“You had better report to the D.D.I.,” Bobby told him without much sympathy. “They’ll give you all possible protection—and that’s a lot more than you deserve.”
“You can be very hard, Mr Owen,” Stokes said with a kind of mournful reproach. “Cy’s been saying it might be a good idea to fix me with Joey’s murder, and then the busies wouldn’t want to go messing other people about.”
“You’ve nothing to be afraid of,” Bobby told him. “If you are innocent, that is. Any information given us will be tested on its merits. I doubt if it will come from Cy King, though. I shall be very surprised if he comes any nearer us than he can help. He knows we have plenty of questions we want to ask him. Why should he think you shot Joey Parsons?—that is, supposing you didn’t.”
“Oh, Mr Owen, sir,” Stokes wailed, “you can’t think that.”
“Why not?” Bobby asked. “For one thing, how is it you knew so soon what had happened, and how did you know two shots had been fired? That grazed ear-tip hadn’t been noticed by any one else. You pointed it out immediately, though the light in that mortuary place was none too good. Any explanation?”
Looking sulkier than ever and with considerable reluctance, Stokes offered one. It seemed, according to him, that the dead man had asked him to come to Angel Alley just to have a drink together. No harm in having a drink, Stokes said defiantly, and Bobby agreed. But on his arrival he was told that two shots had been heard at No. 4, and the voice of one crying out aloud. So the rest of Angel Alley had decided it was best to hear, see, and know nothing, and had retired indoors.
“Is all that why Cy King thinks it was you?” Bobby asked. “Anyhow, you were on the spot, weren’t you?”
“Only after the shooting, as I can prove,” Stokes declared. “Cy don’t think it either, not him. And me innocent as the driven snow. What’s put him on me so cruel like is the Wharton jewellery job. I had a drop too much one night, and I let on I knew more than I do. Swanking I was. All I knew really was that Joey was in it. Cy got the idea the Wharton stuff was in Joey’s own special hide-out all the boys knew he had, though they didn’t know where, and didn’t ask, neither. One of ’em put it up to Cy that maybe it was me did in Lady Geraldine, so as to get the stuff, and then did in Joey, too, to cover up. Spoke in malice that was, out of spite, because of having it in for me. But Cy never believed it. Not him. Nor no one else, neither. They couldn’t.”
“Well, it’s an idea, all the same,” Bobby remarked. “I’ve considered it myself.” Stokes gave a kind of inarticulate groan of protest. Unheeding this, Bobby went on: “Does Cy think that after all that it was you sent the jewellery back?”
“Because of it’s being too hot,” Stokes answered. “That’s what he says. And to put in a claim for the reward afterwards, and some of it still missing he’s saying most like I’ve got put away, and me that never saw a shine of it, or handled it neither.”
Bobby recognized again the rumour he himself had started, to the effect that all the stolen jewellery had not been returned. He had listened very carefully and very thoughtfully to all Stokes had been saying, and was still in much doubt. Cy King’s theory was one he had himself considered and had certainly not abandoned. Was it the correct theory, and was Stokes simply trying to forestall an accusation he knew would shortly be made? A cunning move, if it were so, this attempt to create a presumption of innocence by a show of frankness.
“All I can say,” he told Stokes again, “is to repeat that any information we receive is always tested on its merits. And I think if I were in your place I should go at once to see Mr Ulyett—he is back on duty now—and make a full statement, telling the truth and telling all you know.”
“But I don’t know anything,” Stokes protested. “What’s the use of me saying what I think? All I know for certain is what I’ve told you, Mr Owen, and not a thing more. I guessed it was her ladyship was the pipe-line. But I wasn’t sure. I knew Joey was in it, but I didn’t know how much. I don’t mind owning up I got a few quid now and then for a bit of help in an accidental sort of way. Joey would pass the word to meet him, and he would say the boss—he always said the boss—wanted to know about police routine and such like, where they were planning a job. Or it might be helping to rehearse or prospect. Careful they were; everything had to go like clockwork. But never more than that with me, and I never knew their plans, or wanted to. If I knew the time—and I generally didn’t—then I took care to be as far away as I could and be able to prove it. And now Cy King trying to make out I was in the thick of it from the start.”
“I shouldn’t be greatly surprised if he wasn’t right,” Bobby said. “Or are you doing the same thing now? Do you know there’s a fresh job on, and are you trying to establish an alibi? Is that it?”
Stokes hesitated, so much so that Bobby began to wonder if this more or less chance shot of his had hit the mark.
“Mr Owen,” Stokes said at last, and now even more nervously than before, “there’s another thing, but—well, it’s this way. If Cy got to know, I would be for it, if it was the last thing he did. Quick and sure. That’s why I wasn’t having any when the bloke here tried to push me off, telling me to go round where you lived. ‘Get to hell out of here,’ he said, and cost me half a crown to let me stay on.”
“Ah, yes,” Bobby said; “he told me the rest, but forgot the half crown—slipped his memory. Well, get on with it if you’ve anything else to say. I can’t wait here all day, talking to you.”
“Watched I am,” Stokes repeated; “and so’s where you live, and if I was seen near, Cy would know it in an hour, and I would be dead in two.”
“Rubbish,” Bobby said, though by no means with conviction, for he knew his Cy King.
“It’s that young Eddy Heron told me, for he’s to drive the car.”
“What car?” Bobby asked impatiently.
“The car Cy King and Miss Leigh are going in to Colonel Godwinsson’s this morning.”
CHAPTER XXXII
MUMPS
Bobby allowed no sign to escape him of the surprise and even dismay he felt at this statement Stokes had just made. He found himself wondering if he had been entirely mistaken in the view he had taken of Mona’s character and actions, and once again he thought of her story of Putney Bridge and his earlier doubt of its truth. That earlier episode, too, when he thought he had rescued her from Cy King’s brutality. Had that been all a sham, staged to instil into his mind a conviction of her innocence? He remembered how differently she seemed to impress different people. His first idea of her had been of a young, quiet, and gentle girl. Others who knew her better had since described her as ‘knowing what she wanted and meaning to get it.’ Was it possible the ‘it’ had not been merely, or even chiefly, the man she loved, but that she had a darker, more desperate aim? Bobby saw that Stokes was looking at him in a slightly puzzled way, as if wondering why he was silent. Bobby said:
“You mean you think Mona Leigh works in with Cy King?”
“Well, looks like it, doesn’t it?” Stokes asked, apparently slightly surprised by the question. “Pretty plain, I should say. Same as her ladyship pal. Both in it together. If she isn’t, why is she going to Colonel Godwinsson’s place with him?”
“How do you know she is?” Bobby demanded.
“Eddy Heron told me. He heard Cy talking on the ’phone.”
“You can’t believe a word that young scoundrel says,” commented Bobby.
“Well,” Stokes answered, “he says he wants to run straight now and stand in with the cops, after the way they treated him decent and friendly. He says he’s fed up with his pals you can’t trust and it’s different with cops. Know where you are.”
“How does he mean they treated him?” Bobby asked.
“It was when he tried to get sent down so as to be out of trouble’s way, put safe for a while,” Stokes explained. “They upended him and smacked him good and hard, and then they gave him a good feed and a talking to—told him he was too young to have a rec
ord, and if he liked they would find him a job. Hard work and low pay. Only Cy King heard, and got hold of him for fear he knew too much and talked. So now all he wants is to get away from Cy and a chance to get the job he was promised.”
“One way to bring about reformation,” Bobby remarked. “I am sure every modern psychologist would strongly disapprove.”
“He means it,” Stokes said. “I wouldn’t mind myself seeing a kid like that keeping straight. It pays,” and Bobby guessed Stokes was thinking regretfully of that good job he had once held as station sergeant and then thrown away—chiefly on dog-racing tracks. Stokes added: “It’s him asked me to tell you so you could help if you would.”
“Wait here,” Bobby said, and went across to the garage office, where he asked if he might use the telephone.
First he rang up the hotel where Mona had taken a room for the time, and in reply was informed that Miss Leigh was not there. She had just gone out. A car had called for her, and she had left in it. She had not said when she would be back, and no one had noticed either the car or its driver. No reason why any one should notice either the one or the other, declared the thin, distant voice, its tone somewhat resentful. Perfectly ordinary proceeding in every way, wasn’t it? The hotel wasn’t the Gestapo—this last with a distinct suggestion that Bobby was himself trying to emulate that somewhat unpopular institution.
So next Bobby rang up the Yard to explain that some fresh information had just reached him. It might or might not be important, but he thought it seemed worth following up, and he was motoring to Ing Wain, Colonel Godwinsson’s place. Finally he rang up the county police to ask that an experienced man, as senior as possible, should be sent to Ing Wain, as there was a chance of developments there. The request was received without enthusiasm. Bobby was asked what developments, and his reply that he had no idea was again received without enthusiasm. Even when he went on to explain that a man named Cy King was concerned; and that Cy King was certainly dangerous, probably desperate, and possibly intending to meet accomplices, the county people remained unimpressed. They had only dimly heard of Cy King as one of those gangsters who, thanks be, usually confine their activities to the big towns and leave country police districts in peace. And they were quite certain that at Ing Wain Colonel Godwinsson was fully capable of dealing with any number of Cy Kings. Bobby tried to explain there might be more to it than that, but he could not, and indeed dared not, be more explicit. One could not, and one should not bring vague accusations against a man of Colonel Godwinsson’s high and unblemished character without considerably more to go on. What he did say left the county police even less impressed. They remarked that they had work of their own to do. The batch of orders, counter orders, directives and counter directives that had come in this morning had not even yet been sorted out. And they were desperately short-handed. Scotland Yard might be able to spare men for hypothetical trips here or there, but they found it difficult. However they would, of course, do their best to get hold of some one as soon as possible and dispatch him to Ing Wain. In the meantime they would ring up the village constable and warn him to be on the alert. Bobby, grateful for small mercies, thanked them profusely, said how much he appreciated their help, and rang off; not without reflecting that the word ‘appreciate’ has two meanings—to estimate correctly as well as to esteem highly. See the Concise Oxford Dictionary.
Then he went back to his car and the waiting Stokes.
“I think we had better pay a visit to Colonel Godwinsson’s place,” he remarked. “Just to see if anything is happening there. Jump in.”
“Me?” exclaimed Stokes, startled. “I don’t—”
“Jump in,” Bobby repeated, cutting short his protests. “You’re coming, too. Get a move on.”
The dismayed Stokes, in whose programme this visit to Ing Wain had no place, still tried to protest. Bobby, in no mood for half-measures, took him by the scruff of the neck and pushed him into the seat next the driver’s.
“You sit there,” he commanded. “I’m not having you slip out behind when I stop for traffic lights, and I’m not leaving you here to ring up Cy and tell him what I’m doing.”
“I never would,” Stokes protested. Bobby started the car. Stokes wailed: “It’s abduction, that’s what it is. Kidnapping.”
“Shut up,” Bobby snapped and added: “I’m not letting you out of my sight just yet—not till I know more. I don’t trust you in the least. Your story may be true, and it may be faked. It sounds fishy enough, goodness knows. What can Cy King possibly want with a man like Colonel Godwinsson?”
“Maybe,” answered Stokes, “maybe because Colonel Godwinsson is the boss Joey Parsons used to talk about.”
“Rubbish,” said Bobby, but uneasily. “A man in his position.”
“Best cover going,” Stokes retorted. “Look at Lady Geraldine. Never thought of suspecting a tip-top society dame, did you? Not you,” said Stokes viciously. “Run in a bloke like me soon as look at him, but quite different when it’s ladyships and colonels. I know. I’ve been a cop myself.”
“There must be reasonable ground for suspicion,” Bobby answered, though defensively, for there was just a touch of truth in Stokes’s complaint. “People like Colonel Godwinsson, and with a record like his, seldom get mixed up with gangs of criminals. There must be a good case before any action can be taken.”
“Look at the facts,” Stokes retorted. “I’ve seen him myself talking to Joey Parsons, though I didn’t know then who he was. There’s things Joey said I couldn’t make sense of at the time. But now I can put them together. Look at the way his colonelship is all mixed up with her ladyship that’s had hers, and with Miss Mona Leigh, too—Lady Geraldine’s guardian he was, and now the Leigh girl coming to Ing Wain with Cy King. What I say is that very likely Joey Parsons was sort of deputy chief and go-between. But now he’s been outed and there’s got to be some one to take his place, so the colonel has thought of Cy King, and Miss Leigh is taking Cy along to talk it over with him.”
“You’ve got your imagination in good working order,” Bobby remarked, in part amused, in part not amused at all.
“Imagination?” Stokes repeated indignantly. “It’s facts. Facts is what I go on. Facts. There’s that love-nest over the grocer’s. The way it was done up. Shows it was an old ’un. Old ’uns need stimulating. Young ’uns just go to it, and no need for funny work round the walls.”
“Well, I don’t know but that the psychologists mightn’t agree with you there,” Bobby admitted. “Psychology is not an exact science, though, and human nature is very much of a variable.”
He was driving fast; as fast as permitted his respect for the law and for the crowded condition of the roads—especially the latter. They reached the village, and Bobby drew up before the small cottage that served both as official and private residence for the local constable. A woman came to the door and looked disappointed when she saw Bobby.
“I thought it was Dr Lake,” she said.
“Is any one ill?” Bobby asked.
“Mumps,” answered the woman gloomily. “First it was Tommy—that’s our boy. Now it’s Dad; and just rung up to say there’s suspicious characters near the colonel’s and to keep a look out. Which can’t be, when it’s mumps.”
“Have you reported it?” Bobby asked. “I’m a policeman, and I’m on police business.”
“I’ve rung up the skipper,” the woman answered, using the expression often applied by country police to their sergeant. “He’s promised to send a relief as soon as he can, but they’re that short-handed.”
Bobby gave her his official card.
“If a relief turns up,” he said, “tell him to report to me at Ing Wain at once. Ring up your skipper again and tell him I’m here and ask him to get in touch with his chief for instructions. I’m going on to Ing Wain now.”
Leaving a slightly bewildered, more than slightly doubtful woman still examining his card, he drove on. He found the entrance gate at Ing Wain standing wide open.
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“No sign of any car,” Bobby remarked as they drove up the long, curved drive towards the house.
“No,” agreed Stokes, “but there’s Pitcher Barnes.”
Bobby had seen him, too, strolling formidably to and fro, like a sentry on duty, before that clump of rhododendron bushes through which, and then over the orchard wall, Cy King had escaped on a previous occasion.
They had reached the house now. Bobby stopped the car before the front entrance and locked it. Almost at the same moment, with a crash of breaking glass, a man dived through a window on the ground floor and fled as fast as his feet could carry him towards those rhododendron bushes and the waiting Pitcher Barnes. Fast and faster still he ran; and as fast Bobby followed; while from the house, through the broken window, sounded the shrill cry of a woman, lamenting in terror and in grief.
CHAPTER XXXIII
AMONG THE RHODODENDRONS
The distance from the house to that great stretch or clump of rhododendrons was not more than two or three hundred yards, though a little farther from where Bobby had halted his car before the front door than from that shattered window through which the newcomer on the scene had made his sudden and dramatic appearance. He had, too, a good start—a flying start, in fact—and though Bobby ran at his best speed he could see there was small hope of overtaking him. Probably, Bobby told himself as he ran, a car or motor-cycle would be in waiting once more on the road beyond the orchard.
The House of Godwinsson: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 21