Night's Cloak: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Did they speak to Miss Rowe?” Bobby asked.

  “No, there’s that,” Payne admitted. “But the young chap said if Franks was there, Miss Rowe wasn’t likely to be far away. Sort of joke, apparently. She never lets him out of her sight. Besides, they both say, anyhow, they saw her. Franks asked them to wait while he went to fetch her to speak to them.”

  “Did he?” Bobby asked.

  “No, they didn’t stay. Missed each other in the half light. The young man sticks to it it was her, though. His girl says the same. Describes her, too. Wearing a high-crowned hat with a tall blue feather and a caracal coat.”

  “Leaves a loophole,” Bobby said. “Not completely satisfactory. Easy to make a mistake in bad light, and if Franks pointed to some one and said ‘There’s Thomasine. I’ll go fetch her’—well, they could easily get the idea they had seen her. And stick to it.”

  “I think they would stick to it all right; I got that impression,” Payne agreed.

  “Anything in about the chocolates?” Bobby asked.

  “No, sir, not yet—should be any minute,” Payne answered. “There’s a report in from London. They’ve confirmed Miss Rowe’s story about giving a Japanese knife to a friend. They’ve got permission to send it to us for identification by the sellers.”

  “Good,” said Bobby. “Of course, the story was bound to be true. Miss Rowe’s not the kind of girl to tell a lie that could be so easily exposed.”

  “Queer coincidence,” said Payne, “that Miss Rowe happened to buy the thing just before a similar weapon was used by the murderer.”

  “Striking coincidence,” agreed Bobby. “Suggests anything?”

  “Suppose,” said Payne, “suppose it means the murderer is some one who knew of Miss Rowe’s purchase and thought if he got hold of the same sort of knife and used it, it would throw suspicion on her.”

  “Who could that be?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, there’s Martin Wynne,” Payne suggested. “He was having a lot to do with Mr Weston over the shares business. I can’t think of any one else.”

  “Your favourite suspect?” Bobby asked.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” declared Payne hastily. “All the same he does well out of it—gets a big slice of big money. Of course, there’s Mr Edwardes owned up to having Japanese curios and says he doesn’t know how many, and there’s young Wilkie all mixed up with a knife-throwing act.”

  “Have to check up on that,” Bobby agreed; and went on to tell Payne of Mr Anderson’s recent communication.

  Payne was very interested.

  “Looks like we’ve got something there,” he said. “There was that envelope-—marked ‘papers re Aggie’ and no such papers in it, only ten fifty-pound notes. If there’s some young fellow who believes he is Weston’s son, he might be keen on getting hold of papers to prove it.”

  “So he might,” agreed Bobby.

  “How about this, sir?” Payne went on, thinking hard. “This young Wilkie chap is Weston’s son and believes he is legitimate, as being born of an irregular but legal marriage in Scotland. Weston won’t acknowledge him. Tried him out once, caught him pinching the firm’s cash. Made him sign a confession and packed him off with a small allowance. Wilkie isn’t satisfied and threatens to raise a stink. Weston gets papers ready to show Wilkie he’s all wrong about thinking there ever was a legal marriage. And he puts in the money, too, five hundred pounds, by way of keeping Wilkie quiet. Weston doesn’t want a stink, do him no good, especially if he wants to stand for Parliament again. Wilkie gets mad; perhaps thinks the papers shown him are faked, which they may be. Anyhow, there’s a quarrel, and it ends up with Wilkie sticking a knife into the old man and clearing out with the papers ‘re Aggie’, faked or genuine; and if they are genuine, perhaps he means to fake ’em in his turn. How about it, sir? Holds water?”

  “Well, it’s jolly ingenious,” Bobby said warmly, “and it brings the bank-notes and the ‘re Aggie’ envelope into the picture, which is more than any theory of mine has managed to do. Yet all the time I’ve felt they were significant, even the key to it all. I can see holes in your idea, though. May be able to stop them perhaps and make it water-tight. We’ll have to start a careful search of birth and marriage records. Question there,” added Bobby, looking very thoughtful, “is: Must police funds stand the expense? Or can we push it on to Anderson?”

  Payne was little interested in this point, since he would neither pay himself nor have to explain to an economically minded Watch Committee why police expenses were so high.

  “You think there are holes, sir,” he hinted.

  “Psychological stuff,” Bobby said. “Of course, you can never be sure you know any man—or yourself either—well enough to be quite certain what he’ll do next. But I can’t see Weston in the role of black-mailee—if there is such a word. What he liked was getting a hold on other people. He dominated others, he wasn’t one to allow himself to be dominated. Why he even,” said Bobby, bristling all over, so that Payne got quite frightened, “had the cheek to try to boss me. Some fat-headed idea or another that I had got mixed up in politics and that was going to give him a hold.”

  “Can’t understand that, sir,” declared Payne, on appeasement bent. “I’m sure I’ve never heard you say a word about politics.”

  “I should hope not,” said Bobby in such a tone Payne was almost afraid he was going to be reduced to the ranks then and there. By way of diversion he said as quickly as possible: “That summer-house, sir, you said I was to look for, in the Weston Lodge Cottage grounds, you remember?”

  “You found it, did you?” Bobby asked, forgetting at once a grievance that still rankled, even though the person responsible therefor was dead. “Any dabs?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s there all right, clean away from the house, all among trees, so you can’t see it, almost on top of the lane that runs along at the back there. Not much used, apparently, all dusty, and dabs as plain as you could want. I can’t think how you knew.”

  Payne paused, evidently hoping for an explanation, and Bobby said apologetically:—

  “Oh, well, that was simple enough. Martin Wynne got back home in the small hours. But it had been raining hard here, and yet apparently he hadn’t got wet, as the servants at his boarding-house hadn’t noticed wet clothing or muddied boots or anything like that. I had seen him that evening, so I knew he had neither overcoat nor umbrella. And I knew Miss Olga Severn had been waiting for him. It was a fair guess they had had a talk together and under cover. What I want to know is, what did they talk about?” and hearing this, Payne plainly lost at once both admiration and surprise, so that once again Bobby reflected how mistaken it was to offer explanations making simple a result that otherwise could remain mysterious and awe-inspiring.

  “I take it you did find both Wynne’s dabs and Miss Olga’s?” Bobby added.

  But Payne shook his head, a little pleased that this time at least his senior had not scored.

  “A man’s dabs all right,” he said, “but we haven’t got Wynne’s to check up on. And a woman’s too. Might be a child’s, but probably a woman’s, only not the same as those on Miss Olga Severn’s vanity case.”

  “Oh, no, I didn’t think they would be,” Bobby said, and this time did not explain; nor had he the opportunity, for now they were interrupted by the arrival of the report of the officer charged with the inquiry into the provenance of the box of poisoned chocolates, the poison now identified as arsenic.

  It was to the effect that the firm of manufacturers concerned had replied that a packer’s number identified the packer only, not the box. They could say, however, that the packer concerned had done no work for them for some two months, having left to join the A.T.S. They could also say that out of the last consignment of boxes she had packed, one, and one only, had been sold in the Midwych district. It had been used to make up a lot of a dozen sent to Lewis and Lawrence, confectioners, of Midwych High Street, in part fulfilment of an urgent order for a couple of gross. Sinc
e then they had been able to supply no further boxes of that style and quality to any retailer anywhere, owing to the drastic restriction order now in force.

  A visit in search of further information had therefore been paid to Lewis and Lawrence, where the incident of the arrival of a dozen chocolate boxes in response to an urgent order for two gross-was keenly remembered. It was also remembered that all the boxes had been sold the same day, and the name of one customer was also remembered.

  “Mr Weston himself it was,” Payne said, watching to see how surprised Bobby looked. “They knew him quite well—of course he was well known in Midwych. No way to identify the actual box, though the price is the same, but there’s a note still in their books of who he said it was to be sent to—”

  Payne paused, hoping Bobby would say “Who?” Instead Bobby said:—

  “To Miss Olga Severn?”

  “That’s right,” Payne said, disappointed at such a lucky guess. “What’s it mean?”

  “Means, I think,” Bobby said frowningly, “means we are drawing nearer to the heart of things.”

  CHAPTER XXV

  MISSING CHOCOLATES

  A ’PHONE RING interrupted them. It was from the head of the department where Ronald Franks worked in the big engineering concern employing him. The departmental head seemed in a very bad temper. Bobby could not at first make out why. Presently it appeared that there was a big important and pressing Government contract on hand. To complete it, every available pair of hands was needed, was indeed necessary, and how was it to be finished in time if Inspector Bobby Owen encouraged every man he could get hold of to throw up his job and join the army? What was the good of an army without equipment? demanded the ’phone angrily. So Bobby said he didn’t know the answer to that one, and anyhow he had no idea what the departmental head was talking about. So the departmental head said he was talking about Ronald Franks. Not, he admitted frankly, that Franks was anything to make a song about in the ordinary way. But just at present a deaf and dumb cripple, blind from birth, would be welcome, and after all Franks was a degree or two better than that. The departmental manager explained that it wasn’t only Franks, it was the example. If Franks was to be encouraged to get released, half the younger men would claim release as well and all of them would be unsettled. Output would go down, the war would be lost, and the whole blame would rest on the shoulders of Inspector Bobby Owen of the county police.

  Bobby, guiltily aware that he had already nearly lost the war by using too much water his bath, protested feebly. He knew nothing about it, he had encouraged neither Franks nor any one else to seek release, and if he had, it would have made no difference. Release, call up, non-release all of it no affair of the police.

  Unconvinced, and still grumbling, the departmental head rang off, and Bobby told Payne what it had all been about, and Payne rubbed his nose, having picked up from Bobby the habit Bobby was attempting, by order, to abandon.

  “What’s it mean?” he asked. “That little twirp—why, the army wouldn’t look at him.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Bobby said. “They’ll look at most these days—and sometimes even turn a twirp into a man.”

  “I suppose,” admitted Payne, “they could train him to peel potatoes. My young brother says soldiering and peeling potatoes are all one. Sounds as if Franks had been using your name—like his cheek.” Payne paused. “Look here, sir,” he said. “If there’s anything wrong with that alibi, and the light in a cinema foyer isn’t too good these days, and he may have got that pal of his to tell lies to help him out—well, I mean to say, is Franks doing a bunk?”

  “Looks like it,” said Bobby. Then he said: “What from?”

  “If it’s him he’s scared,” Payne answered. “I mean to say—if he’s guilty. You wouldn’t think, not to look at him, he had the guts to steal a copper out of a blind man’s cap, but you can’t ever tell. You wouldn’t ever expect a young lady like Miss Rowe to pick on such as him for her best boy.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” agreed Bobby, and sat for some time lost in thought.

  Then he put through a call to Weston Lodge Cottage. Hargreaves answered it. Bobby explained he wanted to speak to Miss Rowe, and when she answered, he told her he had been informed from the works where Mr Franks was employed that he was leaving to join up. Did Miss Rowe know if this was true? Because, if it was, Bobby would have to get in touch with Mr Franks and ask him to sign a formal deposition. Once in the army, Bobby remarked, a man might easily be lost for good, so far as personal contacts were concerned.

  Thomasine, evidently disturbed, her husky, distinctive voice less steady than usual, replied that it couldn’t be true, because Mr Franks was in a reserved occupation. She knew he would have joined up long ago had it been permitted, but he was doing far too valuable work to be spared. His departmental head considered him his key man, without whom the whole department would have to be re-organized. She was meeting Mr Franks later on, she added, and she would ask him about it.

  So Bobby hung up, smiling sweetly, for he thought Mr Franks was going to hear things, and just possibly, as a result, he thought he himself might come to hear things, too; and Payne repeated thoughtfully that the biggest mystery in the whole thing was what a slap-up girl like Thomasine Rowe could see in the bit of chewed-up rag that called itself Ronald Franks.

  “Reminds you of something the cat’s brought in,” he said. “Why, wouldn’t want to be found dead near him.”

  “Well, I daresay she wouldn’t either,” Bobby observed; and a little later, after Payne had left him in order to see if Olga Severn could give any further information about the box of chocolates, there came a long-distance call from the police in South Wales. It was to the effect that a paragraph had appeared in the local press recounting that Monsieur Ivan Janovitch—in private life, Ted Jones—of the Great Knife-Throwing Act “Miss and Death”, now performing with such sensational and record-breaking success at the Magnificent Theatre, had been the victim of a recent burglary. Not only had his wife lost jewellery of a stupendous though unspecified value, but also among other articles stolen, had been a Japanese dagger, formerly used in the amazing knife-throwing act already mentioned. Mr Janovitch was gravely disturbed lest this stolen Japanese knife might turn out to be the weapon used in the recent murder of a prominent industrialist. There was more to the same effect, including a passing mention of where and when the sensational &c. &c. knife-throwing act could be seen the following week.

  “Publicity,” said the South Wales police disgustedly. “That’s why he went to a reporter before he came to us. We told him off good and hard, but what’s he care? He’s got his free advert, and very likely that’s all there’s to it. And if we prosecute for a public mischief, it’ll only be more free publicity. You can’t,” said the Welsh police sadly, “you can’t do much to a man who lives on publicity.”

  Bobby agreed; agreed, too, that very likely there was nothing in it beyond publicity hunting, but you could never tell, and when presently he left to go home, he found Franks waiting in the street outside.

  Very reproachfully, almost with tears, Franks wanted to know why the inspector had given him away to Thomasine; and Bobby explained he had been rung up by Mr Franks’s boss, so it was evident Mr Franks’s information had ceased to be confidential. And why, Bobby asked, this sudden desire to join up? Franks replied that he had been thinking about it long enough. He added resentfully that “she”—he seemed to think the pronoun enough for identification—had been on at him already, and anyhow what had it to do with the police?

  “Murder investigation,” said Bobby briefly.

  “Well, it wasn’t me; you know that,” Franks protested. “Nothing to do with me. How could there be when I was at the Super Superb? I’ve got a witness, and you know it.”

  “Jolly good alibi,” Bobby admitted. “But you can never tell with an alibi. The light allowed in a cinema foyer to-day isn’t much more than darkness made visible. There are such things as disguises. I’ve known
witnesses to be mistaken. Or merely trying to do a pal a good turn. Or even bribed.”

  “My God,” gasped Franks, “you don’t . . . you can’t . . . mean . . .”

  “Just what I say,” Bobby told him. “Only that, and nothing more—or less. Until the facts are established, I have to consider every possibility. Of course, if you can tell me anything more . . . anything to help to make it clear what really happened.”

  He paused, waiting. Franks stood there with his mouth opening and shutting. Bobby said:—

  “Shall we go inside?”

  Franks stared at him, looked round wildly, then turned his back and fairly ran for it. At the corner of the street he ran straight into the arms of Thomasine Rowe. He was hurrying by, almost as if he were too disturbed to see her. She caught him by the arm, and together they vanished. Bobby lighted a cigarette and waited. He thought there might be developments. He had not to wait long. Only a few minutes elapsed before Thomasine, magnificent in wrath and indignation, came swinging round the comer again. She saw Bobby and marched upon him. Evidently his recent ’phone call had brought her hot foot to Midwych, as he had thought it might. What, she demanded, had he been saying to Mr Franks?

  “I was telling him,” Bobby explained, “that if he knows anything—”

  “He doesn’t,” she interrupted fiercely.

  “—it would be wise to let me know,” Bobby went on, ignoring her interruption. “Don’t you think so?”

  “He knows nothing,” she repeated, staring at him angrily. “How could he when we were at the cinema when it happened?”

  “Yes, there’s that, isn’t there?” Bobby agreed. “And no one can be in two places at the same time.”

  “There’s a witness,” she told him. “It just happened he saw a friend he owed some money to and he went across to pay him.”

  “Bit of luck it happened that night,” Bobby observed.