Brought to Light: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  ‘Now, what a quest is there, and yet I gather from the chatter I hear from time to time that there are those who vex themselves with plans for what they call “space travel”, and are concerned to be the first to reach the moon, though they reach it and return no different from what they were when they set out, with no greater knowledge or understanding of themselves, but only of another piece of matter in transient form. My quest is other.

  ‘This thesis I believed or hoped I might be able to sustain by such convincing argument, once I had made my reasoning clear, as to give to metaphysics a new vitality, a new significance. But I doubt if any but myself could even begin to put together a coherent scheme out of these necessarily disjointed jottings of mine in my commonplace books, or to follow what I know must seem to others the confused and wandering thread of my thought. So many false starts, so much apparently sound logic that so often ended in blind alleys of contradiction.

  ‘Nor does it now seem likely that I shall be allowed the time to essay a task that possibly I myself should never have been able to bring to completion. It may be that in the great final plan the role assigned to me was that of path-finder and to that I have been called on to sacrifice myself.

  ‘Indeed, there have been times, as my good Jesuit friend warned me recently, when it seemed even to me that I was trying to force an entry into realms of being and experience for which no human being is yet ready.

  ‘However that may be, all that I have ever mused on, all the fruit of my long meditations, is recorded in that great pile of my commonplace books. But this that I am writing now will appear in none. None will read it while I live, and if I live through these next few days, it will be burned. What makes it necessary, I wonder, that I should put it down in writing on paper? Can it be that in some strange way, by thus repeating in words what was done in deed, I shall rid myself of the burden of that deed?

  ‘I had always known that there were some who wished to recover the letters and papers the poet, Stephen Asprey, had placed in Janet Merton’s grave. But the possibility seemed remote in the extreme, since I knew that the freeholder of the grave would never consent to such an act of what she called desecration. Yet at that time I, too, felt it unfortunate, indeed wrong, that the last poems of a man like Stephen Asprey, and his letters, which there was good reason to believe were of outstanding literary value, should be lost by reason of a moment of profound emotion.

  ‘It seemed a waste; and I have always been forced by poverty to be so economical that waste to me has always been abhorrent.

  ‘But then there came a time when I was obliged to realize that the movement to recover these MSS was becoming much stronger and, if carried out—as it seemed it well might be—then the way I had chosen to conceal Mr Thorne’s body, which till then had seemed so safe, would prove my destruction.

  ‘If it had been hidden elsewhere, and afterwards I thought of so many places where it would have been equally safe, then the grave could be opened and no suspicions roused. That the casket was empty would have been taken merely as confirmation of what had been already suggested more than once—that the story of its containing the poems and letters was merely a bit of the characteristic play-acting Asprey so often indulged in. Humbug. And not the least suspicion would ever have rested on me or on young Chrines.

  ‘For it was with him that it began which now I think is near its end. The combination of what Chrines wanted, of Mr Thorne’s angry jealousy, of Mr Pyle’s sudden intrusion, wove together the threads of the web in which I am taken.

  ‘Soon after Chrines’s first arrival in Hillings he told me he was a son of Stephen Asprey and of Janet Merton. The dates made it hard to accept that she was his mother, but he had letters that did support his claim that Asprey was his father. Chrines said he intended to write a life of his father and had come to Hillings because he felt that writing it on the scene of Asprey’s last passionate love affair would be an inspiration—and give it actuality and attract general attention.

  ‘Soon he began to hint that he would be willing to pay well for the recovery of the Asprey poems and letters. He kept saying it was what his father himself would have wished once he had got over the shock of Janet’s death.

  ‘I saw no great harm in all that, but, harmless or not, I felt I did not wish to be mixed up in it.

  ‘I did not know then how fate was loading the dice against me.

  ‘Earlier, when Mr Thorne first became aware of my craving for knowledge—it was a passion like that of the lover for his mistress—he was kind, encouraging, helpful in every way. He helped me with my Latin. He lent me books. He had a good library. He even had what I must call a wholly superficial, routine knowledge of metaphysics. I think at first it amused him to tell his friends of his sexton’s efforts to aspire to scholarship. Then that changed. Slowly, but it changed. I think it started when once or twice I had occasion to correct his Latin in translations he was endeavouring to make from Cicero. Then I wrote to The Herbert Quarterly, criticizing an article they had published. The editor suggested my putting my criticism into another article. I did so and it was published. I showed it to Mr Thorne, expecting him to be almost as pleased as I was. I did not know then that contributions he had offered to the same journal had been promptly returned. I began to find it difficult to get him to lend me the books I needed for my studies. I found I was being cut off from my sources. Some of the books I needed so badly I could obtain by or through the Penton Library. But not all, and not those I needed most. These I had to buy to have them by me, though I had no money, and though I knew they were there on the rectory shelves, unused.

  ‘Well, that made me think again of the money Chrines had hinted he would pay for the recovery of the Asprey papers, and of those books I needed so badly but had no money to buy. The next time he came with his hints I told him that I would see what I could do. But he must not ask how, and he must pay beforehand in one-pound notes.

  ‘He agreed.

  ‘In some way Mr Thorne must have become suspicious, and I think now that he had begun to watch me.

  ‘When the next dark night came I opened the grave. It did not take me long. I took the papers from the casket, and then I put it back in the coffin, and as I did so I heard Mr Thorne say:

  ‘“So that’s it, is it?”

  ‘I climbed out of the grave. He said he would report it to the police. He talked about how disgraceful my conduct was. Then he said he would show me more mercy than I deserved. I must sign a full confession for him to have and keep. I must promise to give up my absurd pretensions to learning. I must devote myself entirely for the future to my proper work. He said that it was plain my attempts to become a scholar, and the encouragement given me so generously, had gone to my head and I had to be taught my place.

  ‘I listened. I never said a word. I listened while he talked and talked. I stood there and listened, leaning on the pick-axe I had been using. I think that I was so silent made him still more angry and all he said became still more bitter. When he had finished, I lifted the pick-axe and drove at him. The sharp point took him on the side of the head. I don’t expect he ever knew what had happened.

  ‘I remember standing there looking at him as he lay, and wondering if I had done it or if the deed had got itself done through me?

  ‘I pushed the body into the open grave so that it lay on the coffin. I filled in the earth and made all as it had been before. I returned home and made myself a cup of cocoa before going to bed. I remember how well and soundly I slept, though that did not last.

  ‘I told Chrines it would be our opportunity to secure the papers he wanted as soon as the search for Mr Thorne died down. If they were ever missed, I said, then it would be thought that Mr Thorne had taken them and that that accounted for their disappearance. That satisfied him. He might have been suspicious of some connection if I had handed him the papers immediately after Mr Thorne vanished.

  ‘I took other precautions, such as telling everyone what a good friend I had lost and how he
had lent me money to buy books. I was afraid it might come out I had been spending more money than I could well account for, on rare and expensive books. I even put a part of what was left of the money Chrines had given me in a drawer at the rectory, and let it be understood that it was some Mr Thorne had lent me and I had just repaid.

  ‘Not the slightest suspicion ever attached itself to me.

  ‘It seemed that I was perfectly safe and that Mr Thorne’s disappearance would become one of the great unsolved and unsolvable mysteries one hears of from time to time. I was sorry, of course, for what had happened, but I could not blame myself unduly.

  ‘I had been tried beyond endurance. What I had done had been forced upon me.

  ‘He had wished to kill my mind and I had killed his body. A lesser evil and one committed in self-defence.

  ‘But deeds are seeds that bear in themselves their own growth and fruit.

  ‘I had soon to realize that by my action I had made myself the prisoner of a grave.

  ‘For now I did not dare to be away from it for long.

  ‘Of course, there still stood between me and it Miss Christabel’s determination and her power as freeholder to forbid any such desecration of her aunt’s grave. I knew I could rely on that. I knew that nothing would ever shake her resolve. But then later I had to realize that with all the renewed interest being taken in those buried letters and poems, permission might be secured to override her rights. Or such influences be brought to bear as she would not have the power to resist. Or even that attempts might be made by unscrupulous parties to open the grave and obtain them in defiance of all law and right.

  ‘I had to remain ever watchful and afraid. Fortunately my vigilance aroused no suspicion. It was attributed to my need for the money I obtained from visiting tourists who guessed so little what the grave they gaped at, and sentimentalized over, really hid.

  ‘The crisis came when Mr Pyle arrived, explaining that he, too, intended to write Stephen Asprey’s life. What, I wonder, made him decide on him? Are there not so many others he could have chosen? Or was it only the necessary outcome of what I had done, as from the sowing of dragon’s teeth, death must ensue? He hinted—it was hardly a hint—that he would pay a large sum—much larger than that Chrines had given me—for help in recovering the buried papers. He said I need know nothing about it. All I had to do was to stay sound asleep one night. I made it equally plain that nothing of the sort would even be considered by me. My stubborn, determined refusal would have surprised him less if he had known the reason. But in his turn he made it plain that he was determined to have the grave opened and would use all his influence to get permission. And if not—well, he didn’t say, but when I caught him and his man, Sims, by its side at night, reconnoitering, I knew.

  ‘That is why in the end I had to kill him.

  ‘It was my life or his, and I felt it had to be his, since mine was so much more valuable. All he wanted was the kudos of writing a popular biography. What I wanted was to change, extend, the whole field of human knowledge.

  ‘The opportunity soon came. I knew it would. I was prepared. I knew Mr Day-Bell had a revolver belonging to his son he had taken from Miss Christabel and put away and forgotten. I had no trouble getting hold of it, and then there was Sims, late at night, borrowing my bicycle. He said Mr Pyle wanted him to do his dirty work and he wasn’t going to. He said if he did, Mr Owen would be on him at once. And he didn’t like monkeying with the dead. “Monkeying with the dead.” That made it clear once more what Mr Pyle intended—and soon. It had become urgent. And Sims to put the police off. I felt certain he had stolen money and would keep out of the way for a time. I went across to the caravan and I shot Mr Pyle and set the caravan on fire. I gather now Mr Day-Bell saw me, but did not recognize me. It was misty on the moor that night, and perhaps he thought it was his son.

  ‘I was sorry, of course, but Pyle had brought it on himself.

  ‘Before this, Mr Owen—the man from Scotland Yard Sims seemed so afraid of—had been to talk to me. He said he wanted to be sure the grave had not been disturbed, as the Duke of Blegborough was making inquiries. Mr Owen asked a great many questions I had no difficulty in answering, though my words often bore a hidden meaning he did not suspect. Chatty and pleasant enough, he seemed. Not of any high intelligence, of course. Any abstract thought would probably be far beyond him. A practical intelligence, I judged, but with a quick, probing quality about it. I felt at times as if he were trying to insinuate himself into my mind. Not with much success.

  ‘After there had happened what had to be, he came again. I had not expected that. I had thought that the Penton people would be the ones to deal with it. He came to me several times, still asking his questions, interminably chatting, as if at random, interminably returning to what he called the case. I answered more warily now. I began to feel it had not been wise to say so much earlier on that had had hidden undertones I did not think he could possibly appreciate. I began to be afraid that something I had said had made him deeply suspicious. I can’t imagine what, but I am increasingly aware of the possibility that he suspects—or knows.

  ‘So again I am taking precautions.

  ‘And he again is continuing those chatty talks that often seem to have so little relevance, but that you feel may slowly, drop by drop, be distilling forth the truth.

  ‘He came again and left me feeling certain that he knows, and that he knows where proof is waiting—waiting as patiently as only the dead can wait.

  ‘The odd thing is that often it comes to me that he wishes he did not know and that the truth was other than it irrevocably remains. Even that he is sorry about it all. Perhaps he has penetrated more deeply into my mind than I dreamed was possible. Somehow we have come to respect one another, even I might say to like and to understand one another. Not that that will stay him from doing what he holds to be his duty—or me from doing what remains for me to do.’

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  CONCLUSION

  LATER ON Bobby had to return to Penton to appear as a witness at the two inquests, though he was careful to say as little as possible, nor indeed was he pressed to be more explicit. The notoriety given to the little town had not been appreciated. The sooner a decent veil was drawn over recent happenings the better, was the general opinion.

  In the first inquest—that on the body of Mr Thorne—the verdict was inescapable—‘Wilful Murder’—the earlier suggestion ‘Guilty but Insane’ having been rejected by the Coroner as unacceptable. The verdict in the second inquest, however, could be, and was, ‘Suicide during temporary insanity’, and that met with general approval. The emphasis thus laid in both cases on insanity as the cause of what had happened was due partly to this feeling that the less said about it all, the better; partly to a vague but general feeling of compassion; but chiefly perhaps to the fact that certain portions of the ‘Apologia’ had been read in court.

  “Don’t make sense to me,” the foreman had declared while the verdict was being considered, “and I don’t reckon it did to him or to anyone else either,” and there had come a general murmur of assent from the other members of the jury.

  Major Rowley, too, was of much the same opinion, and said so to Bobby later on.

  “All that stuff,” he complained, “about circles of existence all round us, only we don’t know it; and pink elephants and rats being real; and did he do it or did it get itself done through him? Well, I ask you. Off his head all right. Clean mad.”

  “Not so much madness as vanity,” Bobby said. “He came to think so much of himself and his own work that he lost all sense of proportion. A sort of madness, I suppose. I don’t think I’ve ever had a case where vanity wasn’t somewhere at the bottom of it all.”

  “I suppose there’s that,” Rowley conceded. “But you know I don’t even yet quite follow how you arrived at it all. Is there anything in what Hagen said about feeling he had let something slip which had made you suspect him?”

  “Well, yes,” Bobby answere
d. “A queerly ironical twist. I thought Hagen must be lying when he told me he had seen Sims cleaning a revolver. I knew Sims had a superstitious fear of all firearms because he had been told that the cards showed he would die from a shot he would fire himself. So he had sworn he would never touch a gun of any sort. Used a knife instead. So I thought Hagen was lying and if so—well, why? That made me feel he had to be watched and yet all the time what he had said was true. Except that Sims hadn’t been cleaning the gun—he had been fixing the safety-catch, to make sure that the thing couldn’t be fired or the prophecy come true.

  “That’s what started me off wondering about Hagen. My first idea was that he was behind the anonymous letters the Duke had been getting. But that seemed to link up with the Asprey papers, and did they in their turn link up with Mr Thorne’s unexplained disappearance? Long before I found out Hagen had spoken the truth about Sims I was beginning to take notice of other small points and to wonder if they didn’t add up to something pretty serious. Perhaps they didn’t, but also perhaps they did.

  “I remembered I had heard Mr Day-Bell say in a joking sort of way that he was growing quite jealous of Hagen. Embarrassing, he said, to have a sexton who was a better Latinist than you were yourself. I wondered if the vanished Mr Thorne had felt the same and if that had led to ill-feeling and possibly to a quarrel. From young Day-Bell I got confirmation that there had been such jealousy and ill-feeling, if nothing more. He told me, too, of his surprise at hearing that Mr Thorne had been lending Hagen money and that some of it had been repaid immediately before his disappearance. I couldn’t for the life of me see at the time what was the significance of that, but I felt I had better keep it tucked away in my mind. Oddities seemed to be accumulating, and oddities need accounting for.

  “One oddity that struck me as very odd indeed was Hagen’s apparently fixed determination to stay at Hillings and to refuse all offers of a change, even those that appeared likely to give him what one would have expected him to want more than anything else—the opportunity that is, to consort on equal terms with people interested in all that most interested him and ready to help him. He compared his craving for knowledge, you remember, to the craving of a passionate lover for the beloved one’s presence. He didn’t act like that, and I wondered why. Was there some reason no one had any idea of?