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

by E. R. Punshon

  “What’s the matter? Won’t it open?”

  Bobby was still examining the door. He said slowly:

  “The key is in my pocket. There are no bolts. But someone has made the door fast while we’ve been talking. Wedges under the door, between it and the floor,” he said. Then he added: “It opens outwards.”

  “Well, but…” began Clavering.

  “The professional touch again,” Bobby said.

  “What do you mean?” Clavering asked.

  “I mean,” Bobby answered, “that when wedges are pushed under a door the way it opens, then the more you push against that door, the stronger grows the hold of the wedge. A burglar’s trick. A door fastened like that stops pursuit. The professional touch,” he repeated. “You know, that’s interesting.”

  “Wouldn’t it be more interesting to know how we are going to get out?” demanded Clavering with tremendous irony.

  “Oh, much, much more interesting,” agreed Bobby. “Only you see I don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Know how we are going to get out.”

  “Well, hang it all,” said Clavering, more puzzled than alarmed.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  RESCUE

  Bobby remained standing lost in thought. He was trying to make a coherent pattern of all these events, and not meeting with much success. Clavering gave him an impatient glance, and then started to examine the door. It was stout, well made, constructed in days when things were intended to last, before it was thought a good idea to be ready to scrap everything for anything newer. He tried to kick in its solid wood, and failed to make any impression. Then he went to rummage in the piles of rubbish for some useful tool. He found none, for what were there were either useless, like an ancient rake, or broken, or both. He came back and threw himself with all his weight against the door, again without result. Waking from his abstraction, Bobby remarked:

  “You are only making those wedges hold more strongly.”

  “Well, do something,” Clavering snapped. “We can’t stop here for ever.”

  “Why not, if we can’t get out?” Bobby asked mildly. “That door is going to be a tough job. Might be a good idea to see, first, if we can’t get help.”

  “How?”

  “We could take it in turns to stand at that grating and shout,” Bobby said. “Someone might hear in time—or might not. A bit tiring, too, and we are at the back of the house, where no one ever comes. Not too hopeful. How about pushing out a sort of distress flag on any stick we can find? Same objection. No one comes to the back, and it’ll be dark soon. We might start a fire outside the grating, though. That would stand a better chance of being seen. Especially during black-out.”

  “How?” Clavering asked again. “If we could get outside to do that, we shouldn’t need to, should we?”

  “There’s plenty of wood down here,” Bobby explained. “If we cut shavings, set them alight, push them through that grating up there and go on feeding it, we ought to get a decent sort of blaze in time. Even if no one notices it at first, as soon as it’s black-out, someone is sure to spot it, and tell the A.R.P. people. You know,” he added with a slightly surprised air, “I never thought to live to find any good in the blackout.”

  “It seems an idea,” Clavering admitted.

  He took out a penknife and set to work, whittling shavings. Bobby looked on. He had left his own knife in the service door above. He had matches, though, and he was gathering up the shavings into a small heap when he paused abruptly.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  The daylight filtering through the bars of the cellar grating had been suddenly interrupted. A brick had been placed against them on the outside and now another.

  “Here, I say,” exclaimed Clavering. “Hi, you, what do you think you’re doing?” he shouted, as yet a third brick was added to the other two. The only answer was a spadeful of earth thrown on top of the bricks. More earth followed, and the sound of blows as the loose earth was beaten down. In a very few moments every vestige of light had vanished, every vestige of air was excluded. “What’s the idea?” Clavering asked, bewildered. “What’s happening? Who is it?”

  “Ever heard,” Bobby asked, “the legend of the cavalier and his wife and family?”

  Clavering looked more bewildered than ever. He went across to stand below the grating and shouted. He came back, stumbling in a darkness now intense. He said to Bobby:

  “Cavalier? What cavalier? What do you mean?”

  “There’s an old story,” Bobby explained, “of a de Tallebois who was trapped down here with his wife and family during the civil war by Cromwell’s Ironsides they were hiding from. No one knew where they were, and so they starved to death down here, and the tale is that their cries and lamentations may still be heard at times, as their ghosts bewail their fate. Strikes me someone up there thinks that history should repeat itself with a policeman and an art expert taking the place of a cavalier and his family—less picturesque but equally unpleasant.”

  “Here, I say, stow it,” muttered Clavering.

  “Only making things plain,” Bobby explained again.

  He took a torch from his pocket. But he didn’t switch it on. Batteries are soon exhausted if used continuously, and they might have desperate need of light before long. He said:

  “It seems there’s someone up there who doesn’t mean us to get out too easily.”

  “Well, what are we going to do?” Clavering asked once more; and again Bobby did not answer, since he did not know.

  Even yet Clavering was much more puzzled and bewildered than frightened. To him, the situation seemed to lack reality, to be too fantastic to be real. Such things as this simply didn’t happen, not at least to ordinary, decent, respectable members of society like himself. True, his pursuit of art had taken him into some queer places before now; as for instance into the back slums of Marseilles, where had been reported an ancient figure of the Virgin carved on ivory, and into an Italian villa, where the owner, an Italian count of ancient lineage, had challenged him to a duel when he had denied the authenticity of a reputed Giorgione. But this present business still seemed to him more like a bad dream than anything else. He had a feeling that he might waken any moment in bed in his own small flat in central London. He began to cough, and Bobby said:

  “Breathing getting a bit difficult? It was bad enough before, and it’s worse now that chap outside has cut off what little air came through the grating.”

  “Do any of your men know you’re here?” Clavering asked.

  “They knew I was on my way,” Bobby answered, “but I suppose there’s nothing much to show I ever got here—or that I’m here now. There’s my bike I left upstairs near the entrance, but—well, the professional touch shown by the wedges under the door makes it likely it’ll be taken away and dumped near the canal or something like that. Obvious move. What about you? Did you tell anyone?”

  “No,” Clavering answered.

  “How did you come?”

  “Walked. Look. That idea of yours. I mean, lighting a fire outside. Couldn’t we start one here and burn that door down?”

  “I did think of that,” Bobby answered. “But the air’s got pretty foul, now the chap outside has done his stuff. It was bad enough before, it’s worse now, and if we added smoke from a fire as well I’m not sure we could breathe at all. I think we’ll have to keep fire as a forlorn hope. We had better have a good try, first, at breaking through.”

  “What’s that?” Clavering asked, as a rustling sound in one corner caught his attention.

  “Rats,” Bobby answered. “Hope springs eternal in the rat bosom.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say,” Clavering muttered.

  They set to work upon the door, using every device they could think of, availing themselves of every means of attack they could find. At the end of half an hour they had very little to show for their pains.

  “A week’s job at this rate,” Bobby remarked.

 
; “Can’t see properly what we’re doing,” Clavering grumbled. He paused for a moment to mop his face. He said: “Funny how things come back to you. I remember when I was a kid an old Pilgrim’s Progress we had. There was a picture of Christian and another bloke in the dungeon of Giant Despair, and I can remember how it frightened me because I thought it might happen to me some day, too. And now it has.”

  “They found out suddenly the dungeon door wasn’t locked, didn’t they?” Bobby asked. “I am afraid this is, though.”

  As he spoke, instinctively he turned the handle of the door and pushed. It opened immediately, and so unexpectedly that he almost fell into the passage without. So surprised was Clavering that for a moment or two he only stared and gaped, before, literally, coming tumbling after. Very much astonished, the two men stood and stared at each other. Out here the air, that before had seemed oppressive and heavy, almost unbreathable, now appeared to them like that of a fresh spring morning, by contrast with the foetid, suffocating atmosphere of the cellar. They both breathed deeply, and with Clavering indignation began to replace astonishment.

  “The door was open all the time. You said you couldn’t open it, and someone had wedged it up,” he complained. “We might have stopped there long enough, all because you hadn’t sense enough to turn the handle.”

  “But I had,” Bobby protested mildly. “Just what I did.”

  “Only because of my happening to remember our old Pilgrim’s Progress, and how that picture scared me,” Clavering grumbled, still indignant. When Bobby, now examining the ground near by with the aid of his torch, made no reply, Clavering went on: “Of all the fool tricks…what made you think it was fast?”

  “Because it was,” Bobby answered now, having found what he had been looking for. He showed three small wedges, those by which the door had been fastened, and showed, also, the marks on ground and door where they had been inserted. “Someone came along and kicked them out,” he said. “Most likely while someone else was earthing up the cellar vent, and we were too much interested in that to notice what was going on at the door. All the same, it’s just as well you read Pilgrim’s Progress when you were a kid. Everything comes in useful in time if you only wait long enough.”

  “Well, but…” began Clavering. “What’s been the idea?” he demanded, and then he said abruptly: “Come on, let’s get out of this. I’ve had enough of it down here.”

  “So have I,” agreed Bobby.

  They made their way then back to the upper regions, and once they were outside, in the open air, they stood for a time, enjoying the fresh, evening breeze, for by now it was growing late. Not much pleasure, perhaps, as a rule in the simple act of breathing, but to them both the deep breaths they drew were like renewed life. Clavering was the first to speak when he repeated his former question:

  “Thank God we’re out of there,” he said, “but what was the idea? I mean…who?…and why?”

  “Looks to me,” Bobby answered slowly, “as if someone wanted rather badly to put a stopper on us and what we are doing, and someone else thought the method adopted was going a bit far. Pure benevolence, perhaps, or else fear of the consequences. So while the one was making sure by stopping up the cellar vent, the other was knocking out the wedges.”

  “Well, why didn’t he say?” grumbled Clavering. “We might never have known.”

  “Didn’t want to be seen, probably,” Bobby suggested. “Thought he had better have a good start so as to avoid awkward questions.” Clavering looked very puzzled still.

  “I can’t make it out,” he complained.

  “Too hard a knot?” Bobby quoted once again.

  “Well, I mean to say… who could it be?” Clavering asked.

  “Three people are possibles,” Bobby said thoughtfully. “Or four, rather. The Baileys. Bailey thinking he would like us out of the way, and Mrs. Bailey scared of what might happen afterwards. Or the man you saw watching you when you got here. Or the chap I had a glimpse of—youngish, I thought, in a grey suit. Only in that case, which did which? And why?”

  “Anyhow, I suppose all’s well that ends well,” Clavering said. Bobby, to his relief, had found his bicycle untouched where he had left it. He was preparing to mount and ride away, leaving Clavering to return, as he had come, on foot. As he started he said to Clavering: “What makes you think it has ended, well or otherwise?”

  CHAPTER XIX

  SPADES

  Bobby, next morning, found waiting for him one or two reports of interest. One was from the Yard, indicating inability to recognize Major Hardman from the description given. If finger-prints, or even a photograph, could be obtained and forwarded, a more definite answer would be given. Bobby laid this aside. Then there was information from the Lonesome sergeant to the effect that Major Hardman was absent from home on business. What business, Bobby wondered, since he understood that the Major had retired from active affairs. Again from the Yard, from another department, was word that Somerset House had no record of the birth of the Hardman twins, Frank and Frances, nor, for that matter, of Ned Doors, formerly an inmate of one of His Majesty’s prisons, but not, as Bobby had at first believed, the dead man found in Midwych canal. Nothing in that, of course. People can be born elsewhere than within the Registrar-General’s domain. Names can be changed. But there was also a note to the effect that a brother of Ned or ‘Lovey’ Doors, known as ‘Shut’ Doors, because of his reputed silent disposition, was said to have returned recently from the United States. But this was not certain. It was only what was said among some of Lovey’s associates, none of whom were very reliable, or likely to be very anxious to provide the authorities with information. Nor was it explained how he had managed to make the journey in war time. Deck hand on a tramp, perhaps, deserting when England was reached. Bobby was interested, though. If the dead man was this brother of Lovey’s, was Lovey himself in the neighbourhood? If so, was it Lovey he had seen climbing in at the Anson bungalow window? If so again, when, where and how, had the paths crossed of the professional criminal and ex-convict, Lovey Doors, and the apparently quiet, normal young woman, Betty Anson? A strange and difficult problem there, Bobby told himself. And yet another note from the sergeant at Lonesome, to say that when Frank Hardman had been ejected from the Horse and Groom he had been wearing a grey suit.

  “Nothing much in that either,” Bobby remarked to Payne, who had sent in these reports, and now appeared in person to ask what Bobby thought of them. “Plenty of grey suits in the world. But I think, all the same, I’ll try to see Miss Frances Hardman this afternoon.”

  “She’ll not say much,” Payne prophesied.

  “Did you manage to find out anything about what they think of her at the W.V.S.?” Bobby asked.

  “‘Fingers all thumbs,’ was one description,” Payne answered, smiling a little. “She’s so clumsy at needlework they give her as little of that to do as they can. At the same time she’s good at odd jobs, and can even drive a nail straight, which makes her one up on most women. She is said to be very willing and very regular, quite a dab at cooking, never seems tired, but, all the same, not very popular—rather sulky and won’t talk, though you would think they would like that at a W.V.S. Give more of a chance to the rest of them.”

  “Interesting,” commented Bobby.

  “Do you think she comes in?” Payne asked.

  “If she does, not much to show where,” Bobby answered.

  “A sister might be willing to do a lot for a brother and yet feel the line had to be drawn somewhere,” observed Payne, and, when Bobby agreed, added: “By the way, there’s a ’phone message from Lonesome. I told them to ring up if they heard of any change. A doctor called yesterday at the Anson bungalow. Miss Anson it was.”

  “Nervous breakdown?” Bobby asked, and Payne said he believed that was the trouble, and to himself wondered how it was the Deputy Chief Constable seemed always so lucky in his guesses. Bobby added: “I think I’ll go on from Hardman’s place and see Miss Anson, too, if I can. I expect I sh
all be told she can’t be seen—doctor’s orders.”

  “Doctor’s orders,” agreed Payne, “is always a trump card to play. If you ask me,” he added, “those two—Miss Hardman and Miss Anson are in it together somehow.”

  “Yes, somehow,” agreed Bobby. “Only the operative syllable is ‘how’.”

  “I suppose, though,” Payne continued, “that after what happened to you and him, we can take it that Mr. Clavering is out?”

  “Why?” asked Bobby.

  “Couldn’t have knocked himself out,” argued Payne, “and if he could, he wouldn’t, not down there, not among the rats. Sort of gives you the creeps, I mean to say, being eaten alive. No one could stand for that.”

  “He certainly didn’t knock himself out,” agreed Bobby, “but he may have got an accomplice to do it for him. If so, not the first time the another victim trick has been played to suggest innocence. Makes a sore head worth while. The same accomplice may have blocked up the cellar grating just to add a further touch of realism, and then kicked the wedges from under the door to let us out again. A good deal of what is going on suggests a pretty subtle mind behind it all. As for the rats, possibly they represent the unexpected, unforeseen element that s always liable to upset the best laid plans. Nothing to prove it was like that, but it might be, and nothing to prove it wasn’t. It was Clavering talking about Pilgrim’s Progress that started me trying the door. Coincidence or design?”

  “Seems,” said Payne cautiously, “as if it might be either,” and when Bobby signified a grave agreement with this pronouncement, Payne continued: “But if you ask me, it does seem, doesn’t it? That Miss Hardman’s brother is still hanging around, and, if he is, he must be above ground still. And if he is,” declared Payne with undiminished confidence, “we’ll lay him by the heels sooner or later.”

  This time Bobby shook his head.

  “All I saw,” he reminded Payne, “and that only for a fraction of a second, was someone who was probably young, because he was so quick in his movements, and who was wearing a grey suit. Not much for identification.”