Dark is the Clue: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Easy to make sure,” Wynne told him. “There’s one spot where the right of way is nearly overgrown, so that it is quite easy to leave it and trespass unless you know. If it is really Stuart watching, he would be sure to jump on us the moment he thought we had wandered far enough away from where we had a right to be.”

  Bobby, feeling it was necessary to know who was there, agreed to the suggestion. He added that they had better go on chatting so that any watcher, if there were one, might not guess his presence was suspected. Wynne said that was a good idea and continued:

  “There was one thing I was wondering if I might ask, even though you may think it’s no business of mine. Are these buried notes likely to be any really considerable amount of the stolen money? Of course, if it’s confidential, all right.”

  “Well, we don’t really know,” Bobby explained. “The total amount stolen was about £200,000. Our information—it may be reliable or it may not—is that each of the three subordinates got £20,000 each. Farmer got £50,000, and the odd £90,000 or thereabouts, the lion’s share, to the unknown in the background. Possibly Farmer himself, as you suggested might be. It’s all rather vague. We were hoping that to-night might help to make things clearer.”

  “Yes, there’s a good chance of that, no doubt,” Wynne agreed, and then continued, almost apologetically: “You know, Mr Owen, in spite of what you said, I should be willing to lay odds that your unknown ‘boss’ got out of the country as fast as he could. For a master mind—not too difficult, I should have thought. Anyhow, you are hoping, if you can arrest these men you are waiting for to-night, to get some sort of proof of his identity? A great score if you did, especially if he is really living quietly somewhere in England, thinking himself quite safe. But when notes have been buried in damp earth all these years, aren’t they likely to have rotted away?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” answered Bobby. “We expect them to be all right. Tight wads of pound notes are nearly indestructible and then very likely they are in waterproof wrappings of some sort.”

  “Yes; I hadn’t thought of that,” Mr Wynne agreed, and went on, lowering his voice a little, “This is where we ought to go straight on, but instead we’ll go through this gap in the bushes as if we had mistaken the path. Then we’ll be trespassing, and then we’ll see what happens—if anything.”

  To Bobby, the right-of-way path seemed clear enough, but Wynne had already pushed through the indicated gap, and Bobby followed. Now he was sure someone was close behind, hidden by the thick undergrowth of bush and bramble. He could hear footsteps, the sound of a stumble once. Wynne was pushing ahead rather quickly. He said something over his shoulder that Bobby did not catch, though he thought it was a warning to be on the look-out for trouble. Bobby reflected grimly that he generally had to be. But he was not prepared for the wild panic scream that now came so suddenly, shrill through the trees—such a cry as even he had not often heard. Both he and Wynne stood still, immobile under the shock of that great cry. Crashing through the thickly growing undergrowth that hitherto had sheltered him came a tall, burly man, waving his arms, his naturally red face as white as that of a woman’s recently powdered, shouting incoherently. Bobby turned:

  “What on earth . . . ?” he began and paused.

  “A woman . . . she’s dead . . . dead . . . murdered. . . . It’s round her neck. . . . I saw it. God in Heaven! I saw it plain. Who are you? what are you doing here? Trespassing,” and there was now something in his voice that suggested he held trespassing to be only a little, if any, less a crime than murder.

  “Where? where do you mean? Show me,” Bobby said sharply. “I’m a police officer.”

  Wynne, who had pushed on a little ahead, came hurrying back.

  “It’s Stuart, Sir Charles Stuart,” he called. “What’s he mean? Dead woman? Nonsense! Rubbish! How can there be a dead woman here?”

  “I nearly tumbled over—over—” Sir Charles was saying. “My God!” He was still trembling violently and he leaned against a nearby tree for support. “You, Wynne, what are you up to here?” he asked suspiciously. “Both of you? I’ll get the police.”

  “I am a police officer,” Bobby repeated. “Show me the place.”

  “Oh, you’re a police officer, are you?” Stuart said, still more suspiciously. “Then you had better come with me. Sergeant Jenkins must be told at once. Wynne can stop here. He can’t run away.”

  “Don’t stand talking there,” Bobby said sharply, by no means convinced, since the man was so obviously near to hysteria, of the literal truth of his tale. “Where is this body you say you’ve seen? Show me. Is it far?”

  Sir Charles shook his head and pointed. Bobby hurried in the direction shown. He had to force his way through undergrowth, he had to dodge as best he could the sprawling blackberry bushes that made an obstacle as impenetrable as any coil of barbed wire—more so, indeed. He came to a spot, clearer than most of all such bush and undergrowth. Here more light penetrated, Wynne had followed, but with hesitation, as though reluctant to see what was waiting to be seen, and yet drawn by a dreadful fascination. Sir Charles hung back, but still he followed, drawn apparently by the same dreadful fascination he would have resisted had he known how. Partly hidden by a wild-growing loganberry bush, Bobby saw where lay the body of a woman, prone, plainly visible the knot at the back of her neck where one of her own stockings had been tied round her throat and then twisted tight by the aid of a small piece of broken branch from a tree near. Nor did it need more than that one glance to show that death had ensued, for swiftly indeed is it to be seen when the living spirit has left its earthly habitation.

  Turning, Bobby said:

  “Mr Wynne, will you hurry back at once and ring up Jenkins? Tell him to report here immediately to Commander Owen. If he is not on hand, say he must be found at once. My orders. And to bring a doctor. Then please ring up Scotland Yard. Inform them of what has happened, and ask them to get in touch with the local people. I’m carrying on till they arrive.” Wynne nodded and hurried away, slipping through the hampering undergrowth with a clean, swift dexterity, breaking into a run as soon as that became practicable. Sir Charles seemed inclined to follow. Bobby put up a hand to stop him. “Stay here, please,” he said. “I don’t expect Jenkins will be long.”

  Sir Charles seemed a little more composed now, but if anything even more suspicious, and he was dabbing with his handkerchief at his face, his hands trembling.

  “If you’re police, what are you doing here?” he demanded. “You and Wynne—trespassing both of you. How do I know Jenkins is going to get that message? How do I know what you are up to?—Wynne and you, and all this talk of buried treasure going on. Did you know what was there—waiting for me to find?”

  “Oh, for goodness sake,” Bobby said angrily. He was trying to concentrate on that dead body, on every detail of the scene around, for who could tell what might or might not prove to be significant? “You can see my credentials if you like. You found the body, though, and it might not look too well if you hurried away.”

  “You sent Wynne off,” Stuart said, suspicion unallayed in every word. “I’ll stay all right, if only to watch you.”

  “Good,” Bobby approved, more mildly. “Your present evidence is important. Mr Wynne’s isn’t.”

  CHAPTER V

  DISCOVERY

  IT WAS NOT long before Sergeant Jenkins arrived, flushed, excited, breathless, nervous, for never before had he had any such serious crime to deal with, inclined, too, to be thankful that a senior officer was there to take some of the responsibility off his shoulders.

  “Inspector George will be here immediately, I rang him at once,” was the first thing he said. “Is that—her?” he asked as he saw where that still form lay, half hidden under the spreading, sprawling, one might have thought protecting, loganberry bush. “Is she dead?” Without waiting for the unnecessary reply, he went on: “Dr Harrison is coming at once; I rang him, too. Is it—is it murder?”

  “I’m afrai
d so,” Bobby answered, looking up from his notebook in which he was already jotting down details. “There’s no handbag,” he said, for he had noticed immediately the absence of this that now every woman carries.

  He had noticed, too, how closely this dead woman answered to the description of the woman Mr Wynne said he had seen going to or coming from the cottage of young Martin Maxton. For she, too, had been stout, heavily built, middle-aged. Her hair looked as if it might have been dyed and her nose was large, well shaped and prominent. But now there was no furtive look about that still, contorted face, rather did it seem, swollen and discoloured as it was, as if from it there issued some great cry. But this information Wynne had given him, Bobby decided he would keep to himself till Inspector George arrived. He or a senior officer would be in charge of the investigation, and it would be for them to decide what use should be made of it.

  “Must have had a handbag—every woman has,” Jenkins was saying. “Stolen most like. There’s your motive. Robbery.” He turned to Bobby. “Or will it be what—what you’ve come about, sir,” he asked, afraid to be more explicit since it had been so strongly impressed upon him that the strictest secrecy was to be observed concerning Bobby’s presence in Twice Over and his errand there.

  “All this buried-treasure talk,” Sir Charles intervened. “All over the whole place. That’s what’s done it.”

  “Was it you found the body, sir?” Jenkins asked; and then, without waiting for an answer, for Mr Wynne had already told him as much over the ’phone, he went on, speaking to Bobby: “There’s a Mr Dowie been staying at the Over All Arms, and now he’s left without warning like, but reported as seen last night near where the copse footpath starts. Hurrying he was and almost running like.”

  “There you are,” said Sir Charles. “What had he been up to? Trespassing and dug up something and had to”—he stopped, looking quickly at the body and then as quickly away again—“had to do that to keep it all for himself.”

  “Yes, sir, I shouldn’t wonder if that isn’t how it was,” agreed Jenkins, much relieved at being presented with so plausible a theory so quickly; one, too, that assumed the guilt not only of a stranger in the village but of a stranger already under suspicion, what with that contraption of his warranted, according to him, to disclose the presence of objects hidden underground. “Done a quick-time bunk, so he has,” Jenkins added. “Good enough, if you ask me.”

  Ignoring equally both the suggestion made by Stuart and Jenkins’s acceptance of it, Bobby said:

  “Sergeant, do you know if any other stranger has been noticed here the last day or two?”

  “Instructions to keep a sharp look-out for same, but none reported or seen as far as I know,” Jenkins answered. “Except a chap in the Over All Arms last night as no one liked the looks of. Came in just before closing time, knocked back two quick whiskies. Spoke surly like; and barman had his foot all ready on the alarm behind the counter, just in case.”

  “What was he like?” Bobby asked. “Got any description?”

  “Well, no, sir,” replied Jenkins. “You know what it is, getting descriptions. Only as being the sort of ugly customer nobody wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night. But drank up, paid up, and was off immediate, so nothing to complain of.”

  Bobby thought all this sounded so much like Jolly Rogers as to make it fairly certain he was the Over All Arms visitor. But also it might equally well have been some associate of Rogers come on ahead to reconnoitre. Before he could say more, however, Dr Harrison arrived, followed almost immediately by Inspector George who, from his headquarters in Magna Minor, a town more than ten miles away, had come full speed on that modern magic carpet, the motor cycle. Bobby, having no wish to share in the usual routine now beginning that the local police would take full charge of, said he thought he had better go back to the Old Dower House, where he had left his car and where he would ask Mr Wynne to allow him to wait till Inspector George was ready to hear what the two of them had to say. Not much, Bobby added deprecatingly, but he would be very interested to know what Mr George thought of it all, and Mr George replied politely, and also truthfully, that he would be more than equally glad to hear any observations or comments Mr Owen might feel able to make. He added that Mr Wynne was a very nice gentleman, always ready to co-operate in every possible way and very well thought of. From which remark Bobby gained the impression that Sir Charles Stuart had not always been found equally ready to cooperate and was now receiving an invitation to be more so and thus earn also the tribute of being very well thought of.

  So Bobby, walking slowly back along the right-of-way path, much troubled in thought, for here, he could see, were threatened developments that might affect many lives, was not much surprised when presently he was overtaken by Sir Charles.

  “Nice sort of thing on one’s own property,” he said in a very injured tone. “In my humble opinion, there’s a lot more to it than you would think at first.”

  “I expect so,” Bobby agreed. “Only what? There often is behind murder. Long, complicated histories of hate and rivalry. One never knows. Difficult to be sure.”

  “Well, that’s what you chaps are for, isn’t it?” demanded Sir Charles. “If you’re a Yard man, can’t you take over? Have you got to leave everything to that fussy, interfering fellow?”

  “Do you mean the Inspector?” Bobby asked coldly.

  “Yes, I do,” retorted Stuart. “Keen enough when it’s a car you happen to have left parked for a minute or two, or if you’re going a bit fast when you’re late for an appointment, or something of the sort. In a case like this in my humble opinion, it’s for you to take over. You should be responsible—senior officer on the spot and all that.”

  “Well, you see,” Bobby explained mildly, “I’m not quite that, as far as he’s concerned. I have no standing or authority outside the Metropolitan police area—no more than you have. Those responsible are the local police, who are under the control of the Joint Standing Committee, who are answerable to the Home Secretary through his Inspectors of Constabulary.”

  “Bureaucracy at its worst,” Sir Charles snorted indignantly. “No wonder there’s a crime wave. Everything divided up so that nobody knows anything. The baby handed round in turn, and most likely Jenkins left holding it in the end. I suppose it’s no good my telling you what I was going to, any more than it would be telling that ass of an Inspector. Wynne has him safe in his pocket.”

  “I should be very glad to hear anything you have to say,” Bobby told him, “and then to pass it on if it seems relevant at all.”

  “Well, I was going to tell you in confidence,” began Sir Charles, but Bobby interrupted him.

  “I can hear nothing in confidence,” he said sharply. “In any event I shall have to let the Inspector know there was something you thought of telling me. You must please understand nothing can ever be said to a police officer in confidence, though we do know how to hold our tongues.”

  “Oh, well,” grumbled a slightly deflated Sir Charles, “it’s this, and you can tell anyone you like. I don’t care. I’m dead sure Wynne fixed it so it should be me found that poor devil of a woman.”

  “Why should he do that?” Bobby asked.

  “Spite,” Sir Charles answered. “He has it in for me all right. Wanted to land me with all that infernal police questioning. Did I know her? What was I doing there? As if a man couldn’t take a walk on his own land when he chose to. Couldn’t face it himself, so handed me the baby to hold.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t think that very likely,” Bobby objected, still anxious to keep the other talking.

  “You don’t know Wynne,” Sir Charles retorted. “There’s something queer about the fellow, if you ask me. Close as a fish. No one knows anything about him—where he was educated or anything,” and saying this, Sir Charles fingered, unconsciously perhaps, his own old Hareton tie. “If you’ve nothing to be close about—well, what are you close about?”

  “Some people may simply prefer privacy,” Bobby
suggested—“even to-day, when to have your name in the papers seems to mean to most that God’s in His heaven and all’s right in the world.”

  “I don’t know about that,” grumbled Sir Charles, and repeated, “You don’t know Wynne; I do.”

  “Mr Wynne did tell me you and he were not on very good terms,” Bobby said, following his usual plan of encouraging people to talk, since even mere random chat is so often so enlightening. “Over this right of way, isn’t it? Strayed from it, didn’t we, I’m afraid?”

  “Strayed my foot,” retorted Sir Charles. “A dirty trick. Got it all worked out. Another dirty trick was the way he got my old aunt into giving him a lease that can only be cancelled by mutual consent. Which he jolly well won’t give so long as he can go on paying practically no rent. As good as a freehold. The old lady was in such a panic to get everything fixed up and be off to Ireland after the Germans dropped a bomb miles away she didn’t know or care what she signed. Only wanted to get away. There are letters to show she had no idea what she had agreed to; but my lawyers—they’re no good, anyhow—say they were written so long afterwards that Wynne could plead she had simply forgotten. His blessed right of way cuts clean across the copse, too, so there’s not much chance of selling for building. Did me down as well over that statue of his—the Atropos.”

  “Indeed. How was that?” Bobby asked.

  “I found the thing,” Sir Charles explained, “pushed away in an old barn by a farmer near here. His wife didn’t like it—thought it brought bad luck. It had been there for years. Fine thing, I thought. I offered to take it off his hands—bad luck and all—and give him a fiver as well. The fool got boasting the same evening at the local about the fiver he was getting for what he called an ugly lump of stone. Wynne heard him, asked to see it, offered a hundred, cash on the spot, take it or leave it, statue to be delivered immediately, and gone it was when I went for it next day. Now he says he’s been offered ten times as much for it and if he sells he’ll give the farmer ten per cent. Easy promise when he has no intention of selling. Likes to look at it and remember how he did me down. Daylight robbery, if you ask me.”