Death of a Beauty Queen

by E. R. Punshon

‘He is like that, isn’t he? He makes me feel all weighed up and found out and judged,’ agreed Bobby. ‘Yet thaw follows frost,’ he added, and then felt surprised at his own expression of this thought that had come abruptly and unexpectedly into his mind.

  From the bank Bobby proceeded, after some hesitation, to Mr Irwin’s private residence rather than to his office. It was beginning to grow near the close of business hours, for one thing, and for another he thought that there would both be fewer interruptions at the house, and that there Mr Irwin would be more likely to talk freely.

  The old housekeeper, Mrs Knowles, told him that Mr Irwin was not back yet, but that she expected him in soon for his tea. Afterwards he would probably return to the office, and be there till late – so late that now she did not wait up for him, but put his supper ready on a tray in the study and then retired, for, now that her sick relative was convalescent, she was again sleeping at home. .

  ‘It’s because of another society joining up with them,’ she explained. ‘He works till all hours – making things right.’

  ‘How does Mr Irwin seem?’ Bobby asked.

  ‘Well enough,’ she answered, with a certain air of disapproval, ‘as you may say, but he’s a changed man, for all that. It’ll be different, very like, when you’ve done your duty and got that Maddox safe under lock and key – where he ought to be, and a shame and a scandal such as him should be running free.’

  ‘We are doing our best,’ Bobby explained meekly, and a snort from Mrs Knowles showed very clearly what she thought of that ‘best.’ Bobby added: ‘You were saying Mr Irwin had changed?’

  ‘There’s something gone out of him. He’s not the same man,’ she answered. ‘Broken, you might say, though he has his faith that ought to keep him up.’

  ‘Do you mean he seems feeble – ill?’ Bobby asked.

  ‘Not in body,’ she answered. ‘It’s something in him that’s clean gone – why, he preached and prayed last Sunday same as usual and never once did he so much as mention hell or God’s punishment on sinners, but all about understanding each other, as if sin was to be understood and not just stamped on. What I say is, it’s this Maddox getting away scot-free that’s telling on him.’

  ‘Maddox hasn’t gone scot-free yet,’ Bobby reminded her. ‘In fact, we have some idea he may be hiding somewhere in this part – in Brush Hill itself, perhaps.’

  ‘Well, then, why don’t you find him, if you know where he is?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘I would, if I had to tear down every house with my own hands, rather than let him go free that’s been the cause of Mr Leslie’s killing himself.’ She spoke with great bitterness and vehemence, and then added, more quietly: ‘The papers say he murdered Carrie Mears, and very like no more than she deserved, and no better, I daresay, than she should have been. But it was all on account of that Mr Leslie shot himself, and worse for Mr Irwin, for he thought all the world of that boy. Worse than murder, I call it: and when Maddox hangs I shall go down on my knees to thank God right’s been done at last on him, that Mr Leslie would be alive and well to-day but for what he did.’

  ‘I daresay Mr Irwin feels like that, too,’ Bobby remarked. ‘If you had seen his hair go white, day after day,’ she answered sombrely, ‘you wouldn’t need ask that, young man – and enough to turn the mind of anyone, and him so strong and young before. If I wake in the night, I can hear him praying, and I know what for, for he told me himself it’s for God’s punishment to fall on Claude Maddox.’

  A grim old man, Bobby reflected, repelled, even appalled by this picture presented to him of one who had striven so long, and with such prodigies of self-control and self-denial, to serve Him, now battering His Throne with cries for the revenge of a private wrong. But it was perhaps this very intensity of his desire for vengeance that kept up the old man’s strength, and when Bobby expressed, though vaguely, some such idea, Mrs Knowles seemed to understand.

  ‘He’s keeping well enough,’ she admitted. ‘He doesn’t sleep much, for often and often I hear noises in the night that’s him moving about; and he’s at his prayers early and late, but he eats well – better than he used. Now that he’s late at the office almost every night, I put the tray ready for him in the study, and there’s little left when I clear away next morning. He was a bit queer after Mr Leslie shot himself, poor lad, with that fit he had while you were here, but that didn’t last.’

  ‘In what way do you mean he was queer?’ Bobby asked.

  ‘In his ways, like. One night he took back all the housekeeping money he had given me for the bills. Said he wanted it, when it was the middle of the night then – so how could he? But he took it, and got more next day for me. And he wanted me to go on sleeping at my sister’s – pretended he would rather be alone at night. I told him flat I wouldn’t have it. He wasn’t fit to be left alone that way. Excited and funny-like, too. He went over Mr Leslie’s things, when I wanted to do something about them, seeing the poor lad will never want them more. Told me I wasn’t so much as to touch a thing in his room, not even to open a drawer or a cupboard, nor even his old tools in the attic he’s never been near for years.’

  They heard a key in the door, and Mr Irwin came in – old and bowed now; his thin form bent; his features pinched and thin beneath the mass of snow-white hair. He looked a little startled, Bobby thought, at seeing him, but said a word or two of greeting, and then led the way into his study.

  ‘You can bring us some tea here,’ he said to Mrs Knowles, and then indicating a chair, he said to Bobby: ‘Sit down, won’t you? You’ve come to see me, I suppose?’

  Bobby seated himself, feeling curiously at a loss. It was not only physically that Mr Irwin had changed, there were other and more subtle alterations more difficult to define. His snowy hair certainly now served to accentuate that air of the prophet there had always been about him, and his eyes had still that clear bright stillness that shows in those used to gaze upon a light others do not see. The word that Mrs Knowles had used had been ‘broken’; the word that came into Bobby’s mind was ‘benign,’ though why he hardly knew, and it astonished him.

  ‘You wanted to speak to me?’ Mr Irwin repeated. He smiled slightly – very slightly – yet with a smile that seemed to caress and to understand. ‘You are very young,’ he said. ‘As young as Leslie, I suppose?’

  ‘I think I must be a little older, sir,’ Bobby answered, wondering to notice how simply and how naturally the reference to the dead boy had been made.

  ‘Yes, yes. Perhaps you are,’ Mr Irwin agreed. ‘I suppose it is about Claude Maddox you are come? You have no idea yet where he is?’

  It was an assertion more than a question, and yet it had in it a faint touch of uneasiness. Bobby repeated briefly the coffee-stall keeper’s story.

  ‘It seemed so incomprehensible,’ Bobby concluded, ‘that a pound note apparently paid out to you should turn up in that way that we felt we would like to know what you thought about it.’

  Mr Irwin listened gravely. When Bobby paused, he was silent for a time, and then he answered, as he had answered before:

  * I have nothing to say.’

  But this time he uttered the words with a tone and accent singularly changed. Before his voice had had the hardness, the clarity, the finality of ice; now there sounded in it a certain tenderness, a touch almost of humour, that Bobby recognized, and that again a good deal puzzled him. He said, half-defensively, half-questioningly:

  ‘‘Maddox is a murderer. He killed Miss Mears. And he would have let your son hang for it, too – or at least never said a word when he knew Leslie was suspected and likely to be arrested. But for him, and what he did, Leslie would be alive to-day. Surely we can depend on you to do all you can to help us find him?’

  The old man did not answer. He was looking, as it were, far away – to distances beyond the sight of every day. Embarrassed, though why he hardly knew, Bobby muttered:

  ‘Mrs Knowles said... told me...’

  ‘What?’ Paul Irwin asked, as Bobby’s voice trai
led into silence; and now there came again into the old man’s tones something of their former tremendous force, of their old fierce vigour. He said: ‘I know. She woke in the night. She thought I was ill and came downstairs and heard. She told you I was praying for punishment to fall on Claude Maddox. Well, she is right – but there are many kinds of punishment.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Murder Once More

  But as if he felt that he now had said too much, betrayed too clearly the intimacy of his private feelings, Paul Irwin, after this, grew silent, and would answer no more questions. His refusal was very gentle and very quiet, but none the less determined. At times he would make a brief and smiling comment on Bobby’s questions; once or twice, even, he replied with a quiet pleasantry that in him, or rather in contrast to him, as he had been before, astonished Bobby considerably. But never came a single word that offered any enlightenment on the points Bobby was attempting to clear up. When Bobby remarked that the cheque, on which the one-pound note traced to the supposed Maddox had been paid out, had been drawn for an unusually large sum – especially for clearance in cash over the counter – and that an explanation would be welcome, he was answered by a non-committal ‘personal reasons,’ beyond which Mr Irwin was plainly determined not to go.

  Utterly baffled, completely at a loss, Bobby retired to headquarters, where first he told his tale to Ferris, who received it with gloomy head-shakes.

  ‘I don’t trust that old chap,’ he declared. ‘Got something up his sleeve, as like as not.’

  ‘I had a little bit that idea myself,’ agreed Bobby, ‘only I can’t imagine what – or why?’

  ‘It’s hard enough to worry out the truth in these murder cases,’ Ferris observed, still gloomy, ‘but when you get religion, too – well, it’s the devil.’

  ‘Religion so often is,’ murmured Bobby, and now Ferris looked shocked.

  ‘That’s not at all what I meant, young man,’ he said sharply. ‘We had better see what Mr Mitchell thinks.’

  But Mitchell was as much at a loss as anyone. He cross-examined Bobby closely on every detail of the interview with Mr Irwin, and evidently regretted he had not had time to go himself, as he would have done had not some important returns to the Home Office, on the sale of chocolates after prohibited hours, required completion.

  ‘One can understand,’ Mitchell remarked, ‘his refusing to help us before, when it looked as if his son might be implicated, but what is he lying low for now?’

  ‘Put it this way,’ Ferris suggested abruptly. ‘He means to do the job his own way instead of leaving it to us.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Mitchell asked, startled, and yet aware that this suggestion responded to a thought in his own mind.

  ‘He doesn’t want human justice, he wants divine justice, and he means to be the instrument himself,’ Ferris answered slowly. ‘There’s something about the old man that always frightened me. The sword of the Lord and of Gideon,’ he repeated.

  Bobby fidgeted. He would have liked to say something, but neither of his two seniors was paying him any attention and discipline bade him hold his tongue.

  ‘I’ve felt like that with him myself,’ Mitchell admitted. ‘Only, what have you got in your mind, Ferris?’

  ‘Put it this way,’ Ferris said. ‘It looks like money paid out to Paul Irwin goes at once to Claude Maddox. That means connection of some sort. Perhaps not direct, but there all the same. Put it this way. Mr Irwin means to land Maddox himself. Some way he’s got a hint where Maddox is, and he thinks Maddox responsible for his son’s death – thinks of him as his murderer. Well, the one-pound note was ground-bait, the five hundred is bait for the hook to catch him, and Mr Irwin’s not saying a word beforehand because he means to bring it off himself – and there won’t be much left for us to do afterwards, either. The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.’

  ‘There’s a tremendous change in him,’ Bobby could not prevent himself from interposing.

  ‘Yes, you put that in your report. I don’t like that, either,’ Ferris answered. ‘Penfold said something of the same sort yesterday, when he rang up. Everyone noticed it, he said. Penfold said no one could understand what had changed him so, and I put it to Penfold at once, I didn’t half like it.’

  ‘Why? Do you think he is fey?’ Mitchell asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think it’s drink or anything like that, sir,’ answered Ferris, rather badly misunderstanding the meaning of the Scots word that presumes a sudden alteration in character to indicate the near approach of death, as if in that great coming light all things must needs grow different and change. ‘I just don’t like it. Looks like he was planning something – trying to put people off. If we don’t mind, we shall have another murder case on hand, with Claude Maddox not in the dock, but chief exhibit. That’s why Irwin’s gone so quiet and soft spoken, so as to hide what’s in his mind.’

  Mitchell looked uneasy. So did Bobby, to whom this was a completely new view. But both of them felt it was possible, even that it had about it a certain air of plausibility. Bobby, in especial, found he could not dismiss the suggestion as entirely fantastic. That new softness and gentleness he had seen in Paul Irwin might indeed have been assumed to hide a deadly resolve, and the cheque for five hundred pounds have been drawn to provide the necessary means for carrying it out – for bribes, rewards, and so on. Mitchell was beginning to drum with his finger-tips on his desk – a sure sign that he was seriously disturbed. He said heavily:

  We’ll have to watch out. Then, too – even supposing Mr Irwin has any such mad idea in his mind – it doesn’t follow that’s the way it’ll work. Suppose he does find Maddox – even suppose he comes upon him unexpectedly? Well, he would have that much advantage, but Maddox is a good deal younger – desperate, too.’

  ‘I would back Mr Irwin,’ Ferris declared, ‘to come out on top all right – he’s that sort.’

  ‘Because he’s always so dead sure that God is with him,’ Mitchell said. ‘I know. Many a man has gone all the way to hell quite convinced of that. It’s a belief that helps you to get to your destination, though I don’t think it alters it much. All the same, Owen, I think it would be as well to keep him under observation. The house, too. It is just possible that five hundred is meant for a bait to draw Maddox. You remember Leslie Irwin said Maddox had a key at one time, so he could let himself in when he wanted to use their workshop in the attic. He may have it still, and Mr Irwin may know or suspect as much. Somehow he got that pound note to Maddox’s hands. Suppose he also gets to him the information that there is five hundred in the house in cash – the house being left all day in the charge of one old woman, who must go out sometimes to do her shopping. You know, it does begin to look a bit like a trap. What do you think, Owen?’

  ‘Yes, sir, perhaps,’ Bobby agreed, though reluctantly. ‘Only, I don’t quite see how the trap’s to be sprung if the house is left all day in the charge of one old woman, and she’s out sometimes.’

  ‘No, I don’t see how it’s to be sprung, or who is most likely to be caught in it, either,’ answered Mitchell grimly. ‘Possibly Irwin leaves someone on watch. Or he may have some other scheme. Better get along to Brush Hill, Owen, and see what you can do there. Find out if the house seems under observation, if you can, and if Irwin sometimes leaves his office without explanation. Are you on terms with Mrs Knowles?’

  ‘I think so, sir. She doesn’t think much of us, but she’s keen to help. I expect she thought a lot of Leslie Irwin, and there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to get Maddox arrested. She thinks he is the cause of it all, and resents any chance of his getting off scot-free, as she calls it.’

  ‘So much the better,’ Mitchell said. ‘Try to get her to let you go over the house. If it’s necessary, hint you are afraid burglary may be attempted, but don’t alarm her more than you can help, and give her a hint not to say anything to Mr Irwin – put it, for fear of alarming him unnecessarily. And keep your eyes open for anything unusual – clubs behind doors; poi
soned bottles of whisky; any old thing you can imagine, in fact – for in this business I’m beginning to believe anything and everything is possible. And I’ll get on the phone and ask Penfold to place two men on watch at the house – one in front and one at the rear.’

  To Brush Hill, accordingly, Bobby returned, and there made little progress. It was certain that Mr Irwin was present at his office early and late, hard at work on the details of the proposed amalgamation, and not allowing in any way the recent tragic happenings of his private life to interfere with the routine of his business engagement. A true descendant of the ‘Ironsides’ he was showing himself, steadfast in every circumstance of life, though it appeared that in the office, too, a new gentleness and benignity of manner had been noted. At the house, Mrs Knowles, by no means above a weakness for gossip, showed no displeasure at Bobby’s reappearance and made no difficulty about allowing him to go through every room. Burglars, she admitted, she had a dread of, and after what had happened and all the talk in the papers, and the pictures they had published with an ‘x’ in the corner to indicate this or that, no one could be surprised at anything that happened next, and if this polite police young man could suggest any further precaution to take, it would certainly be adopted.

  But she made a point of accompanying Bobby on his tour of inspection, and used the opportunity to comment, frequently and unfavourably, on the total failure there had been to find Maddox.

  ‘And him in pyjamas and his feet bare,’ she reminded Bobby, who had not forgotten those facts, ‘so it stands to reason he can’t have got far, and no money, either.’

  Bobby admitted he and his colleagues were completely baffled. It didn’t seem possible for a man in such circumstances to have evaded notice and pursuit, and yet that Maddox had completely succeeded in doing. Mrs Knowles indicated, not obscurely, that the probable explanation was complete incompetence on the part of the police, and Bobby found no adequate defence to put up, since the only defence acceptable for even a moment would have been the discovery of the vanished Maddox.