Brought to Light: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Disgraceful,” said Mr Pyle. “The whole Press would cry out against such an outrage.”

  “Evil speaking, lying, slandering, the greatest evil of the day,” declared Mr Day-Bell.

  “I take it,” Bobby said, “the writer of the anonymous letter means it to be understood that he has these Asprey letters in his possession and that they make some definite accusation?”

  “That was certainly what was implied,” the Duke admitted. “Is it in any way possible that the grave has been opened at some time and the letters removed?”

  CHAPTER VIII

  LEGAL DIFFICULTIES

  BOBBY LOOKED at Mr Day-Bell, who hesitated, waited, spoke at last with evident reluctance.

  “It does seem,” he said finally, “that there are rumours of that sort in existence. Mere gossip. Entirely baseless. In connection with the extraordinary disappearance of my predecessor here, the late incumbent. I was not, I fear, on very good terms with Mr Thorne. He chose to believe that I was animated by unworthy motives in supporting a scheme for the amalgamation of this parish with St. Mary’s at Penton. He got it into his head, quite erroneously, that I was the prime mover in the matter, and I resented that, and said so openly. But I am absolutely sure that whatever caused his disappearance, it had nothing to do with these Asprey letters, or the manuscript poems either. It is out of the question that any priest would permit the violation of a grave in his own churchyard.”

  “I think we may all accept that,” Bobby said. “Besides, what motive could there be? And then it’s two years since Mr Thorne vanished, and only now that all this has started up again.”

  “We newspaper men,” declared Mr Pyle, “do come to know of so many utterly incredible happenings that we dismiss nothing as impossible. What is needed is proof; clear, positive proof. It would be most unfair—unEnglish, I might say—to expect any man, duke or dustman, to rest content while such stories are in circulation. The letters must be recovered. They must then be placed immediately in the hands of a competent and responsible, wholly impartial third person, already well acquainted with all the circumstances.” He paused here and looked round at the others. When none of them said ‘Such as yourself’, as he had hoped and expected, he went on: “Presuming, as one is sure would be the case, that the letters are innocuous, they could then be given to the world. If they did contain any irresponsible, malicious gossip, they could be at once destroyed. But I feel it is necessary in the interests of all concerned that they should be recovered and examined.”

  “I think you may have forgotten,” Bobby put in drily, “that there are certain legal difficulties in the way. I think I pointed some of them out.”

  “In so good a cause as this, for such good and sufficient reason,” asserted Mr Pyle, speaking with the superb self-confidence of the Press magnate who knows his power and has exercised it but has not yet recognized its limits, “I should not hesitate to go a little further than the strict letter of the law would permit—to anticipate, in fact, its very often slow, doubtful processes. I should suggest to our friend from Scotland Yard that he should devote himself to tracking down and prosecuting whoever is guilty of this attempt at blackmail.”

  “Unfortunately that is for the moment impossible,” Bobby told him. “Our information is insufficient as yet, and so far there seems to have been nothing in the way of a criminal offence.”

  “And since when,” demanded Mr Pyle with heavy irony, “has blackmail ceased to be a criminal offence?”

  “There is certainly a disturbing suggestion of blackmail,” Bobby agreed, “which very naturally you, sir”—he was speaking directly to the Duke now—“find very upsetting. But a suggestion is not enough. There must be a definite attempt to obtain, under menace, a specific sum of money. As things are, if we made an arrest, it could be pleaded, and probably would, that there was no idea of getting money, all done out of pure goodwill and kindness of heart.”

  “You will, I hope, permit me,” said Mr Pyle, his irony heavier still—several tons heavier, in fact—“to regard that as a piece of characteristic official red tape?”

  “You don’t need my permission,” retorted Bobby sharply, for he was growing a little tired of Mr Pyle, “to regard anything on earth or in heaven in any way you like. I am merely telling you what is the law, and I may remind you that people disregarding the law do so at their own risk. But that’s your business, not mine.”

  “I am sure,” put in the Duke, rather plaintively, “none of us would ever dream of breaking the law. At the same time—well, it’s all very difficult, and what can I do if I don’t know what Asprey chose to say in those letters? If he said anything at all, that is. Most difficult. One feels at times like taking the law into one’s own hands—though of course one wouldn’t,” he added hastily.

  “There is one other thing,” Mr Day-Bell interposed. “It has struck me as possible that these letters and so on were never really there at all. Never placed in the coffin, I mean. It seems to me the sort of dramatic gesture Asprey—to judge by what I’ve read of him—might have indulged in to impress the public. Or posterity, for that matter. I rather thought the introduction to his collected poems hints at something of the sort. It does admit that all his later work showed a great falling off—like Wordsworth, if you remember.”

  “We have the account of eye-witnesses,” interrupted Pyle. “They actually saw the casket deposited in the coffin and the coffin sealed up. As for that introduction—a mere exercise in the debunking which was so popular at one time. No importance can be attached to it. I shall deal with it very adequately in my forthcoming biography.”

  “I don’t think any of the witnesses you mention claim to have seen what the casket contained,” Mr Day-Bell persisted. “The casket was certainly put there, but what was actually in it we can’t be sure; there’s nothing to show. It’s only a suggestion, I know. But if Asprey realized that there was a great falling off, and his later work very much inferior to his earlier, or if possibly his inspiration failed entirely and he had stopped writing altogether, he might not have wished it generally known, and so have invented this legend of buried masterpieces lost for ever to the world.”

  “I don’t accept that as even remotely possible,” almost shouted Mr Pyle, for the reputation of Stephen Asprey had to remain at its highest if the Pyle biography was to attract the attention it deserved.

  “That wouldn’t apply to my letters,” the Duke said. “Could it?”

  “I was thinking chiefly of the poems,” Mr Day-Bell admitted. “But Miss Christabel told me once there was a family belief that her aunt destroyed Asprey’s letters when she felt her end was near.”

  “Good God!” cried Mr Pyle, almost in tears now. “No woman could. Not letters of such passionate intensity as only one of England’s greatest poets could write. Her claim to immortality and his as well. I don’t, I won’t believe it.”

  “A most interesting idea,” Bobby put in, “but there is one objection. No author ever believes his work shows any falling off. Very often the worse it is, the more he likes it. The mother’s favourite, the most backward child. Another thing, if Janet Merton destroyed her letters, how are you to account for these blackmail approaches? Not the most sanguine blackmailer could try it on letters that didn’t exist. It seems puzzling. I think we must take it that both letters and poems were really placed there.”

  Mr Pyle cheered up wonderfully at this pronouncement. He even bestowed on Bobby, and for the first time, an almost friendly smile. The Duke, however, looked even more worried than before. A passing gleam of hope he had experienced that these probably highly unpleasant letters were no longer in existence had been extinguished as swiftly as it had been kindled. He said rather helplessly:

  “Well, what’s to be done?”

  “We can only await developments,” Bobby said. “We can try to trace your anonymous correspondent if you get any more letters and let us see them. And warn us in time if any more ’phone calls are made. If we can effect identifica
tion that would be a big step forward. We can’t arrest at present, but we can question. It might even be someone we know. No telling. And I will have a talk with Major Rowley and see if he agrees that the situation needs watching. I do feel that there’s a good deal going on behind the scenes, and I don’t like it. Too many cross-currents. Poets generally make plenty of trouble while they are alive, and it may be this one is going to make still more now he’s dead.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “I think I must be off,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of desk-work waiting for me,” and he looked almost as depressed as he felt when he remembered those piles of essays all waiting careful conscientious adjudication.

  “Have you a car?” the Duke asked, “or can I offer you a lift?” and he said this quite eagerly, for Bobby’s presence gave him a sense of security and support he found really comforting.

  But Mr Pyle frowned, regretting deeply that friendly smile into which he had been untimely betrayed. What he chiefly wanted was to have the Duke to himself and persuade him to agree to a plan already forming in his mind, one of which he did not think it desirable that Bobby should have even the faintest inkling. And then, if this plan did go wrong—not that that was in any way likely, but still one never knew—then it would be very convenient to be able to say that there had been ducal approval and support. However, his frown vanished like mouse before cat when Bobby expressed his thanks for so kind and thoughtful an offer but explained that he wished to walk.

  A sensation. Had he said he intended to fly, neither the Duke nor Mr Pyle would have experienced any surprise. They would merely have wondered where he had parked his aeroplane and what make it was. But—walking! Their eyes opened, their mouths gaped, they disbelieved their ears.

  “Walking,” murmured the Duke, as in awe-struck reference to some quaint, long-forgotten, prehistoric practice.

  “Ten miles or more,” said Mr Pyle, almost equally awe-struck. “Take three or four hours at least.”

  “Oh, I shan’t allow myself more than two,” Bobby told them cheerfully. “A policeman has to keep fit. You can’t afford to let yourself get out of condition, and I feel I need a little exercise and fresh air. None so far all to-day.”

  “It’ll be dark soon,” Mr Day-Bell said warningly.

  “Just as well to be as used to the dark as possible,” Bobby explained. “Scraps happen in the dark as often as not.”

  Mr Pyle was on his feet now, deeply anxious lest Bobby should change his mind. He bustled the Duke away with all possible speed, fearful of losing this happy opportunity for a confidential chat thus offered him. Even Mr Day-Bell, not usually excessively perceptive, remarked, when the Duke’s car with its two occupants had finally vanished from sight, that Mr Pyle had fairly jumped at the chance of having the Duke to himself.

  “Yes, I know,” Bobby agreed. “He wanted it very badly indeed. That was plain enough, and I thought it would be a pity to disappoint him. I’m sure he has something up his sleeve, though I’ve no idea what, and I rather think he means to haul in the Duke if he can. If he does try that, I don’t think it will be difficult to get what it is out of the Duke later on, very likely without his even knowing it. A simple-minded, slightly bewildered gentleman, our Duke, I think, and finding it rather difficult to adjust himself to present-day conditions. And it may be as well to get a pointer from him to what Pyle is up to. I’m not too easy in my mind about Pyle and his proceedings.”

  Mr Day-Bell pondered this. Then he said with a faint accent of rebuke:

  “The wisdom of the serpent.”

  “Not at all,” Bobby said—with a faint accent of protest. “Merely letting those who wish to do so to trip themselves up over their own feet. And now I’ll be off. I don’t really want to be caught in the dark, but I’ll have one more look at the Janet Merton grave first,” and therewith he departed, while Mr Day-Bell turned back into the house and the task of washing up the tea-things waiting for him there.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE VICTORY SIGN

  BY THE grave, when he reached it, Bobby stood for some minutes, regarding it with such a fixed intensity of gaze as if he thought that thus he could force it to reveal the secrets it seemed to hold—the secret of Janet Merton’s relations with Stephen Asprey; of what, if anything, had been deposited in the dead woman’s coffin, even perhaps of what had happened to the missing Mr Thorne. And, more immediately important, what plans were hatching in Mr Pyle’s busy, scheming, confident, ambitious mind. But though more than once this concentration of his into the same kind of patient, silent waiting had brought unwilling words from those he was interrogating, now the silent patience of the grave more than equalled, more than baffled, his own.

  He became conscious that he himself was being watched from behind the curtains in the window of Hagen’s cottage, just on the other side of the churchyard wall. No doubt Hagen was wondering about the aim and result of the visit of the Duke. No harm, Bobby decided, in satisfying so natural a curiosity, especially as it was certain Mr Day-Bell would be sure to tell Hagen all about it. Bobby knew well, too, that to appear to be fully and frankly informative yourself is always the best way to get in return the information you need. And to secure Hagen’s full co-operation might be very useful should there occur in fact those developments of which Bobby was vaguely and uneasily expectant.

  The stage was set, he thought, the actors in position; but how the drama would develop, that he could not even guess.

  He turned away and followed the well-trodden path that led through a small swing gate in the churchyard wall towards the sexton’s cottage. As he drew near, the door opened and Hagen appeared.

  “I saw you were there, sir,” he said. “I hope there’s nothing wrong to bring the two gentlemen here like this. Will you come in, sir? One of them was the Duke of Blegborough, I take it?”

  “Yes, the taller one,” Bobby answered, accepting the invitation. “The other man was the owner of the caravan parked up there on the moor. A Mr Pyle. The Duke seems a good deal worried. He’s been getting anonymous letters. Nothing very definite so far, but clearly meant to soften him up and make him readier to pay blackmail.”

  “Blackmail?” Hagen repeated. He pushed forward a chair. “Blackmail?” he repeated once more. “Over the Asprey letters?” he asked.

  Bobby nodded and seated himself. He looked slowly round the room, following his usual practice of trying to deduce from its contents something of the character of its occupant. It was small, plainly and sparsely furnished, with two or three kitchen chairs, a deal table before the window. Everything was scrupulously clean and tidy. The floor of plain, uncovered boarding gave the impression of being well scrubbed every morning. The walls were nearly hidden by apparently home-made shelving filled with books, many of them with slips of paper sticking out, presumably for purposes of reference. They gave the impression of being a workman’s tools kept in readiness for instant use. Near the fireplace in a corner stood a big filing cabinet, and there were two large wooden packing-cases close by. The table in the window was covered with piles of neatly written manuscript. In one corner stood a great heap of exercise books and there was a blotting-pad on which one of these exercise books lay open, one page half covered with writing not yet dry.

  An interesting room, Bobby thought, and one that seemed to proclaim aloud the old maxim, ‘Plain living and high thinking’, in complete devotion to learning and research. What strength of resolution, what avidity to know, what determination, must not have been shown to overcome the obstacles that a man in Hagen’s position would certainly have had to face. Bobby found himself looking at Hagen with a respect that was almost awe, as he thought of the path Hagen had set himself and followed with such persistence.

  Hagen had seated himself by the table in front of the window, but he did not seem inclined to speak. Bobby said:

  “The Duke seems to be afraid that the letters said to have been buried in Janet Merton’s coffin may have been removed.”

  “There were stories like that go
ing about after Mr Thorne’s disappearance,” Hagen said slowly. “Now they seem to have started up again. I don’t know why.”

  “It wouldn’t take long, would it?” Bobby asked. “I think I remember it was said at the time that the resurrection men at the beginning of the last century could open a grave and remove the body in less than an hour—and in complete darkness.”

  “Not without my hearing,” Hagen said confidently. “My bedroom is the one above this, overlooking the churchyard just the same. I’m a light sleeper. I always keep my window open. I should hear at once if there was the slightest sound.” He spoke more slowly, almost as if to himself, saying softly, “I should hear, I think, even if the dead arose. But they don’t; they never do. The dead lie quiet and still in a silence like the thunder of the voice of God.”

  Bobby looked at him quickly. He did not understand this last sentence, he did not understand the intensity with which it had been spoken; he wondered what it was that made Hagen stare with such fresh intensity—was it challenging intensity?—out there where Janet lay in her quiet grave. Hagen turned to him suddenly.

  “Sorry, sir,” he said in quite a different tone. “I suppose one gets ideas, living so much alone and having so much to do with graves. Sometimes I think the dead waiting out there for me to join them are nearer to me than the living.” He got up abruptly and shook himself, as if to get rid of such thoughts, as a dog will shake itself to get rid of the water in its coat. “Quite out of the question,” he declared briskly, “for anything like that to happen to any grave in my charge without my knowing. I can swear to that.”

  “Couldn’t something of the sort happen when you were away?” Bobby suggested. “You can’t be always here. Holidays, for instance?”

  “Well, sir,” Hagen answered, smilingly, “I’m not much of a one for holidays. I go to London sometimes. Very rarely, though. And now and then I go into Penton to the library, if they’ve some book there I want to look at, or if they’ve been getting one for me from some other library. They’re always very good about that. Once they got me one I needed from the John Rylands Library in Manchester. But any grave-robbers would have to wait a long time for the chance. I don’t think it’s feasible. Besides, one thing’s certain. Nothing like that could possibly happen without my knowing. There would be plenty to show—trampled grass, disturbed earth, the headstone not quite in the same position. It’s not an ordinary grave. It’s part of my livelihood—selling postcards and so on. If a blade of grass were disturbed near it I should notice it. For that matter, so I should, I think, anywhere in the churchyard; I know it so well. No, sir. You can dismiss that as even remotely possible. Not without my knowing, at least.”