The Attending Truth: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Look,” Holcombe said, staring at Bobby defiantly. “All this sounds to me a lot of poppycock.”

  “It’s not poppycock that a man has been killed,” Bobby retorted. “Nor is it poppycock that the body was found by Mrs Holcombe at a spot where it does not seem she had any reason to be. Nor is it poppycock that Miss Holcombe’s mallet disappeared, that it is such an instrument as could have been used, and that it has now turned up showing distinct signs of having been carefully and recently cleaned. Nor again poppycock that Miss Holcombe was in the copse the night I arrived here, searching with Norman Lawson for something that must have been important in some way, though she won’t say why. Norman Lawson was helping her, but he says he doesn’t know what she wanted. All she told him was to look for anything—anything at all. He says they didn’t find anything, his father had had it all carefully gone over, and there wasn’t so much as a bit of torn newspaper left. All this has got to be explained before I can call myself satisfied.”

  “I don’t see why,” Holcombe grumbled. “Women get easily upset. When there’s a chap gets himself murdered almost on your doorstep you can’t expect people to behave the same as usual.”

  “I think there’s more to it than that,” Bobby said gravely.

  The young man did not attempt to reply. He sat very still, a huddled, moody figure, looking at the floor, not at Bobby. He had entered the room with his usual air of self-assurance, little, if at all, abated by recent events. Now it had vanished entirely, or nearly so. There was just a last faint flicker of defiance in his voice when he said:

  “I don’t see where all this is getting you.”

  “Nor do I,” Bobby agreed. “All I am doing is trying to get hold of every scrap of information I can, in the hope that something like a pattern may presently begin to show. The crux of the whole thing is why Winterspoon went to the copse at all. If we knew that, we should almost certainly have some idea why he was murdered, and very likely who did it.”

  “Well, I haven’t the least idea,” Holcombe said. “None of us has. Why should we?”

  “There is something else I have to ask you about,” Bobby went on. “You remember the other day, when you and Sergeant Stubbs were trying to get the Vicar’s car going again, you both noticed an outsize wrench in his tool-box?”

  “What about it?” Holcombe asked. He seemed surprised and a little uneasy. “Do you mean about my taking it home with me? It wouldn’t grip properly. Head had got bent somehow. I took it along to see if I could put it straight, and then it got pinched.”

  “Pinched? By whom?” Bobby asked.

  “No idea. Does it matter? I thought at first it might be the Vicar had seen it, knew it was his, and picked it up. I meant to ask him, but I forgot. What happened was that I put it in the flame of a blow-lamp to soften it up where it had got bent and left it too long, so it got red hot. I put it outside to cool, and when I remembered and went to look it wasn’t there. I don’t see why any one should want to pinch the thing. A tramp might. Old iron is wanted for scrap, and a dealer might give a penny or two for it. Or a tramp might have thought it was in working order. I don’t know. Anyhow, it went.”

  “Did you tell any one it had gone?” Bobby asked.

  “No; why should I? It wasn’t worth anything. Why are you worrying on about the thing? I was meaning to try to get a new one to give the Vicar instead, only tools aren’t so easy to find—and that one was pretty well antediluvian. What’s the idea, asking all these questions?”

  “Still seeking information, still hoping to find a pattern to fit the few facts we do know. You see, this is a case with no material clues—or rather only one, a verse in the Bible.”

  “What’s that?” demanded Holcombe, but Bobby did not explain, and Holcombe went on: “Anyhow, what’s an old wrench got to do with it?” Again Bobby did not reply, but he was watching the other closely, and saw how the young man’s uneasiness, even fear, was increasing. He protested now: “You’ve no right to ask a lot of questions about nothing. It’s only trying to trap a chap into saying something, and he doesn’t know what.”

  “Impossible to trap any one who keeps to the truth,” Bobby told him. “Surely you must realize that a heavy instrument was used by the murderer, and that, in spite of every effort, it has not been found?”

  “That’s what you’re after, is it?” demanded Holcombe. He was trying to bluster now, but not very successfully, and the attempt soon faded away. “All right. Go ahead. Try to prove I used it to bash that poor devil’s head in, God knows why. All the same, you can’t. Because I didn’t.”

  “No doubt that will soon become perfectly clear,” Bobby said quietly. “But these questions have to be asked. At present there is no special reason why you should be suspected. The wrench is not the only instrument I have to notice. There are one or two others—four in all, I think—and it is certainly unfortunate that in each case there are signs of careful cleaning. Miss Livia’s mallet, for instance, and the part of the wrench that wasn’t in the blow-lamp flame is too rough to take finger prints. You were saying you thought possibly the Vicar might have taken it himself. Had he been visiting you that afternoon?”

  “No, but he trots off to see Mrs Tibbits every day nearly, and if he does he has to come by our place. There was a tramp hanging about, too. I told him to clear out, and I thought he did. He may have come back. I don’t know. I don’t see why he should.”

  “Well,” Bobby said, “that makes three who had or could have had the wrench the afternoon before the murder—you, the Vicar, and this tramp you speak of. I shall have to ask the Vicar about it, and we must try to pick up the tramp as well. The second tramp who comes into it, apparently.”

  “I suppose you don’t believe he exists,” Holcombe grumbled. “Well, he does all right. He may be miles away by now, though. What started you off on this wrench business, anyhow? The whole place must be full of things that could have been used. Four or five, you said yourself.”

  “Oh, yes,” Bobby agreed. “One of our difficulties. But this one seems to be rather closely connected with people who seem themselves to be rather closely connected with the copse where it all began. And, as usual, some of you are drawing suspicion on yourselves by quite obviously not telling all you know. There is tension, strong tension, between your sister—half-sister, isn’t it?—and your mother. Until that is explained, and so long as explanation is refused, you have only yourselves to thank for any suspicions we have. If you know what it is, or can persuade them to tell us, you will have done a great deal to take away what suspicion there may be.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, tension, I don’t know anything about it,” Holcombe grumbled. “Of course they both always want their own way, only it’s generally mother gets it. Poor old Livia has to knuckle down.”

  “Somehow I don’t think she altogether intends to this time,” Bobby said, and Holcombe looked startled and uneasy, but said nothing.

  He was allowed to go then, and indeed it was with something of the air of making a welcome but not too secure an escape that he returned to his car and drove away.

  CHAPTER XX

  “DANGEROUS DOCTRINE”

  IT WAS only a moment or two after Harry Holcombe’s departure. Bobby was still sitting quietly, thinking over what had passed, asking himself how far it fitted into the tentative and doubtful pattern of events slowly forming in his mind, a pattern that he knew depended on no overt fact save, indeed, a scrap of paper bearing a Biblical reference. Then there came a knock at the door, and Sergeant Stubbs appeared.

  “There’s a bird looks like a Weary Willie hanging about outside,” he announced. “I told him to push off. Now he’s back again. I thought I had better mention it—not that he looks any ways like that photo in the Gazette.”

  “Well, that was taken from a bust only done from memory,” Bobby remarked. “Has he said anything?”

  “No. I asked him what he wanted and would he like to come inside,” the Sergeant answered, “and he j
ust walked off.”

  “Perhaps,” observed Bobby, though hardly considering the invitation to ‘come inside’ a very tactful one, “perhaps playing us gently, on the chance of there being something in it. Thinks if we want him badly we’ll go after him, and then he’ll put up his price—if he really has anything to tell. I’m going on to have a talk with the Vicar if he’s in, and I’ll take a look at your tramp on the way.”

  He went out accordingly. At a little distance up the village street a disreputable-looking individual was lounging, though indeed not so disreputable but that a hundred years ago the tramp of that day would probably have called him a ‘swell’. He watched Bobby’s approach with a kind of wary mistrust, as a dog might watch, uncertain whether to expect a kick or a pat. Bobby, when he reached where the man was standing, paused.

  “Been waiting some time, haven’t you?” he asked. “Got anything to say?”

  “What would it be worth if I had?” the man inquired cautiously.

  “How can I tell till I know what it is?” Bobby retorted. He produced a shilling. “Get yourself a drink,” he said, “and come back later if you like. If you don’t like, clear out. We’ve nothing against you, if that’s in your mind. If you are the man who was impudent to a young lady the other day, we’ve washed that out. Got something else to think about. You are probably a lazy scamp, but you don’t like murder, do you? any more than any one else.”

  “Lazy? Me?” the other exclaimed, indignant. “Oh my poor feet. You try walking twenty miles in the rain, only to have a blasted dog set on you if you try to find a bit of shelter somewhere. But I tell you straight I don’t stand for being exploded by capitalists.” He produced a tattered copy of a daily newspaper, though one of but limited circulation, and pointed out with satisfaction a headline to much the same effect except that the effective word was ‘exploited’. “But I don’t hold with murder either,” he added. “I’ve always run straight, so I have.”

  “Bravo,” said Bobby, who knew that running ‘straight’ in this connection meant he had always shied away from anything in the nature of serious crime. “Well, come back if you want to. There may be five or ten bob waiting for you. That’s not a promise. What’s your name?”

  “Walker,” the man answered, grinning. “That’s straight, no kidding, as some think. B. L. Walker, and that’s Bert Long Walker, not Bloody Likely Walker, which is what they call me at times. See, is it right it’s wiped out about what was said, joking like, though misunderstood, to a young lady what didn’t hear plain and was quite mistook?”

  “I’ve said so once,” Bobby answered curtly. “Once is enough. It’s as you like, Mr Walker.”

  He nodded and walked on, and Walker stood looking after him, still suspicious, a little pleased, wondering how long it was since any one, speaking as man to man, had called him ‘Mr’ Walker. There was an odd stirring of old memories in his mind as he watched Bobby go, and then he shrugged his shoulders and slouched away towards the ‘Black Bull’, intent only on transforming his shilling into beer with the least possible delay.

  From the police-station, Sergeant Stubbs watched disapprovingly.

  “Gave him something, Mr Owen did,” Stubbs complained, “and then walks off same as he didn’t care whether he ever saw him again, and if he doesn’t, what did he give him anything for? Tell me that.”

  “Never know what the high-ups think they’re doing,” commented with resignation the other occupant of the room, a constable. “Never see that bloke again—not if I know tramps, not now he’s made a touch.”

  Unaware that his handling of Bert Walker was being thus unfavourably discussed, Bobby walked on towards the Vicarage, still aware of the little ripple of excitement that accompanied his progress, of disappointment that he had not with him Annie Mars in handcuffs; and on his side, still hoping that all this might produce some other small item of information which could be fitted into the pattern of events he was trying to establish.

  According to the amiable habit of the Church of England, the vicarage was an enormous building at least ten times bigger and ten times more expensive to keep up than was either necessary or desirable. Fortunately, Mr Duggan was in, enjoying, indeed, an early lunch of bread, margarine, cheese, and cocoa—his conscience slightly uneasy about the cheese, since he knew very well that the cost of it could have been added to the fund for the upkeep of his church, an ancient building much in need of constant repair. However, early as it was—but, then, he had been up since five—he had finished a lunch little worthy of the name. So he asked Bobby to wait a moment while he carried plate and cup into the vast and empty kitchen.

  “I always,” he explained on his return, “leave the washing-up till each Tuesday and Friday. Much more convenient, I find, to do it altogether. But a sad temptation to use the same things over again.”

  “Have you no housekeeper?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, no,” Mr Duggan admitted. “Unnecessary, perhaps. A bachelor’s needs are so small,” and Bobby, letting his eye wander round the room, wondered what his own wife would think of the ‘small needs’ here apparent. Enough, he was inclined to think, to keep any woman happy and busy for at least a week. “Besides,” the Vicar was continuing, “housekeepers are difficult to find and very expensive, too. Some of my kind friends in my congregation insist on coming in to ‘clear up’, as they call it, every Saturday. I discourage it. They all have their own homes to look after. I tell them I would much rather see them in church than here.”

  “I see,” said Bobby, though he didn’t. He was, in fact, wondering if his previous faint dislike and distrust of this man, with his so unfamiliar points of view, was not changing into a slightly alarmed admiration. And he had certainly become sure that Mr Duggan presented a problem difficult in the extreme to understand. A diligent and uncompromising follower of what he believed to be the right path, but also a fanatic, his mind sealed against every other consideration, as incalculable as every fanatic must be, since he sees so little, and so seldom as others see. He dismissed these thoughts from his mind, and went on: “It was really about an old tool of yours—a wrench—I came to see you. I believe it was an unusually heavy instrument, and that the grip was insecure.”

  “Why? Do you want it?” the Vicar asked, looking very puzzled.

  “Well, it has come into our possession,” Bobby explained, and the Vicar looked more bewildered than ever.

  “I don’t think I understand,” he said. “Surely it is in the toolbox still?”

  “Could you make sure?” Bobby asked.

  “I could ring up the garage and ask, if you think that necessary. The car is there for repair—extensive repairs, they tell me. In fact, they say it is almost past repair. Unfortunately it is impossible for me to afford another car, though they advise it as being more economical in the long run. They do offer to buy outright for twenty pounds—a temptation. I could get a new bicycle. But I still don’t understand where all this is leading. Or how the wrench came into your hands—if it is really the same one,” he added doubtfully.

  “I think we must assume it is, though I will ask you to identify it, if you will. My information is that when your car broke down the other day Sergeant Stubbs and Mr Harry Holcombe tried to see what they could do to get it going again.”

  “They were both very kind,” the Vicar said. “They took a great deal of trouble. I am afraid it was past roadside help. It had to be taken to the garage. It’s there still. I told you they don’t seem to think it worth repairing.”

  “Both Stubbs and Mr Holcombe noticed the wrench,” Bobby went on, “and Mr Holcombe says he took it away with him to see if he could get it back into working order.”

  “Very kind of him,” said the Vicar. “Did he manage to?”

  “Apparently it has now vanished,” Bobby said.

  “I suppose Harry has mislaid it—not that it matters,” the Vicar remarked. “But I thought you said you had it?”

  “What appears to have happened,” Bobby went on, �
�is that he left it outside his workshop, and when he remembered and went to look for it, it had gone. He seems to have thought that possibly you had been by, recognized it as yours, and taken it away.”

  “Dear me, no,” said the Vicar. “If I had, I expect I should have said something.”

  “You go by there regularly, don’t you?” Bobby asked. “To visit a Mrs Tibbits?”

  “Why, yes, that is so,” the Vicar agreed. “Almost every afternoon. Why?”

  “May I ask if there is any special reason for that?”

  “Mrs Tibbits is very ill,” the Vicar explained. “More so than she and her husband realize. That, of course, is confidential. It is what the doctor told me privately. They have been for a long time what I can only call a centre of anti-religion in the parish—open scoffers. They were leaders in the refusal to pay the Church its ancient and rightful dues and they even gave a dance to celebrate that unholy and disgraceful triumph when the tithe was done away with. So when I heard Mrs Tibbits was ill, I naturally called at once, and have done so regularly since. It would be uncharitable,” the Vicar continued thoughtfully, “to say that Tibbits set the dog on me—an animal with a reputation for fierceness. He merely let it loose and went indoors.” Mr Duggan paused; and again there appeared that faint and fleeting smile which seemed to speak of a generally deeply hidden sense of humour he must have had somewhere about him—Bobby couldn’t imagine where, for humour and fanaticism are incompatibles. “I am afraid,” the Vicar went on, “Tibbits had a vision of his priest and spiritual guide up a tree and staying there till a greatly surprised and very apologetic Mr Tibbits came to release him. Of course I merely patted the dog’s head—a fine animal—and went on to the house. They seemed surprised. I have hopes—I must not be too optimistic—but Mrs Tibbits does seem inclined to listen to what I have to say. If the end comes soon, as the doctor seems to expect, I shall be able to conduct the funeral service with a hope—a joy, indeed—that I should have found impossible before.” He saw that Bobby was looking at him with some surprise. He said quite simply: “Death can be a joyous thing.”