The Golden Dagger: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

“I’m all right,” Lady Watson said, trying to get to her feet and pushing aside with apparently unnecessary vehemence the solicitous help her husband tried to offer. “I don’t know what came over me. It made me think all at once what it all meant. I think I’ll go and lie down for a time if I may.”

  “Come, Maureen,” her father said, speaking with unusual authority. “We had better leave Mr Owen alone to say what he wants to Linda.”

  Maureen, slightly more subdued than usual—it was seldom her father spoke to her in that tone—trailed away after him and the other two. Bobby went to stand with his back to the fireplace. Linda appeared, slightly nervous. She seemed to hesitate, seeing him alone, and Bobby said:

  “I shan’t keep you more than a minute or two. I only wanted to ask if you are sure there’s nothing more you can tell me about the hat you picked up that night? Or about anything else for that matter.” When Linda did not speak, but only shook her head, he went on: “The rain had stopped, I think, but the hat would still be very wet?”

  “That’s right,” she answered then. “Everything was soaking. That’s why I picked it up and hung it on the bush, out of the wet.”

  “You left it there,” Bobby went on, “and when you returned on your way back to Cobblers, it wasn’t there?” She nodded confirmation. “That does suggest, doesn’t it, that the murderer had returned for it? And that does back up my warning to you not to use that path through the plantation? Mrs Cato tells me that when you do, she comes with you?”

  “That’s right,” Linda said. “She isn’t afraid of anything. She brings the axe with her she uses for chopping firewood.”

  “I don’t know that that would be much use against any sudden attack from an armed man,” Bobby remarked.

  “She’s as strong and quick as any man,” Linda said with a sort of affectionate pride. “I wouldn’t want to be any man who tried.”

  “A man’s strength against a woman’s,” Bobby said gravely, and then went on: “You think you saw Sir William Watson one night?”

  “It was only an idea,” she answered hastily. “Very likely it wasn’t him at all. I couldn’t be certain. There was someone. That’s all I can be sure of.”

  “It might be the murderer back again,” Bobby said. “Nervous. Can’t keep away. It’s a big strain, knowing you are being looked for and may be found at any moment. Not everyone can stand up to it.”

  He was watching her attentively, but she was showing no sign of any marked interest or emotion. Nor did she try to speak, but waited quietly, less nervous now indeed than when she had first appeared in answer to Maureen’s summons. He would have liked to question her further, especially about the missing hat. But he did not dare. It could so easily be destroyed, as might indeed have happened already. He almost abandoned all hope of ever finding what might so well have given him the proof he needed—or might do nothing of the kind.

  “You are sure there’s nothing else you can tell me?” he asked again.

  “Oh, no, I don’t think so,” she replied, and in fact he had asked more as a matter of routine than with any hope of getting a satisfactory answer.

  “Well, thank you very much,” he said. “I’m sure you are doing your best to help. I think that’s all I want just now. Shall you be visiting Mrs Cato again this evening? If you are, do be a good sensible girl and go round by the village, even if it is a whole lot farther.”

  “Well, even if I do,” she reminded him, “there are still those two fields to cross. And it’s just as dark and lonely.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Bobby agreed. “Why not stay at home for the time till all this has been cleared up?”

  “It’s a change, going out,” she answered. “It’s all strange here. They aren’t very nice—the others, I mean. They talk about things I don’t know anything about. And if I ask them anything, they say I’m nosey.”

  “Too bad,” Bobby said thoughtfully. “Is that why you make notes so as to be sure of not forgetting what you want to know? Or to show to other people who wouldn’t call you nosey? Mrs Cato, for instance.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she exclaimed, angry and indignant. “It’s all rubbish. I never do—make notes, I mean. Who’s been telling you that?”

  “My dear young lady,” Bobby said, and he spoke the last word very clearly, “this is a case of murder, a thing which does not seem to be quite realized in this house. No detail is unimportant even though it may turn out in the long run to be without significant relevance.”

  “It’s irrelevant anyhow,” retorted Linda, “about taking notes—significant or not.”

  CHAPTER XXX

  PLANNED COME-BACK

  LINDA WAS DISMISSED then with instructions to see if Norman Oxendale could be found. He appeared almost at once, explaining that he had been in the garage, tinkering with his little runabout car, and had not known of Bobby’s visit. And then he had had to wash his hands.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “They are all there with their heads close together, talking away like one o’clock, but they won’t say a word—all except Miss Carton. She’s sitting quiet as a mouse. Must be something pretty serious for her to be like that.”

  “Well, there does happen to have been a murder,” Bobby reminded him, “if not actually of an inmate of this house, at any rate a guest who had only just left it. Enough to make anyone quiet—or for that matter to set people talking. One murder is sometimes followed by another, you know.”

  “You don’t mean you think that’s going to happen here?” Norman asked, looking very disturbed.

  “I said ‘sometimes,’” Bobby answered. “There’s one point I should like you to clear up if you will. You remember saying you had lost a bet of a new hat you made with Mr Longton? You told him to get one and send you the bill. Did he?”

  “Well, he wouldn’t give it a miss, would he?” Oxendale demanded. “Not likely. Went to a swell shop in Mock Street, where they charge double. Let me see now.” He hesitated, frowned. “I can’t quite remember.” He sighed. “One gets so many bills, doesn’t one?”

  “Don’t you remember paying it?”

  “Oh, yes. Let me see now. I’m sure I paid something round there. Does it matter? If I didn’t, Bailey’s will let me know all right.”

  “Mr Longton tells me he has neither bought a hat nor sent you any bill.”

  “Well, if he hasn’t, he will,” Oxendale said comfortably. “No need to worry about that. But I rather think I had his bill. I can’t be sure.”

  “Anyhow, Mr Longton doesn’t seem to be wearing a new hat at present,” Bobby remarked.

  “Isn’t he?” Oxendale said. “I hadn’t noticed. Look, has all this anything to do with the talk in the village about a hat being found where Jones was murdered, and so now you know who did it?”

  “You may take it,” Bobby answered cautiously, “that hats have become of interest to us. That is why I should like it cleared up. At present it seems that Mr Longton denies having bought a new hat recently and you seem to think he has?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Oxendale protested. “You don’t seriously suspect Longton, do you? Doesn’t make sense. He’s got the devil of a temper, I know. There’s a story of his half killing some chap he quarrelled with over a girl. Mayn’t be a word of truth in it for all I know. Besides, why should he? They never had much to do with each other. No one had much to do with Jones if they could help it. Sort of chap you always have to buy the drinks for. Of course, if you were a woman—women fell for him all right. I thought everyone believed it was that old battle-axe at the bungalow near here somewhere. She looks the part all right, but why should she?”

  “There seems to have been some sort of idea that he led a kind of double life,” Bobby said. “Sometimes Baldwin Jones living by his wits and sometimes someone quite different and very important. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Well, I always thought that was just a yarn he put about himself so as to have a better chance of borrowing half a crown when he w
as hard up. I don’t think anyone took him seriously. I didn’t. I don’t know, of course. I do remember once a man asked him if he was Shakespeare in disguise and he sort of smiled and said, ‘Not Shakespeare,’ and walked away.”

  “If we could get any light on that,” Bobby remarked, “it might help us to find out why he was killed—and then we should have a better chance of knowing who it was. There seems a suggestion he wasn’t above a little blackmail, but only on a petty scale. More a handle for borrowing half-crowns when hard up than for any other reason. You are sure there’s nothing more you can tell us?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Sorry. And sorry I can’t be clear about that bill for Longton’s new hat. If it was a bill, I may have chucked it away without bothering to look at it twice. Bills always bounce, don’t they? I hope that doesn’t bring me into Jones’s murder. Not a man I liked, but I don’t go about murdering people.”

  As there seemed no more to be got out of him, Oxendale was allowed to go, and Bobby drove back to the village, where he found Ford was waiting for him.

  “I don’t know that I’ve got much,” Bobby confessed to his young assistant. “What I did get was all pretty vague. Might mean anything. Strong scent, but never clear whether it was of red herrings or not. I got fed-up with the rather casual attitude they have about it, at Cobblers, as if no one could possibly suppose Cobblers could be involved. So I reminded them that at the end of it all there was the gallows waiting. Rather crude, I know. Lady Watson did a near faint and Miss Maureen has become remarkably quiet. I think it is only now beginning to dawn on her that a murder in the last act and a murder at night in a wood near her home aren’t quite the same. Longton had been in touch with her. By ’phone very likely. I expected that. Oxendale either can’t or won’t remember whether he got a bill for the new hat he lost to Longton. Or if he did get the bill whether he paid it. Seems to throw bills away without looking at them twice.”

  “Does he get away with it?” Ford asked enviously. “I wish we could.”

  “Putting off the evil hour, that’s all,” Bobby said. “Or possibly swank because he thinks that’s how the artistic temperament behaves and he’s got one. Told me it didn’t make sense to suspect Longton, but gave me the idea he rather hoped I would think different. He may only be calculating that if we take Longton seriously, then he will have a better chance of a free run with Miss Maureen. I had a talk with Linda Blythe. I used some rather long words—relevant significance or something like that. She didn’t seem to notice. And I called her my dear young lady. Of course, to-day, charwomen are obsolete. There are only charladies, and it’s a gentleman who calls to ask if you have any rags to sell. Still, she was in her housemaid’s uniform and I should guess that at Cobblers, while a housemaid is in uniform, she is still, so to say, an ex-officio non-lady. She used rather long words herself once or twice. She didn’t like it, though, when I mentioned about her taking notes. Does all that add up to anything?”

  “Well, sir,” Ford said, “at any rate, it’s not inconsistent.”

  “No,” agreed Bobby, and added: “Neither she nor Mrs Cato seem to be taking much notice of my warning not to use the plantation path in case they met the murderer there.”

  “Is that,” Ford asked, “because they know they won’t, being the murderers themselves?”

  “They both make rather a point about Mrs Cato taking the hatchet with her she uses for chopping firewood,” Bobby continued. “I can quite believe she would be a nasty customer to tackle.”

  “So can I,” agreed Ford. “All of it. It wasn’t an axe that was used, though.”

  “I think,” Bobby said after a pause, “the bungalow had better be kept under observation. Things may happen.”

  “If they try to do a bunk,” Ford said, “that always shows, doesn’t it?”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Bobby said. “There’s the chance that the bungalow is where the missing hat is.”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Ford. “At least, if there ever was one,” for of this he had never felt convinced.

  “Yes, of course,” Bobby agreed in his turn. “There’s always that. No corroboration. We have to spend our time looking for a vital clue that may not even exist. But if Linda did tell the truth and she did find a hat on that path through the plantation, it seems more likely that she would take it on to the bungalow with her. If she did, it may be there still. And if the murderer begins to suspect that—well, there you are.”

  “Get hold of it or swing for it,” Ford commented grimly.

  “I think,” Bobby went on, “I should like you to take on the job yourself. Can you do without a night’s sleep, do you think?”

  “I’m a father,” Ford replied with equal simplicity and pride. “Our first is teething,” and he clearly considered that no further proof of his ability to do without a night’s sleep was necessary.

  “I don’t much expect anything to happen just yet,” Bobby said. “One never knows, though. Arrange for a relief for an hour or two—say, from two to four. Quote that as an order. It’s not only keeping awake, but keeping alert as well.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Ford, knowing this sort of thing was all in the day’s—or night’s—work for a C.I.D. man.

  Bobby made one or two other arrangements and then started back to Town, driving as fast as safety and other traffic on the road permitted. Arrived, he went first neither to the Yard nor yet home, but on to Fleet Street. There, at the big Daily Announcer building, he sent in his card and a gentleman widely known as ‘Cockeye’—except on Sunday, when a much respected Vicar’s churchwarden could hardly be so addressed—promptly appeared and led Bobby into a sort of cupboard he called his office.

  “Got anything?” he asked eagerly on the way. “Something broken?”

  “I come,” Bobby told him, “not to give, but to receive—a far, far better thing.”

  “I might have known it,” sighed ‘Cockeye’ resignedly. “Don’t you wish you may get it?”

  “I do,” Bobby answered promptly. “I may as well tell you that if I don’t I shall send an anonymous letter to your Vicar, telling him your Fleet Street name.”

  “Blackmail,” declared ‘Cockeye’. “Won’t wash, though. He wouldn’t believe you. Oh, well, have a cigarette? Shoot,” he commanded.

  “Do you know anything about a writer called Tudor King—personally, I mean?”

  “No one does,” came the prompt answer. “Publicity-dodging stunt. It goes over big if you bring it off. Not easy. One of our boys traced him to his lair and ever since swears an old battleaxe chased him halfway down the street with a broom or a rolling pin or something. He asked for a rise on the strength of it. Danger money. Nothing doing. Never is when you ask for a rise. The story at the time was that it was because Tudor King didn’t want to go into court that he agreed to settle a libel action against him—and on pretty stiff terms.”

  “Libel action?” Bobby repeated. “When was that?”

  “One of his earlier books,” answered ‘Cockeye’. “I believe it was pretty serious. Might have been brought in as criminal libel, but they preferred to go for damages. Got ’em all right, too. Must have run Tudor King into something like £10,000, what with costs and all the rest of it the lawyers push in for make-weight. He couldn’t have done much worse if he had fought the action, but that was what was said at the time—that he didn’t dare show in court. Afraid of cross-examination. It nearly broke him up altogether. He had to borrow. Took him years to get clear. Talk about living dangerously! Try being an author or a journalist.”

  “Not me,” said Bobby with fervour. “Ever hear of Cynthia Cairn?”

  “I have,” said ‘Cockeye’, looking surprised. “Have you?” and when Bobby nodded, he looked more surprised than ever. “Well, think of that,” he said. “I thought only really intelligent people knew anything about her. Twenty or thirty years ago, she was the white hope of the highbrows. Only the more they plugged her, the smaller grew her sales, till at last there weren’t any.
There was a description of the smell of boiled cabbage in a boarding house that became a classic. The avant-garde claimed that her books were unmatched in the whole range of English literature for their sordid, unrelenting realism. If you wanted to commit suicide, but didn’t feel up to it, then you read one of her books and you were.”

  “Sounds awfully jolly,” Bobby murmured.

  “Well, you see, at that time,” explained ‘Cockeye’, “sordid, unrelenting realism was the hall-mark of authentic genius with all the really, top-ranking critics. Then there was the W.C. era, when W.C.’s were your only wear in the best literary circles. Now it has to be allegory and symbolism if you want to be taken seriously. I’ll tell you something else. In confidence. Top secret. Can I trust you?”

  “As far as you can see me,” Bobby assured him.

  “A come-back is being staged,” said ‘Cockeye’ in his most dramatic tones.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Well, ever since Anthony Trollope was dug up from his peaceful grave to be the brightest star in the literary firmament, every publisher has been trying to work the trick with any other old-has-been he can think of. Natural, of course, to try again what’s come off once.”

  “What we call the M.O., the modus operandi,” Bobby said. “In other words, the same old beaten trail we all like to follow.”

  “Exactly,” agreed ‘Cockeye’. “Well, she’s next on the list. She’s to be put over big. Some of the B.B.C. blokes are very sympathetic. Talks on the Third and serials on Home and Light. Neglected genius stunt.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Bobby, getting to his feet. “I must be off now, back to Central. Got a lot to do.”

  “You haven’t told me yet what it was you came about, what you wanted to know,” ‘Cockeye’ said, surprised by this abrupt departure.

  “Because you have already,” Bobby explained. “Most useful. A flood of light on dark places. It’ll clear up a lot that’s been worrying me, so now I can concentrate on what I’m pretty sure is the right line. Good night and thanks again.”