“But there’s the bloodstain he and Dr. Jones saw at Nonpareil?” Olive objected. “Does that fit?”
“No. Jones was knocked out and then strangled. No blood. But there’s no proof there ever was any bloodstain. No evidence but that of Parkinson himself. No one else saw it, and no trace of it, only a spot on the flooring where some of the wood has been planed away and nothing to show why. The whole story may have been an invention of Parkinson’s to divert suspicion. That happens. Sometimes the real criminal comes forward with a yarn meant to absolve himself and throw suspicion somewhere else. “
“I would rather think it was Mr. Parkinson than poor Miss Anson,” Olive said.
“Possibly it was both,” retorted Bobby, grimly enough. “Two have been killed, remember. But it’s early days yet. There’s a lot I don’t understand, a lot still to be explained. So far I don’t see my way at all clearly. I can’t so much as catch a glimpse of any coherent pattern beginning to emerge. Then there’s the question of scientific theory and the Hardman twins. But can you trust scientific theory?”
“Gracious, no,” said Olive, surprised. “Why, a scientist thinks nothing of telling you he works on one theory three days a week and on a totally different theory the other three days. My goodness,” said Olive with something that almost approached a snort, “I would like to see anyone run a house like that.”
“Anyhow,” agreed Bobby, “you can’t put a scientific theory, however scientific, in the witness-box, and Frank Hardman has got to be found—if he exists. The only evidence that there is such a person is that he was thrown out of the Horse and Groom. Since then he has disappeared. Why? How? No one has seen him since to be sure. All I saw at Nonpareil was a man in a grey suit. Claymore, by his own story, never got near enough for recognition; and there’s always the possibility he invented the whole story to account for his damaged face. It may be the bloke I saw climbing in at the window has paid them another visit, and that’s the reason for Claymore’s injuries.”
“If Mr. Frank Hardman can’t be found,” began Olive uneasily, “you don’t think that may mean…”
“…another killing,” Bobby completed the sentence when Olive paused. “We haven’t really got to the thinking stage yet. Just collecting facts so far. I do think, though, that young Claymore would do anything—and I mean anything—to help Betty Anson. And anything might include helping her to hang on to the Vermeer, if she’s got it, or getting it for her, if she hasn’t. She may have persuaded him it is hers rightfully. So it may be, for that matter. She may have bought it at the Nonpareil sale in some job lot or another. No telling.”
“That would mean the man you saw at the window knew, and was breaking in to steal it.”
“It might be that way,” Bobby agreed. “But there again—let’s keep to the facts and see where they lead us, if anywhere. What we know is that an unknown man we can’t trace tried to break in there and looked like mischief. Go on to Mr. Tails.”
“But he was in London?”
“Well, was he? There are still fast trains between Midwych and London, and there are still cars and petrol and motor-cycles to be got hold of if you know how. Another theory. Jones did find the Vermeer, but Parkinson didn’t know. That’s why Jones wanted to get rid of him, and why he went back to Nonpareil alone. But he had told Tails—’phone or wire. Tails may have tried to double-cross Jones, and get away with the Vermeer on his own, or Jones may have made too big claims for himself—or he may even have wanted to be honest and tell about their find. Plenty of cause there for disputes and more. Men have been killed for the price of a pint. A sum in six figures might tempt anyone. The temptation would be even stronger to a dealer like Tails, who would understand its full value, and know how to make the most of it. And that goes for Clavering, too.”
“But,” Olive objected, “someone attacked Mr. Clavering. If you hadn’t got there in time…” and she paused, shuddering with fresh horror at the thought of what might so easily have been.
“An old trick,” Bobby told her, “to try to pass yourself off as the victim when really you are the assailant. The rats may never have been thought of—quite unexpected. Someone came along to release us. Who and why? A pal, put up to it by Clavering? And what about the bloke who was hammering down earth over the grid? Was that intended and purposeful? Or just meant for effect? It didn’t strike me like that at the time. The way that spade was used to beat down the earth sounded vicious to me. ‘Stay there till you starve and rot,’ it seemed to be saying. Made me remember the story of the cavalier of the civil war who is said to have been trapped down there with his wife and children till they all starved to death. As we might have done had those wedges not been knocked out. Does that mean there were two of them? One who meant to do us in as against the one who let us out? If so, again who and why?”
“Oh, Bobby,” exclaimed Olive, who had grown pale at the thought of the fate that might have been intended, that had indeed been so narrowly escaped. “Oh, Bobby, I do wish you were in a bank or somewhere and always came home by the five-fifteen. I think it means just everything—always to come home by the five-fifteen.”
“Jolly good,” agreed Bobby yearningly. “Only—a bit boring.”
“I like being bored,” declared Olive with passionate conviction.
“Not always,” retorted Bobby, for Olive, too, in former days, had not been always in the five-fifteen class. “Anyhow, the job I’ve got on hand at present is to put a murderer—or two of them—out of business, and so make the world a safer place for the rest of us. There you have them, then. There are the facts and the possibilities, and out of all of it we ought to see the truth emerge. First, Parkinson and his unexpected capacity to explode into action. Then Clavering and who knocked him out, and why? And Miss Anson and her faints. Claymore and his damaged face. Major Hardman and what he told me about the Nonpareil caretakers. The Hardman nephew and niece, and does scientific theory stand up? The unidentified man of the bungalow with whom we can’t get in touch, but who gets in touch himself with Tails. Again, Tails himself, and when Clavering tells us Tails is not the murder type, does he want us to believe the opposite? Oh, and the Nonpareil caretakers, who are never at home when I want to see them, but they’ve got to be. As pretty a jungle of contradictions,” Bobby commented, “as anyone could want from which to hack out the truth. With a Vermeer that perhaps isn’t there for a somewhat doubtful starting point.”
The ’phone bell rang. Bobby went to answer it. He came back and said:
“That was Payne. I asked him to check up on every hairdresser in the district to get to know which of them is responsible for that coiffure of Miss Hardman’s—her one concession, it seems, to fashion and vanity. Well, the final report has come in, and every hairdresser has been interviewed. Not one of them knows Miss Hardman as a client.”
“That’s decisive, isn’t it?” Olive said thoughtfully.
“Yes,” agreed Bobby. “Decisive. Only decisive of what?”
CHAPTER XXIV
TEA
When, late on the following afternoon, Bobby started off on his ride to Nonpareil, he had made up his mind that, if necessary, he would leave a message summoning Bailey to headquarters. The message would also inform Bailey quite plainly that unless it were instantly obeyed, steps would be taken to enforce attendance. For many reasons this was not a procedure Bobby was anxious to follow; but Bailey was evidently doing his best to avoid questioning, and that, of course, made questioning still more necessary. When suspicion of guilt was strong, it was often better that such questioning should be done in official surroundings. These had their effect on those who knew they had cause to fear official inquiry. In other cases, questioning, Bobby thought, was often more effective and apt to produce better results when carried out in the suspected person’s own home, in familiar surroundings likely to put him or her more at ease, and to bring more willing co-operation. But these were only Bobby’s own theories. Other and equally experienced police officers held opposing
Views.
Now that he was Deputy Chief Constable, he often found himself obliged, as on this occasion, to use his cycle because all available petrol had been taken by his subordinates, to whom he had not dared refuse it lest they should make that refusal an excuse for failure in their mission. But the bicycle as a means of transport has at least the advantage of silence, and as Bobby came in sight of Nonpareil he saw that the lodge door was open. He wondered if the sound of an approaching motor might not have resulted in a swift closure. Even so, he had to knock twice before he heard a movement within, and saw Mrs. Bailey peeping at him from behind the kitchen door.
“Oh, good afternoon,” he called. “May I come in? Safe to leave my bike out here, do you think?”
Without waiting for a reply to either question, he propped up his machine against the lodge wall, and went on down the small entrance passage to the kitchen. A bright, clean, cheerful room as he remembered it, with the afternoon sunshine streaming in through the polished window panes. A small fire of dry twigs was burning in the grate, and the kettle was just beginning to boil. Everything in the room was scrubbed, polished, burnished to a degree that was almost awe-inspiring, Yet not quite that either, for there were many little homely feminine touches; a brightness and harmony of colour, a vase or two of flowers, cushions, slippers ready and waiting, that took away from the room any suggestion of its being too bright and good for human nature’s daily use. Rather had Bobby the impression that a spill on that gleaming table top or even tobacco ash or a mud stain upon that spotless floor would be regarded as merely another opportunity for a display of the loving care and kind attention of which the whole place seemed so spontaneous an expression.
Between the table and another door, leading, or so Bobby supposed, to the scullery, Mrs. Bailey stood, very pale, very still, with such sheer terror in her red and bloodshot eyes as Bobby did not like to see. He felt awkward and embarrassed; he had the impression that of late she had wept much, and in secret. Trying to be friendly, trying to soothe that fear, as of a trapped animal, she seemed to be enduring with his presence, he said to her:
“Jolly little place you have here.”
She did not answer. With a sense of shock he saw—or thought he saw—that the terror in her eyes had changed to hate. If she had been pale and still before, now her pallor had become corpse-like, and now she was not so much still as rigid, strangely rigid. It seemed as if, for some reason, Bobby’s remark, meant to be placating, had been more than she could bear; had pushed her over the narrow edge of endurance. In a hoarse, strained, unnatural voice, she said, the words coming, as it were, in jerks:
“I’ll make—you—a cup—of tea.”
“Now that’s very kind of you,” Bobby said. “Very kind indeed. It’s really Mr. Bailey I’ve come to see.”
“He won’t be long,” she said, in the same jerky voice. “He isn’t far. He’ll be in soon. Just one little cup of tea while you’re waiting.”
He said again that it was very kind, but he mustn’t trouble her; and she gave him a strange and tortured smile, a smile in which her eyes had no part. She took a teapot from the dresser shelf and went out with it into the scullery behind. Bobby sat down near the table. He saw her looking at him round the door from her red and inflamed eyes. When she saw that he had noticed her, she drew back quickly. He heard her moving about, and he felt that she was still watching him, peeping, this time, through the crack of the scullery door. He spread out his hands to the warmth of the fire of crackling twigs, and the singing of the kettle made a cheerful sound in the still and silent room. Mrs. Bailey came back into the room, but stood in the doorway. Bobby glanced up at her and said again:
“Jolly little place you have here.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes,” she repeated, and then: “Isn’t it?”
She went to the dresser and took down cups and saucers. She placed them on a tray and then took a linen table cloth—clean, one of her best, Bobby guessed—from a dresser drawer. She arranged the tray, the cloth on the table. Her motions were stiff and awkward, and sometimes she fumbled the things she was holding as though she did not see them very clearly. Bobby watched her. He looked grave and puzzled. He saw she had put only two cups on the tray. He said:
“Won’t Mr. Bailey have a cup, too?”
“We shall have finished before he’s here,” she said.
She went back into the scullery, and again he knew she was watching him through the crack of the door. He took no notice, apparently concentrating his attention on the fire and the column of steam now pouring from the kettle spout. Mrs. Bailey came back into the room with the teapot in her hand. This time she did not look at him. She went quickly to the dresser. There she opened a canister and took out tea she put in the pot. Still not looking at him, she poured on the boiling water. She put the teapot on the tray and sat down at the table, but she made no effort to pour out. Bobby said:
“Waiting a little gives it time to draw, doesn’t it?” Then he said: “I like my tea strong.”
She did not speak, and she still did not look at him. She put out her hand to the teapot and drew it back.
“I’ll pour out for myself, shall I?” Bobby asked.
“Me, too,” she said, staring at him now.
“Oh, no,” he answered pleasantly. “Your house. You’re hostess. You must pour out your own.”
“Well, I will,” she repeated, but still watching him and making no movement.
Bobby filled his cup. He added milk. He told her he didn’t take sugar. “War-time economy,” he chattered on smilingly. “Not that I mind much. Too much sugar and you can’t taste the tea. Too little, and you can’t taste the sugar, so what’s the odds?”
As he chattered he lifted the cup to his lips, and she leaned across and struck it from his hand. With the same motion she seized the teapot and hurled it violently into the fire. It broke into fragments. The fire, nearly extinguished, spluttered furiously, filling the kitchen with steam and ash. She covered her head with her apron and sat, rocking herself slowly backwards and forwards. She uttered no sound. Bobby said gently:
“Rat poison, wasn’t it?”
“How did you know?” she asked. Abruptly she sat upright. She threw off her apron and sat staring at him. She said: “I meant to do it, but I couldn’t.” Presently she said: “It was the only teapot we had, and you can’t hardly ever get them now, but it doesn’t matter.”
“It was a pity to smash it,” Bobby agreed. “I’ll ask my wife if she has one she can spare. I think there’s one, but I’m not sure.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Well, I told you,” Bobby answered. “I want a bit of a chat with Mr. Bailey, and I’ll wait till he comes. You said he wouldn’t be long. Meanwhile, what about clearing up this mess? I’m not much of a hand at housework, but we must get your nice kitchen straight again.”
He got up and went into the scullery. He found a cloth there and a pail. He returned to the kitchen and began to collect the fragments of the shattered teapot, and to mop up the mess in the fireplace. He was not very expert. Mrs. Bailey said:
“I’ll do that.”
She took the pail and cloth from him and set to work. She said: “This is the teacloth you’ve got. I’ll get another.”
She went into the scullery and came back with fresh water and new cloths. She began to work again. Over her shoulder she said once more:
“You knew all the time. How did you know?”
“It wasn’t difficult to guess,” he answered, smiling at her. “Teapot, cups, tea, all were here, so why did you keep dodging into the scullery? You looked it, too.” Rebukingly, and in a severe voice, he said: “You oughtn’t to do things like that, you know.”
She went on working with busy skill, and all the time her silent tears were falling fast, so that it seemed the floor she dried was damp again at once.
“What are you going to do?” she repeated.
“I told you. Wait for Mr. Bailey, to
have a chat with him.”
“Now you’ll have to take us both,” she told him.
“There you go again,” Bobby complained. “Jumping to conclusions. Just like a woman. Intuition, they call it, and generally all wrong. Give me reason every time and you can keep your intuition.”
“What did you come for?” she asked.
“Because I think Mr. Bailey can tell me things to help me to find a murderer. That is, if he will.” Abruptly he asked: “You have been happy here?”
“When you’ve been in hell for years and years, and then you aren’t, and you’ve got everything even the Queen of England her own self could want, why shouldn’t you be happy?”
Bobby looked slowly round that poor kitchen, bright and clean, but within it little beyond what many would have called the bare necessities of life, though for her containing everything the heart of man could desire. Perhaps it did, he told himself. Warmth and shelter and food, and contentment, that is rarest of all.
“Well, stop crying,” he ordered. “There’s no sense crying. Crying never does any good.”
She began dabbing at her eyes, in an effort to obey. Not with much success. She stood up and faced him, twisting nervously between her hands the floor cloth she had been using.
“You might be a dead corpse by now,” she said. “Don’t you mind?”
“Well, you see,” he explained, “I never had the least intention of becoming a dead corpse. Not my line at all. All the same, I think you behaved very foolishly, and I think you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. I never,” Bobby explained severely, “make excuses for people. I always tell them just what I think, and that’s what I think about you.”
There's a Reason for Everything: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 17