From behind there followed him the loud crying of a woman’s voice. By the car Stokes stood hesitating, wanting very much to disappear, but too afraid of Bobby to dare to do so. In front of the rhododendrons Pitcher Barnes stood and gaped as Bobby and the other runner fled towards him. He was directly in the path they were taking. He could see Bobby, and recognized him. Bobby, losing all hope of overtaking the fugitive, slackened speed for an instant to shout to Barnes to stop him. The thin, shrill crying from the house continued and reached him, carried by a strong wind that was blowing. Pitcher, his dull, slow-moving mind urged by Bobby’s command, moved forward.
“What’s up?” he called, and Bobby was near enough to hear him. “What you been doing, Cy King?”
Cy probably misunderstood his gesture, misinterpreted his intention. Pitcher was standing right in Cy’s way. Bobby saw something flash in the sunlight, saw Cy’s arm swing forward, saw Pitcher’s arm go out in ready, trained defence to take the coming blow but too late, saw him go reeling back and then sit slowly on the ground.
“He knifed me,” he said loudly and with surprise. “A pal didn’t ought.”
The momentary scuffle, the slight delay, a loss of timing and footing as Cy delivered his thrust and swerved to avoid Pitcher’s defence, enabled Bobby to draw nearly even. Cy vanished into the tangle of the rhododendrons, running through them half bent so that he was not visible, but alert and fierce, his knife poised ready in his hand for thrust or throw. Bobby made no attempt to follow immediately on his track. Instead he plunged straight through the bushes to the orchard wall, and then paused and turned, facing the rhododendrons, between them and the wall.
“The game’s up, Cy,” he called. “Better come quietly. It’s always easier in the long run. What about it?”
From somewhere among the bushes a voice called:
“Come and get me.”
“Nothing doing,” Bobby answered. “You can’t stop in there for ever, you know, and I’m in no hurry.” He took out a cigarette and lighted it. “I can afford to wait,” he said. “You can’t. Time on my side, as every one used to say in the war.” To this there came no answer. Bobby had not much expected one. He thought how lucky it was that Cy always professed such faith in the knife alone, the silent knife that never missed, and such contempt for the gun, so noisy and so apt to miss. But now there came a flash, a sharp report, and the whine of a bullet passing over his head much too near for comfort. Another followed, again too high. Evidently this time Cy had departed from his usual practice and provided himself with a gun. Bobby—he could always move quickly when he wanted to, and this time he wanted very much indeed—hurled himself into the midst of the nearest bush. Another bullet came whining, searching, but again well overhead. Cy was making the usual mistake of the novice and firing too high. Bobby began to crawl slowly, carefully, cautiously, in the direction whence the shots seemed to come. Fortunately, the strong wind blowing kept the rhododendron bushes in continual motion, so that no unusual or unexpected movement of the foliage should betray him. Cy called:
“Put your hands up. Stand up. Walk off towards the house. You’ll be all right then.”
Bobby made no answer. He had no intention of betraying his position by speaking. Cy called again:
“Mr Owen, you hear me? I don’t want any trouble. I didn’t want any. It was that old geezer started it. All I meant was a friendly talk. See? Then he tried to hold me. I didn’t want, not him at his age. But I had to dot him one to get away. Hear him cursing when I made my get away?”
Bobby took no notice, only crawled with caution a foot or two, a yard or two, nearer. It was not a man’s voice he had heard, but a woman’s, nor had it been raised in cursing, but in terror and in grief. Something other than ‘dotting him one’ had happened. Still more carefully, even more cautiously, every least movement guarded and slow, he extracted his handkerchief. From the nearest bush he cut with his pen-knife a strong twig or branch and trimmed it. He could find no stone where he lay, but he dug out a stiff hard lump of earth he thought would serve as well. Arranging his handkerchief on the end of the trimmed branch he had secured, he let it appear, but only just appear, as far away from where he lay as he could reach, where he thought a gleam of white, as it might be a peering face, would be visible through the drooping rhododendron leaves. Instantly two shots rang out, one, either lucky or well aimed, piercing the centre of the half-exposed handkerchief. Bobby, making his voice loud and shrill, cried out. Cy, his smoking pistol still in hand, ready to fire again, jumped up and ran towards where Bobby crouched. Bobby, half lifting himself, flung the clod of earth he had ready. He flung it with all his force, with desperation, with despair indeed, for he knew on how small a chance his hope of life depended. Almost at the same instant Cy saw him and swung his pistol up to fire. But by the tiniest fraction of a second the clod hit him first, hit him full in the face, and his shot again went wide. The impact of the clod of earth, breaking into fragments as it struck, staggered him for an instant. Bobby, with one great leap clearing the intervening bush, was on him before he could recover, and seized his pistol wrist, twisting it upwards, so that again his next shot, the last in the magazine, went harmlessly astray. Agile as a cat, Cy. Bobby slightly over-balanced from that great leap of his, twisted himself free and dived once more into the shelter of the rhododendron bushes. Bobby was left breathless and disappointed, but at least in possession of the small automatic Cy had used so ineffectively. It was only a point two two, though deadly enough at close quarters. Harmless now that its magazine was empty. Bobby put it in his pocket. He had no idea of letting Cy get possession of it again. Quite possibly Cy had another clip, and Bobby had no wish to serve as target a second time. He called:
“Well, Cy, had enough? Coming quietly now? There’ll be some of our chaps here soon.”
Cy replied by a string of lurid curses, showing himself as he did so behind the barrier of a great belt of rhododendron bushes.
“You come along,” he said. “I’ll get you yet. Why can’t you leave a bloke alone? You come along where I am if you want me so bad.”
“No hurry,” Bobby told him. “You are a good deal handier with that knife of yours than you are with guns. A child with guns.”
“They ain’t no good,” Cy agreed. He had been stooping before, but now he straightened himself, confident that the tangled bush between them gave sufficient protection against any sudden rush or leap Bobby might attempt. “O.K.,” he said. He showed a knife, gleaming thin and deadly in his hand. “Now then,” he said, “you keep away. See? Or you’ll get this little sticker of mine in your ribs, same as Pitcher Barnes, same as that old geezer in the house.”
“You mean you have murdered Colonel Godwinsson?” Bobby asked.
“It wasn’t murder,” Cy protested sullenly. Murder is a word none like. Not even the trained and skilled professional Nazi killer cares to use it. “Not murder,” he repeated. “I had to. Self-defence. The old fool tried to hold me. Said he would hand me over to the cops. I had to out him. Self-defence. It’s him that’s the murderer, it’s him did in those two—poor old Joey and his girl.” He paused, expecting comment. None came. He went on: “Never thought of that, Mr Clever, oh so Clever. Something for you to chew on.”
“What makes you think that?” Bobby asked. “Or do you?”
“Plain enough,” Cy said. “Any one with half an eye could see that much. Hard up for coin, and that’s the way he worked it, with her ladyship to help and Joey to do the dirty work. And then he outed them both to keep the lot for himself.”
“What you would have done, no doubt,” Bobby remarked. “Colonel Godwinsson has quite a good income.”
“A bloke can always do with more,” Cy pronounced with authority.
They were watching each other warily as thus they talked across the sprawling, intervening rhododendron bush. Bobby’s eyes never left Cy’s hand that held the knife. They were alert and watchful for the least sign of movement that hand might make, for well Bobby
knew how swiftly, with what deadly accuracy of aim, Cy could send that weapon of his flashing through the air. And Cy watched Bobby with equal intensity of gaze, for well he knew on his side that if Bobby could once get within arm’s length, then he himself, agile as he might be, would have small chance. Little desire had he to feel the weight of Bobby’s fist, or of Bobby’s grip upon his shoulder. Cy began to move. He could not afford to wait. Help for Bobby might come at any moment. He dared not risk a throw till he was sure. Carefully, never taking his eyes from Bobby, alert for any opportunity to use with clear certainty of aim, his skill in knife-throwing, he began slowly to edge away. As cautiously, as carefully, Bobby followed, alert for any opportunity to rush and close, but well aware that Cy was a thousand times more formidable with his familiar knife than with the automatic pistol he so little understood. There were stories that Cy could at twenty paces hit infallibly every time the exact centre of a playing-card. Bobby took off his coat and wrapped it round his left arm to use as a shield. His intention was to wait till Cy—as he must do, for he could not wait, and there was his only hope of escape—made his rush towards the orchard wall, which he must scale to get away. Towards it, he was slowly sidling his way, always careful to keep bushes between himself and Bobby, as guard and protection against any sudden rush.
He was doing this with a skill and care Bobby could not but admire. It seemed as though he had some uncanny power of perception that enabled him to pick his way without looking, for he never relaxed his watchfulness, never removed his intent gaze from Bobby, and yet managed always to keep the denser growths between them. Once or twice, indeed, he moved away from his objective, the orchard wall, so as to be appreciably farther from it, but always with the effect of finding a clear, protected passage through the bushes that brought him nearer again. His manoeuvres had been so successful that now they were both quite close to the wall—not more than twelve or fifteen feet away—though Cy had managed so well that his own path thereto was fairly clear, while Bobby, though as near in distance, was cut off from it by a dense tangle of bush. That the moment had come was evident; and Bobby, watching as those watch whose life depends on watching, saw Cy’s right hand flash back. In the same instant Bobby dropped, but with his shielded arm held up, ready to take the knife. It did not come. Cy did not mean to throw till he was sure, and at the critical moment his attention had been distracted. He was cursing softly to himself. Bobby heard him mutter:
“Some one there.” And when on this Bobby himself ventured a quick glance towards the house, he saw indeed that there was some one standing at the broken window through which Cy had dived a few moments before.
It was a woman. Bobby could see that much in the one swift look that was all he had dared allow himself, though he had not been able to identify her. She was running towards Stokes, who was still standing by Bobby’s car, unable to decide what to do. Cy seemed to recognize her. He said as if puzzled: “What’s she up to?” Then he said in a last appeal: “Mr Owen, you leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. What do you say?” Bobby said nothing. “I’ve a car waiting. Two minutes start. That’s all I want. And if you try to stop me, Mr Owen, then your number’s up. See? I’ve never thrown a knife yet, but I’ve got my man.”
Again, and now more openly, he moved nearer the orchard wall. Evidently he had made up his mind that he dared wait no longer. Bobby followed, but still cautiously. He knew that last boast of Cy’s was fully justified and he must take it at face value. Edging ever nearer the wall, with that slow, furtive movement of his, sideways and formidable, reminiscent of the panther preparing to spring that Bobby had seen once before, Cy was now quite close to it. Bobby was nearer, too, and the bush dividing them was thinner and narrower. Cy’s hand flew back. Like a leaping silver flame the knife flashed across the space between, and only because Bobby had been so on the alert, watching so carefully with the experienced boxer’s sixth sense of when the blow is coming and of its direction, had he time to leap to one side and avoid it.
The knife flew by, not three inches from his throat. In the instant when Bobby leaped sideways, and so for the moment lost balance to leap forward, Cy hurled himself upon the wall. He had only hoped the thrown knife would end the pursuit, he had been sure it would give him the momentary start he needed; that was, indeed, all he felt he needed. Was not Eddy Heron waiting there in a car, engine running, ready to tread on the accelerator and be off at thirty, forty, fifty miles an hour? One clear minute, that was all he needed. And he had gained it when Bobby had had to swerve to avoid the flying death passing so near.
Now, with all the wild, fierce energy that uttermost need can call from the strange and hidden reserves all men possess, he was already tumbling over the orchard wall, Bobby’s grasping hand just missing his foot. He dropped, tumbled to the ground, and was on his feet again instantly, fleeing through the trees. He had gained perhaps another thirty or forty seconds, and his heart sang within him, for he thought he was safe.
His feet seemed hardly to touch the ground as he sped between the orchard trees straight towards the spot where he knew the wall could be most easily climbed, where a convenient foothold he had arranged, made it possible to reach the top of the wall in two swift movements. He would gain another minute there, he thought, for he knew exactly where to place hand and foot while his pursuer would have to fumble.
Time enough and to spare for him to leap into the waiting car, for Eddy to send it roaring down the road to safety and a sure escape. There was yet another car waiting at an appointed trysting place. To this they would transfer, and so proceed comfortably and calmly to London, while police cars were buzzing ineffectively, helplessly, hither and thither.
So he was safe, he thought, but when that calculated last leap of his brought him triumphantly to the top of the outer wall of the orchard, there was no car waiting there, no sign of it or of Eddy Heron either. Nothing to right or left but the empty road, and as Cy stared incredulously, Bobby’s hand grasped him by one leg and jerked him to the ground.
“Well, that’s that,” Bobby said. “The game’s up this time, Cy,” and Cy made no answer, but lay where he had fallen, glaring up with a kind of vicious, dull despair.
CHAPTER XXXIV
DESERTED HOUSE
Holding Cy King in a grip that was more secure than comfortable, Bobby made his way towards the gate that admitted from the orchard to the Ing Wain grounds and so on to the house. He noticed with relief as they went that Pitcher Barnes was no longer where he had last seen him, seated on the ground and coughing his surprise at receiving such treatment ‘from a pal’. Bobby hoped this meant that Pitcher’s wound had not been serious and that he had been able to seek assistance, possibly in the house.
But the house seemed deserted. Nor was Tim Stokes visible. The front door stood open, but when he rang the bell, hammered on the knocker, shouted at the top of his voice, there was no response. He could hear an odd, intermittent, dull kind of thumping and knocking, but it was difficult to tell from what direction it came or to guess its origin. Bobby, embarrassed by the necessity of keeping secure hold of a prisoner he had reason to know was as slippery as any eel, could not investigate. He shouted, but still got no answer. He dragged his captive across the hall, down a short corridor, and pushed open the door of the library—the room in which, on an earlier occasion, he had talked with Colonel Godwinsson. It was silent and empty. A shattered window, an overturned chair or two, the telephone overthrown and broken as though it had been trodden upon in a struggle—all this was evidence enough that whatever had happened, had happened here. Bobby said:
“It was here you knifed the colonel? Or was it somewhere else?”
“I never did,” Cy protested. “It was all him. He didn’t get no more than a scratch. Let me loose, guv., and I’ll help you look for him. You can trust me.” When Bobby took no notice of this impudent proposal, Cy said: “You’re hurting my arm cruel, twisting it the way you are. You didn’t ought.”
“Why did you want
to kill him?” Bobby asked. “Was there something he knew?”
“There you go again,” Cy complained. “All I came for was a friendly talk. How was I to know he would go off the deep end the way he did? I put it to him straight, friendly like, as it was him done in Joey and Joey’s girl. He said O.K., it was him all right, and would I take a thousand quid to keep mum? I said not for untold gold I wouldn’t. No, I said. I said I would go straight to Mr Owen and help him all I could. Then he went all crazy. Jumped at me, said he would croak me same as he done the other two. Scared I was, proper scared. Him lit up the way he was, my life wasn’t worth a moment’s purchase. Only for to keep him off, I showed him my knife. Self-defence. Blessed if he didn’t run straight on it, same as he meant it. S’elp me God, Mr Owen, that’s gospel truth, that is. He meant it, he wanted it. Clean off his head. So then I reckoned all I could do was to make a get-away fast as I knew how. What would you have done in my place, Mr. Owen?”
“Taken care not to be in it,” Bobby answered.
“There was me, and him with my knife run in him, and you know yourself,” Cy went on, “how cops twist things against a bloke. Believe me or not, I never meant anything like that. But there it was, me innocent as the babe unborn, but appearances looking bad. No sense staying on when what was done was done and couldn’t be helped. So I beat it fast as I knew how, and how was I to know,” he asked reproachfully, “that you were there, ready to run a poor bloke down like—like,” said Cy indignantly, “like a bloody bloodhound?”
The House of Godwinsson: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 22