The Golden Dagger: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  APPROACHING CRISIS

  BACK AT Lower High Hill, Bobby remarked to Ford in a rather dispirited manner that his visit to Cobblers did not seem to have got him much further forward.

  “One thing, though,” he added. “They’ve all got the wind up pretty badly, and no wonder. It’s a strain on me and a very much bigger one on them. Innocent or guilty, they all feel they are poised on a tight-rope above an abyss, and when it’s like that the final crack may come at any moment. And to-day I think I saw the real Maureen for almost the first time.”

  “You still think—” Ford began, and paused, not quite sure he ought to ask.

  “There is always the discrepancy in evidence I told you to look out for,” Bobby said. “It may mean nothing. Impossible to tell, but in a case like this even the tiniest clue may put you on the right road. Have you found it yet?”

  “Well, no, sir,” Ford answered, looking rather crestfallen. “I haven’t had much time to go over things.”

  “No, I know,” Bobby agreed. “Well, take an hour or two off this afternoon and see if you can. Nothing much we can do for the moment. Though . . . though . . .” and his voice trailed off into an uneasy silence.

  “Sir?” Ford said, when Bobby still did not speak.

  “Though,” Bobby said, rousing himself from his troubled thoughts, “though I’ve a queer sort of feeling that there’s a crisis coming. A ‘hunch’ they call it—a kind of inner warning that the tension has been stretched to a point where something’s bound to break.”

  “At Cobblers, sir?” Ford asked.

  “Not only there. Everywhere. I expect that’s why Moyse has taken himself off. Who was it whistled to Maureen last night? Long odds it was Jack Longton. The emotional, sensitive, artistic type is always liable to crack—crack with violence sometimes. Mrs Cato, has she gone off like Moyse? If she doesn’t come back to-night, I shall want to take action. I’ll drive back to Central now. One or two things to see to there. I’ll be back before dark.” He laughed uneasily. “Zero hour, and what will that bring?”

  It was in fact fairly early when Bobby returned and then, a little before dusk, a message arrived to say that Mrs Cato was back at the bungalow. Bobby started off at once in his car, taking Ford with him.

  “You wait here with the car,” he said when they reached Lane, whence was the easiest access to that isolated bungalow. “But keep a look-out. If I want you, I’ll flash my torch three times.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Ford.

  Bobby walked on across the fields, following the faint footpath which led to the bungalow. A thin, chill mist was rising as the night drew on. Easy to lose one’s way even in these two fields if the mist grew worse. He could see now the lamplight showing against the curtained windows of the bungalow. When he pushed open the garden gate with its little tinkling bell, the bungalow door opened almost immediately and Mrs Cato appeared, framed in soft lamplight. She called out:

  “Is that you at last, Linda? Where ever have you been?” She stopped abruptly as Bobby’s tall figure emerged from the enveloping mist. “Oh, you,” she said.

  “Were you expecting her?” Bobby asked. “She may not have been able to get away.”

  “I told her to be here before this,” Mrs Cato complained, clearly of the opinion that what she wanted was much more important than any wishes of Linda’s employers. “You had better come in? What is it now?”

  Bobby followed her into the bungalow. Mrs Cato began to be busy, lighting an oil cooking stove and putting a kettle on to boil. Bobby, watching her, thought she had a flushed, excited look. She said:

  “I’ve had no tea; no time for it. I expected Linda to have it ready. I can’t think what’s keeping her. I told her particularly.”

  Bobby waited patiently while she completed her preparations. Again he thought there was something different, new, about her. Brisk, eager, excited she seemed, with a look in her eyes he had not seen before. He remembered seeing a girl just after she had accepted an offer of marriage, and, absurd though the comparison was, he thought that this worn, elderly woman had something of the same air. As of a new life opening to both. She asked him if he would like a cup of tea and he thanked her and said that he had had his tea before he left Town.

  “I was really hoping for a chat with you this morning,” he went on. “One of our men has been busy at Somerset House. I got his report first thing to-day.”

  “Somerset House?” Mrs Cato repeated, giving him a doubtful but challenging glance. “What for? What’s that mean?”

  “He hadn’t much luck,” Bobby said. “He couldn’t find any trace of the birth of either Miss Linda Blythe or of Mr Tudor King. Or, for that matter, of the issue of identity cards to either of them.”

  “Why should you expect to?” Mrs Cato asked. “Oh, the kettle’s boiling.” She began to make the tea. “Have you never heard of people changing their names? Or of writers using a nom-de-plume?”

  “Have you heard from Mr Tudor King lately?” Bobby asked, replying to neither of these questions.

  “Not for some time,” she answered. She put the teapot on the table. She said: “Three or four minutes to draw.” She was looking at him quizzically, still with that curious air of shining anticipation as of the weary traveller who sees at last his destination, rest, food, comfort, all at hand. Then she said: “Do you know I’m beginning to be afraid I never shall? Can something have happened on this Continental trip, I wonder? An accident perhaps? Something for you to chew on, Mr—Owen, isn’t it? Or influenza? Influenza is so very prevalent.”

  “I wonder,” Bobby said, “if in that case he will share a common grave with Mrs Harris?” At that she nearly dropped the teapot she had been putting out her hand to pick up. She stared at him with an expression of almost ludicrous dismay, but did not speak. He went on: “Or—less tragic—has he merely suffered a sea-change into Cynthia Cairn, by way of Mrs Cato?”

  “Is all that any business of yours?” she asked presently, and now she had forgotten all about her tea.

  “It would be none,” Bobby agreed, “if it hadn’t got so tangled up with a murder investigation—and a murder investigation is a very serious matter with which nothing can be allowed to interfere. Also I have reason to suspect that you have in your possession important evidence.”

  “You mean that hat Linda picked up and that the little fool must needs bring along here with her? I had quite forgotten. She says I saw it. I don’t know. I never thought about it. You can have it and welcome. But you’ll have to wait till Linda gets here. I’ve no idea where she put it.” She was beginning to rally now and was drinking the tea she had poured out for herself. “I don’t admit anything,” she said. Then abruptly and inconsistently, she asked: “How do you know? I don’t see what it has to do with anyone else. You’ve no right to go prying into my private affairs.”

  “I’ve no wish to,” Bobby assured her. “It is part of the duty of police to respect privacy—any failure to do so would be a most serious breach of discipline. But—do please understand this—I must get straight your connection, and that of Miss Linda, with what’s been going on. Am I right in thinking that Miss Linda Blythe is your daughter?”

  “You’ve guessed that, too, have you?” she said angrily. “Good at guessing, aren’t you?”

  “That isn’t fair,” Bobby protested. “We don’t guess. We observe all sorts of small, insignificant facts till we can be sure they all point one way. And then we follow. It’s not adding two and two to make four. It’s adding tiny fractions together to make one unit and then, when we have one unit, getting more fractions to make another unit till at last we have four units. The four we want. Nothing dramatic or exciting about it. Just plain plodding till you get there. Of course, at first, I took more or less at its face value the idea that Linda was lonely at Cobblers and felt more at home with you, as you had apparently been in Tudor King’s employment together. But I remembered Linda seemed oddly alarmed when I called at Cobblers
the first time. As soon as I mentioned I was a policeman and had come on police business. I wondered why? Then I heard that she made frequent visits here and apparently didn’t talk about them much. I had to ask myself if it was only because at one time you had both been in Tudor King’s employ. It all seemed—well, unusual. I began to notice other little things. As an instance, the way she flared up when Miss Maureen Carton referred to Tudor King’s work as ‘slush,’ I think she said. It almost seemed personal. And then again there was a certain protective attitude you showed—a tendency to come rather quickly to Linda’s defence at any sort of a hint of disapproval of anything she had done. I even thought I noticed a bit of a likeness between Linda and the Tudor King photograph I showed you and I noticed you appeared a little disturbed at seeing it.”

  “It was Linda. Linda sat for it,” Mrs Cato admitted. “I hoped no one would recognize it—moustache and all. We told the photographer it was for a fancy dress ball. Some story like that. I forget.”

  “The whole set-up seemed to need explanation,” Bobby went on. “In fact, at one time it seemed so peculiar that we had to consider very unpleasant possibilities. That there had been another murder—of Tudor King. That possibly Baldwin Jones was Tudor King, or, if not, that he had been an accomplice in getting rid of Tudor King and then had been got rid of himself. The motive, of course, would have been to secure money earned by Tudor King or possibly again for Mrs Cato to come forward and claim that she herself was Tudor King. We got near the truth then; and if the rest seems rather wild, none the less it had to be taken into account. You must admit it seemed peculiar that a writer of popular romantic fiction should have in his employ as housekeeper an extremely realistic novelist of former days whose books had had less success. And though you claimed to be Cynthia Cairn, I had only your word for it. My first idea indeed was that Tudor King was the real personality and Cynthia Cairn the name he used at first. We got near the truth there, didn’t we? Only the wrong way round. Two things that helped me—not to guess—to deduce the truth were first the extreme, almost fierce dislike you showed for the Tudor King stories. It seemed rather different, more personal, than the merely half-amused contempt of a housekeeper for the work her employer does to earn the money to pay her with. Again, you spoke with a good deal of feeling about libel actions. Well, ordinary folk don’t think much about libel actions, but I’m told libel actions are the author’s nightmare, and only an author realizes you can libel people you have never heard of. And apparently Tudor King had been sued for libel and had to pay very heavy damages. It all seemed to add up, and I remembered I had been told that Linda liked to make notes about her work and also that something had been said about the lengths to which some writers will go in order to get material—copy they call it. Dress up as a vagabond, for instance, to get to know a tramp’s point of view. Did the fact that there had been rather damaging attacks on Tudor King’s description of life among titled folk come in there? My first idea was that Linda herself might be Tudor King pursuing researches into the aristocratic life—the tramp idea in reverse so to speak. But I soon gave that up. Which meant it had to be you.”

  “It was Linda’s own idea,” Mrs Cato said gloomily. “I didn’t want her to. She was more upset about those reviews than I was. Some of her friends were giggling about it all, trying to poke silly fun at the Tudor King books, and it worried her. Her idea was that if she got work as a housemaid for a time somewhere she would get to know little details that I could put in and I could make it plain Cobblers was what I was writing about. That would stop the reviewers trying to be clever. Besides, it would put people off the scent. Everyone would be sure it must be some friend of the family and they would never be able to find out which. I gave in in the end. I didn’t like it, but Linda was very keen—and it might have helped. That’s what frightened her when you called. She thought it might be about her. Well, what are you going to do?”

  “Nothing, I hope,” Bobby assured her. “That is partly why I am alone. I have left my car and assistant in Higgles Lane so that you may be sure no one else knows. But I must be entirely sure of the facts, if only to be also sure that no more of them need be made public than have to be. Of course, too, it will have to be explained in my report and lawyers may have to know. They are used to keeping secrets. But there is one point in which I think you may have been guilty of an offence. Are you quite sure you had no suspicion that the hat your daughter found might not be important and even decisive evidence?”

  “No. How could I?” she demanded with more defiance than was needed, so that her words did not carry to Bobby much conviction.

  “There has been a lot of gossip about it in the village,” he reminded her gently.

  “I don’t listen village gossip,” she retorted, sullen now. “Some of it was about my having murdered the man. Silly, even if you seem to have thought so, too.”

  “Was that all,” Bobby asked. “Are you sure there was no stronger motive? A question of reputation—literary fame and standing?”

  “You know it all, don’t you?” she sneered.

  “No, but I do know a good deal from experience about human nature—and this case has taught me as well a good deal about the human nature of writers and artists generally. One thing I know is that a come-back is being planned of Cynthia Cairn’s books. B.B.C. broadcasts—always very effective—reviews, interviews, so on. Were you afraid that if a story like this became public it would rather spoil things for you?”

  “It would set every fool in England giggling,” she said darkly. “It would have stopped the B.B.C.—they are scared of their own shadows there. The critics would have been on me like the flock of vultures they are. It would have prevented me from taking my rightful place as the greatest realist novelist of the century.” She was speaking quite simply now, without a trace of egotism, as of one merely stating a plain, simple fact with which the speaker had no personal connection. “The symbolism, the allegorical inner meaning of my books is beginning to be recognized as having the fundamental importance it must possess for all who desire to understand the relation of man to life. When I depict the gradual slow decay of the soul of man into utter rottenness, I am giving a warning of how inevitably that happens also in human society. You understand? You realize the significance of this warning that an earlier generation refused to hear, but that to-day may be listened to and even understood? Was I to allow it to be smothered by the idiotic laughter of the rabble because I had allowed my daughter to gather material for Tudor King’s slush novels by masquerading as a maid in a house like Cobblers? Was I to submit to the sneers of those who would hunt through the Tudor King novels to compare them with Cynthia Cairns’s so infinitely different work? I tell you it was not to be borne.”

  “Well, of course, I can see your point of view,” Bobby said, slightly overwhelmed by this torrent of eloquence. “I must tell you quite candidly that I am not altogether sure that it will be fully appreciated elsewhere. That evidence must never be suppressed is of—er—fundamental importance in all police work. In fact, you might say we are rather touchy about it. And, of course, in some cases it could be regarded as what is called accessory after the fact.’”

  It was at this moment that they both heard a loud and sudden cry as of one in the last extremity of fear and dread.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  IN THE MIST

  THE ECHO OF THAT strange, distant cry was still hanging in the air as Bobby sprang to his feet, as he was running to the front door. Mrs Cato was close behind. Bobby tore the door open—and stood dismayed. There had been in the air, as he came across the fields by the footpath leading from Higgles Lane where he had left Ford and his car, floating, baffling wisps of mist. Now, while he had been in the bungalow they had grown, come together, formed a great, pale, billowy mass. The lamplight streaming out through the open door fell back helplessly against that soft, impenetrable barrier.

  Bobby stood hesitating. He listened. Then he shouted. There was no answer. Nor was there repeat
ed that great cry he and Mrs Cato had both heard. What he looked upon was an ocean of silence and invisibility. Already the mist was creeping into the bungalow, as though there too it would smother all sight, all sound, beneath its white, all-pervading shroud. Mrs Cato pushed past him. She seemed about to plunge into the mist, but she drew back before the great billowy mass, so easily brushed aside and yet so formidable in the deadly menace it concealed. She cried out very loudly:

  “Linda! Where are you? Linda! Linda!”

  And if Bobby had not known it before, he would have recognized in that great piercing cry all a mother’s love, all a mother’s fear.

  “Do you think it was her?” Bobby asked quickly. “It might have been someone else. Wait here. Get a bell if you have one—a tea tray, anything you can bang and make a noise with. Keep it up, the louder the better. I’ll try to find her. Understand?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he plunged into the mist that closed around him at once with a soft, dreadful tenacity. It took him into itself without so much as the splash that is caused when a pebble is dropped into the depths of the sea.

  Almost at once he lost the path he had expected to be able to follow till he reached the gate. He blundered on, blundering then against the garden hedge with no idea whether the gate was on his right hand or his left. He swore aloud in his frustration, anxiety, exasperation, and next he stumbled against some obstacle and nearly fell. He heard Mrs Cato call:

  “What’s the matter? Where are you? What are you doing?”

  “I can’t find the gate,” he shouted back.

  “It’s just there. I’ll show you. Wait a minute,” she cried her reply.

  But he, rather than lose more time, for who knew how urgent might not be the need of her who had cried through the darkness and the mist her appeal for help, broke or burst or forced an angry way through the hedge into the field beyond.