Everybody Always Tells: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “She did impress me as a bit of a puzzle herself,” admitted Bobby. “I think some people find her rather frightening.”

  “That’s only because of the way she has of staring at you,” Noel explained. “It doesn’t mean a thing. Kitty says so. She’s not the sort you want to make a pal of at first sight. A bit on the heavy side. I suppose most people live on the surface, and it makes them feel uneasy and worried if there’s some one else trying to get to the bottom of things. Caught it from her father probably. He’s by way of being a bit of a swell as a philosopher, you know. Written a commentary or introduction or something to Hegel, I think it is. And there’s some new theory he’s going strong on. It’s about existence being what really matters.”

  “Ivor Findlay’s existence has been very thoroughly ended,” Bobby said gravely. “Did you know a kitchen knife was lying about at Dagonby House? It’s vanished now, but it was being used to open letters. Did Miss Grange tell you that?”

  “It’s what was worrying her,” Noel admitted. “She thought she oughtn’t to have said anything about it.”

  “It’s as well she did,” Bobby answered. “Or we might have thought she was concealing the fact for her own reasons. If every one would be frank with us, they would save us a lot of trouble and themselves a great deal of distress. Do you know a Mrs Tinsley?”

  “Well, I’ve met her. She’s pally with the Findlays. Ivor has been carrying on a red-hot flirtation with her—he always was with some one or another.”

  “But you don’t think that sort of thing ever caused any serious disagreement between him and his wife?”

  “I’m sure it didn’t. For one thing Sibby did the same in her own cold, aloof, what’s it all mean sort of way—bullying rather than flirting, though it came to much the same thing. She’s been taking possession of a chap called Charley Acton recently. You may have heard of him. He’s an inventor. Clever bloke. Says he’s invented an everlasting razor blade. If he has, it ought to bring in pots of money.”

  “Was there any resentment on Mr Findlay’s side? People don’t always like being treated the way they themselves treat others.”

  “Oh, they got on all right. I told you. For one thing I don’t believe either of them cared enough to get jealous. Besides, she had the whip hand. The money’s hers. It was very sudden—their marriage I mean. They never seemed to take much notice of each other, not a bit interested, you would have thought. And then there was a notice in the paper to say they had been to Caxton Hall and got married. No one could make it out. Some people even thought it was a leg pull at first.”

  “Makes one wonder rather what Lord Newdagonby thought,” Bobby remarked.

  “Oh, it would be all right with him if it was what she wanted,” Noel answered.

  “Didn’t Mr Findlay earn a good income himself, quite enough to make him independent?” Bobby asked next. “I understood he had a considerable reputation as a scientist.”

  “Oh, yes, quite a swell. He was working on something to do with atomic theory I believe. Some small private line of his own. About neutralizing the after effects of radio-activity, he told me once. Science was about the one thing he took seriously. A sort of religion with him. He would sooner have died than compromised with scientific truth. But in every other way, money, women, anything, he was as irresponsible as any West End playboy.”

  “Makes an investigation very complicated,” Bobby complained, “when everyone concerned seems so very complicated in themselves.”

  “Oh, well, not every one,” Noel protested. “I’m not complicated for one.”

  Bobby was not so sure about that. But he let the remark pass unanswered. He got up to go.

  “We shall probably have to see you again,” he said. “At present I’m only trying to get the background clear—or as clear as possible. What you’ve told me is likely to be very helpful.” Noel looked both startled and surprised, and not as if this remark were very welcome. Bobby went on: “There’s one thing perhaps I ought to mention. The knife used to kill Ivor Findlay had a piece of paper pushed between the blade and the handle, apparently to make them more secure. That bit of paper looks very much as if it had been torn from the corner of one of your menus. It will have to be sent for expert examination.”

  “One of our menus,” Noel repeated and blinked, evidently trying, and unwilling, to take in the implications of this. “Well, but—” he began and paused. “I don’t know any thing about that,” he said, rather loudly.

  “Obviously,” Bobby went on, “a menu is a sort of open document. Any one dining here could get hold of one or tear a corner off, if he wanted to. I’ve taken the liberty myself for that matter of pocketing one. No one objected. But it does suggest, doesn’t it? some sort of connection somewhere.”

  “If I wanted to do in any one,” Noel remarked gloomily, “I shouldn’t be such a fool as to leave anything like that behind.”

  “It happens,” Bobby told him. “There was one case in Australia when a murderer left his name and address behind him, near the dead body. Murderers aren’t often so obliging, but they always leave their signature in one way or another. They can’t help it. They’ve been there, and it’s bound to be like that, because no one can be anywhere or do anything without making their mark. Action and reaction. Nature’s dialectic, I suppose. The Yes and No principle. The difficulty is to recognize the mark you’re looking for and then to relate it to the sort of proof a jury wants.”

  With that Bobby departed, leaving a very agitated and disturbed young man behind him. By now the hour was late, and in spite of the hasty snack of bread and cheese he had allowed himself—the pickled onions had been an imaginative addition for the benefit of a rather too important-looking head waiter—Bobby was hungry as well as tired. He hoped Olive would have something waiting for him. It was a hope proved well founded. Olive had managed—she alone knows how and she never told—to get hold of some sausages, and so ‘sausage and mash’, that dreadfully vulgar but not unsatisfying dish, was waiting and ready and on the table before he had even time to wash his hands.

  There was one interruption at the end of his meal. Inspector Simons ’phoned through to ask if the visit to Noel Lake’s restaurant had proved fruitful.

  “Well, he did say one thing,” Bobby answered, “that may mean quite a lot. No, I’m not telling you. I want you to work on your own lines. I’ll send you a full account of our talk though, and if anything in it strikes you the same way, then I shall begin to take notice. Or if you dig up anything in the way of confirmation. But it’s too much in the air at present and very likely it’s entirely irrelevant, merely a wild goose I’ve started.”

  Simons did not much like this notion of being set to search the record of the talk with Noel to find in it whatever it was had struck Bobby as so significant. Besides, it might really be something Noel had not said, for he knew Bobby had a theory that what was not said, or said untruthfully, was often more revealing than the fullest and frankest statement. So his voice sounded a little annoyed as he asked:

  “Did Lake try to pass the buck to any one else, same as the rest of them?”

  “Well,” Bobby admitted, “he did make rather pointed remarks about Lord Newdagonby. Said he would stick at nothing when his daughter was concerned. I’m not sure how much he meant.”

  “Back where we started in a way,” Simons complained. “Proper ring-a-ring of roses.”

  Bobby laughed, agreed it was a little like that, and rang off, and Olive, who had heard all this and who, moreover, had been given by Bobby, as he disposed of his ‘sausage and mash,’ a full account of the talk with Noel remarked, as she cleared the table, that Bobby might just as well have told Simons what it was had struck him. It was clear enough, wasn’t it?

  Bobby said, oh, yes, it was clear enough, but the point was—how important was it? That was what he wanted to know. Did it strike other people as significant, or was he laying too much emphasis on what might be a mere detail. And totally irrelevant.

 
Olive said she didn’t know, and then she nodded towards the door and pronounced the one word:

  “Bed.”

  But Bobby looked at her with sad reproach.

  “My poor child,” he said, “don’t you know yet that when an investigation of this sort is on the poor, overworked, underpaid, generally ill-used policeman has simply got to forget that any such object as you mentioned even exists? My job for most of the rest of the night is to go over my notes and try to pick out what matters and what doesn’t. Which,” he added ruefully, “is going to be quite a job with so many cross-currents, and likely to take a lot of hard thinking.”

  CHAPTER XV

  “TOO BAD TO BE TRUE”

  OLIVE POINTED OUT with more than a touch of eloquence how greatly Bobby would benefit from a good night’s rest and how much clearer his mind would be in the morning. Bobby admitted this, but pointed out with much more than a touch of melancholy resignation that even if he did go to bed he would simply spend wakeful hours tossing restlessly from side to side, never even once closing an eye for so much as a split second. It was indeed Bobby’s firm conviction that almost any little thing was liable to make him spend a sleepless night. Olive, for her part, says that she has never once known him keep awake much longer than it took him to get his head on the pillow. But that is neither here nor there, for as Shakespeare has pointed out, things are not as they are, but as we think they are. A profound untruth.

  So that was that, as the classicists say, and Bobby settled down to consideration of his notes while Olive went off to make coffee, which, somewhat viciously, she made so strong Hercules himself would probably have retired before it, as from a palpably unequal contest.

  “There you are,” she said, bringing it to him, “if you won’t sleep in your bed, you may as well stay awake out of it. But except for what Mr Lake said, and that mayn’t mean anything, I don’t see that you’ve got much to go on. Though I’m sure of one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Bobby asked.

  “Mrs Findlay’s too bad to be true.”

  Bobby thought this over as he dallied cautiously with his coffee. Then he said:

  “That’s very much what I think Noel Lake meant. But not too bad to be false perhaps.”

  “Is that meant for an epigram?” Olive asked suspiciously.

  “Now, now,” Bobby protested, “you’ve no need to say things like that, even if I won’t go to bed. Let’s consider what we know for certain. The clear and admitted facts, that is, as apart from trying to guess their meaning—I mean, of course, subjecting them to a profound analysis of their logical content.”

  “My,” said Olive, much impressed. “But it means the same thing, doesn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t sound as if it did,” Bobby pointed out. “Fact the First: Warnings of a contemplated murder were received but directed to the wrong address. Quite a lot to think over there. Never mind at present. Fact the Second: Peepholes in the party wall of Ivor Findlay’s work-room, made at a height which shows they were intended for the use of a smallish person. Another fact is that the only two smallish people concerned are Mrs Jacks, the housekeeper cook, and Miss Grange.”

  “Didn’t Mrs Jacks say she heard typing going on after the time when Mr Findlay must have been attacked?”

  “Yes,” agreed Bobby, “but we only have Mrs Jacks’s word for that, and I’m trying to get hold of bedrock fact. The peepholes are actual fact. The typing is only evidence. Evidence can be rebutted, but facts remain.”

  “Aren’t there any finger-prints on the machine?”

  “No, probably gloves were worn. They always are. Next fact. On Findlay’s desk there are finger-prints, and Mrs Findlay refuses to let hers be taken for identification. Also gave her flat an extra thorough cleaning this morning. The dabs were probably hers because of being outsize and she is a big woman with big hands, while all the other women in the case are rather small. Another fact is that she seems rather remarkably interested in Lord Byron.”

  “Well, but,” protested Olive, “what’s that got to do with it?”

  “I don’t know,” Bobby countered, “I’ve no idea yet what anything has to do with anything else. I’m collecting facts. About Kitty Grange the facts are that she wants to sell a fur coat, and Mr Findlay got her a good offer. She knows the exact amount—a hundred and one guineas—though she says she refused to ask Findlay, and apparently it was only Findlay who knew. About Charley Acton the only established facts are that he says, truly or not, that he is very happily married, that he has been dancing attendance on Mrs Findlay, though it is Count Ariosto the gossip has been about, and that with him the money motive first appears on the scene.”

  “Why? How?” Olive protested. “Mr Acton doesn’t stand to gain anything by Mr Findlay’s death.”

  “On the face of it, it’s a loss,” Bobby answered. “Acton says he’ll probably have to get a report on the practicability of his invention from some one else. He said he didn’t think Findlay’s letter expressing approval would do by itself, even if it is enthusiastic. Means delay and another fee. Not very important, but some extra trouble and expense.”

  “Well,” Olive commented, “all that doesn’t have much to do with Mr Acton’s razor blade. Or getting the capital he wants.”

  “When there’s money anywhere about,” declared Bobby in his most oracular tones, “you can’t be sure of anything—except that money’s what makes things go.”

  “Yes, but—” began Olive, but Bobby checked her.

  “Stick to facts,” he said. “Facts first, and then logical deduction.” Pretending not to hear Olive’s murmured, “You mean guessing,” he continued: “It is a fact that this invention of an everlasting razor and the possible extension of the principle to all edged tools may turn out of international importance. It would affect every country and every factory in the world. Naturally it has to stand the test of daily use, but it does seem to have got beyond the laboratory stage.”

  “Suppose,” Olive suggested, “it suddenly becomes fashionable again for men to wear beards? Men do follow fashion so blindly, don’t they?” She regarded her clean-shaven husband with a somewhat critical eye. “I think I like a nice moustache on a man,” she added, thoughtfully. “Why don’t you try?”

  “Because,” said Bobby firmly, “it’s not fashionable. Don’t keep up this diversionary action, or you’ll have Moscow after you. Now we come to our little Anglo-Italian. Count Ariosto.”

  “Do you really think he is a Count?”

  “Oh, he may be. Don’t you remember that waiter in Nice who claimed to be a Russian Prince? It seemed to be true. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter—irrelevant whether Ariosto is a Count or anything else. The facts about him are that he is flat-footed, that he plays bridge a good deal—often with Mrs Findlay—and seems to do rather well at it. Also he admits to having had a key of the Dagonby House garden door in his hands at one time.”

  “You don’t mean,” Olive asked, “that all that comes in somewhere—flat-footed, bridge with Mrs Findlay, possession of key! I don’t see how or where.”

  “I don’t either,” Bobby said, “but then I’m not trying—only picking out facts. As for Lord Newdagonby, the only certain things about him are that he thinks a lot of his daughter—an unattractive person I should have said, but that’s clearly not his idea. It is a fact, too, that he was greatly disturbed by the ’phone messages that seem to have started all this business and that he took them seriously—so seriously that, another fact, he played a silly trick over those pearl beads so as to bring me into it without having to make a formal complaint. Most likely he thought that with his position and influence he could get me to look into it on the quiet. Stupid, but then I take him to be one of those abnormally clever men who are abysmally stupid in other ways. Consoling for the rest of us who aren’t abnormally clever.”

  “But with a flair?” suggested Olive.

  “Oh, that’s all rot,” growled Bobby, always slightly uneasy when reference was made to this
mysterious quality he knew nothing about but was supposed to possess. “Another fact in connection with him is that there does seem to have been a kitchen knife, of the sort used by the murderer, knocking about his study, and that it isn’t clear what has become of it.”

  “But you can’t think Lord Newdagonby is the murderer?” Olive protested.

  “I never think any one is the murderer till I know,” Bobby retorted. “But I do think murder would mean little to him as against his daughter’s happiness. But that’s wandering from fact to theory. Well, come to Noel Lake. About him the facts are that he had a row with Ivor Findlay over Findlay’s behaviour to Miss Grange, and that the murder weapon carried a bit of paper almost certainly torn from one of the Isle du Lac restaurant menus. That has still to be proved by the experts, but I think we may be sure of it for what it is worth.”

  “Not very much,” Olive said. “Any one can tear corners off menus.”

  “There is also one general fact to remember,” Bobby continued. “Any reference to blackmail, any mention of the word, seems to have an oddly upsetting effect on some of these people, as if it held some hidden significance of some sort or another.”

  “Blackmail is always a possible motive, isn’t it?” Olive observed thoughtfully.

  “Finally,” Bobby went on, “there’s Mrs Tinsley, who strikes me as a rather deceptive little person. She gave me the idea that she was anything but the fluffy type she was trying to appear. Her flat hadn’t any sort of frivolous society air. There are some women who try to combine very solid intelligence with sex appeal.”

  “It’s awfully mean of them if they do,” said Olive indignantly. “You ought to be Honest.”

  Bobby nodded approvingly and said he thought so, too. Then he continued:

  “She seems to be the last person to have seen Noel Findlay alive. She admits it, but says it was private business and she doesn’t intend to tell us what it was. If the chap on the beat hadn’t noticed the number of her car, we might never even have heard of her. Ought to be worth a commendation. I must remember that.”