The Attending Truth: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “You are the officer from London down about this terrible business,” he said as he came to where Bobby stood, his voice harsh and strongly compelling, as of one who spoke with unchallengeable authority, and not so much as if asking a question, but rather as if making a statement that had to be listened to with attention and respect.

  “Yes, my name is Owen,” Bobby replied, and, for he had taken the precaution to inform himself on this and other such matters, he added: “I take it you are the Vicar, Mr Duggan?”

  “I have considered long and carefully,” Mr Duggan went on, without answering a question he apparently considered superfluous. “I have hesitated, but now I have decided. I feel it a duty. Has there been taken into account the possibility of this most unfortunate man having been what is called a ‘Peeping Tom’?”

  “Not that I know of,” Bobby said, surprised. “Not by me, anyhow. Mr Winterspoon was a stranger here, wasn’t he? ‘Peeping Toms’ are local nuisances. It’s a nasty little habit you can practise almost anywhere.” He added, as if under compulsion, so intently were fixed upon him those two bright, piercing eyes. “There was a case a year or two back that might have been something of that sort.”

  “A communication might have been made to bring a stranger to the village,” Mr Duggan said. He waited. He must have seen the incredulity in Bobby’s looks, for he continued: “I conceive it to be possible.”

  “Have you any special reason for saying so?” Bobby asked, convinced now that Mr Duggan had something specific in his mind.

  “You are aware that the murder took place in a small wood—a copse, rather—on a footpath running past Mrs Holcombe’s residence to two or three farms farther on, and then back to a side road?” Mr Duggan asked, and when Bobby nodded assent, he went on: “Some time ago I became aware that it was being frequented by young people of opposite sexes when they wished to escape parental control. Natural, even proper, as it is for them to be attracted to each other, it is most undesirable that they should meet in hidden places, late in the evening. Evil comes from it. Evil has come from it. There have been cases. I was much distressed. I am responsible for the souls of all in the parish, at my hand shall they be required. I felt it my duty to visit the copse at frequent intervals. I provided myself with an electric torch. Those I found—as happened, I am sorry to say, not infrequently—I rebuked and sent to their homes.”

  “Did they go?” Bobby could not help asking.

  “On occasion a certain hesitation was shown,” Mr Duggan admitted. “There was even in one case an attempt to use physical violence.” He paused, for a moment a fleeting expression crossed his thin, lined features, to make it seem as if ordinary human satisfaction and he were not such complete strangers, as Bobby had at first been inclined to suppose. He went on: “The attempt was suitably dealt with. But for the most part a warning of the consequences of refusal was sufficient. Once, I am sorry to say, I was shocked—inexpressibly shocked—to find a married woman concerned. I warned her that if she continued in her unhappy ways it might be my duty to call her publicly to repentance.”

  “Surely that would have been rather an extreme step,” Bobby exclaimed, considerably taken aback by a threat that seemed to hark back to mediæval days.

  “Fortunately the necessity did not arise,” Mr Duggan answered. “The woman concerned left the neighbourhood almost at once. I had cut out a cancer from our little community.”

  “Perhaps it may have continued elsewhere,” Bobby suggested.

  “I trust not, but in any case the responsibility was no longer mine. Indeed, I heard that the unhappy woman afterwards ended her own life and that of her child. One can only hope that the desperation of the act may have been accepted as atonement for the sin that made it necessary.”

  “A sad story,” Bobby said. “I don’t know, though, if ‘necessary’ is quite the right word.” He hurried on, for he had no wish to discuss a subject on which it was no part of his duty to express an opinion and that had no relevance to his own errand: “I quite agree that Peeping Tom activities might lead to very serious consequences, even to a killing.” He very nearly added: ‘So might the activities of busybodies meddling with such things.’ But he stopped himself in time. It was not his business to rebuke a man who had certainly acted in accordance with what he believed to be his duty. Instead he said aloud: “A Peeping Tom who is also a complete stranger to the district seems a very difficult idea to accept.”

  “Is not blackmail a possibility?” Mr Duggan asked quietly. “I know of one such case. It came to my knowledge, through one of my most valued parishioners—a man who since he came here very recently has set an example to all, a real influence for good—that photographs had been obtained and that the two young people concerned were being threatened with exposure.” Mr Duggan paused, and for the moment really took on the aspect of an avenging angel. He said: “I went to the person who had taken the photographs. I obtained them and destroyed them, and I insisted that he should destroy his camera. I am happy to say that the two concerned showed themselves truly repentant, and are now married and most regular attendants at church.”

  Bobby was regarding Mr Duggan with more sympathy now—and with more respect. There was indeed about the man at times a suggestion of a strange compelling force and authority it would not be too easy to resist. It came, no doubt, from his conviction that when he spoke, he spoke as the accredited representative of the Unseen Powers. At any rate, whatever the result of his intervention in the first case, in the second it did seem that his action, however high-handed, had saved two young people from possible ruin and given them an opportunity for a fresh and happy start together. Mr Duggan was speaking again.

  “I mustn’t say any more,” he told Bobby abruptly. “The danger of bearing false witness, of accusing the innocent, is too great.”

  With that he turned and strode away, and Bobby, watching him go, felt strangely puzzled. Nor was he sure whether he had been given information of consequence, or whether what he had just heard could be dismissed as merely the result of a prejudiced and narrow outlook.

  A force, this village priest, Bobby felt; but a force narrow and pent up, unpredictable in the course it might take, except that always that course, whatever it might be, would be followed to the end in the clear certainty that it was ordered and directed from above.

  But later on Mr Duggan would have to be questioned more closely and an effort made to persuade him to say clearly what was in his mind. For that there was some definite meaning in what he had said seemed certain. Blackmail had been mentioned, and blackmail is of course always a potential cause of murder. But who in a small village such as Pending Dale was likely to be a sufficiently hopeful and remunerative victim? At any rate to make worth while so elaborate a campaign as was suggested by the apparent employment of an outside agent like Winterspoon. Nor did Winterspoon’s movements, so far as known, suggest anything of the sort, except, indeed, his visit to the copse where his body had been found and where apparently, from Mr Duggan’s story, some sort of minor—and unsuccessful—blackmailing had formerly been attempted.

  On the whole Bobby was inclined to dismiss the blackmailing idea as merely the result of an obsession on Mr Duggan’s part. But certainly he would have to be seen again, and also he would have to be asked whom he had meant by his reference to the recent new-comer in the village who had been setting such a good example to others.

  By now Bobby had reached the gate admitting to the Castle Manor domain. The house looked a comfortable, commodious residence, probably dating from late Victorian days, without architectural pretensions, standing on the slope of some rising ground. Bobby found out afterwards that in past days a small Norman castle or bailey, had stood on the summit of this rising ground—for convenience of defence—and that later a manor-house had been built in the hollow just below—for convenience of water supply and of shelter from the winds. Of them nothing now remained but the name ‘Castle Manor’, derived from both. The garden surrounding the house
seemed well kept and of some extent, including as it did an ornamental pond, a tennis-court, kitchen garden, and a small orchard and hen-run. A peacock strutted to and fro before the front entrance and there seemed to be a paddock attached in which two Jersey cows were grazing in the company of two or three pigs. Probably, then, Mrs Holcombe provided herself with a good deal of home-produced food—the only way, indeed, in these days to get such things as cream, new-laid eggs, fresh pork, home-cured bacon, and so on. The whole impression was that of a comfortable security, resting on a well-established basis of wealth and a secure position in the world, all displayed without a trace of ostentation. Quite refreshing, Bobby thought, in a world so uncertain as this seems to be at present.

  As he pushed open the gate admitting to the garden—really, it might equally well have been described as ‘small holding’ (plebeian) or ‘grounds’ (patrician), a young man was crossing the lawn, a terrier at his heels. The dog saw Bobby first, and barked an alarm. At that the young man turned, and, seeing Bobby, came quickly towards him. His clothing was just a little too emphatically countrified, as if he knew his rural duty and meant to do it. In build he was short and sturdy, square-built; square face, too, with sharp, intelligent eyes, his most marked feature a large, well-shaped mouth; and there was about him an air of confidence and authority, similar to, but less well assured than that shown by the Vicar. For it did not rest, like the Vicar’s on a complete certainty of support from another world, but on a conviction that his birth and social position and the power given by wealth gave him the right to command and the sure expectation that his commands would be obeyed. At the moment, though, he did not look in too amiable a mood.

  CHAPTER VII

  “CAN MURDER BE HUSHED UP?”

  BOBBY, SEEING the young man approaching, stood still to wait for him. He looked so much at home that Bobby at once felt sure he must be Mrs Holcombe’s son, Harry Holcombe, of whom he had already heard. With rather more than a touch of that arrogance which seemed to be characteristic of him, spoilt as he probably was both by his mother, and by the circumstances of his life in this village where he was, if not king, at any rate Prince Imperial, the boy—he was scarcely more—demanded as he came up to Bobby:

  “Are you the London cop who was asking my sister a lot of questions last night?”

  “I am indeed,” Bobby answered, producing his official card, “though I am not used to hearing myself called a London cop to my face, any more than I daresay you are used to hearing yourself called ill-mannered to your face. I take it you are Mr Henry Holcombe?”

  The young man stared, flushed, looked inclined to bluster, changed his mind, and said:

  “Yes, I am. What about it? Anyhow, I don’t see why you wanted to go bothering my sister with a lot of questions. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “It has often been my duty,” Bobby told him, “to bother a great many people with a great many questions. Please remember I am here to inquire into a case of murder.”

  “Well, you don’t suppose she had anything to do with it, do you?”

  “I make inquiries,” Bobby answered—“that is, bother a great many people with a great many questions—before I suppose anything. And when I find two people making a careful search late at night of the scene of a recent murder, I feel an explanation is required.”

  “Well, you got it, didn’t you? She has lost her wrist-watch. It’s rather a good one. She thought she might have dropped it there. That’s all.”

  “We have, Mr Holcombe,” Bobby said, “an expression in the police we often use. We say ‘I am not satisfied’. I think I used it in talking to Miss Holcombe last night. I think she would be wise to be a little more frank and tell me what it was she was really looking for.”

  “Are you trying to call my sister a liar?” demanded Holcombe, with a last little faint attempt at bluster.

  “I hope at any rate the young lady would draw the line at perjury if she has to go into the witness-box,” retorted Bobby, and noticed, not without interest, that this observation had a somewhat disconcerting effect on young Holcombe. He went on: “I’ve really called to see Mrs Holcombe. Is she in, do you know? Later on, I expect I shall have to ask you yourself for another chat. I hope you will be as entirely frank and open as I fear Miss Holcombe was not. When it’s murder, everything has to be told. And better tell it at once than have it dragged out bit by bit. By the way, Miss Holcombe is your half-sister, I think. I understand Mrs Holcombe has been married before. Does the young lady always use the name Holcombe? Can you tell me her father’s name?”

  “It was Summerson, I believe,” Holcombe answered. “Why? She’s always called Miss Holcombe, though.”

  “Thank you. That’s very interesting,” Bobby said.

  The young man looked at him in a surprised and suspicious way, as if he didn’t understand this remark and didn’t much like it. Bobby nodded, and was going on towards the house when Holcombe stopped him.

  “Look,” he said. “You needn’t go telling the mater Norman Lawson was there as well, need you? It’ll only upset her for nothing,” and at this Bobby regarded the young man with rather more sympathy than before.

  “I can’t make any promises,” he said. “It all depends. It may be necessary or it may not. But I can at least tell you that it’s looked on as a serious breach of discipline if any police officer says anything beyond what is really necessary. I can assure you we all know a lot we don’t tell—for that matter, it would cost us our jobs if we did.”

  He nodded again and walked on, leaving Holcombe looking rather gloomy and a good deal more subdued than before. Evidently there was a strong bond of sympathy between him and his half-sister. Bobby remembered now how the barmaid at the ‘Black Bull’ had hinted that the young man was showing himself attracted by Miss Annie Mars, and he wondered if the two young people were helping each other to keep their respective love affairs secret—Livia’s with Norman Lawson and Harry Holcombe’s with Annie Mars.

  Nothing to suggest, though, even if this were so, that the two love affairs had any connection with what had happened. Was it not more probable that they were merely coincidental? Bobby would have been inclined to think so but for that nocturnal search he had interrupted, and that had been undertaken, he felt sure, on the news of his own arrival in the village.

  Again, there was the suggestion of blackmail as a possible motive he had been at first inclined to dismiss as not worth serious consideration. Now he was not so sure. If there had been an attempt to secure snaps of either pair—Livia and Norman, Harry Holcombe and Annie—then violence might easily have resulted and gone much farther than had ever been intended.

  In that case, if something like that had really happened, it might account for Mrs Holcombe’s visit to the copse so late at night and her discovery of a body she already knew was there.

  Or had she gone in the company perhaps of some one else—who?—to secure by payment or otherwise the surrender of photographs already taken. And if so, had, once again, bargaining developed into dispute, ending in an unpremeditated use of violence? All quite plausible suggestions, but difficult to fit into them the personality of the victim—a harmless little commercial traveller, a total stranger to the district, against whose somewhat colourless character nothing seemed to be known.

  All these thoughts, ideas, theories, passed through Bobby’s mind in swift succession, not in logical sequence, but rather as a series of separate pictures, the background always the same—two figures in the safe shelter of the copse, the click of a camera shutter, an angry scene, violence, a dead man. But the faces of those two figures changed continuously, though the upshot was always the same.

  By this time he had reached the house. Evidently his approach had been noticed, for, as he came up, the door opened and there stood waiting for him on the threshold a short, stout, rather dowdily dressed woman of middle age. At first sight she could easily have been taken for just another comfortable housewife who, in the stress of small daily worries in th
is age of rationing and scarcity, had begun to neglect her appearance.

  A second glance corrected this impression. There was a hard, direct, purposive air about her, once more that air of authority, as of one used to giving orders and having them obeyed. Her features were strongly marked, and her gaze, fixed upon Bobby as he approached, was intent and searching. Her chief resemblance to her son—Bobby assumed at once, correctly, that this was Mrs Holcombe, head of the Holcombe Manufacturing Company (Longlast Shirts)—lay in the large, well-shaped mouth, mobile and yet tightly closed in general, but showing, when open, two rows of strong, white, slightly protuberant teeth. When she spoke, her voice was singularly clear, even musical, resonant and agreeable. An unusual and distinctive voice—the voice of an orator, in fact, as the mouth was the mouth of an orator. One could easily imagine her as the chairman of a company meeting, charming dissatisfied shareholders into acquiescence, though indeed the record of her own company since her assumption of complete control gave little cause for dissatisfaction. Without waiting for Bobby to speak, she said in that clear, expressive voice of hers:

  “You have come about the murder, haven’t you?” It was characteristic of her, as Bobby soon noted, to come straight to the point and use direct words. “Mr Lawson told me to expect you. Come this way.”

  She turned back into the house without waiting to hear Bobby’s reply. Nor did she even once glance back to see if he were following. Evidently she took that for granted. Very much the boss, Bobby thought. She led the way across a square entrance hall and down a short passage into a large room, fitted up with all that the most up-to-date business executive could possibly need. There were telephones—a small battery of them—a typewriter, a dictaphone—an unused air about this last, probably due to the difficulty of obtaining the wax cylinders required—shelves of books, of a severe technical appearance, an enormous safe, an outsize in filing cabinets, and so on and so on. The only touch of femininity in the room was a bowl of flowers standing on the large desk by the window. Everything, indeed, in the room was large, even a little oversize, as if only thus, in size, could this woman’s personality express itself.