The Golden Dagger: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Sir William,” Bobby said, “do you realize it will now be necessary to charge you with the murder of Baldwin Jones?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Sir William said, smiling at him in the friendliest way. “No. Definitely no. No,” he repeated. “I don’t think that will ever be.”

  “I repeat,” Lord Rone insisted, “that he is not fully aware of what he is saying. That is perfectly clear. He is clearly suffering from hallucinations caused by strain and fatigue. No significance can be attached to what he says at present. I am sure Mr Longton agrees. You, too, Maureen.”

  “Definitely,” Longton said. “Anyone can see he is near dead for sleep and hasn’t an earthly what he is saying.”

  “Anyhow, the hat’s burnt,” Maureen said, staring defiantly at Bobby. “Linda and I burnt it. I was jolly sure she had really picked it up that night and taken it on to the bungalow. No one would just have left it there. So I asked her, and I told her it was no good telling me lies because I wasn’t a man”—this last word was given an accent of a gentle, tolerant contempt—“I was a woman, too, and I knew. So then she owned up, and she was awfully upset, and cried a lot—I mean she cried the way you do when you want to, not the way Aunt Bella cried all that long night. Only then she got saying nobody must ever know about something, and I didn’t know what she meant, and it didn’t matter, anyhow, and she was only being a housemaid for the experience, and that made me ask her if she was writing a play, and she said she was, and I said I always thought her a bit of a fool and now I knew, and she said no one must ever know, because everybody would laugh and laugh, and there was something about her mother coming into it, I don’t know how, but I didn’t bother, because she had given me the hat and I was burning it, so nothing mattered any more. And that’s all, and Mr Owen can do what he likes, but I’ve done what I promised Aunt Bella, and he can’t touch Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill, wake up. Did you hear?”

  “Yes, I heard,” Sir William said slowly, and indeed for the moment he seemed more alert, more wide awake, than he had been previously, more fully aware of his surroundings. “Burnt, you say? How very odd. But then what hat is that?” and he pointed to the one Bobby had replaced upon the table near him.

  “It’s the one Linda and I were bringing for Mr Owen to find,” Maureen said simply.

  “Maureen,” Lord Rone exclaimed, “will you ever learn to hold your tongue?” Maureen retired with an air of bring about to consider this proposition, though somewhat doubtfully. Her father continued: “Nothing Sir William has said to-night here can be held as carrying the least significance. He is clearly, under the influence of extreme fatigue. As for the burning of some hat or another—a schoolgirl’s trick, a stupid schoolgirl’s trick—that, too, cannot be considered of importance. Why, he has dropped off to sleep again while I was talking. Can’t keep his eyes open.”

  Bobby stepped forward and jerked Sir William roughly to his feet. Sir William opened his eyes now, but only with difficulty. He said:

  “Oh, you are still there. What have I been saying? Oh, yes, yes, of course. That hat of mine. Maureen says she burnt it, doesn’t she? And I’ve been thinking of her as dear little Maureen.” His features became twisted in a queer sort of smile—if smile it were. “Ever read Thomas Hardy?”

  “That shows,” Longton cried. “Just as I told you—hasn’t an earthly what he’s saying. Thomas Hardy!”

  “Ford, someone,” Bobby exclaimed, a new sense of urgency in his voice. “Quick—mustard, salt. Quick. It’s morphia. Quick.”

  “The Spirit of the Ironies, Mr Longton,” Sir William said, and his voice was loud and clear. “I heard Mr Owen calling that he had the hat I thought was my hat. Because I knew it was the only proof against me I tried to get it back—I didn’t much mind how. But if he had it then I knew it was all over and only one thing left.” Ford came running back with a glass of water to which he had added a handful of salt. Sir William began to laugh when he saw it. “An emetic,” he said. “My good man, I used a hypodermic needle.”

  * * *

  It was not till the day of the two inquests that Bobby saw Maureen again. A merciful verdict of ‘Temporary Insanity’ had been returned in Sir William’s case. In the general view, it was a verdict more than justified by those last murmured words about the Golden Dagger figurine having come alive and urged him on to do what had been done.

  The other verdict, that on Baldwin Jones, had been one of murder against ‘person or persons unknown’, and this, too, had become inevitable, since the police, though admitting that the arrest of Sir William had been contemplated, admitted also that they had no really conclusive evidence in their possession. Nor were the names of Mrs Cato, of Linda, or of Maureen, ever mentioned, though all three had been warned to be in attendance.

  To Bobby when they were leaving the court together, Maureen said:

  “I think you always knew, didn’t you?”

  “We almost always know,” Bobby told her. “But knowing’s not proving. I knew there had been heavy rain only on Monday afternoon and Monday night. Sir William told me himself, without at the time realizing what the remark meant, that he had got wet through and caught a bad cold as a result. But you, before you knew anything about a possible murder, mentioned that Sir William was in the Long Gallery all that Monday afternoon. So it wasn’t the Monday afternoon when he got wet and caught cold. Then Lady Watson went out of her way to complain he had kept her awake all Monday night by his continuous snoring. So apparently, according to you and her, he hadn’t been out in the rain at all. But he himself said the opposite. And why had Lady Watson said all that unless she was trying to establish an alibi—though, of course, an alibi that covered her, too. I had to keep that in mind. There were other pointers as well. Small, but pointers all the same. For instance, your saying that he kept an eye on what you called Lady Watson’s lap-dogs and took care they didn’t go too far. Suppose one had, though? And then I could see for myself he could assert himself pretty strongly when he wanted to. All the same, I never managed to get the substantial evidence you have to have to satisfy a jury. Especially after you burnt the hat I was looking for. For which,” he added, “if there were any justice in the world, you would now be in gaol.”

  “Are you sorry I’m not?” she asked in her character of the sweet, innocent young thing.

  “Very sorry indeed,” he told her severely.

  “Now it’s you that’s telling lies,” she retorted. “I’m so glad it’s not only me. Because you aren’t really, now, are you?”

  “At any rate,” growled Bobby, “I’m jolly sure I’m more than sorry I never got a chance to fit you with those junior miss handcuffs you talked about once.”

  “Oh, well,” she sighed, “you needn’t worry. It’s come to much the same thing. I’m getting married next week, and, of course, getting married does so utterly mess up your career when you’re a woman. Handcuffs nothing to it. Of course, if I hadn’t been just simply blackmailed into it, I shouldn’t have ever.”

  “How do you mean—blackmailed into it?” Bobby asked, a little startled, such convincing emotion, such protest, such melancholy indignation had she managed to convey in the tones of that expressive voice of hers.

  “Well, you see,” she explained, “Jack Longton’s signed up for three years with some big theatrical people in Australia as their producer, and they want him at once. It’s to be the biggest splash ever out there, apart from just visiting tours. And as soon as it was all fixed up, he had the cheek and impudence to go off and get a special licence. It costs an awful lot, you know, and I couldn’t very well start our married life letting him waste all that money, could I?”

  THE END

  E.R. PUNSHON – CRIME FICTION REVIEWER

  E.R. Punshon was for many years a reviewer of crime fiction for the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. The following eight reviews by Punshon were published in The Guardian between 1940 and 1942.

  The Four Defences, J.J. Connington (1940)

  Murder at the
Munition Works, G.D.H. and Margaret Cole (1940)

  Over My Dead Body, Rex Stout (1940)

  Farewell, My Lovely, Raymond Chandler (1940)

  Black Plumes, Margery Allingham (1941)

  Surfeit of Lampreys, Ngaio Marsh (1941)

  The Vanishing Corpse, Anthony Gilbert (1941)

  When Last I Died, Gladys Mitchell (1942)

  The Four Defences

  by J.J. Connington

  Murder at the Munition Works

  by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole

  13 August 1940

  The detective story is but a truncated thing, one feels, if it relies only upon the interest of a complicated and difficult problem presented for solution to the reader who then is shown how he, too, could have reasoned out the puzzle by logical deduction from the given facts. Nevertheless, tribute is due the extraordinary ingenuity the authors of such tales often display. Among them Mr. J.J. Connington ranks high. In “The Four Defences,” which, as he makes plain, was suggested by the Rouse case, it is hard to tell whether the careful scheming of the murderer, providing him with “four defences” against conviction, or the ingenuity displayed by the “counsellor,” Mr. Connington’s broadcaster detective, in breaking through those four defences shows the greater cleverness, or again which is the more likely to baffle the reader. A pity that Mr. Connington shows little skill in characterization, so that his personages have no more individuality than chess pieces, and that he has but small care for the niceties of style. But it is difficult to believe that a more carefully constructed or more puzzling problem has often been offered for the amateur detective to try his skill on.

  * * *

  Dr. Johnson, it is recorded, took care to see that the Whig dogs did not get the best of it. The Coles seem a little of the same cast of mind, and indeed in their new story, “Murder at the Munition Works,” the Tories are so very, very bad, and the Socialists are so wholly compact of sweetness and light, and the one Trotskyite is so extremely perverse that really one feels Dr. Johnson’s example had been even improved on. The book contains some highly interesting sketches of labour troubles and of the various meetings and consultations held by the men in efforts to settle their difficulties, though these have not much connection with the murder of the manager’s wife by a mysterious bomb explosion. Superintendent Wilson finally discovers the culprit, though he seems a trifle slow in tracing and interviewing a highly important witness; and the Coles, even if they do rescue their unpleasant Tory from the gallows, are so sternly resolved that he shall not escape punishment that they turn him into a vacuum cleaner salesman.

  Over My Dead Body

  by Rex Stout

  Farewell, My Lovely

  by Raymond Chandler

  10 December 1940

  In art and letters everything can be done by those with an ability to do it. But some tasks are of an exceptional difficulty, and one of these is to combine the spy thriller with the detective novel. Possibly because both tend to strain the credulity of the reader, and a credulity doubly strained is apt to snap. The task is gallantly attempted by Mr. Rex Stout in “Over My Dead Body,” but though Nero Wolfe is as omniscient and Archie Goodwin as briskly and impudently amusing as ever the book does seem to fall between the two stools of the spy theme and the detective interest.

  * * *

  Fiction is sometimes described as a way of escape from reality. The “tough” American story is perhaps rather a way of escape from civilisation. Some readers, however, may find a sort of fearful joy in an introduction to a world in which no one seems to have much idea of self-respect, where whiskey can be a man’s sole sustenance, where the really nice young ladies remark, “I would like to be kissed, damn you!” where, in fact, the general standards resemble those of the jackal and the ape. Mr. Raymond Chandler’s “Farewell, My Lovely” is, however, a favorable specimen of its class. The writing is often picturesque and vivid, though often, too, incomprehensible to the mere Englishman, the plot is clever and well-constructed, and Mr. Chandler does try to give some semblance of humanity even to his most brutal characters.

  Black Plumes

  by Margery Allingham

  Surfeit of Lampreys

  by Ngaio Marsh

  28 January 1941

  Authors are said to be folk with a good conceit of themselves, and certainly it is rare to have to complain that one of the tribe seems to lack confidence in his or her abilities. Both surprising, then, and disappointing to find Miss Margery Allingham in “Black Plumes” falling back on the “if only he had known,” “little she dreamed,” “had they but realized” convention to which third-raters try to stimulate their readers’ flagging interest. Miss Allingham’s strongly imaginative style has no need of such devices. Again, the slashing of the portrait and the sinister whistling over the ’phone are melodramatic and improbable adjuncts to a plot emphatically strong enough to stand on its own merits. There once more Miss Allingham seems to mistrust most unnecessarily her own power to interest the reader and to have supposed herself obliged to drag in the sort of thing one expects only in books of much lower rank. The story tells of the murder of a partner in an important firm of art dealers. It is followed by another murder, and in both cases suspicion falls on an artist engaged to the daughter of the head of the firm. Characterisation and writing are alike of the first order, and the book will appeal to those who are indifferent to the element of mystery. A reference to the peace and solidity of old cities after nightfall reads oddly enough at the present moment.

  * * *

  Robert Louis Stevenson is said to have remarked of one of J.M. Barrie’s books that it began to end badly. To adapt this, it may be said that a book beginning as a drawing room comedy does not change easily to murder and to mystery. The change of mood is difficult, as difficult for the author to accomplish as it is for the reader to adjust his mind to the altered note. The feat, however, is attempted with high success by Miss Ngaio Marsh in “Surfeit of Lampreys.” Her story begins with an amusing account of the Lamprey family, aristocratic, charming, irresponsible, lazy, living at first in luxury on nothing a year, and at the end anxiously facing the problem of how to make both ends meet on an annual income of thirty thousand. In between an elderly peer, head of the Lamprey family, has been murdered and an unpleasant lady has been melting down and sticking pins into wax images of people she dislikes and indulging, too, in tricks with the “hand of glory.” Detective Inspector Alleyn, as considerate, ladylike, and aristocratic as ever, is called in to solve the complicated and ingenious mystery, which the reader, too, has a fair chance to solve for himself if he can. Once again, style and characterization are of a high order.

  The Vanishing Corpse

  by Anthony Gilbert

  4 March 1941

  Mr. Anthony Gilbert is a writer of very considerable but very varying powers. Miss Verity, in Mr. Gilbert’s new story, “The Vanishing Corpse,” is a vivid bit of portraiture. One is always glad to meet again Mr. Crook, the lawyer who has so much to do with the police that he finds it difficult to take them seriously. There is originality and genuine human feeling in the friendless little old lady, who, faced with age, poverty and loneliness, decides to end her life with as little inconvenience to others as possible but who is frankly paralyzed with terror at the prospect of being murdered before she has time to complete her arrangements for suicide. The account, too, of her journey through the wood to the cottage and of what she found on arrival is a fine piece of descriptive writing. Indeed, throughout the book the actual narrative will keep the writer tense with interest. But for the bones of the plot Mr. Gilbert seems to have been content with any aged improbability he chanced to think of. We are all familiar with the mysterious corpse first found and then so mysteriously vanishing that the police refuse to believe it was ever there. Mr. Gilbert will even describe the opening of a French window with a penknife, a feat which he must know, if he stopped to think, would be a somewhat remarkable one; and from the final explanation he has deliberately rem
oved those elements of logic and of reason which for many readers are an essential part of the detective novel.

  When Last I Died

  Gladys Mitchell

  27 January 1942

  Impossible, one feels, that anyone, expert in psychic research or novice, could take seriously poltergeist phenomena in a house whereof the county history recorded that it was provided with secret chambers and hidden passages. That remains a weak point in “When Last I Died,” in which Miss Gladys Mitchell tells how Mrs. Bradley wonders why two boys, escaped from a reformatory, were never heard of again, comes across a curious and suspicious diary, and enters on a long investigation which leads her to a woman already concerned in three tragedies. From one doubtful discovery to another Mrs. Bradley continues till in the end the dreadful truth is made clear. Miss Mitchell has on occasion tried her readers a little highly by allowing mystery to become too much like confusion, but this time her narrative is clear, motives are distinct, complications are both bewildering and reasonable, and the tension of the pursuit ends in an exciting climax. It is to be hoped, though, that Miss Mitchell’s introduction of mashed carrot as a lethal weapon will not affect the popularity of that former Cinderella and present Fairy Queen of the vegetable world.

  About The Author

  E.R. Punshon was born in London in 1872.

  At the age of fourteen he started life in an office. His employers soon informed him that he would never make a really satisfactory clerk, and he, agreeing, spent the next few years wandering about Canada and the United States, endeavouring without great success to earn a living in any occupation that offered. Returning home by way of working a passage on a cattle boat, he began to write. He contributed to many magazines and periodicals, wrote plays, and published nearly fifty novels, among which his detective stories proved the most popular and enduring.