Bobby found himself with much food for thought as he walked away. He felt he had learned a good deal from this visit but what to make of what he had learned he was anything but sure. Certainly the chatter of the two Montgomeries had taught him much about the character and disposition of Jasmine—temperamental or irresponsible, whichever word you preferred. Liable, too, to such reckless outbreaks of temper as an attempt to interfere with what had been described as a ‘mixup’ on the landing outside his door. For, as Bobby knew well, this was a neighbourhood in which it was wiser to let combatants fight out their own battles in their own way lest both sides turned in joyous alliance on the intruder—with unfortunate results.
More important than such conjectures, though, was the evidence now obtained that between Jasmine and Philip Shirley there existed some sort of connection, and did that imply common action in the present imbroglio? And what on earth had Monkey Baron to do with either of them? But at this point Bobby became lost in a maze of conjecture from which he only woke when he found himself opposite a callbox. It was unoccupied, so he stepped in to call up the Yard, and, having identified himself, asked to be put through to an officer he named. A reply came promptly and Bobby explained that he was inclined to believe he was being followed.
“Cheek,” he said succinctly and resentfully. “I suspect that little blighter, Groan.”
“Groan?” repeated a shocked, distant, sympathetic and soothing voice. “Well, I never. Shall I tell him off?”
“No, no,” Bobby said. “I’m not sure, for one thing. But I thought I would ask you to send one of your plain-clothes men to trail the chap—that is, if you can spare one. I want to be certain. I am certain Groan is up to something—goodness knows what. Looks as if it were something to do with the Atts case and the talk about a reward, unspecified by whom or what for, that seems to be going on hereabouts. Groan himself says he is only out for publicity and prestige—not to mention a chance to sell a big story to the Press.”
“Good Lord,” said the voice at the end of the line, now charged with alarm and despondency.
“Yes, I know,” said Bobby, in full agreement. “If your man loses touch he might as well go on to Groan’s and see if my tail, if I really have one, turns up there. Don’t interfere with the chap or let him know we’re on him. Also, this is important, get your undercover men on Monkey Baron—you remember him? Out of business quite a long time but may be moving into action again.”
“Very good, sir,” said the telephone; and Bobby outlined the route he proposed to take on his way to Philip Shirley’s, so that the plain-clothes man would be able to pick up him and his attendant without delay.
He hung up then, and, stepping out into the street, he paused to light a cigarette, observing while doing so that his suspected tail was still in evidence, at the moment to all appearance utterly and completely absorbed in contemplation of a not very interesting-looking shop window. Knowing that all this would be swiftly and competently dealt with, Bobby walked on, nor was it long before a man pushed rather rudely past him and hurried on without so much as a backward glance. It is, of course, according to the rules and customs of the C.I.D. that members thereof must never show any sign of mutual recognition if they chance to meet, but all the same Bobby was inclined to think that that jostling had been deliberate. If so, it had significance, and he increased his pace to keep the other in view. Presently another call-box was reached and into this the jostler disappeared with alacrity. Soon he was out again and hurrying on his way without so much as a glance at Bobby who, in his turn, entered the callbox, and rang up the Yard to inquire if any message had been received for him.
“Yes, sir,” answered a slightly surprised voice. “Just been taking it down. Said to expect an immediate call from you and to say the S.B.G. had asked for you to please go there as soon as possible. I said to send a car but same not wanted, only Mr. Owen.”
“Ring them up and tell them I’ll be there as soon as I can manage it,” Bobby answered.
CHAPTER XX
THE SHIRLEY ENGRAVING STUDIOS
AS BOBBY WAS now not far from the Shirley Engraving Studios, he decided that, in spite of the use of the word ‘Urgent’ by the S.B.G., he would delay his visit there till he had had his talk with Philip. A promising line to follow up, he told himself, this evidence just obtained of a connection with Jasmine. Besides, the opportunity could be taken to ask a possibly useful question or two about the abduction of the Sheraton cabinet.
Also he decided that it was now time he rid himself of his persistent ‘tail’, whose presence slightly offended his professional dignity. So he jumped on a half-empty passing bus at the moment it was starting afresh after stopping at ‘lights’, only to be angrily ordered off again by an indignant conductor and told to wait his turn at the next official stopping place, two or three hundred yards further on. He obeyed meekly; and, by something of an acrobatic feat, emerged, from where he had alighted, where the traffic pressed the thickest, safe and sound on another bus of which, fortunately for him, the fierce presiding deity was collecting fares on the top deck.
Having thus effectively shaken off by these tactics his assiduous attendant, but still distinctly cross at having been forced to employ them, Bobby turned back to the side street he ought to have taken but had been obliged to pass. In it, some distance down, on a top floor, were situated the ‘Shirley Engraving Studios’ he was looking for. Ascending the steep, narrow, and unclean stairs leading to them, he came face to face with Philip himself, apparently on the point of going out.
“Oh, afternoon,” Bobby greeted him. “Mr. Shirley, isn’t it? Can I have a word with you?”
“Are you selling something?” Philip asked suspiciously, and Bobby, though offended, excused him since it really was very dark on these stairs. “I’m rather busy.” Then he seemed to recognize Bobby. “Oh, it’s that police Johnny again. At Crescent Court, weren’t you?”
“I was,” Bobby agreed. “I was also at Mayfair Square when in a rather high-handed way you drove off with a Sheraton cabinet you had been offering to buy.”
“Is that what you’ve come about?” Philip asked. “Quick work. How did you happen to be there?”
“Oh, I was on the track of the same cabinet,” Bobby explained but without carrying his explanation further. “Is there anywhere we can talk?”
“Yes, this way,” Philip said; and went back up the stairs to the top landing and then into a small untidy room, used apparently as an office but also cluttered up with all kinds of professional gear. The furniture consisted of an ancient and rickety table and two wooden kitchen chairs. Philip shoved one towards Bobby, seated himself on the other, and went on: “If you catch a burglar emptying your safe and pocketing your silver spoons, you are entitled to knock him down and get the spoons back, aren’t you?”
“Provided you do not use more than the absolute minimum of physical force required,” Bobby told him gravely. “That, of course, would be a question of fact, for a jury to determine. So far as I understand the law your proper course is to request the burglar to wait while you make a phone call—I recommend No. 999. If he objects, the use of force may be justified, but it is always advisable to let him get in the first blow—even though that entails letting him become not thrice but four times armed.”
“Look here,” Philip said, puzzled and doubtful, “what are you getting at?”
“Expounding the law,” Bobby assured him, “as far as a mere policeman understands it. I would very much like to know a little more about what happened at Mayfair Square, but so far no complaint has been received and I doubt if any is contemplated. Nor does public order seem in danger—unless some other young lady rings up the fire brigade and then go into hysterics. But if you could make what happened a little plainer and tell me what you have done with the cabinet, it might be helpful.”
“It belongs to Mrs. Atts,” Philip answered shortly. “Tails and company pinched the thing and I pinched it back again. That’s all.”
&nbs
p; “You have it still?”
“Oh yes. Not here. I took it home. I rang up Mrs. Atts and told her I would keep it for the time. Safer. She’s all alone till Atts turns up again—if he ever does.”
“You are beginning to think he never will?” Bobby asked.
“Well, it’s all jolly mysterious, isn’t it?” Philip countered. “You never did know where you were with him. He always tried to keep everything under his hat. Sort of mania with him. I told him once I wondered he didn’t go about in a mask and an opera cloak. I think he was rather flattered. Because of that ‘Girl Peeling Apples’ affair. You’ll have heard of that?”
“Oh yes,” Bobby said. “Very upsetting and disappointing for him. One can understand that.”
“It’s always on his mind, broods about it,” Philip said. “He always claims that it was because he talked too much that Sir Walter Welton got in first. He thinks that but for him Welton would never have known the picture existed, much less known where to go to look for it. Nothing he can do about it though. Welton nipped in first, got the picture and the kudos and that’s that. Atts still broods on it though.”
“It certainly seems very bad luck,” Bobby agreed: and sat for a time in silence, asking himself what a man driven by such a fury of mingled impotence and resentment might not have been driven to attempt.
Only, even so, what light did that shed upon either his so suddenly abandoned lecture or his disappearance? Once again Bobby became lost in a maze of conjecture and of doubt. Then he saw how curiously Philip was regarding him and he went on:
“I think you know a Mr. Jasmine, don’t you? A young artist.”
“I don’t think so,” Philip answered. “Jasmine, you said? No. Lots of young artists. All full of hope and ambition and not much else. Any reason why you should think I know him?”
“He appears to have written to you.”
“Written to me? What for? Never had any letter from anyone of that name that I can remember. Might be still in the post, I suppose? What about, anyhow? What makes you think he did?”
“We have in our possession an envelope certainly written by him and addressed to you.”
“Well, I know nothing about it,” Philip repeated. “That’s all I can say,” but Bobby noticed that he was beginning to look a little disturbed, less at his ease.
“In an investigation of this nature,” Bobby went on, still speaking somewhat formally, “everything has to be followed up. Even if it leads nowhere, it is at least something out of the way.”
“Does all this mean you suspect this Jasmine chap of having done Atts in?”
“Oh no,” Bobby answered, a little startled, for even if such an idea had entered his mind, it had done so only vaguely and had remained very much in the background. Nor, at present, was there anything to show that Atts and Jasmine had ever even met. Lonely, struggling, friendless young artists seldom cross the paths of influential art critics, much as they might like to do so. With these reflections foremost in his mind, Bobby rose to go, and then abruptly sat down again; and whether this was due to a sudden yet deliberate change of plan, or merely to an intuitive impulse, he himself could not have told. He said, “Mr. Shirley, had you any special reason for wishing to obtain possession again of this cabinet?”
“Well, the thing’s worth two or three hundred pounds, isn’t it?” Philip retorted. “I don’t know if you call that a special reason?”
“Did you know it had in it a secret drawer?”
“I didn’t,” replied Philip. “Why? What about it if there is?”
“I wondered if you knew, that’s all,” Bobby said.
“Well, I’ll have a good look for it when I get home,” Philip assured him. “Is there likely to be anything in it?”
“Not now,” Bobby said. “Our information is that it had held a packet of poison.”
A nasty word, poison. The mere sound of it seemed to infect and change the whole atmosphere of that drab untidy little room, as though a spiritual darkness had come upon it. In a voice less steady than before Philip said:
“Nonsense. Rubbish. I don’t believe it. What information?”
“You may take it that we consider it reliable,” Bobby answered. “This particular poison is of a type that may be employed in engraving. Are you careful in the use of such things?”
“Of course we are, jolly careful,” Philip retorted. “But you couldn’t possibly take them by mistake or give them anyone else for that matter, if that’s what you’re driving at. You would know all about it in double quick time. Even a drop would burn like hell.”
“So I believe,” Bobby said. “But a layman might not know that. Or a woman.”
“See,” Philip said. “See,” he repeated. He got to his feet and looked at Bobby angrily and then sat down again. “I don’t understand,” he said, and he said it rather helplessly as though he understood very well, but would not allow himself to face what it was he so understood.
“I am trying to consider all possibilities, however remote,” Bobby told him. “At present we know of nothing to show who put the poison where it was found. We are certain of nothing except that it is of a type used in engraving and was discovered in a secret drawer belonging to Mrs. Atts whose husband has disappeared. It is a train of circumstance which has to be followed up. There is a good deal of gossip going on at Crescent Court—”
“I can believe that,” growled Philip. “Home of tabby cats. If you poison anyone, the body doesn’t disappear, does it?”
“One story—no evidence—a piece of gossip,” Bobby continued, “is that the body was removed by the service stairs which are also a fire emergency exit.”
“Me, I suppose,” Philip said and Bobby did not attempt to contradict him. He went on after a pause: “Is the idea that Atts swallowed a glass of some corrosive acid and asked for the same again?”
“Another type of poison could have been substituted,” Bobby said, and this time when he got up it was to leave. At the door he turned to say: “If at any time you feel there is anything else you might wish to tell us, you can always ring us up at the Yard.”
CHAPTER XXI
NOW THE ‘MILKMAIDS’
BOBBY’S THOUGHTS WERE in a turmoil as he walked away from this side street back to the bus stop where he had alighted and there stood reflective, while two of those he was waiting for passed by, unhailed. At any rate he had, he told himself, served notice on Philip Shirley that both he and Mrs. Atts had come under suspicion. There might be, and often were, important reactions when a suspect was allowed to feel the net was closing in. Few of those who knew themselves guilty could then remain passive, unmoved; and the steps uneasy conscience urged them to take to ensure safety might well serve to help prove their guilt. But against this had to be weighed the equal possibility that the same steps so taken might succeed in destroying essential evidence. A nice decision to be made, which road to follow—that of open warning to break the often effective passive defence of silence and inactivity or that of the secrecy that might well take guilt unprepared.
Bobby could only hope that this time he had made the right decision but of that he was by no means sure. For one thing there was the established fact, confirmed by the taxi driver’s evidence, that Atts had last been seen entering Bardolphs’s car, and there was only Bardolph’s own word to show that he had ever left it alive. Incidentally, Bardolph was a paint manufacturer and would, like Philip, have easy access to poisons of the type found in the Sheraton cabinet. Another interview with Mr. Bardolph seemed indicated, but first Bobby felt he must answer the call from the S.B.G., and hear what was so urgent about it. As well, too, to know if Sir Walter had yet heard of the episode of Mr. Tails and the Sheraton cabinet. But at this point in his meditations another of the buses he was waiting for appeared and this time Bobby took it.
He alighted close to the S.B.G. and on his arrival was conducted at once to Sir Walter’s private room. Obviously he had been impatiently expected and indeed he had at once noticed the genera
l air of suppressed excitement and apprehension that pervaded the whole of the Gallery staff. Afterwards he learned that the Long Room and Room No. 13 off it had both been closed to visitors in spite of the loud protests of a small party of American tourists who were being conducted round and who were very indignant at being deprived of the cultural treat the New York booking agent had promised.
In his room, pale and distracted, Sir Walter was pacing up and down less like a man in his own familiar surroundings than one prisoner in a maze from which he could find no outlet. He stared at Bobby at first as if he did not recognize him, but then suddenly sat down behind his big Louis XVI desk, and passed his hand across his forehead with a certain air of relief. But he did not speak. Apparently he had no words left. A silence more eloquent than words, Bobby thought, not without sympathy; and then, turning swiftly he flung open the door behind him just in time to see the attendant who had conducted him hither scuttling away at speed.
“Come back here,” thundered Bobby, in a voice those discreet and scholarly walls had but seldom heard. The attendant reluctantly obeyed. “Turn round,” Bobby ordered. The man did so. Bobby placed a foot firmly on the other’s behind and propelled him forward with some energy. A symbolic kick. “Don’t let me catch you at that game again,” Bobby said. The attendant, recovering his balance, resumed his retreat with even greater speed. Bobby closed the door and took a chair his side of the big desk, opposite Sir Walter who had not seemed to notice. “Eavesdropping,” said Bobby.
“What’s it matter?” Sir Walter asked as one who had passed beyond the reach of earthly ills. “Let him. As much as he liked. To-morrow all the world will know.” He paused. “Ruin,” he said.
“Oh, come,” Bobby protested.
“Disgrace,” said Sir Walter, savouring the word as though in its very enormity he found a certain consolation. “The S.B.G. the world’s laughing stock.”
Triple Quest: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 14
