The Dusky Hour

by E. R. Punshon

  The elderly woman who had admitted Bobby, and whom he now knew to be Mrs. Marshall, the cook, added cryptically:

  “If she hadn’t gone when she did, she’d have stayed.”

  “That’s right,” said a brisk, good-looking young woman who had now joined them, and who it was had suggested the cooking sherry as a way out of the impasse caused by Mr. Hayes’s having impounded the late housekeeper’s keys.

  She had been introduced as Miss Edwards, the house-parlourmaid, and was addressed as “Aggie” by Mrs. Marshall. The only other resident member of the staff was apparently a young man named Ned Thoms, the “chauffeur-gardener,” the establishment running much to hyphens and Mrs. Marshall having already tacked “housekeeper” on to her former title of cook, so that she was provisionally “cook-housekeeper.” In addition, a woman came in every day from a cottage about a mile distant to help in the rougher work.

  Both women, Aggie and Mrs. Marshall, would have been more willing to talk about Mrs. O’Brien’s sensational exit from their midst but for their curiosity to know the purpose of the chief constable’s approaching visit they were already associating with the chalk-pit tragedy every visiting tradesman or van-driver all day had been eager to tell them about. But, before the conversation changed, Bobby learned that Mrs. Marshall’s cryptic remark that if Mrs. O’Brien had not gone when she did she would have stayed was less a truism and a platitude than an expression of a firm belief that Mrs. O’Brien had meant marriage, that the new hat, the ostensible cause of the quarrel, had been intended to clinch the matter, that Mr. Hayes’s ridicule of it had been a symbolic refusal, and the slap across the face an acknowledgment of defeat.

  “Meant he knew what she was up to and he wasn’t having any, and so she let him have it,” explained Mrs. Marshall, still inclining to the cryptic.

  Miss Edwards had been punctuating Mrs. Marshall’s observations with knowing little giggles that Bobby was sure meant there was more to the story than had yet come out. But Mrs. Marshall discouraged them with answering frowns; and Bobby thought it best to let that lie for the time, and to confirm their expressed supposition that the chief constable’s coming visit was in connection with the death of the unknown motorist whose body had been found in the chalk-pit not far away.

  “It’s possible he was on his way to visit someone in the neighbourhood,” Bobby told them, “so the colonel wants to find out if any of the residents knew him. We’ve been round by Sevens already, because we heard Mr. Moffatt had two American gentlemen staying with him.”

  “Did they know him?” Mrs. Marshall asked.

  “Didn’t seem to, but they are to have a look at the body tomorrow in case they do.”

  “Oo-ooo,” said Aggie, shuddering. “How awful like.”

  “The colonel seems to have an idea Mr. Bennett – that’s his name, we think; the motorist’s, I mean – was either an American or else had been over there,” observed Bobby. “Mr. Hayes is an American gentleman, too, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, no, he’s a Londoner, he is,” Mrs. Marshall answered.

  “America’s where he made his money,” interposed Aggie. “He often talks about it. I’ve heard him at table. He says it’s a lovely country; he says America for making money, England for spending it. That’s why he’s come home, he says.”

  “He’ll be pleased to see your gentleman,” Mrs. Marshall said to Bobby – this expression he gathered, and thought it a very nice one, referring to Colonel Warden. “He’s always saying how good the English police are, and you know you can trust them, and not like them over there where anyone can be kidnapped in their beds any night almost.”

  “Oo-ooo,” said Aggie tremulously, but all the same a little as if she felt the experience might not be without its interesting side.

  “As all can see for theirselves on the pictures,” added Mrs. Marshall. “I don’t know how they ever dare go to bed.”

  “I’m sure I don’t either, Mrs. Marshall,” said Aggie, but again a little as if she would have risked it all the same.

  “Very nice Mr. Hayes feels like that; means a lot on both sides when people are friendly to the police and feel they can trust them,” observed Bobby. “Mr. Hayes isn’t scared of burglars, then?”

  Mrs. Marshall went pale at the thought of burglars, and said the very idea of such gave her quite a turn. Aggie opined that it would take a good deal to scare Mr. Hayes.

  “Look at the way he stood up to Mrs. O’Brien,” she said in tones that suggested that for her part she would far rather meet half a dozen burglars than one Mrs. O’Brien.

  “Formidable lady, Mrs. O’Brien?” Bobby suggested.

  Mrs. Marshall admitted it. Miss Aggie mentioned that Mrs. O’Brien stood near six feet. Mrs. Marshall remarked reminiscently that once a carter delivering goods had tried to be cheeky. It had been a fair treat to see Mrs. O’Brien reach for the rolling-pin and see him go off down the drive in such a scare as never was.

  “He’s little and thin and quiet, Mr. Hayes,” said Aggie, “and she would have made twice him and to spare, but after she lost her temper and slapped him – well, all in a twitter, she was, and glad no worse happened to her than told to get out. There’s a way he has of looking at times makes you go all crawly up and down the back, like when you see you’ve just nearly gone and been and trod on one of them big spiders or there’s a rat about might run up under your dress if you didn’t mind – Oo-ooo.”

  “Be quiet, Aggie. I don’t know how you can think of such horrors,” exclaimed Mrs. Marshall, and poked the fire for protection.

  “Oh, I don’t mean it isn’t all right if you do what he says,” protested Aggie.

  “Well, he’s the master, and good wages, too, if distrustful like, and keeps things locked up the way a real gentleman wouldn’t; but, then, likely that comes from living in foreign parts,” said Mrs. Marshall, for whom evidently foreign parts excused much.

  “Just as well not to be nervous when you live so far in the country,” Bobby said. “He’s not like Mr. Moffatt, over at Sevens. He doesn’t keep a pistol by him, just in case?”

  “Oh, no,” said Mrs. Marshall.

  “Yes, he does, Mrs. Marshall,” said Aggie. “There’s two in a drawer in his bedroom. I saw them when I was tidying up one morning. Gave me quite a turn. It’s a drawer he generally keeps locked, but that morning it wasn’t.”

  “Well, you didn’t ought to have opened it,” said Mrs. Marshall. “Mrs. O’Brien would have given you fair what for if she had known.”

  Aggie tossed her head, and pouted, and Bobby guessed that fear of a rebuke from the formidable but departed Mrs. O’Brien had probably been her reason for not mentioning her discovery before. Bobby observed that gentlemen living in the country often liked to have a pistol by them in case of emergency, and tried to find out if the two Aggie had seen had been revolvers or automatics. But she had no idea of the difference, and could give no description of the weapons. She had, she explained, shut the drawer again in a hurry, since you never knew “when them things mightn’t go off and kill someone.”

  Bobby agreed with this pronouncement, and thought to himself that another inspection of the Firearms Register was indicated. One pistol in a lonely country house was not very exceptional, nor a licence for it very difficult to secure. Two of them seemed, however, to require explanation, nor would it be so easy to procure a second licence. But the two women, leaving again the subject of the departure of Mrs. O’Brien – for that, exciting and absorbing as it was, and fit topic for many a chat to come, was none the less eclipsed for the time by the newer thrill of the chalk-pit tragedy – began to question Bobby afresh about this latter event. With a great appearance of frankness he told them nearly as much as they knew already from the gossip they had heard, though they were almost as thrilled to hear it all again, only this time, as it were, from officialdom itself, as if it had all been new. On one or two points of entire insignificance Bobby corrected what they had heard; and on his side he was interested to find tha
t already there was current a vague idea that what had happened had not been wholly accidental. He slipped in an inquiry as to whether anyone had mentioned having seen or heard of any strange motorist in the district. Strangers were rare at this time of year, when touring was out of season, and the roads seldom used by other than the inhabitants of the district. None, however, had been mentioned, and Mrs. Marshall and Aggie explained that neither of them that day had been beyond the Way Side grounds.

  “And Mr. Hayes?” Bobby asked. “Did he stay in all day?”

  This question set Aggie off giggling again in the same way as before. Mrs. Marshall told her sternly there was nothing to laugh at, and Aggie said she wasn’t, and anyhow Mrs. O’Brien wasn’t there any more, so what did it matter? And, after various other mysterious allusions, it began to appear that Mr. Hayes was in the habit of strolling over to the Towers Poultry Farm somewhat frequently, even occasionally of having tea there in preference to returning home for it; that this practice had been for some time concealed from Mrs. O’Brien, and that, when she had discovered it, it had been the underlying cause of the arrival of the new hat from London and of the subsequent events, including the famous slap on the face and the subsequent swift departure.

  “Knew her nose was out of joint,” said Aggie.

  “Now, now, Aggie,” said Mrs. Marshall.

  “Knew she hadn’t an earthly,” declared Aggie.

  “When it gets to face-slapping,” mused Mrs. Marshall, “it means you’ve come to the parting of the ways.”

  “So it does,” agreed Bobby.

  “And the eggs he orders, and the prices charged as would make a West End tradesman blush, or as near as he could get,” said Mrs. Marshall.

  “I don’t blame her for trying,” said Aggie. “Why not?”

  “Chicken, too, till I’m tired of the sight of ’em,” said Mrs. Marshall. “And beats me how to use the eggs, useful as eggs is and in most places hard to get the half of what you need. I gave Mr. Thoms four for his breakfast with his bacon this morning and he wanted to know if I thought he was an incubator, and me old enough to be his mother – or very near.”

  “Mr. Thoms?” repeated Bobby. “Is that the chauffeur?”

  “Yes. Very respectable young man,” said Mrs. Marshall, with a stern eye on Aggie, who was tossing her head again and giving other signs of disapproval, “even if he do like to keep himself to himself, and hours he spends in that garage on his own –”

  “And welcome,” interposed Aggie, but not as if she meant it.

  “And had a nasty fall to-night,” Mrs. Marshall went on. “Went off on the motor-bike to get some cigarettes at the post-office and come back with his poor face all swelled up, and such a black eye as you never saw.”

  “Dear me, must have been a nasty fall,” said Bobby with keen sympathy – and even keener interest.

  “Skidded,” explained Mrs. Marshall, “and went right flat on his poor face.”

  “Made it,” explained Aggie, “even uglier than it was before. He’ll have to wash it now, though.”

  “Now, now, Aggie,” protested Mrs. Marshall. “As smart a young man as ever donned a chauffeur’s uniform,” she told Bobby.

  “Happened somewhere near Battling Copse, didn’t it?” Bobby asked.

  “He didn’t say,” Mrs. Marshall answered.

  “Worst of these country roads – the risk of skidding, I mean,” Bobby said sympathetically, wondering, too, what cause of dispute could have arisen between Mr. Moffatt’s son and Mr. Hayes’s chauffeur.

  Hardly a police matter perhaps, and yet one that might bear investigation. He was beginning to feel, too, that a visit to the Towers Poultry Farm – “Teas” as well – seemed to be indicated, and was it mere coincidence that a quarrel between Mr. Hayes and his housekeeper had broken out so fiercely on the very day and within an hour or two of the stranger motorist’s mysterious death? He tried to establish the exact times. There was evidence that the car had gone over the edge of the pit a minute or two after four in the afternoon. Mr. Hayes, it seemed, had gone out some time before that; had returned between five and six, saying he had had tea.

  “Towers Poultry Farm,” interposed Aggie with a fresh giggle.

  “That’s as may be,” said Mrs. Marshall sternly, “and no concern of anyone’s.”

  Aggie looked disposed to make a pert reply, so Bobby interposed with an inquiry as to whether Mr. Hayes was fond of the country, as he had come to live in such a quiet, out-of-the-way spot, and Mrs. Marshall expressed an opinion that it bored him to death and Aggie that he hated it. Aggie had known him stand at the dining-room window and curse the whole landscape in terms that had both shocked and thrilled her, though she had hardly understood a word, in spite of an extensive film education and a considerable knowledge of current literature. Mrs. Marshall said that the poor soul never seemed to know what to do. He went up to town two or three times a week, and on those mornings he would be quite cheerful. Other mornings he generally spent most of his time yawning and grumbling, cursing the paper because there was nothing in it or the wireless because there was nothing worth listening to.

  “Cheers up, though,” added Aggie, “when it’s time to go and order a couple more chickens or another dozen new laid.”

  “Now, Aggie, no gossip,” said Mrs. Marshall sternly. “Gossip’s a thing I never could abide.”

  Bobby applauded, and said he couldn’t either, and, by way of diversion, Mrs. Marshall got up and produced from a cupboard the very identical hat that had been the apparent, if not the real, cause of the parting between Mrs. O’Brien and her employer.

  “Looks funny now it’s been jumped on,” Mrs. Marshall confessed, “but cost five guineas –”

  “Oo-ooo,” said Aggie.

  “– as the ticket shows, from the Blue Jay in Middle Bond Street.”

  “Oo-ooo,” said Aggie again, for the fame of the Blue Jay was widespread and the name appeared on most theatrical programmes – “Hats by Blue Jay” – and on the screen as well, “Hats, by Blue Jay,” being a frequent feature of Topical Budgets.

  “But, queer as it looks now, not beyond –” mused Mrs. Marshall.

  “It just needs –” said Aggie.

  “If you just –” said Mrs. Marshall.

  “You could easily –” Aggie pointed out.

  “A new ribbon there –” Mrs. Marshall suggested.

  Bobby, Mrs. O’Brien’s departure, the chalk-pit, all were forgotten till a ring at the front door called them back to their surroundings. Bobby said it was probably his chief, and time, too, for now it was nearly half past the hour. Aggie went to answer the summons. Bobby said he would come with her, as the colonel would be sure to want him, and in the passage outside, that lay between the servants’ sitting-room and the kitchen, they came face to face with a big, sullen-looking young man whose somewhat damaged countenance Bobby had no difficulty in recognising, as he in his turn was also recognised, to judge by the other’s start and grumbled and uncomplimentary comment.

  “We meet again,” Bobby said to him amiably, “and not perhaps for the last time.”

  “Go to blazes!” snapped the other, and passed on his way.

  CHAPTER 8

  MR. HAYES

  Mr. Hayes was, as his house-parlourmaid had described him, a small, thin, meagre little man. But Aggie had not mentioned his voice, which, especially as issuing from so narrow a chest, had an unexpectedly rich, deep note, a voice, indeed, that could emulate the lion’s roar or the cooing of the dove. Nor had she spoken of his eyes, large, dark, languorous eyes, indeed, almost feminine in their appeal, and as oddly discordant with his shrivelled and mean little personality as were the organ-like notes of his voice.

  He seemed quite pleased to see his visitors, welcomed the colonel warmly, was genial to Bobby, tried to insist on their both joining him in a whisky-and-soda – Bobby noticed that the whisky bottle was nearly empty, and so did Mr. Hayes, for he promptly told Aggie to bring a new one and did not seem to reg
ret the necessity. Colonel Warden at first declined the invitation, but Mr. Hayes would hear of no refusal and poured out a drink to whose seduction, after his long drive and hard day, the chief constable yielded. Bobby, however, turned teetotaller – for the occasion, so Mr. Hayes offered him sherry instead, and seemed quite surprised to find that teetotalism covered sherry as well, though Bobby regretted the fact the more that this time the sherry offered was emphatically not of the cooking variety.

  The formalities of hospitality concluded, Mr. Hayes began to talk at once, and without asking the business of his visitors, about the recent tragedy.

  “Can’t think,” he declared, “how any man could contrive to get into that chalk-pit. Of course, on a dark night, and a bit over the nine, you might manage it. I don’t see how else. I expect you know there’s a lot of talk going. I drop in sometimes at the Red Lion for a pint. You get all the news there,” said Mr. Hayes, chuckling, “as well as the little bit that others haven’t heard.”

  The colonel smiled, said he supposed there was sure to be talk, and had Mr. Hayes heard anything definite?

  “Bless you, yes,” answered Mr. Hayes. “Lots, all contradicting all the rest. Knife found in the poor devil’s heart; his throat cut from ear to ear; a pool of blood ankle deep, sometimes at the bottom of the chalk-pit and sometimes on top; full and precise particulars of sinister-looking strangers – when the beer’s in, the tongue wags. I don’t suppose much of it would be repeated to you folk, though. One thing to spin a yarn in a pub to make the other chaps gape, quite another to repeat it for taking down in a notebook, eh?”

  And Bobby noticed that those soft, languorous eyes rested for one brief moment on the bulge in his pocket that showed where his substantial notebook was stored and then flickered swiftly away. Bobby told himself that it looked as though those soft, gazelle-like eyes missed little; he even wondered if they were always so soft and gazelle-like as they now appeared.