Four Strange Women

by E. R. Punshon

  “You had better go,” he said.

  “All right,” Bobby said, “but remember—we have ways of finding things out. In my judgment, it is necessary to know who the lady is. She is not here now, I can see, but I expect she was this morning, and if I had been half an hour earlier very likely I might have met her. It would save a lot—”

  Bobby never completed the sentence. Leonard, swinging the piece of metal tubing, ran straight at him. Bobby was fully prepared though and flung a chair in his path. Leonard collided with it and before he could recover himself Bobby stepped forward and hit him very neatly on the temple, a well timed, well placed blow. Leonard went down before it. Bobby stooped over him, wrenched the piece of metal tubing from his grasp, sent it flying well out of reach through the open door under the bed in the room beyond, said:— “Made rather a bit of an ass of yourself, haven’t you?” and took himself off, before the somewhat dazed Leonard was on his feet again.

  But the last glimpse Bobby had of him showed him running into the bedroom, pulling violently at a drawer there, and Bobby closed the outer door of the Glinbury Research Company and descended the steps to the mews with considerable haste. For he had an uncomfortable suspicion that in that drawer was a revolver or some such weapon that Leonard in his rage had gone to seek, and the very last thing Bobby desired was to act as target to the young man. Revolver shots are so very difficult to keep out of the police courts, nor did he wish there to be yet another corpse in this case, and more especially he did not wish in any event for that corpse to be his own.

  “Hasty and violent chap,” he thought to himself as he walked along, and moodily reflected that everywhere in this investigation he seemed to find a woman and yet could never discover her identity. He reflected, too, that sometimes after such interrogations, the person questioned grows nervous and thinks it better to come forward with some explanation. He wondered if there was any chance of that happening this time, but he did not think it very likely. He thought Leonard made of sterner stuff, and also he had an impression that the woman in the background, whoever she might be, would take good care to see that the secret of her identity was preserved. Rather ruefully, too, Bobby felt it would have been much more sensible to have avoided mentioning the signs he had noticed of a woman’s presence. If he had held his tongue about that, it might have been possible, by setting a careful watch, to discover who she was. But he had been taken by surprise, and then also, once the secret of his London address had been penetrated, Leonard would certainly have adopted further precautions to protect the further secret of his companion’s identity. Most likely Leonard was already ringing her up from some call box to warn her to be careful. The obvious plan, Bobby decided, was to do nothing at all for a few days. Then Leonard and his companion would probably relax the precautions they would certainly now be planning and it would be easier to get her name. But almost as important, Bobby told himself, was to discover how Leonard had secured the money that enabled him to keep up this separate and secret establishment.

  He wondered, too, how far Becky was in her brother’s confidence. Evidently she knew his address, but did she know how he had secured the money he seemed now so well supplied with or the name of the woman he was living with, or even of her existence? If so, how did such confidential relations harmonize with the ill feeling between them that Bobby had himself seen enough of to convince him it was genuine?

  “Another snag,” he sighed to himself as he ate his lunch and then hurried back to keep his appointment with Inspector Marsh, of the Wychshire county police. The inspector was there punctually to the minute; an elderly man with a bluff, hearty manner, plainly both experienced and intelligent and even more plainly distrustful of proceedings entirely unorthodox and unexplained. His manner was so distantly formal, not to say hostile, that Bobby thought it better to make a direct approach.

  “I know the Super, thinks he is not being fairly treated,” he said. “I quite understand that and I expect Colonel Glynne does, too. But then Colonel Glynne, though I don’t suppose he is a rich man, has some private means, and so he can run risks a poor man couldn’t. And I’m fairly young still and I have a little bit of money of my own now, as very likely you’ve heard.”

  “You mean that sort of private business you were mixed up in—first time I ever heard of police officers being allowed to take on private jobs. Of course, you’ve got swell friends.”

  Bobby winced. It was quite true, but he didn’t like to be reminded of it.

  “Wouldn’t help me much if I fell down on the job,” he said defensively. “The point is, we can afford to take risks. Mr. Oxley, for instance, I should take to be not far from retiring, and if he lost his job and his pension, it would about finish him.”

  Inspector Marsh fairly gasped.

  “What are you getting at?” he demanded. “Why should he?”

  “Another thing,” Bobby went on. “If Colonel Glynne —well, resigned in a hurry, there would be an awful fuss, and unless there was someone to take hold and carry on, the whole Wychshire force might go to pieces. Mr. Oxley has just simply got to be there.”

  Inspector Marsh was by this time beyond all speech. He could only gape.

  “The simple fact is,” Bobby continued, “Colonel Glynne has got on to something so full of dynamite it may explode and blow us both to—well, to wherever sacked policemen go. We aren’t sure yet what it really is. It may fizzle out. It may have to be dropped. It may boil down to something quite ordinary. There you are, the plain fact is, the less any one knows at present, the safer they are. Naturally, the moment there’s anything to act on, it’ll go through the usual channels.”

  Marsh asked doubtfully:—

  “Is all that on the up and up? not pulling my leg, are you?”

  “Murder cases don’t lend themselves to leg pulling,” retorted Bobby. “My own belief is that Mr. Baird was murdered in Wychwood Forest, and that there have been other murders in the past and that there may be more to come. But for the present—go slow’s the word. Look here, how about coming along with me to-night? It won’t commit you to anything. The Edgware Psychical Research Society is holding a meeting at a parish hall sort of place in Mountain Street, off the Edgware Road. I want to get in if I can.”

  “What for?”

  “To see what happens.”

  “Spiritualism, isn’t it?”

  “Apparently. And a spiritualist stance is held in the dark, so specially thick curtains are necessary. This parish hall has them. But specially thick curtains can hide other things than ghosts.”

  “I’ve got to be back on duty to-morrow morning,” said Marsh doubtfully.

  “There’s a train at midnight. You could catch that.”

  “Right,” said Marsh, making up his mind.

  “The meeting’s for eight,” Bobby said. “I want to be in good time. I want to watch arrivals. Could you be here about half-past six? It’s not more than a quarter of an hour from here by bus.”

  “Right,” said Marsh again and departed, evidently both puzzled and doubtful, a state of mind with which Bobby had much sympathy, since it so closely resembled his own.

  The rest of his time before the hour appointed for Marsh’s return, Bobby devoted to a careful examination and analysis of the notes he had made in the ‘Cut and Come Again’ club, now so happily reformed, so zealous to give every possible assistance to the law that an extraordinary pressure of affairs and unfortunately defective memories permitted.

  The facts Bobby finally extracted and jotted down separately seemed to him of interest, both for what they did and did not show. Though he was inclined to think that the indications absent were even more significant than those that were present.

  For instance, there was nothing to show that Leonard Glynne had ever been near the place. All Bobby’s questioning at the club had failed to obtain from any member of the staff any recognition of Leonard’s name or the least sign that there he had ever been heard of.

  Equally interesting was it t
o know that Andy White had not only been a member of the club—he had also been a part proprietor and had taken an active share in the reorganization when a decision had been come to to make it respectable and to abandon for ever its former lurid methods. He had been a frequent visitor and more than once had given there supper parties to his friends.

  Lord Byatt, apparently, had been one of the first to join the reconstituted and reformed club. An original member, in fact, and again a frequent visitor. He was still remembered with regret by some of the club staff with whom he had been popular. He had often brought friends, especially ladies, especially young and good-looking ladies. Never anything to object to, of course, in surroundings so decorous as those provided by the new ‘Cut and Come Again’, but definitely a young gentleman with the friendliest feelings towards the opposite sex. It was confirmed that the last time he had been seen alive was at the club when he had danced a good deal with Miss Hazel Hannay. This was clearly remembered because of the enquiries made at the time. Bobby also learned that Hazel had left the club alone some time before Lord Byatt’s departure. Bobby took it for granted that this point had been dealt with during the investigation and that nothing further of interest had been discovered.

  Lord Henry Darmoor was one of the few who had been members both of the old naughty club and of the new and reformed and respectable—so far—club. But then he had a wide membership of clubs, and it was only recently that he had attended the ‘Cut and Come Again* with any degree of frequency. A point that came out through Bobby’s questioning was that lately he had begun to drink too much and to show himself excitable and quarrelsome. This had been widely noticed and commented on as it was such an entire change.

  “Might be a different man,” one of the staff told Bobby. “Used to be as pleasant a gentleman as you could wish for. Something worrying him, if you ask me.”

  Also in the list of members Bobby found the name of Edward Reynolds, garage proprietor, proposed by Lord Henry Darmoor and duly elected. He had, however, never paid his subscription or taken up membership. His address was given as a West End hotel, but letters addressed to him there, asking for his subscription to be paid, had been returned ‘not known’.

  Miss Hazel Hannay was a member. She had joined soon after the reorganization, her proposer and seconder being respectively Lord Byatt and Mr. Andrew White. Mr. White, however, to judge by the number of times it appeared, had allowed his name to be in general use as a seconder as and when required.

  Lady May Grayson, like Lord Henry, was a member both of the old and of the reconstituted club, but then it was part of her business, as a kind of walking society advertisement sheet, to be a member of as many clubs as possible. She was well known to the staff, as was only natural, since she was well known everywhere, but of late had been an infrequent visitor.

  Becky Glynne was also a member, but one only recently elected. She had been proposed by Mr. Baird, seconded by a Mr. Simon, who, Bobby had ascertained, held shares in the club, and had taken Andy White’s place as always ready to second a new member when required. When Bobby questioned him, he admitted that he had never heard of Miss Glynne till Mr. Baird brought her to the club one evening. But Baird had vouched for her, her parentage was in itself a guarantee of respectability. “We are extremely careful whom we admit, especially women,” Mr. Simon had assured Bobby earnestly, “but of course in Miss Glynne’s case we had no hesitation, and then Mr. Baird was a respected member. I rather gathered,” admitted Mr. Simon with a faint smile, “that Baird had hopes in that quarter, and you know we have a bit of a reputation here for being matchmakers. Brings young people together. Really, I think we shall have to adopt a slogan: ‘“Cut and Come Again” for fortunate engagements’.”

  He laughed a good deal and went off, leaving Bobby wondering whether a reputation for matchmaking was the only one the new ‘Cut and Come Again’ deserved.

  Further enquiry showed that Miss Glynne was quite unknown to the staff.

  The name of Gwen Barton, Lord Henry’s fiancée, did not appear, and apparently no one knew anything about her, though most had heard of the engagement and some were inclined to believe that something had gone wrong with it since at first Lord Henry had been almost uproariously happy and then had followed the apparent alteration in his character and habits whereof Bobby had already heard.

  “Not that he is always that way,” the bartender had confided to Bobby at the end of some close questioning. “Sometimes he is like he used to be—-jolly and friendly. And then again—well, you don’t know whether it’s his own throat or yours he’s going to cut.”

  Over these facts, so carefully and so laboriously extracted from the general mass of information he had obtained, Bobby brooded long and doubtfully, asking himself whether vague, strange outlines of an almost incredible pattern did indeed emerge, or whether it was only his own heated imagination that seemed to see there so grim, so menacing a horror.

  He was still deep in thought and fear and wonder, when Inspector Marsh arrived and together they set out on their way to the Mountain Street hall.

  CHAPTER XVII

  PETTINGS

  It suited Bobby very well to have a companion on this expedition, since the Mountain Street hall, situated between two parallel streets, had in each an entrance, and yet another side entrance in the busy main road into which ran the two other streets. It happened, too, that each one of these three entrances was badly lighted, all of them lying midway between street lamps. In addition, the rear entrance lay in the shadow of a tree, and the front entrance had before it a small unillumined forecourt, thrown into deep shadow by a tall neighbouring building. Bobby noticed, too, as soon as they arrived, that the side door in the main road boundary fence was unfastened, so that any passer-by could easily push it open and slip through.

  Bobby pointed all this out to his companion, and explained that he wanted to watch the arrivals; to pick out the leaden, if possible; and to attempt to trace them home and establish their identity.

  “If only we can get a few names and addresses we shall have something to work on,” he said.

  Also he intended to try to get admittance to the meeting by declaring himself a visitor interested in Psychical Research.

  “Which I am,” he said grimly, “when it’s this sort. If it does happen to be a genuine show, I don’t see why they shouldn’t let me in, or anyhow tell me enough to make it clear they really are all right. I’ll offer to pay my subscription on the spot. That ought to work the oracle. It would with most societies, they can no more resist a subscription than a cat can cream. If it’s not a genuine do, then they’ll turn me down and we’ll know there is something wrong. Only—”

  “Only what?”

  “Well, it may be some kind of crooked game and yet they may let me in all the same, and if it’s like that, then I shan’t be sorry to know there’s someone waiting outside to see that I come out again.”

  Marsh whistled.

  “As bad as that,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t know, it’s only an idea,” Bobby answered. “Just as well to take precautions though, and I know the cellars there had a beastly chill, grave-like feeling about them. There were hooks in the ceiling exactly like some I remember when I was a boy in a big barn on a farm near. They used to sling the pigs up on them for slaughtering.”

  “Bit nervy, aren’t you?” Marsh asked with a touch of patronage in his voice. “They wouldn’t dare—not with a police officer.”

  “No, perhaps not,” agreed Bobby. “Luckily there is still a divinity that doth hedge about policemen, even if it has a bit forgotten kings. All the same, if I do get a chance to get inside, I hope you’ll wait till I come out again—even if it does make you miss your train.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” Marsh said in a somewhat alarmed voice, with visions of the wrath of his superintendent if he were not there at the right time to see the morning duty men duly dispatched. “Besides,” he added, “what’s it all about? haven’t you any idea?�
�� he repeated, for he had asked that question more than once before.

  “Not the faintest,” Bobby repeated, as he had answered previously. “I’ve thought of everything I can think of— from Nazis plotting to seize Broadcasting House down to religious revival services. If I didn’t go to sleep so quick I expect I should have stopped awake all night worrying. As it is, your guess is as good as mine—and probably better.”

  They separated then, Bobby watching the front entrance from a shadowy doorway just across the street, Marsh hanging about at the back where no such convenient observation post existed, and both at intervals going to look at the side door where Bobby had looped a bit of string round the handle so that the door could not be opened without displacing it.

  The hours came and the hours passed and nothing happened. No passer-by seemed even to give so much as a glance at the hall where it lay dark and silent and solitary in the night. Visits at intervals to the side door showed the loose loop of string still undisturbed. By nine Marsh was growing impatient, Bobby uneasy. At ten Marsh said suspiciously that it looked like a washout, and Bobby felt that by a ‘wash out’ he really meant a ‘take in’, such being the intricacies of British slang. At eleven Marsh announced firmly that he must go, or he would miss his train, and at half past he was back again.

  “Thought I might as well see it through,” he said, “just in case.”

  “Hope Mr. Oxley wasn’t annoyed at being rung up so late,” Bobby observed, quite sure Marsh would never have run the risk of being absent from duty next morning, unless he had received permission—and permission could only have been obtained over the ’phone.

  “What do you mean?” Marsh asked, disconcerted and a little angry, too. “Been following me?”

  “Gracious, no,” Bobby protested. “Can’t a full blown detective have a ‘hunch’ as they call it?” He added:— “While you were away, someone lighted up and drew the curtains.”

  ‘‘Did you see who it was?”