The Attending Truth: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “‘Outing’ a bloke might end in more than was meant at first,” Bobby said, and again he was looking at his wrist-watch. “There was that visit of Mrs Holcombe’s to the copse when she found the body. I couldn’t believe that was a pure coincidence.”

  “It was what Livia said, she looked so strange, when she told me a man in the copse had spoken to her,” Mrs Holcombe said. “I mean when she said she thought she knew him and did she? and there was a photograph. I knew she had one. Of him. I rang up Colonel Yeo-Young to ask if he could go and see if there was any one there and what he wanted. And he rang up to say he had been and there was a dead man and it was best to say nothing. He said if it was some one I had ever known I was sure to get mixed up in it and there would be a lot of unpleasant publicity. I said I wouldn’t. But then I felt I had to know. If it was really—if he had come back—I couldn’t leave him lying there. He had been my husband. He was Livia’s father. I couldn’t. I had to know. I could tell Livia was wondering...asking. I had to go to be sure. I couldn’t think very clearly. I hadn’t any idea of murder. I suppose I thought he had died suddenly or there had been an accident or something. I think I was nearly out of my mind, afraid.”

  “Afraid it was Livy and me?” Norman Lawson asked. “I knew Mr Owen did after he spotted us that night. But I didn’t realize you did, too.”

  “I didn’t really,” Mrs Holcombe said. “I told you. I was nearly out of my mind. Only I did know Livy and you met sometimes in the copse. I told her she mustn’t. Perhaps that was when I frightened her. I didn’t mean to. I thought it was just flirting, and I didn’t like your meeting her like that. Especially there. And then she had said she would take her mallet with her if she was bothered again, and if she had been and you had come up—I never tried to think it out, it was all vague in my mind. A sort of backroom possibility. That’s all. I just didn’t know. Any more than you know what’s going to happen if you fall over a precipice in the dark. It may be ten feet deep or ten thousand. You don’t know. And then it was Livy’s father, and she looked at me so strangely, and I suppose I did, too. That was when Mr Owen was there. Oh, Livy, dear, I’m sorry.”

  “I am, too, mother,” Livy said and went to her and put her wet and tear-stained cheek against her mother’s.

  Yeo-Young coughed and looked uncomfortable.

  “What about me?” he asked. “Every one else seems to be cleared. Is the dénouement to be a ‘Thou art the man’ and a finger pointing at me?”

  “Oh, no,” Mrs Holcombe exclaimed. “Oh, no, no.”

  “Pompey howled,” the Colonel reminded her. “Significant, Mr Owen said. He didn’t say what of.”

  “Of course, it was significant,” Bobby said impatiently. “Anyone could see that if he stopped to think. If there had been some sort of scuffle between you, Pompey wouldn’t have howled, he would have joined in. But neither the body nor its clothing showed any sign of having been torn or bitten in any way. On the other hand, if you had come across a dead body, the dog—any dog—would have howled. They don’t like the smell of blood. It was quite safe to assume, as I did, that it was a dead body you had found in the copse you denied entering, rather than a murder you had committed. Walker’s evidence showed you had been in the copse about the time of the murder, but it also showed you were innocent of any killing.”

  “Oh, well,” Yeo-Young grumbled angrily, “I think you might have said that before, instead of playing me like a fish you didn’t mean to land.”

  “And I think,” Bobby retorted, “you might have told me the truth from the first. It would have made it all much easier and saved a lot.”

  “I expect he was thinking of me,” Mrs Holcombe said.

  “He ought to have thought of other things as well,” Bobby told her severely. “Including justice.”

  “Oh, well,” Yeo-Young said. “It’s one to you. But I’m not always so slow—about why the dog howled, I mean. I ought to have seen that. Come along, Harry. That fourth blunt instrument. Hurry.”

  Harry jumped up. The two of them almost ran out of the room. Bobby looked startled, for this was something he had not anticipated—that Yeo-Young would have seen so quickly what had been led up to. He was about to follow when at that moment there came a knock at the window—a double knock. Bobby was on his feet immediately.

  “You come with me, Mr Mars,” he said over his shoulder as he ran to the door. “That was Stubbs. Lawson, you had better stay here.”

  “Yes, stay with us,” Livia said.

  “Oh, all right,” Norman answered, and he went and sat by her and took her hand.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  “HE KILLED HER”

  OUTSIDE THE house Stubbs was waiting. He was standing by the car in which he had arrived. As soon as Bobby, followed by a bewildered and uneasy Mars, came hurrying from the house, he said to Bobby:

  “They’re back. Our man kept them talking as long as he could, but they ought to be at the house by now.”

  “Seen anything of Yeo-Young or Holcombe?” Bobby asked, and, without waiting for an answer, added: “We had better get a move on.”

  He jumped into the driving-seat. The others tumbled in after him. He drove fast. In a minute or two they were in the main street of the village, and as they drew near the grocery store they could see a little group there, Jones and Mrs Jones, Yeo-Young and Harry Holcombe. They were apparently in angry discussion. They all turned and were silent as the car drew up. Bobby jumped out, and, in the most approved police fashion, demanded loudly:

  “Now, then, what’s all this about?”

  “They’ve been drinking,” Jones called back. But in the light of the car’s headlamps his face looked a little less plump and beaming than usual, and his manner had no longer its accustomed geniality. “Must have been. Don’t seem to know what they want, and I don’t either.”

  “That’s bad, very bad,” Bobby said. “Must see about it.” He had noticed that Mrs Jones had her key in the lock of the door—the one admitting to the residential part of the building. Before she realized what was happening he had taken possession of the key, turned it, flung the door open, and was saying, all in the same moment: “Well, come inside, all of you. Mustn’t disturb the neighbours.”

  He seemed somehow to be sweeping them all within. Mr Jones, Mrs Jones, protested loudly, but were helpless against the swift, obedient push forward of the others. Jones called out:

  “Mr Owen, you’ve got no right, no right at all. It’s my house.”

  “So it is,” agreed Bobby.

  “Ask them if they’ve got a warrant,” Mrs Jones said.

  “Oh, I haven’t,” Bobby admitted. “But you can’t possibly want to keep us all out in the cold, waking up all the neighbours, while I see if there’s any justification for your saying these two gentlemen are the worse for drink. Actionable, you know. Scandal. Got to be sure. Shut the door, Stubbs.”

  Stubbs obeyed. Jones mechanically switched on the light. Bobby beamed upon them all. He did not explain that he had no search-warrant for the very good reason that his application for one had been refused. He suspected this was because the magistrate to whom the application had been made was a friend of Yeo-Young’s and apparently had been hearing a good deal about Bobby’s incompetence, his blustering attempts to hide abysmal failure, his preposterous suspicions aimed at persons of standing and responsibility. At least that is what Bobby had gathered from certain remarks made, and from the general atmosphere. However, that didn’t matter much, now that he had achieved admittance to enclosed premises in private occupation without the least show of force; and to use force to enter private premises is a very serious matter, only to be justified by at least one specific act of Parliament—or now-a-days by a departmental directive. But Jones was still protesting.

  “Where’s your warrant?” he was asking. “You’re trespassing. I’ve a right to order you out.”

  “So you have,” Bobby agreed again, “but I’m not going. This is a case in which not possession, but pre
sence, is nine-tenths of the law.”

  “I’ll be seeing my solicitor in the morning, first thing,” Jones threatened. “What’s it all about, anyway?” he asked in a milder tone.

  “Well, shall we say nylons, cigarettes, so on?” Bobby asked in return.

  Jones shrugged his shoulders, spread out deprecatory hands.

  “You were right, missis,” he said to his wife. “Mr Owen’s been on us from the start, most like. Means a smashing fine. Pretty well bust us, I expect. Oh, well, it’s all in the game. May as well make the best of a bad job.” He paused and looked sad. “All the same, hard luck. If it had gone on just a little longer, we should have saved enough to retire on. I’ll show you where the stuff is, shall I?”

  “You won’t mind our making a search as well, will you?” Bobby asked.

  “Oh, of course; don’t blame you,” Jones answered promptly. “Can’t expect you to take my word for it. From attic to cellar, if you like. As a matter of fact, all the stuff’s in the cellar; but of course you must see for yourselves.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Mrs Jones broke in, pushing forward. “It isn’t nylons he’s after. Don’t kid yourself. I told you that tale wasn’t good enough.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Jones screamed at her. “Don’t listen to her. She’s mad; it’s been too much for her.”

  “What has?” Bobby asked, and pushed him back as he seemed inclined to make a rush at his wife.

  “He killed her,” Mrs Jones said. “He didn’t mean to, but he did.”

  “It’s a lie,” Jones shouted. Again he had to be restrained as he tried to push his way towards her. He looked like a madman himself now, and there was even a little froth at the corner of his mouth. “I never did. If I did, you helped,” and he broke into a stream of profanity which only ceased when Stubbs clapped a large hand over his mouth.

  “You are saying your husband killed Annie Mars?” Bobby asked.

  “That’s right,” Mrs Jones said. She was looking at her husband. “Don’t let him loose,” she said, “or he’ll kill me, too. I always knew it was sure to come out. If I tell all about it, they’ll let me off, won’t they?”

  “That is not for me to say,” Bobby answered. “It is for the prosecution to say if they accept you as Queen’s witness. I can make no promises. But you have said so much I think for your own sake you had better go on.”

  Jones, breaking loose from Stubb’s restraining hand, shouted:

  “A wife can’t bear witness against her husband. Don’t listen to her. She’s mad, mad, mad!”

  “Not me,” Mrs Jones said. She looked at her husband calmly and steadily. She said: “I know what I’m doing; it’s the only way.”

  He seemed to subside then, and Bobby said:

  “A wife can’t be made to give evidence against her husband, but she can if she wishes to.” To Mrs Jones, he said: “Go on, will you?”

  “She had always known, had Annie Mars,” Mrs Jones said. “I don’t know how. She had a way of knowing things without being told. In the air like. She came in to-day. It wasn’t for her rations. Not the day, though I made them up—afterwards. She said it was on her conscience, and she was going to tell Mr Owen all about it, but she thought we ought to know first. So I called Jones and told him, and he said for him and her to go into the back to talk it over, and when he got her there he said she had to promise to keep quiet or he would spoil her beauty so no one would ever want to look at her again. But she wouldn’t heed, said it was on her conscience, and he hit her harder than he meant. I heard her fall, and I went into the back to see, and she was on the floor, and he said he thought she was dead, and she was. She had hit her head hard against the corner of the fender when she fell. Perhaps that was what killed her, not because of him hitting her. I don’t know, but she was dead. I didn’t know what to do, and I went back to serve the customers. After closing time we put her body in a packing-case and nailed it up. There was a man coming to tell us to expect a consignment of goods, last thing to-night. We gave him all the money we had in the shop nearly, and promised him as much more afterwards, and he said he would dump the packing-case where no one would ever find it. In an old flooded pit miles away. He didn’t know what was in it, but I expect he guessed. I don’t know.”

  “It’s all lies,” Jones repeated sullenly. But he spoke more quietly now. “Even if it’s true,” he said, “it’s only manslaughter. They can’t hang you for manslaughter, can they?”

  “Did something of the same sort happen to Winterspoon?” Bobby asked.

  “Lummy, no; why should it?” Jones asked, apparently surprised.

  “If they don’t hang you for my girl,” Mars interposed suddenly, “I’ll do you in myself.” Hitherto he had listened in silence, incredulously, as if he were unable to take in the full significance of what he was listening to. But now he was speaking with a slow, deadly intensity. He went on: “You won’t get away with it, not if I have to wait because of you being sent up, not if I have to swing for you myself. You’ll get it, soon or late. It’s either the gallows for you, or else it’s me will get you.”

  “We had nothing to do with Winterspoon,” Mrs Jones said. “He hadn’t, nor me, neither. Vicar, most like,” she added.

  Stubbs moved forward, edging nearer Jones, whom he was watching warily. He said to Bobby:

  “Do I take him, sir? Now he’s confessed.”

  “Well, he hasn’t, has he?” Bobby said. His own attention was concentrated on Mrs Jones, whom he was watching intently. “It’s his wife, not him, who has done the confessing. Keep an eye on Mars. I don’t want him to have a chance to play the fool. Colonel, I can rely on you to be on the look-out? Holcombe—” He had been about to say something of the same sort to Harry, but now he saw that Harry, pale and shaken, was leaning against the wall as though he had no longer the strength to stand upright. Clearly he was in no condition to listen to, nor even probably to hear, anything said. Bobby turned back to Mrs Jones. He said: “You are saying you believe Mr Duggan, your Vicar, to be implicated in the death of Winterspoon? What gave you that wild idea?”

  “Not so wild neither,” Mrs Jones retorted. “Not so wild as maybe you’ll find. No more than it would surprise me if you hadn’t thought the same yourself, but said nothing, not having enough to go on. There was what Winterspoon said before he left here that night when I let him out, little thinking what next. About parsons being all the same as others, and why did he want to know so much about what was going on in the copse? And he said there was one thing about parsons, their being easier than most to put the screws on.”

  “Did you tell your husband all this? Or any one else? Did you know this?” Bobby asked, turning with these last words to Jones.

  “I’m saying nothing,” Jones answered sullenly. “Nothing. All the rest is lies anyhow.”

  Abruptly, in a voice more like an inarticulate groan than spoken words, so full was it of anguish and of terror, Harry said:

  “It isn’t true—for God’s sake, some one say it isn’t true; it can’t be.”

  “All lies,” Jones almost shouted. “Just all lies; made it up, she has.”

  To Mrs Jones, Bobby said:

  “Why haven’t you said anything about this till now?”

  “I didn’t pay much attention,” Mrs Jones answered. “I didn’t begin to think till I knew what had happened. And then I didn’t dare, for fear of not being believed, and I didn’t want either, Vicar having been such a help, the way Jones had him buttered up. And I thought I never would, and I thought it didn’t amount to much anyhow, but then there was Annie and what she said today, only now she’s dead along of him.” She nodded at her silent, sullen husband. “Though never meaning it,” she added.

  “You mean Annie Mars told you something else?” Bobby asked.

  “That’s right,” Mrs Jones told him. “When she said as she had us and what we were doing on her conscience, she said, too, it wasn’t only us, and more than she could stand, knowing about Vicar as well, and th
at was worse. So it was, too, if she meant what I thought, and she said she wouldn’t ever have believed it if she hadn’t seen it. But I didn’t ask her what that was, because I didn’t want to know, and I called to Jones to come, and I’ve told you the rest already.”

  From near the door, Yeo-Young called:

  “Mr Duggan’s here; he’s just come on from Castle Manor.”

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  “I AM HOPING, HOPING”

  DR DUGGAN was standing in the open doorway. He had not moved farther into the house since Yeo-Young, hearing his knock, admitted him. He was looking at them all with a puzzled and slightly apprehensive air, for indeed no one could have been so insensitive as not to be affected by the strained and even terrifying atmosphere that hung around this little group clustered together in that drab and commonplace entrance hall, with its fumed oak hat-stand, its worn linoleum on the floor, its aspidistra on a side table, its two Landseer engravings on the wall. Then, as no one else spoke, but seemed to be waiting for him, the Vicar said:

  “What is it? What is happening?” He turned to Harry, close by, still supporting himself with one hand against the wall, his face the very image of death itself. “Harry, what is it?” he asked. “Tell me.”

  “It’s Annie, it’s my girl,” Mars interjected, and he made a step towards Jones, and Stubbs warned him with a gesture to stand back.

  “It isn’t true,” Harry muttered. “It can’t be; it can’t!”

  Bobby said briefly:

  “Mr and Mrs Jones have confessed to black-market dealings and to having killed Annie Mars and disposed of the body.”

  The Vicar only stared. It was evident he could hardly believe he had heard aright. Harry was still muttering from behind: “It can’t be true. I don’t believe it. Not Annie,” but no one listened.

  “It’s them said it,” Mars said. “Why should they if it wasn’t true?”

  Bobby said again:

  “Mrs Jones also accuses you of being concerned in the murder of Winterspoon—Summerson, that is.”