Nor could he find that there was any information available about Admiral Sir Gervase Arlington. No one seemed to know his present whereabouts. But, then, apparently there was no special reason why any one should know it. Bombed out, perhaps. And a good many people reported ‘missing, no trace’, during the autumn and winter of 1940. Nor is there any such lack of Admirals on the retired list, only too eager for any war employment in any capacity, as to make it necessary to try to trace one not in the queue. One fact did, however, emerge. Sir Gervase had connections with Germany through a sister of his who had married a German now holding an important post in the German Foreign Office. Sir Gervase had frequently visited the country, and was understood to be on friendly terms with several well-known personalities there. Also the Arlington family was a very old one, had at one time held large estates in Devon and owned the famous Arlington sapphires, of which so many romantic tales were told.
It was Sergeant Payne who had got together this information, though he was not inclined to attach to it any special significance. Nor did he quite understand why Bobby should seem inclined to take so much interest in Mr Roman Wright and his abilities as an artist.
“Well, sir, what’s it matter,” he asked, “if he was putting on side when he was talking to you? There’s plenty like to swank. I’ve known chaps who hardly knew the difference between a popping crease and a popping ball, but quite ready to talk about the hints they gave Jack Hobbs and how grateful he was.”
“Oh, I know,” Bobby agreed. “Nothing in all that so very unusual. There are writers who will tell you how they gave Bernard Shaw his best lines and many artists more pally with Mr Augustus John than Mr Augustus John ever knew. All the same, one likes to be sure.”
He did not say sure about what. But Sergeant Payne agreed. A safe principle certainly, though perhaps easier in speech than in fact. He went on to give such details as he had been able to gather about Mr McRell Pink. Not many. Results negative again. No one knew anything about him. No one had heard of him before he turned up at the New Grand, demanded an audition, so impressed the manager that he got an engagement on the spot, and had been appearing twice a night three nights a week ever since. His aloof attitude had not endeared him to his fellow artistes, among whom the favourite theory seemed to be that he was dodging the police.
“I suppose he can’t be the missing Sir Gervase Arlington,” asked Payne, chuckling at the joke.
Bobby smiled feebly, and said it didn’t seem likely. He added that reports from Threepence were also negative, as still nothing had been heard of Ned Bloom, and the watch set on his ‘Den’ had also been without result.
Later in the day came in a report from the experts to whom Bobby had submitted the snapshot found in the letter-rack. Once more almost wholly negative. Too indistinct, too badly developed, for any trustworthy conclusions to be drawn. The objects shown might be genuine jewellery, or again might be imitation. One of the hovering hands was probably a man’s. The other was almost certainly a woman’s. Careful reasons were given for this conclusion which Bobby had reached at his first glance. It was added, however, that the man’s hand showed on the first finger what seemed to be a signet ring, though this was not clearly enough shown for any useful description to be given. The feminine hand appeared to be ringless.
“What it all comes to,” said Bobby gloomily, “is a classic example of the blind man looking at midnight in a dark cellar for something that isn’t there.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed Payne, not quite catching this, “but if Ned Bloom isn’t there, where is he?”
Bobby began to rub the tip of his nose, checked himself in time, said thoughtfully that that was just it, wasn’t it? and proceeded to attend to the rest of his correspondence, which to-day had been a little less copious, less secret and confidential, less contradictory than usual. One communication held his attention. It was an almost apologetic note, dated from Theodores—pronounced Tedders—a country mansion near the southern boundary of the county of Wychshire. A Miss Thea Wood who described herself as secretary to Lady Vennery, wife of Lord Vennery, had written it. Lord Vennery was a well-known personage, who had recently crowned a highly successful business career by accepting a peerage in recognition of his many gifts for charitable and educational purposes—not to mention others, less widely known, to the party purse. Apparently Lady Vennery had thought it well the police should be informed of certain facts. But as Lord Vennery, Lady Vennery, and Miss Wood all alike believed that ‘police’ meant Scotland Yard, and Scotland Yard alone, it was there the letter had gone in the first place. Now it had reached Bobby, and the languid interest with which he had started to read it quickened to sudden excitement when he saw the name of Ned Bloom. It appeared that earlier in the week—on the morning, indeed, of the day on which Ned had appeared at county police headquarters—a ’phone message had been received at Theodores from some one giving that name and conveying a warning to keep a sharp look-out during the afternoon and evening of the forthcoming week-end. “Mischief is brewing”, said the ’phone mysteriously, and then was silent. Miss Thea Wood’s letter explained, still apologetically, that there was to be a house party at the time mentioned. Wealthy and important people would be present. Probably the whole thing was merely some form of silly joke. But Lady Vennery was nervous, and wished the warning passed on to the authorities, though Lord Vennery wanted to ignore the incident entirely.
Bobby felt very annoyed. He decided that if and when he met Ned again, he would tell that young man exactly and precisely what he thought of him. Apparently he had been scattering mysterious warnings wholesale, then had himself mysteriously vanished, and what was a worried, overworked C.I.D. inspector to do about it?
Had Ned really got hold of something serious, and, if so, what? Was this another thread in an unknown, uncompleted pattern slowly working itself out to its appointed end? Or was it all just a succession of mares’ nests, their origin the fantasies of a morbidly imaginative, over-sensitive boy? This Theodores business sounded very much like a piece of mischief, a showing off, a fantasy from some sort of compensatory daydream, wherein the cripple from birth saw himself as the power in the background. Possibly he had even got what is called a ‘kick’ merely from ringing up so important a place as Theodores and talking to its occupants, just as the organisers of charitable appeals believe that it helps to ask for donations to be sent personally by name to some famous peer or politician, even though everybody knows perfectly well that the envelope will be opened by one girl typist and the receipt made out by another, using a rubber stamp for the great man’s signature.
Once more Bobby rang up Sergeant Young, and once more received the monotonous reply that nothing had been heard of Ned. Next he rang up home, and astonished his wife by suggesting that she should accompany him that evening to the New Grand.
Olive sounded quite bewildered. The entertainment provided at the New Grand did not greatly attract her nor had Bobby hitherto shown any signs of such a preference. She reminded him that the Old Vic Company was paying Midwych a visit. Then there was a Priestley play running, attractive alike to the highbrow, the middle and the low. There were even films that might be worth a visit. So Bobby explained there was a Mr McRell Pink at the New Grand he had heard a lot about and whom he wanted to see. Slightly peeved, Olive said, oh, all right, but it did seem a waste of a perfectly good evening, and so Bobby rang up next the New Grand and secured two seats, for which he had to pay much more than he liked, since all the cheaper seats were already booked.
CHAPTER X
MUSIC-HALL
OLIVE’S INNER conviction that she had been condemned to a melancholy, boring evening was more than justified up to the moment when Mr McRell Pink appeared. Then, in spite of all prejudice, in spite of lingering regrets for her Priestley play, for her Old Vic company, she had to admit herself amused—if amusement is the right word to describe a condition of doubled-up mirth.
Mr Pink proved to be a fat little man with a head nearly as big as
his body, and long legs and arms continually getting in his way and continually regarded by him with pained surprise when they did so. He was an expert ventriloquist, and he possessed the valuable knack of getting people to join in a chorus so heartily that they felt they were a part of the show and that therefore it was and must be a good show. He was an admirable raconteur, too. During the whole of his turn he was alone, depending in no way on the common trick of exchanging insults with a companion; and yet he was so active, he dodged with such agility about the stage, he changed his voice and manner so often and so completely that there was no effect of monotony. One advantage he possessed, the greatest any performer can possess, though one that has to be worked for—he had become so established a favourite with his audience that they were all ready to laugh before he opened his mouth. Indeed, if he had merely remarked that it was a fine day, he would have sent most of them into roars of laughter.
Humour at the New Grand had a certain tendency to be what is called broad—broad as the seven seas, indeed—but Mr McRell Pink’s nearest approach to impropriety was his story of the A.T.S. girl who complained to her officer that a country march made her feet ache worse than ever they had done when she was a street-walker—and that tale owed much of its success to the perfect imitation of the girl’s guileless voice and of the officer’s cultured tones trying to conceal an appalling doubt. Then there was an equally exact rendering of the broad Wychshire accent, in which a Midwych lady on a Cook’s tour before the war was supposed to tell how in Normandy they had shown her in an ancient abbey a window that went back to William the Conqueror, but she didn’t know why it went back, probably didn’t fit or something. Then she complained of her bad luck at Venice. Sunny enough when she arrived, but it had been raining that hard the whole place was flooded. She went to Pisa, too, and when she got back their Annie wanted to know if she had found out what made the tower lean. Silly, because if she had, she would have taken one herself. Finally he brought down the house by asking if any one there had heard the story about the Scotsman who treated an Englishman to a drink. The house answered No and waited expectantly, whereupon he said he hadn’t either and skipped away.
Olive, whose chief appreciation had been given to the brief sketch of the man in the kitchen after listening to Mr Freddie Grisewood of the B.B.C. kitchen front, told Bobby she thought it one of the cleverest performances she had ever seen, and Bobby said he thought so, too, and she wouldn’t mind, would she, if he went behind for a few minutes to make Mr McRell Pink’s further acquaintance? Therewith he departed; and Olive could not help wondering if he were really the husband she had once thought, when he could leave her thus, alone and unprotected, to meet the full blast of the jazz band which was the next item.
Behind the scenes Bobby’s request for an interview was met with a flat refusal, and, on his insisting, he was referred to the manager, whose refusal was even more flat—flat as the Platonic flatness idea, indeed. It didn’t matter who it was, explained the manager. Even an emissary from the B.B.C. wanting him for a broadcast had been refused, just like any ordinary common mortal. As for newspaper men—Mr Pink had a positive phobia about newspaper men. Hadn’t Bobby seen his sketch ‘Newspaper man interviewing newspaper man’? The only really spiteful, vicious thing in his whole repertoire. So Bobby explained he was neither B.B.C. emissary nor yet a newspaper man, and produced his official card.
“Just a little information we think he may be able to give,” he explained hastily. “Nothing, of course, to do with Mr Pink personally.”
The manager still hesitated. He said there was no contract with Mr Pink. Mr Pink would never sign anything. An engagement for one night only, and paid for cash down each night. Nothing to prevent Mr Pink clearing out for good any time he chose. Most unsatisfactory arrangement, but there it was; and if Mr Pink took offence, he, the manager, might lose at any moment the biggest draw on the New Grand programme.
But Bobby still insisted; and as the New Grand licence had more than once been in danger and probably would be again, so that the good-will of the police was important, the manager sighed and surrendered. Fortunately he was not very clear about the distinction between the County and the City police and their respective spheres, and Bobby made no great effort to enlighten him.
So off the manager went to ask Mr Pink to make an exception to his draconian rule of ‘no visitors’, and returned presently to say that Mr Pink had no idea what it was all about, but if the police insisted, he supposed they must have their way. Bobby said that was very kind of Mr Pink, very kind indeed, and would save a lot of trouble. Introduced into the performer’s dressing-room, Bobby found him busy renovating his make-up for the second house. He abandoned this task when Bobby appeared, his countenance thus half made up looking more grotesque than ever. Indeed, in what was apparently nervousness at Bobby’s intrusion, he began dabbing at it with a towel, and so reduced it to just one vast smear.
“I don’t know,” he said in an irritable, high-pitched voice as he peered at Bobby over the towel, “what right you have to force your way in here in this manner?”
“No right at all,” Bobby answered, “except the right every police officer has to call upon every citizen for aid and assistance in the performance of his duty.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” grumbled the other. “Nothing I can do that I know of.”
“Of course not,” Bobby agreed, “but police would soon be at a standstill but for the help they get from the public, and often from those who have the least idea they can give it. What I wish to ask is what you can tell me about Mr Ned Bloom, of the Pleezeu Tea Gardens at Threepence.”
“Never heard of him or the what do you call it either,” retorted Mr Pink.
Bobby looked at him steadily. Still more nervously the other dabbed at his face, making it still more one vast, grotesque smear.
“Are you quite sure?” Bobby asked gently. “If you tried to remember—tried hard. So easy for a name to slip one’s mind.”
“Can’t remember something you’ve never known,” Mr Pink grumbled sullenly. “I tell you I’ve never heard of the chap.”
“Well, it’s a little odd,” Bobby said, “because, you see, I have here the receipt for a registered letter sent you by him.”
Mr Pink was certainly taken aback, would probably have looked it had his countenance showed anything but a confused mess of greasepaint. After a time he mumbled:
“I never read letters. I never do. I get a lot, but I just throw them into the waste-paper basket. I never even open them.”
“Even registered letters?”
“Registered letters, too,” declared Mr Pink firmly. “I don’t suppose I should even notice they were registered—just chuck ’em in with the rest.”
“An unusual proceeding,” Bobby remarked. “May I ask the reason?”
“Because I choose, that’s all,” retorted Mr Pink. “Can’t a man do what he likes with his own letters? Any business of yours?”
“Well, I don’t know; it may be or may not,” Bobby answered. “You see, Mr Ned Bloom has disappeared, and it is part of police duty to try to trace missing people if their relatives are uneasy or if there is any reason to suspect something may be wrong.”
“Why should there be?” demanded Mr Pink. “What do you mean—disappeared? Gone off for a day or two on his own, most likely. Nothing for Mrs Bloom to worry about. Is she worrying?”
“Well, naturally. Most mothers worry when an only son vanishes without a word of explanation. Besides, he came to see me just before.”
“To see you? What about? What did he say?” demanded Mr Pink, and Bobby was certain that in his voice as he asked this question there was deep anxiety.
“He didn’t make himself very clear,” Bobby answered, and was sure again that now anxiety was replaced by relief.
But that was about all Bobby, in spite of further questioning, could extract from Mr McRell Pink. The last glimpse Bobby had as he closed the door of the dressing-room behind him, sh
owed the performer turning with relief to his mirror and his grease-paints to reconstruct his ravaged face.
All the same, Bobby had the conviction clear in his mind that all this clearly meant something, though exactly what was anything but clear.
CHAPTER XI
LITERARY REMUNERATION
CONVINCED, TOO, WAS Bobby by now that he must do all he possibly could to find out what, reality or mare’s nest, lay behind all these activities of young Ned Bloom, and what consequences for Ned himself they had produced, if any.
Because it was still possible that next morning the young man might turn up, smiling and complacent, to explain he had just been having a day or two’s holiday, and what was all the fuss about? In which case Bobby himself would look a bit of a fool, and that was a prospect that did not appeal.
Next morning, when he again rang up the Threepence police-station, it was to be told that still there was no news. Fortunately the lull in the daily barrage of official documents continued; and after a comparatively early lunch he found himself free to cycle out once more to Threepence, a preliminary ’phone call having warned Sergeant Young to expect him.
“It’s got about as young Ned’s missing,” Young reported on Bobby’s arrival, “and most seem to think it’s a good riddance. He wasn’t liked, sir—that touchy and quarrelsome and always trying to ferret out what was no concern of his. It’s only his being like he is, with that foot of his, as saved him from a good thrashing more than once. And now it’s going about that old Mr Skinner threatened to put a bullet in him not so long ago, if he caught him again peeping and prying.”
“Who is Mr Skinner?” Bobby asked. “Any relation to the Miss Skinner at Mrs Bloom’s?”
“Her father. A very superior old gentleman, Mr Skinner, but lost all his money, seemingly, and now he and his lady have to depend mostly on what Miss Skinner earns, him being unable to work through being tied to his chair with rheumatics in the legs and Mrs Skinner not much better at her age, though a pleasure to pass the time of day with. Miss Skinner is a real lady; but she works just the same as if she wasn’t—looks after the old people, does most of the garden, and as smart as you like at Mrs Bloom’s place, and always pleasant and friendly like.”
Secrets Can't be Kept: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 6