The Secret Search: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Is she in there? Her those kids saw?”

  “Likely enough,” Bobby said. “No telling. It may have seemed the safest way. But for us no one might have noticed the smoke or thought it worth while bothering about if they did. Might have been years before anything was found.”

  “Will the fire spread, do you think?” Ford said. “There’s been a good deal of rain.”

  “I don’t think so,” answered Bobby. “We’ll have to take care of that, but it doesn’t seem to be catching so far. We had better see if we can find Tiny. He may be around still. You go that way. I’ll take this. Don’t go too far though. Have you your whistle? Good. Blow it if you notice anything and I’ll come. Keep your eyes open.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ford said. “If I do come across Tiny, I expect I shall need help. Awkward customer, sir, and him armed and you not. No use getting killed.”

  Bobby smiled grimly. He recognized that Ford was going as close as he dared to telling Bobby to be careful, and to suggesting that with such a quarry as Tiny Garden, it would be wiser and safer to have a companion. But there was that in Bobby, a kind of smouldering, fierce rage at the thought of this defeat at the last moment, as made him feel the one thing he desired above all was chance or opportunity to meet Tiny alone and alone to take vengeance. At least, if the story of the children was true and not too much exaggerated. But of that it seemed to him there was small hope.

  They separated then, each going his own way. But to little purpose for almost immediately Ford’s whistle sounded.

  “This way, sir, this way,” Ford was calling. “Over here,” and when Bobby joined him he was standing by an open oblong hole in the ground, deep and narrow, six feet in length.

  “Looks like it had been meant for a grave,” Ford said. He stared down into that dark, ominous cavity. He said: “Meant for her, I take it—her those kids saw. And then Tiny thought the caravan was a better bet.”

  “I should guess this is more like Cy King’s work,” Bobby said. “This hasn’t been dug recently, and it’s not likely Tiny has been here before to-day. Cy must be somewhere about, too. That was his car we saw. No sign of him, though, unless it was really Cy those kids saw. But then they stuck to it it was a big man. No sign of him or of Ted Wyllie either.”

  “I can see why Cy wanted to be ready to get the girl out of the way if he had to in a hurry,” Ford said. “But I don’t see why Tiny should? Doesn’t matter to him now he must know his whole plan has gone west.”

  “I don’t much expect there’s any ‘why’ to what he does just now,” Bobby answered. “In a panic and hitting out blindly all round. I think he probably came with some idea of getting even with Cy and if he can’t find Cy anyone else will do,” and even as he spoke there rang out three pistol shots, fired in quick succession.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  “THAT’S ALL FINISHED NOW”

  THE SOUND of these three shots had seemed to come from some distance but from how far exactly it was impossible to say. The direction was clearly that from which Bobby and Ford had just arrived. Hurriedly then they retraced their steps and as they went, swiftly yet with caution, Ford said in a quick undertone:

  “’Ware pistols, sir. ’Ware pistols.”

  Bobby, hurrying ahead, hardly heard, took no notice, intent solely as he was on what the next development might be, his every nerve and sense strained to the utmost pitch to meet it in time and be prepared. Then a little further on he stopped, signing to Ford to stop, too. He had seen something on his left, at a little distance. The undergrowth hid it in part. He saw though that it was very still, whatever it was. Stooping, for at least his unconscious was alert and warned by the sound of those pistol shots, he skirted quickly the baffling undergrowth and then was able to see plainly where, in another smaller glade, the body of a woman lay huddled in a formless heap upon the ground. At the same moment Ford, who had followed close behind, said sharply:

  “Look out, sir. Some one coming.”

  Bobby swung round. Through the trees, at a kind of unsteady, reeling run, came Ted Wyllie, like a drunken man. His hand was pressed to his side and there was blood there, and it was dripping slowly to the ground. He saw them, recognized them. Staggering and reeling forward, he called out:

  “She’s here somewhere. She ran off. Find her quick.”

  “Who fired? Did you?” Bobby asked.

  “Yes, to stop him, frighten him,” Ted answered in short, quick gasps. “He had hold of Betty. By the side of a hole they dug. He had a knife in his hand, and I saw it, and I fired. Only I was afraid of hitting Betty, and the thing jammed. I threw it at him, and he threw his knife and it got me, and all at once there was that big chap I saw before. Shouting he was, and Betty ran away. Find her quick, or God knows what’ll happen. I’m all right,” he said, and slid unconscious to the ground.

  “God knows what’s happening, let alone what will,” Bobby muttered to himself as he bent over the prostrate man. “It must be Cy stabbed him, and he’s seen Tiny, too.”

  Not very skilfully, hurriedly, for he did not know what might not happen next, but knew there was great need for speed and action, he was doing what he could to stop the bleeding. As he worked he told Ford to see what he could do for the woman lying so still, so near, unconscious of what was passing. Ford ran across and hurried back.

  “She’s alive all right, but she’s been badly knocked about,” he reported. “Her face is an awful mess, but she doesn’t look like the photos of Betty Smith.”

  “May be Cy’s Gladys,” Bobby said. “That may be why Tiny attacked her. Anything to do with Cy, and Gladys was his chief helper. What’s become of them both? That hole near the caravan, Wyllie said. We had better get back again. If only we could see a bit further,” he groaned. “All these trees and bushes!”

  He had already taken a moment to run across and assure himself it was in fact Gladys who had been the victim of Tiny’s frenzied violence. Now he and Ford were rushing back by the way they had come. Smoke still rising in the quiet air served them for a guide to the glade where stood the burning caravan. From it, though the flames were less fierce now, came heat still too great for it to be approached too closely. But the sides and roof had fallen in so that it was possible to see more, such things as the stove used for cooking and red hot, twisted pieces of metal.

  Ford, obeying a gesture Bobby made him, had hurried first to where had been dug that hole that to them had looked so like a grave. Both he and Bobby had been aware of a secret terror that now it might have an occupant. It was still empty. Ford picked up a small automatic pistol, presumably the one Ted had had and that he said had jammed. Ford armed himself with a long branch, and, getting as near the burning caravan as the heat permitted, he used it to stir up the fiery mass till the branch itself took fire, and he had to let it go.

  “I don’t think there’s anything” he said. “I mean to say, nothing like a dead body.”

  “No,” agreed Bobby. “The fire wasn’t for that. On general principles. To destroy evidence. It looks as if Cy and Tiny have cleared off. Hope so. If they have, it would give us a better chance to find the girl. She may be anywhere. Hiding or anything. I wonder if it would be any good to call to her, if she would show up. We might try that, she can’t be far. And we had better try separately. Cover more ground. Only look out. Tiny and Cy may still be around somewhere and they’re both dangerous—and desperate as well.”

  “Yes, sir. Very good, sir,” Ford said. He was holding the jammed automatic and he showed it Bobby. “Shall I try to get this thing into working order again?” he asked.

  “No, no time to lose,” Bobby said.

  He took the weapon, small enough to go conveniently into a pocket or a handbag, and yet at close quarters a deadly thing. He slipped the safety catch into position as a precaution in case the pistol freed itself, pushed it into his pocket. Then he went one way and Ford the other, agreeing to work round in a circle so as to meet near or on the track they had recently quitted.

 
; Now and again as he pushed his way through and among the trees, looking keenly around on every side as he went, he called softly:

  “Miss Smith! Miss Betty! Are you there? Mrs Wyllie is waiting at Bournemouth. Are you there? Mrs Wyllie. Bournemouth. Is that you?”

  He had reached the central track sooner than he had expected. There was no sign of Ford. Probably he had made too short a circuit or Ford had made too long a one. He plunged back among the trees, still keeping near the road, and again when he had gone a little distance he called gently:

  “Miss Betty! Miss Betty! Are you there?”

  This time a soft voice answered, but within it an odd accent of doubt and hesitation:

  “I think that’s me. I think it must be.”

  “Yes, it is, of course it is,” Bobby answered, though there was nothing he could see, and though indeed it was all that he could do to speak at all, such was the great upward surge of emotion and relief that he experienced at this moment when it seemed that at last the long secret search was over.

  He moved in the direction from which the voice had come. Soon he saw a girl standing very still. She was pale, dishevelled. Her hair was disarranged, and in it were caught dry leaves and bits of twigs, so that there came into his mind an odd memory of an Ophelia he had seen in a recent film production of ‘Hamlet’. He held out his hand as in ordinary greeting. As simply and quietly as he could, for he felt it might be better to make everything seem as commonplace as possible, he said:

  “Oh, how do you do? Mrs Wyllie has been worrying about you such a lot.”

  “Mrs Wyllie?” she answered doubtfully. “I think I saw Ted, didn’t I? You aren’t Ted. It’s all so funny. I don’t know where this is. Where is it?”

  “Broome Common,” Bobby answered. “We had better get along to Mrs Wyllie’s, hadn’t we?”

  “There was a man with a knife,” she said. “He frightened me. Or was it a dream? I think I’ve had so many dreams.”

  “That’s all finished now,” Bobby said.

  “I think I saw him digging in a dream, was it? and when I asked him why, he said perhaps I should know before long, and then he laughed, and so did Gladys. Who is Gladys? There was a man ran after her in my dream. I don’t think I know you,” she added.

  “No, but you know Mrs Wyllie, don’t you? She’s been worrying her life out about you. She’s sent me to find you and bring you to her.”

  “She’s in England,” Betty said, and then: “But—but—this isn’t home, not Canada, I mean. I can’t think. Look there’s that man again—the man in my dream with a knife I kept looking at.”

  “So there is,” Bobby said, for he, too, had caught a glimpse of Cy hurrying towards them along the track that crossed the wood. He thought, but was not sure, that Cy had seen them, too, for he had suddenly increased his speed. He was running now—and in their direction. “We’ll get out of his way, shall we?” he suggested, though indeed it was gall and wormwood to him to think that he must seek to hide from, and to avoid, a man he felt he would give his year’s salary to lay his hands on.

  But it was the safety of the rescued girl he had to think of first. He took her by the hand and drew her back with him, farther back into the shelter of the trees and the brushwood, angrily conscious that now from the hunter he had become the hunted.

  However, Cy could wait; Cy could be dealt with later. Only perhaps Cy did not mean to wait. It might be that he still saw his one chance of safety in eliminating Betty—and Bobby, too, for that matter. As already he had, Bobby supposed, eliminated the evidence the caravan might have provided.

  Impossible to tell how Cy would react to the recent swift fierce huddle of events. But clear to Bobby that his first concern must be the girl’s safety and the preserving her clearly shaken mental balance from any further shock, especially now that the effect of whatever drug she had been given seemed to some extent to be wearing off. She was saying now:

  “There was another dream I had of an old man in a bath, but that was horrible.”

  “Never mind that now,” Bobby said. “Dreams are only dreams, aren’t they?”

  “But it was horrible,” she repeated, “An old man in a bath isn’t horrible, but it was.”

  “You won’t have dreams any more with Mrs Wyllie,” Bobby repeated. “You can’t imagine what a state she’s been in about you.”

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  “I SHAN’T SWING NOW”

  THE SMOKE from the embers of the caravan, still rising, though now only in slow, lazily drifting, wandering wisps, served again as a general guide. Indeed, but for its help Bobby would have found it more than once almost impossible to keep his sense of direction and to find his way through the tangled growth around. But the glade itself he avoided as he thought it better his companion should not pass again near that dark and horrid hole, standing by the edge of which Ted Wyllie had said he last saw her.

  A little farther on was the smaller glade—so small, indeed, as hardly to be worth the name, where Ted Wyllie had been left. Ted had regained consciousness by this time, Bobby’s rough and hasty bandaging having been enough to stop the bleeding. When Ted saw them, he tried to get to his feet, but could not, and indeed nearly collapsed again with the effort. To his companion, Bobby said:

  “You remember Ted Wyllie, don’t you? Mrs Wyllie’s son, you know.”

  She nodded and stood still. She said:

  “I thought I saw him. It wasn’t a dream, because he’s there.” She lifted both hands in a queerly pathetic gesture. “Everything’s so funny in my head,” she said. “I don’t know any more what’s real or what’s only dreams. You’re real?”

  “Oh, rather,” Bobby agreed cheerfully. “Very real indeed. Difficult, though, to tell sometimes, isn’t it?” He was trying to make everything seem to her as normal and ‘everydayish’ as possible. “Especially when you’ve just wakened up. Ted’s got himself hurt. Careless sort of chap. Do you think you could stay and take care of him while I go for a doctor?”

  She nodded again, and went with him to where Ted had now struggled again into a sitting position.

  “Betty,” he said. “Betty.” And then a third time he said the one word: “Betty.”

  “You’re Ted, aren’t you?” she said as she knelt down by his side, “and I’m me. Only I don’t understand. I don’t understand a bit.”

  “That’s all right,” Bobby said. “Don’t bother about it just now.”

  “You’ve found her at last,” Ted said. “Thank God for that, thank God!”

  “Was I lost?” she asked.

  “Never mind all that,” Bobby repeated. “And don’t talk, either of you. Just stay there. Don’t move till I get back. Whatever you do, don’t move.”

  First, though, he went to where Gladys had been left. There was no sign of her. Most likely her one thought had been to get as far away as possible, for fear that Tiny Garden might return. Bobby was not inclined to concern himself much about her for the moment. Other and more pressing matters occupied his mind. No great difficulty in finding her again when she was wanted. Especially in her present condition, for she would certainly need medical care, perhaps even have to ask for admission to a hospital.

  The first thing necessary was to find Ford and send him for the help so urgently needed. Then Bobby himself could return to Ted and Betty, for he was by no means easy at having to leave them alone. He hurried back to the caravan glade, and thence towards the track crossing the common. Somewhere near it he hoped Ford would be waiting. Still he hurried on, and now began to remember Cy, and Tiny, both perhaps still lurking near. The last he had seen of Cy was the glimpse he had of him running full speed along the track, as if for some sudden unexpected cause. Bobby wondered what. At the moment he had thought it might be that Cy had caught sight of him and of Betty. But that did not seem likely, since there had been no apparent attempt on Cy’s part to follow them. Bobby was near the edge of the track now, separated from it only by a thin fringe of trees. He halted, and from near by, sha
ttering the silence, a great voice roared:

  “There you are.”

  For a moment Bobby stood still, half expecting that this was the prelude to attack. So it was, but not upon himself, for now, a long way away, there burst out into the open track the huge and running figure of Tiny Garden, and from the opposite direction emerged Cy, walking softly, knife in hand.

  “That you, Tiny?” he said quietly. “Both up against it, aren’t we? Why not talk it over together reasonable like?”

  “I’m going to do you in same as her,” Tiny said, almost as quietly, his great voice sinking to what was nearly a whisper.

  “Don’t be a fool, Tiny,” Cy said; and both of them were too absorbed, warily watching each other, to be aware that now Bobby had come out through the fringe of trees and was running towards them. Yet it was of him Cy at least was thinking, for he went on: “Bobby Owen’s on us both. We’ve no chance unless—”

  But Tiny interrupted. He said in the same quiet, matter-of-fact tones:

  “I’ve got to swing for Ada as I’ve just done in, and I’ll swing for you as well, for it’s you as broke us up.”

  “Now listen,” Cy began; but once more Tiny interrupted, and now he and Cy were very close together, and both of them still unaware of Bobby running quickly and quietly towards them, his hand upon the automatic in his pocket; for though he was otherwise unarmed, he hoped he might be able to use it, jammed and in fact useless as it was, to bluff them into submission.

  A weak hope, he knew, and if it failed he must trust to his own strength and the bare chance that Ford and his umbrella might arrive in time to help—a slender chance, for it seemed as if Ford must have got himself lost in the confusion of the woodland.

  Tiny, his words borne to Bobby on a light breeze that had sprung up, was shouting now:

  “Only for you everything would have been O.K. and us all set up for life. Now I’ve got to swing for Ada, and likely for the old man as well, so I may as well for you, too.”