The Golden Dagger: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “I’ve thought sometimes,” Maureen told him, this new Maureen who had put aside so quickly all her bright, smart chatter in order to speak with such simple gravity, “that if acting isn’t real, it’s sometimes something more. Hadn’t we better go back to the house? I think my father ought to know.”

  They began to walk towards the great, massive building, blocking, as it did, the long vista down the drive. Bobby called to his chauffeur to follow, and to Maureen, he said:

  “We haven’t been able to get in touch with Mr Baldwin Jones either.”

  “He left here early Monday. I told you,” Maureen said quickly, and with, or so it seemed to Bobby, a touch of uneasiness in her voice and manner, as if the introduction of this name were unwelcome.

  “He could have come back,” Bobby said. “It is not far. An hours’ journey—less.”

  “Why should he?” Maureen asked. “If he wanted anything he could have ’phoned or written.”

  “He could have returned without doing either,” Bobby remarked. “He seems a very illusive person. You knew him before?”

  “Well, in a way—the way you do know people you don’t really know from Adam. He said we had met at some cocktail party or another. Well, of course, I couldn’t say we hadn’t, could I? Because you never know who you have met at cocktail parties, do you? Or if you’ve really been there, for that matter.”

  “I’m afraid,” Bobby confessed, “I’m not very well up in cocktail party procedure.”

  “Lucky you,” Maureen said unexpectedly. “The limit; they bore you so stiff you have to drink too many so as to forget where you are.”

  “Then why go to them?” Bobby asked.

  “My good man,” she retorted, “you’ve simply got to show as often as you get the chance and never mind putting in an occasional gate-crash. Unless you want to be hopelessly left behind—one of the forgotten men.”

  “I see,” Bobby said, reflecting that he was obtaining many unexpected side-lights on the artistic life. “Interesting. Did you know he was friendly with the Watsons?”

  “Don’t believe he was,” declared Maureen. “I rather think he only got to know Aunt Bella by pretending he knew me. Introduction move. And once he got in with a respectable background—me”—Maureen paused to explain in case Bobby had missed the reference—“he was jolly soon installed as her newest lap-dog. Aunt Bella rather likes lap-dogs—especially the two-legged sort. Now Baldy’s taken himself off, she’s got her eye on Norman. That’s why I was so cross when she pinched him just now.”

  “What does Sir William think of all that?” Bobby asked.

  “Oh, he doesn’t mind,” Maureen answered. “He knows it’s only Aunt Bella’s little way and he keeps his eyes open. He’s a doormat, and he likes it, but he doesn’t mean to have anyone else letting her wipe her shoes on them. He can get quite tough if he wants to.”

  “And now,” Bobby remarked, “Mr Oxendale is a candidate for the vacant lap-dog situation?”

  “No; marked down for it, that’s all,” Maureen corrected him.

  “You knew him, too, in Town, you said, didn’t you?”

  “Well, we used to run across each other pretty often. I told you I rather thought he wanted to come to Cobblers so as to get a chance to propose. I didn’t mind. I rather specialize in proposals. I’m no Helen of Troy, but I do get proposals.”

  “Was he friendly with Mr Baldwin Jones?”

  “Not that I know of. Very likely they met sometimes. I don’t know.”

  “How does Baldwin Jones get his living? Or has he private means?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” replied Maureen, evidently considering this a most improbable idea. “He calls himself a freelance of the arts. Writes a little. He’s done a play, but, of course, everyone has. He talks a lot about the films, but I don’t believe it amounts to much more than a job as an extra sometimes or walking on. And a little journalism and all that. If he’s in funds he splashes, and if he isn’t he borrows. He really has a sort of way with him somehow. I’ve heard him boast he’s never met a man he couldn’t borrow a fiver from or a woman he couldn’t kiss,” and Bobby saw, rather to his surprise, for he had not expected it of her, that she was crimson from brow to chin. It may have been because she saw him watching her that she went on hurriedly: “He really can jolly men and look at a girl as if all he asked for was to die at her feet. It fetches you when you are very young,” and Maureen sighed a little sadly as she remembered her teens she knew would never come again now that she was twenty-one.

  CHAPTER XII

  SPREADING SUSPICIONS

  IN THE HOUSE Maureen led the way at once to the study. The only occupant, however, was Mr Richard Moyse, busy at the typewriter, so that Bobby wondered if he had already been installed as secretary. Maureen said:

  “Oh, I thought Father was here. Do you know where he is?”

  “No; he didn’t say,” Moyse answered. “Shall I try to find him for you? It’s Mr Owen, isn’t it? About the lost dagger? I’ll tell him.”

  He went off accordingly and Maureen said:

  “The perfect secretary. Falls over himself trying to please.” She added thoughtfully: “I think his flirting technique is most awfully vulgar.”

  “Has he tried it on?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, of course,” Maureen answered. “You can’t know what anyone’s really like till you’ve flirted with them, can you?”

  “Well, it’s not a technique generally encouraged in the Force,” Bobby explained gravely.

  “I call that rather a waste of a good-looking boy like the one you had with you before,” Maureen told him. She added, looking gravely at Bobby: “I don’t think I should like to flirt with you. I think you can be rather frightening.”

  “I’m here on a rather frightening errand,” Bobby said, and then the door opened and Lord Rone came in.

  “Got any further forward?” he asked. “I shan’t be sorry when you feel able to return the dagger. It’s valuable and it’s an heirloom. I’m responsible for its safety.”

  “They go with the title to the heir male,” Maureen explained. “Cousin George. He’s a pig,” she added simply.

  “Now, Maureen,” said her father in his usual tone of helpless rebuke.

  “He wanted,” Maureen explained to Bobby, “to send a lawyer to check them over and see if they were all right. Cheek. He thought we had been selling them on the q.t.”

  “I’m afraid,” Bobby said, ignoring this apparent family dispute about heirlooms, “that it will be some time yet before it can be returned. Proper care will be taken of it. You remember it was being submitted for expert examination. The report has now been received. It states that the stains on the blade are of human blood.”

  Lord Rone had seated himself at his desk. Maureen had huddled herself in one of the deep armchairs, clasping her knees in her arms. Bobby was sitting near the table on which the typewriter stood. They were all three silent as Lord Rone seemed to be frowning over this piece of information he had just been given. He said presently:

  “I can hardly believe it. It seems incredible. What do you propose to do?”

  “To take all possible steps to get at the truth,” Bobby said in his official tone. “It has to be considered in the light of the ’phone message that a murder had been committed here. And we have to remember that the names of two persons have been mentioned and with neither of them have we been able so far to get in touch—Mr Tudor King and Mr Baldwin Jones.”

  “I can’t conceive that either of them can be concerned,” Lord Rone answered. “Mr King has apparently not arrived here yet and Jones left Monday morning. I saw him go myself.”

  “Mr Jones may have returned and Mr King’s arrival may not have been noticed,” Bobby said.

  By now Lord Rone was looking a good deal more disturbed. He had been fidgeting with some of the things on his desk. He stopped doing this and Bobby had the idea that he was feeling the need for self-control.

  “Well, you must take wha
tever steps you think necessary,” he said finally. “I don’t see that I can help you in any way. I can’t help feeling there must be some perfectly simple explanation, but that’s your affair, and the less I hear about it the better I shall be pleased. I am extremely busy and my time is fully occupied.”

  “I don’t think you’ve quite got the idea, Dad,” Maureen told him. “Mr Owen has his eye on all of us and he’ll be wanting to dig up everything he can, and it’s going to be beastly for us all—including you and me.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, Maureen,” her father said, very angrily.

  “I am afraid Miss Maureen is right,” Bobby said. “We shall try to cause as little upset as possible, but we shall have to get to the bottom of the business.”

  “What he means,” Maureen explained, “is that he doesn’t intend to stop till he has. Digging up the garden for the dead body and all that sort of thing. Plain hell.”

  “Maureen,” said Lord Rone, now so angry he could hardly get the words out. “Be quiet,” he commanded.

  “You are such an old innocent, darling,” Maureen told him with a kind of affectionate tolerance that made him angrier still. “Mr Owen thinks he has reason to believe there’s been a murder and we are all under suspicion.”

  “I think I’ve already explained,” Bobby interposed. “Anyone in any way concerned must be considered.”

  “May I ask,” inquired Lord Rone, “what possible motive we are supposed to have had for murdering our guests? It’s so entirely preposterous,” and now his tone had become almost pathetic.

  “Yes, I know,” Bobby agreed. “Only the preposterous does happen, though we can generally rule it out soon enough—as I am sure we shall in this case. The first thing is to establish facts. Then the motive may appear—or not. If it does it may be so trivial as to be incredible. One murderer said he killed his sister-in-law because she had such thick ankles.”

  “Well, it’s a reason,” Maureen said. “If it’s Baldy, anyone might have a motive. He was a nasty bit of work. He wasn’t above a bit of blackmail on the side.”

  “Oh, yes,” Bobby said, interested at once, and still more interested when he saw Lord Rone’s troubled air suddenly become more marked. “Can you give me any details? Names? Anything?”

  “It may not be true,” Maureen answered. “That’s why I didn’t say anything before. It’s only what people used to say, but if you’re going round asking questions you would be sure to hear. It was only in a petty sort of way. Everything he did was always like that—small and mean.”

  “How do you mean—a petty sort of way?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, it was,” Maureen answered. “If it’s him been killed I shall feel rather awful telling you all this, but someone would be sure to sooner or later. What I mean is he would get to hear you had been having dinner at some small out-of-the-way restaurant with some man or you had been losing too much money at bridge, and he would drop little hints about telling your husband or your father, and then presently there would be something about his having forgotten his wallet and how awkward it was having to explain to a head waiter, and finally you found yourself lending him a pound note you knew you would never see again. I don’t think it ever amounted to much more. Too afraid of the police or getting thrashed. I did hear that once he got such a thrashing he couldn’t show up again for nearly a month till he had something more like a human face for people to see.”

  “I think, Maureen,” Lord Rone said, “you could occupy your time more usefully than in picking up bits of gossip. Undignified. Vulgar.”

  “Darling,” Maureen retorted, “you don’t pick it up—more like forcible feeding.”

  “Even if it never amounted to much,” Bobby said, “someone may have thought it did—or might.”

  As he spoke he moved and with his elbow knocked some papers off the table near which he was sitting. He stooped to pick them up. He had noticed that Lord Rone’s apparent uneasiness showed no sign of diminishing. As he gathered together the papers he had scattered to the floor, he could see Lord Rone’s feet and legs under the desk at which he was sitting. It was only a glimpse Bobby thus obtained, but enough to show him how those feet were restlessly crossing and recrossing each other, how nervously toes were working inside soft indoor slippers. He put back on the table the papers he had gathered together and reflected that often those who felt the necessity of exercising a strict self-control forgot to control also their feet. Maureen was saying now:

  “We may as well face it, Dad. We are all going to be under the eye of the police, all in the same boat together. At least, unless Baldy and Tudor King turn up safe and sound, and unless Mr Owen can’t hear of anyone else to fuss about. All of us. Not Mother, luckily. The poor darling couldn’t, even if she wanted to; but me and Aunt Bella. She’s too fat really, but I expect Mr Owen would say that didn’t count, and anyhow she can look daggers even if she doesn’t use them. And Uncle Bill and Jack—no, not Jack, luckily.”

  “Why not Mr Longton?” Bobby asked. “He has visited the house and knew where the dagger was kept.”

  “He was away in Town all Monday,” Maureen explained. “What you call an alibi, isn’t it? He went to see the author of the next play Jack’s to produce. When an author and a producer are talking, they may want to murder each other all right. Nothing more likely. But they are far too busy to bother about anyone else. So if you hear that Jack and Baldy had the most awful row you needn’t think that means anything. Jack’s rather fond of having awful rows. He does with me about nothing at all. There’s Norman Oxendale, but no one could possibly think he has the guts to murder anyone. Lap-dogs don’t bite. And Dick Moyse. I don’t like him. Too swarmy. But it doesn’t make sense to think he could come trotting down here just for the fun of committing a murder. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised though if he wasn’t listening at the keyhole now.”

  As she spoke there was a knock at the door. It opened and Mr Richard Moyse himself appeared.

  “Oh, I do hope I’m not interrupting,” he said ingratiatingly. “I wouldn’t have ventured only I saw Linda coming away, so I thought I might. I was wondering if I might have the typewriter, please? If I might, then I could finish what I was doing in time for the post.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  “CURTAIN UP”

  LORD RONE NODDED AN impatient consent. Moyse advanced, murmuring excuses. He picked up the machine—it was one of the small portable kind—and retired, still apologetic, indeed almost as if oozing apologies from every pore of his body.

  “He might have been retiring backward from the presence of royalty,” Maureen commented when he had gone.

  Bobby went across to the door which Moyse had closed behind him, and opened it an inch or two. He said to Maureen:

  “Did you hear something?”

  “I thought I did. I wasn’t sure,” she answered. “He entered prompt to his cue, didn’t he?”

  “Hadn’t we better have the door shut?” Lord Rone said. “Why leave it like that?”

  “Eavesdroppers don’t care to approach an open door,” Bobby explained. “It may mean someone’s leaving. If you are careful to speak fairly softly, they won’t come near enough to hear anything.” To Maureen he said: “Would the Linda girl be likely to have anything to do here at this time?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. I don’t know,” Maureen answered. “I suppose a maid can always think up something if she wants to put in a little keyhole work.”

  “Linda is the tall girl I saw when I was here before, isn’t she?” Bobby asked.

  Maureen nodded, and Lord Rone said discontentedly:

  “This sort of thing is most unpleasant—unnecessary, too,” and from his lordship’s expression Bobby was inclined to think that both epithets were intended to apply to him. “There seems no reason to suppose that Moyse was listening. Very unlikely. A most offensive suggestion.”

  “We will hope unjustified also,” Bobby said. “Quite possibly his appearance at that special moment was purely coinci
dence. I must thank you for what you have told me and I will ask you, if there are any further developments, to let me know immediately.”

  “I don’t see that there are likely to be any,” Lord Rone said. “Is it really necessary to carry the matter further?”

  “I am afraid so,” Bobby said. “I cannot possibly report that I am fully satisfied. It wouldn’t be any good if I did. The case would certainly be held to require further investigation. There’s not much to go on at present, of course. But it does seem probable that it was someone in this house who made the ’phone call. And if so, that someone must know a good deal and must somehow have been in possession of the golden dagger. The inference is, of course, that if a murder has taken place it is almost certainly one of those whose names Miss Maureen mentioned just now.”

  “There you are, Dad,” Maureen said gloomily. “What did I tell you? All of us in it up to the eyes. You and me, Uncle Bill and Aunt Bella. Dick Moyse and Norman Oxendale. All the servants, I suppose, including specially Linda. I should push in that woman at the New Bungalow—Mrs Cato. She looks the part. That’s the lot, isn’t it?”

  “Mr Longton,” Bobby said.

  “Jack’s got an alibi, I told you,” Maureen reminded him.

  “It hasn’t been checked yet,” Bobby reminded her in his turn, and did not add, though he thought it, that alibis were often the first refuge of the guilty. “Difficult to check, too. We have no idea yet when the murder happened—if it ever did happen, which hasn’t been proved yet.”

  “Exactly,” exclaimed Lord Rone, brightening up at once. “It seems so futile to talk like this about something that perhaps never happened.”

  “But Mr Owen thinks it has,” Maureen said. “You can tell he has precious little doubt—’phone call, missing dagger, bloodstains. Curtain up. Two people more or less missing as well. Mr Tudor King for one and they are talking about him in the village already. Only why should anybody want to murder a perfectly harmless, unnecessary author like him? There’s poor Baldy, of course. But you don’t murder rats. Or do you? It’s a hell of a mess, anyhow.”