She went on towards the house and, watching her go, Bobby told himself that it might be as well to take up her references. He drew a little nearer to the house, stepping from shadow to shadow as the twilight deepened. On the ground floor the black-out curtains were being drawn in good time. Bobby watched a stout, elderly man—no doubt the butler mentioned once or twice—moving from window to window, and then he saw quite clearly the head and shoulders of a younger man showing for a moment above, at the window of what Bobby was certain was the room occupied by Mrs Carlyle, the owner of the Arlington sapphire earrings and pendant.
CHAPTER XVIII
HIDE AND SEEK
BOBBY’S FIRST ACT was to call to his small liaison officer to warn his two assistants, Cox and Adams. Then he raced for the house. Fortunately the garden door was not kept locked. He threw it open and ran down the corridor towards the foot of the stairs. From behind one door he passed there came a babel of voices. The dining-room, he supposed. A maid appeared, and stopped, open-mouthed and staring, on seeing him.
“Police. A man upstairs. Tell Lord Vennery,” he called to her, and flew on up the stairs, three at a time, to the floor above.
He made at once for the door of Mrs Carlyle’s room. He flung it open. The room was empty. But to one side was another door, that of a dressing-room, probably. He leaped across to it. It opened outwards, and it resisted when he tried to throw it back. Blocked; probably by the old and simple plan of placing against it a chair, the back of the chair under the handle of the door. He did not waste time trying to force it. He ran back and out again into the corridor, just in time to get a glimpse of a coat tail vanishing round the corner into the other, the main, corridor that bisected this part of the house. But when he got there the corridor stretched emptily on either hand. No sign of any fugitive, who seemed to have the faculty of vanishing like the coin a conjurer palms. Bobby ran down the corridor, flinging open each door that he came to. No one to be seen, but he thought he heard from somewhere behind a low chuckle; and, as he dashed back, he saw the stub of a cigarette lying half-way up the stairs that led from this floor to that above.
A trick, perhaps, he thought, a false scent laid to send him searching the second floor, while whoever was hiding here on the first could effect an escape. But any one who had taken refuge on this upper floor would be safe for the time, and Bobby ran back along the corridor he had already traversed. Coming up the stairs from below was now a stout, elderly gentleman in a lounge suit—Lord Vennery, who sternly and patriotically had forbidden even dinner-jackets for the duration.
“What’s all this?” he demanded. “Who are you?”
“Police,” Bobby answered briefly. “I think there’s a burglar up here. Probably after the ladies’ jewellery. Please see all exits are watched downstairs.”
“Burglar?” repeated Lord Vennery, looking very bewildered. “Where? Why?”
“I saw a man at one of these windows,” Bobby explained. “I want to find him. I’ll look in all these rooms. He must be hiding somewhere. I don’t think he had time to get away. Please see to downstairs. I have two men outside.”
“Yes, but—” began Lord Vennery, looking more bewildered still.
He was well known for the rapidity and firmness of the decisions he arrived at, but he liked to arrive at them in a comfortable board room, over a cigar, with attentive and deferential colleagues sitting round. This violence, this shouting, this running to and fro, he found prohibitive of all calm thought. Bobby was already dashing at doors, opening them, giving the room within a swift and competent examination, darting out again to renew the process elsewhere. Lord Vennery wished to stop him, but did not know how. He got as far as framing the words “young man” in his mind, though without actually pronouncing them. Bobby came to a door that would not open.
“Locked inside,” he said to Lord Vennery. “Whose room is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Lord Vennery helplessly.
“It’s Miss Wood’s,” said Lady Vennery, who, with others of the party, had now arrived on the scene.
“What’s all this about?” demanded Lord Vennery, beginning to recover slightly. “Are you a policeman?” he asked doubtfully, for his vision of a policeman included helmet, blue uniform, the air of deference the well-to-do expect to receive from the law they have made. And this young man showed none of these things, neither helmet nor blue uniform, nor, especially, any deference whatever. “Are you a policeman?” he repeated.
“I called before,” Bobby explained. “You were engaged. I saw Lady Vennery. We had warning there might be an attempt at robbery. Some of your guests are rich people with valuable jewels. Jewellery is in demand to-day. Portable property in case of invasion. Keeps its value if currency flops. So I had the place watched. I saw a man at a window here. What man? One of your party? All at dinner, weren’t they? One of your staff? I’m told your only man servant is the butler I saw downstairs doing the black-out. Who was it I saw?”
“Are you sure you saw any one?” Lord Vennery asked, still finding it very hard to grasp what it all meant. Then, with renewed suspicion: “How do I know who you are?” and he very nearly said and certainly thought: “If you’re a real policeman, where’s your helmet?”
From the midst of the little group of guests and staff now arrived, Miss Wood said:
“He showed Lady Vennery what he called his warrant card. Of course, it may have been forged,” she added warningly.
“May I break this door open?” Bobby asked Lord Vennery.
“Here, that’s my room. What for?” demanded Miss Wood.
“The door’s locked,” Bobby said. “I take it you don’t generally lock your door?”
“Not as a rule,” she agreed.
“It’s locked now,” Bobby said. “On the inside. There must be some one there. Have you a spare key?” To Lord Vennery he said again: “May I force it?”
“I said, ‘not as a rule’,” interposed Miss Wood. “But I did this evening.”
“Why?” snapped Bobby.
“No clothing coupons,” said Miss Wood sadly, and, as Bobby glared: “Don’t look so cross,” she said. “If you’ve no coupons left you have to try to make do. I’ve got the bed simply covered with sewing, so I locked the door and put the key in my bag before I went downstairs. I didn’t mean to have the maid going in to turn down the bed and upsetting everything. I’ve got to the most awfully critical part you can imagine.”
“Well, then,” said Bobby, though thinking to himself that this explanation seemed just a little too glib, “may I have the key to make sure?”
“What for?” demanded Miss Wood. “No one can possibly be there. The door’s been locked all the time and the key’s in my bag.”
“All the same, I’ll make sure, please,” Bobby said firmly. “Some men boast they can open a lock by blowing on it. It’s nearly true. Kindly let me have the key.”
Their eyes met in challenge. Bobby was certain Miss Wood wished to refuse, was inclined to refuse. But she read the determination in his look. She hesitated and seemed to make up her mind. She said:
“If you don’t mind, I’ll go in first.” She cast down her eyes. She positively simpered. She exchanged up-to date efficiency for Victoria demureness. She explained modestly: “I know I’m most awfully old-fashioned and it’s very silly, but I would like to tidy one or two things away first. One doesn’t want men going giggling at one’s private things.”
“I don’t giggle,” said Bobby furiously.
“I quite understand, Thea dear,” said Lady Vennery, approval for her secretary, rebuke to Bobby in every tone of her voice, and from the other women-folk behind came a further murmur of feminine approval. “You go in, and call out when you’re ready.”
“I shan’t be a minute,” said Miss Wood, skipping gaily in front of Bobby.
She opened the door the merest crack. She slipped through. Almost at once she was back, opening the door wide.
“Now you can all come in,” she said
.
Bobby was gloomily certain that now there was nothing there, but he entered all the same.
“You will look under the bed, won’t you?” said Miss Wood earnestly. “I was too frightened myself.”
Bobby took no notice. He would have dearly loved to put Miss Wood across his knee and administer correction with a slipper. Happy, happy dream; but, alas, a dream only. The bed did not seem unduly ruffled, he noticed. Indeed, the whole room was extremely tidy, considering that Miss Wood said she had left it in the throes of dressmaking. The window was wide open. He went across and looked out. There was a gutter pipe that ran close by. Bobby leaned farther out. There were small signs, scratches on pipe and brickwork and so on, that seemed to show some one had climbed down to earth thereby quite recently. He looked down. In the gathering gloom he saw lying there, inert and prone, the body of a man.
He said over his shoulder:
“Some one there—knocked out. Or worse. I’m going down.”
CHAPTER XIX
DEMURE SECRETARY
ALMOST AS SWIFTLY as he had spoken Bobby was through the window and clambering to earth by aid of a gutter-pipe that swayed, but held. His feet touched ground. He was conscious of astonished heads crowded at the window above, watching his descent. He ran to the side of the still and prostrate man he had seen. It was Adams, the local constable. He opened his eyes as Bobby turned him gently on his back. He tried to sit up. He said feebly:
“There was a man. He laid me out.”
“What was he like?” Bobby asked.
“I don’t know,” said Adams and closed his eyes again. “It’s all going round,” he complained.
Bobby shouted to the window above.
“He’s been knocked out. Please see to him.”
To himself he thought that at any rate it could not be Ned Bloom who had been here. Ned wasn’t capable of knocking out a hefty youngish man like Constable Adams. Who was it, then? And what had become of him? Not much chance of successful pursuit with darkness falling and a good start gained. He heard some one shouting. It was Cox calling at the top of his voice:
“There he is. Hi. Stop, you. Stop.”
There came the report of a pistol shot—or was it an engine back-firing? Bobby set off running. He caught up Cox, who was pounding down the avenue.
“I saw him, sir. Chap had one arm in sling,” he panted. “Our car—he’ll get it.”
Bobby increased his speed. The car had been duly immobilized according to regulations; so if the fugitive, knowing where it was, hoped to use it, he was heading for disappointment. Not so, however, for now as Bobby raced along he heard the chug-chug of a motor-cycle. Not the car, then, but this motor-cycle was to provide for the fugitive’s escape. Well, some police cars are fairly ancient, and this was no new model, but it had a fair turn of speed, and should be a match for any motor-cycle. A good race, Bobby thought. Now the car was there before him, waiting and ready. Only it refused to start. Bobby sat bewildered in the driver’s seat, into which he had hurled himself with such élan. The car that should have leaped to life beneath his eager hands remained dead, inert. He tried to discover why, and could not. All seemed in perfect order. Nothing wrong, except that nothing happened. He experienced a touch of that feeling of frustration one has sometimes in bad dreams. Then it occurred to him to look in the tank. It was bone dry, drained to the last drop.
Disconsolate and defeated, he sat there, listening to the sound of the motor-cycle dying away in the distance. Arm in sling, Cox had said. What did that mean? Captain Dunstan? How did he come into it? Or some one else? There came to Bobby a clear memory of Miss Thea Wood, suave, smug, demure, returning from the evening stroll that had taken her in this direction.
There arrived Cox, running and gasping. He seemed to think Bobby was waiting for him. He tumbled into the car. He panted unnecessarily:
“It’s me, sir . . . get going, sir.”
“No petrol,” said Bobby.
“What?” said Cox.
“No petrol, no juice, no gas, no chance,” said Bobby gloomily.
“Where?” said Cox.
“Take a look,” said Bobby.
“There must be,” said Cox. “I filled up before starting.”
“Take a look,” repeated Bobby.
Cox did so. He had some difficulty in believing it, even though he touched and felt. Finally he said:
“Somebody’s gone and been and pinched the lot.”
“Yes,” said Bobby. “Are you sure the man you saw had one arm in a sling?”
Cox, it seemed, was sure, or as sure as his present bewilderment over the vanished petrol would permit him to be sure of anything. Bobby alighted. They walked back to the house together. Bobby told Cox to try to borrow there enough petrol to take them home. A promise could be made to return it, since rationed petrol has a value beyond that of rubies. Bobby said:
“I told you to keep an eye on the car. Did you see any one near it?”
“No, sir,” said Cox emphatically. “I had one eye on it steady like, and I’ll take my oath not a living soul came near it the whole time, nor could without me seeing.”
“No one,” Bobby repeated. “Quite sure? Think again. That petrol went somehow. When you say no one, are you sure?”
“Why, yes, sir, of course I am,” answered Cox, slightly offended. “Not a living soul, nor could have without me seeing. Quite close I was all the time, till Adams started shouting, and then I run, but there wasn’t time between then and now. There was one of the ladies from the house went along by there and stopped to have a look, too. You ask her. No one didn’t pass, no living soul, and to that I’ll take my oath.”
“Wasn’t she a living soul?” asked Bobby bitterly. “You say she stopped to have a look?”
“Yes, sir, so she did,” Cox replied. “Ladies often take an interest in cars—quite knowledgeable like, too, some of ’em. You can’t think, sir, as she—not her, an’ she a lady and all.”
“In these days,” Bobby told him, “ladies resemble Voltaire’s Habakkuk.”
Cox blinked, never having heard of Voltaire’s expressed opinion that that prophet was capable of all. They had reached the house now, and found Adams sitting up and taking nourishment in the shape of a fairly stiff brandy and soda provided by a reluctant butler on the express orders of a compassionate Lady Vennery.
Bobby, not too sympathetically, suggested that the patient might now be regarded as convalescent, asked Adams one or two questions, from which he learned only that Adams had seen a man climbing down the gutter-pipe, had run across to ask what he was doing, had seen for answer a large fist shoot out, and had known no more for the time. Feeling tenderly a rapidly swelling jaw, he said:
“Hit me a whack he did before I knew a thing, and me all unready like and not suspecting.”
“Served you right,” said Bobby crossly. “A policeman who isn’t all ready and suspecting deserves all he gets and more.”
“What a horrid shame,” said a clear whisper from behind, “to go bullying the poor man just now, and only look at that awful bruise.”
Bobby swung round. As he had guessed, that clear whisper came from Miss Thea Wood, gazing at him now from large, reproachful eyes.
“I should like a word with you in private,” Bobby said to her. He turned to Lady Vennery. “I’ve a few questions to ask Miss Wood,” he said. “Perhaps you or Lord Vennery could arrange to be present?”
Lady Vennery looked very surprised. Lord Vennery asked what was the idea. He added that nothing seemed to be missing. Bobby said he was glad to hear it, but apparently unlawful entry had been effected, and he would like further information on some points. So the four of them adjourned to another room, where Bobby began the interview by asking for Miss Wood’s identity card.
“What on earth for?” asked Lord Vennery.
“What’s it got to do with it?” asked Lady Vennery.
“Oh, I’m sure I don’t mind; it’s here,” said Miss Wood, and promptly produced it
. “I keep it in my bag,” she explained. “I sewed in a special place for it.”
Bobby examined it and made a note or two. In order, as far as he could tell. Not that identity cards tell very much. Some day, Bobby hoped, there would be thumb-prints on them or something like that.
“May I ask,” said Lady Vennery, “the reason for this? I admit I am—surprised,” and when she said “surprised” she made it sound like thunder rumbling in the distance.
“Madam,” said Bobby, “there has been what I can only suppose was an attempt at robbery here this evening. One of my men has been assaulted in the execution of his duty.” (‘And served the silly ass jolly well right, too,’ Bobby paused to add mentally.) He resumed: “When Miss Wood was so kind as to show me over your first floor, I thought I smelt tobacco. Miss Wood said that the room I thought it came from was hers, and that no one could possibly be there. I had no reason—or power—to insist. Later on, when I was hunting round for the man I had seen at the window of Mrs Carlyle’s room, the only locked door was that of Miss Wood’s room. Miss Wood made some difficulty about opening it. When she did finally consent, she insisted on going in first. There is plain evidence a man had been hiding there, and that he escaped by the window, either just before or just after Miss Wood’s entrance.”
“Preposterous,” said Lady Vennery.
“Ridiculous,” said Lord Vennery.
“Why?” asked Bobby.
“I never heard such nonsense in my life,” said Lady Vennery.
“I shall make a point,” said Lord Vennery, “of mentioning all this to the Home Secretary next time I see him.”
Secrets Can't be Kept: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 11