“Now, Mr Dowie,” he said, “I would like you to feel that this is nothing but a friendly chat to clear up things a little—puzzling, worrying things. But probably you know that you needn’t say anything if you don’t want to. The choice is entirely yours, and in any case there will be no question of a written statement—certainly not till you’ve had more time for consideration. In this affair, too, there’s the further complication that it’s a double inquiry. Here in London we are chiefly concerned—how it all began—with the recovery of very valuable stolen property. The Twice Over people are concerned chiefly with the murder that took place there recently. The two inquiries continually interlock. A scent picked up here may lead there, and vice versa. Now, first of all, do you care to say why you chose to disappear immediately after the murder of Mrs Field?”
“Because,” explained Dowie resentfully, but with voice and nerves now under better control—“because if it hadn’t been her, it might have been me.”
“How do you mean?” Bobby asked, not quite knowing what to make of this unexpected reply. “Do you mean you were threatened? Who by?”
“I don’t know, I was taken entirely by surprise,” Dowie answered. “And I didn’t disappear. That’s nonsense. I simply went home. That’s all.”
“I see,” Bobby said. “But about this threat you say was made? What actually happened?”
“I was exploring,” Dowie told him. “A small wood. I had reason to believe articles of considerable value might be buried there. I was attacked from behind. I heard and saw nothing. I was flung violently to the ground. A man knelt on me. I was quite helpless. He put a cord round my neck. He tried to strangle me. Three times.”
“Three times,” Bobby repeated.
“Three times,” Dowie said once more, and now he was very pale and there were little drops of perspiration on his cheeks and forehead. “Three times I was as good as dead. Three times I died and three times I was allowed to come back. Then I was told to go and keep going and never show myself there again. So I went home.”
“You didn’t mention this to anyone at the time?” Bobby inquired, and not without sympathy for the man who had had so terrifying an experience.
“I was much too upset,” Dowie replied. “All I wanted was to get home. When I did I went to bed. I’ve only now felt able to get about again. Besides, I don’t mean my invention or any details of it to become public till I have proved its value. If I did, I should be exposed to every sort of misrepresentation and slander, even ridicule. Nor have I thought it wise to patent it. Others might then discover the principle on which I worked.”
“Your invention is a kind of hidden-treasure detector, is it?”
“A precious-metal diviner,” Dowie corrected him. “I’m not much interested in these old stories of hidden treasure, of gold and silver hidden by monks at the time of the Reformation or by Cavaliers during the Civil Wars. Dug up again, most likely, if they were ever there at all, or else the locality too vague. Take too much time to cover. In the grounds or in the neighbourhood, or something like that, is about as near as these stories generally get. The emanations from gold and silver are much weaker than those from water. Water is a moving, lively thing of bubbling energy. Its emanations can be felt almost at once. For gold and silver one must wait till the manifestation has time to show. Especially silver. Silver is very inert. Gold comes between. Not so lively as water, much more so than silver. Gold is beginning to be used in medicine because of this active quality it possesses.”
“I see,” said Bobby, slightly overwhelmed by this torrent of information and rather inclined to the belief that it all belonged to the realm of what is now called science fiction. “What about valuable documents—wills, title-deeds, so on?” he asked. “If they were hidden, could your machine smell them out?”
“Hardly,” Dowie answered, smiling a little at the simplicity of such a question. “Paper is totally inert. Only water and the precious metals are active. I am not sure about jewels. Diamonds, especially. Further experiment is needed. Of course I except the radio-active substances. They belong to a different order.”
“Very interesting,” Bobby repeated; and he asked himself if this casual passing reference to diamonds had any significance. Probably not, he thought. “One more question. If you don’t attach importance to old-world legends of buried treasure, why were you exploring the Twice Over wood? There’s such a legend there.”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you,” Dowie asked, still faintly superior, “that to-day the practice of burying gold and silver and such-like still continues?”
“Well, no,” Bobby admitted; “I can’t say it has.”
“If you cared to examine accounts of the many recent burglaries,” Dowie instructed him, “you would soon notice that articles of value taken are often buried in convenient spots till a suitable opportunity occurs to remove them.”
“Oh, I see,” Bobby said, feeling suitably rebuked. “It does happen, but not, I think, very often. But you said you needed fairly precise indications. Burglars don’t leave those, do they?”
“Which is why I decided to get them for myself,” Dowie answered. “I came to London and made careful, cautious inquiries in the Soho district and elsewhere. I soon found there was an undercurrent of talk about Twice Over and articles buried there. It all appeared to originate with a man recently released from prison. I made up my mind that I would visit Twice Over and look round for myself. As soon as I saw the small wood there I knew that would be the place, if any. And it wouldn’t take long to try it out. It was almost entirely covered with thick undergrowth, bramble chiefly, where no digging could have been attempted for many years. I bought a spade and concealed it so that I could begin to dig the moment my indicator registered. But then I was attacked in the brutal manner I told you. I must have been watched.”
“I can guess by whom,” Bobby said. “But go on.”
“As soon as I felt fairly fit again,” Dowie resumed, “I wrote to Sir Charles Stuart. It was his land, and with his support and co-operation it would be safe to continue. I was to have met him for consultation to-day at the Hangover Club.”
“You rang up a firm of publishers recently, didn’t you? To inquire about Mr Maxton?”
“Well, it was clear it must have been Maxton who attacked me,” Dowie said. “No one else knew. I thought it prudent to warn him that this time I should not be alone. I had been to see him to inquire if he had any reliable information about an account he had published of jewels buried somewhere in Holmshire. If he had, it might give me another useful field for experiment. I found the story was largely his own invention. Embroidered out of all recognition. Most unscrupulous.”
CHAPTER XXV
DEAD END
THAT WAS ALL Mr Dowie seemed prepared to say, nor did Bobby attempt to press him further. Always was it best, or so Bobby thought, to allow a witness time to think over what he had said, to wish he had said more here and less there, to allow his memory time to remind him of details he had forgotten. Then, when the investigator, on his side, had fully considered what had passed and followed up any leads given, questioning could be resumed, more formally, perhaps, and sometimes with surprising results.
For the present, therefore, Bobby contented himself with writing out a full report of his interview with Dowie, together with his own comments, to add to the rapidly increasing dossier of the case. A copy was to be made at once and sent to Superintendent Kimms, and with it Bobby sent a letter in which he managed to make it clear that if Kimms so wished he would be willing to run out some afternoon to Twice Over and talk over these developments and what deductions could properly be drawn from them.
It was a hint the badly puzzled Kimms was quick to respond to.
“Dead end,” he said gloomily over the ’phone when he rang Bobby up within an hour or two of the receipt of report and letter. “Local Press getting nasty. Bad for discipline. I mean to say when men see their chief as good as called a nitwit.”
“Call
a Press conference,” Bobby advised. “Fashionable thing just now. Tell ’em nothing; but lots of drink. Anyhow, police and Aunt Sally; same thing. I can spare to-morrow afternoon, if that’ll do. Suit you?”
Kimms said it would, and so it was arranged. Next morning, though, there was a fresh development. Ford appeared to report, not without a touch of complacence, that Rogers, missing for some days from his usual haunts, had now been traced and was at the moment waiting below, to be interviewed, if Bobby so wished.
“Seems,” Ford explained, “that his old woman has taken him back. She didn’t like it when, just before his last stretch, he tried to strangle her, and only let up at the last moment, when she was as good as dead. To teach her to sing, he said.”
“Why?” Bobby asked. “Was she threatening to give him away to us?”
“That’s right,” answered Ford. “He was bringing home stolen stuff, and she told him to stop it, or else. But after he put a cord round her neck and pulled it so tight she’s hardly sure yet she’s really alive, she got out. Now she’s running a small café down Hoxton way, and that’s where he is. Sort of odd-job man and chucker out, but kept at arm’s length on account of that strangling affair. Must have been touch and go.”
“Did he make any fuss about coming with you?”
“No, sir; trotted along like a little lamb. Very confident. Kept telling me no one could break an alibi when it was true.”
“That much is true, anyhow,” Bobby agreed. “But I want proof. Only his word for it at present, as far as I can see. Bring him in, though, and we’ll hear what he has to say. There must be clear evidence one way or the other, and I think I can see how to get it—or near enough.”
“Yes, sir,” said Ford, more than a little puzzled, since, for his part, he could see no possibility of obtaining any such definite proof.
“Old man’s got something up his sleeve,” he confided to a passing colleague he met in the corridor outside, and the colleague said the ‘old man’ generally had, and Bobby would have been excessively annoyed if he had known, as he never would, who was the ‘old man’ in question.
Even if Bobby had not been warned beforehand, he could scarcely have failed to notice the self-confidence that fairly oozed from Rogers as Ford brought him into the room. For self-confidence was not as a rule very marked in those members of the criminal class who from time to time appeared in this room for questioning. But it was with a jaunty step that Rogers crossed the room to take the chair Bobby indicated, and there was something almost patronising in the nod of friendly greeting which was now bestowed on Bobby.
“Nothing on me,” he announced as he settled himself comfortably in his chair. “You can’t break an alibi what’s gospel true. If it’s faked, same as happens, there’s bound to be holes in it. But not when it’s gen-u-ine.”
“I hope it is,” Bobby said, noting with some surprise this new-born confidence in, and reliance upon, truth, on the part of one whose acquaintance with it in the past had been of the most limited and casual character. “Working with your wife in her café, I hear?”
“That’s right,” agreed Rogers. “No soft job neither, for tough she is, and sleeping in the back kitchen she says is good enough for me. But tough as you like, a woman needs a man to handle them kids as think they know it all. Reckon to come it over her, some of ’em, not paying, or picking on any quiet-looking bloke having a cup of coffee and saying he’d pay, as some do, being scared. But not no more now, when they know that if they ask for a spot of trouble it’s there, all ready and waiting.” He paused and grinned broadly. “A social worker, guv., that’s me.”
“Dear me,” said Bobby, not quite sure what this meant. “In what way?”
“If I see kids getting larky like, I sit down with ’em,” Rogers explained, “and tell ’em about the stretch I’ve just done. Seven years of it. About as long, I says, as you kids have lived, from the way you act. Seven years, I tell ’em, and they listen. No pictures, I says, no dogs, no girls, no fun—no nothing, in a manner of speaking, only doing what you’re told, and food you couldn’t eat only for being hungry. In a general way they go off thoughtful like, and if they don’t—well, they go off all the same.”
“Bravo,” Bobby applauded, much intrigued by this picture of ex-convict turned social reformer, but not yet fully persuaded to take it all at face value. “It’s that little matter of your alibi, though, I wanted to talk to you about.”
“God’s own truth, guv.,” Rogers assured him again. “You ask them railway blokes what was there.”
“First thing we did,” Bobby told him. “They agree that someone called for help as the train came in. But they don’t know who it was, and none of them remembers seeing anyone in any way resembling you.”
“What are you getting at, guv.?” Rogers demanded, beginning now to look a trifle less confident. “Couldn’t know all about it, could I? Only for being there, same as I said.”
“There was a full report in the papers,” Bobby said, watching him closely the while. “Any further detail you could have picked up later from the railway staff.”
“Never went near the place again,” Rogers insisted. “It was me there, s’elp me. Truth’s truth all the world over.”
He spoke earnestly, pleadingly almost, but now with much less confidence, and Bobby was silent for a few moments, his steady gaze on Rogers, waiting. Rogers’s uneasiness increased. Instead of lolling back in his chair very much at his ease, he was beginning to wriggle, to cast longing glances at the door, as if thinking how much nicer it would be if he were on the other side of it. Bobby said:
“Your wife left you, didn’t she? because she didn’t like your bringing stolen property home? But you thought that meant she might give information, so you tried to murder her.”
“No, guv., not me,” Rogers protested. “If I’d meant it, she’d have been a goner all right. I know when to stop and no harm done, not like slashing with a razor, as some do and I don’t hold with. Showing her in a friendly sort of way what would be if she squealed. That’s all.”
“I see,” Bobby said. “A Mr Dowie tells me he had rather a similar experience at Twice Over. Three times nearly strangled by someone who also knew when to stop and no harm done. Was that to show him in a friendly sort of way what would happen if he stayed around? The same night, a few hours later, a woman was strangled by someone who may have known when to stop but did not. Not till she was a—goner.”
“Mr Owen, sir,” Rogers began. “Mr Owen, sir,” he repeated, and then looked wildly round and was silent. “Mr Owen, sir,” he burst out. “It’s God’s truth it was me what was there when the bloke was took bad.”
“If it was, can you explain why no one saw you?” Bobby asked.
“There wasn’t no cause for me to hang around,” Rogers muttered. “I didn’t know; couldn’t, could I? When I saw it in the papers about a skirt being done in, I said; ‘Thanks be, no one can’t pin that on me.’ That’s what I said. And now—” He paused and looked entreatingly, desperately indeed, at Bobby, for now it was the drear shadow of the gallows that he seemed to see dark and menacing in that quiet room. “And me as innocent as never was,” he wailed. “Mr Owen, sir, won’t you believe me?”
“What matters,” Bobby told him, “is what judge and jury believe. If it comes to that. But the same method does suggest the same hand. And it is certain you were in Twice Over earlier on that evening. More than one witness to prove it. I think you had better tell me all about it from the start.”
“I was nosing round all right,” Rogers admitted. “Trying to get a hint where to look for the stuff Charley Cream let on was buried round Twice Over way and told me about. I wasn’t going to stand for another bloke on the same lay, so I just gave him a sort of get out notice, meaning no permanent harm, only a friendly warning, same as you said. Lumme, you ought to ha’ seen the way he scuttled. Going to squeal to the busies, as like as not, I thought, and no chance of doing more till things quieted down. Just caught the train,
I did. That’s how it was I was there, and gospel truth, s’elp me.”
“No proof yet,” Bobby said. “Let’s see if we can dig it out, one way or the other,” and at this Rogers looked a little more hopeful. “Has your wife still the same dislike to having stolen property in her house?”
“What you getting at, guv.?” Rogers asked doubtfully. “I don’t know nothing about stolen property.”
“I’m getting at this,” Bobby said. “And try to tell the truth for once. If you were in fact there and it was you called for help, why did you go off so quickly, as if you had some very good reason for not being seen? If there was such a reason, what was it?”
“Reckon,” Rogers said slowly, sounding both relieved and resigned as he spoke—“reckon as you knew all along—stolen property and all. When the bloke was took ill I went to help, Christian like, same as any decent bloke would. Couldn’t help feeling there was a wallet in his pocket, and no sense leaving it for them railway blokes to pinch, like they would, and not think twice about it if they got the chance. So it might as well be me as them, which it was according.” He paused and eyed Bobby distrustfully. “What put you on it, guv.?” he asked.
“Most men carry a wallet,” Bobby told him. “None was listed among the articles found in the dead man’s possession. Missing wallet, you skurrying away in such a hurry no one saw you, your character—it all added up.”
“Don’t miss much, guv., do you?” grumbled Rogers. “Just my luck, and me thinking it safe as houses. They can’t send me down for long on account of a little thing like that, as might happen to anyone, in a manner of speaking.”
“Only to someone like you—not only Rogers, but Rogue,” Bobby told him sharply. “It took me a long time to get it out of you. I didn’t want you to see too soon what I was driving at. Or it might be you would guess and invent a yarn to fit. It could be argued that way still. Have you got the wallet? If you can produce it and it can be identified, I think that would settle it, and your robbery of a dead man prove you innocent of the murder of a dead woman. Which in a way is rather a pity. Well, can you?”
Dark is the Clue: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 18