Fielding came forward. He was only half dressed, pyjamas showing beneath his trouser ends, his bare feet in slippers. He was wearing the same old raincoat, a handkerchief still dangling from one pocket, he had had on when Bobby had seen him at the time of the discovery of Myerson’s body. Apparently he had been in bed and had hastily thrown on the clothing nearest to hand.
“Thank God it’s you,” he said. “I felt I had to see. I believe I was scared but I had to come and see.”
“Why were you scared?” Bobby asked. “What of?”
“Well, they do say murderers return to the scene, don’t they?” Fielding said. “I thought that might be it. I don’t know if it’s true. Is it?”
“I don’t know,” Bobby answered thoughtfully. “It might be. I haven’t come across it myself and I don’t think there is any record of it in police work or in criminology. Just as well to keep it in mind though. It might happen. Or perhaps reading the newspapers does instead. A sort of sublimation of the primitive urge. That’s what the psycho-analysts would say most likely. I don’t know.”
“I was scared, dead scared,” Fielding repeated. “Silly, I suppose. But I had to see. I felt I had to know. Silly, but that’s how it was. It was a big relief when I saw it was you.”
“Instead of Biggs?” Bobby asked.
“For God’s sake,” Mr. Fielding muttered. “Saying things like that. Oh, well, I suppose I’m nervy. If Biggs did it, I suppose he might another. Why not?”
“There is always a danger that if a man has murdered once, he may again,” Bobby agreed. “More especially to make himself safe.”
“I suppose so,” Mr. Fielding said and laughed suddenly and harshly, a discordant sound in that dark stillness. “Safety first, eh?” he said.
“Safety first,” Bobby repeated. “Were you awake?” he asked.
“Hurt my hand,” Fielding explained. “Blister burst. A bit painful. My window overlooks the orchard and I saw lights. I wondered if your men were there, watching. And then I thought it might be the murderer come back. I remembered it’s said they always do. I got the wind up then. Scared. But I had to be sure.” He was talking quickly and a little at random. Bobby could see he was only keeping himself under control by a strong effort of will. He repeated: “I had to come. I couldn’t help.”
“Suppose you had found Biggs here?” Bobby asked.
Fielding did not reply for a moment or two. When he did he seemed to have himself under better control.
“I should have had the scare of my life,” he said. “I don’t suppose I should have stopped running yet. It was a big relief to see it was you.”
“It has been put to us,” Bobby said, “that possibly Biggs can’t be found because he has been murdered, too.”
“Well, you know,” Fielding said confidentially, “that has occurred to me once or twice, but I didn’t like to say anything. Nothing to go on. I believe in the village they are talking like that. The thing is, why should anyone want to murder Biggs? A very steady, reliable man I always thought him. Told myself I was lucky to have him. Plenty of people I know would have been glad to get him. You have to jump at men to-day you wouldn’t have looked at twice before the war. Myerson now. Easy to see what happened there. Clearly he had something to do with that smash and grab raid and what’s happened is the result of some gang feud or another.”
“Are you quite sure about that alibi you gave Biggs?” Bobby asked. “I suppose it isn’t possible someone else could have personated him? By the way, could you give me the name of your friend in Reading you went to see?”
“Well, now, that’s rather awkward,” Mr. Fielding said. “You see I promised I wouldn’t—gave my word. And I like keeping my word. You have to in business. Your word’s your bond and if people know it’s like that, come what may, well, it’s an asset apart from any other consideration. The thing is, the chap’s not out of the wood yet and there’s the devil of a lot of money at stake. If it got about I had been to see him—well, people might get talking and some of ’em might make a good guess. They would guess he had asked me for help and whether he got it or not—no one could tell that or if so on what terms—it would mean he was in difficulties and the whole pack would be on him at once. It might start a minor panic, men ruined, suicides, all that sort of thing. That’s why we arranged to meet in Reading so as to avoid being seen in each other’s offices. No, I’m afraid I can’t tell you the name at present. When the crisis is over, and it very much isn’t over at present, then of course you can have it. Not that I can see how it would help. But I can’t risk it at present. Starting even the smallest panic in the city just now is like putting a match to dry tinder. Lord, it might be the beginning of another depression like the one in the ’thirties.”
“Unfortunate,” Bobby said. “We do like to check everything. People make the oddest mistakes over times and dates, even about the day of the week.”
“Oh, there’s no mistake of that sort,” Mr. Fielding said and laughed. “But I will say one thing, even if it does make me look a bit of a fool. You asked me if I was sure it was Biggs. Well, now, that’s a question. I was sitting in the back of the car and I was very much occupied with calculations I was making and papers I was busy with. After all, there was a lot involved. I know it may sound far fetched but it is possible someone else could have taken Biggs’s place, someone about his size and height and in the same chauffeur’s uniform, and I might never have noticed it. Sounds a bit wild, I suppose?”
“Oh, the truth often does,” Bobby answered. “Did you speak to the chap at all?”
“Well, you see, when Biggs put me down at the office that morning I told him I might have to go to Reading and he was to have the car waiting outside the office at a certain time and I gave him a note of the address in Reading I wanted and how to find it. The car was there all right at the time I said and I got in and we went off—I don’t think I said more than ‘Reading, Biggs’, or something like that, and I don’t suppose I looked at him twice. And coming back it was much the same. I was more than a bit preoccupied still. I don’t suppose I said more than ‘Office, Biggs’, and I daresay I never even looked. Took the chap for granted. You see what I mean?”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Bobby. “Very interesting. It suggests possibilities.”
“It will take a lot,” Fielding said, “to make me believe Biggs was the smash and grab sort—a most decent civil competent man. I suppose there might be something in his past—blackmail, something like that?”
“You never know,” Bobby agreed. He seemed to be rooting about rather aimlessly in the rubble and debris of the now nearly levelled air raid shelter. “You never know,” he repeated and gave a sudden sharp exclamation. “My thumb,” he said and put it into his mouth, a little like a hurt child. He began to feel in his pocket. “Bother,” he said, “I’ve left my handkerchief at home. May I borrow yours?” He put out his hand, took Fielding’s from that somewhat surprised gentleman and began to apply it carefully to his thumb. “I’ll let you have it back,” he promised. “Cost coupons, don’t they? And coupons count.”
“They do,” agreed Fielding. “I’m glad you were here,” he went on. “I had the wind up all right.” He laughed nervously. “Not a very nice idea—the murderer back at the scene of the murder and me meeting him there.”
“Just as well it wasn’t like that,” Bobby said.
“It’s getting chilly,” Fielding said. “I’ll get back to bed now I know it’s all right. What about coming along for a drop of something warm?”
“Thank you, no,” Bobby said. “I must wait here till someone else can take over. The murderer might still return—but not now, I think.”
Fielding said he supposed Mr. Owen had to think of everything and of course duty was always first. He went back to the house and Bobby resumed his solitary watch.
CHAPTER XX
MURDER AGAIN
First light had not yet shown in the east, though one or two lusty challenges had come from the village poultry yards, when a
t last Bobby heard the sounds he had been waiting for and expecting—that of an approaching car. He was cold, stiff, and more than sleepy. With mingled hope and fear, for this might be another car on another errand, he flashed his torch. There came at once an answering signal, and soon he heard steps drawing near.
“That you, Bell?” he called.
“That’s right,” came the prompt reply. “You been having a night out? Your missis rang up to say you had gone off in a hurry and not come back, so she thought you must be on something.” He gave Bobby a reproachful look of which the effect was somewhat spoilt by a simultaneous and colossal yawn. “My best sleep,” he said, “and no proper breakfast.”
An attendant and even sleepier sergeant came up and joined them. Bobby turned back to the half demolished air raid shelter where he had kept his long and tedious vigil. He said:
“Ever hear that murderers always return to the scene of the murder? Think there is anything in it?”
“No such luck,” Bell answered. “Make it too easy if all you had to do was to sit and wait for the bloke to show again.” He stopped to yawn once more. “Why?” he asked.
“Because three have been here to-night,” Bobby answered. “Was one of them the murderer?”
“Three?” Bell repeated. “Makes it difficult—still got to sort the right one out. Did they say anything? What three were they?”
“Miss Rogers and Miss Bellamy—Miss Rogers first and then the other. They went away together. And then Fielding.”
“What did they say? Anything?”
“The Rogers girl was the first. About midnight. She said she couldn’t sleep and she got up and came out. Then she heard Miss Bellamy playing and so she came here and she seemed to think it was the music sent her.”
“That woman’s playing,” said Bell thoughtfully, “can account for a lot. Why was she playing? At that time of night. What about her?”
“She says she heard Miss Rogers go by and so she went to see and followed her here.”
Bell grunted, looking both puzzled and unsatisfied. “Fielding?” he asked. “What about him?”
“He saw lights and wondered what was happening. I had been using my torch. It was Fielding who began talking about that idea of the return of the murderer. He thought it might be Biggs here and he was getting ready to run if it was. So was Miss Rogers.”
“So was Miss Rogers what?”
“Scared it might be Biggs coming when she heard me—badly scared.”
“Thinks he is the murderer, does she? Or does she know?”
“It’s not that,” Bobby explained. “She seems to believe he has been murdered himself.”
“Well, then, he couldn’t very well be coming back, could he?” retorted Bell. Bobby did not answer this, for he remembered those strange fears he himself had known for a moment or two as he waited there alone in the night. Bell said: “If it’s that way, where’s the body?”
“There’s that,” agreed Bobby. “How about asking your sergeant to go back to my place and have a look in the tool shed at the back of the house? It’s not locked. There’s a spade inside and if he’ll bring it along, we might have a try.”
Bell looked thoughtfully at Bobby and still more thoughtfully at the air raid shelter site. Then he nodded to the sergeant who had been listening intently to all this. The sergeant went off on his errand and Bell stifled another yawn.
“I suppose you may be on something,” he said, “but why had it got to be in the middle of the night? It’s always the way,” he added resignedly.
The sergeant came back with the spade. They set to work. At times it was easier to remove the fallen bricks with their hands rather than with the spade. After a time indeed they put the spade aside and used their hands alone, lifting each brick separately and the dust and rubble in handfuls. It was not long before they had uncovered the body of a man in chauffeur’s uniform. The head was badly injured but there was no doubt of the dead man’s identity.
“Biggs,” the sergeant said, the first to pronounce the name. “That is why we couldn’t find him.”
“Now we have two murders on our hands,” Bell said gloomily and then he looked more cheerful. “Got to look on the bright side of things,” he said. “Two may be easier than one.”
“If it was Myerson did in this chap,” remarked the sergeant, “there is still who did in Myerson.”
Bell sent him off to ring up their headquarters to ask for help to be sent and for a doctor.
“The doctor had better see the body before we touch it,” he remarked. “Looks to me as if the poor devil had been put out by a blow on the head—a brick probably. Lots about.”
The light was growing stronger now, but within the air raid shelter, that had been turned into a grave, the night still lingered, dark and heavy. Bobby, using his torch, said:
“Might have been done after death. When the murderer was shoving in the bricks and rubble. There’s what looks like a bullet wound just over the heart. You can see where it entered. I should say Biggs was most likely standing there when he was shot. Myerson, too. We’ve not been able to find any bloodstains or any sign of struggle anywhere else. It would be easy to think up some excuse to get your intended victim to stand where you want him, inside the shelter. Then when he falls, it’s in a ready made grave.”
“Cold blooded,” Bell said with distaste.
“Murder often is,” Bobby remarked. “And generally impossible to hide a dead body. Awkward things to dispose of, dead bodies. A perennial difficulty in murder. A half demolished air raid shelter must have looked like the perfect answer. Takes time to dig a grave and digging can’t be done without leaving plain traces. But here all that was necessary was to push down walls already half down, shovel in a bit more of the bricks and rubble, and that was that. Unsuspecting workmen would finish the job for you, and nothing to make even the nosiest cop look twice. Then the surface would be turfed over and everything as snug as you like.”
“What about Myerson?” Bell asked. “It wasn’t that way with him.”
“Not even the luckiest murderer could expect a ready made grave every time,” Bobby said. “But it all worked in. Myerson’s body there and no Biggs to be found. The conclusion obvious. No reason for cops to go looking for a dead Biggs when they were all busy trying to find a live Biggs on the run. There’s a description out for him already, isn’t there? The perfect red herring to follow up the perfect answer to how to dispose of the body. Our murderer is damnably lucky—or damnably clever.”
“Damnably is the right word either way,” Bell said. “I suppose you’ve made up your mind same as me?” Bobby nodded for answer. Bell said: “Well, how are we going to prove it?”
“Don’t know,” said Bobby. “That’s your job, not mine. I’m not in the picture.”
“That’s a nice, helpful thing to say,” complained Bell. “You’ve got to work out a theory to cover the whole thing,” Bobby told him. “Now and then I do seem to get a glimpse of what it’s all about—a hint of the underlying pattern, so to say. I haven’t been able to work it out properly but I’ll have another go. There’s the dickens of a lot to get in though if all the bits are to fit and if they don’t—well, it never takes defending counsel long to spot the loose ends, even if you manage to get them past the public prosecutor’s office. Which isn’t likely.”
“What those blokes want,” said Bell bitterly, “is a signed and sworn affidavit by at least three independent eye-witnesses of the crime. And then they would probably grumble that there was no proof their eyesight was perfect. There’s nothing,” said Bell with great firmness, “you can tell me about that lot.”
“And nothing,” agreed Bobby wholeheartedly, “you can tell me,” and for a moment they both forgot all else in memories of a bitter past. “Oh, well,” Bobby said, trying to be tolerant, “you have to think of them as a part of experience—like toothache and the morning after.”
“Motive!” Bell reflected, “that’s going to be the big snag. They tell yo
u you have only to prove the fact and motive doesn’t matter. But that isn’t the way the jury looks at it.”
“If we can work out a reasonable scheme of things,” Bobby said slowly, “then the motive will show itself soon enough. At the moment there are too many unresolved complications. If it’s true Biggs was visiting Miss Bellamy late at night, and at the same time promising Miss Rogers marriage, jealousy comes in at once. And jealousy can do anything with a woman.”
“Or a man,” interposed Bell.
“You mean Fielding?”
“If it’s right he wants to marry Miss Bellamy.”
“That means three suspects under the jealousy motive,” Bobby said. “We’ve got to remember both the women are strange, passionate types. And one of them has a history of killing behind her. I don t think it has left her quite normal in all respects.”
“If you’ve killed once, you may again,” Bell agreed.
“Miss Bellamy, too,” Bobby went on. “Is she quite the ordinary, normal woman you see standing in a queue?”
“No woman is,” Bell answered with conviction. He added with even greater conviction. “Her playing isn’t, anyway.”
“Then there’s Miss Rogers’s brother,” Bobby continued. “I there’s any truth in all that about the fight between him and Biggs, was it because he resented Biggs’s connection with his sister? Jealousy of another sort. Might be strong enough. You never know. Defending a sister’s honour. That sort of thing. Old-fashioned it may be but strong enough still—especially after being turned round and well kicked, if that’s what happened to our George. That makes four under the jealousy heading. I don’t like it.”
“Conscientious objector, too,” Bell remarked. “A prickly lot. You never know where you are with conscientious objectors. They can kid themselves anything’s right that suits them. The salt of the earth and ought to be taken as such.”
“Prickly,” agreed Bobby, “especially no doubt after the kick incident if it ever happened, as I think it did on the strength of that pillow Rogers seemed to find it more comfy to sit on. He may have felt bad about being kicked where it ought to have done most good but probably didn’t. And he had access to a pistol, remember. He may have taken it with him another time as a safeguard against more kicks—and used it.”
Music Tells All: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 15