“I know nothing about anyone of the sort. I only hope it’s not somebody Frank has got himself mixed up with. More likely some pal of that caretaker chap at Nonpareil, the ex-convict I told you about. I expect you meet a queer lot of customers in gaol?”
“Well, yes, I expect that was your own experience, wasn’t it?” Bobby asked casually.
Major Hardman, hitherto sitting easily in his arm-chair, comfortably chatting, one leg carelessly crossed over the other, jerked upright. His manner, hitherto that of friendly co-operation in a business not very directly concerning himself, changed in a flash into one of mingled rage and panic, that most dangerous of all combinations. Bobby watched him warily. Not that Bobby did not feel himself a match for half a dozen Hardmans, elderly, gross with self-indulgence. As well to be on the lookout though. Hardman made an effort to recover himself. He said with all the dignity he could muster:
“Deputy Chief Constable, if you mean that for a joke I consider it in the worst possible taste.”
“No joke at all,” Bobby assured him. “You as good as told me yourself. If you hadn’t, I should never have thought of it. Why should I? One doesn’t expect an old public school man, from the swellest school in England, a retired army major, to turn out to be an old lag. But when you said you recognized Bailey from having seen him only once in court, and then seeing him again years later in quite different circumstances, I did rather wonder. It struck me that possibly you had seen him rather oftener, and rather more closely. When you came to H.Q. you didn’t see Bailey, but he was there, in a room you passed through, in a corner, reading a paper. He knew you again.”
“The fellow’s lying,” Hardman broke out. “Of course he recognized me. After you had given him a full description and told him who to look out for.”
“We told him nothing,” Bobby answered, “not even what he was there for. I even got one of my chaps to stand on his head, so that Bailey shouldn’t even be sure he was wanted to identify anyone. He says you were at Parkhurst together. You were serving a seven-year sentence—finishing it. Easy to confirm, of course. If you deny it, I mean. I have checked up on your record. A gap of some years you spent travelling abroad, I believe you told your friends later on. I think your identity was never disclosed, was it?”
CHAPTER XXVIII
DISAPPOINTMENT
Major Hardman had become first very red, then very pale, and now against the pallor of his countenance his small and angry eyes burned like pin-points of fire. Physically he seemed to have shrunk, to have coiled in upon himself as it were, so that to Bobby he seemed to have acquired an odd resemblance to a snake about to strike. A warning to be wary, Bobby told himself, even though he had small fear of Hardman as an open adversary. Not a man to let slip behind you, but not so very formidable face to face. Hardman was speaking now, snarling angry oaths.
“A dirty trick,” he declared. “Mud raking. Just like police. Anything to throw dirt. What has it to do with you? It’s over, isn’t it? Done with. I made a mistake. I know I did, and I paid. It’s no business of yours, nothing to do with you. Get out of it,” he roared. “Get out of my house.”
“If I do,” Bobby said quietly, “I take you with me. Do you want that?”
Hardman glared in answer, hesitated, tried again to control himself, and said more quietly:
“All that’s behind me, done with. You’ve no business to rake it up. Naturally I didn’t want you to know. Suppose it’s true. You can’t do anything. I know cops, ferreting things out…”
He paused, breathing heavily, and Bobby said:
“Sometimes it is necessary for us to ferret things out. At present it is my duty to try to ferret out what happened at Nonpareil on the night Dr. Jones met his death there, and also what happened to the man, still unidentified, whose body was found in the canal.”
“I know nothing about all that,” Hardman declared sulkily. “How could I? You know yourself I was talking to one of your own men when the fellow was shot. Or do you think he and I did the murder together?”
“I’m quite sure you didn’t,” Bobby answered. “I only wish I were one half as sure of many other things.”
“I don’t mind telling you now you’ve nosed it out,” Hardman said bitterly, “that Frank knows about me, and where I was when I was supposed to be abroad. That’s how he gets money out of me, that’s why I gave him that five-pound note you found.”
“Do you think he may be the murderer?” Bobby asked.
“You can’t expect me to say a thing like that about my own nephew.”
“Do you think he is alive?”
“Alive? What do you mean?” Hardman asked quickly, evidently both startled and puzzled, and yet a little as if the question were a relief. “Why shouldn’t he be?”
“I don’t know,” Bobby answered. “There seems to be a medico-scientific theory against it.”
“What’s that mean?” Hardman asked, very puzzled and even more suspicious. “What are you getting at?”
“Never mind,” Bobby answered. “A sort of side issue. That’s all. At this stage it doesn’t matter. Major Hardman, I want to give you a very serious warning. It is your last chance. If you wish to make a full statement I am prepared to listen to it. You see, I feel sure you know a great deal you have not told me, though I think I know enough now to be sure of being able to put it all together in time. But I’m not sure yet who is at the head of the queue, not quite sure what the queue was lining up for. If you choose to make a statement you can do so, either to me now, or at headquarters, in the presence of a lawyer if you like. You would understand, of course, that anything you said would be made use of as and when required.”
“I don’t know what you think all that means,” retorted Hardman. “Typical police bluff. I know your ways. Bluff you into thinking everything’s known so as to make you talk, and then twist what you say. That won’t work with me. Because there’s nothing I know, and nothing I could tell you if I wanted to.”
“Not even where the Vermeer picture is?”
It was a sudden thrust, and Hardman winced and looked more furious, more frightened, even than before.
“I don’t know anything about any Vermeer painting,” he declared sullenly. “What Vermeer painting? What are you talking about?”
“Well, there’s been a lot of talk about one,” Bobby explained. “Even the chairman of my watch committee has heard about it. Quite excited him. A side issue in my opinion. Murder is more important than art, even the greatest art. But this painting does seem as if it were a kind of focal point. I see all this as a kind of circling and weaving here and there, with always this picture I have never seen as the centre of it all. I was hoping you might be willing to show it me.”
“I know nothing about any Vermeer,” Hardman persisted sullenly. “All I know is that Frank talked about the chance of finding it. Nobody else had ever heard of it. You know all that, and it’s all I know. Ask Frank, if you want to know more.”
“Unluckily he is so hard to find, always supposing that he is living,” Bobby answered. “In the meantime I’m asking you, and I’m going to ask how it comes to be in your possession?”
“I tell you I know nothing about it,” Hardman shouted. “You’re talking rot.” He was on his feet now, gesticulating, shouting. His voice sounded hysterical, his face was contorted, ghastly. All at once he subsided. He sat down again. “I don’t believe there is such a thing,” he muttered. “I don’t know what you’ve got into your head. It’s all rubbish, nonsense.”
Bobby made no answer. He strolled over to the fireplace and stood looking at the water-colour hanging there.
“Birket Foster, isn’t it?” he said. “All his own work, or one of those only half completed the dealers bought up after his death and got a well-known Scots artist to finish for them?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Hardman growled. “It’s a genuine Birket Foster all right. What’s it to do with you?”
“I was only wondering,” Bobby
explained, “why the Birket Foster has displaced the portrait of your grandfather, isn’t he? The one that used to hang over the mantelpiece where the Birket Foster is now. Poor grandfather banished to a dark corner, I see. I wonder why? May I look closer?”
He moved across towards the corner of the room where the portrait now hung. Hardman was on his feet again, dismayed, gesticulating.
“Leave it alone, leave it alone, I tell you,” he shouted. “You’ve no right…don’t touch it, I tell you. Leave it alone, put it down.”
“Oh, I think I’ll have a look,” Bobby said gently. “No harm, surely, in giving grandfather the once over. Why do you object?” he added sternly, as Hardman came angrily and threateningly towards him.
For the moment Hardman looked as if he had so entirely lost all control as to be about to launch a personal attack, even though Bobby had so obviously every advantage of height and strength and youth. Bobby watched him. Hardman cried out a violent oath, and turned and rushed out of the room. Bobby had already taken down the portrait from the nail on which it hung. Now he propped it against a chair and crossed swiftly the room to stand against the wall by the door, on the side against which it did not open. He heard Hardman racing wildly down the stairs, hurling himself across the entrance passage. He heard someone crying out, in surprise and terror. The niece, he guessed, running from her kitchen to know what was meant by this wild running and shouting. Hardman dashed against the door, threw it back with the violence of his rush, dashed into the room, a revolver ready in his hand. Bobby thrust out a leg. Hardman tripped over it, and went sprawling, headlong on his face. Bobby stooped over him, picked up the revolver, pocketed it, left Hardman lying there, shaken and dazed, and proceeded with his examination of the portrait he had taken down.
A glance was enough to show him there was not, as he had so fully expected, another picture secured at the back of this one. But nails had recently been driven into the frame, and from these nails bits and pieces of string were still hanging. Something had been attached there, held in position by a network of string stretching from one nail to another. But nothing to show what that something had been, or why it had been so secured, or, more important, what had now become of it. Bobby sat frowning and baffled, very disappointed. At the door appeared the pale, frightened face of Miss Hardman. Hardman, badly shaken by his heavy fall, still badly dazed, was struggling to his feet. Bobby took no notice of either of them. Hardman cried out suddenly and violently.
“Put it down. Where is it?” he shouted. “You’ve no right…it’s mine…I…where is it?”
“Where is what?” Bobby asked.
Miss Hardman came from the doorway farther into the room.
“What’s the matter? What’s happening?” she asked. “Uncle, what’s he doing with grandfather’s portrait?” More directly to Bobby, she said: “What’s it mean?”
“Don’t you know?” Bobby asked.
Hardman was beginning to recover himself slightly. But he was still dazed, shaken, bewildered. He muttered:
“Isn’t it there? What’s happened? Who’s got it?”
“What isn’t there?” Bobby asked. “Well,” he said again, when Hardman did not answer, but stared and blinked and gasped, “what isn’t?”
“I wish someone would tell me what’s been going on,” Miss Hardman interposed, and Bobby swung round on her, and she looked back at him calmly and quietly. There had even come a faint hint of mockery in her voice as she said: “What are you doing with grandfather’s portrait? Uncle, do you know what it’s all about? First, you take it away from the mantelpiece because you said the light was too strong, and it was fading, and now Mr. Owen’s got it down again. What for?” she asked innocently, even too innocently. She came forward and took the portrait from where Bobby had placed it, leaning against a chair. She started to replace it in its former position. “I wish you would tell me what’s been happening,” she said over her shoulder.
“Oh, you both know,” Bobby told her moodily, “only I’m a bit too late.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Miss Hardman said. “Unless you’ve both been drinking,” she added brightly. “You both look like it,” she concluded, stepping back to regard critically the rehung portrait, and then giving it a touch to straighten it a little.
Hardman was seated now. He was still looking very dazed, not yet fully recovered from the violence of his fall. He was muttering something to himself, and Bobby thought he caught the name ‘Tails’. Miss Hardman went to him, began to brush his clothes. She went out of the room, and came back quickly with a glass of brandy and water, Bobby thought.
“Drink that,” she said, giving it to her uncle; and then, stooping over him, and adjusting his collar and tie, she said something to him in a low voice, but Bobby could not hear what.
Major Hardman drank off the contents of the glass, gave it back to her, began to look more composed. His voice was still unsteady, though, as he mumbled:
“I don’t understand all this…I think we are entitled to an explanation.”
“So am I,” retorted Bobby. “What did you mean to do with that revolver you ran upstairs for in such a hurry?” He took it from his pocket into which he had hurriedly thrust it. “Fully loaded,” he said. “Safety catch off. I’ll put it on again. Better like that. Well, what was it you wanted it for in such a hurry?”
“Oh, that,” said Major Hardman slowly. He was more himself now. He spoke slowly and carefully. “It’s like this. I’ve had it on my mind long enough. I’ve had it ever since the last war. Just in case of burglars. Or because an old soldier likes to feel he isn’t quite defenceless. I never bothered about getting permission, a licence, all that sort of red tape. But what’s been going on recently made me think perhaps I had better. I told you I was going upstairs to get it.”
“Told me?” repeated Bobby, considerably taken aback.
“Well, didn’t I?” retorted the Major, telling this bare-faced lie with the utmost composure. “I said: ‘Wait a moment and I’ll get you my old nineteen-fourteen pistol, and then you can go through all the motions, and put me right with your blessed regulations.’ That’s what I said to you, isn’t it?”
“No,” said Bobby, beginning almost to be amused at the audacity of this invention. “Not a word of it. Never mind. Go on.”
“When I got back here,” Hardman continued, “and saw you had taken down grandfather’s portrait, and had it there for all the world as if you were going to run off with it, I was so surprised that I sort of jumped forward. I thought the house was on fire or something. And I suppose I tripped over the carpet or something. Anyhow, I went over flat on my face. Shook me up a bit. I hardly knew where I was or what I was saying for a time.”
He paused and cocked a confident eye at Bobby, as much as to say: “That’s my story, and it’s as good as yours any day.”
“You ought to be more careful,” said his niece solicitously. “You might have hurt yourself badly. I’m glad you’ve got rid of that thing at last. It’s months since you promised you would, months since you started saying you would give it to Mr. Owen or someone.”
“Kept putting it off, forgetting it, one thing and another,” said the Major. “You know how it is,” and again he looked at Bobby, this time with the faintest possible grin of triumph, plainly saying that here was confirmation of his story, and now it was two stories to one.
“Or is it,” Bobby asked, “that you got it in such a hurry because you had it in your mind to shoot me before I had time to find what both you and I believed to be hidden there?”
“What hidden where?” asked Hardman. “I don’t follow.” Then he added: “I ran upstairs, I believe. I often do. But hurry? No. Did I?” He appealed to his niece.
“Oh, no,” she answered, “not a bit.”
“Was it because he wasn’t hurrying that you cried out so loudly?” Bobby asked her.
“Oh, I didn’t,” she answered. “Did I?” she appealed to her uncle.
“Oh, no,” he
answered, “not at all.”
Bobby had to laugh, though somewhat wryly. They were both, he thought, showing a readiness of wit, a gift for improvisation, really remarkable in its way, slightly disconcerting indeed. He sat down at the table and took out his note-book and looked at the revolver again.
“I’m going to keep this for the time,” he said, “but I’ll give you a receipt. And if you care to make an application now for its return, that’ll perhaps save time later on, and trouble.”
Major Hardman, though slightly surprised at finding Bobby so mildly accommodating, said he thought that was a very good idea, and very kind of the Deputy Chief Constable. A wink he gave his niece plainly intimated that in his opinion Bobby was now singing very small indeed, a proof of his complete defeat and overthrow now that he had been obliged to accept an explanation entirely plausible and simple, even though they all three knew it to be also entirely untrue. But one story’s as good as another, isn’t it? So a second wink bestowed upon Miss Frankie seemed to say. Then the Major wrote out and signed the application Bobby had suggested, and Bobby put it away with care in his pocket-book.
After that, Bobby took a polite and regretful leave, and both the Major and his niece expressed the most friendly hopes that he would come and see them again. Bobby promised he would do his best to pay them another call, and he said this with an edge to his voice that chilled just a little the warm glow of their triumph. For disappointed and puzzled though Bobby was by the disappearance of the Vermeer he had so confidently counted upon finding, still he felt convinced that now at last he had secured the evidence he had so long sought, the conclusive, decisive evidence that leaves no doubt. Though of course, he reminded himself, it had to be checked and confirmed before it could be really accepted. And indeed there was in a corner of his mind a tiny murmur of a suggestion that perhaps it was not going to be quite so simple as all that.
There's a Reason for Everything: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 20