There's a Reason for Everything: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Must have been something pretty bad,” Bobby commented, “to get a boy expelled from Eton.”

  “So it was,” confirmed Payne. “A booby trap with lots of dirty water in it, and the housemaster’s wife sprang it just when she was all togged up for a special do at Windsor Castle.”

  Bobby whistled.

  “Well, well,” he said. “No wonder the cabinet minister wants that kept quiet. Get hold of Burton, will you? And turn him on the job. Hardman gave me some very interesting information, and I want to be quite sure of his good faith.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Payne, and added somewhat doubtfully: “He can’t have had anything to do with the shooting on the footpath. He couldn’t very well have a better alibi than being with one of our own men when the shot was fired.”

  “No, I suppose he couldn’t,” agreed Bobby, and went on to the New Bungalows.

  There were four of them, side by side, all indistinguishable one from the other, but Payne had told him that that occupied by the Ansons was nearest the forest. It was growing late and nearly dark as Bobby parked his car, well away from the path he did not wish to block, and behind the tall garden hedge that bordered the Anson domain. When he knocked an elderly, frail-looking woman, white-haired and supporting herself on a stick, came to the door. Bobby explained who he was, and his errand. Mrs. Anson said her daughter was laid up with a bad foot, and couldn’t see any one, and besides, another policeman had been there already.

  Bobby said he knew that, and in fact that was why he had come himself, and he suggested that a bad foot did not necessarily prevent speech. Mrs. Anson still made difficulties. Bobby still insisted. Mrs. Anson yielded so far as to ask him into the sitting-room. She tried to light the lamp—there was neither electricity nor gas laid on, she explained—but found no lamp there.

  “It wanted a new wick,” she said. “Betty must have taken it away to get one and never brought it back. We hardly ever sit here, now it’s so difficult to get oil and coal and everything.”

  She went away then, leaving Bobby in an obscurity rapidly increasing as the rolling up of heavy storm clouds added to the darkness of the approaching night. The door opened and a tall young man came in.

  “Oh, haven’t you a light?” he said, peering at Bobby, dimly visible in the gathering darkness.

  “I think Mrs. Anson has gone to get a lamp,” Bobby said wondering who this young man might be, since Payne had only spoken of mother and daughter.

  “Miss Anson’s very sorry,” the newcomer went on, “but she’s not at all well, and will you please excuse her? Anyhow, she knows nothing about it.”

  “Nothing about what?” Bobby asked.

  The young man sounded a bit disconcerted as he said:

  “Well, I thought there was something about somebody shooting something somewhere. There’s been another police johnny here. Wanted to know if any one here had heard anything. No one has.”

  “I see,” said Bobby. “Might I ask to whom I am talking? A friend of the family?”

  “My name’s Claymore,” the other answered, “Leonard Claymore. Mrs. Anson asked me to come and tell you.”

  “Well, Mr. Claymore,” Bobby said, “We think Miss Anson may be able to give us some information. I am afraid I must ask permission to put her a few questions in person.”

  “Oh, that’s impossible,” Claymore protested. “She’s not up to it. If you’ll tell me anything you want to know, I’ll ask her. But it won’t be any good.”

  “I am afraid that would hardly be satisfactory,” Bobby replied. “By the way, are you a relative, Mr. Claymore?”

  “Miss Anson and I are engaged,” Claymore answered stiffly. “Congratulations, I’m sure,” Bobby said. “Perhaps now you would be good enough to tell Miss Anson how sorry I am to trouble her, but I am afraid it is necessary for me to see her personally.”

  “Can’t be done,” said Claymore firmly. “She’s not up to it, not fit.”

  “Is that doctor’s orders?” Bobby asked. “Because, you know, this is a serious matter, and doctors’ orders is about the only thing that can hold up a criminal investigation—such as this.”

  “You don’t need a doctor,” Claymore retorted, and, Bobby noticed, without showing any surprise at the expression ‘criminal investigation’, “to tell when a girl isn’t fit to be bothered with a lot of questions about something she doesn’t know a thing about.”

  “I should prefer a medical opinion all the same,” Bobby said. “If you will give me the name of the doctor attending Miss Anson, I’ll ring him up and ask.”

  “They haven’t bothered about a doctor,” Claymore admitted, “but any one can see…”

  “Mr. Claymore,” Bobby interrupted, making his voice suddenly severe where hitherto it had been quiet and suave, “is there any reason why you are trying to prevent me from speaking to Miss Anson? Please remember this is a serious matter and please understand it is necessary for me to see Miss Anson at once and in person. If more difficulty is made, I shall have to consider what further steps to take. Already I am beginning to ask myself if there is anything behind all these difficulties? And if so, what it is?”

  “There isn’t anything,” Claymore answered sulkily. He stood there, tall and obscure in the darkness, and Bobby wished, very much, he could see his face. Difficult to form any judgment from this talk in the dark. Claymore said again: “There isn’t anything except what I’ve said. Miss Anson isn’t feeling well, and she can’t tell you anything because she doesn’t know anything.”

  “Perhaps you would be good enough to tell Miss Anson what I have said,” Bobby suggested.

  “Oh, well, now then,” Claymore grumbled.

  He still seemed to hesitate, but then went away without saying anything more, and Bobby could hear a murmur of voices from without. The three of them in consultation, he supposed. Laying plans, perhaps. The door opened and Mrs. Anson came in.

  “It’s past black-out time,” she said. “I’ve got the lamp going, but I must draw the curtains first.” She went to the window and began nervously to arrange blind and curtains. “We don’t use this room now,” she said. “We sit in the kitchen. I think it’s a shame, bothering Betty like this. Mr. Claymore says he’ll see a lawyer about it, and see if something can’t be done.”

  “I am very sorry,” Bobby said once more, “but surely you must understand that police work can’t be held up by considerations of personal convenience. You know that Miss Anson is entitled to have her lawyer present? If you want that, I can wait till he arrives. If you give me his name I will try to get him for you on the ’phone. Or if you have his private address, I will send a car with any message you like.”

  Mrs. Anson seemed very startled. It did not appear that she welcomed these suggestions. Evidently they made an impression, making it all seem more serious. She went away, and again Bobby could hear the low murmur of voices in consultation. He heard another sound, too, that of heavy, cautious, careful footsteps outside in the garden. Bobby waited, listening intently. Probably merely a visitor of one sort or another, a neighbour, perhaps, and yet to his fancy there was something furtive, even faintly menacing, in that slow approach. Yet it might be merely that in the black-out one has to walk warily. The footsteps were quite near now, and yet had become even softer, more cautious, more wary. There came a fumbling at the window. It was being opened, slowly, cautiously, Bobby told himself, professionally, opened by someone who had experience in opening windows from without. It was open now. With equal slow caution the curtains were drawn aside, the blind raised. The fresh night air poured into the room. Under its influence the door Mrs. Anson had left partly open swung slowly to. Now the window was wide, the curtains were pulled aside, the blind raised. In the dark aperture that the window had become, a void opening on the greater void of the night, there showed itself a figure, a squat, heavy figure, every movement silent and careful, poised now, half in, half out, listening, waiting, sinister.

  Patient, motionless, Bobby waited.
If he stirred, this dark intruder would take alarm, would vanish back instantly into the shelter and concealment of the night wherefrom he had come. In a minute, two minutes, three, he would be inside the room, and then retreat, escape, would be less easy.

  So Bobby waited, waited ready to leap into action the moment opportunity came. The so silent, still figure the darkness half hid and half revealed, lifted itself slightly. Bobby felt the moment had come. Another moment and whoever it was would be safe inside, instant flight no longer possible. The door opened, and Mrs. Anson stood there with the lighted lamp in her hand. Its ray shone directly on the window, showed there a man sideways, half in, half out, his head concealed by the window frame, his right leg thrown into the room across the sill, the other bent to follow it, in his hand something that looked heavy and ominous, a bludgeon, a club of some sort, a thing meant for violence, proclaiming violence in all its shape and outline.

  Mrs. Anson, still clutching the lamp, screamed and turned and ran. The figure at the window vanished. Bobby leaped from his chair, hurled himself forward in one great leap, stumbled over a footstool he had not been aware of in the darkness, sent the footstool spinning, but lost himself his balance, and nearly fell, reached the window only in time to hear swift heavy footsteps dying away, dying away into the night that offered a fugitive such safe concealment.

  CHAPTER X

  BETTY

  Into the room, brought by Mrs. Anson’s scream and flight, by the sound of Bobby’s encounter with the footstool, came Claymore at a run. He seemed at first inclined to launch instant attack on Bobby, who, however, fended him off with an outstretched hand.

  “Steady on,” Bobby said. “Steady on.”

  “What is it? What’s happened?” Claymore asked suspiciously. “She said there was a man at the window climbing in.”

  “So there was,” agreed Bobby; and, as now Claymore seemed to contemplate starting in immediate pursuit, Bobby added: “He’s got a good start, and it’s too dark to try to follow. What about a light? Black-out must be fixed first, though. Ask Mrs. Anson for her lamp, will you?”

  Claymore went off, and returned with the lighted lamp. Meanwhile Bobby had adjusted blind and curtain. To him in a tone still doubtful and suspicious, Claymore said:

  “Who was it? What did he want? What’s it all about?”

  “I wonder,” Bobby said. “Any ideas?”

  Claymore made no attempt to volunteer any. He was staring moodily at the window, and looked troubled and even afraid. By the light of the lamp he had just put down on the table, Bobby could see that he was a fair-headed young man, probably about twenty-eight or thirty, good-looking, with strong, regular features. Of these the most noticeable were thick, reddish-brown eye-brows that nearly touched above a prominent aquiline nose to form one straight line, and that at the moment were drawn down in an anxious and worried frown. Into the room there next came hobbling a youngish girl, slight in build, with a small, pointed face, now extremely pale, and great brown, startled eyes that seemed the brighter for the pallor in which they were set. One foot was bandaged, and she was half hobbling, half hopping, supporting herself, too, against the wall, or by the aid of any piece of furniture in her way.

  “Mother said she saw a man,” she said. “Was there? Who was it? What did he want?”

  “It must have been a burglar,” Claymore said, but not with much conviction. Then, more loudly and more firmly, he said: “The fellow saw there was someone here and he cleared off. That’s all.”

  The girl lowered herself into the nearest chair. Claymore went to stand by her side. Bobby said nothing. He was watching the two young people closely. It was evident they were both very disturbed and alarmed. But then what had happened—an attempted burglary apparently—was enough to disturb and excite any one. Yet was it only his imagination, Bobby wondered, that made him think it was more than ordinary excitement, more than ordinary fear, that they both showed? Somehow he was not much inclined to think that either of them believed the recent happening had been merely an attempted burglary, that and nothing more. Claymore looked a robust young man, not likely, for such a cause, to give such an impression of strain, of apprehension even. Then, too, Bobby felt there had been something more purposeful, more deadly, perhaps, behind that slow and menacing figure which had appeared for a moment framed in the night, poised on the window-sill, something ominous, too, in the dark outline of the club, the bludgeon, the heavy blunt instrument, held as if in readiness for purposed, planned intention. They were still all three silent, not one of them having spoken a word, or moved, when from the kitchen Mrs. Anson called:

  “Has he gone?”

  “Yes,” Bobby answered. He walked out of the room, and across a short passage, or hall, to an open door that admitted to the kitchen. Mrs. Anson was huddled in a chair before the fire. She looked very scared and upset, but somehow with a terror more normal, more natural, than that the two young people showed. Bobby said: “It’s all right. He’s miles away by this time. No good trying to follow in the dark. We’ll see what we can do in the morning. What do you think he wanted?”

  “Isn’t it awful?” Mrs. Anson said. She seemed a little relieved, though, by what Bobby had said. “I shall never feel easy again,” she went on. “We shall have to go away.”

  “Have you any idea who it was, or what he wanted?” Bobby asked.

  Mrs. Anson looked puzzled, and shook her head in an uncomprehending way, as if she did not quite understand the question. There came into the kitchen from the other room Claymore and the girl, who now was supporting herself on his arm. Claymore said:

  “It was a burglar. It must have been. Thought he would see what he could get. Beastly lonely place. Right on top of the forest, too. Not safe for two women living alone. You’ll have to get out, find some other place.” A masterful young man apparently. He spoke with an air of decision and authority. “As soon as you jolly well can,” he said. “Right away. Betty can get a job somewhere else. London or somewhere.”

  He had rather the air of rushing them both off, then and there, to catch the next train to the south. Mrs. Anson looked more terrified than ever. To her, a removal meant a crisis needing long and careful preparation. To Claymore, in his brisk, masculine way, it meant giving an order over the ’phone to the first removal contractor you thought of; that and nothing more.

  “How soon can you be ready?” he demanded.

  The two, mother and daughter, looked at each other rather helplessly. The girl said:

  “Oh, we can’t. They wouldn’t let us.”

  The ‘they’ meant the Ministry of Labour, into whose hands the war has placed the destiny of all young and able-bodied women, conscripted, like their brothers, to the service of their country. Claymore was evidently about to sweep the Ministry of Labour aside—and the war with it, if necessary—when Bobby interposed to ask:

  “Have you anything in the house of special value?”

  “Gracious, no,” said the girl, surprised.

  “There’s my diamond brooch,” Mrs. Anson protested, “and your poor father’s gold watch and chain, and the silver tea service and…” She seemed inclined to continue with the full list of all her household treasures, but Claymore interposed.

  “The fellow was just out for anything he could find,” he declared. “Why not? Why should there be anything special?”

  “Well, unless there is some special reason,” Bobby said, “a house like this isn’t often burgled. Housebreaking is more common. Besides, burglars generally wait till people are out of the way. Watch them go or knock to make sure no one’s in. Or in a large house the idea is to wait till everyone’s at dinner. Somehow this doesn’t strike me as if it had been an ordinary burglary. Something deliberate, purposeful about it. It gives me the idea that there was a definite object. Can’t you suggest anything?”

  None of them answered him, but Claymore repeated:

  “You’ve got to get out of here, Betty. In double quick time.” Again there was, at least to Bo
bby’s fancy, a note of urgency, of apprehension, in the young man’s voice it was not easy to understand. Bobby said to him:

  “Do you think it’s likely to happen again?”

  “Well, it’s happened to-night, hasn’t it?” Claymore muttered. Bobby turned to the girl Claymore had called Betty.

  “How did you hurt your foot?” he asked abruptly.

  The only answer she gave was a look of extreme fear. Had it been possible for her to become more pale, so it would have been. Claymore said angrily:

  “She trod on something sharp. Why? What’s it matter?”

  “I don’t know,” Bobby answered. “I am trying to find out if it does matter.” To Betty he said: “Was it something sharp on the Barsley footpath?”

  Betty replied this time by bursting into tears. This, of course, is a woman’s trump card. It takes the trick, at any rate for the time. Claymore, with a look that showed his intense desire to slay Bobby on the spot, said loudly and angrily:

  “That’s enough. I won’t have Miss Anson bullied any longer. Come along, Betty.” He swept her out of the kitchen, through the open door, into one of the other rooms. Bobby heard him saying: “You stop there till I’ve got rid of this chap.” He came back into the kitchen and stood glaring at Bobby. “Don’t you think,” he demanded, “you ought to be doing something about catching the chap instead of amusing yourself hanging round here bullying two women?”

  Bobby smiled at the excited young man.

  “Mr. Claymore,” he said, “you are a zealous but not very wise champion of your friends. You have managed to give me a very strong impression that something is being kept back. It is, as you must know perfectly well, a very serious thing, with possibly extremely unpleasant consequences, to keep anything back in a case of—murder.”

  He made a slight pause before he uttered this last word. Mrs. Anson gasped audibly, but still looked more astonished and bewildered than anything else. Claymore seemed unaffected, neither surprised nor alarmed. He said slowly and carefully: