“Have you heard anything about what’s been happening?”
“I heard a yarn that you had found young Ned Bloom’s body. Is it true?”
“No,” Bobby answered. “A dead body has been found, but it’s a woman’s.”
“A woman’s?” Dunstan repeated. “A woman’s? Who is it?”
“She has not been identified yet. It’s probably two years ago at least. Identification will not be easy.”
“Do you mean,” Dunstan asked slowly, “it’s some one who got lost, died from exposure, something like that?”
“She had been shot through the head,” Bobby answered. “Twice. Probably an Army point four five five was used.”
“A woman. Two years ago,” Dunstan repeated slowly. “It can’t have anything to do with this other business, can it? Ned Bloom, I mean?”
“Two murders in one district,” Bobby said. “They may be connected. Nothing yet to show. Or at least it may be the same murderer. Not so very likely, is it? that one small district should have two inhabitants, each capable of cold-blooded murder. But a killer who has killed once and got away with it is always liable to kill again.”
“Custom is all,” commented Dunstan, and walked on in silence. Then he said as they drew near the lane again: “You mean if you can find who did the one killing, you will know who did the other?”
“I think so,” Bobby said, and he wondered if he were walking here in the faint light of the moon across this quiet and lonely field in the company of that very double murderer.
“Why do you think she was murdered here?” Dunstan asked. “I’ve never heard of any girl or woman being missing here?”
“I think I have heard,” Bobby remarked, “that a young woman, Mrs Veale’s daughter, left Miles Bottom Farm two years ago, and that it was not known what had become of her. I understand that at the time there was some gossip, in which your name was mentioned.”
“Oh, my God,” Dunstan groaned, “have you got hold of that? You don’t miss much, do you?”
“We try not to,” Bobby answered, a grim note in his voice.
“Well, have some sense,” Dunstan urged. “You can’t suppose Mrs Veale would have me there if there was an atom of truth in it?”
“Not if she knew,” Bobby agreed.
“Oh, well,” Dunstan muttered. “Well, how could she help? As a matter of fact, she knows quite well what became of Carrie.”
“If she can put me in touch with her,” Bobby agreed, “that will be cleared up, of course.”
“I don’t know if she can do that actually, or if she knows just where Carrie is now.”
“Unfortunate,” Bobby said drily.
“Meaning you don’t believe me?” Dunstan asked. “It’s like this. Carrie ran off with a married man. She went to Canada with him. Mrs Veale has old-fashioned ideas. She tried to stop it getting about what Carrie had done. Only made the gossip worse, of course. She wouldn’t have anything more to do with Carrie, not as long as she went on living with a married man. I don’t think she even knows Carrie’s present address in Canada.”
Bobby said nothing. All this might be true. Or the girl’s mother might believe it to be true. And yet it might well be no more than a cunning tale put about to satisfy Mrs Veale and prevent further inquiry. It was noticeable that Dunstan told his story in an odd, embarrassed, almost hesitating manner. Bobby, in his present suspicious mood, wondered why. If the story were true, why show so odd an hesitation in telling it? Not till some time later did he discover that Dunstan had a brilliant young brother who occupied an enviable position as a leading reviewer on the staff of a well-known London weekly journal of melancholy temperament, advanced views, and a firm conviction that adultery is the first infirmity of noble minds. Dunstan, admiring tremendously his young brother, wondering with awe to see him thus riding in the Bloomsbury whirlwind, directing the Chelsea storm, had come to believe that such an attitude was common to all sensible people, was embarrassed to let it be seen that he and Mrs Veale did not fully share it, and did not realize that to Bobby this show of hesitation and embarrassment appeared as a just possible indication of conscious guilt.
They had reached the lane by now, and were walking towards the houses clustered at the farther end. Dunstan said hesitatingly:
“I’m not sure if I shall be able to show you exactly where it was. Not easy to find places again in moonlight.”
“Well, then, I’ll show you, shall I?” Bobby asked. “It was here, wasn’t it?” he said a moment later.
“How the devil did you know?” demanded Dunstan, a good deal taken aback.
CHAPTER XXXIII
SIR GERVASE ARLINGTON
WITHOUT ANSWERING THIS question, Bobby pushed upon the garden gate of the nearest cottage, one that stood at a little distance from the others. He flashed his torch on the ground, and saw plain traces of footprints here and there, and of broken and trampled plants. He said to Dunstan:
“I think it was here, wasn’t it?”
A voice, a woman’s voice—that of Kitty, thought Bobby—called from the cottage door;
“Is some one there? What is it?”
As with all these cottages, the front door opened directly on a kitchen that served also as general living-room, the only other apartment on the ground floor being the scullery behind. A kind of light-trap had been arranged with the aid of an old blanket, so that people could enter or leave without risk of breaking the black-out regulations, and now, though the speaker was standing at the open door, no light showed. Bobby went towards her. He said:
“May we come in, please? I am Inspector Owen. Captain Dunstan is with me.”
The figure at the door drew back silently. Bobby and Dunstan followed into the kitchen. Within were Kitty, her mother, who looked ill and shaken and was supported in the arms of her husband, sitting upright and angry in his invalid chair. He gave such an impression of energy and power that one almost expected to watch a miracle accomplished and see him by sheer force of will make those withered legs of his once more support him. The attire of all three suggested that they had been roused from their beds. In deep tones, through which reverberated the fury of his physical helplessness, Mr Skinner demanded:
“What’s all this? What’s happened now?”
“He’s got it,” Dunstan said, nodding at Bobby. “Grabbed it. I had it, and then he grabbed it. The bloke got away, though.”
“That inspector’s always there,” Skinner grumbled. To Bobby he said: “Well, if you’ve got it, hand it over. It’s my property.”
“Is this what you mean?” Bobby asked. He showed the great necklace, holding it up. A strange sight it seemed as it shone in that plain labourer’s cottage, a dazzling thing, more dazzling still in these bare surroundings that spoke of so great poverty. “You claim that it is your property.”
“It is my property,” Mr Skinner reiterated in his deep-throated, rumbling voice.
“I shall have to ask for proof of that before I return it,” Bobby said; and Mr Skinner gave him a glare that ought to have blasted him where he stood, but failed to do so. “Will you please tell me exactly what has happened?”
“I must get mother upstairs,” Kitty said. “She has had a fall.”
“Ought you to have a doctor?” Bobby asked.
Kitty said she did not think it was necessary, but seemed grateful for the suggestion. She got her mother to her feet, and with Dunstan’s assistance half carried her, half led her up the narrow stairs. When they had gone Mr Skinner said:
“We go to bed early here. Have to. We were all asleep. My wife woke me. She said: ‘There’s a man in the room.’ I said ‘Nonsense.’ I generally keep a candle and matches near the bed. They weren’t there. I didn’t know whether they had been moved or had been forgotten. It was pitch dark. The black-out curtains were up. My daughter heard us talking. She called out to ask if we wanted her. My wife said she had heard something. Kitty came in with a lighted candle. There was no one there. I told them to get back to be
d. My wife said to make sure the necklace was safe. She got it out. There had been a man in the room all right, and he must have been hiding at the top of the stairs. Or somewhere. I expect he knew I’m pretty helpless. All right within arm’s length, nothing the matter with my arms. But legs useless. Whoever it was had been hiding, rushed in, knocked the candle out of Kitty’s hand, snatched the necklace from my wife, knocked her over, and was off again. All over in a minute. None of us saw him plainly.”
Kitty and Dunstan had come downstairs again while this story was being told. Kitty said:
“He was small and quick. I thought he had killed mother, or I would have tried to follow him. He had got our necklace, and it is all we have.”
“I saw the bloke run out,” Dunstan said. “I ran after him.”
“How did it happen you were on the spot?” Bobby asked.
“I told Captain Dunstan I had heard some one in the garden at night,” Kitty said. “I thought perhaps it might be Ned Bloom come back.”
“There seems to be some sort of story going round that his body’s been found,” Mr Skinner said. “Is that true?”
“No,” Bobby answered. He was wondering whether he could accept this story exactly as it had been told. He was wondering, indeed, if Mr Skinner and Kitty, even if they thought they had told the truth, knew the full truth to tell. He wondered this more especially about Kitty. Above all, he wondered what, if he accepted it, were all its implications. He said to Mr Skinner: “I suppose all this means you are really Admiral Sir Gervase Arlington?”
“How the devil do you know?” demanded the self-styled Skinner.
“I believe he knew it all the time,” Kitty said. “I believe he knows everything.”
“If you know who I am,” growled Sir Gervase, “perhaps you’ll be good enough to hand over my necklace.”
Bobby shook his head.
“I’ll give you a receipt acknowledging it is in my possession,” he said. “It’ll be safer with me. Even if I lost it you could recover full value from the Government. I am acting as a responsible officer of police in keeping it for the present.”
He sat down and wrote a receipt on a page he tore from his notebook for the purpose. He handed it to Sir Gervase, who took it, read it, and said:
“‘Alleged’ sapphire necklace. ‘Alleged’ indeed. You are cautious, young man.”
“One has to be,” Bobby answered. “I have no proof it is genuine, and I’m no judge. I shall still require satisfactory proof of your identity.”
“You have my word,” Sir Gervase said, looking more like an offended Jove than ever. “You said yourself you knew who I was.”
“A guess, a deduction, is not proof,” Bobby said. “All I have to go on is that it was plain Miss Kitty was no waitress—”
“I am—I’m a very good waitress,” interposed Kitty indignantly. “Ask them all at the Tea Gardens.”
“Oh, excellent,” agreed Bobby, “but none, all the same. Then I was fairly certain your identity cards were faked. The Christian names you and Lady Arlington used to each other were not those on the cards. An offence against the law, by the way. Also I found among Ned Bloom’s papers a newspaper cutting about friends of Admiral Sir Gervase Arlington being worried about his safety, as they were ignorant of his whereabouts and he was known to have left for the Continent with his family some time before the outbreak of the war. And I noticed Miss Kitty seemed a good deal disturbed by it.”
“I suppose,” growled Sir Gervase, “that is why the little brute came sneaking round here at night.”
“Probably,” agreed Bobby. “Unfortunately you used threats and unfortunately he has since disappeared.”
“So you think I may have murdered him?” asked Sir Gervase. “Well, I felt like it, felt like twisting his neck for him if I had got hold of him. I never did, though. Peeping Tom, I thought. Impudence enough, trying to poke his nose into my business. But not like the Peeping Tom idea. I might have murdered him for that.”
“Father, don’t say such things,” interposed Kitty. “The inspector will think—”
“He’s thinking already,” retorted Sir Gervase. “Thinking hard. But I haven’t the use of my legs, and so I had no chance to catch him at it. The other thing only rated a sound thrashing.”
“Have you any more jewellery besides this?” Bobby asked, and when Sir Gervase shook his head and looked surprised, Bobby said: “Another thing I found in Ned Bloom’s possession was what seems like a photograph of a considerable quantity of jewellery. It is all piled on a table, and it shows the hands of a woman apparently and of a man just above, as if they had just been putting the stuff there or sorting it over.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Sir Gervase said. “A photograph of a pile of jewellery?” He shook his head again. “You seem to have found plenty in the lad’s papers,” he said.
“Not so much,” Bobby said, “as I should have done if some one else had not been before me, and I wonder who.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
MAIDEN AUNT
BOBBY SAT DOWN on a chair near, resting his head on his hand, deep in thought. Through his mind passed one consideration after another, and still behind them all seemed to be shadowed the dark, enigmatic figure of the missing man’s mother, her silence, her strange, still, tragic eyes. Dunstan stirred and looked at the clock.
“It’s late,” he said.
“Yes,” Bobby agreed, getting to his feet. “Sorry. I was thinking. I don’t see my way. It all seems plain and then it’s dark again.” He had been speaking more to himself than to them, speaking out of the confused tangle of his thoughts. With an effort he put them from his mind and said to Dunstan: “One of Lord Vennery’s guests was a lady owning sapphire earrings and a sapphire pendant. I believe they formed a set at one time with this necklace. There was what appeared to be an attempt at burglary, probably with them in view. Captain Dunstan was on the spot at the time. To-night there is an attempt to get possession of this necklace. It is from Captain Dunstan I recover it.”
He paused, watching to see the effect of this on Sir Gervase and his daughter. Neither seemed in any way surprised or disturbed. Kitty said:
“I told you why Captain Dunstan came. None of us ever thought about the necklace. We didn’t think any one knew we had it. We haven’t had it here very long. I don’t know how any one could know.”
“I think young Ned Bloom knew, and I think he knew too much,” Bobby said. He turned to Dunstan. “At Theodores,” he said, careful to give the word its correct pronunciation ‘Tedders’, “that night when you were there—”
“How do you know I was?” interrupted Dunstan.
“I do know,” Bobby answered, though indeed he had no real proof he could have produced if challenged to do so. All he could have said was that Dunstan had known that that night a pistol shot had been discharged. “Never mind how I know. If you care to say anything, I am ready to listen. Later on, I will ask you to make a written statement, but it might be useful if you would tell me now.”
“You may as well tell him,” Kitty said resignedly. “He’ll only find out for himself if you don’t.”
“Oh, all right,” Dunstan grumbled. “Nothing to it, anyway. They had a ’phone call at Theodores—Tedders—telling them to look out, because there was going to be a burglary one night soon. Ned Bloom the bloke said he was. They didn’t know him from Adam. Lord Vennery said to take no notice, said it was probably just a hoax. Lady Vennery was a bit scared, though, and he said if it would make her happier she could ask Scotland Yard about it. Scotland Yard passed the buck. Said it wasn’t their pigeon, said consult the county police. So they did, but all they got was a formal printed acknowledgement.”
“Not printed,” Bobby said mildly. “Typed. And we don’t generally give full details of what we are going to do. People are apt to talk too much.”
“Well, anyhow,” Dunstan went on, “Lord Vennery was rather pleased than not. Said he didn’t want any damn fool country police k
nocking about, and they had better leave it at that. Miss Wood—she’s Lady Vennery’s secretary—”
“Yes, I know,” interposed Bobby, resentfully reminiscent of a certain protuberant tongue.
“Well, Lady Vennery was still more than a bit nervous, and so was Miss Wood, if you ask me, though she swears she wasn’t. Anyhow, if they couldn’t have a policeman, she told Lady Vennery they could have me. So she wrote and asked me to hang around that night, and I did. Anything to oblige, and anyhow that girl—Miss Wood, I mean—she’s a tartar all right. You do what she says, or she raises hell. A born bully. She has Lady Vennery eating out of her hand.”
Bobby, glancing at Kitty, noticed that she listened to all this quite calmly, as if she found the suggestion of close intimacy between Dunstan and Miss Wood perfectly natural. Bobby began to revise an idea that he had come to accept as a certainty. Dunstan continued:
“Then you butted in. Miss Wood told me to get out quick. She’s like that. If she doesn’t want you any more, I mean. The thing is she and Lady Vennery didn’t want Lord Vennery to know they had had me there, unbeknown to him and in spite of what he said. Bit of an autocrat, by all accounts. So I climbed out of the window of her room, and just as I touched ground a bloke went for me like hell. I let him have it back with all I had. Took him clean on the point of the chin. He went down, and when I looked I saw he was a policeman. Well, that was that, and I cleared out fast as I could. My C.O.’s a pretty stiff old boy, and I knew he would take a dim view of one of his officers laying out a policeman. The War Office, too, most likely. Might have meant a court-martial. Not to mention that I knew the two women weren’t keen on Lord Vennery knowing anything about me being there. Least said, soonest mended, and I made a bee line for where I had parked my bike. I heard one of your men tearing off on a motor-bike along the main road, so I kept to the lanes and side roads. Mine was a pedal bike, of course. A bit thick though, I thought it, when I heard you blokes start shooting. Only meant to scare, I suppose, but once you let a bullet loose, it’s always liable to score a bull somewhere.”
Secrets Can't be Kept: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 20