Brought to Light: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Oh, that can’t be,” she protested, and was there now just a shade of doubt and of uneasiness in her manner?

  He thought so, but he was not sure. He resumed:

  “It’s only an idea. But when two things like this—murder and unexplained disappearance—happen within what might be called the ambit of your aunt’s grave, it does look as if they might have something to do with each other. Of course, that will have to be worked out one way or another. You know Mrs Asprey has come to live at Two Mile End? Have you met her?”

  “I’ve seen her sometimes,” she answered, “but I try to keep out of her way. I think she hates me for my aunt’s sake. I spoke to her once in Hillings churchyard. It seemed silly not to. I just said good afternoon. She didn’t take any notice at first. She just stood. It was rather frightening. I know I was quite glad when Hagen came out of his cottage. I don’t believe even a sparrow goes near my aunt’s grave without his knowing. When Mrs Asprey saw him coming she went away. But she said something horrible first, so now if I see her in the churchyard when I go there, I wait till she’s gone.”

  “How do you mean—frightening?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, just that—frightening. She looked—oh, I don’t know, I can’t explain. As if she knew something was going to happen and she couldn’t stop it and didn’t want to. Mr Hagen said afterwards that he didn’t think she was quite sane. But I don’t think it was that. I’ve seen a madman. He was working here. What I felt was that he had become someone different—he wasn’t any more the quiet, hard-working man I knew. He was changed. He wasn’t any more his own real self. But it wasn’t like that with Mrs Asprey. She seemed all at once to become much bigger, as if something had been added to her so that she was greater than before—if you know what I mean,” Christabel added doubtfully.

  “I see,” Bobby said, though he didn’t.

  But it was a useful expression, and then he had had something of the same impression himself during his last interview with her. He, too, had felt there was within her an intensity of emotion held in fierce control, but that, all the same, might at any moment break out as breaks out the mountain torrent when it frees itself from banks or dam that till then had held its waters in restraint. More than a little worrying. A wholly unpredictable element seemed to have come into the investigation, one that could not be evaluated. Before he could say anything more, Christabel spoke again, quickly, in a low voice. She said:

  “There was nothing like that between Aunt and Stephen Asprey. Like what she said, I mean. Father had been angry about it, but when Aunt was dying she told him again it had never been like that. They had only been friends, never anything more. You can believe what people say when they are dying.” Christabel paused, and then said, but a little less certainly, a little more doubtfully: “A marriage of true minds. They were her last words. Only that, nothing more.”

  “It may be it was enough, it may be that that made the deepest wound,” Bobby said. “It may be that, no more, that she is brooding on,” and he remembered how bitterly Mrs Asprey had said that others had taken her husband’s body from her, but Janet Merton had stolen his soul away as well. He went on: “Then you don’t accept the claim of Mr Chrines to be their child?”

  “No,” she answered immediately, with emphasis and anger. “It’s only that he wants to be talked about and to get people to buy his own silly stuff. I went to my solicitors, but they said there wasn’t much I could do. They did write to him. It made him more careful what he said, but he still has great enlarged photographs of Mr Asprey and Aunt he had stuck up for everyone to see. There’s nothing I can do, though it’s awfully horrid.”

  “Young Mr Day-Bell tried to do something, didn’t he?” Bobby asked.

  “Have you heard about that, too?” she asked, looking annoyed. “I told Duncan he mustn’t any more, and he hasn’t.”

  “Mr Day-Bell does seem to be rather an advocate of direct action,” Bobby remarked as he rose to go.

  CHAPTER XX

  MISSING REVOLVER

  PROCEEDING (OFFICIAL), going (normal), or bumping (factual) on his way to Skeleton Farm—for now the road was worse than ever—Bobby could see how the house telephone wires spread to every Canbar field. He could pick out, too, the one that led to the Skeleton farm-house. Easy to guess that it was at the moment carrying a good deal of eager talk and careful warning.

  Well, that was all right—nothing to object to in that—and no surprise, therefore, to see when he arrived young Duncan Day-Bell waiting to greet him.

  But not quite such a prosperous-seeming farm, this, as the one he had just left. In good order, certainly—no trace of neglect—but all the same a general suggestion of an overriding necessity to think in terms of strict economy. Old fences, for instance, had evidently been not so much repaired as patched. The house was smaller, too, and badly needed fresh paint, as if its requirements came well behind those of the outbuildings; and the ground before the house, once perhaps a garden, had now been given over to potatoes. Bobby wheeled his cycle up a path not entirely devoid of weeds to the open door where Duncan stood waiting. He nodded a greeting as Bobby came up and led the way to a room that was not like the one at Canbar, totalitarian office, but rather trinitarian—part office, part living-room, part bachelor’s den with two old, shabby but comfortable arm-chairs, fit, as armchairs should be, for sprawling in; such things scattered about as cricket bats, fishing-rods, riding-boots; a double-barrelled shotgun over the mantelpiece; and a well-filled bookcase containing both many books dealing with farming and a liberal supply of popular, paper-covered novels and stories. Duncan pushed forward a chair for Bobby, seated himself, and said rather grumblingly:

  “I thought most likely you would be around again. What about this chap they say’s cleared out? There’s some sort of story going round that you don’t think he did it? If he didn’t—well, why has he run off?”

  “That,” Bobby answered, “is exactly what we want to ask him as soon as we can find him.”

  “The sooner the better,” Duncan said gloomily. “Not very jolly to have police all over everywhere and tongues wagging away nineteen to the dozen.”

  “Murder’s seldom jolly,” Bobby said.

  “Well, yes, of course, I didn’t mean it was,” Duncan muttered, looking a little disconcerted. “Well, go ahead. I’ll do my best to tell you everything I know. It isn’t much. I would rather you got it from me than for you to pick it up anywhere. I only saw Mr Pyle once. We didn’t like each other, and my father didn’t like what he said about me. Not that I minded. I expect you’ve heard all about it and everything else as well. Nothing much happens in Hillings, and, when it does, they make the best of it. I can’t get a stroke of work out of my chaps to-day. I chase them back to their jobs, and the moment my back’s turned they are in a huddle again, telling each other all about it all over again. Look, I wish you would tell me what you have heard.”

  “Oh, well, you know,” Bobby answered, “my job is to get information, not to give it.”

  “No good me telling you what you know already,” Duncan grumbled. “Is it true the murder and Mr Thorne’s disappearance are supposed to have something to do with each other?”

  “The possibility is in my mind,” Bobby admitted.

  “Can’t imagine how—seems a screwy idea to me,” Duncan said; and then, with a slight but evident effort, he went on: “Does that mean you’ve been hearing any of those idiotic stories that some fools tried to put about at the time?”

  “You might care to give me your version,” Bobby suggested. “I haven’t heard anything specific, but there are one or two rather curious facts and inconsistencies I have noticed, and I am trying to find a general pattern they would fit into. There’s more successful detective work done like that than by studying finger-prints and footmarks and cigarette ash left on the floor. I know there was strong feeling over the idea of joining up Hillings parish with one in Penton, and leaving Hillings to manage with a non-resident curate. The motive was
supposed to be to get hold of the Hillings endowment for the benefit of Penton, where the money came from?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t my father’s idea,” Duncan said. “He never even heard of it, much less started it, or even thought of it, till it was well under weigh. Mr Thorne got very worked up and bitter. The fact is, Hillings is about the richest sinecure in the whole country and Thorne had no idea of losing it.”

  “He couldn’t be forced out, could he?” Bobby asked.

  “Oh, no, parson’s freehold and all that. But a lot of pressure could have been brought to bear. Might have been hard to resist. He was supposed to be busy with some awfully learned work about the early fathers, I think it was. That’s what annoyed him so when he found Hagen was on the same tack. He gave Hagen lessons in Latin with the idea that Hagen could help him in research, and he didn’t like it when he found Hagen was branching out on his own.”

  “I thought he helped him. Didn’t Hagen say so?” Bobby asked. “Hadn’t he been lending Hagen money to use buying books he needed?”

  “I was rather surprised when I heard that,” Duncan admitted. “I suppose he began to feel it wasn’t quite the thing to be jealous of his own sexton. Quite decent of him. Hagen paid back half of it and he offered to pay the other half, but old Mrs Thorne told him to keep it for the time. Her daughter’s a barrister and is using every legal trick she can think up to prevent the living being taken over. You can’t wonder. I expect she really thinks her father may turn up again some day, safe and sound. Nothing to do with my father, and a dirty pack of lies that he was pulling strings. Of course,” he added reluctantly, “some of the family on both sides—the Day side and the Bell side—have a lot to say in local matters.”

  “Do you mean it was actually suggested that Mr Thorne had been murdered and that Mr Day-Bell had something to do with it?”

  “We never managed to get any proof that that was being said in so many words,” Duncan answered. “Nods and winks and all that sort of thing you can’t lay hold of. Too slippery slimy. At first my father wanted to refuse taking charge of Hillings in the interval before it was declared vacant, but it was put to him that that would look too much like running away.”

  “Do you think people took it seriously?” Bobby asked. “Or was it merely a tasty bit of scandal everybody liked and nobody believed? What was supposed to have happened? Mr Day-Bell wasn’t in Hillings the night Mr Thorne disappeared, was he?”

  “No, he wasn’t; but that didn’t bother the gossips one little bit. Thorne suffered from insomnia, and he often went for a long walk on the moor before bed. Anyone who knew that could have been waiting for him, I suppose. I expect I should have been the target for the gossips but for being in America at the time. It’s an old story, and a damn silly one. I thought it had been forgotten, but it seems to have started again. Hagen told me. He heard it at the Hillings pub. He warned them there would be a libel action—and a damn good thrashing from me as well, most likely—if any of them got shooting off their mouth like that. Hagen’s a good chap, and they all listen to what he says—a bit proud of him, too. The local rag once called him ‘The Learned Sexton of Hillings’. That’s what’s said to have annoyed Mr Thorne so much.”

  “Well, an action for libel—slander in this case—would be better than direct action by way of fisticuffs,” Bobby remarked. “That did happen, didn’t it?”

  Duncan stared as if at first he didn’t understand the reference, and then he laughed, though rather wryly.

  “Oh, you’ve heard about that, too?” he said. “Not much you haven’t heard, is there?”

  “There’s a lot of talk going on,” Bobby explained apologetically. “So there ought to be when it’s murder. Often a great help. You and a young relative of Mr Thorne’s, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to put up with his saying I had seen the inside of a prison,” Duncan explained. “So we had it out together, and then we shook hands. That’s all. He wasn’t such a bad chap really.”

  “Is there any truth about the prison story?” Bobby asked.

  “No, there isn’t,” Duncan snapped. “What happened is that I got mixed up in a row in a London night club. They wanted to charge me three guineas, I think it was, for a bottle of rotten bad champagne. I told them to sue for it, and then the bouncer came along. Quite lively while it lasted, but some spoil sport rang up you chaps and—well, I spent the night in the cells and got an awful wigging from the beak next morning—twenty shillings and costs.”

  “You got off very lightly, in my opinion,” said Bobby severely. “If you take the law into your own hands, you must expect to pay for it. I think you would be wise to remember that. I see you have a shot-gun there. You’ve a certificate for a revolver, too, haven’t you? Is there any special reason why that was thought necessary?”

  “Sheep-stealing,” Duncan explained briefly. “I got one or two threatening letters—skull and cross-bones all complete and lots of red ink. Warning me not to interfere and what would happen to me if I did. The idea seemed to be that Canbar was fair game, as it was run by a woman and nothing to do with me. I had a good idea who the letters came from, and I put the fear of death into him. I suppose you would call that taking the law into my own hands? Anyhow, it worked. There’s been no trouble since.”

  “Would you mind letting me have it?” Bobby asked. Duncan looked reluctant, hesitating. Bobby said: “I’m afraid it’s necessary. Every pistol in the neighbourhood must be examined.”

  “To see which one was used?” Duncan asked sulkily. “I don’t see why you should think so. Anyhow, I haven’t got it here at the moment. I lent it to a friend.”

  “You mean you have the certificate and your friend has the gun? Rather more than highly irregular. Is your friend Miss Christabel?”

  “Easy to guess that,” grumbled Duncan. “I got wind a holdup at Canbar was being planned. Miss Merton pays out fifty or sixty pounds in cash every Friday. More if there’s been much overtime. So I gave her the thing and told her to keep it handy and all she would have to do would be to show it and watch ’em run.”

  “I shall have to collect it,” Bobby said. “When you ring up as soon as I’ve gone to tell Miss Merton all about it”—here Duncan’s expression became a nice mixture of sulks, surprise and anger—“you might tell her I’m coming, and ask her to have it ready. There’s one more question I must ask. Mr Pyle seems to have been making threats about getting both these farms—Canbar and Skeleton—inspected to see if they are being properly cultivated. Did you take that seriously?”

  “Well, I suppose if you have a pull like the big newspaper barons, you can do a lot, and you never know what these inspector and committee chaps will be up to next. Anyone can always find fault with other people’s work, and one or two dodges I’ve tried haven’t turned out too well. I got so fed up with some of their meddling I did make rather a fool of myself.”

  “I can well believe it from what you’ve told me already,” Bobby said acidly. “In what way this time?”

  “I wrote them a letter beginning ‘Dear Bureaucrats’. It did rather put their backs up. I suppose it was pretty insulting, come to think of it. I don’t expect they would miss any chance of getting their own back if a bloke like Mr Pyle started a ‘Better Farming’ stunt in one of his papers. That’s what he was hinting to Miss Merton. Well, he won’t have the chance now, the little swine! I oughtn’t to say that, I know, now he’s dead the way he is, poor devil.”

  Bobby made no comment. He departed then, his mind full of disturbing and uncomfortable thoughts. He felt he had once again uncovered more than he had either expected or wished. At Canbar Farm he halted. He was clearly expected, for one of the men was on the look-out and asked him to go round to the side door to the office. There he found Christabel waiting for him. She said at once:

  “I’m so sorry. It’s Mr Day-Bell’s revolver, isn’t it? I can’t find it anywhere. The cartridges are there still, but the thing itself isn’t.”

  “You me
an the cartridges it was loaded with when Mr Day-Bell gave it you?” Bobby asked, and when she nodded, he went on: “Where did you keep it?”

  “In the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk,” she explained. “Duncan said I must have it always handy so as to get it out any moment.”

  “When did you last see it? Do you remember?”

  “I think it must have been one day when Mr Day-Bell was here—not Duncan, his father. I didn’t like keeping the thing loaded because of perhaps it’s going off by accident, and Duncan said I need only show it if I had to. So I asked Mr Day-Bell to take the cartridges out, and he did, and they are still there, but the thing itself has gone. I can’t imagine what can possibly have become of it.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  LIGHT IN THE RECTORY WINDOW

  FROM CANBAR FARM Bobby went on to the cluster of cottages around the ‘Green Man’ beerhouse and the village general store and Post Office, all these together forming the centre of a village scattered with its two or three hundred inhabitants over a good many more hundred acres of land.

  Bobby’s arrival on his spluttering motor-cycle brought out to stare at him three or four men from their darts, their beer, or their gossip in the ‘Green Man’; four or five women from their household duties that to judge from the appearance both of themselves and of their homes did not seem to be pursued very assiduously; and various children, some too young for school and some who ought to have been there but weren’t.

  The men regarded Bobby with a kind of sulky suspicion; one of the women said ‘Police’ in a not very welcoming voice, another said much more loudly, ‘Snooping’; a third said in tolerant excuse, ‘It’s that murder’; and Bobby said: