain to take Thibaut back across the Channel in the Seagull?”
“Yes, but there was some sort of unpleasantness. Apparently they quarrelled on the way here. I don’t know why. I didn’t ask. But it seems Bain lost his temper, put Thibaut ashore safely, but then told him to ‘hop it’ without telling him how to find his way here. ‘Hop it’ was a new expression to Thibaut and he thought it was meant for an insult. Unfortunate, for that is why he had to ask his way and was noticed.”
“I see,” said Bobby. “How did he manage to get back, then? Or is he still here?”
“No. There were people in London he wanted to see. He went on there. I let him use my flat. He had great hopes of persuading what he called ‘powerful British interests’ to help his friends. Quite impossible, of course. No one here could interfere even if they had wanted to. He was very disappointed and I believe in the end had to pay some fishermen heavily to smuggle him across again. He had had warning that he was going to be questioned and was likely to be expelled under arrest. So he got out while he could—in a hurry. He wanted to avoid questioning.”
Like, Bobby could not help thinking, like Lord Adour himself, who also it seemed had been in no way eager to undergo questioning. Bobby asked a few more questions. The answers were clear, were supported by one or two letters and telegrams, and showed that Thibaut had been in London at the time of the murder. An alibi as well established beyond reasonable doubt on the strength of independent evidence, as, for example, that of Prescott Bain. So the theory of Thibaut’s possible guilt had to be put aside. Some of Bobby’s questions had allowed Lord Adour to guess that this had been in Bobby’s mind, and Lord Adour made it clear that he thought it a most extravagant and far-fetched notion— he made it equally clear that he held the same opinion of the rest of the theories on which Bobby was working.
“To my mind,” he declared, “there’s no real doubt. Haile is the man. A common trick, to pose as the detective when you are really the criminal.”
Bobby suggested meekly that it was hardly common. He did not think he himself had ever known such a case. Lord Adour smiled, implied that Bobby was comparatively young and inexperienced, remarked that he had often read of the trick. As for motive—Bobby having hinted he had found none—why, in Lord Adour’s opinion, Haile had almost certainly been concerned in, or at least known something about, Itter Bain’s cross-Channel activities. A quarrel over the division of profits was likely enough or even an attempt at blackmail. Anyhow, to Lord Adour’s personal knowledge, Haile had been seen hanging about in the neighbourhood before the date of the tragedy, and what was that for? Bobby made no mention of Miss Lambert and merely remarked that all these considerations were being carefully studied. Lord Adour’s expression showed very clearly what value he attached to that assurance. Bobby said:
“All you’ve told me makes it still more necessary I should have a chat with Miss Adour. I hope you’ll agree it has become essential.” Lord Adour made no comment. Probably he realized that that could no longer be avoided. Bobby continued: “I want to ask you once more to give us permission to post a man here. I consider it a necessary precaution.”
“I prefer to take my own precautions,” Lord Adour retorted with renewed defiance. “There’s enough gossip and talk going on already without police hanging about to make everyone believe that we are all under arrest or being watched for fear we de-camp.”
“Do you mind telling me what precautions you are taking?”
“Unnecessary,” Lord Adour pronounced. “The question is closed.”
“I regret it,” Bobby said stiffly. “As soon as I get back, I shall make a formal written request to Commander Seers, asking him to take all possible steps to persuade you to change your mind.”
“Quite useless,” snapped Lord Adour. “Besides, I’ve told Seers and he fully agrees.”
“I shall still wish to put my view on record,” Bobby said quietly. “As far as possible I must free myself from all responsibility for anything that may happen. And now, if Miss Adour is still incapacitated by this unfortunate headache, would it be possible for me to have a little further talk with Miss Felgate?”
“Oh, come, really, no, decidedly no,” Lord Adour exclaimed. “You’ve put her through one cross-examination already to-day. That’s enough.”
“Sorry,” Bobby answered, “but it seems necessary to ask her to clear up one or two of these fresh points.” Lord Adour still looked obstinate and did not move. Bobby went across to the fireplace and pressed the bell. “You will forgive me, I hope,” he said.
“You take unpardonable liberties, sir,” exclaimed Lord Adour, going very red in the face, sitting very upright.
“I am conducting an inquiry into a murder,” Bobby answered. “I am beginning to feel I am drawing nearer the truth.”
CHAPTER XXIX
BOBBY INSISTS
It was Jane herself who came, rather hurriedly, to answer the insistent clamour of the bell on which Bobby had continued to hold his finger longer than was perhaps necessary. The Kindles household was one of the more fortunate as regards domestic help. One elderly maid had stayed on from pre-war days, declaring herself too old to change over to factory life. There was also a woman from a neighbouring cottage who came in for an hour or two in the morning and would have been willing to stay longer had food been available to provide her with a meal. For the rest, Helen did most of the cooking—she was never so much the normal feminine, so little the earthly embodiment of an unearthly beauty, as when, tying an apron round her middle, she presided over her pots and pans. Jane’s province was the management of rations and points and the giving of a helping hand where help was needed. Now, knowing the elderly maid was out and the daily woman gone home, she came, hurrying and uneasy, as soon as she heard the prolonged summons of the bell. Her uneasiness increased when she saw the heavy frown on her uncle’s face, the grave expression Bobby wore.
“Oh, what is it?” she asked nervously, and still held open the door by which she had just entered, as though instinctively keeping clear a line of retreat.
“Lord Adour has given me a little fresh information on one or two points,” Bobby explained. “Won’t you come in? Please sit down.” He waved her to a chair and she obeyed though very much as if against her will. Bobby could see plainly that Lord Adour was trying to signal to her to be cautious and that these signals merely puzzled and alarmed her. As well, Bobby told himself, that Lord Adour had had no opportunity to speak to her in private. He went on: “So I want to ask you to help check up on a few details. There’s one thing though I must make quite clear. It is necessary I should see Miss Adour. I hope I shan’t have to consider taking steps to enforce an interview.” His voice hitherto had been hard and official. Now he made it warmer and more friendly as he continued: “I am sure you both understand nothing, nothing at all, can be allowed to in
terfere with the course of justice. It is essential I should have an opportunity of hearing Miss Adour’s personal story.”
“But there’s nothing Helen can tell you,” Jane protested. “I can’t either. Commander Seers said so.”
“Telling nothing often means telling a great deal,” Bobby replied. “Of course, we’ve learned a good deal since Commander Seers said that. I’m sure he wouldn’t say it to-day. Lord Adour tells me he called out to you that he had seen a kingfisher in the spinney. That was when he was hurrying back to get his camera. Please tell me precisely, in every detail, what you did.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Jane answered. “Helen had come back from the River Farm with Mr. Winstanley, and he had gone home, and she came out again to see if she could get some vegetables for dinner. I was rather excited about the kingfisher, so I ran across to tell her.”
“Was she excited, too?” Bobby asked.
“Oh, yes. At least, not very. Helen never is. Except about cooking.”
“Sufficiently excited though,” Bobby suggested, “for her to hurry to the spinney to see the kingfisher herself?”
Jane, a little flustered under the double strain of Bobby’s questioning, and Lord Adour’s winks and frowns, of which she could not understand the meaning, answered hesitatingly:
“Yes. Why shouldn’t she? I don’t see—”
“No reason at all why she shouldn’t,” Bobby interposed. “Very natural. I suppose you went, too?”
“Yes. I wanted to see the kingfisher as well.”
“Of course. You and Miss Helen went together?”
“I ran back first for my bag. I was getting some flowers for the house, and it was rather difficult, because of all the rough weather we’ve had, and I had left my bag on the grass. It has all our ration cards in it, and I never let it out of my sight, so I went back to get it, and a good thing I did, because the puppy was playing with it. He nearly had it open.”
Helen Passes By: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 23