The Dark Garden: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Because we saw it.”

  “But why did you think it was a grave?”

  “Because it looked like one.”

  “I see,” said Bobby, baffled by replies at once so simple, so straightforward, and so unenlightening. “Well, I wish you would tell me exactly what it did look like.”

  Ursula pondered this question for a moment or two. Then she said:

  “Like a grave.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Bobby, just a trifle wildly. “Yes. Exactly. Well, you might tell me all about it?”

  “But I have,” Ursula protested.

  “Was there,” asked Bobby, trying to jolt her into greater clarity, “anyone in it?”

  “Oh, no,” said Ursula, and added: “Not yet,” and somehow those last two words did more to startle and impress Bobby than anything said before.

  He made one more effort.

  He said:

  “Don’t you think it may have been merely a hole someone had been digging to bury rubbish?”

  “It wouldn’t have looked like a grave then,” said Ursula simply. Then, apparently beginning to feel the need of further explanation, she added: “Between the pigsty and the hedge, and it’s only by the merest chance we happened to see it.” She paused, looked confused, explained hesitatingly. “Roy asked me to wait while he went away a minute or two, and, of course, he does sometimes when we are out, and he did, and I waited, and then he called out to me to come, and he sounded funny, and I did, and he showed me and he said: What does that look like? And I knew at once what he meant because it did. Have you ever seen a grave?”

  “Yes,” Bobby answered.

  “Long and narrow and deep,” Ursula said, “and so was this, and there was a spade, and the spade was marked ‘Roman Ends Farm,’ and that’s where Mr Osman Ford lives, and why is he digging graves in that little old cottage garden, between the pigsty and the hedge, where no one ever looks?”

  Bobby had no reply to make to that question. He sat, silent and uneasy, deep in thought. Some development he had certainly expected, but not this.

  “Roy said not to tell anyone,” Ursula burst out. “He said most likely it was nothing at all, and anyhow we were mixed up in it quite enough as it was. Only I think perhaps he means to go there by himself to-night just to see, only he wanted me kept away. Only if he goes all by himself like that, without telling anyone, then—then perhaps the grave will be for him,” and as she said this her voice sank to a barely audible whisper.

  “Oh, not it, even if it is a grave, which isn’t a bit likely,” declared Bobby, with a bright and cheerful confidence he was far from feeling. “Why should it be?”

  “Because Osman Ford knows we saw him, and if anything happened to Roy, then he couldn’t say so any more, could he? Roy says that’s silly, but it isn’t a bit. Osman Ford knows we were there, and he’s only waiting till we go back, because he thinks we are sure to. And we did, too, and now Roy means to again to-night, I know he does, and please, you must see nothing happens to him.”

  “We’ll take care of him,” Bobby promised. “We’ll try to find out what it’s all about, and who has been digging holes there, and what for, and I’ll send one of our men along to warn Mr Green to keep away.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  “Can’t warn Roy to keep away. That’s why I came to tell you. Roy had a telegram to go to meet his father in London, and I expect it’s about us, and they are going to motor back, and I daresay if they do Roy won’t go home at all but straight on to the old cottage to see if anything happens, because I just know he means to.”

  “Awkward his going off like that,” agreed Bobby. “Making things difficult, I call it. But don’t you worry. The resources of civilization are not exhausted nor even those of the Wychshire county police. We’ll catch him all right before he has any chance to get into mischief, and we’ll find out who has been digging holes behind this pigsty of yours and what’s the big idea.”

  He spoke more cheerfully and light-heartedly than he felt; but at any rate he succeeded in sending away the girl greatly comforted, and with, in addition, many assurances that she had acted very sensibly in coming to him to tell her story.

  All the same Bobby was a good deal more worried than he had chosen to appear. The story puzzled him, alarmed him. Very likely it meant nothing. Someone employed about the farm had, for some perfectly natural and sensible reason, dug this hole between the pigsty and the hedge in the old abandoned garden, and little Ursula Harris’s romantic imagination had done the rest.

  But though Bobby thus tried to reassure himself as he had reassured the girl, he did not succeed very well, and in spite of all the work on his desk he would have either to neglect or entrust to someone else with a consequent loss of touch, he made up his mind to pay a visit that evening to Rose Briar Cottage. For he could not get it out of his mind that this tale of mysterious digging was in some way connected with Anne Earle.

  “Odd’s on she’s up to something,” he told himself moodily, “something she thinks will put us on the right lines—or off them perhaps,” and he reflected that whichever alternative was true, or even if neither was true, it was advisable to make sure as quickly as possible.

  The long summer’s day was drawing to its close, however, before he was able to make a start, and as it happened, just as he was leaving, there came through a preliminary warning of a possible air raid—the first of many that Midwych was to receive in the coming days. He had to wait a little to make sure everything was in readiness; learned from the competent authority that there was no likelihood of any immediate development, though one or two enemy reconnaissance planes were in the neighbourhood, flying very high and probably taking photographs; issued orders that the black-out regulations were to be enforced with extra care; and so at last was able to get away.

  Half a mile or so from his destination he was surprised to overtake Sergeant Wright, cycling in the same direction. He stopped the car and called to him, and Wright alighted and explained that Clayton, the man to whom had been entrusted the task of watching Dwight, had ’phoned in to say that he had been given the slip.

  “Whereabouts?” Bobby asked.

  “In town,” Wright answered. “Dwight went in a pub, the White Lion, at the corner of Bliss Street and Barsley Road. It has doors in each street and what’s more, there’s an old skittle alley at the back with big windows it would be quite easy to drop out of. Clayton’s a good man, sir,” Wright added, a little anxiously, for failure is failure, even when success has been impossible, and sometimes superior officers do not choose to recognize that last fact.

  “I know,” Bobby said. “Tell him not to worry. It’s easy enough to throw off a tail, especially if the chap has been tipped off beforehand. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if that hadn’t happened. Just the sort of thing the Anne Earle girl would do—give Dwight a hint, I mean.”

  “She’s capable of it,” Wright agreed. “Capable of anything if you ask me. There’s a way she has of looking at you as if you were on one side of a barrier and she on the other—and your side was the human side and hers was different.” Then he said: “I told Clayton to try to pick Dwight up where he lives and I would come on here to see if he were hanging round Rose Briar Cottage. I thought that was the best way to get in touch with him again.”

  “I expect so,” agreed Bobby, “but I think we’ll lay off Dwight for the moment. Ursula Harris has come in with a queer tale about that unoccupied cottage near Ends Bridge. There may be nothing in it, but I want you to go along there and keep an eye open. I’ll push on to Rose Briar Cottage. I want a talk with Miss Earle if I can find her and I’ll keep a lookout for Dwight as well. You might stay around the Ends Bridge cottage till I can arrange for a relief. It may be an all night job. Had your supper yet?”

  “Well, no, sir,” Wright answered.

  “Better not take the time to go home,” Bobby said. “I have a feeling something may break to-night. Ring up Central, and te
ll them to let your wife know you may be late and get yourself something to eat at any pub you can find. I don’t expect anything to happen till it’s dark, so you have time, but get along as soon as you can. Try to keep out of sight. If there is going to be any dirty work we had better not risk giving warning till we’ve some idea what it’s all about. We may get a lead to Anderson’s murderer. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.”

  Wright saluted and returned to his cycle. Bobby drove on and arrived soon at Rose Briar Cottage, where he found Mrs Jordan wandering up and down the garden path, between the garden gate and the cottage door. When she saw Bobby’s car approaching she came out into the road, and as he alighted she said to him:

  “Is anything wrong? Have you seen Anne?”

  “Why should there be anything wrong?” he asked. “What makes you ask?”

  “I’m uneasy, that’s all,” she answered, and with a flash of her old spirit: “There’s always something wrong when cops come snooping.” Then she asked again: “Have you seen Anne?”

  “No. I came along in the hope of getting a word with her,” Bobby answered, his own feeling of uneasiness increasing as he noticed how uneasy Mrs Jordan seemed. “Do you mean she hasn’t returned from the office?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes. She was back at the usual time. She had her supper. She went out again. I didn’t know. She went out without a word to me.”

  “Haven’t you any idea where she went?”

  Mrs Jordan shook her head. She stood there, gross and vulgar and pathetic. Even beneath its make-up her face showed pale, and there was terror in her eyes as she said:

  “I’m afraid.”

  “What of?” Bobby asked, and got no answer, nor expected one, for he, too, was afraid, and he, too, could have given no answer had he been asked why.

  He stood hesitating, unable to decide whether to wait there on the chance of Anne’s returning, or to try to find her, for he had an uncomfortable suspicion that her destination was that unoccupied cottage, where, between the pigsty and the hedge, Ursula had seen what she had taken for an open grave.

  Mrs Jordan said, breaking in upon his thoughts:

  “She left a letter for you on the mantelpiece, but I’m only to give it you in the morning if she hasn’t got back.”

  “I think I had better have it now,” Bobby said.

  “Anne’s written right across, not till the morning,” Mrs Jordan objected, evidently torn between an instinct to obey Anne’s injunction, that showed the strong influence and control exerted on her by the girl’s powerful personality, and her own unexpressed and yet vividly felt apprehensions.

  “She may be in danger. I think I had better see it,” Bobby said. “On the mantelpiece, is it? In the sitting-room?”

  The cottage door was still open as Mrs Jordan had left it. Bobby entered and went into the sitting-room. Mrs Jordan followed. She did not speak. She seemed relieved or at least acquiescent. The letter was there and Bobby picked it up. It was superscribed: “Give this to Mr Owen if I’m not back by morning.” Bobby tore open the envelope. The letter within was brief. It ran:

  Dear Mr Owen:

  I know the murderer. Osman Ford. He was seen near by just before, and it was the only way he could get hold of his wife’s money he wanted to use for himself. I have made a plan to get a confession from him, and I am going to try, but perhaps he will murder me, too, instead. I shan’t mind, because then you can have him hanged for that, even if you can’t get the proof that he did the other.

  Anne Earle.

  “What does she say?” Mrs Jordan asked.

  Bobby handed her the letter and she read it; and as she read it, so Bobby could almost see how horror and fear and dismay rose about her and enveloped her as it were in an aura of themselves that made itself felt like an actual presence.

  He tried to take the letter back, but she held it, though unconsciously, in a grip of paralysed terror, as if she lacked the power to release it.

  “She means she is going to risk being murdered herself so as to make sure Anderson’s murderer doesn’t escape,” Bobby muttered.

  “If it were only that,” Mrs Jordan said hoarsely. “But Osman Ford’s her father.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE DARK GARDEN

  IT WAS AN unexpected revelation. For just a moment Bobby even wondered if it were true. A glance at Mrs Jordan told him that at least she believed it, so plainly did mingled fear and dismay and horror show in her pallid looks.

  “Her father,” she stammered again, and then in a voice barely audible: “I never meant to tell—you or anyone.”

  “Are you sure?” Bobby asked, rather needlessly, but his mind was busy, trying to grasp this new fact and all that it implied and meant.

  Mrs Jordan did not answer the question. She was still deep in the terror of her own thoughts, so deep that she was hardly conscious that he had spoken at all. In the same sort of whisper, as if to herself, she said:

  “I never thought that was in her mind. How could I?” Suddenly remembering Bobby’s presence, she looked up at him, one trembling hand uplifted as in unconscious appeal, and slowly she asked: “You see, he is her father, so what are we to do?”

  “Does Osman Ford know?” Bobby asked.

  “No one knew but me,” Mrs Jordan answered. “You see, I never thought of anything like this. Is she right? I mean, is it true? Is it Osman who killed Anderson?”

  “I don’t know,” Bobby answered. “Do you?”

  “She’s gone to find out,” Mrs Jordan said. “He’s her father and she wants to get him hanged, and perhaps she will, because she’s like that. I mean, when she wants a thing to happen, often it does, when she wants it enough. What are you going to do?”

  “Try to find her, I suppose. You are sure you can’t give me any idea where she may have gone?”

  Mrs Jordan shook her head.

  “Are you sure she had no suspicion of the truth—about Osman Ford being her father?”

  “No. How could she? No one knew but me,” Mrs Jordan repeated. “Only for this, no one would ever have known, no one.”

  “Why did you keep it secret?” Bobby asked, anger in his voice. “They had a right to know, hadn’t they? Both of them. Why didn’t you tell them?”

  “I never would have but for this,” she repeated. “It’s no good standing there, asking questions. Why don’t you do something?”

  “All I can do is to try to find her as soon as possible,” Bobby said. “To find her and tell her. The sooner she knows the better.”

  “If he did it—if it’s true he killed Anderson, if she’s found out something to show it’s him…?”

  “Then he’ll have to stand trial,” Bobby answered grimly, “and the rest will be for the jury. But I would rather not lay the charge on evidence given us by his daughter.”

  “You couldn’t do that, you never could,” Mrs Jordan cried; but he did not answer as he turned and went away, for he knew that if evidence, proving the guilt of anyone, were brought to him, then it would have to be used, no matter from whom it came.

  “All the same, his own daughter,” he muttered. “His own daughter,” and he seemed to have a vision of the girl, implacable in her pursuit, ignorant that it was her father she was attempting to hunt down. “Oh, my God, what a mess,” he said under his breath.

  One thing was clear in his mind. The moment he could find Anne, she should know the truth, even though that might mean the escape of the guilty. But then it by no means followed that her belief was actually correct. Only it might be. With a fresh dismay he remembered little Ursula’s story of that hole, dug between pigsty and hedge, she thought had been dug by Osman Ford and that she had called a grave. An added horror there, for it might be if Osman Ford were guilty and if he knew that Anne suspected the truth, then possibly it was for her the pit had been dug—and by him. Father planning daughter’s death, and daughter seeking proof of the father’s dreadful guilt!

  “A nightmare, what a nightmare,” Bobby muttered, a
nd for his part saw clearly there was nothing he could do, since the current of events had passed far beyond his control.

  He found his car where he had left it parked by the roadside, and for a moment or two hesitated, trying to make up his mind whether to visit first Roman Ends farm to find Osman Ford, or to go first to the deserted cottage by the bridge over the canal. He decided finally in favour of the second course, both because he thought it possible he might find Anne had gone there in her effort to discover what she believed to be the truth, and also because he hoped to be able there to get in touch with Sergeant Wright. On the whole it seemed to him likely that Anne’s plan, of which she spoke in her letter, would be in some way connected with the cottage or its neighbourhood.

  Near the bridge he alighted. It was dark by now, a dark and silent night with heavy clouds overhead and an occasional slight splutter of rain. Near the canal and over the fields adjoining a thin damp, mist rose. He put his electric torch in his pocket and began to grope his way along the road. Till now he had hardly realized how intense was the darkness, a darkness that in the old phrase could almost be felt, that seemed to press down upon the earth like a palpable thing. The use of the torch only seemed to make the darkness more intense when its light was switched off again. Nor did he wish to keep it shining continuously, since that would proclaim his presence and his where-abouts, and he did not know who might not be watching. He had gone only a little way when a sound by the roadside attracted his attention. He listened. He heard it again. This time plainly, a kind of half-muffled groan. Switching on his torch he saw there, half in, half out of the ditch that bordered the road, the crumpled figure of a man. It was Wright, and when Bobby knelt by his side he opened his eyes and at once recognized him.

  “Oh, it’s you, sir,” he muttered. “I’ve been coshed. From behind,” he added defensively.

  “That’s all right,” Bobby said. “Let me feel.” He whistled softly. “Copped it all right, you have,” he said. “Skin broken, bleeding a bit, no bone broken though, I think. My car’s not far. Can you walk?”