The Dark Garden: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Swimming bath and workshops, wasn’t it?” the colonel asked.

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby. “Incidentally there is evidence now that Blythe was seen adapting a ‘reducer’ he had bought so as to fit it to the barrel of Dwight’s revolver he had taken from Mrs Jordan’s hiding-place. I wondered about that after what he said about Osman Ford’s buying one for his rook rifle. That was quite true. Ford did make such a purchase and he remembers mentioning it to Blythe. He says it struck him at the time that Blythe was rather oddly interested.”

  “Useful bit of evidence,” interposed the colonel. “I mean, about Blythe’s having been seen altering a reducer. Sort of detail that impresses a jury.”

  “It was a bit of luck Wright’s inquiry I asked him to make, proved successful,” Bobby observed. “A mere chance Blythe was seen. In any case, since Anderson couldn’t be his own murderer he was cleared on that score, and therefore, on the theory that the two crimes were connected, he was innocent of the suspected embezzlement also. Castles’ behaviour seemed to show him, too, as innocent of fraud. His whole attitude, his self-assurance when he was discovered in what on the face of it was a wholly indefensible proceeding—having a look at his chief’s private ledger—made it clear he felt very sure of himself. Everything he said and did supported his claim that he had discovered some new fact but could not quite make up his mind what to do about it. The logical deduction was he had found out something gravely wrong, and it was fairly obvious he believed that in some way Anderson was involved. On the theory of the inter-connection of two separate crimes—embezzlement and murder—then if he were innocent of the one, he was also innocent of the other. Only Blythe was left, and if he were guilty of the embezzlement, then on the theory I was working on, he was probably the murderer as well. The great difficulty was that all this was mere reasoning. No concrete facts.”

  “Mere reasoning,” grunted the colonel. “I like the ‘mere’. Very carefully and logically thought out, I should say, with a very subtle appreciation of the interplay of character involved. Anderson’s infatuation. Blythe’s fanaticism. Castles’ hesitation between gratitude and revenge. All pointing in the same direction.”

  “Well, sir,” Bobby went on, “that’s how it seemed to me, and yet I had to remember other possibilities. Right up to the end I couldn’t help feeling that my reasoning might be wrong, that the trust fund had never been tampered with, that consequently my theory of two connected crimes had no foundation in fact. It was Castles’ behaviour in the private ledger incident that my theory was built on, and yet I had to remember there might be some other explanation. The murder might have been a private act of vengeance on Castles’ part. Or a result of Dwight’s jealousy. One can never be sure how far jealousy will not drive a man. It’s a kind of madness. Only it seemed clear Dwight himself was suspecting Anne. That is why he took to watching her, why he followed her to the cottage that night. He knew I was having her followed and he jumped to the conclusion that that meant we were going to arrest her. To prevent that he knocked out Sergeant Wright so that he could warn Anne of what he believed to be her danger and persuade her to escape with him. Wright told me when I found him that night that Dwight had confessed to being the murderer. Dwight explains now that what he really said was that Anne was not the murderer. Wright apparently heard ‘Anne’, and took it for ‘am’, and also heard ‘murderer’. He retorted with something about ‘arrest’. Dwight took that to refer to Anne, got into a panic, and proceeded to knock Wright out. I must admit I was a bit shaken in believing him innocent, though, when Wright told me he had confessed.”

  “If we didn’t want him for a witness,” grumbled the colonel, “I would insist on a prosecution—deserves six weeks’ hard labour.”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby, who knew very well that the colonel knew very well that Dwight had offered his victim good private compensation, which was much more satisfying to that victim than seeing his assailant prosecuted.

  But all that was, as they say in America, ‘off the record’.

  Bobby went on:

  “I got a shock, too, when Roy Green turned up again in the dark garden. I had had to keep him in my mind. His actions were suspicious, though I was always inclined to accept his explanation that he got rid of the Blythe motoring gauntlet because he didn’t want to have to explain how he and Miss Ursula happened to be where they were when they found it. His presence that night in the garden was merely due to his curiosity about the digging he and Miss Ursula had seen. It nearly cost him his life, though, when he barged into Blythe in the dark. And I didn’t like it a bit when he turned up again after having promised to see to Wright and to get help. The explanation was simple enough. The constable on the beat found my car with Wright unconscious in it, and very naturally drove off in it to report and to get Wright attended to. Roy, not finding the car where I said it was, came back to tell me it was missing.”

  “I must admit,” the colonel interrupted, “that I was often very much inclined to think it was Miss Anne herself who was guilty.”

  “I don’t think you would have, sir, if you had seen her and realized how strong and genuine was her feeling for Anderson,” Bobby answered. “If there had been any suggestion of his leaving her, it might have seemed more likely. But there wasn’t. The £5,000 gift from Anderson was no motive, since it wasn’t at all likely there was any question of Anderson’s wanting it back so soon. I wasn’t too sure of Mrs Jordan though. She talked a good deal about never trusting a man. That might easily have meant she didn’t trust Anderson. I even wondered if, having made the £5,000 secure for Miss Earle by removing Anderson who might have claimed it back, she intended to secure it for herself by removing Miss Earle. I had to give that idea up though when it began to be clear that she was Miss Earle’s mother.”

  “Wasn’t clear to me,” observed the colonel. “What made you think of that?”

  “She knew so much,” Bobby answered, “as, for example, exactly where Miss Anne was deserted. Yet when I pressed her to explain how she had identified her as her sister’s child, she told a good many lies. It seemed pretty clear she identified her as her niece because she knew she was her daughter and that she knew all the details of the baby’s abandonment because she was responsible. That meant the father was probably a Midwych man, and the scrap of conversation Constable Smith very improperly overheard, and Osman Ford’s occasional and secret visits to the cottage to see a woman with whom he was certainly not carrying on any intrigue, made it pretty clear he was Anne’s father and that Mrs Jordan was trying a little blackmailing. I felt all that was clearly implicit in the evidence.”

  “Implicit perhaps,” agreed the colonel, “but hardly clearly. Still, you did manage to worry it out.”

  “It only concerned us,” Bobby continued, “so far as it explained what was suspicious in Osman Ford’s behaviour. By that time I felt all the suspects were more or less eliminated, except Blythe, and yet there seemed no possibility of securing proof against him—proof to satisfy a jury.”

  “Wouldn’t have been the first time,” the colonel remarked, “that a murderer perfectly well known to the police, had escaped for lack of satisfactory legal evidence.”

  “I doubt if we should ever have succeeded, but for that poor girl’s resolve to get it, even at the risk of her own life,” Bobby said slowly. “Once again, suspicions, reasonable enough in themselves, were directed to the wrong quarter. Just as Osman Ford and Castles both wrongly suspected Anderson, so she wrongly suspected Osman. The anonymous letter she sent Osman and that he showed Blythe for advice, accused him of being the murderer, claimed to be from an eye-witness, and made an offer to remain silent for fifty pounds. Her idea was that if Osman were innocent he would ignore the letter. But if he came to the meeting she suggested in the abandoned cottage garden and actually handed over the money, then she would know he was guilty and that would give her the proof she needed. Unfortunately, Osman showed the letter to Blythe, really expecting him to consult us. Bl
ythe, not unnaturally perhaps, fell into a panic. It must be a trifle upsetting to a murderer to see a letter claiming that the writer had been an eye-witness of the crime. True, addressed to the wrong person, but disturbing all the same. Only too clear, he would naturally think, that the truth was on the verge of coming out. He felt he had to know and he made up his mind to eliminate the eye-witness.”

  “You don’t think there was any truth in Miss Earle’s claim?” the colonel asked.

  “I am sure there wasn’t,” Bobby answered, “For one thing, Mrs Jordan’s evidence is quite clear that Anne came back to the cottage after seeing Anderson drive off and that she went straight to bed. The poor girl only said that to try to secure a confession and was quite indifferent to the risk she knew she ran. It was more than a risk. It was a certainty. I don’t think in her then mood, she cared. Blythe dug in advance the pit in which he meant to bury her body. Unlucky for him that young Green, and the Harris girl saw it. Blythe used a spade taken from Roman Ends farm. He hoped that would direct suspicion towards Osman if the body were discovered. No doubt his chief hope was that it would never be found. Probably he also intended, if the body were found, to give suspicion a tilt towards Osman by repeating the story of the anonymous letter Osman had received. Just as well for Osman that he changed his mind at the last moment and instead of staying away, taking no notice of the letter, as he had promised and as Blythe had advised, that he went there to see what was really happening. He had shown himself so restless and uneasy all evening that it’s no wonder Mrs Ford followed him.”

  “I think that clears up all the points,” Colonel Glynne said slowly. “A strange case, and I think strangest of all is Anne Earle herself. A fine character, a strong, unusual character, but just as Blythe let himself be warped by his over-devotion to Hopewell House that led him in the end to fraud and then to murder, so the girl let her mind be warped by her mother’s desertion of her. She was strong, but circumstances were stronger, and only those who have conquered circumstances have any right even to hint a judgment. That must be her epitaph.”

  THE END

  About The Author

  E.R. Punshon was born in London in 1872.

  At the age of fourteen he started life in an office. His employers soon informed him that he would never make a really satisfactory clerk, and he, agreeing, spent the next few years wandering about Canada and the United States, endeavouring without great success to earn a living in any occupation that offered. Returning home by way of working a passage on a cattle boat, he began to write. He contributed to many magazines and periodicals, wrote plays, and published nearly fifty novels, among which his detective stories proved the most popular and enduring.

  He died in 1956.

  The Bobby Owen Mysteries

  1. Information Received

  2. Death among the Sunbathers

  3. Crossword Mystery

  4. Mystery Villa

  5. Death of a Beauty Queen

  6. Death Comes to Cambers

  7. The Bath Mysteries

  8. Mystery of Mr. Jessop

  9. The Dusky Hour

  10. Dictator’s Way

  11. Comes a Stranger

  12. Suspects – Nine

  13. Murder Abroad

  14. Four Strange Women

  15. Ten Star Clues

  16. The Dark Garden

  17. Diabolic Candelabra

  18. The Conqueror Inn

  19. Night’s Cloak

  20. Secrets Can’t be Kept

  21. There’s a Reason for Everything

  22. It Might Lead Anywhere

  23. Helen Passes By

  24. Music Tells All

  25. The House of Godwinsson

  26. So Many Doors

  27. Everybody Always Tells

  28. The Secret Search

  29. The Golden Dagger

  30. The Attending Truth

  31. Strange Ending

  32. Brought to Light

  33. Dark is the Clue

  34. Triple Quest

  35. Six Were Present

  E.R. Punshon

  DIABOLIC CANDELABRA

  “Ode to a chocolate,” murmured Bobby.

  OLIVE, Inspector Bobby Owen’s wife, is on a mission to obtain the recipe for some uncommonly good chocolates. But the most innocent beginning means trouble for Bobby Owen: take one wood-dwelling hermit, a girl who talks to animals, an evil stepfather and two exceedingly valuable works of art, and you have the recipe, not for chocolate, but for one of Punshon’s most satisfying and devilish mysteries.

  This beguiling story of labyrinths and seemingly impossible murder is a challenge and a treat for armchair sleuths everywhere. Diabolic Candelabra was originally published in 1942. It is the seventeenth of the Bobby Owen mysteries, a series including thirty-five novels. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

  “What is distinction? … in the works of Mr. E.R. Punshon we salute it every time.” DOROTHY L. SAYERS

  Diabolic Candelabra

  CHAPTER I

  CHOCOLATES

  OLIVE CAME QUICKLY, even excitedly, into the garden where, on this warm, calm, autumn evening, Inspector Bobby Owen, of the Wychshire County Police, wherein he doubled the parts of head of the somewhat scanty Wychshire C.I.D. with that of secretary to the chief constable, Colonel Glynne, was busily gardening. True, the gardening was being done at the moment from the depths of a comfortable deck chair, but spiritually Bobby was hard at it, digging with fervour, hoeing, sowing, mowing, pruning, weeding, one and all with extreme and extraordinary energy. Not quite realizing what a bustle of work she was interrupting, Olive said:

  “Oh, Bobby, shut your eyes and open your mouth.” Disappointedly she added: “Oh, they are.”

  Bobby opened the first named, regarded her severely, spoke with dignity.

  “If you are trying to insinuate—” he began, but as to utter these words his mouth had to remain open, Olive saw and seized her opportunity and popped something therein.

  “Um-m-m,” Bobby concluded his observations.

  “Well?” said Olive expectantly.

  “Not so bad,” said Bobby critically.

  “It’s heavenly,” said Olive conclusively. Then she added: “If you had been more appreciative you could have had this one, too, but now I’ll have it myself.”

  Therewith she popped a second something into her own mouth and contentedly sat down to munch on the grass by his side. Bobby watched her. He said wistfully:

  “If you had told me that before—”

  “Ah-ha,” said Olive.

  “What is it?” asked Bobby.

  “That’s for a good little detective to find out,” said Olive.

  Scared by even this faint suggestion of work, Bobby sank back into his chair.

  “Nothing doing,” he said.

  “Oh, yes, there is,” said Olive, firmly this time. “They’re just the most scrumptious chocolates that ever were, and they’re a mystery, too, and Mrs Weston gave me some to taste, because she wants a lot more to sell at the bazaar next week, and she wants you to find out.”

  “Chasing a chocolate to its lair,” murmured Bobby. “What’s the difficulty, anyway?”

  “Mrs Weston always does her shopping in Tombes, or at least most of it, because she says there aren’t any queues there, like there are in Midwych, and besides she knows people, and she gets these miracle chocolates at Walters’s, the big tea shop, and they cost seven and six a pound, and Walters’s say now people know about them they sell out ever so quickly, and they could sell more if they could get them, but they can’t. It’s the flavour. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Not bad,” admitted Bobby.

  “Not bad,” repeated Olive, surveying him with scorn. “I wish I had kept that one I gave you for myself, instead of wasting it on you. It’s absolutely different from anything else I ever tasted, sweet and not a bit sickly and sharp, too, and refreshing and scented as well—makes you think of
woods and fields and the early morning and dew and things like that.”

  “Careful,” Bobby warned her. “Careful now, or you’ll be dropping into poetry.”

  “They are poetry,” Olive answered with conviction.

  “Ode to a chocolate,” murmured Bobby, and Olive went on unheedingly:

  “You see, they’re homemade and Mrs Weston wants the recipe so she can make lots and lots for her stall at the bazaar. She says she’ll charge ten shillings a pound, because they’re so awfully delicious and you can at a bazaar, can’t you? And she says they’ll sell like anything and I expect they will, too, because they really are so nice and absolutely different.”

  “Well,” commented Bobby, “I suppose it’s no worse giving ten bob for a pound of chocolates than four or five bob for a pound of tomatoes.”