Music Tells All: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Yes, but,” said Bell earnestly, “we mustn’t let ourselves be prejudiced against conscientious objectors.”

  “I’m not,” protested Bobby indignantly. “I take them as I find them.”

  “That’s what I mean,” said Bell.

  “Then there’s Cann, Fielding’s old chauffeur,” Bobby went on. “We know he’s been telling lies. Doesn’t prove he is the murderer but you have to take it into account, and both he and his aunt were very keen on trying to put up an alibi for midnight —the time when Myerson was killed. He had worked at Middles so he would know all about the air raid shelter and its possibilities in the way of a ready made grave, and he may have quarrelled with Biggs over losing his job with Fielding.”

  “Doesn’t seem much in that,” Bell objected. “Anyone can get any job anywhere to-day.”

  “All the same, why did he start telling lies and why were he and his aunt so keen on the alibi for midnight?”

  “Don’t forget that nice smell from their kitchen,” Bell remarked.

  “Well, there’s that,” Bobby admitted. “But there’s also the village idea that the supposed fight was between him and Biggs and there’s the fact that he has turned up again just now left for no apparent reason and returned for the same. No good pulling anyone in with defending counsel able to show that others had equally strong or stronger motives—and equal opportunity. Fielding is clearly a centre of it all, but passive or active? Conscious or unconscious? And where does the smash and grab business come in? And was our letter asking about Fern Cottage picked out by chance or design?”

  “Well, of course, a lot hangs on that,” Bell admitted.

  CHAPTER XXI

  ON SPECIAL LEAVE

  Bobby went back home and to bed, once more deeply thankful that he was not in charge, and could now rest a little. For on Superintendent Bell lay the responsibility for seeing that the general routine of such an investigation was being properly carried out. But first he rang up the Yard to explain his absence, to promise that he would be there to give his lecture, arranged for three that afternoon, to the members of the Double X division C.I.D., and to ask further that any other matters needing attention should be handled by his secretary.

  “I must have a bit of a snooze,” he explained over the ’phone, “or I might drop off in the middle of talking.”

  “Yes, I see,” agreed a thoughtful voice at the other end of the line. “Good idea. It wouldn’t look well if your talk sent the lecturer to sleep as well as most of his hearers,” and therewith hung up before Bobby had time to get in a single one of the many brilliant and devastating retorts which occurred to him as he was preparing for bed. Once there, after giving Olive strict instructions not to let him lie one moment longer than two o’clock, he was instantly asleep.

  When he woke it was half-past four. One glance at his watch and he was out of bed with a leap that shook the house. Olive heard him. She called from below:

  “The water’s hot if you want a bath.”

  “Bath?” Bobby panted as he began feverishly to dress. “Bath? Do you know what the time is? I told you not a minute later than two.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Olive answered calmly. “I rang up to cancel the lecture.”

  “You did what?” Bobby wailed as he paused in his search for a wandering stud. “My name will be mud with the Double X people for ever more.”

  “Oh, no,” Olive explained, “you’ve five days special leave from this morning. Mr. Bell got his chief to ring up the Yard and say about you helping and it’s such a difficult case. Mr. Bell said it would be all right because his chief and the Yard gang—”

  “Yard what?” interrupted Bobby wildly, thinking he could not have heard aright. “Yard what?”

  “Gang,” repeated Olive. “Mr. Bell says they all went to the same school or nearly, so they all ‘old boy’ each other and that makes everything all right. All the same I think they were a bit stuffy about it.”

  “So I should think,” grumbled Bobby, who was not altogether used to having things arranged for him like this.

  “You see,” Olive explained, “if you were just an inspector or someone like that they could lend you and make a good fat charge—‘pay and expenses for the period required’,” quoted Olive, who had not read official forms for nothing. “But now you’re whatever you are, and goodness only knows what that is. I don’t.”

  “Not being goodness, I suppose,” interposed Bobby, but Olive ignored the rude interruption, and went on:

  “Whatever it is, it’s too important for you to be on loan, so all they can do is to give you extra leave and you can do what you like with it—in theory.”

  “In theory,” echoed Bobby wistfully.

  “Mr. Bell’s awfully tickled about it,” Olive added. “I mean about getting you free, gratis, and for nothing. I saw him smile,” she said in a slightly awed voice.

  Bobby grumbled that he didn’t see why things should be settled over his head and how would Olive like it if he settled about dinner for her? Olive said yearningly that she only wished he would and when would he like to begin? So Bobby broke off the conversation and went to get his bath, secretly grateful for the chance and for being able to dress and shave in comfort. He discovered, too, that he was extremely hungry, and even if there wasn’t much for a combined breakfast, lunch, and tea—he was able to check with some sternness Olive’s surreptitious attempt to give him her share of the bacon ration in the very natural expectation that he wouldn’t notice the almost negligible addition—at any rate, there was something. He had scarcely finished, if you can call it finished when it was so little begun, when there was a knock at the front door. Olive answered it and came back to tell him that Mr. Fielding was there and wanted to know if he could see Bobby. He promised he would not detain Bobby long.

  “The whole village is most awfully excited, and it’s buzzing with newspaper men,” Olive said, “but Mr. Fielding went to town early and only heard about it when he got back. He’s in the lounge.”

  Bobby went to find him there. Fielding was standing by the window and seemed pale and excited—not unnaturally so, perhaps.

  “This is terrible, Mr. Owen,” he greeted Bobby. “Most terrible. Poor Biggs. I must admit I suspected him. And now—”

  Mr. Fielding paused and shook his head gravely. “I don’t like to remember,” he said, “that I had such thoughts when now it turns out the poor fellow was himself a victim. Have you any clue, any hope?”

  “Oh, yes,” Bobby answered at once, “I believe Superintendent Bell hopes to make an arrest very soon,” and thought to himself that after all it is always permissible to hope.

  “That’s good hearing,” Fielding said warmly. “You do understand don’t you? that what with it happening on my land and one of the victims being my own chauffeur, a most respectable decent hard-working man—well, that I do feel rather strongly. If offering a substantial reward—really substantial, I mean, if you think that would help … ?”

  “I don’t think so,” Bobby answered. “We don’t find rewards very helpful as a rule. It’s apt to encourage irresponsible interference—even the manufacture of false clues at times. No, I think we would rather you didn’t do that at present. But I’ll convey your offer to headquarters and it will be kept in mind.”

  “Well, any time you say so,” Mr. Fielding said. “I suppose,” he added with some hesitation, “it’s not allowed to ask any questions?”

  “Questions are always allowed,” Bobby assured him. “But not always answered.”

  “I know, I know, quite right,” Mr. Fielding agreed. “Same thing when you’re putting through a business deal. Poor chap. Poor chap. A great shock to me. I do hope it doesn’t mean Biggs was mixed up in that smash and grab business. Such a thoroughly quiet, respectable man he always seemed. There’s that opal ring, too. Oh, well, I expect with your experience and reputation you’ll soon get to the bottom of it. I don’t feel I shall sleep easy in my bed till I know it’s all cleared u
p. You’ll excuse me talking like this? It’s all been such a terrible shock. It was in the evening paper. I saw it just as I was starting home. Then, of course, I knew why you were there last night.”

  “Yes,” said Bobby, a non-committal remark.

  “I met George Rogers just outside the village,” Fielding went on. “I asked him if it was true. Of course I knew it was but I simply couldn’t believe it. Not Biggs, not my own chauffeur. Rogers wanted to know if I had seen his sister.”

  “Oh, why?” Bobby asked, a little startled. “Has she gone away?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say so. He seemed worried about her.

  I gathered some of your people had been asking her questions. She was there last night, too, wasn’t she?”

  Bobby did not answer this question, for he had a strong suspicion that Fielding had been there unseen for some time, watching and listening perhaps. Voices, even low voices, carry far in the silence of the night. But he wondered if Bell knew of this new development. If not, he ought to be informed at once. It might mean no more than that the girl wished to be alone for a time, till she had got over the first shock of the certainty of her lover’s death. Or it might mean a good deal more. There were other possible explanations, too, explanations on which Bobby did not care to let his mind dwell before necessity arose. Fielding still seemed inclined to linger, but Bobby explained that he must start out again, and Fielding said he supposed this fresh tragic discovery would mean a great deal more work and worry. Bobby agreed and Fielding, as he was going, turned back to say that it seemed almost providential, didn’t it?

  “I mean,” he explained when Bobby looked puzzled, “the mere chance of my happening to pick out your letter from all the pile I had about Fern Cottage. It meant your being on the spot when all these terrible things began to happen. Providential,” he repeated.

  “I’m not in charge,” Bobby reminded him. “Mr. Bell is the responsible officer.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Fielding agreed, “but you were on the spot.” At the front door, he said: “When I sent off that advertisement, when by pure chance I picked out your letter, I little dreamed—my God,” he said with a sudden violent surprising outbreak of feeling, “how little I dreamed.” He paused abruptly and began to walk away but once more turned before Bobby closed the door and said: “Could Miss Rogers be with Miss Bellamy, do you think? Or have you people been asking her questions, too?”

  “I don’t know,” Bobby answered. “I’ve been asleep most of the day. I’ve no idea what. Mr. Bell has been doing. Why?”

  “I’ve just been to her cottage,” Fielding answered. “I couldn’t get any reply. I thought Miss Rogers might be there. I couldn’t make anyone hear.”

  “Most likely she was out,” Bobby said. “Or asleep,” he suggested.

  “Yes,” Fielding said. “Yes. She wasn’t playing,” he said and went away.

  Bobby waited till he was out of sight. Then he followed, intending to find Bell and ask him if he knew of Miss Rogers’s reported disappearance. As he was passing Miss Bellamy’s cottage the door opened and Miss Bellamy came out. She came to the garden gate and at first did not speak or seem to notice him, indifferent to or unregardful of her surroundings as she so often appeared to be. But Bobby at least often thought that she was also at the same time, in some strange way of her own, acutely aware of them. Perhaps with another and more remote part of her deeper self. Bobby lifted his hat and spoke a word or two of greeting as he passed. He had gone two or three yards before she called him back, saying:

  “George Rogers was here, asking about his sister. Do you know where she is?”

  “I’ve been asleep all day till now,” Bobby said. “I don’t know anything about what’s been going on.”

  “Have you told her Biggs was sometimes here late at night?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Does that mean you did tell her?”

  “It means that in a case like this, police ask questions but do not answer them. Why did you ask that question?” When she still made no answer, he said: “Was it in your mind that if she heard any such story, it might have led to a quarrel? And did you think that quarrels sometimes have tragic endings?”

  Again she was silent, again she seemed to have sunk into that part of herself which appeared at once so remote from, and yet so aware of, her environment. He waited, and he had an odd feeling that he was matching the force of his personality against that of hers. At last she spoke, but all she said was:

  “If you will not answer my questions, why should I answer yours?”

  “Because I am an officer of the law,” Bobby answered. “Because it is my duty to ask and yours to answer.”

  “The law,” she repeated, very quietly, but with a small gesture of one half lifted hand that seemed to sweep the law out of recognition. To Bobby came the thought that it was because of the force, even violence, of her personality that she felt in herself the strength to choose for herself, to follow her own path, and he had the thought also that this would lead to disaster, since there are none so strong as that, nor can be.

  “Except for the law,” he said, “what can there be but chaos and old night?”

  But she was still staring at him in the same way, and he knew that his words meant nothing to her, that they passed her by as though he had not spoken.

  “A foolish, man-made thing, your law,” she said at last. “That’s all. What is it to me?”

  “You may find—much,” he told her, but felt the utter futility of attempting to persuade her. He said: “Mr. Fielding was here a few minutes ago. He knocked, I think.”

  “I know, I heard him,” she said. “I think I did. I knew it was him.” And Bobby did not know whether it was fancy or not, but it did seem to him that as she spoke there came into her expression something more normal, more human even. He wondered if it was a gleam of tenderness? Or pity, was it? Or something stronger still? He did not know and now she was saying: “I meant to play to him if he had waited but he didn’t.”

  Abruptly she turned and went back indoors and Bobby continued on his way.

  CHAPTER XXII

  RHODA’S DENIAL

  Superintendent Bell had established his headquarters in the cottage that served both as the residence of the village policeman and also as the local police station. He looked up as Bobby entered and said amiably:

  “Hullo, had a nice sleep? I’ve been working.”

  “Well, you must expect to do some work sometimes,” Bobby pointed out. “How are things going?”

  “Badly,” declared Bell, not without a certain relish in despondency. “Dead end—several dead ends, all of them as dead as each other.”

  “Oh, well, early days yet,” Bobby said encouragingly.

  “You may think you know,” said Bell, still more despondently. “But what’s the good of that if you’ve no proof?”

  “It’s often that way,” Bobby consoled him.

  “Besides,” added Bell, apparently now on the verge of tears, “what’s the good of knowing when all the time you know you may be knowing wrong?”

  “Have to think that one out,” Bobby remarked reflectively. “You know very well what I mean,” snapped Bell. “Things keep turning up,” he complained. “Look at this.”

  Bobby looked at it. It was a piece of paper carefully preserved between glass. There was writing on it, still fairly legible, though the paper was badly crumpled, torn, and stained. It read: “Meet me at the shelter at twelve to-night. George is being difficult. He suspects, he is threatening what he will do. R.R.”

  “‘R.R.,” repeated Bobby. “That means Rhoda Rogers, I suppose. Where did you find it?”

  “It was in the poor devil’s pocket—the breast pocket of his coat,” Bell answered. “What do you make of it?”

  “No date,” commented Bobby.

  “No,” agreed Bell, “but needs a bit of explanation. If they met there one night, they might another—that night. The young lady will have to be ask
ed a few more questions.”

  “I saw Fielding just now,” Bobby said. “He says he met her brother looking for her. Has she cleared out?”

  “No, that’s the brother,” Bell answered. “I put a man to keep an eye on the bungalow. There was no answer when we knocked but I’ve just had word that the girl’s back. The brother isn’t. Where did Fielding meet him?”

  “Somewhere on the London road. Going London way. Cycling. He asked Fielding if he had seen his sister. Fielding hadn’t.”

  “I hope Rogers isn’t doing a bunk,” Bell said. “I don’t much like all that about suspects and threatenings.”

  “No,” agreed Bobby thoughtfully. “No.” He said: “You never know in a job like this how things are going to turn out.”

  “The pistol Biggs was shot with was lying under the body,” Bell went on. “The doctor says the time of death was approximately the same as Myerson’s. Did he shoot Biggs and then some third person shoot him? Nothing to identify the pistol by. One of those Belgian automatics they used a lot during the war. We can try to trace it but not much chance. The only pistol we can hear of is the one Miss Rogers had and says she hadn’t. There’s the ammo, we found in Biggs’s room. It would fit the pistol Myerson was shot with but then so it would any other pistol the same make and calibre. And how much farther forward does all that take us?”

  “Not too good,” agreed Bobby. “What about this five days’ leave someone has had the cheek and impudence to wrangle over my head?”

  “Aren’t you the world’s white-headed boy?” asked Bell enviously. “Five days’ leave and nothing to do but sit around and think up what might have happened if it was that way, while poor devils like me swot around and do the real, hard backbreaking stuff. How about coming along and seeing what Miss Rogers has to say for herself?”