“The young fool,” Bobby muttered and felt more uneasy still.
He picked up the receiver of the ’phone on his desk and asked to be put through to the works where Franks was employed. He was informed in reply to his inquiry that Franks was absent through illness. A medical certificate had been promised, but had not yet arrived. So Bobby sent for Sergeant Payne and set machinery in motion for finding and bringing to headquarters either or both, preferably both, of the young men in question.
“You are perturbed,” Mr Edwardes remarked, when all this had been arranged. “You say you don’t understand the reference to poison, but you are perturbed.”
“There’s been one death in this affair,” Bobby said briefly. “I don’t want another.”
“No,” agreed Mr Edwardes and added slowly: “You think Wilkie is in danger?”
“I don’t know who is in danger,” Bobby answered. “I wish I did. But I think there is danger somewhere—to some one.”
“You think—” began Mr Edwards and then paused. “It’s no use asking that,” he said. “You wouldn’t tell me. Poison. That suggests a woman. Doesn’t it? When I heard Weston had been stabbed, I thought that meant it was a man. And I thought I knew who.”
“Martin Wynne?” Bobby asked.
“How do you know?” Mr Edwardes asked. “You seem to know what I think without my telling. I don’t know how. Why should you think I suspected Martin?”
“I take it you had never heard of Franks and you didn’t know of Wilkie’s return. But you did know Weston had been talking of ruining Martin Wynne. Plain whom you would suspect—provided you were not guilty yourself.”
“Well, yes, there’s always that, isn’t there?” admitted the other.
“Are you sure you are being quite frank with me even now?” Bobby asked. “Fresh discrepancies in the Weston West Mills books have come to light, haven’t they?”
“How on earth do you know that?” demanded Mr Edwardes, looking so taken aback Bobby was forced to smile.
But this time he thought he wouldn’t explain. If his lucky shot—it was not much more—increased his prestige in the other’s eyes, so much the better. Not that the guess or deduction had been difficult. There was the rather angry recent reference to Wilkie as “dishonest” and a “rogue” which had sounded an opinion recently acquired or at any rate recently and strongly reinforced. Mr Weston’s death and the formation of the trust for carrying out the new arrangements had very likely involved a fresh examination of accounts. Again, Bobby had long felt that Wilkie’s uneasy wanderings in the vicinity of Weston Lodge Cottage on the night of the murder proved that Mr Weston’s unexpected summons had very much disturbed him; and why should such a summons have made him uneasy rather than hopeful of a return to favour, if there had not been some fresh misbehaviour Wilkie feared might have come to light? All this had flashed through Bobby’s mind in an instant; on it he had hazarded his remark, and now it seemed he had been right. But all he said was in a very severe tone:—
“You keep too much back. You are hindering rather than helping. Why?”
“There’s no proof Wilkie is responsible for the deficit we’ve found,” Mr Edwardes protested. “It was certainly either Wilkie or Mr Weston himself. The latter doesn’t seem likely. But we can’t tell, and I didn’t see any reason for saying anything about it. It’s a considerable time ago. If you were suspicious of Wilkie, it was hardly fair to rake up more stories about him. At least, that’s my view.”
“It strengthens motive,” Bobby said. “If there was still more embezzlement to come to light with possible prosecution as a result.”
“Others had motives,” Mr Edwardes said. “I admit I had, for one. But it’s a long way from motive to action. At first I took it for granted the murderer was a man. But now there’s a hint of poison—well, poison is more a woman’s weapon, and Weston had given many women cause enough. I knew he had been threatened.”
“Who by?”
“He didn’t say, all he said was that a vixen had been threatening him, but he knew how to tame her. He said he might be getting on in years, but he was still strong enough to be a match for any woman.”
“Are you still holding things back?” Bobby demanded angrily. “He did give a name, didn’t he? Bessie Bell, the head barmaid at the Wych and Wych Arms.”
Mr Edwardes looked more and more startled.
“How do you know?” he asked, bewilderedly. “You seem to know it all without being told.”
“Never mind how I know,” retorted Bobby, though indeed the reference to being still a physical match for any woman only made sense as in connection with Bessie, more especially as Bessie had been present that night.
“I don’t think I need have troubled to come to see you at all,” Edwardes said, a little resentful, a little amused, very much more than a little puzzled. “I thought you ought to know that Wilkie was hinting at poison. I thought a knife meant a man, and I thought poison suggested a woman. But it seems you knew already, and you knew the man and you knew the woman. I might as well have stayed at home.”
“You’ve tried to hide too much already,” Bobby said, still severe. “You’ve not been helpful. But a man may use poison and a woman a knife. All a question of means and opportunity. A knife in the hands of a woman can kill as easily as can poison given by a man. What we want to know now, is, against whom is this threat of poison aimed and why?”
But on that point Mr Edwardes had nothing to say, though he did express a hope that it wasn’t himself. He said uneasily he supposed his action with regard to the new arrangements for the management of the Weston West Mills might upset some people and disturb some personal interests. He added that he supposed perhaps he had acted in a high-handed, even unfair, manner in taking advantage of the kind of interregnum caused by the murder, to push through his plans.
“More motive, I suppose,” he said ruefully, and so departed, leaving Bobby to his own troubled thoughts.
CHAPTER XXIX
OLIVE VISITS
HARD UPON Mr Edwardes’s departure appeared Payne, curious to know the purpose of the visit. To him Bobby repeated the gist of the story he had just heard, and Payne looked very doubtful and suspicious.
“Showing himself a bit worried, isn’t he?” Payne asked. “Bad conscience? What about it’s being the murderer not this time visiting again the scene of the crime, but haunting the police instead?”
“Possible,” agreed Bobby. “Fear complex, making him feel he must know just how much he has to fear.”
“At the Mills they are saying he’s never been quite right in the head since he lost his boys,” observed Payne thoughtfully. “There’s some new scheme he has on they don’t think much of. Eye-wash, they think. They are all making good money now, so why worry? It’s some idea he has of letting them choose their own bosses, but you have to pass an exam first before you are eligible. They are all up in arms about that. They say they aren’t a pack of kiddies.”
“People always hate new ideas,” Bobby said. “Quite right, too. Most new ideas are only silly fads. Never mind that, though. Not our pigeon. What we’ve got to do quick as we can is to get hold of Wilkie—and of Franks, too. Looks bad, poison coming into the picture again.”
“Poison means woman,” Payne declared with emphasis. “And there are four of them.”
Bobby nodded assent, wondering to himself which one of them was indicated; which one had the temperament of the poisoner; whether, too, a woman was designated as prospective victim?
Useless questions, till more was known whereon an answer could be based. The day dragged on with still no hint of any answer growing plain, with no news either of Wilkie or of Franks. All Bobby found himself able to do was to increase the strictness of the watch being kept on those under suspicion, and none knew better than he how easy it is to evade a watch whereof the person under surveillance is conscious.
Earlier than usual, depressed and uneasy, Bobby left headquarters and returned home, fearful of what
the night might bring, for the feeling was strong upon him that a climax approached. Olive, a little surprised to see him home so soon, told him she herself had only just got back from town.
“Shopping,” she explained, and added with a slight swagger: “While I was there I dropped in at a pub for a drink.”
“You did—what?” Bobby asked, staring. “What on earth for?”
“There,” complained Olive. “If a man tells you he dropped in at a pub for a drink, you don’t say ‘What on earth for?’ do you?”
“Well, no,” admitted Bobby. “That’s different.”
“That’s a man all over,” said Olive bitterly. “They can do what they like. We’ve got to explain. It was a very nice pub, too, except for the smell and the way people stared and it’s all being so technical. What’s a bottle-and-jug department?” Without waiting for an answer, she went on: “Besides, Miss Bell looking as if she had half a mind to give me a good smacking like the one she gave the girl who is Miss Severn’s maid now.”
“Do you mean you’ve been talking to Bessie?” Bobby demanded, more and more bewildered.
“About you,” Olive explained. “I suppose the port wine I didn’t drink because I thought there was a mistake somewhere and they had given me red ink instead, must have gone to my head. Because I said the most reckless things about you.”
“Look here,” began Bobby, alarmed.
“I just didn’t care,” Olive went on unheedingly. “I told her that as a man, or even a husband, you probably rated above the worst known, and that any one could see she was in trouble, and that if she would come here one evening and tell you all about it, she would be doing the most sensible thing in her life, even though that wasn’t saying much.”
“What did she say?” Bobby asked.
“Nothing.”
“Will she come, do you think?”
“I don’t know. I think perhaps she might.”
Bobby tried to explain to Olive that she mustn’t do things like that. He had an uncomfortable picture in his mind of one of chose missing chocolates dissolved in the glass of port Olive had described as so strongly resembling red ink. Just as well she hadn’t tasted it, perhaps, even though there was no reason to be suspicious. Meekly Olive listened to his homily, and, lifting large, innocent eyes, promised faithfully never to do it again—unless, of course, she simply had to. Bobby was continuing with eloquence, when Olive, who had heard enough, interrupted with the sudden remark that that day she had also seen Thomasine Rowe for the first time. Bobby was launching into a fresh and more fervent remonstrance when again Olive interrupted.
“Quite by accident,” she said; “and I didn’t speak to her. I had to go to the W.V.S. depot in Market Street and she came in. It was about a subscription Mr Weston had promised them and they had been wanting to know if they were to get it. I didn’t speak to her and I don’t suppose she noticed me. But I noticed her. And her hat—”
“Why her hat?” Bobby asked. “Was she wearing a caracal coat, by the way?”
“An intelligent question,” Olive said approvingly, “but not so very intelligent. She was. And it looked new—even brand new. But it was her hat I noticed.”
“What about it?”
“High-crowned. Great tall blue feather. It didn’t suit her a bit. It was awful. On her, I mean. She must have known it, too. You could see at a glance she had real clothes sense. Everything just right, from her shoes—shoes are awfully important—to her make-up. Smart without even ever so tiny a hint of being too smart. And then—that awful hat.”
“Well, but—” began Bobby, who did not at first see much to interest him in this question of taste in attire.
“My good lad,” said Olive, gently reproachful, “are you really so slow in the uptake that you can’t—see?”
She shook her head sadly and retired, leaving Bobby to wonder afresh why he was thus being called upon to consider the strange and multiple reasons which may dictate feminine choice of a hat. Then it began to dawn upon him as Olive, in the kitchen, prepared to wrestle, like all her sister housewives, with the daily task of turning rations eternally the same into a dinner reasonably different.
This time, however, she abandoned the effort almost at once, and when she returned to Bobby, she showed a face so flushed, a look so strange, that he for a moment yielded to the unworthy suspicion that possibly the port, untasted because it looked so like red ink, had been exchanged for something stronger, of which the effect was only now becoming evident.
“I want to show you something,” she said, and even her voice had changed—a little hoarse it had become, and uneven.
She led the way down a short passage to the kitchen and for a moment stood on the threshold as if unwilling to enter. Bobby, looking over her shoulder, saw that the window was wide open, but noticed nothing else.
“What is it?” he asked.
Olive moved across to a small table with an enamelled top on which she usually carried out most of her culinary preparations. On it now were various spoons, dishes, basins, and so on. With a touch of resentment in her voice, for Bobby was a precise sort of person, and once or twice, when visiting the kitchen, had carefully placed back in their places on the shelves ingredients or utensils waiting to be used, Olive said:—
“You may think I’m untidy, but I do know when some one has been in my kitchen.”
“Why?” Bobby asked. “Do you mean now?” and he looked round as if to see if any one were hiding anywhere.
“I was mixing dried egg when I heard you come in,” Olive said. “I left it on the table there. It’s been moved. Some one’s been in and moved it. Look.” She pointed to a few grains of powder that lay by the side of the basin she indicated. “Where does that come from?” she asked. Her voice became a little shrill. “Who has been putting something in my egg?” she asked. “What for? What is it?”
Bobby bent to look more closely. He noticed some tiny brown fragments mingled with the grains of powder. Chocolate, he thought, the brown fragments looked like. He wetted a finger and tasted one of the grains of powder.
“I think it’s arsenic all right enough,” he said.
CHAPTER XXX
NURSING-HOME
OLIVE, DEEPLY though she had been shaken for the moment, had by now recovered much of her self-possession. She was looking out through the window into the garden where once had been wont to flourish the roses that now had been displaced by the homely cabbage, though indeed these served more for the nourishment of innumerable caterpillars than for any marked addition to the food stores of the country. But, separating the garden from the road, there were still rhododendron bushes serving as a hedge to preserve privacy. From, through, and behind these, it would have been easy to keep observation on the house.
“Perhaps some one was hiding there,” she said.
Bobby said he would go and look, though by now the gathering darkness was making close examination difficult. He came back and said:—
“Can’t see much. Ground’s hard, for one thing. Getting dark, too. Will you be all right if I have a skirmish round?”
“Yes, of course,” Olive answered. “I’m not afraid now. It was only thinking I might never have noticed.” She conjured up a faint and watery smile. “I never thought perhaps some day my cooking might kill you, Bobby dear.”
Bobby gave no answering smile. He was in no mood for it. Telling Olive briefly to lock door and window and keep them locked till his return, he went out. Everything was quiet and deserted, as before the dying day people fled to the refuge of their homes against the coming of the darkness of the black-out. Small probability of any hurrying, fugitive form having attracted attention when all alike were hurrying, all fugitive. But he knew that the constable patrolling this beat, a steady, reliable man, an old pensioner called back to war service, was due to pass the corner about now.
Possible that he might have seen something. At any rate he could be asked and at the same time be warned to increase his vigilance. Bobby began t
o walk in that direction. To his surprise he found that he was at one and the same time perspiring slightly and shivering. A paradox. Danger for himself in a man-hunt he accepted as natural and even desirable. It was only danger gave dignity and value to the pursuit, as indeed it is only danger that gives dignity and value to life. In the actual moment of danger, too, he had always found a touch of exultation, even of an ecstasy that came perhaps from the release of all his energies, of a total energy to full intensity of being. In recent months, too, duty had often called him out at night, knowing well that on his return he might find the warden’s post where Olive worked smashed to nothingness with all in it by some stray bomb. But that was a public risk, shared by all, an accident of war, death for some as the price of general survival. To it, too, there was an answer. Even now, as he walked, he could hear the distant muttering far overhead that told of the wrath of England gathered there to strike afar. But this that he had just experienced was a private and a secret peril, unforeseen, aimed at one who trusted him and only because of him was involved in it. He felt glowing fierce within himself a hard core of deadly anger such as he had never known before.
When he reached the corner where the road he was following met the main highway, he found his man already there, busily engaged making entries in his note-book. Seeing Bobby coming, he saluted and said:—
“Them motorists again. No respect for law and order. If I had my way—”
He paused, not quite sure what his way would be, or else searching for one sufficiently drastic. Bobby asked:—
“What’s happened?”
“Car,” explained the constable, “not immobilized according to regulations. Was taking particulars of same when lady arrived. In answer to inquiry, admitted same was hers. Lady then administered severe push, same being unexpected, and while recumbent on back in ditch, entered car and drove off, disregarding instructions to stop same and return.”
Night's Cloak: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 20