Brought to Light: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “It was getting late,” Mr. Day-Bell answered, after hesitating for a moment or two. He gave the impression of a growing uneasiness, almost as if he were thinking up excuses or evasions from moment to moment. “Very late,” he repeated. “I thought it would be better to wait till morning.”

  “For your talk?” Bobby asked, and went on: “I must really remind you that this is an inquiry into a case of murder, and therefore I am entitled to expect and to ask for your fullest cooperation. I am afraid I hardly feel at the moment that you are being entirely frank. Please remember, too, that every detail, even the most apparently insignificant, may turn out important. I ask you again, and please do answer frankly: Was there any other reason why you turned back?”

  “Well,” Mr Day-Bell answered slowly and not too willingly, “very likely I was mistaken, but I did think I saw someone else on the moor ahead of me, going towards the caravan. I think it struck me it might be another intending visitor. So I thought I had better put off my own visit. Besides, as I said, it was getting late. Mr Pyle had been very busy talking to different people. It seemed likely enough one of them wanted to see him again.”

  “Did you recognize the person you saw?”

  “Well, actually,” Day-Bell said, plainly growing with every question more and more troubled, “I thought there were two people, but one of them left the other and went off alone. I thought at the time that it was a woman. I’m not sure. It was growing dark and a mist was coming down from the moor. Her companion went on towards the caravan. I waited to see if he was actually going to it.”

  “And was he?” Bobby asked when again there seemed reluctance to continue.

  “Oh, yes. Yes. When he got near he called out something and Mr Pyle came to the door of the caravan and asked who was there. I didn’t hear the answer, but whoever it was went into the caravan. I went away then. I didn’t think it was any good waiting any longer. It was plain I had been forestalled,” he added, with a faint attempt at a smile.

  “Did you recognize who it was?” Bobby asked.

  “No, I can’t say I did. No. But if you insist, my impression at the moment was that it was young Chrines. I didn’t see his face; it was only the way he walked that made me think so. Very likely I was entirely wrong. Yes, something in the way he walked—a sort of shambling slouch—made me think of him. I certainly couldn’t be sure. I don’t think I ought to have mentioned his name. It was merely a passing impression at the time.”

  “Assuming your first impression was right,” Bobby said, “it means Chrines was probably the last person to see Pyle alive. That has its importance. It is almost equally important if it turns out, as it certainly may, that it was not Chrines. So far as I know, there is no woman he would be likely to have with him. Of course, we must try to make sure of that. Anyhow, no such woman has come forward to say she was with him that night. In any case,” he added severely, “we should have been informed of this immediately.”

  “I am only sorry I’ve told you now,” retorted Day-Bell with spirit. “I don’t feel I had any right to. It’s throwing suspicion on a young man I can’t believe had anything to do with it. I should never have said a word about it if you hadn’t practically dragged it out of me in what I feel was a most unfair manner. I do most sincerely trust what I have said will not make you jump to any hasty conclusion about the young man?”

  “We never jump to conclusions in the Force,” Bobby told him, and, with certain memories still in his mind—vivid from days when he might have been a little less guarded than now in presenting evidence, he added: “If we did, it wouldn’t take long for the Director of Prosecutions to jump on us. Will you tell me what it was you wanted to talk to Mr Pyle about?”

  “An entirely private matter on which I prefer to say nothing. What I have already said is most unhappily liable to be wholly misunderstood.”

  “Was it,” Bobby asked, “about Mr Pyle’s threats to have the Canbar and Skeleton Farms inspected to see if they were being efficiently cultivated and whether, if not, their present occupants—or at least one of them—should be dispossessed?”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  LINED UP

  FROM THE rectory, after this interview with Mr Day-Bell, an interview that had taken so strangely and so unexpectedly disturbing a direction, Bobby went on to see if he could find Hagen, for now he wished to talk to him.

  To that last question he had put to Mr Day-Bell, Bobby had received no answer, nor had he tried to obtain one. He felt it needed none; he had seen it go home like the thrust of a dagger. Only too clearly had the threat to his son been the cause and reason for Mr Day-Bell’s projected visit. But it was no part of Bobby’s duty—or desire—to force any such admission. It must come without pressure if it came at all. Pressure, if it were to be used, must come only from prosecuting counsel in open court, and there, too, refusal to answer would be allowed.

  Such considerations, however, do not prevent an investigator from drawing his own conclusions and expressing them in his reports. Nor indeed had Bobby’s last question really gone unanswered. For the stricken look on Mr Day-Bell’s face as he listened and was silent provided full proof to Bobby’s mind that Mr Pyle’s threat had been indeed the cause of the projected visit to the caravan.

  Bobby had reached the churchyard by now. He leaned his motorcycle against the low wall surrounding it and on the wall sat down, feeling more worried and unhappy even than before, and feeling also the need to get his tangled thoughts more clear in his mind.

  So many possibilities—ugly possibilities, possibilities he did not much care to contemplate—were jostling for expression and for precedence as he sat there, perpending.

  One of them, too, not so much a possibility as a probability.

  And all of them, he could not help being aware, inconsistent with that pattern in his mind to which hitherto he had thought all trails led. Did that mean, then—he had to face the question fairly—that this pattern he had seemed to see slowly weaving itself into a net to catch a cunning murderer was just a figment of his own too eager imagination?

  For one thing, he had a strong impression that Mr Day-Bell’s identification of one of the two shadowy figures he had seen, as young Chrines was very much of an afterthought, though now an afterthought that in Day-Bell’s mind had no doubt transformed itself into a settled conviction.

  Difficult, Bobby told himself, as he had had occasion to do before, to decide if the truth were being spoken when so often the speaker himself did not know. Were not the worst and most misleading of all falsehoods those that were told in the firm belief that they were true? so easy is it to build up an imaginary picture in the mind and then become certain it is factual.

  The possibility had then to be considered that it was his son Mr Day-Bell had seen, and that he had turned back because he had not wished to seem to interfere. Or was it from some obscure fear of what might be the outcome of such an interview between the impetuous and hot-headed young man and the man who was threatening his own livelihood and that of the girl he was plainly in love with? And then, when the tidings of the murder came, did this same more or less unconscious fear, again more or less unconsciously, thrust the name of Duncan out of his mind and substitute for it that of Chrines? If Day-Bell’s mental processes had been like that, then an unacknowledged sense of guilt might well account for the extreme emphasis laid on Chrines’s innocence and the transfer to Bobby of the anger—and that anger had been strong—he had felt in his inner consciousness against himself for having made such a substitution?

  There was another factor to be considered, Bobby reflected, as he sat pondering on the low churchyard wall. Chrines seemed to live entirely alone—alone with his poetry, whether that were good or bad or worse. No hint of gossip coupling his name with that of any woman had ever been suggested. If, then, it were indeed Chrines who had paid that late visit to the caravan on the night of the murder, who was this woman so suddenly appearing in his life and at such a moment?

  It seemed unlike
ly in the extreme. At least, unless it were Mrs Asprey who had made that footprint found near the scene of the crime and who then had chanced to meet Chrines and spoken to him? But she had never expressed any feeling of friendship for the young man—had seemed, indeed, to resent his existence as a living witness of her husband’s infidelity; and she would surely have been more likely to tell of any such meeting than to conceal it? But Mrs Asprey was a strange woman, troubled in her mind by long brooding on past memories, and Bobby felt strongly that he had no idea of how she was likely or unlikely to behave.

  If, however, it had been his son, Duncan, Day-Bell had seen, or believed he saw, then Christabel Merton might well be the woman seen, or thought to have been seen, in his company that sad night of murder.

  Yet another uncomfortable, disturbing thought, long at the back of Bobby’s mind, now managed to wriggle its unwelcome way to the front.

  The possibility must be considered that Mr Day-Bell had seen no one; that he had not turned back, but gone on; that it was to him the caravan door had been opened; that he might have had the missing revolver with him—and used it?

  The threat of ruin so wantonly made to his son, threatening, too, as it would, his own position, might well have moved him to a deeply felt resentment—more deeply felt, perhaps, than he himself had realized; perhaps had not realized it at all till it had broken out in violent, unpremeditated form.

  So Bobby mused, sitting there on the churchyard wall, ignoring the rain that was beginning to fall, balancing one theory, one possibility against another, and evermore, as he told himself, coming out by the same door as he had entered by. Nor did he think now, as he had thought at first, that the Duke of Blegborough had been cleared, now it could no longer be maintained that he was the last person to have seen Mr Pyle alive, and therefore automatically to be numbered among the suspects. He had certainly departed before the murder took place—Mr Day-Bell’s story proved that—but his great Rolls-Royce would have enabled him to drive away, so establishing an alibi, and then to make a circuit that would have brought him back by lonely roads across the moor—unlikely anyone would have seen him at so late an hour—well before midnight, the hour at which Chrines, according to his story, had seen the distant blaze that had roused his curiosity and taken him out first thing next morning to discover what had caused it.

  “And possibly,” Bobby muttered half aloud, “if Day-Bell can be believed, well knowing what he would find.”

  So there they were, all these suspects, arraigned as it were before the tribunal of his mind, to answer as best they could the dreadful doubts they had aroused, each one of them with identity of time and place established in one way or another, each of them with motives it was conceivable might have driven them, even if half unconsciously, along the road to murder, motives more or less powerful as the case might be, but always existent and understandable.

  The Duke of Blegborough.

  He had certainly been on the spot at some time during the murder night, and though it seemed now that he had left before the murder happened, equally well he could have returned again. Motives he had beyond doubt. Dislike, even dread, at the prospect of the recovery of Asprey’s letters with the vague accusations and insinuations they might well contain, and the consequent revival of an old, a horrible, and even yet perhaps not wholly forgotten scandal. Natural, too, that he should view with something more than repugnance even the faintest suggestion of the exhumation of the body of his dead wife. That would set every tongue wagging all round the world and back again, never to be forgotten, a theme for endless books by every writer avid for a subject likely to attract. And all this entirely irrespective of any question of either innocence or guilt. Indeed, Bobby felt, the measure of the Duke’s entire innocence might well be also the measure of his anger and dismay; and who could tell how long brooding on such possibilities might not have worked upon his mind? One minor point also would have to be cleared up, though one that might have its own importance in all this strange and twisted story. Who had made that threat of blackmail which first had brought the Duke in such haste to Penton and to Hillings? But on that point Bobby had already formed an opinion he intended to put to the test as soon as possible.

  Duncan Day-Bell.

  Over him there had hung a threat of dispossession and of ruin. Even worse, the same threat had been aimed also at the woman with whom he was evidently in love. Here again, then, who could tell to what angry, fierce, and sudden action that hot-headed and impulsive young man might not have yielded?

  Day-Bell, senior.

  To him, too, much the same considerations applied. That he was a fond and proud parent had always been clear. The welfare of his son was dearer to him than his own. There were obvious personal considerations, too. Gossip, however irresponsible, had apparently already touched his name in connection with the still unexplained and mysterious disappearance of Mr Thorne, so conveniently clearing away opposition to a scheme which, whether he had initiated it or not, would have meant for him the practical certainty of soon succeeding to one of the richest livings in the country. And men, Bobby knew well, have killed for a smaller prize than that.

  Samuel Chrines.

  Of what his motive might have been, Bobby was less sure now than he had been before. Certainly it was both obvious and natural that the sudden appearance of a competitor, a rival, one so powerful and influential that the success, and possibly even the actual publication, of Chrines’s own Asprey biography was threatened, should have had a highly disturbing effect. On it Chrines had clearly founded vivid hopes of fame and fortune; of making his way into the innermost literary circles; of, so to say, achieving a position at a blow. Then there had burst into this dream a figure so influential as that of the newspaper magnate, Pyle. And Chrines probably knew enough of the ways of publishers to be aware that if the choice lay between his book and one bearing Mr Pyle’s name, decision would be automatic. Indeed, it would almost certainly be felt that there was no room for the two books, and his manuscript would be returned to him to lie neglected in some drawer till in due time it passed to its end in the dust-bin. A prospect so unbearable any means to avert it might to him have seem justified. Chrines had been living much alone, he was certainly of an unbalanced temperament, his account of his interview with the dead man had been highly imaginative. Impossible to say what had really passed between them. Equally impossible to be sure how Chrines might or might not have reacted. The anger of the weak can take strange and unexpected forms—from tears and lamentation to reckless violence. It seemed clear that Chrines could not be left out of consideration, even though that pattern to which Bobby had been working, in which Chrines had been cast for an essential part, seemed now less likely to prove a ‘witness of truth’.

  Mrs Asprey.

  She, again, had been living alone too long with her memories and her thoughts. She had made it more than plain that she would do her utmost to prevent the opening of Janet Merton’s grave, the recovery of her husband’s letters, and their consequent publication. More bitter than death, utterly intolerable to her, this threatened proclamation to the world of her husband’s infidelity not only of the body, but of the spirit. Many women have had to submit to the infidelity of their husbands, even to the extent of pretending that their faith was still secure. How much more intolerable to have that infidelity blazoned to the world, and for such treachery to go down to posterity as a glamorous, romantic tale of true love, one of the great love-stories of the world, a Lancelot and Guinevere, a Tristan and Isolde, an Abelard and Heloïse tale, to be wondered at and wept over from generation to generation. Was Mrs Asprey, that strange and brooding woman, of the stuff to submit to that? Bobby did not think so. But was she also of such a temper as might induce her to go to all extremities to stay so great a wrong to her dignity and self-respect? Again Bobby hardly thought so, and yet too much solitary brooding may well bring strange deeds to birth. Had not perhaps Mrs Asprey the strongest and most compelling motive of them all?

  Wel
l, there they were, lined up as it were before the tribunal of his questing mind; and among them, these inhabitants of Hillings to whom he had talked at one time or another, or to whom he had still to talk, whether in sharp, probing questions, or in apparently casual chat that nevertheless had always the one end in view—the unveiling of the truth—among them Bobby felt assured, with complete inner certainty, was to be found the murderer.

  But to which of them the varying finger of accusation pointed the most clearly he was less sure with almost every moment that passed.

  A heavy task, this unveiling of the truth, he told himself as he slipped off the wall on which he had been sitting all this time and began to walk towards Hagen’s cottage on the other side of the churchyard.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  NOT FAR AWAY

  ON HIS way across the churchyard Bobby stayed for a moment or two by the grave of Janet Merton. Strange it was, he thought, that this quiet spot of earth, this last resting-place that should have been so peaceful and so calm, had become the focal point of so much that was secret, dark, disturbing. Was it even, he asked himself, fancifully enough, a kind of judgment on one who, whether by the blind working of fate or by design, had so infringed upon and disturbed the life of another?

  From such passing, fleeting thoughts he was roused by a sudden clap of distant thunder. The earlier splutter of rain had ceased but threatening clouds were piling up on the horizon and now, as a few heavy drops fell, Hagen appeared from behind his cottage. He was carrying his spade, and had apparently been working in his garden till this rapidly growing threat of an approaching storm had driven him to think of taking shelter. Seeing Bobby standing by the grave, he called out.

  “Looks like a storm, sir, coming quick,” he said. “We had better go indoors.”

  “Thank you; it does look black,” Bobby answered. “In for it, I think,” and as he spoke a vivid flash of lightning seemed to illumine Hagen’s figure as he stood against the background of the cottage, followed almost immediately by a fresh and much nearer clap of thunder. “It seems to have come up all at once,” he remarked as the roar of the thunder died away.