Six Were Present: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “I hope that’s all,” Olive said.

  Bobby went away to get ready. He drove her to the station and saw her into the London train. Then he drove back to Freres, where he found Nixon and a bevy of assistants, all of whom had been up all night, asking questions, taking statements, searching, measuring, photographing, going through the whole of the careful established routine, designed to make sure that no existent clue escaped discovery.

  So far apparently none had been found.

  Neither Myra nor Rosamund was visible. They had retired to their own rooms, and Nixon suggested to Bobby that he would like to hear what Bobby could tell him before letting the two women know of his arrival.

  “I promised to send for you,” he explained. “They both seemed to want it. And then, of course, they’ve had a terrible shock and been up all night as well. In a way it’s a perfectly simple case. They were holding one of these meetings of theirs up at the top of the Folly Tower and they all agree the killing must have been done by one of them. They were sitting round the table—big circular thing. I don’t know how they got it up those stairs—in bits probably and then put it together again. Outers had his wife on his left, his daughter on his right. Next to Mrs Outers there was Mr Baynham, and Peel was next to him. Peel seems to have been acting as a kind of chairman or something of the sort. Then there was Mrs Dewey James, almost opposite Mr Outers, and then Mr Manners, next to Miss Rosamund. The room was in complete darkness. It was getting late, about nine o’clock, and there were heavy curtains over the windows. The doors, the one at the top of the steps and the one by which you went up a few more steps to the roof, were locked and bolted. There was a gramophone going full tilt and there was a high wind blowing with occasional gusts of rain. They all mention the noise the wind made and apparently there had been some suggestion of putting off the meeting till a quieter night. No one seems to remember who made the suggestion, but anyhow it wasn’t taken up. Peel told them a strong wind helped what he called developments. He said a high wind often meant that powers were abroad that lay quiet on quiet nights. He got his developments all right.”

  CHAPTER IX

  BOBBY STAYS ON

  AT THIS POINT there was an interruption. One of Nixon’s men appeared to say the ambulance was there and would it be all right if the body were now removed to the county mortuary? Nixon said it would and went off to see to it himself, promising Bobby he would be back immediately. They had been talking in the room that had seemed more especially the dead man’s domain, the one in which he and Bobby had had their long conversation less than forty-eight hours before. Now Bobby, left alone in this long and narrow room, went to its further end, where stood the old mahogany bureau he had noticed previously. It had two long drawers. He tried them. They were both locked and he noticed now that the locks seemed modern, as though they had been added recently. He returned to his seat and almost at once Nixon came back.

  “There’s a crowd beginning to gather,” he said discontentedly. “Reporters as well—two of them. I’ve told my chaps to keep everyone out for the present.”

  “You said the two ladies were in their rooms, didn’t you?” Bobby said. “What about Mr Baynham—B.B., he seems to be called—and Ludo Manners?”

  “I asked them to stay around,” Nixon answered. “I told them I had to know a lot more before I could let them go. They were both quite reasonable about it. Badly upset, of course. You can’t wonder.”

  “And Mrs James?” Bobby asked and Nixon smiled faintly.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Wonderful the way she hops around on that crutch of hers. She’s been very busy, takes it more lightly than the others. A bit excited and nervy. Of course, she’s not one of the family. I sent for sandwiches for the men—you’ve got to eat, haven’t you?” Bobby nodded agreement; remembering how he had been told at the very beginning of his career that the most important part of an investigator’s equipment was always his sandwiches. Nixon went on: “She made tea for them, and she’s been trying to get the two ladies to have some breakfast—tea and toast. She’s even been seeing to the poultry, giving them their feed and hopping around in the hen-run on the look-out for eggs.”

  “There’s the son, Dewey James,” remarked Bobby. “Hunchback, poor chap. You haven’t mentioned him. He wasn’t at the Folly Tower meeting?”

  “No. Never did join them, they say. Went to bed early, he says, as always, and knew nothing about it till he woke this morning. It has to be one of the six who were present.”

  “Yes. Yes. It looks like it,” Bobby agreed. “Yes. But we must not forget there may be other possibilities. Have to think of everything. What about the man they call Teddy Peel?”

  “Oh, yes,” Nixon said. “Yes. Peel. Teddy Peel. There’s him all right. In a blue funk. He would have done a bunk if he had seen half a chance. But so far no more against him than anyone else, and no motive that I can see. He must have known he would be the first suspect.”

  “You haven’t mentioned the murder weapon,” Bobby said. “I take it, it’s not been found?”

  “We’ll turn it up in time,” declared Nixon confidently. “First thing we thought of. First thing the murderer would think of, for that matter. The trouble is, they were all under each other’s observation all the time. Except Mr Baynham. He rushed away at once to ring us up. Was that because he kept his head while the others didn’t, or was it because he had it all thought out beforehand?”

  “It’s a point to remember,” agreed Bobby.

  “Another thing,” Nixon went on. “Outers was killed by a thrust delivered with great force from directly in front, sloping slightly upwards, penetrating the heart. The doctor says death must have been almost instantaneous. But there was no one directly in front of him except Mrs James, and she could not possibly have reached across the table to deliver a blow like that. No one could for that matter, according to the story they all tell.”

  “In other words,” Bobby put in, “Outers was killed by a blow and in a way that couldn’t possibly have happened?”

  “That’s right,” admitted Nixon. “I can handle most things, but this is getting me down. They all back each other up, and it’s against reason to suppose they’re all in it and all lying—wife and daughter too. Three men and three women. One of the six guilty and five innocent. Yet the evidence of all of them clearing each one of them. Screwy.”

  “Do you know if they were linking up round the table, holding each other’s hands? I believe that’s usual.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Nixon again. “Teddy Peel kept talking about that. Said none of them could have moved without the two sitting next knowing it. Another thing, owing to the noise—gramophone going and the wind and rain outside—it took them some time to realise what had happened. Outers was certainly dead before they knew. Bloodstains no help either, they had all got it all over them. Except Mrs James. She’s a cripple, of course. Says in the first panic she got knocked over and someone had to haul her up to get her back in her chair again.”

  “Has anyone said anything about uranium?” Bobby asked.

  “Uranium?” repeated Nixon, looking as if he thought that Bobby, too, had gone off his head, and now nothing was wanting to complete the general madness of the set up. “Uranium?” he repeated. “For the good Lord’s sake, that doesn’t come in, does it?”

  “Outers told me when we were here the day before yesterday that he had a map showing the position of what he claimed was probably the richest uranium field in the world,” and Nixon stared as if he could hardly imagine Bobby was serious. “Oh, he meant it and believed it, too,” Bobby assured the still incredulous, staring Nixon.

  “But—but,” Nixon stammered. “Well, then,” he asked, “what was he doing about it?”

  “Nothing,” Bobby answered. “Thought it had better stay where it was, perhaps. He said it was in native territory and development of the uranium would mean developing the natives out of their lands. Also—” And then he went on to repeat the tragic tale of the fat
e of the two young Outers boys, as probably the victims of a ritual murder, of what strange and dreadful fears, doubts, and suspicions had been aroused in the bereaved mother’s mind, of her contradictory, lingering hopes that they might still be alive held captive somewhere in the deep African bush, and of her terrible haunting dread that in some way the dark African magic might have pursued them even after death.

  “What a nightmare,” Nixon muttered, more to himself than to Bobby. “You don’t take all that seriously, do you?” he asked, rather with an air of trying to persuade himself not to.

  “I thought you ought to know,” replied Bobby, evading the question, which indeed he hardly knew how to answer. “Apparently,” he went on, “Outers was blamed by many people. There was an idea that he had encouraged or more than encouraged the two boys to try to get him information about secret African rites. I shouldn’t think it likely, but I suppose no one will ever know for certain. But there was considerable local feeling at the time.”

  “See,” Nixon said. “These stories going the rounds. I mean about old fellows sitting by the roadside and then disappearing. Can they have anything to do with it? I mean trying to get this uranium map back.”

  “I suppose they’ve got to be traced, if possible,” Bobby agreed, “but I shouldn’t myself attach too much importance to them—or the stories either. In any case, how could they be implicated in the murder?”

  “I know,” Nixon agreed in his turn. “Bribed one of the others perhaps. Or, it sounds mad—but, then, so is the whole set-up—could one of ’em have been hiding in the Tower room? Pitch dark and black men wouldn’t be seen so easily. Did Outers show you the thing or say where he kept it?”

  “In there,” Bobby said, pointing to the mahogany bureau at the other end of the room. “Both drawers are locked and neither show any sign of having been opened.”

  But he did not mention the odd affair of Rosamund’s apparently instinctive knowledge that the medicine bag said to contain the map had been talked about by her father to Bobby. Nixon got up and went to the bureau and stood staring at it for a minute or two. Then he came back to his seat looking very worried and said:

  “Have to put one of my chaps to keep an eye on it. I’ll send in a report to the Home Office. They ought to deal with it. Probably just shove it in a pigeon-hole and tell me they’re awaiting further information before taking action.” In an even more troubled tone he said: “Do you think Mrs Outers can have been brooding over this notion that her husband sent their boys to fish out native secrets, knowing the danger?”

  It was a question Bobby had been dreading but that he knew must come and that he must answer it.

  “I think that’s very possible,” he answered slowly. “I don’t know. I don’t imagine it’s ever out of her mind.”

  “And the daughter?” Nixon asked. This time Bobby did not reply. He felt it was not necessary. “When you start brooding,” Nixon went on, “God knows where you’ll get to—or the Devil. Wife and daughter, too,” he said and lapsed into a silence Bobby had no desire to break. Rousing himself, Nixon continued: “Wife and daughter,” he repeated gloomily. “I did think I could leave them out of it. Now they’re right bang in the middle of the picture. There was some story I didn’t pay much attention to about a voice they all heard. I put it down to Peel up to some of his tricks.”

  “Outers told me of that,” Bobby said. “Spoken in an obscure native dialect very few people know. It was a warning that there were thoughts of murder floating about.”

  “And now murder’s been done,” muttered Nixon. “The set-up is the dead man’s wife brooding over the loss of her boys. And was he responsible? And the daughter going about looking like a living nightmare. Is that the way she thinks, too? Have you seen the things she paints? Wouldn’t have them in my house if I were paid for it. Then there’re the two men—B.B., as every one calls him, well known in Midminster. So is Ludo Manners. Both after the same girl. For me, I would as soon marry a thunderstorm. Those pictures—working it off or not working it off? Which?” Bobby offered no opinion. “From all accounts, those two young men never did like each other. B.B. says Manners is a bit too sharp, and Manners says B.B. is a humbug. Sort of a test between them which gets the girl, but hardly matter for a murder there?”

  “No,” agreed Bobby, and then the door opened and Rosamund came in.

  CHAPTER X

  ONE OF SIX

  ROSAMUND DID NOT look at the two men; she did not even seem to be aware of their presence, nor of how intently they watched her. With stiff, unnatural steps, a little like those of one walking in sleep, she went to the mahogany bureau. She stood looking at it. The silence in the room was profound. Bobby watched, as motionless as the girl herself. Nixon moved restlessly in his seat. Once or twice he seemed inclined to speak, but did not. They heard Rosamund say, very quietly but very clearly:

  “It is not there any longer.”

  “Where is it, then?” Bobby asked.

  Startled, she turned round, and looked at him in a vague, questioning way, as if trying to remember who he was. Then she said slowly:

  “Are you staying here the night? I must see about your room, if you are.”

  “What is it that’s no longer there?” Bobby asked again. “Is it the medicine bag?”

  “You knew about that?” she asked in return. “Did Father tell you? Now it’s gone and he is dead.”

  “Have you any idea where it can be?” Bobby asked next, and at that she shook her head.

  “Somebody may open it,” she said. “It is bad medicine.” She moved from where she had been standing and came slowly down the room. “It’s my head,” she said, and added, as if in explanation: “Father’s been killed. That’s why you are here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Have you had any sleep? Or any breakfast?”

  She appeared to be considering this.

  “There was a cup of tea,” she answered at last. “Someone brought it me. I think it was Mrs James.”

  “And your mother?” Bobby asked, in the same quiet even tone he had used throughout.

  “She is asleep,” Rosamund answered. “You must not wake her. She hasn’t slept like that for years. Not since—”

  But there she stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished, for now there was a knock at the door. None of them answered. The door opened and Mrs James came in, carrying in her free hand, a tray with toast and tea on it. She put it down, and, ignoring the two men, went to Rosamund, taking her gently by the arm and leading her to a chair.

  “You must eat something, dearie,” she said. “Or you’ll break down. That won’t do any good. I got this for your mother, but she’s sleeping like a newborn babe; and a good thing, too. I didn’t want to disturb her.”

  “No. You mustn’t. No one must, no one. Let her sleep,” Rosamund said, a strange intensity in her voice.

  Bobby had joined them now. He went to the tray, poured out a cup of tea, added a drop of brandy from the small flask he always carried and gave it to Rosamund. Mrs James saw what he was doing, and nodded approvingly.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Needs it, the way she is.”

  “Drink this,” Bobby said.

  Rosamund obeyed and coughed a little. She looked up at him and said.

  “Father’s dead and mother is asleep, but you mustn’t wake her.” She was still looking at Bobby. “Are you staying?” she asked. “You are, aren’t you? You put something in that tea, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Bobby answered. “I don’t know if I can stay. It depends on your mother. Only if she wants me to. If she does, you and she must understand quite clearly that it will be to help you in the only way I can—that anyone can—by trying to discover your father’s murderer, and, though that doesn’t matter so much, what has become of the map of the uranium field he told me was in what you call the medicine bag. I shall have no official standing, of course. I shall be here simply as a man doing his best to help two women relatives left alone.” He turned t
o Nixon. “I hope you won’t object. I hope you won’t mind.”

  “Only too glad,” declared Nixon, thus appealed to. “Need all the help I can get—a case like this.”

  “Thank you,” Bobby said with real gratitude, for he knew that Nixon could easily make his position in the house impossible, kinsman or not. “I’ll keep you informed.” He turned to Rosamund and said to her: “You knew this map might be of very great value, politically as well as financially?”

  “Father said so,” she answered. “He told me once. He said it could make us all rich and turn him into a knight. Only it would mean betraying people who trusted him, and he wasn’t going to.”

  “Even though it was they who had murdered his sons?” Bobby asked and paused. Rosamund remained silent and her eyes were proud and aloof. She did not speak. Bobby said, slowly, deliberately, perhaps cruelly: “Your brothers.”

  She got to her feet and stood, but unsteadily, as if no longer very sure of her footing. She was looking straight at him.

  “I must go,” she murmured in a voice so low he could hardly hear it.

  “No,” he said with authority and motioned to her to sit down. She obeyed, but whether because of what he had said or because she found it difficult to stand, he was not sure. In a milder tone, he continued: “You must help me if I am to help you. It was his sons’ murderers he was keeping faith with. Was that because he felt himself equally to blame with them? Did you think that?”

  “What does it matter?” she asked in return. “What do you want to know for? Why are you asking these questions?”

  “Because your father is dead,” he told her and saw her wince, as if he had struck her. He went on more slowly: “If I ask the right questions, I may presently get the right answer. Did anyone else know about this map or where your father kept it?”