The Dusky Hour

by E. R. Punshon

  “Oh, rather.”

  “And that it was Hayes?”

  “Well, who else could it be? I couldn’t see him plainly – at least, not his face. Most of him was in the shadow. But when they had finished he walked off back to the house, and it was someone in plus fours so it can’t have been the chauffeur bloke. The light went on in Hayes’s study, too, as soon as he got in.”

  “I see,” said Bobby slowly. “I’m very glad you’ve told me. It may turn out important.”

  Encouraged by this, Noll went on:

  “Well, the moment I saw them I felt sure they were up to something together. Look here, you know Hayes takes photos?”

  “Many people do,” Bobby observed.

  “Yes, but Hayes is keen on it. Well, look here, there was a bit of film or wrapper or something found, wasn’t there? You can’t identify a thing like that, I suppose. But that means it was either Hayes or me was there. Because no one else would be likely to be taking snaps in Battling Copse at that time of day. Well, look here, I know it wasn’t me, so it must have been him, mustn’t it?”

  “At any rate,” Bobby agreed, “it seems a sound piece of deductive reasoning.”

  CHAPTER 26

  ABSTRACT REASONING

  Bobby left Sevens feeling that Noll Moffatt’s story of the nocturnal interview at Way Side raised new difficulties, new questions not easy to understand.

  That the young man was telling the truth both when he said he had in fact failed to recognise Bennett’s body, and when he protested that the quarrel at the Oakley Road House had no connection with the subsequent tragedy, Bobby was inclined to believe. But the story of an apparently secret and agitated nocturnal interview between Reeves and Hayes he did not see how to fit in with the provisional theory he had formed from the facts as he at present knew them. He still believed his theory was correct, but he knew well, of course, that the discovery of new facts at present unknown might prove it entirely mistaken.

  His motor-cycle soon covered the distance to the Towers Poultry Farm he had decided was to be his next destination. As he dismounted by the entrance-gate he saw Henrietta come to the door of the cottage and stand there, tall and firm-footed, on the threshold, as though she would guard it against all comers.

  “There is something she knows,” he told himself with one of those flashes of insight that occasionally visited him, “and what it is she will never tell.”

  She stood there, motionless and gravely watching, as he leaned his cycle against the gate-post, and removed his gloves and goggles. He thought to himself:

  “She was expecting someone – but not me.”

  He walked up the garden path and greeted her. She acknowledged his presence and salute with a slight movement of her head, but she did not speak and made no movement to invite him within. Her eyes were watchful and alert, her attitude tense; she gave the impression of being prepared to do battle to the last, and Bobby’s rare smile touched the corners of his mouth as he said:

  “I wish you weren’t so ready to regard me as an enemy, Miss Towers.”

  A little disconcerted, she said:

  “Why do you say that? I have only seen you once or twice. I suppose you have to do your duty.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, more gravely, “and I think you feel that anything that threatens yours threatens you.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, but now she was plainly troubled.

  “I suppose it’s a woman’s attitude,” Bobby mused. “Your hens will fight for their chickens, won’t they?”

  “Have you come to tell me that?” she asked.

  “No, no,” he said; “musings by the way, so to speak. Trying to get on terms. There’s one thing I wanted to ask, though. What have you done with the photographs that used to be in the frame next to the one of Mrs. Oulton?”

  Calmly, steadily, she met his questioning gaze. For a full moment their eyes challenged each other. She said slowly:

  “I don’t know why you ask what seems an impertinent question. I do not propose to answer it.”

  “Will you answer this, then?” he said, a little crossly now, for he was tired of this fencing. “Is the real name of Mr. Hayes’s chauffeur, not Thoms, but Oulton, and is he your half-brother? And are the two photographs I asked about of him and of your stepfather?”

  Henrietta was a little pale now – as pale, at least, as the tan of wind and weather on her cheeks permitted. But her voice was steady still, her eyes still calm, as she replied:

  “I don’t see why you should think so, and I have told you I do not propose to answer your questions.”

  “Well, of course, that’s for you to decide,” Bobby agreed. “But it won’t stop us going on putting two and two together. Our job, you know. We add two and two together and see what it makes – generally comes out three or five and then we know there’s a mistake somewhere. But now and again we get four for an answer, and then it looks correct. I think it does this time. The important thing is, does that four spell – murder?”

  She made no answer, but stood, erect, unmoved, and still, so that he wondered a little at the force of her self-control. Yet he knew well how that last word had struck home. Upright she stood and waited, magnificently quiet. Bobby went on:

  “I thought you might help me, but I can see you won’t. Perhaps I can help you, though I can see you won’t believe that. I don’t think myself that two and two in this case makes – what I said. But I have to make sure. I would make sure though it meant my own life and that of everyone I know.”

  He had said these last words with a force that matched her own. More quietly he went on:

  “But I think my two and two does make a four that means Thoms is Oulton and your half-brother. You might as well say so, too; it will be easy enough to check that. You know you told me a good deal about what happened in the past – your stepfather’s death, and those bearer bonds that were stolen from your mother and so on. I didn’t see you as likely to confide stories like that to strangers, or even to police officers, without some good reason, and I wondered a good deal what that reason was. I lay awake at night wondering – at least,” Bobby added candidly, “I did till I dropped off. I knew there had been a row between Thoms – to use his official name – and young Moffatt. In the course of duty” – Bobby’s voice grew wistful and sad – ”I had to stop a jolly little set-to between them. They wouldn’t say what it was all about, but, when two boys start scrapping, a girl is as likely a bet as any. I remembered young Moffatt and Miss Molly were both the artistic sort, and it was quite on the cards they met pretty often while she was out sketching and he was out looking for likely shots, and I remembered, too, that old Mr. Moffatt put on a bit of a scowl – the heavy father sort of air – when he heard this place mentioned. Then what you said about Mr. Hayes – you put it quite plainly – made me think it was hardly likely you personally were concerned, so that again made it likely it was Miss Molly was the attraction in Noll Moffatt’s eyes. So I started wondering where Thoms came in. He wasn’t the artistic type, and Miss Molly was hardly the sort of girl to take any interest in the ordinary chauffeur. Did that mean Thoms wasn’t quite an ordinary chauffeur? I argued that if he and Moffatt had quarrelled about Miss Molly, Thoms hadn’t interfered as an ordinary jealous rival, but because he was interested in Miss Molly for some other reason. An obvious deduction was that that other reason must be a blood relationship. Suppose Thoms was some kind of relative – say a brother – and had heard gossip about young Moffatt and Miss Molly? Evidently old Mr. Moffatt had heard something, so there was talk going on, and if Thoms had heard it, too, and had tried to interfere or say anything – well, the little scrap I saw was nicely explained. And the suggestion that Thoms might be a relative of yours seemed again to link up with your saying you had no photograph of your half-brother when I asked you. I noticed that the frame with Mrs. Oulton’s photograph in it was meant to hold three photos, and now only held one, and obviously it would have been only natural if the other t
wo had been of her husband and her son. A natural deduction was that the photos had been put away to avoid any risk of recognition, and a further deduction was that a risk of recognition from a photo seen in this house meant the risk referred to someone in the neighbourhood. Another point was that Mr. Hayes mentioned once that it was his chauffeur told him the Way Side property was to let, and a possible deduction from that was that Thoms might have some reason for wishing Mr. Hayes to settle in this neighbourhood. So then I had to try to reason out what was behind all this, and there the story you told me about your stepfather’s death and the lost bonds began to come in. I expect if you could manage to lay hold of those bonds again, once they were in your possession, whoever has them now would find it very difficult to claim them back or to establish proof of legal ownership. There would be no record, I suppose, of when or where he bought them. Perhaps you have?”

  “We have no details,” she answered slowly. “We have my stepfather’s accounts, with a note that simply says what their value was and that they were bought for mother with her money. But we believe if they are our bonds they have my stepfather’s signature on some of them, and a note in his writing that they belonged to mother. And we think they would bear his finger-prints in the ink mother upset. At the time our lawyers advised us to keep specimens of his finger-prints on record for comparison, if necessary.”

  “I take it, then,” Bobby said thoughtfully, “that if you could somehow get possession of the bonds again, you would be able to prove your right to them as your legal property, if you were challenged. The question is, where are they, and in what way and by what means could you get hold of them again?”

  To that Henrietta made no reply. She had listened intently, breathlessly indeed, but her fine self-control remained unshaken. Bobby waited for a moment or two to see if she would say anything further. When she did not, he resumed:

  “I rather got the idea that when you heard of Bennett’s murder you – well, I don’t like to say panicked. I don’t see you in a panic somehow. But I think you did wonder if Thoms – may as well go on calling him Thoms; no other name admitted as yet – if anything had gone wrong; if he had gone too far; if somehow he might be involved. You thought it would be well to tell me part of the story so that the facts could be on record, so to speak, beforehand. You didn’t think what you said could implicate your half-brother in any way, or give any kind of pointer to him, and you did think it might be useful afterwards if you could say you had told your story at once. Well, that was all right; you didn’t say anything that pointed to Thoms, but you hadn’t calculated on the scrap between

  him and young Moffatt or on the chance of my happening to see it and starting to wonder what it was about. Of course,” said Bobby apologetically, “I know all this is a lot of abstract reasoning from probably insufficient data, and abstract reasoning and concrete fact don’t always agree. But there it is, for what it is, and unless I’m shown a flaw in my logic, or any new facts inconsistent with it, I shall have to go on thinking it all seems to fit pretty well.”

  “What has all this got to do with who committed the murder?” she asked abruptly.

  “Yes, there’s that, isn’t there?” Bobby said.

  “Have you anything more to say?” she asked.

  “I was rather hoping,” he answered, “that it might be you who would have something to say. Wouldn’t it be wiser?”

  She shook her head – a faint, almost imperceptible gesture, but one strangely decisive all the same.

  “I think you’re wrong, if I may say so,” Bobby told her. “Perhaps you’ll think it over and let us know if you change your mind. After all, you know, the police are there to help all law-abiding people. Our job. It’s only when people go outside the law that there’s apt to be trouble.”

  “Is that a warning?” she asked, with a touch of scorn in her voice.

  “I suppose it is what it is,” he answered.

  “The law,” she said, and there was a deeper scorn in her voice. “The law –”

  “Oh, yes, I know,” Bobby interrupted, “an ass and old Father Antic and all the rest. I know. I’m a servant of the law, and they say none are heroes to their servants. All the same, the worst law is better than no law. Anyhow, where there’s law you do know where you are, and that’s something in a world like this. If you change your mind about having another talk, you’ll let us know, won’t you?”

  With that he bowed formally and turned away, and he was conscious that, as he walked down the path to where his motor-cycle stood, she was still standing as he had left her, looking after him.

  CHAPTER 27

  MR. HAYES IS WORRIED

  Way Side, Bobby had decided, was to be his next place of call, for he felt it was important to secure, if possible, confirmation of Noll Moffatt’s story. And, if it were true, then Bobby felt he would very much like to know what was the subject of this interview between Mr. Hayes and the Moffatts’ butler.

  His interview with Henrietta had been more than a little disappointing. She had remained so much on her guard, so plainly hostile and distrustful, that he had achieved little by his talk with her. Nor was he at all certain that the warning he had felt it his duty to convey had had the least effect.

  “Might as well have held my tongue,” he thought. He smiled wryly. “Wouldn’t even let me into the house. Possible she hasn’t much say in it all, though.”

  He told himself moodily that things were taking their own course, and one that he at least had not foreseen or understood. The question of the murder seemed to be slipping into the background, a crisis was approaching, he felt, and how to deal with it he did not know.

  “All depends,” he thought again, “on what all these people are really up to, and how far Bennett’s death is connected with whatever it is that’s going on now. And if I am right about the actual murderer, why is he hanging about? Why doesn’t he bolt while he’s got the chance?” He gave these questions up as beyond his comprehension till at least he had new facts to add to those already in his knowledge. He had reached Way Side now, and, almost as he dismounted, the door opened and Hayes appeared on the threshold, smiling a welcome.

  “Well, well,” he called, “am I glad to see you? I should say. Jumping Moses, why, I was just on the point of giving you people a ring.”

  “Oh,” said Bobby, mildly surprised, for seldom on his official visits did he find himself so warmly greeted. “Anything up?”

  “I’m worried,” Mr. Hayes said. “Come along in. What’ll you have? A spot of the best?”

  “Nothing, thanks,” Bobby answered, following his host into the study, as it was called. “Too early for me for one thing, and on duty for another.”

  “Well, you don’t mind if I do, do you?” Hayes asked. “I need it and that’s a fact.”

  He poured himself out a stiff drink. Bobby took a chair his host indicated and regarded with interest a fine diamond ring lying on a sheet of paper on the table by the side of a magnifying-glass.

  “That ring looks as if it were worth something,” he remarked.

  Hayes took a drink. He put down his glass, ignoring Bobby’s remark, and said slowly:

  “I want protection.”

  “Eh?” said Bobby.

  “Protection,” repeated Mr. Hayes. “I’ve been rung up twice and told I was getting mine. I don’t like it. Nervous, I suppose. And I’m all alone.”

  “Alone? But there are the servants?”

  “All gone,” Hayes answered. “The housemaid left yesterday. Heard of a place that suited her – had to go at once if she wanted it. Then this morning the cook got a wire her aunt or someone was dying and off she went, too, or there wouldn’t be much of the furniture left for her, she said. Says it’s valuable, and unless she’s on the spot she won’t get her share. Wouldn’t wait another minute. I wanted her to wire for confirmation, but she wouldn’t. She said if her aunt wasn’t ill she would be vexed. Said she must see for herself.”

  “But your chauffeur? Isn’t
Thoms with you?”

  “Sacked him,” said Hayes. “He had something to do with that Battling Copse affair. I’ve felt that all the time. Got on my nerves, thinking he was a murderer and perhaps I should be the next. I asked him straight out if he knew anything about it – the murder, I mean. He as good as admitted he did it.”

  “Did he, though?” exclaimed Bobby, startled.

  “Yes; not in so many words, of course, but that’s what he meant and what he knew I knew he meant. Laughed and said the police would never prove anything; they were a lot of dummies anyhow. I told him to clear out. Gave him a month’s wages and saw him off the place then and there. I don’t,” said Mr. Hayes, with a slight shudder, “I don’t like murder; never did. Makes more fuss than anything.”

  “So it does,” agreed Bobby. “Was this yesterday?”

  “Yes. That’s not all, either. He was back hanging round here after dark last night. And he wasn’t alone. Someone with him. I couldn’t see who. I heard someone prowling about, and I slipped out to see. I was jumpy. I told you I had been rung up and threatened. It was Thoms all right. I saw him plainly. He was by the garden gate with another man. They were talking. Excited, they were. Arguing. I think Thoms was urging something the other man didn’t quite like. Murdering me, perhaps,” said Mr. Hayes with a nervous laugh.

  “Could you hear what they were saying?”

  “No. I tried, but I couldn’t get near enough, and then they separated and I bolted back to the house and turned all the lights on.”

  “You didn’t recognise Thoms’s companion?”

  “No. He kept in the shadows. I couldn’t see him plainly.”

  “You are sure it was Thoms?”

  “Oh, yes; saw him plainly enough. I know that plus fours suit of his, too. He always wore it on his days off.”

  Bobby was silent for a moment or two. Unless Hayes was telling elaborate lies for no apparent purpose, it was Reeves and Thoms who had been seen by young Moffatt, not Reeves and Hayes. But that made it all seem more puzzling still. Apparently, too, as Thoms had been discharged earlier in the day, this meeting by the Way Side garden gate was a result of a previous appointment.