The Attending Truth: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “It might just be that people prefer to make themselves rather than be made by others,” Bobby suggested. “It is true I listen to gossip. It’s often very useful. Not for what it says, but for the background it shows, atmosphere, climate of opinion. That sort of thing. You must know your background, and know it accurately, for correct judgment. Mr Jones tells me that his shop is the village gossip-centre. Apparently he likes it like that because he thinks it’s good for business.”

  “I know,” Mrs Holcombe agreed. “It generally starts there. I spoke to him. He says he can’t help customers talking. He told me women felt more free to let their tongues loose in his shop than in the Women’s Institute I gave them.”

  “I suppose he means they feel the shop is theirs because it depends on them, but the Institute is yours because it depends on you. He may be putting that about,” Bobby observed thoughtfully.

  “Preposterous,” she snapped. “They elect their own committee, and the committee elects its own chairman. A perfectly free hand,” but Bobby was aware of an impression that Mrs Holcombe always saw to it that that perfectly free hand should be used as she thought best.

  “Mr Jones seems to work hard to build up his business,” Bobby remarked. “Possibly with the idea of selling. In confidence—I’m sure you won’t repeat it—I’ve played with the idea that Winterspoon might have brought a large sum of money with him to make the purchase, and that’s what caused the murder. I’ve given that idea up, of course, now I’ve seen more of Jones.”

  Mrs Holcombe was smiling now.

  “A most respectable man,” she said. “Regular church-goer. Always ready to help. A little too officious.”

  “He collects parcels for you from the railway, I think?”

  “He did. I’ve stopped that now,” and Bobby suspected this was a kind of reprisal for Mr Jones’s lack of co-operation in not being more willing to try to stop the chatter that went on in his shop. “I told the railway three days ago that for the future my own lorries would collect when I was expecting anything. It takes them out of their way, but I pay full hire terms, and the drivers get full overtime rates.”

  Bobby got to his feet.

  “Thank you very much,” he said. “I have found our talk most helpful. My case isn’t complete by any means, but at any rate know enough now to put more pressure on. One thing is always certain. The man who knows he is guilty is always near to cracking, near to making the false step that gives us final proof—even in a case like this, where we are dealing with a very careful, crafty, far-seeing personality. Very formidable indeed.”

  She was regarding him from doubtful, suspicious eyes, plainly wondering what he meant, alarmed, mistrustful, alert, but also showing the kind of steely resolution that no doubt had had much to do with her success in the catch-as-catch-can arena of business. He went away then, and returned to the ‘Black Bull’, where his barmaid friend told him that Mars was in the bar, drinking freely, and apparently in a very black mood, though he wouldn’t say what was the matter. He had asked for Mr Owen once or twice, though, and so Bobby suggested that he should be told Mr Owen was there and entirely at his service.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  “NOT HER WAY”

  IT WAS some time before Mars accepted this invitation and made his appearance in the coffee-room, where Bobby was busy with his papers. Bobby, indeed, had almost forgotten him, and after his long and tiring day was beginning to think of bed when the door was thrown back and Mars was revealed, standing, not too steadily, on the threshold. He did not come forward, he did not speak, but stood and stared at Bobby from small, bloodshot, suspicious eyes. Bobby said impatiently:

  “Don’t stand there, man. Come in and shut the door, or else get out and go home.”

  “What’s all this about our Annie?” Mars demanded truculently.

  “I’ve told you,” Bobby repeated, “either to come in and shut the door or else clear out. You’ve been drinking.”

  “It’s you as what’s driven me to it,” Mars said, “and as sober as a ruddy parson, as good as teetotal I’ve been for long enough, till you come along and fair drove me to it,” and Bobby found himself wondering what else he was going to be held responsible for, from Livia’s ‘January Apples’ to Mars’s lapse from ‘as good as teetotal’. Cautiously, as one not quite certain what the behaviour of the floor was likely to be, Mars shut the door and came forward. “What you done with our Annie?” he repeated.

  “Nothing,” Bobby told him. “What are you asking for? Well?” and this last word he rapped out as Mars seemed inclined simply to stand and stare owlishly at him.

  It had its effect, for Mars answered then, slurring his words a little less:

  “She ain’t been home since afternoon, her not going to work as usual, along of expecting you, and now there’s some as says you’ve been and took her and some as says she’s off with that there Harry Holcombe, and if it’s you, I’ll out you, and if it’s him I’ll out him unless it’s lawful wedded married they are.”

  “Don’t talk like a fool, or you’ll find yourself in trouble,” Bobby said sharply. “I certainly haven’t taken her, as you call it. I haven’t seen her all day. If you mean she has left here without saying where’s she gone or how long she is likely to be away, she may have to be found and brought back. She may be required to give evidence.”

  “Her mother’s in a rare taking,” Mars said. “Nagging she is so I would have fetched her a swipe across the face, only for being got out of the way of it with that girl of mine looking at you same as nothing like it hadn’t ever happened since the Flood, and fussing so she thought I must be going dotty—if so be she’s rightly my girl at all, as I don’t call her any child of mine, which is what I’ve told her more’n once.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Bobby demanded.

  “It’s her grandpa she takes after,” Mars explained, “not her poor old father at all. Doesn’t belong.” He had managed to seat himself by now, and clearly felt much more secure on a chair than when standing up. He went on: “Grandpa’s girl, not mine. My old woman’s dad. A lord, or thereabouts he was, and paid-up handsome. But there it is. Money comes and money goes,” and uttering this profound aphorism, he nodded at Bobby with an owl-like solemnity.

  “It certainly goes more easily than it comes,” Bobby agreed.

  “My old woman,” Mars went on, “minds being took to see where her ma died when she was born, her ma being housemaid there before being unfortunate. Big as Windsor Castle and them places.” He rambled on: “God’s over all, but the lord disposeth and come down handsome for the baby being brought up, and by rights my old woman might have been a ladyship, like as not, only for words not being spoke in church, as they did ought to have been, and for her mum dying so quick there wasn’t no chance, if you see what I mean.”

  Bobby went to the door—the bell was out of order—and called a request to the back regions for coffee—hot coffee, and as strong as they could make it. Mars’s story had interested him. It seemed, he supposed, that Annie’s unusual good looks had come to her from her mother—that tragic ruin—and from her grandmother, whose life had paid the price, and that from her grandfather had come to her an innate manner of response to the finer things of life, wholly alien to the environment in which she had been brought up. A mystery of heredity that neither such good looks nor such an attitude of mind had come to her brother, young Alf, a complete hobble-de-hoy, as completely his father’s son as Annie seemed to be a product of far-off ancestors on her mother’s side. His thoughts were dissipated when the barmaid appeared, carrying a jug of coffee.

  “Spoon pretty near stands up in it,” she announced. She regarded Mars with disfavour: “What he wants,” she said, “is his head in a bucket of water. Do him more good than coffee. If the boss listens to me, he’ll not be served again for a week. Only way to learn him.”

  “Ain’t a man a right to his glass of beer?” demanded Mars, wakened to instant attention by this dire threat. He drank some of the c
offee the barmaid handed him. “Ain’t it law as you’ve got to serve every one, fair shares and no picking and choosing?”

  “Never mind that,” Bobby interposed. “Drink that coffee unless you would rather have the bucket of water to put your head in. I’m going back with you to see if Mrs Mars can tell us anything more.”

  Mars didn’t look as if he much liked this suggestion. He drank some more coffee, and this time, having forgotten how hot it was, choked and spluttered. However, it did seem to wake him up still further.

  “A bloke’s got to be careful who he’s seen with,” he grumbled. “They’ll all think as I’ve been took.”

  “Come on,” Bobby said, and jerked him to his feet, on which now he seemed steadier.

  It was late and growing dark, so that their progress through the village attracted little attention. No doubt by morning every one would know, and a hundred different interpretations would be current. But that could not be helped. Their way took them past the grocery store. It was in complete darkness. Had a light shown anywhere, Bobby would have knocked and inquired if Mr or Mrs Jones could tell him more.

  “Gone to bed early,” he remarked to his companion.

  “Sorting stock in the cellar, maybe,” a subdued and comparatively sober Mars suggested. “He told my missus once as they didn’t ever get to bed before twelve, along of having no time in the day to get straight or make up rations, and no help in shop or house to be had for love or money.”

  A common complaint in these days, Bobby thought. They walked on till they reached the Mars habitation. Mars pushed open the door and yelled “Hi, Missis.” Mrs Mars appeared at once from the kitchen.

  “Have you found her?” she asked, and then saw Bobby and uttered a dismayed “Oh.”

  “Mr Mars tells me Annie has gone away,” Bobby said, “without saying where she was going or when she would be back.”

  “It’s not like her,” Mrs Mars said. “Not her way.”

  She came forward and opened the door of the front parlour, a small, conventionally furnished apartment. Her husband and Bobby followed her. She switched on the electric light. There was no house in the village that had not been wired both for light and heat. At Mrs Holcombe’s expense, though all were supposed to pay the money back in time, in the charge made for the use of the current. She pushed forward a chair for Bobby, but herself stood upright, with the hard electric light showing every line of her worn and ravaged face. Bobby said:

  “Can you tell me anything more?”

  “She didn’t go to the office this morning,” Mrs Mars said. “She told me as you might be coming to take her and you might have her sent to prison because of not answering. After dinner she went out for the rations, and I saw her hurry like, and I thought perhaps it was because of seeing Mr Harry Holcombe go by in his yellow car and she wanted to explain about having stopped away from the office. Last thing she said was she would be back soon. But she never has.”

  “If it’s tricks he’s up to,” Mars muttered, “I’ll out him. No girl of mine, Annie isn’t—grand-pa’s girl—but I’m her dad, and it’s me to see he don’t do her wrong.”

  “You’ve been drinking,” Mrs Mars said. “You get off to bed. You, too,” she added, suddenly aware that Alf was there as well.

  “Has he got her?” Alf asked, looking at Bobby, but speaking to his mother. She shook her head. Alf went on: “Gone off with Mr Harry most like. If he treats her right, O.K. by me. Runs in the family, don’t it? like grandma.”

  “Don’t you be disrespectful,” Mrs Mars said angrily. “You leave your grandma be. Only for the poor soul dying, as she couldn’t help, I should have been a lady, and had no truck with the likes of your pa. Nor you neither.”

  “Wants a swipe across the face,” Mars said, “when she talks that way.”

  “Never mind all that,” Bobby interrupted. He turned to Alf: “When did you see your sister last?” he asked.

  “Breakfast,” Alf answered. “Kippers. She ain’t so bad, if she didn’t fuss so. Seems to think it’s something awful if you give a bath a miss Saturdays. Bullies you into it, she does.”

  “Tells him the girls will like him best that way,” Mrs Mars explained. “Not as I hold with having a cold bath every morning, same as her. Rheumatics, I say.”

  “Well, perhaps that is going a bit far,” Bobby agreed gravely. “There are people who seem to like it, though.”

  “Showing off,” declared Alf. “That’s all.” He added meditatively: “But there’s some likes the rummiest things, don’t they? You never know.”

  “You be off to bed,” Mrs Mars commanded.

  Rather to Bobby’s surprise, Alf obeyed at once, shuffling off without a word. His father followed. Bobby was inclined to think that they both considered it was more the affair of Annie’s mother than of theirs. They felt that Annie was different—some one they did not understand, with whom they never felt quite at their ease. And yet, Bobby was equally convinced that, inconsistently no doubt, they would both resent with the deepest anger any harm that might come to her.

  “Is there anything serious between your daughter and young Holcombe?” he asked.

  “There’s his mother,” Mrs Mars said. “She wouldn’t ever stand for it. She knows.”

  “Knows?” Bobby asked. “About them, do you mean?”

  “About my ma,” Mrs Mars said. “She won’t let it be again, not if she can stop it. He hasn’t a penny of his own, and him going to be a member of Parliament and all. Annie’s a good girl, and so was my ma. Died she did and never needed to, only for not being looked after proper.”

  “If we don’t hear from her to-morrow,” Bobby said, “we shall have to try to find out what’s become of her.”

  CHAPTER XXVII

  “ONE OF SEVERAL”

  NEXT MORNING, after he had dealt with the usual routine paper work requiring his attention, the first thing Bobby did was to ring up Castle Manor and to ask how Livia was getting on and was she now in a fit state to answer a few questions? He was given a somewhat evasive reply. The doctor had not yet seen her. He countered with a suggestion that the police doctor should see her at the same time. It was always necessary that an independent opinion should confirm that of the family doctor. So he would ring up both doctors and ask them to arrange between themselves a time convenient for both. The telephone said angrily that that was most unnecessary. Bobby replied that unfortunately it was necessary, absolutely necessary, and a still angrier telephone spluttered a little, and then announced that Mr Roughton, of Messrs Roughton and Roughton, the family solicitors, would be at Castle Manor for lunch, and would no doubt be willing to see Mr Owen afterwards. Bobby said it was always advisable for a solicitor to be present on such occasions, added that it was, however, Miss Holcombe whom it was necessary he should see, and that therefore he would call as soon after lunch as possible. The telephone answered with some sort of angry grunt he took to indicate acquiescence. So he hung up with the reflection that the family doctor seemed to have vanished from the picture, and then he went out to find the small two-seater car he had asked should be ready.

  His first call was at the Mars residence. There was no answer when he knocked, but one of the women, drawn by his appearance from domestic chores, told him that Mrs Mars was out—had gone out early—and that Mars himself and his boy were probably at work on their small-holding.

  “And Miss Mars?” Bobby asked; and the woman looked at him archly, and said she didn’t know, and did Bobby know where young Mr Holcombe was. Bobby asked what that had to do with it, and the woman giggled and said the milkman had told her that the maids up at Castle Manor said Mr Harry had not been home the night before.

  “When two young ’uns are missing,” the woman informed him, “if you go looking for one, you may find both.”

  Bobby made no comment on this sage reflection, though he doubted very much whether Annie would have been at all likely to run off with young Holcombe at this particular moment. Possible, of course, for when ha
rd pressed it is a human instinct to seek refuge in flight. If it was like that, she would have to be sought and brought back, and then it struck him suddenly that Annie might very well know that a wife cannot be made to bear witness against her husband. An unpleasant thought, for that would mean she believed Harry to be guilty. Was this, then, the knowledge with which Livia had seemed to challenge her mother in the strange silent scene of unspoken question and counter-question he remembered so vividly?

  He had reached now the Mars small-holding, bordering on the main road, wherefrom Mars was able, under present conditions, to draw a very fairly good living that might have been much better if he and his son had been on more familiar terms with that unpleasant thing known as hard work.

  Bobby stopped his car and alighted. Mars was there, leaning meditatively on a spade, apparently trying to decide whether it would be better to make a start at once on the job of work before him, or to put it off till the morrow. He had just come to the conclusion that a cup of tea in the shed, the one he so bitterly resented Mrs Holcombe had prevented him from using for providing snacks to passing motorists, would help him to decide and that meantime it would be a good idea to tell Alf to get on with it. Nothing like a good start, he reflected. Alf, however, was nowhere visible, and when his father looked round to see what had become of him, he became aware for the first time of Bobby’s presence.

  “I’ve been round to your place,” Bobby said, greeting him. “No one there. Have you heard from Miss Mars?”