Everybody Always Tells: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  A sharp answer came:

  “Who are you? What’s that fire?”

  “Mr Acton, isn’t it?” Bobby said.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  “GUINEA PIGS FOR A CHANGE”

  THERE WAS NO answer for a moment. Then from out of the evening gloom Acton emerged into the flickering light of the fire. He stood for a moment, and Bobby noticed that his hand was in his coat pocket.

  “What’s all this,” he demanded. “What’s that fire? It might spread. It might do a lot of damage. I came to see.”

  “I’ll take care it doesn’t spread,” Bobby answered.

  “You’re that Scotland Yard chap, aren’t you?” Acton asked. “You were there when poor old Ivor was killed?”

  “So I was,” Bobby agreed. “We had a talk with you, hadn’t we?”

  “Nothing I could tell you,” Acton said. “You haven’t done much towards finding out who it was, have you?”

  “It’s not the knowing who it was that’s the difficulty in these cases,” Bobby explained as he had so often before. “It’s getting proof. A jury has to be satisfied. Quite right of course. But knowing is one thing. Proof’s another.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” Acton said, and there was a perceptible sneer in his voice as he went on: “And is this fire of yours some deep-laid, subtle scheme for getting that proof?”

  “Might be,” Bobby answered. “The trouble with deep-laid, subtle schemes is that life isn’t like that, and generally speaking they don’t come off. I’m all for simplicity, the direct approach, ask your questions and get your answers.”

  Acton seemed rather amused now, and he almost laughed as he said:

  “Do you get them—your answers, I mean?”

  “Oh, everybody always tells,” Bobby answered.

  “Makes it easy, doesn’t it?”

  “Not always in words though—sometimes without knowing,” Bobby added.

  “And is that fire of yours going to get any one to talk?”

  “Well, we are, aren’t we?” Bobby pointed out. “Shall we go on? About Mrs Findlay?”

  “Mrs Findlay? Why? She rang me up last week. She asked me to meet her here. She never came. That’s partly why I wondered about your fire. I thought I had better see. And then of course it might have spread if there had been nobody watching.”

  “Rather an odd place for her to fix on to meet you, wasn’t it?” Bobby asked. “If she was coming, why not call at the house?”

  “I should say that was probably because there was some perfectly absurd gossip going on about our being likely to marry. As if we could! I’m married already, and I get on all right with my wife. We are even rather fond of each other. You would think that would put a stopper on such a yarn. But it was going the rounds all the same. I don’t know if the idea was that I intended to murder my wife or divorce her, or if a trifle of bigamy was expected. The way people talk. Makes you sick.”

  “So it does,” agreed Bobby. “But sometimes less sick than what they do.”

  “You mean what was done to poor old Ivor? I know. Rotten. I think some one must have started the story that Mrs Findlay killed Ivor in order to be free to marry some one else. And that started them off guessing who it could be. What made them pick on me, I can’t imagine, except that I suppose it had to be some one. My wife heard. Well, you can guess for yourself. She knew it was the most utter rot only—well, you know what women are. It worried her. Sort of feeling all the time that she knew perfectly well it wasn’t true, but, all the same, just suppose it was. I got her to go away to the seaside for a time till people got tired.”

  “Was that a very good idea?” Bobby asked. “Wasn’t it rather more likely to make the talk go on?”

  “Well, it all seemed so silly,” Acton said.

  “You say Mrs Findlay made an appointment with you but didn’t keep it?” Acton nodded, and Bobby looked over his shoulder. “I thought I heard something,” he explained. “Over there, by that old well.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Acton answered carelessly. He threw the beam of the electric torch he was carrying towards the well mouth. “Nothing there,” he said. “Cat or rabbit perhaps.”

  “Perhaps,” agreed Bobby. “Or my imagination. You kept the appointment Mrs Findlay made?”

  “Well, yes, couldn’t very well help. I thought it was rather decent of her not to come to the house. But she wasn’t here, and I haven’t heard since. Mrs Tinsley was though.”

  “Mrs Tinsley? Here?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Instead of Mrs Findlay? Did she say anything? Explain at all?”

  “I don’t know that I asked. I was rather taken aback. And she seemed in an excited, odd sort of mood. You would have thought she was going into hysterics, only there was nothing to be hysterical about. She was throwing stones down that old well. What’s the matter?”

  “I thought I heard that sound again,” Bobby said. “Near the well, I mean. As if some one were there.”

  “There isn’t any one,” Acton repeated. He went a step or two nearer, threw the light of his torch on the well-head, all around, came back to Bobby. “Nothing there,” he said. “Bit nervous, aren’t you? Dark and lonely up here, of course.”

  “I suppose I must be,” Bobby agreed. “As you say—dark, lonely, up here. I don’t suppose many people come this way. Mrs Tinsley didn’t say anything?”

  “Oh, yes, she did. Rather. Nothing you could make head or tail of though. All about Ivor and how he had always wanted her and no one else. You know, it’s my idea she thinks it was Sibby—Mrs Findlay—killed Ivor.”

  “Do you?”

  “I would rather suspect myself.”

  “Is there any one you do suspect?”

  “Oh, no, not really. I mean I’ve thought of every one else. I daresay they’ve thought of me. There’s Noel Lake of course. I did rather pick on him at first. There was that business of the bit off the menu card from his place and then they had such a blazing row. Not that Ivor meant anything about Miss Grange—just his way with every girl he came near. Only Noel thought it his duty to take it seriously. Got to show his girl she had a he-man to look after her. That sort of thing.”

  “Yes, I know,” Bobby agreed. “Primitive impulse. We want them to admire us—the peacock showing its tail. Do you still think it might be Mr Lake?”

  “Oh, no. Too easy, that scrap of menu, I mean. As soon as you came to think it over, you couldn’t help feeling it was more like a crude sort of fake.”

  “It did look that way,” Bobby agreed.

  “There’s Kitty Grange herself, of course,” Acton went on, “but she’s not the sort to do a thing like that. And there’s the little Italian who calls himself a Count and looks like a waiter. But then all Italians do.”

  “Do they?” asked Bobby, surprised. “I never noticed that,” and he wondered if this meant that Acton knew about Ariosto—told by Mrs Findlay perhaps.

  “I don’t see though,” Acton went on, “that there’s much in that. Ariosto wouldn’t dare—not the way it happened. Needed some one with guts to do a thing like that. A cool customer. Does his killing in the chap’s own room in his own house under his own roof, and then quietly walks away. I should say Ariosto was out. That doesn’t leave any one much except old Lord Newdagonby. I wouldn’t put it past him. He had no use for Ivor. He thought Sibby had made a big mistake. Possibly she had. But my own idea is that if he wanted to get Ivor out of the way, he wouldn’t have done it quite so crudely. Not in character. Much more likely that Ivor would have vanished without trace. Not much that old boy doesn’t know. No, vanished without trace would have been the idea for Ivor if papa-in-law had been in it. What about somebody you’ve never even heard of? Some disappointed inventor who thought Ivor had done him down, or more likely some one whose woman Ivor had been messing about? He told me once he had had threats. Laughed about it. Rather flattered.”

  “We’ve considered that,” Bobby said. “No evidence. Anyhow, if he did
n’t vanish without trace, apparently his wife has.”

  “Mrs Findlay? What do you mean? She hasn’t vanished, has she?”

  “Didn’t you know she left home without saying where she was going? That was three days ago, and they haven’t heard from her since.”

  “Well, that’s hardly vanishing without trace, is it?” Acton asked. “Three days isn’t such an awful time. May have gone abroad. Nothing to worry about. She’ll write or wire when she thinks of it. Or just come back.”

  Bobby was again looking over his shoulder towards the old well-head. This time he turned on it the light of his own torch.

  “I keep thinking . . .” he said and paused. “Oh, well,” he said. “Nothing there.”

  “Still a bit jittery?” Acton asked smilingly.

  “Seems like it,” Bobby admitted. “You know, what you’ve told me is very interesting. All the evidence suggests that Mrs Tinsley is the last person known to have seen Mr Findlay before his murder. And now it’s beginning to look as if she were also the last person known to have seen Mrs Findlay before her—disappearance.”

  “Good God!” Acton exclaimed. “You don’t. . . you can’t mean . . . not—That.”

  “I’m only stating what appears, from what you’ve told me, to be the fact,” Bobby answered.

  Acton got up and went across to the old well. He stood there for a moment. Then he came back.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said loudly.

  “Believe what?”

  “Oh, nothing—you know all right. Nothing. About Mrs Tinsley. Nice little woman. I’ve always liked her. So did my wife. Not that we ever saw much of her. She had hurt her hand. I mean, when I saw her the other evening. She had a handkerchief round it. There’s some one coming.”

  “Come to see about the fire, I expect,” Bobby said. “It’s getting a bit low now. Never mind. It can go out. It’s the sergeant from the village, I think. Hullo, sergeant.”

  “Oh, it’s you, sir,” the sergeant answered, recognizing Bobby’s voice. “It’s the fire. I thought I had better have a look. Might have been a tramp. So I came along.”

  “I hoped you would,” Bobby said. “I thought you were pretty sure to see it.”

  “Well, I can’t say as I did rightly see it, sir,” admitted the sergeant. “I was indoors listening to the wireless. Got some real music to-night you can listen to and enjoy. Accordion programme. And right in the middle of it comes this lady knocking at the door to say there was a fire on the hill up above Mr Acton’s. Well music’s music, but duty’s duty.”

  “So it is,” agreed Bobby. “Did you know the lady?”

  “No, sir, and when she had spoke, off she went, and me in my shirt sleeves and socks—fair whipped off into the dark afore I could do a thing.”

  “Oh, well, never mind,” Bobby said. “It was probably Mrs Tinsley. Well, sergeant, there’s a job waiting for us. Get on your super quick as you can, will you? Tell him I’m here, and ask him for tackle and men to help clear out the old dry well here. Mr Acton tells me Mrs Tinsley has been pushing stones down it.”

  “Down—down the well, sir?” the sergeant asked, quite bewildered, used though he was to the eccentricities and absurdities of all senior officers.

  “Yes. I want you to ask your super to make the necessary arrangements. Tell him from me that it’s urgent—even very urgent. Oh, by the way, you know a neighbouring farmer had been carting away stones from the well parapet, and he was going to be told to bring them back. Did he?”

  “I saw to that all right,” the sergeant answered. “Came up special to look.”

  “Have another look,” Bobby said, “and see if you think all he brought are still there.”

  “Some one else been at them?” the sergeant asked, and did as directed. He came back and said very indignantly: “Half of ’em gone again or thereabouts. What do you think of that? No sooner brought back than took again. I’ll get after whoever it is.”

  “Get on with this job first,” Bobby said. “Your super won’t be in bed yet. Ring him up and tell him what I’ve said, and tell him it’s urgent.”

  “Very good, sir,” said the sergeant, obedient though puzzled.

  He went off, and as they listened to his heavy footsteps dying away in the dark and the distance, Acton said gravely:

  “I can see what is in your mind.”

  “Well, I dare say that wasn’t too difficult,” Bobby remarked.

  “All the same,” Acton continued, “I can’t help feeling you’re wrong, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “Not at all,” Bobby assured him.

  “Not Mrs Tinsley,” said Acton firmly. “I can’t believe that. No.”

  “Who then?” Bobby asked and got no answer.

  “I’ll wait and see if you don’t mind,” Acton said after a long pause.

  “I hoped you would,” Bobby said. “It may be rather a long wait. Let’s talk about something else, shall we?”

  “Something else?” Acton repeated. “Good idea. Take our minds off it while we’re waiting. Only what about? Not politics, I hope.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of politics,” answered Bobby. “How about guinea pigs, for a change?”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  “TWO TAKEN AND TWO LEFT”

  ACTON DID NOT answer at once. He was lighting a cigarette and finding it difficult to get his automatic lighter to function. By its tiny flame, when at last he got it going, Bobby could see his face clearly. Bobby had the idea indeed that the lighter was being held as it was precisely so as to make that possible. Nor was Acton’s voice other than quite untroubled, his hand less than perfectly steady, as presently he said:

  “My dear chap!! Guinea pigs! Why guinea pigs? Why not cabbages and kings?”

  “I think because just now I find guinea pigs more interesting,” Bobby explained. “In the room where Ivor Findlay died there weren’t any cabbages or even kings. But there were guinea pigs—not to mention the guinea pigs that weren’t there.”

  “How do you mean?” Acton asked. “All the rest of the guinea pigs in the world weren’t there, I take it. Guinea pigs are a sort of general raw material of science, aren’t they? I think I do remember two of the little brutes in a cage. What about it?”

  “Oh, I’m not interested in them,” Bobby answered. “I’m thinking of the special two out of all the rest in the world that had been there but were not any longer.”

  “That weren’t there?” Acton repeated. “Is this an up-to-date version of the dog that didn’t bark?”

  “History repeats itself, doesn’t it?” Bobby remarked.

  “Does it?” asked Acton, and managed to give an impression of a slightly bored impatience. “Look, I’m not bothering myself at the moment about the guinea pigs that were or weren’t in poor old Ivor’s room. I’m not even wondering who killed the poor chap. You see, you’ve made it pretty plain you’ve an idea that Mrs Findlay has been thrown down the well here. Well, I don’t know if that’s really what’s in your mind. But it’s a pretty grisly thought, and it’s what you’ve got me thinking. Isn’t that what you’ve been thinking too?”

  “I never think if I can help it,” Bobby told him. “We can leave that till the men and the tackle I’ve asked for arrive. Then we shall know. So till then, shall we still consider guinea pigs?”

  “The guinea pigs that weren’t there?” Acton asked again. “If they weren’t, what do they matter? Where do they come in? For that matter, how do you know they had been there?”

  “An empty cage,” Bobby answered. “An empty cage with fresh water and fresh food to show it had recently been occupied. I asked myself why the cage was empty and what had become of its occupants. Two taken and two left. Why?”

  “Did you think they might have killed Findlay and then run away?” Acton asked and laughed lightly.

  “Indirectly perhaps. Indirectly. Because it did rather seem as if the murderer had had some reason for getting rid of them or rather of their bodies.”

 
“Their bodies?”

  “Mrs Jacks, the housekeeper, you remember, told me she had noticed that morning that they were dead. Their death had been followed by Ivor Findlay’s. I had to consider whether there could be any connection.”

  “Isn’t that a bit far-fetched?”

  “Just as now I have to consider whether there can be any connection between what happened to Mrs Findlay here—if indeed anything did happen, which has not been proved yet—and her husband’s death.”

  “Yes. Well. I can see that’s a possibility,” Acton agreed. “I don’t follow you in your excursions into guinea-pig land. But I do suppose that whoever killed Ivor may have had an equally good or bad reason for getting rid of his wife. Look. I’ll ask you a plain question. Do you believe that Mrs Tinsley has thrown Mrs Findlay down this well?”

  “I am at least perfectly sure,” Bobby answered slowly, “that she knows or at least suspects something. When I questioned her just now she told me once or twice that Mrs Findlay was well—indeed very well. She said it in an odd sort of way, almost hysterical. It did strike me that it was possibly a rather grisly sort of pun. A kind of play on words. I wondered if in a rather over-wrought, hysterical way she was identifying Mrs Findlay with the old, disused well that may perhaps have become her grave.”

  “What a horrible idea,” Acton protested. “Ugh. Is that what made you so jittery just now? What made you keep thinking you heard something?”

  “Possibly,” Bobby admitted.

  “I expect I shall start that, too, now,” Acton muttered, and he shivered slightly, almost the first sign of emotion he had given during this strange talk in the darkness by the ruined cottage and the yawning well-head. “Only, you know—I can’t quite believe it. Why should she do such a thing? Unless, of course, you think she killed Ivor out of jealousy and disappointment—he did rather let her down, and you know the old saying. The one about ‘Hell hath no fury—’.”

  “It’s well known,” Bobby agreed. “Some truth in it still. I’ve had it in mind. From the first it was fairly certain—not absolutely certain, but good enough as a working theory—that the murderer was one of a small group. Our job was to clear each one in turn, one by one, till only one was left. Then, of course, that one has to be the criminal.”