“She didn’t,” Tiny retorted. “You don’t get off with a yarn like that. You and Cy. A put-up job. I know you. Bastards both. The deal’s off.”
“If it is,” Cy said, “you know what it’ll be—no easy big money and the bogeys out to pick you up, all of you. Swing for Seemouth, the lot of you. That what you want?”
Tiny indulged in an outburst of prolonged profanity, though of a limited and repetitive type. Cy told him to shut his mouth, speaking in a tone that had its effect.
“I’m not standing for any double-crossing,” Tiny retorted. “You don’t scare me with that sort of spiel. Try it on kids, not on me. See? There aren’t no ghosts, so what’s the good of trying to put it across there are?”
“Can’t be ghosts,” declared a fresh voice—that of Bill Bright. “Stands to reason when there isn’t anything except electricity, and that’s not ghosts.”
“I haven’t said anything about ghosts,” retorted Gladys; “and a good thing for some there aren’t, or there’s one Tiny and Sunday would be seeing, quick, too. If it had been that old man coming and telling, it might be ghosts. But it wasn’t, it was just her, lying there and telling what she saw. They wasn’t ghosts in that broadcast, was they? They knew all the same—knew about what they couldn’t see same as she saw what the two of you was doing at Seemouth. And some people, this book says, can see cards when not in the same room or same house or street, even. It’s all in the book I’ve got.” She paused. “It was as bad as seeing ghosts or worse, listening to her telling it all.”
“You didn’t ought to be buying books,” Cy told her severely. “What do you mean, telling you? How could she, unless some one told her?”
“It was the same night, the same time,” Gladys answered. “How could any one tell her what was happening miles away at Seemouth? Ask Auntie.”
There was a sudden scream—a woman’s scream, loud, piercing as it shrilled through that dark, small, hidden space. Bobby could just make out that one of those present had run forward into the centre of the shed, could just barely perceive hands waved aloft. Wild was the torrent of words poured out, incoherent, without form or reasonable sequence, tumbling into each other so that they could hardly be distinguished one from another. So far as it was possible to attach any meaning to what was being said, the speaker was apparently telling them to give it up or worse would happen to them all, that they were up against things they didn’t know about, that it would be the end of them all if they went on, bad luck of the worst if they didn’t drop it, and if ‘she’ could know what they were doing and saying when she wasn’t there, perhaps Mr Owen was there, too, and knew just the same as ‘she’ did. Bobby, listening, almost as puzzled by all this as any of them, finding it as difficult as they did to understand what Gladys really meant, yet indulged in a small grim secret smile as he thought that here at least was the best of guesses.
At first, and for an appreciable time, this wild, screaming torrent of words went uninterrupted. Apparently all her listeners were held still and quiet by sheer surprise. Then Cy shouted:
“Shut your big gob, will you?”
This produced no effect, probably was not even heard. The wild, incoherent screaming continued. Cy stepped forward and slapped the speaker across the face. She fell heavily and lay there, moaning. No one took the least notice. Cy said:
“Come off it, Glad. What’s the game? We’re all pals here, aren’t we? Stick together, honest and fair, and there’s easy money for us all, easy as—as gathering nuts in May.” He laughed loudly when he said this, as though amused himself by his own quotation at such a time from an old nursery rhyme. But no one else laughed, nor had Cy’s laugh sounded very natural. Bobby had the idea that by some odd association of thought Cy had hoped that this scrap of nursery rhyme might help to persuade them, or perhaps himself, that what Gladys was telling them was also only a nursery story. Not that on Bobby it had any such effect—to him it seemed to add only a grimmer, more sinister touch to this talk in the dark of murder past and to come.
“You don’t put nothing over on us,” Tiny was repeating in his heavy, growling voice. “I’m not so easy to fool as all that.”
“You’re a fool, and a big one, if you think I could make up anything like this,” Gladys said. “The creeps it gave us, me and Auntie, both of us. It’s when she’s had the stuff fresh. Most of the time she just sits around all funny and quiet and doesn’t seem to know anything except what you tell her, like she was sleep-walking. I said to her as Auntie was her Auntie and she never batted an eye, but said Auntie just natural like, only all hazy and dreamy, if you see what I mean. Sitting there all quiet and never moving unless spoke to, and then like it was all a dream. No trouble keeping the doors locked or anything like that. If any one saw her they would only think she was a bit touched. But when she’s had it fresh she goes off altogether, so we put her on the bed out of the way, and it’s then she’ll start talking.”
“She didn’t ought to be let,” Tiny interrupted. “And wouldn’t be if you was true pals. She could be stopped, couldn’t she? You know how.”
“Not yet,” Cy said, his slow, snarling voice so odd a contrast to the other’s loud, bullying tones, and yet by far more sinister, more deadly. “Not till it’s all fixed up, fair shares all round. Then we’ll be in the same boat as you. But till then we keep her, in case wanted.”
“If we stopped her talking she would know all the same, wouldn’t she?” Gladys asked. “Only then we couldn’t have told she did. It was last time she had the stuff. In her tea. The night you and Sunday went to Seemouth. She said sudden, but ever so clear, and as if she were ever so far away, but quite plain, like on the ’phone, and she said: ‘Why is that big man looking at the door of the bungalow?’ So, because of knowing Cy said Tiny knew where was the bungalow they had gone to, and Tiny was following them, Auntie said: ‘What bungalow?’ and she said there was a name up. Castle Beach bungalows, she said.”
“She must have been listening when we was talking,” Cy said, quickly. “She couldn’t have known else.”
“If she did, she heard more than Auntie or me did,” Gladys answered. “Listen. I’m not saying this because I want to. I’m scared. See? We’re up against what we don’t know. Me and Auntie, we knew nothing about castles or beaches, but she did. She said there was an old castle on a cliff high up and the bungalows down below, close to the sea. She said: ‘The big man never looks at it or the old castle or anything; only the bungalow. He keeps walking round it, and the other man with him, and they don’t speak; only when the other man trips and falls and the big man is angry with him.’”
“Who told her that?” Sunday’s voice cried. “How could she know that? She’s been told.”
“Who knew to tell her?” Gladys asked. “Only you and Tiny! Did either of you tell her or any one? Did you, Tiny? Or you, Sunday?”
Neither of them answered her. Gladys went on:
“She said the other man—was it you, Sunday?—had hurt his thumb and was sucking it and the big man was angry again.”
“Like a blessed baby,” Tiny said. “There was us with the job we had on, and there was him, sucking away at his thumb. I wanted to land him one, only for its being a job we couldn’t leave. Sucking his thumb,” and this last was uttered in tones of concentrated contempt.
“Well, I had to, see,” Sunday protested. “It was bleeding, wasn’t it? It’s good luck to leave something of yourself behind you. But not enough for the busies to catch on to.”
“Some one must have been watching,” Tiny persisted. “Cy, most like. And now trying to scare us so as we’ll get out and leave it all to them.”
“How could Bill Bright or me been listening,” Cy asked, “when we were both at Sidmouth? Ask the bogeys there. They can tell you. Can’t you get hold of this? We can’t get the money without you, and you can’t keep it without us standing in. You’ve the money, we’ve the girl. Fair shares. Isn’t it that way? So what’s the sense of talking? And mind you don’t swin
g for the Seemouth job all along of not trusting pals that’s working with you straight and honest.”
“You needn’t believe it if you don’t want,” Gladys said. “I’m only telling so as you’ll know. There’s times I don’t believe it myself, only I can hear her still, plain as I can hear any of you. Thin and small and very far away. Auntie heard it just the same. Ask her. I’m saying exact what she said, because of remembering every word as she spoke it, and I’ll never forget it either—me nor Auntie, sitting there and listening while she told it same as it was happening miles away at Seemouth. She said: ‘They’re opening the door. They must have a key, but they don’t live there. He’s been having supper, and they are looking at him because he has gone to sleep. That’s why he doesn’t know about them. Isn’t it funny going to sleep while you’re having your supper? It’s a nice supper too. Cold chicken. I wonder if he got it ready himself or some one did for him. But he’s all alone now. Oh, they are undressing him. They must be going to put him to bed. He’s asleep. They’ve taken all his clothes off. They’ve put him down on the floor like that. He’ll catch cold, and they aren’t paying any attention. Why don’t they put him in bed? He’s moaning a little. The big man’s putting a bottle of beer from the table in his pocket. He must be going to drink it afterwards. He’s taking the glass, too, and putting that in his pocket. The poor man without any clothes on is still lying on the floor. They aren’t taking any notice or putting anything over him. The other man, not the big man, has gone into the bathroom and turned on the water. They can’t be going to give him a bath, can they? What for? I don’t think they ought. It’s silly to want to give an old man a bath when he is asleep. The water’s not hot, and they’ve left him lying on the floor ever since they took his clothes off. They’re picking him up now. The big man has hold of him by the shoulders and the other man by the legs, and they are carrying him into the bathroom. The other man is shaking so he can hardly hold the old man up, and the big man is angry again. They are putting him in the bath and leaving him there. They are going away now. The big man is wiping everything he thinks they may have touched, and they are being very careful not to disturb anything. They are taking the bottle of beer with them and the glass, but they are leaving the old man in the bath. I think they must want him to die, don’t you?’”
There was a sudden sound as of the fall of something heavy. Cy bent down.
“It’s Sunday,” he said. “He’s fainted.”
CHAPTER XXVI
“GOT A GUN, YOU SAID”
THE CONFERENCE, or whatever it might be called, broke up. There emerged from the shed a small procession. They were very silent as they hurried away through the rain and disappeared into the shop. The man who had fainted was being hustled along between two of the others. Their footsteps sounded dully through the heavily falling rain, and the only other sound was that of a fit of violent sneezing coming apparently from the Gladys woman. As they crowded into the shelter of the shop, Cy was exhorting her to stow it; and Gladys protested hotly that she couldn’t help it, it was the second time that day she had got wet through and it wasn’t her fault if she had caught cold. The only sympathy she got was advice from Cy to put her head in a sack and keep it there, instead of making row enough to wake the whole neighbourhood. Bobby found himself hoping he hadn’t caught a cold like that, and Ted said to him:
“What are you going to do? Can’t you arrest them, the whole lot?”
Bobby, in a much more cautious whisper, told him to shut up.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he went on. “If they suspect anything, our last hope’s gone. Get over the wall and back across the blitzed area. I’ll follow. Thank God, it’s still raining hard, and that’ll help to stop us being heard. Don’t make a sound. The girl’s life may depend on where you tread each time you put your foot down.”
Covered by the ceaseless patter of the rain, first Ted and then Bobby climbed silently the yard wall, and then, with equal silent caution, picked their way across the bombed site. Only when they had reached the street beyond did Bobby turn on his companion with an asperity in no way diminished by the fact that he was soaked to the skin and exceedingly cold. It was between two sneezes almost as violent as those that had aroused the wrath of Cy that he said:
“If it hadn’t been for you playing the fool, Mr Wyllie, we might have known by now where they’ve got her hidden.”
“What do you mean?” Ted retorted with equal temper. “Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you arrest the lot of them?”
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake!” Bobby said impatiently. “I must find a call-box. Come on.”
He ran along to the corner of the street. There he had noticed, for it was his habit and his training to notice things, a call-box. First he rang up the Yard and gave his instructions, and then he rang up his home and told Olive that he would soon be back. He added pathetically that he was wet through and had probably caught his death of cold, so what about dry clothing and a hot bath, and Olive said it was just like him and she would have some warm gruel ready as well. Bobby said hurriedly that that was quite unnecessary, but Olive had already rung off, most likely in order to be sure of getting the gruel ready in time. So all Bobby could do was to give the innocent instrument a malignant look and go out again into the rain. Happy to find some one on whom to vent his extreme displeasure with life in general and gruel in particular, he said to the waiting Ted:
“Got a gun, you said, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Why?” Ted asked.
“Got a licence for it?”
“A licence? No. Why?” Ted asked.
“Because unless you have,” Bobby told him, “you are committing an offence in carrying it. Hand it over.”
“Not me,” said Ted simply.
By this time Bobby knew the young man well enough to realize that he would yield only to superior physical force, and that, Bobby supposed, he had no right to apply at the moment. Besides, a scuffle just now would be highly undesirable. So Ted had to be left in possession of his weapon, and all Bobby could do was to say with considerable annoyance:
“All right. You’ll get a summons. I’m sorry it’ll only be a fine. Six months in goal would keep you quiet for that long, anyhow, and give us a chance to get on without you messing things up every time.”
An unjust speech, perhaps, but one delivered from the heart and with considerable feeling.
“I don’t see that you’ve done such an awful lot,” Ted retorted, with even greater heat. “What have you done that’s any good?”
“Do you think it’s so easy to find one among fifty million?” Bobby asked. “If you had gone to ring up the Yard when I told you, our chaps could have been here in time, and there would have been some sort of chance to tail them to where they’ve got her hidden.”
“Hidd told me not to try to bring you into it,” Ted said, “till I knew more. He said if they knew the police were getting too near they might easily . . .”
He left the sentence unfinished, perhaps because he could not bring himself to put into words the dread possibility of which he had been warned. A Flying-Squad car came round the corner. A man got out and said:
“We couldn’t see any one. No sign of life in the shop. Chap on the beat says he saw a small party go off in ones and twos. Nothing suspicious, and he had no reason to question them.”
“Too late for that to be any good,” Bobby agreed. “Thanks to you,” he added over his shoulder to Ted. “You put a stopper on all that all right. And,” Bobby added feelingly, “nothing I could do about it without the risk of being heard and giving an alarm.”
“Well, it’s up to me to do something, isn’t it?” Ted demanded. “You don’t seem to be getting anywhere. If it was a girl you knew . . .”
He stopped suddenly, his voice breaking. In a gentler tone Bobby said:
“No, it’s not up to you, it’s up to us. We are doing all we can. Easier to hide than to find, though. Still, I must say what we heard to-night does seem
to clear you yourself.”
“Me?” asked Ted. “What of?”
“Of being concerned in Miss Smith’s disappearance,” Bobby told him.
“What? Me?” gasped Ted. “Me? Good God! if that’s the sort of stuff you’ve had in your damfool heads, no wonder you never get anywhere.”
“You’ve got some information to-night, sir?” the Flying-Squad man asked, almost at the same moment as Ted was spluttering out his indignation.
“Did you really think . . . ?” demanded Ted, still spluttering.
“You’ve been under observation,” Bobby told him, “ever since that first time you came to see me. Common form for the wanted man to come along with some story he thinks will put us off.” To the Flying Squad man, Bobby said: “They were having a talk, the whole crew, Cy King and his pals and Tiny Garden and his lot. In a shed in the yard behind the shop. They thought there was less chance of being overheard. But Mr Wyllie and I were there, and we could hear every word.”
“I couldn’t,” Ted interposed. “Only scraps. I couldn’t make it out. It sounded as if some one was telling what some one else had seen.”
“That’s right,” Bobby said. “Something some one saw who wasn’t there to see it.”
“Sir?” said the Flying Squad man, thinking he had not heard aright.
“It’s clear from what we did hear,” Bobby went on, without trying to explain, “that they’ve got hold of Miss Smith, and they seem to be keeping her quiet by drugging her. Gladys—Cy King’s woman—and some other woman they call ‘Auntie’—probably the fat woman who was at the shop for a time—are looking after her. They seem to be keeping her as a kind of hostage. If Tiny doesn’t hand over a share of Mr Smith’s money when he gets it, then they’ll produce her. Very likely try to pretend they’ve rescued her from Tiny, and claim a reward. Cy has got it all worked out. If Tiny parts and Cy gets what he wants, then Miss Smith will have to disappear. I don’t suppose they quite realize what a long job it is to get a big estate like Mr Smith’s wound up and the money handed over. It gives us a little more time, if only they don’t take alarm. That means”—Bobby was speaking more to Ted now—“not only that we are working in the dark—we are used to that—but that we daren’t let it be known we are working at all. There’s something else we have to consider. I think we may be certain that Tiny Garden is doing his best to find her. And if he does—well, he has just carried out one rather specially brutal and cold-blooded murder, and he’s not likely to hesitate at another.”
The Secret Search: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 18
