“It’s what I did,” he said, in a voice so strained and changed none would have known it was his. “I killed her, for she knew I killed her husband years ago and I had taken the money he hid for her, and I knew what she would do. Take me away,” he said to Bobby, “for it is better Sylvia should never see me again.” Ford came forward and laid a hand upon his arm. Wynne said, still speaking to Bobby: “God hits hard, doesn’t he? A little below the belt, though, I think, hitting through her,” and as he spoke he smiled—such a smile as those who saw it hoped they would never see the like of again.
“This way,” Ford said, and they were gone.
“I’ll come,” Sylvia said, as one awakening from a dream into a reality beyond all understanding or comprehension.
“That cannot be,” Bobby said, and with one hand held her back. “That cannot be,” he repeated when she still tried to follow. To Maxton he said: “A doctor and a nurse will be here immediately. We thought they had better be standing by.”
Maxton moved towards Sylvia, speaking her name softly.
“Sylvia, Sylvia,” he said.
She pushed him away as he came nearer, and said, but still without understanding, knowing only that on her there had fallen some nameless horror:
“Daddy never killed anyone; he never would; he says he did.”
“My mother also,” Maxton said. “Come to me, for we belong.”
Bobby went away then, closing the door behind him, leaving them together, holding each other tightly; for what else had they to cling to?
CHAPTER XXXV
CONCLUSION
ONLY A FEW days later, one afternoon in the following week, Kimms appeared in Bobby’s office. He had come from the Public Prosecutor’s office, and he still looked very tired after the strain and stress of recent events. Bobby waved him to a chair. Kimms said “Eh?”, and Bobby looked up from his paper-strewn desk and nodded agreement.
“They’ve told you, I suppose?” he said. “Unexpected sort of thing.”
This time it was Kimms who nodded agreement.
“Staggerer,” he said moodily.
“A perfectly natural development, though,” Bobby went on. “Wynne and Sylvia and Maxton being what they are—or rather what circumstances made them.”
“Um-m-m,” said Kimms, a little as though he felt it was not only circumstances that had moulded them to what they were. “Eh?” he said, and this time his ‘Eh?’ meant that he gave it up. He went on: “I don’t quite see . . . eh?” and now his ‘Eh?’ of many meanings indicated that he would like to be told exactly how Bobby had arrived at conclusions justifying him in risking so much on finding what was required hidden away in the wall safe in the coal cellar—surely the last place in the world where one would expect to find a wall safe.
“Oh, well,” Bobby said, knowing he must explain, much as he hated explanations, much, very much, as he would have preferred to leave it all in a kind of haze of semi-magic, semi-intuition, all very mysterious, and therefore so much the more impressive. “Oh, well,” he repeated, “when I knew—and of course we soon did—that there was a lot of renewed talk going on about the first P.O. robbery and what had become of the stolen money, and as soon as we had traced its origin through Rogers to Cream—one of the gang concerned who recently died in gaol—I got out the dossiers of the case. I went over them word by word: some job, often kept me up till three or four in the morning. I got to know every document pretty nearly by heart. I soon felt sure it was the unknown, unnamed ‘boss’ in the background who had shot Farmer. After the murder in the Twice Over copse there were many small things I noticed that seemed to put Wynne right in the centre of the picture. You may think it fanciful, but that dodge of his of putting a kind of hedge of loganberry bushes almost as a baited trap for small boys, and the way he seemed rather to be pleased and amused when one of them fell into it, did suggest a certain callousness—or worse.”
“Small boys stealing fruit deserve all they get,” interposed Kimms severely. “Only not to be amused by same.”
“Then there was that odd little way Wynne had of smiling all to himself so you could hardly see it. Nervousness, perhaps. But it did suggest to my mind that he knew himself to know things that others didn’t know and knew—or thought he knew—that he was secure in that knowledge and the ignorance of others. Again, the first time I saw him he showed he knew there had been four men engaged in carrying out the P.O. robbery, though previously he had said he had only the vaguest memory of the newspaper accounts. It hadn’t interested him much, he said. But enough it might be, for the number of the men engaged to stick in his mind. Later on Rogers made a casual reference to a man called ‘Fingers’. He described him as a runner to the gang, a sort of scout or side-line helper. I remembered that Wynne had lost a finger from one hand and that the backroom ‘boss’ had always been very insistent on all his gang wearing gloves. Only to avoid the risk of ‘dabs’? Wynne was quick—very quick—to say so, when I mentioned this insistence on gloves. But was there another reason? To keep secret so quick and sure a means of identification? And was it possible the murdered man, Farmer, had found that secret out and was threatening to make use of it? Apparently, too, from what Wynne says now, he wanted to retire and live quietly with his wife and child, and he seems to have felt Farmer didn’t intend to let that happen.”
“It does begin to add up,” Kimms said. “Not watertight.”
“No, indeed,” agreed Bobby. “If we had taken the case into court at that stage there would probably have been an acquittal, and then Wynne would have been safe for evermore. I had to be careful, too, not to let him have any idea how first one thing and then another was being noticed. If he had got really suspicious he might have vanished abroad, and that would have made everything very much more difficult. And then I had to get the other possibles out of the way on the general principle that if it can’t be anyone else—then it must be whoever’s left.”
“Sound idea,” said Kimms, impressed by this maxim, since though he had always acted on it instinctively he had never formulated it clearly to himself or heard it so stated by others.
“Other things you know and we’ve often talked over,” Bobby went on. “There was the very carefully suggested, but never openly claimed alibi. I mean the light in his room on the night of the murder to show he was there, and Stuart’s angry declaration that Wynne knew where the dead body lay. It was a possibility. Then there was the odd way in which loganberries began to come more and more into the picture. Even in the Oxton Court flat we found a tin of the things. Clearly all the papers had been taken when the flat was entered in order to remove all traces of past identity. But what had become of them? Well, if Wynne had done the ransacking as I soon suspected, had he still got them? The dead woman’s handbag had disappeared, too. If he were the guilty man he might have hidden the papers where he had hidden that. Handbags are not too easy to destroy. Even if you throw them into the Thames they may be fished out again. He had been rather forthcoming about his wall safe. I think now he was growing a little uneasy and he calculated that if there were a search that would be the first thing looked at—and of course found empty. But if I were right he must have a store somewhere of hidden money—the stolen money—as well. What clinched it was when Sylvia, poor child, told me her father had been in the coal cellar looking for a gas leak and had got himself so dirty he had to have a bath. She was laughing a little as she told me so innocently and gaily where to look for the proof of her father’s guilt. And I remembered, too, a certain stress had been laid once on Wynne’s always bringing up the coal himself. Well, I thought, what about another wall safe there, and had Wynne been busy not looking for gas leaks—the Gas Board’s business—but piling up the coal against it to give it better protection? He must have begun to feel by then that we were getting near the truth.”
“That photograph she burnt,” Kimms said. “His? Eh?”
“I couldn’t somehow ask her,” Bobby answered. “I knew I ought to but the words wou
ldn’t come—indefensible. I ought to be sacked, I suppose. Then she told me spontaneously what I had to have—the necessary clue to it all. Anyhow, it was all there. Everything. The stolen money, the missing handbag, the papers Wynne took from the Oxton Court flat. They told all. The murdered woman knew her husband belonged to some gang but not who they were. She did know—it was the job they gave her—that if she showed a tin of loganberries where she worked then that was a signal some new coup was being planned and the members of the gang were to meet—somewhere. She thought that if she continued to show such a tin one of the gang would recognize it and get in touch with her again. She hoped to avenge her man’s death. She hoped, too, to get to learn where he had hidden the rest of his share. He had given her some to keep for him, kept some himself, and hidden the rest but he had never told her where. Then she heard of Rogers and how he was talking about Twice Over. So she went there herself to try to find the money but found her death instead. It seems probable that she recognized Wynne—by the missing finger, perhaps, her necessary clue—that he talked her over, persuaded her to meet him in the copse at midnight, promising she should have the hidden money, which of course wasn’t there, as Wynne himself dug it up after he had disposed of Farmer. It was tucked away in the cellar wall safe. With Mrs Field’s papers was the key of a safe deposit where she had stored most of what Farmer had given her—all she hadn’t spent. She had used the name Harvest at the safe-deposit place. Well, we’ve got back a very large share of what was stolen—and I suppose all that will happen to it now is that it will go straight to the furnace. Modern economics take some understanding. Beyond me.”
“All over and done with,” Kimms said, getting to his feet. “Or soon will be. Eh?”
“Maxton is coming to see me tomorrow,” Bobby said. “He rang up to ask if he could. He says he has made up his mind. I don’t know what about. He wouldn’t say, but I told him to come along if he wanted to. Care to come too?”
But Kimms shook his head. He had too much to do, he said. All sorts of things had had to be neglected while he and all his men had been so busy on the Wynne case, day and night. So Bobby was by himself when Maxton was shown into his room the next afternoon. Bobby thought he looked a little more worn, older, but with a quieter manner, steadier eyes. Nor did he seem to have now that manner of looking suddenly over his shoulder, as though to see if the past were still following him. But he began abruptly enough. He said:
“I want to make it quite clear that if I am called as a witness I shall refuse to speak. Mute of malice they’ll call it, won’t they? I don’t think you’ll get anything out of my wife either.”
“Why come to tell me?” Bobby countered. “We in the police have nothing to do with the conduct or preparation of the trial. We may be called to give evidence, of course. Your wife, you said? You and Miss Wynne are married, then?”
“Yesterday, by special licence. That’s why I rang you up, as soon as we were married and I had the right to stand by her. My sister is with her now; she isn’t fit to be left. She has no relatives.”
“Yes, I understood that,” Bobby said. “When you rang I rather hoped you meant to complete that story of yours. It was so plain you were telling much to hide more. Refusing to answer questions in court is easier said than done, I think. But I can tell you unofficially—even the papers don’t know yet—that it won’t come to that. Wynne is going to plead guilty, and he’s refusing all legal aid. So no witnesses will be called and no evidence will be required.”
“To spare Sylvia,” Martin said slowly. “I might have expected it. Whatever else he was or did, he cared for Sylvia—cared for her more than for all else. It was for her sake he gave it up.”
“For his wife’s sake, too,” Bobby said. “He told me once it was to please her he retired. He didn’t say what from. I think he felt so safe he liked to play on the edge of security.”
“Will the plea of guilty be accepted?” Martin asked. “It isn’t always, is it?”
“Well, no,” Bobby answered. “No, not always, I believe—not in murder cases. But it might be in this case. In view of the circumstances. That is, if it ever comes into court, which I gather may not happen.”
“Why not?” asked Maxton, with a sudden gleam of what can only be called hopeless hope.
“It seems doubtful if Wynne will live long enough,” Bobby explained. “The trial can’t come on for about six weeks. I have seen the medical report. There is nothing wrong with him physically; it’s only that he has lost the will to live. You might say he has exchanged the will to live for a stronger urge to die. He sleeps, eats well. He does all he is told, but life is slowly ebbing away, and nothing the doctors do makes any difference. There is nothing left in him, in body or spirit, to hold life, just as there is nothing to hold the wine when the flask it was in is broken. And that means he will die an innocent man as far as the official records go. For the law of England is that every man is innocent till he is proved guilty. Wynne’s guilt will never be proved, I think.”
“I hope—” Martin said, but only after a long, long pause. His voice was not quite steady when he continued: “I shall have to tell Sylvia—in her father’s death is our hope. I have thought she might not be able to bear it . . . the other way. Hope in death,” he repeated.
“It will also mean,” Bobby continued, “that your wife’s claim to all her father’s property will be completely valid. If a conviction were obtained it would be forfeit to the Crown.”
“She will never touch a penny,” Martin exclaimed with vehemence. “I know that for certain. The Crown can have every last farthing.”
“That will be for her to say,” Bobby told him. “I think you knew all the time, didn’t you? that Wynne was guilty. I felt that that was what you were keeping back—that you knew. Your story didn’t—didn’t gell, as they say. It didn’t fit, as the truth always does and must. And I think an investigating officer does develop a kind of sixth sense that warns him when a witness is lying—or suppressing truth, shall we say? Cross examination would probably have shown up more holes still. It laid you open to rather more than suspicion. You made yourself, of course, an accessory after the fact.”
“I know,” Martin said. “You don’t think I was going to give evidence against Sylvia’s father, do you? To get him hung? whatever he had done.”
“Did you actually see what happened?”
“No,” Martin answered. “I heard a woman’s cry and I saw a man hurrying away. I didn’t see him very clearly, but I knew all right. I made sure she was dead. If she had been alive it would have been different. It took me a few minutes to find her. She was dead all right.”
“It was your duty to speak,” Bobby said, but softly, for he remembered it had been his duty to put a question to Sylvia that he had never asked.
“I know it was,” Martin was saying. “I didn’t care. I remember saying out there in the copse: To hell with duty. My first idea was to run for it. No good. You chaps can always run faster. So then I thought up the idea of telling you all about Sis and me, so as to explain why I cleared out. That didn’t work either, did it?” He got to his feet quickly. “That’s all. I’ll go now. Can I?”
“Oh, yes,” Bobby said. “Why not? I hope you and Mrs Maxton will be—” but there he paused, not knowing how to finish what he had begun to say.
“Happy,” Martin completed his sentence for him. “Happy?” Martin said again. “At any rate, now, when we can’t sleep, we can lie awake together.”
THE END
MAKING SURE
Originally published in the Evening Standard, 16 February, 1950
Bobby Owen watched the woman sitting opposite him. Her face was pallid; there were dark circles beneath her red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes; she was haggard with fear and horror and lack of sleep. At times violent fits of trembling shook her. Then she would recover herself and sit quietly, though still her hands remained pressed tightly together; so tightly that tiny drops of blood could be seen where the finger-nails had b
itten deep into the flesh.
All the same, making every allowance for present circumstances, Bobby could not quite understand the enormous attraction she had apparently exercised on almost every man who came near her. Even at her best she could never have been a great beauty. Yet many men had loved her desperately. Her husband indeed had found his love become a tormenting, possessive jealousy. One man had committed suicide when the news of her marriage reached him, though she could not be blamed for this, since she had avoided all contact with him. Now there was young Donald Merton; probably at this moment, Bobby supposed, only kept at a distance by the presence of a uniformed policeman on the doorstep. Even Dr. Long, middle-aged, married, had confessed, more than half seriously, that he too, had felt the strange fascination that she exercised on men.
“It’s not that she’s so wonderfully beautiful,” he had remarked. “Or clever. Or witty. It’s just that there’s something about her puts a young man’s blood aflame. You don’t notice it at first, and then you find it’s got you; it’s her—well, her altogether.” He laughed awkwardly. “I’m forty,” he said, “so luckily I’m immune. I’m glad I didn’t meet her when I was twenty.” Bobby had gone away, wondering and thoughtful.
Now, however, on this sunny winter afternoon, the examination Bobby had been conducting was almost over. He said to her:
“You have been warned before that everything in your statement may be given in evidence. You understand that?”
She nodded without speaking. Bobby turned to the only other occupant of the room—a young uniformed policeman who had been taking down in shorthand all that had passed since the interview began.
“How long will it take you to type out your notes?” he asked.
“Well, sir, it’s not a long statement,” said the constable. “I think I could have it ready between six and seven, not later.”
Dark is the Clue: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 25