“Are you sure?” Bobby asked.
“Oh, yes. He didn’t say he had it—if he had I mightn’t have believed him. He could match lies with Hitler if he wanted to, and come out evens. But he stood me a drink—if you knew Tails you would understand that meant something—and he gave me hints on where to look for it, and suggestions about our working together if I brought it off, and a lot more guff. And he talked about what it would be worth. He expects a knighthood at the least. He was just oozing triumph—rubbing it in he had trumped the trick. He even asked if I would like to give old Solomon the go-by and work for him—the dirty dog. Oh, he has it all right,” and these last words Clavering pronounced as if all hope had fled, all brightness from the earth for ever more.
“If it’s like that,” Bobby said, only half convinced, “why has he gone away without saying anything, without paying his bill, leaving his things behind?”
“As if,” said Clavering pityingly, “anyone would even think of all that when he had brought off the coup of all time—of all eternity for that matter. Can’t you get it into your head—your thick head—what it means? Recovering a lost and till now unknown first-class Vermeer?”
“The search for it seems to have had consequences anyhow,” Bobby said grimly. “What did you want with Tails?”
“To eat humble pie,” said Clavering sadly—though sadly is but a poor, inadequate word; “to lick his boots, or anything else for a chance of a look.” A faint glow of enthusiasm shone for a moment through the heavy gloom of his expression. “Next best thing to recovering it, would be a long, quiet look all to yourself. But I expect Tails will keep it back till he can produce it with a good big blaze of publicity. You know, I don’t believe the Vermeer means a thing to him except in terms of cash and credit.” Clavering paused, and looked slightly ashamed. “Envy,” he admitted. “Envy, spite and malice. You oughtn’t to say a thing like that about any man, not even about Tails.”
“Did he say anything about Nonpareil while you were talking to him?” Bobby asked.
“No,” Clavering answered. “Is that where he found it? How could he? Nonpareil has been gone through with a small tooth comb. I thought it was through Major Hardman. I’m pretty sure Hardman has had something to do with it only he’s been let down. By Tails very likely.”
“Why do you think that?” asked Bobby.
“Oh, Hardman’s nearly off his head. I’ve seen him. Near frenzy. I couldn’t get anything coherent out of him, but he cursed every one he could think of, including you—and me. Not Tails, so I take it it was Tails he meant. And his nephew, young Frank Hardman. Young Hardman is in it somewhere, somehow. They must have had hopes of nobbling the thing themselves, and Tails has got in ahead. I suppose it’s nothing to do with all this business, but there is a story that young Frank sometimes dresses up as his sister. They’re like as two peas, you know. I don’t know if there’s anything in the yarn. Very likely there isn’t.”
“No, I don’t much think there is,” Bobby said thoughtfully.
They parted then; and as Bobby and Payne continued on their way, Payne remarked, glancing over his shoulder at Clavering’s melancholy, drooping, retreating figure:
“Do you think he is O.K.? He sounds to me a bit cracked about this picture of his. After all, a picture’s a picture, isn’t it? To hear him, you would think he was talking about something holy.”
“He thinks he is,” Bobby said.
Payne greeted this with an incredulous grunt, and as they reached headquarters he remarked that it was time they heard from Wakefield. Wakefield had taken their time about it. When the report did come in, however, he supposed they would be able to see their way better, perhaps even proceed to an arrest.
Bobby agreed. He went to his room, and Payne went to his, where he found waiting for him the Wakefield report, so ardently, so confidently expected. A little later he came in to Bobby, looking as woebegone, as depressed, as melancholy, as even Clavering had done when expressing his belief that the Vermeer had passed finally into the hands of triumphant Mr. Tails. Bobby was quite startled. His mind flew rapidly from one possible catastrophe to another. He said:
“What’s up?”
“Wakefield,” said Payne, and Bobby almost thought he was going to cry. “Wakefield reports that the murder bullets and the revolver you got from Hardman are not complementary.”
“Oh,” said Bobby.
“Complete wash out,” said Payne.
“Complete,” agreed Bobby.
So all that astute care by which he had secured Hardman’s signature to an avowal of the ownership of the weapon had gone for nothing. Probably, Bobby reflected now, Hardman would not have given his signature so readily had his revolver been, in actual fact, the weapon used. Not that that would have proved his guilt, but it would have needed a good deal of explaining, and would certainly have justified arrest. Oh, well, detective work was like that, life itself was like that. You built up with infinite care what seemed a secure position, and then all at once everything gave way, everything crumbled, and you had to start again from the very beginning.
CHAPTER XXXII
IMPRISONED
But this set-back, if set-back it were, made still more urgent that unease and sense of instant need of which Bobby was conscious. He decided that this was an occasion for prompt action, and one when the use of petrol would be justified, even though every drop was precious, brought as it was at the risk of men’s lives. He got out, therefore, his own small Bayard Seven he now often used on duty, since it was so economical in fuel consumption. In it he and Payne were soon on their way, nor did they talk much, for Payne, too, was aware of an impression that a climax was near, and that it was a climax holding dark threat of more tragedy to come. Indeed, Payne only spoke once, and that was when Bobby was slowing down as they neared their destination. With a memory stirring in his mind of a remark Bobby had made just before their start, he said abruptly:
“When a man thinks a thing is holy, he can do strange things.”
Bobby gave him a startled glance, for the remark ran parallel with a latent feeling of his own.
“Yes, I know,” he said. Then he repeated. “Yes, that’s so.”
He brought the car to a standstill and Payne said, as he was alighting:
“What about Tails? It might be he has engineered the whole thing.”
“It might be,” Bobby agreed, backing his car on to the grass verge by the roadside. “We shall soon know, I think. ‘Too hard a knot,’ I remember calling this business once, with its double thread of murder and treasure hunt. But it’ll soon be unravelled now—or unravel itself.”
They went through the great Nonpareil gateway. Bailey, working in his garden, had heard their approach, and was coming to meet them.
“The missis is gone to ring you up,” he said. “Did you get it?”
“No,” Bobby said. “What about?”
“It’s young Hardman,” Bailey said. “I thought I saw him first thing, soon as I was up, but I wasn’t sure. It was someone dodged away among the trees, and I shouted, but soon as he saw me he did a bunk, and I didn’t see him no more. And I’m not so sure there hasn’t been someone inside up there, for things didn’t seem the same like, and such a maze of a place half a dozen might be there and you never know.”
“Anything else?” Bobby asked.
“I thought I twigged him again,” Bailey answered, “and if it wasn’t him, it was mighty like. But bunked off so quick I couldn’t be sure, and the missis said to ring you up, so she done it, and not back yet, it being near a mile to the road box. But if anyone’s been inside up there, I don’t see how. I put a screw in the door now when I leave, as well as locking up careful. And all other doors and windows boarded, and none of ’em touched. So what’s the odds?”
“Not difficult to get out a screw,” Bobby said, “and I expect an impression of the lock was taken sometime when you were at work cleaning inside. Easy enough then to have a key made. We’ll have a good look. You h
ad better come, too. I suppose you can get to the house at the back without coming this way?”
“Easy as winking,” Bailey agreed. “Nothing to stop ’em, but a fence full of gaps.” Then he said, somewhat defensively: “No one couldn’t expect there was a bunch wanting to get into an old house full of nothing but emptiness.”
“Of course not,” agreed Bobby. “No fault of yours, but it looks as if there had been more in there than any of us ever dreamed of.”
They had drawn close to the house now, and as they skirted the angle of the left wing wall, so as to get to the side door Bailey used, there rang out, clear and loud, a pistol shot, as it seemed, from just above their heads, from one of the rooms there—one shot, and then another, loud, clear and ominous.
Bobby began to run. He got first to the door, with Payne close at his heels, but they had to wait for Bailey, slower and more awkward in movement, and fumbling for his keys. He got the right one at last. The screw holding the door had been removed. He opened the door and instinctively they all waited, drawing aside a little, more than half expecting to be greeted by more shots. But there was only silence, the vast and empty silence that weighed so heavily upon these huge deserted rooms, and long and twisting corridors and passages, where it seemed that only the past existed, since for them the present had neither value nor significance.
“There’s no other way out, is there?” Bobby asked. “How about putting a screw inside this time? In the floor to stop the door opening. Then no one could get out in a hurry.”
Bailey nodded, and said he could soon manage that. He added an inquiry as to what were the odds. He went into the room where he kept his tools and cleaning material. When he opened the door the first thing they saw was Mr. Parkinson sitting at the table, eating bread and cheese.
“Good day,” he said affably.
Bobby’s reply, after a moment of speechless surprise, was much less affable.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded suspiciously.
“I came to meet Tails,” Parkinson replied, though stiffly, and with eyebrows lifted in protest at Bobby’s harsh, abrupt tone. “He asked me to. He said if he wasn’t back at his hotel last night, would I come on here, and if I couldn’t find him then I was to let you know. I was thinking of doing so.”
“Pity you stopped at thinking,” Bobby snapped, perhaps a little unfairly, but he was growing more concerned every moment. “You’ve seen nothing of him?” When Parkinson shook his head, Bobby went on, his voice still full of doubt and suspicion: “Didn’t you hear anything just a moment or two ago? A pistol shot?”
“A pistol shot? Certainly not. Whereabouts? When?”
Bobby did not answer. In his ear Payne whispered:
“Perhaps he didn’t hear it because perhaps he fired it.”
Bobby nodded. It was a possibility that had occurred to him, too. To Parkinson, he continued:
“Didn’t Mr. Tails say anything more? Explain at all?”
“Well, no. I understood it was something about a highly valuable picture he hoped to recover. He thought it as well to be on his guard, so he asked me to be here this morning.”
“What good did he think that was going to do?” growled Bobby, feeling more worried than ever. “A client may be a child among dealers, but a dealer is a child among gangsters.”
“Or their boss,” murmured Payne doubtfully.
Bobby made up his mind.
“We’ll have to have a good look round,” he said. To Parkinson he said: “You had better stay here, and, for your own safety, I’m locking the door.” To Bailey, he said: “Is there a key? Have you it? Yes? Good.” To Parkinson, he said: “It won’t be for long.”
“Here. You’ve no right,” began Parkinson, getting to his feet.
“No. I know I haven’t,” Bobby agreed, “but I’m going to, all the same. It’s for your own safety,” he repeated.
He went quickly into the passage, before Parkinson fully realized what was happening. Payne and Bailey followed. Bobby banged the door to. Bailey locked it. From within came a volley of shouts, kicks, and other violent sounds.
“False imprisonment,” said Payne doubtfully, two words of which he stood, as do all policemen, in great awe and dread. “For his own safety,” he repeated, still more doubtfully, “or to make sure he’s still there when we want him?”
For a moment they stood listening to Parkinson’s very energetic protests. Under them the door was shaking. But it was old and solid and held fast.
“It’ll hold,” Bobby said; and added, as there reached them the sounds of a specially fierce and vigorous assault: “You know, for an elderly man, a draper by profession, he does rather run to violence. You don’t expect drapers to be violent people, though I don’t know why not.” He moved on down the passage as he spoke. The other two followed him. Behind them there died away the sound of those unceasing thumps, bangs, kicks. In the great hall in the centre of the house they stood listening. They heard nothing, not even now the steady drumming of Parkinson’s assault on the door of his prison. Bailey was told to wait there, in the main hall, so as to cut off any attempted escape. He was to keep out of sight as much as possible. He was also handed an unloaded pistol, though this he flatly refused to accept until twice assured that it really was unloaded.
“I’ve got this,” he had explained, holding up a certainly solid-looking fist. “That’s good enough for me.”
“Looks as if it ought to be, but I don’t want any more scrapping than can be helped,” Bobby explained.
Leaving thus Bailey on guard, Bobby and Payne made a quick circuit of the ground floor of the great building. They found nothing, heard and saw nothing of interest, though now and then, listening, they recognized the distant hammering Parkinson was still keeping up with vigour and determination.
“Doesn’t give in easily,” Bobby remarked, listening. “There are formidable possibilities in that man.”
They ascended, next, the great stairway, to search the upper floors. Once or twice they shouted, but got no reply. They looked in the nearer rooms, and found them all empty, deserted, wrapped in their usual silence and desolation. Hard to believe that once here the full tide of life had flowed and ebbed day by day in unceasing change and bustle. They went into the great picture gallery where the sheeted figures still stood undisturbed. They left it, and came to the corridor whence opened that room where, as Parkinson had told, he and the unlucky Dr. Jones had once seen a fresh bloodstain.
“This is where it started,” Bobby remarked, opening the door.
Within, once again, much where it had been before, there showed upon the bare boards of the flooring a stain of newly spilt blood.
CHAPTER XXXIII
CUPBOARD
“That’s the shot we heard,” Payne said, staring at the small red, ominous pool, remembering the sharp double crack of pistol shots that had greeted their arrival.
Bobby nodded gloomily. They were too late, he feared. He began to look round the room, hoping for further indications of what had happened. In the wall he discovered a hole, wherefrom, with care and patience, he extracted a bullet. A revolver bullet, he thought. He put it away carefully. Two shots had been heard, but there was only one bullet to be found. Where was the other? A question that might, they both felt, have a tragic answer. Bobby went to the window, that window whence so wide and far a view could be obtained. On the frame were plainly marked finger-prints, clear on the recent dust that even in empty rooms accumulates so quickly. Payne, who had at one time made a special study of finger-prints, examined them carefully, producing a small though powerful magnifying glass for the purpose.
“Look to me like Hardman’s,” he said.
“If they are,” Bobby said, “was he shooter or shot? And who else was in it—shooting or shot?”
“There are some more dabs here,” Payne said, “but they don’t look as if they will be much good—more of the same perhaps.”
Bobby went back to the window to look. He could not ma
ke much of them. Through the chinks and cracks in the boarding covering the window, whereby a little daylight filtered through into the room, he peered out over the wide country-side.
“I suppose we had better have another look round the house,” he said. “Not much good, though. Too late. An easy get away while we’ve been up here, or before we got here, for that matter, or while we were talking to Parkinson.” He stiffened suddenly, as his idle glance, wandering over the country-side, caught sight of movements in a distant field. “Come here, come and look,” he said to Payne.
Payne came up. He stared through another crack. He said:
“What is it? Oh, see that? Someone ran in behind those trees, half way across the field with the three cows.”
“See who it was?” Bobby asked.
“No. Too far off. He didn’t want to be seen, the way he was crouching as he ran.”
“I saw another man in another field,” Bobby said slowly, “creeping along a hedge, farther away, and I think the first man was following the other, and I think the second man was hiding from the first.”
“Gould you see who they were?” Payne asked.
“No,” Bobby said. “Too far.”
“What do we do?” Payne asked.
“Carry on here,” Bobby answered. “More urgent. Whatever’s going on out there, it’s too far away for us to interfere. We must clear up here first. Besides, what’s out there may have nothing to do with us. Boy scouts perhaps.”
But this he did not really believe, not for one moment, nor did Payne. They continued their hurrying search of this upper floor. They went swiftly, almost running at times, they looked into every room, opened every cupboard and closet. Or so they believed, for though they marked their progress with chalk, it was hard to keep any sense of direction in that bewildering maze of twisting corridors and unexpected rooms and sudden stairs, all appearing where it seemed they could not be.
There's a Reason for Everything: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 23