The House of Godwinsson: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Where?” Olive asked.

  “In that list of ancient names,” Bobby answered slowly.

  “For the moment I thought I saw—” He was silent. He said again: “I thought for a moment I had a glimpse—” and then once more he was silent. “Oh, well,” he said, picking up the chair Olive had so cunningly sidled up against the cupboard and removing it to the farther end of the room.

  “Beast,” said Olive dispassionately.

  “Old family tradition,” Bobby repeated. “Keeping up their claim to be the rightful representatives of the last Saxon king by direct descent. Big claim. Not many families go back beyond Elizabeth—if any. Interesting all of them—father and sons, too. What strikes you most about them?”

  “Good looks,” said Olive promptly. “I should love to see Gurth,” she added. “I mean, if he is anything like as handsome as you say.” She clasped her hands and a far-away look came into her eyes. “A dream man,” she sighed, and told herself with satisfaction that anyhow she had got a bit of her own back over that chair business.

  “Eyes in the boat,” commanded Bobby, very sternly, “and never mind good looks. They aren’t evidence.”

  “Quite sure?” Olive asked. “A handsome boy and two girls—Miss Leigh and poor Lady Geraldine. Aren’t there possibilities there?”

  “Means,” grumbled Bobby, “another entirely different line to follow up. But I didn’t mean good looks, or Leofric being picked up, or anything like that. I meant the old man’s family pride. It doesn’t show so much in the sons. Perhaps it only develops when one of them becomes head of the family and custodian of its traditions. With the old man—old Colonel Godwinsson—it’s almost crazy. He might really be a royalty of a hundred years ago before royalty got as democratic as the rest of us. He gives you the idea of not being quite sure you’re the same flesh and blood.”

  “You mean,” Olive suggested, “like a shopkeeper talking to a customer?”

  “No, that’s merely being rude. I can’t imagine Colonel Godwinsson being rude—he wouldn’t know how. It’s more an intense reverence for his own blood—‘the divinity that doth hedge a king about’. That sort of thing.”

  “I think that’s most awfully nice,” declared Olive with enthusiasm. “I think anything that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years is always awfully nice.”

  “Including fossils?” asked Bobby.

  “That’s only silly,” declared Olive, dignified now.

  “Well, so long as you don’t take it too seriously,” Bobby conceded.

  “You’ve never said anything about Stokes,” Olive remarked. “He seems to keep popping in and out just like the masked man you think is Cy King.”

  “I’m sure is Cy King,” Bobby corrected her, “though I can’t prove it. I’m not forgetting Stokes. He can’t be left out of any list of suspects. There are three questions we have to answer if we can. Who killed Joey Parsons—and why? Who killed Lady Geraldine—and why? Who returned the Wharton jewels—and why? And one fundamental question more important than all—why did Colonel Godwinsson come to see me at the Yard?”

  “Yes, I know,” agreed Olive thoughtfully. “But what he did shows that, doesn’t it?”

  “I shall have to check up in Punch,” Bobby remarked, and Olive said that would be the best way of making sure.

  CHAPTER XXII

  ROYAL BLOOD

  The conference that Sunday afternoon went on and on, as conferences do, and arrived at various generally vague and often contradictory conclusions, as conferences and committees often do. But it was decided that Bobby should visit Colonel Godwinsson, and that he should go alone, since it was desirable at the present stage of the inquiry that as friendly and unofficial an attitude as possible should be adopted.

  “Got to handle the old boy tactfully,” said one of those present. “All this descent from ancient Saxon kings. Romantic. Sentimental. The great British public would lap it up. Be on his side to a man, bless their innocent hearts. Stir up a hornet’s nest there if we aren’t careful.”

  “Surely we can depend on full co-operation from a man in his position,” said in a slightly shocked voice the most junior of them all.

  “Unless,” said the oldest and most cynical member, “he is doing the chivalrous stunt and risking all for a woman’s name.”

  “Impossible,” pronounced the very most senior of them all, “to suspect a man like Colonel Godwinsson of being concerned with criminal activities—murder, robbery, so forth. I was at school with him myself, though he was in the sixth and I was only in the lower fourth. Utterly impossible. You agree, Owen?”

  “Oh, yes. Utterly impossible,” Bobby answered promptly. “Even though the impossible does sometimes happen,” he added.

  The remark was not well received. It was pointed out that by definition the impossible is what does not happen. Bobby agreed, and withdrew the observation—with mental reservations. The meeting broke up, as the very most senior of them all had a train to catch. Otherwise the conference would probably have continued till the next morning. Bobby returned home, where, beyond his deserts, considering the way he had behaved over those ration books, he was given a large-size omelette for supper.

  Next morning, accordingly, after a pleasant drive through a quiet countryside where it looked as though nothing ever changed, he presented himself at the residence of the county Chief Constable. That gentleman, warned by ’phone to expect his visit, was waiting for him in a mood of mingled amusement, surprise and resentment.

  “What’s it all about?” he demanded as soon almost as Bobby arrived. “I’ve known Godwinsson all my life. A man of the highest standing, of the utmost integrity. You might as well suspect a bishop of leading a double life, bishoping by day, burgling by night, as suspect Godwinsson of doing anything he thought dishonourable or dishonest.”

  “I am as convinced of it as you are,” Bobby said, and he spoke with complete sincerity.

  “Well, then,” said the Chief Constable.

  “A former ward of his,” Bobby said, “Lady Geraldine Rafe—you may have heard of her—was found dead in London on Saturday night.”

  “Good God!” said the Chief Constable.

  “We held the news back,” Bobby continued, “until identity was established, though there was never any real doubt. All the morning papers have got is a paragraph about the body of an unknown woman having been found in the East End and foul play being suspected. Never any real doubt either about its having been murder, but we had to wait for the medical report, to be on the safe side. There might possibly have been a condition of heart disease or something, or even suicide. But the medical report is quite clear. Almost at the same time when her dead body was found an attempt was being made to kidnap Leofric Godwinsson. Colonel Godwinsson’s second son, isn’t he?”

  The county Chief Constable had listened to all this, his eyes, his mouth opening wider and wider, till at last they could no wider go. Then he said feebly: “Dear me.” This, however, appearing to him to be an inadequate comment, he tried to think of something more appropriate, but failed to do so. So he said “Dear me,” again and lapsed into silence. Bobby continued: “Naturally we feel Colonel Godwinsson may be able to help. And then, too, we felt it would be more considerate if he were informed personally of what had happened, rather than let him see it in the papers. It’s sure to be in the evening papers, and they are sure to splash it big. You may expect every crime reporter in London down here before long. With a man like Colonel Godwinsson it’s important to get the background right. Could you give me—well, a sort of character sketch?”

  But before the county Chief Constable would do this he had to express at some length his amazement and distress. He had, he said, known Lady Geraldine since she was that high—’that’ being about twelve inches from the floor. Evidently this fact increased greatly both his horror and his surprise. Incredible that such a thing should happen to one he had known, etc., etc. Bobby listened patiently, agreeing gravely with every comment, exc
ept with a half-hearted suggestion that there must be some mistake about Leofric and the alleged kidnapping attempt.

  “A pleasant, easy-going lad,” declared the Chief Constable. “Even though he has been in a little trouble once or twice. Oh, nothing much. His father took an unnecessarily severe view. Just a little youthful kicking over the traces. Wild oats and all that, you understand. Why on earth should any one want to kidnap him? Are you sure there isn’t some confusion of identity.”

  Bobby didn’t think that was possible. He said one of the things he very much wanted to know was what was behind this kidnapping attempt. The young man had been rather badly hurt, was in hospital, and the doctors would not allow questioning for the present. In the meantime, what information could the Chief Constable give?

  Very little, the Chief Constable thought. He was quite unable to suggest any possible explanation of what had happened. Indeed, it was clear that, as the philosophers and psychologists would say, he believed intellectually, not emotionally. Or, in more common language, that he hadn’t really got it into his head as yet. He repeated that Colonel Godwinsson was a man of the highest possible character, more respected perhaps than loved, though that was not to say that he was in any way unpopular. But he did keep people rather in awe, so to speak. And as much above suspicion as any Caesar’s wife that ever was. The Chief Constable, a little pleased with this comparison, repeated it more than once.

  “Caesar’s wife,” he said firmly. “A little too conscious of his family and his descent, perhaps. He does rather give you the idea that he feels his ancestry puts him apart from other men. I expect you know he claims direct descent from Earl Godwin, the father of the King Harold killed at the Battle of Hastings, and that therefore, by right of blood, he is the rightful heir to the English throne.”

  “He takes that seriously?”

  “Oh, very seriously. William the Conqueror seized the crown by force, but that makes no difference to the greater right of blood. Nor does lapse of time make any difference or give force any more right than it had at first. That’s Colonel Godwinsson’s position. Really,” added the Chief Constable, with a slightly rueful laugh, “I don’t believe the old boy would be in the least surprised if some day a deputation arrived to offer him the Crown.”

  “He seems a little mad about it,” Bobby remarked. “Is he quite sane in other ways?”

  “He is perfectly sane in every way,” retorted the Chief Constable. “No doubt of that whatever. If a man considers he has a right to a piece of property stolen from him at some time, but can’t establish his claim because of some technical point or another, you can’t call him mad because he does his best to keep his claim in being.”

  “I suppose not,” agreed Bobby thoughtfully.

  “That’s all it amounts to,” the Chief Constable insisted. “What he does is simply to try to keep the old tradition alive. The sons are all given Saxon names in the proper order—Harold, Gurth, Leofric, so forth. He has a sort of mystic reverence for his own blood. Noblesse oblige. That sort of thing. And I take it he feels royalty obliges still more.”

  “I suppose so,” agreed Bobby again. “Interesting,” he repeated. “Takes one back into the centuries. Have the sons the same sort of ideas?”

  “I’m afraid,” said the Chief Constable with some regret, “they are both inclined to be a little cynical about it. A pity. Leofric—the boy you mentioned just now—turned Socialist at one time. It upset his father terribly. Luckily, as he had been at a public school and the university, he was classed with the intelligentsia. So he got out. Rather more than he could stand, he said.”

  “There was an elder son, wasn’t there?” Bobby asked. “I think Colonel Godwinsson said so once. Harold. Isn’t he dead?”

  “Yes—by Godwinsson’s first marriage. Poor lad! He was in France at the time of the German break-through in 1940, and they shot him as a spy. Apparently they took him for his father. There were letters addressed to Colonel Godwinsson in his possession. As he was in mufti he was clearly a spy, so they shot him out of hand. Later on they apologized and offered to pay compensation. It was while they were still in the stage of being ‘correct’. Of course, the compensation offer wasn’t accepted. But there was what I must say I thought a very feeling, sympathetic letter from a Count von Pierrus. Apparently he had known Harold in America, where they had been at Yale together, and then he met Gurth at Oxford, and he had stayed at Ing Wain. And Harold had stayed with him at the Pierrus Schloss on the Rhine. Apparently there had been some kind of half-recognized love affair between Harold and Von Pierrus’s sister. The letter spoke most feelingly of the loss he and his sister felt they had sustained. He had secured an order postponing the execution, but it had arrived too late, or hadn’t been opened, or something of the sort. The letter hinted at a carelessness or neglect which would be suitably dealt with, and said he had hurried at once, as soon as he knew, to make sure such a ghastly mistake didn’t happen. Unfortunately he arrived two or three minutes too late. The young fellow, even if he was a German, wrote with a good deal of very proper feeling. Evidently he was very upset; both on personal grounds and because of the stain on the German army. He said he had arranged for a decent funeral and for the poor lad’s personal effects to be sent through the Red Cross—his wrist watch, papers, and so on. There was a photograph of the grave, too. When they arrived it was my job to take them to Colonel Godwinsson and give him all that was left of his eldest son. A tragedy.”

  “I’m afraid there were many tragedies about that time,” Bobby said conventionally. “Interesting story, though—very.” And the Chief Constable thought with some impatience that the Scotland Yard man’s trick of calling everything ‘interesting’ was a rather dull mannerism. Of course it was ‘interesting’, but what a word to use of such a tragedy, relieved only by the humanity and good feeling shown by the young German, von Pierrus. ‘Interesting’, the Chief Constable told himself was no very sympathetic or intelligent comment on so moving a story. Unfortunately at this point Bobby said ‘Interesting’ once more, and seemed to find it so much so as to have no more to say. The Chief Constable ventured a cough as a reminder. Bobby woke from his abstraction and said: “Then Gurth is now heir, and I suppose his firstborn will be a Harold. Interesting. I told you I met Gurth in town. The handsomest lad I’ve ever seen, I think—give any girl a start and a beating in the good-looks handicap. Film star type, only more so. Had the poor boy the Germans shot the same good looks?”

  “I believe so. I never saw him myself, but his father seemed to think him better-looking even than Gurth. They met in France once or twice.”

  “Well, if he could outshine his brother he was certainly a world beater,” Bobby agreed. “Gurth’s looks are enough to make any husband uneasy, and Harold at that rate must have spread panic around. But why met in France? Didn’t Harold live here?”

  “The first Mrs Godwinsson took him off to America and never came back. When Harold was a baby. She was an American, and apparently married Godwinsson largely on account of the glamour of his Saxon royal blood. She seems to have had an idea she would be recognized as England’s uncrowned queen. Of course, it wasn’t like that at all. She wasn’t even supposed to mention it in public, and yet in private her husband expected her to live up to it. She got fed up and went off home. She must have been ill at the time, for she died soon after, and left all her private fortune to trustees to pay the income to Harold on condition that he never set foot in Great Britain till he was thirty. To preserve his democratic American heritage, the will said. Odd the way things turn out. It was that clause most likely cost him his life. If he escaped from the Germans to England he might forfeit his money. He hesitated too long, and was captured and shot. Ironical, and even more so that coming to England and forfeiting his money wouldn’t have mattered. When it was gone into after the news of his death came through, the trustees melted away into the blue and the money with them. They had been doing a bit of speculating on their own, and what they hadn’t already
lost they took with them.”

  “Interesting,” said Bobby once more; and the Chief Constable was confirmed in his opinion that Bobby’s intellectual powers permitted him to make no comment more profound.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  COLONEL GODWINSSON’S DREAM

  Ing Wain, Colonel Godwinsson’s home, mentioned under that name in Domesday Book, was about half an hour’s drive distant. The name was Saxon, was supposed to mean ‘men of the wagon’, and to refer to a time when a Saxon family had arrived in a wagon and established itself on the site. The house, though, was Elizabethan, said to be only the third that in fifteen hundred years had stood there, and was a lovely building. Bobby, remembering the impression made on him by the photograph shown him by Colonel Godwinsson, thought it as fine a piece of domestic architecture as he had ever seen, none the less so because the architect, if there had been one, the master builder more likely, had aimed so little at what he had achieved—beauty. Not alone in politics and statecraft does he travel the farthest who knows least to what goal he journeys.

  The large—very large—garden, or small—very small—park in which the house stood had been carefully laid out and, in spite of all labour shortages, was still well kept. The lawn was one of those only to be seen in England—mown, rolled, watered, tended through the centuries till to-day it lay like a still carpet of green velvet. Colonel Godwinsson had nearly, though with pain and grief, brought himself to the point of allowing it to be dug up during the war for growing cabbages, but had been spared the necessity when it became plain that neither for the digging nor the proposed cabbage cultivation was there available labour. A famous, much admired feature of the garden was a superb and extensive stretch of rhododendron bushes, extending to the orchard wall at the west of the house.

  Bobby’s knock was answered by an ancient and very deaf butler, who, though regarding him with evident suspicion, finally consented to show him into the library, there to wait till the colonel could be found and informed.