Night's Cloak: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “I think I see,” Bobby said. “Your holding gave you the balance of power in any dispute between your uncle and Mr Edwardes?”

  “That’s about what it came to,” Martin agreed.

  “What was at stake, then,” Bobby said, “was the control of the Weston West Mills concern with all that that implies?”

  “That’s about it,” Martin agreed reluctantly.

  CHAPTER VIII

  HIGH STAKES

  IT WAS Bobby who broke first the heavy silence that followed on Martin’s last remark. He said slowly:—

  “High stakes.”

  “Money had nothing to do with it,” Martin declared abruptly. “If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong. It wasn’t money at all.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “Power,” Martin said. He got up and went to stand before the fire-place, his hands in his pockets, his eyes heavy and angry. “What uncle liked was running things his own way and seeing every one else did what he said. That’s all.”

  “And Mr Edwardes?” Bobby asked.

  “He hardly knows what money is,” Martin answered. “He’s always had plenty; it seems to him something that just happens, like a fine day. All he really wants is a library full of Greek grammars and a kitchen to play about in.”

  “He might miss money if he lost it, though.”

  “Not if you left him his Greek grammars and his pots and pans.”

  “They, too, depend on money,” Bobby said.

  “Oh, well,” Martin said.

  “What made the difference of opinion, then,” Bobby asked, “between him and Mr Weston? Did he want power, too?”

  “Lord, no. The last thing on earth he wants. Only he’s changed lately. The war, I suppose. Woke him up a bit. He’s lost three sons. None left. Enough to wake up any one, I suppose.”

  “A heavy loss,” Bobby agreed. “But I don’t see the connection. Why should it make him want to take over control of the Weston West Mills?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t.”

  “But you said—”

  “What he wanted was to take the control away from uncle and hand it over to the workpeople.”

  “Oh, well,” Bobby said in his turn. He added: “Pretty drastic.”

  “I’ve not read that book myself,” Martin said. “‘What It Will Be Like’, I mean. But that’s where Mr Edwardes got the notion. Common ownership, or something. I don’t know. But I can’t imagine anything more likely to upset uncle. Like asking a bishop to turn atheist. If uncle had murdered Mr Edwardes, you could understand it. Nearly. But not the other way round.”

  Bobby was still looking puzzled.

  “If you mean some sort of profit-sharing scheme—” he began, but Martin interrupted.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “That wouldn’t have bothered uncle a lot. There was something of the sort already. Bonuses. Rather complicated, I believe. Uncle was working out a scheme to extend it. Why not? It didn’t matter to him. I expect he would just as soon have seen money going to his workpeople as to his shareholders. This cut much deeper. Mr Edwardes wanted the workpeople to have the right to choose directors among themselves by themselves. A majority on the board. The workers would have been giving orders to uncle then, not uncle to the workers. I don’t know if it would pan out all right. Probably not. I don’t know. I’ve never gone into it properly. I hadn’t made up my mind which to back—uncle or Mr Edwardes. I told Mr Edwardes: ‘Can you trust working-class directors?’ He said: ‘Can you trust capitalist directors?’ I said: ‘Well, we have to,’ and he said ‘Why?’ and I shut up because I didn’t know. But to give up control of his own mills—well, it meant death to uncle.”

  “So it seems,” Bobby said.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Martin exclaimed angrily and uneasily. “You’ve no right to catch me up like that. I only meant—”

  “Yes, I know,” Bobby said.

  “What I’m trying to get at,” Martin said, “is that you’re all wrong if you think money had anything to do with it. I know it may sound a bit funny, but money never counted with uncle. He spent all his life plotting for it and scheming for it and working for it—getting it, too—and he didn’t care a damn for it. What he liked was bossing people—and things. Making things happen the way he wanted. He wasn’t the acquisitive type. He was the dominating sort.”

  Bobby nodded, for indeed this was the impression he himself had received. An arrogant man, who believed that others should be puppets to dance at his will.

  “Nothing in all that to cause murder,” Martin asserted. “A difference of ideas, that’s all.”

  “I think,” Bobby said, “more men have killed and been killed for ideas than for money.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Martin said, but looked rather taken aback.

  “Ideology,” Bobby went on. “Like this war. Ideological war—the boss idea, the Hitler idea, against the right of Tom, Dick and Harry to have a say. Mr Weston, the boss—for the good of Tom, Dick and Harry, no doubt—on one side, and on the other Mr Edwardes, not so much for the good of Tom, Dick and Harry, as for their rights. Reproduction of the Axis against the United Nations.”

  Martin left his stand before the fireplace and sat down. He looked troubled and somehow smaller. He said:—

  “I was trying to show the Weston West Mills business couldn’t have anything to do with what’s happened. I only seem to have made it worse.”

  “You have opened up new possibilities, certainly,” Bobby agreed, “but only possibilities.”

  “You had better see old Dan Edwardes for yourself,” Martin told him. “Then you’ll see howridiculous it is to suspect him for even one moment.”

  “Oh, I daresay,” Bobby agreed. “Only—well, murder is a crime apart. The motive for theft is always—theft. Simple. The motive for murder may be—ridiculous. When one man was asked once why he had poisoned his sister-in-law he explained that it was because she had such thick ankles. Why did Lizzie Burden kill her father and mother? Because she didn’t like them? A ridiculous reason. You don’t murder people because you don’t like them. Or maybe it is love of—power. The murderer likes to feel himself a kind of god—able to kill or to spare.”

  “Does all that mean you think old Dan Edwardes murdered uncle?” Martin demanded.

  Bobby sighed.

  “I don’t think,” he complained, “I’ve ever had a case without it’s being concluded that because I ask questions about some one, therefore I’ve made up my mind he or she’s the murderer. I ask questions because I want to know the answers, not because I know them already. When a murder happens, every person who could physically be guilty has to be considered—including yourself and Mr Edwardes. Unless an alibi can be proved. And a good sound alibi is often highly suspicious. By the way, talking of ideas, you have ideas, too. About the stratosphere. Take a lot of time and money to work out?”

  “A lot,” Martin agreed steadily. “More even than the five thousand uncle offered for those shares of mine—cash down. Waved the cheque at me. I could have done with it. Not much, of course, but I would have taken it like a shot. Why not? Par offer, and the things quoted at a bob or two on the Exchange—when they are quoted at all.”

  “Well, then, why did you refuse?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Well, you see, aunt asked me not to part. All the same, I was pretty badly tempted. That’s why I lost my temper, I expect. I told uncle to go to hell, and he laughed like anything and said bad temper was a good sign of common sense returning. He thought it meant I was giving in, and he said I could have another week to think it over. That made me really mad. Five thousand pounds is a lot of money to turn down. Especially when you want it as badly as I do.”

  “But you still refused?”

  “It’s queer up there in the stratosphere,” Martin said slowly. “Damn queer. At least, I mean you think it is. Once I thought I saw a great green land there, trees and people and little running streams, all bright and shining. You get light-headed. Lack of oxygen. O
r too much. The queer thing is the pilot thought he saw it, too. Why did we both think we saw the same thing? Thought transference, I expect. Or else I started babbling and he heard and that started him off, thinking he saw the same. Another time I thought aunt was there—Mrs Weston, I mean. It’s down in my notes. That’s what I go up for. Notes, I mean. Atmosphere. Temperature. Resistance. All that. Another chap pilots, and I take notes. The odd thing is, I don’t remember a thing about aunt. It’s only that it’s written down there, among my notes. Precise coherent details, and then a note ‘Aunt here’, and then more instrument readings, all quite clear and in order, and then ‘Don’t sell shares’, and her signature. Shook me up when I saw it—shook me up good and proper. Couldn’t believe it. In her own writing, or else a damn good copy. What do you make of that?”

  “I suppose it could be said your sub-conscious mind was at work,” Bobby remarked. “The shares would be a good deal in your thoughts, to sell or not. Your aunt’s prohibition, too.”

  “Yes, I told myself all that,” Martin agreed. “Only there’s aunt’s own writing. Her signature as well. If my sub-conscious mind did that, my sub-conscious mind is a good deal better forger than I am. I took the trouble to show it to a handwriting expert. He said it was undoubtedly genuine. Only it can’t be, can it? I told uncle last night, and you ought to have heard him laugh. I expect you want to.”

  “No,” said Bobby. “Very interesting. Outside my line at present.”

  “I suppose you don’t believe a word of it?”

  “Oh, I always believe what I’m told,” Bobby answered. “Until I find reason not to. Do you know a Miss Bessie Bell?”

  The abrupt question plainly disconcerted Martin. His expression changed. He hesitated, stared again, and did not speak.

  “Do you?” Bobby repeated.

  “If you mean the girl at the Wych Arms in town,” Martin said, “I’ve been there sometimes.”

  “Did Mr Weston mention her last night?”

  “No,” Martin answered. He looked puzzled and uneasy. “No. Why on earth should he?”

  “I believe Mr Weston’s reputation in that way wasn’t too good,” Bobby said. “Wasn’t there some sort of scandal that made Mrs Weston leave him?”

  “I don’t know,” Martin answered. “I know there was a lot of talk and gossip. She never said anything and I didn’t ask. So far as I know there’s never been any talk about uncle and Miss Bell. I’ve always heard she has a very good idea of how to look after herself. Jollies you along so far and not an inch farther.”

  “So I believe,” Bobby agreed. “It makes me wonder all the more why she was here last night?”

  “Nonsense, she wasn’t,” Martin told him. “Rot! What gave you that idea?”

  “Well, I saw her and spoke to her,” Bobby answered.

  “Oh, I didn’t know,” Martin muttered, and looked more worried and troubled than occasion demanded, or so Bobby thought. “Is that why you were here? Why were you here? I thought it was A.R.P., or something like that. Uncle’s district warden or something, isn’t he? Why were you here?”

  “I don’t know,” Bobby answered. “Mr Weston gave up A.R.P. a long time ago. He asked me to call. Apparently there was something he wanted to tell us and then he changed his mind. I wasn’t pleased.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Martin said. “I don’t understand. You aren’t going to worry her, are you? You can’t think she did it?”

  “Well, it doesn’t seem likely,” Bobby agreed. “But you never know. The most unlikely person sometimes. You can’t make any suggestion as to why Mr Weston wanted Miss Bell here last night?”

  “No,” Martin answered. “No more than I can guess why he got you along. Up to something, I expect,” he added moodily.

  “All the same, I should like you to think it over,” Bobby said.

  “Meaning you don’t believe me?”

  “Meaning that often when people try, they remember things they had quite forgotten till then. You see, your uncle asks you to dinner. The same night he gets Miss Bell here—and myself. There must have been some reason, and it does seem, doesn’t it? as if that reason had some sort of connection with all three of us.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about it,” Martin answered sullenly. “I daresay uncle had some scheme on. He was great on schemes. But I’ve no idea what he was up to this time.”

  “Well, think it over and see if anything strikes you,” Bobby said.

  He thought it as well to end their talk there, for he did not suppose Martin was in any mood to say more, and he knew by long experience that second thoughts often bring more readiness to be communicative. For he could not help feeling that Martin knew more than he had told. Nor did Martin succeed very well in hiding his relief in being thus dismissed. When he had gone Bobby sent for Payne.

  “I’ve got a job for you,” he said as soon as the sergeant appeared. “You’ll hate it. A pub job.”

  Payne tried to look depressed and failed.

  “You know the Wych Arms in town?” Bobby asked.

  “I’ve heard of it,” admitted Payne cautiously.

  “The head barmaid there is a Miss Bessie Bell. I want you to find out all you can about her. And if she’s on her job, I want you to notice if any one tries to talk to her privately—especially if it’s Mr Martin Weston Wynne.”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Payne. “There’s always the ’phone,” he added.

  “I know,” Bobby said. “Can’t help that. Notice if she’s called away to take a call. If she is and she goes out, follow her. What I want to know is if either young Martin Wynne or any one else tries to get in touch with her.”

  “Very good, sir,” Payne said. “Miss Rowe is asking what she’s to do and can she see you.”

  “I’ll see her next,” Bobby said. “Send her in, will you?”

  “Very good, sir,” Payne said again. “I’ve just finished looking through the safe, sir. I found this.” He produced a document. “It seems a confession of forgery—forgery and embezzlement. £500. Signed by some one called Wilkie—John Weston Wilkie.”

  CHAPTER IX

  SOMETHING WRONG

  BEFORE BOBBY had time fully to take this in, before he had time to consider its import and significance, there came impetuously into the room a tall young woman of such dark, rich, passionate beauty as for the moment quite to take his breath away.

  She was young, not far advanced in the twenties, with hair and eyes each of a depth of utter blackness to match the other, with clear-cut, well-formed features and a small red mouth, parted to show white even teeth behind the crimson lips. She seemed, by exception, to use no make up, even the rich crimson of her lips was evidently natural, and when she moved it was with a swift, untrammelled ease. The moment she spoke Bobby recognized the distinctive voice, low and slightly husky, in it an odd mingling of the compelling and the caressing, he had heard over the ’phone the day before. So he knew this was Miss Thomasine Rowe, Mr Weston’s secretary, and Payne’s startled and remonstrant “Miss Rowe” was not needed to identify her. Ignoring Payne, she swept as it were upon Bobby, intent and determined.

  “I must know what it means,” she told him passionately. “I can wait no longer, I can stand it no longer. Who killed Mr Weston? Why? Is it true? Is it—murder?”

  She paused the fraction of a second before she uttered this last word. When she did speak it, she flung it out like some fierce challenge. When neither Bobby nor Payne answered, she said again:—

  “If it’s murder—is it murder? Then who is the murderer? Who?”

  Again she flung the last word at Bobby like a challenge, or indeed like a defiance, and Bobby said mildly:—

  “Oh, yes. Miss Rowe, isn’t it? Won’t you sit down?”

  She took no notice. She stood there waiting, as it were dominating them both by the fierce intensity of her emotion. Bobby found himself remembering Bessie Bell, an odd contrast in her gold-and-white magnificence to this dark beauty. There was somethin
g about them, dissimilar as they were in their looks, yet something in their manner, in their being, in the atmosphere they made around them, that gave them, he thought, an odd mutual resemblance.

  “Is it true?” she asked once more, “is it true he was murdered?”

  “I am afraid so,” Bobby answered. “Do you think there is anything you can tell us to help us to find the murderer? Won’t you sit down, though?”

  Payne had already pushed forward a chair for her, and now she accepted it and seated herself. More quietly she said:—

  “It’s so hard to believe. Why should any one kill him?”

  “There again perhaps you can help us,” Bobby said. “You were his secretary?”

  “His private secretary,” she explained. “There was Miss Kitson at the Mills. I never went to the Mills. I worked here. Mr Weston used to attend to most of his business here. I think it was only routine work that he saw to at the Mills.”

  “Yes, I see,” Bobby said. “You would know more of his private affairs, then?”

  “I knew what he chose to let me know,” she answered, leaning forward in the eager, emphatic attitude that seemed characteristic of her, as if somehow she filled every passing moment with her own intense vitality. Bobby noticed now that she wore an engagement ring, a valuable-looking diamond on her left hand. She saw the direction of his glance, as she seemed to see most things, and she moved her hand and touched the ring with another finger as if to make it more noticeable. She went on: “Yesterday when I left he was alive and now he is dead—murdered. That’s a word to get accustomed to—murder.”

  “More than a word,” Bobby said gravely. “A deed. A fact. Can you suggest any reason? For instance, had Mr Weston any enemies?”

  She answered at first by a long, sweeping gesture with one arm. It was as though she swept his enemies together and disdained them, but held them there for Bobby’s inspection. Then she said:—

  “He was a hard man, a strong man. Relentless. Nothing soft or flabby about him. He knew what he wanted and he took it as his right, and if you got in his way you got hurt, and if you didn’t, you didn’t.”