They drove on to Cobblers, and Bobby noticed again, as he drove up the long and splendid tree-lined avenue, how well the place was looked after. Nearer the house, lawns and flower beds, looking all the better for the heavy rain-storms of Monday afternoon and evening, showed that the same skill and care and labour were being spent upon them now as before the war. And the enormous house itself was clearly receiving every care and attention. The exterior had even been given recently a fresh coating of paint, in itself no inconsiderable expense. Again Bobby wondered how that expense was being met.
“I’ve heard it said that no one can have more than six thousand a year clear,” he remarked to Ford, “but I should guess the keeping up of any house this size must run well over four figures, and then there are the grounds as well.”
“There’s ways and means,” answered Ford darkly. “A big Stock Exchange kill, and then there’s expenses and suchlike.”
“Well, it’s evidently managed somehow,” Bobby said.
All the same, he thought it strange; and he was inclined to ask himself if there could be any connection between this apparent freedom from the general austerity and whatever it was had happened here—or not happened. For after all, there was as yet nothing very much to suggest that anything serious had really taken place.
He was destined, however, to receive another mild shock when Ford’s knock was answered by a tall young woman attired in that uniform of small lace cap, frilly apron, white cuffs, black frock, which was by no means unbecoming as an everyday working costume, but which now is considered rather worse than the wearing of handcuffs and leg-irons.
Not a pretty girl, with her broad, flat face, eyes hidden behind spectacles with heavy rims and thick lenses, and a mouth that seemed to be permanently half open, as if to show off at their worst a set of large, protuberant teeth. But tall, well built, and quick in her movements, and plainly capable of any amount of hard work. More suited, Bobby thought, for work on a farm than as parlourmaid in a rich man’s house. When he asked if Lord Rone and Saine was at home and could they see him, she inquired in a voice unusually deep and heavy for a woman if they had an appointment. So Bobby said “No,” but that their business was important, and he produced his official card. The girl took it, glanced at it. The lower jaw of her permanently half-open mouth dropped suddenly, she gave a little gasp, and scuttled off like a frightened rabbit, leaving them standing on the doorstep.
“What’s biting her?” Ford asked suspiciously.
Bobby was wondering about that, too. The girl had clearly been very much startled, even frightened, and that suggested a bad conscience, a knowledge or suspicion, even complicity in, some sort of wrongdoing she now feared had come to light.
The door had opened on a small entrance hall. From the interior into which the girl had vanished issued now a loud and angry masculine voice.
“Well, good heavens, suppose they are. What about it?” the voice was saying, and there appeared a small brisk, active-looking man, with a reddish-hued, square face, snow white hair and plenty of it, and a small white moustache and beard of the kind that used to be known as an ‘imperial.’ A distinctive figure, and with about it that air of sharp authority which comes naturally to those who have exercised it with little questioning all through their lives.
“I am Lord Rone,” he said. “I understand you want to see me?” He looked at Bobby’s card he was holding. “Police business? Scotland Yard?” he said. “You’ve scared that fool of a girl half out of her life. What’s it all about? Come this way.”
He led them through a spacious and lofty inner or lounge hall, lighted from above by a dome of coloured glass, less admired to-day than when first erected, and down a narrow corridor into a large and pleasant room, lined with books and overlooking through an open window a lawn on which three or four people were sitting. The murmur of their voices could be heard through the open window, though the distance was too great for words to be distinguished. But the quick glance Bobby gave suggested that one lady with wagging forefinger was very much dominating the conversation—if indeed it was not so much conversation as the delivery by her of a lecture for which she was demanding close attention. From the direction of the house a man was hurrying towards them as if anxious to miss no word of what was being said.
Bobby noticed, too, that the books on the shelves had very much the air of being in frequent use, as is not always the case in the libraries of large country houses. A desk near the window had on it many papers, all neatly arranged. There were two filing cabinets, a card-index cabinet, a telephone, a typewriter, all the accessories, in fact, needed by a busy man of affairs. Also there were several pictures on the walls, and even the hurried look Bobby gave them as he entered told him that they were probably of considerable interest and value—the Dutch interiors, probably, of which he had already heard. One of them, hanging above the mantelpiece, was of a horse against a pastoral background, and Bobby thought it might perhaps be Paul Potter’s well-known ‘Young Stallion,’ the companion to his even more famous ‘Young Bull.’
Lord Rone as they entered indicated two chairs for his visitors, extracted a box of cigarettes from a drawer of the desk, offered it to them, seated himself at the desk, and said:
“Well, now, what’s it all about? Nothing to do with that girl, I hope. She had excellent references and it’s the devil’s own job to get hold of any staff.”
“I noticed she seemed rather upset,” Bobby agreed. “I haven’t the least idea why. General principles perhaps, though of course we always wonder if there’s any reason for it if people seem too disturbed when we call.”
He was interrupted from without by a voice raised in loud and angry protest. The man he had seen hurrying towards the lecturing lady had reached the group, and she was now addressing him with great vigour, at the same time holding aloft some sort of wrap. From a word or two that reached them through the open window, it appeared that he had been sent to the house for a wrap and had brought the wrong one, for which he was being suitably rebuked in very loud tones. Apparently he was offering apologies which were not being received with any very good grace, and now he went off at a trot back to the house, presumably to retrieve there his unfortunate error. The gesture with which the injured lady turned to her two companions as he departed was plainly a kind of resigned demand for sympathy.
Lord Rone, looking half amused, half annoyed, tapped on the desk, rather like a schoolmaster demanding the attention of an inattentive pupil. Bobby, thus recalled to the business of the moment, went on:
“We are making inquiries about what seems to be an Italian dagger of some value. The blade is inlaid with gold and the handle is a figurine representing a nude woman. The workmanship is very fine. It has been suggested that it comes from your lordship’s collection.”
“Sounds,” Lord Rone said in a surprised tone, “very much like my Cellini dagger—the golden dagger, we call it. But that’s upstairs in the Long Gallery. Why are you inquiring about it?”
“Can you identify it from this?” Bobby asked, producing his notebook and showing the sketch he had made therein.
Lord Rone took the book, examined the sketch carefully.
“Did you do this?” he asked.
“I did it half an hour ago,” Bobby answered.
“I don’t understand,” Lord Rone said, and he was looking now very puzzled indeed. “What from?”
“I made it as accurate a drawing as I could,” explained Bobby, “of a dagger now in the possession of the police. But the sketch does not show stains on the blade that look to me very much like blood. That, of course, will have to be tested.”
“Blood?” repeated Lord Rone, and now he was positively gaping as he stared bewilderedly at Bobby. “Nonsense. That’s impossible.”
“It is, however, a fact,” Bobby said. “We have also had a message by ’phone stating that a murder has been committed here.”
This time Lord Rone seemed inclined to laugh.
“Oh, come now,”
he exclaimed. “Really. This is simply fantastic. I can assure you no one has been murdered in this house. Someone has been trying to make fools of you—and I am afraid succeeded very well.”
“People do try occasionally,” Bobby admitted. “That is what is meant by ‘public mischief.’ It may turn out to be like that this time. But we must make sure. There is this to be accounted for,” he said, and showed again the sketch he had made and the description he had written.
“It certainly has,” agreed Lord Rone. “There is, of course, a description of the Cellini dagger in one or two works of reference. Is this sketch made from one of them?” He picked up the telephone. “I’m dialling 999,” he remarked, rather with a suggestion in his voice that Bobby and his companion had better run for it before a reply came.
“It’ll take a moment or two to get through,” Bobby remarked. “I could have given you the Commissioner’s private number, but no doubt it is more satisfactory for you to do it yourself. A very sensible precaution to take,” he added, deliberately making his voice a little patronizing. “If everybody took it, a good deal of trouble would be saved very often.”
Lord Rone grunted. He did not like being approved of. He felt that it was slightly presumptuous for anyone to approve of anything he did. They ought simply to show their respect—a respect he was not sure Bobby’s tone adequately expressed. Fortunately he did not notice the tiny smile that Ford permitted to creep round the corners of his mouth. Bobby turned to look out of the window. The little man he had seen before was returning at the same anxious trot towards where the three ladies were sitting on the lawn. He was short and fat, with a disproportionately big head. His hands were empty, and when he reached the waiting ladies he held them out with a kind of a deprecating, apologetic gesture. The one of the three women to whom he addressed himself rose with melancholy resignation in every line of her body and began to walk towards the house. The little man trotted in her wake, evidently still apologizing. They were nearer the house now and Bobby heard the lady say, loudly and clearly—she had a high, carrying voice:
“Oh, for goodness sake, William. I know you looked. I know you always look. Unfortunately, you never seem able to find. That’s all. Of course, it’s not your fault. I wouldn’t have asked you, only I felt so chilly and I couldn’t very well go myself while Lady Rone was so interested in what I was saying.”
Lord Rone had got through now. He was saying into the mouthpiece:
“I have a visitor here. He describes himself as Commander Owen, one of your staff. He has a companion. He tells an entirely incredible story. I want confirmation.”
Bobby’s attention was still on the little scene outside, where the lady had evidently gone on to the house, while her companion was returning dejectedly towards the two still sitting on the lawn. But he could hear the ’phone squeaking in reply. Lord Rone said:
“They are putting me through to the Commissioner,” and his tone now was a little less expressive of an expectation that Bobby and young Ford would take to instant flight.
The telephone squeaked again. Lord Rone hung up the receiver. In a voice that now sounded slightly disappointed, he said:
“I am asked to give you every assistance.”
“I was, of course, always well aware that we could rely upon that,” Bobby assured him.
“I still don’t in the least understand,” Lord Rone continued. “It is certain there has been no murder here. Absurd. But this sketch of yours . . . you say you made it half an hour ago from an original in your possession?”
“Might I suggest as a first step,” Bobby said, “that we make sure that your Cellini dagger is still in its place?”
CHAPTER III
MISSING DAGGER
LORD RONE APPEARED TO reflect upon this suggestion as if it were not very welcome. Probably he was trying to persuade himself that it was all so incredible there was no need for any test. However, he got up and went to the open window.
“Maureen, Maureen,” he shouted. “I want you.”
The lady who had so unfortunately been forced to return to the house to fetch for herself her wrap her emissary had failed to find was now back in her chair on the lawn, apparently holding forth with as much eloquence as before—at least so one might suppose from her still-wagging forefinger. The little fat man, her disgraced emissary, was listening intently. The two other women rather less intently, Bobby thought. One of them at Lord Rone’s summons sprang to her feet and came running at full speed. A swift, eager obedience, Bobby noted with a touch of surprise. Gratifying and praiseworthy, of course, but not generally one of the most marked characteristics of the young people of to-day. Reaching the house, she called through the open window:
“Oh, Daddy, thanks ever so. I should have murdered Aunt Bella if she had gone on talking much longer.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” Lord Rone snapped, evidently a little disconcerted by this unexpected reference to murder. “Come in. I want you for a moment.”
Presumably there was a door near, giving admission from the garden to the house. Both the lady of the wrap and her little fat emissary with the big head had followed a path leading directly to the building. But Maureen made no movement towards this path. The study window was not of the variety known as ‘french,’ but it was large, wide open—Lord Rone, when calling, had pushed the sash up as far as it would go—and the sill was not more than four feet from the ground. Maureen leaped. She was on the sill, the next instant in the room itself.
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t know there was any one here. Sorry.” She bestowed a flashing smile, first on Ford, the younger man, and then on Bobby, and next, less effective, another on her father. “You saved my life, Daddy,” she announced. “I can’t think what’s come over Aunt Bella. She seems as if she can’t stop talking. And it can’t be cocktails this time,” she added meditatively, apparently with some past incident in her mind.
She was small, dark, her best features, her large, bright, expressive eyes, showing a dark depth of intensity not often to be seen. Her mouth was a little too large, but when open it displayed two rows of what can only be called ‘film star’ teeth—unfortunately beneath a nose of the variety described as ‘snub,’ even ‘very snub.’ Even in the few words she had spoken her voice had revealed an extraordinary range and depth of tone. A vivid and striking personality, impressive by reason of the hidden powers suggested in some odd way in every gesture, every movement. An impression enhanced possibly at the moment by her unusual method of entering the room. But that this had not appealed to her father was evident for now he was saying coldly:
“It would be as well, Maureen, if you would be so good—”
“—As to look before I leap,” she completed his sentence for him. “Won’t you introduce me?” she asked, again bestowing that swift, flashing smile of hers upon the two visitors.
“Commander Owen, of the C.I.D., Scotland Yard, has called on official police business,” Lord Rone informed her; and if he had hoped to impress her by this announcement, he failed entirely.
“Oo-oo,” she cried. “Scotland Yard?” She had a way, small though she was, of holding herself upright in such a manner, when she so pleased, as to seem to add inches to her height, and she could apparently alter the range and tone of her voice at will. It was deep and thrilling now as, turning to Bobby, she commanded: “Tell me about the most dreadful horrible murder you ever had to do with.”
“I have not called to chat about murders,” Bobby said shortly, himself a little vexed by this performance.
Instantaneously she changed and turned into a pathetic little girl, cruelly misunderstood. She didn’t actually put her thumb in her mouth, but she managed to convey the impression that there it was. In a voice now soft and low and full of tears, she said:
“Oh, please, I am sorry. I am really.”
Bobby felt he was being laughed at and tried to look severe and dignified. Lord Rone said very crossly indeed:
“That’s enough playing the fool,
Maureen. Stop showing off, please.”
“Not me,” replied the irrepressible Maureen. “All great acting is showing off. Now Henry, don’t lose your temper.” Lord Rone glared, choked. So many times had he forbidden his daughter to call him ‘Henry,’ and never had she taken any notice of the prohibition. She went on: “Did you really want me for anything or was it just to save me from an early death from boredom, listening to Aunt Bella?”
Lord Rone, apparently glad of this change in the conversation, went across to a wall safe Bobby had already noticed. He opened it, opened an inner door, took out a small bunch of keys, and handed them to his daughter.
“Get me the Cellini golden dagger from the Long Gallery,” he said. “This is the key to the glass case.”
“It’s what I’ve been longing for all afternoon,” Maureen cried. “The only way to stop her. She’s told us three times already what she said to the Paris gendarme and what he said to her. Now at last I can do something about it. Hey-ho for the golden dagger.”
She was off—one might say she flashed away—before her father could speak again. He sat down at his desk again, looking slightly dishevelled, as people often did after an encounter with Maureen.
“A lively young lady,” Bobby remarked.
The comment brought no response and indeed did not seem to be approved. Only too clear that Lord Rone would have used a different adjective and that at the same time he thought it slightly presumptuous for Bobby to use any adjective at all. Bobby said:
“I wonder if I may look at your ‘Young Stallion’? Critics call it Paul Potter’s masterpiece, don’t they? A finer thing even than his ‘Young Bull.’”
Lord Rone, though he seemed a little surprised by the request, as if he had hardly expected that the painting would be recognized or the artist known, made a careless gesture with one hand. Bobby interpreted it as consent. He went across to the mantelpiece above which it hung, and stood for some minutes, looking at it closely and thoughtfully. Something in his attitude attracted Lord Rone’s attention. He said sharply:
The Golden Dagger: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 3
