As Bobby knew, Mr. Groan’s general reputation was good. He was always punctilious in passing on all information he possessed as soon as any specific criminal activity became apparent. In blackmail, or other cases in which for any reason publicity was dreaded, he was always careful to explain to his clients that there could never be any question of his agreeing to what is called ‘compounding a felony’. But then blackmail is often perhaps generally practised within the four corners of the law—no harm in asking for a loan and an accompanying hint might seem harmless to any but a guilty conscience. Indeed on more than one occasion his preliminary work had been useful in helping to put the C.I.D. on the right trail or in giving warning that this or that criminal enterprise was in contemplation. He had also a real gift for organization so that the system of protection he had put in force for a group of chain stores in East London had succeeded in reducing pilfering to almost reasonable proportions—chain stores, of course, are the shoplifter’s idea of Paradise.
A little ungrateful then, even unreasonable, that Bobby should be listening to him with a touch of incredulity, regarding him with a certain mistrust, even wondering what Mr. Groan was really up to this time. For it had been noticed, without surprise, that Mr. Groan was generally at the receiving end of the cash line—as who wouldn’t wish to be? It was even suspected, though only on the flimsiest grounds, and merely because weak human nature is rather specially weak among ‘private eyes’, that unexpected but glaring gaps in the information provided by Mr. Groan, or even the disappearance of some of those concerned, might not be unconnected with the reported receipt by Mr. Groan of large registered envelopes that might or might not have contained a selection of one-pound notes.
“Very likely it doesn’t amount to a pennorth of peanuts,” Mr. Groan was now saying in a dispirited sort of way, “but I don’t like it, if you see what I mean. Disappeared he has. Promised to meet me and didn’t, though knowing I had a pressing report to make—important and urgent I told him, and he said he would be there as suggested. But wasn’t. Appointment with Mrs. Bardolph same day and never kept, and she near fainting when spoken to by me, but all the same back again next day, same time, same place, waiting and waiting, like waiting for someone she knew would never come. Mrs. Atts not seeing anyone and no calls put through by request. And now in all the papers headlines about him not turning up at the Royal Arts to give his lecture as advertised.”
“I’ve been reading about that,” Bobby said. “Very important affair apparently. It seems he had been hinting he was going to make a sensational announcement but told no one what about.”
Mr. Alfred John Atts was in fact one of the best-known and most influential art critics of the day, a darling of the B.B.C. and a television pet of the first order. It was said of him that with the lifting of a finger he could set any artist on the high road to fame and fortune, as also, with a flick of that same finger and thumb, he could relegate him to obscurity again. Bobby lapsed into contemplation. Difficult to imagine any good reason why a man of Mr. Atts’s professional standing should disappoint an audience so distinguished as that which had assembled at the Royal Arts, all as eager to hear any promised sensational revelations that might be going as any audience made up of most utterly undistinguished individuals. Of course, there might be some question of a nervous breakdown or something of that sort or even a sudden last-minute realisation that the promised sensational revelation was neither sensational nor new. Rendered a little uneasy by Bobby’s lapse into contemplation, for from such contemplative silence he knew swift and occasionally disconcerting action was apt to issue, Mr. Groan said:
“Never gave me any hint of anything else on his mind. Only what he had mentioned before. So I thought it best to come along, if you see what I mean.”
“Yes, yes, very sensible,” agreed Bobby. “No reason yet to suppose anything’s seriously wrong, but there may be. You say it’s about a month since he engaged you?”
“That’s right,” Mr. Groan answered. “To report re Mrs. Atts and behaviour of same re Mr. Philip Shirley, engraver, of Hills Street Studio, Chelsea, and High Crescent, Hampstead. You know yourself, Commander, the Groan Confidential Agency accepts divorce cases only when such are absolutely above-board and straight in every way. If not, we drop them. What we do is keep an eye on our client, too, to be sure he’s on the up and up.”
“Very sensible,” applauded Bobby; and wondered privately if discovery that a client was not on the ‘up and up’ ever got itself reflected in the fees charged. “And was Mr. Atts?” he asked.
“Didn’t take us long to find out there weren’t any solid grounds for action against Mrs. Atts,” replied Mr. Groan. “Pally they were and used to meet each other for lunch or tea—or dinner if Mr. Atts was away on his art business. But always correct, and even if Mr. Shirley took her home he never did more than get out of the taxi and see her safe inside the flats where she lives. It showed like a candle in the dark how they felt for each other, but loving looks don’t count for divorce and never so much as a kiss between them. I don’t say something mightn’t have brewed up time being given, if you see what I mean?”
“Yes,” said Bobby. “And Mr. Atts?”
“The same could not be said of him, not by a long chalk,” Mr. Groan continued. “Mrs. Bardolph. As I mentioned before, he didn’t keep his appointment with her and fair upset about it she looked too. Art lectures my foot. You don’t go to small country hotels to lecture on Colour in Relation to Form, do you?”
“No,” said Bobby; and he added, for he saw more was coming, “Well?”
“I reported as duty bound,” Mr. Groan said. “Nothing doing, I said, and I would let him have my account soon as required. Only then he sprang a new one on me. Said he had reason to believe they were planning to put him out of the way. Poison.”
“Poison?” repeated Bobby, startled by that sad and ominous word. “Did he give any reason? Any grounds?”
“Only talking in a funny sort of way about how he had seen them looking at him; and how Mr. Shirley, being in the engraving line, would have easy access to poison. I don’t know about that. But I began to get the idea maybe he meant to fake up an attempted murder charge against the two of them, so he could get his divorce that way if he couldn’t the other.”
“Attempted murder wouldn’t be grounds for divorce,” Bobby said; but he was beginning to look really worried, for all this seemed to bring a darker hue into the tale of Mr. Atts’s disappearance. “You are sure he said nothing more definite?”
“It wasn’t so much what he said as the way he said it,” Mr. Groan told him, “and the way he looked as if he had something up his sleeve, as it might be the ace of trumps, only not sure he dared play it. And then Mrs. Bardolph all set up about something and waiting for him as never came, looking like she was waiting for a ghost. I tell you straight, Commander, I’m not one for imagining things and no need, things being what they are, but I did get to wonder if Mrs. Atts and Mr. Shirley hadn’t brought it off, same as Mr. Atts hinted they might try—only not by poison. It isn’t so difficult to hide a body, especial if in pieces.”
“We needn’t think about that yet a while,” Bobby said, and now he was growing both more and more disturbed, and less and less certain that Groan had told all he knew. Bobby went on, “What do you know about Mrs. Bardolph? Is she married? Is there a Mr. Bardolph?”
“Paint dealer in a big way and getting bigger,” Groan answered. “Youngish, under forty. Good reputation. Authority on paint. Married seven years. Lives near Guildford. No children. Mr. Atts met him re nature of paint on old pictures and restoring same. Grew friendly. Not likely to let his wife go easily. Often away from home on business trips.”
“The set-up then,” Bobby observed thoughtfully, “is Atts suspecting his wife of an intrigue with Shirley and hinting they may be planning murder while he himself is spending nights at small country hotels with Mrs. Bardolph whose husband is not likely to be of the complaisant type. Then Atts disappears aft
er giving out that he has something sensational to say in a lecture he is due to deliver at the Royal Arts. But I don’t see what we can do except keep our eyes and ears open, and be ready to act if necessary. For all we know, Mr. Atts may be enjoying himself in Paris with some third woman.”
“No, sir,” declared Groan with emphasis. “It was sort of serious between him and Mrs. Bardolph, and that’s what’s at the back of my mind, if you see what I mean. For what I feel is that Mr. Bardolph would take it hard, as some do but not all.”
“Well, at any rate, thank you for coming along,” Bobby said. “We shan’t forget. If it does develop at all, we shall be prepared. You are sure there is nothing else you can tell me?”
“Every last little thing that I know, you know, Mr. Owen,” declared Groan, slightly offended, for he knew his job, or so he thought, knew the overwhelming importance of detail. “Funny like Mr. Atts talked and more jolly than ever I had seen him before. Excited, and it wasn’t drink either, something on his mind. Last thing he did, when he took out his wallet to settle up re expenses incurred, was to give me a picture postcard and tell me to keep it because it was going to be interesting. He didn’t say why.”
“That was the last time you saw him before you phoned to make the appointment he didn’t keep though you told him it was urgent?”
“That’s right,” Groan said.
“You were intending to tell him you knew of his connection with Mrs. Bardolph?”
“That’s right,” Groan said again. “To tell him we were quitting. The Groan Confidential Investigating Agency only handles divorce cases that are absolutely straight,” and, saying this, Mr. Groan positively oozed self-righteousness. “Not like some,” he added.
“He may have guessed what you were going to say and not been particularly anxious to hear it,” Bobby remarked. “Have you got the postcard?”
“Photo of a painting by Rembrandt,” Mr. Groan said, and dropped it carelessly on the table. “I saw a picture all about him once. Died bankrupt and now anything he did worth thousands. What’s the good of that to him in his grave?” And with this philosophic reflection Mr. Groan departed, leaving his picture postcard on the table, and Bobby studying it intently, with his own strange intensity of gaze that always seemed as if by sheer strength of will it could force all secrets to reveal themselves.
Published by Dean Street Press 2017
Copyright © 1955 E.R. Punshon
Introduction Copyright © 2017 Curtis Evans
All Rights Reserved
This ebook is published by licence, issued under the UK Orphan Works Licensing Scheme.
First published in 1955 by Victor Gollancz
Cover by DSP
ISBN 978 1 911579 10 6
www.deanstreetpress.co.uk
Dark is the Clue: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 27